EMI Profit Is Up; Sales Expected to Fall Short

British music giant EMI Group swung to a first-half profit after a dramatic cost-cutting drive, but the company said Tuesday that sales for the year would fail to meet earlier projections.

The company, which releases music by such acts as the Rolling Stones and Coldplay, said net income for the six months ended Sept. 30 jumped to $218.6 million, or 5 cents a share, up from a loss of $85.9 million, or 1 cent, for the same period a year earlier.

EMI executives said full-year sales for the recorded music division would slip as much as 6%, scrapping their earlier prediction that revenue would hold steady.

EMI said the profit increase resulted from the restructuring undertaken by Alain Levy, who was brought in to run the company’s recorded music division last year after an extended period of management turmoil and failed merger efforts.

The cutbacks included eliminating 1,900 jobs, firing 400 artists and severing money-losing deals with such labels as Blackground.

EMI’s overall revenue declined 9.9% to $1.5 billion. Sales for the record division slid 12.4% to $1.1 billion, which Levy attributed to the delay of album releases during the reorganization and to counterfeiting and online piracy. EMI’s music publishing division posted a 4.1% sales increase.