Speculation about a Yell takeover follows shortly after both PagesJaunes Groupe and Seat PG were compelled to deny reports of a merger.

Yell Group finished the first quarter of its 2011 financial year with total revenues of GBP 439.6 million, down 7.5 percent from a year earlier. At constant currency the decline was 9.9 percent. The company currently carries about GBP 3 billion in net debt, down substantially after a rights issue last year. Yell now generated about a quarter of its revenues online.

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Sensis’ print revenues were down 5.1 percent, reflecting both White and Yellow Pages.  White was basically flat, while Yellow Pages was down more substantially. Metro print revenues are mostly reflected in the first half, while the smaller markets, which perform much better, are mostly recorded in the second half. In general, metro print declines are in the high single digits, while regional book declines are in the low single digits, with some smaller books still growing revenue.

Currently, digital accounts 20 percent of total domestic revenues for Sensis, a ratio that will expand considerably over the next few years. Sensis is investing considerable energy in launching new digital products, particularly as it has completed installation of a new Amdocs publishing system (it has published 101 titles on the new system to date) that enables the company to launch new products from existing content, and with different pricing methods and terms. The new system took three years to install and replaces an older print focused system that gave Sensis little flexibility.

We spoke last night with Sensis CEO Bruce Akhurst and COO Gerry Sutton about the results and new developments at Sensis.

“We are transitioning from the past to the future and we are very bullish about this business,” Akhurst said. He was eager to point out that, while Sensis is seeing  revenue declines, it is gaining intermedia share as the Australian print media market declined by 13.1 percent (8 percent overall) in calendar 2009.

Akhurst wouldn’t go into much detail about new digital products on the horizon. He did say there will be several and they will accelerate the company’s shift to digital. Sensis already has online White and Yellow, a CitySearch local guide, mobile Yellow Pages, an ad supported DA product (Sensis 1234), and a mapping product called WhereIs. The company also has an online ad network called MediaSmart.

When we asked if the company planned to move into a leads-based or pay per call sales model, Sutton replied that Sensis will remain an inclusion based company in the near term, but it is moving aggressively to position itself for leads-based sales, or at least subscription sales backed by detailed reporting. The company currently has about 8,000 customers with about 24,000 metered lines. Sensis expects to increase that into the hundreds of thousands over the next year.

The company says print usage is fairly stable at 25 million uses per week, with about 20 million online references. The biggest growth area is mobile, which has seen an 80 percent usage increase over the past year.

Sensis is no longer touting print as a source of growth. It doesn’t project a reversal of the current trend. The company is rolling out some new innovations in print (mini directories, companions, bundles and so on) aimed at maintaining usage and display volume. However, the publisher’s main message now is on how it is investing and innovating in multiproduct. The company is confident that its large and well training sales force provides an edge against digital competitors. We’ll be anxious to see what new digital offerings Sensis rolls out in the coming months.

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One reason for the somewhat lower full-year guidance is that some of the company’s largest and most troubled markets close in the second half, most notably Las Vegas, which is sold in the third quarter.

Other items of note from today’s earnings call:

— The company is in the process of searching for a new CEO, following longtime CEO Dave Swanson’s retirement earlier this year. W. Kirk Liddell, who leads a three-person interim executive team, said the company has identified several strong candidates for the job, but will “take as much time as necessary” to find the right replacement for Swanson.
— Second-quarter ad sales were 910 basis points better than Q2 2009, and 550 bps better than Q1 2010. Still, the company expects some weakening in the third quarter and has guided lower for the full year.
— The company has seen substantial improvement in bad debt as a percentage of revenues, the result of strict credit policies as well as attrition of weaker operators from the advertiser ranks, leaving a higher share of credit worthy customers.
— Renewal rates are at 70 percent and increase is at 12 percent. The company pointed to this metric as evidence that the company really needs to focus on new customer acquisition in order to get back to top-line growth. During 2Q, new business added 5 percent to net results.
— The company shared that large accounts are retaining at a higher rate, but reducing spending, while smaller accounts are churning at a higher rate, but those that remain are more likely to increase spend.
— The company revealed that its largest markets are expected to perform 5 percentage points worse than the company overall, while its smallest markets will beat overall results by 5 percentage points.

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Earnings results from global Yellow Pages companies are starting to trickle in, and so far, 2010 looks a lot like 2009, or worse.

AT&T Advertising Solutions posted first-half revenues of US$2,048 million, down 16.7 percent from the same period in 2009. At the same point in 2009, revenues were down 11.5 percent. The company reported that in the second quarter, Internet revenues grew by 8.7 percent to US$237 million.

Across the ocean, the Nordic directory company Eniro reported groupwide revenues of SEK 2,709 million in the first half of 2010, down 13 percent from a year earlier.

Like most global directory companies, Eniro recently stopped breaking out print versus online revenues. The company currently breaks down revenues by “directories Scandinavia,” which means Denmark, Norway and Sweden, then groups together Finland and Poland. The Scandinavia segment accounted for SEK 1,892 million in the first half and was down 14 percent, while Finland and Poland together accounted for SEK 471 million, also down 14 percent. “Voice Scandinavia” (Eniro’s DA business) fared better, dropping 3 percent to SEK 346 million.

More earnings will be coming out in the next few weeks. PagesJaunes Groupe, for example, reports its earnings next Wednesday.

The Kelsey Report will summarize all the industry’s first-half results in an August report.

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AT&T online directories unit Yellowpages.com grew 12.7 percent in Q4, compared with Q3 growth of 20.7 percent. Total online revenues for the year were US$884 million, which accounts for about 18 percent of total Advertising Solutions revenues. This puts AT&T at the high end of North American publishers in terms of share of revenues from online.

Margins took a hit in 2009, not a surprise given the grim economic environment. BIA/Kelsey calculates the Advertising Solutions 2009 margin at 39.2 percent, compared with 45.5 percent in 2008.

One avenue that AT&T will pursue this year to shore up its position online — increasingly critical to restoring the business to growth — is the launch of social media site Buzz.com, currently in invitation-only “alpha” phase.

This article from Forbes yesterday outlines the new product — widely reported to be in the works for some time. Yellowpages.com President David Krantz is interviewed in the piece. While the site draws immediate comparisons to newly flush Yelp, there are some key differences, notably the choice of a “favorites” option over the use of full user-generated reviews.

Buzz.com will be a critical test case for how traditional directory publishers (a label AT&T Ad Solutions no doubt will increasingly resist) can pivot their approach to business into social media. Other directory publishers actively involved in social media include Eniro, European Directories and Truvo.

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