STW stays positive despite reduced profits and asset writedowns

Tim Burrowes

February 20, 2009 6:16

Australian marketing behemoth STW has announced a $15m write down of the value of three of its investments – although it has declined to say which ones.

The accounting exercise, combined with the cost of moving headquarters from Sydney’s CBD to St Leonards, contributed to a drop in reported profits of 60% to $17m for 2008. STW is one of Australia’s biggest communications groups, with 3000 staff and 70 companies.

However STW said that its underlying net profits were only down by about 6%, and revenues were up, while the office move will save money in the long term. STW also signalled it will be pushing hard on underperforming companies within the group.

It added: “The result has been impacted by the non cash writedown of three of STW’s investments in operating companies.” A spokesman for STW told Mumbrella that it would not be disclosing which the companies were. However, the group said that the writedowns were because of “conservative” accounting practices, adding they did “not alter our confidence in the future prospects of these operations”.

Subscribe to keep reading

Join Mumbrella Pro to access the Mumbrella archive and read our premium analysis of everything under the media and marketing umbrella.

Tim Burrowes

Tim Burrowes is the publisher of Mumbrella and Unmade. He co-founded Mumbrella in 2008 and sister title Unmade in 2021. He's worked in the UK, Middle East, Asia & Australia and has specialised in writing about the communications world for the last 25 years. He wrote the book Media Unmade, published in 2021, and became the presenter of MediaLand on ABC Radio National in 2025.