Paris (AFP)

The Le Monde group posted a net profit in 2019 for the third year in a row, but the health crisis of early 2020 erased part of its revenue, its leaders said on Wednesday the newspaper's website.

In 2019, the group generated a net profit of 2.6 million euros, against 14.6 million in 2018, the year it benefited from the sale of the land from its former printing works.

Turnover reached 302.7 million euros, stable compared to the year before "thanks to the very marked growth of the digital subscriber portfolio of the World", specify the group director Jérôme Fenoglio and its president Louis Dreyfus.

In particular, the newspaper crossed the 300,000 purely digital subscriber mark in May, while Courrier International had 55,000 in June, Le Monde Diplomatique 21,000 at the end of 2019 and Télérama 10,000.

These good results made it possible to support the circulation figures of the newspaper despite "the marked drop in sales of the paper newspaper by issue".

The group's magazine division (Courrier International, La Vie, Télérama and Le Monde Diplomatique) generated operating profit of more than 10 million euros in 2019.

The first months of 2020 were more difficult, as the group had to face a 50% drop in advertising revenue and the closure of kiosks; it assesses the impact of the crisis at 18 million euros on its turnover.

Added to this are the costs linked to the bankruptcy of the distributor Presstalis, estimated at 14 million euros.

To cope with this, the group contracted a loan guaranteed by the State for up to 17 million euros as well as another bank loan of 5 million euros and a contribution from shareholders of 5 million euros.

"These new financings, associated with the renegotiation of our real estate leasing, give us the necessary means to relaunch our exploitation and to cross the air hole of this first semester", estimate the leaders.

In parallel, the newspaper recorded during the crisis a peak of subscriptions never reached during its seventy-five years of existence: "clearly more than 400,000 by combining paper and digital".

He also highlights the success of editorial operations such as that on feminicides, which has led to numerous articles and a television documentary, and announces that other projects are planned in the coming months.

The 1,600 employees also moved to a new Paris headquarters in early 2020, the construction of which represents an investment of 203 million euros.

© 2020 AFP