Business media group Informa posts pretax loss on impairment

Feb 12 (Reuters) - Informa Plc (Other OTC: IFJPY - news) , a British business media group, reported a statutory full-year pretax loss, hurt by a non-cash impairment of 219 million pounds ($333 million).

The company, which also publishes real-time news, research, market data and academic books, reported a statutory pretax loss of 31.2 million pounds ($47.5 million) for the year ended Dec. 31, compared with a profit of 115.4 million pounds a year earlier.

London-based Informa, which moved back to the UK from Switzerland in June, said it expected 2015 outlook to be relatively robust in North America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, whilst Continental Europe and Latin America remained more challenging.

Informa was formed by the 1998 merger of IBC Group Plc and Lloyd's of London Press Ltd. Its oldest business, the Lloyd's List, was started in 1734 and is among one of the world's oldest continuously running journals. ($1 = 0.6566 pounds) (Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)