When St Ives announced its year-end results a week ago the group's share price, which has been steadily creeping up over the past few months, didn't shift and stood at 71.25p. The sentiment seemed to be that the numbers, while not pretty, were as expected so the City didn't have to contend with any nasty shocks. And, let's face it, in the overall scheme of things who will actually be that interested in a business that's now fallen into the smallcap ranks and is in an out-of-favour sector?

I've been keeping my eye on the share price, and it subsequently slipped to 68p, down 4.5%, no doubt helped on its way by a couple of unfavourable write-ups in the nationals - the Daily Mail's verdict was "avoid". For the record, the 52-week high is 95.5p, low 44.25p.

The irony is that in some respects St Ives' strength makes it appear weak. It has spent £14.5m restructuring, shutting down plants, and laying off more than 400 people because it can. Meanwhile rivals without the necessary funds to take action are engaged in some sort of long, slow, private death spiral.

And of course because St Ives is a plc we have far more visibility about its financial performance, far earlier, than for any of its competitors with the exception of Communisis.

It's easy to focus on the gloomy stuff, and the press in general tends to pigeonhole St Ives as "the printer of Harry Potter books and Vogue". Books continue to do well ("thank goodness for books" to paraphrase a Miles Emley quote from a while back), but the magazine printing business is a bloodbath. However, St Ives is a much smaller player in this space than it was, and this could become smaller yet depending what emerges from a few imminent publishing decisions.

Carnage in the publishing industry and hikes in utility prices have propelled the mags wing into the red. But by my calculations magazine printing now makes up for less than 20% of total group sales of £386.8m. And if a company as well-invested and, dare I say it, as well run as St Ives is making a "significant loss" on magazine volumes of circa £74m, what on earth must it be like if the vast majority of one's business is pinned to the health of the publishing industry?

It will take a while before we find out.