The fourth-quarter slump, which came despite a modest rise in revenue, was largely the result of a $507.1m pre-tax charge relating to restructuring ($18.6m) and impairment ($488.5m) costs.

During a conference call with analysts, RR Donnelley president and chief executive Thomas Quinlan conceded that Q4 saw a slowdown, including declines in its prospectus printing business as IPOs have been slow to come to market.

However, he cited a number of positives, including that the company paid down $400m in debt during the second half of 2011 and that operating cash flow, excluding capital expenditures, was up to $695m in 2011.

RR Donnelley's Q4 sales for its U.S. Print and Related Services segment were down 1% year-on-year, while net international sales were up 4.9% during the same period, despite some unfavorable exchange rates.

Quinlan also touted RR Donnelley’s contracts with Chrysler, IMG and Office Depot in the US and the Metro grocery and pharmacy chain in Canada. "We find ourselves benefiting from the economies of our scale and not needing to compete on a one product basis," he added.

Quinlan said that RR Donnelly opened a new operation in central China, in Chengdu, late last year that is focused on chain management, including packaging.  "It involves new printed products for devices that didn't exist just a few years ago," he added.

"This facility and new capabilities that we've added to facilities in Hungary and Mexico all serve as part of the expanding global packaging and label network - and during the last months of the year we completed two domestic acquisitions that centered around the product, packaging, labeling, merchandising and point-of-purchase displays."

RR Donnelley has changed its focus over the past decade or so - in 2000 two-thirds of the company’s revenue was driven by domestic magazines, catalogs, retail inserts and books and directories, while in 2011, these products account for less than one-third of revenue.

"We're still one of the largest and best players in those products, which we know some of them are challenged, but we've done a great job in diversifying our revenue base with the same customers," Quinlan said.

As for 2012, Quinlan noted there are a number of events - including the US presidential elections, the Olympics, and Euro 2012 football championships - that tend to drive content and content distribution. But he stressed that spike hasn’t yet come thus far, though he added it was still early in the year.

"I think you're going to have a year where you're going to have ups and downs throughout a month," Quinlan said. "You better have your costs in line and you better be able to know that your platform that you've got can withstand that and I think we can."

Elsewhere the company reported a $38.7m pre-tax gain on the remeasurement of its defined benefit pension scheme, which was frozen to further accruals from the end of 2011, and a $15.3m pre-tax expense related to its March 2011 acquisition of Journalism Online after certain volume targets were met.