Wyndeham issued a profit warning earlier this month that saw its share price fall 29%. Today it confirmed interim figures that were well down on last years performance.

Sales in the six months to 30 September fell 4.6% to 59.5m while operating profit prior to exceptionals and goodwill write-offs fell 33% to 3m. The exceptional costs of 830,000 included a 340,000 bad debt caused by customers going into receivership.

The group also cited increased competition from facilities management companies and the loss of two substantial commercial print contracts to a French competitor among its woes.

The magazine division, which has grown to make up 64% of turnover, was brighter and Wyndeham has won a number of new contracts from publishers in this area.

Pre-tax profit slumped by 36% to 1.9m, and the groups decision to maintain its interim dividend saw it finish with a retained loss of 46,000 for the period.

After facing City analysts for the first time in his new role, fresh group managing director Paul Utting said: A number of one-off issues affected the commercial business but there were a number of positives as well.

We have made huge investment in capital equipment, computerisation and good people and are well-placed to move ahead.

Utting is establishing a central sales and marketing team to maximise opportunities to cross-sell group services to blue-chip clients and make the rest of the groups capabilities more visible.

Instead of selling just bits of the group we intend to sell the whole lot through a more integrated approach, he explained.

This could also counterbalance competition from print managers. We dont want to be a print management company, but we have a breadth of offering to allow us to do all of that too, Utting added.

Wyndehams share price rose 6.4p to 98.9p on the news. The 52-week high is 156p.