Yell stock plunges after poor sales

Shares in Yell dropped by a fifth yesterday after the Yellow Pages's publisher reported an accelerating slide in quarterly sales.

The company said its small-business customer base had not yet regained economic confidence, resulting in a 12.1 per cent fall in second-quarter sales. For the first half, revenues fell 11.2 per cent at constant exchange rates to £896m, and underlying earnings fell 12.2 per cent to £265m. But Yell said it would still meet full-year profit expectations by cutting costs.

It also named the former Cisco manager Michael Pocock as its new chief executive yesterday. He will replace John Condron, who announced his departure in May. Mr Pocock ran Linksys, the home and small business networking division of the US group Cisco, from 2006 until 2009, and before that was CEO of Polaroid.