Newly restructured Nordic media major Egmont revealed its highest revenues ever on Wednesday (April 24) - at the same time as announcing a 67% dive in after-tax profits.

While Egmont's revenues for 2001 reached an all-time high of Euros 1.1m, its profit after tax was a mere Euros 5.4m, compared to 2000's Euros 16.5m. Recently appointed president and CEO, Steffen Kragh (pictured) said "The result for 2001 is clearly unsatisfactory and underscores the importance of the change process already initiated."

When Kragh took control of Egmont last July, he restructured the company from 16 units down to 6 divisions, with further centralisation planned for the future. "We intend to concentrate our resources in fewer but larger subsidiaries. Other rationalisation plans include reducing employee numbers and optimising economies of scale. As a result of these changes, we hope to free up and reallocate resources for further investment in creativity and business development. We will focus on selected areas, including the Nordic home market." he said.

As for 2001's results, the worst performers were Nordisk Film, the now closed web-activities, as well as a costly move of its German activities from Stuttgart to Berlin. "We have experienced difficult markets in these areas and have caused some problems ourselves. TV-production is no longer good business, which will be a great challenge to Nordisk Film. But the company is very close to our heart, and we won't part from it." asserted Kragh.

The positive results were recorded from the publishing and electronic entertainment divisions, which increased from Euros 6.8m to Euros 11.9m, whereas Nordisk Film led to a reduction in profit of Euros 6m

Nordisk Film produces commercials, TV- and feature films, and among its very costly productions are Scandinavia's most expensive film ever, I Am Dina, a $16m (DKR 135m) Norwegian-Danish-Swedish co-production.