SINGAPORE'S recession will hurt, but it also presents a good opportunity to snap up good companies on the cheap, said media group Singapore Press Holdings on Friday.

SPH's chief executive officer Alan Chan said this at a results briefing, at which it reported record revenue of $1.3 billion for the financial year ended Aug 31.

The company, which publishes Singapore's biggest English news daily The Straits Times, had recently announced the acquisition of popular financial portal Shareinvestor.com.

Net profit was down 12.4 per cent to $437.4 million, primarily due to lower reduced investment income and an investment-related impairment charge.

SPH said despite a difficult year marked by challenges and uncertainties in the global and domestic economy, revenue for the Newspaper and Magazine segment grew 5.7 per cent to $1,014.3 million, underpinned by a commendable 7.6 per cent growth in print advertisement revenue to $780.1 million.

Revenue from property segment climbed 43.6 per cent to $255.3 million, boosted by the $138.1 million contribution from Sky@eleven, while Paragon posted a $10.1 million increase in rental income.

Total operating expenses were up $69.2 million to $814.5 million. Property development costs for Sky@eleven accounted for $15.8 million of the increase while staff costs grew $31.5 million or 10.4 per cent as a result of increased headcount and annual salary increment.

Total headcount in August 2008 was 3,918 compared to 3,735 a year ago, as the Group continued to invest resources to develop its new media and magazine businesses for future growth.

Other operating expenses were up by $16.6 million or 9.9 per cent to $184.5 million mainly because of increased business activity and inflationary pressures.

Group investment income of $47.7 million was $98.4 million (67.3%) lower than last year mainly due to last year's higher profit on the sale of investments and gains from capital reduction exercises by MobileOne Limited and Starhub Limited.

In addition, this year's income was affected by the downward fair valuation of the Group's investments.

Commenting on the outlook for FY2009, Mr Chan said: 'Outlook for the global economy has deteriorated given the heightened concerns over the financial turmoil and slowdown in the major economies. Against this backdrop, Singapore's GDP growth forecast for 2008 has been revised to around 3 per cent, and the Group's advertising revenue is expected to move in tandem with the Singapore domestic economy.'

'To partially alleviate the challenges brought about by increased newsprint and other business costs, the Group will continue to take measures to grow revenue and contain costs.'

'Barring unforeseen circumstances, the Directors expect the recurring earnings for the current financial year to be satisfactory.'

Dr Tony Tan said the group will leverage on its core competencies to seek out new products and opportunities to fuel growth in the coming years.

The group announced a final dividend of 19 cents per share, to be paid out on Dec 23, bringing the total dividend payout for this year to 27 cents. This is one cent up from the previous year's payout.