• Metro happy to see 'markets returning to growth'

The Swedish publisher of free newspapers, Metro International, Wednesday announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell the shares in its South Korean operation to two of its local partners.

The London-based publisher also announced drastic headquarter cost cuts.

Net cost of Metro's Headquarter is expected to be 14.0 million euro in 2011, as compared with a net cost of 16.8 million euro in 2010. As a of the results of these cost cutting measures, the Executive Management team will be reduced by a third.

"Thanks to the improved performance from the Group in recent years, these cost saving measures are made possible. The Executive Management team will move from nine people to six. We are dedicated to the task to continue to reduce headquarter cost further in the future", Per Mikael Jensen, CEO of Metro, said in a statement.

The acquisition price for Metro's 29.99 percent participation in Metro Korea is 4.9 million euro. After Korean capital gains tax, Metro will receive 4.4 million euro.

"Metro Korea has a daily readership of 700 000 and has shown stable performance since the launch in 2002. I look forward to continuing the cooperation with our partners in Metro Korea on a franchise basis and to develop the Metro brand in Korea", Per Mikael Jensen said.

In October the company said the global advertising market, which suffered a severe downturn along with the worldwide economic crisis, had started gradually recovering at the end of 2009 and that the outlook for the ad market in 2010 was positive.

Between July and September, Metro posted a net loss of 600,000 euros (800,000 dollars), compared to 7.5 million euros for the same period in 2009.