LONDON Struggling British yellow-pages publisher Yell has made an early repayment of debt it owed under a 2009 refinancing agreement, it said on Thursday, lifting its shares more than 7 percent at one point.
Yell, which is battling competition from a host of new online services offering local information, and from Internet giants such as Google, said it had paid down 139 million pounds ($232 million) worth of debt in the past five weeks.
The company narrowly avoided insolvency in 2009 and had net debt of 2.83 billion pounds at end-December, about 18 times its current market value of 157 million pounds.
Shares in Yell were up 3.9 percent at 6.89 pence by 1205 GMT, off a high of 7.14 pence on the news.
"Yell's strong cash flows have enabled the Group to meet all of its scheduled debt repayments and to accelerate early repayment of debt for the second time in four months," Chief Financial Officer Tony Bates said in a statement.
The repayments comprised 98 million pounds that were scheduled and an early repayment of 41 million pounds.
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