Children's cards and stickers craze lifts Menzies

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Proving that pocket money has been spared the pain of recession, newspapers and magazines distributor John Menzies said sales of its Match Attax trading cards and its stickers, especially GoGo's Crazy Bones, were soaring.

Paul Dollman, finance director, said: "GoGo's Crazy Bones is the latest fad. Children love everything to do with it. And Match Attax is a very well packaged product: we are expecting it to do very well during the World Cup, which will give us a boost this year."

The demand for stickers, which is a business with big margins, helped Menzies' magazines arm perform better than expected in recent months, although it is still in decline. This means Menzies will beat City profit forecasts for last year.

The company, which has benefited from the demise of Dawson News and bought some of its rivals' operations from administrators, said profits before tax for last year would come in at around £33.5 million. Analysts expected £31.5 million. The better-than-anticipated profit sent its shares up 5p to 325p.

Menzies, which also runs airport cargo and ground handling operations, has seen a pick-up in volumes at its aviation arm. The division has slashed costs through shrinking its workforce by 13 per cent, in part by natural attrition.

But Mr Dollman remained cautious about future trading: "We're still a bit bearish about this year and are expecting aviation to be flat." He also said group debt had been cut to less than £140 million.