Printing group Wyndeham Press was today looking for an upturn in fortunes after suffering a year of falling profits and job cuts.

The East Sussex-based group, which prints magazines including Autocar and Nursing Times, has been hit hard by the advertising downturn.

Pre-tax profits before exceptional items fell to £3.1 million from £14.6 million a year earlier, while the company has also sharply reduced its total dividend and laid off around 150 staff.

Most of the redundancies - equivalent to a tenth of the workforce - occurred when Wyndeham consolidated six of its plants into two.

Chief executive Bryan Bedson said the rationalisation and a recent £16.5 million investment programme had put Wyndeham in a strong position as it looked to benefit from the early signs of a recovery.

He said: "We have started to see signs of improvement in our sector of the industry. The results of the first two months of the new financial year are encouraging but we remain cautious."

The company said it will look to build on the strength of its commercial and direct mail printing businesses, which have both posted healthy performances to offset the weakness in the magazine sector.