Yell rebrands itself as Hibu, as it announces loss

Yellow Pages owner Yell yesterday surprised the City by announcing that it is renaming itself Hibu, even as it crashed to a pre-tax loss of £1.42bn and warned of a "higher risk" it could breach covenants on its bank debt. Chief executive Mike Pocock admitted Hibu — pronounced "high-boo" — did not mean anything. "It's a word," he said. "If you go back 15 to 20 years, Google and Yahoo didn't mean anything. It's how you support the brands."

Shares in Yell plunged 19 per cent or 0.61p to 2.55p. Twitter users mocked Yell for the rebrand. "Proof if proof were needed that 'image consultants' are, to a man, utterly bonkers," said one tweet.Yell insisted it was not "spending a fortune" on the rebrand.