Marie Claire and NME publisher IPC Media has reported a 75% fall in pre-tax profits for 2012, in part resulting from a £24.8m writedown in the value of the company's assets.

Even stripping out the exceptional impairment charge the UK's biggest magazine publisher still endured a tough year, with operating profits down 24% year-on-year to £28.2m.

Revenues at the publisher, which is owned by the US media giant Time Warner but is set to be spun off along with its other publishing assets, fell 5% to £314m.

The company paid no dividends last year, in 2011 it funnelled a healthy £51.5m back to its parent company.

Staff costs rose slightly, from £86.7m to £89.6m, as total staff numbers stayed almost flat at 1,760. Of those 747 are classified as editorial employees.

The 11 company directors were paid a total of more than £2.8m. The un-named highest paid director received £766,000 in 2012, down on the £820,000 paid out in 2011.

IPC paid £22,000 in UK corporation tax paid at 24.5%, down from £441,000 in 2011.

The company has a 50% joint venture European Magazines Limited, the primary activity of which is to publish the UK edition of Marie Claire.

This venture made a pre-tax profit of £193,000 last year, a 44% year-on-year drop from the £347,000 in 2011.

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email media@theguardian.com or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

• To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook.