It is bad out there in adland. Investors sent shares in JCDecaux, the world’s second-biggest outdoor advertiser, plunging by a fifth on Wednesday after it suspended its dividend and predicted that sales would fall 10 per cent this quarter.

The French group faces a battle on two fronts. Like other advertising companies, it has suffered as recession-hit clients cut spending. But unlike most, it also has high fixed costs. JCDecaux is the world’s biggest maker of public toilets, bus shelters and other street furniture, which it installs and operates while pocketing the associated advertising revenues. The need to maintain all that physical equipment makes it difficult to cut costs in a downturn, leaving margins vulnerable to swings in revenue. Given the sharp and continuing deterioration in the economic outlook since the beginning of this year, expectations that JCDecaux might be able to turn in flat revenues this year were overly optimistic.