Fusion Corporate Partners

Future plc, the specialist media group and digital publisher has announced preliminary results for the year ended 30 September 2013.

Financial highlights

Click on the table for an enlarged view

• Normalised Group revenues up 3% driven by Digital & Diversified revenue streams
• Normalised pre-tax profit at £1.9m from loss of £2.7m in prior year
• Digital revenues up 38% year-on-year, Digital & Diversified now 32% of total Group Revenues
• Digital advertising now 59% of total advertising revenue, up from 48% a year ago
• UK operations grow advertising and circulation revenues for the year
• US operating profitably (at EBITDAE level) in H2
• Net debt more than halved from £14.1m to £6.9m following the sale of non-core print activities
• Reinstatement of dividend at 0.2 pence per share

Digital highlights

• Unique users up 14% year-on-year to 57.7 million a month, US unique users up 18% − growth driven by TechRadar
• Page views up 19% year-on-year to 328 million a month
• TechRadar now reaching over 20 million unique users globally a month
• Digital edition revenues up 44% year-on-year
• Over 340,000 subscribers to digital editions, up 46% since September 2012

Mark Wood, Future’s Chief Executive, said: “Our digital revenue growth accelerated, with a 38% increase year-on-year, and we passed an important transition point with more than half our advertising revenues now digital. We have made real progress in reshaping the Future business, diversifying our digital revenues, making our US operations profitable and building global digital brands.

“We have an on-going programme to reduce the cost base and improve margins. During the year we transformed our balance sheet, paying down term debt from the proceeds of non-core asset disposals and extending our credit facility until 2017. This leaves us well positioned to execute on our growth strategy.

Overall, these are good results after difficult trading conditions earlier in the year, thanks to stronger trading across all areas in the fourth quarter. Looking forward, we see the encouraging Q4 trends continuing with forward advertising bookings up year-on-year, and revenue momentum across all sectors.”

Read the full announcement here.

UK, London

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