Wilmington Group acquires Spanish information and events Inese

March 7, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

wilmington-logoWilmington Group plc has acquired the trading assets of Inese, the provider of information and events to the insurance industry in Spain, from Reed Business Information for a net consideration of €1.4m in cash. The consideration will be financed out of the Group’s existing £65m multicurrency debt facility.

Inese was established in 1892 and was acquired by RBI in 2000. Inese is a leading provider of Spanish language subscription based inesepublications, online services for the Spanish Insurance Industry along with a number of annual events including the leading industry congress; “Insurance Week”. Inese also operates a digital news service in Latin America.

Approximately 40% of Inese’s revenue is derived from subscriptions, and a further 30% from annual awards and events. Throughout the last 3 years revenue has been stable and the business has enjoyed overall renewal rates on its subscription base of around 90%. Approximately 30% of total revenue is delivered digitally. In the year to 31stDecember 2012 Inese made a profit before taxation of €0.7m*1 and had gross assets of €0.8m.

The Business will form part of the Wilmington Pensions and Insurance Division and will work closely with the Axco insurance information business, providing Axco with access to Spanish language insurance markets.

UK, London & Spain, Madrid

Related articles:

1. Wilmington

2. RBI

Posted in Conference/Exhibitions/Events, Content Media, Market Data & Information, Publishers, ~Europe. Tags: , , . Leave a Comment »

UBM Asia to acquire NOVOMANIA in China

March 7, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

novomania2UBM Asia has signed a binding agreement with NOVO Mania Limited, the organiser of NOVOMANIA, to acquire the annual urban fashion event in Shanghai. Upon completion, UBM will own 60% of a joint venture company, with NOVO Mania Limited, called UBM Novomania, to organise NOVOMANIA from 2013 onwards.

NOVOMANIA was launched in 2010 as an annual urban fashion event by the NOVO group of companies, a retailing and fashion conglomerate based in Hong Kong that operates and distributes over 50 international brands and has stores across 45 cities in China, and one of its partners, Focus Workshop, an innovative full service agency in China with expertise in luxury brands in beauty and wellness, fashion, real estate and FMCG. By bringing together designers, brands, buyers, distributors, retailers, franchisees, department stores, mall operators, real estate developers and the media, it creates a platform for introducing retail concepts to international brands which are seeking to enter the China market and for providing new business opportunities for domestic brands.

Showcasing the latest trends in major areas of urban fashion such as Denim&Urban, Sports&Street, Shoes&Accessories, Fashion&Chic and Contemporary&Premium, NOVOMANIA held at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Centre inMarch 2012 occupied 25,000 gross sqm of exhibition space and welcomed 117 exhibitors from 13 countries and over 13,000 visitors. This year, Novomania will be held from 17 – 19 July at Shanghai Mart.

Jime Essink , President & Chief Executive Officer of UBM Asia said, “China is already the second-largest apparel market in the world and is set to surpass the US to become the world’s largest market in a few years. We are very pleased to partner with NOVO Mania Limited in the development and growth of this cutting edge fashion event targeted at the very rapidly-growing urban youth segment of the market. This joint venture continues our strategy of focusing on sectors and markets with the most exciting growth potential.”

Mr Guilherme Faria , General Manager of NOVOMANIA, together with his team, will be incorporated into the UBM China (Shanghai) office, reporting to the board of UBM Novomania.

Hong Kong & China, Shanghai & UK, London

Related articles:

 

Posted in Conference/Exhibitions/Events, Content Media, Publishers, ~Asia, ~Europe. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »

Progressive Digital Media Group preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2012.

March 1, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

Business information business Progressive Digital Media Group Plc has announced preliminary results for the year ended 31 December progressive2012.

Full details of preliminary results

Highlights

  • Group revenue increased by 6.9% to £53.9m (2011: £50.4m)
  • Adjusted EBITDA increased by 25.6% to £9.1m (2011: £7.2m)
  • Adjusted EBITDA margin increased to 16.9% (2011: 14.4%)
  • Reported EBITDA increased by 31.8% to £7.4m (2011: £5.6m)
  • Reported profit before tax of £4.3m (2011: £1.4m) inclusive of £0.9m restructuring costs and £0.8m share based payment charge
  • Cash generated from operations increased to £6.4m (2011: £2.9m)
  • Net cash of £6.2m (2011: net debt £22.5m)
  • Acquisition of Kable, one of the UK’s leading providers of technology expenditure intelligence on 2 July 2012. See the DigiNet article on the Kable acquisition.

Simon Pyper, Managing Director of Progressive Digital Media Group Plc, commented:

“This is the Group’s fourth consecutive year of revenue and earnings growth. We have made good progress across a broad range of our most important metrics. This past year we focused on putting in place the building blocks for future long-term growth and eliminating the distractions of our former email marketing business. We continued investing in our Business Information products, acquired a complementary business and re-engineered our balance sheet to both fund future growth and, when appropriate, to distribute dividends to our shareholders.”

UK, London

Related articles:

 

Posted in Company Results, Conference/Exhibitions/Events, Content Media, Internet Media, Market Data & Information, Publishers, ~Europe. Tags: . Leave a Comment »

Reed Elsevier reports growth in the 12 months to 31 December 2012

March 1, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

Reed Elsevier reports growth in revenue, operating profit and earnings in the twelve months to 31 December 2012.Reed Elsevier

Full details of results

Financial highlights

  • Underlying revenue growth +4% (+3% excluding biennial exhibition cycling) to £6,116m/€7,523m
  • Underlying adjusted operating profit growth +6% to £1,713m/€2,107m
  • Adjusted EPS +7% to 50.1p for Reed Elsevier PLC; +14% to €0.95 for Reed Elsevier NV
  • Reported EPS +42% to 46.0p for Reed Elsevier PLC; +53% to €0.90 for Reed Elsevier NV
  • Full year dividend +7% to 23.0p for Reed Elsevier PLC; +7% to €0.467 for Reed Elsevier NV
  • Return on invested capital up by 0.7 percentage points to 11.9%
  • Net debt £0.3bn lower at £3.1bn; 2.2x EBITDA pensions and lease adjusted (1.7x unadjusted)

Operational highlights

  • Revenue growth driven by volume growth, new products, and expansion in high growth markets
  • Profitability gains driven by process innovation and portfolio development
  • All five business areas contributed to underlying revenue and profit growth
  • Continued improvement in revenue mix by format, geography, and type
  • Accelerated portfolio reshaping; gross proceeds from disposal of non-core businesses £242m
  • £250m of share buybacks completed in 2012
  • £100m of share buybacks completed in 2013 YTD; further £300m to be deployed in remainder of 2013

Commenting on the results, Chief Executive Officer, Erik Engstrom, commented:

“In 2012 we made good progress on our strategy to systematically transform our business into a professional information solutions provider that combines content & data with analytics & technology in global platforms. We continued to do this primarily through organic development, with acquisitions limited to small content and data assets across markets and assets in high growth geographies. We also accelerated the evolution of our portfolio by disposing of businesses that no longer fit our strategy, using the proceeds to buy back shares. As a result of these actions we are continuing to improve the quality of our earnings, to deliver more predictable revenues, a higher growth profile, and improving returns.

By the end of 2012 approximately 80% of our revenues were in our targeted formats of electronic and face to face, which generated average underlying revenue growth rates of +5-7%. Although the outlook for the macro environment, and its impact on our customer markets, is mixed, we have entered 2013 with positive momentum, and expect another year of underlying revenue, profit, and earnings growth.”

UK, London & The Netherlands, Amsterdam

Related articles

Posted in Company Results, Conference/Exhibitions/Events, Content Media, Internet Media, Market Data & Information, ~Europe. Tags: , , . Leave a Comment »

UBM results for the year ended 31 December 2012

March 1, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

UBM has announced preliminary results for the full year ended 31 December 2012

Full preliminary resultsUBM

Highlights

  • Agreed disposal of Data Services businesses
  • Revenues from continuing operations rose 2.0% to £797.8m – organic revenue growth of 6.0%
  • Events organic revenue growth of 11.9% with operating profit up to £142.4m
  • Emerging Markets revenues up 18.1% to £204.7m with operating profit of £61.7m
  • Adjusted operating profit from continuing operations up 1.6% to £177.0m
  • Fully diluted adjusted EPS for continuing operations up 3.3% to 49.8p – including Delta: 59.1p
  • £60.6m invested in acquiring eight events businesses and the remaining Canada Newswire stake
  • Recommending final dividend of 20.0p (2011: 20.0p) to bring total dividend to 26.7p, up 1.5%

David Levin, UBM’s Chief Executive Officer, commented:

“2012 has been another good year for UBM both operationally and strategically. We grew overall revenues and profits, with robust underlying revenue growth in our key Events and PR Newswire businesses. Events now account for three quarters of the Group’s continuing operating profit. We have continued to focus on large tradeshows; in 2012, 100 annual events generated revenues of more than £1m – accounting for 85% of annual event revenues.”

“The sale of the Delta businesses is a significant strategic step which simplifies UBM’s business, improves the quality of our earnings, enhances underlying growth rates and removes the challenge of transitioning the Delta businesses to the digital environment. We can now focus on further developing UBM as a fast-growing and increasingly profitable events-led marketing services and communications business.”

UK, London

Related articles:

Posted in Company Results, Conference/Exhibitions/Events, Content Media, Internet Media, Market Data & Information, Publishers, ~Europe. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »

Pearson announces preliminary results for the year ending 31 December 2012

February 25, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

Pearson has announced preliminary results for the year ending 31 December 2012.se_header_logo_pearson

Full details of preliminary results

Financial highlights

  • Sales up 5% at CER to £6.1bn (with digital and services businesses contributing 50% of sales)
  • Adjusted operating profit 1% higher at £936m
  • Adjusted EPS of 84.2p (86.5p in 2011)
  • Operating cash flow of £788m (£983m in 2011)
  • Return on invested capital of 9.1% (9.1% in 2011)
  • Dividend raised 7% to 45.0p.

Market conditions and industry change

  • Market conditions generally weak in developed world and for print publishing businesses; generally strong in emerging economies and for digital and services businesses.
  • Continuing structural change in education funding, retail channels, consumer behaviour and content business models.
  • Considerable growth opportunity in education driven by rapidly-growing global middle class, adoption of learning technologies, the connection between education and career prospects and increasing consumer spend, especially in emerging economies.

Strong competitive performance

  • North American Education revenues up 2% in a year when US School and Higher Education publishing revenues declined by 10% for the industry as a whole.
  • International Education revenues up 13% with emerging market revenues up 25%.
  • FT Group revenues up 4% with the Financial Times’ total paid print and online circulation up to 602,000; digital subscriptions exceed print circulation for the first time.
  • Penguin revenues up 1%, with strong publishing performance and eBooks now 17% of sales.

Accelerated shift to digital & services and to fast-growing economies

  • Pearson announces gross restructuring costs of approximately £150m in 2013 (£100m net of cost savings achieved in the year), focused on:
  1. significantly accelerating the shift of Pearson’s education businesses towards fast-growing economies and digital and services businesses;
  2. separating Penguin activities from Pearson central services and operations in preparation for the merger of Penguin and Random House.

Restructuring expected to generate annual cost savings of approximately £100m in 2014.

  • In 2014, £100m of cost savings to be reinvested in organic development of fast-growing education markets and categories and further restructuring, including the Penguin Random House integration.
  • From 2015, restructuring programme expected to produce faster growth, improving margins and stronger cash generation.

Outlook

·      Pearson expects tough trading conditions and structural industry change to continue in 2013.

·      Excluding restructuring costs and including Penguin for the full year, Pearson expects to achieve 2013 operating profit and adjusted EPS broadly level with 2012.

John Fallon, chief executive, said: “Pearson has a sound, successful strategy: now we are significantly accelerating its implementation. Trading conditions are tough and structural changes mean many of our traditional publishing activities are under pressure. But the underlying demand for effective education remains immensely powerful and our developing world and digital services businesses have real scale and momentum. The restructuring of the company that we are announcing today is designed to strengthen dramatically Pearson’s position in digital education services and in our most important markets for the future – and to enable us to capture the once-in-a-generation opportunity that comes with being the world’s leading learning company.”

UK, London

Related links:

Posted in Company Results, Conference/Exhibitions/Events, Content Media, Internet Media, Market Data & Information, Publishers, ~Europe. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »

Centaur Media plc – half year results for the six months ended 31 December 2012

February 22, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

centaurCentaur Media plc, the business information, events and marketing services group, has published its half year results for the six months ended 31 December 2012.

Highlights below

Full report here

Highlights

  • Digital and events revenues now account for 39% and 29% of reported revenue respectively (H1 2012: 32% and 22% respectively)
  • Print revenue contribution reduced to 31% (H1 2012: 45%) of reported revenues
  • Reported revenue up 14% to £30.4 million
  • Deferred revenues up 30% to £15.1million
  • Adjusted EBITDA up 81% to £2.9 million
  • Adjusted EBITDA margins increased to 10%
  • Interim dividend up 10% to 0.825p

Fusion sold  Econsultancy.com Limited to Centaur in July last year. According to the announcement, the business is performing well.

UK, London

Related articles:

Posted in Company Results, Conference/Exhibitions/Events, Content Media, Internet Media, Market Data & Information, Publishers, ~Europe. Tags: , , . Leave a Comment »

Informa plc – Full year results for the Year Ended 31 December 2012

February 22, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

informa2Informa plc have announced full year results for the Year Ended 31 December 2012.

Key highlights below

Full report here

Highlights

  • Academic publishing unit saw a 2.4 per cent increase in revenues
  • Sales dropped 4.4 per cent at the business information unit
  • Sales dropped 3% at the events and training unit
  • Total revenues £1232.5 million, a drop of 3.4%
  • Emerging market growth – now 18% of Group revenue (2011: 14%)
  • Core revenue stream – 67% of publishing revenues from subscriptions
  • Digital revenue strew – 74% of publishing revenues fully digitised
  • Diluted EPS 15p, a drop of 20%
  • Adjusted diluted EPS 40.7p, up 7.7%
  • Full year dividend 18.5p, up 10.1%
  • Profit before tax £67 million, a drop of 24.4%
  • Adjusted operating profit of £349.7 million, up 4.0%
  • Adjusted operating margin of 28.4%
  • Adjusted profit before tax of £317.4 million, up 7.3%
  • Statutory profit after tax of £90.7 million
  • Operating cash flow £329 million, up 5.7%
  • Balance sheet  – net debt/EBITDA ratio of 2.1 times

Peter Rigby, Chief Executive, said:

“Informa has performed strongly once again in 2012, delivering earnings ahead of market expectations and strong cashflow, despite what have remained very challenging market conditions. This is testament to the resilience of our businesses, underpinned by strong brands, leading market positions, digital excellence and a growing presence in emerging markets. Our performance has enabled us to keep investing in our business, while maintaining our progressive dividend policy, with 10.1% growth in the total payout in 2012, underlining our commitment to delivering attractive returns to our shareholders.

Commenting on acquisitions and disposals, Peter Rigby said:

We were very proactive in managing our portfolio in 2012. This was evident through the acquisitions of Zephyr, which bolstered our digital subscription base, and MMPI, which expanded our portfolio of large exhibitions, as well as the disposals of Robbins Gioia and some small European local language Conference businesses. Internally, our focus on operating excellence also led us to proactively exit a number of lower quality publishing products and events, cutting out over £25m of revenue. This has impacted top-line growth trends but leaves the group in a stronger position going forward, with a higher underlying quality of earnings.

UK, London

Related articles:

Posted in Company Results, Conference/Exhibitions/Events, Content Media, Internet Media, Market Data & Information, Publishers, ~Europe. Tags: , , . Leave a Comment »

SIIA acquires the Specialist Media Show

February 22, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

SIIAThe Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) the trade association for the software and digital content industries, based in Washington DC, has bought the Specialist Media Show, a UK-based organiser of live and online events and resources for consumer and B2B publishers.

The Specialist Media Show has showcased digital media innovation at events for niche publishers since 2010. The next event, the specialistmediashowSpecialist Media Conference, will take place 24 April 2013 at the British Library. SIIA’s acquisition will take effect after the event.

“Digital media innovation is at the heart of publishing and content strategy, and it’s happening on a global scale,” said SIIA President Ken Wasch. “Companies from New York to London are seeing many of the same opportunities and challenges with their digital strategies. The Specialist Media Show will help us strengthen the collective power of our communities to serve the information industry.”

USA, Washington DC & UK, Lincolnshire

Posted in Conference/Exhibitions/Events, Content Media, ~Europe, ~North America. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »

Vitesse Media plc – trading update

February 7, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

vitessemedia

Vitesse Media Plc, the AIM-quoted media business, has issued a trading update ahead of the announcement of its full year audited results to 31 January 2013.

 

The announcement is as follows:

The Company’s performance in the second half of the year improved, with the trading loss in the second half reducing considerably, both against the first half of the financial year and the corresponding period of the previous financial year.

Turning points have been reached in some of our key product titles. GrowthBusiness.co.uk, which was re-launched early in 2012, delivered like-for-like revenue increases in the final quarter of 13 per cent., compared to the same period the previous year.  WhatInvestment.co.uk, which was re-launched just before Christmas 2012, saw traffic increase 40 per cent. in January 2013 compared to January 2012, assisted by the improving stock market conditions.  In the Events division, our technology venture capital event, Investor All Stars, saw attendances reach a ten-year high.  This week we expect to complete the final stages of our investment programme, with the re-launch of the SmallBusiness.co.uk and Information-Age.com web sites.

During the last two years, our databases have been reconfigured into Sales Force, all four of our major web sites have been completely overhauled, all our titles have been digitised and there has been an investment in social media to extend our marketing capabilities.  Niki Baker was appointed CEO in September 2012 and the business was reorganised into four teams: SME Business, Technology, Investment and Events.  This has led to a greater focus on driving results.

Bookings for the first quarter of the financial year 2013/4 have stabilised and the plans to launch two new digital subscription products and two new events during the first half are at an advanced stage.

Despite the difficult trading conditions, the directors believe that the changes implemented over the past two years mean that the company is now fully positioned to develop as a growing digital, events and research business and view the outlook as encouraging.

UK, London

Posted in Company Results, Conference/Exhibitions/Events, Content Media, Internet Media, Market Data & Information, Publishers, ~Europe. Tags: , , . Leave a Comment »
« Older posts
Newer posts »