UBM results for the six months ended 30 June 2014

August 1, 2014 — Fusion DigiNet

Highlights

  • Reported revenue of £361.0m (H1 2013: £391.8m), down 7.9%; broadly flat at constant currency (0.3%), with underlying growth of 2.0%
  • Adjusted operating profit up 8.7% to £87.4m (H1 2013: £80.4m), margins up by 3.7%pts, driven largely by non-recurring gains of £11.0m
  • Events underlying revenue growth of 4.8%(2), led by Emerging Markets with operating margins up 0.4%pts to 28.8% (H1 2013: 28.4%)
  • Other Marketing Services adjusted operating profit up to £4.4m (H1 2013: £3.6m) on reduced revenue of £48.5m (H1 2013: £66.4m)
  • PR Newswire revenue up 2.6% (underlying) at £98.3m (H1 2013: £105.0m) at an operating margin of 22.8% (H1 2013: 22.4%)
  • Adjusted diluted EPS up 12.1% to 24.0p (H1 2013: 21.4p)
  • Interim dividend of 6.8p (H1 2013: 6.7p) up 1.5%, in line with policy
  • Net Debt up at £452.1m (2013: £443.4m); Net Debt/EBITDA steady at 2.2x (2013: 2.2x)

Tim Cobbold, Chief Executive Officer, commented:

“UBM has had a solid first half and remains on track to meet expectations for the full year. Although the reported performance was adversely impacted by currency headwinds, the Group performed well with good underlying revenue growth in both the Events and PR Newswire businesses and with higher operating margins in each of the three businesses.”

During my first three months as UBM’s CEO I completed the first stage of my review of the business. We will host a Capital Markets Day late in the year to present the plan for UBM’s future development.”

Read the full announcement here.

UK, London

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Twitter acquires Madbits

July 30, 2014 — Fusion DigiNet

twitter3According to an announcement on the Madbits website, Twitter has acquired image search startup Madbits. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Madbits was founded by Clément Farabet and Louis-Alexandre Etezad-Heydari, two former students of Facebook AI Lab director and New York University professor Yann LeCun.

The announcement:

Today, after a tremendous year of development and iterations, we are excited to announce that we are joining Twitter.

Over this past year, we’ve built visual intelligence technology that automatically understands, organizes and extracts relevant information from raw media. Understanding the content of an image, whether or not there are tags associated with that image, is a complex challenge. We developed our technology based on deep learning, an approach to statistical machine learning that involves stacking simple projections to form powerful hierarchical models of a signal.

We prototyped and tested about ten different applications, and as we’ve prepared to launch publicly, we’ve decided to bring the technology to Twitter, a company that shares our ambitions and vision and will help us scale this technology.

We are excited to join the folks at Twitter to merge our efforts and see this technology grow to its full potential.

Clément Farabet, Louis-Alexandre Etezad-Heydari
& the MADBITS team

Earlier this month, FusionDigiNet reported that Twitter had acquired CardSpring, an application platform that lets developers build card-linked digital coupons, virtual rewards, and loyalty programs that work with credit cards and other types of payments.

USA, San Francisco, CA & New York, NY

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Apple to acquired radio app Swell for $30

July 30, 2014 — Fusion DigiNet

swell-appApple is acquiring the personalised talk-radio app Swell, adding to its existing iTunes radio music streaming service and Podcast app. The story was broken on Monday by Re/Code. According to Re/Code the The deal is worth around $30 million.

Swell is a product out of Concept.io, a startup founded back in 2012 in Mountain View and led by CEO and co-founder G.D. “Ram” Ramkumar. Swell had raised $7.2 million from investors including DFJ, Google Ventures and InterWest Partners.

For now the Swell app and the Swell.am websites just display a “Thank you” message. No mention is made of the Apple acquisition, nor if the service will be switched back on.

USA, Cupertino, CA & Mountain View, CA

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Scripps, Journal merging broadcast operations, spinning off Newspapers

July 30, 2014 — Fusion DigiNet

scrippsThe E.W. Scripps Company and Journal Communications have agreed to merge their broadcast operations and spin off and then merge their newspapers, creating two separately traded public companies.

The merged broadcast and digital media company, based in Cincinnati, will retain The E.W. Scripps Company name, and the Scripps family shareholders will continue to have voting control. The company will have approximately 4,000 employees across its television, radio and digital media operations and is expected to have annual revenue of more than $800 million.

jrn-communications-logoThe newspaper company will be called Journal Media Group and will combine Scripps’ daily newspapers, community publications and related digital products in 13 markets with Journal Communications’ Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin community publications and affiliated digital products. The company, with expected annual revenue of more than $500 million and approximately 3,600 employees, will be headquartered in Milwaukee.

The deal is expected to close in 2015. Read the full announcement here.

USA, Cincinnati, OH & Milwaukee, WI

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Pinterest acquires Icebergs

July 30, 2014 — Fusion DigiNet

icebergs_love_pinterestPinterest, a social bookmarking site where users collect and share photos of their favorite events, interests and hobbies, has acquired Icebergs. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Icebergs offers an online collaboration service that allows users to organise their projects, including not only images, but also articles, files, videos, and other content, and share that content with others.

Icebergs, which is headquartered in Barcelona, will be joining the Pinterest team in San Francisco and discontinuing its service on 1st September.

The acquisition was announced on the Icebergs site here.

USA, San Francisco, CA & Spain, Barcelona

 

 

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Property website Zillow to buy smaller rival Trulia for $3.5Bn

July 30, 2014 — Fusion DigiNet

zillowU.S. real estate website Zillow is to buy its smaller rival Trulia Inc for $3.5 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction equivalent to or $70.53 per share (a premium of 25 percent based on the stocks’ close on Friday). The Boards of Directors of both companies have approved the transaction, which is expected to close in 2015.

Trulia shares were up 16 percent at $65.37 in premarket trading on Monday. Zillow shares were down 3 percent at $154.

TruliaBy operating independent consumer brands through one corporation, the companies expect to realise synergies to improve overall operational efficiency over the long-term. By 2016, management expects to achieve at least $100 million in cost savings. Their combined loss in 2013 was $30 million.

The combined company will maintain both the Zillow and Trulia consumer brands.  Trulia CEO Pete Flint will remain as CEO of Trulia reporting to Zillow CEO, Spencer Rascoff, and will join the Board of Directors of the combined company. In addition,  a second member of Trulia’s Board of Directors will join the board of the combined company.

USA, Seattle, WA & San Francisco, CA

 

 

 

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Kelsey Media acquire Outdoor Fitness from Bauer Media

July 25, 2014 — Fusion DigiNet
outdoorfitnessKelsey Media has acquired the Outdoor Fitness brand from Bauer Media. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Outdoor Fitness is a 132-page monthly publication, launched in the summer of 2011. It aims to deliver some of the best cycling, running, swimming, triathlon and adventure content, enjoyed by a readership who are loyal to staying fit and healthy in the great outdoors.

The Outdoor Fitness editorial staff have transferred to Kelsey. They will be based at Kelsey’s Peterborough office. The Editor is Jonathan Manning, the Deputy Editor Marc Abbott and the Art Editor is Mark Tucker. Lauren George will manage the ad sales operation in conjunction with her existing title, Running fitness, based out of the Cudham office.

UK, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire

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Kelsey Publishing acquires Auto titles and Triathlon Plus from Future for £2.1M

July 25, 2014 — Fusion DigiNet

kelsey_mastFuture plc has exchanged contracts to sell a portfolio comprising its Auto titles and Triathlon Plus to Kelsey Publishing Limited for a total initial consideration of £2.1m, comprising £1.8m in cash and £0.3m of magazine subscriptions deferred revenue to be retained by Future. In addition, deferred consideration of up to £0.8m is payable by 30 September 2015 based on revenue performance. Completion is scheduled to occur by the end of August 2014. The net proceeds of sale will be used to reduce the Group’s external borrowings.

future smThe Portfolio includes the following: Fast Car, Fast Ford, Classic Ford, Classics Monthly, Total Vauxhall, Mini Magazine, Triathlon Plus, Classic Ford Show, Ford Fair, Japfest, Japfest 2: The Evolution, Performance Vauxhall Show, TRAX: The Ultimate Performance Car Event and associated websites.

In the year ended 30 September 2013 the Portfolio generated revenue of £5.0m and pre-tax profit (post allocation of central Group and corporate costs) of £0.3m. The gross assets of the Portfolio as at 31 March 2014 were approximately £0.3m.

UK, London & Cudham, Kent

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LinkedIn to Acquire Bizo

July 22, 2014 — Fusion DigiNet

linkedin-iconLinkedIn is to acquire Bizo. Bizo offers technology and products that enable measurable display and social advertising programs specifically focused on professional audience segments. Based in San Francisco, CA, Bizo was founded in 2008 by Russell Glass, Bryan Burdick, Donnie Flood, Mark Dye, Lee Byrne and Yonatan Stern.

The transaction is valued at approximately $175 million, subject to adjustment, in a combination of approximately 10 percent stock and approximately 90 percent cash. The acquisition is expected to close during the third quarter of 2014.

bizo-logo-hdrB2B marketers use Bizo to target prospects within professional segments, and nurture them at every stage of their sales and marketing funnel. Fueled by proprietary data management and targeting technology, their platform enables precise and measurable multi-channel marketing programs. Since 2008, the company has been helping brands meet their marketing objectives by getting the right message in front of the right audiences on the web.

“It’s exciting for us to bring Bizo’s expertise and technology into our ecosystem,” said Deep Nishar, LinkedIn’s SVP of Product and User Experience. “Our ability to integrate their B2B solutions with our content marketing products will enable us to become the most effective platform for B2B marketers to engage professionals.”

“We have been a LinkedIn partner for a while now and it became clear that our respective missions and cultures are really well aligned,” said Russell Glass, Bizo’s Co-Founder & CEO. “I couldn’t be more thrilled that we are coming together to accelerate our ability to reach professional audiences, nurture prospects, and acquire customers in truly powerful ways.”

David Thacker, Vice President of Product, blogged in more detail about the acquisition on the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions blog. For Bizo’s perspective, a blog by CEO Russell Glass can be read on the Bizo Blog.

USA, Mountain View, CA & San Francisco, CA

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Yahoo to acquire Flurry

July 22, 2014 — Fusion DigiNet

YahooYahoo has acquired Flurry. Flurry is a mobile analytics, monetisation, and advertising company founded in 2005. The company develops and markets a platform for analysing consumer interactions with mobile applications, solutions for marketers to advertise in-apps, as well as a service for applying monetisation structures to mobile apps. The Flurry team will remain in their present locations.The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

flurryYahoo said that the acquisition will mean Flurry will have resources to speed up the delivery of platforms that help developers build better apps, reach the right users, and explore new revenue opportunities. Together, the companies can make mobile experiences better through products that are more personalised and more inspiring.

USA, Sunnyvale, CA & San Franciso, CA

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