Centaur Media plc – full year results

September 12, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

centaurCentaur Media plc, the business information, events and marketing services group, has published its full year results for the year to 30 June 2013.

Financial highlights

  • Adjusted EBITDA up 10% to £12.9m (2012: £11.7m)
  • Adjusted profit before tax up 8% to £8.6m (2012: £8.0m)
  • Reported loss before tax of £37.4m (2012: profit £2.7m) includes a non-cash impairment charge of £39.2m (2012: £nil)
  • Adjusted basic EPS up 7% to 4.5p (2012: 4.2p) with a proposed full year dividend of 2.4p (up 7%)
  • Cash conversion remains strong at 112% (2012: 120%)

Operational highlights

  • Revenue mix continues to improve
    • Digital contribution increased to 35%, paid-for content 28% and events 36%
    • Advertising revenues reduced as planned to 35% of total revenues
  • Refocus around market segments driving greater focus on delivery of revenue and cost synergies

The acquisition of Econsultancy.com Limited was completed in July 2012, Centaur reported that the integration is accelerating.

Note: The Econsultancy sale was a Fusion Corporate Partners deal. Fusion represented the shareholders of Econsultancy.

centaur results 13

Click on the table to enlarge the view

 

Mark Kerswell, Interim Chief Executive, commented, “We have continued to improve our revenue and earnings profile as well as accelerate the delivery of our strategic objectives. We now have a sharper focus on markets and customers and a strong pipeline of new digital platforms and event launches. We are better placed to exploit fully the numerous opportunities across the Group. “Our digital, subscription and events businesses are growing well, whilst our print, advertising funded businesses are stable. With deferred revenues up 27%, the outlook for 2014 is positive.”

UK, London

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Oktogo acquires Travel.ru

September 6, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

logo-oktogoOktogo, the company operating Russia’s major hotel e-commerce business, Oktogo.ru, has acquired Travel.ru, a Russian online travel portal. Founded in 1998, Travel.ru is a well-known brand in Russia, serving  travel content, both editorial and user-generated to Russian travellers. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

travelru“Combined audience of Travel.ru and Oktogo.ru of 3 million unique monthly visitors makes it by far the largest online travel destination serving independent travelers in Russia,” says Marina Kolesnik, co-founder and CEO of Oktogo.ru. “We will further enhance the Oktogo.ru hotel product with unique content from Travel.ru and leverage our hotel product to better serve the loyal audience of Travel.ru. As a result, we will be able to deliver a unique service to customers at different stages of decision making cycle – from those who gather information and search to those who shop and buy travel product.”

Russia, St Petersburg

 

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Zoopla acquires Trinity Mirror property sites

September 5, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

zooplapropertyZoopla Property Group has acquired Trinity Mirror Digital Property Limited (TMDP) from Trinity Mirror for £3.3 million. TMDP owns a portfolio of property websites including SmartNewHomes.co.uk, a new homes portal; HomesOverseas.co.uk, a portal dedicated to overseas property listings; Email4Property.co.uk, an estate agent directory and lead generation website and Zoomf.com.

The stand-alone subsidiary, had revenues of £2.9 million and made an operating profit of £0.5 million for the 52 weeks ended 30 December 2012.

In addition to the acquisition of TMDP, Zoopla Property Group and Trinity Mirror are working on a long term commercial agreement whereby ZPG will power the property search for Trinity Mirror’s national and regional newspaper websites.

Zoopla Property Group is the parent company of two major UK property websites – Zoopla.co.uk and PrimeLocation.com and was formed in October 2012 following the merger of Zoopla Ltd and The Digital Property Group. It is a privately held company whose shareholders include A&N Media (a division of the Daily Mail and General Trust), leading venture capital firms Atlas Venture and Octopus Ventures.

Alex Chesterman, Founder & CEO of Zoopla Property Group said, “The acquisition of TMDP is a great strategic fit for ZPG. It allows us to continue to build our portfolio of niche brands in the digital property space like SmartNewHomes, HomesOverseas and PrimeLocation alongside our core national brand Zoopla. The TMDP portfolio of websites further extends our audience and registered user base for the benefit of our members and we will be investing significantly in each of these niche brands to ensure that we continue to be the most effective marketing partner for each of our members.”

UK, London

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WGSN acquires Mindset Communicaco e Marketing Ltda in Brasil

September 4, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

wgsnWGSN, the global trend forecasting service, has acquired Mindset Communicaco e Marketing Ltda, its marketing partner in the Latin American market.

Mindset is an advisory agency dedicated to research and analysis of future and current consumer behavior. It works with many leading companies in Brazil and brings a loyal subscriber base and great relationships with major retailers, merchandisers and designers across the region. Mindset has been a reseller of WGSN’s trend service subscription for nine years.

This agreement will provide Mindset access to WGSN’s infrastructure, wider global markets and their expertise in technology, content, operations and customer excellence. It will enable WGSN to be even closer to its customers in Latin America and create local content direct for that market. It will also enable other Top Right Group businesses to benefit from Mindset’s expertise in Brazil and across the LATAM region.

Julie Harris, CEO of WGSN and Planet Retail commented: “We are delighted to announce this acquisition, which not only further strengthens WGSNs position in the Latin American market, but is also part of a wider strategic objective to expand our trend, retail and intelligence services in new and developing markets.”

This is the group’s second acquisition this year following the purchase of certain online assets of Mudpie, a provider of fashion trend forecasting with more than 200 customers worldwide.

Top Right Group Latin America is headquartered in Sao Paulo and will shortly move to a new office near Faria Lima.

UK, London & Sao Paulo

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Shutterfly Acquires R&R Images

August 29, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

shutterflyShutterfly has acquired R&R Images, a boutique, high variability printer focused on premium stationery printing and product design. R&R Images is privately-held and located in Phoenix, Arizona. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Jeffrey Housenbold, president and CEO of Shutterfly, said, “As Shutterfly continues to grow, we are making additional strategic investments in our manufacturing footprint focused on providing our customers with innovative, high quality personalized products while efficiently scaling and managing our costs. We are excited to combine R&R Images’ product innovation and expertise in premium, flexible printing with Shutterfly’s manufacturing scale and infrastructure to enhance our capabilities and continue delighting our enterprise clients and consumers.”

USA, Redwood, CA & Phoenix, AZ

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21st Century Fox acquires a $70 million stake in Vice Media

August 19, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

21st Century Fox has bought a $70 million stake in Vice Media. The deal gives Fox a 5% stake in Vice and values the company at $1.4 billion, according to a report  in the Financial Times.

Fox joins other minority shareholders including Raine, the merchant bank connected with WME, global marketing firm WPP and former Viacom honcho Tom Freston.

Vice started out as a Canadian music magazine but its growth in the past five years has been fuelled by online video, particularly its gonzo-style films from world trouble spots. The company had a turnover of $175m in 2012

USA, New York, NY & Brooklyn, NY

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GoDaddy acquires Locu

August 18, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

GoDaddy is to acquire Locu, a San Francisco-based company that helps local merchants “get found” online. Started in 2011 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Locu is used by more than 30,000 businesses, including restaurants, spas, salons, accountants, photographers and home remodeling companies, to promote their services across Locu’s partner network. Locu reaches more than 200 million consumers per month through its partnerships with Yelp, YP.com, Foursquare, TripAdvisor and Facebook. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Locu epitomizes what GoDaddy is all about – both companies are hell-bent on helping the ‘little guy’ thrive on the Internet,” said GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving. “Locu is comprised of amazing technologists who have taken the very complex problem of helping small businesses ‘get found’ wherever consumers are looking and are solving it through elegant, technology-based services. We are welcoming some of the brightest technology minds on the planet to our GoDaddy family.”

The two companies have been working closely together since May when GoDaddy integrated Locu into its easy-to-use Website Builder.

Locu will continue to operate out of its San Francisco and Cambridge, Mass., offices and is actively hiring for both locations. All of Locu’s employees are joining the GoDaddy team.

USA, Scottsdale, AZ & San Francisco, CA

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Future acquires APC and TechLife – from Bauer Media Group in Australia

August 16, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

futureplcFuture plc‘s Australian business has acquired two technology brands – APC and TechLife – from Bauer Media Group.

The acquisition involves the two brands, the subscription lists and all related magazines, digital editions and websites in Australia. The brands will join Future’s existing Australian Technology portfolio, including TechRadar.com.au and T3.com.

Mark Wood, Future’s Chief Executive, said:

“The acquisition of APC and TechLife is the next stage in Future’s strategy of building a global technology content business around TechRadar, our top digital brand, and T3.com. “We are delighted to bring these two high-quality technology titles into Future, adding to our strong positions in the UK and US markets, and we look forward to building on their success and their impressive audience reach to become Australia’s leading technology publisher.”

Australia, Sydney

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Dods acquires public sector publishing titles from Sift Media

August 16, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

Dods (Group) Plc, the UK provider of political and government information and communication services, has acquired public sector publishing titles from Sift Media. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The agreement is for Sift Media’s PublicTechnology.net, PublicTenders.net and BusinessCloud9.com titles and its associated events, UK Public Sector Digital Awards and Business Cloud Summit.

Keith Sadler, CEO of Dods (Group) Plc, said, “We at Dods are delighted by the acquisition of PublicTechnology.net, PublicTenders.net and BusinessCloud9.com from Sift Media Limited. We will add these sites into its existing portfolio of websites and make further investment to improve the user and client experience on these sites.”

UK, London

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Metropolis International acquires a majority shareholding in Websky Limited

August 13, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

Expert-AgentMetropolis International has acquired a majority shareholding in Websky Limited. the terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Websky, founded in 2003, is based in Frome, Somerset with 30 staff. The company provides its cloud based Expert Agent software solution to over 1600 Estate Agents and Lettings Agents throughout the United Kingdom. Over 15% of all properties sold and rented in the UK in 2012 were processed through Expert Agent.

Michael Griffiths, who stays on as MD of Websky, said: “This deal gives us chance to expand the product and provide an even better service to existing customers but particularly to the many estate agents that don’t yet benefit from our technology.”

Robert Marr, CEO of Metropolis said: “Expert Agent offers its users a market leading, low-cost and effective solution to manage their workload. I am delighted to invest in such a well-managed company looking to move on to the next stage of its development with Metropolis.”

UK, London & Somerset, Frome

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