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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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A Fusion Deal: Law Business Research sold to Bowmark Capital

February 11, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

lbrFusion Corporate Partners are pleased to announce the sale of specialist legal publisher Law Business Research to Bowmark Capital, the mid-market private equity firm. Bowmark Capital invested alongside the company’s founders, Richard Davey, Callum Campbell and Sebastian O’Meara. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Fusion team was led by Paul Slight.

Established in 1996, Law Business Research (“LBR”) publishes research, data and analysis on international business law and legal markets.  The company produces leading publications in fields such as international anti-trust law, arbitration law and Latin American law, and prides itself on creating essential and unique information for its subscribers in over 100 jurisdictions.

LBR today employs over 100 people in the UK, US and Brazil.  Its portfolio of products spans news publications, know-how guides, legal rankings and events, and includes titles such as “Global Competition Review”, “Global Arbitration Review”, “Getting The Deal Through” and “Latin Lawyer”.  The company serves all the world’s leading law firms and counts a large number of major corporations and regulators among its clients.

The international legal market has grown significantly in recent years, driven by globalisation and the growth in cross-border trade, and this has fuelled the demand for increasingly sophisticated and timely information from the legal profession.  With the backing of private equity, LBR is now seeking to further capitalise on this growth, by expanding both its sector and geographic coverage.

Richard Davey, LBR’s managing director, commented:  “We have ambitious plans to continue developing our business, and to further extend the depth and breadth of our services – while continuing to provide the highest quality content to our subscribers worldwide.  In Bowmark, we have found a supportive and experienced financial partner to help us achieve these goals.”

Bowmark partner, Julian Masters, said:  “LBR is a unique business in a growing market, with an outstanding reputation based on the quality of its content.  We are delighted to be backing Richard Davey and his team in the next stage of the company’s growth.”

UK, London

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A Fusion Deal: Wilmington Group acquires NHiS

February 11, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

nhis_logo_greyFusion Corporate Partners are pleased to announce the acquisition of NHiS Limited by Wilmington Group plc. Fusion acted exclusively for the shareholders of NHiS Limited. The Fusion team responsible for the transaction were led by Mark Eisenstadt.

Wilmington Group will pay an initial cash consideration of £5.6m and a further deferred consideration of up to £3.75m subject to the Business achieving targets for the growth in underlying profit. 

The deferred consideration will be satisfied by issuing of up to 1.5m new Wilmington Group plc shares in October 2016 dependent interwilmington-logo alia upon NHiS’s audited future earnings for the years ended 30th June 2015 and 30th June 2016. The Business was acquired with cash of £0.6m and the initial consideration will be financed out of the Group’s existing £65m debt facility.

The existing executive management team led by Nick Merryfield, the founding Managing Director, and Paul Midgley will remain with the business and they, along with five other individuals, comprise the vendors of the Business.

Nick Merryfield, talking about the process said, “I must thank Fusion for orchestrating the sale process professionally and with great skill. As a leading provider of business intelligence, data analysis, workflow tools and other services to pharmaceutical companies in the UK we wanted to work with an M&A house that understood our business and the marketplace. Mark was our point man and was key in engineering a successful outcome.”

 

NHiS has been in operation since 2007 and is a leading provider of business intelligence, data analysis, workflow tools and other services to pharmaceutical companies in the UK. Around 40% of its revenue is derived from subscriptions and the business has enjoyed high overall renewal rates as defined by customer spend in excess of 90%. Over 75% of NHiS revenue is delivered digitally.

The Business will form part of the Wilmington Healthcare Division and will work closely with the highly complementary Binley’s Healthcare Information business.

NHiS’s last annual results to March 2012, showed revenue of £1.8m, up 45% from the prior year and profits before tax and nonrecurring costs of £0.8m. The Business has seen a strong start to the year and turnover for the first nine months increased by 20%. Deferred income as 31st December 2012 was up 50% on 31st December 2011. Gross Assets at 31st March 2012 were £1.6m. 

Charlie Brady, Chief Executive of Wilmington Group, said;

“NHiS is an innovative business that has built up a major business intelligence and technology capability in a complementary area where our own Binleys Healthcare Information continues to see good growth potential. The Business will benefit from being part of a larger group with the infrastructure and resources of Binleys. We are particularly pleased that the existing highly experienced management team are joining the Wilmington Group and look forward to working with them as they continue to develop NHiS”. 

UK, London & Nottingham

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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

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Daily Mail & General Trust PLC – Interim Management Statement to 30/12/12

February 6, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

DMGTDMGT has published its Interim Management Statement for the first quarter of their financial year, the three month period to 30th December, 2012.

It describes the Group’s financial position and performance during the period, updated to the latest practicable date.

Headlines

Trading in line with expectations; outlook for the year unchanged:

  • Revenue for the first quarter of £503 million, underlying# growth of 3% on last year
  • Continued good underlying# growth of 8% from the B2B businesses
  • Underlying# revenue decline of 4% at Associated Newspapers (now dmg media); improved profit margin driven by cost efficiencies
  • Further B2B bolt-on acquisitions
  • Disposal of Northcliffe Media effective 30th December, 2012
  • Commencement of share buy back programme
  • Outlook for the year unchanged

UBMDec12

Acquisitions

The principal acquisitions in the quarter were FirstSearch Environmental Information Network (FEIN), a £21 million bolt-on purchase by dmg information’s US propertyI nformation business, Environmental Data Resources (EDR) and the £5 million acquisition by Euromoney of an 87% stake in TTI/ Vanguard.

  • FEIN provides environmental professionals across the US with products that allow them to assess environmental contamination risks in respect of commercial real estate. The acquisition brings opportunities to upsell FEIN’s customers to EDR’s broader portfolio of products, improve EDR’s product offering and deliver cost synergies.
  • TTI/Vanguard is a private membership organisation for senior executives who lead technology innovation in global organisations. Enterprises subscribe to TTI/Vanguard’s conference series to explore the potential effects of emerging and potentially disruptive technologies. Euromoney has a successful record of acquiring events businesses and accelerating their growth globally and TTI/Vanguard is an expansion for Euromoney into the high-technology content sector.

Other acquisition payments in the quarter included £5 million for the remaining stake in RMS Japan; £2 million for Beat the GMAT, a bolt-on acquisition for Hobsons; £1 million for Renaissance, a bolt-on acquisition for Landmark, and earn-out payments in respect of historic acquisitions.

Disposals

Following dmg media’s November 2012 disposal of its central and eastern European digital consumer jobs and motors businesses, the remaining Hungarian print business, Lapcom, was sold in January 2013, completing dmg media’s exit from the region. In the year to September 2012, the disposed businesses contributed £4 million of profit before tax and £27 million of revenues. Disposal proceeds in the first quarter were £27 million and a further £62 million was received in January 2013 in respect of the disposals of Lapcom and Northcliffe Media.

Read the full announcement here

# See the full announcement for the definition of “underlying”

UK, London

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