Future plc interim management statement for the period from 1 October 2012 to date

February 4, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

Future plc, the international media group and leading digital publisher, has announced its Interim Management Statement for the period from 1 October 2012 to date, incorporating the Group’s first quarter for the three months ended 31 December 2012.

futureplc

Announcement

Trading Performance (Normalised*)

·      Digital revenues up 24%

·      Group revenues down 3% (UK down 1%)

·      US continues on track for EBITDA** profitability in 2013

Normalised revenues in the first quarter were down 3%, driven mainly by the continuing managed decline of print activities in the US. The UK-based business performed solidly with normalised revenues down 1% year-on-year.

In the first quarter, digital revenues grew 24% year-on-year and now represent 23% of normalised revenues, compared with 18% for the first quarter of FY12. Digital advertising has grown to represent 54% of total advertising revenues, up from 45% a year ago. Normalised digital circulation revenues on iPads and other tablets have averaged quarterly growth of 16% over the last year, and we now have over 40 of our brands on Google Play’s new Magazine Shop, which launched in December.

In the US, digital advertising now represents 74% of total advertising revenues (from 64% a year ago), reflecting the faster acceleration from print to digital platforms. First quarter losses in the US were lower than in FY12, as planned, and we maintain our expectation of EBITDA profitability in the US business in FY13.

Active Portfolio Management

Our active portfolio management has continued with the closure of certain print brands (PSM3 and Xbox World in the UK, and Nintendo Power and PlayStation – The Official Magazine in the US), and the launch of new digital brands (Gathered by Mollie Makes, tech., Photography Week and Football Week) as well as a new print title, Simply Crochet, which was launched on 10 January 2013. We will continue to manage the portfolio as the transition from print to digital progresses.

Financial Position

Net debt at 31 December 2012 was £16.8m, a reduction of 6% year-on-year, as expected. We expect to announce a new credit facility within the first half of the current financial year.

Outlook

We expect trading for the full year to be in line with our expectations. Print revenues remain challenging but we expect digital revenues to maintain a steady growth rate.

Mark Wood, Future’s Chief Executive, said: “We are pleased to have achieved steady growth in our digital revenues in the first quarter. We will continue to focus on generating new revenues from our large, global online audience of 50 million unique users. We now sell digital editions on all the major tablet platforms and, through content partnerships, we are able to enter new markets, as most recently demonstrated by our move into English Premier League Football with Football Week.”

UK, London

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Twitter acquires Crashlytics

January 30, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

Crashlytics_Twitter_AcquisitionTwitter has acquired Crashlytics according to a report by TechCrunch. Crashlytics is a crash reporting solution for mobile app producers. The apps currently using the service are Twitter, Vine, Yelp, Kayak, TaskRabbit, Walmart, Groupon and Waze. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Jeff Seibert and Wayne Chang, co-founders of Crashlytics, through the Crashlytics blog said:

With today’s announcement, much will remain the same. Development of Crashlytics will continue unabated and we remain dedicated to working with all of our customers – current and new, big and small – to deliver the key app performance insights they need.

Going forward, we’re thrilled to work with the incredible team at Twitter. We share a passion for innovating on mobile and building world-class applications. Joining forces will accelerate our build-out, allowing us to leverage Twitter’s infrastructure to deliver new features faster than ever.

On a more personal note, it’s an honor to work with the entire Crashlytics team – the best group we’ve ever been a part of – and we couldn’t be more excited to continue doing so.

USA, San Francisco

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Wargaming acquires Day 1 Studios for $20 million

January 30, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

wargamingWargaming, the free-to-play massively multiplayer online  developer has acquired Chicago-based Day 1 Studios for $20 million. Following the acquisition, the newly formed studio will focus exclusively on the development of an unannounced console title.

The acquisition is a key milestone for Wargaming’s strategy of expanding into compelling console-focused gaming experiences, and further reinforces the company’s goal of multiplatform game development. In 2012, Wargaming acquired Australia-based Big World Party Ltd., which provided the company with streamlined development and server middleware tools.

“The move into console game development is a huge step for Wargaming, as we begin to expand our presence into new platforms,” said Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming. “We are looking forward to sharing the fruits of our labor soon.”

USA, Emeryville, CA & Chicago, IL

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Delivery Hero acquires hungryhouse.co.uk

January 30, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

delivery heroFood take away directory business Delivery Hero has acquired hungryhouse.co.uk. The acquisition was initiated in March 2012, and since then the UK site tripled the size of its business.

Delivery Hero headquarters are in Berlin.. The business is backed by Ru-Net, Kite Ventures, Tengelmann Ventures, Holtzbrinck Ventures, Point Nine Capital and Team Europe. In the first 24 months, we raised more than $100 M

The acquisition was made as a share swap, with hungryhouse founders deciding to stay involved. “We believe there is still a lot of hungryhouse.co.uk Logogrowth potential left in this business, and so we re-invested 98% of the purchase price of our shares into Delivery Hero,” says hungryhouse Co-Founder Tony Charles . “We had always planned to make an exit, but the opportunity to continue the Delivery Hero success story was too much fun to turn down!”

Charles will be taking a leading role over product innovation, an area the company will be heavily focusing on in the year ahead.

Delivery Hero also recently acquired another player in the UK market, EatitNow.co.uk, and from January 24th 2013, hungryhouse took over all their orders.

Germany, Berlin & UK, London

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OpenTable acquires Foodspotting app

January 29, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

OPENTABLE, INC. LOGOOpenTable, the online restaurant company, is to acquire Foodspotting, an app for finding and sharing dishes at restaurants, for approximately $10 million in cash pursuant to a stock purchase agreement.

Matt Roberts , Chief Executive Officer of OpenTable, said, “The Foodspotting team is as passionate about dining as we are, and we’re looking forward to leveraging their unique expertise in the areas of imagery and social sharing to enrich the OpenTable experience for diners and restaurants in new and exciting ways. By adding more visually compelling content to help people decide where to dine and discover dishes they’ll love, we hope to make it even easier to find the perfect table for any occasion.”

USA, San Francisco, CA

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SEGA acquires THQ Canada

January 25, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

segaSEGA Corporation has acquired THQ Canada. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

THQ Canada has developed million-seller franchise titles such as “Warhammer 40k Dawn of War” and “Company of Heroes” under the brand of Relic Entertainment Studio.thq

Relic Entertainment was established in 1997 and acquired by THQ Canada in 2004. THQ Canada have been known familiarly as Relic Entertainment since the acquisition.

“We are thrilled to have Relic Entertainment join the SEGA family. The acquisition is a strategic fit and a critical step in growing our business,” John Cheng, President and CFO, SEGA of America said. “They are a well-respected studio with a reputation for making creative and innovative games and we look forward to seeing what great things we can create together over the coming years.”

Japan, Tokyo & Canada, Vancouver

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Linden Lab acquires Blocksworld

January 24, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

blocksworldLinden Lab, the makers of Second Life and Patterns, has acquired the iPad game Blocksworld.

Blocksworld is an iPad game in which players use cubes, wedges, rockets, wheels, motors and more to easily create 3D models of anything they can imagine – from race cars to animals to robots and more. These models come alive with realistic physics simulation, and users can play, interact with, or even explode their creations. Blocksworld allows users to share their creations with others to explore, play with, and remix to make them their own.

“Blocksworld is a great fit with what we do at Linden Lab,” said Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab. “It’s a very user-friendly complement to our portfolio of shared creative spaces. We’re happy to have the Blocksworld team join Linden Lab and are looking forward to bringing Blocksworld to the App Store worldwide soon!”

USA, San Francisco, CA

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Infusionsoft acquires social media marketing company GroSocial

January 24, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

infusion-logoInfusionsoft has acquired social media marketing software company GroSocial. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

GroSocial’s web-based software allows small businesses to easily build and track social media marketing campaigns that generate leads across popular social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. Earlier this month, Infusionsoft announced $54 million in growth capital financing led by Goldman Sachs.

“As we considered an acquisition in the social media marketing space we were looking for three key factors,” says Hal Halladay, Infusionsoft SVP of corporate development. “We wanted an affordable but powerful product that made social media lead generation simple for true small businesses and that could easily integrate with our software. We wanted a team that could bring to Infusionsoft grosocialdeep knowledge and expertise in social media marketing. Finally, we wanted a company that shared our passion to help small businesses succeed. GroSocial was the undisputed leader in all three areas. I don’t know if we could have found a better strategic and cultural fit than the GroSocial team.”

Founded in 2010 by Zach Mangum, Kevin Kirkland and Chris Wright, GroSocial currently has more than 30,000 users. The 19-person GroSocial team will join Infusionsoft and push the company’s total employee count to 370, but will continue to operate as a dedicated product team in Utah. Mangum will continue to lead the Utah operation and will oversee, with Kirkland, the social product strategy for GroSocial.

This is Infusionsoft’s second acquisition. In Nov. 2011, Infusionsoft acquired CustomerHub, an online membership site and customer portal tool.

Today, there are more than 12,000 small businesses that use Infusionsoft to attract and capture leads, nurture and convert prospects automatically, grow sales and referrals, and save time.

USA, Chandler, AZ & Orem, Utah

 

 

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Guardian owner calls off talks over Trader Media

January 24, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

guardian-media-group-logoThe Financial Times is reporting that Guardian Media Group has ended talks with with Apax and other private equity investors over the sale of its 50.1% share of Trader Media Group.

The FT, quoting two people with knowledge of the offer, said that the valuation of £1.2bn including net debt of £600m, was significantly less than GMG had hoped for.

Read the full FT story here

UK, London

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McGraw-Hill Education to acquire a 20 percent equity stake in Area9 Aps

January 24, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

McgrawhilleducationMcGraw-Hill Education is to acquire a 20 percent equity stake in Area9 Aps, the Denmark-based adaptive learning company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

McGraw-Hill Education’s equity investment in Area9 marks the culmination of a longstanding relationship between the two companies. Since 2007, McGraw-Hill Education and Area9 have worked together to develop products that deliver personalised learning experiences by using adaptive technology to continually assess students’ knowledge and skill levels and design study paths that bolster students’ understanding in the areas where they need to improve the most. By allowing students to focus their outside-of-class study time on the area-9topics and concepts that are most challenging to them, McGraw-Hill Education’s adaptive solutions have been shown to help students study more efficiently, develop greater proficiency and earn better grades. As part of the agreement, McGraw-Hill Education and Area9 will work together to develop new adaptive learning products, both within and outside the higher education market.

“At McGraw-Hill Education, we have a passion for teaching and learning, and we believe that delivering personalized experiences through adaptive technology is a key ingredient to teaching and learning success,” said Brian Kibby, president of McGraw-Hill Higher Education. “Through our investment in Area9, we’re working to create more deeply integrated teaching and learning experiences that we  see as a central element in the future of education.”

Founded in 2006 by Dr. Ulrik Juul Christensen, Area9 develops technologies that fix the gaps in helping people learn with the goal of finding a better way of delivering training and education. Area9’s roots trace back to the early 1990s, when at the Danish Institute for Medical Simulation Dr.Christensen began to see how adaptive technology could improve the inefficiencies in medical training. Through years of research and development, Dr. Christensen and Area9 realized that adaptive technologies could be developed to make learning more effective and efficient for students everywhere.

USA, New York, NY & Denmark, Copenhagen

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