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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BSkyB to acquire Sky Italia and a 57.4% stake in Sky Deutschland

July 28, 2014 — Fusion DigiNet

sky summer_logoBSkyB is to acquire 21st Century Fox’s 100% stake in Sky Italia and its 57.4% interest in Sky Deutschland.

The total consideration for the acquisition of Sky Italia is £2.45 billion with approximately £2.07 billion to be paid in cash and the balance to be satisfied through the transfer of BSkyB’s 21% stake in National Geographic Channel International to 21st Century Fox at a value of £382 million.

The acquisition of 21st Century Fox’s shareholding in Sky Deutschland is for a consideration of £2.9 billion in cash, valuing Sky Deutschland at €6.75 per share.

The transactions are subject to regulatory and independent shareholder approval.

Jeremy Darroch, BSkyB’s Chief Executive, said: “This transaction will create a world-class, multinational pay TV business with enhanced headroom for growth and immediate benefits of scale. The three Sky businesses are leaders in their home markets and will be even stronger together. By creating the new Sky, we will be able to use our collective strengths and expertise to serve customers better, grow faster and enhance returns.”

The acquisitions will take BSkyB from 11.5 million customers to 20 million. On an aggregated basis, group revenues will increase from £7.6 billion for the standalone BSkyB to £11.2 billion.

21CFFollowing the agreement to acquire 21st Century Fox’s 57.4% stake in Sky Deutschland, BSkyB has announced that it will launch a voluntary cash offer to Sky Deutschland’s minority shareholders at €6.75 per share. There is no minimum acceptance condition as BSkyB believes it can realise the advantages of closer collaboration with Sky Deutschland and support its continued growth and development with the 57.4% stake it is acquiring through this transaction.

Subject to the number of Sky Deutschland minority shareholders that accept the offer, the total cash consideration overall may be up to approximately £7.0 billion.

The consideration will be funded in part by the proceeds of a placing of 156.1 million new Ordinary Shares representing approximately 9.99% of the issued share capital of BSkyB. 21st Century Fox has irrevocably undertaken to participate in the placing pro rata in order to maintain its holding in BSkyB at the current level of 39.14%. The remaining consideration will come from a combination of new debt facilities and cash resources.

In addition to the enhanced growth profile of the enlarged group, BSkyB expects to be able to realise £200 million of run-rate cash synergies by the end of the second full financial year after completion, with further additional synergies expected in subsequent periods. The significant majority of synergies are expected to arise from the UK and Italy being the two businesses with larger and more similar direct to home operations. Other than the acquisition of acquired programming rights, cost savings are expected across most areas of the business including the production of live events, commissioning, back office IT systems, rationalisation of suppliers and, over time, in product and set top box development. Management’s current estimate is that the costs to achieve these synergies will be around £150 million.

 UK & Germany & Italy

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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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Kantar invests in automated market research business ZappiStore

July 24, 2014 — Fusion DigiNet

KantarKantar, WPP’s wholly-owned data investment management business, has invested in ZappiStore Limited, an automated market research, based in London. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Launched in 2013, ZappiStore offers software applications which provide automated data collection and analytics through a self-service platform.

The company currently operates in nine countries with plans to expand into 11 additional markets in the near future. ZappiStore’s clients include five of the top 10 global consumer goods companies.

UK, London

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