Future publishes full year financial results

As reported by Future plc:

• Revenue was down (6)% year-on-year at £739.2m (FY 2024: £788.2m), with (3)% organic decline combined with adverse foreign exchange and previously announced business closures.
• Adjusted Operating Profit margin maintained at 28% (FY 2024: 28%) balancing cost focus and investment.
• Adjusted diluted EPS only down (1)% supported by the execution of share buyback programmes. 
• Strong balance sheet with £276.4m net debt (FY 2024: £256.5m) and leverage at 1.3x (FY 2024: 1.1x) reflecting £99.5m returned to shareholders during the year. 
• Further returns to shareholders with 5x increase to the dividend to 17.0p and new £30.0m share buyback programme announced today.

Kevin Li Ying, Future's chief executive, said: “I am pleased to report a resilient performance in line with expectations, delivered against a challenging macroeconomic environment. Our results are underpinned by the strong financial characteristics our business is known for, which enable us to announce a significant increase in our dividend by 5x and to launch a new £30m share buyback programme.

“As a data-first platform that monetises high audience engagement powered by technology and enabled by our trusted specialist brands with authority. We are focused on building the business of tomorrow by delivering strategic initiatives designed to drive growth in what is a dynamic media environment.

“In the last few months we have launched a series of initiatives, with encouraging early performance. These span areas including monetisation through content creators, an evolution of our ecommerce proposition, and driving even more direct engagement with audiences.

“In the age of AI, our trusted, authoritative and specialist brand content is highly visible for audiences across Large Language Models, and we have already started monetising our presence in this area. The opportunity is significant.

“Based on my over twenty years’ experience at Future, I am more confident than ever in the inherent value of our platform and proposition, and we are focused on unlocking long-term value for our shareholders.”

As reported at the HY 2025 results, the Group is now using the following segments to review the performance of the Group: B2C, Go.Compare and B2B.

• Revenue was down (6)% year-on-year at £739.2m (FY 2024: £788.2m), with (3)% organic decline combined with adverse foreign exchange and previously announced business closures. Across the divisions:
• B2C - the Group’s largest division - organic revenue decline of (2)% for the year. Revenue performance in Magazines was excellent with flat revenue year-on-year in a declining market. This was offset by (4)% decline in Media which continued to be impacted by macroeconomic uncertainty.
• Go.Compare revenue declined (5)%, reflecting the anticipated decline in car quote volumes given the heightened activity in FY 2024. We continue to make good progress diversifying revenue sources, with non-car revenue now representing 39% of revenue, +3ppt year-on-year. 
• B2B revenue continues to be challenging with a (9)% organic decline. The decline was driven by tech enterprise, while other verticals such as financial services and infrastructure verticals saw growth. The B2B team has been focused on driving an improvement in performance and we saw an encouraging reduction in the rate of decline in the last quarter.
• Adjusted operating profit margin was in line with last year at 28%. Our focus on costs and investments offset the reduction of revenue and the impact of inflation. This resulted in an adjusted operating profit decline of (8)% to £205.4m (FY 2024: £222.2m). Statutory operating profit was down (9)% to £121.9m (FY 2024: £133.7m), reflecting adjusted operating profit movement net of adjusting items. 
• Adjusted diluted EPS was marginally lower, (1)%, than the prior year. The positive benefit of the share buy-back programmes offsetting the majority of the fall in adjusted operating profit. 
• The Group remains highly cash generative with adjusted free cash flow of £177.0m (FY 2024: £222.3m), representing 86% of adjusted operating profit (FY 2024: 100%). Excluding one-off tax payments, prior year bonus payment, conversion would have been +10ppt higher at 96%. Cash generated from operations was £188.3m (FY 2024: £230.0m)
• Optimising our portfolio - ensuring we have the right portfolio of assets is a continuous process. 
• We acquired RNWL in March 2025 for a £2.8m initial consideration. RNWL will help us to build a more loyal, repeatable audience for Go.Compare (see note 21).
• We acquired Kwizly in May 2025 for £0.6m initial consideration which provides audience engagement tools (see note 21). 
• During the year, we closed certain brands to focus the portfolio for growth. 
• £99.5m returned to shareholders during the period comprising £95.8m through share buybacks (FY 2024: £67.0m) and dividends of £3.7m (FY 2024: £3.9m). On 1 October 2025, there was just under £30.0m remaining on the £55m share buyback programme. We’ve announced today a new additional share buyback programme of up to £30.0m and a 5x increase in the dividend to 17.0p.
• Leverage was slightly higher at 1.3x (FY 2024: 1.1x) with net debt at the end of the year of £276.4m (FY 2024: £256.5m). Excluding one-off tax payments and prior year bonus payment, leverage would have been at 1.2x. Total available debt facilities at the end of September 2025 were £600.0m (FY 2024: £650.0m).

• The Group is expecting modest organic revenue growth in FY 2026, in line with current consensus. 
• The Group continues to expect to deliver a stable adjusted EBITDA margin of around 30% supported by a more efficient operating model.
• Performance will be second half weighted as the strategic initiatives and operating model changes will deliver in the second half of the year.
• The Group expects an improvement in cash conversion to ~95%.
• In the medium term, we expect sustainable revenue growth of 2-4%.

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