According to Future plc:
Financial highlights
* Group revenue £59.0m (2015: £59.8m) – reflecting growing new revenue streams and continued tight management of print
o Media division revenue up 14% to £23.9m (2015: £20.9m ), 41% of overall revenue:
* e-commerce revenues increased 187% year-on-year
* five new events hosted this year in part driving the growth
o Magazine revenue £35.1m (2015: £38.9m), reflecting market’s structural decline
o Recurring revenue streams now representing 25% (2015: 22%) of total revenue
* EBITDAE* increased 31% to £4.7m (2015: £3.6m) reflecting changes in revenue mix and margin improvements
* Operating profit, pre-exceptional items, up 188% to £2.3m (2015: £0.8m) reflecting operational gearing
* Operating cash inflow of £6.5m (2015: outflow of £2.3m)
Operational highlights
* Data-led content strategy supports move to diverse revenue business
* Media division:
o Strong revenue growth in core global brands – techradar.com up 49% and PC Gamer up 43%
o Record online audience – 53 million online users in November 2015
* Media Services division created in October 2016 to focus on high margin licensing, franchising and content publishing businesses
* Magazine division focusing on market-leading specialist content, brand led, delivering efficient operations and continual innovation
* Imagine Publishing acquisition, completed in October 2016, substantially increases scale and brings operational and financial synergies
Zillah Byng-Thorne, Future’s Chief Executive, said: “Our strategy to create a leading global specialist media platform with data at its heart, monetised through diversified revenue streams, has delivered extremely positive results with Media division revenue growth of 14% year-on-year. We are also benefiting from the Group’s operational leverage.
“We focus on content that connects with our substantial and growing audience base and monetise their needs through increasingly diversified revenue streams, which include ecommerce, event sponsorship, digital advertising, licensing, content publishing, subscriptions, newstrade sales and event ticketing.
“We are also taking advantage of the fragmented print market and have substantially increased our scale and sector coverage with a number of acquisitions – most notably Imagine Publishing in October 2016. Imagine transforms the scale of the business and brings significant operational synergies and cash generation opportunities.”
* Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation, impairment of intangible assets and exceptional items.
