David Levin (pictured), Chief Executive Officer of United Business Media Limited said: “UBM produced a disciplined and resilient performance in 2009. We continued to make progress both strategically and operationally in all of our divisions. We have reshaped our businesses towards market opportunities that provide sustainable growth revenue streams and we are increasingly well positioned to take advantage of global economic recovery. The Board has declared a second interim dividend of 18.2p, bringing the full year dividend to 24.2p, a 1.7% increase on 2008 (2008 - 23.8p).”
“Our Events business traded well in 2009, contributing more than half our adjusted operating profits and demonstrating the growing importance of market-leading face to face events in the digital age. Our large tradeshows fared particularly well with our top 20 annual events – which contribute around half of our events revenue and over two thirds of our events adjusted operating profits – growing nearly 12%. As expected our second half biennial shows in Asia and Europe were notably strong.”
“The performance across our Data, Services & Online business was satisfactory with margins improving by 2.5 percentage points. In Targeting, Monitoring & Distribution we maintained our share of US news distribution market and held our margins while market volumes shrank 3.1%. We continue to grow our multimedia news release business and to broaden our product portfolio to address the opportunities offered by the web as well as expanding our international operations.”
“We continued to progress UBM’s strategic development. Our long term strategy to build our business in emerging economies is proving successful, with China, India and Brazil now contributing over 20% of UBM’s adjusted operating profits and nearly 14% of our revenues, representing revenue and adjusted operating profit growth of more than 35%. Our revenues from the rest of Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa and Middle East amounted to a further £41.0m, up 17.1% on 2008. These territories contributed 4.5% of UBM’s adjusted operating profits in 2009 (2008 - 3%).”
“We are pleased to have resolved our decade-long dialogue with the UK tax authorities over the tax payable on the sale of our Regional Newspapers business in 1998. We have agreed to make a payment of £46.5m in settlement of this and a number of other tax issues. This, together with the resolution of a number of other tax matters, has resulted in a release of £135.2m of our previous tax creditor.”
“We go into 2010 with our strategy clearly defined and with the operational and financial resources in place to implement that strategy. Despite the tentative and uneven economic recovery we see across our markets, we believe we are very well positioned for profitable growth in the medium term.”
