David Levin (pictured), Chief Executive Officer of UBM said:
“UBM has delivered a solid performance in the first half of the year, achieving a 6% improvement in operating profit on revenues unchanged on last year’s first half. The progressive reshaping of UBM over the last five years has built a resilient business which is on track to meet our expectations for 2010 and is increasingly well placed for profitable growth. While we see evidence of improved trading conditions in many of the markets and geographies in which we operate, we remain cautious regarding the pace, depth and sustainability of the wider macro-economic recovery.”
“We have continued to invest in our people and in key organic business developments, such as taking our successful event brands into new, fast-growing economies and transitioning our leading print and data products into the digital environment. We are also developing the products and IT infrastructure to enable our Targeting, Distribution & Monitoring business to offer a broader set of web-based communications service solutions. We also drive UBM’s evolution with targeted acquisitions, focusing on events and data businesses operating in high growth sectors and economies. During the first half we made 12 acquisitions for a total of £43.5m (including performance-based contingent consideration of £20.2m), investing £28.2m in tradeshows and £27.2m in emerging markets. China now contributes more than 16% of our profit (H1 2009 - 14.2%) and we have today announced the acquisition of the Hangzhou-based Children-Baby- Maternity Expo for £9.9m (see separate announcement), further leveraging our business infrastructure in China. We aim to make further acquisitions in line with our established strategy through the second half of the year.”
“Our Events business is performing well, particularly our shows in Asia and our large tradeshows worldwide. Attendee revenues, notably at our US technology tradeshows, recovered well during the first half of the year and the outlook for tradeshows is improving. Forward bookings for exhibition stand space at our top 20 tradeshows scheduled to run in the next 12 months are 17% ahead of the same point last year although this figure is 12% when adjusted for differences in booking cycle phasing between 2009 and 2010. We believe this latter figure is a more accurate reflection of our forward bookings.”
“The positive overall revenue and profit result from our Data, Services and Online segment masks contrasting performances in the business’s Online and Data & Services components. Strong website advertising sales drove Online revenues 15.3% higher while, by contrast, Data & Services revenues fell by 1.2%, reflecting late cycle effects on subscriptions and softer demand for some services.”
“In the first half we launched one new print title and closed four others. In line with our established strategy, we continue to take advantage of opportunities for print products in fast-growing economies and sectors, while also managing our print magazine portfolio towards a smaller, more profitable and commercially sustainable set of leading titles. We anticipate that each of our titles will become a component of an integrated, cross-media product portfolio which serves a specific commercial or professional community.”
“Targeting, Distribution & Monitoring’s US news distribution volumes and revenues grew modestly during the first half while international revenues and revenues generated from non-wire products and services such as filing services and MultiVu grew strongly. The on-going investment in IT infrastructure and in developing a wider set of web-based communications products and services will continue to constrain margins.”
“Assuming the improvement in wider economic conditions is sustained, we anticipate our solid first half performance will continue, allowing UBM to deliver full year results in line with our expectations.”
