31st Jul 2014 10:28
LONDON (Alliance News) - Centaur Media PLC Thursday maintained its expectations for 2014, and said its prospects for 2015 are encouraging, as it swung to a pretax profit in the half-year to the end of June, benefiting from the sale of a subsidiary and lower exceptional costs.
Also on Thursday, the company announced that Chairman Patrick Taylor will retire by its next annual general meeting once a suitable replacement has been secured. Taylor has been chairman since 2009, after joining the board as a non-executive director in 2004.
The media group proposed an interim dividend of 1.7 pence, up from 1.575 pence in the previous year.
The company posted a pretax profit of GBP13.8 million, up from a pretax loss of GBP32.4 million, despite seeing revenue decline slightly to GBP40.8 million from GBP41.6 million, as exceptional costs of GBP40.3 million did not recur, and it posted a GBP14.9 million profit from the sale of a subsidiary.
In the previous year, the company posted an impairment of goodwill of GBP39.2 million,
Centaur sold its Perfect Information business in June, as part of the transformation of its company to focus on four core markets.
Print advertising revenues continued to decline, although the company said they now accounted for just 15% of its revenues, compared to 18% in the previous year.
Additionally, live events revenue fell 3%, due to weakness in its Human Resources portfolio, and the National Home Building & Renovating Show, and the re-phasing of some events into the second-half of 2014.
Digital paid-for content revenues rose 11%, driven by its marketing portfolio.
"There is more work to do, but we are already seeing the benefits of the new strategy both in operational performance and financial outlook," said Chief Executive Andria Vidler in a statement.
Shares in Centaur Media were trading down 0.2% at 57.38 pence Thursday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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