30th Jul 2015 09:13
LONDON (Alliance News) - Centaur Media PLC on Thursday said it expects to meet market expectations for 2015, as it posted a sharp decline in pretax profit for its first half.
According to broker forecasts provided by Morningstar, N+1 Singer expects the content and events company to report a full-year 2015 pretax profit of GBP8.8 million, Numis expects a pretax profit of GBP10.1 million, and Peel Hunt a pretax profit of GBP9.3 million.
For the half year to end-June the company reported a pretax profit of GBP4.2 million, down from GBP13.8 million a year before, as revenue fell to GBP36.8 million from GBP40.8 million. In the previous year, the company saw a GBP14.9 million profit on the sale of a subsidiary, although this was partly offset by exceptional costs of GBP5.2 million.
The company attributed the fall in revenue to the sale of its Perfect Information Ltd business last year, event phasing and rationalisation. Adjusting for these factors, revenues rose 3%.
This mostly hit the company's paid-for content segment. On an underlying basis, revenue in this segment rose 11%, boosted by growth in the company's digital subscription profits. Stripping out the phasing of events and rationalisation of the portfolio, live events revenue rose 2%, as strong performances by its larger events offset weaker revenue in smaller events.
Total advertising revenues fell 1%, improved from the 9% decline in reported in 2014.
Centaur proposed an interim dividend of 1.5 pence, down from 1.7 pence a year before, but in line with its decision to re-balance its interim and final dividend payments on a more equal basis. Centaur noted it has adopted a progressive dividend policy.
"Momentum in digital paid-for content revenues remains strong, our exhibitions have performed well with encouraging forward bookings, and advertising revenues have stabilised. While it is still early in the booking cycle for live events running later this year, we are looking forward to the second half of 2015 with confidence," said Chief Executive Andria Vidler in a statement.
Shares in Centaur are trading down 5.2% at 77.00 pence Thursday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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