14th May 2015 07:28
LONDON (Alliance News) - Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC Thursday warned that challenging trading conditions are likely to continue for the forseeable future, although it expects a boost from the strength of the dollar, as one-off gains from asset sales helped lift its pretax profit for the first half of its financial year.
Euromoney Institutional Investor posted a pretax profit of GBP93.3 million in the six months to end-March, up from GBP42.8 million a year before, boosted by a GBP55.1 million gain from the sale of its interests in Capital DATA and Capital NET, and as revenue rose to GBP197.69 billion from GBP195.80 billion.
Stripping out the exceptional gain pretax profit was flat at GBP53.4 million, ahead of the GBP46 million it had guided in March, as a result of revising the estimated cost of its long-term incentive plan.
Euromoney said it got a boost from the recent rise in the US dollar, improving headline revenue growth rates by around 3%, and pretax profit by nearly GBP3 million.
The publishing, events and information company proposed an interim dividend of 7.00 pence, maintained from the previous year.
The company said the growth in subscription revenue it saw in its first quarter continued into the second, but the performance of advertising deteriorated. Excluding timing differences, event revenue performed better in the second quarter, boosted by growth from large annual events in the wholesale telecoms and specialist finance market.
Euromoney said that trading conditions had remained challenging throughout the first half, particularly in investment banking which accounts for around half of its revenue. However, its businesses servicing the asset management industry continued to perform well, and emerging markets provided opportunities for growth.
"The first half performance reflects the continuing challenges facing the group's markets, with improving subscription revenues from our asset management products being offset by the continued pressures on the investment banking sector," said Chairman Richard Ensor in a statement. "The second half has started as expected and the trading conditions described in these results are expected to continue during the second half."
Shares in Euromoney are trading down 1.8% at 1,227.60 pence Thursday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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