7th Oct 2014 08:12
LONDON (Alliance News) - Next Fifteen Communications Group PLC Tuesday said it expects a good performance from its UK and US businesses for the remainder of its current financial year, as it posted a widened pretax loss in the half year to end-July.
The company has changed its accounting reference date to January 31, meaning its results represent its second interim results for the 18 months ending January 31, 2015.
The company proposed a second interim dividend of 2.3 pence per share, up from 1.925p. The dividend was composed of the 1p Next Fifteen said it expects to pay as its normal interim dividend in the future, plus a 1.3p special dividend to compensate shareholders for the changed year-end. The company said it plans to pay a final dividend for the 18 months of at least 2.25 pence, making for a pro-forma total dividend of 3.25p for the year to January 31, 2015.
For the six months, Next Fifteen posted a pretax loss of GBP5.2 million, widened from GBP788,000, as revenue rose to GBP52.2 million from GBP49.4 million. For the full year it posted a pretax loss of GBP953,000, swung from a profit of GBP2.1 million. In both the half and full year, growth in revenue was offset by a rise in impairment charges to GBP7.0 million from GBP2.0 million, relating to the historic under-performance of its UK business.
Next Fifteen said that recent management changes, and two recent acquisitions have shown early signs of progress in the UK business, and it expects this to continue.
Revenue growth was driven by a strong performance from its North American business, although the strength of sterling against the dollar held back reported revenue growth. Next Fifteen is re-locating its San Francisco businesses to a new location in the city, and warned it will see a period of double rent in the remainder of the year, which will lead to a USD900,000 exceptional cost in its full financial year results.
The company said that it was continuing to move away from its traditional communications services towards social and digital communications, including new assignments for American Express Co and Google Inc, and is making investments in its agencies.
It also announced that it has agreed to acquire content advertising agency Story Worldwide LLC for USD6.6 million in cash. It expects the acquisition to immediately add to earnings.
Story posted adjusted earnings before interest, tax, deprecation and amortisation of USD700,000 for the 8 months to end-August, on revenues of USD10 million.
Shares in Next Fifteen are trading up 1.3% at 120.00 pence Tuesday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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