25th Jul 2018 08:47
LONDON (Alliance News) - Informa PLC on Wednesday reported a decrease in profit for the first half of 2018, hit by costs related to its takeover of UBM.
Shares in Informa were down 3.1% at 823.80 pence early Wednesday, making it the worst performer in the FTSE 100.
For the six months ended June 30, the events & publishing company reported pretax profit of GBP120.3 million, down 19% from GBP148.6 million for the same period a year before, despite 4.6% revenue growth to GBP957.1 million from GBP915.3 million.
Adjusted pretax profit rose 3.3%, however, to GBP264.7 million from GBP256.2 million. The adjusted results exclude the GBP52.2 million booked by Informa in acquisition & integration costs, following its purchase of peer UBM which completed in June.
UBM contributed 15 days to Imforma's first half results, generating revenue of GBP69.0 million and an operating loss of GBP26.3 million.
"This increased scale and visibility across the enlarged group gives us confidence we can meet our ambition for more than 3.5% underlying revenue growth in 2018," the company said in the statement.
On a divisional basis, the Global Exhibitions unit was the best performing in terms of reported revenue growth, up 0.1% to GBP343.1 million from GBP342.8 million.
Although the majority of planned exhibition brands ran in the first six months of the year, Informa said its forward bookings for this segment remain healthy in the second half.
Meanwhile, Knowledge & Networking division came in as the worst performer with revenue down 14% to GBP126.2 million from GBP146.1 million generated a year earlier. The decline came after the company sold of its German & Swiss conference business Euroforum at the end of 2017.
Informa said it expects this disposal to deliver steady improvement in the Knowledge & Networking division unit performance in 2018, as the division is now focused on its core verticals of Life Sciences, Global Finance and TMT.
The company proposed an interim dividend of 7.05 pence per share, up 6.0% from 6.65p paid the prior year.
Informa said it remains on track to deliver a target of GBP50 million in cost savings in 2019.
"Informa continues to deliver good trading performances, reflecting our combination of international scale, increased depth and breadth in attractive industry verticals and the recent addition of UBM," said chief Executive Stephen Carter.
"Our focus for the second half is clear: to maintain consistent operating performance, as we implement our accelerated integration plan to combine UBM and Informa and create a truly international business-to-business information services group," added Carter.
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