12th Jan 2005 07:00
Centaur Holdings PLC12 January 2005 January 12, 2005Centaur Holdings plc HALF YEAR PRE-CLOSE TRADING STATEMENT Centaur Holdings plc, the specialist business publishing and informationcompany, today issues a pre-close trading statement relating to the 6 monthsended 31st December 2004, prior to its interim results announcement, scheduledfor 14th March 2005. Results for the 6 months ended 31st December 2004 are expected to be in linewith market expectations. Overall revenues are expected to be circa 12% ahead ofthe equivalent period in 2003. This growth has been led partly by furtherrecovery in recruitment and display advertising revenues in the 6 month periodand partly by the impact of new products. Despite the start-up costs of the newly launched Finance Week, EBITDA (*) forCentaur as a whole during the 6 month period is also expected to be above thatrecorded in the same period in the previous year and EBITDA margins to have seenfurther improvement. The Board remains confident that it will achieve its medium term 20% EBITDA margin target. It should be noted that, due to seasonal factors and as previously flagged,Centaur traditionally earns the majority of its profits in the second half ofits financial year, in particular in the period from February to June.Accordingly, the profits that will be reported for the first six months of theyear will reflect this second half weighting. Overall, good progress has been made in the period and we enter the second halfwith confidence that the recovery will continue and that the full year's resultwill reflect that. (*) Centaur's key measure of profit is earnings before interest, tax,depreciation and amortisation and excluding exceptionals (EBITDA). In addition,"normalized" results of continuing operations are presented to provide a betterindication of overall financial performance. The "normalised" results excludethe impact of acquisitions or disposals, as well as that of amortization ofintangibles and of exceptional items. Enquiries: Centaur Holdings plc Graham Sherren Tel: 020 7970 4000 Geoff Wilmot Gavin Anderson & Company Richard Constant Tel: 020 7554 1400 Laura Hickman Janine Brewis This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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