Vitesse Media PLC 24 September 2008

Commenting on the results, Vitesse Media’s Chairman, Sara Williams, said:

Highlights include:  

  • Revenues including acquisitions up by 13.6% (2008: £2.36 million; 2007: £2.07 million). Loss for the six months (before expensing share options) was £249,000 (2007: profit of £5,000)
  • Information Age, acquired in November 2007, is now fully integrated
  • Cost savings of £630,000 per year identified and introduced and will be coming through in the second half-year
  • Activities refocused on higher-yield products, such as larger events
  • Business now restructured into two divisions, Business and Investment, which is giving a greater focus to the sales teams
  • Business XL has bucked the trend of disappointing print advertising figures for the first six months with a 21% upturn in revenues for the magazine. In addition, its associated website, GrowthBusiness.co.uk produced revenues up by 11.2%, and revenues for its larger events rose by nearly 50% due to the launch of the New Energy Awards
  • Both online and event revenues for the continuing business showed increases over the 2007 figures, online up by 3.5% and event revenues (excluding discontinued seminars) up by over 11%
  • Information Age and What Investment have both increased their market share of display ads in 2008 compared with 2007. Information Age has strengthened its market-leading position and What Investment has become the market leader for the first time
  • Cash collections have continued strongly throughout the summer, with the average daily receipt for August being our highest ever
  • The second-half figures should show a marked improvement over the first half.


Outlook for 2008/09

Information Age has struggled to reach its budget revenue figures since we acquired it; however, under our restructuring, the title is now ahead of budget revenue for September. Under our ownership, for the period from 1 February 2008 to 31 August 2008, there has been an improvement of over £140,000 at the bottom line, compared with the same period last year under its original owners. All this augurs well for the future for this title.

What Investment has endured a very difficult first six months of the financial year, but the team reports an improvement in sentiment for the autumn, and is ahead of budget for display advertising in both August and September; however, visibility remains poor. Subscriptions for the title have increased since the start of the year and that trend is expected to continue. The magazine will be relaunched for the November issue, with a brand new design, and we are busy planning to maximise the impact of this.

Business XL continues to go from strength to strength. It has steadily met its budget for print advertising, and its associated website has also done well. The launch and huge success of the Rosenblatt New Energy Awards in February has encouraged us to develop a new event, the Media Magnate Awards, and we are delighted to have secured Canaccord Adams, a leading AIM broker and adviser, as headline sponsor.

Of our other brands, Growth Company Investor will publish more research documents in the autumn and the Quoted Company Awards is set fair to improve upon last year’s figure. Against that, list sales continue to disappoint and subscriptions are proving more difficult to acquire.

SmallBusiness.co.uk was relaunched in June, generating much interest, but that has not yet fully translated into revenues; we are looking for that to happen in the autumn.

M&A Magazine was relaunched in July and the second M&A Awards was held in February. We continue to develop the brand, although at this stage the economic background is making it difficult for us to progress in moving from a breakeven contribution in this financial year to date to the sort of profit level that we are targeting.

We have worked hard trimming costs and analysing more efficient methods of operation across the group. The full fruits of these should be felt in the second half of this financial year and the first half of the next financial year.

Outlook for 2009/10 and beyond

We have built a strong cross-platform media business comprising six good brands with healthy franchises. Once the economy has recovered, we expect there to be significant improvements in profitability. In the meantime, we continue to invest in the brands with a view to improving the quality of the earnings stream and thus increasing the value of our intangible assets. There is a real opportunity for us to build a highly profitable B2B media business.