DLY MAIL & GEN TRUST Ahead of the Group's Investor Briefing tomorrow, DMGT has released its pre-close trading update, revealing a solid performance for the 11-month period to the end of August 2014.
The international provider of analysis, insight, information, news and entertainment reported a solid Group performance up 5% and highlighted good underlying revenue growth from its B2B operations, which are up 8%. Consumer media company, dmg media, saw underlying revenue in line with last year, with good advertising revenue growth of 5%.
Global provider of risk models and software, Risk Management Solutions (RMS), delivered continued underlying growth driven by its core catastrophe risk modelling business, which continues to progress as planned. The company is also developing the industry's first high-definition models, which will include Japan Typhoon, European Flood, New Zealand Earthquake and US Earthquake.
The postponement of RMS(one), a platform for delivering resilient, real-time exposure and risk management, has led to a change in approach to the development of the product to enhance its performance, functionality and openness. At a minimum RMS (one) will be ready to deliver RMS's first high-definition models to the broader client base by late 2015.
Market-leading provider of B2B information, dmg information, reported strong underlying growth of 13% with good performance across all sectors. The business saw double-digit underlying growth delivered by Hobsons, Genscape and the Group's property information businesses.
Global events organiser, dmg events performed as expected, with a strong underlying revenue increase of 23%.
Publisher of trade publications, data and research, Euromoney Institutional Investor does not report its performance for the eleven months to August and will be releasing a pre-close trading update on 30 September 2014.
International publisher, dmg media, reported underlyingrevenues in line with last year, with underlying advertising revenues up 5% offsetting the decline in newspaper circulation. Newspaper companion websites, mainly MailOnline, are up 47%, while other digital advertising revenues from Wowcher and Jobsite are up 20%. MailOnline delivered digital advertising revenue growth of 49% and underlying advertising revenues across the combined print and digital Mail businesses were up 3%. Wowcher delivered a particularly strong performance with revenue growth of 77%.
The Group has continued to execute its strategy of active portfolio management throughout the year. dmg information acquired DIIG(E) for £75m in October 2013, and Euromoney acquired trade and certain assets of the Mining Investment Events Division of Summit Professional Networks for £45 million in July 2014. These larger transactions took place alongside other acquisitions across the Group, including Infrastructure Journal for Euromoney, Quartz Coatings Events for dmg events, Energytics for Genscape, and a majority stake in SiteCompli for dmg information.
There have been a number of disposals, including dmg media's disposal of Evenbase and 39% of its 52% holding in Zoopla Property Group (ZPG). Following the IPO of ZPG in June 2014, DMGT's stake in ZPG is now 32%. The disposal of Jobsite, the remaining Evenbase business, is also expected to complete by the end of October 2014.
DMGT's November 2012 £100 million share buy-back programme resumed in May 2014 and was completed on 4 September 2014. The group has today announced a further share buy-back programme of up to £100m.
The net debt: EBITDA ratio is expected to be comfortably below the preferred level of 2.0x at year-end. Trading in line with expectations, the Group outlook for the year remains unchanged.
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