8 May 2014

Perform Group plc Q1 Interim Management Statement

Perform Group plc, the leading digital sports media group, today issues its interim management statement for the three months to 31 March 2014 ("the period").

Highlights

·      Year on year revenue growth of 32% to £56.9m (Q1 2013: £43.0m)

·      Content Distribution revenues up 32% in Q1, attributable to new Watch & Bet Contracts and a strong contribution from Opta acquired in 2013.

·      Strong Q1 display advertising performance; business is well positioned for the 2014 World Cup.

·      ePlayer headline quarterly sell through rate of 51% and total quarterly streams viewed 1.5 billion. (Q1 2013: sell through rate of 43% and 1.1 billion total streams).

·      Cost reduction plan on track with benefits to come through in H2 in line with guidance.

·      On track to achieve FY14 revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth in line with board expectations. The timing of the cost reduction benefits will result in a H1/H2 EBITDA split close to one third and two thirds.

·      Appointment of Chief Financial Officer - Ashley Milton. Ashley is currently CFO of Group M EMEA, the Media Investment division of WPP, the world's largest advertising and marketing group. Prior to joining GroupM in 2011, Ashley was Group Finance Director of Tarsus Group plc and his earlier career included senior finance roles at Aegis Group.

Simon Denyer, Joint Chief Executive Officer, said:

"We are pleased to report that the group has made a positive start to 2014, with Q1 showing strong year on year revenue growth. Good early progress has been made on the cost reduction plans laid out at the full year results and we remain on track to hit our cost base targets. Overall the Group remains confident that it will deliver full year revenue and EBITDA growth in line with the board expectations."

"We are delighted to appoint Ashley as our new CFO and that the Group has attracted such high calibre talent. Ashley brings with him an excellent track record as a CFO and also a highly valuable breadth and depth of experience of the advertising sector, which is a significant strategic focus of the Group."

Conference call

A conference call for analysts and investors is being held today at 08:00

Dial in: +44 (0) 20 3139 4830

Participant code: 20513561#

A replay facility will be available following the call for a period of 7 days

Replay dial-in: +44 (0)20 3426 2807

Replay passcode: 648108#

Enquiries

Perform Group plc                                                                      Tulchan Communications

Polly Elvin                                                                                 Stephen Malthouse / Giles Kernick

Telephone +44 (0) 203 372 0600                                                  Telephone +44 (0) 207 353 4200

Business Performance

Content Distribution

Year on year revenue growth of 32% to £37.3m (Q1 2013: £28.3m) with underlying revenue growth of 10%.  Headline KPIs for the period: 

·      4,936 live consumer bookmaker events streamed (Q1 2013: 4,158) with the increase primarily football. On track to deliver 17,000 events in the full year.

·      24,718 trader bookmaker events delivered during the period (Q1 2013: 17,114), with the increase across football, basketball and volleyball. On track to deliver 80,000 events in the full year.

·      942 Betting & Media clients during the period (Q1 2013: 422) with the year on year increase primarily driven by the inclusion of Opta acquired in July 2013.


Quarter ended 31 March

2014

Quarter ended 31 December 2013

Quarter ended 30 September 2013

Quarter ended 30 June

2013

Quarter ended 31 March

2013

Consumer bookmaker live events streamed during the period

4,936

4,182

4,339

3,864

4,158

Trader bookmaker events delivered during the period

24,718

25,086

19,704

16,108

17,114

Betting & Media clients during the period

942

889

799

430

422

Advertising & Sponsorship (video)

Year on year revenue growth of 28% to £5.0m (Q1 2013: £3.9m). 

·      Strong start to the year with total streams of 1.5 billion and a headline sell through rate of 51% reflecting an  increase in sell through rate across all geographies.

·      Improved sell-through rate in the US  following sales being brought in-house in 2013.

·      Good growth in Rest of the world with total streams up 89% year on year to 585m and a much improved sell through rate of 33% driven by progress made in territories such as Japan and Turkey.

·      Significant software programme underway to build ePlayer 3.0, our next generation video advertising product.

·      Full geographic breakdown for ePlayer in Appendix.

Headline KPIs for the period:


Quarter ended

31 March 2014

Quarter ended

31 Dec 2013

Quarter ended

30 Sept 2013

Quarter ended

30 June 2013

Quarter ended

31 March 2013

Total for all territories






Total streams (millions)

1,544

1,452

1,389

1,089

1,113

Sell through rate (%)

51%

54%

42%

52%

43%







Advertising & Sponsorship (display)

Year on year revenue growth of 65% to £8.1m (Q1 2013: £4.9m), reflecting  strong underlying growth of over 40% and the effect of a full quarter of Sporting News acquired March 2013.  Key highlights and headline KPIs for the period: 

·      An average 113 million monthly website and mobile unique users (Q1 2013: 77 million) across the Group's owned display network. 

·      Record Goal traffic of 50.6 million unique users in January (vs 37.1 million January 13) , of which over 30% was across mobile devices.

·      Goal Live app launched and Goal News App to be re-launched across Android, IOS and Windows in May.

·      Global sponsor pipeline continues to strengthen with deals contracted with brands such as Puma, Hyundai, Sony, Samsung, Gatorade and Chevrolet.

Subscription

Year on year revenue growth of 6% to £3.6m (Q1 2013: £3.4m).  Headline KPIs for the period: 

·      239,000 subscribers who have access to live or video-on-demand content via the internet (Q1 2013: 224,000). 







Quarter ended

Quarter ended

Quarter

ended

Quarter ended

Quarter ended

31 March 2014

31 December 2013

30 September 2013

30 June 2013

31 March 2013

Subscribers at period end

239

223

231

210

224

Technology and production

Year on year revenue growth of 12% to £2.8m (Q1 2013: £2.5m), however still expect to see a year on year decrease in revenues for the FY14.



To assist in understanding these results included below are quarterly revenue comparatives for 2014 and 2013 to date. 

2014


Quarter to

31 March

£'000

Content distribution

37,331

Advertising and sponsorship (display)

8,081

Advertising and sponsorship (video)

5,015

Subscription

3,609

Technology and production

2,823



Total

56,859

2013


Quarter to

31 December £'000

Quarter to

30 September

£'000

Quarter to

30 June

£'000

Quarter to

31 March

£'000

Content distribution

39,718

34,287

30,515

28,338

Advertising and sponsorship (display)

9,426

7,300

6,755

4,856

Advertising and sponsorship (video)

6,009

4,413

5,272

3,895

Subscription

3,762

3,380

3,601

3,412

Technology and production

5,023   

2,381

3,277

2,515






Total

63,938

51,761

49,420

43,016

Financial Position

During Q1 the Group paid £4.2m to acquire Activaweb SAS  and  a dividend of c. £1m to Mackolik 3rd party shareholders. The Group also incurred c. £2.5m of exceptional cash restructuring costs during the period, which relate to the cost reduction programme announced in March 2014. There were no other significant changes to the financial position of the Group.

The above non-statutory consolidated revenue numbers and the statement on financial position have not been audited nor reviewed by the Group's auditors, Deloitte LLP.

Appendix


Quarter ended

31 March 2014

Quarter ended

31 Dec 2013

Quarter ended

30 Sept 2013

Quarter ended

30 June 2013

Quarter ended

31 March 2013

Total for all territories






Total streams (millions)

1,544

1,452

1,389

1,089

1,113

Total streams sold (millions)

794

790

584

573

474

Average monthly unique users (millions)

135

142

122

123

118

Sell through rate (%)

51%

54%

42%

52%

43%

United States and United Kingdom






Total streams (millions)

835

838

713

556

615

Total streams sold (millions)

530

657

416

374

355

Average monthly unique users (millions)

81

91

71

60

60

Sell through rate (%)

64%

78%

58%

67%

58%

FIGS






Total streams (millions)

125

108

158

176

187

Total streams sold (millions)

72

68

70

107

75

Average monthly unique users (millions)

16

15

19

23

19

Sell through rate (%)

58%

63%

44%

61%

40%

Rest of World






Total streams (millions)

585

506

518

357

310

Total streams sold (millions)

192

66

98

92

44

Average monthly unique users (millions)

38

36

32

40

39

Sell through rate (%)

33%

13%

19%

26%

14%


This information is provided by RNS
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