Article
Future in the market for new titles
Future, the specialist publisher of Playstation 2, Xbox and Total Film magazines, warned yesterday that trading was below expectations but said it was confident that new launches and acquisitions would help achieve its goal of doubling revenues and profits within four years.
Future reported an underlying pre-tax profit of £12.8m for the six months to March 31, compared with £12.7m for the same period last year. Turnover rose 5% to £104.3m.
Greg Ingham, the chief executive, said: "Trading in the second half has begun a little below expectations. Second-half performance is likely to be affected to some degree by reported weakness in consumer demand."
Analysts were surprised that Future was not weathering the downturn better, given the specialist nature of its publications. Numis Securities shaved its full-year profit forecast from £23.5m to £20m. But Mr Ingham said the company was on track to meet its targets.
Future bought 16 titles in the first half of this financial year, and launched four new maga zines. It plans to launch a further nine this half. It expects to complete its £30.5m purchase of 38 titles from Highbury House later this month. "The actions that we have taken this year will expand Future UK by over a third," Mr Ingham said.
Future remains on the look-out for further acquisitions. "We're keeping a very close watch on opportunities, particularly in the UK and US," Mr Ingham said.
Britain accounts for 53% of Future's business, the US for 26% and Europe the rest. Turnover rose 8% in both the US and Britain in the first half.
Growth in the current half is expected to come from the launch of new magazines, including Future Snowboarding and Scrapbook Answers in the US, and the acquisition of the Highbury titles in Britain.
The results were affected by a number of abnormal items, including the £2.2m cost of Future's aborted bid for Highbury House. Once these items were taken into account, pre-tax profit was actually down 72% to £1.3m, compared with £4.7m a year ago.
Future declared an interim dividend of 0.5p per share, payable next Wednesday.