Regulatory News
September 07, 2020

Pre-close full year trading update

FY20 results expected to be materially ahead of market expectations

7th September 2020

Future plc (LSE: FUTR, “Future”, “the Group”), the global platform for specialist media, today provides a pre-close trading update for the 12 months to 30 September 2020.

As outlined in the Business Update provided in July, the Group continues to benefit from the trend in a shift to digital media. In August, organic unique visitors in the UK and US were up 25% and 40% respectively compared to the prior year*. Combined with a better than expected performance of TI Media in the second half, full-year adjusted operating profit is now expected to be materially ahead of current market expectations**. In addition, as a result of continued strong cash conversion the business is de-levering quickly.

The integration of TI Media remains on track and the Group continues to make good progress. Following on from the three websites launched earlier in the summer, Advnture.com and Petsradar.com, both new websites in TI Media’s content verticals, have now gone live. The Group has also successfully migrated both the Finance and the magazine subscription systems onto common platforms. Delivery on synergies continues to progress well with £10m already secured, of which at least £3m will benefit FY20. As a result, Future now anticipates cost synergies of £20m per annum by the end of FY21, ahead of earlier forecasts of £15m per annum. The Group continues to expect that synergies will be delivered in line with the original cost-to-achieve ratio.

The Group expects to publish its full-year results for the year ending 30 September 2020 on 2 December 2020.

Zillah Byng-Thorne, CEO of Future, said:

“We are delighted the strong Group performance has continued, putting Future on track to deliver full-year results materially ahead of expectations. Whilst macro uncertainty remains in light of the pandemic, we are well positioned to benefit from the continued shift to digital media as we grow our global audiences.”