DMGT.L Share News (DMGT)

(Sharecast News) - Shares in the owner of the right-wing tabloid Daily Mail rose sharply on Thursday after the company reported a 19% rise in adjusted interim pre-tax profits.Daily Mail and General Trust said adjusted pre-tax profits on an underlying basis came in at £100m. The shares were up almost 10% in early trade.Statutory pre-tax profits fell 56% to £50m due to a £49m impairment charge, consisting of £28m after the spinoff of its Euromoney arm and £21m from the German unit On-geo, which it plans to offload this year.Revenues were flat at £724m. Adjusted earnings per share fell 8% to 22.5p, while the interim dividend was increased 3% to 7.3p a share."DMGT delivered a good performance in the first half of the year, achieving underlying growth in revenue, cash generation and profit. Consumer Media delivered a particularly strong performance and we saw continued growth in our B2B portfolio," said chief executive Paul Zwillenberg."The strategy we are pursuing is transforming DMGT and delivering results. The distribution of our stake in Euromoney and the £200m special dividend was a defining moment for DMGT.""We returned nearly £900m, or 38% of our market capitalisation, to our shareholders. Our balance sheet remains strong despite this considerable capital return and an additional £117m made available to our pension schemes."The company also revealed that it had sold its 40% stake in US-based Real Capital Analytics for $89m.Looking forward, DGMT said it expected revenue growth and operating margins in its media outlets to be lower in the second half of the year, but maintained full year guidance as fall in full year revenues was expected to be in low-single digits "rather than the mid-single digits previously guided to"."The consumer media full year operating margin is still expected to be in the high-single digits. The B2B businesses are collectively still expected to deliver a full year underlying revenue growth rate in the low-single digits and an operating margin in the mid-teens, due to higher planned investment in the second half," the company said.