LONDON (Alliance News) - Centaur Media PLC on Wednesday reported a significantly widened annual loss due to impairments of goodwill within its business portfolio.
For 2018, the business information publisher posted a pretax loss of GBP14.2 million, ballooning from the previous year's GBP700,000 loss.
Revenue increased 9.0% to GBP70.5 million from GBP64.7 million, driven by a full year of revenue from MarketMakers, and increased revenue from several other brands.
Among the company's leading brands are The Lawyer, The Business Travel Show and Econsultancy.
Non-advertising revenue represented 82% of the year's total, up from 79% a year ago.
However, operating costs increasing 30% to GBP85.3 million from GBP65.7 million led to the reduction in profitability. This included a goodwill impairment of GBP13.1 million, related to a "strategic rationalisation" in events and discontinued revenue streams within Centaur marketing portfolio.
Underlying, adjusted operating profit rose 18% to GBP5.2 million.
The company proposed a final dividend of 1.5 pence per share, contributing to a total for the year of 3.0p, in line with the previous year.
"2018 saw a satisfactory performance as we continue our journey to advise, inform and connect business professionals and help them accelerate their business performance. Although some of our digital developments took longer than intended to launch in this transitional year, our new digital platforms that were launched for Econsultancy, Influencer Intelligence and The Lawyer are already showing promising growth," Centaur Media said.
"The group continues to reduce its reliance on print and advertising as it replaces those revenue sources with more reliable, repeatable revenue streams, including subscription-based digital solutions."
Furthermore, Chair Neil Johnson will stand from his role on the company's board in June to take on a new role. He will be succeeded by Colin Jones, who joined the Centaur board last September after having served as chief financial officer of Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC.
Centaur Media shares were trading up 1.5% at 52.00 pence each.
