LONDON (Alliance News) - ITE Group PLC on Tuesday reported a widened annual loss due to costs associated with its Ascential Events acquisition and its 'Transformation & Growth' restructuring programme.
In the financial year to September 30, the exhibition and conference organiser's pretax loss widened to GBP3.7 million from GBP3.2 million last year.
ITE's revenue increased 15% to GBP175.7 million from GBP152.6 million the year before.
In July, ITE acquired Ascential Events for GBP300.3 million - which resulted in transaction costs in the period of GBP8.0 million, up from GBP400,000 the year before.
The "most significant" costs came from professional and consultancy fees incurred in relation to stamp duty, due diligence and legal procedures required for the acquisition.
"I am pleased to report that the Transformation & Growth programme is already delivering. ITE has posted like-for-like revenue growth of 11%, as well as like-for-like profit before tax growth of 20% for the financial year. This was particularly visible in the revenue growth of our Top 10 events, which were up 14% in total for the year," said Chief Executive Officer Mark Shashoua.
ITE posted GBP5.4 million of restructuring costs from its restructuring programme in the period, up from GBP4.7 million last year, mainly due to, the company said, "implementing the group's new strategy, developing and rolling out best practice blueprints and establishing the 'ITE way' to increase the scalability of our platform, and launching our event best practice initiatives".
ITE also incurred GBP7.3 million in costs - increased from GBP2.8 million last year - from the programme that will remain as part of ITE's new operating model and, therefore, are not presented as adjusting items
A final restructure charge of GBP2.2 million was incurred related to redundancy and severance costs, increased from GBP300,000 last year.
The events company said its growth programme made "clear progress" despite "challenging market headwinds".
Shashoua continued: "We delivered this performance despite difficult conditions in many of our markets - with tougher sanctions in Russia and political instability in Turkey. The quality of our portfolio has improved as we have disposed of events requiring significant levels of investment that would impact future profitability. We have also bought eight market-leading brands. The integration of these events is on track and we expect to reach most of our Transformation & Growth targets earlier than planned."
The company declared a full-year dividend of 2.5 pence per share, flat on the year before.
ITE also announced that Non-Executive Director Neil England will not be standing for re-election at the company's 2019 annual general meeting. England served as interim chairman from October 2017 to February 2018, prior to Richard Last being appointed.
Looking ahead, ITE said trading for financial 2019 is currently in line with its expectations, "underpinned by strong indicators" including its roughly GBP147 million of forward bookings - up 11% on the year before.
Shashoua added: "We are well-placed to continue to realise our vision of creating the world's leading portfolio of content-driven, must-attend events that deliver an outstanding experience and return on investment for our customers. We have implemented a significant amount of organic growth initiatives in 2018 that have already driven strong growth. We look forward to building on these achievements in 2019 and beyond."
Shares in ITE were down 0.7% Tuesday at 60.65 pence each.