LONDON (Alliance News) - Minds + Machines Group Ltd Tuesday posted a rise in pretax profit for 2014 as a result of gains from participating in auctions for new generic top level domains during the year, and announced the departure of Executive Chairman Fred Kreuger.
Kreuger has stepped down to focus on his other business interests, namely website building tool Mozart. Keith Teare has been appointed as non-executive chairman.
For 2014 the company posted a pretax profit of USD22.1 million, up from USD1.1 million in 2013, as revenue rose to USD1.9 million from USD56,000 and as a USD33.7 million gain from generic top level domain auctions offset a step up in administrative costs.
Following changes to rules over generic top level domains, meaning the suffix to a web address such as .com, a slew of new generic top level domains have been allowed. Minds + Machines has been participating in auctions to acquire these domains, and has secured gains from auctions where it has withdrawn from applications as the winner of the auction pays out to competing appliers.
The company currently wholly-owns or majority owns 20 uncontested generic top level domains, of which 14 have been launched. It has interests in a further 11 contested applications.
The group said it would not pay a dividend for the year but said it is considering when it may introduce a progressive dividend policy or launch any one-off dividend or share buybacks.
The company said it still has a number of new top-level domains to launch, including .law and .miami, which it believes will contribute to continued revenue growth, with a majority of revenue weighted towards the second half of 2015. It also expects to see additional revenue from one-off private auctions which will help maintain its overall cash position for 2015.
Shares in Minds + Machines are trading down 6.8% at 9.55 pence Tuesday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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