Vitesse Media doubles pre-tax profit

Online print publishing and events firm Vitesse Media doubled annual pre-tax profit and expects to see further progress depending on the economic recovery.The group posted a pre-tax profit of £79,937 for the year ended 31 January 201 from a profit of £36,706 a year earlier. Revenue slipped to £3.31m from £3.64m before. Adjusted pre-tax profit surged to £151,071 from £49,258 while gross profit margin increased to 71.8% from 66.5%. "We expect that the business will show further improvements in profitability, although the extent of these will depend on whether confidence and growth return to the economy," said Vitesse in a company statement.Vitesse said the current year started extremely well, with both February and March delivering strong performances across the board, including small like-for-like increases in revenues and above-budget profits. April, as expected, was poor due to the high number of bank holidays during the month, the group said.Revenue for the two websites SmallBusiness and GrowthBusiness increased by 14% from the previous year. Looking ahead it remains confident that, "the business is being reshaped in the medium term with the intention of becoming a high-quality digital, data, events and research market leader, serving two very high-net-worth communities - business decision-makers and investors, both professional and private.""We expect this transformation increasingly to be reflected in our results."CJ