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I keep harking back to these presentations, but i spent a good while listening to the strategy laid out by this CEO. The single biggest thing that will rerate this business is on slide 19,H1 26, 'the monetisation wheel', on that is [Upcoming, Data as a product] which ceo says they are just about to add as a revenue line.

Data products does not value on low multiples, and if this starts to grow not only will EBITDA shoot up, but the company will be recatorgoriesed over time.

I think until then, Smallcap, below 500m m cap, there is little institutional interest, hence low volumes, hedge funds can trade it.

Then headlines for H1, 'Futures Profit falls off a cliff , down 67%', no talk about the costs of sheerluxe purchase within that. This isnt going to rerate on value, its ridiculously low now. But there are hundreds of companies that are ridiculously overvalued but keep getting pumped.

Stabilising of ecomm, and a pivot in companies revenue will be what changes this,

Personally I would much rather a CEO work through this transitition, who knows the tech inside out and the markets they are looking to tackle, This guy took Hawk, SEO ecomm from 50k in 2013 to 86m in 2021, so its not just tech but understanding conversion as well. There is a place for spin, but i'm not sure that suits this situation. Look what has been done in 12months, Initiatives, Future+, collab, signal, Purchase Sheerluxe, Optic launch, Helix launch, Ai Advisor launch, div x5, buycks 14m shares to date. thats progress., but I would love Elon to take the reins tomorrow and this be worth 10bn we can but dream

Random

I'm very much a believer in Future, and am down plenty, but am hoping price stays here till buybacks are finished, and see no reason they will rise instantly.

12-24 months this could and should be completely different,

Future won an Award back in March 2022 for Aperture, a platform to track first party data, at the time they had 1.5bn data points per month, as of dec 2025 that was 1Trillion, enormous growth in the data pool, but importantly its tagged and filed, and first, and zero party, so they own it. It is unlike almost all but the Googles and Amazons, unique because it has scale, breadth[ multi vertical], full funnel, ie start to end due to Go Co and Hawk which convert sales, many have one or two, few have all three.

Data moving into LLM era is a massive market, I think Future+, kwizly, Renewal are all vital tools to enrich and increase the value of this data before they commit it to market. This is exactly why they chose the tech guy who built it , to run the company. In every presentation, and now on their site it states they are a Data first business, analysts covering this company are media publisher analysts, that's why you never hear data mentioned in any of their forecasts, the CEO even said back in Dec, the way we make money today, is not how we'll make it in 3-5 yrs. I Don't think if you watch or read those presentations they can be misconstrued. converting is the unknown, but they have brought back ex CRO from T-Mobile who launched Aperture, to sell all this stuff, the exact thing he was doing at a fortune 50 company, that possibly says something. But thats just my bullish take.

Lets face it markets can be extremely irrational, Elon Musk became a trillionaire yesterday, Tesla 1.25tr market cap, 3.85bn profit, 371x earnings, Space X 2.1tr market cap, 4.8bn loss, thats -1bn loss and 3.3trillion market cap. At least Future makes a profit.

I might sound like a broken record Sg but this guy is just the right person to transition this company, its the tech that will shift them from google to LLM he built it. Its not an overnight fix but this company is one of the better positioned publishers to benifit from AI, if they ignore that, this company really is screwed.

Tech radar has very good visibilty on AI platforms though, What i find interesting is that seo search disruption is generally taken as final, its actually Googles platform that is in decline, the market and budget will migrate to LLM platforms, being present there will be important

Sg0913 they want your shares cheap, don't let their games make you give them what they want, sell them for more.

Perhaps these shorts are hedged, you have to disclose short at .5%, and long at 5% or 3% year end up to 4.5% differnce. To me conviction shorts at these prices are risk totally outweighing reward. Bond 4 yr run, 300m rfc to use expected 180m cash fy26, no imediate sign of collapse, so cost of long term short at say 5% + div is 20% over 2 years. even if you wiped out all the profit from 16% of revenue they're are worried about, ebitda is still 80-90m. so the floor cant be much lower than 250p. but trading a range and accumulating scared or frustrated retailer stock becomes very lucrative. I dont believe smart money would sit with the reward being so small, if future sent RNS tomorrow saying they had a data licensing deal with a couple of AI platforms for 25m per annum, this is at £10, if your hedging the downside riskyour long makes money, just slighty less

As a market maker i imagine it had something to do with Barclays trade yesterday, there not bullish so i dont imagine their buy yesterday was conviction,

Long Haul, logs too heavy these days

I'm in this for the log haul, my eyes have opened to the direction this is going and i'm far more comfortable with it now than i was. Think the CEO and board speak volumes about what they want this to be. I don't see it as avalue play, this is a sector change share re rating play.

Look what they have that doesn't even get mentioned in valuations. A tech stack that when they plug a tool into it generates 10m high rev from cold introduced in Dec25. And Helix intro March 26, 21% uplift in click thru compared to non Helix. That tech would be worth almost a billion on the Nasdaq now. It may take 18months but this is more like Autotrader than Reach.

My only comeback on that is you said you bought 30k more at 290p the other day, as a value play, if thats to make 20p per share great if not, its an investment in a company that drives you mad. My post was not about my opinion, i was just emphasising what seems to have been missed this company has fundamentally changed its outlook and is data first business, establishing itself in that ecosystem quite well i may suggest and as and when the contracts start coming in the whole valuation structure changes, this is a tech business now. they've launched the tools, they've embedded in LLM platforms now the conversion to cash starts.

Why would a Vice president of T-Mobile advertising solutions come back to a struggling media publisher in December. Selling data products to the big fish maybe. It's my take, and unfortunately, I worked out after the end of this buyback tranche i'll own .4% of the company. So it doesn't sit well with me the share price today, but it will. thats only my view for qualification.

There is a slide in the 25 fy presentation that sums the cup, "Future is a data first platform that monetises high audience engagement powered by technology and enabled by our trusted specialist brands with authority". This company has changed its board, for that reason they have switched the brands to enablers, they sell data in this new era. Brand content is back of house.

No coincidence the board changes to align with platform, data monetisation. Future has tools tested as optic with Samsung, embedded in all LLM platforms, its the second most visible publisher. They are ahead of the curve, "First to market" as they say. and its going to be the biggest market around. Every AI tool needs Fresh data so it doesn't hallucinate, future has some of the most trusted data across fashion tech wealth management.consumer services. they have some of the most advanved tech, they will hopefully be signing leasing deals with hundreds of companies and platforms multi million if the few already done are the market rate. these deals are 80-90% marginx and if taken in line with data saas type multiples 20-25x ebitda. thats just one revenue stream, there are several. It could be a very interesting 12 months.

TP they said finish buybacks, pay Sheerluxe performance payment,and deleverage. 1million a week buybacks takes us to September. Doubt if there will be any in 2027 though.

I do think they have thought this downturn through ahead of time, pretty sure that's why they tied the debt up into bonds for 5 yrs knowing there would be headwinds. And they must have conviction in their strategy as they upped the divi 5x, not an easy thing to pull the rug on without losing trust.

I personally found the results presentation a real clarifier as to where they are headed, and the company won't look the same in 5 years. streamlined and data focused, the tools they have brought out already,and I believe others suggested in the presentation are very high margin. Future doing a smart deal with Open AI in 2024 for use of data not ownership, they get great visibility on the new LLM marketplace at the top, Who What Wear No1 on GhatGPT.

If they produce 150m revenue from those products in 3/4 yrs time thats probably 90m net profit, if the legacy stuff is pruned, Sheerluxe and GoCo remain at 40% then you probably have a company whose bottom line is 160-170m£2 a share, debt reduced and multiples far more the tech average, 15-25x which actually when you look at 1/2 the companies its a normal multiple. that's £30-40, back to 2021 share price.Just my take, obviosly could be miles off but Future isn't going bust tomorrow, 300m RCF cash generated that a company with 1.5-2b would be pleased with. Fingers crossed .

In the mean time wipe 5m more shares off

JPM appears to have loaded up more with shares than financial instruments. No suggestion that buybacks were being taken off the table, since start of H2 they have incresed progressively, 1m a week. That suggests they have some confidnce in cash H2, CFO did also suggest cash in H2 was usually strong.

If i'm honest i'm enjoying this share price for now, they have debt sewn up for 4yrs, they have said they are disposing of brands that don't align with the strategy, even if they aren't profitable.

i've watched parts of the presentation several times and what seems to become clear is they are transitioning into a data provider . Hopefully as those revenue streams develop, the high margins they work on this business will create the real value its data is worth.

I thought that presentation and question session very interesting and encouraging. Admittedly neither CEO, or CFO should be on Saturday Night Live, but they showed indepth the monetisation and brand transitions that are taking place

The CFO very clearly at the end of questions suggested things were in the pipeline to realise asset value, but could not talk specifics yet.

The fact they are already starting to pay Sheerluxe some of the second Goal oriented money for over achieving after 10 weeks is encouraging.

And specifying they are in the process of bringing out packages to monetise data, at a very high margin item also great news.

Future Optic at 2m rev in a couple of months expected to do 10m by YE that suggests at 20m revenue stream for 2027 as it grows.

They were also keen to state they are taking a conservative approach to debt and targeting 1x leverage.

Free cash flow H1 was 91m

What have Barclays downgraded too? they were at 285p before

Steinberg probably jumped ship because he knew AI headwinds were on there way. All these AI tools they are putting in place , the agreement with ChatGPT 2024 show they have been preparing for transition for several years, but that doesn't make them immune to disruption.