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Good start to the new CEO's tenure. Show's how silly the 400p bid was, we're basically back there already, and think more to go. Now for him to put his hand in his pocket....

Results look bang in line with guidance top line, bottom line and on cash. Good news with only 4.5 months to go in the year. At this price even in line is a massive win.

So by end of year we'll be 710m rev, 185m ebitda, 290m net debt after another 15m odd on buy back. On those numbers we're on mcap 275m - 15 buyback = 260m. plus 290m net debt = 550m EV. So less than 3x EV/EBITDA. Crazy valuation.

Think market encouraged by return to growth and accelerating of UK advertising even with programmatic headwinds. Also GoCo improving trajectory.

This is not a broken business. But it's trading like one.

Also, as much as they hate to point it out (being digital and all) Future does own a swathe of titles that are actually likely to be highly insulated from the whole AI / Google debacle. ie Print magazines with strong communities around them / following them. Some people still subscribe and actually read articles, rather than just askinig ChatGPT!

eg:

The Week (used to get it, it's all about high quality concise paper copy once a week), Marie Claire, Home and Garden, Decanter, Country Life, Money Week, Horse and Hound etc etc. Most probably skew to a more affluent audience as well which makes them more valuable to advertisers etc.

OK I'm not going to pretend this is a growth market but to suggest AI is going to destroy Horse and Hound or Decanter is just silly. They have value.

Earnings progression struggling not just because of Google algos / AI (I'd argue more the former than the latter atm), but also a very weak advertising market backdrop, which is cyclical and at some point will come back when the environment improves...

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

GoCo did £75m EBIT last year. MONY trades on 6.9x EV/EBIT. Even at a 20% discount this should be worth £415m. I agree that at the moment they'll struggle to realise much from it - which is why I would not sell it if I was them. Just milk the cash and continue the buy back (more! faster!). BUT I happen to think that valuation for MONY is v cheap also. And believe in time MONY will rerate (think AI threat to UK price comparison is massively overblown, regardless of what you think about the online publishing bit) and also therefore believe that fundamental of GoCo is actually higher than this. I think £450m is the floor of which the Board will consider actually selling it, and as I say I hope they don't. It's a solid asset.

I've topped up a little, against my better judgement. Clearly a lot of negativity in the price re tomorrow. But this valuation is silly. I make the EV about £550m (265 mcap 285 debt), which means if you think goco is worth 450-500m (I do, at least, this would be multiple less than what MONY trades on, c.7x EV/EBIT). then the rest is in at about 1x FCF. ie for the £50m value ascribed to the publishing bit you're getting about £50m FCF per year. Crazy times...

I agree I think this share will have the mother of all short squeezes one day. But I'm not sure when it will be, and I wouldn't bank on it being tomorrow. But here's hoping that the market will ultimately reward those that are brave and patient...

Agree ByeHi. 13 months is just too short to really judge someone's performance. I'm not a huge fan of kevin either but to blame him for what is an industry wide issue (see LBG, RCH and probably others) is harsh. He deserves more time to deliver and win back some trust from the market.

Having said that, there's now been 2 downgrades under his tenure i think. The first was so early that you can't really lay the blame at his door. The second he has to take some responsibility for ie being too optimistic re forecasts / not moving fast enough on costs maybe. But equally it was not future specific and others have also been caught out so you can't really blame kevin entirely.

If there is a third profit warning i think questions will, maybe validly, start to be asked but my view is for the foreseeable a change in ceo will cause more harm than good in disruption and uncertainty.

Recovery yesterday and today suggests institutions want in and that SMS is going down well with them. Great to see.

Come on Peaky, let's not misquote the RNS. Which says:

"This contract, along with others recently announced, provides a significant step change to revenue visibility in 2026."

'Visibility' not 'guidance'. Strongly implies (or even states) that this, and other contacts recently won, either announced (esp illiad) or not announced, so not mean an increase in guidance, just that they now have much stronger confidence in getting to the previous guidance. This is why I don't this any sell side analysts increased their forecasts this morning.

If you're nit picking one could point to compete lack of quantification of the visibility they have. Whereas some companies would say explicitly, eg 'our contracted order book now covers 85% of our Fy26 revenue guidance', HVO keeps us somewhat in the dark... Like, do we need to win another £2m or £10m before fy26 guidance is increased?

Not trying to be negative, just factual and balanced. I would love to see this fly but can see why it is not.

Everyone loves these contract announcements, but I don't think the SP will move much until they actually upgrade their guidance on the back of them. Amazing how little of their FY26 revenues they had covered coming into this year - all these wins still only plugging the gap between their order book coming into the year and their guidance for the year.

Hopefully they have a few more of these in the pipeline AND the next one will actually lead to some upgraded financials...

Apologies - tender was at 43p not 42. But think my point still stands - seems we're at 43p today!

Thought a good update today. Markets seem to be improving slowly, new products positive noises on gaining back market share. The main negative is commodity cost increases, but this will be market wide and will be passed on to customers so at worst its a timing thing...

I assume the buy back will resume shortly now the tender is complete also, which should support the share price.

Needed upgrades for SP to continue its run. Think it's a solid update though, in line with previously upgraded expectations, and importantly in line on cash guidance even though there is a Q1 outflow. Shares are still cheap, but some profit taking expected. Glad I trimmed a little above 40p. I think main risk to the SP here is that retail investors get bored and sell to look for the next hot thing that will go up in the short term - I don't think these will do much until the half year results in a few months now. I've always been in for the long term so not a problem, still see a lot of value here.

Down today purely on read across from RCH, which was actually in line/ better than some analysts had expected... I think RCH reaction is overdone, as is the reaction here. LBG also down on similar read across.

All highly profitable, cash generative and stupidly cheap. IMHO.

If you want momentum, vibes and a quick win, they're not for you, they're all hated by the market right now.

If you want value and cash flow, eat your heart out. FUTR my fave of the bunch because of the buyback. Although LBG has £30m cash on BS and could v easily do a big buyback of their own if they wanted to prioritise it over m&a.

Seems I was right (for now) re not tendering, we're now above 42... Onward and upwards!

Sales traders called it down this morning on weak revs. But same brokers analysts have a buy rating and target price 130p+...

Classic disconnect between fundamentals (analysts) and vibes (traders).

Big overreaction to in line update imho. Very cheap.

JG - things could always have got worse so I may be wrong, but it was more a case of Future following Reach, not vice versa. Reach already flagged the weak Google referral volumes in their results in March and indeed in their trading statement in January. In March they said:

"Across the first two months of 2026 we continued to trade against the backdrop of lower referral volumes and a challenging macroenvironment, and are taking a cautious approach to digital performance for the year."

So in theory they have already taken weak google referrals into account in their guidance for the year. We'll see what tomorrow brings, my base case is they won't say much, just that they are tracking inline with expectations. Which would be a good result given where the SP is. I expect anything positive on the referral volumes will be taken positively by the sector as a whole

I think this gets back to 300-350p in short measure. It never traded below 300p until the apax bid fell through, which to my mind was not pine specific but due to apax losing their nerve re software / AI / general market... Sub 300p was always crazy and probably due to forced selling from arbs etc after bid collapsed.

Not really sure what this is worth other than that it is at least 350p short term. Wouldn't be surprised if another bid surfaces tbh, maybe not 500p but board won't let it go much below that I'm sure...

Should also say. Trienniel review of pensions up coming probably this year, worst case early next year. Given where interest rates are could see contributions come down even... Suspect they will do more buy outs of the schemes also which will be good news.

AGM tomorrow. Trading on about 2.3x ev/ebit. Pension only has two more years of big outlays. Massive divi. Throws off cash...

What's not to like?

Deal done. Competing today. Good use of balance sheet, although some details of earn it would be nice as they are paying a lot for a £2.5m rev business, although must me growing quickly and I'm sure they will have referenced customers / potential customers.... Market seems happy with it though so that's positive. Up to them to deliver on it now.

Think resistance at 100p is being tested again. Through that and I think we'll be off to the races, think up to 110-115p short term. Even though I hate technical analysis it often seems to work...