NFC.L Regulatory News (NFC)

29 Jan 2021 07:00

Next Fifteen Communications Group plc (“Next 15” or the “Group”)

Trading Update

Next 15 is pleased to announce that trading in the final quarter of its financial year ending 31 January 2021 has continued to be strong and ahead of management expectations.

For the three-month period to 31 January 2021, revenues are expected to be up by approximately 9% compared with the same period last year, with a return to modest organic revenue growth. The operating profit margin has also shown strong growth compared with last year. As a result, we anticipate that results for the year ending 31 January 2021 will be ahead of current market expectations.

The performance has again been led by our B2B technology focused agencies, such as Activate, Twogether and Agent3, but we have also seen a strong recovery in performance from our B2C agencies, such as MBooth and Savanta. Our revenues in the US and the UK have strengthened as our financial year has progressed, resulting in an anticipated organic revenue decline of approximately 1.5% for the Group in the second half of our financial year, demonstrating a resilient performance in the second half and which compares with a 6.6% decline experienced in the first half.

Whilst Covid-19 continues to impact the global economy, we remain cautiously optimistic about trading as we enter our new financial year. The strength of our customer base, coupled with the increasingly digital and data-driven nature of our product offering, continue to position us well to capitalise on opportunities as the economy continues to adapt to and ultimately emerge from the pandemic. Unsurprisingly therefore, new business activity has remained strong and we have won a number of significant new clients including Hitachi, TDK, Door Dash, and Goodyear.

The Group is highly cash generative and has a strong balance sheet, with net cash at 25 January of approximately £10m after the early repayment of VAT deferred from earlier in the year. We anticipate resuming the payment of dividends following our AGM in June 2021.

Enquiries:

Next Fifteen Communications Group plcTim Dyson, CEO+1 415 350 2801Peter Harris, CFO+44 (0)20 7908 6444

NumisMark Lander, Hugo Rubinstein+44 (0)20 7260 1000

Notes:

This announcement contains inside information as defined in Article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation.

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