One Media Regulatory News (OMIP)

One Media iP Group Plc - Full Year Results and Notification of AGM

PR Newswire

London, February 23

One Media IP Group Plc("One Media" or the "Group or the Company")

Full Year Results and Notification of AGM

One Media iP (AIM: OMIP), the digital media content provider which exploits intellectual digital property rights around music, video and copyright technology, announces its Full Year Results for the 12 month period ended 31 October 2017.

Financial Highlights

Revenue increased to £2,337,624, up 14% compared to equivalent period last year (2016: £2,045,652);

EBITDA increased to £535,678, up 121% compared to equivalent period last year (2016: £242,326);

Operating profit increased to £297,416, up 927% compared to equivalent period last year (2016: £28,959);

Cash at 31 October 2017 was £383,051 compared with 31 October 2016: £335,664 up 14%

Operational Highlights

Growth primarily due to increased demand for Group’s recordings resulting from uplift in consumers streaming music

Miki Dallon catalogue of music rights renewed

Launch of five new Group websites

TCAT (Technical Copyright Analysis Tool) signs its first client

Banking facilities moved to Coutts & Co

All USA reported copyright claims successfully closed and settled

One Media CEO & Chairman, Michael Infante, commented

“A year ago I reiterated my confidence in streaming and that of the music industry at large, this has proven to be key in our corporate financial turnaround. We have weathered the worst of the drop, as consumers transitioned from downloading to streaming and as predicted by me, it has now reflected in growth. Revenues up from £2.0m (2016) to £2.3m up 14% and the profit increasing in line with market expectation to £0.3m and gross margins remaining stable at 45%. Our EBITDA reflects this recovery at over £0.5m and cash balances have improved to just under £0.4m and have further increased post period end. As consumers continue to change their music buying habits, and embrace the streaming services provided by the major streaming sites such as Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon, like the Dodo, no new downloading sites are emerging. Devices like the Amazon Echo (Alexa) or Google’s Home, provide a brand new experience in daily audio consumption and serves to provide another rapid paradigm shift in subscription funded listening. No keyboards, monitors or complicated sign in procedures acting as a barrier to use, these devices completely liberate your music libraries and integrate them into your surroundings and away from your mobile device, making music once again an amplified sound-sharing exchange, as opposed to a personal headphone experience. Both hardware and ingenious software, empowering voice recognition, it is the music industry, hand in hand with technology leading the way. Once again, we are on the verge of a whole new market for consuming audio-visual entertainment. The continuing evolution, that is today’s music market, can only serve to ensure the industry will reap the benefits by enjoying the sustained long-term growth that will come with this advance. This amplifies our mission statement that ‘content is still king’ and that device ingenuity and creativity requires a mixed offering of content (nostalgic and contemporary) to provide to its exacting and varied consumers of all demographics.

TCAT signed its first major record industry distributor during the period under review and has completed a successful trial period and continues to serve this client. The service is still in its early days and development continues on this unique software music copyright discovery tool. The Group has resourced its technical team with additional in-house software developers to underpin the growth of the program. Post year-end we were pleased to announce that TCAT had signed an additional international major record label and that the service has now commenced. Men and Motors, post year-end has entered a deal with an American production and distribution company (Global Genesis Group) to seek out broadcasters and sponsored funding to create a new series in North America. Finally, and to positive media coverage resulting in share price endorsement, I cannot fail to mention the proposed appointments of investors Lord Michael Grade and Ivan Dunleavy to our board of directors. Both bring with them a wealth of experience and City support. I said last year that 2018/9 was going to be a turnaround year for the Group, I can say that as the repositioning of the Group continues, the real corporate initiatives are only just beginning. One might say, “phase one is complete, bring on phase two.”

The report of the auditor in the Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 31 October 2017 is unqualified and the results announcement can be viewed on the company's website, www.omip.co.uk with effect from Monday 26 February 2018. Notice of the Annual General Meeting, to be held at 11.00 a.m. on Tuesday 27th March 2018 at Panmure Gordon One New Change, London EC4M 9AF will be posted to shareholders on or by 28th February 2018.

For further information, please contact:

CEO & Chairman's Statement

I left off last year by stating that I was beginning to sound like a worn out record being played at the wrong speed. Well I am pleased to report that like the music we sell, we are back on track. The music industry is reporting growth and the press have been bullish in their analysis on music streaming. Album and track downloading is giving way to the subscription based and advert-funded method of consumer music buying. We have experienced the green shoots of recovery and are positioning ourselves to meet the new demands of a more fully rounded copyright business. As we approached our year-end, strategic changes in both our systems and personnel supported our continued growth. We have engaged in further system development with TCAT and employed additional software developers. We have rationalised our management team to have the right skill sets in place to take us forward and kept a firm grip on financial control. Over the year under review we have continued to invest in system and sales development for the Company, which is always hard to bear in a downward trend, but has proven to be the correct route. We have managed this situation without any borrowing or additional equity funding. Yes, it has meant a suspension of our dividend program and has been reflected in rigorous control measures, but we are now better positioned to meet the new challenges. What are the Group’s new challenges? 

Firstly we have aligned ourselves with the predicted growth path of the music and video industry over the next five years. Our core business is still audio based but as we grow we can fully expect to see an increase in revenues coming from a proactive sales initiative from the Group’s video library into emerging territories such as Russia, India and China. Our Men & Motors back catalogue and newly formatted show initiative has found a partnership with industry specialists Global Genesis Group, a TV & Film distributor based in North America, who are tasked with finding the sponsorship and broadcasters for a new Men & Motors show format developed in the UK. Meanwhile TCAT is making progress with the major record distributors and post year-end has signed its second international record label as a key account. We anticipate further progress with TCAT, as its service becomes a recognised industry standard in copyright enforcement and protection.

As confidence returns into our sector we anticipate further acquisitions in keeping with our original buy and build strategy. Music, video and publishing opportunities, will all be on our radar. At the half year I stated that the music industry’s trade revenues were expected to grow by 5.1% (source BPI Official Charts Company) and the Group is pleased to say that we surpassed that benchmark achieving 14% growth over the year under review. In the market overview below are further industry statistics.

Currency still impacts our profitability. Shifts in both the US Dollar and the Euro continue to affect both our revenue and profits and we continue to anticipate a fluctuating currency exchange rate.

The market overview below will provide a greater in-depth look at the state of the global music market. We maintain a ‘measured pace’ on rights acquisitions whilst the market place stabilises and multiples adjust accordingly. Most acquisitions are based on the ‘targets’ previous financial performance, so a return to music industry growth should benefit our rights acquisition initiative.

Our in-house team of Creative Technicians that manage our metadata, design our digital artwork and are all ‘YouTube accredited’ by the YouTube annual exam programme, have adapted their skillsets to include digital audio publishing. The Group has introduced a series of ‘digital on-demand’ printed books, uploaded to Amazon’s ‘Print on Demand’ service. The original sound master to many of our ‘spoken word’ recordings has been transliterated and presented as paperback books or ‘ebooks’. This necessitates no stock holding and no print runs. Basically a digital file is uploaded and acts as ‘master’ to each ‘printout’ on a one-off basis. The service is fully automated and operated by our distribution partner, Amazon. 

Our music library continues to be used for synchronisation purposes. This is the use of our audio behind film, TV or advertising. In the year under review we have had placements in shows such as Nashville, Hawaii Five-0, Marvel’s The Flash, Ghosted, Bad Moms and American Gods to name a few.

We are pleased to report that TCAT has been successfully trialled with one major international music aggregator and subsequently we have entered into a commercial arrangement monetising the service. Post year-end we are pleased to confirm that another major international record company has contracted with TCAT and started using our service. We are now offering TCAT as a 'Software as a Service' (SAAS) analysis tool to the wider major record industry with a variety of bespoke services. Each new client requires a varying rights management service and undertakes to an exacting ‘brief’ prior to the service being activated. We anticipate, as our experience grows and in-house developers create ‘industry-first’ data sets for our TCAT clients, that the value of TCAT will be fully realised as we roll out the service. For more information on TCAT please visit www.tcat.media.

Financial Overview

The year under review has been encouraging and we have seen revenues grow by 14% up to £2,337,624 and our EBITDA up by 121% to £535,678 (2016: £242,326). Our operating profit is up to £297,416, a significant increase over our 2016 figure of £28,959. Despite our cash investment into our new technologies, rights investments, exhibitions and the cost of certain staff realignments, our year-end cash balance is up by 14% at £383,051. Our Gross margin is stable at 45%. Overheads for the year, after the strict administrative controls implemented by the Group in reaction to the previous year’s drop in revenues, are reported at £758,311 compared to 2016 at £876,742.

A profit after tax attributable to equity shareholders of £266,772 is reported for the financial year. Increased from the £62,871 in 2016 and due to the combined effects of increased revenues, a reduced foreign exchange charge and maintained margins. The corporation tax expense of £30,829 in the period (2016: credit of £32,852) includes Research and Development allowances available to the Group (£38,812 prior year and £35,315 current year). At the end of the year our cash position is reported at £383,051 (2016: £335,664). Due to the uncertainties in our business, mentioned elsewhere in this report, we have been careful over the investment in content and rights with this year showing a spend of £228,543, reduced from the £280,176 in 2016.

The board has considered the year under review and has recommended that no dividend be paid (2016: £100,896). As always this will be a matter for review by the board semi annually. We continue to operate a steady, considered approach with our acquisition programme. We will broaden our search for IP content, technical development, publishing and live events. We will consider all methods of rights exploitation outside of the traditional music platforms.

Acquisition and RNS Updates Nov 2016 to Oct 2017

We have taken a consolidative view of the market whilst the buying trends shift. We are preserving our resources regarding content acquisition until the merry-go-round settles. However as certain opportunities present themselves we are ready to make acquisitions where bargains may exist. I believe there will be some such deals on the horizon. We are underpinning existing contracts by extending existing rights and ensuring that our library of rights remains robust.

On 25 January 2017 we announced that we had renewed the exclusive rights to the MD Production music catalogue for a recoupable advance of $18,000 (eighteen thousand US Dollars). The MD catalogue comprises over 1,000 original recordings from the 1960s to the 1980s. With performances from artists such as Don Fardon, The Cockerel Chorus, Dando Shaft, Gill Scott-Heron, Greyhound, Roy Harper, Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, Kenny and Python Lee Jackson to name just a few. The tracks have been marketed exclusively by One Media since 2007 on a royalty-sharing basis. MD Productions has been a long-term music provider and has received three advances and on-going royalties from One Media throughout the term. One Media is pleased to report that it has always fully recouped its advances throughout the relationship.

On 30 January 2017 we started work on reorganising the Group’s websites. Five new websites were created promoting the Group’s expanded activities. Firstly we have the new site; One Media iP Group Plc (www.omip.co.uk/). Here you will find all the investor relation information and dedicated summaries of the Group’s subsidiaries. The day-to-day activities, artist information and social media activities of our audio and video businesses is now housed under www.onemediaip.com/. Our Technical Copyright Analysis Tool (TCAT) is at (www.tcat.media). Here you will find our informational video on the ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) technology. Men & Motors can be found on (www.menandmotors.com) a new and exciting style for this site showing the links to the archive of over 3,400 shows and information on our initiative for a new format of TV show still being presented to various broadcasters. Point Classics, our classical collection of over 3,000 recordings (www.pointclassics.com) is now the new home for this collection. Music supervisors use this site to sort, search and compile classical recordings for film and TV. We are pleased to report that all of the work in creating the new sites was completed on time and within budget.

It is the Group’s intention to maximise the value on its brand ownership and to more clearly define their individuality within the market place, as demonstrated on our new corporate website (www.omip.co.uk). Men & Motors by way of example has already been registered (albeit dormant), as a stand-alone subsidiary company in preparation for broadcast and trading demand. The same applies for TCAT and the Group has registered TCAT Ltd should this be required in the future.

On 1 February 2017 we announced that we had moved our banking services to Coutts & Co ("Coutts") of 440 Strand, London. We commenced the orderly handover from Barclays to Coutts during February 2017. The Group confirmed at the time that it has no debt and is cash generative. Coutts experience within media and content, with many focussed services and seminars should prove invaluable to the Group with its expansion programme into varying media and technology activities.

On 30 April 2017 the Group announced that One Media had signed an exclusive exploitation deal with Getty Images for 'clips' from the Group’s moving image library rights. The deal will involve One Media supplying ‘clips’ from its growing video content library to Getty Images for representation and exploitation to Getty’s worldwide client base for multiple use in documentaries, advertising and all moving image usages. Getty Images is one of the most esteemed sources of visual content throughout the world, with over 200 million assets available through its industry-leading sites www.gettyimages.com and www.istock.com. The distribution deal will see the Group create thousands of clips from its archive to be made available to Getty Image’s clients on their web-based platforms. The Group’s video archive has grown by acquisition over that last few years and we are now able to further exploit the content via a ‘clipping’ service and to supply the world leader in image hire. The Group’s Creative Technicians are already trained and equipped to perform this function in-house and have been successful in building billions of views with the Company’s content for sites like YouTube. Content from Men & Motors, Alien Autopsy and the HiBrow film catalogue together with our cleared music video content will spearhead the service.

On 25 May 2017 we announced that we had signed our first major music distributor to utilise the services of the Group’s Technical Copyright Analysis Tool (“TCAT”). The global music distributor started using the TCAT services from June 2017 to monitor its weekly release schedules, monitor music conflicts and potential copyright infringements. Following two years of development the deal will see the commercialisation of TCAT on an annual contract basis. Confidentiality clauses in the agreement prevents us from disclosing the identity of our client at this time and any of the commercial terms but the Group is very excited by having TCAT deployed as a technical resource to an international major record aggregator & distributor. 

On 12 September 2017 The Company accepted the resignation of Mr Poplawski a Non-Executive Director (NED). This had been originally tended in February 2017 and we thank him for his input over the years. It is the Company’s intention to announce new NED appointments during 2018.

Post year end on 18 December 2017 and to much national press, it was announced that an equity investment totalling £375,000 gross in the Company was made by Lord Michael Grade and Ivan Dunleavy, and their proposed appointments as Non-Executive Directors.

Lord Grade said: “I firmly believe the music industry has turned a corner – led by streaming services, which are seen as the basis of future growth by content owners. One Media is a very accomplished business with strong credentials, and we share the management team’s view of the music business’ development. I look forward to working closely with them and using my experience to add value and expedite the scale up of the business.”

“Our investment is a gesture of our firm commitment and a demonstration of our belief in One Media’s future prospects,” added Ivan Dunleavy. “We have a long-established relationship with Michael Infante and are impressed with how he has run this company and developed an excellent reputation in this industry. With music streaming set to grow, not only will this company benefit from sales of its portfolio of digital content, it is also able to provide a vital service to copyright owners through its in-house developed proprietary software, TCAT, which tracks and monitors where their music is made available for sale. We look forward to working with the One Media’s team to build on the strong foundations and advancing to the next stage of development.”

Market Overview

The market has seen more turns in the last five years than Brands Hatch. It has taken (in market terms) a very short period of time for downloading to become the poor relation to streaming. All the major international record labels report a return to growth and most headlining industry news amplifies this. The key figures published to April 2017 (source IFPI report) puts global revenue growth up by 5.9%. The digital share of global revenues now represents 50% of total sales up 17.7% over the previous year and a staggering growth in streaming revenues up 60.4% over 2016. Physical (CDs & Records) revenues dropped despite the great hope of vinyl, falling by 7.6% and download digital (the iTunes model) sales revenues fell by 20.5%. Many of the major labels do not disclose detailed music sales information however the Warner Music Group (WMG) announced its headline growth at 10.2% in total revenues. WMG saw its revenues grow from $3.25bn in the year ended 30 September 2016 to $3.58bn in the year ended 30 September 2017. Within that, WMG’s digital revenues grew by 24.7% to £1.87bn being 52.3% of the group’s total revenues. Overall, WMG reported a net profit of $149m for its latest fiscal year, up from $30m the previous year (source Musically). Royalty bearing artists and publishers alike will be benefiting as profits return to the industry. Streaming continues the march for the consumer-preferred method of purchasing music as intuitive technology enables the user to engage with content legitimately and meets commercial requirements for rights owning music businesses. A kind of West meets East. As more territories are commercialised, we are seeing for the first time in many years, a happier music industry. Still to be addressed is the ‘The Value Gap’. The value gap describes the growing mismatch between the value that user uploaded services, such as YouTube, extract from music, and the revenue returned to those who are creating and investing in music. The value gap is the next ‘bridge’ to be built. But Rome was not built in a day.

Over the last four years we have seen streaming grow from very low monetisation to being the consumer-preferred method of buying music.

Please click here to view the graph

Employees

Our headcount as of 31 October 2017 was 12 including all staff and executive and non-executive directors (Group and Subsidiaries). On the 7th September 2017 Alice Dyson-Jones (managing director of One Media IP Ltd (a Group subsidiary) was appointed as a director of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) as an independent music label representative. The Company has had history in the past with both Michael Infante and Scott Cohen representing ‘the Indies’ over the last ten years at the BPI in similar roles. It is a great achievement and we congratulate her.

I would also like to thank Scott Cohen, Philip Miles and Steve Gunning for their individual contributions at board level especially in such a challenging year.

Litigation

On the 12 April 2017, we announced that further to our announcement of 20 February 2017 that we had reached an amicable settlement to the on-going Middle District of Tennessee dispute with HHO Licensing Ltd, Henry Hadaway Organisation Ltd and Henry Hadaway personally. The terms of the settlement are confidential. The matter is now closed.

On the 1 November 2017 we announced that further to the Company’s announcement on 27 June 2017 the Company can confirm an end to the ‘action’ in which it was involved in the Southern District of Florida Court USA. One Media has settled its involvement for a non-material amount in the case brought by Kemar McGregor.

Outlook

I am delighted to welcome Ivan Dunleavy and Lord Grade as investors into One Media. I am also excited by the wealth of experience that this will bring to the Company following their proposed appointments as non-executive directors. They have an exceptional track record, both individually and combined, with their partnership at Pinewood Studios overseeing a more-than fivefold increase in the value of that business. In 2018, the music industry and One Media are both poised to benefit from uplifts in the monetisation of content through streaming and we will also extend our reach with exciting initiatives such as TCAT and future acquisitions into new areas of our industry. My team of directors (both main board and subsidiary) and I remain committed to delivering value and will continue to meet the challenges that our industry faces. Thank you for your continued support.

Michael InfanteChairman and CEO26 February 2018

Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive IncomeFor the year ended 31 October 2017

The Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income has been prepared on the basis that all operations are continuing activities.

Consolidated Statement of Changes in EquityFor the year ended 31 October 2017

Consolidated Statement of Financial Position at 31 October 2017

Consolidated Cash Flow StatementFor the year ended at 31 October 2017

Notes to the Preliminary Results

Basis of preparation

The Company is a public limited company incorporated and domiciled in England under the Companies Act 2006. The Board has adopted and complied with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as adopted by the European Union. The Company's shares were admitted for trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange on 18 April 2013.

Taxation

The standard rate of tax for the year, based on the UK standard rate of corporation tax is 19.41% (2016: 20%). The actual tax charge for the periods is different than the standard rate for the reasons set out in the following reconciliation:

Earnings per share

The weighted average number of shares in issue for the basic earnings per share calculations is 71,053,698 (2016: 71,053,698) and for the diluted earnings per share assuming the exercise of all warrants and share options is 75,653,698 (2016: 77,035,890).

The calculation of basic earnings per share is based on the profit for the period of £266,772 (2016: £62,871). Based on the weighted average number of shares in issue during the year of 71,053,698 (2016: 71,053,698) the basic earnings per share is 0.38p (2016: 0.09p). The diluted earnings per share is based on 75,653,698 shares (2016: 77,035,890) and is 0.35p (2016: 0.08p).

EBITDA

Profit from continuing activities before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for the twelve months ended 31 October 2017 was £535,678 (2016: £242,326).

Directors’ responsibilities

The Annual Report, including the financial information contained therein, is the responsibility of, and was approved by the directors on 23 February 2018.

Availability of Report and Accounts and Notice of the Annual General Meeting

Copies of the Company’s Report and Accounts together with the Notice of the Annual General Meeting, to be held at 11.00 a.m. on Tuesday 27th March 2018 will be posted to shareholders on or by Monday 26 February 2018. Copies of the Company’s Report and Accounts will also be available at the registered office of the Company and can be viewed on the company’s website, www.omip.co.uk