Future Publishing Profits Up As Sales Drop

Officials from British based magazine publisher Future Publishing have announced details of the company’s financial results for the six months ended March 31st, with sales down by 11 percent but pre-tax profit rising to £8.6 million ($16.9m). For the first half of the company’s financial year sales were down from £107.0 million ($210.7m) in 2006 to £95.3 million ($187.6m) in 2007. Profits, though, were no longer in the red, with operating profit up from an earlier loss of £0.3 million ($0.6m) to a profit this year of £10.0 million ($19.7m). Pre-tax profit also rose from a loss of £1.6 million ($3.1m) the previous year. The company saw further annualized cost savings of over £1.0 million ($2.0m) and net debt down 24 percent to £29.1 million ($57.3m). Online advertising revenue was up by 66 percent year-on-year, with customer publishing revenues also up 59 percent. With the appointment of Seb Bishop as non-executive director today, the company has also now filled all vacant senior positions. CEO Stevie Spring commented: "With our key online hires now in place, the second half will see the bulk of our planned online investment, some of which had originally been expected in the first half. We also anticipate continuing declines at Future France as we have not been investing in this part of the business.” "Despite this and although the backdrop remains challenging for media generally, we are encouraged by the progress we have made to date and remain on track to deliver full-year results in line with existing expectations,” she added.