H12010 Results: Throwing off the ballast
Jinfo Blog

28th July 2010

By Nancy Davis Kho

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With Q2 earning announcements by info industry companies rolling this month, it looks like a focus on mobile and digital strategies, underpinned by aggressive cost cutting, are finally bearing fruit. But that's not always enough to offset declines in advertising and print sales. Perusing recent earnings postings in PaidContent:UK (http://paidcontent.co.uk/topic/earnings/), a pattern emerges. Centaur Publishing, which publishes Lawyer and New Media and owns Perfect Information, reported a 15% increase in online income for the period from January to June, a year after it reported company revenue losses on the order of 24%. (http://digbig.com/5bcccg) Seems that perhaps the company's cost cutting reported by PaidContent in May(http://digbig.com/5bccch), on the order of £5.7 million and 3% of its staff, helped it survive the downturn. Yesterday Informa provided its half-yearly results showing revenue growth of 107%, to £66.4 million. Thanks to £20 million in cost savings implemented during the period, the company was able to offset losses in their smaller events and training programmes and limit the decline in operating revenue to 2%. (http://digbig.com/5bcccm) And in perhaps the ultimate sign of the cost-cutting times, PaidContent: UK reported that Associated Northcliffe Digital (AND), the standalone consumer digital division of the Daily Mail and General Trust (DGMT), April-to-July digital income is up 16 percent from last year, with 46 percent more earned from digital advertising. (http://digbig.com/5bccck) However with DMGT CEO Martin Morgan saying the company remains 'wary about the medium term outlook', AND's results are its last: the division has been disbanded in a cost-cutting move. The FT this week reported positive results of its embrace of the digital shift, with digital services now accounting for 36% of the group's overall revenues (and a commensurate decline of advertising as a proportion of revenue from 74% in 2000 to 45% in 2009.) With digital subscription growth of 27%, registered user growth of 77%, and 250k downloads of the FT's iPad app, FT is poised to continue to take advantage of the move to mobile. (http://www.pearson.com/investors/presentations/?i=1306) But there are still cautionary tales to be had, like the Yell Group, an international directories business operating in the classified advertising market in the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, Argentina, Chile and Peru. It reported today that despite growing its revenue to 25.4% of its total revenue (up from 20.9% last year,) the group experienced a 10.6% decrease in organic revenues. (http://digbig.com/5bcccn) Not surprisingly, cost cutting is in the wind; the earnings release promises £60 million in net cost reductions for 2011.

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