Future Publishing, which owns around 90 magazines including T3, Classic Rock and Total Film, has reported a £19.3 million loss for the year to September.

The results, which come just a month after Future's chief executive Stevie Spring dramatically resigned in a restructure, show overall revenue at the group fell by £9.8 million to £141.7 million for the year, leading it to slump from profits of £5.5 million in 2009/10 to its £19.3 million loss in 2010/11.

Losses were offset to a certain extent by a strong digital performance in the UK, with revenues up 36 per cent. Overall the UK accounts for 73 per cent of Future's revenue.

Overall digital revenues were up 31 per cent to £16.2 million, but only account for 11 per cent of Future's total revenue and were not nearly enough to counter significant losses in the US print market.

According to Future's report, "measures are in place to reduce scale of exposure and return US to profitability by 2013". These include a "dividend holiday" until then, designed to "conserve cash/strengthen balance sheet".

The board has recommended that dividends do not resume payment until group borrowings have "reverted to less than two times bank EBITDA [earnings before, interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation], which we anticipate happening at the beginning of the 2013 financial year".

Future said that its UK operations had been "resilient" overall, with revenues falling just 2 per cent to £103.4 million.

By contrast, US revenues were down 13 per cent to $62.4 million, with newsstand print sales down 32 per cent and print advertising down 21 per cent.

US losses were "partially offset" by growth in digital revenues, which saw a 25 per cent hike.

Peter Allen, chairman of Future, said: "Given the decline in group performance and profitability, the board took action to remove corporate level cost and change the way the company is managed. We have installed as new group CEO and finance director two individuals with a proven track record of running an efficient business for Future in the UK and achieving rapid and profitable digital transformation."

Mark Wood, chief executive, said: "Building on the digital success in the UK, we have taken steps to reorganise the company, merge UK and US operations and create a single global product line. These changes will enable us to operate more efficiently and return the US business to profitability. The changes will also mean that we can accelerate our transition to a digital business model and start to sell our entire range of digital content to high-value audiences in the US and other key markets.

"Digital channels such as the Apple iPad are rapidly opening up new routes to markets in which our niche products can quickly build a loyal following. Future's success on the Apple Newsstand, with more than six million downloads of our apps in a month, has demonstrated our ability to develop and deliver digital products at high speed, and underlines the global appeal of content ranging from cycling, games and technology to music, film and crafts. So, as a result, we look forward to the year ahead with confidence."

Former chief executive Spring resigned in October as part of a company move to remove "an entire tier of corporate overhead".

Spring was replaced by Mark Wood, was was most recently head of Future UK, while the company's finance director John Bowman also resigned and was to be replaced by the company's UK finance director Graham Harding. Both Wood and Harding's UK roles were not going to be replaced.

Springs resignation followed news in July that the company was to cut around 100 jobs based in the UK and abroad as part of a restructure.
Tags: Click tag to find related articles; click icon for feed

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).

Related articles