Growth Acceleration Strategy delivering good progress with H2 momentum driving return to growth
Future, the global platform for specialist media, today published its results for the financial year ended 30 September 2024.
Financial highlights
- Revenue was flat year-on-year at £788.2m (FY 2023: £788.9m), with +1% organic growth, offset by adverse foreign exchange (mainly USD).
- Profitability was in line with expectations with 28% adjusted operating margin reflecting investment from the Growth Acceleration Strategy (GAS), resulting in an adjusted operating profit decline of (13)% to £222.2m (FY 2023: £256.4m). Statutory operating profit was down (23)% to £133.7m (FY 2023: £174.5m) mainly reflecting adjusted operating profit movement.
- Future remains highly cash generative with adjusted free cash flow of £222.3m (FY 2023: £253.2m), representing 100% of adjusted operating profit (FY 2023: 99%). Cash generated from operations was £230.0m (FY 2023: £241.0m).
- Leverage reduced to 1.1x (FY 2023: 1.3x) with net debt at the end of the year of £256.5m (FY 2023: £327.2m). Total available debt facilities at the end of September 2024 were £650m (FY 2023: £900m).
- £68.6m was returned to shareholders during the year comprising £64.7m through share buybacks (FY 2023: £13.0m) and dividends of £3.9m (FY 2023: £4.1m). New share buyback programme for up to £55m starting in January 2025.
Growth Acceleration Strategy
- In December 2023, we launched the Growth Acceleration Strategy (GAS) to ensure Future is well-positioned to capitalise on future opportunities in its attractive and growing markets. This is a two-year investment programme of £25m-£30m to drive acceleration in a compounding model.
- We’ve made good progress in the first year of the plan, resulting in Future’s return to organic growth. We’ve added over 100 new team members across sales, editorial and back office and progress against our three strategic pillars includes:
- Growing a highly engaged and valuable audience – Increased focus on brand leadership and content to drive premium monetisation
- Diversifying and increasing revenue per user – Adding new routes of monetisation and driving market-leading positions to improve yield
- Optimising our portfolio – Ensuring we have the right portfolio of assets is a continuous process.
Outlook
Our return to revenue growth in H2, driven by the execution of our Growth Acceleration Strategy, puts Future in a good position to achieve current market expectations for FY 2025. We expect to continue to operate at an adjusted operating profit margin of 28% for the coming year reflecting the planned incremental GAS costs, and to maintain strong cash conversion.
Beyond FY 2025, we now expect to deliver accelerating organic revenue growth, in line with current market expectations.
Jon Steinberg, Chief Executive Officer at Future, said: “We launched our Growth Acceleration Strategy one year ago and have made good strategic progress. We have invested in sales and editorial roles, successfully diversified and grown revenue per user, and we have further optimised our portfolio. Importantly, the Group has returned to organic revenue growth during the year, underpinned by a strong H2 performance.”
“The execution of our strategy combined with our strong financial characteristics, including a flexible cost base and highly cash generative profile, creates further optionality and positions the business well.”
“Looking ahead, whilst we remain mindful of the macro environment and the ongoing evolution of the media landscape, we are confident that the ongoing execution of our Growth Acceleration Strategy will drive long-term accelerating organic revenue growth.”
To read the results in full, go to our Investor Results Page