The publisher of weekly education news magazine TES (formerly the Times Education Supplement) has reported a drop in profits amid challenges in the advertising market.
TES Global reported profit before tax of £28.5m in 2018, a fall of £8.7m on the year before, while revenues rose by 3 per cent to £78m, according to accounts filed with Companies House.
The publisher pinned its overall drop in profits on a £10.7m increase in non-recurring items that included £3.2m in restructuring costs.
The results come after TES Global was sold to Providence Equity Partners in December. TES sister title Times Higher Education was split from the group and sold to private equity firm Inflexion earlier this year.
TES Global said Providence provided it with £195m of funding and access to £25m of credit.
It’s latest accounts filed, covering the year to the end of August 2018, said the majority of its revenue came from academic job adverts posted online and in print, while “content revenue” was £4.9m for the year.
The company said: “Trading conditions remained challenging in the core advertising business with state schools across England in all sectors experiencing continued budget pressure due to changes in Government funding.
“The significant progress made in migrating schools to subscription products helped to offset the decline in the transactional advertising business.”
Tes also saw its average editorial staff levels cut from 68 in 2017 to 62 in 2018. Overall staffing stayed level year-on-year at 367 on average.
Spending on wages increased by a little more than £1m while company director payouts increased from £579,000 to £861,000.
In a section on future risks, TES said it was not aware of any “immediate direct consequences” that Brexit could inflict on the firm.
Website Tes.com has more than 1m unique monthly users, the accounts claimed.
Picture: Tes.com
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