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February 28, 2008

Profits up for B2B publishers Centaur and Wilmington

By Press Gazette

Business publishers Centaur and Wilmington have both reported profits boosts in financial results posted today.

Centaur has reported profit before tax up 22 per cent to £5 million on revenue up 6 per cent to £39.1 million for the six months to December. Wilmington pre-tax profit for the same period rose 13.5 per cent year-on-year to £5.7 million.

Event revenues for Centaur were down 4 per cent, which the company blamed on the discontinuation of two marketing shows. But online revenue showed stong growth, representing £8.5m of total turnover. Magazines accounted for £22.4 million of turnover and events £7.5 million.

The company said that the overall outlook for the business was positive and results for the current financial year are expected to be in line with market expectations.

The reorganisation of the Marketing & Creative portfolio would faciliate new product development and ‘margin improvement’in that part of the business, according to the company.

Earlier this month, three senior publishing directors left the company in a management shake up in the department which publishes Creative Review and New Media Age. The move meant the removal of a layer of management, with the individual magazine publishers reporting directly to the business publishing managing director, Tim Potter.

Geoff Wilmot, Centaur CEO, said: ‘We remain focused on strengthening Centaur’s existing market leading positions in its core business areas, principally through new product launches – most notably in online and events – and I am particularly encouraged that online revenues continue to grow rapidly. Our seasonally stronger second half has started well, in line with market expectations.”
Wilmington’s like-for-like revenue for the six months to the end of December was £39.9m. Wilmington Business Information, publisher of Press Gazette, ‘continued to perform well”.

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Wilmington said it made a ‘modest profit’from the £12m sale of a sizeable part of its publishing business to Progressive Media last summer. The sale included titles such as Blueprint, FX and What Van?, described by the company as ‘non-core”.

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