Ascential descends despite upbeat update

Ascential said second half trading has remained on track to hit full calendar-year targets, with a good performance in exhibitions, continued mixed results from the publishing arm and encouraging early signs from the acquisition of One Click Retail.

The FTSE 250 group, the former Emap business spun off by the Guardian in February, said recent months had seen the performance in exhibitions driven by double-digit growth at the fifth edition of Money20/20 USA.

Information Services saw the trends of the first half continue as expected, with good growth in digital information services offset by continued dwindling print advertising for the subscription-led publications, with print advertising now accounting for less than 3% of group revenue.

Of Oneclickretail, the US-based data startup acquired in August to bolster the Information Services arm, Ascential said its offering as a new digital information service was being "well received" by customers, with the integration proceeding well and trading "in line with business case".

Ascential shares, which hit a high of 297.90p earlier this month, were down 1.4% to 273.3p on Tuesday.