CentralNic revenues rise after acquisition of InstraGroup

The internet platform business retail division´s performance was ‘significantly’ enhanced by the acquisition of Instra Group, which diluted the gross margin to 26% while increasing overall gross profit by £363,000. The acquisition, combined with the organic growth of the Internet BS business, brought the total retail division revenue and adjusted EBITDA to £6.76m of £1.1m, respectively.

Of those amounts, Instragroup contributed revenue of £4.88m and adjusted EBITDA of £0.95m.

Chairman Mike Turner said "during 2016 to date, CentralNic has advanced its growth strategy through the acquisition of the Instra Group. Together with Internet.BS, the Group is now able to address demand from a number of retail segments across geographic markets. This reflects our strategy to enhance the quality and visibility of the Group's earnings.”

Instra Group retails over 150 country code domain names and all open generic domain names, as well as operating a 24/7 call centre and bringing online marketing capabilities.

The group’s overall revenue rose to £8.9m from £4.4m in the previous period and recurring revenues increased by 130% to £5.3m representing 60% of reported revenue.

Billings rose by 468% to £45m in the first half. Gross profit rose 19% to £2.2 and adjusted profit before tax rose 29% to £1.3m.

The company did however record a loss after tax of £1.3m this year, which decreased from £1.5m in 2015.

The group comprises of three business lines within the domain name industry and operates a global wholesale network, supplying domain names to over 1,500 vendors in 77 countries. The firm’s second anniversary marketing campaign in June 2016 resulted in the number of .xyz registrations increasing to around 6.5m domain names.

During the same month, the company developed and implemented a gateway service to connect domains using competing wholesale platforms to the firm’s network of retailers.

The firm’s enterprise division generated revenue of £0.54, and an adjusted EBITDA loss of £0.05m.

The wholesale division generated revenue of £1.64m and adjusted EBITDA of £0.71m. The global market share for this part of the business grew from 20% to over 34%.

Net cash flow rose from £575,000 to £1m. Cash and cash equivalents were £9.25m and net cash after borrowings were £6.04m. The board said the balances reflected a temporary increase in net working capital due to the timing of the June 2016 .xyz second anniversary marketing campaign

“Trading in our core businesses overall has remained in line with the Board's expectations since the half year. Our team is in discussions with trade buyers for premium domain name sales, and anticipating that these sales will proceed, the board is confident of achieving the market expectations for the year" said Turner.

Basic Loss per share fell from 1.84p to 1.37p.

As of 1122 BST the shares were falling 15.22% to 39p.