Ascential swings to loss, pays no dividend

The information and analytics company swung to the operating loss for the year to the end of December from a £1.8m profit a year earlier as revenue from continuing operations dropped to £263.7m from £380.3m.

Exceptional costs increased to £140.4m from £41.4m including £97.6m for the deferred consideration on its Flywheel Digital after it outperformed expectations during the pandemic. Ascential also took a £28.4m charge on the impaired value of its retail and financial services business.

The FTSE 250 company said after considering how to allocate capital the board decided not to pay a dividend in 2020. Its shares fell 6.5% to 346.8p at 12:25 GMT.

The biggest hit to Ascential’s revenue was at its marketing business where income dropped 60% to £54.3m, caused partly by the cancellation of the Lions creativity festival in Cannes. Revenue also fell heavily in retail financial services, dropping 78% to £18.2m.

Those declines were partly offset by a 32% increase in digital commerce revenue to £103.1m, including Flywheel, bought in late 2018. Flywheel advises consumer product companies on how to sell on Amazon.

Chief Executive Duncan Painter said: “2021 has started well with strong growth in revenue and profits in the first two months of the year.

“While the speed of vaccine deployment and easing of government restrictions will heavily influence the near-term financial success of our event products, we have high levels of confidence in our digital subscriptions and platforms products and, after double-digit growth in 2020, expect these revenue streams to continue to grow well in the coming year.”