Investment Case

Centaur is an international provider of business intelligence and learning that enables ambitious leaders to see around corners and deliver change.

As set out in our BIG27 strategy, we now plan to Build, Invest and Grow the business over four years. This will enable us to become the business intelligence and learning partner of choice and help our clients’ senior leaders and their teams to navigate change and deliver better performance.

Why invest in Centaur?

• Attractive market opportunity: Data, technology and globalisation have transformed the challenges facing businesses today, and in such times of change, business leaders need intelligence and insights to make the right decisions. They need to increase their attention on customers and look for new ways to reach them effectively, whilst also upskilling their teams to keep pace. This means there is a significant growth opportunity for companies with trusted access to senior business leaders, who can meet this rising demand for informed insights, advice and learning.

• Well-placed to invest for growth: The performance of the MAP23 strategy has armed us with a strong balance sheet and reliable cash generation from our strategically valuable revenue streams, meaning we are well positioned to scale the business further as we move to implement our BIG27 strategy. Our three-stage approach of building, investing and growing the business will enable us to scale to £60m of annual revenue in the mid-term, through investment in new product development, our data analytics capabilities and by taking a more strategic approach to marketing and new business development.

• Ongoing focus on quality of earnings: Centaur is moving to a more focused offering, by growing repeatable and recurring strategically valuable revenue streams from a greater proportion of blue-chip customers in the marketing and legal professions, thus driving our quality of earnings. We are clearly differentiated from our peers by our ability to span the range of senior leaders’ needs with services from highly regarded, trusted brands.

• Clear M&A strategy: We have established robust criteria for our M&A approach, which will enable us to provide our customers with a wider selection of the highest quality products and services through our Enhance, Broaden and Transform approach. We will ensure that our acquisitions both strategically fit and also create shareholder value.

• Strong track record for delivery: As demonstrated by the successful completion of our MAP23 strategy, our team has a strong track record of delivery, so we remain confident that we can successfully execute our BIG27 strategy

• Progressive Dividend Policy: this distributes the higher of the previous year’s dividend and 40% of adjusted earnings after taxation