Preliminary Results for the year ended 31 December 2023

Comfortably exceeded MAP23 EBITDA margin objective

Strong growth in EBITDA and EBITDA margin

Centaur Media plc (“Centaur”), an international provider of business information, training and specialist consultancy, is pleased to present its preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2023.

Swag Mukerji, Chief Executive Officer, commented:

“This year’s performance is the culmination of our MAP23 strategy which achieved its three clear objectives: to implement a simple, efficient and scalable operating model, develop high quality, trusted products which are the leaders in their markets, and build the credibility of Centaur’s management team for delivering on its strategic and financial commitments. We have significantly grown our profitability and built a business with an impressive proportion of higher quality revenue, providing us with a scalable platform for long-term sustainable future growth.

Looking ahead, we are determined to keep driving performance beyond MAP23 to become a customer-centric business intelligence and learning organisation with growth from organic revenue, new product development and selective bolt-on acquisitions. I firmly believe Centaur has the talent, strategy and financial discipline to achieve its ambitious objectives and look forward to updating the market on our next phase of growth at our upcoming Capital Markets Day.”

Financial highlights

Margin Acceleration Plan 2023 (MAP23) highlights since 2020:

• Revenue from continuing operations grew by 27%
• Higher quality revenue grew by 38% and now represents 80% of total revenue (2020: 67%)
• Adjusted¹ EBITDA grew 155% from £3.8m to £9.7m
• Adjusted¹ EBITDA margin more than doubled to 26%
• Total returns to shareholders as ordinary and special dividends of 8.9p per share (£12.8m)

2023 trading:

• Revenue from continuing operations declined by 3% to £37.3m while higher quality revenue streams grew by 3%
• Adjusted¹ EBITDA grew 20% to £9.7m
• Adjusted¹ EBITDA margin improved to 26% from 21%
• Net cash² of £9.5m, after paying ordinary and special dividends during the year of £8.9m, gives capacity to reinvest for growth
• Final ordinary dividend of 1.2p per share giving total ordinary dividends of 1.8p for the year (2022: 1.1p)

Financial and strategic highlights

This year marked the successful delivery of Centaur’s MAP23, which targeted an adjusted¹ EBITDA margin of 23% by 2023. Centaur recorded another year of profitable growth building on the structures and processes that have been implemented over the past three years, despite the continued macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties.

Centaur generated an adjusted¹ EBITDA margin of 26% (up from 21% in 2022 and 12% in 2020), comfortably exceeding the MAP23 target and resulting in net cash² of £9.5m at 31 December 2023 after paying ordinary and special dividends of £8.9m in the year.

Centaur reported revenue of £37.3m (slightly down from £38.4m in 2022) after a softening in the macroeconomic environment trading conditions and inflationary pressures. Centaur recorded good performance across its higher quality revenue streams in Premium Content and Training and Advisory, which now collectively represent 80% of the business, up from 76% in 2022.
The higher quality revenue streams have driven the successful delivery of MAP23. The demand for these products and services, across a range of industries and sectors, are resilient in markets characterised by change driven by technological advancement, structural transformation and globalisation. These fundamentals provide Centaur with a clear opportunity to use its competitive advantage, operational leverage and deep level of expertise to further grow in these sectors.

The strategic objective across Centaur’s suite of brands is to position them for continued growth by investing in customer-centric business intelligence and learning products and harnessing cross-selling opportunities, with the aim of enabling customers to deliver better corporate outcomes through building competitive advantage in their markets.

In 2023, Centaur’s higher quality revenue streams continued to demonstrate their resilience focused on The Lawyer, MW Mini MBA, Econsultancy and Influencer Intelligence.

• The Lawyer Premium Content revenue grew by 9% due to corporate subscription renewal rates of 108% supported by Signal and Litigation Tracker, its data-driven paid-for products. However, Events revenue of £1.8m was down 11% year-on-year due to shortfalls in sponsorship across several events dampening the overall revenue growth to 1%.
• MW Mini MBA continued its growth with revenue up 8% driven by a 23% yield increase, although delegate numbers declined by 12%. The new third MW Mini MBA in Management course has contributed above management expectations.
• Econsultancy revenue declined 14% owing to delays in Training and Advisory on the client side, due to budgetary caution. We expect to gain the revenue benefit of these delays in 2024.
• Influencer Intelligence recorded a small decrease in renewal rates to 84%, down from 90% in 2022, but saw reassuring momentum build through H2.

Due to the macroeconomic environment, performance at Really B2B and Design Week was below management’s expectations. As such we made the difficult decision to close these businesses in December 2023. We are confident that this will further enable Centaur to focus on its higher quality revenue streams, which will drive improved profitability and provide the business with a solid platform for further growth.

Centaur has a strong management team including recent appointments such as Xeim’s marketing director, a new MD for Mini MBA, a new Chief People Officer, a CTO and a Data Director, who together with the hard work and determination of everyone at Centaur have successfully delivered MAP23. Alongside this progress, Centaur has taken clear operational and financial steps to focus on organic growth and manage costs to reinforce the resilience of the business. These steps will ensure that Centaur is best positioned to withstand any continued macroeconomic uncertainty, building a platform for long-term, sustainable growth beyond MAP23.

Outlook

Overall, the culmination of our three-year strategy sees Centaur having undergone a significant transformation building a scalable platform for future growth. While we start 2024 cautious of the macroeconomic environment’s impact on Centaur, we remain reassured by the foundations built during MAP23. Centaur’s strategic priority is to become a customer-centric business intelligence and learning organisation and the next stage of the journey has begun. We look forward to providing more detail on this at our Capital Markets Day on 23 April (see enquiries below).

Dividend

Centaur’s Board believes in the long-term fundamentals of the business, recognising the importance of shareholder returns, and has been distributing progressive dividend payments to investors throughout the MAP23 period. Additionally, Centaur has paid significant special dividends in 2023 as the success of the strategy has led to considerably stronger cash flows and a more robust balance sheet. As a result of the special dividends paid in 2023, Centaur’s net cash² position reduced to £9.5m as at 31 December 2023 (2022: £16.0m) but remains at a strong level.

In line with our normal dividend policy of distributing 40% of adjusted¹ retained earnings, the Board has declared a final dividend of 1.2 pence per share (£1.7m), which when added to the interim dividend provides a total dividend for the year of 1.8 pence per share (£2.6m) for 2023. In total, dividends of £12.8m (8.9 pence per share) have been paid over the course of MAP23.

1 Adjusted EBITDA is adjusted operating profit before depreciation and amortisation. Adjusted results exclude adjusting items as detailed in note 4 of the financial statements.
2 Net cash is the total of cash and cash equivalents and short-term deposits.

FULL REPORT HERE: 2023 Preliminary Results Presentation

Enquiries

Capital Markets Day at 9am on 23 April 2024 at WeWork office room 15A, 10 York Road, London SE1 7ND. For details, please contact Teneo below or email investor.relations@centaurmedia.com

Centaur Media plc
020 7970 4000
Swag Mukerji, Chief Executive Officer
Simon Longfield, Chief Financial Officer

Teneo
07713 157561 / 07917 221748
Zoë Watt / Oliver Bell

Note to editors
Centaur is an international provider of business information, training and specialist consultancy within the marketing and legal professions that inspires and enables people to excel at what they do, to raise their aspirations and to enable our clients to deliver better performance.