Trade publication and events group, Informa, has failed to enthuse financial analysts with its latest trading update, which shows its conference business remains weak.
Informa Group’s interim management statement, released 16 October, showed organic growth for the nine-month period under review falling two per cent, and indicating a slight deterioration from the 1.2 per cent decline in the first half.
Full year expectations remain unchanged, the group statement said, with quality of group earnings continuing to improve through “pro-active portfolio optimisation”.
Academic information showed trading was in line, however, the trading statement added, “with large events growing strongly, smaller conferences and corporate training still muted”.
Chief Executive Peter Rigby said: “We continue to actively manage our portfolio to improve the underlying quality of group earnings, with recent bolt-on acquisitions such as Zephyr bolstering our digital subscription base further and MMPI in Canada expanding our portfolio of large-scale B2B exhibitions. Equally, we have a history of disposing of assets or exiting lower quality revenue streams where the structural growth profile is weak and this remains a key focus.
“The quality of our content and brands puts us in a strong position even in what remains a lacklustre macro environment, while our bias to subscription revenues affords Informa great visibility and cashflow strength. We remain confident of meeting our expectations for the full year.”
Budgets in developed markets remained relatively tight, the Informa statement added, which was not the case in other geographies where demand for content continued to grow strongly.
“Our investments in product development and our new online platform, which has been warmly welcomed by our customer base, also continue to reap benefits,” the statement said. “As a result, we anticipate Q4 organic growth close to the nine month run-rate, and full-year margins to be broadly similar to 2011.”
Commenting on the events and training side of the business, Informa said: “The summer period is typically quiet with few large events scheduled, while delegate sales across smaller conferences are also muted by the holiday period. We have seen no change in this type of seasonality and this year there has also been a particularly high number of events that have moved between quarters, distorting organic growth figures. This includes the Broadband World Forum, Cityscape Global/Saudi Arabia, TOC Middle East and a number of Agra Events.
“With the benefit of a number of key events moving into Q4, we are anticipating positive organic growth across the division through the final quarter of the year.”
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