Ascential shares jump 20% as group boosts forecasts
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Ascential shares rise 20% as publishing firm raises forecasts and unveils plans for digital arm spinoff
- Ascential’s annual revenue is expected to be higher than expected
- The group’s share price has fallen by more than 26% over the past year
Publisher Ascential has revealed plans to spin off its digital arm.
Ascential revealed the plans to shareholders on Wednesday, as it now expects full-year revenues and earnings to exceed market expectations.
The group, which specializes in information, analytics and e-commerce optimization, saw double-digit revenue growth across all four segments last year.
Total revenue for the year ended 31 December 2022 is expected to be at least £520m, up from £349m a year earlier and above consensus expectations of £479m to £516m.
Ascential shares were up sharply today, rising 23.17 percent or 48.20 p this afternoon to 256.20 p, after falling more than 26 percent in the past year.
Looking Ahead: Ascential has revealed full-year revenue and adjusted EBITDA ahead of market forecasts
Meanwhile, adjusted EBITDA is expected to be at least £118m, up from £89m in 2021 and above consensus of £91m to £115m.
The group has decided to spin off its global digital trading assets into an independent, publicly traded company listed in the US.
It also plans to put WGSN up for sale while events operations continue with a UK listing as Ascential.
Ascential chairman Scott Forbes and CEO Duncan Painter will serve as chairman and chief finance officer of the publicly traded digital trading company, respectively.
Mr. Painter said, “Ascential had an excellent year end with each of our segments delivering double-digit revenue growth in 2022.
“In particular, the performance of Digital Commerce, given the challenging environment, illustrates the clear competitive advantage we provide to brands trading in the marketplaces, where there remains a rare and significant growth opportunity.
“Product Design delivered another strong performance with a record customer retention rate attesting to the value it delivers to its customers.
“While the economic outlook for 2023 remains unclear, our events businesses demonstrated extremely high customer engagement in 2022, strengthening their leadership in the industry and translating into a high rebooking rate for 2023.”
Neil Wilson, Head of Markets at CMC Markets UK, said: ‘Not the only FTSE 250 company where the sum of the parts was/are worth more than the whole. The numbers also look good with double-digit revenue growth in all four segments.”