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When Zillah Byng-Thorne took charge of Future in April 2014, it was riddled with debt, worth £30 million, and on the brink of collapse.
But the “magazine queen” — as she’s called — has since transformed the publisher into a £2.2 billion empire of 250 titles, including everything from Country Life and Marie Claire to TechRadar and FourFourTwo.
Shares have in turn increased by about 1000 percent, making Future one of the best performing publicly traded companies in the UK. And yesterday they jumped 5.6 percent, or 96p, to 1818p after the latest update from Future.
Success: Future boss Zillah Byng-Thorne has seen the publisher’s stock rise about 1000% during her watch
The publisher said readership increased after a post-lock surge and advertisers were spending more.
Earnings for the year to September 30 will be at the higher end of market expectations, ranging from £266.4 million to £270.7 million.
The company doubled its update in June when it raised its earnings forecast and said “encouraging trading” has continued.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Byng-Thorne said: “We have built a consistent track record of doubling our business every few years, and we are excited about our ability to support our growth as we strive to achieve a in two people reachable online in the US.
Despite a difficult broader macroeconomic environment, we are performing strongly and have positive momentum, so we feel really good about our future prospects.”
Future’s update puts it firmly back in the spotlight after being rocked by a sharp drop in its shares in the first half of the year.
Investors feared a drop in ad revenue as companies cut spending.
It was also caught by the global sell-off of technology stocks that has hit companies like Netflix, Facebook and Google owner Alphabet.
Despite a 50 percent drop this year, shares are still worth a third more than before Covid hit and more than ten times their value when Byng-Thorne took over.
Its meteoric rise is due to its strategy of taking ailing magazine brands on the cheap and turning their performance around.
Thanks to its technology platform, it can quickly increase the online offerings of companies struggling to keep pace with the digital transition.
It is also the dominant player in many special interest areas and owns the go-to websites for gamers, photographers, space enthusiasts and more.
Stock upswing: Future’s latest update puts it firmly back in the spotlight after being rocked by a sharp drop in its shares in the first half of the year
This means advertisers can effectively target users who are already interested in an area and minimize waste. That ability has helped insulate Future from a global cut in ad spend.
Future’s three biggest brands are Tech Radar, review website Tom’s Guide and GameMe. It has 305 million online users around the world, about half of them in the UK and half in the US.
It reaches half of all internet users in the UK and a third of those in the US. It is expanding its presence in America and aims to expand its reach to half of the Internet users there.
To realize this ambition, it bought the celebrity website Who What Wear this year, absorbing 12 million online users and 10 million followers on social media.
But Byng-Thorne also recognizes how important it is for some brands to retain print products, and Future still produces magazines with titles like Country Life, The Week and Homes & Gardens.
Roddy Davidson, of Shore Capital, said Byng-Thorne and her team deserve “high praise” for their turnaround in the company. And she’s been richly rewarded, taking home £35.6 million over the past eight years.
However, her salary has been criticized. Future’s past two shareholder meetings have seen significant uprisings over a bonus package that could bring Byng-Thorne, already one of Britain’s highest paid CEOs, up to £40 million.
In February, 55 percent of shareholders voted against the scheme, a year earlier there was a third against.
Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Susannah Streeter said: “It’s been a remarkable period for Zillah thus far, turning the page for Future into new chapters of growth.
“Instead of offering magazines designed for mass consumption, there has been a razor-sharp focus on creating respected content on specialist topics, such as gaming, which has been a major draw for advertising partners.”
Davidson said the latest update showed the “unwarranted” decline in Future’s stock was caused by market jitters, not company performance, adding: “The company has transformed from a publisher heavily reliant on print ads to a multi-platform media company that receives most of its revenue from digital advertising.’
Berenberg analyst Edward James, meanwhile, said Future had “proved to be more resilient than the market feared” after the latest update.
That will be music to the ears of future shareholders – and could pave the way to another beautiful payday for the magazine queen.
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