Press Releases
Interims Announcement
04/08/2009
Moneysupermarket.com Group PLC Interim Results announcement for the six months to 30 June 2009
Solid start to 2009
Special dividend of £25m announced
Moneysupermarket.com Group PLC ("Moneysupermarket.com" or the "Company"), the UK's leading price comparison website, is pleased to announce its interim results for the six months to 30 June 2009.
Financial highlights
- Total revenue of £68.5m in the first half of 2009 (2008: £99.4m).
- Adjusted EBITDA[1] of £18.6m in the first half of 2009
(2008: £30.1m).
- Adjusted EBITDA ahead of the second half of 2008.
- Adjusted EBITDA margins improved to 27.1% from 22.9% in second half of 2008.
- Gross margin increased to 70% representing an improvement over the first and second half of 2008. Higher margin direct to site revenues continue to form the majority of internet revenues.
- Operating profit of £1.4m in the first half of 2009 (2008: £12.7m).
- Total adjusted cost base including online marketing costs reduced by 27% to £51.9m.
- The business remains highly cash generative and debt free with cash balances of £75.6m at 30 June 2009 (2008: £71.3m).
- Interim dividend of 1.3p per ordinary share declared consistent with 2008.
- The Group will pay a special dividend of £25m or 4.93p per ordinary share further underlining the Board's confidence in the ability of the business to continue to generate cash.
- Management team strengthened under Peter Plumb, new Chief Executive.
- Group trading stabilised against H2 last year.
- Insurance: Trading improving into Q2; higher revenue per transaction (RPT).
- Money: Trading stabilised; visitor numbers increased.
- Travel: Managing margin in declining market.
- Home Services: Launch of Shopping brings jump in visitor numbers.
- Organisation realigned to changing economic environment.
- Both systems re-engineering marketing optimisation projects are on track.
- Visitors[2] to the Group's websites increased 3% to 63.6m. Excluding travelsupermarket.com visitor growth was 14%.
- Online brand recognition increased from 78% in June 2008 to 83% in July 2009.
Peter Plumb, Chief Executive said "Moneysupermarket.com has made a solid start to the year. Trading levels have stabilised over the past six months and we remain a profitable and highly cash-generative business. Over the period we have delivered what we set out when we announced our last set of results in February 2009. We have realigned the organisation to reflect the more difficult economic environment, we have strengthened the management team; and we have started work on re-engineering our systems and ensuring our marketing spend works harder.
"Most importantly our marketing spend is working harder. Our ‘Savings on household bills campaign' fronted by Peter Jones is connecting well with customers, as a result, our brand has continued to grow even stronger despite a significantly lower ad spend vs last year. We have also worked hard with our providers to bring an even larger range of brands and services to our site for our customers, for example in motor and home insurance our product range increased by over 60% vs last year.
"Although we are still early in the third quarter and visibility is limited, the Group has made a good start with revenues more than ten percent ahead of the first half run rate. Insurance in particular has started well and is trading ahead of the same period last year.
"The moneysupermarket.com brand remains strong. As the leading price comparison website our broad product offer is clearly as relevant as ever to our customers. We are confident that the work we are doing across the business will ensure that moneysupermarket.com is well positioned to capitalise on its strengths when growth returns to our markets."
For further information, contact:
Paul Doughty, Chief Financial Officer, Moneysupermarket.com
Group PLC
Tel: 0207 353 4200
Ian Williams, Director of Communications, Moneysupermarket.com
Group PLC
Tel: 07515 329671
Susanna Voyle and Tom Murray, Tulchan Group
Tel: 0207 353 4200
[1] Adjusted EBITDA is calculated by the directors following certain adjustments to the historical compensation levels of the Group Directors and Senior Managers charge for share based compensation relating to options issued pre-IPO.
The Directors anticipate presenting financial information on a similar basis until the final results for the year ended 31 December 2010. Thereafter the need to present an adjusted EBITDA will not be required because the relevant comparator period will be consistent with the current period.
[2] The Group recorded a substantial increase in its reported visitors from 27 April 2008 to the end of June 2008 following a release made in respect of the anti-virus software AVG. In assessing whether a webpage was safe if ‘followed' every link or URL displayed on an email or webpage to the destination website. This meant that many web based businesses including the Group recorded visitors from users of the AVG software who themselves did not technically visit the website. The 2008 visitor count has been adjusted for the estimated impact of this. AVG released a further update to its anti-virus software early in July 2008 which resolved the issue.
View the full Interims Announcement in PDF format. (110KB)
This page includes links to documents in Portable
Document File (PDF) format. To read PDF documents you may need
to download the free
Adobe Acrobat Reader. For PDF
accessibility help, visit
Access Adobe. These links will open in a
new browser window.
