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Media
Future Publishing records losses
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 25 November 2011
Classic Rock and Metal Hammer publisher Future Publishing saw its profits plunge in the last financial year to a £19.3 million loss, compared to a £5.5 million profit the previous year.
We already knew things hadn’t been too rosy at Future of late, mainly because last month saw the sudden and surprise exit of both the company’s CEO and CFO more or less over night in a bid to save a million a year on the salaries budget, despite Chief Exec Stevie Spring enjoying a particularly high profile within the publishing industry.
The top two execs, who sat above Future’s UK and US divisions, were replaced by the existing bosses of the UK business, basically removing a whole layer of management.
It’s the US business that has caused the most problems. Mark Wood, now CEO of the whole Future company, admitted: “Future delivered disappointing results for the past year. While the UK business showed resilience in challenging conditions, the US operations tipped back into loss, pulling down the group’s overall final results”.
Future has enjoyed some success in the UK in the digital domain, both by creating digital products around existing print titles and with some online-only ventures, and there are hopes some of those digital projects can be launched Stateside to help fix that side of the company. A statement from the firm said: “We are migrating the US business to a predominantly digital model and have taken steps to de-risk remaining print properties”.
The publicly listed company’s share price fell sharply, partly because of the disappointing financials, partly because the Future board announced it would freeze dividend payouts to shareholders until 2013, seemingly as a condition of new loan agreements.
