Shares in Brave Bison Group PLC (LON:BBSN) stampeded higher after the digital media & social video business narrowed losses at the half-year stage.
Net revenue in the first half of 2017 shrank to £6.00mln from £9.69mln the year before but the gross profit margin shot up to 48% from 39% the previous year, reflecting the company’s increased focus on high margin business.
Advertising remained by far the most significant revenue stream, accounting for 86% of net revenue, up from 75% in the same period of 2016.
The loss before tax narrowed to £2.17mln from £3.57mln the year before while underlying earnings (EBITDA) remained negative, but the loss of £458,000 was a significant improvement on the previous year’s loss of £1.87mln, and included restructuring costs of £538,000 (2016: £936k).
The group ended June with cash of £5.3mln.
The year got off to a tough start but the second quarter was a lot more encouraging, with improved cash collection being a feature of the period.
Shares in Brave Bison were up 8.3% at 1.3p in mid-morning trade.
One of the challenges the group experienced was the well-publicised difficulties faced by online video platforms that have lost major advertisers as a result of fears around inappropriate content.
Although this has had some impact on Brave Bison, the group noted that such revenues rose to 18% of net revenue from 11% the year before.
Brave Bison said it enters the second half of the year with a much stronger advertising pipeline than it had at the beginning of 2017, and declared it remains on target to achieve management and market revenue expectations for the full year.
"When I agreed to take on the responsibilities of the chief executive officer in January this year, it was with the aim of bringing some stability to this promising, innovative and creative business while a permanent CEO was sought. The financial results for the first half of the year demonstrate that Brave Bison has the potential to deliver strong performance by focussing on high-value activity as a producer and broadcaster of social video,” said Kevin Deeley, chief operating officer and finance officer.
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Deeley is set to leave the company once a successor has been found; the company said good progress is being made in finding a replacement.