Business publisher Centaur Media PLC (LON:CAU) said it will pay out around a third of the £16mln cash received from selling off several magazine titles and predicted a return to profit in the second half.
Centaur has downsized rapidly in the first six months of the year, selling off titles including Money Marketing and The Engineer.
This leaves only its marketing arm, Xeim, where sales were down 4% to £19.7mln as lower-margin business was exited, and The Lawyer magazine, where revenues grew 11% to £4.3mln.
Total revenues were down 4% to £24.1mln and a statutory profit of £6mln was made due to the sales, while underlying revenues from ongoing businesses were down 1% to £23mln and an underlying operating loss of £1.3mln improved from £1.8mln a year ago.
The media group will pay out the first taste of the sales proceeds via a dividend of 3.5p per share on 25 October, a total payout of £5mln, with plans to dish out more to shareholders in 2020.
The payout is part of a new “progressive” policy, with dividends planned to be at 40% of earnings, in tandem with plans to lift underlying profit margins to a healthy 20% by 2022.
Centaur said the early losses were because of “central overhead costs of supporting four businesses sold during the first half”, but the newly appointed chief executive Swag Mukerji reckons the divestments will cut yearly costs by “at least £5mln” and allow a “significant reduction in central overheads”.
Mukerji, who replaced boss Andria Vidler after her six years in charge, said that selling off its financial, engineering, travel, meeting, and human resources portfolios had left a “simpler business” with a focus on the marketing and legal sectors.
Centaur’s outlook was cautiously upbeat, noting that markets “continue to be held back by economic and political uncertainty”, but predicting a small profit in the second half of the year to boost yearly figures.
Shares had a small boost in early trading on Wednesday morning, with price bumping up 2.7% to 37.49p per share.
--Edited to correct sale of Money Marketing