Final Results

Thomson Intermedia PLC 4 April 2001 Thomson Intermedia Plc ('Thomson' or 'the Company') Preliminary Results for the year ended 31st January 2001 Thomson Intermedia is the UK's fastest growing media intelligence company combining unique technology with a growing wealth of monitoring and research products for marketeers. The company floated on AIM in May 2000. * Turnover up 22% to £2.14m (2000: £1.75m) * Loss before tax of £2.9m as forecasted (2000: profit £0.5m) which includes research and development costs of £1m and an increase in operating expenditure of £2.8m * ART & DART new clients increased by over 32% and 41% respectively and include British Airways, Vodafone, Centrica and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter * Product Developments * Successful launch of free2look, a consumer website and retail search engine * Research division launched, providing syndicated and bespoke research reports * Completed development of Outdoor and Internet advertising monitoring products * Launching of TV advertising monitoring product, Fusion and NNI Plus planned for first half of this year * Cash balances of £4.6 m at 31st January 2001 Sarah Jane Thomson, Joint Chief Executive commented ' Our first year as a public company has been rewarding. We have made significant investment in both our research division and in our unique technology and as a result have been able to develop and introduce several new products. Our expanding client base has responded well to these services and is demonstrating increasingly strong interest. As a result, Thomson Intermedia remains in a very strong position for the future.' 4th April 2001 Enquiries: Thomson Intermedia Tel: today 020 7457 2020 Sarah Jane Thomson, Joint Chief Executive Thereafter: 020 8466 5555 Richard Dawson, Finance Director College Hill Tel: 0207 457 2020 James Henderson Chelsea Allen Williams de Broe Tel: 020 7588 7511 John Mumford Thomson Intermedia Plc Preliminary Results for the year ended 31st January 2001 Chairman's Statement We are pleased to announce the Group's first annual results as a public company, for the year ended 31st January 2001. Thomson Intermedia was founded in 1997 as a technology and media monitoring business and made rapid progress achieving profitability by its second year. In order to allow the Group to further develop its unique technology based product offerings, Thomson Intermedia was admitted to the Alternative Investment Market in May of last year. Since flotation the Group has made significant progress, including increasing its market share, developing further its technology and media monitoring products, launching the consumer web site free2look and building the product pipeline. Thomson Intermedia is now widely recognised as one of the UK's leading media monitoring groups using unique proprietary technology to deliver solutions to its blue chip corporate customers via the internet. Turnover in the period increased to £2.14 million (2000: £1.75 million) which represents an increase of 22 per cent over the turnover in the previous year. As envisaged at flotation, Thomson Intermedia made a loss before tax in this period under review of £2.86 million (2000: profit of £0.49 million), which includes research and development costs of £0.95 million and an increase in operating expenditure of £2.8 million across all areas of the business. Loss per share equalled 10.2 pence which compares to earnings per share of 1.8 pence to 31st January 2000. As at 31st January 2001 cash balances stood at £4.56 million. Investment The Group has invested across all areas of the business. Employees have increased from 52 to 157 (full time equivalents), across IT, research, sales and marketing, operations and free2look. This has enabled us to increase the marketing and sales activity for all existing products, develop new products, bring free2look to market and fill the product pipeline. We have also invested significantly in our technology, resulting in the development of three new important media monitoring products; internet, outdoor and TV advertising monitoring. We anticipate the latter product coming to market in the first half of this year. Media Monitoring Products During the year we continued to enhance the functionality of our core media monitoring products ART and DART, improving the product offering for clients. This helped us increase our ART and DART client base by over 32% and 41% respectively, winning a number of quality clients including British Airways, Centrica, Vodafone, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and BUPA. With an expanded and structured sales and marketing function now in place since the year end and with further developments in our technology, we are confident we can continue to grow our customer base for ART and DART and enhance our market share. Two further media monitoring products were developed during the year, Internet Advertising Monitoring and Outdoor Advertising Monitoring. These products greatly enhance our media monitoring coverage and will represent further opportunities for revenue growth, including cross selling to our existing customer base. The imminent launch of TV advertising monitoring will complete our current portfolio of media monitoring products. The expansion of Newsmetrics, our news summary and PR evaluation product, into all industry sectors has yet to be undertaken. The Directors have focused on the development of the advertising monitoring products and the launch of free2look as the main priorities for this year. The expansion of Newsmetrics from the finance sector and a revised focus to enable us to take it to all industry sectors, together with enhancements to the product offering, is to take place during this coming year. We have also developed a unique multi-desk news summary and evaluation product, NNI Plus, to be launched in this next year. New Divisions and Products free2look Our consumer website free2look was launched on schedule on 1st October 2000. Since launch over 350,000 unique users have accessed the site, of which just under 28,000 are now registered users. We have successfully recruited nearly 10,000 of our registered users to become panel members, who have agreed to conduct regular on-line research surveys for our corporate clients. The site has also been very popular with retailers, resulting in requests to include an e-commerce function within the site, for which the technological development is currently in progress. Within a short space of time free2look has established itself as a popular consumer retail search engine, and is already generating revenue, primarily from research products. The Group's key objective in developing free2look is to provide corporate clients with extensive consumer pre-purchasing behavioural trends, which will provide a unique research facility for the retail industry. Going forward the Group will also generate additional revenue through both e-commerce and advertising. Free2look's launch has been achieved with a relatively low marketing and development spend in comparison with other web site launches. Since the year end, we have further significantly reduced the marketing and advertising spend by adopting a strategy of on-line and viral marketing and are achieving required traffic to the site. Research Division A significant development during the year for the Group was the successful launch of Thomson Intermedia's Research Division, which provides both syndicated research reports and bespoke reports to corporate clients. The Group's technology within both media monitoring and through free2look gives it access to unique consumer behavioural information. To date, we have produced research work for Bank of Ireland, 365 Corporation, Abbey National, Barclays, BMP DDB, First Direct, Ogilvy One and Marks & Spencer. Product Pipeline Three further corporate products, TV advertising monitoring, NNI Plus and Fusion are in advanced development and are due to be launched during our next financial year. Thomson Intermedia is pleased to announce the imminent launch of its unique TV advertising monitoring system. A real breakthrough for the industry, this product will enable corporate clients to access virtual real-time streaming of TV advertisements or downloading of high resolution digital images via the internet, and provide daily schedules of TV advertisements and expenditure data. This will represent a significant addition to our current portfolio of media monitoring products. We further developed Newsmetrics during the year to include a multi-desk news summary and evaluation product, NNI Plus, which has resulted in a materially enhanced offering. This new product, together with the proposed expansion of the existing Newsmetrics product into all business sectors and other areas, is expected to occur during this next year. Fusion is a new corporate product being developed, which brings data on products, media and people together. The strength behind the product is the use of our technology developed in house to extract and analyse vast amounts of data drawn from our free2look panel and our media monitoring products. It will provide companies with real-time analysis of the profile of their potential customers coupled with details of how to reach them, covering over 140,000 products and a growing panel of over 10,000 individuals. Management The year 2000 was a milestone year for the Group, successfully floating on AIM, increasing sales, growing its customer base, introducing new products and building the infrastructure in terms of people and premises. We have successfully achieved all of these goals thanks to the quality of our management and staff who I would like to thank. Prospects Thomson Intermedia is one of the leading Media Intelligence companies in the UK, combining unique technology with a growing wealth of monitoring and research products for marketers. Since March 1997, we have developed a 2,500 strong blue chip user base and helped over 400 companies make the most of their marketing spend. We have further enhanced our technology and believe that due to the investments we have made in the business during the year we are gaining a real competitive advantage within our market place. This will enable us to generate substantial growth going forward by extending our product offering and increasing our market share. We are confident that we have the management strength and resources to maintain this lead in the future. The free2look brand has been launched with an extremely positive impact, and we intend to capitalise upon the success of this website and further develop the brand to its full potential. Free2look continues to be developed, and is already a very powerful retail search engine for any products or services advertised in the UK press. We have been delighted with the number of visitors to the site and the high level of participation of our panel members in on-line research surveys. The potential for free2look remains vast, providing a rich information source for original research as well as establishing a unique platform for e-commerce in the future. We also continue to develop new corporate products, such as television advertising monitoring, NNI Plus and Fusion, and are in early discussions with third parties with regard to the possibility of taking our products and licensing our technology abroad. In summary, this year has been one of significant investment and development for the Group, on which we expect to capitalise in the coming financial years in terms of increased revenue growth. John Napier Chairman 4th April 2001 Thomson Intermedia Plc Preliminary Results for the year ended 31st January 2001 Joint Chief Executive's Review Operating Review Operations in the last year have been focused on investing in and developing further unique internet and database technology systems and products. Thomson Intermedia has two core media monitoring products, ART and DART, and during the year the Group developed two further media monitoring products, Internet Advertising Monitoring and Outdoor Advertising Monitoring. In addition the Group has a unique news and PR evaluation product, Newsmetrics, which continued to be developed during the year. All of these products are distributed to or accessed by corporate subscribers via the internet. Two other significant developments during this year were the establishment of a Research Division within the Group and the launch of the consumer web site free2look, a price comparison web site and retail search engine. ART ART monitors on a daily basis, advertisements, loose inserts and other media insertions from over 300 newspapers and periodicals giving clients the most comprehensive sector coverage of its kind in the UK available on a daily basis. Corporate clients access Thomson Intermedia's vast database of advertising information via the internet, enabling clients to produce reports on their and their competitors advertising campaigns. During the year to 31st January 2001 the number of corporate clients subscribing to ART had risen from 158 to 209, representing an increase of 32 per cent over the year. New clients include Jaguar, Gartmore, Lunn Poly and British Gas Communications. During the year, we launched a new redesign of ART, enhancing the technology and improving the product offering for clients. This included providing a virtual newspaper function and auto reporting which provides summaries of share of voice in advertising, league tables and expenditure data. In addition, an operations night shift was introduced during the year thus enabling delivery of that day's press advertising information to clients by 9.30am. DART DART monitors the direct mail receipts and purchasing habits of a nationally representative panel of approximately 6,000 individuals, enabling a new level of sophisticated analysis to be produced about Direct Mail Advertising campaigns in the UK. During the year to 31st January 2001 the number of corporate clients subscribing to DART had risen from 97 to 137, representing an increase of 41 per cent over the year. New clients include Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, OnDigitial and London Electricity. Thomson Intermedia Plc Preliminary Results for the year ended 31st January 2001 As with ART, we launched a new redesign of DART, enhancing the technology and improving the product offering for clients. Other technological improvements for DART included the exporting of high-resolution images and delivery over the internet, and auto reporting functionality. During the year, the operations department of DART was brought in-house, whereas this function had previously been outsourced at a cost of 40 per cent of the revenues earned from DART. As the revenues for DART increase this will in turn increase the profit margins for this product. Newsmetrics Thomson Intermedia's Newsmetrics product provides an online news feed and PR evaluation tool, summarising each day's articles in national newspapers and trade publications relating to the financial services industry. The Group has developed a statistical formula, the national News Index (NNI) which enables subscribers to chart the media performance of both their own company and their competitors. The expansion of the Newsmetrics product into additional industry sectors is yet to be completed, which we believe will take place during the next financial year. The number of corporate clients subscribing to Newsmetrics had risen to 32 from 22 over the year under review. Product Development During the year two new media monitoring products were developed, internet advertising monitoring (ART Internet) and outdoor advertising monitoring (ART Outdoor). Three further products, TV advertising monitoring, NNI Plus and Fusion, a profiling system, are in advanced development and are due to be launched in the first half of our next financial year. ART Internet Internet advertising monitoring uses an in-house developed 'web-spider' to monitor internet banner advertising across the world wide web. ART internet is the UK's most comprehensive internet advertising monitor, visiting each of the UK's top websites at least 150 times a day. Using this intense method of internet monitoring, ART Internet picks up every banner, static gif, multi part gif, flash animation and all other known types of internet advertising. A share of voice is calculated and a comparative spend figure produced for each creative. All the graphing, reporting, analysis and notifying tools as available with ART press are included within ART Internet. Internet advertising monitoring was launched in January 2001 and we have secured 10 corporate clients in its first month of launch. ART Outdoor ART Outdoor captures creatives from roadside posters, London underground, bus sides and bus shelters, airports, train stations and conurbations. Outdoor advertising (currently creatives only), which provides clients with an in-depth analysis of this media, was launched in February 2001 (with spend data to be launched in the first half of this coming year). Thomson Intermedia Plc Preliminary Results for the year ended 31st January 2001 Free2look On 11th September 2000, Thomson Intermedia 'soft launched' its consumer web site, free2look.co.uk and the marketing commenced with full launch on 1st October 2000. Free2look provides consumers with information on over 20,000 retailers and their products and is updated daily, as sourced from new press advertisements. Since launch over 350,000 unique users have entered the site, of which just under 28,000 are now registered users. We have successfully recruited nearly 10,000 of our registered users to become Panel members to conduct on line research surveys for our corporate clients. Corporate advertisers are able to manage their own advertisements on the website, monitor the number of visitors and analyse the results and behaviour of prospective consumers viewing their advertisements. Free2look has been under continual development and improvement since launch and a new re-design of the website is envisaged in the first half of our next financial year. Research Division An integral part of free2look is the provision of syndicated research reports, which use demographics, lifestyle and pre-purchasing data captured from visitors to free2look. Sector focus is on emerging markets, new technology and new distribution channels. The Directors believe that the reports alongside other research carried out using our own panel of consumers will be a main source of future revenue derived from the free2look system. In order to develop these products the Research Division of Thomson Intermedia was established in the second half of the year, and has already secured its first revenues from three bespoke research projects. In January 2001 the Research Division marketed its first syndicated research report on on-line banking. The business model of free2look and the research division is such that the Group need not spend vast sums on advertising and marketing of free2look in order to generate its revenue streams from research. Consequently the advertising and marketing budget for free2look has been reduced for this next financial year. Additional revenue from banner advertising and list broking also commenced in the last quarter of the year under review. Operations The significant development in infrastructure has included an increase in the number of employees (full time equivalents) from 53 as at 31st January 2000 to 157 as at 31st January 2001. The increase in staff is spread across management, IT, research, sales and marketing, operations and free2look. The Group has also secured appropriate London offices to allow expansion of the sales and marketing team and secured additional production office space in Bromley, as the group continues to grow and further develop its product offering. Sarah Jane Thomson Stephen Thomson Joint Chief Executive Joint Chief Executive 4th April 2001 Thomson Intermedia Plc Preliminary Results for the year ended 31st January 2001 Consolidated Profit and Loss Account for the year ended 31st January 2001 (unaudited) 2001 2000 £'000 £'000 Turnover 2,141 1,747 Cost of sales (582) (315) Gross Profit 1,559 1,432 Administrative Expenses (4,695) (950) Operating (loss) / profit (3,136) 482 Interest receivable 280 8 Interest payable (2) (3) (Loss) / Profit on ordinary activities before taxation (2,858) 487 Tax on (loss) / profit on ordinary activities 128 (131) (Loss) / Profit on ordinary activities after taxation (2,730) 356 Dividends - (250) (Loss) / profit transferred to reserves (2,730) 106 Retained profit brought forward 114 8 (Loss) / profit carried forward (2,616) 114 (Loss)/Earnings per share, pence - basic (10.2) 1.8 All accounts relate to continuing activities. All recognised gains and losses are included in the profit and loss account. Thomson Intermedia Plc Preliminary Results for the year ended 31st January 2001 Consolidated Balance Sheet as at 31st January 2001 (unaudited) 2001 2000 £'000 £'000 Fixed Assets Tangible fixed assets 483 132 Current Assets Debtors 1,281 714 Cash at bank and in hand 4,564 603 5,845 1,317 Creditors Amounts falling due within one year (1,953) (1,318) Net Current Assets / (liabilities) 3,892 (1) Total assets less current liabilities 4,375 131 Creditors: Amount falling due after more than one year (9) - Provisions for liabilities and charges - (4) 4,366 127 Capital and Reserves Share capital 7,155 5,250 Share premium 5,064 - Share scheme reserve 13 13 Merger reserve (5,250) (5,250) Profit and loss account (2,616) 114 Equity shareholders' Funds 4,366 127 Thomson Intermedia Plc Preliminary Results for the year ended 31st January 2001 Consolidated Cash Flow Statement for the year ended 31st January 2001 (unaudited) 2001 2000 £'000 £'000 Net cash (outflow) / inflow from operating activities (2,537) 625 Returns on investments and servicing of finance Interest received 74 5 Interest element of finance lease rental repayments (1) - 73 5 Taxation Corporation tax paid - (3) Capital expenditure Payments to acquire tangible fixed assets (485) (55) Sale proceeds from disposal of tangible fixed 45 - assets (440) (55) Net cash inflow (2,904) 572 Equity dividends paid (75) (190) Net cash inflow before financing (2,979) 382 Financing Gross proceeds from the issue of shares 8,000 - Flotation costs offset against share premium (1,031) - Capital element of finance lease payments (29) (6) Cash inflow from financing 6,940 (6) Increase in cash 3,961 376 Thomson Intermedia Plc Preliminary Results for the year ended 31st January 2001 Notes to the Financial Statements for the year ended 31 January 2001 1. Turnover The turnover and operating loss for the year was derived from the Group's principal activity and was carried out wholly in the UK. 2. Operating (loss) / profit The operating (loss) / profit is stated after charging: 2001 2000 £'000 £'000 Research and development expenditure 949 92 Operating lease rentals - motor vehicles 33 25 - land and buildings 162 31 Profit on disposal of fixed assets 1 - Amounts payable to the auditors in respect of audit services 22 11 Amounts payable to the auditors in respect of non-audit 10 4 services Depreciation - owned assets 98 35 - leased assets 6 6 3. Taxation on loss on ordinary activities Losses for the year ended 31st January 2001 were partially offset against profits brought forward for taxation purposes. No liability to UK corporation tax arose on ordinary activities for the year ended 31st January 2001 (2000: £131,000). 4. Dividends As set out in the prospectus at flotation, the Group is seeking primarily to achieve capital growth for its shareholders, and as such no interim dividend was paid and a final dividend is not being proposed. During the year ended 31st January 2000, interim dividends of £175,000 (0.9 pence per share, assuming the Group had been in existence throughout the period) were paid and final dividends of £75,000 (0.4 pence per share, assuming the Group had been in existence throughout the period) were proposed by Thomson Intermedia Limited. 5. Earnings (loss) per share Basic earnings (loss) per share, calculated in accordance with FRS14 (Earnings per share), is based upon the loss on ordinary activities after tax of £2.7 million (2000: profit £0.4 million) apportioned over the weighted average number of ordinary shares that were in issue for the period of 26,657,081 (2000: 20,030,420). 6. Basis of preparation The consolidated financial statements incorporate the results of Thomson Intermedia plc and its subsidiary Thomson Intermedia Associates Limited (together referred to as the 'Group') for the year ended 31st January 2001, using the merger method of accounting. The Company was incorporated on 4th April 2000 under the Companies Act 1985 as a private company limited by shares with the name of Thomson Intermedia Associates Limited and registered in England and Wales with the number 3967525. On 13th April 2000 a share for share group re-organisation took place whereby, the Company was re-registered as a public limited company under the Act and its name was changed to Thomson Intermedia plc. It holds all the shares in Thomson Intermedia Associates Limited (formerly Thomson Intermedia Limited). The results, including the results for the comparative period, have been prepared as if the Group had been in existence throughout the financial year. 7. Net cash (outflow)/ inflow from operating activities 2001 2000 £'000 £'000 Operating (loss)/profit (3,136) 482 Depreciation 104 41 Share scheme reserve - 13 (Increase) in debtors (238) (266) Increase in creditors 733 355 Net cash (outflow)/inflow from operating activities (2,537) 625 8. Copies of the full annual report and accounts will be dispatched to shareholders in due course. Further copies of this announcement can be obtained from the Company's registered office, Kingfisher House, 21-23 Elmfield Road, Bromley, Kent BR1 1LT

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