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