By Aby Jose Koilparambil
(Reuters) -Reach Plc, the publisher of the Daily Mirror, expects its 2024 operating profit to beat market expectations, helped by a strong fourth quarter, it said on Monday, driving its shares more than 20% up.
The publisher of Daily Express, a few regional titles and associated websites – which has struggled in a tough market for print advertising – has cut costs to increase profits.
Several highly watched events like Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, the European soccer championship and the UK election boosted digital revenue for the British news publisher in the second quarter of 2024.
Analysts on average see the adjusted operating profit for the year ended Dec. 31, 2024, at 97.8 million pounds ($119 million), according to company-compiled estimates. The company reported a profit of 96.5 million pounds in fiscal 2023.
Reach’s shares topped the FTSE Small Cap index, with the price jump putting them on track for their best day since October 2020, if the trend holds.
Panmure Liberum analyst Johnathan Barrett said in a note that the brokerage believes Reach’s digital business performed well during the peak period centred on Black Friday sales.
“It is the re-acceleration of growth in the digital business which is a real positive for the company, and Reach has got a good record in managing costs,” Barrett told Reuters.
The cost cuts have helped improve Reach’s margins and led to a 23% jump in 2024’s first-half operating profit.
Reach also said on Monday a historical error in the West Ferry Printers Pension Scheme, inherited during the 2018 acquisition of Express Newspapers, required an estimated 5 million pounds of additional funding, which will be paid in 2025, with no similar issues found in other schemes.
($1 = 0.8192 pounds)
(Reporting by Aby Jose Koilparambil in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza, Sumana Nandy and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
