Next Fifteen Communications Group PLC (LON:NFC), the digital marketing and communications firm, is confident of repeating strong revenue and profits growth in the coming year.
In a trading update covering the year to the end of January 2020, the firm said revenues and profits should be up year-on-year by a double-digit percentage and it expects to repeat that sort of growth in the coming year.
The top line has been dented a bit by the recent strength of sterling but revenues for the full year are still expected to be broadly in line with the board’s expectations.
Next Fifteen said organic revenue growth in the second half of the year followed a similar pattern to the first half.
Excluding the Beyond brand, which remains in recovery mode, and the recently acquired Archetype agency, it noted that organic growth “will again be strongly positive”, while the group expects year-on-year revenue growth from its data segment will top 20%.
Talking of Beyond, Next Fifteen said the prospects for the brand have improved in recent months but added that the path back to profitability is taking longer to traverse than originally expected.
As a result, it said adjusted profit for the year is likely to be marginally below expectations on a constant currency basis. Net debt at the end of January is expected to be about £12mln.
The group said it has an active acquisitions pipeline while the new business pipeline remains strong in all markets; recent material wins for the group have included Microsoft, REED, Photobox and Intel.
“While our growth has been moderated by currency headwinds and a couple of clearly defined operational issues, the data and analytics businesses are performing well, endorsing our focus on marketing technology. I’m therefore pleased to report that we anticipate continued strong revenue and profit growth in the new financial year,” said Richard Eyre, the chairman of Next Fifteen.