Future plc (FUTR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning all. I'm delighted to be here this morning to present our 2024 half year results. I will start with some opening remarks before handing it over to Penny, who will cover the financials. I will then come back to present an update on our strategic progress before opening up for Q&A. Turning to Slide 4. Our half year results are in line with expectations, and importantly, the group has returned to organic growth in Q2. Back in December, I presented the Growth Acceleration Strategy or GAS, like the fuel you put in the car. I will give further updates later on, and I am pleased with the progress so far. Looking at the second half of the year, the Q2 exit rate gives us the confidence to deliver on the full year expectations. The group has demonstrated once again its ability to generate cash with an excellent cash conversion, and we've announced a new share buyback program of up to GBP 45 million. Before I hand over to Penny, I would like to personally thank her for her support in my first year. She has been an incredible asset to the team over the past 9 years, and I wish her the very best in her next endeavor. We are delighted to welcome Sharjeel to the team, no later than October 2024. Sharjeel is currently Chief Financial Officer at ITV Studios, a role he has held for the last 5 years. Before this, he held a variety of roles at ITV plc, including Director of Group Finance and Director of Investor Relations. Sharjeel started his career at KPMG, and I'm sure you will look forward to meeting him in due course. And with that, I will hand it over to Penny to cover the results. Penny?

Thank you, Jon, for the kind words. It's been a privilege to work here for the past 9 years. Future is a great company with incredible talent and energy. Turning to Slide 6. Given the tough backdrop, we are pleased to deliver results in line with the improving trend we predicted. As a reminder, when we laid out our expectation for the year and the years ahead, what we were expecting to see this year is to hit the inflection point on revenue with a move into revenue growth in media, driving overall revenue growth in the second half of this financial year. We expected FY '24 to be a year of net investment with the investments in new content through editorial and video as well as sales capability, driving media revenue growth in the years to come. As we progress through the plan, we expect the revenue growth to drop through to the bottom line, resulting in overall absolute margin growth. We also expected to see the group maintain its fiscal prudence whilst leveraging the strong cash flows generated and the capital allocation framework to drive shareholder returns. What's really pleasing to see is that we're on track across all of these measures. So, revenue of GBP 391 million was down 3% with just a 2% organic decline. Importantly, in the second quarter, the group hit that revenue inflection point and return to organic growth. We're looking to continue that revenue momentum into the second half, supported by the stabilization of audience. Adjusted operating profit of GBP 105.8 million is on track to hit the full year adjusted operating profit margin expectation of 28%. The group continued to generate strong free cash flows with particularly strong cash conversion at 119% of adjusted operating profit. The balance sheet remains strong with net debt leverage at 1.25x after repaying GBP 68 million of gross debt and returning GBP 36 million to shareholders. The key message I want you to take away from these results before we dive into the details, is that we're on track and the early momentum is giving us confidence in the trajectory. Turning to the P&L on Slide 7. As I mentioned, overall revenue of GBP 391 million was down 3%, partially due to the reduction in the FX impact with an organic decline at constant currency of 2%. There was some change in the revenue mix, which I'll come on to, resulting in a gross contribution margin of 72%, down 1 percentage point year-on-year. EBITDA was down 20% year-on-year at a still healthy 27% margin, which we expect to increase to 28% for the full year. FX has some impact here and around 3% of the decline relates to the FX change. What's highlighted here is the impact on the margin of the business' operational gearing. So, what's important to bear in mind is the benefit that, that will provide as the revenue momentum in media builds. I'll move on to cover our revenue performance on Slide 9. Slide 9 shows our revenue performance, both reported and organic, broken down by geography. U.K. revenue grew by 3% on an organic basis as a result of the very strong growth in price comparison and good event growth, offset by challenging performance in digital ads and e-com products as expected. The U.S. declined by 11% on an organic basis as the majority of our U.S. business is media revenue, which we impacted by market conditions. However, we're seeing quarterly improvements in U.S. media. And so we're pleased with the early progress on what is one of our single biggest revenue opportunities. So, Slide 10 displays our revenue performance broken down by category, where you can see how our diversification drives resilience. Advertising and other media was down 9% on an organic basis. Digital advertising was impacted by market conditions, notably in the U.K. The U.S. saw an improving trend through our focus on direct campaigns, affiliates, which encompasses E-com products, Demand Gen vouchers as well as price comparison was up 10% on an organic basis. E-com products declined 24% driven by weaker consumer demand as well as audience. And positively, we're seeing consecutive improvements in the trend here. Vouchers grew 4% in the half. We saw a strong result in Go.Compare, which grew 30% with high quote volumes, notably in our biggest segment of car insurance. Finally, magazines, declined organically by 7%. This is a resilient performance, which testifies to the strength of the brands in the portfolio. A driver of the resilience also resides in the diversification with almost half of the magazine portfolio in subscriptions. So, turning to Slide 11. We look at the portfolio by business unit. As mentioned by Jon, we now have organized the group into 3 business units. So, we've brought in some incremental disclosure to help provide a bit more insight on the performance. So, starting with B2C, which represents 67% of the group's revenue, with GBP 263 million of revenue in the period. B2C declined organically by 11%, with the challenging market conditions in advertising and consumer pressures on affiliate products. The results vary considerably by brand with the cash generators declining by 19%, whilst Hero and Halo brands had a much more resilient performance with just a 6% decline rate. Go.Compare represents 1/4 of the group's revenue, with GBP 96 million of revenue in the period. The performance in the half was very strong with revenue growth of 30% as consumers look to reduce their costs following increases in insurance premiums. Importantly, we've improved both the marketing effectiveness as well as growing market share. Additionally, with the technology replatforming almost complete, the business is well positioned to take advantage of further growth initiatives. B2B represents 8% of the group's revenue with GBP 32 million of revenue in the half. B2B returned to growth with organic growth of 7%, driven by demand in in IT Pro. Importantly, following the B2B strategic options analysis is being reorganized and unified under a strong leadership team. The aim of this new structure is to be faster and more agile, whilst keeping under review our portfolio. We'll hear more from Jon on this shortly. In the meantime, I'll turn to Slide 12. I where we have some additional data around the profitability of the 3 businesses. In this slide, we're breaking down the direct costs, both cost of sales as well as sales, marketing and editorial costs by division. Overhead costs of GBP 43 million in the half cannot be broken down as these are shared resources, which support the overall portfolio. Starting with B2C, which has broadly half of the revenue coming from magazines and half from ads and affiliate products. This division had a direct profit margin of 37% in the half. The revenue mix in this division can have a significant impact on the profitability given the gross contribution differential between media and magazine revenues. And this is where we would expect to see the biggest benefit as media revenue momentum build. Go.Compare has a very strong direct margin of 49%. This is benefiting from a buoyant market and marketing efficiency as well as the benefit of the platform effect seen since the group business has joined the group. B2B in the half had a profit margin of 33%. B2C and B2B both have high operational gearing, which we expect to drive margin expansion as we return to revenue growth. In the appendix, you'll also find a snapshot of each of the businesses. Let's now look at costs and cash, turning to Slide 14, where we look at the adjusted operating margin year-on-year. In half year '23, margin stood at 32%. This strong performance included savings from a restructuring program. The change in revenue mix with an organic decline in the highest margin media revenue streams, combined with the planned investment to drive the growth acceleration strategy, reduced margin by 3 percentage points. Inflation and increases in salaries, combined with the return of some all staff bonus accrual in the half, reduced margin by a further 2 percentage points. Given the timing of the seasonality of costs and media growth in the second half, which creates operational leverage. This gives us confidence of achieving the 28% margin for the full year. Moving to our net debt bridge on Slide 15 and our continued strong cash performance in the period. On the chart, you can see the opening and closing net debt position with the cash generated during the period in the green box. During the period, we generated GBP 126 million of adjusted free cash flow, converting adjusted operating profit to cash at a rate of 119%. The net cash generation was GBP 85 million, an 80% conversion rate of adjusted operating profit. We've used these cash flows to return GBP 36 million to shareholders and GBP 68 million to pay down debt. Leverage at the end of the half sits at 1.25x, comfortably within our leverage range. By design, we're a highly cash-generative, capital-light business. Our approach is prudent and the balance sheet remains in a strong position, which brings me on to talk about our capital allocation on Slide 17. You can see here the framework that we shared with you before, which shows the hierarchy of priorities we consider to deploy our capital. We review this regularly to ensure it remains appropriate as market conditions can influence the prioritization. In light of current market conditions, you can see that we've graded out the strategic M&A box as acquisitions are not an immediate focus at this point in time. Currently, returning cash to shareholders drives a greater return. We completed earlier in the year our GBP 45 million share buyback program, and we're pleased to announce this morning a new share buyback program of up to GBP 45 million. Once it starts, the board will keep it under review and continue to assess it against our other capital allocation priorities. Going forward, we will continue to follow this framework, reviewing priorities in light of market conditions to maximize our opportunities. Finally, turning to the outlook on Slide 18. We -- the revenue growth in Q2 gives us confidence to achieve the expectations for the full year, assuming broadly similar market backdrop. We expect continued revenue growth in the second half to help support a return to adjusted operating profit margin of 28% for the full year. As always, and demonstrated once again this half, the group will continue to generate strong cash flow. This is my last set of results for future, and I'm really pleased to be able to hand over with the strong foundations laid. It has been a true privilege to be part of this very special organization. And I'd like to thank my colleagues and the investor community for all of their support over the years. With that, I'll hand over to Jon to talk more about what's to come. Thank you.

Thanks, Penny. In the next few slides, I'd like to give you an update on our strategic progress in the half. But before I do that, let me remind you of our strategy on Slide 21. Our strategy is simple. I believe that simplicity fosters alignment, which is paramount to flawless execution. In the first column, we have 3 strategic objectives: reaching valuable audiences, diversifying and growing revenue per user and optimizing the portfolio, which we introduced at the FY '23 results. These objectives are supported by 4 enablers in the middle column, which we believe create a competitive advantage. -- content, which is central to our consumer proposition as it drives audience engagement. Our operating model, which drives efficiency through its center of excellence and strategic location approach, and our tech stack, thanks to its unique proprietary nature and common approach, it provides an amazing support to profit growth. Finally, M&A, which is currently graded out, as Penny mentioned earlier. This is not currently a strategic priority, but when actionable, it is a fantastic accelerant to the execution of our strategy. By driving these objectives, we have 3 outcomes. We drive sustainable revenue growth, continue to generate strong free cash flow, which we can then maximize through the application of our capital allocation framework. Our growth acceleration strategic priorities and the investment program launched in December last year is the fuel to the strategy. In the next few slides, I will cover our 3 strategic objectives and how we have made progress in the period. Starting with reaching valuable audience on Slide 22. You've heard us say this many times that media is a simple equation of volume times price. So, our first strategic objective to grow valuable audience looks at the volume side of the equation. How do you reach valuable audience, content but not just any content, expert, authoritative and trustworthy. With the rise of AI and fake news, authentic expert content is becoming even more important. Diversification is a core feature in everything we undertake and content is no exception. It is about diversification of content to smooth out seasonality or peak events, but it is also about diversification of audience acquisition from organic search to e-mail, to social, to licensing with awards. The diversification of acquisition of audience allows us to capture new audiences and reduce our dependence on any one channel. Our content strategy, as mentioned when we announced the GAS program in December, requires investment, investment in heads. We have hired 30 new editorial heads across our key brands to ensure a good balance of content between news, how to and buying guides, driving an increase in output. Investment in capabilities with the continued focus on quality reviews and improving our testing process to reinforce our brands; and finally, leveraging data to ensure that the content produced meets the audience needs, and this is starting to pay off with stabilization of audience trends as evidenced on Slide 23. Website users remain a highly valuable audience for us. So, I just want to display the website user performance since 2018 with the impact of seasonality to evidence the foundation for growth for 2024. On the chart, you can see our daily average sessions in Navy, daily average users in Brightblue and blue dots representing Google algorithm changes. Highlighted in the red box, you can see the stabilization of the trend we've experienced over the past year as the result of the portfolio focus on the content of keysight, hero brands, such as the relaunch of TechRadar last summer and new and improved buying guides. As a result, we have seen website user growth in tech and gaming. This will help set a solid foundation for the new initiatives. But as you know, website users are just one field we plow. We have other sources of audience. Turning to Slide 24. Starting with the left-hand side. I mentioned in our December last year update that social was an unplowed field for future. We've had early signs of success using social videos. On the screen, you can see a video on social from Tom's Guide on foldable phones. This video generated 48 million views on TikTok and 7 million views on Instagram. This performance allowed our sales team to sell a branded content package to a blue-chip technology company for the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Creating engaging content that drives audience is valuable for advertisers as it allows them to target intentful audiences at scale. E-mail is also a valuable acquisition channel as this is a very loyal cohort. Additionally, e-mail gives us great first-party data, which can in turn feed Aperture, our data audience platform. During the half, we did significant testing on e-mail sign-up across key traffic-driving websites. We tested multiple location variants on page to determine which placement was optimal to drive more conversion without impacting ad revenue. We reviewed performance across desktop and mobile and launched a platform-wide update with the higher-performing location. I hope these 2 examples give you a valuable insight into the actions we are taking as part of the GAS program. And this is just the start as current investment continues to ramp up. Turning to Slide 25 and the second part of the media equation, price or how to diversify and grow revenue per user. You've heard me say this before. Diversification is part of our philosophy in future. This is because in a highly disruptive industry, diversification is a synonym for sustainability and relevance. Volume is embedded in our content strategy. Price is embedded in our monetization strategy. Our monetization strategy is articulated around 2 pillars: diversification of monetization and premiumization of existing audience. Starting with diversification. This is about adding monetization routes to existing audience, such as affiliate product commission on buying guides or creating new revenue types, such as branded content. Premiumization is about driving increased revenue per user by converting advertisers from open auction to direct campaigns and, therefore, having a greater yield for an equivalent audience. The best way to drive this is through demonstrating the value of our audience using contextual targeting and layering it with rich first-party data using our aperture data platform. We need to invest in our direct sales capability to bring these valuable first-party advertising solutions to brands and agencies. We've signed 11 partnership agreements in the past 12 months with agencies and added direct advertisers to our Rolodex. As a result, we now have a 2 percentage point increase in our digital advertising revenue mix into direct and branded content. We've already seen green shoots with digital advertising in growth in the U.S. in Q2. Let me dive a little deeper into these opportunities on Slide 26. When I joined just over a year ago, I mentioned the enormous opportunity in building relationships with advertisers and agencies, particularly in the U.S. to sell our inventory at premium rates. This absolutely remains and the challenging market backdrop is not derailing our ambition. Today, 68% of our advertising inventory by impression volume is sold through open auctioned. However, selling our inventory directly is done at 4x the yield. I think these numbers speak for themselves. So how do we tap this opportunity? To move inventory from open auction to direct, you need to have an effective sales force that has relationships and partnership agreements to convert the advertisers. My track record in previous roles included driving branded content. Branded content is where editorial and sales work in tandem to produce bespoke packages for advertisers. The trend is for advertisers to focus on both display and branded content. Therefore, having this capability not only drives a new route of monetization, but is also valuable to securing display campaigns. Since the start of the year, around 60% of campaign RFP responses in the U.S. included both branded content and display ads. This is just the start. But this is not just about digital advertising. I mentioned in my previous slide that growing the ARPU was about driving a second route of monetization. We now have our voucher tech, Eagle on 17 sites and drove 4% growth in the period. I mentioned our editorial investment earlier on. Part of this investment has been on increasing the quality of our buying guides to drive conversion. And finally, it would not be a future strategic update without mentioning diversification yet again. We are focused on diversification of content verticals where newer verticals are less mature on affiliate revenue, but also diversification of product from laptops and tech accessories to beauty and home products. The opportunities are clear. It's now about execution. Our last strategic objective is to optimize the portfolio on Slide 27. Media is one of the most disruptive industries. It keeps reinventing itself. The way we generate revenue today is different from 5 or 10 years ago and will be different in the next decade, too. Therefore, it is important to ensure that our assets are relevant and fit the audience's needs. Part of our operational model is to continuously review our portfolio to ensure it is fit for purpose. Additionally, the Board will continue to keenly appraise performance and will actively look at further options to accelerate value creation across the group's business units. In the half, we have reorganized the group into 3 distinct businesses, B2C, Go.Compare and B2B and have appointed 3 talented business leaders. Kevin Lee Ying, our 20-year future veteran, who most of you would have met through previous CMD's is leading B2C. Lee Griffin, one of the founders of Go.Compare is leading that unit. And Amanda Darman Allen is leading B2B after 5 years in the B2B group. These businesses are different, different growth drivers and geographic mix, but they bring together capabilities and diversification, which is valuable to the group on top of cost synergies. This reorganization with the appointment of 3 leaders drives accountability while recognizing that there's an element of shared central resource. I'm very pleased to date with the focus and energy this reorganization has brought about. In parallel, we continue to assess the brand's performance to ensure we prioritize investment where it yields the greatest return. As you can tell, this philosophy of continuous assessment is very much embedded into the group, driving focus and accountability to ensure execution of the strategy. And so to conclude, on Slide 29. I hope what you take from this morning session is that GAS is driving momentum and that we are seeing encouraging green shoots of the effectiveness of the strategy. Hero brands are outperforming. The new segmentation and business structure allows us to prioritize the investment faster and more effectively. Importantly, the exit rate is giving us confidence to meet the expectations for the full year. Thank you. And let me now open the floor to Q&A. Laura, please take the calls.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We'll now take our first question from Lara Simson of JPMorgan.

My first, Jon, would just be to go back to your point on portfolio management. I mean, clearly, a strong message today with you are dining the focus on optimizing the portfolio and sort of accelerating value creation there. I was wondering if you could give a bit more color on that, I suppose, in terms of assets under consideration or options you could consider to drive value? I know in the past, you've looked at the B2B portfolio not too long ago. We're obviously seeing very strong growth in Go.Compare. So, I suppose any insight on the Board thinking there would be helpful. And then my second question would just be going back to website users. I think you've shown you've had the first Google core algorithm update for 2024, not too long ago. So just wondering if you've got any comments there on the impact in terms of brand visibility. It looked quite neutral from the chart that you showed. So interested what changed there and maybe made future a bit more resilient compared to the headwinds you saw over the last sort of 12 to 18 months?

Thank you so much for the questions. So as a Board, we view the businesses are significantly undervalued, and we keenly appraised performance and want to accelerate value creation for the shareholders. I would say a couple more points on that. We are unemotional on the portfolio. We are totally rational and want to drive the most value for the shareholders. The second point I would make is that we are very rigorous on the buy and the sell side. We do not buy or sell things for the sake of buying or selling things. They have to make economic sense for the shareholders in order for us to take an action on either direction. Finally, portfolio optimization is a continuum and an ongoing process. I'm very pleased with the B2C, B2B and Go.Compare segmentation. You brought up B2B. Obviously, we have strong performance in B2B in the half year. We're really pleased with how that unit is performing. And so really, what this is, it's an extension of our view that as fiduciaries to the shareholders, we need to do what's right for them and what's right for our other stakeholders and continually appraising the portfolio. On website users. There was a big algorithm update that occurred a few months back. There are numerous articles that are publicly available that show visibility of websites as a result of that algorithm change. We tended to benefit quite well from that most recent algorithm change. Why do I think that is? We've been investing in the content quality. We've been improving our buying guides. We've added the 30 editorial heads. There's no gaming Google, in my view. There is making excellent content that is expert authoritative and trustworthy and having Google respond to that quality of content. And I believe that's what we're seeing come through. That's why in April, we have the audience growth. That's where we're seeing both stabilization and overall audience growth. And when you look at the chart in the appendix, you'll see it's incredible how many of the verticals we have in user growth for the half year. So, we're really pleased with the stabilization. We're really pleased with the return to growth, and I think we're being rewarded for the effort that we're putting in.

And we'll now move on to our next question from Gareth Davies of Numis.

A couple for me. The first one, you talked about consecutive improvements in terms of sort of digital advertising in e-commerce. I just wondered if you could give a little more granularity there and maybe a little feel for how kind of April into May has trended for those revenue lines? Then the second one, Go.Compare kind of phenomenal performance at 30% growth. Can you talk a little bit around market share there and how you feel you're performing versus competition? And then secondly, on Go.Compare there's obviously the aspiration to move into verticals beyond insurance. In terms of the journey you're on there, can you talk about sort of what's gone well so far, how much resources being pushed into expanding in those verticals at the moment and sort of really what the aspirational time line is to start to really scale on other verticals?

Sure. Thanks, Gareth. So, the consecutive improvement, I would -- an affiliate products, it's actually a very positive story. In HY '23, affiliate products was down 28%. In the half year, affiliate products was down 24%. And -- in Q2, affiliate products was down 21%. So, we're seeing that happen now. I think that the technology category is still certainly challenged with people deferring purchases of laptops and things like that. But we are seeing other categories like the ones in women's lifestyle that are seeing some signs of improvement just now. So, we're definitely seeing a sequential improvement in that. In digital advertising, I mean, the real standout story is the Q2 return to growth in digital advertising in the U.S. And so that's a story that we're very pleased with because the U.S. has been such a focus of mine and the teams, and it's such an important part of our strategic effort that we're doing. In terms of April, continuation of trend, continuation of improvement. So, we're very pleased with that outcome. On Go.Compare, on market share, we have...

Yes, just quickly... Just quickly on -- before you move on, on that digital advertising and performance in the U.S. How much do you feel has been driven by self-help and in terms of you building your sales team and you talked about that sales team and the importance of it in terms of direct advertising, are you where you want to be now in terms of resource and kind of properly front foot and going at that. Can you just maybe give a little more color on that?

I think the best data point that I can point to, Gareth, is that the RFP response is now included in the U.S., 60% branded content. That's not just about branded content. That's about engagement with the clients, engagement with the agencies, putting together fulsome proposals that respond to their needs. And so, I think we're putting a better product into market now and a better response into market now on the front foot. And so are we where I would like to be. As a general principle in life, I'm never where I want to be. But I think we're making good progress there with the team. We are bringing in talented people. We are seeing improvement, and I think that it is a lot of self-help that is translating through to that result. On Go.Compare, the market share has oscillated over the past few months between second position and third position in car. So, we are making traction there. We are seeing progress there. And so, I do think that it is technology improvements that we're making to the platform, marketing efficiencies and things like that, that are allowing us to perform well beyond just the overall bumper market that we've seen. In terms of the journey, it has been a long process to do the replatforming, which is now concluding. As anyone knows who's done a replatforming, it is an extensive effort that is very complicated. It has to be done right. We're nearing the end of that now. In terms of what I'm excited about, we have plans to introduce indicative quote. I think that's what we call it. Legion will probably be upset that I called it the wrong name. But what that means is that when you get a car insurance quote, we automatically send you a suggestion for a home insurance quote. I think that will help to drive the category. We've seen so much growth in auto insurance over the period that we -- that any kind of diversification might be stripped out a little bit because there's been so much growth in car, but we still have the ambition to extend into other categories. And in fact, most of the other categories are all in growth as well in addition to cars as well. So, we're very pleased with Go.Compare. It has been the star of the portfolio, and I believe we are making good progress on technology. One last point that I'll make on technology is that once we get through this replatforming, we're able to move on to so many of the things that I want to do, like I want to make login much easier. As I've mentioned on previous earnings calls, -- so many people forget their password and then can't log in to go compare because it's a once a year type thing. If we simplify that log-in journey, I think we can have a significant uplift on people that are able to get into the system and request a quote. So that's another technical improvement that I'm looking forward to seeing us launch once we get through this replatforming.

Thank you. And we'll take our next question from William Larwood of Berenberg.

Just in terms of Slide 14, sort of there was a 3 percentage point margin impact from revenue mix and investment. Just wondering if you could sort of split that out, how much is actually due to the revenue mix and how much is due to the sort of investment in the gas program? And then also sort of are we still on track to deliver GBP 20 million of investment this year? And how does that pay H1, H2, that would be great.

Okay. Why don't you take this Penny?

Sure. So, in terms of the margin impact, part of the investment goes into cost of sales. And so, it's quite challenging to dislocate the 2. I think the important thing to flag is e-commerce products, for example, we saw that was 24% down in the half. That's incredibly high margin. Digital advertising is also very high margin. So, you can see how these businesses really benefit from operational gearing. And so, as the media revenue kind of growth momentum builds, I'd be excited about the revenue, the margin impact that, that would see allowing us to continue to invest. I think the important thing is that we're very much on track with the GAS program and seeing really the positive green shoots of the momentum that we're building.

We will now move on to our next question from Nick Dempsey of Barclays.

I've got 2 left. So, first of all, Google talked this week about rolling out more widely the AI overviews that appear on the top of search results. So summary is created by GEMINI. Why shouldn't we worry that, that could have a permanently negative impact on traffic for specialist media like some of the future titles? And second question, just going back to the traffic and we can see April up year-on-year. I wonder if you could just dig into it a bit more to help us understand whether there's anything unusual about this month. So is it that you're benefiting from the Google algorithm change, as you said. So therefore, that won't necessarily persist -- have you done any special marketing. Is there anything else that might have distorted that 1 month in terms of traffic year-on-year?

Thanks, Nick. I was worried we weren't going to get an AI question. To answer your question on that, we've followed this unbelievably closely and talking for a moment about the AI category broadly. We have specialist content that people are passionate about, that they enjoy and want to spend time with. We follow the open AI announcements this past week as well, too, and we view this as a potentially new route for people to discover our content. Google has been like the sole way people get to content for as long as I can remember, and AI is opening up a new pathway to people to be able to discover content, talking about the Google announcement specifically. Google said in the blog post, and I believe they said in the presentation as well, the AI overviews that include links have a higher click-through rate on those little links that appear at the bottom of the AI result than would normally happen in a traditional Google search result. So, the answer to your question, Nick, is it's possible this could be a positive for us. It's possible this could be a negative for us in terms of traffic. We don't have a clear answer on that yet. And in fact, I believe there will be new opportunities that will occur and will come out as a result of AI, and we intend to play in that and work aggressively in that as well. Let me think is there anything else I want to say on AI. Well, I guess while we're on the topic, I think there's -- I think that we also have been in active dialogue with the AI companies. We followed the announcements of other people like Dotdash Meredith. We see opportunity there, and we're optimistic about that as well. So, we're closely following the space. We're not sitting back. We're seeking out opportunities in terms of traffic and monetization that may come, and we're -- I'm very focused on, and it's absolutely one of my top priorities. On April, no special marketing, basically positive Google algorithm change, as I said earlier, that I believe rewards quality content. We saw -- we've seen across the board performance and audience in the half year with the exception of women's and entertainment, and I think 1 or 2 other categories. So broad-based, I believe that it is Google recognizing the quality of work that we're doing and the investment of the 30 editorial head count that we're putting into the business. Penny, there anything else you want to say on April?

Nope.

Okay, okay thanks.

And we will now take our next question from Oliver Convoy of Jefferies.

So, 2 out of the 3 have broadly been asked, so I'm going to ask the final one. So given that 50% of your revenue is disclosed in the full year presentation from Hero brands is the focus of investment. Would you be able to give us a full list of those brands so that we can better track them? And why hasn't there been a list provided previously? And then kind of on the same vein, in the last full year presentation, you've kind of given approximation of the number of brands. do you not know the actual number? Or why is that an approximation?

Yes. So, I'll answer your first question, and then Penny, maybe you take the second one. On the heroes, the heroes and the halos are somewhat fluid. And we've talked before about how the heroes work in concert with the halos. In other words, an advertising buy that starts out with the heroes can be extended to the Halo brands. So, they work well in concert. Also, brands have the ability to move between halo and hero category. So, it's a fluid assessment that we're continuously making. So that's why we've chosen not to break it out because we don't want to put together a list and then change the list and have it yet another thing that is complicated in order to be able to report out. So, we want to keep a fluidity with the Hero and halo structure, and that's why we've chosen not to break it out, not to disclose it. With that said, certain heroes are quite obvious, like Tech radar, like Marie Claire, -- like Go.Compare. So that would be my answer to your first question.

On the second question, it's very much linked to John's point about the fluidity about keeping the portfolio under review. In any business, particularly in media business, the brand taxonomy is relatively complicated and fluid and that partly depends on how we're approaching their portfolio. So, in some instances, for example, PC game, which is both a magazine and a website that could be at cancer as one brand other kid count as to, and it partly depends on the monetization opportunities and our go-to-market approach. And so that's where we keep the fluidity and the constant review of the portfolio that we've touched on.

Thank you. And we'll now take our next question from Jessica Pok of Peel Hunt.

I just got 2 final questions, please. The first question is on Go.Compare. You've got a stall in H1, and we've seen others in the market have quite good results. How are we thinking about H2, given that you're going to have a moderation of the insurance premium growth, but that's in combination of now continuing to invest in marketing in that area. And then the second one is just on the investments, Jon. I mean you've talked about not -- right now, you're not looking at M&A. But in terms of the branded content, the diversification into the social media board kind of creating more video. Have you got enough capabilities now in-house? Or will you have to add the capabilities organically, you're not looking at any bolt-ons...

Okay. So Go.Compare definitely sees -- starts anniversarying the stellar performance in H2. So, we do expect to have some moderation of performance, but we expect to have continued strong performance in Go.Compare. And then also the replatforming will be complete, and then we will be able to move on to these other self-help and technology improvements during that period. So, we see levers for growth at Go.Compare beyond just the bumper market. On capabilities, I built branded content businesses from scratch before. I'm very comfortable building the teams, bringing in the talent, doing it organically. Of course, we talked about how we're continually using the capital allocation framework to assess what makes sense today and that can change over time. And so, what I've said before about this is that a bolt-on acquisition in social, in branded content could certainly accelerate things and allow us to move more quickly. And it's not something that is permanently off the table. But for right now, we've graded out M&A because we don't believe that it's actionable and which is why we've done the shareholder return or announced the shareholder return that we put out today...

That was our last question. I will now hand it back for closing remarks.

Thank you all for your time today. Thank you for your questions. We're really excited about the inflection that we've seen in Q2. We're working really hard here. The team is galvanized. GAS is going well. We're excited to announce the share buyback today. And so very pleased with the results today and look forward to seeing many of you on the road. Thank you very much.