Future plc ($FUTR)

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's Future plc preclose trading update call. My name is Seb, and I'll be the operator for your call today. [Operator Instructions]. I will now hand you over to Kevin Li Ying to begin the call. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us at short notice. We really do appreciate it. When we reported our FY '25 results last December, we were clear where our exposure to the search landscape sat, namely programmatic advertising and e-commerce. And we set out the challenges in that part of the market as a result of the changes in the ecosystem. What we've seen is that rather than stabilize year-on-year, it has just become tougher with organic search results being further down, the Google search page driving more zero-click search impacting our sessions. This is a challenge, not just for us, but for the industry. We remain cautious in our outlook on sessions and expect continued decline rather than stabilization of trends. In addition to this, PPC inflation, which we noted in February, remains higher. This is another industry issue, but clearly, it has an impact on Go.Compare's profitability. To give you some color on this, PPC costs are double digit higher year-on-year. And as you know, these are high-margin parts of the business. However, as a reminder, over 80% of the group's revenue is not directly correlated to audiences. And on the other hand, where we are able to exert greater control is against our strategic initiatives. As planned, these are driving growth and ramping up. Just to quote a few, our AI visibility advertising product, Future Optics, is building momentum, some of it landing in H1 and more than double in H2. We have a strong pipeline. Earlier this month, we launched Helix, our next-generation first-party data audience intelligence engine designed to drive guaranteed commercial outcomes for advertisers. Following successful testing across 20 campaigns, we are seeing double-digit increase in click-through rates alongside meaningful improvements in return on ad spend. We are rolling this product out at pace in the U.S. and then on to the U.K. On to SheerLuxe, which we acquired in January, is trading very strongly, outperforming our plans, testament that the Google-Zero strategy works. This is amplified with our own Google-Zero brands like Kiplinger and Ideal Home, which are also driving outperformance. We continue to manage Magazines efficiently, delivering another very resilient performance. And then on to Go.Compare, which has returned to growth in March, thanks to growth in car insurance, and we launched Renewal, our insurance wallet app in February, and we're working on a pipeline of new features, including AI functionality to push to it. As a reminder, Renewal is all about improving retention and lowering customer acquisition costs by PPC. And finally, the rate of decline in B2B is abating and is set to grow in H2 with the benefit of new first-party data and AI-led products. However, these initiatives, our strategic initiatives, whilst driving growth, are not yet sufficient to offset the macro downside from sessions given the acceleration decline there. So let me hand it over to Sharjeel to talk through what this means for guidance.

Thank you for joining us this morning. First, turning to the outlook for the half year. On half year organic revenues, we are broadly in line with where we thought around minus 6.5%. However, the revenue mix at half year is different with more revenues coming from direct digital advertising and print and less from higher-margin e-commerce and programmatic, which has resulted in a margin at around 24% to 25%. Looking forward to the full year, we are deliberately taking a cautious view on audiences in the second half, even though we have easier comparators in the coming H2 period. The key change is that we're now planning for audience to decline going forward instead of stabilizing in H2 as we had planned. Given the ongoing volatility in audiences, this is a prudent thing to do. So for H2, we are assuming a continued decline in e-commerce and programmatic revenues, similar to the rate of decline we saw in the past 2 halves. These are the high-margin revenues which we highlighted as being more directly linked to audiences. On the other areas, there is growth in the business. We expect direct digital advertising, both in the U.K. and in the U.S. to deliver good growth in H2, assuming macro conditions remain consistent. We expect Magazines to remain resilient for the rest of the year. We expect Go.Compare to grow throughout H2, as it had done in March. Remember, in an inflationary environment, we see that Go.Compare grows, and we expect B2B to return to growth in H2 as we launch new products. So all of this translates into H2 organic revenue being down low single digits. And on the inorganic side, you will have a full 6-month inclusion of SheerLuxe, which continues to outperform, as Kevin just mentioned. Turning to the full year profit. The impact of the B2C revenue mix, combined with the PPC inflation in Go.Co is expected to result in an EBITDA margin in the region of 25% to 27%. I want to assure you all that we're being very proactive when it comes to costs. We are driving automation across the business and reducing costs, but also continuing to invest where it drives a good return. Regarding cash, the group continues to generate high levels of cash with conversion for the year in line with guidance of around 90% of EBITDA to adjusted free cash flow. This is the same as the previous 95% in AOP terms. The Board is clear that our shares are fundamentally undervalued and we will use this strong cash generation to buy our shares, it's the best investment today. And given the share price, we have decided to accelerate the current GBP 30 million share buyback program. We still have GBP 22 million to go on this. And with that, back to Kevin.

Thank you, Sharjeel. Before taking your questions, I just wanted to take a step back from the detail to look more broadly where we are at. Notwithstanding today's disappointing news, taking a step back, this is a business that still generates a strong level of EBITDA and a net free cash flow of circa GBP 100 million. This is not a set of numbers reflected in our valuation. With this in mind, we're going to be even more focused on driving value for the areas of the group that deliver the platform effect and to realize value for shareholders from those that do not. As I said earlier, this is working, but we want to make sure that it works faster and at a greater scale. With that, Sharjeel and I would be happy to take any of your questions you might have. Operator, over to you.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question on the line is from Nick Dempsey with Barclays.

I've got 2 questions. So first of all, I think back at the full year results, you were making quite a clear distinction between Google Discover and Google Search. Are those lines starting to blur now as your traffic from Google Discover starting to be hit by changes to that as we've seen from some other people. So is that part of the reason for the traffic weakness? And the second question, you just mentioned sort of net free cash flow. Did you say circa GBP 100 million? I just want to try and understand what the definition of that is? Are we including the buyback in that? Or that seems lower than I would have expected based on your guidance?

Thank you, Nick, for your 2 questions. Sharjeel, did you want to pick the Discover piece versus organic and net free cash flow?

Yes, I'll pick up both of them. So Nick, on audiences, what we've seen is overall audiences have been down in the first half of about minus 20%. That's pretty much in line with what we saw in the second half of last year. There are variances between how audiences on Discover and how audiences on Google Search have performed relatively similar. I mean, overall, it's down minus 20%. It's not that one is up and the other is down. Both of them are down, but they remain very volatile and hence, the guidance today. Going forward, we'll see. We're taking a cautious view. We had previously assumed that audiences would stabilize, be it Discover or be it search. But what we're saying now is instead of that stabilization on year-on-year, we're assuming, look, it just carries on declining, not accelerating, but carries on declining in the same trend we've seen over the past 2 halves. On free cash flow, that doesn't include the buyback. That GBP 100 million is what we've got left after paying tax, interest, managing the business in terms of working capital. It's what the Board can decide to do in terms of dividends, share buybacks, acquisitions, bolt-ons and so forth. So that's the definition of GBP 100 million.

So sorry, it includes cash interest, cash tax and the buyback?

No, excludes the buyback.

Excludes the buyback, but includes cash interest and cash tax?

Yes.

Our next question comes from Lara Simpson with JPMorgan.

I just had 2. The first was, again, just coming back to the outlook. You've obviously assumed for continued audience decline in H2. Could you just talk a bit more around the level of visibility that you have and how you have confidence that, that decline can't actually accelerate in the second half. So what are you seeing from the Q2 exit rate? And then I think also important just to address the midterm financial algorithm at this stage. Clearly, we've had the margin reset given the change in mix. How should we think about potential to rebuild margins? And I think from a top line, how are you thinking about sort of the audience trends more broadly? And then my second question was just maybe, Kevin, for you, just to come back to the comment and the tone around your stance on the portfolio. It feels like there's a bit of a change in tone around realizing assets and asset optionality. Could you just talk a little bit more around what changed there? And any more color you can give as you do review assets that drive the platform effect and those that don't?

Let me take your second question, and I'll pass on your first one to Sharjeel. Well, look, we have clear, well-defined strategic initiative programs, right, which we set out at the start of the financial year. And these strategic initiatives are progressing well, and they are driving growth. Future Optic is one that is worth covering in terms of its demand by clients across U.S. and U.K. as well as our sort of like creating the habit functionality whereby people follow us, comes to our brands to consume our editorial expertise, right? Now like Future Plus, Colab, these are showing green shoots and green shoots as time goes by. So those are driving growth, as I said, and we expect these to ramp up through the rest of this financial year and into FY '27. We should also remind ourselves that we have our sort of like Google-Zero brands like Kiplinger who's performing very well year-to-date on an organic basis as well as Ideal Homes and actually the Homes vertical, which is again performing year-on-year very well year-to-date top line. And also not to forget that SheerLuxe, the acquisition that we made in January, is outperforming our own plans, which, again, combined with the Kiplinger and the likes of the Homes vertical brands are all Google-Zero. Now as Sharjeel mentioned and I also mentioned, we're expecting e-commerce and programmatic to continue to decline. But then it's worth remembering that we have is all small numbers as we progress into the months coming. So we should expect that overall, the sum of the 2 translate into growth into FY '27. I'm giving you more than you have asked. Sharjeel?

Yes. Lara, let me pick up your 3 and 1. So in terms of visibility, I think the best way to look at it is H2 2025, audiences were down minus 20%. H1 2025, again, minus 20%. There has been relative stability over the last, I would say, 8 weeks or so, but we're being cautious, volatile. You can see week-on-week how things are changing. There's another Google algorithm update going on right now. So we're being cautious, and I'm applying another minus 20% to audiences in the second half of the year instead of assuming a small decline. So we don't have visibility, and that is the reason for the deliberate caution. I hope we beat it, and we're being overcautious, but I think the right thing to do is be cautious. Then your second question was on the midterm. Look, as Kevin has said, we have a clear strategy around moving away from getting audiences pushed to us, to having audiences pulled to us by our Google-Zero strategy. And we've got internal brands, and Kevin talked about our acquisition as well that proves that. They will be at a slightly lower margin, right? E-commerce is at a higher margin, 80%, 90% margin on that kind of incremental pie, where some of these will be at a very good margin, but not at that level. And then AI visibility and using that to drive audience less revenues as well. So look, too early to get into medium-term guidance, but we've given a range for this year. We'll build it back up. We'll have great initiatives that Kevin and the team are working on, and we'll look to build it back up going forward. And then your last question was around audiences more broadly in the future. Well, the strategy isn't pinned on audiences coming back. The strategy is pivoted on pulling audiences either through membership, either through Colab, either through making sure our brands are very clear and that brands and trust become more important in an AI world.

The next question is from Weng Lum Khoo from Jefferies.

So 2, if I may, please. Firstly, could you perhaps speak to the impact of the strategic initiative that's specifically supposed to drive non-Google traffic to Colab's signal? Perhaps any update there since the September presentation will be helpful in terms of how that's driving direct traffic, how that's driving e-commerce revenue streams, et cetera, et cetera? And then the second question, I think you partially answered it. So the building blocks to your change in guidance and assumptions. So you spoke to the volatility of audience, the Google algorithm change. Is there any other external factors or internal factors that are driving the change in guidance?

Thank you, Weng. I'll take the first one. Sharjeel, you'll take the second one. The impact of the SI, as in the strategic initiative, I'll just focus on Colab, if I may. And like Colab, similarly to Future Optic, we released that over the last, what, months and just a bit, right? We've expanded that on a number of our brands, namely the luxury and lifestyle brands, and they're performing very well. What does performing very well mean, right? They're performing very well in terms of attracting a niche set of audience that are extremely valuable to us, one. Two, they are very, very, very engaged. Our engagement metrics is at a minimum 3x more in terms of what we actually see in terms of like people coming to other non-Colab types of content, digital content, right? And then three, there's a bridge with what is produced by those content creators, those influencers through the prism of the Colab products, bridging that with commercial, right? Commercial branded content package, commercial sales activities and with a clear view to drive yield and top line. So that is just to give you a bit of color on the impact on Colab. With regards to -- I think you may have mentioned Future Plus, if I'm not mistaken, but I'll sort of like expand briefly on this. This is, again, an initiative that was born 6 months ago or so. So far, we've actually driven in excess of 180,000 free members which, again, drives return repeat visit, which drives a higher engagement, which offers us sort of like valuable first-party data that we can package downstream and sell through our commercial sales activities. And that is only launched on 3 brands, I believe, and we're rolling it out on other brands. And I must touch on Future Optic, on its impact. What we're seeing is a strong client demand in terms of solar sale of Future Optic, but also package sale as part of branded content across our portfolio so far and pipeline is very, very strong. So I'll stop here, but hopefully, you get a bit of color in terms of the impact so far. Sharjeel?

Sure. Weng, I think your question was around what's changed in terms of the factors. Let me answer it for H2 and then looking forward as well. For H2, quite a lot of the revenues are going exactly as we planned in terms of the strategic initiatives and some of the other revenue lines across the group and a couple are actually a bit better. What's changed is the caution on audiences. So we're assuming similar declines, but it's the audiences and the revenue are at very high margin in those 2 areas, as you know, and as you highlighted in your note recently. So that is what the main change is into H2 and driving the margin down to 25% to 27%. I mean looking forward, look, Kevin has told you about all the great initiatives and actually how the click-through rate or the engagement rate or the things are doing better. And some of them will do very, very well, but they will be at a lower margin. So hence, that margin question in terms of the medium term. We'll give guidance when we've got a better feel for it. But those are the main factors that are impacting us. It's the drop in margin rather than a major revenue change.

The next question is from Johnathan Barrett with Panmure.

I'm probably just down to 1 or 2 questions now. Perhaps you could give us some perspective on what all of the new products are actually doing in revenue terms now. We've got all these new products that are being launched, but it's very hard to contextualize what they're really doing at the revenue level. So perhaps you could try to turn that into some sort of number for us today. And the second question is around Go.Co margin going forward. This PPC squeeze seems to be something which will remain a problem for some time. Should we start to think about a different structural margin for that business given that impact? And if you could give us your thoughts around that. So I think those are my 2 remaining questions.

Sharjeel, I shall leave both of those questions to you in terms of impact on top line and Go.Co margin.

Okay. On the strategic initiatives, I think the best way to look at it is in terms of this year, and then Future Optic is about -- we've got a good GBP 10 million pipeline for this year. On some of the others, they're very early, Johnathan. And I know you're keen to model it, and I'll go into more color in May, if that's all right. But Future Optic is the one that's doing very well. As Kevin said, we've had a good half year on it, and it's going to double and a decent pipeline from 0 to around GBP 10 million in terms of the outlook in the pipeline. So that's a good one. On the rest of them, Johnathan, I get it, and I understand why you want it. But can I say that for the half year, and I'll give you more color at the half year then. In terms of Go.Co, look, we've managed the business really, really well over the years, and it's doing a very good margin. Now on the PPC, yes, it's not just a Go.Co thing. It's in the market, and we're getting more costs. But we're also doing things to counter the cost. And the way to look at it is Future is brilliant at search. And yes, search is harder in terms of where we end up on the page, which is further down the page rather than even if we rank 1, 2 and 3. But over the last 4, 5 months, again, we've improved Go.Co's rankings on search to make sure it's very visible. We're also being more efficient on how we buy our PPC. Every other company will do the same as well, but we are very focused on making sure we buy PPC correctly going forward. And then we've launched renewal. And the key thing on renewal is very early days, very small base, but it will grow, and we'll get all our Go.Co customers onto it and other people's customers on to it as well. The plan there is to reduce the reliance on buying individuals again and again and making Google much more rich. So that is the longer-term play. And then as you think about what else are we doing, well, we're using Future Optic on Go.Co and making sure our own product is very visible in ChatGPT. We're developing new product for ChatGPT, and Kevin will give an update about that in May. And we're also going to improve our AI process in renewal as well. I mean, look, that's a very long way of saying, yes, PPC costs are going up, but we're going to try to counter it, either by being more efficient, either by retaining people better and driving costs out of the business. Longer term, I still think it's a good EBITDA 40% margin business.

Our next question is from Andrew Renton with Cavendish Capital Markets Limited.

Just a final one for me. So given this is going to be impacting Google revenues as well, do you have any thoughts on how they're going to approach this decline going forward and sort of mitigate their business model? I mean, it feels a little bit like they obviously have sort of jumped with the AI overviews, but it's having a big impact on them as well. So I'd be interested to get your insight around any changes going forward from them.

Thank you. Sharjeel, I will take this. Look, Google's road map is public and what I see, you see and everyone sees, right? They don't sort of like diverge anything in terms of like core strategic moves in terms of revenue, how they make revenue and how they want to actually sort of complement existing revenue with others or shift from existing to net new. So at this point, we can all sort of like posit thesis and approaches what we all can see, but that's more or less what I can actually offer you, Andrew, at this stage.

So at this time, we will wrap up the Q&A session. So I'll hand the floor back to Kevin Li Ying for any closing comments.

So I just wanted to actually thank everyone once again for joining us on this call today, especially at such short notice. We really do appreciate it. Hopefully, what we've shared and conveyed to you is very clear. And I wish you all a very good day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all very much for joining. You may now disconnect.