Progressive Digital Media Pre-tax Profit Up; To Buy Certain Units From Informa

(RTTNews) - Progressive Digital Media Group Plc (PRO.L) reported Monday that its first-half profit before tax from continuing operations increased to 1.17 million pounds from last year's 307 thousand pounds.

On an after-tax basis, the company recorded loss attributable to equity holders of 422 thousand pounds, compared to last year's profit of 688 thousand pounds.

Group revenues from continuing operations increased 13.7% to 33.8 million pounds from prior year's 29.7 million pounds, reflecting good growth from Business Information division. Adjusted EBITDA, a key earnings metric, grew 12.4% to 6.1 million pounds.

Looking ahead, the company stated that the fundamentals of the business are positive and that it is confident that its focus on building premium Technology and Consumer Business Information services is the correct strategy and one which will yield long-term profitable growth.

Separately, Progressive Digital Media announced its agreement to acquire the Datamonitor Financial, Datamonitor Consumer, MarketLine and Verdict businesses from Informa plc (INFMF.PK, INF.L) for 25.0 million pounds in cash. The sale will be effected by Informa transferring the above named businesses to Verdict Research Limited, the entire share capital of which will be acquired by Progressive.

The acquisition is expected to be moderately dilutive for this financial year and earnings accretive in 2016.

Completion of the deal is expected to occur within 30 days and will be funded from the Group's existing cash resources and banking facilities.

For the financial year 2014, the pro-forma revenues for the businesses being acquired were approximately 17.8 million pounds.