2025 Full Year Results

4 December 2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FUTURE plc

2025 FULL YEAR RESULTS

 

Building the business for tomorrow whilst delivering on today

Future plc (LSE: FUTR, "Future", "the Group"), the global platform for specialist media, today publishes its results for the year ended 30 September 2025.

Highlights

Financial results for the year ended 30 September 2025

Adjusted results¹	FY 2025	FY 2024	Reported variance	Constant currency variance¹	Organic variance¹
Revenue (£m)	739.2	788.2	(6)%	(4)%	(3)%
Adjusted EBITDA (£m)	223.4	239.1	(7)%	(5)%	n/a
Adjusted operating profit (£m)	205.4	222.2	(8)%	(6)%	n/a
Adjusted operating profit margin (%)	28%	28%	flat	flat	n/a
Adjusted diluted EPS (p)	123.0	123.9	(1)%	n/a	n/a
Adjusted free cash flow (£m)	177.0	222.3	(20)%	n/a	n/a
Statutory results	FY 2025	FY 2024	Reported variance
Revenue (£m)	739.2	788.2	(6)%
Operating profit (£m)	121.9	133.7	(9)%
Operating profit margin (%)	16%	17%	(1)%
Profit before tax (£m)	91.9	103.2	(11)%
Diluted EPS (p)	62.1	66.8	(7)%
Cash generated from operations (£m)	188.3	230.0	(18)%

¹ The Glossary section of this document provides definitions of, and reconciliations to, adjusted measures.

 

Key highlights

●     Revenue was down (6)% year-on-year at £739.2m (FY 2024: £788.2m), with (3)% organic decline combined with adverse foreign exchange and previously announced business closures.

●     Adjusted Operating Profit margin maintained at 28% (FY 2024: 28%) balancing cost focus and investment.

●     Adjusted diluted EPS only down (1)% supported by the execution of share buyback programmes.

●     Strong balance sheet with £276.4m net debt (FY 2024: £256.5m) and leverage at 1.3x (FY 2024: 1.1x) reflecting £99.5m returned to shareholders during the year.

●    Further returns to shareholders with 5x increase to the dividend to 17.0p and new £30.0m share buyback programme announced today.

 

Kevin Li Ying, Future's Chief Executive, said:

"I am pleased to report a resilient performance in line with expectations, delivered against a challenging macroeconomic environment. Our results are underpinned by the strong financial characteristics our business is known for, which enable us to announce a significant increase in our dividend by 5x and to launch a new £30m share buyback programme.

 

As a data-first platform that monetises high audience engagement powered by technology and enabled by our trusted specialist brands with authority. We are focused on building the business of tomorrow by delivering strategic initiatives designed to drive growth in what is a dynamic media

environment.

 

In the last few months we have launched a series of initiatives, with encouraging early performance. These span areas including monetisation through content creators, an evolution of our ecommerce proposition, and driving even more direct engagement with

audiences.

 

In the age of AI, our trusted, authoritative and specialist brand content is highly visible for audiences across Large Language Models, and we have already started monetising our presence in this area. The opportunity is significant.

 

Based on my over twenty years' experience at Future, I am more confident than ever in the inherent value of our platform and proposition, and we are focused on unlocking long-term value for our shareholders."

 

 

Financial & operational highlights

 

As reported at the HY 2025 results, the Group is now using the following segments to review the performance of the Group: B2C, Go.Compare and B2B.

 

●     Revenue was down (6)% year-on-year at £739.2m (FY 2024: £788.2m), with (3)% organic decline combined with adverse foreign exchange and previously announced business closures. Across the divisions:

○     B2C - the Group's largest division - organic revenue decline of (2)% for the year. Revenue performance in Magazines was excellent with flat revenue year-on-year in a declining market. This was offset by (4)% decline in Media which continued to be impacted by macroeconomic uncertainty.

○     Go.Compare revenue declined (5)%, reflecting the anticipated decline in car quote volumes given the heightened activity in FY 2024. We continue to make good progress diversifying revenue sources, with non-car revenue now representing 39% of revenue, +3ppt year-on-year.

○     B2B revenue continues to be challenging with a (9)% organic decline. The decline was driven by tech enterprise, while other verticals such as financial services and infrastructure verticals saw growth. The B2B team has been focused on driving an improvement in performance and we saw an encouraging reduction in the rate of decline in the last quarter.

●     Adjusted operating profit margin was in line with last year at 28%. Our focus on costs and investments offset the reduction of revenue and the impact of inflation. This resulted in an adjusted operating profit decline of (8)% to £205.4m (FY 2024: £222.2m). Statutory operating profit was down (9)% to £121.9m (FY 2024: £133.7m), reflecting adjusted operating profit movement net of adjusting items.

●     Adjusted diluted EPS was marginally lower, (1)%, than the prior year. The positive benefit of the share buy-back programmes offsetting the majority of the fall in adjusted operating profit.

●     The Group remains highly cash generative with adjusted free cash flow of £177.0m (FY 2024: £222.3m), representing 86% of adjusted operating profit (FY 2024: 100%). Excluding one-off tax payments, prior year bonus payment, conversion would have been +10ppt higher at 96%. Cash generated from operations was £188.3m (FY 2024: £230.0m)

●     Optimising our portfolio - ensuring we have the right portfolio of assets is a continuous process.

○     We acquired RNWL in March 2025 for a £2.8m initial consideration. RNWL will help us to build a more loyal, repeatable audience for Go.Compare (see note 21).

○     We acquired Kwizly in May 2025 for £0.6m initial consideration which provides audience engagement tools (see note 21).

○     During the year, we closed certain brands to focus the portfolio for growth.

●     £99.5m returned to shareholders during the period comprising £95.8m through share buybacks (FY 2024: £67.0m) and dividends of £3.7m (FY 2024: £3.9m). On 1 October 2025, there was just under £30.0m remaining on the £55m share buyback programme. We've announced today a new additional share buyback programme of up to £30.0m and a 5x increase in the dividend to 17.0p.

●     Leverage was slightly higher at 1.3x (FY 2024: 1.1x) with net debt at the end of the year of £276.4m (FY 2024: £256.5m). Excluding one-off tax payments and prior year bonus payment, leverage would have been at 1.2x. Total available debt facilities at the end of September 2025 were £600.0m (FY 2024: £650.0m).

 

Outlook

●    The Group is expecting modest organic revenue growth in FY 2026, in line with current consensus.

●    The Group continues to expect to deliver a stable adjusted EBITDA margin of around 30% supported by a more efficient operating model.

●     Performance will be second half weighted as the strategic initiatives and operating model changes will deliver in the second half of the year.

●    The Group expects an improvement in cash conversion to ~95%.

●     In the medium term, we expect sustainable revenue growth of 2-4%.

 

 

Presentation

A live webcast of the analyst presentation will be available at 09.30 am (UK time) today at: https://stream.brrmedia.co.uk/broadcast/69047f76f5bfed00134aabf4

 

A copy of the presentation will be available on our website at: https://www.futureplc.com/investor-results/

A recording of the webcast will also be made available.

 

The definitions below apply throughout the document.

1) A reconciliation of adjusted results to statutory measures is included in the Glossary section at the end of this document.

2) Online sessions defined as the average monthly total daily sessions over the financial period from Google Analytics.

 

Enquiries:
Future plc                                                                                             Kevin Li Ying, Chief Executive Officer Sharjeel Suleman, Chief Financial Officer Marion Le Bot, Head of Investor Relations	+44 (0)122 544 2244     +44 (0)777 564 1509
Media Headland                                                                                              Stephen Malthouse, Rob Walker [email protected]	+44 (0)203 805 4822

 

 

About Future

We are the platform for creating and distributing trusted, specialist content, to build engaged and valuable global communities. We operate ~175 brands in diversified content verticals, with multiple market leading positions and three core monetisation frameworks: advertising, eCommerce affiliate and direct consumer monetisation (subscriptions and newstrade magazine sale). Our content is published and distributed through a range of formats including websites, email newsletters, videos, magazines and live events. The successful execution of our strategy is focused on three pillars: grow engaged audience, diversify and grow revenue per user and optimise the portfolio.

Chief Executive Officer's review

Future is a data-first platform that monetises high audience engagement powered by technology and enabled by our trusted specialist brands with authority.

We have over 175 brands, which we monetise by leveraging our tech stack in a multitude of ways, and collecting data along the way which in turn is valuable, making the platform a powerful value creation vehicle.

 

I want to address what is front of mind for our stakeholders, be it the impact of AI on audiences and therefore revenue as well as a better understanding of our strategic initiatives to drive growth and how we are leveraging our platform. Future's financial strength regarding its ability to generate strong margins and cash flow are well established; and what we are focused on delivering is topline growth.

 

To be successful, we need to have a growth mindset to drive innovation, and execute rigorously with agility: this is the Future DNA. These are not buzzwords: these characteristics are the reason Future has succeeded at reinventing itself throughout its 40-year history. They have enabled us to lean into new opportunities and proactively get ahead of risks that the market may present. In other words, we need to be bold, we need to take calculated risks, and we need to be able to pivot with pace and agility to drive growth.

 

 

AI and audience

Amid all the noise about AI and its impact on the wider media sector, one question we're asked most often is what's happening to our audience.

 

What we know is that having trusted brands and establishing a connection with specialist audiences is becoming increasingly important, and this is not going away with AI. Our audience strategy of diversification into email, direct, social, also known as "Google-Zero", impacts all of our strategic initiatives.

 

Thanks to the scale and diversity of our audience, overall engagement has remained steady. Website sessions are only 56% of our audience and of this 56%, only 27% is coming from Google Search, with other sources including Google Discover and News, Social and Emails.

 

Furthermore, only 16% of our total revenue is impacted by website sessions directly - a number I am convinced is lower than what many thought. So, with that in mind, the AI risk is lower than most people assume.

 

More importantly, however, AI represents opportunities for us.

 

We are already starting to monetise our ability to make ourselves and our clients visible on large language models (LLMs). Our brands have the scale and authority to be influential in LLMs. As a new trend emerges of citations growing increasingly concentrated and, in time, more important for businesses on LLMs than on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), new opportunities are opening for us. As such, we are standardising our approach, from audience to editorial to sales playbook, and we will keep refining our go-to-market strategy. To date, we have already secured contracts from major tech and luxury groups.

 

 

Driving the platform effect

All great platforms have four common characteristics:

-     They are connectors. We have ~175 brands with market leading positions connecting our audience to its purpose;

-     They are data-driven. This is where an exciting opportunity still exists for us to do more. We have an immense amount of data: in fact, over 1 trillion data points in our data lake each month. We already use an extensive amount of data to better inform our content decisions or to assess the performance of ad campaigns. However, data in abundance is less valuable than data with intelligence and insights. This value is disproportionate.

-     They are scalable. This is about the scalability of our tech and other back-office functions: meaning that back-office costs don't need to grow in line with revenue and that our centres of excellence can be leveraged across our brands and revenue streams.

-     They deliver the platform effect - a network effect. The more we drive initiatives and revenue, the more powerful and valuable the platform becomes, creating a flywheel. It all starts with brands and content to reach and pull in the audience. Next, we apply a growing set of innovative products to further drive engagement, brand loyalty and clear value exchange with our customers and clients. Finally, we monetise through diverse routes: from newsstand, print and digital subscription down to email and display and video advertising. Over time we are further diversifying our monetisation routes. Alongside each moment, we capture more data, which in turn is used to perfect our products and content and further drive monetisation.

 

 

Strategic initiatives

In September 2025, we hosted an investor webinar, where we presented our 12-month roadmap with 12 initiatives. We presented three initiatives Collab, Signal and Future+ - these are only 10 weeks in or less but the green shoots so far are encouraging:

 

Collab is about creating a network of content creators that use our platform to publish and monetise their content using our tech stack. We can do this at scale through a revenue share model. We have launched it across four verticals and seven brands, partnering with over 50 content creators, driving 3x the social traffic and incremental ecom revenue on top of digital advertising revenue.

 

Signal is our ecommerce 2.0 proposition to diversify both our ecommerce proposition in this ever-changing landscape and tap into a new customer base by entering new distribution points like Social Platform. Signal has produced over 160 curated collections, translating into over 0.9m unique page views. Additionally, we have doubled our social and email traffic compared to traditional content.

 

Future+, the embodiment of our Google-Zero strategy, is driving engagement directly with our audiences through a range of tools and features. Future+ has been launched on three brands, driving 67k new members for whom the sessions are at least 4x longer than unknown users i.e. driving more revenue - and, further added value comes from the additional insightful, first-party data into our data lake.

 

I have showcased our Audience AI initiative and how we are driving new revenue streams from AI visibility in LLMs through direct advertising in the AI section above and will showcase two additional ones: Renewal, our price comparison membership proposition and the efficiency of our operating model.

 

Renewal

In March 2025, we bought Renewal (previously known as RNWL), an insurance wallet app. This has enabled us to fast-track capex to build our membership proposition for price comparison with the aim to improve the consumer funnel (acquisition, conversion, retention) by being the "Best place for consumers to manage and save costs on household-related products".

We will relaunch the app in January to drive growth at Go.Compare, beyond market growth, through attracting new consumers with an engaging, value-added app, open to all (not restricted to Go.Compare customers). This will improve our marketing effectiveness by encouraging Renewal users to use Go.Compare, driving cross-selling opportunities. Additionally, Renewal will enhance our rich first-party data lake which can be leveraged across the Group, in turn making our data and users more valuable.

 

A more efficient operating model

Innovation is transforming the way we do things, and we are leaning into this to drive productivity and efficiency gains. This Group-wide programme is about creating efficiency and sustainability on our value chain and business model. We are doing this by re-thinking and streamlining our processes and structures using AI tools to drive automation. This will result in £20.0m annualised efficiency savings by FY 2028 and we are maintaining our EBITDA margin guidance range of 30-32%.

 

 

Portfolio review and capital allocation

Optimising our portfolio is a continuous process driving focus and accountability to ensure execution of our strategy. We continuously assess our assets to ensure they are strategic, poised for growth and/or cash generative. During the year, we closed certain brands that did not meet these criteria.

The Board will continue to keenly appraise performance with its responsibility to accelerate value creation across the Group's business units.

 

The Group continues to have strong financial characteristics of high margins and strong cash generation. Adjusted free cash flow conversion of 86% represented £188.3m cash generated from operations, impacted by one-off tax payment and the impact of the payment of the prior year bonus. Our five pillar capital allocation framework was applied to optimise value creation:

 

1.     Investment for organic growth: being an asset light business, our capex in the year was £16.9m or 2% of revenue (FY 2024: £13.9m or 2% of revenue). Going forward, we expect this to move to ~3% of revenue to drive our strategic initiative roadmap.

2.     Bolt on M&A: in the year, we acquired RNWL, an insurance wallet, for an initial consideration of £2.8m and a potential further earn-out subject to performance to accelerate our focus on customers' loyalty in Go.Compare. We will continue to execute on bolt-ons at the right price to accelerate growth. We also acquired, in May 2025, Kwizly for £0.6m initial consideration which provides audience engagement tools (note 21).

3.     Strategic M&A: this pillar is currently not a priority but we will continue to remain opportunistic.

4.     Dividends: in FY 2025, we paid a dividend of £3.7m in February (FY 2024: £3.9m). Today, the Board is announcing  a 5x increase in our annual dividend to 17.0p per share. The announcement signals to investors our confidence in the future growth of the Group - both in earnings and cash to be able to sustain the dividend as well as retaining full flexibility to allocate capital to the other capital allocation options.

5.     Share buybacks: during the year, we spent £95.8m and have announced a new share buyback for up to £30.0m to commence as soon as the current programme is completed which is expected imminently. This is to ensure that, as announced at our FY 2024 results, the Group will return excess free cash to shareholders such that the Group maintains a minimum leverage of 1x.

 

 

Fostering a healthy culture

I strongly believe that people are a key differentiator in our markets: they are driving innovation, they are focused on execution at pace, they thrive on change, they are the ones building for tomorrow whilst delivering on today. We are transforming Future to create a sustainable, growing business. These characteristics are essential for us, as a team, to succeed: I am very proud to be leading this incredible organisation. I want to personally thank our colleagues for their hard work during a year of constant change and adaptation.

 

As a responsible business everything we do is underpinned by our purpose and values which fosters an aligned culture across the organisation and looks to ensure we create value for all stakeholders. We are extremely fortunate that our brands give us the platform and opportunities to influence and inspire people across the globe to encourage positive change.

 

 

Outlook

●    The Group is expecting modest organic revenue growth in FY 2026, in line with current consensus.

●    The Group continues to expect to deliver a stable adjusted EBITDA margin of around 30% supported by a more efficient operating model.

●     Performance will be second half weighted as the strategic initiatives and operating model changes will deliver in the second half of the year.

●    The Group expects an improvement in cash conversion to ~95%.

●     In the medium term, we expect sustainable revenue growth of 2-4%.

 

 

Financial summary

 

The financial summary is based primarily on a comparison of results for the year ended 30 September 2025 with those for the year ended 30 September 2024.

 

	FY 2025 £m	FY 2024 £m
Revenue	739.2	788.2
Adjusted EBITDA	223.4	239.1
Adjusted operating profit	205.4	222.2
Operating profit	121.9	133.7
Profit before tax	91.9	103.2
Basic earnings per share (p)	62.7	67.2
Diluted earnings per share (p)	62.1	66.8
Adjusted basic earnings per share (p)	124.2	124.6
Adjusted diluted earnings per share (p)	123.0	123.9

 

 

The Directors believe that adjusted results provide additional useful information on the core operational performance of the Group and review the results on an adjusted basis internally. Refer to the Glossary section at the end of this document for a reconciliation between adjusted and statutory results.

 

 

Revenue

 

Revenue movement1	FY 2025 vs  FY 2024 %
Organic decline	(3)%
Impact of acquisitions and disposals	(1)%
Year-on-year decline at constant rate	(4)%
Impact of foreign exchange	(2)%
Reported revenue change	(6)%

¹ The Glossary section of this document provides definitions of, and reconciliations to, adjusted measures.

 

Group revenue was down (6)% year-on-year at actual currency, with a (3)% organic decline combined with the previously announced closures of brands and adverse foreign exchange.

 

The Group is organised and arranged primarily by reportable segment. From 1 October 2024, the Executive Directors consider the performance of the business from a divisional perspective of B2C, Go.Compare and B2B. Historically, the performance of the business was considered on a geographic basis. The Group also uses a sub-segment split of Media (websites and events) and Magazines for further analysis.

 

	FY 2025 £m	FY 2024 £m	Reported YoY var	Organic YoY var
B2C	493.4	523.1	(6)%	(2)%
Go.Compare	191.8	202.7	(5)%	(5)%
B2B	54.0	62.4	(13)%	(9)%
TOTAL REVENUE	739.2	788.2	(6)%	(3)%

 

 

B2C revenue

 

	FY 2025 £m	FY 2024 £m	Reported YoY var	Organic YoY var
US digital advertising	96.8	102.8	(6)%	(2)%
UK digital advertising	44.6	52.0	(14)%	(8)%
Digital advertising	141.4	154.8	(9)%	(4)%
eCommerce affiliates	76.7	83.9	(9)%	(6)%
Other Media	28.1	28.7	(2)%	+2%
MEDIA	246.2	267.4	(8)%	(4)%
Subscriptions	122.2	129.0	(5)%	(2)%
Other Magazines	125.0	126.7	(1)%	+2%
MAGAZINES	247.2	255.7	(3)%	flat
B2C REVENUE	493.4	523.1	(6)%	(2)%

Reported revenue for B2C was down (6)%, impacted by foreign exchange and closures. Organic revenue was down (2)% during the year reflecting mixed performance.

Media

Media organic revenue was down (4)% in the year with a challenging macroeconomic backdrop, impacting affiliates and total digital advertising despite direct advertising being in growth in H2 in both the US and the UK. Sessions² of 317m (FY 2024: 353m) declined (10)%, with growth in women's and wealth not being able to offset decline in other verticals. However, the correlation between sessions and revenue is decreasing, driven by our strategic focus on driving direct advertising which is less dependent on audience. During the year, we saw +3ppt of ads revenue move into direct from programmatic. As a result, our yields grew +8% year on year.

UK Digital advertising market remained challenging, down (8)% on an organic basis, a significant improvement on the first half and returning to growth in Q4 (+5%).

In the US, digital advertising organic revenues were down (2)% with an improvement in H2 to +1% growth. This includes +6% growth in direct advertising during the year, a key strategic objective of the Group, despite ongoing volatility.

Affiliates' good H1 performance reversed in H2 with overall revenue (6)% down for the full year, despite continued growth in vouchers. The performance was mainly driven by the audience decline.

Magazines recorded an excellent performance. Magazines represent 50% of the B2C division and, as an industry, is in secular decline. During the year, organic Magazines revenue performance was flat. This is the strongest performance from Magazines since COVID, and is a result of an improvement in our subscription business combined with growth in premium print titles and the Rolex book.

Subscription organic revenue was only down (2)% in the period, testament of the work and investment to drive stabilisation in this revenue stream with growth in key titles such as The Week Junior.

Other magazines (print advertising and newstrade) organic revenue grew +2% in the period driven by a premium book for Rolex combined with better underlying performance for both weekly and premium titles.

 

Go.Compare revenue

 

	FY 2025 £m	FY 2024 £m	Reported YoY var	Organic YoY var
Car insurance	117.6	130.1	(10)%	(10)%
Non-car insurance	74.2	72.6	+2%	+3%
GO.COMPARE REVENUE	191.8	202.7	(5)%	(5)%

Revenue for our price comparison business Go.Compare declined (5)%, both reported and organically, reflecting the strength of the prior-year. Looking at the performance over a two-year period, revenue grew by +10% CAGR.

Car insurance revenue declined by (10)% in the year against strong comparators. The car performance was impacted by lower quote volumes driven by the market partially offset by improved conversion driven by continued focus on improving consumer journey.

 

Non-car insurance revenue grew by +3% in the year, reflecting the strategic focus to grow non-car categories which now represent 39% of Go.Compare revenue, up +3ppt year-on-year.

 

 

B2B revenue

 

	FY 2025 £m	FY 2024 £m	Reported YoY var	Organic YoY var
Digital advertising (Newsletters)	32.0	36.3	(12)%	(9)%
Affiliates (Lead gen & webinars) & Other Media (Events) & Magazines	22.0	26.1	(16)%	(10)%
B2B REVENUE	54.0	62.4	(13)%	(9)%

 

B2B performance remained challenging with (13)% reported revenue decline and (9)% organic. The performance was impacted by challenging end-market dynamics.

Digital advertising organic revenue was down (9)% in the year with mixed performance across verticals with growth in education and financial services offset by decline in healthcare, food and travel.

 

The (10)% organic decline in other revenue is largely driven by the continued challenging backdrop in enterprise tech. The team is executing on plans to turnaround the performance in B2B.

 

Operating costs

Cost of sales including distribution costs were down 11% year-on-year. The decline was driven by revenue combined with a change in revenue mix with the reduction in Go.Compare revenue, combined with better rates in Magazines cost of sales. See note 3 for further details.

 

Other costs are down 3% during the year reflecting the annualisation of the investment in certain areas combined with annual pay rise which increased salary and wages costs, the impact of which abated in H2, as planned. These cost increases have been offset by lower TV marketing spend combined with the benefit of an incremental year of R&D tax credits.

 

Operating profit

 

Adjusted operating profit decreased £16.8m to £205.4m (FY 2024: 222.2m) driven by the impact of revenue decline whilst adjusted operating profit margin has remained stable at 28% (FY 2024: 28%), despite annualisation of some investment combined with inflationary pressures within wages, the largest cost. This is a testament to the strength of the Group to focus on investment that drives returns as well as continuous review to remove inefficient spend. The diversified revenue and strong financial characteristics of the Group, even in a challenging macroeconomic environment, have provided clear benefits.

 

Statutory operating profit decreased by £11.8m to £121.9m (FY 2024: £133.7m), primarily driven by adjusted operating profit performance. Statutory operating margin declined marginally to 16% (FY 2024: 17%), reflecting adjusted operating profit movement net of adjusting items. 

 

Earnings per share

	FY 2025	FY 2024
Basic earnings per share (p)	62.7	67.2
Adjusted basic earnings per share (p)	124.2	124.6
Diluted earnings per share (p)	62.1	66.8
Adjusted diluted basic earnings per share (p)	123.0	123.9

 

Basic earnings per share is calculated using the weighted average number of ordinary shares in issue during the period of 105.8m (FY 2024: 114.4m), the decrease reflecting the share buyback programmes.

 

The Glossary section at the end of this document provides the definition of adjusted earnings per share and a reconciliation to reported earnings per share. 

 

Transaction and integration related costs

Transaction and integration related costs of £7.2m incurred in the year reflect £1.6m of post-integration IT system costs and associated fees, and £0.9m of transaction related legal fees. £2.4m relates to professional fees to support portfolio optimisation across the Group's divisions, of which £0.7m relates to rationalisation of previously acquired subsidiaries. A charge of £2.3m has been provided for historic sales taxes arising from a post integration tax compliance review.

 

Exceptional items

The Group performed a strategic optimisation review and identified Mozo Pty Ltd, an Australian price comparison subsidiary acquired in 2021, having been impacted by macroeconomic challenges, and being sub-scale in its market, was no longer contributing to the overall strategy of the Group. An impairment charge related to goodwill and acquired intangible assets of £15.2m is recognised in exceptional costs. Mozo formed part of the B2C cash generating unit.

 

Exceptional items also include £2.7m relating to redundancy costs in line with our ongoing group wide programme to create an efficient and sustainable operating model targeting £20.0m savings per annum by FY 2028 and a £0.4m credit relating to properties which became onerous and were treated as exceptional in prior years.

 

Other adjusting items

Other adjusting items include amortisation of acquired intangibles of £53.3m (FY 2024: £66.7m), the decrease is due to £11.0m accelerated amortisation in the prior period for brand and customer list intangible assets relating to Look After My Bills ('LAMB'), arising with the Go.Compare acquisition, following the cessation of active management of the LAMB business in FY 2024.

 

Share-based payment expenses relating to equity-settled share awards with vesting periods longer than twelve months, together with associated social security costs, decreased by £3.4m to £5.5m (FY 2024: £8.9m), partly due to the lapsing of former CEO's awards. Share based payment expenses are excluded from the adjusted results of the Group as the Directors believe they are significant and result in a level of charge that would distort the user's view of the core trading performance of the Group, and include the historical one-off all-employee Value Creation Plan scheme where a charge is booked irrespective of the likelihood of achieving the vesting targets.

 

Net finance costs and refinancing

At 30 September 2025, 48.3% (£290.0m of £600.0m) of the Group's facilities remained undrawn (30 September 2024: 53.8% (£350.0m of £650.0m) undrawn).

 

Net finance costs decreased to £28.8m (FY 2024: £29.8m) which includes net external interest payable of £24.7m (FY 2024: £25.9m) reflecting the reduction in the Group's debt and £4.1m (FY 2024: £3.9m) in respect of the amortisation of arrangement fees relating to the Group's bank facilities. A further £1.5m (FY 2024: £1.7m) of net interest was recognised in relation to lease liabilities and £0.3m (FY 2024: £0.2m) in respect of the unwinding of deferred/contingent consideration.

 

The Group refinanced its entire capital structure during the year.  The previous RCF of £350.0m, maturing July 2026, was refinanced with a £300.0m RCF, maturing May 2029,  with two, 1-year extension options subject to lender consent. 

 

The Group's £300.0m Export Development Guarantee Facility, maturing November 2027, was refinanced with a £300.0m 5-year non-call 2 ("5NC2") senior unsecured bond. The instrument carries a fixed coupon of 6.75% per annum, payable semi-annually in arrears, and matures in July 2030. The bond is callable at the issuer's option after the second anniversary of issuance ,according to the following schedule:

 

Year 3: Redeemable at par plus 50 % of the annual coupon,

Year 4: Redeemable at par plus 25 % of the annual coupon, and

Year 5: Redeemable at par.

 

This stepped call structure provides flexibility for the Group to optimise its capital structure.  The new facilities significantly extend the maturity of the Groups debt.

 

Following the issuance of the Group's 5NC2 senior unsecured bond,  as at 30 September 2025, 98% (FY 2024: 100%) of the Group's drawn debt was fixed at an average rate of 6.73% (FY 2024: 6.39%).

 

Taxation

The tax charge for the year amounted to £25.6m (FY 2024: £26.4m), comprising a current tax charge of £32.5m (FY 2024: £37.9m) and a deferred tax credit of £6.9m (FY 2024: £11.5m).

 

The current tax charge arises in the UK where the standard rate of corporation tax in FY 2025 is 25% and in the US where the Group pays a blended Federal and State tax rate of 28%.

 

The Group's FY 2025 adjusted effective tax rate was 25.3% (FY 2024: 25.7%). The Glossary section at the end of this document provides a reconciliation between the Group's adjusted effective tax charge and statutory effective tax charge.

 

The Group's effective tax rate, inclusive of adjustments in respect of previous years, has increased to 27.8% (FY 2024: 25.6%). The Group tax charge includes the impact of the impairment of goodwill and intangibles and other non-deductible items offset by movements in uncertain tax liabilities and prior year adjustments.

 

The Group has assessed the impact of the enacted or substantively enacted Pillar Two legislation in the jurisdictions in which the Group operates. Based on this assessment, there is no impact of the Pillar Two legislation on the Group.

 

Balance sheet

Property, plant and equipment decreased by £3.3m to £29.5m in the  period (30 September 2024: £32.8m) primarily reflecting depreciation of £6.9m, offset by capital expenditure of £3.6m.

 

Intangible assets decreased by £60.0m to £1,453.7m (FY 2024: £1,513.7m) driven by amortisation charge £64.4m and an impairment of goodwill and acquired intangibles of £15.2m offset by the capitalisation of website development costs £12.9m and £9.3m intangible assets acquired through the acquisition of RNWL and Kwizly.

 

 

At 30 September 2025, the Group had net current liabilities of £6.6m (FY 2024: £70.3m).

 

Total current assets decreased by £9.2m to £149.5m (FY 2024: £158.7m), led by trade and other receivables reducing by £10.2m to £105.1m (FY 2024: £115.3m) due to  lower revenue. 

 

Total current liabilities decreased by £72.9m to £156.1m (FY 2024: £229.0m) of which: trade and other payables reduced £29.3m primarily due to a £11.5m one-off VAT liability which was settled during the year and £4.2m reduction in bonus accrual. Deferred income reduced by £3.8m relating to recurring subscriptions. Financial liabilities movement included a reduction in interest bearing loans and borrowings by £20.0m as the bond refinancing secured in July 2025 provided a break in short term debt repayments.  Other financial liabilities reduced by £12.2m due to the change in terms of the share buyback programme resulting in a liability of nil at 30 September 2025 (FY 2024: £12.2m). Finally a reduction in corporation tax payable and lease liabilities primarily explains the remaining £7.6m reduction.

 

Total non-current liabilities increased by £20.9m to £438.2m (FY 2024: £417.3m) principally from the debt refinancing secured in June 2025.

 

 Cash flow and net debt excluding lease liability

 

The Group remains highly cash generative, a consistent feature of the Group, with cash inflow from operations of £188.3m (FY 2024: £230.0m) reflecting continued strong cash generation. Adjusted operating cash was £193.2m (FY 2024: £236.2m).  A reconciliation of cash generated from operations to adjusted free cash flow is included in the Glossary section at the end of this document.

 

The Group delivered adjusted free cash flow conversion of  86% and is forecast to generate sufficient cash flows to meet its liabilities as they fall due. Excluding one-off items (a one-off VAT payment and the payment of the prior year bonus), the underlying adjusted free cash flow conversion would have been 96%.

 

After expenditure on property, plant and equipment and website development costs and returning £99.5m (FY 2024: £67.0m) to shareholders in the period through share buyback programmes and annual dividend, leverage is stable at 1.3x (FY 2024: 1.1x) and net debt excluding lease liability has increased to £276.4m (FY 2024: £256.5m).

 

Other significant movements in cash flows include purchase of shares into Trust of £7.0m (FY 2024: nil), lease payments of £6.2m (FY 2024: £6.9m), and net inflow of refinancing which occurred during the year of £10.0m (FY 2024: net outflow due to repayment of debt of £93.0m) offset by bank arrangement fees of £6.3m. Foreign exchange and other movements accounted for the balance of cash flows.

 

Going concern

The going concern of the Group has been assessed, taking into account the Group's strong financial position, including external funding in place over the assessment period, of over 12 months from the date of this report, and after modelling the impact of certain scenarios arising from the principal risks in line with forecast, which have the greatest potential impact on going concern in that period. The Group was in a net current liabilities position as detailed in the balance sheet section above, but has significant adequate cash flow to meet its obligations.

 

Whilst each of the principal risks has a potential impact and has been considered as part of the assessment, only those that represent severe but plausible scenarios were selected for modelling. The scenarios have been modelled using the Group's existing £300.0m RCF, which was refinanced during the 2025 financial year and does not expire until after the viability period, and the £300.0m Sterling bond (2030 end date). 

 

The scenarios are hypothetical and purposefully severe with the aim of creating outcomes that have the ability to threaten the going concern of the Group. The Group has multiple control measures in place to prevent and mitigate the scenarios from taking place.

 

Although the downside scenarios result in increased leverage, the Group maintains headroom over the existing bank facilities and covenants at all testing points. The results of the above stress testing showed that the Group would be able to withstand the impact of these scenarios occurring over the assessment period.

 

The exercise undertaken indicates that the Group is extremely diversified and very resilient to a number of extreme but plausible downside scenarios.  

 

The scenario modelling does not account for various mitigating actions the Board could undertake to offset the impacts of such a reduction in cashflow, such as reducing operational and capital expenditure, a disposal of part of the portfolio, reduction or removal of dividend payments or the postponement of share buyback schemes.

Based on the severe but plausible scenarios, the Directors have a reasonable expectation that the Company will continue in operation and meet its liabilities as they fall due over the period considered. For this reason, the Directors continue to adopt the going concern basis in preparing the consolidated financial statements for the FY 2025 results.

 

Consolidated income statement
for the year ended 30 September 2025
	Note	2025 £m	2024 £m
Revenue	1, 2	739.2	788.2
Net operating expenses	3	(617.3)	(654.5)
Operating profit		121.9	133.7
Finance income	6	0.7	1.3
Finance costs	6	(30.7)	(31.8)
Net finance costs		(30.0)	(30.5)
Profit before tax		91.9	103.2
Tax charge	7	(25.6)	(26.4)
Profit for the year attributable to owners of the parent		66.3	76.8
Earnings per Ordinary share
	Note	2025 pence	2024 pence
Basic earnings per share	9	62.7	67.2
Diluted earnings per share	9	62.1	66.8

 

 

 

Consolidated statement of comprehensive income
for the year ended 30 September 2025
	Note	2025 £m	2024 £m
Profit for the year attributable to owners of the parent		66.3	76.8
Items that may be reclassified to the consolidated income statement:
Currency translation differences		(0.9)	(52.7)
Loss) on cash flow hedge (net of tax)		-	(4.4)
Other comprehensive expense for the year		(0.9)	(57.1)
Total comprehensive income for the year attributable to owners of the parent		65.4	19.7