14 May 2026

 

 

FUTURE plc

2026 HALF YEAR RESULTS

H1 impacted by known high-margin revenue pressures, improving trends in Q2 support unchanged guidance 

 

Future plc (LSE: FUTR, "Future", "the Group"), the global platform for specialist media, today publishes its results for the half-year ended 31 March 2026.

Highlights

Financial results for the half-year ended 31 March 2026

Adjusted results¹	HY 2026	HY 2025	Reported variance	Constant currency variance¹	Organic variance¹
Revenue (£m)	349.1	378.4	(8)%	(6)%	(6)%
Adjusted EBITDA (£m)	83.3	109.8	(24)%	(22)%	n/a
Adjusted EBITDA (%)	24%	29%	(5)ppt	(5)ppt	n/a
Adjusted diluted EPS (p)	46.4	59.7	(22)%	n/a	n/a
Adjusted free cash flow (£m)	91.1	111.5	(18)%	n/a	n/a
Statutory results	HY 2026	HY 2025	Reported variance
Revenue (£m)	349.1	378.4	(8)%
Operating profit (£m)	32.7	69.1	(53)%
Operating profit margin(%)	9%	18%	(9)ppt
Profit before tax (£m)	18.4	56.6	(67)%
Diluted EPS (p)	12.9	38.0	(66)%
Cash generated from operations (£m)	96.2	115.9	(17)%

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

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

"I am encouraged by the strategic progress we have made in the half-year despite the challenging backdrop, which impacted trading in programmatic advertising and eCommerce.

 

"In the age of AI, our trusted, human-originated and specialist content is more important than ever. We are making meaningful progress leveraging our market-leading AI-visibility as a new source of revenue through products such as Future Optic, which offers tailored generative AI optimisation services to leading brands across verticals, and Signal, which is our multi-channel ecommerce solution for an AI world. We are also harnessing Go.Compare's strengths, technology and innovation to further enhance its market position.

 

"We are focused on continuing to progress our brand and content strategy to become brand destinations to drive renewed organic growth, ensuring we amplify our significant audience reach and diversify into faster growing segments. With our innovative and growth mindset we create new monetisable products and deploy them across our brands, whilst continuing to optimise legacy revenue streams.

 

We remain financially disciplined. Where brands and assets don't deliver the platform effect, the Board will look to unlock value from them.

 

"There is much more to come and we are confident that our strategy will return Future to sustainable growth."

 

Financial & operational highlights

 

●     Revenue was down (8)% year-on-year at £349.1m (HY 2025: £378.4m), with (6)% organic decline, the benefit of 10 weeks of SheerLuxe revenue offset by FX and closures. Across the divisions:

○   B2C - the Group's largest division - organic revenue decline of (6)% for the period driven by previously announced reduction in programmatic advertising and ecommerce affiliates with growth in direct advertising and good performance in other revenue lines supported by the execution of our strategic initiatives.

○   Go.Compare revenue declined (6)%, reflecting the anticipated lower car quote volumes compared to the heightened activity in Q1 2025, combined with a challenging home market. Trends are now easing with Q2 revenue only down (3)%, including growth in March.

○    B2B revenue continues to be challenging with a (7)% organic decline but with clear improvement in Q2 only down (2)%. The decline was driven by Education, Retail and Financial services with strong growth in Tech.

●    Adjusted EBITDA margin was (5)ppt lower than last year at 24% as previously communicated (HY 2025: 29%), largely driven by revenue mix reflecting the impact of lower programmatic and ecommerce affiliate high-margin revenue. This resulted in an adjusted EBITDA decline of (24)% to £83.3m (HY 2025: £109.8m). Statutory operating profit was down (53)% to £32.7m (HY 2025: £69.1m), reflecting lower adjusted EBITDA combined with higher transaction and integration-related costs.

●     Adjusted diluted EPS was (22)% lower than the prior year, mainly reflecting the decrease in adjusted EBITDA.

●    The Group remains highly cash generative with adjusted free cash flow of £91.1m (HY 2025: £111.5m), representing 109% of adjusted EBITDA (HY 2025: 102%). Cash generated from operations was £96.2m (HY 2025: £115.9m).

●     £52.9m returned to shareholders during the period comprising £36.9m through share buybacks (HY 2025: £39.5m) and dividends of £16.0m (HY 2025: £3.7m). On 1 April 2026, there was just over £20m remaining on the £30m share buyback programme.

●     Leverage reflecting strong returns to shareholders and SheerLuxe acquisition with £314.1m net debt (FY 2025: £276.4m) and leverage at 1.6x (FY 2025: 1.3x). Total available debt facilities at the end of March 2026 were £600.0m (FY 2025: £600.0m). In H2, the Group will focus on net debt reduction.

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

○    Recognising the strategic importance of creator-led digital media, we acquired SheerLuxe in January 2026 for a £39.9m initial consideration, a fast-growing UK-based digital publishing group that combines the authority of a trusted media brand with the authenticity and engagement of the creator economy (see note 17).

○    The Board believes that the Group is fundamentally undervalued. The Board is actively focused on driving value from the assets which deliver a strong platform effect and to realise value for shareholders from those that do not.

 

Outlook is unchanged and in line with current consensus

●     The Group is expecting mid to low single-digit organic revenue decline for FY 2026.

●     The Group continues to expect to deliver an adjusted EBITDA margin in the range of 25-27%.

●     The Group continued to expect cash conversion to adjusted EBITDA to ~90%.

Company compiled consensus for FY 2026 includes 7 analysts: Revenue £710m,  EBITDA £183m

 

Presentation

A webcast of the presentation followed by live Q&A will be held today at 8.00am (UK time) at: https://stream.brrmedia.co.uk/broadcast/69aeb0d154af4a00132686ac

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.

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 ~170 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: brand and content, monetisation and efficiency.

Chief Executive Officer's review

Future is a data-first platform that monetises high audience engagement enabled by our trusted specialist brands.

 

Our 170 brands produce different expert content across multiple channels. This content attracts audiences which are then monetised by leveraging our tech stack in a multitude of ways and collecting valuable data along the way, making the platform a powerful value creation vehicle. Our strategy is timeless and we are focusing on execution with our innovation roadmap launched in September 2025, whilst managing constant disruption and macro volatility. This disruption, as a reminder, is only impacting 16% of the Group's revenue and it is also important to remember that disruption in our business environment does not just risk, it also creates opportunities which we are leaning into.

 

Our strategy is articulated around three pillars: brands and content, monetisation and efficiency.

 

Brands and content strategy

We are very clear where our value resides:

-       We have market-leading brands across many verticals

-       Our human-originated content is valuable for our audiences - wherever they are

-       We know that these audiences exist and can be monetised successfully on multiple channels, and we have this today already in our portfolio

 

Our brand and content strategy is all about expanding our brands across more distribution channels, reducing reliance on Google search to provide traffic and becoming truly channel-agnostic.

 

In an AI-world, the importance of trust and expertise is rising - this is carried by our trusted brands and high-quality content. The way people consume content is changing and so our distribution channels are evolving. We need to be where audiences are: we have magazines including subscriptions, we have trusted and expert websites, we are on social media, we are on Apple News, we have email subscribers, we hold events, we are highly visible in AI and as new channels emerge, we will be there with text, video and audio content.

 

Our brands are at different stages in our journey to become truly multi-channel. This is why we have categorised them in four segments:

 

1.    Destination brands: growth brands whose content exists and is found by audiences across multiple channels. These are brands that pull audiences, rather than having audiences pushed to them. The majority of their revenue is driven by direct, high-value advertising.

They represent 9% of the group's revenue and are growing at 5% proforma.

 

2.    Brands in transition: brands that are well-advanced in their transformation and have started to be channel-agnostic but still rely on Google as a major source of traffic to their website.

They represent 45% of the group's revenue and are declining at (5)%.

 

3.    Non-diversified brands: the majority of their audience and revenue are linked to Google. These brands require a pivot to a channel-agnostic approach.

They represent 15% of the group's revenue and are declining at (18)%.

 

4.   Portfolio brands: simply put these are run for cash to fund growth elsewhere. They are run extremely well, outperforming their own market.

They represent 31% of the group's revenue and are declining at (7)%.

 

The segmentation is not static, we expect most of our brands to move upwards and become destination brands, whilst some might remain portfolio brands. This focus allows us to prioritise our resources to where these yield the best results, to give clarity and focus to the teams on how their brands are being managed and to drive change at pace. The brand' transformations are being perfected at each iteration, through a playbook which makes us faster and more effective as we progress.

 

It is worth noting that this transformation also applies to Go.Compare as a brand in transition on its way to become a destination brand through the diversification of its channels including Renewal, our insurance wallet app and the launch of its first ChatGPT app. Go.Compare has high-barriers to entry both as an FCA-regulated entity that requires relationships with insurers to drive policy enforcement and has very high brand trust through its transparent approach to sensitive data. This is a moat that we are building on in bringing innovation to the brand.

 

Monetisation strategy & an update on strategic initiatives

Our track record is one of effective monetisation where we playbook a revenue stream and apply it to our entire portfolio. This mindset is unchanged. Monetisation is about creating new revenue streams by reaching audiences across channels or audience-less revenue from AI or data. It is also about continuing to monetise our legacy revenue streams effectively.

 

Having diversified audiences and being channel-agnostic allows us to diversify into high-growth adjacent advertising markets such as video, audio, social and the content creator economy. Combining the scale and reach of our brands with innovative new products that solve our clients' problems, gives our sales teams an effective portfolio to sell to advertising clients, becoming a must-partner with. In other words, sales teams are leveraging the trust and power of our brands combined with the high-intent of our audiences to sell an enriched product portfolio. Additionally, we have revenue streams that generate revenue without the need for a sales team, such as ecommerce affiliates. These are high-margin revenue streams and we are creating new products that behave in the same manner - such as Signal and its suite of products and data products. Finally,  I want to remind you of the value of repeatable revenue streams that can pass through inflation to customers. This is what we have in subscriptions.

 

We launched our innovation roadmap at the start of the financial year which encompasses eleven initiatives to drive monetisation. To date, eight initiatives have been launched and the early signs of success give us confidence for the future:

 

Future Optic is our AI visibility ad package, presented in December, which leverages our high AI visibility in LLMs. This initiative is gaining traction with £2m sold to date and £10m booked for the full year. The reason this initiative is successful is:

1.     It solves a problem for advertisers (i.e. how they achieve visibility for their products in LLMs); and

2.    Future has scale and expertise in AI visibility which is externally recognised (e.g. by SimilarWeb, Peec, Ahrefs and Promptwatch)

 

In Go.Compare, Renewal, our insurance wallet app was launched in February following a full re-platforming. Its purpose is to keep customers in the Go.Compare ecosystem, driving customer acquisition efficiency. We are now in the process of scaling members as well as bringing new functionalities to the app.

In addition to Renewal, Go.Compare has launched the first version of its own ChatGPT app, the first step into becoming an AI agent whilst abiding by strict compliance rules.

 

Future+ is our membership proposition and the embodiment of our Google-Zero strategy, which drives engagement directly with our audiences through a range of tools and features. Future+ has been launched on seven brands, generating 200k new valuable members by being more engaged and providing more rich data in our data lake.

 

Collab creates a network of content creators who use our platform to publish their content and use our tech stack to monetise it. Collab has generated over two million page views in the first six months of the financial year, driving incremental revenue in direct advertising, facilitating branded content packages and ecommerce revenue.

 

Helix is our data intelligence engine that leverages customer behaviour data packaged for clients for targeting customers with precision. Helix was launched in March 2026 and is already being sold and driving outcomes for our customers with +21% CTR improvement compared to non-Helix impressions.

 

Signal is our enhanced ecommerce proposition, diversifying away from web-only to new distribution points such as social platforms, Go.Compare, or LLMs as well as improving customer experience on our sites through Product Finder - an AI-driven ecommerce search toolbar on Tom's Guide. On LLMs, we are about to submit our first WhoWhatWear ChatGPT app, leveraging the brand's visibility - as the most visible fashion and beauty brand in AI according to SimilarWeb - combined with our expert content to help consumers shop in an LLM environment. This is the first of many.

 

Importantly, these initiatives are not working in siloes and are complementary to each other. For example, Future Optic combined with Helix is making Future an advertising destination for advertisers, unlocking new clients and part of our 360 degrees sales approach.

Not all of these are at the same level of maturity; this allows us to deliver today while also building for tomorrow, making our business sustainable.

 

A more efficient operating model

Our third strategic pillar is efficiency. Innovation is part of our operating model and we are continuously looking at using technology, including AI to drive efficiencies and reduce costs across the Group. At FY 2025, we announced a Group-wide programme to drive £20.0m annualised efficiency savings by FY2028. We are on track to realise £5.0m in FY 2026 driven by initiatives across the Group, from back-office to front office functions. 

 

Capital allocation and portfolio review

 

The Group continues to have strong financial characteristics of good margins and strong cash generation with adjusted free cash flow conversion of 109%. Our five-pillar capital allocation framework continued to be applied to optimise value creation:

 

1.    Investment for organic growth: being an asset light business, our capex in the period was £10.4m or 3% of revenue (HY 2025: £7.8m or 2% of revenue).

2.    Bolt-on M&A: in the half, we acquired SheerLuxe, a UK-based digital publishing group that combines the authority of a trusted media brand with the authenticity and engagement of the creator economy, for an initial consideration of £39.9m and a potential further earn-out subject to continued double digit EBITDA growth (note 17).

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

4.    Dividends: in HY 2026, we paid a dividend of £16.0m in February, a 5x increase on our previous dividend per share, signalling our confidence in the future growth of the Group - both in earnings and cash to be able to sustain the dividend while retaining full flexibility to allocate capital to other options. (HY 2025: £3.7m).

5.    Share buybacks: during the half, we spent £36.9m. This included the completion of our 4th programme and the start of our 5th programme which is due to complete in H2. As previously announced, the Group will return excess free cash to shareholders such that the Group maintains a minimum leverage of 1x.

Given our current leverage of 1.6x net debt/EBITDA and continued market volatility, the Board wants to remain prudent and the Group will focus on reducing net debt in the second half, with a view to managing leverage down to 1x over time.

 

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 believes that the Group is fundamentally undervalued. The Board is actively focused on driving value from the assets which deliver a strong platform effect and to realise value for shareholders from those that do not.

 

Outlook

●     The Group is expecting mid to low single-digit organic revenue decline for the FY 2026.

●     The Group continues to expect to deliver an adjusted EBITDA margin in the range of 25-27%.

●     The Group continued to expect cash conversion to adjusted EBITDA to ~90%.

 

Financial summary

 

The financial summary is based primarily on a comparison of results for the half-year ended 31 March 2026 with those for the half-year ended 31 March 2025.

 

	HY 2026 £m	HY 2025 £m
Revenue	349.1	378.4
Adjusted EBITDA	83.3	109.8
Operating profit	32.7	69.1
Profit before tax	18.4	56.6
Basic earnings per share (p)	13.1	38.4
Diluted earnings per share (p)	12.9	38.0
Adjusted basic earnings per share (p)	46.9	60.2
Adjusted diluted earnings per share (p)	46.4	59.7

 

 

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	HY 2026 vs  HY 2025 %
Organic decline	(6)%
Impact of acquisitions, closures and disposals	flat
Year-on-year decline at constant rate	(6)%
Impact of foreign exchange	(2)%
Reported revenue change	(8)%

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

 

Group revenue was down (8)% year-on-year at actual currency, with a (6)% organic decline combined with the previously announced closures of brands partially offset by the SheerLuxe acquisition and adverse foreign exchange.

 

The Group is organised and arranged primarily by reportable segments.

 

	HY 2026 £m	HY 2025 £m	Reported YoY var	Organic YoY var
B2C	235.2	256.0	(8)%	(6)%
Go.Compare	89.8	95.3	(6)%	(6)%
B2B	24.1	27.1	(11)%	(7)%
TOTAL REVENUE	349.1	378.4	(8)%	(6)%

 

 

B2C revenue

 

	HY 2026 £m	HY 2025 £m	Reported YoY var	Organic YoY var
US digital advertising	44.3	48.8	(9)%	(4)%
UK digital advertising	25.2	22.5	+12%	+1%
Digital advertising	69.5	71.3	(2)%	(3)%
eCommerce affiliates	32.3	44.5	(27)%	(24)%
Other Media	14.1	12.8	+10%	+10%
MEDIA	115.9	128.6	(10)%	(9)%
Subscriptions	58.5	60.9	(4)%	flat
Other Magazines	60.8	66.5	(8)%	(7)%
MAGAZINES	119.3	127.4	(6)%	(4)%
B2C REVENUE	235.2	256.0	(8)%	(6)%

Reported revenue for B2C was down (8)%, with the benefit of the SheerLuxe acquisition being offset by the impact of foreign exchange, closures and the organic revenue decline of (6)%. 

Media

Total digital audience of 525m (HY 2025: 578m), declined (9)% driven by (15)% website sessions² decline to 278m (HY 2025: 328m), masking the stability in off-platform users at 247m (HY 2025: 250m). However, the correlation between sessions and revenue is decreasing, driven by our successful strategic focus on driving direct advertising which is less or not at all dependent on website audience.

Media organic revenue was down (9)% in the period with an improved Q2 exit rate of (7)%. The main driver of the performance was the decline in programmatic advertising and ecommerce affiliate revenue (16% of Group's revenue). This is partially offset by good performance elsewhere, notably the +8% growth in direct advertising coming from both the UK and the US. During the period, we saw +8ppt of ads revenue move into direct from programmatic. As a result, our overall yields grew +13% year on year. These results are testament that our strategic initiatives are driving growth.

UK Digital advertising returned to organic growth in the period with +1% revenue growth, accelerating to +3% in Q2. The outstanding direct performance of +9% was offset by (19)% decline in programmatic advertising.

In the US, digital advertising organic revenues were down (4)% . Similarly to the UK, the strong +7% direct advertising revenue which accelerated to 22% in Q2 was more than offset by (16)% revenue decline in programmatic advertising.

eCommerce Affiliates organic revenue declined (24)% during the period, reflecting lower website audiences due to disruption in the search ecosystem, with vouchers being more resilient and only declining by (6)% during the period.

Magazines continued to be resilient on an organic basis despite the growth comparator and declined (4)%, excluding the impact of the premium Rolex book in the prior year, Magazine performance would have been only down (1)%. Magazines represent 51% of B2C revenue and in the past couple of years, we have been able to abate the rate of decline through effective cohort management and quality content.

Subscription organic revenue was flat across the half, demonstrating the strength of our brands such as The Week Junior which continued to grow during the period.

Other magazines (print advertising and newstrade) organic revenue declined (7)% in the period with better underlying performance for both weekly and premium titles, being offset by the premium book for Rolex recorded in HY 2025.

Go.Compare revenue

 

	HY 2026 £m	HY 2025 £m	Reported YoY var	Organic YoY var
Car insurance	56.2	58.9	(5)%	(5)%
Non-car insurance	33.6	36.4	(8)%	(8)%
GO.COMPARE REVENUE	89.8	95.3	(6)%	(6)%

Revenue for our price comparison business Go.Compare declined (6)%, both reported and organically, with an improving trend in Q2 where revenue was only down (3)%.

Car insurance revenue declined by (5)% in the period. However, whilst Q1 was down (9)%, Q2 improved to be flat. The car performance was impacted by lower quote volumes driven by lower switching market with lower car insurance premium partially offset by improved conversion driven by continued focus as we continue to focus on improving consumer journey.

 

Non-car insurance revenue declined by (8)% in the half mainly impacted by the challenging home market.

 

B2B revenue

 

	HY 2026 £m	HY 2025 £m	Reported YoY var	Organic YoY var
Digital advertising (Newsletters)	14.2	16.6	(14)%	(11)%
Affiliates (Lead gen & webinars) & Other Media (Events) & Magazines	9.9	10.5	(6)%	+1%
B2B REVENUE	24.1	27.1	(11)%	(7)%

B2B performance remained challenging with (11)% reported revenue decline and (7)% organic. The performance was impacted by challenging end-market dynamics, offsetting recovery in Tech.

Digital advertising organic revenue was down (11)% in the half with performance in Q2 improving to (7)%. Revenue reflected mixed performance across verticals with growth in Food & Beverage and infrastructure offsetting declines in Financial Services, Retail and Education.

 

The +1% organic decline in other revenue is largely driven by recovery in demand gen for Tech.

 

Operating costs

 

Cost of sales including distribution costs were down 4% year-on-year. The decline was driven by revenue combined with a change in revenue mix with reductions in high-margin programmatic advertising and ecommerce affiliates partially offset by inflation in "pay-per-click" (PPC) for our price comparison business. See note 3 for further details.

 

Other costs are up 1% during the year reflecting the annual pay rise which increased salary and wages costs (67% of other costs) combined with the inclusion of SheerLuxe, partially offset by cost savings following brand closures.

 

Profit

 

Adjusted EBITDA decreased £(26.5)m to £83.3m (HY 2025: 109.8m) driven by the impact of revenue decline. As a result, adjusted EBITDA margin was down (5)ppt due to a change in mix with high gross contribution revenue lines declining.

 

Statutory operating profit decreased by £(36.4)m to £32.7m (HY 2025: £69.1m), primarily driven by EBITDA performance, and higher year-on-year transaction and integration costs as explained below. Statutory operating margin declined to 9% (HY 2025: 18%), reflecting adjusted operating profit movement net of adjusting items. 

 

Earnings per share

	HY 2026	HY 2025
Basic earnings per share (p)	13.1	38.4
Adjusted basic earnings per share (p)	46.9	60.2
Diluted earnings per share (p)	12.9	38.0
Adjusted diluted basic earnings per share (p)	46.4	59.7

 

Basic earnings per share is calculated using the weighted average number of ordinary shares in issue during the period of 93.4m (HY 2025: 109.4m), 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 costs of £9.7m were incurred in the period, comprising £7.9m of transaction-related expenses and £1.8m of integration costs. The transaction costs of £7.9m relate predominantly to the SheerLuxe acquisition and include a £4.4m accrual for top-up consideration, alongside £1.2m of employment-linked contingent consideration for the period from 21 January 2026. The remainder of the transaction costs relates to general acquisition fees and associated professional expenses. Integration costs of £1.8m represent post-acquisition integration activities arising from previous acquisitions, focused predominantly on IT-related infrastructure and systems alignment.

 

Exceptional items

Exceptional items for the period totalled £3.2m. This primarily reflects £2.9m in restructuring costs associated with our ongoing Group-wide efficiency programme, which remains on track to deliver targeted annualised savings of £20.0m by FY 2028. A further £0.1m related to legacy onerous property obligations, consistent with prior-year treatment.

 

Other adjusting items

Other adjusting items include amortisation of acquired intangibles of £25.8m (HY 2025: £27.1m).

 

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 £1.5m to £1.8m (HY 2025: £3.3m), due to the financial performance of the Group impacting the likelihood of vesting. Further, the lower share price results in a reduction in NI accrual. Share-based payment expenses are excluded from the adjusted results of the Group as they are discretionary and 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.

 

Net finance costs

Net finance costs increased to £14.3m (HY 2025: £12.5m), which includes net external interest payable of £12.4m (HY 2025: £10.8m), reflecting the increase in the Group's debt and £0.6m (HY 2025: £1.2m) in respect of the amortisation of arrangement fees relating to the Group's bank facilities. A further £1.1m (HY 2025: £0.8m) of net interest was recognised in relation to lease liabilities and £0.2m (HY 2025: nil) in respect of the unwinding of contingent consideration in respect of the acquisition of RNWL (now known as Renewal).

 

At 31 March 2026, 39.3% (£236.0m) of the Group's facilities remained undrawn (31 March 2025: 53.8% (£350.0m) undrawn). The Group's £300m revolving credit facility, maturing May 2029, and £300m senior unsecured bond, maturing July 2030, provide the Group with long-dated maturity profiles on its committed debt facilities.  As at 31 March 2026, 82.4% (31 March 2025: 100%) of the Group's drawn debt was fixed at an average rate of 6.75% (HY 2025: 6.39%)

 

Taxation

The tax charge for the six months ended 31 March 2026 amounted to £6.2m (HY 2025: £14.6m) and is based on the effective tax rate, estimated on a full year basis, being applied to the statutory profit for the six months ended 31 March 2026.

 

The Group's statutory effective tax rate is expected to be 33.0% (HY 2025: 25.7%). The Group's adjusted effective tax rate is expected to be 26.0% (HY 2025: 25.3%). The variance between the statutory and adjusted effective tax rates is primarily driven by acquisition-related costs which are non-deductible for tax purposes and the tax treatment of share-based payments. 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 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 increased by £1.5m to £31.0m in the period (FY 2025: £29.5m) primarily reflecting depreciation of £3.5m, offset by capital expenditure of £5.0m.

 

Intangible assets increased by £30.1m to £1,483.8m (FY 2025: £1,453.7m) driven by amortisation charge of £32.3m offset by the capitalisation of website development costs £8.0m and £48.6m of goodwill and intangible assets acquired through the acquisition of SheerLuxe.

 

At 31 March 2026, the Group had net current liabilities of £8.7m (FY 2025: £6.6m).

 

Total current assets increased by £17.9m to £167.4m (FY 2025: £149.5m), led by cash  increasing by £17.0m to £44.6m (FY 2025: £27.6m) driven by cash generated from operating activities and net drawdown on the RCF facility. 

 

Total current liabilities increased by £20.0m to £176.1m (FY 2025: £156.1m) primarily due to the recognition of current contingent consideration, part of the total capped deferred consideration for the acquisition of SheerLuxe and operational movement in working capital. Total non-current liabilities increased by £59.8m to £498.0m (FY 2025: £438.2m) principally due to the £54.0m net drawdown to finance the acquisition of SheerLuxe.

 

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 £96.2m (HY 2025: £115.9m) reflecting continued strong cash generation. Adjusted operating cash was £101.5m (HY 2025: £119.3m).  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 to EBITDA of 109% and is forecast to generate sufficient cash flows to meet its liabilities as they fall due.

 

After expenditure on property, plant and equipment and website development costs and returning £52.9m (HY 2025: £43.2m) to shareholders in the period through share buyback programmes and annual dividend, leverage has increased to 1.6x (FY 2025: 1.3x) and net debt excluding lease liability has increased to £314.1m (FY 2025: £276.4m).

 

Other significant movements in cash flows include purchase of subsidiaries net of cash acquired of £39.9m for the acquisition of SheerLuxe, lease payments of £3.3m (HY 2025: £2.9m), and net inflow of refinancing which occurred during the year of £54.0m (HY 2025: nil). 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 HY 2026 results.

Condensed consolidated interim financial statements

 

Condensed consolidated income statement
for six months ended 31 March 2026
(unaudited)
	Note	6 months to 31 March 2026 £m	6 months to 31 March 2025 £m
Revenue	1, 2	349.1	378.4
Net operating expenses	3	(316.4)	(309.3)
Operating profit		32.7	69.1
Finance income	6	-	0.3
Finance costs	6	(14.3)	(12.8)
Net finance costs		(14.3)	(12.5)
Profit before tax		18.4	56.6
Tax charge	7	(6.2)	(14.6)
Profit for the period attributable to owners of the parent		12.2	42.0
Earnings per Ordinary share
	Note	6 months to 31 March 2026 pence	6 months to 31 March 2025 pence
Basic earnings per share	9	13.1	38.4
Diluted earnings per share	9	12.9	38.0

 

Condensed consolidated statement of comprehensive income

for the six months ended 31 March 2026 (unaudited)

 

	Note	6 months to 31 March 2026 £m	6 months to 31 March 2025 £m
Profit for the period		12.2	42.0
Items that may be reclassified to the consolidated income statement:
Currency translation differences		6.3	16.3
Loss on cash flow hedge (net of tax)		-	0.2
Other comprehensive income for the period		6.3	16.5
Total comprehensive income for the period attributable to owners of the parent		18.5	58.5