Communicators

22 December 2023, Aspermont (ASX:ASP, FRA:00W), the market leader in B2B media for the global resource sectors is pleased to announce its results for FY23.

For the full annual report and commentary please click here:

https://cdn-api.markitdigital.com/apiman-gateway/ASX/asx-research/1.0/file/2924-02757374-6A1187782

Financial Highlights

-          Subscriptions Revenue growth of 9% y-o-y, to $9.5m.

-          Total Revenue growth of 3% y-o-y, to $19.2m.

-          Recurring Revenue maintained at 75%.

-          Gross Profit of $11.1m, with margins of 57%.

-          Reported and Normalised EBITDA of $0.5m and $1.7m respectively

-          Reported and Normalised NPAT of ($1.7m) 1   and $0.8m respectively.

-          Closing cash balance of $4.0m; with no long-term debt.

Operational Highlights

-          29 consecutive quarters of growth in subscriptions.

-          First phase launch of new Skywave platform.

-          Senior headcount expansion with five key new roles added.

-          Successful twin launch of Perth events.

Other Key Events

-          Passing of Andrew Kent, Chair.

-          Liquidation of Blu Horseshoe.

Aspermont MD, Alex Kent, said:

“Aspermont made positive progress in FY23, albeit below our double-digit growth target. Our overall revenue performance was solid, given the strong headwinds experienced in advertising. Subscriptions delivered its 29th consecutive growth quarter and Events and Content Works made good progress.

We had advised shareholders to expect a year of reduced earnings and operating margins as we embarked on a significant inward investment program. Notwithstanding the delivery of most of that investment program and the inclemency of the conditions, the business is pleased to announce positive earnings and cash balances maintained above our defined $4m black swan coverage levels.

This year we established several entirely new senior management positions: Chief Marketing Officer, Group Head Content, Group Head Events, Group Head Research, Group Head Data, all to help expand our knowledge capital and operational capacity.

We were pleased to deliver the first phase of our Skywave platform in Q3 with serial product releases now ongoing. Skywave is building internal productivity and intelligence tools for our XaaS business, and we expect significant positive impacts from those over FY24.

As Aspermont increasingly transitions into a Data and Intelligence business over the next few years Skywave, will focus on releasing external Audience and Client products.

Esperanto and the digitalization of our Archives planned for this year were temporarily paused. In the case of Esperanto, the rapid development of Chat GPT provides a big opportunity for us to leverage on the trail blazers we are closely monitoring.

Following the close of the financial year we announced to the market the liquidation of Blu Horseshoe – our fintech joint venture. All the board and management team are disappointed in the corporate outcome of this venture. Aspermont has accrued valuable IP through its experience over the last two years and intends to release similar investment platforms through our primary brands in the future – on a 100% owned basis. For now, though we reflect on the impact to our reported FY23 figures owing to the large write offs we have taken retrospectively on our working capital

This announcement has been authorised by the Board of Directors.

For further information please contact:

Aspermont Limited

Alex Kent, Managing Director +44 207 216 6060

David Straface, Company Secretary +61 411 251 136

About Aspermont

Aspermont is the leading media services provider to the global resource sectors. Aspermont has built a commercial XaaS model for B2B media which distributes high value content to a growing global audience. This versatile model can be scaled to serve new business sectors in new countries and languages. As Aspermont global (paid) audiences continue to grow, this opens new opportunities to monetise Aspermont’s vast data base data which are being addressed as new hirings expand the group knowledge capital and capabilities.

Aspermont is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and quoted on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. It is also quoted on Tradegate and other regional German exchanges. The company has offices in UK, Australia, Brazil, USA, Canada, Singapore and the Philippines.

For more information please see: www.aspermont.com

1 Reported NPAT for FY23 has been significantly impacted by our write offs following the announced liquidation of Blu Horseshoe.