Daily Mail and General Trust nudged up its interim dividend after a 20% drop in first-half profit caused mainly by the pandemic’s effect on its events business.
Adjusted pretax profit fell to £47m in the six months to the end of March from £56m a year earlier as underlying revenue fell 12% to £580m. Statutory pretax profit fell to £42m from £77m.
The publisher of the Daily Mail announced an interim dividend of 7.6p a share, up from 7.5p a year earlier.
DMGT’s business information businesses increased revenue 9% on an underlying basis to £266m boosted by property publications in a booming UK housing market. Events and exhibitions revenue plunged 92% to £4m as gatherings were scrapped during the pandemic.
The Metro commuter freesheet was also hit by the crisis and underlying revenue from consumer media, which includes the Mail titles, fell 13% to £311m.
Chief Executive Paul Zwillenberg said: “From a financial and operational perspective, DMGT delivered a solid performance in the first half of the year. We achieved strong underlying growth in revenue and profits from our B2B information services businesses, where property information was a highlight.
“Within consumer media, there was good revenue and profit growth from MailOnline and a solid performance from the Mail print titles driving profit growth for the Mail businesses whilst, unsurprisingly, Metro and our Events business continued to be impacted by the pandemic.”
DMGT shares rose 3.7% to 870p.
