Ascential shares rise after strong first-half figures

Shares in global information firm Ascential (LON:ASCL) climbed by 3.06% to 391p (as of 11:50 BST) after it reported revenue growth of 25% for the six months ended 30th June. EBITDA was also up by 21%, although margins dropped by 100 basis points to 32.5%.

CEO Duncan Painter commented: “In the first six months of the year Ascential has made considerable progress against our four key goals for 2019: focus on execution; integration of Edge; returning our Marketing segment to growth; and rolling out our One Ascential Operating Model across Ascential.

This operational progress, together with the acceleration of WGSN, the excellent performance of Flywheel and good growth at Money20/20, give the Board confidence in our overall 2019 performance and our medium-term target to achieve double-digit growth“.