Ascential’s buyback helps lift shares

The price of shares in FTSE 250 exhibitions specialist Ascential (LON:ASCL) increased by 3.67% to 367p (as of 15:45 GMT) as it reported revenue growth of 19.4% for the year ended 31st December. Reported operating profits were down due to deferred acquisition costs, but the company also announced a £120 million share purchase scheme due to underlying profit growth and strong cash generation.

CEO Duncan Painter said: “2019 was a satisfying and successful year for Ascential. We advanced our operating model to ensure our products further align with our customers’ needs in fast paced growth markets and this was reflected in organic growth across all of our segments. We were particularly pleased with the strength of growth of the Marketing Segment and exceptional performances from WGSN and Flywheel Digital.

“Looking forward, we believe we are well positioned to continue to drive strong performance in our scaled and structurally growing markets. In 2020, we expect to deliver strong Organic growth with Group revenue in the range of £425m-£455m (using current exchange rates) and adjusted EBITDA margins of between 30% and 32%“.