XLMedia Shares Fall After Reporting a H1 Loss

Shares of digital performance publisher XLMedia (LON: XLM) fell Thursday after the company reported a pretax loss for the six months ended 30 June 2021.

The AIM-quoted firm revealed a loss before tax of $0.4 million compared to a profit of $0.2 million in the first half of 2020. 

Revenue came in at $32.2 million, above the $27.7 million reported last year, while cash and short-term investments stand at $36.9 million, up from H1 2020s $13.9 million.

Transformation costs of $1 million following the company's restructuring plan impacted the group's profits.

XLMedia maintained revenue guidance for the full year 2021 of between $65 million and $70 million, although the impact of transformational activities is likely to impact operating profit across FY 2021 and FY 2022.

The company did warn that as Covid-19 restrictions ease, it is accelerating organisational changes and will incur more costs in FY 2021 than previously budgeted.

Stuart Simms, CEO of XLMedia, commented: “We continued to make further organisational progress in the first six months of the year, as we expanded our portfolio of high-quality branded sites, whilst also laying the foundations to improve the use of our first party data. 

“The combined positive impact resulted in a strengthened US Sports division, increase of regulated market and new money revenue, as well as the development of a significantly improved data architecture and infrastructure to serve the Group's long-term ambitions.”

In a separate announcement, XLMedia revealed it has acquired BlueClaw for a total consideration of up to $2.5 million to “provide a UK hub for the EU Sports business.”

“We are delighted to announce the acquisition of BlueClaw, which will see us bring this hugely talented team into the XLM family. Having worked closely with them for over 12 months, we've been able to experience first-hand the quality of their work and are hugely excited at the prospect of BlueClaw's expertise being rolled out across our broader portfolio,” said Simms.

XLMedia shares are currently down 3.05% at 51.4p.

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