Beano to Sunday Post publisher DC Thomson said it would continue its hunt for new opportunities after posting a 21 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to £30m.
“Whilst we expect our traditional business to continue to prosper we are committed to finding new products and markets”, the business said in its Companies House filing.
The 111-year-old family firm – which also publishes titles including The Courier and Advertiser, The Press and Journal and the and the People’s Friend magazine – has branched into areas including merchandising and genealogy in response to tough conditions in print publishing.
During the year DC Thomson bought Bath-based Gift Company Wild and Wolf, best known for its Scrabble-themed mugs, and added Mocavo, the fastest growing genealogy company in the US, to its Findmypast family history company. It also acquired Shortlist Media, publisher of the free magazines Shortlist and Stylist.
“The trading operations have been affected by challenges to revenues but the core publishing continues to trade well in comparison to our peers” said Chairman Andrew Thomson, whose great uncle David Coupar Thomson founded DC Thomson in 1905.
“Whilst there is belief in the longer term future of the core business, the challenges in publishing mean that work is underway on brand extensions and other initiatives to support these businesses”.
Total revenues edged ahead 2 per cent to £245m. Mr Thomson said newspaper and magazine circulation volumes were down but cover price increases resulted in a 1.9 per cent revenues were down 6.4 per cent but magazine advertising revenues rose 8.2 per cent. The company said it had completely restructured its newspaper and magazine business over the last few years and invested in its renewed printing plant.
Digital adverting revenues climbed 26 percent. Growth in digital revenues through new websites and other new lines of business such as events is expected to continue supporting conventional business lines.
“The falls in advertising revenues were offset, to an extent, by reductions in operating costs, particularly newspaper print and distribution costs resulting from changes made in recent years,” DC Thomson added.
Mr Thomson said the business was building on its range of free titles with a new fashion event and continues to invest in joint ventures and licence opportunities abroad.
Its book division – consisting of Parragon, a publisher of children’s cookery, reference and Christmas annual titles – faced continuing ‘structural change’ in the industry. But during the year the group was awarded a new Disney licence which involves increasing staff and product in the US.
“The genealogy business continues to look to expansion geographically,” the company said, adding that it continued to digitise family history records across the globe. In a partnership with the National Archives, Findmypast is digitising the 1939 Emergency Register – detailed records of over 30 million people living in England and Wales at the outbreak of the Second World War. These were used to issue ration books and identity cards.
DC Thomson also runs a server and cloud hosting business that expanded in 2015 with the opening of a new data centre in Aberdeen. The directors recommended a 4 per cent increase in the final dividend to £14.8m.
D.C. Thomson & Co. Ltd.
DC Thomson & Co Ltd is a private company and is one of the leading media organisations in the United Kingdom. The company publishes newspapers, magazines, comics and books. More recently, DC Thomson has expanded into the internet and digital developments including a major focus on genealogy.
