Outlook ‘not good’ at Moneysupermarket
THE new chief executive at the price comparison website moneysupermarket.com has admitted the short term outlook is “not good” as income has dived.
The Chester-based company re-issued its final results this morning, originally released last month, with additional comments from the board.
Peter Plumb, who has taken over from founder Simon Nixon, said: “The short term outlook is not good. Revenue to date this year is significantly down on last year, entirely due to the recession.”
Mr Plumb said the “unprecedented global financial crisis and subsequent UK recession”, meant the group faced a different market place.
“Our immediate task is to reconfigure our business for the lower levels of demand we are seeing due to the recession and to concentrate on managing our existing business better. 2009 will be a difficult year and we cannot assume 2010 will be any easier.”
The downturn hampered the business in the year to December 31 but it still increased revenue by 10% to £178.8m. However it made a post-tax loss of £59.1m after an impairment charge of £70m. This compared with a £9.4m profit last time.
It said its “most meaningful profit measure” was its adjusted EBITDA. This figure fell 9% to £48.4m compared with £52.9m last time.
Moneysupermarket saw sales growth in its insurance and travel businesses but the money division, which sells mortgages, loans and credit cards, saw sales drop 10% to £68.3m.
The company said it has cash balances of £73.5m and no debt. To mitigate losses if one of its banks collapsed it spreads reserves across five institutions and limits each deposit to £31.5m.
The announcement also revealed that Simon Nixon and chief financial officer Paul Doughty were awarded dividends totalling £4.4m in 2007 and £3.5m in 2008.
