The Market Herald cuts full-year earning guidance following redundancies and legal costs
The Market Herald (TMH) has lowered its earning guidance for the financial year of 2023, due to costs associated with redundancies, legal service and prior management issues.
In a trading update released to the ASX this morning, the media company has provided updated revenue guidance of $86 million and a normalised EBITDA of $17.7 million.
The normalised EBITDA excludes costs from acquiring Gumtree, Carsguide and Autotrader (GCA) in 2022.
These numbers were updated from the $95.01 million potential revenue and EBITDA and the $20.7 million statutory EBITDA, per guidance released in January at the company’s annual general meeting.
Mumbrella revealed last year that the business had made a series of redundancies as a part of the “transformation” post-GCA acquisition. The founder and managing director of TMH, Jag Sanger, was also later removed from the business.
In February this year, UIL Limited, a shareholder of TMH, challenged the business via the Takeovers Panel, suggesting that the booklet for the company’s previous entitlement offer is “materially misleading and/or deceptive”.
TMH said costs associated with the redundancies, legal expenses associated with the Takeovers Panel process, and prior management issues are the reasons why the company is unlikely to meet its previous earning guidance.
However, it insisted that the GCA operations continue to perform in line with expectations.
CEO of the business, Tommy Logtenberg, said: “The Company has experienced some softness in its advertising revenues next to a lower demand in the capital markets division.”
Regarding the costs, he said: “We see these as one-off expenses which do not detract from our strategic roadmap to improve our top-line results, and profitability of the Company.”
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Darcy Song was a reporter at Mumbrella, covering media owners, adtech and social platforms. She left in October 2023.
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