Investor News: Half-Year Report 2019

Interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2019

 Brave Bison Group plc (AIM: BBSN), the social video company, today announces its unaudited interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2019.Financial Highlights

9% increase in revenue to £10.1 million for the period (H1 2018: £9.3 million), driven by growth in fee based services primarily from APAC branded content

Advertising revenue impacted by de-monetisation of Facebook pages and adaptation to Facebook's new policies

Gross profit has increased in absolute terms by 15% to £3.4 million (H1 2018: £2.9 million) as a result of the increase in revenue and margin mix

Adjusted EBITDA* of £247,000 for the period (H1 2018: £79,000)

Restructuring costs of £0.4 million (H1 2018: £nil) as a result of changes made to the senior management team

Cash balance at 30 June 2019 of £3.7 million (31 December 2018: £5.4 million). Cash outflow in H1 2019 primarily as a result of the timing of payments from two large branded content deals which were received in July

Operational Highlights

Kate Burns appointed as CEO in April 2019 and a new senior management team introduced

Decision taken to move both London based teams into one new location in the second half of 2019

Re-branding of four biggest Facebook pages to give them their own identities and to comply with Facebook's new publisher guidelines

Strategy to focus investment in these four brands and to publish more content on alternative platforms to Facebook such as Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube

New processes implemented around licensing, creating content and commissioning content for Brave Bison's brands

Growth in revenues from YouTube, Snapchat and the APAC Region

Operational Targets for 2019

For original and exclusive content to be the majority across the Groups key channels: over 80% of the content is now licensed exclusively

To diversify revenue streams to ensure the Company is not too dependent on one platform: in H1 2019 35% of advertising revenues were from platforms other than Facebook (H1 2018: 24%). The amount of revenues from these alternative platforms is up 32%

To increase the territorial reach of the APAC team: South Korea launch event held in April 2019 and so far in 2019 a new campaign was delivered in Thailand and one in Vietnam will be delivered in H2

*Adjusted EBITDA is earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation, restructuring costs and the share-based payment expense.

Kate Burns, Chief Executive Officer, commented:Brave Bison has demonstrated itself to be a very agile company during the period in refining areas of its business. This is an important trait for a business operating in the social video industry, which is fast- paced and rapidly evolving. We have multiple revenue streams and have made progress towards establishing the right balance between these, which has been a key focus of mine since my appointment in April.It has been pleasing to see our APAC business flourish. The growth delivered during the period demonstrates that this is clearly a region of remarkable opportunity and we have responded by investing in this market. Diversification of revenue in relation to social channels has also been a key theme for the period, particularly given that like many large publishers in the industry we have experienced the impact of having a substantial reliance on Facebook in recent months and their recent change in publisher policies. As a result, although we still expect adjusted EBITDA to be positive for the second half of 2019, the outturn for the full year to 31 December 2019 will show a material reduction in revenue and adjusted EBITDA versus current market expectations. We continue to monitor our Facebook business closely, while also investing in our data proposition which will inform our creative process and improve the quality of content going forward. I believe this will position us to deliver long term growth. 

For the full Half-Year Report for 2019, please click here.