Image source: The Motley Fool. DATEThursday, June 12, 2025, at 12 a.
EDTCALL PARTICIPANTSChief Executive Officer — Gary NugentChief Financial Officer — Daniel NoreckNeed a quote from one of our analysts.
[ tected]TAKEAWAYSReported Revenues: $285 million in revenue for 2024, driven by 12 months of Informa digital es and one month of legacy Target operations.
GAAP Net Loss: GAAP net loss was $117 million for 2024, primarily due to acquisition and integration costs, noncash impairments, and limited contribution from legacy Target.
Adjusted EBITDA: $31 million in adjusted EBITDA, reflecting underlying earnings generated by the reported structure in 2024.
Combined Company Revenues ( Forma): $490 million for the full year, assuming the combination was in effect from January 1, 2024, matching previous guidance and indicating flat underlying performance.
Combined Company Net Loss: $166 million net loss for the combined company in 2024, including nonrecurring combination-related operating costs.
Combined Company Adjusted EBITDA: $82 million in adjusted EBITDA for 2024, including allocated Informa Group central costs and transitional service expenses.
Cash, Cash Equivalents, and Short-Term Investments: $354 million at year-end, supporting operations.
Convertible Senior Notes Outstanding: $416 million of outstanding convertible senior notes at year-end 2024.
Year 1 Operating Cost Synergy Target: On track to surpass $5 million, and management maintains high confidence in achieving or exceeding the $45 million run-rate synergy target by year 3.
Revenue Outlook: The company forecasts flat revenue for 2025 and an increase in adjusted EBITDA for the year, supported by cost synergies and the absence of one-off integration costs.
Subscription Renewal Rates: Value-based renewal rates in intelligence and advisory remained flat year-on-year for the period referenced.
Other Brand to Demand subscriptions were flat to slightly down in value year-on-year for the period referenced.
Sales Organization: Restructuring accelerated, with a unified go-to-market strategy emphasizing largest customer accounts.
Duct Strategy: NetLine repositioned for higher-volume segment, and Intelligence & Advisory offerings consolidated into fewer, larger packages aligned by key industry segments.
Cross-Sell gress: Tactical success with cross-sell and initial execution of larger combined posals, contributing to increased average deal size.
AI Initiatives: Company applies AI to operational efficiency, duct enhancements (such as integration into Priority Engine for sales use cases), and market education on AI nologies.
Net Debt Position : CFO Daniel Noreck stated, "fundamentally, the net debt position is the same" after repayment of convertible notes and use of revolving credit. SUMMARYTarget (TTGT -0.
07%) management confirmed the combination with Informa duced a strong cash position and integration gress, supported by leadership appointments and restructured reporting lines.
The subdued demand environment persists, but the company reiterated its target of broadly flat revenue and an imved adjusted EBITDA outlook for 2025, underpinned by synergy execution and cessation of one-time combination costs.
Major integration milestones were during the quarter, and cost discipline was demonstrated.
CEO Nugent said, We are tracking well ahead of our year 1 operating cost synergy target of $5 million and have a high degree of confidence in our ability to meet or exceed the $45 million overall run-rate synergies targeted by year 3 (non-GAAP).
The integration duced successful tactical and strategic cross-selling, with several larger posals accepted by key customers and an upsizing of average deal value.
Subscription renewal rates in the intelligence and advisory segments remained stable year-on-year.
AI's market impact spans three key areas: direct vertical opportunity, operational ductivity, and duct enhancement, but no material shift in serious buyer re behavior was reported.
INDUSTRY GLOSSARYAdjusted EBITDA: Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, adjusted for nonrecurring and non-cash items, used for operating performance assessment.
Run-rate synergies: Expected recurring annualized savings or incremental value created by the combination or integration of two companies, once integration is fully realized.
NetLine: A demand generation duct positioned for high-volume B2B lead dery within the combined company's duct suite.
Priority Engine: A prietary platform incorporating AI to imve sales targeting and customer engagement for enterprise nology decisions.
Full Conference Call TranscriptGary Nugent, our Chief Executive Officer; and Dan Noreck, our Chief Financial Officer.
Before turning the call over to Gary, we would to remind everyone on the call of our earnings release cess.
As previously announced, in order to vide you with an on our in advance of the call, we have posted a press release to the Investor Relations section of our website and furnished it on an 8-K.
You can also find these materials with the SEC free of charge at the SEC's website, www.
The corresponding webcast as well as a replay of this conference call will be made available on the Investor Relations section of our website.
Ing Gary's remarks, the management team will be available to answer questions.
Any statements made today by Informa Target that are not factual, including during the Q&A, may be considered forward-looking statements.
These forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties, are based on assumptions and are not guarantees of our future performance.
Actual results may differ materially from our forecast and from these forward-looking statements.
Forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including those discussed in the Risk Factors section of our most recent periodic report filed on Form 10-K.
These statements speak only as of the date of this call, and Informa Target undertakes no obligation to revise or any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events that may arise after this conference call, except as required by law.
Finally, we may also refer to certain financial measures not prepared in accordance with GAAP.
A reconciliation of certain of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures, to the extent available without unreasonable effort, accompanies our press release.
And with that, I'll turn the call over to Gary. Gary Nugent: Thank you, Charlie.
Good morning from Boston, Massachusetts, and thank you for the time to join us today and for your patience while we work through the Informa Target 2024 audit and preparations for the 10-K filing.
We filed our full set of 2024 financial statements and the annual report on Form 10-K last week on May 28, which is available at www. Informatarget.
Reported results for 2024 reflect the structure of the combination, comprising 12 months' contribution from the Informa digital es and around 1-month contribution from the legacy Target, being the period from completion of the transaction on December 2, 2024, through to the year-end.
On this basis, reported revenues were $285 million with a GAAP net loss of $117 million, the latter reflecting the contribution period of Target, acquisition and integration costs, and noncash impairments at the point of combination.
Adjusted EBITDA was $31 million.
On a combined company basis, assuming the combination was in effect from January 1, 2024, we dered full-year revenues of $490 million, in line with the previous guidance.
This equates to broadly flat underlying performance for the year, reflecting the subdued market backdrop, with activity levels impacted by geopolitical tensions and macroeconomic uncertainties.
The combined company net loss was $166 million, and combined company adjusted EBITDA was $82 million.
The latter included certain nonrecurring operating costs relating to the combination, including an allocation of the Informa Group's central costs to the Informa digital es in 2024, a portion of which are included in the transitional service agreements entered into on the closing date.
Our financial position at the year-end was strong with cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments of around $354 million and around $416 million of outstanding convertible senior notes.
Given the subdued market backdrop, I would describe our performance in 2024 as robust, holding revenues while imving margins.
And if you let me turn to the future, our combined sits at the intersection of 2 attractive and dynamic, nology and B2B marketing, representing a $20 billion addressable market.
Through this combination, we are creating the scale, talent, and operating platform to nurture and build specialist audiences and der increasing value for clients.
And I am excited and optimistic the opportunity that we have ahead of us and how that can translate into value for our other stakeholders, too, including our holders and our 2,000-or-so colleagues at Informa Target.
In 2025, the foundation year for Informa Target, our focus is on combining our strengths across brands, duct, go-to-market, and talent to position the for long-term growth.
The combination gram to successfully integrate the legacy companies is well underway, with all executive and senior leadership appointments and reporting lines and responsibilities confirmed.
The restructuring of our sales organization has been accelerated, including a unified go-to-market strategy that gives increased focus to our largest customer accounts through dedicated service teams.
Duct strategy work is advancing well, including a repositioning of the NetLine duct to address the volume end of the demand market and reshaping the Intelligence & Advisory portfolio to better meet the needs of our evolving customer requirements.
We are tracking well ahead of year 1 operating cost synergy target of $5 million with a high degree of confidence in our ability to meet or beat the $45 million overall run rate synergies targeted by year 3.
The environment remains subdued, but our guidance remains in line with previous ary with a target for broadly flat -for- revenues and an increase in adjusted EBITDA for the year, supported by the overdery of combination synergies and nonrecurrence of one-off combination costs that were included within the 2024 results.
Beyond the near-term market dynamics and the foundation year, we remain confident in the medium-term growth opportunities for Informa Target, underpinned by innovation and growth in nology and the increasing demand for more efficient data-driven B2B digital services.
A final note, we will our investor presentation ing today's call, which again, you will find on www. Informatarget.
I will now pass the call back to our moderator, Sami, and open the call for any questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Joshua Reilly from Needham.
Joshua Reilly: All right. Maybe to start off with, we haven't had a call in a while, so I think it would be helpful to get an on how AI is impacting your, including the risks and opportunities.
And maybe touch on the trends you're seeing with the average number of white papers and webinars that customers are reading and watching before making a B2B purchase today versus a year ago or more when there was less liferation of gen AI tools.
Gary Nugent: Josh, thank you for the question. Let me maybe think this or break this down into of 3 component parts.
The first thing, of course, is that AI as a nology is a market, in and of itself, for our company, for our.
So in other words, we are in the position to inform and educate and connect the market, the buy side of the market, AI nologies and how they can be applied to.
And of course, we're in the then of also the AI companies, who are viding ducts and services and nologies, to then actually reach those audiences, reach those buyers and decision-makers.
So that is, in and of itself, a market for us and one that we're addressing with enthusiasm.
You've then got the second thing, I think, which is how do we apply AI to our, first and foremost, to imve upon our effectiveness and our efficiency.
And again, we have a number of initiatives across the to do so.
We can see this in many areas of our, in our re, in intelligence and advisory capabilities, in our editorial and audience development capabilities, and indeed, in our marketing and sales capabilities and our go-to-market.
And we are applying that to our to imve our efficiency and to imve our effectiveness and indeed, to imve quality.
We then have the matter of applying AI to actually imve the ducts and bring new ducts and services to market.
And of course, in the latter half of last year, you will have heard Target and Mike talk the application of AI to the Priority Engine duct to actually help the sales use cases, engage with their customers, as a good example of that.
And then maybe finally, to your point how AI is impacting the way in which the marketplace discovers content and consumes content and is informed and educated.
I would say that obviously, there will be, I think -- I mean, the application of generative AI, in particular, is changing that landscape.
But certainly, what we are seeing is that when customers are -- or when buyers, to be precise, when buyers are in the market and are looking to make large capital decisions, significant investments in their, they are needing deep re into the subject and are looking for content which comes from authoritative and unbiased and known sources.
And so we're not really seeing any changes in the pattern of that, what I would call, serious buyer re. Joshua Reilly: Got it. That's very helpful. Appreciate that.
You mentioned in the release that the cost synergies are on plan or ahead of expectations in terms of timing.
As you've now had some time to review the combined company, can you just on how you feel the total $45 million in cost and revenue synergies, both in terms of timing.
And then is that still a total number that you're comfortable with going forward.
Gary Nugent: I can confirm that I am comfortable with the total number, and it's certainly our intention to meet or exceed that over the period.
And I think we will track certainly on the -- if you recall, the synergies of $45 million are broken down into both cost synergies and revenue synergies.
In particular, we feel confident in our ability to accelerate the cost synergy side of that equation. On the revenue synergy side of that equation, we're confident that we will be on track.
Joshua Reilly: Got it. And then maybe I'll just throw one more out there. You talked some short-term disruptions to the in January and February.
Maybe you can just discuss what happened there and how you remedied that pretty quickly within a quarter to be executing moving forward.
Gary Nugent: Largely, that's us apaching -- implementing a combination plan, Josh.