The owner of LadBible cut its losses while revenue increased during the first half of its financial year. Manchester-headquartered LBG Media has posted pre-tax losses of £1.2m for the six months to the end of June 2023.
That figure compares to the losses of £1.9m the company reported for the same period in 2022. However, its revenue increased from £24.8m to £27.2m.
The results come after co-founder Arian Kalantari stepped down in July. Mr Kalantari had been on a sabbatical since the start of the year and has decided not to return.
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During the period, the group continued to "review its divisional and central structures and made a small number of further redundancies" which incurred a cost of £300,000. According to figures filed with the London Stock Exchange, the group's average number of employees during the six months decreased from 473 to 427, mainly as a result of LBG Media making 10% of its staff redundant from October last year.
At the time, the business said it has made a "prudent decision" to cut its cost base "whilst ensuring that the business maintains its ability to take market share and grow".
Chief executive Solly Solomou said: "We have made good financial and operational progress throughout the first half of 2023. The significant increase in content views demonstrates our effective ongoing engagement with the hard to reach 18 to 34 year-old demographic which remains a highly attractive proposition for our partner brands and platforms and will continue to drive the business forward.
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"Our growth continued to outperform the wider digital advertising market as we operate within the fastest growing segments, giving us confidence as we look forward. In addition, our strategic progress in the half was encouraging.
"We continued to execute on our plans to broaden geographically, with good early progress in our recently established US operations, to acquire businesses, plugging in under-monetised brands onto our platform, and to broaden our capabilities, with our agile business model ensuring we can reach the widest possible audience.
"We have started H2 with positive momentum and I am excited by the opportunities that lie ahead."
On its outlook, the company added: "The board believes that the group's highly differentiated offering and strategic programme will continue to fuel our growth. Normal seasonality in advertising revenue combined with the relatively even split of costs means that profitability is significantly weighted towards the second half of the year, as has been the case in prior years.
"Notwithstanding the general challenges in the overall market, our momentum on audience and content growth, as well as client brief conversion rate, has continued into H2 and will help us capitalise on that seasonality. We can confirm the outlook for the full year remains in line with market expectations."