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Future plays down share price collapse

Media company's stock hits six-year low, blames "uncertainty in the market"

Future, the publisher which owns a number of videogames magazines in the UK and US, as well as the Gamesradar and CVG websites, has told GamesIndustry.biz that there's no story as far as its share price is concerned.

The company's stock hit a six-year low last week, touching GBp 25.75 - giving a total market valuation of just over GBP 84 million. The previous low of GBp 21.0 came in June 2001.

But a company spokesperson has denied any wider significance to the situation, citing the decline of other companies in the market.

"If you look at the media sector as a whole - and companies like Johnston Press, Trinity Mirror, GCap etc - they've all seen share price falls over the last 6-8 months because of uncertainty in the market about consumer confidence and challenging trading conditions."

"If you look at our last IMS statement, published the end of January, you'll see that we're 'firmly on track'."

That statement detailed increasing advertising revenues in online, more than offsetting continuing declines in print advertising.

And while revenue for the three months was down 1.6 per cent at GBP 40.6 million, the company expects to report "significant growth" for the full year.

Despite that, the market value - which is hovering around the GBP 86 million mark at time of writing - could make the publisher a ripe target for takeover speculation.

The company reported a GBP 14.2 million profit for the full year ending September 30, 2007, compared to a loss of GBP 47.2 million the previous year.