Iconic Labs sees ‘material positive progress’ in 2H20
In an operational update, the company highlighted that contracted revenues now exceed £0.135m per month, equivalent to over £1.5m on an annualised basis compared to £0.1m for the entirety of 2020. It added that legacy revenues have ‘now largely been dealt with’.
The media and technology business said its key transformative event of the period was the acquisition by Greencastle Acquisition Limited of the JOE and HER media group, and the subsequent entering into of a management service contract ("MSC") with the Company.
JOE UK is now operationally profitable less than 4 months after the commencement of the provision of the management services under the MSC. IN addition to the £0.125m a month fee payable to Iconic under the MSC, it is also entitled to a 25% profit share of JOE Media.
Since the company has been providing their services under the MSC a number of ‘high value contracts’ have been won on a regular basis, including most recently a series of recent advertising and branded content partnerships with revenues totalling more than £0.75m.
As a business, JOE Media has historically achieved more than £10m in annual revenue and has seen revenue growth rates of over 100% a year. Iconic said it is ‘confident’ that JOE can increase its profits and become a more significant source of revenue for the company.
Iconic said that as a result of its progress, the JOE Media business is now ‘well positioned’ to achieve further synergies by working with other owned and operated platforms.
The group said its recent further MSC in respect of the Lovin Media business following its acquisition by Greencastle Capital ‘is an example of this model already being put into action.’ Both businesses now form the largest independent digital media firm in Ireland.
Iconic believes there is ‘a number of further acquisition and partnership opportunities in the digital media and advertising sector through which it can establish additional partnerships.
"We are delighted that the hard work of the team, and the patience of the shareholders is beginning to be rewarded by substantial positive progress in the Iconic Labs business.
Increasing revenues to more than £1.5m on an annualised basis shows that the model and playbook we have been working to is beginning to show the benefits of a substantial amount of work over the previous 18 months”, said John Quinlan, CEO of Iconic Labs.
Today, Iconic also released its full-year results for the year ended 30 June 2020 highlighting that Iconic is close to being profitable on an operational basis and that the ‘sheer scale and reach of JOE and Her’ makes it the perfect foundation stone upon which to grow.
The overall loss attributable to the new business for the period totalled £2.84 for FY20 (FY19 - £2.1m) while revenues over the period amounted to £0.107m. Meanwhile, the company ended the period with cash and cash equivalents of £0.18m compared to £0.015m in FY19.
Shares in Iconic Labs have traded within a tight range of 0.01p and 0.02p over the past month to open 3.85% lower this morning at 0.0125p following the announcement.
Iconic Labs is a multi-divisional new media and technology firm positioned to deliver consultancy, products, marketing and distribution with a focus is to expand its content platform, suite of digital brands, and technology products organically and through acquisitions.
The company completed its acquisition by Greencastle Capital of Maximum Media Limited ("JOE Media Ireland") last month where it took over the operational and strategic management of JOE Media Ireland. Since July 2020, Iconic has managed JOE in the UK.
Iconic had been working with Greencastle on a capital bid to buy the Joe media brand in both Ireland and the UK back in June 2020. The follow-on acquisition has allowed JOE, which generates in excess of £10m of revenue per year, to be taken out of administration.
The combined JOE Media businesses generated in excess of £10m of revenue in FY 2019. The UK business grew annual revenue at a rate of 117.7% between 2016 and 2019.
The group previously outlined that it expects a one-company structure approach covering JOE media in Ireland and the UK to enable a return to profitability in 2021, or even before.
Greencastle agreed that in order to better reflect both the costs of managing the JOE Media group, and the success thus far in managing JOE Media UK, the monthly management fee payable to Icon will be increased from £50,000 to £100,000 with immediate effect.
Recently, Iconic told investors that it had raised £747,793 by way of placing at 0.012p per share and entered into a new debt facility with Shard Merchant Capital Limited ("SMC").
The SMC facility is a conventional senior secured loan that has been entered into in order to ensure that the Company has sufficient working capital for its next phase of growth.
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