Invest in the global platform for specialist media - Future (original) (raw)

Future is a global platform for intent-led specialist media underpinned by proprietary technology and enabled by data, with diversified revenue streams. Our leadership position is delivered by strong, consistent organic growth and accelerated through acquisitions.

Latest results

Financial highlights

financial highlights

FY 2025

-8%

Adjusted operating profit of £205.4m

86%

Adjusted Free Cash Flow conversion £177.0m

1.3x

Leverage. Net debt £276.4m

HY 2026

-8%

Revenue to £349.1m (HY 2025: £378.4m)

-24%

Adjusted EBITDA of £83.3m (HY 2025: £109.8m)

-18%

Adjusted Free Cash Flow of £91.1m (HY 2025: £111.5m)

-5ppt

Adjusted EBITDA margin of 24% (HY 2025: 29%)

-6%

Organic revenue growth

-22%

Adjusted diluted EPS of 46.4p (HY 2025: 59.7p)

The Future strategy

We connect audiences to their passions through the content we create, the innovative technology we pioneer and the engaging experiences we deliver. Our leadership position is underpinned by strong, consistent organic growth, accelerated through acquisitions, and supported by a strong monetisation strategy. At the heart of what we do are our purpose, values and culture.

Our strategy is simple, creating internal alignment to ensure flawless execution and agility, allowing us to pivot and lean into areas of opportunity in an ever changing ecosystem: it is timeless. Our strategy is broken down into three objectives:

Audience (reach & attract)

WHY: our audiences are the lifeblood of our business model, central to our purpose. Our business is a function of audience and monetisation, so attracting audiences is essential to drive sustainable growth.

HOW:

Expert and trusted conten t is paramount to reach audiences. Especially with the rise of AI through generic summarisation and fake news, producing quality, expert and trustworthy content is of the utmost importance. This is also how we reinforce the quality of our brands, making them go-to for their area of expertise, making them influential across platforms including on large language models (LLMs).

Audience diversification: audiences are not static. How they consume and engage with our expert content evolves. As a result it is paramount to remain platform-agnostic and produce content in whichever form users would like to consume. This is about understanding the users, and providing them with a valuable proposition, which is why we continually look at ways to diversify our audience sources to ensure sustainability.

Monetisation (diversify & grow)

WHY: in a disruptive industry, diversification is a synonym for sustainability and relevance: the way we make money today is not the same as ten years ago and won’t be the same in ten years time. We must continue to create new revenue streams from new audiences and new revenue that does not require an audience.

HOW: by leveraging our innovative mindset, creating new products, targeting growing adjacencies and market opportunities such as artificial intelligence (AI).

Portfolio (optimise)

WHY: in an ever-changing environment, we ensure that the portfolio we operate is fit for purpose, poised for growth and/or cash generative. We are unemotional about the assets that we own and therefore focused on creating value for stakeholders.

HOW: our portfolio is regularly reviewed against criteria including growth profile, profitability, cash generation, and strategic opportunities. Assets that are no longer fit for purpose are closed. Additionally, and in line with our capital allocation, we aim to accelerate our strategic initiatives through acquisitions. We assess these against strict financial hurdles to ensure the strategic fit is matched with financial metrics.

OUR PROPRIETARY TECHNOLOGY IS A UNIQUE FEATURE OF THE GROUP:

01

Vanilla

Is our single modular web platform, it has a single content management system

02

Hawk

Is our eCommerce service that enables the monetisation of our content through product affiliates

03

Hybrid

Is our advertising system and is a server side open auction marketplace dealing with yield management

04

GoDemand

Is our eCommerce service that enables the monetisation of our content through product affiliates

05

Aperture

Is our customer audience data platform

06

SmartBrief

Is our email curation and delivery platform for email products, offering hyper audience cohort targeting and advertising capabilities

07

Kiosq

Is our new proprietary reusable paywall service for monetisating gated editorial content

08

Eagle

Is our proprietary voucher technology

We maximise value for all our stakeholders

01

Audience - Our audiences value our expert content.

02

Customers - Our value proposition satisfies our customers thanks to our rich first-party data, our scale and our expertise.

03

Employees - It's the people in the boat that matter and success feels good are part of our values.

04

Shareholders - Successful execution of the strategy drives strong earnings performance.

05

Communities - We are part of the communities and we are keen to make a difference.

Deutsche Bank Numis

Gareth Davies

Panmure Liberum

Johnathan Barrett

Consensus (updated 18 May 2026, 9 analysts)

Revenue

£709m with a range of £701m to £714m

EBITDA

£181m with a range of £178m to £185m

Adjusted diluted EPS

102p with a range of 99p to 109p

Over 175 brands with expertise, authority and trust

Our brands span a diverse range of verticals that deliver expert content our audiences love.

See our brands