Small cap round-up
Majestic Wine was said on Tuesday to be exploring a sale of its entire UK retail portfolio as it shifts its focus to the online business, Naked Wines.
According to Sky News, the company has appointed bankers at Rothschild to look for potential buyers for its retail and commercial operations. Sky cited City sources as saying that private equity firms have been contacted in the last fortnight to gauge their appetite for a potential acquisition.
Back in March, Majestic said it was rebranding under the name Naked Wines as part of a plan to focus on its online business and release capital from its retail and commercial arms.
The company said at the time that it was planning to accelerate new customer investment in Naked by an additional £6m a year to £26m in FY20, funded by asset sales and store closures.
It pointed out that since its acquisition of Naked in April 2015, the business has more than doubled in size, with sales expected to exceed £175m this year. It also highlighted the fact online sales now account for 45% of revenues, while the international segment accounts for 20%.
STV Group said on Tuesday that it expects to report a small rise in total advertising revenue for the first quarter as it continues to perform in line with expectations and the guidance given at its last trading update in February.
First-quarter advertising revenue across national, regional and digital is expected to be up 1% to 2%, an increase the group attributed to increasing resilience in the ad market. Within that, national advertising revenue is expected to be ahead of previous guidance, down 1% to 2%, while regional ad revenue is seen up 20% to 25% thanks to the ongoing success of the STV Growth Fund which has now partnered with more than 130 Scottish advertisers.
Digital revenues are expected to be 15% to 20% higher on the back of strong growth from STV Player and the company said its production business continues to perform in line with expectations, with revenues secured by the end of the first quarter equivalent to over 60% of the total achieved last year.
Chief executive officer Simon Pitts said: "We have made a strong start to 2019, with TV and online viewing levels continuing their positive momentum from 2018 and total advertising revenue also growing, demonstrating STV's increasing resilience in the advertising market even in an uncertain economic climate.
"Our STV Growth Fund goes from strength to strength, underpinning strong regional advertising sales and bringing new advertisers to television for the first time.
"We are immensely proud of our new Scottish drama series - The Victim - which aired on BBC1 earlier this month to huge critical and popular acclaim and represents just the sort of landmark programming we want to do more of in future."
STV also confirmed that Lindsay Dixon will take up her role as chief financial officer on 21 May, with George Wyatt stepping down on 30 April.