2010 News Releases

30 July

Interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2010

Solid first half performance; on track for full year

Financial Highlights

• Solid first half performance - adjusted operating profit up 6.3% on revenues unchanged year on year
• EBITDA up 7.3% to £91.1m (H1 2009 - £84.9m)
• Balance sheet remains strong - debt / LTM EBITDA 1.6 times (H1 2009 - 1.3 times); cash & undrawn facilities of £395.0m (H1 2009 - £267.6m)
• Strong operating cash flow generation in H1 - £76.9m (H1 2009 - £74.5m)
• 12 businesses acquired for £43.5m (H1 2009 - 0 acquisitions) - £28.2m invested in tradeshows, £27.2m in emerging markets
• Interim dividend maintained at 6.0p

Operational Highlights

Robust performance in Events: 48.9% of H1 adjusted operating profits (H1 2009 - 48.3%)

• Revenues up 1.5%, adjusted operating profit up 7.7%, margins up 1.6 points to 29.2%
• Robust Events performance in positive biennial half: strong in Asia; stable in Europe; late cycle effects on stand revenues in US and UK
• H1 attendee revenues up 6.0%, reflecting recovery at US technology shows
• Forward bookings for exhibition stand space at Top 20 events running in next 12 months up 12%

Overall, solid performance in Data, Services & Online: 23.8% of H1 adjusted operating profits (H1 2009 - 20.4%)

• Revenues up 2.3%, adjusted operating profit up 23.8%, margins up 2.7 points to 15.3%
• Data & Services revenues down by 1.2% to £98.6m (H1 2009 - £99.8m), reflecting late cycle effects on subscriptions and softer service revenues
• Online revenues up 15.3% to £30.9m (H1 2009 - £26.8m) driven by strong online advertising growth

Ongoing Print - magazine portfolio management: 4.4% of H1 adjusted operating profits (H1 2009 – 4.2%)

• Revenues down 13.9%, adjusted operating profit up 12.1%, margins up 1.2 points to 5.0%
• Continued action to address impact of shift from print - four titles closed in H1 (H1 2009 - 15 titles)

Resilient Targeting, Distribution & Monitoring performance: 28.1% of H1 adjusted operating profits (H1 2009 - 29.4%)

• Revenues up 7.4%, adjusted operating profit up 1.7%, margins down 1.4 points to 25.7%
• News distribution revenues up 2.7%, US volumes up 5.1%; good China revenue growth 14.6%
• Targeting, Monitoring and multimedia product revenues up 15.9% to £35.0m
• Margins constrained by continued investment in product development and IT infrastructure

Outlook

• Overall, UBM is on track to meet our expectations for the full year.²

David Levin, Chief Executive Officer of UBM said:

“UBM has delivered a solid performance in the first half of the year, achieving a 6% improvement in operating profit on revenues unchanged on last year’s first half. The progressive reshaping of UBM over the last five years has built a resilient business which is on track to meet our expectations for 2010 and is increasingly well placed for profitable growth. While we see evidence of improved trading conditions in many of the markets and geographies in which we operate, we remain cautious regarding the pace, depth and sustainability of the wider macro-economic recovery.”

“We have continued to invest in our people and in key organic business developments, such as taking our successful event brands into new, fast-growing economies and transitioning our leading print and data products into the digital environment. We are also developing the products and IT infrastructure to enable our Targeting, Distribution & Monitoring business to offer a broader set of web-based communications service solutions. We also drive UBM’s evolution with targeted acquisitions, focusing on events and data businesses operating in high growth sectors and economies. During the first half we made 12 acquisitions for a total of £43.5m (including performance-based contingent consideration of £20.2m), investing £28.2m in tradeshows and £27.2m in emerging markets. China now contributes more than 16% of our profit (H1 2009 - 14.2%) and we have today announced the acquisition of the Hangzhou-based Children-Baby- Maternity Expo for £9.9m (see separate announcement), further leveraging our business infrastructure in China. We aim to make further acquisitions in line with our established strategy through the second half of the year.”

“Our Events business is performing well, particularly our shows in Asia and our large tradeshows worldwide. Attendee revenues, notably at our US technology tradeshows, recovered well during the first half of the year and the outlook for tradeshows is improving. Forward bookings for exhibition stand space at our top 20 tradeshows scheduled to run in the next 12 months are 17% ahead of the same point last year although this figure is 12% when adjusted for differences in booking cycle phasing between 2009 and 2010. We believe this latter figure is a more accurate reflection of our forward bookings.”

“The positive overall revenue and profit result from our Data, Services and Online segment masks contrasting performances in the business’s Online and Data & Services components. Strong website advertising sales drove Online revenues 15.3% higher while, by contrast, Data & Services revenues fell by 1.2%, reflecting late cycle effects on subscriptions and softer demand for some services.”

“In the first half we launched one new print title and closed four others. In line with our established strategy, we continue to take advantage of opportunities for print products in fast-growing economies and sectors, while also managing our print magazine portfolio towards a smaller, more profitable and commercially sustainable set of leading titles. We anticipate that each of our titles will become a component of an integrated, cross-media product portfolio which serves a specific commercial or professional community.”

“Targeting, Distribution & Monitoring’s US news distribution volumes and revenues grew modestly during the first half while international revenues and revenues generated from non-wire products and services such as filing services and MultiVu grew strongly. The on-going investment in IT infrastructure and in developing a wider set of web-based communications products and services will continue to constrain margins.”

“Assuming the improvement in wider economic conditions is sustained, we anticipate our solid first half performance will continue, allowing UBM to deliver full year results in line with our expectations.” ²

David Levin
Chief Executive Officer, UBM
30 July 2010

Note 1: We provide a number of adjusted financial measures to facilitate performance comparisons across periods. Definitions of these measures are provided in Section 1.
Note 2: A more detailed Outlook statement for each of UBM’s business segments is given in the Business review, section 2.3.

Contacts

A live webcast of the results presentation will be made available from UBM’s website from around 9.00am, 30 July 2010. To access the webcast please go to www.ubm.com.

A recording of the webcast will also be available on demand from UBM’s website, www.ubm.com.

Notes to Editors

About UBM
UBM is a leading global provider of events; data, marketing and information products; print products; and targeting, distribution and monitoring services to specialist business communities. Our 5,900 staff in more than 30 countries are organised into specialist teams that serve these communities, helping them and their markets to work effectively and efficiently.

For more information, go to www.ubm.com

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