Time Out expects to beat analyst forecasts after ‘disciplined’ cost control
Food hall business Time Out has said it has seen higher sales in 2024 and has focused on “strong cost control”, leading it to raise its earnings forecast.
The AIM-listed company, which also has a media arm, now expects earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for its full year 2024 to be ahead of market expectations.
The consensus for full-year EBITDA is currently £6.7m before accounting for lease obligations and £11.7m after lease obligations.
Shares jumped nearly four per cent when the market opened on Thursday.
Time Out did not provide exact sales figures, only saying that “the strength of the sales performance has been accompanied by disciplined management of costs.”
As a result of the news, Liberum analysts have raised their EBITDA forecasts by 8.1 per cent to £12.7m for full year 2024 and 1.3 per cent to £17.7m in full year 2025, saying “momentum is building, reiterate BUY.”
Time Out is also growing its social media presence. Its global monthly brand audience increased by five per cent to 142m in the year to June 2024, driven by a focus on social media video content. Its combined audience on Tiktok and Instagram has doubled year on year.
Chris Ohlund, chief executive of Time Out, said: “Our growth plan and strategic decisions are delivering results; our strong brand and curated ‘best of the city’ content continues to attract more traffic to our digital Media and more footfall to our Markets, alongside our pipeline of openings.
“We will continue to focus on expanding our content depth and breadth, whilst growing our bespoke creative campaign solutions for advertisers, who will be able to address both our digital audience and our “in-real-life” audience in Time Out Markets,” Ohlund added.
Time Out plans to update the market with audited results in autumn this year. The stock has fallen 4.7 per cent year to date but is up 9.7 per cent over the past year.
In May, Time Out opened a food and drink market in Porto, taking its total number of open portfolios to eight locations. The company has a further eight sites opening over the next three years, including in Barcelona, Bahrain and Budapest.
The British business currently has no London market, after a six-year dispute over planning permission costing £1m led the firm to pull out of a potential spot in the Spitalfield market.