FT record profit amid ‘B2B push’
For 2025, the Financial Times Group celebrated the 10th anniversary of its acquisition by Nikkei with revenue up by 5% to £566mn (35% in the UK), operating up 23% to £51.8mn and estimated EBITDA of £74mn (13%). Ad revenue (52% digital) was up 5% to £15mn, its best year since 2012.Most of the FT’s diversified businesses achieved standout growth. Revenue at events business FT Live was up to 61%, following the £77mn acquisition in 2025 of the former Euromoney fixed income conference business Invisso. Operating profit was £20mn (33%).
The c£80mn- revenue FT Specialist (including The Banker and Endpoints News) grew revenue by 19%. But media consultancy FT Strategies revenue of £12mn was 20% down. The FT Group now claims some 3.5mn people are paying for its content and events globally, a disclosure related to the current reorganization under which it is increasingly targeting corporate “enterprise” subscriber-advertiser-sponsor-user relationships with companies, in contrast with a legacy built round individual subscriptions and ancillary relationships for magazines, events and digital services. Apart from creating a ‘single view’ of corporate readers-users-delegates, the FT group is becoming more obviously a B2B organization. It seems logical that this strategy would ultimately also grow the company’s business in education, training and consultancy, as well as events and transactional data.
This week’s departure of FT Specialist’s European managing director Carola York may be part of a strategy to split the £40mn-revenue (mostly subs-funded) UK-based unit between reader revenue and advertisers-sponsors, rather than operating as a semi-autonomous publishing company. The FT itself has 1.9mn paying readers across all formats (more than 80% digital). CEO Jon Slade reportedly said that the FT website has “700k+ habitual users”. The FT’s Nikkei Inc parent recorded the equivalent of £1.9mn revenue and £99mn pre-tax profit for 2025. Background.
Trade show boom
The world’s 20 biggest trade show organizers generated revenue of $11.7bn in 2025 – up 14% – according to Grant Thornton Stax’sTop 20 ranking. Much of the growth was accounted for by the market leader Informa whose exhibitions revenue increased by 30% to $2.7bn, strongly driven by the acquisition of Ascential (Cannes Lions and Money 20/20). Excluding Informa (which has a 32% share of the top 20 revenue), the rest grew by less than 7%. GL Events made the biggest jump, from 15th to 11th, on a 40% rise in revenue, and Infopro Digital entered the ranking at 19th in place of IFEMA (Spain)The annual ranking, inevitably, partly reflects the timing of large non-annual shows. Messe München climbed to fifth on 28% growth, helped by the every-three-years Bauma. Six of the Top 20 organizers are now owned by private equity: Clarion (Blackstone), Hyve (Hellman & Freedman), Forge/ Emerald (Apollo), CloserStill (Providence/ Searchlight), Infopro Digital (TowerBrook) and Easyfairs (Inflexion). They collectively grew revenue by 11.4% last year. Traditional European institutional organizers (including German Messen, operators of municipal venues) saw flat aggregate growth compared with pre-pandemic 2019. (Grant Thornton Stax) Background.
- The pe-owned, Anglo-American B2B Arc Media increased revenue in 2025 by 15% to $108mn but this was wholly due to the $15.2mn of revenue from Touchpoint Markets which had been acquired in June 2025 for $14.4mn. Similarly, the increase to Arc’s $26.2 EBITDA was effectively also provided by Touchpoint’s $2.4mn during the year. Events accounted for 62% of total revenue (68% in 2024), digital for 28% (21%) and print 10% (12%). In 2025, the US became Arc’s largest market for the first time, accounting for $50% of revenue (45%) while the UK was 45% (49%). Background
- Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, USA Today Co, and The Seattle Times are among more than 300 news publisher members of the News/Media Alliance urging the US Congress to crack down on “bad bots” that scrape their content for AI training without permission. (Digiday)
- Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch is leaving to become CEO of US toymaker Mattel. Former Forbes chief executive Mike Perlis, Condé Nast’s lead independent board member, will become interim CEO.
- The Pope has reiterated his commitment and support for freedom of the press. Asked about US President Donald Trump’s attempt to exclude three US news outlets from the White House, Pope Leo told journalists: “I’m very happy that here, you are all welcome. With coverage, I think it’s very important that we have it all the way around for everyone.” (New York Times)
