Trading Update July 7, 2020 RNS Number : 1850S Reach PLC 07 July 2020 7 July 2020 Reach plc announces transformaon to accelerate customer value strategy Reach plc, the UK's leading commercial naonal and regional news publisher, today provides a trading update and announces plans to transform the business to enable an accelerated delivery of its customer value strategy. Commenng on the announcement, Jim Mullen, Chief Execuve Officer, Reach plc, said: "Structural change in the media sector has accelerated during the pandemic and this has resulted in increased adopon of our digital products. However, due to reduced adversing demand, we have not seen commensurate increases in digital revenue. To meet these challenges and to accelerate our customer value strategy, we have completed plans to transform the business and are ready to begin the process of implementaon. Regreably, these plans involve a reducon in our workforce and we will ensure all impacted colleagues are treated with fairness and respect throughout the forthcoming consultaon process. The plans will provide a stable plaorm for us to accelerate our strategy, based on stronger and deeper customer relaonships, increasing our appeal to adversers. This will ensure the sustainability and profitability of the Reach business, enabling it to deliver to stakeholders over the long-term. Award-winning journalism and content will always be at the core of our purpose. Through the transformaon, Reach will realise the full potenal of its business model, enabling our news brands to connue to shape the daily conversaons of millions of people for years to come." Key points: · Q2 Group revenue declined by 27.5% impacted by reducons in circulaon and adversing compared with the prior year. Slightly improved trends in June saw Group revenue fall by 23.9% · Customer registraons have now passed the 2.5m mark for first me - exceeding our previous target for the end of 2020 · The Group's customer value strategy will be accelerated with the customer registraon target increased to 10m by 2022 (previously 7m) · The planned changes announced today will deliver £35 million in annualised savings at an esmated one-off cost of £20 million Q2 and year-to-date trading and liquidity update1 Reach connues to aract a leading audience share with over 41 million2 unique visitors during May and connues to grow its customer registraons - now over 2.5 million3. Q2 Group revenue to 28 June was down 27.5% compared with the corresponding period last year. Print revenue declined by 29.5% and digital revenue was down by 14.8%. Circulaon remains significantly below pre-COVID-19 levels with local adversing connuing to be challenging. Year to date Group revenue to 28 June was down 17.5%, benefing from the good start to the year before COVID-19 began impacng the business in mid-March. In June, we have connued to see modest but encouraging improvements in circulaon and naonal digital revenue as the Government's lockdown restricons have eased. Group revenue declined by 23.9% in June compared with 30.5% in April. In June Digital saw a decline of 4.9%, compared to the 22.5% fall seen in April when the impact of COVID-19 was at its worst. Print revenue in June was down 26.7% year on year compared with the 31.8% decline seen in April. Reach connues to maintain a strong balance sheet with access to sufficient liquidity. Transformaon of the Reach business and acceleraon of our customer value strategy In February, Reach unveiled its customer value strategy centred on building an intelligent, relevant and trusted content business for the long-term through capturing customer insight and data. The increased headwinds to circulaon and adversing mean the strategy is now even more relevant. The plans announced today will reshape the Reach business into a streamlined, efficient organisaon with more focussed editorial, adversing (soluons and local commercial) and central operaons. Editorial will move to a more centralised structure bringing together naonal and regional teams across print and digital to significantly increase efficiency and remove duplicaon while maintaining the strong editorial identy of our news brands. In local commercial as well as in finance, Reach will move to fewer locaons and a simpler management structure, with costs geared to current market condions. In total the company plans a reducon in headcount of around 550 people (or 12% of its workforce). Reach will shortly begin a 45-day consultaon regarding these plans. These changes will provide the business with a strong plaorm to accelerate the delivery of its customer value strategy and significantly increased customer registraon targets. Reach has already surpassed its full year 2020 target in achieving over 2.5 million customer registraons. It is now increasing its 2022 target to 10 million by 2022 up from the 7 million announced in February. Through stronger and deeper personalised customer relaonships the business will make its content more relevant and adversing more targeted, increasing the value of its audience. Alongside the reshaping and refocusing of the business, Reach will invest in creang an improved digital customer experience across all newsbrands and products, with support from an expanded data and insights team. A new self-serve digital plaorm will also be launched to appeal to SME digital adversers and there will be further investment in the InYourArea hyperlocal plaorm which has already surpassed 800,000 acve registered users. The transformaon will ensure the company's leading naonal and regional tles will connue to deliver quality news and content across print and digital channels for the long-term. Delivering for all stakeholder groups The accelerated strategy and new structure will enable Reach to end the previously announced temporary pay cuts for all colleagues except for the CEO, CFO and other Board members, whose pay will connue to be subject to a 20% reducon. All annual bonus schemes relang to 2020 remain suspended. The company will also resume its monthly contribuons towards historic pension deficits following the deferral announced in April. The Reach Board recognises the importance of a dividend to our shareholders and will keep future dividends under review, restarng payments when it is appropriate to do so. Interim results update Reach has previously confirmed its full interim results will be announced on Monday 28 September. Further detail on the plans announced today will be provided at that me. Notes 1 Revenue trends - Revenue on an actual and like for like basis are the same for 2020 2 Source: Comscore UK mul-plaorm May 2020, 3Source: Reach data Reach Jim Mullen, Chief Execuve Officer Simon Fuller, Chief Financial Officer [email protected] Ciaran O'Brien, Communicaons Director Tulchan 020 7353 4200 David Allchurch/Giles Kernick [email protected] LEI: 213800GNI5XF3XOATR61 Classification: 3.1 Additional regulated information required to be disclosed under the laws of a Member State Forward-looking statements You are not to construe the content of this announcement as investment, legal or tax advice and you should make your own evaluaon of the Company and the market. If you are in any doubt about the contents of this announcement or the acon you should take, you should consult a person authorised under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (as amended) (or if you are a person outside the UK, otherwise duly qualified in your jurisdicon). This announcement has been prepared in relaon to the trading update for the six months from 30 December 2019 to 28 June 2020. The financial informaon referenced in this announcement is not audited and does not contain sufficient detail to allow a full understanding of the results of the Group. Nothing in this announcement should be construed as either an offer or invitaon to sell or any offering of securies or any invitaon or inducement to any person to underwrite, subscribe for or otherwise acquire securies in any company within the Group or an invitaon or inducement to engage in investment acvity under secon 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (as amended). 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