Bruno Brookes-founded digital channels creator Immedia's (IME:AIM) latest trading update is music to the ears of investors and helps sustain recent positive share price momentum.
The Newbury-based 'music-to-retail' minnow, where the former Radio One DJ holds sway as CEO, is bid up 9% to 36.5p on news it is about to sign up a major new retail customer.
Floated on AIM by Brookes back in 2003 at 110p a share, the digital audio content solutions supplier is best known for supplying branded in-store music to retailers including Ikea, Superdrug and Arcadia-owned Topshop.
Today, Immedia announces its contract with Arcadia, the retail empire of under-fire billionaire Philip Green, is to expire in December. Yet this blow is cushioned and then some by news Immedia is at an advanced stage of product and service development with 'a major UK retailer', with the announcement of 'a substantive deal' expected in the near future.
In addition, the £4.9 million cap says it is seeing 'significantly higher than expected uptake of SUBWAY Radio by franchisees'. Earlier this year, Immedia inked a five-year deal to provide the 'submarine sandwich franchise' with country-specific versions of SUBWAY Radio, each channel delivered via its scalable 'Dreamstream' platform and featuring music, branding as well as 'on-air' marketing messages.
Encouragingly, Immedia expects this uptake to accelerate throughout 2016 as the service is rolled out across existing SUBWAY stores and taken up by new franchisees.
With a healthy pipeline of deals, Immedia is bouncing back following a tough 2015. Full-year results (21 Apr) for the calendar year revealed a taxable profits slump from £150,930 to a meagre £5,379 on sales off 8% to £2.37 million; Immedia had to replace business from major customer Lloyds Banking (LLOY) and write-down its stake in AIM-quoted social media platform Audioboom (BOOM:AIM).
Yet the year did see progress with debt reduction and diversification of the client base to audiences beyond retail, including 'workforce, fans and education, which led to a significant client win with BT's (BT:A) network business Openreach.'
