International Business Times Company Limited (05925636): administration
- Status
- Administration ended
- Administration began
- 2019-02-14
- Formerly
- Newsweek Media Group Limited; Ibtimes Company Limited
- Incorporated
- 2006-09-05
- Location
- London
- Industry
- 63910 News agency activities
Why it went into administration
- Property / lease costs
From the administrators' statement
The Company was incorporated on 5 September 2006. The Company changed its name from Newsweek Media Group Limited on 18 September 2018. The Company was established after the Company’s management reached an agreement with the US company, IBT Media Inc., to use the International Business Times brand as part of the Company’s UK news website. IBT Media Inc. operates an American online news publication that specialises in business and commerce, and is one of the world’s largest online news sources. iBT Media Inc. allowed the Company to operate in the UK under the International Business Times brand, and also allowed the Company to utilise iBT Media Inc.'s back-end content management systems until the Company developed systems of its own in 2015, The Company’s revenue was generated from advertising income from the IBT website, which it received by signing up to a Google advertising programme.
The Board have advised that the Company's strategy was to increase the amount of content it produced for its website, thus increasing traffic and therefore increasing the amount of advertising revenue generated. The Company’s website historically experienced circa 20m monthly views, which in turn generated revenue in the years 2016 and 2017 of circa £12m and £10m respectively. The Company historically generated website views via the Company’s partnership with Yahoo, who redirected a significant amount of web traffic to the Company’s website, and via click-throughs from Google searches. The Company generated circa £1.4m in the first eight months of its 2018 financial year. The Company attributes this significant downturn in revenue to:
(i) its partnership with Yahoo terminating upon Yahoo's acquisition by Verizon in 2017, resulting in a significant reduction in web traffic; and
Administrators' statement of proposals (2019-03-26) · Companies House register