Moneysupermarket suffers

Moneysupermarket.com to pay £25m in extra dividends to show its confidence after income fell from £99.4, to £68.5m and profits fell from £12.7m to £1.4m.

The company claimed insurance trading now had a higher revenue per transaction.

Peter Plumb, chief executive said: “Moneysupermarket.com has made a solid start to the year. Trading levels have stabilised over the past six months and we remain a profitable and highly cash-generative business. Over the period we have delivered what we set out when we announced our last set of results in February 2009.

Difficult economic environment

“We have realigned the organisation to reflect the more difficult economic environment, we have strengthened the management team; and we have started work on re-engineering our systems and ensuring our marketing spend works harder.

“Most importantly our marketing spend is working harder. Our 'Savings on household bills campaign' fronted by Peter Jones is connecting well with customers, as a result, our brand has continued to grow even stronger despite a significantly lower ad spend vs last year.

“We have also worked hard with our providers to bring an even larger range of brands and services to our site for our customers, for example in motor and home insurance our product range increased by over 60% vs last year.

Insurance started well

“Although we are still early in the third quarter and visibility is limited, the Group has made a good start with revenues more than 10% ahead of the first half run rate. Insurance in particular has started well and is trading ahead of the same period last year.

“The moneysupermarket.com brand remains strong. As the leading price comparison website our broad product offer is clearly as relevant as ever to our customers. We are confident that the work we are doing across the business will ensure that moneysupermarket.com is well positioned to capitalise on its strengths when growth returns to our markets.”