The Arena Group reports third-quarter earnings

15 Nov 2024, 00:33 by TheStreet Staff · The Fresno Bee

Editor's note: TheStreet's parent company is The Arena Group ( (AREN) ), a media company with a portfolio of over 250 brands, including TheStreet, Parade, Men's Journal, and Athlon Sports. In the interest of our loyal audience here at TheStreet, we wanted to share our parent company's latest financial results so you can have transparency in our media business. Read excerpts from today's press release below.

PRESS RELEASE FROM BUSINESS WIRE

The Arena Group media brands including TheStreet, Athlon Sports, Parade, Men's Journal, Autoblog, and Surfer.The Arena GroupThe Arena Group

The Arena Group Generates $4.0 Million in Net Income for Third Quarter of 2024; First Ever Profitable Quarter

November 14, 2024

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Company reduces quarterly operating expenses by 51% vs. the same quarter prior year, drives positive swing in quarterly income from continuing operations, demonstrating transformation plan’s rapid effectiveness.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 14, 2024-- The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE American: AREN) (“Arena”), a technology platform and media company home to hundreds of media brands, including TheStreet, Parade Media (“Parade”), Men’s Journal, Surfer, Powder and Athlon Sports, today announced financial results for the three and nine months ending September 30, 2024 (“Q3 2024”). The Company’s business transformation plan enabled a positive swing of more than $13.6 million in quarterly income from continuing operations in the third quarter of 2024 compared to the net loss from continuing operations in the third quarter of 2023 (“Q3 2023”). This resulted in quarterly net income of $4.0 million and the first quarter of positive net income in the Company’s history.

Financial Highlights for Q3 2024:

Q3 2024 revenue from continuing operations was $33.6 million, compared to $37.0 million from continuing operations in Q3 2023.

Net income was $4.0 million, or $0.11 in diluted earnings per share for Q3 2024, compared to a net loss of $11.2 million, or $0.47 in diluted loss per share for Q3 2023.

Total operating expenses from continuing operations for Q3 2024 were $8.9 million, less than half the $18.4 million spent in Q3 2023 from continuing operations.

Adjusted EBITDA for Q3 2024 was $11.2 million compared to Adjusted EBITDA of $3.1 million for Q3 2023.

Arena closed a deal to license a copy of its proprietary content management system. This deal also included Arena acquiring multiple sites, including the top-tier automotive website, Autoblog.

Arena extended the maturity on its line of credit with Simplify Inventions, LLC and converted $15 million of debt to common equity.

“The financial results for Q3 2024 reflect the strength of the new, leaner, more efficient Arena Group,” said The Arena Group CEO Sara Silverstein. “We’re achieving meaningful revenue diversification, including a significant increase in e-commerce and other revenue, enabling a substantial improvement in profitability. We generated higher gross margins, returned to positive operating income, and delivered our first-ever quarter of positive net income.”

“Our business transformation plan has focused on a restructuring and investments in tech and editorial,” added Silverstein. “We’re building a modern media company that not only creates great content, but also delivers strong results for our partners and drives diversified revenue and sustainable profits. We generated more than $13.6 million higher income from continuing operations on $3.4 million in lower revenue as we shed unprofitable operations. We believe we now have a stable, profitable platform for growth.”

After cutting an expected $40 million in costs on an annual basis, while leaving its editorial and technology teams largely in place, Arena’s transformation has focused on growth, audience development, diversifying revenue and a strong balance sheet.

This includes advancements in tech that help its partners better reach and leverage the company’s 100 million monthly users, not only for advertising but also for e-commerce. Arena’s investment in obtaining first-party data – via its proprietary platform – provides industry-leading addressability and monetization.

Arena’s affiliate commerce business increased 287% during the six months Q2-Q3 2024 versus the same period last year with significant growth in real, organic traffic to commerce posts and deeper relationships with retail partners who see the value of the highly-transactional audiences. While expanding the company’s range of commerce coverage, it has also improved revenue per post 57% Q3 2024 vs Q2 2024 as the company has become a trusted partner to top-tier merchants.

Brand highlights:

Athlon Sports: Audience traffic continues to grow substantially, increasing to 231M page views in Q3 (up 65% vs Q2). The site now garners an average of 77M page views a month, making it one of the world's largest sports websites. Revenue was up 65% Q3 vs. Q2.

Parade: Digital traffic of Parade and Parade Pets also remains strong with more than 46M average monthly users and 62M average monthly page views. It has balanced, diversified revenue as its e-commerce business and social media audience continue to grow.

TheStreet: The financial brand continues to reach a large, dedicated, high-net-worth, finance-focused audience and excels at diversifying revenue streams through affiliate commerce which is up +396% this quarter vs Q2.