Hello. Good afternoon from London. I'm joined by Peter Rademaker, our CFO, who's in Amsterdam, and Scott Spirit, who's our Chief Growth Officer, and he's in Singapore. This is the second presentation we're doing today on our half one results at S4. We've had to shorten it because our Capital Markets Day starts at 2:00 P.M. London time. Scott will be leaving us at about 20 to 2:00 London time to prepare for that, but Peter and I will be here. We've got an abbreviated presentation. We made an hour and a half, hour and three-quarter presentation this morning in London, which is on our website. We've abbreviated this afternoon's presentation to results, which Peter will cover, clients and mergers, which Scott will cover, and I'll come back with a summary and outlook and Q&A. Over to you, Peter, to take us through the results.
Thank you, Sir Martin. Good morning, good afternoon from Amsterdam, indeed, as Sir Martin just indicated. I flip to the page four. It's called financial performance. I'll try to guide you through, but, before I start, we would like to summarize our first half year as industry-leading progress despite COVID, and we're well on track to deliver our full-year expectation. Having said that, want to run through the bullets. The billings, which is our revenue, including pass-through, especially media-related, GBP 260.4 million. On a pro forma basis, it was GBP 264.9 million. Our revenue, GBP 141.3, 61% up from GBP 88 last year. In a like-for-like basis, revenue up 7%, and on a pro forma basis, 8%. Gross profit, our most important measure, GBP 124 million, 77% up from last year's GBP 70 million and a little bit, and a like-for-like of 12% and a pro forma growth of 13%.
Immediately you see here, not so much to justify that gross profit is a better measure, you can see that revenue grew, gross profit grew faster, that's the result, especially in the second quarter, where some projects were delayed or shifted over to digital. What I mean with these projects, those are more the event-driven projects. Some TV commercials we produced, that basically stopped, that was moved over into more digital work, as a result, our gross profit grew faster than our revenue. Our operational EBITDA was GBP 18 million, which is 87% up. Like for like, it was down 6%, on a pro forma basis, it was down 5%. Main reason for that is, as you may have read in the press release, we maintained our fabric.
Of course, we were able to, especially non-business critical cost savings, but from a headcount point of view, we maintained our fabric, as we call it. Our operational EBITDA was 14.5%, 0.8 margin points up on 2019, and on a pro forma basis, it was [ 14.6%] . Our operating profit was two and a half million, which includes adjusting items of GBP 13.8 million, These adjusting items relate to acquisition expenses, amortization, and share-based compensation. That was versus an operating loss of GBP 6.2 million last year in 2019 and a pro forma operating profit of GBP 3 million. The result before income tax was GBP 0.1 million, again, including the adjusting items, versus a loss of last year of GBP 8.5 million in 2019.
The result for the period, which is the net result after tax, that of course, again, includes the adjusting items after tax, was GBP 0.1 million versus a loss of GBP 8.5 million in 2019 and a pro forma result before income tax of GBP 0.7 million. The adjusted basic net result per share was GBP 2.3p. Last year was GBP 0.9p. In other words, 155% up. Our basic net result per share was a GBP 0.1p loss versus a GBP 2.5p loss last year, and on a pro forma net result was a rounded GBP 0.0p. Mid-year cash was GBP 7.2 million, including our term loan, coming from 2018 when we did the MediaMonks transaction and including our drawdowns that we did early this year at EUR 35 million, approximately GBP 32 million.
From a cash point of view, and I'll come back to that later, we have been operating in a net cash position basically since the start of this year except for a week or two, three, but the main period of overall, we have been operating at a net cash position. A very good start in Q3. In July, our gross profit is up 18%, come back to that later, which also means that we're going to deliver, or we're well on track to deliver our full-year expectation in double-digit growth with a strong or reasonable EBITDA margin. If I go to the next slide, you can see our gross profit performance on a like-for-like basis.
When we do our budgets, which we typically do in October, November, and also in doubling in size organically, that means a compound growth of approximately 26%. That's the sort of range where we budget and plan against. That's what we saw in January, where we had a 33% growth. February, where we were already immediately confronted with a COVID impact in Asia Pacific, dropped to 21%, March at 6%, April, which we consider to be the trough at 3%, May 5%, June 11%, July, as I just mentioned, 18% growth. In the range as we were in February. If you look at it on a quarter-by-quarter basis, 19% up gross profit like-for-like in Q1, 7% in Q2, over the full half year, a 12% growth. Moving to the next slide, our unaudited condensed consolidated income statement.
A couple of the numbers I already referred to, we'll pick a few. This is the reported numbers, the first two columns from the left-hand side, then the like-for-like numbers from last year, and the last two columns on the right-hand side are the pro forma numbers on a full financial year basis, or at least up until including June. An operating profit of GBP 6.2 million to a... Sorry, that's wrong. An adjusted operating result of 86% up compared to last year. A positive PBT, as I just mentioned, of GBP 0.1 million. If you look at our income tax expenses, although in absolute terms limited, but higher in comparison to our PBT because of some of the non-deductible costs in acquisition related expenses as such. Still a GBP 600,000 income tax charge, which ultimately delivered on a statutory number of GBP 0.5 million after tax.
In the next slide, what we always try to do, especially in relation to the adjusting items, so I repeat the share-based compensation, the amortization, and the acquisition related expenses, we normalize that. Our operating profit in statutory numbers was GBP 2.5 million, then that GBP 13.8 million added to it, and we try to approach an EBITDA, let's say in the old world of EBITDA, or before IFRS 16, the right of use assets. If we take that all out, our EBITDA, again in the old definition, is GBP 18 million after central costs and our central costs were approximately GBP 2.5 million, delivering a GBP 20.5 million EBITDA for this year. The other items are just for your information purposes, some reconciliation to the operating profit and the PBT.
If you look at the next slide in relation to our earnings per share. We had a loss of GBP 4.5 million, but again, if you would take out the adjusting items and take out the tax charge on these adjusting items, our net profit was almost GBP 11 million, to be precise, GBP 10.9 million. With our weighted average outstanding number of shares of 465 million, that means that we were able to deliver a GBP 2.3p per share as a adjusted basic result compared to last year of GBP 0.9p. In other words, like I said, a 155% increase compared to last year. Going to the consolidated balance sheet, a couple of highlights in here. As you can see, our total asset value is now GBP 857 million, approximately 70% is in relation to our merger activities, our intangibles, that we capitalize on our balance sheet.
A big part we are amortizing on an annual basis, and for the rest, we have to take our fair value adjustments if needed. Not necessary, so we keep on amortizing these. What you also can see, and that has been much focus ever since It's always much focus, but especially there was more focus during the COVID period on our receivables. Although we increased significantly, you see our receivable position decline as a result of much focus on getting receivables in. Basically, in general terms speaking, we have had some conversations with our clients on maybe some delays of payments which we requested, but we were able to decrease our outstanding position of receivable, or in other words, have a good working capital management.
Our net cash, what I just said, GBP 7.2 million, including or after deducting the term loan and the revolving facility. In the first half, next to the fact that we concluded the transaction with Circus, we have also settled most of our deferred considerations, in relation to prior years' merger activity. If you would look at the next slide, I already sort of teed it up with the balance sheet. We consider this as a strong cash flow for the first half, because if you look at our cash flow from operating activities, which were approximately GBP 37.5 million, that's in relation to the GBP 18 million EBITDA we produced.
In other words, high cash conversion as well as, again, like I mentioned, our working capital management, our big focus on that has helped out as well, delivering a GBP 37.5 million cash flow from operations. Like I just mentioned, with the merger activities and finalizing or settling the last bits and pieces in deferred consideration, you will see in our cash flow from investing activities that we had approximately GBP 45 million cash outflow. We settled deferred considerations on our activities in shares and in cash because we typically do our mergers on a 50% cash and a 50% share basis. This accounts for, of course, in the cash flow statement only for the cash settlements in total, including, like I said, the Circus acquisition. We drew down in early March our revolvers.
In the meantime, they have been paid back, and of course, this whole cash flow does not include our share placing, which we did in July, which currently brings us even at a stronger cash balance sheet positions. Moving over to the next slide, our pro forma gross profit and operational EBITDA by practice. Our content practice grew with 77%. It was 77% of total, again, 75% in 2019. Our Data & Digital Media practice gross profit was 23% of total, against 25% in 2019. A bigger increase in content, also as a result of merger activities. Content practice operational EBITDA before central cost was GBP 16 million, which is a 16.5% as a percentage of gross profit. Our Data & Digital Media operational EBITDA was GBP five million in the first half, delivering a 16.9% percentage of gross profit.
My final sheet is the pro forma gross profit by geography. Americas, still the biggest part in gross profit delivery, it's also revenue for 72% of total, GBP 92 million rounded , that's up 14% compared to last year. EMEA, 19% of total, GBP 24 million, + 7% compared to last year. Our Asia Pacific activity is at 9%, a GBP 11 million contribution, which was up 18%. This summarizes briefly our half year 2020 performance. Over to you, Scott.
Great. Thanks, Peter. I'm taking over on slide 14 now. H1 was a strong time for us from a new business perspective. We drove a lot of growth, and that helped us with our figures and our resilience during the first half of the year. Now, we've discussed our land and expand strategy in detail before. H1 saw us land new engagements with new clients such as Twitch, Bumble, PayPal, Shopify, Verizon, Dole, the LA28 Olympics, and some clients under NDA, including a global automotive company in Asia, a global FMCG, and a global consumer electronics company. At the same time, we saw significant expansion in clients like Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, HP, Amazon, Netflix, Uber, P&G, Mondelez, Sprint, and others. Head on to the next slide. Far this year, 54% of our revenues come from the technology sector.
With a deep exposure to that sector and clients like these, obviously, we have a great opportunity to grow with them, given their top-line growth. Clearly, our ambition is not to stand still, but to grow our share within them, too. This exposure to tech is something we want to maintain. We're constantly expanding our tech client portfolio. It's a natural fit and a natural understanding because we, like them, are digital natives. There's significant opportunities for us in other client sectors, who want to tap into our expertise and leverage our skill set for their own transformations. Now, we define Whoppers as clients delivering over $ 20 million of net revenue annually. We currently have two. Our 20 Squared target is a plan to have 20 clients at this level in the medium term.
There are several clients already in our portfolio on the organic track to become Whoppers in the next year or two. Plus, we're involved in several pitch opportunities with major potential Whoppers too, more of which we hope to hear very soon. The next slide is the section on M&A. We started the year in January with the merger of Circus in Latin America. When COVID started to have an effect in Q1, we decided to balance protecting our balance sheet and liquidity with a desire to continue expanding our capabilities and our geographical coverage. We did make some transactions during the COVID period. Our roadmap has primarily focused on building out our data practice. We added Digodat in Latin America and Lens10 here in Asia Pacific, which now give us global coverage on Google and Adobe Analytics.
More recently, after the H1, we've continued with Orca Pacific, the full-service Amazon agency, and Brightblue, the predictive modeling and measurement specialists. Obviously, with our July raise of GBP 112 million, we continue to be active and have a strong pipeline, particularly around data and analytics, specific geographies, and e-commerce and digital transformation. With that, I will hand you back to Martin.
You're on mute, Martin.
You're on mute.
Sorry. Thanks, Scott. Thanks for doing it speedily, given our Capital Markets Day in a few minutes. I just want to summarize and give you the outlook. I'm grateful to say that all our people, or most of our people have been safe, and most of them are working from home. There's a regional variation, obviously, in Asia Pacific. Number of people in the office is higher than Western Europe, which in turn is higher than the U.S., but the main point is that we really haven't suffered directly. Sadly, a number of our people have lost older parents, older relations, and we all wish them long life. Beyond that, our people have adapted extremely effectively and well to COVID-19. The second thing is, we continue to lead the industry in terms of growth, top line growth, both revenue and gross profit, and indeed in margin.
We've got a strong balance sheet with significant liquidity. We stress tested it, and good, I'm glad to report that we've hit or outpaced even the most optimistic assumptions that we made or scenarios that we made at the end of March or beginning of April. We took early cost action, as Peter indicated, particularly in the freelance area and travel, and non-essential costs. We retain flexibility in costs too. We've got a very favorable client portfolio, 54% of it technology. If you add in healthcare and telcos, we're up to almost 60% in those V-shaped verticals. We have a very healthy new business record, and indeed pipeline, as you will see very shortly. The trends have certainly been accelerated by COVID-19 towards digital transformation and disruption.
We're seeing a larger and larger number of change agents, what we call change agents inside companies who are not brooking any resistance under the direction of CEOs and CMOs and CIOs and CTOs, are not brooking any institutional resistance to change. COVID-19 has clearly accelerated the adoption of our Holy Trinity model and indeed our integration. We've dropped leases. In some cities, we're homeless, actually. When things return to the next normal or new normal, whatever you have it, whichever way you have it, we'll be integrating even faster. We're ready for the recovery, whichever shape, although we do think it's reverse square root shape with some verticals, that sort of general economy, with some verticals V shaped, U shaped, and L shaped. Conversion at scale is a priority. 2018 was a half year for us.
We're celebrating or will celebrate on September the 13th, our second anniversary on the London Stock Exchange. Really 2018 was about awareness, generating awareness. 2019 was about trial, 2020 is about conversion at scale, as we said before. Already the jungle drums are beating about a significant conversion at scale, which will be announced tomorrow. We've set a priority of 20 Squared for clients. I've unashamedly taken that from Globant, a company I respect and admire highly. The Squared objective is we want 20 Whoppers. That is companies that generate $20 million of revenue plus for us. That's about 5% of our revenue base. Our objective is to get to 20. Well, we have two, Google and one other, which is NDA'd, which is a major tech company. We will have another tomorrow in another category.
We believe we will have another by the end of the year, and probably another one organically. We think by the end of the year, we'll be at five Whoppers. I just point out that if we were to secure 20 at 20, that's equivalent to our revenue base currently at [GBP 400 million]. That's the presentation. We've got about 35 minutes before we're due to depart for the-- Scott has to go slightly earlier. He's got 15 minutes before we go for the Capital Market stage. Your forbearance on that. Over to you, operator, for questions, please.
Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. If you wish to cancel your request, please signal by pressing star two. Please make sure the mute function on your phone is switched off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, it is star one to ask a question. The first question comes from the line of Michael Levine from Pivotal Research Group. Please go ahead.
Congrats on results, guys. Terrific results and great color. Minor point, but was curious just about where you've basically seen the recovery, and I think you've done a good job talking about industries that are going to look more V, look more U, look more L. As you're looking in July and you're looking into the back half of the year, are there any that you think are going to end up being surprising or have been surprising thus far that have performed better than your expectations and maybe some that have performed worse than your expectations?
Well, I'll lead off. Scott, you've got some thoughts on this. I think retail has surprised. I was on a call, I think it was on the Google call actually, where I think some of the Google executives expressed some surprise that retail had been so strong. I think retail, particularly the traditional retailers or the physical retailers, how they had adapted quickly. Whether it's Home Depot or Lowe's or Walmart or Target, they do seem to. I think that would be probably in the surprising category. We don't have a heavy retail presence. We're sort of fleshing that out with WBA and Ace Hardware and others. I think that's one area where I think there has been surprises on the upside. On the ones that we're not so surprised at, we're not surprised about tech or healthcare or financial services.
I think financial services probably will be a little bit stronger. We've had discussions with the CMOs of a couple of financial services organizations recently, and there's a lot of traction there. I think, Michael, the real point here is that for all companies in all categories, COVID-19 really has resulted in all bets being off. The status quo has been disrupted, and what we're seeing is these change agents inside companies, hitherto they've been resisted, they're no longer resisted. Scott, do you want to add anything on categories that you've been surprised at?
No, I think you've covered it from a client category perspective. I think from a practice area, we've seen, obviously you can see from the results, very strong growth, in the Content side. On the Data & Digital Media side, actually, Data's been incredibly strong as well. Media was probably the most affected sort of discipline, if you like, during the COVID period, but it is starting to come back now, and we saw a decent July there. We're having a lot more conversations that have kind of come back up around, particularly in-housing and transparency and some of the other issues that MightyHive really focus on. Yeah, things are looking good.
Okay, Michael, anything else then?
Terrific. Congratulations.
Thank you.
No, but it's great. Congratulations and looking forward to hearing the Capital Markets Day.
Thank you very much. Look forward to seeing you there. Operator, next question.
There are currently no further questions in the queue. As a reminder, it is star one to ask a question. There are no further questions in the queue, sir. Over to you.
Okay. Thanks everybody for joining the call. We look forward to seeing you at the Capital Markets Day, which will start in about 30 minutes. We look forward to further announcements on one or two things later this week. Tomorrow, I think we've got a couple of things coming up, which we'll brief you on during the course of the Capital Markets Day. Thank you very much for joining us. Look forward to talking to you when we discuss our Q3 results. Thank you very much.