The popularity of the Cannes Lions advertising festival and a surge in demand at environmental data business Groundsure drove a 27% increase in profits at parent company Top Right last year.

Top Right, formerly known as Emap, saw adjusted profits rise grow from £68.8m to £85.3m and organic revenues rise by 9% to £312m.

The company’s events division, its largest, increased its organic revenues by 14% to £141.5m thanks to the continued success of businesses including the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

The Information services operation, which includes fashion data business WGSN and Groundsure, improved its revenues by 6% to £92.8m.

The subscription content business, which includes the old Emap stable of magazines including Retail Week and Drapers, boosted revenues by 6% to £78.4m.

The company said that the traditional print-based Emap business now derives 59% of revenues from digital sources and events. And 66% of corporate subscribers to its titles are now digital-only.

Chief executive Duncan Painter said: “Our three-year turnaround plan is now complete. Our businesses have effective growth strategies in place and clear operating priorities.”

Painter has previously talked down sporadic rumours of the sell-off of all, or large parts, of the portfolio while management looked to boost profitability and cut its huge debt pile.

The company’s latest results are likely to reignite the talk of when a change in ownership might occur, as majority owner Apax is finally able to consider an exit from the business after almost a decade.

Painter has previously ruled out talk of a breakup until at least 2017, but the market for mergers and acquisitions activity has revitalised significantly in the last 18 months.

When the group was acquired by private equity group Apax and Guardian Media Group, the parent of the Guardian which holds a 32.9% stake in Top Right, the business was laboured with more than £700m in debt.

The business’s net debt to profits ratio – a key metric that can indicate how attractive the business is to potential buyers – was geared at a dangerously high 7:1.

At the end of last year that ration had been cut to five times, and by the end of this year management believes that net debt (held by Top Right’s parent company standing at about £410m) will be about 4.5 times the level of profits.

In recent years Top Right has sold off parts of its portfolio, including automotive information business CAP for more than £150m and the subsidiary that publishes Broadcast and Screen International magazines for £10m to private equity firm Mobeus.

It has also tested the market appetite for key assets such as the Cannes Lions festival.

Headcount grew by 8.6% from 1,674 to 1,816 mostly due to the £70m acquisition of even business Money2020.

Employee numbers were flat in the UK but grew over 170% in the US and Canada and 20% across the rest of thew world.

Top Right said that this year it will derive more than 50% of revenues from outside the UK for the first time.