Nevertheless, the publisher’s extraordinary resurgence leaves it in sight of a place in the FTSE 100 only seven years after it underwent drastic restructuring and its survival was in question.

Ms Byng-Thorne suggested Future could move into the news business after pre-tax profits more than doubled to £108m. 

Turnover increased by 79pc to £607m for the year to September after digital advertising and e-commerce sales expanded by 27pc and 37pc respectively.

Ms Byng-Thorne has diversified Future this year, acquiring the price comparison site Go Compare for £594m. She also pushed into digital subscriptions by spending more than £300m on The Week owner Dennis Publishing.

“What we have highlighted on the advertising side of our business is the quality of our audience,” she added.

“Because we have people who are in the market with intent, we find that advertisers are much more happy to advertise alongside our brands.”

“The investments we have made … mean we have got really good quality first party data. That allows us then to segment the audience down to the people advertisers most want to meet and that is what has been driving the yield expansion in the advertising portfolio.”

However, Future was forced to book a £4.4m charge after writing down the value of the price comparison website Look After My Bills following a string of energy company collapses.

Bulb, the UK’s seventh-largest supplier, was among 20 energy firms to go bust due to soaring wholesale costs.

“The very unusual situation in the UK around the energy market means we would be doing a disservice to our customers if we switched them to anything right now,” Ms Byng-Thorne added. 

“So we have switched off Look After My Bills for the time being and switched off price comparison for energy on Go Compare.”

Jessica Pok, a Peel Hunt analyst, said it was increasing its estimates for next year’s operating profits by 12pc as it expects “strong momentum in its business and good management on driving margins”.