ProSiebenSat.1 “exceeds FY financial outlook”
January 22, 2021
ProSiebenSat.1 Group has achieved revenues of around €4.040 billion and an adjusted EBITDA of around €700 million for the full-year of 2020. These figures are preliminary and unaudited.
The German broadcasting group says its has “clearly exceeded its full-year financial outlook” last published in the context of the Q3 2020 results release, as well as market expectations. ProSiebenSat.1 had targeted Group revenues between €3.85 billion and €3.95 billion as well as an adjusted EBITDA between €600 million and €650 million in full-year 2020 after the Group’s business had been heavily influenced particularly in the second quarter by the Covid-19 related restrictions.
The better than expected business development is due to a strong performance in the fourth quarter to which all segments of ProSiebenSat.1 Group contributed. A key driver was the growth in the Group’s advertising business in the low-single-digit percentage range. This also reflects the Group’s continuous improvement in the advertising business over the course of the pandemic in 2020. Previously, the Group had expected a decrease in advertising revenues in the single-digit percentage range in the fourth quarter.
At the same time, net financial debt at the end of 2020 decreased to around €1.970 billion due to a good cash flow development. This also represents an improvement compared to the initial expectations. Furthermore, the Group has exercised its early redemption call for its €600 million notes, which were scheduled to be repaid in April 2021, and has prepaid the notes at nominal value on January 15th 2021.
Rainer Beaujean, Chairman of the Executive Board & CFO of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE, commented: “We are very satisfied with our development in the fourth quarter. We are pleased that we were thus able to bring a conciliatory ending to 2020, which was a difficult year for everyone due to Covid-19. This shows that our program investments have paid off: In a competitive environment we convinced with highly attractive entertainment and infotainment formats and thus also strengthened our position in the TV advertising market. Now, we are fully focusing on 2021: As already announced, we expect that the current lockdown measures in our core markets will affect particularly our advertising business in the first quarter compared to the previous year. However, we expect a significant improvement in the Entertainment segment year-on-year especially in the second quarter. As in 2020, as an early cycle company we anticipate a rapid recovery as soon as the restrictions are being eased or lifted.”
“Overall, we are focused on consistently pursuing our strategy in all segments and positioning ProSiebenSat.1 in an even more synergistic and cost-efficient way. We are concentrating on profitable growth on the one side as well as on the other side on achieving the mid-term improvement of our P7S1 return-on-capital-employed target to over 15 per cent.” he concluded.