Home
Munich, 14.11.2011. CTS EVENTIM AG, listed on the SDAX exchange (ISIN DE0005470306), achieved further growth on the European ticketing market over the first nine months of the 2011 financial year. The highly profitable Internet business, especially, continues to grow at a double-digit rate. The period under review was characterised by ongoing integration of companies acquired in 2010. The Live Entertainment segment, in contrast, was unable to beat the record set the previous year, also due to the scheduled reduction in revenue associated with deconsolidation of the FKP Scorpio Group since 1 July 2010, and recorded a decline in both revenue and earnings.
In the first nine months of 2011, according to preliminary figures the CTS Group generated EUR 345.9 million in Group revenue (Q1-3/2010: EUR 372.4 million, down 7.1%), a normalised EBITDA of EUR 63.3 million (Q1-3/2010: EUR 60.0 million, up 5.5%) and a normalised EBIT before amortisation from purchase price allocation (Ticketcorner Group and See Tickets Germany / Ticket Online Group) of EUR 54.5 million (Q1-3/2010: EUR 53.0 million, up 3.0%). The operating result is temporarily burdened by various special effects, in particular once-only expenses for legal advice in the arbitration proceedings against Live Nation and for acquisitions and workforce restructuring at See Tickets Germany / Ticket Online Group. After these non-recurring items, the EBITDA figure amounts to EUR 55.7 million (Q1-3/2010: EUR 55.6 million, up 0.2%), while the EBIT amounts to EUR 39.0 million (Q1-3/2010: EUR 44.5 million, down 12.4%).
The Ticketing segment achieved a substantial 22% year-on-year increase in revenue to EUR 151.1 million in the first nine months of 2011 (Q1-3/2010: EUR 123.9 million). Organic growth in the core European markets, the Internet as a high-margin distribution channel and successful acquisitions were all contributory factors behind this success. This was offset by lost revenue from the partnership agreement terminated in June 2010. The CTS Group sold 12.6 million tickets via the Internet – a yearon-year increase of around 18% (Q1-3/2010: 10.7 million). The impacts of the aforementioned nonrecurring items were confined to the Ticketing segment. The normalised EBITDA was up 24.2% at EUR 48.7 million (Q1-3/2010: EUR 39.2 million), while normalised EBIT before amortisation from purchase price allocation was up 22.9% at EUR 41.3 million (Q1-3/2010: EUR 33.6 million). After these non-recurring items, EBITDA was 18.0% higher at EUR 41.0 million (Q1-3/2010: EUR 34.7 million), while EBIT increased 2.5% to EUR 25.8 million (Q1-3/2010: EUR 25.1 million).
As expected, the Live Entertainment segment was unable in the first nine months of 2011 to attain the record figures achieved in 2010. The root causes of this decrease were the lower number of attractive live events compared to Q1-3/2010 and the deconsolidation of the FKP Scorpio Group. Revenue in the reporting period fell to EUR 198.9 million (Q1-3/2010: EUR 253.8 million; down 21.6%). EBITDA decreased by 29.6% to EUR 14.7 million (Q1-3/2010: EUR 20.8 million), while EBIT fell 31.7% to EUR 13.2 million (Q1-3/2010: EUR 19.4 million).
The Group continues to concentrate on rigorously growing its Internet ticketing operations and on international expansion generally. The Management Board expects the Group to achieve further improvement in earnings in the current 2011 financial year, especially given the traditionally strong fourth quarter.
The full interim report will be available on the Internet at www.eventim.de in both German and English, in an online version and in download form, as from 24 November 2011
