CTS EVENTIM: Ticketing growth unabated

Munich, 27.02.2012. CTS EVENTIM AG, listed in the SDAX index (ISIN DE 0005470306), was able to bolster its position as Europe’s market leader in the Ticketing and Live Entertainment segments in the 2011 financial year. Despite the challenging business environment, the company scored a further increase in profitability in 2011. The Management Board expects the Group as a whole to progress well in the 2012 financial year and to improve its earnings. The Management Board will announce its dividend proposal for the past financial year when the Annual Report is published at the end of March 2012.  
 
In the period from 1 January to 31 December 2011, the CTS Group generated EUR 502.8 million in revenue (2010: EUR 519.6 million, down 3.2%), a normalised EBITDA of EUR 104.2 million (2010: EUR 95.8 million, up 8.8%) and a normalised EBIT before amortisation from purchase price allocation (Ticketcorner Group and See Tickets Germany / Ticket Online Group) of EUR 92.1 million (2010: EUR 85.7 million, up 7.6%). The operating result is temporarily burdened by various special effects, in particular once-only expenses for legal advice in the pending 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 is EUR 94.6 million (2010: EUR 88.0 million, up 7.5%), with EBIT amounting to EUR 72.0 million (2010: EUR 71.1 million, up 1.3%).   
 
In the 2011 financial year, the Ticketing segment achieved record revenues of EUR 228.7 million (2010: EUR 193.9 million) before consolidation between segments. This increase was driven by strong growth in the core European markets and also by successfully integrated acquisitions in the form of the Ticketcorner Group and See Tickets Germany / Ticket Online Group. This equates to percentage growth of 18.0%. The CTS Group sold 19.2 million tickets via the Internet in the reporting period – a year-on-year increase of around 12% (2010: 17.1 million). The impacts of the aforementioned nonrecurring items were confined to the Ticketing segment. The normalised EBITDA was up 23.3% at EUR 85.4 million (2010: EUR 69.3 million), while normalised EBIT before amortisation from purchase price allocation was up 23.2% at EUR 75.3 million (2010: EUR 61.1 million). After these non-recurring items, the EBITDA figure for this segment is EUR 75.8 million (2010: EUR 61.4 million, up 23.4%), with EBIT amounting to EUR 55.1 million (2010: EUR 46.5 million, up 18.5%).  
 
As expected, the Live Entertainment segment was unable in the 2011 financial year to attain the record figures set in 2010. The root causes of this decrease is the lower number of attractive live events compared to the year before, and the deconsolidation of the FKP Scorpio Group. Revenue in the 2011 financial year came in at EUR 281.0 million (2010: EUR 333.8 million, down 15.8%). EBITDA decreased by 29.2% to EUR 18.8 million (2010: EUR 26.6 million), while EBIT fell 31.3% to EUR 16.9 million (2010: EUR 24.6 million). 
 
The Group will continue to concentrate in 2012 on rigorously growing its Internet ticketing operations and on international expansion generally.