Nine Entertainment Co has posted a $144.2m profit up 5.5 per cent on last financial year in its first full year financial report since floating in December.
The media company, which has grown its share of TV revenue in the last year, recorded revenue of $1.578bn up 5.8 per cent while the Group EBITDA was $311m up 4 per cent.
“I am pleased with our performance in FY14,” said David Gyngell, CEO of Nine Entertainment. “We have exceed our prospectus forecasts across the board, and we are making good operations progress across each of our television, live and digital business.”
“Following the completion of the IPO and subsequent debt refinancing, we have a very strong balance sheet with significant flexibility.”
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The financial results show the Nine Network’s TV revenue was up 10.5 per cent to $1.215bn on the back of the purchase of the Perth and Adelaide TV stations last year and the growth of revenue share. The EBITDA grew from $178.2m in 2013 to $234.2m in 2014.
Nine’s rebranded events business Nine Live saw revenue surge up 33.4 per cent to $228m with an EBITDA of $68m.
Nine’s digital division Mi9 posted revenue of $107.2m in its first full revenue result since Nine bought out partner Microsoft in October last year. Nine Entertainment does not provide a breakdown of revenue prior to the sale on the grounds that prior to the sale Mi9 was accounted as an associate. It posted an EBITDA of $20.4m.
However, the company report does acknowledge: “share of associates profit declined from $36.9m to $7.3m. The key driver of this decline was the change in ownership of Mi9 which ceased being an associate with effect from 1 November 2013.”
The company remuneration report confirms Gyngell is one of the best paid media executives in Australia with a salary package, including share, in excess of close to $20m on the back of last year’s float. Without the share bonuses from the IPO Gyngell’s salary package was $5.5m.
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The report shows chief operating officer Simon Kelly had a total package, factoring in the IPO, of $3.2m, commercial director and general counsel Amanda Laing had a total package of $1.62m while group sales and marketing director Peter Wiltshire had a total package $1.82m.
Nic Christensen