The Italian television group Mediaforeurope (MFE, ex-Mediaset) saw its net profit fall by nearly 63% over the first six months of the year to 84.6 million euros (80.4 million francs), despite the good performance of revenues.
“Despite a very difficult second quarter, the group’s sales performed significantly better than the market,” MFE said in a statement on Wednesday.
The net profit for the first half of 2021 had benefited from two extraordinary elements, the capital gain generated by the sale of Towertel and the dividends from the stake in Prosiebensat1.
archyde news revenues remained stable at 976.4 million euros in Italy, while the market fell by 2.8% over the half-year.
In Spain, revenues fell by 5% to 385.8 million euros, in line with the market trend.
In the coming months, however, revenue could ‘suffer from the foreseeable contraction in spending and consumption by businesses and families to cope with rising energy prices’, predicts MFE.
Total revenue was virtually unchanged in the first half, at 1.38 billion euros.
Net debt was significantly reduced from €869.2 million to €630.7 million.
Associated with Xavier Niel (Iliad group), Mediaforeurope has submitted an offer for the 48.3% held by the German giant Bertelsmann in the French television group M6, put up for sale after the failure of its merger with the TF1 channel.
Entertainment, an audiovisual production group controlled by the Frenchman Stéphane Courbit, associated with Rodolphe Saadé, the boss of the maritime transport group CMA-CGM, is also in the running, as is the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, already present in several French media.
MFE, which had been among the unsuccessful candidates for the takeover of M6 in May 2021, is seeking to create a large European media group likely to be able to compete with the heavyweights of online broadcasting, such as the American Netflix.
With this in mind, Mediaforeurope, controlled by the family of Silvio Berlusconi, rose in July to 82.9% of the capital of its Spanish subsidiary Mediaset Spain following its takeover bid (OPA) launched in March.
Another sign of its expansion in Europe, MFE had crossed in March the bar of 25% of voting rights in the German media company ProSiebenSat.1, of which it is the largest shareholder.
/ATS