Goldbach Group with 5.1 million profit
Alongside Affichage, Ringier and Edipresse, the Goldbach Group has also had its fingers burned in Romania. Now it wants to divest itself of the print business there before the end of the year. However, the core business itself grew by 13 percent in 2010 - and double-digit growth rates are again expected for the current year.
The 2010 financial statements of the Goldbach Group are not easy to read, because the company operates with two sets of figures. This has to do with the fact that in 2008 Goldbach acquired a stake in the German company ARBOmedia, which in addition to various Eastern European activities in advertising sales (TV, radio, online, print) also operates a print and newspaper business in Romania. Since the print division is not part of Goldbach's core business, the company would have liked to sell it long ago, but due to the crisis and lack of demand, the Group has so far remained stuck with it (exception: two newspapers were sold in 2009). For this reason, Goldbach Group is now presenting figures on two levels: First, those of the overall Group (with print), and second, those of the core business (without print). Officially, Group sales in 2010 rose by 5.2 percent to 334.5 million Swiss francs, while the core business alone increased by as much as 6.8 percent to 327.2 percent. Accordingly, profit excluding print business would have risen by 13.1 percent to 9 million Swiss francs, but in fact it now "only" grew by 6.7 percent to 5.1 million Swiss francs.
EU puts a spoke in Goldbach's wheel
The Goldbach Group, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, would therefore have liked to spin off the Romanian print division for accounting purposes, which would be possible under current German law. However, this was prohibited by the EU in January. In any case, it is clear that the 2010 sales of the Romanian print business fell by 36.5 percent to 7.3 million Swiss francs due to the crisis and the sale of two newspapers, resulting in a loss of 1.6 million Swiss francs. Goldbach CEO Klaus Kappeler confirmed that the print business is a drag on the Goldbach Group. According to Goldbach CFO Mario Hrastnig, a value adjustment of CHF 5.7 million had already been made in 2009. Currently, the company is again in loose sales talks, said Kappeler. He wants to settle the matter by the end of the year in any case - if necessary also through liquidation.
Back to the core business: This developed positively throughout the Group. Net sales in the online segment amounted to CHF 119.6 million (+4.5 percent), and those in the offline segment to CHF 208.6 million (+8 percent). Foreign countries continue to contribute around 20 percent to the Goldbach Group's total sales.
12 percent growth in the Swiss TV business
In Switzerland alone, Goldbach increased its net revenues to 278 million Swiss francs (13.9 percent), with net sales from radio advertising just remaining at the previous year's level of 34 million Swiss francs, while those from TV advertising rose by 12 percent to 166 million Swiss francs and in the online sector net revenues even grew by 28 percent to 73 million Swiss francs.
A significant price increase for most TV advertising windows as of October 2010 undoubtedly contributed to the result in the TV business. Kappeler now expects further growth of around 30 percent in this area in 2011, because Goldbach has also been marketing the German advertising windows of Sat.1 (Switzerland) and kabel eins as well as the Swiss private station 3+ since the beginning of this year. It has also raised the prices of advertising windows by an average of 2.9 percent again as of 2011.
On the road to success with Wilmaa
Based on the first audience figures in January, Kappeler assumes that 34 percent of the population in the main target group 15/49 can be reached with the 16 channels now marketed by Goldbach in Switzerland, compared with 24 percent with the 7 SRG channels and just 2 percent with the 17 private channels. The rest (41 percent) consume (foreign) TV programs without Swiss advertising.
According to the 2011 Kommtech study, 40 percent of 15-24 year-olds use Internet TV. Kappeler is therefore convinced that Goldbach is reaching precisely this target group with the Wilmaa platform. The Internet TV service already has more than 700,000 users and is profitable two years after its launch.
For 2011, Kappeler expects a further increase in profitability. In the offline segment, he anticipates Group-wide (organic) sales growth of 30 percent, and in the online segment, where they recently entered into a cooperation with Adconion Media Group, he expects growth of 20 percent.
Markus Knöpfli
