MONTREAL – While talk of mergers and acquisitions swirl around Canadian media companies, Astral Media (owners of assets like TMN, Super Ecran, Family Channel and the Rock Détente radio network) continues plugging away, debt free, and growing.
And Astral still insists it’s a buyer and will look at anything that crosses the desks of its executives. As reported, it was one of the two bidders for CHUM Ltd., but lost out in the process to Bell Globemedia.
In today’s conference call with financial analysts and media, a few other company names came up – like the privately held Standard Broadcasting and publicly traded but majority shareholder controlled Alliance Atlantis. "Any one of those companies, if they were to come up for sale, there would be a process… that would be a priority for us," said Astral’s president and CEO Ian Greenberg, speaking hypothetically. "We certainly would be interested.
While waiting for such opportunities (or pursuing, one could guess, Greenberg never specified) Astral continues to ride its growing pay and specialty service assets. The company ended fiscal 2006 (August 31st) with over 1.6 million pay TV subscribers, for example, a 6% increase over 2005, driven largely by its subscription video on demand offer. Ad revenue on the specialty TV side rose 8% in 2006 as well.
Consolidated net earnings from continuing operations for fiscal 2006 increased by 10% in fiscal 2006, as compared to ’05, rising to $115 million last year. Consolidated net earnings from continuing operations for the fourth quarter increased by 3% to $29.2 million.
However, after analyzing and altering the business plan for its music web site, radiolibre.ca, which launched in January, net earnings for the fourth quarter and the year include a non-recurring impairment charge of $4.2 million related to the site, launched in January 2006. The impairment charge, recorded as a depreciation and amortization expense, resulted in a $0.05 per share reduction of earnings per share in both the fourth quarter and the twelve-month period. Excluding this impairment charge, net earnings from continuing operations, for both the fourth quarter and the fiscal year, increased by 13% as compared to the same periods last year, said the press release.
"During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006, the company reviewed the assumptions supporting the recoverability of the project costs, including related property, plant and equipment, and the project’s discounted estimated future cash flows.," reads the company’s management discussion and analysis.
Consolidated revenues totaled $593.7 million for fiscal 2006, an increase of 8% over the $549.6 million recorded in fiscal 2005. Consolidated revenues were $146.1 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006, up 4% from the $140 million for the same quarter last year.
EBITDA for the year increased by 11% to $191.7 million from $172.6 million for the same period last year. EBITDA was up 8% to $50.3 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006 compared to $46.4 million for the same quarter last year. Cash flow from continuing operations rose 11% year-over-year totaling $145.1 million for the year compared to $130.8 million for fiscal 2005. Cash flow from continuing operations also rose 8% to $43.6 million in the fourth quarter, compared to $40.4 million for the same quarter last year.
"I am delighted with the contribution of each one of our groups to the company’s overall growth this year," added Greenberg. "Both subscriber and advertising revenues for the television group were up 8% year-over-year (to $428.2 million) with overall pay-television subscribers reaching 1.6 million. In radio, revenues increased by 7% over last year (to $118.5 million) and, as a result, its EBITDA margin reached 34.7% for the year. In Outdoor, the group’s renewed focus on customer service has delivered an 11% increase in revenues for fiscal 2006 with a 19% increase in EBITDA."
– Greg O’Brien
