25% Jump in Profits for Southern Cross Austereo

Southern Cross Austereo has seen a nice turn of fortune, posting 25% profit growth.

The financial results were released to the market this morning with Southern Cross Austereo CEO Grant Blackley saying:  

“We have been heavily investing in our strong radio business, particularly on talent and marketing. We expect to derive increasing benefit from those investments in future periods.

“We have focussed on monetising all of the group’s assets, improving our commercial market share and yield, while improving efficiency as part of an ongoing review of business functions and non-core assets.”

SCA’s joint radio and regional television assets posted profits after tax of $43.379m. Revenue is now sitting at $322 Million, up from $307 Million last year or an increase of 4.7% overall.

It’s SCA’s first results under the leadership of CEO Grant Blackley and with the news of revenues up, the company’s debt has also been steadily paid down. SCA report a Net Debt drop of 17.5% to $472.5 million and it was cut a further $100 million with the recent contact with the Australian Traffic Network.

SCA also confirmed that their balance sheet has been repaired with the leverage ratio now sitting at the lower end of their targeted range of 2.0 to 2.5x EBITDA.

“These results demonstrate material progress in the operational turnaround of Southern Cross Austereo”,said Grant Blackley.

SCA’s guidance released to thhe ASX (SXL) includes:

• Further revenue growth from radio
• Regional Revenues continuing to be supported by strong performance from local sales teams. Regional Radio markets are expected to remain consistent while regional TV are likely to be subdued.
• EBITDA to up be up on prior year at $163 – $166 Million
• NPAT to be at 16% to 20% higher than adjusted prior year NPAT at $75 to 78 million