What's New September 20, 2013

SEN drives Pacific Star financials

The Pacific Star Network, operators of SEN and MyMP Melbourne, has released their formal annual report, going into further detail from the preliminary report from 3 weeks ago (see here).

The report outlines that the relaunched MyMP is performing behind expectations, operating at a loss, whilst SEN is the company's shining performer.

The final report confirms that final revenue for FY13 was $15.06m (+3.5%), with EBITDA of $1.57m (+14.6%), however NPAT was down by 8.1% to $1.06m due to depreciation on the acquisition of studios for the failed MTR project.

Restating his commentary from the earlier report, Pacific Star Network Chairman Andrew Moffat was confident of revenue growth, and of holding expenses flat in the business:

In a relatively flat advertising market, the radio division delivered a good result with SEN continuing to perform strongly against forecast. Whilst MyMP also delivered a result in line with forecast, it continues to generate trading losses after allocation of shared management costs compared to a breakeven position for the comparative period last year.

As a result, the radio division segment result was down 8% on the comparative period last year.

Digital revenue was up 30% on last year. I envisage that we will see this part of the business continuing to grow revenue for the foreseeable future.

The present economic climate and recent federal election campaign has subdued consumer and business confidence and as such, it is difficult to predict trading conditions over the next six months.

We would however expect to benefit from any improved business and consumer confidence that may follow from the change in Federal Government which would be reflected by increasing advertising spend.

We intend to build on our existing radio, digital and print profitability by increasing revenue whilst maintaining the cost base at near to existing levels.

In the radio division, the MyMP music station is currently trading at a loss after allocation of shared management costs. The board intends to implement a strategy to leverage improved returns from this asset. Our initial objective will be to return it to a break even position this financial year with a view to further increasing returns beyond that period.

Pacific Star's dividends for FY13 are an unfranked 1.6cps. With the share price at 20.5c presently, this shows a dividend yield of around 7.9%.

You can read the full report here.