SBC News Catena Media reports revenue losses during 'challenging' 2019

Catena Media reports revenue losses during ‘challenging’ 2019

Industry affiliate marketing publisher Catena Media has cited a struggling performance across its core business units after recording a 2.1% drop in revenues during full-year 2019 trading.

Publishing its end of year report for the period January – December 2019, Catena revealed that revenues were down from €105m in 2018 to €102.8m in 2019. Catena also recorded a 1.8% year-on-year decline in search revenue, falling from €89.9m to €88.3m.

A breakdown of segments performance sees paid revenue fall by 15%, recorded at €11.9m, while subscription revenue dropped by 57.7% to €2.6m.

Losses before tax were recorded as €10.3m for the year, down from a profit of €33.1m in 2018. The losses came after paying €178,000 in taxes. Losses for the year stood at €10.5m, marking a sharp decrease from the €30.8m in profit recorded during 2018.

“As the efforts we have put into our products now show a positive growth trend, we also saw challenges with some of our previously acquired assets not performing as planned,” Catena’s chief executive Per Hellberg said.

“In our strategic review, operational efficiency programmes and evaluations of previously acquired products, we are writing down the value of certain assets acquired in the period 2016-2018, which simply can’t perform under today’s market conditions.

“Now, with only two earn-out commitment to be settled, and with a strong operating refinancing of the company; we will communicate further details as soon as we have information to give.”

Impairment costs also hindered Catena Media revenues throughout 2019, with the affiliate giant recording costs on intangible assets as €32.1m for the year. This has been attributed to ‘assets acquired between 2016 and 2018′.

According to the end of year report, the impairment costs are said to relate to a write-down of €17.9m related to intangible financial assets primarily focused on the European marketplace. It also relates to casino assets acquired by Catena in 2016, valued at €13.2m, as well as €900,000 in sports betting assets.

New depositing customers (NDCs) also took a hit during the year, with the figures totalling 436,706 (539,475) – a decrease of 19% compared to 2018. EBITDA also decreased by 15% and totalled €40.5m, down from €47.8m.

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