MultiChoice Group on Thursday warned of deepening full-year losses as it battles an increasingly difficult trading environment.
In a trading statement, the JSE-listed broadcaster – which is in the throes of being acquired (pending regulatory, shareholder and other approvals) by France’s Groupe Canal+ — said trading profit will decline by between 19% and 23% compared to the 2023 financial year, while the headline loss per share number will more than double.
The 2024 results will be published on 12 June.
“The group expects losses and headline losses per share to increase due to the negative impact of a weak macroeconomic and consumer environment, increased investment in Showmax, and the impact of the sharp depreciation in the Nigerian naira against the US dollar. This resulted in foreign exchange losses on the non-quasi intergroup loans with MultiChoice Nigeria of R3.6-billion (net of tax and non-controlling interest),” it said.
“The group’s expected loss per share has also been impacted by a once-off impairment of IT systems of R1-billion (net of tax and non-controlling interest), due to a reassessment of business needs in the context of an extremely challenging operating environment,” it said, without elaborating.
An additional trading loss year over year of R1.4-billion is expected at Showmax.
Organic
With all these impacts, including the forex losses, stripped out, the numbers are not nearly as grim.
“Group trading profit on an organic basis (reflecting results on a constant-currency basis and excluding M&A) is expected to increase year on year due to inflation-led pricing across the majority of the group’s markets and cost optimisation outperformance,” it said.
“However, after absorbing a R4.5-billion forex impact from weaker currencies against the dollar, trading profit on a reported basis is expected to be lower than the year before.” — (c) 2024 NewsCentral Media