Mediaset starts badly but then recovers after the quarterly. The television group it is currently trading at 4,394 euros (+0,23%). Mediaset returns to the dividend after three years thanks to the positive results for 2014. The Cologno Monzese-based group closed the year with net profit growing to 23,7 million (from 8,9 million) on stable net revenues at 3,414 billion .
Mediaset's board of directors will propose to the shareholders a total dividends of 22,7 million equal to 0,02 euro per share. In Italy, gross advertising revenues fell by 3,8% to 1,982 billion. As regards the current year, Mediaset points out that the "dynamics of the advertising market at the beginning of 2015 confirm the progressive improvement compared to the previous quarters". However Mediaset specifies that the general context in any case makes the trend of the advertising market "difficult to predict" at the moment and for this reason the group is not able to "reliably" estimate the consolidated economic results for 2015.
"Another slow start" is the title of the Barclays reports, which confirms the "underweight" judgment with a target raised to 3,75 from 3,7 euros. The broker believes that the market is "pricing an excessive recovery in advertising sales" of the group and considers it unlikely that Premium will be able to have enough subscribers or a sufficient ARPU to balance the costs of the three-year exclusivity on the Champions League; yesterday the Cfo of Mediaset reiterated that Premium (1,7 million subscribers, down 6%) will close the first year with a loss, break even in the second season and profit in the third.
Bernstein's judgment (“underperform”) is in line with Barclays.
Nomura (“neutral”) speaks of 2014 accounts in line with forecasts but of a lower dividend (a symbolic coupon of 0,02 euro will be distributed) and is not certain of a continued recovery in advertising sales in 2015. For Equita instead 2014 is slightly worse than expected as is the start of 2015, even if the broker confirms the estimate of +3,5% in advertising sales in Italy this year. His "buy" judgment also stems from M&A expectations on pay TV.
