RTL Group Sees Surge in Profits

LUXEMBOURG: RTL Group has posted a profit gain of 45.7 percent to 870 million euros ($1.2 billion) for 2013, as the TV ad market improved in most of the firm's European territories.

Revenue, however, dipped 1.8 percent to 5.88 billion euros ($8.09 billion), as high revenues from RTL Netherlands and RTL Germany were offset by lower revenue from FremantleMedia and exchange rate effects. EBITA increased 6.9 percent to 1.15 billion euros ($1.6 billion), a large chunk of which came from RTL Germany, which posted its best-ever financial results.

At RTL Germany, EBITA was up 7.1 percent, with higher ad revenue and continued cost control. In France, EBITA was down slightly, mainly due to start-up losses for the digital channel 6ter. EBITA in the Netherlands increased by 6.2 percent, thanks to higher TV ad and digital distribution revenue. The group's broadcasting operations in Belgium, Hungary and Croatia also increased EBITA year on year.

FremantleMedia has significantly lower revenue for the full year, mainly due to negative exchange rate effects and lower production revenue from Germany. Even still, FremantleMedia's EBITA showed only a small decrease.

Anke Schäferkordt and Guillaume de Posch, co-CEOs of RTL Group, said: “Operationally and financially, RTL Group has once again performed very strongly in 2013 and demonstrated its resilience in facing challenging economic conditions. With another record result from our largest profit center, Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland, and good results from all other units, we have succeeded in growing all profit indicators—EBITA, profit margin and net result. Our shareholders will also again profit from this excellent set of results with a total dividend of 7.0 euros per share.

The successful public offering in April 2013 and the listing of our shares in the Prime Standard of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, followed by the inclusion in the MDAX stock index, raised the awareness of RTL Group in the capital markets.

We have made good progress in strengthening our core businesses and in building new growth engines, especially in the digital world. We have already started a lot of initiatives, but we want to do more.

Based on our very healthy financial position, we have the investment capacity to explore opportunities across our three strategic pillars: broadcast, content and digital.

As ever, we will continue to apply our strict investment criteria and prudent business approach, but we clearly aim to accelerate RTL Group’s revenue growth to secure and enhance our market-leading positions in free-to-air television, content production and online video.”