NRJ Group may blow. In a difficult economic environment in 2009, the broadcasting group announced on Thursday a return to the green with a net profit of 6.8 million euros against a loss of 4.6 million euros in 2008. Revenues excluding exchange operations declining slightly by 0.4% to 330 million euros. The news, however, may not be appreciated by the markets. These projected a net profit of 15 million euros.
For its part, NRJ Group is satisfied with these results. The group managed to improve its operating performance with a net operating profit up sharply from 38% to 25.4 million.Operating income for the handset business, which had sealed the results of their 2008 deficit of 9.5 million, were not disclosed.
Cleopatra and the TNT derive results
NRJ Group finds particularly strong improvement in the poles and television shows. The first saw its revenues rise by 75.6% to 43.9 million euros through the two channels of the TNT NRJ 12 (third string DTT) and NRJ Paris. The group managed to reduce its operating loss in this sector to 15.8 million against a 22.7 million.
The cluster performance makes the best performance with an increase of 712% of its revenues in 2009 to 26.8 million euros against 3.3 million the year before us fast cash !!!???!!!?? ?!!!."This strong growth mainly due to the success of the musical Cleopatra whose contribution to consolidated sales amounted to 25.0 million euros in 2009 compared to 0.5 million euros in 2008" , the company said.
In contrast, the pole Media music has suffered a fall of 15.7% of its revenues to 197.9 million euros.International operations also saw their incomes fall by 9%.
The title leads the DTH
For 2010, the group was cautious in a "fragile economic environment" and a "visibility remains low.
But positive signals are detected including "an improving trend on advertising revenues in March, thanks to sales growth in Radio France, which could therefore register growth in the first quarter of 2010 compared 1st Quarter 2009 ".
"In television, the trend remains strongly positive since the beginning of the year," the statement concluded.
At the Paris Stock Exchange, Friday, NRJ shares rose 12.01% to 7.18 euros, the largest increase in DTH in a market that yields 0.10%.
After two days of contacts with the new CEO of France Telecom, Stephane Richard, and Chief Financial Officer Gervais Pellissier, the Oddo Securities analysts draw conclusions rather reassuring: the new management team "has the qualities needed to improve the social climate within the group, without deteriorating financial goals.
Stephane Richard, who replaced Didier Lombard on 1 March, has confirmed giving priority to the alleviation of social relations within the group.Oddo Securities said in a note published today have felt the new management as "very attentive, controlling well the great social, financial, and fellows of the group and sector, and wishing to show more transparency and sense that commercial shine.
Social criteria are taken into account for the premiums
Among the concrete steps, variable pay (bonuses) for a little over a thousand leaders in France will now be indexed to 50% on financial criteria (against 80% previously), to 20% on quality criteria Services (unchanged), and 30% on social criteria (non-existent before), if possible, quantifiable as absenteeism.
Furthermore, agreement with unions was recently signed to the senior part-time and mobility.And an action plan is provided, internally, to "motivate all the teams around unifying themes, they add, such as quality of service, accountability teams decentralizing some decision-making, improved working conditions, etc..
Management believes these new devices n'impacteront hardly the finances of France Telecom, which has already made "significant restructuring since 2002," says Oddo, who adds that the cost of social concessions is already integrated in the accounting 8 billion euros of cash flow in 2010.
The operational track
Besides the social side, management has raised a dynamic business "still very strong in the mobile in France and Great Britain. The target of 35% ADSL market share in 2010 is maintained.
Investments should be under control, "the group had no problem of saturation of its mobile networks. France Telecom does not accelerate but rather the deployment of 4G from mid-2011 if necessary, "says Oddo.
Considering all this information, the team of analysts expressed confidence in the ability of France Telecom to maintain its dividends "beyond 2011".
Acquisition strategy shy
No big acquisitions in sight. While St?phane Richard wants to promote growth in the long-term actions to respond to the stock market rising, it remains on the defensive. A shift could occur if a major consolidation movement was born.
France Telecom remains focused on some inexpensive targets outside Europe or purchases "in market" in the Old Continent.Oddo suspected a connection between Telenet and Mobistar, or rallying with a fixed player in Spain. In Britain, the broker anticipates that the joint venture Orange / T-Mobile UK will seek a buyer for its fixed network. Ultimately, it is also possible that the joint venture includes a British MNVO (MVNOs) like Virgin Mobile.
ALSO READ
St?phane Richard, an atypical reinvent France Telecom
Vivendi was convicted Friday of having provided misleading information to shareholders as part of the class action initiated in 2002 in the United States. Upon initiation of the Paris stock market on Monday, the action the French media group has shown in red lantern: Vivendi lends more than 3.6% at midday, to 18.1 euros. Since the start of the trial, which opened October 5, 2009, the stock has skidded 15%.
Vivendi has said it would immediately seek the annulment of the verdict, considering many have grounds for appeal, including the admission of French shareholders in the process and "the wrong method of calculation of damages by the plaintiffs .
Precisely, the question of damages is central.Natixis Securities (review "step up" with a target price of 20.5 euros) says it is for now "impossible to know the benefits that will ultimately claimed. But we know the upper limit, namely 6.6 billion euros, according to plaintiffs' lawyers.
Uncertainty about the amount of compensation
The broker table for the moment on the assumption that 50% of claimants will be compensated – or they do not require as happens in 25 to 30% of cases for class-actions in the United States or that they are not eligible – the amount of damages would range around 3.3 billion euros creditreport .
CM-CIC, which is to "hold" while reducing its theoretical value from 21 to 20 euros, the risk is estimated at 2 billion euros.The broker said to have maintained a 20% discount in its estimates, "given the uncertainties posed by this litigation."
Uncertainties that will influence, and that will last. Vivendi said the prospective payment amounts would be "uncertain for an extended period yet undetermined.
According to CM-CIC, the final verdict on appeal, will not occur until 2011-2012. Vivendi should not provisioned hedge risk in its 2009 accounts.
Nevertheless, this verdict is limiting financial flexibility, Vivendi, at a time when external growth is central to its strategy.
The rate of unemployment in the eurozone and the EU at 27, continues to increase. Under the impact of the crisis, he crossed the month of December 2009 to below 10% for the euro area, a level not reached since its inception in 1998. The unemployment rate in this area was in November to 9.9% and 8.2% in December 2008. Within the European Union to 27, unemployment is also growing, reaching 9.6% in December against 9.5% the previous month.
In total, therefore, 4.628 million more unemployed recorded by the European Union to 27, particularly affected by the crisis on the employment front, since December 2008.
Belgium (8.2% unemployment in December), Luxembourg (6.2%) and Germany (7.5% unemployment only partly through the use of massive unemployment) are the least impacted by unemployment, while Latvia (22.8%), Estonia (15.2% in the third quarter 2009) and Lithuania (14.6 in the third quarter of 2009 as well), beat the European record of rising to a year.
With unemployment of 10.0% in December 2009, France is however exactly the average of the eurozone.
Contracts on U.S. stock indices suggest opening up Wall Street after three sessions of consecutive decline markets suffered the effect of uncertainty on profits in the banking sector related to Barack Obama's desire to limit risk taking . On Monday, the future of Dow Jones rose 0.63% to 10,214 points, future increases in the Standard & Poor's and Nasdaq are more timid: 0.08% for each.
The markets are relieved by the prospect of an upcoming confirmation by the U.S. Senate, the appointment of Ben Bernanke for a second term as president of the Federal Reserve.
On the macroeconomic front, if the meeting Monday is looking pretty quiet with only a statistical program, home sales in December – are expected to decline by 10% after rising 7.4% in November — week, it will be more responsible.In addition to meeting the Monetary Policy Council of the Fed, which must render its decision on rates Wednesday, investors will pay attention to economic data front, starting with the first estimate of U.S. GDP for the fourth quarter 2009, expected on Friday. A follow clues consumer confidence (Conference Board that Tuesday and the University of Michigan Friday) and sales of new homes in December, Wednesday.
As for currencies, the dollar lost ground against the euro, thus yielding 0.4% to 1.419 dollar against the euro, but gained 0.4% against the yen to 90.2 yen Business Card Holders