Meredith Corporation (NYSE: MDP; meredith.com) – the leading media and marketing company with national brands serving 175 million unduplicated Americans and 17 local television stations in fast-growing markets — today reported fiscal 2018 third quarter and nine month results.
Since reporting its fiscal 2018 second-quarter earnings on January 31, 2018, Meredith:
•Closed on its acquisition of Time Inc. and began operations as a combined company (February 1, 2018).
•Closed on the sale of Golf (February 7, 2018) and Time Inc. UK (March 15, 2018).
•Announced it is exploring the sale of TIME, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Money and affiliated media brands (March 21, 2018), as well as its equity investment in Viant. Acquired properties already sold and those currently held for sale have been classified as Assets Held for Sale, and are reflected as Discontinued Operations in Meredith’s fiscal 2018 third-quarter and nine-month results.
•Completed a sales restructuring plan including naming publishers for all Time Inc. acquired brands, and delivered a new go-to-market strategy to the advertising and marketing community at Meredith’s NewFronts presentation (May 3, 2018).
•Now expects to achieve over $500 million of annual cost savings in the first two full years of operations.
Looking more closely at Meredith’s fiscal 2018 third-quarter results compared to the prior-year quarter:
•Meredith recorded pre-tax special items of $170 million, primarily comprised of restructuring, financing and transaction costs related to its acquisition of Time Inc. As a result, Meredith reported a loss from continuing operations of $95 million and a net loss of $110 million, compared to net earnings of $40 million.
•Excluding special items, earnings from continuing operations were $33 million, compared to $40 million. (See Tables 1-5 for supplemental disclosures regarding non-GAAP financial measures.)
•Adjusted EBITDA was $111 million, compared to $83 million.
•Total company revenues from continuing operations were $649 million, compared to $425 million.
Looking more closely at Meredith’s fiscal 2018 nine-month results compared to the prior-year period:
•Meredith reported earnings from continuing operations of $97 million, compared to $146 million.
•Excluding special items, earnings from continuing operations were $117 million, compared to $133 million.
•Adjusted EBITDA was $261 million, compared to $271 million.
•Total company revenues from continuing operations were $1.5 billion, compared to $1.3 billion.
“Our legacy Meredith businesses are performing in-line with our stated expectations, and we are aggressively focused on successfully integrating the acquired Time Inc. properties; strengthening our leading national and local media brands; executing our planned asset divestitures; and delivering on our synergy targets, which we now expect will exceed $500 million annually,” said Meredith Corporation Executive Chairman Stephen M. Lacy. “With these initiatives, we have set a goal to reduce our debt by $1 billion by the end of fiscal 2019, and generate $1 billion of EBITDA in fiscal 2020. These achievements are expected to reduce our debt level to 2x EBITDA, and meaningfully contribute to total shareholder return.”
more detail at: https://ir.meredith.com/news-releases/press-release-details/2018/Meredith-Reports-Fiscal-2018-Third-Quarter-And-Nine-Month-Results/default.aspx