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MFE-MEDIAFOREUROPE NV
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Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2020-Q1

from 0
Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Mediaset 2020 First Quarter Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] For your information, this conference is being recorded.

Now I would like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Simone Sole. Please go ahead.

S
Simone Sole
executive

Hello, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the first quarter 2020 results presentation.

Let me hand over immediately to the speakers today. First of all, Marco Giordani, Mediaset's CFO, regarding -- for a brief introduction regarding the measure put in place by the Mediaset in order to face the COVID-19 situation.

And then, immediately after, Matteo Cardani, Managing Director of Publitalia, in order to update you on the operating performance of the first quarter and more importantly, on the trading during the lockdown situation in Italy.

So Marco, I leave the floor to you immediately.

M
Marco Giordani
executive

Thank you, Simone, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us for the call of today.

Before we start, I would like to share with you the extraordinary time where we have all been living in the past weeks and express our sympathy to anyone who have been affected by COVID, and also to thank everyone working on the front line to help all of us get through this.

During the crisis, our first priority has been the security and health of our employees. The group is applying all the required measures to prevent any risk related to COVID, the virus, starting from the adoption of all the smart working features Mediaset was already equipped with. Currently, the majority of our employees is working from home, contributing, too, granted the business continued. And I have to say that we are very proud to see our employees working in a digital setup that probably, 5 years ago, none of us would have believed to be possible. We have reorganized our facility to grant social distance and healthy environment and to be best equipped for a progressive return to -- of our employees to their offices once the situation will allow that.

Secondly, we adapted the programming grid protecting its quality, first of all, through the intensification of the new services. We remain extremely close to our viewers and working hard to adapt our programming schedule to the current environment. And honestly, if I look at the audience results, and then Matteo will talk about, we are achieving during this period, I think that this is the testimony to the work that our people are doing and to the continuity planning that we have been doing and the effort we are making.

Lastly, the third priority is absolutely the financial resilience to protect all of our stakeholders. This has always been our priority. And today, more than ever, as you will appreciate during the presentation, is our priority.

Now I hand over to Matteo for the first quarter presentation, and we will speak again after as far as the financial highlights.

M
Matteo Cardani
executive

Okay. Thank you, Marco. Good morning to everybody. Thank you for your attendance.

We are here exactly 2 months after our March 11 call, where we commented the initial evidence about the coronavirus outbreak. We were during the early days. Commenting on Q1 2020 scenario, we decided to adopt an approach articulated in 3 key points: We want to comment on the organic trend in January, February; then, we'll take a look at the COVID outbreak and impact on lockdown period from the last part of February until the beginning of May; and then with [indiscernible] to draw outlook or I would say, better conjectures about recovery timing.

If we take a look at macroeconomic indicators, it is quite impressive, the intensity of the coronavirus crisis. The month of March alone with brutal double-digit downward trends in goods and services completely changed the Q1, turning a single-digit positive 2-month period for the economy into a double-digit negative quarter. This is true for the economy as a whole and could not be different for the advertising market. As you see in the chart, for the time being, we have official published data available already for Jan-February period. March data will be available in the second part of May, approximately last week of May. And as you see, the picture of the advertising market at the beginning of 2020 was absolutely aligned to the economic dynamics, a low single-digit growth scenario. I would say, not exciting, but anyway, a positive inertia that has been broken by COVID outbreak and therefore, we do expect an important double-digit down for advertising market in March. And therefore, a negative double-digit down Q1 for the advertising market as a whole.

Then, I move to our performance of our results. Our Q1 results is the following: Minus 11.6% in Q1, and you see that this totally explained by March because, as you remember, Jan-Feb performance was single-digit positive for Mediaset. And what we want to share with you is not the comment on each single month, but we want to share with you the proper time framework in order to understand the dynamics of the crisis.

So I move to the chart, we named Assessing COVID-19 impact. And as you see the -- in this chart, we focus our attention on the lockdown period -- the extended lockdown period, and then we considered this period starting at the end of February, probably 23rd, with the first containment measures. And we are extending the analysis, let's say, until last 30 days or the first week after the initial unlocking measure. This period is, for sure, the worst period of this crisis and the average performance during this period is minus 39.1% in advertising revenue.

If we want to turn this evidence into a positive perspective. There are two. We do think it is 100% absolutely reasonable to assume that the forthcoming weeks -- the forthcoming periods, while in Italy, will have financed phase 2 and phase 3, they should be still negative, but they could not be worse than lockdown period. So what we are remarking underlying, is that the period that we are commenting on is -- gives the idea of the intensity and duration of the worst peak of the crisis, while we'll try to share with you the key drivers that should shape the recovery curve out of the crisis.

Therefore, in the remaining part of the presentation, I'd like to share with you the 3 key drivers that sustain this perspective, and namely they are centrality of TV and total video, both during lockdown and recovery; a key point on business continuity and relationship with advertisers; and last but not the least, economic dynamics by sector and the progressive recovery path.

If we start with a 0.1 TV centrality, in our calls, we are used to comment this chart on the TV audience breakdown where you see our leadership on commercial target and we are solid and confirm around 35% of TV audience shares. But during lockdown period, the key metric is not share, but the real KPI is a different one, as you see in the following chart.

I'm commenting Chart #8. And this chart show you what happened during the past 2 months. The lockdown period highlighted that the centrality of linear television in our Mini Habit on the baselines of almost 4 hours of average daily consumption to be boosted to 5.5 hours and increasing in a range from 30% to 40% on a week-by-week basis during the different weeks, lockdown period. Interestingly, the increase in linear TV consumption did not jeopardized the baseline of total time spent with TV content through digital devices that is almost stable. And the interesting thing is that if this phenomenon is true for TV as a whole, this is fully reflected in Mediaset growth trend.

We experienced -- and now I'm commenting chart there should be #9, if I'm right, we experimented a growth of plus 30%, plus 40% in audience growth. Therefore, we kept our fair share in the total market. And what does this mean? The point I want to stress more is the following, and I'm commenting chart that should be #10, okay? If we move from daily average to the whole lockdown period, we can calculate extra hours for the 60 days of lockdown period. So each day, we reserved 29 minutes more, and this turned into 29 hours of extra consumption divided into 10 hours of news and 11 hours of entertainment. As Marco remarked at the beginning of the call, we increased the number of news and the information programs offered.

This is -- for me, it's a crucial point. All of us in Mediaset has been put under strong pressure during this lockdown weeks, and we are still under pressure, both on theaters and sale house side. But I can affirm that never, in our working experience, we understood the importance and the role of commercial television in a modern democracy as crystal clear as we understood it during the lockdown period. There are lessons learned from the 2 months of lockdown. One is the public role of commercial television, plus 30% of content consumption offer for free to citizens, no fee, no subscription, and a balanced mix between a certified qualitative professional news programs, you need to understand what's going on.

And entertaining programs, they are essentially in the same way because they need for relief. It [ relaxes the vital ] to sustain the psychological burden of physical restrictions. So I should find this public service offered to the public to the audience for free.

I move to the following chart, and I want to stress the fact that the total video KPI are definitely interesting. At the same time, Mediaset is a company that delivers, this is to during normal time, and even more during exceptional times, double utility to citizen on the one hand and to firms and companies on the RF side. Each day of the lockdown period, we kept on building and maintaining our solid business relationship with our clients, our advertisers. Our business continuity guaranteed each day during after lockdown is a critical strategic asset for business continuity of all advertisers throughout most economic factors. Companies need to stay in touch with their consumer and as TV broadcasters, we are here, more than ever, to make this happen.

As you see in this chart, the positive part of COVID is that enforced and accelerated our total video proposition on top of the strength of linear TV. You see the KPIs on top on the 30%, 40% increase in linear television, all the total video, total audience indicators are positive, even 100% more than the basis compared to last year. And we have a positive carryover also in May, and the positive evolution is expected also for early summer.

Therefore, these assets were critical for those sectors that kept on advertising during COVID, and these assets are more and more crucial during these weeks of May for those advertisers that had to stop and postpone their plans and now they are starting.

So a positive outcome of this past period is that we are strengthening and forcing our business relationship with our clients more and more in a medium and long-term perspective.

Just to give you some colors on it, over the past 2 months, more than 2,500 TV campaigns managed inbound and more than 1,000 album proposals for TV campaigns. We work it out more than 100 credit adaptations of generation of 100% genuinely new TV commercials in order to allow our advertiser to fine-tune the message to COVID period.

So these remarks on business continuity, the second point of my -- leads me to the third key driver, economic sector dynamics that will shape the recovery path and time frame. If you take a look again at available AC Nielsen data for the first 2 months, I'm commenting Chart #12, it was a good start of the year, overall performance, with the market and very positive advertising revenue trend in 5 strategic sectors: Food, automotive, [indiscernible] pharma and retail.

And then, I move to the following chart. I want to share with you what we have available with regard to trend in value sales for each economic sector. And as you see from the Chart #13, you can, let's say, assess the strong asymmetric impact of this crisis across economic factors. I want to stress the fact that this chart represents a trend in retail value sales for each economic sector in Q1, it's not our dynamics, it's the business trend of our advertisers. As you see, a large part of the economic sectors that account more than 70% in terms of contribution to our business were, to some extent, saved by the pure impact of the COVID crisis. So fast-moving food, asset care, personal hygiene, grossly large retailers, pharma, telco services were, for sure, under pressure, but their business continuity was not under discussion. In many cases, they also benefited from a stockpiling effect in March. They are all around single-digit growth during March and also in April.

While the other part of the economic sector that accounts for a large part of GDP, but less than 30% in terms of contribution to our business, this sector were obliged to stop almost completely, their operations, and business was actually discontinued. I'm talking about automotive, travel, automotive, food, restaurant, hotels, leisure, services, clothing and footwear. So this asymmetry among economic sector is the key driver to understand the possible recovery scenarios, outlooks and conjectures.

And so I'm commenting the last chart of my presentation, Chart #14, in our view, in order to -- so we definitely, let's say, assess the intensity, let's say, the depth and the left of the worst period of the crisis. Now we have to understand the shape of the recovery. And in order to understand, we divided economic sector into 3 categories as we commented 2 months ago. There are resilient sectors that account for 2/3, 65% of more of our business. They were doing absolutely good in Jan-Feb. They were growing high single digit. And thanks to the fact that their business was not discontinued during lockdown, they kept on investing in advertising at a better rate compared to the average and they benefit from the 30%, 40% increase in TV audiences.

Then, there are a crucial or starting sector that account for 20%, 25% of our business. They were flat in January, February. Their business was strongly discontinued or under pressure during lockdown. They were -- I'm talking about mainly automotive and then finance and insurance. They were all obliged to stop and postpone their advertising investment, and therefore, they performed worse during the lockdown period.

But the relevant thing is that almost all the top players in these sectors are restarting their advertising plans in May. And then, still restrictive sector, they account only of 10% of our business. They were not relevant in Jan-Feb because of low seasonality period, think about travel, clothing, also furniture, cosmetics, leisure services. They were almost 100% discontinued during lockdown, and therefore, their advertising trend was double time, worse than the average, mainly for the cancellation. And they are expected to restart at the end of H1. So my conclusion is we relied almost on resilience as in phase 1. We are already building phase 2 recovery, both with [ resilient ] and the starting sector. And as soon as phase 3 starts, there are still restricted sectors are ready to join us. We are in touch with all of them on a daily basis.

I thank you, and I hand over to Marco.

M
Marco Giordani
executive

Thanks, Matteo. I'm on Page 16. Just a few words about highlights. We closed the quarter with EUR 682 million revenues, an EBIT of EUR 41.6 million and a net profit of EUR 14.6 million.

I'd like to spend some minutes on the financial position. As you can see, we closed the quarter with EUR 619.1 million debt. This is the adjusted net financial position that are the one relevant for our covenants. Just to remember, our covenants are 2x EBITDA and we closed last year number with 0.8x EBITDA. So with a pretty large headroom in terms of debt.

Just a few words of what we carried out in the quarter. We have today, EUR 650 million of undrawn revolving credit facilities that are mainly expiring in 2023 and '24, plus we have additional EUR 500 million of uncommitted facilities.

So we are increasing our financing headroom available vis-Ă -vis the drawn facilities. We are less than 50%, where 1 year ago, we were more than 55%. We have no maturity until 2021. So no -- nothing to do in that respect in 2020. And the cost of debt has been confirmed. So no increase in that relation. And also, the duration of our debt has moved from 1.9 years at the end of '19 to more than 2.5 years now. So again, to prove what we have done in the recent months.

Let's now enter in the Italian business. Matteo has just commented the advertising performance. Looking at the other revenue, here, we have some discontinuity to talk about. First of all, just to adjust a little bit to the 9 -- last year numbers. We had still, last year, some pay-TV subscription revenue that are no more present in 2020, while in the first quarter 2020, we are recording a very extraordinary performance of big blockbuster produced by Medusa that had been, let's say, on the -- in the theater, in the cinema, at the beginning of January. And frankly speaking, we had a very good performance of the other revenue.

As far as total cost is concerned, here, again, we have some discontinuity to comment. The comparable number was down 7.5% compared to last year. Because, again, this year, we have spent almost EUR 10 million for launching the big blockbuster I mentioned before. And last year, we had almost EUR 20 million positive one-off in costs resulting from the reversal of a provision related to Mediaset Premium discontinuity. So on a comparable basis, the quarter ended with a 7.5% decrease in cost. Clearly, the emergency started just at the end of the quarter. So all the action we took to cope with the emergency has shown very few material effect on the first quarter, while they will have a material effect on the second quarter.

In terms of guidance, the company has moved to a quarter-by-quarter management because as Matteo was saying, visibility, it's even shorter than in the past, and it's very hard for us to make any kind of scenario. So we have decided to move on a quarter-by-quarter, let's say, management because only in that respect, we have the flexibility to manage the cost base. And clearly, the result in terms of cost will be depending on that length of the crisis and the shape of the recovery.

Let's say that, first of all, we are expecting for the second quarter of 2020, a lower cost base of almost EUR 90 million. That means 18.6% lower cost base in the second quarter, respect to the second quarter of '19. That's clearly generated by everything we have done, and it is the result of the action we took.

Clearly, I have to say that we are still focus and very focused on MFE project. And so going forward, when the project will be, let's say, approved, clearly, there will be the already announced EUR 100 million of savings, on which we have to work as well as the holding will be set.

Let us move to below EBIT in terms of results and forecast. I'm on Page 18. I mean, no big element to say in the quarter result. The only thing that I can say is that we are expecting similar to last year, financial charges without anything on the M&A side. And also, regarding associates, excluding extraordinary movement, we are not really experiencing any kind of exceptional movement.

Then, moving to investment, Slide #19. Here, again, no big element to comment in the first quarter numbers. You clearly have the EUR 20 million cost of the blockbuster of Medusa. That is clearly affecting the quarter, showing a phasing effect.

Then, moving to the second quarter, we can say that also in the investment line, we are clearly adapting to the emergency, and we are expecting a EUR 20 million lower investment, respect to last year. This, added to the EUR 90 million I mentioned before, result with more than EUR 100 million, let's say, a reduction in cost and investment for the second quarter.

Lastly, last slide I would like to comment is the cash flow. I mean, the quarter has been pretty outstanding in that respect. We had more than 75% increase in cash flow from core activities, reaching more than EUR 100 million generation in the quarter. Clearly, we are very focused on cash, and that clearly will go on also in the second quarter.

As far as guidance in that respect, we can reaffirm what we said 2 months ago. Clearly, the guidance for the full year 2020, will be clearly released as soon as MFE will be set up because that is where we are working on.

And I finish my presentation, and then we can start the Q&A session. Thank you.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Lisa Yang from Goldman Sachs.

L
Lisa Yang
analyst

So thanks for giving us the impact of COVID-19. I think you said minus 39% between 23rd of May -- 23rd February and 9th of May. Is that for the market or for Mediaset? Not sure I understood. And also, is it possible to get the trends until -- since the 1st of April because I guess you probably had some campaigns that couldn't be canceled at the last minute.

The second thing is when you talk about a EUR 9 million lower cost base, EUR 20 million low investments in Q2, what is the range of advertising assumptions that you have in mind, and similarly for other revenue for Q2?

And the third question is on MFE. Could you give us an update on the process, when do you expect the Spanish court here to take place? Because it looks like that's probably the final, I would say, event that we're expecting. And once that Spanish court -- I mean, if they do give you the green light, how long is it takes to get the MFE project completed?

M
Marco Giordani
executive

I'll start on the last question. As far as the Spanish situation, clearly, everything has been affected by the emergency. We were waiting for the Madrid court to take a final decision on the project, and that was already in March. But at that time, the court has been shut locked down, and they are still locked down. Clearly, situation is improving also in Spain, and so we are expecting the court will be reopened soon. And clearly, we have no official calendar, and clearly, nobody knows. But I mean, we are expecting something, let's say, in May, let's say, once that the court will give the green light, then you have to count, let's say, 15, 20 days to complete the merger.

As far as the cost, and then I'll leave to Matteo to talk about revenue. Frankly speaking, we didn't count on revenue forecast because it's almost impossible. And the cost action we took were really stated and decided at the maximum level as possible. And we will be pleased, let's say, to come back to a normality as soon as the top line will come back. But I mean, having, let's say, decided that amount of savings that we think that all the benefit that the recovery could take in revenue could clearly improve from the level where we are.

But then, I'll leave to Matteo to comment the questions on revenue.

M
Matteo Cardani
executive

Okay. Thank you, Marco, and thank you for the question. With regard to revenue, as I shared with you during the presentation, we do think that the framework we showed you is the best framework to understand what's going on, not pocketing on a single period, single map that are not representative in their own, but focusing on the dynamics of the situation. So a single-digit growth, say, in the first 2 months of the period, a longer lockdown period because we are talking about almost 10 weeks where we share with you the minus 39.1%, that is our average performance. And most of all, the fact that now we are taking a look at forthcoming weeks of May and June. And the good news is that we are -- we have the presence, the continuity of those sectors that invested during lockdown, and the good news is that for the remaining weeks of May, we have let's say, the full list of the top players in those critical sectors as the automotive, finance and insurance that are ready to start or already started. So that gives you the evidence that the worst part of the crisis should be at the back of our shoulders. And of course, it's really -- it's -- honest to say, it's really difficult to say anything about the time length and the shape of the recovery. We have to wait and see, week by week, what's going on. Also because I must say, we are also waiting for the government decision with regard to the unlocking measures, to the economic sectors' incentives so this is the best -- let me say, the most honest thing I can share with you.

L
Lisa Yang
analyst

So just to confirm, you expect May to be better than April. You think April would be the trough in Q2?

M
Matteo Cardani
executive

As I said, we do not comment on single month, but I do think that the -- you are, let me say, better than me in doing analysis and calculations. So with these numbers you have that you can, for sure, understand the shape of the curve. It's not a straight line, but I would say it's a sort of reverse bell shape curve downward. So your guess is a reasonable one. But it's absolutely reasonable because March was impacted 20 days out of 10 with the lockdown measures, while April was impacted 100% of April days. So it's a matter of -- absolutely reasonable to say that April is worse than March.

L
Lisa Yang
analyst

No, I was saying May worst -- May better than April.

M
Matteo Cardani
executive

May, better than April? Yes. No, no, no. May is better than April, yes. Absolutely. We could say that already now because we have already [indiscernible] that it's better.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Sarah Simon from Berenberg.

S
Sarah Simon
analyst

I have a few questions. First question was, can you just remind us of how you work in terms of cancellation penalties, early booking deadlines and that kind of thing in terms of just how we can understand how money can come in and out?

Second question was on ProSieben. 2 questions, really. First one, if I look in the cash flow statement, you obviously didn't spend that much cash on it. So is it reasonable to think that the recent increases in your stake are through derivatives?

And secondly, given that we've now got KKR involved, can you just confirm whether you've set out synergies from combining Italy and Spain together? If Germany joined MFE as well, do you think the synergies would be kind of similar scale to what you're achieving in Italy and Spain?

M
Marco Giordani
executive

I'll start, let's say, answer to the question. I mean, first of all, in the cash flow, all the, let's say, the securitization of ProSieben stake are accounted. What you are seeing is the first quarter, clearly, the increasing stake has been carried out after and so clearly, are not accounted in the first quarter. The fact that we are using financial instruments is not really affecting the accounting, as you can see from the presentation, not looking at the quarter, but looking at the picture at the end of the quarter, you see differences between the financial position and the adjusted net financial position because in our covenants, the proceeding, let's say, investment is not accounted for. I mean, as far as the number, clearly, the ARO accounted.

Then, moving to KKR. I mean clearly, I mean, frankly, nothing to say because clearly, we didn't know anything about that, as you can imagine. But the only comment I could make is that we are happy about the stack because we believe that the KKR is so professional and rational shareholders that is also confirming the value of our investment that we started almost 1 year ago. So that is the first element of, let's say, a positive reaction to the acquisition.

The second is that they know the company, and they know Germany well, probably better than us. And so again, this is a confirmation of how good was our decision started 1 year ago.

And lastly, let me say that, I mean, everything ProSieben rational shareholders that are looking for value increase it's, for us, the best, let's say, contribution to attract value, not only from our investment, but also for, let's say, surfing our companies in this space and also to, let's say, to fight and to match all the structural changes that are affecting the sector. So all in all, the announcement of KKR for us -- the announcement of KKR is, for us, a good news in all the respect, I try to summarize.

As far as the last part of your question regarding the project. Clearly, we believe that this month of emergency has only accelerated structural changes that was already, let's say, on the market, on the media market. And so the rationale behind MFE, if you want, has been more than confirmed and certainly accelerated by the emergency period. We are more and more convinced about our project and our, let's say, new operating model or business model, we try to implement. As far as the value of synergies, clearly, we have no element -- exact element of what would be. But in our case study, as such, for which any incremental country will be added, in addition to Italy and Spain, will generate a more than proportional, let's say, chunk of savings and opportunity.

And to try to explain you what I would like to say is that clearly, in our EUR 100 million synergy between Italy and Spain, we are also accounting, for instance, the value of having a single streaming platform for all our nonlinear activity. So just to give a simple example, we are spending one in Italy and one in Spain today, probably in MFE, we are going to spend on 1 month, 1.5 months, that is 25% lower than before and probably 50% better platform for the 2 countries.

If you add a third country, clearly, you don't need to spend anything more. So if they spend one, then the savings will be, let's say, more than 40%. So an increasing percentage of savings if you add additional territories. So all in all, if we add a new country, the proportion of savings will increase suspension.

M
Matteo Cardani
executive

Okay. I'll try to answer to the question you raised about advertising, cancellation, postponement and all these things. What I should say is that in the DNA of our company, of Mediaset, since the early days of its foundation, is to build a long-term relationship with clients. And this is I really believe is crucial today for the forthcoming months. So instead of, let's say, applying strictly all the clauses of our published rate cut policies. We -- let me say, forget about cancellation and penalties. We sit down with companies with our clients. Personally, I spent hours and hours to understand with them what was the best thing to do because all advertisers are 100% aware that going dark, so having 0% share of voice could damage share of market in the medium, long term.

So in many cases, we offered our accretive capabilities to adapt the message. And instead of postponement, we change a product campaign to a brand campaign to an institutional campaign to stay, let's say, alive during lockdown period. And the fact that in May, we have all the main players of the restarting periods already aligned with their advertising plan, that is why I say May is better than April. It's an outcome of the fact that during the early days of the COVID outbreak, so late days in February, early days in March, we understood the situation, and those who are obliged to postpone say, okay, let's keep this money. Let's move forward. We don't know when, it's April, it's May. And now it's definitely May, and we sit down with them and plan the restarting period. So this, let's say, flexibility and long-term approach has been recognized by advertisers. Some of them mentioned also during press interview at the beginning of this week. So we do really think that this is a leverage we should rely on for all 2020. Flexibility, understand the situation, move weekly by weekly. Of course, the reverse of the coin, let's say, is that this is a limitation to our visibility because we have to work week by week. So I hope to have answer, and if we are ready for the next question.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of [ Gianluca Pericon ] from Momentum.

U
Unknown Analyst

First off, thank you very much for the very detailed presentation.

I would like to switch again to discuss about the MFE project. And my question is because of the never-ending legal proceeding in Madrid, are you considering -- or that is going to affect the priorities or the shape of the media for Europe projects? Just to be straightforward, can you consider a first step where you will try to combine Mediaset and ProSieben and, eventually, video for the court of Madrid, maybe in a second step, adding Telecinco?

And then just a clarification. You mentioned Marco, at the beginning that the court of Madrid is still locked down, so it's not operating at the moment?

M
Marco Giordani
executive

Yes. First of all, let's be more precise on the court of Madrid, we don't know, clearly. There has not been an official statement of reopening. We are clearly following the Spanish situation also with our colleagues of Mediaset España. And clearly, activities around Spain has been reopened. The Madrid situation, as you can read, it's more difficult than in the rest of Spain. So probably, they are more prudent in releasing, let's say, activities. But I mean, we believe it's a question of days, maybe of weeks, probably things will be relaxed for sure. But I mean, we don't have an official statement that we -- so I cannot say a date. But I mean, that's the situation we are living.

As far as MFE, no, I mean, we are not really changing our time table. We are focused on MFE, Italy plus Spain. And as far as ProSieben stake, I mean, at this very moment, we are happy with the present stake and also with the structure we have implemented until now, let's say, the financial structure we have implemented up to now. That is giving us, at the same time, flexibility and protection to the downside. Clearly, there has been rumor on the market. But I mean, as you know, we are not used to comment any rumors, especially of these kinds. So that's still our project and it's our time table. And as far as ProSieben, as I said, we are happy with the present stake.

And let's move to the next question.

Operator

There are no more questions on the line. Please continue.

S
Simone Sole
executive

Okay. If there are no more questions, I would like to thank you, everyone, for having attending the conference call. And as always, we are available for any detail or question you may have.

Thank you very much, everyone. Bye-bye.

Operator

This concludes the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.

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