MTG claims ‘best-ever’ 2017
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Editor
| 28 March 2018

It may be currently entrenched in attempting to rectify thwarted corporate ambitions, but Nordic pay-TV group MTG is claiming 2017 as a ‘fantastic year’, with 8% organic sales growth, 19% profit growth and 33% total shareholder returns.


For the year ended 31 December 2017, MTG posted net sales of SEK17.537 billion ($2.2 billion) up 17% on a reported basis. Organic growth was seen across all four of the company’s business segments with acquisitions contributing a further 8% and primarily comprised the consolidation of InnoGames from 1 May and Kongregate from 21 July. The FX impact was 1%.

Looking at key segmental business performance, Nordic Entertainment posted SEK11.961 billion ($1.45 billion) in revenues, International Entertainment SEK1.189 billion ($140 million), MTG Studios SEK1.832 billion ($220 million) and MTGx SEK2.964 billion ($360 million). The businesses generated operating margins of 13.2%, 14.8%, 3.7% and -5.7% respectively. Nordic Entertainment was the divisional profit house generating SEK1.574 billion ($190 million) in profit.

Commenting on the results, president and chief executive officer Jørgen Madsen Lindemann said: “MTG’s performance in 2017 shows just how well positioned we are in the highly competitive and rapidly evolving content and communications landscape. We have the best and broadest content offerings and streaming services in the Nordics, and we have closer and deeper partnerships with content creators, owners and distributors than ever before. We also offer next generation entertainment services on a global basis through our MTGx businesses. So, the model is working and our strategic transformation continues.”

The latest part of the transition has been the decision taken on 23 March 2018 to initiate a process to split its business into two separate concerns, Modern Times Group and Nordic Entertainment Group. This followed MTG’s aborted attempt to sell its and Nordic Entertainment & Studio Business to Danish telco TDC.