Harrowing day for Southern Cross as Nine escapes downturn
Nine was the only company on the Unmade Index to post a gain on a day when it filed its half-yearly financial update.
The modest rise (+0.47%) could be seen as a tacit approval of the solid narrative told by Nine CEO Matt Stanton and CFO Martyn Roberts: building digital subs in publishing and Stan offsetting a terrible TV and display ad market (which presumably will come back at some point), print declines (nothing new there) and the fact it didn’t have the Olympics in the period. Also, there is AI licensing, digital platform money, and out-of-home to look forward to.
It may not be revolutionary, but it’s a story, and apparently one plausible enough to placate the market.
Southern Cross Media, on the other hand, also filed half-yearly results, and it was savaged (-9.02%).
This was the morning after the night before, when Southern Cross had axed former Seven CEO Jeff Howard — who was to be CEO of the whole shebang — and then showed up with numbers that demonstrated just how unpleasant swallowing TV decline was going to be for the audio business. While Seven’s numbers were no surprise — they’d already been filed — perhaps seeing the thing actually laid out spooked investors.
SXL now has a market cap of just $289.7m. That is a phenomenal decline for businesses that before they merged (just a few months ago) were worth $430m.
There was plenty more bad news. Sports Entertainment Group fell 8.33%, Eneco slipped 3.39%, Ive was down 2.94%, News Corp fell 2.67% and Ooh Media dropped 1.92%.
The decline left the Unmade Index at a new low, down 1.55% to 412.1.
