After steadying the ship, Ooh Media moves into the next phase
Welcome to a Tuesday update from Unmade. Today: Ooh Media grows revenue but still sees profits fall (depending how you measure them). And the Unmade Index is dragged back below 600 points - yet again.
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Can Ooh Media escape the ad market’s gravitational pull?
There’s both a bear case and a bull case to be made for Ooh Media after yesterday’s full year results.
The pessimists would point out that the company finished the year with less money in the bank, owed more on its loans, and went backwards on overall EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation) profits.
The optimists would suggest that having gown revenue, Ooh Media is through the worst after missing out on the City of Sydney contract to QMS which hurt market share; is well positioned for the continuing shift of advertising spend away from television; and has a chance to take a slice of the retail media action too.
Let’s get to those numbers.
Ooh Media’s revenue (the green bars in the chart above) was up in 2023 - from $593m to $633m - despite being in a declining ad market. That was almost up to 2019’s record $650m, which was the last year without Covid in the books.
But those EBITDA profits were down slightly on last year, falling 3% from $288m to $278m. (It’s worth mentioning Ooh Media’s preferred measure in yesterday’s announcement was “adjusted EBITDA” which excludes various accounting factors and was actually up 2%).
Meanwhile, the company finished the year with $32m in the bank, compared to $40m at the beginning.
And Ooh Media currently owes the banks $115m, well up on the $73m it owed a year ago, before it shored up the share price with a stock buyback.
We’re now in the period where CEO Cathy O’Connor - who took home just over $2m last year - will be judged on results. Having joined the company at the beginning of 2021, at the height of Covid, she’s starting her fourth year in charge.