Roularta media group has seen a sharp drop in its turnover, causing its share price to plummet more than 10% on the Euronext Brussels exchange on Friday.
Seeing a decline in all its brands and markets, the media conglomerate saw its turnover fall to €159 million during the first six months of the year, according to L'Echo.
A notable drop in advertising market and readership seems to be the key contributing factors to this decline. An exception to this downtrend is financial news publisher Mediafin, which is co-owned by Roularta and Rossel. It saw a 5.8% rise in their turnover to €40.5 million.
Tough times ahead
The group's EBITDA also took a significant hit, falling by 50% to €8.4 million. Roularta cited escalating paper costs, energy expenses and wage indexing as the culprits, despite introducing price increases on its products. The net result of this downturn is a net loss of €1 million, pushing the group's bottom line into the red.
CEO Xavier Bouckaert stated that H2 will continue to be challenging due to strained advertising revenues.
