The board of Italian Exhibition Group (IEG) has issued its first half of the year results, which show the group managed to make a profit thanks to “excellent results achieved at the beginning of the year and the efficacy of the measures that were immediately adopted to counteract the effects of this unprecedented crisis”. The pandemic caused the suspension of the group’s operations starting from the end of February and for the remaining months of the half year period. Therefore, the business activities carried out in the second quarter were substantially close to zero.
The groups says the results of the first half year, together with substantial financial resources, strict safety protocols and new strategies applied to digitalisation, are the strong basis with which IEG is facing the challenge of resuming its operations within a context of prolonged uncertainty in the tradefair sector.
Total revenues for the first half of 2020 amounted to €61.8m, representing a decline (-38.1%) from €99.9m in the same period of the previous year due to the Covid-19 health emergency.
However, operational profitability remained positive despite the substantial cessation of business activities at the end of February, the group says.
EBITDA (Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation)
stood at €15.6m, due to lower revenues, compared with the €26.7m of the first half of 2019 (-41.5%).
EBIT stood at €3.4m compared with the €17.8m in the same period of 2019 (-80.8%) despite a non-recurring asset write-down of €2.6m. The net profit attributable to the shareholders of the parent company amounted to €9.8m, up by 1.2% also thanks to the non-recurrent financial income of €9.3m compared with the € 9.7m in the first half of 2019.
The group’s core business, organising trade exhibitions, accounted for 70.3% of total revenues during the first half of the year and recorded a decrease of €10.2m (-19.0%) compared to the same period of the previous year.
