Ströer sees a very strong start in 2016 and expands its digital business unit's portfolio

After an excellent financial year 2015 Ströer is also having a strong start to the year 2016 – both in the digital segment, as well as in the OOH business. The German outdoor advertising business is benefitting from the digitalization and the increased relevance of Ströer as one of Germany's leading advertising sales houses. For the first quarter 2016 Ströer sees double digit growth and the best start to the year since the IPO. The international OOH business is also developing above last year benchmarks.

Based on the dynamic growth of the new digital content business and following the acquisitions of the last months, Ströer builds a new business unit “Digital Content, E-Commerce and Subscription” within the fast-growing Segment “Digital”.

After a successful launch of the content based business models with Germany’s largest online portal t-online.de as its core, the new business unit will focus on the diversification of the currently advertising dominated revenues streams. At the same time, under-utilized ad inventory will fully leveraged by the new business unit.

“By entering the digital segment, we supplemented our primarily CAPEX-driven out-of-home infrastructure business with more service-oriented digital business models. To further optimize our portfolio with sustainable and structurally growing businesses, we now do the next step and diversify our mainly advertising driven revenues via subscription businesses and e-commerce” says Udo Müller, CEO of Ströer SE. “The expansion of our digital portfolio is one of the pillars of our digital multi-channel strategy and will definitely drive already in the short-term the development of Ströer. The latest financial numbers confirm our expectations. For the first quarter 2016, we see an excellent start in all business segments with double-digit organic growth rates for the whole group. We confirm our current guidance of 270-280m EUR EBITDA for 2016 – excluding recent acquisitions that have not been closed yet – like Statista. At the same time we will finish our fiscal year 2015 better than previously forecasted with an operational EBITDA of slightly more than 200m EUR.”

Ströer communicates its preliminary full-year figures 2015 on February 23th 2016.

Disclaimer

This press release contains “forward looking statements” regarding Ströer SE (“Ströer”) or the Ströer Group, including opinions, estimates and projections regarding Ströer’s or the Ströer Group’s financial position, business strategy, plans and objectives of management and future operations. Such forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Ströer or the Ströer Group to be materially different from future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. These forward looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release and are based on numerous assumptions which may or may not prove to be correct. No representation or warranty, express or implied, is made by Ströer with respect to the fairness, completeness, correctness, reasonableness or accuracy of any information and opinions contained herein. The information in this press release is subject to change without notice, it may be incomplete or condensed, and it may not contain all material information concerning Ströer or the Ströer Group. Ströer undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward looking statements or other information stated herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.