How much does Caltagirone lose with Messaggero, Mattino and Gazzettino?
Ten years later, Caltagirone publisher finds itself with halved revenues and above all with a string of record losses of 400 million. Fabio Pavesi's article for il Fatto Quotidiano
Another hole, yet another, of 44 million in the 2020 accounts of Caltagirone publisher, the company that collects all the publications of the Roman manufacturer's empire, from the Messaggero al Mattino to the Gazzettino up to Corriere adriatico , Quotidiano di Puglia and Leggo .
The write-down of the value of the publications by 57 million resulted in the additional liabilities in the balance sheet. By now, for the powerful capital developer, the drying up of his newspapers is a leitmotif.
In 2019, the devaluation of the publications was 30 million. And in fact, every year, for some time now, Caltagirone publisher is forced to put his hand to the treasure of its brands by filing down the values.
Today its stock of newspapers is worth only 103 million, half of the balance sheet value at the beginning of 2019 and a third of the value recorded only 5 years earlier when Messaggero and C. were registered in the accounts at almost 300 million euros.
An endless hemorrhage. After all, the decline in the total value of newspapers goes hand in hand with the slow but inexorable erosion of sales. Fewer copies, less revenues, publications that are worth less and less.
In fact, the fall in revenues continued in 2020. A scissor cut of 12% of revenue with the turnover down for the publishing group to 119 million from 136 in 2019. The slow consumption of copies on newsstands cannot be stopped even by the progress of digital copies.
Too much is the price gap between paper and digital to be able to contain the collapse in newsstands. And now it is an endless dripping. Suffice it to say that the last profit of the publishing company of the Caltagirone family dates back to 2010. Only 6 million of profits out of 240 million of revenues.
Ten years later Caltagirone finds itself with halved revenues and above all with a string of consecutive record losses of 400 million, of which over 170 million in the last 5 years alone.
A bloodbath. Another newspaper owner would have already thrown in the towel. Caltagirone no. The eighty-year-old patriarch of the Francesco Gaetano family sits on an immense corporate empire that goes from construction to concrete with Cementir to major works with Vianini to finance. First with Mps, an unfortunate company, now with Generali where Caltagirone with its 5.6% of the capital is increasingly dictating the law in Trieste. Caltagirone Spa alone, the industrial holding, has a net worth of over 2 billion and liquidity of 600 million euros.
The 400 million lost in 10 years in the press are almost a smack for one of the most liquid men in Italy. The publisher Caltagirone still has part of the money from the share premium in its belly and can still count on a net worth despite the record losses of 340 million and liquidity for 100 million. There is money to stop the disaster of losses. But the family that owns Messaggero , Mattino and Gazzettino has certainly not given up on the support of the state over the years for the continuous pre-retirement of journalists. The loss accounts of the publisher alone also allowed one of the richest and most liquid families in the country.
(extract from an article published in the Fatto Quotidiano)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/caltagirone-messaggero-quanto-perde/ on Sat, 05 Jun 2021 06:15:27 +0000.