Bankinter | The media company Prisa is negotiating exclusively with Cofina the sale of Media Capital, its Portuguese subsidiary. In the past it negotiated the same sale with Altice for 440 Mn€, but the competition authorities did not approce the operation.
Opinion of the Bankinter analysis team: Disinvestment in assets is logically given Prisa´s difficult position. Its main problem is debt. Little by little it has been reducing it from 6.7X Ebitda in 2017 to 4.4X Ebitda in 2018, but it remains at elevated levels. In fact, at the close of June its net debt increased to 1.180 Bn€, +25% since the close of 2018. This is why it continues to analyse this type of operation since enlarging its capital only a few months ago and reaching agreement on refinancing in January 2018.
We reiterate our recommendation of Sell. The fundamental situation of the prisa is weak (the accounts for the first half of 2019 shows negative net assets of -281 Mn€) as are the estimates for the evolution of its business.
