Takeover of Swiss Ticketcorner Holding AG
Market leader in Switzerland / CHF 35 million sales and 9.3 million tickets / CTS EVENTIM AG continues successful international expansion / Joint Venture with Ringier planned / Major synergies
Munich, Zurich, 19 February 2010. CTS EVENTIM AG, Europe’s market leader in the ticketing field and one of the leading providers of Live Entertainment, continues its successful international expansion. The contracts to take over the Ticketcorner Holding AG, a Swiss company, were signed in Zurich today. “By making this acquisition, we are consolidating our business in Switzerland while extending our market leadership in Europe at the same time. Our declared aim is to handle all ticket sales in Europe from one database”, stated Klaus-Peter Schulenberg, CEO of CTS EVENTIM AG. In December 2009, CTS EVENTIM agreed the formation of a joint venture agreement with Ringier AG, Switzerland’s biggest media company. In future, all ticketing activities are to be pooled within this one company. Marc Walder, CEO of Ringier Switzerland/Germany: “For Ringier, the acquisition of Ticketcorner marks another important step in rigorously intensifying its activities in the entertainment field. The partnership with Europe’s leading ticketing provider, CTS EVENTIM, is an ideal way of supporting this strategy”.
Ticketcorner mit 60 Prozent Marktanteil
Ticketcorner is the undisputed market leader in Switzerland, with a 60% share of the ticketing market. In the 2009 business year, the company sold a total of 9.3 million tickets and generated net sales of approximately CHF 35 million (around EUR 24 million), a normalised EBITDA of just under CHF 9.7 million (EUR 6.6 million, after adjustment for non-recurrent effects and after taking the restructuring measures into account on a pro forma basis), and a reported EBITDA of around CHF 6.5 million (EUR 4.4 million). The seller is a consortium that includes CAPVIS, the private equity firm.
Founded in 1987 and based in the Canton of Zurich, Ticketcorner has a workforce of 130 employees and offers the public around 3,000 Ticketcorner “sales points”, a modern call centre and an Internet portal. In future, Ticketcorner can avail of the entire EVENTIM IT infrastructure. CTS EVENTIM is Europe’s leading ticketing platform and provides unique value-added services to all ticket sellers and information seekers relating to every aspect of live entertainment. This includes “ticket alarms” (up-to-date and individual messages about new events by favourite performers), fan reports and reviews, with more than 70,000 reviews of different events, a ticket resale and swapping platform and an exclusive ticket shop on MySpace. Commenting on the takeover, George Egloff, CEO of Ticketcorner, said that “By working with CTS EVENTIM, we can guarantee our customers a first-class range of events and even better service, with state-of-the-art features and cutting-edge technology”.
CTS EVENTIM: More than 100,000 events and over 70 million tickets a year
CTS EVENTIM is Europe’s market leader in the ticketing field and one of the leading providers of live entertainment. More than 70 million tickets for well over 100,000 events are sold annually using EVENTIM systems developed and marketed by the EVENTIM Group. In addition to more than 8,000 stationary box offices throughout Europe, sales via the Internet and especially via the www.eventim.de and www.getgo.de portals are gaining increasing importance. In the 2008 business year, CTS EVENTIM generated EUR 404 million in revenue, an EBIT of EUR 50.3 million and Group net income of EUR 29.2 million. Publication of the preliminary key figures for the 2009 business year is scheduled for Week 8.
Ringier is a multinational media company with around 8000 employees in China, Germany, Croatia, Romania, Switzerland, Serbia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Vietnam. Ringier publishes more than 120 newspapers and magazines worldwide, produces and markets over 20 television programmes, holds key interests in TV and radio channels, operates more than 80 web and mobile platforms as well as 11 printing companies. Established in 1833, Ringier is a family-owned company in its fifth generation.
For further information contact:
Volker Bischoff, CFO, CTS EVENTIM AG, Tel. +49 421-3666-233
Engel & Zimmermann AG, Hermann Zimmermann, Tel. +49 (0)89-8935633
Ticketcorner Holding AG, George Egloff, Tel. Media Office +41 44 818 33 46
Media Office, Ringier Switzerland, Tel. +41 44 259 64 44
Capvis Equity Partners AG, Tobias Ursprung, Tel. +41 43 300 58 58