London-listed firm posts full-year revenue and profit growth
Canal+ Group is not interested in investing in ITV Studios but is pursuing an “active M&A strategy” in Africa after posting its first results since listing on the London Stock Exchange in December.
The StudioCanal owner, which was split from other assets by French giant Vivendi late last year, unveiled a revenue rise in 2024 of 3.6% to €6.45bn (£5.34bn) while EBITA was up 5.4% to €503m (£416.5m).
Revenues from its ‘content production, distribution and others’ division was up by almost 15% to €817m (£676.4m), with growth fuelled by the performance of StudioCanal and Dailymotion, the company’s streaming service. Adjusted EBIT was €70m, up 15.8% on 2023’s €61m.
TV series Paris Has Fallen and movie Paddington in Peru were picked out among recent successes, but the company’s direct-to-consumer subscriptions only rose by less than 1% to 26.9 million.
MultiChoice focus
Canal+ said its “very limited” debt stood at 355m, which would allow the company to explore M&A opportunities including its yet-to-be completed deal for African media giant MultiChoice.
Canal+ chief exec Maxime Saada described the deal for MultiChoice as the “most transformative acquisition in its history” and added that he hoped the deal would be finalised before October.
He added that the company’s low debt levels would “allow us to consider with serenity the acquisition of MultiChoice and to take full advantage of Africa’s huge potential market with high projected growth in terms of demography.”
Canal+ has interests in streamers around the world, including Viu in Asia, in which it holds a 37.2% stake, with the option of taking that up to 51% by the end of 2026.
The group, which has a long-term goal to secure between 50 million and 100 million subscribers, also owns a 29.3% stake in Nordic-focused Viaplay, making it the streamer’s largest investor, and operates a major domestic pay-TV and streaming operation service in France.
However, Saada told the Financial Times he was not interested in buying ITV Studios, which has been linked over a possible merger with All3Media.
He added he had expected the company’s value to drop following its spin-off from Vivendi as French investors sold stakes but had not expected it to fall “this low”.
Shares at the London-listed company stood at 177p at press time, almost 40% down on their December launch price of 290p, and giving the company a market cap of £1.76bn.
He added the company expects US and UK investors to become shareholders but said he is in “no hurry”, describing the move as a “three-year story.”
Canal+ was spun off following a four-way split by French media giant Vivendi, whose board approved the move late last year.
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