SeatPG
Q1 earnings review: improving performance in a transformational year
“Hold” PGIM Senior Secured 01/17 10.5% 93.4/94.6 (Z-spread 886/918)
Yesterday, PGIM released Q1 earnings, which were good in our view. Revenue was up 9.7% y-o-y to EUR 125.1 mn, with EBITDA almost tripling to EUR 37.1 mn, driven almost exclusively by Italy. From an operations point of view, the focus was on Seat’s announcement, in parallel to the earnings release, of its 5 year partnership with Google, whereby Seat will be reselling Google adware through a web hosting service managed by Seat on a fully self provisioning basis. With this, Seat is well on its way of changing its business model to becoming a local communication agency.
On the restructuring of its debt, it appointed Rothschild, Linklaters and Alvarez & Marsal to advise, therefore kicking off the process. With the prepayment of the June TLA maturity and the closing down of its ABS facility, management indicated it had no large remaining financing cash flow for the rest of the year until December. With strong monthly positive cash flows and the EUR 90 mn revolving facility outstanding, liquidity should not be an issue. Accordingly, we feel the company is in a good position to start refinancing discussions. Given the positive earnings momentum, we move to “hold” on the senior secured notes at current spreads, which we don’t think will be impaired through the restructuring. We maintain out “Very High Risk” assessment on the LARA scale and will publish a more detailed “Earnings Flash” later today.