Wanda Sports, owner of IRONMAN enters losses despite rising revenues

The sports holo, owner of IRONMAN and Infront, among others, lost 31,1 million euros in the third quarter that attributed to the costs of IPO, among others.

Although the billing went down, it corrected its downward trend.

According to the website palco23.com, Wanda Sports has managed to break in the third quarter with two consecutive periods of business decline, but it has been at the cost of its profitability.

775 million euros in revenue in 2019

The owner of IRONMAN and Infront, among others, closed the July-September cycle with revenues of 245,2 million euros, a year-on-year 8%.

This growth contrasts with the 17% fall in sales suffered in the first half. In total, its income so far from 2019 already borders 775 million euros.

 The recovery of the business pulse has been at the cost of profitability.

While the first six months of the year were concluded with a profit of 22,1 million euros, the third quarter of 2019 reflected losses of 31,1 million.

The Chinese company attributes this situation to costs related to IPO and debt refinancing, among others.

Hengming Yang, general director of the multinational, has defended that “we deliver solid operating results in the third quarter driven by strong activity in our spectator sports segment, the incorporation of new popular events in our mass participation segment and our continued ability to leverage technology in our global platform".

 "Despite the cyclical nature of our business, we have achieved a solid growth in comparable revenues year after year, thanks to the expansion of our sports rights and event offers in the third quarter”Added Brian Liao, chief financial officer of Wanda Sports. This, after a period in which new accounts have been won.

 The company remembers its agreement with Iaaf, for which an annual event of the Diamond League in China and will be responsible for marketing major rights packages to your evidence worldwide.

In addition, the NBA has commissioned the sale of sponsorships in Italy, will collaborate with the Alfa Romeo Racing of the F1 for ten years and will sell selected lots of hospitality Roland Garros up to 2021.

One of the keys to growth in the third quarter was the celebration of Basketball World Cup in China, which caused revenue from sports shows to almost double, up to 105,8 million euros.

The mass sports division billed an additional 14% year-on-year, up to 113,4 million, as it went from 102 to 120 events and the number of paid participants increased, from 448.000 between July and September from 2018 to 616.000 in the same period of 2019.

The area of ​​audiovisual and digital rights sank 62%, up to 26 million, due to the dispute over Football World in Russia in 2018.