EMI Reports Fiscal Year Loss Due to Writedown

10:00 AM PDT 8/7/2012 by Georg Szalai

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Joe Pugliese

Revenue for the company, whose sale of its recorded music unit that includes stars like Katy Perry is pending, rose slightly for the year ended March 31.

Music company EMI recorded a pre-tax loss of £349 million ($546 million) for the fiscal year ended March 31, down from the year-ago period due to a writedown, the Guardian reported, citing an internal company memo.

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  The £372 million ($582 million) charge was necessary to write down the value of the music major's two units - recorded music and music publishing.

The company is in the process of selling the former to Vivendi's Universal Music Group and has completed the sale of the music publishing arm to a group led by Sony.   In the year-ago period, EMI had reported a profit of £529 million ($828 million).   When EMI agreed to sell two units in November, it was required to write down what it had estimated the value of its catalogs and goodwill to be.  

Excluding the writedown and a restructuring charge due to staff cuts, the company's operating profit nearly doubled from £69 million ($108 million) to £133 million ($209 million).

  EMI posted underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of £290 million ($454 million), down 5.2 percent from the year-ago period.  EMI, home to such artists as Katy Perry, the Beatles and Coldplay, reported a slight revenue increase to £1.47 billion ($2.33 billion).  

EMI CEO Roger Faxon said the results showed an "incredibly strong performance... set against the backdrop of a challenging state of the music market and wider economic conditions."

  EMI's recorded music unit posted a 2 percent revenue increase to £1.03 billion ($1.61 billion). EMI Publishing kept its revenue roughly unchanged at £434 million ($679 million).   Adjusted EBITDA for EMI Recorded Music amounted to £158 million ($247 million), down from £169 million ($264 million). EMI Publishing declined from £132 million ($207 million) from £137 million ($214 million).

Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com

Twitter: @georgszalai