As expected, Emmis Communications on Thursday submitted its quarterly earnings report for fiscal Q3 2020 to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
There was no other public distribution of the financial results, which show the leaner media company widening its loss from continuing operations.
At the same time, Emmis’ net income surged in the three months period ending Nov. 30, 2019.
For the quarter, Emmis’ net revenue was statistically flat, moving to $10.74 million from $10.8 million.
However, its loss from continuing operations moved to $6.32 million, from $1.71 million.
How then did Emmis achieve net income of $52.73 million ($4.08 per share), rising from $712,000 (6 cents) in fiscal Q3 2019? Some $58.92 million in income associated with discontinued operations, net of tax, is to thank.
Put that together, and Emmis has “amounts attributable to common shareholders” that may be worth a look.
On this basis, the net loss for continuing operations widened to $5.83 million (45 cents per share), from $1.16 million (9 cents).
While that may seem confusing, one thing’s for sure: Emmis has a lot more cash on hand, and that is exciting investors. As of Nov. 30, Emmis’ cash and cash equivalents mushroomed to $111.35 million, from $4.34 million.
This helped boost its total assets to $241.5 million as of Nov. 30, 2019, from $237.75 million as of Feb. 28, 2019.
Overall the No. 1 revenue source is advertising. And, ad dollars were softer, moving to $5.23 million from $5.36 million.
Local comprises 39.5% of net revenue, sipping a percentage point from fiscal Q3 2019, while national rose to 7.7% from 5.1%.
GOTHAM SLUMP
With Urban WBLS-FM and Hip-Hop WQHT-FM in New York shifting to the newly formed Mediaco, a partnership that sees Emmis founder and CEO Jeff Smulyan serve as its chief executive while Soo Kim is the main equity holder, Emmis also provided a financial glimpse of the two stations.
For fiscal Q3 2020 the duo saw net revenue of $9.8 million, falling from $11.54 million.
But, factor in the gain on the sale of the stations to Mediaco, valued at $35.62 million, and there’s income of $37.69 million from the deal with Kim, compared to income of $3.29 million in fiscal Q3 2019.
AUSTIN ACHE
Similarly, Emmis provided some net revenue details for its Austin partnership with Sinclair Telecable, which now owns the radio stations in the market formerly operated by Emmis outright.
For the three months ending Nov. 30, 2019, net revenue came in at $2.66 million.
By comparison, fiscal Q3 2019 saw net revenue of $7.99 million.
EMMS, traded on the Nasdaq Global Select market, was up 11 cents to $3.68 in Thursday’s trading.
It reverses a downtrend for Emmis shares that has gone unabated since July 2019, when a sharp rise in the company’s share price brought it as high as $5.60.
Emmis’ shares one year ago were at $3.52.
