Eventim Blooms In The Shade

While the debate about where a Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger would leave CTS Eventim seems to have quieted, the Munich-based ticketing company has bloomed away from the spotlight and posted half-year profits up 45 percent.

The results for the six months to June 30 show earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) totaled euro 35.3 million ($49.7 million), up from euro 24.4 million ($35 million), spurred by a 55 percent growth in the highly profitable online ticket business.

Between Jan. 1 and the end of June, CTS sold about 5.7 million tickets via the Internet.

Group revenues rose 19 percent to euro 249 million ($351 million).

The live entertainment segment, which amounts to roughly a half-share in major promoters including MLK, FKP Scorpio, Peter Rieger, Semmel Concerts and Argo Concerts, also had a successful first half with pre-tax (EBIT) earnings up 26 percent to euro 16.6 million ($23.4 million).

It came from revenues of euro 183.4 million, 12.8 percent up on the euro 162.6 million it brought in during the first six months of last year.

The June earnings per share were euro 0.76, compared with euro 0.53 for the same period last year.

The results will be all the more pleasing to the CTS board because they appear to have had a small impact on the Frankfurt stock market, pushing the share price up from euro 29.15 to euro 30.30. That’s only euro 70 cents below its 52 week high of euro 31.

The company has previously published a string of increasingly encouraging results that have had next to no effect on the stock value.

In the last year, negative reports from influential business analysts and a depressed German market has seen CTS stock slump as low as euro 17.

The group says it will continue to focus on expanding its Internet and international businesses.

In October, CTS bought a 70 percent stake in Lippupiste Oy, the second-biggest ticket company in Finland, for euro 5 million. It will buy the remaining 30 percent in 2012.

It makes The Baltics one of the next logical targets, particularly as further Balkan expansion and a takeover of Istanbul-based TicketTurk appear to have been shelved when the Turkish company got into long court battles over performance fees it owed to U.S. rock acts Megadeth and Garbage.