‘Interest and offers’ made for recovering Ocean Outdoor
Ocean Outdoor has received “interest and conditional offers” about a potential sale, the out-of-home advertising company has announced alongside a 44% surge in annual revenue.
Having benefited from a “strong bounce back in demand during 2021”, Ocean reported a significant increase in profit (reported as Ebitda) to £18.6m for the full year, from a £0.4m loss in 2020. Group revenue was up 44.3% to £124.4m.
However, the company said it is “continuing to evaluate a number of options” regarding a potential buyer of the business, having announced in November that Ocean was for sale.
In its trading update today Ocean said: “This decision was taken after the Board and management felt that Ocean was undervalued, with the share price continuing to face technical trading challenges unrelated to Ocean’s strong business fundamentals and intrinsic value.
“The Board is continuing to evaluate a number of options, including a potential sale, following interest and conditional offers received which may or may not lead to a transaction.”
Ocean’s share price plummeted to $4.17 in May 2020, when most people were forced to stay at home during Covid-19 lockdowns. Since then the company’s stock has steadily risen and this morning was up 7% to $9.80 at the time of publication.
The company said the 2021 “year of recovery” began during the second quarter, with “client activity and strong sequential demand tracking the vaccine rollout and phased lifting of restrictions”. Meanwhile, footfall across prime retail destinations, such as Westfield shopping centres and major city centres, has “come back strongly”, while roadside traffic across most of its territories was back to pre-pandemic levels by the year end.
The company has also benefited from new contracts signed during 2021, such as the 10-year deal worth £25m to provide outdoor ads at the St James Quarter site in Edinburgh. It also became the exclusive outdoor media partner for the Canary Wharf Group (long-term contract value of £30m), and was appointed strategic media partner for Fisketorvet, a major Copenhagen’s shopping dining and leisure destination (lifetime contract value of £7m).
Despite the impact of the Omicron variant and restrictions to leisure and hospitality, Ocean reported that trading has started “very strongly” in 2022. The company expects revenue and adjusted Ebitda for 2022 to be ahead of 2019, as a comparison with pre-Covid trading.
Ocean CEO Tim Bleakley said: “Ocean was at the forefront of driving the recovery, with digital OOH (DOOH) playing the most significant role by providing a high impact and dynamic means to target highly valuable audiences efficiently and cost effectively.
He added: “Ocean has also combined the fast audience recovery environments of prime retail and urban roadside locations with unique innovations, such as our immersive 3D Deepscreen proposition, which has been launched across multiple countries.”
Ocean operates in the UK, Netherlands, Germany and the Nordics.
Main image: A Lego campaign in Finland featuring Deepscreen tech