Portugal’s Impresa group in technical bankruptcy

Portugal’s media group Impresa has announced a new €30 million bond issue in order to redeem its previous bond issue.

It means that the TV and media group which detains TV channel SIC and weekend broadsheet Expresso and owned by media mogul Francisco Balsemão, is issuing debt to pay off other debt. It is currently said to owe banks around €400 million which has put the company in a position of technical bankruptcy.
In 2020, Impresa announced that it had closed the year with profits of less than €20 million. Its financial situation is said to have deteriorated because of a fall in advertising revenues which has been increasingly transferred to large online platforms (Google, Facebook, Instagram and Amazon), as well as a lack of confidence from the market in audience figures.
However, the company did benefit from around €3.5 million of State aid through adverts explaining measures that could be taken to reduce the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The group’s cash-flow needs also forced the company to sell its positions both in the Lusa news agency and VASP – a publications distribution group – which was bought by Marco Galinha’s Global Media group.
The new bond issue will mature on 11 June 2025, with a fixed interest rate of 3.95% per annum. The bonds issued by Impresa on the 10 July 2019 offering a gross fixed interest rate of 4.50% per annum mature on 11 July 2022.
The banks coordinating the bond issue are Caixa – Banco de Investimento and Novo Banco.