Ascential postpones Cannes festival, puts buyback on hold

(Sharecast News) - Ascential said on Wednesday that the Cannes film festival will be pushed back from June to October 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, as it announced it was putting its share buyback on hold and refraining from reconfirming its guidance.
The company said its major customers support the decision and that any additional costs that may be incurred as a result of the delay are not expected to be material.

"We will continue to engage closely with our customers in coming months to assist them in planning for these revised dates, whilst also monitoring carefully continuing developments associated with the coronavirus outbreak and following World Health Organisation (WHO) and national government guidelines," it said.

Asciential said trading remains in line with its previous guidance, reflecting a heavy bias towards digital subscriptions and platforms, advisory and benchmark revenue streams, from which it derives around 75% of its revenues. However, in light of the "rapidly-changing impact" of the Covid-19 outbreak, it has decided not to reconfirm financial guidance and to put its share buyback programme on hold for now.

Approximately 25% of its revenues are derived from destination events income, mainly the Cannes Lions festival and Money20/20 events in Amsterdam and Las Vegas. The company has yet to make a decision on the timing of Money20/20 Europe.