Domain revenues rise by 33 percent at Fairfax Media
Revenue at real estate arm of Fairfax Media, the Domain Group increased by one third to $296 million, it announced this morning.
Domain, the key pillar of Fairfax's publishing future, boosted revenue 33 per cent, with its annual EBITDA lifting 39.7 per cent to $120 million.
Digital advertising revenue at Domain rose 26.8 per cent and EBITDA was up 50.3 per cent.
Fairfax has invested more than $175 million in Domain over the past three years. It recently advised its separated prior annual results.
The Fairfax announcement advised, like News Corp, that July 2016 residential listings were severely impacted by sentiment surrounding the July federal election, with listings down 25 per cent in Sydney and 11 per cent in Melbourne for the month.
Fairfax chief executive Greg Hywood said Domain performed strongly, despite the uncertainty of the long federal election campaign.
"Domain delivered strong double-digit growth in the second half, despite the dampening effect on June of the longest federal election in modern history," he said.
Fairfax Media has made a nearly $1 billion loss - $893.5m - for the 2016 financial year because of write-downs and redundancies.
The pioneering media company, whose mastheads including The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, made an $893.5 million loss.
The loss was mainly due to net charges of $1.02 billion for write-downs including plant and equipment, which also includes nearly $63 million in redundancy costs for the year.
Its total revenue fell 2 percent to $1.8 billion.
Fairfax had made an $87 million profit in 2015.
"We are confident in the underlying strength of Domain and its ability to continue to benefit from improvements in yield, depth penetration, geographic expansion, and revenue diversification," Hywood suggested.