24th Mar 2020 14:03
(Alliance News) - Ocean Outdoor Ltd on Tuesday said it is taking steps to increase liquidity and prevent a reduction in media and advertising spend amid uncertainty arising from the Covid-19 outbreak.
The digital out-of-home advertising firm said it was trading in line with expectations until mid-March and over the past two weeks has been working to reduce the extent to which the outbreak will hurt business.
Steps taken by Ocean include cutting all discretionary spend, reducing employee hours, approaching suppliers and landlords and engaging in discussions with lenders with the aim of increasing liquidity. The company has net cash of around GBP20 million.
The company's Netherlands and UK businesses are reducing the staff working week, effective from April 1, and have introduced voluntary unpaid leave in some areas. It added it is proceeding with the consolidation of its operations in Ocean Nordics and is fast-tracking the integration of AdCityMedia.
"Covid-19 presents digital out of home with a tough challenge. Governments have ordered digital out-of-home consumers to stay indoors which will have a material impact on our business if prolonged. However, Ocean is a future-facing, resilient business that was built out of the last recession," said Chief Executive Tim Bleakley.
"More than two weeks ago we implemented significant mitigation measures to prepare for this pandemic as far as was possible given how quickly the situation is moving. Our people are equipped to operate remotely, we have introduced flexible hours working. While restrictions on the movement of people have directly impacted our sector, equally, this crisis has highlighted the importance of the out of home medium the world over," he added.
Full results for 2019 will be published on April 30.
The stock was trading 3.7% lower at USD5.25 each on Tuesday afternoon.
By Ife Taiwo; [email protected]
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