Central European Media Enterprises Ltd. (CME) today announced it has terminated the agreement, previously announced on July 10, 2017, to sell its operations in Slovenia, and will instead retain full ownership of the leading television network group in the country.

CME will present the results of the Slovenian business as continuing operations when announcing its full year 2018 results. On this basis, for the last twelve months ended September 30, 2018:
OIBDA for the Slovenian operations was US$ 20.8 million
CME's operating income was US$ 162.3 million and OIBDA was US$ 208.4 million
Run-rate annual debt service obligations for CME were US$ 29.0 million

Michael Del Nin, Co-Chief Executive Officer, commented: "Since we announced our intention to sell our Slovenian business 18 months ago in order to accelerate deleveraging, we have repaid approximately $370 million in loans, reducing our gross debt by about 30%, and cut our average borrowing cost by more than half to 3.5%. At the same time, Slovenia has grown its revenues significantly and reached a level of profitability that it hasn’t seen in a decade. On a five country basis, our OIBDA growth rates for both 2018 and 2019 should exceed what we have been expecting from only four. Furthermore, this accelerated growth means that even without the proceeds from the planned divestiture, our net leverage ratio should approach 3x by the end of Q1, a delay of just one quarter compared to our expectations if the sale had been completed."

Christoph Mainusch, Co-Chief Executive Officer, added: "We have always said this transaction was not a reflection of our outlook for the business. Quite the contrary, we are strong believers in the value of television assets and the future of the Slovenian operations, which have been confirmed by its spectacular growth over the last year. We look forward to continuing to work with the team at POP TV in our longstanding tradition of providing objective news and the best entertainment for Slovenia."