Board of Directors of PubliGroupe releases report on public tender of-fers and recommends acceptance of Swisscom offer

In its report, the PubliGroupe Board of Directors explains its recommendation of the Swisscom offer at the price of CHF 214 per share. The offered price is within the range that the independent fairness opinion commissioned by the Board of Directors deems to be a fair from a financial point of view. In addition, the Board of Directors believes that strategic considerations favour Swisscom as the new owner of PubliGroupe, especially with the anticipated strengthening of the market position of the directory platforms local.ch and search.ch through their planned combination of forces. Furthermore, the PubliGroupe Board of Directors is of the opinion that promising development opportunities could present themselves for the business segment Digital & Marketing Services together with Swisscom.

In its decision of 11 June 2014, the Swiss Takeover Board ordered that, in connection with the two public tender offers from Swisscom and Tamedia, PubliGroupe exceptionally prepare interim financial statements as of 31 March 2014. With an increased consolidated net revenue of CHF 57.7 million (2013: CHF 55.6 million) and on the basis of operational improvements of the Media Sales/Publicitas business segment, the operating loss saw a significant decrease to CHF -3 million (2013: CHF -9 million). As previously reported, the sale of Publicitas completed at the end of June 2014 will result in a one-time write-off for PubliGroupe of around CHF 30 - 40 million, which will affect the net result for 2014. For the first half of 2014, PubliGroupe anticipates a positive operating result.