Global advertising group Dentsu has delayed the announcement of its results for the first quarter as it prepares to reforecast in the light of the coronavirus crisis.
The Japan-based company cited the spread of and responses to the COVID-19 and the impact of the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as causing "some delays to accounting procedures" for the group’s first quarter results.
"The business environment on which the full-year consolidated financial forecast announced on February 13, 2020, was based has changed significantly," says the company.
"We will announce the revised financial forecast as soon as we recognise the impact from factors mentioned above."
A date for the first quarter announcement will be announced as soon as it is fixed, although it is now tentatively scheduled for late May.
The company says it is also in discussion with multiple banks to establish increased credit lines in case this is required.
As of December, Dentsu had JPY 414 billion (AUD 6 billion) in cash and cash as well as JPY 326.7 billion (AUD 4.7 billion) of
unused credit lines.
Dentsu in February posted a full year net loss of JPN80.89 billion (AUD1.9 billion).
Overall organic growth for the company was a negative -1% but in Asia-Pacific it was -12.3% for the year and -17.9% for the December quarter. Japan was up just 0.4%. The Americas was the best performing region at 2.4% organic growth.
The Japanese advertising holding company in November replaced Henry Tajer as the Australia CEO with Angela Tangas, the chief commercial officer.
The company in December announced that it planned to cut 11% of its staff across seven key markets, including Australia.
That was before the impact of the coronavirus.
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