directory business over 10 years ago and adopting a smart approach since then have been rewarded with earnings running into the hundreds of millions of Swiss francs (most of which had to be posted as early as the 2015 financial year due to the applicable IFRS accounting and reporting regulations). This is a shining example of how the new media landscape is bringing not only challenges but also major opportunities. Other exciting examples are our scheduling platform doodle.com, an international leader, and the strea ming service and technology provider zattoo.com, in which we now hold a majority stake. Both are benefiting from a trend towards subscription models, a clearly observable feature of the digital economy in general and one that we are pursuing with corresponding investments. Motivated by our successful involvement in moneypark.ch, we are also building up small to medium-sized shareholdings in start-ups in the fintech sector, which we have identified as being highly promising. At group level, the results for 2018 as a whole were below the expectations we had set ourselves. Operating income before depreciation and amortisation, excluding simple uncertificated securities in line with the accounting and repor ting standard IAS 19, declined by some CHF 10 million on the previous year. In normalised terms, it remained more or less stable, although this was only made possible by the acquisitions mentioned above. Armed with the major invest ments we have made and the potential of our managers and staff, we want to increase our total revenues and especially our net income on a sustainable basis over the next few years. The Board of Directors is proposing that the dividend for the current year be kept unchanged at CHF 4.50 per share. Employees will participate in the net income to the tune of
3 Editorial by the Chairman of the Board of Directors
platforms homegate.ch and immostreet.ch and the market places ricardo.ch and tutti.ch, Tamedia enjoys an outstanding position. This is also reflected in the division’s results, which hit new highs in the 2018 financial year. Although competition is growing fiercer in the marketplace business too, this area of the business is continuing to grow and harbours some excellent prospects in view of the international trend towards transaction platforms. We already boast sound expertise in this field, thanks not least to ricardo.ch, where 5 million transactions were processed in the financial year (equating to more then 13 500 a day). Despite the pleasing results from our classifieds and marketplaces, we are under no illusions that the phenomenon of business models in transformation has not only reached the publishing media but also poses a challenge to our commer cial platforms. Customer expectations and the speed of change are rising steadily, while the lucrative nature of the business is also encouraging new competitors to release innovative offerings. This is why we worked hard to hone our skills in technology, marketing, product and user experience over the past twelve months. We employ an impressively concentrated pool of talented individuals, one that also holds up well in an international comparison. They give us the power we need to deliver overarching projects and shape the market as an innovator. One such example this year came in the auto motive segment with carforyou.ch in partnership with AXA Insurance. At the end of the 2018 financial year, Swisscom exercised its option regarding our 31 per cent minority stake in the joint venture LocalSearch. The deal was closed at the start of this year. Having the entrepreneurial courage to enter the digital