| Società Editoriale Il Fatto SpA is an independent Company active in the multimedia publishing sector, and was established in April 2009 by Cinzia Monteverdi, Antonio Padellaro, Peter Gomez and Marco Lillo, leading professionals in Italian journalism, with over 50 years of experience. Società Editoriale Il Fatto SpA, head of the Group of the same name, plays an absolutely primary role within the Italian publishing panorama. Indeed, the newspaper “Il Fatto Quotidiano” ranks among the top 10 most read newspapers in Italy, in terms of both its paper version, available on newsstands and purchasable via single sales or the subscription model, and its digital version, which SEIF makes available to subscribers via its website www.ilfattoquotidiano.it. SEIF operates across various segments of the publishing sector, including, in particular, paper and digital publishing. As reported by the Authority for Communications Guarantees (AGCOM) in its Second Communications Observatory of 2023, in recent years, these two markets have been characterized by opposing trends, given the rise of new digital publishing to the detriment of more traditional paper publishing. However, this distinction arises from a response to different needs. On the contrary, newspapers are aimed at a part of the community that is more interested in a structured product, typically characterized by an older demographic. In this case, the printed product is able to leverage a competitive advantage in providing more detailed information on events across the territory. The sales of daily products, however, have been in sharp decline in recent years, falling from 2.15 million copies in the first quarter of 2019 to 1.45 in the same period of 2023, a drop of 48.3% in just 4 years. As for SEIF’s positioning within the sector, the Group holds approximately 2.0% of total market shares (ACOM, Osservatorio sulle Comunicazioni n.2/2023). We have conducted the valuation of SEIF’s equity value based on the DCF methodology and the multiples of a sample of comparable companies. The value resulting from the application of the DCF methodology (which in the calculation of the WACC includes for prudential purposes a specific risk equal to 2.5%) is equal to € 24.0 mln, while the equity value resulting from the multiples method, applying a 25% discount, is equal to € 14.4 mln. The result is an average equity value of € 19.2 mln. The target price is € 0.85, BUY rating and MEDIUM risk. |