Dec 10, 2019

Bakish made news at the UBS Global TMT Conference. Here are the 5 takeaways.

ViacomCBS President and CEO Bob Bakish appeared onstage during the UBS Global TMT Conference yesterday, just days after the completion of the merger between Viacom and CBS. He took the opportunity to make a few announcements.

During the question and answer session, Bakish outlined several ways that the company will generate value for shareholders, cash flow for operations, and a competitive edge from the combination of assets and marketing solutions.

Here, we recap the five major announcements from the conference.

Content Collaboration Across Brands Has Started

"At the core, this is one of the preeminent content companies in the world and you will see us really increase the return on our content assets," said Bakish. His list of cross-brand collaborations within the ViacomCBS portfolio included:

  • The Late Late Show with James Corden, which airs nightly on CBS, will air next-day on Comedy Central.
  • Wraparound programming across ViacomCBS' cable networks will support the CBS broadcast of the GRAMMY Awards in February.

  • Network 10 in Australia and Channel 5 in the UK are collaborating on Breathless, a new drama.

  • Paramount Pictures films have been added to CBS All Access and Showtime. On CBS All Access, users can now watch Ghost, Pretty In Pink, and Catch Me If You Can. And on Showtime, there's Top Gun, Fatal Attraction, The Hunt For Red October, Clear And Present Danger, and Patriot Games.
  • CBS added three new channels to Pluto TV, bringing the total CBS channels to six. Also of note, per Bakish: CBSN is the #1 news channel on Pluto TV.
  • And, CBS All Access will add Nickelodeon content in January.

The Potential Sale of Black Rock

Bakish noted that ViacomCBS is in the process of retaining the commercial real estate firm CBRE to review the combined company’s entire real estate portfolio, including looking at potentially divesting of Black Rock, the Eero Saarinen-designed building in midtown Manhattan that's served as CBS' headquarters since the 1960s.

"We believe that is a very material financial asset," he said. "We also believe it is not an asset we need to own and, in fact, that value can be put to better use elsewhere."

Black Rock is one of the "non-core assets," including real estate assets and other assets, that Bakish said can be used to generate additional cash.

CBS Will Join OpenAP

"I'm tremendously excited about what this combined company will do in the ad space in the U.S.," said Bakish before citing the news, released Monday, that CBS will join OpenAP, the advanced advertising consortium that aims to fast-track the adoption of audience-buying campaigns on television. The news means that CBS Television Network and CBS’ digital video assets will be available in the OpenAP Market.

It also means that once CBS assets are available, OpenAP will be the nation's largest advanced advertising platform. Its footprint will cover more than half of national TV ad dollars across 4 broadcast networks, 20 cable networks, and digital assets from Fox, NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS, and Univision.

Viacom was a founding member of OpenAP.

ViacomCBS Will Re-Start Its Stock Buy-Back

ViacomCBS is authorized to repurchase up to $2.5 billion in stock, and, per Bakish, will begin to buy back shares in the near term.

"We'll be back in the market soon. Now, we're doing that because we see an incredible value opportunity in our own stock and we want to invest in it. And we, of course, know that that will benefit the stock writ large," he said.

ViacomCBS Will Remain an Investment-Grade Company

On the mention of buyback and dividends, Bakish was careful to caution that he doesn't plan to drastically reduce the amount of debt on its balance sheet. "We like being an [investment-grade] company but we don't believe we need to massively de-lever." 

He pointed out that S&P Global Ratings recently affirmed ViacomCBS' investment-grade rating, making it an investment-grade company according to the ratings of all three credit rating agencies.

 

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