Comcast CEO Steve Burke may prove naysayers wrong and break even in the allimportant broadcasting event at the London Games. (Freelance)
NBCUniversal executives got into the spirit of the Summer Olympics yesterday and scored a gold medal-worthy performance in accounting gymnastics.
Steve Burke, CEO of Comcast’s NBCUniversal unit, spun an Olympics loss into a win — telling analysts the company wouldn’t lose money on the London Games but rather would be “about breakeven.”
The games have rated highly and the company bagged $1 billion in ad revenue, $100 million more than anticipated.
But Burke’s break-even estimate was performed with some intriguing purchase-price accounting, which allows NBCUniversal to write down the price of the Olympics by about $200 million, analysts say.
Comcast CFO Michael Angelakis basically said as much yesterday, telling the Street: “Through purchase accounting the [Olympic] losses were eliminated.”
“We will have a negative impact in free cash flow in the third quarter,” Angelakis said. “I just wanted to make sure folks understand a little of those finer details.”
The Games cost NBC $1.2 billion and the network brought in $1 billion in advertising revenue — leaving a gap of $200 million.
James Ratcliffe at Barclays Capital told The Post, “There will still be $200 million of negative cash flow associated with the Olympics, it’s still not bad. The Olympics has long been a loss leader.”
Comcast shares rose 3.1 percent yesterday to $33.55 after analysts were impressed with the cable operations. Net income was $1.35 billion, or 50 cents a share, better than the 48 cents that had been forecast.
NBCU sales fell almost 1 percent to $5.5 billion while operating cash flow dropped 15.4 percent to $982 million.