MUNICH (dpa-AFX) - A particularly high demand for admission tickets makes ticket marketer CTS Eventim even more optimistic than before. As a result, the management board expects sales of well over two billion euros, as the MDax company announced in Munich on Thursday. The operating result for the full year 2023, adjusted for special effects, is expected to be well above 400 million euros. "This means that the operating result for the full year 2023 will be significantly higher than that of the previous year, which had already set the bar high anyway due to Corona-associated catch-up effects," CTS Eventim continued.

The shares of CTS Eventim then rose by 5.6 percent. Most recently, the shares were trading almost 9 percent higher. Shareholders with a holding period of one year can thus look forward to an increase in value of around 25 percent. Shareholders who have held CTS shares for five years now have almost 55 percent more in their portfolio.

Up to now, the management had envisaged a moderate increase in earnings after around 1.9 billion euros in 2022. The earnings figures were to remain at least stable, but the management could also envisage a slight increase. CTS Eventim had reported an adjusted operating profit of just under 385 million euros for the past year.

The company is benefiting from concert series such as Peter Maffay's Farewell Tour or the long-awaited "The Eras Tour" by US singer Taylor Swift, both of which are scheduled for next year. The latter in particular has the potential to be a "mega-seller" from an analyst's point of view. Due to the success in advance sales, CTS Eventim had announced additional shows in addition to the three known concert dates in July 2024 in Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg and Munich.

In the first nine months, the volume of all tickets sold via the Internet increased by 35 percent, it added. In Germany, the volume increased by 43 percent, in the entire network by almost a third. Details on the third quarter will be announced by the Management Board on November 21.

Only at the end of September, the French major bank Societe Generale had expressed optimism about the shares of CTS Eventim. There are further growth opportunities for the company, as pricing is likely to be the strongest driver, supported by a large number of upcoming events, wrote analyst Annick Maas. The switch to online tickets should drive margins.

French ticket marketer France Billet and the U.S. business are the icing on the cake and not adequately reflected in the share price and market estimates, Maas continued. The risk/reward profile of the papers is attractive, he said./ngu/jsl/he