PRISA reaches agrees to refinance its debt, while reinforcing its management team

The Board of Directors approves an agreement with creditors that extends debt maturity for five years

Pedro García Guillén is appointed CEO of PRISA Radio and Alejandro Martínez Peón, CEO of PRISA Noticias

Augusto Delkáder is named editorial director, Jorge Rivera is made head of Communications and Institutional Relations and Marta Bretos will oversee the Talent Management Division

The Board of Directors of PRISA has approved today the signing of an agreement with most of the Group’s financial creditors to refinance its debt. The agreement includes the extension of debt maturity until the end of 2022, ie a further five years.

The agreement does not provide for mandatory redemptions during the first three years from today until December 2020, with the subsequent repayment schedule adapted to expected Group earnings.

It also establishes a first payment of 450 million euros, to be met with the proceeds from the capital increase approved by the General Shareholders Meeting of PRISA, held on November 15.

This agreement has already been signed by a sufficient majority of PRISA creditors in terms of the amount of financial debt and a sufficient number of creditors in each tranche. This debt refinancing agreement shall enter into force no later than June 30, 2018. The agreement is conditional on PRISA executing the capital increase amounting to EUR 450 million, approved by the General Meeting of Shareholders on November 15, 2017.

NEW APPOINTMENTS TO STEERING COMMITTEE

Meeting today, the Board of Directors of PRISA has also approved the composition of the Group’s new Steering Committee, at the request of the CEO, Manuel Mirat, and following a prior report from the Appointments and Remuneration Committee. Joining this team are Pedro García Guillén, as CEO of PRISA Radio, Alejandro Martínez Peón as CEO of PRISA Noticias, Augusto Delkáder as editorial director, Jorge Rivera as Director of Communications and Institutional Relations, and Marta Bretos as Director of Talent Management.

Those staying on in their current roles are Guillermo Juanes, chief financial officer; Xavier Pujol, secretary general and chief legal officer; Miguel Angel Cayuela, CEO of Santillana; and Rosa Cullell, CEO of Media Capital.

Pedro García Guillén was CEO of Movistar + between May 2015 and December 2017. He holds a degree in Economics and Business Studies from the Complutense University of Madrid, and he has developed most of his professional life within PRISA, where he served as CEO of PRISA TV and DTS (previously Sogecable) between 2009 and May 2015. Previously, from 2000 to 2009, he was CEO of El País.

The new CEO of PRISA News, Alejandro Martínez Peón, held the same executive post at TeleCable between October 2009 and August 2017. Previously, he was chief advisor at PwC, having also held a range of several management positions in the Telefónica Group, both in Spain and Latin America. He has a degree in Business Administration from the University of Oviedo, and he also studied at The London School of Economics and Political Science and Stanford University.

Augusto Delkader Teig, the new editorial director, has a robust track record in managing media companies, all of them leaders in Spanish-speaking markets. Delkáder was director of Diario de Cádiz, a founder member of El País, of which he was deputy editor-in-chief for ten years, and CEO of both Cadena SER and PRISA Radio. In other areas, he has been Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of Cadiz and patron of the Foundation of the Three Cultures of the Mediterranean. He holds a degree in Law and Information Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid. He furthered his studies in the United Kingdom and the United States and is a Fellow of the German Marshall Fund. He is currently president of PRISA Radio and Cadena SER, member of the board of Caracol Radio, and member of the Board of Social Sciences of the Ramón Areces Foundation.

Jorge Rivera has a degree in Information Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid. He was deputy editor for IT at El País from March 2016. Previously he was editor-in-chief of Cinco Días from June 2005 to March 2016, where he’d also been deputy editor. He also worked on the Economy section of El País from 1991 to 2000, and was instrumental in the founding of the newspaper El Sol in 1990, and La Gaceta de los Negocios in 1989.

The new Director of Talent Management, Marta Bretos, is a qualified Labor and Social Security Inspector, and holds a BA in Political Science from the Complutense University of Madrid. Since 2011 she has been Director of Human Resources at PRISA Radio, a position she will continue to hold. Previously, she held similar positions at Spanish State Radio and Television (RTVE), and the postal service, Correos. She was senior vice president of personnel management at the Ministry of Development and Infrastructure, and head of labor relations at the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Environment.

ABOUT PRISA

PRISA Group is world leader for Spanish and Portuguese-language education and media, and is at an advanced stage in its ambitious digitization process. All its businesses enjoy a strong position in the Americas.

Santillana is one of the Group’s key assets. It’s enormous strength lies in its visibility, presence and penetration, and it is the most recognized and valued brand in all markets in which it operates. Indeed, its combined market share in all the territories in which it operates is 25%. Santillana is clear leader in countries such as Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Peru and is number two in markets such as Brazil. The publishing firm also has a considerable advantage over other competing companies as it is the only company to operate in all countries of the Iberian and Latin American markets.

Meanwhile, the hallmark of the radio business is leadership, with the company ranking first worldwide for Spanish-language radio. Cadena SER has ranked first in Spain for 25 years, setting the gold standard for radio broadcasting nationwide. The group has been leader for spoken-word radio in Latin America for many years, notably in Colombia and Chile, where it ranks first, and in Mexico, where it has climbed to second place. The company is also number one when it comes to entertainment, with Los 40 being the undisputed leader for music radio in Spain and Latin America.

EL PAÍS is the newspaper of record in the Spanish-speaking world. It has become the unrivaled online news platform, not only in Spain but throughout the Spanish-speaking world, with a very strong presence in markets such as Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. That success is reflected in the world ranking, where it stands at tenth place, in tough competition with major Chinese, US and British media. EL PAÍS also has just broken a historical barrier, achieving 100 million unique browsers, according to the newspaper’s internal measurement tool. Sports daily AS is also performing exceedingly positively . Currently it ranks second in the Spanish market and number one in the Latin American market (excluding Brazil), where the paper has undertaken an ambitious expansion strategy, with its own newsrooms in the most important countries in the region.