Rai Way S.p.A.

Good afternoon, this is the Core School Conference Operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the RightWay First Half 2023 Results Analyst Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Giancarlo Benucci, Chief Corporate Development Officer of Raiway. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon. Let me start thanking all of you for joining us today and welcome to our First Stop 2023 results presentation. Today with me, Roberto Sciaccato, CEO, who will share the highlights for the period and and that Alberto Pellegrino, CFO, will take you through the financial performance more in detail. At the end, we will open the line to your questions in the usual Q&A session. Let me therefore hand the call over to Roberto. Please, Roberto, go ahead.

Thanks, Giancarlo, and good afternoon to all of you. I have to give my apologies because just today I'm sick, and just now I am high fever. So, sorry if my speech could be not so much loud and sharp. Anyway, let me start from the extremely positive news in terms of results and material growth we are delivering. The second quarter fully confirmed the trend already shown in the first three months of the year bringing. First half revenues up 12.2%, mainly supported by CPI, and regional farming, and an adjusted EBITDA up to 16.1% year-on-year as a result of higher revenues and manageable underlining cost trend, benefiting from a further reduction in energy consumption with declining tariffs helping the second quarter and the quarter-on-quarter improvement. As for investment, maintenance capex broadly confirmed at 2022 level, while on development, lower farming related components are partially replaced by spending on new infrastructure projects. And the aim here is to make this part more and more material by accelerating our execution. Eric commented the first health financial performance. I also take the opportunity to anticipate, as we will see better at the end, that on the back of these results, we were able to confirm the guidance for 2023 and express increasing confidence and comfort about achieving the communicated targets. Viewing the slide five, From an operating and strategic perspective, as you may remember, in my debut call just a couple months ago, I stressed the opportunity to focus and to operate on two main directions. Value and cash generation maximization in the traditional business. Use of cash to invest in value-accurative diversification operations. in new businesses, which right way can have a competitive positioning. We have started to actively work with my teams on both. On the traditional business, the new broadcast networks, both from national for Rai and regional for other parties, are now up and running. They are still working in DBT, the past technology, But according to indication of the Ministry, it's likely that at least one of the RAI multiplexes will move to DVB-T2 in the coming months. As you know, all the networks we have installed in the context of the refarming are already T2 ready and compliant. Therefore, we'd expect limited activities on our side. The recurring nature of this business provides confidence to also look at some development opportunities ahead. For example, the possible extension of the DAB radio networks after the release of the new dedicated DAB frequency plan, or some possible small extension in the broadcasting value chain, which will be analyzed ahead of the next industrial plan. On the second point, diversification, while recognizing the significant amount of work already done by the company, my intention and the intention of the board is to go through all the initiatives in terms of risk and reward, market positioning, rollout, financial plan, go to market, and so on. We are fully aware that diversification, expansion of managing infrastructure and capital deployment are key parts of the company's success, of the growth we will be able to deliver in the midterm. And at the same time, time to market is a success factor for many initiatives. That's why with the team, we will lead up, lead up. We are using this opportunity also to adjust and optimize. This is very important. Some details in terms of asset design, rollout of priorities, and so on. But the overall picture in terms of opportunities, related spending, and returns remains valid as of today. The review is underway. I mean to get the green light from the board soon, really very soon, in order to go ahead and speed up the execution. Also, catching up some delays that have accumulated for various reasons. The relevant initiatives will likely affect the definition of the capital allocation strategy of the next industrial plan, where we will provide more color more definition on phasing of investment, and profit and loss contribution. Now we could pass to the slide six. Going now back to the first health performance, the results are fully in line with the anticipated material growth path. In particular, revenues are up 12%. 0.2% boosted by the same drivers already seen in the first quarter and specifically induction to inflation, growing contribution of the new regional multiplexes business. Brothers that together with the sound hosting activity, we FWA operators and radio broadcaster confirmed the significant growth almost 27% plus of revenue from customers different from Rai, and this is very relevant for our company. Adjusted bidday reached 90.8 million euros, with a margin close to 67%, to 2.30 basis points higher than first half 2022 as a result of revenue growth and limited cost increase. Indeed, as Alberto will explain in detail, once excluding some non-core items like level of personal capitalization or prior year adjustments, Total OPEX grew by a modest 2-3%, also benefiting from lower energy consumption, minus 14%. I repeat that we are used to sell all the new technology that gives very, very low consumption in our assets, and only marginally as limited in the second quarter only. a lower electricity tariff compared to 2022. Below adjusted EBITDA, after taking into account non-recurring costs, DNA and financial charges, net income level rose by a remarkable 21.3%, as you know, a relevant metric for next year's dividend. I commented the trend of our cap just before. while the net financial position, including the IFRS leasing, closed at €138 million, remaining below one time the adjusted BTA generated in the last 12 months. Considering that, compared to the end of 2022, the net financial position increased only by around €30-35 million, despite seven four million dividend payment and 14 million of development capex you can easily deduce that the cash generation capacity of this company backing your development our development projects and ambitions and with this i i'll And over to Alberto. I give the floor to Alberto to provide you with details on the main items of our result. Please, Alberto, go ahead.