Cts Eventim Ag & Co Kgaa

Good evening, everybody, and a very good morning to all of you dining in today from the U.S. Welcome to CTS Eventim's earnings call for the full year 2025. Thank you very much for joining in today's call. I'm William Wilms, the new Chief Financial Officer of CTS Eventim since Jan 2026, and I'm delighted to take you through our results, but also our strategic priorities today. From our side is further on this call, Marco Heckermann, our Head of Investor Relations and Business Development. Marco, hello everyone. Thanks for joining. For today's agenda, I will guide you through our promising full year 2025 results, but also our strategic priorities for 2026 and beyond. and provide you with our guidance for 2026 and our new approach towards capital market communication. I look forward to the discussion with you on our 2025 results and 2026 guidance and will be happy to open the floor for your questions at the end of the earnings presentation. Let's begin. Let me start with a detailed look at our 2025 full-year outturn and achievements. Before I, however, turn to a more detailed review, I would like to set the stage for today's call. 2025 has been a year of continued momentum for Eventim. a year in which we crossed for the first time in our history the 3 billion revenue threshold and further consolidated our position as Europe's leading live entertainment and ticketing platform. At the same time, we achieved an adjusted EBITDA of €584 million, demonstrating not only strong top-line growth, but also our solid operational execution and profitability. Looking at our operational scale, we marketed more than 1 million events in 2025 in more than 30 countries worldwide. In terms of reach, our ecosystem generated approximately 7.6 billion digital touchpoints, highlighting the scale of our customer interactions and the increasing importance of digital channels across the customer journey. And last but not least, we now have more than 260 million user profiles giving us direct access to a large and highly valuable customer base. This is a key strategic asset of ours, enabling personalization, improving engagement and supporting monetization across our platform. I would like to follow with two slides on operational and strategic highlights. 2025 reflected strong operational execution across both ticketing and live entertainment. Let me provide you with some highlights. We delivered major tour successes with international superstars like Ed Sheeran, reaching over 1 million fans and generating around 100 million in revenue. Besides Ed Sheeran, ACDC and Apache 207, one of the German superstars, were further highlights in 2025. Our flagship festivals, including Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, achieved record attendance of around 180,000 fans and strong digital engagement. Rock am Ring celebrated its 40th anniversary and Rock im Park its 30th anniversary. Furthermore, last year saw additions of many unique festivals from the Eventim portfolio such as Hurricane, Highfield, Garo Rock and many more. In mega event ticketing, the L828 Olympic and Paralympic Games launched saw very strong demand, with over 1.5 million registrations within the first 24 hours. This project marks the latest success story in our history with the IOC, who has been entrusting us with the sixth Olympic project since 2006. And finally, our venue business also performed strongly. While I will later zoom in on venues in more detail, and the new arena in Milan in particular, Lanxess Arena in Cologne had again a very successful year, hosting more than 200 shows and welcoming over 2.5 million visitors, further reinforcing its leading position in Europe. It ranks number three of all European venues in the latest Polestar ranking. Next, some of our strategic achievements. 2025 was also a year of strategic progress, strengthening our global capabilities and investing in technology to support sustainable growth and margin expansion. Let me give you and provide you with some examples. We initiated the build-up of global functions with the Eventim Media House as the first proof point. With highly engaged fans, millions of daily visitors on our marketplaces, and a vast base of registered users, we will leverage this rich data pool to deliver innovative media solutions to our global promoter clients and unlock new revenue streams with end customers, the fans. The Eventim Media House develops new creative marketing assets globally, strengthened social media campaigns, as well as new brand partnerships. With this, we will evolve the Eventim brand from a trusted market leader into a global discovery brand. At the same time, we established the foundation for a unified modular global platform. which will enable greater standardization and scalability, improve the fan experience, and increase both innovation velocity and operational success. We also accelerated our investments in data and AI, rolling out enterprise-wide capabilities and building a global data platform, which we expect to maturely enhance decision-making and deliver double-digit returns over time. While the use of AI will increase development speed and quality, our global data platform will further enable the flexible creation of new data-driven products. This data platform will further optimize operations and increase monetization as an integral part of our future growth profiles. positive financial impact is expected over the mid-term. Finally, as a global ticketing provider, we leverage mega events like the Olympics, not only to drive innovation, but also to prove the performance of new developments and the most demanding high-scale environments, such as Milano Cortina or the L828 Olympic Games. I hope this gave you some helpful context for our 2025 results. Let me now continue with a detailed review of our full year 25 financial performance and the respective segments drilled out. In 2025, we delivered a strong set of results and achieved all of our guidance targets. not only at group level, but also across both our segments, ticketing and live entertainment. Starting with group revenue, we grew by around 10% year-on-year to Euro 3.1 billion. At the same time, adjusted EBITDA increased by 8% to Euro 584 million, and EBIT also grew by 8% to Euro 477 million. Beyond the financials, the underlying fundamentals remain strong, too. For example, our fee-bearing retail ticket volume increased by 21% to nearly 178 million tickets, highlighting strong consumer demand and continued traction across the platform. This development was further supported by the four-year consolidation of our recent acquisitions France Billet and Sea Tickets. This strong operational momentum is also reflected in our gross transaction volume, which reached nearly €9 billion, underlying the scale and activity in our ecosystem. Earnings per share, however, declined despite our strong operational performance by 13%, to Euro 2.89, driven by external factors, mainly FX effects due to a strong Euro against the weaker US dollar. I will explain this later in more detail when we talk about our financial and net results. Let us take a quick look at group level. Over the past years, As mentioned, Eventive has consistently delivered strong growth combined with high profitability. As set in 2025, we exceeded the Euro 3 billion mark in revenues for the first time. However, this is not just a one-off achievement, it is the result of a long-term growth trajectory. Looking back, it took the company around 17 years from IPO to reach Euro 1 billion in in annual revenues. From there, it took only about four additional years to reach Euro 2 billion, excluding the COVID period. And most recently, it took just two more years to surpass the Euro 3 billion mark. Most importantly, however, this growth is broad-based. It is driven by both segments, ticketing and live entertainment, and across all regions. This strong growth trajectory, however, did not dilute our strong margin levels. Our adjusted EBITDA margin remains at around 19% in line with the high levels of previous years. Looking at EBITDA more closely, growth is supported in particular by strong contributions from the ticketing segment, both organically and through acquisitions translated into EBIT. Let's have a quick look at quarter four. 2025 was again supported by a strong third quarter and, in particular, a very strong fourth quarter, which is seasonally still the most important period for Eventim. In Q4, we delivered revenues of €931 million, representing a significant increase compared to the previous quarter and highlighting the strong year-end demand across our business. This growth was again supported by both segments. The strong top line development is translated into profitability. Adjusted EBITDA in quarter four increased by 12% year on year to Euro 246 million, reflecting not only higher volumes, but also the operating leverage in our model. More broadly, this also underlies the strong momentum in the second half of the year, where both revenue and earnings accelerated compared to the first half. Let me now turn to a drill down into our two segments, starting with our ticketing segment. In 2025, ticketing delivered a consistently strong performance across all quarters. with each quarter outperforming the respective prior year period. A key contributor to this development was the full-year consolidation of France-Belize and sea tickets, which for the first time accounted for all quarters. These acquisitions not only added volume, but also strengthened our regional footprint and international presence. We aim to scale the traditionally lower scale margin business of Seed Ticket to higher levels with our tech and product excellence and existing reach. Our broad and well diversified partner network ensures a strong and reliable supply of events, both through our own promoters or through longstanding relationships with third party promoters. With C-Ticket now being part of the group, we are now able to offer an even wider range of ticketing solutions to our B2B partners, either by offering the Eventum retail platform and the ability to profit from our huge customer database as presented earlier, or by providing more or less serviced ticketing solutions and the partner business and SAAS ticketing. The operational foundation for the just described financial development is a strong and consistent growth in retail ticket volumes, reaching 177 million tickets in 2025, which corresponds to a CAGR of around 29% since 2023. Again, this growth is broad-based across all regions. A key contributor to this development has been the expansion of our international footprint, particularly through the integration of and sea tickets. As a result, the regional mix of our business continues to evolve. Today, around two-thirds of our retail ticket volumes are generated outside Germany, as illustrated on the right-hand side of the slide. This increasing international diversification is strategically important. By spreading our business across a broader set of markets, we are becoming more resilient to local economic volatility while at the same time reducing dependency on individual on-sales or specific events. At the same time, this broader footprint allows us to capture growth opportunities across multiple regions, further supporting the scalability of our models. Let me now turn to our second segment, live entertainment. Again, record results. For the first time, live entertainment exceeded Euro 2 billion in annual revenues. With more than 2 billion revenues in a broad portfolio of events, we have built a well-diversified and balanced promotion business. As the scale of the business increases, the dependency on single artists or tours becomes significantly smaller. This is also reflected in the seasonal profile shown on the slide. From a profitability perspective, we were able to cover first half-year effects by strong momentum in the second half, with ABTR growth supported in particular by our own venues business and the continued development of our U.S. activities. Altogether, we were able to maintain the ABTR margin in live entertainment above 6%. for now three consecutive years. Within the live entertainment segment, venues gain more importance in our business model. With assets such as the Lanxess Arena in Cologne and a number of mid-sized venues, open-air theatres and the Milan Arena, We will further expand this footprint and enhance the live entertainment value chain. This is already visible in the numbers today. Our venue operations contribute roughly 40% to the live entertainment segment EBTR, making it a key earnings driver. The profitability with approximately 46% adjusted EBITDA margin is comparable to our ticketing business. I will provide you with more details on our financial strategy and overall approach with respect to venues later in this presentation when I talk about our strategy at the next chapter. Let me conclude the financial chapter with the financial result. As you have seen, our adjusted EBITDA, the key indicator of our operational performance, increased by around Euro 42 million year-on-year. However, when moving further down the P&L, we see a notable swing in the financial result. In 2025, the financial result is approximately $100 million lower than previous year, driven by, one, around 50% of the decline is related to negative foreign exchange effects, as well as lower interest rate income. Two, a further 30% relates to 2024 effects, non-recurring in 2025, most notably a dividend contribution from the Cartol project. And three, the remaining 20% is driven by valuation effects linked to option valuations. The increase in operating performance is therefore offset by the weaker financial result, leading to a net result of Euro 277 million and earnings per share of Euro 2.89. In the following, I would like to highlight now our strategic priorities for 2026 and beyond. Let me start on a very high level. We define ourselves as the European integrated live entertainment business. A European centric integrated live entertainment business. While preserving this strength, we have global ambitions. Our business idea is based on the three main business pillars, ticketing, events, and venues, both integrated and open to third parties. First, ticketing. We operate the largest ticketing platform in Europe, serving both the content side, i.e. promoters and artists, and a highly engaged fan base. Beyond ticket sales, this also creates meaningful monetization opportunities through data, personalization, and auxiliary services while helping drive revenues for our partners. The second pillar is events. Here, our own and third-party event network creates a broad and relevant inventory base that continuously fuels the ticketing platform. At the same time, the breadth of our event portfolio attracts more customers to our ecosystem, increasing frequency, engagement, and demand. Therefore, events are the key traffic engine for broadening the platform. Being highly attractive for third parties, around 20% of the ticketing revenue is generated from group promoter content. Combined with our venue footprint, This allows us to support the value chain more vertically when providing full service event organization and deepening relationships with artists and promoters. Just as importantly, events in our own venues feed directly back into the ticketing engine. This further improves quality, supply, and execution while also creating a more differentiated offering for customers and partners. All three pillars are therefore intended to be mutually reinforcing. Ticketing drives audience reach and demand. Events generate relevant inventory and customer engagement. Venues provide supply, execution, and capability. This integrated model directly translates into a number of structural strengths that set us apart, some of which we highlighted on the right-hand side of this chart. What I just described can be summarized as a fully integrated ecosystem with strong flywheel dynamics, creating a value loop. Promoters provide the inventory. Venues create fan experiences and go-to places for artists. we use the generated data to drive engagement, reactivation, and personalization, which improves customer experience and conversion, and in turn generates more data and better monetization opportunities. Generated insights help promoters and venues to market content more effectively and improve sales. Ticketing acts as the marketplace and catalyst that connects the ecosystem. We will continue to invest in this model through strategic growth initiatives and selective acquisitions. We consider a disciplined capital allocation aimed at reinforcing ecosystem dynamics and extending our long-term growth trajectory as essential, creating more value over the entire ecosystem. Having given this context, what are now our priorities for 2026 and beyond? We will continue strengthening our market leadership position in ticketing and live entertainment in Europe while accelerating our expansion in the Americas where we see significant growth potential. We will enhance our platform capabilities. By leveraging AI-driven personalization and driving higher margin ancillary revenues, we aim to increase customer lifetime value by continuing to invest in the robustness and scalability of our technology. At the same time, we will optimize and grow our live portfolio. We plan to further expand our venue business and expand into artist management while preserving our asset-light model. Operational excellence remains a key enabler across all of this. We are driving further standardization and scalability across the organization to support profitable growth. Last but not least, we plan to continue selective inorganic growth opportunities Our focus here is on acquisitions and high growth opportunities where we can quickly deliver returns and realize synergies within our ecosystem. Overall, these priorities will create a bridge between our near-term execution and our long-term 2030 ambition. Allow me to provide you with some more details insight and a short deep dive on our approach towards venues as part of our ecosystem. As I know, this has raised many questions last year. First, where will we invest? We focus on structurally attractive regions in Europe, followed by selected market opportunities in North and South America. Doing this, we target underserved metropolitan areas. Second, and how we select opportunities. Every venue must have a strategic fit within our ecosystem. And thirdly, all of this will be done, as I said before, while preserving our asset-light approach. We are currently working on a financial, respectively commercial structure, enabling us to take existing and potential future venue assets of balance sheet. As you all know, such structures are highly complex and take some time due to this complexity. So please bear with us, with me on this matter. To put, however, some more flesh to our venue strategy, allow me to give you some insight on the Unipol Dome in Milan. After approximately two and a half years of construction, the arena successfully opened earlier this year. With the first event taking place on February 5th, the Unipol Dome hosted the ice hockey matches for the Olympic Winter Games earlier this year. This venue represents the most modern large-scale arena in Italy, and ranks among the most advanced and sustainable venues in Europe. The arena sets new standards, particularly in VIP and hospitality offerings, as well as in state-of-the-art technical infrastructure for live events. Its distinctive design, including the LED facade, establishes a true landmark in Europe and creates attractive long-term sponsorship potential, including Unipol Insurance to be the official naming rights partner. We plan to host around 50 shows this year only, with an average ticket price at approximately 10% higher than originally underwritten. Finally, let's have a look at our 2026 guidance and our new capital market communication approach. Eventum profits from strong and unbroken demand for live entertainment. In an increasingly digital world, fans like to get together celebrating unique live experiences. Eventum will stay a growth asset for the years to come. even though our 2026 budget needs to compensate for a one-time effect in form of a structural income change from a long-term contract. We have set ourselves ambitious mid-term targets in both our segments and on group level. We, however, carefully watch the current geopolitical situation. Rising uncertainties might have an impact on disposable consumer income and discretionary spending and thus might impact us indirectly. Everything else being equal, we expect a structural bottom line growth for the midterm in line with past performance backed by a strong set of growth and margin measures. While we are planning slightly more conservatively for 2026, it is also possible to reach historical performance levels with these measures gaining traction. With this in mind, we guide for 2026. In ticketing, we expect all KPIs on previous year level respectively slightly higher. In live entertainment, We expect moderate growth in adjusted EBITDA and EBIT, whereas the revenues are expected to reach prior year level. Finally, we expect event group level KPIs on or slightly higher level than previous year. CDS Inventum has a consistent track record of returning value to its shareholders. In total, we provided to our shareholders since 2006 Euro 1 billion in dividends. Since 2014, dividend payments have grown from Euro 38 million to Euro 38 million in 2025. This reflects a long-term dividend per share CAGR of 17.4%. We plan to continue our dividend policy of a targeted payout of 50% net income. Hence, management board, respectively the supervisory board, is planning to propose to the AGM in May 2026 a dividend per share of Euro 1.44. Being on board now for nearly three months, What are my observations and what are my priorities and focus areas for the year to come? Five focus areas. One, fundamental value creation steering. Value creation focus beyond EBIT or short-term payback matrix anchored in a holistic shareholder value-oriented steering. We will follow a framework KPIs, including cash regeneration, capital allocation, and a clear prioritization logic. Two, I will explain this in a minute in more detail, an internal excellence program, a structured initiative to enhance operational performance and global competitiveness. Three, the preservance of our asset-light model, expanding and preserving this asset-light model to increase flexibility and capital efficiency. We will retain the operator role in venues to protect brand returns and ecosystem strategy while having the venue itself off balance sheet. Four, the fourth focus area, investor relations. I plan to further enhance investor interaction and engagement through proactive communication with increased transparency on strategy and performance in capital markets events to sanction trust. And last but not least, M&A and M&A strategy. We will pursue value accretive M&A aligned with strategic priorities and clear synergy cases. We have strict financial hurdles, rigorous due diligence, and PMI to ensure sustainable value creation and capital discipline. As mentioned before, and indicated to make everything happen what I just outlined, we will implement a comprehensive operating excellence program to translate strategic priorities into measurable execution. This program brings together our key value creation levers across commercial excellence, tech and product excellence, process excellence into one structured framework. all initiatives will feed into our midterm full potential plan. Such programmatic approach will enable transparency, accountability, and execution discipline for all initiatives across the entire organization. The to-be-developed full plan will define our midterm ambition targets and is intended to prepare the company tech-wise commercially and financially to the next level. And last but not least, this call is intended to mark a new chapter in our capital market communication. We are, and especially me, we are excited to announce our first ever Capital Markets Day at the Unipol Dome in Milan, taking place in September this year. Hosting it at the Unipol Dome in Milan, the intersection of our venue strategy will simultaneously give you a first-hand experience of what world-class venue operations look like. During the capital market day, we will provide you with more details on our strategy, mid-term strategic full potential plan, and our excellence program. We will share the exact date in due course as we would like to combine this with a very special event at the Dome. But we are already today looking very much forward to welcoming all of you in Milan. Okay, thank you very much. I hope this provided helpful for you and you are as excited as I am for our upcoming Capital Market Day. We will talk to each other, of course, during our quarterly results discussion But, you know, later we will see each other then in Milan to a hopefully exciting event, music event, as well as strategic and financial event. Many thanks to everybody. Bye-bye.