JCDecaux SE

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 2025 half-year results conference call. The speakers on this call will be Jean-Charles Decaux, Co-CEO, David Bourg, Chief Financial IT and Operations Officer, and myself. Rémi Grézard, Head of Investor Relations, is also attending today's conference call. Moving to slide four of the presentation, You can see that our unique and well-diversified premium out-of-home global media footprint recorded in the first half a very strong robust revenue growth and a strong operating leverage in a very challenging and uncertain macroeconomic and geopolitical environment despite a mid-single-digit decline in China. Our revenue increased by 3.4% year-on-year in H1 2025 and by 3.3% on an organic basis driven by digital out of home, which rose by 12.2% to nearly 40% of total revenue, with programmatic digital out of home up an impressive 25.2%. Key operational indicators showed strong double-digit growth, with over 75% of our revenue growth translating into operating margin. As a result, we increased our operating margin by 17.6%, with a year-over-year improvement of 200 basis points as a percentage of revenue, a significant step up. Our EBIT before impairment charges grew by 11.6% to 125.6 million euros and even more by 114.7% when excluding non-recurring items. Finally, our operating cash flows also rose by 10.7% but David will cover that in more detail in just a moment. On slide five, you can see that we recorded an organic growth rate of 3.3% in the first half of 2025. We had a very strong first quarter with 5.5% organic growth, and Q2 followed through nicely. In fact, we delivered a record second quarter revenue growing by 1.6% organically, right in line with our guidance of low single-digit growth. If we exclude the one-off impacts from UEFA Euro 2024 and the Paris Olympic Games, organic growth in Q2 would have been closer to 3%. Compared to Q2 2023, we delivered a strong double-digit revenue increase, which really highlights the robust level of activity this quarter, It's especially encouraging when you consider we are still facing macroeconomic headwinds, including tariffs and the decline in revenue from China. Overall, it's a solid performance driven by digital and geographic diversification with both Jesse Decaux and the broader out-of-home media market continuing to gain market share during this period. On slide six, let's now move to the half-year performance by activity as shown on the next slide. Organic and reported growth were quite similar overall, as the positive impact of our acquisitions was offset by negative foreign exchange effects. Street furniture maintained its strong momentum with 4.3% organic growth, even against a base that had benefited from sporting events in Europe last year. Transport continued its rebound, growing plus 3.2% organically, despite a mid-single-digit revenue decline in China. Outside of China, growth was much stronger, reaching plus 6.4% organically. Billboard remained broadly stable with flat organic growth, mainly due to tough comparables in France and the UK. On the next slide, you can see that all geographic areas experienced growth in this first half, except the UK, which decreased by 2.9% due to a very high comparable from 29.8% increase in H1 2024. North America was the fastest growing region, expanding by 11.8%. We saw no impact on tariffs on advertiser sentiment. The rest of the world grew by 6.8%, driven by dynamic performance in key countries across both Latin America and the Middle East. France and the rest of Europe aligned with the group average, despite the impact of 2024 sporting events. Asia Pacific, grew by 1.3%, experiencing high single-digit growth when excluding China. Our unique business global premium out-of-home model is well diversified by activities as well as by geographies. Street furniture now constitutes 51% of total revenue. Transport, at 35.2%, has not yet recovered its 2019 revenue share of more than 40%. Billboard remains our smallest segment, accounting for 13.8% of total revenue. France is our largest country, representing 17.6% of total revenue, while Europe takes up nearly 50%. The UK ranks as our second largest country. We have decreased our exposure to China from 18% of revenue in H1 2019 to just 10% in H1 2025. Turning to the next slide, our client portfolio is well diversified, with our top 10 clients contributing to less than 13% of revenue. We observe a healthy rotation among leading advertising categories. Fashion, luxury, and personal care, our largest category at 18% of sales, turned slightly negative at minus 2%. Meanwhile, two categories show double-digit growth, finance at plus 14%, and services at plus 13%. It is interesting to note that consumption-related categories like FMCG and retail continue to show strong growth. Meanwhile, automotive has made a comeback into the top 10 after a long absence taking the place of governments. Digital out-of-home remains a key growth driver as it grew by plus 12.2% organically in H1 2025. Digital revenue penetration rose by almost three percentage points year on year, reaching 39.6% in H1 2025 and 40% in Q2. Our digital revenue distribution closely mirrors our business mix, highlighting how relevant digital is across all three activities. The next slide demonstrates that digital penetration increased across all three business segments. In street furniture, Digital revenue climbed to 37.5% compared to 34.8% a year earlier. Digital revenue in transport, our most digitized segment, grew from 41.2% to 44.5%. In billboard, digital revenue reached 35.4%. Large digital structures, such as the one represented here in Melbourne, significantly improved the profile of this activity. By country, our digital penetration also increased but remained concentrated, as five countries, namely the US, the UK, Australia, Germany, and China, still account for 59% of total group digital revenue. We still have a lot of room for growth. As you can see, some countries are quickly catching up, such as Germany, where the digital revenue share increased from 41% to 47%, and China from 27% to 32%. Brazil, represented here by the Sao Paulo metro, also demonstrates strong digital revenue generation at 76%, although it's not among our top five digital markets in absolute terms. Let's move on to the next slide with programmatic advertising, a fast-growing area contributing to our digital revenue growth with higher yields. Programmatic revenues sold by 25.2% in H1 2025, reaching 74.7 million euros, or 10.1% of our digital revenue, up from 9% the previous year. Programmatic revenues remain primarily incremental, sourced from smaller advertisers or from existing brands, launching new campaigns, employing more dynamic and refined targeting. This slide features an expresso campaign targeting coffee enthusiasts aged 18 to 44 in Germany during morning hours, integrated with other media formats, including analog outdoor. We anticipate continued strong growth for programmatic revenue, with leading countries such as Germany at 35.9% and the Netherlands at 29.2%, surpassing the group average of 10.1%. We expect programmatic penetration to continue to rise and may double around 20%. Here, a campaign from France in Cannes demonstrated the real-time content adaptation between two visuals based on temperatures below or above 24 degrees Celsius. Even in countries with a low digital penetration, this clearly demonstrates how relevant programmatic can be for advertisers. You will see on the next slide our most important contract news for the first half of 2025. In street furniture, we have worn the freestanding panels of the city of Rennes in France, the city of Odense in Denmark, and Bachelet in Firenze, Pisa, and Prato in Italy, as well as Fukuoka in Japan. Regarding transport, we have won the Northern Rail contract in the UK, and we announced two days ago the renewal of Brussels Airport. Finally, we have confirmed our excellent ESG performance. Our performance was recognized as best in class by extra financial rating agencies, including our placements on the CDP-A list for the second year in a row, and the gold medal status from Ecovallis. We have received as well, again, the best score, AAA, from MSCI and Systematics rated us as a low risk company among the media. This clearly puts ahead of the competition in the media market by leading the way on ESG. Having said that, public procurement and advertisers have not fully affected this into their decision making, at least not yet. But we are committed to pushing this forward because we believe ESG will become a key differentiator in the future. More broadly, I would like to emphasize that out-of-home media is among the least carbon-intensive media formats for advertisers. I will now hand over to David for the presentation of our financial highlights of the year.

Thank you, Jean-François. Hello, everyone. First, let's have a quick look at the summary table of the financial results. As Jean-François said, a solid set of results, especially with a strong operational leverage resulting in a double-digit increase in our key operational indicators alongside a 3.4% revenue growth. Our operating margin improved by 17.6%, EBIT before depreciation went up by 11.6%, and our operating cash flow strengthened by 10.7%. Our net income shows a decrease compared to H1 2024, but this is largely due to one-off factors. Same for the free cash flow due to timing differences in our working capital, on which I will come back further in the following slides. Finally, we continue reducing our net debt by nearly 44 million compared to June 2024, bringing it down to 912.9 million euros despite resuming dividend payments in May 2025. On the next slide, let's take a look at the evolution of the operating margin. It has increased from 261 million to 307 million euros, an increase of 46 million compared to 2024, representing 76% of the revenue growth. Once again, this underscores our strong operational leverage thanks to the impact of a robust revenue growth on an effective cost management as illustrated on the graph to the left. The growth in rents and fees during the period was limited to 1.3%, mainly due to contractual conditions in some concessions adjusted to the level of activity, especially in China. Other operating expenses were virtually stable at plus 0.2%. Consequently, our margin ratio has increased by 200 bps, reaching 16.5% with growth across all business segments, as shown on the graph to the right. The transport segment in particular has a more significant increase of 380 BIPs benefiting from the contract adjustment in China that I have just commented. Regarding our EBIT on the next slide, it stands at approximately 126 million euros, a 6.2% increase, but plus 11.6% before impairment due to the reversal of provision for loss making contracts in 2024. When adjusted for one-off items like the capital gain from the partial sale of APG SGA for 45 million euros in 2024 and reversal of provisions and asset disposal, our EBIT excluding non-recurring items growth by 140.7% plus 47.4 million euros. This growth in absolute terms aligns with the increase in our operating margin thanks to the relative stability in our depreciation and maintenance spare parts. Referring to the net Income group share, on the next slide, it is reported at 76.4 million euros before impairment, as you can see at the bottom of the table on this image, reflecting a decrease of 15% of 13.5 million euros compared to last year. However, after adjusting for non-recurring items, such as the capital gain on APG-SGE in H1 2024, we actually observe a growth of 86.1%, broadly consistent with the evolution of the EBIT before non-recurring items, which I presented in the previous slide. A few points to highlight between the EBIT and the net result. First, the income tax with an 18.7 million increase stemming from the increase in operational results and a less significant activation of deferred tax asset on loss carried forward than in H1 2024. Looking at the financial results year on year, things are overall stable. We saw a 2.7 million euro drop in IFRS 16 discount cost thanks to a reduction in lease liability On the flip side, there has been a €3.3 million increase in net financial interest, which is mainly due to lower interest received on invested cash. But the cost of our net debt remains good at around 3.4% in H1 2025. Finally, there is a €5.1 million improvement in our share of net results, from equity affiliates, driven by improved operational performance from affiliates, mainly linked to contract adjustments in China, also reflected in the evolution of the restatement of the joint control entities at the top of the table. Let's now dive into the cash flow analysis on the next slide. At the center of this slide, our operating cash flow amounts to 153.7 million euros, a robust double-digit increase of 10.7%, but less pronounced than the increase in operating margin for two main reasons. First, there is an increase in net financial interest paid of 10.7 million due to a temporary mismatch between paid and received interest. this should ease in the second half of the year as we no longer have to pay the coupon on the 600 million euro bond which was paid in last october then there is an unfavorable variation on the line other items amounting to 5.9 million euros mainly due to reduced dividends received from apg sga following the sale of part of our shares in 2024, as well as one-off bank fees related to the refinancing of our revolving credit facility. Below our operating cash flow, our net capex was lowered to €118.8 million over the period, representing 6.4% of the revenue against 7.8% last year at the same time of the year. Therefore, our cash flow after CAPEX, but before change in working capital requirements, turned positive to 36.8 million, whereas it was slightly negative in the first half of 2024. While a negative free cash flow is usual at this time of the year due to the seasonality of our activity, Timing differences in working capital requirements as of the end of June 2025 negatively impacted our free cash flow to reach minus 64.9 million in H1 2025 versus minus 20 million in H1 2024. These timing effects mainly include a lower use of factoring for about 25 million euros lower payables mainly linked to decrease in inventory and capex, and temporary shift in client collection between end of Q2 and beginning of Q3. Finally, this last slide which summarizes our strong financial structure, the net debt continuing to decrease as mentioned in the introduction, minus 44 million euros compared to June 2024, and a temporary increase versus December 2024 due to seasonality of our activity and the dividend payments in May. A well-balanced debt maturity profile with no upcoming maturities before 2028 and a strong liquidity with over 1 billion euros in available cash and an undrawn confirmed credit line of 825 million euros recently renewed for five years with two optional extension years. That's it for the main elements of our H1 financial results and I now hand over the floor to Jean-Charles Decaux for the outlook.

Thank you, David, for this presentation and good morning to everyone. So for the outlook and strategy, firstly, it is essential to remind everyone that the key structural growth drivers for out-of-home media remain strong both now and for the long term. Our media is at the moment prospering with growing audiences thanks to the increasing economic vitality of cities and the rise in mobility globally, whether it is a long-haul transport like air traffic or rail travel, and this includes, obviously, public transportation. Digitization is not disrupting us. Instead, we are capitalizing on its boost attention through visual emotion, data, and flexibility media buying. Our media remains premium, reaching dynamic and young audiences with strong credentials on audience measurement and quality of ad spaces in our portfolio. In a landscape where advertisers face a growing fragmentation of options, as most other traditional medias are losing audiences, This gives us a unique advantage. Programmatic now represents for us a huge market opportunity with a $300 billion market for online display programmatic globally, more than five times the total OH market at the moment. With automated trading, we can target the long tail of advertisers and increase significantly our addressable revenues pool, creating, obviously, new revenue streams. We are optimally positioned to benefit from this market with our growing programmatic revenue and our ownership of two leading platforms, Displace, a DSP and DMP active in 88 countries, and Vue, the most connected SSP of the OH media industry with 52 DSP connected. We are the only OH with such programmatic assets open to third-party media owners. Considering recent transactions like the acquisition of HypeStack and Vistar by tech and telecom companies as substantial valuations, we believe our assets' true strategic and financial value is absolutely not crystallized yet in our share price. In the next slide, we demonstrate how OOH Media, driven by the growth factors outlined in slide 25, is clearly gaining market share in key countries around the globe. Over the past decade, OH market share increased by around 5 percentage points in the total media mix in Germany, Brazil, and Australia, nearing or surpassing 10% of total ad spend investment. Notably, in the first half of this year, it exceeded 10% in Germany for the first time, according to data from Nielsen. Moving now to slide 28, you will notice on this graph the remarkable growth air traffic has experienced over the years. This trend is expected to continue with passenger numbers projected to rise by 5.8% by 2025 and forecasts suggesting a total exceeding by 22 billion passengers by 2050. We are uniquely positioned to capitalize on this growth by operating advertising concessions in 157 airports globally, including 12 of the top 25 airports in the world. In the next slide, regarding the main tenders, among the most significant we can name in street furniture Barcelona, in transport Danish Rail, and in the airports of Denver and Washington in the US. Almost all tenders now incorporate a significant share Jean-François highlighted earlier ESG as a key differentiator force aligning with our partners' commitments. For our cities and transport partners, we are innovative with sustainable urban solutions, such as introducing plants on our street furniture in Paris since 2024 to support and boost biodiversity in cities. Regarding now our cities and transport partners, we are obviously developing innovative and sustainable solutions mainly related to urban biodiversity and low-emission street furniture. We launched in 2024 JT Deco, a pilot, to introduce plants on our street furniture in the centre of Paris. With 42% of our Scope 3 emissions linked to furniture, prioritizing refurbishment and eco-design is absolutely crucial. Refurbished furniture significantly reduce carbon emissions by over 70% compared to new infrastructures. To help advertisers, we have developed 360 footprint innovative program measuring environmental and socio-economic impacts of campaigns and providing insights into Scope 3 emissions through a calculator. After successful trials in France, we are now gradually rolling it out globally. Our climate trajectory, validated by the SBTI last year, aims for net zero carbon by 2050, in addition with interim targets by 2030. In 2024, the group has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions, Scope 1, 2, and 3 market-based, by nearly 30% in 2024 compared to 2019. To meet our Scope 3 target, public procurement must evolve to prioritize EAG in all tenders and select solutions like furniture refurbishment that are less carbon intensive than new infrastructure. Looking now at our competitive landscape on slide 36, We are the number one global OH Media company, but the number one in the fragmented market. Our global reach gives us a real edge when it comes to serving international clients, especially in the luxury, cosmetics, finance, energy, and automotive industries. We believe that our competitive position is getting stronger, especially with some difficulties faced by local competitors and the clear channel pulling out of Europe and Latin America now. We will continue to execute our bolt-on acquisition strategy. Our key takeaways for today are the following. As you can see, robust revenue growth driven by digital despite micro-uncertainties and comparison-based impacts in Q2 and Q3. Programmatic continued to significantly gain share in our digital revenue. Strong operating leverage, 75% of conversion of revenue into operating margin. plus 200 basis points in operating margin rate while maintaining strict control over CAPEX and selective allocation of our capital. Moving now to our guidance for Q3 2025, we now expect low single-digit negative organic growth for Q3, taking into account 410 basis point negative comparison impact due to the 2024 Olympic Games and the UEFA Euro and no improvement in trading in China at the moment. Compared to 2023, organic revenue growth is expected to be high single digit. I thank you for your attention and Jean-Francois, David and I are now ready to take your questions.

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star 1, 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1, 1 again. We will take our first question and the question comes from the line of Adrian de Saint Hilaire. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Yeah, thank you very much for taking the question, everyone. So first of all, on organic sales growth, Jean-Charles, you just set up high single digit versus 2023. I think that's quite a big slowdown versus what you had in quarter two. So can you explain a bit what's changed? Do you feel that advertisers maybe have turned more cautious recently, or is it just a matter of timing and we should expect a pickup in Q4? Secondly, on the margin point and the operating leverage, indeed super strong in the first half. It's a bit unusual, especially given the relatively soft top line, I suppose. So can you detail a bit what's happening there and the sustainability of that into the second half? Because obviously it looks like you could exceed your 20% operating margin target already maybe in 2025. And then lastly, on working capital, David, how much of that should reverse into the second half? It seems like there are some elements of phasing in there. So just curious in terms of how much you expect to recover into the second half. Thank you very much.

And good morning, Adrian. I'll take the first question, and David will take the second and the third question. So the slowdown that you mentioned regarding Q2, is mainly driven by the UK, which, as we mentioned, is our second largest market, which had a high single-digit decline, impacting the overall growth of the quarter. And also we had some one-off effects from the sporting events, as we mentioned on the call, USA and also the Paris Olympic Games, which will be even stronger in Q3 in terms of very tough comparables, And these are the main reasons. We don't see any slowdown in most markets across the world. David?

Yes. Thank you, Adrian, for the question. I will start with the third one, the working capital. To answer to your question, the majority of these timing differences should neutralize by year end, and we expect our working capital requirement to normalize with only a slight negative impact depending on our activity level. For giving you more granularity on this item, over 50% of the impact seen at the end of June was due to account receivables, which represents about 50 million euros, of which 25 million, as I said, was from reduced factoring amount expected to be neutral by your end and the rest from delayed customer collections that were settled at the beginning of July. We will therefore be giving a strong focus in H2 on cash collection to prevent such a swing on client collection to happen at your end. Regarding the strong operating leverage, this is, as I said during the presentation, is mainly coming from a slight lower increase in rents and fees compared to the revenue growth, driven by the contract adjustments, especially in China, which represent about one-third of this improvement and this should obviously impact positively the second half of the year. And regarding the other operating expenses, we have been working hard on optimizing our cost base. which has been flat as you have seen in the first half of the year. It will continue to be like this in the second part of the year. And on top of that, we will continue to review all our business processes in order to gain inefficiency. So depending on the top line in the second part of the year, we should benefit from from this flat or slightly growing cost base as it has been seen at the end of June 2025. Thank you.

Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Annick Maas. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good morning. My first question is, I see you've suggested that Vue is doing 75 million euros in revenues. Can you give us the impact on the operating profit of Vue? And my second question is on China. So you've suggested that there's no improvement expected. Is that maybe because, and this is a question I don't know, whether... if luxury clients are more exposed to China or why is China remaining so, so weak? And then the last one is a bit more longer term one, I guess. You've suggested that now 40% of your revenues are coming from digital. Can you tell us how much of your inventory is digitized now and how you think about the share of inventory digitization five years down the line? Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Annick. David will take the first question, Jean-Charles the second, and I will take the third question.

Thank you, Annick, for your question on view. As I said during our last call in March for the full year financial result, view should be on a standalone basis break-even, slightly positive in in 2025. This is on a standalone basis when you look at it on a contributive basis at GCLCO level. Given the fact that it is the revenue generated on a programmatic basis is mainly incremental, the contribution of you is already positive on a consolidated basis.

Regarding China and your questions, Annick, the luxury is certainly not helping, but overall the situation is still basically very soft in China. That's basically something that obviously we are not absolutely surprised by the fact that the improvements in the marketplace is certainly On the soft mode at the moment. That's the reason why we actively work on our portfolio About two years ago already and this is Starting to pay off as you can see in as we said this morning in our numbers But the top line at the moment is as we highlighted in our press release as usual Apparently is certainly difficult, continues to be difficult, and I would say that the luxury is still investing in our portfolio. If we want to see something positive out of the situation today, that our business in China will generate profits, one. Two, our business in China is on a low base, on a historical basis, and the date rebounds, and it will. That will be, obviously, given the structure of our contract, certainly helping to grow again with a good profitability. And third, if we look at the digitization in China, which is increasing, as you can see on our presentation this morning, coming from a low base, 27%, versus big countries around the world now at 32% in H1, the digital is growing double digit. The transformation of our portfolio, especially in the metro, is certainly going into the right direction, but on the soft environment, because consumption in China, as you know, continues to be under pressure. The overall Chinese economy, as you can see through the official figures, is not doing so bad, but it's mainly led by export, where the consumption is not basically at the moment recovering. So it's still a slow mode. Record high historically in terms of selling rates from the consumers at roughly 20%. So you see that people are saving and not consuming at the moment. So that's the reason why the environment is soft. But we are prepared and geared to continue to grow with profitability despite the low the soft advertising environment in China.

On your third question regarding digital ANIC, 40% share of our digital revenue is coming from less than 10% of our inventory. Regarding the long-term prospect of digital versus paper, If I take as an example our most digitized market in the UK, going all through the segments, billboards now in the UK, we used to have 10,000 paper billboards. We now have in total less than 1,000 billboards, one-third of which are digital, and one-third of our digital billboard inventory in the UK generates 90% of revenues. It's quite clear that paper billboards in the UK will disappear over the next five years. If I take the rail, some of our London railway stations are already 100% digital. So rail will also become 100% digital. In the airport, it's pretty much the same. So the only exception is street furniture. where street furniture is showing some very good resilience for paper revenues, which continue to be very popular with advertisers. If you look at the yield on paper over the last 10 years, in most of our European street furniture markets, like Germany, the UK and Netherlands, the yield is flat despite the fact that we converted the best locations to digital. So that's, I think, a good example of what will happen long term. So transport environments becoming more and more digital. Right now our transport business is 45% digital, so that will continue to increase. And the fact that we are converting in China, as mentioned by Jean-Charles on your second question, a lot of sites to digital is going to accelerate our digital penetration in transport. Billboard in the markets where it is feasible, billboards will become more and more digital. Of course, there will be exceptions like the big canvas, the big wrap on buildings during building constructions, which are very popular and which are selling very well despite them being non-digital. And on street furniture, it's important to, again, to repeat that the paper street furniture business is quite resilient, which is good news given that we have a very strong exposure to street furniture, especially in Europe.

Can I ask one follow-up? So what happens with these, like, you have, so basically if you had 10,000 paper billboards before in the UK and now less than 1,000, you had the locations before secured. So what happens to those locations? Are they...

freed up and there's no billboard or are competitors taking... No, there are no billboards because the demand is not there. So no one, with maybe a few exceptions, rebuilt billboards on those locations which we decided to curl.

Okay. Great. Thank you very much for your help.

Thank you. We will take our next question. Our next question comes from the line of James Tate. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hi, thank you, and good morning. It's James Tate from Goldman Sachs. I just had a couple of questions, please. I guess, firstly, you helped outline the impact of revenues from sporting events last year in Q3. Could you help comment on the drop through to EBITDA from these revenues? Was there any meaningful boost to EBITDA margins in H2 last year that we should be aware of? And secondly, looking at gross capex, I think that decreased around 7% of revenues in H1, below your four-year guidance, around 8%. And I know H2 tends to be seasonally higher, but could you maintain capex at these levels? And a bit of a follow-up to the last question and thinking bigger picture, could you just talk about how you think about striking the right balance to ensure you're investing sufficiently in the growth of business?

Thank you. Sorry, but the line is not very clear. I'm not sure. Are you...

speaking talking from an iphone on the train or where because we can't we can't understand your question no worries let me try again is that better yeah that's slightly better yeah okay um so just the first question was on the impact you've outlined the impact of revenues from the sporting events last year but could you comment on the drop through to ebitda from these revenues Was there any meaningful boost to EBITDA margins in H2 last year that we should be aware of? And secondly, I think gross capex decreased around 7% of revenues in H1, which is below your four-year guidance, around 8%. And I know H2 tends to be seasonally higher, but could you maintain capex at these levels? And bigger picture, a bit of a follow-up to the last question as well, could you just talk about how you think about striking the right balance to ensure you're investing sufficiently behind the growth in digital? Thank you.

I'll take the first question. David will take the CapEx question. Jean-Charles will take the last one regarding striking the right balance between paper and digital. The impact of both the Euro 2024 in Germany as well as the Paris Olympics on ABDA, if I understand your question correctly, If I look at the French numbers, France did well in the first half and EBITDA-wise as well. So the cost control that was mentioned by David took place across the group and the revenue, the lower growth in France, for instance, despite the fact that France was growing, was offset by good cost control, meaning that we had a good EBITDA number in France. And that's my answer to the first question. David, on capex?

Yes, on capex, as Gensat has indicated in our call in March, we are still aiming for 2025 capex level, around 8% of the revenue. Right now, it is true that we are at 6.4% of the revenue, so it is clearly possible that we will end up below that target, but we will have a clearer picture at the start of Q4, depending on the project on which we are working on.

On the Ryan Balance Digital, we are Obviously, every project and every transformation in our existing footprint, we are maximizing as much as we can the digitization process. This is, I think, shown in our numbers as it was replied before by Jean-Francois on the previous question, so you can be sure that everything that can be rationally digitalized under our, I will say, way of doing it, EA premium, high-quality products, and best digital screens on our portfolio. And that's, I think, one of the reasons why with basically roughly 5% of our portfolio we already generate 40% in digital is because it's highly qualitative and this is true across our different geographies around the world or different segments. You will remember that a few years ago street furniture was lagging and some investors were saying why street furniture is lagging it's because the technology was not yet there at the moment, at that moment. And now street furniture has been the fastest growing basically digital segment within our portfolio, not only the biggest but also the fastest growing segment. And it's because now the technology is there and we have a new revolution in street furniture that is coming on is that the lead is now becoming very competitive in terms of quality, resolution, pricing and duration, which certainly will give a boost to our portfolio evolution on digital. So the balance is, I would say, favoring digital without any doubt and across many geographies at the moment and across the three segments now that are absolutely boosted by digital.

Thank you.

Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Julian Rock. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yes. Hello, Jean-François, Jean-Charles, David, and Rémi. My first question is, any contracts you lost in the first half? The second for David, rent and fees were up €10 million in the first half. What was the base and absolute capital in €1 million? And then the third question on China, you highlighted that digital was up quite nicely in China, so all of the decline is due to paper. And if I look at page 12, your digitalization went from 27% to 32%. So how fast can you digitalize China? Are we talking about five points a year, which means that it's going to take you 10 years to go to China? 70 80 percent because china is the most digital market in the world right north of 90 percent of advertising is digital so uh kind of the path to digitalization in china thank you julian um for your questions i will take the usual your usual contract loss question david will take the random fees

And Jean-Charles will address the digital penetration of our company in the Chinese market. So regarding contract losses, only one major contract loss in a small market being Ireland, where we lost the NTA contract for bus shelters across Ireland to Clear Channel before they were sold to Bauer Media. So that's the only one which is impacting our Irish business where we used to be the number one company in Ireland and now we are the number two company in Ireland in terms of our share of out-of-home media revenues. This contract being the game changer for being number one and number two. But we have a very healthy business in Ireland. We still have a very good presence in Dublin with our freestanding units which are mostly digital. subsidizing the free bike sharing scheme which is very popular among Dublin people, tourists and residents.

Good morning Julien. Regarding your question on rents and fees in absolute terms and not in terms of evolution, it represents About 49% of the total revenue, including local property tax and cost of goods sold, was representing about 50% at the end of June 2024.

Yes, good morning, Julien. On the Chinese questions, you're right to say that China is the most digitalized country. In our portfolio of assets, you're right to say also that the rebound on our profitability is coming mainly from the renegotiation of our existing contract and the digitization that is coming now through that basically period of renewal and renegotiation. We are basically quite bullish on our digitization in China, but we are also, as you know, working with our partners, and so it is clear that the airport digitization penetration is going very fast, where the metro is taking a bit more time, but as soon as the market I think we will see an acceleration in our digitization in China. Now we are digitalizing, but we are also cautiously doing it with our partners. But things are progressing quite well in this, and the rate of penetration in China will continue to grow in the near future alongside our digitalization. It's a process which is digitalized in every country and obviously it is a process to also digitalize in China with our partners. But the difficult situation on the overall marketplace is helping us to make them realize that digitalization is a must-do strategy where in the past it was not exactly the case. as usual, difficult times help people to realize that things have to change. And that will certainly help us to go faster in the future. But it's a process, it takes a bit of time.

Merci. Thank you. We will take our next question. And the next question comes from the line of Adam Berlin. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Yes, good morning, everyone. Two questions, please. First question, you have said that Q3 will be up high single digits versus 2023. Is that a reasonable assumption for Q4 as well or anything we should be aware of that could make that different? That's the first question. And the second question is, can you tell us what the net impact is on 2026 from the contracts you've won and lost this year so far?

So, on your first question, single digit in Q3 versus 2023, and what we expect in Q4, what I can tell you is our pacing figures in Q4, which are not impacted by the one-off effects of the Olympic Games and all the Euro 2024 are quite good. It's obviously very early to make a final call and we will guide when we announced our Q3 numbers later this year on Q4, which is our biggest quarter. And we generate more than 60% of our operating margin in the second half each year. And a major significant part of this operating margin is coming from Q4, which again, right now across the globe is pacing quite nicely. And on the net impact, David, just

The loss contract in 2025, as mentioned by Jean-Francois, had no significant impact. We are not very meaningful. It was whether loss-making contract or dilutive contract on our operating margin. In terms of top line, it was representing less than 20 million euros. on a yearly basis, so we do not expect a significant impact in 2026 on the top line and should be quite positive on the bottom line.

And we maintain our targets for 2026 to be above 20% operating margin rate and a free cash flow of $300 million. Those targets are maintained.

Sorry, can I just follow up? You talked about the impact of the loss, but you've also won contracts this year, so is there any Can you help quantify the size of the wins as well?

A sizeable one was the Stockholm win for both the bus shelters as well as the underground. The contract has not been signed yet because Clear Channel appealed to the court trying to force the SL, the transport company, to re-tender They lost in the first instance. They lost in the second instance. And we heard last week that they are taking the case to the Supreme Court, which is very typical of Clear Channel, pre-sale of their business to Bauer. So, well, we'll see. Obviously, this contract was meant to start on the 1st of January, 2026. both for the Boschhalter contract as well as for the major subway stations in Stockholm. It's now going to be a bit delayed. By how much, we don't know. It depends also on how fast, how quickly the Supreme Court can make a decision. But the contract has not been signed yet, and it should have been signed. So that's... That's what I can tell you about a major one. Obviously, we expect tender results as shown in the slide on tenders. Obviously, some of them are important tenders, which is the nature of our business. We win most. We have a success rate in street furniture above 80%. Obviously, we don't know the outcome of those tenders yet. Barcelona is an important one in Spain for us. You will remember that the Spanish antitrust authority kind of blocked the transaction which was done between ClearChain and us to buy their Spanish business. They wanted us to divest too many assets, so in the end we decided to pull out of the deal. So Barcelona is an important one for the Spanish business. Danish Rail in Denmark is an important one for the Danish business. Washington, Denver Airport, Denver is the number six airport in the world. Although it's very domestic, nevertheless, it's by ranking in terms of passenger numbers, number six in the world. So there are some significant tenders on the list, and we'll see what we can win and what We are the incumbent in Denmark. We are not the incumbent in Barcelona. We are not the incumbent in Washington and Denver, just to name a few big ones. So we have potentially some potential good news if we win them on good terms and conditions.

That's very helpful. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We will take our next question. And the question comes from the line of David and Maureen. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Bonjour, everyone. David from Berenberg. Thank you for taking my question. Just three on my hand, please. First, when I look at your Q2 organic growth, street furniture is clearly driving the group performance. Why is there such a difference between street furniture compared to billboard and transport? The second one on M&A, could you please give us a bit more detail on your current pipeline Are conditions favorable for doing M&A at the moment? And which region are you most interested in? And the third one, it seems that the digital growth is slightly normalizing. What are your growth expectations for this segment going forward? And do you still expect double-digit percentage pace beyond 2025? Thank you.

Okay, thank you for your questions. I will take the first one. Jean-Charles is second, and I will take the third one. So on Q2, split furniture leading the pack in terms of organic growth, you're right. Billboard, in terms of digital billboards, is mainly UK, Latin America, and Australia. And it's fair to say that the UK had a very tough second quarter. which, as I mentioned earlier, we were down a high single digit and more in billboards. We slightly outperformed the market, which was down by more than that, and it was due to the fact that, first of all, we had a tough comp, a very tough comparable in the UK. We were up 30% last year organically in the first half. So that's mainly due to the UK. Australia as well, billboard in Australia in the second quarter was lower than in the first quarter. And so that's the main reason on the lower performance of our billboard segment and also the paper billboards which in some markets where we are not able to digitize are a bit under pressure.

M&A, with no change in our strategy, but an acquisition when it makes sense to reinforce our position, if not focus on organic growth. Region where we want to be basically opportunistic on M&A, depending on obviously the target is always Europe, where we continue to monitor the situation and the consolidation in some key markets. We are looking at some opportunities that may happen still in Latin America and Asia Pacific, where you could have some interesting situation. So our platform is, as we've highlighted again, it's unique around the world today in terms of quality of infrastructure, in terms of density in top-ups around the world whether it is cities or the metro system or basically airports. So we really complement our strategy with Bolton acquisitions when it makes really sense as we did over the last five or ten years in Latin America and you can see now that this is a region that has been growing a lot. We did it also basically in Australia where we had the opportunity in 2018 to to consolidate one of the key players in Australia and New Zealand. And we have now a strong platform in Asia-Pac. So Asia-Pac, Latin America is certainly the region where we have most opportunities in terms of Bolton, but nothing big to be expected at the moment in the environment.

On your third question regarding the future growth of digital out of home, First of all, the forecast from the main advertising agencies is that digital out-of-home should remain the fastest-growing segment in the media business overall, ahead of online, obviously being a much smaller segment. That's quite obvious, but still double-digit over the next couple of years. Jesse Ducot delivered over the last 10 years roughly, 16 plus percent compound growth rate year on year, driven by the digitization of our portfolio in many markets. Whether we can continue this trend of around the strong double digit will also depend whether or not we can digitize the French market, which today for legal and political reasons is a very difficult one. Remember, France is, in terms of digital penetration, less than 10% versus 40% for the group as a whole. And France is 18% of our business, the largest market. So regarding Paris, where we cannot digitize, this will depend on the outcome of the municipal election next year because some political parties are in favor of digital. The current coalition didn't want to digitize or didn't want to change the advertising policy in Paris to paving the way for us to be able to digitize, so therefore we are monitoring the outcome of this election very closely. And in some other cities, some green politicians are not in favor of digitizing or replacing scrolling paper by digital, which in our opinion doesn't make a lot of sense, but it is what it is. So that's obviously not helping us to to boost the digital revenue when your largest market is under-penetrated for these reasons. Having said that, we still have a lot of markets around the world, including obviously China, where we are still at 30% digital in a market which is, I just want to remind the people on this call, that China is the second largest advertising market in the world, but 90% of the advertising market is digital, and we're only 30%. So as indicated by Jean-Charles, obviously we are going to accelerate the digitization of our Chinese portfolio. So that would help because China is the third largest market with 10% of revenues. So digital should continue to grow, double digit, if you take all this into consideration. And if in the event that we can digitize France, which is a question of time, there is no doubt in my mind that France will become digital in one day. then all of a sudden this will be a big boost given the size of France in our overall portfolio.

Thank you very much. And just a follow-up question. Your operating margin performance in H1 is quite impressive for the moment. What is the trend for H2? Is it possible to reach your full year 2026 guidance on operating margin already in 2025?

David? Thank you, Davide, for your question. As you know, we don't give guidance for the second part of the year on the operating margin. We are on track, as indicated, to deliver our target with operating margin ratio overall above 20%. And that's all what I can say.

Thank you. We will take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Jerome Bodden. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yes, good morning all. Three questions on China. So on China contract renegotiation, so assuming that the framework is 100, where do you see yourself at the moment in terms of renegotiation finished? Is it 40, 50, 80 or 100? That's my first question. Second one, still on China. So assuming in the mid-term that China is back to 2019, regarding the renegotiation of the contract, should we expect the margin being lower? Just to understand the new math for China. And lastly, on the trend in China, short-term trend, so decline, do you see this current situation as cyclical? Or do you see maybe a lower demand for certain media, including outdoor? Because if we look to the numbers of other players like Tencent, they are growing relatively nicely in Q1 and Q2. So my question behind is, if it is the case, if it is structural, what is your answer? So is it to continue to accelerate the digitalization or maybe to partner with someone or reinvent the the offer in this very specific and fast-changing market. Just a very open question on China. Thank you.

Thank you, Jérôme, on your Chinese mood this morning. So, very clear answers on your three questions. The first one on the level of basically the state of the nation on the renegotiation in China. taking into account your 100 base, I would say that we are now at certainly 75 to 80% of what was a reassessment of our, let's say, financial duration conditions. And I think pretty successful because Everything we wanted to achieve, we almost achieved it in good spirit and partnership with our Chinese partners that have been very comprehensive and loyal to JC Decaux, being a very, I would say, trustworthy partner in China. I think this is something that you should, on this call, acknowledge, is that the Chinese situation is difficult for every industry at the moment, or most industries, let's say, or most businesses. But the Chinese partners for JCDCO have been very loyal to us and very comprehensive. So that's number one. So I would say more than two-thirds has been done. It is clear that if we come back to the 2019 numbers, our margin in China will be coming back strongly because the structure of our Chinese deals Basically, most of the time, minimum guarantee, no revenue share. So, basically, it is obviously something that will, if the business is going upwards, most, not to say the least, almost all of it will come down to the margin. So, on your second question, it is clear that if the business rebounds, and it is I should you should remember that in 2021 the business was doing very well then you have the second COVID situation and since then the business has been tough in China so it also links to your third question is it cyclical or structural I don't think we don't think that is structural if we digitalize so we have to digitize as we said before and so I think the decline is certainly more pronounced at the moment because of the situation of the consumption. But the digitalization is certainly helping us in some categories in China. So we strongly believe that our reassessment of the contract base plus our digitization acceleration, as we said, you remember that when we renewed the contract, even during COVID, we always said, Basically, we are lagging a bit because we were in the renegotiation process and the return during process, and that's where we are. So I think it's clearly going into the right direction, except the fact that at the moment, the Q2 has been a bit tougher than expected. Q3, we continue to be in line with. And there is a third factor that you should take into account is that Hong Kong at the moment, where we have a strong presence, and to a lesser extent Macau, but mostly Hong Kong is under pressure. So Hong Kong as a city, as a worldwide city, is certainly under pressure. So this is not helping. If you look at the Chinese context, the Hong Kong situation is not helping. So overall contract base very healthy, long duration, very loyal partners, soft advertising market in the industry at the moment, but less in the digital environment. So we are working hard with our teams to make sure that we are fully prepared for the rebound. And we think that at some point the business will get better without any doubt. And I think the work we've done on the reset strategy has been quite successful so far.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. We will take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Connor O'Shea. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yes, thank you. Good morning, everybody. Three remaining questions from my side. First question, just on the UK business. I think, Jean-Francois, you mentioned 30% comp in the first half. Just wondering, can you remind us what the comp is in the second half and whether you see in your guidance for the Q3 any changes easing of the situation in the UK. I think ITV suggested that the market was a bit better going into the second half, at least for Q3. Second question, just in terms of spend by your biggest client sector, fashion and luxury, you mentioned minus 2% for the first half. Just wondering, was that materially worse in the second quarter versus the first quarter and how is that sort of shaping up into Q3? Is that a Is that a big factor behind the slowdown? And then the third question, maybe for David, obviously some currency translation drag in the second quarter. Just wondering what kind of range you expect at the current exchange rate in the second half for currency translation drag. Thank you.

Thank you, Conor. I will take the first question. I'm actually spending down by... So on the UK, as you implied in your question, we had a very strong growth last year, nearly 30% in H1, so a very, very tough come. The first quarter was pretty good. The second quarter was totally the reverse, a high single-digit decline across all segments. Our salespeople are more optimistic about Q3 and Q4, but it's a bit early to call. It's very clear that our performance in the UK was affected by the weak consumer demand. Having said that, TV was under pressure in the first half, more than we were. You shouldn't underestimate the deals between agencies and TV media companies, which are based upon volume rebates, meaning that in order for the agencies to get their volume rebates, they have to reach a certain level of spend with the TV groups. So that's can swing some of the growth, especially in the second half, which is why the TV companies are telling you that it's a bit better, because they know that agencies, when they see that they are not going to reach the minimum threshold of spend, all of a sudden they boost their TV spend. That's the real world. when they boost the TV spend in order to get their volume rebates, this is obviously affecting other media, including out of home. So we don't have that much visibility in the second half, but I think that's the main reason why the TV companies can be more optimistic about the second half in the UK. So that's my answer to your question on the spend.

Yeah, on the spend, on the luxury, I mean, as you can see, Conor, The luxury groups have been increasing their overall spend with us over the last decade quite significantly. They became the largest contributor on our portfolio over the globe, and that's due to the platform that we were referring to in the presentation this morning, premium, digitalized, and unique geographically, especially in the top markets around the globe, in the top DMAs, in the top cities. And so the fact that the luxury brands now are basically under a bit of pressure because of the situation overall, especially in China, it's clearly putting a bit of pressure on our top line numbers with them. Nothing, I will say at the moment, really changing the way they look at our media. But it's clearly a tough comp. And if you take into account last year that for the Olympic Games, obviously, we had a lot of, we had a boost on overall spend, but also on the luxury brands, most of them being French or Italian. And the Olympic Games taking place in Paris last year. clear that in Q2 and Q3 we had a bit of headwind on the luxury brands plus the current context which is certainly not helping. But overall we see still a very good traction especially in the cosmetic overall which is doing well. So that's where we are at the moment and we see also brands now looking at the situation to try to avoid basically big budget reduction so a bit of kind of we hope so also that they are looking at companies like l'oreal that l'oreal basically are keeping always the span um to basically and and you can see that across the the different crises sometimes and they are getting shared big time when when that happens so and you can see their numbers across across the years It's quite impressive to see even their size, how much they protect their marketing activation and marketing cost. So this is something that most of the luxury brands now are looking very carefully to make sure they are crossing, let's say, sometimes the difficult moments by keeping also the investment for their brands, which is their main assets. at the end of the day. And if you look, and I won't name them, but some of the groups that are in tough difficulties at the moment, they are the least, basically, they are not the biggest investor. So they are not the biggest advertising. When you look at their P&L, they invest less than other brands. So, I mean, it's quite interesting to see the correlation between the brand's development and their advertising. investment into their P&L. So that's what we can say about the luxury brands at the moment, but it is clear to say that the situation overall, not only in China but also in the U.S. and in Europe, is certainly something that we have to carefully monitor for the second part of the year because Q4 is also an important quarter, not only the biggest, but also the quarter where the luxury brands are investing the most.

The last question, good morning, regarding the currency evolution for the second half of the year. It is a good question. As you know, it is not easy to predict. In the first half of the year, we had a slight negative impact from which was compensated by the positive impact from the change in scope. As you know as well, our business is mainly dominated in local currency, so we have a kind of natural edging on our bottom line related to the evolution of currency. So in the second half of the year, we take into account as an assumption about the same evolution as the one we have in the first half with no significant impact on the top line and on the bottom line, partially compensated by the change in scope as well.

Coming back to your first question, Conor, Remy just told me that I didn't quite fully reply to your question regarding the comparable in the second half for the UK. So we will have an easier come this year in the second half because last year the second half in the UK grew 10% versus 30% in the first half.

Okay. Very clear. Many thanks.

Thank you. We will take our final question. And your final question comes from the line of Anna Patrice. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yes, hello. Thank you very much for all the answers provided. And I think it was quite a good set of results. Some follow-up questions on my side. First of all, if we'll go back again to the profitability, you had 200 basis points improvement in H1, even though the growth has slowed down. Should we expect the same improvement or similar improvement in H2? And what do you think should be then the long-term margins? Here the question is, because obviously you have upside from digitalization, so if you can comment on margin difference between the digital and non-digital business, there should be upside because of the better competitive environment as Clear Channel has mostly left European market. So how do you see the trend overall in your profitability? Another question is on the CapEx, because CapEx has slowed down. And again, in the past, it was sometimes up to 10% of group sales. Now it's roughly around 8% of group sales. But the impression is that you still need to digitalize. You still need to invest. So what should we think about the CapEx going forward, please? Thank you.

Thank you. David, we'll take both questions on CapEx.

margin improvement in the second half whether this can be sustained in the second second on capex so i will start with the first one with the second one on capex yes it is true that in the past on an average basis we were if you look at the at the 10-year average ratio on capex to sales we were about eight percent with some peak at ten percent As we said at the beginning of the year during our call for the full year result, we aim and we target to work with an envelope of capex of 8% of the revenue, including digital. As you have seen at the end of June, for the first half, we are at 6.4, so we are below this target. We are still working to deliver a ratio around 8% for 2025. And the digital capex, we have always been very selective in the way we are digitizing our premium location. Digital capex represents about 40%, a bit more than 40% of the total capex at the end of June. And we will continue to work with this amount of capex of this portion of digital capex within our total capex between 40 to 50% and keeping and maintaining our total capex around 8%. Coming to your question on the evolution of the margin, as we indicated to an answer to one of the questions that we had, The major part of our operating margin is delivered in the second half of the year, a bit more than 60%. So what we have experienced on the first half should continue in the second half. So I will let you do the math and we should continue to benefit from our efficient cost management in the second part of the year based on the revenue growth that we will be able to deliver.

Okay, and overall, where do you see your margins in the mid-long term? Because there is upside from digital. If you can comment on the difference between the digital and analog margins, please. And also because of the glitch, I know, has left Europe.

Yes, this is part of the question that I missed. Sorry for that. You know, the main upside that we get from digital on the margin are currently coming from the top line. As you know, we are... fixed cost business model because more than 70% of our OPEX base is fixed and thanks to the flexibility that we get from Digitool we can get you know the upside on the top line and mainly on the business segment where the rents are fixed which is street furniture and billboard business segment and this is what you can see through the evolution of our operating margin on the billboard business segment, where we are able to turn around the business when we are in a capacity to digitize our inventory, what we did, for example, in the UK or in Australia, where 10 years ago we decided to completely convert our billboard inventory in the UK to a more digitized on a premium location. We went from 7,000 or 8,000 billboards to 1,000, and out of the 1,000, more than 20% are digitized. It was a business which was break-even loss-making 10 years ago, and it is now a business at a 20% operating margin. So this is a benefit that we will get from the digital. So I hope this will answer to your question.

And regarding the competitive landscape, we can only hope that Bauer Media, being a family-owned business, which acquired for 600 plus million dollars the business of Clear Channel in Northern Europe, will be more rational in terms of their bidding strategy and less legalistic. I mentioned on this call, replying to one of your colleagues about the court cases in Stockholm, three court cases. going on right now. I could have mentioned as well Peterborough, where Clear Channel went to court twice for a relatively small city. We ended up winning, but they forced the city to retender twice in Peterborough for very, very minor reasons which are completely irrelevant, but that was their style. I just want to remind you that Clear Channel sold their French business for one euro and gave 45 million euros to the buyer, a small private equity company in France, to take their French business, which is still the second, third largest out-of-home media company in France, generating about 250 million euros of sales. So it tells you the huge value destruction triggered by Clear Channel since they came into the European out-of-home media market in 1998. So we hope that our media will be more rational. What I can tell you is that in the countries where Clear Channel was not operating out-of-home media, where we are facing other competitors, our margins are higher. So we clearly see that the Clear Channel impact on margins in the countries where we are where we are competing head-to-head against them was pretty negative.

Thank you. And if I may, just two follow-up questions from my side. First, on net income in 2024, because you include the APG gain. So if we adjust the APG gain, I just don't know if it's tax-deductible or not, et cetera, what would be the net income in H1 and the full year 2024? And the second question, Impression is that some investors are worried about your contracts with municipalities, that maybe municipalities have pressing power, and that if the margins are going down or not in this segment. So if you can comment on your contracts with municipalities, and again, if there is digitalization and if this does improve your margins or should improve your margins over the long term. Thank you.

On the impact of APG.

The impact on APG was 45 million in H1 on the EBIT and as well on the net profit. And as we said when we announced our full year 2024 financial results, as far as I remember, our net profit would have been excluding the apg and you can find the information on the presentation at about 210 million euros and and currently as you have seen in our presentation excluding none excluding non-recurring items or excluding apg from 2024 financial result the net income group share would have been growing at 71% year-on-year. It would have been 86.1% if you exclude not only APG but other non-recurring items, as it is indicated on the presentation.

And regarding the second part of your question, your second question on municipalities, and becoming more difficult. It's the nature of our business is to compete for these public contracts and it's not driven by the fact that the municipalities are becoming smarter. It's all about the willingness of some competitors. Well, I mentioned Clear Channel, which was keen to gain a market share at any cost. And obviously some other competitors are much more rational and they are more interested in making profitable bids. So that's why the exit of THL could be good news, but we'll see.

And the impact of the increasing sales, digital contracts or digital sales with new sales, does it impact the profitability or it has no impact on profitability?

No, I mean, David, in reply to your question, giving you the example of the UK business, where the digitization of the billboard business paved the way for us to have a billboard business now in the UK, which is about 20% operating margin rate. So it's clearly that digital can improve the profitability.

Yeah, and I'll just double check if it's also the case with Miss Beltis. Thank you very much for your answers.

Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I will now hand back to the room for closing remarks.

Thank you, everybody, for attending this conference call this morning about the H1 2025 results. And on behalf of our executive board, we wish you all a very nice holiday.