JCDecaux SE

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the GSE Decaux 2025 Full Year Results presentation. I will now hand over to Jean-François Decaux, Chairman of the Executive Board and Co-CEO. Sir, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 2026 Full 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, Remy Grisard, Head of Investor Relations, is also attending today's conference call. On the front cover, we chose this picture of one of our large digital kiosks on Market Street in San Francisco with an AI-related campaign because this new client category generated last year 30% of all revenues in the San Francisco advertising market. Moving now to slide four, overall 2025 is a solid year with robust underlying growth and strong performance in our key financial indicators. First, revenue. Our organic revenue growth is up 1.8% and 3.2% if we include the impact of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and UEFA Europe. So despite a tougher comparable, and a more challenging as well as an uncertain macro environment, our underlying top line continues to grow. Second, digital. Our digital revenue grew by 10% organically and now represents 41.7% of total group revenue with programmatic up 17.3% and reaching 10.4% of digital revenue. This confirms that digital and especially programmatic remain a key driver of our growth and of the transformation of the group. On the profitability slide, we demonstrate the strength and operating leverage of our business model. Our operating margin rate improved to 20.9%, up 150 basis points year-on-year, recurring EBIT increased by 18.6%, and our net results, excluding the APG SGA capital gain in 2024, is up 22.8%. Finally, and very importantly, we delivered record free cash flow of €342.9 million, up 47.9%. But David will comment all of that later. Bottom line, we delivered our 2026 target one year ahead of plan. On slide number five, And focusing on Q4, we recorded an organic growth rate of 1.6% above our guidance and our expectations around FLAP. Our advertising revenue recorded a plus 3.1% organic growth reflecting an acceleration versus Q3 and a solid advertising momentum, especially compared to traditional media companies in Europe. Non-advertising revenue were affected by a high comparable base in 2024, linked to the contract of the Paris Automatic Public Toilet Network. Digital accounted for close to 45% of revenue, a 1.9 points increase, with programmatic digital out of home up 14%, and representing 11% of digital revenue. Coming back to, on slide six, coming back to our full year 2025 revenue performance, reported growth at 0.8%, was affected by a negative foreign exchange impact, partially offset by acquisitions and other changes in scope. Street furniture maintained its strong momentum with plus 1.9% organic growth, even against a base that had benefited from sporting events in Europe last year. Transport continued its rebound, growing plus 3.3% organically, despite the mid-single-digit revenue decline in China. Outside of China, growth was much stronger, reaching 6.8% organically. Billboard decreased by 2.3% organically, mainly due to high comparable and further rationalization of our inventory in France. On the next slide, number seven, you can see that North America and the rest of the world were key growth drivers as they grew high single-digit, while the rest of Europe grew low single-digit, and UK and Asia Pacific decreased low single-digit. France decreased mid-single-digit, impacted by its high comparable, excluding the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, France grew by 1.8% on an organic basis. This shows the strength of our geographically diversified model. On slide number eight, we are not only well diversified geographically, but also by activities. Split furniture now constitutes 50.7% of total revenue, while transport at 35.8% has not yet recovered its 2019 revenue share of more than 40%. Billboard remains our smallest segment, accounting for 13.4% of total revenue, as we continue to focus on premium assets and on digitization wherever possible in this segment. France is our largest country, representing 16.7% of total revenue, while Europe makes up nearly 50%. The UK ranks as our second largest country. Our exposure to China continues to decrease to around 10% in 2025 versus 18% in 2029. Turning to the slide number nine, 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 5%. Meanwhile, the next three categories showed robust growth, retail at plus 7%, entertainment film at 11% plus, and finance at 13%. Next slide, number 10, digital out of home remain a key growth driver as it grew by plus 10% organically in full year 2025. Digital revenue penetration rose by almost three percentage points year on year, reaching 41.7% in full year 2025 and almost 45% in Q4. Our digital revenue distribution continues to closely mirrors our business mix as demonstrated in the next slide. Digital penetration on slide number 11 increased across all three business segments. In split furniture, digital revenue climbed to 39.9% compared to 36.9% a year earlier. Digital revenue in transport, our most digitized segment, grew from 44.1% to 46.4%. In billboard, digital revenue reached 35.8% from 33.8% a year earlier. Let's move on to slide number 12. with programmatic advertising which soared by 19.2% in 2025, reaching €100.5 million, or 10.9% of our digital revenue, up from 9% the previous year. We consider that more than 50% of this revenue is purely incremental, coming from new advertisers and targeted campaigns. Programmatic revenues remain primarily incremental, sourced from smaller advertisers or from targeted campaigns such as this campaign, for a new perfume in Berlin. On slide 13, we anticipate continuous strong growth. For programmatic revenue, there is an important gap today between countries such as Germany at 36.5% and the Netherlands at 28.6%, surpassing the group average at 10.9%. And some major digital markets like the UK and the US, which have not yet fully embraced programmatic. We predict programmatic penetration will continue to rise in the medium term to evolve 20%. On the next slide, number 14, which is pretty full, you will find our most important contract wins and renewals in 2025. Taking a few examples in street furniture, we secured contracts in Europe with Camilla Carrefour, Rennes Freestanding Units, Odense in Denmark, Barcelona Street Furniture in Spain. In Japan, the third advertising market worldwide, we strengthened our footprint with Fukuoka, Kawasaki, Nagano, Nara, and Sapporo. In Australia, we renewed the important contract of Melbourne Yarra Trans, which was announced last week. In transport, we renewed Northern Rail in the UK, Brussels Airport, and buses, Metro in Belgium, National Rail in Norway. In North America, we want Denver Airport in the USA, the number 10 airport in the world with 82 million passengers. Finally, in billboards, we strengthened our portfolio both in Portugal and in Ireland. To address the frequent analyst question regarding contract losses, the two main examples are CityBus in Hong Kong and Danish Rail in Denmark. Finally, before handing over to David Bourg, we have confirmed our excellent ESG performance. Our performance was recognized as best in class by extra financial rating agencies, including our placement on the CDPA list for the third year in a row and the silver medal status from Ecovalis. We have received as well, again, the best score AAA from MSCI, and sustainability rated as a low-risk company among the media. 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-Francois. On this first slide at page 17, you can see our key financial metrics for 2025. On this picture, the message is clear. 2025 is a very solid year, as Jean-Francois already mentioned. On revenue of 3,967,000,000, up 0.8% on a reported basis, we deliver strong operating leverage across the P&L, a record level of free cash flow, and a lower net debt. While we continue to invest, and resumed our dividends. Bottom line, with an operating margin at 831 million, 20.9% of the revenue, and a free cash flow at 342.9 million, we exceeded our 2026 target one year in advance. Let's now look in more detail at each KPI on the following slides, starting first with the evolution of our operating margin on the next slide. As you can see on the left side, our operating margin increased by 66.6 million from 764.5 million to 831.1 million, plus 8.7% year-on-year, while the revenue increased by 0.8%. And so, as you see on the right, the margin rate improved by 150 basis points from 19.4% to 20.9%. This strong performance mainly reflects lower rents and fees, in particular after the contract reset in mainland China, and a very tight control of other operating costs, which are almost flat. This means we captured almost all of the 1.7% growth in advertising revenue. You also see lower cost of goods sold linked to a 6.5% decline in non-advertising revenue, partly due to the end of the automatic toilet installation program in Paris. As you can see again on the right-hand side, margin expansion is visible across all segments. Street furniture is now above 27%, a level we hadn't reached since 2015. Billboard stands at 17.6% and transport at 13.5%, with the strongest improvement of 230 bps mainly driven by China, and a strong growth in the rest of the world. On slide 19, you have the EBIT bridge from operating margin of $831.1 million. On the top of the table, we deduct net amortization and depreciation, which are slightly up, and maintenance per part almost up moderately. This brings us to recurring EBIT in the middle of the table at 376.7 million, up 59 million year-on-year, broadly in line with the increase in operating margin, or plus 18.6% with the margin improving from 8.1% to 9.5%. Below recurring EBIT, after adding positive non-recurring items, lower than last year because of the APG SGA gain in 2024, and a small impairment, EBIT reaches €431 million, up plus 5.5%. So in summary, this slide clearly confirms that we are not only growing our EBIT, but also delivering solid operating leverage at EBIT level on a recurring basis. On the next slide, page 20, you find the bridge in our net income group share. Two key numbers at the bottom of the table reported net income at $262.6 million plus 1.4% versus 2024, but excluding the APG-AGA capital gain in 2024, net income group share is up plus 22.8% in 2025, globally in line with our recurring EBIT. Between EBIT on the top of the slide and net income at the bottom, the main points are a better financial result as we no longer have the 22.6 million one-off on a loan in China, and we benefit from lower IFRS 16 discount costs due to lower lease liability, partly offset by lower interest income after the bond repayment in October 2024. Higher tax charge as well, reflecting our improved results with an effective tax rate around 25.6%, against 20.8% in 2024, which benefited from the non-taxable capital gain from APG SGA. Adjusted from that, 2024 effective rate would be above 24%, so close to 2025 rate. Moving now to cash generation, as you can see at the bottom of this slide, 2025 is record year with a free cash flow of 342.9 million, a positive variation of 111 million, almost plus 50% versus 2024. The main drivers of this increase are in the middle of the table, higher operating cash flow from 50 million, directly linked to the improvement in operating margin. Below the operating cash flow, a positive contribution from working capital of 33 million, in particular from lower inventories, mainly thanks to inventory optimization. And finally, a disciplined capex allocation with net investment down to around 7.5% of revenue, while still keeping a strong focus on digital, which represent close to 40% of net capex. It is to be noted that the impact of factoring on working capital variation is negative by 5 million as we did a lower volume of factoring at your end than in 2024. We did 272 million versus 277 million in 2024. And also to be noted, a strong free cash flow generation before working capital variation as it reached 284 million. So in summary, this slide shows that our business generates strong operating cash flow and we continue to be disciplined on capex and working capital. On slide 22, on the left bar chart, you see the evolution of the net debt, excluding SIS16. It goes down from $766 million to $587 million, a reduction of $169 million, mainly thanks to record free cash flow, partly offset by dividends, Bolton M&A, and share buybacks. This gives us low leverage with a net debt around 0.7 times our operating margin. On the right side of the slide, you can see appreciate a very solid financial profile, 1.3 billion cash, 825 million unrolled credit facility, 1.9 billion gross debt, 3.1 year average maturity, 3.4% financial cost, and 91% of our debt, which is on a fixed rate basis. Finally, on the last slide, we present our recommendation for 2025 dividend. Given our strong 2025 result, record free cash flow and solid financial position, we will propose to the AGM to increase the dividend per share to 0.65 cents per share from 0.55 This is an increase of plus 18.2% globally in line with our underlying earning growth. It represents a payout ratio of around 52% of net result group share and about 40% of our free cash flow. As already indicated, our intention is to continue to gradually increase the dividend in the coming years, while maintaining a balanced cash allocation between CAPEX to support organic growth, targeted Bolton M&A, and an attractive and sustainable shareholder return. That's all from my side on the financial, and I now hand over to Jean-Charles for the outlook.

Thank you, David, and good morning to everyone. So, OH and DOH is more than ever, as you have seen, a gross media driven by increasing urbanization and mobility leading to rising audiences, as well as by the premium nature of our media on its digitization. As shown on this slide, 25, Group M, the world's largest media buyer, forecast DOH to be growing at 7.2%. over the next five years and OOH as a whole is expected to grow by 5.5% kHz. This robust growth trajectory clearly sets us apart from other traditional media which are facing a structural decline. This is part of our ambition to take OOH and DOH to the next level based on three key pillars. First, a unified ad tech stack that enables us to manage our entire inventory consistently for advertisers and fully capture the growth of DOH. Second, data-powering campaigns allowing for more relevant targeting and activations, including through programmatic buying. And finally, artificial intelligence, which acts as a catalyst by continuously optimizing delivery, performance, and creativity across our networks. On slide 27, you can see our digital footprint by major geographies. Key growth drivers remain Brazil, the US, Australia, the UK, and Germany. While the group average is 42% digital, many countries are still below that level, which means strong future upside. Our largest country, France, is at the moment only at 9% digital penetration for reasons we all know. Retail development will help accelerate digital and any opening of cities like Paris to more digital will be a real boost for the whole sector. On the next slide, programmatic, as you can imagine and see, gives us three major advantages. First, trigger-based buying. We can buy based on real-time contextual signals. Second, we can now measure campaign performance at a level that is completely different from classic OOH. Third, whenever we sell audience-based on programmatic, in more than eight cases out of 10, we achieve a higher revenue per impression than on classic campaign, that's higher yield. This is made possible by combining first, second, and third-party data. Today, programmatic is around 11% of all digital revenues, versus 85 in web and mobile, the catch-up potential on the same inventory is huge. On the next slide, as you can see on the left, you have advertisers and agencies, large media groups, independents, and digital agencies. Then, the DSPs with displays in the major third-party DSPs, OH or multi-channel, such as the ThreadDesk. Then you have the SSPs with Vue, our open platform available to JC Decaux, but also more importantly to third-party media owners. On the right are the media owners. If we have not moved up the value chain with Vue and then this place, we will leave a significant share of value on the table. We are now onboarding other major players, as you can see. Outfront in the US is joining Vue recently. and others may follow. Our full ad tech stack is unique in our sector, although this value is not yet fully reflected in our share price. Our conviction, on the next slide, is that AI is primarily an enabler force. Our assets are physical, in cities, in transport networks, in retail environments, and it's a critical part of audiences. AI will transform, as we all know, our ways of working, collaborating, automating our business processes and increasing the productivity of our media, but it will not replace premium real assets such as bus shelters, metro network, airport screens or retail screens. We have highlighted here a few use cases In campaign creation and planning, campaign AI by displays optimize planning and trading through a simple prompt, while the maker generates tailor-made visuals customized for each location for both print and digital campaign. For content moderation, KISS automatically screens creative to pre-approval visuals on accelerated validation. For content optimization, Optics leverages attention, prediction, and optimization technology to maximize campaign impact. Again, our physical assets are therefore structurally resilient, and AI enhances their value by improving productivity, creativity, targeting, and more importantly, measurement. This slide, 31, highlights the strong potential of DOH retail media for JIC.com. Our new exclusive partnership with Carrefour Carmilla Unlimited is a key milestone. The data-driven OHVOH network will be deployed across 161 shopping centres in 297 access areas in France from 2026 and 91 shopping centres and 88 access areas in Spain from 2027. Retail media, as you know, is already a significant and fast-growing activity for J.C. Decaux, which flows at 90% of revenue coming from digital across 44 countries, leveraging our partners' data and enabling highly targeted contextual and programmatic DOH campaigns. Globally, the retail media market represents $174 billion opportunity, including online. Retail media has already overtaken TV in the U.S., and is growing fast in Europe, a major growth driver for DOH as 85% of retail sales still take place offline in stores. DOH Retail Media is expected to grow at 11.6% on the CAGR basis between 2025 and 2031. Combined with our broad portfolio of hidden retail partners, this position jays to the core very strongly to capture the acceleration of DOH retail media. Moving on to the next slide, 32, as you can see, airports remain a structural growth driver despite episodic crisis, and over the long term, air traffic grows by 3 to 5% per year, and the projections from 2025 to 2030 slash 2040 are very solid, including a plus 3.9% for 2026 and more than 23 billion passengers by 2054. We are uniquely and extensively positioned to capture this growth as we operate advertising concessions in 154 airports worldwide, including now 14 of the world's 25 largest airports. With the next slide 33, we would like to illustrate how OH Media, driven by digital, innovation, and growing audiences continued in 2025 to gain market share in several major markets in the top 10. Over the past 10 years, OH has gained around 5 percentage points in the media mix in Germany, Brazil, and Australia, and added roughly 1 percentage point year-on-year now, accounting for more than 10% of the total advertising spend. On the next slide, you can see the main upcoming tenders. Among the most significant in street furniture are contracts such as Clépierre, a retail environment in France, transport for Greater Manchester in the UK, Hamburg and Dusseldorf in Germany, as well as Washington and Vancouver in North America. In transport, key opportunities include Aena Spanish Airports, Wiener Linien in Austria, Torino Metro and buses in Italy, several major US airports, which are not, where we are not incumbent at the moment, such as Chicago, San Francisco, and Phoenix, as well as Hong Kong in Asia. On the next slide, and moving into the sustainable part of our presentation, as you know, Basically, Geosynico, Giseleco, Standby, being the sustainable media company. First, we have a virtual business model. In fact, 46.7% of our revenues is already aligned with the EU taxonomy through the financing of public transportation, and our 2050 net zero climate pathway, approved by the SBTI target by 2025, that's in 2019, a 68% reduction in emissions on Scope 1 and 2, and a 42% reduction on Scope 3. Second, as you know, we keep innovating to support the ecological transition. Beyond promoting public transportation, our bus stops are used to enhance urban biodiversity as illustrated by the pilot project we won in Paris in 2025. And third, We apply a robust approach to measuring our impact with the GCDECO 360 footprint tool, which covers carbon, water, and economic and social dimensions. This tool is already available in several countries, including France, the UK, and Brazil, and is being rolled out to additional markets from 2026 onwards. We also operate in an OOH market that remains highly fragmented. where we are the number one player and the only truly global OS media company. We even see a form of deconsolidation. In fact, some large US players have scaled back their international presence. New names appear, such as Bauer Media, Al Arabiya, some Brazilian operators, but the overall structure is still that of a very fragmented market overall. These fragmentations leave ample room for us to grow, both organically and through selective consolidation. On slide 37, our key takeaways for today are as follows. First, solid underlining revenue growth in 2025, driven by digital, despite the challenging macroeconomic environment, as we all know. Second, programmatic continues to increase its share within digital revenues. Then, strong operating leverage with a 150 basis points improvement in the operating margin, a continued tight control over OPEX and discipline selective OPEX allocation, 2026 financial targets already achieved, one year ahead of plan, including an all-time high level of free cash flow generation. Then the dividend, as it was highlighted by David, will be proposed as the next AGM at 0.65 euros per share. Finally, with a solid business momentum in early 26, with no material impact observed to date from the recent Middle East conflict, we expect above 5% organic revenue growth in Q1 2026, including a positive impact from the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, and the revenue growth turning positive in China. Going forward, building on this momentum revenue, we expect to continue to gradually increase our key financial metrics, including margins and cash generation. We thank you for your attention, and Jean-François David and I are now ready to take your questions.

To ask a question? Please 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 now take the first question. Coming from the line of David Almorim from Berengber, please go ahead.

Bonjour, Jean-Charles. Bonjour, Jean-François. Bonjour, David. Vous m'entendez bien? Oui, très bien. Congratulations on the solid set of results. I have three questions, please. First, I know that you only guide by quarter, but how should we think about the growth for the rest of 2026? Q1 is the quarter facing the toughest camps. Should we expect growth above 5% level from Q2 onward as well? Secondly, in China, You mentioned a return to positive growth in Q1. Could we explain what changes are you seeing in the region and what is actually new or improving there? And finally, obviously, the advertising markets continue to be challenging, but momentum for JC Deco is improving. What has changed in your discussion with your client between the start of this year and last year? Thank you very much.

Thank you. I will take your first and third question and Jean-Charles will take the second one. So the guidance of above 5% does not benefit from the new contracts that we signed, announced last year, or only marginally. So going forward, it's hard to predict obviously, given the current geopolitical situation. But what we can say is that from Q2, Q3, Q4, Q2 onwards, we expect to have some tailwinds from the new contract winds, including Barcelona, Stockholm. In the second half of this year, It will be Carrefour, because we need some time to build the new inventory, as well as Denver, which are significant contract wins, which will fuel the organic growth rate. Pacing numbers right now for Q2 are pretty strong. It's obviously impossible to predict if the oil price continues to be above $100 per barrel what will be the impact on the economy. And if the economy starts suffering worldwide, it will have an impact on the advertising market. And Decaux, Jesse Decaux is not operating in a vacuum and we will be affected as well. So overall, we are quite optimistic about 2026. And also you need to take into account that we already have about 20 million euros booked extra money, extra advertising spent booked as a result of the World Cup, which will take place in North America as well as in Mexico. So we have this effect as well, which will mainly affect Q3 of this year. So overall, 2026 should be a good year for Jesse Decaux. Having said that, if the world economy starts to suffer from the geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, this could have an impact as well.

On China, three major drivers for this, I would say, positive return in Q1 2026. The first one is, as you can imagine, and as we have highlighted this in previous calls, the gradual increase of digitization in our Chinese environment, both in airports and in metro, is clearly benefiting our growth profile in the country second a bit more let's say optimism in some client categories and a big boost from the giant tech companies which is interesting to see because we can see that in the US we can see that in China when the big names in the tech sector is really using our products and solutions in the different environments in China to boost basically their brands, to boost their solutions to their audiences. And third, as you can imagine, the Chinese New Year this year was the biggest ever travelers experience in terms of number of people moving around China. So those three factors are really helping the Q1 numbers. The key question will be, what about Q2? Q2 is also looking good, but still to be seen and early to be called. But basically those are the three factors that are sustaining basically our positive return in the Chinese growth finally in our portfolio in China.

On your last question, No real change with our customers and clients' advertisers in terms of sentiment. Out of home remains an attractive media solution, especially given the decline of TV audiences. Free-to-air TV is in decline, and we benefit from that, for example, in markets like Germany, Australia. highlighted by Jean-Charles in his presentation, i.e. the win of agency advertising spend, which is very significant if you look at the last years where our share of ad spend continues to increase. You should also take into account the fact that we've got a lot of new clients coming through the new trading channel, which we call programmatic, which is programmatic. which is growing at twice the rate of digital, which is now representing in Q4 of last year, nearly 45% of sales. So when you have digital growing at double digit, I just want to remind you that we had a 16% compound organic growth rate in our digital segment. And when you have programmatic growing at twice the rate of digital, It fuels the growth, and that's why we are now firing on another cylinder, which we didn't have a couple of years ago, which is programmatic trading, which is now representing 10%, a bit more than 10% of our digital sales.

Thank you.

Thank you. We will now take the next question. from the line of Marcus from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. I have questions. The first question I have is on free cash flow. And there was obviously a very strong swing factor in terms of working capital, the 33 million. conceptually, how should we think about working capital management going forward as well? If you can help us sort of like, what would you say is a sort of like normalized working capital number? Are there any one-off effects in the sort of like impressive performance this year that would be quite helpful? And maybe then one question for Jean-Francois on the discussion about VIO. Slide 29, you were talking about adding another eight SSPs. Could you tell us a little bit more about the sort of like developments of other parties joining the platform? That would be very interesting. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Marcus. David will take your first question and I will answer the second one. Hello, Marcus.

As you know, working at it all is always quite difficult to forecast precisely. As I mentioned during the presentation and as you were properly indicated in your question, the improvement in 2025 is mainly coming from the work we did on inventory optimization. Trees do not grow to the sky and we can consider at some point that our working capital is now broadly normalized. In 2026, working capital should normally roughly follow top line evolution. And therefore, if the momentum we are currently having in our trading continue, the working capital should have a negative impact on the free cash flow. But obviously, we will continue to mitigate this impact and we will continue our active action in terms of working capital management. But when you look at our free cash flow before working capital, as I mentioned, is very strong at 284 million euros. And so driven by good operating performance and capex discipline, we should continue to grow our cash flow generation.

Okay, perfect. Can we just say just conceptually, just since I have you, that the cash conversions of free cash flow 26 should we assume broadly the same percentage of operating margins, just conceptually?

We are not getting on that, and we should, as I mentioned, our focus and our target, Marcus, is to continue to gradually increase our key metrics, including our operating free cash flow and our cash generation.

On your second question, Marcus, so SS view, As mentioned earlier by Jean-Charles, he's the most connected supply-side platform in the out-of-home media sector, with 65 DSP connections, including DV360, and operating now in 35 markets. For many years, there has been some skepticism about the ability from VIEW, given that JC Decaux is the majority shareholder, to attract big out-of-home media companies, what we call third-party media owners. And so far, we were able to attract the small guys, as well as out-of-home media companies which are related to JC Decaux, such as Metrobus in France, where we have a minority stakes, and APG. The recent announcement by Vue with Outfront putting its inventory on the platform is very good news. And I think that this is driven, I cannot speak on behalf of Vue, but I think that this is mainly driven by the fact that those American billboard companies are lacking some international trading. The fact that we have, for example, a view in China and that Chinese brands are expanding, think of BYD, but you name it, there are some other brands as well, is I think one of the main reasons why those companies are now interested in joining VIEW in order to capture international out-of-home media spent, which will be traded programmatically. So they are having discussions with some other big out-of-home media owners, which are looking promising. But it's obviously quite a significant event for Vue now to have the Outfront inventory, which is the second largest billboard company in the U.S. after Lamar, on its platform. And again, to summarize... It's mainly due to the fact that Vue is now the leading SSP in many over 35 markets around the world.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now take the next question. From the line of James Tate from Goldman Sachs, please go ahead.

Hi, thank you. Good morning. It's James Tate from Goldman. I had a few questions, please. I guess, firstly, could you just talk a bit more about your exposure to the Middle East? I think it's around 5% of revenues. I guess within the mix, which Middle East countries do you have the greatest exposure to? And is it mainly within airports? And I guess, what impact have you seen to the current booking trends? There's escalation in the conflict a couple of weeks ago. Any colour here would be very helpful. And secondly, on EBITDA, you know, that was much better than expected for 25 and ahead of your 2026 targets. I think you've guided to a gradual increase going forward. Could you give some more color on the moving parts for 26 in particular, and perhaps remind us what the right way to think about the normalized flow through of revenue to EBITDA? Thank you.

Thank you, James. Jean-Charles, we'll take your first question in the Middle East, and I will take the second one on the ABDA.

So on the Middle East question, James, so the Middle East represents a bit less than 5% of our total revenues today. The Middle East region is reported within the rest of the world. In the Middle East, we are mainly operating in the airport environment. And our major exposure is in Dubai, in the Emirates. followed by basically, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia. And we have many street furniture, then street furniture in Qatar and in Oman. You're right in your question to say where we are the most exposed. I mean, today what we have to understand about the Middle East situation is that depending on the country, the conflict is not exactly, does not have the same intensity, so today Saudi Arabia, Oman is less exposed, more exposed Abu Dhabi than Dubai, even though they are very close, and also Bahrain is quite exposed. So our view is absolutely difficult to say James, so far The situation is not as we said in our guidance for Q1. We said that we don't see major impact, but if the conflict continues, intensifies, it is for sure that we'll have an impact on our business. And so we will try to deal as we have always done it before in crisis. with our clients, with our partners at the airport. They are our partners, so this is a three-party discussion, and we will do our best to mitigate obviously the impact on those brands. I think the Middle East remains a region where the different states of the countries are trying to keep the business as usual. If I may say so, And so the people are calm, our teams are working, are distance working at the moment for security reasons, but the business is operating normally, even though obviously the situation is quite tense in some countries. So that's what we can say today. To say more than this would be certainly political fiction, because things can change by the day, obviously, and so we have to be careful very reactive. We have to adapt ourselves. Our people are safe at the moment. Most of our people are also local people, so I'm not going to say they are used to those kind of situations, but they are prepared because this is a region where tensions have always been around. In this case, it's obviously a bigger tension than ever before so far. So, That's where we are at the moment. So limited exposure, but an exposure. And the key question will be the duration of this conflict that will obviously impact more our operations in the region.

On your second question, James, there is no doubt for the management of JC Decaux that we want to continue to improve improve our operating margin rate, which is at 20.9%, meaning above 21, going to 22. We can't give you a timetable on this. Obviously, we have the major contract wins, which will impact the operating margin rate to start with during the ramp-up phase. As you know, we are not... getting 100% of the revenue in year one. And the so-called rampant phase means that we are not able to optimize the operating margin on this contract. And that has obviously, at the beginning, some impact on the overall operating margin rate of the company. Having said that, as mentioned in our press release, we want to continue to gradually increase both the overall number as well as the operating margin rate. And we are working out on that, as demonstrated in 2025, where in the end, we ended up being one year ahead of our target. But we cannot give you any guidance on this. But be assured that we are working very hard to continue to increase both the overall number as well as the operating margin rate.

Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Jérôme Podine from AutoBHS. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning all. Three quick questions on my side. The first one is on the CAPEX for 2026. So what should we expect given the contract that you recently won? And is there any add-on linked to AI? And maybe more generally, could you make an update on the CAPEX requirement and demand that you see regarding the ongoing call for tenders? That's my first question. Second one on VIEW, so you mentioned the nice partnership that you signed. with bigger players. Could you just make an update on the capital structure? Because I remember that a few years ago you were open to open the capital structure, which has not been the case. Is it still a project or not anymore? And lastly, maybe just a general update on the on the fees, so you made a lot in the last few years in terms of restructuration and reduction of the minimum guarantee, especially in China. Is there still to come, or most of it has been finished now? Thank you.

Thank you, Jérôme. David will take the first one. I'll take the second one, and Jean-Charles the third one. Hello, Jérôme.

Regarding your question on capex level, we are working hard in 2026 to remain or to keep our capex level in a range of seven to eight percent of the revenue as you mentioned with new contract deployment potentially this will push the capex towards the top of the hand Regarding the profile of the CapEx, we will continue to invest around 40% of the total CapEx into digital. Regarding AI, we are investing quite a lot in our IT system, as you know. AI is included in our IT and technology called investments. So this has... has grown over the past few years. It will continue to be or to stay in the same range as what we are currently. We are investing about between, about 3.5% investing. Our cash out in IT is about 3.5% of our total revenue and will remain in this kind of envelope.

I have a second question regarding view equity. JC Decaux remains the majority shareholder. I just want to repeat that the press release on the partnership with Outfront didn't come from JC Decaux, but from View. Reason being that the company is a separate company. We have an independent chairman who used to be the leading outdoor consulting guy at WPP Group M. So I think that also is a reason why the big guys are more relaxed about them joining. We never get any specific numbers on their trading volume, so that it's truly an independent company, despite the fact that we are the majority shareholder. So far, we haven't had any discussions on them joining as an equity partner, having said that, that could change. Bear in mind that there is also an ongoing consolidation in the sector, which is happening because there are too many SSPs. There is also consolidation on the DSP side. So it's too early to tell you whether or not some third-party media owners will not only the SSP platform view by putting their inventory on the platform, but also by becoming an equity partners, we would certainly encourage this move, because at the end of the day, it's a long-term goal, but we want to become the kind of the DV360 of out-of-home media. That's the goal. And given that our inventory is, for example, in transport sector, it's competing but not competing, because most of transport franchise agreements are exclusive. So either you have Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, or you don't have it. Either you have Heathrow, or you don't have it, either you have New York, or you don't have it. Meaning that the inventory is very complementary between, for example, in the U.S., Clear Channel Airport and J.C. Leco Airport. Of course, we are competing for the franchise. We just won Denver against Clear Channel, which was the incumbent. But at the end of the day, when the Chinese brands want to use this channel, it obviously makes sense for them to use the SSP which has the best connections with, or which has the best airport inventory worldwide by adding their airport footprint. Because at the end of the day, we don't have New York anymore. So rather than having different SSPs and having to deal with two different SSPs, on Chinese brands trying to advertise in New York, then having just one, kind of a one-stop-shop solution, SSP solution, offering them the biggest airport platform, mixing Clear Channel or some other third-party media owners, which have some other airports as well, makes common sense. So therefore, I'm quite optimistic that we will manage to get some more third-party media owners, and I think they realize now that what we said from the beginning, that we want this company to be independent and to be trading also in the interest, not only of J.C. Decaux, but also in the interest of third-party media owners, is reality. It's not bullshit.

On China, so the situation on China is that, regarding your fees-related question, Jérôme, most of the work of reassessing, basically... the fee based on the contract after COVID and so on is over now. I think now we are on a strong basically basis now to grow the business again, but on the fee, most of it has been done. And you always have on the portfolio of so many contracts all over the world, fees assessment and discussion, depending on different situations. The Middle East, for example, will be an obvious one, depending on the duration of the crisis and the magnitude of it, depending on the contract. So it will be a contract-for-contract analysis in the best interest of the stakeholders. So what we can say at the moment is work is in progress, always. but the major bulk of it in China is over now.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. We will now take the next question. From the line of Connor O'Shea from . Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning everybody. Thanks for taking my questions and congratulations on the results. Three questions from my side. Firstly, on your biggest client sector, luxury and fashion, 18% of revenues. I think, Jean-Francois, you mentioned minus 5% in 25. You've seen that spend... We can further, I think there's been some reports from within and without that sector that spend is under incremental pressure or is that not what you're seeing at the moment? Second question, just in terms of the contribution from the new wins, the most significant one is Denver, Stockholm. and so on, and the sports events on a full year 26 basis. If we could just get a sense of that, I appreciate the 20 million number on the FIFA World Cup, but if we could maybe just round up and get a rough estimate of how much that's contributing in 26, either on a reported basis or on a run rate basis, that would be great. And then just a final question, I think it's implied by your comments in the Q2, but just to check in the Q1, Was the trading in terms of growth quite even from January, February, March across the month? Just a little bit of color on that would be helpful. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Jean-Charles. We'll take the luxury question. I will take the second one on the new wins, and David will take the third one on Q2.

As a matter of fact, we basically are the luxury brands, so the dynamic remains, I would say, very solid. The minus 5% that was highlighted in our presentation this morning and commented by Jean-Francois earlier in the presentation has to be taken into account as a very strong Olympics Paris event in 2024, so the minus 5%... was also impacted by this predominance of luxury brands communicating around this major sport event in Paris, which is, as you know, the most visited city in the world. So that was impacting. But so far, we don't see any slowdown, I must say, around the globe. So that's number one. Now, again, coming back to the Middle East, the Middle East obviously could have an impact, but for the Middle East, the luxury brands is interesting because if the Middle East forest is less than 5% for the luxury brands, as a whole, I'm not talking about specific groups, is also less than 5% of their revenue exposure. So it's an important region obviously for everyone. It's a region where you have a ticket sale average which is higher than in other regions around the world, but it's a lower region in terms of impact than what China could be, or US could be, or even Europe could be. Having said that, so that's what we can see on the luxury brands. I think our solutions and our products remain very attractive, especially what we see is that we see in some other firms around the world more and more luxury brands are skin care brands or health care coming into our environment, which is certainly a good news. So we don't see a major change in the dynamic versus what we saw in 2025 with, again, the 2024, which was very strong because of the Olympics in Paris and in France in general.

On your second question, so I can confirm that the 20 million euros benefit from the World Cup in the U.S., impacting positively the U.S. and Mexico. Regarding the contract wins, there has been some delay, both in Barcelona as well as in Stockholm. I remember Stockholm was announced in 2024 and was signed – and late in 2025 due to a legal challenge from the incumbents, we were not incumbents. Same in Barcelona, a contract was signed recently as a result of a legal challenge from our competitor, the incumbent, because we were not the incumbent in Barcelona. So this means there's been some delay in both signing the contract, following the award, and as a result, the deployments of the digital screens will not happen, for example, in the Stockholm Metro before probably the beginning of Q3. Bearing in mind that we are going to be deploying the largest cross-track digital screens ever installed in the world, 18 square meter at the platform, cross-track is going to be hugely impressive. So we have to sort out some technical issues because as long as the contract was not signed, we didn't have access to the to the platform and to the engineers working for SL. SL is the RATP of Stockholm. In Barcelona, we have, as indicated in our press release, a very significant digitalization plan with at least 300 digital screens, which will complement Madrid, where we have a strong position with the Barçalas in the underground. So that's why it's very hard to give you a number at this stage, as opposed to the World Cup due to this postponed signature of the contracts. But if we were able to give you a number, obviously we would. But at this stage, it's very hard to give you a number. But nevertheless, this will be a tailwind for the organic growth in 2026.

Okay. And also 2027, presumably given this stage for all life. Okay. Okay.

Thank you. Regarding your question on the Q1 trading across the month, what I can say is the start of the year was quite positive across all business segments. close to a mid-single-digit growth. The month of February was quite good, close to a double-digit revenue growth, mainly driven by the transport business segment and China, with the Chinese New Year that has been mentioned by Jean-Charles before, and also to a lesser extent with the impact of the Winter Olympic Games in Italy. And regarding the month of March, you know, the jury is still out. The momentum is positive, especially on street furniture and on the street furniture business segment. Across the quarter, only two geographies, one geography is suffering a bit, is Germany, is having some headwinds but otherwise across all geographies the momentum is quite good and March is going into the good direction in order to deliver the guidance.

Just to compliment on what David just said, obviously the trading timing varies from market to market but to give you an example in the uk which is our second largest market we do 25 of the revenue of the month in the month so when david tells you that it's uh march is still uh obviously we still we are facing well but it's still not done uh in the market like the uk 20 a quarter of the revenue of the month is done in the month so that shows you uh the short-term nature. France is a completely different story. We are more advanced in France due to various reasons, but there is this short-term nature of our business is very different from market to market.

Okay, very clear, very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Berne Clunton from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi, morning, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. I think most have already been answered, to be honest, but just a final one from my side. On your retail media initiative, can you remind us of the expected contribution to revenue and also maybe how we should think about the impact on rent and fees in that front? Thank you.

Yeah, that's a good question. The That's a good question. The only thing is we don't disclose the sub-segment within retail is within the street furniture part of our business. So we don't disclose the sub-segment, as you can imagine. We already give a lot by segment, by geographies. And so I can't really give you the magnitude, but it's a business that is growing. In terms of friends and peers, you have basically less capex versus sales and basically a bit more rent and fees than in the current street furniture business model. So it's a business model that is in between street furniture and transport, but we don't disclose those numbers. It is a global number within our street furniture, which represents, as you know, 50 plus percent of our total revenues. And it's a growing business, and it's a digital business. And it is, I would say, a very good complementary business in the geography where we operate. It's mainly driven by digital and data. This is certainly one of the few, I would say, environments where programmatic is taking the lead because of the nature of the clients, because of the nature of the profile of the audiences, and because of the quality of the data that we are providing. basically giving to our clients because, as you know, and this is something important, I think, for you to understand that when we do a retail media deal, whether it is with Tesco in the UK or whether it is with Carrefour, Carmilla, Unlimited in France or in other geographies, we have access within our contract structure to the data and the ticket sales per day, per hours, per week. So it's a quite interesting basically trigger for our programming platform, not only for the retail itself, but also more globally. So this is something that is helping us to grow this business. And there is a trend, which is interesting, that especially outside of the US, there is a trend of basically now having basically exclusive contract with some basically out-of-home players. So it's something that we see growing on different regions. Not in the US, but outside of the US, this is the case at the moment.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you. I also just have two more questions remaining. The first, thank you for the color you gave on the fees in China, but my question is, are you actively also looking at renegotiating and lowering your fees, lease expenses in other parts of the world as well, and how could this be a positive sort of contributor to margins in 2026, some color on your efforts there would be great. And second, on the AI solutions that you described, they're all quite interesting. Just wanted to check if this is also going to be used as a tool to go after more small and medium-scale clients globally to sort of get them onto the out-of-home inventory space a bit more aggressively as well. What are you thinking in terms of the impact that could bring if you go after more SME sort of clients with these new AI initiatives Thank you.

Okay, I'll take the first one. Jean-Charles, we'll take the second one on the small SME, basically the long tail, which is the strength of the large online companies such as Google and Facebook. So on the first one, the contract is a contract. So the renegotiation, which was done successfully by the teams in China, was led by the fact that there is a new China, that the consumption is not what it used to be. And therefore our landlords in the end agreed that the reset was necessary, bearing in mind that in a lot of Chinese contracts, we had a joint venture. So we're equity partners with our landlords. The other example which I can give you about reset was the COVID. We had, as you know, a very major reset strategy during COVID. very successfully in some regions, but not so successfully in other regions. So once the contract is signed for 10, 15, or 20 years, we are bound to the terms and conditions unless there is a significant event which allows us to renegotiate the contract in good faith. So don't expect major contract renegotiations in other parts of the world. Obviously, having more nearly 4,000 cities, 157 airports, there is always some reasons to renegotiate. Middle East will be, obviously, will be one. If airports are being closed because of having less passengers as a result of the ongoing war with Iran, then our teams will obviously... start renegotiations of these contracts. But apart from those external events and some other very local events, for example, I could name Amsterdam with the ban on fossil fuels, which hasn't been enacted yet. Well, there is no doubt that we will, even if it has not such a significant impact on the top line, it's a decision by the authority to restrict the abilities to reach, to sell to all categories, such as a couple of years ago in London, which HFSS. And this is another reason where we can have some renegotiations. But those renegotiations are reflecting the fact that we cannot maximize the revenue. So it's a good faith renegotiation. But the top line is, has some negative impact, is negatively impacted by those local events, such as bans, and therefore the renegotiation is, in our opinion, a normal renegotiation between partners, long-term partners. But having said that, it doesn't necessarily trigger a better profitability because the top line is missing some advertising spend from those categories which are banned. But this is, again, it's very local. For example, HFSS, which was done in London, didn't happen in many markets around the world. So there is no, you cannot take from what I said, a kind of a trend regarding bands of certain categories around the world.

Sure. So on AI, different aspects. First of all, AI is in action at the moment within the group. It's in action, obviously, also within our Aztec platform. In other words, as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, within the campaign creation and planning through campaign AI by Displace. Displace was the first ESP in the market to optimize planning and training through a simple prompt in Displace. So we are trying to basically simplify and accelerate the media playing and the media buying on the old phone. We also had an initiative which is interesting with AI inside obviously with the creation of tailor-made visual customized for each location for both print and digital content and this is already done in action. Now we have to scale it up. We have to make it even more efficient. We have also on AI what we call the content moderation. And content moderation is quite important to drive basically smoothly thousands of visuals around the globe in different locations. Because as you know, we are not a broadcaster. Every site could have a different visual across the globe. And it is automatic screening of visual to pre-approve them, which is very important. And AI will completely change the way We monitor, we look, and we do this process. And finally, in content optimization, we have what we call the attention prediction and optimization technology. To your question, on the platform to access basically the AT&T, all those tools are made to simplify, accelerate, and get ready our go-to-market for medium-sized companies. So to reduce the way it takes to plan and to execute the campaign. And this is something very important. We do that obviously through our DSPs, through the SSPs, and we also do that through our direct platform to access the SMEs in the market. So it is obvious that AI will help us to address more the ATV market in the different region where we operate depending on the structure also of the local market because in some markets our clients are mainly national clients and this is working very well and in other markets you have a much more stronger local footprint such as in France for example where 40% of our basically revenues is made with local or regional clients. So this is a new frontier for us. This is certainly, over time, a game changer. But as we all know, that takes a bit of time. But it is clearly progressing quite significantly over the last, I would say, 12 months, when we see the number of people also adopting. And when you look at, for example, programmatic, which is also boosted by AI in most of its processes, is growing at the moment, basically at 20%, where digital is growing at 10%. So this is quite encouraging for the future, I think, of our industry, which is benefiting from certainly AI enabling us to access those clients.

Thank you. Very helpful.

Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Laurent Gilles-Lébard from France. BMP Paribas, please go ahead.

Good morning, all. I have three questions. The first one, could you elaborate on your new global programmatic offer targeting street furniture, transport, and retail at the same time? I know it is a fairly recent offer, but what is the market response, and what do you expect mid-term on this initiative? The second one regards cash proceeds from APGSGA. So what are you going to do with this? And the third one regards VIEW. If other equity partners join the party, do you still wish to keep the control of these assets?

Okay. I'll take the first one. The second one, cash proceeds, will be taken by David. And Jean-Charles will take the third one. The first one, my answer will be very quick. It's too early to give you any response on this one.

Regarding APG, the procedure of APG, I have to just mention that the transaction is not yet done. It is clearly going into the good direction since APG has the approval from the AGN on the opting-up mechanism. To your question, what we will do with the cash proceeds, we will do exactly the same as we did with the proceeds from the first transaction. We will invest in our business with higher returns than we could have with this cash. So it will be reinvested in the business.

I think it's worthwhile mentioning that selling at 220 Swiss francs per share The multiple that we get from this divestiture is between 13 and 14 times. So it was an opportunistic decision to reallocate the cash in markets where we need to speed up the digitization. And as you can see, selling a minority stake at 13 times reflects the quality of the asset, APG, which has been in business for the last 126 years, created in 1900. But the company is not growing. It's a mature market. So we felt at the board that it was a wise decision, given that we received a very attractive offer. And if you consider that we are trading at between five and six, we used to be trading at nine times. Kershan was sold to Mubadala at 12, 12 plus 12, and we are selling a minority stake in Switzerland at nearly 13 and 14. I think it's a good trade for us, and so that's why we did it. And we are expecting now the antitrust decision in Switzerland, which should happen soon.

So regarding the shareholding structure of you, you remember that we always – said that basically we will take an entrepreneurial view on creating this SSP back six years ago now, a bit more than six years ago, seven years ago. Number one, number two, you're right to say that we are the majority shareholder. We have more than 95% of the shares of this company, but we want to operate it independently, as it was said before, for obvious reasons, and for the benefit of obviously all the stakeholders involved and I think more and more are coming as you can see from all over the globe and all over the world. And finally, we are open-minded to continue to grow this platform. It is clear that from 95% shares a bit more to remain majority shareholder is something that we will consider. But if there is a transaction that makes sense to grow, to transform the business and to boost basically the programmatic revenue, we will consider anything that makes sense to boost basically our programmatic development and the programmatic development of the industry because we think that this is clearly something that could be a game changer given the magnitude of the market to really help boost out-of-home advertising in terms of market share. As you know, in G2Coco, I think we have two things that will always remain. Entrepreneur vision on anything we do and second, very pragmatical approach on everything we look at when it comes to transforming basically existing businesses in making it bigger for the whole industry. So Vue is bigger than us in the sense that we are attracting a lot of interest from third-party players. As you can see, the most connected DSP on one side, SSP on one side, and also very diversified in terms of geography. So practical approach if at some point we can do something which makes sense to boost this business. And it's only the beginning because this is growing year on year.

Thank you very much. Yes?

We will now take the last question from the line of Eric Ravary from CIC CIB. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. So I have several questions on VIEW to assess the operating leverage potential of the business. So was it profitable in 2025, and could we have a lot of magnitude of the EBITDA view last year, and also the number of people you have in view and your plan for new hiring in 2026, and also the kind of operating costs you expect on view this year? Thank you.

Regarding Vue, as we said, I think I remember we had the question, it was in the Alfea result, 2025 was the year where Vue turned slightly positive in terms of EVDA, still consuming cash in order to invest in the platform. should turn positive in terms of cash very soon. But when we look at the profitability of the platform at consolidation level, group level, as you know, as 60% of the revenue is incremental that we get from programmatic, it benefits to our group operating margin overall, so which is quite accretive this new revenue stream. Looking at the headcount, we are quite currently, I wouldn't say at maturity, but we have reached a level in the platform where we continue to develop the platform with the current team. Obviously, we could have some evolution in the but we are not expecting any significant evolution in 2026.

Okay. Thank you, David.

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand back over to Jean-Francois Decaux for closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your questions, and I don't have anything else to add because the questions covered pretty much all the important topics. So all the best, have a nice day, and talk to you soon. Bye, everyone.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.