Lagardere Sa

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us this evening to Lagardère SA first half 2024 results. I am Emmanuel Rapa, head of financial communication, and I will be guiding you through this presentation. The conference is led today by Arnaud Lagardère, chairman and chief executive officer of Lagardère SA and Hachette Livre SA. Grégoire Casta, Deputy CEO of Lagardère Group in Charge of Finance, Diagra Smitsen, Chairman and CEO of Lagardère Travel Hotel, and Stéphanie Ferrand, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Hachette Livre. After the presentation, I will be reading the Q&A session from financial analysts only, and now I will leave the floor to Arnaud Lagardère.

Thank you, Emmanuel, and good afternoon to everybody. Before I get to my brief introduction about H1, let me give you two quick updates. The first one is to introduce Grégoire Castin, who will cover H1 in details. You received the PR, so you know exactly who he is and where he's coming from. He will be fully operational in September. And the idea is to reinforce our financial team, while Sophie remains a CFO of the group, obviously. Grégoire will report to me, and the current team will report to him. One of the top missions Grégoire will carry is to lower the net debt amount and bring more focus to the overall company on the cash management. and so we will welcome him, and this is gonna be very, very helpful. Second, you've heard the Vivendi announcement, which is great news for the Lagarnais company. As you remember, the deal that I personally made with Vincent Bolloré and his family was based on very close relationship between both families, and at that time, Vivendi was the vehicle for that deal. So we will, once the whole deal will be accomplished, once all the agreements will be given by the extraordinary General Assembly of Vivendi, we will be closer to the Borre family, and that's exactly what I wanted for La Gardelle. So it is great news. Now, going back to... Each one, I have to say that the board and myself are extremely proud of all colleagues from all divisions in the group for their achievement and the record numbers. We continue our growth and profitability semester after semester, year after year, and hopefully we have We will do the budget for this year, and we will do better, I hope, than last year. Let me give the floor to Grégoire about the details on H1 and get back to you about the Q&A. Grégoire, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Arnaud, and good evening, everyone. First of all, of course, I would like to say that I'm very glad I'm proud to join this beautiful group, La Gardelle, and of course, I'm also very pleased to share with you our strong results for this first semester of 24. As you can see it on the first slide, Lagardère group revenue has reached its highest historical level at nearly 4.2 billion euros, up 13% as reported, and more than 10% and 0.1% on a light-for-light basis. The group has also reached a new record in terms of recurring EBIT with 212 million euros, up by 71 million compared to the same period last year. And last but not least, the free cash flow has also improved significantly, increasing by 1.23 million compared to H123. We come back to this later, but as Arne mentioned, this last KPI is definitely one of our key priorities from now forward since we want to leverage the group and reduce the level of its net debt. These good figures were driven by all the performance of all our business lines. First of all, Lagardère's revenue grew by 4.5% on a like-for-like basis, with a high level of recurring EBIT at €113 million, up by €48 million. Lagardère's travel retail reached a new peak in terms of revenues, increasing by 13.5%. 5% on like-for-like basis, 18% as reported, with the division recurring EBIT eating a new record at 109 million euros. Lastly, other activities are stable while we observe a strong momentum in the revenue activities and Lagardère live entertainment. Let's move now to the group main figures. And on this slide, as you can see, this slide illustrates again the strong activity and revenue growth compared to last year. And with the global improvement in terms of operating margin, this margin has increased to 5.1% from 3.8% in H1-23. The level of net debt has slightly increased since last year, mainly due to the group's investments in H223, with Test and Fly, Marché, or Costa Coffee M&A. But as I already mentioned, we want to focus on generating cash and reduce our level of net debt by the end of this year. That's why I also want to point out that the level of net free cash flow generated during this first semester also increased significantly. as you can see it. But nevertheless, we remain vigilant on this matter, and that's why in April, as you know, the AGM approved the board's proposal for a dividend payment of 65 cents per share for 23 compared to 1.3 euros last year. Let's come back to revenue and main variation on the slide six. Group revenue increase is essentially driven by Lagardère Travail Retail with a gross of 327 million euros on a like-for-like basis. But this performance is also the publishing very positive with Lagardère. 57 million euros more generated during this first semester compared to H1-23. Besides this good organic growth, the scope effect has also been very positive, as you can see, with 107 million euros, which mainly includes, as I already mentioned, the acquisitions of 23 Costa Coffee in Poland, Marché International in Germany, and Test and Fly in the U.S. If we now focus on each main business level, starting with the split of publishing revenue by segments, on slide 9, as you can see, Lagardeur publishing revenue achieved a new historic level of 1.3 billion euros during this semester. This performance was mostly driven by, first, the illustrated segment, with a good momentum in the young adults market. Second, General Literature is best-sellers by Guillaume Rousseau or Laurent Guignol in France, Rebecca Yarrow-Sarmarung in the UK, or James Patterson and Michael Christian in the US. It is also worth noting the performance of PatWorks, benefiting from the success of new collections launched in France and in Japan at the end of the last year. Moving on slide 10 to see the splits of this revenue by geographic area. As you can see, the U.S. and Canada is now our first market during this first semester. It's roughly 32% of the global revenue. This area was up by close to 8% for like basis. supported by a strong release program and as well a growth in the audio division, which is a very good thing for the margin, by the way. France is still a core market with 29%, with a modest decline, down to close 1%. This is quite better than the market, even if we also suffer from a lower level of activity in education, for instance. In the UK, the growth reached 8% in a slightly down market. This good growth is mainly due to the exceptional dynamism of front and back list sales. Finally, Spain and Latin America were globally up by 8% while business remained stable in Spain. It saw a significant increase in both the education and trade sectors in Mexico. Let's have a look to the profitability on the next slide. And as you can see, Lagardère publishing profitability was up 48 million, as I already mentioned, compared to the first half, 24. But it's important also to point out the margin level at 8.6% represents a significant improvement, mainly driven by growth in the U.K. and the U.S. a favorable sales mix, as I mentioned, in both physical and digital formats, mainly in the U.S., and also, of course, cost-saving measures. A major part of this performance in terms of profitability is also linked to timing effects and mix of sales. As I said, in this first semester, you should not elaborate too much on these figures in order to reassess the target for our full year, 2020, for lending. This advance gives us some comfort in our target, but it isn't a reason for increasing too much our target. And as you know, the second semester is definitely very important for us, very contributive. So that's why we have to be very cautious until the end of the year. If we have a look to the cash flow statement on this slide, the key elements is that Lagarda publishing free cash flow before changes in working capital is up 70 million euros at 73 million euros versus last year, a level achieved again thanks to significantly higher cash from operations. Let's move on to travel retail and starting with the spread in terms of revenues. As you can see, the EMEA area, excluding France, is still our main market with a very strong dynamic regarding a growth of 22% in H1, driven by an increase of traffic from international tourists, especially in Italy, Romania, and the U.K., The France is still a core market with also a positive trend and a growth of 80%. The growth in the Americas region is slightly lower than during 2023, but still very robust with roughly 7% during this semester. And as many players, our activity in North Asia wasn't very good recently, which is largely attributable to the unfavorable economic climate in China. But it's important also to underline that despite this situation in Asia affecting many players, Overall, the growth of the branch remained very positive, as you can see, and H1-24 was a good semester for La Guerrera Travel Retail with revenue at 2.7 billion euros. If we have a look to the division revenue by segments and focusing on the frame and segments, the activity was mainly driven by food service growth, which saw a significant boost since our acquisition in this segment. And I think it's also important to notice that we have now a well-balanced portfolio of activities with three main business lines of roughly equal weight. Moving on slide two. On slide 16, the recurring EBIT stands at 109 million. As I already mentioned, the profitability remains high at 4%. This level is stable compared to last year, but significantly higher than the pre-COVID level, which was more between 2% and 3%. So again, it's a good thing to stay at this high level of margin, even with significant growth in terms of revenue. This is obtained thanks to, of course, improved activity in the EMA, as I said, good margin control by the team, and, of course, efficiency on the cost and game plans. Now let's turn our attention to Lagardère Travail Hotel's free cash flow. The main thing to underline is that we have a significant level of capex, with capex at 104 million euros this semester. The bond significantly increased its investment compared to last year. I would like to underline this because even if we are focused on the cash generation, we also still invest significantly in this fast-growing and profitable business. However, it's also good to note that despite this increase of capex, free cash flow before change in working capital is almost stable at 8%. 83 million euros thanks to higher cash from operations. Let's move on to our third business line of activity. Revenue for the last six months amounted to 136 million euros stable on a like-for-like basis. A few A few points to be highlighted. The first one, the good momentum in radio activity due to improved audience ratings for Europe 1 particularly. Secondly, the press activity was slightly down due to the decline in advertising revenue and decreasing in very competitive markets. And finally, Magada Live Entertainment recovered a robust growth thanks to the successful programming of our live entertainment, The News. Globally, the recurring EBIT is up by 6% and minus 10 compared to last year, thanks to our efforts on savings and cost efficiency. Let's move now to group consolidated figures. Less favorable in terms of IFR16 impacts, which are strictly accounting issues without reflecting the operational variation. We had a very significant impact, as you know, on H123. We also had significant increase, as you can see, on interest costs, finance costs, due to the increase, both the increase of interest rates and also the increase of debt. And of course, this is one of the reasons that we want to decrease the level of debt and deliver it to the group, as we mentioned with Arnaud. However, despite the benefit from the high impact of IFRS 16 in 2023 and thanks to the high level of group recurring EBIT in 2024, we have, as you can see, an increase in terms of adjusted profit per share from 24 to 36 million euros. Cash flow statements at group level. Since our profit is more driven by operational performance rather than accounting or IFH adjustments, our change in net debt is much more positive than last year, as you can see. In H1-2024, this change in net debt is at minus 212 million euros compared to 341 million euros last year. This improvement comes from, first, €146 million from net cash from operations, nearly €100 million of lower purchases and investments, and, of course, the reduction of the dividend paid, as I already mentioned. This shows our ambition to reduce lagada indebtedness, and nevertheless, again, if we are on track, even if the trend is good, we also have to be very cautious, and the second semester is definitely key for us in terms of activity and cash generation. On the slide 20, as you know, one of our key events for this semester is definitely the refinancing process, while very well managed by the group. Thanks to this, the group's liquidity position is now solid, with roughly 1.1 billion euros, including the 365 million in cash and financial investment. 700 million euros in unbrewed almonds for the RCF and 18 million euros available from the Vivendi loan. But the most important thing is that the profile of the maturities has been mainly spread toward 27 and 29. Still, on the mid-dates, moving on to the ratio, on slide 24, The average ratio net debt on ABDA remains below three times at the end of June and is improving semester by semester. After, again, sorry to insist, the second semester, that will be very key for us in terms of cash generation and delivery during the group. And we are, as I mentioned, focused on this objective and this target. To conclude, on the slide 26, and on the guidance, despite the uncertain economic environment, we remain confident in our ability to maintain a high level of results thanks to the dynamism and responsiveness of the teams. Lagardeur publishing to remain relatively similar performance to last year despite the pressure on cost. And Lagardeur travel retail has potential for value and profitability growth, of course, in an environment in which they are normalized and buoyant.

Thank you so much for your answer. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

I have a set of questions.

The first questions come from Jérôme Baudin of Odo. Question for Lagardère Publishing. Could you provide an update on the cost trends for Lagardère Publishing in H2 2024 and 2025, particularly regarding the evolution of paper costs? Second point is still about publishing. Has the investment project in the distribution center been abandoned? The third question is about other activities. It's about the French partnership, Limited Commandit, that is running the Lagarde Radio activities. Is this format still valid, even considering Vivendi's split project? Maybe Stephanie?

Yes, thank you for the question regarding the costs at Hachette Livre. So we started the year with a decrease in paper costs, which was following the trend that was initiated last year. And for H2, we expect an increase in paper and cardboard material. However, this should have a limited impact on our overall cost for two reasons. The first one is the amount of paper we already have in stock that will protect us for the next month. And the second one is the fact that we have engaged into a more systematic and consolidated purchasing approach. So all in all, we should have a slight decrease in our paper costs on our P&L in 2024 versus 2023. Then I can catch up with the question on distribution. So, as you know, we announced earlier this year that we would abandon our original Polaris program, which was both a logistic and an IT program. In the last six months, we made a full inventory of what was done. So now that this is behind us, we are now ready to embark with a new and fresh thinking that we will start right now. And it might imply an option where we would be renovating our current logistics scheme, and also we will be progressively and carefully updating our information system, rather than the big bang scenario that we had originally. And on all those projects, well... You know that it takes time. We should have, let's say, a new vision of all of them early next year, probably at the end of Q1. Thank you. Thank you, Stephanie.

About the question regarding the limited partnership of Europe One, it is still valid and will still be valid until 2027. And after 2027, we'll see what we do. It is an agreement with LACOM. It has been voted by the board of Lagardère, including the members of the UND. So there are no reasons why we wouldn't continue to continue the designated partnership. Other questions? Emmanuel, you have written questions?

No, I have no more questions, neither on the screen nor written.

Okay, so maybe we should wait a little bit to see the further questions.