Prosieben Sat 1 Media

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and let me continue in English, by the way, and welcome to the conference call on the occasion of ProSiebenSat.1 Group's financial results for the first quarter of 2021.

As in previous quarters, today's conference call will be hosted by Rainer Bourgeon, Chairman of the Executive Board, and Ralf Gierig, Deputy CFO of ProSIM Z1. After an introduction by Rainer, Ralf will give an update on the development of the financial figures in the first quarter. Rainer will then provide further details on the operational development and comment on the increase of the financial targets for the full year 2021. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. As always, all relevant reporting documents can be found on our website in the investor relations section. With these opening remarks, I now hand over to Rainer.

Good morning also from my side and welcome to our analyst and investor call on the occasion of our 2021 first quarter results. Rosibensat 1 made a good start into the financial year 2021 despite the ongoing pandemic. Our cost measures our clear focus, and in particular our diversification strategy have proven right and clearly helped us to minimize or even overcompensate the financial impact of COVID-19 on our business. We are convinced that our strategy, which we have been consistently pursuing since last March, is our big advantage. Our Q1 results have shown again that we are well positioned not only in order to overcome the current lockdown challenges, but also in order to realize our sustainable and profitable growth objectives. Besides our successful diversification efforts, growing synergies between our businesses become even more relevant in this context. What are we talking about today? We will start with a short overview of what shaped our first quarter before covering our group financials. We will then give you an update on our operational and strategic highlights and close this presentation with an outlook regarding our performance in the second quarter as well as the full year. Let's turn to slide number three and jump right into it. Our diversification strategy is our key springs in this COVID-19 shaped environment and enables us to successfully defy the pandemic. First, Despite the demanding market environment and subsequent decreasing advertising revenues, we managed to grow our group revenues in Q1 by 1% to 938 million euros. This was driven by our diversification efforts, especially by the strong underlying dating performance, as well as the solid growth of our commerce and venture segment on an organic basis following the WinStar disposal. Both segments are thus proving their value for the entire group. Second, as already announced during our full year 2020 results call in March, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted our advertising business in the entertainment segment in Q1. But we already saw the first signs of a recovery in March and continue to expect a significant improvement in the second quarter. Third, while the revenue decline in our high margin advertising business also had a negative impact on group adjusted EBITDA, our dating and commerce and venture segments recorded strong growth rates here. Besides our strict cost discipline, we were thus able to compensate to a large extent for the COVID-19 related declines in the advertising business. Our group adjusted EBITDA declined by only 9% to €143 million in the first quarter. Furthermore, our EBIT stabilized at €80 million in this demanding market environment. Overall, we were able to reduce our net debt by €295 million versus the end of the previous year's first quarter. Fourth, we are now approaching our annual general meeting on June 1st. In line with our general dividend policy, we will propose to resolve a dividend of 49 cents per share for the financial year 2020, which equals 50% of our adjusted net income. Fifth, last but not least, following our good performance in Q1 and our expectations for the coming months, we are able to increase our full year outlook for revenues and adjusted EBITDA. I will provide you with more details on this later. Before we dive into the operational and strategic highlights, our Deputy CFO, Ralf Gehrig, will now give you more details on our group financials in this first quarter.