Prosieben Sat 1 Media

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our full year 2025 results conference call of ProSieben Z1 Media SE. This conference is being recorded. Today's call is hosted by Mr. Dirk Volkshänder. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to ProSieben Z1's investor and analyst conference call on the occasion of our full year 2025 results published today. The call will be hosted by our CEO, Marco Giordani, and our CFO, Bob Rajan. Marco will begin with an overview of the key developments in 2025. Bob will then take you through the group's financial performance and present our dividend proposal for the past financial year. After that, Marco will return to discuss Prosimset 1's new strategic direction and share the outlook for 2026. Following the presentation, we will open the floor for your questions. Before we start, allow me a brief personal note. Today's call marks my last one as IR at ProSiem Z1. As you might be aware of, I will be taking a new role within our parent company, MFE Media4Europe, in which I will be responsible for a digital innovation strategy, a position focused on accelerating digital transformation and advancing the use of latest technologies and AI across MFE's broadcasting companies, Mediaset, Mediaset Hispania, and ProSiem Z1. Going forward, my wonderful colleagues from the IR team will remain at your disposal for any questions or discussions related to proceedings at one. I've greatly valued our collaboration over the years and sincerely look forward to continuing our exchange and hopefully to see many of you again at future conferences. With that, I'm pleased to hand over to Marco. Thank you, Dirk.

It's a shame to lose you in a so important position. But I'm very pleased that you will go on in collaborating with us and taking your contribution to the future of ProSieben and to the MFE group. So really thank you for what you did and good luck for the new job. And good morning also from my side. As Dirk said, our presentation will be composed by two main parts. The first one will be regarding 2025 with Bob taking you through the main financial and the second part where I will try to guide you on the future of ProSieben and exactly explain what we are doing. Last year has been, let's say, a year that ended as forecasted with our communication at the beginning of January, and Bob will take you through the numbers. Maybe it's important to say that Bob and I joined ProSieben Satines in October. And already in the last part of the year, we were able to, let's say, adopt some actions that, in our opinion, will be crucial for our future and our future growth. We, as you can remember, we structure a new organization in the sales house. Revenue will be crucial for the future, and that was the first action we took just for that purpose. We clearly started to fix the base and the foundation of Procipient Satines. and trying to also put everything we could in terms of growth opportunity and project. The last point we were immediately put in operation was a very strong and strict cash discipline. That are all actions that we undertook during the last part of the year that will be crucial for the future. Looking at 2026, clearly uncertainty and volatility will be part of our future in terms of top line, but we will focus on everything we can do by our own that are shares, so shares of the market, and also whatever we can do in terms of cost control and improved profitability and putting all we can for growing the business and growing the value of this company. That will be our priority. Clearly, the shift of focus on entertainment will be another important element. We will speak about that later on. But, I mean, we can say that in terms of outlook, we are expecting a 2026 where EBDA will grow, and that will be our main focus even in a so volatile and uncertain period. That's all for the first part of the presentation. I hand over to Bob, and I'll then take back afterwards. Thank you, Bob.

Great. Thank you, Marco. As Marco indicated, Marco and I both joined towards the end of October. My responsibilities here at ProSiebenSatz IONS cover the finance, the compliance and risk areas, legal, procurement, real estate, M&A, and a bit more focus on one of the segments that we're going to refer to as the commerce and dating segments. But let's talk about some of the results for FY25. As Marco already alluded to, 2025 was a year of significant macroeconomic headwinds. You'll see from the revenue here for the full year of FY25, we were slightly lower in comparison to the full year of FY24. This was primarily in relation to a drop in challenges encompassing the TV advertising business. where overall spending is down and this is an industry trend that all players in the market are currently encompassing. You'll see from an absolute numbers perspective, the change from year to year was minus 6%, but organically taking into account portfolio and currency effects, it's only about minus 2% in comparison to prior year. You'll see this is a little bit more exaggerated in the fourth quarter, as the headwinds were even stronger in the fourth quarter compared to some of the rest of the year. However, as Marco indicated, and we'll talk a little bit about this, we were able to take some measures with a cost discipline focus on cash, and obviously our digital streaming platform continued to show some good strength there with regards to AVOD and SVOD, and we were able to combat some of the drop in revenue overall. If we look at the advertising, you can see that this was down and this alludes to the point that we had indicated before that we are down minus 8% year over year. But once again, you'll see that the digital and smart streaming is relatively flat with regards to that. Adjusted EBITDA is in line with the guidance that was provided earlier at 403 million. This is down, but once again, in relation to the drop with regards to advertising revenues. Cash flow has also correspondingly, adjusted operating free cash flow has obviously already declined in line with the adjusted EBITDA drop. You'll see adjusted net income, the drop is only about minus 9%, and that is due to some offsetting tax benefits that we were able to utilize. So overall, from an overall perspective, you'll be able to see that there were challenging headwinds, but ProSiebenSatEins was able to take certain measures to be able to mitigate these to a certain extent. If we take a look a little bit closer and we dive into the segments, Marco will talk about this a little bit later, but we're also going to be focusing in 2026 on two segments, entertainment, and then what we'll call commerce and dating. So if we just try to look at 2025, looking at the entertainment revenues, you'll see that once again, the trends are very apparent to what was already discussed. And you'll see that the advertising was obviously playing a big factor. When you look at the overall ProSiebenSatEins business, you'll see that on a revenue basis, approximately two-thirds of the revenue relates to the entertainment segment, and one-third relates to the commerce and dating. But you'll see here that there's some good performance in regards to entertainment. And I think we'll take some measures, and Marco will talk a little bit later in this call, about what we plan to do to be able to stabilize our entertainment and grow and transform our entertainment business. If we move on, to set the scene a little bit for where we are right now, and this is quite interesting if you take a look at sort of the number of factors that are ongoing in the market right now. So if we look at the left-hand side, we can definitely see, and this is all over the news, so this is not going to come as a surprise to anyone, cumulative real GDP growth is definitely down across Europe, and Germany obviously is taking quite a bit of the brunt of that. But we'll also see that in prior years, the growth was very, very negligible. And for the first half of 2026, all the economic forecasts indicate that this will also be challenging, and there might be a slight uptick in the second half. Unfortunately, what compounds this effect is all the macroeconomic geopolitical effects that are ongoing in the world. As we all know, there's still the Ukraine war is ongoing. We have troubles in the Middle East which are driving up oil prices. And all these factors combined together with the geopolitical uncertainty definitely do create some additional headwinds and challenges for 2026. If we look at the right-hand side, we've already talked about this, but to show this from sort of a numbers perspective, you'll see the challenges that are happening in the advertising market. And you'll see that there's been a downward trend if you index this to 2019 for a number of, for the past three to four years, obviously 2025, that Delta being about 18 percentage points being quite significant. So this combined with the geopolitical environment, it does provide its challenges. These are industry-wide topics that all players in the market are facing. And we will do everything that we're capable of doing in measures that we'll talk about later to be able to combat some of these types of things. Okay, if we now just jump quickly now to the commerce and venture segment, you'll see here from a revenue basis in comparison to FY25 to 24, relatively stable, okay? And that includes that there was a divestiture in the early part of 2025 with Verovox. There were a couple of other issues. We'll talk about that in a minute. But generally speaking, you'll see that this has been a relatively stable business. adjusted EBITDA slightly down, but that was able to be mitigated. And we'll talk a little bit about some of the portfolio companies that sit within this commerce and venture segment. One thing to be very clear is while we are looking at this, and Marco talked about the focus on entertainment, commerce and ventures plays a significant role for our business going forward. There are a number of portfolio companies, and as part of our process, we regularly look at all the companies within this segment and determine whether or not ProSiebenSatIants is able to maximize the value. In certain cases where the value we feel is optimized, we will then think about other options for those businesses such as an M&A activity or whatnot. In other instances where we feel confident and we feel that there's more value to build and to utilize within the group, those businesses will remain part of this segment. We move to the next slide. This shows a little bit more detail on the adjusted EBITDA and shows some of the trends that are going within the specific, the dating and video segment. Now, while on Flaconi's perspective, you'll see that there's good growth and penetration throughout the market there. Dating and video overall has had its challenges in 2025. You'll see that the year over year revenues are down. There are challenges within that overall segment that are being experienced by all players in the market. However, we've been able to, there's a new management team in place for the last year and we've been able to slowly bring that uptick and start to show some strong performance in the first couple of months of 2026. So we will continue to monitor this business as we do with all our portfolio companies. On the next slide, I think this alludes to the point I just alluded to before. you would have seen that since the beginning of January 2025, ProSiebenSat IONS has been very active with regards to ensuring that it's bringing the most value of its various businesses within the conglomerate to its stakeholders. As we talked about, there were a number of transactions that occurred in the early part of 2025. And in the latter part of 2025 and early part of 2026, you'll see at the bottom, there's been three transactions that have taken place since Marco and I came on board at the end of October. Vector.com was closed in February 2026. Kyrieon and ESOM, you would have seen an announcement that a signing took place last week, closing, hoping to happen in April. And just this morning, a press release was released with regards to Floyd and Camper Days, where we entered into a transaction with a purchaser, and we're also hoping to close that in April of 2026. Notwithstanding all of that, you'll see at the bottom that we've been able to generate from these transactions circa about $300 million. One of the things which Marco alluded to earlier and we'll talk about there is we do want to manage our debt. We do want to deleverage the company. So we will always look to extract the value from our assets and where required and where necessary and where it makes sense, we will use those proceeds to pay down our external debt. having being able to decrease our leverage and optimize our leverage will allow us to take funds and invest them appropriately into things that will help transform and grow ProSiebenSatEins. With regards to our net debt development, what we can see here is if we look at the end of 2024, and we look at 2025, you'll see that this goes in a little bit into the trend that Marco alluded to and I've talked about at the beginning. We have tried to start to change the focus on cash flow, optimize cash, and you'll see there that our overall net debt did decrease from minus 1.5 billion to minus 1.3 billion towards the end of 2025 based on obviously the asset sales that we talked about and additionally a few other items. with regards to some payments that have been made. And in general, we're just bringing a general stronger focus to cash and cost discipline. We move to the next slide. We've talked about our net financial debt. I think one thing to very much reiterate the point here is you would have seen since 2019 that net financial debt has been significantly reduced, almost by a billion. You'll see 902 million. At the same time, we've been able to balance that and pay dividends in excess of $300 million since 2019. So this is going to be what we will try to continue to do to deleverage the company, invest for the future, and obviously we would like to make sure that we reward our stakeholders and our loyal shareholders going forward as well. On the right-hand side, some of you will remember from the third quarter of last year that the company endured a refinancing process Part of this refinancing was due to optimize and help the company transform and grow for the future. The total quantum of debt prior to the refinancing was reduced overall, and there's been a new package that's been put together, and you'll see there that we have a five-year term loan. We have a bridge facility, and we also have an undrawn revolver that we haven't drawn on. You'll see there's a five-year term. The bridge facility has a 12-month plus 12-month term. the duration and we have an amortization of semi-annual payments of 70 million each month. So we are trying to be very cost conscious here. There is a covenant attached to the refinancing and we're being very cost conscious to make sure that we can drive down leverage and position the company for growth and transformation in the future. To close here, we'd like to talk about the dividend that we will be proposing at the annual general meeting at the end of May. Obviously, when we make these types of decisions, we take into account the entire economic situation, our financial performance, and a number of other factors. What we will be proposing at the Annual General Meeting is a $0.05 proposed dividend per share. As you'll see, this is in line with what also occurred last year, and this is what we will be tabling at the Annual General Meeting in May. So with that, I will now pass back to Marco Giordani, who will speak to strategy with regards to prosieve and satynes.

Thank you, Bob. I think that was very exhaustive, and I think we have completed the first part of our presentation. Let's now move from 2025 to 2026 and looking forward. We are now focusing on, let's say, transforming Proceeding Satines from a diversified group, we were until last year, to a focused media powerhouse. Our main aim is to become the leading entertainment player in the DAC region, with strong relevance for audiences and partners. This requires clear focus and a strong local brand and entertainment content with broad reach. As you know, I mean, clearly, we are now part of a larger group, and we consider MFE as a strong multiplier of that, that combined local strong market presence and benefit coming from Pan-European scale and cooperation. What was already mentioned, I think you have seen already the proof of it, financial discipline will enable our growth. A strict cost management is the foundation for sustainable and profitable development. We need to invest in content and entertainment, and that's the main reason for which the foundation should be big and strong. We will allocate capital strictly in function of our strategic goals and only where we see clear value creation potential. Overall, our strategy is guided by clarity, focus, and long-term value creation. Moving forward, I will try to take you through what we are now trying to focus on. These are now our five priorities. First, content. Clearly, that's the core of our strategy. Investment in distinctive local and live entertainment content to drive reach and build a strong emotional connection with our viewers. Again, I will take you through more details going forward, but I mean, a multi-platform approach expands our total video reach. And that is important for our monetization. Clearly also our monetization will be coherent with the multi-platform approach. Technology and AI will clearly be a big part of our future. We will use them as a sort of leverage for better efficiency and better effectiveness versus our viewer and our, let's say, partner. Lastly, again, sorry to repeat it, the financial discipline will be part of our day life. because that's the only way in which we can build a great future. So let's go through all of them one by one. Content. That's just a list of our main area of content, and I will not really bother you with the detail on that, but it's important that few words will remain with you, and because it's really part of our day life. Content should be live, local, engaging. should be premium, large, popular. That's all assessed to create reach, relevance, and brand value. It's important to underline also the right-hand part of the chart. We are not really looking at what was part of our historical culture, but we are also enlarging it to what is needed now to, let's say, engage young target and also young audiences. moving to the rationale behind it. I mean, clearly we don't see anymore the only linear part. We see all the content mainly focus on the total video reach. That can run clearly from our linear channel to our digital platform, but can also go beyond that on third party platform and even to social media. This is just a list of our best content, our flagship format. These are the backbone of our reach strategy that will be just example of what the direction will be in the future. We will try to build other brands that will follow that kind of route. You have on the bottom part of the chart a pretty long list of numbers that is just showing that a total reach approach will take us to a new concept of total reach and will also be possible for us to enlarge the linear reach to other digital mean and platform. The main aim will be, again, to go beyond our own and operated platform and also using third-party distribution platform to enlarge the reach. The main start will be coming from linear, but all the rest will be assessed to create an ecosystem. That's an example of what I was trying to explain. Galileo started as a popular and very high, let's say, rich linear content, and now it's clearly becoming a sort of ecosystem that goes beyond the linear TV, clearly goes beyond On our own and operated platform, we enabled an SVOD kind of business model, but it is a very large, let's say, and popular YouTube content with more than 3.3 million YouTube subscribers, and it's also building a pretty large social media and web publishing kind of activity. Without forgetting that licensing games and other, let's say, collateral brand exploitation, it's already giving a pretty important, let's say, result to our P&L. That's an example we would like to follow. Other brands will try to follow Galileo, let's say, story. That's all, let's say, explained by the willing to give to our advertiser a brand safety area and an high premium area that can differentiate their communication versus all the platform and all the social media. I just mentioned before the multi-platform kind of approach. Again, that's, I think, something we need to consider differently from the past. Clearly, we are coming from a world where our platforms were clearly large-viewed, and all the population was clearly watching TV 20 years ago, but now the world is different. We need to combine the strengths of our own platform, being them linear TV channel, but also our own and operated digital platform like Join. But we cannot forget that our audience is also walking through other platforms, and our brand should be present where our viewers are and not vice versa. So we need to take our content where the viewers are and try to expand our, let's say, reach not only to our platform, but also to partners' platforms. Again, this slide shows a little bit what I meant. Starting from the bottom left part of this slide, you see our linear channel that are clearly the base of our reach, but clearly following different trends than in the past, cannot stay alone and isolated, has to be, let's say, enlarged to our own and digital platform, clearly joins biggest part of it, but other platform is also part of it. We are, let's say, enlarging and strengthening the local partnerships that are already existing, but we will try to enlarge them and also take other partners on board to enlarge the reach. Clearly, social media will play an important role, not only in terms of branding promotion, but also in terms of economic exploitation. And clearly, then, international streaming players and more others will also be important. The number you see in the middle of the page, it's clearly showing that we are talking about large numbers. So that's the average total video reach we had in 2025, so 77% of the total population and more than 60 million viewers. That's something on which we are going to focus. That's our main commercial KPI. Clearly, within all the area, we will also follow individual KPI, but that's our main goal. We are not really going to evaluate content investment only looking at a single platform, but, I mean, we are going to look at the entire reach and the entire media reach. Then moving, let's say, to another, let's say, explanation of what I meant, We can also, let's say, broaden revenue and also increasing relevance in the advertising market through that because clearly our linear channel, it's also important, will remain important also in the future, clearly following the viewers' habits probably in a more declining phase, but that's not really something we are not prepared of because our own digital platform will compensate as much as possible the decline and the change of consumer and viewer habits. Our local and international partner will give us, let's say, an additional weekly marketable ad impression. That's important, more than 50 million, let's say, impressions. And clearly social network will then enhance and enlarge as much as possible our branding and promotion activity. A unique multi-platform monetization will be our future, leaving, let's say, the spot-based TV advertising a little bit behind or part of this larger strategy. Let's say moving to monetization, that's clearly the base of everything. We are, let's say, following a multi-platform strategy mainly for increasing our monetization, let's say, power. That's a slide that is very important for us. It's showing how our investors, advertising investors, are clearly moving. And clearly our ambition is that we can offer them a larger range of, let's say, media in order to get the maximum reach for their campaign. That's something we can see as a unique advantage, strategic advantage, that is also position ourselves a little bit different from the platform. we can offer them a larger reach, we can offer them a brand safety area, and we can also offer them a better value for their, let's say, investment. Clearly, monetization, it's an important element of the future of ProSieve and Satainze, and I believe of all the industry. Clearly, the transformation of our monetization is crucial. We are transforming our products, our deep products. We are clearly using tech as much as possible to serve our, let's say, customer needs. Data and identity will be crucial as well, and AI will enable us and our investor to get the best value out of their money. We see that in that area we can really play a very important step forward in order to give more value and to grow also in the future that will be more and more in a converging advertising market. That gives me the chance to talk about a little bit the role of MFE and Procibenza Times in the future. We are clearly focusing ourselves in being very good in executing our local strength, but we know that the market is going also European, where size matters, and we think that the combination of a local strength and a European scale can be the best, let's say, result for our future value and future growth. We will focus, as I said, on strong client relationship, clearly local strength, a strong client relationship. We have a proven expertise in the DAC region. Clearly, we know the market better than anybody else. I mean, our premium commercial execution, I think, has been proved to be reliable and high quality, and we have a deep understanding of local consumer behavior. Clearly, the multiplication effect of MFE will be everything we cannot really follow because of the size. We can have clearly part of a larger group that can have access to European multinational headquarters. We can offer, together with the other MFE, let's say, country, a partner European sales reach that, again, can be asked by some of the customers. We can and we will standardize tools, both in data measurement and format, and even price. And certainly the fact that we will We will go to align all the attack stack in order to be more than efficient and coherent in all the country will be relevant for having the best effect for proceeding, but also exploiting, as I said, the European advantage of being part of a larger group that we didn't have in the past. That's also giving the chance to talk to say a little bit more about technology and AI. I mean, clearly, being part of a larger group, we need to focus on something that we can work on to extract value and to give also additional resources to invest in our business. In the left part of the chart, you see where we think we can share cost and to get better outcome of our investment. I already mentioned the ATEX infrastructure. We will try to unified as much as possible solution and technology, not only to serve better our customer, but also to get some synergies out of it. Data and analytic hub will be a second point of important focus. That's not only a question of cost. It's also a question of the, let's say, cutting edge in terms of performance. richness of data and also activation of data. We will focus our effort in terms of OTT infrastructure. We think that there we can really start value together with our, let's say, with the other country of the MFE group, and also in the procurement we can extract value in a more, let's say, traditional and ordinary way. All of that clearly will give us economy of scale, faster market rollout, and certainly better service for our investors, both in advertising and also in the company. What will stay local? Clearly, content and programming will stay very local. We are the expert of the DAC region. We will not really give up anything on that. In terms of creativity, we think that Europe will remain focused on diversity, on localized and diversified content, and so it's important that we stay very close to the DAC kind of audience as much as possible. That is also due to the cultural position. Every country will have differences in that respect, and we need to be diverse also to make a sort of differentiation offer in respect to the U.S. and big platforms. Clearly, as I said before, the relationship with local and DAC advertisers will be crucial as well. In that respect, we are expecting a faster execution because certainly we will be simplified the structure and the decision-making process. We will have lower structural cost and higher scalability, and that will help us improve our margins. We have several times mentioned the cost discipline in our presentation, and I will take you through, let's say, some of these examples on that, regarding the approach we are going to take with the non-core asset. That slide reports a little bit the performance of Flaconi. Bob already mentioned, I mean, we are not really selling all the non-core assets just for a pre-cooked decision. Bob already remembered that we are continuously evaluating the portfolio and seeing whether we can extract value more and more. Flaconi is a clear example of something that, in our opinion, will remain in our portfolio because we think that we can add value, we can contribute the company to grow. And the result that is coming out is clearly very impressive, and I think that also 2026 will show good results in that respect. Again, our view is that this part of our activity should not be look at only revenue and cost. We'll be looking at EBDA performance. We'll be looking in terms of cash flow. We'll be looking in terms of also management. We need to have all these elements in place every time we look at the non-core asset. Flaconi, as I said, it's a good story. I think we are well-placed with good management, and we have a good strategy, and that will be something that will take us to retain the asset and make it growing in terms of value for the benefit of all our shareholders. Then moving to a sort of summary of what we mentioned several times during the presentation, a sort of translation of our, let's say, financial discipline. I mean, the content, it's clearly our main focus. We will go on in investing in local and live content, and that's because we think we need emotional viewer connection. We need popular brands. We need really... uh strong brand that will drive content consumption the main aim as i said before is to increase and enlarge and keep the total video reach we will try to keep stable or possibly even growing through a different and let's say more open and very effective multi-platform kind of approach monetization will be crucial we have said about that we are building a large video reach because we think that that's the best way to monetize all the content we are producing. Then, clearly, with the operating cash flow discipline, we can really create strong resources to go on in investing content. As Bob was saying, clearly, we cannot forget about our main aim to deleverage proceeds at times and also to reward our shareholders with dividends. So that's the way we are going to, let's say, put in place our financial discipline in the next month and year. Then moving to outlook, that's probably the most difficult slide to comment on because clearly, as Bob was saying, the world is very volatile and make projection now, it's very difficult. But I mean, we will focus ourself on what we can control. and we will try to manage at best what, let's say, the market and the macros will give us. Having said that, as I said before, the first KPI we will target is the total reach. We will try to keep our total reach stable and possibly grow. That's clearly not listed in this chart, but it's something I would like not to forget about. Let's move into financial KPIs. We are targeting a slight decline of revenue That's something that is mainly driven by some portfolio decision we took. But, I mean, on a like-for-like basis, we are targeting a slight growth in that respect. That's mainly true also for entertainment. Entertainment revenue are expected to be stable year on year currently. Clearly, again, with a lot of uncertainty and a short visibility on the future. But that's our, let's say, first outlook we see now. As far as the first quarter is concerned, what I can tell you is that March was materially better than the first two months, and April looks better than March. So for the time being, I think we are on track. We don't see any particular, let's say, element for reviewing our outlook. As I said, the first quarter will will be, let's say, confirming our outlook for the full year. In terms of ABDA, reported ABDA will significantly grow, and that's our main objective. That's clearly coming from a strong cost discipline, as we mentioned several times. Just to give you some numbers, in terms of entertainment, we are targeting more than €130 million cost savings on reported ABDA, and that's... and numbers that is clearly coherent for the time being with the outlook we were mentioning before. We will be actively, let's say, working if something changes on the top line to maintain our EBITDA target in line. As far as net financial debt, we are forecasting stable numbers at the last year level. And in terms of financial leverage, as I mentioned, the target will be to stay between three times and 3.5 times ABDA. So that's our main outlook and guideline for 2026. But let me, let's say, summarize a little bit what I try to, let's say, pass you in this presentation clearly. Proceedings Science will focus on entertainment in the German-speaking region, driven by strong local content, broad reach, and multi-platform distribution approach. That will allow us, let's say, to maximize the total video reach. That's the base for monetizing the content across all the relevant platforms and to maintain, let's say, a strong top line. Technology, data, and AI will drive effectiveness, efficiency, scalability, and margins. We will have a clear focus on that in the coming months. The portfolio evaluation will be, let's say, a running, let's say, activity. And there will be decision solely on financial merits. No other, let's say, strategic decision on that. And clearly, the financial discipline will be our main focus. with strict cost control, cash generation, and balance sheet strength. That's all on my side. I think that now we will start the Q&A session. So, thank you for your attention.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star 1 to ask a question. We will pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. Our first question today comes from Annick Maas of Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you very much for this helpful presentation. My first question was, You've been now at the top of ProSieben since October. You've highlighted what the strategy is going to be. Can you just tell us, you know, were there, you know, what surprised you to the positive, actually, as you actually saw a bit deeper into ProSieben now the first few months? The second question is around the EBITDA guidance. So you say you want to do 100 million savings at the entertainment level. How should I read that? You know, if the TV ad market is going to be flat, does that mean EBTA is going to increase by 100 million and anything, you know, any TV advertising improvement comes down on top? Or, you know, if you could just be a bit more, you know, provide a bit more color around that. And then I guess on TV advertising, everyone knows it's soft at the start of the year, but can you maybe give us a bit more color there? And then finally, I mean, dating, I guess, has been tough not only this year but also the last year. You've mentioned that you had the new management and you see an uptick. Can you provide a bit more information about what that actually means? Thank you.

Yes. Thank you for the question. I will take the first part and then I'll hand over to Bob for dating. Many, I think, good surprise, frankly. But, I mean, the first one I want to underline is the team professionalism. I think, I mean, all the people I found here is very professional, very open. And I think that's the best surprise I got. We are exchanging experience. We are trying to, let's say, decide for the best of proceedings at times in a very open environment. and very professional way. So if I can summarize, that's the best, let's say, news I found. Probably was also a little bit expected, but probably I found a better, let's say, situation than I thought. So that's for the first question. The second question, in terms of guidance, I'll try to be a little bit clearer. As I said, we are now targeting reported ABDA. That's our base. then in the comparison between 2026 and 2025, you have clearly some, let's say, no recurring, let's say, adjustment that will be not present in 2026. So that will create clearly a great advantage in terms of reported EBDA in 2026. But in terms of like-for-like or in terms of really operating improvement, As I said, we will reduce the cost base by more than 130 million euros in 2026 compared to 2025. That's clearly an advantage you will see in EBDA depending on the top line, as you said. So just following your example, if the top line is flat, then the advantage of EBDA will be 130. If the top line will be higher, then clearly the advantage will be higher. That's a simple math. Moving then to TV advertising, as I said. The start of the year was not really so good, and we share the cautious stance of our competitor, RTL, that went out a couple of weeks ago, as far as the first quarter, 2026. What I can add is that the trend, it's improving. So March is materially better than the first two months. That's something that already we can say. And the expectation for April, clearly visibility is very short, but I mean clearly we see a large part of April already in our book. It's showing that April will be better than March, so saying that the trend is positive. But I mean clearly April is a month that is a little bit far to be and that's also confirming our guidance for the full year. As you know, we have pretty large differences between quarters, and that's the reason for which we can confirm the guidance of a stable entertainment revenue as far as 2026 is concerned. Then I'll hand over to Bob.

Great. Thank you, Marco. So in regards to the question with regards to dating, So first of all, for the first couple of months, what we can say is we're on track, both from a top line perspective and an EBITDA perspective. So I think that's the first sign. I just think when we look at operational, we've got generally just more engagement than what we had in the past, which I think is also very positive. If we dig a little bit deeper into dating, we've stabilized the paying user base on a number of platforms. We've looked at pricing. We've looked at subscription strategies. We've tried to be a little bit more sharp-penciled with the marketing mix and less heavily on brand spend. So if you take a look at all those things combined together and bringing the technology together and being a bit more smarter there, that's what I was referring to, saying that we're starting to see a little bit more uptick. By no means are we out of the dark, just to be very clear, but I'd say the first couple of months are brighter based on those comments that I just made. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. We will now take a question from Connor O'Shea of .

Yes, thank you for taking my questions. Just a couple of follow-ups from my side. Just firstly, in relation to the EBITDA guidance for 2026, in the presentation slide, it mentions EBITDA rather than adjusted EBITDA. Maybe clarify that, is that growth off a base that includes high restructuring costs and maybe you could just give a sense of how much you expect restructuring costs to be in 26 versus 25. Then second question just in terms of the disposals and it may relate to cash restructuring costs I guess in 26. Given the three disposals you've already announced, I understand that they're small, but expecting net debt to be flat year-on-year in 26 versus N25 looks conservative. Could you explain why you expect no further reduction in debt in 2026, given the disposal plan? Thank you.

So again, sorry, I mean, clearly we are now, let's say, targeting a different KPI from the past. Without, let's say, commenting on the past, I think it's a little bit worthless. We think that the reported ABDA is the right KPI we should target in. In the ABDA, clearly, it's all included. So if any restructuring costs would be in there, we think that that's the best way to look at the company. Adjusting ABDA, frankly, looks a little bit not proper. I would like to stop it here. So we'll guide you with the reported ABDA going forward. Before leaving Bob to answer what I would like to repeat on disposal, I mean, clearly, we already, last quarter, last year, we went through all the portfolio of activities we had. The first activity we carried out is defining what was part of entertainment focus and what was not. Clearly, that was the first element in deciding what to do with the portfolio. With the non-entertainment focus activities and companies, then I can say that clearly, as you can imagine, there are companies like Flaconi, as I said, will be our future, let's say, support and growth. There will be average companies that clearly have a market, and as you can imagine, there are also, let's say, companies where, I mean, the future in terms of cash flow and EBITDA will not be positive, and that's the reason for which it's better maybe to find a different owner. And that's the way in which you should look at it. what we did and what also we are going to do in the new future. But maybe you, Bob, can elaborate even more on that.

Yeah, sorry. So look, I think Marco talked about the guidance. Just another point, our restructuring costs in 2025 were circa around 70 million, just to keep that in mind. The second question regarding the disposals, Conor, it's a good question. And I think you answered the question yourself, actually, when you posed the question. The divestitures that have been announced to date last week and this morning are very small and minor in quantum. At this point, we don't expect those to be making any type of significant impact with regards to our net debt. As far as the net debt, we did make some improvements already last year. You would have seen when we did our cash flow bridge, a lot of that happened in the last quarter. in the last quarter of 2025. So given what we've talked about with regards to the volatility of the markets and whatnot, we do need to make sure we're on top of cash. And that's why at this point, you know, without any further portfolio changes or whatnot, we are aiming to be flat there. I think one of the things we also have to remember from 2025, there was not only the restructuring plans, but in 2026, we have our new campus as well. So that project continues to continue, and there are cash outlays there as well with regards to that. So in a summary, the divestments we've done to date are small, and therefore they don't have a major impact financially from a net debt perspective. And then with regards to other things, we still have some payments with regards to our new campus and whatnot, and that's why the net debt figure is more or less flat for 2026.

Okay, thanks. Could I just check, at this stage, would you expect P&L restructuring costs to be higher in 26 than the $70 million in 25?

No, they will be lower, Connor, sorry.

Lower, lower. Okay, perfect. And then of the $130 million reduction in the cost base that you announced, Is that a run rate number or is it a P&L number for 26? And I think I'm right in saying it was 150 or 200 million target, medium target previously announced. Is the 130 million just stage one and then there are further savings over, say, a four or five-year period?

The 130 is the 2026 P&L effect of the savings. It's not a run rate. Now, as far as the 200 million, maybe can you elaborate a little bit more? Because, I mean, frankly, I don't know what you are referring to. So, sorry for that.

Okay. Maybe that was in the press. I don't know. I saw that number. Maybe that didn't come from your side.

But, I mean, from proceeds at times, you mean?

Yes.

Okay.

So, the 130 million...

This is Dirk speaking here. I think you might refer to the previous gross savings target on the basis of the adjusted EBITDA, which was in the 100 million euro range. So I think the 200 million is not a number we have communicated. But in any case, this year's savings first relate to the EBITDA. They take into account the obviously operating and underlying savings, but also have a certain element of reduced one-time expenses, which were related to restructuring and which have burned both the entertainment segment and the commerce and venture segment. Please also keep in mind last year, there was also an impact from the deconsolidation of Erivox, which is also a minor part included in that number.

Okay, so there's not necessarily a sort of phase two, although if the 130 million is a P&L savings for 26, perhaps on a run rate number, the number is higher and those savings will flow into 27 as well. Is that fair to think about it like that?

We will update you as soon as we have a better number. It's already a big number. No, no, it is, it is, I can tell you, and it's not really so. There is a lot of work behind it, I guess you can imagine.

Understood, understood. Many thanks, thank you.

We will now take a question from of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Great. I have three questions, if I may. The first is the reach-based approach that you are now referring to in the multi-platform strategy. Can you give us some color as to how receptive your advertising partners and agencies that you speak to already are on that approach? And have you sort of reached out to them already in Germany to sort of see how receptive they are? Some color there would be great. And second, the reported EBITDA versus adjusted EBITDA, what matters for the covenants that you mentioned? And the leverage target that you've given us in the outlook slide, is that now referring to the reported EBITDA or netted over reported EBITDA as opposed to adjusted EBITDA? That clarification would be great. And lastly, could you kind of remind us of the collective impact on revenue and EBITDA from the assets you've sold so far this year? Some kind of that would be great. Thank you.

I will take the first part. I mean, clearly we are moving to the total video reach just because we think that the customer or the advertiser are asking for. I think that clearly the world now is dominated also by all the U.S. platforms that are, let's say, trying to sell, let's say, digital reach. in a pretty, let's say, effective way, if you look at the, let's say, market numbers, including clearly the German one. We tend to stay a little bit away from that. We think better place. We can rely on leaner reach. It is clearly something that already existed in the past, but it's still existing and will exist also in the future, that it will make us a little bit more let's say a seller of a scarce resource because clearly we are selling a reach that the digital cannot afford. So we will try to sell the total video reach trying to be different from the US big platform. That's the first comment I would like to make. The second comment is that this is very well accepted by the market because it's exactly the, let's say the KPI they are looking for because they can really look for performance marketing with the digital platform. But I mean, it's important also for them to go on in, let's say, investing in branding and positioning and where the reach is more important than anything else. So we are creating, let's say, an element or a KPI that is a little bit scarce on the market. And it is our base for having a better relationship with our investor and media agency in order to provide them with exactly what they need today. So if you want, it's a combined decision, looking at what the market is asking for and what we can provide to the market in order to better monetize our content. It's a combination of the two, but for the first comment we received from advertisers and media agencies, the expectation of that has been very good and very optimistic about the future.

Great. And just to answer the last question with regards to the minor asset sales we've done, I'll reiterate again that they are small in nature. So taking into account deconsolidation by the end of April, we're talking circa about $50 million from a revenue turnover perspective and an EBITDA perspective of about $2 million. So as we talked about, they're negligible and small at this point. Thank you.

And maybe the last part, I mean, on EBDA, I mean, clearly we will report to our financing partner the adjusted EBDA because our financing package is based on adjusted. But as I told you, that's part of our obligation we have with our financing partner, but it's not the KPI we are looking for in terms of managing the company going forward.

Super helpful. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question today comes from Fabio Pavan of Mediobanca. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi, good morning, and thank you for taking my two questions. First one is for Marco, given your experience in Italy and Spain, how much time do you think it will take for this journey in Germany to be done in terms of increasing this reach. And so for this to be reflected in the numbers, it's something you would expect to see gradually over time or maybe nothing for this year, but maybe for 27. And the second question is, provided the guidance you made and shared with us on revenues and the BDA. Is there any comment you can share with us in terms of organic cash flow generation for this year? Thank you so much.

Thank you, Fabio. I mean, all the countries are different, so it's very hard to, let's say, compare performance from one country to the other. I have to tell you that in Germany, it's a little bit more advanced in terms of multi-platform approach. So all is related to the increase of reach coming from, to be practical, YouTube, podcasts, and other digital activity. I think that Germany is a little bit more advanced than Italy and Spain. On the other end, there are media that, for instance, in Italy, MFE runs, like radio. that clearly ProSieben doesn't and probably will never. So I think that comparing to Italy probably will be almost impossible to reach the more than 90% reach that currently MFE has in Italy. But as far as Spain, for instance, I think Germany is already a little bit beyond that level. So I don't think we need to So we don't have a blueprint to copy, let's say, a year. We are trying to enlarge as much as possible the reach because this is what the market is asking for without really looking at a target, a specific target that other country may have. Certainly, we are sharing experience. That's true. So we are trying to, let's say, take the best out of each country experience. So, for instance, I'll give you an example. ProSieben is largely better in podcast than Italy and Spain. We are trying to see whether we can export this kind of know-how and capability in the other countries. That's an example in terms of exporting from Germany to the rest of the MFE group. On the other end, clearly, as I told you, in terms of customer relationship and customer The way in which the sales house are connected with the advertiser, probably Italy, it's better placed than the rest of the group. And so in that respect, the changes we have made in the sales house organization is also targeting a transfer of expertise from Italy to Germany. So it's a mix of everything. I think that being part of a larger group is good for everyone. If we are able to align best practice throughout the countries, I think... will be the best for everyone without having a specific and numeric KPIs for that.

Yeah, and Fabio, to your other question, which I think is primarily, I think we've given the guidance on where we are on the revenues in EBITDA, and Marco alluded to that. With regards to cash flow, again, as we talked about, we're expecting cash flow to be relatively obviously not taking into account some of the extraordinary spends with regards to our new campus restructuring and other things. So if you excluded those effects, we would hope that we would have a very high double-digit number from a free cash flow perspective. So if you, on an organic basis, but on a full basis where we take in those extraordinary spendings, we are planning to be flat as we had indicated earlier.

Thank you very much.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, as they are on... Oh, I'm sorry, operator.

My apologies. That concludes today's question and answer session. Mr. Falkland, at this time, I will turn the conference back to you for any additional or closing remarks.

Yes, thank you very much, operator. So, as you mentioned, there are no further questions currently, so this concludes our conference call for today. As always, should you have any further questions, my colleagues in the IR team and myself will be happy to answer them. Thanks everyone and goodbye.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.