Vivendi Se Unsp/Adr

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Vivendi Foliere 2021 earnings presentation.

This conference call will be hosted by Mr. Anu Dhipri Fontin, Chairman of the Management Board and CEO, and Mr. Herve Philip, a member of the Management Board and CFO. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. Duration of the call, you'll be on listen only. However, Later on the call, during the Q&A session, panelists will have the opportunity to ask questions without any follow-up questions. This can be done by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad to register your question at any time. If at any point you require assistance, please press star 0 and you will be connected to an operator. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Anu Desui-Funting. Please go ahead, sir. The line is open.

Thank you very much and good evening everyone. Welcome. Thank you for joining us today. I hope that you are all keeping well. Of course, I would like to begin by expressing our thoughts for Ukraine. We are, like everyone, very concerned by this war. We are in constant contact and solidarity with the Gameloft and HAVAS teams based in Ukraine. From a business angle, we have a very low exposure in Ukraine and Russia. Let's hope for a rapid end to this conflict. Before commenting on 2021 key highlights, I would like to remind you to take a moment to read carefully the usual legal disclaimers. Thank you. 2021 was a historic, significant year for Vivendi. As a group, we enjoyed strong growth in revenues and EBITDA. Revenues increased by 10.4% compared to 2020 and by 8.6% organically. This is our best organic growth since we took over the leadership of the group in 2014. In 2021, EBITDA has more than doubled compared to 2020. Hervé Philippe will elaborate on this outstanding performance. What is remarkable is that all our activities have been growing while continuing their transformation. Let me thank the Vivendi teams around the world for your commitment and talent for reinvention in a complex and unpredictable environment. The year 2021 also marked an acceleration in the implementation of our strategy, thanks to major restructuring operations that redesigned the controls of our group. The first one was UMG's listing on Euronext and the distribution of nearly 60% of its capital. On its first day of listing on September 21st, The company was valued at nearly 45 billion euros confirming its attractiveness as well as our ability to transform our businesses. We always believed in the incredible potential of UMG and its teams despite the gloomy predictions of others. We continued to invest for growth and contributed to the renewal of the music industry. As you know, Vivendi retains a 10% stake in UMG and we remained privileged shareholders. The second was Vivendi's entry into new business, perfectly complementary to our other activities. The integration of Prisma Media, the French leader in press magazines, was completed in record time. Thanks to its strong digital audiences, Prisma has enabled the group to climb into the top three digital groups in France in terms of unique visitors alongside Google and Facebook. Lastly, Vivendi acquired Amber Capital's shares in Lagardère in December, bringing its stakes to 45.1% of the capital. On February 21, 2022, the group filed its tender offer with the French securities regulator IMF. This merger will make it possible to pursue strong industrial ambitions with significant investments in quality and diversified content and contribute to the promotion of culture. This offer for the capital of La Gardère is thus in line with Vivendi's strategy to build a major group with European culture and global ambitions in media, content and communications. This strategic ambition is more and more relevant in the context of the rapid transformations and global consolidation in our sectors. No European player is currently among the top 10 global media groups nor among the top 10 internet players in the world. We believe that Vivendi can scale these heights by proposing an alternative offer of cultural content. We have a large catalogue of films, series and books which are hugely successful internationally. Let's take a couple of examples. Canal Plus Série, Le Bureau des Légendes, the Bureau of Versailles, distributed in hundreds countries, or authors like Michel Bussy, translated into 34 languages. Promoting European culture in all its diversity is our ambition. This is an immense responsibility. We want to play our full part. For this, we can rely on our strong assets, enabling us to look to the future with confidence in a context of never-ending appetite for content. Let me name a few. First, our ability to attract and develop the best talent. In 2021, Studio Canal Film, BACNOR, Boîte Noire and Le Loup et le Lion were huge box office successes. Havas agencies received 1,300 awards and distinctions around the world. Editis ranked 10 of its authors among the top 30 most purchased French language authors in modern fiction. Second, our significant capacity to invest in culture and creation. In 2021, we invested over 1.6 billion in content. We were also investing to modernize our sectors, thus helping transform the cultural and creative industries. Strong and appealing brands connected to their audiences. We have a direct link with many communities, viewers, readers, gamers. For instance, Editis has 1 million cumulative followers on Instagram, Gala, a Prisma Media brand, is the most followed European media on TikTok with 2.5 million subscribers. Then, the complementary of our businesses. Vivendi's promise is to enhance the common potential of its businesses and to make them grow together through value-creating joint projects. In 2021, for example, Avas, Editis and Prisma Media created the here, solution to accompany the recovery of the tourism industry. Then, the constant support of our principal shareholder, the Bolloré Group, who provide a guarantee of long-term vision and stability. And more widely, while continuing to perform economically, Vivendi is committed to being a responsible and sustainable company. Last year, I shared with you our new CSR program, Creation for the Future, built around three pillars, reducing the group's carbon footprint, making culture and education accessible to as many people as possible, and striving for a more inclusive world. This program was rolled out to all our entities in 2021. On this journey, we are making progress, more or less quickly, depending on the pillars and we are absolutely determined to move forward. Many initiatives have been taken. Many have been recognized, such as the AVAS campaign Undercover Avatar for L'Envent Bleu, a youth protection association, or our actions to promote inclusion and diversity with Vivendi awarded Media Diversity Champion of the Year by the European Diversity Awards. You will find more details in the appendices But let me come back quickly on our main ESG performance last year. On environment, Vivendi is committed to contribute to the global net zero carbon world and has submitted its plan and targets to the science-based targets initiatives in December 2021. On social, and specifically the position of women in our entities, within our businesses management bodies, women now represent 35% of the workforce. This was our objective for 2022, which means that we met it one year ahead of schedule. Lastly, on governance, a proposal will be made to the General Meeting of April 25, 2022 to increase the weighting of ESG criteria in the short-term variable compensation of the Management Board, illustrating the Group's determination to continue its efforts. You can see that we are very confident and ambitious for the implementation of our strategic plan, We are excited about the coming months. 2022 offers promising prospects for our group and will enable us to reach new steps. Thank you for your attention. I will now hand over to Hervé Philippe.

Thank you very much, Arnaud. Good evening to everyone. It's my pleasure to present to you our 2021 financial results. On slide 13, let me review the main changes in the scope of consolidation. Universal Music has been deconsolidated since last September. In accordance with IFRS rules, our 2020 and 2021 accounts were restated to exclude its contribution to revenues on EBITDA. As of September 23rd, the 10% stake we retained is accounted for under the equity method. The other changes are related to the equity accounting of our stake in Lagardère since July 1st and the acquisition of Prisma Media, completed at the end of May. On the next slide, you can see the evolution of the main currencies of the group. Over the years, the Euro depreciated against the US dollar and the British pound. Conversely, the Euro strengthened against the Polish Skloty, mainly impacting Sterna Plus figures. On slide 15, you will see that in total, Ethics had a negative impact of 100 basis points on our revenues, mainly at the level of Canal Plus and Havas. And the consolidation scope impacts on revenues correspond to the acquisition of Prisma Media and some other Bolton acquisitions made by Havas and Canal Plus. The perimeter impacts on EBITDA correspond to the contribution of Universal Music and Lagardère as operational equity affiliates. On slide 16, we have a summary of the key financial metrics. As announced by Arnaud, Vivendi's financial results are very strong with, first, revenue increasing above €9.5 billion with organic growth of 8.6%. compared to 2019, growth was 9.4%. Second, a doubling of EBITDA, driven by the strong rebound of all our businesses after the pandemic. Compared to 2019, EBITDA grew by 72%. And finally, adjusted net income also doubled. On the balance sheet, net cash amounted to €348 million at the end of 2021. Going to slide 17 and to the IFRS P&L. Please note that we present two different P&L to improve the understanding of our financial. The IFRS net result was greatly impacted in 2021 by the UMG transactions. I will comment on revenues later when I discuss the performance by business units. On this slide, let me highlight three line items in the P&L. First, in 2021, we depreciated the goodwill related to the acquisition of Gameloft for €200 million to reflect the decline in its operating performance over the recent period. Other financial income and charges were impacted by the write-down of the Telecom Italia shares. We reduced the value of our stake by 20 cents per share, leading to a charge of 728 million euros, notably to take into account the uncertainties that could affect Telecom Italia's outlook. A very important line item this year linked to the deconsolidation of Universal Music. Earnings from discontinued operations amounted to 25.4 billion euros. This amount corresponds to the UMG's contribution until the date of its listing and the capital gain on its deconsolidation. Finally, net earnings amounted to 24.7 billion euros. It's worth noting that in 2021 and 2020, the PNL did not benefit from the recognition of the €7 billion capital gains on the sale of the minority stakes in UMG, which were directly recognized in equity in accordance with IFRS rules. On the next slide, we present the adjusted net income statement. This result, which excludes the impact of UMG's deconsolidation as well as some other non-cash IFRS accounting adjustments, is more representative of Vivendi's financial performances. At the bottom of the table, you can see that adjusted net income more than doubled compared to 2020. This increase mainly included the growth in EBITDA and income from investments, partially offset by the decline of our share in Telecom Italia's earnings accounted for under the equity method. Moving to balance sheet on slide 19. Note that the balance sheet as of December 2020 has not been restated and included EMG figures. The most notable changes compared to the 2020 year-end balance sheet relate to the exit of UMGs from the consolidation scope. In short, even after the deconciliation of UMG at 2021 year-end, our balance sheet was still in very good shape. Considerated equity increased to 19.2 billion euros thanks to the sale of 20% of UMG on its deconciliation. As for assets, The decrease in goodwill was mainly due to the exit of UMG's assets for around 5 billion. Net cash amounted to 348 million euros and the value of our financial investments amounted to 10 billion and included our 10% stake in UMG at the end of 2021. Aside from our consolidated assets, Levent is managing a portfolio of investments that we can divide into two categories. First, investments accounted for under the equity method as laid out on slide 20. And second, minority interests that are not consolidated. We'll come back to these shortly. Equity affiliates represented an aggregate value of around 8 billion euros at year end 2021. The contribution of these stakes to our earnings amounted to 67 million euros in 2021, and Vivendi received dividends for approximately the same amount. Going to slide 21. On this slide, as it is the first time we accounted for these contributions in 2021, we present the detailed calculation of Vivendi's shares of UMG and Lagardère net earnings. Please keep in mind that the EBITDA impact of our share of UMG and Lagardère's earnings is expected to be much more significant in 2022, since the contributions will cover the entire year. Livendi has also acquired several stakes in leading media companies. First, in 2021, Canal+, increased its stake in multi-choice to more than 15%. MultiChoice is a leading South African pay TV company in Africa and a perfect complement to our activities on that continent. Second, in Spain, we have a 1% stake in Telefonica and a 9.9% stake in Prisa. Regarding our stake in Media4Europe, we finalized the agreement with Fininvest and Mediaset in July. As part of this agreement, we received €100 million in dividends and sold 5% of Mediaset for around 160 million euros. This agreement puts an end to the disputes at a very low cost for Vivendi. Now let's move to the evolution of our cash situation, which mainly reflects the following. The cash received from the sale of minority stakes in UMG for more than 6 billion euros the positive impact of the deconsolidation of UMG's net debt for 1.7 billion euros, and the taxes paid on capital gain for around 0.9 billion euros. Then, the cash outflows included the return to shareholders for a total amount of 1.3 billion euros, and the acquisition of Humber's stake in Lagardère, as well as the acquisition of Prisma Media and the stake in Prisa. And of course, The businesses generated cash flow of 700 million euros, which I will talk about later on. At the end of the year, net cash landed at 348 million euros. If we break down this net cash position on the next slide at year end 2021, Vivendi's gross cash position amounted to 4.4 billion euros and gross debt was 4.1 billion euros. As shown in the chart in the middle of this slide, the bond maturities are spread over time until 2028, and the average debt maturity stands at 4.2 years. Note that our credit lines are available for a total amount of €2.8 billion. In total, at the end of 2021, Vivendi's liquidity position included a portfolio of listed shares of around €9 billion. The value of those shares is now closer to 7 billion due to the recent decrease of stock markets. We can calculate the ratio between our gross debt of 4.1 billion euros on one end and the total of our gross cash position amounting to 4.4 billion euros added to our 7 billion euros liquid assets on the other end. This ratio is around 3. which highlights the strength of our reimbursement capacities. Next, for the review of the group's overall performance, let's start on slide 26 with our solid revenue growth. In 2021, we posted revenues of 9.6 billion euros, that is year-on-year growth of 10%. As you can see, This €900 million increase was mainly due to the organic growth of the businesses and also included the acquisition of Prisma Media starting on June 1st. Please note that our performance is also remarkable compared to the pre-COVID level. Revenues grew by more than €800 million, that is a plus 9.4% increase compared to 2019. On the next slide, you can see the same position trend for EBITDA. which highlights the clear improvement in the profitability of the businesses. EBITDA amounted to 690 million euros, that is a doubling compared to last year and an increase of more than 70% compared to 2019. Margin resumed its solid growth and stood at 7.2% at year-end 21, representing a 300 basis points increase. To finish on this slide, let me remind you that in 2021 EBITDA included the contribution of UMG and Laguerrere for a total of €52 million. Going to slide 28, the performances by business units. You can see from the tables that all businesses contributed to the substantial improvement in EBITDA, notably thanks to the cost adjustment plan implemented during the pandemic and to recovery in business momentum in 2021. More specifically, Avas, Editis, and Ticketing were hit hard by the pandemic. But in 2021, we saw a strong rebound in these businesses and continued growth in Canal Plus profitability. We'll move to the operating cash flows, which followed the same strong trends. Our CSFO amounted to €748 million in 2021, That is a €1 million increase. This improvement is linked to the rebound of ticketing sales at Vivendi Village, as well as dividends received from Mediaset and UMG and the contribution of Prisma Media. Now let's take a closer look at the key performance metrics for each business unit, starting with Canal Plus on slide 31 and its subscriber base metrics. In 2021, Canal Plus continued the strong dynamic trend of increasing its subscriber base. There were 1.6 additional subscribers year on year, and Canal Plus reached a total of 23.7 million subscribers. Going deeper, the graph on the left breaks down the growth of the international subscriber base. After the successful integration of M7 in 2019, All zones continue to grow in 2021. African subscribers grew by 900,000, driven by the broadcasting of football championships Euro and Copa America this summer and the African Cup in December. The group is represented in more than 50 countries on three continents, Europe, Africa and Asia, and has a total international subscriber base of nearly 15 million, including 7 million in Africa. On the right, the subscriber portfolio in mainland France also showed a net growth of 373,000 subscribers over 12 months. This growth was driven by the success of OTT offers, the new commercial offer launched last September, and Canal Plus' ability to aggregate the best content and application on the market with, for example, Bainsport and Disney Plus, and more recently Starz Place and Paramount Plus. The latter service will be launched in France by the end of 2022. On the following slide, you can see that Canal Plus Group's profitability evolution. Canal Plus Group's EBITDA before restructuring cost exceeded 500 million euros despite the challenging bars effect as 2020 included savings from the cancellation of sporting events and film shooting during Q2 2020. Compared to 2019, EBITDA before structuring cost was up 15%. Turning to slide 34 that summarizes the financial result of Canal+. In France, revenues were up slightly, plus 2.9%, thanks to Free TV, which was benefiting from the catching up of the advertising market. Driven by the growth in the subscriber base I just commented on, International revenues now represent nearly 40% of the group's revenues compared to 34% two years ago. Studio Canal had a very good year with revenue up by 30%, notably driven by international activities which represent around 75% of its sales. The steady growth in the top line and the internationalization of activities is accompanied by an increase in profitability. Moving to slide 36 with AVAS, our communication business. In 2021, AVAS posted a record organic growth at plus 10.4% after a decrease of 9.9% in 2020. As you can see, organic growth was strong throughout 2021. In the fourth quarter alone, growth reached plus 9.3% despite a less favorable comparison basis. And if we compare 2021 net revenues to those in 2019, the third and fourth quarters of 2021 exceeded the 2019 levels. As you can see on this next slide, Avas has a balanced portfolio. In terms of sectors, Avas has a strong and leading global position in healthcare and wellness. The rest of the portfolio is evenly spread. In 2021, AVAS brought in a record level of new business, with creatives notably winning Volkswagen, Cox, and SNCF. In media, AVAS won Dolce & Gabbana, De Beers, and Unilever. And in healthcare communication, New York Presbyterian, MyAvent, and Ibsen budgets were won by the teams. In 2021, Avas fully benefited from the major transformation work carried out in 2020. On the business side, Avas experienced a strong commercial momentum thanks to the attraction of new talent and new offers. On the cost side, Avas delivered a cost adjustment plan that enabled to be more efficient. As a result, as the graph shows, Avas profitability in 2021 reached 10.7% a higher level than in 2019, and EBITDA amounted to 239 million euros, almost doubling year-on-year. We end the Avas section with slide 38, which shows its key figures. 2021 proved to be a record year for Avas in terms of both new client wins and creative awards. Going to slide 41, on Editis. in 2021, and it has achieved record performance. Its sales mounted to 856 million euros, up 18% versus 2020, and 17% versus 2019, which is the reference year before the pandemic. As demonstrated on the chart, you can also note the strong seasonality experience in H2, which is still much stronger than H1, driven by the usual release of many titles in the fall, and Substantial Christmas Sales. EDT's performance is all the more remarkable given that 2021 was up against high H2 2020 comparables. As a reminder, H2 2020 included a favorable impact from the school reform and the rebound linked into the end of the lockdown. And on slide 42, you can find our customary table of key figures. Let me now give you the relevant information for smaller consolidated assets. Prisma Media joined Vivendi last May 31st and we can say that its integration was successful. For Gameloft, 2021 was a positive turning point with plus 15% growth margin growth. Similarly, in 2021, Vivendi Village benefited from the strong recovery in ticket sales at CTK. Village revenues exceeded €100 million in 2021, compared with €40 million in 2020. Finally, new initiatives included the Dailymotion platform and GVA. Dailymotion is currently the leading French video platform. GVA is Vivendi's subsidiary dedicated to providing broadband internet access under the Canalbox brand. It's currently present in six African countries. Total sales for new initiatives reached €89 million in 2021, an increase of 37,000 compared to 2020. This slide presents a more detailed overview of the activities and performance of Prisma Media. This table notably provides Prisma Media's pro forma key figures over a 12-month period for illustrative purposes. Advertising revenues represent 37% of total revenues, up 21% driven by digital and EBITDA doubled to 30 million euros thanks to improvement in operating performance and a decrease in restructuring charges. We can safely say that Prisma has been successfully integrated. It has good prospects and improved profitability thanks to cost control starting within its first year of integration. On the next slide, Let me focus on a key strategic aspect of Prisma Media's development. Fully committed to the digitalization of the media, Prisma Media continues its transition by developing its digital offer and strongly growing digital advertising revenue. Moving to Gameloft's main financial indicators on slide 47, where we can clearly see the turnaround in 2021. The growth margin increased by 15% to €189 million in 2021. The success of the new games released at the end of 2021 of the advertising business, as well as the effect of the transformation plan and cost control, have enabled Gameloft to return progressively to profitability, as you can see on the chart on the right-hand side. The next few slides concern the statutory accounts for Vivendi SE, the parent company of the group. Earnings of the parent amounted to 31.5 billion euros. As you can see, there is a gap between these figures and those reported in the consolidated earnings. This is linked to the recognition in equity of the capital gains of the sales of minority interest in UMG in the consolidated accounts. and there is also a difference in the valuation methods applied to UMG. The statutory earnings are important to consider as they are the ones used to determine the amount of the dividend as shown in the next slide. The chart in the box presents the accounting translation of the distribution of UMG shares as approved by the shareholders in June 2021. It is broken down in two parts. The special dividend of 5.3 billion paid out of the 2020 earnings not allocated to ordinary dividends and retained earnings carried over the prior years, and an additional 22.1 billion in the form of a special interim dividend paid out of Vivendi's SE's 2021 earnings. Out of 2021 statutory earnings of €31.5 billion, there remains distributable earnings of €9.4 billion. On this basis, Vivendi's management board decided to propose to shareholders the payment of an ordinary dividend in cash of €0.25 per share. Overall, with respect to 2021, Vivendi's shareholders who kept the EMG shares they received in September will have received an aggregate dividend of €0.65 per share compared to €0.60 per share with respect to 2020. The 2021 amount is comprised of the dividend of €0.25 per share paid by Vivendi and a total dividend of €0.40 per share paid in two instalments of €0.20 each by UMG. This concludes the presentation of our 2021 results, which reflect the outstanding performances of our businesses on our strong financial position. At our general meeting on April 25, the shareholders will notably be asked to approve an ordinary dividend of €0.25 per share, the renewal of the shares buyback program within a limit of 10% of share capital and of the authorization for an OPRA of up to 50% of share capital and the nomination of Mrs. Maude Fontenoy to the supervisory board. We will also release our Q1 revenues on April 25 before market. Thank you very much for your attention and we are now ready to take your questions.

Thank you so much. And as a reminder, if you would like to ask questions on today's call, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. You'll then be advised when you can ask your question. Again, it is Star 1 on your telephone keypad. The first question is coming from the line of Lisa Yang from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now unmuted and may now go ahead.

Good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. So firstly, it's great to see the profitability of the other businesses improving meaningfully. I think in H2, you almost break even. I think you had 20 million of loss. Do you think that's sustainable into 2022 if we take all those other businesses, we should get to even break even or positive EBITDA for 2022? That's the first question. The second question is on Canal+. Again, great turnaround there. The French business was up 3% in 2021. I'm just wondering how much of that is driven by the sub-licensing deal with Altice and also maybe the strength of the advertising rebound just so we can understand the underlying growth. And what do you see as a new normal for that business in terms of growth going forward? Is that like 1% or 2%? Is that sustainable? And the third question is on the buyback. I think last time you bought shares was at the end of November. So obviously, given where the share price is today, what are your thoughts in terms of resuming the share buyback and the potential timing of that? I think you still have 450 million shares to buy before the AGM. These are my questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Lisa, for your question. We have not provided guidance on EBITDA for 2022 as you have seen. This is our general policy not to provide EBITDA for the businesses, but we can say that it will obviously depend on the evolution of the general economy and the situation in general in the world, but we are I would say quite confident on the evolution of our main businesses, mainly because I think that during the pandemic we have taken the appropriate measures in terms of savings and cost control and organization, and this leads clearly to an improvement that we have seen in 2021 in the profitability of different businesses. For Canal+, you have different questions regarding Canal+. We can say that PTV France revenues were flat, excluding the sub-licensing revenues starting in H2, and we would have something which would be more or less flat. We will have a good impact of that also in 2022 as this sub-license continues in 2022. Generally speaking, the trend is good for Canal+. I don't know what will be the growth, but it depends directly on the trend in the subscription base, and you have seen that we have had growth in the subscription base both at the international Part of Canal Plus and also in France. For the buyback, you know that we will run and our current program will be continued until May 6, 2022 for the remaining balance of of the shares which have not yet been bought. Obviously, we report each day to the IMF the shares that we buy back when we buy back shares. So there is a remaining balance, I believe, of something like 45.1 million shares to be bought. This is 4.1% of the share capital. And as you imagine, we have a price limit to buy back shares. And when there are some bad news on the market and when we see a decrease in the stock price, we benefit of that to buy back shares. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for your question. The next question is coming from the line of Adrian de Saint-Havier from Bank of America. Your mind is now unmuted and now go ahead.

Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone. So maybe to follow up on the questions that were asked before. So you've set a new ceiling for the buyback at 16 euros. I think currently you're not actually buying shares above 11. So can you tell us a bit more where you consider the right level to be for acquiring shares? Is it conceivable that you actually buy shares between a share price of 11 and 16? That's the first question. The second question is if you could say whether or not you consider Vivendi to be a long-term holder of Universal Music Group and if there's a level at which you could exit. And then thirdly, you're currently trying to build a book publishing business with Edities and the acquisition of Lagunera. I was just wondering if you could comment as to why you think book publishing is an attractive industry and whether or not you think that the overall valuation of publishing for you can mirror what you've done with UMG over time. Thank you.

I will take the first one and Arnaud will take the second answer. Well, we have set a price of €16 per share for the buyback program beginning after the current price. So it begins in December and we have taken very simply this figure of 16 euros because it is based on a multi-criteria analysis but it corresponds to the consensus of target price of the analyst. So this is why we have chosen this figure. We prefer to buy back shares when the market is low and you have seen that we have bought recently some shares and this will be a report every day to the Autorité des Marchés Financiers when we buy back shares. Arnaud?

So on your second question, as you know, we took the commitment to keep the stake in Universal Music Group till early 2023. As far as the short term, we are happy about the numbers which have been released last week. You know that we think that Universal Music Group is a company that is going to go from strength to strength and the numbers which have been disclosed are a true illustration of what we do think about the business. So that's as regarded to Universal Music Group. Now your question about book publishing. I do remember the comments which were made by some of the people following the Vivendi stock when we bought Editis. And we said at the time that we thought that was an industry which had some growth perspective and which was very consistent within the strategic Vivendi roadmap. Well, with the benefit of our insights, I'm happy to say that the numbers that we have shared with you Not only 2021 compared to 2020, which was a very peculiar year due to the pandemic, but compared to 2019, it's proving us right. It's proving us right because we are optimistic about the prospect of the industry. We have seen a great growth of the industry in France in 2021 with an average growth of the industry 21%. In France, it's more than 4 billion market publishing in the different category. And we are thrilled about the perspective to move on to the next step for us, which we shared with you two years ago, which is to take the opportunity to build a worldwide player. And this is exactly what we are intending to do as regard to Lagardère. So not only we are bullish as regards to the perspective of the book publishing industry, We do also see an opportunity to accelerate all the common projects within the group. And I'm happy to report that as far as we speak, we've got multiple initiatives alongside the different business line across the group of initiatives based on creative ideas coming from books. So currently you've got, for instance, within Studio Canal, more than 10 projects based on film production, TV series production, which are based on the creative positioning, which was in a French novel. We're very happy to see that some of our authors are getting into the production of theater and so on and so forth. I'm not going to open a list of the prevails, but we do see those kind of a relationship between the different line of business being part of our strategy. So we think that as regarded to this part of our operation. As we like to say, the best is yet to come.

Thank you so much for your question. And the next question is coming from the line of Omar Sheikh from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now unmuted and may now go ahead.

Thank you very much and good evening, everyone. I just got a couple of questions, if I may. If I could maybe start, Arnaud, with the long-term strategy for the group, if possible. You mentioned your prepared remarks, and you talked a number of times in the Q&A also about working together as an integrated industrial group. So I just want to clarify, does that apply to the consolidated businesses only, or does that also include the portfolio of listed shares? Because I guess when you look through the list of listed shares that you currently own, there are potentially opportunities for you to work together with the consolidated businesses. I think you could maybe just talk a little bit about whether you can see any synergies from the shares that you own. That's the first question. And I guess related to that and following up on perhaps Adrian's question just now, can we just clarify whether you would anticipate continuing to own UMG shares beyond early 2023? That's the second question. And then thirdly, I just want to maybe circle back on Ukraine if possible. I know it's early and I'm sure it's not possible to quantify at this point, but could you talk about where we might potentially anticipate some impact on your business from, for example, the spike that we're seeing commodity prices. Is that just going to be in the advertising-related part of your business, so Havas and Canal Plus maybe, or could it be elsewhere as well? If you could give us some color on that, that would be very helpful. Thank you very much.

So thank you, Omar, for your question. So point number one, we do see those collaboration between the different operation, not only within our fully owned operation, but also in initiatives as regarded to some partners we are working on. So if you take, for instance, Banijian Demolition, we've got in terms of production different initiatives. They are producing a few programs for our networks within the Canada Please group and so on and so forth. If you take the relationship with Telefonica, with Telefonica we've got different initiatives as regarded to the synergies that we can see between Telefonica and PRISA because as you know within PRISA Telefonica is also a shareholder and in the digital transformation of the company, we want to be able to push forward the competitive advantage based to the common vision and align the strategies that we want to implement. If you take, obviously, Telecom Italia. At Telecom Italia, we are an industrial shareholder. We do see interesting opportunities. We have started to develop some common projects with Telecom Italia, and again, This industrial status that we want to push forward just incentivize in the way we worked with the different teams within companies where we have a stake to push all potential common initiatives to create value for both partners. That's on your first question on UMG. We know what is the situation as of today. There is no a decision in any shape or form taken as regard to the mid to long term position, we keep all potential options open. And then last but not least, and I will hand over to Hervé, as regard to this dramatic situation in Ukraine, based on the operation for business reason and the level of business we generate, it's no impact per se in the group. But obviously, what it does create in terms of impact at macroeconomic or microeconomic in our business, well, we do see currently some impacts that we have already anticipate in, for instance, paper price. because in the book publishing or edities we have obviously the impact of this increase of paper but we are in a good position because we've got the size and we've got the negotiating power which protect us from the short-term impact but we have to manage the uncertainty around this in terms of the impact on the advertising market we will manage and as we've seen in the past You have seen the results the last year and this year of Avas. Avas is an extraordinarily agile company and taking benefit from a growth environment as regarded to the numbers and the capacity to be the best partner for our clients in terms of riding through growing environment. But at the same time, when the times are getting tougher, we adjust our operations to be able to ride through the storms. So sorry if I can't be any more specific, but obviously we are monitoring the consequences of what's currently happened on a day-to-day basis and in our risk management process and structure and also in terms of the way we plan for operations. We take a very cautious position and we plan for the different scenario to be able to ride from through efficiently through those uncertain times. But, Hervé, do you want to add something?

No, no, I fully agree with what you just said. The direct impact on our figures is very limited because the revenues in Ukraine and Russia are very limited, less than 0.1% of the total revenues of the group. But we have people working in Ukraine, so we are very... Thank you so much for your question. The next question is coming from the line of Julian Rock from Barclays. Julian, your line is now unmuted. I'm going to now go ahead.

My first question is on the buyback. You were asked by Lisa and Adrien whether you'd buy back above 11 and your answer was we prefer to buy low and also every time we buy it goes on the AMF website. So last week for the first time since November, you actually proceeded with a buyback, but below 11. Since then, on the day where the share price was above 11, have you bought any shares or not? That's my first question. The second one is when do you think you can break even on Vivendi Village, your new initiative? I know you told Lisa you were not giving a full year 22. EBITDA guidance, but those businesses have never made money. So curious to know whether they will lose money forever or not. These are my two questions. Thank you.

For the buyback, it would be very simple for you to look at our disclosure and to understand that we bought shares back when the price is under 11 euros. So this was the case in the recent past. And I think this is a good result to have today if the stock price, general condition of the market declines. And you have seen many volatility in the very some past. So with such a volatility, we can buy when the stock is particularly low. And this is a good thing in my view. And we'll report regularly the shares we buy back. On the breakeven of Vivendi Village and new initiatives, I would say for Vivendi Village, I believe that it will be directly linked to the ticketing activity and the live activities in festivals in all the territories where Vivendi Village is. and also L'Olympia. All those businesses were largely hit by the pandemic and we believe that in 2022 we will be in a much better situation for Vivendi Village. For GVR, we are on a more long-term view, I would say, and we do believe that we create a lot of value both at GVR and Dailymotion. and that we will be breakeven soon. Maybe it will take a little more time at Vivendi Village, but we have very good hopes to create value with those two businesses in the coming years.

Thank you for your question. And the next question is coming from the line of Richard Airy from UBS. Your line is now unmuted. I'm going to go ahead.

Yeah, no, I have a number of questions, if possible. Just the first one, just as we think about the book publishing business and we look at Editus and La Gardere together, can you talk through maybe potential synergies that may come out of that by putting these businesses together, you know, over the medium term and how we should think about that? That would be the first question. The second question is, is that can you give us an update on Telecom Italia? and what your position is there, and obviously that would be helpful. The third question is just on Canal. I know you haven't really talked about this historically. Is there any way that you can give us some more color on the profitability between Mailum France and the international assets so we can just get a sense in terms of where the property lies within Canal? That would be great. Thanks.

Thank you. So on the book publishing and the synergies, well, the intention and the strategic vision is to build a worldwide player and to bring together the operation. As regard to the current situation beside the tender offer process, we have the antitrust process. We're having daily interaction with Brussels. And obviously there are going to be some remedies that will have to be applied in a few months' time after we have the conclusion of the work that we are currently doing with the antitrust authority. But as soon as we are in a position to be able to proceed with the strategic plan and bringing together the business or part of the business, Well, obviously, you've got some synergies, which is synergies based on paper price, distribution cost, relationship with a key partner on the strategic level. Obviously, when you've got a global reach, you have the possibility to engage with author and to provide them with a level of service which is much greater than when you are only a local player. So there are substantial common initiative that in due time When we are in a position to complete the transaction with the blessing of the antitrust authority, we'll get the opportunity to implement the synergies and we'll be obviously very happy to share more in detail the level of those synergies. While the situation on Telecom Italia is a situation where There has been the number released for 2021 with the level of impairments. Obviously, it's a kind of, you know, back to square one as regard to the situation. The impairment is a combination of some fiscal consequences, but also of a situation of a company that lost control from the previous team. And the good thing as regard to the future is that now there is a leader, Pietro Labriola, who has built a team and that has presented to the board a plan which is fully backed by Vivendi. The new plan is grounded in reality. It should allow the domestic activities to bounce back and bring out intrinsic value of Telecom Italia assets It's a combination of capacity to engage as regard to the management of the revenues in a more articulated and a more, I would say, professional way to be able to develop the ARPU in the different parts of the business. But also, it's the capacity to work on the supply chain and the cost base. And I do see the current plan as grounded in reality. And we do think that, again, I'm repeating myself, we do see Telecom Italia as under the new leadership in a position to be able to, at last, being in a position to deliver on its promises and to get to a value which is much higher than the current share price, obviously, and which, obviously, will be able to bring back the company where it should be. Obviously, there are many midterm options strategically, which Pietro Labriola and his team is working on. It depends on the capacity to engage with potential partners in the Italian market. We're still waiting for more commitment from those partners, but as Vivendi, obviously, we are currently keeping all potential options open as regards to what we may be doing in the future. But in the end, and as far as we're concerned, the situation is when you see its track record in Brazil, which has been outstanding, and the capacity to navigate in terms of operation in a quite complex market, the latest situation being the situation and what is currently happening that is going to bring market repair and the possibility really to open a new chapter of the I'm expecting Pietro's touch to get the same impact in Italy, and that's the reason why, as a long-term investor in a country which is strategic for us and based on the, I would say, affectio societatis that is currently existing between Vivendi and Italy and the different players, be it the regulators, the governments, and other key players in the industry, I want to remain pragmatically optimistic as regards to the point that we come to a new beginning and this is what I'm sure the team and Pietro is going to deliver. And obviously I'm expecting a share price to bounce back and to be at the level of what is going to be the performance delivered by the team in this new chapter. That's for Telecom Italia and maybe I'm going to hand over to you, Hervé, for the third question.

Yes, for the profitability on Canal+, We do not disclose the split between the profitability of international activities and in mainland France for Canal+, but if you want me to give you some color on that, as you asked, it's easy to say and to understand that the profitability is much better at the international level of activities than in France. In international activities, we are in a growing part of the business. There is a lot of work which is done in cost optimization and IT. I think that we can see in the future further improvement in the profitability in this part of the business. In France, it's much more complicated. Even teams have done a great job in terms of efficiency, of cost control, of cost reduction. Constraints in France which make very difficult to be profitable in this part of the business. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your question. The next question is coming from the line of Mathieu Walker from Credit Suisse. Your line is unmuted. I'm going to go ahead.

Hi, thanks a lot for taking the call. I've got two questions, please. Are you expecting a higher, given the H2 performance, are you expecting a higher margin for HAVAS in 22 compared to 21? And then the second question is, you've had the OPERA authorization for a while. Can you just sort of discuss what are the sort of triggers or potential triggers for, you know, for using the OPERA? Thank you.

Well, we have this authorization on OPRA. We have this authorization, which has been given last year by the shareholders, and there is no specific decision taken yet to make on OPRA or not. And the board will discuss that later. And obviously, if there is a decision taken, it will be publicly announced at that time. For Havas, you have seen a great improvement in the margin at Havas in 2021. I know very well this business and I assure you that when there is a cost reduction program, you have a very good reactivity in terms of profitability at cost reduction at Havas. And we believe that our ambition is to continue to increase Thank you so much. The next question is coming from the line of Connor O'Shea from Kepler. You're now unmuted. I'm going to go ahead.

Yes, thank you. Good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. First of all, just a quick question to come back on the OPERA. Again, LV, you mentioned that it would be submitted to the shareholders at the AGM. Can you confirm, is that again for 50%, up to 50% of the share capital or 25%? And also, just regarding the maximum buyback price, I think you're setting at 16%. So I think it's a big change from the previous sort of policy of setting it quite close to the share price, so the current share price. So can you give us your thinking there as to why there's such a potential spread between that and the current share price and where you are currently prepared to buy back shares? And then second question on editors, could you just explain what was driving the acceleration in organic growth in Q4? versus the previous quarter had understood that the education part of the business was not benefiting from any reforms and the fiction part of the business was facing tough comps coming out of lockdowns and so on. So just wondering what was happening there. And then just a final question, just on the holding company costs for the full year, they were much lower than in the previous years. Is 110 million a good base to forecast for next year, or were there some sort of exceptional offsets holding that number down? Thank you.

To take those questions necessarily in the same order, for the holding company, the costs this year were positively impacted by some effect on provisions on pensions, we can say. So unfortunately, we can expect for next year more the level of 2019 than 2020 than 2021. For the OPRA, yes, it is 50% of the solution is on 50%. And for the price and the buyback, we were with something in the range of 29 euros per share last year. So we decreased that. considering that we have made the distribution of UMG. And as this authorization is valid for 18 months, we believe that we have to take some flexibility, I would say, in this result. For ADTs on the Q4, I think we have made very good performances in Q4, especially in the distribution part of the business At Editis, for example, we had the distribution of the Prix Goncourt, La Plus Secrète Mémoire des Hommes by M. Bungard, and we had also in the top three illustrated books. So we had very good books to distribute at the end of the year in the fourth quarter, and this explains a part of the excellent performance of Editis.

And also, if I can add, this performance in the market, which has grown, because as mentioned previously in one of my answers, there is a new appetite for books. So you've got a market which is a market which is growing quarter after quarter, and we're benefiting from this global good health of the book publishing industry. In France also, triggered by what is so-called Passe Culture, which is an amount of money provided for young people to be spent in culture product consumption and part of this usage has, I would say, stimulated the growth of the market in the fourth quarter.

Okay, the next question is coming from the line of Silvia Cuneo from Deutsche Bank and this is the final question in the queue. Silvia, you may now go ahead.

Thank you and good evening everyone. My first question is on the group leverage in the medium term. Can you please share any thoughts on how the group leverage as well as the liquidity profile would change once you take on the larger debt? and whether you still think that you would have room for further M&A. Then second question is on AVAS. Can you please discuss your thoughts about the organic growth outlook for 2022, considering agency peers that have reported so far pointed to somewhere around 4 to 5%? And then maybe just a final quick one on Canal+, with Paramount Plus set to launch in France later this year as part of a bundle with Canal. Can you please talk about the potential positive impact of this partnership in terms of, for example, ability to raise prices or attract and retain subscribers in France? Thank you.

To take your question for Canal Plus and Paramount, it's not possible to give any precise guidance on the additional subscribers we have with that bundle, but it is to show that we continue to offer the best possible content to the subscribers at Canal Plus and give them all the possibility to see and to have bundles of contents with different offers and to have their Canal Plus and My Canal platform as a possibility to see a lot of programs even done by other partners, I would say. For AVAS, for the organic growth, we do not give any guidance on organic growth at AVAS. I just can tell that the beginning of the year is very encouraging and that we have won a lot of new clients at the end of 2021 which have normally a good positive impact on the revenues the following year, I would say. We are optimistic for Avas this year. It will obviously depend on the economic general situation in the world. in the coming months. For your question regarding the debt, we believe that we have today a very appropriate level, I would say, of debt. We do not intend to issue new debt. We have enough cash at the balance sheet and enough liquid assets to reimburse very easily the level of the of the debt. Generally speaking, on the mid-term, I would say we have to keep an equilibrium between the debt and the EBITDA, which is in the range of 2 times to 2.5 times is fair, but we are largely below that in terms of net debt today. Thank you.

Thank you for your questions, everyone. And the Q&A is now closed. I'd like to hand you back over to your host to conclude today's call.

Well, I would like to say a word, if possible. I think I would like to put the release this evening in the context of previous comments. There was a question as regard to what is going to happen to Vivendi post-UMG operation. I guess that the level of performance that we have disclosed on 2021 is a good base, a good foundation to be able to be on a solid ground, to be able to write the story that is based on the strategy that we, Yannick Bolloré and the management board want to write in the future. We have shown in every of our operation growth We have growth in our revenue base. We have growth in our epitaph. And as regards to what Vivendi stands for post-UMG, we are this evening beginning a new journey which shows that the strategy is proving to be right and delivering perspective on a solid foundation. So I hope that this is something that will be taken as a kind of learning from this results disclosure. So thank you for being there. Thank you for your question, your attention and very much looking forward to see you on the next results presentation. Hervé?

Thank you very much to everybody and have a nice evening. Bye bye.

Thank you everyone for joining us on today's call. You may now disconnect your handsets. House, please stay connected.