Brookfield Finance Inc. 4.50% P Price & Performance (BNJ)

Good morning, and welcome to Banijay Group's 2024 full year results webcast. This is Karolyn Coen, Head of Investor Relations. Before we start, let me draw your attention to the disclaimer on Slide two. I also want to remind you that this presentation is available on the company's web site and a recording of this call will be accessible in the coming days. [indiscernible] Your speakers today are Francois Rielly, our CEO and CFO, Sophie Curing Seclaire. First, Francois will present our key financial and business highlights for the full year. Sophie will then cover the results in more detail before Francois provide some concluding remarks and then we'll open up the call for questions. Over to you, Francois. Thank you, Carol. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for this presentation. [indiscernible] As you may have seen in our release, 2024 was a very strong year for Banijay Group. Double digit revenue and organic adjusted EBITDA growth. Beating guidance. Content production and distribution performance was solid in a challenging market with a strong finish to the year thanks to major show deliveries in Q4 as expected. [indiscernible] contribution from streaming clients is improving every year and is now well over 20% in revenue In live events, 2024 was very active in terms of acquisitions, as we continued to consolidate the market and enrich our global offering.

We Online sports betting and gaming results were outstanding in 2024, with market share gains across all activities and geographies. Finally, our leverage is in line with our mid term guidance, While we also successfully repriced and refinanced much of our debt, with maturities extending now from 2028 to 02/1932. We will also come back in this presentation on the results of the three years of public reporting 2022, 2023, 2024, as we believe it illustrates the midterm performance of Banijay Group and demonstrate that 2024 was a great year for us but not [indiscernible] isolated one. So look looking now at our key figures for the full year, we delivered record revenues and profitability in 2024 outperforming every metric. Group revenue is [indiscernible] point eight billion euros up almost 11% year on year. [indiscernible] Adjusted EBITDA reached €900,000,000 while adjusted net income was up almost 30% to EUR418 million. Adjusted EBITDA up by over 20%. We maintained a high level of cash conversion at 83%, and reduced our leverage to other three times. Which I call it is our midterm outlook on this metric. [indiscernible] line with the previous years and our guidance of at least a third of adjusted net income, we are proposing a dividend of $0.35 per share which is a 35% payout ratio. [indiscernible] move to business highlights for 2024, now starting with our content production business.

In our Content Production business, we are, as you know, the number one TV processor in the world. But we are always moving forward and innovating. In three years, we doubled our revenues with global streamers, which makes us the number one content provider for these platforms globally. With in 2024 the launch of 88 original shows with streamers, which is ahead of anyone in the industry. Every year, our ability to create new shows is unmatched. Over two fifty new non scripted shows and seventeen thousand hours of content were produced in 2024. People usually think of us as the global leader for unscripted shows, which is of course true. But we are also the number one European producer for scripted content and 2024 has been a very successful year in terms of our audience and which is the most important for us, also our The scripted content is becoming more and more central in our relationships with global streamers. Just a few examples. Cultrattuya is Prime Video's biggest ever international original launch. Like water for chocolate was the number one Spanish language content on HBO Max. And in Italy, we created three out of the top five global scripted titles on Netflix.

The scripted business is also like the scripted one, a repeat business. With returning premium scripted titles including second seasons for SCS Rogue Heroes and Marie Antoinette, while their first seasons have already been sold to one hundred and eighty and one hundred and forty nine territories respectively. Our scripted activity can also rely like the unscripted business on long lasting breads. [indiscernible] and we are preparing for its comeback as a movie on Netflix in 2025. [indiscernible] We are also building new brands with, for example, House of Guinness, also in preparation on Netflix. [indiscernible] quality of our scripted business is very strong, which is reflected in both record audience figures and recognition on the international awards circuits. These elements ultimately drive the distribution revenues like for SAS radios and Bayern Internet, for example, renewals and customer confidence in what we do and is also rewarded by many international awards. On the distribution side, we are also the number one studio worldwide for global format launches with six shows in the top 20 traveling TV formats and six in the top 20 new formats. I think it's important to underline that the number of shopping formats is increasing is always increasing.

And it has increased by 33% in the past four years. So we continue to successfully capitalize on our iconic super brands through new adaptations and spin offs. In parallel, we are also creating and nurturing the super brands of tomorrow like the Never Ever Met the number one original series on ad supported cable in The U. S. And hopefully, building the band, for example, on Netflix in The U. K, which should be an important launch in 2025. In terms of using technology in our production and distribution business, we are currently investing in AI tools. To leverage and maximize value from our Piguette assets which is our content catalog. [indiscernible] is why we have started a cloud migration process in partnership with Pace and AWS supported by the integration of new AI [indiscernible] [indiscernible] This is the largest cloud migration in the industry. This will create a new unified global content hub that connects our worldwide production [indiscernible] and offers a huge range of new features and capabilities. These changes will transform workflow from [indiscernible] freeing up their time to focus on creative work but we also see great potential in this project to maximize monetization of our global IP.

Reduce production costs and create long term value for the group. This year, the group continued as I mentioned earlier, its consolidation strategy and reaching its catalog of IP via targeted acquisitions. In Content Production and Distribution, [indiscernible] which complements our rights on the Peaky Blinders. As well as proceeds, the French entertainment production company and producer of the animation franchise once upon a time. In these two cases, it's about IPs, brands that we can exploit in many ways. Through our HyperNET Media Group, GV with Eva Longoria, we also acquired The U. S. Scripted production company Lo Nations, targets the Latin American segment. [indiscernible] In Live Events, the acquisition has been also very active. This January, Jonathan, twenty twenty five, that is the first date of 2025, we acquired Logi the French producer of immersive life experiences and creator of Luminetance, which combines complex architecture with video mapping, light and classical music to create unforgettable out of home experiences in churches, Loci sold 380,000 tickets in France in 2024, and with the support of Banijay teams on the ground in the different countries, It's extending its offering globally. And currently, to Symbolic Monument in Spain and Germany. Finally, the independence has been further consolidating its leadership in the events and communication market for the global fashion and luxury industry with six strategic bolt on acquisitions in 2024, including, for example, Le Cierpages, which is an iconic brand in the fashion industry.

The independent is more than ever perfectly positioned to help global luxury and fashion brands in their events and experiential marketing. And in July, we increased our stake in The Netherlands to 1414%. And as you know, we had the option to become the majority shareholder next year. So [indiscernible] Moving now to Banijay Gaming. Which had an outstanding year once again. Thanks to very proactive strategy. Announcements to our offer drove a significant increase in unique active player And if you look up often to our presentation, you know that I always mentioned that this is the most important KPI. This is a KPI which is reflecting the commercial development and our goal to increase the dollar of player. So UIPs are up 37% year on year And if we look back in three years, the number of UIPs [indiscernible] doubled. To reach 1,900,000 users per month. Market share gains across all activities and geographies resulted in revenue growth of 45%, was that in a fully regulated market [indiscernible] This year, we benefited from a very busy calendar of Biannual and Quadruinol events, like UEFA Euro twenty twenty four. And to a lesser extent, the summer Olympic and Paralympic Games here in Paris which drove record breaking sports betting volume.

It was also a very active year for recurring events boosted in particular by the new Champions League format which is proving to be very exciting for the fans. Our sports betting business is very much linked to the growing appetite for sports content and Betelik is an important partner for major sports leagues and associates in our different geographies. [indiscernible] In 2025, there won't be any Euro World Cup, but there will be the first edition of the Fit five Club World Cup in June. So it's a new event. That can be also interesting. And as I mentioned, the Chefgen fleet has been it's been very important for the football fan. As a reminder, Online Sports Betting and Gaming is a tech driven business. And this is very important. And this is also a very important commercial tool. To give you an example, which is a 2025 example, in January, during the final round of the Champions first part. There were 18 simultaneous games And this day was we saw the highest volume ever for our platform, and it was also the case for the other platform. We exceeded the volumes of our previous record, which was the twenty twenty two World Cup final.

And among the different platforms, our platform was the only one to be available at any time for the players. Which means that we attracted a lot of new players actually just 19,000 new players in just one day. Which is of course our record. [indiscernible] because also first because, of course, our brand is attractive, but also because our tech was the most efficient during this day. I think it's a very telling element to explain how the quality of our tech explains our overperformance and our capital our market share gains year after year quarter after quarter. This day, in January, we were the number two free app downloaded in France just after Bipzig And this was the week when Deep Creek was delivered. We were ahead of Chassis Piki. So we have been very active and we are always very active on improving our tech. And we have delivered in twenty twenty four a new version of Bedpix Sportsbook app, which proved to be very efficient and very attractive for our clients. With a cutting edge user interface two fifty innovative new bets [indiscernible] as well as personalization tools for enhanced player experience. In December, an important milestone for us the group also launched a new proprietary poker platform.

We were using an external platform for poker and we developed in house proprietary poker platform using the latest technologies with the aim of increasing payer engagement through an enhanced offering and platform adaptability. [indiscernible] the figures are not so much in 2024 because we launched it in December, but we are very happy with the launch and the benefits we'll be seeing in 2025. And it's a new, I would say, demonstration of our capacity to improve constantly. [indiscernible] That's all from me for now. I'll be back at the end with some closing remarks before we open the line for questions. Over to you, Sophie.

Thank you, Francois.

So let's start with group revenue for the full year. Where we delivered 10.9% growth at constant exchange rates. To reach €4,800,000,000 was further acceleration in Q4 with 14.8% revenue growth as we already mentioned, [indiscernible] the previous calls. Thanks to this growth in revenues and our contained expense, we can note a positive CSR effect leading to adjusted EBITDA growth of 21.80.6%, sorry, at constant exchange rate. We also saw 160 basis point improvement in our adjusted EBITDA margin to 18.7% which can also be explained by the greater country At the group level, total external and personnel expense rose by 8.2% driven by higher sports betting taxes and marketing expense at Banijay Gaming, less than revenue growth.

Personal expense decreased slightly at Bene G Entertainment level thanks to an improvement in margins in both production and distribution driven by the cost saving efforts in selected geographies. Looking next at our P and L. Altip expense were down slightly and are in line with the group's [indiscernible] That this will average around 10% of adjusted EBITDA over the duration of the incentive plan. The increase in depreciation and amortization amortization is driven by greater recoupment of third party distribution advance in our content production and distribution business. The other finance costs mainly include the change in the fair value of financial instruments including hedging, or mainly put and earn out debt and currency losses and gains. [indiscernible] Increase in income tax expense is driven by bad clicks strong results over the period. As a result of the above, adjusted net income rose by 29.3% to €418,000,000 Let's go now to results by business. Starting with content production, distribution and live events. Where revenue was up slightly at constant exchange rate. The traditional seasonality pattern and bias [indiscernible] H2 was amplified in 2024 as already underlined in recent quarters on both content production and distribution which resulted in 6.7% growth for the last quarter. [indiscernible] The significant number of major strategic deliveries in Q4 resulted in 6.2% growth in content production for the last quarter.

This seasonality was also strong in our percent in Q4 driven by higher sales of third party finished tapes, and sales of Dinos scriptive production. [indiscernible] In live events, the jump in revenues reflects robust growth from Bram Licensing and the full year contribution from Ballet Shwanda Studio, which has been included in both financial statements since Q4 twenty twenty three.

Let's look at content production and distribution earnings and cash flow next. Adjusted EBITDA was up 6.6% at constant exchange rates a good result in a challenging market environment and despite softer demand for live shows in Saudi Arabia. This was driven by our solid revenue performance as well as our continued efforts to optimize our cost structure by implementing more lean structures in countries such as The U. S. UK and Germany. CapEx increased slightly due to an increase in distribution, IFC at Banagher Rice.

The change in working capital is attributable primarily to a higher level of scripted production in 2025. [indiscernible] increase in income tax paid reflects the balance consolidation as 100% of income tax due in Saudi Arabia relating to fiscal year twenty twenty three has been paid early twenty twenty four. Adjusted free cash flow conversion was 77%. Next, let's look at online sports thanks to the busy sports calendar that Francois has already mentioned. Revenue was up 45.4% at constant exchange rates with strong growth across all divisions. Sportsbook's strong performance was driven by continued continued unique active player growth of 37% compared to 2023, as well as a new version of the Bechtliq [indiscernible] enriched the user experience. [indiscernible] poker and turf, there was also strong momentum in all geographies thanks to new games products and features. And in December, we launched a new proprietary poker platform as Francois already mentioned. Banagher Gaming continues to deliver very high profitability and free cash flow.

As you can see, adjusted EBITDA was up 49.6% at constant exchange rates, to €380,000,000 and adjusted free cash flow conversion remain. High at 91%. Adjusted EBITDA margin was at 80 basis points thanks to favorable spot results combined with an increase in betting volumes as well as a limited increase of personnel costs compared to revenues. The increase in CapEx is mainly due to a higher proportion of IT costs that were capitalized linked to the release of the last version of the Sportbook app and the launch of the new poker platforms.

Looking at cash flow generation, adjusted free cash flow at group level reached €745,000,000 This resulted in a cash conversion rate as to CapEx and lease payments of 83% in line with our guidance for the year.

The group's net debt stands at just under €2,600,000,000 The increase in net financial debt mainly reflects acquisitions, including the increased stake in the independence as well as dividends paid and interest. Exceptional items this year include the 80 payments by BetClick for the years 2018 to 2023. For an amount of €138,000,000 and and there were also additional FX impact on cash and debt. Overall, we continue to have a very strong cash position and significant undrawn secured credit lines. [indiscernible] This year, we also successfully refinanced much of our debt and maturities are now evenly spread out between 2028 and 2032. Our activity is shown on the slide, Overall, our average cost of debt in 2024 was 6.5%. That's all from me.

Will now hand back to Francois for some concluding remarks.

Just one word on that. Thanks for re pricing, the average cost of debt will be lower in 2025. Lower than 6%, I think, Sofia.

So thank you. Let's talk about our guidance and outlook for 2025. So in 2024, we improved once again everything that makes Banijay Group a global leader in the entertainment space. We delivered double digit growth with high level of profitability and high cash generation. We strengthened our leadership positions in all of what we do production, distribution, live, online bidding. And we demonstrated once again our capacity to act as a consolidator in fast growing segments of the market. We have now delivered three years of financial results previously since our 2022 We I want to take a moment to look back on what we have achieved We have consistently delivered results ahead of guidance. And this year is not different. Our asset light business model characterized by a level of cash generation has enabled us to achieve a high level of organic earnings [indiscernible] To invest in M and A and reward our investors by beating our dividend payout targets. Additionally, we have lowered our level of leverage and benefited from a very key demonstration of confidence from the credit market through refinancing and repricing. This consistent performance means that we have delivered strong growth as a group since 2021.

Both in revenues and earnings. In the past three years, revenue is up 37% while adjusted EBITDA, our preferred metrics, is up 50% which means a CAGR over three years above 14%. So yes, 2024 is a strong year ahead of the average. But not so far from the average. This growth reflects consistent profitability across both of our business lines. And I think it's good to take this step back because, for example, in our product business, the margins are evolving a little bit. It depends on in the year depending on the mix between distribution, production, etcetera. But if we look on the past three years, the content production is Distribution and Live Events business has delivered a CAGR of 7% in both revenues and earnings So with a stable margin. Thanks to our capacity to sell our high quality content to all distributors. In Online Sports Betting and Gaming, revenues have seen a CAGR of 25% over the past three years while for earnings, [indiscernible] stands at 29% a fantastic result. I also wanted to highlight the group profile. As it stands today and will stand tomorrow. Since this group, our profile I developed, notably by adding a significant plant production business with strong growth potential.

So here the figure includes for the the demonstration, the revenues of the independent to show that if we consolidate next year independent, we are talking about a life business, which accounts for almost 20% of our revenues for a business we started two years ago. I think 2020 Looking ahead, our priorities for 2025 are to continue pursuing our growth strategy centered around three key pillars: First, driven growth and deeper synergies between our businesses by creating opportunities from our vast portfolio of intellectual property technology and talent. This means continuing to deliver high performing comeback, adaptations and spin off as well as further increasing our penetration with streamers and completing our ambitious digital transformation project. It means also tapping into our world leading IP to create new events through the recent launch of Panigail Live Studio, a new level dedicated to creating cutting edge out of home entertainment experiences. We are currently working on two of our IPs Black Mirror and Once Upon a Time, to produce live shows and this is for 2025, and this is just the beginning. Of using our IPs for the life business. It is also about leveraging on our growing base of Unica players and our new Poker platform that we mentioned.

The second pillar is nurturing creativity to produce innovative and engaging content that resonates with diverse audiences. This means continuing to craft the next generation of iconic super brands and continuing to leverage our platform to engage our players through new product features and gamification. We are constantly innovating and this is, of course, a very important element for the future. The final pillar is our ability to seize opportunities in the fast growing fragmented global entertainment market to consolidate our businesses. We believe that our track record in terms of performance and our capacity to integrate acquisitions generate synergies positions us as a clear consolidator. We are ready to seize opportunities as they occur. Now a word on a topic which is more painful. The French tax changes that will affect our sports betting business starting in 2025. In 2025, as part of the increases in public levy in France, the Social Security Financing Act provides for higher Social Security contributions applicable as of first July twenty twenty five. The tax increase applies to gaming activities in France, and the impact in H2 2025 on Banijay Group's 2025 adjusted EBITDA is expected to be €20,000,000 roughly 2% of full year adjusted EBITDA in 2025.

As a group, we deem the new taxes as anticompetitive and will contest them with the relevant authorities. In fact, they are creating a tax regime with a huge gap between offline and sports betting operated as a monopoly. And online sports betting Nothing justifies such a gap. Which is only benefiting one company And this company is the company where the French state is the largest shareholder. We believe this is unfair. It is likely that this tax increase will be partially mitigated by the fact that it reduces the competitiveness of the market. Because that's what it does. It reduces the competitiveness of the market.

Which might may allow a reduction in marketing expenses and an increase in market share if small operators exceed the market as we think. Some will But we have taken the conservative approach of not factoring in this FX our figures. Thanks to the quality of our business model and the geographical diversity of our revenue, France being just one of our markets, we can observe the negative impact of the tax and still deliver double digit adjusted EBITDA growth in Online Sports betting and Gaming in 2025 and beyond. [indiscernible] Let's now look at guidance for 2025. For revenue growth, we expect mid single digit growth for Banijay Entertainment, and we believe that 2025 will be a stronger year in terms of demand from our clients. I think that's a general feeling in the market you can see. From our clients and from our competitors. And we share this feeling And for mid teens for our gaming business. As a group, we are targeting mid to high single digit adjusted EBITDA growth, which includes the six months impact of the new betting tax increase in France the and which was also our guidance at the beginning of twenty twenty four.

And we expect free cash flow conversion to remain around 80%. Finally, I want to finish by announcing that Banning J. Group will present growth strategy and ambitions for twenty twenty five-twenty twenty seven. At our first Capital Markets Day on May 16. This is very important to us as our top priority remains to improve the liquidity of our stock to allow all our shareholders to benefit from the value creation of their company. We look forward to seeing you there. That's all from me. Thank you for your attention. Back to you, Karoly.

Thank you, Francois. So it's now time for questions. Please, Nadia, operator, can I ask you to open up the line? Thank you so much. And now we're going to take our first question.

And it comes from the line of Conor O'Shea from Kepler Cheuvreux. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Yes. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Congratulations on the good results. Just a few questions from my side. First question on the gaming side in Q4, on the margins they seem to shift up a lot. Was there any unusual factors in that? Or is it the new the launch of a new app that is proving is driving higher margins? That's the first question. Second question on the live events, you saw double digit decrease in Q4. I think you mentioned Francois on the other call softer demand in Saudi Arabia. Is that a factor or is there timing events driving that decline? What What could we see in 2025? And then last question, just on consolidation in the content production. Space, obviously being some speculation about ITV and all three media and so on. What's What's your own stance with regard to potential further consolidation in European your first question, yes, we have a good margin in Q4. It's two elements. First, Q4 has been a very, very good quarter commercially with with the Champions League that I mentioned, especially very we we really [indiscernible] not surprised, but positively surprised by the reception of the new format by the fans.

Clearly a success. We also had a strong positive sports results So I would say the overperformance of the Q4, it's probably evenly with these two elements spread between the two better performance and also gross margin. On your second question, and also to Jean So you're right on the Q4 [indiscernible] on the live event was a little bit lower, but first, the comparison basis in 2023 was strong also coming from Valech.

As we mentioned, we have a softer demand in events coming from Saudi Arabia as we already noted during the call for Q3, We expect this to come well, this demand to come back in the future. We are confident that this business will will go back to to the previous level of activity that they had before in the future.

Is that a significant part of your of Banijay business? Saudi Arabia? In terms of proportion of revenue?

I mean, in terms well, for the Global Group In normalized, let's say.

Yes. In for the global group, for Vaniget Group, this part is not very significant. So that's why we are not very worried about this and clearly we are very confident in the future.

Clearly, it's an important market for Belligerent. It's probably the first market for Balich. And of course, and it was the most booming market in terms of demand for the industry. So it's a very positive element that Balochi is a very leader in this market because we expect it to come back. For example, you have the two thousand and thirty Global Exhibition in Europe, etcetera. So we believe it's a hike up what happened in Saudi Arabia. But of course, effort has been to diversify value activity from Saudi Arabia. So it will be less dependent on Saudi Arabia. And And that's why we expect in 2025 a good growth for the valid share activity. Okay. On your last question, we are not going to [indiscernible] dilution. But what we believe is that there's a real trend on the consolidation of this business, which makes a lot of sense. And in a way, we are the demonstrator of the relevance of the consolidation because clearly, the consolidation that we have led with Andre Monde in 2020 which made us the leader in the market. Is a success. And we see that the scale matters in this in this industry.

More and more because we are working more and more with global clients like Netflix, Amazon, etcetera, which are [indiscernible] And if you want to work well with giants, you have to be big. You cannot be small. So there's clearly a trend which makes sense. And of course, as mentioned in our presentation, we believe we are natural consolidator and we want to be part of this consolidation, of course. Okay.

Makes sense. Very clear. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. And the next question comes from the line of Anik Mas from Bernstein. Your line is open. Please ask your question. Good morning. So my first question is you give us an idea of the phasing of growth for the content segment in light of your full year guidance? And my second one is you have this line in your press release, which says that you have increased demand from streamers. There's a strong pipeline of new shows. And then in your presentation, you showed that you have two fifty new and non scripted shows but there are some from the old fund that are formatted adoptions. So my key question is really can you give us an idea of how much of your growth is driven from your existing library in content and how much is driven by these new formats that have been launched over the last year? And then my last question is on the Capital Markets Day. Should we take that as a signal that a liquidity event is coming very soon rather than not? Thank you.

I must say I haven't understood your first question. So Sophie, if you understood the question. Please answer it, but I didn't get it. Fully.

In fact, we gave the guidance of mid single digit regarding the revenue growth on Benjie Entertainment and Life. I understood that, but typically your quarters are quite volatile. So I was wondering, do we expect most of the growth coming in Q4? Or how do you expect it growth to develop over the year? What we expect is to have the well, as we had in the future, we always had a seasonality of our revenue in this business. We still expect to have such a seasonal year. However, what is important to note is that in 2024, the seasonality was stronger than the previous years, and we don't expect such a strong seasonality. We expect to come back to a kind of normal seasonality.

But still with more in our business, we will deliver more shows in the second half than the first half year. So that will not change.

On your second question, I think clearly our business we have a part of repeating shows and we have part of new shows. I think the breakdown in our figures is that two third of what we do is recurring and one third is coming from new shows. That's really the pattern every year. So So the creativity is always fueling. So sometimes what we create you don't have repeat. It's after the first season being a scripted show of less [indiscernible] in successful and come back and then it's something where we have, at the same time, a very good view on our revenues because of these recurring shows. And we are also we are always adding digital course part of our growth. In your question, so depending on the years, the mix between production and distribution is a little bit different because in fact, it's true to say, and it was the case this year, that when our clients reduce their investment in acquiring new shows. Then we sell more finished tapes, and the distribution business is is higher. So that's also one reason why our EBITDA growth has been better than our revenues growth. We have as Sophie was saying, part of it comes from the mix between production and distribution, while distribution has a better margin.

And that's what we saw also in previous years where the demand is lower is softer than the distribution is higher. But for 2025, I'd mentioned we expect a demand which would be higher. Your third question on the CMV, we To organize a CMD would not really make sense. If it was not in the context of increasing our liquidity because the number of our existing investors is not that not that important. So the link that you are mentioning of course, is So yes, there's a link between the fact that we set up a Capital Market Day and the fact that we want liquidity to increase and to increase, it will require some events.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. And the question comes from the line of Bria Bis Vannathan from Societe Generale. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Thank you, guys. Hope you can hear me well this morning. Okay. Thanks. I just want to check-in terms of [indiscernible] how comfortable you feel in terms of getting the leverage under four turns by September 2025 as you head specified before at the time of the initial things to take notes. Is that something that you're comfortable with? And more generally, in the context of content M and A, I know my colleague asked the ITV question earlier, but how do you view leverage and in the context of having to grow in size and the consolidation trajectory that you think is the right way to go? And do you feel like a temporary disrupt of longer term growth targets? Thank you.

Thank you.

So on Benjie and Clertainment, if I understand to to deleverage below four times after well in 2025 by the end of twenty twenty five. So as you could see, we generate we have a very good cash generation and we quite comfortable to the leverage below this target that we gave previously.

And for your second question, of course, [indiscernible] high level of cash generation is an asset to be able to maneuver case of interesting M and A We are not referring as from M and A for financial results because we had today financial flexibility So during the Capital Markets Day, we'll give more cost how our guidance of mid term outlook could evolve. But today, our midterm outlook is that we aim at below three times. It doesn't mean that we would restrict ourselves to go beyond free times temporarily because of M and A, if it makes sense, if it's creating value, etcetera. So we feel today that are ready to see the opportunities also in terms of financial flexibility Thank you, Weikki. Thank you.

Yes, speakers, there are no further questions on audio lines. Now we will proceed with any written questions. Caroline, please go ahead.

Thank you, Nadia. Yes, we have few questions. The first one is on BedClick. Whether we can elaborate on conversation with the French government over betting taxes and whether we expect this to be the norm in France And if we anticipate any further tax increases.

Thank you. Well, so yes, we had conversations with French government about the taxes because we tried to convince them that could understand that they wanted to increase the taxes and that's power and they are monopoly of legitimate violence But the point is that we were advocating for increasing taxes [indiscernible] On the different types of gaming and gambling. Which has not been the case. So and there were different versions in the Parliament, etcetera. So the parliament at the point in time agreed on increasing the taxes evenly and then it was changed. We don't know really why. [indiscernible] And in the fees change, the increase for online sports betting is 4.4 points.

And for [indiscernible] sports betting, it's one point. So doesn't make sense.

It's completely unfair. And so for us, it's a state head to partly state owned monopoly. And so we are going to go to Brussels and use all legal levers we can have, but clearly also to 2% because we believe that it's a state head Given the level of French taxis is by very far the highest in Europe and [indiscernible] And clearly, the increase is significant. So we will have impact on the market, as I mentioned, some operators are going to leave the market.

So cannot predict that there will be no additional taxes, but today, it's not discussed and we don't think will be additional taxes. On the other hand, the previous government opened the distribution around online casino because today people are playing on the illegal platforms. The discussion has not been at this stage reopened by the new government. Which is of course, busy on a lot of different fronts. And we'll see if it's a discussion is reopened in 2025 that we hope it will be the case.

And then there is a last question regarding our dividends. '24, about the timing of the payments. And the speed [indiscernible] I don't understand the question about the split Paniget Group is a company which pays the dividend [indiscernible] timing.

The timing, we expect the same kind of timing in 2024, which means before the June 2025, this dividend should be paid by Banijay Group and So that's it from from the web. So I would like to end the conference Is there other questions, Nadia? Yes. There are no further questions on audio lines.

Speakers, there are no further questions on audio lines. Please proceed. Thank you. So I would like to end the conference over to Francois Rayaili for any closing remarks.

No. Thank you very much for attending. And we hope you will all come to our Capital Markets Day where we will give you some more views on the future and the outlook of our company.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day. [indiscernible]