Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Banijay Group full year 2025 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised.
To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please use the Q&A box available on the webcast link any time during the conference. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Louise Racine. Madam, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good evening, and welcome to Banijay Group's 2025 full year results webcast. This is Louise Racine. I recently joined as 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 now available on the company's website, and a recording of this call will be accessible in the coming days.
Your speakers today are Marco Bassetti, our CEO, and Cédric Brignon, our CFO. First, Marco Bassetti will present our key financial and business highlights for the full year. Cédric Brignon will then cover the results in more detail before Marco Bassetti provides some concluding remarks. We will then open the call for questions. Over to you, Marco Bassetti.
Thank you, Louise. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us again this week. I hope you're not fed up with Banijay Group. We are pleased to present strong full year 2025 results. In a challenging market environment, Banijay Entertainment demonstrated a resilient performance with strong growth of Banijay Live as we continued to scale our IP through immersive experiences and produce major sports ceremonies across the world.
Adjusted EBITDA increased by around 6% for this division with a strong margin improvement. Banijay Gaming delivered a double-digit revenue growth with strong momentum across all products. This was driven by 23% growth in unique active players and effective cross-selling. This is particularly impressive when you consider the high comparison base with 2024, which included both Euro 2024 and the Olympic Games.
It also delivered a double-digit Adjusted EBITDA growth despite French tax increase. This performance clearly demonstrates the strength and effectiveness of our diversification strategy. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 8.6%, reaching the upper range of our guidance with 100 basis point margin improvement, reflecting continued cost control and operational efficiency. Before turning to the detailed review of our 2025 financial performance, let me briefly comment on our recent strategic developments. We have been very active, I'm sure you will agree on that, in consolidating our markets, fully aligned with the ambitions set out at our Capital Markets Day in May 2025.
Following the announcement in October two thousand twenty-five of the acquisition of a majority stake in Tipico Group, reinforcing our leadership in sports betting and online gaming, we announced on Tuesday a strategic partnership with RedBird IMI to combine Banijay Entertainment and All3Media to create a global media and entertainment powerhouse.
This combination will give us enhanced scale, deeper IP ownership, and greater exposure to structural growth drivers, reinforcing our long-term positioning. Zooming in on our 2025 results at constant currency and current scope of operations, we delivered a revenue growth of 3.4%. This translated into 8.6% adjusted EBITDA growth, reaching EUR 961 million, and 6.3% growth of the adjusted net income, which is at current effects, unlike the two other metrics.
Adjusted free cash flow generation stood at EUR 780 million, resulting in high level of cash conversion at 81%, again in line with guidance. Adjusted operating free cash flow reached EUR 584 million with a conversion rate of 65%, excluding one-off effects. Our leverage improved to 2.7x, a 0.2x reduction compared to the end of 2024.
We are proposing a dividend of EUR 0.35 per share, representing a 33% payout ratio as per our guidance. Let's move to business highlights now, starting with our content production and distribution business. Once again, 2025 showcased the unmatched scale of our content production and distribution leadership. At the end of 2025, our catalog grew to more than 220,000 hours of content.
We had 30 formats traveling across three of or more geographies, we launched over 350 new shows during the year. 350. This includes 80 titles with global streaming platforms such as Netflix, Apple TV+ and Paramount+, which is unmatched in the industry. Revenue from streamers now represent 23% of our production and distribution revenue.
From a scripted perspective, we doubled our production revenue in English language content with streaming platforms, and that's just the beginning if you think of the All3Media deal. House of Guinness on Netflix was a major success with over 61 million viewers. The Buccaneers was a top 10 hit in multiple territories and has been re-commissioned for a third season. NCIS: Sydney Season three on Paramount+ reached 4.7 million viewers with a fourth season ordered.
On the unscripted side, our focus is scaling formats through local adaptations. LOL on Amazon launched in the Nordics, the U.S., France, Italy, and also the U.K., where it was the number one unscripted new launch across all platforms. The local adaptation of Temptation Island was launched on Netflix for the first time. I think if we had been said five years ago that Temptation Island would be on Netflix, I think we would not have believed that.
It was crowned the best performing non-scripted program globally on the platform, with season two commissioned for 2026. The Fifty, Shaolin Heroes, and The Summit continue their international expansion, with six versions commissioned to date for each format, which show our capability to roll out formats globally. Moving to live experiences now, which has performed exceptionally well this year.
In 2025, we more than doubled the number of events produced, reaching over 33,000, sorry, representing an average of eight events produced per day, including the independent shows. Balich Wonder Studio delivered major international sports ceremonies throughout 2025, including the opening and closing ceremonies of the FIFA Club World Cup, the Africa Cup of Nations, and the UEFA Women's Euro, as well as the UEFA Champions League Final Kick Off Show, which was very important because Paris Saint-Germain won.
Demonstrating our ability to execute large scale globally broadcast productions across continents. Most recently, many of you have watched the opening ceremony of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games, which we proudly produced. The ceremony was seen by 2.5 billion people around the world, it was widely praised globally.
According to IOC data, was regarded by a strong majority of viewers, I think by 70% of viewers, as the most memorable winter opening ceremony ever. A clear illustration of the creative ambition and execution capabilities of our live business. Of course, this type of event is the best demonstration of capability for the future events. On the immersive experiences side, LOTCHI, which we acquired in early 2025, has been a remarkable success story. In just one year, we have launched 16 new shows, opened in four new countries in partnership with Banijay Entertainment's local labels, which tripled the number of tickets sold to approximately 1 million. We are now producing around four shows per day on average.
We are excited by the potential of our live business. We will continue to seek out opportunities to rapidly scale IP in this way, leveraging our global production footprint. Tomorrow, All3Media as one. Moving now to Banijay Gaming, which continues to drive outstanding profitable growth. As I say every quarter, unique active players is the most important KPI for the commercial performance of the platform, as the margin can be volatile with the results.
This grew 23% year-on-year to 2.3 million. This is particularly impressive given the absence of major global sports events in 2025, such as the World Cup or the Euro. This sustained growth was enabled by our relentless focus on our tech platform and user experience.
Betclic is the number one downloaded sports betting app in all its markets, enhanced with a recent major cloud-based upgrade and new features such as AI-powered recommendations. We are preparing a new release for the World Cup. Our multi-product strategy continues to deliver strong results with cross-selling between Sportsbook and other activities, namely Casino and Poker, reaching 35%, which is remarkable.
In online casino, we launched 280 new casino titles, 20% of which were original or exclusive games and successfully entered Ivory Coast in early 2025. Our new proprietary poker platform, launched at the end of 2024, has also performed strongly, driving player growth, engagement, and monetization. These multi-product capabilities, combined with our strong technological foundations, become even more strategic in the context of the Tipico acquisition, with clear synergy opportunities already identified.
It's also true for potential regulatory upsides. 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, Cédric Brignon.
Thank you, Francois. Let's start with group revenue for the full year, where we delivered 3.4% growth at constant exchange rate and current scope to reach almost EUR 4.9 billion. As Francois mentioned earlier, and as already highlighted during our 9 months results, 2025 was a challenging year for the global content production and distribution industry.
On the gaming side, we delivered double-digit growth despite a high comparison basis in 2024. Group Adjusted EBITDA increased by 8.6% to EUR 961 million at constant exchange rate and current perimeter, reaching the upper end of the guidance range. This strong performance also translated into 1 percentage point expansion of the Adjusted EBITDA margin, reaching 19.7%.
This was driven by the increased contribution from Banijay Gaming, which has a higher margin, combined with efficient cost control in both businesses. Moving next to our P&L. The operating profit increase of more than 25% was driven by the strong Adjusted EBITDA growth and the significant decline in LTIP expense as anticipated.
The improvement in the financial result reflects the successful repricing and refinancing of our debt at better conditions, as well as the fair value changes in financial instruments, including hedging, put options, and earn-out debt, together with foreign exchange loss and gains. Income tax expense increased in line with activity growth, while our effective tax rate improved meaningfully to 35% compared to around 42% last year. Overall, Adjusted Net Income rose by more than 6% in line with Adjusted EBITDA growth.
Let's move to results by business, starting with content production, distribution and live experience. Revenues were resilient, up 0.4% at constant exchange rate and current perimeter. Looking at revenue by activity. Content production was down slightly, reflecting broader softness in the market and cautious commissioning from broadcasters.
Distribution revenue decline of 5.4% reflects the condition in the production market and a different mix between streaming platforms and linear broadcasters in the sale of scripted hits. The standout performer was live experience and other, which grew 20.3%, driven by the successful rollout of L'Occitane's Luminiscence experience across France and internationally, and the strong performance of Balich Wonder Studio with the delivery of major sports ceremonies. Looking at earnings and cash flow now for the business lines.
Adjusted EBITDA was up 5.7% at constant exchange rates and current perimeter, with margin improving 80 basis points to 16.6%. This improvement reflects a favorable mix in production margins, particularly on some major scripted shows and cost control on production budgets. Higher CapEx reflects increased third-party distribution events at Banijay Rights, investment in L'Occitane, and continued investment in digitalization.
Adjusted free cash flow conversion stood at a solid 72%. The improvement in working capital reflects timing effects on long-term distribution contracts and different phasing between show delivery and cash collection. Income tax paid was higher, mainly reflecting payments to the tax consolidation group with no impact at group level. Adjusted operating free cash flow increased by almost 2%, reaching more than EUR 309 million.
Sports betting and Gaming next, where we saw strong revenue growth of 10.2% at constant exchange rates and current perimeter, reaching EUR 1.6 billion of revenue. Sportsbook revenue were up 6.8%, supported by 23% growth in unique active players and sustained player interest during major competitions, such as the new format of the Champions League.
This is a remarkable outcome given the high comparison basis with 2024, as well as the impact of adverse sports results in September 2025 that did not fully reverse by year-end, as we communicated at our nine months results. Casino, Poker, and turf revenues were up 22%, also an outstanding performance. This reflects effective cross-selling between products, the successful launch of online Casino in Côte d'Ivoire in early 2025, and the strong performance of our preparatory online Poker platform in France.
Looking at earnings now. Banijay Gaming continues to deliver solid profitability and generate strong free cash flow. Adjusted EBITDA was up 12.6% at constant exchange rates and current perimeter. The adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 26.7%, driven by continued cost discipline, including lower marketing costs. This was partially offset by higher betting tax in France, which came into effect in July 2025. Adjusted free cash flow conversion remains extremely high at 93%.
Adjusted operating free cash flow was temporarily impacted by one-off items, as highlighted at our nine months results. These include one-offs related to the exceptional 2024 performance, with cash outflows occurring in 2025, notably performance-related payouts and an exceptional EUR 27 million income tax catch-up linked to strong 2024 results.
Excluding this one-off, adjusted operating free cash flow was up 10.8%, which is more reflective of the underlying performance of the business. From a cash flow perspective, group adjusted free cash flow reached EUR 780 million, resulting in a cash conversion rate after CapEx and lease payments of 81%, fully in line with our full year guidance. Adjusted operating free cash flow was EUR 584 million with a conversion rate of 65%, excluding one-off effects mentioned earlier. The group's net debt stands at EUR 2.57 billion, representing a leverage of 2.7x, an improvement of 0.2x compared to the end of 2024.
We continue to have a very strong liquidity position with a positive cash balance of EUR 494 million and EUR 280 million of undrawn secured credit lines. That's all from me. I will now hand back to François for some concluding remarks.
Thank you, Cédric Brignon. As you can see, 2025 was another year of strong results. I think the most important one I would like to underline is Adjusted EBITDA up 8.6%. This is a strong performance against a high comparison basis in 2024 and in a year with a quieter sports calendar and an environment for production distribution, which was tough in 2025.
Just a few months after our 2025 Capital Markets Day, we translated our strategy into action with two transformative transactions across our two core businesses. I think, you know, 2025 was a great year for us strategically, financially, operationally. In 2026, we expect a robust growth across all our businesses.
On content production and distribution, we anticipate more growth on revenues and probably a slightly lower margin rate due to a different revenue mix. As Sophie mentioned earlier, I think the revenue mix this year was a little bit special. On live, we also expect a very good growth continuing. On Banijay Gaming, it will be a very strong year and a very active year because of the sports event and especially including the football World Cup in the summer with more teams than ever. It will be key to attract and retain new clients as we usually do, both in Betclic and Tipico every two years. Very strong growth of revenues to expect in our gaming business.
As a reminder also to take into account, in 2026, we will also see the full impact of the French tax because the French tax was implemented in July of last year. We look forward to updating you on our strategic roadmap on March 26th, including our refreshed midterm guidance reflecting our two major developments. Before that, let me share a high-level view of what Banijay Group will look like post-transactions.
With the acquisition of Tipico, we significantly expand the scale of our gaming activities, reinforcing our leadership in sports betting and online gaming, and increasing our exposure to structurally growing cash generative activities. In parallel, the acquisition of All3Media and the strategic partnership with RedBird IMI creates a scaled global content leader with enhanced IP ownership, greater international reach, and a strengthened competitive position in a consolidating market.
This represents a step change in the scale, diversification, and earnings profile of Banijay Group. On a combined basis, the group would have approximately EUR 7.4 billion of revenues and EUR 1.6 billion of Adjusted EBITDA in 2025, as well as strong free cash flow generation. We also mentioned yesterday a leverage ratio at the end of 2026 around 3 x.
As mentioned a few minutes ago, before we take your questions, I hope you can join us for our upcoming strategic update on March 26th, where we will provide an update on our strategy and midterm outlook reflecting these two major operations. I look forward to sharing more with you then. That's all from me. Thank you for your attention and back to you, Louise.
Thank you, Francois. It's now time for questions, so please state your name and company. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type it into the pop box and click Submit. We will take our first question. The question comes from the line of David Amoren from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Bonjour, Francois. Bonjour, Sophie. Thank you for the presentation. Can you hear me?
Yeah, very well, David.
Yeah, just a couple of questions for me. First, during Q3, you mentioned the phasing of some project that was expected to reverse in Q4. This does not seem to have happened. Could you please provide more information on this and explain why it didn't go as expected? Secondly, as you mentioned during the presentation, Football World Cup will start in June 2026.
I know that you are not giving specific guidance for 2026 today, but is it reasonable to expect Betclic to deliver a strong performance similar to 2024 when results were boosted by the European Football Championship? Finally, I would like to come back to yesterday announcement about All3Media.
You will continue to fully consolidate the new entity and new accounts, which I assume means you will keep managerial control. Who will have the final say on major operational decision or any future M&A decisions? Thank you.
Thank you. I will take your two last question. Maybe I'll leave the first to Sophie, but I start with your last question. Yes, we have governance rights that allow us to consolidate and then to control the company. Of course, you know, it's a 50/50 partnership, which means that when it comes to a significant M&A, if we were to do a large M&A deal, of course, we would need to agree with our partners. That's the sense of being partners. Of course. As you can see, it's really, we really keep, as you say, the operational drive.
Also, the fact that Marco Bassetti is going to be the CEO of the combined entity, I think it gives the sense of the fact of how it will happen. On your second question about World Cup. Yeah, you know, that's for in this business, every two years, you have a big event. World Cup is even bigger than Euro, where people are getting more interested in watching the games, in betting. You know, it becomes the actuality of everyone to speak about the World Cup, et cetera. That's a very strong moment for engagement and increasing the revenues.
There's no reason why 2026 should be different from the, I would say, the even years that we have. It will be true also for Tipico, which will also have a boost. That's why we announced previously that we were not going to start the integration of Betclic and Tipico before the World Cup. Today, our teams in Betclic, and I'm sure it's the same at Tipico, they are completely focused to prepare this event because it means to prepare new features in the application, and to have everything ready to make the most of this event. Maybe Sophie on the first question.
Yeah. Yes, we mentioned the phasing in terms of commissioning and delivery of the shows during the Q3. That's also why we said that we would be on a lower, low digit, low single digit in terms of revenue growth. During the Q4, as I mentioned during the presentation, the clients were still cautious in terms of commissioning.
We achieved this, we finally grew by 0.4% our revenue, which is in this tough market, a good performance. We are very confident in 2026 because we expect, as mentioned earlier by Francois, an increase in the growth of our revenue. We are more positive and we will see a higher growth of this revenue in 2026.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next question. The question comes from the line of Annick Maas from Bernstein. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi there. My question is also on the, on the midterm expectations of the content growth market. You just told us that you expect them to... these revenues to grow in 2026, I guess if you think about it midterm, previously you talked about mid-single digit growth, and that was in light of streamers already optimizing their spend.
What becomes, I feel, more and more clear, at least across all of the European broadcasters, is that programming costs are much more contained, not only going into 2026, but all the broadcasters speak about programming costs being contained also midterm. I was just kind of interested to understand how you were thinking about the content growth market, you know, beyond 2026. Thank you.
I have a good news. I need to just have three weeks to wait for that because that's exactly what we are going to talk about in our strategic update. You'll have an updated view on what we see for the next year. Of course, it will include our acquisitions, but it's not just a mechanical, you know, inclusion of our acquisitions. We will give you our best view on the future on the occasion of this update on March 2026.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Giovannin Maggiason from Investcorp. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my question. My first question was just on the entertainment segment. You initially guided for EBITDA to be slightly declining in Q4, but it's turned out to be flat due to some margin expansion. Can you just explain how you're able to achieve this margin expansion in Q4?
I don't remember that we said anything about the margin in Q4. You know, the margin is not a wild animal in a way, because it's not the same margin depending on the type of programs you have. As Cédric Brignon was mentioning, for example, I think a good example here is the fact that when you deliver some scripted show, big scripted show as a streamer, there's a better margin in production, but also you lose some revenues on distribution. It's the margin can be a little bit moving. If you look at our track record, I would say it's moving by 1% or 1.5%.
But, all in all, in average, that remain very consistent. Here, this year, we believe the margin is a little bit higher than the, I would say the normal, but it's linked to the type of products we have delivered to the market. But there's nothing special about our margin in Q4.
Got it. That's very helpful. The last question from me was, do you see any kind of disruption from the conflict in the Middle East, particularly thinking of, particularly towards your entertainment segment and more so your live event segment? Just thinking if you have any kind of major events in the pipeline in the Middle East, which could be potentially be affected with the current conflict. Thanks.
Yeah. Of course, we are following and monitoring the situation closely. In fact, currently, in the Middle East, as you know, it's time for Ramadan. We had no events planned at this time of the year. It's not a busy time of the year, for the moment, we don't have really an impact on our business. Of course, it will depend how long it will last. 2026, our live events business has a lot of strong production already planned. Of course, I was talking about the Olympic Games in Milan, which is already done. We also have the ceremony of the World Cup in Americas during the summer.
I think, you know, we if the war lasts long, which of course, none of us hope, it can have an impact on our live business. Today it's too early to say. We'll update accordingly.
Thanks. Are you able to guide just roughly what percentage of revenue for the entertainment business, what percentage comes from the Middle East as a region?
Yeah. It's no. It's we have a very little exposure to Middle East, in fact. That's only our ceremonies business is really has a significant exposure in the Middle East. For the rest of which is relatively smaller in the role of our content production business. The rest of our content production business is very limited in the Middle East.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. We will take our next question. The question comes from the line of Anna Patrice from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Hello. Can you hear me please?
Very well, Anna.
Perfect. Thank you. Thank Thank you so much for all the information provided. Couple questions from my side. One is a follow-up on the growth in their entertainment business. As my colleague said, there was previously guidance of mid to high single digit growth. Also there were some delays, et cetera, expectation is challenging. What is your visibility for 2026?
You said that there should be some improvement and probably some growth. What is the visibility and what kind of growth should we expect on the underlying basis, so without the acquisition, in this segment? That's the first question. The second question on the long term incentive plan on the P&L line, the charges were lower than last year, what should we expect going forward? Thank you.
Sorry, on the last question, what, we didn't understand what-
Long Term Incentive Plan.
Okay.
on the PNL were lower year-over-year. What we should expect for this year? What would you think? On the cash flow and on the PNL base.
As we explained on the LTIP expense, we expected this decrease and we expect it to be also the case in the following years because this is a question of vesting period of the different LTIP plans. We always mentioned a percentage of LTIP expense from 6%-10% of the Adjusted EBITDA, and this is it was on an average basis as it was higher, sorry, than 10% in the past years. This is why now we are decreasing to have this average rate over 8 years. We expect to have the same kind of percentage of Adjusted EBITDA in the future.
The first question?
Well, if I understood well, the first question was the visibility for 2026 in terms of growth of content production business, right?
Yes, exactly. Yes, yes. Yes.
As we mentioned to you, we expect growth to be driven by increasing demand for non-scripted formats from, mainly global streaming platforms, as well as a solid pipeline of scripted deliveries. We expect margin to be somewhat lower than in 2025 because we had high margin scripted shows delivered in 2025. At the same time, we anticipate to have the same strong dynamic on the live event part in 2026.
On the content and distribution, we don't expect acceleration, growth acceleration.
We don't expect what, sorry?
growth.
Acceleration? No. Well, we expect a growth, but I don't know what you mean by that.
Like a slow single digit for the content.
We don't give this guidance and we will explain in the floor.
Okay.
You know, during our update on March 26th, you will have our best view on the market and how it evolves, et cetera, on the next years, in 2026. You know, we have a good visibility. That's why we can say that the growth will be good. We don't want to give an update on 2026 given all the transactions we have.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. There seems to be no further questions from the audio if you wish to proceed with the webcast questions.
Yes. Thank you. There are several questions about the liquidity of the stock and what are the projects on that.
Of course, it's our top priority as, unfortunately, the stock cannot yet reflect the value of the company given the low level of trading. We are working on it. The strategic update on March 26th is the first step we have to take to update the financials. We'll update more when we can, but we are clearly working on it.
Can you please comment what are your plans about the independence call option? Should we assume the exercise is out of the picture after the two large corporate transactions in the last couple months?
Yeah, no, I think, the question to exercise the call on the independence will be linked only to the, to what, how we see the merits of exercising this call. Of course, the combination with All3Media and the fact that we have a strong partner with RedBird IMI. Of course, they, there's a new partner, so they have also to agree on that, even if we can exercise without the agreement. I think, the sense of the partnership is that we want also to discuss that with them. There's no mechanics. It's not because we have done this transactions, or because of that we are not going to exercise.
It's not because we are going to get some cash from the All3 deal that we are going to exercise. It's just we are discussing with the founders. We are considering the call exercise, and we have still time to make our decision. We make our decision based on what we think is the best interest of the company, in terms of operations and financials.
One question on AI. What could be the impact of AI on your content and production of studios?
I think of course, AI is a major innovation and a major element in many industries. So far, what we see, we are already using AI to optimize our production costs, to improve our efficiency. This is a work in progress like in many industries, but it's progressing well. On the second element, I would say is, we see a very potential positive impact of AI on our capacity to monetize our catalog. Clearly, we want to be in a situation to use AI to create automatically clipping, best of, highlights, etc., with just a prompt. We have an immense catalog, which is today underexploited.
It's a goldmine that we just use the surface. AI is going to help us to monetize that far better. Of course, we are investing in that, and we are working on that. With All3Media joining us, it will add catalog and capability. I think at longer term view, I think AI is lowering the cost of making videos. Of making, especially on the scripted side. What we believe is that in this context, it enhances and it increase the importance of IP. IP is a very crucial element moving forward. We have a lot of IP. We get...
We are going to get more IP with All3Media. We believe that's a very strong asset to have in AI, forward world. Of course, nobody knows exactly what will happen in five years, etc., how it will develop, but we believe we are very well positioned for that.
Another thing-
If I just add, sorry, just one more word. I think, you know, the deal with Warner deal shows the value of IP. I think what has really driven to this fight between Netflix and Paramount is the quality and the breadth of IP of Warner. I think it gives an idea of how the IP is becoming more and more valuable and important.
Can we have your view on margin evolution expected in 2026 in Gaming Business given strong sports event but tax impact influence?
Yeah, I think the tax impact, you know, will weigh on our margin. What you can see is that in 2025 we have been able to manage that. Also you have to balance with the marketing savings. We will try as much as possible to maintain our margin despite this increase. Yeah, mechanically, the impact is negative on our margin.
We anticipate a continued momentum across the well, across our Sportsbook and thanks to the larger sports even in 2026. That's also why we anticipate to increase our payer basis and then to offset this impact.
Thank you. We will take our next question on the audio. Please stand by. Your question comes from the line of David Amoren from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Your line is open. David Amoren from Berenberg, your line is open. Please ask your question. Please check you've not muted your line.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yeah, we can hear you now, David.
Sorry. Sorry, I was mute. I was muted. Just two quick follow-up questions for me. What was the marketing expenses as a percentage of sales in 2025 for the gaming side? Do you feel comfortable with the current Bloomberg consensus that forecast organic double-digit growth on the gaming side and mid-single digit organic sales growth on the entertainment side in the next two to three years?
No, we don't want to do our strategic update now, David. We are not going to answer to the second question. Actually, I think we are never going to comment on the consensus. Sophie, maybe on the first question.
Regarding the marketing expense, we are between 6% and 8% of the revenue, probably speaking. Without the points.
Maybe just one word about that. In France, the increase in taxes included an increase on a tax on advertisement. That has led also to a reduction of the advertisement in France.
Thank you. There are no further questions. I would like to hand back for closing remarks.
I don't have really closing remarks, except that, we expect, you know, you will be there on the strategic update on March 2026. With so many questions on what will be, the growth going forward, I'm sure you will be there, and we'll be very happy to update. Thank you for attending, and see you very soon.
Thank you. Today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.