Good afternoon. This is the Carrus conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Fiera Milano First Half 2025 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator and press the star and zero on the telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Vincenzo Cecere, Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Fiera Milano First Half Results Conference Call. This is Vincenzo Cecere speaking, Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability, and I'm here with Francesco Conci, CEO, and Massimo De Tullio, CFO of Fiera Milano. The presentation of today will be structured in four sections. During the first section, Mr. Francesco Conci will give you an overview of the business, main financial highlights, and 2025 outlook. Then, Mr. Massimo De Tullio will go through the divisional results and financial figures in greater detail. On a final note, an update on sustainability will also be provided. At the end of the call, you will be invited for a Q&A session with management available for questions. At this point, I leave the floor to Francesco Conci for the key messages of the H1 to 2025 results. Please, Francesco, go ahead.
Good evening, everyone. It's a very pleasure to welcome you to Fiera Milano's First Half 2025 Results Conference Call. As a general comment on the semester, I will say that the first half of 2025 marks a key milestone in the execution of our strategic plan 2024-2027. I'm proud to say it's been a semester of strong growth, solid performance, and a clear delivery. We have seen double-digit organic revenue growth, a robust EBITDA, and strong cash generation, confirming the strength and the resilience of our diversified model. It is not just about the numbers. In just seven months, we have closed two strategic M&A transactions. We have been awarded a EUR 30 million Olympic contract, which recognized the quality and adaptability of our value. We have successfully launched new formats and international events, while benefiting from a favorable calendar that included major biennials.
With this momentum and increased visibility on the second half, we have upgraded our 2025 guidance, a clear sign of confidence in both the market and our execution, especially considering the still uncertain macroeconomic environment we are all facing. Let's now look more closely at the numbers, with the main highlights of the semester. Our revenues reached almost EUR 178 million. That's a +23% increase compared to H1 2024. More importantly, we are also well above H1 2023, which is the last comparable odd year semester. This shows a strong underlying momentum. The like-for-like revenue growth was +14%, meaning that behind the calendar effect, we are also growing the core business organically, thanks to solid volume increase in both organized and hosted exhibitions and continuous trade in services. Our Congress segment performed particularly well, up +52%, also thanks to international events returning at full scale.
The ODR calendar effect was also a positive driver. We hosted major biennials such as TuttoFood and the Innovation Alliance, which were not present in 2024. EBITDA reached EUR 63 million in the first half, with a 16% increase compared to last year. This reflects both revenue growth and good cost discipline. From a financial standpoint, we delivered a strong cash generation, with over EUR 14 million generated in the first half, bringing our net cash position closer to EUR 120 million. Overall, this is not just a strong semester compared to 2024. It is a clear improvement also compared to 2023 across both economic and financial KPIs. It gives us a very solid base for a busy and promising second half of the year. Looking ahead, H2 2025 presents itself as a semester of further growth, supported by a particularly strong exhibition calendar and unfavorable seasonal effect, typical of outnumbered years.
In H2, we lost some of the group's most important biennial exhibitions, including Host, CPhI, and MADE, which are among the largest and most strategic events in our portfolio. In the second half, we are also adding two important highlights to our calendar. First, we are launching our first international edition of OSTA, with OSTA Arabia taking place in Saudi Arabia. This marks a new step in the international development of our proprietary brands. Second, we are welcoming back Gastec, one of the world's leading energy exhibitions. It is a global traveling event that we already hosted successfully in 2022, and we are proud to host it again this year. The first OSTA in the year was also marked by a strong M&A momentum, with two strategic transactions completed, fully aligned with our 2024-2027 strategic plan.
Now, for more details on the two acquisitions, I'll now hand over to Massimo De Tullio.
Thank you, Francesco, and good evening, everybody, for being with us. Let me walk you through the key elements of the M&A deals that we recently closed. As already announced in April, we have completed the acquisition of 51% of ExpoFrance, a long-standing logistics partner of Fiera Milano and a leader in exhibition and event logistics in Italy. The total value of the transaction was EUR 7.2 million, and together with the current value of the put option, it has already been accounted in the net financial position as of 30 June 2025. ExpoFrance brings over 30 years of experience and generated EUR 28.7 million in revenues and EUR 2.2 million in EBITDA in 2024, with a net cash position of EUR 3.8 million.
This operation, let me say, is fully aligned with our 2024-2027 strategic plan and allows us to internalize logistics, a critical part of the value chain, improving control, efficiency, and client service, while also retaining margins previously closed. This structure allows us also to fully consider the company while ensuring operational continuity and retaining the current management team, which is a key factor in securing a smooth and effective integration. The second transaction that we closed is the acquisition of the 35% of EMAC, the organizer of Milano AutoClassica, one of Italy's most important B2C events in the classic and sports car sector. The deal is part of a broader strategic alliance with Italian Exhibition Group and Mosaico s.r.l., a company linked to Andrea Martini. The new shareholding structure will be the following. Fiera Milano will own the 35% of the shares, Italian Exhibition Group the 35% as well, and Mosaico 30%.
This three-way partnership will govern EMAC jointly with the aim of creating a national champion for the vintage car industry, combining the strength of two events. On one side, Milano AutoClassica, which is held annually at Rho venue since 2012, and the Vicenza Classic Car Show, a new exhibition launched in 2024 and now integrated into EMAC. With this structure, we secure strategic continuity and a long-term development for Milano AutoClassica, an event that welcomed over 30,000 visitors and showcased more than 4,500 vehicles in its last edition. The alliance also unlocks synergies and possible opportunities in content, audience, and visibility, while strengthening the industrial cooperation between the two leading listed exhibition operators in Italy, also in the congress area. We are also very proud, and we are now moving to slide number eight.
Speaking about the release, we are also really proud to share that Fiera Milano has won the contract for the temporary infrastructure works for the Milano Ice Park, which we lost the speed skating and ice hockey competition of Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Games. This project has a total value, let's say, of EUR 30.7 million and was assigned to us by the Fondazione Milano Cortina following a public consultation. The scope includes the design, operational management, and dismantling of temporary structures needed to transform our exhibition halls into Olympic venues. In terms of economic impact, we expect the project to be accounted for across two financial years, with approximately one-third of revenues returned in 2025 and two-thirds of revenues in 2026, based on the timeline of this execution.
As for profitability, we estimate an EBITDA margin between 10% and 20%, which is in line with the nature of the service contract and in line with the type of event, which is an international and, let's say, very important event. Finally, let me bring you to the, as already Francesco was mentioning, guidance upgrade, which is at slide number nine. As already mentioned, we had a solid organic performance in H1 across all the business lines. Congresses business grew by 52% year-on-year, services division by 9%. All the, let's say, some very important exhibitions for us, like TuttoFood and BIT, scored results over the expectation.
Based on this and based on the impact that now we can consolidate, so the one of the consolidation of ExpoFrance turnover, also for H2, and also the impact of the Olympic Games, the services that we will provide for the temporary infrastructure with an approximately, I would say, EUR 10 million-EUR 11 million revenues accounted in H2 2025. Based on this, we have been able to raise our guidance for revenues from the original EUR 320 million-EUR 340 million to EUR 350 million-EUR 370 million, and to raise our EBITDA guidance from the original EUR 110 million-EUR 120 million to EUR 115 million-EUR 125 million.
Despite it seems that we have kept unchanged the net financial position, which remains at EUR 100 million-EUR 110 million in terms of range, we have to account for the fact that this net financial position now discounts also the full impact of the acquisition of ExpoFrance, which means that basically there has been a substantial improvement of the net financial position compared to the previous guidance, considering that the acquisition of ExpoFrance was not accounted previously in our guidance. Now, before we get into the phase of the performance and calendar effect at the consolidated level, I will now move to chart number 11, which will help you understand the dynamics of the semester. Let's first take a brief overview of our divisional performance.
We will briefly cover the Italian and foreign exhibition business, as well as the Congresses, providing what we call the divisional legal entity view, as I was mentioning at slide number 11. Starting from the Italian exhibition business, this business remains the group's core engine in terms of results. It is accounting for 74% of the total revenue. As you can see, revenues grew by over EUR 18 million, thanks to solid performance across major shows and the contribution of biennial events such as the Innovation Alliance and TuttoFood. Sorry, the Innovation Alliance is not a biennial event. It is a multi-annual event, but anyway, this has a positive contribution in terms of growth compared to the previous edition. It is worth to mention that anyway, also in the Italian exhibition business, we benefit in this semester from a positive calendar effect, which can be accounted for closely to EUR 5 million.
The EBITDA improvement of EUR 6.5 million reflects strong top-line performance despite higher personnel and sponsorship costs related to the 2026 Winter Olympics and the launch of the employee share ownership plan. Regarding the foreign exhibition business, revenue remains stable at EUR 4.3 million, while EBITDA shows slight contraction due to the performance of the China joint venture. What happened is that an international event, which is organized by our partner, was changed in its recurrency. It became a biennial event. Basically, the event did not happen in 2025 compared to what happened in 2024. This had an impact on the commissions that our joint venture is getting from bringing the Chinese exhibitors to this event, which was happening last year in Germany, and this year did not happen because of this change in terms of seasonality.
Regarding the Congresses, the Allianz MiCo contributed 20% of total revenues with a year-on-year absolute growth of EUR 11.1 million. This was driven by both recurring events like HAVIS and ETCOM, and major international Congresses such as the ADB, the Asian Development Bank, and the EHA, the European Hematology Association. EBITDA rose by EUR 2 million in line with revenue growth and excellent operational execution. Let me add on this that it was not easy to grow compared to 2024, which was already the record year for Congress business. Being able to grow by EUR 11 million, which we will see later, accounts for something like 50% growth. It has been a very impressive result also for us. Finally, we introduced also the new segment, Other.
In the new segment, Other sector, basically, we now include ExpoFrance and all the subsidiaries controlled by ExpoFrance, which are Event Logistics Team and ExpoFrance Singapore. In this sector, now we see the contribution in terms of revenue and EBITDA based on two months of consolidation, May and June. The result is EUR 7 million in terms of revenue, EUR 1 million in terms of EBITDA. Now, looking at consolidated level, I think it could be useful to move to slide number 12 in order to better understand the calendar effect and the like-for-like growth of both the author organized exhibition as well as the services and Congresses. Moving from a legal entity view to a business line perspective, and basically excluding all the intercompanies, let me start commenting on the performances of the organized and hosted events.
The organized events basically remained in absolute value stable, but if we look at the like-for-like comparison, excluding the calendar effect, we grew by almost 3%. Regarding the hosted events, there was a growth in terms of absolute value of EUR 5 million, but again, if we exclude part of the net, let's say, the calendar impact, the positive, in this case, calendar impact, it remained anyway a positive growth of 4% compared to the previous edition. Again, it is very positive for us to see in terms of services, a growth of EUR 9 million in absolute value, which even discounting the calendar impact stands at a 9% growth compared to the previous edition.
Putting together services and Congresses, which at business level, at business unit level, grew by EUR 12 million, which accounts for more than 50% growth, we have the two real engines of growth in this moment for the company. The fair sector, it's quite stable. It's growing slowly, but it's growing. The ones that are growing very fast in a faster way are clearly the services and Congresses in this moment. For sure, you have the impact at consolidated level of the acquisition of ExpoFrance, which accounts for plus EUR 5.5 million, which is different from the EUR 7 million that we are reporting in the other sector. It's different because Fiera Milano already had revenues and margin versus ExpoFrance. Clearly, once we consolidate ExpoFrance, this margin needs to be deleted. This is the net addition coming from the acquisition of ExpoFrance in terms of revenues.
Clearly, the addition in terms of EBITDA remains the same. Now, moving to chart 13, I would just highlight some examples of selected case studies which highlight the square meter growth. We are in a, I would say, quite stable or slowly growing scenario, but we had some examples of organized and hosted events which are growing faster than others. For instance, for the organized events, we can mention the growth that we realized in Milano. It was a 2,000 sq m growth compared to the previous edition, which accounts for +5%. Both international and BIC grew by another 2,000 sq m, which accounts for 8%. Promotion trade exhibition grew by 4%. Looking at the hosted events, we see more relevant in absolute value growth. First of all, and the most important one is the growth of TuttoFood.
TuttoFood grew by almost 20,000 sq m, which represents a 33% growth compared to the previous edition, which highlights the good result of the operational strategy that we put in place with Fiera di Parma, getting a share stake of Fiera di Parma in exchange of TuttoFood. TuttoFood now is managed from Fiera di Parma, which is also managing Cibus, and this was the first real year of management from Fiera di Parma showing a very positive result. Nido, another important exhibition, Horizon International Exhibition, grew by 5%. Milano Unica, another very important exhibition, is in really good shape in this moment, and it's showing 8,000 sq m growth compared to the previous year, accounting for 25%.
Now, when speaking about the trade fair industry performances, we need to take into account what is happening in the macroeconomic scenario of these taxes and duties, I mean, tariffs, things that are happening. Clearly, it has not created a very stable environment for this industry and as well for the fair industrial sector. Having scored with the result in H1 is clearly a positive sign for us that this industry is really resilient. Yes. It is another positive message and input for us. Now, I would move shortly to slide number 15 in order to give additional information about the profit and loss finance analysis compared to the previous years. Again, revenues reached EUR 117 million, approximately, marking a significant increase of EUR 33.5 million compared to the same period of last year, which is a 23% growth.
The result is particularly noteworthy given the current economic context that was mentioned just now. It reflects not only strong like-for-like performance, but also the positive effect of a fair calendar exhibition that, as I was mentioning before, is almost worth EUR 5 million. Now, if we look at the key driver, again, we see a solid growth of the organized events, 3%. The events grew, as I mentioned before, by 4%, and services by 9%, and then congresses by 52%. It is also important to highlight that we hosted a new event in this semester, which is Anteprima Restarted, an event organized by JV, the same organizer of Africa Fiera Milano Fiera, which gave an additional boost to our revenues with a EUR 2.5 million impact. We also had the impact of the consolidation of ExpoFrance, which I also mentioned before, bringing an additional EUR 5.5 million.
Moving to the EBITDA, which reached EUR 63 million, an improvement of almost EUR 9 million versus H1 2024. Again, this increase is driven by the strong revenue growth that I already mentioned. I would say that the calendar impact was basically completely offset by the presence of the EUR 4 million sponsorship agreement with Fondazione Milano Cortina, which means that taking aside the EUR 1 million coming from ExpoFrance, EUR 7.5 million represents a real like-for-like growth compared to previous years in terms of EBITDA. Finally, net profit of the period came at EUR 23.1 million, which is slightly higher than last year, but this is just because 2024 first half was benefiting from a very, very low tax rate impact. This was just technical, and this was due to the weight that dividends had in the 2024 result.
As we know, dividends that we get from subsidiaries are already taxed, and so they are not basically paying additional taxes. The very high weight that these dividends had in 2024 was creating this really low tax rate. I can already anticipate that basically the net profit that we reached in this first semester is basically very close to half of what we expect to reach at year-end. Now, moving to slide 16, the balance sheet and cash flow. I would just directly go to the cash flow. I would highlight that we had a very strong cash generation this semester. We improved our net financial position by almost EUR 41 million, EUR 41.3 million for the exact number.
This is coming from the operating cash flow, which was already excluding any kind of net working capital impact, plus EUR 32 million, already considering the IFRS 16 cash-out, let's say, accounting for the rent that we pay. On top of this EUR 32 million coming from the EBITDA that we have created and generated in the first half, we had also a very positive impact of net working capital, almost EUR 46 million, which basically reflects the future revenues that we are going to generate in the next semester, really linked to the advances that we got from customers of the exhibition that we did in the year. It is also related to the advances to take from Fondazione Milano Cortina for all the contracts that now we have signed, which are already full contracts. We have two venue usage agreements, one for Milan.
We have a sponsorship agreement, and now finally, we have also an interim agreement for providing the infrastructure and temporary services. Finally, I would say that, again, it's important to highlight that in confirming our net financial position at year-end, and already in the net financial position that we see at the 30th of June, we are already discounting the impact of the M&A acquisition of ExpoFrance and also the impact of the dividends distribution. Clearly, this is, again, a very positive result for us. Now, having said that, I would leave the floor to Vincenzo. I think I already covered the guidance points for updates in terms of sustainability.
Thank you, Massimo.
Just as a quick and final note on sustainability, Fiera Milano was awarded as first among small listed companies in the corporate identity index that's showing the capacity of the company to integrate sustainability within their business model. We are very proud to share these results with you. I believe we are concluding with the presentation, and we can start in the Q&A session. Thank you.
Excuse me, this is the Carrus Conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 when they touch two telephones. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and 2. We kindly ask to use handsets when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and 1 at this time. The first question is from Simonetta Chiriotti of Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my question. I would start from the change in the guidance. You said that it refers to both the positive trend in the organic growth and to the consolidation of ExpoFrance and the new contract for Milano Cortina. Is it possible to have a bit more details on how much comes from the consolidation of these new events, from ExpoFrance and Milano Cortina? Second question, you have mentioned that there is one event in China that became biennial. I've seen that there are three annual events that did not take place with respect to last year. If you could just help us understand if they have been shifted to another quarter or if they have been canceled. These are my questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Simonetta.
Regarding your first question about the contribution to the guidance upgrade, I can highlight again what I already somehow mentioned in my previous speech. We expect ExpoFrance to bring at least, I would say, something like EUR 15 million this year in terms of contributing to the revenues of the group, considering the period May-December. In terms of EBITDA margin, I would consider a range between 5%-10%. Regarding the contribution to the guidance.
Sorry, can you repeat the number? Can you repeat the number for the revenues? I did not catch it.
EUR 15 million revenues.
Okay.
And EBITDA margin in the range of 5%-10%.
Regarding the contribution from the services that we will provide for the temporary infrastructure to Milano Cortina, as I was mentioning before, you can account for one-third of the total contracts, so around EUR 11 million, I would say, in terms of revenues. In terms of profitability, again, the range is 10%-20% EBITDA margin. We cannot be more precise at this moment because we are really now working in order to buy and sell everything that is needed to realize these kinds of services. We need to understand which will define the profitability. It is difficult to give a more precise number.
Clearly, the contribution of the remaining part of the business can be considered that in the second part of the year, we will not benefit, for instance, from the growth of congresses because most of the venue, the Venue Congress, the Allianz MiCo venue, will be used by Fondazione Milano Cortina. Clearly, there will be a substitution in terms of business. We will not have the usual revenues and margin coming from the congress business, but we will have the revenues coming from the venue usage agreement. This somehow impedes our possibility to do better than what we already did last year. Basically, we have seen a 52% growth in this semester. It will be difficult to grow more than this. Sorry, it will be difficult to replicate this kind of growth in the second part of the year.
I hope I have already given a comprehensive explanation for your question. Regarding the second question, probably I was not explaining myself in the best way. The event that was transformed into a biennial event is an event that is organized in Germany by Messe. Why is there a relation with our JV in China? Because our JV in China is providing basically services, bringing Chinese exhibitors to these events. In exchange for these services, the JV in China gets commission from Messe. The fact that this event is not happening in 2025, clearly, compared to 2024 when this event happened, is taking out some money and commission from the JV P&L in Germany. Yes, there were also two small events that did not take place this year, but they are really small events.
One is the Change Industrial Professional Expo, and the other one is the International Logistics Expo that probably will be postponed to the next year.
If I may follow up a question on congresses. Basically, you said that this year, in the second half, there will be an impact due to the Milano Cortina organization. How should we see the second half and also the first half of 2026 at this point, or just the first quarter? We have to assume that there is a substitution, at least in part, of the revenues and EBITDA of the congresses with the Milano Cortina contract.
Yeah, Simonetta, thanks for your question. Let me just clarify again which should be the value attached to the current contracts that we have.
Regarding the Allianz MiCo, we have a venue usage agreement that we signed already in December, based on which we are progressively releasing areas in Milano Cortina in order to host the broadcast in the center. The revenues and margin coming from this contract will clearly be substitutional to the Congress business because once we release the area to them, we are not allowed and able to run congresses apart or aside from the ones that we are able to run in a row. We are also using the raw venue, but let's say this is a minor part of the business and normally generate and run in the business congress. We call it the business, sorry. This contract is clearly a contract which will not bring addition to the normal or usual performances of congress.
The other contract, the one for realizing the temporary infrastructure, so the EUR 30.7 million contract, just to make a reference to a value that I've already mentioned, this is completely additional. It's not related to Congresses. It's related to Rho, in reality, because these services will be provided in the Milano ice skating site. We are speaking about the four pavilions that will host the speed skating and hockey too, the women's hockey challenge. This is completely additional, has nothing to see with it, has no substitution with anything. It's completely additional. I was just mentioning that if we look at H1 result, we were showing a 50% growth in Congresses compared to 2024. I was just saying that in H2, we can assume that we will keep the same performances that we reached in H2 2024 for Congresses, okay?
Because it will be difficult to go above because we have already a contract signed with Fondazione Milano Cortina, and so there are very few possibilities to increase this revenue because the contract is already closed. If we will manage to get additional services also in the Allianz MiCo venue, it can be that we will also be able to bring additional revenues and margin to this division. So far, we see a stable result compared to 2024 in the second half. Consolidate with the first half, additional revenues and margin, and we see a second half in line for Congress with 2024.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question is from Davide Marchesin of Equita. Please go ahead.
Hello, everybody. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have two.
The first one regarding M&A because in the first part of the year, you already delivered a couple of acquisitions. One is ExpoFrance and the second EMAC. What about the M&A pipeline for the rest of the year? I mean, should we expect other transactions? Regarding the topic, do you target some financial leverage? The second question regarding the macro headwinds that you mentioned during the call, the first one is tariffs. I would say the second is maybe FX. Do you see the depreciation of the U.S. dollar relative to the euro as a headwind for your business, or the FX does not have any impact on your underlying growth? Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you for the question.
In terms of M&A, I can confirm that we have several M&A opportunities that are currently under evaluation, which are fully aligned with the strategic direction that we set out in our plan. In particular, we are looking at two possible international deals, including one that would enable us to enter in a new geographic market with very strong and strategic relevance, and other two domestic opportunities, one of which is in the service agreement. Clearly, these are opportunities that we are analyzing. We have not yet started with the due diligence process, but it's probably really likely that we will start this in the third quarter. Maybe your question about tariffs, I mean, we are trying also to understand which can be the possible scenario after this agreement.
You also see from newspapers and all the news that it's not even clear now to there is not one point of view on these 15% tariffs. On one side, there are some products that were already subject to tariffs very close to 15%, for which the 15% will not represent clearly a real increase or a big issue. For some other products, there will be maybe an additional impact. I was listening to the radio this morning. Georgette is speaking about a 0.5% increase in our PIL, which is, I mean, not a massive impact. We have already done high-level analysis, and clearly, we think that based on how diversified is our portfolio, these tariffs shouldn't be a real problem for the result of Fiera Milano because we are not exposed just to one industry, and we cover more than one industry.
Secondly, our exposure to the U.S. market is really limited. We have participants, so exhibitors and visitors from the U.S., but their weight on the total is really limited, even when looking at our flagship exhibition like Cosmoprof, where we have almost 5% in terms of visitors and exhibitors coming from the U.S. We are not even exposed to the FX, so even if there will be fluctuation on the dollar exchange rate, we do not see really a major problem.
Thank you very much.
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Thank you, everybody, and have a nice holiday.
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