Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Mediaset 2021 nine months results web phone conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Sara Bersan. Please go ahead.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the nine months 2021 results of Mediaset Group. Today, the speakers are Marco Giordani, CFO of the company, and Matteo Cardani, Managing Director of Publitalia '80. We'll have less than 1 hour today, so let me hand over immediately to Matteo for the advertising and audience outlook. Matteo, please go ahead.
Thank you, Sara. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for your attendance. Today we comment on the nine months results with a short outlook at Q4 ongoing indicators. Starting from the economic scenario, I'm commenting chart 3 and 4. With regard to confidence index indicators, the monthly evolution shows a continuous improvement of the economic scenario. It is worth underlining the fact that since April we are definitely in the positive field both for consumer and business confidence index. This positive evolution of confidence indexes is also reflected in actual dynamics of goods and services consumption that beyond the obvious positive double digits versus Q2 2020 base numbers keeps on going quite well also in Q3. These indicators are of course strictly linked with hard indicators as, GDP dynamics.
The conjunctural and trend variation of gross domestic product in Q3 are both positive, +2.6% and +3.8%. Moreover, the forecast for the 2021 full year is in a positive range quite close to +6%. That is the actual consolidated progress in the first nine months of 2021. A similar range of growth rate expectation is also gaining consensus for 2022 due also to recovery plan. Definitely a positive macroeconomic scenario to some extent reflected in the advertising market. I'm now commenting chart number 5. We have Nine months data from Nielsen published yesterday. The interesting thing is that the overall market is catching up with its 2019 pre-COVID level.
As you can see, nine months indicators are positive for all media, excluding the out-of-home that anyway is recovering. Specifically for our addressable market segments, the recovery is really solid and robust. You see a double-digit growth for TV and digital that are now above the 2019 levels. While radio is growing double-digit, is still below 2019 levels. Radio is catching up, and the early indicators for the last part of the year with regard to radio are quite encouraging, quite positive. Having said that, let's have a look at our performance. Now commenting chart number 6. We keep on outperforming the market by more than two points.
Our growth in nine months is 21.5% versus market 19.3%. This positive gap delivers a further increase in market share. Again, we reach an all-time high nine-month market share of 41.1%, and we are 100 basis points above year-over-year. We are particularly satisfied by this nine-month progression and a positive Q3 performance, because it's absolutely a valuable performance considering that in June, July, August, we did not broadcast Euro football championship, of course, and the Olympics too. We had a tough comparison against August 2020 for a Champions League. Last year, we had Champions League in August, of course, not present this year.
The most significant achievement is that we completed in H1 the recovery of 2019 baseline. In nine months, we are now 1% above nine months 2019, as we anticipated to some extent in the last conference call. Again, the overall result has been achieved with a double-digit contribution for all the free media, TV, radio, and digital. Specifically radio and digital, they are outperforming by far their respective market segments. The other good news we are commenting with you, it's the one reported in chart number 7. It's the fifth positive quarter in a row.
Q3 is a positive quarter, even despite the fact that we didn't have the Euro championship, the league peaks, the final Champions League matches we had last year. I underline again, we fully recover the 2019 level, and we are even 1% above. Last remarks with regard to audience and sector dynamics. With regard to audience, we are also benefiting from a very positive trend in total video. They are strongly growing for the second year in a row, with remarkable results versus 2019 baseline. You see in chart number 8, we have positive, let's say good health on first screen linear. Moreover, the high growth on digital screens, both connected television and mobile plus desktops.
Inventory, they are growing, and this protects the legacy business and increase the revenue diversification towards a higher digital mix. Coming to chart number 9, the Mediaset linear TV audience is 33.8, in line with 2019 on a commercial target. We are getting used to the fact that our digital nonlinear audience share performance is even higher, 39.7. This level confirms the solid leader in the broadcaster arena on digital screens. Last but not the least, a comment on the advertising breakdown by sector. With regard to sector dynamics, we have the market recovering with a double-digit trend, and all sectors are more or less aligned to this growth.
I would say that our composition is strong, better than the market, especially in the key sectors where we are outperforming the market average, as you can see from this chart. The real strength of our portfolio is the high degree of sector diversification. As you can see from the split of the sector percentage in this pie chart, we are not so dependent on each single sector performance. For example, the fact that, as you know, there's a question mark for the world market, not only for us. The conjunctural situation of the automotive sector, that after the strong recovery in first H1, it is suffering Q3 and Q4 for key components shortage. This is a bottleneck to sales and potentially to investment.
Anyway, the interesting thing is that the overall weight of automotive in November, December is the lowest of the year. We are more than confident that difficulties of the auto sector that accounts for less than 10% in November, December could be compensated or even more than compensated by positive dynamics in the other main sectors, with a significant contribution by seasonal categories, driven by Black Friday or Christmas. Just to give you an idea, if we take a look at the progression of some strategic sectors like retail, consumer durable, pharma, leisure time, travels, and moreover, the direct to consumers contribution. It's a sector, the e-commerce and direct to consumers players that is absolutely booming.
The combination of these eight, nine sectors that are doing very well is expected to compensate or more than compensate the conjunctural, let's say trouble of the automotive sector for the last part of the year. Having said that, now I hand over to Marco for the financials.
Thank you, Matteo, and good morning also to everybody from my side. I'm very pleased today to comment these results that are really outstanding, I would say. We really achieved a great result in the first nine months of 2021. From chart number 12, you can realize that we went back to 2019 revenue levels with a huge increase in profitability. In reality, EBIT was EUR 275 million, 50% more compared to 2019 first nine months. Clearly, 3x better than last year. That was a very exceptional year. As far as the net result is concerned, we achieved EUR 274 million net profit, three times higher than 2019.
You know that we had some extraordinary contribution, but also without taking into account this extraordinary contribution, our net profit in the first nine months of 2021 are better than 2019 in net profit. Another incredible result was on the cash flow. The group net financial position was negative by EUR 920 million at the end of September 2021, with a great and incredible cash generation that improved by around EUR 145 million in the first nine months of the year. Considering the distribution of more than EUR 340 million of dividends we paid out in July.
Clearly, the net financial position for covenant purpose has improved, and it is very far from our, let's say, covenant threshold. Stepping down with the Italian business in page 13, Matteo has already commented the advertising performance, so I'm moving down to the P&L. The other revenue line was EUR 233 million in the first nine months, 2021. Main contribution to this line went from the Champions League, we started to stream on our Italian OTT platform, the retransmission fee on other platforms of our, let's say, content and services. Clearly, we had a great performance from the sales of our third-party content, and we had also the exceptional income from Dailymotion settlement.
That number of the first nine months is confirming our guidance for the full year that will be broadly in line with 2020 performance. As far as costs are concerned, the total cost in the first nine months of 2021 was EUR 1,254 million, showing a reduction of more than EUR 118 million compared to 2019. We are keeping, let's say, pace with the efficiency rate we registered in the full year 2020, confirming a reduction of almost 9% in costs compared to 2019 cost base. As far as the full year is concerned, we are confirming the guidance we already gave of EUR 1,780 million for the full year.
This guidance includes also the cost of the Coppa Italia rights that has been acquired in July. This guidance implies that we are going to maintain the cost base aligned with 2020, and we will register a decline of 6% compared to 2019. EBIT in the first nine months of 2021 was EUR 135 million, a great result compared to both 2020 and 2019. Just the last comment on that slide is the fact that EBIT margin we registered in the first nine months of 2021 can only be compared to the one we reached in 2011. Really the best performance in the last decade.
Moving down below EBIT, net financial income was positive for EUR 19.4 million, and associates was positive for a little bit more than EUR 100 million. In terms of guidance for 2021, we are improving our guidance on financial income. Financial income will be around EUR 15 million compared to the previous guidance, while on the associates line, we are confirming the guidance of 110. Another important, let's say, result was on the investment part on slide 15. As you can see, we are investing almost EUR 100 million less than last year. That's mainly due to the fact that the mix of content has changed, leaving the rights acquisition and investing more in, say, in-house production.
For that reason, we are improving our guidance for CapEx for a total amount of EUR 300-EUR 320 compared to the previous guidance of EUR 360-EUR 340. This means a reduction of almost 25%-30% compared to 2019 level. That's one of the reason for which the cash flow has been really extraordinary in the first nine months of 2021. Slide page 16, you can appreciate that. In the first nine months of 2021, we have generated more than 3x the free cash flow we generated in 2019, and it is more than double compared to 2020.
You know that we have already commented, but we have distributed EUR 341 million of dividends to our shareholders. In any case, our net financial position for covenant purposes is below EUR 900 million, and that's really a remarkable, in, let's say, performance, let's say, also considering the EUR 340 million paid in dividends. In terms of guidance, we are expecting the group net debt compared to EBITDA ratio to be confirmed below one times. I believe that it's time for your questions, so I'll open the Q&A session, and thank you for your patience.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask questions, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again, please press star one to ask a question. If you found that your questions have been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal. We'll take our first question from Fabio Pavan from Mediobanca. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning, all, and thank you for taking my question. First of all, congratulations for the results. I would like to focus on the advertising outlook, which seems to be much more reassuring than the ones we had from other European broadcasters. If my understanding is correct, you are not afraid about any slowdown in advertising from automotive. I was wondering if this is why, in Italy, the dynamics are different or maybe your strategy is allowing you, thanks to the contribution of addressable TV convergent offer and radio to offset this potential drop in the sector. Thank you very much.
Matteo, probably you are on mute.
Sorry, I was muted. I was saying thanks to Fabio Pavan for his question, and I address immediately. Of course, the automotive sector is a real situation. The advertising expenditures by these sectors is declining in the last part of the year due to the bottleneck in availability of key components. But the reassuring thing is that if I take a look, for example, at October dynamics, October has been a positive month compared to past years, and we achieved the results despite the fact that the automotive sector was suffering. This comes back to, let's say, the health status of our portfolio of sectors.
We are very well diversified, and we are, let's say, quite clever in, let's say, catching up with the growing sectors. For example, the direct-to-consumer e-commerce sector is absolutely booming. It's around +80% in terms of growth year-over-year. This combined with other key sectors like retailers, consumer durables, travel, leisure time is actually more than compensating the downtrend in the automotive sector. This is true for the first 10 months of the year, and that is why of course we are cautious, but we are confident that the last two months of the year will not affect our progression.
Just to give you an idea, as I said, October was positive year-on-year, and so the performance of the first 10 months has improved again. If we close the nine months at +1% versus 2019, the performance in 10 months is now +1.2% compared to the 2019 baseline. Our aim for the fiscal year is to achieve a performance at least above +1.2% against fiscal year 2019. With some, let's say, there are some things to take into consideration, but the overall outlook is definitely positive. Thank you.
Thank you.
We will take our next question from Julien Roch from Barclays. Julien, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, Matteo. Good morning, Marco. Good morning, Simone. Good morning, Sarah. First question is, Matteo, you just said that you thought advertising would be up at least 1.2% versus 2019, which would be about EUR 1.96 billion, which should be up about 13% versus 2020, but you said at least. What would be the best outcome? That's my first question. The second question is, Marco, any updates you can tell us about consolidation? Do you have active conversation with other broadcasters, or will nothing happen until you have two classes of shares in January, and you can issue shares to do some M&A?
The third question, going back to Matteo and on page eight, I assume that linear viewing is up 3%, not 103%. Also, would it be possible to have some idea of the breakdown of your audience between the three component you highlight on page eight? Thank you.
I'll answer my question, Matteo, then I'll hand over to you.
Yes.
No, I mean, as we said last time, I mean, clearly we are not going to comment on M&A unless and until we have something to say officially. You know that from the, let's say, institutional or in any case, administrative point of view, we are going to have the shareholders meeting of Mediaset N.V. on the November 25th . The shareholders meeting will decide on the company name and on the introduction of the two classes of shares. That's the only official news we can give out. As far as the rest, we don't want to, let's say, pass over any kind of speculation on that. We will announce things when and if we'll be sure. Until then, you can answer to Julien. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Julien, for your questions. Yes, your calculation of course are right. The implicit 1.2% versus 2019 basis is equivalent to at least +13%, fiscal year 2021 versus 2020. What I would like to underline is the fact that we say at least because this is what we have on hand now. We have let's say 7 weeks-8 weeks left. They are selling weeks to spend. The last two months of the year are the two most important months, to some extent, the most unpredictable because there are a lot of things around Black Friday and Christmas.
We are building visibility week after week. Honestly, we are not concerned about the base level I declared before, but this is the base level. This is, we say, okay, at least, this is our expectation for fiscal year. What I could say, we met probably four weeks ago, and we had a progression 1.0. After four weeks, we meet again, and we have a progression 1.2. Let's see what's happened. We are, let's say, quite positive on the progression if there are no accidents on the route, let's say.
With regard to the total audience evolution, yes, here you have chart 8, absolute share percentage increase year-over-year for three separate screens. Linear TV, connected TV and online video. We are looking forward to releasing next year to the market, finally, a total audience metrics that could help us to make comparable data, to release comparable data across three screens. As you know, we don't give details about the split of our business components with regard to different media.
The only things I can add is that the CPM for connected television or for online video is a premium CPM that is helping us in revenue collection. Anyway, even the linear TV is in a positive upward pricing trend. After the deflationary trend last year, 2020, the 2021 is an inflationary year for CPM for linear television. Being television a component in recovery, the market is to some extent accepting trend. This is the whole picture. I thank you.
Okay. [Foreign language].
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We'll take our next question from Sarah Simon from Berenberg. Your line is open. Please go ahead, Sarah.
Yeah, hi. I've got a couple of questions. First on market would be on the reduction in CapEx. I'm assuming that's mostly coming out of programming investment, which suggests you're investing less in rights, but you're managing to maintain the cost base, you know, there must be more in-house production. Is that the right way to think about it? Second one was on the Champions League streaming. Have you got any numbers you can give us in terms of the number of people you attracted to that? And then finally, on radio, where are you in terms of listening compared to, say, 2019? We were looking at the Spanish numbers the other day, and they're obviously still quite down. That would be helpful. Thanks.
Thank you, Sarah. No, you're right. I mean-
Right.
-the decision we have taken some years ago to leave, let's say, rights purchase and increase the local production, it has been confirmed even in the last period. The reduction of the US mainly TV rights has been steady, and it is going to be seen also in the next month because, as you know, these are long-term contracts. Once you have decided then the effect of your decision will come to the balance sheet and the P&L after some years. Clearly, what we are experiencing now, it has been the effect of decisions taken a couple of years ago.
In general terms, we are buying less and we are paying less, and the combination of the two is creating the headroom that for us it's very important because we are able to invest more in local production and all in all to save money. I believe that there was a perfect combination, and the results are clearly in the cash flow statement. The second question on Champions League. No, we are not disclosing numbers. In any case, regarding Champions League. In any case, we can say that the first week game, that was mid of September, we were frankly surprised by volume. We had also some problem in serving all the customers.
After this issue in the first week game, actually we updated our, let's say, services and service is pretty okay, and it is in line with the best practice on the Italian market. We are getting very good results in terms of consumption, better than expected, frankly. It's also a good, let's say editorial mean to serve Publitalia '80 because also the advertising collection on the Champions League streamed it's very good and it is beyond expectation. Matteo, do you want to comment on radio consumption or?
Yes. With regards to radio consumption, radio is, let's say, recovering audience level. It's beyond the 2020 situation experience here. The official RadioTER audience data are quite reassuring on the overall audience ratings. On top of this, a key trend the market has completely understood is the digital visitation of a radio audience. This means two things. The fact that the standard linear radio listening is becoming more and more distributed by digital platforms or mobile, web and so on. And this increase the attractiveness in radio because when you have the digital, let's say, track of your audience, this increase the appealing in the medium.
On top of this, it's like TV moving from TV to total video and the parallel move is from radio to digital audio. Our proposition to the market is, okay, radio again, but we are offering a full portfolio of digital audio solutions, and this is improving. We are also considering the podcast offer. We want to cover the full range of digital audio market. That means linear radio, digital audio and podcast. What I can add, that after 12 months-15 months in spite of some troubles for radio as a whole, now the last part of the year, we are seeing less clouds on the horizon and the market is recovering confidence on this important medium. That's it. Hope to have answered. Thank you.
Yeah, that's helpful. Thanks.
Thank you. You're welcome.
Next question is from Stefano Gamberini from Equita. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for taking my question. Two from my side. The first is regarding advertising sectors. If I'm not wrong, in September, according to Nielsen, also telecom was down in the region of 8%, as well as food, down 4%. What is the trend in the first quarter of these two important sectors for you? Why, in your view, there was this weakness in September month? The second topic is on other revenues. The guidance, full year guidance is flat year-on-year, but if I understood correctly, this means a decline in the Q4 compared the Q1 2024. 2020, sorry. Why, considering the good trend in Champions League streaming, you expect this decline? There were some one-offs or non-recurring revenues in the Q3 , high other revenues. Thanks a lot.
Maybe answering to the latter. No, yes, you're right. In the Q3 , we accounted the extraordinary or let's call it a one-off revenue coming from the settlement with Dailymotion. That was a EUR 26.2 million one-off. That clearly cannot be, let's say, accounted again in the Q4 . That's the main reason. As far as the rest, the progression is the same, and actually it's even better because, for instance, Champions League was only one month in the Q3 , while we are expecting a better performance in the Q4 I mean, the only extraordinary and non-comparable, let's say, item, was the EUR 26.2 million settlement from Dailymotion accounted in the Q3 .
Okay.
Matteo, maybe you can answer too. Yeah.
With regard to advertising sectors, the situation is the following one. If we have, on the one hand, the conjunctural or, let's say, trouble of the automotive sectors, it's true that food and telco sectors are not down, they are simply, let's say, slow, reducing the growth rate. If I look at the nine-month trend and also the ten-month progression, they are, let's say, slowing down, but they are definitely still in the positive field. They are contributing positively to the whole portfolio. They are single-digit growing compared to a portfolio that is double-digit growing, but they are contributing.
Moreover, for me, the key point today to share with you is the high degree of sector diversification of our portfolio. We are very well rooted and distributed in all sectors. We have a customer base of more than 1,000 active companies each year. Another strength point is our capability to renew year- on- year by 5%-7% the customer base with new business. We are, let's say, quite clever in detecting and discovering new clients that are facing the market. This thanks also to our perspective in Europe, thanks to Europe that help us in detecting new clients coming from abroad.
That is why I say that the direct to commerce and e-commerce sectors is becoming more and more important and is growing at a very high double-digit. On top of this, we have retail consumer electronics but also, for example, pharmaceutical is another positive contributing sector. Let's say the solidity of our portfolio is this diversification of sectors. If you have a structural situation like last year, okay, we suffer, and we suffer because we represent the whole market. Due to the fact that we represent the whole market, if there is one or two sectors in troubles, we are in the position to try to compensate with other sectors.
I would add that, in this perspective, our offer on football is a very positive leverage because, as you know, football puts you in the position to have a sort of forward buying, forward selling situation. Because you try to sell in advance, 3 months-4 months, and managing the whole offer for football, for club, we are in the situation to detect the upcoming trends, with a 2 months-3 months of competitive edge versus our competitors. Okay. That's it, and I hope to have answered.
Thanks a lot. Just a quick follow-up on the other revenues for me. Regarding content resale, how the content resale is going? And if you can, in some way, offset or substitute the contract with Sky that, if I'm not wrong, is expiring in this period. Thanks a lot.
I mean, the content resale, it's an ongoing, let's say, activity. We have a large library, well, probably the largest in Italy. All the platform are pretty, let's say, hungry of Italian content. And this is an activity that is going forward. I mean, we don't see any kind of deceleration in that respect. But clearly, you need to finalize the contract before accounting them. Looking at the future, clearly it will be a mixed situation next year. We will have certainly some contract that will expire. We are positive because we have, for instance, the movie cash-in in the theater that, as you can imagine, has been almost none in 2021. That we believe and we hope that in 2022 we'll be back there. Champions will be 12 months and not only off season. We have DAZN that is going through. I'm pretty optimistic also for next year.
It's not on the EUR 300 million line, it's composed by several components with different trends, and our objective is to compensate them and to keep, let's say, the same path we had in 2021. I mean, as far as content resale, I'm pretty positive. I believe that Matteo would like to also add a little bit something on the previous answer. Matteo, right?
Yes. No, just to make it crystal clear. No, my point is, we have a very well-diversified portfolio, so some conjunctural situation in one sector could be compensated or more than compensated by other sector. Of course, it's important for us in our conversation to remind all of us that November, December last year was absolutely quite an all-time high record in terms of revenue collection. We have to compare our Q4 last year was up 3.5%, with November and December strongly outperforming the quarter. The, let's say, glass half full because October was positive.
Of course, we are, let's say, confident and cautious at the same time because we'll see how the weighted average of the performance of all the different sector would define the final outcome of November, December. We are positive, but let's keep in mind that the baseline for November, December last year it's anyway quite challenging year. [Foreign language]
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We'll take our last question from Richard Eary from UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, many thanks. Four questions from my side. Just to be clear on the other revenue numbers, is that if we look at the guidance you've given, which is similar levels to 2020, which was EUR 331 million, but that now includes obviously the EUR 26 million from the Dailymotion settlement. I mean, it implies that actually there's actually a downgrade to what you were guiding, which was EUR 300 million before. I'm just trying to clarify whether that's correct or not, or whether that you're being conservative around the number for the same as last year. The second question just comes to costs. Obviously, you've guided this year EUR 178 million.
How should we think about costs as we go into FY 2022, and what other puts and takes are in there that may influence those numbers? The third question is just on ProSieben, whether you can just give us an update in terms of what the position is in ProSieben, how much is in derivatives, how much is actually in a physical cash position. Because I noticed in the press release, it states that, saying that Mediaset is facing charges of about EUR 104 million to increase the stake held in ProSiebenSat.1 and affected by Mediaset España. So just whether you can clarify that statement. Just lastly, whether you can comment on the position of EI Towers and what the plan is, if you can. Many thanks.
I will try to follow your list. Again, on other revenue. I mean, we didn't change any guidance in the sense that if you turn back to, let's say, our announcement, the agreement with Vivendi has been reached in the Q2 . When we had the first quarter, let's say, conference call, we knew already about Dailymotion. When we guide the EUR 300, we knew already. We are exactly, let's say, hitting our target for 2021 with clearly a different combination. Because when you set a target, you don't know many things. Running a business, you can have good news and bad news. The fact is that we are exactly getting what was in our forecast with clearly a different composition.
Many things have changed, but the reality and the results are exactly what was in our forecast. Unfortunately, we are not really collecting fees from the people. We have to work through 12 months to reach our target. On the other revenue lines, for instance, frankly, at the beginning of the year, we thought that movies on the other revenue would have been part of the other revenue. Unfortunately, it didn't happen, but on the other end, Champions League performance was better, blah, blah, and we were able to offset their own forecast on theater, on movie theater. Again, next year will be the same. It's not one single line, it's made by several lines.
Our objective is really to maximize the line working 12 months. Unfortunately, we cannot be sure both about the target, but I mean, this year, we were able to hit our objective and budget. As far as cost is concerned on the other end, clearly the budget exercise has not been completed. I believe that we are starting from a very outstanding performance in 2021. The policy will not change. Great effort in local production, compensated by many savings in all the parts of the group. As we said, we are below 2019 level in terms of cost, and as I said, the budget has not been completed.
We have, for instance, some other extra costs that we have to compensate, like the Coppa Italia, Supercoppa rights that we acquired in July. We are working to keep the cost base in 2022 flattish compared to 2021. When the budget will be completed, we'll guide you exactly on the number. As far as ProSieben is concerned, again, we don't want to, let's say, feed speculation through news. We are the largest shareholder. We have secured a little bit more than 24% of the voting rights. We always said that.
We have completed all the forms required by BaFin, and, let's say, we officially stated our position. We are going on in communicating changes from long position and derivatives. The reality is that, we have secured 24.2% voting rights. And as far as how we structure and finance the stake, frankly, it's something that is a little bit up to us to decide, and, we were always complying with what the formal requirements are. I mean, clearly the company is entering in 2022, where many things will happen. Some changes in the supervisory board, leasing of partnership. I mean, there are many things we are clearly looking at it. We are long-term investor. We don't look at one week share performance.
We are looking on, let's say long-term strategy and long-term creation of value, and that's our position. We are very happy about the investment, and we are confident the company can really pursue its objective and increase the company value and also our stake. As far as EI Towers is concerned, again, no changes. I mean, we are happy about the performance of the company. You have seen that, well, thanks to them, we have accounted a great and extraordinary gain with the sale of the mobile towers. Again, thanks to the management and thanks also to the strategy we have implemented before, let's say, the delisting. Again, we are happy on the broadcasting towers.
The performance, the operating performance of EI Towers is in line with the forecast and with the plan. You know, because we already said that, the stake is not strategic, so it's not part of our future media strategy. We are not here to undersell or we are trying to take the maximum value out of the participation. Once that the level will be reached, will be a good chance to take profit and to sell it. I mean, for the time being, there are no news. Clearly the management is working in different, let's say, activities, and the performance of the company, as you can see from the numbers, is improving.
The last, this probably someone in Italy has already read in the newspaper, they were able to, let's say, to become partner of Lega Serie A, so the Serie A league, for the, let's say, off-field referee. I mean, they are really working well, and the performance of the group is great. It's not part of our future because we are a media company, and we want to pursue a media strategy. Thank you.
Okay.
Thanks very much.
Thank you, Marco. Sorry, Richard. Thank you, Marco, and thank you, Matteo, and thanks, guys, for all the questions and for taking the time for the conference call of today. As always, we'll be available for any question, information you would like to ask. Have a good day. Bye-bye.