Good afternoon to you all, and thank you for your attention. Let me highlight the main achievements characterizing group performance in the first half of the current year. Looking at the group result, we can observe, first, the group continued to increase the economic performance driven by the positive trend in revenues, both organic and through M&A, and by the careful management of operations that allowed a further improvement of EBITDA, as we will see in the next slide. An LTM ordinary cash flow of EUR 67 million confirms the solid cash flow generation capacity of the group. Alongside the ongoing improvement of profitability and the strengthening of the financial structure, the group continued developing its core businesses, focusing on its book publishing presence and its digital positioning.
Specifically, in May, we finalized the acquisition of Chelsea Green Publishing in order to diversify our publishing portfolio in the U.S. and U.K. through a publishing house focused on sustainability matters, marking a further step in our international footprint in English-speaking countries. In May, again, we have launched PLAI, the startup accelerator based on exploiting generative artificial intelligence in order to identify highly innovative initiatives in our editorial sectors. Lastly, just a few days ago, Mondadori signed a binding offer for the acquisition of 51% of the company that will manage the intellectual property, rights, and image of Benedetta Rossi. Last week, we signed the essential terms and conditions for the acquisition of 51% of the share capital of Waimea, the company that holds all the intellectual property and economic rights pertaining to the image of Benedetta Rossi and her husband, Marco Gentili.
Benedetta Rossi is Italy's best-known creator in the food and cooking sector. Her content creation activity ranges from the digital segment, where she has a total social media fan base of over 70 million followers and 4 million unique monthly users, to traditional media, including, in particular, TV, where she has for many years starred in various programs dedicated to cooking. Benedetta Rossi is also the most important cookbook author of recent years, with nine books published in the Mondadori Group between 2016 and 2023, selling over 1.5 million copies. As a result of this transaction, the Mondadori Group intends to create the leading multimedia player in the food and cooking sector, putting together the brands GialloZafferano and Benedetta Rossi, both in digital and traditional media, with more than 87 million followers worldwide.
The transaction involves the initial acquisition of 51% of the share capital of the company, whose revenues and EBITDA in 2023 amounted to EUR 4.5 million and EUR 2.7 million, respectively, based on the enterprise value for 100% of EUR 13.5 million on a cash-debt-free basis. Consequently, the price to be paid fully in cash on the closing date is EUR 6.9 million. The agreement also provides for put and call options on a further 19% stake that would allow Mondadori Media to increase its stake in the company to 70%, while keeping Benedetta Rossi and Marco Gentili shareholder at 30%, consistently with the long-term strategic partnership established. This slide highlights the continued improvement of group performance, both in revenues and adjusted EBITDA, in the last three years, recorded in the second quarter and in the first half, confirming once again the positive outcome of the strategic path implemented.
Group profitability in the same time frame has significantly increased from 6.7% of 2021 to almost 11% in the first half of 2024. The stability shown between the first half of 2023 and the first half of 2024 is totally consistent with the full-year guidance and recorded despite the accounting of revenues with lower marginality. Let's now comment on the performance of the trade book market in the first half of the current year. The first six months of 2024 highlighted stability in terms of value in the book market after the contraction registered in the first quarter of the year. As a result of the distortion produced by the publication of the Spare, the Prince Harry biography in January 2023, the improvement results from the trend in the second quarter of the year, when the book market has shown a growth of over 4% year-on-year.
In this context, the Mondadori Group publishing houses recorded in the second quarter a 7.6% increase, almost doubling the reference market, in particular thanks to Italian authors which have dominated the top 10 ranking every week. The Mondadori Group reinforced its national leadership with a market share of 27.7% at June 2024. If we analyze the most recent weeks, it is even more evident that the book market trend has confirmed the vitality of our reference sector, coming back to an overall positive figure. This remark is even truer when applied to our group publishing houses. Thanks to the trend in the first week of July, a 7% increase year-on-year, the year-to-date performance is growing by 1.6%.
Additionally, it is worth reminding that on the 4th of July, thanks to Einaudi, the group won the Strega Prize with L'età fragile by Donatella Di Pietrantonio, which, as of today, has sold more than 100,000 copies. Let me outline and briefly comment on the first half results. Revenues show a growth close to 7%, driven by the performance of the trade books and retail areas. Also, thanks to the consolidation of Star Shop on a like-for-like basis, revenue growth would have been 3.8%. Adjusted EBITDA comes to EUR 40.9 million, improving by 7% versus previous years, deriving again from the positive performance of trade books and retail, in particular, as we will see in the next slide. EBIT recorded a slight decrease due to higher depreciation and amortization coming from higher CapEx and from the PPA process.
Adjusted EBIT net of non-recurring items and PPA comes to EUR 15.4 million, improving by EUR 0.7 million versus the first half of 2023, thanks to the positive operating performance. Net profit amounted to EUR 7.1 million, down from EUR 12.2 million accounted in the first half of 2023, as more in detail described after. This trend was strongly impacted in the 2024 financial year by timing or non-recurring effects. The increased top line versus the first half of 2023 comes mainly, as already said, from the positive performance of all core businesses. In particular, the trade books area increased by EUR 15.6 million or by 9% in the period, mainly driven by the positive performance of publishing activities, in particular of the relative digital revenue, and by the contribution of Star Shop and Chelsea Green Publishing, net of which the like-for-like growth would have been 3.4%.
The education books improved by 5.7%, thanks to some anticipation in the supply to wholesalers. It should be reminded that the revenues achieved in the first half of the year typically account for 25% of the annual figure. The retail area recorded a strong improvement of EUR 7.5 million, or almost 9%, versus last year. Also, thanks to the consolidation of Star Shop retail activities, comic shops, the organic growth amounts to 3.6%, coming from the book revenues performance that in the period has been close to 4%, driven in particular by directly operated stores. The digital activity of media area delivered an improvement of 26%, mainly thanks to the positive performance of the Martech segment, while the media print has recorded a decrease due to the structural decline in add-ons and circulation revenues.
It is important to underline that the media business unit presents positive organic growth, given that the increase in the digital segment more than compensated for the decline in print activities. The improved profitability of almost EUR 3 million stems from the positive performance that all business units recorded, despite the decrease that the group has to deal with regarding primarily lower grants in the media print business that have been accounted for in the current year. I remind you that in the last year, grants have been recognized for more than EUR 5 million, while in the current year, this contribution is equal to EUR 4 million. Excluding this one-off effect, the improvement versus last year would have been of over EUR 4 million. The positive performance was driven by, firstly, ordinary business operations, while improved by almost EUR 3 million, a decrease in paper costs equal to EUR 2.4 million.
On the other hand, this trend was negatively impacted by the conclusion at the end of April of the multi-year concession of ticketing activities and services carried out in the Roman archaeological area of the Colosseum. As already seen, the improved profitability by EUR 2.7 million, or 7%, versus the first half of 2023 comes mainly from the trade books, retail, and digital media segments. In particular, in the trade books area, increased by EUR 1.5 million in the period, driven by the improvement in the profitability of publishing houses, resulting in particular from the growth in digital revenues and the lower incidence of industrial costs, primarily paper. The education books has recorded a worsening of its margin, which is due to a timing effect, in particular to the anticipation of additional promotion costs in order to optimize the adoption campaign program.
The retail areas recorded a strong improvement by 25%, equal to EUR 1.1 million, thanks to the book revenue growth and ongoing store network development and renewal. The media area delivered a global improvement of EUR 1.1 million, deriving from digital activity that recorded an increase of EUR 1.3 million, while the media print generated a slightly declining margin, despite the lower grants, thanks to the measure aimed at rationalizing the activity, which has favored those with more stable profitability, the decrease of paper costs, and the ongoing cost saving. The corporate and shared services recorded a worse margin compared to the previous year due to the higher costs linked to some innovation projects, including that relating to Play, the startup accelerator of the Mondadori Group.
Then, finally, analyzing the change in the net profit for the first half of 2024 compared to 2023, please note that we have recognized a EUR 2.7 million improvement in adjusted EBITDA, as we already saw, a negative contribution from non-recurring items, of which almost EUR 1 million results from the accounting in the first half of 2023 of the net gain from Grazia Disposal. A EUR 3.3 million increase in depreciation and amortization due to both the growing business investment policy, EUR 1.5 million plus, and the accounting effect of the PPA process, EUR 1.4 million, related to M&A. It is important to highlight that approximately EUR 0.9 million of this increase is a timing effect in comparison with the previous year, given from the entire year we expect a year-on-year increase of less than EUR 5 million.
A worsening in the result of associates for about EUR 1.6 million since the first half of 2023 had benefited from non-recurring items, EUR 1.3 million fair value revaluation of the stake held in ALI, and the net gain equal to EUR 0.4 million, deriving from the disposal of the residual stake in Il Giornale. Tax expense in the period totaling EUR 1.4 million versus a positive figure of EUR 0.1 million at the 30 June 2023, mainly since the result of the first half of 2023 has benefited from the accounting of income that was not taxable or subject to reduced taxation, such as capital gain, as well as contribution in the media area. And lastly, a greater minority interest of EUR 0.7 million, mainly due to the improved Star Comics results.
Overall, we can say that 75% of the EUR 5 million drop in the net profit from the period is due to the non-recurring or timing effect mentioned, while the remaining to higher depreciation and amortization and minority interests. The adjusted net result, neutralizing the extraordinary component and the amortization resulting from the PPA, would be equal to EUR 9 million, up by approximately 6% compared to the EUR 8.5 million of the first half of the previous year. Moving to the cash position, we can see that in the current year, the group confirmed its strong cash flow generation capacity. The cash flow generated in the last 12 months by ordinary operation amounts to EUR 67 million. The consolidated net financial position before IFRS 16 amounts to about EUR 212 million, an improvement of approximately EUR 3 million compared to the EUR 215 million at June 2023, despite the M&A activities and the shareholder remuneration.
The comparison with the net debt at 2023 year-end reflects the typical absorption in the first half of the year, resulting from the seasonal patterns of the school business. Analyzing the change in the group net debt between June 2023 and June 2024, we observe that, as already seen, the ordinary cash flow showed in the last 12 months was substantially in line with the figure recorded in financial year 2023, thanks to the improvement in profitability and to lower cash taxes. Despite the negative dynamics of working capital, partly recorded in the trade book area due to the change in revenue mix, higher revenues from physical channel compared to e-commerce, and partly in the media area due to the stronger revenue growth of the digital business. Group Capex amounted to approximately EUR 39 million, substantially in line with the 2023 figures.
Extraordinary cash flow was negative by EUR 28 million and includes cash out for M&A of about EUR 15 million, for restructuring cost of EUR 6 million, and for the renovation of that quarter of about EUR 3 million. Consequently, the LTM free cash flow was positive for about EUR 39 million, confirming the group's ability to self-finance its development and the continuous efficiency improvement. Finally, in the period, the group recorded a growing remuneration to its shareholders, 50% already distributed, for over EUR 31 million. Let's now end our brief presentation with the confirmation of the outlook for the full year 2024. In light of the positive result achieved in the first half and the trend in our reference market, we can say we are completely on track with the estimates previously disclosed.
Therefore, we are expecting a low single-digit growth in revenues, a mid-single-digit growth in adjusted EBITDA, with a group profitability stable at 17%, thanks to the pricing policy and to the further reduction of paper and printing costs. We also confirm the increase in cash generation capacity and therefore expect ordinary cash flow to reach EUR 70 million, despite a higher CapEx of around €4 million compared to what was expected at the beginning of the year dedicated to the renovation of a group printing plant. Thank you all for your attention.