Welcome everyone for the presentation of the year results 2025 for Kinepolis Group. What was 2025? First of all, in a background of weaker visitors, we are still proud about the solid financial performance of the group based on more premiumization, more experience that is still delivering. We organized as well our second Innovation Lab Summit. More about that later on. 2025 was as well important in terms of the refinancing of the group. We refinanced or we renegotiated the RCF and we organized a successful retail bond issue. We are more and more future-proofing and preparing our organization for the future with two new chief positions, two executive positions. More about that later on.
More than a cherry on the cake, we started again with the expansion strategy of the group and doing the first acquisition, the biggest acquisition since the pandemic for the industry as well with Emagine transaction we closed last week. This is the content table for the presentation. Let's first have a look at our top-performing movies for 2025.
All right, bud. You ready?
Yeah.
Chicken Jockey. Whoo! They're coming. Why am I running? We must fight together. You stole my destiny. Mufasa, it is your time.
This was your calling, your destiny. I have no regrets. Neither should you.
I need you to trust me one last time. Come on. Get a head start! Here it comes!
I call upon the warrior mother. Look out!
Go! Yeah. If you wanna find you a reptile, I am your gal. Breathe it in. Whoo! Metropolis has a secret reptile population. Just let me handle the locals. Hey, Bub. Hey, Bub. Hey, Bub. Hey, Bub. Hey, Bub-Bub. Hey, Bub. Bubby Bub. Hey, Bub. Hey, Bub. Hey-ho. Hey, Bub-Bub. Seen a snake? Nope.
Let's do this.
You're the devil in disguise. Yes, you are.
Ew! We are not keeping this thing.
Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind.
forgotten.
Bam, bam, bam. No. I'm gonna give you to the count of three, Stitch. Huh? One.
Yeah. Yee-haw!
On the agenda we have, first, the business review, then, Pieter-Jan will follow up on with the financial review, and I will come back for the outlook, and then we are available for Q&A. First, business review. We made 5.8% less tickets. The background of that is essentially France, where we had strong local content in 2024. L'Amour ouf, Un p'tit truc en plus , and The Count of Monte Cristo that we didn't have last year. I can tell you that right now with Marsupilami in the lineup for this year, we started very strong in France again. Then of course, Michael, that was postponed to the month of April 5.8% less tickets, only 2.3% less revenue impacted as well by currency impacts, lower conversion from USD and CAD. We'll come back on that later on as well.
Still a solid EUR 128.2 million EBITDA or 3.4% lower. Net profit almost at the same level of the year before. We will show you later on, without the FX impacts as well. Strong finance or free cash flow generation. Coming at the end of the year at a financial debt leverage of 2.1 with EUR 287 million net financial debt. As already elaborated a bit before, a little bit less blockbusters. We are still confronted with less blockbusters.
I will tell you a little bit more about that when we are at the outlook and what we observe, what is going on today in Hollywood. Of course, with less releases, you are still have weaker periods. Strong local content again this year in France, but last year. That's not new. Pre-pandemic as well, one of the reasons why we expanded to several countries to level out the impact of local content, which is not or doesn't come with a stable output. In North America, where, of course, the local content is as well, the Hollywood content remain relatively stable. The revenue generation per visitor was strong with again, an higher spent per visitor.
Despite a little bit proportionally less blockbusters, because blockbusters always consume more in our shops and consume as well more in premiumization. Despite that, a strong growth there as well, and we will come back as well on next steps into premiumization. Operational fundamentals, cost control, remains strong. The adjusted EBITDA decreased by 3.4% to EUR 128 million, I said before, EUR 130 million at flat FX. Our debt position went further down. Last week, we closed the deal in Michigan with Emagine. Peter Jan will come back on that. The debt leverage remains on a very conservative level. Here you see the results at flat FX rate, almost the same revenue, almost the same EBITDA, almost the same adjusted results.
Incremental costs as well in the background of a couple of important projects. We are working on a new website that we will release this year, supported by a new app as well. We are working on a new finance ERP as well. We worked as well on the organization structure. We're invested there as well in new positions. I will come back on that as well in a second. Voilà. That says it all, top five movies, EUR 1.7 million less. Again, we had this morning to explain to the press that there's nothing structural going on. If Avatar would have been a month earlier, together with The Housemaid, another very successful movie next to Zootropolis, that probably the year would have looked very different.
You see that the top five movies, the weight was only 19.7%, you see they're waiting for more blockbusters. We had years in pre-pandemic that it was easily 25, even up to 29%. This shows as well that behind those blockbuster movies, we have still a lot of mid-sized movies. What is exceptional that we, since three months now, we are essentially performing very strongly with those mid-sized movies. The blockbusters made, let's say, started up again the engine of traffic to the cinema. Right now, as we speak, we are very, very happy about the start of the year. Of course, still 10 and a half months to go. Don't jump to conclusions, a good start is always a good start, of course.
A lot of marketing actions, a lot of things making cinema becoming more evidential and contributing to that experience. We have some footage to show you. I will be back with key takeaways. Here you see the performance in visitor numbers and in the revenue. Again, we added for Canada and for the US at fixed rate. There you see clearly the premiumization impact. 8.3% less visitors, for instance, in Belgium, still resulting in only half a percent less of revenue. In that background, business-to-business, screen advertising, real estate income were all in progress and performing very well. Of course, what we said before, France. Lack of good local content, not able to compensate.
You see as well that there as well the contribution in growth per visitor in Canada and in the United States, where we did a lot of investments in copy-pasting concepts we developed in Europe, are still very well performing and contributing. We continue to work on our three-pillar strategy for those who are following us already for a longer time than since 2008. We still think that there is a lot of potential in all of these pillars. I think that almost making the same result and revenue with 5.8% visitors demonstrated our so-called 5% exercise, which is key in our cinema operator approach, is still working very strongly. Best marketeer because behind all these figures we see a lot of other dynamics. For instance, Ciné K is growing very fast.
It's more the crossover movie, some arthouse movies. Those programs are developing very fast in many countries and a lot of new initiatives for the next presentations to follow. Real estate works very well. We just reinforced the team. I will come back on that as well to give some more color to what to expect and what we aim for. We made a lot of progress as well in the execution of our ESG strategy. That ESG strategy is designed in a way that it supports the execution of the company strategy as well, that there is not an opposite interest. Which makes that, because, you know, we all know that the ESG is perceived a little bit differently on a political level and on the, in the industry as we speak. We continue with our program.
We defined what to do. We are able to measure all of that. We have steer course and sub-committees for each of the E, the S, and the Gs going on. We are in full execution, and we are confident that the plan that we set up to 2032 and 2035 that we are on track to make that happen. Here a little bit more about a couple of other highlights as such. That premiumization strategy, which is one of the key contributors in the value creation, and as well one of the elements feeding our 5% exercise because, yeah, we still become smarter and more sophisticated in cost management.
The 5% exercise comes more from new businesses and more revenue per visitor. Successful opening of eight new IMAX screens performing very well. Four new ScreenXs, so together we have now a portfolio of 29 ScreenX theaters. We were able to set that up with a very limited investment as such. Six new Laser ULTRA screens, our own PLF, which remains to be successful, and as well the release of these concepts and products in new markets remain very successful as well in the United States, where we will continue to roll out new ones.
Further rollout of premium seating, so we are working as well and testing as well in several theaters in the meantime with what we call luxe loungers, a kind of daybeds on the first row. Works very well. Themed theaters as well, in collaboration and co-financing often with studios to promote and to give more experience around their movie, and often in the first week of release, is something that is, yeah, making us, let's say, supporting us on social media essentially, and we clearly see that it attracts more customers. One of the flagships we have in France, Kinepolis Lomme, was completely renovated, very beautiful.
We plan maybe to organize later on again a capital market day, so you will be able to discover it if we do it in Lomme. As well, we are continuing with renovations and adding new concepts in the Canadian and American theaters. That's an image of such an, let's say, completely decorated, and the entrances are decorated as well for the release of Jurassic World, a collaboration with the studios. Yeah, creating a lot of buzz around the movie, translating in more market share. The IMAX in Lomme, which is opened very successfully. We continue to execute our strategy.
The Kinepolis Innovation Lab Summit is supposed to make us start working and develop ideas that we will execute and that will contribute in the execution of our strategy two, three years later. The concept is that everyone, every country sends in their idea. It's a little bit inspired on the organization of the Eurovision Song Contest. It's the winning country organizes next year. Every country can vote. There's a jury. We have an award for the most impactful idea because the smart idea is always good, but an idea needs to has impact, so that's what we stimulate.
We have as well an award for the most creative idea, and we have as well the prize of the jury and of the public. Everyone can vote. We combine that, of course, with a get together and trying to explain a little bit better and what the next steps will be in execution of our strategy. We have, like, all the external speakers and so on, but it's quite successful and very excited about that. The first edition was very strong, so, then of course, the bar is high, but the second was even stronger, and we are working for June on this third edition. It's essentially their ideas that we develop that we could roll out later on.
Coming from an idea box and groups that work on projects, we just feel that you have all the disciplines and all the talents in a country fighting together for that award. It just makes it more effective. Next time, I promise you, we will make you taste our Kinepolis beer, which is one of the results coming out of this. It's based on popcorn Kinepils, so exciting. We released as well, together with Telenet and Play Kinepolis, a TVoD platform, where there is only one goal for Kinepolis behind all of this. That is creating more awareness, more buzz around what we have on the screen. That's essentially the agreement we made with Telenet and Play. We will create a community of influencers.
The first candidates have been selected for that. They will follow up on everything that's happening in and around a movie, and expect those guys to meet as well in television programs like De Tafel van Vier or De Slimste Mens, so essentially in and around Play. The only goal is to create more awareness and essentially around mid-sized movies. We have a couple of movies that will be released next week. Dust is the first movie based on the story of Fernand De Pauw, and later on, the story about the disaster that happened in the Heysel . It are typically those kind of movies and other mid-sized movies because I told you before, today we are essentially successful with mid-sized movies, which is very promising for the future.
The customer is discovering that more and more. Those movies don't come with big marketing campaigns from Hollywood. That's where we try in a smart way to support and create as much awareness as we can. We appointed Hans Van Acker in a new position. He becomes or is, has became Chief Strategic Businesses and Developments. Hans was running Kinepolis Film Distribution for us, so he will oversee from now on or since August, he oversees and Kinepolis Film Distribution and Brightfish. He's responsible as well for new developments, and that would, let's say, take too much attention away from the daily business for the teams that operate and market our theaters.
The only goal is to be able to come with a shorter time to market for new ideas, new concepts, and essentially where we would try to roll out faster new ideas within the company. That's the responsibility of Hans. Hans is one of the inspirators and guys behind Play Kinepolis as well. A quick start in his position. Tom is on board since the 1st of January. He's an outsider who has been working for a long time and a lot of experience in real estate development. We call his position the real estate entrepreneur. Essentially, he will be responsible for the third strategic pillar, where we already had a building and engineering team and a portfolio management team. Tom will oversee that.
His job is to redevelop, to monetize the underlying, let's say untapped capacity of our real estate. Could be outdoors, parkings, other pieces of land we have, or indoors redeveloping excess capacity within our theaters as such. Later on, we are working as well on a split, a soft split. I told you before that we need to first finalize and go live with our new finance AFP. We plan in 2027 to be able to give a little more transparency about the real estate portfolio next to the operational activity. Tom will be responsible for that real estate aspect.
2026, and we talked about that already, two years ago, was an important year in terms of an important retail bond, EUR 225 million coming to maturity end of this year. In the geopolitical unstable world we are living in, we preferred already in 2025 to start with the refinancing of the group. The first step was a renegotiation and an extension of our RCF that we expanded from EUR 120 million-EUR 160 million and welcoming as well a new French bank, LCL, on board in the club. RCF with possibilities to extend and in duration and in amount. That club financed already the acquisition of Kinepolis in the meantime as well.
We issued a retail bond, end of the year, very successfully. We were in the market for EUR 150 million for five years, and after one day we had more than 3.5 times more demand than what we could take. A warming sign of confidence in the market about what Kinepolis and what the team is doing as such. Very important elements and steps for the group. Here you see the acquisition of Kinepolis, 14 theaters. We are very excited about that. We were chasing after it already since 2019 that we were making the first offers. We made it happen last year. It's been a long process, negotiation period of more than six months.
We always go deep in our due diligences. We never had surprises in the past, so, and we want to try to keep it that way. We acquired 14 luxury theaters in that way, good for 6 million visitors last year. There's an overlap in terms of market with the theaters we have. As I already explained to some of you, if you would translate it in hotel terms, I think this is more a 5-star hotel, while the MJR Theatres we have is more the 4-star. Very well-maintained, both circuits. They will live together. We will keep the both brands as well in that market because we attract another customer with that. Completely reclined, so very happy, and tastes like more.
But okay, stay tuned. I think it's the first acquisition again in post-pandemic of this size for us, but as well in the industry. It's the biggest transaction in the industry since the pandemic. We were quite active pre-pandemic, so we have clearly the ambition to continue again. On the path of the pre-pandemic, we do have the balance sheet. We do have the team. That's one of the reasons why we are reinforcing our teams. So not announcing anything, but stay tuned. Irrationality behind this healthy and well-maintained asset, very complementary, as well already very effective, fee-driven. Don't ask me immediately what the improvement potential will be. We will have integration potential, of course.
We will have improvement potential, it's always difficult to find out what is the starting point for a target, how well is it already going, what else can you do? There's certainly improvement potential. We bought it at a very conservative multiple compared to pre-pandemic levels. We are as well there, absolutely excited about the immediate, yeah, contribution to shareholder value creation that it will bring. That's the new footprint with the 14 theaters, more 170 screens on top. The dividend for 2025 result payable in 2026.
We have decided together with the board to increase our dividend by EUR 0.10 per share, bringing it up to EUR 0.65 per share, that's what will be proposed to the general assembly. This as well as a sign of confidence in the future, a sign of strength, and a sign of thank you to our shareholders. That's pretty much from my side what I had to tell you. I'm giving the floor to Pieter-Jan, who will walk you through the financials. Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome from my side. The financials. You have been seeing Eddy have been talking a lot of activities, actions. We have not been laying back in 2025, a lot of things have been done. That also resulted in our financial performance, which includes a lot of dynamics. Revenue-wise, in that background of that drop of 5.8%, we also dropped in revenue. If we go deeper in that revenue decline, you see our cinema operations still accounts for 83% of our total sales, of which 51% is box office. That drop had a significant impact in our sales. In total, sales of cinema operations went down EUR 50 million.
In that EUR 50 million, we had a drop of almost EUR 31 million related to lower visitors. That is the result of that -5.8%. Nevertheless, we managed to almost compensate that fully by increasing our prices to compensate for inflation. Also the increase in premiumizations helped us to compensate part that drop in sales. On top of that, also we saw quite a nice spend per visitors of in our shops. A lot of actions going on in our shops. One of them that is very successful is the thematized popcorn buckets, which also helps us in increasing our spend per visitor. Some small impacts from scope changes, an important element, certainly as visitors are not impacted by FX translations.
If we translate our Canadian and U.S. dollar to EUR, it is. There you see an impact of EUR 11.1 million on our sales, which is quite significant. Excluding that, our revenue is almost in line with last year. Our other activities, B2B did quite well. Brightfish, our screen advertising activity also had an increase, which is not a big activity, but the EUR 700 is quite significant for that activity. Film distribution also had an increase. The successful release of Paddington in Peru contributed to that. Our real estate also, inflation and less vacant spaces, also resulted in an increase of around EUR 300,000, which is in the total not huge, but it's an increase. It's important. Diving further, one of the KPIs, there is a lot of things we control.
There are also a lot of things we don't control. The things we control, actually, we succeeded in, that's the spend per visitor, increasing our prices to compensate for inflation. That's what you see here. If you see on the left side, right side, you see the increase in spend per visitor in box office and in ITS. You see that we've end up with 2.3% for box office per visitor and 3.6% even for ITS per visitor from 2024 to 2025. If you exclude also here that impact of a weakening USD and CAD, then even our box office per visitor went up 4.4%, and even our ITS spend, which is an impressive increase of 6.3%.
We really saw a nice, a nice spend there by our customers in the shops, throughout our whole group. More important, profitability, rentability, so our EBITDA, EBITDAL also here, despite the background of the drop in visitors, we maintained our EBITDA percentage almost, so at 28.8%, equaling last year. Even on our EBITDAL performance, we almost reached the same level of 23% on sales this year. Also here, we had an impact, which is quite significant, that we almost had an impact of around EUR 3 million of the weakening dollar and Canadian dollar as our operations are quite significant also in Canada and America, and will become more significant after the acquisition of Emagine. Bringing us to the net result. There virtually almost in line.
A little bit slower, at EUR 41.1 million adjusted net results. We consider this as certainly in that drop of visitors as a performance we can be proud on. Yes, all those actions that cost, of course, money. One important part is our maintenance program, where we try to keep our complexes very up-to-date. Also important in the whole experience that we strive for. There again, a nice program, around EUR 23 million we invested. A little bit more than last year. Further also the expansion, internal expansion mainly. IMAX screen mix, premium seatings, re-renovation of shops. It all costs money, there we spend around just $20 million almost of million dollars. Also investments that will return us some additional EBITDA going forward.
Important to keep on investing. Despite increased investments, despite the, a little lower EBITDAL, we still show very operating, steady operating cash flows. EUR 70 million for 2024. A little bit less than 2024, but in 2024, we had a bit of tailwind as we had a huge benefit from improved working capital. In 2025 our working capital is at the same level, so we didn't have that one-off improvement. As such, we didn't have that tailwind. Nevertheless, given the slightly lower EBITDAL, we still have EUR 70 million of operating cash flow and showing a cash conversion of 55%, so in line with 2023. That allows us, of course, to lower our debt from EUR 319 million to EUR 287 million.
Yeah, a nice deleveraging again, which brings us to a leverage today according to the calculation of our RCF at 2.1. 2.1, that's a nice decrease versus last year. We ended the year with 2.25. Yeah. We did have some challenges in maturity profile and in refinancing. Three important milestones in 2025 to cope with that. You also see that in today, the cash availability we have, but also the liquidity headroom. That gives us enough room and flexibility. End of the year, we had liquidity headroom of almost EUR 320 million. That allows us also to further invest and also partly cover the maturing private placement end of December of EUR 225 million.
We also repaid two private placements in the course of 2025, one of EUR 34.6 million to be exact in January, and then we had another repayment in December 2025 of EUR 60 million. Proving our maturity? How did we do that? Three important elements. The first one that Eddy mentions is the RCF. On the one hand, we increased it from EUR 120 million - EUR 160 million at quite good terms and competitive terms. Maturity there of five years, possible extension of two years. Another one that actually got under the RCF documentation, we financed the acquisition with EUR 100 million with a six-year amortizing loan. We're also spreading our maturity.
Of course, the last thing where we are very proud on is the successful issuance of the retail bond, five-year maturity, EUR 150 million is what we did. Very proud of that. Brings us to the summary. What is important? Our adjusted EBITDA per visitor, we keep on increasing that. We went from EUR 4.08 per visitor to EUR 4.18, another nice increase. This is not a given, this is a result of hard work and keeping our costs under control. Returning then an EBITDA a little bit lower than 2024, but still at a very decent EUR 128.2 million. Net loss that almost equal with 2024. On the other KPIs also, we kept them more in line with 2024.
Return on capital employed. Our solvency even improved. Without IFRS 16, we went to 28%. If we look at our balance sheet today, we find it's a very healthy situation in terms of leverage, in terms of structuring of the balance sheets, which gives us room to do more in terms of capital allocation, meaning, okay, expansion, internal or external. Brings me already to the end, but maybe more important, the outlook for 2026. Eddy, what do you have in store?
A lot this time. The rest of the release calendar for this year looks, at least on paper, you know that we are always prudent and don't do too much predictions. Look, if you don't have anything to be released, you won't do anything with it. We have a lot to be released this year and very exciting movies to come. In the meantime, we had a really a very strong start of the year. Okay, still 10 and a half months to go, I know. Today we have in the top five movies for the month, like Marsupilami, Les Chèvres !, Wuthering Heights or Heights, still Zootopia and Avatar. Nuremberg is going very strong, so we see as well more and more, let's say, appetite for those mid-sized movies.
We are thinking as well, how could we in the future even create more awareness and support the release of such movies better? We are working on a little bit of restructuring of our box office sales and marketing organization. The Play Kinepolis initiatives or initiative I was talking about fits into that as well. This is not for the first time that we show you that slide, but that self-learning organization, 5.8% less visitors, almost the same revenue and result, ticks that first box. We are still going strong in what we call internal expansion. Often, those premium concepts with rather short paybacks and rather high returns on investment.
I can tell you, that's some color we give every year as well, that the 2026 profit plan again has been based on an approach, not as a target again, but as an approach. 5% less tickets must result in the same EBITDA. Exciting to see that after all those years, the talents we have been developing on the floor succeed to come with ideas, approaches to compensate that 5% visitors. Of course, we have a strong and important operational leverage that goes in both ways. If this year we would be more successful in top line growth in a like for like basis, that would be very exciting. External growth, there our ambition is clear to come back to the rhythm of pre-pandemic.
I'm not announcing anything, it's just like the movies you have on your billboards. If you don't have movies, you'd have nothing to show. If you're not working on opportunities, you won't do nothing. We are working on opportunities. Will we succeed? God knows. We will let you know as soon as we will be committed on this. It's clear for us that we want to come back to the rhythm of expansion of the group of pre-pandemic. I think that Pieter-Jan demonstrated as well that we have the strength to go for that. Maybe a brief industry update. We have been consulted a lot by the press and essentially the international press on if we do have a preference for Paramount or Netflix buying Warner Bros.
The only thing that we observe and that we explained before is that the new dynamic, maybe not that new, but the dynamic that Hollywood is rediscovering is that if you succeed to amortize your investment in a movie in a theatrical window, that you support your after theatrical windows, not only in terms of success, word of mouth is created in a theatrical window, but as well from a financial point of view. Most of the streamers, their platforms are very successful but are not that profitable. It took Netflix 15 years to become cash break even, and most of those platforms are not cash break even. If you succeed to amortize your movie in a theatrical window, you resolve your profitability issue on your streaming platform.
It's not a coincidence that companies and smart people like Amazon and Apple, who had nothing to do with studios or with the cinema before, come into our market to bring us content. We are more than happy that the Formula One movie last year for Apple was their first main success. Both studios are working on more. I guess that, yeah, that's the rationale as well behind the move of Netflix. I don't know if I would pay EUR 83 billion for a back catalog or for studio capacity because that's a variable cost for them. 145 million extra subscribers of which 80% overlap. I don't know.
I think that they just want to participate in the economic model that if you can already amortize your most expensive content, blockbuster movies into a theatrical window, that it opens, of course, for them the world to join a business model that makes the platform only even more profitable. Skydance and Paramount have another, have another approach, just more capacity. If you ask me, I think that it will take more a couple of months still before we will know who will be the winner. I expect new bids to come. In fact, that's going on. That's not so new. Antitrust authorities will need to do their thing into this. One thing is certain, and that's what all the studios rediscovered.
Word of mouth is created in a theatrical window, and that's something that we all concluded since Black Widow that failed completely on premium VOD. You make your money in a theater, and you resolve your profitability problem of your home entertainment platform through a theatrical release. That's what is going on. That's what is happening today. Paramount is recapitalized in the meantime as they plan to come with more content in the coming months already, and they told us that they started immediately, even before the closing of the deal, and that 18 months from there on, they would expect to come with more content. Warner will be recapitalized as well. To give you an idea, that's an information we didn't have coming out of the pandemic.
We all thought, okay, it's two years, two and a half years extended by the strikes, and we will be back in content lineup. Little did we know that most of the studios, essentially those who invested in streaming, came out from a financial point of view, very weakened. Talking to the executives of Warner Bros., who were releasing 23, 24 movies pre-pandemic, told us two years ago, "We don't have the capacity financially to go over 14, 15." So that's let's say that's the recapitalization that is going on right now, and we will probably end up with more capacity if you look as well at the studios below the line. So, yeah. Hopefully that 2026 will demonstrate for the first time the impact of all this and followed by 2027.
We will probably, at the end of the year, organize again a capital market day and visiting some of the studios and explaining them as well that they need to be more vocal and be more transparent on what's coming from their side. Two of them already committed to join for that capital market day, so and, that would be very exciting, of course, if you could hear both sides of the of the globe. We call them those from the dark side. If they could come out on our side to explain what's going on, that would be very excited. That's what we will plan end of the year. Let's now look at what is coming up for next year, then we are ready for your Q&A.