Welcome for the presentation of the first half- year results, and for those following us online, very welcome as well. On the agenda today, we have the business review for H1, followed by the financial review and the outlook. I would maybe like to start with an industry update and what's going on and what's the game we're playing in. We already told you before that we didn't have a demand issue, but more of a supply issue. What is the background of this? The background is that there was, of course, COVID, which meant that Hollywood has been interrupted to produce new movies for two years, followed by the strikes. But in the background of that, and during the pandemic, we all knew that Hollywood was focusing on streaming in an attempt to control the end consumer.
Streaming is very popular, but very difficult to get it profitable, to make it profitable. That has made that a couple of big Hollywood studios have been coming from a financial perspective, weakened out of that pandemic. There's a reason why companies like Paramount has been sold, and right now, a lot is going on in trying to merge Paramount with Warner Bros. Discovery. Essentially, the solution for this situation is, as a streamer, coming to the theatrical industry and trying to monetize your content in a theatrical window. That's the reason why companies like Apple and Amazon, who had nothing to do with our industry but both had streaming platforms, have been investing in our industry. Amazon recently was very successful with the Project Hail Mary movie.
Amazon not only invested in the acquisition of MGM Studios a couple of years ago , but recently established Amazon MGM Studios as well to invest more. Apple was very successful with the Formula 1 The Movie that was not only theatrically very successful but as well on their platforms. Recently, and that's very recently, we were updated on this on August 12, that Netflix announced the second movie that in 2027, they will give a full theatrical release of 47 days. More recently and very successful are YouTubers investing and working together to release movies on the big screen. Backrooms and Obsession, still on our screens, have been very successful.
Another demonstration of, let's say, studios rediscovering the power of a theatrical window is the announcement in April, if I'm correct, from Universal Pictures, that they were extending their 70-day window immediately to 31 days in the U.S., and from next year on to 45 days. This is what has been going on. This is the dynamic, and this means as well that we are getting more content, something that we have been announcing for a long time. We are only, let's say, on track for more and more content to come, and that's what I've been trying to explain and illustrate what the dynamic behind all of this has been. We started the third quarter as well, very successful with The Odyssey and with Spider-Man breaking new records in terms of box office revenue.
This is what has been going on the supply side. On the demand side, we already demonstrated and witnessed before, even before the pandemic, that there was more demand and more willingness to pay from a consumer side in more experiences. Cinema becomes more eventamental, and I think the 70-mm, the IMAX that we released in June. In 24 hours time, we sold 20,000 tickets for a theater with a capacity here in Brussels of 400 seats. Today, we made 87,000 tickets in only one theater, and we are sold out until September 22. We cannot invite you for a 70-mm experience. We are negotiating with the studio to try to extend the show. We see as well more and more interest from the Gen Zs from a demand side. We see a much higher visitor frequency from essentially Gen Zs and the millennials.
Hollywood, with producing movies related to what the world of the gamers and related to gaming, the first big movie with Minecraft was a very smart and strategic, very smart move. We see that generation is discovering and bringing their own idols and even filmmakers. I am referring again to the YouTube dynamic, Obsession, that made 165x in revenue the investment into that movie. I guess that feels and sounds like more. Looking back to Kinepolis in this background, I need to tell you that we are today, I think, the champion of the break-even lowering exercises. This continues. When I look at the integration of Emagine Entertainment, and for strategic reasons, we do not go into detail, but I can tell you that the integration within MJR Theatres and within Kinepolis has never been as smooth as this integration.
The contribution in four and a half months of that acquisition is more than half of what the performance was last year on only four and a half months, knowing that the second half is always stronger than the first half. We can already, today, after four months, say that this is a successful integration and acquisition. We continue to work on premiumization, something where we did not only have the vision, but as well the financial strength to invest into that. Quite exceptional, last year, we told you with 65% or with 2/3 of the movie offer, we made the same revenue. We made one-third more revenue per visitor. We made an EBITDA or an EBITDAL that was in the bandwidth of what we made in 2019, which was a record year. Of course, with high operational leverage in the background .
Yeah, that is what explains the result that we are going to explain immediately to you. We are working further on external expansion. We are today bigger in the U.S. in number of theaters than in Europe. I cannot tell you more to come, but we are working on it, and we will close the deal with Showcase Cinemas in September, and we are very excited about that acquisition. It is an underperforming asset for the time being, but we know what we can do with our models and improvement potential. If you look at the real estate portfolio that we acquired there in zones of New York, Long Island, Massachusetts, compared to what we paid for it, we are very excited. There is some work to do in restructuring. That brings me to the key financial results that are a bit negatively impacted by a FX evolution.
We made 33.8% more visitors, including, of course, the acquisition of Emagine Entertainment. But even excluding the acquisition of Emagine Entertainment, there is more growth coming from the fact that we have more content than the contribution of the Emagine Entertainment acquisition. Revenue in euros up 32.6% in flat FX, or at flat FX rate, 35.9%. Yes, we make more revenue with the extra visitors.
Per visitor, that is what I am trying to explain. EBITDAL, going from EUR 48 to EUR 80.9 million, or an increase of 67.8%, 71% at flat FX, and the net result is going from EUR 8.8 to EUR 28 million, tripling of our free cash flow, and the net financial debt at a low level of 1.85x in the background of an acquisition that we have been doing during Q1, the acquisition of Emagine Entertainment. Here are the key takeaways. I think that most of this I already explained as such.
What I would like to underline is when you go, and we have another slide on that, country by country. Last year we were telling you we did not have successful local movies in France in 2025, which made the comparison with 2024 a bit challenging. We started this year with "Marsupilami," and in Spain, we had another big movie. The big movie in Spain was "Torrente Presidente," that contributed as much as "Avatar." Yes, local content remains important and explains as well why, proportionally, countries like Belgium and the Netherlands perform a bit less compared to last year. But the strong demand and the dynamic of more Hollywood content is visible in those countries as well. In the Netherlands, we closed two smaller theaters that did not contribute, and you need, and that is something we explained before.
The dynamic in the market in the Netherlands has been that, since the pandemic, there have been a couple of new openings, greenfields that have been built. One that we opened, Leidschendam. One that Pathé opened, Ypenburg. One that Vue opened in Enschede. This means that compared to pre-pandemic, there are 9% more screens. But the recovery of the market is on the same rhythm and at the same pace than what we have in Belgium. I already highlighted a bit on the slide before what the results are at a flat FX rate. So with 33.6%, 35.9%, and that is something that I try to explain every year, that is part of our 5% exercise. That is premiumization, but inflation coverage as well.
This time, with the country mix, a little bit lowering the growth in revenue per visitor since we had two big local movies, as I just said, in France and in Spain, where the average ticket price and spend is a little bit lower than in the rest of the markets where we are. But so if you look country by country, you see premiumization and premiumization pushing revenue per visitor even higher. Adjusted EBITDA, where we are focusing on as a team, EUR 82.5 million compared to EUR 48.2 million or a growth of 71.2%, and the net adjusted result bottom line is going from EUR 8.8 million to EUR 28.5 million . Top five movies. Last year, we told you that "Michael Jackson" had been postponed, and so it will come in two parts, The Movie. The first part was this year.
If you would have added " Michael Jackson " again to the first half, that would have given a little bit different performance for 2025. After all, still a very strong performance for H1. Analysts are, and I am not going to make any predictions on that, we do not know. Analysts who observe what Hollywood is going to bring announce further growth in 2027. Future will tell. We have never given any guidance on that. It is clear that Hollywood continues to work on more content, and that is what I try to explain as well. We see that underneath this, we have as well a very strong, or we had a very strong lineup of mid-sized movies. "The Housemaid," "Nuremberg," for instance, have been contributing in an important way, and are for our teams, our booking teams as well, always surprises how well they are going to perform.
It is always easier to predict what "Dune 3 " is going to do than what the next mid-sized movie, "Digger," for instance, is going to contribute. Visitor dynamics, I already explained a bit. Here you see then France, for instance, up 25.1% thanks to "Marsupilami." You see Spain up 30%. You see on the other side as well, from the Excel each time what the growth in revenue is. From there, you can deduct as well the revenue per visitor. Pieter-Jan is going to go more in depth on that. Despite a little bit less visitors in the Netherlands, I told you the two closures of not really profitable theaters, 5.4% more revenue. Then, of course, U.S., where we have been adding to MJR Theatres, Emagine Entertainment.
Next to the 10 theaters we already had, we added 14 theaters, resulting in 147% growth, and this only from February 12 on. Very exciting. I think we now have some marketing content that we can show you from the different campaigns we have been doing.
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Here you see the current footprint of the group. Adding 14 theaters, 177 screens. We now plan to close the deal with Showcase in the month of September. For those following us since a long time, this is a slide with our three- pillar strategy that is in since 2008, but still has potential. This is exactly what, when we acquire new groups, new cinemas, what we try to implement. We come with an organizational structure, a management reporting focusing on financial results, but as well on customer satisfaction, people satisfaction, and the ESG performance. We measure this per theater. Yeah, that is the way we try to make our new colleagues contribute, as well to their own results, getting inspired by what we do, but we getting inspired by what they do better. You will see as well that we are working on new things.
Often small things, but given the number of visitors you make, a couple of euro cents or dollar cents at the end of the year can make a huge difference in revenue. This is one of the strengths of the company. Two days ago, during our board meeting, I said this, and it remains the model of the value creation within our company. A couple of highlights for Q1. We already told you the completion of the acquisition of the American movie theater chain, Emagine Entertainment , February 12th. The launch of Kinepolis Play, where, together with Telenet and Play Media, we launched or relaunched a transactional VOD platform. Essentially, the only goal here is not immediately directly financial. The only goal is to have more power to create more awareness about movies, new movies, new releases, local releases.
That's essentially what the goal of this initiative is, and it's quite successful. They make more volume, and we have more reach. We are more on television. We are more in social media with new content. You already saw some footage. We have a picture later, the Super Mario-themed ScreenX auditoriums that we rolled out this time from Brussels to Madrid and Utrecht, and where we really saw that, by doing so, and we have been doing that for more movies in the meantime, we really increase market share by adding more experience for the customer. An initiative that, as well in our industry as in the outside marketing world, has been recognized and has been admired. Of course, publishing like every year, our annual report. In the second quarter, we announced the acquisition of 13 Showcase Cinemas in the U.S.
I will come back on that in a second. We organized for the third time our Kinepolis Innovation Lab Summit. We explained to you before that two, three times a year, each country takes the initiative to organize operating review, where we bring all our colleagues that are responsible for a certain aspect of our business, that are responsible for their own profit center, and where those who are responsible over different theaters for the same profit center, where they join to talk to each other, to exchange, to benchmark, and to come with ideas that later on in the year will need to fill the gap resulting of our 5% approach for our profit plan for the year to come. Kinepolis Innovation Lab is more on ideas, new products, new approaches that go over different profit centers. It's a little bit inspired on the Eurovision Song Contest.
You don't have to sing. You can if you want, but it's essentially each country comes with its own idea that has been elaborated and often already been tested by the local team and supported by local country management. We see there the teams growing year by year, and as well, ideas coming out of that are going to support as well, let's say, premiumization, but as well quality of service and smarter operations for the future. We announced in June the installation of the 70-mm IMAX projection here. Only a couple of them in Europe. Reason why customers fly in from other countries to come and watch The Odyssey here in Brussels in 70 mm.
I was appointed as Chairman for the Global Cinema Federation, which, of course, opens for the group, again, a lot of new doors. As well on studio levels as on the industry level, and probably is going to open doors and bring opportunities, potentially in M&A as well. We are renovating, as we speak, Kinepolis [Antwerp], again with a couple of new concepts. For the first time, automatic access doors, a new generation inspired to a certain extent from successful formulas in the North American market in the media c andy. Ready for hot cuisine and hot food as well. In Breda, we completely converted the theater to recliners in response to the competition. We are better. We announced a month ago a partnership for a first O'Learys entertainment experience in Enschede.
Enschede is one of the theaters where we have increased competition from the new Vue theater and where we had more space available. O'Learys needs to be a new traffic generator next to the cinema, but as well an experience for the moviegoer in offering a top-quality bar and restaurant experience. We now have some footage from the 70-mm IMAX here, so let's watch that together.
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Coming back on the 70-mm IMAX, the movie, the pellicule, is 300 kilos, so we need a couple of very strong colleagues to put the pellicule, the movie, on the projection system. Here are some pictures of the Cosy Relax Seats that we just released in the IMAX theater in Breda, and that we will have in all the theaters, or that we have in all the theaters in the meantime. Here, the immersive "Super Mario" screen experience resulting in a much higher market share in all the markets where we have been installing this, and we do that in the meantime for other movies as well. The acquisition of Showcase Cinemas, 13 luxury cinemas. Showcase is as well a top brand in the U.S. 164 screens, almost 18,000 seats, and they made in 2025, 4 million visitors more this year. 80% is reclined. 100% is stadium seating.
This is stadium seating, something we are used to in Europe with Kinepolis, but that's not always the reference in the U.S. offering enhanced food options and full bars, including cocktails. We are essentially waiting for liquor licenses to close the deal. And where we don't sell a lot of alcohol here in Europe in our theaters, you can't go without in the U.S. It's just part of the cinema experience. Showcase is, for us, further expanding and diversifying our U.S. footprint, and where we are today in the Midwest, going to the East Coast as well, and maybe one day to other coasts. Future will tell. The cinemas are very well maintained. A strong brand, as I said, but maybe didn't always get the management attention they needed. And from a financial point of view, there's a lot of work to do.
There's a lot of improvement potential, and that's the reason as well why we have been able to buy this at an enterprise value of only EUR 30 million. But if you look at the underlying real estate position, it's a couple of times the value of the enterprise value we paid, so I'm pretty convinced that we will have this up and running in one or two years from now and contributing to the result. Could even go faster given the visitor trends. That, of course, helps here as well. And I think that when we will look back one day with you to this acquisition, I think this will probably be the lowest multiple we will ever have been paid based on the target performance. I'm going to leave you now in the hands of Pieter-Jan to go with you through the financial review.
Thank you, Eddy. Welcome to everybody in this theater, in this beautiful theater, and everybody welcome also online. I am very happy and proud to take you through the results of our first half of 2026. An outstanding performance for 2026 already. Revenue-wise, Eddy already mentioned quite a pickup in visitors, 19.1 million. Of course, also driven by Emagine Entertainment that we acquired since mid-February, resulting in revenue of EUR 342 million. That is a pickup of around 33.8%.
If we exclude the headwinds on the Canadian dollar and the U.S. dollar, we even hit the EUR 350 million sales target of H1 2026, which is an absolute record for Kinepolis all time. Taking you a bit more into detail on the dynamics within our revenue performance. As you see, cinema operations, of course, remain the big bucket. 87% still is coming from cinema and will remain the most important elements.
If you look further down, B2B also increased significantly. Something where also we put a lot of focus on to diversify. There are almost EUR 32 million of sales, so that is an uptick of roughly 19%. If you look into the box office dynamic itself, of course, visitors, that is the main driver. That pickup in visitors, 15.4% without Emagine Entertainment. So that gives us EUR 25.5 million in increase in revenue. But even more important is the other element. There is the EUR 30.1 million increase, which is driven by our focus on our premiumization, so the execution of our strategy. On the other hand, also inflation. We always try to compensate to make sure that we keep our margins going forward. Of course, a negative impact on weakening of dollar and the Canadian dollar, EUR 8.3 million within the cinema revenue.
Of course, also adding the Emagine Entertainment acquisition, which is a nice add-on with some other scope changes we have. Within that, cinema operations and cinema revenue, two main buckets, ITS in-theater sales and box office, so our ticket sales. You see that the increase in ITS, so food and beverage, is significant. Almost 38.5%, so almost 40%. What drives this is what we see is that we see quite some increase in spend from our customers. Also, adding Emagine Entertainment, where we also see a higher spend per customer. But on top of that, also, we do focus a lot on other elements like the thematized popcorn buckets, which are very successful and also contribute to the whole experience we see with our moviegoers. Also, if we look at box office per visitor and ITS per visitor, also the same trend. So we compensate inflation.
We aim for that premiumization, so picking up the box office spend per visitor and ITS per visitor. But even if you then exclude the FX impact, then you see that even on the ATP, so the ticket price per visitor, we go to +3.2%, and even to +7.4% if we look at the ITS spends per customer. So very nice performance in H1 2026 compared to last year, the first half. More important, adjusted EBITDA, so our operational performance and cash flow. Also, since 2023. We went a bit down in 2024, got a bit up in 2025. By controlling our cost and aiming for that margin and that protection, using that 5% exercise, which now pays off and really kicks in with the operational leverage in 2026, where we even go to almost 24%.
The EUR 80.9 million of EBITDA, which is a very nice performance, certainly benefiting fully of that operational leverage with increased visitors. Returning, in the end, an adjusted net result of EUR 80.2 million, significantly higher than the last two years, but also than H1 2023. CapEx investments. We keep on investing, so rolling out that strategy requires capital. On one hand, maintenance, making sure that our customers have the best experience they can have. So, investing in renovation of our furniture. Certainly also everything that has to do with sanitary, our halls. ICT, important element today. We try to make sure that we are on top of things. Projection and sound upgrades and so on. A lot of investments, around EUR 10.3 million the first half of 2026. A little bit higher than 2025. That is the future.
That is the internal expansion, where we invested EUR 12 million in the first half, higher than last year. Of course, scope also has changed a bit. A lot of investments in that premiumization. IMAX is, of course, one of them, but also Laser UltraScreenX, IMAX recliners. All investments, remodelings, all investments that will bring us also increased profit in the coming years and will protect us against potential, let's say, margin losses. Focusing on that premiumization is key. After CapEx, a nice operational cash flow.
We go to the balance sheet, net debt, not unimportant. We did the acquisition of Emagine Entertainment that cost a bit of money. EUR 90 million we spent, but we managed to keep our increase in net debt very limited. Only an uptick of EUR 54 million in our financial net debt, of course, driven by a very good operational cash flow, almost EUR 100 million.
We managed our working capital very well next to the investments, which, of course, also need to be paid almost EUR 22 million. We also pay a dividend in the first half, so that is also cash out we have. Payment of the leases, of course, brings us to the EUR 341 million, which is even more important is that if we look at our leverage, and this is really showing the cash conversion and the cash generation of our group, that our leverage goes down from 2.1x to 1.85x at mid-year, which has a strong cash generation. We managed even including the acquisition of Emagine Entertainment. Cash available, EUR 195 million and quite a significant headroom, EUR 362.8 million, which, of course, will be needed as we have a bond that is maturing in December, which we will have to pay back in mid-December, EUR 225 million.
We can do this with the available headroom we have today without any problem. Even after payment of Showcase, this is no problem. Maturity profile will, of course, then balance more once we pay that back. Today, we have quite a short maturity profile. But once we pay back the 2025, we get more balanced going forward. Summarizing, the P&L. 19.1 million visitors, first half of the year, almost 34% more. A nice performance, returning also a nice increase in revenue, EUR 341.8 million. That is 32.6%. Without FX, we go to 36% increase. EBITDA per visitor, increase of more than 25%. We go from EUR 3.38 to EUR 4.24. That is really a nice performance. A shout-out to all the teams who contributed to this throughout the group. Bringing us to a net result of EUR 28.1. A nice free cash flow.
Financial debt that is under control, given the acquisition we did and a nice return on capital employed. Maybe one note also, in the press release, there was an earnings per share noted for this year, which there was an error in, so there should be a correction. I noted that there was EUR 1.27 per share for first half of 2026. That should be EUR 1.05 for the people who have noted this. Which brings us to the outlook. I will give the word to Eddy.
Thank you, Pieter-Jan. The outlook the rest of the year, on paper, it is always on paper, looks promising in terms of content with some special movies coming. Digger, you will see later on. We will show you some footage. Tom Cruise as an old, overweight man in this movie. Dune, of course, coming, and a lot of other titles that traditionally are performing very strong. You will have seen maybe that Narnia disappeared from November. Narnia was foreseen for a limited release. That is a Netflix movie, and it is from Greta Gerwig, who was the maker of Barbie. It was foreseen to have a limited release only on IMAX and between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Netflix decided to give it a full theatrical window, so it is postponed until April. There were some technical issues on the set.
It is postponed to April and will have a 47-day window. Another movie is announced by Netflix in the meantime, and I do have an appointment very soon with Ted Sarandos and Spencer Klein, who are responsible for all of this, to continue our discussions on what this could mean for them in terms of box office revenue. There is still potential in box office. We did not recover from 2019 volume. This is not a new slide, but it is still more than ever valid. A further recovery of visitor numbers with more Hollywood content and more content as such, given the high operational leverage of the group, is a very important driver of value. We continue on internal expansion, and the question we often get is, "Do you have still inspiration?" The teams do.
We are helped as well by technology, and I think that the 70-mm of IMAX is demonstrating as well the willingness to pay from our customers. We sold those tickets at EUR 31, and in the second market, they have been sold at three times the price. Then, of course, external expansion, always an unknown element. We are working on opportunities. No guarantee that we will succeed, but if you do not work on opportunities, it will not happen. These three drivers, combined with the firepower we have with the balance sheet, where we have only a 1.85x debt leverage, makes that we look very positive to the future. Right now, the third quarter is bringing, again, record results. More about that when we will bring you the update on Q3 and on the full-year results.
I propose that we watch now some footage from trailers from what is coming up for the rest of the year, and then we are available for your questions. Thank you.
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Okay, now we are ready for your questions.
Yes. Guy Sips, KBC Securities.
Hi, Guy.
I have a question on the success of IMAX. Can you give us some insight in the, let's say, the potential dynamics of IMAX going forward, especially for Kinepolis and also on the revenue, but also the profit generation of IMAX? Is that a traditional 50/50 split, or is it a little bit more beneficial for Kinepolis? Thank you.
You split as well with IMAX. We can't disclose how much. IMAX is essentially a fantastic experience, but it's a strong brand as well. You extend your catchment area with IMAX, so people are willing to travel further for IMAX, and extreme in the case of 70-mm IMAX. That's essentially, it's a kind of hybrid sharing model. We do some of the investments, they do some of the investments, and on the incremental that you make, you share with them. That's how it works. You always need a big catchment area, and you won't be able to seduce all your customers for IMAX. You always need a theater of a certain size and a certain catchment area and visitor potential before you invest in IMAX. IMAX makes that evaluation together with us because they co-invest. That's how the model works.
This is one of the only IMAX screens, even in Europe, with the 4:3x aspect ratio. So it is the aspect ratio of an iPad, and movies need to be recorded into that format. Not all movies, not all IMAX movies are recorded into that format. But Dune will be. The Odyssey is, and so The Odyssey is in 70-mm, which adds 18K resolution, while the max today in digital is 4K. 8K exists, but there is not a lot of content. On top of that, more movies will be recorded in 70-mm in the future, but it needs to be recorded, so it is quite an investment for IMAX as well. What we gave this morning, I do not know if I told it already today. So this is a 400 seats capacity screen, and we sold after 24 hours in June, 20,000 tickets.
We are today at 87,000 tickets, and we are sold out until September 22nd. So quite amazing and quite exceptional as well. It is always more successful, but this is extreme.
Fernand de Boer from Degroof Petercam again. Couple of questions my side. One is on Emagine Entertainment, because is there still an earn-out coming, or I think that is all completed? That is the first question.
No earn-out coming.
No. Okay. Thank you. Then on Emagine Entertainment as well, you gave the numbers of, I think, EUR 5.5 million net profit contribution. Could you also give a figure for the EBITDA contribution in the first half of in the four months consolidated?
No, we didn't give any contribution.
But-
We do so on EBITDA. But it's quite significant already compared to the investment we made.
Yeah. You can assume that the EBITDA contribution per visitor of Emagine Entertainment is above the group average?
It's in the higher ranking as such. Yeah.
Yeah. I have a question on Showcase, and maybe that's more for our modeling, because you said probably completion of the deal in September.
Yeah.
You have also indicated there is quite some work to do to get it at good, decent levels. How quickly does that go? Could it mean, maybe, normally speaking, fourth quarter could be their best quarter, but that there is still a negative contribution coming in from Showcase, simply that the work that has been done is only getting fruit maybe next year?
No, I don't think that there will be a negative contribution since we already did the moment of the acquisition, a carve-out of the team that we want to keep to continue, and that's already, let's say, inspired on what we will need. So I don't expect a negative contribution. I think it might go quite fast. I think that from 2028, we will probably be on cruising speed. Once we will be managing it in two, three months from now, we will have more clarity on this. There is clearly a plan with what the potential is, and that is based on 2025 visitor numbers. So with the higher visitor numbers we are making today, that's going to contribute as well.
And so that's the reason why I said before that in two years from now, we will probably be able to say, "Look, this was the cheapest acquisition ever." Of course, that's then thanks to improvement potential, essentially because the multiple you pay on not a big number today, but backed with a lot of real estate. Yeah, that has been a negotiation more than a business model. But I'm pretty convinced about this, that it's going to be a nice deal.
Then the last question I had. On the interest expense, I think by the top we had EUR 24 million of around EUR 8.5 million- EUR 9 million is on interest on leases. That was, at least compared to my estimate, quite a step up. So is there something in that? Because the cash out for the interest expense was very low. So what was in that number? What was driving that number so much up?
Yes, sorry. Of course, we did a bond at the end of 2025, which has a higher interest rate than we are paying today. So that's the main impact there, as we have been growing that one. Also, we have an add-on as we lease the real estate of Emagine Entertainment. Also, there we have an add-on on interest expenses in light of the IFRS 16. These are the key elements why this shoots up.
So for the full year, should we then assume around EUR 50 million interest expense for the-
Yes. The net of the cash we have, of course. There we have some interest.
Okay.
But the expense will be around that level.
Yeah.
Okay. Thank you.
You are welcome. Other questions here?
We have some questions from our online audience.
Yep.
From David Vagman from ING.
How do you see visitor numbers evolve in the second part of the year? Will that be up sharply, mildly, flat? Can you give any guidance about H2 attendance year-on-year?
Hi, David. No, we can't. We can only say that, let's say that we are so far up comparable to Q2. But the movies that we will get later in the year, for instance, "Digger," which is, as I said before, another Tom Cruise movie. How successful is that going to be? To be honest, we don't know. The only thing that we witnessed always, and that is now showing in the figures, is, we are getting more and more content. But just like pre-pandemic, we will have post-pandemic now as well: movies that will fail, movies that will be exceptionally more successful than what we anticipate. We might have other quarters to come or months where we say, "Oh, this was a weaker month." The press will always think that, "Oh, that's a trend of visitor numbers going down." Again, we don't have a demand issue.
More content is coming, more supply is coming. My expectation is that we are only at 80% of the pre-pandemic movie offer. That's why I explained in the beginning of the presentation that there are more providers coming, with YouTube, with Netflix, Apple, Amazon. But as well, the Ellisons investing, the two studios combined, [EUR 120 billion] into movie production. I guess you are going to do something with that. But in terms of guidance, look, except something goes terribly wrong in the world, I guess we will make a record year on a full- year basis as well.
Thank you. Second question from David Vagman on M&A.
Do you see sellers becoming more demanding? How is the market for M&A developing, and how hot is the M&A pipeline for Kinepolis?
We see more and more coming for a simple reason that already pre-pandemic, we said that many families without successors were waiting an exceptional year to sell their company at an exceptional price. They got an exceptional year in 2020, but not the one they were waiting for. Now that the market recovers in terms of visitors, and that most of those theaters or groups make result again, and given the fact that all of them are six to seven years older than in 2020, now 2019, we see more coming to the market as such, with still a little bit less buyers around the table. That is why we are focusing today on expansion. You can focus on that. You can work on that.
It is only when you sign and close that it is a deal done and that we will be able to talk more about that and announce more. Yes, we are still working on expansion.
Okay, a third question.
Can we get a rough CapEx guidance for this year?
I think today we are more or less a little bit higher than last year. If we roughly double that one, I think that's rough guidance, given the scope extension we have also with the acquisition of Emagine Entertainment. I don't think Showcase will not yet contribute too much in CapEx this year.
Okay, thank you. We have some questions from Trion Reid from Berenberg.
What is the financial impact from the O'Learys partnership?
Well, that's an investment that's a couple of million. That's not that high. If that's successful, that should have a rather short payback. Not six months, of course, but a couple of years. So that should not jeopardize our results or our investment levels, as such, or CapEx levels.
There was only a limited increase in revenue per visitor, especially with regard to box office revenue. Was this due to the higher share of kids and family films? Should we expect a bigger increase in H2, given the success of The Odyssey and the impact from the higher revenue per visitor at Showcase?
There's a couple of elements. I try to explain that you have a country mix. In the first half, we had France and Spain proportionally doing better with lower average ticket price and lower spend. Nothing new under the sun. We had more proportionally mid-sized movies that typically consume a little bit less. For The Housemaid, you don't need to sit in moving seats or in ScreenX or in IMAX. Now, of course, The Odyssey is as well, is more adults, with then of course, the very positive exception year of the IMAX theaters we have. With Spider-Man, we see suddenly, the demand for premiumization and the spend in our theaters booming, with around 10% more even there. Look, that's not guidance for H2 because, how is Digger, how is Dune going to behave? I would say on track.
You need to compare at a flat FX rate. That's another element because you have the impact of the Canadian and the American dollar, and something we will continue to have in the future in a positive or in a negative way.
Thank you. Then we have some-
To come back on that, we don't see a visitor trend of visitors choosing less for premium products. We still see the demand for premium products growing, but there's a country mix, there is a product, a movie- type mix, and there is the currency impact. That's what is playing a role here.
Thank you. Then we have some questions about the development of the new website. You mentioned it earlier. Is the launch expected by the end of 2027 or still in 2026?
Website is live today in Luxembourg. So on Kinepolis.lu, you can already see how it looks like. We are still working and developing on extra, let's say, functionalities. We plan later on in the year to release it in Belgium and other European countries, and then after New Year in the North American markets.
Thank you. Are there plans to expand the IMAX 70-mm to additional Kinepolis locations in the future?
Well, we plan to maybe expand to 70-mm, but you need to find that equipment and to be able to refurbish it because there are no new projectors that are being produced any longer. So that's, of course, a bottleneck for more 70-mm.
Will there be other screenings after September 22nd for The Odyssey in IMAX 70-mm? Also, on The Odyssey in 70-mm, what is the impact or the uplift in sales?
We are negotiating with studios about this, of course. When the next potential successful IMAX movie will come, we might need to interrupt or to stop even with The Odyssey, but that's something we will only do if the new upcoming movie has more potential and will do better than The Odyssey, which is, of course, a good problem to have. We won't be able to double. We might go for an approach that we would say, look, one or two shows in the day is The Odyssey. That's one of the reasons why we had to reinforce the floor because it's on a wheel that we can turn.
It's a little bit not as simple as I'm describing it, but you can turn the wheel and have the traditional digital IMAX projectors again , and you turn the wheel, the plateau, and you have the 70-mm again . Given the fact that the pellicule has to go through all the room, it's not as simple as I just described it, but it's possible.
Yeah. We have someone who asks if we can provide an update on the planned Valdebebas multiplex in Madrid, including the expected opening date, number of screens and seats, premium formats, and the estimated CapEx required to fit out this cinema.
There's some progress that has been made in permits that the developer of the shopping mall needs. It's not an obligation that we have to build that theater. It's an opportunity, a kind of right of first refusal. We start to work on it right now. We will evaluate further potential, and if yes or no, we are going to build that theater.
Then someone asked if you can give some comments on the speed of integration of new cinema chains within Kinepolis Group. What is the span of control for the management of Kinepolis? How many acquisitions can you do at the same time?
Well, today, Emagine Entertainment is being integrated under our supervision by the MJR team, and that goes very smooth and is really, I think, one of the most smooth acquisitions we have been doing because we are putting the two headquarter teams, we're bringing them together. We create as well, we have been creating two regions, a region that geographically combines theaters from MJR with Emagine Entertainment so that the colleagues of MJR in, for instance, in operating reviews, learn how to think, how to act, how to behave, and how to become Kinepolis colleagues. What Showcase concerns there the Canadian team from Toronto and Calgary will, again, under our supervision, work on the execution of the turnaround and integration plan. That's always an element. There's still us as well to do integrations. That's how we integrated Landmark Cinemas in 2017 and later on, MJR.
That was done by the European teams. The more the group grows, the more talented people that translate the Kinepolis three-pillar strategy into daily life. The more we grow, the more talented people we will have to do that. We have here in Europe a couple of country managers that are really, in their daily lives, real ambassadors in how to execute that strategy. I would say they're getting more competition from their American and Canadian colleagues, so they are really up to speed. It always takes some time to implement that budget ownership, to make that the new budget owners on the floor get used to it, and that's something that you can't put a new software on employees. So that's a learning process. Then, of course, improvement potential based on premiumization, on implementing media c andy and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, that takes some time. That is a matter of execution capacity, and often, how fast suppliers and constructors can go. But yes, we do have the capacity to grow further. Absolutely.
Thank you. Since the beginning of the year, you have a new real estate manager. Any plans in the pipeline or first results resulting from that appointment?
Yes. Results to expect. Of course, every transaction you do is based on the condition that someone gets a building permit or something else. But a couple of transactions the team is working on, and it is more optimizations. It is not the big bang. That is not their goal neither, to create a big bang, but rather to optimize. We are focusing today essentially on what we call extra muros, that are projects that do not impact the capacity of the theater immediately. That is the next step. Look, with the growing content lineup and with Gen Zs going more frequently than ever, than all the other groups we had in the past to the movies, we will probably wait until we reach that saturation point. But in the meantime, there is enough potential in extra muros before we start intra muros.
We have a last question from Alicia Reese from Wedbush.
To what extent do you think premiumization efforts, so screens and concessions remaining in the U.S.-based theaters, can contribute to the upside in the second semester results and beyond, relative to your European footprint?
Yeah. Hi, Alicia. Well, there is certainly potential, but it relates a bit to what I just said. It takes time to install PLFs, to install new seat concepts, and so on. But even in Canada, we still continue to roll out more capacity because we see that there is no saturation in demand today. In Europe as well. But Europe is ahead in terms of capacity. Belgium is always a little bit our test laboratory market, or test- level market. We still have capacity in MJR. Emagine Entertainment, for instance, doesn't have any cosy seat or any premier seat. So that's something that is coming as well. I know for someone who wants to fill in a model, this is not the answer they want.
But we still see that, look, cosy seats, we all of time have to add rows because once you have been flying business class at EUR 3.50 or $3 in the U.S., you want it again next time. So we see within the growth of visitors, we see as well a proportional growth in demand of this. The only thing where we see a saturation is in 3D.
Okay. Thank you. There were more questions from the online audience, but I think the key topics have been covered. Oh, we have-
There is still a question, I think.
Still a question in the theater.
Yes. Thank you. Actually, two questions, if I may. One is, could you say a little bit more about this IAS 21 accounting change? Because that was EUR 1.8 million, I think, moving to the exceptional items and non-recurring items. Is this also what we can expect in the second half, and what does it actually mean? Because it is not entirely clear to me. Why is it then taken out of the adjusted figures?
Yeah.
The second one is on your marketing and sales expense, up, let's say, from 12-point-something million to 30-point-something million. I think only a 7% increase and only 3.9% of sales. Now, if you are going to be more premiumized, et cetera, is this then the right level where you are looking for?
I take it. The first one is more a technical thing. Just to be clear, on a year basis, nothing will change. It is just a fine-tuning of the results under IFRS. What you need to do, you have to book your real estate taxes in January, and in that way, you load your first half of the year with your full cost of the real estate taxes in a way, and adjusted, you spread it over the year as it is also a matching principle between, okay, how you report this. Just for your information, we also corrected the prior year. You have a good comparison with prior years. So 2025 was corrected and 2026 was corrected. But as such, on a year basis, you will have no impact. S remains the same. In adjusted, yeah. So in IFRS, you do not see a change.
It's just an adjustment where you say, okay, if you have a real cost allocation of the first half, then you just take that hit.
It's aligning Europe as well with the U.S. and Canada.
Yeah.
Because there it was already done.
Yeah. Your second question on marketing and sales?
Marketing.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, let's say that we never cost- saved on marketing. With the growth of the group, marketing will increase. We do several deals with studios as well, where they intervene in our marketing costs since we are in a revenue- share model. Since, of course, there is always an important hidden marketing cost in the film rental we pay to them because we are, as you know, in a revenue- share model. You expect next to the movie that you will get, you expect them to do marketing in the movie as well. Often we have done collaborations where they take premium products that we offer as well into the campaign that they reserve for your brand. It's a mix of both of them. Do I never have a discussion with marketing that they need more money?
Yeah, I think that's a market era. But, within a 5% exercise, we never cost- saved on marketing. Because that's the fuel on the engine. That will grow with the group, but we are here at a level that allows us to be as successful as we are. In most of the markets, we are growing our market share as well. Of course, again, is this because of the fact that we offer theaters that bring more experience? Is it because of the marketing? That's hard to tell. But I would say, expect that marketing is going to grow as a percentage of revenue with these levels.
Thank you.
Okay. Well, I would like to thank everyone who joined online. Thank you very much. For those who are in the theater, we still have a biscuit and a coffee. Not for the onliners this time. But thank you very much. We are very excited about what's going on in our market. The teams are very motivated for the future. Me as well. Let's continue, and maybe surprise you again next time we meet each other. Thank you very much.