Thank you for joining us this evening to Louis Hachette Group 2025 First Half Results. I'm Emmanuel Rapin Head of Financial Communication, and I will be guiding you through this presentation. We will present the Louis Hachette Group results and those of Lagardère that are, of course, embedded. Nevertheless, if you want to focus only on the Lagardère Group performance, you can find them on the press release as well as the slides that relate to Lagardère on the dedicated website. This call is led today by Jean-Christophe Thiery, Chairman and CEO of Louis Hachette Group, and Grégoire Castaing, Deputy CEO of Louis Hachette Group and Lagardère Group.
Joining us for this presentation are Pauline Hauwel, Group Secretary General, Dag Rasmussen, Chairman and CEO of Lagardère Travel Retail, Frédéric Chevalier, CEO of Lagardère Travel Retail, and Claire Léost, CEO of Prisma, who will each share their insights and their key highlights. After the presentation, I will be reading the questions from financial analysts only. I now leave the floor to Jean-Christophe Thiery.
Thank you, Emmanuel. Good evening, everyone. I am delighted to present today the results of Louis Hachette Group. But before that, though, I would like to pay tribute to Sophie Stabile, Lagardère's CFO , who sadly passed away last week after a long and brave fight against her illness. Sophie did a remarkable work to help the group bounce back after joining Lagardère in the midst of the COVID crisis. She will make a lasting mark on the group. Now, the results. So, following the listing of our group in December 2024, we are now reporting on our achievements for the first half of the year. You will see that, again, our results are very satisfactory. Louis Hachette Group posted a solid growth with an all-time high EBITDA of EUR 220 million, thanks to the performance and complementary of all our activities.
We have also reached a new low of our debt, thanks to, once again, a very strong cash generation in the first half and the successful refinancing operations completed this semester. We have demonstrated that our plan to be a diversified leader in the promising fields of publishing, travel retail, and media is solid, and the strong growth in our market capitalization in recent months reflects our investors' confidence in our development prospects. I now leave the floor to Grégoire Castaing, who will go through these results in detail.
Thank you very much, Jean-Christophe, and good evening, everyone. I'm also pleased to share with you the Louis Hachette Group's strong and remarkable result. For this first half of this year, let's start with the key figures of the group. As you can see, at the end of June 2025, Louis Hachette Group's revenue reached nearly EUR 4.5 billion, up from EUR 4.3 billion as of June 2024, underscoring a continued upward trend. Our revenues are up 4%, as reported, and up 3% on a like-for-like basis. Our operating metric, adjusted EBIT or EBITA, is up by 5%, amounting to EUR 220 million. The free cash flow generation, as you can see, is also very good, considering the seasonality of our activity. Of course, I will come back to this later, but you can already see the positive impact on the balance sheet side.
Over the last 12 months' rolling period, we decreased drastically our debt by EUR 483 million and reached a level below EUR 2 billion. Let us have a closer look at the performance of our different businesses. Starting with the publishing business, revenue, as you can see, was up 3% this semester at EUR 1.3 billion, mainly supported by a strong momentum of literature segment in our English-speaking markets. That compensates a slowdown of education in Spain and literature in France after a very strong first semester in 2024. Excluding the impact of the acquisition of Sterling Publishing in the U.S. and 999 in the Netherlands, revenue was up 1%.
More specifically, in the U.K., the growth reached a solid level of 4%, supported by a huge success of Rebecca Yarros's new opus, Onyx Storm, released in January 2025, which revived also, by the way, the sales of the two previous titles in the saga, Fourth Wing and Iron Flame. In the U.S., the activity remained stable in a market that was slightly down. This reflects definitely the good sales momentum and new releases, such as The First Gentleman by James Patterson and Bill Clinton. Back catalog sales remain also solid, including, of course, The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden. We are very pleased and proud to share also with you that, according to the latest market review, Hachette Group is today the number three in the publishing American market. In France, sales decreased slightly by 1%, outperforming the market that fell by 2%.
This change is mainly due to a larger publication schedule in general literature in the first half of 2024, as I mentioned. This semester, sales were driven by the book of Pierre Lemaitre, Aurélie Valognes, and two titles by Michael Connelly. Illustrated segment continues to benefit from the success of coloring books and cooking books, and for the rest of this year, our publishing houses in France have prepared a very good release schedule, including the release of a new opus of Astérix in October and many other highly anticipated books, so we are quite confident for the second semester regarding the French market. For the second quarter of this year, publishing posts a slight decline of 2%, linked to the basis of comparison with a growth rate of almost 8% in the second quarter of 2024.
Activities usually more dynamic in the Q3 with curriculum reform in junior high schools in France this year and then in Q4 for the Christmas gift season, of course. Also worth noting that digital format continued to grow at a good pace, with now representing close to 30% in the U.S. and the U.K., and globally 15% of the publishing revenues. As you know, this has also a positive and relative impact on margin. Speaking of margin, let's have a look at the operating margin. As you can see, the EBITDA reached EUR 103 million, very stable compared to EUR 104 million last year for the same period, maintaining the publishing operating margin at a high level after the first half year 2024, as I mentioned, which was already very high compared to historical figures.
Actually, we put on this slide also a reminder of the level of the EBIT for June 2023. And as you can see, we had a huge improvement compared to our figures two years ago, by more than double the EBITDA compared to June 2023. For the first semester of this year, we achieved these TD results thanks to a favorable mix of sales in the U.S. and the U.K. The strength of our backlist sales is also supporting our operating performance, as well as the decrease of restructuring costs. These items were partially offset by a slowdown of activity in LATAM and in literature in France. I mentioned it earlier. Let's move on now to Lagardère Travel Retail.
The first part of this year has been marked by a very solid growth, reflecting the strength of our strategy and the quality of execution in this uncertain and very volatile environment. Travel retail reached a revenue of EUR 2.9 billion as of June 2025. Excluding North America restructuring effects and the impact of the 2024 Vivendi Group, growth would reach 7%, which is again a strong performance in the current context. North Asia revenue declined close to 30% due to business rationalization and store closures, and besides this specific situation, all regions delivered a positive growth. In Europe, activity was lifted by an important number of openings, by commercial actions, and growth in the air traffic. The most important opening is the launch of our duty-free activities in Amsterdam at the beginning of May.
By the way, our teams, led by Dag Rasmussen and Frédéric Chevalier, made a remarkable job to open on time, and the beginning of this Amsterdam duty-free business is very encouraging for the second part of this year. If we have a look to the U.S. business for travel retail, Lagardère Travel Retail secured a revenue increase by 1%, which is actually very good news considering the situation in this market and the slight decrease of 1% in air traffic over the period. The activity was supported by the strong momentum of travel essentials and food service in this market. For the second part of 2025, travel second quarter, sorry, of 2025, travel retail posts a 4.1 like-for-like growth, driven by strong growth in the EMEA, improvement in the North America market.
It's worth also noting that in this activity, the peaks of the year, as you know, are still to come, with travel activity linked to summer holiday, Thanksgiving, and then Christmas. Moving on to profitability for Lagardère Travel Retail, we are also pleased to share this very solid EBITDA at EUR 117, again impressive if you compare these figures to the one that we delivered in 2023 for the same period. As the result, our operating margin reached 4.1% of revenue, which is actually a high level considering, again, our seasonality. Travel retail achieved this growth thanks to its robust top-line performance, the positive effects of the activity rationalization in North Asia, sorry, that I mentioned, and rigorous cost control also. H1 2024 also included significant one-time positive items related to residual governmental support received in the U.S. and rental favorable adjustment linked to the COVID period.
Let us move on to Lagardère Live on Slide 10. As you can see, we have decided to rename Lagardère Live what was previously called the other activity segment. This segment comprised Lagardère News, Lagardère Radio, Lagardère Live Entertainment, Lagardère Paris Racing, and also the corporate function. We think that this new segment banner appeared a better choice to highlight Lagardère's media, entertainment, and leisure activities in our communication. Of course, in the meantime, each business remains also its own brand and legal status and no change regarding the perimeter of this branch compared to last year. For the first half of 2025, for Lagardère Live, revenue from this branch totaled EUR 115 million. Excluding the impact of the sale of Paris Match in November 2024, the evolution is favorable, and revenues are up 3%, as you can see.
The news and radio segment achieved this 3% growth, fueled by the continued expansion of Europe 1, our famous French radio station, with Europe 1's strong ratings and audience, solid performance from the press, and contribution from ELLE International Licensing and Brand Extensions. In addition, as you can see, Lagardère Live EBITDA was also a loss of EUR 1 million, representing an EUR 18 million improvement year- on- year. This improvement is supported by strong cost-saving measures and positive one-time effects. Indeed, that includes savings also obtained at the beginning of this year, but related also to the previous year activity. So we might be slightly still negative in 2025 for the full year, but as you can see, the trend is really positive, and be sure that we will renew our cost optimization efforts for the rest of the year.
To finish, going over the performance of our activities, let me make a few comments on Prisma Media also. For the first half of 2025, Prisma Media generated revenue of EUR 144 million, down 2% as a reported basis, on a reported basis, reflecting the shrinking press market and changes in the digital usage leading to lower online advertising revenues. Prisma continues to be proactive with new successful launches in luxury and in new segments. On the right-hand side of this slide, EBITDA stood at EUR 3 million, down EUR 6 million, mainly due to restructuring charges since Prisma launched at the beginning of this year, a new project in order to strengthen its saving efforts and adapt again its organization. Excluding these restructuring charges, the EBITDA only declined by EUR 3 million year- on- year thanks to cost discipline that I mentioned.
Coming back to the group global financial performance, first, I'll, of course, begin with the top-line figures. As you can see, the reported growth in terms of revenue, as I mentioned, is 4%, or EUR 150 million in value. This semester, organic development was definitely the main driver for this growth, with EUR 124 million delivered by the business. The main scope effect relates to the launch of our duty-free operation in Amsterdam Airport Schiphol since May. The win of the tender that was announced last December resulted in an acquisition of a 70% stake in a joint venture, the remaining stake of 30% being held by the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. This concession has been accounted as an acquisition, which is not always the case for this type of tender. The remaining perimeter effect concerns Sterling and 999 acquisition that has already mentioned it at publishing level.
EBITDA rose by 5%, reaching EUR 220 million. We are really happy again to see that this high level of EBITDA continues to be almost equally supported by the two main activities: EUR 103 million from publishing, EUR 117 million from travel retail. Here, let me again remind you that margin generation of our activities is strongly geared into the second semester, so we should be confident for this second semester. Let us have a look now at the rest of the P&L. Below EBITDA, after deducting amortization and intangible assets related to M&A and positive adjustment linked to IFRS 16, our profit before interest and tax amount to EUR 161 million. That is a 17% increase year- on- year.
Below this item, finance cost improved by EUR 10 million in the first half of this year thanks to the reduction of the gross debt and also to be frank to the lower average cost of debt and the decrease of the rate. Income tax expense decreased by EUR 27 million compared to EUR 43 million, reflecting exceptional high tax last year, and tax prepayment refund to be received in 2025. As a result, total net profit came to EUR 13 million, an improvement of EUR 47 million resulting from better operational performances. Next, let's dive into the operating cash flow figures regarding cash and considering again the seasonal pattern of our supply cycle. I think it's even better to focus on the free cash flow before changes in working cap.
And if we have looked to this cash flow before changes in working cap, this semester, it amounted to a steady total of EUR 161 million compared to EUR 149 million in the first half of 2024, up 12 million or 8% on year- on- year basis. All of our activities generate positive free cash flow before change in working cap thanks to higher operating results and tight control of OpEx. Again, a very strong and balanced performance. And if you now have a look to the right-hand side of this slide, you see again that even if the cash generation in the first semester is still below the level of the second half, our efforts to improve it are gradually bearing fruits. This section on cash naturally leads us to our balance sheet and more specially the evolution of our net debt.
On Slide 17, you can see the usual graph showing the net debt bridge over the last 12 months. At the end of June 2024, our net debt at Louis Hachette Group level amounted to EUR 2.4 billion. Total free cash flow generation over the 12 months amounted to more than EUR 400 million. Besides this operational cash flow, the sale of Paris Match was definitely a material cash inflow, partially offset by the acquisition of 999 Games and Sterling by Lagardère Publishing, and again the acquisition of the 70% stake in the JV for Amsterdam. In May, we paid EUR 0.06 per share as the first dividend to our shareholder, amounting to a total of EUR 60 million. We also paid EUR 91 million to minorities, including EUR 30 million to other shareholders of Lagardère.
Our bridge also reminds you that in the context of the Vivendi split, Prisma Media was recapitalized in December 2024 for an amount of around EUR 200 million. Finally, we paid interest for an amount of EUR 93 million. Altogether, these movements lead us to a total net debt level just below EUR 2 billion, as you can see, EUR 1,958 million. At this point, I also like to make a brief remark to those who are monitoring closely the net debt at Lagardère level. Similarly to what we saw for Louis Hachette Group, we are proud to show that Lagardère's net level also improved and stands below the EUR 2 billion threshold at EUR 1.99 billion. It represents a EUR 260 million decrease over the 12-month rolling period. So again, very good level of deleveraging.
As a result, Lagardère net debt ratio decreased by 2.5 times at the end of June 2025 as compared to three times at the end of June last year. We are on track with our net debt trajectory, but of course, we stay focused in order to again deleverage the group in the coming months. To continue on this topic, let's move on to the next slide, Slide 18. During this spring, as you may know, and despite a highly unstable financial market, the Lagardère Group successfully issued a EUR 100 million five-year bond. This transaction was more than three times oversubscribed, demonstrating investor confidence in the group's solid business model and financial performance. Lagardère has also raised EUR 300 million through a Schuldschein, a private placement structured in euro with a mix of maturities up to five years and fixed and floating rates.
After these two refinancing operations for EUR 800 million, our net debt structure is now more diversified between banks' loans, private holders, including Vivendi, and bonds. And the maturities, as you can see, are well spread until 2030, as you can see on this slide, as well as the average maturity extended to four years. In conclusion, and to sum up this presentation, I'd like to point out that despite a volatile context and thanks to the strong performance and complementarity of our activities, we have improved again our half-year financial result, which were already a record in 2024. The group continues to focus its effort to support its capital allocation policy of first, gradual deleveraging of Louis Hachette Group through well-balanced contribution of every activity. Second, maximizing shareholder value through regular dividends. And of course, also maintaining investment and flexibility for strategic growth opportunity. Thank you very much.
We are now available to answer your questions.
Thank you, Grégoire. Thank you for the global overview of the first semester. We have five analysts who have raised questions. There are questions coming from Éric Ravary from CIC Market Solutions. There are some questions coming from Thomas Renaud from Kepler Cheuvreux. There are some questions coming from Jérôme Bodin of Oddo BHF and as well Julien Roch from Barclays and Christophe Cherblanc from Bernstein Société Générale. So I will start with the first question that in fact is addressing the current trading of activities. I think all analysts are interested to know what is the current trend in terms of revenues for the Q3 from Lagardère Book Publishing as well as travel retail. So I will first leave the floor to Jean-Christophe Thiery about how is the current trading of book publishing.
Thank you, Emmanuel.
First, I would like to have a few words about Q2 and the decline in activity for this Q2, which is actually mainly attributable to Spain, Mexico, and France. In 2024, Spain was still benefiting from the national curricular reform that is coming to an end this year. Only one level of secondary school in Andalusia compared to three levels last year. Of course, this was anticipated and we knew we would have softer education sales in Spain this year. Q3 should be softer as well. In Mexico, we are facing unfavorable timing with Q3 in education, and we are also facing some decline in trade sales compared to an excellent 2024 year.
Lastly in France, we had a less vibrant release schedule in 2025 compared to 2024 with, for instance, Guillaume Musso's Quelqu'un d'autre, which had been released in March 2024 with strong reorders in Q2, or with a new Robert Galbraith in May 2024 at Grasset or a new Laurent Gounelle in May 2024 at Mazarine. Last but not least, we register a decline in sales at Le Livre de Poche compared to a historical year in 2024 with, again, Guillaume Musso last year. Now for Q3 and H2, we are expecting a very strong release schedule, including a new Astérix album in October, a stronger program in French literature compared to H1, including titles by Dan Brown for Lattès, or Cédric Sapin-Defour for Stock, or Sorj Chalandon for Grasset, or Philippe de Villiers or Bardella with Fayard.
In the U.S., we will publish a title by Harlan Coben and Reese Witherspoon, and another book by Ken Follett, Circle of Days with Grand Central. And of course, in France, we expect an increase in education sales on the back of the junior high school curricular reform with Math French and English textbooks.
Thank you, Jean-Christophe. Maybe Dag, you can take the lead for travel retail.
Yes. Good evening, everybody. So travel retail, the trend is good. Obviously, you have some good weeks, some bad weeks, but we feel that the summer has a good start. Obviously, the takeover of Auckland, Singapore cruise terminal, and Schiphol in Amsterdam is contributing significantly. Europe is good. I mean, it's mainly intra-European traffic, which is driving the growth, and international traffic is fairly flat. North America has seen a flat traffic until now.
We see some improvement in traffic very recently, and China remains negative with the evolution of our network.
If I may continue to ask some questions, Dag, can you give us some elements about Amsterdam-Schiphol activity? How do you see this activity performing in 2025? And maybe also some clarification about China restructuring. How do you see the impact and the speed?
Yes. So as Grégoire nicely pointed out, the takeover was a huge success, and we had huge congratulations from our landlord. So the takeover was very good. This being said, it was a takeover from one hour to the other, and then progress comes progressively. We opened a new area July 1st, and we'll do further improvements. So we can imagine we will have a positive ramp-up progressively along the year and with a full impact in 2026.
But even then, we will continue to modernize and improve the situation. So it will be a progressive improvement in sales. It's Schiphol, but right now we are slightly above expectations, which is great news. China, we are continuing to rationalize the network. Traffic is not bad, but spend per pax continues to be bad. The big question mark is how quickly will the landlords understand the evolution of the market? So we're answering some tenders right now. We'll see whether we come back to reality or not. Obviously, we will remain very cautious in this area. If we look more globally, we can say that the second half, we should have sales which increased by high single digits. And if you average out between the 5% we have now and the high single digits, you can have an idea of how we see sales going forward.
Thank you, Dag.
I will come to Claire Léost about Prisma. So Prisma has announced some recent restructuring. What do you expect on the outcome of such a plan for your full year?
Good evening, everybody. Yes, as Grégoire mentioned, we have a drop of EBITDA of EUR 6 million,EUR 3 million being the impact of the restructuring charges of the company, and EUR 3 million being a decrease of our digital sales due to the impact of generative AI on our audience. So the key point on our results is that the digital consumption of our readers is changing, is shifting very fast. So we have to adjust to it.
Thank you. Very clear. We are coming more on the global basis, and most probably it's for Grégoire Castaing. During Q2 2025, USD weakened versus euro.
The analysts would like to know what could be the impact to consider for the full year 2025 in terms of revenue and most probably a recurring EBIT for the group.
Thank you, Emmanuel. You're right. It's a key question for the second part of this year. As I mentioned it earlier, the American markets are very significant for us in terms of revenue, both at publishing and travel retail levels, but also key for the margin and profitability since we generate good margin there. Of course, the USD versus euro will impact us. To make it simple, at the current USD-euro rate of 1.17, we estimate that the total impact on the group revenues is around EUR 100 million f or the whole 2025 as compared to 2024 figures.
And the impact on the profitability on the EBITDA will be close to EUR 10 million on group EBITDA or even rise up at the Lagardère level. Let me mention that on the contrary, in terms of cash, the effect of the weakening of the dollar against euro is largely mitigated by the portion of the Lagardère SA debt transformed in USD through derivatives. Since we've been active in the M&A investment in the U.S. in the past years, we have a part of our debt which is in dollar, and this evolution of the rate between USD and euro could have a positive impact at this level.
Thank you. Very clear. We have a question about investments for book publishing.
I think, Jean-Christophe, we had a project in the past, and I think the analyst would like to know what is the current status of this project, and do you see some evolution in 2025?
Yes. So we are studying a potential project to upgrade our French logistics and IT operations. However, we are still in a preliminary phase, and no significant investments are planned for 2025.
There is a more general question for Grégoire about the use of cash. Could you clarify up to what level your delivery is going to be pursued? Do you have any type of target in terms of leverage? And if you have capacity, what type of M&A would you consider and in which type of perimeter?
Again, actually, delivery remains the key priority for the group.
We closely monitor CapEx, even if we spend, as you know, more CapEx in 2024 compared to 2023, and we want also to spend CapEx to fuel the future growth for 2025. But we prioritize investment, and we will keep, we will want to keep some margin of maneuver to seize bold M&A opportunities as we did with 999 Games recently or Union Square at the end of 2024. We don't give guidance, as you know, but if we give you just an idea, we think that by 2025, the group aims to achieve a leverage ratio for Lagardère of around two times. So this is our target, and we think that it's at this stage feasible.
In terms of performance of the new live branch, we mentioned that the EBITDA strongly moved towards nearly zero, but it's still negative. But you mentioned that there were some one-off items.
Is it possible to give some color on these elements in order to know what's going to happen in 2025?
Regarding this EUR 18 million improvement for live business, to make it simple, I would say that half of this improvement is linked to savings purely on 2025, and half is linked to comparison business, including OTI last year and retroactive savings this year linked to 2024.
Thank you, Grégoire. There is one more question that is more linked to Arnaud Lagardère's stakeholding into Louis Hachette Group. Is Arnaud Lagardère having increased his stake during 2025?
The answer is yes. The stake of Arnaud Lagardère and Louis Hachette increased slightly from 8.61% to 8.69%.
Thank you. I think we have covered all the questions, and thank you for all the answers, and thank you for this great results presentation. We see you in the Q3.
Thank you.
Thank you.