Good day, and welcome to the FDJ 9 months 2023 revenue call. Today's call is being recorded. Your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your questions. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero, and you'll be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host, Mr. Pascal Chaffard, Executive Vice President in charge of Finance, Performance, and Strategy, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Hello, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. You must have seen our press release we published at market close, and the following presentation that we are about to comment is also online in the investor section of our corporate website. I propose to begin with the first slide and to tell you that this presentation will focus on two recent significant events for FDJ. First, beyond the temporary underperformance of Euromillions and the impact of the new Amigo formula, I will come back on our underlying business that is still growing by a solid mid-single-digit figure, with trends remaining unchanged from one quarter to the next, and the consumer behavior is also unchanged.
Second point we will address is our recent acquisitions, ZEturf and PLI, that are not only a perfect strategic fit, but will also make a significant contribution to our performance and to changes on the group structure. So at September 30, our revenues amounted to EUR 1,875 million, up 4% compared to 2022 on a reported basis, and up 1% on a like-for-like basis. Excluding Euromillions and Amigo, group revenues rose by 8% and by 5% on a like-for-like basis, identical to the levels recorded at the end of June. If I focus now exclusively on lottery, excluding these two games, lottery revenues increased by 3%. As we said at H1 result presentation, in Q2, lottery performance has been affected by the low number of high jackpots of Euromillions.
Q3 has clearly not improved on this point. It even deteriorated. We will come back to this in more detail, but I can already say that this situation is temporary and will statistically normalize. All the fundamentals of this game are still there. I will also comment the development of Amigo, relaunched at the beginning of June with a more responsible formula in response to a request from the National Gaming Authority. The performance of this game is stabilized and will be offset over time by other games, more recreational, beginning in a few days by EuroDreams. In sports betting, we are very satisfied of our performance. The very positive trends remain unchanged, with sales growth of 9% overperforming the market.
It is notably on the basis of the weaker-than-expected performance of Euromillions in the third quarter, that we now have an annual revenue growth target of +5%, including the initial contribution, contributions from ZEturf and PLI, and growth of between 1.5% and 2% on a like-for-like basis. I will also come back to this later in more detail. And as I've just indicated from the fourth quarter onwards, we will benefit from the integration of ZEturf which closed at the end of September, and PLI, which will close very shortly. Let's now look at the breakdown by activity on the next slide. Lottery instant games are performing well, with a 4% increase in stakes, in line with the growth seen at the end of June.
Draw games, on the other hand, posted a 6% decline in stakes, driven by Euromillions and Amigo. For Euromillions, I will elaborate specifically in this, in the two next slides. In Q3, it's notable also that Loto stakes raised up over 5%. For Amigo, the decline in business due to the relaunch was consistent during Q3, remaining at approximately -25%, similar to the figures recorded at the end of June. As I said before, sports betting continues to perform very well, both online and in points of sale. We have been outperforming the online market for several quarters and have significantly improved our market share. In Q3 for sports betting, as we anticipated, the football schedule was less favorable compared to 2022.
If you recall, last year, the calendar was densified before the World Cup, and the winnings remained stable, stable, both compared with end June 2023 and with nine months 2022. Amigo and Euromillions are the games that generate also significant traffic, both at point of sale and online. Their underperformance, therefore, naturally exerts downward pressure on the overall growth in stakes in the on the two channels. It is worth noting that adjusted for Euromillions, online stakes are showing a robust growth of 16%. Now let's examine Euromillions, which registered a decrease in stakes of 15%, at the, by the end of September, and a 31% drop in Q3 alone. The game's performance versus 2022 was penalized by a low number of high jackpots, i.e., jackpots in excess of EUR 75 million.
Stakes are linked to the level of the jackpots, and their growth accelerates exponentially when the jackpot exceeds EUR 75 million. We are facing a deficit of jackpots over this threshold, which began in Q2 and continued and even deepened in Q3. As you can see on the slide, with just four draws over EUR 75 million in Q3 2023, compared with 16 in Q3 2022. This number was particularly high. We clearly highlighted that last year. By the end of September 2023, our jackpot sequence stood within the 9% of cases, the least favorable compared to 2022, being within the 23% most favorable cases, and in the 7% most favorable cases in Q3 alone. In both years, these statistics are quite atypical, and globally, since 2019, Euromillions has grown by nearly 10%, even with the 2023 figures.
Next slide. I explained that to mitigate the effects of chance on the jackpot levels, FDJ has developed special events with jackpots directly initiated at EUR 130 million. These boosted jackpots by the Euromillions community were introduced with big success at the games relaunch in early 2022. To date, in 2023, we there were three such jackpots, just like in 2022. However, their rolling frequency varied significantly between the two years, as indicated on the slide. In 2022, these jackpots resulted in 16 draws, predominantly concentrated in the second and third quarter. Additionally, during the summer of 2022, we experienced long cycles almost continuously with the Euromillions jackpot naturally rolling, whereas in 2023, there were only four draws. First, EUR 130 million jackpot was won on the second drawing.
The second and the third did not even roll. The third one was organized on September 29 and impacts Q4. The consequence in 2023 is a substantial decrease on the average jackpot amount, dropping by more than 50% from EUR 111 million in Q3 2022 to EUR 52 million in Q3 2023. Important point to finish on that, we don't experience any demand issue. When the jackpot level is there, the customers are also there. For example, the performance of the EUR 130 million late September jackpot was very good. The only point is that it has been immediately won. It is the same for Loto and instant games with the performance of the Friday the 13th event last week, which was very satisfied.
Now, on the next slide, I come back to the global revenue presentation, and this slide provides a breakdown of revenue by business activity, both at the end of September and for Q3. I won't revisit the lotteries sports betting, as I've already discussed them. Regarding diversification activities, you can see that the revenue at the end of September has doubled compared to nine months 2022, primarily driven by your international and payment services. On a comparable basis, it has grown by more than 10%. Now, let's look at our full year objectives. In the fourth quarter, we anticipate a stability in revenue from sports betting and online gaming, reflecting the continued momentum from the beginning of the year, but with a very high comparison basis from 2022 due to the World Cup.
We expect a revenue growth in the lottery, driven by draw games, including Amigo, and with several events, including the launch of EuroDreams Annuity Games on October 30. A boosted jackpot at EUR 200 million in December, with, for Euromillions, as well as the instant games. The comparison basis on Euromillions will also be more favorable, for us in Q4. Thus, for the full year, 2023, FDJ aims for a reported revenue growth of approximately 5%, including ZEturf and PLI, equivalent to between 1.5% and 2% on a comparable basis. This growth is lower than what we presented in July, because we did not anticipate that the underperformance of Euromillions would persist for one more quarter. But as I already said, it is temporary. I mentioned earlier in my presentation the atypical statistics in 2023.
We understand that our forecasts are based on a median statistical expectation and not on extreme ones. Our EBITDA margin rate will be maintained at about 24%. It means that the cost savings plan we have initiated in late 2022 to counteract the effects of inflation, and which we discussed in July, has continued and has intensified since. Beyond that, we will benefit from high level of our financial results, easily extrapolatable from that of H1, and we also reaffirm our commitment to distribute between 80% and 90% of consolidated net profits. Now, I will discuss of our external growth momentum and its contribution to FDJ value creation. By the end of September, we completed the acquisition of ZEturf, which has been consolidated into FDJ accounts starting October 1.
We can also confirm that on October the third, the Irish Lottery regulator approved the acquisition of PLI, which is Premier Lotteries Ireland, and the finalization of this acquisition is expected to take place in early November, after which PLI will be consolidated into the FDJ group's account. The acquisitions of ZEturf and Premier Lotteries Ireland strengthen our model. If you recall the strategic objective presented at our CMD in November last year, ZEturf and PLI are perfect fits. ZEturf is the second-largest online horse racing operator in France, with an approximate 20% market share. Its acquisition allows FDJ to complement its online gaming offerings and become the fourth operator in the French sports betting and online gaming market, with a global market share exceeding 10%.
PLI is the operator of the Irish Lottery, and its acquisition represents a significant step in the international expansion of our strategy. These acquisitions come with substantial advancement for FDJ. They significantly contribute to the growth and profitability of the group. Combined, ZEturf and PLI provide an additional mid-single-digit contribution to the group's full year activity and EBITDA and EBITDA growth. Simultaneously, we are evolving our organization to extract maximum value from these acquisitions, specifically to integrate ZEturf. FDJ will adopt a new organization for its sports betting and online gaming activities, and PLI will integrate a new international lottery business unit. And fourth, we aspire for FDJ's EBITDA growth to be based on two pillars in the future, organic growth and M&A.
So, if I go deeper into the ZEturf, to fully benefit from the potential of the merger with ZEturf and the synergies from for online businesses open to competition, and also to be able to size and capitalize on external growth opportunities in the online gaming field, both in France and internationally. FDJ will adopt, as I said, a new organization for its sports betting and online gaming business in competition. It is in our business interest, and it is also in accordance with the commitments made to the ADLC, which is the French Competition Authority. This is a process on which we have just begun working with the ZEturf teams, as we were forbidden to communicate while the case was being processed by the French Competition Authority.
The operational implementation of this process will be progressively done in 2024 and will be completed in 2025. Hence various stages have been completed, including total operational and legal separation of FDJ POS activities, monopolistic, and online activities in competition. And also merger of ZEturf and FDJ online activities to create single player accounts and wallet with access to the three activities open to competition. So with revenues exceeding EUR 50 million by 2022, ZEturf doubles the revenues of FDJ online activity open to competition, and will have an equity effect on the contribution margin of the business unit sports betting and online gaming, as early as 2025.
Thereby, thanks to ZEturf and the very successful full launch of the poker activity at the end of 2022, our online gaming offer is now complete and covers the three authorized segments out of the French market, sports betting and online gaming in competition, of which FDJ become, as I already said, the fourth largest operator with a market share of over 10%. And finally, we talk a little bit about Premier Lotteries Ireland, PLI, the operator of the Irish Lottery. In 2022, Premier Lotteries Ireland recorded revenues of EUR 140 million, with an EBITDA market comparable to FDJ. We started working with PLI teams to build a medium-term strategic plan, aiming to accelerate growth and increase profitability of PLI, based on sharing of best practice on both operators and articulated around three axes.
First, capitalizing on FDJ experience to animate the instant games portfolio. Second, activating or energizing the group, the player base. Third, continuing to improve the journey and digital gaming experience. As you can see, the main lever being used to develop the value created by PLI is the growth of this business. But of course, beyond that, we will implement other synergies, such as cost synergies, purchasing IT structure. So thank you for your attention. Now let's move to the Q&A session.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Our first question comes from Leo Carrington from Citi. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good evening, Pascal.
Good evening.
First of all, I have three questions. Firstly, can you just clarify the combination of the impact of the Amigo games, game mechanics and the jackpot timing? Has anything on the Amigo mechanics and the way consumers play changed since you first saw the impact in July, or has that been consistent? Secondly, around the instant lotteries, have you seen any corresponding, or in the course of, did you see any corresponding offset to the lower draw stakes in Euromillions? I.e., did consumers move any of their spend over to instant while the jackpots were lower in Euromillions?
And then lastly, just around the new organization built to support ZEturf acquisition, are there any one-off integration costs that we should be aware of for 2024? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you for your question. First question is about Amigo and how the situation is. To recall Amigo, the modification what we have done on Amigo are mainly linked to two things. First, a pause of fifteen minutes by hour, on the from the beginning of the morning until until two o'clock in the afternoon. It means that we will we, we do a draw every five minutes, except at 50 and 55 of each hour. And second, we lower the maximum bet that we can do on one slip, which was previously EUR 20 and is now EUR 8 . So, the impact was quite immediately close to -25% in the activity of this game, and is stabilized.
It is the same as we see in June, in July, and at the end of September. So we think that the situation is totally stabilized with a minus 25% stakes for this game. If I also recall, we had to modify this game because it was demanded by our regulator. And it happens that we will develop other games that are more recreational with less question addiction questions. And we will offset this Amigo question over time. And the first thing that we will do will be next week, because we'll launch EuroDreams next week.
So your second question was related to instant lottery, and you asked whether we had a positive impact on instant games because of the lower jackpots on Euromillions. Clearly, no, and it's mostly the contrary. What happens is that when you have important jackpots on Euromillions, you drive more traffic on the point of sale. You drive traffic of many more players that are coming into the shop to benefit from the high level of jackpots. So when you don't have those high jackpots, you have less traffic on point of sale, so less business on the instant lottery games.
But as you see, instant lottery games is going well, because with this impact of the lower Euromillions jackpot, we have a 4% growth on instant lottery. That means that they are doing okay even if they were not boosted by Euromillions jackpots.
Also we have the same kind of effect coming from Amigo, as those two games are clearly generating a very high traffic in the point of sale, and also online for Euromillions.
Yeah. And even with that, we have a 4% growth on instant lottery. Third question is, can, do you, will we have some one-off integration cost for the integration of ZEt urf? The answer, short answer is yes, mainly in 2024. That is why we said that we will be accretive on the online contribution mar- on the sports betting contribution margin by 2025. It means that it will not be the case in 2024, because we will face some integration costs to merge the player base between FDJ and ZEt urf, and to select the best of breed part of each system to build a very performance offer by 2025.
Thank you, Pascal. Very clear.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jaafar Mastari from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, everyone. I have three questions, if that's all right. One is on cost savings, where you said some of that plan has helped you offset the slightly lower revenue. Are we talking about bigger savings? Are we talking about the same envelope of savings, but delivered a bit earlier? You know, I'm conscious that this was a part of the 2025 guidance, not just this year. So, how are we looking for the medium term on those? Secondly, just interested to hear more about Premier Lotteries Ireland, now that you have completed it and that you're launching this strategy acceleration. So, you know, what's the average license duration that they have? How is it structured?
Can you launch new products as part of your existing license, like in France, or is it more of an Italian-style license, where you have six products, and if you want more, you need to ask? And then just in terms of taxation, is it closer to the French model with lots of taxes or is it like a U.K. model with payments to good causes and other sorts of payments? Thank you. Just any color on what the structure is and how it allows you to grow it, within what limits? Just lastly, a bit of a thematic question. So EuroDreams, what other annuity games like this do you have in the portfolio of games that have a monthly payout for the rest of your life?
Is that something that has a particular appeal right now with the consumer in a higher cost of living environment? Is there a wider opportunity across instant games and online to introduce more of those if it tests well with consumers?
Okay. Thank you, Jafar. So your first question is about the cost savings. How bigger, how bigger are they? What we have said is that, to be able to, to achieve, the 24% margin, in 2023, we add first to mitigate the impact of, inflation. Inflation on the salaries, on the contractors, on the energy, on the tickets, scratch card tickets, et cetera, et cetera. And we said that, what we have to mitigate is something like to offset, something like, EUR 40 million-EUR 50 million. And, as we have, now a growth rate, a revenue growth rate that is a little bit lower than we expected, first, we have to compensate it on, on fixed, fixed cost.
We have another EUR 20 million savings to be able to maintain what is important for us, a 24% margin. We will continue to work on our performance in the future. We think that it's important to work on the two pillars, which is driving growth and also driving more performance and have a more efficient cost base. So we'll continue to do that, and it will help us to achieve also our other targets, which are, for example, to meet the 25% of EBITDA margin in 2025. Second point is more information about the PLI. So the length of the license is 11 years from now.
It will, the license we have bought is, has an end in 2034. We have the possibility to launch new products. The regulation is very similar to the French regulation, with it's a tight regulation with an authorization that we have to ask for launching new products. But it is possible to launch new products. We are not in the Italian world, but more in the French, in the French or U.K. or U.K. world. The taxation is quite similar to the taxation in France. They have an average player payout of 65%. And the split of the GGR is one third for the lottery as revenue, and two third for the tax.
The tax is directly linked to good causes, which is a better thing that we have in France. As you know, in France, our good cause is the French budget, but it is less easy to communicate on than the 2,000 causes that are financed by the Irish Lottery. That means that the Irish Lottery has a tremendous image in Ireland, and we can build on this image. Also, you ask about what we can do to do better on the growth of this lottery. What is clear is that we have really a better experience on instant games. They have a lower part of their business on instant games.
They have a portfolio that we can, we think, easily improve. Also, the way they are managing their draw games can also improve. We have some points that we can share also and learn from Ireland. For example, they have more than 5,300 point of sales, which is very important, very diversified and well-organized point of sale. So this is a real strength that they have. They have also 15% online penetration, which is better than the one we have in lottery in France. But still, we can improve this level of online penetration.
So we are quite focused and very positive about the fact that we will be able to improve the figures of this lottery, and we will tell a little bit more about that maybe next year. On EuroDreams. A very interesting question. We see that in all other countries, and especially in the U.S., in the U.K. also, annuity games are performing very well. In France, we had not launched a lot of annuity games. Keno has had a small part that could be paid in annuity, but it was very side.
We had in the past one or two scratch cards with annuity payments, but this is the first time that we will launch a game that is built on this insight. We think that this insight is a very good insight. If we look at what has been done in the U.K., for example, as you may have noticed, U.K. is not on the community that we launch EuroDreams. The reason is because they have already launched in the U.K. something that is very similar to EuroDreams, and we have a little bit copied this game that is a very good success in the U.K.
We think that the situation that the French people are facing today with problems of inflation of purchasing power, et cetera, is very positively linked to annuity games. To have the comfort of having what we say in our commercial for EuroDreams, EUR 20,000 coming each month for 30 months, for 30 years, is an insight that works very well today, and especially on the quite young people. What we call young is from 25 to 40 years old. So we expect that we will attract younger people in average than the population of our games and more digital population. So we expect also to have a high part of this game digital.
As you know, Euromillions and the Loto are already quite highly digital in France, between 20% and 30%. And we expect for EuroDreams to be in the higher range of this m arket.
So yes, we think that it's a good opportunity at a good moment for launching an annuity game.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ed Young, from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes, very well.
Great. Two questions, please. The first is the customary question, which I imagine will be a short answer, but just for completeness, could you update if there's any further news on the European Commission investigation? And then the second question is on the reorganization of sports around the acquisition of ZEturf. Obviously, you've had to separate out the two, monopoly in the competitive area. But if I look at your slide there on slide showing the difference, you obviously had ParionsSport and ParionsSport Online together before, and now they're separated, but you clearly weren't able to cross-sell from the monopoly to competition before. So can you just help me understand, what is it that's changed exactly in that part of the business? I get why ZEturf couldn't be integrated into ParionsSport, obviously.
And then were you arguing for something else? Is that the reason why the approval process took so long? What were you perhaps hoping for in terms of a different outcome? Thanks.
Okay. So, you hoped for a short answer on the European Commission. I will give you a short answer. No—we have no news from this, from the European Commission, so I will just say the same thing that has been said by your Stéphane Pallez and me at the end of July. So no news on this subject. Your second question is related to ParionsSport reorganization. So, I don't know if I've well understood the detail of your question, but I will try to answer completely.
What we will do is yes to separate the operations of ParionsSport point of sale, which is the monopolistic part, and the ParionsSport online, and to separate also ParionsSport online from the lottery. The situation, today's situation is that with the same customer account, with the same money, if you put EUR 100 into your account o n-
On the wallet.
On the wallet. Yeah, so sorry, account on the wallet. On your online wallet of FDJ, you can play on lottery and also on sports betting online. So we will end this and separate totally the wallet that is dedicated to lottery and monopolistic exclusive rights products, and the wallet that is dedicated to the competition part. And this wallet dedicated to competition, we will merge it with the wallet of ZEt urf. And at the end, we will have one wallet for the activity in a competition. And with this account and wallet, you will be able to play whether sports betting, horse racing, and poker on a unique offer that provides all the activities that are authorized.
And on the other side, you will have a wallet with for FDJ on lottery. The interest for us for doing that is that we will be able on the lottery side to merge this online wallet with a point-of-sale wallet that we are developing, and to build an omnichannel experience for our lottery and sports betting offline, so our exclusive rights customers. So the first thing is to separate the customers from the exclusive rights and the online gaming, and really to demand from the French Competition Authority. But it also is the result of what we think is the best for the business, as lottery customers are not managed run as sports betting customers. It's very different business, so it's a good thing that we separate the two.
We will put all this activity online gaming in a subsidiary. This is also something that is demanded by the French Competition Authority. It was also what we wanted to do, even if they did not ask us. We think it's a better thing to have a more autonomous subsidiary that will be specialized in online gaming. I think also one of your questions may have been related to any cross sale today. To be very clear, today, there aren't any cross sale, no, between sports betting point of sales and sports betting online, nor between lottery online and sports betting online. This won't, I would say, generate any damage or whatever.
We won't lose any leverage from this cross sale, which today did not exist. Thank you, Marc. But this point is very important. There is no dis-synergy because we did not do any cross sale. It is forbidden because it's a competitive market on one side and monopolistic market on the other side. What will continue to be in synergy between sports betting online and offline is the trading activity, and the trading activity for online will be in the subsidiary. And they will sell with a market price contract the odds to the sports betting point of sale part.
Not to have two, different teams making the same business that is creating the odds.
That's very good. Thank you. Yeah, so thank you. That's a very comprehensive answer and very useful. Perhaps ask a very quick follow-up on the very short answer. When you said you will repeat the answer from that you gave back in July, is that to say that you still expect or hope for a decision during 2023?
Difficult to say. Today, we don't have any positive news about that, so it's still possible, but I cannot commit whether on one side or the other. No positive, no negative. Yes. No positive, no negative.
Okay. Thank you so much. Very helpful.
Thank you. Sorry, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Matthew Spiegelman from LWC. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Just two quick ones. You mentioned in the press release, you talked about the increased financial income, which now looks like is, you know, on a year-over-year basis, over EUR 50 million, and how that, you know, may impact the dividend payout. Can you just talk about how you think about dividend growth in 2023? I think the street's modeling about 8% growth. And then the second is the market share gains in sports betting, you know, is an impressive trend. Could you just talk a little bit about what you're doing operationally in that business and how you're getting there?
Okay. So, on first question on our financial income, we will benefit in 2023 from the higher interest rates. And if you look at what we reported at the end of June, and you multiply this by two, you will have a quite good guess of what will be our financial results in 2023 full year. And we stress this point because last year we had a loss in the financial results of something like EUR 20 million. But this year we will have a gain, more substantial gain. So, the effect of the gap between the two years will be quite interesting.
We also stress that we emphasize that we are committed to a dividend between 80% and 90% of our net consolidated result. It means that you can think that you will have a nice dividend in 2023. Your second question was about the market share on sports betting and online gaming, how it is, how we manage the situation. First, I will talk about online. Online, what we have done is many things, but I can maybe emphasize two ones. The first one is to add to our sports betting offer, a poker offer.
We did that in last November with a really, really good success. Now we have more than 3% and maybe 4% market share on the poker. But the point is not on the level on the market share. The point is on what it adds to our global offer. What it adds is that players that wanted to play on FDJ website, it was not very easy for them because when they wanted to play poker, they were forced to go elsewhere. Now, we can offer them both poker and sports betting.
It means that it's better for cross-selling, and we have quite an interesting part of our player base, sports betting, that now plays also poker. It also reduce the churn of our customers, so it's really a quite very good success that we made. The other point that we had improved over time is the level of the odds and how we can manage very interesting odds. And at the end of the day, player winnings that are managed at a quite quite low level. This has improved dramatically these two last years. And we have also improved on the player experience, improved on the promotion experience, et cetera, et cetera. We improved on every element.
As a result, our market share beats the market every quarter, for now, an important number of quarters. What I would like to add is that we have done a very good job also on sport betting offline. We said that it was quite normal that sport betting offline has a level of growth below the growth of the online market. What we see clearly is that from the last quarter of 2020, from 2022, so for now, three quarters in a row, we had a better growth on the sport betting offline than the growth of the online market.
We think that it's due also to how we manage the offer on, of, on offline, how we have been able to densify the offer. Now, we have something like 8,000 different offer in point of sale, accessible with a smartphone very easily. So you can play very easily on point of sales and with quite interesting odds. So we do well also with point of sales, which is maybe more a surprise maybe for you, because everybody expected that point of sales will not have a pace, a growth pace at the level of the online business.
Just to illustrate the cross sale that Pascal was mentioning. As of today, we've got more than 20% of our overall sports betting online players which have played poker.
Thank you. Those are, those are good trends to see. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Steven Errico from Locust Wood Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thank you very much. Most of my questions have been answered, but let me ask a bigger picture question. It seems that, you know, our stock is at a multi-year low here, due to some one-off regulatory issues. One, the E.U., which we have no control over, it will be resolved when it's resolved, and then, of course, what the French regulator did to your Amigo game. The one thing that you guys could control would be your capital allocation. Have you guys given any more thought to share repurchases and buybacks at these levels? And how do you analyze those as opposed to making other acquisitions going forward? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank, thank you for your question. Maybe it's important to recall that the distributable reserves that we have in our balance sheet are something like EUR 300 million. So it is possible to do some share buybacks, but with a limit that are those distributable reserves. But more important is that what we aim to do is to invest our cash and our capacity on M&A on development, to continue to grow the business of the group in France and also internationally, as we have begun to do with PLI.
So in another quite maybe a simplistic way to present it, is that we want to turn our cash or financial capacity into EBITDA, and then dividend for our shareholders, more than returning directly to shareholders via our share buyback. And again, this capacity would be very limited as we have limited distributable reserves. So the short answer is M&A and development and more than share buybacks. But I will stress maybe just one thing, we have a nice dividend and payout and yield. As we distribute 80%-90% of our net consolidated results, which is quite high, and we can do so because we are net cash positive in our business.
This business drives cash when it grows, so we it's possible for us to sustain, at the same time, a very dynamic growth strategy, and also, an important distribution payout rate, as I said, 80%-90%.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Christian Devismes from CIC. Please go ahead.
Good evening.
Good evening.
Thank you. Two quick accounting question about the Irish Lottery for me. First, in which business unit will you record Irish Lottery, in lottery or in other segment? And the second accounting question is about the exclusive right. What is the amount of the exclusive right that will be booked on your balance sheet? Is it EUR 350 million, so is enterprise value? And just a frame question, will this right be amortized over 11 years? I think so, but I just want to check. Thank you.
Okay, thank you for your question. The answer for your first question, in which BU it will be a new international lottery BU from 2024. It will not be merged with French lottery BU. And operationally, we will have a different management as we think that we have specific points to manage for the French lottery, which is not the same as what we have to manage from international lottery, which will be focused on developing the Irish lottery, but also continuing the development beyond this Irish lottery. The second question is, how we will account for the exclusive right.
What the EUR 350 million is enterprise value of PLI's, and we will do the classical allocation of the price price allocation on our accounts. But maybe to answer you a little bit differently. In 2014, when PLI gets its 20-year license, they had to pay EUR 405 million, yes, euro license. And this license is amortized on the 20 years of the license. So we will have this amortization of EUR 405 million divided by 20 years for the next 11 years.
Thank you.
Is that answered your question?
Yes, perfectly. Thank you.
Thank you. We have Andrew Tam from Redburn Atlantic. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Can you hear me?
Yes, very well.
Hi, good evening, guys. Just a quick one, just on the capital allocation and the dividend versus buyback. Given that we are expecting a relatively attractive buyback dividend this year, why the preference for a dividend if there is a distributable reserve of over EUR 300 million? Can you just clarify that, please?
What I said is that we have EUR 300 million distributable reserve, but it is a different thing that the results of the year that we will account for in 2023, and we will distribute 80%-90% of the result of the year. And we have the capacity to use part of those EUR 300 million to distribute more money. But what we said is that we will stick to the guidance that we provide for the payout, which is 80%-90% of our net results, consolidated. Does it answer your question?
Yeah, I think so. Just also on the balance sheet, like, if what is the difference between your retained earnings and your distributable reserves? What is. What why is there a delta between the two? Is it a regulatory thing or is it legal? I don't quite understand the difference between the two. If you've got those retained earnings on your balance sheet, why can they not be used as for share buybacks successfully?
To be more precise, on our balance sheet, on the equity part, we have our capital, and we have EUR 300 million distributable reserves and the results of the year, and we distribute the results of the year. The rest of our net cash is made of working capital. This is why it is not in the equity part of the balance sheet, but in the debt part of the balance sheet, which is not accessible for distribution. I don't know if I have correctly answered your question, but in the real world, we could distribute EUR 300 million more than our result of the year. This is correct. Technically, it's correct.
Not more than that, but we could go as far as that, but we have decided not to do it, because we think that the payouts that we propose by the distribution of 80%-90% of our net consolidated result is a quite nice payout. And we want to save the rest of our capacity and also our working capital to invest and to give it back to our shareholders at the end of the day. But over dividends that we will be made from the acquisition of the net results that will be made possible by new acquisition.
Finally, just a question on M&A strategy going forward. Given the multiple that you do trade on, what impact does that have on your, you know, appetite for M&A? Does that change anything going forward, or is it still very much M&A for growth from here on?
On the M&A strategy, we said that we are focused on lottery B2C and online gaming in Europe. As you have maybe seen, the level of the valuation of the different companies have a little bit re-
Soften.
Soften or decreased, or I don't know which, which is the correct,
Faded.
It faded this recent month. So we think for us, in our situation, it's not a good news for FDJ valuation, yes, but it's a good news for us, because it lowers a little bit the cost of the future acquisitions, if we look at the market valuations that are the ones of today. So we think it's maybe good for us, better than the situation that we have faced two years ago, with a valuation that were very high, between 15-20x the EBITDA. Now we are more between 8-10x the EBITDA, except maybe two points, Flutter and the Lottery Corporation.
But, don't worry, we are.
We do not intend to.
We do not intend to purchase a Flutter tomorrow, as you maybe have guessed. So, when you see the valuation of the market, it's better for us, and it's easier to make value creation with those values that we have today.
So, just to clarify, you, you're comfortable paying the 8-10x EBITDA-type multiples for future acquisitions, is that correct?
Yes, you can say. It will depend on which acquisition we are talking about. But, the level of valuation that we have today on the market, we think are fits with value creation, if we do some M&A.
Definitely significantly lower than the skyrocketing valuation we had two years ago, certainly on all the sports betting on online, online gaming businesses. Understood. Thanks.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. There are no further questions. I would like to hand the call over to your host, Pascal Chaffard, to conclude today's conference. Thank you.
So thank you for your question and for your having attended this meeting. Now, we will communicate again in February for our full 2023 results. So, have a good evening, and see you soon for the next communication of the group. Goodbye.
That concludes today's event. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.