Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us this evening to Louis Achede Group twenty twenty five First Half Results. I'm Emmanuel Rapa, Head of Financial Communication, and I will be guiding you through this presentation. We will present the Louis Achede Group results and those of Lagardere that are, of course, embedded. Nevertheless, if you want to focus only on the Lagardere group performance, you can find them on the press release as well as the slides that relates to Lagardere on the dedicated website.
This call is led today by Jean Christophe Thierry, Chairman and CEO of Louis Achede Group and Gregoire Castan, Deputy CEO of Louis Achede Group and La Gardere Group. Joining us for this presentation are Pauline O'Hell, Group Secretary General Doug Rasmussen, Chairman and CEO of La Gardaire Travel Retail Frederic Chevalier, CEO of La Gardaire Travel Retail and Claire Liost, 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 Thierry.
Thank you, Emmanuel. Good evening, everyone. I am delighted to present today the results of the Rui Achet Group. But, before that, though, I would like to pay tribute to Sophie Stabil, Lagardere's chief financial officer who sadly passed away last week after a long and brave fight against, her illness. Sophie, did a remarkable work to to help the group bounce back after joining Lagardere in the midst of COVID crisis.
She will make a lasting mark on the group. Now, the results. So following 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. Rui Achede Group posted a solid growth with an all time high EBITDA of EUR220 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. So I now leave the floor to Gregoire Castan, 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 June, Louis Hachette Group's revenue reached nearly EUR 4,500,000,000.0, up from EUR 4,300,000,000.0 as of June 24, underscoring 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 $220,000,000. 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 twelve months rolling period. We decreased drastically our debt by EUR $483,000,000 and reached a level below EUR 2,000,000,000.
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 €1,300,000,000 mainly supported by a strong momentum of literature segment in our English speaking markets. That compensate 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 Stellium Publishing in The U. S.
And September in The Netherlands, revenue was up 1%. And more specifically, in The UK, the growth reached a solid level of 4%, supported by a huge success of Rebecca Laro's new Opus Onyxterm, released in January 25, which we revived also by the way the sales of the two previous title in the saga, Force Wings and Aeroplane. In The U. S, the activity remains stable in a market that was slightly down. This reflects definitely the good sales momentum and new release such as the first Gentleman by James Patterson and Bill Clinton.
Bad Catalog sales remained also solid, including, of course, the house made by Frieda McFadden. And, we are very pleased and proud, to share also with you that according to the latest market review, Ashford Group is today the number third 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 twenty twenty four, as I mentioned. This semester, sales were driven by the book of Pierre Le Metre, Au revoir de Valonne and two titles by Michael Connolly.
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 Asterix 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 post a slight decline of 2% linked to the basis of comparison with a growth rate of almost 8% in the second quarter of twenty twenty four. Activity is usually more dynamic in the Q3 with curriculum reform in junior high schools in France this year and in then Q4 for the Christmas gift season, of course.
Also worth to notice that digital format continued to grow at a good pace with now represent close to 30 in The U. S. And The UK, and globally, 15% of the publishing revenues. And as you know, this has also a positive and a negative impact on margin. Speaking on of margin, let's have a look to the operating margin.
As you can see, the EBITA reached EUR 103,000,000, very stable compared to EUR 104,000,000 last year for the same period, maintaining the provisioning operating margin at a high level after the first half year twenty twenty four, as I mentioned, which was already very high compared to historical figures. Actually, put on this slide also a reminder of the level of the EBIT for June 23. 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 23. For the first semester of this year, we achieved this steady results, thanks to a favorable mix of sales in The U. S.
And The UK, 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 Lagardere 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 2,900,000,000.0 as of June 25.
Excluding North America restructuring effects and the impact of the twenty four leap year, groups 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 despite this specific situation, all regions delivered a positive growth. In Europe, activity was leased 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 May.
By the way, our teams led by Dag and Frederic made a remarkable job to open on time and the beginning of this Amsterdam duty free business are very encouraging for the second part of this year. If we have a look to The U. S. Business for Travel Retail, Lagardere Travel Retail secured revenue increased by 1%, which is actually a 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 Foodservice in this market.
For the 2025 travel second quarter, sorry, of 2025, Travel Retail posted 4.1% like for like growth driven by growth 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 travels activity linked to summer holiday, Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Moving on to profitability for Lagardere Travel Retail. We are also pleased to share this very solid EBITA at EUR 117, again, impressive if you compare these figures to the one that we delivered in 2023 for the same period. As the results, 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 America North Asia, sorry, that I mentioned and rigorous cost control also. H124 also included significant onetime 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 Lagardere live on the Slide 10.
And as you can see, we have decided to rename Ligandera Live what was previously called the other activity segment. This segment comprise Lagardere News, Lagardere Radio, Lagardere Live Entertainment, Lagardere Paris Racing and also the corporate function. And we think that this new share banner appeared a better choice to highlight the Lagardere's media, entertainment and leisure activities in our communication. And of course, in the meantime, each business remains also its own brand and legal statue and no change regarding the perimeter of this branch compared to last year. For the 2025 for Lagardere Life, revenue from this branch totaled EUR 115,000,000.
Excluding the impact of the sale of ParaMatch in November 24, 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 Europan, our French famous radio station, with Europa's strong ratings and audience, solid performance from the press and contribution from L International licensing and brand extensions. In addition, as you can see, Lagardere Life EBITDA was also a loss of EUR 1,000,000, representing EUR 18,000,000 improvement year on year. This improvement is supported by strong cost saving measure and positive onetime 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 twenty twenty five, Prisma Media generated revenue of €144,000,000 down 2% on a reported basis, reflecting the shrinking press market and changes in the digital usage leading to a lower online advertising revenues. Prisma continues to be proactive with new successful launches in luxury and News segment.
On the right hand side of this slide, EBITDA stood at EUR 3,000,000, down EUR 6,000,000, 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 3,000,000 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 150,000,000 in value.
This semester, organic development was definitely the main driver for this growth with €124,000,000 delivered by the business. The main scope effect relates to the launch of our duty free operation in Amsterdam Schiphol since May. The win of this tender that was announced last December resulted in an acquisition of 70% stake in the joint venture, the remaining stake of 30% being held by the Amsterdam Airport. And this concession, has been accounted as an acquisition, which is not always the case for this type of tender. The remaining perimeter effect concern Stanley United and nine ninety nine acquisition that has already mentioned it at publishing level.
EBITA rose by 5%, reaching EUR $220,000,000. We are really happy again to see that this high level of EBITA continues to be almost equally supported by the two main activities, EUR 103,000,000 from Publishing, 117,000,000 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 and L. Below EBITA, after deducting amortization and intangible assets related to M and A and positive adjustment linked to IFRS 16, our profit before interest and tax amount to EUR 161,000,000.
That is a 17% increase year on year. Below this item, finance cost improved by EUR 10,000,000 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 rates. Income tax expense decreased by to EUR 27,000,000 compared to EUR 43,000,000, reflecting exceptional item last year and tax prepayment refund to be received in 2025. As a result, total net profit came to EUR 13,000,000, an improvement of 47,000,000, 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 161,000,000 compared to EUR €149,000,000 in the first half of twenty twenty four, up €12,000,000 or 8% on year on year basis. All of our activities generates positive free cash flow before changing working cap, thanks to higher operating results and tight control of OpEx. Again, a very strong and balanced performance. And if you know, 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 especially the evolution of our net debt.
On Slide 17, you can see the usual graph showing the net debt bridge over the last twelve months. At the June, our net debt at Louis Hachette Group level amounted to EUR 2,400,000,000.0. Total free cash flow generation over the twelve months amounted to more than EUR 400,000,000. Beside this operational cash flow, the sale of Paris Match was definitely a material cash inflow, partially offset by the acquisition of nine ninety nine Games and Sterling by Lagardere Publishing and again, the acquisition of the 70% stake in the JV for Amsterdam. In May, we paid zero six per share as the first dividend to our shareholder, amounting to a total of EUR 60,000,000.
We also paid EUR 91,000,000 to minorities, including EUR 30,000,000 to other shareholders of Lagardere. Our bridge also reminds you that in the context of the Vivendi split, Prisma Media was recapitalized in December 24 for an amount of around EUR 200,000,000. Finally, we paid interest for an amount of EUR 93,000,000. Altogether, these movements lead us to a total net debt level just below EUR 2,000,000,000, as you can see, 1.9508 At this point, I also like to make a brief remark to those who monitoring closely the net debt at Lagardere level. Similarly to what we saw for Louis Hachette Group, we are proud to show that Lagardere's net level also improved and stand below the EUR 2,000,000,000 threshold at EUR 1,990,000,000.00.
It represents a EUR $260,000,000 decrease over the twelve months rolling period. So again, very good level of deleveraging. As a result, Lagardere net debt ratio decreased by 2.5x at the June 2025 as compared to three times at the June. 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. And to continue on these topics, let's move on the next slide, Slide 18.
During the spring, as you may know, and despite a highly unstable financial market, the Lagardere Group successfully issued €100,000,000 five year bond. This transaction was more than three times oversubscribed, demonstrating investor confidence in the group's solid business model and financial performance. Lagardere ESA also raised EUR 300,000,000 through Schulchaine, a private placement structured in euro with a mix of maturities up to five years and fixed and floating rates. After these two refinancing operation for EUR 800,000,000, 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 02/1930, 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 Ashed 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 question.
Thank you, Gregoire. Thank you for the global overview of the second the first semester. We have five analysts who have raised questions. There are questions coming from Eric Ravari from CCCM. There are some questions coming from Thomas Renaud from Kepler.
There are some questions coming from Jerome Bodin of ODDO and as well, Julia Roch from Barclays and Christophe Cherbourn from Bernstein Societe Generale. 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 Lagardere Publishing as well as Travel Retail. So I will first leave the floor to Jean Christophe Thierry about how is the current trading of book publishing.
Thank you, Emmanuel. So 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. So 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. So of course, this was anticipated and we knew we would have softer education sales in Spain this year.
And 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. Last in France, we had a less vibrant release schedule in 2025 compared to 2024 with, for instance, Guillaume Museau's Calcandote, which had been released in March 2024 with strong reorders in Q2 or with the new Robert Galbraith in May 2024 at Grasse or a new Laurent Gonet in May 2024 at Mazarin. Last but not least, we register a decline in sales at L'olivre des Poche compared to a historical year in 2024 with again a Guillaume Musso last year. So now for Q3 and H2, we are expecting a very strong release scheduled including a new Asterix album in October, a stronger program in French literature compared to H1, including titles by Dan Brown for Lattice or Cedric Sappin de Foure for stock or Sourd Challendon for Grasse or Philippe de Vieille or Bandelas with FIA.
In The US, we will publish a title by Arlan Cobain and Riese Witherspoon and another book by Ken Follett, Circle of Days with Grand Central. And, of course, in France, we 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, Doug, you can take the 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 Euro 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, Tag, can you give us some elements about Amsterdam's Ripple 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 Gregor 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 1, 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 in then, we will continue to modernize and improve the situation. So it will be a progressive improvement in sales in triple, 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 digit. And if you average out between the 5% we have now and the high single digit, you can have an idea of how we see sales going forward.
Thank you, Tag. Yeah. I will come to, clear Leos about Prisma. So Prisma has announced some, recent restructuring. What do you expect on the outcome of such plan for your full year?
Good evening, everybody. Yes, we as Gregor mentioned, we have a drop of EBITDA of EUR 6,000,000, EUR 3,000,000 being the impact of the restructuring charges of the company and EUR 3,000,000 being a decrease of our digital sales due to the impact of generative AI on our audience. So the the the key point on our results is that the digital consumption of our readers is changing, is shift 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 Gregor Casta. During Q2 twenty twenty five, USD weakened versus Europe. And so the analyst would like to know what could be the impact to consider for the full year 2025 in terms of revenue and most probably 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 a key for the margin and profitability since we generate good margin there.
Of course, the USD versus dollar fold would impact us to make it simple as the at the current USD 0.8 of 1.17, we estimate that the total impact on the group revenues is around EUR 100,000,000 for the whole twenty five year as compared to 24 figures. And the impact on the profitability on the EBITDA will be close to EUR 10,000,000 on group EBITDA or even result at Lagardere 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 Lagardere SA debt transformed in USD through derivatives. Since we've been active in the M and 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 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 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 Gregoire about the use of cash. Could you clarify up to what level your deleveraging is going to be pursued? Do you have any type of target in term of leverage? And if you have a capacity, what type of M and A would you consider and which type of perimeter?
Again, actually, deleveraging 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 to size bolt on M and A opportunities as we did with nine ninety nine games recently Union Square at the end of twenty twenty four. We don't give guidance as you know, but if we give you just an idea, we think that by '25 end, the group aims to achieve a leverage ratio for Lagardere of around two times. So this is our target, and we think that it's, at this stage, feasible.
In term of performance of the new Life branch, we mentioned that the EBITDA strongly moved towards nearly zero, but it's still negative. But you mentioned that there were some items of one off. Is it possible to give some color on these elements in order to know what's going to happen in 2025?
Regarding this EUR 18,000,000 improvement for live business, to make it simple, I would say that half of this improvement is linked to savings purely on 25% and half is linked to comparison basis, including OTI last year and retroactive savings this year linked to '24
Thank you, Gregor. There is one more question that is more on linked to Arnaud Lagardere's stakeholding into Rui Hachette Group. Is Arnaud Lagardere have increased his stake during 2025?
The answer is yes. The stake of Arnaud Lagardere and Louis Herchette 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.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us this evening to Louis Achede Group twenty twenty five First Half Results. I'm Emmanuel Rapa, Head of Financial Communication, and I will be guiding you through this presentation. We will present the Louis Achede group results and those of Lagardere that are, of course, embedded.
Nevertheless, if you want to focus only on the Lagardere group performance, you can find them on the press release as well as the slides that relates to Lagardere on the dedicated website. This call is led today by Jean Christophe Thierry, Chairman and CEO of Louis Achede Group and Gregor Castan, Deputy CEO of Louis Achede Group and La Gardeer Group. Joining us for this presentation are Pauline O'Hell, Group Secretary General Doug Rasmussen, Chairman and CEO of Lagardere Travel Retail Frederic Chevalier, CEO of Lagardere Travel Retail and Claire Liost, 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 Thierry.
Thank you, Emmanuel. Good evening, everyone. I am delighted to present today the results of Rui Ached Group. But before that, though, I would like to pay tribute to Sophie Stabil, Lagardere's chief financial officer who sadly passed away last week after a long and brave fight against her illness. Sophie, did a remarkable work to to help the group bounce back after joining Lagardere in the midst of COVID crisis.
She 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. Rui Asheb Group posted a solid growth with an all time high EBITDA of €220,000,000 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. So I now leave the floor to Gregor Castan, 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 June, the WESHET Group's revenue reached nearly EUR 4,500,000,000.0, up from EUR 4,300,000,000.0 as of June 24, underscoring 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 $220,000,000. 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 twelve months rolling period, we decreased drastically our debt by EUR $483,000,000 and reached a level below EUR 2,000,000,000. 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 €1,300,000,000 mainly supported by a strong momentum of literature segment in our English speaking markets. That compensate 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 Stellen Publishing in The U. S. And nine ninety nine in The Netherlands, revenue was up 1%.
And more specifically, in The UK, the growth reached a solid level of 4%, supported by a huge success of Rebecca Laro's new Opus Onyxterm, released in January 25, which we revived also by the way the sales of the two previous title in the saga, Force Wings and Aeroplane. In The U. S, the activity remains stable in a market that was slightly down. This reflects definitely the good sales momentum and new release such as the first Gentleman by James Patterson and Bill Clinton. Back catalog sales remained also solid, including of course, the house made by Frieda McFadden.
And, we are very pleased and proud, to share also with you that according the latest market review, Asher Book Group is today the number third 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 twenty four, as I mentioned. This semester sales were driven by the book of Pierre LeMaitre, Aure des Valonne 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 Asterix 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 post a slight decline of 2% linked to the basis of comparison with a growth rate of almost 8% in the second quarter of twenty twenty four. Activity is usually more dynamic in the Q3 with curriculum reform in junior high schools in France this year and in then Q4 for the Christmas gift season, of course. Also worth to notice that digital format continued to grow at a good pace with now represent close to 30% in The U.
S. And The UK, and globally, 15% of the publishing revenues. And as you know, this has also a positive and a negative impact on margin. Speaking on of margin, let's have a look to the operating margin. As you can see, the EBITA reached EUR 103,000,000, very stable compared to EUR 104,000,000 last year for the same period, maintaining the publishing operating margin at a high level after the first half year twenty twenty four, as I mentioned, which was already very high compared to historical figures.
Actually, put on this slide also a reminder of the level of the EBIT for June 23. 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 23. For the first semester of this year, we achieved this steady results, thanks to a favorable mix of sales in The U. S. And The UK, 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 Lagardere 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 2,900,000,000.0 as of June 25. Excluding North America restructuring effects and the impact of the twenty four leap year, groups 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 despite this specific situation, all regions delivered a positive growth. In Europe, activity was leased 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 May. By the way, our teams led by Dag and Frederic made a remarkable job to open on time and the beginning of this Amsterdam duty free business are very encouraging for the second part of this year.
If we have a look to The U. S. Business for travel retail, Lagardere travel retail secured revenue increased by 1%, which is actually a 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 Essential and Foodservice in this market. For the second part of twenty twenty five travel second quarter, sorry, of 2025, Travel Retail posted 4.1% like for like growth driven by growth 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 travels activity linked to summer holiday, Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Moving on to profitability for Lagardere Travel Retail. We are also pleased to share this very solid EBITA at EUR 117, again, impressive if you compare these figures to the one that we delivered in 2023 for the same period. As the results, 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 America North Asia, sorry, that I mentioned and rigorous cost control also.
H124 also included significant onetime 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 Lagardere live on the Slide 10. And as you can see, we have decided to rename Ligandera Live what was previously called the other activity segment.
This segment comprise Lagardere News, Lagardere Radio, Lagardere Live Entertainment, Lagardere Paris Racing and also the corporate function. And we think that this new share banner appeared a better choice to highlight the Lagardere's media entertainment and leisure activities in our communication. And of course, in the meantime, each business remains also its own brand and legal statute and no change regarding the perimeter of this branch compared to last year. For the first half of twenty twenty five for Lagardere alive, revenue from this branch totaled EUR 115,000,000. Excluding the impact of the sale of Parry Match in November 24, 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 Europan, our French famous radio station, with Europa's strong ratings and audience, solid performance from the press and contribution from L International licensing and brand extensions. In addition, as you can see, Lagardere Life EBITDA was also a loss of EUR 1,000,000, representing EUR 18,000,000 improvement year on year. This improvement is supported by strong cost saving measure and positive onetime 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 twenty twenty five, Prisma Media generated revenue of EUR 144,000,000, down 2% on a reported basis, reflecting the shrinking press market and changes in the digital usage leading to a lower online advertising revenues. Prisma continues to be proactive with new successful launches in Luxury and News segment. On the right hand side of this slide, EBITDA stood at EUR 3,000,000, down EUR 6,000,000, 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 3,000,000 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 150,000,000 in value. This semester, organic development was definitely the main driver for this growth with EUR 124,000,000 delivered by the business.
The main scope effect relates to the launch of our duty free operation in Amsterdam Schiphol since May. The win of the tender that was announced last December resulted in an acquisition of 70% stake in the joint venture, the remaining stake of 30% being held by the Amsterdam Airport. And this concession, has been accounted as an acquisition, which is not always the case for this type of tender. The remaining perimeter effect concern Stanley United and nine ninety nine acquisition that has already mentioned it at publishing level. EBITA rose by five percent, reaching EUR $220,000,000.
We are really happy again to see that this high level of EBITA continues to be almost equally supported by the two main activities, EUR 103,000,000 from Publishing, 117,000,000 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 and L. Below EBITA, after deducting amortization and intangible assets related to M and A and positive adjustment linked to IFRS 16, our profit before interest and tax amount to EUR 161,000,000. That is a 17% increase year on year.
Below this item, finance cost improved by EUR 10,000,000 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 rates. Income tax expense decreased by to EUR 27,000,000 compared to EUR 43,000,000, reflecting exceptional item last year and tax prepayment refund to be received in 2025. As a result, total net profit came to EUR 13,000,000, an improvement of EUR 47,000,000, 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 161,000,000 compared to EUR €149,000,000 in the first half of twenty four, up €12,000,000 or 8% on year on year basis.
All of our activities generate positive free cash flow before changing working cap, thanks to higher operating results and tight control of OpEx. Again, a very strong and balanced performance. And if you know, 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 especially the evolution of our net debt. On Slide 17, you can see the usual graph showing the net debt bridge over the last twelve months.
At the June, our net debt at Louis Hachette Group level amounted to EUR 2,400,000,000.0. Total free cash flow generation over the twelve months amounted to more than EUR 400,000,000. Beside this operational cash flow, the sale of Paris Match was definitely a material cash inflow, partially offset by the acquisition of nine ninety nine Games and Sterling by Lagardere 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 60,000,000. We also paid EUR 91,000,000 to minorities, including EUR 30,000,000 to other shareholders of Lagardere.
Bridge also reminds you that in the context of the Vivendi split, Prisma Media was recapitalized in December 24 for an amount of around EUR 200,000,000. Finally, we paid interest for an amount of EUR 93,000,000. Altogether, these movements lead us to a total net debt level just below EUR 2,000,000,000, as you can see, 1.9508 At this point, I also like to make a brief remark to those who monitoring closely the net debt at Lagardere level. Similarly to what we saw for Louis Hachette Group, we are proud to show that Lagardere's net level also improved and stand below the EUR 2,000,000,000 threshold at EUR 1,990,000,000.00. It represents a EUR $260,000,000 decrease over the twelve months rolling period.
So again, very good level of deleveraging. As a result, Lagardere net debt ratio decreased by 2.5x at the June 2025 as compared to three times at the June. 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. And to continue on this topic, let's move on the next slide, Slide 18. During the spring, as you may know, and despite a highly unstable financial market, the Lagardere Group successfully issued €100,000,000 five year bond.
This transaction was more than three times oversubscribed, demonstrating investor confidence in the group's solid business model and financial performance. Lagardere ESA also raised EUR 300,000,000 through Schulchaine, a private placement structured in euro with a mix of maturities up to five years and fixed and floating rates. After these two refinancing operation for EUR 800,000,000, 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 02/1930, 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 results, 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 Ashed 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 question.
Thank you, Gregoire. Thank you for the global overview of the second the first semester. We have five analysts who have raised questions. There are questions coming from Eric Ravari from CCCM. There are some questions coming from Thomas Renaud from Kepler.
There are some questions coming from Jerome Bodin of ODDO and as well, Julia Roque from Barclays and Christophe Cherbourn from Bernstein Societe Generale. 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 Lagardere Publishing as well as Travel Retail. So I will first leave the floor to Jean Christophe Thierry about how is the current trading of book publishing.
Thank you, Emmanuel. So 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. So 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. So of course, this was anticipated and we knew we would have softer education sales in Spain this year.
And 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. Last in France, we had a less vibrant release schedule in 2025 compared to 2024 with, for instance, Guillaume Museau's Calcandote, which had been released in March 2024 with strong reorders in Q2 or with the new Robert Galbraith in May 2024 at Grasse or a new Laurent Gonnett in May 2024 at Mazarin. Last but not least, we registered a decline in sales at L'ilvre des Poche compared to a historical year in 2024 with again a Guillaume Musso last year. So now for Q3 and H2, we are expecting a very strong release scheduled, including a new Asterix album in October, a stronger program in French literature compared to H1, including titles by Dan Brown for Lapace or Cedric Sappin de Defour for stock or Sourche Chalendon for Grasse or Philippe de Vieille or Bandelave with FIA.
In The US, we will publish a title by Arlan Cobain and Reese Witherspoon and another book by Ken Follett, Circle of Days with Grand Central. And of course, in France, we 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, Doug, you can take the the lead for our 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 Euro traffic, which is driving the growth and international traffic is fairly flat. North America is 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.
Yes. If I may continue to ask some question, Tag, can you give us some elements about 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 Gregor 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 1, 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 in then, we will continue to modernize and improve the situation. So it will be a progressive improvement in sales in triple, 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 digit. And if you average out between the 5% we have now and the high single digit, you can have an idea of how we see sales going forward.
Thank you, Tag. Yeah. I will come to, clear Leos about Prisma. So Prisma has announced some, recent restructuring. What do you expect on the outcome of such plan for your full year?
Good evening, everybody. Yes, we as Gregor mentioned, we have a drop of EBITDA of EUR 6,000,000, 3,000,000 being the impact of the restructuring charges of the company and EUR 3,000,000 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 Gregor Casta. During Q2 twenty twenty five, USD weakened versus Europe. And so the analyst would like to know what could be the impact to consider for the full year 2025 in terms of revenue and most probably 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 a key for the margin and profitability since we generate good margin there.
Of course, the USD versus dollar fold would impact us to make it simple as the at the current USD Euro rate of 1.17, we estimate that the total impact on the group revenues is around EUR 100,000,000 for the whole twenty five year as compared to 24 figures. And the impact on the profitability on the EBITDA will be close to EUR 10,000,000 on group EBITDA or even result at Lagardere 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 Lagardere ESA debt transformed in USD through derivatives. Since we've been active in the M and A investment in The U. S.
In the past years. We have a part of our debt, which is 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 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 Gregoire about the use of cash. Could you clarify up to what level your deleveraging is going to be pursued? Do you have any type of target in term of leverage? And if you have a capacity, what type of M and A would you consider and which type of perimeter?
Again, actually, deleveraging 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 to size bolt on M and A opportunities as we did with September recently or Union Square at the end of twenty twenty four. We don't give guidance as you know, but if we give you just an idea, we think that by twenty five year end, the group aims to achieve a leverage ratio for Lagardere of around 2x. So this is our target, and we think that it's, at this stage, feasible.
In term of performance of the new Life branch, we mentioned that the EBITDA strongly moved towards nearly zero, but it's still negative. But you mentioned that there were some items of one off. Is it possible to give some color on these elements in order to know what's going to happen in 2025?
Regarding this €18,000,000 improvement for live business, to make it simple, I would say that half of this improvement is linked to savings purely on '25 and half is linked to comparison basis, including OTI last year and retroactive savings this year linked to '24.
Thank you, Gregor. There is one more question that is more on linked to Arnaud Lagardere's stakeholding into Rui Hachette Group. Is Arnaud Lagardere have increased his stake during 2025?
The answer is yes. The stake of Arnaud Lagardere and Louis Herchette 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 q three.
Thank you.
Thank you.