Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Vivendi Q3 2023 revenues presentation. This conference call will be hosted by Monsieur François Laroze, a member of the Management Board and CFO. As a reminder, this call is being recorded, and during the call, you will be on listen-only. However, later on in the call, during the Q&A session, you will have the opportunity to ask questions. Please limit yourselves to one question, without any follow-up questions. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question at any time. If at any point you require assistance, please press star zero, and you will be connected to an operator. Now let's turn the call over to your host today, Monsieur François Laroze. Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open.
Hi, everyone. Very happy to host you at this Vivendi Q3 conference call. Let's go directly to the performance of the Q3. As you see, the Q3 was a quite sound performance, with 3.1% of organic for the whole group, with the main two business units, Canal+ and Havas, doing very well. 5.4% for Canal+, 5.5% for Havas. Gameloft is down by 21%, but we have to remind that the quarter Q3 2022 was up by 45% with the launch of the new game, Disney Dreamlight Valley, which explained this evolution. The ticketing in Live is down by 30%, mainly explained by the decision to close our touring artist operation at the end of last year.
The CityCat and festival operation, which are for sale at the moment, is doing very well with a 2.2% within this business unit. Our new initiative, mainly GVA in Africa and Dailymotion, are doing well with 26% organic. To this 3.1% organic growth, you have to add the scope impact of 0.6% and the currency impact, minus 1.2%. The scoping impact being mainly bolt-on acquisition within Havas. If we move to the nine months performance, they are quite similar, with a 3.2% organic growth and Canal+ and Havas still very strong. 3.3% for Canal+, 4.6% for Havas. The trend are the same for Prisma, slightly negative. Gameloft, 0.7% negative.
And Ticketing and Live, 13.9% for the perimeter, which remains today on here and which is for sale. New initiative, still very high, 24% for the first nine months. To this organic growth, you can have the scope impact of +0.6%, and the currency impact, -0.5%, mainly coming from the evolution of the U.S. dollar, British pound, and Argentine peso to euro. Let's now enter within the Canal+ performance. A very strong performance with 5.4%, with the three business units doing very well. Mainly StudioCanal, with a 24%, with many good theatrical releases during the quarter in France and all over the world.
The mainland France TV, with a very positive evolution of 6.9%, partly due to the new deal with DAZN, and the very good trend in September for the free channels. The TV International is at 0.5%. This performance is partly due to the weak level of sport international event during the summer. The trend on the nine months is also quite similar, 3.3% for the world group, 19% for StudioCanal, positive at 3% for mainland France, and 1% for international TV. Some highlights within Canal+ in Europe, first, with the acquisition of a 12% stake in the Viaplay Group in the Nordics. In Africa, with the stake of 32.9% in MultiChoice.
In Asia, it was in June, where Canal+ entered at a 26% stake in this platform in Southeast Asia. In terms of investment, let's point out the English Premier League rights, which has been renewed in many geographies until 2028. These geographies include France and Vietnam, but also Switzerland or Czech Republic. In terms of aggregation, after the deal, Apple TV, as I said earlier, we have signed with DAZN an aggregation agreement with sub-licensing of the French Premier League match. Let's now move to Havas. Havas has a very good performance for the Q3, 4.5% organic, to which we add the 2.3% scope impact with some acquisition on which we'd come back. Negative currency impact of 4.7%.
This organic is well spread all over the regions. Let's have a word on Latin America, which is up by 51%, confirming the very good performance of this continent over the last few years. But also North America, 3%, and Europe, 1.5%. The trend is equivalent on the nine months, 4.3% of organic, 1.3% scope impact, -1.6% of currency impact, and the performance very strong in all the geographies. A few words on acquisition now. Havas has achieved three main acquisition during the quarter, the biggest being Uncommon Creative Studio, which is a very famous creative agency in the UK, which has been one of the most rewarded creative agency over the last few months.
We have also completed our Havas, H/advisor , financial PR network, with the acquisition of APA in Australia and CVA in Portugal. A few words on the different agreements which have been signed during the quarter. First of all, Mirakl, which is a French unicorn, that will reinforce the position of Havas in retail media. And Adobe, which is a strategic partnership that will help both in retail media but also in Gen AI. For the other highlights of the group, the Prisma Media has - 1.3% performance, due to the level of the digital market. But Havas, Prisma has been extremely dynamic in acquisition, with the acquisition of Milk, which is lifestyle magazine.
[Foreign Language], also lifestyle in France, lifestyle magazine, and the M6 digital services, which are some sites in health, weather forecast and automotive. Gameloft has a minus 0.7% performance with the Disney Dreamlight Valley, released almost one year ago, which is still doing very well after one year. And the new launch of Disney Speedstorm, which is a new game, which has been released in free to play on September 28. For GVA, we can point out the launch of a new country, which we have now eight countries on air with the launch of Uganda. And for Dailymotion, let's remind that we have reboot the platform with the communication operation, which is delivering very positive outcome.
As a conclusion, we can say that this quarter has been a very satisfactory for the Vivendi Group and especially for our main two business units, Canal+ and Havas. And that we are on the verge of completion of a combination with Lagardère, that we still expect by the end of the year. Thank you for your attention and now I am at your disposal to answer all your questions.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, if you have any questions, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Also, once again, please limit yourself with one question and no follow-up questions in order to allow other people to ask their questions. We'll now go to Lisa Yang of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, ma'am, your line is open.
Yes, good evening. I have three questions. So the first one is on Canal+. Could you maybe clarify what's the revenue impact of the deal with DAZN? And then what's the EBITDA impact as well, we should expect on the annualized basis? Because obviously there's quite a strong acceleration in Q3. That's the first question. The second one is on Havas as well. Pretty impressive Q3 in a challenging environment. So I was wondering, is that mainly outperformance and new business wins, and what's the latest you're hearing on clients and how you think about the Q4 outlook? And the last one is on capital location.
Could you maybe update in terms of what are the areas of M&A interest and what would make you consider buyback now that the stock is close to 50% discount? Thank you.
On DAZN, it's a positive impact. I don't think it has been released. So we do not disclose precisely, but we know it's a positive impact that we will play on the coming nine months, until the end of the season of the French Premier League. On the second, Havas, the reason why we have done well are numerous, but it's true that there have been nice wins. The most recent being Shell in Havas Media, but also many nice wins in Latin America, in Europe, with KFC in France.
So there have been a nice win, but also, I think, the reason why we have been able to to overperform is a very good performance of all our businesses, and not only one, as sometimes in the history of Havas. Havas Creative is doing well. Havas Health & You is keep on doing well, even with the reduction of spend of the pharmaceutical levels with the lack of COVID medicines, but also Havas Media. So I think it's a good trend that should be confirmed in the coming months. No real warning at the time, even if we know we have to be very prudent on the evolution of our client spends. But at the time, we are quite confident.
On the capital allocation, we know that a buyback is clearly an option that we have not decided yet. We consider that as an option among other, and we will decide, I would say, later during the year if we intend to buy back or not. But it's not. It won't be in the coming weeks.
...Very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you very much, ma'am. We'll now move to Adrien de Saint-Hilaire of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I'll try two questions, if that's okay. First of all, can you confirm that the sub-licensing deal that you talked about with DAZN has no impact on profit? It's fully passed through. And the second question is, I think, François, you laid out a couple of months ago that, you know, your objective was to simplify the group, sell down some stakes that are considered non-core. I don't think there's been any announcements since then, so I was just wondering if that was still one of your target for the next six to 12 months to reduce the company's exposure to minority stakes.
Okay. So for DAZN, it's a deal with a sublicense, so which has a positive impact on our revenue and on our EBITDA. Indeed, as I said, we do not disclose the economics of the agreement, but it's positive for DAZN, which have the access to the myCanal platform, and positive for Canal, which will sublicense the Ligue 1. Concerning the group itself, I think we are still reviewing the strategy of it. We have announced recently our project of disposing our ticketing and live operation. So it's one way to try to focus on our I would say strategic operational business unit.
Concerning the main stakes, as I said, we still contemplate all the options for TIM and UMG, and we'll decide again in the coming months what to do with these main stakes.
Thank you.
Thank you much, sir. Our next question is coming from Christophe Cherblanc of Société Générale. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes, good evening. Two on my side. First one was, sorry to come back on DAZN, but, can you confirm the recognition of the DAZN impact is spread over the length of the contract, or has it been recognized all in, all in Q3? Because, the year-on-year increase on an absolute basis is pretty big on mainland France. That's the first one, and the second one is related to football. We saw the story about the Ligue 1 auction. What is the long term or, let's say, the medium term objective on football costs? Because, we know the Champions League costs are going to go up. We have the English Premier League. You have not said anything on sub-licensing.
So, net-net, are you planning or aiming to reduce total football costs, including Ligue 1, or just stabilize them? That would be helpful to think about the situation as of June 24. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. On DAZN, we will take the revenues and profit month after month, knowing that it has started in August and will end at the end of the coming season. So, we will have a part of it month by month, until the end of June. We have not taken all the profit during this quarter, clearly.
On football, it's quite a complex answer because as you know, we can't debate today on the new tender of Ligue 1, which seems to be quite complex, and our target is not only to stabilize or to increase or to decrease the level of football rights. But it's try to stabilize and to find the way for all our spends at Canal+ Group. So it's the sport is part of it, the cinema is a part of it, and I think we'll balance all these spends depending on the one and the other. So we do not focus especially on football.
We have a whole level of spends, and we try to fix it at the best level in order for Canal+ to keep on increasing its EBITDA year after year. That's our target.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. Our next question will be coming from Julien Roch, calling from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Two questions. The first one is on Telecom Italia. According to certain articles, you don't want a deal unless network is valued at EUR 30 billion. According to other articles, you would be more flexible. So, my question is, is the deal only going to happen for you, if the network is valued at EUR 30 billion, or the alternative is, what's been talked about in the price of EUR 20-EUR 23 billion, is somewhat acceptable as long as the contract between ServCo and NetCo is a good contract? So that's my first question. And then the second question, rebounding on Adrien's question on simplifying the group.
So, you're selling ticketing, you said that you were exploring options on TIM and UMG, but what about telecom in Africa, Telefónica, I mean, all the little stakes you have, you know, what's core and non-core? Thank you.
Okay. So, on TIM, I think it's a, it's a moment in which we, we have seen this, this proposal from KKR, which seems to be a, a binding offer this time, which was not the previous one. I think the position of, of, Vivendi is very clear, that, we consider that it's a major move for, the, the evolution of the TIM Group, as the network is a big part of it. We have expressed several times this level of, EUR 30 billion, and today our position is only the one to say that as a major shareholder, as having more than 23% of voting rights, we want to express our position officially in a, shareholder meeting or in an extraordinary shareholder meeting.
And I think that will be the duty of the team to give the offer to all the shareholder to express their position. We will say clearly where we are at the moment, where we'll be asked our position, hopefully in this shareholder meeting. Concerning all the stakes you were referring to, different operations, the telecom in Africa. We consider that it's today among the strategic ones, because it is something which is doing very well, something which has a close relation with Canal+ in Africa, as it is a complement to our pay TV on the DTH, having some operations that help the OTT operation.
I think makes a lot of sense in the strategy of Canal+ in the coming years. So, we consider that as a strategic. For the other one, you know, it's there is, as you say, the list with PRISA You should have, you could have also mentioned the MFE in the former Mediaset. We have all this operation, and we are very pragmatic, and we will see, depending on the evolution of the result of the governments of this company, what to do. But we are not in a hurry. We consider month after month what to do with this, with these stakes.
[Foreign language]
Thank you very much, sir. We'll now move to Silvia Cuneo, calling from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good evening, everyone. I would also like to ask two questions. The first one is on the StudioCanal. I think Paddington in Peru was scheduled to start filming in July. Can you please comment about the expected timeline of production and your pipeline more broadly for the upcoming quarters on the back of the 25% growth at constant currency in Q3? Just wondering how sustainable that would be in the next quarters. Then the second question is about the timeline for completion of the Lagardère acquisition. You mentioned by the end of the year. I think previously the message was by late October or early November. Just wondering if you have any updates on the process that you could share. Thank you.
Thank you very much. On StudioCanal, it's true that the performance has been extremely strong, and we can project this more than 20% growth on all the coming quarters. But we have a very sound timeline with many films under production. And we consider that StudioCanal will be in a position to keep on growing both on cinema and on series with many operation in current production. So it's, I would say, the trend remains very positive, maybe not at this very high level, but we'll keep on grow in the coming quarters. For Lagardère, we are extremely prudent.
We know there have been many quite long-lasting discussion with the EU for getting the agreement. Today, we fix the end of the year as a target. Maybe it could be before, if we had good news and some acceleration of agreements from the EU. But we have to be prudent, and we prefer to say that we target the end of the year, and maybe we'll have good news in case we have, I would say, rapid answers on the certification, on the suitable buyers, which are IMI for Editis and Le Figaro for Gala. It's not fully in our hands, but we target the end of the year, hoping to do better.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Cuneo. We'll now move to Adam Berlin of UBS. Please go ahead, sir.
Hi, good evening. Just one question from me, please. Can you disclose how fast Havas Media business grew in the Q3? Or if you can't disclose the exact number, can you tell us, did it grow faster than Havas overall?
Thank you. Yes, we do not disclose business unit by business unit, but what we can tell you that Havas Media is doing very well and even better than these, I would say, the other business units, its peers within Havas, which is a very good performance. And will deliver good performance as well during the coming quarters. I think it's mainly due to the ability of Havas Media to extend its type of revenue for classical media spends to all types of data management, customer experience.
And now, Havas Media is not only a media spender, but really, a company able to work with all its clients on all type of media spending, including the traditional but also non-traditional media spends.
But just one follow-up. So are we, are you seeing existing clients spending more, or is it just driven by kind of account wins?
...There have been some acquisitions, certainly, but we are able to extend our portfolio of businesses within Havas Media. It's not really that the clients spend more, but we are able to offer more services to them. So it's-
Mm.
It's more new services that we are able to launch rather than an increase of media spends, which are sometimes stable, as you know, everywhere. And I think that's the beauty of it, that we sometimes consider that our clients spend less than before, and sometimes it's true, but we are able to offer to them new services. That's really the reason why today Havas Media and the whole group, Havas, is doing well.
Thanks very much. It's very helpful.
It would appear we also have a question coming in from Mr. Jerome Bodin. But one second, I'm just going to get your line and unmute it myself. One moment, please. Mr. Bodin, please go ahead, sir.
Yes. Yes, good evening. Just two quick question on Canal+, on my side. I know you don't give any numbers quarter by quarter for the sub French base, but if you have any indication, I mean, up, down, or flat, that would be very useful for Q3. And the second question on VAT, do you think it's over, or is there still a pending risk on VAT for the French business? Thank you.
Yes, you're right. We do not disclose the figures for the Q3, but we can give you the flavor of a good quarter for paid TV in France, rather increasing. So, it's a good performance during the Q3. Concerning VAT, I'm afraid I will do roughly the same answer that you did the previous call, telling you that we are still going back and forth with a French tax authority to try to find an agreement. We hope to find this type of agreement in the coming months, certainly in 2024.
We are still confident that we find a way with them to convince that a big part of our revenue should not be at a 20% VAT rates, but rather a 10% one. So we'll have, first of all, to convince that we should have this two different rates, which is today the case in our invoice, because we invoice at two different rates, our clients. And then, obviously, there will be a discussion on the quantum of each rate, but I'm quite confident that we'll be able to find, at the end, an agreement with the French tax authority.
Thank you very much, Mr. Bodin. Our next question is coming from Conor O'Shea of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah, thank you. Good evening. A couple of questions from my side. Apologies if some of them have been asked. I got a late connection, but firstly, on Canal+, regarding the Ligue 1 tender, can you say in sort of general terms, if you end up not committing to these rights, so say in a second stage, whether the savings on the current contract that you have of about EUR 332 million will be completely reinvested in the business in rights like Champions League or whatever, or you could see some net savings there once the current contract runs out? That's the first question.
Second question, just in terms of the share buyback program, the regular one for the 10% of shares. If you're now, I think, you know, focusing more on three core businesses, Canal+, Havas and Lagardère when you consolidate it, why not reactivate the share buyback program? And then the third question, just in relation to Lagardère, ahead of, you know, the approvals over the sales of editors and so on, to make that deal fully happen. But can you say in broad terms, whether Lagardère's travel retail business is, you know, potentially strategic for you in the long term? Thank you.
Okay. So on Canal+, no comment on the tender offer because it's a very special moment, and telling you the future of it is clearly not possible for me today. We will see what happens, and I think we know more things through by reading papers than any other way. On the possible saving, if you were not to renew any agreement with Ligue 1, I think, as I said earlier, we do not calculate sport by sport or we just try to find the perfect balance for having our clients happy, trying to attract new clients and keeping the target of increasing our result in the coming years.
That's clearly the target of the Canal+ teams, and we really rely on them to find a perfect balance between the rights of Premier League, rights of Ligue des Champions, and depending on the outcome of the current tender offer of Ligue 1. So I think it's an overall calculation which is in the hands of our Canal+ managers.
Okay.
... The question, well, second question was on share buyback, as I said, it's today an option. We are finalizing Lagardère, which is our first priority. We'll have the exercise of the call at the end of the year, you know, on the fifteenth of December, we have a maximum to EUR 750 million to pay to the shareholder that will decide to exercise their rights. So I would think we will wait for the outcome of this second moment for the-
Mm.
the Lagardère offer, which will be in December. I think we'll make the decision on the allocation of cash at this moment, once we have the final figures of put exercise.
Mm.
Concerning Lagardère, we, as you know, we are not involved at all in the management of Lagardère, so we know their business through the official communication.
Mm.
We have seen that travel with retail was doing very well. They have released a few days ago a very good performance in terms of revenues.
Mm.
for the travel retail up to 7%, if I do remember, 17% for the Q3, 26 for the nine months. So I think it's a very promising operation, and today that's not the moment to decide what to do. I think,
Mm.
-we have repeated several times that we want to keep the group Lagardère as it is today. Let's remind that it will remain a listed group. Our share will be between 60% and 80%, depending on-
Mm
... the number of people that will exercise their rights. So it will remain listed. It will be, I would say, a group by itself and any decision on the future of each all the business unit publishing, travel, retail, all the other businesses in media will be decided the day when we are controlling this group and in full accordance with the current management of Lagardère.
Okay. Understood. Many thanks, François.
Thank you very much, Mr. O'Shea. As we have no further questions, I turn the call back over to Mr. Laroze for any additional or closing remarks. Thank you.
Thank you very much all of you for your attention, and, looking forward to seeing you very soon. Bye-bye. Good evening.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's presentation. Thank you, attendees, you may disconnect.