Good afternoon, everyone, from our side as well. Today you'll have Holger Hohrein, CFO of CTS Eventim, and myself, Marco Haeckermann, on the call to discuss today's earnings release. Over the next 20-25 minutes, Holger will summarize the 2023 results, followed by a Q&A session in which Holger and I are happy to take your questions. So without further ado, I hand over to Holger.
Thanks, Marco. Warm welcome also from my end. Hello everyone. I'm glad to have you so many participants here today, and I'm looking forward to kick off our dialogue with you with this format of earnings calls. Before we jump into the financials in detail, I'd like to provide you with some key takeaways. Firstly, we have surpassed our guidance from early October last year. This guidance had been already raised, but Q4 came out better than expected, as you will see in a minute. As a result, 2023 has been another record-breaking year, and as the colleagues have counted, it's the 18th record year since 2000 since Eventim went public. We're confident it won't be the last one. Again, we come to this point later. In 2023, we have managed to further increase our international footprint.
In November, we have announced our latest acquisitions in Chile and Peru, and we will become major shareholder in France Billet soon after the green light is given by the EU Competition Authority. In line with our dividend policy, we propose a record dividend to the general shareholder meeting. In terms of outlook, the industry shows strong momentum and a positive outlook, and so do we. We are very positive for Eventim's further growth. How does it look like in terms of some key metrics? The revenue increased by 22.5% year-over-year to almost € 2.4 billion. The normalized EBITDA came out at € 501.4 million, which is an increase of almost 32% year-over-year. The EBIT came out at € 402 million, which is an increase of 28% year-over-year.
The online tickets, so the tickets which we sell online through our own channels, and maybe we should rather say Eventim Experience, as opposed to tickets sold over our platform in the SaaS business model. So tickets went up by almost 20%, and the tickets outside our home market, Germany, went up by almost 17%. So tickets outside Germany is one of our strategic focus areas, and we will continue reporting on this figure. The earnings per share went up by almost 35% year-on-year to 2.8068 € per share. According to our dividend policy, distributing 50% of our net profit, this results in a record dividend payment of € 137 million. Including the proposed dividend for 2023, this results in almost € 700 million accumulated dividend payment with a CAGR of 18% since 2006, the year for which the first dividend had been distributed.
After these initial remarks, let's jump into the financials for 2023 a little bit more in detail. As already mentioned, revenues on group level went up by 22% year-over-year, driven by strong growth in both segments. It's worth mentioning that these, the previous year was still impacted by the corona pandemic, especially in Germany in the first quarter. That's also why we have included here a comparison with the last pre-corona year, 2019, and compared to 2019, revenues increased substantially by 63%. The normalized EBITDA came to€ 501 million, which is up by 32%, but I'd like to remind you that this includes a one-time effect in the third quarter, which comes from the compensation of the Bundeskartellamt project, and a part of, this compensation belonged to subcontractors of the Eventim Group directly, and this has already been recognized in the third quarter already.
Even without this one-off effect, the EBITDA margin came to 19.7%. With this effect, the EBITDA margin ended up at 21.3%. The EBIT increased by 28%, and without this one-off effect, the EBIT increased by 16% versus previous year and by 59%, against 2019. Now a more detailed view on the fourth quarter last year. We see here a quarter-by-quarter comparison, 2023 to 2022. As mentioned, the first quarter in 2022 was still somewhat weak due to the corona pandemic, especially in Germany in the ticketing segment. The second and third quarter then were decently higher than 2022, 10% and 5% increase respectively, which led then to our increased but not overly optimistic guidance for 2023 as a whole as of October. In Q4, then, came out very strong.
We ended up with significantly higher revenues than previous year, with a 22% increase in revenues and with a 28% increase in EBITDA. This were primarily driven by the ticketing business, as we will see in a minute. But first, let's have a look at the full P&L on group level and its comparison to the year 2022 for both in absolute and relative terms. On the left-hand side, you see revenues and EBITDA. Here, the non-normalized one, which came out at € 494 million and which then translates to net profit for the Eventim shareholders of € 275 million, which is a € 71 million increase or a 35% increase, versus previous year. When we look at the transition from EBITDA to net profit, there are a few interesting effects which we would like to mention here. Firstly, depreciation.
Depreciation increased by 51% or € 31 million, and the main impact here is depreciation of an exclusive, exclusive ticket right in our subsidiary in Israel due to the change prospects in the light of the Gaza war. We have accounted for this effect already in the third quarter, and the effect is € 19 million. The second aspect worth mentioning here is the financial result. The financial result went down by € 20 million or 75%. We provided a detailed breakdown of the financial result, both financial income and financial expenses, in our annual report, but here in a sense, the main effects, in brief. The financial income more or less is on par with previous year, although some shifts in the underlying components can be seen. But the financial expenses are up by € 48 million higher than previous year.
The reason for these much higher financial expenses is twofold. One, the fair value of our put options or put options increased by 26%. Those put options mainly are related to France Billet but not exclusively, but mainly related to France Billet. As you know, we have exercised a call option, which, for another 17% in France Billet, which would put us as a major shareholder once the competition authority has given green light. And with this exercise of the call option, a series of put options for the remaining 35% have been activated. Given the higher interest rate environment and thus the increased cost of capital, the entity value obviously decreased. This is rather a technical effect, while the purchase price for the remaining 35% will stay same. So again, rather a technical or valuation effect, which is not to our favor.
The second effect or 2, number 2, relates to a revaluation of a loan from a subsidiary in the Live Entertainment segment in the U.S. The third effect, which can be seen here on this slide, relates to the minority interest, which seem to have disappeared completely. The reason for this decline is as follows. In our portfolio of numerous legal entities, especially in the Live Entertainment segment, there are always some entities making good profits, others making less profits, or even making losses. This time in 2023, some fully consolidated entities but with a high minority share were rather less profitable or even making losses, which then had offset the minority interests of profitable entities. We share the burden in case things don't work out as planned. I'll leave this aside for a moment. I'm sure there will be some more questions later on anyway.
Let's jump to ticketing. Ticketing revenues for 2023 ended up at € 717 million, which is up by 32%. We have seen a very strong Q4 with € 258 million alone. This is not only the result of just a few major on-sales but rather the sheer variety of events overall. These revenues then also resulted in a very strong quarterly EBITDA. I think it's the best quarterly EBITDA ever. We ended up with € 142 million versus € 108 million in the previous year. The aforementioned one-off effect from the Cartel project was already accounted for in Q3. All in all, the EBITDA margin came to 53.6% and without this one-off effect to 48.4%. Driven is this pleasant result by the number of online tickets or, as mentioned earlier, the number of tickets sold via the Eventim Experience.
As you may know, approximately 80%-85% of the ticketing revenues come from these ticket sales, while the remaining 15%-20% result from our SaaS business model. Let's have a look at the number of tickets, which you can see here on the left-hand side. Number of tickets for the total year went up by 20% to 83 million online tickets. A split by regions can be seen here on the right-hand side. While increasing our international footprint clearly is one of our focus strategic priorities, we have also seen an exceptional year for Germany in 2023. We have seen strong growth in both Germany and Internationally.
With our latest acquisition in Chile and Peru and with France Billet to be consolidated in the future and accounted for the tickets for, for France Billet as well and with some more initiatives like, LA28 Olympic Games, and more initiatives, the share of international, tickets or the share of tickets outside Germany should clearly increase in the future, making our ticketing business more diverse and more robust.
Jumping to Live Entertainment. Also in this segment, we have seen strong growth. Revenues were up by 19% to almost € 1.7 billion. The growth is a result of both existing portfolio entities as well as new promoters and new joint ventures. A substantial increase comes from our U.S. activities, where we come from below 50 million euro, million euro revenues in 2022 to now more than € 170 million, thanks to new corporations and joint ventures and thanks to fully consolidating the Harry Potter: The Exhibition.
In terms of EBITDA, this EBITDA stands at par with previous year. Worth mentioning that in the previous year, in 2022, we have received significant payments from corona aid programs in an amount of € 48 million. Taking this into account, we have also seen a quite decent increase in overall operational profitability, although there is a mixed picture when it comes to individual portfolio companies. But again, the overall picture is very positive with an EBITDA margin of 7%, which is very good in this business. Let's now take a brief look at cash flow and liquidity. The starting point at the beginning of the year, beginning of 2023, was € 1.3 billion in cash and cash equivalents. This number also includes € 164 million investments in short-term deposits at banks, mainly 3-12 months, fixed-term deposits.
Then the cash flow from operating activities substantially increased, which simply reflects the strong operating business as just explained. The cash flow from investment activities was € 100.34 million without the intermittent additional investment in short-term deposits and securities. This mainly refers to our investment in the construction of the arena for Milano. So it will be Italy's most modern multipurpose arena, which will be finished by the end of 2025. We have improved our liquidity management in a more attractive interest rate environment. We hold a higher share of short-term deposits and marketable securities instruments. The investment in those instruments was about € 483 million. The cash flow from financing activities mainly consists of dividend payments made in May 2023 and dividend payments to minority shareholders.
The liquidity at the end of 2023 ended with almost € 1.7 billion, of which € 650 million is held in deposits and marketable securities. Let's move on to our balance sheet structure. Total assets went up to now almost € 3.2 billion, which is increased by 22%. The main effects here are increasing cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities, as just explained.
The second item, which increased, is the item property, plant, and equipment, which reflects our investment in the arena for Milano, as also just explained. Looking at the liability side, you can see an increase in ticket monies, which increased from € 500 million- € 635 million, and an increase in advance payments received, which then this year will turn into revenue. This item increased from € 525 million to € 666 million. The increase in long-term liabilities is basically the flip side of the coin.
It consists of potential payments for the put options laid out for France Billet and other entities also, our acquisitions in Chile and Peru, where we have initially acquired shares of 65% and also laid out put options for the remaining 35%. We see also an increase in equity, which simply represents the increase in profit. Looking at this balance sheet structure, one can see there's quite some free cash available. This strong cash position provides options for further growth organically and inorganically. This brings me to our outlook for 2024 and our guidance. For 2024, we expect a moderate revenue growth for ticketing and for the group as a whole. For Live Entertainment, we see another strong year with revenues at the same high level or slightly higher as in 2023.
It's worth mentioning that in summer 2024, we will see two major sport events, Soccer Championship Euro 2024 and the Olympic Games in Paris. Despite those major sport events, we expect another year with a high number of live events or at this already very high level, which we had seen in 2023. In terms of adjusted EBITDA, we see a moderate increase for both segments as well as for the group as a whole. Please allow me a few words on adjusted EBITDA. So far, we have always reported on normalized EBITDA, which is with a rather narrow scope of adjustments as it has been defined by Eventim. The definition had some shortcomings as it does not comprise all relevant one-offs or non-operational items. For instance, we did not normalize compensation for the German Cartel project.
We did not normalize the COVID aid payments received over the recent years. That's, therefore, maybe not really reflecting the operational strengths or operational or performance of the company. So for this reason, from 2024 on, we will switch to an adjusted EBITDA metric, which with a much more broader scope, so potentially including all non-recurring items, all one-offs, all extraordinary items, to better reflect operational results and to give you more transparency of our running business. In our financial report, we have provided a transparent transition for this new metric, and have shown you how this metric would have looked like for the year 2023. Having explained this, what does it mean for our guidance now? So we expect an increase of the adjusted EBITDA.
So we will basically close the gap by operationally earning all the one-offs of 2023 and will basically end up in the same range, around € 500 million for the Adjusted EBITDA. And as you know, as from the past, we tend to we don't tend to overpromise and underdeliver, maybe the other way around. And although it's still early in the into 2024, we are quite positive regarding the prospects for 2024 and the years to come. And of course, our guidance does not include any potential inorganic growth opportunity. This brings me to our strategic priorities. Of course, we want to further grow the business in both segments, organically and inorganically. We want to extend our international footprint even further. We want to integrate new acquisitions and focus on improving scale and efficiency.
We want to develop the tech and data platform in sync with market needs, market trends, and customer needs, grow the transition to mobile ticketing, help artists to better connect with the target audience, and facilitate access to live events for our fans. Let me summarize again the key takeaways. We have surpassed our guidance. We have another record-breaking year, driven by strong businesses. We have increased our international footprint. We propose a record dividend to our shareholders' meeting. We have a very strong cash position for further growth. The industry shows strong momentum, and we have a very positive outlook for 2024 and the years to come. That's, for the moment, from my end. I think Marco and I are happy to take some questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press a 9 and star on your telephone keypad. In case you wish to withdraw a question, press 9 and star a second time. And this first question comes from Gerhard Orgonas from Berenberg. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Good afternoon, Gerhard Orgonas from Berenberg. Maybe a question on France Billet. You said that you expect the anti-competition authority or the French authorities to clear the additional stake very soon. Do you have a timeline about this? And because it feels like it's a little bit delayed from last year?
Thanks for the question. Yeah. Actually, we expect the merger clearance every day, so to say. In our internal planning, we have taken the France Billet as of second quarter into our budgets.
So, could be, I don't know, a couple of days, could be a couple of weeks. But at the end, it's a, you know, administrative process, which we are not in control of. But yeah, could have been faster.
Okay. Thanks. And maybe a question on the medium-term outlook. If you looked ahead to three, four years, the next years, how do you see prices and volumes developing?
Yeah. Maybe Marco. Let me take this over. Thank you for that question. Of course, what we see and what is reflected in our outlook for this year is that we continue to see very healthy momentum in the industry.
We have seen as well that latest events that went on sale, not only in our markets but even in other markets, that there was not only the driver behind growth coming from higher volumes, but pricing played a more and more crucial role, yeah, where events got, yeah, a little bit more expensive, if you if you will, from a face value. And this is, of course, a very important indicator for us because promoters have to deal with this challenge every day to basically cover the increasing production costs and artist fees they have to cover with the face value. But it was good to see that in this market environment, the consumers were still happy to digest this as they are willing to go to these experiences and accept these prices.
And given that the supply side remains very strong, even if you look at markets like the United States as a leading indicator, the prospects for the years to come, both in terms of volume and price, are, yeah, favorable for us.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Karin So , JP Morgan. Please go ahead with your question.
Yep. Hello. Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I have two, actually. The first one is on the US market, where kind of you mentioned that you came out to more than 117 million, which I assume would be mostly H2. I'm just curious if you could kind of share any insights behind kind of the latest progress in the market. And I guess, kind of more importantly, how should we think about your ambitions within the U.S. going forward?
And then I have a second question is more related to the comments in the shareholder letter where you said that, you're looking to kind of expand the venue management division into, like, a pillar. I'm just curious if you could kind of, like, elaborate a bit more around the thinking behind this. And I guess kind of if you could help us to think around what would then be the implications on the CapEx of this expansion. Thank you.
I must admit I didn't really understand the first question. But the second question, I think I got. Let's start with the second question, and maybe we can rephrase the first one. So, yes, we internally are thinking of maybe forming a third pillar or third segment, which would be then venue operations.
As you may know, we already operate a number of venues today, LANXESS arena in Germany, the Waldbühne in Berlin, also Germany, Eventim Apollo in London, and a few other things. We are currently in the process of constructing the Arena Santa Giulia, which will be finalized by the end of next year. So our interest would be in operating venues, not necessarily owning the venues. So it's not our intention to fill our balance sheet with bricks and mortar or concrete in this case. But it might happen that we, if there's an opportunity, also engage in other opportunities as well.
But again, it's not our intention to take the heavy lifting on the balance sheet, but rather than have maybe, if necessary to develop a project, then rather have something like a warehousing where we then tend to or try to offload the balance sheet. And so put it the other way around. We are not the best owner of venues, but we think we are a decent good owner of operating venues, which would extend our value chain. And yeah. That's the second question. If you would, please rephrase your first question again. I was not sure if I got the question correctly.
Yeah. Yeah. Of course. No. And thank you for the answer for the second one. I guess the first one was just more kind of on the U.S. market.
Just curious, kind of, because I remember you were saying kind of like€ 15 million in H1. So it clearly probably has accelerated in H2 in terms of the revenues from the U.S. market. Just wanted to ask if you could kind of share any background or insights behind kind of the latest progress of your expansion in the U.S. and kind of how should we think about your ambitions within the market going forward?
Yeah. The revenue increase basically refers to the live entertainment segment. So we entered a few more joint ventures or corporations with promoters in the U.S. And well, as the U.S. market is the biggest entertainment market in the world, there's plenty of room for more growth for us. And well, ambitions are high.
As Klaus, our CEO, I think he mentioned a year ago or so, mentioned that in the future, maybe a third of our revenue should come from this. I think that's the target somehow. I would expect I would not expect fewer revenues for this year than previous year. I don't know, Marco, if you want to add to.
Yeah. As we always said in this conversation, when you demand for yourself that you are leading in terms of technology and that you have a good product, and the biggest market worldwide is still untapped potential for us, yeah, it is always a good opportunity, yeah. And we understand the market. We know that the market works a little bit different. It's a, well, some say expensive market.
So we have a very clear view on where, if an opportunity unfolds, we would be willing to deploy resources and to grow into this market, yeah. But, as always, we are in there for the long game and not for any quick results.
Perfect. That makes sense. Thank you.
The next question comes from Annick Maas, Société Générale. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi. My first one is on France Billet again. You said you integrated from the second quarter, but then over the summer, you have the Olympics. So are we essentially only integrating one quarter of France Billet in 2024, and the rest comes the following year? That's my first one. The second one is, you spoke about mid-term CapEx, but what about CapEx for 2025, given we still have a year to go for Milan?
Then, if you could just speak about how you expect the tax rates to develop in 2024. And my last one is, on the outlook. So, moderate revenue growth, what does it mean? You know, are we talking 5%, 10%, 20%? I guess on the EBITDA, you were quite clear that the € 500 million might be, the low end of where it could go. But if you could give a bit more comments around revenues, that would be great. Thank you.
Yeah, okay. To start at the beginning. So France Billet, maybe I wasn't clear in my answer earlier. So, in our internal budget, we have the assumption that we will fully consolidate France Billet as of the second quarter 2024. So that would mean we would have three quarters of France Billet in our 2024 numbers. So that's the assumption.
But at the end, we are not in control of this process. It might be a little bit, I mean, as said, might come in the next days, might come in the next weeks. We are, as said, not in control of the process. The second question was CapEx. Yeah. Well, for Arena for Milano, we would expect maybe an increase in CapEx in this year and in the next year, maybe in potentially the same size as we have seen so far, without giving you the exact number, you know, what the whole investment at the end will be, but potentially the same amount as you could see now in the 2023 figures. The third question, t he tax. Yes. The tax came out in Q4 2023 came out quite high. It was almost 33%.
And the reason for this was that, especially the financial expenses or the expenses in the financial result, are not tax deductible. That's the one effect. The second effect is that we had especially a strong year in Germany with a rather higher tax rate, compared internationally. And the third effect is that we had also some losses in some subsidiaries for which we have not activated additional deferred tax assets. So all effects together resulted in a higher tax rate in 2023 than in previous year. The outlook for 2024, we would expect a rather lower tax rate than this tax rate in 2023, as we do not plan to, have, you know, losses in the same amount as in 2023. Yeah. So I would rather calculate with a rather smaller number than we have seen in 2023.
So the fourth question was outlook. Moderate outlook. Okay. So we have, of course, we have an internal, how we, you know, what is moderate, what is significant, what is substantial without giving you the precise number. But it's rather in the range of, it's rather a range between 5%-15% increase, everything between or above 15% would then rather be significant or, so it's rather in this range. Yeah. I didn't want to convey that it's, you know, it's definitely € 500 plus, plus, plus. So just saying we will end up, as of today, it's still early in the year. We say we will end up with the adjusted or with our EBITDA in the same range as we now came out with a normalized EBITDA for 2023. Yeah. So that's basically the guidance for.
The next question comes from Cornelis Kik from AlphaValue. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Thank you for taking my question. When looking back at past years with major sports events, especially in the summer, revenue and live entertainment tended to slow down quite a bit. It's fewer artists tended to go on tour simultaneously. What makes the dynamic for this year different? Maybe you can shed a bit of light on that. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you for your question. This is Marco. Your assumption is correct if you really look back into the very early years, yeah. So if you look into the early 2000s where, of course, artist touring was existent, but not to the extent and the relevance of how it is crucial today for the income of an artist, yeah.
And now we can say, as this whole live industry has really become a global business, that even in parallel with global sporting events, that one doesn't affect the other, yeah. I mean, even without this, and you have probably seen what kind of shows went already on sale in this Q1, yeah, that is not the type of content you would have seen 10 or 15 years ago that would probably have went on sale when there was a major sport event in Central Europe. But now it is. So technically, we can say, as this industry has grown, as it has become more important for artists to go on tour and secure that income, there is no discrimination anymore if there is a major sports event taking place, and which where we would expect an implication on live touring and our business going forward.
All right. That was helpful. And one more, if I may. So your marketable securities increased fivefold, pretty much. Is that indicative of your new cash management strategy and something that we can expect going forward?
Sorry. If I can ask you to come again, we didn't get the beginning of the question. What was it that you noted increased?
Marketable securities increased fivefold. So is that something that we can expect going forward? Is that part of the new cash management strategy?
Yeah. Yeah. And principally, yes. You know, given my background, management of liquidity is one of my competencies, I would say. Yes. And also given the more attractive or more favorable interest rate environment, it makes all the more sense to have a closer look at how to manage the cash and, earn some extra euros on this, yeah.
All right. Thank you.
At the moment, we have one more question. So maybe as a reminder to all participants, if you would like to raise a question, please press 9 and star on your telephone keypad. And for the next question, I hand the floor to Craig Abbott.
Yes. Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you, by the way, for organizing this call. Yeah, a couple of questions from my side. One is on the mobile ticketing. There was no particular mention of this in the call today. I just wonder, in the future, can we expect you to kind of give us an indication of what the—Hello? Sorry. Can you hear me?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can hear you.
Okay. Sorry. Okay. I had some background noise. Yeah.
On the mobile ticketing, I just wonder, you know, were you, you know, in the future, were you presented us with some KPIs which kind of showed, compare how your average drop-through rate is for, you know, say, a mobile ticket sold versus, say, a current an online ticket being sold today, and were you starting to give us any KPIs at all, i.e., what is the current share of mobile ticketing, and where do you kind of how do you see that transpiring over the next couple of years, just so we can try to start to map out a little bit more accurately what the incremental economic impact might be for you over the next couple of years?
Yeah. Thank you, Craig, for that question.
Of course, as you might have mentioned already throughout today's call, that we have started to give out a bit more KPIs as we have forecasted, yeah, that we continue to give a more granular set of KPIs. So for an outside-in view, you can better track of what is relevant. And of course, as soon as we meet some kind of really material thresholds, yeah, we will start to release more KPIs, which we then continue with discuss with you on a continuous basis. And mobile volumes is surely one of them, yeah. And today, we started with giving a bit more light on our international setup, yeah. And of course, this doesn't mean that we stay in this setup for the next 20 years.
Okay. Thank you.
Just in terms of, just to be a little bit more granular here on, for the breakout for this year, just looking at the trajectory across the different quarters, and, and obviously, they can always swing quite a bit from quarter to quarter. Based on the assumptions that we've been discussing in this call of, say, moderate growth and somewhere in that 5%-10% range, as you indicated, I mean, it's pretty obvious Q1's probably going to be quite strong. You had, quite a few major onsells, adele, AC/DC, and so forth. And then we had these summer events, which we discussed in Q2 and Q3, which , not expect to have a dramatic impact. But then you will also have a high base in Q4.
I mean, should we be thinking about, you know, this year being perhaps a little bit more front-end loaded than normal, maybe a little bit more moderate comparisons in Q2, Q3, and then sort of a normal seasonal pattern in Q4?
Well, it's, you're right. We had some major onsells already in this year. And so, we expect that would be obviously quite a decent Q1. But at the end, we don't know when the big onsells will, you know, will start. Sometimes, you know, they move a little bit around. And it could be next quarter, could be an earlier quarter. So it's difficult to predict it. So it's also a little bit unpredictable, so to say. Yeah.
As always, I mean, at this early stage of the year, it's, of course, difficult to make any timing projections on when potential onsells might go on sale in Q3 and Q4. I think it's fair to say that we had a fairly good start into this year, given the shows which have been disclosed already on our websites and where tickets went on sale, yeah. But as Holger said in the beginning, we rather, as always, tend to be a bit more cautious to be secure when we start. And as we have seen throughout last year, for example, that the more clarity we get on the rest of the year, the more we will update you, yeah, and how we progress towards the end of the year. But it is no hidden message here, that we backed everything at the beginning already.
And the next question comes from @Vivian Redburn Atlantic. Please go ahead with your question.
Thanks. Hi, Holger. Hi, Marco. Congratulations on the results today. I've got 3 questions, if that's all right. So the first one is on your guidance. You say adjusted EBITDA will increase moderately this year. So I'm just wondering, what adjustments are you thinking about for FY24? And,
I'm thinking France Billet, Paris Olympics. Are these going to be considered adjustments, or do these not fall into scope? Well, we do not plan any adjustments, you know, forward-looking. So the adjustments are rather in hindsight. And for the year 2023, we provide an annual report. The potential adjustments we would have made if we already had this metric in place last year. And the adjustments for last year were the compensation for the Cartel project, which was € 37.4 million.
And we had another, COVID-related, aid payment in the live entertainment segment of around € 10 million or € 11 million, both together around € 50 million. And, so this is, as said, in hindsight. We do not plan any adjustments going forward. So, forward-looking, adjusted EBITDA equals normal, clean EBITDA, so to say. And no, France Billet would not be any adjustment. But then, once we get the green light from the competition authority, it would be fully consolidated and, part of our operational business.
Okay. Great. Thanks. And then, just a second one here is you recently outlined low triple-digit million revenue contribution from the LA Olympics. Could you just give us maybe a feel for the margins for this sort of contract and what the structure of the partnership looks like with AEG?
I'm not sure if we want to disclose any margins.
So we expect some, you know, low three-digit revenue. Yes. But looking at Marco, I know he's also hesitant. So I don't think we can give any , don't want to disclose any elements of the business case here.
I mean, Ed, thank you for the question. And as you know, these kind of projects, these are not these kind of regular onsells which we have, right, where we are fully in control of everything. I mean, these are very complex projects where we have a dedicated team for where, by the way, I don't know when it was when one of our friends from the U.S. did the last one of these sports events in London. I think it was in 2012. Since then, we have done most of the major sports events that happened on this scale.
So we have a dedicated team. There is a reason why CTS is part of the consortium for LA 2028. Of course, it's very easy to derive at some kind of top-line figures when you think about these projects because there are expectations about how many tickets are going to be sold, how big the project is going to be. But then in the end, when it's been realized, it comes down to how much it actually costs, what the partners contribute who are involved, yeah. There are a couple of things that will clear up the closer we get there. As always, we don't do anything just for marketing purposes. We do it for value and profitability, yeah. This is where we stand today, yeah. I think it's a little bit too early.
And given that it's a different kind of project rather than looking at an on sale, which we sell through our controlled channels where we are in full control of the cost structures and where we have operating leverage, the more volume we put through our channels. I think this is important to know strategically. I think it is worthwhile to mention that in every international market where, of course, we did some of these projects, we had a quite extraordinary afterlife to these tournaments. And this is why we consider this a very exciting event for us, which we can support. And of course, in a market which has caught our attention for quite a while.
Thanks very much. That's very clear. And then just the last question just on dynamic pricing. It's increasingly a feature of the Ticketmaster events, in both the U.S. and Europe.
I was just wondering if you have any plans to roll out a similar function for your artists.
Yeah. I mean, of course, it's always such a huge work, yeah. Where does dynamic pricing start, and where does it end, yeah? Is it, for example, the ability to manually update prices depending on the will of someone who sits in front of a computer? Or is it a fully automated algorithm, yeah? So there is quite a wide range of what it actually means. I think, when you listen at what is going on in the U.S. market, I mean, in the first instance, you can see that on similar shows, there are many more price points in the first place compared to shows in Europe, yeah.
As we said, that surely pricing will become a more crucial element over the next couple of years in growth of the industry. Yes. Finding solutions of how to maybe price the event better will become more relevant, yeah. Of course, we deliver what our clients want us to deliver. We implement this out of a fully integrated system. When we implement solutions, we go live in all the markets we're active in, yeah. We don't basically roll something out as here as well for marketing purposes. We feel very well positioned to serve our clients over the next 3-5 years, whether it's mobile, whether it's dynamic pricing, or what other buzzwords are doing the rounds at the moment.
Great. Thanks very much.
Okay. That leaves me with saying thank you to every participant. Thank you for your questions.
Thank you for listening to our conference call on fiscal year 2023. This concludes the call, yeah. All the best and happy Easter from all of us. Bye.
Bye-bye.