Thank you very much. Hello, this is Marco Haeckermann. Welcome to today's Q1 earnings call with CTS Eventim. You have Holger Hohrein, CFO, on the call, and myself. Holger will now start with presenting the Q1 financials, and after that, we'll open the floor for Q&A. With that, everything being set, I'll hand over to Holger.
Thanks, Marco. Hello, everyone. Let's start right away with the key takeaways for the first quarter. We have seen a solid performance in the Q. We have seen solid performance in the first quarter, as expected. Nothing unusual in ticketing, of course. We have seen the growth primarily coming from the newly consolidated acquisitions. You're aware of that we have acquired See Tickets and France Billet last year. And for the first time, we have them fully consolidated in a first quarter. Also, we have seen growth in existing business, slight growth versus previous year. We have some technical issues here on our end, so I'm a little bit confused. Okay, I try to continue here. We have seen slightly higher growth in existing business as well.
Despite having had a very strong first quarter last year, you might remember we had a very strong first quarter last year with on sales like ATTC and Adele, which we have not seen so far this year in the first quarter. In live, we have seen a very pleasing growth. Also, the first quarter never is a strong quarter in the live entertainment business. The music typically plays in the second and third quarter. Most importantly, last point on this page, we confirm our guidance for 2025 as a whole. Let's now look at some of our KPIs on the next page. Here we are. Revenue came out just under EUR 500 million, which is an increase of 22% versus previous year. Adjusted EBITDA came out just over EUR 100 million. There was nothing to adjust in this first quarter, so adjusted EBITDA is the same as normal EBITDA.
The number of retail tickets, and you will remember we have changed the metric beginning of this year slightly. The number of retail tickets has increased by 42%, and we come to this in a minute. Growth in tickets outside Germany, outside our home market, was even stronger with an up of 71%. Again, we come to this in a minute. What is new on this slide here is the 12-month rolling GTV, the gross transaction value. This increased to EUR 8.2 billion, which is a 7.2% increase versus the last quarter or the last 12 months, rolling 12 months. Let's now look at some more group numbers in more detail. On the next page, as said, revenues came out at EUR 500 million, and this was driven by growth in both segments, live and live entertainment and ticketing.
Of course, the ticketing also was driven by the consolidation of France Billet and See Tickets numbers for the first time for the first quarter. The EBITDA came out at EUR 100.3 million, which is almost EUR 14 million higher than last year, or an increase of 9%. The margin is slightly lower than last year. Again, I want to remind you we had a very strong first quarter last year, which we have not seen, or at least we have not seen major on sales in the first quarter this year. We have always, ticketing is always a timing. We always have this timing effect. If an on sale starts in one quarter or in another, and sometimes they have some delays in some shows. What we have also seen in the first quarter is some integration costs, stronger acquisitions. You will be aware.
The work starts only after the closing of an acquisition. Then the work starts, and then typically all the integration costs incur. Again, we confirm the guidance for the whole year. Nothing to worry about for the moment. EBITDA came out at EUR 76.2 million for the first quarter. What is not displayed here, but what you might be interested in, is looking at the transition to earnings before tax, which you will see on the next page. Here you can see the bridge for the earnings before tax for the first quarter this year versus first quarter last year. Earnings before tax was EUR 72 million in the first quarter this year, compared to EUR 95 million last year. Earnings before tax was EUR 23 million lower than last year. The reasons for this are threefold.
We have seen an FX effect in the financial results, around EUR 40 million as this effect, and mainly coming from the US dollar, of course. You might be fully aware of the reason behind that. The second reason is last year we had in the first quarter still some dividend coming from the order ticket, which was our car tour project, where we got some compensation in the year 2023, and then which resulted in some dividend payout in the first quarter last year. The third reason for the lower financial result is the slightly lower interest income, which is a result of the changed interest rate environment. I think this might be of interest to you to understand the bridge here to the EBIT. Now, back to the operating results. We start, of course, with ticketing, which you can see here on this slide.
We have seen the highest revenue in ticketing for a first quarter ever. Revenue came out at EUR 214 million for the first quarter, which is a growth of 17% year over year. Again, mainly coming from the fully consolidation of the newly acquired businesses, France Billet and See Tickets. Again, also we have seen moderate growth in the existing business. As already mentioned, not to forget the very strong quarter last year, first quarter last year, which we have not seen so far this year. I think that is it for the moment. Let's have a closer look at the value drive, or the driving behind the ticketing revenues and results, which is the number of tickets, of course. As I already mentioned, we have changed the metric a little bit beginning of this year.
We now report the retail tickets, which is not only tickets sold via our own online channels, but also sold via partner channels. You might be aware of the change methodology. For the first quarter, we ended up with EUR 40 million retail tickets in the first quarter, which is an increase of 42%. On the right-hand side, you can see the distribution by regions. The growth has been especially strong outside Germany, while we are still seeing growth in Germany. The growth mainly came from other parts of the world. The share of international markets is increasing over time. With maybe more acquisitions to come in the future, this will continue, or this trend will continue. Let's now look at our other segment, segment live entertainment. In live entertainment, we have seen a very pleasant development here. Also, again, highest revenue in the first quarter ever.
This came purely from organic growth. Nothing specific stood out here. We profit or we benefit here from the breadth and depth of our portfolio. Nothing specific to report here in this quarter. Typically, the first quarter in live entertainment is not the strongest one, as you might be aware of. We have this cyclicality of the business, and the music typically plays literally in the second and third quarter. We will see more in the next two quarters. That is basically for the moment. That is it. We would be happy to answer your question.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press nine and star on your telephone keypad. In case you wish to withdraw your question, please press nine and star again. Please press nine and star to register for a question. The first question comes from Olivier Calve from UBS. Over to you.
Yes, many thanks for taking my questions. I've got a couple. The first one, more of a big picture one. Your main global competitor has disclosed its involvement in a possible venue in the south of Germany. I was just curious as to your thoughts on this. Please. The second one would be on the second quarter to date. Just wondering how material on sales you have seen so far this quarter. Lady Gaga, maybe Chris Brown as well are. The third question would be on the free cash flow burn in the first quarter, notably with very high working capital and headwind. How should we expect this to develop going forward through the year? The last one would be just on France Billet and See Tickets. Are they performing as you'd expect, and how happy are you with the profitability at each of the two?
Thanks. Maybe I start with the last question. Are we happy with the acquisition? Of course, we are. As said earlier, the work then always starts after the acquisition, after the closing. Of course, there is a couple of things, or a lot of things, which have to be done. It is a lot of work, which results in also higher integration costs. Also on the business side, you might lose one or the other customer, or have maybe a slight change in your product portfolio. Overall, of course, we are still happy with the acquisition. There was a question on free cash flow.
No. Apart from the normal seasonality that, of course, after you have accumulated the cash from early ticket sales in Q3 and Q4, now this whole thing reverses as you pay out the cash mostly, as shows take place, or you forward the cash to third-party promoters. That is the usual seasonal pattern you see at the beginning of the year in the first quarter. Yeah. Second quarter, we have seen some great names, but as we said earlier as well, it is not dependent on individual timing. Company has reiterated its full year guidance, so we remain confident for this year, particularly towards the second half, yeah, when we come more and more into the period when we start selling shows for next year's touring season.
From that perspective, yeah, I mean, there was this positive outlier last year in Q1, which did not reoccur again this year. We have seen some names already in Q2. Yeah. As always, as we say, it's over when the fat lady sings, and this is for us Q4. The first question with regards to Live Nation's engagement in the venue development in Munich. We're not too fully aware about where the status is, but what we know is that, of course, Live Nation has partnered with someone who's bidding to build this arena. As much as I know, we are still far away from any exclusivity or any final agreement there.
As we have all learned since Taylor Swift was on tour, there are plenty of mayors in Europe who would love to have a big shiny venue so that the next time when she is coming, they all could welcome her in their city. Yeah. Overall, Live Nation, being a company that is globally much more involved in building and operating venues and owning venues. Yeah. As much as I remember, Michael Rapino said that until 2030, they want to invest something north of EUR 4 billion in global venue development. It is not a surprise that wherever there is an idea in a city to build a new venue, they will have a look at it.
Okay. Thanks. Just on France Billet and See Tickets, just if you could position each of them in terms of where you are in the integration, I would assume France Billet is a bit further along, but is that wrong?
Yeah. Right. I mean, quite a bit of digging in France Billet already back in 2019, if I'm not wrong. So yes, I have done quite a bit of work already. On the other hand, now having fully control since November or December last year, this was not the leverage to also integrate on other parts of the value chain. Yes, we are a little bit farther than with See Tickets, and there are tons of things to integrate and to optimize and to align, not only on the product side, but also on the back end or back office side. Some things are a little bit faster. Other things take some time because also of other priorities. Nothing what the company is not used to do because we had multiple acquisitions in the past, and this is something which eventually is quite used to.
It would not be fair to say it's all done within a couple of months. Some things take a little bit longer to really explore those dimensions.
Okay. Thanks.
Next up is Annick Maas from Bernstein.
Hi. Good afternoon. My first question is on these integration costs for France Billet and See Tickets. I estimate there were about EUR 5 million in the first quarter. Shall I estimate the same level in the second quarter? As you said, in two months, it should be done. That is going to be it for the rest of the year. The next one is if you could just go over the comparatives for US live entertainment for the rest of the year each quarter, please. One on the pipeline for 2026. I guess you just said that onset is going to become better in the second half. I assume that is related to the pipeline for 2026. Can you maybe give us a bit more of an indication if that is going to be 3Q or 4Q weighted? Just last one on financial results.
How do you think about financial results actually for the full year when you model it internally? Thank you.
Thanks. On the integration cost, I mean, the order of magnitude is probably a good estimate. I think this might also be a good estimate for the next quarter. I did not say we are done within the next three months. Actually, I said quite the opposite. I said it is not done within three months. It might take a little bit longer. Parts of it are done easily in terms of when you think of management, for instance. It is not something that takes very long. If it comes to integrating some back end, let's say ERP systems or so, those things can sometimes take a little longer. Quite the opposite. It is not done within three months, but will hopefully mostly be done by end of this year, with maybe some spillover to next year. Your estimate for a quarter sounds quite reasonable to me.
In terms of financial results, there is always, we can hardly predict FX rates. As we already have a decent portfolio outside of Europe and outside of the eurozone, in South America and North America, where we have quite a lot of exposure in euro dollar, we depend a little bit on the FX rates development there. This is always reflected in the financial results. I would expect this, I would say, in a low or mid-size two-digit million number. This would be a reasonable estimate, I would say. Again, things can, I mean, they can also reverse. Yeah. I think, let's say, a low to mid-size two-digit million number for the financial results would be a good estimate. What was the question? What was the pipeline? I think, Marco.
Yeah. I mean, of course, hi, Annick. It's not really our call to determine when shows go on sale. But of course, as we move throughout 2025 and the closer we come to the second half, the more, of course, the ticketing pipeline fills for shows that are scheduled for 2026. Yeah. It's hard to say, of course, what might come still, whatever, end September and what might go on sale in October because these are decisions that are fully made by the promoter who owns basically the show and when we get the green light to go on sale. But all in all, I think we can say that this year is very well scheduled to have the ordinary seasonality and ticketing, which we knew from other years. Yeah. It's back end loaded.
Hard to judge on a relative basis whether Q4 will be relatively stronger than in previous years. We had a very strong Q4 last year or how it compares to a Q3. In all honesty, I know that if you want to model it quarterly, it's very important, but of course, we couldn't care less whether we sell a big show end September or beginning of October.
Okay. Thanks. In the comps for US live entertainment for the year, that would be great.
Sorry. Was the question how the previous year has been as a basis [crosstalk] or what's become?
Yeah. No, no, no. How to compare it to last year, each quarter has been for the US live entertainment business as that's now a meaningful drive, I guess, of live entertainment.
I mean, again, it's a very nice way in asking of what we expect in this year to come because when you ask how we look at last year's basis and how it compares to X, yeah, I mean, we went through it last year. We have been way more focused in our live entertainment activities in the US and not just as we were maybe in the growth phase where, yeah, as it said, we were growing and where we were supporting our partners there to sign various deals. Yeah. The focus is now on profitability and optimizing the hit and miss ratio in their portfolio. I think what we can say is that this year we strive for optimizing that mix over last year. Yeah.
It's hard to say on a quarterly basis because if you remember, in the second half last year, we had the situation that we had pre-incurred expenses, for example, in Q3, which caused questions, yeah, because it had an impact on the profitability in live, which was then fully covered in the fourth quarter. Yeah. This, again, is, of course, something which is hard to judge because it does not follow a payment plan which we set up at the beginning of the year. All in all, we are happy with our activities there. We focus on being profitable. It's always the question of whether you deploy more to grow the business there because, as we all know, the US is a market where you usually have to pay in advance and then recover the money.
We try to be as diligent as we can be not to be overly exposed in a growth part where we might not recover the money in an acceptable time frame.
Sounds good. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Next up is Gerhard Ogrner from Bernburg.
Good morning. Could you tell us the contribution, EBITDA contribution and ticketing from M&A before and after integration costs, please?
To make it correctly, you want to accept integration costs included in the EBITDA?
No, the EBITDA from See Tickets and from France Billet in Q1.
No. I'm not sure if we want to discuss this here in such detail, but it's a mid to high one-digit number, EBITDA number.
Is that after the EUR 5 million integration costs or before?
Yeah, integration costs can incur within France Billet and See Tickets, can also incur here in central level and at headquarter. So it's included everywhere a little bit. Yeah.
Right. Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Craig Abbott from Kepler Cheuvreux.
Yes. Good afternoon. Yeah. I have several questions, actually. One's to kind of get back to the phasing of these integration restructuring costs and so forth. It sounds like you're going to have a similar figure in Q1. It sounds like these will start to trend down in H2, but you may still have some. At the same time, in your Q1 report, it says you're clearly expecting synergy gains from both acquisitions to start increasingly feeding through also as you progress through the year. I just wondered if you could at least give us a ballpark range kind of what you're looking at in terms of that EBITDA margin progression at the two units looking out over the next quarters. Secondly, on ticketing, I'd like to get back to Q2 again, please, because obviously you now have two months nearly in the books.
If you could give us some kind of indication of what you've seen in terms of year-on-year growth and kind of a margin comparison just so we can have a better feel for what we kind of expect for that quarter, including if there are any base effects we should be aware of. The third one is just on the guidance. I mean, you say you're confirming it, but the actual official wording, of course, remains very vague. In the full year conference call, you provided more color and stated you were quite comfortable at that stage with full year consensus numbers. We were seeing at that time, I think, something like EUR 3.2 billion top line and sort of around EUR 600 million EBITDA. If you could just, if possible, if you can give an update on your thoughts there.
Finally, it's just on the CapEx, quite a big number in the first quarter. Obviously, you're in the final stages of Milan now. If you could give us an update on what we should expect for CapEx for the full year. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Craig. Maybe starting with the right from the top integration synergy as well. We acquired See Tickets. I think we gave some numbers. Last year, we acquired a business of roughly EUR 100 million of revenues and EUR 25 million of EBITDA, which gives us an EBITDA margin of 25%. In our ticketing business in general, we have a margin, let's say, mid-40s, let's say 45% EBITDA margin. This is definitely the target to go for. Whether we reach 41%, 42%, or 45%, or maybe even higher, or maybe only 39%, we will see. It remains to be seen. This shows there is some room for improvement. Yeah. Let me put it this way and leave it with you to model something in this direction. For ticketing in the second quarter, I think we will not disclose for the moment anything.
I think we want to be quiet on this front. Looking at it too, Marco.
Yeah. I mean, it's difficult to make a statement here while we're still in that quarter. Yeah. I think what is fair if we look at the rearview mirror that, for example, if we go back to Q2 last year, that as much as I recall, there haven't been any big blockbusters. Yeah. From what we can say here is that by what we have discussed over the last couple of quarters with big blockbusters in one or the other quarter, that Q2 last year was not necessarily a quarter with the two biggest blockbusters in the sales pipeline.
Coming on to the third question as far as the guidance, yes, you're right. I think in our annual earnings call, we gave some more shots, a little bit more legs, so to say, we said the overall revenue should definitely exceed EUR 3 billion. For the EBITDA, we said we would be very pleased if we see a EUR 600 million in adjusted EBITDA. Yeah, we would confirm this today. On CapEx, yeah. There will be some more CapEx over the course of the year. So Milan construction is in full swing. I would expect, I think we should expect a some, I don't know. Not sure what we give here as a number.
I mean, would it be above last year's figure? Would it be kind of in line, which was already running above average because of the Milan construction? Just trying to get a ballpark figure. I'm not looking for any kind of precise figure. In my understanding, Milan will be completed this year, and then that number tails off quite materially from next year. And then eventually, a couple of years out, then the Vienna Arena CapEx will start to kick in.
Yeah. I mean, a good estimate would be taking the first quarter number and then moving it forward for the next two, three quarters. I think it's a good estimate for the moment.
Okay. For next year and 2020, maybe we could get kind of a normalization. Would that be a fair assumption?
No. For the moment, for next year, we do not have a cross deal, so to say, also not for the Vienna Arena. For the next year, we do not expect major CapEx.
Is Milan, you're still on track there to open there as scheduled, correct?
This is the plan. I'm looking forward to see the Olympic Ice Hockey Games done in February next year in Milan.
Oh, and just another question, please. When does the onsales for the LA Olympic Games begin? That starts in 2026, right? Does it?
I think it's spring 2026 as far as I know. I'm not 100% sure, but I think in spring, summer 2026, yes.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Bernd Klanten from Barclays.
Morning. Thanks, everyone. First one on ticketing margins. To what extent was the lower ticketing margin driven by France Billet and See Tickets, and what was the underlying margin development? Perhaps what margin dilution do you kind of expect for the full year? On ticketing growth, perhaps can we get a bit more color there? What does moderate growth in ticketing mean? What was the underlying growth excluding the consolidation effects from France Billet and See Tickets? On the financial results, you spoke about some of the moving parts already and expectations for the full year. Perhaps just on Q1, what drove the higher financial expenses at around EUR 14 million? Final one from me, the effective tax rate was 34% for the quarter. What drove this? Was it mostly consolidation effects? What are you guiding for on tax for the full year?
Thank you very much.
Thanks. I think tax is the easiest one because I simply don't know for the moment. I would have to calculate myself. There was nothing unusual. I think it needs to be a technical effect. We can come back to you, or we can take it offline and come back to you separately on the tax side. What was the
Financial result as we covered it in the presentation?
Yeah. Yes. Financial result is easy. We went down. Financial result went down by or decreased by EUR 32 million or EUR 33 million compared to first quarter last year. The main effects were FX, so US dollar, as Sweden might be aware of. The second effect was we did not receive a dividend payout from Border Tickets, which was our joint venture for the CarToll project in Germany, which has been closed down. We got compensation in 2023.
This resulted in a dividend paid out in the first quarter 2024. This did not incur this year in the first quarter. It was another EUR 14 million, EUR 40 million the FX effect, and then roughly EUR 3 million lower interest income due to the changed interest rate environment. This very much explains the difference in the financial results. I think we had one or two questions regarding the ticketing margin and ticketing growth. Moderate growth, I mean, without the really fully consolidated ticketing companies, the growth was, yeah, again, versus a very, very strong first quarter last year was roughly in a low single-digit growth number, right? 2 or 3 percentage points, 2 or 3% in this way. There was a question on ticketing margin, no?
Yeah. The dilution from the integration. I mean.
No.
Okay. As we have laid out, there are some revenues in there in Q1 from first-time consolidation. We have said something about the EBITDA contribution, which was, of course, net of integration costs, which tells you that, of course, the consolidation effects had a dilutive impact on our profitability in the first quarter. What we have to keep in mind is that we are comparing it here with a quarter last year that had a very strong and positive outlier that bolstered the profitability last year in comparison. Yeah. Doing the math, I mean, we know that, for example, take See, as Holger elaborated on earlier, which is on its standalone business that generates a ticketing margin somewhere in the low to mid-20% EBITDA.
If you add that in, you see that you probably, on the back of the envelope math, have some kind of easily 200-300 basis points dilution. Yeah. This is, of course, something to give you an indication. Last year, you probably had easily 200-300 basis points addition due to a strong or two blockbuster artists, which we have sold in Q1, which did not reoccur this year. This year, you have some 200-300 basis points dilution because of the standalone business plus the integration costs. As we have said, this will fade out throughout the end of the year. Yeah. There will still be integration efforts.
Of course, even for our acquired businesses, the second part of the year is always the more interesting part of the year where profitability goes up, yeah, where we will see early synergies coming through. Where on a full year basis, this will hopefully reverse before we see the full potential of the synergies coming through.
Thanks. Thank you very much.
Next slide is Christoph Pfeiffer from BNP Paribas Excellence.
Good afternoon, and thank you for taking my question. The first question is on revenue growth in ticketing. When I strip out the first-time consolidation effects of your various M&A transactions, I arrive at mid-single digit organic growth rates over the last three quarters on average. Is this a new run rate going forward for the business, and what is needed to return to double-digit growth rates in the future? This is question number one. Question number two is related to the US and your expansion plans. Here, it would be helpful if you could give some indication about the reserve budget for organic and inorganic growth going forward. Thank you.
Let me start with the second one. We do not have a reserve budget for M&A or for inorganic growth. Not saying we buy everything that we can, but I mean, we look at each opportunity separately and whether this can be value-attributable for our shareholders and fit to our portfolio. We do our valuations on a standalone basis always. We do not have a reserve budget for this. If it does not make sense, we will definitely not enter in a transaction. If it makes sense, then we would be even, and you know our balance sheet, of course, there is plenty of room for also getting external resources to close the transaction. This is, I would say, we do not have a budget. Yeah. Short answer. Regarding, yeah.
Yeah. Your question regarding revenue growth and what the underlying organic growth is, I think when we started with the current quarter and really put it on a clean comparative basis, so really taking the dilutive impact in Q1 2025 out from the acquisitions, France Billet and See Tickets, and to be fair, take out these blockbuster effects in Q1 2024, you would have seen some underlying organic growth of some 6-7%. Yeah. The more important thing for us is, of course, whether our operating leverage is still intact. Because if you adjust this or do this math and go down to EBITDA, you would have seen a disproportionate EBITDA growth. Yeah. That is a very important indicator for us that we still benefit from economies of scale from the underlying growth, which is what we see.
With regards to what you said to more previous quarters, I must say that whatever in Q4, Q3 last year, if we assume an underlying market growth somewhere in the mid-single digit, then I can say that CTS Eventim has outperformed the underlying market growth, which is always what we've said. Yeah. Given the projections from various industry reports that global live entertainment, European live entertainment is set to grow from a market perspective somewhere at a mid-single digit % on average until 2030, that we consider ourselves to be good positioned to outperform this. It might always be, of course, difficult if we look at individual quarters year over year after having said that. Yeah. This is a question of timing. This is why we have introduced the GTV, which is reported on a rolling 12-month basis, because this one is canceling out the noise.
There you have something like a proxy on the very overall transaction value, which we are processing, that we are growing this in a mid-single-digit to higher single-digit % rate. From that perspective, we feel very much on track for what's to come.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
There are no further questions.
Okay. That leaves us with saying thank you for giving the time to go through our Q1 presentation with Holger and giving us your questions. Thank you very much. Yeah, see and speak to you all again at the end of August then. Yeah. Take care. All the best.
Bye.