A very warm welcome from my side to our annual press conference from ProSiebenSat.1. I welcome next to me our CEO, Marco Giordani, and our CFO, Bob Rajan. Great that you're here. Today to give you a quick overview, I think that's pretty logical that we will go through the year results of 2025, and then give a strategic direction for the future and also the outlook. For us, it's really important that we also have time for your Q&A session. As you hear me speak English, I think it's obvious that today we will do everything in English just to make sure that everyone has the same language. For all the journalists at the Q&A session, you can ask your questions in English or in German.
I can translate, that is no problem. Maybe just one other thing. We will record the annual press conference and put it on our website then, more or less in the afternoon. With this said, I hand over to Marco. Let's get started.
Thank you. Thank you, Stephanie, and thank you to all that are attending to the press conference. Thank you for taking the time. As Stephanie said, we are going to, let's say, present you a little bit of what happened in 2025, even if, as you know, we joined late October. Clearly big part of the year has been, let's say, not under our control, and then we will dedicate more time about what we are currently doing and where we are going. As far as, a sort of a brief summary of what we are going to see, Bob will take you through the main financial highlights of the 2025 results. In two words, we were just meeting the guidance we gave out in January.
Nothing has been really different from what we forecasted from that time. What I would like to underline is that already in 2025, in the last part of 2025, we clearly focus ourself on changing the company. The main changes were clearly at appointing the new CEO for Seven.One Media, the sales house. Clearly the future of ProSiebenSat.1 will rely a lot on growth and revenue. That was the first action we undertook. Secondly, we clearly create structure and action in order to build a strong cash discipline. Bob will take you through that in a minute. Lastly, we try to set the company organization in a way that the future will allow us to grow, to create value.
Having said that, I think the remaining part of my presentation will be after Bob's presentation, and I will dedicate myself to you and to your question, trying to answer to where ProSiebenSat.1 is going to and where the growth will come from. I just hand over to Bob. Thank you for that.
Great. Thank you very much, Marco. It's my first press call, so obviously excited to be on the stage here with Marco and Stephanie. I also joined, as Marco said, at the end of October. We'll walk you through some of the highlights from FY 2025. As you can see and Marco alluded to it, revenue on an absolute basis was slightly under in comparison to FY 2024, 6%, but taking into account portfolio effects and currency effects, -2%. Now, a lot has been made in the press, not only from us but from an industry trend with regards to group advertising.
We'll talk a little bit about that in a couple of minutes, but you'll see that advertising in general, there was a downward trend. This was even exaggerated a little bit more in the fourth quarter, as you can see, -10% comparing the fourth quarter of 2025 to the fourth quarter of 2024, and 8% on a full year basis. Adjusted EBITDA, as Marco said, was in line with what we had already provided, EUR 403 million. This is down obviously from the prior year, as you can see. In quarter four, there was a little bit of a pronounced impact once again because of the advertising market and the challenges that it was posing upon ProSiebenSat.1 and other players as well.
Adjusted operating free cash flow had the same trend as you can see. Adjusted net income, the drop was not as drastic as the others due to a couple of tax effects that were able to work as a positive benefit. Before I move on, just as an overall statement, when you look at the overall conglomerate of ProSiebenSat.1, approximately two-thirds of the revenue relates to entertainment. The other third relates to non-entertainment or what we will refer to as commerce and dating. Going forward in 2026, we will have two segments, the Entertainment segment and then the Commerce and Dating segment. If we just move to the next slide, I'll talk a little bit about the overall climate that we see ourselves in and how that is affecting us going forward.
If we look at the left-hand side of the chart here, we will see that obviously, there's been some pressure on GDP, not only in Germany, quite a bit in Germany, but across Europe. If you take that into account, looking at GDP growth the last couple of years, which has been effectively flat or slightly above, the same trend is occurring in the first half if we read all the economic reports for 2026, with a potential slight uptick in the second half of 2026. Unfortunately, that is compounded by a number of effects, such as the Ukraine war, which is ongoing, some of the challenges that are ongoing in the Middle East, which are driving up obviously oil prices and whatnot.
Also the geopolitical climate that I think we would all agree is not as stable and is quite volatile at the moment. Putting that all together provides a challenging perspective for the short term, maybe the medium term. If we look at the right-hand side, this is what we already referred to earlier in the previous slide. The graph here has been indexed to 2019 looking at the advertising market. Obviously a negative trend for the past two to three years that has been occurring. If you look at the last in 2025, you'll see that 18 percentage point delta, which is quite significant. There is, you know, I would say, challenging investment appetite in the market.
Once again, it's an industry trend that we are all going through. However, you know, we've taken a lot of protocols and whatnot here since Marco and I have come on board with the whole leadership team. There's a lot of cash discipline. There's cost discipline. We've been figuring out how we can make sure that we take proper funds to be able to invest into investments that make sense for us going forward in 2026. There's a number of things that have come into place, and while the challenges will still exist, I think we're well positioned to be able to address those challenges that may come about.
One thing I talked about is, you know, we have the entertainment sector, and then obviously we have what we're referring to as the commerce and dating segment. All of you would have noticed in 2025 that there were a number of M&A transactions that the company, that ProSiebenSat.1 was part of. Three of these transactions that we have labeled here were before Marco and I were on board. Verivox, which has been very much detailed in the press along with the other two transactions. Since we've been on board, you would have seen in February the vector.com transaction was closed.
Last week, you would have seen or you would have heard or read about a signing with regards to Kairion and esome, where we were able to engage in a successful transaction for those two businesses, and the transaction is expected to close in April 2026. This morning, you would have hopefully also seen a press release that came out early this morning that we were able to engage in a transaction to divest flaconi and CamperDays, and that transaction will close in April 2026. Looking at all of these transactions, they've generated circa about EUR 300 million in proceeds. I'll come back to, you know, a couple of priorities that we're looking when we try to generate proceeds.
Let me just clarify a little bit about the M&A activity that's been going on recently, and Marco will also allude to this as well. We have no scripts or anything about how we're looking at divesting businesses as quickly as possible, as soon as possible. We look to extract the value out of our conglomerate and out of our portfolio companies. As long as we can continue and we believe that there is value to come to ProSiebenSat.1 and obviously its shareholders, we will continue to work with these portfolio companies, work with these management teams to do that.
When we get to a point where we believe that we have optimized the value for what we can do, then we will start to engage or look into potential M&A transactions with potential parties that may have an interest in such assets. With the proceeds that we've got here, what we're trying to do is use these proceeds not only Marco alluded to at the beginning to try to deleverage, okay? That's very important for us. Also look at taking these funds and investing them appropriately. You know, when it comes to entertainment, if there's things that we can do with regards to content and whatnot and increase our reach, we will end up, you know, using those proceeds for that.
The next slide just continues on with that theme of using proceeds that we've had to try to deleverage the company. On the left-hand side, you can see that since 2019, overall debt has reduced by close to EUR 1 billion, EUR 902 million euros, to be specific. At the same time, ProSiebenSat.1 has worked hard to reward its shareholders with EUR 326 million in dividends since 2019. That trend is something that we want to continue to do going forward as we transform ProSiebenSat.1. On the right-hand side, just a quick snapshot on our debt maturity profile. Most of you would have read in Q3 of last year, actually, when Marco and I sort of came on board, ProSiebenSat.1 engaged into a refinancing transaction.
A couple of things that were key to this. One is the overall quantum of debt has been already reduced slightly, and that was intentional, because we wanted to make sure we optimize and use leverage appropriately. As you will see from the debt maturity profile there, we have a five-year term loan expiring in 2030. We have an RCF that also expires in 2030 that is undrawn in the amount of EUR 400 million. We have a bridge facility that was for 12 months with a 12-month extension. You can see that the term loan, we're trying to put regular amortizations in there every six months of EUR 70 million. There are covenants attached to this refinancing package. Marco will speak to that towards the end.
This is a refinancing package that allows us flexibility and the ability to use our funds appropriately for investment and to be able to, hopefully, with transactions or generating excess cash flow, to pay down our outstanding debt. The last thing I'd like to talk about obviously is with regards to our dividend proposal that we will propose at the AGM at the end of May of this year. Obviously, making a dividend, you have to take into account the economic situation, the performance of the company, and various other factors. This is in line, obviously, with last year's dividend, where it was EUR 0.05. We will propose at the AGM this year a proposed dividend per share also of EUR 0.05. With that sort of concludes my presentation here on the financial numbers.
I will pass it back to Marco, to take us to the next section.
Thank you, Bob. I think that now we can come back to the present day and just leave a little bit, the past, and looking at the future. I will start, let's say, to address the point, where are we going? I mean, something has already been said, but the reality is that, we are certainly leaving the concept of a diversified group we were pursuing till last year, and we are much more focusing on media and media powerhouse. Clearly, our intention is to become the leading entertainment player in the DACH region, and certainly we will be helped in that, journey by the fact that we are part of a larger group. Clearly, MFE, we consider MFE powerhouse as a sort of multiplier of our, strategy.
That's all clearly based on a pretty strong financial discipline because we need to invest, we need to grow, but clearly, that has to be managed and done in the right way. Having said that, I will try to take you through, let's say, our five priority we are every day currently managing. Starting from content, clearly, that's the first and the most important element in our daily life. Without content, clearly, it's hard to make media, and so that's where we stand and where we're focusing. We will go through a different way of approaching multi-platform distribution. I will try to take you through in the following pages.
Clearly, monetization, it's another area where we think we have a different speed than in the past because we need a right monetization, a monetization that is more aligned with the present trends in the advertising market. We will talk a little bit about tech and AI. As you can imagine, these are topics that you cannot skip in these days. As I said, we will try to give you a little bit of outlook, regarding 2026, and let's say always focus on cash discipline and cash flow attention. Let's start with content that I said. This is a slide that clearly is not giving you anything more than you know already, but it's important to underline the fact that we are targeting very high premium quality brand and very popular, let's say, brand. That's part of our main strategy.
Clearly, a lot of brands are already in that area. We will talk about that, but some other will come, and the investment we were mentioning before will be targeted to that. We need to have strong brand, popular brand, engaging brand. We need to differentiate ourselves from, let's say, the cold content that typically the platform are just, let's say, showing and delivering to our viewership. Another point I would like to underline is on the right-hand side of the chart.
We are not really forgetting the fact that we are coming from a tradition and a culture of linear TV content that are probably more addressed to more adult viewership, but we need to address also the fact that our young target audience require a different kind of storytelling, a different kind of versioning of our content, and so we take care also about that because that's our aim, to be very large, very popular in addressing all the target group. What I just said, it is a little bit explained here. Here you have just clearly a lot of numbers, but I mean, I'm trying to give you the view on that. We have many brands that are very popular, but they are not very popular only on linear TV.
They are also very popular on other platforms that are a little bit different from the linear TV channel we are used to. I'm certainly talking about Joyn. That is our own and operated OTT platform through different business model being AVOD or SVOD. I'm also talking about, and I'm referring to the right-hand side of the chart, to platforms that are not owned and operated by us, but that they are very popular for the target we were mentioning before. This platform can be called YouTube or TikTok or whatever you want to see it.
As you can see, we are already able to drive a lot of consumption in this platform, and this is also a good way to promote, engage, and make the brand growing also in target age, where frankly, we are not so strong in our linear TV kind of offer. Once that we have generated good brands and popular brands, then it's up to us to make these brands working only, not only on TV and on Joyn, on our own and operated platform, but also somewhere else. Galileo, it's probably the best example of what we are targeting. Galileo started as a very popular TV shows, as you know.
We move it through the digital platform that we operate, so Joyn, with different business model funded by advertising or subscription-based, let's say, business model, and that's a little bit normal and pretty ordinary. We were just putting our content in a different platform. We move a little bit away from that being very successful on YouTube too. As you can see here, Galileo has more than 3.3 million subscribers on YouTube.
Again, this is the example of the popularity of the brand, the way in which the brand is engaging target age, and the way also we can monetize people that are not watching TV anymore just because, I mean, they are, they have a different habits, and they are simply younger and more, technological oriented. Having said that, we cannot forget about all the other platforms that is surrounding us. Let's call them social media in a very broad way. These are a platform where we are present strongly, and where we need to be present, not only for promotion, but also to remind the people that they can find good content also somewhere else. There is a, let's say, a formal way of, let's say, exploiting the brand.
That is, the licensing, the game, the printing and events that are also very important to make all the system profitable and, being able to, push forward with new investment. I mentioned before the multi-platform, again, that's probably a little bit new in the sense that clearly the media world is changing, and the big change came from the fact that, the U.S. giant or new platform came on the market. Changing not only the viewership habits, but also a little bit the business model. We are going to leave the linear only kind of priority. We are approaching this new world in a multi-channel way. In saying that, we are also changing a little bit our main objective as publisher. We are not really targeting the linear TV audience share.
We are not targeting how the content is performing on Joyn. We are looking in a more 360 degree way, how we are able to generate global video reach. We are a little bit neutral on where the people is watching our content. A little bit in the sense that then, I mean, we have also to look at how the profitability of the different channel are. But I mean, in principle, we are more targeting the fact that our content has to be watched more and more every day. That it's important because it's giving us, our content, the possibility to be popular, to engage, and to be reminded in the viewer's house.
That slide is also representing the fact that starting from the left bottom side, clearly linear channel are important, will be important, because these are unique element in our offer. We know that the TV consumption is declining, probably will decline, but in any case, our content needs to be popular, starting from linear TV. This popularity should be also transferred on what we have said before, are our owned and operated distribution channel, digital distribution channels that are listed there. Clearly Joyn is the most popular and the most famous one, but I mean, there are others. That is giving us the possibility to not lose the people that is not watching TV anymore. We take, let's say, our content, where the people are willing to to watch, and that's clearly the biggest part of our objective.
It was also in the past. We move away a little bit from our own channel and we go in other channel, let's say, exploitation. The first one is clearly the partners one. You see the brand there. These are partners that are helping us to take our content to the viewer. Then moving a little bit away from the heart of our business, social network, I mentioned in it, and also international and streaming platform. On the right-hand side of the slide, you have some number. These are our, let's say, polestars numbers going forward, what has been defined as total video reach numbers, and these are the 2025 average number we got last year. We are talking about a percentage of population.
This means that 77% of the German population watched our content last year. In terms of converting the percentage in number, we are talking about 61 million people. Again, this is an important number because that number is currently larger than the YouTube or the U.S. platform numbers. That's a value that, in our opinion, we will try to keep. That advantage we will try to keep and possibly even enlarging it. Why that's important, because this is clearly giving us the possibility to monetize better our reach. Clearly, we are a little bit weaker if we monetize our linear TV channel only because everybody, all the advertiser will know that the linear consumption is declining. It's a way to sell an asset that frankly, is not so requested by the market.
While reach, it's a unique and scarce resources on the advertising market. Advertising needs reach, and we are providing reach. You have numbers there that shows how strong is our multi-channel approach and how important will be for our sales house, Seven.One Media, in few words, we are moving away from spot-based TV advertising to a total reach monetization. That's the key point of our strategy, building good content, distributing in the best and most efficient way, the content, and then monetize them. I mentioned before about, let's say the role of MFE in all of that.
I mean, let's start to say that we are 100% focused on where we are strong. On the left-hand side of the chart, you see where we think we can really be better than anybody else. It's clearly all the strong client relationship, the German and the DACH client relationship. We know them better than anybody else. We certainly have a proven DACH expertise in terms of, let's say, market specific, content specific, and, we are, or let's say our sales house organization, so Seven.One Media organization, is certainly well-replicated in terms of reliable and high quality campaign delivery. Again, we know the customer probably better than anybody else because we are working in our market. Moving to the right-hand part of the chart, you see a little bit of the translation, what multiplier means in our terms.
Clearly, we know that the market is going to be more and more European. There are many multinationals that are focusing advertising investment in one place in Europe, so it is clearly more important to be there, together with our, let's say, parent or even sister company to present, let's say, a total European possibility in terms of campaign format, KPIs, prices. That's, in our opinion, a way to avoid losing customers because if you have a customer that is centralized, presenting a regional offer, it is not only weak. I mean, it means also that you can lose the customer because you are not offering what they are looking for.
That's the multiplication that being part of a larger group can help us in being more performing, more effective and being also a little bit more modern in terms of customer perception. As far as I can say, this is something that is very well appreciated by media agency and customer because they see an answer to their request that probably local media cannot offer. That takes me also to another very important element of the future, that is tech and AI. I think, I mean, you cannot talk about anything today without talking about tech and AI, and I want to share with you how we are now structured and what we think it will be the best approach to tackle that issue.
Clearly, we will try to be, as much as possible, cutting edge in the technology, and to do that, frankly, size matters. I mean, no one can really be good if they invest less or if they are just in one country. Being part in a larger group can help us, for instance, in our tech infrastructure to spend more on a global way, but sharing the cost because clearly nobody can afford a big investment if they can only fund it in a local way. Our tech infrastructure will be unified. That eliminates redundancy, and that will help us in being more ready to meet the customer needs. Data and analytics, again, this is a size game. You can understand easily that the more data you have, the better you are.
The more you can be, let's say, performing in analytics, the better you are. Again, sharing efforts, sharing investment, it's also giving us the possibility to be better, both in terms of data and analytics. OTT infrastructure, again, we are talking about something that people is not appreciating. Nobody will choose Netflix, Joyn, RTL+ just because one platform is technologically better than the other. Content are much more important. There we need to be, let's say, on the same level than the other, but spending less. Again, we are targeting a structure or an infrastructure where we can share costs and being best, a bit better in performing and better in executing and better in providing experience to our viewers. Procurement, that's a little bit more easy to understand.
Clearly, you can understand that, let's say combining volume, you can get better pricing and better negotiation power. In all these areas, so the share cost will impact in terms of economies of scale, faster market rollout, and certainly more modern, let's say, approach versus a market that is gonna be more and more pan-European. What will remain localized by definition? Programming and content. Nobody knows how to produce German content better than us. We will go on. Our people taking care about that are great. Our, let's say, performance, it's everywhere, let's say, and we can really go on in pushing with local, let's say, strong format, local, diversity and local also peculiarity.
All related to creative development, so new format, new formats for targeted audience like the young, has to be very localized because everything is related to consumer habits and peculiarities that are local. We cannot really, let's say, negotiate on that. We will be very local in that respect. The cultural position, I already said that we think that the world will be polarized by, in two main category, the international content and the very local one. We are playing the local game, the cultural position will be crucial because if you're not close to your viewership, then your popularity can go away. We will be different from the platform. We will be more and more local, and we will be more and more live, and we will be more and more closer to our viewers.
Again, as far as the German or DACH advertising relationship, that's clearly something we need to keep it localized because that's the way in which the market is acting. That's probably a slide that will help also to answer to some of the questions that you may have, and you can also ask afterwards. Bob explained what we have done with what we call the non-core asset. Right after the moment we joined, we immediately start reviewing all the portfolio of companies ProSiebenSat.1 was running. Immediately reallocated them to what is our focus, so entertainment, and what is not. Here we are talking about what has nothing to do with entertainment.
In that respect, I mean, all the decision has been taken in the past and will be taken in the future, is exactly what Bob said. We will look at specific company, we will look at the performance, the management, the marketing position, and every time we will decide whether it is better to stay, to push, to invest, like for flaconi, that it's in our opinion, a great example of a company that needs to grow, and we can help them to grow, and that will stay in our portfolio of activity also in the future, and other companies where frankly, we cannot add anything else or add anything more. In that respect, other solution will be taken. In any case, flaconi is performing very well. Flaconi has an international plan in terms of expansion.
We can support it because we are part of an European, let's say, group, and so it's another element for which flaconi will be part of our portfolio of activity also in the future. We are sure that, in terms of value, we can generate a lot of value out of it. Let's try to summarize a little bit what we are trying to achieve with all I explained to you. As I said, we will go on in investing in content. Without investing in content, clearly, the future will not be so bright. We need to keep going in that direction. The main objective of this investment will not be the linear audience or only, but will be the total video reach. That is a little bit different from the past.
We are not really, let's say, producing content for Joyn or for SAT.1 or for ProSieben. We are, let's say, investing in content because we need to generate a total video reach performance, a KPI that is the one that I showed you before. The reason for which we are doing it is because we think that that's the best way to monetize the content. Without having a large total video reach approach, without that, it's very hard to monetize and to fund the content. It's crucial to be effective in distributing the content, effective in promoting the content, effective in, let's say, targeting people that are not watching linear TV anymore. Everything done in a way that the financial discipline will take us the resources to go on in investing.
Without forgetting what Bob was saying about deleveraging and dividend, because that's part of every company, let's say, objective. Clearly, we need a strong balance sheet, and we need to reward our shareholder. Let's come to the outlook. I mean, clearly, as you know, we are just out from the analyst and investor presentation, and clearly, that's the main chart for them. I believe it's important also to share with you. Bob already mentioned about the volatility and the uncertainty we are suffering. Clearly, giving an outlook on revenue in these days is not easy, also because the visibility is very poor, and it is hard to make projection. Having said that, we are, in any case, targeting a slight growth in top line.
That's important to remind. Clearly, that's an outlook that we are providing now, but honestly, we'll be a little bit, let's say, affected by what is going to happen outside our world. We will manage any kind of scenario we will face. The most important KPI we are targeting is the EBITDA. We are leaving away the adjusted EBITDA kind of KPI. We are looking at the reported EBITDA. That is the only EBITDA we know. In that respect, we think that there will be a significant increase versus last year, mainly driven by cost efficiency and also by some decision in terms of operating model I was trying to explain to you.
In that respect, I can already anticipate, because I give you also to the financial market, that currently we are targeting more than EUR 130 million operating cost savings during the year, and that's clearly the result of the cost discipline we were mentioning. Cost discipline is not just a theoretical concept, it's an everyday work, and the result is, as I told you, at least EUR 130 million in the entertainment area of cost savings. In terms of financial debt, we are targeting a similar level of debt than last year, while the financial leverage will run from three times to 3.5 x in also coherent with our covenants that Bob was mentioning. Maybe a few words about the first quarter, because we are very close to the end of it.
I believe you have followed what RTL said a couple of weeks ago. We clearly share the view on the market. The market was not really great. Moving to our performance in this market, what we can tell you is that our entertainment revenue in March was declining less than what was in the first two months. As a sort of improving, let's say, market condition, and what I can anticipate is that April looks even better, close to last year numbers, and that's again a good sign. Clearly, April is not tomorrow, but I mean at least at the first sign, it's also showing a great perception and also forecast. As far as the EBITDA is concerned, first quarter, we will see an increase in it.
Clearly, even if we are going to have a weak top line in entertainment, as I mentioned, and as RTL said, we will increase our profitability because cost savings are already there. That's, I think the best result we can grant, let's say, to our shareholder. Just to close, summarizing a little bit, I was probably too long, but I think it's important to summarize a little bit. Again, first point, focus on entertainment means German-speaking region, means strong local content, broad reach, and multi-platform approach. Maximizing total video reach. We will leverage a little bit sector performance and KPIs. That's our polar star. We need to maximize that, because through that, we can monetize our content at best.
Technology data and AI will be the base of our future, so we will invest, and we will also use them to transform the company, to transform ProSiebenSat.1 in a modern company. All what I said, I'm repeating it. Portfolio evaluation, it's an ongoing, let's say, activity. There is no pre-cooked decision. We are just acting in a very rational way, financially oriented way, and we will decide what to do every week and every month. Lastly, as I said, nothing can be done without a strong financial discipline. We know that we need to invest. We know that the future is made by new content, new format, new ideas, and without financial discipline, cash control, we cannot afford to do it. That's what I have to say, Stephanie. Thank you for the time, and thank you also to the team.
I hand over to Stephanie for the Q&A session.
Okay. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Marco, for this. Let's jump into the Q&A session. Everyone who is in the Teams call, but please just raise your hand and ask your question. I think it's always nice if you do it by yourself. If you want to do it in German, as said before, I can easily translate it. That's no problem. Or you can just post it into the chat. With this, I would say let's wait for the first question. Henning Hinze, you are the first one who is raising the question. Yeah, I can see you already. Perfect. Ask your question.
Yes. I have a very short question on one subject. You expect the debt to be stable instead of being reduced, which I would have expected. Why is that? Can you elaborate on that? Is the financial leverage goal of 2.5 to three that has been stated in the past, have you given that up or will you return to that?
I can start and then.
Okay.
Marco, please add on. I think, Henning, you have to take a couple things into account here with regards to overall, we still have a couple of special projects that drive the cash flow. The big one being our new campus, which has you have to take all that into account, the new campus being the large number, and then we have a couple, obviously, still some expenses. We have some consulting spend. Small, but it's still there and whatnot. If you normalize those types of expenses and cash outs that will come, we would expect our operational cash flow to be at the high double-digit number for 2026. That's what we're doing.
On an overall basis of free cash flow, you know, it's relatively stable but driven by a couple of these exceptional items, and that is why.
Mm.
Our net debt, as of right now, is looking to be relatively stable for the year of 2026. Naturally, as Marco and I both indicated, where we have opportunities to reduce our leverage, we will do that.
If I can add, Bob.
Please.
Sorry to say that, and I don't want to, let's say, undervalue what we did in the last quarter last year. Because clearly, I don't know if you follow, but I mean, last quarter, last year, we were very strong in free cash generation. Typically, you can tend to say, "Oh, okay, that was a one-off." It was not. So in a sense, keeping the same level of debt means also that what we did last year was not just, sorry to say, window dressing, but was real, so to say, you know. So all the elements that Bob was saying are true, but I mean, please consider also what we did in the last quarter last year that was already pretty evident, so to say.
That's a great point. Henning, to your second question on the leverage ratio, I think what we indicated as guidance there was three to 3.5 is what we are hoping for the year. I'm not too sure what happened in the past or whatever, but I mean, our guidance is three and 3.5. That will be in line with our current credit documentation. If you do the numbers, remember now the leverage covenant is also based on an adjusted EBITDA, just to be very clear about that, okay? It's an adjusted EBITDA over the net, the net indebtedness. We aim for the three to 3.5, and everything we'll manage everything there to make sure that we maintain that covenant.
Thank you.
Good.
Thanks.
Thank you very much. The next question is from Klaus Lauer from Reuters. Please go ahead. If you want, Aya, okay, I can see you here already. Maybe we can switch it.
Okay. Hi, I have a question. You were talking about cost discipline and cost-cutting. Does it include job cutting also, or can you exclude job cutting, as the company already had quite some in the latest past? One portfolio question also, flaconi, you did mention somewhat, they're still Aroundhome and Marktguru. I mean, are those, is that, do you consider that core business, or is that sooner or later also to go out? You have not mentioned at all, if I can remember correctly, ParshipMeet Group, which is a big one somewhat. Do you consider that also core business, or what do you intend to do with that? Thanks.
I would take maybe the first part. I mean, I think that we need to be more efficient. That I think we all know. I believe that is also something you well understand being part of the same large media, let's say, sector. We cannot really survive just looking at the past. Our objective is to create efficiency everywhere. This doesn't mean that people is not important to us. I prefer to say that it's better to have the same people that make more than to make the same with less people. That's what we are targeting. We are not really focusing on any social plan or any kind of reduction. We are looking for efficiency. Efficiency means a lot of things, where clearly we need to produce more with the same people, or we need to spend less somewhere else.
It's a combination of factors, where frankly, our top priority is not firing people, I have to tell you. The EUR 130 million, let's say, savings I was targeting, it's really a mix of everything. Again, I can repeat it, we are not targeting any social plan. ProSiebenSat.1 did it in the past, other competitors are doing now. That's part of the life. I mean, currently in our plan, we don't have such, let's say, priority. If I may say something on non-core assets. Clearly, we have a long list of companies. I don't know if we have time to dedicate to all of them. As I said, I can repeat it. It's not a pre-cooked decision. You were mentioning Parship.
Parship is again something we are not, let's say, in the condition to sell now. I mean, then maybe in the future will be different. Other, let's say, brands that has been mentioned to you by you clearly are different, but maybe Bob you can be even more precise about Marktguru and-
Aroundhome.
Aroundhome.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, first of all, it's a good question. I reiterate what Marco said. We really are looking at, you know, weekly, monthly, daily, looking at the performance of all these portfolio companies. I did mention that we're going to a two-segment reporting structure going forward. We have entertainment and we have commerce and dating. I would say generally it's about 99.9% very clear about which asset sits in what. As an example, Aroundhome sits in the commerce and dating segments right now. Marktguru does not sit in the commerce and dating segment. For us, once again, we are just looking, once again, to optimize value. Parship sits in the commerce and dating segment as well, but Marco already alluded to that as well.
You know, we'll just continue to our process. It's very financially driven, to be very clear, Marco indicated that. Where we think there's not a value or a financial benefit to ProSiebenSat.1 and its shareholders, we will then think about is there an alternative course of action for that portfolio company?
Good. Who else would like to raise a question? Anna Westkämper . Please, go ahead.
Hello, I hope you can hear me.
Yes, very good.
I have a question regarding the total video reach, because I think that this is very interesting. I'm asking myself, how will you be comparable to your competitors if you are now working with totally different KPIs here?
Sure. I mean, yes, I can understand the comparison will be on linear audience. That's the easiest way because it's a KPI we always had in the last, I don't know, 40 years. I have to say that when you are mentioning competitor, we see it a little bit different because RTL is a strong competitor, but unfortunately, I have to say there are many others competitors. That competitors, just naming one, YouTube, is. You cannot compare ourselves already, you know. I mean, you don't know exactly are we strong, are we stronger, are we weaker?
That's also, if you want, a problem for an advertiser, because if you put yourself in an advertiser's shoes, when you have to evaluate campaigns on YouTube, and then you have to decide if it is better to go on Joyn plus ProSieben or Joyn plus podcast or whatever, you will have these kind of difficulties because YouTube is not providing a currency, as we said, that is comparable to the one that we are using in TV. Certainly, we are in the position to provide to our advertiser a sort of return on the campaign that is based on KPI that they know. Maybe it would be difficult for them to compare our campaign with the RTL+ or with the YouTube, but probably media agency can help them in evaluating.
What I'm sure of is that advertisers are looking for that because they look for reach, they look for total campaign reach. They're not looking at what you are getting out of the linear only because then you are also only focusing on a specific target and you are not really looking at the German population. Yes, it will be a little bit more difficult, but it is already. Unfortunately, it's not really something we can escape on. But we will try to, let's say, report to our investor, to our advertiser in the best way and in the most transparent way, starting from a currency, the linear currency that is certainly more transparent and more third party than the one that the big platforms are using.
I think that we are starting from a better point than the YouTube and the Facebook of this world, but clearly there will be a little bit of more activity in aligning KPIs and providing the best report of each campaign.
Thank you.
Good. I'll wait for another question. At the moment, nobody's asking a question or raising their hand. Good. I would say, if you have a question over the rest of the day, please, I'm always here to help, and also Kathrin Schneider or Martin Kunze. Just come to us when you have more questions. Thank you again, you two, for the presentation and the Q&A. Thank you all for participating, and have a nice rest of the day.
Thank you. Thank you all.