Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the analyst conference call of RTL Group regarding the presentation of the half year results 2021. This conference will be recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If any participant has difficulties hearing the conference, please press the star key followed by zero on your telephone for operator assistance. May I now hand you over to Oliver Fahlbusch, RTL Group's head of investor relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining this analyst call for RTL Group's interim results for the first half of 2021. The speakers for today's presentation are Thomas Rabe, the Group's CEO, Elmar Heggen, our COO and Deputy CEO, and Björn Bauer, our CFO. The presentation for this call is available on our corporate website, rtlgroup.com, following the link included in our press release under Download. The agenda on slide two shows the areas our management team will cover today. With this, I hand over to Thomas.
Yes. Thank you, Oliver, and good morning from me as well. Following today's announcement and recent announcements on consolidation moves, in addition to our half year results, I will put a focus on our strategy and growth plans. Let's turn to the highlights. We had a very successful first half for RTL Group in terms of financial and operating performance, but also in terms of strategic progress. Three major developments marked the first six months.
First, a strong rebound in the advertising and the advertising markets in the second quarter. Second, the dynamic growth of our streaming and content businesses. Third, the active portfolio management and significant progress in the transformation of RTL Group. Revenue adjusted EBITDA Group revenue were up significantly in the first half. In addition, we saw significant revenue growth of our global content business, Fremantle, and of our streaming services, TVNOW and Videoland.
To summarize, we successfully managed the challenges of the coronavirus crisis. Our revenue and operating profits are back to pre-crisis levels, and as a result, we have raised our forecast and outlook for the full year 2021, to which I will come back later in the presentation. One year ago, we expressed our conviction that alliances and larger merger moves, and thus the creation of national TV champions in Europe, are necessary and called on the regulators to be supportive.
We also said we're ready to act, and we did. Today, we are leading the consolidation of the European media industry. Since the beginning of the year, we've signed agreements for four major transactions in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. They all have the same target: to significantly strengthen our businesses in the competition with global tech platforms.
We're creating significant value for RTL Group and its shareholders, and I'll present some details on this later. We also have big ambitions for our global content business, Fremantle. We've decided to accelerate the expansion of Fremantle, both organically and via M&A, targeting full-year revenue of EUR 3 billion by 2025. That means doubling the revenue compared to 2020. With this, I will now hand over to Björn, who will take us through the details of the Group's financial results.
Thank you, Thomas, and good morning from me as well. Today, we are pleased to announce a strong set of financials that are the result of four key items that I will cover during my brief presentation. First, strong operating performance, while ad markets rebounded in Q2. Second, effective control of our costs that led to improved margins. Third, continued focus on cash flow to fund our investments into growth businesses and to allow for shareholder returns.
Lastly, active portfolio management leading to significant capital gains. Let's start with the group key figures. In the first half of 2021, group revenue was up by 13.7% to EUR 3 billion, mainly due to the strong growth of TV advertising revenue. Our content and streaming growth businesses performed strongly as well. Fremantle's revenue was up 28.6% to EUR 909 million. Streaming revenue from TVNOW and Videoland was up 33.8% to EUR 107 million.
By platform revenue, i.e., the revenue generated across the distribution platforms cable, satellite, IPTV, including retransmission fees, increased by 3.4% to EUR 230 million. On an organic basis, i.e., before scope and FX effects, revenue grew by 21.5% compared to the first half of 2020 and by 2.1% compared to the same period in 2019, which shows that we are already exceeding the pre-crisis level on a comparable basis.
With ongoing cost control, RTL Group's adjusted EBITA increased by 87.2% to EUR 483 million. This resulted in an adjusted EBITA margin of 16%, up 6% compared to the first half of 2020. The group profit for the first six months was up by a factor of six to the record level of EUR 929 million. RTL Group is back to pre-crisis level. Here are some additional details.
On the left, you can see the development of RTL Group's revenue in the Q1 and Q2 for the years 2019 to 2021, and also the development of our largest revenue stream, TV advertising. The soft start in 2021 was marked by lower TV advertising revenue, especially in Germany and the Netherlands, due to the lockdown measures, in addition to negative exchange rate effects and significant scope effects resulting from the disposals of BroadbandTV and the Groupe M6's diversification businesses, Home Shopping Service, and iGraal.
As expected, and as announced with our Q1 statement in May, TV advertising revenue grew strongly by 65% in Q2 2021, and was even up compared to the second quarter of 2019. With strong growth from Fremantle and streaming, Group revenue was up 35.7% compared to Q2 2020, this despite the significant deconsolidation effects I just mentioned.
We have observed the same picture as last year. Once the economic environment started to improve, TV advertising money came back quickly, and this again, clearly shows the strength of TV with regards to building reach and brands in a high quality and safe environment. As a result, and as you can see on the right side of the slide, RTL Group's adjusted EBITA before streaming startup losses, which amounted to EUR 54 million in the first six months, grew to EUR 537 million.
This is in line with the pre-crisis level of the first half of 2019, and leads to a margin before streaming of 18.5%. Moving on to the next slide. Looking now at the items below EBITA, down to the net profit. In April 2021, RTL Group sold its interest in SpotX to the U.S. AdTech company, Magnite.
Since the announcement of the transaction on February 5th, RTL Group exercised an option to increase the cash component of the transaction and received $640 million in cash and 12.37 million shares of Magnite stock. The disposal of SpotX alone resulted in a capital gain of EUR 745 million. In total, RTL Group recorded capital gains of EUR 766 million in the first half of the year.
The Group's tax charge came in at EUR 278 million. The higher tax charge compared to the first half of 2020 was due to the Group's significantly higher profitability and the capital gains from the disposal of SpotX, which were taxed as a rate below our normalized tax rate. Accordingly, the reported tax rate was 23%.
As a result of our strong operating performance and high capital gains, Group profit for the first half year increased to the record level of EUR 929 million, more than twice the previous high from 2013. Looking now at the next slide, the cash flow statement.
Our operating free cash flow remains strong at EUR 386 million, while the operating cash conversion rate was 82% for the first half of 2021. Last year's exceptionally high cash conversion rate was due to favorable net working capital effects as a result of the measures that we introduced in reaction to the COVID-19 at the beginning of Q2 2020. This year's cash flow is also impacted by investments and timing effects at the level of Fremantle.
The line acquisition, disposal of subsidiaries, mainly reflects the cash received as part of the disposal of SpotX and the cash paid out for the acquisition of Super RTL, which is stepped up to 100%. With the higher tax charge, and most importantly, the dividend payment for the financial year 2020 amounting to a total of EUR 568 million, the cash used in the first half of 2021 was EUR 109 million. At the end of June, RTL Group was still in a net cash position of EUR 173 million, despite the dividend payment. For the business review, I will now hand over to Emma.
Thank you, Björn, and good morning from my side as well. In the first half of 2021, our largest unit, RTL Deutschland, accelerated the growth of its streaming service, TVNOW. The number of paying subscribers more than doubled to more than two million compared to the end of June, while the viewing time increased by 51% year-on-year.
The strategic partnership with Deutsche Telekom's MagentaTV contributed significantly to the growth, which was also boosted by success performance such as "Princess Charming" and more than 20 originals. The German TV advertising market was estimated to be up between 8.5% and 9% in the first half of 2021. Total revenue of RTL Deutschland was up 13.1%, EUR 1 billion, thanks to significantly higher TV advertising revenue in the second quarter and growing streaming revenue. Adjusted EBITA increased by 15.5% to EUR 201 million, representing a margin of 20%.
In terms of audiences, RTL Deutschland reported a combined audience share of 26.5% in the target group of viewers aged 14- 59, which was slightly down year-on-year as the UEFA Euro was broadcast by the public broadcasters in Germany. This means that our German family of channels kept its lead over its main commercial competitor, ProSiebenSat.1, at a four percentage points difference.
VOX performed particularly well in the first half of 2021, as the channel was three months amongst the top three commercial channels in the target group 14- 49. Also, the first time ever ahead of ProSiebenSat.1 in this month. Competition in our largest market, Germany, is constantly increasing, both in linear TV with one of the largest public service broadcast systems in the world, and also in non-linear with the U.S. platforms.
This is why we continue to invest significantly in our streaming service, TVNOW, which will be rebranded to RTL+, in our family of channels with the full acquisitions of Super RTL and in other initiatives such as AdTech. Moving now to M6. French net TV advertising market was estimated to be up 33% compared to the first half of 2021. Total revenue of Groupe M6 was up 15.8% to EUR 645 million, mainly due to higher advertising revenue.
Adjusted EBITA increased significantly by 78% to EUR 151 million, representing a margin of 23%. This despite the programming cost for eight live matches of the UEFA Euro in June. The audience share of our French family of free-to-air channels in the commercial target group was up to 23.1%.
M6 succeeded with successful shows such as "Top Chef," with its best season yet, as well as the broadcast of the Europe matches. In the first half of 2021, the advertising finance streaming service 6play grew its active users by 16.3%. The streaming service will be further strengthened with more original content, themed channels, and live sports.
Let's now turn to RTL Nederland on slide 13. The Dutch net TV advertising market was estimated to be up by 34.9% in the first half of 2021, with RTL Nederland performing better than the market. Accordingly, RTL Nederland revenue increased by 22.2% to EUR 253 million. This resulted in an adjusted EBITA of EUR 54 million, up from EUR 2 million in the same period last year, and in a profit margin of 21%. The unit's highest margin in the first half since 2011.
The combined Dutch family of channels delivered an audience share of 33.1%, up 2.3 percentage points year-on-year. The strong audience growth was mainly driven by the main channel, RTL 4, which scored high ratings with shows such as "De Verraders," "Make Up Your Mind," "LEGO Masters," and "The Voice of Holland."
RTL Nederland streaming service Videoland recorded paid subscriber growth of 20.7% compared to the end of June 2020. Viewing time was up 11.8% year-on-year. Videoland's growth was largely due to the third season of the original series of "Mocro Maffia" and the U.S. drama, "The Handmaid's Tale." Turning now to our global business, the global content business, Fremantle, on slide number 14. In the first half of 2021, Fremantle continued to have major creative successes across all genres.
With the delivery of the drama series, "The Mosquito Coast," and season three of "American Gods." With "American Idol," "America's Got Talent," and the game show, "Game of Talents," and with "Too Hot to Handle" on Netflix. A few days after its launch, it was on the top 10 list of Netflix in several countries. The reality show attracted an audience of 29 million within its first four weeks online.
Revenue at Fremantle was up by 28.6% to EUR 909 million. Fremantle's adjusted EBITA more than doubled to EUR 61 million. With productions such as "Exit" and "The Investigation," Fremantle continued to be one of the leading global producers of international scripted series for all major clients such as Sky, HBO, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Apple+, and Disney.
Fremantle sold its first high-end documentary, "Arctic Drift," to 162 territories and produced the original factual series, "Veleno: The Town of Lost Children," for Amazon Prime Video. Fremantle also distributed a number of high-end documentaries from third parties, including the series, "Enslaved," fronted by Samuel L. Jackson, and "How It Feels To Be Free," executive produced by Alicia Keys. All this demonstrates the thriving creative diversity across Fremantle's global footprint. I now hand you back to Thomas, who will take you through the strategy update before finishing with the outlook statement.
Many thanks, Elmar. Let's turn to slide 16. Our strategic framework remains unchanged. It is based on three priorities. Core, which means investing in premium content, strengthening our families of channels, cost control, portfolio management, consolidation. Growth, focusing on our streaming services, advertising technology, and addressable TV, as well as the worldwide content production business, Fremantle.
Finally, Alliances and Partnerships spanning from advertising sales and content production to technology and data. For the successful implementation of our strategy, we've defined enablers such as creativity and entrepreneurship of our people, regulation, as well as communications and marketing. The time has come, we believe, given all the changes which we have been through, to reposition our core RTL brand with a new identity and a clear set of deliverables. The objective is to develop the RTL brand from a traditional TV brand into a leading entertainment brand.
The refreshed RTL brand stands for positive entertainment and independent journalism, as well as inspiration, energy, and attitude. With our new multicolored logo, we combine the powerful one brand strategy with the customization possibilities of the digital world. We started the rebranding of RTL Group and RTL Deutschland, and we will rebrand our streaming service TVNOW to RTL+ in Germany in fall 2021, and we will then continue with the international rollout in 2022.
Let's turn to the strategy update. In May and June of this year, we announced two major transactions to create national cross-media champions. First, in France, with the planned combination of Groupe TF1 and M6. We expect a decision by the regulators by the end of 2022, and once approved, RTL Group's share in the combined entity will be 16% after selling 11% to Groupe Bouygues.
Second, in the Netherlands, with the planned combination of RTL Nederland and Talpa Network. Here, we expect a decision by the regulators in the first half of 2022. RTL Group's share in the combined entity will be 70%. We see significant value creation potential in both countries. The estimated synergies are, in both cases, 1/3 revenue and 2/3 cost-driven.
In France, we estimate synergies between EUR 250 million and EUR 350 million per annum to be realized or fully realized by 2025, 2026. In the Netherlands, EUR 100 million- EUR 120 million to be realized by 2024. The strategic rationale for both transactions is exactly the same. It is about scale. It's about pooling resources and creativity to compete with global tech platforms in respective national markets.
It is about high investments in exclusive global content, boosting the growth of our streaming services, and it's about investment in data and tech, in particular, in addressable TV. This morning, we announced the combination of RTL Deutschland and Gruner + Jahr following exactly the same logic. We consider the combination to be a unique opportunity for the two companies, because together they will be in a much better position to unlock their full potential.
With the combination, we'll create a German cross-media champion with pro forma 2020 revenue of EUR 2.6 billion and operating profit of around EUR 500 million. RTL Deutschland and Gruner + Jahr combined are a journalistic powerhouse with a content expertise of more than 1,500 journalists. The potential synergies are estimated to be around EUR 100 million per annum to be fully realized by 2025.
Here, more than three-quarters of the revenues will be revenue driven, and that means growth driven. The key drivers for these revenue synergies as follows. First, more exclusive and diverse content from cross-media editorial teams. Second, better cross-promotion between different media categories.
Third, high attractiveness for Germany's top creative talent and media personalities. Fourth, optimized cross-media advertising campaigns. Fifth, overall, an even more attractive and complementary brand and product portfolio. Technically, RTL Deutschland will acquire Gruner + Jahr's Germany's publishing assets and brands for EUR 230 million on a cash and debt-free basis, and we expect the transaction to close on 1st of January 2022. Now, looking at the consolidation moves and the value to shareholders.
When we presented the rationale for in-country consolidation some time ago, we pointed to the very significant synergy potential, we made an estimate for you on what this represents in absolute terms and also on a per share basis. You see this on the slide. You see that the long-term adjusted EBITDA impact from the three transactions I presented. The midpoint is more than EUR 510 million, RTL Group's share from these synergies amounts to approximately EUR 251 million.
The synergy share represents a value creation potential, depending, of course, on the parameters you apply, of EUR 2 billion-EUR 2.2 billion, which means EUR 13 million or EUR 15 million per RTL share. Now turning from our national media champion to our growth businesses, and in particular to our streaming businesses. Elmar explained already, you see this on slide 21, that our streaming services have grown significantly in the first half of the year.
We now have more than three million paying subscribers at the end of June, and our subscriber base grew by 72%. That means that in the first six months of 2021, we added more than 850,000 new paying subscribers compared to 2020. In the first six months of 2020, we added 330,000 new paying subscribers. This clearly demonstrates that our streaming investments in marketing, technology, and content, as well as our strategic partnerships, such as the one with Deutsche Telekom, are starting to pay off.
To summarize, we think we're well on track to achieve the streaming targets for 2025. Given our consolidation moves in Germany and the Netherlands, we see significant upside potential to boost RTL+ and Videoland. Moving on to our global content business, Fremantle. Since 2012, Fremantle successfully expanded into scripted drama, that means series and films.
Established a global production network in 19 countries organically and via acquisitions of such companies like Wildside, Coyote and Miso Film. This helped to significantly grow the business with global and national streaming services, which in the first half of this year accounted for approximately 15% of Fremantle's total revenue.
There is strong and growing demand for high-end factual content and documentaries, in particular from streaming services. This is the reason why Fremantle has established a new global factual division with the aim to replicate the success in drama and scripted. First significant steps were made with documentaries like "Arctic Drift," documentaries about the Wirecard scandal, and about Angela Merkel.
As I said, M&A is part of the EUR 3 billion revenue growth plan of Fremantle, and we've been quite active since the beginning of the year with three acquisitions of Abot Hameiri in Israel, Eureka in the U.S. and Australia, and NENT Studios in the Nordics. Combined, the annual revenue of these three companies will be around EUR 200 million. That brings us to the target structure for RTL Group's portfolio on slide 23. Target structure is comprised of national cross-media champions in Germany, France, and the Netherlands.
Well-established cross-border cooperation in the areas of advertising sales, advertising technology, streaming technology, and content development. Let's just say that the technology solutions of smartclip and Bedrock are open European platforms, accessible to companies which are not part of RTL Group. Finally, as I just explained, Fremantle, the global content production company with ambitious growth plans.
We have communicated clear growth plans to be achieved by 2025, namely Fremantle with a EUR 3 billion revenue target, streaming with a EUR 500 million revenue target, addressable TV advertising with a EUR 200 million revenue target for Germany alone, which adds up to a total of +EUR 2 billion revenue by 2025 compared to 2020.
That brings me to the outlook for 2021 on slide 24. Assuming that the economic recovery from COVID-19 continues, as vaccinations progress and no new lockdown measures are put in place, we've raised our outlook for 2021. We've raised our revenue outlook significantly from EUR 6.2 billion to around EUR 6.5 billion. This includes organic growth, approximately or more than 10%, previously 8%, and scope effects are the sale of BroadbandTV and SpotX, but also the full acquisition of Super RTL and Eureka.
We expect our adjusted EBITDA for 2021 to increase to approximately EUR 1 billion-EUR 50 million. That's EUR 75 million higher compared to the previous outlook. The adjusted EBITDA before streaming startup losses shall increase to around EUR 1.2 billion, which is above the level of 2018 and 2019. Our dividend policy remains unchanged, and as you know, RTL Group plans to pay out at least 80% of the adjusted full-year net results, including cash capital gains. This brings us to the end of our presentation. Thank you for your attention, and we're now happy to take your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our question and answer session. If you have a question for our speakers press zero one on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. Once anything announced, you can ask a question. If you find you question answered before you speak, you can dial zero two to cancel your question. One moment please for the first question. The first question received is from Annick Maas of Exane BNP Paribas. Your line is now open, madam. Please go ahead.
Good morning. My first question is with regards to your long-term Fremantle target. You said this is going to be achieved, among others, via M&A. Are we speaking about bolt-on deals, or do you have something more transformational in mind? Which type of production studios would you be looking at, more focused on scripted content, non-scripted? I guess the next question would be, what type of margin profile do we expect, in the midterm, therefore, for Fremantle?
I'm also keen to hear what your advertising trends look like, or looked like in July and the start of August in your various markets. Finally, I think because even yesterday suggested that they would be quite keen that you are also joining their joint platform. You are all for national heroes, so just keen to get an update on your thoughts, if that would be something that you would be looking into. Thank you.
Yeah, absolutely. Let's start with Fremantle. Fremantle's revenue last year was approximately EUR 1.5 billion. This will increase to approximately EUR 2 billion this year, which is due to the recovery of the production markets, and it's due to the acquisitions, which I mentioned, not with a full year effect, though. The increase from EUR 2 billion- EUR 3 billion will be approximately 50% organically and 50% via M&A.
All of the acquisitions will be small to medium-sized acquisitions of production companies which we can easily integrate. We're not planning anything transformational because we don't think it's the right thing to do in a creative production business. We see a very healthy pipeline of potential acquisitions after the crisis. A number of small and medium-sized production companies are rethinking their position and actually looking for a new home.
The acquisitions will be in all three categories of Fremantle, which we provide scripted, non-scripted, and also documentaries, high-end documentaries, where we see significant growth opportunity. Our objective is to increase the margin, the Fremantle margin, to 10%, this will be achieved by, A, the acquisitions and taking out costs of the companies we acquire, and B, by scaling up the organization and the overheads, quite simply due to growth and the other proportional growth of the overhead. In terms of advertising trends, Björn?
Yeah, sure. Generally speaking, the demand for TV advertising remains very strong, and we're getting continued very good feedback from our advertising clients on the value. More specifically on the trends, we see a continuation of the recovery that we've seen in the Q2. More specifically, when you look at our largest market in Germany, July is up around 40%.
August, I'd say high single digits. I think probably likewise important, July, August combined is also firmly up versus 2019. The biggest month for Q3 is obviously September, about 50% of the revenue. It's a little bit too early, but the first indications are also positive, and the trends in the other markets outside of Germany, I'd say, are not dissimilar. We're very optimistic for the rest of the year.
As far as Joyn is concerned, first point to note is that the business models of Joyn and TVNOW RTL+ are different. Second point to note is that we have significant traction at RTL+, with more than two million subscribers, and the growth continues. The third point is that we believe that a combination or cooperation between Joyn and RTL+ would raise all sorts of regulatory concerns in Germany.
This could lead to a defocusing of our businesses and our teams, which we don't want. We're very confident that we'll be able to grow RTL+ into a very significant streaming business. We're ramping up our investments very significantly. As we just said, with EUR 54 million of start-up losses in the first half of the year, of which a not insignificant part is related to platform development.
Only EUR 35 million approximately are start-up losses in Germany. We've been able to increase the subscriber base very significantly, year- on- year by more than 100%. The last thing I'm going to do is to put this significant traction we have at risk by a ill-founded combination with Joyn. It's not on the books. We go it alone, and we believe we have a very strong business proposition, which is clearly reflected in the numbers we presented this half year and the outlook we have for the business in the years to come.
We're also thinking at RTL+ to extend the offering from video streaming to other media categories, audio and text, which will at least partly be enabled by the combination of RTL and Gruner + Jahr, which we announced this morning. We've got plenty of room to grow further. As I said, the last thing we're going to do is to put our traction and the dynamic growth of our business at risk.
Good. That's great. Can I just ask one more on Gruner, yeah?
Of course.
You said three-quarters of the synergies are going to be revenue driven. This might be a bit of a dumb question, but why was it not possible to do this without necessarily doing the acquisition? Why were you not able to create these synergies over the last few years, let's say?
Very good question. RTL and Gruner have been cooperating for many years in three areas: advertising, with the advertising alliance, which is fully integrated; the content alliance; and data and tech alliance. The content alliance is great, but it really is project driven and project based. Many of the joint projects of content development and content distribution via several kind of media platforms or categories have really worked incredibly well.
We believe that if we want to fully exploit the potential of this cross-media proposition, it is necessary for the two companies to be combined and for the content generation part of the business to be fully integrated. The only way to do this is to acquire Gruner. You can't do this on a contractual basis. It's far too complex.
It raises all sorts of technical issues, legal issues, tax issues, and the like, and it doesn't set the right set of incentives for the people doing this. What we're going to do, we're effectively going to integrate the content generation unit of RTL Group and Gruner + Jahr. You think about a piece of research on a specific topic, recently on RTL Deutschland and Germany's television, a piece on the Argentinian football player, Maradona, and the circumstances of his death.
That was deep research on the ground by RTL Deutschland and RTL Deutschland team. It was accompanied by an article in "Der Stern" and audio formats. That's the way we want to work systematically, look at joint content generation and joint content exploitation across video, audio, text being online and print. As I said, to achieve this, the companies have to be integrated. To integrate the companies, the companies have to be part of one legal entity.
Sounds good. Thank you very much.
Yep.
The next question received is from Julien Roch of Barclays. Your line is now open, sir. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my question. The first one is on dividend. I think you're going to pay about EUR 10 of dividend this year. 80% payout on net income is EUR 2.53 in terms of ordinary. You're distributing 80% of Belgium, which I think is EUR 0.5. 80% of SpotX is EUR 3, and then 80% of France, which I suppose will be next year, not this year, but the cash you're getting from Bouygues is EUR 3.3. When I put those four things together, I get EUR 9.8 million-EUR 10.3 million. Is that the right calculation for dividend? That's my first question.
Okay. Shall we start with that? Because otherwise.
Yeah
get confused. Listen, Annick, thank you for your confidence in our ability to pay high dividends. Also thanks for the computation, which is fine. It is just that the Belgium transaction has not been completed. The French transaction is unlikely to really get done before 2023, the beginning of 2023, we believe. We said we would distribute cash capital gains, right? Gains and not cash proceeds. Björn, what's your take on the dividend?
Yeah. Obviously, relatively early still in terms of dividend, many moving pieces. If you take the outlook that Thomas just presented as the basis and include the portion of the cash capital gain of SpotX, and you have to obviously exclude the value of the Magnite shares, you are already at a value in excess of EUR 4. This number can increase dependent on transactions to be completed in the second half, such as Belgium, and not limited to that, maybe others.
Yeah. I think it's fair to say dividends will be handsome dividends. The ordinary dividends based on the outlook we provided will be significantly up compared to last year. The extraordinary dividends, as we call it, related to cash capital gains, really depends on the completion of the transactions and getting the cash proceeds in.
Yeah.
We'll keep you posted on this, but it's true that the shareholders for 2021 can expect to get a very handsome dividend. A EUR 10 per share I think is a bit high.
Yeah. EUR 10 is too high because I was including all the deals in one year.
Yeah, exactly.
if you exclude the ordinary dividend and you distribute 80% on the capital gain, can you give us an indication of the three extraordinary dividend, the one linked to Belgium, the one linked to SpotX and the one linked to France? Obviously they will be paid when the deal conclude, if the deal conclude. If France, the competition commission said, "No," then you won't pay it. To give us the indication of the dividend linked to those three deals, that would be very useful.
Yeah, we can do that. As I said, it is all subject to getting these deals done, so there can be no certainty at this stage, Björn.
Yeah. The deal that we hope will close in the fourth quarter of this year is Belgium. The dividend impact, again, very round numbers, I would say around EUR 0.60.
Yep.
We are working on Ludia, which could be, again, around EUR 0.40. France is really too early. I don't have an estimate for France. On SpotX, the cash portion is around EUR 0.90. Today's value of the Magnite shares would represent a dividend upside of around EUR 1.70, approximately.
Okay. My second question.
That's three, right?
Yeah. Again, these are directional numbers, and as Thomas said, absolutely dependent on transactions, and for some of these, the decisions have not even been taken, but this should give you a framework to build your own assumptions.
Yeah.
Yeah, okay. No, that's clear. On the synergies, Bouygues and YA, the EUR 100 million to by 2025 takes four years to get there because it's starting in 2022. Is that the right thing to do to assume EUR 25 million a year?
Absolutely. If that's what you want to model, I think that's a fair assumption. I think the cost synergies will come a little bit faster. They are EUR 25 million. The revenue synergies will be built up because they really depend on joint content development and exploitation via the different media genres. I think EUR 25 million per annum building up to EUR 100 million in 2025 is the right assumption to make.
That's okay. Last question on Fremantle. Two splits. You used to give a revenue breakdown between TV advertising, radio advertising, platform content and digital. Content was the non-digital part of Fremantle. Last year it was 21.6% of the first half, which is about EUR 573 million versus the EUR 707 million reported.
Can we get the same number versus the EUR 909 million? That's that split one. At the full year, you gave how much of Fremantle revenue were SVOD platform, and also how much was the user-generated platform like YouTube and everything as a percentage. Can we have an indication of how much it was in the first half as well?
Yeah. Well, the percentage with the streamers in the first half was 15%.
Well, 15%.
growing. Yeah, 15%, absolutely, and growing. On the revenue split, Björn? Yeah. TV advertising was 43.5%, content 19.7%, digital 17.8%, platform 7.1%, radio 3.3%, and others 8.6%.
Yep. Perfect. Thanks a lot.
Yep, you're welcome.
The next question we received is from Christophe Van der Kelen of Value Square. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I had two follow-up questions on previously asked questions. For Fremantle, you mentioned the margin of 10% to be set forward. I was wondering if you're looking at the same seasonality or if you would like to get that over the years, sort of more steady. That was the first question. The second one was from the Gruner + Jahr. I read an article a couple of months ago, I think, that there was some pushback from employees from Gruner + Jahr that they didn't really were looking forward to a merger with RTL.
Now that it's happening, when you announce this to the employees, how have they reacted? Do you see any possibility of people leaving or unsatisfied employees from transaction? A third one was more strategic, very strategic. As TV stands for RTL now for total video, I see gaming more and more a part of total video. I was wondering, I'm not sure if I should ask this question to Bertelsmann to RTL, to be honest.
Yeah.
I was wondering if gaming, how does RTL look at gaming? Is it part of your strategy? Advertising will also become more important in gaming. Is this for you part of total video, or is gaming not something that you are considering at all? Thank you.
All right. Good. Let's start with Fremantle. The 10% margin I mentioned is the target for 2025. We'll increase the margin step by step over the years from 2021 to 2025. There's no particular seasonality. There can be slippages of productions and the like, but we don't see significant seasonality, certainly not year-on-year. On Gruner + Jahr, the reaction of the senior management team, the Top 150 this morning was standing ovations, which is slightly different than the skepticism which you shared.
Before we decided to combine the two companies, we conducted an extensive survey among ex-employees, including a cultural survey. I can tell you the rate of approval for combination of RTL and Gruner is above 80%. The two companies culturally are very compatible. As I said before, they've worked together for many years. People know each other.
They've been part of Bertelsmann for many, many years, and are therefore also part of the Bertelsmann culture. We're not concerned at all there. As far as gaming is concerned, gaming is not a focus for RTL. Absolutely not, and certainly not when it comes to the gaming business as such. When it comes to advertising from gaming, absolutely.
This is a sector which is potentially growing depending on regulatory constraints. My understanding is, Elmar, that the Dutch advertising market regulations will be softer this year and more advertising related to gaming will be allowed, which I think will be an opportunity. Or betting, is that right? Betting, not gaming. No, gaming itself is not an investment priority for us.
We actually, through Fremantle business, which we are thinking about selling Ludia, is a game development company, where we're taking Fremantle franchises and brands and turning them to games or doing this for other third parties. It's not a business in which we want to continue to invest. I think that gaming is a potentially capital-intensive business. It's quite volatile, and it also raises a number of reputational issues.
Thank you.
Yep.
As we have no further question right now, just a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad now. We received no further questions, so I hand back to you for closing remarks.
All right. Well, listen, many thanks for taking the time during summer. Thanks for your continued interest in RTL Group. We very much look forward to keeping in touch with you and getting together with you in various conferences in the next weeks or so. Enjoy your summer, and see you and hear you very soon. All the best. Thank you.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attendance. This call has been concluded. You may disconnect.