Fiera Milano S.p.A. (FM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Fiera Milano Results at 30th of June 2026 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Vincenzo Cecere, Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability. Please go ahead, sir.

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Fiera Milano's First Half 2026 Results Conference Call. This is Vincenzo Cecere, Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability, and I'm joined today by Francesco Conci, CEO; and Massimo De Tullio, CFO of Fiera Milano. Today's presentation will be structured into 3 main sections. Francesco Conci will begin with an overview of the key highlights, strategic developments and outlook for the full year 2026. Massimo De Tullio will then provide a more detailed review of the group's business performance, financial results and cash flow. Finally, we will conclude with an update on ESG performance and sustainability achievements. Following the presentation, we will open the floor for a Q&A session, during which management will be available to answer your questions. At this point, I would like to hand over to Francesco Conci for the opening remarks and key messages for the first half. Francesco, please go ahead.

Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. The first half of 2026 delivered solid growth and a strong improvement in profitability the momentum already recorded in the first quarter. Revenue increased by 38% to EUR 245.7 million compared with EUR 177.9 million in the first half of 2025. EBITDA increased by 49% to EUR 94 million with the EBITDA margin improving to 38.3%. Net profit more doubled, reaching EUR 50.7 million compared with EUR 23.1 million in the same period last year. Revenue growth of approximately EUR 67.9 million was supported by 5 main drivers: one, the consolidation scope effect amounted to approximately EUR 28 million, mainly reflecting the contribution from Expotrans, Stipa and the full consolidation of MiCo DMC, our destination management and controller company. Two, the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, which contributed approximately EUR 27 million, including temporary infrastructure activities and venue usage; three a positive calendar effect of approximately EUR 5 million, mainly driven by the biennial exhibition Mostra Convegno Expocomfort and Transpotec and Logitec, which are held in even under years. Fourth, a solid performance effect of approximately EUR 6 million corresponding to like-for-like growth of around 4% in the first half 2026. Five, the Congress business, which contributed approximately EUR 2 million, mainly supported by the use of Milan venue as the main media center for the Olympic Games. The results demonstrate the increased scale, diversification and operating leverage of our platform. I'm also pleased to announce that Fiera Milano has won a new international exhibition for the airport industry, inter airport Global, which will take place in Rho from 12 to 14 October 2027. This is a further confirmation of Fiera Milano's growing international positioning and its ability to attract world-class event to Milan. On the ESG front, I'm proud to share that Fiera Milano has been recognized as a top ESG performer ranking among the top 10 Italian listed company in the ESG Identity Corporate Index 2026. Being ranked in the top 10 means Fiera Milano is now benchmarked against Italy's most established and highly rated companies on ESG, a clear signal of the progress made and the standard we intend to maintain. Looking ahead, in light of the strong performance recorded in the first half, the low expectation contribution from the Olympic-related activities, the progress in integrating recent acquisition, and the currently limited impact from the geopolitical environment, we are confirming the guidance already upgraded in the first quarter. Revenue are expected in the range of EUR 380,000 million to EUR 400,000 million. EBITDA is expected between EUR 100 million and EUR 110 million. Overall, the first half results confirm that Fiera Milano is building a broader, more diversified and structurally more resilient business platform. Finally, as a part of a broader strategic agenda, we currently expect to present Fiera Milano's new strategic plan in the first quarter of 2027. This timing will allow us to incorporate the full year 2026 results and provide a more robust basis for our assumption, supported by great visibility on the geopolitical environment and one of the main macroeconomic and industry trends. Let me now hand over to Massimo De Tullio, who will walk us through the business and financial review.

Thanks, Francesco, and good evening, everybody. So let me start with the divisional performance by legal entities, which explains the strong results recorded in the first half of 2026. So starting with the Italian exhibition business, which remains the core of our activity and represent approximately 71% of group revenue in the period. Revenues of this sector increased from EUR 137.4 million to EUR 182.4 million, while EBITDA rose from EUR 49.4 million to EUR 70.3 million. The performance was mainly driven by, for sure, the contribution from Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, including both the venue usage and the temporary infrastructure activities. And for sure, also another important impact was related to the more favorable exhibition calendar, reflecting the presence in the first half of Mostra Convegno Expocomfort and Transpotec and Logitec. And third point, I would mention also higher stand fitting and exhibition service revenues following also the acquisition of Stipa. The EBITDA growth reflects the revenue trend described above and was partially offset by higher operating expenses and personnel costs related to the acquisition of Stipa. Moving to the second division. So the Foreign Exhibition Business, which represents around 2% of group revenues, revenues increased from EUR 4.3 million to EUR 5.6 million, while EBITDA improved from EUR 1.7 million to EUR 1.9 million. Revenue growth mainly reflected the contribution from EXPOSEC in Brazil, while EBITDA also benefited from the result of the joint venture with Deutsche Messe. Turning now to The Congress Business, which represents approximately 19% of group revenues. Revenues increased from EUR 37.6 million to EUR 47.9 million, while EBITDA rose from EUR 11 million to EUR 19.7 million. The revenue increase mainly reflects the full consolidation of MiCo DMC from 1st of January 2026. The EBITDA improvement was primarily driven by the use of the Milan venue for the Olympic Games, which was characterized by a high margin profile compared to the standard business. Finally, other sectors, which mainly include the logistics and integrated services activities of Expotrans. Revenues increased from EUR 7 million to EUR 20.3 million. And this is also thanks to the fact that Expotrans was consolidated in 2025, starting from May and clear in 2026, the consolidation is taking place since January 1. So we have 6 months of consolidation against 2 months. EBITDA rose from EUR 1 million to EUR 2 million, and this is again more or less driven by the same kind of impact, reflecting the full period contribution from Expotrans. Overall, these dynamics led to group revenues of EUR 245.7 million and EBITDA of EUR 94 million, with the EBITDA margin improving from 35.5% to 38.2%. Now I will bring you to the Slide 12, where we can analyze the revenue growth contribution by business line. So we moved from EUR 178 million to EUR 245.7 million, again, a growth of approximately EUR 68 million. Out of this EUR 68 million, the consolidation scope effect, so the full consolidation of Stipa starting from March, the change of consolidation method of MiCo DMC fully controlled starting from 1st of January and the full consolidation of Expotrans starting from January against the consolidation starting from May in 2025. All this together amounts to EUR 28 million additional revenue in the first half. Second important impact was driven by the Olympic Games. Additional EUR 27 million compared to the first half 2025 came from this line and specifically EUR 20 million from the setup activities and EUR 7 million from the venue usage of the Rho venue. Then we mentioned already calendar effect, again, EUR 5 million positive impact in the first half, mainly driven by the presence of Mostra Convegno Expocomfort and Transpotec. And then Congresses with additional EUR 2 million compared to last year and the performance effect already mentioned of EUR 6.3 million. So this explains the bridge between revenues accounted in the first half 2025 and revenue accounted in EUR 245.7 million, so the revenue accounted in 2026. Let's move to the income statement. So again, the period that delivered a significant improvement across all profitability metrics, supported by strong revenue growth, favorable business mix and contribution from Olympic activities. Again, revenue increased from EUR 178 million to EUR 245.7 million, corresponding to an increase of EUR 68 million. Again, main impact are the consolidation, EUR 28 million, again, Milano Cortina accounting for EUR 27 million, the calendar effect and the performance. EBITDA increased by EUR 63.1 million -- sorry, increased from EUR 63.1 million to EUR 94 million, again, corresponding to a growth of EUR 31 million and the EBITDA margin improved from 35.5% to 38.3%. (sic) [ 38.2%]. The increase mainly reflect the revenue performance, partially offset by higher structural and personnel costs related to the acquisition of Expotrans and Stipa. Now in terms of financial management and net profit, financial management improved by approximately EUR 2 million, mainly due to higher interest income and cash investments, the positive fair value adjustment on ESG mutual funds and lower financial expenses related to the lease contracts. As a result, profit before taxes reached EUR 64.6 million and net profit amounted to EUR 50.7 million compared to EUR 23.1 million in the first half of 2025. Moving to the balance sheet. Overall, the group maintained a solid financial position despite the acquisition completed during the period and the dividend and buyback payments. Non-current asset and goodwill amounted to EUR 512.8 million compared to EUR 503.5 million and at year-end in 2025. The goodwill as a result of the acquisition increased from EUR 97.6 million to EUR 119.6 million, mainly reflecting the acquisition of Stipa for approximately EUR 11.6 million, cash and Made in Steel for approximately EUR 8.8 million. Net working capital moved from negative EUR 135.3 million at year-end 2025 to negative EUR 93.5 million at the end of June 2026. This corresponding to a change of approximately EUR 42 million. The main drivers were an increase in the current assets of EUR 24.6 million, including EUR 2 million in inventory and contracts in progress and EUR 22.6 million in trade and other receivables, a reduction in current liabilities of approximately EUR 17 million, including a decrease in trade payables of EUR 7.3 million and a decrease in provision deferred income and other current liabilities of EUR 10.8 million. Customer advances increased by EUR 1.2 million, representing the balance between advanced collection for future events and in particular, Host, and the release of advance for events held during this semester. The increase in receivable mainly reflects the expansion of the consolidation perimeter following the acquisition of Stipa and MiCo DMC together with outstanding receivable from Fondazione Milano Cortina. Now moving finally to the net financial position. Net financial position availability pre-IFRS 16 stood at EUR 109.4 million compared with EUR 157.2 million at the end of 2025. The reduction of EUR 48 million mainly reflects the impact of the acquisition completed during the semester and the dividend distribution and on top of that, the buyback payments, partially offset by the positive cash flow generated by operating activities. So looking at the chart, in particular, Chart 16 we can confirm that the group continued to generate positive operating cash flow despite a significant absorption from working capital and investments completed during the period. So the operating cash flow starting from an EBITDA of EUR 94 million, operating cash flow amounted to approximately EUR 21 million after EUR 27.5 million of cash out related to the rents, an absorption of EUR 42 million approximately from net working capital and EUR 4 million of capital expenditure. Net working capital dynamics can be explained and can be summarized in this way. We have an increase in trade and other receivable of EUR 22.6 million, primarily due to the timing of collection related to Milano Cortina activities amounting to approximately EUR 25 million and the contribution for the acquired company MiCo DMC and Stipa. A reduction in deferred income mainly related to Milano Cortina of approximately EUR 18.3 million and this is clearly related to the revenue recognition that happened in this semester while, let's say, the invoice were issued last year and also most of the cash was collected during 2025 regarding this contract. Then we have also a decrease in trade payables of approximately EUR 7.3 million and a positive contribution of EUR 11.2 million coming from tax consolidation payables. In this semester, we already mentioned the group completed also EUR 35 million in terms of acquisition. So Stipa amounting to EUR 26 million, including a purchase price of EUR 12.1 million and EUR 13.9 million related to the actual value connected to the put option that we recognized in this operation. Made in Steel amounts to EUR 9 million, including a purchase price of EUR 7.7 million with on top of the impact of the possible earnout to be paid to the seller, which amounts to approximately EUR 1.3 million in actual value. Dividends and buyback amounted to EUR 20.7 million together. As a result, the net free cash flow was negative for EUR 48 million approximately. This result was mainly driven by the temporary working capital absorption, as you can see, which was probably the main impact we had to face, M&A investment and the shareholder remuneration, while the underlying operation performance remained quite strong. On guidance, Francesco already anticipated this point. We already upgraded our guidance during the first quarter 2026. In this moment, we can confirm the same guidance. So revenues in the region of EUR 380 million, EUR 400 million, EBITDA in the range of EUR 100 million, EUR 110 million. What we can anticipate is that with these results, we will probably wait for the Q3 in order to be even more confident about the possibility to reach the top part of this range. At this point, I will leave the floor to Alice Gattone in order to speak about some ESG topics.

Thank you, Massimo. Just a final note on sustainability. As was mentioned before, we are proud to have been recognized as a top ESG performance and ranked among the top 10 Italian listed company in the ESG Identity Corporate Index 2026. Which is Italy leading independent recognition for a company that must integrate ESG factors into their business model, confirming the continued progress of our ESG strategy and the strength of our long-term commitment to sustainable value creation. With this, we conclude today's presentation. We are now ready to open the floor for the Q&A session and take your questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] First question is from Emanuele Gallazzi, Equita.

I have actually 4 questions. The first one is if you can just give us some color on the performance of the main events of the second half like the CPHI or the EICMA. Then in terms of guidance, if you can provide some indication on the net cash position you expect at the end of 2026. Still on the exhibition business, I was wondering if you can, let's say, update us on your pipeline of international events you're going to host. And the last point is related to The Live Dome. I saw the press release. Can you just elaborate a little bit more on the strategy? I think you will provide more details clearly with the business plan. But if you can provide, say, some early comments on the strategy on the entertainment related to The Live Dome, when do you expect the construction work to start? And basically, when do you expect to have the full availability of the new venue?

Thanks, Emanuele, for your question. So let's start from your first one was about the H2 performance. So in H2, we will host a couple of very important events. The most important for sure is CPHI, the events organized by Informa. And then we have also like every year EICMA Motor, which is a very positive momentum since the last couple of years. CPHI is expected to grow compared to the previous edition that was offered in Milan in 2024. So we expect this exhibition to occupy additional 2 pavilion and to bring additional exhibitors, which for us is the real key in terms of profitability because as we already mentioned, when you attract this kind of international events, part of -- the main part of the result is coming from the services that we are able to sell and it's not mainly related to the square meters. So square meters, so the additional 2 pavilions for us are better news just because we know that there will be additional exhibitors. The area in itself is not bringing a huge increase in terms of profitability compared to the previous edition. Anyway, we expect to grow in a sensible way on CPHI compared to the last edition. I would say that we expect to grow at least by 10%, 15% in terms of profitability. And on EICMA, again, we do not expect very additional square meters. So we see a growth in terms of square meters, the exhibition will occupy more or less the same pavilion as of the last edition, but we expect to increase our share in terms of services provided to the exhibitors and to the organizer. So we expect to grow compared to the last edition in the region of 5%, 10%. So H2 in a like-for-like view is in this moment positive. Regarding the guidance on net cash, we mentioned in this moment analyzing the balance sheet that we have EUR 25 million credit versus Fondazione Milano Cortina, we should collect this money by the third quarter and probably a minor part of it will be collected by the end of the year. So this taking into consideration, so considering this amount as collected by the end of the year, I think it's reasonable to think to our net financial position in the range of EUR 110 million. This clearly depends on our capability to collect all these credits from Milano Cortina by the end of the year. Third question was about the -- sorry, I go to The Live Dome question, the fourth one, so which is the strategy. Well, let's start from the fact that as of today, the major jobs -- the major works will be carried out by Fondazione Fiera Milano in order to adapt this pavilion to the needs of the -- not only music events, but a lot of other kind of events like sports events and let's say, in general entertainment events. These major works will be concluded by the end of February, I think, so starting from 1st of March. we should be able to host events, major events in this new space that can be used and that can host up to 40,000 people when we -- in the configuration in which we will not use the tribunes, while using the tribunes, we should be able to host up to 22,000 persons, which it's a good value proposition in this moment, considering that neither of the 2 actual venue in Milan, Santa Giulia and Assago are able to provide this kind of capability. Clearly, attached to this major works, there will be an increase in the rental that we have -- that we have negotiated considering the ramp-up of the new revenues coming from this new business line, the entertainment and also the conference expo business line. So rent will reach in 2031 additional [ EUR 1,350 million ]. But this is the -- I mean, we will reach this value with a gradual increase. So in 2027, the rental increase will be only EUR 340,000, and then we will gradually ramp up to [ EUR 1,350 million ] And then the third question was about the international non-resident events. So confirmed in 2026, you know there is already CPHI for this year and useless to say that we are trying to negotiate additional events with Informa. It's not an easy job. It's not already done. We have to perform this coming exhibition. And then at the end of the exhibition, we will start discussion with Informa in order to see if there is any room in order to host again CPHI in the future. Inter airport, we already mentioned is a new exhibition that will take place in October 2027 in addition to the one that we already announced because we will have ROTORS in -- EUROPEAN ROTORS already announced in 2027. We just announced in 2026 because they already happened the SEAQUIP exhibition and the MAPIC. And we are also negotiating the renewal of additional exhibition like EXPO Ferroviaria, which is already happening in our site, but it's likely to happen again in 2027. We are clearly, as we are doing with reference to CPHI and Informa, we are also already negotiating and trying to bring back to Milan some very important exhibition like Gastech, ITMA, and FESPA, which is not an exhibition that we already host, but it will be a new addition to our calendar. But in this moment, these are under negotiation, so we cannot rely on the presence of this exhibition. In terms of congresses, you know that in 2027, this was already announced a couple of years ago, but now we are very close to the moment that will happen. So we will host the European Congress of the Society of Cardiology, which is the largest congress in the world. And we will also host the ERS, European Respiratory Society Congress. These are 2 of the main -- the main largest congress events. And for the coming year, we are also involved in this moment with additional very important congresses. We have no confirmation in this moment to be announced, but work is in progress also to attract additional important congress in the coming years.

Next question is from Simonetta Chiriotti, Mediobanca.

A couple of questions also from my side. The first is how do you see the evolution of net profit and EPS in light of the good performance of the first half of the year? And another question on the new event that you have announced the inter airport event, which is roughly the size of this event? And finally, if you can give us an update on M&A, if there is anything that can be commented.

Thanks, Simonetta for your question. So related to net profit, at this stage, we could anticipate a range of profit in the region of EUR 30 million, EUR 35 million by the end of the year. And in terms of dividend distribution, in this moment, we cannot anticipate any kind of policy. But considering this kind of net profit, I mean, we could consider something which is related to what we already did during 2024 and -- sorry, 2025 and 2026. So I would consider these 2 value as the range in which we will decide the dividend distribution. Regarding inter airport is a conference expo we expect approximately EUR 1.5 million, EUR 2 million additional revenues coming from this kind of event. Clearly, these are not huge events in terms of dimension, but here, the game is to bring as many as we can. They rotate very easily. They do not occupy the venue for lots of days. So I mean it's interesting this kind of business line for this reason for us. And related to the M&A potential operation in this moment, we are negotiating 3 possible acquisition one will -- there is the possibility if a possibility is not something already written that can be -- can happen in the second half of the year because we are really close to the final step of this, but it's something that we need to assess. Other 2 probably will -- I mean, the possibility to conclude these 2 operation is in this moment at an early stage and are related to exhibition organizers.

Next question is from Andrea Bonfa, Banca Akros.