JCDecaux SE (DEC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the JCDecaux 2024 Annual Results Presentation. I will now hand over to Jean-Charles Decaux, Chairman of Executive Board and Co-CEO. Sir, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 2024 Full Year Results Conference Call. The speaker on this call will be Jean-Francois Decaux, Co-Chief Executive Officer; David Bourg, Chief Financial, IT and Administrative Officer, and I. Remi Grisard, Head of Investor Relations, is also attending today's conference call. 2024 was a very robust year for JCDecaux. Thanks to our unique and geographically well-diversified global OOH media footprint, we are reporting today very solid numbers for 2024, including a strong organic revenue growth at 9.7% and double-digit increases in all our key financial indicators. All this, despite the challenging microeconomic and geopolitical environment, including a lack of recovery in China, which remains well below 2019. We achieved in 2024, a group revenue above 2019, and most importantly, an operating margin of EUR 764.5 million, growing by 15.3%, and a net income of EUR 258.9 million, growing by 23.8%, and a free cash flow of EUR 231.9 million, all close to their record high. We think we can continue to grow these numbers in the coming years. Moving to the next slide, with an organic growth rate close to 10%, JCDecaux, and more broadly, OOH, continued to gain market share in 2024 in the media landscape. Please note that, we consider that the major sporting events of the year, the Paris Olympics and the Euro in Germany, contributed to around 1% of this organic growth this year. Our Q4 has been a record quarter, with an organic growth of 3.6% above our guidance of a low-single digit. This is our best quarter ever in terms of revenue, and also of level of activity. The comparison base was much higher in Q4 than in the previous quarters of the year, which explains the deceleration of our organic growth rate year-on-year. But our performance compared to historical levels was higher than Q3, which included the Olympics, a continuation of our quarter-on-quarter improvement and solid business momentum despite lack of growth from China. In the next slide, you will see that our Q4 organic growth has been driven mainly by Street Furniture, followed by Transport, while Billboard was close to flat after several quarters of strong performance. Moving to the full-year view, our 2024 revenue growth was very balanced between our 3 activities. Street Furniture grew by 8.3% from a base which was already very solid. Transport continued to rebound with 13.1% organic growth. This was due in part to global air traffic growth. In this activity, China grew mid-single digit, including some portfolio effects. The growth outside China was above 15%. Billboard saw significant growth of 6.6% on an organic basis, a notable improvement compared to previous periods, plus 0.7% in 2023, driven by its most digitized markets. Moving now to the geography. All geographic areas grew significantly this year. The United Kingdom was the fastest-growing geography, growing by 18.4% as JCDecaux is gaining share, making the U.K. now our second-largest market by revenue. France, rest of Europe, Asia Pacific, and rest of the world grew high-single digit. Our unique business global OOH model is very well diversified by activities, and most importantly, by geographies. Street Furniture now accounts for 50.8% of total revenue. Transport, at 35.3%, has not yet recovered its 2019 revenue share of more than 40%. Our largest country, France, accounted for 17.6% of total revenue, while China, which made up 18% of group revenue in 2019, now accounts for around 10% of total revenue. In the meantime, we are also very well diversified in terms of customer categories, as shown on Slide 10. All our top 10 advertising categories, sectors, grew in 2024, and 6 out of 10 even grew double-digits. Our #1 category, Fashion, Personal Care, & Luxury Goods, continued to grow faster than the group average at plus 11%, while T&T at 42%, and FMCG at plus 17%, were the best-performing sector. Digital revenue grew by 21.7% organically, well above our long-term average of plus 17%. Its share in our total revenue increased from 35.3% in 2023 to 39% in 2024 and even 42.9% in Q4. This represents a strong increase in digital revenue penetration, close to 5 percentage points higher than the year before. At the same time, despite the conversion of some premium sites to digital, analog revenue grew by 3.2% this year. Our digital revenue breakdown remained very much in line with our business mix, proving that digital is relevant in our 3 activities. Share of digital revenue grew in all 3 segments. In Street Furniture, digital revenue grew to reach 36.9% with the highest digital CAGR over the long period at 24.2%. In Transport, our most digitized segment, digital revenue grew to reach 44.1%. Billboard, digital revenue grew to reach 33.8%. Moving now to the next slide, you will see that our digital revenue contribution remains unequaled as 5 countries, namely the U.K., the U.S., Australia, but also Germany and China, account for 60% of our total group digital revenue. We still have a lot of room for growth. As you can see, some countries are quickly catching up, such as Germany, where the digital revenue share increased from 38% to 45%, and China from 21% to 30%. We still have a lot of room for growth. Let's move to a fast-growing part of our digital revenue, programmatic advertising. Programmatic revenue continued to grow strongly at 45.6% in 2024 to reach EUR 145.9 million, or 9.5% of our digital revenue versus 8% last year. Programmatic revenues remain so far mainly incremental and new money coming from targeted campaigns and from the long tail of advertisers, which enables us to generate higher yields for our digital inventory. They also include new types of campaigns from major brands, such as the one on the right, which was linked to flight data and targeting specific groups of traveler at Paris airports. We expect the strong growth of our programmatic revenue to continue as some important countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, are already at 30% in terms of share of digital revenue coming from programmatic. We think that the penetration of programmatic will continue to increase and should double to reach around 20% in the near future. On this image, you can see a campaign in Germany where the content was adapted in real-time depending on targeting and to include the current waiting times for rides at the exact location of the advertising panels used. Now, you will see on the next slide our most important contract portfolio news for 2024. Regarding the most significant ones in Europe, we have won both all bus shelters in Greater Stockholm, and the major metro stations in the Swedish capital, which will start in 2026. We have renewed the iconic TfL bus shelter contract and the bus shelters of Rome after renewing the contract of the Metro of Rome. After this victory of Rome, the Eternal City, we will have for the first time in Italy premium digital locations in the best parts of the historic heart of Rome. In synergy with Milan and other major Italian cities' in Street Furniture, having the same OOH operator covering Rome and Milan in Street Furniture has never happened in the past. In China, we have also won the airport of Shenzhen and renewed the Hong Kong MTR and the airport of Macau. In Australia, we have renewed the contracts for Sydney Airports and Sydney Buses. In Brazil, we have won a new contract for the city information panels in Rio de Janeiro. We have confirmed this year also our excellent ESG performance. Thanks to our continued environmental actions, the group has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions Scope 1, 2, 3 market-based by nearly 30% in 2024 compared to 2019. Our business model is virtuous to meet climate change challenges, as illustrated by its high share of revenue, nearly 50% aligned with the Green Taxonomy European Regulation. Our performance was recognized as best-in-class by extra-financial rating agencies, including our placement on the CDP A-List for the second year in a row, and Gold Medal status from EcoVadis. I will now hand over to David for the presentation of our financial highlights of the year.

Thank you, Jean-Charles, and good morning, everyone. First, there's a summary table of our financial results with this slide, which clearly illustrates our solid performance in 2024, with all our indicators in green, showing significant growth. Revenue grew by 10.2%, an increase of EUR 365 million, driving by strong revenue momentum and including a positive Scope effect of EUR 32 million, slightly offset by an unfavorable FX impact of EUR 14 million. All other financial KPIs from operating margin to free cash flow demonstrate a strong improvement and very solid performance, down to our net debt, which decreased from 1 EUR billion to EUR 756 million. Let's now, review the evolution of our operating margin on the next slide. It increased from EUR 663 million to EUR 765 million, plus 16.3% year-on-year, with a good operating leverage at 1.5x the revenue growth. Rents and fees increased by 10%, aligning with the revenue growth, largely due to the challenging conditions in China. Other operating costs are contained with an increase limited to 8.1%, 5.9% organically, excluding the cost of goods sold, which rises in proportion to revenue. Below the operating margin on the next slide at the bottom of the table, our EBIT stands at EUR 408 million, an increase of EUR 126 million, plus 44.8% year-on-year. The improvement mainly comes from the growth of our operating margin by EUR 101 million, and EUR 45 million capital gain from the sale of part of our stake in APG, as it was already included in our H1 results. Adjusted from the impairment and the line other items in the middle of the table, where this APG capital gain is included, our recurring EBIT has increased by 36.5%, twice the growth rate of the operating margin. The strong operating leverage thanks to a limited increase in amortization at EUR 17.8 million, plus 4.6% year-on-year, and a reduction in spare part consumption by EUR 1.3 million. The next slide, Page 22, confirms the increase in our operating rate across all business segments. Overall, the operating margin rate reach 19.4%, up by 80 bps, while the EBIT margin is at 10.2%, or 9% excluding the APG capital gain. By segment, the operating margin rate for the Street Furniture is close to 26% at 29 -- at 25.9%, and the EBIT margin stands at 12.7%,an new improvement limited to 10 bps versus 2023, despite double-digit revenue growth due to 2023 benefiting from one-off positive impacts from contract renegotiations. The operating margin rate of the Large Format has improved significantly by 470 bps to reach 16.6% of the revenue. The EBIT margin came back to a positive territory at 3.5%, a notable improvement thanks to the most digitized countries and the streamlining of our Large Format portfolio in France. Margin rate in Transport also increased significantly, but they remain still below the pre-COVID levels due to the current situation in China, which affects this segment. Now, let's look to how the net result under IFRS is formed in Page 23. From the EBIT that I have just commented, we have to deduct the contribution from joint control company for EUR 55 million and to add EUR 95 million related to the fixed rents of our advertising concession in accordance with IFRS 16. This brings us to an IFRS EBIT of EUR 448 million, plus 21% year-on-year, a lower growth than the EBIT without IFRS 16 due to the one-off gain recorded in 2023 on the IFRS 16 restatement, related to the termination of lease liability on some contract renegotiations. After deducting financial charges of EUR 136 million, taxes of EUR 65 million, and minority interest of EUR 34 million, 2024 net income group share amounts to EUR 258.9 million, an increase of 23.6%, aligning globally with our IFRS EBIT variation. Between IFRS EBIT and the net income group share, 3 items I would like to draw your attention to. First, the financial interest related to IFRS 16 liabilities improved by EUR 8.5 million thanks to the reduction of the IFRS liabilities in our balance sheet from EUR 2.7 billion at the end of 2023 to EUR 2.3 billion at the end of 2024. Then, other financial charges of EUR 61 million include net financial interest at minus EUR 32 million, which are stable year-on-year. They also include minus EUR 28 million of various financial costs, including a EUR 22.6 million impairment loss on a loan in China, offset by positive impacts from discount and FX effects, with, in the end, a reduction in this line by EUR 2.2 million. And last, income tax, which increased by EUR 32 million, linked to the improvement in our results with an effective tax rate coming back to a more normalized level of 21%, compared to around 14% in 2023, a year, 2023, that benefited from reversals of provision on deferred tax assets in line with the improvement of our financial outlook. Before impairment charge, our net income reaches, EUR 281 million, mainly driven by our solid operational performance and the capital gain on APG. Let's move, now to our cash flow analysis, Page 24, very solid operating cash flows in the middle of the table at EUR 530 million, around 70% of the operating margin, which is a very good conversion rate and relatively stable compared to 2023. Below this line, the working capital requirement is back on track after the one-off payments in 2023 of over EUR 100 million in relation with some contract renegotiations. The working capital variation has a positive impact of EUR 25 million on our free cash flow, despite the double-digit revenue growth, mainly thanks to an effective cash collection management. After a CapEx of EUR 324 million, a decrease of EUR 30 million versus 2023, which was affected by the last payment of the Shanghai Metro advertising rights for EUR 27 million, we delivered a solid free cash flow of EUR 231.9 million. Regarding our CapEx, as you can see on the next slide, Page 25, as expected, after payments related to the Shanghai Metro advertising rights in 2022 and 2023, it returns to around 8% of our revenue, in line with the group's average over the last -- over the past 10 years. On the next slide, a summary of our financial structure, which is very solid as well. Our financial debt has reduced by nearly EUR 250 million, down from EUR 1 billion at the end of 2023 to EUR 756 million, mainly thanks to the free cash flow generated over the period. Financial investments represent this year an inflow of EUR 37.7 million due to the proceeds from the APG transaction for EUR 88 million, which was partly allocated to M&A. Our debt leverage is less than 1x our operating margin versus 1.5x at the end of 2023. Our debt profile is well balanced with an average maturity of our gross debt of nearly 4 years, and no significant reimbursement before 2028. And finally, a strong liquidity over EUR 2 billion, including EUR 1.3 billion of available cash and EUR 825 million of confirmed revolving credit lines undrawn maturing mid-2026. Finally, given this solid financial results with a significant increase in our net income, strong free cash flow generation and a robust financial structure and after suspending shareholder dividends for 5-years, we have decided to resume our dividend policy. Therefore, we will recommend a dividend of EUR 0.55 per share at the next AGM in May. And going forward, we also intend to gradually increase the dividend while maintaining a well-balanced allocation of our cash between CapEx and bolt-on M&A. That's it for the main elements of our financial results, and I will now hand over to Jean-Francois for the outlook.

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. On Slide 29, you clearly see that out-of-home media is a growth media, driven by increasing audiences and the ongoing digitization. As shown on this slide, GroupM, the world's largest media buyer, forecast digital out-of-home to be the fastest-growing media segment over the next 6 years, outpacing online with an 8.2% CAGR. Out-of-home media as a whole is expected to grow by 6.1% CAGR, including a solid performance from analog at 4.8%. This clearly sets us apart from other traditional media, which are facing a structural decline. Slide 30, Digital out-of-home will also be driven by programmatic, which is a huge market of nearly $300 billion for online, which is more than 5x the size of the out-of-home media market. With automated trading, we can target the long tail of advertisers and increase significantly our addressable revenue pool. We are best positioned to benefit from this growth, and we own 2 leading platforms, displayce, a DSP and VIOOH, an SSP. We are the only out-of-home media company owning such programmatic assets. We can notice that some of their peers, including Hivestack and more recently, Vistar have been acquired by Tech and Telecom companies for very significant amounts, which demonstrate the increasing value of such assets. Slide 31, I wanted to show you with the next slide that our media out-of-home, thanks to digital innovation and growing audiences is clearly gaining market share in some major markets. Out-of-home media gained around 5% in the media mix over the past 10 years in Germany, Brazil and Australia, surpassing or being very close to surpass 10% of total advertising spend. On the next Slide 32, air travel grew by 9.2% in 2024, surpassing for the first time, 2019 levels and is expected to continue to grow strongly by 6.2% in 2025. And looking ahead, reaching more than 22 billion passengers in 2050. We are best positioned to benefit from this growth as we operate advertising concessions in 157 airports worldwide, including 12 out of the 25 largest airports. Our revenue is already more than 20% above 2019 in the U.S. and in the Middle East. On the next Slide 33, China remains a key market for out-of-home. It is today the second largest advertising market in the world, and it is forecasted to become the largest out-of-home market in the world from 2025 according to GroupM. Today, it represents around 10% of our revenue compared to 18% in 2019, as explained by Jean-Charles, and the level of activity remained low at the beginning of this year. We are currently adjusting our contracts to reflect this lower level of activity. The fast digitization, which accelerated since the latest renewals of our largest contracts should also continue to support the development of our business in China. On the next Slide 34, you can see that the level of activity is lower for tenders in 2025. Among the most significant, we can name the Street Furniture of Barcelona, Danish Rail and Nanjing Metro in China. Most of these tenders now include a significant share of Digital. On Slide 35, our climate trajectory aiming to achieve net zero carbon by 2050 was approved by the SBTi in June. To achieve our Scope 3 target, which represents 90% of our CO2 emissions, we need a strong evolution of public procurement to take into account ESG in all tenders and to choose solutions such as refurbishment of Street Furniture, which are much less intensive in carbon emissions than new infrastructures. On Slide 36, now looking at our competitive landscape. We are now the only global out-of-home media company, #1 in a fragmented market. We consider that our competitive position has strengthened in 2024, given some difficulties faced by local competitors in China and the exit of Clear Channel from all non-U.S. geographies. It is worth remembering that all traditional media companies such as CBS and CCO in the U.S., HT in Australia have failed to extract revenue synergies between linear television and our radio with out-of-home media. We will continue our bolt-on acquisition strategy as we did in 2024, a year marked by operations in Central America. So in conclusion, on Slide 37, our key takeaways for today are the following ones: First, strong revenue growth driven by Digital. Second, programmatic continued to significantly gain share in our digital revenue. Third, we have very significantly enhanced our profitability. Fourth, we maintain strict control of our CapEx and selective allocation of our capital as evidenced by the APG SGA transaction and our lower CapEx to sales ratio. Fifth, given our solid 2024 results and our strong financial structure, we will be proposing a dividend of EUR 0.55 per share at the next AGM. On Slide 38, moving to our guidance. With a solid business momentum in early 2025, we expect around plus 5% organic revenue growth in Q1. And finally, on Slide 39, we are providing for the first time greater visibility into our financial trajectory with key financial targets for 2026 on our most significant indicators. Going forward and building on our revenue momentum, we target for 2026, an operating margin rate above 20% and a free cash flow above EUR 300 million. Thank you for your attention. Jean-Charles, David and myself are now ready to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] And now we're going to take our first question, and the question comes from the line of James Tate.

It's James Tate from Goldman Sachs. I just had a couple of questions, please. Firstly, could you give some more color on the environment in China and what you're seeing so far in 2025? Have you started to see an improvement following some of the government policy stimulus announced at the end of last year? And I guess, what are your expectations for the full year? And secondly, on free cash flow, 2024 and the target 2026 free cash flow of greater than EUR 300 million was much better than the market expected. Could you perhaps give some more detail on what's really driving the improvement here and some of the moving parts to get to your target? And just a follow-on, how confident are you in achieving this target? Do you need to deliver certain levels of growth over the next couple of years to get there?

Thank you, James. The line was not very good for the second question, but David will take on the questions on the free cash flow target. And I will take your first question on China. As you know, we are not delivering any guidance on a specific country basis. But on China, what we can say is that the business is basically stable, not basically really recovering. Certainly, you can say that it's getting a bit better, but we can't talk about any recovery at the moment. The good news is that we have been able to, as we said in the presentation, to readjust some contracts given the situation in, I would say, in good faith with our partners in China. And the good news is that, we have been able, as you have seen, to obviously offset the weight of China in 2019 versus now in 2024 by the contribution of the rest of the world. So we have been able to continue to operate in China with a good contract duration for the future with a reassessment of our contract base and with certainly a big optionality when the business will start to really recover. That's what we can say at the moment. We don't see any further deterioration. That's for sure. But we can't say really today that we see -- we hope that the recovery will start to happen in 2025 at some point. But at the moment, we can't say that the business is really rebounding. You can say that, it is slightly improving, but not really rebounding at the moment. On the free cash flow target, David, even though the question was not clear, very clear cut, we understand that what you want to understand is what does that mean for 2024 and 2025. Is that your question, James?

Hopefully, the line is better now, but just understanding what's really driving the improvement to greater than EUR 300 million and your confidence in achieving that target. Do you need to deliver certain levels of growth over the next couple of years?

This is what I understood that you wanted to know why the free cash flow was better than the consensus at the end of the day. And it is clearly, due to the fact that our revenue growth at the end of the year was also better than expected and driving directly impacting positively our free cash flow generation by the end of the year. When you look at our free cash flow, operating free cash flow before working capital and CapEx, the rate conversion is quite good at 70%. It is quite stable and operating free cash flow growing at 10%, in line with last year, as I mentioned in the call. And regarding to the working capital variation, it was also better than expected at the end of the year due to the record Q4 that we delivered. Regarding our confidence to deliver the target at EUR 300 million in 2026, it will be mainly driven by the revenue momentum, which is good at this beginning of the year. And as you can see, our free cash flow is driven by the revenue performance, point number one, our capacity to maintain our OpEx increasing or contain at a reasonable level and also our CapEx to be maintained around 8%. So to answer directly to your question, yes, we are quite confident. That's why we are giving this target to the market today.

[Operator Instructions] And now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Conor O'Shea.

Congratulations on the results. 3 questions from me. First question, maybe I missed it in the presentation, a lot of results this morning. But can you give us the number for the revenues for VIOOH in 2024 and what you would expect for 2025? Second question, your German peer reported this morning and guided 13%, 14% growth in the first quarter in the German market in outdoor on top of a double-digit comp is very strong. Are you seeing the same trends in the German market for your activity? And then the third question, just in terms of the recent renewal in Paris, I think was won by your competitor, Cities for the CIP panels. It seems that if I read it correctly, it seems that it implies quite a significant reduction in advertising space in year 1 and year 2 that they can exploit. Is that the case? Is that your understanding? And is this a risk for your renewals for the bus shelter contracts in Paris going forward? And can you remind us when those renewals are?

Thank you, Conor. David will take the VIOOH question. Jean-Francois the Stroer one, and I will take the Paris one. So David, on the VIOOH.

Yes. The revenue for VIOOH in 2024 was EUR 146 million, growing by 46%. And we expect the revenue from VIOOH to continue to grow significantly, double-digit.

And is it past breakeven, David?

It is almost breakeven. It will be breakeven. It will be -- yes, it is almost breakeven and should be slightly positive in 2025.

Regarding your second question on the guidance for the German out-of-home media market, which was given by Stroer this morning of around 13%, 14%. I think that, if I read the press release correctly, it's not an organic revenue growth guidance because it takes into account the acquisition of RBL, which was done in Q4 of last year, which I think they're saying they're accounting for 2% of total revenue, but total revenue is not only out-of-home media revenue. It includes also Stroer, Asiaray. So if you adjust from the noncore business, it's probably more 4%, 5%, point number one. Point number 2, Election in February, which just happened, is another reason why Stroer benefits from that because they have a lot of Billboards on private ground where they can take election money. Most of our assets in Germany are Street Furniture assets built on the municipal contracts where political advertising is not allowed. So we cannot benefit from the election money in Germany. Unlike some other markets like, for example, Austria or Italy, when there are elections, we are allowed to carry election campaigns on our Street Furniture assets, but not in Germany. So if you add RBL and the election money, I think the true organic growth rate will be lower. And right now, our German market is more or less in line with that true organic growth revenue indicated by Stroer this morning. It's a very dynamic market where clearly, out-of-home is gaining share. It's now about 9% of total media spend, which is part of our presentation. And I mentioned that together with Brazil and also Australia. Out-of-home is clearly gaining share in the German out-of-home -- in the German media market as a whole.

Regarding Paris, I would say that, it's a very unusual contract, the one that you are referring to because it was just a 2-year contract. It's a contract where on the first year, the advertising will be reduced by 50% so this year. And next year, it will be reduced by 90%, so in 2026, by the end of the year, 90% of this contract will be municipal faces rather than advertising phases. So you can understand the reason why certainly the local basically incumbent decided to bid for it, where we decided to be quite basically conservative. So I don't think you can draw any conclusion on this. As you know, we are a market leader in Paris and in France. And I think when we didn't win that contract back 5-years ago, we told you that this contract will not impact basically very negatively our business in France. Actually, we are above 2019 without these contracts in our hands now. So it shows you again, Conor, that we were pretty much very clear cut with the market by the fact that we were capable with our inventory in Paris, both the bus shelters as well as the kiosk to basically overcome this contract. So I mean, at the end of the day, I think one of the key rationale of our development at JCDecaux is the discipline and the capability from a marketing standpoint and the commercial standpoint to basically reassess depending on the situation, reassess our marketing and commercial offer. And Paris, I think it's a good example of it. And the rationale of the rationale of our basically business is more important than any contract win sometimes on very high numbers. When you -- back to your questions, basically, the bus shelters is still have quite to go. So it's 2029 -- 2028 last 31st of December 2028. So we still have a lot to go. And so we are now in a quite good momentum with our new kiosk offer. So I think this decision, locally speaking, will have no impact on our business in France whatsoever because of the point made in my answer to your questions, Conor.

Increase your pricing power given that there will be lower supply of competing inventory in the market from this CIP contract?

Yes. But you know us well. I think we prefer to always be basically on the understatement than overstatement. And I think we have shown that to you over the years. And in this case, it is clear that, it's the activation of that contract over the next 2 years. When you lose 50% Tier 1 and 80% Tier 2, you can imagine that you could have a positive impact on our businesses, but this is something that we will have to show you in our numbers to come.

[Operator Instructions] And now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Eric Ravary.

Two questions, please. First one on the renewal of the renegotiations of contracts in China. Could we have an order of magnitude of the impact that it could have on the EBITDA for 2025? And the second question is on Billboard margin. The improvement was very impressive in 2024. What level of margin do you consider now normative for Billboard, if you consider the ongoing downsizing of your footprint in France?

Yes. Thank you for your question, Eric. I will take the first one, and David will take the Billboard margin one. On China, no, we can't disclose basically our contract readjustment policy, as you can imagine. But it is something which is quite significant at the Chinese operation level, as you can imagine. So -- but this is something that is kind of managing our assets in the best interest of JCDecaux and with the full respect to our partners in China, in which, as you know, in some key cities in China, we are in joint venture. So we are pretty much aligned with our partners given the macroeconomic situation in the country. We have been operating in China for the last 25 years with full respect to our obligation -- contractual obligation, legal obligation and also full respect to our partners. So it is clearly something that we are very proud of. And we think that this is something that will pay off in 2025, because as soon as the business rebounds in China and it will, at some point, improve and recover, our basically asset base has been readjusted to the new norm in China. And this is something, I think, very important. And this is something that we have said to the market over the last few months that China was basically at a breakeven position. And we have seen -- and you have seen in our set of numbers this morning that despite basically the situation in the market, we have been able to overcome the Chinese decline over the last few years with the rest of our portfolio. And that's the beauty of being a diversified and very focused global pure player in the industry, when some markets sometimes have difficulties you can overcome with the rest of the market. And the good news is that, this is not only coming from the emerging world, but it is also coming from the United States, it's coming from Europe. So it's pretty much over the globe that we have been able to compensate the Chinese situation. On the Billboard margin, David?

Yes. Over the last few years, we have done a significant work in order to bring back our operating margin rate on the Billboard business segment to between 15% to 20%, thanks to digitalization. We are now at 16.6% with a positive EBIT margin. So our next challenge will be to bring our EBIT margin on the trajectory towards the 20%. And this is what we will work on in the next few months.

David, you mentioned 20% for the margin for the whole group or for Billboard?

No, for the Billboard business segment.

Okay. Okay.

Yes. And the -- and the target for the whole group, as you have understood during the presentation will be to be above 20% by 2026.

And now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Julien Roch.

Yes. I'll start with -- apologies, 4 number questions for David and then 2 other ones. On factoring in 2024 was EUR 237.5 million in the first half. Where did you end up in 2024, number one? Number 2, have you budgeted any factoring increase in your above EUR 300 million of free cash flow? That's number 2. Percentage of rent and fees that was fixed in '24 was 66.7% in '23. And then what level of CapEx in '25 can we expect either absolute or in percentage, can we see 8% again? Then for either Jean-Charles or Jean-Francois, what contracts have you lost in '24? I got Hong Kong Tramway and Leipzig, Dortmund plus Rio in Street Furniture. Anything else I'm missing? And then lastly, you say percentage of programmatic was incremental -- what percentage of programmatic was incremental advertisers? You said majority, but are we talking 50%, 70%, 90%?

Thank you, Julien, for those set of questions. So David, you start?

Yes, Julien. Thank you. Regarding the factoring last year, at the end of 2023, the amount of factoring was EUR 256 million. This year, it was EUR 277 million, an increase of about EUR 20 million, impacting positively our free cash flow by EUR 20 million. This is my answer regarding the factoring. Regarding the CapEx, we are, as you know, working -- our ratio CapEx to sales this year is at 8.2%, and we will continue to work on CapEx to sales ratio around 8% for 2025. Regarding your second question, Julien, could you repeat it because I'm not sure that I got it.

It's the percentage of rent and fees that is fixed in '24.

As a percentage of -- but it has not -- in 2024, it has not changed. As we said previously, 1/3 of our rent and fees is variable. 2/3 is fixed out of the 2/3, as you know there is 1/3 which is completely fixed, 1/3 which is linked to inflation and 1/3 which is linked to inflation, but with a cap. Regarding your last question, I think it was the impact of the factoring into the target of above EUR 300 million for 2026. Am I correct?

Yes. Have you budgeted any increase in factoring in the EUR 300 million?

No -- not significantly. It should be what we have assumed is an increase in line with the top line. But as you have seen, this year, the factoring and the increase in the factoring was quite small, only EUR 20 million out of EUR 277 million. And in the EUR 300 million target this factor an increase, but very minimal.

On your last question, why did you mention Leipzig and Dortmund?

I thought you lost Leipzig and Dortmund to Stroer or to the company that Stroer bought, but maybe I'm wrong. I just wanted to know what contract you lost in '24.

Okay. Okay. So in fact, Leipzig was lost, but Leipzig was lost in -- just after COVID to a company called RBL, which, as you said, was acquired by Stroer last year. And Dortmund wasn't completely lost because we won the digital freestanding Street Furniture, which is, in our opinion, the better lot for the Street Furniture tender in Dortmund. And we lost the traditional analog bus shelters to the same company, RBL, and this is now operated by Stroer as a result of the acquisition of RBL last year. But in Dortmund, we have the better portfolio. So I wouldn't present this as a loss, unlike Leipzig, which was clearly a loss. So what we lost last year, Julien, was RET bus shelter in Rotterdam, which are 100% analog, not digital, same story like Dortmund. We have the freestanding digital Street Furniture in Rotterdam, which is a much better, much more visible asset. Obviously, we lose our total exclusivity, which we would have liked to keep. But we felt that this contract, which was a bit loss-making. Sometimes the price of exclusivity is such that it's -- in our opinion, not worth keeping the exclusivity in order to keeping the exclusivity with contracts which are operated on low margins, and that was clearly the case in Rotterdam. And we lost the national -- nationwide bus shelter contract with the transport company of Ireland, including Dublin. So these are, in Europe, the 2 main contract losses in 2024.

And did you lose also the Hong Kong Tramway and the Rio some Rio Street Furniture? Or am I mistaken?

No. Yes. No, it was correct. It was implied in your questions. Yes, Hong Kong Tramway was lost last year. And the Rio, we won the CIP, but we lost the Street Furniture contract in 1 Lot but that will not take effect before 2027 because we still have 2 years to go. So 2025, 2026, no impact, that will start in 2027. So in fact, we will have the new contract implemented this year, 2025 from May this year, the CIP will be implemented throughout the Rio city, and we will still keep the Lot 2 and Lot 3 that was awarded to CEMUSA back 25 years ago in 2025 and 2026. That's the reason why it's this needs a clarification on that specific topic, Julien. So no impact in our numbers from those 2 lots not renewed and the positive impact from the new CIPs in Rio that was mentioned in our presentation this morning. Finally, on your last point on programmatic, the reason why we didn't mention the incremental percentages because it's still from our analysis around what we have always said, such as basically around 80% incremental. So no change in the pace of incremental revenue coming from programmatic on our -- on the VIOOH platform at the moment, Julien.

Okay. Great. And...

Yes, go ahead.

No, I said I have another question, but if there's further question on the line, then I'll shut up. But I don't know whether....

No, no, you go ahead, Julien.

So on China, I mean, if you look at the mobility indices, we're now back above 2019 in metro, in domestic airports and international did rally and is almost at 2019. So your audience is back to 2019, more or less, but the revenues half of 2019, which would indicate that either you have less panels or prices has halved. So why is pricing not recovering? Why is China not recovering when the audience has recovered?

First of all, it is clear that in our contract adjustment, we decided, as we said, that we decided not to renew some contracts. So you know this answer, Julien. You remember what we mentioned last year about the Guangzhou Metro. You remember that we didn't win again the contract. So the perimeter have changed quite significantly basically in China, since 2019. So it's not anymore pretty much comparable. So it is true that the domestic on airports has recovered. It's even above 2019. It is true that on the metro, it's now above 2019. So it's a good news. What is true is that our perimeter has been readjusted, as discussed before in our presentation, and we decided to basically keep our best assets, and we have been readjusted our contract portfolio base. That's why the comparison organically versus 2019 is not fair to us. On the other side, we have won the Shenzhen Airport. So the asset management work that we have been doing is quite substantial in China. So that's the reason why it's not absolutely comparable. What is true is that, the recovery in our current portfolio, having said that, is certainly lagging a bit the recovery from the mobility perspective, as you said in your question. That's certainly something that is happening. But it is fair to say also that seeing what we have seen, we have decided to preempt the difficulty in the context of China of lower consumption, as you know, confidence, which is historically low at the moment, which has an impact on various businesses. And on our business, certainly, this is the case at the moment.

Dear speakers, there are no further questions. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management team for any closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you for your questions. So we were pleased this morning to have you on the call. And I think as you have seen on our presentation today, again, a strong set of results for 2024, a good guidance for the first quarter targets for 2026, which are, I think, helping you in the way you model our company and certainly a low point based in China with an optionality to recover, obviously, when the market will react. So we were pleased to have you on the call this morning. We thank you for your questions, and we look forward to see you in the coming months or weeks. Thank you again. Have a good day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.