Lagardere SA (MMB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining with us today, Lagardere's first half 2022 results conference call. I'm Emmanuel Rapin, Head of Investor Relations, and I will be guiding you today through this presentation. Today, we have with us Arnaud Lagardere, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lagardere SA; Sophie Stabile, Group CFO; Fabrice Bakhouche, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Hachette Livre, and Dag Rasmussen, Chairman and CEO of Lagardere Travel Retail. This year and from now on, for all participants who will be connected via conference teams, it will be this first presentation and we will follow with a session of Q&A. [Operator Instructions] Please note that I will be reading on questions from financial analysts to be answered. Now I give the floor to Arnaud Lagardere.

Thank you, Emmanuel, and good afternoon, good evening to some of you. We changed to this new feature, Teams, to save costs obviously. And I hope it will work. If I had only 1 word to characterize the first semester, I would say it's really spectacular. The rebound of Travel Retail is spectacular. The sales of Publishing, knowing the environment is spectacular at the same time. And also the defense that we are obviously having for what we call the other medias, including [indiscernible] who, as you know, is not in really good shape, is also spectacular. And we hope, obviously, that the second semester would be good and as good as the first one. Sophie will elaborate on the numbers. She will tell you also about the free cash flow. We've done some investments, significant investment for us. And overall, we're very happy with this H1. And Sophie, please, I'll leave the floor to you and wait for some questions. I know that you have some other calls after us, so we'll try to do as quickly as we can. Sophie, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Arnaud, and good evening to everyone. Today, we are pleased to share with you an excellent H1 2022. First, Lagardere Publishing delivered a strong performance in a changing macroeconomic environment. We have been carefully monitoring inflation and its effects on the purchasing power of our customers. In this context, Lagardere Publishing maintained a stable level of revenue after historical H1 2021. Then Lagardere Travel Retail, almost doubled its revenue on a like-for-like basis. Thanks to the sharpened traffic recovery and the division favorable geographic footprint. Other activity growth was mainly supported by the reopening of live venue. Finally, the group remains in line with its steady target for 2022, its operational efficiency objectives and cash allocation results and continues to focus on business development opportunities with significant M&A activity. Let's now have a look on the main group figures. Overall, group revenue is strong at EUR 3 billion, which is close to the H1 2019 level. The operating margin, which is 3.5%, significantly above H1 2021, but also above H1 2019, which was at 2.7%. This performance is driven by the strong recovery of the Travel Retail division and the good performance of Lagardere Publishing. Due to the seasonality effect of the working capital in H1, I will not comment on the free cash flow just now, but I would like to draw your attention to the group free cash flow, excluding changes in working capital, which is now positive and which is plus EUR 54 million. We are back at a level close to H1 2019 pre-COVID. Finally, as you remember, we paid a dividend of EUR 0.50 after 2 years of nonpayment. Moving on to group revenues. Group revenue is up 38.6% like-for-like versus H1 2021. As you can see on the slide, this is essentially due to Lagardere Travel Retail, the red block and the bridge with an outstanding 97.2% revenue growth in H1 2022. Scope effect was positive EUR 53 million, which includes the acquisition of Workman Publishing, an American publishing house specializing in children titles and illustrative books. Paperblanks, the world's second leading brand in the production of premium notebooks and stationery and Creative Table Holdings, a food service company based in Dubai at Lagardere Travel Retail. Currency effect was positive by EUR 103 million, mainly due to the dollar for EUR 72 million. Let's now have a look at the group recurring EBIT. The group's recurring EBIT strongly increased from EUR 3 million to EUR 107 million. On the one hand, Lagardere Publishing recorded a lower level of profitability, minus EUR 32 million, which we will comment on the designated slide. On the other hand, Lagardere Travel Retail's recurring EBIT drastically jumped up to EUR 114 million from a minus EUR 96 million in H1 2021. Finally, other activities recurring EBIT is a break-even point, which represents an improvement of more than EUR 11 million compared to H1 2021. Moving on to the details of Lagardere Publishing activities. Lagardere Publishing achieved a high level of sales at EUR 1.2 billion in H1 2022. The division's performance which saw a slight slowdown in Q2 was driven by the strong activity of the illustrative segment with good momentum in the tourist segment as well as in children and new adult books. As for example, the performance of Pika in the manga segment, which managed to replace exceptional success last year, Attack on Titan. Thanks to the launch of new series. Lagardere's high level of sales is also the result of the division's branch capacity to take advantage of Netflix adaptation to capture social media trends and the exposure of also on social networks such as TikTok and the diversity of the portfolio, which makes it possible to benefit from the recovering segments. In H1 2022, we observe different trends by geography. Notably, a relative slowdown in France, minus 3.7%, which was mainly due to the less buoyant market in General Literature, the war in Ukraine and the important news flow on the French election could explain the softer trend. Plus 1.5% like-for-like growth in the U.K., driven by the youth segments that benefited from the social networks' effect mentioned earlier. U.S. and Canada has become the division's largest market, thanks to the acquisition of Workman Publishing even though the revenue in the U.S. was down 1.9% like-for-like. Lagardere Publishing's profitability reached EUR 81 million. Also, it is a decrease versus last year, it remained at a much higher level than in H1 2018 or 2019, respectively, at EUR 45 million and EUR 36 million. The margin level at 6.7% also improved significantly versus pre-COVID, but is impacted by the first effects of inflation, even though profitability remains very high. Let's have a look at Lagardere Publishing free cash flow. Lagardere Publishing's free cash flow before changes in working capital is down to EUR 3 million versus EUR 60 million in H1 2021. This significant reduction was linked to a higher level of income taxes, which was exceptionally low in H1 2021 and investments in CapEx for IT and distribution centers. This said, the major changes in working capital are mainly due to: first, trade payables to third-party publishers, which fell sharply. This comes from the expected decrease of high debt built in 2021, lead, as you remember, to the exceptional activity. Second, in June 2022, we made early repayments to suppliers in France in order to anticipate a change in the accounting system in July. Last, higher inventories due to securing supply in the inflation environment and of course, higher values. So as you can see, the degradation of working capital is driven by seasonal or one-off items. Moving on to Lagardere Travel Retail. In a nutshell for Lagardere Travel Retail, H1 2022 was a semester of exceptional recovery at EUR 1.7 billion, but still below 2019 at minus 19%. As you can see on the chart, the gap is closing as June just ended at minus 6% versus 2019. We continue to outperform the market due to our favorable geographic footprint and diversified locations. Besides the reduction -- besides the resumption of air traffic recovery, the efforts of the team and the operational efficiency achievements were indeed remarkable. Let's deep dive into the division revenues. Travel Retail benefited from improving travel trends in EMEA, the U.S. and the reopening of Transatlantic flights. Regional traffic accelerated in Europe, notably in Italy, Switzerland and the U.K. U.S. rebound started in Q2 '21 and accelerated since then. And on the contrary, China is still impaired by zero COVID strategy. As you can see on the right chart, the strong growth in international traffic had a positive effect on our duty free and fashion with market share of Travel Retail's activity relatively increased from 31% in H1 '21 to 37%. H1 2022 Lagardere Travel Retail returned positive recurring EBIT for the second consecutive half year, thanks to the air traffic recovery and the strong engagement of team to increase cost flexibility and drive operating excellence. Flow through exceptional low point of 6.7% results from a unique combination of factors. One-off stated due to the COVID crisis, adaptation of point-of-sales operation to air traffic and staff shortage in certain countries. We do not expect it to remain at this type of level. We will cover on this point later in the outlook. Recurring EBIT stands at positive EUR 26 million in H1 2022. Besides, all projects on the LEAP plan are well on track. Let me remind you that this plan is aimed at delivering EUR 100 million of additional recurring EBIT versus 2019 at same revenue level. Moving on to Lagardere Travel Retail free cash flow. Free cash flow before changes in working capital reached EUR 43 million versus minus EUR 67 million, mainly thanks to cash flow from operations of Travel Retail recovery after 2 difficult years. It is to be noted we are starting to increase our investments, in particular since airports are preparing future improvements. Let's move on to other activities. Revenue for 6 months were EUR 123 million, up 7.3% on a like-for-like basis. A few points to be highlighting. First, the positive performance of Lagardere Live Entertainment, whose venues have been hit hard by the healthcare crisis in the first half of 2021. Second, the good performance from press of 2% and from Elle international licenses up 6% and radio revenues, which recorded a minus 7% decline due to lower audience figures. Looking at group figures on Slide 22. Let's focus on adjusted profit group share, which is a positive EUR 25 million, mainly driven by the EUR 104 recurring EBIT increase. The group share is still negative at minus EUR 45 million due to significant nonrecurring items. Moving on to group cash flow statement. On this document, we can see 3 key items. First, the cash flow from operations before changes in working capital from EUR 38 million to EUR 144 million due to the strong recovery of the activity. Second, our CapEx increase showing our commitment for our future of the business. And third, the purchase of investments driven by our M&A acquisition. Finally, the seasonal variation of working capital and the dividend paid in April '22 explains the change in [ EBIT ]. The group's liquidity position is solid at EUR 1.6 billion. In line with our active and prudent financial strategy in H1 2022, the RCF was extended until April 2024. Moving on to the net debt. The net debt is up to EUR 1.9 billion as of June 2022 compared to EUR 1.5 billion at the end of 2021. This is due notably to the significant M&A activity and the dividend payout of EUR 70 million. However, it should be noted that the level of ratio remains almost equivalent of the last 6 months, thanks to the significant recurring EBITDA increase. Moving on to slide the shareholder structure. As you can see, Lagardere now owns 57.35% of the capital of Lagardere following its friendly public tender offer and 48.03% of the group's voting rights. As stated by the group, Lagardere will not exercise the voting rights attached to the shares acquired from Amber Capital or in the tender offer until the clearance of the takeover by European competition authorities. A few words now on the group's outlook. Lagardere Publishing guidance is maintained. In a less favorable book market, consolidated revenues are expected to remain stable in 2022. Operating margin is expected slightly above 11% for full year 2022 versus 13.5% in 2021 as profitability will be impacted by market slowdown and cost inflation. As for Lagardere Travel Retail, the business environment has significantly improved, and we are able to upgrade our flow-through guidance in 2022 to a range between 10% and 15%. Besides, we will keep focusing on reducing costs at corporate level with an additional reduction target of EUR 10 million to reach a level of EUR 35 million in 2022. To conclude, I would like to stress that in the current uncertain environment, we continue to work hard on cost savings and cash preservation as we approach complete recovery. Many thanks for your attention. We are now available to answer your questions.

Thank you, Sophie. In fact, I received questions, so I will read the first 1 from Julien Roch from Barclays. The first 1, can we get Q3 trends for Travel? And obviously, you may have some figures for July and August? And what are your expectations for the rest of the year in September to December. And obviously, Julien is asking the same question about trends in Publishing.

Julien, it's Dag speaking. As regards [indiscernible] travel for the summer. Obviously, we don't have August because the passengers haven't traveled yet. What we see is kind of stagnation at around minus 5%, 6% versus 2019 since the mid-May. I would expect this to continue during the summer. And then it would highly depend on external factors after that. I mean inflation, possible economic crisis and so on. But if we don't have any adverse external effects, I would imagine that we would progressively be close to 2019 towards the end of the year.

Regarding Q3. So for the moment, in July is the market and our revenues are really soft in the U.K., U.S. and France. So it's really the continuation of what we had in Q2 in all our geographies. That said, we have a very good publishing schedule in France, Literature with a new group Larousse, [indiscernible] and many others. And we also have a very good publishing schedule in the U.S. and in the U.K. Plus, as you may be aware of a curriculum reform in Spain, which should help a little bit revenues in Spain for Q3. So overall, I would expect a slight decrease in Q3 compared to Q3 2021. But still, we are comparing '22 with a record revenue for 2021. So compared to pre-COVID levels, we are way above.

Thank you. The next question, again from Julien Roch of Barclays, and it's more on how the ad market -- the advertising market is evolving in France? Are you seeing some slowdown because of the macro economy.

So Julien, the radio market is flat plus versus last year. And the press market is around plus 8% due to a still more deteriorated environment in H1 2021. And given the economic uncertainties and the favorable [ base ] for H1 2021, we expect a decline in this growth in H2. But we do not have a quantified estimate at this time.

Okay. So there are 2 more questions also from Julien Roch, one is about what do you think in terms of end of the year for net debt? And the second question would be about the foreign exchange benefits that we saw on the first half, if we keep the same level of exchange rates would the full -- what would the full year 2022 look like and the same question for '23.

So Julien, on the net debt, as you know, we do not give a guidance in terms of net debt. But nevertheless, as you know, the generation of cash from the publishing activity [indiscernible] in H2 than H1, of course, due to the seasonality of the activities. Therefore, we expect a quite strong decrease in net debt, excluding, of course, acquisitions. And to be in a range of leverage ratio, which would be lower than 3.5%. In terms of exchange rates, as of June, you have still impact in our presentation. What we can see that if we keep the H1 exchange rates, on our main currencies, the full year impact on results should roughly double versus H1 2022.

Then I've got a question from Adrien de Saint Hilaire from Bank of America. Do you expect the pressure on paper costs to also [ weigh ] on 2023 EBIT margin? How does this affect your midterm outlook for margin improvement in this division?

Thanks for your question, Adrien. So my answer is, yes, the pressure on paper costs will also [ weigh ] on 2023 EBIT margin. What we see now is paper costs stable at a record level. So it may marginally decrease, but we think that it will stay at a very high historic level in the second half of 2022 and 2023. However, we think that we can contain the impact on our margin of this paper cost increase with a series of measures on optimizing between trends, savings, saving money on T&E. And of course, I mentioned that a couple of times, increasing as much as we can the prices of our book. It's a very sensitive issue, but we are putting a lot of pressure on our publishers to increase prices on textbooks, cooking books, literature and so on. So we will try to use this tool as much as we can in order to offset the impact of the paper cost increase in 2023.

The last question has come from Jérôme Bodin from ODDO. What could be the impacts of the merger project between Autogrill and Dufry?

Thank you. That's the complex question, obviously. First, let me say that we see that the confirmation of the 3 business line strategy that we've been pursuing for the last 10 years and it's most likely a fundamental evolution of the industry around a more holistic approach of the whole commercial area in airports. I guess it's probably the first sign of other concentration movements. And obviously, we'd like to be an active part of the possible future concentration movements. It creates a giant in front of us. Autogrill was the largest in food. Dufry was the largest in duty free except for China duty free, which is more local and more downtown. So it's a giant against us with challenges. We love that position. This makes that we have to be more agile, but I think we are agile, thanks to a very strongly empowered local organization, which is able to move quickly. That's something we want to continue. And we're very happy to have launched the LEAP project, which creates a good cost base. So I think there would be 5. There will be competition that we are fairly convinced that we're well positioned in that. We will win, we will lose, but we think that thanks to all our partnership approach, operational excellence and the 3 business lines, I think we're well positioned for this competition in the future.

And to complete what you just said, Dag, maybe a little comment.

We don't have any more questions within this format. So I guess, Arnaud, the floor is yours.

Yes. Thank you, Emmanuel. Thank you, Dag. Thank you, Fabrice. Just to comment maybe on what Dag also was saying. If we are agile enough in the months and years to come, I think we can take full advantage of this position, full advantage. So there will be a lot of opportunity, M&A or organic growth. And all the shareholders, including myself and Vivendi are 100% behind Dag's strategy to develop the business and everything is possible. Everything is possible, whether it's M&A or organic growth. Thanks to all of you, and we'll talk to you very soon for Q3. Bye-bye.

Thank you. Bye-bye.