Ströer SE & Co. KGaA ($SAX)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Stroer Q1 Figures 2026 Conference Call. I am Sandra, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it is my pleasure to hand over to Udo Muller, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Yes. Thank you, Sandra. Dear investors, dear analysts, welcome to today's Q1 2026 earnings call. Let us dive straight into the numbers and details. On the top line, revenues in Q1 amounted to EUR 495.6 million, representing an organic growth of 1.1% compared to EUR 475.5 million in Q1 2025. On a reported basis, revenue grew by 4%. Moving down the P&L. Adjusted EBITDA reached EUR 119.3 million compared to EUR 117.4 million last year. This represents a stable year-on-year development with EBITDA adjusted remaining essentially flat at the higher margin level. On adjusted EBIT, we reported EUR 41.7 million, up from EUR 39.7 million in Q1 2025. This corresponds to a 5% increase, highlighting that operating efficiency improvements continue to support earnings despite moderate top line momentum. Adjusted net income amounted to EUR 17.6 million compared to EUR 16.2 million in the prior year period. This translates into a 9% year-on-year increase. Turning to cash flow. Free cash flow adjusted improved significantly. In Q1 2026, we reported an adjusted free cash flow of minus EUR 9.7 million compared to minus EUR 35.1 million in Q1 2025. This represents an improvement of 72% year-on-year. Henning will elaborate on this in detail later in the finance section. Finally, CapEx before M&A amounted to EUR 16.5 million, down 8% year-on-year from EUR 17.9 million. This level of investment reflects our continued focus on disciplined capital allocation while maintaining the operational flexibility required to support our core activities. All in all, Q1 2026 demonstrates a stable and resilient financial performance. We delivered positive organic revenue growth, protected profitability at both EBITDA and EBIT level, improved net income and achieved a very strong improvement in free cash flow, all while keeping capital expenditure under control. Let's have a look at the Nielsen numbers in the middle of the chart first. As always, and please keep in mind that those show gross rate card developments and the net revenue is on average 6 to 7 points lower. On a like-for-like and gross basis, the Out-of-Home category is outperforming all other media except for desktop mobile. With a share of around 10%, Out-of-Home maintains its strong position in the German advertising market. Translating the gross Nielsen numbers into net revenue, in Q1 2026, not only that market in total was negative by around minus 5% to minus 6%. At the same time, our total Out-of-Home business was up by more than 5%. DOOH alone delivered 12% growth and programmatic DOOH grew at the same rate. So far my remarks. And with that, I hand over to Henning.

Thank you, Udo, and a very good morning, everybody. With that, let us start the finance section with a quick look at the Q1 '26 P&L, where Udo already has touched upon the key items. In total, we delivered a decent set of results for the first quarter. Given the good performance of the Out-of-Home sector and the Digital and Dialog segment, we were able to more than offset the comparatively weaker performance of our third segment, Data as a Service and E-Commerce. Overall, these developments enabled us to increase revenue by around 4% to EUR 496 million. Reported growth includes a net scope effect of approximately 400 basis points support from the acquisition of AMEVIDA in October last year, offset by minus 40 basis points from the disposal of the Statista strategy unit at the beginning of this year and a currency headwind of 50 basis points -- minus 50 basis points, primarily U.S. dollar related at Statista. Excluding these effects, organic growth came in at 1.1%. EBITDA adjusted amounted to EUR 119 million, EUR 2 million or 2% higher compared with Q1 '25. The exceptional items for the quarter were minus EUR 9.2 million after minus EUR 2.5 million in the prior year, mainly due to restructuring measures. Accordingly, reported EBITDA was down by 4% from EUR 115 million to EUR 110 million. Depreciation and amortization were basically unchanged with EUR 80 million compared to EUR 81 million in Q1 '25. With that, reported EBIT for the quarter came in at EUR 30 million, some EUR 4 million lower compared with Q1 '25. The financial result was minus EUR 17 million after minus EUR 15 million in the prior year period. This is due to currency effects. Accordingly, earnings before tax came in at EUR 13 million compared to EUR 18 million in Q1 of the prior year. The tax rate was basically unchanged with around 30% in the reporting period. And with that, the tax result follows the development of the EBT. All in all, reported net income for the quarter came in at close to EUR 9 million after EUR 13 million in Q1 '25. Adjustments were up by EUR 5 million, mainly because of higher pretax exceptionals as described before. Accordingly, net income adjusted was EUR 18 million after EUR 16 million in the prior year. Let us now switch over to the cash flow. Main driver for the cash flow development was working capital, which follows seasonality with an outflow of minus EUR 12 million. This is EUR 26 million better than in last year. While earnings, as we have just seen, were below prior year and IFRS 16 lease repayments were just a notch higher. Cash outs for taxes, others and investments were a notch lower. Cash outs for interest were on prior year level, whereas lower interest rates are being offset by higher debt. So altogether, free cash flow adjusted was minus EUR 10 million after minus EUR 35 million in Q1 '25. Let me come to the net debt development. In the sequential view from the end of Q4 '25 to the end of Q1 '26, net debt was up by roughly EUR 10 million in accordance with the adjusted free cash flow for the first quarter of minus EUR 10 million. Net debt year-over-year was up by EUR 17 million to EUR 881 million, including adjusted free cash flow of EUR 132 million, our dividend payment last year of almost minus EUR 129 million, dividend payments to minority shareholders of minus EUR 13 million, minor M&A payments of minus EUR 2 million and cash out for the share buyback of minus EUR 2 million. The remaining difference of minus EUR 3 million is, among others, due to an increase of overpayments from customers, a decrease of accrued interest expenses and lower financial liabilities recognized from profit transfer agreements at companies with minority interest. With that, our leverage ratio increased slightly compared to the prior year period to now 2.33x versus 2.18 in Q1 '25. Let us now take a look at the performance of the individual operating segments in the past quarter. As is customary, let's start with Out-of-Home Media. In Q1 '26, we were able to increase our revenue by 5.4%. With revenue growth of 12%, Digital Out-of-Home was the key driver, supported by jumpstart of our flagship billboard the Whale in the Hamburg Main Station. While Out-of-Home saw a slight decrease of 0.6%, the services division grew by nearly 17%, mainly owed to newly won clients. Overall, we increased segment revenue from EUR 210 million to EUR 220 million. Adjusted EBITDA grew on a comparable basis from EUR 86 million to EUR 97 million or 12%. The adjusted EBITDA margin followed a similar trend, improving from 41% to nearly 44%. A similar picture emerges when looking at the adjusted EBITDA excluding IFRS 16 effects, our cash EBITDA proxy. This increased by nearly 33% to EUR 44 million, while the margin improvement by over 4 percentage points from just under 16% over 20%. Lease expenses before IFRS 16 were EUR 65 million, 29.4% of sales, which is less than in last year's quarter, 30.2%. The delta between both EBITDA figures, the effect from IFRS 16 decreased slightly year-over-year. As explained in our last call, owing to recent renewals, we expect a reduced fixed rent exposure going forward. In the Digital and Dialog segment, revenue increased by 12% from EUR 206 million to EUR 231 million. This positive trend was driven by the Dialog division, which achieved organic revenue growth of over 8%. Taking into account the successful acquisition of AMEVIDA, revenue rose by 26% to EUR 136 million. Revenue in the Digital segment amounted to EUR 95 million in Q1 '26 as positive programmatic public video performance did not offset or not fully offset lower revenues in the online media. This trend is reflected in adjusted EBITDA and came in at EUR 27 million or 11.6% from a margin perspective due to a revenue-driven earnings reduction at our content business. As expected, performance in our third segment fell short of the results from the same quarter last year. Revenue declined in both subsegments causing total segment revenues to drop from EUR 91 million to EUR 79 million. Let's take a closer look at this development. Developments in E-Commerce should be viewed in light of the weak consumer environment. At the same time, Asam's online business was migrated to a new platform. With that, revenue for the quarter came in at EUR 42 million, minus 14% below the prior year. In addition to the sale of Statista strategy and consulting business, Data as a Service was impacted by the weak U.S. dollar, which during the transition from a seat-based to a data and volume-based business model could not yet be offset by growth in Statista's core business. Excluding scope and FX rate development, segment revenue declined organically by minus 9.4%. Adjusted EBITDA came at EUR 6 million compared with EUR 11 million in the same quarter of the previous year. With that, let me hand you over back to Udo for the outlook and closing remarks.

Thank you, Henning. Before ending the presentation, let me just have some comments on the outlook for Q2 and the current trading momentum. For Q2 2026, we expect a solid performance both as a group, and consequently, on segment levels. For our core Out-of-Home business, we anticipate revenue growth for the second quarter that is around the Q1 level. The same applies with Digital and Dialog segment. Here, too, the trends from the previous quarter are expected to continue largely unchanged. For the Data as a Service and E-Commerce segment, we see a significant improvement compared to the previous quarter. However, in absolute terms, we still anticipate a single-digit percentage decline compared to the same period in 2025. Let me now close the presentation with a short outlook into our financial calendar for 2026. Our next event will be our Annual General Meeting on June 3, which will be held virtually. Last year figures we will be present on August 13 and Q3 figures we will publish on November 12. And don't forget our webinar on transformation on June 17. As always, updates, reports and road show presentations can be found on the IR website. Thank you, everyone, and we're now happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Julien Roch from Barclays.

My first question is, any comments on the recent rumors of a EUR 2.5 billion bid for the whole company? Udo, would you be willing to step away? Or will you continue to manage the company for the foreseeable future, whomever the owner of the company is? That's my first question. The second one is for Henning. What was the EUR 9 million of exceptionals in Q1? And how much do you expect for the full year? And then lastly, on the AI seminar on June 17, will we get a qualitative overview? Or will we get some financial targets in terms of at least cost savings?

Yes. So look, we don't comment rumors. Since the thing appeared in the press, there's all the time something new. Most of the time it's nonsense. I'm the CEO of the company and I have no intention to change that in the foreseeable future.

Well, Julien, on the second question, on the level of exceptionals, which were around EUR 9 million, so quite a bit higher than in the prior year. I would say more than 50% of that relates to the mentioned changes in the Management Board and the remainder relates to restructuring measures, some of those in Dialog and some of that in Statista.

Can you repeat the third question, please?

My third question was -- well, first of all, Henning, what number do you expect for the full year in terms of exceptional? And then the third question was on the AI seminar on June 17. Will we only get a qualitative overview of what you intend to do? Or will we get some financial targets, especially in terms of cost savings?

Let me answer the last one first. So it's more a strategic session. But as you know, we have some changes here in the top management and so we have to reorganize ourselves. Let's say, 90% we're going to have the June 17. There's a 10% chance also that we postponed that. But it's about strategy. It's about strategy. I mean, we clearly see some cost savings because of the -- you saw we had EUR 9 million adjustments because of restructurings in the first quarter already. So what we're doing right now, we try to strengthen our, let's say, processes. We have here, let's say, 4 independent part of the company in the core segment. So we are going to put it together more to one unified media company. But it's a bit too early. And we also don't want to get -- create confusion inside the company earlier as necessary. So that's why -- we clearly are here in the transformation process, and that is what I already said already reflected in the restructuring cost of the first quarter. So we're going to see more restructuring costs throughout the year.

Yes. We will see more compared to the prior year. I mean, currently, the forecast stands, I would say, EUR 20 million to EUR 25 million as we speak. It's a little bit higher than we had in the prior year.

The next question comes from James Tate from Goldman Sachs.

James Tate from Goldman. I've got 2 questions, please. I guess, firstly, on Out-of-Home, you've given guidance of stable growth around 5% for Q2. But could you help talk about some of the monthly trends within that given the conflict in the Middle East? So how did March and April compare to January and Feb? Did you see a slowdown there? And how is the order book looking for May and June, particularly as the comps should get easier in Q2? And secondly, could you touch on some of the moving parts to the cost base for 2026, particularly around the exposure to energy costs? What impact are you seeing to the business here? And what measures could you take to offset and protect margins?

Yes, James. So look, energy costs are not a significant impact for us. Plus we have secured energy costs for a midterm period. So we don't expect any impact here for the running year. Trading momentum is actually what we said. We don't track really months. We look at quarters. I mean, right now, clearly, we see a little bit of impact. For example, whatever -- blowUP has lost some EUR 1 million or EUR 2 million or EUR 3 million orders from Middle East travel campaigns, et cetera. But it depends, obviously, for everybody what's going to happen from now on. Nobody knows what is going to happen. So maybe the war is finished, what some say. I'm a bit skeptical if I read what the Iranians are suggesting now. But we all have to wait what's happening. So that is -- the energy costs have less of an impact to our company, but to the overall economy, obviously. And so maybe you should implement instead of EBITDA, EBITTDA, before interest, taxes and Trump, depreciation, because nobody knows what's going to happen. But on the company itself, we don't see an impact. Trading momentum right now is, I think, satisfying in the light of the overall intuitiveness what we have. But I think nobody can give a serious forecast what's going to happen during the year, because nobody knows if you have a full-blown war in 4 weeks or if the whole thing is over.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Nizla Naizer from Deutsche Bank.

I have 2 questions from my end. The Digital Out-of-Home revenue growth of 12% in Q1, could you maybe give us some color as to what that's been driven by? Is it the national level customers mostly? Or has there been a pickup from the small and medium-sized companies that you have said you'll target going forward? And on the back of the strong sort of 5% growth in Q1 in Out-of-Home Media, 5% guided for in Q2, are you changing the way you're thinking about the full year outlook as well? I'm aware of all the uncertainty that you just discussed. But could you maybe remind us what you expect for the full year organic revenue for Stroer and how comfortable you think those numbers are? And also on profitability, could you remind us what your 2026 outlook is and whether you're confident this can be reached with all that's going on?

So the 12% growth is mainly driven by national turnover. So this is -- and we expect the trend to continue throughout the year actually. We don't want to change the guidance now because the same reason what I said before. But also don't forget, if I'm talking about insecureness, we don't talk about massive changes. Even if you have a crisis, if you look in the last, whatever, 20 quarters, we talk about 1%, 2%, 3% up and down. But this is something which is clearly difficult to forecast in the current scenario. It's just guessing. So that's why we don't want to adjust the guidance right now. I missed something or...

The next question comes from Anna Patrice from Berenberg.

A follow-up on my side on the Out-of-Home. The trading was better than you expected initially. So if you can elaborate a little bit more where the growth comes from and where you see the ongoing positive momentum in terms of the Out-of-Home. Then on Statista. Q4, there was positive -- little positive like-for-like. Q1, there is a bit of negative like-for-like. So it's a bit volatile. What are your expectations for the coming quarters? And is there any update -- or when should we have any update on what's going on with the business transformation? And then last question on the Digital. How do you see also the trends going forward? And how can you protect your margins here given the negative impact from decline in Digital?

Yes. We think -- to start with the last question, this is a temporary effect, because last year in first quarter, we had the rare situation that the American election and the German elections both were in the first quarter. So it produced a lot of traffic and traffic always translates in turnover automatically. So we don't see -- we are absolutely optimistic for the full year for our own inventory, especially the online. If you look on the overall development and what we already discussed since a couple of quarters, through the LLMs and through the new LLM Google Search, we see a decline in traffic for special interest websites. So this is third-party inventory where we sell advertising for third-party publishers. But the online is the biggest news portal now in Germany, and we are completely unchanged optimistic, that we don't see any decline here. The opposite, we expect also this year a small growth on the online. But again, first quarter was a temporary effect because last year we had a lot of traffic from American and German elections.

Maybe to build on what Udo said earlier, the good Out-of-Home performance, as we understood, was mainly driven by a strong business from the national sales team. If you look further into where is this actually originating from, it's mostly FMCG, retail, food retail, telecommunications and the service sector actually growing nicely above average in the first quarter.

Statista, this is also a little bit unchanged here. I don't think that -- turnover and EBITDA, it's a key valuation metric for Statista going forward. Right now, we see really positive developments traffic-wise, for example, from Perplexity, which is the most important LLM solution here for research. And we are -- Statista Connect is we believe in a very good way. But what I already said a couple of times, I think we need to wait until the fourth quarter until we can show on a wider range of numbers the positive development of Statista. I think the key point for Statista valuation is, are we able to prove that company GPTs are becoming better with Statista or not. And the moment we can prove that on a wider range of customers, then you immediately have a completely different valuation from Statista. But therefore, obviously, companies need to introduce first their company GPT. And the first thing they're doing then, they integrate their own data. And after this is achieved, they have the company GPT, they integrate their own data, then they start to think about third-party data sources. And this is a process where we are right now in. So we are negotiating and talking with a lot of key clients around the world and we see a positive development. But we need -- I think we need 6 months more until we can prove that on a more reliable broader range. But I think in the meanwhile, the market accepted the simple formula shit in, shit out. Sorry for that. But you need reliable data, you need trusted data to produce for professional purposes. For private stuff, you can use an LLM also for data, and it's a mix of entertainment and concrete results. But for professional use, you need to be 100% sure that the results are correct. And therefore, you need trusted data. And that's what Statista is delivering. Statista is globally the biggest platform for statistic data, completely unchanged. And after a phase of, let's say, insecureness from our customer side, we see more and more conviction that our customers are coming back -- the few ones who left us are coming back and signing deals with Statista Connect. So we are positive. But we need at least 6 more months. And again, I don't think that this year turnover and EBITDA, it's really an important figure here. I think if you look at the size of the transformation Statista is going through, because the whole sales strategy is right now going to be transformed, I think it's a very positive result that Statista keeps turnover and results stable. And don't forget, we expect for this year on cash flow a EUR 10 million better result than last year due to restructurings, which are also taking place in Statista because AI is also allowing us to produce more efficient and cheaper than we did that before. But that is obviously also not the key for future valuation. The key will be clearly to prove that we make LLM company GPT's results better than with Statista, and that is the mission we are on right now.

Okay. Understood. And maybe just a last follow-up question on the margins at Out-of-Home. So there's a considerable jump in margins. Is there something special in the Q1 apart from nice growth? Or what should we expect for the rest of the quarters, the same improvements...

Understood, Anna. First of all, you know that Q1 in terms of the sales volume and also the absolute margin level is usually below the prior year. So you should not read the tick up that we have seen now as an indication for the full year. Q1 was supported by a good development in the service business that I mentioned. Plus, I think if you look at the mix on how we actually -- how we channeled sales to the different parts of the inventory, we had a quite favorable mix in terms of the revenue shares we are, let's say, owing our partners. So I would say we are positive on the margin for the full year, but not to the extent that you have now seen in Q1.

[Operator Instructions] It seems that there are no further questions. Back over to you, Mr. Muller, for any closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you very much for your time. I hope you have a positive summer. And thank you very much for listening, and hope to see you soon. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

Goodbye. Take care.

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