Lagardere Stock

Good afternoon. This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Louis Hachette Group and Lagardere First Half 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Rapin, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Yes. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. This conference call will be hosted today by Jean-Christophe Thiery, Chairman and CEO of Louis Hachette Group; and Gregoire Castaing, Deputy CEO of Louis Hachette Group and Deputy CEO in charge of Finance for Lagardere. Joining us for this presentation also Frédéric Chevalier, the CEO of Lagardere Travel Retail, who will each share their insights and key highlights for this first semester. This presentation will be followed by a Q&A session.

I now leave the floor to Jean-Christophe Thiery.

Thank you, Emmanuel, and good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I am delighted to introduce you to Louis Hachette Group's first half 2026 results. Despite a challenging economic and geopolitical environment, particularly in the Middle East, our group once again demonstrated its resilience and the strength of its diversified model. In the first half of 2026, we generated revenue of EUR 4.5 billion and EBITA of more than EUR 200 million, reflecting disciplined execution across the group. We also maintained a strong financial profile, supported by good cash generation and continued debt reduction. Gregoire will take you through the figures in a moment.

Let me first turn to the main developments across our businesses. At Lagardere Publishing, performance remained solid, supported by the diversity and quality of the portfolio. In trade, we benefited from successful releases by Guillaume Musso and Pierre Lemaitre, to name a few, in France, while the Housemade series continued to perform strongly in both the U.K. and the U.S. We also had strong momentum in Spain and Latin America, while our board games and partwork activities remained important contributors to growth.

Turning to Lagardere Travel Retail. The business maintained its positive dynamics driven by strong performances in Europe and the Americas. Our teams continued to demonstrate great agility in managing both the direct and indirect impacts of the situation in the Middle East. We also strengthened our portfolio through several new openings and the renewal of our concession at Geneva Airport. Our other activities also delivered encouraging progress. Both Lagardere Live and Prisma Media reported positive EBITDA in the first half, reflecting disciplined cost management and a more focused strategic approach. At Prisma Media, the restructuring program designed to adapt the business to changing market conditions and accelerate digital transformation is progressing.

Overall, 18 months after our listing, we continue to deliver solid momentum across the group. This once again demonstrates the relevance of our strategy and the resilience of our group built around leading positions in publishing, Travel Retail and media. Looking ahead, we remain confident in our ability to create sustainable long-term value and seize the opportunities that lie before us.

Thank you for your attention. And I will now hand over to Gregoire, who will take you through our financial performance in more detail.

Thank you very much, Jean-Christophe, and good evening, everyone. I'm also very pleased to share with you the good and solid results delivered by the group for this first half. We will start by taking a look at the different performance of our different businesses, starting on the Slide 5 with the Lagardere Publishing, which once again delivered a solid performance this semester despite relatively soft market condition overall, the business showed strong resilience, benefiting again from its diversified activities and international footprint. Revenue increased by 1.3% on a like-for-like basis to more than EUR 1.3 billion.

In France, as you can see, the revenue was down 1.6% in a difficult market that declined by around 5%. Literature remained well oriented in France for Lagardere Hachette, supported by several successful new releases, as Jean-Christophe mentioned it, including the Crime du Paradis by Guillaume Musso with already 2,050 copies sold and Les Belles Promesses by Pierre Lemaitre published in January of this year. We also benefited from a strong momentum in the L de Posch with Kcalcarot by Miso again and the Barmanuritz by Philip Cola. Digital audio revenue continued to grow with a more than 20% increase in France year-on-year. On digital business, by the way, France is still lagging behind compared with what we are able to achieve in the U.K., for example.

However, the growth we are seeing is encouraging. Our efforts to accelerate digital development in France are bearing fruit. This is one of our priority for Achet France in the years ahead. Coming back to H1 results for France. Our performance was also affected by weaker market conditions in a number of segments, notably illustrated books, comics, tourism and education. More broadly, we continue to see the impact of cautious customer spending and a softer environment for discretionary purchases. This makes the performance delivered by the French team all the more noteworthy.

Regarding the U.S., revenue increased by 1.3% in a market that contracted by 1.5%. This growth reflects a strong slate of new releases such as the Deluxe edition of Sererensen Tire Boon and Ferryboon or JEesPatterson and Viola Davis Judgstone. The continued growth in audiobooks also contributed to this result in the U.S. In the U.K., revenue was down 1% in a market up 1%, following our very strong growth in the first half of '25, driven by RebeccaosXone, which was a huge success, as you know. Backlist sales remained strong, supported by continued sales of Frida McFadden, the ASmade series and Maggie Oarellnet, both boosted by their film adaptations in early '26.

New releases by Alice Osman and Flosnap also contributed to the top line growth this semester. In our Spanish-speaking countries, revenue rose sharply by, as you see, 13%, benefiting from the early start of the back-to-school season in Spain, combined with the continued growth of the paper bag division. Mexico also reported growth for both education and trade. Revenue from Partworks was up 6%. We continue to outperform in this market with particularly strong position and growth across the world, including Japan, Italy, Poland, for example. Finally, board games continue to support our growth -- our revenue segment with a strong 9% growth, supported by the continued success of the Flip7 game.

Now let's have a look to the EBITDA and operating margin on the Slide 6. In H1 '26, EBITDA reached EUR 105 million compared to EUR 103 million last year. On a like-for-like basis, mainly excluding adverse exchange rate, EBITDA grew by EUR 5 million compared to H1 '25. As a result, the operating margin remained strong at close to 8%, confirming the Publishing division sustained profitability despite the unfavorable seasonality that typically affect, as you know, the first semester.

To sum up, a solid first half for Publishing supported notably by its international footprint and its diversification efforts, which clearly represent 2 key strengths in the current environment.

Let's now move on to Travel Retail on the Slide 8. Lagardere Travel Retail maintained its growth momentum and delivered a revenue of almost EUR 3 billion during the first half. Revenue increased by 3.3% on a like-for-like basis, supported by the continued expansion of our network. This includes the opening of Oakland in July '25, which generates EUR 55 million contribution as well as Lima and several new openings across the United States, which contribute an additional EUR 30 million. In France, revenue declined by 4%. As a reminder, this line includes the wholesale activity carrier with the joint venture operating our travel essential and duty-free businesses at Paris Airport.

Performance was below last year level, reflecting both the impact of the situation in the Middle East on traffic flows through European hubs and also the temporary disruption caused by renovation works at several terminals at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. On more positive note, duty-free, as you can see, excluding Paris Airport in France, continued to deliver good growth with revenue up 14%, supported by the modernization of stores at Nice Airport. In the EMEA, revenue was up 4% despite a 28% decline in the Middle East in the H1 and a minus 39% in Q2. If we -- by the way, if we just take a look at the direct impact of the current geopolitical context of the Middle East crisis on our top line, please note that Middle East accounted for 1.2% of the Louiahet revenue compared to 1.8% in H1 '25.

Again, as Jean-Christophe mentioned it, besides this weight in our revenue, we remain very vigilant as to the direct and indirect impact on our activities throughout '26, especially as regard to the impact on air passenger traffic and/or the risk of inflation. Coming back to the performance in EMEA, sales were strong in the rest of Europe. For instance, in Romania, in the U.K. and Ferries, in Italian regional airports as well as in Düsseldorf and Frankfurt in Germany or in Albania, Czech Republic and Spain. In Americas, revenue rose sharply by 6%. In the North America, sales were up 5%, supported by numerous openings and strong commercial performance.

Q1 was stronger, clearly at 6%, supported by increased dwell time and consumption in airports. And Q2 was softer at 3%, impacted by lower traffic trends in May and June, surge in airfares and Spirit bankruptcy impacts at Fort Lerdale and Detroit Airports. In APAC, revenue grew by 9%, reflecting a strong performance across the region. As already mentioned, the main driver was our duty-free operation in Auckland, which contributed to more than EUR 50 million during the first half.

This more than offset the impact of store closure in China, which reduced revenue by around 40% compared with last year. By the way, regarding the restructuring of our activities in China, we remain on track to finalize our exit by the end of '26. Next slide on EBITDA for HTare for Travel Retail. EBITDA came at EUR 111 million. As you can see, on a like-for-like basis, EBITDA increased by EUR 2 million, and the EBITA margin remained stable despite the consequences of the situation in the Middle East and the record level delivered in the H1 '25. This solid performance reflects strong execution in North America, continued operational discipline and lower restructuring costs in North Asia as the rationalization plan nears completion.

Now let's turn to other activities, Lagardere -- for the first semester of ' 26, Lagardere Live revenue increased by 3% on a like-for-like basis to EUR 115 million. Radio and news are facing a weaker advertising market. And on the other hand, live entertainment had a strong semester, posting close to 20% growth like-for-like, driven by the timing of artist tours organized by Productions and a record program of events at Lefroie Berger, the Casino Paris and the Archa Arena in Bordeaux. After a sharp improvement in H1 regarding EBITDA, the EBITDA continued to improve and reach EUR 3 million, representing a solid EUR 22 million increase since H1 '24. These results were achieved, thanks to our continuous efforts to reduce the cost in every entity of this branch.

Moving on now to Prisma for the H1 '26. Prisma delivered a revenue of EUR 109 million, down 25%, while print circulation continued to be very impacted by the structural downturn in the magazine market. Digital revenues has been affected by the evolving digital consumption patterns and weaker online advertising demand.

But please note that EBITDA remained stable and positive during this first semester at EUR 3 million as the revenue decline has been offset by cost savings. H1 '26 was marked by continued restructuring, the disclosure -- the closure, sorry, of certain titles and magazines, the divestitures of the Luxury division and the sales of 13.6% minority stake to Vivendi.

Last but not least, as you may know, the group also obtained a favorable ruling in its complaint against Google recently with a related cash inflow of EUR 66 million expected by the end of this year. I would also take this opportunity to underline the work of the teams who have been working on this matter for months and even for years to defend Prisma interest.

Note that we covered the performance of each division, let me walk you through the financial at group level, starting with revenue on the Slide 16. Total group revenue reached EUR 4.5 billion in H1 '26 with a like-for-like growth of 2%. Once again, organic growth was the main driver, contributing EUR 82 million across the Lagardere Group's entities. On the negative side, foreign exchange had an adverse impact of EUR 100 million with the U.S. dollar being the main currency affecting our revenue, reflecting our strong presence in the U.S. in both Travel Retail and Publishing.

This provides a good transition to the next slide, where we will look to the revenue by geographic area. As you can see, revenue mix remained broadly stable year-on-year with North America continuing to be our largest market at 26%. France represent 22% of revenue, while Western and Eastern Europe slightly increased their contribution, thanks to Lagardere Travel Retail.

On the next slide, for this first half of the year, group EBITDA, as you can see, increased by EUR 8 million on a like-for-like basis after, again, a good level for H1 '25. All activities from Lagardere Group contributed positively to this performance and FX and scope impacts amounted to EUR 10 million, mainly reflecting again the unfavorable U.S. dollar and British also pound evolutions versus euro.

On the next slide, as regards the rest of our P&L, profit before interest and tax was stable at EUR 162 million. Finance costs improved by EUR 11 million, driven by lower gross debt and reduced average cost of debt. Interest expense on liabilities increased by 11% due to new renewed and amended lease contracts, particularly in Poland and in New Zealand. And so in total, IFRS net result increased significantly by 23% to EUR 16 million.

Now let's move on to cash flow from operations. On the Slide 20, we continue to focus, as Jean-Christophe mentioned it, on improving the conversion of our operating performance into cash flow generation. As a result, our CFFO increased by 50% year-on-year to EUR 84 million. As usual, Publishing generated negative cash flow in this first half, reflecting the seasonality of the business and the buildup of working cap ahead of the important second half publishing season. However, H1 cash flow improved significantly year-on-year from an outflow of EUR 40 million in '25 to an outflow of EUR 24 million this semester, mainly by a favorable evolution of the working cap. Travel Retail CFO reached EUR 104 million, up EUR 22 million versus last year. also reflecting both strong operational performance and improved working capital generation.

Overall, working cap remained under control, and we continue to expect a significant reversal in the second half as is typically the case in both of our businesses. As a result, we remain confident in our ability to deliver solid cash flow generation for the full year. This improvement in cash flow naturally brings us to our balance sheet and more specifically to the evolution of our net debt, which is presented on the next slide. Given the seasonality of our activities, it makes more sense to consider the rolling 12 months evolution of our total cash generation and net debt as shown on this graph. On this basis, we reduced our net debt by more than EUR 200 million, thanks to mainly our operating cash flow.

Please note that our net free cash flow, cash flow after tax, financial interest and dividends paid to minorities and subsidiaries level was reached EUR 320 million. It's worth mentioning that CapEx and CFFO, as you know, in H2 '25 include the proceeds from disposal of our real estate in Ras and also the sale of Mun.com domain name for an amount close to EUR 45 million. So a normative cash generation, let's say, on the 12 rolling months will be around EUR 280 million. This very high level reflects the resilience of our operation throughout the challenging period and the substantial progress achieved over the past 24 months to improve our cash generation. The remaining outflows relating to the dividend paid in May to Lagardere Group minorities and to our shareholders.

Finally, we received also EUR 40 million at Prisma level from the sale of its luxury division and from Vivendi's contribution to its capital increase. As a result, net debt decreased by -- decreased from EUR 1.9 billion to EUR 1.7 billion at the end of June '26. At this point, I would like to make a brief remark for those monitoring the net debt at Lagardere level. Like Louis Hachette Group, Lagardere's net debt level also sharply improved, ending the first half of this year just below EUR 1. 8 billion, representing a reduction of almost EUR 200 million year-on-year. As a result, Lagardere net debt ratio fell to 2.2 as of June 26 compared to 2.5 a year earlier.

So we are clearly on track with our deleveraging trajectory. We are pursuing since 2 years now. But of course, we remain fully focused on continuing this effort. On the balance sheet side, our debt structure remains well diversified, combining bonds, bank loans, private placements and commercial paper. And as you can see, the maturity profile is also very well balanced. So to wrap up this presentation, -- in the first half of '26, Louis Hachette Group delivered solid operational results, demonstrating the resilience of its businesses despite the difficult geopolitical and macroeconomic context. Let revenue reached EUR 4.5 billion and reported a strong EBITDA at EUR 218 million, growing after an already very strong first half of '25.

Cash flow generation was also good with cash flow up 50% and reaching again EUR 84 million. Over 12 months, we significantly reduced our net debt by more than EUR 200 million. This brings to EUR 1.7 billion, a historically low level for H1.

Thank you for your attention, and we are now available to answer your questions.

The first question comes from Jérôme Bodin with ODDO BHF.

Just first question on the trend. So if we could have a quick word as usual Publishing and Travel Retail for summer. So I have understood that the U.S. has been a bit weaker in May and June. So what's the situation for Travel Retail in the U.S. in July and in Middle East? That would be useful. Second question on the free cash flow. I'm not very clear on what is recurring or not. So should we expect H2 -- I mean, the gain on the working cap to continue in H2? And I'm not very totally clear on the impact of the -- on Prisma. So you win a contingency around Prisma. So is it in the cash or not yet? So if you can come back on that point. So the EUR 66 million, if I'm correct? That's my second question, so on working cap and on Prisma.

And lastly, a market question. So regarding publishing. So there is a U.S. judge that approved last week or a few weeks ago, a EUR 1.5 billion settlement with -- between Andropic and a group of publishers over books downloading. So first, do you expect Aet to receive some compensation? That's my first question. And second, besides that, are you now talking with Andropic and other AI company to -- about paid license deal for the future?

Maybe Fred, you can start for the trends regarding Travel Retail.

Sure. Good afternoon, everybody. Fred speaking. For the summer, of course, in the context of the current geopolitical context throughout the world, the situation is extremely uncertain, as you can guess. Overall, we had a pretty good first quarter. The second one was a bit softer overall, especially in the U.S. with a slowdown of the traffic and a consequence of the crisis in the Middle East, the bankruptcy of Spirit Airline, a low-cost carrier in the U.S. that affected the traffic in general and affected us indirectly.

What we see today in July is overall worldwide a month of July that is in the continuity or a little bit better than second quarter with Europe and in particular, Southern Europe doing better and the U.S. doing a little bit less lower than Q2. Middle East continues to be obviously quite depressed for obvious reasons. Those reasons remain extremely uncertain. The uncertainty of the conflict in the Middle East is super high. So for that reason, it's a bit difficult for us to give any forecast for August and September, which are 2 big months together with July. July is somehow worldwide, a little bit reassuring, a bit better than Q2, as I said earlier.

Sorry, we need to answer about the publishing, and I leave the floor.

The publishing, the second half of the year is always a key period for Ashettler and for the publishing industry more broadly. As a reminder, unlike in 2025, we will not benefit from a new asterics release this year, which represented around EUR 15 million of revenues last year. More generally, publishing remains a hit-driven business, and it is always difficult to predict the success of upcoming titles. That said, we have a number of highly anticipated releases scheduled for H2, including Rebecca Yaros new book, Freshing Day in September in the U.K. and Joe Biden's Memoir in November, for which we hold the world rights.

We will also publish Malcolm Gladwell's new title, the American Way of Kiving as well as a new title from Rachel Gillig, the Nave and the Moon in the U.S. and Silver Ster Stallons Memoir, -- the Steps in the U.K. In France, major autumn releases include Lciamorph by Amin Malou at Grass, Lierandenture by Laurent Gunell and Dan Brown at Lou. I add that we could also have very good surprise with new authors.

I am, for example, thinking of the first novel of Canadian author, Telonureda. -- published by Grass next month, which could have success like, for instance, Galfi a few years ago. But however, books are ultimately a discretionary purchase. And given the current consumer environment, we remain cautious regarding demand trends in the second half.

Thank you, Jean-Christophe. Jean, regarding your second question for the free cash flow and the recurring free cash flow, let me just precise some topics. If you have a look to our figures on a 12 months evolution, as I mentioned it, we had 2 big exceptional items for a total of EUR 45 million, the sale of Asa and the sale of moon.com. So if you want just to forecast, let's say, a normative cash flow, you may take this into account. If you have a look to our figures just for the first semester, there is no significant exceptional impact. And that may also answer to your -- the second part of your question regarding Google since, again, the related cash inflow of EUR 66 million is expected by the end of this year, but not yet received by the group. So it's not in the cash and it's not in the result at this stage.

For your last and third question regarding the Anthropic settlement, you're right, as several publishers disclosed this recently, we had, let's say, a good and significant settlement in the U.S. Some of the publishers disclosed their expectation regarding this settlement. Lagardere Publishing is also part of the beneficiaries of the Anthropic settlement with a total number of books listed by the court similar, for instance, to Bloomsbury in the magnitude of less or more than 15,000 titles. But -- on our side, we think it's too early to disclose any specific amounts for the company since the settlement amount is after attorney fees and other expenses and will also be, of course, shared with the author.

So we hope to see some progress during the second semester, but too soon to mention any impact for us. And I think that you also had a question about the monetization regarding this type of, let's say, process and AI impact. Let's say that we don't rule out monetizing our content if we believe that both we and our author would benefit from its -- but to be completely transparent at this stage, our main focus is more on the ongoing litigation in the U.S. evolving against several publishers and platforms and in which Ashadebu Group is a party. Next question I think I answered the question.

So the next question comes from Eric Ravary with CIC CIB.

I have two questions. First one is on Travel Retail. Could we have some details about the impact of the Middle East crisis on EBIT in H1? And also what was the positive impact of the China restructuring on EBIT in H1? And what are you expecting for China from China restructuring in H2 compared with H1? So that's for Travel Retail. And second question is on Prisma. So you have been implementing a major cost restructuring there. Are you also working on the adaptation of the offering of Prisma magazine offering to the new consumption patterns?

Sorry, I didn't catch the end of your question regarding Prisma. Can you?

Yes, it was -- so you worked on cost. Are you also working on the -- well, adaptation of the offering of Prisma

Frédéric, maybe I'll just answer for China and then you can give maybe some details about the Middle East. But regarding China, again, you know that in H1 '25, it still represented a loss of a few million euros in EBITDA. It included operational losses and restructuring costs, which was already last year, partially offset by a reversal of provision accounting particularly for -- in the equity affiliates line item. You can see that in the figures. Now in H1 '26, EBITDA for China is breakeven, thanks to the provision we took in '24 and again in the beginning of '25. So we can consider that China is neutral in terms of EBITDA for the figures of H1 2026. And as I mentioned, the restructuring is expected to be finalized in the end of '26. So we are well on track on the time line.

Regarding the impact on EBITDA for the Middle East, we -- we don't want to disclose the figures at this stage too soon and too detailed, sorry for that. We gave you the trend regarding the revenues and the potential indirect impact that we have, but too soon also to disclose very accurate figures on this situation. But of course, it negatively impacted us during the first semester, of course. Eric, you also had a question regarding Prisma. -- and the adaptation of the branch. We -- as you know, first, maybe a quick update regarding the restructuring plan. The restructuring plan is progressing in line with the expectations and is aimed at further improving the group's cost base and the operational efficiency and profitability.

At this stage, we are not providing a specific target for the future savings at Prisma, again, too soon to say. However, we, of course, expect the restructuring to secure positive EBITDA. As I mentioned, Prisma is still positive in this first part of the year. And we want to maintain Prisma in this -- at least at this level. And of course, if it's possible to increase the profitability in the coming years. We are currently -- besides this restructuring process, of course, we also -- we are working on the strategy for repositioning the offer. Over the past several months, our primary focus has been, first, a portfolio rationalization and cost optimization.

As I mentioned it, we stopped some titles. We also divest the Luxury division. But at this stage, for the rest of the strategy, we are not yet ready to communicate any specific strategy for Christmas offer too soon. The agenda was really already tough during this first part of this year for the management. So we will provide, of course, an update and share our plans when the timing will be appropriate.

The last question comes from [indiscernible] with BNP Paribas.

I would have two questions, please. The first one is on Lagardere Live, which was a drag on 2025 earnings. I guess EBITA was negative EUR 20 million. You reached a positive EBITA in H1 2026. So I would say happy to get your thoughts in the second half of the year and if you are, let's say, aiming to reach at least breakeven over the full year. for Lagardere Life. That's question number one. And the question number 2 is just to clarify your comments regarding the Paris holdings. So the EUR 66 million impact you mentioned, this is not included in the EUR 84 million of cash flow from operations you disclosed in the first half. Is that correct? And so is that going to fuel into the second half of the year? Just to clarify that point, please.

Yes. Let me again clarify. This is not in the H1 figures regarding cash and results. So news for the second part of the year. But you're right, this is very significant. So let's let's be very clear on that. Regarding Lagardere Live, I mentioned that the advertising market is quite difficult in France, but we benefit from a good momentum regarding the production of artist tour and again, the events at our venues in Paris and Bordeaux. So the target is still to be positive in terms of EBIT at the end of this year. At this stage, we are still confident. But of course, we hope that the advertising market for the news part of Lagardere Live will be, let's say, quite correct for the rest of the year. But this is still the target, and we think it's feasible.

And maybe if I may -- maybe if I may, one follow-up regarding Travel Retail. So we've seen margins down in the first half, I guess, about 40 bps down compared to the first half last year. I mean, I get it's very -- you've got a lot of uncertainties regarding the next coming weeks and months. But could you take, I would say, any actions -- cost actions to support the margins if the traffic is going into the right direction in the next coming months?

Well, of course, we have absolutely no control on the traffic. So we need to be super agile. The teams throughout the world engaged into a lot of actions, not of the same nature. The actions we engage into in Abu Dhabi or Dubai obviously, are a little bit more radical than those we started and we implemented in the rest of the world. But a bit everywhere in all our units, when we saw the war in the Middle East was longer than the few days that were announced at the very beginning, we started implementing action plans, managing all kind of spend in order to protect the result. And I think the first half of the year shows that the discipline that has been put in place and the execution of the teams in the various countries roughly more or less managed to mitigate the impact.

For the second part of the year, well, same story. If the situation continues to be as regrettably it has been since end of Feb, we'll continue those efforts with the objective to protect as much as we can the bottom line. but extremely hard to tell if we have to go that way or if we are back to a more favorable traffic and therefore, P&L evolution.

Mr. Rapin, there are no more questions registered at this time.

Thank you for this presentation and to listen to these explanations. And we wish you a safe summer, and the Q3 revenue will take place on October 15. Thank you very much. Have a good evening.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Casino Par that this is a moment that is actually part of our portfolio with Mr., who is somewhere here as well. We have 3 areas. You will actually be able to see that this is a beautiful place. We also have I'm going to be giving the floor to Pauline straight away, who will be opening up the SMB, and then I will be speaking to you afterwards, we can talk about how 2025 will look into the rearview mirror. And then we will have a surprise in the middle. Pauline, over to you.

Thank you very much, Arnaud. Ladies and gentlemen, we are here at the Casino Per for the meeting. This is here with Mr. Arnaud, the -- we have got different in accordance with the scrutineers the 2 shareholders present holding high vote, which is represented by Mr. Jean-Chier, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and represented by Mr. Francois, the Director of Securities and Corporate law. I will -- in accordance with the appointment of the Chairman and the scrutineers, I should act as Secretary to this meeting. The provisional attendance figures were finalized a few minutes ago, and I will share them with you before we go to voting, and these are going to be definitive. Here, we've got 1,700 shareholders, and we're coming 132,367, which means that we've got 92.7%. You can see that quorum is exceeded because we need to have at least 20, 12.

All of the documents that will be sent to you have been done so within the statutory time limit. Some of these documents are being tabled today at the meeting. I will just quickly go through them. We're looking at the Articles of Association of the company. The notice of meeting published on the 25th of February 2026. The notice of meeting published on the 17th of April 2026, in the we've got the letter of invitation that was sent to the statutory auditors and the auditors responsible for certifying information. The report prepared as well as the information required under articles of the commercial code. We've also got the information relating to Grant Thornton the appointment as such auditors meeting and the 2025 Investor document. The meeting is divided to deliberate on the agenda set out on which will be, there we go on Page 26 of the notice of meeting, which you may view on your rating tablet. And it will -- so we'll be looking at 11 points.

Resolutions 1 and 2, which are the approval of the 2025 annual and consolidated financial statements. Resolution 3, preparation of the company's progress and the payment of a dividend. Resolution 4, the appointment of Grant Thornton as statutory auditor for a term of 6 financial years, Resolution 5, the nonrenewal and no replacement of Forvis Mazars as statutory auditor responsible to satisfying sustainability information. Resolution 6 to 9, the approval of remuneration packages awarded to corporate offices for the 2025 financial year, and the remuneration policies for 2026. We also got Resolution 10, the renewal of the share buyback program for 18 months and Resolution 11, the powers required for formalities.

So following these opening formalities, Arnaud Lagardere will outline the group situation, performance and strategy. We will go the financial statements for the 2025 to revive financial year, which were presented by Mr. . You will then hear a presentation on the group's commitment to sustainable development. Group CSR Director, and then there will be a presentation on governance and the activities of the Board of Directors and its committees, which will be given by Ms. and Ms. Veronique Morali, who are Chairman of the 2 committees that I mentioned, so CSR and audit. And finally, you will hear a summary of the various reports issued by the statutory auditors responsible for certifying the financial statements and sustainable information. We will then move on to the question-and-answer session of which we have allocated approximately 30 minutes before concluding with the vote of the 11 resolutions submitted for your approval. Thank you for your opening and I would like to give the floor back to Arnaud.

The interruptor apologizes, she cannot hear the CEO. I'm here with 2 new faces. I'll start with the first one who was appointed last year by during the Board meeting as the President of the Chair rather of the CSR Committee. We've also got who is here with our CFO and he is in-charge of everything ready. He is someone who is wonderful, and he will probably -- I imagine that you think great. Philips and, and we have got the. Thank you very much. And we've got who doesn't need to be introduced now. And we then have Maxime Saada who you know is the Vice Chair of the Lagardere Group, and he's come with and Saada, that's about 3 clauses of and we've got, who is in charge of the Canal studio, who will actually have a presentation given to which will be very interesting and very important. We've got Jean-Christophe Thiery, who has an impressive CV. He's President of everyone, Chair of everyone and also Chair of himself. Thank you very much, Thiery.

With all the if you shareholders of 25 years of us to get there, and we've got a new faces. Federico has taken over from, we actually had a -- we have been leaving to because is leaving us and 1 would like to thank him for everything that he has brought.

Before talking about the presentation. I also wanted to just talk about a lot of members of the board, most of them in front of me who are representatives of the Vincent Bollor is unfortunately not here. He apologies. I would like to thank you for the support that he give us on a daily basis and also the synergies that allow us to -- with a. We've also got our shareholder and our reference shareholder advantages and with us. He's just 40-years-old, which is wonderful. This is also wonderful for the group. On the low end, we've also got the -- this is an activity that was very well with. This was not the case, and you should be very happy with this.

[Audio gap]

They're completely absorbed and completely concentrated 100% on performance and financial and why because our main raw material, the 34,000 people, and we are working on performance. We look at the different cash that we have, and we also have wonderful people working with us to boost the performance. I want as clear as possible. I also want to ensure that hasn't been as -- that I have regretted this much with Vincent Bollor . I want this to be very clear.

We're completely in line with the Bollor family. We are doing wonderfully well. You will see this. We see this year in, year out records. And I think that it is actually the solidarity that we have with the Lagardere, with the Bollor family that is important and obviously, they're going to have to learn to live with it. But in, I think that you have a film that you wanted to show us? I think it's about 6 or 7 minutes max, and this is going to be looking at the different events that have happened recently, over the past few months taken into consideration by Jean-Christophe Thiery, and we are looking at the Hachette -- we're celebrating the 200 years of Louis Hachette. Let's have a look at the film and then move you back.

[Presentation]

So I would just quickly -- I actually forgot 2 people my dear Arnaud. I'm so, so sorry, Arnaud De Puyfontaine. And also who is next to you, we've got Fatima Fikree as well who is representing the who actually is going to be celebrating its 20th year within the group, so 20 years of royalty, 20 years of support with us. And I would like to thank Fatima as well as. Thank you, Fatima. You have been essential to our Board. I think that the presentation is probably going to be behind us, so let's start with the key figures and notably what I was saying before is our real key factor, success factor, the people who are working with us and people who make us being in day out the group that we are.

You can see the splits on the screen, so the essential is within Travel Retail. We have 67% in Lagard re

Travel Retail, and then we have 21% in again Lagard re Publishing. We also have a very women-heavy population with a slightly different split if you look at the different groups because obviously, we have -- and this is very positive, but we have roles a little bit more feminine than others, especially publishing, and you can see here that we have a huge majority 64% or 74%, which means that we actually are -- we have more women than men.

If we look at geographical split here, you can see how this is working, of course, we've got the 33,000 people working across the globe. We have -- we're there in Europe. And then in the Americas, and then we've got France as well, we've only got 17% of our workers in France so about 7,000, 6,000 and then we've got a couple of them in Asia, in Oceania and in Africa as well. That just gives you an idea of the split that where all of our employees are. Obviously, we are a French group, and we enjoyed the weather French. But you can see that our activities and our employees are actually split across the globe and most of them are abroad.

If I continue now just for the turnover, we've got most of it coming in from Travel Retail. You can see that we don't have huge margins, and this is why recurring EBIT is relatively similar, even though this is changing, and the rest is on publishing, and we also got a little bit here. Well, it's not a -- to that little, it's Lagerder Live, that I will be going into details with later.

If we look at the split, once again, the geographical split. For the revenue, you can see it in reality, the biggest country is probably France with the United States and now it's the United States, that's above France. We also have Europe 43%, and this is Europe, not including France. We have the small parts in Asia as well, and Latin America, which means that we can say that there is opportunity for growth in these regions. We're also very cautious as well. We know that these countries aren't that easy to manage from France, which means that we're very cautious for these different geographical sense in the morning that you can see most of our group is actually in the United States or in Europe, generally speaking.

Here, I spoke earlier about the record results that we have. We can see them on this slide from -- we've got COVID here, which is the dip. And you can see that when historically, we're doing better in terms of the results. And for the group, when we can -- this is a factor that is wonderful. And this is the -- for the 32,000 who work for us. But if we look branch by branch, this information is available on the website as well. You can have a look at this. I'm not going to comment on it in detail. But I just wanted to show you here, we're actually above EUR 3 billion for publishing. And then after this, we had an exceptional year for COVID -- after COVID rather. We saw a wonderful bounce back. We were able to cover the ground now that have recurring EBIT that is above the EUR 300,000, and we had that we'll be able to increase this year-on-year rate, travel retail as well. Once again, we've got above another bar, the EUR 6 billion, and look at this balance back, this is incredible. It's unfortunate that Dag is not here. I know that Dag likes these figures. And we'll like these figures from where he is. But we've got -- we had -- we were very complicated for us in 2020. And -- and 5 years ago, even 10 years ago, we could see that travel retail. Hopefully, we'll get to the same levels seen. You can see and this is one I'm going to show you now.

We've got publishing that is on the slide. We had publishing that was flat, even each year as we mentioned, it's something that's not easy to do. And then we also have Travel Retail. Travel Retail that started here from the COVID year which was very low. And then historically, this is for the first time, and Mr. case, we have Travel Retail that has got better -- that is better than publishing. So for a shareholder, the shareholders that you are, we do have a split that is very, very different. One, you have a very resilient business line, a very stable business line, a very sustainable business line and you have another one that is also growing as we speak. This is more a major of growth than resilience, and maybe this could change slightly and the 2 combine very well. And this is the strategy that we've had over the course of tens of years saying that if we want to have -- if we want activities that can compensate, which will offset one another is the case here, and we want everything together to work well and also stable.

I said, we've got here the medias that come together that. We've got the air licenses. We've got data and talent. As you can see that you know of as well. And I consider, we've also got the biasing, which is wonderful. It's wonderful events based in Bodrum, which is highly profitable for us and also for the. We've got different concessions as well that will come in 2028 with center that was launched. All of this together is a little bit complicated, but you've known this for the longest time as deficit that we had. This is no longer the case, Lagard re is still losing money, but it's not hemorrhaging money, thanks to the audiences that we have. And you can also see that we are going to hit the 0, that flat point. And I hope that in 2026, we're going to hope that hit that plateau. It is not a contributor -- negative contributor significantly has been in the past for all of the group.

So if I continue now looking at the positioning and the strategy just very briefly. So each business review, we'll go through them one after the other. You can see that we're publishing here we are the third -- in third spot on the global footing, which is actually quite exceptional for a group that was meant to be a French group. I mentioned this at the beginning. We were just differential about 10 years or so, we also have been looking at. We were a little bit crazy, when nobody believed in us, last in publishing, just like nobody believed in using, actually, maybe it's the moment to invest, and we can invest in other countries, for example, the United Kingdom and the United States, we take that wage. We won the wage, obviously, it was little bit lucky, but we also received a lot of talent with exceptional teams not only in France, but also in the United States, and in the U.K., and this is what allowed us to move from being the top French group, which obviously put a very flattering to the third global player.

And as you can see here, we are the first in -- with 1/3 in U.K. and then 1/3 in Spain. We are mostly general literature. We will describe this to you later. For example, we're looking at board games. We have the audio books. We've got lots of -- we're dumping a lot of things. We've got -- we've got really our raw material here. Our raw material is the book, and we're looking at using that as a selling point and do not so different other things for our orders. For our revenue, this is mostly coming from France. But you can see in the United States and Canada, especially United States are increasing slightly and well done to the American teams who are -- and if we continue I'm not going to cite everything that we have 15 new, which means the 15,000 rather new titles coming out every year.

We want to be able to create new orders, new publishers, new ideas, new collections, for example, why not coloring books and then, that's just one idea amongst others. The idea was to really think about what is new for us, what can go on for us. This, obviously, for 2025, it's every 2 years. This was the Asterix year, which was high success. We've got about EUR 2 million in France, about EUR 5 million across the globe for Asterix. it's not nothing. This is a wonderful machine that Isabel has been able to implement.

We've got 81 different literature prices, and we've also got leaflets, we've got booklets. We've got board games. And thanks to Isabel's team, we were lucky to have exceptional success as Flip 7, which is something that would actually recommend to you, which is very, very fun.

We have acquisitions as well. We have 999 Games as well that was -- we're looking at board games and they were acquired, and we're going to continue with our endeavor. So now we've got the strategic access, which you know. We want to obviously look after our authors, our publishing houses, creativity, different types -- we're talking about coloring books, board games, whatever they may be, we're looking at synergies and so on and so forth, we also have wonderful -- we've got artificial intelligence. I'm not going to talk about this too much because that would be too much for me, and I just want to tell you artificial intelligence is something that we do use a lot that demands are not tending to creativity.

We don't want to kill off our authors. We want to protect them. We want to continue to work with them. We're going to continue with the strategy. And we're also taking with different other drivers of growth, which are important as you saw that books are resilient, but we are missing a little bit of growth, even though we have a couple of percentage points here. And we would like to make the most of this and have more growth. And we also have -- well, actually Maxime painted this. Maxime has planned a lot of different elements that I would like him to describe to you now to show you that we do have a huge challenge in front us and a huge opportunity for 3 years. All of this raw material that I mentioned that is in front of us and use them in a different domain, which is the one that Maxime is going to talk us through. You have the floor.

Good morning, everyone. My dear shareholders. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to take the. I just wanted to share something that is very important. This is the potential that is underexploited and this is how we adapt, different literary works for the screen, and I want to talk about this now. So this is what we'll do this money with the figures

So the media market and talk about it later on, but it was for EUR 150 million in 2026. It's 3x the weight of book publishing. So up quite a significant percentage, mainly thanks to investors from stakeholders such as Canal+ and bigger stakeholders. Disney invest EUR 20 billion on a yearly basis in content Netflix. That was just for 2025, but EUR 15 billion invested by Netflix and they actually said that in 2026, they would invest EUR 2 billion or more, so that means EUR 17 million. So all these stakeholders that are growing, such as Canal are investing more and more in media content, allowing for this growth in the market that I said. So this is what I said at the beginning, we have a very big media content market.

Secondly, like I said, this is a growing market, but films that are adapted from books account for less than 10% of produced films and between 30% and 40% depending on the year of the global box office. This is in the top 100 of the main films that do best in the world.

For 2025, 40% of these movies are based of novels when they only account for 10% of global films produced. So we can clearly tell that movies that are from books are a lot more popular than the ones that are not. From a critical standpoint, beyond the critically acclaimed movies, I can also say that films adapted from movies are doing better than others.

If you look at the 98th ceremonies of the Oscars, out of 10 movies nominated, 5 were from -- adapted from films or from books rather, including the winner. One Battle After The Other. This is same thing in France, 40% of the nominated movies came from books, including.

Now shows, TV shows and series. Basically, I took only examples from Netflix. I could have taken other examples. But if you look at the history of Netflix and the seasons -- and the most watched, 6 out of 10 come from literary works and these are some of the examples. We can clearly see that this is a major market. And clearly, this is a growing market. But on top of that, it also shows that films from books do better than others. And for Hachette, we have a EUR 3 billion publishing market in France. And what are the revenues coming from adaptations, they're really low, minor, less than EUR 10 million. these past few years. This is a random year. This is a traditional year, but this is quite common. But we can clearly see that the publishing sector is not tapping into this potential. And like I said, Hachette told you about this last year. We're not worse than others. We're not doing better than others than the other competitors, around 1% coming -- of our revenue comes from the media content, except for Asterix because it's a different phenomenon. It's a different kind of biz, including in the global market. But beyond really, Hachette has not really made the most of its potential in this which is why we need to continue to work on this.

Now why do the publishing world and publishing players, including Hachette did not tap into this potential? Why did not -- why are we not making the most of it? Well, there are different reasons. Some of the reasons -- we'll look at some of the reasons as to why the publishing world does not really tapped into the potential. Well, because you have the negotiations for the adaptation and that looks like options basically that you acquire players, stakeholders such as Canal or the different that I mentioned earlier, they acquire options on a book for a few thousands, if not, dozens of thousands of euros. So it's quite minor.

And then they block the rights for the 18 to 36 months. And then the question is how many of these options convert into shows or films. And the rate is really low, between 1% and 2%. So that means that options are taken for a low amount of money for a long period of time, but the conversion rate is very low. And when these books are finally adapted into shows or in to movies, we've gone through all these steps and then comes the time for distribution. We need to look at the rate, the ratio of the revenue that is captured by the publisher and this is also very low. So we understand why. And this is not only Hachette, like I said, all the different players in the market are struggling to capture that potential. The only clear example -- and Hachette is doing better in that category is the increase in sales -- in book sales. And that's why it's so regrettable that we have so little convention, such a low conversion rate because as soon as we have an adaptation, and then the book sales also rise.

Let me give you the example of The Housemaid. It was already a best seller before it was adapted into a movie. And we see that in the 3 months that followed the release of the movie, it went up 50%. Bridgerton is a series of book -- series of books published by Hachette and Queen's Gambit as well. It's on Netflix. It's among the top 6. You see the figures, the multiplication, the multiplier is huge. So this is Hachette and this is really good, but we need to have more of these examples, more of these successful adaptations.

So how can we work on this? Well, it's going to be very easy. We want Hachette and Studio Canal to work hand in hand with a joint venture. And of course, the potential for both of these entities is huge, as Arnaud said, the 15,000 books that will be adapted, that will be included into the Hachette catalog and 100,000 books that may be adapted by Canal+. We know the example of Asterix, about EUR 500 million in revenue over the past 15 years, and I told you about The Housemaid earlier by Hachette. It made more than EUR 400 million in theaters at global scale. The Magic Faraway Tree was raised a month ago. It's an book, more than $25 million generated in theaters. In the U.K., it's a huge success. It was not released in the U.S. yet. It hasn't been released in the U.S. yet. It will be released in the summer. So we can clearly see that Hachette -- this is an Hachette book. Hachette is able to demonstrate its capacity to have major successes in theaters.

And then Canal+. I'm not going to spend too much time on this. We have great asset of a 42 million subscribers in more than 70 countries. And what we have and what is going to be very useful to Hachette is Studio Canal. Studio Canal is one of the main players in Europe and in Africa for production and distribution shows and films with 23 production companies across the world, and these companies can help Hachette turn these books into successful movies and successful shows. Ms. Anna Martin and her team has a lot of knowledge and know-how, they're able to develop franchises.

Now we were talking about Asterix, but the best example of Canal is Paddington. Paddington is now owned by Canal+. Studiocanal has developed 3 movies, 1 in 2014, the other 1 in 2017, and the last 1 is Paddington in Peru in 2024. So over $700 million globally in theaters. Beyond that, there's shows and then there's going to be musicals and merchandising. So if you are able to go to London and if you're able to buy ticket because it's completely sold out, the assortment. The music is going to be amazing. And another Prefontaine made a very good decision when he decided to acquire the rights to Paddington. Over EUR 1.5 billion, thanks to the different products related to Paddington. So well-done. That was a great decision.

So we have a lot of knowledge, a lot of know-how when it comes to developing franchises when it comes to merchandising films shows, et cetera. So that's why we need to join forces. And we want to create a dedicated team, a stand-alone company, a team that will be completely dedicated to the development of books and film. So they need to first identify the high potential books. They'll be working hand in hand with Hachette's teams, and they will then develop script for films and shows in order to accelerate and remove the roadblocks that I've mentioned earlier with a much more favorable contractual framework so that Hachette can capture this.

We are the general assembly of Hachette. And I won't talk about it. Canal because this is really for you. This is for the Lagardere Group. This is for -- Hachette ambition is really to give the Lagardere Group and Hachette, the capacity to capture a lot more value on this really big market. It will be called On Screen that is the name of the company. You have the logo. This is the first time we're actually showing this logo. And like I said, the goal is to remove the roadblocks with a more favorable contractual framework when it comes to acquiring options, better conversion rates of books into shows and TV shows and films, because, again, we'll have a team dedicated to that. And when it comes to production, we have this long-term vision,

Arnaud said it, we want to progressively grow Hachette's expertise to look at audio visual production. And finally, we want to share the revenues better. So that Hachette will be associated to the development of these audio, video content, they need to be able to capture more of the revenue. So potential outcome will be a better capture of value coming from these adaptations. Second, acceleration of sales of books and merchandising and derive products and our authors will attract more publishers. And we will also be able to attract more authors because they will know that when they publish with us they have more chances of having their work adapted. And in the nuggets of Hachette, and the studio team believe that there's a lot of potential with this book. It's a book entitled The Surgeon. It was #1 sells at Amazon Kindle across many countries when it was released, and we will adapt it very, very soon. So we're going to start developing the script with the joint venture team. Thank you. Thank you, Arnaud.

You can be reassured with Maxime and Anna. You can be guaranteed that it will be done very seriously by one of the best and the most incredible studios in the world, as you know, Maxime always faster, always stronger, always further. It's not easy to follow, but that's what we're going to do. And that is the entry point into a different universe protected by Maxime's team, obviously. But when I go -- I look back in the rearview mirror 10 to 15 years ago, do you remember the Twilight series that the movies were a major hit. When Stephanie May presented to us the first script that had been refused by 4 of 5 American publishers. They said it was a bit complicated. We had a publisher. It was a female publisher who accepted it because she saw the potential in it. And it sometimes happens. We've missed opportunities and the best as well. But had we been able to present such a project, maybe Twilight would have been produced by Studio Canal, and with Hachette, with this unscreened company, we consider the same thing as The Housemaid. McFadden initially was not a huge author. She became one, she became a best-selling author and had we been able to present this at the beginning, maybe we could have been not only the publisher of the book, but at the same time, make the most of it with on screen and also capture the revenues coming from streaming and theater revenues.

So we plan the lesson. And thanks to Maxime and his team, we will be well equipped. We'll be able to offer great opportunities to well-known authors and not so well-known authors, this kind of experience. And this will be a win-win for everyone. Now this is great. We looked at this. This is fun.

Now let's take a look at Travel Retail. Travel Retail is something that we didn't have a Travel Retail for some time. And remember, last year, I told you that the teams of Travel Retail had an idea. And sometimes, there are synergies that are quite odd.

I serve on the Board of ADS and Airbus. So of course, I see a lot of airline companies and airport owners. And the only thing that they were talking about was transform the airports into malls. It was 10 to 15 years ago. No one was talking about it at the time. And now it's the case. There are malls. We benefit from it. We're not the only ones, but you can see that we're the #1 operator in the world. I'd like to mention that with us today. He is a partner in the U.S., partner and shareholder in the U.S., we got married, she will, in 2015 -- and this has allowed us to release skyrocket. The U.S. is extremely beneficial to us right now, especially in the world that is somewhat complicated.

And the U.S. always helps when things are troubled, they travel a lot, including domestically, nationally speaking. So if we need to acquire, if we need to make investments and develop an area, I think, that it should be done in the U.S. But of course, we will continue to invest elsewhere, wherever we see opportunities.

Now let's take a look at the 3 businesses you see here, duty free, GDP was 1 of our best businesses, and we were the first company to diversify across the 3 businesses. We're not the only ones anymore because our competitors have followed suit, with travel essentials and restaurants. And this gives us a balance in global power, allowing us to reach the figures that you've seen earlier.

You can clearly see that it's pretty much the same breakdown, it's interesting to see that. Almost like publishing. We're very strong in Europe outside of France, and we're really strong in the U.S., and we continue to develop in these 2 areas and in these geographies. This is the right choice when we see the results. We've continued to invest a lot, as you know, Gregoire had in mind -- has in mind an obsession, which I shared with him. It's in this obsession that comes from the Bollore Group more than the Lagardere Group. But this is good news, which was that we focused on cash, especially in travel times such as this one, as the one that we're experiencing.

We've had a year where we were really vigilant. We worked on deleveraging. We will continue to do that. We'll continue to be really vigilant wherever we continue to invest, right, Frederic. We have a lot of CapEx in Travel Retail. We acquire companies. We bid during cold. So of course, we're looking at cash, but we want to find the right balance, and that's exactly what you can see for Travel Retail. We've done quite a lot. There are places that there are investments that are quick wins and others that are more sluggish, but in the long run, it works well.

Here are some examples of major developments. Now I'm not going to detail all of them because you have them, but what I want you to keep in mind is the record RESOP level. So I want to thank and congratulate Dag, Craig, Frederic and the whole team, it's outstanding. So we'll continue this development strategy. We'll remain cautious as to what's happening in the Middle East. Of course, there's an impact to that. It's not significant, but we remain vigilant because we know that this crisis could go beyond what we see, you realize that price might go up, therefore, less tourism, therefore, less traffic in airport, et cetera, that's why we're vigilant, but it's also during times like this, that we can make a difference. We can develop invest when others might not be as well as we are. So it's always about the balance about making the right choices.

We remain, however, a group that is obsessed with growing with development. So AI, obviously, we -- it's the buzzword. We hear about it a lot. It's going to become important for Travel Retail. Frederic more than happy to answer your questions, if you have any. We've been doing a lot in AI. We don't talk about it. We just act. We experiment. And of course, we're monitoring this rigorously live. We have 4 groups, so news, entertainment such as this venue and radios. As you know, this is a separate module. It's a limited partnership. So it's a side, and there is racing. All of these group, so radio and newspapers and magazines. -- just is really clear. The first year, we wanted to work with an audiovisual group was in 2011. So it did not come from our reference shareholder, and we're really happy to be with by the way. But it was at the time, it was Jean-Pierre, who gave us the idea. He knew that this was going to become an ecosystem in that radios in a world that is declining, could not survive if there were a standalone entity. So we created an ecosystem between GDD, RMC. So -- your friends with CNews, Maxim. And you see it in the audience. It's worked really well. It saved our lives. Everyone with GDD -- everyone thought that it was going to disappear, but it's actually doing better than ever and better than these competitors, by the way. So the ecosystem is working really, really well.

We will continue to work on this live entertainment same. Of course, there was a complicated period over COVID. Honestly, we did know where this was going to lead us. and it's always the same. Everyone was saying, the world is not going to be the same ever again, but it's actually better than it was. For travel retail, we've caught up even more than that. And for venues, concerts, artist management, would probably detail this much better than I would, but it's a major success is doing really well. High growth and live entertainment is more live than ever. It's just very vivid. And then this is incredible. We're really happy we're ready to make acquisitions. We'll stay in friends. We'll see in the future, but there may be other venues that we would be interested in and add more theaters to the one that we have. So well done that COVID was not an easy time and after COVID was not easy either, so well done.

The radio channels, like I said, we're doing well. We -- the audience, the latest audience release was not as good as the one released at the end of the year last year. But we're not concerned, things are going well, especially for advertisement. Constance will probably say a little bit about it later on if you have a question on this, but Lagardere Paris Racing, there will be a soon. We're considering exporting the model abroad, under the format of a license. Of course, we're not going to buy land and buildings, but has an idea of maybe having a turnkey format offering the experience that we have with the men and women of the Paris Racing that we help. So we have a few projects in Europe, but we will say a little bit more about it later on.

Investments in sports as well, Cedric you're 1 of them. a very popular sports these days and Bergama considering offering more space to in the club because from an economic standpoint, it's is very profitable. So well done to Berman and teams. This is what it looks like in terms of the strategy. We are extremely optimistic for the coming years, because it's a very French ecosystem that is not as hit by the middle -- the crisis in the Middle East and also because we have incredible teams. And the experience that we've been able to develop across these media is these medias and media outlets is incredible. So yes, of course, we're cautious. This is the conclusion. We remain rigorous. We need to remain robust. We need to keep the result that we have because we need to get more cash, generate more cash. So of course, looking at this with a lot of caution. However, and this leads me to the most positive side of things.

We remain extremely cautious when it comes to cash, but that means that we have more financial means. And we have more investment capacity. So we're ready to make -- to take opportunities. And the crisis that we're currently experiencing could also lead to opportunities, and we'll need to seize them across our different businesses. And I don't want to rest on old laurels. I don't want us to rest on old laurels. But it looks as if our strategy is the right one. It was good. It was the right one during times of growth, but also during travel times in times of crisis, the Middle East crisis and also COVID. But what we want is to continue to deliver for you for our shareholders with the dividends that come with it. I know I want to thank the 33,000 people working for the group. The men and women that make up the results. We want to thank them. And I just want to congratulate everyone, and thank you.

Thank you, and dear Board members. I am delighted to be with you today and to add to the financial elements that Arnaud has presented to you.

Let's first take a look at the 2025 consolidated results of the group. We will then talk about the dividend proposal that we submitted to you today. And then we will end up with the revenue that was shared with you. So after an outstanding year 2024, as you know, 2025 was also a very good year. Once again the revenues reached EUR 9.4 billion, up 5% and 4% on a like-for-like basis. Operating result is up 8% and reaches EUR 641 million. Net consolidated results is at EUR 256 million, up 27% and net share group result is up 35%. Net debt is improving -- and this is -- like I said, EUR 1.6 billion and net debt down EUR 255 million. And this allows the group to have a 1.96x debt ratio, it's been improving in the past 2 years.

As mentioned by Arnaud, a second ago, if we look at the revenue, you can see that the breakdown -- again, the breakdown here, we have a robust model because these activities are very complementary. EUR 6 billion for travel retail. EUR 200 million for Lagardere Live. Every entity is contributing to the growth, allowing again to show the robustness of our businesses and activity portfolio.

If we look at the operating results and the breakdown the operating margin, EUR 641 million, up EUR 50 million compared to last year. Across all our activities, we see an improvement. So you see that they all contributed like Lagardere Live has been able to continue to reduce its losses and is back to a balanced situation. and Lagardere Publishing has generated a EUR 312 million, and Lagarder Travel Retail, EUR 334 million in 2025. These performances show us that our operating results are very robust and very complementary. Before we look at the P&L, the net financial expenses have gone down from EUR 138 million to EUR 124 million. That is also due to the reduced interest rates.

On the rental debt, they've gone up. That is due to the development dynamic of Lagardere Travel Retail, the renewal of existing contracts, leases and increase in number of point of sales. And this is why we have more expenditures here. Taxes are down. From EUR 127 million to EUR 111 million, that's also due to the disposal of 2024. And minority interests are going up from 34% to 53%. That is thanks to the Lagardere Travel Retail activity when because the share allocated to the minority shareholders, therefore, increases as well, thanks to our great results.

So net result group share is also, as you can see, operating CFFO. So operating cash flow generation is up as well, EUR 573 million when it was EUR 504 million in 2024. For the group, as you can see on the left-hand side, but on the right-hand side, you see that our 2 branches have been over EUR 291 million before taxes. And EUR 172 million for Lagardere Travel Retail. These clear performances have helped lowering the debt.

You see here the debt level. It's gone significantly down. This is probably the most outstanding result. You know that this was our biggest objective for 2025. So we really that we've been able to reach this level. This drop in our debt shows strict financial discipline, and the fact that we've been extremely really rigorous in our debt structure and in deleveraging. This improves our financial flexibility and helps us support the development of our activities and guarantee that we will be able to seize the opportunities that will -- that will be presented with. And that means that the net debt ratio on EBITDA allows -- has been declining over the past 2 years. As you can see, we've gone from 3x to 1.96x ratio. This is a major progress. And this demonstrates this -- the robustness of our model and of our financial management.

Now we'll have a look at our consolidated statement, you can see that things are very robust, very well structured. You can see that everything is about EUR 6.3 billion. So it's very stable. And we've also got the, which is the base of our future performance, and we've got great diversified assets. This shows us the stability.

We can see that 2.6% for our current assets, and it was the progression of the cash flow that's up to EUR 6.32 million in 2025, and this is directly linked to the high generation of cash that you can see. For equity and liabilities, you can see the figures on the screen. And this is what was sent in 2025. There is a slight variation you must have seen. And this is moderately reflecting the level of risk that has got -- we have got a hand over that. We've also got financial debt that -- this is also because we have developed the Travel Retail activity. In total, you can see that we are above EUR 9.7 million.

So let's now move on to the distribution of dividends that have been before for this year. The Board says that we should have an ordinary dividend of EUR 0.67, which is this point approved from the sixth of May, and we're also looking at the eighth of May. We've also got 4%, and this is based on the end of the stock markets and prior to concluding for the activities of the first half of 2026 and the revenue for the first quarter.

I will quickly go on to this now. So for the first quarter revenue 2026 and the first 2026, we posted solid growth with revenue of over EUR 2 billion, which is up 4%. And this is from all of our business segments and the good international. The publishing business remains robust, with growth of 1.4%, and this is supported by the success of recent publications in France, in the United States and strong performances of magazines and Lagardere Travel Retail continues on a path of sustained growth and nearly 5%. This is better than last year, Europe and the Americas confirmed the strong performance whilst Asia Pacific grew, thanks to recovery of the Auckland concession. And finally, Lagardere Live continued its positive momentum with revenue despite the fact that it's a very complicated market, with revenue up by nearly 6% driven, in particular, by the strong performance of Lagardere productions and the growth in audiences for radio stations Europe one. On your, this growth once again was strictly organic, thanks to our activities. And this is a high satisfaction.

As you can see, this organic growth represents EUR 74 million in revenue, additional compared to last year. Our previous acquisitions generated EUR 47 million over the period. However, we were unfortunately penalized by lots of groups by EUR 60 million due to exchange rate effects with the U.S. dollar, the pound sterling, the United, all moved unfavorably against the euro this year.

And finally, I will conclude this presentation with the global breakdown of our revenue at the end of lunch. This is a slide that Arnaud showed you earlier for the data. As you know, your group has a balanced portfolio of activities and a diversified geographical presence. These 2 factors in -- during this period, and in addition to the strong performance described earlier, are significant assets for the future. It is important to note that released accounts for less than 3% of our revenue. So the group's direct exposure to current in the region, therefore, remains limited, nevertheless remain very attentive to any potential indirect repercussions, whether these was for disruptions to air traffic, rising energy costs or more general inflationary pressures.

Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, thank you very much for listening to me.

Thank you very much, Gregoire. And I would now like to invite our next speaker up to the screen so that we can look at the different CSR strategies that have been put into place for 2025.

Good morning, everyone. So yes, 2025, we continued with our strategies as a responsible entity, and I'll be talking to this with you. To begin with, I just wanted to say to underline that the finality of our business strategy has led to huge creation of the, but this doesn't mean that we have stopped developing the best practices in the way that we speak and the way that we operate, all of this because we're really concerned about our performance in September. So our first engagement, does that put a link to fostering a culture of talent -- we want to ensure that we're fostering this culture of talent, and it's something that is important for us across the board, we want to enjoy that there is change of quality in the workplace at all levels particularly with the top executive team, we are delighted to announce that for the top executive team, we have 47% of which that are female. And this is a figure that is very high.

We also want to ensure that we are nurturing a new generation of managers through our international mentoring program. This internal mentoring program since 2018 when this program was launched, we've had 130 in the early stages of their careers who've been supported this way. Obviously, we want to foster a counter of talent, but this also means being close attention to the performant and well being of every individual through regular engagement surveys. At the moment, we're looking at more than 3 courses of our workforce, and this will allow them to voice their views and take action to improve their working conditions within their teams.

And finally, because we're talking about human capital regarding the crucial aspect, we are looking at continuing investment in skills and innovation, which is essential in context of change in competition across our businesses. By 2025 our prints will have received an average of many 12 hours of training per FTE worldwide. So that's our first commitment.

Our second commitment is more. We want to make it fostering a culture of openness. How do we do this by facilitating access to education culture for as many as possible, especially those who are far from this in 2025, we're looking at 100% of the catalog, the publishing titles that are available in accessible digital formats. And our Publishing division once again has been a pioneer because we are anticipating the European Union requirement coming into force in 2026.

The audio book is also expanding. We have 29,000 titles available 2025, an increase of over 3,000 titles in a single year. And also, we are here at the Casino, I would like to highlight the pioneering role of Lagardere Live Entertainment in matters of accessibility having been a trial blazer in making live performances accessible to people with autism and disorders. If we still talk about opening and our openness, we want to divest our formats in 2025 Lagardere Publishing had a huge campaign in the United Kingdom and the United States, which was called Raising Readers, which were championed by influential figures such as hugely popular actress and producer Reese Witherspoon, whom you can see in this photo. All of her different medias on outlets wanted to look at literature reading. We were looking at different columns, daily columns on literature with Nikola Carol, for example, we had different authors as well. Authors that came in and that they were invited in on a regular basis to do so.

And then we have Lagardere Travel Retail as well. We are not sitting on their laurels. We have the Relay brand, which is organizing a growing number of events, centers on books, comics and magazines from all walks of life. And we also have a third commitment now. This is to decarbon our -- to reduce our CO2 emissions. So it's important for all of our activities across the value chain. Lagardere has set a target that to reduce the CO2 emissions by 30% by 2030. And we are on the right track. In 2025, we had the transition to alternative energy sources that was accelerated as you can see on the photo here. This is a solar panels for a publishing site in Spain, it's the publishing site.

In addition to Energy & Carbon, I think that this is mainly good management of environment and financial assets. We want to best use our resources that are required for activities. This is the case of paper, which is the main material that we use. We want to ensure that 99% of our paper that is sold from recertified of recycled sources. In addition to this, we got products that are unsold that are reinjected in the secular economy.

We've got Lagardere Publishing that works a lot on conception and design, especially when it comes to reducing plastic, whether in relation to its products, or within its supply chain and Lagardere Travel Retail is continuing its waste reduction program. And this is with a particular focus on food waste. We had 125,000 mills that were saved thanks to partnerships with, which enables the redistribution of unsold food. So there, we have it for our commitment and -- and we've got all of our different partners, our commercial partners, I already spoke last year about training.

We want to look at anticorruption training that was with all of our different -- all of our different employees. We're looking at 91% here of people who have been working over 2 years. We're obviously very attentive. We're trying to have a hand over our risks, especially when we look at subcontractors and these are done with different organizations. And just to conclude, I would like to talk about local procurement. We know that local procurement is very important for Lagardere Travel Retail, we're trying to ensure that we are relevant, and we want to be very authentic and genuine when it comes to working with our customers in the different points of sales.

We're looking at 25% of our products that are local, and depending on the areas, for example, in the United Kingdom or even in Italy, we have nearly 75% rather of our products that are locally sourcing. To conclude. I would like to pay tribute to the team for the having fostered this cultural commitment day in day out, we're working about CSR, operations, finance, the sales forces well. Thank for everything that you do, bringing to life the commitment to serving our customers, our clients and all of our stakeholders. Thank you very much for listening.

Thank you very much, Celine. So now let's move on to Ms. Val rie Hortefeux.

Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be here for my first general meeting, and I want to talk about the makeup of my Board. And I also want to talk about the different works that we have undergone with regards to the financial year 2025.

Let's start off with the makeup of the board during the last general meeting on the 29th of April 2025, 2 decisions were taken. The first, was to appoint for term of 4 years 2 new independent directors, so Michele Reiser and myself and to replace Ms. Laura Carlrere and Ms., the second was to renew the terms of the 6 directors whose mandates were due to expire. This was Ms. Val rie Bernis, Ms. Fatima Fikree, and Ms. V ronique Morali and Mr. Yannick Bollore, also Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy for terms ranging from 2 to 4 years is appropriate.

Following the general meeting the committee, which meant on the -- in June renewed the terms of office for 4 years of the 2 Executive Director, Ms. Marie Flavion and Mr. Pascal Jouen, the Board that you can see to stay behind me and his members present today, be the one. This remains composed of 11 members, 2 of them are employee directors. Their terms of office will now expire on a basis, some in 2027, others in 2028 and others finally in 2029.

This structure ensures about continuity over time. in line with best governance practices in ways large ways of simultaneous renewal. One favor is worth highlighting, and that is 55.5%, whether in terms of the promotion of women or the level of independence. This is well above the equal requirements and the recommendations of the AFEP-MEDEF code. Finally, Board has diverse profiles and a high degree of complementary expertise in management, finance, communication, CSR, which makes it a Board that is structured to cover all the strategic and operational challenges of your group.

I now move on to the composition of the Board 2 committees. Your group's Board is supported by 2 standing committees. We have the Audit Committee, which is shared by V ronique Morali, who will present its to you shortly. And we also have the nomination, remuneration and CSR Committee, which I chair. For 2025, the 2025 financial year in accordance with the changes approved at the previous Annual General Meeting, the compensation of these 2 committees were reviewed. First, Ms. Val rie Bernis, Ms. Michele Reiser and I have joined the Nomination, Remuneration and CSR Committee, which now has 7 members, with an independence rate of 83.3% and a few more representation rate of 66.6%. Similarly, Ms. Michele Reiser, Mr. Arnaud de Puyfontaine and I have joined the Audit Committee which now compresses 6 numbers with an independence rate of 66.6% and a female representation reach of 83.3%.

Once again, both our committees each have seen a representation independence rate significantly higher than the legal requirements and the recommendations of the that code. So now let's move on to the main work of the Board of Directors of your company during the 2025 financial year. So during the 2025 year, the Board met on 6 occasions with attendance rate of 98.7%. And -- so 98.7%, which the speaker in addition to the so-called recurring tasks such as reviewing the annual and half yearly accounts, approving the budget, setting the remuneration packages for executive directors and monitoring the CSR strategy. The Board also worked on other strategic matters as follows: to begin with, we have 2 financing operations totaling EUR 800 million, so namely a EUR 500 million bond issue and a EUR 300 million, both of which have been heavily oversubscribed. I would like to take this opportunity to commend the work of the mobilization of and his teams in the success of these 2 transactions a success, which clearly illustrates the market confidence in the strategy of your group.

So I will not come back on the different challenges that we're facing within Hachette's Distribution division, which were outlined to you by Arnaud Lagardere. And therefore, we will not revisit this. We also reviewed the audits as they're selecting the new auditor, which is the subject of resolution submitted for your today on which will discuss with you. And finally, we have the external evaluation of the functioning of the Board of Directors and its committees as a -- we have an independent committee.

Now I'm pleased, but I'll come back to this afterwards, when we talk about the works. So let's now move on to the workstations remuneration and CSR committee. The committee met on 5 occasions with an exemplary attendance rate of 100%. It continued its recurring work across 3 key areas: CSR, remuneration and governance. Regarding CSR, throughout the financial year, the committee reviewed the group strategic decision, action plans as well as the results by business division and approved in a joint session with the Audit Committee, the company's sustainability report for the 2024 financial year. For remuneration now the committee monitored the programmation of the policies approved by the last general meeting and recommended adjustments to the Board in line with best government practices.

The committee also monitored the delivery of the action plans -- and regarding governance, the committee reviewed the composition of the Board and the committee and in particular, the independence of its members, and we have finally the specific tasks. We have the of the process for the annual assistant of the functioning of the Board and its committees, and this is something that we worked on during the financial year 2025. The evaluation process was presented to the directors. They highlighted several very positive observations, which I'd like to share with you.

The evolution is based on 3 areas. We've got the compensation of the Board, the functioning of the Board and the Chairman of the Board as well. For the composition of the Board, it appears that the board is of a high overall standard, highly experienced and possesses a rare combination of expertise. These are financial, managerial, sector-specific and CSR. This is a renewed yet cohesive Board.

On the functioning of the Board now, it appears that the mode of operation has evolved significantly since the external valuation of 2022 and then it works effectively with a high level of energy and commitment in a climate of mutual respect, trust and speech.

On the Chairman of the Board, this is the best or last now. So we talked about the chair once again. Arnaud Lagerdere is described as a leader whose leadership is unanimously recognized by all directors, unanimously which is actually very rare and significant. Everyone praises his strategic vision, his unfaltering commitment to the group and his perfect command of matters he brings before the Board. The Board is effort aligned with as well, namely to support the performance of your group and the creation of long-term value whilst maintaining a constructive challenge to senior management.

So ladies and gentlemen, now I would like to add that it is also not rare for certain leaders to refuse to be evaluated, which was not the case of Arnaud Lagardere. He accepted, and he opened his doors to different evaluators. So I'd like to comment that as well. Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude now it is on these positive observations that I will hand the floor over to V ronique Morali, who reports on the work of the Audit Committee. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Our Audit Committee came together with a 6x with an attendance rate of 100%, which we're very happy about. And with -- I would like to thank the financial teams as well, which we work with, we talk about all of the recurring subjects within the Audit Committee so the production of accounts, the closing the mapping of different risks, different audit issues as well. And I would also like to just very quickly underline the 3 points that are important to me. I imagine that will be recurring for upcoming years, and that will be part of the Audit Committee and its work.

More so the first is the following, as was mentioned by Arnaud Lagardere. We will be looking at everything to IT. For IT, this is something that is important, especially for a multi-geographical group. And we are looking at lots of different aspects. We've got cost aspects as well. Why? Because each entity wants to have different systems in place, and this will be the case for everyone. We also want to take protection, data protection and the different reporting system. Therefore, even if one of these subjects have been dealt with, and we are covering good ground and as mentioned earlier, we need to be costs cutting.

I now want to ensure that we are centralizing approach and centralizing all of our subjects, which will allow us to understand what's happening in the different geographies for management of stock and so forth, we also want to implement the harmonization of all of our systems, and I would like to underline this. And we are going to continue with this in a permanent fashion. This is also we want to identify the different threats, cyber threats that will come to us, and we want to ensure that we are on the board with this.

We also have other subjects linked to vulnerability, and we have big data protection for personal data. That is important as far. All of this is the -- will form the foundation of our IT system.

We have a second subject that is going to be recurring, and this will be making at collecting production and follow-up data that is linked to sustainability and this in the CSR, we know that this is something that is part of our KPIs. There are lots of different aspects within the group that are follows with a lot which are followed rather monitored with a lot of enthusiasm and constraints. This is not the case of the group. And as I mentioned, there are lots of geographical entities or sectorial entities. And that should be implemented as well. Why? Because this is important for sustainability and when we talk about sustainability, it's the trajectory.

We can look at this in a very positive fashion with the different auditing teams with the CSR and remuneration team as well, and we have been able to -- we also put together the sustainability report in March, and this is a subject that we are going to be continuing working on. Why? Because they are KPIs are positive and will have an impact in the future. The third subject in this is more occasional and this is looking at resolution of 4 and 5 that were mentioned earlier. This is the renewal of our statutory auditors. And we do make eomes and -- we have a formal and informal exchanges as well with the group. And I would like to thank the for everything that they have done over the course of the past few years, they have really respected all of our different deadlines. They have ticked all of the boxes. All of the Ts have been crossed and all of the Is dotted. Therefore, we would like to thank them for all of their work that they have done.

We would -- we've also appointed Grant Thornton. Grant Thornton will now be replacing Fortis. And they will become the other statutory auditor as well with and financial term of 6 years. And this for the whole group because they have been working with us in 2024. So they have actually been eco . With Resolution 5, this is the nonreplacement of as its role as statutory auditors for sustainability information, the Audit Committee, and I hope that this is something that you'll be able to follow. The simplification of governance and cost assemble orders were only going to be returning to a single auditor -- so what -- and this is something that was deemed appropriate for sustainability. Thank you very much for listening.

Now I'd like to give the floor to. She will be presenting the different reports that have been put forward by our statutory auditors and the information linked to sustainability, you'll be able to find this information in the universal document. Deloitte over to you.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, the auditors. I'm delighted to be able to speak on behalf of the statutory auditors, Deloitte and. This is a report that we have written for the last financial year

There are 4 and they were made available to you both for today's event, and I will summarize them for you today. Let us start with the report on our annual accounts. This is the first resolution. They were prepared as per the French accounting standard. And we would like to highlight the fact that this is the first application of the #2022-06 new regulation, and we consider that the participation were key to the audit and therefore, at the end of our audit, we have no reserves for the group's accounts. So that was for the nonconsolidated accounts and the consolidated accounts were prepared according to the IFRS standard.

There are 2 key elements to the audit. First is the assessment of acquisition gaps given the significance of this expenditure and key calculation scenario. The second one is the estimate returns taken into account into the Lagardere Publishing revenue given how significant the amount is for the returns in the balance sheet. And the estimates that are taken into account for the different scenarios for calculation. The conclusion is that we don't have any findings or reserves.

As for the fourth resolution of this general assembly, we have made a report on regulated conventions. There were no convention, no regulated convention authorized or agreed upon during the previous year. There was only one that had been approved previously, the one which is an assistance convention between Lagardere Management and Lagardere Resources and amendments and the memorandum of understanding. There's also the report on certification for information related to sustainability. All of this is aligned with the requirements.

The report is split into 3 parts. The first one is compliance to SRS standards, which are the new standards for sustainability. The second 1 is compliance with regards to sustainability information based on the code. And finally, the disclosure requirements regarding taxonomy. And in our report, we highlight the fact that there's one specific element regarding estimation of greenhouse gases for Scope 3, especially for Lagardere Travel Retail. So this is the only conclusion and finding that we have. Thank you very much to shareholders. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Ariana. Let's move to the Q&A session. We have about 20 minutes.

I have 2 questions. My name is. The first one is about the troubles coming up in the Hormuz Strait. The second one is about the 20 -- the 200th anniversary of Hachette Publishing. And I struggling with rising closing prices and supply issues to maintain their profitability, they have to increase the price of paying tickets or to even cancel some lights. The situation is not very buoyant for Lagardere Retail, given the fact that we are present in over 200 airports. Even if the crisis in the Middle East was to end, air traffic would probably still be disrupted for many months to come. Hence my question, while waiting for this conflict to be solved, have you considered measures where you would backtrack or even trends for airport stores towards the 700 network -- 7 stores in 700 stores in train stations, metro stations.

Also in 1926, Hachette created the publishing house, which states its name to this day. He was a marketing genius. And he was extremely innovative. And this is why his publishing house is such a successful one. He was in first to think about having points of sales in railway stations in France. These points of sales then become the relay stores that still exist to this day. Today, Lagardere Publishing, Hachette Publishing being the main brand of it has become the third publishing group in the world, with a revenue of EUR 3 billion. Therefore, for its 200th anniversary, how come you have planned includable celebration with all your individual shareholders and institutional shareholders, but also your clients, your suppliers. And at the end of the celebration, you would have a bank that would look like an Asterix bank because it's not every day that you turn 200 years old.

Your questions are incredible, and thank you for your loyalty because I often bump into you. I think Frederic could take the first few questions. And then Jean end for the festivities. That's why he loves.

Well, we can maybe kill a few rivals, if you will. About the Homuz Strait, it's true that the current situation is putting pressure on traffic. There are levels of uncertainties related to how long a conflict will last in the region, and therefore, the impact that it will have on local -- on airlines. Locally, there's a huge impact. But in the rest of the world, it's hard to assess the impact. Yes, it's true that there are a few companies that are canceling some of the flights rather, but it's more because they're rationalizing some of the not so profitable lines. But right now, after 2 month into the conflict, we're still not really seeing a huge significant impact on airline traffic.

As for your question about transferring stores, logistics issues are -- it's a little bit difficult. As you know, we are in terminals and in traffic, the strait is blocked, therefore, it would be difficult to do that. And -- but if we had the opportunity to deploy more stores in stations, we would do it regardless of this -- of the conflict, as you know, stations, train stations and metro stations are points of sales that we cherish, and we try to develop as much as possible stores and our restaurants whenever we can make business in transportation infrastructures, then we do it.

Regardless of the other conflicts about the facilities and the celebration, yes, 200 years, 200 anniversary, it's huge. And I'd like to mention one thing. Hachette Publishing was lucky to have over time first, Louise Hachette, you're right, a visionary. He was a publisher, but he also invented, you're right, point of sales in train stations. And then there was other benefactors Jean Lagardere, who bought in December 1981, the company, he dusted it off a little bit because it was struggling and decided to develop the brand abroad. And then now Versant and his family including yes,, which is why we now have a long-term vision with a French family. So we're really keeping Hachette's DNA and for the best of the company.

So as you said, to celebrate it, we either organize it or we ask Michel organize it at his place. I'm joking, of course. Then I think Jean-Christophe, who was the one who initiated the celebration, he -- he did an incredible job with his team. So I think he'd be in a better position to talk about it.

Thank you, Arnaud, and thank you, sir, for your comment. It's true that the Hachette Group has had an incredible journey, 200 years. It was a small bookstore in the Latin area of Paris. It's at the time there were being a few bookstores, not like a day, but in 200 years, we've become the thrid global publishing group. And Lagardere was speaking about 3 benefactors. I'd like to add a fourth one himself because 20 years ago, someone had to gamble. It was a bet, betting on publishing. It was not easy. A lot of people were saying that there was no future -- and this sector, and it was an incredible group already. It was bought out by Lagardere time. It was from a national group. He turned it into a global group because he's the one who helped the group made investments in Spain, in the U.K., in the U.S. and elsewhere.

And everyone will agree with the fact that, of course, everyone thinks now that it's obvious, but at the time, it was not obvious. It was a very bold decision that he made. Therefore, he is part of the success. And you're a bit unfair with us because I think we've already celebrated from the 12th to the 15th of March, we've brought together the employees, the readers thousands of people came during 4 days at Palo in Paris where about 60 of our brands were the are third-party publishers, and it was an incredible celebration. There were a lot of intense moments.

And I have to admit that we did not have the banquet. We didn't -- so we might have to think about something at the end of the year. We did not feast and we could have organized a feast. You're right.

Congratulations for the incredible synergies between Canal+ and Hachette, finally a convergence that is going to be successful. I have 3 questions. First about the balance sheet and more specifically, the decline in equity. Why is everything up, everything is great, but the only line that is not looking good is equity? Page 219. Second question, the disciplines of scoreboards and many high schools because of the new digital portal, what measures were taken by the group to defend your interests? And above all, and you're not in favor of this measure, what have you done? Because I know that it's a bit of a controversy. But the share price figures are better. However, we're still down 6% in 5 years and down 18% in 10 years. What does that -- what do you have to say about this on equity.

You're right. As I said earlier, equities are down this year. That's mainly related to the distribution of dividends, which we did reduce by the way compared to what was distributed 2 years ago. As you may have seen, the net result has gone up this year. Therefore, we have good hopes that for the future, the equities will go up in the coming years. Jean-Christophe -- as you probably will anticipate, we agree with. But spent more than 5 hours a day on screens. They spend about 15 minutes reading books. So of course, thinking that we're going to replace school textbooks by digital screens to learn is not obvious.

I'd also like to say that the countries that were pioneers in this movement, and I'm thinking of Scandinavian countries are actually backtracking on this. So luckily for the most part in our countries where students are still studying with books, textbooks, but you're right that there are very alarming initiatives. And I think -- I'm thinking of the Idera Regional Council that's decided to stop using school textbooks and to only ask teachers and students to use digital textbooks. So what do we do against it?

Well, first is a union called the National Publishing Union that is fully mobilized on all of this and is working with the Ministry of Education. So we are working on this as well as first publishing group in France number one, publishing group. So we want to convince regional entities, regional stakeholders to not make the same decision as the Ilde France region. And if the ile-de-France region could backtrack that would be wonderful.

Thank you, Christoph. But the share price, of course, we all -- we feel that this remains an opportunity because I don't know exactly what the share price is right now. But I actually admit that I made a very peculiar choice. I sold my Lagardere shares buy shares closer to the Bollore family probably also because there's a floating stope that is low. But if you do -- when you do your road shows, for NSG and Lagardere, I guess you get the same comment. What do you answer people.

We agree with you. We spend a lot of time explaining the performance of the company and our strategy to convince investors. So just hold on tied and I know it's not easy. Just hold on tight, it's worth fit. Number -- so yes, are there questions? -- left to the left, #6, then apologies.

What is the -- what are the -- what is the strategy against Trump and when their actions are actually detrimental to us as we can see where the publishing figures. And -- some are saying that there are crushing values, but they're not blaming the Russian government for killing many of its citizens. Besides the Lagardere Group is more and more towards a political party that I won't name, should the Lagardere Group not stop focusing on this and rather go back to its core business and mingle with politics.

Well, we've known each other for a long time, Christophe the performance shows that we are aligned with our society, and that shows that we're on the right track. Secondly, in our goal, I started management, the management team and even our main shareholder is not planning on having ideological or political agendas. Even if I hear and see and read it here and there, especially that's what our competitors are saying that there are any response to us. So be assured that this is not our goal. We don't have a political or ideological agenda, I think that the performance that we'll have in the coming years, our editorial strategy will show us that and work hand in hand. And if it wasn't for the changes that were made, would still be at very low levels, would probably agree with me, and if you want to add something, go ahead. But the changes that we made really, really went in the right direction because if we look at the results, they're very fruitful.

You're probably not reading or listening to the news where you should go ahead and listen to, go ahead and listen to go ahead and read GDD. To us freedom of expression is essential. That's number one, but also the performance of the company. And Christopher, you can only agree with me that in terms of the performance of the company, the strategy was the right one. The partnership that we have with, of course, partnership with Chanel+ with the and other opportunities that the group has allowed us to get -- as you said, the morning show is very robust. We have this freedom of expression across on our shows, all our programs. So this is a new breadth. And is a free radio channel. So that's what we want.

And yes, and you know it better than anyone else. In terms of diversity, honestly, Hachette is extremely diverse. We have every -- we have the whole spectrum of ideologies. And I don't think -- I don't see why we should not do that. It's extremely profitable. It's been profitable for a long term. This has done incredibly well in 2025. As for the proximity that you implicitly mentioned with our main shareholder, I could take -- could take a note, but France never asked me to do anything to take any action. No point has he ever asked me that. Other questions, number 3.

Jean Individual shareholder. I have a question. The net debt ratio went from 3 to 1.9. So what is your objective for the future? On buying companies in the travel retail will? As for the share price, Page 305. And if we look at the capital there's an Asterix footnote that says that you still own floating shares. It would be good to tell us and to mention Mr. Lagardere that you still have that over, you don't have any sense. And you're planning on buying companies. Lagardere owned 11%. It hasn't moved in years. So you still want to have the opportunity to have cash for these shares. So basically, there's a shareholder that is not moving that is not doing much. And that is dormant and you have a 6% floating share rate. So it's difficult to make the price -- the share price go up when you're not moving the situation.

Well,, 20 years being loyal to us. I don't know many shareholders that support companies in which they've invested for as long as they have. So this is their policy. They do what they want, what they can and what they do is just fine by us, no matter what they do. So I won't say more about this. But about the fact that I'm a shareholder myself, I am a shareholder. But personally, as you know, 2 packs, 1 that was owned by companies and another set of shares. There was a personal one. And for tax reasons, should be perfectly honest, I kept how many do I have, 3.4 percent of Lagardere shares that I own personally and not through the company.

The other question is -- there were 2 questions on the net debt ratio and the objectives regarding this. And Lagardere Travel Retail strategy. So for the net debt ratio, we went from 3 to under 2. We don't communicate on a target of this ratio or not publicly, at least -- but for the coming years, what I could say is that we want to maintain our cash generation efforts. We're fully mobilized. The current context tells us that we need to be conscious. We've gone back to a debt level that gives us more leeway than what we had in the past.

And this is a perfect segue into your second question with regards to acquisitions on Travel Retail. We keep our options open. As you may remember, we've made a few acquisitions over the last few years. We did not stop our M&A activities. We remain extremely pragmatic, very opportunistic. And we made the acquisition, 70% of the joint venture, which was a form of code tender, but it was treated as a variation because we bought out a company to be able to be in the bid and that will make Amsterdam, 1 of the biggest airports of the group in the coming years. So we keep our options open, but we want to remain extremely strict for regards our financial policy. As a was saying, you were talking about acquisitions. So either we buy companies, which is what's happened -- what happened in Germany, like in Germany a year ago, or we bid for calendars, which we do very often. But that's not what we call an acquisition. But it's still growth. Other question?

6. Yes .

Individual shareholder just like the previous speakers. I'd like to say a few things. And then I've three questions. The last 1 should be a funny one. Grace, you're graciously promising the world. But given the exceptional context with Straits, seas the world is -- and conflicts the world is changing with AI, with gas issues the CEO's salary is going up when women don't get the opportunities that you get because there is very little representativeness and the managers and not at a void, by the way.

We should maintain our honor and I'd like to mention one thing. The dividend profits have gone up. And I know that also, I say that we should limit dividends. But when profits are going up, you should at least increase the dividend by at least EUR 0.01. Second topic, what we have on the tab to vote. We only have the English and French versions of the document, but I think that the universal registration document as well as the presentations that you are giving as well as answers to written questions would be a good idea to also have on the tabs. And by the way, we are no longer receiving the at home anymore. It's a shame. So maybe -- maybe you should simply reduce number of pages, but it would be good to have this document in paper copy. Also, we've had a few in discussions, and I've asked AI among the documents that you see. What is the is generated by AI and the share that has been generated by human brain.

What's funny is that when I tested several AIs, some said that part was AI generated and another part that was human-generated and vice versa. So it was actually quite contradictory. Well, thank you very much. As for the dividend, we do as we can we do our best. Everyone is helping deleverage the group. So of course, we could distribute more dividends but against taking a balance -- we -- you have to vote on this, by the way. But this is a proposal that was made to you, and we believe it's balanced with regards to cash generation acquisition policy. You can criticize it, and I understand that. I take note of it.

As for the brochures and the documents, well, brochures and documents, I can confirm that they're all made by human brains and hence, so this is a lot of work. The European regulations make this work more complex every year. So our teams are working on these documents for a month, and it was not AI made at all. As for the fact that we no longer send these documents in physical copy, it's true there are some copies available in the room, but it was a decree, it was a decree that says if the documents are available online and they were sent to the shareholders, we no longer have to send them by the mail and this helps us also reduce costs as well as environmental resources.

We've talked about the cost of paper. And of course, we'd rather use paper to publish books rather than then these. But of course, there are a few copies, paper copies in the room. So if you want to have a copy of the brochure of the universal registration document don't hesitate to return. In your program at the beginning of what you said, I had a reference to the fact that there are not many women, not enough women in management positions. As you know, at the Board of 55.5%. I remember that women and also women account for 47% in executive positions. So it's way beyond the average that we have at our peers. So there's no glass window that Lagardere said 63% of women and still an executive positions, high level of women.

And as you may have seen, the average ratio of pay gap is only 14%. It's slightly below the average rate of CSR reports because it's usually 15% in most countries, it's actually more benefit to women. And if we look at the granular detail of the company, we have 75% of nonexecutive positions. And here, the pay gap is only 5%. So of course, we're targeting 0, but -- and the HR department is working hard to produce the gender pay gap, but 5% is still almost insignificant or at least that's how the regulation deems it.

As for management positions, there are fewer positions and again, and not always unfavorable to women.

One last question and then we'll move to the vote or proceed to vote.

Individual shareholder. Going back to this. I think I had a reference to, who's a Board member. I had a question about this. When he was incarcerated, was he able to attend all of the meetings. And if not -- how can you justify the fact that you maintain in his position. As for the future, as you know, there will be -- he has appealed is judgment, and there will be a decision made in a ruling made in October. What will you do? Do you commit to end his term in the Board of Directors. By the way, the group has made a decision a few months ago and the more insists on the necessity to set an example with company shareholders, so are you planning on making a decision with this?

Thank you very much for your question. let me talk about being example, obviously, we can talk about the fact that Nicolaas continues to bring something from into are about number of quarters, I think it was about 270 like the 1,000 rather, his. I don't know what he was doing when he wasn't present. I don't think I was very happy to for him, but he was the 1 that has and I'm going to secondary to what people were seeing, but it's actually the group picking the most of this the 300,000 copies of this book, I think that, that is actually quite exceptional.

And as we're talking about is ever no moment was it forbidden for him to be a member of a Board. This is important. And I'm not just talking about area, and this. We can find other people to do this absolutely, but he is a friend of the group is someone -- who has always been on our side. And I don't know why he should be penalized a second time because there is no reason for us to do it. Therefore, we are not doing this against what -- people saying within this for the group. And I will continue to work at this. The we owe him a lot. And when I say us as a group but us as well. I hope I've answered your question. And he didn't miss a single meeting. He didn't miss a single meeting. , you're not here, very much -- and now let's move on to the votes. I don't think that there are any other questions.

Let's move on to the. So just the I can see that there is one recent question that was sent to the company and the question-and-answer available on the, and they will stay here. Before the vote, I'm just going to give you the figures. The quorum has changed at -- with regards to what I said earlier, it's now 1,876 shareholders who are participating. This means that we have -- this is above the 20% that we need. We have the different figures that you can see on the screen for a number of its -- before the initiate, we will have a short term just to explain how the boxes have the voting system mobile.

[Presentation]

The first resolution is the resonation of the approval of the 2025 annual and consolidated financial statements, voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting is closed. Resolution adopted 99.99%. Second resolution on the screen, approval of the consolidated financial statements, voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting is closed. Resolution adopted 99.99%. Third resolution is the allocation of net income and distribution of a dividend. Voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting is closed. Resolution adopted 99.99%. Fourth resolution is the appointment of Grant Thornton as statutory auditor for a term of 6 fiscal years. Voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting is closed. Resolution adopted 99.99%. Fifth resolution is the nonrenewal and normal placement of as such go responsible to certifying sustainability information Voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting is closed. Adopted 99.99%. Sixth resolution. Approval of the compensation packages for corporate offices for fiscal year 2025. The voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting is closed. Resolution adopted 99.98%. Seventh presentation is the approval of elements for remuneration for the to Mr. Araud Lagardere. Voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting is closed. Adopted at 99.61%. Eighth resonation is approval of the remuneration policy for the CEO for 2026. Voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting is closed. Approved, 99.62%. We've got the ninth resolution now which is the approval of the remuneration policy to the members of the Board. Voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting is closed. Adopted 99.97%. Tenth resolution is the renewal of the share buyback program for 18 months. Voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting is closed. Adopted at 99.99%. Eleventh and last transition is the balance for the formalities. Voting is open.

[Voting]

Voting is closed. Resolution adopted 99.99%, and ladies and gentlemen, concludes our resolutions. We'll see you guys next year. And good like to more. Thank you very much. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

Good evening. This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Louis Hachette Group and Lagardère 2025 Full Year Results Conference Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Rapin, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Yes. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. This conference call will be hosted by Jean-Christophe Thiery, Chairman and CEO of Louis Hachette Group; Gregoire Castaing, Deputy CEO of Louis Hachette Group and Deputy CEO in charge of Finance for Lagardère. And joining us for this presentation, we have Pauline Hauwel, our Group Secretary General; Mr. Dag Rasmussen, Chairman and CEO of Lagardère Travel Retail; Frédéric Chevalier, CEO of Lagardère Travel Retail. All these participants will share their insights and key highlights. This presentation will be followed by a Q&A session.

I now leave the floor to Jean-Christophe Thiery.

Thank you, Emmanuel. Good evening, everyone. I am delighted to present the results of Louis Hachette Group. Driven by the strength and complementarity of all our businesses, our international footprint and the commitment of our teams, we delivered revenue of EUR 9.6 billion and a record adjusted EBIT of EUR 551 million. This strong momentum also allowed us to continue reducing our debt at a rapid pace. Gregoire will tell you more about the figures in a moment. Lagardère Publishing delivered strong performances in 2025, both in France and in English-speaking markets. A few highlights include, in the United States, Hachette Group became the #3 publisher in the market.

Along with a strong release scheduled, our efforts to enhance the value of our catalog paid off with the successful release of Twilight, for example. In Europe, the new Asterix Adventure was a tremendous success across several markets. In 2026, we will celebrate the 200th anniversary of Hachette, the world's third largest publisher. The Bicentennial is an opportunity to reaffirm our mission, making reading and culture accessible to as many people as possible. To mark the occasion, we will host a free literary festival in Paris next month. Lagardère Travel Retail also had a very strong year in 2025, driven by profitable growth as air traffic normalized. A key milestone was the seamless takeover of one of the largest travel retail contracts in history at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport.

Within Lagardère Live, 2025 saw the best audience performance in 6 years for Europe, now reaching 2.9 million daily listeners and record attendance at our Arkéa Arena in Bordeaux. Finally, for Prisma Media, 2026 will be a year focused on strengthening our core activities in a rapidly evolving market. In summary, 1 year after the creation of our new company, we have demonstrated the solidity of our strategy as a diversified leader in Publishing, Travel Retail and Media. We are confident in our future and our development prospects.

Thank you very much all. I will now hand over to Gregoire.

Thank you, Jean-Christophe, and good evening, everyone. I'm also very pleased to share with you the strong results delivered by Louis Hachette Group this year, the first full year as a listed company. Let me start with the key figures on the Slide 4. And as you can see, Louis Hachette Group's revenues reached EUR 9.6 billion compared to EUR 9.2 billion last year. This confirms the continuation of a solid growth trend in a rather challenging economic environment with an increase of 4% on a reported basis and 3% on a like-for-like basis. Our operating performance was equally robust.

Adjusted EBIT rose 8% to more than EUR 550 million. This reflects the quality of our businesses and the disciplined execution of our operational strategy. Cash flow generation was also very strong. You know that this was our priority for this year. I will come back to this point later, but you can already see its positive impact on the balance sheet. In '25, we significantly reduced our net debt by EUR 236 million, and this brings the net debt just below EUR 1.6 billion with a leverage ratio now under 2x, a level that the group has not reached in a long time.

Let us now take a closer look at the performance of our different businesses. Starting with the Slide 7 with the Lagardère Publishing activity, which delivered another year of very solid results. Despite a market environment that has generally been trending downward this year, Lagardère Publishing continues to deliver solid growth, supported by its diversified portfolio of activities and geographies. Revenues was up 3% like-for-like basis this year and crossed the EUR 3 billion threshold. The division delivered solid growth across all markets, as you can see, more specifically in France, revenue was up 2% in a market down by 1.5%.

The illustrated segment benefited from continued demand for coloring books as well as from the strong performance of the new Asterix Album, Asterix in Lusitania, which sold over 2 million copies as of today. In General Literature, sales were driven by strong new releases, including Dan Brown's, The Secret of Secrets at Lattès, the third part of Pierre Lemaitre's [ series ] and Un avenir radieux at Calmann-Lévy, the Adélaïde de Clermont-Tonnerre's Je voulais vivre, winner of the Renaudot prize published by Grasset, and Nicolas Sarkozy's Le Journal d'un prisonnier at Fayard. The Education segment also benefited from the reform of the sixth-grade curriculum as well as the primary level titles. And regarding the U.S., we are seeing revenue up 3% in a market that was actually down by close to 0.5%.

The business benefited from a very strong slate of new releases. Among the top sellers in '25, we had Callie Hart's Quicksilver and Brimstone, Gone Before Goodbye by Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben as well as the anniversary editions of Twilight. In the U.K., growth reached a solid 3% in a slightly declining market, supported by the strong performance of several fiction titles, including Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros, The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith and Circle of the Days by Ken Follett as well as the continued momentum from Freida McFadden, The Housemade series.

The business also benefited from the new distribution partnership with Bloomsbury initiated in '24. In Spanish-speaking countries, Spain and Mexico, revenue was down 6%, mainly due to the curriculum reform in Spain that has started in '22 and that end at the end of '24. Revenue in Partworks was up 6%, a remarkable performance given the trend of this market. This was driven in particular by the successful launches of Warhammer Combat Patrol And Disney Novels. Finally, board games continue to support our other revenue segment and our diversification with a strong 10% growth on a like-for-like basis, supported by the carryover sales of Skyjo with 2 million units sold in '25, along with the successful launch of the new game Flip 7.

Now let's have a look to the operating margin of the Publishing brands. On Slide 8, EBITA reached EUR 308 million compared to EUR 289 million in '24, maintaining Publishing's operating margin at a very high level. The high level of margin was driven by the top line growth, of course, and by the favorable sales mix and improvements for the SG&A cost. EBITA also includes the contribution from equity accounted companies, which came to EUR 6 million in '25 compared to EUR 1 million in '24. These favorable effects were partially offset by restructuring costs of EUR 14 million, mainly in the U.S. and in Mexico.

Next slide on cash flow. Our strong operating performance translates into steady cash generation. What we show here is the CFFO, the cash generated from the operation, including CapEx before interest and taxes. CFFO came in at a very high level of EUR 361 million compared to EUR 330 million at the end of '24, a solid increase of 9%, considering that '24 was already a record year for the cash generation at Publishing level. This year, this amount included EUR 44 million related to the proceeds from the sale of the real estate asset in Paris rue d'Assas and the sale of a domain name [indiscernible] in the U.S.

Let's now move on to Travel Retail on the Slide 11. '25 marks another record-breaking year for Lagardère Travel Retail. First revenue reached EUR 6.1 billion. On a like-for-like basis, revenue increased by 4.4%, driven by a significant number of openings and concession wins across Europe, Africa and the Pacific region. In France, revenue grew 3%, supported by higher air traffic, new concession and strong commercial initiatives in duty-free businesses. In the EMEA, excluding France, revenue was up 7% with solid growth in the U.K., Spain, Poland, Italy and Albania, driven by traffic growth and network expansion.

Africa posted strong momentum as well, up 25%, thanks to recent opening in Benin, Cameroon and Rwanda. In the Americas, revenue was up 3%. In North America, activity was supported by network expansion and strong commercial performance in Travel Essentials and Dining, despite stable air traffic. South America delivered a strong growth of 28%, driven by the rebound in tourism and the opening of the new Lima Airport in Peru. Last but not least, in Asia Pacific, revenue declined by 12%, mainly due to North America, which turnaround, by the way, is well on track. This turnaround impacted the group revenue by close to 2% of growth. So long story short, excluding North Asia, Travel Retail revenue grew by 6.5% on a like-for-like basis.

Let's now turn to profitability on the next slide. We are also pleased to share this record EBITA of EUR 312 million in '25, up 17% year-on-year. As a result, our operating margin reached 5.1% of revenues compared to 4.6% in '24. Travel Retail achieved a strong performance supported by the top line growth in Americas and EMEA and also with the China restructuring benefits and of course, a strict discipline regarding the costs. EBITA in '25 also includes EUR 23 million in restructuring charges and EUR 18 million in asset impairments, mainly in Asia and Iceland related to closure operation in order to preserve the profitability going forward.

Going to the cash flow generation on the next slide. The CFFO of our Travel Retail business stood at EUR 224 million, again, a record level. This amount -- in this amount, we had an unfavorable impact on working capital from the numerous new duty-free concession openings in Amsterdam, Auckland and Cambodia this year that -- and from the -- an increase in inventories in France linked to the opening of a new warehouse. It's also worth noting that CapEx were slightly lower in '25, EUR 35 million lower this year compared to last year. This is not because we intended to slow down our investments, quite the opposite actually. It's rather linked to the very high level reached in '24 and derives from the project phasing from the new concessions.

Let's now move on to Lagardère Live on Slide 15. As you know, this [indiscernible] brings together our radio channels, news magazine, ELLE licenses, live venues and artists production business. In '25, Lagardère Live generated EUR 219 million in revenue. Excluding the impact of Paris Match disposal in November '24, revenues continue to grow, up 1% year-on-year. The News and Radio segment delivered a slight increase, 0.3% compared to last year. The continued expansion of European's audience helped offset softer trends in music radio and regarding the advertising market. The Press business also performed well, supported by the launch of Le JDNews and by strong contribution from ELLE International licensing and by the ongoing momentum of our diversification strategy. Our live entertainment activities had a particularly strong year, posting 6% growth, driven by successful concert tours organized by L Productions and a record year at the Arkéa Arena in Bordeaux.

Going to Slide 16. Lagardère Live, as you can see, strongly had its operating losses in '25, delivering a EUR 37 million year-on-year improvement, supported, of course, by significant cost-saving measures. The year '25 was still impacted by around EUR 10 million in restructuring costs. These costs relate to reduction of staffing costs as well as efforts to streamline the real estate portfolio inherited from a time when Lagardère Media perimeter was significantly larger than it is today.

So as you can see, we remain fully committed to continuously reducing operating costs within this new division. And excluding these restructuring charges, EBITA would, therefore, be closer to a loss of around EUR 10 million. We are not yet breakeven, but as you can see, we are getting closer. The cash flow also improved sharply with cash burn reduced threshold. CFFO came in at minus EUR 11 million compared to minus EUR 43 million the previous year. And before wrapping up our review of the group performance, let me share a few comments on Prisma Media. For the full year '25, Prisma Media delivered revenue of EUR 266 million, down 9% on a reported basis. This reflects both the ongoing contraction of the print press market, the consumption patterns and the shift in digital advertising market.

To respond and adapt to these challenging market conditions, we launched 2 restructuring plans, one in June and another one in December '25, covering around 300 employees, more than 1/3 of the total workforce. The aim of this is to, of course, safeguard profitability, Prisma is still profitable. I will come back to this later in '25 besides the restructuring cost. These certain changes in governance were also put in place and the new leadership team initiated several other strategic actions. First, we strengthened our people magazine portfolio with the acquisition of Ici Paris and France Dimanche in December '25, 2 magazines, which are profitable today and less impacted by the market changes that I just mentioned.

Second, we decided to refocus on our core businesses and flagship brands with the planned divestment of our luxury magazines. And third, at the same time, Vivendi is expected to take 14% minority stake with a cash consideration. These last 2 transactions are currently under review by the staff representative bodies and are expected to be finalized by the end of this semester.

Let's now move to the next slide with a focus on Prisma Media profitability. As you can see, Prisma's EBITA stood at minus EUR 43 million in '25, a decrease mainly reflected the decline in the top line and the impact of the restructuring cost of EUR 49 million. Let me point out again that excluding this cost, this restructuring cost, EBITA remained positive at EUR 6 million for '25. And of course, our aim is definitely to keep Prisma EBITA in this positive territory.

Now that we covered the group -- the performance for each division, let me walk you through the financials at group level, starting with revenues on Slide 21. The total group revenue reached again EUR 9.6 billion in '25. As you can see, reported revenue growth was 4%, as I already mentioned it, representing almost EUR 400 million additional revenue in absolute terms. This year, again, organic growth remain the main driver, contributing EUR 310 million across all our businesses. The main scope effects came from the start of the duty-free operation at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in May '25 as well as the acquisition of Sterling Publishing at the end of '24 and 999 Games at the beginning of '25, offsetting the sale of Paris Match in November '24.

Regarding Amsterdam Duty Free, the tender we won in December '24 led to the acquisition of a 70% stake in the new joint venture with Amsterdam Airport, retaining the remaining 30%. So to be clear, this new concession has been accounted for as an acquisition and therefore, is not included in our like-for-like growth. On the negative side, foreign exchange had an adverse impact this year, quite a strong impact with the U.S. dollar being the main currency affecting our revenue, reflecting our strong presence in the U.S., both for Travel Retail and Publishing. Despite this FX impact -- adverse impact, as you can see, the growth is still very strong.

Let's move on to EBITA on the next slide, Slide 22. As shown on this slide, we had a solid and steady improvement in '24 and '25. EBITA rose from EUR 490 million in '23 to EUR 551 million in '25, representing more than EUR 60 million increase. We are particularly pleased to see that this high level of EBITA continues to be almost evenly supported by our 2 core activities with, again, EUR 312 million contributed by Travel Retail and EUR 308 million by Publishing. Overall, this reflects a strong and balanced performance across the group's key businesses.

Let's have a look now at the rest of the P&L below EBITA after deducting amortization of intangible assets related to M&A and the positive adjustment linked to the IFRS 16, profit before interest and tax reached EUR 429 million, representing a 7% increase year-on-year. Below this line, the finance costs improved by EUR 21 million in '25, driven by a reduction of the gross debt and a lower average cost of debt. Interest expense on lease liability increased by 8%, reflecting new, renewed and amended lease contracts, particularly in the United States, Auckland, Warsaw or Prague.

Income tax decreased to EUR 73 million compared to EUR 93 million in '24, mainly due to exceptional items recorded last year. And as a result, net profit rose to EUR 112 million, an improvement of EUR 50 million, supported by lower finance costs and reduced tax burden. The level of minority interest is explained by the increase of Lagardère earnings, of which, as you know, Louis Hachette captures only 66%, also impacted by the decrease of the loss in Asia that are shared with minorities and the fact that Prisma's losses significant this year due to restructuring are fully burned by Louis Hachette Group. Despite that, as you can see, net results group share significantly increased from EUR 13 million to EUR 22 million.

On the next slide, you can see the improvement again in terms of cash flow generation. Our CFFO increased from EUR 357 million in '23 to EUR 558 million in '25, a sharp uplift of EUR 155 million in 2 years. This reflects, again, the solid operational momentum across the group.

This section on cash flow naturally leads us to the balance sheet and more specifically to the evolution of our net debt on the Slide 25. On this slide, you can see our usual net debt bridge over the last 12 months. And beyond the CFFO that I mentioned, our outflows includes EUR 100 million of tax paid and EUR 96 million in financial interest. Altogether, our CFAIT, that is the cash flow after tax and interest, amounted to EUR 363 million.

On the M&A front, the group remained active but reasonable this year in line with our strategy with the acquisition, as I already mentioned, of 999 Game, Sterling Union Square Publishing, [indiscernible] in France by Lagardère Publishing, the first installment payment for the acquisition of the 70% stake in the joint venture operating the Schiphol Travel Retail concession that I already mentioned and also the acquisition of Ici Paris and France Dimanche for Prisma. In the opposite direction, we received also around EUR 40 million from the repayment of a vendor loan granted to Sportfive following the disposal of Lagardère Sport in 2020.

In May, we also paid a EUR 0.06 dividend per share, representing a total of EUR 59 million. We also distributed EUR 85 million to minority shareholders, including EUR 32 million to minority shareholders of Lagardère itself and EUR 53 million to minorities at Publishing and Travel Retail level. All in all, these movements bring net debt just below EUR 1.6 billion at the end of this year. At this point, I would like to make a brief remark for those monitoring net debt at Lagardère level. Just like Louis Hachette Group, Lagardère's net debt also improved ending this year at exactly EUR 1.6 billion, which represents a EUR 255 million reduction year-on-year. As a result, Lagardère's net debt ratio fell also below 2x, 1.96x to be accurate at the end of '25 compared to 2.4x a year earlier. We are currently on track and even a little bit in advance with our deleveraging strategy. But of course, we remain fully focused on continuing this effort.

And to continue on this topic, let's move on the next slide. As you know, in '25, the Lagardère Group successfully issued a EUR 500 million 5-year bond. The transaction was more than 3x oversubscribed by the market, demonstrating investors' confidence in the group's solid performance. Lagardère also raised EUR 300 million through a private placement structure in euro with a mix of maturity up to 5 years and fixed and floating rates. After these 2 refinancing operations for EUR 800 million, our net debt, as you can see, is now well diversified and well balanced between bank loans, private holders and bonds. And the maturities are also well spread until 2030, as you can see on this slide, and the weighted average maturity is 2.9 years.

Let's now move to the conclusion and to sum up the key message for '26. So first, I would tend to say that we will continue to consolidate our leading position by staying fully focused on the solid execution of our strategy across all the businesses. This includes promising release schedule for Lagardère Publishing. Lagardère Travel Retail will also capitalize on major openings completed in '25 and growing air traffic, which all -- which will support growth momentum going forward. Our aim is still to deliver growth to increase margin with a strict cost discipline. And second, we also want to continue to deleverage the group, but we will invest to fuel the future growth.

And we will remain attentive to bolt-on acquisition opportunities when they could make strategic sense. Third, regarding the dividend fiscal year '25, we will propose an ordinary dividend of EUR 0.06 per share to be submitted to the AGM in May. The ex-dividend date will be May 7 with payment starting on May 11. So '26 priorities reflect, again, a balanced approach, reinforcing our strategic position, continuing to reduce debt and maintaining a disciplined and predictable shareholder returns supported by strong operational momentum in both Publishing and Travel Retail.

Thanks a lot for your attention, and we are now available to answer the questions that you may have.

[Operator Instructions] First question is from Eric Ravary, CIC Market Solutions.

First question on, could we have a comment on the outlook for full year '26 for both Publishing and Travel Retail, especially at the margin levels? Do you consider especially for Travel Retail that there is still room for margin improvement following the restructuring in China? And also a brief comment on the operating trends for the 2 businesses since the beginning of the year?

Second question on Prisma. Do you expect further restructuring costs in 2026? And do you expect that the Prisma could post positive EBIT, excluding restructuring in 2026 following the staff reduction? And last question is on the debt structure. So you deleveraged the company in 2025. Is it a priority for you to continue to reduce leverage in '26? And could you give us an indication of the kind of leverage that you could target at end 2026?

Thank you, Eric. I think I will hand over the answers to first Jean-Christophe.

Okay, for Hachette. So as Gregoire explained, we had a very strong year in 2025 for Hachette. And for '26 we expect stable revenue despite ForEx potential headwinds with a weak U.S. dollar. Concerning France, we will not benefit from an Asterix release in an even year. And we will face a risk of erosion in coloring sales after outstanding sales in 2025. But on the other hand, we have a very promising publishing program, including new novels by Pierre Lemaitre and Guillaume Musso. For Guillaume Musso including new novel Le Crime du paradis and the trade paperback release of his previous title. We will have to the second year of middle school reform with mass, French LV1, LV2.

In the U.K. and in the U.S., activity should remain relatively high after a record year in 2025. driven by a strong publishing program among which a new title by Kali Hart in the U.S. and in the U.K. or [indiscernible] in both countries? We will have Heartstopper #6 by Alice Oseman in the U.K. released by Jung Chang in the U.K., a new novel by Abby Jimenez in the U.S. The results should also benefit from the full impact of the synergies realized by Union Square acquired at the end of 2024. Concerning the EBITDA, we hope to be able to deliver EBITDA roughly in line with 2025 and to maintain a high level of margin ratio.

Regarding, Lagardere Travel Retail we believe the year 2026, we hope the year 2026 will be materially in the continuity of the last quarter of last year. What we see is a continuous slight increase on the traffic side. And we hope and we believe it will remain like that over the next 10 months. We will continue to benefit of a positive effect in comparison to last year of the Amsterdam integration that Gregoire highlighted started in May 1 last year. This will help us. counterpart of that, we continue the restructuring of China that should continue on the same -- at the same speed along the year, and most of the restructuring should be done by the end of '26 by the end of this year. This is in the context of a very challenging macroeconomic environment and, in particular, FX environment. the evolution of the dollar and the dollar pegged currency is something we take -- we look at very carefully. But for the time being, we're in the range of, let's say, mid-single-digit sales evolution. And regarding margin, EBITDA, we expect in absolute value should grow relatively substantially.

In terms of percentage we believe there's still a little bit of room for a slight improvement in the rate marginal one, a result of slowing -- reduction of the losses in China as alluded in the question, but also all the efficiency efforts we're going throughout the world. We're delivering to the world to improve the overall profitability.

Maybe I can take the question regarding the live branch and Prisma for the Q4 and Q1 trend. Regarding the Q4, supported by the European strong audience performance, Lagardere News Advertising revenues held up well with a challenging advertising environment, as you know, declining only by 6%. For Prisma, the decline in digital advertising revenue for this last quarter is broadly in line with the market trends close to 10% in Q4. And regarding the beginning of this year for January, quite soon to say, but January trends are correct at this stage. For Radio, still driven by the European audience. However, the trend for Prisma is unfortunately aligned with what we saw in Q4 '25.

Then you had a question regarding the restructuring at Prisma. I can also take this question. As I already mentioned, our target is to keep Prisma EBITDA in the positive territory. It's the case about the restructuring cost in '25. This is clearly a challenge for '26 but this is our target. The restructuring initiated at the end of '25 will, of course, generate savings as early as '26 on personnel costs. As well as in support and marketing functions. For a global amount estimated at this stage between EUR 15 million and EUR 20 million full year effect. But take -- let's be cautious with that number because are to be very accurate for '26 impact since, again, it's still under the review of the staff representative, and we are not completely sure about the timing. These two restructuring plans are already very large, as I mentioned it, more than 1/3 of the workforce. We saw -- at this stage, we don't contemplate other strong restructuring costs for '26, but we could have other costs in lower magnitude. But again, today, we are focusing on the last restructuring launch in December. So this is for Prisma.

And then you had a question about the debt and the potential target regarding leverage. As you know, since '24, we have been executing a very disciplined deleveraging strategy. You saw the results. Our leverage ratio improved very strongly from 3x at the end of '23 to less than 2x at year end '25. And again, '26 deleveraging will remain a key strategic priority for the group. We'll continue to apply the same disciplined financial approach with a strong focus on EBITDA, working cap control prioritized investment that supports future growth. And at the same time, we also want to continue our policy of investments of disciplined bolt-on M&A and a reasonable level of dividend. So long story short too soon to give you a precise target for '26. But again, we want to considered the cash generation as a key priority for the group for the next year.

Next question is from Jerome Bodin of ODDO BHF.

A few questions on my side. First one, it's on China restructuring for Lagardere Travel Retail. Where are you exactly in the -- from the starting point? Is it 1/3, 2/3, half of the efforts? And when do you plan to be breakeven for this business, if you plan to be breakeven? That's my first question. My second one is on the Vivendi deal regarding Prisma. So if I have understood well, you are selling some title to Vivendi. Does that mean a cash in for you? And then Vivendi is buying a stake in Prisma. So if you could detail a bit the cash impact? And what's the valuation of Prisma that has been used? And last question on free cash flow. So the CapEx are down this year. Should we consider this level based on the revenues as the new normal? And also second question, so based on the EUR 90 million of restructuring in '25, what has been included in the free cash flow for '25, especially for the Prisma.

I'll take the Chinese one. First, maybe one point to highlight or to remember to all of you. The situation in China is a very typical situation because what we operate in China is mostly fashion, predominantly, 90% of the business is fashion in domestic airport. So it's a very somehow a typical market in which we operate. Despite all the efforts we did in the recent past, we do not see a clear turnaround of market trends. So we are in the process of restructuring. Depending on the way you measure it. I would say, if you count in terms of number of store closing, we are more than halfway if you count in terms of reduction of the losses, it's higher than the number of store shrink or decline. As I said earlier, most of the restructuring should be achieved by the end of this year. We're still in the red this year. But next year, we can consider we are in the range of 0 of everything, including bottom line.

Thank you, Fabrice. Coming back to the Vivendi deal regarding Prisma, again, this is under the review of all the bodies. So hand December '25, Prisma finalized, as you know, the acquisition of the magazine Ici Paris & France Dimanche and then we launched the 2 restructuring. The transaction again enable Prisma to refocus on its core businesses in a more challenging economic environment. The impacts are not very strong regarding the business of Prisma since the luxury branch represents close to EUR 20 million in terms of revenue and is close to breakeven in '25.

Regarding the cash consideration and the cash impact, the consideration is regarding the sale of the Luxury division around EUR 10 million used in cash. And regarding the other part of the transaction since concurrently with the transaction regarding the luxury brands then will acquire a minority stake of around 14% in Prisma Group share capital. The transaction will contribute to EUR 30 million in cash for LSA coming from Vivendi. So this is for Prisma, Vivendi deal.

Then you also had a question regarding the CapEx for '26 and is the '25 level. The new normal, actually hard to say. Again, the CapEx in '25 was, we were a little bit lower than expected, so I will tend to say that the target is between '24 and '25. I think it's better to consider the level of CapEx compared to the turnover and particularly regarding Travel Retail, I think that we should have level between, let's say, 3.5% and 4% of the total revenue. I think this is roughly in the long term, what we should target. And then you had a question about the cash impact what was exactly the question. The impact for the restructuring regarding Prisma, and during '25, we had roughly EUR 7 million already cash out for the restructuring plan launch for Prisma, mainly the one launched at the beginning of the year. So the main part of the restructuring costs in terms of cash will impact year '26 and maybe a little bit in year '27 depending again on the timing linked to the review, which is under process.

Next question is from Julien Roch, Barclays.

Yes. The first one is, can you give us some colors on Q1 trends by division? That's number one. Number two, is there any assets in the Live division that you consider noncore? I know for instance, pricing is profitable, but maybe you could give a good price and deliver some more or the venues. So anything in there potentially could be noncore. And then last question is, could you give us some indication on cash flow, either cash flow conversion from EBITDA or some indication, whatever you can say on cash flow generation in 2026.

So we start again, I think, a little bit summarize what is the trend for publishing with Jean-Christophe?

Thank you, Emmanuel. So the Q1 of '26 should be roughly in line with 2025. despite the unfavorable comparison base effect with the first quarter of 2025, which had benefited from the huge success of Onyx Storm in the U.K. We will have a solid publishing program for the first quarter of 2026. Additionally, we will publish Judge Stone in the U.S. in March, which is a collaboration between James Patterson and the actress Viola Davis. And the activity for the first quarter in France will be driven by the success of Pierre Luminet which is the fourth titled in the series. He began in 2022, and we will have the return of Guillaume Musso who will publish a new novel Le Crime du paradis I mentioned earlier at the beginning of March, along with the simultaneous release of [indiscernible] in trade paper back.

I guess this is my term. So for regulatory Trade Retail, the month of January was somehow in the continuity of the last quarter of last year. that we find a pretty good result, especially in the context of very adverse weather conditions in Northern Europe, I have in mind Brussels and Amsterdam Airport in particular that were badly impacted by the snow wave. And also in North America, it was an extreme weather event. That affected traffic and therefore, our sales.

Having said that, despite this very adverse effect, we maintain a good momentum in the continuity of last quarter, so mid-single-digit sales growth. We continue to be supported by the same effect because I said earlier, until end of April, this will be helping our growth. And this is despite quite painful in January painful FX effect. And that's why I said earlier for the full year, it's something we're going to monitor. But all in all, we're on track with what we were expecting mid-single digit in Jan. Well, that being careful extrapolating January is the lowest smallest months of the year. We believe the first quarter should be equal or slightly better than the month of January.

And I think that I already answered regarding the Prisma and Live trend for the beginning of this year. Coming back to the question that you had, Julien, regarding the assets that you named noncore assets or the Live branch as you know, these assets are definitely not for sale. It's not our plan. We clearly love these assets. It's a very strong portfolio of brand. They are all profitable apart the new activities. And as I mentioned we're targeting to be close to 0 for this news branch. And is clearly the priority for us. I prefer to focus on generation cash through operational improvements instead of planning any sale for good assets of the groups.

Regarding the cash flow conversion for '26, of course, we will try to increase again, the cash flow generation for '26 for the next year. I think, of course, the main driver will be the profit and the EBITDA generated next year and the increase of the EBITDA. But just keep in mind that for '25, as I mentioned it, we have a few exceptional items that positively impacted the CFFO. The first one is the sale again, of our real estate asset in rue d'Assas and the sale of the Domain Name both represent together close to EUR 40 million. And we also as I mentioned it, the credit loan for reimbursement for sports for Lagardere Sports for also EUR 40 million. So all in all, we had close to EUR 80 million exceptional impact this year, it was not so easy to deliver these exceptional items to again sell particularly the rue d'Assas at this level. But this is down. And I'm not sure that we will have big exceptional items in '26. So the main driver, again, for the cash generation should be the operating result for '26.

Next question is from Christophe Cherblanc, Bernstein.

Yes. I had the 3 questions. The first one was on minority interest. I think in the release, you mentioned that the improvement is coming from the lower level of losses in Asia. So it seems to be essentially due to lower losses in Asia. is that the right way to look at it. And if that is the case, EUR 20 million, EUR 19 million increase suggest a very, very strong improvement of the net contribution of Travel Retail Asia. Is that a fair assumption? The second question is just a confirmation, I had in mind that the share of operating profit generated in dollar was about 40%. Just wanted to have an update on that order of magnitude? And finally, on Live, I think, Gregoire, you just said that you were targeting for News to be at 0. Is that an assumption we should -- we can take for all of '26 for the whole of the division Live plus News.

Regarding the minority interest, I just mentioned that this has a positive impact regarding the minority interest at the group level since we share the loss with minorities. And since the loss are lower this year, we have, let's say, lower negative impact for the minority shareholders in the results. As you know, it's always quite difficult to explain in details all the impact for the earning group per share, particularly if you are at the Louis Hachette level. But if you have detailed question about this. We do not hesitate to outside this call, I have a discussion with the AR. They have all the sheets and the figures that help you to go from the net results from Lagardere to the net result from LHE with this clear speed between the group level and the minority level.

Then you also have a question regarding the results coming from the U.S. and with the assumption of 40% I think it's quite a good assumption for this year. Again, the U.S. is clearly today our first market. So if you beside your question, the question is could we be also impacted by any change, of course, we could. We already mentioned it. But keep in mind also that we have a part of our debt, which is in dollar. So if we could have a negative impact regarding the FX for the revenue and the operating results, we could also have a positive impact balancing this for the net debt.

And then you mentioned the target regarding Live. As I mentioned it, we are close to breakeven, not yet there. I think it's feasible to be breakeven in '26, it of course, depends a lot on the market in the advertising market. So I again prefer to be cautious, but I already mentioned this target 1 year ago, and we clearly want to achieve this level I hope this is feasible in '26, but if it's not the case, this will be for '27, we want to reduce the cost and the and the loss at this level. We are completely focused on this target.

It was at Lagardere level where you've got that EUR 19 million increase. So you have 23% share of minorities. So if you do the math, that's massive improvement of the net profit of Asia. So I do know that last year, you had...

If you just have a look to the net result at Lagardere level, you have a very significant improvement regarding the net result, group share at Lagardere level. Then we have just to walk you through the net results from Lagardere to Louis Hachette. And again, this is something that we can do outside is no problem to give you all the details. You're right. The net result at Lagardere level improved a lot in '25.

Gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time.

Thank you. Thank you all, and we conclude this conference call, and we hope to hear from you for the Q1 2026 in April. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones.