Banijay Group N.V. Class A

Banijay Group N.V. Class A

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Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptMarch 5, 2026

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Banijay Group Full Year 2025 Results Conference Call.

At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session.

To ask a question, you will need to press *11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised.

To withdraw your question, please press *11 again. If you wish to ask your question via the webcast, please use the Q&A box available on the webcast link anytime during the conference.

Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Louise Racine.

Madam, please go ahead.

Louise Racine

Thank you. Good evening, and welcome to Banijay Group's 2025 Full Year Results Webcast.

This is Louise Racine. I recently joined as Head of Investor Relations.

Before we start, let me draw your attention to the disclaimer on slide two. I also want to remind you that this presentation is now available on the company's website, and a recording of this call will be accessible in the coming days.

Your speakers today are François Riahi, our CEO, and Sophie Kurinckx-Lefranc, our CFO. First, François will present our key financial and business highlights for the full year.

Sophie will then cover the results in more detail before François provides some concluding remarks. We will then open the call for questions.

Over to you, François.

François Riahi

Thank you, Louise. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us again this week.

I hope you're not fed up with Banijay Group. We are pleased to present strong full-year 2025 results.

In a challenging market environment, Banijay Entertainment demonstrated a resilient performance with strong growth of Banijay Live as we continue to scale our IP through immersive experiences and produce major sports ceremonies across the world. Adjusted EBITDA increased by around 6% for this division with a strong margin improvement.

Banijay Gaming delivered a double-digit revenue growth with strong momentum across all products. This was driven by 23% growth in unique active players and effective cross-selling.

This is particularly impressive when you consider the high comparison base with 2024, which included both Euro 2024 and the Olympic Games. It also delivered a double-digit adjusted EBITDA growth despite French tax increase.

This performance clearly demonstrates the strength and effectiveness of our diversification strategy. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 8.6%, reaching the upper range of our guidance with 100 basis point margin improvement, reflecting continued cost control and operational efficiency.

Before turning to the detailed review of our 2025 financial performance, let me briefly comment on our recent strategic developments. We have been very active—I'm sure you will agree on that—in consolidating our markets, fully aligned with the ambitions set out at our Capital Markets Day in May 2025.

Following the announcement in October 2025 of the acquisition of a majority stake in Tipico Group, reinforcing our leadership in sports betting and online gaming, we announced on Tuesday a strategic partnership with RedBird IMI to combine Banijay Entertainment and All3Media to create a global media and entertainment powerhouse. This combination will give us enhanced scale, deeper IP ownership, and greater exposure to structural growth drivers, reinforcing our long-term positioning.

Zooming in on our 2025 results at constant currency and current scope of operations, we delivered a revenue growth of 3.4%. This translated into 8.6% adjusted EBITDA growth, reaching €961 million, and 6.3% growth of the adjusted net income, which is at current FX, unlike the two other metrics.

Adjusted free cash flow generation stood at €780 million, resulting in a high level of cash conversion at 81%, again in line with guidance. Adjusted operating free cash flow reached €584 million with a conversion rate of 65%, excluding one-off effects.

Our leverage improved to 2.7 times, a 0.2-time reduction compared to the end of 2024. Finally, we are proposing a dividend of 35 cents per share, representing a 33% payout ratio as per our guidance.

Let's move to business highlights now, starting with our content production and distribution business. Once again, 2025 showcased the unmatched scale of our content production and distribution leadership.

At the end of 2025, our catalog grew to more than 220,000 hours of content. We had 30 formats traveling across three or more geographies.

We launched over 350 new shows during the year, 350. This includes 80, 8-0, titles with global streaming platforms such as Netflix, Apple TV+, and Paramount+, which is unmatched in the industry.

Revenue from streamers now represent 23% of our production and distribution revenue. From a scripted perspective, we doubled our production revenue in English-language content with streaming platforms, and that's just the beginning if you think of the All3Media deal.

House of Guinness on Netflix was a major success with over 61 million viewers. The Buccaneers was a top 10 hit in multiple territories and has been recommissioned for a third season.

NCIS: Sydney season three on Paramount+ reached 4.7 million viewers with a fourth season ordered. On the unscripted side, our focus is scaling formats through local adaptations.

LOL on Amazon launched in the Nordics, the US, France, Italy, and also the UK, where it was the number one unscripted new launch across all platforms. The local adaptation of Temptation Island was launched on Netflix for the first time.

Think, if we had been said 5 years ago that Temptation Island would be on Netflix, I think we would not have believed that. It was crowned the best-performing unscripted program globally on the platform with season two commissioned for 2026.

The 50, Shaolin Heroes, and The Summit continue their international expansion with six versions commissioned to date for each format, which show our capability to roll out formats globally. Moving to live experiences now, which has performed exceptionally well this year.

In 2025, we more than doubled the number of events produced, reaching over 30—3,000, sorry—representing an average of eight events produced per day, including the independent shows. Balich Wonder Studio delivered major international sports ceremonies throughout 2025, including the opening and closing ceremonies of the FIFA World Cup of Clubs, the African Cup of Nations, and the UEFA Women's Euro, as well as the UEFA Champions League Final kickoff show, which was very important because Paris Saint-Germain won, demonstrating our ability to execute large-scale, globally broadcast productions across continents.

Most recently, many of you have watched the opening ceremony of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games, which we proudly produced. The ceremony was seen by 2.5 billion people around the world, and it was widely praised globally.

According to IOC data, was regarded by a strong majority of viewers, I think by 70% of viewers, as the most memorable winter opening ceremony ever, a clear illustration of the creative ambition and execution capabilities of our live business. Of course, this type of event is the best demonstration of capability for the future events.

On the immersive experiences side, LOTCHI, which we acquired in early 2025, has been a remarkable success story. In just 1 year, we have launched 16 new shows, opened in four new countries in partnership with Banijay Entertainment's local labels, which tripled the number of tickets sold to approximately 1 million.

We are now producing around four shows per day on average. We are excited by the potential of our live business, and we will continue to seek out opportunities to rapidly scale IP in this way, leveraging our global production footprint, and tomorrow, All3Media's one.

Moving now to Banijay Gaming, which continues to drive outstanding profitable growth. As I say every quarter, unique active players is the most important KPI for the commercial performance of the platform as the margin can be volatile with results.

This grew 23% year-on-year to 2.3 million. This is particularly impressive given the absence of major global sports events in 2025, such as the World Cup or the Euro.

This sustained growth was enabled by our relentless focus on our tech platform and user experience. Betclic is the number one downloaded sports betting app in all its markets, enhanced with a recent major cloud-based upgrade and new features such as AI-powered recommendations.

We're preparing a new release for the World Cup. Our multi-product strategy continues to deliver strong results with cross-selling between sportsbook and other activities, namely casino and poker, reaching 35%, which is remarkable.

In online casino, we launched 280 new casino titles, 20% of which were original or exclusive games, and successfully entered Ivory Coast in early 2025. Our new proprietary poker platform, launched at the end of 2024, has also performed strongly, driving player growth, engagement, and monetization.

These multi-product capabilities, combined with our strong technological foundations, become even more strategic in the context of the Tipico acquisition with clear synergy opportunities already identified. It's also true for potential regulatory upsides.

That's all from me for now. I'll be back at the end with some closing remarks before we open the line for questions.

Over to you, Sophie.

Cédric Brignon

Thank you, François. Let's start with group revenue for the full year, where we delivered 3.4% growth at constant exchange rate and current scope to reach almost €4.9 million—billion euros.

As François mentioned earlier, and as already highlighted during our 9-month results, 2025 was a challenging year for the global content production and distribution industry. On the gaming side, we delivered double-digit growth despite a high comparison basis in 2024.

Group adjusted EBITDA increased by 8.6% to €961 million at constant exchange rates and current perimeter, reaching the upper end of the guidance range. This strong performance also translated into 1 percentage point expansion of the adjusted EBITDA margin, reaching 19.7%.

This was driven by the increased contribution from Banijay Gaming, which has a higher margin, combined with efficient cost control in both businesses. Moving next to our P&L, the operating profit increase of more than 25% was driven by the strong adjusted EBITDA growth and the significant decline in LTIP expense, as anticipated.

The improvement in the financial result reflects the successful repricing and refinancing of our debt at better conditions, as well as the fair value changes in financial instruments, including hedging, put options, and earn-out debt, together with foreign exchange loss and gains. Income tax expense increased in line with activity growth, while our effective tax rate improved meaningfully to 35% compared to around 42% last year.

Overall, adjusted net income rose by more than 6% in line with adjusted EBITDA growth. Let's move to results by business, starting with content production, distribution, and live experience.

Revenues were resilient, up 0.4% at constant exchange rates and current perimeter. Looking at revenue by activity, content production was down slightly, reflecting broader softness in the market and cautious commissioning from broadcasters.

Distribution revenue decline of 4—5.4% reflects the condition in the production market and a different mix between streaming platforms and linear broadcasters in the sell of scripted hits. The standout performer was live experience and other, which grew 20.3%, driven by the successful rollout of LOTCHI's Luminiscence experience across France and internationally, and the strong performance of Balich Wonder Studio with the delivery of major sports ceremonies.

Looking at earnings and cash flow now for the business lines, adjusted EBITDA was up 5.7% at constant exchange rates and current perimeter, with margin improving 80 basis points to 16.6%. This improvement reflects a favorable mix in production margins, particularly on some major scripted shows and cost control on production budgets.

Higher CapEx reflects increased third-party distribution advance at Banijay Rights, investment in LOTCHI, and continued investment in digitalization. Adjusted free cash flow conversion stood at a solid 72%.

The improvement in working capital reflects timing effects on long-term distribution contracts and different phasing between show delivery and cash collection. Income tax paid was higher, mainly reflecting payments to the tax consolidation group with no impact at group level.

Adjusted operating free cash flow increased by almost 2%, reaching more than €309 million. Sports betting and gaming next, where we saw strong revenue growth of 10.2% at constant exchange rates and current perimeter, reaching €1.6 billion of revenue.

Sportsbook revenue were up 6.8%, supported by 23% growth in unique active players and sustained player interest during major competitions, such as the new format of the Champions League. This is a remarkable outcome given the high comparison basis with 2024, as well as the impact of adverse sports results in September 2025 that did not fully reverse by year-end, as we communicated at our 9-month results.

Casino, poker, and turf revenues were up 22%, also an outstanding performance. This reflects effective cross-selling between products, the successful launch of online casino in Côte d'Ivoire in early 2025, and the strong performance of our proprietary online poker platform in France.

Looking at earnings now, Banijay Gaming continues to deliver solid profitability and generate strong free cash flow. Adjusted EBITDA was up 12.6% at constant exchange rates and current perimeter.

The adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 26.7%, driven by continued cost discipline, including lower marketing cost. This was partially offset by a higher betting tax in France, which came into effect in July 2025.

Adjusted free cash flow conversion remains extremely high at 93%. Adjusted operating free cash flow was temporarily impacted by one-off items, as highlighted at our 9-month results.

These include one-offs related to the exceptional 2024 performance with cash outflows occurring in 2025, notably performance-related payouts and an exceptional €27 million income tax catch-up linked to strong 2024 results. Excluding these one-offs, adjusted operating free cash flow was up 10.8%, which is more reflective of the underlying performance of the business.

From a cash flow perspective, group adjusted free cash flow reached €780 million, resulting in a cash conversion rate after CapEx and lease payments of 81%, fully in line with our full-year guidance. Adjusted operating free cash flow was €584 million with a conversion rate of 65%, excluding one-off effects mentioned earlier.

The group's net debt stands at €2.57 billion, representing a leverage of 2.7 times, an improvement of 0.2 time compared to the end of 2024. We continue to have a very strong liquidity position with a positive cash balance of €494 million and a €280 million of undrawn secured credit lines.

That's all from me. I will now hand back to François for some concluding remarks.

François Riahi

Thank you, Sophie. As you can see, 2025 is was another year of strong results.

I think the most important one I would like to underline is adjusted EBITDA up 8.6%, and this is a strong performance against a high comparison basis in 2024 and in a quiet year with a in a year with a quieter sports calendar and an environment for production and distribution which was tough in 2025. Just a few months after our 2025 Capital Markets Day, we translated our strategy into action with two transformative transactions across our two core businesses.

I think, 2025 was a great year for us strategically, financially, operationally. In 2026, we expect a robust growth across all our businesses.

On content production and distribution, we anticipate more growth on revenues and probably a slightly lower margin rate due to a different revenue mix. As Sophie mentioned earlier, I think the revenue mix this year was a little bit special.

On live, we also expect a a very good growth continuing. On Banijay Gaming, it will be a very strong year and a very active year because of the sports events, and especially including the Football World Cup in the summer with more teams than ever.

It will be key to attract and retain new clients as we usually do both in Betclic and Tipico every 2 years. Very strong growth of revenues to expect in our gaming business.

As a reminder also to take into account, in 2026, we will also see the full impact of the French tax, because the French tax was implemented in July of last year. We look forward to updating you on our strategic roadmap on March 26, including our refreshed mid-term guidance reflecting our two major developments.

Before that, let me share a high-level view of what Banijay Group will look like post-transactions. With the acquisition of Tipico, we significantly expand the scale of our gaming activities, reinforcing our leadership in sports betting and online gaming, and increasing our exposure to structurally growing, cash-generative activities.

In parallel, the acquisition of All3Media and the strategic partnership with RedBird IMI creates a scaled global content leader with enhanced IP ownership, greater international reach, and a strengthened competitive position in a consolidating markets. This represents a step-change in the scale, diversification, and earnings profile of Banijay Group.

On a combined basis, the group would have approximately €7.4 billion of revenues and €1.6 billion of adjusted EBITDA in 2025, as well as strong free cash flow generation. We also mentioned yesterday a leverage ratio at the end of 2026 around 3 times.

As mentioned a few minutes ago, before we take your questions, I hope you can join us for our upcoming strategic update on March 26, where we will provide an update on our strategy and mid-term outlook reflecting these two major operations. I look forward to sharing more with you then.

That's all from me. Thank you for your attention, and back to you, Louise.

Louise Racine

Thank you, François. It's now time for questions.

Please state your name and company. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press *11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced.

To withdraw your question, please press *11 again. If you wish to ask your question via the webcast, please type it into the pop box and click submit.

We will take our first question, and the question comes from the line of David Amouram from Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Your line is open.

Davide Amorim

Bonjour François, bonjour Sophie. Thank you for the presentation.

Can you hear me?

François Riahi

Very well, David.

Davide Amorim

Just a couple of questions for me. First, during Q3, you mentioned a phasing of some projects that was expected to reverse in Q4.

This does not seem to have happened. Could you please provide more information on this and explain why it didn't go as expected?

Secondly, as you mentioned during the presentation, Football World Cup will start in June 2026. I know that you are not giving specific guidance for 2026 today, but is it reasonable to expect Betclic to deliver a strong performance similar to the 2024 when results were boosted by the European Football Championship?

Finally, I would like to come back to yesterday announcement about All3Media. You will continue to fully consolidate the new entity in your accounts, which I assume means you will keep managerial control.

Who will have the final say on major operational decision or any future M&A decisions? Thank you.

François Riahi

Thank you. I will take your two last questions.

Maybe I leave the first to Sophie, but I start with your last question. Yes, we have a governance rights that allow us to consolidate and then to control the company.

Of course, it's a 50/50 partnership, which means that when it comes to a significant M&A, if we are to do a large M&A deal, of course, we would need to agree with our partners. That's the sense of being partners, of course.

Then, but as you can see, it's really, we keep, as you say, the operational drive, and also the fact that Marco Bassetti is going to be the CEO of the combined entity, I think it gives the sense of the fact of how it will happen. On your second question about World Cup, yeah, in this business, every 2 years, you have a big event.

World Cup is even bigger than Euro, where people are getting more interested in watching the games, in betting, and it becomes the actuality of everyone to speak about the World Cup, etc. That's a very strong moment for engagement and increasing the revenues.

There's no reason why 2026 should be different from the, I would say, the even years that we have, and it will be true also for Tipico, which will also have a boost. That's why we announced previously that we were not going to start the integration of Betclic and Tipico before the World Cup.

Today, our teams in Betclic, and I'm sure it's the same at Tipico, they are completely focused to prepare this event, because it means to prepare new features in the application, and to have everything ready to make the most of this event. Maybe Sophie on the first question?

Cédric Brignon

Yeah. Yes, we mentioned the phasing in terms of commissioning and delivery of the shows during the Q3.

That's also why we said that we would be on a low single-digit in terms of revenue growth. During the Q4, as I mentioned during the presentation, the clients were still cautious in terms of commissioning.

We finally grew by 0.4% our revenue, which is in this tough market a good performance, and also we are very confident in 2026 because we expect, as mentioned earlier by François, an increase and a growth of our revenue. We are more positive, and we will see a higher growth of this revenue in 2026.

Davide Amorim

Very clear. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We will take our next question, and the question comes from the line of Annick Maas from Bernstein.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Annick Maas

Hi there. My question is also on the mid-term expectations of the content growth market.

I think, you just told us that you expect these revenues to grow in 2026, but I guess if you think about it mid-term, previously you talked about mid-single-digit growth, and that was in light of streamers already optimizing their spend, but what comes I feel more and more clear at least across all of the European broadcasters is that programming costs are much more contained, not only going into '26, but all the broadcasters speak about programming costs being contained also mid-term. I was just kind of interested to understand how you are thinking about the content growth market beyond '26.

Thank you.

François Riahi

I have a good news, Annick. You just have 3 weeks to wait for that, because that's exactly what we are going to talk about in our strategic update.

You will have an updated view on what we see for the next years. Of course, it will include our acquisitions, but it's not just a mechanical inclusion of our acquisitions.

We will give you our best view on the future on the occasion of this update on March 26.

Annick Maas

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We will take our next question.

Your next question comes from the line of Giovannin Maggiason from Investcorp. Please go ahead.

Your line is open.

Giovannin Maggiason

Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my question.

My first question was just on the entertainment segment. You initially guided for EBITDA to be slightly declining in Q4, but it's turned out to be flat due to some margin expansion.

Can you just explain how you're able to achieve this margin expansion in Q4?

François Riahi

I don't remember that we said anything about the margin in Q4. It's a wild animal in a way, because it's not the same margin depending on the type of programs you have.

As Sophie was mentioning, for example, I think a good example here is the fact that when you deliver big scripted show at a streamer, there's a better margin in production, but also you lose some revenues on distribution. The margin can be a little bit moving, but if you look at our track record, I would say it's moving by 1% or 1.5%, but all in all in average, it has remained very consistent.

Here, this year, we believe the margin is a little bit higher than, I would say, the normal, but it's linked to the type of products we have delivered to the market, but there's nothing special about our margin in Q4.

Giovannin Maggiason

Got it. That's very helpful.

Then the last question for me was, do you see any kind of disruption from the conflict in the Middle East, particularly thinking particularly towards your entertainment segment, and more so, your live events segment, just thinking if you have any kind of major events in the pipeline in the Middle East which could potentially be affected with the current conflict? Thanks.

François Riahi

Of course, we are following and monitoring the situation closely, and in fact, currently in the Middle East, it's time for Ramadan. We had no events planned at this time of the year.

It's not a busy time of the year. For the moment, we don't have really an impact on our business.

Then, of course, it could depend how long it will last. 2026, our live events business has a lot of strong production already planned, of course.

I was talking about the Olympic Games in Milan, which is already done. We also have the ceremony of the World Cup in Americas during the summer.

I think, if the war last long, which, of course, none of us hope, it can have an impact on our live business, but today it's too early to say. We'll update accordingly.

Giovannin Maggiason

Thanks. Are you able to guide just roughly what percentage of revenue for the entertainment business, what percentage comes from the Middle East as a region?

François Riahi

We have a very little exposure to Middle East, in fact. That's only our ceremonies business really has a significant exposure in the Middle East, which is relatively small in the whole of our content production business.

The rest of our content production business is very limited in the Middle East.

Giovannin Maggiason

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press *11 on your telephone.

We will take our next question, and the question comes from the line of Anna Patrice from Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Your line is open.

Anna Patrice

Yes, hello. Can you hear me, please?

François Riahi

Very well, Anna.

Anna Patrice

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you so much for all the information provided. A couple of questions from my side.

One is a follow-up on the growth in their entertainment business. As my colleagues had, there was previously guidance of mid-to-high single-digit growth.

Also, there were some delayed, etc., station is challenging. What is your visibility for 2026?

You said that there should be some improvement and probably some growth. What is the visibility, and what kind of growth should we expect on the underlying basis, without the acquisition in this segment?

That's the first question. The second question, on the long-term incentive plan on their P&L line, the charges were lower than last year.

What should we expect going forward? Thank you.

Cédric Brignon

Sorry, on the last question, we didn't understand well.

Anna Patrice

On the long-term incentive plan, the charges on the P&L were lower year-over-year. What should we expect for this year for 2026 on the cash flow and on the P&L basis?

Cédric Brignon

As we explained on the LTIP expense, we expected this decrease, and we expect it to be also the case in the following years because this is a question of vesting period of the different LTIP plans. We always mentioned a percentage of LTIP expense from 6% to 10% of the EBITDA, and it was on an average basis.

As it was higher than 10% in the past years, this is why now we are decreasing to have this average rate over 8 years. We expect to have the same kind of percentage of EBITDA in the future.

François Riahi

The first question? The first question is the visibility for 20

Cédric Brignon

Well, if I understood well, the first question was the visibility for 2026 in terms of growth of content production business, is that right?

Anna Patrice

Yes, exactly. Yes, yes, yes.

Cédric Brignon

As we mentioned to you, we expect growth to be driven by increasing demand for non-scripted formats from mainly global streaming platforms, as well as a solid pipeline of scripted deliveries. We expect margin to be somewhat lower than in 2025 because we had high-margin scripted shows delivered in 2025.

At the same time, we anticipate to have the same strong dynamic on the live event part in 2026. Sorry, but on the content, we don't expect so

Anna Patrice

on the content and distribution, we don't expect acceleration, growth acceleration?

Cédric Brignon

We don't expect what, sorry?

Anna Patrice

Growth.

Cédric Brignon

Acceleration? No.

We expect a growth, but I don't know what you mean by

Anna Patrice

A kind of low single-digit for the content production?

Cédric Brignon

We don't give this guidance, and we will explain in the future.

Anna Patrice

Okay.

François Riahi

You will, during our update on, again, on March 26, you will have our best view on the market and how it evolves, etc., on the next years. And 2026, we have a good visibility.

That's why we can say that the growth will be good, but we don't want to give an update on 2026 given all the transactions we have.

Anna Patrice

Perfect. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. There seems to be no further questions from the audio.

If you wish to proceed with the webcast questions?

Louise Racine

Yes. Thank you.

There are several questions about the liquidity of the stock and what are the projects on that.

François Riahi

Of course, it's our top priority as unfortunately, the stock cannot yet reflect the value of the company given the low level of trading. We are working on it, and the strategic update on March 26 is the first step we have to take to update the financials.

We'll update more when we can, but we are clearly working on it. Then maybe another question about

Louise Racine

can you please comment what are your plans about the The Independent call option? Should we assume the exercise is out of the picture after two large corporate transaction in the last couple of months?

François Riahi

No, I think the question to exercise the call on The Independent will be linked only to how we see the merits of exercising this call. Of course, the combination with All3Media and the fact that we'll have a strong partner with RedBird IMI, of course, there's a new partner, they have also to agree on that, even if we can exercise without their agreement.

I think the sense of the partnership is that we want also to discuss that with them. There's no mechanics.

It's not because we have done this transactions or because of that we are not going to exercise, and it's not because we are going to get some cash from the All3 deal that we are going to exercise. It's just we are discussing with the founders, we are considering the call exercise, and we have still time to make our decision.

We'll make our decision based on what we think is the best interest of the company in terms of operations and financials.

Louise Racine

One question on AI. What could be the impact of AI on your content and production business?

Alors, so,

François Riahi

I think, of course, AI is a major is a major innovation and a major element in many in many industries. Far, what we see, we are already using AI to optimize our production costs, to improve our efficiency.

This is a work in progress like in in many industries, but is progressing well. On a second element, I would say is we see a a very potential positive impact of AI on our capacity to monetize our catalog.

Clearly, we want to be in a situation to use AI to create automatically clipping, best-ofs, highlights, etc., with just a prompt. We have an immense catalog which is today underexploited.

It's a it's a gold mine that we we just use the surface. AI is going to to help us to monetize that far better.

Of course, we are investing in that and we are we are we are working on that. With All3Media joining us, it will add catalog and and capabilities.

Then, I think the the the at a longer-term view, I think AI is lowering the cost of making videos, of making especially on on the scripted side. We what we believe is that in this context, it enhances and it it increases the importance of IP.

IP is a very crucial element moving moving forward. We have a lot of IP, or we get we are going to get more IP with All3Media, and we believe that's a very strong asset to have in an AI-forward world.

Of course, nobody knows exactly what will happen in 5 years, etc., how it will develop, but we believe we are very well positioned for that. If I just add, sorry, just one more word, I think, the deal with Warner deal shows the value of IP.

I think what has really driven to this fight between Netflix and and Paramount is the quality and the breadth of IP of Warner. I think it's gives an idea of how the IP is becoming more and more valuable and important.

Louise Racine

Can we have your view on margin evolution expected in '26 in gaming business given strong sports event, but tax impact in

François Riahi

France? I think the tax impact will weigh on our margin.

What you can see is that in 2025, we have been able to manage that. Also, you have to balance with the marketing savings.

We will try as much as possible to maintain our margin despite this increase. Mechanically, the impact is negative on our margin.

However,

Cédric Brignon

we anticipate a continued momentum across our sportsbook, and thanks to the larger sports event in 2026. That's also why we anticipate to increase our player basis, and then to offset this impact.

Operator

Thank you. We will take our next question on the audio.

Please stand by. Your question comes from the line of David Amouram from Berenberg.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

David Amouram from Berenberg, your line is open. Please ask your question.

Please check you have not muted your line.

Davide Amorim

Hello, can you hear me?

François Riahi

We can hear you now, David.

Davide Amorim

Sorry, I was muted. Just two quick follow-up questions for me.

What was the marketing expenses as a percentage of sales in 2025 for the gaming side? Do you feel comfortable with the current Bloomberg consensus that forecast organic double-digit growth on the gaming side and mid-single-digit organic sales growth on the entertainment side in the next 2 to 3 years?

François Riahi

No, we don't want to do our strategic update now, David. We are not going to answer to the second question.

Actually, I think we are never going to comment on the consensus. Sophie, maybe on the first question?

Sophie Kurinckx-Leclerc

Regarding the marketing expense, we are between 6% and 8% of the revenue, broadly speaking. Without the bonus.

François Riahi

Maybe just one word about that. In France, the increase in taxes included an increase on a tax on advertisement.

That has led also to a reduction of the advertisement in France.

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions.

I would like to hand back for closing remarks.

François Riahi

I don't have really closing remarks except that we expect you will be there on the strategic update on March 26. With so many questions on what will be the growth moving forward, I'm sure you will be there, and we'll be very happy to update.

Thank you for attending, and see you very soon.

Operator

Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.