Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Ströer SE Preliminary Figures Q4 2023 conference call. I'm Moritz Sokoll, call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you can register for any question at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Christian Schmalzl, Co-CEO. Please go ahead. Dear ladies and gentlemen, Dear Analysts, let me welcome you to our call on our Q4 and preliminary full-year results for 2023. As in previous calls, I will start into our presentation with a brief overview of the key figures for the past period, followed by comments on the most important strategic topics of the last year and what trends and developments we see at the moment. Henning will then present the figures for the financial year and the fourth quarter. This will be followed by an initial outlook for the 2024 financial year and the developments we see, especially for the first quarter. Afterwards, we're looking forward to your questions. As a courtesy, I'd like to briefly note that all fiscal 2023 figures are preliminary and unaudited. With that, let us start the call with a short overview of fiscal 2023. When we look at the developments for 2023 as a whole, we were able to increase our group sales by 8% from EUR 1.772 billion- EUR 1.914 billion. Organic growth was with 7.5%, more or less on a similar level. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 5% from EUR 541 million- EUR 569 million, slightly underproportional when compared with the strong revenue developments due to cost increases like for electricity, external service providers, and labor. EBIT Adjusted was with EUR 266 million on the same level as at the end of the previous year, despite D&A having increased by 7%, reflecting the investments, especially the accelerated ramp-up of our digital out-of-home portfolio in the last two or three years. Net Income Adjusted for the year 2023 came in at EUR 143 million compared with EUR 172 million in 2022 due to higher interests, which we have discussed in the call throughout the year. In contrast, we were able to significantly increase free cash flow adjusted by 60% from EUR 50 million in 2022 to EUR 81 million in 2023. The strong performance in the fourth quarter, in particular, contributed to this positive development. We were able to increase quarter-over-quarter free cash flow adjusted by almost 80% in the fourth quarter and, as expected, significantly exceeded the previous year's figures. As planned, CapEx in 2023 was around EUR 30 million lower than in the previous year, reflecting a back-to-normal CapEx level for out-of-home and a stronger focus on fill rates than portfolio expansion. All in all, CapEx was EUR 129 million in 2023. Without preempting Henning's detailed comments on the results, I'd like to conclude the overview by mentioning our earnings per share, taking my brief remarks on the different effects of the year into account. Earnings per share adjusted for fiscal year 2023 came in at EUR 2.22 compared to EUR 2.88 for 2022. Looking at the developments in the overall German advertising market last year, the gross numbers from Nielsen finally showed a good Q4 and at least stable environment. According to Nielsen figures, which are gross numbers, out-of-home advertising increased by 11%. The corresponding net number should be around 6% growth, or roughly 10 points better than the net ad market. As a result, out-of-home share of the overall ad market rose to a new historic high of 8.6%. Our developments in net revenues, plus 8% for the group, plus 8% for our core out-of-home segment, and with plus 28% for digital out-of-home, we were able to accelerate the growth of H1 and the first nine months even further. The developments are outstanding against the German ad market, and even the global digital platforms from the US don't show the dynamics of digital out-of-home at the moment. Most importantly, the organic growth of our out-of-home business in Q4 was at 13.6%, one of the best quarters for out-of-home we ever had, and digital out-of-home was even above 30% growth in the last quarter, 2023. So we have been outperforming the ad market by roughly 10 points. With digital out-of-home, we have, apart from TikTok and Amazon Retail, the most dynamic product in the market in our portfolio, and we saw a continuously improving market environment throughout the second half of the year. Over the last five years and through the pandemic, out-of-home has not fully recovered its market share that is influenced by lockdowns in 2023. We are more than one percentage point above the pre-COVID market share level. So our momentum is good, but the potential for further growth is still massive. When you look at the long-term trend over 15-20 years, the CAGR of out-of-home was, including the pandemic, outperforming the ad market by 4x, 8% on average for out-of-home versus 2% for the ad market. Since the end of the pandemic, the dynamics are even more favorable for out-of-home, and 2023 shows a new dimension. Even if advertisers spend less, they increase out-of-home substantially. Let's have a look at some exemplary cases and client strategies in 2023, all based on efficient Nielsen market data. H&M is, in general, a big fan and believer in out-of-home. Given the challenging environment in 2023, they've reduced their overall media spend by 8%, but more than doubled out-of-home, and the vast majority of the incremental spend went into digital out-of-home. BMW, somewhat representative for German car manufacturers, almost tripled out-of-home spend. Netflix, out-of-home was growing 32%. Of course, we've also seen individual advertisers spending less in out-of-home last year, but the list of clients with increasing budgets, like the given examples, is long, and those are all prominent and well-positioned brands across all industries. Out-of-home and digital out-of-home are gaining importance in that plan. It's a clear statement about the impact and the return on investment of out-of-home and the tendency to focus on what delivers the best immediate return. What we have also seen is that by far more advertisers combine their activities on social media with out-of-home. Both channels reach especially young and mobile people, and out-of-home amplifies the social activities of brands. C&A, for instance, a large German fashion retailer, was using our second-screen offering with Pinterest ads and digital out-of-home. The creatives have the same look, and C&A could reach their core audience along the entire customer journey on mobile devices and digital out-of-home screens in a fully integrated way. Via an own filter and a special Snapchat lens, the digital out-of-home creatives of the Christmas campaign of Otto were connected with Snapchat. Via the support of augmented reality, young target groups could experience the broad range of potential presents and products in an interactive way. Out-of-home was driving traffic to this innovative form, brand interaction of Otto. Both increasing spend levels as well as the differentiated use of our medium shows the growing overall relevance of digital out-of-home. First of all, it has one of the best carbon footprints per contact across all media channels, an important strategic argument for many advertisers nowadays. Secondly, all other classic broadcasting media lose audience. Through mass mobility and constantly growing numbers of screens, digital out-of-home is winning audience. Thirdly, no other digital channel has that impact and power, building reach fast across mass audiences while being very flexible and allowing also very precise geospatial targeting. And finally, digital out-of-home has eliminated almost all historic entry barriers for out-of-home for advertisers. Still 10 years ago, you had to reserve and book traditional out-of-home some months in advance. You had to stick to the given networks of sites, and below a minimum investment of EUR 1.5 million, it was difficult to create real visibility nationwide as out-of-home was always seen standalone. So doing out-of-home or not doing out-of-home was a very digital and general question, yes or no, and the same every year. Now you can trade it in combination with online media programmatically. Short-term availability is excellent. Campaign setup is done in almost real time, and the cross-channel mix with other digital media means that you don't have to test it with a large budget. You can start with EUR 50,000 and then increase it step by step without bigger risks according to your return on investment. Let's look at some expressive numbers. From 2019- 2023, the customer base of national advertisers on digital out-of-home has more than doubled from 450- 965. Last year, we won another 25% more clients. 80% of the new customers have a ticket size below EUR 75,000. Churn rate in the last two years was below 7% at times when many advertisers cut budget. Net revenue retention was beyond 110%. From 2019- 2023, programmatic clients went up from 170- 780 nationwide active brands. So the number of new customers is growing. It's easy to test the product. The churn of existing customers is small as the medium works and as existing customers book more year-over-year. More importantly, the consolidated market structure of out-of-home in Germany is supporting this development. Across almost all digital out-of-home product categories, we are the dominant market player. You can do digital out-of-home only with Ströer, and that makes it for advertisers even easier. And with almost 80% market share in premium digital out-of-home, we can benefit overproportionate from the current development. At the same time, we've been working on all the relevant criteria for more than a decade. So it's the result of persistence in portfolio development and investment, ad tech and programmatic initiatives, as well as marketing sales excellence. The subsegment digital out-of-home has delivered roughly EUR 300 million revenue in 2023, and when you include the related budgets within the services subsegment, digital out-of-home is currently representing 35% of our out-of-home business. Although the ad market was going backwards and we've lost roughly EUR 10 million revenue in classic out-of-home through the last stage of tobacco advertising then in 2023, our classic business was stable last year. In a normalized environment, classic will continue to grow at least low single digits and in line with the ad market. Digital out-of-home is currently not growing at the expense of our classic business as our local sales force focuses more on classic products in the coming years. Digital out-of-home is winning from the rest of the market because we constantly improve the product with more screens and more targeting features, because we are fully integrated in the digital marketing universe via the programmatic tech structures, because we have an excellent sales platform for local customers and strong access to national key accounts via our Out-of-Home plus strategy, and we have more than 60% of the total out-of-home market and around 80% from digital out-of-home. We control the key levers of an accelerated and sustainable growth path. Out-of-home is our core, and digital out-of-home is core of the core. So far on my remarks, and with that, over to Henning. Thank you, Christian, and good morning to everyone from my side. With the developments in the fourth quarter, we were able to continue on our growth path in the operationally most important quarter. Revenue rose by 8% from EUR 526 million- EUR 566 million. Organic revenue growth came in with more than 6% for the quarter, and this includes a strong sequential acceleration to double-digit growth in our out-of-home segment that was somewhat compensated for by a more moderate development at our digital dialog segment as well as at AsamBeauty and Statista. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 4% to EUR 194 million. Exceptional items in the quarter amounted to EUR 11 million. More than half of that is related to the streamlining and optimization of organizational structures in our content business, in particular on the tech side of t-online, as already indicated in our Q3 call. The remainder results from smaller reorganization and restructuring measures in several entities. Including exceptionals, reported EBITDA came in at EUR 184 million, slightly above the prior year's level. Depreciation and amortization for the quarter increased by EUR 8 million from EUR 84 million- EUR 92 million. Underlying D&A, so excluding IFRS 16, increased by EUR 7 million and thus at a higher amount than the run rate of the first three quarters. This included a non-recurring effect of more than EUR 6 million for value corrections on assets. These corrections, however, did not qualify as exceptional items and therefore also burdened Adjusted EBIT and Net Adjusted Income. Depreciation on IFRS 16 assets was up by around EUR 1 million. With that, reported EBIT for the quarter was EUR 91 million after EUR 99 million in the prior year period. The financial results came in at around -EUR 18 million compared to -EUR 10 million in Q4 2022. The difference is attributable to the same two effects as in the previous quarters. Firstly, interest expenses for financing the business, which increased by around EUR 3 million, and secondly, IFRS 16 interest expenses, more or less like the previous quarters, increased by roughly EUR 3 million. Accordingly, EBT came in at EUR 74 million compared to EUR 89 million in the previous year's quarter. Including taxes, which I will come to in a second, this led to a reported net income of EUR 47 million for Q4 2023. Adjustments to be considered in the quarter were EUR 18 million and related mainly to the exceptions mentioned before and amortizations of around EUR 7 million. Considering the effects described above, net income adjusted came in at around EUR 64 million, some EUR 3 million lower than in the prior year. Let us now have a quick look onto the full year development, which Christian already touched upon. Revenue growth for the year was 8%. This includes around 50 basis points contribution from changes in the portfolio, which represents mainly the net effect of our opportunistic acquisition and integration of a few call center locations since the month of June, as well as the disposal of our remaining Turkish activities in 2022 and the service activity in our out-of-home media segment in Q4 2023. Excluding that, organic growth came in at 7.5%. EBITDA Adjusted amounted to EUR 569 million, EUR 27 million of 5% higher compared with the prior year period. Exceptional items for the year were EUR 15 million and mainly materialized in Q4, as I just mentioned. Accordingly, reported EBITDA was up from EUR 542 million to EUR 554 million. Depreciation and amortization increased by 7% to EUR 323 million, reflecting the effects, including the mentioned impact of EUR 6 million from a non-recurring value correction in Q4. Including that, EBIT for the year came in at EUR 231 million, EUR 8 million less compared with 2022. The financial result decreased to minus EUR 66 million. This decline of EUR 38 million includes higher financing costs for the business of around EUR 24 million from higher rates and higher net debt and EUR 13 million higher interest costs for our lease liabilities. As already explained in recent calls, when we amend existing lease contracts at the now higher interest rate level, the interest component of IFRS 16 goes up while the capitalized value in use and consequently also the depreciation component is reduced. This led to earnings before tax of EUR 165 million after EUR 211 million for the prior year. Taxes decreased from EUR 59 million- EUR 53 million, reflecting the lower pre-tax result. At the same time, the tax rate moved up to more than 31%, the main reason being the negative pre-tax result at Statista, which under IFRS accounting standards only allows for capitalizing its current tax assets once the company has achieved a sustainable pre-tax profit, which we expect within the next two years. Excluding this effect, our tax rate would have been in our target range of the high 20s. With that, net income for the year came in at EUR 112 million for 2023 compared to EUR 152 million in 2022. Adjustments totaled EUR 31 million, mainly including the after-tax effect of the exceptionals of EUR 15 million just mentioned and some EUR 21 million mainly from amortizing assets from historical purchase price allocations. Accordingly, net income adjusted stood at EUR 143 million after EUR 172 million in the prior year. Let us now switch over to the cash flow. The slight increase in EBITDA, as well as the better working capital development and less corrections for non-cash items in other, could almost compensate for significantly higher interest expenses and higher cash out for taxes. With that, the operating cash flow amounted to EUR 401 million after EUR 411 million in 2022. Operating cash flow in Q4 was broadly stable. Our now more focused investment approach, which we have discussed in recent calls with a more balanced level following the record high in the prior year, led to a CapEx spend of EUR 129 million or some EUR 30 million less compared with 2022. Accordingly, free cash flow before M&A for the full year after being slightly up already in the first nine months improved quite a bit from EUR 248 million- EUR 272 million. This underlines the discussed strong free cash flow development in Q4, which we discussed in our Q3 calls. Our lease liability repayments decreased from EUR 198 million- EUR 191 million. Altogether, in particular due to the improving cash flow dynamics in our out-of-home segment in the fourth quarter, free cash flow adjusted improved by 60% from EUR 50 million- EUR 81 million. Net debt year-on-year was up as expected by EUR 52 million from EUR 718 million- EUR 770 million in 2023. In the reconciliation, this increase includes our free cash flow of EUR 80 million, Ströer dividends payout of EUR 103 million, expenses for the share buyback of EUR 24 million, minority dividends of EUR 9 million, M&A disposal proceeds of EUR 3 million, cash in from exercised stock options of EUR 5 million, and EUR 8 million higher liabilities for future dividends for non-controlling shareholders, mainly following a strong earnings improvement at Asam. In the sequential view from the end of Q3 to the end of Q4, net debt improved by EUR 91 million, including the adjusted free cash flow for the quarter of plus EUR 99 million and the mentioned recognition of higher liabilities for future dividends for non-controlling shareholders at AsamBeauty. With that, we delivered what we promised to improve the leverage ratio from 2.5x in Q3 to now 2.2x and with that roughly on the level of the prior year, also implying that the increase in net debt is well covered by an improving cash generation. On that note, let me share with you some thoughts, encouraging analysis, and on the improving capital dynamics of our core out-of-home media segment. What we see here is the Adjusted EBITDA for out-of-home showed a margin compression of 225 basis points since 2021. At the same time, the Adjusted EBITDA before the effects of IFRS 16, which by nature is a much better proxy for cash flow, is showing a broadly stable margin over the same period. This difference in the margin picture is simply because IFRS 16 effects were increasing way below the rate of sales growth, which is finally a result of a better leverage on our fixed cost infrastructure. Together with a more selective investment approach and stronger focus on improving utilization of existing digital assets, out-of-home delivered a strong improvement in cash generation, which is in line with what we talked about in our Capital Markets Day in 2021, even though many external parameters changed since then, as we all know. Also, if you look at the total lease expenses, so the sum of fixed and variable lease expenses for our portfolio as a percent of sales, we see that we are clearly improving. At the same time, this implies that 2023 was a tough one regarding all other costs, which clearly increased ahead of sales growth. Now, what we do expect going forward. First of all, we are confident that Adjusted EBITDA this year will move forward more in line with sales growth, and Christian will talk about the outlook here later. At the same time, and based on broadly stable IFRS 16 effects, the cash EBITDA should clearly outperform the Adjusted EBITDA. And including stable CapEx, we should even see a higher growth rate in the cash contribution. Let me now talk you through the performance of the individual segments, starting with our fourth segment, out-of-home media. In the fourth quarter, out-of-home delivered the expected acceleration on sales growth. Sales were up by 12.6%, organic growth was 13.6%. In the context of an improving ad-market environment, also our classic product delivered a stable sales growth of almost 4% and with that helping to achieve a stable number for the full year. The main contributor for the strong revenue development was again our digital out-of-home business, which delivered growth of 33%. The share of digital out-of-home for the year went up from 29.5% to now 35%. Within digital, our programmatic channel outperformed considerably. This reflected the demand for our digital portfolio and especially for programmatic Public Video from large national accounts. EBITDA adjusted for this quarter increased from EUR 127 million- EUR 140 million despite still elevated SG&A cost inflation. The margin reduction in Q4 was a bit less than the 170 basis points that we had seen for the first nine months. For the full year, the EBITDA Adjusted margin was down by 150 basis points, while as seen on the previous slide, the cash EBITDA margin, excluding the lease accounting, was down by only 60 basis points, including lower relative lease expenses and a disproportionate rise in other SG&As. In digital and dialog, revenue in the fourth quarter increased by 9.5% and with that more or less in line with the first nine months. Within digital, in Q4, accelerating sales growth, especially from programmatic ad sales, more than compensated for a slight decline in our high margin content publishing business. Our dialog activities showed a slowing revenue performance in the fourth quarter. While our call centers continued to grow in line with the first nine months and supported by external growth, our door-to-door marketing activities showed a steady decline against exceptionally strong trading in last year's Q4 that we also pointed out at the time. Altogether, the segment delivered an EBITDA Adjusted of EUR 53 million after EUR 63 million last year, reflecting sales declines in higher margin activities such as content and door-to-door and a safe increase in lower margin programmatic sales. The EBITDA Adjusted for the current fiscal year in 2024 in the segment digital and dialog will be burdened by a technical effect of around EUR 10 million. This effect results from the termination of the collaboration with the Bauer Media Group. Ströer had the mandate to market the corresponding digital contents until the end of 2023. The specific structure of the collaboration was based on Ströer acquiring the marketing rights by way of an asset deal. The corresponding asset was then depreciated over the contract period. Since we compensate the loss of the Bauer contract by winning additional marketing mandates such as Joyn, there will be no negative net impact on sales, EBIT, and cash flow. The now newly won mandates are based on classical revenue sharing models where the revenue share is extended in SG&A and not part of depreciation. Moving over to our data service and e-commerce segment with Statista and AsamBeauty, the total revenue growth moderated to around 14% in Q4, with AsamBeauty still growing above 20% and Statista increasing sales by 8% adjusted for currency effects. EBITDA Adjusted improved considerably to EUR 54 million for the full year with a margin of now 15.5%. Let me conclude my remarks with a few comments on ESG at Ströer. As you can see, we are doing very well overall and are practically always in the upper range compared to our peer companies and in the sector. Compared to the second quarter, we were able to improve our S&P Global Score by a further three points to 41 points, putting us in the 92nd percentile in our sector. Also, we improved our Carbon Disclosure Project rating considerably from F to B. But it doesn't come for free. It's thanks to the dedication of our teams who are passionate about this topic and make us better every day. Sustainability has now developed into a decisive success factor in the capital markets, in the public space, and for our entire industry. We therefore are very pleased that our efforts and above all our progress are being recognized and rewarded. With this, I would like to hand you over back to Christian. Before ending the presentation, let me just have some comments on the outlook for the rest of the year, the general momentum towards 2024 in our financial calendar. For our first quarter, we expect to carry on with a strong development of the last quarter, in particular in our core segment out-of-home. Accordingly, we see up to 15% organic growth for out-of-home based on the double-digit dynamics in Q4 2023 and based on our strong order trajectories. For the full year, we expect organic revenue growth for the group should be noticeably higher in percentage terms than the corresponding growth rate for the year 2023, which was 7.5%. EBITDA margin adjusted around prior year level. And as Henning said, IFRS effects are roughly stable. Therefore, EBITDA Adjusted with double the growth rate of EBITDA Adjusted. Free cash flow adjusted should rise significantly above the rate of EBIT. Let me now close the presentation with a short look into our financial calendar for 2024. Following today's preliminary results, we will publish our full year results on March 25. First quarter results will follow on May 8. The annual general meeting will be held on June 11. On August 8, we will release the half-year report 2024. The year 2024 will then be concluded with the publication of our Q3 report on November 13. As always, updates, reports, and roadshow presentations can be found on our IR website. Thank you, everyone. We are now happy to take your questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from Chris Johnen from HSBC. Please go ahead. Well, thanks for the opportunity to ask a couple of questions. First, on the guidance, specifically with respect to the EBITDA guidance of the stable margin, can you give us a bit more, I would say, thinking or your thinking around the operational gearing this year? I was under the impression that we would have left 2023, which had a number of headwinds with respect to energy, the personnel cost side. All of those things should be better in 2024 versus 2023. So I'm just trying to understand your thinking, maybe even with a bit of segment color on the operational gearing that you expect in 2024 and why you think the margin should still just be around prior year levels. Second question, a bit more color on Statista, please. I understand the FX impact in the fourth quarter, but is it possible maybe to get a bit of color on how you think Statista should do in 2024? That'll be interesting. Thank you. Well, Chris, the first question on the guidance. You're right. We are now talking about our stable margin. Well, at the same time, I think you noted that we are getting more positive on what we expect from the out-of-home business. I mean, we saw a margin compression last year. Now we expect for our most important business that margin and sales should go more in line going forward, even more so if you strip out the IFRS 16 effect. So that would be my first comment. Then secondly, obviously, we are very early in the year. And I think there's more opportunities going forward to be a little bit more precise once we have clearly seen trading in Q1. So we don't want to come across negative. I think we are quite constructive about the margin. But after a year of witnessing some compression, I think we are more confident that we will be more stable and hopefully even better than that going forward. Yeah. And maybe picking that one up and then switching to Statista. But I think segment three should have the potential to improve the margin in 2024 versus 2023. At least that's what we have in our plans. That's the momentum we see at the moment. I think segment two, I think it's realistic to assume that we are able to deliver at least stable margins roughly versus where we've been last year. I think that's the key point. If you look at out-of-home, I think we see massive operational gearing opportunities. But you don't see it in the EBITDA because of the stable IFRS line. So you need to look at the EBIT number for out-of-home. We'll probably disclose throughout the year here and there a little bit more than in the past just to give you confidence that I think we are at a point that a lot of fixed costs are relatively stable. Inflation is under control. But we are able to grow overproportionally and therefore deliver exponentially growing cash flows. Then over to Statista, I think 2023 was a year where we had to change a couple of things to take the company to the next level. So we had quite some investments into AI developments. The first beta versions are visible now for test customers. We had management change that was planned for quite some time because we switched from the founders to a new CEO. We've also worked on some sales setups regarding how we organize our sales teams globally because we are, I think, at a stage where we had to switch some structures so that we are also able to grow to EUR 300 million, EUR 400 million, EUR 500 million. That's why I would say the turning point operationally in the business was sometime in autumn last year when we had completed the necessary changes. As always, in a subscription-based model, it takes like six, nine months until you see the kind of positive momentum again. So I think what we'll see this year will be quarter-over-quarter accelerated growth and in the second half of the year, growth rates again where we've been historically beyond 20% and 25%. But I think Statista for us was always a long-term case to exploit the full potential of the company. And what we've seen is when we got almost from scratch to EUR 80 million, we had to change a couple of things. And we've seen that once we got beyond EUR 150 million, we had to change a couple of things. And that was necessary to double the company. But I have to say we are extremely happy with our new CEO, with Marc Berg. We see very positive development there on the sales side, which takes maybe another three or four months until we see it in the reported revenue within the subscription model. Maybe a final remark again on the margins. But what I think my promise is that the technical effect of EUR 10 million that we lose in the digital dialog segment simply from dropping the Bauer contract and compensating with the classical revenue sharing, that technically costs us 50 basis points on a group level, more or less. And the compensation of that is included in our guidance, right? Understood. Thanks a lot. And the next question comes from Annick Maas from Société Générale. Please go ahead. I'm sure it is not. Good morning. My first one is on AsamBeauty. You were supposed to sell this asset this year. Can you give us an update on where we are today? Where are you in your discussions and so on? The second question is on you are going to have noticeably higher growth this year. What is noticeably higher? Does that mean above 10% or below 10%? And the final one is I've seen some market data which suggests that the digital out-of-home market in Germany is growing even more than what you're guiding for in the first quarter. I just wanted to hear your view on the recent digital out-of-home competition that has been arising in Germany. Thank you. Hi, Annick. Maybe on AsamBeauty, I think we stick to our plan. The business is performing very well. Just maybe I repeat that we've gone from EUR 8 million EBITDA in 2022 beyond EUR 40 million last year. So I think the company is in good shape. We've done already most of the homework that is necessary to go into the final stage of the sales process. That's what we've planned for 2024. I think, yeah, it's anyway not easy as a public company to sell businesses. So I hope you understand that we don't disclose too much information and timing on that one and rather hope to surprise you sooner or later. On growth regarding digital out-of-home, I think it's important to look at the difference between net and gross numbers. I think that's what we tried in one of our initial slides. When you look at Nielsen numbers, gross in the market, and when you see gross numbers that are published by, for instance, Digital Out-of-Home Association, that means that discounts are not reflected, that free space that is given to social initiatives is not properly reflected, so that the real net number is always inflated by 4-5 percentage points. That's why I think from a net point of view, I don't think that the market, at least marketplace of a relevant size in net terms, can grow faster than us. That doesn't mean that I think our guidance needs to be the end of what's possible for us this year. I think we are at the moment in the beginning of March. So we know exactly what happened in January. We know 98% of what happened in February. And we have very good confidence around the first 85% in March. It's fair to say that we see more dynamics than in Q4. We also see that the pre-orders for Q2 and Q4 are also really strong. Yeah, I would say in line with what we see for the first quarter. But there's still a long way to go. It's fair to mention, I think, that the full truth in the market and what the real net revenue number is is sometimes difficult to evaluate based on the various publications because, as you said, I think digital out-of-home is at the moment, it's maybe no longer the new kid on the block but probably one of the hot topics in the market. Everyone jumps on it. Everyone wants to be part of the party. That's why I would also say it's worthwhile looking at the real net revenue of various companies. I think, yes, there are a couple of smaller players. But if you look at their total net revenue versus, I think we disclosed in our subsegment, roughly EUR 300 million. I think all of that is still tiny. But we have an eye on it and try to have a feeling for it. But ultimately, we see where screens are in the market, what the quality screens are, what kind of advertising we see there in our tracking. So I have to say we feel very comfortable with our position. But we always have an eye on potential competitors, especially if you see that market segments are very dynamic like digital out-of-home. In Germany, you say, "Licht zieht die Motten an." Everyone wants to be where growth and the hot topics for advertisers are on. Your second question, sorry, was about. The group guidance where you say you have noticeably higher growth this year, what does that mean, noticeably higher growth? Well, I think for the first week of March, I would say it's noticeably higher. So if you just look at the dynamics that we've seen eight months ago, I think we had challenges with our out-of-home business to be overall in the mid-single-digit area. And then suddenly, end of the year, we had months with suddenly 15% growth. So just six to eight months had a variation of 10 points. And I think we've done the same good job as before. And it was the external environment. So at the moment, I think it's a bit too early to say if noticeably higher is 10 or 9.5 or 11 or 12. I think what we want to do is give you quarter-over-quarter very precise overview where the dynamics came from. As soon as we have clarity, especially about the second half of the year, which will be the crucial point, of course, we will disclose it. It's fair to say that the most positive surprise could probably be on the out-of-home and especially the digital out-of-home side. Maybe just one aspect I'd like to repeat because we had discussions around that in the past. I think the last 18 or 24 months have been overall challenging in the ad market and also for classic out-of-home. To be really honest, there have been points where we've also been a bit worried if all that digital out-of-home momentum put our classic business under pressure. I think that was never the case. It was always a difficult environment because at the moment, we also see quite nice developments again in the classic out-of-home part. We focus a little bit more with our regional sales force on the classic products. That's why I also think classic out-of-home can also be on the surprising side if you think about more dynamics than what we've seen in the past. But again, it's just a bit too early to commit to a concrete number. I think the most important point is whatever the top line shows, the EBIT will grow significantly faster. And cash will again grow faster than EBIT. And of course, the more you put into the top line, the more momentum you have in the very bottom of the P&L. But I think we've organized the business around all the cost challenges in the last 12 months in a way now that we are very confident around what Chris also asked, that operational gearing. But I think you won't see that gearing in the EBITDA line. You need to look down to EBIT and cash flow then to get the true picture of our performance at the moment. Sounds good. Thank you. Let me add something, Annick. I think what is key now here, we're seeing that out-of-home is moving for many customers from an add-on medium to a key part of the media strategy driven through the digitalization. I think this is really the biggest difference from everything what we saw in the last 30 years. This is a tectonic shift in media strategy. This is driven clearly by digitalization because if you look back before actually JCDecaux invented street furniture, we talked about the billboard business. Customers could decide about the size of the campaign because they bought single boards. Then JCDecaux invented the network strategy with street furniture. But the result was also here that the suppliers decided about the budget for a national campaign. And billboard, you in Germany were maybe paying EUR 600,000-EUR 800,000. And suddenly, it went up to EUR 2.5 million. And with this network-driven strategy, we actually pushed many national potential clients out of the business because the tickets became too big. And now through digitalization, there's no barrier anymore. You can buy for EUR 50,000 contacts on a national level. Plus, you can now combine it with TV or online. That's what we see now, that the growth is driven mainly by new national clients who are also suddenly coming in with much smaller tickets because there's no barrier anymore to entry. That's actually what is driving this tectonic shift right now. We are right now also negotiating with a couple of classical FMCG customers who were using only TV in the last 30 years. Suddenly, they realize that TV is not delivering the reach anymore. They need to find new strategies, how they can achieve digital reach in a sufficient number throughout the country. So it is a very positive development. And that's why we're quite optimistic that we see ongoing positive development based on the digital inventory what we have now and based on the situation that instead of paying EUR 2.5 million per week, you can buy whatever you want now in every size you want and make it as a sole out-of-home digital campaign. Or you can combine it with online and TV. And this is why suddenly, digital out-of-home is moving from an add-on medium to a key part of customers' media strategy. Okay. Thank you very much. And the next question comes from Lisa Yang from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Good morning. I have a follow-up question on the margin. I still don't really understand why the margin should be broadly flat, the Adjusted EBITDA margin. And if you can maybe give a bit more color by division as well. Is it because you still see some pressure from certain cost items? Or it's more like a revenue mix impact continuing, for instance, in Digital & Dialog? So any sort of more color would be helpful to understand this dynamic. Second question is, could you clarify what's the size of the programmatic business now? And what was the growth contribution in both out-of-home and also in Digital & Dialog last year and what you expect for 2024? And the third question related to your comment on strong free cash flow growth, is it possible to get a guidance on what you expect for group cash leases, tax, interest, CapEx on capital, and do you also expect, obviously, exceptionals to come down? That'll be really helpful. Thank you. Well, Lisa, let me take a one on the EBITDA margin. I mean, first of all, what we're trying to say is that we believe that the operational leverage that we are able to achieve should be more visible further below the EBITDA, so in EBIT and also probably net earnings and also in the cash flow, right? To lead you a little bit segment by segment, I think we are confident and constructive about the margin outlook for out-of-home based on all the things that Christian and Udo shared with you. I guess after getting from a declining margin to an improving margin, I think in the middle, you have to stabilize them. I think we are in a good way here. We are, again, more positive on what is below the EBITDA line out-of-home. Secondly, we have this technical effect in the second segment, the EUR 10 million EBITDA I talked about, that will simply technically disappear without being a burden on cash or EBIT. So that is technically a point. And I think on AsamBeauty and Statista, I think we have seen a considerable margin improvement now to more than 15%. And I think it's probably fair to say that we are constructive about the margin here. But we shouldn't expect the same improvement that we have seen last year, obviously. Plus, also, we have on the holding level some cost for upcoming renewal of ERP systems that will also be, let's say, a burden on the result of the holding. So that altogether is summing up to our comments on a broadly stable EBITDA margin, right? I give it to Christian for the second question, right? Yeah. Programmatic side, so just looking where it originally came from. So in simple terms, our online business is half of the Digital & Dialog segment, roughly. And in the online business, roughly 60% of the revenues at the moment are programmatic. And last year, I would say the programmatic business was only growing slightly. While the traditional business, when we were monetizing individual assets with more concept-oriented sales approaches, was outperforming the programmatic part, that was true for the online market and the online segment. So again, 60% of 50% of the second segment. And under normal conditions, programmatic in the last 10 years was always outperforming the growth of the other sales channel. Last year, it was the other way around. In the out-of-home business, I think, as we said, 35% of revenues are digital out-of-home. There, I would say overall, we are at 50% programmatic share of the digital part. Last year, it was almost 90% of our digital out-of-home growth came through programmatic sources. So there, you clearly see that the more we've been able in the last years to integrate digital out-of-home into the programmatic world of historic online media, the more we could benefit with our media from that overall positive tendency towards programmatic advertising. That's roughly the share. So in out-of-home, half of 35% in the Digital & Dialog segment is 60% out of half of the segment. Then a couple of points on what you asked about in terms of guidance on cash flow positions. I mean, just looking at it, well, we would say that on the interest side, I think there's two drivers. I think, first of all, I think you probably see still some increasing outflow for interest cost in the first half. That will form more stabilized in the second. So I think probably there is higher interest expense, but obviously way below the huge increase we had already in the last fiscal year. In terms of taxes, I would, from today's perspective, also expect that the cash out, which was EUR 78 million last year, will be a touch below because the EUR 78 million also included some payments for other periods preceding 2023. So I think we would expect less tax out for cash out for taxes. On the investment side, I think in our guidance, we have visibly said that we expect this to be broadly more or less on the same level that we have seen last year, slightly down maybe. IFRS 16 effects, Christian touched upon that. And most of those are in out-of-home, probably more stable. So as you see, there's a couple of drivers which actually imply that the dynamics in free cash flow should outperform the dynamics in EBITDA. With regard to expected restructuring, at this point in time, there's no larger things on the horizon, right? Obviously, there will be always smaller reorganizational and restructuring topics. But from today's perspective, we would expect less exceptionals than what we had in 2023. That's really helpful. Thank you. Can I just ask a quick follow-up? Why does the reconciliation in your top line increase so much in 2023? And how should we model that line going forward? What do you mean by reconciliation of the top line? Just to clarify. Yeah. I think it was EUR 150 million, I think, in 2023 was quite a big increase versus the year before. Just wondering. That's considered a year. You mean that? Oh, okay. Okay. That the sum of the segments is higher than the group. Yeah. I think it's two aspects. The first one is that we monetize our portfolio with different sales forces that sit in different segments. And we also run all of the programmatic advertising, or especially when digital out-of-home is combined with online, it's running through the online SSP. That's why we then ultimately consolidated on a group level. So that's the two effects, that we monetize programmatic via one platform if it's combined. And we try to push cross-channel monetization with our sales force. That's the whole logic of Out-of-Home plus that advertisers book everything in larger bundles so that Digital & Dialog can support the out-of-home development. And And the consolidation effect, you could also say the kind of synergy effect on the sales side is the kind of number. I think ideally, it should grow roughly in line with the top line development if there are no extraordinary items in the second year. Sure. That's just to say, I mean, looking at the segment sales, you see especially the programmatic sales accounted for twice. And then this is corrected in the consolidation. So also, the consolidation position itself is a pretty good indicator for the total programmatic volume in digital out-of-home. Okay. Thank you. And the next question comes from Julien from Barclays. Please go ahead. Yes. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Just follow-ups. On Annick 's question about organic being noticeably higher, you said it was too early to give an exact number because it was the beginning of the year. But then you also mentioned 9.5%-12%. So could we kind of get a range of realistic worst case and best case? Is it 9%-12%? Or could it be 9%-13%, 9%-15%? That's the first question. Then follow up on Lisa's free cash flow question just to make sure. So the cash interest was EUR 65 million last year. You said that would go up, so what, to about EUR 70 million? Cash taxes were EUR 78 million last year. You said that would go down to, what, about EUR 70 million? Then you said CapEx, I believe, would go down, so what, EUR 125 million? IFRS impact, you said, would be stable at EUR 191 million. What about working capital? Should it be flat? And then just to get some historical perspective, programmatic was up 90% in digital out-of-home in 2023. Can you remind us what was the growth of programmatic in 2022, 2021, some historical numbers if you have them? Thank you. Well, I think on the top line, I think we've already given so much information. I would stick to our original view that it's noticeably higher. And we'll see the momentum quarter by quarter, yeah? I think it's just, as I said, it's too early. What we can see is the next six, eight months sorry, six, eight weeks, yeah? And I think that's where we are clear. And for the rest, it's simply too early, yeah? Because whatever you say, I think the possible range would just be too big. It would rather lead into a wrong direction than give you confidence about what's possible. And I think just on the last one, programmatic, what maybe I didn't say correctly, 90% of the growth of digital out-of-home came from programmatic. So I think digital out-of-home was growing in the high 20s, something like 28% or so. And 90% of that growth came in via programmatic. But I think the relative growth number of programmatic would be probably rather in the mid-50s or so. And I think the year before, it was a little bit lower. Programmatic has not doubled last year, yeah? It's 90% of the growth of the whole segment came from it. Does that make sense, Julien? Yes. And on your question, to be further specific on the outlook and the cash flow statement, Julien and I would leave my comments that I just given on Lisa's question. We're not now going line by line through it. But what you sort of repeated is correct and would be in line with our comments. But at this point in time, I would sort of shy away from giving exact numbers and what we expect on each and every line. Fair enough. Your question on working capital, because I haven't touched upon that. To be fair, it's kind of a difficult position to forecast. I think last year, we had much better development than the year before. But here, one driver could be for higher output could be the positive development of Asam and the growth in its retail channel. So here, I would allow for a little bit higher output, right, as opposed to what I said on interest and tax. Okay. Thank you. And the next question comes from Craig Abbott from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi. Good morning, everyone. Yeah. A couple of remaining questions from my side. First of all, just looking at the digital, your online operations within your second division. I mean, when you were showing us the slides about how you gave us some examples, H&M and some other major customers who are allocating much more to ad budgets to digital out-of-home, which is obviously very positive on that side. However, I noticed on those slides, they were also slashing their online ad spend by 47% or something. Obviously, nothing dramatically new in these trends over the last couple of years. But I just tried to get a little bit of a better feel of what kind of dynamics you're expecting in your online activities, both in-house, IT, online, your other platforms, as well as third-party and dynamics in terms of growth, pricing, margin, so forth there. The second question is just on CapEx again. I realize you're not going to be completely, it's very specific. But I'm still a little unclear. I mean, are you looking below the 125? And I thought as you were focusing more on fulfillment and less on rollout, that actually that number would probably be considered to be lower this year. So if you could maybe talk us through your thinking there. Thank you. Maybe I start with the online business just as a recap or putting it into context, yeah? I think the consensus number for the group revenue that is out is roughly, I don't know, around EUR 2.1 billion for 2024. And I think the online division is around EUR 450 million, which is roughly 20% of our group, yeah, just to put it into context. Based on what we see at the moment, I think mid-single-digit growth in 2024 is a solid basis. Maybe we see a little bit more throughout the year. Depends on the second half. But how we've started into the year, it looks like a very solid and robust mid-single-digit growth. I would say the own assets, the onlines, especially, grow pretty much in line with the segments. So no big difference between third-party and own assets. I would say pricing at the moment for next year has probably an impact of half of the growth, yeah, or so 2.5%-3%. And then the same on top for demand. Yeah. And as I said, I think on an EBITDA level, the margin is roughly stable. I think Henning mentioned that special effect on the third-party sales, which is a technical effect on the EBITDA line. But EBIT should improve slightly in that segment as well. So we're happy with the business, yeah? I think you could always compare it with lockdown phases with enormous traffic peaks of news media and all of that happening pre-inflation rates that we've seen in the last 18 months. But I think for the moment, yeah, looking at how does the market respond to that business, I think we're well-positioned. And it's a nice complementary asset to fuel our overall growth, especially also pushing digital out-of-home in combination. And further on CapEx, Craig, our current forecast implies that CapEx is down compared to the prior year in 2024. But not to the same extent we have seen that last year, which was, as you know, EUR 30 million or so. So I would rather say from today's perspective, slightly down. That implies more or less stable CapEx in out-of-home, some decline in the second segment, Digital & Dialog, a bit higher CapEx in AsamBeauty and Statista as well as on holding level for acquiring software licenses. This is a rough picture as we look at it today. Okay. Thank you both very much. And the next question comes from Marcus Diebel. As a reminder, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one. Marcus Diebel, please go ahead. Just one question left. I mean, 15% growth is a strong number for Q1. I understand, Christian, you don't want to give much more on the guidance. I want to be conservative. But can you just understand, is there anything special in Q1? Was there a big contract? Anything that doesn't come through in the remaining quarters? Or how shall we think about it? I think what everybody's trying to understand, why the strong momentum in Q1 should kind of fade a little bit in Q2 and going forward, is it really just seasonals? Or is there anything kind of as a one-off that is worth highlighting? Thank you. No. First of all, I'd say we mentioned the 15% for the out-of-home segment, yeah? And we said that at the moment, we see very good momentum there. But the point is that I don't know that based on the order book, we have at the moment less than 30% of the final revenues of the second half in our books. That's why it's just too early to know exactly what the potential this year is, yeah? That's why it could be weaker than Q1 because of some effects. But it could be also better than Q1. Or it could be the same. We simply don't know. I think it's not, I wouldn't say, a conservative approach on the basis of adding confidence in the business. It's just when we look at the last three or four years, yeah, all those external effects have been quite extreme. You never knew what might happen next. To be honest, I think that since mid of last year, we've been coming into a more reliable environment that got gradually better. The most important point was that you suddenly had no negative surprises. I think that's also one of the reasons why advertisers came back and stabilized their spend. Everything was easier to predict. I think all the potential cost challenges have normalized. It was also easier to focus not only on cost management but also on top-line development. Looking at the developments today, I would be surprised, to be honest, if suddenly the environment would get more challenging. We don't see any signals for that at the moment, just to be clear. That's why we're very positive. But it's a bit too early in the year to already commit to a very specific number in the first year. But just based on the logics of today and especially looking at our core business, out-of-home, I wouldn't know why the dynamics throughout the whole year should be weaker than in the first quarter. But I don't know what the second half might bring. It's just as simple as that, yeah? So I mean, I'm since 11 years with this company. And I don't know, 25 years in the industry. I think I've rarely seen six, nine months in a row where out-of-home had so much positive momentum. And to be honest, I would be surprised if that would not go on, yeah? And I think for us, maybe the most important message today was I just read again what we put in the guidance, yeah? Yeah. We said, "Look, half of the EBITDA is IFRS, yeah? The other half will grow overproportionate." So you see it in the EBIT line. So EBIT will grow twice as fast as top-line. And again, assuming you put in, whatever you do in the first line, 10, yeah, growth in the revenue, then the 10 is also the 10 is 10 in the EBITDA, but it's 20 in the EBIT. And I think then we said, "Cash flow will grow remarkably higher than EBIT." So again, you can interpret what remarkably is. But anything far beyond 20% should be expected, yeah? Also, if you see the absolute development from 2022- 2023, that's also a good indicator. I think that's the most important message. I think our overall top-line growth stabilizes on a historically high level. We still don't know how far it can go. We see that on the very bottom line, that's ultimately cash generation. We are making massive progress over the last 18 months. I think that makes the performance of our company very, very much predictable. I think it's not a sign of weakness, not to commit to the last 2% or 3% top-line development, yeah? I think it's just too early for that. Overall, I think we're really happy with how the business is performing, especially the out-of-home business, yeah? That's the core of our company. That business makes the difference. Two or three points better or worse in Dialog or Digital doesn't move the needle in my view. But another five or 10-point top-line with that cash conversion in out-of-home, that makes a huge difference. And I think we are getting into a phase now where we think we can deliver more of that in the coming quarters and years. No, very good. Perfect. Makes sense. Thank you. I think this was a very important remark because EBITDA margin is clearly misleading because of the big portion of IFRS, as Christian said, yeah? And especially on the margin side, we are very optimistic going forward, everything what is more cash near. Perfect. And we do have a follow-up question from Chris Johnen from HSBC. Please go ahead. Yes. Thanks for that. On the last point, I wanted to ask, you said and again, I may have misunderstood you. You said that the 60% free cash growth in 2023 is a good indicator. Did you want to signal that with respect to the significantly higher free cash than the EBIT in the guidance? Or was that just a directional comment just to not to interpret anything into anything? The absolute increase in the cash from 2022 to 2023 is maybe also an indicator about the direction, yeah? Just to take that and also say that cash is growing significantly higher than EBIT, then you, I think, get close to what is a realistic number. Understood. And then a true "follow-up" on the Euro this year. I know historically and I think the World Cup is, what was it, 2006, many ages ago. Last time around in Germany wasn't a huge topic. But correct me if I remember this incorrectly. So just to pick your brain on this year, what is the initial expectation here? Could this be an important kicker for your business? Or yeah, I'll take any comments. Yeah. I think as you said, historically, sports events have never had a really positive impact on out-of-home, especially also when it happens in Germany, yeah? Why? Because you have sponsors that leverage their sponsorship via out-of-home. But at the same time, the non-sponsors, yeah, go out of the ad market in that period of time because they just get overwhelmed by the kind of clutter from the event. So the historic learning was both effects are somewhat in combination neutral to the business. We have this year a couple of combined offers out in the market, yeah, with our strong sports proposition in the online business in combination with digital out-of-home. So that is used nicely by sponsors. We don't know yet how other advertisers respond to the overall development. But I would say there is no negative impact. Best case, it has a smaller positive impact, yeah? But sometimes if you expect nothing, then suddenly things surprise you positively. I hope the same for our football team, yeah? But I think we have a fair chance that the out-of-home performance in June is clearly better than the performance of our football team, yeah? Let's see about that. Okay. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. So I would like to turn the conference back over to Christian Schmalzl for any closing remarks. Yeah. Many thanks for your questions. And looking forward, seeing you in three months' time, maybe earlier. And you can rely on us. We'll give you more updates on what we expect for the full year then. Okay. Have a nice day. And again, thanks for your time and attention. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye.