Good afternoon. This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Believe First Quarter 2024 Earnings Presentation. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Denis Ladegaillerie, our Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you very much, operator. Welcome to this First Quarter 2024 Revenue Webcast. If you can turn to slide three, please. During today's presentation, I will be seconded by Xavier Dumont, our Chief Financial and Strategy Officer, and Romain Vivien, who heads our Global Head of Music and who's also Regional Manager for Europe. Romain is responsible with our commercial leadership for the design and execution of Believe's global music strategy. Moving on to slide four, please. So we start 2024 with a solid first quarter. Moving on to slide five. By delivering an adjusted organic growth of 16.1%, fully in line with the company's 2024 plan. The Q1 organic growth was delivered despite headwinds in Asia, including continued adverse foreign exchange, as well as weak ad monetization in the region. We expect organic growth to accelerate progressively starting in Q2 2024, and we are confirming our organic growth guidance for the full year 2024, as well as our adjusted EBITDA margin guidance of circa 6.5%. In Q1, our growth was driven by our continuous efforts to build market positions in a greater diversity of genres of music, that Romain will illustrate in a few slides, as well as by the implementation of global partnerships with DSPs, as well as more tactical partnerships to either create audience development value for artists or deepen fan engagement. First, on to slide five, our growth has been driven by our ability to grow our roster of artists and labels across a wide variety of genre music, that will now be... So, sorry, so just mixing up one thing. Staying on the first on slide five, the, I'm sorry. Our growth has been driven by our ability to grow our roster of artists and label partners across a wide variety of genre of music, across different markets, and that will now be illustrated on slide six by Romain. Thank you, Denis. So yes, on that slide, we can see some great example of our most recent signings in Q1, which clearly show our capacity to attract established and top artists and labels in many different genres and in various geographies. On one hand, we are continuing to invest in genre we already enjoy great successes with, such as hip-hop in Germany with Hava and Dardan, Punjabi music in India with Ninja or Parmish Verma, or Regional Mexican leading genre in Mexico with Montez de Durango. But also, we're successfully attracting artists in new genre, for which we see very interesting tractions and opportunities, like Gen Z pop in Germany with Soffie, who recently had one of the biggest trends on TikTok, with a very powerful engaged song, or with trap rap in Brazil, with G.A or Portugal No Beat. Lastly, I'm very proud that such an emblematic label from the U.K. as Bella Union chose to join us a few months ago. So again, this is fully aligned with our one of our core priority to accelerate our top artist signings in various key genres across multiple geographies. We can now move on, on slide seven. Dance and electronic music has always been a key priority genre for us, which we enjoy great successes already with our distribution business in various regions. As we announced in a prior call, we launched b:electronic a year ago, which is a dedicated team spread across various territories with specific knowledge and expertise on that genre, starting with creative and marketing people. All Night Long is a new label we launched earlier this month in France to accelerate our development on that genre, but this time focusing on our artist services business to generate more margin and to address the top artist segment. To do so, we partner with a senior executive that successfully developed a management, publishing, and touring business on that segment, who is a professional since two decades on that genre. We already signed seven artists, including top, two top ones. And as you may know, dance and electronic is a fully digital genre and very international as well, both in terms of production geographies, but most of all in terms of exposure and audiences. So with our digital DNA and our local presences in all key markets, we are convinced that we are very well positioned to source artists and develop these genres locally and internationally. ... We start with France, but we're gonna expand the brand and develop multiple signings in multiple territory to make it an international and global brand in the year to come. This is fully aligned with our strategy of being concentrated on the strongest digital genre, with dedicated teams of experts to best serve artists. Thank you very much, Romain. Building on slide eight, as you know, we are part of our growth is being driven by continuously expanding and deepening our partnerships with our global digital partners. It is also driven by our ability to strike more tactical, shorter-term partnerships or drive innovation, either to drive audience development or fan engagement, with a few example here that were executed upon in the last quarter with one partnership with BeReal in France. As you know, social networks with YouTube, TikTok, Instagram have been key drivers of audience development. BeReal in certain geographies as a significant influence, and we've started expanding partnerships there in France and beyond. In France, Believe was the first company to sign a partnership with BeReal. We're also working on deepening the fan engagement experience, with our artists across geographies. Here, we give one example with the GIRLIv erse, which is allowing GIRLI, one of our Gen Z pop U.K. artists, to engage, to feature our own universe and engage at deeper level with our fan audiences. And on the TuneCore side, a partnership with PreSonus Studio One. As you know, PreSonus is one of the most popular digital audio workstations for artists to create music, and we are now offering them, through a partnership with TuneCore, the ability to go directly from content creation to making that content available across digital music platforms, and we expect that will drive more engagement and engage artists to make their music available. Our ability across all these partnerships, as Romain was saying, our ability to go deeper and increase our market share acquisition in segments where we are already powerful at attracting artists with the add up of entering new market segments and the ability to develop audiences with our global partnerships and technical partnerships, is what has driven the growth in Q1 2024 and the numbers that Xavier will now take you through. Xavier? Thank you, Denis. So let's jump to slide number nine. As presented by Denis at the beginning, and as expected, and announcing your financial year 2023 presentation, our Q1 organic growth has been soft, impacted by currency headwinds and Asia market slowdown. Currency headwinds come from the Euro appreciation versus almost all currencies. The revenue we get from DSPs, the digital service providers we have, are paid in euros mostly, but they are translated from local currencies. That led to a negative impact of circa 4% on premium solutions digital revenue, and a minus 3.6%, at group level. Our digital organic growth is 12.5% in Q1, on par with the Q4 2023. Organic growth, organic growth adjusted for market embedded effects would be 16.1% at group level, above Q3 2023, but lower than Q4 2023, that benefited from strong non-digital sales, mostly in live music in France. Our market share continued to grow during the quarter, but the various stores' monetization performance have been impacted in certain markets, especially due to economic conditions, and we will revert to that later on. Subscriptions by our digital partners continued to be strong, but could not compensate the slower ad-supported revenue that affected all regions, but more predominantly in the countries where digital penetration is the weaker. Digital revenue represent 90% of our revenue in the quarter, same as in, financial year 2023. The non-digital sales, as a reminder, include notably publishing, with the Sentric that we acquired last year, live music, and the physical merchandising that we are currently curbing, specifically in Germany. Let's now have a look to our growth by segment, in slide 10. So we have growth in all segments, Premium and Automated, which represent the appeal of our model based on digital innovation and a differentiated positioning. Automated solutions that is targeting music creators, have a total growth of 18.2%, including 10.8% organic, a negative FX impact of 2.6%, and the rest being the Sentric integration on new publishing platform. Organic growth reflect the price increases and the adoption of the TuneCore Accelerator program as a paid services, a powerhouse marketing program designed to drive discovery of music, expand audiences, and promote deeper fan engagement. Premium solutions targeting labels and emerging to top artists show a 16.8% growth versus last year, which is 16.5% organic, restated from embedded effects. We have been taking market share during the quarter, but at a slower pace than in Q4 2023, and despite negative FX effects and a weak ad-supported monetization that affects markets where digital penetration is lower, specifically like Asia. We benefited from DSP price increase that, as you know, happened end of Q3, beginning of Q4, and ad-supported easier comp like we did at the end of last year. But as expected, we have not seen significant ramp-up of ad-supported monetization. The ad-adjusted premium organic growth rate is 16.5% and includes a 3.9% negative estimated FX market embedded impact, a negative 1.6% currency rate impact in total revenue, mostly related to the depreciation of the Turkish lira, and a 4.8% positive perimeter effect, essentially from Sentric. Let's move now to slide 11, regarding our performance by our main geographies. Even if we gain market share at group level, the effects and better impact and the lower level of ad-supported monetization are changing the growth pattern of the group for the quarter. Our main growth area this quarter is Europe, excluding France and Germany, with strong growth in Southern Europe, Eastern Europe and Turkey. This area benefits also from the Sentric integration, which is accounting for in the U.K., but the majority of the growth is still organic. In France, we have a 20% growth, which is driven by strong non-digital sales, but we are still gaining digital market share during the quarter, a strong performance given our top ranking in the country of local acts. Americas is up 11.2% in Q1, with strong activity in Latin music and a solid level of activity at TuneCore. APAC and Africa performance is at +0.5%, reflecting the strong FX headwinds and the still weak ad-supported monetization in the quarter. The market growth in the region has been, during the quarter, a low single digit, with some key markets even being negative, in terms of digital markets, specifically in Southeast Asia. Germany, we have been negative in the quarter by almost 2.5%. The digital sales are growing, but not enough to compensate for the drop in physical sales, the following physical heavy contract curbing. A digital focus based on the mix of technology solutions and music allows for better quality of services, higher appeal to artists and labels, as demonstrated and illustrated by Romain before, leading to a steady operating leverage. Let's move now to page 13, on the guidance. So as an introduction for that part, as you know, Believe is the object of an ongoing process around the change of control of the group. At this stage, the company is not in a position to assess the potential impact on its business and financial condition linked to the uncertainties created by the current situation. To be clear, the guidance provided does not take into account any of those potential impacts. We have been trading as expected, and we confirm that we are expecting an organic revenue growth of around 18% for the year and an FX embedded revenue growth, adjusted of 20%. We assume resilient paid streaming and uplift from future DSP price increases in H2 2024. We also assume a recovery of ad-funded growth in H2 2024. We are anticipating a higher EBITDA margin of around 6.5%, as central platform costs will be decreasing as a percentage of revenue. As we are demonstrating quarter after quarter, how powerful our model is to drive growth, gain market share, and increase profitability, we will maintain a focus on investments in local sales teams and central platform tech and solutions, while managing actively our investment cycles to further improve profitability. The group operating leverage will continue to come mostly from the central platform cost, as it has been since 2020. We expect a slightly positive free cash flow generation, assuming a stable level of terms and conditions on our contracts. Let's go now to page 14. We confirm that we are on track to deliver our midterm objectives, an organic revenue growth of 22%-25% for the period 2021- 2025, an adjusted EBITDA margin from 5%-7% by 2025. This operating leverage will be based mostly on the better monetization of the central platform cost. And as you can see, we should be above the lower bracket target. We have been above, sorry, the lower bracket target in 2023, and we are almost at the higher bracket for 2024 in our guidance. The long-term EBITDA margin for the group of 15% after a hyper growth phase is also unchanged. Now I conclude the presentation, and maybe we can have some Q&A. Thank you, Xavier. Oh, operator, I think you can open the section, the Q&A session. Yes, thank you. This is the conference operator. We are now beginning the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Nikolas Sokratous with HSBC. Please go ahead. ... Oh, thank you. Hi, everyone. I've got two questions, not sure what you can say about the first one. Can you be a bit more precise about the timetable regarding the offer to minorities now that the board has moved forward? And the second question is about the reviewed organization. You mentioned in the press release that you are implementing it for consistency of strategy delivery. Now, my question is the following: so on France, Germany, and U.K., I was assuming it was run at arm's length, and therefore the strategy was delivered exactly how you wanted. For Asia Pacific, you are not introducing any changes. So it's essentially for rest of Europe, Middle East, and Africa, that there is a step change. If you can help us understanding what was not consistent there, and with the change of organization, how do you see the change impacting financials? Is it about, you know, more revenues? Is it about, a better management of the cash? Just to better understand what is at stake there. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Nicolas, for your questions. We'll take the first one, and then Denis can take the second one. So, on the first one, is that, as you know, the Believe board of directors issued a positive recommendation on the offer last week. And, the consortium is now in a position to proceed with the acquisition of the blocks, which should give them 72% of the Believe capital. We were in a quiet period, so, it's probable that is going to happen in the very next few days. Perfect. Thank you very much- Then, sorry, of course, this is going to be reviewed by the market authority, the AMF, before following the rest of the process. Okay. And then on your second question, Nicolas, I think the organizational changes that we made was to operate as we acquired Sentric last year, and that we're now deploying publishing, as we are now operating all of our three business lines around the recorded music side, artist services, and L&S and premium solutions, and as well, DIY across more and more territories. The target goal is now to become more integrated across all businesses. So we were extremely happy. We're very happy about the fact that the strategy, the local strategy, is being delivered across the territories in the ways that we wanted. So it's not about addressing, correcting this. It's really about getting the full benefits of having an integrated model. Making sure that we supercharge and accelerate the upsell and cross-sell of artists from one tier of service to the next. The experience has shown us that in France and Germany, other territories, that a number of artists were first signed as mid-level artists or as TuneCore artists, and then went on to become top artists as we provided them more services. So we wanna increase the efficiency of those funnels. And as we are now cross-selling publishing services to our client base, which wasn't the case before, same thing, we want to ensure that this is being done in a way that's consistent across. So, and this is the reason why that led to the appointment of Romain as Global Head of Music, to ensure that the strategy is fully integrated and aligned across the territories. So what we do expect there, as a result is stronger efficiency, and stronger upsell and cross-sell, in the medium term. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. If I may, just a follow-up question on M&A. Just to check, it is correct to say that only a third of the cash raised at the time of the IPO has been spent in M&A? And do you see a better market for acquisitions in 2024, 2025? Yes, as you know, we've been... Our target is to spend roughly EUR 100 million a year on M&A. We made a pause in 2022 linked to market environment. What we see that there are a lot of opportunities around, and those opportunities are almost growing every day. We're reviewing a lot of different potential deals. We are very focused in our M&A strategy, and so, if I do confirm that we have the same objective to spend EUR 100 million in M&A, mostly in labels acquisitions. And the opportunities are very numerous. I'm not sure there are more today than tomorrow or yesterday, but the market is super fragmented, and there are a lot of opportunities. Yeah. Okay. And I would complete Xavier's answer, which is flowing, which is, compared to three years ago- ... most markets have experienced double digits annual market growth, which means that we are seeing more targets coming to maturity at a certain size, and that is creating opportunities, and that is one of the reason why it's the operation for the offer of the consortium. That makes total sense. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Very good. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your cell phone. The next question is from Agnieszka Pustula with Redburn Atlantic. Please go ahead. Hi, thank you for taking my question. So I've got a couple. The first one is about the advertising trends you're seeing in developed markets against what's happening in emerging ones. And then also, if you could talk about some trends in the paid subscriptions in these emerging markets, if there is any pickup there that could potentially offset some of the marketing weakness. And then also just wanted to ask one about Germany. So it's been a few quarters now that Germany is seeing a drag from the exit of these physical heavy contracts. Is there any timeline for when you think that there will be an inflection in Germany? Thank you. Maybe I can start and then you complete, Xavier. On the ad trends, yes, we're seeing... So what I would say is, we're seeing globally softness. We think part of that softness across all territories, mature and emerging. In the mature, we attribute part of that softness to a change in the model. Some of the monetization morphing to more shorter terms videos that are not yet as well monetized as longer videos, and we know a number of services are looking at how to deal with that effect. But generally, we would say mature markets. We see a relatively progressive recovery, and compared to the emerging markets, where we really continue to see weak advertising markets, especially in Asia. The... And on paid subscriber- Solutions, what we see is that we are on track with what our estimate in terms of market penetration and monetization. Well, as you said, you know, there is a strong difference between mature markets, where most of the growth comes from digital subscriptions and price increase versus emerging markets that are still heavily dependent on advertising. So digital penetration is progressing as expected, but there is the most of the growth comes from the number of subscribers, as there have been limited price increase in those markets, and is still preeminently dominated by ad-supported monetization. Yeah, and to complete, I think we don't accept in our model what we see as all markets around the world have their own trends as with regards to paid user adoption. Some of them are in the acceleration trends, some of them are still at early phases. As Xavier was saying, when we compare actual numbers to our model, they are right in line with where they should be. And we don't expect any acceleration around this, and then Germany? Germany, as mentioned before, actually, I confirm that we don't expect significant recovery from Germany this year. The fact that we curbing contracts means that we are stopping contracts, you know, as they come to an end, which means that the drag on the business is taking several quarters. So yes, I confirm that Germany is still going to be at that position for the full year. That's perfect. Thank you very much. Gentlemen, as there are no more further questions, I turn the conference back to you for any closing remarks. Nope. Perfect. Well, thank you very much, everyone, and have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.