Believe SA

PAR:BLV

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Q3 2021 revenue call for Believe. On Slide 3, today's presenter will be Xavier Dumont, Believe's Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer; and myself.Moving on to Slide 4. The Believe's mission is to -- as a reminder, developed independent local artists and labels with a unique model, which is our strength demonstrated against this quarter to offer services for artists at each stage of their career. And that is that unique model, which in Q3, again, contributed to Believe's driving very significant revenue growth 27% revenue growth in Q3, thanks to a very strong attractivity to artists at all stages of their career, which is really the uniqueness of our model and Believe as a platform. Moving on to Slide 5. The attractivity to artists and label is really coming from the fact that Believe's offers unique go-to-market solutions, which are really tailored for the digital age, thanks to digital first resources as well as technology investment. And as you remember, the model beyond the innovation, digital innovation, our model is powered by 2 structural trends. The rise of independent artists and the rapid growth of streaming, which we have continued to see and which has contributed to propel us in Q3 of 2021. If we can jump to Slide 7 to go over the key achievements that Believe has achieved in Q3. These achievements overall they really illustrate what has been the core growth story of Believe and what is driving our growth and what is driving our model. First, it was illustrated once again with very strong attractivity of Believe for artists and labels at all stages of their careers. That attractivity was also driven by the investment we made earlier in local sales and marketing to build portfolio of new artists and attract new artists and labels. That attractivity was driven by the competitive advantage that we're driving in digital marketing innovation through technology investment, aiming at developing digital audiences for the artist and strong positioning in the fastest-growing digital music market, the emerging markets as well as markets that have low penetration. And finally, in this quarter, last but not least, we've continued our commitment to shape music for good which as you know, is the name of our CSR strategy with 2 key partnerships, which I will detail in a moment. First, moving on to Slide 8. Once again, Q3 demonstrated very strong attractivity of Believe to artists and labels. And that was illustrated with very strong market share gains in -- across all market segments. As you remember, we have a unique vision of the music market, which is 1 where there are 3 tiers of artists established in top artists, emerging and established artists and labels and DIY and self-produced artists. Once again, we've gained market share and have been able to grow faster than the market because of the fact that our unique model allows us to cater to artists in all segments. And we've once again gained market share across all market segments. On the right side of the slide, obviously, we've gained market share in -- with -- illustrated by a fast growth of digital sales in all markets, driven by our existing portfolio of artists and labels, which have grown as well as, once again, a record level of signings of new labels and new artists once again, across all market segments. And with a stronger attractivity with the addition of new services in a number of key markets. Overall, that has translated into market share gains across the board. That attractivity to artists and labels is also -- was also a key driver is the staged acquisition of Play Two. If we can move on to stage -- Slide 9, which is very illustrative of our strategy of growth in a major market. Play Two is the largest independent label in France. The -- it has been a client of Believe for international distribution of their content for several years. They were originally had a partnership with a traditional label in France, which they decided to end and come to Believe because they thought that in their market segment, which is French Pop and Pop. That segment is now becoming -- will become in the next 24 to 36 months, a digital music market segments and the founders of the labels felt that Believe was a very attractive partner to help them accelerate their growth because of our digital technology because of our digital knowledge to be their strategic partner for the coming years. And that's really I would say, distinct elements of attractivity when we say in artists and labels are here at play with Play Two in an acquisition scenario. And our attractivity in building up technologies to accelerate artist development was really at the core of the discussions with the founders of the labels and illustrated in some of the, once again, initiatives that we took in Q3 of -- in Q3. We can move into Slide 10 to illustrate 2 of these technology-driven initiatives and digital innovation initiatives. One, we invested in a media buy automation platform. As we see across all markets and be emerging, but as well as in the major market, the more the world becomes digital, the more good market strategies for artists are becoming digital. We've gone from a market where less than 1/3 of marketing with digital to a world where 80%, 90% of the marketing campaigns for artists are becoming digital and building media buy solutions, building that are backed up by data and data platform to decide when to invest, where to invest, on YouTube, on TikTok, on Spotify in marketing is becoming a critical component of building successful and positive go-to-market strategies for artist and that was a key part of our investment in Q3 with the acceleration of investment in the media buy platform. Second example was, I'm sure many of you have read how much in the past 1.5 years, TikTok has become a key driver of recommendation and music. And for that reason, we started building platforms to identify predict virality of tracks on TikTok, which then we can accelerate through marketing and promotion and additional investment in the artists. And these are 2 features that we rolled out for our clients for artists and labels and for internal teams in Q3 to help them build ever more successful go-to-market strategies for artists. And obviously, as we're becoming more and more successful, that translates into artists selling more data music and Believe gaining market share overall, explaining part of our market share growth in Q3. Moving on to Slide 11. As we've experienced in the prior quarter, the growth, really, our growth illustrates Believe unique positioning in the fastest-growing market and some of the emerging markets, as you see there, with the growth coming really from all the 5 main regions of the world for us. APAC and Africa, where we're benefiting both from a very strong market share gains. As you know, that's been Asia is our #1 region of investments expected to become the largest music market in this decade. Core focus area there, strong leadership position, which we are expanding. And so that has translated for us into market growth and significant market share. And these were also a geography where we made sales investments prior to in 2020 and 2021. The Americas, which, as you remember, is both the U.S., Canada, but as well as Latin America, Brazil, Mexico and the other Latin American countries experienced strong growth same thing, thanks to solid investment in local sales and marketing. We strengthen our teams in a number of territories do seems drove significant new signings of artists and labels which resulted in strong revenue growth. Europe, as you remember, Europe, excluding France and Germany, which includes countries such as Russia and Turkey, once again drove significant market share gain as well as where fast-growing countries where paid subscription as well as ad funded revenues recovery, both contributed to very strong growth in Q3. To finish, major markets in Europe, France and Germany. In France, we grew at 15.4%, above the market rate -- above the market growth to accelerate performance in the digital world. Overall performance was slightly affected by lower, smaller -- sorry, slower physical sales as was the case in Germany, this was something that we touched on earlier, where growth has been slowed down by the ongoing restructuring of the -- of our physical sales in the territory. Finally, moving on to Slide 12. We -- as you know, shaping music for good and CSR is a core pillar of our strategy. It's a core pillar of how we're building the model. One of the first of these 4 pillars is developing diverse and local talent for Believe. We signed 2 partnerships there, 1 with Keychange, which is committed -- a commitment to reach full gender equality in the music very specifically in the music industry, which you know has been a core focus of Believe internally, and we wanted to support that effort beyond Believe and a partnership with 50inTech and I'm sure, as you know as well, Tech is an environment that where we're from a gender equality yet, and we are investing into bringing accelerating business talent and innovation with women in Tech through that partnership. So overall, just to sum up, is Q3 was really reflective of the uniqueness of Believe's model and the strength of our model and that resulted in very strong growth in this last quarter, which Xavier will now highlight with financials.

Thank you, Denis. Hello, everybody. So yes, as Denis said, the quarter showed a very strong organic growth. So we are at Page 14 of the presentation. So as you can see, Q3 grew 27% organically, and we are at 29% year-to-date. Interesting enough, Q3 organic and total growth are the same as the DMC, the Turkish label, latest acquisition before Play Two was integrated in August last year. So this is a very strong performance after a solid performance in Q1, a 20% organic growth, an acceleration in Q2 at 36% organic driven by a favorable comparison basis. Q3 has been better than expected, as you may have noticed, as we have higher market growth in the geographies where we are positioned. We have higher market share gains than we expected, and we had also less physical decrease specifically in Germany with the curtailing of the contracts, so less critical decrease than we expected. The digital revenue are increasing by 33%, outperforming the market in year-to-date in every quarter. So this is a very strong performance that demonstrate the attractivity of our model for both artists and labels and the success of our central platform model. Now if we switch to Page 15, when you see the revenue by segment year-to-date in 2021. So the -- just as a reminder, so we have 2 segments, the Premium Solution revenue that addressed the mid-tier and high tier of the market. So from established and top artists and we have Automated Solutions that address the DIY market. So if we take first the Premium Solutions revenue. So they are growing significantly with an organic growth of 32%, driven by the market growth and market share gain, those market share were achieved, thanks to the rollout of services and teams investments we made in the 24 last month when we rolled out the artist solutions in 25 new markets in the 24 last month, we rolled out also the artist service brands for top artists in the 50 new markets. So that's been driving the growth. The main countries that contribute to that growth are India, Russia, Turkey, France, Mexico and China. So as you can see, those are markets with lower digital penetration when we are building our teams to capture market share and where we can ensure future growth. Automated Solutions is growing by 12%. Automated Solution has been adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as we had a boom in new customers last year with expansion of lockdown and the surge in distribution rate. So notably in Q3 and Q4 2020. So that's obviously stopped with the exit of lockdown and the reopening of the economies. When we look at the growth for comparing to 2019, we are growing double digit on a yearly basis. If we go to Page 16. So because of the Q3 strong performance and better Q4 outlook, we have revised our financial year 2021 guidance. So we now expect to be at least a 27% organic growth at constant perimeter and constant rate. We do not expect the Play Two acquisition to have a significant impact in our sales for the last quarter as the integration is slowly ramping up. We have -- we also revised our adjusted EBITDA margin as we have more revenue. So we think that the margin expansion is going to be higher than anticipated, and we now guide to an EBITDA margin above 3%, which is well above 2020 level, sorry. Regarding the free cash flow, so the net working capital amplification that we saw in H1 is completely under control. So in the net working capital, you have main driver are the customer advances that are integrated in the services that we are providing. So those advances are growing with the business. And as you may remember that we had a low -- high number of large renewals in H1. But we think that customer advances are going to continue increasing in H2, reflecting our expansion, the success of the customers. However, they are expected to -- as a percentage of revenue to be at the same level than in H2 2020. So the change in net working capital despite growing revenue base will be equivalent. We expect that it's going to be equivalent in H2 2021 than in H2 -- in H1 2021. Regarding the Play Two transaction, as mentioned in the slides by Denis, the company is valued below EUR 50 million, which is circa onetime revenue 2022. And so we are so very much in line with our previous acquisitions. We acquired, as we said, 25% of the business with the option to full acquisitions in the future years. The -- on Page 17, we have the midterm targets that we are confirming, thanks to our good performance in Q3 and actually since the beginning of the year. So I will not comment them in details as they haven't changed since IPO. On Page 18, as a conclusion, I think the -- we can say that Q3 illustrates the strategy and the growth levers of Believe with positive structural market trends, we are the heart of the digital transformation and digital megatrends. With strong revenue growth driven by attractivity for artists and labels with further investments in sales marketing technology to drive growth, and we demonstrated that the investments that we made in the past months have really translated into further growth and also leverage on profitabilty -- on EBITDA level. We have consolidated our market position in France with the Play Two transaction that illustrate perfectly our M&A strategy and confirm also the attractivity to independent level. And thanks to those performance, we have uplifted our financial year 2021 guidance to a more higher level that we probably thought we would achieve. So I think we are on the right try to build the #1 global artist development platform. And so I think it's time now for some Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] And your first question over the phone comes from the line of Tom Singlehurst from Citi.

Congratulations on the results. A handful of questions, if it's okay. If we can start by talking about digital music sales the Automated Solutions because obviously, the revenue only grew 2% or 3%, but the overall group, the digital sales were up over 30%. So I presume there is very rapid growth in DMS for Automated Solutions but your share of that revenue is going down, which is obviously great for the office because it's a lower take rate for you. But I was just wondering whether you could comment on what will lead to a reacceleration in revenue as you recognize it for Automated Solutions. What will be the catalyst for the number of artists and the number of assets on the platform to start growing again? That was the first question. The second question was on the Play Two deal. I mean, obviously, it sounds like a very interesting asset and 1 that the nature of the deal is in line with what you've done in the past. So I'm just slightly surprised that you focused in on France. So you already have such a strong position. So can you explain once again the rationale for sort of doubling down in France? And can you also talk about what emerging markets you're opening up organically and via our acquisition? And then the final question, again, linked to Play Two is the minority stake, how are you going to -- how should we think about you're counting this. Is it just going to be an associate line. The way you were talking about it sort of impacting revenue, maybe think that you might be proportionately consolidating, but some clarity on that would be great.

Thanks for your questions. We'll take the first one.

And maybe I'll take the second one.

Okay. So on the first 1 on Automated Solutions, what we think is that, as we said, we have a strong historical background for Q3 and Q4 on the DIY segment. So what we think is that the slower growth is going to continue for the -- until the end of the year. We do think, however, that we should be able next year to resume to a higher growth when we have less -- less stringent historical figures. And we have also a couple of initiatives that we are also working on that might also drive growth, but that's a little bit too soon to say at the moment.

Thanks, Xavier. And Tom, on your questions on Play Two first and then the acquisitions in the other territories. On Play Two, our view. As you know, our strategy in the major markets is, one, we think that Europe is going to be by the end of the decade, the second largest music market in the world after Asia. So it's a key area of investment for us, and we think there's plenty of growth potential there. In the case of Play Two. Play Two operates in a market where -- in a part of the market, which is pop music French Pop, where Believe has not operating so far because this was a -- this was not yet a maturity digital business. This was a more traditional physical business. However, we've seen the signs of acceleration. So that is 1 market where in digital music, where we do think that in the near future, the majority of the revenues will become digital. And this is exactly the reason why the label came to us versus the traditional labels they were currently partnered with because they felt the same way as we did, and we thought there was an opportunity for us and for them to help accelerate growth through the partnerships. And I would say the way we're thinking about the strategy globally. I'm as -- I'm a strong believer that there is no limit even in a market like a major market like France, which is a top 5 market where we can grow. And what I mean there is no limit where I do think this is a market like others where we have the potential to become market leader ahead of any of the other players of the market. Because we have a model that's more powerful and as the market becomes more digital. So we thought this was a great opportunity for us at a value that we felt was right with a potential to accelerate, so which is why we are looking at these type of opportunities, and we're going to continue to do so. We're looking at opportunities in other markets in Europe, in the U.K. and Germany as well and a few of our markets. We're also obviously looking at opportunities in some of the emerging markets, a number of discussions, M&A discussions that we've had are in M&A -- sorry, in emerging markets. So the focus is not going to be in Europe. It's going to be in these markets are very key for us and especially Asia so that we -- you can expect that we will come back with M&A in these fast-growing regions as well.

And maybe just to -- on your last part of your question regarding the impact of Play Two acquisition. So we are going to distribute Play Two. So we will have the recording revenue of Play Two that are going to be -- that will be in our financials, as distributor with the associated margin. And we will have also in the EBITDA, the percentage of the net profit of the net result of Play Two that will go in also impact our EBITDA, but that's going to be for 2022 as it's not going to be material for 2021.

Perfect. So it's I mean, it's not -- it's sort of bringing with it organic growth. I know maybe we should think about how we define that additional growth, but it's the strategic investment that brings with it incremental sort of volume into the platform?

Exactly. Exactly. Knowing that we had -- we used to distribute also a part of Play Two in -- and so we are enlarging the distribution contract as they were very happy with the service we provided. And so that also acquisition allow us to enlarge our distribution contracts, along with other synergies that will, of course, derive from that transaction, and we are going to help them grow their business on the digital front and have synergies on the life in merchandising front.

Perfect. And 1 very final question. On the Automated Solutions side, are there any new markets that are coming online? You mentioned a couple of initiatives, and we'll find out about those when we get them. But is there -- are there any new markets coming online?

No, we are -- no new markets. What we do is that we are localizing TuneCore into markets, but nothing new and nothing significant on that front. We are really consolidating. As you know, we deployed TuneCore in 14 markets, and we are consolidating our positions in those markets before expanding to further geographies this year.

And your next question comes from the line of Nicolas Cote-Colisson from HSBC.

A few questions to start with. Would you have an indication of central platform cost in H2. Would it be above H1, if you can answer this one? And also, sorry, just to come back on Play and the previous comment, I'm not sure I got it completely in terms of how we should treat that into the P&L. So currently, with the 25%, you don't have the control. So I can't see why you should book the revenue, I'm sorry if I miss something. And -- maybe if I can, a more broad range question on privacy, which is centered to debate these days. And obviously, data is a key element of your business model. So I wonder how much stricter privacy rules are impacting you? And maybe you can tell us how the access to first-party data from Apple Music, for example, has changed in the last month?

So thank you for your questions. So first, maybe on the technical question on the consolidation. So what's happening is that we are distributing Play Two. And so as distributors, we are taking 100% of their recording revenue as part of our main business. And so what we -- and so this is why we have revenue coming from Play Two, whatever the percentage of control we have, we get 100% of the recording revenue. And on the EBITDA level, we take, of course, the profit make on these contracts, and we take -- as Play Two is consolidated under the associate method, we are going to take in the EBITDA 25% of the net results in our P&L. Denis, you may want to answer to the privacy issue?

Yes. On the privacy side, as -- I mean the privacy has been a core topic for us under our CSR strategy. We've always considered that data protection for artists was absolutely key, where the churn and this is not something that we've touched on before in other calls, but we've been engaged in a very, very active dialogue with our partners web Spotify, web YouTube, web Apple, web all of the DSPs to actually do much more in terms of privacy protection than what they are doing today. One illustration is all of these services are providing data dump today on a daily basis to a number of providers which we consider are not being authorized under our contracts, neither or do we think that they are questionable from a legal standpoint. And so we do think that the current environment, and that's something that we've been fighting and which is especially important for us for TuneCore. And we've seen a lot of progress with services such as Spotify closing progressively their APIs to third-party access. So a lot of the changes that you've seen has actually been driven in the background by us leveraging and pushing for this. Same thing at YouTube. So what we expect is that data that is now largely available outside. And that, to some extent, is being used by some of the traditional labels to identify and source artists. We do expect that, that data will progressively become private and create much more value for us because of the funnel of artists we're distributing through TuneCore. So we think this is actually a very good news for us, and we belong from a Believe standpoint have deployed practices internally that are very protective of our clients' data.

Okay, that is very clear.

And regarding sort of the central platform, we said that essentially the central platform will increase compared to last year, roughly at the same rate that we had in H1. So much, much lower than the growth of sales. And of course, as a percentage of revenue, the central platform will be lower.

And your next question comes from the line of Christophe Cherblanc from Société Générale.

I had a few on my side. First 1 was on YouTube, the exposure to YouTube. When you look at the contribution of YouTube, has it been growing like the total growth of YouTube? And if it has, then it implies that the non-YouTube part of your business is growing in the low 20s. Is that a correct assumption? The second question was, sorry to come back on Play Two. But I think, Xavier, you said that you were already distributing part of Play Two. So what will be the net impact in 2022 on your revenues? And will you report that as -- will it be the full 50 or 50 minus what you were doing previously? And will it be reported as organic. And also on Play Two, what is the timetable to gain full control? I think you mentioned option to take full control, but I don't think you said anything about the timing. And the very last 1 is on the net working capital so I think it's clear, it's 2x the outflow of H1. Should we expect that to reverse to some extent in 2022? Or is it done for the time being?

So the first question was about -- sorry, first question was about the YouTube.

Yes.

YouTube growth. I think -- as you know, because we are in emerging territories, YouTube is the main driver of growth. However, and -- but when we look at the various territories, wealth of YouTube by territories hasn't increased versus other stores. And so the stores are growing more or less at the same rate. I must admit, I don't have any figures on the YouTube total growth. So I can just pick for ourselves, but it's more a question of a geographical presence than a question of growth of 1 store versus the other. On the -- sorry, the Play Two acquisition, it's -- yes, we've been distributing Play Two, but it's -- it was only a fraction of their catalog is too soon to give you some view about the Play Two impact for next year because it's going to depend on the integration process. And as the acquisition just has been literally signed today, we are not in a position to give you more guidance at this stage about next year. On the net working capital, the net working capital for -- as we said, we think the H2...

And maybe Play Two, like Christophe's question was around the options, when do we increase the stake and get full control?

Yes, sorry. Yes, we don't communicate, Christophe, about exactly which year we are going to increase to stage 2. So that's why we -- for the moment, we're just communicating in the next few years, but it's before the next 10 years, I would say, but not much more than that at this stage, knowing its options. So it's really in our hand to decide depending on the options that we have. On the net working capital, we say the current level that we are experimenting is that we are on the advance. We are the same percentage as last year. I have no indication at this stage to know whether it's going to -- that trend is going to be materially different. At this stage, we see that the commercial activity is still very strong. We are signing under the same financial conditions than we used to. So there is no significant variance on our end that will change that picture at this stage.

Okay. Okay. And then maybe if I can add just 1 follow-up on Germany. I think in the slide show, you were mentioning that the impact of the reorganization was going to be lesser than what you were expecting. Can you just give us some absolute numbers in terms of impact. And I think you were saying you were giving up on some physical contracts. Is it 5 million impact, 2 million impact, any number would be helpful.

Yes. We think that Germany, as we said last time, Germany, I think will be a growing roughly at the same rate as we saw in the last few months. We expected it to be much more stringent than that. But actually, between better results on some labels and artists that are very digitally driven that we're experimenting and the curtail of the physical heavy contracts. I think Germany will be ballpark at the same level of growth that we've been experimenting in the last few months.

No further questions over the phone at this time. And I would now like to hand the call back to Emilie Megel for web questions.

Okay. So we got a question from Richard Eary at UBS. I guess the first 1 you already answered. It's why the Automated revenue growth slowed to single digit. What is the expectation for the full year in your 27% plus growth guidance. Second question, was Play Two 1 of your initial targets? What is happening with the rest of the M&A pipe? Third question is full year '21 working capital guidance around minus EUR 20 million. Fourth questions are physical revenue within premium still forecast to decline.

So I think we answered the first one. The second 1, on Play Two. Yes, Play Two was one of the initial target. So the other targets, as Denis said, working on it, and we should be able to make some announcement in the next few weeks. And as we are closing deals by deals on the geographies mentioned by Denis. Sorry what was the last?

The last question, you got a question on working capital, but you already answered, so we can go straight to the questions from physical. So we got 1 question from Richard. Our physical revenues within premium still forecast to decline.

So we -- yes, we -- in our forecast, we are taking in a decline in physical revenue, specifically with the impact of the Germany contract actually.

What proportion of the revenues is upgraded is related of the revenues is related to better physical sales, the upgrade of 27% plus?

The main upgrade it comes from our market positioning and market share gain. Physical plays a minor part in our upgraded performance.

Then we got a question on the adjusted EBITDA margin. Can you tell us what you mean above 3%? Does it mean above 5% or about 3.5%? Very precise question. Thank you, Richard.

I stand by what I said.

We then have a question from Nicolas Langlet from Exane BNP Paribas. First question is the EBITDA margin guidance upgrade only reflecting higher like-for-like sales or also better control of the platform costs?

No, it's reflecting higher like-for-like sales. Platform cost, as I said, we are on target as we demonstrated in H1. And so it's really higher sales that translate into a higher EBITDA margin.

Then we got questions on Play Two. Questions to know if the call options, if we have call options to increase tech in Play Two. And if the associated margin on Play Two revenue is in line with the Premium Solutions division. I mean around 13%.

So other collections to increase taking Play Two, yes, that's what we communicated on. And the associated margin and Play Two revenue I would say it's -- overall, yes, we think that it's going to be -- I would not give precise figure, but we would be in line with the same type of transactions that we are doing. And maybe 1 thing to add up on Play Two and the questions. The way we're approaching some of the M&A deals as -- is really as stage acquisitions. And as Xavier was saying, the stage acquisitions generally, we think, work quite well for us because we're able, in all of these stage acquisitions, we're able to combine commercial contracts that are allowing us generally to distribute, integrate part of the revenues of the labels of the businesses that we're acquiring and therefore, helping them accelerate their digital music sales like was the case for Play Two. And we do think that having a stage acquisition over a course of 3 years, 4 years, 5 years, leading to full acquisition in market segments where we don't operate is a good way for us of managing the risk and properly integrating the businesses. So this is something that, that you've seen in some of the deals that we've done pre-IPO with Tôt ou Tard in France, where with a few of our label and this is a structure that we think for the reasons I just described that were working well for us. The view in these deals is really, as we were saying, we view them as staged acquisitions, meaning the intention is really to take control or full ownership of these divisions after a certain period of time.

We got another question from Richard on the working capital. Please can you clarify if the nominal working capital outflow this year is EUR 20 million?

No, it's going to be -- it's EUR 20 million for H1 was EUR 18 million. And so we think that H2 is going to be around EUR 20 million. So the total is going to be more around EUR 18 million plus EUR 20 million.

And I guess last question from Richard, that you already answered. It was still on Play Two, and it was the impact on the revenue and EBITDA from the EBITDA transaction. This is our last question -- last written question. Okay.

Perfect. Well, I think that was the perspective on the growth on Q3. Thank you. We thank all of you for your time and your attention. And we wish you a pleasant rest of your day. Thank you very much everyone.