EEX - NYSE

[Operator Instructions] We have a first question from the line of Annick Maas with BNP Paribas.

My first question is on the shares that you've held already so far where rebooking is available. Can you maybe give us an indication of what sorts of price levels or price upgrades you can push through? And my second question is I think you suggested that 25% of the shows this year will exceed pre pandemic levels. Can you maybe give us a bit more indication around from which sector these exhibitions will be? And finally, can you just comment on how the visibility has changed since the start of the year?

In terms of price levels I think one of the real successes of the ramping back up of our event calendar is that we continue to maintain pricing power. The demand for new business suite for our customers and our ability to deliver them has allowed us to drive price increases, that frankly has enabled us to manage against inflation that's out there quite effectively. And so we're in general getting price increases at least mid single digits or more depending on the event and depending on the circumstances, and seemly have been able to at least match and in some cases exceed the underlying cost increases that we're seeing. So we're very pleased about that. In terms of the events that are exceeding pre pandemic, I don't think we want to go into specifics of event-by-event. In general, if you look across our portfolio, I think where I see what industries are more high growth industries, surely high growth industries are bouncing back a little bit faster than industries that are more impacted by pandemic issues, such as supply chain and things like that. Also are events that are more exposed to international exhibitors and attendees are coming back a little bit slower as it's still has not been as easy to move around in other parts of the world as it has been in the United States. Those shows though we expect to ramp as we go into next year a little further. But there's definitely industries that are better positioned this year than others, and those other ones we see a path to recovery going into next year and beyond.

And just on the visibility for the company now versus the start of the year. Can you maybe give us a little bit of indication of the visibility has improved quite significantly or similar to what you've seen at the start of the year?

We have next question from the line of Saim Saeed with Berenberg.

My first one is quite simple. So over Q1, could you give us an indication for shows which had a pre-pandemic version? What exactly is your average recovery rates you’re seeing I mean by revenue terms or in respect of terms? My second question is again focusing on inflation. Could you just help us understand how it's impacting shows on the cost side, in terms of venue costs, and whether there are any particular industries where the [Technical Difficulty] [inflation] is most notable, I'm guessing that might be sort of supply chain impacted? And finally in terms of M&A within the state, would you say that sellers with shows are measuring the price they would sell these shows against 2019 numbers, are the other metrics they are using? And it’d also just be very helpful and how multiples have trended since the end of the pandemic.

Again, I'll start out and I'll let Hervé jump in after. In terms of the recovery rate, on a revenue basis, we're looking at between 25% and 30% off of pre-pandemic on average. And so as we mentioned, while we have seen some shows exceed pre-pandemic, others that have more exposure to international attendees and exhibitors, supply chain -- impacted by supply chain issues, et cetera, are not as fortunate in their performance and have a bit of a longer ramp up period to get back to where we are, though, with strong trends and as Hervé said strong net promoter score, so we're feeling pretty good about that. In terms of inflation impacts, in general, venue costs have not really been much of an issue. Keep in mind that venues tend to be owned by municipalities that want tourism dollars coming to their cities. And so as always it has been one of the more reasonable costs within our cost structure. And we haven't seen that change, if anything, cities are more anxious for visitors to come as part of their own recoveries. The issue has been more around the labor based costs that we have, which is the vast majority of the rest of our costs, be it the general service contractors or security, or registration, or just our own staff. And so that's really the inflation cost that we see the most that we're managing against. And as I said, we've been able to successfully price to offset that, and in some cases and then some as we build back our business. In terms of M&A, I'd say it's -- the tension in the in the M&A process is, of course, sellers want to be valued off of pre-pandemic and we want to pay off of what they make now and going forward. And so what we've seen is an increased number of earnout deals in order to ensure that everyone's happy with the outcome. We want to pay for what we're going to get. And so we're comfortable structuring deals with a forward look to them to ensure that we get what we paid for. And similarly, for sellers, it allows them to comfort that they're not selling at a distressed price, and that seems to have worked out. EBITDA multiples, given that dynamic, are probably not too different from pre-pandemic but a bit of a different structure in terms of those deals. And I'd say in the deals we've done, we've paid depending on the industry, the growth, the size, between 5 and 9 times EBITDA.

[Operator Instructions] We have next question from the line of [Christopher Keller] with [Indiscernible].

We also are working on developing an annual report on our sustainability efforts. And so keep an eye out for that likely later this year. As Hervé said, it's become an important initiative at the company and we're working on appropriately documenting and reporting on it.

And then one final question, if I may. Your business interruption insurance, if I recall correctly it expired at the end of last year, and you've -- have you been able to renew it and at viable commercial terms?

That's correct. Our prior policy had a specific rider that we actually paid extra for that covered us in the case of communicable diseases, and that rider, they will no longer provide us.