€2.58B Revenue, €503M EBITDA: François Riahi and Sophie Kurinckx-Leclerc Build Banijay’s Diversified Growth Engine
Revenue is up. Net income is down. And the gap between those two facts is the whole story.
Banijay Group reported its H1 2026 results, posting revenue of €2,583.3 million, a 16.9% jump year-on-year. On a constant FX and pro forma basis, that growth narrows to 4.5%. The headline number is real. So is the €5.5 billion of net debt sitting underneath it, most of it added to buy a German sportsbook. This is a company spending heavily to reshape what it is.
Inside the Banijay Group H1 2026 results: revenue up, net income squeezed
Adjusted EBITDA reached €502.9 million, up 18.5% on paper. Strip out Tipico and currency effects and the pro forma figure is flat, at 0.1%. The betting tax hikes in France and Austria are the reason. Excluding those, underlying EBITDA rose 5.0%, with margin at 22.5%.
Net income tells the harder truth. It fell 27.7% to €79.7 million. Cost of debt climbed 44.6% to €138.1 million, a direct consequence of the financing raised for Tipico. Restructuring and non-recurring costs more than quadrupled to €47.0 million. Adjusted net income landed at €141.5 million, down 3.7%, but up 32.9% once you remove the exceptional LTIP charge tied to the acquisition, most of it non-cash.
Adjusted free cash flow held up well at €411.4 million, an 81.8% conversion rate. Cash generation, at least, is intact.
Betclic, Tipico and the engine behind Banijay Gaming’s growth
Sports betting and gaming brought in €1,211 million, up 10.5% pro forma, carried by a 22% rise in Unique Active Players. Sportsbook revenue grew 8.6%, held back slightly by softer margins during predictable World Cup group-stage results. Games, poker and turf combined rose 18.3%, evidence the multi-product bet is paying off.
The FIFA World Cup barely shows here. Because the tournament straddled Q2 and Q3, H1 caught only part of it. Across the full event, UAPs were up 75% versus 2022, turnover doubled, and GGR rose 88%. The real earnings land in H2.
Why the Banijay Group H1 2026 results matter for operators
For anyone running an operator or platform, the read-through is specific. The betting tax increases (France’s online sports betting rate moved from 54.9% to 59.3% of GGR, poker jumped to 10% of GGR, plus a new 15% levy on marketing spend) are now baked into every French-facing P&L. Banijay absorbed the hit and still grew underlying EBITDA. That sets a benchmark for how much tax pressure a diversified book can carry.
The JOA acquisition matters too. Signed 6 July at an enterprise value of €465 million, it hands Banijay Gaming 33 land-based French casinos. Digital plus retail, under one roof. Any operator weighing an omnichannel move now has a live case study to measure against.
The caveat: leverage is the number to watch
Here’s the tension. Net debt reached €5.5 billion at end-June, rising to €5.8 billion after the All3Media close and the exceptional dividend, a leverage of 3.6x. Management expects roughly 3.4x by year-end and a path to around 2x by 2029. That path depends on delivery. Miss the H2 acceleration and the deleveraging story gets harder to tell.
Future outlook: what to watch through year-end
FY2026 guidance is confirmed: mid-single-digit adjusted EBITDA growth, around 80% free cash flow conversion. The company is betting on an H2 lift from the full World Cup contribution and a heavier Entertainment slate weighted to Q4. Antoine Jouteau, formerly of Leboncoin and Adevinta, takes over as CEO of Banijay Gaming on 1 September, with synergy delivery from both Tipico and JOA as his brief. The JOA deal is expected to close in H2, subject to regulatory approval.
The next real test comes on 5 November with the 9M results. That’s when the market sees whether the World Cup and the acquisitions turn spending into the returns Banijay has promised.
Source: Banijay Group
