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Reporting EUR Credit Aaa/AAA Valuation 2026-05-24 Founded 1996 · IPO 2000 FCFF · 1000-iter MC FCFF · Dark v3

WACC corrected to 8.03% on β triangulation · DCF holds at €98.05 post 15% gov · +42.7% MoS

Market below MC P5 floor

Pinning levered β to 1.20 (triangulated mean of Yahoo 1.28 / SWS 1.21 / StockAnalysis 1.08) instead of the Entertainment sector bottom-up 0.78 lifts WACC to 8.03% and tightens MoS from +49.2% to +42.7%. Intrinsic still lands at €98.05 vs market €56.15; P(intrinsic < market) = 0% across 1,000 MC iterations and the P5 floor (€78.56) sits 40% above today.

SECTOR Entertainment (SOTP) GEO DE 44% · IT 20% · CH+AT 13% MC σ ±€8.97/sh GOV KGaA · haircut 15% QUALITY ROCE 29.5% · A+/AAA cash SIGNAL €12M+ insider buys 90d

Intrinsic / share

€98.05

post 15% gov (€115.35 → €98.05)

Market / share

€56.15

FWB · EVD · SDax · €1.44 div ~2.6% yield

Margin of safety

+42.7%

vs intrinsic

Enterprise value

€11.02B

76.7% terminal

Cost of equity / debt

8.24% / 1.96%

β 1.20 · CRP 0.64%

Terminal ROIC / g

65.27% / 2.40%

terminal ROC 65.3% vs WACC 8.03%

What it sells, where it sells

Operating segments

Ticketing platform40.5% EBIT margin · 46.4% adj EBITDA · 8+ yrs in 40-50% band 31.2%

Live Entertainment3.8% EBIT margin · promoter + venue ops · Milano opened May 2026 68.8%

Ticketing is ~31% of revenue but ~83% of group EBIT (€396M of €477M) — so the central valuation question is whether the ~46% platform EBITDA margin compounds or compresses. Live Entertainment doubles the topline but contributes thin margin and absorbs the venue capex; the SOTP rebuild prices each on its own trajectory rather than blending into mathematical fiction.

Country mix (revenue-weighted CRP input)

🇩🇪Germany43.8%

🇮🇹Italy19.7%

🇨🇭Switzerland7.2%

🇦🇹Austria6.1%

🇺🇸United States5.5%

🇬🇧United Kingdom3.4%

🇳🇱Netherlands2.7%

🇫🇷France2.0%

🇪🇸Spain1.6%

🇫🇮Finland1.4%

Germany + Italy + Switzerland + Austria = ~77% of revenue — essentially a Eurozone-mature asset with a thin Latin American tail (Chile + Brazil + Peru ~1.5%). Weighted CRP adds only 0.64% over a pure-Germany ERP build; Eventim's economics travel with the EUR risk-free curve, not EM volatility.

Background — five things to know before the case

Context the share price doesn't carry on its face. Skim this once and the bull / bear bullets below stop reading as inside baseball.

KGaA structure means minority shareholders cannot remove the GP. EVENTIM Management AG (the general partner) is wholly controlled by founder Klaus-Peter Schulenberg regardless of float ownership. Schulenberg owns 38.96% directly (37.34M shares) + KPS Stiftung indirect; §312 reports clean for FY2024-2025 with unqualified auditor opinions. The structural minority discount is a feature, not a bug — chairman's correction raised the haircut from 10% to 15%.
Founder put €10M of personal money to work on the crash day. KPS Stiftung (Schulenberg family vehicle) bought 184,000 shares at €54.37 on March 27, 2026 — the same session the stock fell -23% on guidance disappointment. Supervisory board members Baur, Dörner, Kundrun, Westermeyer added smaller aligned positions. Net insider buying >€12M over 90 days; zero insider selling. KPS Stiftung was already accumulating at €82 in August 2025.
19 consecutive record revenue years since IPO (2000), navigated COVID without layoffs. Ticketing revenue compounded from ~€407M in 2017 to €977M in 2025 (11.2% CAGR including See Tickets dilution); Live Entertainment from ~€627M to €2,152M (16.6% CAGR via FKP Scorpio / France Billet / Punto Ticket consolidation). The M&A flywheel is substantially complete; the next decade is organic compounding.
Sum-of-parts: Ticketing platform (~46% EBITDA, ~31% of revenue) carries the equity story; Live Entertainment (~6% EBITDA, ~69% of revenue) absorbs the capex. Council rejected the prior single-segment model: blending a platform business with a promoter business into one Y10 margin was mathematical fiction. Milano (€400m total cost, opened May 6 2026 with Ligabue concert) + Wien (€500m, still un-signed as of April 2026, opening pushed to 2030) are the capex anchors.
March 27 guidance shock cost €5B of market cap in one session; the β triangulation is the WACC correction the market already implied. Damodaran's Entertainment-sector bottom-up β (0.78) materially understated concert/ticketing volatility — 5Y regressions from Yahoo (1.28), SimplyWallSt (1.21) and StockAnalysis (1.08) average 1.19. Pinning β to 1.20 lifts WACC from ~6.2% to 8.03%, tightening MoS from +49.2% to +42.7% but leaving the verdict (BUY) and the MC distribution (P5 still 40% above market) intact.

Where we diverge from the sector

Each row asks: if we'd used the sector median for this one assumption instead of our override, how much would the share price change? Negative = our override is more conservative (worth less); positive = more aggressive (worth more). Skim down the rightmost column to see which bets are doing the work.

Assumption

Our input

Sector median

Value impact

01Revenue growthGroup 10y CAGR weighted across 2 segments

~6.4% Ticketing +7.2% (below 11.2% 8y trend, absorbs contract knock) · Live +5.7%

~4.5% Entertainment global, mature segment

+€14

02Operating marginYear-10 blended EBIT margin

~18.0% Ticketing 41% (flat to FY25) · Live 6% (mix-shift uplift)

10.6% Entertainment EBIT median, global cross-section

+€32

03Sales-to-capitalMarginal reinvestment efficiency

~3.0 → ~3.7 Ticketing 5.0 → 6.0 (platform leverage) · Live 1.3 → 2.3 (venue then asset-light)

1.39 Entertainment industry standard

+€16

04Terminal growthSteady-state perpetuity rate

2.40% EUR risk-free ceiling — at the hard cap

2.40% EUR risk-free rate ceiling

€0

05Cost of capital10-year blended WACC

8.03% Levered β 1.20 (triangulated: Yahoo 1.28 / SWS 1.21 / StockAnalysis 1.08) · EUR-rate base · synth AAA on net cash

~6.20% Sector bottom-up β 0.78 WACC at sector D/V

-€14

Net effect of overrides

Overrides net +€48/share vs all-sector-defaults baseline (~€68). The platform-margin override on Ticketing does most of the lifting; reinvestment efficiency and revenue compounding amplify it; the β triangulation gives back ~€14/share by raising WACC honestly. Then the 15% governance haircut reduces equity per share from €115.35 to €98.05 — the KGaA wrapper costs €17.30/share.

+€48

Our override Sector median Override adds value Override subtracts value

The story & the five claims

The 10-year story this DCF is built on, plus the five anchor claims that translate the story into model inputs.

The 10-year story

CTS Eventim is two structurally different businesses stapled together inside a KGaA wrapper. The Ticketing platform is a high-moat, capital-light software business — 46% EBITDA margin sustained for 8+ continuous years, dominant in Continental Europe, world's #2 globally behind Ticketmaster — facing a one-off near-term drag from an undisclosed expired long-term contract that new CFO Willms flagged in March without quantifying. The Live Entertainment segment is the opposite: ~6% EBITDA margins, promoter pass-through revenue, and a multi-year venue capex digestion (Milano opened May 6 2026 at €400m total cost vs €180m original budget; Wien funded but still un-signed as of April 2026). The base case isn't that everything goes right — it's that Ticketing defends its platform margin near 41% while Live's margin expands modestly from 3.8% to 6.0% as Milano own-venue mix shifts up the average. Group revenue compounds from €3.1B to ~€5.7B by 2036 (~6.4% CAGR), Y10 weighted EBIT margin ~18%, terminal growth pinned at EUR risk-free 2.4%. After raising WACC to 8.03% on β triangulation (1.20 vs sector 0.78) and applying the 15% KGaA governance haircut, intrinsic still lands at €98/share — the rest of the gap to today's €56 is what the market is missing while the founder buys with personal money.

Two debates worth pressure-testing

Is β 1.20 right — or did the sector bottom-up 0.78 capture the right normalised risk?

Our view: 1.20 reflects realised post-COVID ticketing/concert volatility better than the sector cross-section. Three independent 5Y regressions (Yahoo 1.28, SimplyWallSt 1.21, StockAnalysis 1.08) average 1.19; the divergence vs the bottom-up Entertainment 0.78 is ~35% — too large to ignore. The override costs ~€14/share via higher WACC (8.03% vs ~6.2%), but the MoS still lands at +42.7% and the P5 of the MC distribution sits 40% above today's price. If the true β is closer to 1.00, intrinsic rises ~€8 toward €106.

Is the 15% governance haircut sufficient — or does KGaA need 20-25%?

Our view: 15% sits between the 5-10% baseline and the chairman's permanent-structural-feature corridor (15-25%). Offsets are unusually strong — clean §312 reports two years running, 19 consecutive record years, >€12M post-crash insider buying led by KPS Stiftung's €10M crash-day position — but cannot defend a return to 10%. If the bear is right and Schulenberg succession is mishandled (25% haircut), intrinsic still lands at €87, ~55% above market.

CLAIM 01 Group revenue €3.08B → €5.70B by 2036, ~6.4% CAGR. Ticketing +7.2% · Live +5.7% Ticketing well below 11.2% 8y trend to absorb the CFO-flagged contract knock. Live well below 16.6% M&A-flywheel CAGR (consolidation complete); reflects Milano + (probable) Wien adding incremental own-venue revenue.

CLAIM 02 Year-10 group EBIT margin ~18%, +250bp vs 15.5% FY25. Ticketing 41% · Live 6% Margin lift is mix-shift not compounding: Ticketing grows faster than Live, dragging the weighted average up even with platform margin barely moving. Bull case (45%+ Ticketing) lives in MC right tail.

CLAIM 03 Asymmetric reinvestment: Ticketing 5.0→6.0; Live 1.3→2.3. Y10 implied ROC: Ticketing 172% · Live 9.7% Heavy venue capex 2025-28 (Milano finishing + Wien if signed) then CFO's asset-light pivot materialises via sale-leaseback. Platform leverage on Ticketing compounds post-build-out.

CLAIM 04 Both segments hit target margin by Y5; growth decays to RFR by Y10. year_of_convergence = 5 Mature 19-year listed business. Ticketing converges as contract knock crystallises; Live as Milano ramps + Wien commissions (if signed). Standard mature-segment convention.

CLAIM 05 Terminal g = EUR rfr; failure 0%; governance haircut 15%. g 2.4% · gov 0.15 · net cash Structural net cash, 50% payout dividend flexibility, ~46% Ticketing EBITDA floor, 19 unblemished years. KGaA haircut raised from 10% per chairman: permanent structural entrenchment, not just succession overlay.

Where we diverge from sell-side

SOTP rebuild rather than blended single-segment DCF. The Council rejected the prior single-segment model — blending a 46% EBITDA platform with a 6% EBITDA promoter business into one Y10 margin is mathematical fiction. Each segment is now modeled on its own revenue trajectory, margin path, and reinvestment ratio; the model sums.
Levered β triangulated to 1.20 vs sector bottom-up 0.78. Three independent 5Y regressions (Yahoo 1.28, SWS 1.21, StockAnalysis 1.08) average 1.19, ~35% above the Entertainment cross-section. Honest WACC at 8.03% costs ~€14/share but is the right number for concert/ticketing volatility.
Governance haircut raised from 10% to 15% per chairman correction. KGaA structural entrenchment is permanent — minority shareholders cannot remove EVENTIM Management AG regardless of float ownership. Costs €17.30/share (€115.35 → €98.05). Layered on March 27 communication misstep + missing succession plan; offsets prevent a steeper 20-25% haircut.
Ticketing margin held at 41% rather than expanding to 45-46%. Deliberately caps the Live Nation Europe + AI scalping + contract repricing risk that the bears want priced. 41% sits ~30pp above Entertainment industry median (10.6%) — the moat made explicit but not extrapolated.
~€1.2B working-capital float treated as operational, not excess cash. Only ~€400M of the cash pile is excess. The float is a structural funding advantage embedded in the business model, not a one-time distribution opportunity sitting on the balance sheet.

Two-sided case — bear anchors

Schulenberg succession is mishandled and KGaA discount widens to 25%. Founder is in his late 70s with no publicly communicated succession plan. If the GP transition is botched and the haircut moves to 25%, intrinsic falls from €98.05 to ~€87 — still ~55% above market, but cuts MoS to ~35%.
True β is closer to 1.30-1.40 and WACC should be 8.5-9%. If concert/ticketing post-COVID volatility persists and the next 5Y regression prints higher, WACC drift to 8.7% would drop intrinsic ~€8 to ~€90/share. Still BUY but the gap narrows.
Unquantified contract expiry turns out to be ~10% of Ticketing revenue. CFO Willms refused to size the impact, citing confidentiality. If the knock is materially larger than the 2026 reset implies — Ticketing CAGR drops to 5% — intrinsic falls ~€12/share.
Wien Arena contract falls through; Milano cost overrun repeats. Wien is still un-signed as of April 2026, opening pushed to 2030 with political opposition from Greens, FPÖ, KPÖ. If Wien fails and CTS still bears ~€100m of sunk preparation cost without revenue, Live segment loses ~50bps of margin uplift.
Live Nation Europe push compounds with regulatory take-rate compression. Despite Fansale being a positive regulatory story, an unforeseen primary-ticketing commission cap (mechanism: weaker Ticketmaster DOJ overhang) could step Ticketing EBIT down to 36%. Drops intrinsic ~€20/share. Currently zero evidence; lives in MC bottom tail.

Risks to thesis (tail, not bear case)

Schulenberg succession mishandledHIGH

Founder late-70s, no publicly communicated succession plan. KGaA structural feature means the GP transition cannot be steered by minority shareholders. Worst-case haircut climbs to 25%; intrinsic to ~€87.

Capital Markets Day Sept 2026 reveals worse structural pictureHIGH

First-ever Capital Markets Day at Unipol Dome Milan. Management committed to "midterm full-potential plan" — if this discloses additional contract expiries, deeper Wien cost commitments, or Live Nation Europe share loss, the March 27 reset extends.

β drifts higher on persistent post-COVID concert volatilityMED

5Y regressions average 1.19 today; if 2027-2028 prints push it toward 1.35, WACC moves to ~8.7% and intrinsic loses ~€8/share. The triangulation is robust but the underlying business is more volatile than the sector cross-section implies.

Wien Holding Arena contract unsignedMED

Status as of April 2026: "still in project preparation phase," contract NOT yet finalised. €347M CTS commitment in flux; if Wien falls through, ~50bps of Live margin uplift evaporates. Political opposition from Greens, FPÖ, KPÖ — loud but legally non-blocking.

Live Nation Europe take-rate warMED

Management acknowledged Live Nation as "certainly a strong competitor" but declined to discuss take-rate impact. If commission compression materialises, Ticketing margin steps down to 36%; intrinsic falls ~€20/share. Currently no signal in 2025 segment data.

Q1 2026 print disappointsLOW

Release scheduled May 27/28 2026 — two days after valuation date. Management already reaffirmed Q1 guidance with higher revenue/EBITDA in pre-announcements. If the print materially undershoots, the contract-knock interpretation tightens.

10-year forecast

Group revenue €3.32B → €5.70B over 10y (~6.2% CAGR — Ticketing €977M → €1,950M @ 7.2%; Live €2,152M → €3,750M @ 5.7%). Weighted group EBIT margin lifts from 15.5% TTM to 17.97% by Y10 as Ticketing's 41% platform margin compounds against Live's modest 3.8% → 6.0% mix-shift expansion.

Monte Carlo distribution

Even at the 5th-percentile outcome (€78.56) — joint worst-case across Ticketing margin, Live revenue, sales-to-capital, governance haircut (10/15/25 triangular), and terminal growth — intrinsic value remains ~40% above today's €56.15 price. P(intrinsic < market) = 0.0% across 1,000 iterations: the disagreement is by how much, not whether.

1000 iterations randomising the five central uncertainties (Ticketing Y10 revenue, Live Y10 revenue, segment margins, governance discount 10/15/25, terminal growth) per mc.yaml. P(intrinsic < market €56.15) = 0.0%.

Mean €93.01 ± €8.97/sh. P5 €78.56 · P25 €86.79 · P50 €92.94 · P75 €99.18 · P95 €108.18.

Sources & cross-references

The full audit trail behind this DCF — every load-bearing input traces to a digest section, council bullet, or management signal.

Filings corpus digest (FY2016-2025, segment-level): 11 anchor sections covering revenue/margin/ROIC progression, capital allocation, KGaA structure, geo mix.
Management signals (Q4 2025 call + Annual Report + venue capex timeline): Willms guidance breakdown, contract expiry disclosure, Milano €400m cost trajectory, Wien status as of April 2026, LA28 partnership details.
LLM Council pressure-test (5 advisors + 5 reviewers + chairman synthesis): chairman mandated SOTP rebuild + raised governance haircut from 10% to 15%.
β triangulation (2026-05-25 multi-source): Yahoo Finance 5Y monthly 1.28 · SimplyWallSt 1.21 · StockAnalysis (ETR:EVD) 1.08 · mean 1.19 → pinned to 1.20. Override of the sector bottom-up 0.78 (~35% divergence).
Context check (qualitative signals + governance + insider buying): Verdict 🟢 Dig deeper — high-conviction undervaluation.
Country mix rationale: 18-country IFRS 8 disclosure decomposition (DE 43.8% / IT 19.7% / CH 7.2% / AT 6.1% / US 5.5% / rest tail).
Monte Carlo overlay: 5 axes, asymmetric Ticketing-revenue downside, triangular governance 10/15/25.
2026 cross-section snapshot: ctryprem 2026-01-01 · industry_global Entertainment 2026-01-01 · risk_free EUR 2.40%.

⚠ terminal_growth (0.0240) >= risk_free_rate (0.0240); Damodaran's stable-growth ceiling is the risk-free rate

Cost of capital build

Risk-free rate	2.40%
Mature-market ERP	4.23%
Levered β	1.20
Weighted CRP	0.64%
Cost of equity	8.24%
Pre-tax cost of debt (synth Aaa/AAA)	1.96%
D / V	~10%
WACC	8.03%

Full year-by-year DCF

Year	Revenue	Op mgn	EBIT	EBIT(1−t)	Reinvest	FCFF	PV
1	€3.32B	15.70%	€522M	€346M	€109M	€237M	€220M
2	€3.53B	16.14%	€569M	€377M	€115M	€262M	€225M
3	€3.74B	16.58%	€621M	€411M	€122M	€290M	€230M
4	€3.98B	17.01%	€676M	€448M	€129M	€319M	€235M
5	€4.22B	17.44%	€736M	€488M	€136M	€352M	€239M
6	€4.48B	17.55%	€787M	€527M	€87M	€440M	€278M
7	€4.76B	17.65%	€840M	€570M	€92M	€477M	€280M
8	€5.05B	17.76%	€898M	€615M	€98M	€517M	€284M
9	€5.37B	17.87%	€959M	€664M	€104M	€561M	€288M
10	€5.70B	17.97%	€1.02B	€717M	€110M	€607M	€293M

Methodology & flags

Damodaran FCFF DCF, 10y explicit + perpetuity, sum-of-parts across two segments (Ticketing platform €977M base · 40.5% EBIT; Live Entertainment €2,152M base · 3.8% EBIT). R&D not capitalised (platform software is OPEX); IFRS-16 lease liabilities (€90M) included in book debt. Synth credit Aaa/AAA on structural net-cash position. Levered β pinned at 1.20 via multi-source triangulation override (Yahoo 1.28 / SimplyWallSt 1.21 / StockAnalysis 1.08; mean 1.19), superseding the Entertainment sector bottom-up β of 0.78 which materially understated concert/ticketing volatility. Country-mix CRP from 18-country revenue-weighted decomposition (DE 43.8% / IT 19.7% / CH 7.2% / AT 6.1% / US 5.5% rest tail) × 2026 country premia. 15% governance discount applied post-DCF per LLM Council chairman synthesis. Monte Carlo: 1000 iterations, five sampled axes per mc.yaml. Model v1.0.0 · result: /Users/valentin/Documents/notes_jiliac_labs/Finance/Damodaran/valuations/evd/output/2026-05-25-result.json

R&D cap: OFF · Lease cap: OFF · Failure: OFF · ESO: OFF
Governance haircut: 15% (€115.35 > €98.05)
Sensitivity tornado: not run (MC supersedes for this valuation)

FCFF DCF · dark theme v3. Generated 2026-05-25T20:58:41 from /Users/valentin/Documents/notes_jiliac_labs/Finance/Damodaran/valuations/evd/output/2026-05-25-result.json.