Ringier financial year 2025: record margin and SMG IPO
The Ringier Group closes the 2025 financial year with a record EBITDA margin of 15.8 percent and completes the most important strategic step in years with the IPO of the Swiss Marketplace Group.
Ringier financial year 2025: Record margin despite challenging environment
Ringier's 2025 financial year brought the Group its second-best result in the past ten years: EBITDA rose to CHF 120.3 million, an increase of 1.3% compared to the previous year. At 15.8 percent, the EBITDA margin reached a new high in the company's history - after 14.8 percent in 2024. 83 percent of operating profit already comes from the digital business, which is also a new record.
Sales amounted to CHF 762.4 million in the 2025 financial year, compared to CHF 800.6 million in the previous year. According to the press release, this decline is largely due to the planned closure of Swissprinters' printing operations at the end of 2024.
SMG IPO as a strategic milestone
The defining individual event of the year was the IPO of Swiss Marketplace Group Holding (SMG) in September 2025 - according to the company, the largest IPO in Europe that year at the time. The one-off effect from the sale of ten percent of SMG shares is by definition not included in operating profit (EBITDA), but strengthens the Group's capital base. Ringier continues to hold a stake of around 20 percent in SMG.
CEO Marc Walder comments on the past year as follows: «In 2025, the Ringier Group continued its transformation into a technology-driven media and marketplace company with vigor. As a company that has always seen transformation as part of its DNA, we are at the beginning of the fourth chapter of our almost 200-year history with AI. In 2025, we will have taken the step from exploration to integration.»
AI and technology directly integrated into the business units
Ringier has completed its long-term structural reorganization: Technology, Data and Artificial Intelligence are no longer organized as staff functions, but are firmly embedded in the three business divisions Media, Sports Media and Digital Marketplaces. Technology partners such as Palantir will provide the infrastructure to build an excellent database, reduce complexity and create relevance on a large scale. The company currently operates in 19 countries.
Development of the business divisions in the Ringier financial year 2025
In the Media segment, Ringier Serbia stands out with the 14-year market leadership of Blic.rs - 168 months in a row. The Ringier Axel Springer joint venture in Poland consolidated its market leadership position with the launch of «Onet Czat z AI» in partnership with OpenAI and achieved record reach as the country's most trusted news platform. In Slovakia, Aktuality.sk reported digital subscription revenues of one million euros for the first time. The automated Azet magazine recorded an immediate leap in reach of 700,000 users. The African Pulse Group reported that it reached more than 70 million users. The sharpening of the portfolio in the media sector was driven by the sale of the Hungarian media division.
Ringier Sports Media Group (RSMG) continued to expand its international business. In Portugal, A Bola introduced an AI-supported newsroom to mark its 80th anniversary. In Bulgaria, Sportal.bg is the official Euroleague basketball partner. In Romania, GSP became the first port of call for video highlights of the national football super league thanks to a rights partnership. In Switzerland, RSMG founded the joint venture RSMG kicker Schweiz together with Olympia-Verlag.
The job platforms in Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Romania and the Baltic states felt the effects of the stagnating labor market, according to the press release. Real estate platforms, on the other hand, remained stable.
Ringier Media Switzerland with strong reach
Ringier Media Switzerland (RMS) reaches 1.4 million users every day and achieves 11.4 million page views per day. The portfolio includes 20 of the magazine and journal titles with the widest reach in Switzerland, including Blick, Bilanz, Schweizer Illustrierte, LandLiebe and GlücksPost. The print media reach 2.8 million readers every day. RMS has around 40,000 digital subscribers, including more than 30,000 with Blick+. Blick claims to be the number one Swiss news brand on all popular social media platforms.
Technically, the new «ring» CMS was rolled out; pilot projects such as «Frag Blick» and the Beobachter legal chatbot are running in partnership with Google. More than 13,000 screens via live systems increase the visibility of the RMS media brands. The TV marketing agreement between SRG and Admeira was extended until 2028.
The Ticketcorner joint venture between Ringier and CTS Eventim sold a total of 12.7 million tickets for almost 21,000 events in 2025 - a new all-time record, despite a 4.2% decline in festival visitors. JobCloud, which Ringier operates jointly with the TX Group, remained the number one job portal with 5.5 million applications submitted and 750,000 newly registered profiles.
Art as an attitude: Slavs and Tatars design the annual report
Since 1997, the Ringier Annual Report has been designed by artists whose works are part of the Ringier collection. The artist duo Slavs and Tatars were responsible for the 2025 annual report. Their project «Simurgh Self-Help» replaces the eagle - a symbol of power and authority - with the Simurgh, a mythical bird from the Turko-Persian cultural area: transnational, ambiguous, gender-fluid.
Michael Ringier, publisher and Chairman of the Board of Directors, comments: «Slavs and Tatars are kindred spirits to journalists: they work with language, conduct intercultural research and seek what unites them, while the Internet primarily promotes what divides them. We must not forget our craft: Facts instead of opinion, research instead of prejudice.»
The Ringier Annual Report 2025 is available in German, English and French on www.ringier.com available.
