Civic and Social Organizations (U.S.) — NAICS 813410

An investor's primer. NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code 813410 covers the Elks lodge, the Rotary club, the VFW post, the college fraternity, the alumni association, and the neighborhood garden club — the membership groups that exist "to promote the civic and social interests of their members." [1]

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1. Overview

This is the industry of joining. It bundles fraternal lodges (Masons, Elks, Moose, Odd Fellows), service clubs (Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis), veterans' posts (American Legion, VFW — Veterans of Foreign Wars), college fraternities and sororities, alumni associations, parent-teacher associations (PTAs), scouting groups, ethnic and heritage societies, booster clubs, and social clubs. Their common thread: people pay dues to belong, and any surplus is plowed back into the group rather than paid out to owners.

Why an investor should care, even though you cannot buy a share of the Elks:

• It is almost entirely nonprofit and member-owned. There is no obvious U.S.-listed pure-play operator. This is a sector you serve, supply, house, or lend to — not one you buy equity in directly.
• It is a bellwether for "social capital." The long slide in club membership (Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone thesis) tracks demographic and cultural shifts that ripple into hospitality, real estate, insurance, and local retail. [23]
• It sits on real estate and reserves. Tens of thousands of local chapters own lodge halls, clubhouses, and land — assets that increasingly change hands as membership ages out.
• Its plumbing is investable. The software, payments, insurance, and event vendors that keep these groups running are being bought and rolled up — largely by private equity (PE). [25]

Public-market route: indirect only — nonprofit/membership software and services (mostly PE-owned), plus adjacent commercial "membership" businesses (fitness, private clubs, lifestyle hospitality) that trade under recreation and hospitality codes, not this one. Private route: philanthropy and membership themselves; buying, financing, or repurposing lodge and clubhouse real estate as chapters shrink; program-related lending and facility finance; and the fraternal insurers whose products (not shares) you access as a member.

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2. What it is and how it's structured

In scope (813410): organizations that exist to serve their members' civic and social life. The Census definition explicitly lists alumni associations, automobile clubs (except road-service), booster clubs, ethnic associations, fraternal lodges and orders, college fraternities and sororities, granges, PTAs, scouting organizations, social clubs, and veterans' membership organizations. Many of these run a bar, banquet hall, or restaurant for members — and that on-premise food-and-drink operation is counted inside this code (a separate, standalone restaurant open to the public is not). [1]

What it is NOT — and where those neighbors live:

• Advocacy and cause groups → 813319 (part of Social Advocacy Organizations, 81331): a group that lobbies for a cause, not one that hosts a fish fry. [1]
• Business and trade groups → 813910; professional bodies → 813920; labor unions → 813930; political organizations/parties → 813940. [1]
• Religious congregations → 813110. [1]
• Grantmaking foundations and charities that mainly raise and give money → 8132. [1]
• Homeowners', condominium, and tenant associations → 813990. [1]
• Recreational sports clubs and leagues → 713990; country clubs and golf clubs → 713910 (recreation codes) — an important line for the "membership club" investing angle below. [1]
• Residential fraternity and sorority houses (as housing) → 721310; travel/discount-purchasing clubs → 561599. [1]

Ownership mix: overwhelmingly tax-exempt nonprofits with no shareholders. The supplied federal statistics do not break out legal form, so we do not assign a precise nonprofit-vs-other percentage — but the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recognizes several exempt forms that dominate here: social clubs under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) section 501(c)(7), fraternal societies under 501(c)(8) and (c)(10), veterans' groups under 501(c)(19), and civic leagues under 501(c)(4). [5][6] Structurally, most operate as a national or international body (Rotary International, a Grand Lodge, a fraternity's headquarters) sitting atop thousands of semi-autonomous local chapters, each its own legal entity with its own dues, building, and bank account. That federated structure matters: the "industry" is really tens of thousands of tiny local units under a few dozen brands.

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3. How big it is

Federal business statistics, from our ground-truth Census and Small Business Administration (SBA) data. County Business Patterns (CBP) figures are for 2023; Economic Census figures are for 2022.

That works out to roughly 8 employees per establishment (about 9 per firm) and about $825,000 of receipts per firm, at an average wage near $31,000 — the signature of small halls staffed part-time by bartenders, event help, and a bookkeeper. [2][3]

The undercount is enormous here — larger than in almost any other industry. CBP and the Economic Census count only establishments with paid employees and payroll; they exclude the self-employed and most government workers. But the defining feature of a civic or social organization is that it runs on volunteer labor: the typical Rotary club, PTA chapter, booster club, scout troop, or small lodge has no employees at all and never appears in these tables. Two consequences:

1. The ~24,700 employer establishments are just the larger, building-owning units. The real population of local chapters and clubs runs into the hundreds of thousands.
2. The $6.3 billion payroll and $18.5 billion of receipts capture none of the volunteer hours that are the industry's main input. Census and AmeriCorps estimated 4.99 billion volunteer hours worth about $167.2 billion across the U.S. in 2022–2023 — a large share of it flowing through exactly these kinds of groups. [10] Measured by economic value created, this sector is far bigger than its payroll suggests; measured by cash revenue, it is smaller and poorer than its cultural footprint suggests. Both are true at once.

Private industry-data providers that fold in volunteer-run groups put annual revenue closer to $21 billion, with contributions, gifts, and grants making up roughly a quarter of the total — a reminder that dues alone don't pay the bills. [9] Note the honest gaps: our federal file carries no industry-wide figures for membership, donor retention, volunteer hours per organization, reserves, or profitability, so we do not state those; where we cite membership or scale below, it comes from the organizations themselves or outside reporting.

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4. The investable universe

There are effectively no publicly traded pure-play civic or social organizations. You cannot buy stock in the Elks, Rotary, the American Legion, Scouting America, or a college fraternity — they are member-owned nonprofits by law. Treat the first table as a scale map of the sector, not a buy list; the equity exposure that exists is indirect and lives in the two tables that follow.

Major organizations (nonprofit; not investable as equities):

Public-market listed exposure (adjacent proxies — none is a 813410 operator):

Two once-listed adjacencies recently went private: Soho House completed its merger and delisting in January 2026, and Eventbrite became a wholly owned subsidiary of Bending Spoons in March 2026 — a reminder that liquid public exposure to this theme is thinning, not growing. [30][32]

For-profit adjacencies and private operators (where accessible money actually goes):

Bottom line: the only clean, liquid public exposure to the theme is the software/services layer and adjacent commercial-membership businesses — and even those are mostly private. The organizations themselves are a philanthropy-and-real-estate story, governed by boards, members, and donors rather than shareholder claims.

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5. How the money works

There are no equity owners to enrich here, so "profit" is the wrong lens. The right lens is sustainability: can dues plus non-dues income cover the fixed cost of the hall and the mission? A local chapter's income statement has a few recurring levers:

• Membership dues, initiation fees, and assessments — the base, and the most predictable line. Recurring, annual, sticky. The key operating metrics are member count, retention (renewal) rate, member churn, and dues per member. Because most costs are fixed (the building, the liquor license, insurance), the economics are essentially a membership-scale game: every lost member is nearly pure lost contribution.
• Non-dues revenue — the swing factor. Banquet-hall and clubhouse rentals, member bars and restaurants, bingo and charitable gaming, pancake breakfasts, fish fries, dances, and annual galas. For veterans' posts and lodges, the member bar and event hall are often the single biggest cash generator — which is also where tax and licensing risk concentrates (see §7).
• Contributions, gifts, and grants — roughly a quarter of sector revenue, and higher for youth- and charity-oriented groups. [9]
• Investment and endowment income — larger, older organizations and their affiliated foundations run reserves whose interest and dividends help cover the years dues fall short.

Costs are mostly labor, programming, facilities, insurance, technology, fundraising, and compliance. A club with real estate carries heavy fixed costs; a volunteer-led association has little payroll but depends entirely on volunteer capacity. Beyond dues metrics, the useful gauges are unrestricted revenue, donor retention, fundraising cost, cash reserves, deferred-maintenance spending, facility utilization, and leverage. For-profit clubs can also report same-location revenue and visits — measures that are meaningless across the volunteer population.

The fraternal benefit societies are a different animal. A 501(c)(8) like Modern Woodmen or Knights of Columbus is, in practice, a member-owned life insurer wrapped in a fraternal charter: it underwrites life insurance and annuities, invests the premiums, and returns "profit" to members as benefits and to communities as charity rather than to shareholders as dividends. For those, the relevant metrics are the classic insurance ones — assets, investment yield, and mortality/claims — and their tax-exempt status has drawn scrutiny precisely because they can look like commercial insurers. [6][16]

Success, then, is not a margin — it's a trajectory: growing (or at least stable) membership, high renewal, enough non-dues cash to cover the building, and reserves deep enough to ride out bad years.

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6. What drives demand

• Demographics. Legacy fraternal and veterans' groups skew old; their core cohorts are literally aging out, and the veteran population from mid-century conflicts is shrinking. This is the dominant structural headwind. [12][13]
• Time and household structure. Dual-income households, longer commutes, and packed schedules cut into the weeknight-meeting model that fraternal life was built on.
• Digital substitution — cutting both ways. Online communities replaced some of what clubs offered, hollowing out the old model. But the same screens are now blamed for a loneliness epidemic, and surveys find majorities of Americans — especially Gen Z — feeling isolated. [24]
• The "third place" revival. The idea that people need gathering places outside home and work is mainstream again, with a visible, youth-led resurgence of in-person community — run clubs, book clubs, hobby meetups — even as it often flows to new formats rather than the old lodges. This is the sector's main potential tailwind. [23][24]
• Volunteer supply and philanthropy. These groups run on donated time and money. Census/AmeriCorps valued 2022–2023 volunteering at ~$167.2 billion [10]; Giving USA estimated total U.S. charitable giving at $592.5 billion in 2024 (though only a slice reaches 813410 groups). [11] When markets and incomes are strong, both pools swell; in downturns they contract.
• Feeder populations and local needs. College enrollment drives Greek life; immigration drives ethnic and heritage societies; local economic health drives discretionary dues and event spending; disaster response and youth/childcare needs pull people into service groups.
• Trust and reputation. Membership responds to whether an organization is seen as safe, relevant, and well-run — a variable that abuse and hazing scandals have moved sharply (see §9).

Our forward-looking judgment: demand for community connection is durable, but individual organizations will diverge sharply on mission relevance, leadership, retention, and financial discipline.

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7. Regulation

Almost everything here is tax-exempt, but under different flavors of IRC section 501(c), and the differences drive behavior:

• 501(c)(4) — civic leagues and social-welfare groups (may lobby broadly, but political campaigning can't be the primary activity).
• 501(c)(7) — social and recreational clubs. Exemption depends on staying member-focused: as a rule of thumb, no more than ~15% of gross receipts from nonmember use of facilities and ~35% from all outside (nonmember + investment) sources, or the club risks its status. [5]
• 501(c)(8) — fraternal beneficiary societies that provide insurance to members (the Knights of Columbus / Modern Woodmen model).
• 501(c)(10) — domestic fraternal societies that don't insure but devote earnings to charity.
• 501(c)(19) — veterans' organizations (American Legion, VFW posts).

Key rules an investor or operator should know:

• Donations are often not deductible. Gifts to a 501(c)(7) social club generally aren't deductible to the donor; gifts to (c)(8)/(c)(10) fraternals are deductible only when used for charitable purposes; gifts to (c)(19) veterans' posts generally are deductible.
• Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT). Income from a trade or business not substantially related to the exempt purpose — a bar open to the general public, commercial hall rentals, advertising — is taxable, and any organization with $1,000+ of gross unrelated income must file Form 990-T. For social clubs, essentially all nonmember and investment income can be treated as taxable unless set aside for charitable use. This is why the member-bar-and-hall model is a perennial audit target. [5][6]
• Annual disclosure and auto-revocation. Most file a Form 990 with the IRS, which is public — a rare window into otherwise opaque local finances. An organization that fails to file for three consecutive years automatically loses its exempt status. [7]
• Public-accommodation rules. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) generally covers nonprofits open to the public. Genuine private-club exemptions are narrow, and opening facilities to nonmembers can forfeit that protection. [8]
• State and local overlay. Liquor licenses, charitable-gaming (bingo/raffle) permits, property-tax exemptions, charitable-solicitation registration, employment/wage law, youth-protection requirements, and food-safety and zoning rules all bite at the chapter level.

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8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

This is one of the most fragmented industries in the entire economy. Our ground-truth concentration figures make the point starkly:

• Concentration ratios (share of receipts held by the largest N firms): the top 4 firms (CR4) hold just 3.3%; top 8 (CR8) 5.7%; top 20 (CR20) 10.2%; top 50 (CR50) 15.7%. [3]
• Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI): 7 — where anything under 1,500 is considered unconcentrated. A reading of 7 is effectively atomistic: no one has market power, because the "market" is tens of thousands of independent local chapters. [3]

So "competition" and "consolidation" mean something unusual here:

• The real competition is for time and attention, not market share — against streaming, gyms, youth sports, churches, and a new crop of commercial social clubs and coworking spaces. Members choose on identity, relationships, convenience, and mission more than price, which favors strong local brands and limits national substitution.
• "Consolidation" among the nonprofits happens by attrition. Struggling chapters merge, fold, or sell their halls; national bodies redraw districts and combine posts; scale advantages (technology, insurance, procurement, fundraising, compliance) are usually captured through shared services, affiliation, and federation rather than equity roll-up. It's contraction, not acquisition.
• The real roll-up is in the for-profit layers. PE is actively consolidating the software and services that run these organizations — e.g., TA Associates forming Momentive Software from Community Brands assets and then absorbing Personify to reach tens of thousands of client organizations. [25] For-profit club operators (Invited, Life Time) likewise consolidate facilities, brands, and membership systems directly. That's where the M&A and the investor money actually are.

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9. Risks

• Structural membership decline. The central risk. By various tallies the Masons are down more than 70% from their peak, the Lions ~60%, the Kiwanis ~40%; veterans' posts and lodges are closing. Fixed building costs against a shrinking dues base is the classic failure mode. [12][13]
• Liability and safety. The single largest financial event in the sector's recent history is the Boy Scouts / Scouting America bankruptcy, which produced a $2.46 billion (and rising) abuse-settlement trust covering tens of thousands of claims; the Supreme Court left the settlement in place in 2026. [17] Greek life carries parallel hazing and liability exposure. Such events raise insurance costs across the board and can be existential for a national body.
• Economic sensitivity. Donations, sponsorships, events, and discretionary memberships all soften in recessions and falling markets.
• Real-estate and fixed-cost risk. Aging halls carry deferred maintenance, property tax, and utility costs a diminished membership can't support — forcing sales at whatever the local market bears.
• Tax and regulatory. Loss of exemption (including three-year auto-revocation), UBIT assessments on bar/hall income, tighter charitable-gaming or liquor rules, public-accommodation disputes, and periodic proposals to curb fraternal-insurer tax breaks. [5][6][7]
• Reputation and governance. Scandal, discrimination controversy, or perceived irrelevance can trigger rapid membership loss in a voluntary, easy-to-quit product.
• Disclosure, data, and exit. Small nonprofits and private clubs disclose less than public companies; donor, member, and youth records create real cybersecurity and privacy exposure; and nonprofit capital is not returned through dividends or sale — private-club exits depend on strategic buyers, refinancing, or recapitalization.
• For the fraternal insurers specifically: ordinary insurance risks — interest-rate, credit, and mortality/longevity exposure on large investment portfolios.

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10. How to invest, and the outlook

Public-market routes (all indirect, and best treated as a look-through theme rather than a sector allocation):

• The vendor/software layer — association and membership-management software, fundraising, event, and payments platforms. It's a real, growing (~10%/yr) market, but today almost entirely PE-owned, so liquid public exposure is scarce. The cleanest listed proxy is Blackbaud (BLKB); here examine recurring software revenue, customer retention, implementation cost, margins, and exposure to nonprofit budgets. Watch for eventual IPOs (initial public offerings) or for these assets inside larger listed software and payments companies. [25][26]
• Adjacent commercial-membership businesses — Life Time (LTH) as a "paid belonging" proxy (watch membership growth, dues, mature-club performance, utilization, maintenance, leverage), and Apollo (APO) or Accor (AC) where you must isolate the relevant private/lifestyle assets (Invited, Ennismore) from the broader company. These trade under hospitality and recreation codes, not 813410. [27][28][31]

Private-market and non-equity routes (where the sector really lives):

• Real estate. As chapters dissolve, lodge halls, clubhouses, and posts come to market — often below replacement cost, frequently in walkable town centers. Acquiring, financing, or repurposing them is the most direct private "investment" in the sector's decline.
• Program-related lending and facility finance. Loans, facility financing, and technology investments can offer clearer contractual economics than donations — but require careful mission and credit underwriting.
• The fraternal insurers. You participate by buying their life insurance and annuities as a member, not by buying stock.
• Direct nonprofit diligence. For any private club or chapter, review audited statements and Form 990 filings, membership renewal, donor concentration, unrestricted cash, restricted funds, real estate, leases, debt, insurance, legal claims, governance, and succession. The crucial test for a private club: do dues and member spending cover labor, amenities, maintenance, and capital without eroding the membership experience?

Outlook (forward-looking judgment). The legacy story — aging fraternal orders, thinning veterans' posts, closing lodges — is a structural decline unlikely to reverse for the mid-century-built institutions; expect continued attrition, hall sales, and district consolidation. But two forces cut the other way. First, the loneliness epidemic and the "third place" revival are a genuine cultural tailwind for organized, in-person community — the strongest demand signal for this sector in a generation. [23][24] Second, that demand is largely being captured by new formats — run clubs, digital-native and interest-based communities, professionalized private clubs, and nonprofit technology — rather than by the old lodges, which means value is likely to accrue to the technology, real-estate, and hospitality layers around civic life more than to the traditional nonprofits themselves. The sector will remain fragmented, locally differentiated, and hard to value with conventional public-market multiples. For an investor, the durable conclusion is the one we started with: this is a sector to supply, house, and finance — not one to own.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 NAICS Definition: 813410 Civic and Social Organizations. https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=813410&input=813410&year=2022
2. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns, 2023 (NAICS 813410) — establishments, employment, payroll (Histometrics ground-truth stats). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html
3. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census — Concentration of Largest Firms (NAICS 813410) — firm counts, receipts, CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50, HHI. https://data.census.gov/table/ECNSIZE2022.EC2200SIZECONCEN?q=EC2200SIZECONCEN
4. U.S. Small Business Administration, Table of Small Business Size Standards, 2023. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
5. Internal Revenue Service, Social Clubs (501(c)(7)) — member-support and nonmember-income limits. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/social-clubs
6. Internal Revenue Service, Unrelated Business Income Tax — special rules for 501(c)(7)/(8)/(10) etc., and Form 990-T, 2024. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/unrelated-business-income-tax
7. Internal Revenue Service, Annual filing (Form 990) and automatic revocation of exemption. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/search-for-tax-exempt-organizations
8. U.S. Department of Justice, ADA.gov, Title III — Businesses Open to the Public, 2026. https://www.ada.gov/topics/title-iii/
9. Vertical IQ, Civic & Social Organizations — Industry Profile (broader industry revenue ~$21B; ~quarter from contributions), 2025. https://verticaliq.com/product/civic-social-organizations/
10. U.S. Census Bureau / AmeriCorps, Civic Engagement and Volunteerism (≈4.99B volunteer hours; ≈$167.2B value, 2022–2023), 2024. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/11/civic-engagement-and-volunteerism.html
11. Giving USA, 2025 Annual Report: U.S. Charitable Giving Grew to $592.50 Billion in 2024, 2025. https://givingusa.org/giving-usa-2025-u-s-charitable-giving-grew-to-592-50-billion-in-2024-lifted-by-stock-market-gains/
12. Cipher Magazine, "Lions, Tigers, and Elks"; Davis Odd Fellows Lodge, "Declining Membership in Fraternal Orders." https://ciphermagazine.com/articles/2017/1/28/lions-tigers-and-elks; https://www.davislodge.org/declining-membership-in-fraternal-orders/
13. Forest Park Review, "With declining enrollment, can American Legions, VFWs stay relevant today?", 2024. https://www.forestparkreview.com/2024/05/23/with-declining-enrollment-can-american-legions-vfws-stay-relevant-today/
14. Rotary International (membership and club counts). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_International
15. Lions International / Barchart, "Lions International served more than 410 million people worldwide last year", 2025. https://www.barchart.com/story/news/35043419/
16. Modern Woodmen of America (members and total assets). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Woodmen_of_America
17. CNN, "Boy Scouts of America will begin to compensate sexual abuse victims from a $2.4 billion trust," 2023; Courthouse News, Supreme Court leaves Scouting America settlement in place, 2026. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/20/us/boy-scouts-sexual-abuse-compensation-trust/index.html
18. Scouting America, About / Contact Us (youth served; adult volunteers), 2026. https://www.scouting.org/about/contact-us/
19. Girl Scouts of the USA, Girl Scout Blog (membership), 2025. https://blog.girlscouts.org/2025/
20. YMCA of the USA, Our Reach and Impact, 2026. https://www.ymca.org/who-we-are/our-reach
21. National Panhellenic Conference, NPC Fast Facts (undergraduate sorority membership). https://npcwomen.org/news/npc-fast-facts/
22. North American Interfraternity Conference (fraternity membership; Greek-life totals). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Interfraternity_Conference
23. HuffPost, "Gen Z Grew Up Chronically Online. Now, They're Craving 'Third Places'" (Putnam / Bowling Alone; third-place revival), 2024. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/third-spaces-and-gen-z_l_675ca0fee4b0a6324e3b58ad
24. Axios, "A loneliness epidemic collides with eroding third places," 2026. https://www.axios.com/2026/07/05/loneliness-epidemic-third-places-social-infrastructure
25. The NonProfit Times, "Momentive Software Acquires Association Platform Personify," and Mordor Intelligence, Association Management Software Market (~$2.66B, ~10% CAGR), 2026. https://thenonprofittimes.com/npt_articles/momentive-software-acquires-association-platform-personify/; https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/association-management-software-market
26. Blackbaud, 2025 Form 10-K (U.S. SEC). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1280058/000128005826000006/blkb-20251231.htm
27. Life Time Group Holdings, 2025 Form 10-K (U.S. SEC). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1869198/000186919826000010/lth-20251231.htm
28. Apollo Global Management, 2024 Responsible & Sustainable Portfolio Supplement and 2025 Form 10-K (Invited exposure). https://www.apollo.com/content/dam/apolloaem/documents/impact/apollo-2024-rso-portfolio-supplement.pdf; https://ir.apollo.com/sec-filings/
29. Invited Clubs, About Us (200+ clubs). https://www.invitedclubs.com/
30. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Soho House & Co Inc. Form 8-K — merger closing and delisting, Jan 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1846510/000114036126002807/ef20064097_8k.htm
31. Accor, Full-Year 2025 Results (Ennismore), 2026. https://press.accor.com/full-year-2025-results-solid-results-above-2025-guidance/?lang=eng
32. Eventbrite, 2025 Form 10-K (acquisition by Bending Spoons, March 2026) (U.S. SEC). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1475115/000147511526000005/eb-20251231.htm