Edreams Odigeo SA

MAD:EDR

Earnings Call Transcript

[David de la Roz, executive]

Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us today for our Q3 fiscal year 2024 results presentation for the 9 months ending 31st of December 2023.I'm David de la Roz, the Director of Investor Relations at eDreams ODIGEO.As always, you can find the resource materials, including the presentation and our results report on the Investor Relations section of our website. I would like to remind you that today's presentation will be shorter than the half and full year results since in the quarterly results, we just have a limited financial review.I will now pass you over to Dana Dunne, our CEO, who will tell you through our results highlights.

[Dana Dunne, executive]

Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I'm pleased to be here today and to tell you that the Prime model continues to be super successful with our results speaking for themselves. Once again, profit margins and profits are up significantly due to the strong Prime subscriber growth. Prime members were up 38%. We've achieved record-breaking revenues and a remarkable 54% growth in cash EBITDA over the last 12 months.In addition, cash EBITDA margin further improved 5 percentage points versus the 9 months of FY '23. Consequently, our cash EBITDA margin improved from 12.5% in the 9 months '23 to 17.5% in the 9 months of our financial year '24. We also added 3.2 million subscribers in the last 24 months. We are on target to meet our self-set targets for FY '25. And in light of the ongoing growth and reconfirmation of our self-imposed FY '25 guidance, we are pleased to announce a share repurchase program of 5.5 million shares of up to EUR 50 million.If you can now please turn to Slide 4, which is a summary of our performance for the first 9 months of our fiscal year 2024. In the 9 months of FY '24, the strength of the Prime model drove strong growth and significant profit improvements again with record-breaking revenues surpassing the EUR 500 million mark in cash revenue margin for the first time and hitting an all-time 9-month peak of EUR 158.9 million in cash marginal profit. We continue to remain confident that we are well on track to meet our FY '25 guidance.Some of the key highlights for today's presentation are: 1, in the 9 months of FY '24, the strength of the Prime model continues to drive strong growth and profit improvements. Specifically, cash EBITDA was up 54% to EUR 88.6 million and cash EBITDA margin gained 5 percentage points in just 1 year. Cash marginal profit was up 34% year-on-year to a record EUR 158.9 million with the cash marginal profit improving by 6 percentage points over the last year.Prime's percentage share of cash marginal profit reached 78% of the Group's total. Our results are mostly driven by subscription. And our free cash flow, excluding non-Prime working capital movements more than doubled from EUR 20 million in FY '23 to EUR 41 million over the 12 months of the third quarter of FY '24. The second highlight is that the EDR Prime model is now firmly established as a success. In the 9 months of FY '24, we reached 5.4 million members. That's a 34% increase versus the same period of last year.Prime cash revenue margin significantly improved, which resulted in the Prime share of total cash revenue margin increasing from 45% in the 9 months of FY '23 to 62% in the 9 months of FY '24, and the growth in cash marginal profit for Prime outstripped cash revenue margin. With the increased maturity of our Prime member base, cash marginal profit for Prime increased by 82% versus the 9 months of FY '23. And the Prime share of the Group's total cash marginal profit reached 78% with the marginal profit improved by 7 percentage points since the 9 months of FY '23.The third highlight, year-end guidance and our FY '25 guidance. For FY '24, we anticipate further growth in Prime membership to end the financial year FY '24 between 5.75 million and 5.9 million members and a range of cash EBITDA between EUR 120 million and EUR 122 million, closing in on our self-set guidance. Today, more than 2 years on from when the guidance was announced, we continue to be on track or slightly exceed all of those targets.Fourth, longer term and beyond '25, eDO has strong fundamental growth potential, and that's why the attractiveness of our segment of [ travel ] and leisure that we continue to benefit from the strong consumer demand for leisure, in which there's a clear structural shift from offline to online. Also we'll benefit from eDO's ability to further increase household membership penetration from low levels in the markets in which we currently offer Prime and we'll expand Prime, of course, into new markets going well beyond the 10 that we currently operate in. There's also new customer segments as well as launching new products and services under Prime.The fifth highlight you'll hear about today is the equity buyback. In light of our ongoing growth and reconfirmation of our self-imposed FY '25 guidance, we're pleased to announce that the Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase plan of 5.5 million shares in order to fund the LTIP plans for employees until FY '27 for a maximum of EUR 50 million.Now let me pass it over to David, who will take you through some of the KPIs of our Prime model and the strong growth and significant profit improvements in the 9 months of FY '24.

[David de la Roz, executive]

Thank you, Dana.If you could all please turn to Slide 6 of the presentation. I will take you through some of the KPIs of the Prime model and financial results in more detail. As expected, with the third quarter, the lowest in travel demand of the year, the net adds were lower than the previous quarter. However, the run rate required for the next 5 quarters remains in line with that achieved in the past 4 quarters. In the last 12 months, we have grown the Prime model base by 38%.Please turn to Slide 7. Profit margins were up significantly due to the growing maturity of Prime members, resulting in strong improvements in profitability during the last fiscal year. In the third quarter of fiscal '24, cash margin or profit margin in our Prime segment improved by 7 percentage points to 38% on a 12-month basis from 31% in the third quarter of fiscal '23. Cash EBITDA also improved substantially by 6 percentage points, increasing to 17.3% on a 12-month basis from 11.6% in the third quarter of fiscal '23.If you please turn to Slide 8. Let me remind you that when looking at Prime versus non-Prime, we still think it makes more sense to look at our business on a last 12-month basis as Prime is an annual subscription business and seasonality impacts the pattern of net adds in a particular quarter. The non-Prime part is also influenced by seasonality patterns. Our KPIs reported today show strong growth and significant marginal profit uplift as maturity of our Prime members increases. We have reached in the last 12 months a 58% share of cash earning margin and 71% share of cash marginal profit being delivered from Prime members versus 44% and 56% a year ago.We are increasingly more of a subscription-led business as we now have a much larger proportion of our Prime members in the second and subsequent years of membership cohort, the level of profitability of Prime continually improves.Please turn to Slide 9 of the presentation. In the 9 months of fiscal '24, we delivered strong growth in cash EBITDA and substantial improvements in margins as Prime membership maturity increases. Looking at the first 9 months of fiscal '24, already 62% and 78% of our cash revenue margin and cash marginal profit respectively are now from Prime members. This is higher than the 58% and 71% we saw previously for the last 12 months, marking a positive tendency. We are, every quarter, more of a subscription business.In the 9 months of fiscal '24, we delivered solid growth in cash revenue margin, increasing 10% versus the same period of last year. This was achieved following the continuing successful expansion of the Prime member base. Cash revenue margin for Prime rose by 51%, resulting from the 38% growth of Prime members and as expected because Prime ARPU, as anticipated and guided, increased to EUR 79.5, converging towards our target of EUR 80 per user.ARPU is rising because of the increased usage of the program and value per member. This also results in increased revenue margin because there is an increasing amount of the ARPU recognized. Cash margin on profit and cash EBITDA improved 38% and 54%, respectively, between the 9 first months of fiscal '23 and the 9 first months of fiscal '24. As guided, the maturity of Prime members is the key driver for profitability and significant and constant membership growth has resulted in sharp profitability improvements as increasing numbers renew membership.Cash margin or profit margin increased 6 percentage points to 31% in the 9 months of fiscal '24 from the 25% that we used to have in the 9 months of fiscal '23. Cash EBITDA margin in the 9 months of fiscal '24 also achieved a very substantial improvement and stood at 17% versus 12% in the period of '23, a 5 percentage points advance. Cash EBITDA was up 54% year-on-year to EUR 88.6 million, which compares to EUR 57.4 million in the first 9 months of fiscal '23.Please turn to Slide 10 of the presentation. Revenue margin, excluding adjusted revenue items, increased by 13% to EUR 474.2 million, mostly driven by an increase in Prime revenue margin, up 67%, following the successful expansion of the Prime member base. Prime revenue margin growth was somewhat offset by the non-Prime revenue margin, which decreased 23% versus the 9 months of fiscal '23 due to both the positive impact of a catch-up of Omicron bookings in fiscal '23 and the focus on the Prime side of the business.Variable costs were broadly in line with the 9 months of fiscal '23, despite higher revenue margin as the maturity of Prime members reduces the member acquisition costs. Overall, the first 9 months of fiscal '24 have seen a continuation of improving trends we saw in the fiscal '23 with significant improvements in profitability as more Prime members renew. Fixed costs increased by EUR 12.3 million, mainly driven by higher personnel costs as we scale the business. This is as guided and in line with our plan. As a result, adjusted EBITDA of EUR 55.5 million more than tripled versus the same period of last year at EUR 17.2 million.Adjusted net income was a loss of EUR 0.2 million in the 9 months of fiscal '24, substantially better than the EUR 25.8 million loss in the 9 months of fiscal '23. This improvement was mostly driven by the EUR 38.3 million increase in adjusted EBITDA, which was partially offset by EUR 12.3 million more of the Spanish tax expenses on higher taxable profits.Turning now to Slide 11. I will take you through the cash flow statement. In the 9 months of fiscal '24, we ended the third quarter with a positive cash flow from operations of EUR 62.5 million, following the successful expansion of the Prime member base, which resulted in higher EBITDA. In the 9 months of fiscal '24, we had a working capital inflow of EUR 5.6 million, again, driven by the growth of the business.The lower working capital inflow in the 9 months of fiscal '24 versus the same period of last year is driven by the higher increase in volumes between March '22 and December '22, as stated, with the catch-up effect for Omicron bookings. The volumes between March '23 and December '23 have been more stable. We have ample liquidity and headroom to deliver our plans, a consequence of our strong business model, cash generation, and active management. And from the end of December 2023, the liquidity position was strong at EUR 202 million. We have invested EUR 36 million in the 9 months of fiscal '24, an increase of EUR 9.1 million as we capitalize our software.Cash used in financing amounted to EUR 17.9 million compared to EUR 33.1 million in the first 9 months of fiscal '23. The difference of EUR 15.2 million relates to the absence in fiscal '24 of 2 elements in the first 9 months of '23; the net repayment of EUR 11 million to the revolving credit facility and the payment of the cost associated with the refinancing of EUR 4.9 million.If we look at full 12-month cycles, our free cash flow, excluding non-Prime working capital, more than doubled from EUR 20 million in fiscal '23 to EUR 41 million over the 12 months through December 2023.I will now turn the presentation back to Dana to do some closing remarks.

[Dana Dunne, executive]

Thank you, David. Let me leave you with final closing remarks before we move to the Q&A session.Please turn to Slide 13. More than 2 years on from November of '21 Capital Markets Day, the business has transformed, and we have made significant progress towards our goals. We've completed almost 2/3 of the journey towards our initial target date of March 2025. On the Prime membership side, we have achieved 67% of our FY '25 target with 5.4 million members. And on the cash EBITDA side, we've achieved 64%. We're absolutely on track to meet our guidance of FY '25 and have momentum. Beyond this, we're far stronger with a unique and highly valued customer proposition with a far more stable business that is now a subscription incentive transaction business.If you please turn to Slide 14. I'll conclude with our strong fundamental growth potential beyond FY '25. The longer-term potential beyond FY '25 remains huge. Prime is only currently available in 10 countries. Yet as a transaction model, we're in 44 countries. So over time we'll expand Prime to many more countries. Also within each country, where Prime is currently offered, we are nowhere near the normalized household penetration of Prime. This will provide further growth.Third, many subscription programs evolve into more segmented offers by customer and product segment, and these 2 provide significant growth opportunities for us. So overall, as you can see, eDO is now a much higher quality business with the pivot to our subscription model. This delivers loyal and repeating customers, resulting in a more and more profitable and critical to our business. We're delivering high underlying profitability and a huge growth potential.It's now undisputable that Prime is a success and has been firmly established. It has delivered significant uplifts in profit margins. That will continue because we have the right model, right people, right structure to seize, and deliver on the exciting value-creating opportunities ahead of us. All of this will drive superior returns for shareholders, excellent service for customers while at the same time transforming and revolutionizing the industry.

[David de la Roz, executive]

Thank you, Dana. With that, we would now like to take your questions. We will answer the questions sent to us in writing and webcast. We'll take questions on a first come first serve basis. We'll also try to group questions of similar nature. Should we not have time to respond to questions from webcast, the investor relations team will make sure those are answered after. So now let me go to our list of questions of today.The first question comes from Francisco Ruiz of BNP Paribas Exane.There are 2 questions. The first says, your fixed costs are close to the level of EUR 100 million you indicated in your 2025 plan. Can we see an increase in this level next year?Well, let me first talk about the driver of the fixed cost increase. This is driven by what we said was going to be an increase in our development capacity and the company, which was a clear target that we gave back in November of '21. We have been successful at attracting talent. And it is true that in the last quarter, we have in round numbers, about EUR 25 million of fixed costs. So yes, the EUR 100 million are likely to be slightly higher. But what is an absolute commitment of the management team is the cash EBITDA, which is one line below or EUR 180 million. So whatever fixed cost that we end up having in fiscal '25, which is likely to be slightly higher than the EUR 100 million will be compensated by additional cash management from profit levels.The second question from Francisco Ruiz is, although it is not an information you usually give. Could you tell us the reputation on Prime members has increased compared to previous quarters?And you're right, Francisco, this is not a metric that we disclose on an ongoing basis. What I can say is that there has not been anything noteworthy to mention in terms of material change in the level of repetition of bookings of our Prime members.The next question comes from [ Prateek Rastogi ] of [indiscernible].He says, congrats on the results. What will be the cadence for the buybacks? Would you purchase when you think stock is cheap or will it be timed with the issuance of LTIF rewards for employees?Thank you for your question, Prateek. It's actually none of those 2 drivers. The way that the regulation works in Spain, which is not too dissimilar from the U.S. is that there are regulations about how much of the volume you can do on any given day. And we are capped at 25% of the volume of that day. And also in terms of the price that you offer, it is set by the prices at that moment in the market. So we're not allowed to increase the price.And further, the type of agreement that we have with the broker is one that is the most common, that is used by companies in Europe, which is one in which the broker is totally independent. So we, as a company, we do not determine the speed or price at which the broker buys. The broker is independent, will continue to buy until the mandate is exhausted, either because it has purchased a full EUR 5.5 million or because it has exhausted the EUR 50 million of investment. That's the way it works.We as managers, do not determine the speed or how much you do in a given day or depending on how the share price is.The next question comes from [ Abraham Mevorah from MAP Capital ].Can you please explain the softness in total bookings? While in the very short-term, it's a number of Prime customers that will affect Prime revenue, the Prime customer don't book, they will ultimately cancel their Prime subscription. Bookings is as far an important lead indicator, and it's showing softness being down 2% year-on-year. Would you care to explain these dynamics?Well, we don't disclose the Prime bookings. So I don't know where you're getting the 2% that you are referring to. The bookings that we do disclose are the ones on the non-Prime side of the business. If I look at the total bookings without even the answer because that is something that we consider competitive, and that's why we don't disclose it. The number of bookings from Prime members in the third quarter of fiscal '24 are substantially higher than the Prime bookings done in the same quarter of the previous year, as you would expect.So as I said also, as partly as a response to the previous question, we see no material change in the way that the Prime members are, let's say, behaving on a regular basis in terms of the number of bookings per year that they do.The next question comes from the [indiscernible] from [ Kaiser Bank ].How have Prime members evolved over the first 2 months of 2024?That's not a number that we provide anymore. We actually provide something a lot better, which we have not done in a long time, which is to give a quarterly guidance for the Prime members that we expect to have in this last quarter of the fiscal year. And you have our guidance, therefore, a range between 5.75 million to 5.9 million Prime members as end number or for March '24.And we currently have no more questions coming from the audience. So again -- sorry, I'm being told that there are a few questions coming in. I just need to get them on the screen. So if you just give me 30 seconds.The question says, thanks for the presentation. Can you comment on any impact from Ryanair's more aggressive approach to OTAs in terms of your volumes and pricing? And are you having any discussions with them around agreeing to become an official partner like On the Beach or QE?

[Dana Dunne, executive]

Let me take that, David. So first of all, let me provide some context. We are one of the largest flight retailers in the world. We are a technology-based company, first and foremost. And the way in which we get content is through many different sources, in part that's a scale advantage that we have. When you look at some of the deals that you mentioned, like, for example, On the Beach or Love Holiday, those are U.K. primarily based businesses that focus almost exclusively on the U.K. and exclusively on the package part of the market. This is very, very small and very different than the business that we are actually in for it. And we get content through multiple sources in it.Now clearly, we evaluate like everything, all of our options for it. And that is one option, one way in which you mentioned, but we have many other options in other ways, given our scale and size.

[David de la Roz, executive]

Okay. Well, again, if you want to ask additional questions, you can always do it by reaching our investor relations team or -- in this e-mail address, which is [email protected]. I'm going to thank everyone for joining us in the webcast.And before we conclude the call, I would like to inform you that on Thursday, the 30th of May, we will be holding our webcast results presentations for the full fiscal year 2024. Have a very nice afternoon. Thank you very much.

[Dana Dunne, executive]

Thank you. Bye.