Vantiva S.A.

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Welcome to Vantiva First Quarter 2025 Self-Conference Call, chaired by Tim O'Loughlin, CEO, and Lars Eilen, our CFO. At this time, all participants are in a listen mode only. Later, we will conduct a Q&A session. If you would like to register questions, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Just to remind you all, this conference is being recorded. We would like to inform you that this event is also available on our Ventibas website with synchronized slideshow. During this call, statements could be made that constitute forward-looking statements based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the future results expressed, forecasted, implied by such forward-looking statements. For a more complete list and description of such risks and assertities, refer to Von Siva's filing with the French Autorité des Marchés Financiers. I would like now to hand over the call to Tim. Please go ahead.

We're going to move to slide four. Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining our Q1 call. I'd like to start by thanking all of our customers and all of our employees for another positive call. quarter. We had a strong start to the year, a couple of key points to walk through. We saw demand pick up for the quarter. We have several operators who are restarting orders. We've been staying ahead of the curve and delivering double digit growth. We launched some new Wi-Fi 7 gateways with key customers and started deliveries to some other additional customers. The early success suggests that our strategy and plan are on the right track. We completed the sale of the supply chain solutions business and we're now completely focused on our core PPE business where we see some clear opportunity. There's been a lot of change happening in the world as all of you are familiar with. We still believe that our strategy of staying flexible will now allow us to efficiently serve our customers. We've continued our work on our cost structure to enable that flexible structure and our efficient service to customers. We've been watching the global trade and tariff regulations. The picture is still a bit uncertain. It reminds me all the time that flexibility matters. Like most of the consumer electronics, companies in the space. Vantiva has some exposure to Southeast Asian manufacturing and exposure to supply chains that could be impacted by tariffs. We're continuing to closely monitor that situation and we're working very closely, especially with our U.S. customers on all of the tariff topics. Finally, I'm pleased to be able to confirm that we are still on guidance for the year, assuming that there is no further market disruption from any of the global trade and tariff regulations. Overall, the company is extremely focused and we're in a good place to keep building on our Q1 momentum. Next slide, slide five. Let's look into the specifics of Q1 revenue. Revenue grew by 13.5% year over year, reaching 406 million euros. The broadband business led the way up 24% year over year, thanks to new Wi-Fi 7 deals that are ramping up in North America. And we saw some strong demand for our hybrid 3.0 products in our Asia Pacific region. The video segment experienced slight growth rising by 3.9% despite weaker demand in the Latin American region. We updated our diversification activities. We're now including our maintenance and support business and our commercial video services business, formerly known as MCS. We're grouping all of that into diversification. It was previously grouped with broadband and video. For clarity, we've adjusted the 24 numbers to reflect this change. The diversification segment saw revenue drop by 18.5%. This was mainly because large retailers cut back on their inventory levels due to softer market demand. With that said, several areas within that diversification segment continue to show potential and we're tracking them very closely. I'm also pleased to share that we received another gold medal for EcoVadis for our environmental performance. We've had strong marks in this area for several years now and Vantiva continues to be completely committed to corporate sustainability efforts. Next slide, please. Slide number six. As I mentioned earlier, we're on track to deliver over 150 million euros of adjusted EBITDA for the year and positive free cash flow. Again, this all assumes that there aren't significant market disruptions from global trade and tariff regulations. That wraps up our prepared material. Lars and I are happy to answer any Q&A.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad.

The first question is from Antoine Le Bourgeois of Brian Garnier.

Good evening. I have three questions. First, could you, I would say, clarify the key assumptions behind your 2025 guidance? Specifically, does it depend on a market recovery or specific seasonality patterns over the coming quarter? Secondly, just a bit more regarding the new tariffs announced after Liberation Day. Are you planning any pricing or supply chain adjustment investments at this stage or is it still too early? And lastly, following the divestiture of SCS, can you comment on your current cash and liquidity position And more broadly, if you can share your priorities for refinancing and delivery aging going forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Antoine. We'll take those questions in order. I'll cover number one and two. Lars can cover question number three. Question number one, our 2025 plan has always assumed Some market recovery, especially related to broadband in North America. Q1 is tracking to those assumed recoveries. The 2025 plan also assumed relatively anemic video business globally. I think Q1 is generally tracking to that video assumption. We're watching the diversification retail segment very closely right now. It has exposure mainly to the US market and we're watching the retailer's inventory position relative to that particular market. On tariffs specifically, the company does have manufacturing and supply chain exposure, as I mentioned, in Southeast Asia. Right now it's too early to know how the tariffs will impact the company. We saw the original Liberation Day tariffs. We then saw a 90-day pause on the accelerated tariffs. And then we saw an exemption put in place for some of the import categories that Vantiva uses while the U.S. government conducts some additional investigation. We just don't know yet where tariffs end up. We're continuing to work with our large contract manufacturing partners, looking at different options from a manufacturing location standpoint. And we're also working with the customers to make sure that we're optimizing our supply chain with respect to the tariffs and the changing regulatory environment there. We'll keep everyone updated throughout the year on the tariff situation. Lars, do you want to tackle the divestiture topic?

Yeah. So thanks a lot, Antoine, for this question. So, yes, we disposed of the SES activity at the end of March. This will not give an immediate change in our liquidity situation. This division was burning cash over time, so we will expect to see the liquidity increase over the years as we no longer have to focus on funding this. But immediately, there is no massive change to our liquidity. In terms of the refinancing plans, so as we mentioned before, we want to make sure that we show the market that we are on track to reach our aggressive targets for 2021. 2025 and into 2026. So we are starting to prepare the groundworks for this refinancing, but we believe this will be much easier towards the second half of the year when we can show the market or H1 performance and our continued progress towards the guidance.

Thank you for your answers. Very good.

The next question is from David Serdan of Kepler.

Yeah, good evening, gentlemen. I have only one question, but it's a large question. It's just to understand the mood of your client. I would like just to have your feedback from your discussion with your client. as there are plenty of certainties related to the tariff, etc., do you see your client to be in a wait-and-see position, and do you think that Q2 could be impacted by that?

Yeah, David, this is Tim. I can take that question. Obviously, we've had discussions with all the clients. I'd say, as you can imagine, the clients in Europe and Asia are monitoring the situation, thinking about any second order impact that you have as the supply chain shift related to the global trade and tariff policies. We have not seen any quantifiable second order shifts from the tariff and trade. And then of course, the US service providers specifically, they have not shifted as you saw in many of the earnings that have happened recently, that they have not shifted their strategy. They're all pushing forward within the US market and we're continuing to move right along with them with respect to broadband and video business. So this is why we're holding guidance right now and everyone is really monitoring the tariff situation waiting to see where all of the tariff levels end up at with respect to importation of goods into the U.S.

Maybe you could give an example. So imagine that there is now a product from Asia going to the U.S. So there is a tax on this product or not today?

Yeah, so it's a complicated question today, and I think there's a lot of uncertainty in the market. The reality of the situation is today set-tops are being treated differently than broadband devices. They come in under different importation codes. There could potentially in the future be a tariff tax, and Vantiva – We'll work with our customers to understand what we do with respect to that tariff tax if one eventually materializes in the future. The timing of the tariff is critically important to customers and to Vantiva. And then we also look at just the global manufacturing footprint. We partner with two of the world's largest contract manufacturers, three of the world's largest contract manufacturers. And we do have some flexibility around how we can shift capacity between different regions. So we're continuing to monitor that situation also. So it's really a wait and see approach right now from the customers and from Vantiva and to understand where the administration lands specifically on the first order impact of importation tariffs to the United States.

My question is maybe very simple, but I would like just to check with you. So imagine there is a product from Asia. Who will pay for the tariff? Is it you as an importer or your client?

I think it depends on the arrangement with the customer. And we can't get into specifics on the call about any of the arrangements with the customers. The reality is that we are often the importers of record. And if there was a tariff, we would pay physically, make the transaction to pay the government the tariff. But how the economics behind the pricing of the products and the tariffs all work, will have to be worked out with the specific customers.

And is there any clause in your contract to protect from this impossible to predict tariff or not?

Yeah, we don't comment on any of the specifics in the customer contracts. So I can't get into that specifically on the call here. But needless to say, we're continuing to monitor the situation, and there are some slight differences from customer to customer. But right now, based on what we're seeing in the marketplace, we're holding the guidance for the year.

Okay.

Thank you.

I think that it's very difficult to manage this kind of situation for any group, and it should not be easy for you.

It can be a challenge. Look, the company has a long history, and so do the customers, of working through the supply chain crisis and the COVID crisis. And we had tariffs before, and we've had hard drives in Thailand in the past, and memory and MLCC challenges in the marketplace. There's a long history of partnerships. between the customers and Vantiva, and we'll continue to work with them as the regulatory environment shifts.

I have a last question, for sure. Do you give a name of your subcontractor?

I don't think we have specifically shared in the past who those three are. major contract manufacturers are, I can tell you that they are three of the absolute largest contract manufacturers globally.

David, I think that you can find them by yourself, but it's not our role to comment on that.

Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, David.

As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press

Star and one on your telephone. Gentlemen, there are no more questions.

No. OK. So there is no more questions. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes this conference call and webcast. Thank you for your participation tonight. And if you have any further questions, feel free to contact me whenever you want.