Belysse Group N.V.

will be in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be a questions and answers session for analysts covering the Belize share. Today we have with us James Neuling, Chief Executive Officer, Andy Rogist, Chief Financial Officer, and Ruben Pateus, Group Director of Sustainability and Strategic Projects. Gentlemen, the floor is yours.

Hello and good morning and thank you to you, Lynn. This is James Newling, CEO. Welcome to the Belize Group's first half results call. If you have not already done so, you can download the press release from this presentation in the investor relations section on Belize.com. I need to start with bringing your attention to the disclaimer on slide two. I will not read it out, but please do make sure you have read it. I will first talk about the financial summary on our first half of 2025. And then Andy, our CFO, will take us through the financial review. And then finally, Ruben Pateas, the Director of Sustainability and Strategic Projects, will give a short update on our Beyond program. And then I will make a conclusion. We will end this call with a Q&A session with the analysts following our stock. Could we now look at slide four for the first half 2025 financial summary? From a financial viewpoint, we saw first half consolidated revenue at a total of 134.6 million euro, which represents a decrease of 7% year on year. Revenue of our US businesses were stable, of our US business was stable, while our European business faced a decline of close to 15% at 14.7%. In terms of profitability, the first half result adjusted EBITDA was 17.3, which represents a decrease of 19.6% year on year. Our net debt at the end of the period was 126.8, including 21.8 million of impact from the IFRS 16 lease liabilities, which results in a leverage of 3.5, a multiple of 3.5. Andy will go more in depth in the financials, so across to you.

Thank you, James. Good day, good morning to everybody who has dialed in and is also following our presentation. So first, let's have a short update on the Q2, so the second quarter performance, especially on the group revenue. So we saw that the consolidated revenue for the second quarter was slightly above 67 million euros, representing a decrease of 9.5% year over year. Important to mention as well is that we had a minus 2.5% unfavorable FX impact. In the US, the revenue decreased by 4.4% to 40.9 million euro compared to last year. The 1.9 million euro decrease is fully driven by the unfavorable evolution of the US dollar. In Europe, revenues decreased by 16.3% compared to last year to a level of 26.6 million euros. This is mainly due to lower volumes, especially or primarily in the residential business line. We will now move to the first semester, so the first half year of 2025. talking a bit more about the group revenue and the divisional revenues. So in the first six months of 2025, we saw consolidated revenue close to 135 million euros, 134.6 to be exact. This represents a 7% year-over-year decline, of which the unfavorable US dollar effect is about 0.5%. In the US, our overall volume decreased and revenue were stable in the first half year when compared to the first half year of 2024. This outcome was supported by solid performance in the corporate education and healthcare segments. In Europe, revenues decreased by close to 15% compared to last year to 58.7 million euros. The H1 volumes were in line with The second half of 24, but clearly below the first half of 24. And this is mainly due to the continued market softness we see in the residential business, as well as a strategic phase out of low profitability offerings in the residential markets. In the project-driven commercial business, volumes in the first six months were also below the first six months of 24, but all by it to a lesser extent. Now moving on to the adjusted EBITDA and the group adjusted EBITDA for the first six months. So the Belize Group consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the first half of 25 was 17.3 million euros, representing a decline of 19.6% year-over-year, and the adjusted EBITDA margin came to a level of 12.8%. This was 14.8% in the first half of 2024. The consolidated group adjusted EBITDA for the first half year was impacted by the lower volumes in Europe, as well as a weaker US dollar, while profitability further increased in the US. Our US business realized an adjusted EBITDA of 15.6 million euros in the first half of 25. This is 8.2% higher than the first six months of 2024. The adjusted EBITDA and the adjusted EBITDA margin improved in the first year half compared to the first year half of last year as a result of the higher realized product unitary margins. In Europe, the adjusted MDA and adjusted MDA margin for the six months of 25 reflects the negative volume effect we are experiencing on sales and unitary product costs and that were partially offset by reduction in the fixed costs. I will now do a deep dive into the cash flow, starting from the cash position at the end of 2024, so at the 31st of December. So we ended with a cash position, a reported cash position of 36.4 million euros at the end of June, which is 1.9 million, which is almost fully related to unfavorable exchange rates, so the fluctuations of our cash balances, which explains 1.9 million unfavorable, excluding for this effect, the cash flow was 0.3 million negative. And we see on the slide that the generated adjusted EBITDA and the reduced trade working capital, it got consumed by debt repayments, interest payments, but also changes in all the working capital and our capital expenditures. Which brings us to the slide on our leverage. So the net debt at the end, of the period was 105 million euros if we don't take in consideration the 21.8 million euros of the IFRS 16 lease liabilities, which with an adjusted cash EBITDA of 30 million euros brings us to a leverage that is 3.5 times. This is an increase compared to the 3.1 times we reported at the end of 2024. Our total available liquidity, which includes also the headroom under our RCF, amounted 48.7 million euros at the end of June in 25. We were at 52.7 at the end of 2024. Needless to say that both debt and cash movements were strongly influenced by offsetting US dollar translation effects. I will now hand over the floor to Ruben Pateus, our Group Director of Sustainability and Strategic Projects, for an update on the BEYOND programme.

Thank you, Andy. We can move to slide 12 for the results of our LEAN programme. If we look at our LEAN programme, it has delivered €0.8 million savings in the first half of 2025 versus last year. If we measure from the starting point of the BEYOND program in January 2022, the program has delivered €8.4 million of savings against a target of €7.3 million. This means that with six months to go, we have already exceeded the four-year cumulative savings target of the program. If you look at the initiatives that drove the savings this year so far, we had more than 40 initiatives running, contributing to these results, with the key focus being on quality, material, energy, and labor efficiency. And with this, I would like to give the floor back to James for closing comments.

Thank you, Ruben. Please turn to slide 13 for the conclusion of this presentation. First half consolidated revenue was 134.6 million and adjusted EBITDA was 17.3, resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 12.8%. In the US, adjusted EBITDA and associated adjusted EBITDA margin improved with overall volume and revenues remaining stable. In Europe, the reported adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin reflect mainly the negative volume effect on revenues and unitary product costs of the continued market softness in the residential business. Our leverage increased to 3.5 and our total available liquidity was 48.7 million as of the 30th of June, 2025. I will hand back to Lynn for the Q&A.

Thank you. So we will now begin our question and answer session for analysts covering the Belize Share. If you have a question, please raise your hand by pushing the button on your screen. If you are dialing in via your phone, please press star nine to raise your hands. Once your name has been announced, you can ask your question. We have a question from Wim Hoste. Yes, you can ask your questions.

Yes, thank you. Good morning, Wim Host, KBC Securities. Do you hear me well? No, thank you. Okay, thank you. I have a couple of questions. Maybe first on Europe. Can you quantify the impact of the phase out of the lower value added product lines on revenue in the first half and also maybe elaborate on whether that effect will continue to be a bit of a drag in the second half of the year? So that's the first question. Maybe I'll let you answer that one first.

One moment. Wim, James Newling speaking. It's not something I can precisely quantify. We have in previous calls with me as CEO and also previously when Cyril Regassi was in this chair, We have talked about our intention to phase out low margin activities. And this is, you'd say we're near the end of that. I hope that answers your question. So there was quite an amount of it during 2022 and 23 and to a lesser extent in 24 and 25. So I think now we're more in the stage of a normal ongoing business tuning in and when they become profitable or not, as compared with two years ago when it was really a massive structural change in what we were doing as we separated from what was the old bolter now owned by the Victoria Group. I know it doesn't precisely answer your question, but probably we could add into that just saying, look, it's not something that should be significantly affecting us going forward. There might be some lingering carryover effects into the second half, but it's not going to be a major topic. And I do not expect at this stage that would be a major topic next year.

Okay, understood. Then maybe what is then the current breakdown of the business in Europe? And I mean, the split between residential and commercial. Obviously, I think most of the pain was in in residential. So I'm wondering what is the current split of, of the business. And then also, yeah, but following up on, on Europe, um, uh, you had double digits EBITDA margins, uh, in the past, I think in 2021, it was even 12%, even as, as recent as, uh, last year's first half, it was a, Yeah, 10% or around 10% EBITDA margin. What is the margin potential you're seeing for the European business? And also, yeah, to what would you need to get to much better margins that just volume effect or are there other measures or initiatives that are needed to go back to decent profitability in Europe?

You've got multiple questions within the one question there.

Yeah, I know. Sorry.

Yeah, it's okay. It's hard for me to give a... As you know, we don't give a target price on our stock and we therefore don't give a target margin or target EBITDA as such a guidance. So it's difficult therefore for me to say what should our target percentage be within a certain period of time. The double digit margin that we saw in first half last year, the primary driver behind that was we saw in quarter one last year an uplift in volumes that didn't really repeat itself. And that was across the flooring segment. And you can see when you look at the, results of other flooring companies you also see this unusual particularly quarter one to a lesser extent first half last year effect so something happened in the market there that lifted the volumes but more importantly what that shows is when the volume comes the margins move up very quickly and our view is we're in a continued kind of downward well we think the cycle is is down. We know it's a lengthy down cycle. Our strong belief, this is not a structural situation in the market. So the volumes will come back, but I'm not willing to make a prediction exactly when the volumes will come back. And we all know the important factors that are happening in the market with interest rates discussions, which go on with the Fed and the US, which obviously influences Europe. The The raise in 30-year rates that we see on mortgages at the moment, all those things have an effect. So the overall market situation in our view is flat, but I'm not willing to give a prediction when it comes back. But the first half results of last year definitely show a little lift in volume shows a quick improvement in EBITDA margins.

Okay, understood. Those were my questions. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions? Any other questions? I think we have no further questions.

Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you everyone for... attending our call and listening to our results. As I mentioned at the beginning of the call, our results are published on our website at belise.com under the investor relations section. So thank you all for attending and I wish you all a good Friday and weekend. Bye.