Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings plc

Good morning and thank you for joining us for this call on our Q3 2023 results. I'm joined today by Amadeo and Doug. I hope you have had a chance to read the release and review the presentation of the results that are on the IR section of our corporate website. I'd like to say a few words on our continued progress before Doug takes you through some of the financial highlights prior to Q&A. As I've said before, ensuring the fundamentals of this business has been a clear focus of mine since I became executive chairman. We have had to rebuild the foundation, inject new talent across the organization, and critically, develop new models that match our vision to become the world's most profitable, desirable, ultra-luxury, high-performance brand. In this, our 110th year anniversary, we are delighted with the strategic progress we continue to make. Commencing deliveries of our next generation of sports cars is a major milestone, marking the beginning of a completely new lineup of front-engine sports cars that will reposition Aston Martin as an ultra-luxury, high-performance brand, enhance our growth, and bring higher levels of profitability. The launch of the DB12, which has been externally reviewed as potentially the best Aston Martin ever, has seen extraordinary demand. It is driving a reappraisal of Aston Martin amongst new audience, with 55% of initial DB12 customers new to the brand. And I have no doubt that when we launch our second generation new sports cars in Q1 next year, we will see a similar resounding response. We look to the future with enormous excitement, and in addition to our ongoing strategic process, we have also made significant financial progress during the first nine months of 2023. Our volumes, pricing, gross margin, and EBITDA are all showing strong improvement, which Doug will highlight shortly. Over the coming quarters, we will showcase our breathtaking lineup of new products, and we remain on track to substantially achieve our 24-25 financial targets in 24. Now, over to Doug.

Thank you, Lawrence. Good morning, everyone. As mentioned, year-to-date we've seen an improvement in our volumes, pricing, gross margins, and EBITDA as we continue to execute on our plans. We're pleased to say that our Q3 financial performance is in line with the guidance we gave at our first half 2023 results call back in July. As we look to the remainder of the year, and as mentioned in previous quarters, the profile of 2023 was to be shaped by the timing of product launches in both core and specials. With that in mind, we continue to expect a significant acceleration in our financial performance in Q4. Coming back to year-to-date 23 in some more detail, we've seen continued strong demand across existing and new product lines, with the DB12 order book now extending into Q2 24 and DBX orders also running into next year. Wholesales increased by 8% year-on-year to 4,398, primarily driven by a 23% increase in DBX volumes, which more than offset lower sports car sales given the ongoing transition within that portfolio. During Q3, we commenced deliveries of the DB12. The issues that affected the initial production ramp are now resolved, but did impact overall volume in the quarter, as well as having a knock-on effect on our full-year volume outlets. Year-to-date revenue increased by 21% year-on-year, benefiting from higher volumes of both core and specials, strong underlying pricing dynamics in the core portfolio, and favourable product mix. This was reflected in our total ASP of £219,000, up 12% year-on-year, and our core ASP up 6% over the same period. Year-to-date gross margin expanded to 36%, increasing 300 basis points year-on-year. and was over 37% to Q3, as we continue to make progress towards our 40% plus gross margin target. Adjusted EBITDA of £131 million increased by 64% year on year, primarily driven by the higher gross profit, partially offset by higher operating expenses, including reinvestments into brand and marketing activities, as well as some inflationary impacts on our general cost base. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 13% was up over 300 basis points year on year, The adjusted operating loss of £135 million reflects depreciation and amortisation increasing year-on-year as we've guided. Free cash outflow of £297 million as an improvement of £39 million year-on-year included increased capital investment year-on-year to £276 million, again in line with our full-year 2023 guidance. Working capital was an outflow driven by increased inventory to support the launch of next-generation sports car models which we expect to partially unwind in Q4. Total liquidity at the end of September stood at over £600 million, including £216 million of gross proceeds received from August's share offering. Our net debt was around £750 million at the end of Q3, broadly stable from the beginning of the year. We remain focused on reducing our leverage and retiring debt and will continue to do so in consideration of a wide range of factors, In line with the announcement in July, our objective is to repay the second lien in full. In November, we will be redeeming 50% of the outstanding second lien notes, and beyond that, we intend to undertake a full summary financing exercise during the first half of 2024. In terms of outlook for this year, our guidance, other than volumes, remains unchanged. Specifically, within the fourth quarter of 2023, we continue to expect to see a significant increase in adjusted EBITDA, primarily driven by the timing and related contribution of the new product launches, all with improved profitability. We have marginally updated our full-year volume outlook to circa 6,700 units as the impact of the initial DB12 production delay limits production capacity for the full year. Demand is very strong. This is a timing issue only, and production is now running at the rates required to meet our volume expectations for the year. So in closing, we are well positioned to deliver a strong Q4 performance as we continue to transition our portfolio with the delivery of the DB12 and our new specials. This should provide us with strong momentum heading into 2024, and we remain focused on delivering against our median term plan. With that, we'll be happy to take your questions.

Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your telephone keypad and wait for a name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please stand by, we will compile the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments. And now we're going to take our first question, and it comes from the land of Akshat Kaker from J.P. Morgan. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Thank you. Good morning. Three questions from me, please. The first one on the DB12. Could you just give us some confidence that you are overall happy with the demand and lead time on the order bank that you currently have for the DB12, please? And also, should we be expecting a 40% plus contribution margin from the car in line with your general business strategy? The second question is on the DBX. As you have now updated the infotainment and the HMI interface for the GT sports cars, I think a lot of customers might be waiting for an update on the SUV as well. Is that in the works? And when should we expect a refresh on the DBX? And the last one is on the specials. You're going to launch a few specials in the coming quarters. Can you just give us your broad expectations for deliveries going into Q4? And if you have something in mind for 2024 as well, please. Thank you.

As far as DB12 is concerned, as you might have read some of the articles, critically acclaimed, probably the best Aston Martin ever made. We are very, very pleased with our order book to date. We are slightly disappointed that the demonstrators are literally, as we speak, just arriving in the dealer showrooms So to get that quantity of orders without any customers seeing or touching the vehicle is nothing short of spectacular. We are confident that by the end of the year, end of this year, we will be sold out of all of next year's production. As I said, the demonstrators are literally hitting the dealer showrooms as we speak. As far as your second question on DBX, yes, we are very confident, 100% certain, of our contribution margin. DBX, the new infotainment and new interiors will continue along the line of DB12 and will be in the marketplace in the near future. And yes, we anticipate on a regular annual basis continuing with our rollout of specials.

Thank you so much.

Just a clarification on the specials. What should we be factoring in for Q4 in terms of specials delivery, please?

Look, I think we're not going to get into the details of the numbers, but you can see that the profile of the delivery of the Valkyrie is running smoothly during the course of this year. We've started deliveries of the Spider, and you can start to see that the margin is picking up in that regard. And then as we've previously announced, we'll deliver... DVR 22, majority of those through Q4, and also commence initial deliveries of the VALOR. VALOR will continue into 2024.

Great. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. And the next question comes from the line of George Colliers from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Yeah, good morning and thank you for taking my questions. The first one, I think Doug already confirmed this in his pre-comments, but just with respect to the updated volume guidance, can you confirm that 100% of this is related to the DB12 production delays and not softer volumes on other parts of the portfolio? The second question I had was just with respect to the free cash flow guide, you didn't reiterate the positive second half free cash flow excluding the technology fees. Was this deliberate? And if yes, it does seem to imply a small downgrade to the free cash flow. If that's the case, can you just confirm that the driver of the slightly lighter free cash flow for this year is the slower ramp of the DB12? And then finally, obviously very strong gross margins during the quarter. Can you just give us some insight into what drove that, particularly in light of the step down in the core ASP? Can it be attributed 100% to the specials, or did you also see gross margin improvements on your core vehicles sequentially? Thank you.

It feels like most of those are for me. So morning, George. Yeah, so with regards to DB12 and the volume outlook for the year, yeah, I mean, look, 100% is a big number, but that's exactly what the update relates to. The delays that we've experienced with the DB12 corresponds exactly to the shortfall or the updated guidance on the volume. I would reiterate again, though, as Lawrence said, demand is strong. We expect it to get stronger. It's a timing issue related to production. and not a demand issue. With regards to free cash flow, yeah, so we expect positive free cash flow for Q4. And again, as you sort of rightly pointed out, the impact, the slight impact that we're expecting, look, I haven't given up hope on doing better on free cash flow, but the impact really is related to that slight volume adjustment and also, you know, the working capital dynamics that come along with that. So we had, you know, increase in inventory in Q3. I expect that to partially unwind in Q4. But don't forget, we're also going to be preparing for the launch of the second next generation sports car. And also the timing of some of the sales being phased into Q4 might impact receivables. So the impact is exactly, as you say, linked to the volumes. And then on the gross margin, yeah, Q3 gross margin, we're very happy with above 37%. We see that continuing to to improve. Obviously, we're targeting that 40% plus on every product we sell. And as Laura's just confirmed, that's exactly what we're seeing and expecting to continue on the DB12. So a rich mix from specials in Q3, supported by the initial DB12 deliveries. And in Q4, we expect to see that sort of strong mix continue the same as we move into 2024. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. And the next question comes from the line of Michael Tindall from HSBC. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Excuse me, Michael. Your line is open. Now we're going to proceed to the next question.

The question from the line of Helen Cosman from Barclays. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Yeah, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Thanks, Lawrence, for confirming the DB12 order situation around the demonstrators. Perhaps I can ask also about the DBX, if you could perhaps be a little bit more specific how far the orders currently reach into 2024. And if you could remind us what your ideal order book length look like for the sports cars and also for the DBX. So what I mean is, would you typically hope to sell out for the following year pretty soon after the launch of these new sports car vehicles? And what's the situation for the DBX? That's the first question. Second question, if you could please. discuss these execution issues with your supplier that have led to the unit guidance reduction on the DB12 specifically now. But perhaps more importantly, how we should think about the risk of similar issues as you ramp up many new vehicles over the next 12 months now, not least in Q4, where execution will have to be pretty seamless. And then the third question is, you know, I'm hoping perhaps for a bit of color in the context of consensus. So despite these lower 23 units that you're guiding now, could you discuss how you feel about the full year 23 consensus revenue and EBITDA now in the context of these very strong ASPs that you have? I assume that you're hoping to achieve broadly the current consensus level, but maybe we can talk about if that could be slightly at the expense of having to sell more specials in Q4 and even Q3 that you were originally hoping and pulling some forward from 2024. Thank you very much.

Your first question on the DBX, we're very satisfied with our order book. As I said, as we are extremely satisfied with DB12. And as you made note, the demonstrators for DB12 are just arriving at our dealers, so extremely confident, or actually certain, that by the end of the year we'll have our order book sold for all of next year. As far as DBX is concerned, as I said, we are very satisfied with our order book. In the near future, we'll be coming, following up on the DB12 interiors with an updated version of interior in our DBX, so we're looking forward to launching that in the very near future. As far as I think your second question was about the supplier issues, which I'll pass over to Amadeo to answer. Okay.

Let me say that in the last year, we have vastly improved our relation with the supplier, and for sure now the supply chain resilience is by far better than it was last year. About the DB12, the startup of the production was mainly related to challenges that we have on the software integration side. electronic platform with the new infotainment that is brand new and spoken by Aston Martin. So we had some issues on software, but I think everything now is fixed. And then we have also the opportunity, having the software, we have the possibility to make the improvement over the air. Everything will be an improvement if you load it by the air.

And by the way, it's the same software But we have the bit of startup problems with that is recurrently going to be the same software used in all of our new front engine sports cars So you get through the first hurdle with the same for the second car the same for the third car is that?

And then on the third question Henning yes, so look with we've always regarded to the last part of the aq4 being Being a very rich mix so as I just said you know we're expecting a The continuation of the VALPRI program deliveries in Q4, the initial deliveries of the VALOR and deliveries of the DVR22, that's always been the plan, and there's no significant deviation from that plan at all in light of the marginal update to the DV12 volumes. I think as it relates to consensus, we haven't updated our financial guidance per se, so we're pretty comfortable with where consensus has got to based on our guidance through BDAR margin and so on. And I would say, you know, as we run into 2024, our plans are still very much as they were. And we've talked this year about our intention to substantially deliver on our, you know, prior midterm guidance, which is the $2 billion of revenue and the $500 million of EBITDA. And that plan remains what we're aiming to deliver for next year. So, no, this slight interruption that we've experienced on the DB12 doesn't materially impact anything as related to sort of profile of delivery in Q4 or what we're expecting to do in 2024.

Okay, thank you. And if I could just follow up very briefly on Amadeo's point around the innovations that have led to the supply issue. So there are no such innovations in the specials that you're looking to launch in the fourth quarter where there's a potential risk of similar execution issues at that.

If you want to compare the special with the DB12, I think DB12 by far is the best product we are having on the product line. So everything of the innovation coming from the sports car line.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. And the next question comes through the line of Christoph Laskawi from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions as well. I'd like to start with a question on demand in Asia and North America. Wholesale deliveries, obviously, in Q3 have been down year over year. Could you comment on what kind of momentum you're seeing at the dealers? And if you... I expect that to improve in the coming quarters. And then linked from that to pricing as well, obviously geomix slightly negative in Q3, but you also stated that you have pricing at least giving a bit of price in the ramp downs of the models. Could you comment on what we should expect for that in Q4 and early 24 when new models are launched as well? Thank you.

As far as the wholesale deliveries are concerned, the simple reason they're slightly down is we're transitioning from the old product to the new product. So we're not going to keep putting more old front-engine product into the market. So that's a transition and timing event.

And I'll ask Doug to answer on the second question. Yeah, look, on pricing, I think if you're talking about Q3 versus Q3 last year, a little bit of geomix in the lower volume insert. into China that impacted, but also there was a bit of FX at play in there. I think absolutely FX would have been up on the core ASP quarter on quarter as well. The way I would encourage you to think about ASP as we move forward is that it will evolve positively. So we're expecting further ASP momentum in Q4 and as we run into next year. And not to want to sound like a broken record, but that will really support the gross margin deliveries we've seen really nice gross margin momentum as we've come through this year, and I expect that to continue running into Q4 and into 2024, and to a larger extent driven by the ASP dynamics that we expect to evolve.

Thank you. A follow-up, if I may, on the regional comments as well. So the weakness in China, or relative weakness in China and the US, is not linked to the DBX, which is also down year over year, but it's really also linked to the delays that you have in the DB12 and not being able to put out the volumes that you hoped. Just to clarify, thank you.

The DBX is up year over year, so year to date we're 23% up on the DBX. We're working closely with the teams in China. We wouldn't be the only company to say there's a little bit of volatility there, but as Lauren said, China hasn't received any DB12s. We're on the wind-down of the sports cars. So it's just managing our way through that transitionary process. And then I think you'd also mentioned North America. In North America specifically, we haven't seen any significant change in demand dynamics from consumers. When we look at the initial order bank of the DB12s, the ratio of orders that's coming from the US is exactly where we'd expect it to be and in line with our normal dynamics. So no significant change. Obviously, we're mindful of everything that's going on. We'll continue to monitor. We work very closely with the regions to monitor performance, and we'll continue to do so. But as things stand today, certainly from that regard, no material issues.

Thank you. The DBX was related to Q3 only. I saw that you are up here today. But very clear comments. Thank you.

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. And the next question comes from the line of Anthony Dick from Ordered BHF. Your line is open. Please ask a question.

Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. A first one on the timing of the order book opening and the production ramp-up on the DB12 Volante and the other sports cars, if you can. And also, how do you expect, what are your expectations for DB12 Volante orders by the end of the year? and mix into 2024. And then a second question on the retail versus wholesale. What should we expect for the end of the year, considering you're probably building up a bit of inventory on the DB12? And then the last one, I was wondering if you could just disclose the number of Valkyrie spiders that were delivered in Q3.

Thank you. Your first question The Volante is 30% of the portfolio. We just recently launched the car a couple months ago, and the demonstrators for the Volante have not yet arrived at the dealerships, whereas the coupes are literally, as I mentioned earlier on the call, just arriving as we literally speak. Your second question?

I think it was retails versus wholesales. So, yeah, for the full year, we expect retails to be about wholesales, and that hasn't changed, and Yeah, there might be a bit of inventory built still in DB12, but I'm still expecting retails across the portfolio to our trip wholesale. And then the final question, I think, was related to the Valkyrie Spider. So I'm going to give the specific number exactly, but it was the minority of the deliveries were certainly from the Spider. But it's great to have that program now started in delivery. And you can hopefully start to see, along with other mix in Valkyrie deliveries, the margin improvement that that starts to bring and supports our evolution on the journey to 40% plus across the board.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. And the next question comes through the line of Yi-Beng Hu from Bernstein Research. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I've got two questions here. Two slightly longer term, I guess, and strategic questions. The first question would be on your order book. So what's the proportion of new customers in the existing order book? I understand that you provided some color on DB12 order books on that number. But how do you expect that to change with new product launches? And my second question, it's slightly related, would be, what does the product journey for new and existing customers look like for Aston Martin? So how does the company intend to keep existing customers within the brand? I believe one of your key competitors has a really strong product ladder for customers to climb. How does Aston envisage that product ladder for its customers?

As far as DB12 is concerned, To answer your question, it's 55% currently new customers to the brand, a lot of which have come through experiencing driving and owning a DBX. So a good portion of those 55% have bought a DBX and are now, because of the acquisition of the DBX, buying a DB12. We're also seeing customers come from other brands, other sports car brands, particularly with our higher performance than we have historically seen. have delivered. It's a very different product sitting on the tails of our Formula One team and the performance, the balance of performance coming out of the cars and the exciting platform of Formula One. So long-winded answer, 55% of the customers are new for the two reasons I just mentioned.

On my second question, so the...

Well, could you repeat the second question? I'm sorry.

Yeah, so the second question was about your product portfolio and sort of keeping customers within the brand, right? So is there a clear product ladder? So you mentioned from DBX to DB12. Should we expect that sort of product ladder to be established, well-established within the next three years and for customers to be able to stay within the Aston Martin brand?

Of course, yes. It's a DNA of our business. As we said, we are going to be replacing, we've already replaced DB11 with DB12. Our other two front-engine sports cars get replaced both in 2024, one at the beginning of the year, one closer to the middle, latter part of the year. So you will have all new front-engine sports cars in 2024, both Coupe and Volante. And then, of course, we have our DBX, which, as we said, will come with an updated, eventually, new interior, a la the DB12. And then, of course, we will continue rolling out, on an annual basis, our specials. We also have our mid-engine Valhalla, which we will start to deliver at the end of next year, and then very strong into 2025. So you'll have, ultimately, a full portfolio of front-engine sports cars, SUVs, Min engines, sports cars, and specials. Quite an extensive portfolio.

Yep. Thanks for answering the question.

Thank you. You're welcome. There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to hand the conference over to Lawrence Stroll for any closing remarks.

Just, you know, as I mentioned on the last call, It's been a very exciting journey the last, it's now three and a half years. All the fundamentals of the business are now strong, deep-rooted. We have a fantastic launch of our DB12. We look forward in the next coming months to our second launch of our new generation sports car, and a few months after that, our third new generation sports car. All this on the heels of a very exciting Formula One marketing platform that is extensively opening up to a group of new customers that have never shopped a brand before. You could call them petrolheads if you like. And it goes very much in line with our new products and our new higher performance handling, et cetera. So look forward to a very exciting year. We will be ahead of what I predicted three years ago. We said we will hit our financial numbers in 24 for what we projected in 25. And other than a slight delay in ramp-up in DB12, which is now very much behind us, and this will not affect our other new sports car launches because it is the exact same electronic or atomic architecture going in the other new sports cars. So on that, stay tuned and look forward to speaking to you on the next call.