Accsys Technologies PLC

Welcome everyone to Axis Technologies PLC Interim Results Presentation for the six months ended September 30th, 2025. Today's speakers are Dr. Jelena Arcek Van Os, Chief Executive Officer of Axis Technologies and Samit Vora, the company's Chief Financial Officer. Jelena and Sam will take you through an overview of the business and financial performance for the year before we open the floor to questions. Please note that we will prioritize in questions from analysts. We will be showing some video during the presentation. You have the option to click on the enlarge button to make the video larger. With this, I would like to pass over to our speakers.

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to AXIS interim results presentation for the six months ended September 30th, 2025. I am very pleased to report that we have delivered an excellent first half with a significant improvement in profitability. Our growth across all regions is beating the underlying market trends, showing our focus strategy is effective and that the company is delivering on its promises. Akoya has seen strong growth across its sales regions with a 22% increase in total sales volumes, gaining market share from competitive and alternative materials. Our premium market positioning is proving resilient against continuing macroeconomic challenges. Group revenues increased by 23% on a like-for-like basis compared to the prior year. This comparison adjusts for the transfer of North American sales from the group to Akoya USA, our joint venture with Eastman Chemicals. after it commenced operations toward the end of 8.1 last year. Akoya USA has had an excellent 8.1 performance. It has shown rapid volume growth with North American sales up 61% and positive momentum throughout the period. This demonstrates the strength of our technology, the Akoya brand, and our customer relationships in the sizable North American market. Joint Venture reported close to breakeven EBITDA for 8-1. This translates to Axis Joint Venture Equity Accounted modest EBITDA loss of 0.3 million. This marks substantial progress compared to the equity accounted losses of 4.3 million last year, and we are all excited about what's to come. Axis maintained gross margin above our target of 30%, maintaining pricing discipline. We also continue to maintain cost discipline and have retained 2.3 million in benefits from the business transformation program that we began in FY24. We increased adjusted EBITDA for the half year by 160% to 10.4 million. This is just slightly lower than the 10.8 million we reported for the full financial year 2025. With our EBITDA margin at 11.6%, Axis is almost at the level of our phase one focus strategy target. Crucially, we have made solid progress on the leveraging the balance sheet, a key strategic priority. Net depth has decreased by 2.8 million since 31st March 2025, driven by improved operating cash flow and we have improved our leverage ratio from 2.5 times to 2.1 times at September 30th, 2025. During the period, we achieved operating cash flow of 8 million euros. In October 2025, outside of this reporting period, we successfully negotiated new improved terms for financing our debt with ABN AMRO and HSBC. This refinancing strengthens our capital structure and further de-risks our profile, positioning us to execute our strategy with greater confidence. Our good performance is a clear signal of our continuous progress. Access is delivering on its commitments and is laying a solid foundation for further growth. I want to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the entire team across Access and Nakoya USA as well as our customers and partners. Thank you for your dedication. Your efforts continue to drive our success and position us very well for the future. We are progressing our focus strategy, transforming Axis into a fundamentally strong, operationally efficient, customer-centric, united, safe, and sustainable business. Together, these efforts are creating a strong and lasting platform for growth. Compared to the first half last year, we have significantly de-risked the company, having no exposure to large unfinished CapEx projects, and significantly improved financial performance. The company now operates three production sites, Arnhem, Barrie, and the Akoya USA, and has secured future growth funding on improved terms with the extended maturity to October 2029. We are operationally more efficient, with like-for-like gross margin improvement of 1.1% compared to the prior period. Driven by efficiency measures, amongst them improved utilization of acetic anhydride in production. In addition, we have retained 2.3 million euros of benefits from the business transformation program. As a growth company, we nevertheless continue to invest in volume expansion. We are investing in a new acetyl storage in Arnhem and have more than doubled aqua color capacity in Bari from six to 14,000 cubic meters. Axis aligns all its initiatives, investments, and growth plans around maximizing customer value. With our fantastic products, we have customer centricity at our core and we continue expanding ACOIA availability, adding three new distribution partners in the period, and ACOIA projects continue winning awards, like a recent DNA Paris Design 2025 Award for Casa Angra Coastal Home in Brazil. ACOIA is gaining market share globally, despite relatively soft overall market sentiment in the building material industry. An organization is only as strong as its talent. We are strengthening our workforce across sites through ongoing investment in revenue-generating commercial headcount and in strengthening our site teams. Last, but certainly not least, in the first half, we invested in health and safety and environment, improving working conditions in our stocker hall in Arnhem. We also established our sustainability strategy, staying true to our purpose and values, and reaffirmed our commitment to building a better, more sustainable future. Access Care's sustainability plan introduced our first decarbonization commitments and targets, enhancing the already strong sustainability credentials of our products and our business. Before I hand over to Sam to discuss our financials, I wanted to share a short video of one of our project highlights from this period. Akkoja being used for the new roof and public space at the landmark Nimo Museum building in Amsterdam.

We're standing on the roof of the Nemo Science Museum, in the centre of Amsterdam. It's an incredibly special building, beautifully designed by Renzo Piano. It's on top of the egg tunnel, in the middle of the water. It was actually all concrete. To restore the leaking roof, everything had to be removed. And then we thought, if you do such a big operation, let's see how we can make it even better. We chose acoya because it is very sustainable. That is the advantage of this wood. In the place where normally only one hardwood tree grows, you can grow five of these trees. This makes it much better for the environment. We had the proof that it worked, because on the slope next to it it is in the water. If it can be in the water there, then we know for sure that it will also work on our roof. It works very well, so everything fits together very well. We also had a very good builder, I have to say. We were actually attended to by Renzo Piano himself. And he thought it was a very interesting product. People really like it. It's a roof that's going to get more and more beautiful. We had the municipality here at the opening. They think it's a very added value in Amsterdam. It is also accessible to the public. In the future, we hope to make the roof even more beautiful by using the benches in Akkoja. It's a pity that you have so many different types of wood on the roof, while it is much more beautiful to do it all uniformly.