Secoo Holding Limited

us today to our Q1 2024 results and business update presentation. Our speakers will be Massimo Mauri, our CEO, and Lorenzo Mazzini, our CFO. But we are pleased to also introduce Clarence Naan as our new Head of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Allow me to express my gratitude for the past years serving as Interim HR It has been a pleasure collaborating with all of you and I'm excited to continue working alongside Max and now also Clarence to further develop our equity store. And we remain, of course, part of the team. So please feel free to reach out to me for any of your needs. Clarence, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much, Lorenzo, for the introduction. So indeed this week I've joined SECO as head of corporate development and head of IR. We view this as a very synergetic role within the company. Before that I spent 15 years on the sell side and actually I know many of you and had often the opportunity to work with SECO over the recent years. So it's a company I know very well. I'll take the time to reach out to all of you individually in the coming weeks. But today it's all about SECO and it's my pleasure to hand over to our CEO, Max Mari, who will update us on the Q1 performance.

Thank you Clarence, good afternoon and thank you all for joining. So, as expected, the first quarter recorded a slight decrease in in the top line. But what is important in my view is the positive evolution on the revenue mix and margin. This is a further demonstration of our winning strategy to evolve towards a balanced business model across hardware and software, thanks to the growth potential of CLIA. It's strange, but I'm not able to, okay, now we are perfect. I think the unique positioning allow us to weather the current environment in our segment better than the most of our main competitor. And this is true across all the metrics. To illustrate my point, while we manage to limit our revenue decline to 14% on quarter-on-quarter, players like Advantech and Adelink suffered more than us, with a drop in between 20 and 30% of the revenue. If we focus on our margin for a moment. Thank you to our software business growing by 14% at the 7.3 million. We gained 845 basis point and reaching 56% in the gross profit margin. This is very important for tourism. The first because we were able to keep our ABTDA margin at the 22% was offsetting the pressure on revenue. And second, and even more important, I would say we fixed the cost representing over 75 of our OPEX, our P&L enjoy a significant operating leverage. While we did not benefit from this effort in Q1 with the positive contribution of the GPM being absorbed by a lower revenue, we expect that any further uptick in the top line will go directly on our ABTDA growth. To conclude this summary, I want to reiterate that the decrease in revenue was largely expected. In fact, we fully anticipated the softness in Kuwan due to the tail effect of the stocking. I want to guide you also more across into the 2024 results where we still committed to deliver a strong performance for the 2024 and behind. And I can say that the second half will be slightly better in terms of revenue. And we are expecting the growth returning back stronger in the second half of the year. It will give us more fuel to work with also in terms of margin, as I said. Well, in terms of 2025, we are also building a stronger design win and pipeline. And as you know, in our business, it's very important to win customers now to be ready to enter into mass production in the 2025. But to illustrate this kind of progress, I will mention two of our recent win. The first one, we won a contract with Grundfos, a Danish company and a worldwide leader in water solution for a new custom solution for one of the three, their main product. It will drive us 6 million in additional and new revenue for the 2025 and really a lot of years attached. The second one is an agreement that we signed with CAREL, which is public, that will give us additional 5 million euro in revenue across the 2020 it will take a portion of it and at the full speed in 2026. So these are just two example to say that we are gaining new customers. We are gaining project with the existing customers. And so we are creating for Seco a very good situation for the 2025. So I think that's basically all in terms of update from my side on the quarter. I now hand over to Lorenzo to deep dive more in deeper on the financial results.

Thank you, Max. Thank you and good afternoon to everybody. Well, in this slide, we present to you our key financial highlights in our main indicators. So for what concern on sales, you can see here the performance and the reduction is driven actually by the edge of computed business that is decreasing mainly due to the lead time situation. So in the market, the lead time due to the resolution of the shortage scenario is reducing and obviously our customer are reducing in particular some industries, they stock. So actually, we are talking about the stocking context. That as Max has told, we expect that a different scenario in this situation would solve starting from the second half of the year. An important matter to be highlighted regarding our net sales is the real positive performance of CLIA in the quarter that grow at about 14%, actually not impacted by the stocking situation because obviously this is software and the boost of the performance is obviously driven by increased number of device connected that bring us an increased portion of recurring revenue that give us benefit. CLIA and the software for sure contributes to the real good performance that we recorded in the quarter respect to the same quarter of last year in terms of gross margin. You may see that we increased gross margin at a nine percentage point in comparison of the two year. Other than the software performance, for sure, we are really making good performance in terms of book chasing of our components in the artwork. For what concern, EBTDA remains stable on relative term at 22%, proving the stronger resiliency of cycle business that is able to, let's say, counterbalance a reduction in net sales. So different market contest, but preserving its profitability, thanks to many things, One thing is for sure the diversification of the business across many industries, across geography, and also in particular between hardware and software business. Just the last word regarding our net income and net income obviously is following the trend of EBTDA in terms of reduction. You can see that the reduction is at about 2 million. However, I would like to stress a point that is you can see that financial expenses are stable between the two quarter. This is true on accounting point of view, but this is not true on a cash point of view because we have the edging derivatives over our acquisition loans that is going to give us positive interest income of 1 million, but due to IFRS 9, so edge accounting, we didn't accrue such interest income because we recognize our derivative value in our assets, so in our net invested capital. Moving to net sales breakdown, we can see here a really important aspect, so the fact that In this quarter, software reached 15% of net sales, so an important increase, because if you remember, we exceeded the 10% in the last quarter, but never reached this important goal for us. So 15% of overall sale is now represented by software. For what concerns the net sales distribution across geographies and across industries that you can see in the pie chart here below, I would like to stress a point. In the consumer, let's say consumer industries, we are already seeing a recovery of the business respect to the previous quarter. Actually, you can see that thickness recorded a positive growth, the same for vending and distribution. Instead, the industry more related and more capital intensive like industrial, medical or transportation. So more connected to the stopping situation and to the high interest rate contest is the one that decrease most. We can move to the next slide. Thank you very much, Max. In this slide, you can see our EBITDA adjusted bridge between Q1-23 to Q1-24. What is important to highlight here again is the resiliency of the business, the fact that we are, despite a lower net sales, at a 22% of EBITDA. For what concerns the adjustment to EBITDA that we usually do, the items are the same. And in this quarter, you can see that almost all the portion is explained by the actuarial value of stock option plan that count for 1.1%. million respect to a total of one million of adjustment because we have an opposite effect for what concern the foreign exchange income performance. Well, just a few words regarding is that our let's say balance sheet performance in our most important financial indicator that is adjusted the net financial position I would say that our net financial position is absolutely under control and stable. That is really important for us over the last quarters. Actually, you can see that here we presented to you the last three quarters. So September 23, December 23. Francesco D' If you want 24 into 124 the net financial position actually is in the middle of the two of the two ranges it increase a little respect to the end of the year, mainly to. Francesco D' inventory that increase for 3.9 million because we could deliver more sales order. in the quarter because we closed the quarter with some overdue backlog on which we already purchased the material that are going to be delivered in the second quarter of the year. Just a last comment regarding our financial leverage that you can see is absolutely low, absolutely under control and at around one point adjusted net debt respect to EBTDA. So a really solid and flexible financial structure. I leave the speech again to Max and thank you everybody for your time.

Thank you, Lorenzo. Thank you very much. I want to focus now the speech on what we are doing on the market. And during the first quarter of the year, we continue to exploit our strategy across all our three business division, which are edge computing, the IoT platform, and the new AI service solution that we are offering to the market thanks to the Studio X product. Well, we started in really making synergies in between the three division creating a solution for customers merging the three kinds of technology to provide real benefits to the customers. It was really highly appreciated from the market and we are gaining traction thanks to it. Also, we were able to sign a very important partnership with NXP. NXP is our worldwide leader in the production of chip. And the NXP is willing to include basically the CLIA stack into their chip by design. They will support the CLIA customers also with a lot of documentation that will be available directly on all the NXP product and all DNSP documentation by end of September. We are now finalizing some work on the technical side to enable it to our all customers. I think this is a very important step to accelerate the CLIA adoption among all DNSP users, both existing Seco customers and Seco no customers in terms of hardware solution. So this partnership will enable us to really boost our customers acquisition also outside our customer base. And this is very important. I think also is very important the fact that an outstanding player like NSP recognized together with Google, our capability around CLIA in providing a very excellent IoT industrial platform for customers. I think this is also the proof how good is our product and how good is our technology that can really match the request of many customers on the markets. Together with NSP, we already collected a very high-level group of partners that really enable us to boost our growth thanks to this partnership. And I think this is another point that give us a lot of confidence for the future growth in Seco. I want also to present to you a new product that we will launch basically in these days on the market that is dedicated to a new sector that is becoming to be very hot. in terms of demand, which is the smart energy grid. So this product is really matching the requirement of a specific requirement of this sector and is built thanks to the partnership that we signed during the last quarter of the 2023 WOCOM. This is just an example to explain to you how Seiko is providing innovative solution and innovative product every quarter. Basically every week we are doing something that is new, is dedicated to a market that is growing. And so it will provide us further opportunity on the pipeline and further opportunity to win new customers. Well, as I already mentioned to you in a different time, we are continuing to work in doubling our internal production capability by the 2026. We are making it possible in different ways. One was the inauguration that we did in January in China with the new building where we are basically producting all the touch display technology in the near future. We will add also the system integration capabilities And we are also building in these days the fundamental of a new important production plant here in Arezzo where we will have system integration and PCVA automatic line to fulfill the future request and also to be able to be more competitive in terms of quality as well as pricing. We are optimizing also our resources in terms of production in Germany where we added a new production line in Hamburg and we are selecting a larger facility to increase the capacity also in Wuppertal. I think that's all. in terms of updating, I think now we can open the Q&A discussion.

Thank you to the speakers today. We now have an opportunity for questions. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, use the raise hand function on your screen or for those dialing in, it's star nine on your keypad. Once your name is announced, please unmute your line and say your company name before asking your question. Thank you. The first question today comes from Miss Arianna Terrazzi. Please, Arianna, the floor to you.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation, Arianna Terazzi from Intesa San Paolo. First, my first question is on CLIA. Could you give us an indication on the breakdown between NRE and recurring revenues for the first quarter? And then I was also wondering how much of CLIA revenues came from new and existing customers. And I would also appreciate if you could give us some color on its distribution across verticals uh then on the margins during last conference call you mentioned that 53 percent gross margin of 2023 could be taken as a reference for 2024 projections uh in the first quarter you managed to reach a higher gross margin so the question is Do you see room to project a higher level of gross margin for the whole 2024, considering the mix and improved market conditions? Thank you.

Thank you, Arianna. Let's start in covering your last questions. If the market remains the same in terms of components, I think yes, we have some rooms. to improve our gross profit margin level at the end of 2024. We will see it better at mid-year, but potentially, yes, we have room to make better of the 52, 53 that we were talking at the end of the year. Regarding CLIA, What is growing, of course, it's the recovery revenue part, which is well above now the 50% of the total. In terms of new customers, we are expecting to have at least two new customers that will start in entering into mass production. It means that they will start to put connected devices with CLIA on the field already in this quarter. So in the second quarter of the year, it will provide us additional devices and will generate an increasing into the recovery revenue part of CLIA. So in terms of end markets, I think As I said already in the past, now we are having around 250, between 250 and 300,000 devices connected. The large part of it is in the vending and distribution of tobacco. space. But as I said, there are customers into the industrial field that will start soon. And so the contribution of others vertical will come already from the second quarter of this year. And also is more to come going forward.

Thank you, Max. Many thanks for these questions. We now have a question from Mr Marco Vitale. Please, Mr Vitale, go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you for taking my question. The first one is a clarification on your wording regarding the outlook. I was wondering if you could provide us some additional details regarding the second quarter. You were mentioning some room for improving compared to the first quarter performance. The question is, do you still expect organic growth to be negative next quarter and then come back to positive growth in the second part of the year? If you could confirm this uh the second question is on the uh cash conversion i saw some builds up in working capital that uh penalized the your cash generation the quarter i was wondering if uh these uh this is something that should improve uh going forward as volumes should uh rebound And the final question is about the capex. You were mentioning a lot of initiatives to double your capacity by 2026. I was wondering if the current assumption of around 22 to 24 million capex per year is already factoring such capacity expansion.

Thank you. Okay. So regarding the capex, yes, the level that I provided previously was actually including the growth APEX regarding this project. So it's already included in the numbers that you mentioned. Regarding the evolution of the business, it's nothing new in regards to what I already communicated in the call that we did on the 2023 results, meaning that we will have the end, I should say, of the stocking activities from customers in the second quarter of this year, meaning that we are expecting to see a quarter which will be slightly better on this one. And in the second half of the year, we will return to gain a growth. And it will increase as we go quarter by quarter. If you noted, we posted the last three quarters more or less in the same range of revenue which was around 47. I'm expecting to see the next quarter more in line with 50 million. And in the second half of the year, we are expecting to be well above it. So that's just to guide you better into the 2024 expectation.

Thank you. Very clear. If I may, the question on the working capital, do you expect some improvement over the coming quarters? Thank you.

Yes, of course, because there is also a kind of stagionality around the working capital. If you look also the past, you can predict better the future, meaning We started, historically speaking, in a sorbet, zero cash, basically in the second quarter, creating cash in the second part of the year. I would assume that this year could be even better.

Very clear. Thank you.

Many thanks. Currently, we do not have any questions. So we'll wait just a few moments to give everyone the opportunity to ask a question.

Hello. Hi. Sorry, I'm not able to raise my hand on the platform. May I ask a couple of questions, please? I'm Bharat from . Correct. Thanks for the clarity on the gross margins earlier that you said there's room for expansion by the end of this year as well. I was just wondering, given that the cost of competence has kind of fallen year on year, Am I not wrong in saying that you have to pass back some of those benefits to your customers? So just some more clarity there would help, please. And then second question on the customer wins that you mentioned, which will potentially add incremental revenue of around $6 million and $5 million in 2025. Is that, in your opinion, incremental to what currently is out there in the market? Or is it more incremental to what you currently expect internally? Thank you.

Okay, so regarding the gross profit margin, you are correct. There is a decrease in most of the components. This is not true yet for the CPU, but for the rest of the components, yes. And we are passed through the decrease also to customers, meaning we are decreasing our price list and our price to the customers. But we are keeping some rooms for ourselves on this saving and therefore the gross profit margin is improving. That's as a consequence, basically. I'm not sure that I got really your second questions, what you really means with the questions. I tried to cover it, but please give me a follow-up if you are not satisfied about my answer. So I think those two customers together with others, because those are only two example, our customers that will bring us new revenue, meaning revenue that will come on top on the revenue that we are making with our customers. Historically speaking and looking the history, the revenue that most of our customer base is producing right now is not a normal level. It's down to the normal level due to the stocking activities. So I would expect to see a return to a normal level of demand in the second half of the year. It will provide us for sure more orders and to be able to reach highest level of revenue in the second half and in it, will enable us also to benefits of the higher gross profit margin increasing more than proportionally the ABTDA. That's one point. The second point is for the 2025 and going forward, we will benefit from all the new customers that will ramping up with the mass production in 2025. because it will add additional revenue to our existing customer base. So I want to say finally that we will have the growth of the software that will continue quarter by quarter. We will have the growth of the revenue in general coming from the existing customers that will return to be positive in the second half of the year. And we will have also new customers and new product revenue that will come in the 2025. Because keep in mind that we are also launching a lot of new product together with Qualcomm, with Accelera, dedicated to the AI market and many others. we are expecting to gain also positive returns on this new product.

Thank you. That's very clear.

Thank you, Bharath, for your questions. Currently, we do not have any questions, so we'll wait just a few moments. If there are no further questions, I will now hand back to the speakers for any final comments before bringing this presentation to a close. Please go ahead.

Now, I think we are done. Thank you very much again. And see you soon. We will be around for our show in the next weeks. So I hope we could have the chance to meet you also in person.