Allego N.V.

Greetings. Welcome to the Alago first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. This time all participants are in listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero from your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I'll now turn the conference over to Clarice Schwartz, Investor Relations Associate. Clarice, you may now begin.

Good morning. I want to welcome everyone to Aligo's first quarter 2023 earnings call. Today's speakers are Matthew Bonet, Chief Executive Officer, and Tom Lowers, Chief Financial Officer. During today's call, we may make certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions, and as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements made on this call. For more information about these risks and uncertainties, please refer to the factors referenced in today's press release and the risk factors and other disclosures in the company's filings with the Security Exchange Commission. Readers are cautioned not to put any undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and the company specifically disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking statements that may be discussed during this call. except as may be required by law. During our call today, we will also reference certain non-IFRS financial information. We use non-IFRS measures in some of our financial discussions, as we believe they provide useful information to management and investors regarding certain financial and business trends related to our financial condition and results of operations. We believe that the use of these non-IFRS financial measures provides an additional tool for investors to use in evaluating projected operating results, and trends in comparing our financial measures with other similar companies, many of which present similar non-IFRS financial measures to investors. The presentation on this non-IFRS financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for or superior to the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with IFRS as issued by the IASB. Reconciliations of IFRS to non-IFRS measures as well as the description, limitations, and rationale for using each measure can be found in our filings with the SEC. I'll now turn the call over to Mathieu Bonnet, CEO.

Thank you, Faris. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter 2023 earnings call. I will begin today with a brief overview of our results. followed by an update on some recent milestones before turning the call over to Tom Lowers, our CFO, for a closer look at the numbers. I am very pleased with our first quarter 2023 results, which reflected strong demand for our charging network that has nearly tripled our charging revenue year over year. We reported 38.8 million euros in revenue, a 27.4% increase compared to the prior year period of 30.5 million euros. Our charging revenue increased 166.7% to 27.8 million euros, while our services revenue decreased 45.4% to 10.9 million euros. The decline in service revenue was anticipated as we focus on our core charging business. The decrease was driven by the lower revenue from the CAFO project in line with expectations. The ongoing recurring phasing of this project weights the revenue towards the second half of 2023. Meanwhile, new services contracts are starting that will kick in revenue later on this year. Very importantly, our charging revenue was strong, which comes from a much higher utilization rate a growth of the energy sold with a strong stream of new ultra-fast chargers being installed during the last 12 months and a robust charging price that demonstrates our pricing power. We saw growth across all our key metrics. First quarter 2023 total charging sessions rose to 2.6 million, an increase of nearly 23%, The first quarter 2023 utilization rate of 13.1% compared to 7.7% and first quarter 2023 total energy sold climbing by almost 54% to 49.4 gigawatt hours. This is all in comparison to the prior year period. The energy sold represents 247 million of kilometers driven And because we are supplying green electricity to our charters, the use of our charters avoided the release of 39,000 tons of CO2. Our first quarter 2023 operational EBITDA was 8.9 million euros compared to 1.5 million euros in the prior year period. The increase was due in part to three price hikes through 2022 in January, September and October. None of the price increases, however, triggered a decrease in utilization rate or energy sold, demonstrating our strong pricing power. These measures, linked with a lower cost of energy during the quarter, led to a strong recovery of our gross margin in charging revenue, especially for our ultra-fast charging. In the early months of 2023, we successfully finalized three additional PPS contracts with renewable assets in Germany and the Netherlands. Each of these agreements span a duration of 10 years. At this point, we have already secured a total energy supply of over 160 gigawatt hours for 2023 and 2024. Notably, these contracts were secured at highly favorable fixed price, enhancing the overall attractiveness and margin of our energy procurement strategy. Our significant progress towards covering 80% of our energy requirements with renewable sources by the end of 2023 underlines our commitment to sustainable practices and reinforces our position as a leader in the adoption of clean and environmentally friendly energy solutions. With this strategy in place, we believe that we are now well equipped to face the potential volatility of energy prices for our charging business line going forward. Our strategy is to focus our charging business on our own network. It is anticipated to become more and more important in our revenue mix compared with services and provide margin stability and growth going forward. Now, turning to some commercial developments during the first quarter of 2023, I would like to highlight the following one. The portal deal in Germany that has been executed, which represents 1500 fast and ultra-fast charging points, which is an increase of the global capacity in Germany for fast and ultra-fast charging by more than 10%. It is the largest development contract signed by Aligot to date. Looking at our growth ahead, our backlog continues to expand meaningfully as a result of higher demand for electric vehicle charging, and our size and scale create additional momentum for our partners. We had a secured backlog of more than 1,300 sites at the end of March 2023. All of these sites are signed up for lease terms of an average of 15 years and include approximately 8,600 fast and ultra-fast charging ports. Our growth will reach out to the majority of the European people in the near future. As Don will highlight, we are reiterating our outlook for 2023. We expect annual revenue in the range of 180 to 220 million euros and annual operational EBITDA in the range of 30 to 40 million euros. From a top-line perspective, we will continue to benefit from the growth of the market, robust utilization rates and additional site deployments all over Europe focused on fast and ultra-fast charging. Utilization rates with the early parts of 2023 have been solid and we expect that trend to continue. From a margin standpoint, the action we took throughout last year and so far in 2023, including the price management of our station, the managed energy input price through our PPAs and rigorous management and optimization of our resources should continue to benefit Adego in 2023 and drive margin and operational EBITDA growth. Before turning the call over to Don, I want to emphasize our unwavering confidence in our business strategy, which is bolstered by a favorable demand environment aligned with our model. Public ultra-fast charging will be again critical to provide the necessary energy to power the 20 times growth from now that is expected in the number of electric vehicles in 2035. With that, I will turn it over to Don for an overview of our financials. Don?