Wallbox N.V.

Hello everyone and welcome to Warbox's third quarter 2023 earnings conference call and webcast. My name is Charlie and I'll be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants' lines have been placed in listen-only mode to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Analysts who wish to ask a question can place themselves into the queue by pressing star followed by one. I'll now turn the call over to Matt Trachtenberg, Warbox's Vice President, Investor Relations, to begin. Matt, please go ahead.

thank you charlie and good morning and good afternoon to everyone listening in today thank you for joining today's webcast to discuss wallbox's third quarter 2023 results this event is being broadcasted over the web and can be accessed from the investor section of our website at investors.wallbox.com i'm joined today by enrique asuncion wallbox's ceo and jordy lines our cfo earlier today we issued our press release announcing results from the third quarter period ending September 30, 2023, which can also be found on our website. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that certain statements made on today's call are forward-looking and may be subject to risks and uncertainties relating to future events and or the future financial performance of the company. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated. Risk factors that may affect results are detailed in the company's most recent public filings with the SEC, including in the annual report Form 20F for the fiscal year ended December 31st, 2022, filed on March 31st, 2023. We will be presenting unaudited financial statements in IFRS format that reflect management's best assessment of actual results. Also, please note that we use certain non-IFRS financial measures on this call and reconciliations of these measures are included in the presentation posted on the investor section of our website. Also, a copy of these prepared remarks can be obtained from the investor relations website under quarterly results section, so you can more easily follow along with us today. So with that out of the way, I'll turn it over to Enrique.

Thank you, Matt, and thanks everyone for joining us today. In addition to reviewing highlights from the third quarter of 2023, we will spend some time discussing how the current EV market environment is evolving and how our strategy fits within it. We will also dig into the AVL transaction and why it has the opportunity to transform our competitive position in the years to come. And then we will review some recent partnerships and commercial wins. Jordi will then offer some color on our cost reduction efforts, provide additional detail on our quarterly performance, and share some thoughts on our balance sheet as we close out the year. And finally, I will return to discuss our view of the market and what we are focused on for the remainder of the year and into the next. We will end by taking questions from our covering research analysts, so let's get started. When the third quarter revenue finished below our expected range at 32.5 million euros, down on a year-over-year basis, driven by continued channel destocking, we made great progress on a number of critical initiatives at WOCOS, including profitability, partnerships, balance sheet management, and strategic M&A. As we said this year, a large inventory build occurred within our distribution partners in both Q2 and Q3 last year, in anticipation of stronger e-delivers in 2022, which ultimately did not play out as planned. This created difficult comps, both in revenue and unit volumes, on a year-over-year basis for both Q2 and Q3 this year. The trend that we discussed last quarter has continued, and as a result, sell-through wire distributors exceeded the unit sold into those channels. That fell through unit growth on a global basis amongst approximately 30% year-over-year, a reasonable growth rate in our opinion. On a regional basis, that fell through. Growth was 22% in Europe and APAC combined, and 16% in North America. We continue to work with our distributors to put in place systems and processes to provide better visibility and more closely align their inventory with end market demand. We also continue to believe that we are approaching the end of this adjustment and will provide more information as we have. It was another solid quarter for our DC business, driving 285% unit growth and 350% revenue growth, both on a year-over-year basis. While we've spoken at length about the balance and diversification the DC offering brings to our portfolio, it's worth mentioning it again. DC demand is less correlated to EV deliveries than residential AC installations. It is a public infrastructure build-up, and often driven by governments and utilities. The robustness of the network is expected to thrive in the adoption, not the other way around. For this reason, we continue to allocate resources to this opportunity globally and believe we are extremely well positioned. We expect there will be times that one portion of the portfolio outperforms the other. The fact that we have a comprehensive solution across a global footprint should leave investors confident we are working to guide the energy transition from a number of fronts. We believe this is within our control and we expect to win in the marketplace. The balance that we discussed with you in the past continues to evolve and in some cases accelerate. AVL provides access to applications and geographies that we were underrepresented in. What you see from us as we enter 2024 is a business that plays across regions, product categories, applications, customer segments and economic drivers. The purchasing decisions across residential, commercial and public charging are as different as those who make them. It's equally so on a geographical level based on government initiatives and consumer preferences. This reduction of correlation to European individual deliveries is intentional and something shareholders will benefit from in the coming years in the form of consistency and stability. It's a bill overnight, but slowly through organic and inorganic means, and we are at a meaningful point in that transformation. As AVL in Europe, DC globally, bi-directional charging with Quasar, commercial properties with Orion, and many other RIVO products hit the market and continue materially, you will see big changes from us. Continuing on with the performance, gross margins were 35% in the third quarter, a 530 basis points sequential improvement driven largely by product needs. Our cost reduction program is front and center and allows us to reduce cash expenses by an additional 4.5 million euros sequentially. We expect to seek the 50 million euro reduction target previously discussed. Jordan will spend more time on that in a minute. Adjusted credit loss was 16.6 million euros, a 4.6 million euros improvement over the second quarter loss of 21.2 million euros. This brings us to the subject of EV demand in general. We have often comments made by large OEMs regarding challenges they are experiencing as they engage in the competitive environment and we've seen pricing actions taken. There will be quarters or even years where consumer behavior is volatile. that should be expected. But over the long term, replacing hundreds of millions of ICE vehicles and putting in place infrastructure to keep it discharged and moving is one of the largest investment undertakings we may ever see. The current variability we've seen is not unexpected, nor does it change our thesis. In fact, EV demand relative to ICE appears to be relatively healthy, and while they might not match the OEM initial forecast, we believe EV adoption continues its growth fast forward. I can tell you this. The energy transition from fossil fuels to alternative sources is occurring and will continue for decades. The management of that energy will take center stage. Intelligent systems to optimize over generation, storage, and use will be critical. We continue to build that offering and this is resonating with customers. Through financial incentives, governments are expected to continue to encourage consumers to shift from ICE to EV. It will not be smooth and may continue to occur in pizza and snacks, but we believe that this will accelerate as we make our way through the next three to five years. EV prices need to reach parity with ICE vehicles. EV prices will continue to decline as competition from Asian OEMs verifies improvements from North American and European manufacturers. Low-cost producers will disrupt incumbents, forcing productivity gains. Lower prices will bring consumers to the market that would otherwise be less tough. A market consolidation within the EV charging space will continue. Scale, a global footprint, and a comprehensive portfolio will be critical to winning in this marketplace. Given the size and scope of the disruption we see ahead, we believe small local companies with narrow hardware offerings will be left out, and agile companies with complete software and hardware portfolios will prevail. For the third quarter of 2023, Europe contributed €22.7 million, or 70% of the total revenue. North America contributed €6.7 million, or 21%. APAC was 2 million euros or 6%, and LATAM was 1 million euros or 3%. Variability in AC demand as a result of continued restocking was partially offset by strength in public DC charging. Supernova 150, our second generation DC fast charger, continues to see strong reception from customers. DC represented 25% of our revenue in the third quarter, with AC 59% and software services and accessories the remaining 16%. 2023 has brought with it large DC orders from big strategic customers, including Iberdrola, Atlante, Huawei, Osprey, Bcharge and others. In some cases, these orders are in the tens of millions of euros over several years. We see enormous opportunity here and will ramp up production in a controlled fashion, keeping quality and reliability in focus. This is a critical time for both Wallbox and the market, one which requires relentless pursuit of perfect quality. We see great traction and customers have responded with repeat orders. It's encouraging to see, and we remain committed to staying true to those standards. Prof margins were 35%. an increase from last quarter, but lower than our long-term target. Margins were impacted by product needs, which we expect to ease as we make our way through 2024. To provide color, approximately 50% of DC units sold in the quarter were Supernova 150, up from 40% in the prior quarter. And while there will be a higher gross margin profile in Supernova 60, our first generation product is still lower than AC. So in time, as that niche shift continues and the cost profile of the new product declines, we anticipate that impact to lessen. We also make progress on our cost saving initiatives. Employee benefits and OPEX on a combined basis total 33.2 million euros. 4.5 million euros better than the last quarter and 16.8 million better than Q42032, our point of measurement. We have removed 38.8 million euros of expenses so far this year. The right sizing of our business, given the demand environment, has put us in a position of strength, and one that gives us line of sight to profitability in the coming year. The processes and policies we have put in place will provide the structure for the next phase of growth, while allowing for the flexibility we'll need to navigate dynamic market conditions. The ABL transaction, which was closed on November 2nd, is one of the most important events in our company's history. It has the opportunity to drastically change our financial profile and provide meaningful commercial, operational and financial synergies. They are the market share leader in Germany, one of the most important geographies in the world. The commercial market they operate in is less correlated with EV deliveries than residential installations. This is even more true of the demand drivers of DC public charging infrastructure. This transaction further diversifies our portfolio, provides balance and expands our product, and serves addressable markets. While the EV demand curve might see variability, this transaction offers further cushion against those near-term impacts. The size of the German EU market is second only to China and North America. There are almost 2.7 billion EVs on the roads there today. It's massive, and as I just discussed, sees variability based on government incentives. Additionally, Germany requires a unit certification called I-TRADE. This ensures that the amount of electricity delivered to the vehicle is measured accurately, so payment can occur. Any commercial and public application where energy is being sold requires it. as well as many residential use cases where company cars are provided, a common occurrence in Germany. AVL has a long history of offering innovative technologies. The management team has established itself as a trusted partner to leading brands, including Daimler, and they have sold more than 600,000 chargers today. Their product offering has been focused on these commercial applications, and the AV chargers are ISO-certified, something Wallbox did not have. Because of this, the product overlap is minimal. This transaction provides us immediate access to a market where we were underrepresented and provides opportunity to expand our offering into established sales channels. Bringing Wallbox products like Supernova, Pulsar and Quasar into Germany and ABL products to the rest of the world is something that will drive exciting value for both companies. As a reminder, Worldbox pays 10 million euros in cash already and will pay another 5 million euros in 2024 to acquire the operations and assets of APM. This was structured as an asset deal, which negates the need to assume the liabilities. Instead, we bring the intellectual property, inventory, facilities and equipment, employee contracts, customer relationships and talented management team to Worldbox. Together, the company will be the largest European EV charging name with the most comprehensive offering and broadest geographical footprint. We anticipate ABL adding between 60 and 75 million euros of revenue and positive adjusted EBITDA in 2024. This will be immediately accretive to WorldWalks in the upcoming year. As background, in 2022, ABL generated approximately 150 million euros in sales with positive EBITDA. In 2021, the company began investing in new facilities to bring its new products to market, the EM4. That investment occurred just before government subsidies were turned off late last year. That unfortunate timing in turn created the opportunity that brought Wallbox and ADL together. Incentivizing and aligning objectives between ADL and Wallbox shareholders is extremely important. For this purpose, earnouts are utilized. In summary, AVL management has a minority ownership stake in the business entity we created. While the sales and margin targets are ambitious, higher than those shared with you here, both the AVL team and Volvo shareholders will be rewarded if they are achieved. We are excited to see the team hit the ground running. Now, I want to spend a few minutes on the benefits we expect to capture as a result of this transaction. The commercial synergies are the first I'd like to discuss. An ISOC-certified product portfolio is the most visible and tangible commercial benefit we see. The certification, while something we were working on, is not easy to obtain. The experience the AVL team has in navigating the standards and requirements will accelerate the process with Supernova, ultimately providing faster access to the market in 2024. For other applications, In addition to DCM commercial, we now can bring the full wallbox offering to established channels in Germany. We are two, our bidirectional charger, and the industry's first will benefit from the strong relationship the ABL team has built. Given the size and focus of the general market on intelligent energy management solutions, we are optimistic about the opportunity. And finally, there will be other markets within Europe where the ABL offering is better aligned with the market needs. For example, ADL's newest charger, the EM4, meets the needs of customers looking for a robust solution for fleets, apartments, and office parking lots today. That market segment is growing faster than others and puts us immediately in a leadership position. The ability to quickly leverage that solution in countries that ADL currently does not operate in offers a unique opportunity that we will quickly go after. Putting the EM4 in our static sense channels only accelerates our ability to participate in those projects. The operational synergies are equally competitive. AVL brings with it two manufacturing facilities. The location in Germany is nearly 100% automated, and the location in Morocco is cost optimized. The facilities also bring capabilities that don't currently reside at Volvo, including injection molding and socket manufacturing. By leveraging these from ABL and those that Wallboard frees, like PCBs from ARIES, the combined entity can further increase vertical integration and do more in-house. The savings could be millions a year. The scale and scope of our combined offering and footprint also allows for both vendor and sourcing consolidation and leverage. Simply put, given our size, we are a major force in EV charging and expect to realize volume discounts that will immediately benefit gross margins. Optimizing R&D and capex is another operational benefit we see ahead. Combining two product roadmaps into one will allow us to, in some cases, do more and others to spend less. A great example of this is how it will impact Orion, WorldWalk's upcoming answer to commercial applications. ABL's EM4 satisfies the European market need immediately and can be sold throughout our channels today. But this also allows us to ship Orion, R&D, and CapEx, which is no longer needed in Europe, to North America. Customers there have been eagerly awaiting a robust commercial solution, and Orion will meet their needs perfectly. This refocusing of investment and resources while expanding our service and product addressable markets is a function of a complementary offering and footprint. And there's more examples to share. And the financial synergies provide for enormous shareholder value creation. As I mentioned, ABL generated substantial revenue and positive adjusted EBITDA in 2022. As the new products hit their stride, we anticipate them achieving their targets and generating positive adjusted EBITDA next year. This only increases our confidence in our ability to deliver positive adjusted EBITDA at the consolidated level in 2024. To give additional context, AVL and Wallbox on a combined basis deliver revenue of approximately 46 million euros in the third quarter. ABL growth margins are within the rates that Goalbox targets as well, approximately 40%. And we see opportunities to improve them further. And finally, regarding operating costs at ABL, prior to the transaction, the company completed a cost improvement program to right-size the business relative to market demand. This allows a more targeted approach to identifying potential savings that can arise from the business combination. We will evaluate those on a case-by-case basis and ensure we are optimizing the combined operations in order to get value for all stakeholders. In summary, this transaction has the ability to accelerate our strategic plan. It will provide a level of scale that does not exist today. With that scale, we expect to be profitable in 2064. It will offer unique opportunities to focus investments and bring new products to new markets. It's transformational for Wallbox, and I'm excited to see where it leads us. The first partnership we announced in the quarter was Kia. Kia selected Wallbox as its partner in the launch of its beautiful new electric SUV, the EV9. Kia will offer U.S. customers a solution that includes Quasar 2, our bidirectional charger. This next generation 11.5-kilowatt bidirectional charger will enable EV owners to charge and discharge their electric vehicle to power their phone or send energy back to the grid. KAB9 can hold up to 100 kilowatt hours of energy, over five times the amount of energy of a standard 13.5 kilowatt hours home storage system. And power a typical household energy consumption for up to four days, removing the need for expensive home energy storage systems. In case of a power outage, Quasar 2's power recovery mode automatically switches the user's power source from the grid to the vehicle to allow a homeowner to use the EV battery as an emergency generator. This type of backup service is becoming not only increasingly important, but crucial, given the sheer volume and duration of power outages in the U.S. Last year, California alone witnessed 39 power outages and more than 414 hours of total outage time. across the U.S., and forcing power outages cost the U.S. economy $150 billion annually. We are excited to work with Key America to our shared vision for accelerating electrification and transforming how we can interact with energy. The next announcement we made was with TriptoMulti Solutions, which is a joint venture including Stellantis. We alluded to this collaboration on past calls, and we are proud to finally discuss who is The opportunity will involve both Pulsar AC chargers for their customers and Supernova 180 for dealerships. We will begin shipping Supernova in the current quarter and expect to accelerate as we make our way to 2034. I'd like to point out how big of an opportunity dealerships really are. Remember, in dealerships we need both AC and DC as well as bi-directional capabilities. You cannot service a fully charged EV, so capturing that energy through bi-directional charging, which today is wasted, and moving it to other vehicles or selling it back to the Greek is a compelling value proposition for dealerships, and there are more than 21,000 of them in North America alone. Each one will need to invest between $100,000 and $1 million to be ready. It's a massive market, and we are uniquely positioned. We look forward to bringing a complete energy management architecture to them. And finally, we've announced a strategic partnership with Osprey, one of the UK's largest and leading rapid EV charging networks. The collaboration will begin by expanding the Osprey network with 125 units of Wallbox Supernova DC charger, coupled with Wallbox Care Program, offering preventative and corrective maintenance for the Supernova kit. Charge point availability and reliability are both crucial for consumer confidence in making the switch to active vehicles. Wallbox Supernova uses a modular design with a simple user-centric experience and payment process. This ensures that EV drivers get ease of use and a high standard of reliability, whilst charge point operators can scale the units easily to improve availability. Jordi, I'll turn it over to you to comment further on our financial details.

Thank you, Enric. Good morning and good afternoon to everyone. Our third quarter results came lighter than expected, driven by additional channel inventory adjustments and some regional variability from residential applications. I'll provide more detail on these results, discuss some financing activities we've announced, and share some thoughts on the remainder of the year. For the third quarter of 2023, revenue was 32.5 million euros, flat from the previous quarter. On a year-over-year basis, revenue declined in both the U.S. and Europe, driven largely by continued stocking. On a sell-through basis, unit volumes increased by 30%, driven by strength in the U.S. The inventory build that occurred last year continued in the quarter, and while it's difficult to say for certain, based on the pattern we saw last year, we expect less of impact going forward. Growth margin for the quarter was 35%, a 530 basis point improvement over the last quarter. Mixed shifts from new products continue to impact our margins, but progress is being made. DC margins are now above 30%, up from 10% last year. As we continue to transition from Gen 1 to Gen 2, we believe we will see gradual improvement enabling consolidated gross margins back in the mid to high 30s in the fourth quarter. We were able to further reduce both employee-related cash expenses and OPEX, which amounted to 33.2 million euros in the period. If you recall, our intention was to reduce 2023 expenses by 50 million euros. using the fourth quarter 2022 as our jumping off point. Through the third quarter, we have removed $38.8 million from our 2023 costs. The most recent quarterly cash expenses are $16.8 million lower than Q4 2022. This implies that we will exceed our planned reduction, something we are proud to share with you today. we see additional opportunities to reduce costs further and we will aggressively go after them. Adjustability loss for the period was 16.6 million euros, a 22% sequential improvement and 20% improvement over the prior year period. We remain extremely focused on cost and conserving cash and have seen tangible benefits of those efforts. We also improved our balance sheet in the quarter. We entered September with approximately 81 million euros of cash and equivalents. In October, we secured an additional 35 million euros loan from several European banking partners at a rate of three-month reward plus 3.25%. That, when combined with the attractive purchase price of ABL, allows us to remain close to the $100 million mark where we are comfortable. We ended the third quarter with $65 million of long-term debt, which excludes that Q4 funding event. We did not utilize the ATM during the third quarter. CAPEX was again very light, with approximately 4.2 million in the period, with 1.2 million euros spent on property plan and equipment. Year to date, we've spent 11.6 million. We expect an additional 4 to 6 million of CAPEX spent in the fourth quarter of 2023, resulting in a full year figure less than 20 million, and significantly less than the 26 million previously planned for the year. Inventories were 94 million euros, down slightly from the second quarter. Full-time headcount decreased by almost 100 people on a quarter-over-quarter basis. We are at the headcount level of Q2 2022 and believe the absolute number will continue to trend down. To provide a bit more detail on our balance sheet, here you see the debt we carried. As of September, we had approximately 65 million euros of interest-bearing long-term loans with maturity greater than one year. We also have 19 million of short-term loans. The 65 million matures over the coming five years. Our fixed rate debt is at 4.1%, and our floating rate debt is at, on average, three months every year plus 5.8%. These balances exclude the new $35 million loan brought on in October. As you can see, we have careful financed business and do not have meaningful near-term interest rate risks. We believe we are adequately capitalized and are able to service our debt. Investors should gain comfort that we are in a solid position. Rick, I'll turn it back to you to provide some closing comments.

Thanks, Jorgi. As we exit 2023 and prepare for 2024, it's an extremely important time for wallets. We are set up to achieve scale on the business that will allow us to drive profitability very soon. The multiple new products we are bringing to market today provide access to applications and geographies that didn't exist before. DC public charging in North America, DC and commercial charging in Germany, free charging in Europe, or either in the US for apartments and office lots, bi-directional around the world. These revenue opportunities are real. They will contribute meaningfully and ABL is an important part of that. We expect revenue growth to resume in the fourth quarter. Managing our cost base is equally critical as we enter 2024. While we've taken huge steps to right-size the business given the environment, we see more opportunity ahead. We will be leaner, more efficient, and more flexible in the upcoming year. Breaking even, then generating positive adjusted EBITDA is now expected just a quarter later than originally planned. We believe that the world operating leverage will be greater than previously thought given ABL's potential. It's an exciting time and one that we're very proud of. We believe we are doing the right things and we measure our progress against our specific plan by speaking with customers and staying close to the market transitions driving our business. Today, we are fully focused on what we can control. This includes taking market share, controlling costs, and ensuring we transition to profitability in 2024. Each and every World Boxer is focused on this initiative. and we are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that objective. While we cannot control the markets, we can control how we execute within them. We are driving diversification across products, markets and geographies that rely less on immediate deliveries. We will be larger, profitable, with a more efficient operational footprint and a more complete offering. We appreciate your trust and look forward to turning the corner to profitability in the upcoming year. That, we believe, will set us apart from the competition and help refocus attention on where it should be, the massive wave of EV adoption and charging infrastructure that we see coming over the next decade. And we are ready for it. With that, we are ready to take questions from our analysts.

Welcome back, everyone. To our analysts, we ask that you pose one question with a follow-up if needed, and then re-enter the queue if there's more. This will allow each of you to ask your questions up front and we'll get to as many additional questions as time allows. Charlie, I think you have some instructions for our analysts on how to get into the queue.

Of course. Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask a question, please ensure you're unmuted locally. As a reminder, that's star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. Our first question comes from George Giannourakis of Canaccord Genuity. George, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, George.

Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. So I'd like to ask about your expectations around reaching EBITDA positive for next year. You said in 2024. I was wondering whether that means that you expect to reach profitability for the full year and also your previous expectation about being EBITDA flat in the fourth quarter of 23. Thank you.

Thank you, George. This is Enric. We are seeing great tech traction on core reduction and we expect by 2024 as a full year to be a profitable year in adjusted EBITDA basis. And what we are doing right now, and as I said during the call, we are reducing costs and adapting to the environment. Therefore, we expect that break-even or actually profitability to be in Q1 2024. And we've been able to improve a bit that 22% for this quarter. We believe we will make great progress in Q4, being in very small negative numbers, but actual positive numbers, we won't see them until Q1 2024. Thank you.

And as a follow-up, I'd just like to switch gears a little bit and ask about the inventory destocking. You know, I know last quarter, You mentioned that you thought it was you basically had a sort of a equilibrium, but you continue to see inventory in the channel. Can you just kind of talk about the measures that you put in place to understand where inventory currently stands and when you now expect to be through that flush? Thank you.

Yeah. Actually, if we look at the difference between sell-out and sell-in, so the chargers that were sold by our partners, we see a 10 million euros difference. And that's something that we have not seen materialized this quarter. When talking with partners and looking at the data, what we see is that they are carrying less inventory than they normally would. They used to have at least a quarter of inventory and some of them are being more lean and having a couple of orders a quarter. That's happening for some partners, big partners especially, that want to manage in a more smart way their working capital. And this is the gap that we've seen in Europe mostly for AC charging, which was this 10 million euros. As we look forward, we are seeing that It's getting better and we expect already Q4 and Q1 to be clean in terms of inventory.

George, the only other thing I would add, it's Matt, by the way, is that this is now four quarters of channel destocking. So the inventory bill that our channel partners ended in the third quarter of last year. So while we don't want to tell you that it's complete, the data that we're looking at suggests that we're nearing the end of that cycle. And so that's what Jordi was talking about, the impact being less going forward. That's what we believe, and we're getting that both from the data and from conversations with customers. So hopefully that's helpful. Thank you. Charlie?

Thank you. Our next question comes from Abby Sinage of Northern Capital. Abby, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. So just want to understand on the acquisition, I understand Germany was an important area where you were underrepresented. The first thing is, is that enough for you to make a breakthrough in Germany or would you require more similar acquisitions there? And second, Is there any other important area in Europe where you are underrepresented and something more like this kind of acquisition might be a possibility?

Thank you, Avi. This is Enric. So ABL is the market share leader in Germany. So when it comes to AC charging, yes, it's more than enough. and the commercial network they have established after 100 years of a company it's massive in germany you know they have presence in municipalities in distribution channels with installers they even have a training center for installers all across germany so we bringing supernova and Pulsar products through their commercial network is going to be obviously a huge synergy. So yes, it's enough for AC and for DC charging. The ABL team is super excited to start selling supernovas, actually. And they bring a product that for us was Orion. You know, Orion is our commercial charger focused to sell energy in commercial applications. The EM4... fulfills exactly what Orion should have fulfilled. It's a product that is tested, that has been sold. So as we speak now, what we are doing, we are offering it to other geographies where ABL is not represented. Obviously, they are strong in Germany, but not in the rest of Europe. And we also see a lot of synergies coming from there. When you ask about other countries that you think we're underrepresented, I think after this acquisition, we are a powerhouse in Europe. We are the number one manufacturer of EV charging in the European continent with offering in all segments, from home commercial and fast charging and even bi-directional charging. So immediately I say no. I say we don't need any other acquisition like this in Europe. But we also recognize there's going to be more consolidation in the European space and and we continue to look for opportunities, but right now our focus is making sure we can grow the ABL business together with the Wallbox business.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Stephen Gengaro of Stifel. Stephen, your line is open. Please proceed.

Thanks. Good afternoon. Good morning, everybody. I think two for me, just ABL contributed, I don't know, about 13 and a half million euros in the quarter. And I know you gave some guidance on 2024 as well. Is that a reasonable run rate? And is there any seasonality we should be thinking about in the ABL business?

Did I lose you? Sorry about that.

I believe we've lost connection with the speak it team. There we go.

We're good? Okay. My apologies. So, Stephen, just to clear that up, ABL did not contribute anything in the third quarter. The number that we gave you, which was approximately 46 million, was a data point to give you a sense of the size or the scale of the combined business. But remember, we closed the transaction on November 2nd. So we will... We will include two months of Q4 in our Q4 numbers, but they didn't contribute to any of the numbers that we reported here today. Your question was about linearity, seasonality, or sort of the path forward. And I think what we want to leave you with is that we expect somewhere between 60 and 75 million euro during the 2024 period. We've set very aggressive targets for them. and we'll continue to report on how their performance is. But how that shakes out over the next couple quarters, I think give us a quarter or two just to get our hands around the business and spend time with the team, and we'll share more with you on the next call, okay?

Thanks. And then just as a follow-up, you mentioned – how strong that business was in 2022. I understand Germany is a more mature market, but I'm just sort of trying to understand the drop in revenue. I mean, it's gotten cut in half since 2022. What's behind that? Have they sold businesses? Is it just evolution of the German market? And is that 150 the kind of potential they could get back to?

Hi, Steven. This is Enric. So that's something that happened to all German companies and companies that participate in the market. We also saw this drop on sales in the German market. That was driven by the KfW incentive. The German bank was... subsidizing commercial and home chargers in Germany, almost for free, basically, including installation. And when that stopped last year, at the end had an impact in the whole market. As you can see, they are at the 13, 15 million euros revenue quarterly right now. And we obviously believe that they can go back there to these numbers soon. as the German market becomes more normalized after this year. You have to think that was a very subsidized time in 2022. 2023, after the subsidies were finished, Obviously, the market drops because this has been a lot of people that has bought chargers in that period. But now in the Q3 and Q4, we are starting to see exciting opportunities. And we also saw new incentives coming from KFW in the German market. So it's not only that the market is improving. Also, the same entity is adding smarter and less disruptive incentives, but still that support the growth of the charging business.

So, Stephen, yeah, I just want to be clear. We do believe that.

Great. Now, that's great detail. Thank you.

Yeah, Stephen, over time, we do believe that that team can get back to those numbers, okay?

Yeah, no, that's great detail, gentlemen. Thank you. Charlie?

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ben Callow of Baird. Ben, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Sticking to the acquisition there, can you give us any details about the process? Was it competitive? And then just because of that fluctuation in revenue from 22 to 23 and the thoughts about getting back to that, can you talk about how you guys looked at valuation when you made the acquisition?

Yes. Hi, Ben. It's Jordi Lain. Well, it has been a very special process because it was a private-owned company by a family. It's a very old company. And they were doing significant efforts in 2022 in terms of investments to achieve higher growth in 2023 that finally, as Enric mentioned, did not come. This financing of these big investments and increasing the headcount were expected for a market growth that didn't happen. And since first quarter 2023, this company saw how their sales were not growing 10 or 15 percent. Their sales were decreasing by 50 percent. It creates a financial stress situation that became on a bankruptcy process in June 2023, where the business was managed by administrator and a self-administration process. In that process, it's a third party which is assisting to the existing owners to a selling process as quick as possible. In that situation, we were in front of a process with a at least two competitors, two European competitors and a couple of private venture companies and the selected company that was the most excited and complementary in terms of achievement, common goals in terms of market share and complementary in products was Wallbox. And this is why Wallbox presented an offer in competition with other three offers that was the best selected because was considered the best option for the future growth of the business and this is why uh it has been uh as you can and and the market has seen a very competitive and attractive pricing for for the business for the whole business yeah ben to add to that this is enrique so the the owner the owners of abl at the time the family owner um they had uh part of the decision on who was the the

the best offer. And the fact that there was no overlap between Wallbox and ABL, and they are very complementary companies, and that obviously keeps forward the thesis that that was an important part of the decision. But yes, it was a very competitive process.

Okay, thank you. As we think about gross margins, and any kind of seasonality into next year? Because you talked about if there is any seasonality that you think impacts gross margin in any kind of... There's a bunch of factors that you talked about that prepare remarks impacting gross margin, but how we should just think about levers, increasing it, and kind of timing for increases in gross margin.

Yeah. So we don't expect any seasonality. We expect constant improvement. the generation two of Supernova is becoming a bigger part of the product mix of our DCFC sales. You have to think that Supernova has very high, Supernova Gen 2 has higher gross margin than Supernova 1, which has much lower. And that's the biggest driver in gross margin. At the end of this year, this current quarter, we are also launching Supernova in the US. And it's coming with a very great gross margin, closer to the 40%, which is the target of the company. And therefore, also this will support building margin. Additionally, as we keep reducing our own inventory, the one we have in our warehouses, that give us opportunities to improve the design to cost of our products. As we've been cleaning inventory from many products, we then had an opportunity to implement design to cost improvements that have not been seen, you know, because we were eating through inventory. But already this quarter also there's new initiatives that are coming and reduce cost and impact obviously gross margin. So I think we should expect to see in general an improvement on gross margin getting close to the 40% target of the company. There might be some quarters where we have an extra sales of supernova and less AC or more AC and less supernova. That's going to be what will create a little bit of noise. But in general, we expect improvement and no seasonability.

Thanks, Ben.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. As a final reminder, if you wish to submit a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypads now. Our next question comes from Robert Jamieson of UBS. Robert, your line is open. Please proceed.

Hi, Robert. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just one, just to go back to ABL real quick, just two-part question here. One, what's the level of EBITDA that they experienced in 2022? I know you said it was profitable and they generated 150 in revenue. And then I guess second to that related to, you know, gross margin, I mean, look, it looks like you have a lot of opportunities here. You've got additional capacity for, you know, other components that you might have been buying from a third party, whether that's, you know, the socket manufacturing, injection molding. Can you maybe talk about how to think about that next year in terms of gross margin and benefits there? And then as well as any kind of you know, benefits to reduction CapEx or OpEx that you'll also receive from ABL. Thank you.

Hi, Robert. It's Jordi Lainz. As we mentioned in the script, company reported a positive adjusted EBITDA on 2022 with a single single digits positive single digits on 2022 and last three years ago were constantly net profit and this lower positive EBITDA was due just that begin to decrease sales in the last quarter but for year end was a positive adjusted EBITDA and another point that we believe it's really interesting it's a significant gross margins that the company has been reported historically in older portfolio that it's around 40% and some months above.

Hi, Robert. Going to the gross margin potential improvements, you're right. There's a lot of upside for gross margin. So we are not including in our target of 40% for next year these potential upsides, but there's many things. So One thing that's very interesting is for our commercial products, for example, Pulsar socket or copper SV, we use a device that's a socket. That's an important part of the cost of the charger, actually. It's where all the power goes. So it's a plastic with a lot of copper inside. And normally we buy this from suppliers, but now ABL, being an expert on this subject, they manufacture them. They manufacture them for customers. all the different markets, because every market has special socket designs. So this immediately brings an improvement on gross margins for this kind of product. Obviously, we don't expect to hit our P&L until the second half of the year, as we are working on that right now. Or, for example, Ares. Ares, we make our PCBs, we assemble our own PCBs, And in this case, AVL has to buy PCBs from third parties. So in that case, also, that's something we will work with AVL to provide to them. So there's a lot of opportunities here. Again, no overlap. And that's why it was so exciting to find out this about AVL and looking forward to this upside.

Excellent. And congrats on that. That sounds exciting for next year. And then I guess just kind of more stepping back to a higher level question and, you know, U.S. and NEVI deployments. Just curious, you know, with your conversations that you might be having, and obviously it's a very competitive landscape, given everyone's trying to, you know, get their chargers in the ground. But just curious, what are some of the most important attributes that customers are looking for in terms of the charging equipment itself? I mean, is there anything – you know, that you've seen through your conversations that's consistently, you know, a topic of conversation. Just curious if any insight there.

Yeah, Robert, it's Matt. Thanks for the question. So I think that there's three things. One is the ability to effectively deploy OCPP. So what you're finding is that customers want to control the driver experience. We enable that. We're agnostic to it. And if that's something that they want, we're all for that. And that's not something that you see across the competitive landscape. Sometimes it's spoken about, but it's not particularly embraced. So that's the first thing that they're asking for. The second thing is modularity or scalability. I think that they want to scale into the higher power chargers eventually. There's not a lot of cars on the road today that can charge at 300 or more kilowatt speeds. And so what you're seeing is that they want to gradually layer themselves into that infrastructure and spend when it's needed. So that's two. And then I think the third thing is reliability. It's really the most important factor that everybody's asking about. And so high quality, making sure the uptime is impeccable, pristine. That is something that we've been focused on since the beginning. We have a lot of good data and a lot of great experience here in Europe delivering very, very high quality DC fast chargers. And that's something that's top of mind for customers as well. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, no, no, very helpful. Thank you very much.

Charlie, I think that that's going to be our last question. So I want to thank everybody for joining us today. We hope you found today's call a good use of your time. Please watch our website for details if you're interested in meeting with us. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Have a great day, everyone.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Have a great day, everyone.