Alfen Nv

Hello and welcome to the Elfin 2024 Q1 Trading Update call. My name is Laura and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note this call is being recorded and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen-only mode. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, Please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. Today, we have Marco Roulevel, the CEO, joined by Michel Lesch, CEO, as our presenters. I will now hand you over to your host, Marco Roulevel, to begin today's conference. Thank you.

Thank you, Laura.

Good morning and welcome to this webcast regarding the 2024 first quarter trading update of Alphen. We appreciate the fact you have taken the effort to participate. As indicated by the moderator, these webcast sessions that may come forward are handled by the members of Alphen, being Michel Les, CCO, and Marco Roelleveld, CEO. In this webcast, we will start with the highlights of the first quarter of this year, followed by a short review of the business line. Next, we will go into more detail regarding the financials and outlook. We continue with slide three with the highlights of the first quarter of 2024. In this quarter, we realized 116.8 million euros in revenue. This represents a growth of 3% compared to the same period last year. This growth was driven by a growth of 32% of smart grid solutions. The 60% lower EV charging revenue was mainly related to the fact that in the first quarter of 23, we benefited from use or the backlog from orders in 2022. Energy storage revenue was 8% lower due to timing aspect of a single project in project execution. The overall gross margin was stable at 32% compared to 32.1% in the same quarter last year. This gross margin excludes the one of 5 million euro costs related to the Leander-Papto substation moisture issue, and these one-off costs are also excluded from the adjusted EBITDA. As a percentage of revenue, the adjusted EBITDA declined from 12.7 in the first quarter of last year to 8.2% in the same quarter this year, as a result of the time shift in revenue recognition in energy storage. In 2024, the revenue will be backloaded toward the second half of 24, driven by a ramp up of substations, where we are confident that due to the new building that's now finished, and where the moving of production will start coming weekend, and will be finished at the end of Q2, that in the second half of the year, we'll be able to further the production of smart grid solutions. Second reason for the revenue to be backloaded is the demand for AV compliant EV chargers, and of course, the timing of energy storage projects towards the second half of the year. Two organizational aspects are relevant. The first one is that we have appointed an interim CFO in the person of Onno Krupp. Onno joined Alphen Esper today. Furthermore, we have strengthened our management structure by extending our EXCOMM with Bud Catman, a COO, and on of a note, a CHRO. And regarding the outlook, we reconfirm our 2024 full-year revenue guidance and our EBITDA margin, and we also are sure that we will have a positive free cash flow at the end of the year. We also reaffirm our growth ambition for smart grid solutions and EV storage. EV charging. For energy storage, there will likely be less than 40% revenue growth due to the rapid decline in battery prices. I will go in more detail on the financials later on in this presentation. Our CCO, Michelle Lesch, will now continue this webcast.