Alstom Unsp/Adr

Hello, and welcome to the Alstom Fiscal Year 2024-2025 First Quarter Order and Sales. My name is George, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note, this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, you'll be in listen-only mode. However, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions towards the end of the presentation, and this can be done by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad to register your questions. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I'd like to hand it over to your host today, Mr. Bernard Adepi, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much. Good evening or good morning, everyone, and welcome to this conference call to discuss orders and sales for the first quarter. Thank you. Starting with order intake, slide three, we recorded 3.6 billion euros of orders in the first quarter, and the backlog is broadly stable at 92 billion euros at the end of June. From a regional perspective, Europe is leading with large orders in Germany, the UK, and Italy. With regards to product lines, We continue to see good momentum in signaling and services with book to bill above one. Our continuous focus on base orders is paying off with a good flow in the first quarter, which is supportive for margins. A few additional remarks. First, market dynamics remain solid. The pipeline potential is around 200 billion of opportunities for the next three years. Second, and as announced in our full year results, we expect order intakes to gain momentum as we progress through the year. Quality of order intake in terms of margins is in line with mid-term trajectory. Margin in order intake continues to exceed margin in backlog, which in turn means largely exceeds margins in the P&L. Margins in ordering taking Q1 were particularly good. On slide four, some key orders in this quarter. It includes another success for 70 Trax Locos in Italy. a landmark contract from Hamburg Metro with a total value up to 2.8 billion, with a first call-off under this agreement of 670 million, including both rolling stock and signaling. and an additional 10 trains for the Elizabeth line in the UK associated with maintenance services, obviously with margins for those trains that have been updated and with different margins from the one we booked in the last years. Terms and conditions of all those orders have been carefully reviewed and negotiated, considering the size of certain of these orders, and they are in line with our objectives. I would like to add that since June the 30th, you've also seen strong news flow on signaling with OBB in Austria for around 100 million euros and Perth in Western Australia for approximately 650 million euros. This is encouraging for our signaling business and for the second quarter order intake. Last but not least, A major order will be disclosed tomorrow morning. I cannot anticipate on the client disclosure, but stay tuned. Turning to sales, they reach 4.4 billion in Q1, including 2.3 for rolling stock, 1.1 for services, 637 million for signaling, and 341 million for systems. Alstom delivered organic sales growth of 5.3% in Q1, which is in line with full year guidance. Rolling stock activity was quite high, notably in Europe, with deliveries relating to the Olympics in France. Of note, the good start of services, ramping up in all regions and delivering a 13.13% organic growth year-on-year. On slide six, regarding rolling stock production, 965 cars were produced in Q1. It came lower than the 1,122 production achieved over the same period last fiscal year. However, the contracts mix is very different and simply said better than last year. I'm talking here of the contracts mix, that is the combination of type of cars and type of contracts. With the end of the production of the Aventra program in the UK and of the ICX in Germany, with higher deliveries in France on programs such as RER New Generation and metros for Paris region. We will refine full-year outlook in terms of car production at the time of H1, but the message is the same as in May. We'll now stabilize production in a range between 4,500 and 5,000 cars per year with less swings in the mix going forward. We are talking here about cars production. Based on last year's experience, we are carefully monitoring to deliver more than what we produce, with about more than 1,000 cars delivered during Q1. On slide seven, just to emphasize a strong team's mobilization around the Olympic Games in Paris, with three metro lines, one commuter line, and two tramways lined, opened, or extended. Slide eight. It looks now like an old story, but it happened only a few weeks ago. The deleveraging plan is now executed. For those of you who were off in May, it's now done. During the first quarter, we announced and executed the successful completion of a €1 billion rights issue, as well as the issuance of a €750 million hybrid bond. This was achieved thanks to the strong support of our restaurant shareholders as well as a supportive market environment. We are also in the final stage of the sales process regarding our U.S. conventional signaling business. We are expecting the last closing conditions to be waived shortly, and as previously announced, the plan is to close the deal during the second quarter. Net proceeds from these transactions will amount to 2.4 billion euros, 1.7 billion already cashed in and 0.7 in September. The impact on deleveraging amounts to 2 billion euros due to the treatment of hybrid bonds as 50% equity and 50% debt by the rating agency. Proceeds are progressively used to repay short-term debt, including commercial papers and RCF, and will also fund short-term working capital requirements and free cash flow seasonality. Regarding the impact on credit rating, Moody's upgraded the outlook to stable on June 30. This was the aim of the plan, and Alstom fully implemented it in a timely manner. Turning now to guidance, let me remind you of the key assumptions that underpin our fiscal year 2024-2025 outlook. On the external factors, supportive market demand and level of down payments broadly in line with last year. As of today, these conditions are met and confirmed. The diverging plan being fully executed, key remaining action on our side is the end of the integration program with Bombardier. I can confirm that this condition will be met during the year as per plan. We therefore confirm the fiscal year 24-25 outlook that we provided at full year results in May, i.e., book to bill above 1, sales organic growth around 5%, adjusted EBIT around 6.5% with margin improvement to be more pronounced in the second half of the year due to structural seasonality, but also to the timing of the various self-help initiatives regarding cost savings. and free cash flow generation to be within a range of 300 to 500 million euros for the full year. And regarding the first half, we confirm the seasonality which we explained last May. We expect free cash flow for the first half to be negative with a range of 300 to 500 million euros. Regarding mid-term ambitions, there is no change to the framework that we provided back in May. Before we open for Q&A, let me share a few words of conclusion. Commercial momentum is sound, with auto-intakes to accelerate within the year starting in Q2. Mobilization around the rolling stock delivery is strong, as seen in France for the Olympics. And the leveraging plan has been executed and puts Alstom on solid foundation. So in a nutshell, we are in line with the plan unveiled in May. Thanks a lot for listening. I will now take your questions.

Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad and just make sure that your mute function is not activated in order to let your signal reach your equipment. Our first question today is coming from Delphine Beau of OWHF. Please go ahead. The line is open.

Yes. Thank you for taking my question. Good evening, everyone. I have two. First, can you provide a bit more colors on your pipeline for Q2 and H2, so for the remainder of the year, maybe by region or by segment? And second, can you comment on any tension that you may still see in your supply chain, if any?

Thank you, Delphine. What I can do is first to remind you that tomorrow morning we'll make a significant announcement on a new order to be booked in Q2, and that's going to be in Europe, that's going to be for rolling stock and service, and that will be, again, a significant order. What I can also do is to remind you that we have announced large orders that you already know. They have been announced and waiting proper conditions for booking, for example, in Portugal for 700 million, Haifa Nazareth for 700 million, Perth signaling 650, and Proxima for 700. On top of that, around 15 billion of options on frame agreements to be called off progressively of next quarters and years. And that brings us to confirm our book two bill above one for the full year and a strong order intake in Q2 as well. On the supply chain, what I can tell you that it's still something we are monitoring very carefully because it could explain some of the production bottlenecks that we have in certain sites. Nevertheless, nothing major to flag here. So still on the top of our priority in terms of execution, but nothing specific, I would say, to flag.

Thank you. Thank you very much, ma'am. We'll now move to Daniela Costa of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you. I have two questions. One is a follow-up, I guess, now that the leveraging part of your first priorities were done. Can you talk a little bit through those working capital actions that you were implementing? What have been done, how it is progressing, a bit of an update on that. And then the quick second question is regarding like the whole U.S. tariffs and the risks around the elections. I know U.S. is not very big for you, but are you fully, all the costs for everything that is done in the U.S., are U.S.-based or could we see some impact from tariffs? Thank you.

Okay. On the first one, on the debt averaging, yes, we have some, what I could say, organic actions undertaken since now a few quarters to improve the situation. Still, we have some seasonality. Just to illustrate, the actions on inventories continue, I think, to progress. What we have done to synchronize production and deliveries is also part of the plan. That's what I explained when I described the situation in terms of production. We have delivered more products cars and what we produced in Q1. That's an illustration. And we are also working to continue to put the adequate pressure on our supply chain. And again, we manage it carefully because on the one hand, we could have some issues and on the other hand, We need to get the right tune in terms of inventories, and most of the inventories are coming with the supply chain and suppliers. So, yes, we are moving on two legs, and organic measures are well paying off, but I think we need to wait for the end of the semester to describe what kind of impact it has on the balance sheet. Now, To your point on the U.S. elections, frankly, nothing to flag here. As you said, it's an important region for us, the Americas, but nothing really to flag here. The Buy American Act still means that 95 percent of what we are doing is sourced in the U.S., I don't think we might expect something different in the coming years. And we don't see a major impact as of today on the Amtrak project that is progressing well. No, frankly, I could say the same thing for the French elections, which has created some impact on the political side of it, but nothing material on our industry and our business.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. We'll now move to Martin Wilkie of Citi. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good evening. It's Martin from Citi. The first question I had was just going back to the pipeline. I think at the start of the call, you mentioned it's now around 200 billion euros. If I recall correctly, it was around 190 billion last time around. Just if you could give us a bit more colour on what's driving that, either by regional product that's seen that nudge higher in the pipeline. Thank you.

Frankly, Martin, considering the total amount, 190 to 200 million, does it make a big difference? Nothing really to flag here. It's in the same, I would say, ballpark on what we discussed in May. Nothing significant to report here.

Okay, thanks. If I could ask a follow-up thing. Obviously, you talked about a mix shift over time with services and signaling becoming a more important part of the mix relative to rolling stock. But it still seems that there's a very healthy backlog and conversion of rolling stock, given what you're talking about for Q2 as well. Has there been any change in that front or should we still expect that mix shift of the revenue mix away from rolling stock to continue?

No, no, nothing new. We are very much in the same direction of what we explained in May. We've seen a good momentum in terms of signaling and services. I mean, I'm sure you noticed that the booktube for services is double-digit one, so very much in line with what we said. And, again, tomorrow you will see a big, big bundled, I would say, order, so with a lot of services. And we are happy with development in the signaling business as well. So, no, I would say that it confirmed what we said in May with a mixed – converging in terms of rolling stock and services in 2026-27 towards 40% of our backlog for each and signaling on top being around 20%. That's very much our roadmap. And I think that what we're going to see in terms of order intake in this year will confirm it.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, sir. Our next question, we come from Akash Gupta of JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi. Good afternoon, Barna, and thanks for your time. I have two as well. The first one is on your debt reduction plans. You have largely executed the plan, and I'm wondering if you can talk about what kind of feedback you're receiving from customers, and with a better balance sheet, do you see room for positive surprise on orders? Should the customer get more confidence in your ability to execute large long-term contracts after the debt reduction plan? And the second one is on signaling. So orders were up almost 100% year-on-year, and we saw you booked a large order in Hamburg. I'm wondering if we strip out this large Hamburg order, then can you talk about the base order development in signaling that you are seeing? Thank you.

On the first question, Akash, the same way we said in the... in the winter that we had no negative feedback from the customer on our rating situation and balance sheet issues. I can tell you that we had no positive feedback from the customer on the execution of the deleveraging plan. Frankly, for them, we are a signed company. having a huge backlog to execute, and they are very confident that we'll be there, and they need Alstom to be there in order to deliver on the backlog. So no real feedback, I must say. We had very positive feedback from our shareholders, from the market, from the financial community, I would say, but not really for the customers. I'm not sure I get your question. Was it on base orders or is it, could you please rephrase it?

I mean, if you look at signaling orders for Q1, they're up almost 100% year on year. And we know that you booked a large order in Hamburg, which also had some signaling. And I was wondering if you can provide some color on underlying orders in signaling, what sort of development you are seeing there excluding this large order?

Well, a way to say it is to say over almost 900 million of order in the signaling, Hamburg represents, let's say, 150 million. That means that the base orders represent 750 or so. So this is very much in line with what we have always said that Base orders with good margins are fueling the pipeline for our signaling business, and it's going in the same direction of what we said in May, both for signaling and for base orders.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. We'll now move to Gaël Debré of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Well, thanks very much. Good afternoon, everybody. I have two questions, please. So firstly, I wanted to understand if the 14% decrease in the car production level was in line with your internal assumptions, and if not, why that had been the case. Do you also still expect the production of cows to grow more or less around 5% this year? And in which segments and geographies do you expect to see an acceleration in the remainder of the year? And then I'll probably get back to the second question.

Yeah, okay, so I will not comment on our internal objectives because there are many factors here. What I can tell you that we are trying to get both, I mean, cautious assumptions when it comes to size, the cost of our activities, and ambitious target when it comes to delivering on our commercial target. So the fact that it is where it is today in terms of number of production doesn't tell you much about the financial impact of this production. But I would say that it's in line with the plan. Maybe it could have been more, and we are here and there, some bottlenecks that have created some minor deviation to the plan. But it does not change our total view on the year to be broadly in line, maybe a little bit above what we produced last year and above all what we delivered last year. So I would say no major deviation here and no impact on our financial guidance.

Okay, thanks very much. And the second one is... about the recent dissociation of the CEO and chairman roles. I know it's been only about a month, but I was curious to hear your thoughts on the process and what this could potentially change for the company going forward.

Okay, the CFO has no personal view on the governance of the company. It's a recent change, and they are working together, I would say, on a very frequent basis. So very... Nothing much to report here, Gail. I don't know what you were exactly expecting. I mean, these are, I mean, those chairman and CEO are strong personalities, and I guess that would be very good for Alstom. Nothing specific to report here.

All right. Thank you very much.

Have a good evening. Thank you, sir. We'll now move to André Coquin of UBS. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I've got two on margins. I'll just go one at a time. Firstly, I wanted to pick up on your comment about the margin progression in the year being second-half weighted due to seasonality and timing of season measures. I just wondered if you could help us calibrate that a little bit. Obviously, we're looking for about 80 basis points margin expansion for a year, and you already had more of a second-half kind of progression in the margin. last year. So could you maybe talk about those measures and the size of them that create this age and age deviation?

Thank you, André, for your question. It's not a time real to discuss margins and profitability. What I can say that what we have seen in Q1 as margins on the order intake was very robust. and above what we saw last year in terms of backlog improvement. But we stick to what we've said, approximately 50 bps improvement in the backlog year on year. That's the target, and I would say that Q1 might be a little bit above the target, but considering the size of the under intake, you shouldn't take it as indication that we will be above the yearly guidance in terms of improvement on the backlog, the margin on the overall backlog?

Just to make sure I'm not confused, if we're looking for margins to go from 5.7 last year to 6.5 with the 80 basis points progression, I think you got it for a bit less than that in H1 and a bit more in H2. And the 50-50 that you mentioned before, you mentioned the backlog progression, is that kind of the guiding light for H1? And then you expect to accelerate that in second half with the self-help measures. Is that the right read?

I'm just telling you that the margin in the backlog is good, and it has improved significantly for the order intake of the first quarter. On now the adjusted EBIT progression, what we have confirmed in the guidance is that it will be more pronounced in the second half of this year for the very reason of the seasonality. So I expect that H1 adjusted EBIT will be very consistent with full-year adjusted EBIT last year, and the significant progression will come in the second half because of – and because of the cost-saving initiatives that we have taken and that will have a full year impact on the second half of this year. So the seasonality that we flagged in May will be not only on the cash, but also on adjusted EBIT. And again, something close to last year profitability. You're going to see that. in the first half of this year. By the way, it already happened last year, by the way, where the profitability of H1 was close to last year full-year profitability. I'm not suggesting it's a pattern, but we're going to replicate the same kind of profile for adjusted profitability, adjusted EBIT this year.

That's really helpful. Thank you. My second question was about the backlog margin, but you answered it at the beginning of your answer. If I may just take an excuse in one, on the cash flow profile, your guidance is very clear. I wondered if I could ask at all whether the impedance of the water intake and that's also different in the deliveries in Q1, does that place you anywhere kind of off the middle of that minus 300 to 500 million range for the first half? or are we still firmly kind of in the middle of it for the first half?

I will not comment on that, André. I mean, based on Q1 orders, I don't think it's too early to give you more color on how we see down payments over the year and how it can be articulated with our free cash flow. Just keep in mind that you will see an acceleration of order intake in Q2, and we have the same view as the ones that we explained earlier, in May for the full year and the H1 in terms of free cash flow. No change here. I completely understand. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much, sir. Next question will be coming from Jonathan Mounsey of BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for filling me in. Maybe the first question, I think you touched on the order pipeline being strong. And I know that last year, I think you walked away from that large contract in India, I think after you'd been even selected as the preferred bidder. I just wonder, is there any sign that that contract can come back? I know it was extremely large, perhaps on better terms?

No news from India.

Okay. Maybe as a follow-up, obviously during the period of high inflation, you and I guess the rest of the industry sort of relied more heavily on escalation clauses than had been the case in the past. And I'm just wondering whether those types of contract detail are still in place on fresh contracts. Also, now that the inflation is easing, and maybe I'm just wondering whether competition starts to rise and it's harder to get that sort of protection done. on the contracts that you're winning going forward in order to be competitive against everybody else in the market.

We still have the same kind of closures in the new contracts. I mean, that's the way it works. The point is that indexes will be different, but from a contractual point of view, we need the same protection, and we have it.

Maybe just one final one, given how short the answer to the first one was. Obviously, good to know that the disposal to Noor is almost complete. Is there anything else in the pipeline around disposals? Anything active or being considered that we could see in the next 24 months or so? Or does that really bring the disposal process to an end for the foreseeable future?

I think that we said with Henri when releasing our full-year result that we are continuing to look at what needs to be done in order to have dynamic management of our portfolio of activities. So I would say nothing on the back burner, but still a lot of activity of thinking about our strategy and the impact on our portfolio of activities, but nothing – really to flag here for the coming quarters in terms of disposals or acquisitions.

Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. Next question will be coming from Vlad Serhievski of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my two questions, one by one. First one on the cash flow list. In the second half of last year, you reported a very sizable increase in prepayments. Contract liabilities were up by over 1 billion euros, which is twice bigger than any semi-annual increase previously. At the same time, your order intake over the same period, excluding service orders, was relatively modest and book-to-bill was below one time. Could you help us understand the reason for such a big increase in prepayments during the last period, in the period when orders were relatively modest? And how does this increase impact your view on contract working capital development going forward, maybe for this year and beyond?

Okay, I'm not sure where you want to go. Yes, we've seen a strong increase in contract liabilities because of repayments last year, because we had good commercial momentum in the execution in the contracts. So if the question is, does that have any impact on this year, the answer is no. We continue to see a good momentum. I think it's too early to talk about contract working cap, but there is some seasonality, as we explained. because we continue to execute on the contract, but in terms of activities of some of our western factories, second half is more loaded than the first one, so it's why we have some seasonality, and it will have an impact on working cap in the first half. We are monitoring the situation, and we'll discuss that with H1 results.

Thank you very much. And a follow-up on the cash flow, please. If we look at your guidance for the year, $300 to $500 million, can I clarify, does this guidance include lease payments and interest costs related to the hybrid bonds? And how would free-to-flow calculation change if those elements are included? It would be perhaps helpful if you can quantify those elements to us, how you see them for this year. That would be the second question.

since we discussed it at full year. So we have the same definition of free cash flow as previously. So it excludes leases and any coupons that are treated as dividends. And for Solizis, I mean, no big change. We are still thinking about 160 to 170 million per year. And for the hybrid coupon, it's going to be in the range of 35 million net of tax for a full year base.

That's clear.

Thank you so much. Thank you very much, sir. We'll now move to James Moore of Redburn. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good evening, everyone. Hi, Bernard. I don't have too much more to ask because you've been very clear tonight, so thanks. Maybe I could go back to your margin comment being particularly good in the new order intake in the quarter. Is that because of... a higher mix of signaling and service, which helps on a mixed basis. I'd be keen to get away from that and just understand that on a pure trading basis, whether you're seeing the order intake margin progressing. That's the first question. And then the second question surrounds down payments. I think one of your ambitions was to improve the down payment percentages to drive the quality of free cash flow. Would that be too precise on the numbers? given the orders you've seen in the first quarter and what you signaled being attractive orders in the second quarter, are you seeing signs of that improved down payment terms coming through, as you hoped?

Good evening, James. On your first, I think, yes, the good performance in terms of margins on other intake in Q1 has to do with the mix, with good... good level of both signaling and base orders. That's really what has driven margin in order intake in Q1. I wouldn't draw too much conclusion of that, but it means it's moving in the right direction. But it has to do with the mix, including mix in geographies, by the way. In terms of down payments, frankly, no change to what we said in May. We said that we see the overall amount of down payments for this year consistent with what we saw. experienced last year, so no major change. Nothing really I could discuss here. I think it will be better in H1 to discuss it. But as we see some good momentum for Q2, I expect also some good level of down payments in H1, even if it could be a little bit unbalanced between H1 and H2. Nothing really to flag here.

Thank you very much.

Thank you much, Mr. Moore. Ladies and gentlemen, as we are short a bit in time, we have time for only one more question, and the last question today is coming from Thomas Day of HSBC. Please go ahead.

Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to come back to the pipeline and just ask, around your previous comments on the pipeline, have you seen any changes in market activity, any customer activity? I know previously you talked about customers becoming a bit more hesitant and I know you've also said obviously you're looking at quite good order intake for the second half but just wondering more generally whether that hesitancy is continued or whether it's something that's now sort of faded again into the background.

Okay. As I said, nothing really changed in this quarter versus what we explained in May. But looking at the number of bids that we are on and that we are working on and submissions that we are working on, I can tell you that I haven't seen any softness. in the pipeline, a lot of activity in Europe, specifically in Germany maybe, maybe some delay for some expected in the Americas, but nothing really material to flag here. We are working on the same assumptions in terms of order intake as now versus where we were in May, the same assumptions in terms of total amount of down payments. So really nothing to mention here as a change in our landscape for this industry.

Right. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Day. Thank you very much for your presentation, Mr. Lippe. Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's conference. Thank you very much for your attendance. You may now disconnect. Have a good day and goodbye.