Autostore Hldgs Reg S

Good morning and welcome to AutoStore's fourth quarter 2025 presentation. My name is Siva Florskjær and I'm the Investor Relations Officer at AutoStore. I'll be moderating today's session. I'm joined by our CEO Mats Hovland-Vikse and our CFO Paul Harrison, and they're standing ready to walk you through this quarter and answer your questions. As usual, we would like to remind you of our disclaimer with regards to forward looking statements. It can be read here at your own convenience. Moving on to the agenda. Maths will begin with an overview of our operational performance and strategic progress. Paul will then walk you through the financial results in more detail. will follow with a live Q&A session. So you can submit your question via the webcast player, or you can raise your hand in the Microsoft Teams to ask your questions directly. The link is available in the Teams meeting. That was the invitation that was sent a couple of weeks ago. So after the Q&A, Mats will round off with some final remarks. And as a reminder, All our figures are stated in US dollars. So with that, Mats, over to you.

Thank you, Hiva. So fourth quarter marked a strong finish to the year. Look, we can all agree that 2025 has been a volatile year, but it is now clear that the actions that we have taken are starting to show through in our results. In Q4, revenues grew 29% sequentially and 9% year-over-year to 180 million. Order intake increased 27% sequentially and 35% year-over-year to 194 million. Moving to profitability, we maintained our strong gross margins at 74% and our EBITDA margin ended at 43%. If we look at it through a full year lens, revenues ended at 539 million, down 10% compared to 2024. And as we stand here today, we still observe a market that holds a lot of the same characteristics as we've seen for a while. What we see, though, is that certain customers are now investing in automation and building that intelligent fulfillment platform that is needed to operate in a world where changes just happen at a pace and frequency like never before. The customers we sign in Q4 are a mix between those that we've worked with for a long time and new ones that has come in with higher velocity. In the quarter, we saw continued strength from industrials and other B2B segments, and we're also seeing some traction in retail. I'm also pleased to see that us constituted more than 30% of our order intake and, in addition, we had several high throughput projects converted a period. As we've talked about before, these are key growth areas for us and the US was one of the areas where we re allocated investment towards during 2025. Taking a step back, 2025 has been a year where we've made significant change and progress in the company. The market environment was very difficult at the start of the year, as also reflected in our results. Following that, we took decisive actions and focused on what we can control. First, we have improved our ability to win, getting closer to our customers, reallocating resources and making sure that we're focused on the right sets of opportunities. We've added 150 new customers in 2025. And what is interesting, though, is that still existing customers accounted for about 60% of our revenues. And this, to me, talks about the potential of our land and expand model and the importance of deepened customer relationships. Second is that we're taking steps to improve the quality of our revenue. We have continued to invest in and monetize our software products, such as the essential package that we released earlier in 25. Additionally, we've launched new business models with Autos for Asset Service to better align with certain customer segments. And as an example, earlier this year, we won and shipped projects worth 34 million. And all of this has now gone live and started generating revenues for us. And third is that we continue to expand our leadership position to an improved pace of innovation. In 2025, we released 11 new products, including AutoCase, Carousel AI, and Flexpins. And so far, we've seen strong commercial traction with very positive customer feedback. And we've now gotten involved in several projects that we otherwise would not have been able to do without these sets of capabilities. And we do not stand still. Our next product announcement is coming up already in March, and I'm looking forward to showing you the progress that we've made. But altogether, these three pillars are setting us up for growth. As mentioned, there is still uncertainty in the market. And even though we see good momentum on several fronts, it's still too early to call how 2026 will evolve. But what we do know is that we are entering 2026 in a stronger position as a company than ever before. And that is partly as a result of the strong foundation that this strategy is built upon. The scale we have with nearly 2000 systems across 65 countries gives us a true global presence. We've achieved that through a model that gives us industry leading distribution with a strong partner network and a broad customer base of 1300 customers. We do all this with a superior financial profile. We're set up for growth, high margins and high cash conversions. And look, we can achieve this scale with such a financial profile because we have a standardized, modular, and flexible solution that works across a wide range of end markets. There's two takeaways I want you to take home from this page. First, we have a diversified customer base with customers using our solution for many different strategies, B2B, B2C, e-com, store fulfillment, and much more. Second, our solution is trusted by world-class brands. And even with those that have started implementing AutoStore, it is still early days in terms of adoption. And I always like to end with a customer story. And this time we want to show our customer Polaris, who is a global supplier of outdoor and off-road vehicles. They have seen great benefit of incorporating AutoStore into their operations. So before Paul takes us through the financials of the quarter, please have a look at this.

Polaris has been helping people discover the joy of being outdoors since 1954. We manufacture a wide variety of all-terrain vehicles, military and commercial vehicles, slingshots, snowmobiles and boats. In our division, PG&A, we have a robust portfolio of parts, garments, and accessories. We deliver to nearly 100 countries across the globe.

We really understand the importance of keeping riders in the field riding, so we store over 25,000 SKUs on hand here and place a lot of emphasis on order response time and order accuracy.

We were looking to increase our SKU capacity to get our parts closer to our customer base and improve the working environment for our employees.

This system here is 44,000 bins with nine picking ports and five replenishment ports and then 74 robots on top of the grid. And the AutoStore system was designed to present 1,800 bins per hour on a peak day. And about 75% of Polaris' overall order volume is coming from the auto store. So by taking all the merchandise that was able to fit within the auto store, we've been able to move 75% of their daily volume into auto store, which they've been able to achieve about 150% improvement on their pick rates. So by moving that volume to the auto store, we've really been able to optimize the waiver associated with fulfilling every outbound container.

I would describe the auto store as a state-of-the-art solution. This system has completely transformed how our facility operates today. Previously, our operators would walk up to 10 miles per day, so this really cut down on the operator fatigue that we were experiencing. The learning curve is incredibly improved. Team members can pick up the new system within a day, within a couple hours. From a quality perspective, all the new technology with Illumapik, goods to person, this has really improved our quality metrics year over year and how we've serviced our customer.

We needed a couple of things for our e-commerce customers, density, speed, and reliability. And the AutoStore solution has delivered on all those fronts. So we have the capacity to triple our SKU base with the AutoStore. We've reduced our pick-to-pack cycle time by 50%. And we are able to operate at an extremely high run rate.

We designed this system with long-term capacity so the nine pick ports really keep us flexible for high peak demand. There's been multiple occasions this past year where we've had high peak volume. We've set daily records with outbound volume. It's exceeded my expectations and it's been a home run solution for our facility.

Thank you, Matt, and good morning. That was a great example of a customer requiring an order store solution which would fall into our standard segment and which clearly delivered strong improvements across their key metrics. Now let's move on to the financial highlights on the next slide. Over the course of 2025, we saw a gradual stabilisation of market conditions. So, for the year, revenue came in at $539 million, gross margin was 72% and adjusted EBITDA margin was 42%. Order intake reached $638 million and cash conversion was 76%. But turning to Q4 in particular, our performance was enhanced by a number of customers committing to projects that they had been evaluating for some time. The results also reflect strong operational focus, and we've seen the early results indeed from our sharpened strategy. As a result, revenue came in at £180 million, up 29% quarter-on-quarter and 9% year-over-year. Gross margin was 74% and adjusted EBITDA margin was 43%. Order intake reached £194 million, bringing our backlog to £557 million and cash conversion for the quarter was 84%. In Q4, as Matt's mentioned, the strong order intake you see on this slide reflects growth across a broad range of end markets, with retail showing renewed momentum. In addition, and reflecting back to our capital markets day in 2024, it's good to see progress in our high throughput space. Order intake reached 194 million, which took our closing backlog to a record high of 557 million. If I move now to revenue, sequentially revenue grew 29% to 180 million in quarter four. Europe remained strong and North America also delivered another quarter of sequential progress. The standard segment delivered steady growth and we also had a meaningful share of high throughput projects landing in Q4 from both Europe and North America. So I'm pleased with the sequential improvements in order intake and revenues and the year-on-year growth of 35% and 9% respectively. As you consider the year-on-year growth, remember please our comments about the unusual Euro-US dollar movements in Q4 of last year. If you adjust for those, the 35% and 9% I just referred to become mid-teens and single-digit growth numbers respectively. Okay, let's move on to margins. Gross margin came in at a particularly high 74%, reflecting a favourable product mix. Further down the P&L, the adjusted EBITDA margin came in at 43%, which is lower than the previous quarter. Now, as we've said on a number of occasions, we're prepared to invest in growth, and you should expect us to continue to do this, balancing profitability with disciplined investment. This is a new slide which we're presenting following the completion of the recent refinancing. As a reminder, we refinanced on the 5th of November 2025 with 150 million five-year term loan and a 350 million five-year RCF. We continue to deliver strong underlying cash flow from operations with cash flow conversion at 84% in Q4, as I mentioned. Looking at the quarter in more detail, we see a high tax outflow of £48.4 million. This was primarily driven by the timing of tax payments in 2025, with the final true-up being finalised in the fourth quarter. And looking at working capital, we had an increase in receivables affecting free cash flow in Q4 as part of a normal seasonal pattern and a reflection of a large volume of sales booked in December. All of this took our net debt to £180 million at 31st December and our liquidity headroom remained strong at £372 million, split between cash of £90 million and the undrawn element of the RCF at £282 million. Going forward, our new facilities will enable more agile and efficient treasury management, with surplus cash being more readily applied to debt repayment without any loss of financial capacity. During 2025 as a whole, we will continue to deleverage our balance sheet and our current net debt equals 0.8 times adjusted EBITDA. As we've talked about before, growth, both organic and inorganic, remains our highest priority. However, with these leverage levels and strong cash generation, capital allocation is a topic the board regularly discusses. So with that, I'll pass back to Hever.

Well, Mats, please, let's open up for some Q&A. And let's start with the ones on the webcast who are joining us on Teams. Sorry. Eirik, I believe you're first. If you could please go ahead and unmute yourself.

Yes. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I had a bit of a struggle getting on to the start of the webcast, so apologies if these were addressed early. But if we can start just with some housekeeping, Paul, on the exact FX impact on both orders and revenue. Is it correct to think that FX tailwind was approximately 15% year-over-year on orders and approximately 5% year-over-year on revenue?

Yeah, you're in the right place there, Eric. So to be precise, constant currency revenue growth ran about 4%. Constant currency order intake growth ran about 14%.

Perfect. Thank you. And also, Mats, I think I picked up on a comment. You said that the US was it more than 30% of orders in Q4? How was the order growth distributed between the other geographies? And could you also give some more color on high throughput versus standard in the quarter?

Of course, and you got that right. So U.S. more than 30% of orders. Europe remains strong north of 60% and remaining landing in APAC and some in Latin America. High throughput was also an area where we did make progress in the quarter, both on order intake and in revenue. So a few high throughput projects included in the mixture for sure.

Perfect. Thanks. And I guess this is back to Paul. Your order book to revenue conversion was around 33% in the quarter, quite a meaningful step up from both Q2 and Q3. How should we think about your ability to drive orders to revenue for the full year of 26? And are there also other factors such as, you know, as a service or longer project timelines for high throughput that we should take into account?

Yeah, look, I think it's obviously good to see that 33% conversion in Q4. It takes us back, if I take a long-term historic average, to nearer that average and is better than the conversion rates we saw in quarters one to quarter three, Eric. I would just remind you that the comment we made about a number of those high throughput projects coming to fruition in quarter four, So, you know, we need to be a little cautious about whether we see a sort of repeat of that conversion rate. What I will say to you is that the quality of our order backlog remains extremely strong.

Perfect. Thank you. And while I'm still on, I'll go with a couple more. And that's on the kind of demand side. Are you seeing any impact that all of like pull forward demand due to customers kind of front running price hikes on memory chips and or, you know, potential supply chain constraints, which has been the theme over the last couple of weeks?

No, I think in general, what we're seeing with customers is that many are now looking to implement automation because it has a meaningful difference for them in their operations. We haven't seen any meaningful difference because of either shortages or price hikes, etc. For our customers, I think this is more of a long-term investment that sees them building better operations versus accelerating it.

That's very clear. Thanks. And just one, which also is kind of on timing effects and the US in particular, are you seeing any impacts or just in the discussions you have with end customers around impact from the big, beautiful bill and potentially, you know, pulling forward some 2027, 28 projects to 2026?

No, I think in general, because we are now closer to our customers, we are discussing more roadmaps and longer-term implementations with it. It isn't, again, driven by certain policies or certain supply chain expectations, but more on a long-term strategy basis.

Perfect. And then one last one, if I can bug you. Less than a year ago, you initiated the cost program with about $10 million in annual savings. Today, you're writing that margins come down, reflecting investments in long-term growth initiatives. Can you share a bit more of your thinking here? And is this kind of a read that you've become incrementally, significantly more positive on short-term outlook over the last couple of months?

I'll make a couple of comments there, Eric. Look, one thing that we were really pleased to do in 2025 was see quite a material proportion of our cost-based move to what I call sort of front office functions. So I'm thinking about the commercial function and products. So we saw that mix shift, which is important. And to that end, you know, recognising that we remain inherently a highly profitable business with a highly profitable standardized product driving a high gross margin, we will and will continue to report a strong EBITDA margin. But within that range, we will invest, as you imply there, to drive stronger growth. That's always been our priority.

And if you look at it right in, yes, we took out those costs, which was needed at the time. Uh, but we've also sharpened our strategy and we see that strategy is yielding results at the core of it. We're a growth business as we see business cases or areas that we can invest in, invest in that will yield positive results for us, both short-term and long-term. We will make those investments.

That's very clear. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you, Eirik. I think next up is Tim. If you could please go ahead and unmute yourself.

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. So a couple of questions have already been asked by Eric. So I will just follow up with some of the questions. So first of all, we got a new conversion in the quarter. Obviously, this is a kind of step up. Can I also just confirm whether there will be any projects that you originally scheduled in the first quarter and then it was delivered early in the fourth quarter?

I think there's always, Tim, a desire on the part of customers to close a year, place the orders as part of sort of preparing for projects in the coming year. So there's always a year-end push in that regard. I wouldn't characterize it as being abnormal, but I would draw your attention again to those high-throughput projects that we've been working on for some time that came to a conclusion in the form of an order in Q4.

Understood. And then on the high throughput projects, as you mentioned, can I confirm how long, you know, in terms of project logitivity come with the normal project for the projects that you got in the fourth quarter?

Tim, I'm sorry, just repeat that question. I'm so sorry.

Yeah, so I'm just wondering how long, we should consider in terms of the project life for the high throughput projects that you got in the fourth quarter.

So I think the high throughput projects in the fourth quarter is likely to convert over the course of 2026. But on average, these projects do take longer time than what we see in the standard segment because it is larger projects, more complexity and project duration is generally longer.

Understood, that's clear. And then my last question is on the margin side. So I think this quarter we have a margin decline on a year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter basis. I think that's the growth initiative investment. And if I look at the personal expenses, it is kind of a step up in the quarter. Can I just confirm whether there will be any one of incentives in this staff expenses or we should consider this like an ongoing level?

You're right to identify that increase as being sort of related to personal expenses. Of course, it becomes headcount, investment in, as I say, those front office functions, particularly sales. And of course, as you get to a strong close of the year, the usual sort of accruals for sales bonuses and the likes are relevant as well.

So that means that could be some, you know, one-off items, including in this staff expenses or not.

No, I would say, I'd say the item, no, not one-off items. I'd say the items that you're seeing are partly related to the performance for the quarter and partly related to a broader investment in the form of headcount into the commercial and product functions.

And then for this level of margin, can I assume it is something like a new norm level in terms of the EBITDA margin?

I think it's important to say we're not guiding specifically to the margin today, but we are prepared with those dynamics. I talked about the inherent high profitability in the business. We are prepared to invest to return this business to growth. And let's be very clear, that is our number one priority. But we are going to remain a highly profitable business. And these margins, after all, 43% in the period.

Understood. Very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you, Tim. Toby, I believe you're next. If you could please go ahead and unmute yourself.

Yeah, hey, good morning. Just on the investments in longer-term growth initiatives, could you just unpack what are the biggest buckets of spend there and just how you're thinking about this level of spend intensity going forward? would be great. Thank you.

Look, two big areas. One is that we're executing a strategy that sees us coming closer to our customers. So building up the types of capabilities that sees us building those relationships and delivering that value to customers, both pre and post sales, because that sees us better taking out the land and expand potential that we've talked about. The second area is around product. We've talked about the product strategy that we have in place and how that is both improving our current position and sees us entering new types of markets. And you'll see us continue that pace of innovation that we've had in 2025 with new product releases coming up now already in March. And in terms of go forward, as I said, our mentality is that if we can develop good, solid business cases, we will make those investments. Great, thank you.

Thank you, Toby. Just see.

Nicolas, do you... Any question? No. No question there. No hands are raised now, I think. Oh, well, sorry. Eirik, I apologize. Your hand is raised. Please go ahead and unmute yourself.

Yes. Thanks, guys. Just jumping back into your point about the solid gross margins, Paul. Two questions on that note. Number one, on the cost side, aluminium prices have been kind of steadily rising over the last couple of months. Could you just remind us on on the contract structure and also hedging policy and when, you know, that potentially might impact the P&L. So that's on the cost side of the gross margin and maybe more a question for Mats on the revenue side and on the competitive landscape. Any updates there, what you've seen through the quarter, pricing dynamics, anything that we should be aware of for both the short and medium term?

Thanks, Eric. I'll go first. Look, on the cost side, clearly we are able to plan production several months forward, meaning we've got at any point in time several months worth of work in progress or finished goods in the form of robots in our factories. So that tends to create a lag effect in terms of exposure to commodity price movements. But, and I will also point out that having moved away from single source providers, we can take advantage of still competitive tension that exists when procuring those raw materials. You know, at the same time, as I've said before, we're not immune. Of course, we're not immune to those commodity prices, which is why you, you know, I've characterized for various reasons, the 74% gross margin in in quarter four has been a particularly high one and you've seen variability as a result of the factor you're raising as a result of product sales mix as well. And that will continue.

And in terms of pricing dynamics, we see that our competitive situations remains very similar as it has been for a while now with the same type of players. What we do see though, is that because we are getting closer to customers, we can be kind of even more crisp in explaining the value to those customers. And the second point I'll make is that because of those product releases that we've had during 2025. We're also now competing in projects that we haven't been able to compete in before. But looking at the data, we maintain our very, very high win rates.

Very clear. Thanks.

Thank you, Erik. Petter, I believe you had your hand up.

Yeah, I'm not sure if you can hear me. I had some trouble getting into the call. But I do have a question on the call space. It might also have been answered, but nevertheless, I'll go. Is the call space in queue for a representative for the coming quarters? Thank you.

I think I will refer back to the answer I gave earlier. We will at all times take account of opportunities to accelerate revenue, and that will see variability in our cost base. So we're not specifically guiding to the cost base. What I will also say, again, repeat, is the inherent profitability, high levels of profitability, and an EBITDA margin level will continue to prevail, but we will be agile.

Okay, Paul, if I might, just giving a follow-up question on that one. Does that mean that it gives you a little flexibility in a quarter, which you could see some softer sales, you have some flexibility on the cost side? How should we view that one? Thanks.

Look, to some extent, a substantial portion of our cost base is people, of course. So flexibility in terms of hiring plans, yes, we do have. But at the same time, sort of an employee base in the business. So be mindful of that as well. But clearly on hiring plans, we can accelerate. opportunity to accelerate growth consistent with Mats's early observations about strategies, including getting much closer to our largest customers.

Thank you, Paul. I'll jump back in the queue.

Well, actually, Petter, if you have any additional questions, please go ahead. There are no other hands raised, so please go ahead and unmute yourself, Petter.

My question has been answered. Thank you.

Okay. There are no other questions as far as I can see in the team's meeting. I'll just quickly have a look if we've received any questions on the chat. We have one question from Simon. What does the management evaluate to be the best capital allocation for the future? And what are other key points for future growth?

Okay, I'll certainly take the first of those. Best capital allocation, I want to stress again, the best capital allocation is to support growth in the business, both organic and inorganic. But clearly, when you're a business that is as strongly cash generative as order store with such a strong balance sheet as well, there is also the opportunity, which the board considers from time to time, to return cash from shareholders immediately. And those three elements are not mutually exclusive. So that is an active debate that the board has.

And I'll repeat the headlines of what we've already discussed. We're executing against a sharpened go-to-market strategy that sees us getting closer to customers. We're investing in key product initiatives that sees us both strengthening existing solution, expanding that into innovation, new areas and new problems to be solved for our customers, increasing addressable market, and also building a software platform that sees us and our customers draw advantages from all of those other key strategic areas.

Thank you, Mats. That was the only question in the chat. Again, I'll just ask if there's anybody on the team's call who has any questions, please feel free to raise your hands. No. I think that concludes our Q&A session for today. Thank you. I'll hand over the word to you, Mats.

Thank you. So, let me summarize what we have presented to you today and also remind you of some key points. First, we operate in a large under-penetrated market supported by long-term structural trends. Second, 2025 was a volatile year, but we responded decisively. We've streamlined the organization, sharpened our commercial focus, improved backlog conversion, and maintained solid profitability. and while the environment in early 2026 remains broadly in line with last year we are in a much stronger position than what we were a year ago we have a solid foundation supported by a scalable solution across industries and geographies and with a more customer-centric go-to-market model we're working closer with customers and just strengthening our overall land and expand strategy And as you've heard me say many times before, we're not standing still. In 2025, we launched 11 new products that saw us extending theCUBE into adjacent workflows, solving real customer challenges, and expanding our addressable market. Our upcoming biannual launch in March will build on this momentum, and we look forward to share in a month's time. So taken together, these elements gives us confidence in our direction and the ability to create long-term value. So I'd like to thank you for dialing in today. I look forward to speaking to you again soon.