Barco Nv Unsp/Adr

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the earnings call for Barcodes Full Year Results 2024. My name is Willem Franszoo and I'm the Head of Investor Relations and today we are publishing our results under the heading Strong Cash Generation in a Challenging Year. The results will be presented by our CEO Ann Segen and the CFO Anne Sender. This will take about 15 to 20 minutes and after the presentation we will open for questions and I will now give the word to Anstegen who will kick off the presentation.

Thank you Willem and good morning everybody. So let me start with the summary of the group's results for 24. So after a very difficult start of the year we saw the situation actually improve throughout the second half where we ended up almost flat compared to the year before. We saw quite some divisional and regional differences, where we saw very strong performance in the Americas and weaker and softer market conditions in EMEA and APAC. We started the year with a very strong order book, around $564 million. That was definitely with a significant growth in the entertainment business. Also a very healthy book-to-bill, larger than one. And we also stepped up our revenue from eco-labeled products to 68% from the total revenue. For EBDA margin, for EBDA we landed at 121 million, which is 12.8% from sales, with a significant step up in the second half. So gross profit percentage was of course supported by the introduction of new products, also more software in the mix, but it was also offset with a weak sales in our meeting experience click share. Now, in the second half, we also basically controlled OPEX, but in a way that we did not jeopardize, of course, our investments and our developments. And we ended up with an EBITDA margin of 16.7% for the second half. Net income came in at 63 million, and we generated a strong free cash flow at 110 million. That was driven by improved working capital. Our CAPA expenditure was mainly going to 43 million and was mainly going in cinema as a service and our focused factories investments. And for net cash, we ended at a position of about 260 million euro. When we look at the differences in the divisions and also in the regions, then we can say that our healthcare division was the most stable and resilient throughout the year. where we saw year-over-year minus 4% sales. That was fueled by the Americas and new product introductions. In enterprise, we saw minus 16% year-over-year, mainly driven by the weak sales in click share, stable sales in control rooms, and entertainment minus 9%, slow start of the year for cinema, but that definitely covers in the second half with a stronger movie state. and overall weaker market conditions, especially in India for immersive experience. So when you look at the regions, we did grow in the Americas across all the regions, 6% over the year. And also here, the new product introductions did help, and also the large deals that we closed in cinema in the second half of the year. In India we saw the strongest drop, minus 27%, overall actually difficult market conditions in many of our business units, but especially in Glickshare and Immersive Experience. And in APAC a modest reduction of minus 8%. We did see a modest improvement in China. But that was then offsetted with other regions in APAC. Also to note here that we stopped actually our controlling business as part of our transformation last year in certain countries in APAC. And that was reflected in the numbers in APAC also for 24. And now I hand it over to Ron for more details on the numbers.

Thank you, and good morning to all of you, also from my end. Looking into a little bit more of the figures, representing the first half, second half, combined in these wonderful years. The first half, indeed, soft and particular with respect to the lower sales, which we picked up in the second semester, as we got to the absorption, so to speak, effect of inventories at our customers, and as, for instance, the investment climate in cinema did pick up again, as of the second quarter actually already, but further into landing orders and sales into the second half. Second semester, we laid down 512 million of sales, which is minus 3% compared to the year before, and combined on a full year, that gets to 947 million of sales, minus 10% year over year. Gross profits came down to 40.7%, one percentage point lower than last year, which is primarily the impact of lower click share sales in the end, as well as within entertainment, lower performance of immersive experience. There has been some delay on new products which will be launched this year and which come with a better margin as relating to image processing products. We did contain our OPEX well over both semesters and that landed our OPEX at minus five percent, so it would contain half of the decline surface peak offset in our top items. And then landing at an EBITDA of 12.8%. In there, there is a BUDY included into the order operating income of 10 million, which has an impact, which is relating to a sale and misback. of building in the US, which we concluded the building which we are not fully utilizing and in that sense looking for more flexibility going forward. So that has an impact on the full year results of 10 million in EBITDA, excluding this one, we get to a full year EBITDA of 11.8%. Same figures that I'm in our usual presentation of the bridge EBITDA full years. So in that sense, yeah, the more down, of course, is relating to lower sales and then one percentage points lower gross profit margin. offset and in part with OPEX containment, so minus 5.4% lower OPEX offsetting indeed integration. R&D we maintained and this really because to really go full force on our product roadmap and product introductions of which we had many in the year and also still more than few to come in this year, so that's nice. Sales and marketing included the positive impact from the Synionic company, so our cinema sales company, which we integrated and which we have again 100% of share into that. And then also the positive impact of the control rooms strategy, which we revisited and the size of measures which we took on cost actually, which were helpful. And then there is a goody part, so to speak, on other income included in there the two bigger items or the higher results into our China joint venture, which is a recurring thing. And then a non-recurring is the gain 10 million relating to the sale and back of our U.S., of a U.S. facility. So with that, we are landing at 12.8% EBITDA in March.