bpost NV/SA

recorded, and for the duration of the call, your line will be on listen only. 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 0 and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand over to your host, Mr. Chris Peters, CEO, to begin today's conference. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to all of you, and thank you for joining us. We don't only have Philippe and myself, but also Antoine Lebec, Head of Investor Relations in the room, and Philippe and myself will walk you through our first quarter 2025 results. We posted the materials on our website this morning. We will walk you through the presentation and we'll then take your questions. As always, two questions each would ensure everyone gets the chance in the upcoming hour. Flip over to you for the financials. I'll then come back with an update on some of our key strategic priorities for 2025.

Thank you, Chris, and good morning to all. As you can see on the highlights on page 3, our group operating income for 2021 stood at €1,119,000,000 and increased year-over-year by close to 13%. At constant perimeter, meaning excluding the 199 million consolidation impact of Stasi, our operating income decreased by 7% above 73 million, mainly driven by the following factors. Number one, persistent headwinds in North America following contract termination announced in 2025, 2024, and the loss of enterprise customers earlier this year, as flagged in our 2025 Second, lower press revenue driven by the new press contract that came into effect in July last year in 24, combined with continuous structural volume decline in domestic mail. And third, unlike in the previous quarters, this was not mitigated by growth in domestic parcel revenue, which were adversely impacted by volume loss during the strike in February. Our group-adjusted EBIT came in at 41.6 million euros, with a margin of 3.7%, or 28.4 million when excluding the 13.1 million contribution of Stasi. On a life-to-life basis, this reflects on a year-on-year decline of minus 41.3 million euros. Beyond the 6 million euro impact from the strike, this decline is primarily driven by impact on EBIT, and North America, where ongoing productivity gains are not sufficient to fully offset top-line pressures. We'll come back in the section of 3PL, but I already want to emphasize that Stasi performance is fully in line, again, with our expectation and our guidance 2025 that we shared in February with you. In the first quarter, its EIFRS edit contribution was negatively affected by 5.1 million euros front-loaded IFRIC 21 booking, whereas on the local accounting standard, this annual impact is spread evenly over the 12 months of the year. Since the impact is fully booked in the first quarter, the margin over the next three quarters will compensate for it, and on a fuller basis, its effect will be fully neutralized. More broadly, at BPOS level, the results we are presenting today are in line with our expectations, and Chris will come back on that point. Before diving into the financial performance of our business unit, you will note on slide 4 that our financial results decreased by 28 million, mainly due to four factors. Higher interest expense, resulting from the 1 billion increase in debt following the acquisition of Stasi in 2024. Lower interest income driven by lower money market rates and lower cash balance following the acquisition of Stasi. higher interest expense and some non-cash FX impact. Let's move now to the details of the three segments. I'm on page 5 with last month's segment. We see that revenue declined by 34 million to 545 million. In line with Q3 and Q4 last year, domestic mail recorded around 28 million decline in revenue, of which 19 comes from the press alone. mainly due to the new contract with the editors following the end of the press concession in June 2024. Excluding press, mails recorded an underlying volume decline of 8% for the quarter. This decline in mail volume led to a revenue impact of 19.1 million, though was partially offset by a positive price and mix impact of plus 3.9% on 9.7 million As a result, the domestic mail revenue decline was limited to minus 4% or €10 million year-over-year. Our parcel revenue remained stable year-over-year, reflecting a volume decline of 2.1% and a positive price-mix effect of 2.2%. Let's dig into the different subcomponents. The decline was driven by volume lost and shifted to the competition during the two-week strike of the month of February that affected our national sorting and delivery operations. This resulted in a volume drop of minus 12% in the month of February alone, which contrasts with an average volume growth of plus 2.5% in the months of January and March. As for the price mix, it stood at 2.2%. This was also negatively impacted by the strike, as we faced customer claims and contractual penalties related to the non-quality and service disruptions. Excluding the strike, the average price mix was closer to 3.9% like we saw it in January and in March. Revenue from other activities including retail, value-added services, and personal logistics declined by 5 million euros year-over-year, mainly due to lower banking revenue and repricing of state services, while Dynagroup remained nearly stable. Let's move to the P&L on page 6. Our total operating income decreased by more than 33 million, or 5.5%. On the cost side, our OPEX, including depreciation and amortization, only slightly declined by 0.5% or 2.5 million. This reflects higher salary costs per FTE with a 2.7 year-over-year increase driven by salary indexation in June 2024 and in March 2025. However, this was offset by unpaid absence as well as lower FTE and interest during the strike period and lower cost of sales. Beyond the drop in price revenue, the 31 million year-on-year decline in adjusted EBIT also includes approximately 6 million of direct strike impact. This mainly reflects commercial losses in partial volume, but also in mail, the contractual penalties, and to a lesser extent payroll costs, as just mentioned. Let's move to the segment 3PL on page 7. 3PL revenue increased by 165 million overall, but declined by 32 million or minus 12% while excluding the €197 million contribution from Stasi consolidation in the quarter. Stasi revenues reached €197 million, up 2.4% year-on-year, fully in line with the seasonality anticipated in our full-year outlook. In 3pm Europe, at Constantin Major, Radial and Accident sales were up 12% year over year, continuing the trend of previous quarters. This growth was fueled by customer onboarding as part of our international expansion efforts and upstaging activities targeting existing customers. In 3PL North America, revenue decreased by 37 million euros. A constant exchange rate is corresponding to a decrease of 90% resulting from revenue churn from contract termination announced in 2024 and early 2025, lower sales from existing customers, which offset the contribution from new customer launches in 2025. Let's move to the P&L of 3PL on slide 8. Excluding Stasi, while the total operating income decreased by our operating expense and DMA decreased by 9%, primarily driven by lower viable OPEX in line with radius revenue trends and a sustained improvement in radial US variable contribution margin. Our GCM has increased by around 3% year-over-year and is currently at its highest level ever. At a constant perimeter, our adjusted EBIT is down 7 million year-over-year, from 1 million last year to minus 6 this year, mainly reflecting radius US slightly negative EBIT due to its current limited ability to absorb fixed costs, mainly relating to real estate footprint. Regarding Stacey, the edit contribution came at 13.1 million, with a margin of 6.6%. This is in line with the quarterly seasonality, leading to a full year guidance of 10-12%. Operationally and in local GAAP, the performance is according to plan. This softer EBIT and EBIT margin in Q1 reflects the annual front-loaded IFRS 21 impact of 5.1 million. When adjusting the 3.8 million of this impact attributable to the period April to December, the EBIT margin is slightly below 9%. Moving on to cross-border on page 9. cross-border revenue decreased by 4 million, or minus 4.4%. During the quarter, we observed a more modest growth in volumes from China to Belgium due to mixed client trends. Combined with our ongoing expansion in Europe, this was not sufficient to offset the adverse market conditions in the UK market. As in the previous quarters, our top line in North America remains under pressure. Cross-border North America revenue declined by 4 million, or 6%, as landmark global continues to face volume headwinds, while the broader tariff environment is delaying new business opportunities. Overall, our global cross-border operating income decreased by 8 million, or 5% year-over-year. As shown on page 10, our OPEX and DNA decreased at the same time by 4.7%, driven by lower volume transportation costs, reflecting lower North American and UK volume, alongside with improved transport rates. Overall, despite top line decline, our margin remains broadly intact. From an EBIT perspective, the 2 million decrease reflects ongoing pressure at landmark in the US. Moving on to corporate segment on page 11. Adjusted EBIT declined by 2 million, or minus 12 million euros, maybe driven by higher net OPEX after internal invoicing and DNA. These were largely the result of higher FTEs and inflationary pressure following the two salary indexations I've mentioned Now let's move to the cash flow statement on slide 12. The main items to flag here are the following. Cash flow from operating activities before change in working capital stood on 131 million and decreased by 25 million versus last year, mainly reflecting higher corporate tax repayment last year. Change in working cap and provision amounted to plus 45 million. The minus 71 million dollars is primarily due to the termination of the price concession in June last year. As a reminder, the compensation under that previous price concession was typically prepaid in advance, while price revenues are now invoiced according to normal billing cycles under the new price contract with the editors. The net cash outflow from investing activities totaled 26 million, driven by our capex for international e-commerce logistics, parcel stockers and capacity expansion, and our domestic fleet. This item constitutes the major variation in our free cash flow. The net cash outflow from financing activities amounted to minus 59 million, mainly reflecting higher lease liability-related payments, result of the scope effect of acquisition of Stasi in August last year. Chris is bringing us now to the outlook for 2025 and the strategic priorities.