Basic-Fit N V Ord

Hello and welcome to BasicFits Q1 2025 Trading Update Call and Live Audio Webcast. Please note that today's conference is being recorded and for the duration of the call, your lines 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. If you require assistance at any time, please press star 0 and you'll be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host for today's conference, Richard Picker, Head of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Allen, and welcome everyone to this call. With me today are CEO René Moos and CFO Maurice de Klerk. And in this call, René will give a short introduction, after which both René and Maurice will be available for questions. This call is being broadcast live on our website and a recording of the call will be available shortly afterwards. As usual, I would like to point out that safe harbor applies. And with that, René, I hand it over to you.

Thank you, Richard, and welcome everyone to today's call. As stated in our press release this morning, we are pleased to report strong growth figures for the first three months of this year. and we are comfortable with our four-year guidance as communicated in the four-year 2024 earnings release a few weeks ago. During the first three months, we expanded our club network by 41 clubs, reaching a total of 1,616, up from 1,506 clubs in the first quarter of 2024. In Q1, we opened 43 and closed two clubs. We opened 17 new clubs in France, where we now operate 875 clubs. In Spain, we increased our club network by 11 to 220 clubs. In the Benelux, we increased the number of clubs year to date by four to 484. In Germany, we increased the number of clubs by nine to 37 clubs. Our membership base grew by 213,000 to 4.47 million. representing a 10% increase year-on-year. All countries experienced growth, with France and Spain showing the strongest performance. The membership growth in France was partly driven by our successful 24-7 club openings. Compared to last year, our revenue for the first three months increased by 17% year-on-year to $332 million. The increase in the results was a result of a strong growth in memberships combined with a higher average revenue per member. Partly offset by one sales day less as 2024 was a leap year. The average revenue per member per month in the first quarter increased to 2425 compared to 2357 during the same period last year. The importance in average revenue Improvement in average yields was partly driven by the introduction of a new membership structure in the beginning of 2025 with three options, Comfort priced at $24.99, Premium priced at $29.99 and Ultimate priced at $34.99. The main difference from the previous membership structure is that Premium members can now bring a friend only once a week compared to the unlimited times previously. while ultimate members can bring a friend at any time and freeze their membership two times four weeks a year. This membership structure is implemented in all countries except for Germany. So far, we see very positive results in terms of uptake of the ultimate and premium membership across all regions, similar to premium uptake in prior membership structure. The positive results in the first three months of the year put us in a good position to achieve our four-year targets, as outlined in our four-year earnings release in March. We are on track to add 100 clubs to our club network and achieve revenue of between 1.375 and 1.425 billion in 2025. We also maintain our outlook for underlying EBITDA less rent of between 330 and 370 million in 2025. And for overhead costs including marketing as a percentage of revenue of between 11.5 and 12%. We are very happy to announce that we have secured a new 200 million revolving credit facility with ABN AMRO and Rabobank, set to mature in June 2027. With this additional facility and our positive free cash flow in 2025 and 2026, we expect to have enough financial liquidity and meet any action requests from shareholders who choose to exercise their put option in June 26. We expect to launch the 40 million share repurchase program in Q2 2025 and reduce our leverage to below two times in 2026. With that, I conclude the presentation, and Maurice and I can now take questions. Operator, please open the line for questions.