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Hello and welcome to BasicFIT 2025 Half Year Results Conference Call Level Up Course. Please note that today's conference is being recorded and for the duration of the call, your lines will be unlisteningly. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I will now turn the call over to your host for today's conference Richard Pica, Head of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Laura, and good afternoon, and welcome to our conference call and webcast, everyone. With me today are CEO René Moos and our CFO Maurice Declare. The call is being broadcast live on our website, and a recording of the call will be available shortly afterwards, and as usual, I would like to point out that Safe Harbor applies. We will start with Rene, who will discuss the highlights and the operational developments during the first half, followed by a more detailed look at the financial results for Maurice. And after these prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. The call will finish no later than 3 p.m. And with that, Rene, I would like to hand over to you.

Thank you, Richard, and welcome everyone to today's call. The first half of 2025 has put us well on track to achieve our 2025 targets in all key metrics. Memberships, revenue and underlying EBITDA less rent all increased by either high single or double digit percentages. Year over year, our club network grew by 6%, reflecting the decision to slow down club openings, as was communicated at the time of our full year 2024 results. Even with the planned slowdown, our membership base grew by 10% year-on-year. Revenue and underlying EBITDA less rent are on track to achieve the full-year guided ranges. Our club network saw a 16% increase in revenue, while the underlying EBITDA less rent saw an 8% increase. Maurice will discuss this more in depth in the financial section. Let's go to the next slide on club openings. Let's take a look at our latest club expansion figures. As we announced at our full year results, we have taken the decision to slow down club openings over the 2025 and 2026 period to focus on improving our balance sheet and lowering our net leverage ratio. It also allowed us to start a 40 million share repurchase program. At the end of June 2025, we have 1,628 clubs in our network, up from 1,537 clubs in the first half of 2024, a 6% increase. During the first half of 2025, we opened 57 clubs in our markets and closed four, resulting in a net increase of 53 clubs. The concentration of new club openings was in our growth countries, France, Spain and Germany. In France, we further strengthened our market leadership with a net club growth of 25 to 883 clubs. Shifting our focus towards Spain, which has been a major growth driver, we achieved a net club growth of 14, bringing our total in Spain to 223 clubs. In Germany, we expanded our presence with 10 new club openings, bringing our total to 38 clubs. As we are all well underway to achieve the targeted 100 club openings in 2025, we remain the fastest growing fitness operator in Europe and continue to fulfill our mission by making fitness accessible to even more people across the continent. Let's now look at the membership development slide. We continue to see strong momentum in our membership growth. As of June 30, we reached 4.51 million memberships, reflecting a 10% year over year increase. Growth was recorded across all countries, with particularly strong performances seen in France and Spain, increasing our membership base by 256,000 in the first half. During the same period last year, we saw an increase of our membership base to 288,000, but please remember that this includes our acquisition of RSG Group Spain. So if you look at the pure organic number, it was approximately 177,000. We can see that we had a 45% higher membership ingrowth than the first half of 2024. In the first half of this year, our average yield increased to 24.73 euro, representing a 4% increase year over year. The new membership structure that we introduced at the end of last year will continue to support our yield per member development and having no negative impact on our journal numbers. Then going to the next slide. We saw joint trends further improve in France during the first half of the year on the back of the operational improvement steps we took in 2024. As a reminder, in 2024, we implemented a new management structure separating responsibilities for club expansion and club operation and divided the country into separate regions. Each region is now being overseen by its own dedicated business manager. As a result of these operational adjustments, we saw the quality of service in our clubs improve and ratings from our members increase. In the first half of 2025, we saw an average Google rating of 4.4 versus a rating of 4.0 for the year 2024 and 3.8 for the full year 2023. Moreover, the ingrowth of new clubs was tracking very positively with ingrowth outperforming that of the clubs that we opened in 24, which was already better than that of 2023. The operational improvement in France has translated into increased memberships per club. We remain committed to France and we anticipate more members joining our club network in the second half of the year. as we continue to execute on operational improvements. Let's have a closer look now at the longer term developments of our most important KPIs. Since our IPO, we have consistently delivered strong growth across all key performance indicators, achieving double digit compound annual growth rates. Drilling down into the numbers of clubs and growth of membership, we see a solid 70% CAGR. Our two bottom graphs, revenue and underlying EBITDA, less rent, illustrate that we are continuing the strong growth trajectories in 2025 of two of our main metrics. The strategy update we announced at four-year results has been designed to reinforce sustainable long-term growth on the foundation for solid financial position, while increasing profitability and ultimately allowing us to continue building on our success in Europe. And finally, let's look at our 2025 guidance. At our four-year results, we updated our strategy and gave an outlook, replacing the guidance set at our Capital Market Day in 2023. I'd like to confirm those guidance right now. As of the first half of 2025, we opened net 53 clubs and continue to foresee approximately 100 club openings before year-end, further strengthening our leadership in the European fitness space. With operational improvements made or in progress, we remain on track to meet the revenue guidance of between €1.375 billion to €1.425 billion. We are also on track to meet underlying EBITDA less rent guidance of 330 to 370 million euro. Furthermore, we expect to be cash flow positive in 2025. In the first quarter of 2025, we began a 40 million euro share buyback program, which is ongoing and is enabling shareholder returns. We see great opportunities in launching our own franchise platform, which can leverage our scale advantages, technology and knowledge. Discussions with potential experienced franchise partners are ongoing, and we are taking the necessary time to ensure well-structured agreements are in place to enable successful launch. We anticipate updating the market on our franchise plans before year-end. Looking at longer-term targets outside the scope of 2025, We are committed to reducing our leverage by two times adjusted EBITDA before year-end 2026. With the expected positive impact of the 24-7 rollout outside of the Benelux countries and adjusted capital allocation in our updated strategy, we feel comfortable about reaching that target. As we know, growth and bringing fitness to everyone is part of the basic fit story. We still expect that in the coming period, we will open and operate more than 3,000 clubs in our existing markets, in addition to a franchise program. In conclusion, as we pursue our updated strategy, we remain, as ever, committed to delivering value to our members, our investors, our employees, and to all stakeholders. And with that, I now hand it over to Maurice for the financial review.

Yes, thank you, Renee. In the next slide, I will quickly walk you through the main elements of our income statement and the underlying performance. Total revenue increased by 16% to $677 million thanks to the expansion of our club network, an increase in memberships, and an increase in the average monthly yield per member. Underlying club EBDA less rent, which is club EBDA adjusted for exceptional items and minus the invoiced rent costs of open clubs, increased by 5% to 225.6 million euro. The underlying club EBDA less rent margin was 33.7%. The decrease compared to the 37% margin in the first half of 2024 is mainly due to the investments in the 24-7 clubs. Total club operating costs related to rents, personnel and other club costs increased from €368 million to €447 million, mainly due to our growing club network, cost inflation and the costs associated with the staffed 24-7 clubs in France, as well as the extended opening hours in Germany and Spain. The debt write-offs remained stable in monetary terms compared with the first half of last year, while decreasing as a percentage of revenue. Marketing costs for the first half of the year were €32 million. As a percentage of revenue, they came in at 4.8%, which is lower than the 5.5% of revenue we spent in the first half of 2024. We expect that the spend will be a bit higher in the second half of the year, bringing us to approximately 5% of revenue for the full year. Underlying EBITDA list rent increased by 8% to €150 million, compared with €139 million last year. The increase was supported by our continued operating leverage as our attention to operational efficiencies at the head office are paying off. The underlying IFDLS rent is adjusted for exceptional items that came in at €4.5 million, which was slightly higher than the same period last year. In addition to various relatively small amounts, exceptional items in 2025 mainly relate to cancelled clubs and pre-opening invoice rents. We have communicated our aim to reduce overhead costs to within the range of 11.5% to 12% of revenue in the medium term. In the first half of the year, our total overhead costs, including marketing, was 11% compared to 12.7 in the first half of 2024. Excluding marketing, the goal is to get to between 6% and 7% of revenue. And in the first half, we were at 6.2% within the medium term target range. Our cash finance costs amounted to 21.7 million euros compared to 22.8 million euros in 2024. The slight year over year decrease is the result of the higher net debts and the lower interest rates. The non-cash finance costs increased strongly to 17 million euro as a result of a one-off hit of 11 million euro. This was due to a catch-up adjustment in interest expenses based on the expected maturity of the convertible bonds. This is included in the accretion of interest related to the liability component of the convertible bonds, which amounted to 15.8 million compared to 4.8 million in the first half of 2024. On an underlying basis, we report a year-over-year increase in the net profit of 5% to €13.7 million from €13 million flat. You can find the adjustments in the table. Let's now discuss how we are progressing in the 24-7 clubs. Moving to a 24-7 model is enhancing accessibility and convenience for our members and is further strengthening our mission to make fitness accessible to anyone and at any time. Let's first take a look at France. French regulations still do not yet allow for un-staffed clubs. To enable us to open and operate 24-7 clubs in France. After the encouraging pilot program in 2024 confirmed that there was an appetite, we increased the number of 24-7 clubs to more than 300, which we guided would be the main contributor to the approximate additional cost of €35 million in 2025. As was stated in the income statement slides, while personnel costs have increased, we are observing that the higher costs are increasingly being mitigated by higher membership numbers and a higher yield. And of course, should French regulations change allowing for the operation of unstaffed trucks, we have plans in place to enable us to move quickly to accommodate that change in legislation. If, however, we do not expect any change in legislation, we will change to a model with own staff which should significantly reduce the cost of operating clubs at night. Beyond France, we have begun extending opening hours and opening 24-7 clubs in Germany and Spain, further enhancing accessibility for our members in these markets. The ingrowth we have seen in all markets is continuing as planned and justifying the investment in 24-7 clubs. Let's go to the next slide on Capex. The average expansion capex for a newly built club was 1.38 million euro compared to 1.25 million euro in the first half of 2024 and 1.3 million euro in the full year 2024. The clubs that we opened in the first half of the year were a bit larger and more expensive than those planned for the second half of the year. And for the full year, we continue to expect an average initial investment per club of approximately 1.3 million euro. Maintenance capex for the half year was 36,000 euro per club, an increase of 21,000 euro per club to the prior year. This year, maintenance spent was more front-loaded, whereas in 2024, it was weighted towards the second half. As such, we continue to expect average maintenance capex per club for 2025 to be similar to that of last year, approximately €58,000. Other CAPEX amounted to €9.3 million, which was broadly in line with last year at €9.4 million. Other CAPEX consists of investments in innovations and software development and sustainability-related investments. The free cash flow in the first half year was an outflow of €57.4 million. With the improved profitability and the lower CAPEX in the second half of the year, we continue to expect positive free cash flow in 2025. Let's go to the next slide of financing. In the first half of 2025, we secured bilateral facilities from three banks for a total amount of 330 million. In addition, we increased the syndicated facility with a 20 million accordion facility. Total bank facilities now amount to a total of $1,113 million, providing us with the funds to meet any redemption requests from holders of the $304 million convertible bonds that wish to exercise the boot option in June 2026. The net leverage ratio was 2.7 at the end of June 2025 compared to 2.8 a year ago. With the lower number of club openings and the increasing underlying EBDLS rents, we expect to reach our medium term leverage ratio target of below 2.0 times adjusted EBITDA in 2026. Including undrawn facilities, the company now has access to cash and cash equivalents of 395 million Euro at the end of June 2025. Let's go to the final slide of the presentation, the outlook for 2025. I will conclude the presentation with our outlook for 2025 and reiterate the main guidance that Renee stated earlier. We expect further growth of our club network, memberships, revenue, and underlying EBDA, supported by positive membership growth trends. We are on track to open approximately 100 clubs this year. With the new club opening, the percentage of mature clubs in the total will increase significantly, at least until 2027. With fewer starting losses and the maturation of our club network, this will have a positive impact on our profit margins. While we do not give guidance on yield and memberships, we do expect the average revenue per member to increase again this year on the back of the new membership structure. This will help increase revenue for 2025 to between 1,375,000,000 and 1,425,000,000 euro. As usual, the underlying EBDA in the second half of a year is significantly higher than in the first half of a year. This is exacerbated by the investments in the staffed 24-7 clubs. We expect memberships as a result of these longer opening hours to increase and mitigate these additional costs in 2026. The in-growth effect, however, had limited contribution in the first half of the year, but will have more impact in the second half. For 2025, we expect online EBITDA-less rent to come in at between 330 million and 370 million euro. The past two years, we have been reducing the overhead cost, including marketing, as a percentage of revenue. In the first half of the year, we are on track to achieve the targeted 11.5% to 12% of revenue in 2025. Basic Fit has had a solid first half year and with KPIs tracking as plans to hit guidance for full year 2025. And with this, I end the presentation and would like to open the time for questions.

Thank you, sir. If you would like to ask a question at this time, please press the star key followed by the digit one. on your telephone keypad. Please ensure that the mute function on your telephone is switched off to allow your signal to reach other equipment. If you find that your question has already been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. Again, please press star 1 to ask a question. We will pause for just a moment to allow everyone to signal. Thank you. We'll now take our first question from Chris Kippes of Degro Speedcam. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. A couple of questions on France, please. Firstly, looking at the French legislation, you already mentioned it. Could you give us an update on where you are?

Yeah, where we are is that we have positive signs. It looks like we're going to be able to do it in time. We just don't know if it's going to be three more months or six more months. So we don't have any guarantees on when it is law. So we have to just wait and see what happens, how long it takes. But we do expect it to come.

Thank you. And we'll now take our next question from Robert Voss of ABN MRO. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good afternoon. I have a few questions. You already elaborated a little bit on the personnel cost, but they seem to be up by more than the run rate 35 million that you mentioned for the 24-7 club openings. Beyond maybe normal cost inflation or wage inflation, is there anything else that is included there that we should be aware of? That is my first question. I have a few others.

Yes, Robert-Jan, I'll take this question from you. I think it's a good question. Personnel costs in the first half of 2025, of course, were influenced by the 24-7 clubs. Of course, we hired some more staff because we opened new clubs. Then there was the indexation and the wage increases. But there was also some changes in legislation, both in France and in Spain, that has an effect on the total personnel costs.

So, yeah, that's... So the biggest part was the 24-7, as you said, and what Maurice just said as an example, Spain, as of January 1st, the salary stayed the same, but instead of working 40 hours, they are now allowed or has to work 37 hours. So there is a big increase in salary costs, and so we had other things that were out of our control, and that is the reason why the growth of salary costs was so high.

That's clear. Maybe also a question on the other operating costs. These probably include some costs on which you said that they are front-end loaded. So should we anticipate some kind of reversal of these costs on a per-club basis in the second half? Is that a fair assumption?

Yes, Robert-John. So on the other operating costs, of course, I mentioned the maintenance part of it, which we expect. So both on the CAPEX and on the OPEX part, we expect to come down in the second half of 25 and there was also some timing effects in the energy costs.

So we expect them to come down in the second half too. Okay, that's clear. And now that I have you, Maurice, can you explain again the investments that you mentioned in the written comments, like growth or expansion CAPEX, maintenance and other CAPEX Yeah, it adds up to around 135 million, whereas in the cash flow statement, it is closer to 180 million. Is that just timing differences, or can you elaborate on that? And then I have one final question.

Yeah, that is mostly the timing differences, John. Yeah, that's correct.

So if you look at the – just – So if you look at the new club opening, it's also one of the very expensive parts is noise reduction. So in the first half of the year, we had a lot of new club opening where we had to invest a lot in noise reduction because of the building or people sleeping on top of it. And in the second half, we will have less of it. That's why we are comfortable that the cost for a new club on average in 2025 will be the same, $1.3 million.

And, yeah, maybe one final question from my end. The EBITDA premature club came down year on year. Of course, that is also related to the personnel cost that you talked about. The longer-term target is 460,000. You earlier this year said that that is still the ambition. Of course, yeah, it won't be met in 2025. But my question is, last year, it was 400,000 euros. Will it be higher year on year on a full year basis in 2025? Because it was quite a decrease in the first half, but on the full year basis, will it be above the 400,000 that you reported last year?

I think it will be difficult to really project the second half. you would expect it to be around the same number as last year. And again, the 460 million, 460 on the mature club, we think is very reachable. We did get the 2020 bucket in the mature clubs now, so that took us a little bit down, but we expected to get that up again in the second half, because it was also a combination of the 24-7 staff clubs in France. So, So all in all, we think that the second half will be much better than the first half. And with that, we will be around this 400,000 euros on a mature club, including the 2022 cohort. All right. It's very clear. Thank you.

Thanks. Thank you.

Maybe to add to that, so going from 400 to 460 means on the mature club, we need 200 members more. And we do think that is definitely feasible.

Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Leo Carrington of Sydney.

If I can ask firstly, I think Planet Fitness has been operating in Spain for a year now. I know you have not that many clubs head-to-head, but do you have a sense of how consumers are reacting to the choice of both brands? And then My second question, in terms of the franchise platform, in terms of what's remaining from your side, is this just about the precise nature of the agreements, or are you still in sales phase with franchise partners, convincing them to run with you? Thank you.

Yeah, well, Planet Fitness is in Spain a very short period, so it's really hard to, and as you said, not very close to where we are, so we have no negative or positive impact by that, so a bit too early to say something about that. I have no idea how they are actually doing. And the franchise platform, yeah, it's a combination of things, but we rather spend a little bit more time. So we're not in a rush. We will start when everything is ready and everything is logical to open. But we're comfortable that we're getting closer, and we are also very comfortable that it will be a good business model having next to our own clubs. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. And we'll now take our next question from Lynn Horticoat of KBC Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. The first one is regarding the maintenance capex. Any particular reason why it is more front-loaded this time? And are you taking more maintenance capex into your P&L than last year?

Yeah, Lynn, thank you for your question. As I said in the presentation, maintenance CapEx was front-loaded this year and back-loaded last year. And that is due to the fact that we had a more intense maintenance program in place, especially in France over the years, which is on its end right now, but is also reflected right now in the higher customer experience we see and uptake in memberships right now. So we expect it to come down in the second half of 2025.

It's a timing effect, so we expect it to be around this same number as last year, 58,000.

And the second one is... Regarding the overheads, they're currently 11% of the revenue. You guide 11.5% to 12%. Is it then fair to assume that you will accelerate the marketing costs in the second half of the year?

A little bit, yes. Yes, that is correct.

Correctly, yeah.

That's clear. Thank you.

Thank you. Once again, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question from Natasha Brilliance of UBS. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Three questions from me, please. Firstly, just coming back to France. You've told us that most of the increase in personnel costs was from the 24-hour openings in France and that the membership growth has been growing in line with expectations. Can you tell us just on the French membership base what the uplift has been for those 300 clubs that are now open 24-7, either as a percentage increase or on an average per club in absolute terms, just to help us understand what the membership impact has been? My second question is on the 35 million of extra costs. So that's based on a flexible labour force as it stands. If the regulation doesn't change and you move to a less flexible labour force, what will be the lower cost and when will you make a decision on that? And equally, if the regulation does change, then how much of that 35 million comes back out of the cost base? And then my last question is just on the new clubs by year end. Should we expect a similar pattern in the second half versus the first half in terms of the geographic split?

Yeah, if I can start with the extra members in France, we see different per club, but between 20 and 40 extra members per club per month. That's what we have seen in the first half of this year. If you look at the third quarter, so this month, we see pretty much the same. So this is what it is, let's say, for the first seven months. The 35 million extra cost, if we would do it with own staff, it will save us around 15 million. So the 35 will be more around 20. And if we can do it staffless, it of course depends what rules are connected to that. So that's a bit too early to tell. But yeah, it would go, let's say at least 80% down. But again, we have to wait for the French government, what kind of demands they're asking for that. But yeah. The 35 could go to maybe, let's say, 5 or 10, but it's depending on the requirements. So 20 million, if you go back to own staff, saving 15. And the last question, I forgot, what was the last question?

Just when we think about the club openings by year end, should we think of a similar split in the second half in terms of geographies like we've seen in the first half, just by country?

Yes, I would say so.

Okay, that's very clear. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. And we'll now take a follow-up question from Chris Gippers of DeGroote's Betacam. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yes, thank you. My line seems to have been cut off. Questions are remaining from my side. Looking at the free cash flow, of course, quite negative in the first half. I presume this has to do with quite some capex spending. Looking at the recent refinancing that you've done and the new available liquidity you've received from some banks, to what extent do you feel comfortable to roll out more club openings after 2025, and what's the leeway towards that? Thank you.

Yeah, so the plan is that for this year we'll be around this 100 clubs and the plan is also for 2026 to be around this 100 as we communicated beginning of this year. So it's not that we have more cash available that we will do more clubs. We will focus on improving our balance sheet and filling up the existing club base and having a smaller percentage of new clubs. That is the goal for 2025 and 2026.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. And we'll now take another follow-up question from Natasha Brilliance of UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Natasha, your line is open. Check on your mute button, please.

Can you hear me now?

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Just a quick follow up. So you talked about increasing membership and yield growth for this year. I know you don't want to give guidance and give yourself a bit of flexibility, but now we've had six months. Is there any more colour you can share with us about where you might get to in terms of ARPU and or the membership base for this year?

No, not really. So we do not go into that trap anymore.

But we're confident about the development, Natasha. So it's going really in the right direction.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. And we'll now take another follow-up from Robert Voss of ABN Emerald. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yes, thank you. I have a follow-up on the 24-7 clubs. Two parts. On what is your view based that the legislation change will arrive shortly? And a related question, and I think that was asked before, but I didn't hear the answer, but when is the cut-off point? When will you say, okay, we're now not going to wait any longer and we will switch to own staff? Is that next year or is that in a year or maybe you can elaborate on these two topics?

Yeah, well, the cutoff point, we don't really have a date. As I said before, we are happy with the ingrowth, so the 20, 30 or 40 members ingrowth is completely in line what we predicted. So meaning at the end of this year, it will not cost anything anymore. So then it's also not a big problem if we do it a few months longer or shorter. The thing is we have expectation that it will happen. So we will not for a few months change to own staff. So it will more likely be that we continue with this higher cost to be flexible that we can stop any month once we have the licensing. Of course, if it's clear that it's not coming, which we don't expect, but if it's clear that it's not coming, of course, then we will switch to staffing.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, we have reached the end of today's conference call. I would like to hand over, I'm sorry, there is one more follow-up question of Lynn, from KBC Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yes, thank you. Yeah, I had a follow-up on the question that was asked earlier on the timing differences, the 14 million. It's a bit more of an accounting question, but where exactly is that booked? If I look at the balance sheet, you see the additions on page 29 of 135 million to the property plans and equipment. and that corresponds to some of the maintenance topics and the expansion topics. So I was just wondering the other 40 million, where does it go exactly on your balance sheet?

Well, we come back to you with Richard on the details. We don't have page 29 exactly to hand, so we will give you that detail. Richard will help you with that. Okay, perfect.

Thanks.

There are no further questions in here now. I would like to hand over to Richard Peaker for any closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

Okay. Thank you, Lara. And thank you, everyone, for dialing in today. If there are any follow-ups, please don't hesitate to call Heather or me. We're happy to continue the discussion. Have a nice day.