Avolta Ag Unsp/Adr

Thank you very much for everybody that is here.

We're going to present the full year results for Volta 2024. I'm going to go straight to page number four, where we have the highlights of the year. The total turnover growth at constant exchange rate has been 8.9% last year. Organic growth of 6.3%. If we exclude the effect of Argentina, that basically Argentina had especially good 2023 results, in 2023 to 9.4% in 2024. Equity-free cash flow has reached 425 million, which is a 32% increase and almost 500 basis points of equity-free cash flow conversion. All these numbers are in line or ahead of our own expectations and our own outlook. The year 2025 has started also very strong. Organic growth at the end of February is 6%, but we need to remember that last year was a leap year. So you have one extra day of sales in February last year. If you discount this effect, our organic growth would have been 7.7%, perfectly in line with the exit of last quarter, 2024. First quarter, 25, will have several seasonality effects. The most important one, Easter. Easter this year is going to be in April, so we will be able to fully analyze the first quarter only at the end of April. This is something that happens every year where Easter moves from March to April. Second highlight, consistency. We have announced a capital allocation and we are consistently delivering on that. I'll come to that in more details later, but deleveraging again significantly, our net debt to EBITDA this year has, last year, 2024, has dropped to 2.1, which is 0.6 improvement with prior year. If you discount the effect of the share buyback, our net debt to EBITDA would have been already below two times at 1.9. We have canceled in 2024 4% of our shares as a consequence of the share buyback we did last year. And, as you know, we already launched a new share buyback program for 2025 in January that will be another $200 million. And we are announcing today also that the Board of Directors will propose to the next General Assembly an increase of the dividend to one Swiss franc per share, which is an increase of 43%. So clear focus on shareholders' return. We are also consistently delivering on the commercial and digital transformation. I'll go into more details later on, but both on the physical and the digital spaces and also strong business development in 24 and good opportunities in 25. Key message of this slide is the strength of our portfolio. As you know, we are in 70 countries with more than 5,000 points of sales, and it's a very resilient portfolio as a consequence. It's diversified geographically, 51% in EMEA, 32% in North America, LATAM 12%, APAC 4%. On business line, it's almost a perfect diversification. A third in duty-free, a third in duty-paid, a third in F&B. Airports remain our main channel with 81% of the sales, motorways 10%, and other channels that include cruise lines, ports, railway stations, and a few others, 9%. And also, a very balanced distribution of the category portfolio. 2024, all the regions contributed positively to the like-for-like and the organic growth. 9.4% in EMEA, 5.6% in North America. If you correct the Argentina effect, 7% in LATAM and 12% like-for-like in Asia-Pacific. Last quarter, in like-for-like, very similar, once you discount the Argentina effect, of course the regions change. And that's an important thing I want to emphasize. Depending on the quarters, some regions accelerate, some regions decelerate. Our business is related to seasonality, to festivities, to the number of weekends, et cetera, et cetera. This year, Ramadan has moved. Chinese New Year has moved. So all those things affect the quarterly. But the strength of our portfolio is precisely that some regions compensate other regions. You might remember, over the last 48 months, we have been concerned sometimes about the Chinese consumption, sometimes about the Middle East crisis, sometimes about the Ukraine war. But over and over, we have reported a strong consolidated number. And that's what we expect also for 2025. Key highlights, the region. EMEA is our largest region with 6.9 billion cells, has grown 9.4 organically. It has been a strong growth in all material geographies. Strong in the southern Europe, strong in the UK, in Italy, most of Central Europe. Still the laggard is the Nordics. The Nordics is clearly affected for the last three years on the restrictions on the Russian airspace because of the Ukraine war. If that will change, of course, this would be a positive effect for us in that part of the geographies. Also, interesting developments in Middle East and Africa. On new business, we had, you can read it, new business in Serbia, in Bulgaria, in Scotland, in Nigeria, in Turkey, and we entered two new countries, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. Very relevant on this region is the refurbishment of the Spanish locations. Two-thirds of the refurbishment for the Spanish network have already been completed this year, last year, and another third to come this year. And I confirm that Spanish concessions are going in line or better than initially expected when we signed the new contracts a little bit more than a year ago. And you have one example of a Finnish store in the picture. This is a Barcelona airport. This is a new duty-free store. And one of the things you see in the middle, I'll come to that later, is an F&B location. So it's not only an upgraded, but it's also a partially hybrid concept. might be an extremely challenging year for that region. As you know, it's the region most affected by the delay on the delivery of planes of one of the manufacturers. Also have capacity constraints because of that in several of the key airports in North America. And the weather conditions have been the most extreme that are on recollection with wildfires in California, with stronger winter storms than usual. ...year for North America with winds in Terminal 8 and 6. It's missing here also Terminal 4 of GFK. We point this out because GFK is one of the largest airports in North America. It's also the one that is going to be involved with more transformational investments over the next two, three years. And what is important for me is to point out that we have one duty-free, duty-paid, F&B, and hybrid concept on those terminals. Very good retention rate of 91%. And the last point that we disclose here is the market share in North America. I do not believe market shares are relevant metrics in this business. Our focus is not on market share. Our focus is on cash returns and profitability of the concessions. But as some market players emphasize this metric, we just wanted to say we have a 33%. Interesting picture, a hybrid store which includes a Starbucks and includes a retail concept side by side sharing the same space. Next is Latin America. Latin America has grown 7% when you discount the effect of Argentina. Just to be clear, Argentina had especially good year in 2023 because of some exchange rate. The situation is normalizing. Argentina 2024 is a normalized year and also started on a normalized level for 2025. So Argentina will stop being a factor that negatively affects our performance. Performance has been good in 2024 across the region, Brazil, most of the Caribbean, a little bit weaker in Mexico, also very good developments on the Norwegian cruise line ships. On the business development side, we have opened the first hybrid concept in Latin America in 2024. in Mexico City, and also we have signed an agreement in Sao Pablo, Congonhas for retail and F&B. They are still small operations, but it's the first time we have food and beverage in Latin America, hopefully the beginning of a much bigger development. Here for Latin America, we have chosen an entertainment campaign that was done for Halloween. I find it super cool. Obviously, I have a video later on because this would not be a presentation without a video. Last region, Asia-Pacific. Asia-Pacific, you might remember we announced in 2023 we will start, before growing, a restructuring program to exit the unprofitable operations, and that's what we did. That's why this region has the bigger difference between total growth and organic growth. If you look at organic growth, like-for-like growth is more than 12%, showing that now we are on the path of growth in Asia-Pacific. Everybody asks about the Chinese. We keep repeating Chinese passengers are less than 2% of our sales, and we expect spend per passenger of Chinese to remain at current levels for quite a while. Despite that, the number of Chinese passengers slowly will grow, and Chinese will be a positive contribution. But our presence in Asia-Pacific also includes Vietnam, includes Indonesia, includes Malaysia, includes India. We had business one in Australia, in Indonesia, in India, and some master concessions showing that the hybrid concepts are also expanding in Asia-Pacific. As you know, we announced the purchase of some concessions in Hong Kong called Free Duty. That will provide 250 million of additional sales for Asia-Pacific in 2025. It's fully consolidated as of January, which means that even if all the regions will grow, probably the share of APAC in our portfolio will go from 4% to 5%, maybe even 6%. We've chosen as a picture Bangalore Airport, where we have one of the most advanced digital and physical stores in the airport portfolio worldwide. But apart from financial performance, growth, business development in each of the regions, we are also committed to the commercial and digital transformations. I have two slides, the first one on the physical spaces, the second one on the digital transformation. We've been introducing over the last two years and in 24 a clear acceleration, innovative new concepts. We have refurbished a material number of shops across the board, bringing our stores and restaurants to a next level of customer centricity. We are using more digital inside the store, We are strengthening the local presence, both on products and look and feel. Particularly for tourists, the local feeling and the local adaptation of the store is fundamental for growing sales. We have today already up and running 20 hybrid concepts worldwide, and we already explained that in places like the U.S., The number of hybrids on the tenders is very material. Last year was 25% of the spaces were reserved for hybrid concepts. And we are pushing very hard and very strongly. Interesting hybrid concept. Gaming. I'll come to that in a second. Also a very interesting way to attract new type of passengers into our stores and restaurants. Two pictures. First one, never seen before commercial concept. A real one. We opened in Abu Dhabi. It's called Presented By. It includes sneakers, pre-loved handbags, and pre-loved watches. It's 3D printed in a material that absorbs CO2. It's a way to attract a much younger population that might learn about the store through social media. Of course, this is not instead of the general duty-free stores, the general convenience, the general restaurants. It's on top. We keep running the main business to maximize sales and profits, but we keep adding these innovation concepts to make our stores and our locations more attractive to new constituencies of passengers. Second picture, Hungry Club. This is a concept we developed with David Munoz, a three-star Michelin chef. Very cool person. It's a street food. It's inside our duty-free stores in Spain right now, and it was selected a week ago or two weeks ago by Bloomberg as one of the top eight airport restaurants in the world. These are the type of things, just two examples, I could be talking for five hours, but our IR said that 45 minutes is the maximum we should be spending. But we are moving ahead on the commercial centricity on the physical spaces. But also on the digital space. Number one, clappable. You know this is our loyalty program that we launched in September last year. It covers now 95% of our points of sales, so close to 5,000 points of sales except Klapa Volta. Those include duty-free stores, specialty stores, convenience stores, and food and beverage. It's the first time you have a loyalty program in travel that is accepted in all those locations. And Klapa Volta is more than specific advantages. for the shops or the restaurants. We also provide services in VIP lounges. We link it to your preferred airline or hotel chain loyalty program. 200 unique experiences you can enjoy You have to be a loyal member and spend a bit of money. It's not for all loyal members, but the more you spend with our loyalty program, the more benefits you get. And there is a very clear plan over the next few quarters to keep enhancing this loyalty program. The start has been clearly ahead of our own expectations. Today we already have 10 million members in Club Abolta. 5% of our revenues in 2024 came from a Volta, Club of Volta users. And the average ticket value, ATV, for loyalty members is three times the average. Another piece of data that is not here, but I find particularly interesting. In our aim to make Club Pobolta interesting to new people, we added a gaming feature in the loyalty program. Pure gaming. Today, in five months, less than five months, we had 130,000 game plays on the platform. That means we are already, even if the numbers are small, we are already getting into a new level and a different level of connection with travelers in between travels. Our digital transformation is not only Clappavolta, which is probably the most important but not the only one. We have launched also a Volta Next. This is our platform of collaboration with the startups. We already have three active technologies implemented on the shops to improve the day-to-day of the shops that came from startups. We have an innovation center for food and beverage implemented and open in Milan. We have 450 smart stores. There's camera analytics and other software that helps to improve the way we manage our shops and restaurants. And many more. For example, almost 50% of the sales in the US today are in the duty paid in the convenience stores is done through self-checkouts. And we are also leveraging on artificial intelligence even if it's early stages, again, with the purpose to improve measures to improve the way they should organize the store depending on the moment of the day. So clear delivery on the physical spaces, clearly delivery on the digital transformation. And why we do that? We do that because we think a customer centricity will allow to increase the sales, bringing more people into the stores and increasing what they spend. Because of that, it will help business development because supports The increased sales supports the financials of our airports, and also it's a different way to attract the brands and the advertising income from the brands. So all this transformation, which is only possible thanks to the merger between Dufri and Autogrill, are we able to uplift? It's the hybrids, it's the cross-selling, but it's also the use of data. Clapper-Walter will not be even a fraction of as successful as it is if we will not have access to the combined number of passengers. And before I give the mic to Eve, I have a small video. We had some discussions if this video was proper for a full year presentation. And we decided that probably not. But still, we are going to show it because it's fun. And it shows that we try to approach... Also, our relationship with you, like we approach the relationship with the customers in a different way, innovative. We want you to look forward for the next time you're going to fly to have some time on our shops or restaurants. And two small things. These people you saw, they are not professional actors. It's our own shop floor team members that were trained for that, and they volunteered to do that. It's higher. So it's not only fun, it's also good business. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Xavi, and good morning and good afternoon to everybody in the room and also on the line. You have seen some impressive innovation, some impressive new concepts presented by Xavi, and obviously also an exciting video, so it's difficult to beat that. But I think I can manage. And as a spoiler, the star is on the right side with the equity-free cash flow performance of 2024. But let's go step by step, starting with the revenue. The group has generated $13.5 billion of revenue last year. That's an organic growth of 6.3%, and even more exciting, at constant exchange rate, a growth of 8.9%. And this compares to the guidance we have provided, the medium-term guidance, of 5% to 7% in the medium term. Looking at the profitability, EBITDA came in at 1,267,000,000. That's an EBITDA margin of 9.4% or an improvement compared to 2023 of 40 basis points. As a reminder, the outlook we provide, the medium-term guidance, provides an improvement year-on-year of 20 to 40 basis points. So the 40 basis points we are reporting this year, it's at the higher end of the outlook provided. And again, the star of the presentation when it comes to the numbers is the equity-free cash flow, with 425 million equity-free cash flow generated in 2024. That's an improvement of 102 million compared to the previous year, and an equity-free cash flow conversion of 33.5% versus 28% the year before. So an improvement of 490 basis points. But let's look into the performance in more details, starting with the P&L. I will not go into turnover again. We have commented on that already, but directly in the gross profit margin. Gross profit margin improved by 90 basis points, and that's predominantly coming from three different areas. On one hand side, by the synergies generated after the combination with Autogrill. As a reminder, all the synergies, the 85 million, are fully reflected in the P&L of 2024. Number two, from the initiatives Xavi has mentioned, they start obviously to kick in and to generate revenues and also performance. And number three... There's a small improvement, predominantly coming from MixEffect. And then when we look at personal expenses and other expenses, there is one key element there to note, and that's the combination with Autogrill. As you know, we have started, or we have basically closed the transaction at the beginning of April 2023. So if you compare 12 months on 12 months, actually the line would improve. As we are looking here at 11 months only in 2023, you see a slight deterioration when it comes to personal expenses. But also there, in personal expenses and general expenses, synergies are actually kicking in, as mentioned before, the full 85 million. As well as in 2023, we had the combination with Autogrill, so we had the bridge financing reflected there. But also there, deleveraging, refinancing obviously helps to reduce cost going forward. Profit to equity holders came in at $386 million. That's 2.9% over the previous year. Happy about the result. 425 million of equity-free cash flow. It's clearly ahead of expectations and also ahead of the outlook we have provided, as well as consensus. is that we take that equity-free cash flow as the new base going forward. So disregarding the fact that we are performing significantly better than the outlook provided and also consensus, we take that as a new basis going forward. So from that perspective, from here, from the 425 million, we do expect year-on-year in the medium term to generate 100 to 150 basis points more of equity-free cash flow conversion. Looking into the balance sheet, also here, not that much to be mentioned, just three points. Number one is you clearly see that we have done some new concessions and some extension of concessions, which is reflected in the increase of right of use assets and corresponding on the liability side, the increase of lease obligations in a similar amount. Number two is the slight increase of inventories by around 200 million. That's reflected by the strong demand we have observed in the business and obviously also the growth of the business by around 7% to 8% last year. And last but not least, on the equity, the equity remains flattish. On one hand side, that's affected by the increase of retained earnings we have seen during the year on one hand side. And then on the other hand, by the share cancellation and the dividend we have paid in 2024. Looking at net debt and leverage, net debt is at the lowest level ever. than more than a decade. Same applies for leverage. Leverage is obviously a combination of the financial performance of the organization as well as the combination with auto grill, which has been paid predominantly with equity. As you know, we have a target outlook for the leverage of 1.5 to two times. We are reporting at the end of the year 2.1. Net of the treasury shares we bought and have canceled at the end of 2024 would actually be at 1.9. So bang in line with the medium-term target of 1.5 to 2 times, or actually at the upper end of the boundary, but in line there. And we will come back to that in a minute. As a consequence, also initiated already a share buyback initiative for 2025 of up to 200 million Swiss francs. The last point I want to mention here is the rating. We have received a number of... So just right below investment grade by S&P and by Moody's with a BA2. So a pretty significant improvement versus 2022. On the maturity profile, the picture remains unchanged. It's a very balanced maturity profile in all different levels when it comes to maturities, remaining duration of the different facilities, different products we are using. So we have convertibles, bond, and also bank debt in the form of the RCF. facility generating 10 million of savings per annum. And the last point I want to quickly mention here, before I hand over to Xavi, is the maturity in 2026. We have two facilities coming up for renewal. It's the convertible bond of 500 million Swiss francs and the 300 million bond, which both mature in 2026. As always, we will refinance those maturities ahead of maturity. And we also have sufficient liquidity already in place in the form of the under-owned RCF on one hand side, as well as in form of cash. We have an excess of 700 million cash on the balance sheet. So there's no refinancing risk when it comes to those two facilities. But again, we will refinance them ahead of maturity. Having said that, I hand over back to Javi.