Hexagon Purus Asa

Hi and welcome to Hexagon PURES Q1 2025 presentation. My name is Mathias Meidl and I am the IR Director of Hexagon PURES. I will be moderating from the studio in Oslo and from the studio I'm also joined by Group CEO Morten Holum and Group CFO Salman Alam. The agenda for today includes, as usual, the highlights from the quarter, a company update, the financials, and the outlook. We will also end the presentation with a Q&A session, so please feel free to enter your question via the function on your screen. So with that, I will pass the word over to you, Martin, who will take us through the highlights of the quarter.

Thank you, Mattias, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining our webcast today. Let's look at the key developments in the first quarter. Number one, the first quarter results were as expected, significantly weaker than last year with a revenue decline of 44% compared to the same period last year. Number two, we continue to see growing demand for our hydrogen transit bus applications in Q1. We extended the multi-year supply agreement with Solaris. We received the first orders from MCV, the Egyptian bus OEM, and we also signed a multi-year agreement with Stadler for the delivery of hydrogen fuel storage systems for rail applications in California. The third point, even with some positives on new commercial agreements, we are operating in a challenging environment currently. Increased geopolitical tension, disruption of global trade and regulatory uncertainty. And this has a negative impact on customer purchasing decisions. And finally, number four, the cost reduction program that we launched in February is on track. All the necessary decisions were made in Q1 in both North America and Germany. And we booked restructuring costs of 43 million NOC in the quarter related to this cost reduction program. So overall, a challenging quarter. but we're well underway with our work to adapt our operation to lower volume and a lower break-even point. Revenue in the first quarter was 230 million NOK, which is 44% lower than Q1 last year. Unlike previous quarters, the hydrogen distribution business experienced a significant increase in revenue contribution. And we were also negatively impacted by the loss of Nikola, which is our main customer in the heavy duty truck area. And they filed for chapter 11 in Q1. EBITDA in Q1 was negative 242 million NOC compared to minus 97 million NOC in Q1 last year. In addition to the impact of lower volume in the hydrogen distribution and heavy duty truck, EBITDA in the quarter was also negatively impacted by approximately 65 million NOC in restructuring costs and other non-recurring items. Adjusting for those, the underlying EBITDA in Q1 was minus 177 million NOC. We saw a significant shift in revenue mix in the first quarter versus last year. The revenue share from mobility was 41% and driven by two things. On the one hand, we had strong commercial momentum within transit bus, but on the other hand, we had significantly lower activity in hydrogen infrastructure, and it's of course the last one that's the main driver. This is in line with our expectations as communicated when we reported our Q4 results in February. One additional thing to note is that the revenue share from BEV Mobility increased in Q1, positively impacted by the shipments of six trucks to Hino in the quarter. The main year-over-year revenue decline is in hydrogen infrastructure, and this is largely driven by customer-specific delays. There is an overall delay in new green hydrogen projects in Europe. There are a lot of new projects under construction and scheduled to come online over the next two years, but it's fair to say that many projects are also delayed. And we hear from some of our customers that projects they expected to start in 2025 will likely not come online until 2026. Another factor is that several of our main customers took large deliveries last year and are still working to commission and absorbing those units into their rapidly growing Type 4 distribution trailer fleets. The 5% decline in revenue from hydrogen mobility is largely driven by heavy-duty truck, where our main customer in that area, Nikola, filed for Chapter 11 and has ceased their operation. This is almost fully offset by transit bus, where there is continued strong commercial momentum and growing sales in the quarter. In battery electric mobility, we did not have any volume last year, but have now started delivering Tern RCA trucks to Hino. So that explains the growth we had there. Volume is still low, obviously, but it's comforting to see that we've started the deliveries. And finally, in other applications, we had quite stable activity this quarter in both industrial gas bundles and in aerospace. On the commercial front, there were some positive signals in Q1. We were happy to extend the framework agreement with Solaris, the leading player in driving the transition to zero-emission public transportation in Europe. We have a long-standing relationship with them, where we started the commercial deliveries of hydrogen fuel systems back in 2021. The extended framework agreement is a strong testament to our leading market position within hydrogen transit bus, both in Europe and in North America. And it also illustrates the strong commercial momentum for hydrogen transit bus, where Solaris' offering plays a vital role in decarbonizing public transportation in Europe. And in addition to Solaris, we also got a new customer in our transit bus business. MCV is a leading bus manufacturer in the Middle East and Africa, and they ordered their first hydrogen fuel storage systems from us in Q1. It's important for us to continue expanding our portfolio of customers to enable continued growth and to further strengthen our leading market position in this segment. The systems are scheduled for delivery in 2025 and will be put on board MCV's new hydrogen transit bus targeted for the European public transportation market. We also signed a multi-year agreement with Stadler in Q1. Stadler is one of the leading train manufacturers, and this agreement is for the delivery of hydrogen fuel storage systems for hydrogen rail applications in California. Hydrogen is an attractive solution to decarbonize rail transportation, especially in regions like California, where full electrification is not a practical solution. We actually developed and delivered the hydrogen fuel storage system to the initial prototype of this train. And this hydrogen commuter train set the Guinness World Record for the longest distance traveled by a hydrogen power train, going nonstop for more than 2,800 kilometers without refueling. It's still early days for hydrogen rail applications, of course, but there is a strong logic and rationale for hydrogen powered trains to replace diesel trains with similar operating patterns. It's cheaper to electrify the train than electrifying entire rail lines. Routes are predictable and it's relatively easy then to organize refueling. On the battery electric mobility side, we continue to build and deliver trucks in the first quarter, and we are now gradually ramping up dealer and customer activities for TURN. So far, we have delivered a total of 14 Class 8 trucks to Hino under the TURN brand, six of which were delivered in Q1. This initial batch of trucks are mainly made available to dealers for customer trials and pilots. And we currently have four large dealers signed up in California. The truck was on display in the Hino booth at the ACT Expo show in Los Angeles last week, which is the largest clean transportation expo in the US. And we got lots of positive feedback from potential customers. So far, seven fleets have signed up for demos over the summer, so we're excited about the potential of this truck. It fits a very attractive market niche with duty cycles that make it possible for a fleet customer to achieve a competitive total cost of ownership. When it comes to regulatory support, we have limited expectations from the US federal government. The new administration has made it clear that they want to roll back regulatory measures put in place by the previous administration and prevent individual states from setting tighter emission standards than the federal standards. However, incentives are more important for purchasing decisions. And there are significant incentives available at state level, typically in the most progressive states along both coasts in the US. In total, there are around 150 different buyer incentive programs, a third of those in California, with more than $3 billion available for class six to eight battery electric trucks. And these incentives typically cover 25 to 45% of the cost of the truck. So even if the more punitive regulation covering the OEMs are canceled, the buyer incentives are in fact more important for each fleet's purchasing decision. Then looking at revenue visibility, it varies by applications. Starting on the left, the area where we have the highest visibility is transit bus, where there's continued strong commercial momentum driven by local and municipal adoption of zero emission public transportation. Next is industrial gas and aerospace. The industrial gas bundle business is fairly stable and consisting of recurring business with core clients. The aerospace business has historically been a bit more lumpy, but the space transportation area is growing very fast. So we are also expecting growing demand in the US for our onboard space storage cylinders. Hydrogen distribution has grown significantly over the past few years and has been our main growth driver. And this is also where we typically have had good visibility. But as I mentioned earlier, we have a dip in demand in the first half of this year, but we do see a better second half of the year. And we also expect demand to grow further next year as more green hydrogen projects come online and bring more molecules to market that needs to be moved. In battery electric trucking, we will have a slower ramp up curve than expected. The policy shift from the new US administration has weakened the near-term market outlook and demand visibility. But customers are eager to test the truck and there are incentives available, so we expect that we will get volume, even though it will be lower in the current environment than what we expected last year. And then finally out to the right where we have the lowest expectations short term is hydrogen electric trucking. With the Nikola bankruptcy we see limited demand short and medium term. The long term visibility is also low as most OEMs have postponed their product introductions until we get towards the end of the decade due to the limited supporting refueling infrastructure. Then looking at the order book, we have an improved order backlog compared to the previous quarter. The order stock was 792 million NOK at the end of Q1, which is 9% higher than what we had at year end. And the vast majority, around 85% of the current order book is for execution in 2025. Since the end of the quarter, we have seen better momentum in order intake, and I've received new orders amounting to approximately 200 million NOC, of which around half is for execution in 2025. With higher uncertainty and lower forward demand visibility, it's essential that we adjust our operation to enable profitability at lower volume. When we reported Q4, we launched a 200 million knock cost reduction program, and we launched a review of our business portfolio to make additional adjustments needed to cut costs, to lower the break-even point and extend the cash runway. We're in the middle of this now. Our main priority in the short term, besides working closely with our well diversified customer base to win more business, it is to reduce our cost base to a lower revenue break-even point. The 200 million NOC cost reduction program is on track, so we will have lower cost run rate in the second half of this year and onwards. That's good. But in the current environment where we still have insufficient forward demand visibility, it's prudent to be cautious and conservative in our planning. So we are preparing ourselves for a scenario with continued lower demand in the HMI segment, and we plan to further adjust our HMI operation, taking further cost measures to enable profitability at lower volume. And we're doing this in a way that maintains our ability to scale up when we get higher comfort that market conditions are improving. We see China as an attractive market with significant momentum in hydrogen mobility. This is the largest and fastest growing hydrogen market in the world. It has taken longer than planned to get our establishment there off the ground, but we are now getting closer to tap into that market together with our JV partner CIMC Enrik. We have completed the facility construction and machine installation, and we have received factory approval and certification to manufacture cylinders for the international market. We shipped the first small batch of cylinders from China to the European distribution market in Q1. And the next step is to complete the local certification process so we can start delivering cylinders and systems to the fast-growing local Chinese market. We'll spend most of the remainder of this year to complete the certification process, and then we expect to start generating local revenue from 2026 and onwards. And with that, I will hand the stage over to our CFO, Salman Alam, to take you through the financials. Salman.

Thank you, Morten, and good morning, everyone. Let's have a closer look at our Q1 2025 results. In the first quarter of 2025, we posted revenue of 230 million, which is 44% lower compared to the same period last year. The decline, as expected, was driven by significantly lower activity in the hydrogen infrastructure and hydrogen heavy duty mobility application areas. The decline was partly offset by high activity in the hydrogen transit bus application area, as well as an increase in battery electric truck deliveries to Hino. Total operating expenses ended at 472 million in the first quarter of 2025, down 6% compared to the same quarter last year. Breaking down the main components of our operating expenses, our cost of materials ratio was 64% in the quarter compared to 54% in the same quarter last year. Cost of materials in the quarter was impacted by product mix and a non-recurring item in the form of an inventory write-down of 6 million. And adjusting for the non-recurring item, the cost of materials ratio would be 61%. Payroll related expenses were 231 million in the quarter, up from 191 million in the same quarter last year, and significantly impacted by restructuring costs that amounted to 43 million, as Morten already mentioned. This mainly relates to layoffs, as approximately 14% of the workforce we had going into 2025 has either already departed or are in the process of exiting the organization, which is in line with the expectations we communicated in February. Other operating expenses were more or less flat compared to the same period last year at 95 million, but was negatively impacted by bad debt expense of 16 million related to two insolvent customers. Subtracting total operating expenses from total revenue, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization ended at minus 242 million in the first quarter of 2025, equal to an EBITDA margin of minus 105%. Adjusting for the non-recurring items, which totaled 65 million in the quarter, EBITDA was minus 177 million. In February, as Morten already mentioned, we announced a cost cutting program where we intend to cut costs by 200 million. And we're generally on track with realizing this. And we're also now looking at further cost reductions beyond this going forward. Moving below the EBITDA line, depreciation and amortization was 62 million in the quarter, up from 44 million in the same quarter last year. The increase is mainly due to the higher balance of depreciable assets compared to last year. Losses from investments in associates ended at minus 3 million in the quarter, broadly in line with the level of last year. Finance income in the first quarter was 17 million, and about 9 million of this comes from interest income on bank deposits, and 8 million relates to foreign exchange fluctuations. Finance costs in the first quarter was 97 million, where 59 million was related to the non-cash interest we have on the two convertible bonds, and another 10 million is related to interest on lease liabilities. The remainder is also covers the interest expense related to interest bearing debt and also some foreign exchange fluctuations. At the group level, we are not yet in a taxable position and tax expense in the quarter was minus 2 million. Loss after tax then ended at minus 385 million versus minus 165 million in the same quarter last year. Moving on to the segments and starting off with hydrogen mobility and infrastructure. As a reminder, this segment is a business unit that manufactures hydrogen cylinders, hydrogen systems for the storage of hydrogen on board, either off road or on road vehicles or for infrastructure purposes, such as the distribution of hydrogen from the point of production to the point of consumption. It also includes our industrial gas business in Europe and the aerospace business we have in the US. Looking at the financials for the segment, revenue in the first quarter for the HMI segment was 204 million, down 47% compared to the same period last year. The reduction is mainly driven by much lower revenue within hydrogen infrastructure, and contrary to previous quarters, hydrogen mobility was the largest revenue component this quarter, and made up 46% of revenue. Within the hydrogen mobility segment, we saw continued strong activity in the transit bus segment, which is offset by significantly lower activity within heavy duty trucking, as Nikola filed for bankruptcy protection in February. The other segment, which consists of our industrial gas and aerospace business, was more or less flat year over year and made up 33% of revenue. Moving on to the EBITDA side of the page on the right-hand side, EBITDA came in at minus 143 million in the quarter, compared to minus 14 million in the same quarter last year. Let's see here. Yeah, and it was impacted by the low revenue we saw in the quarter combined with a less favorable product mix. Additionally, the HMI segment recognized in total 54 million of non-recurring costs in the quarter, where 38 million was related to restructuring and 16 million was related to bad debt expense related to two insolvent customers. Moving on to the battery systems and vehicle integration segment, this is the business unit that engages in battery systems production and complete vehicle integration of battery electric and fuel cell electric vehicles for the North American market. We also have a complete suite of proprietary key components required for electrification of heavy-duty trucking. Revenue for BVI in the first quarter ended at 25 million, up 35% compared to the same quarter last year. The growth is driven by deliveries of battery electric trucks to Hino, coupled with delivery of battery systems to Toyota Motors North America. Although from a low base, we continue to expect revenue for the BVI segment to increase significantly year over year. Similar to the HMI segment, EBITDA in the quarter for the BVI segment was also weighed down by non-recurring charges amounting to 10 million. 4 million of this was related to restructuring costs and 6 million was related to inventory impairment. Zooming out again to the group level and moving on to our balance sheet. The total size of the balance sheet at the end of the first quarter was approximately 4.5 billion. This is down from approximately 4.9 billion at the end of 2024 and is largely driven by the operating losses in the quarter combined with the strengthening of the NOC against the dollar and the euro, translating to lower balance sheet values in NOC terms. Working capital decreased by 45 million in the quarter as we saw a reduction in inventory and accounts receivables, which was larger than the reduction in accounts payables. The equity ratio at the end of the first quarter was 37% and we ended the quarter with 794 million of cash. Moving on to the cash flow statement, which reflects the movements in the balance sheet and P&L, our operating cash flow in the quarter was minus 183 million and was positively impacted by the release of working capital previously mentioned. Cash flow from investments ended at minus 35 million, which is significantly lower than in previous quarters. Final payments related to the capacity expansion program is expected to be dispersed during the first half of this year, but beyond this, capex will be kept to a minimum. Cash flow from financing was 3 million in the quarter, resulting in a net cash flow of minus 234 million and a cash balance at the end of the first quarter of 794 million. With that, I'd like to pass it over to Morten to walk us through the outlook.

Let's take a look at what we expect ahead. lower visibility on near-term market condition. It's lower than what we have been used to. But we can talk about what we do see. In hydrogen mobility, we see continued strong commercial momentum for transit bus, particularly in Europe, where an increasing number of cities are integrated hydrogen buses into their public transportation fleets, and where our customers continue to be successful in tenders. So we expect 25 to be a better year than 24 in transit. We don't expect much volume in truck with the Nikola bankruptcy, but we do expect some smaller systems deliveries in North America and prototype volumes to other select markets. In hydrogen infrastructure, we have seen better momentum in order intake recently. So we do expect the second half of the year to be better than the first half, albeit significantly lower volume for the full year than we had last year. Looking at battery electric mobility, it's a challenging situation in the US at the moment, with many customers in a holding pattern awaiting more clarity on tariffs and the regulatory situation. It's obviously hard to predict how this will develop short term, but we're slowly ramping up production and putting trucks in the hands of dealers and fleets. The customer dialogues we're having are promising, so we expect to have higher activity in the second half of the year than in the first half also there. So overall for 2025, our outlook has not changed materially since we reported Q4. And in short, we expect a slow first half of the year, but a stronger second half. And to sum it all up in light of uncertainty, we continue to focus on what we can control. We have good traction on cost reductions and we will continue to reduce our costs further with the aim to enable profitability at lower volume. We will also continue to review our business portfolio and consider additional actions we can take to shorten the time to profitability. Our target is to secure the cash runway to make the current liquidity last until EBITDA and cash flow break even. That concludes our presentation for today and we will now open it up for Q&A. Mathias?

Yes, thank you, Morten and Salman. So I think we can just jump straight into the first question from Daniel Haugland. Can you quantify the expected knock-million cost-cutting effects of further cost reductions in the German operations?

I don't think that we are not guiding specifically and so we will come back to that when we have clarified the number but I think it's fair to say that the number will be significant.

Thank you, Martin. And then a question for you, Salman, from Marcus Gavelli. Is the recent development in revenue mix particularly positive slash negative on working capital? Do you plan for neutral working capital in 2025?

I think what we're currently seeing, Marcus, is that working capital will be released on the full year, so we do expect a positive contribution on cash from working capital in 2025.

Thank you, Salman. And then a question from Johannes Wolnick to you, Morten. Are there plans to enter into cooperation with SpaceX or to supply the defence industry?

Yeah, so we are already in the aerospace market. As you know, we supply two out of the three commercial space exploration companies in North America, and this is not a market where you typically talk loudly about your customers, but we are already in that market, and we are seeing that the activity level is increasing quite a bit, and we see that as an exciting area also for us going forward.

Thank you, Martin. And then a question from Martin related to the business review. Is it on the table that you close or sell one of your factories?

I think we are looking through our portfolio and we're obviously not going to comment on forward plans, but it's fair to say that we look for whatever we can do to shorten the time to profitability and we are keeping all of our options open.

Thank you, Martin. And then, Salman, a question to you from Helene Brømbo. What was the reason for your BVI inventory write-down? How do you assess the risk of further inventory write-downs?

Yeah, so, Helene, the inventory write-down was related to BVI, which was inventory that, or early-stage inventory that we had bought, and inventory needs to be carried at the lowest of cost and net realizable value. So this was an adjustment down to net realizable value.

Yeah, thank you. And then a follow-up question from Martin on cost. Will your payroll expenses in 2025 be well below your figures in 2024?

Run rate, yes.

Yeah, thank you. And then a question from Helene Brønbo again. What are your thoughts around the capital structure longer term considering your two convertible bonds with a value of 2.1 being out of the money? Morten.

Yeah, I can take that. So I think generally, obviously, the capital structure is something that we have an eye on. And then it's too early for us now, given the maturity of these bonds are in 2028 and 2029 to go into detail on that.

Okay, thank you. And then last question here, it seems, from Nils Kolme. It's for you, Morten. Given the current lack of market support in the United States, would it be possible to bring the Tern RCA truck to Europe instead? Are there any plans or considerations to introduce the Tern RCA to the European market if the U.S. roller does not progress as anticipated?

I think that the vehicle platforms, first of all, are very different in North America than in Europe. So it would not be possible to bring the Tern RC8 per se into the European market. And then there is also good momentum for electrification actually in North America. It's still a bit early days, but it's very clear that most of the sub kind of 200 miles range duty cycles will be electrified and so we're confident that we will also see good traction in north america once the the regulatory situation and the impact of tariffs have become clarified

Thank you, Morten. So that was the last question for today and wraps up our questions that we received. So on behalf of Hexagon Puris, I would like to thank you all for spending time with us this morning. And we look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you very much from Oslo. Thank you.