Intercos Spa

Good afternoon, this is the Coruscall Conference Operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Intercost Group Full Year 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, They may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Renato Semerari, Chief Executive Officer of Intercos Group. Please, go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for attending our fiscal year 25 earning call. In a year once more marked by severe geopolitical tensions, which have created significant uncertainties and a visible softness in global beauty consumption, Intercos has decided to focus its efforts on the recovery of the profitability loss during the last three years of strong top-line growth. This called for an overall reduction of sales with packaging components and a focalization on the views centered around innovation. I'm glad to note that our efforts were successful and paid the expected dividends. However, Topline was further hampered by currencies headwinds on top of the overall market softness. Let's see an overview of our results. Topline ended the year at 1 billion 47 million euros, overall flat at constant rates and slightly down at current rates. To note, the value-added sales, which I remind you are net sales minus packaging expenses, grew by 1.5% at constant rates, reflecting the mentioned reduction in pack sales. Gross profit conversely increased by 151 basis points, thanks to better mix and productivity gains, as well as procurement efficiencies. Adjusted EBITDA grew by plus 9% to 156 million euros, with margin at 14.9% and 143 basis points over last year. EBITDA on value-added sales reached 19.2%, marking a plus 165 basis points of gain over a year ago. Adjusted net income was also up. and net debt improved its ratio on EBITDA at 0.64 times EBITDA with a cash conversion rate of 47%. This in a year of high CapEx expenditure due to plans, expansion plans, and shares by back program. We will propose to the Assembly of Shareholders a dividend distribution of 19 million euros in line with our dividend distribution policy. Moving to see the key components of our performance versus a year ago at top and bottom line level, I will start from the top line. So last year, we closed fiscal 24 at 1.1 billion and 65 million euros. From this level, we had a negative 2% drop due to currencies. Another 1% drop was linked to lower pack sales. And this was more than offset by the value-added sales gains, heading up to the 1 billion 47 million euros I mentioned earlier. On EBITDA, we started from 143 million last year. we had a 2.5 million euro negative impact from currencies, and then margin improvement brought 13 million euros more, and another 2 million came from higher sales at constant rates. So we're looking at our key numbers. Top line was at plus 0.3% at constant foreign exchange and minus 1.7% at current rates. Value added sales were up 1.5% at constant rates and minus 0.5 at current rates. EBITDA grew by 8.8% with a 14.9% margin up 143 basis points. I said before EBITDA margin on value added sales at 19.2% was our best ever results. and a 165 basis points gain versus a year ago. Net income at 5.5% of sales was up 20 basis points versus a year ago. And net debt was up by only 3 million euros despite 4 million euros of capex more than a year ago, 13 million euros of shares both back and 19 million euros of dividends. We got to these results through a Q4 which was difficult from a top line standpoint due to the high base of 2024 when we grew in quarter four by plus 15%, the peak of currencies as Edwin's in the quarter, back sales contraction and low reorders reflecting the long lasting market softness we had experienced throughout the year. Looking at top-line results in more details and starting looking at the results by business units, MakeUp closed the fiscal with a plus 6% growth at current rates, despite a slightly negative Q4. Growth was well above the market trend, thus allowing us to consolidate our global leadership in the category. All regions posted growth with Asia and EMEA particularly strong. Multinationals were the key engine of growth, particularly thanks to prestige brands. Skincare conversely marked a mid-cycle digit decline after two years of strong growth. I remind you that the CAGR of the three years was at last 13%. The unit paid the toll not only to Forex Exchange headwinds, but also to US tariffs that made us suffer in US. In fact, we posted growth in both Asia and EMEA, but decline in US was more than offsetting those gains. And this is due to the fact that we lack local manufacturing for skincare, as you certainly know. Air and Body registered a double-digit decline following two exceptional years, which had a CAGR of 30%, and the results were impacted by the lower sales with packaging, but more than anything else, the far less important fragrance launches of 2025 versus 2024. Q4 was particularly difficult since last year we had registered a plus 40% growth in the quarter. In terms of sales weight, we saw a shift of four percentage points from air and body to makeup, which obviously helped the mix and helped the profitability of the company. Looking at the geographical trends, Asia confirmed its role of growth engine of the group, posting a plus 6% despite very negative currency effects in both China and Korea. Both countries delivered high single-digit growth at constant rates after years of double-digit results. Makeup and skincare were both growing with makeup at a faster pace. Also, Q4 was positive at constant rates. As for America, America was overall flat at current rates, but positive at constant rates. Effects impacted was particularly heavy on Q4. The region performance traced to strong makeup results, offset by skincare, as already mentioned. EMEA overall results were instead impacted by air and body decline. The growth registered by makeup and skincare could not completely offset the air and body decline, especially in quarter four. Looking at the results by client clusters, after years of growth led by emerging brands, 2025 saw the comeback of multinationals, getting back to a bit less than 50% of our total sales. So multinationals posted a double-digit growth at constant rates or plus 9% at current rates with both makeup and skincare on a growing trend, although the growth was more pronounced in makeup. All regions were up for this cluster of clients with Q4 broadly flat. Emerging brands posted a double-digit decline after several years of accelerated growth. Performance was still positive in Asia, but the cluster paid a heavy toll from the air and body in EMEA. As for retailers that represent a limited weight on our total sales, we saw a comeback to a low single-digit growth, mainly thanks to European retailers. I now pass the stage to Paola, our CFO, to go deeper into the financial results.

Thank you, Renato. Good evening, everybody. Let me walk you through our fiscal year 25 results. As mentioned, in 2025, net sales reached 1 billion 47 million euros. On a constant currency basis, the sales were slightly up by 0.3%. while on a reported basis they declined by 1.7%, mainly due to the significant appreciation of the euro against the US dollar, the Chinese renminbi, and the Korean won. More importantly, we materially improved the quality of our revenues. The higher mix of prestige and free-issue sales resulted in lower reported revenues, but significantly stronger profitability. Gross margin increased to 21%, up plus 151 basis points versus last year. Adjusted EBITDA reached 156 million euros, up plus 8.8% year-on-year, or plus 12.6 million euros. EBITDA margin improved to 14.9% of net sales, up plus 143 basis points. On value-added sales, EBITDA reached 19.2% up 165 basis points, fully recovering the lower profitability reported in the past three years. This margin recovery was not driven by cost-casting, but by structural improvements in gross margin, better sales mix, operational efficiency, and sourcing initiatives. adjusted net income amounted to 57.4 million euros, growing 1.3% versus the previous year. The EBITDA improvement was partially assessed by higher depreciation and higher financial expenses, largely driven by the exchange rate impact, both realized and unrealized, already visible in H1 of 2025. The effective tax rate improved to below 32% versus last year. And finally, net debt stood at €125 million, broadly in line with last year, despite €19 million in dividends and €13.1 million in share buyback programs. This thanks to a strong cash generation capability. Financial leverage further decreased to 0.64 times net debt to adjust EBITDA from 0.68 in the previous year, confirming the strength of our balance sheet. Overall, 2025 demonstrates a clear structural improvement in profitability and financial discipline, at the same time consolidating the strong increase in sales reported over the last years. Moving to the profitability by business unit, MakeUp delivered outstanding performance. Adjusted EBITDA increased from 83 million euros to 107 million euros, up 29%. The EBITDA margin expanded by 293 basis points to 16.3%. Growth was consistent across all quarters, with second half margins reaching 18%. This reflects operational efficiencies, stronger prestige mix, and lower share of full service sales. Skincare also improved for profitability. Adjusted EBITDA increased to 27 million euros, up 7% year on year. with EBITDA margin reaching 16.8%. The improvement was driven by prestige customers in EMEA and Asia. Hair and Body has anticipated experience a decline. EBITDA decreased to 21.9 million euros, down 13 million euros year on year, reflecting lower revenues and reduced 15%. cost absorption after an exceptionally strong 2024. Consequently, at group level, adjusted EBITDA increased to 156 million euros, with margin expansion across makeup and skincare more than offsetting the hair and body normalization. This confirms that our core business, makeup, is structurally strengthening its profitability profile. Moving now to cash flow and balance sheet. Operating cash flow reached 73.5 million euros, up 16.4 million euros versus last year, which represents a strong increase. The improvement was driven by higher EBITDA by 12.6 million euros and by a very effective trade working capital management following the evolution of the sale. The above results include a capex increase to nearly 75 million euros, representing now 7.2% of our sales, and 4 million higher capex versus previous year, reflecting the group's expansion projects, particularly in Asia. Cash flow before dividends and buyback was positive at 29.4 million euros, significantly up year-on-year, plus 43%. The group managed to absorb 32.1 million euros of shareholder remuneration in the Share by DAG program, while keeping net debt broadly stable versus the previous year at 100.5 million euros. Leverage ratio further improved to 0.64 times net debt to EBITDA, excluding IFRS 16, net debt stands at 62.2 million euros. Cash conversion reached 47% after CAPEX and approximately 95% before CAPEX, confirming the strong cash generation capability of the business. I would like to also highlight the ROIC improvement to 14.3% from 13.3% last year. Overall, we combined profitability growth, strategic investments, and shareholder remuneration while maintaining a very solid financial structure in a difficult market environment. Back now to our CEO, Renato Semerari.

Thank you, Paola. So looking forward now, we entered the year with confidence about a beauty come back to its historical growth pace. Our view was comforted by the good results of Q4 in China and some early signs of recovery in US. Also, in November, December, we registered our new record of orders intake, signaling that consumption and reorders are picking up again. We hope that last weekend news won't put new clouds on the overall economy and on beauty, but we are quite confident about the year 2026. As far as Infocost is concerned, after a year focused on profitability recovery, we entered 2026 determined to get back to a more solid growth pace despite currency headwinds. Leveraging our innovation superiority, we want to keep consolidating our leadership in makeup and get back to growth on skincare. We expect growth to be skewed to the second part of the year, starting quarter two, 2026. So in terms of outlook for the year, we expect a growth of about plus five, plus 6%, despite the currency headwinds. I think that with this, We have closed our remarks and we are ready to get your questions. Thank you.

Thank you. This is the Coruscant Conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on the touch-tone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and 2. please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Andrea Condrea of UBS.

Please go ahead. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Two for me, please. So obviously on 2026 sales, you're guiding for an increase of 5% to 6% in reported terms. But in constant effects, how much do you expect that growth to be? And you've mentioned that you want skincare to return to growth. What about the other categories? How do you see them accelerating through the year? And tied to that, you expect growth to be weighted towards the second half as well as Q2. For Q1, does that mean that it will likely be flat, maybe slightly positive. And my second question, on EBITDA, I wrote this if not guided on it, but just in terms of moving parts, you're not going to see as big of a benefit from lower full-service sales, but you've got efficiencies still coming through the business. Is it fair to assume your margin will be at least flat? Grazie mille.

Thank you, Andrea. Yeah, 2026 guidance we're giving is around 5%, 6% growth. That would mean a constant rates will be in the range of seven points. So it's about one point, one point something to translate in constant rates. Obviously, we'll need to see because it's moving parts. But when we look at our forecast and looking at the bank forecast, This should be the gap between current and constant rates. In terms of growth, I told that we want to come back to growth in skincare, but I also said that we want to consolidate our leadership in makeup, so we want to have growth also in makeup, and we want to have it. above the market, which will likely be in the region of plus 4% if things go as we expect. We believe air and body will be more or less in line with this year, maybe some slight improvements, but it won't be the major driver of growth also for 2026. We expect Q1 to be Certainly softer than the other quarters. We had a peak of order intake, which marked a bit of a change of direction in terms of reorders. Something I didn't mention during my remarks is the fact that in 2025, our sales of new projects was positive. We suffered more in terms of reorders. So the fact that we peaked in terms of order intake at the very end of the fiscal 25 means that we will have an impact starting Q2 of 2026. As you said, and that's the last point I think you touched upon, in terms of marginality for 2026, yes, we expect it to be slightly improving but it's not certainly going to be anything like this year which to be honest we did better than we had expected at the beginning so we we think that we will consolidate our marginality of this year and get back to growth in top line I hope I've answered all your questions yes thanks very much thank you

The next question is from Aaron Adamski of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good evening, Renato, Paola, Andrea. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two. First, on inventories, what is your assessment of the current inventory levels at the customer level, and do you expect to see any destocking through the year, and if that is the case, which categories could be more impacted by that? My second question is on your balance sheet, which gives you a decent amount of capital allocation flexibility. Could you update us on your current M&A priorities by geography and maybe category? And if you could, what is the current M&A landscape out there right now? And maybe just a third last small question. What level of finance costs and tax rate do you focus for 2026? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Aaron. Inventory of our customers. Well, as you well know, it's a moving target in the sense that if consumption goes up, then they will need to go up as well in their inventory. because everybody measures it in terms of weeks on end. We don't think there is a phenomenon of high stocks at the moment. You know, we're coming out of, I would say, at least 18 months of a softer than usual market, so I think that everybody has adjusted its inventory to the current situation, so I'm rather expecting help from that element in the second half of the year if consumption, as I expect, comes up in the coming months, then they should adjust upwards their inventory policy. So I don't expect negatives from that standpoint. I rather expect some good news in the second half of the year. Second question is related to our capability, possibility to do M&A given our solid financial situation. While I've said it more than once, our number one objective in terms of M&A is skin care in U.S. and even more skin care with an OTC, so SPF focus. You know, we suffered this year in US in skincare. Otherwise, we would have been positive also in skincare in 2025 because not having a manufacturing site for skincare in the US, the tariff game made us be not competitive or not competitive enough to serve US customers out of Europe or Asia. So that remains our number one objective. We are proactively scouting to see if we have a list of, a very precise list, actually, of targets we would like to study and possibly acquire. Unfortunately, for the moment, it doesn't look there are many sellers, to be honest, because most of those who were bought by private equity are willing to wait a bit longer to get the results they were expecting with their exit. Everybody's paying a little bit the softness of the market, so the results are not up to what the expectations were, and therefore they are holding their shares for a bit longer. I hope again that in the second semester of the year there will be new openings and we will be certainly very active on that front. For the tax rate, I pass to, I don't like paying taxes in general, but I know that we have to, so I pass it to Paola and Andrea.

So as we said, we closed this year 2025 slightly below 32%, and 31.9 for the plan for next year is to stay definitely below that, so most likely further improvement, so I would say around 31% something like that.

I hope we've answered your questions, Aaron.

Yes, that's very clear. Thank you. Can I just ask a very quick follow-up on guidance? Sure. On the first question, can you give us a sense of what sort of beauty market growth rate underpins your sales forecast? Because it sounds to be a little bit above what we are hearing compared to what the current beauty market run rate is right now. So I was just trying to breach some of that very strong growth versus where we are seeing beauty market right now. Thank you.

And you are right, Aaron. We are willing to grow faster than the market. The market will likely be around 4%. We want to grow... a bit higher than the market, and especially on the innovation-focused categories, we want to be ahead of market. So that's why our guidance is higher than what you have in terms of outlook for the market.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

The next question is from Tom Randall of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

evening all thanks for taking my question I've just got the one that's okay and it's on the makeup kind of recovery that we're seeing so you mentioned this makeups outperforming within your portfolio and are we seeing kind of a step up in innovation and the cadence of innovation and launches from your from your clients and is that skewing towards prestige prestige kind of innovation briefs. Thank you very much.

Hi, Tom. Thanks for your question. Well, you're right. I mean, and it's very typical. Whenever you have the market being softer, the brands need to rely on innovation to gain market share and sustain top line. You know, let's always remember this is a market where brands enjoy, I would say, a healthy over 70% gross margin. So pushing top line is by far the number one priority for brands. So whenever the market is lower, actually the more the market is soft, the more brands look for innovation to sustain sales. And this is true across the board. It's valid for mass and for prestige. For what Intacost is concerned, Prestige has been the hero for us in 2025. We expect and we want it to be the case also for 2026. This is our nature. We tend to sell innovative products that are first and foremost appealing to Prestige brands, while usually mass brands tend to rely on what has been successful in in Prestige before launching and going ahead. So in makeup, we have always been slightly skewed to Prestige, and this year it's not a, let's say, an exception to this. To the contrary, this year we grew much better in Prestige than in MaaS. Did I answer your question, Tom?

That's very helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you.

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