Quadient Sa

Good evening and welcome to Quadion's first quarter 2024 sales presentation. I am Catherine Hubert-Dorel, Quadion's Head of Investor Relations, and I'm here today with Geoffrey Godet, our CEO, and Laurent Dupassage, our CFO. We'll have a short presentation followed by a Q&A session. You can submit your questions in writing through the web or ask questions by dialing live into the conference call. Thank you very much. And with that, over to you, Geoffrey.

Thank you, Catherine, and good evening, everybody. 2024 started on a positive trend with Q1 sales reaching €261 million, which is up 3.2% on a reported basis and 1% for organic growth. Growth from subscription-related revenue is now representing 72% of our total revenue and continues to outpace our organic trend because it's increasing now by 1.2% organically against a relatively high 2023 comparison basis on that note. Regionally, North America is the most dynamic region for the group with a 2.4% organic increase. We had a solid business trend over the quarter and our revenue performance was in line with our expectation. So naturally, we confirm our financial guidance for the full year 2024. Lastly. and Laurent will come back to it later in the presentation, we raise also €155 million of new debt over the course of the first quarter, anticipating the maturity of our bond in early 2025. So, over to you, Laurent, for the details of our Q&A's performance.

Thank you, Geoffrey, and good afternoon and good morning, everyone. I'm Laurent Dupassage, I'm Quentin's Chief Financial Officer, and I'm happy to walk you through The Q1 revenue for Quadient, now moving to slide 7, as mentioned by Geoffrey, at €261 million, Quadient Q1 revenue is up by 1% organically compared to last year. When looking at breakdown by revenue category, both subscription and licensed hardware sales show positive trends. In hardware, very favorable MRS placement and ICA licenses have positively impacted the license and hardware for the quarter, which results in an unusual license and hardware trend at plus 1.9%, being more dynamic than subscription-related revenue at plus 1.2%. On subscription-related revenue, trends from ICA continue to offset natural MRS decline. From a geographical standpoint, on the right-hand side, North America continues its growth up 2.4%. Many European countries' growth is better than before, notably thanks to a good quarter in France, Benelux and Germany. Lastly, international is up by almost 1% thanks to a strong quarter for both MRS and ICA, which have more than offset the adverse trend in Parcel Locker due to the Yamato contract renegotiation. Turning to slide 8 and our traditional revenue bridge by solution. Total reported revenue for the quarter is up by 3.2%. Indeed, from the €253 million of Q1 2023, on the left-hand side, Italy being classified under IFRS 5 in this first number, the two main contributions to the reported growth are the €6 million of revenue from acquired companies, Daylight and Frama, as well as ICA growth, bringing another €4 million. This 4 million is the main contribution to the organic growth at plus 6% up compared to last year. The sum of mail-related solutions, parcel lockers and currency effects is limited, leading to a total reported growth of 3.2% and a group organic change of plus 1%. Now moving to the next slide. As a summary on this slide, you can see that Quadrant Q1 1% organic growth rate is supported by a good performance from North America from a geographical standpoint. From a solution standpoint now, MRS remains impressively resilient while ICA shows growth, allowing for total revenue growth despite some decline in past sale occur. Now, moving to the next slide, as mentioned by Geoffrey, and as you can recall, we have a bond maturing in 2025 with a remaining capital of €268 million to be reimbursed. I'm very happy to announce that we have already secured about €155 million of new debt, of which €140 million should shine, a mix of euro and dollar, with maturities ranging from three to seven years. And a €15 million of loan from BPI split in several tranches and maturities between four and seven years. We're still successfully extended by a year our revolving credit facility of €300 million. Now maturing in 2029, this credit facility is undrawn. Moving to the next slide for the solution review. Over to you, Geoffrey, for ICA.

Thank you, Laurent. Starting with our software solution, as we have discussed in previous presentations, external recognition of our cloud application plays an important role in how customers choose to buy our software. Our cloud solutions have been consistently ranked as leader in many expert reports over the years. And in 2024, we have received the confirmation of two additional leader position rankings with Sparks Matrix, On the one hand, one for the customer communication management, and on the other, for the account receivable applications. This confirms that our cloud application remains the best in the industry. And all modules are now accessible from one single entry point, thanks to the Quadion Hub launched last year, as you remember. And actually, as far as the onboarding of customers in the Hub is concerned, we're nearing the completion with 88% of our targeted customers already onboarded. and we are seeing the benefit of this platform approach. In Q1, we have run several double deals, combining both the account-receivable and account-payable modules. On another note, in total, 700 new small and mid-sized customers' accounts have been signed in the first quarter alone. So, Q1 has also been a solid quarter in terms of bookings, with several deals signed with large U.S. health insurance companies for a total amount of 4.5 million euros over several years. And as an example, this includes one large three-year contract averaging 1 million subscriptions per year. This is a communication automation deal, which continues to highlight the superiority of our solution in this domain for large and complex business needs. Thank you, Geoffrey.

ICA has shown 6% growth compared to last year. It's still driven by subscription-related revenue. And this is despite the negative comparison-based effect of two large deals that were put on hold in Q3 last year. As mentioned by Geoffrey, commercial trends are now strong in the beginning of the year. Annual revenue has reached €215 million. It's up 17%. unanalyzed basis. It's a step up compared to the 12% ARR growth from last year. This is notably driven by customer communication management new contracts. Enterprise deals signed in Q1 with large US health insurance companies, as mentioned by Geoffrey, which was a good start of the year compared to the softer quarters we had on large accounts recently. Financial automation modules continue to perform well with traction in North America as well as in the UK. Cross-sell remains strong with 30% of total bookings in the period coming for cross-sell. Over to you now, Geoffrey, for mail-related solutions.

So Q1 has been another very strong quarter in terms of commercial activities. This performance continues to be driven by North America, where Quadion continues to deliver a positive performance. And as you know, we're benefiting from the decertification obligation from the USPS. But also, we continue to take market share thanks to a solid product placement. So speaking of product placement, it's been pretty robust in several European countries as well, including France and Benelux, where performance also continues to improve. Let me now give you a few details on the Frama acquisition, which was closed on the 1st of February 2024. The start of the integration process is going well, and the Q1 sales contribution has been in line with our expectations. We are pleased to have welcomed 30,000 additional new customers to our mail-related solution base, and the focus is now on upgrading the install base and initiating the cross-selling effort for these customers. Looking at the sustained pace of cross-selling of our digital solution in the first quarter, we are naturally confident in our ability to replicate this penetration into this new customer base just recently acquired.

Laurent. Indeed, from one year to another, since COVID, MRS performance has kept on a very resilient trend. And again, in Q1 this year, MRS activity is close from being flat organically. And it's even growing in reported value by 2.5% thanks to the acquisition of Frama and its good performance. This organic growth resilience comes from another very strong quarter of hardware placement, leading to a plus 4% of hardware and license sales, including strong contributions from North America, France and international. In North America, it is even the total revenue for MRS that continues to grow. Backlog has normalized at the same time, and subscription-related revenue continues to erode due to the underlying market trends of low-end segments, impacting notably services and rental subscription lines. Overall, Quadion continues to strongly overperform this market. Over to you now, Geoffrey, for Parcel Locker Solutions. Thank you, Laurent.

As you know, our focus for this solution has been to accelerate the deployment of open networks of parcel lockers in Europe. So let me comment on the recent progress made both in France and in the UK. So in the UK, after, if you remember, a slow start of installation of lockers, the pace of development accelerated in this first quarter with around more than 200 lockers installed, which is basically doubling the pace from the first quarter of 2023 level. Globally, that puts us at the end of the first quarter now. Our total install base stands at more than 20,800 lockers. The deployment of lockers, as you know, is also contributing to the rapid adoption of lockers themselves and to the increase naturally of usage. And we can see that for both the increase in usage for pickup, but also for the return of those parcels. If we look at it from a quarter-on-quarter perspective, and especially such after the peak volume of the last quarter of 2023 in Q4, which is driven traditionally by the year-end e-commerce holiday boost, we have seen in Q1 a 14% increase in pickup volumes and a 30% increase in drop-off volume coming from that Q4 comparison. In France, we continue the installations with the already signed retailers and existing location, and we could see also rising usage, which demonstrate the positive momentum again for this open network. Focus is obviously now on sending additional new location, prime location as much as we can to drive further local deployments and increase the density of our networks in both countries. From a carrier standpoint, we announced at the full year 2023 result the addition of RioMel as a new joiner to our UK open network, as you know. The implementation of RioMel is moving at quite a fast pace, and we're quite happy to see RioMel using more and more lockers already in the UK. I believe we have more than 200 lockers already used by RioMel at this stage. Laurent.

With the new contractual agreements in Japan and a lower level in installation of lockers in North America during this quarter, parcel locker revenue shows a 3.4% decline in Q1. However, thanks to the strong deployment in the UK and the contribution of the existing install base, subscription-related revenue did show a 2.8% growth, accounting now for 68% of total parcel locker revenue. Strong locker deployment in the UK, seen in the previous slide, does not fully translate into the revenue yet, but will progressively, notably thanks to traffic and volume increase, showing good trends to date. The addition of Royal Mail contracts with the fast ongoing access of Royal Mail to Quadrant lockers will materially reinforce current trend in volume and revenue in the coming quarters. Over to you now, Geoffrey, for the outlook.

Thank you, Laurent. So I want to emphasize two points, two assumptions, right? With the first quarter of 2024 organic sales growth in line with our expectation and the solid booking trends we've seen and we have commented and shared with you over the quarter and we have experience across the three solutions, Quadrion had a positive start of the year. Two, the second point is that in addition, we've got the second semester of 2024, H2, that will benefit from an easier comparison basis for both our software platform and our parcel-local solution, as there will be no longer any negative impact, neither from the delay of the implementation of the two large SaaS contracts that we mentioned before, nor from the change in the commercial agreement with Yamato, which took place at the beginning of H2 2023. So with those two main assumptions, the good start of the year and the easier comparison basis, we naturally remain confident in our ability for the full year 2024 guidance to deliver the full year 2024 guidance of organic growth at both the revenue and the current EBIT level. As you know, we concluded our 2021-23 back-to-growth strategic plan with the full year result at the end of March. And we're now looking forward to presenting to you our new outlook for the medium term at our Capital Market Day, which is now scheduled for June 19th in Paris. Thank you for your attention today. Laurent, Catherine and I are obviously ready now to take your questions.

Thank you, Geoffrey. And we will start with a question on the conference call. Operator, please.

Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star 2. You'll be advised when to ask your question. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. Once again, everyone, please press star one to ask for a question. We'll pause for another quick moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. We will take our first question from Maxine Dory from BAB Paribas. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yes, good evening, everyone. I have a question regarding PRS. Obviously, the basis of comparison will be easier from Q3 onward, but besides those comparison effects, When do you expect the turning point will be thanks to an increase in the utilization rate that, you know, for example, the revenue per locale will rise again and more generally when growth will accelerate again? When do you expect this turning point to be? Thank you.

Do you want me to take it? It works for me. I mean, I will take it. Okay. Thank you, Maxime, for this question. Obviously, you made the point. I mean, H1 will be and is, as you could see in Q1, an unfavorable comparison basis. H2, and I think that answers your question, will be significantly more dynamic. And in that sense, both... for example, on the subscription-related revenue line, because we will have a more favorable comparison base, notably in Japan. But also we expect that all the efforts we are having now and the level of backlog justify as well a more favorable evolution also on the hardware part. So we'll have three things, in fact, in H2. First, comparison based on Japan. Second, favorable UK trend that will have materialized into more revenue increase and the outcome of a lot of work being done as well on the hardware sales, notably in North America currently.

And we do expect the usage to continue to increase in the open networks, both in France and the UK. We actually have a growth rate that are now 30%, 50% more in the UK and France from that perspective. So you have a compounding effect of the increase of the size of the bays, right, the more lockers. And the usage rate per locker is also increasing on both France and the UK. So as we are wrapping up and finishing the integration of some of the carriers that did not yet contributing in the volume, So we definitely have, as Laurent mentioned, all the business underpinnings of the increase we expect, regardless of the comparison basis. So we do, I think, expect probably around a strong double-digit growth in the subscription in H2. That will naturally impact the top line as well in the second part of the year.

Okay, very clear. And if I may, another question. So you obviously have a lot of synergy between MRS and ICA. Could you come back on the integration of Roma and who can you capitalize on their existing client base? Is it something that has already started or not yet started?

Good question. So on Frama, it's an acquisition. It's a company that is basically, and I believe Laurent will confirm to me, 14 different legal entities. 12. 12 legal entities in various European countries, right, both in the Nordic, in Germany, in the Netherlands, in Belgium, in Switzerland, in Austria, in Germany, in France, in the UK. So we have quite some work in front of us to be able to integrate fully the go-to-market and the operation of Frama and to the operation of Quadient. So that's where we're mentioning when we say we're in a good pace is that we obviously have an integration plan that is defined month by month, quarter by quarter. And after almost now a quarter since the acquisition, we've been more or less on track, if not actually ahead of our integration schedule. And the savings, naturally, that's going to be associated with it will come progressively, right, as we can basically put in place those savings progressively over time in the next 12 months. In particular, as it relates to your question on the business side, we've got 30,000 customers. that we want to nurture and want to take care of, that already today use some products that have been resold under the Quadion brand before through an OEM agreement. But we also have customers of Frama that are using the current Frama product or some third parties. So we want to take care of them from a mailing perspective at first, right, making sure we can get them on the same cadence and upgrading the base with the new product that we have like we've done in France or the U.K. or the U.S. in our past years. past quarterly performance. So we're also going to focus on upgrading the base on the mailing side. In addition to that, we've got now a pretty decent track record of being able to look at those type of customers in France and UK and Germany or the rest of Europe and being able to help those customers to go digitally as well. So our current assumption, naturally, is that there should be only good reason for us to be able to duplicate the same kind of cross-selling capability that we have demonstrated in the past in the European markets into those additional customers. Obviously, the cross-selling effort will come subsequently after everything else is put in place. So we're looking at cross-selling effort that will start three quarters from now, probably at the beginning of 2025.

Very clear. Thank you.

You're welcome.

As a last reminder, please press star 1 to ask for questions. We'll pause for another moment to give time everyone to ask for questions. There are no further questions on the line, so I will now hand you back to your host for closing remarks.

Thank you. And we have no question on the webcast. So I think we can conclude. Thank you, Geoffrey. Thank you, Laurent. Thank you all for your question and your interest in Quadient. In terms of next event, our AGM will take place on the 14th of June and it will be followed by our Capital Markets Day on the 19th of June. Thank you very much and have a good evening.

Thank you.