5/7/2026

speaker
Lewis Miller
Group Chief Executive Officer

Good morning and welcome to the presentation of Census GATSO Group's Q1 2026 Interim Report. My name is Lewis Miller, Group Chief Executive Officer. Joining me this morning is Simon Mulder, our Group CFO. To start our presentation, I'll provide an overview of our Q1 results as well as changes to our segment reporting and the restructuring of our North American organization to commence the year. I'll then turn the presentation over to Simon to review the group's results and new segment reporting in greater detail before addressing our financial outlook for 2026. Q1 marked our fourth consecutive quarter of strong performance with year-over-year improvements in revenue, EBITDA, and EBIT. Revenue increased 5% to 160 million Swedish kronor, driven by strong performance in our international segment that more than offset significant negative currency impacts and lower event volumes in the United States. EBITDA landed at 22.2 million for the quarter, up from 11.1 million last year, with margin increasing from 7.3% to 13.9%. This was due to economies of scale in project delivery and effective expense management across our organization. The strong revenue and EBITDA results flowed to a positive EBIT of 8.2 million, a significant turnaround from negative 1.1 million in Q1 25. Taken together, our Q1 financial results confirm our strategic direction announced last year, focused on our core markets, disciplined execution, and profitable growth. Turning next to our Q1 report, we are introducing a significant change in our reporting structure, moving from segments based on type of sale to a geographic basis. The new North American and international segments reflect our strategic priorities and the different business models that apply globally, while highlighting the difference between one-time product sales and recurring service revenue. Specific to North America, we are also introducing three new key performance indicators, revenue retention rate, new business intake, and backlog in order to provide additional insights into our existing customer base, incremental order intake, and our growth trajectory. Collectively, these changes are driven by our commitment to transparency, and our desire to provide investors with a clearer view of our business drivers and performance. Lastly, after a comprehensive review of the business, in Q1, we commenced a reorganization and restructuring in North America designed to increase our market engagement and commercial focus. This includes welcoming a new North American Managing Director, Brett Kesey, as well as new sales leadership and enhanced customer success and bid management resources. With that said, I'd now like to turn the presentation back over to Simon for a closer look at our group results and our new North American and international segments.

speaker
Simon Mulder
Group Chief Financial Officer

Okay, thank you, Louis. As always, I will go through the Q1 results, of course, the segment performance and our cash flow and our financing position. First, looking at our group results, our Q1 performance has seen year over year improvement on revenue, EBITDA and profit. Our revenue performance of 160 million in the quarter was driven by a strong performance in our international business segment. Overall revenue growth was approximately 5%, but adjusted for currency impacts, the real underlying growth was approximately 13%. Our gross profit rose to 62 million due to improved gross margins of 39%, which was driven by disciplined project management. The EBDA increased to 22 million with an EBDA margin of approximately 14%. This has resulted in a profit for the period of 7 million compared to a loss of 15 million last year. Moving to our segment North America. Our North America segment currently reflects our US business operation. The revenue in this segment has been impacted by currency and event volume. Our new business intake reflected in annual recurring revenue amounted to 0.7 million from a new customer signing in Colorado. After the quarter, we've announced the expansion of our footprint in New York State with the signing of a new customer, adding 5.8 million in annual recurring revenue. Our total backlog, which reflects signed contracts pending implementation, amounted to 23.3 million. This is after the conversion of 4.3 million of new installations. Overall, this backlog is a solid foundation for future growth. Revenue amounted to 37 million, significantly impacted by currency to the amount of 7 million in the quarter. Our revenue retention rate, which reflects the performance of our existing customer base, was approximately 85% due to lower event volumes. The lower event volumes were driven by extreme weather conditions in the northeast of the United States and increased compliance of drivers with traffic regulations. The EBITDA for the quarter came in at 4 million with a margin of 10%, impacted by lower revenue. Our international business segment consists of our European, Australian and Middle East businesses. We have experienced a good Q1 performance in both product and service sales. The order intake of 35 million is mainly driven from an expansion of Dutch maintenance contracts and smaller repeat orders. Revenue increased to 124 million, driven by strong product sales from the ongoing Swedish and Dutch projects and strong service revenue from Sweden, the Netherlands, and our services contract with Saudi Arabia. Our EBITDA rose to 20 million, or 16% EBITDA margin, driven by economies of scale and effective project and expense management. Now going to our cash flow. Our cash flow from operations amounted to negative 6 million in the first quarter, with positive movements on non-cash items related to favorable translation impact. We have built up working capital during the quarter for our ongoing projects, mainly relating to increased milestones to be invoiced to the customer. During the quarter, we have invested 10 million in hardware and software development and 7 million in fixed assets and operations. The fixed assets and operations relate to our Australian project, which are financed through our asset finance agreement. Available cash rose to 196 million, up from 149 million in Q1 of 2025. Our financing position, expressed as our net interest bearing debt, has increased to 236 million. Main drivers are translation impacts on our Euro-denominated bond of 4 million and an increase in our asset finance of 7 million. Our cash at bank ended at 141 million with our credit facility mainly unused. We continue to have a healthy leverage ratio of 1.96 at the end of the quarter. And with that, I'd like to hand it back over to Louis.

speaker
Lewis Miller
Group Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Simon. To conclude our presentation, I'd like to address our financial outlook for 2026. Although the conflict in the Middle East has introduced market volatility, we are reaffirming our guidance for the year with revenue expected in the range of 750 to 800 million and an EBITDA margin of 14 to 16%. Our operational momentum remains strong, and we are confident that our strategic focus and financial discipline position us well to navigate the remainder of the year. To summarize our interim report today, Q1 was a productive start to 2026 for Census GATSO. We saw year-over-year improvements in revenue, EBITDA and EBIT, And we are introducing changes to our financial reporting structure at North American Organization to provide a clearer view on our financial performance and to drive profitable growth. With that, I'd like to open things up to questions.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

-

-

Investor presentation