Zigup H1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
December 4, 2024

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

All right. Ross? Ross? All right. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Zigab's Interim Results.

Operator

I'm Martin Ward, CEO. And joining me today on the presentation is Philip Vincent, our CFO. Just in terms of agenda, if we look at the presentation, I'm going to give a very brief overview of the results for the period. And I hand over then to Philip to do a deep dive into the financial review before coming back to me for a business update and then closing off with questions and answers. So if we just go to Slide 4, I just want to set the scene for the half year results.

Operator

So it's been a good interim period as we continue to invest in the delivery of our mobility strategy. And profit performance for the group is in line with market expectations. Vehicle supply normalized, so there's no current issues. And the direction of travel for the rental fleet since the year end is tracking upwards. So we expect to see growth in the VOH through to the full year.

Operator

Disposal profits continue to trend downwards as expected, albeit these are still elevated in Spain, but we expect them to reduce over time. And our current investments in the fleet, as seen in the increase in assets on the balance sheet, will generate steady state cash flows of over €200,000,000 in FY 'twenty seven, supporting both future growth and a sustainable dividend policy. Normalization of the supply chains in the claims and services area is driving down repair cycle times and higher lengths, but we saw revenue growth from additional mix of work, mainly repair volumes. Some really good work being undertaken around customers, which is driving performance, and we are pleased to see our Trustpilot scores continue to be rated as excellent and supports great customer outcomes. So based on the momentum we have to date, we are confident on the full year market expectations.

Operator

If I look at Slide 5, stand out for me is cash has been strong, enabling us to make investment in growing the fleet, now with a book value of GBP 1,400,000,000 And this investment in fleet assets continues to add balance sheet value whilst maintaining leverage well within our target range of 1 to 2 times and through a disciplined capital allocation policy. The forward visibility we have on cash is also supporting a growing and sustainable dividend in line with our policy. And if we look at rental, as I said, the direction of travel in the rental fleet is up, both in renewing customer contracts and securing new orders. Spain continues to power ahead, adding over 4,000 to the average VOH on a comp basis. And we have seen further traction from cross selling across the business verticals, which is a continually developing position, and I'll go into that in the second half.

Operator

And installation agreements have been entered into with British Gas and Scottish Power for EV charging installation, both for domestic and commercial customers. And overall, we are looking at a strong pipeline going forward. In claims and services, we continue to grow repair volumes across our market sectors, which is an enabler to build out more crossover services. More digital connections are being made to support self-service and enhance our efficiencies. And we've seen good uptake of cash protocols by insurers, which reduces costs and adds to our cash collection efficiencies.

Operator

And if you look at sort of customer delivery as of March this year, the U. K. And I business is represented through one management team. You remember me saying that at the full year, which simplifies our customer engagement across the brands and delivers more market opportunity with strong positioning. Our trust pilot and survey feedback from our laser focus on customers makes us a standout provider of services, and as I say, rated as excellent.

Operator

And when you visit our branches across all of our territories, you can actually feel a palpable energy and purpose as a direct result of bringing customer feedback to the top of the KPI sheet with every branch team having visibility over how they are performing. And our ongoing investment, investing in new sites that are designed to for efficient workflow and equipped with the latest tooling as well as rolling out ADAS, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and repair and maintenance tech throughout our own sites to demonstrate a best in class operating model. This in turn is driving efficiencies and will improve margins over time. And ensuring we have next generation technicians through our expanding apprenticeship scheme, which now numbers over 400 providing talent succession. We'll come back to have a further update on the business.

Operator

But overall, we are pleased that with near normalization of residual values and supply chains, we are seeing some good outcomes which underpin our performance. On that note, I'm going to hand you over to Philip to cover the financial results in more detail.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Martin. Good morning, everyone. So I'm going to start off by looking at the headlines. So if we turn to Page 8, 1st of all. So the first thing to know is our overall Group results are in line with what we expected for the half year.

Speaker 1

Now importantly, underlying revenues excluding vehicle sales was £775,000,000 That's 5.6 percent higher than the prior year with growth across the business. Earnings before interest and tax decreased £15,900,000 or 13.8 percent to 99,100,000 pounds That €8,900,000 of this decrease is due to the expected normalization of our disposal profits. And the balance is due to claims and services profits, which I will talk to in a moment. And the rental business has continued to perform very well. We have continued replacing our oldest vehicles and have been investing to grow the fleet to 132,500 vehicles.

Speaker 1

And we've done this whilst keeping our leverage flat at 1.6 times year on year. And it's this investment that's going to generate significant cash in the future periods. Now if we turn to Slide 9, let's have a look at the revenue. So we have seen the continued benefit of our integrated platform with revenue growth across the business. UK and I average VOH was 4.6% lower as it is cycling through a tougher H1 comparator given our VOH evolution, which I will explain on the next page in minute.

Speaker 1

Supply has been good and CapEx has been invested in replacing older vehicles as well as growing the fleet. And product extension and carefully managed pricing enabled rental revenue to grow 1.7% in the UK and I. And Spain continues to operate very well with strong demand and with good access to vehicles, enabling average vehicles on hire to grow 7.4%, which combined with pricing resulted in rental revenue growing 8.6%. Our claims and services revenue grew 6.1 percent with good growth in direct repair revenue, partially offset by a reduction in credit hire revenue. And vehicle sales revenue of $128,700,000 was, as expected, dollars 48,800,000 lower than the prior year with fewer vehicles sold at lower residual values.

Speaker 1

So if we turn to Page 10, I'll just explain the VOH trends in a little bit more detail. So these graphs are showing the VOH progression for the current half year as well as last year. So if you look on the left hand side, first of all, at the U. K. And I graph, you can see that H1 this year is comparing to a tough comparative last year.

Speaker 1

You may recall at the year end, I explained that VOH in U. K. And Ireland had fallen during the year as vehicle supply was improving, but not at a rate required to replace our disposed fleet. So we started this year 3,000 below May last year. And as a result, average VOH declined 4.6% in H1.

Speaker 1

Now I'm pleased to say that both supply and pricing available from OEMs has moved in our favor since April. And by November, VOH has surpassed the prior year. And we expect VOH and H2 to continue to increase, which is positive for the outlook. Now the picture for Spain is different. The better access to vehicles last year meant that VOH grew through the year, and this growth has continued into the current year, with average VOH growing 7.4% year on year with continued strong demand.

Speaker 1

Now if we turn to Page 11, we look at our group profits. So this chart bridges the prior year's underlying PBT of 99.1 to €82,000,000 this half year. And as expected, this year sees us working through the previously flagged normalization impacts on vehicle and parts supply chains, and the headline figures in these results reflect this. Disposal profits, which you can see in the middle of the chart, are £8,900,000 lower as expected, with a reduction of £4,300,000 in U. K.

Speaker 1

And I and £4,600,000 in Spain. Residual values are normalizing in U. K. And I with a 14% reduction in H1, but with values flattening now in recent weeks. And total volumes sold decreased 7.4% year on year, with average LCV PPUs reducing from 3,500 last year to 1600, reflecting the lower residual values, but also the fact we're selling older fleet and a different mix with a lower PPU.

Speaker 1

And in Spain, residual values sorry, lost my script. In Spain, residual values saw an 11% reduction in H1 and average PPUs at 1900, slightly lower than the prior year's 2,300. Now average VOH fell 4.6% in UK and I and increased 7.4 percent in Spain, as I said, with overall volumes increasing profits to £2,700,000 Rental margins remained strong in both the UK and I and Spain with slight reductions, all in line with our expectations. UK and IMAGINE of 15.7 percent is ahead of our 15% medium term guidance, and Spain is even higher at 19.3%. Now both businesses continue to deliver operational efficiency alongside improving procurement and sensible annual pricing increases.

Speaker 1

And Spain's translated results have also faced a currency headwind in H1, which has reduced their profits by £1,000,000 Now the increase in claims and services volumes in F and G and F and G RS was somewhat offset by lower credit hire volumes, delivering an additional £1,000,000 of profit. Now Now claims and services EBIT margin of 4% is 2.30 basis points lower than the prior year. So in May, the business was the victim of a cyber incident. The incident resulted in a loss of around 1 week of referrals in May for Axillus, and systems are offline in new law for much of May June while we carried a full burden of overhead cost but no corresponding revenue. Now this one off incident in the first half reduced claims and services profits by 4,200,000 dollars and reduced the margin by around 70 basis points.

Speaker 1

And in addition to that, we have treated $2,800,000 of third party adviser and IT costs in relation to this incident as exceptional and outside of underlying PBT. Now the remaining €5,500,000 reduction in margin is mix, with more income from FMG and FMG RS and less from Axillus due to as expected improved supply chains, which have benefited our rental business by reducing the amount of time vehicles have to spend in our rental workshops and at the same time reducing the time to repair vehicles in our body shops and so reducing the length of our credit hires. And second, the quieter summer with fewer incidents being managed with insurers reporting a 10% reduction in insurance incidents over the summer. And interest costs increased £1,200,000 due to higher average level of debt. Now if we turn to Slide 12, we'll look at cash flow.

Speaker 1

I'll start off by saying that our CapEx and cash flow is playing out as we expected and in line with what I explained at the year end. So EBITDA of $228,600,000 was $8,600,000 higher than the prior year, driven by the underlying performance of the business. And spend on net replacement CapEx increased £75,400,000 to £178,900,000 as both the U. K. And I and Spain continue to replace their oldest vehicles.

Speaker 1

We had €38,500,000 inflow from working capital, reflecting the normal ebbs and flows of payments and receipts and the fact that around 70% of our claims and services insurers are now within protocol. A reminder that protocol agreements with insurers lay out agreed settlement terms, mechanisms and timing of payments, improving the efficiency and speed with which we collect our cash. And in the prior period, there was a working capital outflow as the business was investing in working capital for new contract wins. And we paid dividends of €39,300,000 and chose to invest a further of €53,500,000 in new vehicles to grow the fleet in response to the customer demand that we saw. Our total net CapEx spend in H1 was $232,000,000 That's $128,000,000 higher than the prior year, which is reflecting the good vehicle supply that we now see in both Spain and the U.

Speaker 1

K. And I, with the fleet now reaching 132,500 vehicles and no increase in leverage year on year at 1.6x. £5,300,000 was spent on completing the share buyback program. Now I just want to cover a few points on CapEx. So I explained at the year end in July, we will continue to replace the oldest vehicles in our fleet.

Speaker 1

And I said that I expect our total net CapEx to increase just over a third this year, but that could change depending on access to vehicles and demand. Now vehicle supply is good in both the U. K. And I and Spain, along with very strong demand for our services. We therefore will spend more CapEx this year to both replace the older fleet and grow with existing and new customers.

Speaker 1

And total net CapEx will increase more than that 30%, but we will remain within our prudent leverage range of 1 to 2 times. And I also explained that modeling on the basis of what we would like to achieve within the business and given our expectations of vehicle supply over the coming 24 months, it would suggest that the average age of the fleet would reduce to around 28 months in both Spain and the U. K. And that was on the basis that replacement go as planned and are these residual values trend as expected. Now the slide shows a reduction in average fleet year on year.

Speaker 1

And also since the year end, the average fleet in the U. K. And I has decreased 2 months to 32 and in Spain has reduced 1 month to around 29. And this investment and new replacement vehicles will generate significant cash over the next few years, and we can decide whether to invest that cash for more growth or to reduce our debt as we go forward. Remember that in the long term, we expect our net CapEx to reduce substantially with a corresponding momentum to cash generation principally driven by our appetite for fleet growth and where else we choose to invest.

Speaker 1

We carefully control that rate of spend on CapEx, managing our debt position and taking opportunities for growth. And both our cash flow and our operational KPIs benefit from this investment in Newfleet through better higher rates, utilization and lower maintenance. And whilst the additional CapEx initially reduces overall net cash flow generation, this will quickly turn around to strong, steady cash flow. And I said in July that this could move from, say, mid-one 100,000,000 to 200,000,000 steady state cash flow from FY 'twenty seven and then significantly higher thereafter, accelerating to well above 200 €1,000,000 everything else being equal. And that view is unchanged.

Speaker 1

So we're executing our CapEx plan and our overall capital allocation in line with that which we laid out earlier this year, taking the opportunity to invest slightly more given good supply, strong demand and plenty of facility headroom. So now if we turn to Page 13, let's have a look at the balance sheet. So our balance sheet continues to strengthen with over 132,000 vehicles now, a net book value of 1,400,000,000 that's up €200,000,000 compared to the prior half year and net debt only up €27,500,000 and leverage flat year on year at 1.6x. So our strong balance sheet has enabled us to raise a further €190,000,000 of loan notes across 7 10 year tenors at an average rate of 4.4%, which provides additional headroom to invest in our business. But it's also reduced our overall cost of borrowing with a cost falling year on year 30 basis points to 3.2%.

Speaker 1

And the chart at the bottom of the slide bridges our net debt as of April to October 24, and our net debt closed at $782,500,000 with $347,000,000 of headroom. So we generated just under $50,000,000 of steady state cash, excluding lease payments, and that included a net $178,900,000 investing to replace our oldest vehicles. And we invested a further $53,500,000 mainly growing the fleet in Spain. And then we returned $44,600,000 to shareholders in the form of dividends and share buyback. And then at the top right, I've got our chart we've included for the last few presentations, which shows our return since FY 'twenty one, which is now $214,500,000 in dividends.

Speaker 1

We've invested $45,500,000 in acquisitions, extending the products and services of our platform, and we've returned a further $90,200,000 to shareholders through the share buyback. The business continues to generate good cash. It's being invested as planned in replacing and growing the fleet to generate sustainable returns. And as I said, our expectation of generating significant cash from these investments is unchanged. So thank you, and I'll now hand you back to Martin for the business update.

Operator

Thanks, Philip. So look, I mean, my takeaway from the financials is if you look at competitors in our market operating with a large fleet, they're normally leveraged up between 3 and 3.5 times. And we're leveraged up 1.6 times. It's very undemanded in terms of what we're doing. If you grow the business, if the rental side of the business grows, you're investing in the fleet.

Operator

But don't forget, that's a corresponding asset on the balance sheet in terms of value, quite a liquid asset as well. And you've got all the future cash flows from that. I think Philip said it quite a few times, but I sort of nail the colors to the mast on this. When you're cycling the fleet and you're investing, you're going to be growing the fleet, you're going to put the cash into that. But it's all the future cash flows that come off the back of that.

Operator

So the takeaway there was in FY 'twenty seven, dollars 200,000,000 plus stay steady cash and then growing beyond that. So we expect the business to be able to generate a lot of cash from the investment cycles that we are in now. Anyway, that was your last public presentation to analysts in the market in the PLC world.

Speaker 2

It was.

Operator

How did you feel?

Speaker 1

I feel good. I'm not going to be here in July doing it again. No, I jest. Yes, I was reflecting at the presentation at the weekend and a lot's changed since we brought the 2 businesses together. They're fundamentally different.

Speaker 1

The business are different in terms of the products and services much broader than they were when through the merger. We operate them in a completely different way as well. They operate in a much more efficient way than they did pre merger, I think, and that continues to get more efficient as we go forward. But then I was just looking at the numbers from our first reporting period, which was April 'twenty. Our net book value of our fleet has gone up by £500,000,000 And if you look at our the consensus for profits for this year, that would have gone up £100,000,000 underlying PBT.

Speaker 1

And our leverage hasn't moved 1.6 times, April 'twenty, 1.6 times now. So that's not a bad set of results overall over that period. And I think when you look at the balance sheet now, we just raised some more funding. We've got a really strong balance sheet. As Martin said, yes, our absolute debt level has gone up a little bit, but our net book value of our fleet has gone up more.

Speaker 1

Our leverage is very prudent. So I believe we're leaving the balance sheet in a really strong position to fund future growth as well. So that's sad to be leaving, sad not to have all the conversations with you guys twice a year, but excited for me personally for a new opportunity.

Operator

Okay. Well, before I move on, just to say thank you for your efforts. It's been a pleasure working with you over the last 5 years, Philip, and I sort of wish you well in your new pastures.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Operator

We're not quite done yet. So we're going to move on to the sort of business update then. So if we just look at Slide 15, our platform of Integrated Mobility Services is a differentiated proposition. We're combining products that were once commoditized and adding a layer of service wraps that in combination are creating value and efficiencies for our customers and our partners. Those structural trends that we talk about of usership over ownership and outsourcing remain favorable.

Operator

And that's the theme of the discussions we're having in the market today. And the scale of our business supports longer term thinking about the depth and the capacity on what we can do. Our markets Philip mentioned that our markets are reaching normalization, which is supply chain functioning as expected, which does create a clear view of those market opportunities. We have a strong business model that is stable. And it's good to be operating in the mobility space, which is an essential enabler to the overall market economy.

Operator

We have a strong financial position as we've just been discussing. And we can invest in growth through the up cycles with good levels of lending support, which generate sustainable returns well above the cost of our capital. But equally, you've got to remember, in down cycles, so we're in up cycle, we're investing in down cycles. The business will throw off excess cash as we did during the pandemic when we're not purchasing vehicles. If I turn to Slide 16 and just look at the rental market overview.

Operator

So outsourcing to rental is the preferred option for our business users as it provides flexibility without all the holding costs and without having to commit to large capital outlays to acquire a fleet. The autumn budget delivered a lot of news for businesses. But on the upside, it announced an additional €500,000,000 of road maintenance spend alongside some larger transport infrastructure bills, which is a positive for a number of our customers. Van rental new business wins following better supply is at the highest level we have seen since 2019. And this is feeding the upward trend supporting H2 and beyond with high quality selective customers.

Operator

We are continuing to grow our out our ancillary sales like telematics, fleet and accident management and EV packages, which supports our differentiated model. For example, there's been a 65% increase in active customers with fleet under management. And we have seen over 7 50 vehicles go out on rent through crossover opportunities between our different brands. And whilst there has been a lot of recent public noise around EVs, the ZEV mandates and the scale of charge infrastructure yet to be delivered, we continue to see a reasonable level of demand for eLCVs from an increasingly broad customer base with our biggest single order of over 600 eLCVs received to date to be rolled out over the coming year. On Spain, Spain has been a standout performer with a record fleet size and our rental proposition is gaining further market share.

Operator

The economy in Spain is strong and demand is coming from a wide number of sources, which builds on the spread of market sectors that we operate in. We've got new sites and service points adding to the scale of the operation in Spain, which supports future growth. For example, we've got 2 new service points coming online and one additional used vehicle sales outlet scheduled for the second half. If we turn to Slide 17 and look at the U. K.

Operator

As we've covered, no current issues with securing new fleet, and we expect good pricing support for volume orders as manufacturers vie for market share. Residual values in the UK should become less of a talking point. Our car fleet RVs residual values have been stable throughout 2024, post H2 2023 decline. And LCV residual values have trended downwards as anticipated. And when the and we expect these are now close to normal.

Operator

And then if we think about Spain, normal supply for new vehicles has been there for a while. We've got a broadened relationship with a number of manufacturers, which spreads the concentration of risk when you've got a product, a wide offering product to a selection of customers. As I said, residual values in Spain are still elevated, but they are moderating and they are expected to continue to trend down as per the U. K. Over time.

Operator

Don't know what time, but over time. And I mentioned the ZEV mandate. Just to talk about that briefly. The government led consultation has been expedited to review what measures are needed to support further OEMs to support the OEMs and the market with the EV transition. And just to be absolutely clear, there is no market participants seeking to change the 2,030 date for alternatively fueled cars.

Operator

But we are seeking, as a lot of the trade bodies are, the government to support the generation of demand. So whether that's sort of subsidies or some way to create that demand to support that transition. Vans are still under review as to the date for transition, but it's clear that product viability and infrastructure to support EVANS falls way short of the mark in present terms. So the outcomes of the ZEV consultation are important for establishing what supply manufacturers will provide into the U. K.

Operator

Ultimately, manufacturers will determine how supply comes into the UK, which in turn has implications for availability, pricing and residual values. Zig App has an advantage along with other large scale operators of being able to support EV supply with demand for both e cars and e vans. And having the current fleet in excess of 132,000 is therefore a good upside risk to protect availability should supply become restricted. So I'm just saying it's just one to watch out on the ZEV mandates in terms of sort of what comes in. Not asking to change the dates as we said, but what is that demand going to look like?

Operator

What is that supply going to look like? If I turn to Slide 18, look at claims and services. So as Philip mentioned, we had a quiet summer period than expected. So traffic volumes were recorded as being normal, but we saw 10% less incidents reported in those summer months. There's no hard evidence as to what caused this, but post summer, there's been a return to a normal correlation to traffic and incidents.

Operator

So as I say, it has normalized. I mean one thing to point out is that part of the consumer duty outcomes insurers have been implementing changes and they're trying to dial in the right approach across their business lines. So there has been some disruption in that process, which is now finding better direction. And as I said earlier, repair cycle times are improving following normalization of the supply chain, which in turn is reducing higher lengths. But what we're seeing is that it's returning to historic norms.

Operator

Net net, whilst this unpacks our overall profitability, a faster journey through a claims process supports a good customer satisfaction outcome and faster cash collection as we've seen in the cash collection during the first half because there's less to contend with on a claim. And as the insurance market cycles through hard and soft periods a lot quicker these days, which shapes the cost of motor insurance premiums, so claim settlements form a big part of this and gaining efficiencies through that claims process is a fundamental driver that supports that front end pricing for insurers and our platform offers a best in class operating model and provides an advantage over a single source product. So structurally, this should continue to support our momentum. And demand for services remains high, especially on repair capacity. And we inked a number of renewals during the period and we feel positive around business development conversion from the pipeline.

Operator

And as Philip mentioned earlier, we had a cyber incident in early summer, which meant to briefly pause some of our business operations on a precautionary basis whilst we sought assurance. Okay. Turning to Slide 19. Just I want to focus on our people very briefly. Just say I am immensely proud of the team we have working in the business who deliver these great customer experiences and outcomes and strive to make SIGUP a great place to work.

Operator

We do invest substantially in our talent pool and our apprenticeships to ensure we have the best in class future leaders, technicians and experts in our business. And we have been recognized across a number of industry events both here and in Spain for innovation, best rental company, new service and environmental initiatives, which is testimony and recognition from outside agencies to the great work our people do. There were more awards, too many to mention. And I want to say thank you to all of our team for their efforts. And then turning to Slide 20, touching on technology.

Operator

Technology is a growing part of what we do. We've said before, we use robotics and we've got the early introduction of AI tools to support data analysis. We have a number of programs live and pending in the business that continue to support an incremental drive for efficiencies and enhance our customer experience. So we are using that tech stack to win business and to enhance our overall efficiencies. We are disciplined in our technology investments.

Operator

But like many businesses operating at scale, there is significant potential to drive a greater capacity and operational leverage through these tech developments. We are on a journey to unlock these benefits. Okay. I'm going to go to Slide 21, just touch on the outlook. So all of it that we've said today, I mean, these are strong foundations that we are operating in the business is a good pipeline of orders and prospects.

Operator

And there's that opportunity as I say to drive those new efficiencies. So based on the visibility we have including the normalization of disposal profits and the positive trends for the group, our outlook for the balance this year remains unchanged and in line with market expectations. So that concludes this part of the presentation. And we're now going to sort of move to take questions. Okay.

Operator

David's got his hand up.

Speaker 3

Good morning. It's David Broxson from Deutsche and Numis. Can I ask a couple around the claims and services business, please? Firstly, can you just comment on whether you think credit hire links are now back to a normal level as suppliers improved? Or is there further moderation that we should expect on the business there?

Speaker 3

Because obviously, there's 2 sort of underlying impacts there in terms of both volume of claims, but also that normalization impact. And secondly, you might be able to correct me, but it doesn't feel like there was many new contract wins or you haven't talked about them as much as you have in previous results in respect of new claims customers. I just wonder if you can just comment on the pipeline there and what that looks

Speaker 2

like? Thanks.

Operator

Yes. Okay, David. So do we think credit highlights are back to normal? I think what we're seeing in the business is they are close to normal with what we expect to see for this time of the year. So as we cycle through that sort of winter, we can see we believe they were back to normal.

Operator

So we're not expecting further moderation. But as I say, we've got to get through that sort of winter period as well to prove that out. On the second part, we've got a strong prospect pipeline. It does take some time to convert clients, new clients, new wins. I said before, we've had a very strong conversion in the business.

Operator

And we do expect to be able to convert from the that strong prospect pipeline that we talk about. We have mentioned some in there, not necessarily Claims and Services, but the Scottish Power contract, the British Gas contract. And as I said, there is a strong pipeline from which we are converting from. We're confident on the visibility that we've got that supports not only this year, but sort of future growth as well. Okay.

Operator

It's

Speaker 2

Afonso from Barclays here. I have three questions, if I may. The first one is on the supply dynamics you are seeing. Would you say that supply has fully normalized by now? And how should we think about fleet growth in the U.

Speaker 2

K. Versus Spain as we head into the second half in fiscal 'twenty six? The second one is on your commentary around the UK budget and expected investments in infrastructure. How accretive do you think this will be in the second half? As I'm assuming this was mostly an impact for your fiscal 'twenty six year.

Speaker 2

And then one last one for Filip. As you've seen I mean, as we wrap up your tenure at Zigup, you've seen a lot of transformation in the business over the last 5 years. Can you tell us what has surprised you positively over this period? And if you could go back, would you have done anything differently?

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Operator

Okay. I'm going to give Philip time to think about that one. And so deal with the first question, Alfonso. Supply dynamics, are they fully sort of normalized on the fleet? Yes is the answer.

Operator

So there is no issues in securing new fleet, both in the UK and Spain. I said and appreciate it when you're doing the presentation, there's things that sort of pick out. But some of the manufacturers want volume in the market now as well. So that brings about different conversations in terms of where your sort of negotiation leverages as well. So that's a positive in terms of being able to place orders, large orders.

Operator

My watch out was just that ZEV mandate because as you know, there's targets set around cars, 22% this year, 10% of vans have to be alternatively fueled. Manufacturers are paying close attention to what the government will do. So if there is not enough incentive that creates that demand that enables them to place EV or alternatively fuel vehicles into the UK, you could argue that they're going to cut back on ICE supply as well. Now different manufacturers have got different positions. But if they fold their arms and limit supply to the U.

Operator

K, that creates that dynamic again of limited supply, etcetera, etcetera. So we're watching very carefully. As I said, it's not about the date change. This is about what support will be there for EVs. And that's why we think having our fleet over 130,000, we think it's a strong position because that protects availability for your customers.

Operator

And that gives you a sort of a good position in the market. On question 2, the U. K. Budget infrastructure, do we expect that to feed in? It's hard to say when exactly that would feed in, but we have a lot of customers working in those sectors.

Operator

So we've got the traffic management business through our Blakedale, the Northgate sort of rental business has got exposure to those sectors infrastructure, construction and maintenance. So we're seeing good demand coming from those sectors. They're normally quite big businesses, some of them are publicly listed. So they've got good visibility on the sort of the projects that they're doing. So that feels quite buoyant at the moment to us.

Operator

I'm not saying that we're penciling anything for H2. I think we'll just see how that sort of shows itself through the numbers. Hopefully, that's given Philip enough time to think.

Speaker 1

Yes. So first one, what surprised me, I think it's cash flow. We do generate a lot of cash as a business. We haven't always been able to demonstrate that because we're always investing for future growth. We now make a good return on that.

Speaker 1

And ironically, what came out of COVID was no one knew what was happening across the whole economy. We switched off those growth taps. We switched off CapEx spend, and we threw off a load of cash even though there were no incident or accidents happening on the roads. So we had no cash contribution from Reddy at that point. And the rental side was just starting to throw off cash.

Speaker 1

And it threw off cash really quickly. Our lenders have got very comfortable very quickly. We throw off like some $90,000,000 of cash in 6 months. So it shows we are we do generate a lot of cash. We choose to then invest that in future growth.

Speaker 1

And I think that even surprises how much cash does come off when you just switch off those taps. That and the fact that the rental policy is so sticky as well. Remember, we only ever saw 6% of the fleet return. I was surprised to everyone when 70% of the fleet is what we describe as a flexi product broadly. Would I do anything differently?

Speaker 1

That's a tricky one to answer. That does feel like an interview question. I think that when you look back, you always say actually could you have done things slightly quicker. But look, we've done a lot, as I mentioned earlier, since the merger. You can only move so quickly when you're trying to bring 2 companies together.

Speaker 1

So I don't think it's there. What would I rather we didn't do? I'd rather we didn't change depreciation rates, to be frankly, because that's painful. But I think we disclosed that as clearly as we could, but yes.

Speaker 4

Andrew Nossy from Heel Hunt. A couple of questions as well. First of all, just exploring the U. K. Vehicles on hire, and if I sort of read the chart correctly, you're probably about 45,000 now on a very steep trajectory through the period.

Speaker 4

What will that look like through the second half? And secondly, it sounds like you're sort of a little bit nervous about what might supply look like over the next maybe 12 months given the regulations. Are you running a slightly lower level of utilization? I know it's a crude measure than perhaps would normally be the case to protect yourself from that point. And thirdly, on the cyber incident, has that impacted your conversion of new contract opportunities?

Speaker 4

Customers may be slightly nervous about what that might mean? And have you had a clean bill of health now?

Operator

Okay. Do you want to answer question 1?

Speaker 1

Yes. That was sorry, I was reading another note that was passed me. So it was BOH growth in U. K. And Ireland,

Speaker 5

isn't it?

Speaker 1

Yes. Basically, a very steep trajectory in the

Speaker 4

first half. What will that look like in the sort

Speaker 1

of Yes. Look, so look, the best we can see, and it does depend on the supply, and it also depends on how we choose to distribute our CapEx in between U. K. And Ireland and Spain because we watch our CapEx very carefully, and we're looking at that leverage very carefully as well. But what I would say is I would expect it to continue to grow into the second half such that when by the time we get to the year end, average of EOH for the year is probably similar to what we were last year on average, which means actually you're growing point to point slightly ahead of where you started at the beginning of last year.

Speaker 1

That's probably the best way to describe from what we see today.

Speaker 4

And on sort of utilization, are you sort of being able to

Speaker 1

Yes.

Operator

So I'll cover utilization. I mean, no, I mean, utilization is tracking up to exactly where we expect it to be. So this time of the year, it's around about 92% now in the business. What we we always want to leave a little bit of room to make sure we've got replacement vehicles for the emergency standbys for customers that sort of dropping us on a Friday afternoon with a red light on and need a replacement vehicle, for example. So we leave a little bit of room there.

Operator

I wouldn't describe it as being concerned about supply because I think the supply is there. The deals and the manufacturing has been there. That's all sort of programmed. It's sort of beyond the next 12 months in terms of the ZEB mandate. So we'll run UT2 utilization to the levels that we think is right for the business.

Operator

So as I say, no concerns there. On the cyber, no, what we did is we engaged all the outside agencies to provide us with the best advice that we could at the time. We were quick to respond to isolate and protect our systems. We wanted assurance. So that's why we paused what we did.

Operator

We wanted assurance that there was no issues within our systems. And we got that insurance. We got that sort of clean bill of health fairly quickly for the majority of the business. As Philip said, our legal business was most impacted. And that is a smaller part of our business, but it's where the most impact was.

Operator

And we provided that assurance through the experts very quickly as well to our partners. So we're very transparent with our partners about sort of where we are. So no, that hasn't confected conversion or anything like that. As I said, yes, we didn't trade for a week in that thing, but not in terms of new pipelines and so forth. And in fact, what happens is what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Operator

Someone's already got the copyright on that, I know. But it makes sure you double back on everything, you gold plate everything, you just make sure that you don't leave yourself vulnerable.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 6

Andy Smith from Panmure Liberum. A couple of questions. 1 on rental prices within Spain and the U. K. For the higher level.

Speaker 6

What's the trend there as against the vehicle supply? And then just looking at the debt facilities. So your net debt's gone up, but your debt headroom's also gone up. Is that because there's new facilities? Or what am I missing on there?

Operator

Okay. And yes. Do you want to deal with question 2 first?

Speaker 1

Yes. Okay. We'll do. And I'm going to wrap up. We've got a question from James Sparrow, who's on the line as well and Barclays saying, are we tempted to do more than the €190,000,000 raise.

Speaker 1

So look, I think so just on the debt, could we have taken more? We did that deal directly with our existing lenders. And therefore, we took what was sensible from them. So they had a we weren't intending to take more. That's exactly what we asked and exactly what we got.

Speaker 1

You don't want to take necessarily more than that because you end up with a high level of unutilized facilities as well. So yes, so Andy, to your question, yes, we did take more debt on board. It was private placement, 7 10 year tenure rates which were lower than what we borrow on the RCF. So what we're able to do was to reduce the RCF and borrow fully on that private placement, which was in euros.

Operator

And on the question on pricing, Andy. So look, we've guided on sort of margins being around sort of 15% sort of midterm. We are seeing Spain higher than that in terms of what we're getting. So we've been able to pass pricing on through the inflationary increases over the past periods. That demand is still strong.

Operator

We're still seeing that pricing is very rational in the markets that we operate in. So we expect to be able to maintain that guidance. I think when we get to the full year, I think we might review the 15% and ask ourselves whether it needs to be a little bit better than that. We're confident on that 15% for sure, yes? Okay.

Operator

All right. I'm told we're sort of we're not going to cut you out there, David, but I'm told we're running close to time.

Speaker 5

Okay. I'll be quick then. Impact of National Insurance Contributions next year on the business?

Speaker 1

Yes, there will be. Yes, look, so we estimate about £5,500,000 impact on the business, but we've already got plans in place to mitigate that impact for year.

Speaker 5

Okay. Just wanted to kind of dig into kind of the performance of The Body Shop. I guess kind of goes counterintuitive with credit higher down, incidence down 10%, how come Body Shop is

Operator

up? Yes. So it's just the capacity, the work that we we've created the capacity. So the new sites that we opened that we talked about the full year, a greater footprint, more capacity through what we can do. So and there's plenty of work.

Operator

We said before that body shop work is an enabler to other mobility services to that cross sell. So we will take that work on. We know it's lower margin, but it does enable us then when contracts come up for renewal or coterminous that we can put mobility solutions into that as well. So it is it's not a loss leader. It makes money, but it is growing.

Speaker 5

And then final one, just in terms of the CapEx and the hike and say it might be higher this year. Is it are you expanding over a 3 year view how much CapEx you're planning to put in? Or are we accelerating into year 1 stuff that would have been done in year 2 and year 3?

Speaker 1

I knew you're going to ask that question actually. So yes, look, I mean it's hard to make because it depends on demand ultimately. I mean, from what I could look at today, I'd say a lot of that's probably accelerated probably because it's available now and the demand is there. But if demand continues to grow and depending on what happens on the supply and we've got the headroom, we will take the growth because we're making good returns. As long as we're making returns that are above our weighted average cost of capital, we'll continue to grow because we know that it's going to generate good cash.

Speaker 5

I knew you're going to say that.

Operator

Yes. It's our business model. That's what we do. Okay. Have we got any questions that we've got to answer from the online audience as well?

Operator

Just

Speaker 1

Yes,

Operator

we've covered that.

Speaker 1

We've had one, yes.

Operator

Okay. So I think we're in a wrap up now. So I just want to sort of close in some summary remarks just to say the business continues to perform well as our markets continue to normalize. And the opportunity to build market share is definitely favorable. And the breadth of services across what we have with our customers is growing.

Operator

I've talked about tech being that next enabler to deliver efficiencies. And we're confident, as I say, on delivering for the full year expectations. So look, once again, thank you all for your time this morning. And again, thank you, Philip, for your services to the business and support from all the team. So thank you.

Powered by Quartr
Earnings Conference Call
Zigup H1 2025
00:00 / 00:00