Me Group International (LSE:MEGP) — 2025 Interim Results

0:04 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the ME GROUP INTERNATIONAL PLC Interim Results Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time via the Q and A tab that's just situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and we'll publish those responses where it's appropriate to do so on the Investor Meet company platform. Before we begin, we would decide to submit

0:35 the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And I would now like to hand you over to the executive management team from ME GROUP INTERNATIONAL PLC. Vlad, good morning, sir. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us. My name is Vlad. I'm executive executive director of ME GROUP and head of IR. And alongside me is the CFO, Stephane Gillon. Today, we report on ME GROUP's interim results for the six month ending 04/30/2025. The agenda for today's presentation is as follows. We will start with a brief overview of the financial performance in the first half. We'll then remind you about our business model and growth strategy. We'll then talk about the financial performance in more detail and provide an update on operations.

1:20 And finally, we'll conclude with a summary on the outlook for 2025. So in terms of highlights, we're delighted to report another excellent performance in the first half with record profitability, and this was led by a strong performance in our laundry operations, which we have continued to expand rapidly. The business mix has continued to evolve as we diversify our operations, and laundry now accounts for more than a third of the group's spending revenue and almost half of group's EBITDA. We completed a record number of Revolution installations in the period with 523 net units installed versus 420 in the first half of twenty twenty four, and this serves as a good platform to try and achieve our ambition of installing 1,200 new revolutions net this year. A reminder, last year, we installed 900 net.

2:14 Cash generation remained high and was up more than 14% versus the first half of twenty twenty four, and shareholder returns by way of dividends increased by more than 11%. So about us for some of you who may be more new to the ME GROUP story. In the next few slides, we'll provide an overview of the business, our business model, and growth strategy. ME GROUP is a leader in automated service equipment aimed primarily at the consumer sector. We operate more than 48,500 machines across 16 different countries spanning three key regions, which we define as three geographical areas. The first of which and the largest is Continental Europe, and that's the largest by both number of machines and revenue. It's got the profitability.

2:59 And this is followed by The UK and Republic Of Ireland and then Asia Pacific. We have long standing and well established key partnerships, including well known brands brands such as Morrisons, Tesco, MFG in The UK, and The Republic Of Ireland, for example, and with INTERNATIONAL SNCF in France. On the right hand side of that slide, you can see some of our key partnerships to give you a flavor of who our partners are. And, again, for those of you who may be more new to to ME GROUP, we are both a b to b and b to c companies. So we do partnerships with large retail partners, as you can see on the right hand side, but we serve end customers through those partnerships. So on to the next slide. In terms of the business overview, having historically been best known for the photo booths, we have recently diversified the business in recent years.

3:51 Our core activities are photo booths and laundry operations. Our ancillary activities include printing kiosks, children's rides, photocopying services, and food service equipment. These machines are often collocated within our core activities, leveraging existing site owner relationships and benefiting from maintenance by our dedicated field engineers. Our in house r and d team supports innovation and and diversification of our product range to meet the ever needing chain ever changing needs of consumers. We have significant competitive advantages across our key markets with a dominant market position and high barriers to entry, a dedicated focus on return to capital. We aim for a typical payback period of between two and a half to three years for laundry machines and photo booths.

4:41 Our key strengths position the group well for long term success.

4:46 In terms of our products, we just wanted to put up our main products here so you get a feel for the different types of services that we operate and the products that we deploy across our partners' sites. So there are many of you who will still know us best through our photo booths. Over a number of years, we have evolved into a diversified business offering a wide range of instant services. In line with our strategy, laundry operations have continued to build as an increasingly significant part of our revenue and remains a key area of growth for the group. In h one twenty twenty one, laundry operations accounted for 25% of total group vending revenue. Five years on from that, this now accounts for more than a third of total running revenue and 34% of group EBITDA.

5:33 This perfectly illustrates the ongoing evolution and diversification of our business, and, photobooth remains a highly cash generative core activity and the group's largest revenue generator. In terms of our growth strategy, we are continuing to diversify our services within our existing portfolio and geographies whilst also looking at new opportunities. This is supported by a disciplined financial approach and quick return on investment on our laundry and photo booth machines. The expansion of our laundry operations continues to be a key growth driver for the group, and r and d remains at the heart of our operations as we adapt and offer new services to meet the needs of our consumers. I will now hand over to Stefan to talk through the first half financial performance. Thanks, Vlad.

6:21 We are pleased to report another strong first half, which was largely driven by a strong performance from our growing laundry operations. We have reported revenue and EBITDA growth despite foreign exchange headwinds, which saw a 2.7 devaluation of both euro and Japanese yen against the pound compared with the first half of 'twenty four. At constant currency, revenue increased by 4.7%, and we exclude the revenue contribution from Sampa, the food equipment business sold in May 24, constant currency revenue was up 5.9. At constant currency, EBITDA increased by 6.4% and the EBITDA margin expanded to 34.6%.

7:07 Profit before tax grew by 16.3% at constant currency, benefiting from operational leverage and as the number of machines in operation has increased. Key financials. The group remains highly cash generative with $47,600,000 of cash generated from operations during the year, an increase of 14.1%. CapEx for the period was $14,400,000 We'll cover the breakdown of this in more detail on the net cash bridge slide. While gross cash was down $7,800,000 due to a $10,400,000 loan repayment in H1 'twenty five, net cash improved by $14,600,000 an increase of 66.8%.

8:02 The group remains well capitalized with a strong balance sheet and a financial position and a strong financial position, sorry. Diluted earnings per share was 12.8% higher at 6.74p, which reflects the group's focus on delivering profitable growth. The Board has declared an interim dividend of 3.85p, an increase of 11.6%. The interim dividend will return $40,500,000 to our shareholders.

8:43 The bridge on the slide shows the change in revenue of our business areas compared to 04/30/2024. As previously flagged, we made record progress in expanding our laundry operations with laundry contributing $5,300,000 more revenue. PhotoBoost revenue declined by $3,200,000 primarily due to a supplier printer issue, which we will talk about later. Sales sorry, so revenue contribution from kiosk and other vending both improved by improved compared to the prior year period. Sales, which relates to the sale of equipment, including laundry equipment, food, vending equipment, has also improved.

9:32 The resulted this resulted at a 2.3% increase in reported group revenue. This was up 4.7% at constant currency.

9:44 Profit before tax bridge. The bridge on Slide fourteen fourteen shows the breakdown of profit performance during the period. Our revenue performance improved by $3,400,000 a $2,300,000 exchange gain benefit related to the FX impact from balance sheet revisions, which was negative in H1 'twenty four and positive in H1 'twenty five. British pound sterling versus the euro decreased between October 31 'twenty four and April 30 'twenty '5, resulting in a positive movement. Dollars 2,700,000 of indirect costs and overheads relate to marketing activity and other expenses. Overall, profit before tax increased by 13.3%.

10:30 This was a 16.3% increase at constant currency.

10:37 In the net cash bridge, the bridge on this slide shows the net cash performance for the six months to thirty April 'twenty five. Our highly cash generative operations delivered an operating cash inflow of $47,600,000 We continued the invest in the estate with CapEx of 28,900,000 which was primarily related to laundry operations. We invested $14,400,000 on laundry expansion, 5,700,000 in photo booth upgrades and 3,300,000 in speedlap printing kiosks. The remaining $2,500,000 relates to the seat installation and groundworks.

11:23 The closing net cash position was $36,200,000 slightly down from $38,200,000 on 10/31/2024. Now turning to our three core geographies that we report on. Continental Europe. Continental Europe is the group's largest region. It represents over 56% of the group's total vending estate, 66% of group revenue and 74.4% of group EBITDA. The revenue increased 3.8. However, the performance was impacted by foreign exchange rate movement. Revenue was 6.4% higher at constant currency.

12:11 This performance was driven by laundry operations with revenue up 14.1% at constant currency. Laundry revenue now accounts for 35% of revenue in the region compared with thirty two percent twelve months ago. Printing kiosk revenue improved by 7.8% at constant currency, reflecting upgrades to machine with the rollout of new Speedlab machines in France. Photoboost performance was impacted by a technical issue with new printers from a supplier. This was fully resolved by the end of April twenty twenty five. As a result, operating profit significantly improved, up 25.7% at constant currency.

13:02 The increase was in part due to a supplier of compensation payments related to the printer issue. In The UK and Republic Of Ireland, revenue increased by 2.3% at constant currency to €26,300,000 This reflected continued expansion of the Laundry Revolution Estate and strong demand for services across Washoe, with vending revenue up 17.1% at constant currency. Laundry revenue contribution continues to increase in the region and now accounts for 63% of revenue compared with fifty five percent twelve months ago.

13:49 PhotoBoost revenue performance was also restrained due to the end of a contract, which had a limited profit impact. The continued strong performance in the region contributed to a 8.3% increase in operating profit, which reflected growth of high margin laundry operations and a continued focus on cost efficiencies.

14:14 As of 04/30/2025, the group had more than 6,200 units in operation in The UK, representing 17% of the group the total group revenue. Asia and Pacific, the performance was impacted by currency movement. However, at constant currency, revenue in the Asia Pacific increased marginally. Revenue for Photomi was up 1.3% at constant currency, reflecting continued stable demand for our photo booth ID in the region. We continue to expand our estate of orange juice machines and now operate a total of four eighty seven machines, including three ninety six in Japan and 91 in Australia.

15:04 Operating profit for Asia Pacific was up 20.2% at constant currency as a result of fleet optimization and reorganization of the Japanese business. As of 04/30/2025, the group had around 15,000 units in operation in Asia, representing 17.67160.7% of total group revenue. I now hand over to Vlad to take you through the business review. Thank you, Stephan. I'll now talk through our business areas. Photo booths are a core activity for the group and our historical business. Photomeo Photomeo revenue saw a 1.4% decline at a current at a constant currency due to a now resolved supplier printer technical issue in France.

15:53 As a result of this issue, average revenue per machine was also marginally down 0.9% at constant currency.

16:01 During the period, a high commission contract in The UK also ended and we removed five twenty two units from operation. The high commission nature of the contract meant that this had a limited impact EBITDA increased slightly to 30,300,000 at constant currency and EBITDA margin improved to 35.8%.

16:24 In total, photo booth represent represented 55.6% of total group EBITDA. Photomeet CapEx was 5,700,000 as we continue to invest in the rollout of next generation photo booths, albeit at a slower pace than expected due to this printer issue.

16:43 However, we plan to have installed a total of 3,200 next generation machines in f y twenty five. As at the April 2025, the group had 30,557 units in operation, which was very slightly down on the prior year due to the removal of machines from sites following the end of a contract in The UK. Photon ME operations accounted for 62.9% of the group's total vending units compared with 64% this time last year as the business mix continues to evolve due to rapid growth in laundry operations. PhotonMe represents the largest business area by number of machines, revenue, and EBITDA contribution.

17:30 We continue to run initiatives aimed at extending our available services and improving our brand awareness across new market segments, and this included a partnership with Paris Saint Germain, the most recent Champions League winners, to launch our AI feature across 500 next generation photo booths to begin with. The way this works is that consumers can go into the food into the photo booth and take a photo, and we will then use AI to make it seem as if they won the winning goal in the final as a PSG player.

18:05 Going on to WashMe, laundry operations are also a core business area and the fast as growing and most profitable area of the group. Laundry continued to perform well, and we saw total revenue from laundry operations grow by 20.2% at constant currency. We have continued to focus on expanding our estate with the total number of laundry machines deployed 16.6% higher. Strong demand and continued expansion resulted in a 20.4% increase in total laundry EBITDA with EBITDA margin improving to 54%. Our laundry business is primarily made up of our Revolution Laundry operations, a key focus for the group, and we have made good progress against our rollout target.

18:55 During the half, we have installed a further 523 machines net across key locations. This continued expansion drove a 20% increase in CapEx during the period, and we continue to see long term opportunity to grow laundry operations and remain on track to install approximately 1,200 machines net during this year. Printing kiosks are an ancillary activity for the group, and revenue during this period increased by 7.7% at constant currency, benefiting from the ongoing replacement of old model machines with new Speedlab machines in France. New Speedlab machines will deliver enhanced functionality and customer experiences. And as a result of the rollout of the new Speedlab machines, PrintMe CapEx increased to 3,300,000, and a total of 422 old machines were replaced with next generation models, while 203 underperforming machines were removed, and a further 41 machines were installed in new locations.

20:00 The the total number of machines in operation was 400 was 4,471. Other vending consists of children's rights, photocopiers, freshly squeezed orange juice vending machines, pizza kiosks, and other miscellaneous machines. These machines are profitable ancillary services typically operated in high footfall locations alongside our core activities.

20:27 At constant currency, revenue increased by 8% and EBITDA increased by 13.8%. The revenue and EBITDA performance excludes the h $120.24 contribution from the sale of Songpar SAS. I will now recap with a summary of the first half performance and the outlook for 2025. We are delighted with another excellent first half performance with record profitability, and our laundry operations continue to perform strongly, and the rapid expansion of our laundry estate is ongoing. In line with our diversification strategy, the business mix has continued to evolve, and laundry now accounts for a third of the group spending revenue and almost half of group EBITDA. We continue to invest in R and D and innovation, and we remain highly cash generative with cash generation up more than 14% in the first half.

21:21 We continue to focus on delivering returns for our shareholders, and we are pleased to announce an interim dividend increase of more than 11. We look ahead with confidence and are on track to deliver another year of record profitability. I think we now have some time to take some questions. Perfect. Vlad, Stefan, if I may just jump back in there. And thank you very much indeed for your presentation this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q and A tab that's situated on the right hand corner of your screen. But just while the team take a few moments to review those questions that have been submitted already, I'd just like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A, can all be accessed via your investor dashboard. Guys, as you can see there, we have received a number of questions throughout your presentation this morning. And thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions.

22:13 But Stephane, Vlad, at this point, if I may just hand back to you just to read out those questions and give your responses where it's appropriate to do so. And if I pick up from you at the end, that'd be great. Thank you. Great. So the first question we received was, thank you for this presentation. Congratulations on the results. Thank you very much. Could you explain the reasons for the seasonality of your activities between semesters, please? Yeah. So this is almost simple. The second semester is extremely important for both laundry business and photo booth business. Photo booth because of the the back to school school back to school in September, which is extremely important in France. It's it's a month which is, I would say, that isn't multiplied by two or three times an average month in the Photoboost. And, traditionally, I would say also that July and August are extremely important for the laundry business.

23:14 So we have another question which asks, can you share on why the pizza business has not expanded as was expected? So we are still operating the pizza business. It's a sale model, so we sell the machines. That model is not in line with how we traditionally operate. As you can see from the presentation, traditionally, we install machines at our site partners' locations and then operate them. The pizza business was a business that we acquired during COVID. Being frank, that business was probably a real beneficiary of COVID because, obviously, there was a demand for automated hot food service to go. We have seen that demand soften, and it's a business that we continue to operate. But we, at for the moment, do not anticipate it to be a large business line moving forwards.

24:06 However, you never know, and we continue to to operate it. The next question we've got is, can you please provide a little color on the depreciation policy and whether laundry operations have a longer period over which they are depreciated? Given the growth of property, plant and equipment, one would expect depreciation to be higher. The sale of Grenoble notwithstanding, would you be willing to enhance disclosure by splitting maintenance CapEx versus growth CapEx? Yeah. So I would say that the policies has been changed last year, and we have decided to depreciate the the laundry business the laundry machines to eight years instead of seven years before. Also, the the new photo boost and the the next generation photo boost to eight years versus five years before.

24:56 In the same time, we have also decided to decrease the groundworks to eight years to be in line with the the life of with the duration of of the laundry. It was ten year before. So I would say that all this combined, it doesn't impact the the the panel at all. You have to know that, generally speaking, the photo booth life real life is around twenty five years. And and for the the laundry, it's little bit difficult to say because the the the oldest one is, I would say, 15 to 16 years old now, and and she and the machine works extremely well. So we we think that it could be around twenty years.

25:44 The next question we have is, can you break down how much of the revenue growth is coming from new site rollouts versus increased utilization of existing units? I mean, in regards to photo booths, obviously, the revenue growth is coming from existing, and we have initiatives such as the AI face filters, including partnerships with PSG. So that will contribute to usage. You know, I always say, you look at the average usage per kiosk globally for us or per photo booth, it's less than two users a day. So if we can even encourage half a user extra a day to use our AI phase filters, that will obviously have a big result and impact on on sorry. Big impact on results. In regards to revolutions, the majority of the revenue growth is coming from new installations of machines.

26:36 You know, the group is absolutely laser focused in regards to capital capital expenditure and and management time on increasing the number of machines that we have. We see a really big there'll be a lot of white space ahead of us, and our number one goal is to install as many machines as possible. We're very, very happy with our performance so far in the first half of this year as we have installed more than we did last year in the first half. We we are look we look on track to install 1,200 machines net this year. So the next question is what is included in the inventory balance? Raw materials and consumables feel high at 38,000,000 in the context of total cost of sales of approximately 200,000,000 over twelve months. Yeah. So it's I would say that the most can could could could be extremely high for for you. But at the end, let's say that this is divided in three.

27:34 One third is for the consumables. You know that we have more than one year of paper, for example, for for for for the photo booth because we don't want to take any risk out during the COVID period and so on. The second third is is the stock of new machines that we have in place. And the last is is just spare parts for our for the the maintenance of the machines. Sure. So we gotta we gotta ask the question, how long do you think you'll be able to sustain such a high installation pace in laundry? Well, look, we thank you for that question because it implies that we've got a very strong pace of rollout. In regards to how long we can sustain it, you know, we see a lot of white space in the countries that we operate in and, of course, in countries that we don't operate in as well. The way we've been able to build up to where we are today and and hopefully to be 1,200 machines net this year is and I always talk about we have two two areas to improve upon to increase the number of installations that we have per year in terms of revolutions. The first is commercial contracts. So can we sign more commercial contracts with independents? Can we sign more large key accounts?

28:43 And the second one is, can we get the right contractors in the countries we operate in to install the machines at the right prices? Those are the two areas that you need to build out to install more machines per year. We've been very successful this year of doing that with large new key accounts and and new contractors being on bought on board. And, you know, we we always say we wanna install 300 more machines net than we did the year before. So last year, we installed 900 machines net. This year, we're aiming to install 1,200 net. Now just to you know, when we say that we're on track this year to install 1,200 net, the reason why is we always install more in the second half of the year rather than the first half. The reason why is the first half includes December.

29:30 And for many of our retailers, of course, that is the golden month, and they don't want us to be doing building works on-site. So they say, please hold off on the installations for December. So that means we lose a month, basically, in the first half of the year of installations, and we don't have that in the second half. So we are absolutely on track to do that. And in terms of how long we can sustain it, you know, last year, we said that we want to achieve 20,000 revolutions in operation in our markets that we currently operate in by 2034, and we're still using that as the benchmark. And we believe that we'll be able to increase the number of machines that we install every year. And we work to build out that capacity. So next question. What drove the strong revenue performance in laundry? I see in the June 2 trading update, the laundry operations were up 15.7% constant currency, whereas whereas based on the h one results today, they finish up 28.2% constant currency. I'm curious to hear what drove this difference.

30:28 What's driving the strong revenue performance in laundry is simply we're installing lots of machines at a rapid pace. So we are building out the number of locations we have in the countries we operate in. You know, to give you a sort of anecdotal evidence, you know, three or four years ago in The UK, we had less than 600 machines. Today, we have 1,300. So we are installing more machines, which means, obviously, we're more accessible to customers. But, also, the more machines we install, typically, the better our existing machines already on-site tend to do. The reason why is if there's one machine in the town, people might think it's a little bit strange, not have much experience with it. When we have multiple, it encourages users to have confidence in the machines because they've seen a number of them around. Therefore, it must be a legitimate and good service. But also, we benefit from network effect in our machines. What we want is if a consumer uses a machine and it's busy, we want them to go five minutes down the road and use another one. So the more dense the more density we have in terms of machines, typically, the better performance we see.

31:34 So installing more machines helps obviously with new revenue from new machines, but also increasing revenue on existing machines. Next question. Great presentation. In laundry, is the total wash market growing and slash or are you taking market share? Can you put some color on what are your r and d spenders going on and what sort of returns you target from r and d projects? So regards to the first question, I'll let Stefan answer the second one on r and d. In terms of the first question, in terms of the laundry market, are we taking market share? One of the key things we look at is well, we did a bit of market research in The UK last year. Only 40% of our customers were excellent direct customers. 60% were new. So, of course, there is a little bit of us in The UK, for example, taking market share from laundress. But also, you know, we do provide a different way to wash. We provide different services for laundress.

32:32 So we see a lot of this as market creation of capturing users who would have been doing laundry at home. So, you know, we we we believe we're creating a market as well as obviously taking market share from laundress. In regards to r and d spend, I'll let Stefan touch on that. Yes. So in R and D, we usually allocate a budget of around £5,000,000 every year. I would say half of it is capitalized. The rest is goes through the P and L. That's it from us in regards to questions. We'd like to thank you for your attention during the presentation. Thank you for your ongoing support, and we look forward to speaking to you soon. Perfect, Vlad. Stefan, if I may just jump back in there. Thank you very much indeed for being so generous of your time and addressing all of those questions that came in this morning. And, of course, if there are any further questions, we'll make them available to you afterwards. But, Stephane, Vlad, thank you once again for updating investors this morning. Could I please ask investors not to close this session? You'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the management team can really better understand your views and expectations.

33:42 This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of management team of ME GROUP INTERNATIONAL PLC, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good afternoon to you all.