S4 Capital plc (SFOR) Q1 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

So welcome to Q1 2025. So on my right, we're here in London, Mary Basterfield, our outgoing CFO, and on my left, our incoming CFO, Radhika, and on Mary's right, Scott Spirit, and on Radhika's left, Jean-Benoît Berti. So we're here in force. We've got a presentation on Q1, which covers a trading update from Marion, and Scott will cover market momentum, client analysis, business momentum, and I'll come back with a brief summary and outlook, and we'll take any questions if you have them. So with that... Over to Mary. Thank you, Martin. Hello, and thank you for joining us today. The macro environment remained challenging in the first quarter. Net revenue of £164 million decreased 12% on a reported basis, or 11% like for like, with continued caution from clients and a reduction in activity from one key technology services client already disclosed. Operational EBITDA for the quarter was in line with our expectations. It benefits from cost reductions made as we continue to align our resources with activity levels. We maintain our full year guidance on a constant currency basis, with target net revenue and operational EBITDA broadly similar to 2024. We continue to take a disciplined approach to cost management, including headcount and discretionary costs, with a focus on utilisation, billing and pricing. We expect performance to improve in the second half with a greater weighting than the prior year, aided by the phasing of new business revenue and our traditional seasonality. Net debt at the end of March was 145 million, or 1.7 times operational EBITDA. This compares to 206 million at the end of March 2024. Our full-year net debt guidance remains 100 to 140 million. Moving to the next slide, let's take a look at first quarter net revenue by our new practice structure and re...