AoFrio Limited (AOF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking the time to join AoFrio's FY '24 results presentation. My name is Greg Baller. I'm the CEO of AoFrio, and I'm looking forward to presenting to you today. Presenting with me today are Howard Miller, our CFO; and John Scott, our Board Chairman. Please note the safe harbor statement on the screen, and I will give you a minute to read the statement. The agenda for today is on the screen. Firstly, we are going to provide you some context for the FY '24 year. then we'll provide a business update, highlighting the progress we've made against our business strategy. And finally, we'll discuss our FY '25 outlook. At the end of the presentation, we will have time for questions. [Operator Instructions] I'll now hand over to Howard, who will provide some context to the FY '24 results. Thanks, Howard.

Thank you, Rick, and welcome, everybody. We're pleased with the results for 2024. Revenue at NZD 79.7 million was 19.7% above FY '23 and at the top end of our guidance. All major business segments reported strong growth. Our IoT business delivered revenue of NZD 43.3 million, up 23.4% on FY '23, and the Motors business delivered revenues of NZD 36.4 million, up 15.6% on '23. We made significant progress across 3 key strategic initiatives, which translated into that solid revenue growth. In particular, we launched our connected IoT solution in the U.S.A. We won market share for IoT in the cold drinks equipment market in Brazil and won significant new motor volume in the U.S.A. for a water heater application. Gross margin was slightly lower at 29.1% compared to 30%, caused by higher product costs and strategic pricing decisions. Our margins on IoT were 40.7% and on motors, 15.4% Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization or EBITDA for short, was a surplus of NZD 2.5 million, again, consistent with guidance given at the start of FY '24 and NZD 1 million higher on that reported in the previous year. Operating cash was NZD 1.8 million above FY '23. For many years, we funded our growth initiatives out of operating cash flows. This year was no different, NZD 5.8 million operating cash inflow matched by NZD 5.9 million outflow for investing activities. We will continue to invest to support our growth strategy. We did see working capital increases this year largely due to customer mix changes. More volume to customers with longer payment terms and to customers taking products from our end-market warehouses rather than direct from Vietnam. Longer shipping times from Vietnam to the Americas and Europe were also a factor. This increase in working capital was funded by extended payment terms made available by our manufacturing supplier partner, East West. Our annual report has always segmented our financial results by the traditional product segments, which is IoT and motors. You'll see later when Greg talks about strategy that we're increasingly talking about market segmentation. Today, that is cold drinks equipment, food retail and motors and fans. We consider that we are a hardware-enabled SaaS business and targeting SaaS to be a much more significant contributor to the company's performance. Accordingly, we have, for the first time in this report, presented SaaS metrics that are relevant to our business. Our reporting will continue to evolve in alignment with our strategy. Just to give a quick overview of some of the metrics that you're seeing on the table, Rule of 40 is a financial metric used in the software industry to assess the company's performance. It states that the sum of the company's annual revenue growth and EBITDA margin should equal or exceed 40%. Looking at all our segments, so that's including Motors, revenue growth in 2024 was 19.7%. EBITDA was 3.2% of revenue, so a 22.9% metric. As I said, that includes the results of Motors, but is not SaaS and can't be expected to perform as one. If motor performance is excluded, the Rule of 40 metric was 35.5%. We are making progress to achieving the Rule of 40, the usual trend -- but we're not quite there. The usual trend for this metric is that revenue growth rates reduce over time and EBITDA returns improve. The second metric, which is of relevance is recurring revenue. Associated with the supply of IoT hardware, AoFrio supplies a range of data, action management and reporting services, all of which can be bundled up as AoFrio software solution. In FY '24, we invoiced NZD 5.3 million and recognized in the P&L NZD 2.7 million. There's NZD 16.5 million on the balance sheet to recognize in the P&L over future periods. Recurring revenue is only 3.2% of total revenue in 2024, but our aspirational target is to achieve a 50% metric. The third metric, which I'll talk about is app utilization, which indicates the number of times AoFrio's customers interacted with the software, an increase of 66% compared to FY '23 is a very good result and is a good foundation for the sale of value-added services to customers in the future. Over to you, Greg, to provide a business update.

Thanks, Howard. In FY '24, we made good progress on our 3 strategies: protecting and growing the core business, diversifying into new market segments and transforming our foundations. I will now take some time to discuss the progress we've made on each of these 3 strategies. Protect and grow our core business has 2 segments. The first is our Cold Drink Equipment segment, and I will explain the progress we've made on that segment. We have stated that we are targeting 20% growth year-on-year. And in FY '25 -- FY '24, we achieved 23.4% growth in the Cold Drink Equipment segment. For this segment, our solution allows our customers like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and ABI to manage their remote fleets of coolers or refrigerators. As an example, think about your corner store or dairy where you see rows of branded coolers. These coolers are not owned by the store, but by the brand, and it is their primary sales tool. We are able to help our customers manage the performance of their coolers in many cases, without even visiting the store. We have over 3 million coolers connected to our cloud platform and are able to provide performance information and smart notifications to take action. In South and Central America, we have high market share, approximately 75% and our primary strategy is to protect this share by bringing new solutions to market, adding new value for our customers. You can see some examples of the new solutions at the bottom of the slide, and I'll talk to you about these in a minute. To grow in the CDE market or the Cold Drink Equipment market segment, our key strategy is to enter new geographies. In FY '24, we commenced a multiyear entry plan for U.S., Europe and APAC, where we have low share. The approach for each geography is different due to the different business drivers, competition and readiness to adopt technology. Across the 3 regions, we have added presales and services capability and have successfully generated revenue in the U.S. and APAC, NZD 1.3 million and NZD 2.7 million, respectively. To be successful in Europe and to grow faster in the U.S., we need to launch a new solution, a single box cellular connector controller with software that allows easy remote fleet management. The product will be launched to the market this year with revenue expected in FY '26. Now 2024 was a busy year of innovation and delivery of our new products and solutions. Accelerating new product development is essential to support our growth strategy. I will now discuss the 3 major new product releases from FY '24 for the Cold drink Equipment segment. The first is AoFrio INSIDE. AoFrio INSIDE is a comprehensive refrigeration solution that integrates advanced hardware and software. It delivers up to 68% energy savings per cooler. It provides real-time fleet-wide insights into energy usage and saving opportunities. This solution is a key -- this solution is key, in particular, for entering the European market. We have several trials underway in Europe and Asia for this solution. The second new product is AoFrio Gateway. AoFrio Gateway is the next iteration of our cellular solution. It was launched in the last quarter of FY '24. It is supporting the shift towards always-on cloud-connected refrigerators and significantly improves real-time 2-way data communication and action management. This communication hub enables the integration of IoT devices and provides secure data transfer to and from the AoFrio cloud. It is a key product for protecting our share in the LatAm region and for entry into new geographies. The third new product was launched was third-party device integration. To enable our customers to have a complete view of their fleet in one platform, we expanded our software platform to connect third-party devices. We provided this solution to one of our biggest customers in Brazil. The customer had a diverse fleet comprising both AoFrio and third-party controllers and our unified solution now enables the customer to manage performance across their entire fleet of coolers in a single platform. In FY '25, we will continue to launch new products to both protect and grow this segment, including AoFrio IQ, which is a modernized workflow-orientated solution that improves the way our customers interact with our software, but more importantly, allows us to add more value easily. A single box controller -- a single box solution is also something that was planned for release in FY '25, which is a combined controller and gateway in the one box, which is essential for Europe and the U.S. We're also launching advanced software solution for remote management and energy management. These advanced solutions are our path to recurring revenue in this segment. The second part of our protect and grow strategy is the Motors and Fans segment. Our focus for this segment in 2024 was expanding -- was on expanding our range of motors and fans, integrating our motors with the broader AoFrio ecosystem and developing new configurations for different applications. We've launched our ECR 226-watt motor. This motor is specifically engineered for large bottle coolers. So today, we provide a solution for what we would call a 400-liter cooler. This allows us to go after coolers that are 800 liters in capacity. It's also used for supermarket display cases and other applications that require high-power moisture resistance and tolerance to humidity. It is also continues to support the energy reduction objectives of these customers. Also in the motors and fans business, we integrated our current ECR 2 motor into the AoFrio INSIDE bundle. Allowing it to work seamlessly with the SES controller for real-time optimization of energy. It contributes significantly to the energy efficiency of our overall solution and maximizes the carbon reductions that we're able to support our customers achieving. We have been successful in winning new business with our new application for hot water heat pumps. This is a growing segment for us, and we are focused on building a pipeline of opportunities around this application. In FY '25, we will continue to release new variants or fan sizes, leveraging the ECR 2 and ECR226 watt motors. These variants increase the range of applications that these 2 motors can support, protecting and giving us an opportunity to grow our market position. The second strategy element is diversifying our market segments. And the first new segment we have chosen is Food Retail. The Food Retail market segment is potentially a very large opportunity for AoFrio. The total addressable market for temperature management solutions in this segment is estimated to be NZD 17 billion. In the first half of FY '24, we completed 3 proof of concepts. The intent of the proof of concept -- these proof of concepts was to ensure we had a detailed understanding of the customers' requirements that the technology that we use for the cold drink equipment market would work in these applications and that we could provide significant value for these customers. The 3 proof of concepts were in different subsegments, convenience stores, supermarkets and micro markets and in different locations, New Zealand, Argentina and the U.S. to ensure we cover the range of applications and market requirements. As we expected, we needed different hardware in some applications, and we needed to extend our software solutions. After the completion of the proof of concepts, we addressed the hardware gaps and commenced releasing new functionality for food retail in our software as part of our ongoing software development cycles. We are pleased that we were able to demonstrate value, and each of these 3 proof of concepts progressed to commercial proposals. One of these proposals has been converted to a signed contract, and we have commenced implementation of the solution. We remain positive about the other 2 proposals and expect to hear about these over the coming months. The structure of these proposals is different from the Cold Drink Equipment business with a focus on a solution offer rather than hardware supply. The solution offer is positioned with high recurring revenue as opposed to the hardware supply. We had planned for a more general release of our Food Retail solution in FY '24. However, we needed to prioritize our investments across the business and focused our Food Retail investment on the 3 proof of concepts. We have commenced planning for a more general go-to-market strategy release for Food Retail and expect to launch in accordance with that strategy in the later part of FY '25. We are continuing to assess and build a pipeline of potential opportunities and are positive about this segment. The final part of our strategy is transforming our foundations. On this slide, you'll see the highlights from the 3 initiatives that fall under transform our foundations. Firstly, around sustainability. Sustainability is a really important focus for AoFrio, and we're happy to report good progress across the 3 pillars -- 3 aspects of the sustainability pillar, which is around focusing on our team, our operations and our product. We have our sustainability systems and progress are audited by EcoVadis, an independent global auditing organization, and we received a bronze medal. This places us in the top 35% of rated customers -- companies. Having a rating from EcoVadis enables us to provide evidence of our system maturity around sustainability. And this is requested by our customers and is essential for our strategy to enter the European market that has really tight regulations around energy and carbon reduction. And for us to be successful in that region, we have to continue to develop our ESG or sustainability strategy at AoFrio. In FY '24, we connected -- collected our baseline data for reporting our Scope 1 emissions. This data will also be used for target setting. We commenced integrating product circularity into our product development and manufacturing processes. From a people perspective, we -- this is -- we -- our aim of this initiative is to foster a diverse, strong and healthy workplace culture that allows our teams and individuals to deliver their best work every day. A key focus from a delivery perspective was on building alignment around our strategies and making sure everyone knew how they connected to the strategy. We focus on global collaboration and building innovation capability. The results of this, we saw our engagement score go from 67% to 79%. That's an amazing change and really important as we continue to ensure that, as I say, our people are focused on our strategy and are doing their best work every day. The other element in this transform our foundations is around our SaaS platform. We continue to invest in the modernization of our SaaS platform so we can get to a position where we can offer advanced solutions to our Cold Drink Equipment customers and provide the right solution for our Food Retail offering. We're also investing so that we can continue to leverage rapid advancements in the use of data and machine learning and because they present huge opportunities for us to, I guess, take our solution further than it is today. In summary, we have made good progress on our 3 core strategies in FY '24, protect and grow the core, diversify our market segments and transform our foundations. I will now hand over to John Scott, Chairman of AoFrio, to share our outlook and a summary of today's presentation.

Can you hear me okay? I'm going to assume people can hear me okay. Is that good, Greg?

Yes. I think it's over to you, John. Can you speak, John? I'm not sure whether we can hear you.

Yes. I am talking. So I'm just wondering.

We can't hear you, John.

Can you see me? I can hear you perfectly. I think it's at your end. I'm unmuted. So Adam can hear and see me. That's great. So maybe just -- well, I'm going to talk on the off chance that people can hear me. So Greens from Perth, which is the comms issue. First of all, I want to say thanks to everyone. Like you can see here, that's a really, really good result for 2024. If you look at our metrics financially, they're good. But the thing that's most pleasing to me is the nonfinancial indicators whether you take engagement, whether you take utilization, whether you take Net Promoter Score, all of those are trending really well. So all in all, it's a pretty solid year. And you can see here I think this is our sixth consecutive quarter now where we've delivered what we said. And so it starts to give us the confidence to stretch. It also starts to give us the confidence to feel like the processes that we've put in place are giving us the results. And so we feel pretty good about the outlook we're giving for next year, and you can see it's an uptick both in sales and in terms of EBITDA. Obviously, everyone realizes that the macroeconomic trends out there right now are pretty crazy. I don't want to try and give any commentary because whatever I say is almost certainly going to be wrong. But I just want to assure people that we're all over it. We know that there's going to be tariffs, we just don't know where. One of our strengths is our supply chain team. So I feel pretty confident that whatever happens that we'll be able to mitigate any effect within 3 months. So the other commentary I'd just like to give is strategy is a big word. Everyone has a different version. My version is decisions you make on a 2-year or longer horizon. And in that way, I'd like to say that our strategy is set and fixed. I don't believe it's changed. Hopefully, we get better at communicating it and people are understanding it. But this year, you can start to see us start to unearth some of the typical SaaS metrics. So you can see we're starting to bring things like ARR to the forefront. So the old AoFrio, if you like, was more focused on kind of a typical financial P&L. But as we move forward into a SaaS business, you'll start to see those more SaaS type metrics start to come through. So next year, for example, ARR retention and all that stuff will be just as key as something like gross margin. The other thing is just a general commentary. I'm pretty fortunate that I get to see into about, I don't know, half a dozen companies, and I'm kind of doing some work for others. So let's say I've got visibility into 10 companies around the world. I think at this point, I know what good looks like. And I feel AoFrio is really well run. I think in terms of what I see, the engagement level and the participation from the staff is outstanding. And the relevance there is there's a saying in business that culture strategy for breakfast. Everyone says it, everyone knows it, and then they promptly forget it as soon as they start to look at the financials. But in an IT company and with the transformation we're trying to make, that's probably the most important thing now. And so we've got a really high Net Promoter Score, which is the way our customers value us, and we've got a really high engagement score, which is the way the staff feel about the business. And in an IT company, that is everything you need because the value is the IP and the IP is the people. So on that note, I just want to say thanks to both our staff and all of our customers for looking after us and hand it back to you, Greg.

Thanks, John. We'll now have questions. [Operator Instructions] there's one question so far and John partly [Technical Difficulty] Okay. I think we're good to go.

We're good to go. I'll repeat the question, sorry, technology is getting ahead of us today. There's one question, and John Scott touched on it, it's around tariffs. So while Vietnam is not currently being targeted by U.S. Trump tariffs, it's probably only a matter of time. What considerations have we taken to mitigate this risk? I guess my response to that would be that in terms of direct business that we have from Vietnam into the U.S.A., it's predominantly motors. Our competitors are almost invariably sourcing their motors from China. So you could argue that we actually have an advantage over competitors. Will Vietnam be treated the same or worse than China? Who knows? But that's the exposure. There is retaliatory tariffs being talked or imposed from ship from Canada into -- for product from the U.S.A. and Canada. We do export -- we do bring some product into Canada from the U.S.A., but it's pretty small in our context. And most of our sales go into Mexico as a hub. Some of that product gets incorporated into equipment that goes into the U.S.A. Again, that's not a direct influence for us. We always anticipate that U.S. customers will probably look to recover tariffs and pricing. but we don't know how that will be. So we will respond, as John said, the supply chain is pretty effective, but we do manufacture everything in Vietnam. So our ability -- at this stage, we don't see huge impacts.

Howard, I don't know if I'm on mute or not, but if I'm not, I'll say something. Like the soundbite or the headline is we are better positioned than any of our competition. So if something does happen, what our investors should know is that it's probably in our advantage because from what we understand of our customer supply chains, we are in the best position because we probably have the lowest China exposure of anyone.

[Operator Instructions] Just you can continue to -- as there are no further questions, there is an -- there are further questions.

So the currency -- a question around currency rate assumed in the forecast and that we revise our forecast every month at latest rate. I think the budget assumption was NZD 58.50 against the U.S. dollar. Currently, it is slightly better than that, but that was the rate that was assumed in guidance. Question. The business looks to be trending well. In your presentation today, I noted the balance sheet is still constraining growth, deferring supermarket opportunities. Is there any further thought towards a small rights issue to lubricate working capital and give you 3 months breathing room if something nasty with tariff pops up? So I guess, should I answer -- I'll answer that. So our answer is that we can continue to fund business as usual. So that's IoT for CDE and Motors. We're still evaluating what the opportunities are with the diversification into Food Retail. And I guess we're leaving our options open if the opportunities are as good as we think they may well be, then we may wish to come to shareholders. But at this stage, that's not the thinking. Business as usual is funded out of operating cash flows as we have done in the past.

Yes. Howard, again, just a marketing soundbite is like the only time that we would come to shareholders given that we've got the business under control is if we are having success. So like I don't want anyone to say we're going to reach out for anything other than a successful outcome.

Another question, what do you see as the greatest constraints to achieving your strategic goals?

I [ might ] agree. I think we're pretty well positioned in the CDE business to achieve what we need to. Obviously, making sure that our product development continues as planned is key for that. For growth in CDE, as I've said, the key thing that we need to support that strategy is the new solutions for the U.S. and Europe, and we're well underway with the development of that and are proposing -- planning to launch those mid this year for FY '26 revenue. For the Food Retail opportunity, we're planning to have a more general release later in the year. And what will be required for that, we will require resources for that, I guess, people is really what is required. But as we're evaluating that at the moment. And when we're clear on exactly what we need, we'll share that. But we're pretty comfortable that we have the resources we need for the CDE business. And as John and Howard have said, we may ask something different once we quantify what's required for the Food Retail market.

Another question, are you targeting specific countries in Europe?

The way the European market works for cold drink equipment is that the brands have franchises. And some of those franchises go across multiple countries. So we target the franchise, not a particular country. So for example, there is one franchise for Turkey for Pepsi. So we target the franchise for Pepsi in Turkey. But the rest of Europe is managed as one franchise. So we target a different organization for Pepsi Europe, if you like. And Coca-Cola has similar complicated structures as do Heineken and ABI and so on. So some of it, we target a brand group and some of it we target a brand in a particular country. There's not hundreds of these. So we are able to get across each of the particular brands and each of the particular, I guess, organizations that -- in each of the different regions.

I have no more questions online.

Okay. If there's no further questions online, please note if you think of a question, you can type it into the chat after the end of the call. And we will monitor that and respond to anything that is put into the Q&A tab. But otherwise, thank you for your time today. It's been great to be able to present a positive result for AoFrio. So thank you for your time.

Thank you, guys. Bye-bye.