Asseco South Eastern Europe S.A. ($ASE)

Welcome, everybody. We start traditional quarterly review. We'll be talking in our traditional template about Q1 results and business update, what do we see for the future. So first summarizing the Q1, what we see. We see a very good performance in Banking continuously like last year. It's mostly in the core Banking Solutions, but not only also channels. And this contributes positively on EUR 1.4 million level on the operating level of the P&L. Another thing which is a bit different from the history, what we can see as a trend, we see a slow down in the growth of net revenues. But on the other hand, we see even bigger slowdown in cost growth, yes. So cost growth quarter-by-quarter from Q1 last year to Q1 this year is slightly below 2%, which is a result of smaller salary pressure, but also some cost savings optimization actions already undertaken in some operations, and we do expect this to continue in the rest of the year. Flattish payments, mostly due to the base effect of Q1 2025. In Q1 '25, we were not that conservative yet with the receivables write-offs in India and Dubai investment. So we have recognized then around EUR 1.1 million of positive results, which were later written off pretty much, yes, but this is comparable to slightly below 0 this year, gives a EUR 1.3 million difference, yes, in comparable numbers, yes. And in ECR and IPD, so electronic cash registers, fiscal registers, and independent POS deployment, we see a very nice growth, especially in Croatia and Spain. Good performance of traditional POS business line, also with a contribution growth of EUR 800,000 on operating level. Dedicated Solutions, not that good, much better than last year. Still it's on the verge of breakeven in Q1. Like last year, we had an improvement in the following quarters. We expect the same this year. Still not that happy that it's so low and it should be higher, yes? Cash flow, it's a huge improvement. You will see in details, Michal will be showing to you the cash conversion ratios and cash collection. I think this is slowly the effect of cash focus of the managers. We are putting much more emphasis on this and on paying this cash out in form of dividends. And I think this trend will continue because we see a lot of actions ahead, which are being undertaken by the business. On transactional business, e-commerce is flattish, minus. But please bear in mind, I mentioned before in conferences, the loss of 2 major banks in Turkey, e-commerce customers who are going in-house. So this is the continuous effect from last year that will translate to this year as well, but we are trying to compensate with other e-commerce, smaller customers. IPD growing, as mentioned. And traditional physical card processing business also nicely growing. And let's look at the numbers in details. Michal will show.

Yes. Welcome. So our traditional summary of results. First column, total numbers as we reported them in financial statement. And then following to adjusted by hyperinflation report. So I will concentrate on those excluding hyperinflation. So 6% growth on top line year-over-year, more in a moment when I will comment segments. As you see, operating profit grew even more, 15% year-over-year, what is EUR 1.8 million, similar amount on EBITDA. When we look at net profit, here, we have similar growth in absolute numbers and, of course, bigger percentage change, and towards what we have below EBIT. On financial activity, the result is EUR 0.5 million better than previous year. But this is composed of a few items. Let's start with negative ones. The cost of dividends paid to noncontrolling shareholders in those entities, which we consolidate using present ownership method. Total costs related with those dividends is EUR 3.1 million in Q1 2026. And Q1 '25, we had 0. Why it is like this? Dividend, partial dividend, and based on prior year result in both, yes, in component wealth was distributed. As you remember, we had spectacular results last year and part of this was paid and this generated EUR 2.7 million cost. And additionally, our subsidiary in Portugal, Eastern Bay this year paid dividend a bit earlier than in 2025. In Q1 versus Q2 in 2025, and this generated EUR 400,000 cost structure. Then balance on financial foreign exchange recalculation and interest is EUR 0.5 million lower than in previous year. But we have also positive ones related to statement of contingent liabilities for acquired entities and valuation of put call options, actually put options. Actually, we have positive effect of EUR 2 million. Plus last year, we have disposed 1 subsidiary in Turkey, [indiscernible], and this generated EUR 1.6 million loss or base effect caused growth year-over-year. Additionally, this payment terms for this transaction sale of [indiscernible] was recently updated. We have signed Amex, which resulted in shorter payment terms. So we changed the discount included on receivables, and this has EUR 0.5 million positive impact. So overall, to summarize, EUR 0.5 million more positive result on financial activity. When we move to taxes, taxes are higher by EUR 0.5 million. And this is due to simply bigger scale of business and bigger operating profit. When we look at effective tax rate, it is very similar, it's higher by 0-point something percent. So no big difference. Let's move to results by segment and banking, EUR 2.3 million growth of revenues, mostly generated by this line responsible for core banking solutions. We've diversified structure of growth by activities, more or less half by delivered implementation projects and change request and half by repetitive recurring SaaS and maintenance revenues. This growth in core was mainly in Southeastern Europe in Serbia and Macedonia, together EUR 1.6 million. And in Central Europe, EUR 0.7 million, mostly in Romania. To other lines in banking, so multichannel and security solutions, pretty stable revenues, slightly higher than previous year. When we when you look at operating profit in banking, as Piotr already mentioned, EUR 1.4 million higher than in 2025 with a pretty big increase of profitability to 28% by 4 points. Dedicated Solutions, on top line, we have a pretty big growth, EUR 5 million year-over-year, but 95% of this growth was generated by third-party solutions, mostly equipment reserve. And this reserve didn't contribute much to net revenues or operating profit. Geographically speaking, this growth is again Southeastern Europe, Serbia and in smaller values in Central Europe in Romania. And yes, looking for operating profit, EUR 0.1 million positive. So a lot smaller than in Q3, Q4 previous year, but just already commented. And when we look in payment, let's move to a separate slide. Here, we have revenues dropped by EUR 1.4 million. And this is mostly in this line which is responsible for e-commerce and processing, EUR 2.4 million revenues drop. And we have here effect of India and ME rates. As already commented, Q1 was this last strong quarter for those operations. This contributes EUR 1.3 million drop roughly on revenues only, and Turkey. So the 2 clients last year have decided to move -- to in-source processing of the transaction. So -- and one took this decision beginning of the year to second half of the year. So we have effect year-over-year on this Those 2 drops I described were partially compensated by increase in Western Europe and Central Europe, mostly in Croatia on e-commerce as such. In other lines, very good ECR and IPD growing revenues and growing operating profit, as Piotr already mentioned, mostly Western Europe and Southeastern Croatia. In POSs, we have drop of revenues, but this drop is mostly on RS and this RS, those deliveries of equipment, we realized in 2026 were with bigger profitability and operating profit increased as we have mentioned already. And ATMs, slight increase of revenues, but no major change in operating drop. When we move to countries or regions, starting with regions, so as you see, Southeastern Europe is the leading one in terms of growth of operating profit, it's mostly due to Croatia. So payment, what I already mentioned in Macedonia and Serbia, this is mostly contribution of banking. Southeast Central Eastern Europe, this is mostly banking in Romania. And as you see Middle East and India, we have a decline of revenues -- sorry, operating profit. So let's move to cash flow and liquidity. So as already mentioned, very good operating cash flow, EUR 80 million operating cash flow for the last 12 months. So this is more than EUR 5 million more than during 2025, very solid cash conversion. Operating cash flow to EBITDA, 88%, so by 5 points more than in 2025. When talking about investments, those presented in second line, so CapEx, project related CapEx for outsourcing projects or on networks, it is slightly lower than in 2025 by EUR 2 million. And other investments are pretty similar, no big changes. So to summarize, very good cash conversion in Q1 2026. And if we move to balance sheet position, cash increased by EUR 8 million comparing to year-end with parallel decrease of short-term loans, mostly credit lines and revolvings by almost EUR 4 million. Other positions, no big changes, very, very similar to end of 2025. M&A liabilities. We commented this in February that we expect a drop in this position due to a planned realization of put options. It will happen, but it's a matter of time. Part of this amount for sure will be realized during Q2 2026. And other positions like receivables, liabilities or inventory, pretty similar to last year, no big changes in [indiscernible]. So this is about it. And let's move to outlook.

So outlook for '26. The backlog growth is reasonable. It's a bit lower, as I mentioned, on margin 1 level, 4%, 5%, it's much better on the software part. On ASEE on payment, it's lower. You can see on -- if we show on the software part, it's the levels of 10%, 7%. On payments, it's lower. We are expecting in payment a catch-up in the second half of the year and some acceleration of contracting in this period, so some improvement. But as mentioned, this a bit slower growth is compensated by a much smaller cost growth on the group level, which we expect to continue, including declines on employment costs because of the -- some restructuring measures and lower cost pressures. Yes, we just initiated some actions on AI usage, the promotion of AI tools and application of this is now fully at work. We don't have yet clear monetizable effects that we could scale up or announce to the investors, but we do expect them to appear in this year quite soon looking at the initiatives undertaken. On the business dynamics, nothing wrong is happening on the market. We don't see any negative scenarios. It's more like on the e-comm, as I mentioned, these 2 big customers going in-house in Turkey, but otherwise, it's business as usual and no negative down trends or trends on the market and overall outlook that we've given on last conference after the annual results. We still sustain that we expect something above 10% -- between 10% and 15% probably growth in 2026. On M&A, the majority of the transactions in the near future will be on put calls of existing acquisitions, but we have a pipeline of discussions. We did discussions, M&A discussions, negotiations. We never how they will end up. But I would expect some of them to materialize in the second half of '26. So we'll be informing you about this duly. Additionally, as mentioned in the beginning of this presentation, we have accelerated cash collections. We do think this trend will continue. And the surplus of cash, obviously, we plan to either pay out in form of dividends in the future or to allocate this capital into investments, either internal development investments, growth investments, market development or M&As. And we are very much expanding the portfolio of targets now in the regions where we operate to see where we can make such reasonable investments. Having said that, we are open to any questions. Please, if you have them on chat or you can speak out. On chat, if you have something. Yes, let me see.

Could you please share a few comments on the cost structure and any inefficiencies you have identified since TSS became a shareholder. Do you intend to maintain the current cost base? Or do you see potential to reduce expenses over the next 12 to 24 months? What EBITDA margin do you believe is achievable once all cost initiatives have been implemented? Could you please distinguish between Payten and Banking in your response? Well, that's a couple of questions. Let's take it step by step. Cost structure inefficiencies. Well, basically, we are running a program of simplifying how the business -- we are reviewing the KPIs. We are implementing -- there's much more capital efficiency ratios, yes, much more cash related to ratios, but also profitability, which is related to cash efficiency and pressure, yes. On average, for the business that we run, I would say we judge -- we have 10 percentage points profitability below the benchmarks we would like to achieve on a longer-term perspective. How much time it will take? It's hard to say 2, 3 years would be a good period if you ask me to achieve this. This should be achieved by 2 dimensional actions. One is cost consciousness and greater efficiency in the support activities and professional services implementation activities. But also, we do expect -- we do expect this efficiency for cost cutting, but we do expect also some value-based pricing exercises. So price renegotiations on some contracts where they were not properly indexed or priced or they don't reflect the proper value provided, and this should generate extra revenues, which also should -- needs to create profitability. This effect can be much bigger in software units, in ASEE units, but proportionally, but in Payten part, including especially e-com, we do expect some elements of this as well in terms of division, but probably a bigger effect on ASEE than Payten in this particular case. So cost base should reduce because of many measures, including pressure on efficiency, on activities, on maintenance and professional services and supporting professional services using AI tools, yes, and this should also help in that. If I have not answered the question fully, just please expand on chat or in person. Capital-based KPIs. Can you give us an idea? Yes, it's ROIC-based. ROIC hurdle rates, I mean, look, we are using 25% as the growth of net revenues and return on invested capital. But actually, we would like and we are pushing the businesses to have around 20% to 25% on the return on invested capital and to top it up, this 25% to top it up with net revenue growth on top of it. So 25% would be the hurdle rate that we are pushing but we are still distant from this level in many, many business units, to be frank. The big decline in infrastructure for outsourcing and own networks, a reflection of this or just a seasonal impact? I mean it's a decline.

Yes. Last year, we were pretty intensive in this CapEx. We had a quite big number of ATMs and POS replaced on contracts, which we had with clients for 5, 7, 9 years. And simply, this is a seasonal effect. So this year, we expect on forecast lower investment, this type of CapEx.

We have some more questions. Is it fair to assume that all incremental POS and ATM investment will be subject as well to ROIC of 25%? Yes, we would like so, yes. That's our wish, yes. But there's a couple of actions we have to undertake to move in that direction. But the answer is yes. But you must bear in mind what we cannot share, the capital allocated into different business units differentiates in our group, yes. So the threshold, we have allocated bigger capital proportion to software business units than to ATM and POS ones. So reaching the threshold. The factor from the start is easier at the beginning, I mean, easier. The gap to cover is smaller than the software units internally. Any more questions? You can also use the voice, if you wish. We have questions, we have some more coming. Just give us a second and we'll answer if it pops up on chat. When you say you are targeting margins that are 10% higher, are you referring to EBITDA. Yes, EBITDA without D, EBITA is kind of our internal measure that we agreed. The difference to EBITDA is we have...

It's quite big because we have a lot of depreciation, in which we have those POS and ATM devices, yes.

But the impact on the profitability, probably you could translate EBITA and EBITDA similar. Yes, they can shift probably, yes. So the approximate answer is yes on EBITDA or EBITA level, yes. Are we planning to pursue less M&As under the new ownership? No, no, no. On contrary, probably more, but we have to get ready for this because the only thing that we are changing, and it's a good change, healthy change is more ownership for the M&As by existing management who will take it under the portfolio supervision. So for these M&As, not to be solely my or Michal's responsibility, but to assume management responsibility, how to manage this post M&A transaction by the managers and we need some more training education along our managers. But overall, we plan to significantly, over the next 2, 3 years, accelerate the M&As. You mentioned incentivizing managers improved cash flow. Are there any further improvements resulting from changing the incentive structure? Well, that's a complex one because actually, the incentive structure is pretty comparable, formal to the previous one for '26. We wanted to change it, but because of some technicality issues, we couldn't for 26, which will be changed in '27. But the changes are announced in which direction they will head, and that they will be very much cash impacted, yes. And I believe managers already are taking actions or preparing the actions to fulfill these criteria. So the answer is yes. It is -- they are very much incentivized. And this will, as I said before, we expect some more positive impact of this, for example, as prepayment of many contracts. A new one is coming. What are your thoughts on capital allocation going forward? Does TSS expect ASEE to return the majority of cash debt dividends or will you return cash in the business to fund future M&A opportunities? Both are acceptable, both are good. Basically, we want to invest with a 25% ROI impact. If we cannot do this, better pay out dividend. If we can't do this, then invest. But as I said, mentioned, we are preparing to do this in such a way, and we believe we can do it. So M&A will be fully accepted. But if we see we cannot do this amount of M&As, we don't have enough targets, then dividends. So both are good, acceptable option. And I think it will take some time until we can fully eat up our cash in form of investments in M&A because we don't have to take physical capacity to generate that amount of quality business to invest our full cash flows into such investments. I hope this day will come.

Of course, this year, we have pretty -- a lot of expenditures on put calls, which are not new M&As, but we need to allocate a lot of cash to this.

Yes. Please, any more questions? See, we are trying to answer as well as we can. Thanks. If there is no more questions, we invite you to direct contact. It will be a pleasure to talk to you, especially after the close period. And we are available for you. So reach out and we'll be in touch. And thanks for joining the conference. All the best. Bye-bye.

Thank you. Bye.