Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings plc (AML) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. So good morning, everybody. Adrian Hallmark here, and thank you for joining us. Firstly, it's a privilege to be speaking with you all, first time as CEO of Aston Martin, although clearly, I didn't expect to be doing it so soon after I begun. It's now been 4 weeks since I started the role. And what I've seen in that time has absolutely cemented my belief in the vision and the potential for Aston Martin as a brand, and I believe it has a fantastic future ahead. That's the main reason that I joined. I've already seen the energy, talent and innovation that the team have demonstrated and it's strengthened my belief that the vision that Lawrence has laid out over the past 4 years is absolutely valid and is possible to be delivered with a plum. What we've demonstrated is an entrepreneurial mindset over the past 4 years, demonstrated by the delivery of the most comprehensive and forward-looking product range that Aston Martin has had properly in its history. And a lot of those launches have happened in the last 18 months. So I look forward to working with this team to create meaningful value from those launches over the short, medium and long term. We now have the most diverse, dynamic and desirable product portfolio, I believe, in this segment, not just in Aston Martin's history, I can say that with more than 3 decades experience in the luxury sector. Also, the immense power of the brand and pricing power of the brand is demonstrated by the demand and the success of the sales of the Specials, which are truly world-class. The latest one being the Valiant, which we've already launched to our customers and you'll be seeing later on this year. And more importantly, I'm really excited about the growth and the change in the luxury market and its structural pattern. And I believe that Aston has a perfect position to benefit from this shift in demand, both from the Specials, but also the core business. And looking from the outside as well as now looking from the inside, I think the effect that Formula One has had on awareness generation and sharpening of the brand image is priceless, and we're now committed to that for an even longer period. More about that in due course. So before I get into the substance of the call today, I just wanted to give a sense of the priorities that we've identified over my first 4 weeks. I'm happy to share more detail in the quarter 4 -- quarter 3 review, sorry, in a month's time, but just to give you some first impressions. As kind of mentioned, I see a natural position for Aston Martin at the pinnacle of the automotive luxury segment and operating at the highest price points with commensurate margins. We have a huge opportunity and potential to uplift desirability of the brand and customer engagement through an increased focus on personalization and brand experience, and we have the capability to deliver this. Secondly, I am laser-focused on what I call operational excellence and quality. For example, ensuring that Aston Martin produces first-time perfect vehicles at launch and generates luxury sector compatible margins on each of those vehicles. And third and finally, it's what it means to our shareholders. I'm motivated by value generation, and that means sustainable growth in revenues, profitability and free cash flows. And just for context, I don't see the mid-40% gross margin target for the company nor the 30% adjusted EBITDA margin target as a ceiling or unachievable. I actually believe that we can and will go better and beyond these indicators. Clearly, it's early days, but everything I've seen so far gives me confidence that we can, in normal market conditions, realize this vision and the potential that Lawrence has clearly identified and communicated over the past years. And don't forget, the team have already created the platform for that growth with a fantastic portfolio that we now have ahead of us. So with that said, one of my first tasks as CEO has been to conduct an initial operational review to look at immediate opportunities and risks. Now we have at Aston Martin, a history of delivering strong quarter 4 performance. And the plan for 2024 required something even more exceptional than usual. We needed precise execution of all the model launches and volume ramp-ups, our production running at full capacity and seamless integration and uninterrupted supply from our supplier partners, all within a constructive economic operating environment without any external headwinds. That was the plan. As we have begun to significantly uplift production rates in September, we've seen more pressures emerge in our supply chain, resulting in slower-than-anticipated production output. As we have reported this morning, this has resulted in fewer wholesale deliveries in quarter 3 than we originally forecast, and it will continue to have an impact as we move into quarter 4. With this backdrop, I've decided that the company must operationally realign our planned volumes for quarter 4. The lower output in '24 will also allow us to mitigate risks in the global supply chain. We can protect ourselves from lower demand in China, which has also affected us and avoid the additional supply chain recovery and logistics costs that would be incurred if we continue to try to deliver such a large volume of vehicles so late in the fourth quarter. I want to reaffirm that Aston Martin will deliver strong future growth, and our business is fully committed to operating with positive free cash flow generation in the future. However, that journey is one that I must be -- believe must be delivered through a sustainable growth plan hand-in-hand with strong long-term value creation. This is how luxury companies operate, something I know well from my previous experience and is how we will operate in the future. As I said when I was appointed, this is one of the most exciting projects in the global automotive industry and one I feel I can play a key role in delivering, and I'm honored to be given the chance to do so. I'm greatly impressed with the work that's already been done strategically to build the strong foundations for Aston Martin to grow its brand and reputation and to get that world-class product portfolio ready for liftoff. I'd now like to hand over to Doug to share the updated guidance that we have announced this morning before we take your questions. Thank you. Over to you, Doug.

Thanks, Adrian. Good morning, everybody. So just following on from Adrian's comments, I'm going to provide the key guidance updates that we've announced today and obviously remind you that we'll provide some more color at Q3 and full year 2024 at our Q3 results, which are on the 30th of October. After I've just run through these quick points, we'll have some time for questions at the end of the call. So firstly, look, on the current Q3 trading, as we've commented and I think as Adrian just alluded to, the significant ramp-up of production that sort of really hit the straps in September, we started to witness further delays in the completion of our vehicles due to the late arrival of components from several suppliers. These delays are now impacting our ability to wholesale vehicles to the time lines that we had originally planned and are leading to operational inefficiencies. As such, we now expect to be below current market expectations for both Q3 volumes and Q3 adjusted EBITDA. And then secondly, looking to the updated full year 2024 guidance and as explained by Adrian, this change reflects the recent supply chain disruptions I've just mentioned, the continued macroeconomic weakness in China and a proactive decision to strategically realign our production plans to both optimize efficiency and achieve a more balanced delivery cadence as we move forward. So as a result, for the full year 2024, we now expect wholesale volumes to decline by a high single-digit percentage when compared with full year 2023, reflecting today's update of our 2024 volumes, making up roughly 1,000 unit reduction to address the issues highlighted. We expect gross margin to be modestly below the 40% we had targeted for this year and adjusted EBITDA margin to be in the high teens. And for H2 free cash flow, whilst it will be materially improved versus the outflow we saw in the first half of 2024, free cash flow will remain an outflow in the second half. And finally, just to reiterate, and Adrian was just saying this very same thing, we have the building blocks in place to realize the long-term growth and value creation potential of the business. And I think underpinned by our ability to design and deliver the class-leading portfolio and special models that we've been bringing to the market, not only this year but in prior years. And for the first time in 2025, we'll start in the enviable position of commencing that year with a fully reinvigorated portfolio. We remain absolutely focused on achieving our previously communicated targets for 2025. That coincides with our aim to smooth the cadence of wholesale volumes over the coming quarters and, of course, maximize our operational efficiencies. So with that said, I think Adrian and I are available to take some questions. So I'll hand back to the operator to start that process. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Henning Cosman from Barclays.

Thanks for the statement so far and welcome to Adrian. Adrian, it's good to hear your confidence and perhaps I can start with the observation that you've expressed that confidence also in your 2025 guidance, still leaving steep ramp-up and big step change to roughly GBP 500 million EBITDA change and positive free cash flow for that next business year. I think, Adrian, you said you were impressed with what you found at Aston Martin, but maybe you can talk a bit about what gives you the confidence also with respect to those near-term financials for next year? That's the first question, but perhaps more specifically, what do you currently see in terms of order book, in terms of duration, but also ASP trajectory or how much of these orders must still be collected to support those 2025 targets? But obviously, also, please feel free to talk about any other key financial elements that give you that confidence for the more near-term financial outlook. And then perhaps finally for me, with respect to the warning itself, if you allow me, the H2 '24 ramp-up, I think, was always going to stretch yourself and your suppliers. And now it has become too much even with the weaker demand from China. Can you please talk through if you think you need to take any structural changes with respect to the supply chain apart from balancing the cadence to perhaps alleviate some pressure, but just going forward to make absolutely sure you're going to have these components and the quality and quantity you need.

Okay. Thank you, Henning. Good to meet you at least vocally. I look forward to doing it personally in the near future. I'll pick up on the '25 guidance and the supply base topic and then maybe ask Doug to step in on the order book and ASP question. In terms of 2025, the key thing that gives me and everybody confidence that we have a strong platform to be successful in 2025 and remain focused on the goals that we have set for 2025 is it's the first time probably ever that we've had all cars, brand new, in the portfolio, clearly differentiated to each other, clearly differentiated to competition and all available in the market pretty much from day 1. This is a huge platform for growth. We all know the product freshness, the average age of vehicles in the life cycle is a key driver of performance of any luxury company. And so that's the foundation stone that we've got for next year. And in fact, the adjustments that we're making in 2024 to smooth the flow of product at the end of this year and into next year also helps operationally to deliver that in a sustainable way. I'll just give one example because of the problems that we've experienced this year with component supply and the slower output of cars versus plan, whilst we've started production on time for all models, the rate of production release for dealers has been slower and we still don't have full coverage of all dealers having all demonstrators of all cars. This links to the older comment that I think Doug will touch on in a moment. So I am confident that by the end of this year and therefore 1st of January, we'll have a full complement of brand new cars in the market with demonstrators available for customers to try and then we should see the real acceleration of the brand beyond what we've already seen this year. I think those are the key things that are the operational drivers that give us the confidence for next year's performance to get us on track. In respect of suppliers and I can say this from my previous perspective, but also having seen what has been through during the last 4 weeks. If you look back at previous issues that Aston Martin has had with the supply base, it's been due to the diversity and to some extent, the instability of some of the players, the suppliers that we had worked with. What is different now over the past 6 to 9 months is blue chip suppliers have had fires, floods or administrators appointed to an extent and a scale that I personally haven't seen in my career. And it's not just Aston Martin that suffers this, but we have suffered it too. So it's not because we have a supply base that is not sustainable. Most of the problems that we have faced have been because of blue chip suppliers having problems, force majeure or extreme financial difficulties. And what we're going to do in the future, and we've already started, we have strategically looked at the supply base to make it stronger. And our procurement team have done that over the past 1.5 to 2 years, and it's getting ever better. What we now need to do is take an operational look at all suppliers again and maybe adapt the safety cover that we have for certain components and certain suppliers. I won't go into the detail of that because to be honest, we've not done all the work that we could do in that space yet because of the nature of these sudden shocks that we're seeing with blue chips. But that's another risk mitigator that we'll kick off, and we'll see come into play as we get into the beginning of next year. I think if we now move to the order cover and [ retailing ] price, Doug?

Yes, so with regards to orders, I think it's safe to assume that all the production orders we need for 2024, we have. I think we'll provide more color on the outlook order book as we ordinarily would at the end of the quarter. So we'll give you more color when we come with our Q3 results at the end of October. As Adrian said, the delays that we've experienced specifically in the last month, but also we commenced production. If I think about the DBX 707 upgraded version and also the new Vantage this year, production commenced on time, initial ramp-up went as planned, but we have experienced some delays getting those cars into dealers. So as Adrian referenced, all the dealers don't yet have their sort of range of showroom and demonstrator vehicles. And obviously, that's a really important catalyst for the order book. So we expect that during Q4, there's a real sort of impact on the order book as we run into 2025. Obviously, we're taking orders into 2025 as we speak, but we'll give you a little bit more color on that as we get into the reporting at the end of October. And then with regards to ASPs, I think nothing has really changed in that regard, Henning. So we still expect our total ASPs for 2024 to grow over last year. And when we look at the momentum in the core ASP, I think we still expect to see core ASP higher in the second half than we saw in the first half. And we see positive trends in that regard and still, as we sort of talked about the first half of the year, positive trends in terms of personalizations and option take, which obviously help provide some additional momentum to the ASP movement. So I think no real change in that regard. Order book, we'll come back to you on later in October. But for 2024, we're good and starting to take orders well into 2025.

The next question comes from George Galliers from Goldman Sachs.

First question I had was for Doug, really just with respect to the balance sheet and the overall liquidity of the business. Obviously, the free cash flow for the second half is now materially below what you had previously anticipated. Do you still feel comfortable with the liquidity at hand? And when do you expect to see the inflection in free cash flow now? Is it towards the end of the first quarter next year? Or should you start to see it quite early in 2025? Second question I really had was for Adrian, and thank you very much for your introductory comments. I think many investors agree that Aston Martin is at a very good point with respect to its product cycle, and that should be promising as pertains to 2025. But I think investors are also looking at 2024 when the company had the introduction of the DB12, but as things stand, looks set to generate less EBITDA and potentially burn more cash than it did in 2023. So I think first part of the question really is what reassurances can you provide to investors based on what you have seen that 2025 will actually bear the fruit of this new product offensive. And then I think you also mentioned that above and beyond 2025, you saw further opportunity for Aston Martin. Perhaps you could just sort of delve a little bit into that. Is it on the cost side? Is it through the introduction of incremental derivatives or specials? Or are there also areas in the product lineup which the company could address?

Okay. George, it's Doug. I'll obviously answer the first question and then Adrian can pick up on your second and third. So from a liquidity point of view, yes, we're okay. So as you know, at the end of the first half, we had around GBP 250 million of liquidity. And then following the reverse interest on the bond, we tapped. So we raised another GBP 135 million or so. So from a liquidity point of view, I don't really see it being materially different to perhaps where we thought we would be at the end of the year prior to that. I referenced or we've referenced in the RNS that unfortunately, we no longer expect the second half to be free cash flow positive, but that we do indeed expect it to be a materially reduced outflow versus the first half of the year. And we've previously guided to Q3 being [ back ] versus what we've seen in Q2, and I still expect that to be the case. So as we move through the second half, the outflow will be materially reduced. And I think that's entirely what we're focused on. And then with regards to the inflection point, obviously, look, we'd hoped that it would be in the second half of this year. But given the update that we provided today and the circumstances that we're facing, that's no longer going to be the case. But as Adrian has alluded to and as we've outlined in the statement, we remain focused on delivering against our 2025 objectives, which have been out there for quite some time. And one of those was obviously that the business would be free cash flow positive from that point. So that's exactly what we remain focused on. I won't give any more color in terms of when that might happen during the course of next year. But we're very much focused on it, and you can expect that 2025, that remains our objective for the business to start to become free cash flow positive.

Thanks, Doug. And in terms of 2025, I won't repeat what I mentioned earlier in terms of the basis that we have for growth and higher performance in 2025. I'll just elaborate a little bit on the things that I can already see are opportunities for us to go after as a company in general. First thing I would say is personalization. I know this is an often used word and has multiple meanings. But from my point of view, be very clear, yes, we may look at derivatives and specials. But actually, if we look at the core model range, the opportunity to offer more options, more personalization opportunities and generate more value per vehicle sold over and above the systematic increasing of our average selling price. For me, this is one of the big levers that exist that we haven't yet fully exploited in a positive sense. I'll be able to give more detail about that in future calls, but we're already looking to this in detail, and we can see huge opportunities. The second area, just to give you an operational direct cost example. Doug hasn't mentioned the numbers, but the cost that we incurred or would have incurred this year for carrying on with this compressed production schedule at the year-end is tens of millions increments over a smooth production flow. So the cost of production and the cost of logistics as a result of this back-end loaded approach are significant. So looking at next year, we will ensure that we have a plan which allows us to flow smoothly, work on cost optimization and on the quality processes to give ourselves a much more balanced business model. And of course, alongside that, further down the cost value chain, if you like, we've got launches. So this year, the physical cost of launching or the financial cost of launching so many new models in a pure marketing, sales and distribution sense is enormous. Next year, we don't have the huge model launch costs that we've had this year. We literally have a new product range with minor launch activity in relative terms financially compared with a huge expense in 2024. So if you normalize that, then the potential is really clear, I believe. On top of that, and I won't go into further detail, I've already been looking in depth at the relative cost structures here and earning potentials here versus other benchmarks. And let's just say there's room for growth. not just at the top line, but in the margin quality and in the cost efficiency of the business. So we'll be talking more about that maybe after 90 days rather than after 30.

The next question comes from Horst Schneider from Bank of America.

I've got a few questions, please. And if I can maybe just follow up to your last comment regarding launch costs in 2024. Could you maybe quantify them to what extent they have been a burden this year? That would be number one. The number two is I still struggle to understand what part of the warning comes now from supply shortage and what comes from demand since you are also mentioning China. So maybe you could specify where you see exactly the shortage on which vehicles, on which parts. When I look -- I track from time to time your U.S. dealer web pages, and they outlined pretty clearly where is the inventory. What I can see there is that there's no advantage at the moment, but there are plenty of DB12 and also DBX -- also new DBXs. So therefore, when you make comments on orders also, you always make a comment on wholesales on demand from dealers. But could you maybe say what is now the demand really underlying in terms of retail demand for the new models where you see best demand, worse demand and what can compensate China basically in 2025? Is that permanent? Or it's just no one-off and the lower interest rates in China, is the demand going to improve there again? I know many questions that I have, but yes, maybe you can cover them all.

Okay. Thanks, Horst. Let me start with the stock situation first in China. You may -- because you've done the research, you may recall that in China, there was a different configuration of DBX to the rest of the world. And in China, as well as the market dropping, we've also stopped a specific derivative of DBX that was on sale in China. which was a 6 diversion. And we're switching over to the full 707 DBX configuration at a much higher price point. So as we look forward in China, there is some stock clearance activity to do, which is running through as we speak now. And then a reset and a relaunch of DBX, which is already happening in the back end of this year, and we should see improvements as we get into next year. This is, I would call it business as usual. As far as the U.S. is concerned, you're right, there is a mixture of DBX stock and DB12 stock. Without going into every bit of detail on them, there are very clear profiles to that stock. The majority of stock is actually pre-facelift on DBX or pre-model improvement with the infotainment system. And the dealers are not all in the same situation. They're in pockets. So we're working with the dealers on those cars. And even DB12, one of the consequences of the way we launched the car with a compressed timing earlier this year is that there were a number of dealer stock orders put in that have stuck around a little bit. So new stock orders -- sorry, new production slots are getting a good retail cover, and they're overtaking some of those dealer stock orders that were placed at the very beginning of DB12 earlier this year. So that is all quantified. It's not critical in terms of the total numbers. We have a plan to get through it. So we're not so worried about that. I believe that this 2024 operational realignment, which will be largely focused on the U.S. and China production numbers. This relief in those markets gives us the space and time to be able to adequately sell through those stock cars with the programs that we have. And combined with the rollout of Vantage demonstrators and the full activation of marketing activities through the back end of this year, for example, there's more than 12 trap-based experiences planned before Christmas in the U.S. alone. This is a significant ramp-up in dealer customer activity because the cars are available. That's what gives us the confidence that we get set up better for next year. In terms of launch costs, I won't talk specifically about those. [indiscernible] Doug to give you an impression.

Yes, Horst, you won't be surprised to know that we won't talk specifically about it. But obviously, there has been an awful lot of launch activity. I think I've talked previously about our -- if I think about it overall from an SG&A point of view, perhaps this year being a plateau from the increases we've seen in prior years and the commencement of operating leverage coming through the cost base and through the P&L. Obviously, that's going to take a bit of a hit this year in the second half given the adjustments we're making at the top line, but we still expect for that operating leverage to appear through the course of next year. And part of that is likely to be reduced expenses around things like launches, as Adrian alluded to.

Just a follow-up then. On supply shortage, on which parts and which vehicles do you see most of the supply shortage?

Look, I think, to be honest with you, as Adrian mentioned, this isn't -- this is perhaps not something which is explicitly Aston Martin related. We're seeing disruption of blue-chip suppliers, and we use blue chip suppliers across the portfolio. So we're seeing supply shortages, both in the St. Athan factory on the DBX and also the sports cars in relation to Gayden. So it's relatively broad, hence, the reason that we're making a fairly material adjustment. But we believe that the adjustments that we're making and the line rates that we plan to run to in Q4 are achievable from a supply delivery point of view and gives us the confidence that we're able to meet the revised guidance for 2024 in terms of the volumes from a production level. I don't know if you want to add anything else to that.

Yes. Horst, just to put this in context, we've not yet lost in a given month any production because of suppliers specifically in terms of total numbers in and out. However, if we look at the output of production, a double-digit percentage of cars that come out of production require significant rework because we're building cars literally without all the parts being available when they're able to be fitted after the event and then catching them up later. So it's not lost production, but the rework and the number of cars in work in progress means that we cannot cope with the amount of volumes of rework at any given point in time. As you know, there's been floods in metal or aluminum factories, fires inflating factories that have stopped us getting trim parts, all kinds of disruptions that we've managed. But at the end, the rework time and cost is putting a huge pressure on what was already a 0 defect planned quarter 4 production output. It's that the problem, not actual lost parts. It's disruption.

Okay. That's great. And really last one from my side. On the GBP 500 million EBITDA target for 2025, what unit sales level that requires again? I think you have not mentioned a specific unit sales target anymore. But I don't know, maybe you can give some feeling for that, what is needed to achieve this GBP 500 million EBITDA next year?

No not at this stage. I think we'll get into 2025 guidance more specifically at the right point. But the point from today on '25 is that we remain focused on delivering against the previously communicated targets. Of course, we, as you know, stepped away from a volume target and had out there the GBP 500 million of EBITDA, as you referenced. So we'll come back to that at the appropriate time. And as Adrian has mentioned, I think he sees various different opportunities that we might be able to exploit in our journey to reach that. So we'll come back to you on that one.

Our final question today comes from Harry Martin at Bernstein.

Adrian, for the early comments, very useful so far. So I've got a few questions left. The first one, I wondered if I could get an update on thoughts around the Vanquis launch. I think the expectation was for -- after the successful launch this year for it to really ramp from the fourth quarter. Does that get sort of pushed back a little bit? Or would you still expect to wholesale some volumes in the final quarter of the year? The second question, really, there's been a few comments today about smoothing of the production volume. On that 6,000 units this year, the Q4 exit will be 2,000, maybe slightly higher. So firstly, is an 8,000 unit expectation reasonable for next year, more smooth across the year? And Adrian, if you could give any thoughts on how you think that 8,000 would compare to the right size for Aston Martin as a business in the longer term as well? That's it.

Okay. Thank you, Harry. I think, first of all, Vanquis, 2 things about that. The car itself has been incredibly well received. We have the press launch starting next week actually in Southern Europe. So we have exposed the car to dealers. A few customers have seen it in private viewings, but the press has not yet had the chance to drive the car. The order cover for that is fantastic just on the specification and visuals that people have seen. And we sold out in multiple regions on Vanquis already. We will launch it this year, and we will get good volumes of Vanquis going into the markets before the year-end. Of course, it is in, for example, in America, certified only at the end of November. So we can't expect to see huge numbers flowing in there in just a few weeks of the year. But overall, Vanquis is running very well and watch this space on the media reports. I think in terms of the smoothing of production and what that means for next year, we won't comment on any volumes for the full year. But what I can say is that the quarters will be more balanced than they have been in previous years, and that will give us the opportunity to work on the cost, the logistics and the quality aspects that we struggled with this year as a result of the amount of rework that we've had to do. So I won't talk on this quarter-by-quarter plan at this stage. We'll talk about that later in the year. But at this point in time, the '24 adjustment is '24, and we have good demand for Vanquis. We're delighted with it [ watch ] this space. So I'd just like to now thank everybody for participating in the call. Thanks for the insightful questions. I hope we've given you adequate answers to them all. I think we have. We can't answer everything. But I think you'll get a good impression that we have huge potential, a clear grip on where we stand. And despite the difficulties that we felt in the past couple of months as a result of these factors, we remain hugely optimistic and positive about the outlook for the future. We now want to get on and make it happen. So thank you very much. We'll talk again in the near future.