Cavendish Hydrogen ASA ($CAVEN)

Okay. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Cavendish Hydrogen's First Quarter Presentation. My name is Robert Borin and I am the CEO of Cavendish Hydrogen. And with me today, I have our CFO, Marcus Halland. The presentation will last for roughly 20 minutes, and there will be a live Q&A session after the presentation. So most of you know us pretty well by now. But for those of you who are new to our company, I will start with a short introduction before we move on to the first quarter business update. So in Cavendish Hydrogen, we are in the business of ending emissions from mobility. And we do this through reliable hydrogen fueling solutions across the world. So yes, why is it that we are focusing on hydrogen mobility and not on other solutions like electricity or biofuel? Well, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have strong advantages over conventional fossil combustion engine vehicles, like, for instance, no emissions, which we consider to be a hygiene factor in the modern mobility business of today. But on top of that, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles also have advantages over battery electric vehicles, like, for instance, the longer driving range, where a long-range heavy-duty truck need to have a range of above 800 kilometers in 1 charge or refill, which hydrogen vehicles can do today. A refill that should not take more than 15 minutes. And finally, the grid connection needed to install a hydrogen fueling station for heavy-duty mobility is significantly smaller than the grid connection needed for a heavy-duty electrical charger, which is able to charge a truck in a comparable time line. And with the increased electrification of our society, the limitations of the grid is becoming a growing problem to the extent where it's already a showstopper on many European markets where you need to wait many years to even get smaller grid connections today. So in Cavendish Hydrogen, we offer the complete scope of equipment required for installation of a fueling station. If we start out on the left side here, we have the connection panel where the hydrogen comes into the station from the source. And the source can be basically anything. It can be a pipeline, it can be an electrolyzer. It can be a trailer that is being parked on the location, et cetera. And then we have the hydrogen storage, if you move over to the right there. And the size of the hydrogen storage, the on-site storage is depending on what type of source you have. If you have a pipeline as a source, for instance, you need a significantly smaller storage. And if you have an electrolyzer, for instance, you have a larger storage because then you typically produce hydrogen where electricity is cheap and then you fuel during the day. Then we move over to the fueling station, which is sort of the main act, the main event, which we are most proud of here in Cavendish Hydrogen. This is where we do the cooling and the compression of the hydrogen and also putting over to the dispenser, which is what the consumer sees when utilizing the stations. We are also providing services ranging all the way from design and manufacturing to maintenance and operational services. And on that note, I will now take you through the latest business updates during Q1. So in the first quarter, we won the OVAG bus station contract in Germany, which is the largest award here in Cavendish since we listed in 2024. This is the third bus station project that we are building in Germany. And with this contract, we reinforce our leading position as a bus station supplier in Germany. This is important since Germany is believed to have a large growth potential in relation to the bus market supported by the RED, the Renewable Energy Directive III funding program. In the quarter, we also successfully handed over the Carson station to Chevron in California. The Carson station is our largest and most complex installation in the United States to date with the possibilities to fill both cars and eventually also trucks. Moving over to subsequent events. And this time, we have quite some big ones. We are very happy to have announced a strategic partnership with Cornerstone Investor from Austrian company, BHDT. And I will talk more about this a little bit later. On top of the Cornerstone Investment, we also announced an order with our French EPC partner for installation in Luxembourg. And this contract represents a new market for Cavendish and supports our continued expansion across the European continent. It is also a testament to our strong collaboration with our French EPC partner, MPH. And moving on to a few words around the market sentiment and how we look at the market. And on one side, we see -- well, we continue to see headwinds characterized by longer customer decision cycles and policies and financial frameworks that are moving slower and at a pace that sort of clouds the near-term visibility. And this, in the end, leads to a bit of a volatile project time lines and delayed FIDs. However, there are also positive signals like Germany introducing short-term funding programs and simplifying administration structure to increase bankability of projects. Basically, project developers can now apply for a full package funding instead of individual funding for separate parts of the program. The SWiM funding program in the Netherlands, which is to be awarded in the second quarter here, is now expected to be an annual award program, which is really good, really cool because that is improving the long-term prospects for the market. We also see selected key projects in key markets, for instance, in Poland, approaching FID. And finally, I would say that the total geopolitical situation that we are in right now is pushing towards hydrogen as a mean of independence from non-European energy sources. Moving on to the OVAG project specifically. So the OVAG project represents the latest contract secured or the largest contract and the latest also secured since Cavendish listed in 2024. This is the bus station -- this is the third bus station contract in Germany, and it's based on a proven concept and an important strategic market for Cavendish. This project demonstrates Cavendish's ability to win and execute at scale and according to a winning concept that we have tried now 2 times before. So the OVAG project will have -- also have a strong reference value for future German and European bus projects. And finally, the OVAG project is part of a growing track record where Cavendish has won projects in Poland, Italy, Germany and now recently also in Luxembourg. So 2 weeks ago, we announced a Cornerstone Investment and strategic partnership with the Austrian company, BHDT. The EUR 4.8 million investment, which corresponds to a 15% ownership post transaction is not only providing Cavendish with additional financial security, but is also giving Cavendish a stable industrial investor with the intention to boost development and commercial efforts over time. On top of the investment agreement, 2 strategic collaboration agreements have been signed, focusing on both joint technology development and on future commercial collaboration. Moving on to our operations. And if we are looking more into the details of the defense hydrogen volumes for this quarter. We continue to see a trend that the latest installations are contributing with the largest numbers where some stations are [ defending ] at full capacity more or less. This reemphasizes the trend that newly built stations are no longer demo stations, but commercially bus stations installed to fill real volumes of hydrogen to real fleets of vehicles. Again, a very positive trend, indicating that hydrogen mobility is now finally starting to move into the commercial rather than the demonstration side of things. So in the fourth -- sorry, in the first quarter and in North America, we completed the Carson project together with Chevron. This was our third successful project with Chevron. And I am coming back to this a little bit later as well. In Europe, we are in the installation phase of 2 stations in Italy, scheduled to be completed before the end of the second quarter. We have 1 station, which is progressing well in Poland and the German bus project, OVAG, is now in the permitting phase. Finally, we -- as previously announced, we just won a project in Luxembourg, and that is now in the planning phase. And coming back to a little bit more details around the Carson project in California. We have now successfully completed and handed over our third station to Chevron, which is increasing our fleet of stations in California. This is our largest installation in California and the first station to feature 3 station modules and 3 dispensers on the same location. This is also our most advanced installation in the region to date, where the station eventually will be equipped with the so-called Category D fueling protocol to enable heavy-duty vehicles to fill at the station, so larger trucks as well alongside with cars. And with that, I would like to hand over to our CFO, for a quick walk-through of the financials. So Marcus, please go ahead.

Thank you, Robert. I will take you through the financial highlights for the first quarter. The revenues ended at EUR 2.8 million. That is a reduction year-over-year, but an increase of 47% from the previous quarter. The revenues have improved from the fourth quarter due to more equipment deliveries. Specifically this period, we delivered equipment to the upgrade project of an existing station in Poland. There is a moderate activity of ongoing installation and commissioning project this quarter with progress on the station upgrade project in Poland and the finalization of the Carson station in the U.S. The revenue from our service business had a very good quarter, and that is also contributing to the increase in revenues from previous period. The EBITDA ended at a negative EUR 4 million. That is at the same level as the previous quarter despite the higher revenues. This is due to somewhat lower gross margins on projects and also higher payroll costs from terminating close to 20 employees during the period. Regarding the general indirect cost level, we are seeing the effects from being a smaller and more focused organization, targeting the most attractive market, Europe. This has given us a more competitive cost base that we are continuously working on improving. If we look a bit ahead, the upcoming quarter, it is expected that the revenue will increase somewhat as we are preparing to deliver equipment for 2 stations in Italy. With the timing of the remaining order backlog, it is expected that revenue levels are somewhat lower in the second half of 2026 compared to the first half. Focusing in at the order intake and backlog development, it has been a very good start to the year for Cavendish. The contract award of the German bus project with OVAG leads to an increased order backlog of 36% from the previous period. We have also started the second quarter with another contract win for a station in Luxembourg. And although the contract value here is somewhat smaller, it underlines the good trend of contract wins for new stations in every quarter since the third quarter in 2025. At the end of the first quarter, Cavendish had a cash balance of more than EUR 16.5 million. The cash usage in the first quarter is slightly higher than the last period, but on a lower level compared to earlier quarters. Cash usage is expected to be lower for the remainder of this year as we get the full effect of earlier cost reductions. And in addition, the execution of the order backlog will have a positive effect on the net working capital levels, also reducing cash usage. The investment from BHDT into Cavendish will give an additional EUR 4.8 million in fresh capital that will improve the cash balance by the end of the second quarter. As already mentioned by Robert, it is very positive for Cavendish to land a financially strong long-term industrial investor that share our excitement for hydrogen e-mobility and the share belief that hydrogen will play an important part in the green transition of the mobility sector.

Great. Thank you very much, Marcus, for summarizing the financials. Now I will try to summarize the quarter before we move over to the question part. So in the first quarter 2026, we were executing in a somewhat slow market. We received the OVAG bus project, the largest contract in the recent period, but also building on a positive trend in order intake. And if we're looking at our order backlog, it was visibly improved in the first quarter in 2026. Our view of the outlook is cautiously positive in core European markets. We see funding programs advancing in Germany and in the Netherlands, but still market uncertainty gives limited near-term visibility. We believe that Cavendish is well positioned now with BHDT on board as a long-term investor partner, our financial position has been strengthened, and we are now also operating with a significantly leaner cost base. So that concludes the first quarter presentation, and thanks, everyone, for participating and listening in. We are now also looking forward to seeing you all at the Annual General Assembly -- Annual General Meeting in a few days, which is on the 26th of May 2026.

And with that, we will go over to the Q&A session. But before we start, I would just like to repeat some of the practicalities. Please raise your hand. Remember to unmute on your side when you are given the word. Please also tell us who you are and who you represent after you have unmuted. So then please go ahead if there are any questions. So far, I can see no questions. No one is raising their hands. Let's give it a couple of seconds more or half a minute or so before we end the presentation to make sure that everyone has the ability to come up with a question. So I think we have one question from Lars August Christensen. Please, unmute on your side.

I was just wondering how much revenue do you need to go breakeven on an EBITDA level? And also, when do you expect to be breakeven on an EBITDA level as an overall group in which year?

Thanks for the question, Lars August. We don't do specific guidance on that. But on a general term, we can say that if we are on a level of approximately EUR 30 million to EUR 35 million, we expect that we can breakeven. And of course, the timing of that is difficult to state with the current uncertainties in the market.

Does that answer your question?

Yes, it did.

Thank you very much for that. Any other questions? Okay. Great. Then I thank you all for listening in this morning. And again, as I said, we look forward to see you at the Annual General Meeting in a few days from now. And again, thank you very much, and have a great day.