Exail Technologies (EXA.PA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for attending this presentation of the half year 2025 results. I am Raphael Gorge, CEO of Exail Technologies.

And I am Loic Le Berre, the CFO.

We'll start with the key takeaways of H1. H1, which was very strong, very strong on the commercial side with new mine-hunting programs. The turnover has grown very significantly, especially on the Q2, where we achieved more than 50% of growth compared to last year. EBITDA is growing even faster than the turnover. And we think that the new trends in the market are opening new opportunities for a very large market in maritime robotics. Key figures of this semester, EUR 220 million turnover, plus 35%, EUR 44 million current EBITDA, plus 45% and a very significant order intake of more than EUR 600 million. Loic will come back on those numbers later. And also a quick look -- if we look back, you can see the very strong historical growth of the order intake, which has been accelerating in 2024 and still growing in 2025 with already in H1 more order intake than on the full year 2024. If we look on the main highlight of the H1, the order intake were driven by Navigation and Robotics segment, more than EUR 550 million of order, which was a very strong growth compared to last year. Numerous orders for Maritime robotic systems and also navigation continues to be boosted by land defense and other civil applications. On the segment, Advanced Technology, the growth was strong also, especially on optical applications and high-end laser sources for space applications and telecommunication. If we focus on our flagship program, mine hunting, H1 was strong with a new flagship program for an undisclosed customer for several hundred million. This is about a full drone system with surface and underwater vehicles. This program is quite significant comparable to the one we signed with Belgium and Netherlands a few years ago. This program started in July 2025 and should be executed within the next 4 years. Alongside this big order, 2 other wins, one for MIDS, meaning identification and disposal system drone for an Asian-Pacific Navy and also a new contract with Indonesia, renewable with surface and underwater drones. And what is interesting to notice is that over the last 6 years, our winning rate is roughly 95% among all the tenders, which were notified in the world since 6 years. A few focuses on significant orders or programs we won on the navigation side. On the left -- upper left, this is historically the very strong area for Exail in defense applications and also underwater drones, respectively, EUR 4 million and EUR 5 million. But what is new in the recent times is significant order for land defense. Here, you have a EUR 3 million order for our radar platform. Historically, also, we were strong in maritime shipping, and we are developing in this field also for other civil applications in the energy and offshore wind farm operations in the acoustic positioning field. The new INS, which is a new inertial navigation system that we launched a few semesters ago, is gaining momentum for space applications. And here is an example with a EUR 2 million order for a European player. And on the right, we are especially proud of those 2 recent wins, which are for aerial drones, tactical aerial drones, one for Spain, another for an undisclosed European force. But those 2 ones were very strong in the field of aerial drones, which is gaining momentum also not only in naval environment, but also in the aerial environment. I invite you to the full video, but we can cast an extract of our new facility in Austin which is the biggest of the group, so 30 seconds and I invite you to look at the full video with the link which is enclosed. [Presentation]

Thank you. So I strongly recommend that you look at the full year, which is quite interesting, a good view on what is moving fast in Austin. And I leave the floor to Loic for financial presentation.

Thank you, Raphael. And before looking at the group P&L, let's have a look on the 2 divisions separately. First, for Navigation and Maritime Robotics division. As already published at the end of July, revenue is up sharply at EUR 171 million, plus 37%. We are benefiting from a favorable base effect. Anyway, activity this half year was driven by the acceleration of deliveries of navigation and the increased contribution from major maritime contracts. EBITDA growth is even stronger, plus 54% at EUR 37 million, and the EBITDA margin now stands at 22%. This performance is the result of economies of scale, particularly in Maritime Robotics. In the Advanced Technology division, results for the period is also very strong, plus 27% of revenues at EUR 56 million. The EBITDA margin has slightly declined, but remains at 14% and this change in the EBITDA margin is temporary. It is related to the mix of products during the first half of the year, and it is also due to disruptions caused by the relocation of part of our Photonics activity to a larger site. This relocation was necessary due to growth of the activity. To these 2 divisions, we must add corporate costs and internal eliminations to arrive at the group P&L. The group reports plus 35% of revenues and plus 45% of current EBITDA. The group EBITDA margin has increased by 1 point to 20% compared to last year. After accounting of EUR 50 million of depreciation and amortization, operating income is plus 68% at EUR 29 million compared to EUR 17 million in H1 2024. Other items of the operating income mainly concern the amortization of intangible assets recognized under PPA and the operating profit is at a level of EUR 14 million compared to EUR 4 million in H1 2024. The financial expenses are stable at EUR 12 million. They include EUR 7 million of capitalized interest with no cash impact and is related to the ICG bonds. And finally, net income is plus EUR 3 million compared to minus EUR 5 million last year. Cash generation for the period is also very satisfactory. Operating cash flow is up by 48% to EUR 40 million, and CapEx is slightly lower than in 2024 at EUR 14 million. It is important to recall that traditionally, working capital requirements are unfavorable in H1 due to seasonality. However, working capital only increased by EUR 14 million despite seasonality and strong business growth, demonstrating a good operational control. As a result of this, net debt, excluding ICG bonds stands at EUR 155 million, stable compared to EUR 153 million at the end of 2024, but it improved of EUR 34 million over 12 months. At the end of June, cash available amounts to EUR 31 million and the revolving credit facility, EUR 50 million is not -- is totally unused. This net debt doesn't include the treasury shares that are held by Exail Technologies. And due to the rise of the share price, the value of the shares have increased to EUR 44 million, not included in the net debt. And Raphael will now continue the presentation by discussing the group's outlook.

Thank you, Loic. About the outlook, I will start with one focus on navigation and more specifically, our UMIX system, which is the most compact and high-performance navigation system in the world. This has been developed over the past years. And we see a growing field of application going from land vehicles to UAV or UGV, but also helicopter, industrial vehicle, pipe inspection, ROV, even train or tunneling. This is very interesting to see that starting from the application where we were leading the market, we widened the application with the same system, the same architecture and slightly different adaptation, which enables us to widen our market share on new applications. Potentially, we see a higher volume in the future. If we also focus on what will be the outlook for our mine hunting application, which is the most well-known or the most advanced application of our drone system. You see here in the picture the different types of products or systems that we integrate in our drone system in the UMIX modular drone system. You have the inspector surface drone integrating also different types of underwater vehicles, A-18, T-18, A-9, the K-STER, which is the disposal system, the Seascan and also different type of equipment, inertial navigation systems, forward-looking sonar deep sea sonar and positioning system. The combination of all those equipment and products that we develop and manufacture internally is the technical leverage that we have over competition because we control all these value chains and it enables us to deliver the best performing system. In this field, we've signed more than EUR 1 billion in orders since 2019 with 7 different clients. And we think that those clients can generate an additional EUR 500 million to EUR 1 billion additional orders, which can be maintenance and upgrades, complementary capacity and additional functions and services. So orders coming from existing clients will be very significant. But we have also potential new tenders in the coming years, probably at least with 10 navies and more navies, which are considering a replacement of their existing system. But mine hunting is not the only application of drone. And we see the number of applications widening, and you have here 3 examples, seabed warfare, which mean strategic surveillance of deep sea strategic infrastructure. We had a nice order from France last year. ISR mission, which is inspection, surveillance and reconnaissance with the DriX, and we had a very nice success in June -- sorry, June or July this year. It was the first sale. And also maritime domain awareness. We have military survey application for a major world Navy. And we just launched a few weeks ago, the new model of the 9-meter DriX drone, which enable a longer endurance, meaning 20 days at sea. If we focus on the DriX, which is a quite unique system. This system is unique first because it's in operation now over 8 years, which it has been sold to 19 countries in the world with 100,000 hours at sea accumulated. We have flagship clients all around the world. This system is highly differentiating. We don't see any significant competition in this field, long endurance and capacity to integrate different type of sensor with a very long capacity to stay at sea. And the offer is widening with different type of DriX. The DriX family is widening. You have on the left, the DriX H8, the first one. And on the right, the DriX O-16, which is a much bigger one, 16 meters long with capacity to cross oceans. And as we speak, I mean, the moment as we speak today on -- we are yes, 15th of September 2025. The DriX Ocean is navigating by itself in an autonomous way, supervised from the South of France. It started a few days ago at [indiscernible] the South of France and is now joining the city of Lisboa in Portugal after crossed with success the Gibraltar strait, sorry. So it was quite unique because in Portugal will happen REPMUS, which is an exercise from NATO for the evaluation of different capacities of drones underwater and aerial drones and DriX will be part of this exercise, and we thought that it would be quite unique to send it by itself over roughly 2,000 kilometers in 6 days to join this exercise. And to conclude for the perspective, the potential outlook for the coming quarters and years. The growth will come from different channels. First, new customer for initial capacity. Many countries will renew their capacity, switching from old generation to new generation, which use drones and systems of drone. As I mentioned, we think also that the existing clients and program will generate additional order, which can be quite significant. We are in the range of a few tens and potentially hundreds of additional orders. We think that some process which has been stopped or postponed could restart in the coming, let's say, semester or years, but we start to have a good visibility on this. And also, as I mentioned, new application for surface drone for defense application, which are gaining momentum due to the strong push that we see in the defense field. When we combine all those perspectives, we are quite confident to confirm the objective for 2025, which are double-digit growth for the revenue, EBITDA, current EBITDA that should increase faster than revenue. And it's already the case, order intake will be definitely very dynamic over 2025. Thank you. And Loic and myself are ready to answer the questions you may have.

[Operator Instructions] We will take our first question from Alexander Peterc, Bernstein.

I just have a couple. So the first one is if you could quantify for us the terrestrial navigation opportunity a few years out. Is there a case for your navigation business to accelerate in terms of growth as you gain traction in GPS environments for drones and terrestrial warfare? The second one is, could you tell us how many large-sized mine hunting orders you have in the pipeline or you're working on at the moment over the next 24 months and they come to fruition? And the last one, I think you touched upon this in the presentation, but maybe you could tell us more precisely if you have a sense of when the Australian opportunity could return.

Okay. Thank you for this question. So on the navigation side, we are facing for now a few years, a strong and continuous growth. And this growth is the combination of existing markets, as we mentioned, naval defense, offshore application, drones, underwater drones. And we discovered recently that there is also a need for new applications, typically aerial drones, which is a new one for us. So yes, we expect an acceleration in this field. It's hard to say what could be the magnitude, but we think that the trend is very strong, and we are also looking at the capacity -- production capacity, which are increased on a regular basis. But yes, the trend on navigation side is strong. Regarding the potential big order in the next 24 months, we don't release precise indication. We can talk about not necessarily 25 months, but the countries we are discussing with, typically, it can be France. It can be countries from Southeast. It can be Romania, Croatia, Latvia -- Lithuania. Lithuania. No, Lithuania. Okay. Let's say, in French, it's Lituanie. U.K. is also on the road. So -- and I will make the connection with your last question. We think that Australia could come back because the need they have for mine hunting capacity has not disappeared and even increased because they are lacking of capacity for the -- since 2 years now. And you probably saw recently that they are investing strongly in the field of underwater drones, which is a strong trend for Australia. So we are quite confident that, one, Australia will come back; and two, that we should be able to play a significant role in this coming competition. We expect even if planning is not on our side, but on the client side, that it could come back on the field for negotiation in maybe a few years. Sorry, I'm not able to be more precise.

We will take our next question from Aurelien Sivignon, ODDO BHF.

I have 4. First one on profitability in the Navigation and Maritime Robotics division. If we assume a higher top line in H2 also with the ramp-up of the deliveries with the Belgian Navy, is it fair to assume a stronger leverage on margin in this division, so in H2 versus H1? And actually, same question for the other division, Advanced Technology. I believe Loic, you mentioned during the call some favorable seasonality in H1. So can we expect margin to ramp up in this division in H2 versus H1? Third one related to the large contract you announced in February this year with the Middle East Navy, I believe. Could you update us on the current status and maybe provide more visibility on the delivery schedule? And perhaps a last one on the pipe for Magnetic Systems. So obviously, you expect H2 to be dynamic as well. But can you say if the short-term pipeline you are referring to is more related to small midsized contracts or 2 large ones?

I can take those questions.

I can take the second one?

Yes. Okay. So about profitability over the H2 on Navigation and Robotics. You're right. When we look back historically, the second semester is stronger than the H1. The reason we are not disclosing more than that is that we can always face some delays or switch from the delivery of big programs because, as you know, we are in the delivery phase for the Belgium program. So depending on a milestone which is achieved on, let's say, November or January, that can drive to a significant impact in the turnover and in the margin. So on navigation side, yes, H2 should be strong. On Robotic system, it should be also -- this is what we think, but we have to be cautious as we were on the previous year, and we will make our best effort that everything goes well, like it was the case in the years before.

And as far as Advanced Technologies are concerned, the EBITDA margin slightly decreased in H1 this year. It was due to the mix of products, but it is something very temporary. And second, it is due to the relocation of photonics activity, which were on 2 different sites near Bordeaux and which were relocated to one larger site. It will be a good move for this activity to improve the synergies and the deliveries of the activity. So this relocation is finished and H2 should not be disrupted because of this.

Your third question was related to the undisclosed program we won in February. This program has started in July. So it will start to deliver turnover. But the beginning of the program, like it is always the case, will be more studies than production and delivery. So we expect to ramp-up switching to a production phase, I would say, not before the end of next year, even if it will generate turnover and cash in the coming month and quarter. And about the potential short-term contract, it's always hard to predict. Negotiations are ongoing. But as you know, over the last year, we were always reluctant to disclose about ongoing negotiation because in the field of defense, when you are negotiating with the government, time and planning can be sometimes unpredictable. So I won't take the risk to give you a precise schedule because even we -- as we don't really know the field. But yes, we are working on nice opportunities. And at least, we hope that we can disclose also some progress even if it's not signed contract, but we could also disclose progress on ongoing negotiation. So overall, we think that, yes, the outlook on those new program or existing program is promising in the, yes, coming quarters.

We will take our next question from Geoffrey d'Halluin, BNP Paribas.

I will ask two questions, please. The first one is related to cash generation. I guess you said in the -- at the full year numbers, you would have in the first half of the year the down payment coming from the big flagship contracts you signed in Q1. So just wanted to make it clear if it's included in the working capital you reported in the first half of the year. And my second question is related to your 25% EBITDA margin guidance. I think you said, again, back at the full year results, it might happen about 18 months after the start of the new flagship contracts. Is it still something you have in mind?

For the first question, yes, we received the down payment at the beginning of Q2 this year for the new large order.

And regarding the 25% EBITDA margin target, yes, we think that once this new flagship contract will be on production and delivery phase, it could help us to reach this level of margin, which we already have reached in -- on the navigation side. And we hope that we should improve the overall margin of the group with this additional program in delivery phase.

We will take our next question from Jeremy Sallee, BNP Paribas.

I have 2 questions. The first one is regarding the acceleration of deleveraging. Do you expect an acceleration in H2? And what will be the levers for the deleveraging? And then my question is regarding the potential of the Australian contract. Do you consider Anduril as a serious competitors in the mine hunting field or not?

Deleveraging on H2 will strongly depend on the cash we got from -- we have from the -- we received -- sorry, from the Belgium contract. So yes, we are supposed to receive significant amount of cash related to the delivery and acceptance of the client. So taking that into consideration, yes, we consider that deleveraging should continue in H2. And about Anduril, the contract they announced in Australia, which was already in announced a few months or quarter ago is definitely not in the same field of mine hunting. So first, Anduril so far is not at all a competitor and hasn't any solution for mine hunting and systems of drone for mine hunting. So we are looking very carefully those new players. And Exail Technology is definitely one of those new players targeting new technologies of drones for defense application. So the field is moving. And I think it has probably a positive impact on the way Exail technology is considered. It is true that we are offering to our customers different product, very different from the previous and I would say, old-fashioned ways of addressing defense capacity, selling more small drones with inspection surveillance capacity, which are less expensive than big vessel. So yes, we think the trends in drone in the naval field is very strong. But no, so far, we don't consider Anduril as a competitor.

There are no further questions on the audio line. I will pass the floor back to the host for web questions.

I see that we have one question for Julien Thomas, but I think we more or less already dealt with that.

Yes, we already answered this question. It was a question regarding the margin of Advanced Technologies in H1 compared to H2. So I already answered.

Okay. So if there is no more question, our next release is for turnover of Q3 in mid-October, I would say, 15 -- 22nd of October for turnover of Q3. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Bye.