Orsero S.p.A. ($ORS)

Good morning. This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Orsero Full Year 2025 Results web call. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Paolo Prudenziati, Chairman of Orsero. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, everybody. before I pass the word to Raffaella Orsero, I just want to say one thing about the fact that the numbers are speaking for themselves about the result of the company, so there is not much to say. But just one point, which is the fact that overall, the company is doing fine, not only in the total result, but each single geography, each single product line, each single legal entity is making money. And this is proving, if necessary, again, the beauty of our business model. Also, the shipping is doing fine. So we are quite confident about the future. Now I'll pass the word to Raffaella.

Thank you, Paolo. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Fiscal 2025 was a strong year for the group, reflecting the resilience of our business model and dedication and the execution of our team. Revenues increased by 8.2%, mainly driven by the solid performance of our distribution business with growth supported by both higher volume and pricing. This growth was also supported by the ongoing development of our higher-margin categories such as Kiwis, exotic fruits, citrus fruits and fresh-cut products. These categories are a key pillar of our portfolio and the key driver for the future growth, together with our strong presence across all distribution channels. Margins also improved supported by positive contribution from both business units. Adjusted EBITDA grew by 3.8%, while adjusted net profit increased by 4.7%. In addition, we delivered strong operating cash flow generation supporting our solid financial position. Alongside this strong cash generation, we continue to invest across all our countries, upgrading warehouses announcing our ERP system completing the dry docking cycle with Cala Pedra and Cala Palma. Based on these results, we are proposing to the shareholders meeting, a dividend of EUR 0.61 per share to be paid EUR 0.50 in cash -- EUR 0.50 in cash and EUR 0.11 through the allocation of treasury shares. Turning to our outlook for 2026. As you know, in recent days, the global environment has become increasingly volatile. And it remains very difficult at this stage to assess how the situation may evolve and what economic impact it may have. Despite this backdrop, we approached 2026 with confidence and expect to consolidate the strong result achieved in 2025. At the same time, we believe the group is well positioned to move into the next phase of growth, supported by further organic expansion and targeted acquisitions that aim to enter new markets. With that, I will now hand over to Matteo.

Thank you, Raffaella. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining the call. I will go through the document provided yesterday evening to the market. I will start with the guidance 2025. So it's a very good news for us that we achieved all our targets. Sales, we exceeded the guidance on the sales on the EBITDA, on the net profit. We were in line with the CapEx, and we are in line in the range with the net financial position, excluding the IFRS 16 effect. . Regarding the net financial position, including the IFRS 16 effect, we are slightly over the range, but this is -- this has a clear explanation because as you all know, we -- our shipping unit is running with 5 vessels, 4 of them are owned and 1 of them is chartered. Normally, we charter the fifth vessels for a 2-year cycle. This time, we decided having a good opportunity to cover our need on a longer period, we decided to charter the vessel on a 3-year cycle now. So that's why the net financial position reported, including the IFRS 16 principle, slightly higher compared with our expectations. So it's an accounting impact. It's not a cash one. Going on the, let's say, main drivers of the group improvement in 2025, but we start summing up some corporate issues. So the CapEx investment continues to strengthen the group distribution footprint through upgrades to buildings and equipment across warehouses in Italy, France and Spain. As Raffaella said, we completed the dry docking cycle and the upgrades for the 2 vessels, Cala Palma and Cala Pedra. And actually, we had a slightly higher investment compared with what we expected, but this is needed to maintain our vessels in the state of art situation. Interest rate situation, the hedging strategy put in place by the group allows for a substantial stability in the cost of debt. Almost 100% of gross debt with about 3 years duration is at 3.25% tax rate and around 72% is resulting in fixed rate. In this time of uncertainties, as a policy, we prefer to take a low-risk attitude vis-a-vis the inputs that can impact our business without the possibility for us to be controlled. So we decided to take this kind of a prudent approach. The dividend that we paid in May 2025 was EUR 0.50 per share all cash and has been paid by our [indiscernible] shareholders with a total outlay of about EUR 8.4 million. This year, we decided to increase our dividend to the shareholder, adding on those EUR 0.50 cash that we paid out last year, EUR 0.11 paid in shares. We always try to maintain a balanced attitude on the cash reserves of the group because we are working on many different growth opportunities. So we want to save our cash and our balance sheet for the growth. That's our goal. The market context in the euro area saw an inflation rate slowing down and lower compared to the previous year, but the group was able to working on the mix of the products that we sell and working on our distribution strength was able to have a higher increase, both in volumes, thanks to the consumption of the market and our proficiency in the sales and distribution and having a better, let's say, price mix compared to the inflation. This is very positive for us because we -- our business is not against inflation. We can even benefit from that. But it's not -- it's a bit a false friend. So can be impactful in the short run, but in the long run, we want to see our price let's say, tag increasing, thanks to the mix, not thanks to the inflation. The distribution business unit sales growth around 8.3%. The sales grew, thanks to the combined effect, as we said, of increasing volumes and pricing, mostly supported by high volume added categories, in particular, berries, fresh-cut fruits, kiwi fruit and citrus. The adjusted EBITDA comes in at 4.3% on the sales slightly lower compared to last year. Anyway, we consider the performance of the distribution, very, very positive. Shipping business unit, we had a strong overall performance with a record loading factor, well above 90%, even considering some issue in the last part of the year that affect -- slightly affected the loading factor and the profitability then. Adjusted EBITDA comes in with EUR 25.3 million, representing almost 22% of net sales on the shipping sales compared to 19% full year 2024. Going to bridging a bit our sales and our EBITDA. We have to highlight that our sales grew from EUR 1,571.3 million to EUR 1,700 million, and all the growth was related to the distribution segment. We grew by EUR 124.3 million. Shipping sales are more or less in line with last year, just EUR 1 million in addition. Holding and services is negligible. Going on the EBITDA side, the 2024 result was EUR 83.7 million, and 2025 is EUR 86.9 million. Distribution comes in with EUR 1.2 million, shipping with EUR 3.1 million and service and holding as a decrease of EUR 1.2 million. So as we said before, both of the business units performed better compared last year. Obviously, on the distribution, we were expecting considering the sales a slightly better result but we had some issue regarding some banana contract in 2025 that comes in with higher sales compared to 2024, but with lower margins. So that's mainly the explanation on the result on distribution. Anyway, we consider the result a very, very good one. Going on the last figures before I leave the rest of the time to the Q&A session. We spend -- a few words on the net financial position. So we are talking about the net financial position without considering the IFRS 16 effect. So full year 2024 was EUR 55.8 million. We had a cash flow -- operative cash flow of EUR 46.4 million net working capital change connected to the growth on the distribution segment that absorbed EUR 6.4 million, operating CapEx of EUR 21 million, the dividend paid in May 2025 of EUR 8.4 million and other effects related to mark-to-market variance of EUR 5.5 million negative. So the full year 2025 net financial position, cash, let's say, is EUR 49.7 million, on which we sum up EUR 66.4 million IFRS 16 effect to close at EUR 116.1 million as a reported figure. Net working capital is under control. Business is growing. So in absolute terms, the working capital is growing. But in terms of rotation and in terms of let's say, dynamic, we're keeping everything under control. Going on the operating CapEx, to sum it up, the most relevant one that we had in 2025. There's [ EUR 1.6 million ] warehouse improvement across France, Spain, Portugal and Greece. We are working hard in our warehouses to step forward in the automatization of our operations because we see there, a potential efficiency to be captured over the next year. So we are investing every year in those kind of efficiencies. EUR 0.9 million related to the finishing of the Verona warehouse enlargement that I -- just to remember to you the reason why we enlarged the Verona warehouse, was to be focused on berries. We have a dedicated area for the berries and for the exotic gamma. We are working on our ERPs in Italy, Spain and France, EUR 0.7 million, then EUR 9.4 million was related to vessels dry docking and upgrades. Just as a reminder, we completed the cycles of the dry docking. So we won't see those investments for the next 4 years again. And then EUR 6.4 million is what we call let's say, the recurring investment on the distribution platform. So we always say that between let's say, EUR 6 million and EUR 7 million for the distribution is what we need every year in order to maintain the state of the art of our distribution footprint. Nothing more to add, analyzing the main figures of 2025. So I will leave the rest of the conference call for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Andrea Bonfa of Banca Akros.

Very quickly, I got 2 questions. One is related to, again, your guidance. And if you can, let's say, go through it again -- re-reading your press release, it seems that, let's say, the slight compression in profitability, especially for '26 is related mostly to shipping. If you can re-explain us a little bit the trend, which term you build this guidance. And the second one, we might be entering into a new phase of inflation because of this geopolitical event. And going back at the, let's say, the difficult COVID period, you performed very well in an inflation scenario or let's say, in a scenario with higher inflation. So if you can maybe just give us some color on what you think -- how your industry will react? Because I mean, at the time, during the COVID period, you were very quick on reacting to price hikes and also thanks to your 50% exposure to the wholesale sector.

Andrea, thank you for your questions. So we will start from the guidance. So you're correct. The guidance 2026, let's say, is more or less in line with the first guidance that we gave for 2025. Then during the year, we upgraded when we felt like we had the chance to have better results compared to the guidance. And so normally, as you know, is very difficult for the group to have, let's say, a precise, let's say, guidance because we disclosed the guidance end of January, beginning of February. So we prefer to, let's say, to give our view to the market as soon as possible. So we don't wait March, April, like many companies do. So we give a range. And at that time, we try to forecast at best, in line with our budget, what will be the evolution of the business on the year -- so over the year. So in general terms, our distribution is very solid. We have the good gamma products. We have many geographies. We have many channels, a lot of clients, over 15,000 clients. So we're very well balanced. We decided years ago to push on the right so far categories. So we think that the distribution at this stage can grow organically. Obviously, there's always some ups and downs on bananas, as I was saying before, last year 2025, we decided to grow on banana specifically in France, but it was not a good decision. So at the end of the day, the results connected to those sales were not satisfactory, sometimes losing money, sometimes making very little money. So a lot of efforts, operates -- operating wise, a lot of efforts in the importation and at the end of the day, the final result was not the one we expected. So complication on the -- in our warehouses, in our ripening processes, complication with the client, quality issue from the supplier. So we prefer again this year to take a position -- a different position on bananas and to -- not to decide to grow again, but let's say, reducing our exposure to certain contracts, fixed price one that are more dangerous in our opinion. So on the distribution, what I can tell you is that the sales that you see in our guidance are let's say, in line or slightly over 2025, but you have to take into consideration that we see a growth on our core categories, and we will decrease our banana sales. So that's really important to understand. So it's a good mix. We consider a good mix of sales in 2026. Even avoiding the Banana exposure. On the shipping activity, the reason why we see slightly decreasing profitability is only because the last period, let's say, last 45 days of 2025 and the first 40 days -- 45 days of 2026, we saw -- we had some operative issues. We have to do some maintenance to some vessels. And so when you have issues like that, normally, you lose some cargo, you have some additional cost. So at the end of the day, we saw that the profitability of the whole year compared to the 2025 was impacted, not because of the deterioration of the freight rate market. The market is totally in line with last year, not because we lost client and we see an issue on the loading factor. But just because we already accounted, let's say, some additional costs that we think we have to consider within our expectations. So is not a strategic issue. It's not a structural issue. It's just a contingent one, but we have to take into consideration. So that's why we decided to release this guidance that anyway for us is in the range of what we reasonably can do with the actual size and dimension of the group. And obviously, as you know, when the shipping activity has a lower performance in our view than we adjust the net profit and the adjusted one is impacted a bit more compared to the distribution because the tax impact on the shipping result is very limited, thanks to the tonnage tax regime that we applied to, many years ago. So I think that on the guidance, I hope I gave you, let's say, a wider explanation compared to the freight guidance that we gave one month ago. And so now I pass to the second question on the inflation. So in general terms, as I said, our business is not normally affected by inflation because -- we -- it's not given that we can take advantage on the inflation, but surely, we can try to be neutral vis-a-vis the inflation that's because we are very flexible and capable to pass through the inflation to the end consumer -- customer. So that's what we tried to do in general terms. In this very situation, this crisis is slightly different compared to the COVID obviously, and it's even different compared to the Russian, let's say, conflict. So it's a new situation. We -- it's very -- as Raffaella said, it's very difficult now to understand which are the -- which could be the impact on our business or on the sector as a whole. But we are not looking at revising or suspending the guidance. We are confident we can achieve our results. So we think that our business model integrated with the shipping with a range of products that allow us to sustain, let's say, certain turbulence on the market is solid enough to stand still on this situation. Obviously, today, nobody knows how long it will -- the conflict in the Middle East will continue. And so what we can do is try and to be focused, balanced, very flexible and to be focused on our goals.

The next question comes from Gabriele Berti of Intesa Sanpaolo.

Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the presentation. Just a follow-up on Andrea's question on implication from the current geopolitical situation from my side. I mean in addition to a potential inflationary environment, maybe there could be also potential impact on U.S. dollar that could be stronger versus the previous assumption that you have. And I don't know maybe also possibly impact also in freight rates. So I was wondering if you can help us to understand what could be a downside and what could be an upside?

It's a very good question because it was discussed yesterday during the Board and in the Risk Committee in the morning. And so it's a relevant issue. But here, we have good news because we used to have policies on, let's say, hedging our external input and we do that every year no matter if it's -- we never try to speculate or to take an aggressive attitude on those external factors because we know that we cannot control them. So what happened is that on the U.S. dollar, we are totally covered on the exposure on the fixed price contract for bananas, so we had 0 exposure on those kind of situation where we buy, let's say, fixed price in dollar, and then we have already defined with the retailers, a fixed price in Europe for the banana. So here, we -- normally, we buy exactly what we need to cover the volume, the forecasted volume that we defined when we will, let's say, the tenders with the retailers. So on the U.S. dollar, the position is very clean. On the oil, normally, we cover almost 100% of what we call the captive usage of our vessels. So more or less our vessels are used captive for 50% of the capacity. In reality, it's slightly lower because we have to take into consideration that the dry cargo is a client as well. But anyway, we consider only the fruit and so we say 50%. And on this 50%, we were covered with a 75% relative coverage. So just 25% of our captive usage was exposed to the market. So now we made another, let's say, hedging on the second part of the year. So we're going to be our exposure will be very limited in this situation in the next 2, 3 months. Impact is not going to be very high because, as I said, we are working as well on the dry cargo increasing our freight rates on a spot base on a weekly basis. So we're covered there as well. And on the third-party clients, we have the bunker adjustment formula on a weekly basis. So summary-ing up, on the exchange rate, we are okay. On the bunker oil, we are very comfortable. And as well on the energy price, we covered 100% of 2026 needs in every country, just Spain has like 20% to be covered. But as a whole, the impact will be very, very, very limited. So I think that we did a good job applying our policies as we do every year and this kind of attitude is paying off.

[Operator Instructions] Gentlemen, Ms. Orsero, there are no more questions registered at this time.

So thank you, everybody, for joining the call again. And we talk soon for the first quarter results in May. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your devices.