The Platform Group SE & Co. KGaA ($TPG0)

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to today's earnings call of the The Platform Group following the publication of the unaudited first quarter results of 2026. So therefore, we are delighted to welcome the Management Board, who will guide us through the presentation followed by a Q&A session, where we will be happy to answer your questions. And with this, Dr. Benner, I hand over to you.

Thank you very much for the introduction, and warm welcome from my side and also from Nathalie Richert. We would like to present to you our Q1 figures for this year and give you some more insights about the development of our company. So first of all, we would like to give you a short introduction to our group for those who do not know us, -- so here, you can find our C-level management and our Supervisory Board. And we, in total, run this company with more than 1,500 employees. The history of our company is very unique, I would say. So it was founded in 1882 as a classical brick-and-mortar store for shoes. And in 2012, I took over the family business and changed it towards e-commerce and running e-commerce platforms. And until today, we increased this footprint. So we have a lot of e-commerce platforms already. And our goal is that we want to achieve a good and solid growth also in the next years, expand also geographically and also implement AI in a much more relevant way than we did it before. On a total overview, we have in total 17,000 partners. Partners means retailers and manufacturers connected to our platforms, and we have more than 8 million customers which are buying all our products on several platforms in 26 different industries. How we do that? It is important to understand that we have a central operational holding. And the central holding has more than 130 employees, and they make all the background procedures in our subsidiaries. So when we buy a company, for example, we try to change the software system to our system. We make a centralized marketing approach. And we also take care that we implement other department and services like business intelligence, like our AI hub or like finance, HR and legal stuff. The backbone of our company is actually a software system, which is proprietary and developed over the last 10 years. And this is a backbone on how we run our different platforms, how we manage our e-commerce activities and how we make sure that we can expand our e-commerce and our platform strategy to new industries because currently, we cover 26 different industries, and we strongly believe that we want to increase this number and can use our software also in other industries, which fit to our strategy. Nathalie, you are...

Thanks, Dominik. Our goal is to become the leading platform group in Europe. We are now active in 5 segments in more than 26 industries. We sell our products and goods directly to customers in both B2B and B2C. We started the Optics and Hearing segment last year. That's a new segment. And -- when we want to give you an update, that's on Slide 10. It's always important to know that we enter new industries always that we buy platforms that you see on the right side that are the platforms we enter last year. And on the other side, it's important for us to strengthen our segments where we require companies that deepen our expertise at supply or expand segment and industry know-how. We have the closing from 43einhalb [indiscernible] done in May 2026. We buy them in end of the December. And that's important to know every acquired company brings new products, partners and new customers to TPG.

Thank you for that. And let's have a closer look on some of the acquisitions. So regarding AEP, we will provide you with an update. So the process is still ongoing. We have several CPs managed in the SPA through the purchase contract and for the closing conditions. And right now, we are working on these CPs, so as well as the buyer side and the seller side, and we expect an update here by June. And additionally, we also plan a mixture of debt and cash investment here. So from our side, we are happy to go forward in this process and also give you an update by June. And so far, there's no further development, which we can communicate here. And the other thing is the platform We Connect Work. We acquired it last year. Therefore, we launched a new platform additionally to the existing business of We Connect Work, and it was a very important development for us. So we initiated this B2B platform. It's not for private people. It's only B2B platform for craftsmen and craft businesses, and we have more than 100,000 products there. None of these products are in our inventory, so they are completely from partners and the focus is sanitary, heating, electronics and construction. Let's go further with the luxury portfolio.

Yes. We have here as an example, our luxury portfolio. You see here five platforms. We have, for example, FASHIONETTE, where we sell [indiscernible] LOFT bags, for example. On the other side, we have CHRONEXT watches or we could sell the luxury bags on the platform, Joli Closet, which we acquired last year. The most important point and that it could you see in all the studies is the verification process, and we offer this process at our different platforms. And as you can see on the right side, the secondhand luxury market is growing 3x faster than the firsthand market. And when we go to the next slide, it's always important to know that we scale our ecosystem through partner expansion, both organically and via acquisitions. Since 3 years, we have increased the number of partners from 5,000 to expected 80,000 more in 2026. Our growth model is highly scalable because new partners can onboarded quickly through our software solutions, TPG ONE. Today, as we showed, we operate more than 35 platforms, allowing local retailers to digitalize their businesses. I think this demonstrates that the ecosystem becomes stronger with scale. Once partners are integrated, they generate additional growth within the platform network. And in 2024, around half of the partner growth, you see that in the slides came from acquisitions. In 2025 and especially 2026, the majority came from existing platforms and cross-selling within the ecosystem.

Yes. Thank you very much for that. And now we go to the financials. So first of all, we would like to mention that we had a very positive Q1 result. So the GMV was increasing by more than 23% and the revenue had an increase of 51%. So it was totally in line with our own guidance and also with our internal forecast. The profitability was positive. So we increased the EBITDA, the adjusted EBITDA by more than 37%. And actually, it was really a lot of cost cutting and cost efficiency in this first quarter. So we definitely have positive synergies through that. especially is something really worth to mention, it is our AI cost project. We will come to that later. There you can see how much we already do with AI and how we improve our cost efficiency here. So especially the distribution costs and marketing costs and HR costs are directly affected by our AI measures, and we can show you later on what specifically we do there. Additionally, we see also good conditions regarding new M&A activity. And we also see that our five established segments are growing and the number of partners, as Nathalie already mentioned, are increasing. We will give also an update on our debt strategy because we changed it a little bit and also on our M&A activity for this year. Overall, we would like to confirm our outlook and our guidance for this year, which we communicated by January this year. So let us go to the figures. So in Q1 2026, we had a total net revenue of EUR 243 million, which is an increase of 51%. The margin -- the gross margin was decreasing. So we had less margin in this first quarter, and this was due to discount activities and higher provisions, which we paid. So we had a decrease of 0.4 percentage points. And actually, we expect a slightly better margin development in Q2 this year. AI is a very effective and very important efficiency driver in our group already. So we can definitely reduce costs for product data creation for customer service and for marketing costs. And you see that now and you also see that in the future that we can step-by-step improve our cost figures with AI and through AI. There's one thing which is important to mention here. As you know, the war in the East is affecting -- in the Middle East it's affecting also our cost structure. So we see higher rates for logistics in the future. We see higher cost of transport in the future. And so we had a lot of activities to mitigate that and to make sure that our cost structure in the distribution segment is not increasing. So what we did is that we also achieved a higher AOV. And -- but we to have a higher AOV, the logistic costs are not so relevant anymore. The next thing is we finalized our central logistic hub in Gladbeck. As you know, we initiated it last year. We established it and now more and more subsidiaries are onboarded into this new logistic hub, and therefore, we have significant cost effects. Additionally, we also have logistic cost ratios optimizations like companies in the optics sector, in the hearing sector or in the service sector, they have actually no logistic costs or almost no logistic costs. And with the increasing relevance, we see that there's a shift towards a little bit more of these companies, and they have, as I mentioned, almost 0 distribution costs. Next thing is about the EBITDA development. We had a 37% increase here. Also the reported EBITDA was increasing by 28%. So we can be very happy on this development, to be honest, and think that we are right on track with our margin goals for this year. On the net profit, you see that there's not a real change. So you might ask yourself, why is it not increasing while the EBITDA goes up. But this is actually a very simple effect. In Q1 last year, we had a onetime effect of a positive depreciation through one M&A activity. And that was the result why we had last year lower EBITDA but higher net profits. And so this onetime effect is, of course, recognized in last year. Our net profit was EUR 18.2 million. And this year, we had EUR 17.7 million. When you eliminate this effect, we had an increase in net profit, but totally, we had a small decrease of the net profit. And our earnings per share was a total EUR 0.85 per share, and last year, it was EUR 0.90. So you can see also in charts the development regarding GMV and regarding the EBITDA and net profit. So you can also download this presentation if you want further information on that. And here, you can see the development over time. So on the last Q1 results, we always had an increase in the revenue development, and we can also be happy that we are almost reaching our 10% goal for next year. And I'm very optimistic that we will also achieve it within the next upcoming quarters. Very important to mention, and everybody is asking that how much was organically and how much was nonorganically. So here, you can see on the left side, the proportion last year. So last year, we had 39% of nonorganic growth rate. And this year, it was improved to 29% only. So you can see that the number of acquisitions is lower and the contribution of acquisitions is less compared to previous years. And so we are quite optimistic that these figures -- something between 30% and 70% will also continue in our business performance for this year. What are the main reasons for our higher organic growth rate? One is the number of partners. So this was definitely increasing, and we had more products with that compared to last year. We had a higher growth rate in our consumer goods segment and also in the freight goods segment. And important, we have a good and better customer retention on our core platforms. When you see the nonfinancial KPIs, we had in total an increase of our numbers of orders to EUR 3.4 million. The average order value was increasing to EUR 128. The active customers reached 8.1 million. So also a very positive development and also it was growing with the GMV. The number of employees was increasing to 1,537 employees by end of March, and the number of partners was 17,221. So overall, there was also an increase by more than 12%. What is very important, and this is, I think, the first time that we make a change regarding our debt strategy is that after the crisis in the Middle East and after all the interest rates went up in the last 2 months, we made a decision in the Board that we want to reduce our debt leverage -- that we want to reduce our debt leverage over time. So you can see here the forecast. So right now, you see that we have a debt leverage of 2.0. Last year, it was 2.1. And we decided as a Management Board to definitely decrease this leverage. So in previous presentations, we were thinking about 1.5 to 2 for 2030 as a debt strategy leverage, and we completely changed that. So we want to reduce the debt in a much faster way. And actually, in times of high interest rate, we see debt reduction really as a key for further profitability, and we want to make sure that the interest rates are not killing our P&L. So we are a more risk-averse strategy here and try to reduce our debt structure and make it more simple. Also, with our cash flow, and we have a good operational cash flow and our equity potential and -- we also think about portfolio management. I will show you that later. We think that we can decrease the debt over time, and we also started some projects regarding that. On the next slide, you can also see the ROCE and the return on equity development for the last 2 years. So overall, we always had with our investments about 19% to 25% in these two metrics in these two figures. And so you can see every euro which we invest has a return rate of at least 19% or when you regard the return on equity of 25%. So this is very important to mention here because sometimes people ask us to say, how can you spend 8% or 9% for the interest rate of Nordic bond when you only have a return -- when you only have an EBITDA margin of 8% or 9%, how does it work? And we always show, okay, this is nice to know that our margin is 8% or 9% but it is important to underline what is our return on equity here and what is this number and the number is above 20%. And you can see that with a strong portfolio discipline and a really strong focus that we want to be more active in the portfolio management, we want to optimize our return on invest and want to make sure that we have good companies in our portfolio. Sometimes, of course, a company can also have a bad development. This could always occur. We have more than 45 different companies in our group consolidated in our group. And so it can always be that one company is not performing perfectly. But of course, it is our obligation as a management to make a decision, should we change that, should we sell it or should we do something else with the company. And this is what we call the disciplined approach to optimize our portfolio. Also here, you can see our M&A activity. So in our guidance for -- at the beginning of the year, we communicated that we expect around 5 to 8 acquisitions for this year. And actually, we expect a reduced number. So we decided as a Management Board that we want to make less acquisitions this year because the integration takes a very long time, and we want to make sure that our acquisitions are integrated in a very good way and 11 signings are maybe a bit too much for the organization. So we adjusted this number to low figures, so 5 to 6 signings this year, and we could also imagine to make 1 or 2 divestments in this year. So AI.

AI. AI is not the best word for us. We changed to an AI first strategy and cost reduction program. Today, around 12% of our processes are already optimized. In the next 5 years, we expect these figures to exceed to more than 60%. The strongest impact we think will come in software development, online marketing, HR and finance and content creation. Important, this strategy supports both scalability and profitability at the same time. As we continue to grow organically and through acquisitions, AEP becomes a key lever to integrate businesses faster and operate the platform more efficiently. And when we jump over to the next slide. This slide explains how we use AI not only as a technology initiative, but as a directly profitability driver. Our approach is clear, AI first. For us, AI is primarily cost efficiency and scalability program. The biggest impact in 2026 will become the software development and marketing. On the other side, we could reduce in human resources and the costs and the headcount in all subsidiaries. And the new structure of CPG needs less executive. And what's really changing, and we see that all is the customer behavior. And that's a really big impact for us. And our goal is clear sustainable margin improvement through technology-driven operational efficiency.

Thank you for that. And as you can imagine, this has also impact on our own organization. That means if we reduce the number of organization levels and if we reduce the number of MDs, this has a big impact on our group. But we think that the cost efficiency and the AI efficiency is so high that we can go really this step and bring the organization to the next level here. When we have an outlook on our strategy and here, you can see our vision for 2030. So as you can see here, the revenue is going to be more than EUR 3 billion, what we plan for the next years to 2030. We want to achieve double-digit margins and want to make sure that we also reduce the leverage. So here, you can find the new figures for 1.0% to 1.4% leverage. So this is definitely reduced to everything what we presented before. And the number of partners, this is our key driver for further growth. We expect to be more than 40,000 active in different industries, and we want to achieve more than 50 covered industries. Also here, you see some more details on our strategic dimension. We are right now still very active in the region of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Netherlands. So around 70% was generated in these countries. And we strongly believe that we want to expand into further other European countries and also make sure that our U.S. expansion is getting a bigger footprint and we want to make sure that more platforms are active in the United States. On the right side, you also see our M&A approach. As we already mentioned, we want to reduce the number of further acquisitions slightly and want to make sure that our TPG ONE is perfectly integrated and that we can grow together with these subsidiaries in our group. And on the right side, on the bottom, you can also see our Optics segment, which is running in a very good way. So we are very happy with that investment. We achieved an EBITDA margin of more than 25%, which is pretty high compared to our other activities. And we want to expand to up to 60 stores in the next years. And currently, we have almost 30 stores. So I think we are quite good on track, and we can combine it with our online platform, MyGlasses. Here, you see our guidance, which we already confirmed for this year. So this is a guidance without the acquisition of AP, it is unchanged. And within this, we confirm our guidance. And also here, you can see our guidance on a pro forma basis, including the case of AEP.

Here you see our next touch points. They are all on our Investor Relations page. And we invite you all to come to our annual meeting. It's physical because it's very important for us to get a personal in touch of you. All the documents are online on our Investor Relations website. We had some roadshows in Switzerland. We will do some roadshows in Amsterdam, and we will be in June in Paris. And if you don't follow actually our newsletter, then you have the QR code here to get all the information from the platform group.

Thank you very much. And now we can start with our Q&A.

Thank you so much for the presentation. So with this, we are happy to take your questions if you may have. [Operator Instructions] And during the presentation, we received a couple of questions. So we will start with the first one. Can you give us an update on the EAP acquisition and especially to the planned new financing structure?

Yes. So we already provided this information. So let me just share the screen again as you can see that. So we provided this update for you right here -- so here, you can find it on Slide 11. So feel free if you have further questions on that. And you ask also for our vision without AEP and with AEP. So we already presented that in the last year -- in the last presentation. And so whenever you have questions, just feel free to contact us. You also asked the question of new capital increase. So we had two capital increases, which you mentioned here of EUR 9.8 million. So these are two investors, one investor from Switzerland and one investor from Germany. And so you can also see that on the German public company register. You wanted to have a some more detailed overview on the higher trade volumes of shares. And actually, maybe Nathalie can give you some short update on that because as you already mentioned, the trade volume of our shares increased over the last 2 years. And we are quite happy with that because as you also know, the free float is also increased in our shares. So I did not sell shares, but we saw that the free float with the capital increase was higher in percentage. And so of course, the trade volume is higher, especially on [ Xetra ]. Nathalie you want to mention something here?

Yes. As Dominik said, the trading volume is increasing. But on the other side, we have some days with smaller volumes and some days with higher volumes with no news flow. I mean everybody could see this on the different regional changes, but we think it's a good sign to have more trading here.

Yes. Next question is about the question regarding the bond price. You mentioned that the bond price is lower compared to the initial price and despite the fact that the performance of TPG is outstanding, how you're thinking of the refinancing it as a maturity is approaching. So to answer that, our maturity is in the mid of 2028. We have -- I think, good perspective, how to refinance it or how to pay it back with our cash flow. And so you will get definitely an update 6 months before that so that you have a full perspective and transparent view on that. Next question is regard to the share price. So you asked that this is not reflecting the financial performance and that also maybe another auditor could help and restore this confidence and other things. And yes, so actually, as a CEO, I don't want to comment the share price because this is a market price, although I have not a real influence on that. But yes, we agree with you that definitely there is an upside potential. And -- if there is a loss of confidence, it's up to you. We get different feedbacks. So we also get a lot of positive feedback. So I'm not sure if this is a majority or not. But yes, it is your own decision, absolutely. Next question is regarding the double-digit adjusted EBITDA target. And it was a question with AEP, is it still possible or not? Definitely, with AEP, it is more difficult to achieve that. And AEP also when we integrate them, has to achieve higher margins that we can achieve that. Otherwise, this is very difficult. Next question is about how many shares were issued since 2026 January. Here, you can go on our public page. You can see the number of shares there. And that is the current number of shares. The interest rates, given your bond is fixed rate and matures in 2028, can you quantify your actual floating rate exposure today? So actually, I don't know what is the rate -- floating rate exposure, to be honest. And -- but maybe you ask what kind of interest rate we expect in 2028. Maybe this is a question. And we would assume that it will be more or less on the same level. And yes, I think this is our estimation currently. Maybe it can be a little bit higher. It depends on the interest rate in 2 years. There's also another question regarding buyback of some bonds in the open market. And of course, this is definitely an option. So together with our Supervisory Board, we discussed that. And yes, maybe if we make a decision on that point, we will update you. But yes, this could be, of course, a potential decision point. Then somebody is asking us, [indiscernible] for the closing conditions of AEP. So actually, this is a confident contract, so we cannot give you details on that. But there are closing conditions, CPs on both sides, and we are still working together with the seller on these points. And if they are done, we can continue there. There's the next question about the AGM authorization of capital measures to finance AP. No, if we don't want to plan to finance the acquisition with such kind of capital increase. This is not our plan. Next question was about the development of the bank debt. So you say that thank you for the strong quarter results. What level of bank debt is TPG aiming for end of the year? So actually, we always have relational bank debt figures. But if you ask me on a total level, it will be something between EUR 45 million to EUR 55 million, maybe EUR 60 million totally because there are also credit facilities on a variable basis, and it's hard to calculate exactly where you stand at the end of the year. But this, I think, is a realistic perspective on that. Next question is about TPG share price. Again, I think I already answered that. Next question is about the EBITDA margin, which declined by more than gross margin deleveraging of the staff cost. And I don't understand the question, to be honest. So -- but yes, it is right. The margin is a little bit lower compared to last year and the gross margin also is a little bit lower. And because of the gross margin is lower, it has a big impact, of course, on the EBITDA and also on the net profit side, definitely. But as I mentioned last year, we had a onetime effect regarding the positive amortization. And so you should consider that you -- without this effect, our last year figures were a little bit lower compared to what we've shown here. Can you give more color on your plan to pay down debt? And what is the status of the decisions and relationship with existing lenders? So actually, our bond lenders, our bondholders, they have a formal contract regarding the Nordic bond, and we plan to reduce the bank debt, as we mentioned in the presentation, this year and also next year. So it is a continuous process here, and we think that we have a good strategy to reduce it and also to reduce our interest costs because, as you know, interest costs are -- a point of our P&L. And of course, we want to reduce that. Can you give more color on the EBITDA adjustment of the decrease of 90 percentage points as the gross margin was only down by 40 percentage points. Yes, this is right. And in total, the gross margin, of course, has a higher effect in the decrease compared to the other things. So when you just see the relational HR figures, for example, the personnel costs, it is not so relevant compared to the material expenses. So actually, this is the most important cost driver in our structure. You mentioned that you achieved 2.0 leverage in Q1. Why leverage decreased materially from here given ongoing M&A? Well, as you know, M&A, we do with three different components when we pay it. So on the one side, we have cash component. On the second side, we have debt. And on the third side, we also use earnouts and sometimes shares. So this combination of these three instruments, I think, are very important to underline why we develop it over the time and why we have a good mixture when we make M&A activity. Next question is about the stated target is 1.0 to 1.4 leverage by 2030. How much of this can be achieved with ongoing M&A? Well, actually, we cannot make a forecast on how much M&A we will do in 3 years. This is not possible. But you can be sure that when we communicate such a goal, we want to achieve that, and we took the right measures to achieve this goal in the next years. How many acquisitions are planned in Optics and Hearing? Definitely, we will make acquisitions this year, at least 1 or 2 in the Optics and Hearing segment, and this is definitely one of our focus. TPG Pay is it still working? Yes, it is, and we have successful projects here. I think this is a good idea that we can communicate that in the next Capital Markets Day, and then we can give you a more detailed overview on our status there and what we have achieved there. You mentioned divestments in 2026. What companies does this concern? Nonperforming assets question mark. No, these were companies which we also communicated in our corporate deals that we sold them last year. These were companies with revenues below EUR 1 million, where we decided this is too small for us where we do not want to continue there because we have the same management attention. We have the same capability there, but we think that our investments are better and bigger assets, and we want to force that. Can you give us an update on the strategy regarding U.S.A.? Yes. So we increased the number of sales channels there. We also connected more partners to United States selling activities. What we did not so far is to open an office with people there. So this is one of the next steps, which we carefully do because you can easily lose money when you enter a market in a not very good way. And so we make it step by step. We have three steps. First thing is selling there. Second is build up an office there and run our own platforms. And third step is connecting local U.S. retailers to our platforms. Next thing is about CHRONEXT. Maybe you should also maybe contact directly the people there because we do not comment individual subsidiaries here. Do you plan further share issuance? Could you please share any guidance about potential size? So actually, we have no guidance on that. So we do not plan to double the number of shares. That's not what we plan here. But of course, it can be some -- with some investors where we have close and long-term relationship, we can always consider that because if the parties are interesting and contribute something to the growth and profitability of our company, we are open to that. Are you aware of any legal or other restrictions preventing professional investors to invest in share? No. I don't know anyone. Great first results. Thank you for that. So what is your thought process on equity issuing? Are you planning to issue more shares in the near future regarding M&A and for reducing leverage? So when we make M&A activities, I would say, in half of the transactions, we sometimes use shares. So for example, Nathalie mentioned the acquisition of the Schuh online store, the sneaker store. And therefore, we made a small capital increase for the seller of the company, and they received the shares, and it is a long-term relationship where we think this is worth to do, and they have a strong connection to our group. Since share buybacks are not an option at the moment due to your bond covenants, yes, you're right. Are you willing to repay the bond earlier in order to start share buybacks at this share price? Good question. Yes, it could be an option. But on the other side, it is not so easy to make a rebuy of the bond because when you start doing that, you have directly a price impact that it will go up very fast again. So right now, we made no decision on that. And so I cannot give you an update here. All right. So these have been all the questions in the chat.

Great. Then with this, I think we would come to the end of today's call. So thank you, everyone, for joining and your shown interest. So maybe if there are some further questions, Nathalie will be happy to assist you. And with this, Mr. Benner, some final remarks from your side.

Feel free to contact us. Nathalie, you can always reach out by e-mail or cell phone and happy to get your feedback. Thank you.