Earnings Call Transcript - AEBI Q4 2025

Operator, Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Aebi Schmidt Group Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Simone Grancini, Investor Relations Director. Please go ahead.

Simone Grancini, Investor Relations Director

Thank you, Sharon. Good morning, and welcome to the Aebi Schmidt fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings call. I'm Simone Grancini, the company's Investor Relations Director. Joining me on the call today are Barend Fruithof, Group CEO, who will provide the fourth quarter and full year highlights, outlook and concluding remarks. Steffen Schewerda, CEO, North America; and Henning Schroder, CEO, Europe and Rest of World, who will detail the performance in the respective segments; and Marco Portmann, Group CFO, who will provide a financial overview. Before I turn the call over to Barend, I remind you that today's comments include forward-looking statements subject to the safe harbor language contained in this morning's press release and in Aebi Schmidt's filings with the SEC. And with that, I hand the call over to Barend.

Barend Fruithof, Group CEO

Good morning, everyone. 2025 was a historical year for Aebi Schmidt, marked by the acquisition of the former Shyft Group and our listing on NASDAQ. I'm extremely proud of our fourth quarter performance. As we see on Page 5, our order intake increased 46% in the fourth quarter versus 2024, and we ended 2025 with a record high order backlog. Our adjusted EBITDA increased 31% year-over-year for the fourth quarter, delivering a significantly higher adjusted EBITDA margin of 9.1% versus 7.4% in the prior year. And our strong cash flow enabled us to reduce our leverage to 2.8x, strengthening our balance sheet heading into 2026. I thank our employees for their exceptional contribution and our customers for their continued trust. On Page 6, I provide you with some more details on these outstanding achievements. Our exceptional order momentum was driven by strong orders in airport and municipal and especially by a recovery in the walk-in-van orders. We believe this reflects a structural recovery in demand. On the other hand, we expect continued softness in truck body and commercial markets with only a slow recovery in 2026. In terms of net sales, our fourth quarter grew 6% versus the prior year. A 5% decline in legacy shift was more than offset by the rest of the group. Europe and the Rest of the World was a strong contributor to this performance with substantial organic growth in an almost flat market. We also accelerated and increased the cost synergies from the acquisition of Shyft with an additional procurement and revenue synergy expected to materialize in the second half of 2026. Ultimately, our adjusted EBITDA improved by 31% in the fourth quarter 2025 compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. Europe contributed to this with an outstanding 234% increase year-over-year. Continuing on Page 7, we look at the foundations we have built that will deliver our 2026 growth path. First, our M&A strategy continues to deliver, and this goes beyond the Shyft acquisition. Both our smaller acquisitions, LWS in the U.S. and Ladog in Germany, continue to provide outsized growth to the group, and we see further opportunities for small bolt-on acquisitions. Second, we have launched multiple new products. This includes the first service body jointly developed by Monroe and Royal, presented last week at the NTA. The launch of new compact airport products to enlarge our addressable market, and we are exploring a design for a more cost-competitive offering of our Blue Arc truck. Finally, we opened new locations and secured major first-time customers, which will support revenue and profitability in the second half of 2026. Let's also briefly look at our brands on Page 8. We're simplifying our brand architecture, sharpening our market presence and sending a clear signal that we are one powerful group. This makes it easier for our customers to navigate the group's broad range of solutions, simplifies customer engagement and allows us to communicate in a more meaningful and cost-effective way. And now I turn the call over to Steffen.

Steffen Schewerda, CEO, North America

Thank you, Barend. And good morning, everybody. Thanks for having me. We're on Page #10. So to put it in one sentence, 2025 was an outstanding year, especially in terms of order momentum. Our airport business is seeing very strong order entry, also supported by the launch of our new products. These products are gaining great traction and first deliveries have been made to customers already. On the walk-in-van side, we see a recovery of the market, combined with what we believe is market share growth. On the commercial side, we see some softness, which we are able to partially offset by stronger fleet demand. And our Municipal segment shows very strong quoting and order entry. That confirms our strategy to expand our geographical footprint. Slide 11, please. As you can see, our backlog increased by 25% in the fourth quarter versus the prior year. That was driven by a 63% increase year-over-year in order entry. Net sales and adjusted EBITDA in Q4 were slightly below the fourth quarter in 2024. This was mainly driven by the softness in walk-in-van and truck bodies and included ramp-up expenses for walk-in-van production and additional locations. Looking at these KPIs, it is clear what the focus points for 2026 are. It is order conversion and profitability, and I will explain this a little bit more in detail on the next Slide #12. So based on our strong backlog, we are positioned to deliver growth in 2026, which we expect to accelerate throughout the quarters. On the market side, we expect that we will continue to realize strong order entry. This is driven by market recovery, market share expansion and also the introduction of new products. On the sales conversion side, our new location in Chicago is now fully operational. We are starting to deliver the first municipal snow and ice trucks to a major DOT starting in April. Two new upfit centers in Minneapolis and Toronto are also gaining traction. On the walk-in-van side, we are already starting to increase output, which we expect to accelerate in the second quarter. On the profitability side, we are executing on vertical integration in our Commercial segment. In addition, we expect to realize material cost savings in the second half of the year, and our cost structure is being aligned as we speak. Our increased output will also result in higher plant efficiencies, of course. And on top of that, we are planning to consolidate some of our warehouses in the Midwest to gain efficiencies in logistics and net working capital. And with that being said, thank you, and I hand it over to Henning.

Henning Schroder, CEO, Europe and Rest of World

Good morning. I describe 2025 as a landmark year for Europe and the Rest of the World in terms of order intake growth and strong profitability development throughout 2025. As written on Page 14, our markets are gaining strong traction, particularly in airport, municipal complex sweepers and agriculture. The Airport segment is entering a pivotal year with multiple large tenders expected, fueled by rising defense budgets, driving military-related demand and increasing local content requirements. The municipal sector continues to be powered by complex sweepers, delivering double-digit growth for our core products in 2025. Ladog products have exceeded expectations. We are accelerating our capacity expansion plans, while winter products show a mixed performance due to limited snowfalls across many European countries. Agricultural Products showed strong momentum in 2025, growing more than 30% versus 2024, supported by the rollout of the new generation of Aebi Combicut motor mowers. Slide 15, please. In Q4, we sustained growth in order intake and delivered a significant 25% year-over-year sales increase, driven by airport, municipal, and spare parts. I'm especially proud of the team for delivering an exceptional 234% year-over-year increase in profitability, an outstanding achievement powered by strong volumes, solid gross margin performance and disciplined OpEx control. Proceeding to Page 16, our strong 2025 performance provides the foundation for positive year-over-year quarterly and sequential improvement throughout 2026. On orders, we expect to leverage our expanded dealer network to accelerate the Europe-wide Ladog rollout, build on strong Municipal and Agricultural momentum, following successful product launches and capitalize on our centralized airport tender team to secure large global deals and increase win rates. On sales margin, we expect to implement factory efficiency programs and finalize production relocations to reduce material costs. We will utilize our EU pricing engine to optimize margins in spare parts and realize the benefit of implemented price increases across new business and aftermarket segments. On cost control, we expect to capture the benefits of regional back office consolidation, further leverage our Eastern Europe corporate center and convert disciplined OpEx management into tangible cost savings. That concludes my comments, and I turn it over to Marco.

Marco Portmann, Group CFO

Thanks very much, Henning, and good morning, everyone. As you have heard already, 2025 ended with significant order momentum as we captured many market opportunities following the acquisition of the former Shyft Group. On Page 18, we see this exceptional order performance resulting in a very healthy order backlog of over $1.2 billion, up 21% year-over-year and providing good visibility into 2026. We expect to see significant improvement in net sales materializing in the second quarter and especially the second half of 2026 out of that backlog. On the topic of seasonality, our demand cycles generally lead to a strong year-end with a comparatively slow start into a new year. For 2026, we expect this quarter-by-quarter seasonality throughout the year to be even more pronounced than in an average year, more on this later by Barend. Moving on to Slide 19. Net sales in the fourth quarter reached $528 million, representing a 6% year-over-year increase, bringing full year sales to $1.9 billion, a 2% increase compared to 2024. Looking at our fourth quarter net sales in a bit more detail, sales in North America decreased 2% versus the fourth quarter 2024 due to the pronounced weakness in the acquired Shyft businesses with a 5% decline, which could not be fully compensated by the 2% growth in the legacy Aebi North American businesses. Sales in Europe and the Rest of the World increased by a notable 25%, contributing to over 1/3 of total net sales in the fourth quarter. Looking at profitability on Slide 20. On a full-year pro forma basis, we turned a 2% net sales increase into a strong 13% increase in adjusted EBITDA year-over-year, delivering $156 million in full year 2025 or an 8.2% adjusted EBITDA margin. In our fourth quarter specifically, we converted a 6% net sales increase into an impressive 31% growth in EBITDA versus prior year fourth quarter, delivering $48.1 million of adjusted EBITDA in that fourth quarter 2025, equal to a 9.1% margin. North America's EBITDA margin was flat on the back of that 2% net sales decrease, while Europe and Rest of the World delivered significant EBITDA growth with over 600 basis points improvement. Finally, having a look at our balance sheet on Slide 21, net working capital decreased by $29 million or 6% since September to $423 million as of December 2025. This decrease was driven by a $38 million lower inventory, reflecting both improved efficiency and the seasonal decrease at year-end. On the back of a strong cash flow in the fourth quarter, our net debt decreased to $437 million as of December 31, 2025, a decrease of $32 million compared to September. With this, we have also delivered a first significant step to reduce our leverage, improving almost half a turn to 2.8x as of year-end 2025 with our communicated target to improve to below 2.0x by year-end 2026. That concludes my comments, and I hand it back to Barend for closing remarks.

Barend Fruithof, Group CEO

Thanks, Marco. Let me start my concluding remarks with a summary of the key achievements in 2025 shown on Page 23. We're outperforming on synergies, expecting to deliver over $40 million versus our initial $25 million to $30 million target. Our intake increased by 22% versus 2024 and adjusted EBITDA improved by 13%, reflecting strong operational execution. At the same time, we launched new products and opened new locations, further strengthening our foundation and positioning the company for sustainable growth. Continuing on Page 24. Looking at 2026, we expect a pronounced quarterly seasonality, mainly driven by market conditions and geopolitical uncertainty. Q1 will start slow as our strong walk-in-van orders will convert into revenue beyond the quarter, while the commercial market remains very soft despite some signs of recovery. In Q2, we expect order conversion to accelerate, supported by our ramp-up of production and upfitting capacity. By Q3, we anticipate improving market conditions in the commercial and fleet markets and the realization of procurement synergies. In Q4, we expect to benefit from the usual seasonal strength, especially in Europe and the rest of the world. Moving on to Page 24 for the outlook. Let me conclude with our 2026 guidance and priorities. We expect net sales between $1.95 billion and $2.15 billion and adjusted EBITDA between $175 million and $195 million, and the leverage at year-end 2026 at or below 2. To deliver this, we expect to maintain strong order momentum and accelerate backlog conversion into net sales through better production efficiency. We expect to drive profitability through efficiency gains at legacy Shyft, optimized footprint utilization and delivering our synergies. At the same time, we will maintain our strong focus on leverage and balance sheet. In short, our 2026 focus is on disciplined execution to sustain and build on the strong momentum achieved in 2025. That concludes our presentation. I now turn it over to our operator to open up the line for questions.

Operator, Operator

And the first question comes from Greg Lewis from BTIG.

Gregory Lewis, Analyst

I was hoping you could provide more insight. It seems we finished and began with some order momentum in the walk-in van market. As you observe this trend, what are some of the key points customers are discussing that are influencing this? One thing we heard last week was that the fleet is due for renewal. Can you share your perspective on how much of this is related to renewal versus demand, and how you can frame this given your confidence in potential increases in walk-in sales?

Steffen Schewerda, CEO, North America

Right. Greg, good morning. This is Steffen. I'll take that question. What we are seeing and believing is that it is both. We are entering a phase of renewal at this point in time and one market participant is buying more than the other one. I mean we know who the two big players are. But we believe it is a combination of renewal and additional demand. We see this going forward, not just a blip here over one or two quarters. When we talk to the customers, that is a structural and sustainable demand here.

Gregory Lewis, Analyst

Okay. I was hoping you could provide some insights on the backlog. You mentioned that it is spread out over 15 months. Is the duration of the backlog increasing or decreasing compared to where it was a year ago, and is part of that related to the mix of what is being ordered?

Barend Fruithof, Group CEO

Greg, thank you very much for this question. So I mean, we were able to increase our backlog on a pro forma basis if you compare it with 2024. There is a bit of a mixed picture. We have a very strong backlog in our municipal business as well as in our Airport business, for example. We were also able to increase our backlog in Europe versus the previous year, which is a very good development given the market circumstances. At the same time, we were also able to massively increase our backlog in the walk-in-van business. We're handling some challenges in the commercial market as well as in the truck body market. So there we need to do some more work. We expect that the market will improve, and we see already first signs in that area.

Operator, Operator

We will take the next question, and the question comes from the line of Mike Shlisky from D.A. Davidson.

Michael Shlisky, Analyst

Some of your truck body comments that you made, you mentioned that it's been slow, but there was so much excitement about the new truck bodies that you introduced at the NTA show last week. Do you think that your truck body business will outperform the broader market in '26 just on that new product? And just tell us about how it may have been received at the show. What are customers telling you about the new product there?

Steffen Schewerda, CEO, North America

So Mike, this is Steffen. I'll take that one. What we introduced on the show was a new service body for our commercial side, which is part of our commitment to greater vertical integration. We have discussed this multiple times. The service body on the commercial side has received excellent feedback. On the truck body side, the new product we showcased can be seen at the Isuzu stand. This is a collaboration with Isuzu, and it's called the Advantic. We are the exclusive partner for Isuzu in bringing this product to market. To answer your question, I don't believe we will outperform the market in 2026, but I am confident that we will lay a strong foundation over the next few quarters to accelerate our growth in 2027.

Michael Shlisky, Analyst

Great, great. Secondly, a large e-commerce company has announced in the last couple of days that they plan to scale back or stop using the USPS for a lot of their deliveries. They're USPS' biggest customers. I presume they're going to have to take some of that delivery volume in-house as well as farming out to the other large delivery providers. If they're using other providers, if they're using their own vehicles, and I know that they have some of their own custom-made vehicles, but they are a mixed fleet. If that changes away from the USPS, is that a positive for Aebi Schmidt going forward as far as the mix of how much business you can capture now? Or was USPS a pretty big customer, and there won't be much of a change here?

Steffen Schewerda, CEO, North America

Mike, I believe that this is an advantage for Aebi Schmidt. I mean, in this context, there was also the notion of, 'Hey, we do it within a one-hour delivery or three-hour deliveries,' where customers pay a little bit more. We're talking about the same article here and the same announcement. So I believe it will drive additional demand. The question is what kind of vehicle, what kind of concept will this be? But I believe in our product portfolio, we have something to participate in that market, and we are in active discussions.

Operator, Operator

Your next question today comes from the line of Matt Koranda from ROTH Capital.

Matt Koranda, Analyst

I guess I wanted to hear on the midpoint of the adjusted EBITDA guide for '26, it looks like about nearly $30 million in improvement. But I guess you guys have said synergies in total are north of $40 million from the combination. Obviously, that gets realized over a couple of years. So I just wanted to hear a little bit about how much gets realized in '26, and what's built into the full-year guidance?

Marco Portmann, Group CFO

Yes, thanks. Good morning, Matt. This is Marco speaking. So yes, the midpoint of $185 million of our adjusted EBITDA guidance. To reiterate in 2025, right? We always said we're going to deliver at least $40 million in total now. Out of that, we have realized in '25 somewhere in the mid-teens. That's predominantly cost synergies. We expect the same amount to realize also in 2026 on top of that. Keeping in mind that specifically the procurement synergies will kick in, in the third quarter of 2026. Again, that's relating also to what we just talked about with the service body. We have also revenue synergies, which are predominantly kicking in, in the second half of 2026 as well. Before we will then see the full realization by summer 2027 as we have initially announced pre-merger. We're still fully on track with that. Also keep in mind, it's not just the synergies. If you look at the difference between 2025 and '26, there are also one-off expenses that we have to account for in 2025; we faced some additional costs that aren't part of the adjusted, some ramp-up expenses that are operational, some compliance topics, a couple of these things. And also in Q1 now '26, we'll still have some ramp-up expenses, specifically in the walk-in-van business.

Matt Koranda, Analyst

Okay. Got it. And I wanted to hear a little bit more about the seasonality commentary that you gave in the prepared remarks. It sounds like you said first quarter, usually your lower quarter in terms of seasonality, but might be a little more pronounced this year. Could you unpack some of the factors that are causing the more pronounced seasonality? And is that more pronounced in one of the two segments in North America or Europe, or is it both? I just want to hear a little bit more about how to think about it.

Marco Portmann, Group CFO

Yes. I think your commentary is right. Generally speaking, we do have quite a bit of seasonality, a bit more than maybe typically would be expected, coming especially from the ordering cycles we see in Europe, but also generally from the snow business or snow-related business that we have. As we said, in 2026, this is going to be quite a bit more pronounced. We will see a slower start in Q1 because these walk-in-van orders, while we do have the backlog now, and we still see the good momentum, it will materialize only beginning in Q2 really. We still have some one-off expenses associated with that ramp-up in the first quarter. So we don't have the revenue yet, but also some costs are already flowing in. That will hit us in the U.S. So you will see that if you compare Q1 U.S. or North America versus last year. In Europe, you will see quite a good improvement in Q1 compared to Q1 of 2025, but of course, keeping in mind that Europe had a slow start in 2025. You see that basically coming in out of the order backlog that wasn't there in Q4, leading to that lack of revenue in Q1 walk-in-vans. The commercial truck body market remains soft, and that will persist through Q1. The geopolitical environment also hasn't helped in the last couple of weeks. You feel that as well. In Q2 and Q3, we will be ramping up, as we explained, and the fourth quarter will be quite strong, similar to what you have seen now in the dynamics in 2025, but again, more pronounced as this will really be the strong quarter that will bring the year together. I just wanted to set the proper expectations on our quarterly momentum for 2026.

Barend Fruithof, Group CEO

And Matt, just to add one point. As you know, we have built a new upfit center in Chicago that will help to accelerate our backlog in the municipal area into more sales. We expect to see an improvement in March, and that will increase in the second quarter. That's also a good thing to reduce our backlog and turn it into sales in the municipal area.

Operator, Operator

This concludes the Q&A for today, and I will now hand back to Simone Grancini for closing remarks.

Simone Grancini, Investor Relations Director

Thank you, Sharon. I thank everyone for joining today's call and your interest in the Aebi Schmidt Group. As always, please reach out to investor.relations@aebischmidt.com if you have any follow-up questions. And with that, Sharon, please disconnect the call.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.