Good morning, everyone, and a very warm welcome to Q4 2025 results presentation from Evipco. My name is Simon Bolton, Group CEO, and I'm joined by two colleagues, Michael Clement, Chief Strategy and IR Officer. And also welcome back to our old friend, Bob Lincoln, President of the US and responsible for the very important UK and Irish markets. maybe before we get into the presentation just to say that you will have seen the announcement i'm i'm stepping this will be my last quarterly report i'm stepping down at the end of april personal decision and whilst 2025 was a transitional year you'll see the exciting future that this business has it's been a honor and pleasure to lead the business and also thanks for your continued interest and engagement in the business I know many of you have followed the business for many years and hope that support interest continues in the future okay let's talk about Q4 again 2025 overall was a transitional year as some of our existing markets were become delivered and some of the new markets while started had yes to really ramp up so revenue 23.8 million so year on year 27 percent lower gross margin that was impacted by continued investments and also some one-off items which Michael will take you through in a little bit more detail overall then for the quarter we had EBITDA of 0.7 which included 4.1 million in other income and we exited the quarter in the year with a healthy cash balance of 60 million euros we continue to make targeted long-term investments in the business and this results in delivery so we continued operationally to build our share in Romania we're now up to about 40% brownfield markets are also exciting and we have a little bit more detail later but we continue to build into Netherlands working with stuff to our Netherlands and also some key retail customers. We continue to invest in product development and technology. We had two really exciting product launches recently. Great excitement in Euroshock when we showed these a few weeks ago, and Bob will go through some of those in more detail. And we continue to invest and developer employees we exited with five to nine in terms of number employees and we also launched the invipco academy which supports development and growth of staff as we become a larger more complex business that's important for those who maybe just joined us invipco is a global recycling technology business we've been doing this about 40 years and we are focused in the recovery of beverage containers that's what we do that's what we've done since the beginning and that's what we'll do in the future in this segment there is an unprecedented growth opportunity driven by legislation particularly the EU packaging and packaging rest regulation targets 90% recovery by 2029 what does that mean well there's about a hundred hundred 20,000 reverse vending machines the actual the equipment that accepts the bottle operating in the market and it's taken 40 years to to deliver those units in the next five years about 200,000 more will be needed this multi billion dollar euro market is where where we're active in we continue to invest in products, technology, and our platforms delivered with an increasingly experienced and seasoned team. And ultimately, that will drive revenue and profitability, which we are very excited about. Now, with more detail for the financial review, let me hand over to Michael.
I'll start out with P&L, as usual. Group revenues in Q425 were $23.8 million, down 27% year-over-year from a very strong Q424. The prime driver behind the decline are lower European RVM sales, as existing markets are increasingly maturing and also largely on Greece, which has been a very important market for in BIPCO over the last few years is preparing towards a DRS launch. Gross margins 25.1% in the quarter, adjusted for non-recurring items 32.3. I'll come back to that in a later slide. OPEX 11.1 million, flat year over year, reflecting continued investments in the organization. our headcount is down slightly this quarter from Q3. In addition, we had other income of 4.1 million stemming from the reversal of parts of the earn-out provisions from the Sensibin acquisition. EBITDA this quarter, 0.7 million euros, down from 4.6 million euros in Q4.25. For the year, revenues were 90.4 million euros, down 18%. Key driver, once again, are lower European RVM sales, largely explained by lower revenues in Greece and other maturing markets, together with the delayed launch of DRS and activity in Poland and Portugal. Gross margin for the year 33.3% or down from 37.1% last year. Adjusted for the non-recurring items, gross margins for the year were in excess of 35%. Operating costs for the year increased by 8% to 41.8 million, with EBITDA ending at 1.2 million euros. Europe in Q4, 15 million euros revenues, down more than 35% year over year. I've touched upon some of the key drivers here. It's lower RVM sales key driver. RVM sales 12.7, close to half what it was in Q4 24, at 24.8 million. We did have our first Poland deliveries in Q4, offsetting some of the declines in other markets, existing markets. We had very positive development in both Sweden and the Netherlands, while Greece, Hungary and Romania were down year over year. Romania revenues have been pretty stable through 2025, and Q4 is no exception. but Q4 24 was very strong so the year-over-year comparison is down program services in Q4 were 2.3 million euros North American revenues in 2025 were flat year-over-year for the year as a whole in Q4 revenues of 8.7 million euros were down 3% adjusting for the weaker dollar the North American revenues were up by five percent key explanatory factor as you know program services make up the lion's share of revenues in north america program services were down 13 year-over-year to 6.9 million euros largely driven by volume declines but also some material pricing effects rvm sales this quarter 1.9 million euros a pickup from where it's been in last few quarters on replacement sales and new sales into existing customer accounts a comment on the gross margin the course margin this quarter reported at 25.1 percent this includes some non-recurring items adjusted for this the gross margin underlying was 32.3 percent the non-recurring items can be divided largely into two key components one explaining around two-thirds of this our inventory provisions on end-of-life products so what we have we've replaced the recent leasing portfolio gradually in the in specifically in the North American markets we've done quite a bit of product innovations which has led to some obsolete in parts inventory in our business this has been adjusted this quarter and then there the remaining parts are explained by some year and and true-ups as we harmonize our positions across the entire organization. 32.3% adjusted margin still reflects an increase in our service personnel and a low utilization in our assembly facilities in Europe primarily. So as a result of the lower revenues. operating costs as mentioned flat year-over-year at 11.1 million euros we exit the quarter with 529 employees down five employees from Q3 we have 4.1 million euros in other income from the reversal of parts of the or not provision we will continue to maintain a disciplined approach to manage our operating costs, investing to make sure that we are positioned towards new markets, but also managing this in relation to the activity levels. Over to the balance sheet. Not very large changes in the fourth quarter. The total balance sheet is down slightly on a reduction in working capital. Our working capital is down by roughly 5 million euros, driven by both the reduction in inventory levels and accounts receivables. In addition, our trade creditors are up slightly. On the equities and liabilities side, a reduction in our borrowings explains the change from Q3 to Q4. So balance sheet total 159 million euros down from 165 million euros and we exit the quarter with 59.9 million euros in cash down from 62.7 million euros in Q3. So the cash flow in Q4 started out the quarter with 62.7 million euros, a working capital release added 4.9 million euros offset by investments 4.1 million euros driven by capex in excess of 3 million euros and some capitalized R&D at 1 million euros this quarter and then repayment of borrowings minus 3.5 million euros ending the quarter with 59.9 million euros in cash. For the year starting out with 30.7 million euros in cash, working capital builds of 9.7 million euros, largely explained by lower receivables. CapEx total, both CapEx and the capitalized R&D at 9 million euros, relatively flat with the previous year.
And then plus 47.9 million euros in cash flow from financing, largely explained by the private placement in Q3 so with that I would like to give the word on to Bob thank you Michael and hello and good morning to everyone I am going to spend a bit of time on the product portfolio particularly to give some insight on how we're positioning our products to win quite large RFPs not just in the UK but in Poland if you look at our product portfolio it's very broad so we go from very small applications and convenience stores to medium-sized convenience stores to the middle tier which are traditional supermarkets all the way up to maxi stores with our backroom systems and of course you know the quantum which is proven to be the gold standard in bulk feed technology. But a couple of these products are very critical as we move through these large RFPs, particularly that are near term in the U.K. First off, the compact product. Now, our team in the U.K. has mapped every single store throughout the U.K., and 75% of the store count in that country is small stores, convenience, or medium-sized convenience stores. This is a very important product to help us attack the lion's share of stores that are out there. And this product has very significant product attributes. One of the things we've done is we've engineered a lot of the cost out of the platform. How do we do that? On the in-feed, we're using AI technology to validate the container, the barcode, and the shape, which eliminates cameras and cabling, allowing the machine to be less costly. We've also designed a new compactor technology that sits much higher in the machine, allowing for the bin below to be much larger. So it's a very high-performing machine in this form factor. The other brilliant part of the platform is truly plug-and-play. You know, for these stores, you roll the machine in, you plug it in to standard electric, and you're running immediately it also can be moved around the store and these points resonate with the customers we're talking to about it because during high merchandising seasons like at Christmas they want to be able to move the machine around with one store personnel you can do this very easily with the compact so the product also is a bit shorter than the standard RVM and the area on top can be used for merchandising and it seems like not that big of a criteria but it is resonating quite heavily with these accounts because they're giving up floor space already now they can merchandise on top of the machine with a captive audience that's using the machine we've also been asked by tier one retailers to install a monitor above the machine so they can run promotions real-time to customers using the machine. So very important product, huge market potential in the UK and in Poland. But what's really important about it, it's kind of a gateway product. Because if you have an account, let's say in the UK, that has 2,000 store locations, and we have a fantastic product with this Enflex to penetrate 1,500, it's very easy for us to then start to position our higher technology products. And Simon referenced this earlier, but this product called Magna, which we introduced at Euroshop, really has a lot of very positive features. First off, it's a fully environmental machine. So this machine can work at minus 20C up to plus 40C, so it can be placed outside and work perfectly. And we know from the UK that a lot of retailers want the machines outside, either under the vestibule or in a kiosk, and this machine, you know, meets that need. The other thing the machine has is an accessibility kit. Some retailers want a machine, a bespoke machine, for the handicapped to use. So we can graft onto this machine braille, audio, and different buttons at the reach height for folks who want to use the machine that are handicapped. Importantly, the machine is very modular. So you can take this machine and let's say we go to a retail and we say, you know, let's not over CapEx your commitment for the go live. We'll start discreetly, say four Magna to start with. and then when it ramps if they need to add a machine within 48 hours we can come in and put a machine next to it but importantly that additional in feed can feed an existing bin so they don't have to put an entirely new machine and they can get another queuing station by adding the machine we can also take it away and move it to other stores so that flexibility that modularity of the platform is very important. Additionally, there's a dynamic in this business where you can look at a spec sheet and say, oh, the bin full is X number of containers. But in reality, when those containers are ejected from the compactor, they nest in the bin. And when they do that, they come up the sidewall of the bin and they cut the bin full sensor, causing store personnel to go to the machine and shake it down well that's OpEx and this machine has a self automated self leveling device so the bins fill perfectly evenly and we are looking at an account that has a thousand stores with this product that reduction of trips to the machine across the life of the platform evolves into a huge number and a big advantage to the to the company on positioning this product so gateway product with compact and flex high-performing product for the middle tier that we can then move them up to backroom systems or to quantum now we've had some advancements in quantum as well now the standard quantum requires four parking spaces and some retailers can't give up that many parking spaces so we designed a smaller version of this machine we did a lot of engineering in terms of the storage area so we are reducing the capacity of the containers but it's modest so this is a machine that only takes two car spaces which is incredible it's also very good logistically to move this machine around if you look at a market like Greece which has a huge confederation of islands this machine is very easy to move into applications like that so this brings more customer targets in play because it's a smaller unit and takes less parking spaces. Additionally, when you look at Quantum, and Quantum's been just a huge success, we have one in every single market we operate in, and the consumer response to it has been dramatic. But it does require retailers to trench electric to the site, and that requires permitting and expense, and it It is a barrier that, you know, we need to push through. The product's strong enough to push through it. But now we have a solar version. So this machine doesn't require trenching that you can simply drop in, run it on solar. It saves OpEx because we're not using electric. So this is another great product to further widen our target audience for quantum. So that gives you a preview of some of our new products and how we position our products. Now let's spend some time on the UK. The UK is moving through the commercial cases urgently. And we're involved in every single Tier 1, Tier 2 debate. We very much like our position. And these commercial cases are going to come to fruition very soon, in several weeks, because the requirement for these retailers to roll this out, essentially all retailers rolling out at the same time to meet the October 2027 go live, is a huge undertaking. And they're taking this extremely seriously. So how do we feel about the UK? Well, first off, we had a phenomenal success in Scotland. The same team in Scotland is prosecuting the UK case. And these are highly skilled professionals. So we feel very good about our position. We feel very optimistic that we're going to be able to announce orders in the short term. And the tier one section, which is obviously quite large, will largely be decided in the first half of the year. So the activity is high, our position is strong, and we're looking forward to a very nice result in the UK. And with that, I will turn it back over to Simon. Okay, Bob, thank you very much.
Excellent. Very exciting for the UK. Want to show this slide again. This is, I know, a favorite of many. So I think Bob has given us a very good insight into the UK. Clearly, as we head towards 2029, we still have a large number of markets to come. Obviously, we talk a lot about the near term, Poland, Portugal, Greece, as we mentioned. It's still to be determining the exact form, but certainly there's, you know, we understand there's plans to introduce a deposit return scheme this year. And then going slightly further forward, we have, you know, Spain, France, towards the back end of that period. And also, we've added one more market this time, Serbia. Again, in reference to the EU packaging and packaging West regulation, which requires 90% recovery using a DRS by 2029, that country is now have plans afoot to introduce a scheme. So, remains very significant activity. A reminder, we generate growth through four areas. We have now an expanding existing business. So even those countries that went live a few years ago are still requiring services, of course, and also additional machines. Greenfield, new markets. Bob talked about the UK, but also, of course, Poland, Portugal. Brownfield, I'll talk a little bit about the Netherlands. So using technology to penetrate an existing market and grow, and then occasional M&A example, Sensibin Technology Group, a couple of years ago. In terms of the Netherlands, look, a great example, like Sweden was before it, of Invipco using our technology to penetrate an existing market where we didn't have a foothold. And we're in the process of working with private operators, working with the opera, Stats Detailed Netherlands, to actually roll out quantum across the country. Very, very positive. That's one of the first that we actually put in place with Boongas. And that is now done, you know, getting on for 8 million containers. Really fantastic. Poland. A lot of discussion about Poland. Big market, of course. It's gone live. So, officially, the market went live in October 2025. But very, very few containers before Christmas. But we see the container number increasing. With that comes the demand for machines. machines. So even though we weren't successful in a couple of larger deals autumn last year, we still have a big market to go after. We've been successful in that. In last update, we said we were about 300 orders. We're up to about 1,000 as we work through frame agreements with most of the large store networks in the country so we continue to work with those groups we've got some pictures there you know taken around Warsaw of actual installations so this is not press release this is not general frame agreements we're working hard day in day out to actually get units on the ground which we think is the most important thing and that's really resident that kind of no-nonsense type approach is really resonating well with with customers and we will continue to do that such that we are confident about achieving our target market share in Portugal since the last update we've had a couple of great announcements one up to 50 quantum with SDR Portugal so a network of Quantums from the, you know, early in the scheme, which is great, to support their recovery targets. And then another frame agreement with a large Iberian supermarket, which will roll out over the next 12 months. We've moved, like Poland, we've moved to a new location to support that rollout and support the service, expanding the technical team and really ready to get busier and get going further in that market overall then uh we're building momentum at in vipco so um 200 000 units is multi-billion opportunity um 2025 was a transitional year but you see uh really great strength as we go into 2026. poland portugal building momentum great case lots of commercial activity in the UK. All of that bodes extremely well for the business. And, of course, we maintain a disciplined approach. We've improved working capital management. We've kept an eye on OPEX. CAPEX is specific and focused. And we will keep that disciplined approach as we grow the business. So I think with that, that finishes the presentation. Thank you very much. And I think michael we may have some uh we may have some questions okay so the next event is may um okay okay maybe um i understand there were some some sound issues uh in the first few minutes oh yeah okay very good great idea yeah you can maybe just do the intro yeah okay so so good morning everyone so we're in Vipco so yeah my name is Simon Bolton and once again I'm joined by my good colleagues Michael Clement chief iron strategy officer and our old friend Bob Lincoln and also I did announce that I would be reminded that I as announcement I would be transitioning out of the business at the end of April and just to reconfirm it's been an honor and pleasure leading this business so this will be the last uh quarterly update that i give um and as you as you saw it's a transitional year in 2025 but the business um is positioned extremely well for the future and i'm confident that the best years are ahead for this business so that's uh in summary what we went through first couple of minutes and i think now we've got even more questions right Michael?
Yes, we do. I can start with the gross margin. Adjusted gross margin is down from Q3 to Q4, despite slightly higher revenues. What's the key reason for this? Well, we are investing in service personnel in Poland, in Portugal, to be able to install machines as we move ahead and those costs are into cost of goods sold and there is a further increase from q3 and into q4 on that so that weighs a little bit um on that relative change and then there are also i think some geographical mix uh changes and some product mix changes that explain uh the the the decline from q3 to q4 um yes ceo transition when you expect that completed well uh in the press release on January 12th the board said that the process of recruiting a new CEO was well underway that Simon would be staying on with the company until April 30th and that the board did expect to be able to announce a transition before that time I have not heard anything yet since that so I said you know I assume that's uh that still stands yeah very much um then we have a question on the deliveries in poland and revenues in poland a couple a few few few questions here i think i'm should i take that as well i mean go on uh in q3 we announced um firm orders of around 500 rvms in poland and we would deliver both in 2025 and into 2026 we delivered roughly half of that volume in the fourth quarter of 25 in poland let's see here if i may um that's more uh yeah there's another question on uh the inventory provisions in there and true ops. Just to repeat that then, so from 25 to 32 by 3% gross margins, those are non-recurring elements. The majority of those stem from inventory provisions and that is an adjustment on certain parts inventory for RVMs that are no longer in use. So obsolete parts inventory largely and then we have centralized our finance function through 2025 with the addition of a new cfo patrick german a new team based in amishford that team has made sure that we're now harmonizing all our accounting across all organizations in the group so some of those explain that the remaining one-off items in Q4 yeah see what we have here we've done this this Poland Romania you think that you continue to build market share in Romania where are you now and what potential do you continue to see in Romania yeah no I think that's a great question.
As we said before, Romania has been a great success story for us. So we've been operating the country as a supplier manufacturer for over 10 years. We have a main European manufacturing centre there, and obviously we've participated in the DRS, Deposit Return Scheme. As the country exited, they're recovering about 80, 83 percent, which is a fantastic achievement because they probably came from maybe 30%. So it shows the power of deposit return schemes. But to get from 80, 83% to 90, 90% plus, you know, that's hard yards. And that will require continued investment. So we do see continued investment, which is obviously very positive for us. And I think there will be opportunities for things like increasing quantum deliveries municipal solutions to get that final 10 percent yeah yeah then there's a question on Ireland could you give an update on your performance in Ireland which you reported was still lagging in terms of market share yeah I mean in the Irish market there is still a reluctance on some retailers to uptake portfolio of
our smaller machines but we're grinding on it day in day out and we expect our share in traditional supermarkets to grow but what's interesting about Ireland is quantum. We did our first quantum installation at a SPAR location in Ireland and it's been an unbelievable success. And coming out of that success, we now have seven quantums already sold and installed and three in the pipeline and more to follow. And what's happened is we took a convenience store at SPAR, we put a quantum in and the volume went from 3,000 containers to 500 to 600,000 containers and ramp very quickly now when you're getting a handling fee of a little over two euro cents and you're doing 600,000 containers that's a significant revenue stream to the retailer and half of the traffic at the quantum location has been driven into the store itself so they get all the incremental incremental sales so I think quantum is going to be playing an increasing role in Ireland maybe just to build on that I think we
see this as a real theme right we have so quantum in Ireland I think we're seeing obviously the great order in Portugal and I think now pretty much every market we operate in including the US we see either the technology coming in in older mature markets brownfield markets or even like in Portugal, an order being placed for Quantum before the scheme starts. So I think with the additional product formats that you talked about, Bob, Solar, Quantum S, I think Quantum is an incredibly strong platform that more and more markets are understanding. And I think certainly we referenced Euroshop, which was the international retail fair a few weeks ago incredible interest in quantum so I think this is a this is a real product platform that's unique to in Vipco holds a lot of value and I think now the proof points of you know hundreds and hundreds of these being rolled out is really very very powerful so I think that's really exciting Then there's a question on France.
We talked about a pilot program in France. What type of potential are we seeing in the French market?
Yeah, great. So France has always been on our famous Gantt chart. We strongly believe there will be a deposit scheme in France. It may have slightly different characteristics to some of the others that operate in Europe, but we believe it will come in. And the early scheme, which we did announce sales for last year, is around refillables, refillable glass. So France has started with that, with a pilot, which is going quite well. That could be expanded, and then that could be expanded also to include single-use containers. So I think France is going to happen. We've got, you know, we're working well in France. We've had anti-deer for some time, and we'll continue to stay tight with all the stakeholders to see what we can do to participate. Clearly, France is a big country, so that is another, you know, 25,000 to 35,000-unit market, depending on the characteristics. So it's exciting, but it will come probably towards, you know, towards the end of the window.
Then there are a couple of questions in regards to the LOI in Poland and the 1,000 firm orders. Number one, is the LOI included? And number two, what's the status?
Yeah, definitely. So the 1,500 that we said before, 1,000 that we updated, they are smaller orders from independent So these could be, you know, one unit or they could be up to kind of 10 or 20 unit. does not include the LOI which is still valid and obviously we announced that some time ago what we have been doing is we have been working with that with that particular customer to look at how the scheme is developing and also the product and technology selections that may be most optimum to them and they've they've taken that advice on board and what they've done is they've reconstituted how they're thinking about that we're still working that through with the customer and hopefully we make some announcements soon certainly the the overall magnitude we expect to be similar but that's not included and what isn't included is we still have clearly some larger retail chains that have not made a decision yet and as you saw on the slide we we have a really great local commercial team not only are we going for and leveraging our frame agreements but we're also following up hard on these you know large mid-sized
chains that haven't made a decision and again hopefully we'll make some announcements we obviously will make announcements when we can on hopefully the success in in that area good uh are there any new developments in the u.s um yes i mean we we continue to focus uh very much on california and we are uh very close to installing the first quantum in california it might be followed by two more quantum and what's interesting about california i won't digress too much because it's such a complicated market but essentially it's called a weigh and pay market. So customers come in with a bag, they put it on a scale, there's an attendant, they weigh it, they pay them cash and they go. So that's a very inefficient model because you have no compaction, no exact accounting. So where quantum comes in is we can count the material exactly. So we eliminate shrink, but importantly, logistically moving all these full containers all over a very expensive state there's a real reason to use quantum to capture better logistics savings and reduce shrink on count so we are very optimistic you will see a quantum and maybe a couple of quantums in California this year.
Good. And then there's a question on existing markets. How should you extrapolate kind of the development in some of these existing markets? There's a softness to be seen in 25, yeah.
Yeah, look, I think, as you mentioned, Michael, I think we had a very strong, in a couple of these new markets, We had a real strong 4Q24, which kind of gave a quite a tough comparable. I would say, look, Romania, certainly we see, you know, continued developments in Romania. Hungary, it's stable. So it's come down a lot because now we're kind of over two years since the scheme went live. But we do see, continue to see opportunities. And then we have other existing markets now, you know, like Sweden, like the U.S. that Bob has referred to. So I think we've got, I think in those existing markets, we've got a, you know, a solid stability. And then I think you'll see the new markets as they start to accelerate, add to that, which, you know, will obviously have material impact on our revenue, which, you know, we expect to come through during the course of 2026. And of course, you know, as we've said before, you know, some of these markets now we're working out of the warranty period. So that will start to drive through and we'll see, you know, expansion and development of European service business as the installed base has increased. And that, again, that comes out of the warranty period.
I think we have time for one more. And then it's really on the visibility of the outlook. What are you seeing now as the key, given 2025, what are you seeing as, what visibility do you have on new developments?
Great. Maybe we can all answer that. So maybe we'll start with Bob.
Well, you know, obviously the UK is quite a large market. I mean, we estimate it at 35,000 machines. In my view, it's going to be more than that.
And so that's going to come out of the ground commercially this year. so that's obviously we have a pretty good outlook because we're so deep into the commercial cases now we have a good sense of where we stand so UK is the prominent one I think at least near term in terms of commercial yeah absolutely and I think just to add to that I think whereas the UK will order flow you know this year deliveries and revenue in 27 I think Poland and Portugal we're starting to see now you know proper momentum i think and that really is containers on the shelf customers demanding their deposit back and i think with if we just go back a couple of years you know there's some parallels to maybe hungary very few containers on the shelf you know there's soft activity soon as the containers come on the shelf that that heavy uh that heavy summer suddenly it kind of accelerated and so I think we're gonna see some parallels there so we are you know very positive about both of those markets and you know as I said I think we've got a good stable level of business in the other existing markets and of course we have Greece kind of coming up on the on the side now we've been very successful as you mentioned 25 was was a lower year in Greece as the focus move from municipal infrastructure to preparing for the DRS clearly DRS you know possibly coming in in this year gives us good opportunity so I think you know for me they're the key elements in terms of growth okay fantastic well once again everyone thanks for your time and attention Q4 it's great been great to present our business thank you very much and the next time is in May thank you
