Autohellas SA Stock

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Paulina, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Autohellas conference call to present and discuss the full year 2025 financial results. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Eftichios Vassilakis, CEO; Mr. Vassilakis, you may now proceed.

Yes. Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to our call on the annual results of 2025. Thank you for being here. I'll make some brief comments, and then I'll turn over to Mr. Vitzilaios, our Controller, to describe the results of last year. And then after he goes through the numbers, I'll make some comments with regards to outlook.

What we're happy to report on is that last year was once again a year of very solid numbers for us. Autohellas has reached a level of operation and profitability since '22 in essence, which is more or less double of what we had before COVID. So '22, '23, '24 and '25 have all been excellent years for us where we're able to develop our revenues and as I said, reach very high levels of EBITDA and final bottom line profitability. And 2025 was again a year at that level.

The reason I'm highlighting the stability at these levels is because our sector, whether we define the sector as short-term rent a car, leasing or car trading, any combination thereof, typically, if we look at most of our competitors who are listed in different places in the world, we will see a significantly higher level of instability in their results with a high level of volatility depending on how things like rent a car prices, depreciation, real depreciation of used cars and/or the margins of the car trading business affect the industry.

The fact that Autohellas has reached and retained levels of revenue around EUR 1 billion and actually levels of bottom line performance at where we've been for the last 4 years is for us a testament to the fact that the model is quite solid and can withstand a reasonable amount of pressure depending on how changing situations evolve. This is the reason that we'll be able to once again suggest to the AGM, propose to the AGM that we will distribute EUR 0.85 per share, which, of course, leads to a very interesting yield to our shareholders despite the fact that, again, we find ourselves over the last month and for a period that we, of course, cannot evaluate on our own in a situation of war in the Middle East, which, of course, is never good either for macro nor for confidence nor for the travel habits of people, which all affect industries like our own.

So I will turn over to Zachos to give you the particulars of the year that we now have behind us. And I'll come back towards the end to make some comments about how we feel on the way forward to the degree, of course, that this can be described within a war environment in our -- not exact proximity, but not too far away from here either. Thank you.

Zachos?

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining the call. So I will begin with a concise overview of Autohellas Group performance in 2025, and we will highlight some key trends and drivers.

So starting with the top line. As we said earlier, the consolidated revenue surpassed the EUR 1 billion, which is 5% above 2024, and it's a record revenue year because it's higher also than the previous record year of 2023. So the main growth driver was the strong demand in short- and long-term rentals in Greece, but there was also some continued positive momentum in the car trade. On the consolidated revenue, on top, we had the Italian Motion revenue production, which was EUR 170 million. This number is not consolidated. So if we look at the total footprint of Autohellas Group in revenue, this amounts to EUR 1.2 billion.

Zooming in on a by-segment basis, as we said, the Greece rentals was the main driver. This segment has grown by 12% in 2025. One key driver is the international arrivals that increased 6% in 2025. There was some -- there was another seasonality improvement, which means that the first quarter and the last quarter were stronger, small numbers, but stronger performance. So having tourism as the main driver, the short-term rentals have also increased despite the high vehicle availability in the market and some price pressures that we experienced from the competition. We showed improvement in all the KPIs we have in the short-term rentals, like fleet utilization or customer satisfaction or revenue per car.

At the same time, we had also long-term leasing being a key growth engine for another year. In the Greek market, the corporate or fleet registrations as we call it, have rose by 12%. So out of the total car registrations, 60% were fleet registrations. And this confirms a shift from owning cars to leasing cars and supports the leasing business.

Now looking at the Auto Trade, where we operate in Greece, the market overall of car registration has increased by 5% and this growth, as we said earlier, is led by the corporate fleet sales. Autohellas Group has managed to retain the market share, although the profitability has softened a bit due to channel mix and some competition -- some intense competition. In 2025, we also added in our portfolio some Chinese brands, Changan and XPENG, that diversified and increased our portfolio.

Looking at the international activity, the Balkans and Cyprus has also delivered a positive momentum in growth, both in long and short-term rentals and contributed to the group, while at the same time, in Portugal, where -- we operate only -- we do not have operating leasing. We only have Rent a Car. We faced some -- we faced a competitive environment. So our main focus there was to take some operational and fleet optimization actions.

So now looking at the profit ratios, the EBITDA has followed the revenue increase. It reached EUR 295 million, which is 5% rise year-over-year. On the operating profit or EBIT, we managed to reach EUR 123 million (sic) [ EUR 117 million ], which was 5% down from 2024. And this was mainly due to the margin pressures we had in Auto Trade and the Portugal segment as we said earlier.

Now on the net profit, we reached EUR 80 million compared to EUR 85 million we had in 2024. And in this number, this result is also supported by EUR 10 million of dividends, which we had also in 2024. This growth and stability that we said is reflected also in the balance sheet. Our assets have increased by EUR 200 million relative to EUR 100 million of increase in net debt and EUR 95 million of increase in equity. So we retained a strong balance sheet.

This asset growth is mainly from fleet increase. We managed to reach 65,000 units under management. And we also performed a strong fleet renewal during the year, which means that we invested EUR 366 million in buying approximately 20,000 units.

So overall, the group in 2025 demonstrated resilience. In some segments, we had some market share gains, and we try to optimize our fleet management and continue our investments to support our sustainable growth.

Yes. Just 2, 3 things I want to highlight on top of what Zachos has mentioned. One is that during the year, we have progressed significantly in our switching forward into our IT modernization, which took a significant amount of effort and will continue into this year, but some main targets were reached to switch over. That's number one.

Number two, beyond the investment in cars, we also continue to invest significantly in land, especially where relevant for logistics support of airport operations. So we have continued to develop our policy of effectively having land that we control that can support the efficiency and the size of our operation close to relevant airports, particularly in Greece.

And at the same time, in Portugal, which is the only country that we operate where we don't have leasing operations and where we had a reasonably small footprint in terms of supporting facilities, we have moved forward to create facilities that can support either the operation and efficiency in terms of damage repair and servicing of the fleet or the reselling of the fleet at the end of the life of the vehicle -- at the useful life of the vehicle for the company. So both these elements to try to address the one area where we fell short of our expectations until now.

So all in all, as Zachos described, a successful year, but it is behind us. We are already in 2026. In fact, in the early part of the second quarter, what can we say about the year that we're going through now other than the fact that we have obviously a very unwelcome war in the Middle East. Greece has been developing its tourism arrival post-COVID over the last 4 years, and last year was no exception. This year, once again, what we see is an additional investment by airline capacity towards our market, which existed prior to the beginning of the war and is still there as far as the second quarter of this year is concerned.

There is a higher amount of airline seats planned for our country by about 7%, which is still there after the beginning of the war by about a month, which means that airlines tend to think that there will be some degree of shifting towards Greece from potentially other markets because if you consider that flights to the Middle East have been compromised, therefore, they should continue to present a shortfall if the net of receipts is the plus 7, that means that other markets -- airlines flying to and from other markets are still intensifying their pressure -- sorry, their presence in the country, and this should be positive for tourism development here.

The market also from the point of view of expectation of hotel reservations, year-to-date, it's up by a single-digit number, although it is true that in March, a slowdown in reservations post war has been experienced. So all in all, initial indications for tourism are positive. Of course, it's hard to make predictions when things like the cost of fuel might weigh in, in the longer-term demand determination or even airline activity. So it's quite difficult to make longer-term predictions.

In terms of how the Greek car market is behaving, the first 3 months of the year show a small increase in the market as well, no more than 3% to 4% and a continued shift towards different forms of renting the vehicle as opposed to straightforward acquisition, which is reasonably supportive. And at the same time, we see in terms of our own dynamic, a continued growth on the long-term rental activity, which is a continuation of the positive trend of last year.

In terms of the auto trade market, it's very important to note that with a significantly higher number of brands now active in the market, I would say, in the last 2 years, we've had a total of around about 12 brands join the market that were not there. It's clear that incumbents with significant share will, to some degree, face additional competition and margin erosion, even potentially sales drop so that we are not -- we cannot insulate ourselves from that effect either. At the same time, our own new brands will take some time to mature in order to produce a positive result for the group. So we don't expect this to happen before the latter part of '27. So we are in an investment period, I would say, net-net in Auto Trade. And so we have, at the same time, a positive to look forward to, but a difficult period to cross until we get there in the Auto Trade market.

In terms of our international activity, our plan for the year is to improve the contribution of that activity, particularly through the efforts of improving Portugal, as I mentioned earlier. The Balkans is also expected to remain strong. What is somewhat challenging now is what the performance of Cyprus will be. Cypriot market is definitely more affected from the tourism point of view than any of our other markets due to the relative proximity to the Middle East.

So all in all, that should give you an idea of the initial elements that we see contributing or affecting our business. And of course, again, with some degree of uncertainty that we all experience in various areas of activity due to the continuation of the war and the effect it might have on the -- mainly through the fuel prices to demand. So I will stop there and ask you, invite you to make any questions, and we'll try to answer them as best we can to give you some more highlights. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Svyriadi, Natalia with Eurobank Equities.

I was wondering -- I have a couple of questions.

Glad to see there's no questions at this stage. Next invitation is for the AGM on the 22nd of April. So if there are any developments in the demand side or on the cost side, in the meantime, we might make some additional outlook-related claims at that time. Otherwise, thank you for your attendance and looking forward to hopefully another strong year despite the challenges that are around. Thank you.

Sorry, has there been a question? Can we [ defer ] on the other one? Are we still...

The first question is from the line of Svyriadi, Natalia with Eurobank Equities.

Hello, can you hear me now? I'm not sure you can hear me.

Can the management hear us?

I think they can't hear me.

[Technical Difficulty] Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for holding. We are to resume the conference.

The first question is from the line of Svyriadi, Natalia with Eurobank Equities.

I hope you can hear me now.

Yes, we can.

Well, you answered most of the questions. So I just wondered if you have anything you could say about the Portuguese market, if you're thinking about there also on long-term leases once you're preparing with improving the footprint and everything. I was looking for some comments on the strategy ahead for this market, actually. And also, I was looking for some comments maybe for the Chinese brands. Well, I think you said that they need some time to mature. So I don't know if we could add anything there also.

Yes. Okay. So Portuguese market, no, there is no short term -- there is no thought in the short term to enter the leasing market there. It's a very mature market. And -- but our priority there is to develop our infrastructure to the degree that we can compete much more effectively in the rent-a-car market first. So I would think for the next 2, 3 years, there is absolutely no chance that we will actually go in that direction. If we manage to be -- to have the capacity to serve more efficiently a higher number of cars, whether that is by supporting in servicing and damage repair or in retailing them as used cars, then you have the basis of trying something different, although I have to say competition in the leasing car market in Portugal is very, very, very mature. And so that will be a hard decision to take.

So the improvement has to come from either the revenue or the cost side of the rent a car. And actually, the one thing that is clearly the case is that this year, both Spain and Portugal will be the highest beneficiaries in terms of relative tourism demand across the south of Europe for some pretty obvious reasons. They are at the edge of Europe and therefore, I would say, the most benefited from the crisis of the Middle East to the degree that anybody can be benefited. So that's one thing.

On the Chinese cars, part of the reason that time is needed to mature is that what we are importing right now is only electric cars. Within the course of this year, by the end of this year, at least 2 of the 3 brands that we represent will have hybrids and plug-in hybrids, and that opens up the door for a significantly higher level of sales.

So you've got 2 issues. One is to introduce the brands in the market, open the stores, establish the brands, make them known. But the second one is that when you're selling only electric, you are effectively facing after what is around 7% of the Greek market, whereas if you're also in the hybrid, then you're into 40% of the Greek market. So that's a significantly different play, and that's what we need beyond establishing those brands in order to have a significant contribution either to revenue or to -- or profitability. In fact, the Chinese brands that already have had some success in the market in terms of penetration, all of them sell also plug-in hybrids or hybrids that are not plug-ins, but they're not pure electric either. So I think that time and additional powertrains that are more popular in the country is what's going to be needed.

The next question is from the line of Spyropoulou, Violeta with Eurobank Asset Management.

I hope you're able to hear me?

Yes, we can.

Thank you for the results, comments and all the analysis you've given. Just two questions. First question is on the rent-a-car business and the evolution of margins. And this is also related to if you estimate that there will be some price pressures again this summer as you experienced you said in last year. And the other thing is connected to Chinese brands. So is there a year that you -- that could be breakeven or just small profits on that business because considering also the dominance of BYD there.

I'll start from the end. There are -- the Chinese brands, yes, BYD is globally known, a few of the others are, but there's actually quite a few that are quite significant and produce excellent cars. So our belief is that at least 6 or 7 other Chinese brands will be significant in Greece and in Europe. And we believe that 1 or 2 of those might be among those we represent. So we're quite confident in that. However, it will take some time. So I think there's not very much to say. It's more things to do in that direction, including work that we have to do and the introduction of, as I said, a wider array of models there.

The important thing about how we think about the car market and the auto trade is basically that we are building a platform which is able to support and accommodate a large number of brands through significant synergies in both logistics, back office and going forward, also in the retail side, multi-showroom facilities, which will be much more efficient in the promotion and support of smaller level of sales on a per brand basis. I'm sure you can understand why that could make sense. So that's point number two.

And then going back to point number one, listen, there are always tremendous competitive pressures in rent a car in Greece. We're talking about over 2,000 car rental companies that have been functioning here forever. So the question is not whether there's going to be pressure in pricing, that's always there. There's 2 drivers. One is the demand in terms of what's coming into the country, and that seems to be positive, but there is a war caveat there. And second is how we manage several elements that determine cost, what determines cost and revenue utilization, how much we manage to use our cars which is very important, how well we buy cars. And here, you see that there is an element of what is happening in the car market, which is again helping rental car companies.

What is that? The fact that now there's more competition in the car market means that we are actually able to buy cars in a more efficient way than probably 2, 3 years ago from others because we never only buy from ourselves, obviously, more like 30% comes from our own import companies, 70% comes from other people's import companies. So more competition in the car industry locally also means that we buy better. And we invest, as Zachos mentioned to you, $335 million last year in buying cars. So what degree of discount we get is very important.

At the same time, the other thing that is important is how much real depreciation there is when we resell the car. And that is dependent on two things: a, the discounting when you buy it; and b, the stabilization of pricing in the used car market. And I think we're getting there to a point after a bubble that went up and down as well. So there are determinants of cost, which is a combination of how you buy and how you sell, which are, I think, progressing in the right direction on the balance. It's never all positive, but I think we've been through the worst part of the buying stage where an improved buying stage. And I also think the selling stage after a boom that followed the lack of supply in the market and then a drop is also stabilizing now.

So in a nutshell, I think for a company as well represented in both sourcing capacity, funding capacity and logistics as we are, we will be able to deal pretty well with the balance of the issues that are there in the rent-a-car market as indeed we have for a number of years. So I'm pretty hopeful that we'll be fine both on the rent-a-car side and on the longer-term leasing, where as I said, the growth has been good for us in the last couple of years. And I think assuming we manage to contain the expansion of our fixed costs and we try to improve with certain actions, our efficiency in terms of how much throughput we have on a per facility basis, we will be reasonably successful again.

[Operator Instructions] Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Vassilakis for any closing comments. Thank you.

So first of all, thank you for your patience during the momentary there loss of communication from your side to ours. Thank you for attending the call. As I said, we have our AGM in the 3 weeks. And if there's any more information to pass on in terms of demand outlook, in particular, we'll be happy to do it there. Thank you for supporting us, and talk to you soon.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a pleasant evening.