Hello and welcome to the Ebusco Half-Year Results 2024 Conference Call. Please note that this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero, and you'll be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host, Peter Bijvelds, founder and Co-CEO of Ebusco, to begin today's conference.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Ebusco Half-Year Results 2024 webcast. My name is Peter Bijvelds, and I'm the founder and co-CEO of Ebusco, and with me here in the room are Michiel Peters, our new co-CEO, Jurjen Jongma, our CFO, and Roald Dogge, our new COO. Michiel Peters and Roald Dogge are attending an Ebusco webcast for the first time and will both take part in the presentation. Of course, there will be sufficient room for questions after the presentation. On slide three, you will find the usual disclaimer. The agenda is reflected on page four. As usual, I will take you through the operational overview, the order book, and through a high level on the financials, after which I will hand it over to Jurjen to take you through the financials in more detail.
Michiel will comment on his findings from the first weeks and will address the highlight of the turnaround plan as announced this morning. Roald will then take over to elaborate on the key points within the turnaround plan, after which we will open the floor for questions. Before I discuss the main topics of the first half year 2024 on slide six, it is without saying that 2023 and also the first half of 2024 have been disappointing. I know I'm reiterating myself since this was also the message I gave in 2023, but the results clearly reflect the difficult situation that Ebusco is going through at this moment. Of course, we are disappointed in these results ourselves, but also for all of our stakeholders.
I want to emphasize that we have evaluated our actions and choices and are taking action to improve our performance, which we elaborate on further in this presentation. Now, let me go to the main topics of the first half of 2024. Within the first six months of this year, we have delivered 98 buses, including the Ebusco 3.0 buses assembled by our contract manufacturers. Out of these deliveries, 58 are Ebusco 2.2s and 40 Ebusco 3.0 buses, doubling our 3.0 fleet on the road. The shift to working with contract manufacturers has proven to be the right choice, as we can see in acceleration and assembly time, as well as unit economics per bus on the buses assembled by our contract manufacturers, approaching expected levels. Unfortunately, further scale-up with the contract manufacturers of Ebusco 3.0 production has been hampered by startup inefficiencies.
These startup inefficiencies are primarily related to the logistic flows and the product design of Ebusco 3.0. While the final product shows excellent performance, the manufacturing process for this bus is not yet fully stable. This, combined with the ongoing learning and improvement at various locations, contributes to the inefficiencies previously mentioned. Therefore, production inefficiency in combination with liquidity restraints resulted in a hampered scale-up and delayed deliveries, which have recently caused us to withdraw the guidance for 2024. The order book ended at 1,662 buses, which is substantial. More detail we will provide on the next slide. Currently, we have 729 buses on the road, and of which the largest part is of the two series.
Over the last few years, the Ebusco 2.2 buses have proven to be a strong performing model, both from a production point of view as well as in their daily operations at our customers. With the increasing number of 3.0 buses on the road, this model is exceeding customer expectations by its excellent operation performance and energy efficiency. As recently announced, the latest addition to the executive team is Erland Morelissen, who will join us as CCO. With this addition, the executive team is now complete with six new members. With our current focus on delivering orders from our existing order book, we have taken a more critical approach to selecting tenders to ensure that it will fit in future available production slots. Therefore, the order book decreased slightly to 1,662 buses.
In view of the turnaround plan, which we will elaborate on further in the presentation, this approach fits the current strategy and is also applicable for Ebusco Energy. On slide eight, I will briefly touch up on the financials. The limited production output during the first half of 2024 impacted both the P&L and the balance sheet. Our revenue for the first half of 2024 arrived at EUR 38 million. This lower revenue resulted in a limited coverage of operational expenditures, resulting in a negative EBITDA of EUR 60.7 million. Next to the operational loss, inventories arrived at EUR 113.1 million. The first half of the year ended with EUR 8.2 million in cash and cash equivalents. As indicated, we are disappointed in the performance over the first half of 2024. We are taking several measures to ensure that our performance improves. He will attach the financial review on high level.
Let me hand over to Jurjen to take you through the financial results in more detail.
Yeah, thanks a lot, Peter, and good morning to all. I will indeed guide you through the key financial items for the first half in the coming slides. Towards the end, I will also elaborate on a change in the way of recognizing revenue throughout the course of 2024, which we believe will enhance transparency and provide a closer relationship between EBITDA and cash flow. Now, let me start with our profit and loss statement on slide number 10. As Peter already outlined, the first half results are very disappointing and are driven by a number of factors, with revenue being behind plan, obviously one of the key drivers. When it comes to revenue, these amount to approximately EUR 38 million in the first half of 2024, and these are substantially behind plan for the first half.
If we go through the key reasons and the effects, on a like-for-like basis, we missed approximately EUR 100 million of revenue against our 2024 plan due to lack of progress in building buses, as well as delivery of Ebusco Energy products. While more buses are delivered to customers in the first half of 2024 than in the first half of 2023, these hardly contributed to revenues. The lack of progress, as Roald and Michiel will also address, predominantly relates to delays in finalizing buses in China, but more importantly, also to delays in starting up production with our contract manufacturers in China. While the first 3.0 buses have been delivered to customers and additional deliveries are scheduled in the coming months, progress is much lower than expected.
If we then move on to gross profit at negative [EUR 1 million] in the first half, I have an additional slide on gross profit normalization, so I will elaborate on this in greater detail in the next slides. But it should not be a surprise that negative margin is driven by provisions that have been taken for costs incurred by customers due to late deliveries, as well as penalties for late deliveries. For the most part, these costs and penalties do not have a cash impact as of yet, and of course, we are in discussion with customers to settle these in the time to come. As I mentioned, I'll come back on gross profit and gross profit normalization in greater detail on the next slide. Due to the delays in our operations, we've not been able to scale down costs in the first half of 2024.
We had planned to finalize production of buses in the April-May timeframe, which had allowed us to scale back costs in our Casco and bus assembly departments, but also, for instance, in supply chain. Similarly, we incurred high costs in mainly distribution expenses, and we incurred high costs for external advice, mainly related to stabilizing our operations. Operational costs, as a consequence, are at EUR 48.7 million, and in combination with the negative margin, this drives EBITDA down to a negative EUR 60.7 million. If we then move on to slide number 11, I will provide some details behind the quality of gross profits. Let me start by saying that normalized gross margin, gross profit is now at 19%. We're confident to be able to further enhance this to more than 25% once existing inventories are depleted and excess material consumption during production is adequately addressed.
This 19% of gross profit represents the EUR 6.1 million on the right-hand side of the bridge. This is then negatively impacted by approximately EUR 10 million of penalties in customer claims, which, as I said, to date do not fully represent a cash impact. With regards to the delays in production, we now have identified some projects that will be loss-giving, and hence we have to recognize those losses now. Lastly, our cash revenue from buses includes provisions for service revenue that will be recognized at the time when these services are actually delivered to customers. So we take that out on our cash margin, and hence has an impact on gross profits.
One other important element with regards to gross profit relates to our engagement of external help to assess the quality of margin, and we're confident that positive margins both on the 3.0 and the 2.2 can be realized, certainly on the back of our revised production strategy and our turnaround plan. If we then move on to the cash flow statement on slide number 12, as I explained before, you can see that the lack of relationship between EBITDA and cash flow for Ebusco. While EBITDA loss was at a negative EUR 60 million, cash out amounted to EUR 20 million, or to be precise, EUR 19.7 million.
This also relates to the delivery of almost 100 buses in the first half of 2024 that hardly contributed to revenue and therefore also not to EBITDA, but did have a positive effect on cash flow for the first half, as is also represented by the reduction of working capital. With regards to cash flow and our cash position, it is furthermore clear that we are in a difficult situation. Producing and delivering less buses than planned means we collect less cash than anticipated from our customers, and on top of this, we maintain a high level of cost to ensure that we finalize buses in our Deurne production facility. These factors combined cause a tight cash position, as also the June 30 cash position highlights and emphasizes the need for additional financing.
We're in active discussions with both lenders and investors to alleviate this situation as soon as possible, and as soon as we have additional information on this, we will obviously share it with you and the market. Now, onto the balance sheet on slide 13. I will not dwell on the balance sheet for too long. It is clear that working capital is still exceptionally high on the back of limited progress in inventory consumption and conversion of contract assets into cash flow. As mentioned before, cash and cash equivalents were EUR 8 million at the end of H1. Moving on to my last slide, something on revenue recognition that has not impacted the first half to a very large extent. But Ebusco has historically solely recognized revenue based upon the so-called percentage of completion method for the supply of buses due to the level of required customer customization.
As Ebusco's product design and processes reach a more mature and a standardized state, it enables the company to more effectively cope with the required customization levels, and this development generally facilitates Ebusco to recognize revenue at a point in time for newly initiated bus contracts. That means that, contrary to the past, we will recognize revenue once buses are delivered to customers rather than throughout the production process of the buses. This has a number of consequences. As customers typically pay at the delivery and acceptance of buses, recognizing revenue at this point better reflects the cash realization of our business, but it also means that revenue in the fourth quarter will be depressed as revenues related to buses in production will no longer be recognized.
We'll become more specific on the impact of this effect during our Q3 interim update and, of course, the capital markets day in November. Although the point-in-time method is required by international accounting standards, we however believe that the point-in-time method provides more transparency and is better aligned with the nature of our business. With this, let me give the floor to Michiel.
Thank you, Jurjen, and good morning, everyone. My name is Michiel Peters. I recently started as a co-CEO of Ebusco. I'm an engineer. I began my career at McKinsey & Company, and I've served since as a COO at Fokker Elmo, a wire harness manufacturer, and Vanderlande material handling player, and as a CEO of the same company, Vanderlande and Moba Group. In recent years, I've focused my time on supervisory board memberships and leading high-tech scale-ups. As a co-CEO, I will serve as chairman of the executive team. Since starting my onboarding only six weeks ago, I've had the chance to become acquainted with the company. Together with my fellow executive team members, we've identified improvement areas and a plan to turn around the company.
I'm pleased to share these insights with you, starting with our initial findings and, on the next slide, our plan moving forward. Roald Dogge, our COO, who has also started in June, will provide further details on some of these elements. Let me start with our findings. First, we can observe that the capital of Ebusco is locked up in stock and work in progress. Ebusco has also grown an expansive footprint with multiple locations and an expansive organization. Second, introducing a new product and establishing a fit-for-purpose supply chain has been a little underestimated and undermanaged. Third, both on a positive note, the 2.2 and the 3.0 products are a very good basis to build a business on, is my firm belief. And fourth, we have met many committed and capable employees who are ready to bring the company to the next level and are also willing to change.
Then, to plan the turnaround, and going to the next slide, to plan the turnaround, the performance of Ebusco consists of five elements. First, we will reduce the operational footprint and establish a reactive supply chain. Second, we will focus on completing the industrialization of the existing product portfolio to make it easier to manufacture with first-time ride. Third, we will gradually improve the move rate to 40-50, 40, say, between 40 and 50 buses per month in 2025. At the end, we aim for this move rate to reach it by the end and do a gradual improvement. Fourth, we will reduce the OpEx by EUR 20-EUR 30 million by closing locations and gradually right-sizing the organization. And finally, fifth point, we will mobilize the organization and create the necessary clarity and structure that is required for better performance.
We are confident that we can implement this plan. Although I'm only six weeks into the company, we have seen some obvious room for improvement and stuff we're really looking forward to, to further detail and execute this plan. We believe, and I believe, Ebusco and all its stakeholders deserve much better. As promised, Roald will provide some further details. Thank you.
Thank you, Michiel. Other than speaking briefly at the AGM, for me, this is the first time participating as COO of Ebusco. Before joining Ebusco, I held the position of COO at a global operating contract manufacturer for high-tech mechatronics. Prior to that, I was 14 years active in the bus manufacturing industry and held different positions in operations and general management in the Netherlands, China, and India. As Michiel already mentioned, the turnaround plan has a number of operational elements, of which the most important one is the simplification of the global operational footprint, which will help to reduce the overall management efforts. In the upper half of the slide, you can see the current operational setup with, for the 2.2, a relatively straightforward situation. However, for the 3.0, this situation is significantly more complex, also because the product is fully developed and maintained by Ebusco.
The plan is to reduce the number of locations which are doing the same activity, but also to manage the supply chain in a way which is similar to the 2.2 setup as we are used to from the past. The result will be that the number of operational locations will be reduced from seven to five. I will now move on to slide 19. Next to the reduction of the footprint, we will also simplify the logistics setup by establishing a reactive supply chain, which pulls the material in based on the actual needs, instead of Ebusco being a spider in the web and organizing the entire planning, goods flow, and finances for all the partners involved.
An example of this further simplification is, for instance, the arrangement of direct shipments from component suppliers to the points of use, instead of having that material flowing physically, but also financially through Ebusco. For the stabilization of production, slot planning with a fixed and preset run rate per week will be implemented so that we can move from a batch-wise production to a flow production. Lastly, a robust new product introduction process will be implemented to ensure that products are manufacturable at a predictable run rate, which will help the planning for the introduction. For the closing remarks, I hand the floor back to Michiel for slide 20.
Yeah. So there will be a capital markets day in 2024, end of 2024, on the 13th of November, and we will be most happy to further specify the plan and already the first elements of the execution that will be fully underway by that time and to give more guidance towards our future planning. We are really looking forward to bringing this company to the next level. As I said, the products, the 2.2 and the 3.0, from a product point of view, perform very well. It is more the logistics and the whole process to ramp up this business to the next level that requires some attention, but we, as a team, are fully committed and very enthusiastic, actually, to be on board and to bring this beautiful company to the next level. Thank you.
We would like to hand it back to you, operator, to open the Q&A session.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call, please press star when on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind and want to withdraw your question, please press star two. Please ensure your lines are unmuted locally, as you'll be prompted when to ask your question. The first question comes from a line of Luc Van de Wiele from Degroof Petercam. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. A couple of questions to start with. So first of all, can you elaborate a bit on your new production setup? So for example, does this mean that you will close France and stop working with one of the contract manufacturers? And furthermore, I was a bit surprised that you now moved to such a, well, say, a more rigid approach in the sense that I always understood that your Chinese partners are very flexible in the production. So, can you explain the benefit of making a more fixed production approach? Furthermore, you mentioned that the working capital is very high. Can you give an indication of how quickly you expect to be able to reduce the inventories and what kinds of movements you expect in the payables? And then finally, for now, most of the headcount reduction came in Q2.
Is that now finished, or do you expect a further effect in the second half of this year? Will this also involve severance payments?
Okay. I will start with the first two questions. As I mentioned, there will be a reduction of locations where we are operational. We are, at the moment, working on the details and coming with the final decisions, which locations that will be and when. And so for this moment, we cannot give any more details as of now. That was the first question. The second one was, what is the advantage of a more rigid planning versus flexibility? The thing is that we have very long supply chains, and they need to be able to plan as well. The plan is that we have a slot planning, which is having a fixed move rate per week, but that can be adjusted up and down in the future as well. So it doesn't mean that it is rigid.
It only means that it is pre-planned and that we can adjust based on the capabilities of the entire supply chain.
Yep. So then there's the two questions, one related to working capital and the other one related to headcount. So let me take these. First, as to working capital and inventories, and you see that inventories have, sorry, have increased a little bit in the first half year. Obviously, on our initial product planning, those inventories would have been in part consumed. I think we already said also in our webcast on 2023 that inventory depletion and consumption will take a while. So that will definitely take a while. I think the good news is that earlier, on the back of higher planning, inventories also substantially increased. That is not the case. So that is also a sign that we are better able to adapt our operations to the actual situation that we have in hand.
When it comes to payables, you have seen that in comparison to the full-year numbers, payables have come down. So that is also a sign that we're purchasing less, and therefore, the payable position is also slowly coming down. When it comes to headcount, I think there were two questions behind it. So one is that in comparison to the first or to the end of last year, the number of people has actually come down from 893 towards the year end to 770 in the first half. And so we have reduced people. And if you look at the turnaround plan, as Michiel and Roald presented it, a substantial element of that turnaround plan is a further reduction of people. When it comes to severance, then it's too early for us to now comment on that. As said, we will further specify how 2024 looks like.
Obviously, if so applicable, we also include severance in it.
Okay. Thank you. That's all for now.
Okay. Thank you.
Before proceeding to the next question, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from the line of Usama Tariq from ABN AMRO - ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity. I hope I'm audible.
We can hear you.
Yeah. Yeah. So I have two sets of questions, firstly being on the order book. So I would like to have your comment on what do you think would be the repercussions of a falling order book? Don't you think?
Usama, we have lost your line.
Yeah. So could you give a comment on the falling order book? Am I still audible?
Yeah. Now you are.
Now you are, but you dropped away for a minute.
Yeah. Apologies. Yeah. So my question is, could you comment on the repercussions of a falling order book? Do you think it will give an extra negative signal to the market currently?
No, because let's say, as we mentioned before, the order book is not the problem for Ebusco. We still have over 1,600 buses on order. And as you can see, we are far into production of 2025. So this has led, in fact, to a more critical approach by selecting the tenders, with Ebusco recently carefully evaluating conditions before bidding. So no, we are not immediately worried about that.
Okay. Thank you. And if I may ask another question, and that is with regards to your cash position, could you comment on it? And how do you see that evolving by the end of this year? I do understand that you have indicated that you will be in discussions with different parties. Could you also comment on the impact of the convertible bond payment that is probably planned? Thank you.
Yes. Yes, I can. So yeah, like I also said, our cash position towards the end of June was around EUR 8 million. So it means that we have to very, very carefully plan our weekly cash expenditures, but also receivables from customers. We are doing that, and we have been doing this for a while. As I indicated, the turnaround plan needs to be financed, and that financing discussion is currently ongoing. There is no more that I can comment on that. When it comes to the convertible, as to our discussion, so we have the election to repay the bonds in either shares or in cash. To date, there have been three amortizations of the bonds. All of these have been done in shares. And yeah, for as long as it is required from a cash point of view, we will continue to do so.
Thank you.
It goes for both the principal and the interest. So all are being satisfied in shares.
All right. Thank you.
We currently have no questions coming through. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your keypad. Another question from Luc Van de Wiele from Degroof Petercam. Please go ahead.
Yeah. I have one follow-up question about your remark on the energy storage business, where you say that you were not able to satisfy the contracts. So can you elaborate on the problem there and indicate if you expect to be able to solve that quickly? And so that's my question now.
Yeah. I think the challenge that we're facing on the energy business is that we require final customer acceptance for the delivery of those products before also recognizing revenue. We expect indeed to be able to resolve that in 2024.
Okay. Thank you.