Good morning, welcome to Envipco Q1 2026 earnings presentation. My name is Mikael Clement, Chief Strategy and IR Officer at Envipco, and with me today I will present together with Bob Lincoln, President Americas and heading up our U.K. business. As usual, we'll walk you through the highlights of the quarter. We'll talk about our financials, and we will go into deeper discussions of market developments and our outlook. We will open for a Q&A session following the presentation. First today, I would like you to welcome Mrs. José Matthijsse, who joined Envipco as Group CEO this week. José brings a wealth of experience from related industries, and before we move on, I would like to give José an opportunity to introduce herself.
Thank you, Mikael. My name is José Matthijsse, and indeed, I joined Envipco as CEO this week indeed, in May. I think it's a very exciting business opportunity that Envipco brings and a possibility to contribute to the circular economy shift that's happening in Europe right now. I bring experience indeed, and let me talk a little bit about that. The last 5 years, I was part of the executive board of SIG, a company, selling packaging equipment and after-sales and service, and having long-lasting relationships with customers like Envipco has. Before that, I spent a lot of time in my career in fast-moving consumer goods, working for FrieslandCampina, being responsible for cheese sales to the retail across Europe. Before that, at Heineken in multiple different countries where I was managing director for companies and smaller companies and larger companies with different maturities.
As much as the technology of Envipco is new to me, its customers, the value chain, and the business of scaling a commercial business is not. I'm very excited to join Envipco at this stage of their maturity. I'm also very familiar with the different legislations that lead to the rollout of DRS in Europe, which of course creates a great momentum for Envipco. I believe that the team has laid down a very good foundation for that growth to capture that growth. We have good teams across the European countries, and we obviously have a strong team in the U.S. We have a good buildup of capacity to capture the growth that is coming.
I believe we're very well prepared, and we have a very good portfolio that also caters for the different needs of a wide variety of customers. All in all, I'm very excited to join. I'm very grateful for the trust that the board has given to me, and I'm happy to be here today with the team to present Q1 results. With that, Mikael, I give it back to you.
Thank you. With that, let's move into the financial review and some highlights of the first quarter of 2026. Group revenues in the first quarter of 2026 were €19.7 million, a decline of 6% on stable operations in North America, and somewhat mixed performance in Europe. Our gross margins improved sequentially to 34.1%, driven positively by product mix, but still reflecting a building of our service organization and underutilization of our assembly operations. With OPEX at EUR 11.2 million, EBITDA came in at negative EUR 2.1 million in the quarter, with operating profit at negative €4.5 million. The quarter has been characterized by strong commercial activity with several new wins, and with anticipation of higher activity levels going forward, we have built our inventories and continued to build our team.
We exited the quarter with cash balances of EUR 41.6 million. This has been a very active quarter for Envipco, and the commercial momentum for the company is building. We're very happy to welcome José as the company's new CEO from this week. We have had a number of new commercial wins. In Portugal, we have announced a win with the operator, SDR Portugal, for Quantums. We have announced retail wins with Covirán and also SPAR Portugal. In Poland, we're very happy to team up with Netto Polska, and we'll install up to 700 RVMs across Poland in the current year for Netto. We have had breakthrough orders in the U.K. market and announced two major wins in the U.K. with up to 3,800 RVMs being installed from first half of 2027.
In the Netherlands, we've had strong commercial momentum, many new wins, and continue to drive deployments of our Quantum technology for bulk feed collection across the Netherlands, reaching 50 installations in total now just a few days ago. We continue to build our organization, close to 600 employees at the end of Q1, with a growth in the last period driven largely from new employees in our assembly facilities and expansion of our field service capacity in new markets. Those of you who are new to Envipco is a global recycling technology company. We make reverse vending machines, enabling the automated collection of empty beverage containers used in DRS's deposit return schemes globally. Historically, a North American-based company, the company pivoted into Europe a few years ago and has since won significant market share in new greenfield DRS markets.
Building on a delivery capacity and seeing a very strong tailwind from new deposit legislation across Europe, Envipco is looking very positively to the opportunities ahead. Let's move a little further into the financials for the first quarter. P&L first. Revenues, as mentioned, EUR 19.7 million, down 6% year-over-year. The decline is largely explained by stable operations in North America and somewhat mixed operations in Europe. A few markets, such as the Netherlands, and new sales in Poland are positive drivers, whereas some of our existing markets, such as Hungary and Romania, are down on a year-over-year basis. Gross margins improved sequentially to 34.1%, but are down on a year-over-year basis. They continue to reflect the lower capacity utilization as we have built our production capacity and the building of our service organization in new markets.
Operating expenses were EUR 11.2 million, up EUR 100,000 from Q4, with EBITDA at negative EUR 2.1 million. European revenues were EUR 12 million in the quarter, down 2% year-over-year. Timing of markets continue to cause quarterly variations. That is an important factor for Envipco. This quarter, RVM sales are down somewhat year-over-year, 10.2 versus EUR 11 million last year, with some of the difference being explained by a higher share of deliveries on throughput and lease, thereby giving the revenue recognition over the contract lifetime versus as an upfront sale in the quarter. Slower sales, as mentioned, in Hungary and Romania, with very positive developments in Poland and the Netherlands. Program services in Europe in the quarter were EUR 1.8 million, up from EUR 1.3 million in Q1 last year.
North American operations, revenues of EUR 7.7 million, down 11% year-over-year in euro terms. FX adjusted, the decline is 1%. U.S. operations are relatively stable versus the first quarter of last year. Program service revenues were down 5% to EUR 7 million, up on a FX adjusted basis, whereas RVM sales were down 47% to EUR 0.7 million. Difficult comparisons with a few Quantum deliveries in the first quarter of 2025. With new orders in North America, the company expects RVM activity to increase for the remainder of 2026. The gross margin, as mentioned, 34.1%, up sequentially from an adjusted margin of 32.3% in Q4. Reported margin in Q4 was 25.1%, including some write-downs on inventories, as discussed in March.
Moving on to OPEX. OPEX up marginally on a sequential basis from EUR 11.1 million to EUR 11.2 million this quarter, up 14% year-over-year from EUR 9.8 million in the first quarter of last year. We exit the quarter with 597 employees, of which close to half are in field service and assembly. Over to our financial position. Balance sheet total is down sequentially from EUR 158 million in Q4 to EUR 151.1 million in Q1. We exit Q1 with cash at EUR 41.6 million, down from EUR 59.8 million in Q4. This is partly explained by an increase in working capital. Working capital gross is up EUR 10.8 million to EUR 68.3 million in Q1.
Inventories are building up more than EUR 5 million, and trade receivables are also increasing on late sales in the quarter. The inventory build is raw materials increasing as the company is securing components for anticipated higher deliveries through the year. Total borrowings are down by EUR 0.7 million to EUR 18.7 million at the end of Q1 on scheduled repayments. There is a reclass in our long-term and short-term borrowings this quarter. Subsequent to our Q4 2025 report, the loan facility was reclassified due to a temporary covenant breach at the year-end. A formal waiver has been obtained, and there have been no consequences. Going forward, the company expects to reclassify the loan as long term.
Current liabilities at the end of Q1 were EUR 44.4 million, up from EUR 33.1 million at the end of Q4, with trade creditors down EUR 2 million to EUR 13 million. From there, moving into the cash flow. The company started out the quarter with EUR 59.8 million in cash. Cash from operating activities were negative EUR 15.2 million, with working capital increase explaining EUR 12 and a half million. Cash flow from investing activities, negative EUR 1.3 million in the quarter. Capitalized R&D, EUR 0.7 million, and regular CapEx of EUR 0.6 million. Cash from financing activities in Q1 were minus EUR 2 million, with debt repayments of EUR 0.7 million in the quarter. Exiting Q1 with EUR 41.6 million in cash balances. Let's move into some outlook and market discussions.
As a reminder, Envipco has a growth platform based on 4 solid pillars. One is, of course, to continue to develop our existing business. Moving from installations to service businesses in existing markets after a period of warranty. The largest driver for the company in the last few years and anticipated to be in the next few years are greenfield growth opportunities, driven forth by new countries putting forth DRS legislation, introducing deposit return schemes. Through our technology, we are also able to develop business and drive selected growth in existing DRS markets through a brownfield growth strategy. What we have done in Sweden, what we are doing in the Netherlands, are strong examples of a very successful brownfield growth strategy.
On top of that, we have a selected M&A strategy, such as the acquisition of Sensibin in 2024, giving us the Compact product for the convenience store segment. There are a number of countries driving new market opportunity for this industry in the years ahead. The EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation are setting clear targets for all EU nations to collect 90% of all empty beverage containers by early 2029. This is a regulation mandating the introduction of DRS unless existing systems reach certain collection targets over the next few years. Ahead of us now, we are looking at Greece seeking to introduce a DRS, national DRS this year. The U.K. is actively progressing towards the introduction of a national DRS from October 2027.
We are seeing that there are movements in Turkey to introduce a staged rollout of DRS potentially from this year. Then we have a range of other countries coming along in the next few years. There are still some countries that are yet to introduce activity towards introducing a deposit return schemes. We expect them also to follow as we get closer to the EU deadline. With that, I think I would like to give the word to Bob for a brief introduction on our products and the U.K. and U.S. markets.
Thank you. Thank you, Mikael, and welcome to everybody that's on the call. I guess some of you have seen this slide before because it's very important because essentially we're a product company. We're very proud of our product portfolio because it allows us to attack every single segment of the retail market, regardless of what country we're operating in. Wanna spend a little more time on the low end, the Compact and Flex products, I will take you through the rest. When you look at the market composition and you look at how many convenience stores are in Poland and in the U.K. combined, that's about 75,000 locations. The Compact product has been purpose-built to attack that channel. Obviously, that's a huge opportunity. What have we done with this product? Well, we've engineered cost out of it.
The detection is done with a single camera versus multiple cameras. We use AI technology for shape and barcode recognition. We've redesigned the Compact. As a low-cost compactor, it is designed for stores that are doing several hundred containers a day. It is not designed for super centers or large retailers. It is a very discreet size. It is plug and play. 1 store personnel can move the machine around the store, plugs into standard electric. In this channel, in the convenience channel, the threshold for capital investment is low, you need a product that meets the performance to affect meaningful sales. We are very bullish in our ability to promote this product and take advantage of this huge market segment.
As retailers get a little bigger or their returns are more than expected, we can move them up to Flex, which is a high-performing multi-camera, more advanced compactor, faster machine. Then as you move into bigger stores, we have the Optima platform, very flexible, can take a single bin for co-mingle containers, can and pet together. We can separate the two commodities within the machine. We can move to Magna, which is a new product. This is environmentally rated product. This product can go outdoors in minus 20 degrees Celsius and extreme heat and work perfectly. Doesn't require an enclosure, and it's very flexible. This product, you could expand the product in the store in about three hours.
If queuing becomes a problem and a store has 3 Magna and they wanna add a Flex, we can do that in 3 hours, which is very compelling offering. We have a backroom system in Modula, which is state-of-the-art and deployed and performs incredibly well. On the highest end, we have Quantum. Quantum has proven to be a very important product for us, not just at retail, which it resonates. I mean, we have them at retail locations in every single country we operate. A clear pattern is emerging with Quantum with the system operators because you cannot get to the threshold the EU demands on return rate with just direct-to-retail redemption. That's what we're seeing in Portugal, where they're acquiring Quantum. That's what we've seen in Sweden. That's what we're seeing in the Netherlands.
What's unique about the product is there's really no competitive answer in our view to how this product performs on speed, capacity, and reliability. When you look across this product portfolio, we are really well-positioned to attack any retailer, whether it's exclusive and they have different form factors within a single tier 1 chain, we have a product for them or individual sales on the low end with Compact and Flex. A bit about the U.S. market. I mean, the market is mature. It's very steady. We have a very nice share of market. We did introduce Quantum in the U.S. market. It's been a big success. We started in New York. The platform's working tremendously well, doing huge volumes, multimillion volumes a month.
Now we've further introduced it into the Connecticut market, this is segmented to high volume redemption centers that really can't afford a full counting system in a warehouse. They can put the Quantum in the front or inside their facility to get densification and exact accounting, it's an important product. It's also a product we're looking to California, which is still early days, we believe the Quantum can play a role in California as well. We did succeed on two competitive RFPs with national retailers with locations in Connecticut. We won them both exclusively. It's 200+ machines. Those are rolling out as we speak and will be complete by the end of this year. We have a continued focus on business development across the board.
If any legislative green shoots show up, there's some activity now in Texas, we have a team to go in and make sure we're represented and can kind of direct and control how that law moves forward. As far as outlook, we expect RVM sales to increase during the year, and we feel quite confident that the U.S. business is in a good position. Now to the U.K. You know, we have announced two meaningful exclusive commercial deals with leading U.K. retailers. Iceland, we've announced 1,500 Compact, kind of proving the points I'm making on the portfolio. It's an exclusive deal. It's in every single store. We followed that with a tier 1 win with 2,300 RVMs across our Compact, Flex, and Optima line, a highly regarded retailer.
You know, we're proud of these wins. They're very difficult, competitive situation, and we succeeded on an exclusive basis. The DRS in the U.K. is moving very systematically. We see them being extremely organized. This October 2027 date, in our view, is not going to move. The system operator is also looking to incent a much broader network of return points. How are they doing that? Well, they've introduced a scheme on handling fee where GBP 0.05, which is quite significant, goes to small retailers that do about 200,000 units a year. Well, that is a huge tranche of subsidy to allow us to sell in Compact and Flex. It makes the ROI, in many cases, immediate.
They're also introducing a $60 million subsidy fund, which is another incentive to get the low-end market so they can get as many points of redemption as possible, which is great for the DMO and it's great for Envipco. We have a laser-like focus on Tier One. Those debates have been going on for months. We expect them to conclude in the next several weeks. As I said in previous calls, we have a high degree of optimism about our position on Tier One. Tier One, just to be clear, are the large retailers, the Sainsbury's, the Asdas, Tesco, and so forth. We feel good about the U.K. With that, I will turn it back to Mikael. Thank you.
Thank you, Bob. Poland. Envipco keeps building its business in the Polish markets. We recently announced an agreement to supply 700 Optima Flex RVMs across Netto Polska's store network in Poland. The Polish DRS went live in October 2025. There is a gradual ramp. It has been a so-called slow or soft start of a DRS. In the first 7 months, market intelligence tells us that there is roughly 1 billion containers that have been collected out of the 14 billion container markets. The ramp-up is gradual, it's slow, Envipco will continue to build its market position through preferred supplier agreements with a number of big retail groups and on the basis of announced orders.
Envipco sees a significant long-tail opportunity in fragmented retail in Poland. We have discussed before, I mean, initial expectations were a market sizing of around 15,000 RVMs to the Polish market. There are a number of opportunities outside of that number, so that the overall market could end up potentially being larger than that initial market assessment. Portugal went live in April with the DRS. That's also a soft launch with a grace period for the industry. Installations are coming along in that market. Envipco has announced multiple agreements, positioning the company for a solid market position in Portugal. We are the sole supplier of bulk feed collection systems for the operator, SDR Portugal, supplying up to 50 Quantums across Portugal.
We have an exclusive frame agreement with Covirán, an Iberian retail group. We have recently announced a frame agreement with SPAR Portugal. On top of that, we have the previously announced LOI that we're delivering on with Intermarché. We've recently also moved into new facilities and are building our Portugal team. The Netherlands has been and continues to be a big success for Envipco. The Netherlands introduced cans in through its DRS a couple of years ago, and collection rates dropped. The operator is looking for new ways to increase collection rates, the Quantum bulk feed technology has proven to be a very effective product in reaching that. We signed a frame agreement with the operator, Statiegeld Nederland, last year and are continuing to deliver on that opportunity.
Statiegeld Nederland has announced plans of a very broad network of bulk feed, maybe up towards 200 bulk feed collection points during the current year. Envipco continues to target and build on that opportunity. Greece is progressing towards a soft DRS launch in 2026. Last year, DRS Hellas was appointed the system operator, an operator backed by major beverage and retail stakeholders. Recently, they have introduced tenders both for RVMs in-store, out-of-store, and also for counting centers. Envipco has a very strong position in the Greek market, having been there a number of years working closely with our partner. We've installed around 500 Quantums across the Greek markets in a pre-DRS phase.
We are attempting to build further on that and see great opportunities both for our Quantum technology, but also for our broad RVM portfolio. We have a strong market fit with the Quantum S purposely built for the Greek market. We are very optimistic as to the company's opportunities in the Greek market as well. That brings us to the end. This has been a very active quarter, where we have seen a very solid commercial momentum. We continue to see that into the second quarter, as announced, through recent wins. We are overall seeing very strong market tailwinds, with legislation driving new opportunities. Creating very exciting long-term opportunities for the company. For 2026, we expect Poland and Portugal to build.
We expect Romania to continue to be robust, however, lower than last year as we are on the tail of market opportunities in the Romanian market. Hungary came down last year, is expected to be relatively steady with last year's activity level, whereas Netherlands is picking up momentum. We are very optimistic to our opportunities in that market. Greece tenders are advancing. Greece could offer significant commercial opportunities for the company when that market starts moving ahead. Looking a little bit further down the road, we're very happy with the initial wins in the U.K. market, building visibility, building market position in the U.K. market. As you heard Bob mention, we expect more activity from the U.K. market in the next weeks and months as well.
We expect a stable US business with some growth in RVM sales based on recent wins, and we will continue to manage our operating costs, manage our working capital and, as always, you know, this is a market driven by regulation. We will see quarterly variations, but the long-term progression of this industry is very exciting. With that, I think, Bob, if I can ask you to come back up, I think we will open for questions. See if we have some questions coming in here. Here's one question: "How do you see the competitive landscape in Poland and Portugal?" We have on several occasions said that, you know, the Polish market is very competitive.
There are, I think the largest number of RVM suppliers in Poland than we have seen really in any other markets. Very competitive on all dynamics. Portugal, the number of competitors, fewer, I would say, than in Poland, more on a what we usually see in other markets. The usual names, I would say, we see in the Portuguese market. Let's see here. "Contract wins have been significant year to date with deliveries picking up from Q2. What should we expect as sales run rate, and how will it affect margins?" Well, with deliveries increasing, revenues should increase.
As we also pointed out in our capital markets day last year, and we've repeated on occasion, keep in mind that there are several outside factors that also influence our quarterly sales, thus the argument of quarterly variations. The company is reliant upon DRS legislation being enacted, and the timing of that is outside the company's control. We have seen notoriously that the timing has tended to shift. The type of agreement we enter into, if it's a sales contract, if it's a throughput contract, if it's a leasing contract, also impacts the short-term or long-term revenue recognition. These factors will play a part in how sales will develop. As pointed out in the question, commercial activity is sharply up.
We are looking positive to the outlook in terms of future commercial activity as well, that should drive sales. On the margin level, gross margins, as mentioned, are today also affected by the underutilization of our assembly facilities and the upfront investment in field service capacity to enable this installation, a higher revenue should give an uplift in gross margins. We have operating leverage in terms of OpEx now at EUR 11 million+ per quarter. You know, that will continue to build carefully, revenue growing faster than OpEx, should give some leverage as well. Let's see here. Are there any reasons to expect a sequential increase in revenues in the second quarter?
Envipco expects a sequential growth in revenues in the second quarter, driven by Poland, driven by Portugal, driven by continued growth in the Netherlands. Those are the key drivers. On top of that, there could be, depending on how the process in Greece develops, Greece could become a factor for the company in the next few months as well. Let's see here. What is the accumulated number of installations of RVMs? For Envipco, that is roughly 15,000 RVMs installed. Higher share of throughput, is this primarily related to the Netto Polska agreement or is this a broad mix? It's not a broader mix shift, but it's somewhat broader than one individual customer.
We had 1 LOI announced last year where the customer was given the choice between sale or throughput. That share of customers choosing throughput has been higher than we originally anticipated. It's a little bit broader than just one customer this quarter.
I would add to that most of the U.K. and E.U. opportunity is sales of the service agreement. There, there's, you know, throughput deals, we've been doing those in the U.S. for years. They're very good model from a margin perspective, and they're a very good model for us to have experience with on in order how to construct it. If a customer comes to us and wants to do a throughput deal, we're happy to do it, but it's kind of a smaller percentage than sales and service on the front end.
Yeah. Yeah. Can you quantify the Romania impact in the 1st quarter? What's the expected timing of recovery? Timing of recovery, the customer's already back in a significantly higher activity than what we saw in Q1, and we expect that to continue this year. The exact number, you know, it's a fair share of the deviance to Q4. Let's see here what we have. There are a couple double questions here. U.K. You mentioned that you see more retailers making decisions. Can you put some more color on what's going on?
Yeah.
What's the focus?
Yeah. Well, you know, when you have October 27 as a hard deadline for this scheme to kick off, these containers are going to be flooding into all these retail locations on day 1. Now, there'll be a small grace period for smaller brand holders to get the barcode initiate, but the main players will be ready to go. When you look at that timeline, the tier 1 retailers with multiple locations, multiple different store formats, need to make decisions now because the work ahead of them is as significant as the work ahead of us. They have to get the groundworks, the electric, the permitting. They need to know what machine, what size, how many in every single location. It's a tremendous amount of work that needs to be accomplished between now and go live.
That is why we feel that these debates are going to conclude in the next several weeks. They can't conclude much longer, or the retailer themselves won't be ready. For us, luckily, we have substantial manufacturing capacity.
We're ready to go. That's why we feel that these debates will end quite quickly.
Can you give some details about the Turkish market and your strategy in this market? Turkey has for some years planned the introduction of a DRS. Once again, a process that has taken a lot of time and been through several developments. Signals now are for a staged introduction of DRS this year or starting this year. Staged, maybe in the sense of requirements for retailers to have a part of their outlets start collecting empty beverage containers and introducing a deposit. Envipco is tailoring a product for the Turkish market. We are working together with a local partner for the Turkish market, and we'll target the Turkish market that way.
If you know, we're working our way, and we'll come back to, I guess, more details on the Turkish market as we move through the current year. See, there are many questions here that are overlapping. How should we think about revenues for the current year? How should we think about Q2, Q3? As mentioned, we expect sequential growth from Q1 into Q2. Remains to be seen how the second half develops. If markets develop the way we've seen so far, you know, they should continue to build. Once again, all these factors impacting near-term sales will also play a part. Overall, we're optimistic to what we see going forward. Let's see here. Where are we? Many on Q2.
U.K. wins secured before the DRS has even launched. How much of the remaining U.K. retail market is still undecided, and how is Envipco positioned? Little bit overlapping.
I think, you know, there's been our announcements and another announcement, it's moving. I would say that 70%, something in that order, is in front of us in terms of concluding. That, you have to look at the U.K. market in really 2 categories. 1 is tier 1, which everything is consolidated under one buying and operational group, and then you got the wholesaler groups, companies like SPAR and others, that negotiate preferred supplier agreements, you know. That's obviously those wholesaler accounts into small convenience is a huge, as I mentioned. In the U.K., we have that market at 40,000 locations. That's gonna take a little longer.
I would say that's as good a percentage as I can come up with, to date. That most of it's in front of us.
Yeah. Regarding Greece, what do you mean by the statement, "Public tenders scheduled to close shortly"? There have been public statements, or tenders, since April. They were initially expected to close in April. They were extended somewhat into May. I don't have the exact dates on that, but we're I think fairly close to the extended deadlines for that. Probably will be some process, testing, et cetera. It seems to be closing in as we mentioned fairly shortly. Yeah. We're running a little bit out of time. Many questions here. The average service revenue per installed unit is higher in the U.S. than in Europe. How is the service revenue? Why is that? How do you see that developing?
Well, the service revenue in the U.S., you know, we have a somewhat aged fleet, so when our service contracts come up, we have escalators and things, techniques that we'll use in the EU, to burnish and build our service revenue line. Right now, we're heavily into warranty period.
When we come out of that, we still believe strongly that we'll get 10% service revenue against the ASP of a machine we sell.
Yeah.
That service revenue will rise closer to U.S. standards over time.
Yeah. I think, with that, we're reaching an end for this presentation. Once again, we're very excited about the commercial momentum that Envipco is building. The company sees a number of opportunities, both short-term, medium term, and long term. And, we'll continue to try to harvest the opportunities that we face. Thank you for your time and attention today. The next time, Q2 will be on August 12th, and hope to see you back then. Thank you so much.