Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Geli, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Athens International Airport conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the first half, 2024 financial results. All participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. George Eleftheriou, Manager, Investor Relations. Mr. Eleftheriou, you may now proceed.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and good morning to those of you listening to us across the globe. Welcome to Athens International Airport financial results for the first half of 2024 . Please note that a digital playback of the conference will be available from about one hour after the end of the conference call, up until September 20th, 2024 . Today with me are our CEO, Mr. Yiannis Paraschis; our CFO, Mr. Panagiotis Michalarogiannis ; our CSO, Mr. George Kallimasias, and Mrs. Nadia Xirogianni, our Director of Finance. Also, let me mention that our presentation is available on our website at the section of quarterly results in the financial information. And with that, I would like to give the floor to our CEO.
Hello, everyone. Also, good afternoon or good morning from Athens, and welcome to our presentation of the first half year results. It has been a historic first semester with the highest number of passengers at Athens International Airport in its history and also translated into very positive financial results. At the same time, and we'll talk about it later, we had a number of positive developments in important fronts that we have discussed during the IPO, but also during the full- year results discussion in the spring. Now, turning to the presentation on slide number four, we had 14 million passengers in the first- half year, which is an increase of 16% versus 2023.
2023 , to remind us all, was also a very good year with more than 10% compared to 2019 . So Athens Airport is placed among the best performing airports in Europe compared to the pre-COVID era, but also to the 2023 results. The traffic translates it into revenues of EUR 293.6 million, a growth of 16.8%, followed by a similar level of profitability, 16.6% growth, EUR 183.4 million in terms of adjusted EBITDA. Following on the next slide, you see the development of traffic.
As you know, Athens Airport, our traffic is mostly international, and also in terms of growth, international passengers grew in the first- half year by 19.5%, so higher than the average 16%, and also coupled with a growth on the domestic by 8.6%. On the right-hand side of the slide, we see that, more or less Q1 and Q2 grew by 16%, whereas we see a slower growth in the summer months, post the first semester in July and August of about 10%. On the next slide, we see a number of developments, both on the air activity side, but also the non-air activity side.
We see that, apart from the growth that we have experienced from our home-based carriers, both Aegean, Olympic and also Sky Express, but also from Ryanair, we had also a number of additional developments. You see some of them here. Juneyao is historically the first direct link of Athens to Shanghai, Air Arabia to Sharjah, Norse flying five times weekly to JFK. We have the highest number of links to the United States this year and strong growth there. Similarly, into Poland, Asiana performing charter flights into Korea, and Smartwings into the Czech Republic.
At the same time, for one more year, Athens was recognized as the best airport by airlines at the Routes Conference, Routes Europe conference, in terms of its route development and airline marketing strategy, which confirms for yet one more year the fact that we put a lot of effort in our network, our traffic, along with the destination of Athens and of course the tourism in Greece, which is performing well this year.
At the same time, also, on the non-air activity front, a number of new concepts, improvements in our branding concept, which along with our passenger mix, which was pretty helpful with a lot of Extra-Schengen passengers this year, improved agreements and, helped us to grow, our non-air activities revenues, well above, traffic levels. Now, in terms of the additional and important fronts, what we see in the next slide, and the positive development there, I guess, most of you are aware of the litigation case that we had with the Greek state on the VAT. There, we have a disputed amount of EUR 155.1 million.
The Greek Courts of Appeal have decided on five out of the 10 pending cases, which related to the vast majority of the amounts, and EUR 149.5 million were decided in favor of the company, where our appeals were accepted, relating to the years 2021 and 2023. So a very positive development, de-risking, I would say, the case of the VAT. Some of the other much smaller cases have been partially accepted in favor of the company, partly in favor of the Greek state, but we are talking here minor amounts. And then there are EUR 4.7 million under dispute, which are still pending.
At the same time, on another important front, on the airport charges, we have discussed the fact that, based on the Greek legislation and law issued 2017, the airport development fee or fund, excuse me, will be reduced on a passenger basis from EUR 12 to EUR 3 as of the 1st of November. We have always said any loss in terms of in the ADF will be replaced by corresponding charges from our end. We have done so, we have taken the decision, we have consulted with the airlines, we have announced the decision, and so that there is neutral charges going forward, but a full replacement of the ADF reduction.
We can also say that this has been accepted by the independent supervisory authority. There has been a complaint or an appeal by Ryanair, which has been rejected. There is a clear and safe front going forward at the level of airport charges. With that, I pass on to George to talk about the progress on the airport expansion program and a number of other topics.
Thank you, Yiannis. The airport expansion program is a major project that will provide us the additional capacity and is one of the, the levers for future growth for the company. We had a significant, positive development in the first half of the year, which was the approval by the competent authority, by Civil Aviation Authority, of what we call the Optimized 33MAP. This is the, the CapEx plan that we have, for the first phase of our expansion, together with the relevant timeline. So the timeline that we have, in our, scheduling for completion of the 33MAP until 2028, has now been approved by the competent authorities. And overall, the expansion program, is on track. We are currently undertaking, design studies, and relevant tenders.
As a reminder, this expansion program includes the development of a multi-story car park, which you see on the map in orange color. The development of additional 32 aircraft parking positions, and most importantly, the expansion of our existing terminal buildings, as you can see them in blue color in the chart. Our program, as I said, is ongoing, is on track, and we will proceed as we have planned during the IPO. Moving on to another topic, which has to do with our commitment to become net zero carbon by 2025. This is the so-called Route 2025.
We are already producing approximately 45% of our electricity from clean sources, and we have committed to become net zero by 2025, which is much earlier than the commitment of the industry in most European airports. A significant development over the first half was the award for the construction of a 35.5 MW photovoltaic park, together with a battery energy storage system. This is now awarded and is ongoing. Also, the financing for the development of the photovoltaic park, as well as for the additional projects that are required for the net zero target, which is the electrification of our vehicle fleet, as well as the replacement of natural gas consumption with heat pumps.
These projects, for these projects, we have secured the financing, including also some funds from the RRF, from the Recovery Resilience Facility. As a last note, I think it's important to mention here that we will become the first airport in Europe that will produce 100% of its electricity from clean sources, from a production within the airport site. With that, I think we can move on to the financial performance analysis, and give the floor to Nadia, please.
Thank you. Thank you, George. So in this section, you can see some highlights of the financial performance of the company during the first half of 2024. As the CEO said before, we had the record in terms of traffic during the first half of the year, and this is translated also to a significant increase in the revenues number. So in total, we recorded the revenues at the level of EUR 293.6 million, which is an increase of 16.8%, year on year, compared to 2023. 76% of the revenues come from the regulated deal, the so-called air activities, and the remaining from the non-air activities.
The growth we had recorded in the regulated activities, in the air activities, is more or less in line with traffic. While in terms of non-air activities, these performed much better than traffic levels evolution. In the next slide, you can see some more details of the breakdown of the air activities and non-air activities. A bit less than 80% of the air activities comes from the revenues from airport charges and the ADF, Airport Development Fee, and with stable prices, this is the main reason that these revenues are aligned with traffic performance. Important parameter is the significant good performance of both the retail concession activities and the car parking revenues that belong to the non-air unregulated segment.
You can see that the retail concession activities increased by 23.4% year on year, versus the 16% growth in terms of traffic. And this is because in line with what the CEO said before, of the successful implementation of our strategy with new concepts, new brands, the favorable passenger mix, and the very good, solid agreements with concessionaires. In addition, the car parking segment also increased higher than traffic performance by 24% year on year. And of course, this is supported by the traffic evolution, but also the successful yield management in the car parking. The remaining segment, the retail, another segment of the non-air stream, also increased more than inflation by 4.3%.
Now, in terms of profitability, the following section is in relation to the cost, the operating cost. We continued during the first half of the year to demonstrate cost discipline. Of course, we had some additional requirements in operating costs that relate, first of all, to additional resources to handle the significant increase in traffic levels, but also continuing inflation pressures, as well as increases in minimum salaries, according to the Greek legislation that, of course, affected various outsourcing contracts we have.
Overall, however, we managed for the operating expenses, excluding the so-called variable portion of the grant of rights fee, to produce some cost efficiency year on year, and you can see the operating cost, excluding the grant of rights fee per passenger, marginally decreased compared to the previous year. In addition to that, of course, there's this variable portion of the concession fee we pay to the Greek state, which increases because this is based on, calculated based on the increased profitability year on year. Taking into account the revenues performance and the operating cost performance, you can see a solid adjusted EBITDA recorded for the first half of the year at the level of EUR 183.4 million.
This represents a growth, a year on year growth of 16.6%, with Adjusted EBITDA margins in line with our targets above the 60%, 62.5% for the first half of the year and of course, taking into account the remaining cost base of the company depreciation and financial expenses, we end up recording net income after tax total EUR 97.1 million. 61% comes from the regulated deal and the remaining from the non-regulated, and overall, the growth year on year is 15.2%. Another item we should point out is the status of the Airport Development Fee.
You can see in the following slide that we managed during the first half of the year to reduce significantly the carry forward amount, and we ended up at the end of June 2024 with a remaining and recovered amount of EUR 67.1 million, which we expect, according to the performance, that we will in the short term deplete it. Just a reminder here, as you saw, the net income of the air activities that we recorded during the first half of the year was a bit less than EUR 60 million, while the allowed, let's say, profit for the first half of the year, according to the 15% return on equity, is around EUR 40 million.
So this is why you can see that we have reduced the carry-forward amount by a bit less than EUR 20 million during the first half of the year. And in the last slide of the financial performance, we managed during the first half of the year to record, as we said, a very healthy profitability coupled with healthy cash flow generation. At the end of June 2024, the net debt that we had was at the level of EUR 781 million with the ratio of net debt to adjusted EBITDA very low, at low levels, still two times.
While we converted, let's say, the majority of the EBITDA that we produced into cash flow, with free cash flow at the level of around EUR 172 million and 93.6% cash flow generation. And with that, pass on to the CEO for the outlook for the year.
Thank you, Nadia. Nadia, so, summarizing some key aspects of the outlook on slide number 18. In terms of traffic, as we mentioned earlier, we see certain double digit, but low double digit, growth in the third quarter. We expect this to continue for the rest of the year, and therefore, at the end of the year, we expect a low double digit growth for the full year, 2024, so less than the 16% that we saw in the first year, the first -half year, excuse me.
In terms of operational developments, probably many of you realized this summer that across Europe there has been a lot of delays in the system, and therefore, also given the overall capacity of the air traffic control system in Athens, we decided to apply for the change from a non-coordinated to schedule facilitated airport status for the summer of 2025. That means nothing else but the fact that we will have a chance to better organize the very peaks in the summer, but other than that, to reduce delays, but other than that, no impact on traffic or traffic growth going forward.
Our aeronautical charges, we remain with our stable aeronautical charges, and 80 total sum of charges in ADF for 2024. As mentioned, any reduction in ADF will be replaced by the corresponding increase in charges fully accepted, meanwhile, also by the regulator. In terms of our adjusted EBITDA, we expect the margin for the year to be in excess of 60%. Nadia mentioned about the gradual reduction of the carry-forward amount, obviously based on the good performance. When it comes to the expansions, the program is on track. We are in the process of awarding the design studies. There will be more news in the coming weeks on that front.
And but also the financing exercise to secure financing has been very successful, both in terms of the availability of the funds, but also in terms of the overall terms for the financing. We expect the financing documents to be completed by the end of the year. On the last slide, just as a reminder of what we talked about regarding the IPO investment proposition.
Judging from the results of the first- half year, we were able to deliver on all those elements which comprise the investment proposition, in some cases even exceed the target, and which I think is a proof of the very solid investment case so far, but we're also very confident that will continue for the rest of the year and in 2025 . So thank you very, very much for your attention, and we're here to answer any questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star, followed by one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, then you may press star and two. Please use your handset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from the line of Caburrasi Carlos with Kepler. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Thank you for the presentation and for taking my questions. I have two, if I may. The first one is on the carry forwards. In H1, you have exhausted EUR 90 million . So could you tell us what has been the split between Q1 and Q2? And could you give us some color on your H2 expectations? And my second question is on capital allocation. CapEx has been materially lower year on year, so could you walk us through this figure and its moving parts? Additionally, could you shed some light on a 33MAP CapEx, and if any, what amount should we expect in 2024? Thank you.
In relation to the carry-forward amount, usually the first half of the year has lower return, let's say, compared to the second. Just the rule of thumb in terms of traffic in the first half of the year is a bit less than 50%, almost 45%. And this translates to equivalent, let's say, split you can expect in profitability more or less. Now in relation to the expansion?
To the CapEx, first of all, the second half of 2024 is expected to have significantly higher CapEx on the first half, since we are going to be awarding design studies and PMO contracts over this second half. Now, we will have actual construction costs coming in from 2025 with the commencement of the construction of the multi-story car park and the northwest apron. We do not have an update on the EUR 650 million in 2022 price. This is still the overall figure that we provide guidance.
We'll have a further update on that, perhaps on the, at the end of the year, once we have progress with our design studies, and we have some updates on the construction contract awards.
Understood. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Haris hankar with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
It's Hari from DB. Thanks for taking my questions. Just going back on the clawbacks, is it like to say that last year you saw H1 clawback-
I'm sorry, sir, can I interrupt you? This is the operator. I'm sorry, can you please speak a little closer to your microphone? Because I'm not sure that management can hear you.
Sure. Hopefully this is better.
A little better. Please proceed.
Okay. So, I was questioning around the clawback amount. Is it fair to say that the last year, you saw around EUR 14 million of clawbacks in H1, as against the EUR 70 million plus amount for the full year? So I'm not sure I understand the 45-55 mix between H1 and H2. That's probably more for the overall profitability for the S segment, perhaps not necessarily for the amount of clawback you could get. So that's the first one.
And then, on the schedule facilitated summer 2025, I mean, you've said that it doesn't impact growth per se, but helpful to have your view on what it might mean for the airlines and how they might have to start planning, because this is going to be a big change for them, perhaps?
Taking the first question, the second part of the question, no, it isn't. And so, the airlines announce their programs, they will have to still announce their programs, and only, as I mentioned, in the peak hours, where for a few cases in the summer, we might have to sort of consult with them and find ways to adjust their schedules for some hours during the peak days. So it is not something major. It is not a coordination, it's a schedule facilitation. So, as I said, it's only in to secure that we do not experience delays and we get a better product overall.
But other than that, it is very, very close to what we've had so far, in terms of, you know, the overall project process of the scheduling. And no, that there, there's no, let's say, constraint as regards the ability to grow in terms of traffic. Nadia, you want to-
In relation to the first question, if I understand this correctly, to be honest, I haven't heard very clearly the question. But what I said before is that in general, in terms of traffic, in the past, we have seen that the first half of the year has lower, let's say, traffic than the half of the year, so more or less around 45%. Usually operating costs in the second half of the year is a bit higher, of course, not in line with additional traffic, so margins usually are better in the second half of the year. We expect the second half to be more profitable compared to the first one.
Now, last year we had even stronger, let's say, if you've seen in the slide 14, you can see that, in terms of air activity profitability, we recorded in the first half of 2023 , EUR 53.5 million, compared to overall full year, EUR 156 million. So it's more or less 35% the profitability that in terms of net profit of air activity during the previous year. It's not something constant throughout the years. But in 2023 , just a reminder, we had much better performance during the second half of the year, also in terms of traffic recovery compared to the first half of the year. So I'm not sure one could base the projection exactly in the percentages of 2023 .
Understood. Understood. That's quite helpful, and maybe just one last thing. If I look at the non-air segment, quite an impressive performance, especially in the spend per pax, 7%-8% year on year, right? So would you still stand by a modest decline in spend per pax for the full year?
I think the current trend that you see currently will continue for the rest of the year. That is our current, let's say, estimate.
Understood. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Baruch Michael with ETIA Capital. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Thank you very much for the conference call. Maybe the question was asked already because I didn't heard all the question and the connection was not so good. But how can you explain the performance of the stock, of the share with so good results since the beginning and everything, and the share price keeps going down and down and down since you did the IPO?
Not sure that the stock is going down and down and down, but
Yes. But yes, if you look since the shares there were the IPO, the share didn't went. It went, the low level was EUR 7.30, and we are at EUR 7.78, and the IPO was done, I think the level was EUR 8.80. I think if I,
The IPO was done at EUR 8.20, and we are currently around EUR 7.80. I would only-
With dividends.
Plus dividends of EUR 0.33, which have-
Yes, yes, please, yes.
Already. This I think is if you take everything into account, is a minor, a very minor discount compared to the IPO price. And I would only give you a standard answer that you know, it is our role to run the company, to keep our promises that we provided through the IPO, to distribute to generate good profits and to distribute as much as possible. And other than that, you know, we would like to abstain here, too, from commenting on the performance of the stock.
Yeah, but it's quite disappointing for people that invest in your stock, you know? It's been, the stock has been in the market since February, and okay, we had the dividend, but the performance is quite not so good. So I just want to know if there is a seller or something, or something we missed. Because I'm sorry, but in your answer, we don't have the... yeah, we can't see nothing in the answer, you know? Can you give it a little bit of color? Because there are some things that is not clear, you know.
No, what we can say and what we can see is that if you take everything into account, I think compared to the IPO price of EUR 8.20, you see a discount of about 5% or even less than that. And that is, I would say, a performance which is very much in line if you take the realities of the Greek stock exchange, what has happened in the last month. So. And we obviously expect that now, with the good results of the first half year, they will be appreciated by the market.
No. Okay, you don't give me any color, but even with the dividend of EUR 0.35, the IPO price was EUR 8.80, and-
8:20.
EUR 8.20. EUR 8.20, okay. Okay, EUR 8.20, but no, no one had shares at EUR 8.20. It was over, it was oversold and everything. But, okay, but I, I, for me, it's quite disappointing. You know, I hold a lot of shares, and I'm really disappointed, regarding the, regarding the, the stock price, you know. But, after, if you don't have any more comments, no problem. Thank you very much.
What we can only say is that, as I mentioned at the other part of the presentation, we have delivered and exceeded the promises and targets on all fronts, that we delivered in the IPO. That is, you know, a position that the management has the responsibility for.
Yeah, I know, but so maybe there is something more to do on the communication side or something else, because the price doesn't move at all, you know? That's fine. I'm not speaking about what happened regarding the month of August on the market. I'm speaking in general, you know. It seems like there is a... Each time the stocks try to go up, there is a seller, someone is selling since the IPO. So that's why I don't understand, you know? I don't say that you didn't do your job. You did a very well job, and you delivered very good numbers and figures. But I don't understand. There are some things which is not logical, you know?
Even when there is an upgrade on the stock, the stock go up one day, and it's going back down, down, down, down, down. Last month, I think it was a Deutsche Bank or Barclays that upgraded the stocks, and it last one day. It was, yes, Barclays, yes, and Deutsche Bank, yes. But, okay, if you have no more comments, you have no more comments.
I think the consensus of most analysts is that, you know, it's a higher target price for the stock, so that is pretty satisfactory for us. We hope that the markets will behave accordingly. We cannot say much more now on this point.
Okay, but, well, okay. I understand, but you didn't give me color, so there's nothing that we can, well, if you're not allowed to say anything, you're not allowed. Okay, thank you very much.
As a kind reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Once again, to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. As a final reminder, to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is from the line of Mora Nicolas with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, gentlemen. A couple of questions for me, please. First one on big picture on the regulation and tariffs into 2025, 2026. So as you said, basically, the carry-forward amount should be exhausted and depleted in the short term. Does it imply with the strong traffic dynamics that I suspect you plan into next year, that you are going to need to push for quite dramatic tariff decrease next year and 2026? That's the first question. Second one on OpEx. Can you shed a little bit of light on the very strong growth in third-party service providers? There were a few reset of contracts, security, cleaning, a bit of inflation in wages overall in Greece, but the step up is very strong.
Just wondered if this was bound to slow down a bit into the second half, if you expected more contracts to be renewed? And last one on the CapEx. I mean, taking a step back, is there, at the end of the day, a delay in the 33MAP in terms of expectations of the multi-story car park coming through in 2026 and the main terminal building expansion in 2028, or you think you are still broadly on track for basically a massive step up in construction spend from 2025 onwards and deliver by 2028? That would be it.
Starting with the last question on the CapEx, we said we are, we continue to be on track. The time plan that we had from the IPO was approved with completion by the end of 2028 of the majority of the works. The CapEx profile as we had also described during the IPO was with limited outflow in the first two years, and then, of course, moving in a higher CapEx outlay after 2025, so I think overall, we, as I said, we are on track. We haven't experienced any delays that are material to the project.
And in relation to the first question, about the depletion of the carry-forward amount, and as we said, at the end of June, we had a carry-forward amount, the remaining amount, EUR 67 million. We expect that we will deplete it in the short term. We are still in line with the guidance that we had provided also last year, so we believe that we will need to keep the level of charges plus the ADF stable to recover additional costs in relation to the expansion that we initiate.
However, obviously, as we said also in the past, if now we have returns on the air activities at the level of 30% return on equity, we will gradually go towards the allowable 15% return on equity in the air activity segment after the depletion of the carry-forward amount.
Sorry, if I may, because you're quite massively overshooting on traffic growth. You have, at least on our numbers, a slightly lower pickup in CapEx. I mean, we expect you to actually turn the carry-forward balance positive next year. I mean, there's... Do you not see any risk of you basically entering the penalty box in terms of overearning on a full year basis?
We remain with the guidance that is very well known of stable charges, balancing all elements of, you know, OpEx, CapEx, and their level, recovery and returns, as we have indicated as part of our guidance, of the IPO. So the guidance remains the same.
All right. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Paraschis for any closing comments. Thank you.
We would like to thank you for your interest in our half year results. I think, as we mentioned, this was a historic first half year, apart from the IPO itself. The numbers were very positive. I think Athens is just one of the best performing airports in Europe, in the first half year, but as we continue into the second half, and also the significant fact that we had positive developments in major fronts, that we have discussed during the IPO, reflects also a significant reduction, let's say, of concerns for all of us, and therefore, we think this is a positive outcome with positive perspectives for the full year.
We are looking forward to discussing with you the full year results in a few months. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a good afternoon.