Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Geli, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Frigoglass conference call regarding the full year 2025 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. John Stamatakos, Treasury and IR Director. Mr. Stamatakos, you may now proceed.
Thank you all for joining us. Today, we present the group's financial and business performance for the year ending 31st of December 2025. The presentation focuses on our commercial refrigeration operations from continuing activities, as well as the strategic milestones achieved during the year and the subsequent deleveraging actions completed in early 2026. 2025 represents a record-breaking year, confirming the success of our multi-year transformation and making a clear inflection point in profitability, cash generation, and balance sheet strength. In line with our previous calls, I'm joined today by our CEO, Serge Joris, and our CFO, Manos Metaxakis. Before we begin, please note that this conference call contains forward-looking statements. These statements should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statements included in our slide deck. With that, I will turn the call over to Serge.
Thank you, John, good afternoon to everyone joining us today. Let me start with the key highlights, which underscore our record 2025 performance and the strong momentum of our turnaround. The financial results presented here relate to continuing operations following our strategic exit from the glass business and the pending approval of the disposal of our Russian operations. This provides a clear and transparent view of the underlying performance of commercial refrigeration. We achieved a solid set of 2025 results, driven by disciplined execution of our transformation initiatives over the past three years. Sales increased by 15% versus last year, exceeding the prior record set in 2019. Importantly, that growth was broad-based, with momentum across all regions rather than reliance on any single one. Growth was led by Europe, while Africa and Asia also contributed positively, underscoring the strength of our diversified geographic footprint.
EBITDA reached a record EUR 15.3 million, up from EUR 4.6 million, which is 3.3 times higher than 2024. The respective margin improved by 350 basis points to 5.4%, reflecting a combination of operating leverage, a more favorable product mix, as well as the realization of cost savings. That operational progress is also showing up in cash. We delivered a EUR 30 million improvement in free cash flow versus 2024, reflecting both stronger profitability and working capital discipline. The early trading momentum has carried on in the new year. The strong start to 2026 supports our expectations and gives us confidence that the improvements we are seeing are structural and not temporary.
The takeaway is that 2025 demonstrates a sustained turnaround with record revenue growth, a meaningful uplift in profitability, better cash conversion, and positive momentum into 2026. Turning to slide five. This record performance is a result of almost three years of disciplined and consistent execution of our transformation program. Commercial refrigeration sales increased to EUR 282 million in 2025, up from EUR 246 million in 2023, reflecting volume growth and improved commercial effectiveness. Adjusted EBITDA improved by EUR 18.5 million over the same period, clearly demonstrating that growth has translated into profitability underpinned by structural improvements rather than one-off items. At the heart of this progress has been a broad and coordinated set of transformation initiatives across the business.
From a commercial and customer perspective, we expanded our presence at key trade fairs. Strengthened our sustainability credentials, including achieving Platinum rating and diversified our customer base. The most notable achievement was the increased share with customers in the energy drinks beverage market and other non-coke customers, which materially diversified our customer base. We also plan to participate in the upcoming vending-focused exhibition in Italy in early May, showcasing for the first time our new offering to penetrate this market. We will be present at this year's prestigious BrauBeviale trade show. Profitability benefited from cost savings initiatives, primarily targeting the reduction of material costs and contribution margin improvements for certain high selling coolers. On organization, we enhanced our management team and reinforced business development capabilities, ensuring the organization is structured to support growth.
The performance we are presenting today reflects the dedication and professionalism of our team across the organization. Operationally and digitally, we completed major system upgrades, including the rollout of Salesforce to support our service infrastructure, as well as the implementation of manufacturing execution systems. These investments are materially improved visibility, planning, and execution across the value chain. We also strengthened effectiveness and controls through enhanced dashboards, strategic planning processes, and performance monitoring, improving decision-making at all levels of the organization. Finally, on the balance sheet, we supported liquidity proactively through bridge financing, the extension of notes maturities, and the partial redemption of notes, while continuing to improve working capital efficiency through tighter cash cycle management. In summary, 2025 represents the inflection point where sustained transformation efforts converted into tangible financial outcomes.
This platform now allows us to scale growth, expand margins, and confidently move into the next phase of value creation. Going to slide six. Let's get straight into the key performance drivers across our geographies. Starting with West Europe, sales increased by a strong 36%, driven by increased demand from soft drink customers, particularly in the fast-growing energy drinks segment. In addition, we achieved market share gains across multiple customer segments, reflecting the competitiveness of our product offering and the effectiveness of our commercial execution. In East Europe, sales grew by 7%. Growth was supported by market share gains with existing customers beyond traditional Coca-Cola bottlers, as well as an enhanced customer base. We also saw solid orders in key markets such as Hungary and Poland, alongside the continued expansion of our Asset Performance Services business.
Africa and the Middle East delivered sales growth of 9%, with momentum sustaining into the fourth quarter of 2025. This was underpinned by solid cooler volume growth and increased activity in Asset Performance Services in South Africa, as well as the successful market entry into Egypt. In Asia, sales increased by 3%. This growth was led by sustained volume growth in India, supported by customer base expansion initiatives. This performance was achieved despite currency headwinds. Overall, commercial refrigeration sales grew by just over 15% year-over-year, demonstrating the strength of our geographic diversification. Let me now turn to the successful disposal of the glass packaging business, which represents a major strategic milestone in the group's transformation. We announced the agreement to sell the glass operations in December 2025, we saw strong interest from multiple parties, reflecting the division's strong operating and financial performance.
This was a comprehensive and competitive process which attracted interest from both strategic and financial buyers. Such interest also reflects the quality of the assets and the resilience of the glass business despite the broader market environment. From an execution standpoint, the process moved quickly. We secured the customary antitrust and other regulatory approvals in January this year, and the transaction closed on the fifth of February 2026. All in all, the total consideration amounted to EUR 98 million. The net proceeds are being applied directly to deleveraging, with the company using them to redeem a portion of its outstanding notes in February 2026. This is not just a portfolio move. It's a transaction with immediate impact on the capital structure, which improves our financial flexibility and supports the next phase of the group's transformation.
With that, I'll now hand it over to Manos, who will walk you through the financial performance for the full year.
Thank you, Serge, and a good afternoon to everyone. Please turn to slide nine for an overview of our 2025 financial performance for commercial refrigeration from continuing operations. Sales grew by 15% year-over-year to EUR 282 million, driven by strong demand in Europe, accelerating momentum in Africa, and continuing growth in Asia. Topline growth was translated into profitability. Adjusted EBITDA increased to EUR 15.3 million from EUR 4.6 million last year, and we expanded the Adjusted EBITDA margin by 350 basis points to 5.4%. The margin improvement reflects a combination of factors such as the better cost absorption from the higher sales, production cost improvements, reflecting also the increased utilization of our plant in Romania, a better product mix, as well as lower transportation costs and ongoing cost reduction initiatives.
We also delivered approximately EUR 4 million of material cost savings, mainly through component and suppliers sourcing alternatives, as well as cost improvements driven by internal efficiencies. EBIT improved from negative EUR 4.9 million to negative EUR 0.8 million, which reflects a EUR 4.1 million positive swing year-over-year. EBIT was impacted by a EUR 4.8 million impairment charge related to the discontinuation of the SAP project. Excluding that, the improvement would have been much more evident. Turning to slide 10, let's review the components of our free cash flow. The headline is that free cash flow from continuing operations improved meaningfully year-over-year, and the biggest driver was the step up in EBITDA, which increased by roughly EUR 11 million versus last year. In other words, stronger operating performance translated into better cash generation. Working capital also moved in the right direction.
We saw an improvement in net trade working capital, mainly from better receivables performance, helped by a more favorable customer mix and our strong focus on timely collections. At the same time, we successfully maintained solid inventory control, even though we increased raw material purchases to support this year's first quarter orders. Free cash flow was partly offset by CapEx, mainly product development and maintenance, as well as cash taxes. Overall, free cash flow improved by about EUR 13 million, showing that we are converting growth into a cash in a more effective way. Moving to slide 11, I will walk you through how we used the EUR 98 million proceeds from the sale of the glass business to deleverage our balance sheet by redeeming a portion of our notes, and how our debt position would have been saved on a pro forma basis for December 2025.
After the payment of advisory related fees and the retention of part of the proceeds for working capital purposes, we redeemed EUR 87 million of notes in February this year. This figure includes the related premiums and accrued interest up to the redemption date. Breaking down the EUR 87 million by debt instrument, we redeemed EUR 12.6 million additional notes and EUR 23.8 million super senior notes. This implies that we have fully repaid both super senior notes. In addition, we partially redeemed the senior secured notes. The redemption amount was EUR 50.6 million, EUR 49 million of which was principal. We also extended the maturity of the senior secured notes to March 2028, which together with the second lien notes that also mature in 2028, significantly improved our debt maturity profile.
Let me guide you through what our 2025 gross debt would have looked like after considering the redemption of the notes. The total debt would have been reduced to EUR 244 million, reflecting the EUR 82.9 million reduction from the redemption. The EUR 4.1 million difference versus the actual redemption reflects the premiums paid and the accrued interest from 1st of January 2026 to the redemption date. Thank you for the attention. I will now pass the call back to Serge.
Thanks, Manos. Turning now to the outlook for this year. 2026 started strongly, with sales growing over 25% year-over-year and a double-digit EBITDA margin in the first quarter. While the external environment remains uncertain, this early performance gives us confidence and supports a cautiously optimistic view on delivering our full-year targets. For the whole year, our priorities are consistent and execution-focused. We are accelerating the transformation momentum to drive profitable top-line growth, further expand EBITDA margin, and strengthen our strategic positioning in commercial refrigeration. We will continue to deepen penetration in the energy drink segment, where demand dynamics remain attractive and where we have demonstrated strong execution capabilities. In parallel, we expect to continue gaining share with key customers, backed by a competitive and increasingly differentiated product portfolio.
Asset Performance Services remain a key growth pillar, with new customer acquisitions supporting both revenue diversification and higher value-added services. We're also launching innovative product offering within the existing lineup and, in parallel, also focused on expanding the addressable market and building a new re-recurring revenue stream. On profitability, we expect margin and expansion to be supported by procurement-led cost reduction initiatives and selective pricing actions to offset external cost pressures and trading uncertainties. At the same time, we continue to implement initiatives to effectively manage working capital, ensuring that growth translates into liquidity protection and cash generation. Finally, we will continue to evaluate strategic opportunities that can reinforce this trajectory and expand our competitive advantage. This brings me naturally to our next slide number 14.
What truly underpins our ability to deliver sustainable growth, margin expansion, and recurring revenues in 2026 and beyond is the evolution of our offering. That is moving from products to intelligent, connected solutions. This slide highlights Unbound, which represents a fundamental evolution of our offering. We're moving beyond standalone equipment into fully integrated, intelligent solutions designed for unattended retail. It integrates hardware, software, data, and services into one platform designed to help our customers sell more, operate smarter, and scale efficiently. Every cooler becomes a connected retail point, which is continuously monitored, always accessible, and able to operate independently. At its core, Unbound unlocks unlimited possibilities in unattended retail, built on a set of core capabilities that define its value. First, always connected. With reliable connectivity and continuous real-time monitoring, every cooler becomes a connected asset. This ensures higher uptime, predictive maintenance, and consistent performance across fleets and geographies.
Second, intelligent by design. The platform leverages AI-driven insights to transform real-time data into actionable decisions. This allows customers to optimize product assortment, pricing, replenishment, and service interventions, ultimately improving revenue per asset. Third, seamless payments. From product recognition through to transaction completion, Unbound enables frictionless consumer experiences while giving customers full transparency and control over sales and asset performance. Fourth, an ecosystem that scales. Unbound connects coolers, people, and systems into a single platform that can be deployed across large distributed networks, supporting both growth and operational excellence. Strategically, Unbound is a key enabler of our shift toward higher-value solutions. It strengthens customer relationships supports recurring revenue streams through data and services and differentiates Frigoglass in a rapidly evolving unattended retail market. In summary, Unbound connects, understands, and delivers.
It positions us not just as a manufacturer of coolers, but as a provider of intelligent connected retail solutions that create long-term value for our customers and for the group. Thank you for your time today. Manos and I are now happy to take your questions. Over to you, operator.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll 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. 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. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you.
Thank you, operator. Again, thank you to everyone for joining today. We are very pleased with our 2025 results, which were in line with expectations. Supported by a strong first quarter, we are confident in delivering continued progress and meeting our expectations for 2026. With this, I'd like to thank you once again, and please don't hesitate to reach out to us if you have any further questions. 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 pleasant evening.