Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Mina, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Ideal Holdings conference call and live webcast to present and discuss First Half twenty twenty five Statutory Financial Results.
All participants will be in a listen only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Lambros Vaccusadinho, Chairman of the Board of Directors Mr. Panos Vassiliades, CEO Mr. Saba Sassimiades, CFO Mr. Damianos Papacostandino, Head of Strategy Mr. Dimoslanes Bumis, CEO of Ateca Department Stores Mr. Nikita Spottulakis, CEO of Varpastasis Mrs. Sofia Manuscio, Treasurer and Mrs. Maria Levi Apistiola, Investment Manager. Mr. Damianos Papostatinou, you may now proceed.
Good afternoon, everybody, and thank you for participating in our H1 twenty twenty five Analyst Call. We're here to present basic financial performance of our businesses and our strategy for the next three years. We begin with the highlights of the 2025. During this year, we continued our M and A activity with the acquisition of Barbastafis, the leader in the frozen food category, a very strong brand with a very high awareness. All our businesses showed a very solid performance, continued the growth pattern of the previous quarters.
Comparable EBITDA stood at €26,300,000 up 49% versus €17,700,000 in 2024, driven both from organic and M and A group. Comparable earnings before tax came in at €16,100,000 up 75% versus €9,200,000 for the 2024, while comparable earnings after tax stood at €11,400,000 up 92% versus €5,900,000 in the previous year. Ideal Holdings returned to its shareholders a total of €0.40 per share in 2025, reaching a dividend yield of 6.7% and a total cash return of €21,600,000 We concluded the first stage of our cooperation with Ocular Advisors through which 15% of all our investments was acquired for a total of €62,000,000 Finally, for the first time since our 2021 transformation, we tapped the equity capital markets through a successful share capital increase of €48,000,000 through a public offering. As explained before, in June, we completed the share capital increase of €48,000,000 through a public offering, was oversubscribed 2.6 times, reaching a total demand of €125,000,000 We issued 8,000,000 shares at €6 per share for an additional 17% of our share capital. Through this share capital increase, we managed to substantially transform our shareholding structure.
Free float was further increased to 70% from 60% previously, while the participation of retail investors increased by five percentage points, reaching a total of $26,000,000 26%, sorry. Foreign and domestic institutional investors remained at the same levels of 32% on aggregate, while individuals with the holdings of more than 5% was reduced to 30%. As a result, we have managed to further increase the stock's liquidity, increasing our average daily volume around 50% since the last twelve months and to attract more than 4,000 new shareholders. As we mentioned before, IDEA shareholders have been generously rewarded over the last four years as we have returned a bit less than EUR1 per share, EUR0.98. In total, having returned to our shareholders an amount of EUR45.8 million, which is equal to 40% of our current market capitalization.
We will later further elaborate on our future dividend policy. The stock has been trading around €6 level, reflecting a capitalization of around €313,000,000 as of August. Since our 2021 transformation, Ideal Market has increased has managed to increase the commerce market capitalization by three times. This slide is maybe the most important of our presentation as it summarizes our strategy for the next three years. We remain disciplined in our investment to our investment approach in order to continue a successful track record, which we have demonstrated in the last four years with a realized IRR of fifty one percent and two point two times return on our invested capital.
After concluding all transactions so far and having initially invested €104,300,000 we have already realized a return of €227,000,000 For our future investments, we are targeting an IRR of at least 15 one-five percent or two times multiple on our capital for future asset sales. Our careful approach to new acquisitions with regard to valuation and future exit potential assists in achieving these targets. The successful completion of our recent share capital increase and our partnership with Oak Hill Advisors have substantially increased our foreign power, bringing us to a very strong position for future investments. As mentioned before, we always try to conclude our new acquisitions at what we call fair valuations, which reflect our IRR expectations. Regarding our existing investments, I will present our main strategy and I will later pass it on to its company's management for additional details.
On the department stores, we do not plan to proceed with further M and A activity. Additional square meters will come from potential expansion in CityLink and Elinicon once completed. On the IT sector, we want to maintain and further expand our EBITDA margins, which as you will see in a few slides later has already started to materialize in order to increase the value of the business. We are also exploring selective M and A opportunities that can be complementary to the existing product offering and only on an EPS accretive basis. On the food sector, we are also looking at selective M and A options that are strictly complementary to the existing business.
A CapEx to expand profitability and improve EBITDA margins is underway and will be completed over the next one to two years gradually. For new investments, we are exploring opportunities within the greater industrial sector. Regarding our dividend policy for the next three years, we will return to our shareholders around 40% to 50% of our net profits. We will also examine additional partial capital return from exits or from the additional sale of the remaining 10% to Oak Hill. Happy to discuss this page later if there are any questions.
I would like now to pass it on to the CEO of Advair and Department Store, Mr. Bumis for the next slide.
Thank you, Damian. Good afternoon to all. So first half of the year, the revenues went up by 4% to €106,300,000 and resulting to an EBITDA of €11,800,000 plus 5% versus last year. Whereas the IFRS 16 EBITDA was €20,000,000 Earnings after tax at €6,500,000 11% more than the 2024. Our net cash position was €12,200,000 We saw an increase in the number of visitors, result 3,200,000 visitors in our stores in the first half of the year.
And the sales per square meter, we had a small increase of 3% of €3,000 for the first half of the year. The main categories in Ateca are obviously fashion and beauty. Fashion representing 77%, beauty 21% and the other is mainly eyewear. So the business overview, the tax free sales grew by 9%, absorbing a drop that we saw in June due to the war between Israel and Iran. As I mentioned, the footfall was slightly higher by 2%.
We introduced to the Greek market 26 new premium brands and this is part of our Elevation project, which started three years ago. Our effort here is to become more and more relevant to our target market to bring new upcoming brands, so that the customers will have a top of mind as a retail destination. Our gross margin, EBITDA margin was were at the same level despite the fact that we had a higher payroll cost and marketing costs, which actually were driven by the fact that we celebrated this year the twenty years anniversary of vodka. We launched vodka back in 02/2005. And this year, we had a marketing activity celebrating the twenty year anniversary.
Our size remained flat in 2025 versus 2025. We have the same number for square meters. The outlook for the rest of the year is expected to be the second half of the year, the sales are expected to follow the trend of the first half. We're getting ready for the peak commercial period. For us, November and December represent 24% of the turnover of the year.
So it's the most important period for Ateca. So we design our market in action to be ready. And also, we try to maintain our staff and increase our staff so that we keep our high level of service. In parallel, we're working to enhance our infrastructure through upgrading our front end system, so that this will allow us to become to introduce personalization in our customer service. We expect that to be finalized in the first quarter twenty twenty six.
While in parallel, we will work also in the CRM and loyalty scheme to launch it by next summer. Then we are already investing a lot in our e commerce because it's one of our growth drivers. We're using AI technology tools and these are helping us to upload more and more fashion products so they become more relevant to online customer segment. In addition, we have in plan to open three new stores at the Viera Galeria at Elinikor, which is a luxury part of Elinikor project. The plan is to launch these stores in the 2007.
And at the same time, are in the preliminary phase to explore the feasibility of two additional strategic projects, which will lead the ADCAT to even further growth in the future. That's all from my side.
Okay. Mr. Pablo Aslihabis will present the performance of the IT sector.
Thank you, Danielos. Good afternoon from me as well. IT, Hidea Holdings IT segment continued strong performance in the 2025. Although revenue declined by 12% on a year over year basis, primarily due to the completion of the delivery of the large public scale infrastructure project in 2024, profitability improved significantly. EBITDA increased 25%, arising from $6,800,000 to $8,500,000 reflecting the company's strategic shift towards higher value added and service oriented projects.
EBITDA margin expanded from 10% to 15%, underscoring operational efficiency gains and any after tax grew proportionally advancing from 4,300,000.0 to $5,600,000 The EBITDA growth was driven by a mix from organic and M and A contribution. 70% of growth came from our existing investment by Tenatacom, while 30% was contributed by the acquisition of Bluestream. The IT companies remain at a strong cash positive position, supporting flexibility for further strategic investment and operational expansion. The sales were well diversified between private and public sector, while over 85% of the sales came from the three main pillars, system integration, cybersecurity and business services. IT segment entered the 2025 with a contractual backlog of approximately CHF 80,000,000, providing strong visibility into near term performance.
Revenue trends in 2025 are expected to be consistent with half one, while EBITDA growth momentum is anticipated to continue, driven mainly by sustained emphasis on higher value added and service oriented projects, enhanced operational synergies and scale efficiency through greater intercompany cooperation and ongoing investment technology, mainly AI and process stabilization to reduce manual workflows and overhead. To support the long term growth and profitability, the common in advancing several initiatives. One of them is the IT organization in cooperation with a leading international consulting firm to optimize structure and operational alignment. Second is the strengthening of our cybersecurity offering with the introduction of a new Cybersecurity platform, which has been developed fully internally by the cooperation of Ideal Software and Adapom. And of course, the focus on initiative to further leverage and support the cross selling and synergies between our IT companies.
Thank you, Pano. And have a second question for Eliquis. CEO, Barbastatis will present slides for Barbastatis.
Hello, everybody. We are very happy to join the family of Ideal Holdings. We're a new acquisition. We are very happy to be with you. It's the first time we present our performance.
So for the 2025, the revenues show strong growth, a consistent growth path which follow for Edgate now, is here achieving new highs. And the revenues increased by 6% to EUR 64,300,000.0 compared to EUR 60,400,000.0. And we made a considerable growth profitability, which increased by 7% in EBITDA to €6,800,000 compared to 6,300,000.0 previous year. And this was combined by increase also of our EBITDA margin to 11 from 10%. The earnings before tax increased considerably also to €4,000,000 compared to 2,100,000.0 mainly due to the debt restructuring and, excuse me, the debt restructuring and the reduced financial costs.
The debt the net debt of the company further reduced to 31,000,000, mainly before because of the reduced in the of the debt and increase in our cash position compared to EUR 40,000,000 to 37,000,000 the previous year, the December 2024. And our revenues continue to be in a very healthy basis. It is a very good diversification between frozen chilled and ambient products. Frozen vegetables represented 52% of our revenue, 16% was the fresh salad, 16% the dough products, and 12% the Halbanese steamed vegetables, the most current acquisition we we made of McEden Key company. The revenue contribution, growth contribution by its category, mainly Fresh Alert and Halvadis, our recent acquisition.
About this megatonic key by almost a million, 900,000.0, and half a million of the door products. So the outlook of the company, we continue to have a lead to maintain the leading market shares in the market. In the volume, we have market share of around 40% and in value, 50%. We are 50% of the market. And as said before, the sales increased by 6%, mainly driven by the volume that we increased the volumes and our presence in the retailers, which are our leading presence, dominant presence.
Despite the intense competition pressure from PLs and the price sensitivity of the consumers given the macro environment. Our revenue increased across all product categories with, as said before, double digit growth for salads and macadoni and kiihavadis. At the same time, we maintain the gross margin at the same levels, which are very high. And the EBITDA margin improved, mainly driven by the productivity improvement investments we have already done and absorbing higher cost of raw materials and production cost components, mainly energy and packaging materials. And the increased marketing expenses, which were there behind the strengthening communication plans and also the increased labor costs.
For the second half, we expect that the sales will continue around the same term. Major projects that will boost our performance. The two projects that are currently in progress are the Thessaloniki Syndos DC, a new distribution and store center in the new acquired Edesma plot, which is adjacent to our facilities here. This will increase our store capacity and will decrease the third party storage costs, which will at the same time reduce our dependency on third party. This store capacity is going to increase by 5,300 pallets.
That means the plus 18%, almost 20%. And the second project is Athens DC, a new distribution storage center in Athens, which will optimize further our cost basis and minimize the dependence on third parties, which will expect it to be ready in full operation the 2027. This will increase our pallet storage by 5,000, another 10%, which is very important for our operation and profitability given that the logistics costs are a significant component of our costs. And also the logistic market is underperforming and cannot support our business. So we are very positive for the further growth of the company
the presentation before just before the Q and A.
Thank you all of you. We would like basically it was not the intention to do the summary, but we received some questions following the announcement of our results and we would like to make some clarifications and to assist you and facilitate the discussion going forward. We try I will try to summarize what is Ideal Holdings. What we have done the last four years is that we have set up a business that has specific investments, a. B, what we have done is that we have managed to grow the market capitalization around four times up to 300,000,000 around $350,000,000 At the same time, we have distributed to the shareholders 14% of that, which is around €45,000,000 which is around €1 per share.
Now because we received some questions today, we would like to clarify the following. As we say, what is Ideal Holdings? Ideal has four investments. One, which is the small one, which
was
not reported, was not discussed today is the distribution business, which is a small business around EUR35 million to EUR40 million revenue and an EBITDA of more than EUR2.5, which is roughly equal to the expenses we have at the HoldCo level and which is going to be consolidated at the end of the year. Now the three other investments we have and you have and we can discuss it later is A, we have Attica. Attica department stores this year is going to come up with a sales of around $240,000,000 with an EBITDA of more than 27,000,000 and earnings before tax of around 20,000,000 These are numbers that you have to point down and pin down and make sure that you have it in any questions and discussions we might have. Second, we have the IT business, which have sales of around $110,000,000 and expected EBITDA of around 15,000,000 and earnings before tax of around 13 And Barbastatis, which has expects to have sales of around 130, EBITDA of around 15 and earnings before tax of around 8. So the investments of Ideal Holdings on which some of you have invested or the questions that you have is a business that has revenues of around $05,000,000,000 with an EBITDA of $57,000,000 and earnings before tax, because we don't have only EBITDA, we have earnings before tax, earnings before tax of more than 40,000,000 On the other side, currently we have a net debt of around $43,000,000 only compared to the EBITDA that you have written, that you have seen, and which we expect to go below the $20,000,000 level, which is an extremely low number at the end of the year.
Besides, we have as we may as we have already as my the managers have already explained before, we expect to complete the second tranche of the sale of 10% of the investments of these investments that we're talking right now to Oak Hill for around $41,000,000 that will enhance our firing power. And as Damianos explained before, we'll definitely discuss the option and we'll explore the option as we're going to do in the future in any partial or full exit, the option to distribute part of that to our shareholders. Regarding our investment, our dividend policy, it's pretty clear. We said that for the next three years, our intention is to distribute around 40% to 50% of earnings after tax plus any special dividend in the form of share capital decrease anytime, which is going to be as a compensation to our shareholders from any partial or full exit that we're going to do. So it's pretty clear the intention is A, to distribute part of our cash and at the same time reinvest.
Now finally and before you answer you put any question in front of us, it has to be totally clear because I've seen several articles in the press that A, on department stores or any related activity, no M and A activity, only new square meters. On the IT, we've already discussed. And obviously on food, because we've seen some questions that you've already posed you already sent to us, definitely whatever we're going to do is going to be related with the nature of business of Barbara Stattles and nothing which is going to be on a different distribution channel. And it's totally clear and we have never ever entered into any discussion or even crossed our mind with to acquire any other business from any other investor that we have acquired in the past period. Thank you very much and happy to take any questions you might have.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. The first question is from the line of Viriade Natalia with Eurobank Equities. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I hope you can hear me. Labros actually made a very clear statement on most of the things we were thinking of. So I would like to maybe I didn't hear this correct, but I would like a clarification.
The 10% expected to sale to OHA Group, is this by year end? Is that what I understood correctly? Or we don't have a time line? This is one question. And the other, I would like to ask if you could remind us a bit the CapEx plans of the businesses.
We said that we are we have investments in Attica department stores, if I'm not mistaken. Could we have how much or a bit of what magnitude these are? And if I understand correctly, also in the Food business, the two main projects that we are discussing, if you could give us a rough estimate for the year for these two? Thank you.
Okay. First, the answer to your question regarding the 10% according to the shareholder agreement we have, OHA has the option to increase its stake within six months up from completion. And they have already made clear to us that they would like to increase it to 10% at least, but we stopped at 10%. And this has to be completed by year
end. Great. Okay.
So I could say that it could be earlier than that, but to keep it conservative, we'll tell you year end. So any discussion internally and any discussion we're going to have on whether we're going based on that to distribute any additional, let's say, capital return will be is going to be completed the 2026. Regarding Attica, I would like Dimostenis to answer if you can and regarding the food is Nikitas.
Okay, great.
Can you remind the question please?
Yes. I was wondering if you could give us a magnitude or a bit more or less how much of these investments, the upgrading of the systems and the loyalty scheme launch and the CRM and everything, how much this would come into a number for us
put it terms in of sales, you mean?
In terms of sales and in terms of the, I don't know, investment or percentage of sales investment or something like that. So we have a gross in our mind, a gross number.
Okay. Yes. So the front end system, the CRM and the AI technology and just speaking, the e commerce would be approximately altogether about EUR 2,000,000 investment. Okay. And as Labros mentioned, we are talking for a business of around €250,000,000 turnover. So,
that's a great return then. Okay. Thank you very much for the clarification. And something similar, I don't know, in the food business, we are talking about these projects that are improving our logistics and third party storage and everything. How much would these require? And what would be the return?
Okay. There are two projects, one in Sindos, which refers to more or less 5,500 new pallet position frozen cold store, which the budget is the CapEx budget is around 5,500,000.0. The expected EBITDA contribution will be around EUR 1,100,000.0 from the completion. Completion will take place first half first quarter twenty twenty six. And the second is in Athens, which if it has two options, one to build it and have the big CapEx and the other to lease some premises.
The most probably is to lease some premises and the CapEx will be around EUR 3,000,000 max, expecting an EBITDA contribution of EUR 1,200,000.0 to EUR $1.2300000.0. The completion of this project is estimated late first half twenty twenty six.
Okay. That was very clear. Thank you very much.
Welcome.
Ms. Sediati, are you done with your questions?
Yes, think I'm okay for now.
Thank you so much.
We just have a question on the webcast from Mr. Alex Ostadleri Ruiz.
Of course, sir. Please go ahead.
We said the following, definitely a company that has strategy. Give us a comment on the market speculation, please.
Okay. Alexandre, thank you very much. It's pretty clear and I have to state it once again, we ever never had any discussion with any company regarding related with CVC apart from Barbastati's business period. We never entered into any discussion for any of the investments of CVC and it is totally clear and it's not our intention. Whoever knows follows our strategy is clear that we invest in a specific type of businesses.
We never had this discussion and unfortunately, we're not able to follow any article related with this type of questions. And I thank God that we have the capacity to answer it today, period. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you.
Thank you very much for coming and listening to that. What we would like to say here, we take the opportunity to tell you that we're going we are organizing an Investor Day to explain to the analysts, the investors and the media what actually is Ideal Holdings. Every company that participates in this business, where you will have the capacity to speak directly with the management of each company, where they will explain the strategy and the next steps. Hopefully, this is going to take place in the first two to three weeks of October. We try to set up the date and you will all receive an invitation to join us for that.
Thank you very much for joining. Hope that our results and our numbers satisfy the investment community and are becoming clear and we'll try to make it as clear as we can in the next three to six 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 pleasant afternoon.