Hello. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us in the call. The aim of the call is to present the results of Talgo for the first quarter of 2023. For that end, Gonzalo Urquijo, CEO of the company, will go through the presentation that was released yesterday afternoon.
Good morning to all, thank you very much for joining this call. I think it's important as a reminder, remember this presentation is a summarized one because in Q1 and Q3, we always present summarized one, it goes down to net income, we don't enter in balance sheet or cash position. If you agree, you can see the first page, let's go to the first page. The first part is health and safety. We continue working on health and safety. Our frequency ratios and severity have improved, we continue working hard on that. That is our number one priority. I have to tell you, more than accidents, we've had, I would say, incidents overnight, accidents. In terms of ESG, well, that's our number one, also number two priority, I would say.
Safety is part of ESG and working additionally on environmental. You know, we are putting solar panels. Additionally, we are working as always in how we can make our trains more e-efficient energy-wise, et cetera. Manufacturing, I think this is a clear challenge for us, and it's very important. As a market, that is the third point is sweet. We see now we have to really boost our manufacturing, that-'s what we're working very hard on. In terms of the figures, as the third balloon, the green one, where we had revenues, I think they're in line with consensus, so is EBITDA and our margin. In terms of net income, we'll explain it now because we've had higher financial expenses and corporate taxes.
Last and not least, in terms of the outlook, we are confirming the outlook in terms of revenues, EBITDA and order intake clearly, and we continue working on the view now in our new calendar. Now next page. In terms of our key operating figures and backlog, okay, in terms of manufacturing for this year, you know, we finished last year the Renfe. As for Renfe, the R70, just to tell you that is finished. We've done all the homologation, testing, the certification. Additionally to that, the 13th of April, we put in the estate agency, railway state agency, we put all the documentation. There were 68 questions. We've answered to 64 as of now.
By the end of the day, the 68 will be answered, and we have four months to review all the homologation process and all the doubts they may have. That means that we should have three months from now, most of it, so two months and a half from now, everything should be up and running, I would say. In terms of production, we've been finishing Egypt. That has been finished. We have four trains in Egypt in operation. The two last ones that is train five and six are already also in Egypt. The last one arrived one week ago. They've taken it already from Alexandria to Cairo, and we hope to have them, both of them, five and six, operating by the end of this month.
For this year, the manufacturing will be concentrated in Deutschland for project number one, in Denmark, project number one, and in the Renfe trains that we are redoing the new power heads. That is the 26 power heads. In terms of maintenance, which represents 72.7% of our backlog and are in index inflation index. Just to tell you that we are in levels of work on maintenance, and that means in traffic that are similar to the ones we had prior to COVID, that is 2019. Additionally, to that, we've been working on the new pricing and the new pricing model that is adequate margins, indexation. We are including now as in financial cost and inflation is here, and it seems it's come to stay. That we do have financial costs.
They're also embedded in our prices. In terms of supply chain, we have to say it is better than what it was, but we still have here and there some slowdowns or these locks. It's much smaller than what it was, especially I would say in bearings, in motors and electronic materials. Now we've opened our new policy with all the, that is with all our suppliers. That is improving and increasing the number of suppliers, reaching for long-term agreements. Some geographies in this pricing history proved to be less beneficial in terms of suppliers, and we've been reorienting the geographies, I would say. In next page, we go to commercial activity. Well, what can we say in terms? I think the momentum is very sweet. It is good.
I have to tell you that we are very well. We have the extensions. DSB has already been signed. It's only subject to the parliament. We believe that's an administrative procedure because the Commission of Transport has already approved it. As for DB, we hope to come briefly with good news. Let's be prudent. We are still working hard on it, but we do think that it will have good news to share with you briefly as per the DB extensions. For Saudi Arabia, we do think this will be more at the end of the year. There's two projects. There's the extension of the actual project and the two royal trains.
All in all, we've already put as new orders subject to, that is the DSB, that's EUR 184, plus Egypt, that's EUR 280, and that's why we have that EUR 464. This means that at present we have a manufacturing backlog is EUR 583, which is actually we have practically duplicated. It's an 80% more than what we have. We think in terms of the liability, that is very important. In this case, the new ones, DSB, has indexation of inflation and with each of it had to be a fixed price. We embedded in the price the all the expectations in terms of in inflation. That means more and more maintenance has indexation.
All our new contracts now will be indexed in terms of manufacturing, all in all, our backlog will be in the future 100% indexed. Next page, that is the key financial figures. As you can see, we've had a turnover of EUR 127. That meant last quarter we had EUR 117. In those round figures were EUR 116.9. Q1 last year we had EUR 118.4. In terms of EBITDA, we were last quarter at EUR 14 million. That's 12%. Now we are at 12.2% EBITDA margin, that's 15.4%. Last year in Q1, we were at 12.6%, and we have seen the consistency of improvement in margins in the last three quarters, I believe.
Last but not least, in net income amounted to EUR 2.4. Last year in the first semester, it was basically it was EUR 3.5 in Q1. What can I say here? We have been impacted by financials. Why financials? Well, we have, as you know, 65% is in non-fixed, 35% is variable. We have already seen the increase in the what is variable in terms of interest rates. Additionally to have, we have instruments like the AAP that are also variable, and that's why we've been impacted by that in the net income. Also we've been, we have good margins in maintenance and in international maintenance. In those countries we have to pay local taxes, the all-in-all average has been higher.
That's why we are impacted with that net income. Last not least, in the last page, we can go through the page of the outlook. We are confirming the outlook in terms of EBITDA 12%. Clearly, we've already been in 12.2% in this first one. Working capital, working maintenance stable. The net debt, remember this year, the beginning, we had increase in working capital, it will end up decreasing and we are working hard on that. We confirm the 2x EBITDA. You remember we had problems about 3x EBITDA. CapEx of EUR 30 million. In terms of our backlog execution, it will be 40% of what we had over the backlog of 2022. Our average book-to-bill will be above 2 clearly.
In terms of the shareholder remuneration, we've gone up to 12. It will be the proposal to the general shareholders' assembly, and it will be a scrip dividend, which gives you the flexibility of getting it in cash or through getting in shares. Then we have a share buyback, that doesn't change the actual structure and capital we have. Last but not least, I would like to insist on two things. That is one, Renfe, on the penalties. We have an open file, as you know. That was built one year ago. To that file we've answered with all our allegations saying that we have had COVID. We believe that is force majeure. They had changed event. They had changed the specifications of the train.
Additionally to that, the law has changed in terms of the motivation and what days we could do the testing. It was, should have been seven days. It was only two days. They have asked us an update on that. We've given the update, and for the moment that is nothing else. There's only a fine. There's no legal issue there. We hope that will be solved and not a legal issue. The lawyers are quite confident that we have a clear case to win this due to force majeure. In terms of Los Angeles, LACMTA, the Metro, you know, there was a lawsuit that was launched. It was around mid the 15th of September. We answered to this with a counter suit, and now we are in the discovery phase.
This will be, we will have a trial by April 2024. Let me close this saying I insist very much, for we believe it's very important that is the power game. The power game part is full with good margins in terms of manufacturing, also maintenance. All our orders now in terms of manufacturing are having indexation. In addition to that, as I already said, we're including the financial costs, and we're doing full review of what does this mean in terms of our penalties, guarantees, in order to limit this going forward. We've assigned that it can only be a percentage of our margin. That's where we are. Thank you very much, and clearly open to answer questions. Thank you very, very much for your attention and for coming.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone keypad. Thank you. The first question comes from the line of Jaime Escribano from Banco Santander. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hello. Good morning. Can you hear me? Hello?
Okay.
Yes, yes.
Yes, we can hear you.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Okay. Yeah, no. Sorry, because I'm with the headphones, and I was not sure if the line was very good. My first question is regarding the guidance that you have provided, where you say that there is upside risk in terms of the potential order intake. I would like it possible if you could elaborate a little bit more on the opportunities that make you be so or more optimistic on that. In terms of the guidance, the margin, which stays at around 12.2%, I would like to know what should we expect in terms of margins in following quarters? Should we expect some further progressive increase?
If this is so, your guidance of 12% could look conservative. I would like to hear also your views on that. Thank you very much.
Jaime, once more, thank you for attending and for your questions as always. I'll start with the second one. In terms of our guidance, for the EBITDA margin, 12%, I think we should run the numbers. We for the moment, and you know we are prudent, we maintain our guidance to 12%. Could this have a tendency? Up to you to think of it, but we for the moment we are maintaining our guidance. In terms of coordinated, I think what I said or what I tried to say is that we could improve this. It is true that the moment, it's a sweet moment. We have what we've already spoke of DSB. We have Egypt. That was the second one, which we've already. For DSB, it's only subject to the approval of the parliament.
As I said, that we believe that will come through. Second, for Egypt, it's a question now of the Egyptian ministries that have to approve it. The Spanish government has given us. Second, for Deutsche Bahn, as we said, we hope to brief you. The brief, you know, better we come up with good news, but until we sign it, we are prudent on this. Additionally to that, we have Saudi Arabia. We think this will come more by the end of the year. We have other open deals, maybe [audio distortion, which we already made it public, and other ones we are looking into in Saudi Arabia and in other places. That's why we feel comfortable, and we think that we can improve the order intake. Okay, Jaime?
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. The next question comes from Alberto Espelosín from JB Capital. Please go ahead.
I will.
Yeah. Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. I apologize. First, my first question was asked by Jaime. I also think that your margin guidance are a bit conservative. Just to confirm, should you progressively see a quarter-on-quarter EBITDA improve, margin improvement due to lower inflation impact on backlog? Just if you could please comment on this. If you wish, should see a margin progression quarter-on-quarter from this 12.2% EBITDA margin. On net income. Net income seems lower year-on-year, despite much higher EBITDA. If you could please comment. You said that this was due to financial expenses. Was this the only effect? What is this driving this missing net income?
If it's only financial expenses, it seems a lot to me. Was it only financial expenses? On Renfe, do you have any visibility on timings on the deliveries of the Avril trains? This very concerned with the possible penalties that you might not pay because these COVID effects, et cetera. Do you have any visibility on timings? I also had a question on Egypt. I was wondering what is the reason behind the long period. Why is it taking so long to sign the contract? Like you said, it's due to present conditions related to price financing. If you could provide a bit more visibility on this, please. Just one last one. Sorry. The Denmark project seems to be at much higher prices than the first one, the extension of the project.
Are you being able to pass through prices, and do you expect to be able to?
To have higher margins due to pass through of prices in the contract renewals. Thank you.
Alberto, thank you very much. For EBITDA, I'm going to reiterate what I just said and what I said in the presentation. We are only conservative or not. I think for the moment we want to maintain guidance. That is very clear, and that's where we stand at this point. I mean, second, for net income, we have two, not only financial expenses. It has been part from financial expenses and part from taxes, because we did have good results coming from abroad, and those results have a different data. In Spain we have NOLs, et cetera. We have had more taxes. Those are the two basic reasons.
Three, in terms of Renfe, look, the delivery, it depends now on the state agency, safety, the National State Safety Railway agency. Normally, they have four months, that's where they would be now. We put this about one month ago, it was April plus four months, it's now in the hands of the state agency. If I go to penalties, we are convinced that there's no legal case to pay the penalty. That's what we've seen with our lawyers. For the moment they have not. If they want the penalties, they would have to take to a legal case, for the moment, that has not been the case. I do think that maybe it has been done in the past. We have negotiated.
I have to tell you, we have negotiated with DB, with DSB, with Egypt, and we have had no penalties due to our negotiations. That's what we hope. Timing, I think it's up to the agency now, and they have four months since April, mid-April, more or less. In terms of Egypt, visibility, look, we've had the approval of the Spanish government. That is already there. I think they've had questions of state budget, et cetera. Now we have to approve it by four ministries exactly, and it is taking some more time. The ball is in their part of the court, because we've had the approval, which is a very good.
The funding of this is very important and very interesting for the customers and at excellent conditions. It's up to them now. We hope that in the following weeks, months, they should be there. The ball is in their court of the Egyptians. As for DSB, I have to tell you, we have been renewal contracts. It is true we reviewed those contracts. We reviewed the pricing of those contracts. There's more things unlike. Because in DSB, there's change now. There's been change orders. There's been now CAP costs. There's been changes in some of the purchase. I think there's more on that to. We have reviewed their prices. We have the adequate indexations. We're gonna put in our equation the financial cost also.
We put the new review prices, the indexation, financial costs, and we have reviewed in terms of penalties and guarantees, too. Okay, Alberto.
Okay, understood. Very clear. Thank you very much.
How much you are paying if you think the mega.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Quentin Borie from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Thank you for taking my questions. I have one regarding sales. What can we expect for the coming quarters? Should we expect sales to gradually increase sequentially, or would you expect sales to remain on that level and increase in 2024 to reach your guidance of backlog execution? I have a second one regarding your Egyptian order. Can you confirm that it includes 15 year of maintenance and that the EUR 280 million represent only the manufacturing part of the order? Should we expect something higher than the EUR 280 million to be booked in the following quarters if you also book the maintenance part? Thank you.
As for Egypt in the new order, that is saying we have to sign it, so let's be prudent. It's 15 years of maintenance. As for Quentin, thank you for the question. As for sales, we do expect increase in sales as the quarters go forward. Okay? Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Jaime Escribano from Banco Santander. Please go ahead.
Hi. Yeah, just a follow-up question. On Le Train potential contract, could you update us on the? I remember there was you were expecting the homologation of the Renfe train in France. If this happened, it would accelerate the potential agreement with Le Train. Maybe you could update us on that. Any other potential projects or bids that you are working out of the ones you mentioned that we should be aware of or that you are excited about? Thank you very much.
Gracias, Jaime. First, I think we've given that our pipeline is EUR 7.5 billion. There's many projects there we are seeing. I can give you examples. In Saudi Arabia, we are seeing four. We are seeing in Portugal, we are seeing one in France. We are seeing in different areas of the world. We've seen an additional one in Egypt. I think there's many. We are seeing things in Italy. We're seeing another one for Spain with the private operators. We are seeing. I would say there's many things there in the pipeline, Jaime, for your second question. As for the first, in terms of France is not an easy place.
We've asked, of course, Renfe at the ministry to help us because the mobilization there takes time. We knew we need full support of the government, which they haven't given us. Renfe is very interested. That is, it's taking time. We have a train there. We're doing testing of that train at present. It is in France. That's going to take time. The French are not easy for this. They never say no. They always say, we are really putting a lot of pressure in every way in that issue. Okay? Thank you .
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Beltran Palazuelo from DLTV. Please go ahead.
Hello, good morning. Thank you very much for the presentation. I have two questions, if I may. First of all, regarding margins of 2023. Just it's very good to be conservative, but if you already have increased salaries, just to understand what can go wrong around the year in order for your margins to not keep improving. We have seen five quarters of, let's say, increases. What can go wrong? Then, just to understand it better, I'm just seeing the numbers of the consensus for, let's say, 2025. I've been analyzing your... the price of your contract in Denmark, the one you signed at the beginning of 2020, the one you signed this year, and all of us have seen the difference in prices.
Currently, your margin this quarter is around 12.2%. Once you execute all your contracts, manufacturing contracts with, let's say, low margins, if you could be, let's say, more clear so maybe the market understands this better. What is the normalized margin of this company with healthy manufacturing and healthy maintenance? Thank you very much.
Well, good morning. How are you? Nice talking to you. Well, in terms of our margins, I think there's two questions for that. For the first one, what could go wrong? I mean, look, we have put in our budgets and our new offer. It is the salaries, the impact of raw materials. We spoke about the supply chain before. It is on the good track. It's not 100% solved, clearly. There's all these issues and points are being taken into account. In theory, I think the big challenge we have is to increase production. That is out there. In theory, there should not be any surprises or negative surprises. For the rest, everything has been taken into account. That is just for your first questions. You say are normalized.
That is a great question, Beltran, as you always do. It is true that our portfolio now, not in maintenance, but yes, in production is impacted by lower margins because we did have a squeeze in margins, clearly due to a close price and clearly the increase in salaries, the increase in raw materials, et cetera, delays, et cetera. That is clear. Going forward, all the new orders, first, we have normalized this. Second, we're going forward. This will not be the case as we're more falling in, as we had in maintenance to a pass-through, and that's where we are working hard on to continue that pass-through. Clearly, normalized margins, everything I can say should be different going forward. Don't ask for a figure because we have not. We know the guidance where it is.
We've only done it for one year. I mean, that should be the case going forward, clearly. Okay, Beltran?
Thank you very much, Gonzalo , for explanation. I can assume for 2023, let's say it's a low bar because with all the, let's say, increases in salaries are already done. When I understand what is happening in the European industry and supply chains are improving not all the way. I understand it. And then maybe a number because it seems that the... Well, people are, let's say, putting 13%, let's say, all the analysts have been calling here, and you're already at 12.2%. When I see, for example, of how you adjust margins, why not say clearly what is the ambitions of this company medium to long term? It seems that the...
Well, that you should, let's say, put more strength in the medium to long term guidance.
Well, I take good note of that, and let us reconsider it, but we've always been very prudent. For the moment, we maintain it in 12 for the year, and let us see what we have to do going forward. At least we are convinced there's long term value. You all know what to do.