Good afternoon and welcome to the 2024 preliminary results presentation. We will also discuss the budget for this year during this presentation. We can start with a little background information. As you know, throughout last year, TeraPlast Group has expanded by adding Palplast, a polyethylene pipe producer in the Republic of Moldova, Pro-Moulding and Polytech, two producers in Hungary, Polytech for polyethylene pipes and Pro-Moulding for injected parts, Optiplast in Croatia, flexible packaging manufacturer. Towards the end of last year, also the assets previously owned by Wavin Hungary, which basically means an industrial production site for polyethylene and PVC pipes in Zsámbék, Hungary near Budapest.
Also, as a subsequent event, at the beginning of this year, we have signed the contract to acquire Aquatica Experience Group, which is a player active in the field of water treatment, sewage water purification, and digital management solution for water, and also in water park design and build. I will get into details of this latest transactions because we had several questions regarding the rationale behind this acquisition. What I can tell you is that we at TeraPlast tried to look at the issue of water management as a holistic solution.
This basically means that we need to see water throughout its cycle in use, namely from its extraction and cleaning to transportation and to the purification afterwards, which means at any level you'd like, either in a complex factory or in a city, we need to look at the whole flow of water because we think that throughout this millennium, water is going to be one of the main challenges for humanity. Before this acquisition, we had a wide range of solution for water transportation, namely pipes for clean water, pipes for sewage. However, we were not present in the entry point and the exit point of the water in a use cycle.
This basically means that we were lacking significant parts that can allow us to provide full solutions for our customers. With this acquisition, we basically complete the circle and we are able to provide complete solutions for the whole of the water cycle within a consumer framework. Basically, we can take fresh water out of nature, we can provide solutions for its transportation and then for its cleaning and return to nature. Also, another thing where AE Group is present is in the field of controlling the water circuit within this network because water loss is also a major concern for stakeholders involved.
Although the data is scarce, there are estimates that as much as 50%-70% of the water in Romanian networks in cities is being lost because of deficiencies in the water transport networks. We hope to grow Aquatica Experience Group in order to become a solutions provider for all these aspects. Of course, to use this expertise throughout the geographies where we are present. We are talking about mostly Republic of Moldova, which is at the beginning of its rebuilding of the water networks, but also in other geographies where we are present. The transaction is a complex one because we are talking about a company that is actually at the beginning of its activity.
We are going to, we set a price that is going to be determined based on the 2025 financial results, applying a five multiplicator on EBITDA, of course adjusting for net debt and, if needed, for working capital. We are going to acquire 51% of the shares. The founders of the company are going to be partners with us in this, in this journey. We are going to pay EUR 2 million upon the completion of the transaction or the closing of the transaction. If the financial results for the first half of 2025 are going to be in line with our expectations, we are going to pay an additional EUR 1 million, but everything is going to be settled based on the financial results of 2025.
On top of this cash out that is going to go to the founders of the business, we are also going to finance the growth of Aquatica Experience Group by share capital increase of EUR 3 million that is going to be again done according to a complex mechanism. Namely, we are going to loan initially EUR 1.5 million after the closing. Then after we pay the founders the value of the shares, we are going to have a share capital increase with the EUR 1.5 million in loan that we initially forwarded. And with their share, we are going to increase the share capital by EUR 3 million. We need approval for this transaction from the Committee of Examining Foreign Investments. We have already applied for it and it's my expectation to have the approval process completed by end of March.
Starting second quarter, we are going to have the business consolidated into our P&L. This transaction marks the end of the accelerated expansion we have been going through in the last year. This gets us into the next stage, the stage of consolidation, which is going to be our priority for 2025. Getting back to 2024 to discuss a little bit of background for the results, for the result figures, we have seen mixed evolutions in our various market segments and geographies. If you look at our core market, namely the installation market in Romania, we have seen strong demand fueled especially by Anghel Saligny project, but also some European fund projects, which enabled us to grow volumes.
It was our strategy to also increase market share, which means that in terms of quantities and the turnover, we accelerated quickly, but with a loss of margin. This is reflected in the bottom line of the financial results. Western European markets, especially the German and the French market, have had below expectation evolutions, namely the volumes contracted profoundly. This means that there was huge pressure on margins and the bottom line of our operations there have been impacted. Palplast Moldova, although a small business, had a strong demand, especially from the private sector, either residential or agricultural. It means that it had positive results that were consolidated. However, it remains a small market. Granules have shown a significant comeback to their usual performance after a couple of years of less positive results.
We are on track because of new strategic partnerships that have expanded in Romania and abroad, towards having the results for this segment that basically we are used to. The flexible packaging division was, in many respects, the underperformer of the group. Although in terms of volumes, we have exceeded the expectation, this came at significant cost in terms of bottom line, because we had huge volumes and extremely low prices, caused by inflow of goods from outside of, so basically a switch from Western European destination to Eastern European destination of goods from Europe, which put pressure on the prices, which reflected in a much bigger loss than anticipated for this segment. Last but not least, TeraPlast has registered a positive trend, determined by the increase of customized products as opposed to standard off-the-shelf goods in DIYs.
This strategy is going to continue. We are more and more present in the market of rehabilitation of buildings and even new buildings where we supply custom-made goods for these projects. All in all, this amounted to a 34% increase in revenue, with a gross margin of 36%, close to 37%, last year. However, due to the increase in other costs like labor, energy, we see an EBITDA which is virtually at the same level as 2023, but with a significantly decreased margin versus 2023 and a - RON 20 million, almost negative result. As I said, especially due to the packaging business and more precisely, due to the start of Opal production at much bigger volumes than anticipated. On the good side, we are deploying our strategy to expand sales outside of Romania.
They are already at 26%, in a sharp increase from 15% in 2023. These sales include products manufactured in Romania and exported, but also products that have been produced in our factories abroad. For this year, we also are, I would say, mildly optimistic. We see a revenue growth of 12%, to over RON 1 billion. As I said, it's a year where we are going to focus heavily on improving the operational performance and consolidating the businesses that we acquired, which means that we anticipate an EBITDA level of RON 88 million, a sharp increase of almost 70% versus last year, with a margin of 8.8%. Our plan is to go into the double-digit EBITDA margin range, which is somehow what we target, and the reconstruction of the EBITDA margin and profitability begins this year.
This growth is going to be fueled by 9% growth in volumes, which are going to be close to 120,000 tons of polymers, polymer products, but also an increase in prices because we estimate that we are going to see an increase in raw material prices throughout this year, which is going to be reflected also in a growth in our sales prices. Now, I will leave Bogdan, our CFO, to get into details regarding the numbers and be back for the Q&A session. Thank you very much.
Hello, I am Bogdan Crăciunaș and, in the following slides, we will go through the details of the financial figures, financial results for 2024 and the budget for 2025. The turnover of TeraPlast Group shows an increase of 33.5% compared to 2023. This evolution is mainly due to the increase in volumes.
We had in 2024 an increase of 46% in volumes sold compared to 2023, which means a 19.9% increase in turnover. Another very important factor that impacted the increase in turnover is the volumes of Opal stretch film. This is a new business, in which we started the production at the end of 2023. This generated an impact in turnover of 6.2%. At the same time, the decrease in sales prices in 2024 compared to 2023 generated an impact of 7% in consolidated turnover. The decrease in prices is due to the decrease in production costs, mainly a drop in the prices of the raw materials. Considering the objective to use the production capacity at maximum, we transfer this cost reduction into the market.
The last significant factor that impacted the turnover of 2024 are the mergers and acquisitions, which we concluded in 2024. I'm referring to Palplast. I'm referring to the companies of Freiler Group, for the period April to December. I'm referring to Optiplast, for which we consolidated the results for December. We move to the presentation of the budget. The year 2024 was extremely busy from the perspective of expansion, expansion of activities on European markets through to the acquisition of companies from Freiler Group and Palplast, Optiplast, and also the acquisition of the new production entity in Zsámbék. The year 2025 will be one in which we will focus all our efforts for consolidating the business of all the group companies, and, more important, to increase the profitability of the group.
For 2025, we budget, we aim to exceed the threshold of RON 1 billion in turnover. The EBITDA is budgeted at RON 88 million, and we will end the financial year 2025 with a positive net result, a profit of RON 5.3 million. The turnover of RON 1 billion represents a 12% increase compared to 2024. The main growth factors are the consolidation of Optiplast Croatia, the increase in volumes with 9% compared to 2024, and the start of the production operations of the new production facility in Zsámbék. In respect of the quarterly evolution, from the perspective of the turnover, but also EBITDA and net profit, we can see that quarters two and three contribute the most to the annual results due to the seasonality of the group's main activities.
The significant improvement in EBITDA, up to the level of RON 88 million, respectively a 69% increase compared to 2024, and the net profit of RON 5.3 million is due to the optimization of the activities and the synergies resulting from the integration of the newly acquired companies. A significant contribution to the improvement of the results is expected from the packaging segment and from the installation segment. Continuing the presentation with the financial performance on business segments, it can be seen that in 2024, for the installation and recycling business, we had an increase of 28% in turnover, in net sales, while the EBITDA increased by 3%, up to RON 54 million. The EBITDA margin grew compared to 2023, up to 8.43%.
In terms of compounds and recycling segment, we have a strong EBITDA margin of 10%, and this was due to the increase in the net sales of 21%. The windows and doors segment shows a significant improvement compared to last year, and this improvement is mainly due to the repositioning on the non-retail projects. Due to this strategic repositioning, we managed to increase the turnover by 6% up to RON 51 million with an EBITDA of RON 2.1 million, and more important, net result, a positive net result of RON 1 million compared to a loss of RON 749,000 in 2023. The packaging segment, in the packaging segment, the evolution is on one hand extremely positive, because we managed to hit an increase of 143%. We reached a turnover of RON 113 million, which is extremely positive in terms of, as I said, the turnover and volumes.
Due to this positive evolution of the volumes in the context of the accelerated ramp-up of Opal business, we present a negative EBITDA of RON 13 million. Percentage-wise, we can see a slight increase compared to 2023. In terms of balance sheet, the financial year 2024 was significantly impacted by the consolidation of the newly acquired companies, Palplast, Freiler Group companies, Optiplast, and also was impacted by the acquisition of the new production facility in Zsámbék. Having this in mind, the 2025, the budget of 2025, it's impacted by a slight increase in the working capital, which is precisely to accommodate the working capital needs of these new businesses, these new companies. In terms of net debt to EBITDA indicator, in 2024, due to these investments, the debt ratio was 5.3 net debt to EBITDA.
For 2025, we are targeting net debt indicator of 3.7. In terms of cash flows, it can be seen that in 2024, TeraPlast Group generated RON 61 million from the operating activities. On the investment side, we have used, we have paid RON 87 million to acquisition, towards acquisition of fixed assets and RON 125 million for the acquisition of companies. This was partially compensated by RON 24.4 million receipts collections from subsidies. In terms of financing activities, we have accessed bank financing, net bank financing of RON 40 million, and we have recorded the share capital increase of RON 100 million. For 2025, we are budgeting a cash of RON 11 million from operating activities. We are budgeting to pay towards the acquisition of fixed assets RON 64 million, which will be partially compensated with the collection from subsidies, state grants of RON 6.5 million.
In terms of financing, we are targeting to access bank financing, net bank financing of RON 43.5 million. Thank you very much. I will ask Mr. Stânean to go through the questions.
Okay. Let's see on the question side what we have. I don't see any questions. If you have any questions, please feel free either to start your microphones and just say them or to write them up in the chat or the Q&A.
Hi, I have a question, Cristian from NN. Can you hear me?
Yes, please.
If you can go back to the latest acquisition, the one with the pool, and if you can explain a little bit the rationale behind it, where you think the synergies will come, what's your value added for you in this transaction? Thank you.
As I said during the presentation, right now, we strongly feel that, sorry, I keep getting some messages. Okay. We at TeraPlast strongly feel that the main challenge for the foreseeable future is water supply and the quality of that water, that water supply in terms of availability and quality. As you very well know, TeraPlast has a wide range of products for water transportation from the water plant to consumers and then via the sewage network from the consumer to the treatment plant. We have solutions for exploiting that water out of the ground through drilling. We have solutions for storage of that water. However, we do not have solutions in our portfolio for the treatment of the clean water or the wastewater.
We do not have a solution to provide to our customers regarding the major issue of the loss of water through the networks. This is the area, this is the exact area where Aquatica Experience Group has relevant experience in all these areas. Basically, what we want to do is to integrate a product and solution portfolio and look at the water problem more holistically than we did so far just by supplying the transport and storage products, but also be involved in the cleaning of the water both after it is extracted from a river or from the underground, and also when it is cleaned before entering the water stream in nature. This is exactly the competence in AEG.
This is why, besides the fact that we are entering and paying a price for this entry, we are also supporting the development, so we can scale the solutions that they have promoted, but with, let's say, limited success due to their size and financial possibility to support the promotion of this solution throughout Romania. With our sales force and our, basically, size, we want to be able to offer these solutions throughout Romania and throughout all of our geographies, and of course, reap the benefits of this. Did I make myself clear?
Yeah. I mean, this is more like cleaning of water solution rather than connected exclusively to pools. Because first I understood it was mainly to pools.
I hear you quite, quite badly. I don't know, maybe you can move forward.
Can you hear me now?
A little bit better.
Just a minute. Do you hear me now?
Yes, much better.
Okay. This is more like a cleaning solution that can be implemented on your clients rather than exclusively related to pools. Because first, that's what I understood from the acquisition.
Okay. Yes, they do have a significant business, let's say, segment that has to do with pools and water parks, and they do have significant experience in that area as well. I am sure that we are going to make money off of it, but the areas of focus have to do with water treatment, water cleaning, and water losses. This is the area of focus. This is the area where we're going to invest in. Of course, they have this other activity as well. We are not going to shut it down as long as it produces money, but it's not the focus.
Okay. Do you need, will you have additional facilities or how will this product, this product will be bought from other, from third parties? How will this be done?
This is basically an engineering business. This has several components, an engineering business, which also has an IT component because there are softwares for the water loss, especially for the water loss monitoring, and a design and build activity. It is not necessarily a production. We are going to go into services with this acquisition.
Great. Thank you. The other question is if you can make some comments, because looking at the results and as you mentioned in the presentation, the trigger for losses was flexible. Other segments looked better.
Yep.
Do you have a timeline? How do you see the market environment? Do you have a timeline for breaking even and where do you see reasonable margins there? How is the market environment? If you can, can make some comments on the flexible.
Of course. I think that the most important thing I should mention is the fact that we have new management for that division this year. We have changed the approach versus last year when we regarded the two sides of our packaging division, namely stretch film and blown film, as different, let's say, entities with different market footprints. We changed this approach. We integrated the activities in the packaging divisions, both in Romania and Croatia, in one, let's say, under one management.
This is a major shift in approach in order to, let's say, offer to the customers and the consumers a broader package of goods. New management came in place starting January, and one of their first missions is to analyze and revise if necessary the assumptions for this year, including the figures. It's still too early to have a, let's say, opinion about this. The deadline is that we should have some clear, let's say, refurbished plans for the packaging business by mid this year.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Just coming back, sorry, to the budget, to the 2025 budget. What EBITDA margin does it take into account for the flexible?
For the flexible segment, it's a low single digits for flexible.
You actually expect to be profitable this year?
EBITDA level, EBITDA level, yes.
Thank you. Great.
But very small, very small margin. Again, it's not, it's not huge for the budget. Okay. Regarding the restructuring and close of any business unit, we have not disclosed any plans to this effect, but everything is on the table. I mean, if it makes sense or if it doesn't make sense, we are ready to, we are ready to do whatever it takes to increase the profitability of the group because this is the, this is the priority for this year. But again, we did not disclose any plans, so I would refrain from commenting further. What I said before, and I think it's public knowledge already that I don't see business unit of windows making too much sense in the current layout of the group. Another question is, I saw a question regarding if we plan to continue the acquisitions into 2025.
As we stated, from where we stand, the current stage of accelerated growth through investments and M&A is finalized. The focus right now is on consolidating the businesses and reaping the rewards of these huge investments that we have made either in new companies or in M&As and to, let's say, delve deeper in the markets where we have leadership. This is the main focus for the current year. If there are any other questions. If not, thank you very much. Yeah.
Yeah.
Sure. Sorry.
Sorry. Just, Cristian Petre from NN. Just coming back to the flexible. Do you see, how do you see the market environment? I mean, I know there was tough competition. How do you see growth there? If you can talk a little bit about it.
Of course. I think that we have several issues in the market. The market is strong. It's still, it still relies on, some part of the market is still imports. The market is strong, but what is not happening in the market is, or is happening much slower than we anticipated. The switch from polyethylene to biodegradable products is going, let's say, quite slowly. I think that we have a new boost from the European Union. We stated somehow that by 2030, everything should be, let's say, non-plastic. Again, we should see what loopholes in the end there will be because right now in Romania, all the loopholes, all the possible loopholes of the national legislation are being used in order not to use biodegradable packaging.
If we talk about the stretch film business, then the story is a little bit different, namely based on the poor performance of Western Europe. We have higher than expected excess quantities in Western Europe that come to Eastern Europe, which is still, let's say, overperforming, the major markets like Germany. This puts huge pressure on the prices. This would be the current market environment, but it's a good market. It's a growing market. We are, we don't see that we have a market problem. We have internal problems that we need to address, and to become more efficient in production, to become more efficient in sales. We don't see necessarily a market problem for this division.
Thank you. I have no further questions.
Okay. If there are no other questions, thank you very much. Have a nice afternoon and see you in, give or take, three months for the quarterly results for the first quarter. Thank you very much.
Thank you.