Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Purcari Wineries Conference Call for the Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Victoria Moldovan, Senior Investor Relations and ESG, and I will be hosting today's call. Before we begin, I will do a small disclaimer. Please note that this presentation is for information purposes only. It does not represent an offer or recommendation to buy or sell any securities of Purcari Wineries. Some statements we may discuss are forward-looking and involve risks and uncertainties, meaning actual results may differ. These statements are based on assumptions and should not be seen as predictions or guarantees of future performance. This presentation does not include all information relevant to the company, and each participant should make their own independent assessment.
Additionally, if you have any questions during the presentation, please feel free to write them in the chat or address them during the Q&A session at the end. Next, today's speakers are Alexandru Filip, Chief Executive Officer, and Anatol Belibov, Chief Financial Officer. With that, I will now hand over to Alexandru.
Thank you very much, Victoria. Good afternoon, everyone. As always, starting with a few highlights, and then we'll go deeper into each of the key elements. Commercially, a very successful quarter, as you see, second consecutive quarter with sales exceeding RON 100 million, which used to be our watermark for the end of the year Q4, which is historically the strongest in the industry. Three domestic markets, Romania, Moldova, and Bulgaria, accounting for 82% of the sales, Romania leading in line with recent performance of roughly 60%. Purcari growing strongly across all markets, accounting for 60% of the sales. In addition to Purcari, and we'll show some details later, we are also continuing to innovate and extend the portfolio. We launched the group's first Prosecco, if we stay on the previous page, both in Wine Crime for Moldova and Motif brand for Romania.
Operationally, EBITDA reached close to RON 85 million, net profit RON 36 million, 28% EBITDA margin, in line with the range of our historical performance, 12% profit margin. Cost structure, we still experience pressure from the high bulk wine prices and last year's harvest. In the meantime, we have implemented some of the cost efficiency initiatives in terms of packaging and logistics. Non-monetary loss, RON 7 million. We explained it. It's a phenomenon that has been happening also in the previous quarters. Anatol will come back and explain it shortly. This loss has been offset by the fair value gain from the biological assets. Again, an accounting concept that Anatol will explain in details shortly. In terms of investor relation, you might be aware that there was a voluntary takeover bid launched by Maspex Romania. The bid concluded with Maspex owning 72.5% of our shares.
This transaction is pending final approval from the FDI approval committee in Romania. We don't have a clear date, but we hope that it will be concluded by the end of the year. We will inform the market once this is done. Commercially, key events, huge success with the National Wine Day in Chișinău was an enthusiastic crowd. I don't think I've seen a bigger and more diverse crowd. 250,000 people came over three days with many foreign guests, not only from Romania but also even beyond Europe, who came specifically for this event. I'm happy to inform that our area were the most populated and the most sought after in the whole festival. First thing for us this year, our partnership with Electric Castle, which is one of the largest music festivals in Romania, 300,000 people over four days.
We had the exclusive wine of the festival and had many people trying our wines for the first time and hopefully converting in regular customers. On a different type of music, but again, a leading festival, Georgianescu, international festival took place in Bucharest, mainly Bucharest, but also throughout the country and even Chișinău for a month. We were the exclusive wine also for that festival. In terms of product launches, I mentioned Wine Crime Prosecco. We also launched the Motif product ranges in Moldova. This is a range that we developed initially for Romania. We launched it last year. This year, we expanded the brand to Moldova. This happened in Q3. Another innovation, we've launched a new brand of DIVIN called Barbu for the economy segment inspired by a Romanian character called Barbu Lăutaru.
Otherwise, in terms of campaigns, I won't mention the regular ones that we run over the summer. An important marketing effort for us was the partnership with Flavors of Romania and Moldova. We were one of the main sponsors for Moldova, and our château is promoted in one of the episodes of the series that you can find on Netflix. If we move on, Victoria. Yeah, key performance. You have their numbers for nine months and also for the third quarter alone. You see nine-month sales, 14.7% higher than the same period of last year. You see there an acceleration versus the previous nine months. Total revenues for the third quarter, RON 105 million, I mentioned, exceeding RON 100 million, 9.5% increase over the same quarter of 2024. Gross margin slight erosion versus nine months 2024, but still close to our historical average.
EBITDA, I mentioned, and Anatol will explain again the change in accounting treatment that we've done this year that is affecting the interim periods versus last year. Net profit, a lot of the impact reflected from the operational results, but also the non-monetary financial losses, largely due to foreign exchange fluctuation. Anatol will explain this in a second. In terms of sales, again, what we were showing before, and this is to match the numbers that we've seen before, this is core wine, core revenue growth only. The previous slide had total revenues. That is why you saw there 14.7%. This is just wine, 16%. You see there the different evolution of the specific geographies and markets and brands. Sorry. I think important, in addition to the points I made earlier regarding the whole market, one point to make, CEE, largely mixed impact. We see Ukraine and Baltics growing strongly.
In Baltics, we've actually changed the distributor at the beginning of the year, and we expect sustained momentum there, and we've seen it over the last two quarters. Poland, primarily, but also Czech and Slovak affected by lower stocking and fewer promotions versus previous year. We have a strong ambition for this region, especially for Poland, as of next year, supported by Maspex, but we will work on that once we get the antitrust clearance so that we can prepare the plans for next year. In terms of other areas, an important point that I would make is the growth year-on-year for the rest of the world.
This is becoming an important area for us if you want to work, growth opportunity where we expect even more in the next years because some of this growth comes from the first, let's say, for initial deliveries and the new agreements and new partnerships that hopefully should scale up, and we're working towards that. Otherwise, in terms of brands, you see the growth, Purcari growing nicely, Angels growing nicely, slower growth for Bardar and for Ceptura, but we're talking about relatively stable growth in very competitive markets, DIVIN and still wine in Romania, especially Romanian brands. If we move on. Anatol, you want to cover from here?
Yeah, so good day, dear investors. Yeah, I will continue with financials. Once again, to mention that the point that we have very strong revenue growth. Yeah, and for the current year, we achieved the third in a row quarter with double-digit growth. Yeah, and here is just to highlight that our CAGR, it's 15.6%, so it's very consistent in terms of revenue growth from gross profit margin. You can see that we managed to keep historically the same trend in gross profit. You may know that it's very complicated to maintain and improve gross margin with such trend in revenue. From EBITDA margin, yeah, we have a CAGR of 13.2%. For sure, ninth month 2025 has been affected by some one-off adjustment, let's say, from accounting treatment, which I will explain, and we cover also for the previous call.
Nevertheless, we can highlight once again very strong financial performance trend for CAGR. Victoria, if you can move to the next slide. Yeah, so once again to say that we grow 9% quarter-on-quarter for the fourth quarter and approximately 15.5% in terms of nine months. Despite strong growth, yeah, we also managed to keep good trend in gross margin. Here it's important to mention that we have very good pricing strategy. Yeah, we execute price increase across the whole geography. Yeah, and for some of them, we have two wave of price increase. Also, yeah, we have very good positive mix impact coming also from product and channels. For sure, nine months have been by inflation.
Yeah, despite of that, our team managed to decrease part of the packaging cost, yeah, especially for bottle, but also correction on energy price, especially in Moldova, support us to improve our gross margin. If you go to SG&A, you can see that there is an increase, yeah, approximately 38% in third quarter and 33% in Q3. There is different trend, yeah, in terms of marketing and sales and G&A, and I will propose to take one by one. In case of marketing and sales, yeah, there is an increase of 23%, the same trend for Q3 and nine months. Here, yeah, the main impact, it's coming from Rituro, waste management system implemented in Romania, which we believe affect all the FMCG company.
Also, Purcari, yeah, prior year having, let's say, lower rates for Rituro, but also working with Ecosmart helped us to have lower base current year. Yeah, for sure, Rituro cost, it's significantly higher. The second impactor represents salary, which increased in line with inflation, but also extension of our commercial sales team. Yeah, and the third point, it's transportation in line with our, let's say, volume dynamic. It's important to mention also that we managed to decrease part of the transport fee for our customer, yeah, in order to support stability level. If you speak about general and administrative cost, yeah, there is a 59% increase quarter-on-quarter and 45% for nine months. For sure, here it's important to discuss in more details during the next slide. Yeah, high level, the main contributor, 76%, it's staff-related cost.
Yeah, and apart from salary review and also change in FTE number, the biggest impact is coming from, let's say, management incentive plan approved, yeah, and change in accounting treatment. We already mentioned in previous quarter that we start to book in our accounting records pro rata or, let's say, of accrual for management bonus, yeah, for management incentive plan to have, let's say, more accurate numbers in the P&L quarter-over-quarter. Important to mention that both marketing and general staff cost, yeah, are in the budget approved by the board of directors. Once again, next slide, I will go more deeply to explain this one-off change year over the year. Other income, yeah, RON 6.1 million. To remind you that other income includes subsidies. Other income from different agricultural services. Here, more or less, we are flat year-on-year.
The gain for Q3 2025, it's related to reverse of loss for 2024, recognized in terms of reevaluation of grapes. But current year, yeah, we have better yield. That's why we recognize a gain. EBITDA-wise, yeah, very strong Q3. So approximately RON 36 million, yeah, with 33.4%, so 34% EBITDA margin. I would say one of the highest level historical for Purcari. So very good EBITDA result for Q3 specifically. year-on-year, yeah, mostly flat, yeah, in absolute numbers. And at level of 28, - 3% versus prior year. But once again, if you speak about normalized EBITDA, for sure, this is close to 35%. Net profit, yeah, very strong Q3, yeah, with RON 20.5 million for approximately 90% net profit margin, yeah, with strong 45% increase quarter over the quarter. For nine months, we managed to improve significantly healthier result.
We increased from RON 15 million-RON 36 million . Yeah, we are now at 12%, but once again, normalized profit, the performance is significantly better. I propose to move to the next slide, yeah, in order to go in more deeply. This bridge, we are using already second quarter to explain you. Once again, current year is the year of the change. Yeah, I'm going to speak about change on accounting treatment. You can see that, yeah, from versus prior year, yeah, in terms of gross profit, we increased by 16 million, yeah, which counts for approximately 2.5% in net profit. Yeah, also OPEX increase, yeah, and this increase is driven by salary review, is driven by Rituro, which I already mentioned. Operating income account for 7.4 million, which is approximately 1.8% in net profit.
Yeah, interest, here it's important to mention that from interest perspective, we are flat, yeah, despite increasing our loans balance for 27%, yeah, we managed to renegotiate with our banks the interest rates. Yeah, that's why we managed to be at + 8% in income, and in absolute, it's higher by RON 0.6 million. That, yeah, once again to mention that prior year, yeah, the management take the decision to cancel a provision created for a trade receivable with customer from Ukraine. Yeah, so at the beginning of the war, yeah, it was decided to make 100% provision for all the sales in Ukraine, yeah, to be more careful. Yeah, after three years, yeah, all the receivable have been paid in approved time. That's why prior year, it was decided to reverse all this provision, making one-off RON 2.4 million gain.
Current year, yeah, we, let's say, have a similar approach, but this one-off gain, we cannot count on this. So Ecosmart, prior year, you know that it was, let's say, take the decision to consolidate the numbers. And in nine months, we have this one-off gain of RON 1.7 million, which currently we don't have in our accounting records. So normalized net profit for nine months, considering all these numbers, is RON 51.8 million or approximately 17%. Yeah, so like for like, this is the real profitability. As I already mentioned, we start if prior year incentive plan bonuses for the team have been posted in Q4, yeah, in current year, we start to put across quarter-over-quarter. So if you consider management incentive plan pro rata bonus or pro rata for nine months, yeah, here we, let's say, have higher base with RON 6 million.
Yeah, also for sure, current year is highly impacted by FX. You remember that in Q2, Moldovan lei, Romanian leu, and also Turkish lira have been significantly impacted by depreciation versus euro, yeah, which make an impact year-on-year by approximately EUR 5.6 million. But the provision, which I already mentioned in Ecosmart, that's why in our accounting in P&L, it's RON 36.1 million or 12%. So this is an important bridge, yeah, to explain that this current year is a year of change. Yeah, and let's say at the end of the year, in December, when we will have, let's say, like for like pictures, for sure, the situation will be much more better. Once again, we are here to explain more details during the Q&A session. Victoria, if you can move to the next slide.
Yeah, so from balance sheet perspective, strong cash position, yeah, because now we are in the high season, agriculture, yeah, and for sure, we need to have cash to pay our suppliers, especially for grapes. Yeah, net debt increasing, yeah, in line with our strategy. Yeah, we are focused to grow and we need to increase the debt in order to finance capital investment, but also working capital needs. Liquidity, more or less stable versus the previous period. Also, debt, for sure, increasing, but within a manageable range, ensuring the company view to strongly grow. Victoria, to the next one. Alex, handle to you.
Yeah, yeah. Our usual update this time of the year on how the harvest went. You see there both the own harvest and the third-party grape purchases that we've done from our partner farmers.
You see there a significant recovery for our own harvest from 9.2 million kilograms last year to 13.6. There is a significant like-for-like improvement. In addition to that, we also had the expansion of the vineyards, additional vineyards that were recently planted or bought that have started to give additional yield. You see there almost at the level of 2022. Okay, not the record year that we had in 2023, but a good year. Let's call it a good year in line with our historical average. Also, this improvement in yield has been reflected in our ability to purchase more grapes from our partner farmers. As always, I think I've explained it several times in the past.
In addition to this, we will also secure additional bulk wine as needed for specific ranges and grape varieties throughout the year to ensure we can deliver on the sales plan that our sales team will come up with for 2026 and beyond. Yeah, I think irrigation team is providing strong results for Purcari. And we're working as hard as we can given the dependency on the state of the World Bank financed irrigation project to get irrigation as soon as possible also at Cuza. We were hoping now with the new parliament and new government sworn in Moldova to approve all the necessary legislation for the public works program to be rolled out next year and to get access to water. Not sure whether in time for next year's harvest, but clearly in time for, hopefully in time for 2027.
If we move on, final point, I think guidance, given the results for nine months, we keep our guidance for the end of the year. We feel quite comfortable that we will reach those numbers within the range of the guidance. You see there in nine months, sales midpoint for the range. EBITDA on the higher end of the interval. Net income slightly lower, but with significant improvement in Q3. We are also counting on the leverage effect of higher sales and also higher margin sales in Q4 over the same fixed cost basis that should help us deliver also this target for the net income. Of course, foreign exchange losses are always an unknown, but for now, the different currencies that we're mainly exposed to seem stable. We will not expect any short-term changes negatively affecting all the funds. Anything else? No.
I mean, in terms of we get questions, I think, Victoria. I don't know. I don't see the chat if there were.
Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is open to questions. As mentioned earlier, please raise your hand and mute yourself, or please let us know if you have any questions in the chat. You have the first question in the chat. When do you expect pressure from higher bulk wine for 2024 to diminish? From Daniela Popov.
Okay. Daniela, hi. If we think of the sales cycle, I think for white and rosé wines, it will fade out Q2 onwards, Q2 2026. For red wines, we're talking fundamentally Q4 2026. Because that's when we will start bottling this year's harvest.
Any other questions? Please feel free to ask away. It seems we do not have any more questions. I think this concludes today's conference.
Should anyone have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me or Eugeniu through investor.relations. We will help you or answer any question you have or book a separate call. As far as I'm aware, thank you all for your time and continued support. That is all from our part. Thank you. Have a productive week ahead.
Thank you. Thank you, Victoria, for organizing it. A lot of work preparing it. Hopefully, we've been by now also repeating some of the templates, being clear enough to explain the underlying drivers of our performance. We look forward to a strong end of the year and our next call for the full-year annotated results to deliver.
Sorry. What will change with the new shareholder? What do you think in the company? What will change with the new shareholder? In the company, in the activity, in the market?
We don't expect much to change in the company. We expect greater ability to deliver on the objectives that we communicated as our midterm strategy. Okay.
We have a new question in the chat. What development plan does Maspex have for Purcari in the CE region from Eugene Ludovic Daradics?
Okay. We cannot comment on Maspex too much given that they don't have all approvals needed to get engaged with the company. In line with the communication that has happened so far also as part of the voluntary takeover bid, the commitment from Maspex is to help Purcari grow. The markets that were mentioned would be some of those where Maspex is very strong, has a very strong commercial presence, and we would expect additional support and help us distribute our products there.
I think my expectation is that by the time we have the next call, Maspex hopefully will be already fully authorized to get involved in Purcari. I would expect also some changes in the board of directors that would reflect the new shareholder structure. Hopefully, there will be also the opportunity for you to ask Maspex directly or Maspex representatives regarding their plans more specifically. My expectation and what I can comment on for now is I would expect continuity and greater support to deliver the goals that we have stated already. Okay. Good. Hopefully, it's all clear. As Victoria mentioned, if you have any follow-up questions, do reach out to our investor relations team, Victoria and Eugeniu, and they will address your questions or if we need to have a separate call, happy to do that as well.
And then we run a toll or message. Okay? Thank you very much.
Thank you all. Have a nice day. Goodbye.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.