Ladies and gentlemen, thank you to Ayvens' first quarter 2025 results conference call. Today's speaker will be Tim Albertsen, CEO, and Patrick Sommelet, Deputy CEO and CFO. I will hand over to Mr. Tim Albertsen. Sir, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this Ayvens Q1 2025 results call. I'm hosting the call with Patrick Sommelet. First, as always, I'll present the highlights of Q1, and then Patrick will comment on our financial results. Then we'll be able to take your questions. Let's go straight to Slide five on the key takeaways. Ayvens has started the year on a very positive note by delivering strong financial results across the board for the first quarter, showing a continued improvement on all financials for the revenues and costs. Starting with the revenues, margins have increased steadily both versus Q1 2024 and versus Q4 2024, reflected in margins representing 562 basis points of average earning assets over the quarter.
On used car sales, our results and depreciation adjustments reflect again a very gradual normalization, with results per unit before depreciation adjustments at EUR 1,229, so less than EUR 40 below Q4 2024, and above our 2025 full-year guidance ranging between EUR 700 and EUR 1,100. Our used car sales results also reflect the declining impact of depreciation adjustments, PPA on the lease assets being now fully amortized, and the release of prospective depreciation reducing progressively versus previous quarters. Overall, the used car sales results and depreciation adjustment per unit stood at EUR 703 up versus EUR 689 in Q1 2024 and EUR 239 in Q4 2024. These strong revenues, combined with lower costs, resulted in a cost increase of 58%, almost down 10 percentage points versus Q1 2024, and down two percentage points versus Q4 2024.
As a result, our net income group shares strongly grew by 21% at EUR 220 million in Q1 2025, corresponding to an ROTE of 11% versus 9.4% in Q4 2024. On the balance sheet, as anticipated, our core Tier one ratio at 13.2% as of end of March 2025 shows an increase versus December 2024, thanks to the application of the CR3 since the beginning of the year. On debt capital markets, we issued EUR 1 billion worth of bonds in February at a competitive price, showing once again the strong appetite of debt investors for our bonds. Let's now turn to the next page on fleet and earning assets. Our earning assets grew by EUR 800 million versus March 2024, reaching EUR 53.5 billion at the end of March 2025, representing an increase of 1.4% year-on-year. Over the same period, total contracts were down 3.8%, reaching 3.25 million units at the end of March 2025.
These variations reflect our strong focus on profitability in 2024, which led to an in-depth reshaping of our portfolio. We proactively selected our best clients and partners to develop our portfolio going forward. This has led to some de-fleeting in the U.K., where we are restructuring our business footprint, notably in the retail segment, in Germany in particular on the subscription market, and overall in Turkey. Excluding these three markets, the decrease in fleet is limited to 1.6%. In line with our strategic priorities for 2025, we have launched a series of actions to initiate commercial momentum towards profitable growth, which I will detail in a few minutes. These actions will take a few quarters to deliver due to the usual time lag in our industry between commercial wins and effective deliveries of new cars.
As regards to the powertrain dynamics, supporting our earning asset growth, EV penetration in terms of car deliveries stood at 41% in Q1 2025, stable versus full-year 2024, with battery EV penetration at 30% and plug-in hybrids penetration at 11%. Let me now turn to page seven to give you an update on our integration. Ayvens has continued to deliver on its integration and transformational journey at a high pace, with operating entities having completed their legal mergers and IT migrations in four additional countries since our Q4 2024 call in February. Migrations have now been completed in 11 countries out of 21 overlapping locations. As of today, more than half of the group's total fleet is managed on one single IT platform per country. The graph on the right-hand side of the slide shows some KPIs in the overlapping countries, demonstrating further strong progress of integration.
58% of these entities have been relocated to single offices in each country. 90% of them have completed the transfer of insurance contracts to their target scheme, and supplier terms have been aligned in 95% of them. Besides, following the approval of our works councils on the group restructuring, Ayvens has now started to implement its target operating model for all corporate functions and IT activities, making our organization leaner, simpler, and more efficient going forward. As a result of this outstanding execution, synergies have accelerated in line with our plans, both on revenues and operating expenses, reaching EUR 61 million in Q1 2025, of which EUR 42 million in revenues and EUR 19 million in operating expenses. This compares to a total of EUR 20 million in Q1 2024 and EUR 41 million in Q4 2024. Let's now turn to the next page on our plan to build a sustainable and profitable growth path.
After reshaping our portfolio in 2024, resuming fleet growth in 2025 with adequate profitability is a key priority for our group. To do so, we have launched a series of commercial initiatives in order to build a path towards sustainable and profitable growth, addressing all client segments with a specific and adaptive approach while monitoring closely our asset risk. For large corporates, which represents the core of our commercial franchise, we are leveraging our outstanding product range, digital capabilities, global footprint, and scale to onboard new volumes and clients. Our efforts have proved quite successful so far, Ayvens recording several promising wins since the beginning of the year: building post, Constructel, Ferrero, and Veolia, to name just a few. On the retail segments, we are targeting private individuals and micro SMEs through direct campaigns in selected countries or through our partnerships with 18 OEMs.
In Q1 2025, we notably expanded our partnership with BYD to seven additional countries, now covering 11 countries in total, and we signed a deal with Care by Volvo, which will result in the onboarding of around 3,500 vehicles in our fleet starting in Q2 2025. To support this approach with our customers, we plan to scale and expand products with the best prospect in terms of growth and returns, namely multi-cycle lease, light commercial vehicles, as well as growing our insurance penetration. In the context of EV transition, multi-cycle lease is a strategic product for Ayvens. Thanks to multi-cycle lease, we are extending our reach to the global public with an affordable mobility offer, and at the same time, we continue to generate revenues and reduce residual value risk by keeping vehicles longer in our balance sheet.
LCVs, notably thanks to e-commerce and last-mile delivery, are a fast-growing market where Ayvens is well positioned. A good example is the financial partnership we signed in Q1 2025 with the European Investment Bank for a EUR 350 million credit envelope, which will help us to roll out close to 20,000 electric LCVs within the next three years, showing our continued commitment to this segment. Lastly, insurance is another profitable growth driver. Our fully-fledged insurance company, Ayvens Insurance, supports this growth of our service markets. All these actions contributed to stabilizing our order book and improving our order intake, showing a commercial momentum that will materialize in the second half of the year. Let me now hand over to Patrick to comment on our strong Q1 2025 financial performance.
Thank you, Tim, and good morning to all. I will start with a few words on our revenues on Slide 10. Gross operating income reached EUR 819 million in Q1 2025, an increase of more than 3% compared to Q1 2024, and close to 15% versus Q4 2024. This increase has been supported both by growing margins at EUR 708 million in Q1 2025, the highest level since the acquisition of LeasePlan, and also by higher UCS results and depreciation adjustment at EUR 111 million, up EUR 6 million versus Q1 2024, and up EUR 73 million versus Q4 2024. If we look at the graph in the middle, underlying margins increased sharply versus Q1 2024, up EUR 69 million. This increase was partially offset by the variation in non-recurring items. Indeed, non-recurring items amounted to EUR 44 million in Q1 2025, plus EUR 5 million versus Q1 2024, mainly attributable this quarter again to hyperinflation in Turkey.
Now, looking at the right-hand side of the slide, on UCS results and depreciation adjustment, EUR 111 million in Q1 2025 results, from both a very gradual normalization of used car market prices and lower depreciation adjustment. I will come back to this in a few minutes. On the next page, for margins, underlying margins stood at 562 basis points of net earning assets in Q1 2025, in continuation of the increasing trend seen in the previous quarters. This improvement is driven by our actions to restore profitability and is supported by the ramp-up in revenue synergies, from EUR 20 million in Q1 2024 to EUR 42 million for revenue synergy in Q1 2025. These synergies are in line with our integration and financial roadmap. They result from better procurement conditions and increasing insurance and short-term rental revenues. Total margins stood at EUR 708 million, up EUR 19 million versus Q1 2024.
They were negatively impacted by non-recurring items, as we said, and this shift is in non-recurring items. The shift is mainly explained by our penetration in Turkey this quarter. On the next page, for UCS and depreciation adjustment results, Ayvens Q1 2025 UCS results and depreciation adjustment reached EUR 111 million. This is EUR 6 million higher than Q1 2024, EUR 73 million higher than Q4 2024. We observe a slowing normalization of the UCS market in Q1 2025, with stabilized UCS results across all powertrains, including electric vehicles. In parallel, depreciation adjustment decreased by EUR 64 million versus Q1 2024 and EUR 79 million versus Q4 2024. Volume of cars sold was up at 157,000 units versus 152,000 in Q1 2024, and broadly stable versus Q4 2024. Looking at the graph on the left, UCS results per unit stood at EUR 1,229 in Q1 2025 versus EUR 1,661 in Q1 2024.
Compared to Q4 2024, the result per unit is normalizing very gradually, the decrease being limited to EUR 38 per vehicle. At the bottom right of the slide, you can see that depreciation adjustment amounted to EUR 83 million in Q1 2025 versus EUR 147 million in Q1 2024. In detail, PPA impact amounted to EUR 28 million in Q1 2025 versus EUR 75 million in Q1 2024, and the release of prospective depreciation amounted to EUR 55 million versus EUR 72 million in Q1 2024. The PPA on lease assets is now fully amortized, and as a result, there will not be any negative impact in the coming quarters. The indicative future impact of prospective depreciation release is available in appendices on Slide 17.
As a result of slowly normalizing used car market prices and progressively decreasing depreciation adjustments, UCS results and depreciation adjustment per unit reached EUR 703 in Q1 2025 versus EUR 689 in Q1 2024 and EUR 239 in Q4 2024. Let's now turn to the next page for operating expenses. Total operating expenses are trending down, showing a decrease of EUR 17 million compared to Q1 2024. If we look at underlying costs, they are down EUR 26 million year-on-year thanks to our continued cost discipline across the board. Compared to Q4 2024, operating expenses are up EUR 2 million, but Q1 2025 figures include a EUR 7 million charge for annual business taxes, which were fully accounted for in Q1 2025, as prescribed by IFRIC 21, fully accounted for in Q1 for the full year 2025. Adjusted for it, underlying costs would be down by EUR 5 million versus Q4 2024.
Cost to achieve amounted to EUR 36 million versus EUR 27 million in Q1 2024, and in line with plans. As a reminder, our guidance for the full year CTA is between EUR 115 and EUR 125. Combined with higher margins, these lower operating expenses generated strong positive growth, with a cost income at 58% down roughly 10 percentage points versus Q1 2024. Let us now turn to the next page for the rest of the income statements. First, on cost of risk. The cost of risk decreases by EUR 2 million versus Q1 2024 at EUR 31 million, or 23 basis points of average earning assets. Not much to comment on this item, which is in line with previous quarter on our expectations. Q4 2024 was a bit elevated due to a few one-offs that we indicated previously. Profit before tax is up 12.5% versus Q1 2024 at EUR 316 million.
As a result of increasing margin and used car sales results, lower operating expense, and a lower cost of risk this quarter. Effective tax rates stand at 30%. This is in line with indications for the year. The net income group share is strongly up at EUR 220 million, an increase of 21% versus Q1 2024 and 38% versus Q4 2024. On the final slide, we comment on RWA. As indicated previously, we benefit this quarter from a strong decrease in operational risk charge, leading to a EUR 3.4 billion lower RWA for this very risk. This is partially offset by an increase of EUR 1 billion RWA due to off-balance sheet items linked to the order book, guaranteed on forward deposits. This is at least very largely due to the application of Tier three.
We have a CT1 capital at EUR 7.5 billion at the end of March 2025. Our CT1 ratio stands at a high 13.2%. This concludes our presentation. Thank you for listening. We are now ready to take any questions you may have.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your phone keypad. The first question is from Sharath Kumar of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have three, please. The first one is on margins. I wanted to understand the sustainability of your strong leasing and service margins. EUR 562 basis points is quite above your guidance, so should we expect some softness going forward, especially in the second half when volumes are expected to pick up? Basically, how should we think about the margin evolution from here and moving parts? That is the first one. The second one is on the used car sale result trends. Obviously, encouraging results, but how do you see the market evolving, particularly in the context of any second-order impacts that you see on the residual values from auto tariffs? The final one is on capital. CT1 quite healthy at 13.2%. How should we think about your excess capital?
Should we expect any extraordinary distributions in the near future? Is this contingent on any events like, say, clarity on the U.K. motor finance provisions? Thank you.
Thank you, Sharath. Let me take your two last questions first, and then I'll hand over to Patrick to give you an input on the margins. I think on the capital, you're right. We do have excess capital compared to our targets. As we have said in the past calls, we do not anticipate to keep that. We will propose to our board during the year exactly what to do and in what form it will happen. Obviously, we have said we will be above 12% of core Tier one. We expect to trend around 12.5%-12.6%. Anything above that would be eligible for a potential payout. On the used car sales, I think what we see in the market is pretty much what we have seen in the past quarters, that the ICE cars are trending better than anticipated. They are holding up better.
It's really around supply and demand. On the EVs, what we have seen in the last probably two quarters is that they are stabilizing, still doing losses on the ones that we have been putting on the books up till mid-last year, but obviously stabilizing and in some countries actually improving slightly. There are some markets that are still trending at very high losses, but overall stabilizing. We do not necessarily see that that will change dramatically over the year, the coming quarters. I think what Patrick already mentioned, that obviously the PPA exercise or impact will actually disappear from Q2 and onwards. Of course, the prospective depreciation will also actually decrease going forward. The markets are holding up quite well.
There is actually a good demand for used cars, and in particular for our cars, which are typically three, four, five years old and of very good quality. We still expect the normalization to happen, but probably at a bit slower pace than was expected. On the margin, Patrick?
Yes, thank you. On the margin, the EUR 562 basis point is a bit higher than the number we were expecting. Again, we have no guidance, no formal guidance on this number per quarter because it is difficult to monitor with this level of precision. What is good this quarter is the level of the various components of the service margin across the board, and all its various components are boding well. It is coming from both insurance revenues, which are benefiting from slightly better damage ratios in some countries. Also coming from RMT repair maintenance and tires provisioning, which also now starts to be better priced in the contract, and the costs have been leveling down a bit. The short-term rental revenues are also roughly stable, and the others as well. It is across the board quite a decent performance in terms of service provided to our clients.
is also the rollout of the synergy, which is taking progressively some effect. A good quarter. It is not guaranteed that we will be at these levels in each quarter, but let's say we are working hard to sell more to our clients.
Thank you for that.
The next question is from Kiri Vijayarajah of HSBC CIB. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, everyone. A couple of questions, if I may. Firstly, can I just come back to the excess capital question, and specifically, how does the regulator view your U.K. motor finance exposure? I mean, do they need to see some clarity there before letting you make additional capital return beyond that 50% payout ratio target? Is U.K. motor finance a bit of a roadblock or not in your discussion with the regulators? Secondly, more a high-level question in the context of this kind of greater appetite to use taxpayer money to drive growth and investment in Europe. I just wondered, where do company car EV schemes fit into that? Could we see more subsidies in that direction? I know there's been some talk. Is it maybe more the opposite, that political priorities are rather moving away from electrification targets?
Just your kind of high-level thoughts on how you see that evolving in Europe, please. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Kiri. I think on the U.K. situation, as you know, the first hearings took place in April, early April. We anticipate, obviously, whether it is a verdict, but probably July, August, September, we would anticipate to have full clarity on that. It is fair to say that at this point, we have not discussed with the regulator around our excess capital and the U.K. case. Clearly, we want to have ourselves kind of certainty for where that case is going. As we have said many times, we feel adequately provisioned with what we got. I would say the outcome of the first hearings has not changed our view on that. Before that case is somehow concluded, it is probably fair to say that we would not necessarily leave it to the regulator, leave it to our board with a proposal for excess capital.
On the EV targets, I think our feeling is, and we are actually very close to Brussels, and are spending some time trying to lobby also our interest in what's going on in terms of electrification mandates and all the other things that are on the table. The European Commission does not look like they want to give up the targets for electrification. I think the overall, I would say the overall speech is that they want to see electrification in Europe, that they have obviously lightened up a bit the CAFE rules to give the manufacturers a bit better time to get aligned with expectations. What we see from our clients, especially our big corporate clients, they have not walked away, at least at this point, from wanting to also electrify their fleets. We are not seeing any changes there as such.
I think what we have seen in the first quarter, maybe coming back to a potential question around volumes, there has been quite some fiscal changes in France and in particular Italy around benefiting time for company cars, which has actually slowed down some decisions on renewals or getting new cars in. That is more or less behind us. We start seeing that these large clients are now back and have readjusted their car policies and then are moving on. We do not see a big change there as such, Kiri, in terms of electrification. As you saw, we are still at a high pace at 30% of EVs coming into the fleet. We have not seen a reduced appetite for that at this point. Clearly, the regulator seems to be pushing us.
Great. Very helpful. Thank you, guys.
The next question is from Julien Onillon of Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning. Just would like to come back a bit with the guidance of 2025, in particular the UCS. For your life, when you publish your results, you are targeted between EUR 700 and EUR 1,100 per unit, which is obviously when Q1 is much higher with EUR 1,200. You have not guided anymore, not repeated the guidance officially in the quarterly. You mentioned, by the way, that the used car market is stabilizing. Even some markets like Germany are up, for instance, in terms of pricing, which leads that effectively we should remain close, probably, to the EUR 1,200. Why have you not revised your guidance officially on this aspect? Or maybe you have not, and it is why you have not disclosed any guidance, to want to see one quarter more before eventually revising this guidance? Thank you.
Thanks, Julien. I think it's fair to say that even if things are moving in a nice direction, and there seems to be a bit better, let's say, performing in Q1 here, the electrification and electric vehicles have shown very volatile. We do also anticipate to some extent the ICE cars would normalize. You saw they have normalized a bit as well in 2024 compared to 2024. There is, to some extent, the question around the whole global economy with the tariffs and the trade wars that potentially could have some impact. Hence, we don't think it's the right time to change our guidance. Potentially, as you say, when we get a bit further down the road and we see that things are moving according to what we have seen so far, it might be the time, but not at this point.
I think clearly what you can say, I think I can say is that we have today, I think we'll probably be in the upper end of the guidance that we have been given.
Is it remaining official even if it's not been disclosed again in the press release?
Sorry, I didn't get that. Sorry.
The guidance is not in the press release. I mean, it's not. You have not seen the guidance officially, but it's still the same.
Yes. Yes. We do not, this is a business update. So it is not forced to change our guidance at this point.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question is from Geoffroy Michelet of ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for taking my question. I have one. It is linked to the strong margin that you had, 562 basis points. Is it fair to say that it means that you are now at ease enough to be maybe a bit more aggressive, commercially speaking, so that we could potentially see a slight degradation in the coming quarters because you would like to reignite the growth, for instance? Notably, we saw that the number of new cars this quarter was a bit weak. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Geoffrey. I think the level of margin we saw in Q1, coming back to fixed point of day, quarter by quarter, it is varying a bit. Obviously, where we are today with margin gives us some flexibility. First of all, at the end of the day, if this is the level we are at, we do not necessarily need to grow as much as we would anticipate. It's also fair to say that we do believe we should start growing again. There are areas where there are good opportunities to do so, which would also mean that we would probably be a bit more aggressive on the pricing. Hence, it could have an impact over the remainder of the year in that sense.
I think where we are today, first of all, I think we do not guide on our margin. First quarter, I think, was very good, and all the elements of margin have actually performed really well. Also, based on a lot of actions we have been taking over the last 18 months. That gives us good comfort, and it gives us some flexibility, I think, in the coming quarters to do what we want to do.
Thank you very much.
For any further questions, please press star and one on your telephone. Mr. Albertsen, there are no more questions. Back to you for any closing remarks you may have.
Thank you. Thank you all for listening and for your questions. That concludes basically our call today. Our IR department is very happy to answer any questions you may have outside of this call. Thanks a lot and have a good day.
Thank you. Bye-bye.