Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to HomeToGo's investor and analyst call following the publication of the Q1 figures of 2026. I'm delighted to welcome Chief Financial Officer Sebastian Bielski, who will speak in a moment. After the presentation, we will move on to a Q&A session in which you will be able to ask your questions directly to the management. Let's dive straight into the presentation. Sebastian, the stage is yours.
Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining HomeToGo's Q1 2026 earnings call. As you have seen in our report published this morning, we had a strong start to 2026, characterized by the disciplined and successful execution of our previously outlined strategic roadmap. Following a transformative 2025, Q1 results demonstrate that our scale transformation is in full swing. Let's look at how we've structured today's session to give you a clear picture of our continued momentum. Our call is divided into three main chapters. I will start by highlighting the key takeaways from our strong start to the year and our overall performance in Q1, both for our statutory financials and on a like-for-like basis.
To wrap up, I will walk you through the latest progress against our 2026 strategic roadmap and our reaffirmed financial guidance for the full year before we open the floor for your questions. Let's dive straight into the first chapter. We will start with the key highlights for the first quarter of 2026. First, we achieved strong group profitability. Adjusted EBITDA for the group improved by EUR 7.2 million, representing a 21% year-on-year increase on a like-for-like basis. This performance was driven by a substantially improved marketing efficiency and tight cost control. Additionally, we are seeing the first materialization of synergies from the Interhome integration yielding its first tangible benefits. Secondly, HomeToGo Pro has become our successful new center of gravity.
Our B2B segment has officially established itself as the new core for the group, now accounting for 66% of total group IFRS revenues. The segment showed excellent momentum with a 40% year-on-year increase in Adjusted EBITDA on a like-for-like basis. IFRS revenues for Pro grew by EUR 4.3 million or 13% year-on-year. Thirdly, we had disciplined execution of our strategy for the marketplace segment. We continue to prioritize profitability over top-line growth in our marketplace segment. This strategic shift, including the continued transition from advertising to on-site or booking revenue, resulted in a 12% year-on-year increase in Adjusted EBITDA. Notably, our booking revenues backlog reached an all-time high for a first quarter, despite a 20% lower advertising spend.
This record backlog sets a strong foundation for the coming month and provides us with very good visibility for our revenue generation in Q2 and Q3. We saw a significant turnaround in operating cash flow. We achieved a positive operating cash flow of EUR 2.6 million in the first quarter of this year. This marks a very substantial EUR 13.4 million year-on-year improvement compared to the EUR -10.8 million we saw in the first quarter of last year. This swing into positive territory was primarily driven by our strong and disciplined working capital management. We are also reconfirming our guidance for 2026. Based on the good start to the year and the successful execution of our strategic roadmap, we confidently confirm our targets for the full year.
We expect IFRS revenues in the range of EUR 400 million-EUR 410 million, and we reiterate our Adjusted EBITDA guidance of EUR 45 million-EUR 47 million. Moving ahead, we will dive straight into the financial details for the first three months of this year. Let's take a closer look at our like-for-like P&L comparison. Please note that the like-for-like basis refers to a comparison of the statutory financial results for the first quarter of this year against the pro forma financial results for the first quarter of last year. That means including Interhome in order to eliminate any distortions created by the timing of the first time consolidation of this very significant acquisition. First, we look at the IFRS revenues. On a like-for-like basis, IFRS revenues remained flat at EUR 59 million.
This reflects a stable top-line development despite our deliberate strategic decision to deprioritize revenue growth in the marketplace segment in favor of profitability. The intentional negative growth in our marketplace segment was offset by a very good positive growth in our B2B segment. Secondly, the cost of revenue. It increased slightly by 4.2% to EUR 16.9 million. This was driven by a EUR 0.5 million increase in payment costs due to the higher adoption of the HomeToGo Payments offering by our partners. While this negatively impacts this P&L item, it was also a very important driver which led to the very material improvement of our net working capital position, which we will discuss later in more detail. We look at the marketing and sales line item.
We saw a significant improvement of 15.2% with cost decreasing to EUR 45 million. This is the result of a EUR 8.1 million lower advertising spend, mainly in the marketplace segment. We are clearly focusing on operational efficiency and margin improvement, especially again, within the marketplace segment. Next, a look at the G&A cost item. This cost item decreased by 12.4% to EUR 10.9 million. The primary driver was a EUR 2.3 million in savings from the termination of transitional service agreements related to the Interhome integration. These savings were partially offset by a EUR 0.8 million increase in personnel expenses as we transferred some employees from Hotelplan, the former owner of Interhome, to be employed directly by Interhome.
Lastly, and most importantly, Adjusted EBITDA improved by EUR 7.2 million, or 21% year-on-year to EUR -26.8 million. This strong like-for-like progress confirms our group strategy, combining the scaling of our high growth and high profitability B2B segment with strict marketing discipline in our B2C business. Now let's dive into our IFRS revenues and Adjusted EBITDA by each segment for the first quarter of 2026. Again, we will be comparing these on a like-for-like basis. Let's start with IFRS revenues. On a group level, overall revenues remain stable at EUR 59 million. For the marketplace segment, IFRS revenues in Q1 declined by circa 20%. The main driver here were the deliberate reduction in advertising spending of 20% as well as the ongoing shift from advertising to onsite booking revenues.
While onsite booking revenues declined by just 4%, advertising revenues declined by 33%. For HomeToGo, onsite booking revenue carries a much higher strategic value as it provides a superior customer experience throughout the entire booking journey. Furthermore, it enables us to achieve customer ownership, fostering long-term relationships and driving repeat business. Consequently, we continue to work actively with our partners to transition them from the old advertising model to the onsite booking model. It is, however, important to note the differing accounting treatments for these two revenue streams. Advertising revenue is recognized at the point in which a click or booking is made, whereas onsite revenue is only recognized once the stay has taken place.
The strategic shift from advertising to onsite booking revenues therefore results in a planned timing effect, moving revenue from Q1, which is the primary booking quarter, into Q2 and Q3, which are the primary travel quarters. HomeToGo_PRO showed strong revenue growth across both revenue streams. Volume-based revenues grew by 10% year-on-year to EUR 32 million, reflecting especially a strong start into the year for Interhome. Subscription revenue from our SaaS software offering, especially from Smoobu, increased significantly by 24% to EUR 6.9 million. Let's now move over to Adjusted EBITDA. At a group level, we significantly improved Adjusted EBITDA by EUR 7.2 million or 21% to a EUR -26.8 million. Hereby, it is important to note that Q1 and Q4 are always our weak quarters for profitability due to the typical seasonal patterns of our business.
HomeToGo_PRO is a standout performer this quarter with a substantial 40% year-on-year improvement, reaching EUR -6.7 million. This clearly demonstrates the underlying profitability and synergy potential for our B2B operations. In the marketplace segment, Adjusted EBITDA improved by 12% year-on-year to a EUR -20.1 million. This progress is the direct result of our profitability-first strategy, driven by higher marketing efficiency and disciplined cost management across our B2C business. Moving from the like-for-like view to a comparison of our statutory results. To be clear, this comparison looks at our current performance against the figures as they were reported in Q1 2025, which at that time did not yet include Interhome. For IFRS revenue, we saw a significant statutory growth of 71.5%, again reaching EUR 59 million in the first quarter of this year.
This jump is driven by the full consolidation of Interhome, which was not part of the group's reported figures in Q1 of last year. Cost of revenues increased to EUR 16.9 million, reflecting a structural shift in our business model following the acquisition of Interhome. This is due to the inclusion of managed service operations from Interhome, which incurs substantial direct costs such as cleaning and laundry services. Next, we'll look at product development and operations. These expenses increased to EUR 12.9 million. This is simply a reflection of a larger workforce following the consolidation of Interhome into the group. Marketing and sales remained stable at an absolute basis at EUR 45 million, despite a significantly larger revenue base. This efficiency was primarily driven by reduced advertising spend, particularly within the marketplace segment.
G&A expenses reached EUR 10.9 million, remaining relatively flat despite the group's increased size. This stability highlights the first realization of integration synergies, particularly the termination of transitional services agreements and disciplined overhead management. Overall, the Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded, and this all led to a massive margin expansion of 35.8 percentage points, improving from a -81.3% in the prior year to 45.5% in the first quarter of this year. This again clearly demonstrates how we're delivering on our 2026 targets by driving group profitability through marketing efficiency and a significantly widened revenue base.
Let's also take a closer look at the composition of our IFRS revenues and Adjusted EBITDA by segments for the first quarter, again, on a statutory basis comparing our current scale to the prior year period when Interhome was not yet part of our reported figures. For IFRS revenues on the group level, we realized a massive scale transformation with almost 72% year-on-year growth to EUR 59 million. For HomeToGo_PRO, the standout driver is our volume-based revenue, which jumped by 690% to EUR 32 million. This, again, is the result of the consolidation of Interhome. Additionally, as I've said before, subscriptions grew by a strong 24% to EUR 6.9 million. For the marketplace, we see the continued strategic shift.
Again, advertising revenues declined to EUR 9 million as we also prioritize profitability while booking and on-site revenues remained relatively stable at around EUR 11.6 million. For the Adjusted EBITDA on the group level, we improved our statutory Adjusted EBITDA by around 4% to EUR -26.8 million despite the significantly larger operational base. HomeToGo_PRO reported an Adjusted EBITDA of EUR -6.7 million. The year-on-year change of -30% in this view is a direct result of the statutory comparison as the Q1 2025 figures did not yet include the full operational cost structure and seasonal Q1 profile of Interhome. For the Marketplace, again, we see further proof of our operational discipline, and Adjusted EBITDA for this segment improved by 12% to EUR -20.1 million.
Let's turn to one of the most significant proof points of our operational excellence this quarter, our marketing efficiency in the marketplace segment. On the left-hand side, you can see the significant reduction in advertising spending. We intentionally reduced our advertising spend by 20% year-on-year, bringing it down to EUR 29.2 million from EUR 36.5 million in the first quarter of last year. This is a clear result of our disciplined strategy to prioritize high-quality profitable growth over pure volume. Despite this massive EUR 7.3 million reduction in marketing investment, we successfully grew our booking revenue backlog to a new Q1 all-time record of EUR 75.4 million, as shown on the right-hand side of this slide. The ability to lift the backlog to new record levels while simultaneously cutting spend by a fifth is an exceptional achievement for our teams.
It demonstrates the increasing efficiency of our marketing engine and the strong underlying demand for our on-site booking offering. This record backlog provides us with high visibility and a strong tailwind for our revenue recognition in the coming quarters. Let's now take a closer look at the health of our marketplace, specifically our regional booking mix and the evolution of our average basket size. We start with the regional booking revenues share, which you can see on the left. The DACH region remains our most important market, accounting for 53% of total booking revenues on the marketplace, which is a slight 1% increase year-on-year. The rest of Europe's share remains relatively stable year-over-year at 24%, and North America now accounts for 23% of our regional mix.
This is a market in which we mainly operate under our advertising revenue model and in which we operate very opportunistically. Now I'll comment on our basket size evolution, which you can see on the right. Overall, our marketplace basket size grew by about 3% year-on-year to an average of EUR 1,178. This growth is mostly driven by our European core markets. In the DACH region, the average basket size increased by about 9% year-on-year to EUR 1,412 when excluding our short-term trip business. The rest of Europe followed a similar positive trajectory, with basket sizes climbing about 4% year-on-year to EUR 1,413.
North America continues to represent our highest absolute value with an average basket size of about EUR 1,738, despite a year-over-year reduction in the basket size value. I would now like to provide more transparency and clarity on the more significant items below Adjusted EBITDA in our statutory P&L. I'll start with share-based payments, which remained relatively stable year-over-year at about EUR 4.7 million. These are non-cash expenses, and they relate to our long-term incentive programs. One-off items below Adjusted EBITDA totaled EUR 1.5 million for the first quarter. These were primarily driven by integration costs of about EUR 1.3 million as we continue to generate synergies from the Interhome acquisition.
Looking at amortization and depreciation, we saw amortization of fair value step-ups from M&A increase to EUR 5.4 million, which is up from EUR 2.6 million in the first quarter of 2025. This reflects the increase in non-cash charges following the purchase price allocation for the Interhome acquisition. Regular amortization of intangible assets stood at about EUR 1.8 million. Also a look at the net financial income. This net financial income decreased to EUR 8 million, primarily due to several specific effects. It includes the full amortization of remaining transaction costs related to our old bank loan, which account for about EUR 3.2 million, and the unwinding of the discount on the deferred consideration for Interhome of about EUR 1.3 million. It is important to highlight that both of these are non-cash effects.
Actual interest on external debt during the Q1 of this year amounted to about EUR 1.8 million. In summary, while our net income is impacted by these non-cash and integration-related items, the underlying operational progress is clearly visible in our significantly improved Adjusted EBITDA and cash flow trajectory. Moving into two special topics I would like to spend time on as we continue to receive questions from our investors, starting with the development of depreciation and amortization. For Q1 of this year, total D&A charges amounted to about EUR 9 million, relatively unchanged compared to Q4 of last year. It also represents a significant step-up compared to the EUR 4.4 million in the Q1 2025, and is driven by the acquisition of Interhome.
The largest part of D&A, about EUR 5.4 million, relates to specifically to M&A-related intangibles such as brand, customer relationships, and software. These were recognized as part of the purchase price allocation from past M&A transactions, of which Interhome was the largest. The Interhome acquisition is also the driver of the increase in M&A-related amortization from EUR 2.6 million per quarter in Q1 to Q3 of last year to the EUR 5.4 million seen in Q1 of this year. It is very crucial to remember that these M&A-related charges are entirely non-cash and do not impact our operational liquidity. Other D&A components include depreciation of PP&E, which stood at about EUR 1.8 million. This reflects our current office and infrastructure footprint, and the amortization of internally generated software stood at about EUR 1.7 million.
We were asked for an outlook on these items for 2026 by a number of investors for your financial modeling. We expect overall expenses for depreciation amortization for the full year 2026 to be approximately EUR 36 million. Moving to our second deep dive, an overview of the P&L effects of share-based compensation. Total share-based compensation charges for the first quarter stood at EUR 4.7 million, remaining consistent with the Q1 2025 level. The main drivers continue to be our virtual stock options, VSOs, of about EUR 3.0 million, those are the dark blue buckets, and restricted stock units, or RSUs, at EUR 1.7 million, those are the purple buckets. LTI expenditure was elevated in Q2 and Q3 of last year.
This is a direct result of certain contractual commitments, specifically the four-year contract extension for our Chief Executive Officer, Patrick, and a new three-year contract for me as incoming and new Chief Financial Officer. Quick reminder on the accounting. These costs appear higher during renewal periods, which are usually in the first quarter every year, because they are front-loaded in the P&L according to IFRS standards, rather than being spread evenly over the vesting period. Again, we've been asked by investors for a full-year outlook for share-based compensation. We currently expect the total P&L impact from share-based compensation for the full year of 2026 to remain stable or even slightly lower compared to 2025. It is also important to note that these are non-cash charges, and under current IFRS rules, are not marked to market, meaning they don't fluctuate with the current share price once granted.
There is also no catch-up or restatement of these costs if the share price changes. Let's now move to our liquidity development and cash generation profile. On the left-hand side, you can see the significant improvement of our operating cash flow. As highlighted earlier, we achieved a significant milestone with a positive operating cash flow of EUR 2.6 million in the first quarter of this year. This represents a big swing of EUR +13.4 million compared to the prior year quarter, where it stood at EUR -10.8 million. It is a clear testament to our improved operational health and cash generative power early in the year. On the right-hand side, you can see a bridge from Adjusted EBITDA to unlevered free cash flow.
This is a metric which we have especially discussed during the Nordic Bond Roadshow, which we decided to include now because we know that we don't just have shareholders anymore, but also bondholders who are also very interested in this. To provide full transparency, we walk through the bridge from our operational earnings to our unlevered free cash flow now. We start with our Adjusted EBITDA, which improved by EUR 1.2 million year-on-year to EUR -26.8 million. From there, we deduct our CapEx, specifically EUR 2.7 million for capitalized software and about EUR 500,000 for CapEx for PP&E. We then account for interest and principal payments for leasing of about EUR 1.4 million and income taxes, which we paid in the first quarter of about EUR 2.3 million.
Finally, we factor in the most significant driver for this quarter, the change in net working capital. We generated a substantial cash inflow of EUR 33.2 million from net working capital in Q1. This is a significant EUR 11.6 million improvement over the previous year. Key contributors were the efficient management of trade receivables with an EUR 8.2 million higher inflow than in the first quarter of last year, and an increase of other liabilities of about EUR 8.2 million, which were mainly driven by advanced payments from travelers. The result of this is a near break-even unlevered free cash flow in the first quarter. Driven by this disciplined cash management, our unlevered free cash flow improved by EUR 12.1 million to reach EUR -0.5 million.
Achieving this improvement in a seasonally low first quarter is a result we are particularly proud of. Let's move to the next chapter of our presentation, the progress on our strategic goals for this year. As you may recall, we introduced our 2026 strategic roadmap in March of this year to provide a clear and transparent framework. We are successfully executing our strategic roadmap. Let's look at our year-to-date progress across our five key pillars. First, we're looking at the finalization of the Interhome integration. We are moving at a high pace, successfully exiting two more transitional services agreements in Q1, and most importantly, we have now captured EUR 6 million of our EUR 10 million annualized cost-saving target. Second, we look at the strategic M&A in the HomeToGo_PRO segment. We continue to pursue our buy and build roll-up strategy for vacation rental property managers.
Year to date, we have already closed three bolt-on acquisitions in the property management space in Switzerland, in Italy, and in Spain. These were highly value accretive deals, adding about 200 units under management at an exceptionally attractive multiple of less than 1x EBITDA. Third, we're looking at the harmonization of group-wide brands. Following the successful presentation of our HomeToGo Originals umbrella brand at the ITB in March, we are moving into the next phase. We are on track to launch our co-branding initiative for Interhome and Casamundo properties in the second quarter of this year, significantly enhancing our global brand presence and trust. Fourth, we continue to drive operational excellence in the marketplace. This is our most significant operational proof point this quarter. As discussed previously, we achieved a new Q1 record in booking revenues backlog.
We delivered this result while simultaneously reducing our advertising spend significantly by 20% year-on-year, demonstrating a massive leap in marketing efficiency and ROI. Finally, we're also working to maintain our leadership position in AI. We remain at the forefront of the AI revolution in travel. Our HomeToGo MCP is now launched, and our HomeToGo ChatGPT app is live, allowing generative AI users and autonomous agents direct access to our vacation rental inventory. Looking ahead, we are already working on our next integration with Anthropic's Claude, ensuring HomeToGo remains the essential partner for the next generation of AI-driven commerce. This comprehensive roadmap directly fuels our financial ambitions for 2026. Based on our performance in the first quarter, we are confirming our previous guidance for the full year 2026.
We reiterate our target for IFRS revenues of between EUR 400 million- EUR 410 million, and we are aiming for an Adjusted EBITDA of between EUR 45 million- EUR 47 million. As we look towards the remainder of the year, we remain mindful of the three external key factors built into our guidance. First, the macroeconomic uncertainty. We continue to monitor global developments, particularly the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Second, FX volatility, especially in relation to the Swiss franc-euro exchange rate, which remains our primary currency pair following the Interhome acquisition. Third, the strategic reallocation of capital. Our deliberate shift from B2C marketplace to B2B segments remains the core driver of our margin expansion. This also leads to a negative revenue reset in the marketplace segment, but it also significantly strengthens the group overall profitability.
To wrap up our presentation, let's summarize the four key takeaways from our performance in the first quarter of this year. First, our strategic roadmap remains firmly on track. We achieved a significant EUR 7.2 million like-for-like improvement in group Adjusted EBITDA, representing a 21% year-on-year increase. This progress was driven by our high marketing efficiency and the first tangible materialization of Interhome synergies. Secondly, HomeToGo_PRO is our new center of gravity. The B2B segment is now clearly established as a key driver for profit and revenue growth and contributes 66% of total group IFRS revenues. Performance in the B2B segment was outstanding, delivering a strong 40% year-on-year like-for-like increase in Adjusted EBITDA. Third, our strong operational cash flow trajectory. We successfully turned our operating cash flow positive in the first quarter.
This represents a nearly EUR 13 million improvement compared to the prior year, underscores our enhanced cash generative power, and confirms the successful optimization of our operational cash cycles. Fourth, we confirm our full year guidance for this year. Based on our successful start to the year, we are reconfirming our full year targets for IFRS revenues of EUR 400 million-EUR 410 million and Adjusted EBITDA of EUR 45 million-EUR 47 million. Our confidence is supported by continued gains in marketplace marketing efficiency and the ongoing scaling of our HomeToGo_PRO segment. With that, I thank you very much for your attention today, and we will now open the floor for your questions.
Yes. Thank you very much also from my side for your presentation. We will now move on to the Q&A session. For an engaging conversation, we kindly request to ask your questions in person via audio line. To do so, please click on the Raise Hand button. If you have dialed in via phone, you can raise your hand by pressing star key nine. Additionally, you can also place your questions in our chat. I will read them out loud for you. We're going to start with Mr. Kruse today. Mr. Kruse, I just sent you an invite to unmute yourself.
Can you hear me? Sorry.
Yes, we can hear you. Hello.
Yes. Thanks for taking my question. Thanks, Sebastian, for the update. Just two follow-up questions. Firstly, congrats on the working capital management. Can you give us a bit more insight in what actually the factors were? Were you able to, yeah, change payment terms on supplier or the customer side? Is this a structural topic due to the Interhome acquisition? A bit more insight there would be very, very helpful. The second question would be on, thanks for providing the guidance on the stock-based compensation. Could you maybe also give a rough outlook for the other expenses you adjust for the one-off cost? That would be very helpful. Thank you.
Yes. Thank you. On the improvement of net working capital, there is two items to note. The first one is really a structural item. That will also continue to drive an improvement in net working capital over the coming years, and that is the continued rollout and further use of our HomeToGo Payments service. More and more of our partners, especially on the marketplace segment, use our HomeToGo Payments infrastructure, and that means we receive the money actually a lot earlier. Before we had to wait up to half a year to receive our money, and we now receive this at the time of the booking. This is a very structural driver of this. I think the second effect that we're seeing is in relation to Interhome.
As you may remember, Interhome was part of Migros, so a cooperative. Strict working capital management was not a priority under Migros ownership. They always had enough cash in the group, so that wasn't a scarce resource. We have implemented a lot more working capital discipline at Interhome. Yes, I think this is something that we will continue to see, especially this year when comparing to last year. It will then remain at this level. Your second question was some sort of background around the other adjustment costs. The kind of like restructuring costs and so forth. It's a little bit hard to give an exact number, but I would assume something like a mid-single digit EUR million number for this year.
Okay. A slight decline due to the completion or progress of the Interhome acquisition, I would assume. Okay.
Yeah.
Then just a quick follow-up on the payment topic. That would mean that structurally you would probably have sort of a shift from cashflow from the summer months more towards the beginning of the year as the booking pattern normally is, if that, if the payment, if you succeed to bring more customers onto your payment solution. Correct?
That is partially correct. The working capital thing is an ongoing, right? We don't just look at one period, but we're a going concern business. That will repeat over and over again. It's not just something that happens in Q1 and in Q3, but it's actually an ongoing topic. It's not a shift within the year. It is also a shift within the year, but not just a shift within the year, number one. The second thing is, as long as we continue to grow in the B2B segment, we will also always see a positive cash effect from a change in net working capital, right? In the B2B segment, especially at Interhome, we receive the money from customers well in advance.
Again, this is something where we have any given day of the year, we have a negative working capital situation at Interhome. As we continue to grow that business, that will also remain a positive cash contributor. If you think about kind of like a DCF perspective maybe, right? What we do in our modeling, we, for the, you know, like also the forecast period, we always have a positive contribution from the change in net working capital given that we are growing the business.
Okay. Perfect. Just final question, on M&A activities. What are you seeing at the moment? What, what can we or could we expect maybe throughout the year? That would be very helpful. Thank you.
There is kind of like two buckets of transactions that we're looking at. One I like to call Staubsauger deals. We're trying to hoover up small targets. And this is the core driver of our buy and build roll-up strategy. These are all small, very hyper-local agencies, having 50 units under management, 100 units under management, maybe 200 units under management. They're very small, very regional. What we're currently doing is building an internal infrastructure to do many of these deals. Because we really have a very good deal inflow, because we have a network of 210 local service agencies at Interhome.
The people working in these local agencies, they know the other operators in their town, and they know who might look to retire and who's looking to sell their business. We're trying to use that as a funnel to, for the deal flow. We're trying to build the internal infrastructure to actually then onboard these always very quickly. Important to understand that we're not buying businesses, we're buying contract portfolios. We're not buying, we're basically buying revenue, right? We're not taking on further fixed cost. We still need to build kind of like an engine to be able to execute these really at scale. We will definitely do more of these small transactions throughout the years.
In addition to that, we're also looking at larger M&A deals in the property management space. With these larger transactions, it's a little bit hard to say when exactly will they happen? Different scale. We're really talking, you know, like higher single-digit million EUR amounts in purchase price. We're hoping to close maybe one or two of these in the course of this year, but it's that is an M&A game, right? You cannot really forecast when they will happen and if they will happen. The smaller ones, the
Excellent. Thanks. All the best, and looking forward to our roadshow in June. Thanks.
Yes, thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Kruse for your questions. We have another risen hand by Mr. Knut Hinkel. You may unmute yourself now.
Yeah. Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes, perfectly. Thank you. Hello.
Fantastic. I got two questions. First one is, you stuck to your outlook for the full year 2026. At the same time, you reported on some bolt-on acquisitions at obviously very favorable terms. My question would be why don't they lift the outlook for the full year? That would be my first question. The second question more on a detail. You just outlined that you're buying contract portfolios rather than companies. My question would be, don't you need, don't the seller need the consent of the homeowner before he can sell these contracts? How does it technically work if you just buy contracts instead of businesses? That would be my two questions. Thanks.
On the first question on the impact of the bolt-on acquisitions on EBITDA, they're very small, right? The purchase price was about EUR 0.5 million. That means if we had a 1x EBITDA multiple, it's basically EUR 0.5 million of EBITDA. In the overall context of EUR 45 million-EUR 47 million, it is more of a rounding error at the moment, and this was not something that we would use to adjust the guidance at this point in time. It's just not big enough to really make an impact. If we do more of these throughout the year, it will become impactful. The three months that we had, they're just not big enough.
The second one on the acquisition of the contract portfolios. You can think about it the same way as, for example, in the insurance brokerage space, right? If an insurance broker retires, they often sell their contract portfolio to aggregators or successors. No, you don't need the explicit consent, right? The customer relationship just moves over. Customers have the right to cancel the contract afterwards, but they have that in any way. There is no change compared to that. It's from a legal technical perspective, it's a very, very simple transaction.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Hinkel, for your question. We do have another risen hand by Mr. Neuser, Benjamin Neuser. Please unmute yourself now.
Hello. Good morning. I had a couple questions, regarding the revenue shift you referred to in your booking revenues from advertising driven to on-site. You said revenue shifts away from Q1 into later quarters. Can you quantify that effect?
Help me understanding what your question exactly relates to, right? I think the point I would point you to is more the revenue backlog actually, right? That increased o r slightly increased by 1%. You can use that as a measure when you look at the last year to see how booking revenue then came in at Q2 and Q3. This is, I think, a pretty good guideline to look at. Yeah, I think that's, for me, the best way to try to answer your question there.
Okay. Yeah, because you had a particular decline in the advertising driven booking revenues and y ou said, more is on site now on your own site, but there you can only realize the revenue later, so not in Q1, but in later quarters.
Correct. Right.
Meaning whatever you transferred out of Advertising driven to the onsite booking bucket, that is revenue realization that will have moved to later quarters. That I was trying to understand to quantify.
Exactly, right? You can see that in the backlog.
Okay
two factors, right? The first one is that we pulled down marketing spending by 20%, so that obviously had an overall impact on the revenue.
Yeah.
The impact was weighted towards the advertising revenue business, which is the business that is strategically a lot less attractive for us because we don't own the customer, and there is no way for us to generate repeat business out of this. We tried to weight it towards the part of the revenue which is less valuable for us.
Okay. Makes sense. I saw your positive operating free cash flow, which is from the one-time net working capital effect that you explained. That would mean we will have this one-time net working capital effect probably only in 2026. From 2027 onwards, we should expect Q1 still to be a cash flow negative quarter, right?
No. This is very much not what I try to say. Because I just had that debate with Tim Kruse, right? I tried to explain the net working capital, so it's definitely not a one-time effect. There are structural forces at work here, and I expect the operating free cash flow of Q1 2027 to be much better, also driven by ongoing movements in the net working capital. Number one, we continue to expand the part of our business which runs on our own payment infrastructure, which is structural. Secondly, we are growing our B2B business, and as long as we grow our B2B business, we will always have a positive effect from the change in net working capital. No, both of these are structural. They are not, I repeat, not one time in nature.
Okay. The release of cash is particularly strong this year, right?
I would also not subscribe to that statement.
Okay. Cool. You said you have a slight sensitivity to the EUR/CHF FX rate. Could you give us a feel for the EBITDA sensitivity to the exchange rate for like, I don't know.
Yeah.
a 1% change, a 5%, a 10% change in your.
Yeah. I would point you to a note in our annual report 2025, in which we actually have published such a sensitivity.
Okay. I will take a look there. You've given us a EUR 45 million- EUR 47 million Adjusted EBITDA guidance. Could you also give us a rough free cash flow guidance?
No. We don't officially guide on free cash flow.
Okay. I seem to remember from the previous Bond Roadshow that there's roughly EUR 5 million of lease payments. Is that number?
Yeah. Like.
still correct?
I mean, we Yeah. Mr. Neuser, I think we discussed that.
Mr. Neuser, we actually have a lot of other risen hands.
That is my last one. That is the last question.
Yeah. Mr. Neuser, I would invite you for a call, 'cause we've gone through a lot of your questions.
Sure.
The things that we debated during our Bond Roadshow, they still hold.
Okay, cool. Many thanks.
Right? There is no change. If you have further questions, please send an email to Carsten Fricke . Very happy to set up a call. We have a couple of other investors who also would like to ask you.
Absolutely. Makes sense. Thank you.
Thank you. Bye.
Thank you, Mr. Neuser. We are going over to Bharat Nagaraj. You may unmute yourself now. Can you hear us? Hello.
Hope you can hear me. Hi.
Yes, we can.
Hi. Excellent. Just a couple of questions, please. Do you have any KPIs to share how the internalization of the distribution margins by using your own HomeToGo Marketplace to fill your vacation rental inventory, how is that helping you to improve profitability?
Yeah. At the moment, I mean, that was also something that we always said. At the moment, we are focused on generating the EUR 10 million in cost savings that we had that we had promised, then the EUR 20 million in value creation upside. Our guidance was always that we would see this in the numbers from 2027 onwards. That statement still holds.
Okay. Okay. With regards to the booking backlog, just wondering, despite the lower ad spend, how was it that this was so strong? In terms of your strategy to, you know, operational excellence in the marketplace, how do you plan to do that with the lower spend? Any further color on that will be helpful. Thank you.
I mean, we're trying to do a couple of things, right? Number one, we're always looking at additional marketing channels, right? We're trying to always reallocate marketing towards the channels where we see the best return on advertising spends. Number one, this is an ongoing exercise. Number two, we had a very deep and granular look into our marketing spending, and we try to disaggregate it by the marginal dollar return that we can generate and move much more aggressively towards the high ROAS end of our marketing efficiency. It's an ongoing game. We are generally very good to steer in markets and in channels. This worked out very well for us.
I would leave it at that because it starts otherwise to inform our competitors, and we would like to keep that a little bit to ourselves, what we're doing exactly.
Okay, sure. Just a very quick follow-up. That's the last one from me. North America, do we expect that to continue to decline? I know it only declined by 1% year-on-year right now. Given that's not your focus anymore, should we expect that to continue to decline rest of the year and next year as well? Thank you.
I mean, generally speaking, we're opportunistically operating in America, right? This is the part of the business where we're really only playing in the advertising revenue game, so we're steering this from Berlin. We don't have an operational footprint in the USA, so it's very, very opportunistically for us. If we see good ways to make money there, we will absolutely do it because we should. If this is a market that we see where we cannot make good money, then we will pull back from it again. Again, it's very opportunistically the way that we look at it.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for your questions. We're moving on to Mr. Volker Bosse. You may unmute yourself now.
Yes, hello. Volker speaking from Baader Bank. Congrats on the results. I would have two questions left. First one is on current trading. I mean, obviously market environment is challenging. Families have less disposable income, but on the other hand, you sort of accommodation offer provides families the opportunity to keep costs under control. Question, how is booking behavior changing? Do you see any trends? An update how, yeah, April and May worked out so far would be helpful. Thank you. The second, just a brief one on the take rate for onsite bookings. What was the take rate, and how does the take rate develop year-over-year? Thanks.
The first one, maybe just a little bit of market backdrop what we're seeing. We're really seeing two countervailing effects at the moment. The first one is that we see a shift in travel behavior when it comes to destinations. The package holiday, especially going to Turkey and to Egypt is definitely under a lot of pressure, is what we can see and hear from the market. That is a trend which redirects people who want to travel more towards continental Europe. In many of those of those countries, like for example Spain and France, the vacation rental space would be the natural destination. That is something that is positive for us.
We do also see, you can see this in a lot of surveys, that consumers are under stress. They're worried. Especially customers in Germany are very worried. We can see that they're looking overall at their household disposable income. I mean, they start pulling back in other areas, especially, you know, ordering off of Lieferando or going out to restaurants or buying expensive clothes. The big family holiday, which is our core product, comes relatively late in the kind of, like, cutting back part of the household disposable income.
Depending on how this whole second order and third order impact from higher oil prices, higher kerosene prices, maybe flights being canceled, how that all plays out over the couple of months is just something that we need to watch, right? And need to see how this all plays out. At the moment, I would say it is neutral or slightly positive for us. What we can see in our own numbers is that travelers continue to behave how we expect them to behave, so there is no large shifts in booking behavior. This all kind of, like, is within expected parameters. We really need to have a very watchful eye on how this develops over the first couple of or next couple of months.
On the take rate, I think it's down slightly versus last year. Last year it was, I think, 13.1%. It is down to 12.8%, so a touch down. This is mainly driven by a change in partner mix.
Okay. Thank you very much, and all the best. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bosse. We're now moving on to our last question today, who is Mr. Ramon Huber. You may unmute yourself now. I just sent you an invite.
Hello. You can hear me?
Yes, we can hear you. Hello.
Yep. Congratulations to the strong figures. I just have one left. Was that, like surprising for yourself that, cutting the marketing so much that the sales ended up on the same level, or you expected it?
No, to be honest, and without wanting to be arrogant, we expected it, right? We, we did a lot of analysis work upfront. The good thing is that our team has gone through these exercises a number of times before, because the first thing that you do in times of crisis, and especially in times of external shocks, for example during COVID, you cut down advertising spending. We had a lot of experience from the past, and our team had a lot of experience from the past. There is always execution risk involved when you make such drastic shifts in budgets. But it came out actually a little bit better than we expected it to be.
We're really thankful and proud of the job that our marketing team and especially the performance marketing team in the marketplace did. Well done, Mitzos, in case you are listening.
Yeah, that what I also say. Well done. Thank you very much, and have a good day.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Huber, and thank you for all of your questions. We have not received any more questions in our chat box or risen hands, so dear participants, if there are any further questions, please raise your hand or put your question in our chat box. We're happy to answer them. We still have some minutes' time. I guess everything has been answered, and I would say thank you very much for your participation. We will now come to the end of today's earnings call, as we have not received any further questions. You will find the presentation on HomeToGo's website, and also at the Airtime platform by clicking into today's event. Dear participants, thank you for joining and your interest in HomeToGo. Should further questions arise at a later time, please feel free to contact investor relations. Thanks once again. Have a nice day, and goodbye.