Good morning all. Good afternoon all. Welcome to the Aston Martin Lagonda Q1 2026 results call. My name is Adam, and I'll be your operator today. If you'd like to ask a question during the Q&A portion of today's call, you may do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand the floor to Doug Lafferty to begin. Doug, please go ahead when you are ready.
Thanks, Adam. Morning, everyone. Thanks for joining the call as always this morning for our Q1 2026 results. As ever, there'll be time for a few questions after I've provided a short summary of our performance for the first three months of this year. Overall, our Q1 2026 performance was in line with our guidance, and we maintain our full-year outlook. As you are all aware, we expected Q1 to be the smallest quarter of the year as we continue to focus on realigning stock levels through a disciplined approach to managing production and deliveries. This was achieved with total wholesale volumes similar to the prior year period, whilst core retail volumes were significantly ahead of wholesales by over 50%.
As a result of 102 Valhalla deliveries, total ASP increased 17% to GBP 252,000, driving total revenue growth of 16%. As many of you would have seen at the start of the month, the overwhelmingly positive Valhalla driving reviews were published, with many giving it five stars and some labeling it the best Aston Martin ever. We're now building on this positive coverage with an extensive program of global customer driving events for this groundbreaking supercar through until the end of July. We expect the benefits of these to prove a further boost to the order book in the coming months. Valhalla deliveries, in addition to the benefits from the ongoing transformation program, drove an increase in gross margin to 35% from 28% in the prior year period.
This demonstrates positive progress towards our full-year guidance of gross margin improving into the high 30%. Adjusted EBITDA increased year-over-year by GBP 28 million to GBP 23 million, reflecting the improvement in gross profits. Adjusted EBIT increased by 12% to GBP -57 million, with D&A increasing by 33% to GBP 80 million, reflecting the delivery of the Valhallas. Free cash outflow in Q1 2026 marginally improved compared to the prior year, with the benefits from EBITDA and reduced capital expenditure largely being offset by the working capital outflow, which we expect to ebb and flow through the year. As guided at the full-year results, we expect free cash outflow in 2026 to materially improve compared to the prior year.
This will be supported by an enhanced product mix and more balanced production cadence from Q2 2026 onwards as we benefit from our expanded range of core models and the reduction in age stock, which was predominantly executed in the first quarter. Total cash and available facilities were GBP 178 million at the end of the first quarter, benefiting from the gross proceeds of GBP 50 million associated with the completed sale of the Aston Martin Formula One naming rights. We've also proactively sought to enhance our liquidity position, and today we're pleased to announce that we've agreed a new GBP 50 million committed facility with Lawrence and other members of the Yew Tree Consortium.
This improves our pro forma Q1 2026 total liquidity to around GBP 230 million and provides us with additional headroom and flexibility should any unexpected headwinds materialize in the coming period. With that in mind, we will continue to monitor global macroeconomic and geopolitical events very closely, in particular relating to any impact they may have on consumer confidence, demand, and of course, supply chains. It's also worth quickly noting that Q1 was the first period in which the quarterly tariff quota mechanism was in operation in the U.S.A. Our preparedness in terms of managing imports into the market was tested, and we had to carefully navigate the quota volumes based on limited data due to the ongoing impact from the federal shutdowns that commenced in mid-February.
I'm pleased to report, however, that all Q1 shipments to the U.S. were secured at the 10% tariff rate. We will continue to plan and monitor this closely as the remainder of the year plays out. Despite the heightened levels of macroeconomic uncertainty and with the group currently experiencing no substantial direct impact from the Middle East conflict, we still expect to deliver materially improved financial performance in 2026 compared with 2025. As such, our full-year guidance and the short to midterm outlook remain unchanged. I'll hand back to Adam now so we can start the Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure you are unmuted locally. Our first question comes from Henning Cosman from Barclays. Henning, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning, Doug. Morning, everybody. Thanks for taking the question. Congratulations on what I think very solid first quarter, especially gross margin, really good and reassuring to see and also on the inventory reduction. First question goes a bit in that direction. I suppose the retail run rate especially, you said 50% above wholesale, retail run rate really bodes quite well for your full-year guidance. Can you talk a bit to the convergence now of wholesale to retail that you're expecting in the further course of the year starting in Q2 and perhaps if you could, a bit model by model dynamics as to what's driving the convergence? The second point is on the RPU or ASP as you call it.
It was obviously still down in the first quarter because you have the dealer support payments in there. If I recall correctly, you're guiding for +5% ASP increase on a full year basis. Obviously implies a bit of a swing. I was keen to understand a bit more. Is that mainly just driven by the significant reduction or absence even of these support payments in the, in the quarters as we go on, maybe you could talk to the new variants also contributing to the, to the ASP increase as we go. Perhaps a bit of a statement on the dealer support payments. Are they quite concentrated on the just on that aging stock that you pointed out of roughly 400 units, I suppose is what's implied.
Because then I would think that they must be materially higher on those and just really quite marginal on the regular or the new deliveries. Finally, I have to ask on the cash burn, right, you said working capital was ebb and flow. No particular commitment, I suppose from your statement that some of that working capital outflow could reverse and support you in a positive manner. I guess you stuck with the statement that the majority of the outflow was still in Q1, right? Which I guess means it's gonna be significantly less in the three other quarters combined than the Q1.
Can you maybe at this point give us a bit more color as to the quantification of that outflow that we should so expect, or if you're more comfortable to say maybe what kind of liquidity range by year-end, we could be getting towards, that'd be great. Sorry, it's quite long, thank you.
Okay. I mean, thanks. I'll try and unpick those. We'll take them in order then, starting with the convergence, as you call it, on the wholesale and retail. Yeah, look, I think we'll start to see those converge in Q2, during Q2, and we expect that by the time we get to the end of Q2, that sort of stock realignment will be largely complete. There'll be a little bit of continuing retails running ahead of wholesales in Q2, but then after that it should become much smoother. You know, it's been quite a long time, certainly a good effort over the last two quarters on the aged stock and to improve the stock alignment with the dealers and get the pipeline in better shape.
We expect that to complete through Q2, so that as we enter the second half of the year, we're in a much more aligned position. In terms of the mix, what I would say is that I, you know, I think when you look at the mix in the first quarter, I'd expect the SUV mix to get a little bit better as we move through the second half of the year. You'll probably start to see that reflected in Q2, and then I would expect that to stabilize in the second half of the year.
Obviously with the Valhalla, we continue to guide to delivering 500 Valhallas for the full year with just over 100 of those being delivered in the first quarter means that the Valhalla contribution, let's say to the volume, will continue to improve as we go through the quarters as well. Yeah, look, I think we're pleased with where we've got to in Q1 with the stock realignment. A little bit more to do in Q2, and then H2 should be smoother. Second question on ASP. I think the first statement is yes, we still expect around 5% core ASP growth for the full year.
There was quite a lot to unpick in your question, but let me just try and give you my steer on it, my view on it. Obviously, there's been some additional dealer support, incremental dealer support over and above what we would, you know, the levels that we would normally see. You've seen that in Q4, and you've seen it again in Q1. That has largely been focused on the aged stock and the outgoing or the older models, if you like. The new derivatives that are being launched and have been launched over the last few months don't attract any incremental support. The support is focused on the cars that we're trying to, you know, tidy up from a stock point of view.
As, as we go through the year, you know, the pricing improvement to get to that level of a 5% increase will be largely supported by coming out of that period of dealer support. Equally, yes, the derivatives, and yes, a continued sort of target to improve the options take across the core portfolio and the contribution from options should all contribute towards the improved ASP. Then finally on cash flow, I guess you probably won't be surprised that I'm not gonna get too much into the detail on it. What I would say, you know, is that from a free cash flow point of view, you know, we still expect the material improvement as we move through the year.
As we get to the end of the year and look at what the free cash flow position is, I still expect that Q1 will represent the vast majority of the free cash position at the end of the year. I think you alluded to the interest, and yes, that includes obviously the interest payments as we go through. We still expect to see, you know, material improvement between Q2 and Q4 with the majority of the cash outflow by the time we get to the end of the year, having been sort of seen in Q1.
Thanks, Doug, appreciate it.
The next question comes from Christian Frenes from Goldman Sachs. Christian, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. I'll just ask two. I think the destock you mentioned already, it sounds like it's largely in line with prior commentary. Just to understand, the second half should then see higher ASPs, higher margins, improve free cash flow versus the first half. At least that's my understanding, maybe you can confirm. Also, additional color maybe on just networking capital in H2, what to expect versus H1. On a separate question, just the U.S., U.K. quota mechanism. It seemed to work out fairly well in Q1. As you look through to Q2, anything to call out, any risks at this stage that are worth noting? My last question, just the financial facility. I think it makes sense to raise financial flexibility, I understand. Any additional details you can give us at this stage, regarding that facility? Thanks.
Morning, Christian. Thanks for the question. I think the first one's probably a little bit of a repeat of one of Henning's questions. Again, yeah, just to clarify specifically on your questions with regards to H2 on ASP. Yes, we expect it to be stronger in the second half for the reasons that I've outlined. Obviously, that will lead to improved gross margins in the second half versus the first half. As we guided to the high 30s, we're in the mid-30s in Q1. We expect to see that continue to improve towards the margin that we guided to. Obviously all of that supports the sort of profitability and free cash flow position improvement that we've guided to for 2026. All of that remains intact.
Yeah, you know, driven by a healthy sort of core ASP growth, but of course, also with the added contribution of the Valhalla, which will be there for the entire year. As I said, you know, with volume sort of growing into the full year guidance of 500 as we move through quarters. I think you talked about CapEx and networking capital. CapEx, we're still guiding to GBP 300 million for the year. Obviously, the run rate was a little bit below that for the first quarter, but we expect that to catch up. Then with regards to networking capital, look, I think the majority, if there's gonna be an outflow for the full year, the majority of it's done in Q1.
Ebb and flow, you know, take what you, take what you think from that sort of statement. You know, I think we'll see small variances around where we are. Obviously, we'll be focused on trying to make sure that networking capital is as tight as possible, and if we can get some of the outflow back during the year, then all efforts on that. I think, you know, the position for networking capital will be broadly in line with where we see for Q1. Not 2 material movements as we go through the rest of the year. On the quota mechanism, you know, it was an interesting kind of experience at the end of Q1. Obviously, we had cars on their way in the U.S., and obviously some high-value cars.
A lot of the Valhallas that were shipped in Q1 actually went to the U.S. We have to keep a close eye on where we thought the quota was tracking for the quarter. As you know, this year, the 100,000 cars that can be exported from the U.K. into the U.S. is split by quarter, so you got 25,000 a quarter. We were, you know, a little bit short of data because of the government shutdown. We managed to get some information towards the end of the quarter, which meant that we trod carefully over the last few days. At the end of the quarter, you know, we managed to get everything that we wanted to get into the U.S. It was interesting in terms of the way that the whole thing worked.
I think the risks are the same as we move into Q2. You know, for us, Q1 was a small quarter. Can't speak for other companies, other manufacturers and OEMs who are shipping cars from the U.K. to the U.S. as to how, you know, how their quarters are split. We'll need to keep an eye on Q2, you know, and the risks are the same. The risks are that the quota gets filled earlier than, you know, we've got our final shipments going into the U.S., and then we'd need to hold shipments. To be clear, that is what we would intend to do because we don't wanna ship any cars into the U.S. at a higher tariff rate and swallow the margin impact.
It's the same risk that we'll manage over Q2, but hopefully with access to more information, should the federal shutdowns allow. The third question on the facility. I completely agree with you, obviously, that it's helpful to have additional flexibility and headroom. More details on the facility, I guess, you know, it is interest-bearing, but only if drawn. There's a small commitment fee, but it's a fairly simple structure. As you say, helpful to get us a little bit more headroom as we move into the remainder of the year. I alluded to it in my little opening. It is to really protect us against things that we're not expecting.
You know, with the situation in the Middle East, we're not seeing any direct impact from that today. The longer that goes on, you know, the longer the risk is. I think it's a prudent move to make sure that we've got appropriate liquidity to make sure that we can execute our plan.
Thanks very much.
The next question comes from Harry Martin at Bernstein. Harry, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Morning, everyone. I wanted to ask first about the U.K. We've talked a lot about China and the U.S. in the last 12 or 18 months, but can you touch on what's happening in the U.K.? Wholesale is down 25%. I think it's the lowest wholesale quarter for a long time, as I look back. Is that just market weakness? Is that where a lot of this age stock still needs to be cleared? Any thoughts that you have there would be useful. Then the second question, just a couple on the Valhalla. What's the, you know, the latest expectation you have around order book extension with some of the driver activation events that are ongoing?
Do we move back to net inflows rather than a net outflow on the deposits that we saw in Q1? Then if you can remind us of the broader strategy around specials and what we can expect into the medium term, both from the Valhalla platform and from the core platform as well.
Thanks, Harry. Morning. Look, I wouldn't read too much into the U.K. on a small quarter. There's nothing, there's nothing material happening in the U.K. There's no particular market weakness, given the size of the volumes that have been sort of going in the U.K. in this Q1 and last Q1. I think, you know, it's a big percentage on a small one, I wouldn't read too much into it. The U.K. is still pretty strong for us. The stock is now in a very healthy position in the U.K. You know, we're confident the U.K. will continue to support the overall volume for the year. There's nothing really to talk about from a U.K. perspective. On the Valhalla, yeah, look, I think we're really pleased with what's happened this year.
You know, obviously, we're into production. We've been delivering cars for five or six months. They've been received very, very well by the customers. The media drive event that we ran during March went incredibly well, and I hope that all of you have seen the reviews that have come out since that. We're very, very pleased, unsurprised, but very, very pleased with the positive reviews. We very, very recently, I think a couple of weeks ago, just started the activation on events where, you know, we now have Valhallas in every region. Customers can access the cars.
Many of them will get to drive them, but certainly an awful lot of people will get to see it in the flesh, which of course, we built the initial order bank for the Valhalla without any of those tools. We do expect these activities to act as a catalyst and boost the order book as we go through the next couple of months. It takes a little bit of time to get people through the process, but we will start to see an improvement. Just from a sort of net inflow outflow point of view, I think it's important to note that obviously, whilst there might be a net outflow from a deposit flow point of view, in the balance sheet, we actually have taken more deposits than, you know, than we've.
We've taken net new deposits by a fairly material number, during the course of particularly March, and into April. You know, we're pleased with the way it's tracking, and very confident in the car. Obviously with special strategy, you won't be surprised to hear me say that core specials continues to be a big part of the cycle plan strategy going forward. They will offer accretive margin and, you know, fabulous customer experience and amazing cars that we can deliver like we did with the Valhalla and the Valour and the DBR22. It's a kind of dual track on the specials.
We'll continue to deliver special cars off core platforms, and we'll continue to deliver initially the first run of the Valhallas and then, you know, I suspect that we'll maybe use that platform onwards as well like we did with the Valkyrie. I think it's a watch this space, Harry, but there's exciting things to come definitely from the specials program.
Thanks, Doug.
Our final question today comes from Horst Schneider from Bank of America. Horst, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes, thank you, and good morning. I've got a few questions left. The first one is on this GBP 50 million facility. Maybe you can provide some more details, especially if this loan is pari passu or if it's maybe subordinated or has got any other securitization. The second question is, from here, what is your additional debt capacity as of today, pro forma for this loan? What could you raise on top of that, maybe? The last question is more industrially related. Given that the oil price increase, do you feel at the moment in discussions with customers that it's a disadvantage not to have yet a PHEV, take Valhalla aside, but that you have not yet hybrids on board? Also, given that your peers are electrifying more, especially on the SUV side. Thank you.
Thanks, Horst. Yeah, look, I think I gave a little bit more color on the GBP 50 million facility. It is secured. It's secured against specific assets in the company. I don't think there's much further to say on that one. With regards to further debt capacity, you know, what you would expect me to say is that the company continues to keep under review its options. Obviously, you've seen how additional liquidity is coming to the company over the last 12 to 18 months. We always explore various different options, what's available to us. We're not purely focused on what debt capacity there is. There is a little bit of remaining debt capacity, but we're not gonna get into the details.
On the final question, Horst, I think it's an interesting question. You know, obviously, we're gonna need to monitor how things evolve from here on in with oil price and the impact it could have on inflation, the impact it could have on consumers. I don't feel like we feel as though we've got a gap in our portfolio that might suffer as a consequence of not having a PHEV in the core portfolio. You know, we're very comfortable with the cars that we've got in the market.
We're very happy with the new derivatives that we're bringing to the market, we think that provides differentiation for our customers and for customers who the brand and the cars might appeal to from other marks. You know, we're confident in the portfolio and think it's the right portfolio for now. Obviously, we're focused on evolving it in the future. Today, you know, we've got to back ourselves with the cars we have, the S derivatives and the derivatives to come.
For the time being, there's no intention to electrify the DBX, right? That's a little bit down the road.
Yeah. It's down the road and those things take time. They certainly can't be done, as you know. It's not the work of a moment.
Yeah
D o need to be appropriate planned into the cycle plan, which obviously is a event. There were no changes to our cycle plan.
Okay
O ver the course, yeah, past few months.
All right. That's great. Best of luck. Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks, Horst. Okay, thanks, everybody.
Thank you.
Sorry, Adam. I'm just gonna say a quick thank you for everybody for listening. Any further questions, you know where to find us. Thanks very much, and speak to you again soon.
Concludes today's call. Thank you very much for your attendance. You may now disconnect your line.