Greetings. Welcome to Allego's Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Sari Schwartz of ICR. Thank you. You may begin.
Good morning. I want to welcome everyone to Allego's Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. Today's speakers are Mathieu Bonnet, Chief Executive Officer, along with Ton Louwers, Chief Financial Officer. During today's call, we may make certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions and as a result are subject to risk and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements made on this call. For more information about these risks and uncertainties, please refer to the risk factors in today's press release and the company's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Readers are cautioned not to put any undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and the company specifically disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking statements that may be discussed during this call.
During our call today, we'll also reference certain non-IFRS financial information. We use non-IFRS measures in some of our financial disclosures as we believe they represent our operational performance and underlying results of our business. The presentation of this non-IFRS financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for or superior to the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with IFRS as issued by the IASB. Our non-IFRS measures may be different from non-IFRS measures used by other companies. Reconciliations of IFRS to non-IFRS measures as well as the description, limitations, rationale for using each measure can be found in our filings with the SEC. I'll now turn the call over to Mathieu Bonnet, CEO.
Thank you, Sari Schwartz. Good morning to everyone on the line, and thank you for joining our third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. I will begin today with an overview of our results, followed by an update on the progress we have made during the third quarter of 2022. I will then turn the call over to Ton Louwers, our CFO, for a closer look at the numbers. To begin, I would like to highlight again that Allego is a leader in driving and enabling the electric vehicle revolution. We are building the backbone of public EV charging infrastructure throughout Europe and expanding. As we may know, we are currently the global leader in the electric vehicle market.
We have an existing network of over 34,000 charging points, public and private, at nearly 23,000 diverse, mostly public locations across 15 countries, positioning us as a market leader in Europe. Our current owned network includes some 1,300 fast and ultra-fast charging points, which are our main focus as we see tremendous growth in this segment to meet significant demand and help accelerate the EV adoption. To that end, I am pleased with our significant progress and team's execution for the quarter. Revenue increased in Q3 by 105% to EUR 22.3 million compared to the same period of 2021. Our charging revenue increased by 107.7%, while our service revenue rose 102.6%.
We saw growth across all key metrics, including charging sessions increasing by 36.6%, a utilization rate of 11.5% compared to 6.6%, and total energy sold increasing by 81% to 37 GW hours. This is all in comparison to the prior year quarter ending September 30, 2021. The Q3 2022 operational EBITDA was -EUR 4.2 million, compared to -EUR 1.8 million in the prior year period. We are continuing to manage our input costs through the signing of the power purchase agreement, which I will touch on later, but also through price increases which have occurred in January, September, and the last one in October of this year. We continued to execute on plan with several important initiatives during the third quarter of 2022 and more recently.
As announced last week, we signed the first of what we expect to be several power purchase agreements or PPAs for short. This first one has been contracted with a leading independent renewable power producer that will provide 25 GW hours of solar energy. It will cover the majority of our operations in Germany for 2023 and equates to roughly 16% of our total network need for 2022. This agreement, which is effective January 1, 2023, will provide us with a natural hedge in commodity and input pricing for the next 10 years with a fixed price. As we have discussed previously, our goal is to cover over 80% of our production in 2023 with long-term, low-cost PPAs based on renewable power assets. We are in active discussions with power producers to meet these targets.
We see strong demand in the utilization rate of our chargers. The utilization rate of our ultra-fast chargers, a key metric for us, has reached 11.5% during the quarter, and we expect will continue to increase. The need to charge quickly is very compelling for our customers. We have made significant progress in the realization of our Carrefour project that we expect will bear fruit in the next quarter, as we are now installing more than 310 ultra-fast charging ports in parallel for this project. We continue to see strong sales. One of our most notable new contracts is with Nissan, where we have secured 50 fast charging locations in Spain, Portugal, and Italy as a service. In the Benelux region, we are expanding our cooperation with Retail Estates, which includes 20 ultra-fast locations throughout the country.
In the Nordics region, we are partnering with Profi Fastigheter, a leading Nordic real estate company for grocery and retail properties, where we will roll out more than 300 charging ports at 22 locations in both Denmark and Sweden. In Germany, we see strong increasing demand with the signing of more than 120 sites for fast and ultra-fast charging ports. Globally, during the quarter, we have contracted more than 800 ultra-fast charging ports to be rolled out. Our backlog continues to grow as demand for electric vehicles charging increases, and our size and scale create additional momentum. As of September 30, 2022, our secured backlog was 1,270 sites, with an additional pipeline of around 1,000 sites. Our ability to offer turnkey solutions with strong core technological competency continues to be a unique value proposition and advantage in the market.
Following those updates, I would like to spend a minute highlighting the impact of inflation on our charging business and our mitigation efforts. As a reminder, we are working through some supply chain disruptions in hardware, but mainly in input cost inflation as a result of electricity costs. For the first component, we have in place and we are developing a long-term framework of agreements with our hardware manufacturers and vendors across Western Europe, which has helped to minimize any impacts. Additionally, we continually buy in bulk, which further enables us to negotiate and minimize the effects of supply chain disruptions and inflation on the hardware side of our business. I am happy to say that we have already secured manufacturing slots and delivery for our whole 2023 program. The second component concerns the increase in electricity prices and its impact on our cost base.
It is our main variable cost for charging revenue, which we have seen to have an effect on our results. If we compare the wholesale prices in our main markets, they have been multiplied by more than 3.5 times in Q3 2022 versus Q3 2021. These increases are driven by the natural gas price hikes and the geopolitical situation in Europe. However, given the strong demand for our fast and ultra-fast charging stations by our customers, we were able to increase our charging stations price by an average of 10% during the quarter. We also implemented a new price increase of around 15% on average in October to accelerate our margin recovery. The impact of the price increases is significant and has mitigated partially the sharp cost increases.
What is essential is that despite the price increases, we have not seen any decrease in the demand of our charging stations by customers. The last part of our income that greatly mitigates our inflation costs is the sale of certificates or carbon credits directly generated from the sale of our green energy. This provides a robust natural hedge against rising energy prices, and the value of these certificates also climb as energy rise. The income generated from the sale of these certificates was EUR 4.2 million during the quarter versus EUR 1.8 million during the same period of 2021. With this strategy in place, we believe we are well equipped to face the volatility of our cost base to provide a stable visibility for our margin. Before concluding for now, I want to reiterate why we are confident in our outlook.
Underpinning our business model is a demand environment supportive of our strategy. Most notably, the announced expected ban of the sale of internal combustion engines by 2035 by the European Union has now been confirmed by European governments, meaning that we are on the road to change the entire passenger fleet, more than 200 million vehicles, in a very short time, from a base of 6 million vehicles today. It is a comprehensive revolution in mobility, and we expect the need to increase our capacity further to charge these new EVs very quickly. Already, BNEF projects that the number of EVs in Europe is expected to grow to approximately 24 million by 2025. These growth rates will support Allego's already robust big backlog of premium sites and its strong pipeline.
With that, I will turn it over to Ton Louwers, our CFO, for an overview of our financials. Ton?
Thanks, Mathieu, and welcome everyone. I will begin by summarizing our financial results for the three months ended September 30, 2022, followed by a review of our balance sheet, cash flow metrics, and financing options and capital structure before closing with our guidance for full year 2022. Starting with our financial results. For the three months ended September 30, 2022 on slide 11. Total revenues for the three months ended September 30, 2022 increased 105% to EUR 22.3 million compared to EUR 10.9 million in the prior year same period. This significant increase was largely driven by strong growth in both our charging and service revenue.
Specifically, charging revenues were up 107.7% to EUR 14.4 million, mainly as a result of the 36.6% growth in total charging sessions to 2.2 million and the price increases to offset input costs. As a reminder, the 10% price increase in September came after the 17% price hike in January. We raised prices again by around 15% on average, effective October 7, 2022, as we proactively implemented measures to mitigate the effects of higher energy prices. Despite these charging session price increases, utilization rate continues to grow, and we will continue to monitor this situation. The average utilization rate during the third quarter of 2022 climbed to 11.5% from 6.6%.
Total energy sold inclusive of Mega-E was 37 GW hours, an 81% jump over the same period in 2021. We reiterate that our energy sold was 100% green energy. Services revenue increased 102.6% to EUR 7.9 million, compared to EUR 3.9 million for the three months ended September 30, 2021. Services revenue benefited from the rolling out of the Carrefour project, which, as expected, is weighted towards the second half of 2022 and is expected to accelerate during the fourth quarter of 2022. As part of this project, we're installing more than 2,000 fast and ultra-fast EV charging points across 200 charging locations in France with an operations and maintenance contract spanning over 12 years.
Gross profit for the three months ended September 30, 2022 was EUR 1.8 million, a decrease of 43.5% from EUR 3.1 million over the same period in the prior year. However, against the backdrop of commodity price inflation and notwithstanding our price increases, gross margin was adversely impacted by net EUR 4.8 million of higher energy input cost. Some of that impact was offset by higher income generated from the sale of carbon credit certificates of EUR 2.4 million. General and administrative expenses were EUR 21.5 million for the three months ended September 30, 2022, versus EUR 88.8 million for the same period last year. The decline in these expenses is primarily a reflection of a decrease in non-cash stock-based payment expenses of EUR 77.3 million.
Next, finance costs were -EUR 2.4 million in the three months ended September 30, 2022, versus -EUR 3.9 million in the same period of 2021. Finance costs were lower as the interest on shareholder loans was lower as these were converted into equity at the consummation of the business combination agreement. Net loss for the three months ended September 30, 2022 was EUR 18.7 million compared to EUR 80.5 million in the same prior year period, largely on account of the above mentioned items. Operational EBITDA for the three months ended September 30, 2022 was -EUR 4.2 million versus -EUR 1.8 million in the same prior year period. The main reason for this decrease has been the impact of the increase in cost of electricity for EUR 6.7 million.
Now moving to our balance sheet in which the main relevant movements were PP&E for the nine months ended September 30, 2022 was up due to additional investments in our network and the first time consolidation of Mega-E assets of EUR 88 million. Intangible assets for the nine months ended September 30, 2022 and other financial assets climbed due to the first time consolidation of Moma. Non-current borrowings for the nine months ended September 30, 2022 were lower because of the conversion of the shareholder loan at closing of the business combination. Related to working capital, we've been proactively managing our inventory to minimize supply chain disruptions and mitigate delays on bringing new sites online.
As supply chain issues mitigate, we expect to return our inventory to historical levels. Our cash and cash equivalents as of September 30, 2022 were EUR 16.3 million. On slide 12 and 13. Allego had a secured backlog of 1,270 sites as of September 30, 2022. As a reminder, all these sites are signed up for lease terms of an average of 15 years and include approximately 8,400 fast and ultra-fast charging ports. This was an increase of 24% from the second quarter of 2022. On slide 14, I'll briefly discuss our access to green financing. Allego has access to the green infrastructure financing market since we are EU Taxonomy-eligible asset generator.
What this implies is that we can access green loan financing at a relatively attractive cost of capital and other terms in the green infrastructure financing market. On slide 15, moving to our capital structure and guidance. The combination of our expectation of being able to successfully expand the new credit facility in the very near future, the existing senior debt facility of EUR 170 million, and the ability to access the green infrastructure financing market at attractive cost of capital and other terms together ensures that we expect to be fully funded to execute on and support the development of our secured backlog of 1,270 sites. For guidance, we expect to generate a revenue of EUR 135 million-EUR 155 million and a positive operational EBITDA for full year 2022.
Total energy sold is anticipated to be between 150 and 160 GW hours for the full years. Our guidance considers that energy prices are expected to remain high for the foreseeable future. In summary, against the backdrop of an uncertain world and commodity price volatility, Allego has performed very well during the three months ended September 30, 2022. We're confident that we will be able to further mitigate the impact of supply chain disruptions and higher commodity prices over time. We also believe that we have the ability to access third-party capital through a myriad of attractive financing options, and believe we are very well positioned to execute on and support the development of our secured backlog of 1,270 sites. With that, I'd like to hand back to Mathieu.
Thank you, Ton. In closing, I am pleased with our results for the third quarter of 2022. We have a robust backlog of fast and ultra-fast chargers that provide revenue visibility through 2023 and beyond, and that is increasing. Our deep technological moats, a broad network and leading reliability that provides our customers with a frictionless experience is creating a solid customer base. We have begun to execute as forecasted on our unique strategy of decorrelating our cost base from commodity price volatility, and our pricing power has been confirmed. We believe the favorable demand environment for electric vehicles in Europe is here to stay, meaning that the e-mobility revolution is going to accelerate. Finally, I want to thank all our people at Allego for their dedication as we close out the year. With that, operator, we are ready for questions.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question is from Maheep Mandloi with Credit Suisse. Please proceed.
Hey, good morning, and thanks for taking the questions and nice to see the reiterating annual guidance here. Just if I could just probe more on the guidance, could you talk about the impact of what you're seeing in the market on demand, either in Q4 and Q1? Some of your peers have been talking about potentially weaker EV deliveries kind of impacting equipment sales. I was just curious what you're hearing or what you're seeing for the energy sales on your network in Q4 and Q1. Thanks.
Yeah. Thank you for the question. Mathieu Bonnet speaking. Regarding our guidance and this issue, we do not see any subjects to be clear, given the number of cars we already seen. We have seen that in October, our utilization rate, which is a key metric for us, again, in order to understand our revenue and to see our revenue, charging revenue, has seen an increase compared with the last three months. I do believe that there won't be any impact. Regarding our Q4 figures, I would say it will come from as well our charging revenue and our segment service through the project we are in, actually.
That's the reason why we don't expect to see, because of this issue of recall, any decrease on our chargers.
Got it, and appreciate that color. Can you just talk about, like, the impact of higher electricity prices? You did talk about it being partially offset by higher ASPs, which we saw in the last quarter and this quarter again. But as you kind of, like, look forward to in, you know, in Q4 and Q1 of 2023, how should we think about the margins, at least on the energy side, for you guys?
What? Yeah, sure. What we see is that actually we consider that we will recover on our margin regarding charging revenue given the trend of the actual price of electricity, which has decreased very recently. That's for mainly Q4. As well we have set in place the price increase in October as well. I think we are mitigating that. For Q1, our first PPA will kick in as of first of January, so it will mitigate as well this risk. Yes, we can as well consider, depending on the market and the situation, other increase of price if necessary.
What is really key, and I would like to highlight it here again, is that despite our price increase, we haven't seen any decrease in our charging sessions, which is key. It means that we believe that we have a kind of price power here, which enables us to mitigate, of course, the margin subject compared with the price of electricity. As well, it means that right now for our customers, the need to quickly speed to charge is very important. And that's the reason why I focus on fast and ultra-fast chargers is really key and I think the right strategy moving ahead.
Got it. I appreciate the color and thanks for taking questions. I definitely have more, but I'll jump back in the queue. Congratulations on the quarter. Thanks.
Our next question is from Matt Summerville with D.A. Davidson. Please proceed.
Thanks. Afternoon to you guys. A couple questions. First, I want to make sure I understand, how much of your current electricity buy is hedged as we sit here today? And given your repeated comments around inelasticity and kind of pricing power therein, why are we seeing such a lag between your inbound energy costs and your ability to capture pricing? Meaning, you know, why, I guess, aren't you capturing pricing in a more real-time manner to really drive down that gap? And then I have a follow-up.
Yeah. Regarding our hedge, right now, what we have is around 30% of our electricity is hedged with contract. The goal, of course, is to increase that at least, as I mentioned, for next year to 80%. At the beginning of next year we will reach already nearly 50% and it will increase alongside the year. That's one. Regarding the second question, actually we have a kind of lag because of the way it is, the market is organized in Europe because we go through third parties, what we call mobility service provider.
We have, basically speaking, one month delay between the decision to increase and the actual one on all the networks in the countries. That's the reason why you see this lag. That's as well the reason why we have decided to have big push for October and that so far we don't expect to see any other increase given the price and the situation we see on the cost of electricity. No need to increase more. That's actual situation. That's the reason why we see a lag, and that's the reason why on our network we are not able to put right now because we have many MSP real-time price.
Got it. I want to ask a question about the implied fourth quarter guidance. Obviously you get full year, but you come back into the fourth quarter, which implies a Q4 top line that's pretty similar to what you've done on a year-to-date basis at the midpoint. How much of the fourth quarter top line is going to be driven by Carrefour? How should we be thinking about those compares as we move through 2023? Meaning 'cause I'm sure there's going to be some carryover into 2023, but how much of a net Carrefour headwind should we expect next year? Thank you.
As a matter of fact, for this year in Q4 2022, we will see the same kind of pattern as last year, and Carrefour project will be a big contributor for Q4. As well, the charging revenue should increase a bit compared with Q3 because the pattern of consumption in Q4 of a year is higher than Q3. That's what we had expected during the last year. Now we have some experience, but definitely the sales and service with Carrefour will be a big one. That's what I highlighted during the presentation. We are installing right now, and we will commission many chargers, more than 300. That will be quite important.
For next year, this, the Carrefour project will end because we will have finished during the year 2023. It was scheduled like this and planned because we will see a big shift in terms of revenue as well with more charging revenue, given the fact that we are installing our own network with fast and ultra-fast chargers now. Maybe Ton, you want to elaborate a bit as well?
Yeah. Maybe just to make it a bit more to narrow it down a bit, Matt, because obviously we expected the question, and it's a fair one. The Carrefour project this year will end somewhere between EUR 30 million and EUR 35 million, probably at the high end of that. Charging revenue will be around EUR 5 million, we think today. If you just add those two together, it's EUR 70 million, then you come back to, let's say, the guidance that we've put out, plus some other sales assurance revenue. I think for next year, ballpark Carrefour is around, I think EUR 25 million, which is left. Could be a couple of million off. But that's basically how it spins out compared to the first three quarters.
One at the moment.
Bear in mind, right, that.
Sure.
That Carrefour revenue has a high margin, right? With the improvement of the margins, because the charging revenue will not only increase because of the seasonality pattern, but also because of the price increases. We had one in September. In Q3 you only see almost like a month. In October, we did another one. You'll see more of that in Q4 as well. That's why the charging revenue will be higher and the margins will be, say, what we expect today, back to normal.
Great. Then I'm just gonna sneak in one more. I wanna understand, you know, some of the objectives with the PPAs. You know, first, why not try and drive your hedge towards 100%? I get the idea that this is, you know, going to help smooth out your inbound energy costs. I also wanna dig into whether or not there should be a pronounced upward impact on charging session profitability as you execute these PPAs. Thank you.
Okay. Will you take the first one?
Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I'll take it. Yes, regarding the hedge with 80%, we want to have some figure for 2023 that are realistic. I mean, given the fact that where we are, I think that's what can be reachable. We want as well be able to make some opportunities maybe short term in some seasonality, for instance, in the summer, at end of Q2 and Q3, so that's the reason why we may be lower than 100%. That could be the target, and it will be decided next year given the evolution of the market design in Europe, mainly for the years to come. That's for the first question.
Maybe for the second question, Ton, I let you to go.
Yeah, I think on the margin, I just, you know, elaborate a bit on that through the price increases. What we've chosen to do is rather than being kind of exposed to volatility on the energy market and, you know, implementing price increases and then coming down again and blah, blah, more focusing on the inbound, as you say, so really bringing stability to the predictability in a way.
You know, this is gonna help us develop a real pricing strategy out there, knowing that the inbound will be very stable and gives us the ability to move either along with the market or not to move along and, you know, capture a bit more of the demand out there. That's the thinking behind it. Again, with very favorable prices.
Great. Thank you, guys.
Sure.
As a reminder, just star one on your telephone keypad if you would like to ask a question. Our next question is from Gabe Daoud with Cowen and Company. Please proceed.
Thanks. Hey, everybody, good morning. Was hoping maybe just going back to Q4, I guess, Ton or Mathieu, can you maybe just give us a little bit of color on what the energy sold was in October, or maybe what the session number was or the utilization rate was, just to maybe give us a little bit more comfort on the ramp in that revenue that's expected.
Regarding the. Well, I would just give you the utilization rate, but we were on Q3, we were at 11.5, and in October, we had a utilization rate of 12.6%. It is increasing actually quite a lot.
Okay.
So the-
Great. Thank you.
The energy just follow.
Yep. Okay. Got it. That's helpful. Thank you. Just noticed, looks like quarter-over-quarter, I'm sorry if I missed this, but the number of fast charge ports decreased quarter-over-quarter, obviously ultra-fast increased. Is there anything to highlight there as to the reason why it might have decreased quarter-over-quarter? Thanks, guys.
Yeah. Actually, it was scheduled. One of our slow chargers, and that's mainly regarding the slow chargers, was handed over to another network. Again, it was scheduled. Now what we do, instead of for our existing network for slow charger, instead of expanding them as slow charger, we try to, well, to stop and to place fast or ultra-fast chargers to replace them. That's the reason why you see some quite some decrease in slow charger. Of course. We are focusing now mainly or only on fast or ultra-fast. I remind you, fast for us, it's 50 kilo and ultra-fast it's 150 and higher.
Just to add to that, Gabe, because I think you were referring to the fast chargers, right? The ultra-fast.
Right.
We are replacing fast chargers with ultra-fast chargers.
Yeah.
Because of demand.
Okay. Got it. Solely focused on the ultra-fast.
Yeah. Just, you know, as an example, if you take a 150-kW charger that we currently have, you have two charging sockets, each 75, you know, and if you have 150-kW charger, there's one socket. It's 150 times versus two times 75 for almost the same price today. You know, from a grid connection, it all works out. We're really actively monitoring the demand and keeping up with that. That's what you saw happening. Good catch.
Got it.
Let's comment on that because that's important as well. We're getting the market trends. We already see that our customer wants to have fast ultra-fast charging station. The speed is quite important. They really like to have at least 75 if they have two sockets or anyway used or 150 kW. That's a big push. This trend is really seen right now, and that's what we see. That's the reason why we are pushing to change our chargers as well.
Got it. Okay, great. That's helpful. Thanks, guys.
We have reached the end of our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mathieu for closing comments.
Well, I just wanted to thank you for your question and to highlight that, well, the execution is in full steam now on our parts to indeed, as we have mentioned, to indeed install our ultra-fast charger because that's really where we see a big push from our customers and from the new EVs coming and hitting the road right now. Well, thanks a lot for your time and see you soon. Bye-bye.
Bye, everyone.
Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.