Global Blue Group Holding AG (NYSE:GB) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 27, 2023 8:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Jacques Stern - President and CEO

Roxane Dufour - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Jacques Stern

Good morning, good afternoon, I am Jacques Stern, the CEO of Global Blue. And I will today present the Q3 financial statement and update with Roxane Dufour, the CFO of the company.

To start, five takeaway on this Q3, first, we have reached after nine months an EBITDA of EUR57 million, which is an increase compared to last year of EUR64 million. So improvement in top line and improvement in terms of bottom line. Second, at December 31, we have a strong cash position over EUR230 million. Third, January has confirmed the trend, the positive trend in Europe with a level of recovery versus 2019 of 106% compared to 104% in Q3, and an acceleration of the recovery in APAC with a level of recovery of 96% in January, compared to 80% in Q3.

Fourth, and this is probably the most important thing to mention on these Q3 figures, is now we know that China will reopen. It has started in January. It will be progressive, but it will be an extremely important driver for the growth of Global Blue. One figures to help -- to translate that if we reach 125% of Chinese recovery versus 2019, based on an extrapolation of Q3 figures, the Group would reach over EUR200 million EBITDA, i.e. a figure which is higher than 2019.

Last but not least, if we talk about the current recovery, if we talk about the future recovery, this year of Chinese, we should never forget that Global Blue, a very strong, long term driver. And is well hedged again the current risk of inflation and also of potential European recession. So with this takeaway in mind, I will now leave the floor to Roxane to present the Q3 figures.

Roxane Dufour

Thank you, Jacques. I'm Roxane Dufour, the CFO of Global Blue and I will take you through today, the group's financial performance for the third quarter and nine months ended 31 of December 2022. Again, as a reminder, our financial year runs from April to March. Hence this is our Q3 nine months result announcement. And all the reconciliation to the nearest IFRS matrix are included into the Appendix.

So let's move now to Slide 7 for the Adjusted P&L related to our third quarter. We are pleased here to report a significant improvements across all the key metrics. TFS and AVPS reported sales in store increase by EUR3.2 billion and is now at 85% of pre-COVID level. Group revenue is now at 79% of pre-COVID levels.