Global Blue Group Holding AG (NYSE:GB) Q2 2025 Earnings Conference Call November 22, 2024 8:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Jacques Stern - Chief Executive Officer
Roxane Dufour - Chief Financial Officer

Jacques Stern

Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. I am Jacques Stern, the CEO of Global Blue, and I am today with Roxane Dufour, the CFO of Global Blue, and we will present you the H1 figures.

Let me first start by the key takeaway of this first half. So, very strong delivery. H1 revenue has shown a 20% increase, translated into a 36% increase of the adjusted EBITDA at €102 million. Thanks to our operating gearing, we are happy to report an increase of the EBITDA margin of 4.6 points to 40.7% and a drop-through of the revenue to EBITDA of 64%. As a consequence of it, we noted a solid acceleration of the adjusted EBITDA coming from €175 million this quarter versus €164 million the previous quarter, and all of that will be detailed by Roxane in a moment. We have also adapted our financial guidance to €185 million and €205 million. I will come back to that later in the presentation. And finally, we are -- communicated this morning on an increased share buyback from $10 million to $15 million and the extension of the program until November 2025.

With that in mind, I'll let you the floor, Roxane.

Roxane Dufour

Thank you, Jacques. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. I'm Roxane Dufour, the CFO of Global Blue, and I will take you through -- as mentioned by Jacques, through the group's financial performance for the second quarter and the six-month period ending at the end of September 2024.

As a reminder, our financial year runs from April to March. So, this is our Q2 and H1 announcement, and all the reconciliation to the nearest IFRS metrics are included into the appendix.

Let's start with the adjusted P&L related to our second quarter. We are very pleased to report another strong quarter with significant progress across the business when comparing performance versus the same period last year. Tax Free Shopping Solutions and Payments reported sales-in-store increased by €940 million, an increase of 14%. The group delivered revenue of €132 million, a 17% increase driven by a solid performance in both Tax Free Shopping Solutions and Payments. Given the strong focus on variable cost optimization, the group delivered a contribution of €105 million, a 19% increase. Then, the group delivered an adjusted EBITDA of €58.7 million, a 25% increase, reflecting strong revenue growth and the high operating leverage profile of our business. This resulted in an improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin by nearly 3 points to 44.5% with a 62% drop-through. Finally, we recorded an adjusted net income for the group of €21 million versus €14 million last year.