ME Group International H1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
July 13, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: ME Group said it is on track to meet revised FY2026 PBT guidance of GBP 69 million to GBP 74 million, helped by a return to more normalized trading in May after a softer April.
  • Positive Sentiment: Laundry is the main growth engine: Wash.ME revenue rose more than 16%, H1 EBITDA was up 7.1%, and the company remains on track to install 1,300 net laundry machines this year.
  • Neutral Sentiment: April trading weakened, especially in photo booths, as management linked softer consumer sentiment and travel activity to Middle East conflict-related uncertainty and lower passport demand. May recovered to 11% above the prior year, but still came in below the original budget.
  • Neutral Sentiment: The group’s business mix continues to shift toward recurring vending revenue, with laundry now nearly 40% of group vending revenue and almost half of group EBITDA, while equipment sales declined as the board prioritized recurring revenues.
  • Positive Sentiment: ME Group highlighted several strategic wins, including its largest-ever single client deal with ASDA, a trial with Aldi in Austria, and renewed multi-year contracts with SNCF and RATP worth more than GBP 9 million of revenue.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
ME Group International H1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the ME Group International PLC investor presentation. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time via the Q&A tab that's just situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish our responses where it's appropriate to do so on the Investor Meet Company platform. Before we begin, we would just like to submit the following poll, and as usual, if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. I'll now like to hand you over to Deputy Chief Executive Officer Vladimir Crasneanscki. Vlad, good morning, sir.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

Thank you very much. Good morning and welcome to the ME Group 2026 interim results presentation. My name is Vladimir Crasneanscki. I'm Deputy CEO. Unfortunately, Stéphane Gibon is unable to attend. I'll start with an overview of the first half of our 2026 financial year. I'll then provide a brief reminder of our business, our key activities today, and the continued evolution of our business mix. I'll then talk about the financial performance in our key geographic regions, followed by an update on our business areas. To conclude with, we'll look at the outlook for FY 2026. Turning to a summary of the first half of the year, I'd like to start with a recap on our trading update issued at the start of June. As we said then, the group's performance in the first five months of the year was as expected.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

However, during April, we saw a softening of revenue, primarily within our photobooth business. We believe this was largely due to lower consumer sentiment and travel due to the conflict in the Middle East. In addition, the board has decided to focus on operational revenue, which is recurring, as opposed to equipment sales, which resulted in lower revenue from equipment sales, particularly in Continental Europe and in the first half of 2025. I'm pleased to say that we have seen a return to more normalized trading with trading in May, which was 11% above May 2025. Although this has remained below our initial budget set at the start of the financial year. We are on track to meet revised profit before tax expectations for the year of between GBP 69 million and GBP 74 million.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

In terms of highlights, I'm pleased to report that we have continued to make strategic progress during the half. Vending revenue grew, driven by a more than 16% increase in revenue from Wash.ME operations. Excluding the April figure, this would have been above 20%. EBITDA increased by 7.1%, supported by strong laundry growth. We installed nearly 500 laundry machines in H1 and are on track to install a total of 1,300 net laundry machines in the year as a whole. We secured our largest ever single client deal with ASDA in the U.K. We have the ambition to roll out up to 700 laundry machines on ASDA sites. We also have an exciting trial underway with Aldi in Austria, the first trial we've ever secured with Aldi.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

We are pleased to renew multi-year contracts with state transport operators in France, which together represent more than GBP 9 million worth of revenue. Shareholder returns remain a key focus for the board, since the launch of our share buyback program in March, we have acquired shares to the value of GBP 4.5 million. An interim dividend will return GBP 13.5 million to shareholders. I will now provide a brief overview of ME Group and the evolution of our operations. ME Group is a leader in the automated service equipment space, aimed primarily at the consumer sector. We operate more than 49,000 machines across 16 countries, spanning three key regions, Continental Europe, which is our largest region, followed by the U.K. and Republic of Ireland, and then Asia-Pacific. We have longstanding and well-established key partnerships with high-footfall site owners.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

You can see on the right of the slide, this includes well-known brands in addition to brands already mentioned, such as Morrisons, MFG, Transport for London, Shell, and Tesco, with Carrefour and Intermarché in France. The group has two core activities, photo booths and laundry operations. While historically best known for photo booths, laundry has been a key and growing part of the business in recent years, supporting diversification of our machine estate. Our ancillary activities include printing kiosks, children's rides, photocopying services, and food service equipment, alongside our newest product, which is the dog wash. These activities are often co-located with our core activities, leveraging existing site owner relationships and benefiting from maintenance by our dedicated field engineers. A key point here to note is that all of our machines are serviced by the same engineers, which gives us tremendous operational efficiency.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

We will talk more about these activities in more detail later in the presentation. We have a significant competitive advantage across our key markets with a dominant market position and high barriers to entry. Innovation remains at the heart of the business, our 100+ strong in-house R&D team innovates to diversify our machine estate to meet the needs of consumers today. We have a dedicated focus on return on capital, we aim for a typical payback period of approximately 18 months for laundry machines and photo booths. Our success is underpinned by the key strengths of the business and our operational leverage. A reminder, here are our key components of our growth strategy as we continue to reinvest cash generated to drive growth and enhance shareholder returns. On this slide, you can see the different types of products that sit across our core and ancillary activities.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

Onto the evolution of the business mix. We are on a journey to diversify our operations and business mix, this slide illustrates the changing shape of our business from a revenue contribution perspective and the significant progress made in laundry in recent years. Laundry now represents almost 40% of group total vending revenue, compared with 25% five years ago. This slide tells a similar story. Laundry is our fastest growing business area in terms of machine installations, vending revenue, and for the first time, EBITDA contribution. Wash.ME now accounts for almost half of group EBITDA compared to a third over just around five years ago. Moving on to the first half financial performance. Our laundry operations and expansion supported the first half growth. Total revenue was marginally up year-on-year, but at constant currency was slightly down due to an FX impact.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

As previously mentioned, total revenue was impacted by a softening activity in April and fewer machine sales. Group EBITDA increased by 7.1% and was up 4.5% at constant currency, driven by a 21% increase in laundry EBITDA. This resulted in an improved EBITDA margin from 34.7% to 36.9%. Reported profit before tax declined by 3.8% and was down 6.2% at constant currency. This reflected slower than anticipated revenue growth, a change in revenue mix to focus on recurring vending revenue with a 14.2% less revenue from the sale of equipment, which is higher margin but a non-recurring revenue stream. A higher depreciation charge of GBP 23.5 million and a one-off prior year gain of GBP 1.6 million related to the sale of an office building in H1 2025.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

This business is cash generative with GBP 38.7 million of cash generated from operations in the first half, with the movement driven by working capital. Inventory increased by GBP 8.3 million, reflecting an increase in the demand for machines, consumables, and an increased inventory as new machines are deployed. The cash is used to fund our machine maintenance program and growth CapEx. As planned, CapEx rose by nearly 18%, which reflects our strategy to grow our vending estate, and we've invested nearly GBP 15 million in laundry expansion and just over GBP 8 million in photo booth upgrades. Cash and cash equivalents have been restated for the first half of 2025, showing a reduction of just over GBP 8 million due to an adjustment in the value of cash held in our vending machines as at April 2025. The group remains well capitalized with a strong balance sheet and financial position.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

Diluted earnings per share was 3.9% lower at GBP 0.0648 per share, reflecting the factors talked about above. The board remains committed to shareholder returns and has declared an interim dividend of GBP 0.036 per share compared with GBP 0.0385 last year. The company continues to seek to pay annual dividends in excess of 55% of annual profits after tax, subject to market conditions and business requirements. To date, the company has repurchased shares to the value of GBP 2.7 million as part of the up to GBP 18 million share buyback program launched in March with a further GBP 1.8 million purchase post the half year end.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

Once again, laundry was the key revenue driver, contributing GBP 7.7 million more than the first half of 2025, and revenue from photo booth operations was GBP 5 million lower, which reflected softer April trading and the changes to photo ID regulations in Germany, which came into force in May 2025. In total, group revenue was 0.3% higher than the prior year. At constant currency, it declined by 1.4%. Looking at profit before tax, the performance reflected lower revenue growth than anticipated in the first half. The first half of 2025 benefited from the sale of an office building amounting to a GBP 1.6 million gain, which was not repeated in 2026, and currency exchange rates resulted in reduction in the contribution to the group's profits compared to 2025.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

As expected, amortization and depreciation were GBP 3.4 million higher, which reflected the increase in the number of vending units in operation compared to last year. Lower than expected growth did not cover this increase. As a result, profit before tax reduced by 3.8% and by 6.2% at constant currency. Cash generated from operations amounts to GBP 38.7 million, which continues to reflect the highly cash generative nature of the group's operations. As mentioned on the previous slide, CapEx rose mainly due to an ongoing investment in laundry operations, as well as updates to our photobooths and kiosks estates. Taxation in the period was GBP 5.1 million compared to GBP 10.9 million in the prior period, largely due to a GBP 4 million tax refund in the U.K. Dividends paid in the period in respect of 2025 amounted to GBP 14.5 million.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

As a result, the closing net cash position at the 30th of April 2026 was GBP 7.5 million. As previously mentioned, 2025 figures for gross cash, net cash, and cash generated from operations have been restated due to a reclassification of cash in transit. I will now talk about the performance across three core geographies. Starting with Continental Europe, the group's largest region, where more than half of the group's total vending estate is located. This region accounts for more than 67% of group's total revenue and approximately half of the group's EBITDA. Vending revenue grew by 4.5% and 0.2% at constant currency. As mentioned earlier, the vending performance was impacted by softer trading in April, particularly in photobooths. The performance was driven by growth in laundry revenue, with Wash.ME revenue up by more than 12% into the same period in 2025, and nearly 8% at constant currency.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

739 net new laundry machines were installed in Continental Europe in the last 12 months, and laundry now accounts for more than 34% of vending revenue in the region. Our photobooths remain the largest contributor to revenue, and more than 800 next-generation machines were installed in France in the period, and Photo.ME revenue grew only marginally and was down 4.1% at constant currency. This reflected the previously mentioned slowdown in trading in April, and also the year-on-year performance in Germany following regulatory changes introduced in May 2025. Trading in Germany has stabilized. Notably, and this is a very key point, when you remove German photobooth operations in the region, Photo.ME revenue vending grew by 5%, demonstrating the stability in this market outside of Germany. Due to the challenges mentioned, operating profit reduced 4.9% and 8.5% at constant currency.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

We were pleased to renew two important partnerships with state-owned transport operators in France, which were a five-year contract with SNCF and a seven-year contract with RATP. Together, these represent GBP 9 million of revenue for the group. U.K. and Ireland revenue increased by nearly 9% and 23% at constant currency, contributing 18.4% of total group revenue. Again, this was driven by a strong laundry performance with vending revenue from Wash.ME up nearly a quarter at GBP 32.2 million. And this performance reflects the strength of our Wash.ME operations and continued expansion. We installed almost 400 net new laundry machines in the first half, including at Shell and Morrisons' sites. The performance of photobooths continued to be impacted by the winding down of a large low-margin U.K. contract, which finished in April 2025. Although the nature of this contract meant it had a limited impact on profitability.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

The performance of our higher margin laundry business helped to deliver a 2% increase in operating profits in the region, which contributed more than 21% of total group EBITDA. Total revenue in Asia-Pacific declined by 13.2% due to a combination of factors. Firstly, a 9.1% decline in the value of the Japanese yen at constant currency, total revenue declined by 5.8%. Secondly, there are 268 fewer machines in operation in the region compared with the prior year period. Additionally, demand for photobooth services was lower than in the first half of 2025. In the longer term, we expect this market to be smaller due to external factors. As a result, operating profit reduced by 10.3% and by 2.6% at constant currency. I will turn to the business review, starting with our core activities.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

While the business mix continues to evolve significantly, photobooth operations still account for 2/3 of our machines. While vending revenue declined by 6.2% and by 6.8% at constant currency, the performance can be largely attributed to the previously mentioned challenges in Germany. As a result of these factors, average revenue per machine was lower at GBP 2,549 for the half year. In addition, fewer photobooth machines and services were sold compared with the first half of 2025, which resulted in revenue being 6.4% lower period on period. We continue to invest in our photobooth operations with CapEx of GBP 8.2 million, predominantly focused on the rollout of next generation photobooths in France, which requires less maintenance and delivers higher turnover. As a result of the above, EBITDA was 8% lower, which delivered an EBITDA margin of 34.4%. At constant currency, EBITDA was down 9.5%.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

We plan to install approximately 200 next generation machines per month in the second half. Laundry remains our fastest growing and highest margin business area. Vending revenue increased by more than 16%, and the average revenue per machine improved by more than 8%. This reflects the larger mix of machines being installed in key account locations. We continue to invest in expansion with CapEx up 3.5% and almost 500 machines added to our laundry machine estate. This led to total laundry EBITDA growth of 21%, delivering an EBITDA margin of 51.2%. We are delighted to secure a new partnership with ASDA in the U.K. This is our largest ever single client deal, giving us access to ASDA's excellent high footfall sites across their supermarket and petrol estate.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

We installed our first laundry machine on site in Birkenhead in June, and in the longer term, we ambition to install up to 700 laundry machines with ASDA. Since the launch of our new Wash.ME app, available primarily in France at the moment, but will come to the rest of the countries by the end of the year, there will be more than 100,000 downloads as consumers look to benefit from real-time laundry push notifications, payment via the app, information on local services, and a loyalty scheme enabling users to access discounts. We plan to roll the app out into additional geographic markets during the second half. Laundry expansion remains a key focus and is second half weighted. As a whole for the financial year, we have ambitions to roll out more than 1,300 laundry machines. The next couple of slides, I will talk about our ancillary activities.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

Print.ME operations consist of high-quality digital printing services, mainly located in France. Total revenue declined 4.9%, largely due to the previously mentioned reduction in the sale of machines, while average revenue per machine during the year increased 1.5% to GBP 2,389. For the same reason, EBITDA was slightly lower at GBP 1.9 million, and the business area delivered a 32.8% EBITDA margin. During the half, we installed a further 240 machines and have continued to roll out an upgrade program to install new Speedlab printing kiosks in France. The new Speedlab kiosk offers enhanced functionality, improved experience, and drives stronger revenue per machine. The increase in CapEx reflected the ongoing investment program. Other vending operations consist of profitable ancillary activities including food service, vending equipment, children's rides, and photocopier services.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

There were almost 6,500 machines in operation at the end of the first half, around 90 fewer machines compared with the prior year. The revenue performance and EBITDA reduction was due to a GBP 1.5 million reduction in the sale of machines. The EBITDA margin was 57.9%, up from 53.8% in H1 2026. Vending revenue was only down GBP 0.4 million or 7.7%. At constant currency it was only down 3.8% due to a high proportion of machines located in Asia, where FX dynamics are more favorable. We launched a new machine and service in the period, a dog wash machine, and these machines, which leverage our rapidly growing presence in the laundry services market, are easily installed alongside the laundry services and enable dog wash owners to wash their dogs outside of the home. So far, we have installed 200 machines in France and the U.K.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

In the U.K., the first machine is in Newquay, if anyone wants to go and visit, and it's proving popular with customers. Moving to the outlook for the full year. We are pleased with the continued positive progress and expansion of our laundry business, by the financial year end, we plan to have installed 1,300 net Wash.ME machines. As mentioned earlier, while trading from November to March was in line with our expectations, trading in April was more challenging, particularly for our photo booth businesses. Encouragingly, trading patterns in May were more normalized. In May, total revenue was 11.1% higher than in May 2025, with Wash.ME up almost 26% and Photo.ME up just under 2%, and this trend has continued.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

As a result, the group is on track to meet the board's revised 2026 full year expectations and deliver profit before tax of between GBP 69 million and GBP 74 million. Our focus on innovation and diversification will see the new Wash.ME app rolled out to all major countries where we operate laundry machines. Our business is in a strong financial position, and we remain confident in the long-term growth strategy. Thank you very much for listening. We will now take questions.

Operator

Perfect, Vlad. That's great. If I may just jump back in there. Thank you very much indeed for your presentation this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q&A tab that's situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Just while the team take a few moments to review those questions that have been submitted already, just like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can all be accessed via your investor dashboard. Vlad, as you can see there, we have received a number of questions throughout your presentation this morning, and thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions.

Operator

Vlad, at this point, if I may just hand over to you to address those where appropriate, and I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

Great. Thank you very much. The first question is, do you have any data or estimates on how Wash.ME customers overlap with traditional laundromat users? More broadly, is Wash.ME primarily taking share from existing laundromats, expanding the market or serving a different customer use case? How does management size the remaining addressable market across existing geographies? Great question. When we initially launched the Wash.ME laundrettes back in 2011, 2012, we considered this product was really going to be suitable for campgrounds. We saw that the demand was significantly larger than that and, in fact, many consumers going to the campgrounds, even if they weren't staying there, to use the machines. As we tested and as we installed more and more machines, we discovered that our users of the machines are much broader than just ex-laundrette users.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

To give you a bit more insight on that, last year in the U.K. we ran a survey on all of our laundry machines and we found that only 40% of our customers were ex-laundrette users. 60% were people who were not using laundrettes prior to using our machines. Whilst we do capture a portion of the laundrette market, we also serve many customers who weren't using laundrettes before. That's fundamentally because our product offers things that laundrettes can't. Firstly, many laundrettes don't have that 20-kg drum with the large capacity. Also, many laundrettes don't allow you to put your laundry in there and then leave and go shopping.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

With our machines, when the consumers use the machine, the machine locks and we send them a text message five minutes before their laundry is about to be done, which allows them to go and shop with confidence, waiting for their laundry to be done. Which is obviously a benefit for our consumers, but also a benefit for our site partners. In regards to the sizing of the remaining addressable markets across existing geographies, we're looking to replicate what we've done in Ireland where we have over 500 units for roughly 5 million people, a ratio of one to 10,000 across the markets that we operate in today. As a reminder, we operate across 16 different laundry markets. We believe that we have the scale to install significantly more machines than we have today.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

We set a target in the market to have 20,000 machines in operation by 2035. We're on track to do so. We currently have 8,000. So we are at the beginning of this journey rather than at the end. We describe ourselves as we're at the bottom of the slope of the mountain rather than near the top. The next question is, what is holding back faster expansion in Germany? Is the constraint mainly commercial partnerships, regulation, permitting, unit economics, operational capacity, consumer behavior, or a deliberate capital allocation choice? Over the medium term, do you see Germany as capable of reaching a scale comparable to France? Excellent question. We absolutely do see it as a key market for us and an area of really exciting growth for laundries. They've currently got just shy of, I believe, 350 machines in operation.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

What they are following is a very typical pattern and pathway. It's something that I experienced myself when I came to the U.K. four years ago to help run ME Group U.K. We always say in ME Group, the first 1,000 machines in a country are always the most difficult ones, because when you talk to retailers, there's still a little bit of confusion over what these machines do and if people are actually willing to wash dirty laundry in their car park because they're not so used to the machine. I'm talking about site partners here. The first 1,000 are always the most challenging because you have to convince the site partner that, yes, this is a product in demand, yes, this is a product that will work for them and will bring them real, tangible, additional profit as well as additional footfall.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

We experienced this in the U.K. ourselves. Once we had installed the first 1,000, it all became much easier from there. What is encouraging in Germany is that we have many accounts in Germany where we've already had successful roll-outs with in other countries. For example, we have a strong roll-out program with Aldi in Austria, and that's really helping to facilitate conversations in Germany. Additionally, there's some crossover with petrol retailers in Germany, as there are many companies operating in Germany that are also operating in the Netherlands, for example. There's some good crossovers. We really believe that Germany, rightfully, should be the largest laundry market we have in continental Europe. The results on the machines are strong. It's the pace of rollout that we're really focusing on at the moment.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

The ways that we increase that are more key account deals, faster installations using different installation partners, larger commercial teams, more commercial focus, and these are all things that we've been doing over the last 12 months. Are we on track to achieve 1,300 laundry installations for the current financial year? What is the long-term ambition, and how many Wash.ME units could the company realistically install in the long term? I've answered the second half of that question a bit earlier. In terms of installing 1,300 laundry installations for the current financial year, we've installed 500 in the first half. Remember, we are second half weighted in regards to installations normally anyway, because lots of retailers don't want us to install machines on their sites in December, as there are some works that you have to do to install the laundrettes.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

Therefore, December being the golden month, they prefer us to install outside of December. We get an additional month, in essence, in the second half of the year. Additionally, this year, for those of you who live in Western Europe and the U.K., you'll remember that January and February were very cold, and this was particularly true across continental Europe. When the weather is very cold, it takes longer for concrete to set, which means the concrete pads take longer to be ready to have the machine installed on top of it. We did have some challenges around January, especially in those freezing periods in France and Germany. We feel like we're on track to deliver 1,300 units this year, especially with ASDA that is now really grabbing pace in regards to installations. Can you please speak about pricing?

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

What is the company policy on rising prices for its vending machines, and when can we expect an increase in prices across the 50,000 machines in operation? As many of you will know, we operate quite a decentralized management structure in ME Group, where we look to allow local country managers to determine pricing across their countries. This is just so we can be really flexible for the demand to the market, and reflecting inflation you might see in specific geographies. We have not increased pricing significantly over the last two or three years. We do have the ability to significantly increase pricing, especially in the photobooth division, where customers typically come back to the machines once every five or 10 years. Often they don't remember the last price they paid on a machine, and that very infrequent sales cycle is useful.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

We do have the ability to increase prices, and obviously we'll be informing the market when we do so moving forward. Currently there are no concrete plans to do so. Why cut the dividend when your financial position is relatively strong? The dividend is determined by our long-term policy, which is we pay 55% of our profits as a dividend. Obviously as the profit is a little bit less than last year, mainly due to that GBP 1.6 million sale of a building last year, the dividend naturally decreases in line with that earnings decrease. We have a question. Thanks for doing this. It means a lot to a private investor like me. My pleasure. Is the situation in Germany likely to change to allow booth to be used for official documentation? Great question.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

In Germany, our photobooth can still be used for official documentation for everything apart from the passport, where the passport is being captured by the live enrollment system in Germany, which I don't mind saying is more expensive and has caused problems. I refer you to look at some articles in Bild around the problems they've had with their official system. That situation has stabilized. We saw the drop in volumes when it happened late July, August last year, and it's been stable since then. We are currently in the process of getting two different machines certified by the German regulators. I don't mind saying that we have experienced delays in that, which has been disappointing from a regulatory perspective. We're anticipating certification in the near future will allow us to reenter the passport market, which should be positive for us.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

Your updated guidance bakes in the softer market of April, which has recovered. To what degree of conservatism is built in for the full year, as if summer trading normalizes, it would be hard not to top your guidance range. Great question, and obviously when providing guidance in the middle of April, it's quite hard to estimate for the rest of the financial year. We have been conservative with the estimate we've put out for our guidance for the end of the year. As mentioned in the presentation earlier, whilst May's trading was significantly better than last year, so 11% better than last year, it actually still does not meet our budget that we estimated at the start of the year, that was relating to the guidance that we put out into the market.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

You can see that there is a bit of a tail on this headwind in regards to the photobooth business, and we've been very conservative with our guidance for the full year. Whilst we're seeing trading is improving, we're still worse than what we had budgeted for at the start of the financial year, but within the tolerances that we put for our revised guidance. We feel confident on delivering our revised guidance, and if there are any positive surprises, of course, we'll be informing the market if there are any. Aldi, is it a country-by-country possible rollout? Well, look, we just finished our trial with them, so that's 25 laundries installed in Aldi, which is a great trial. Obviously, we will be pushing the benefits of that trial to the wider Aldi group, and discussing that on a country-by-country level.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

It represents a really good opportunity for the group. Given the strong fundamentals of ME Group but relatively small market cap, is there a strategy to try and attract brokers, sell-side research coverage to expand ownership? Yes, of course, we are trying to get more coverage of the ME Group story in the market. We still think we represent a really attractive opportunity to investors, especially at these current prices. With our dividend below, there's a fantastic yield for investors. This is a company with no debt, strong growth opportunities, as I said, stable dividend. We anticipate that there's a really good story to cover with ME Group, and we certainly think there's a lot of room for growth. Can you please confirm if there were any changes to commercial terms on your major contract renewals in H1?

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

Of course, every contract is different, and actually what's really positive about the two renewals were we were able to insert new machines into those contracts. For example, those contracts were signed a while ago before we had our updated printing kiosk, for example, before we had the AI photo booths, before we had the dog wash, before we had some of the key cutting machines. We're able to install more machines with those two key accounts. There were no significant changes to the commission rate as far as I understand on those two key accounts. I'm also unable to divulge exactly what the commercial terms were on those accounts, as I'm sure you can understand. Can you discuss the slowdown in trading in April in more detail? Yes, absolutely.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

We started to identify a decrease in revenues towards the very end of March, and of course we run our months from the 21st to the 21st. This was technically in our April month, basically. What we saw was a drop in consumer demand, primarily for our photo booth product, especially concerning Continental Europe. Now, I've always said, and I've said on these calls before, ME Group is resilient to macroeconomic downturns, but we are exposed to travel. Of course, as consumers decided to either delay travel or go on domestic holidays, we experienced a slowdown in the volume of passport customers essentially. In fact, you can see some of this mirrored in other companies like On the Beach or for example, WH Smith, which also suffered in April.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

We also discussed with our partners who are the authorities for passports, so for example, in the U.K. that's HMPO, His Majesty's Passport Office, and in France it's ANTS, and they confirmed to us that their April passport figures were lower than what they had expected, and driven by consumers canceling travel or putting it off. In fact, a lot of that was caused by aviation companies announcing they were going to cancel flights in the summer, and what ANTS and HMPO told us was that consumers were very worried that they would book flights and a hotel, the flights would be canceled, and they'd be left with a hotel bill. That slowdown did happen in April, obviously significantly better in May. It's a very rapidly changing situation as I'm sure all of our attendees in this presentation have seen over the last seven days.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

We've been very conservative in our year-end figures, and we will continue to monitor the situation as we move forwards. How much surprise was the decline in April trading? Is there much precedent for this type of decline in variability in trading within recent history of the business? Do you monitor trading daily, weekly, etc.? We monitor trading daily. All of our machines are connected via telemetry. Because there's a cash element in the machine, there's always a cutoff. It's an estimate rather than a precise hard figure, but we track it daily and then we consolidate all of the figures at the end of the month for the month prior. Is there a precedent? Yes, absolutely, and that was COVID.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

I think COVID is actually a very, very useful precedent for this, because in COVID, obviously, we saw volumes decline significantly with the decrease in travel. As you can see, those customers did not disappear. They came back once COVID was over, people started to travel again. This is why we were not overly concerned by the April results, because this is an absolutely temporary headwind. These customers will get their passports renewed, will travel again, it's just a matter of when and not if. I think it's quite similar to the situation we encountered in COVID. I think I've answered some of the questions on April. I've got another question here over Germany, but I think we've answered that. I'll answer anyway.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

Will Germany be an ongoing headwind to the group photo booth business, and how much of the annualized photo booth revenue is from Germany at its new base level? In Germany, we saw the decrease immediately when it happened in end of July, August. That stabilized, so that did not move from then until now. That will annualize out in this July and August. Hopefully, as we get our booth certified, we'll be able to increase that revenue over time as well. In the dog wash, how do the CapEx and revenue unit dynamics vary from the main laundry machines? As it's still under trial, I can't divulge exactly what the unit economics are, but I'd be happy to delve more into it once we have a basis of understanding of those machines. Remember, we're still very much in a trial period.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

The way to think about it is more than photo booths, less than laundry. The machines are very cheap for us to produce. You're looking at roughly the same price you pay for a photo booth, which is really encouraging because the revenues are stronger than a photo booth. Of course, we're still under six months old for the oldest machine in the field to date. We're still very much in a trial period, but the signs are very encouraging. What's so positive for us is that it is a very easy machine to cross-sell. The utilities can be connected to our laundry machines, it means that the installation costs are really limited.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

Of course, we have more than 8,000 laundries already in the field, that offers a really good basis to go and cross-sell that product to our existing site partners and add a new service to their sites. Is the decline of dividend just a reflection of the temporary lower profit? Yes, absolutely. I've already explained that 55% of profits is our dividend policy. That has not changed. Have you looked into my suggestion of running food vending machines at gyms? If so, are you planning to sample this market segment? I know we've had that question in the past. I still think it's a very good idea, food vending is not one of our areas of expertise. If you think about ME Group more widely, very rarely do we vend a product. We vend a service.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

We prefer to vend services, firstly, because it's higher margin, but secondly, because you also don't have the struggles with stocking and stocking machines. As far as we can see it, the gym vending machine market is relatively saturated, and it's really outside our area of expertise. We prefer to vend services. Certainly you can probably see in the last couple of years, we've really shifted focus away from the food division, much more into our bread and butter, higher margin businesses such as the laundry division. When will the Wash.ME app roll out in the U.K.? We are pushing very hard to do so at the moment. With the Wash.ME app, we do have to make a minor upgrade to the hardware of the machine so it can communicate with the app. We've been going through that upgrade program now in the U.K.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

We are absolutely determined to have this app launched in all of our geographies by the end of the calendar year. In the U.K., we're targeting before the end of the financial year, which is end of October. It's a real priority for us. We see great take-up in France with the real enthusiasm by our site partners for this. We are pushing this as quickly as possible in other geographies and, yeah, hopefully in the U.K. by the end of this financial year. Photo booth demand will continue shrinking as new processes and better mobile telephony replace their need. Has a full decommissioning been factored into the finances, or could that create a hit later? Are the other photo uses still encouraging demand? I love this question, and it's a key question.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

If we go back to the slides, and I won't ask them to put it up now, but you can see the photo booth revenues increased over the last five years significantly. I think this is a really key point. I've been doing the IR for this company for a couple of years now. In fact, I remember in 2017 when the selfie system was launched in the U.K., which allowed consumers to do their passport photos on their phone, fund managers predicted that the photo booth business would go to zero in the next two years. They've been predicting that for 17 years. I think the key point here is we do have a regulatory moat. We, in many markets, communicate the photos directly to the regulator.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

For example, in France, if you take your photo, we send that photo directly to the regulator, as well as printing out the photo for the consumer at the booth, and we give the consumer a code. This allows the consumer, when they do their passport application, to put in their code and that photo is retrieved from a secure server by the regulator. That means that the photo is in a closed loop system, which absolutely guarantees its validity and accuracy. One of the biggest risks in identity today is a risk called the morphing risk, which people can subtly manipulate a photo, especially using AI, to allow more than one person to use a passport. Our system totally deletes that risk and avoids it, and it's why you see the incredible reticence across Europe to change passport regulations.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

Fundamentally, if you change it to something like a selfie system, you got a less secure system and a more expensive one as well. One of the key areas of investor misunderstanding is that the photobooth business is actually very, very stable from a regulatory perspective and has a regulatory moat. We're very honest with investors. We always say the photobooth business is a cash cow, and we utilize those funds to reinvest in our other fast, high profit business, which is the laundry business. We expect the photobooth division to remain relatively stable over the next 10-15 years. Obviously, in 10 years time, this company will look very, very different. Obviously, we will be a full laundry company at that point.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

The only other thing I'd say on that is I'll just recall a really important thing that I said in the presentation, this is key. If you take out Germany from continental Europe, photobooth revenue increased by 5%. I think that demonstrates, again, the stability of our business, continental Europe is the most important market for our photobooth division. Would water shortage restrictions be a threat to your operations? Great question. At the moment, absolutely not. Those restrictions tend to be more on private individuals rather than businesses, and obviously, we tap into the water supply for those businesses. If they turn off the water at a Morrisons supermarket or an ASDA or an Intermarché and Carrefour, then, of course, we will be impacted. I would imagine that things would have to get significantly worse for that to be a reality.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

I imagine that businesses will be the sort of last resort for any water restrictions. We certainly haven't heard of anything like that across Europe, and I don't see it as a significant risk. Please, can you explain the working capital movement? How much is timing expected to reverse in H2, and how much is due to growth? Well, it's a bit of both. We always are a little bit worse off in terms of cash position at the end of H1, just because we will have just paid the dividend, which is true this year. We always recoup in H2. H2 is much more treasury positive. We have had additional costs this year that have impacted our cash position that we didn't have last year. For example, we've had the elevated share buyback program. We've also invested more into machines.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

It's of course, because we've installed more machines, also we're keeping more inventory on stock. Last year we had sort of a month of inventory. We've increased that to a month and a half, roughly two months. The reason for that is we have really big rollout programs coming up. We're front loading a little bit, that's because the key accounts that we work with, like ASDA, are very demanding on pace. We'd rather have more machines on stock to be able to guarantee them the numbers every month than be a little bit tighter with that supply chain movement. Recently, ME Group invited offers/suggestions, presumably for a possible sale of the business or a partnership offer. There was no outcome to this as far as we know. Is this still on the agenda in the long term?

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

Could you throw some light on this, please? This was the strategic review that occurred last year. I will say that the news was leaked, which led us to having to put out an RNS which informed, obviously, the market of the strategic review in progress. I think there was confusion amongst investors. That was not a strategic review saying, "Please come and we're inviting offers." It was rather reflecting the fact that news had been leaked elsewhere and therefore we had to inform the market. That process lasted too long, in my opinion at least, and it was frustrating being in a closed period. What I can say is that moving forward, I think that period is behind us and we're very much focused on delivering the numbers this year and improving the share price in the public markets.

Vladimir Crasneanscki
Vladimir Crasneanscki
Deputy CEO at ME Group International

I think that answers the questions on the strategic review. I think we've answered most of the questions. Of course, if you have further questions or you don't feel like I've answered one of the questions in enough detail, please feel free to send us an email. Be more than happy to share with you more information. I would just like to thank all of you for your attention and I hope everyone has a great rest of their week.

Operator

Perfect. Vlad, if I may just jump back in at this point, thank you very much indeed for being so generous with your time then addressing all of those questions that came in this morning. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you will now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback. On behalf of the management team of ME Group International PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. Good afternoon to you all.

Executives
    • Vladimir Crasneanscki
      Vladimir Crasneanscki
      Deputy CEO
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