Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the McLaren Group Q3 Year-to-Date 2024 results. My name is Marie, and I will be coordinating your call today. During the presentation, you can register by asking a question by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. If you have joined us online, you can submit a text question via the Q&A button on your browser. I will now hand over to your host, Stuart Alfredson, Group Finance Director, to begin. Please go ahead. Great. Thank you, everyone, for joining today for McLaren's Q3 2024 results. As just said, I'm Stuart Alfredson, Group Finance Director at McLaren Group, and alongside me is Steve Humphreys, our Group Treasurer, and Piers Scott, Chief Communications Officer. Before I get started with the update on the performance of the McLaren automotive business over the past few months, I will just quickly reference the announcement in October by our shareholders, our own Mumtalakat Holding Company, who, alongside CYVN Holdings, which is based in Abu Dhabi and has a number of investments in the mobility and automotive sector, stated that they had entered into a non-binding agreement to explore a potential partnership. I appreciate there'll be a lot of interest in this potential transaction and clearly a desire for information. However, at this time, I'm unable to say anything more other than what was provided publicly in the announcement by these parties, and an update will be provided to you as and when information is available. So, with that, turning to the Q3 update, with only a little over a month until the end of the year, we're pleased to be able to update you on our results for the nine months to September 2024. After some challenging years, we set out at the start of this year focused on the fundamentals of the business: stable production, improving quality, a broader product lineup, and a simplified capital structure with a stronger balance sheet. Delivery of this would, in turn, enable us to deliver a set of financial results which would be much improved on the prior years, but just as importantly, a consistent set of financial results. In Q3, we've again delivered in line with what we planned. Delivering on these fundamentals has allowed us to grow year-on-year wholesale volumes by 55% compared with the same nine months in 2023. Consistent with H1, this growth has been driven by the 750S, which we started to wholesale in late 2023, but is now also supported by the new Artura and GTS as they work into our wholesales. This improving mix on our year-on-year, alongside growing volumes, has resulted in revenue growth of 80% and an EBITDA improvement of GBP 120 million, endorsing our ongoing areas of focus and investment. These operating trends have enabled us to continue to improve the operating and free cash flows of the business, and as previously disclosed, our liquidity has been enhanced by the new three-year $200 million term loan facility entered in July, alongside the shareholder funding received earlier this year. In October, we publicly revealed the W1, the groundbreaking successor to two of the greatest supercars of all time, the McLaren F1 and the McLaren P1, and it is the latest chapter in our iconic one-car lineage. The feedback from the global media has been exceptional, where you would have heard phrases like "outrageous power," "blisteringly fast," "scintillating," "out of this world," and "generation-defining." I discussed and will ask for the close relationship that our automotive and racing businesses have, and whilst they are separately operated, they are inherently linked by the McLaren brand, heritage, and DNA. The W1 epitomized the pinnacle being created with McLaren's world championship mindset and underpinned by the principles that define a real supercar. At the W1 launch event, attendees could see the huge collection of trophies that our racing colleagues have, and in fact, the name W1 was inspired by the world championship, with the W1 making its public debut on the 50th anniversary of McLaren's first Drivers and Constructors F1 World Championship back in 1974. The W1 has an all-new V8 hybrid powertrain, delivering our highest power output and power-to-weight ratio of any McLaren road car. It is likewise our fastest accelerating and fastest lapping road-legal McLaren ever. The W1 is limited to just 399 cars and priced at around $2 million, including taxes. You won't be surprised to know that they are fully allocated and there is a waiting list. Deliveries are expected to commence in 2026. Turning to volumes for this year, the trends we've seen in Q3 are consistent with what I discussed as part of the H1 results. Improvements in our operational execution and refreshing our product lineup has continued to drive up our volumes. In Q3, we had wholesale volumes of 784 vehicles compared to just 278 in Q3 last year. Do keep in mind, however, that Q3 last year was unusually low as we had constrained production as we invested in enhancing our quality processes. In comparison, we did 796 in Q1 and 849 in Q2. Q3 is always a little softer for us as we carry out an annual two-week shutdown of our production facilities, and there is the seasonality of summer. For the year-to-date volumes up to September, we had delivered over 2,400 cars, which was 55% better than the same time last year. This continues to reflect our best level of wholesale volumes for five years, validating the steps we are taking to turn around the business. Also relevant is the evolution of our product lineup. Many of you will recall that in 2023, with several models ceasing production by the start of the year, the first three quarters of 2023 were largely made up of Artura and GT. In H1 this year, the 750S was over 50% of the volumes, with Artura the next highest. This proportion of 750S is higher than we would ordinarily expect but reflected its standout performance, the accolades it's received, and the pent-up demand having only commenced deliveries in late 2023. This meant there was real momentum for the 750S going into the start of the year. In Q3, with the GTS and new Artura starting to reach dealers and customers, this has meant that our largest volume model was instead the Artura, followed by the 750S. This has created more balance in the model mix of our deliveries as we progress through the second half of the year. Regional trends are consistent with H1. North America remains our largest market with nearly half the volumes, with Europe in second place. Both of these markets have delivered year-on-year growth of around 100%. Volumes in the Asia-Pacific region were slightly down over the nine months, with this performance largely reflecting China, where Artura is now the only vehicle we sell, and as you will have heard from other businesses, the underlying China market has been more challenging this year compared to previous. We, however, believe this creates opportunities as we look forward to future years to start to build back up volume in this region. Revenue was GBP 618 million for the nine months to September 2024, which was an increase of over 80% compared to 2023. This increase reflected the 55% rise in wholesale volumes, as well as the stronger mix I've just discussed, with a period of predominantly 750S and Artura versus last year, which was mainly Artura and GT and no 750S volumes. The impact of this model mix change has been to significantly increase the average revenue per vehicle in 2024 compared to last year. The delivery of higher volumes and a broader product mix with a greater proportion of high-priced models has resulted in a gross profit of GBP 159 million compared to GBP 14 million in 2023, which gives us a gross margin of 26% compared to 4%. It is worth noting that the margin for the actual Q3 quarter was a little lower than what we saw across H1. This reflects several factors, including some instability in our supplier base, which has resulted in an element of elevated costs, the lower proportion of 750S, which has a higher margin percentage, and the seasonal shutdown of our production facilities in August when we do have a certain level of ongoing fixed costs. Very pleasingly, year-to-date, EBITDA was up GBP 129 million, predominantly reflecting the revenue and margin trends I've just described, with the higher volume and year-on-year shift to higher margin products supporting this result. Operating costs, as you might expect, are up a little in light of the significant top-line growth, as well as certain inflationary cost increases. EBITDA for the quarter was down compared to the first two quarters of the year, and this reflects some of the gross margin trends I've just described for the quarter, but also the phasing of operating costs, especially in light of the recent start to deliveries of the Artura and GTS and the reveal of the W1. I expect Q4 EBITDA to be more in line with what we saw in Q1 and Q2 rather than this Q3 result. Net finance costs were down GBP 18 million compared to 2023. However, underlying finance costs remained flat, and this reduction rather reflects the retranslation of the U.S. dollar bond because we saw a notable weakening of the U.S. dollar in Q3. As I'm sure you will have seen, the U.S. dollar has swung back the other way in the last few weeks, and so if this is maintained, I would expect this FX retranslation to move into reverse in Q4. Thinking beyond the profit and loss, the strong improvement in operational performance has had an even greater impact on cash flows, with operating cash flows more than GBP 300 million better than the same time in 2023. This improvement reflects both a substantial improvement in operating performance seen in EBITDA, alongside a significant improvement in working capital, with 2024 benefiting from tight working capital control, as well as starting to see early customer deposits on the W1. This is slightly offset by the unwind of deposits on Solus as we deliver these bespoke vehicles. Capital expenditure was generally flat, albeit slightly down compared to last year. This spend predominantly reflected the development of the recently launched Artura Spider and Coupe, the W1, and investment in other vehicles in our planned future product lineup. We continue to expect full-year spend to be around GBP 200 million. Now, cash flows from financing activities reflect underlying interest payments and the GBP 135 million inflow from equity issues during the first half. We carried out an initial drawdown of the new term loan of $40 million at the end of the quarter and have until April to make any further drawdowns on this $200 million facility. In light of the strong operating cash flow and working capital performance, we have reduced the level of working capital facilities utilized over the course of the year, but working capital facilities remain in place for us to use. At the end of June 2024, sorry, at the end of September 2024, the group had a liquidity of GBP 185 million, comprising cash and available headroom on our facilities. The headroom includes this new $200 million term loan facility, which, as I noted, has only been drawn by $40 million since being put in place in July, and this remains the case today. As we approach the end of 2024, we have good visibility of what we expect the full year to look like. When closing out the year, I expect to report consistent trends in Q4, building on the much-improved performance we've discussed throughout this year. I currently anticipate we'll deliver volumes of around 3,200 vehicles, which would give us full-year growth of around 50%. This would be our highest annual volume since 2019, validating the steps we've been taking to refresh our product lineup and deliver a stable production platform. The revenue growth rate will continue to be higher than the volume growth rate in light of the stronger year-on-year product mix. Like seen in Q3, Q4 will be a broader mix of products compared to H1, which was heavy on 750S, which will slightly dampen margin percentages and average revenue rates compared to H1. Also, as we've reached Q4, the comparative period will start to include the higher-priced and higher-margin 750S volumes. As noted, we have seen a slightly negative EBITDA result this quarter compared to the positive results in Q1 and Q2. I expect Q4 will trend back closer to what we saw in the first two quarters of the year in light of the phasing of operating costs across the year. We continue to remain focused on working capital efficiency and expect to see continuing positive working capital trends in Q4, and CapEx will again likely be around the GBP 200 million mark over the full year. While I'm not guiding today on what 2025 will look like, our focus remains on making our existing business sustainably profitable and cash-generative over the short to medium term, with a keen focus on delivering outstanding vehicles, which are true to the McLaren DNA, with the W1 being just one outstanding example of this, a strong mix of vehicles across differing segments and price points, stability and reliability in our production and supply chain, improving margins, and driving cost efficiency across the whole business. So at this point, I'll stop the presentation and hand over to the operator for any questions. I will just reiterate for anyone joining late, whilst I appreciate you may have a lot of questions around the potential transaction announced by our shareholder last month, what it might mean. At this time, I'm unable to provide any information beyond what was provided publicly in the announcement, which can be found on McLaren's website. Further information will be shared when it's available. Thank you very much, Stuart. To ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure that your device is unmuted locally. If you have joined us online, you can submit a text question via the Q&A button on your browser. Kindly limit yourselves to two questions each. I'm delighted to say it looks like I've sufficiently answered everyone's questions and thoughts. So I do thank you all very much for your time. We're obviously very pleased with the continued strong performance. We know there is still more to do, but our operational and financial metrics are continuing to move in the right direction, and we are always focused on continuing this momentum. Many thanks.
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