Good morning. This is the Chorus Call operator. Welcome. Thank you for joining the Orsero first quarter 2023 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star 0 on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Paolo Prudenziati, President of Orsero. Please go ahead, sir. Hi. Good morning to everybody. Of course, we are satisfied about the excellent result of the company in this first quarter. What I would like to address you is a couple of items between the lines of our results, which is the organic growth of a like-for-like business in terms of revenues, which is about 8.6%, and also the EBITDA adjusted as a like-for-like business, which is above 25% versus last year. I think this is a significant numbers, both of them, which is giving us picture how solid and resilient is our business in despite of the various circumstances. Let's not forget that we are in Europe, in a mature market, where the consumption is not increasing, is slightly decreasing, and we are gaining market revenues year by year since many years. On the top of this, the other point which I would like to address your attention is the shipping results. In despite of a whispering rumor or bad luck that everybody was talking about, our shipping business is resilient, is just above the results of last year. Of course it's a quarter, so we, it's a little bit influenced by the seasonal impact of the dry cargo consequences. In despite of this, we don't see any reason why we should not have, for the balance of the year, still a good business on the shipping side. Having said so, I pass the word to Matteo, which is giving you more broad picture of the company. Thank you. Thank you, Paolo. Good morning, everybody. I will go through the Q1 2023 result presentation. First of all, just to introduce, actually the group is continuing to execute its strategy, responding with flexibility to challenges and uncertainties of the macroeconomic background. We are trying to explore possible opportunities, thanks to the business model that I just as a reminder, it's multi-sourced, extensive product range, diversified geographical scope, and it's vertically integrated in banana and pineapple logistics through our shipping business. As you remember, at the beginning of this year, we completed two major M&A deals for our group. One is the 80% share of Blampin Groupe. That is a group active on the wholesale market. It's a leader on the wholesale market in France, with 12 stands, market stands selling directly fruits to more than 2,000 clients. 100% of Capexo, a very great company specialized in the importation and distribution of super exotic products. With those two deals, the group now is really well and more balanced in the French market, on the French market between wholesalers and retailers. Now we are almost 50/50 on the two channels. That is more or less the situation we have in Italy and Spain. There are the 3, let's say, main region where we explore our business. This is really important because having a good balance on the product range and a good balance on the channel mix, give us this resilience and stable both and to gain market share on revenues and obviously on the margin. That is our main key point. In terms of cash conversion, despite an excellent growth in terms of revenues, even in a like-for-like perimeter, we're able to control our working capital that has just a little absorption, but still the cash conversion is very good. The EBITDA cash conversion is very good. We have a CapEx plan that is in line with our guidance, with our guidance at the moment. We don't see any major changes. Actually, all the investment are focused on the super core business. We aim to maintain at the top level and to extend somewhere, for example, in Italy and France and Portugal, our distribution footprint. Our goal is just to use the cash and the capital in order to be more efficient and more effective on the market through our logistic platform. We don't waste EUR 1 of our cash for investment that are out of our business. As a reminder, on May 10th, the company paid a dividend of EUR 0.35 per share for a total outlay of about EUR 6 million. A bit of market context. 2022, end of 2022 and first month of 2023, we're seeing, let's say, mainly in Italy, but even in the other European countries, lagging of consumption, due to a mix of factor, but mainly due probably to the increase on the selling prices. Volumes, as a market context, are still declining compared with the same quarter of last year. The trend started by the end of 2022. We are able to keep volume, let's say, stable or slightly increasing at the European level, at the European level, and prices help us to maintain a solid trend of growth on the revenues. Like for like perimeter, so excluding the consolidation of Blampin Groupe and Capexo, is up 8.2% on distribution business units, so the very core business, versus Q1 2022, which was 7.7% up versus Q1 2021. It's a solid trend, and it's something that we're building up through channel mix, product mix and gaining market share year-on-year. We have, like always, some products that are doing better and others that are facing difficulties. All in all, is a good price mix and price effect on the product range. The Adjusted EBITDA margin always referred to the Distribution business unit, comes in at 4.8% versus 3.3% of last year. As a reminder, last year in the first quarter, we faced very difficult situation on the avocado campaign, specifically from Mexico for Europe. The situation this year changed due to normal rolling market condition and weather condition. A very good momentum on bananas, actually it's a relief compared with last year due to a significant increase on the sales price, both on the long-term contract with retailers and in the, let's say, wholesale market and upper market. Very good results and returns on exotic fruit. As we were saying, mainly avocados, but all the exotic gamma is performing well. This is a very interesting trend because we are gaining, for example, in Italy, +30% on exotic fruit in terms of volume. Italian consumption is growing a lot and is touching a very relevant point in terms of consumption kilo per capita per year. Still, we are growing double digit more than the market. It's very good sign that our distribution footprint, our e-efficiencies in the operation and our commercial capability is able, let's say, to double up the market growth when we push on a certain project or certain item. There's a good sign as well on the operational side, giving even by the decrease on energy cost by EUR 0.5 million, actually, the energy cost is lower compared to last year. Always as a reminder, the big challenge is going to be this summer because or the big difference, because last summer was the real super peak of the energy cost and of the energy consumption due to the climate condition that was really a high temperature all over Europe. We will see the second quarter and the third quarter, we will have the real touch base on the energy, on the energy cost. Shipping business unit. The reefer transportation reports solid result driven by a slightly declining carry volumes due to lower fruit available in production. That actually is one of the reason why the price on bananas on the distribution side are okay and a stable freight rate compared with last year. Dry cargo transportation, the way back from Central South America, achieve good returns in line with Q4 2022 trend. Actually still really solid and high level freight rates. We will see on the next quarter how will be the trend. Probably declining a bit, always a solid trend. Adjusted EBITDA margin still is very good compared with the Q1 2022. Going to the main figures, leaving to you the rest of the time for the Q&A session. Net sales at the group level stands at EUR 347.3 million, is a +31.6% including as well, the effect of the new acquisition, Capexo, and Blampin. Adjusted EBITDA stands at EUR 26.2 million or +48% compared with last year. The net profit stands at the adjusted net profit stands at EUR 13.4 million or +almost 50% compared with last year. Obviously we have an increase on the net financial position due to the fact that we perform the two M&A deal that counts all in all, almost EUR 92 million, based on EUR 65 million already paid for the two M&A deals. The rest, the balance to EUR 92 million is non-bearing interest related to earn-out, already considered within the net financial position and the effect of the put and call option liability for the 13.3% residual shares that is still in the hand of the Blampin family, our the other shareholder of Blampin Groupe. Net financial position is increasing. It comes with an increase in financial expenses due to interest rates and the higher, let's say, amount of debt that we raised in order to finance the two acquisition, but still is totally under control and totally in line with our plan. If we go a bit in detail on the main issue building up the net profit, we can bridge net profit of Q1 2022, that was standing around EUR 8.9 million. The main change in is the profitability, the additional profitability, EUR 8.6 million, of which almost 4 related to the new acquisition and 4.6, the increase of the like-for-like perimeter. 1 million of higher D&A and provision mainly due to the new acquisition within the perimeter. Financial expenses and share of profit, the mix is decreasing by EUR 1.7 million. It comes mainly due to higher financial expenses and some exchange rates euro against the Mexican pesos that are affecting negatively the profit and loss account. Tax is higher by EUR 1.5 million because obviously there's a higher profit and new acquisition in France, a company that actually had no losses to use to cover profit. At the end of the day, they have a higher impact on the taxation, but it still is in line with the higher profit at a group level. We passed from EUR 9 million at Q1 2022, and we touched EUR 13.4 million in Q1 2023. That actually is a very brilliant result for us. We're really satisfied about that. Last detail I would like to give you, actually, we are well in line with the guidance we gave on the full year 2023. Obviously a quarter is a very good sign, but still is not the full year. We are touching base every day with with our control mechanism. We are really confident on the fact that the year will be a good one and in line of with our with our guidance. I think no more details on this side. I will like to leave the rest of the time for you to raise question or curiosity if you, if you have some. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on their telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and 2. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and 1 at this time. The first question is from Dario Michi of Exane BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking my questions. The first one is on the shipping division. If you could please better detail the strength you have seen so far year-to-date and with a focus on end of drive rates. In light of this dynamic, you were factoring in your guidance as you go down in the shipping year. Is this still valid for the rest of the year? The second question is on the integration of Capexso, if you could please give us some update on the integration and the potential synergies. Thank you. Hi, Dario. Yes, I will try to answer to your question. Actually more detail about the shipping. As you know, the fronthaul, so the fruit activity is on, let's say, 95% of the loading factor, is based on contract spending for the whole year. The contract consider already a bunker adjustment factor in order to rebalance increase or decrease on the oil price. Actually we release the guidance every year based on a solid base that are the contract that we sign with all our clients. I remind to you that 50-52% of the capacity of the ships are captive used. At the end of the day, on the fronthaul, we, that is the core business, the vast majority of the revenues and the vast majority of the profitability, it's really the forecast that we make, is always in line with the contract that we sign. We can have some views about the oil price. The little effect that could grab our freight rates, but basically there are no major changes. If we release a guidance, it means that we trust the fact that our shipping activity on the fronthaul will be solid and will perform more or less the range of profits that we forecast. For the rest of the year, we don't see major change, and we think even April and beginning of May still is running, let's say in line with our forecast and with our views. Going on the dry activity. Dry activity is something that is, let's say part of the. It's not part of the core business in the sense that it's not the fruit, obviously it's something that we do since 30 years. We have all the clients know that our line is going back from Europe to Central America on a weekly basis. It's really regular and it's really fast. Obviously we are more linked with the general atmosphere on the dry cargo, let's say, environment. The trend that we see is that last year, 2022, we saw beginning of the year, the rates were still not really high, and they started to grow during the year, peaking the freight rates on the last quarter. In our guidance, what we forecast was to have more or less the same average level of freight compared with on dry cargo, but with a different time lapse, because obviously last year it started slow and it was peaking at the end of the year. This year our view is that it's starting high on the Q of last quarter of 2022, then it is rebalancing a bit on the residual quarters. That's why we gave a guidance that was slightly lower compared with last year in terms of overall profitability. This is the trend, and this is the information that we have on the dry. To tell you the truth, the dry activity is still very good in terms of volumes and revenues at the moment, just slightly lower in terms of freight compared with 1 month and a half, 2 months ago. It's an open market. It's a niche because it's a defined route. We are not playing all over the world, we are really concentrated in one route, one route. We will see quarter by quarter. Anyway, it's going to be good. It's not going to be bad or very bad. It's, anyway, it's going to be a resilient and good year in the shipping. That's our view, and it's based on the factual information that we have. With this, I hope I answered to the first and the second question. Regarding Capexso to Blampin, when it comes to new acquisition, with solid and historical businesses, we want it strongly the previous shareholder to be, let's say, to help us to drive the future of the two companies together with our management in France. Obviously, when we talk about synergies, we are slow. What we did, the integration of Blampin and Capexso in terms of human feeling between us and the two company is very good. We had no surprises. Both on the people, on the figures, on the organization of the company. We are starting the integration and already we have a good result on that, on the, let's say, final accounting reporting side. This is something that is helping us then to touch the business in the good way with more information and convincing the two companies to develop a strategic commercial project with the Orsero organization. We are already organizing a periodic meeting with all the French companies and with the top management, including me and Mrs. Orsero and Alessandro Canalella in order to start to understand where we will be able to work on the commercial synergies. Let's say, so far so good, but it's just four months time. We started from the hardest key to birth reporting, margin reporting, price reporting, volume reporting. We are exchanging on a constant basis about strategies, clients and sourcing. We have some ideas about strategic project, still we will need all this year in order to figure out which will be the right way to develop in value or not to destroy relationships when you, when you buy such good, such a good company. You don't have to restructure those company. You have to involve those company within your network. It's something to handle smoothly, and we are acting with this approach. So far so good in terms of result because the two companies reached almost EUR 64 million combined revenues with EUR 4.1 million EBITDA. That is 3.6% EBITDA margin. It's perfectly in line or slightly above compared with what we forecast by the end of last year. Question is from Andrea Bonfà. Thank you, everybody. Question is, to what you mentioned some articles that, from let's say Q2, you are increasing the amount of captive volume transporting your ship. If you can elaborate on that and highlight maybe the advantages of, let's say, changing your business model as far as shipping is concerned. The second one is again on the acquisition, the fact that it's really striking that now it's several years that you are expanding organic growth. This year seems you are accelerating on that. My view is that with the 2024, you will rework of the integration with the French company. Is it possible that also 2024 will be a year of, let's say, faster than the usual 3 to what, 5% organic growth that you've been able to deliver so far? Thank you. Okay. First question is easier, second one is a bit of philosophy, but I will try to answer to you. Okay. Shipping activity is not really the new port call is not really changing our business model. We will always run with five ships. Our core markets of delivery will always be Portugal, Spain, and Italy, and then shipping to, transshipping to France. No major changing. We will always load our fruit in Santo Domingo, Costa Rica and Colombia. The only difference is that given the fact that we always try to be balanced both on the channel sales mix, but even on the sourcing mix, because it's important with the same way, given the fact that in Colombia we have at the moment one main supplier that is a very good partner for us. We would like to, let's say, to rebalance the risk with another partner. This other partner is growing the fruits in an area in Colombia that is really far from where the port where our ships goes every week. We decided the possibility to add an additional port in Colombia in order to be able to load our fruits, the fruit that we buy to be distributed in, then in Europe, avoiding the fact that we make a program with a supplier, with a producer, a grower, that we want strategically on the sourcing, but we cannot make efficiencies on the logistics. Obviously, if I distribute and import always the same amount of fruit and bananas, and now I can load, let's say almost everything that I buy and then distribute. Tomorrow, I cannot load a relevant portion of this because actually, I, I will try to source from another area. The decision I have to study to add an additional port in order to be able to load everything that we buy, then we sell and distribute. It comes with controlling the quality, controlling the logistic, controlling all the value chain from, let's say, from the plantation to our warehouses in Europe. Then to use to have a higher captive use of our ships, that from 50-52 will be able to rise between 65% and 70%. This will allow us, anyway, to if we see that the market condition of the shipping, we have clients, third-party clients, that will be keen to pay an higher, a very good price rate, decrease the captive use by 5%, 6%, 7%, and to accept other clients that are paying very good rates, and to use container liners to ship the residual part of our business. Actually, it's something that is not changing our business model, but is giving even more flexibility and efficiency to our business model on the shipping. Going to the second question. It's very difficult to answer to your question because it's for sure, let's say, this year will be a year where we will study, we will do the things that are compulsory to do. Everything to control, everything to study the company, everything to afford, it's something that we're implementing in 2023. We are finding a very good humus with the two companies, so probably able to speed up some conversation. We're already having some relevant conversations, and we had those conversations during the due diligence. That was not only an accounting due diligence, but was a strategic one before buying the two companies. We will try to find the balance, you know, integrate commercially the two companies, but it won't mean we'll force the two companies to use our suppliers that distribute our product. It's gonna be a mix, suppliers of those two companies to use market or in other companies like in Italy or in Spain. Seeing the client between the companies in France, in France, because obviously Blampin has no GMS client, has no retailers client, it comes only with supplier efficiencies. Capexso and AZ France and Fruttica, the other three companies, are really exposed as well on the retailers channel. There, we can play with products and with client mix. For the organic growth, we think that it's gonna be difficult now, Andreas, to tell you that it's going to be 4, 5, 6, 3, 2. We don't know. What we are pretty confident to be able to do is to beat the market condition because it's something that we're doing every year. We have a lot of nice projects going ahead organically on new product mix, on new varieties, on new products that actually we are doing at the moment as a distributor, but not really with an integrated philosophy that is day by day always more important. Focusing on France, I think that we are a unique player in France at the moment. We don't want to push sales growth touching the margins. We always want to push and to have growth where the margin can benefit from this growth. We're not really keen on growing 5% or 6% in terms of revenues. We are keen in order to maintain or to beat again the profitability of the product mix and the 3 companies. I'm pretty confident that if it's not, 2024, anyway, in the medium term, we will be able to develop strategic projects in, in France, with the four companies, and to achieve a higher, profitability. That already is really good. What I want to highlight is that the France profitability with the four companies that the group owns at the moment is already really, really good. Okay, thank you very much for coming back to the, let's say, new shipping route or mechanism. It seems to me that anyway you will have a profitability advantage from this side. We will Okay. Regarding the current year, it's something that we, within our guidance, we forecast to add the additional port that at the end of the day will enrich our loading factor during the summer season. Actually we, our forecast was to start to touch Santa Marta Port in Colombia in autumn. Summer. We will have probably 7, 8 voyages with additional loading factor, we will see the impact on the next quarter. Yes, probably there will be a little on the paper, a little increase. To call a 7th port, it comes with some additional cost as well. On a yearly basis, we already had within our guidance a certain portion of this new activity. Probably we will have something more, but it will have to deal as well with the total loading factor, with the dry cargo freight rate for the rest of the year. We prepare for the moment to speak on what we forecast. We will make better reforecast based on June, on June results. Thank you very much. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press Star and One on your telephone. The next question is from Gabriele Berti of Intesa Sanpaolo. Hi, good morning, everyone, and congratulations for the results. Two questions from my side. Do you expect that the current good trading conditions for banana business are sustainable for the full year? Secondly, I was wondering if the business seasonality of Blampin and Capexo is it similar to yours or if they are subject to a different trend? Ciao, Gabriele. Good morning. Same to you. Okay, regarding the first question, for sure, the banana business in terms of dynamic supply-demand is more balanced and will be probably balanced more balanced for the rest of the year. Still, the prices are really good. Now it comes to summer, and with the summer, let's say June, July, August, and beginning of September, there's a physiologic reduction of consumption due to the fact that we will have many more products and type of fruits on the market. The consumption normally declines. Even the fact that the schools are closed normally has an impact on the demand. It comes with, let's say, normally, a drop on prices. For sure, the fact that the production has no major overproduction, sorry for the word joke, we think that the situation is more balanced. The long-term contract with the retailers that at the end of the day are a bit the driver, starting to be the driver of the market, specifically in some countries on like France, for example, are made on a yearly basis. We think that the situation, the market condition of banana will be more balanced. So far so good up to mid of May. We will have for sure a drop, and then we will see in autumn how will be the situation. The goal for everybody, not only for Orsero, but I think for all the players in the market, is to maintain this kind of level for next year and to, let's say, reshape a banana market that is more balanced and more profitable for retailers, for the distributor, for the growers, and for everybody. The challenge is to maintain this situation in the medium long run. The good news is that during the last 2, 3 years, both in production and both in distribution, some little players that were not really competing with us, but affecting at the end of the day, the market, disappeared. The market is more clean, both in production, both in distribution. We will see. Anyway, the situation is better, and I think even the results of our main competitor worldwide are testifying this kind of trend. Regarding the business seasonality, it's a good question because actually, it's similar, but Blampin, due to the fact there is a player that is selling the fruits every day to many, many small clients, little distributor, retailers, mamas and papa shop, all over France, with a lot of presence in the south of France, Marseille and Nice, they have a seasonality that is peaking during the summer. If you take the seasonality of Blampin, probably see a low first quarter, beginning up to September, high season, let's say. To go down a bit in autumn and jumping again close to the Christmas season. It's something that is pushing more on the summer and close to Christmas. Capexo, given the fact that they have some items that are super consumed close to the Christmas, they have normally the strongest quarter or the most important quarter. It depends if it's good or bad because it comes with margin. The strongest quarter is the last one. That's why I told all of you that we are impressed by the performance both of Capexo and Blampin because if we see the budget, we think they're slightly up instead of compared with what we forecast. We don't perfectly know the dynamic of the two companies. We don't know the two as our ancient one. To talk about reviewing the target and so on. Thank you very much, Matteo. Gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time. I'll turn the call back to you for any closing remarks. Thank you to everybody for your attention and for following our conference call. We will talk again after the first half result. Hoping, trusting it will be a good one again. Thank you very much to everybody. Have a nice day. Bye-bye. Bye. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones. Thank you.