Earnings call transcript: Ebusco Holding BV’s challenging FY2024 results

Ebusco Holding BV, a company specializing in electric buses, reported its full-year 2024 earnings, describing the results as "extremely disappointing." The company faced significant financial hurdles, including a near standstill in production and numerous order cancellations. With a market capitalization of just €43.7 million and trading at 0.32 times book value, the stock has lost over 90% in the past year. Despite these setbacks, Ebusco remains optimistic about its market position and future opportunities.

According to InvestingPro, the company shows several warning signs, including significant debt burden and rapid cash burn. InvestingPro subscribers have access to 15 additional key insights about Ebusco’s financial health and market position.

Key Takeaways

• Production nearly halted in 2024, impacting revenue.
• Order cancellations were swiftly reassigned, demonstrating market demand.
• Ebusco’s order book secures production until the end of H1 2026.
• The company is exploring strategic options to address liquidity constraints.
• A €22 million loan agreement was entered to manage short-term financial needs.

Company Performance

Ebusco reported a challenging year in 2024, with production issues and order cancellations significantly affecting its financial performance. The company’s revenue declined by 15% in the last twelve months, with concerning gross profit margins of -16.4%. Despite these hurdles, the company managed to reassign 74 canceled buses to other customers, showcasing its ability to adapt quickly. The electric bus market remains robust, driven by government regulations and incentives, particularly in Europe, where Ebusco continues to see opportunities.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: Impacted by production halts and order cancellations.
• Inventory write-downs and revenue recognition reversals affected financials.
• The financial statements remain unaudited due to business challenges.

Outlook & Guidance

Ebusco anticipates that 2025 will remain financially challenging. The company is actively exploring strategic options for its bus and energy operations to improve liquidity. A €22 million loan agreement was secured in February 2025, with an additional €5 million expected soon. The company is also preparing for a refinancing in mid-August. Based on InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis, the stock appears significantly undervalued at current levels, though investors should carefully consider the company’s financial health score of 1.5 out of 5, rated as "WEAK" by InvestingPro analysts.

Executive Commentary

Christian Schreier, CEO, stated, "2024 has been a challenging year to say the least, and 2025 will continue to be very challenging." He highlighted liquidity as a significant concern, saying, "The biggest challenge we face currently is access to liquidity." Despite these challenges, Schreier expressed confidence in the company’s potential, noting, "We continue to believe in our people, our product, and the underlying market."

Risks and Challenges

• Liquidity Constraints: Access to sufficient funds remains a pressing issue.
• Production Halts: Any further disruptions could exacerbate financial difficulties.
• Market Conditions: Economic downturns or changes in government policies could impact demand.
• Competition: The electric bus market is competitive, requiring continuous innovation.
• Supply Chain Issues: Potential disruptions could affect production timelines.

Ebusco’s recent earnings call highlighted significant challenges but also underscored the company’s strategic efforts to navigate these difficulties. With a strong order book and ongoing market demand, Ebusco remains focused on overcoming its current financial hurdles.

Full transcript - Ebusco Holding BV (EBUS) Q4 2024:

Rusty, Call Coordinator: Hello, and welcome to Ibuzco full year results twenty twenty four. My name is Rusty, and I will be your coordinator for today’s event. Please note this call is being recorded. And for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask question I will now hand you over to your host, Mr.

Christian Freya, to begin today’s conference. Please go ahead.

Christian Schreier, CEO, Evusco: Thank you. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Bosco full year twenty twenty four webcast, now that we have released our full year twenty twenty four results and annual report earlier this morning. My name is Christian Schreier. I am the CEO of Evusco. And as you know, I joined Evusco only in September 2024 at a very critical moment in the midst of a massive and urgent turnaround operationally and financially.

With me here is Jan Pete Falk, our Ad Interim CFO. We will keep our presentation short and concise to explain as clearly as possible the current situation of ibusco. On the next slide, you will find the disclaimer. Jan, Pete, over to you.

Jan Pete Falk, Ad Interim CFO, Evusco: Thank you, Christian. We would typically not talk about this slide, but we would like to point out one thing in particular, which is that our financial statements are not yet audited. The reason is that the very challenging business circumstances that Bisco and Bisco has gone through in the last months and those which we continue to face and the transformation the company is going through, including its refinancing and restructuring efforts, have placed significant demands on the time and resources of the entire company. As a result, the drafting of the 2024 financial statements and consequently the external auditor’s audit process have experienced delays, which prevented completion of the audit within the expected time frame. This means that the financial statements included in both this presentation and the annual report and press release as published today are unaudited.

Christian Schreier, CEO, Evusco: Thank you, Jan Peter. The agenda is reflected on Page four. I will first give you an overview of 2024, which was a year of transition. Afterwards, I will give a brief management update, present the operational review, including the year end order book. After that, I will hand over to Jan Pete, who will talk you through the headlines of financial review.

After that, we will open the floor for questions. 2024, as I mentioned, was a year of transition. Let’s start a statement regarding our financial results on Slide five. As you all probably have seen in the press release published this morning, our annual results for 2024 are extremely disappointing. Reflecting on the full year, we have experienced major challenges.

Production came to an almost stem cell and received various order cancellations both in the second half of the year. Due to our accounting policy, these cancellations led to a reversal of revenue recognition. This reversal of revenues in combination with costs assumed for our turnaround plan and the restructuring plan, which we announced in December 2024, has had a corresponding impact on our financial result over full year 2024. So 2024 has been a challenging year to say the least, and 2025 will continue to be very challenging, especially from a financial perspective, which we will talk about later in this presentation. Despite these challenges, we have made good progress in different operational fronts, including the change in our production strategy, where we now outsource our production to our contract manufacturers.

We continue to receive positive feedback on our buses, and the market fundamentals continue to be strong on the back of key drivers such as government regulations and incentives driving the shift to electric buses throughout Europe, opportunity remains. The biggest challenge we face currently is access to liquidity, which has complicated our ability to finalize the production of our buses and to ship and deliver these buses to our clients on time. So that brings us to the next slide with an update on the items that we, a management team, are currently very much focused on. First of all, our turnaround plan. In 2024, as you are aware, we announced to shift the production strategy from an OEM to an OD model in which bus assembly is fully outsourced to contract manufacturers.

We have actively worked with both existing new contract manufacturers to streamline processes and align contractual agreements and have made significant progress with the optimization of our product footprint. In order to maintain full flexibility, we have now decided to also have the options to produce CASCO monoparts at one of our contract manufacturers, while at the same time maintaining the ability and there is the option to operate the full CASCO production in house at our own facility. In addition, we announced this morning our intention to consolidate our two facilities in The Netherlands into a single facility. The decision has been made to reallocate the RenRe facility to Doerner, and this is all part of the overall cost reduction program and our aim to have a lean organization. Another key focus area is the management of our liquidity constraints and also the emerging refinancing.

I’m therefore now handing over to Jan Pete for some additional information on this slide. Jan Pete?

Jan Pete Falk, Ad Interim CFO, Evusco: Thank you, Christian. As you may remember, in February 2025, we entered into a loan agreement of €22,000,000 with various lenders. Unfortunately, of the €22,000,000 which was fully committed at that time, excuse me, we are waiting for the last €5,000,000 to come in, which has also has an impact on our ability to make use of the letter of credit facility of our banks. The consequence is that this now constitutes a material uncertainty for Ebusco to continue as a growing concern. In addition, the same February alone, of which €12,000,000 may be converted into shares after our June AGM, and the outstanding LC utilities must be repaid by mid August.

Within this context of the short term liquidity constraints and the mid August refinancing, we’ve now started preparations for the legal separation of our bus and energy operations and will explore strategic options for both businesses in the coming periods. We are naturally also exploring options to address the mid August refinancing and we put significant efforts in addressing our near term liquidity constraints. As we have published our annual report today, we also want to briefly look back on 2024. Therefore, we will take you through our operational review on the next slide. Over to Christian.

Christian Schreier, CEO, Evusco: As already mentioned, we have made progress with the implementation of our OED model. Throughout 02/2024, we have delivered 157 buses. And despite the difficulties associated with the various cancellations, we have been able to relatively quickly reassign 74 canceled buses to other customers, including a number of existing clients. For us, this is an important proof point of the quality of our product. We ended 2,024 with an order book of 581 buses, which secures a production until into end of half year twenty twenty six.

On Slide 10, you will find our complete order book split out in the categories you are familiar with. From the outset, it may feel to you that we have lost a large number of orders. The fact is that we have made an adjustment by taking out the options for the Bosco two point two buses that we previously presented in our order book, and we have done so based on, our assessment of a low likelihood of these options actually converting into fixed orders. With this adjustment, we aim to provide a more accurate picture of our order book, taking into account the situation the company is in currently. I would now like to hand over to Jan Peter again.

Jan Pete Falk, Ad Interim CFO, Evusco: Thanks. Thanks, Christian. On this page, we show three key line items from our full year 2024. Clearly, not a result we’re proud of, but Christian has explained well what has caused this. 02/2024 has been a year of transition in which we experienced major challenges.

Production came to an almost standstill, and we received various order cancellations both in the second half of the year. Due to our accounting policy in relation to revenue recognition, these cancellations led to a reversal of revenue that we already recognized. This reversal of revenues in combination with cost assumed for a turnaround plan and the restructuring plan, which we announced in December 24, has had a corresponding impact on our financial results over full year 2024. We also reported some write downs of inventory, goodwill and some equipment and machinery, which obviously also had a negative impact on our results. The same applies to some settlement expenses that we incurred and that were related to the earlier referred to contract cancellations.

For our detailed financial results, we refer to appendix five of our press release, which contains a financial review and the unaudited annual report. Christian, over to you.

Christian Schreier, CEO, Evusco: As a closing statement, I want to say that we are very disappointed with the financial results of the year 2024, but we continue to believe in our people, our product and the underlying market and are fully committed to address the short term liquidity constraints that we discussed before. I would use this opportunity to thank you, Jan Pete, for your support and guidance as interim CFO until today, which will be your last day at the company. You have played a key role for the company in this turbulent period, and I was very lucky to have you by my side. So thank you for that. Operator, back to you to open the floor for any questions.

Rusty, Call Coordinator: Thank you, sir. As a reminder for our audio participants, if you like to ask questions or make a contribution to As there are no as there are no questions from our audio participants for now, I will hand you back to your host for any additional remarks.

Christian Schreier, CEO, Evusco: Yeah. Thank you. If there are no questions, I would suggest to close the call. Jan Peter, what is your opinion? Or should we wait Yes.

One more minute?

Jan Pete Falk, Ad Interim CFO, Evusco: Yep. We can wait a few more minutes to call back, but, obviously, we’re almost open afterwards for for any questions as well. So let’s close it.

Christian Schreier, CEO, Evusco: Okay. So then I thank all participants, everyone who listened in the call. Thank you, and have a good day, everyone. Bye.

Rusty, Call Coordinator: And this concludes today’s conference. You may now disconnect.

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