Hello, and welcome, everyone. Thank you very much for coming to our first half results presentation today.

I'm Isabel Green, Head of Investor Relations. Before we begin, I'd just like to remind you that today's presentation includes forward-looking statements.

The full disclaimer relating to that is at the back of the deck and in the press release today. We start today on the agenda with our CEO, Nicolas Huss, with a short introduction, and he'll be followed by Brendan Brennan, who has to take you through the financial results in more detail.

After that, Nicolas will give an update on our progress against our strategic priorities. Our prepared remarks today are expected to last for around 40 minutes.

After that, we will have time to take your questions, first in the room, on the phones, and if you're on the webcast, you can type them in, and as long as there's time permitting, we will read them out for you. Thank you very much, and over to you, Nicolas.

Thank you very much. Let me start directly.

Good morning everyone, and I think if I start by the H1 summary, what you will see actually is that we have had a strong start of the year and a good performance across our core metrics and delivery within guidance that we set. As we were communicating earlier on, we have delivered a solid set of results for H1.

If you look at the numbers here on the screen, you will see that we have +17% in total transaction value growth. We have a positive revenue growth of 1% and a 9% adjusted EBITDA growth, all of that in constant currency.

What I like is that we are delivering on TTV and profitability at the top of our guidance ranges. It's also important to see that we have delivered more than 100%, actually 103% of cash conversion, underlining both the quality of the earnings, but also the discipline of our operating model.

Overall, I think it is a performance that reflects clear execution. I think the execution against the strategy is something that I like very much personally.

We have this good cost and capital discipline, and the ability of the business to perform well as market conditions evolved along the period, as we will come back to that in a few minutes, no? If I first start with a strategic progress update.

Wanted to highlight the progress we are making there. We have this strategy, we've explained that to you, and in the first half, we made good, tangible progress across the pillars.

Few examples, maybe to start with, you have all of this on the slide in front of you. We said that we would keep expanding on scale and relevance, and that's what we did in high-growth market and channels.

We expanded our partnership with Traveloka, one of the leading travel platforms in Southeast Asia, giving us deeper access to fast-growing domestic and regional demand across the region. This, of course, strengthened our presence in APAC, and it supports our long-term volume that are so important in terms of being a scaled technology-led partner.

In China, you've heard of this, we've signed this very long-term partnership with Dida, one of the largest outbound B2B travel platforms. I think what I like about this partnership is that it's really scaling very strongly.

It's increasing the exposure to outbound and domestic travel flows, and also the partnership is highly complementary, combining our global sourcing capabilities with Dida's deep China distribution strength. Within the ecosystem, at the center of the slide, I think a few words here maybe to walk you through what we're doing.

I'll start with Queer Destinations. That's a very important partnership for us.

It's a strategic partnership. Queer Destinations, as you certainly know, it's a global verified ecosystem on inclusive travel, combining curated supply, content, technology, and of course, certification.

What makes it particularly attractive for us is that it serves a large, underserved, and highly engaged global travel community. This community actually represents more than $3.5 trillion of annual spending power as a national economy.

Queer Destinations frequently say that it would be probably the fifth largest economy in the world. We have been selected as the B2B intermediary, to keep it simple, thanks to the scale, the reliability, and the execution capability that we have, no?

Clearly, a very strong example on how our scale and distribution and fulfillment capabilities allow us to support partners to unlock incremental demand and build differentiated values, no? Fintech, you know that it's a key part of our strategy.

Here, I think there are some very good steps. You can see the names of Mastercard and Outpayce here on the screen.

I think we've launched this partnership with both of them, and it's about Outpayce becoming a strategic partner. They are now powering a cloud-native virtual card issuance with supplier payments capabilities.

What we do with them is that we do this virtual program where we combine instant payouts, automated reconciliation, and multicurrency scale. We build actually on the strength of the three partners, of course.

Outpayce provide the issuing, the wallet, and the automation; Mastercard, by definition, the global reach, the acceptance and the scheme innovation; while we bring our capability in terms of hospitality and payments expertise, no? Last word on that tangible partner impact, it's clearly around improved liquidity, revenue generation, cash flow visibility, and operational efficiency, no?

For us, the key word here is long-term monetization, as we want to keep growing in fintech, no? Together, these examples, they really demonstrate that we are executing with intent.

That's something that was key when we last spoke to you. We are scaling where scale matters the most, making some choices.

Brendan would come back to that. We are building this differentiated ecosystem where we can create value, and we are also reinforcing profitability through this disciplined cash execution-led growth that you can see on the right of the slides, no?

Maybe a last word, I'm certain that you're all aware of that, but you have seen actually the launch of the €100 million share buyback program, €12 million of which was already executed in the last month, and the announcement today of our maiden interim dividend that you can also see on the screen, 7.5 cents per share, give or take, €18 million, well actually €18 million, no? If I move now to the next slides here, wanted to spend some time on AI.

We get this question and debate a lot when we interact all together. Here, we have tried with the team to put a clear vision of how AI operates for us at HBX, no?

The message I would like to pass on this slide, it's not an ambition, it's a reality. We do that every day, we've been doing that for some times, no?

The example that you will see on this page are actually already live, deployed, or actively being rolled out, no? You'll remember what we said for us, it's about three very practical objectives: automation, acceleration, and augmentation.

Let me quickly give you a few snapshots here. If I start with the first one, automation, here we have this AI-enabled room mapping, which is a good example of how we are removing friction.

It's about making it easier. We do that, for instance, also with Civitatis, in sourcing, and the objective is very simple here.

It's to improve the content accuracy, to make sure that we reduce booking errors, and to increase fulfillment reliability. All very tangible benefits for our partners.

We're using machine learning models to automatically match hotel room descriptions across different suppliers and distributors, and we're significantly reducing manual intervention and error rates, no? It's a fewer post-booking issues and higher conversion benefits when you look at it all together, no?

In acceleration, you have seen our first agentic AI agent is already live. It's all about automating high volume of internal workflows that previously required manual execution, and the team will focus, of course, on high-value activity.

What I see as important is that it's already delivering a financial impact. We will come back with Brendan to the increased productivity of the company, but here you see the first two agentic AI agents are generating already around €1 million of annualized cost savings.

It's a concrete example of what we do. In augmentation, you know that we're enabling new ways for demand to access and interact with travel contents.

Through conversational travel interfaces, partners can literally surface HBX content using natural language requests, rather than traditional search and filtering, no? Here, a word on MCPs as a key enabler.

That they allow AI to securely connect to our data, understand context, and retrieve the right content in real time. For us, it enables to us to act as a fulfillment layer of this emerging AI driven.

The point here is that we're not only working on today, we're also prepping for tomorrow in partnership with a certain number of players, no? You will see also that we have announced today a very interesting partnership, and acquisition, when it comes to AI.

We will come back to that if you want to in the questions and answers. Clearly, this is strengthening our willingness to develop experiences, but also our ability to connect the go-to-market on a much more efficient way in the coming months, no?

Brendan, up to you now.

Okay. Thank you, Nicolas.

Good morning, everyone. I'll start with a brief review of our income statement and the key metrics for the first half of the year.

We delivered a solid financial performance, with good execution across our core metrics and results within our guidance ranges. Total transaction value grew 17% on a constant currency basis to €3.8 billion, driven by double-digit growth across sourcing regions and strong performance in scale distribution channels.

Despite an estimated 1 percentage point headwind from the Middle East, which we'll come back to a little later. Revenue increased 1% in constant currency to €309 million or 2% excluding the Middle East impact, implying a take rate of 8.2%, down 1.3 percentage points year-on-year.

This reflects deliberate mix shifts and commercial actions to prioritize volume growth and market share capture. Gross profit increased 3%, supported by growth in higher-margin fintech activities, particularly with virtual credit cards.

Adjusted EBITDA increased 9% to €163 million, with margins expanding to 53%, driven by operating leverage, disciplined cost management, and productivity initiatives, including the increased use of automation and AI that Nicolas just made reference to. Net financing costs, of course, fell significantly, 76%, reflecting the impact of the IPO and last year's debt refinancing.

Finally, adjusted earnings were €83 million, up 44%, with an adjusted EPS of 34 cents. Really a very robust start to our our financial year 2026.

In terms of the geographic performance and how our our performance split across our major regions, then let's take a look. In Europe, TTV grew 16%, driven by continued strength in domestic and interregional travel across our core markets, including Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.

As our largest region, this performance reflects both resilient demand and deep distribution relationships. In Americas, TTV increased 18%, supported by strong domestic demand in the US, Canada, and Brazil.

Growth was further boosted by the expanded Despegar partnership, which you'll recall from our previous conversations, with contribution quadrupling year-on-year, making it our largest partner in Latin America. In parallel, several large hotel chains, including Choice and Marriott, delivered strong growth, particularly in US domestic corridors.

In MEAPAC, TTV grew 16%, with APAC a key highlight, up 17%, driven by strong performances in Japan, Singapore, and the Philippines, alongside expanded channels in China. The strong underlying performance was partially offset, of course, by the disruption we saw in March in the Middle East conflict that has arisen at that time.

Overall, these results underline the value of scale, partnership, and geographic diversification, which continues to support our above-market growth even as regional conditions evolve. Moving on to the next slide, we wanted to spend a little more time this time out talking to you about some of the very conscious decisions we've made in the last while, and the mix shifts reflect deliberate choices to scale the business and align with fast-growing demand pools.

Excuse me. Increased use of third-party supplies is a strategic enabler in this context.

Beyond supporting short lead-time demand, it expands our reach into new markets and segments, and allows us to scale volume efficiently while maintaining a disciplined cost structure. You can see the increase there, 14% to 17% year-over-year.

We continue to see a structural shift towards shorter booking lead times, and we are increasing our share of this segment, with bookings made inside 3 weeks increasing the share of TTV year-on-year. That's probably not a surprise, as we see that often in times of more geopolitical instability, people do leave their decision-making that bit shorter in their lead times.

At the same time, we are increasing exposure to fast-growing, high-throughput distribution channels, particularly OTAs and wholesale, where our technology, connectivity, and fulfillment capabilities provide a clear right to win. These choices can have near-term implications for mix and yield, but they are designed to scale efficiently, deepen partner integration, and secure long-term value and volume as scale and automation builds the economics of profile of this type of business.

As I said at the outset, these were very conscious decisions. We made them proactively.

I think they've had a really, really positive impact in our TTV growth rate, and obviously shows the dynamism of the business and its ability to respond, even in times of uncertainty, as we've seen with the Middle East crisis. Turning to take rate, this slide shows how the mix evolution flowed through in the first half.

The change is primarily mix-driven. Around 50 basis points reflects shifts in customer product and channel mix, including higher exposure to OTAs, wholesale, and third-party supply, alongside a continued shift towards shorter lead-time bookings, as we talked about on the previous slide.

Pricing actions account for around 30 basis points, reflecting targeted commercial decisions taken to protect volume, support partners, and remain competitive through a more volatile trading environment. Together, these deliberate actions explain around 80 basis points of the total movement.

The remaining 50 basis points relates to the timing of non-trading effects, including some individually small one-off items. The Middle East impact, of course, would have had a force majeure impact upon cancellations, elevated cancellations, and that would have flipped some refundable rates to non-refundable.

That obviously has an impact as well on these elements of take rate. Obviously, shifts in contribution from legacy revenue components, as we work with our partners to improve connectivity, automate processes, and increase penetration of fintech solutions.

Again, some of the decline there is offset by growing profit contribution from fintech solutions like virtual credit card penetrations, which of course is seen as a positive trend on our gross margin line. Overall, this reflects deliberate execution choices, as I said, and we are scaling into faster-growing channels where near-term yields can be lower, but relevance, volume, and long-term value are higher, importantly, as automation and scale benefit build.

We believe that pace of take rate decline is flattening, supporting more stable economics over time, and giving us confidence about our midterm view. Turning then more to the deep dive on the on that on the Middle East, and what's specifically happened in that region during that during the the period of March, April specifically.

We saw sharp declines in travel into and out of the Middle East, alongside reduced interregional flows. For context, the Middle East has been growing at around 8% year-on-year in FY '25, providing a useful pre-conflict run rate.

The step back in March and April represents a clear reversal, driven by cancellations and corridor disruption. Disruption to long-haul transit corridors, particularly between APAC and Europe, also weighed on certain flows.

This led to some under some moderation, I should say, in growth outside the Middle East, with the rest of world growing easing to around 12%, compared to the group's 17% half year first half run rate. Partially offset by relocating demand, with stronger inter-Europe travel, particularly into the southern European destinations such as Spain, Italy, and Portugal.

Importantly, we are seeing very strong and accelerating growth in the Americas, especially in the US, which has helped offset some of the broader pressure on growth. Overall, we estimate that the conflicts reduced H1 TTV and revenue growth by around 1 percentage point, as I as I mentioned earlier.

Looking ahead, in our base case, we assume a 4-month period of of disruption from March to June, followed by a gradual stabilization, and travel patterns adjust. On that basis, we estimate an impact of approximately 4 percentage points on full year TTV and revenue growth.

Importantly, much of the demand has been reallocated rather than lost, supporting performance outside of the most affected corridors. While near-term visibility remains limited, our diversified geographic exposure and agile commercial model continue to support resilience, consistent with how the group has navigated previous periods of regional disruption.

On costs and efficiency, we remain highly focused on cost discipline and efficiency, and this has enabled us to deliver adjusted EBITDA ahead of guidance, while continuing to support growth. Overall operating costs decreased 5% year-on-year, despite revenues growing 1%, reflecting strong operating leverage.

Around 80% of our costs are not directly linked to trading volumes, as you you'll know, and total average FTEs were down circa 2% year-on-year. Commercial costs, our largest cost line, fell 8%, benefiting from the commercial reorganization and efficiency initiatives we implemented, continuing to support growth through scaled partnership.

Global operations costs decreased 9%, driven by AI-enabled automation and footprint optimization. Technology costs declined 3%, mainly due to lower cloud costs, which is a result of our more efficient use of that technology, while maintaining investment in reliability and security.

Total technology spend, including CapEx, was €44 million, or 14% of revenue, which is very much in line with our target in the long term. Central costs increased just 1%, reflecting ongoing discipline and the one-off step up associated with being a publicly listed company.

Non-functional costs declined 5%, primarily due to a lower variable remuneration with bonus accruals adjusted in line with performance. Overall, this cost performance demonstrates structural discipline, scalability, and efficiency, supporting profitable growth and strong cash generation.

Cost discipline at HBX remains structural and non-tactical. As the business scales, we continue to benefit from our largely fixed cost base and increasing operating leverage.

Importantly, continued investment in automation, AI-enabled workflows are more scalable sourcing models is improving productivity productivity across the organization. Further, we see a clear opportunity for double-digit productivity gains over the next 15 to 18 months, supporting our margin resilience as volumes grow.

This underpins our ability to deliver EBITDA growth and strong cash generation, even as revenue mix continues to evolve. Moving now to slide 14, which shows the evolution of our net debt position.

Adjusted net debt increased seasonally to €741 million, reflecting typical first half working capital outflows, alongside continued investments in the business. Leverage remained comfortable at 1.7 times adjusted EBITDA, well within our target range of 1 to 2.

Strong operating cash flows continue to underpin balance sheet strength, offset by net interest, CapEx, and modest FX movements. Key driver of the working capital movement was continued growth in virtual credit card usage.

Reported net debt at the period end was €602 million, including these seasonal working capital effects. Overall, the balance sheet remains strong, with ongoing cash generation providing flexibility and optionality within our disciplined capital allocation framework.

On slide 15, our strong cash generation underpins disciplined capital allocation, as I mentioned. We continue to invest selectively in growth, with €23 million of CapEx in H1, focused mainly on technology, strategic initiatives, and the support and scalability supporting our scalability and efficiency.

Alongside this, we completed the acquisition of PerfectStay, primarily with outyear contingent consideration being involved. Net leverage of 1.7 times maintains flexibility for continued investment while preventing a balance sheet sorry, while preserving, I should say, balance sheet resilience.

In parallel, we have initiated capital returns, including the €100 million share buyback that Nicolas made reference to, our inaugural interim dividend at 7.5 cents per share, and we purchased €12 million in the share repurchases in the first half of the year. On top of this, we announced our interim dividend today, and we confirm our intent to pay 20% of adjusted earnings for the year.

Turning to slide 16 and the outlook for FY '26. Trading conditions became more volatile, of course, from late February, driven primarily by the escalation of the Middle East conflict.

Based on current visibility, we have updated our FY '26 guidance to reflect an estimated 4 percentage point adverse impact on full year TTV growth. Our base case scenario assumes a 4-month period of disruption, followed by gradual stabilization and progressive improvement, as travel patterns adjust and rerouting continues.

As the disruption impacts in Q3 and Q4, which represents a meaningful share for full year performance, the effect of the full year guidance is more pronounced, consistent with the broader industry effects of the conflict. As a result, we are now expect constant currency TTV growth between 11% and 15% in FY '26, continuing to outperform the underlying accommodation market, which is estimated to grow at around 3%, including a slowdown related to the Middle East.

Revenue growth is expected to be lower, in the range of 4% to 1%, as obviously previously mentioned, predominantly as a result of the 4% impact to the Middle East. However, we also have that deliberate mix decisions that I made reference to earlier, including greater exposure to scaled distribution channels, shorter lead-time bookings, and targeted commercial actions taken to support partners through the disruption.

In parallel, we have continued to prioritize actions that protect long-term scale, partner relationships, and the ecosystem economics. There was deliberate strategic choices.

While they have an expected short-term impact on revenue mix, they support the structural strength of the business as conditions normalize. We will continue to maintain a strong focus on cost control and operational efficiency.

Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of -5% to -2%. As a reminder, around half of our revenues in TTV is US dollar-denominated, which is important for your modeling.

Consistent with prior periods, we therefore provide guidance on a constant currency basis. Based on current spot rates, FX is expected to represent sorry, is expected to represent an approximate 2% to 3 percentage point headwind to reported growth rates.

Operating free cash flow conversion is expected to remain strong, albeit slightly down from where we'd like it, at between 90% to 100%, but still very favorable outcome there overall. Continued execution against our strategic priorities will reinforce growth, relevance, and efficiency over the medium term.

This underpins our confidence, while our medium-term ambition remains unchanged, supported by strong structural growth drivers, ecosystem expansion, and disciplined execution. With all of that said, I'll hand back over to Nicolas.

Okay. Thank you, Brendan.

A few comments before we move to Q&A. The first one is, how do we navigate change?

Just wanted to maybe provide a little bit of perspective. The story that we've mentioned several times.

I think it's a very attractive market, despite circumstances. It has a continued long-term growth.

It's growing much faster than global GDP on a long-term perspective. Of course, on top of the actual events, you have this ongoing structural change, and it's becoming, of course, more complex.

What we have explained is that our strategy at HBX has been designed to specifically navigate this environment, and that these are the changes that we've done last summer. Let me try to walk you through that.

Growth is increasingly concentrated in a few aspects. You have this scaled distribution channels, you have this shorter booking lead times that we've commented on again and again, and you have, of course, a greater pricing transparency.

Hotels are also placing much greater emphasis on cost efficiency, control, and profitability. At the same time, what we see is that competition across accommodation and distribution is more intense, with, of course, this greater transparency on price and terms.

It's reshaping the way demand is allocated. We know that these dynamics favor distributors that can operate with scale, efficiency, and flexibility, while offering partners more than pure volume, no?

I was telling you, we have designed our strategy specifically to go through that. We have aligned and are aligning our platform where growth is being created, Brendan insisted on it.

We are protecting value for suppliers and distributors. That's in our DNA.

We're a B2B player, and we're positioning the group for a continued relevance and scale in this global accommodation distribution. A few words about what we have accomplished and a few numbers, no?

I've told you, I think we have these assets, of course, strength that have been proven in delivery, not just in theory. Some of the numbers that you will see here, I'm very pleased with, no?

Since 2019, just pre-COVID, we have doubled the scale of the company. A transaction, as you can see, which is way better.

We have also maintained this fully asset-light B2B model. Brendan was telling you, for instance, that our costs have been more than well-contained over H1.

Over the same period, the profitability has scaled meaningfully, adjusting EBITDA margins having increased to around 60% of our revenue. You can see that the EBITDA per employee has almost tripled, which I think is reflecting structural productivity and disciplined execution as a company.

Also, what I see as very important is that this improvement has been driven by automation, simplification, and scale, not by one-off cost actions. As we continue embedding AI-enabled workflow and more scalable sourcing models, we see further productivity upside ahead of us.

It's far from being over. We keep on executing, and we will bring more productivity, i.e., more money to the company in the coming horizon, no?

This will, of course, support margin and cash generation over the medium term. The blue box is something that I like very much.

We have a broader strategy. It's not only about accommodation.

The ecosystem activities, such as fintech and other non-accommodation service, have run more than 2.5 times, and now represent material and growing contribution to value creation. I'll give you a number in a second, but maybe I would say that while accommodation still makes most of the group TTV, you see the impact in this strategy with around 20% of our gross profit now generated by M&E, by fintech, by hotel tech contribution.

We will keep adding activities, as for instance, we have been developing over the past 12 months a marketing-as-a-service activity, which is proven to be full of potential, no? You have seen that, again and again, this has been achieved alongside significant deleveraging following the IPO.

We have strengthened the balance sheets. We are providing also flexibility for continued investment and resilience through the cycle, no?

Last word on this slide. I think this strength, when you look at them together, they provide HBX with the resilience, with the scale, with the execution capability which are required to navigate structurally a more demanding market.

It also underpin our confidence in the group medium-term positioning to deliver sustainable value creation at scale. Okay.

What does it mean in terms of execution with the building blocks? A few snapshots on this one, no?

We said that we were executing on this. We are first scaling the core.

That's something which is really our DNA. It's about adjusting channel and client mix toward faster-growing demand pools, including OTA resellers, MEAPAC, short lead-time booking.

It is supported by the mix of direct contracting, which is what we have been doing always, and third-party supply, enabling a more scalable, cost-effective, and competitive distribution model, while protecting the value at the same time, no? The second, we just mentioned it, is this ecosystem growth that we're expanding through new partnership, product, and capability.

It's about embedding additional services around the accommodation flow, enhancing at the same time partner integration, but it also does improve our efficiency and reinforce our role as an end-to-end B2B partner, it's a non-negotiable. Then you know that we're really investing in AI.

We're embedding the AI workflow across the organization. Finally, we're expanding scale and capabilities by unlocking new growth segments beyond this accommodation distribution.

The intention, let me repeat that, because I think that it's strategically very important, it's not to be only a mere accommodation intermediary. It's about being more deeply into partner workflows and open new demand flows.

Civitatis is a very good example of that, but PerfectStay on dynamic packaging, you will see a great announcement coming in the coming days, and Bridgeify, these are all good things that help us from a partnership perspective. Then finally, one last slide to try to summarize what we've done and where we are today, no?

The intention is what you have in the blue box at the top right of the slide here. It's really building HBX into a scale, AI-enabled B2B partner of choice.

We are creating scaled distribution platform where scale itself becomes structural as an advantage, driving efficiency, resilience, and relevance. This platform is supported by this broader integrated travel ecosystem where we at the same time deepen partner integration and extend our role beyond pure distribution.

When you look at it, by combining the scale through an AI-enabled operating model and ecosystem capabilities that we have proven over the years, we're evolving into an operating and fulfillment layer for the B2B travel. It's way beyond just a distributor role, no?

The positioning, I think, underpins our confidence in the group's ability to deliver. This is me done, and very happy to now open to Q&A.

Hi. Can you hear me?

Yeah. Thanks for the presentation.

Maybe two from my side. Can you give us some more color on how some of the smaller segments are doing, I think specifically around take rate and TTV of mobility and experiences, and how Bridgeify might or might not contribute to the full year and some synergies in there as well?

Then I guess, secondly, if I look at the share of shorter lead-time TTV, the mix was up 1 percentage point year-over-year. By giving your increased share with OTAs and the current environment with shorter lead time as well, I would imagine that share of shorter TTV should be even higher.

Can you help me reconcile that? Maybe

I'll start off on your second point, if that's okay, and we'll come back to your smaller businesses point in a moment. You're not wrong, and what we've tried to do today is try to parse it out as best we can.

There's always, because of the nature of how we work our business, some overlap between different elements. What we've tried to do is split it very much on the basis of where we're making conscious decisions about lead times and changing some of the offerings we're giving versus the volumes that would go to an OTA.

It doesn't mean that the OTA wouldn't have by nature a shorter lead time as well. There is some element of compounding effect.

We've tried to separate them as much as possible to say, if we look at these as discretely as possible, what do we think is the primary element around the change in trajectory, and we would say that the OTAs be slightly different, although you could probably do some additive math there between the two in terms of if you were just doing everything that had a shorter lead time than what previously it had. Again, what we're trying to do is be discrete as possible, to give you better kind of clarity on the actions that we're taking and that we can control to give better visibility to that.

I think the big piece from all of that is that we are doing exactly what we said we would do in Q4 and Q1, which is looking at where the market is fastest growing, being flexible, being able to react to that, which is seen from the very good trajectory of our TTV, which, if it weren't for the Middle East crisis, we would be beating our guidance for the full year on TTV. I think that really shows that actually the actions we have taken are having a meaningful impact, and that's really moving it in the right direction.

On the

The new companies, no?

On the new companies, yes, to your point, we've seen, as Nicolas pointed out, they're a very significant part of our gross margin story. 20% now of gross margin comes from our kind of ancillary businesses outside our accommodation core.

We've been, I made reference to it, particularly happy with the impact of our fintech solutions, and of course, that's very related to that TTV. That volume of total cash that flows through our business is very impacted, and there is a correlation, of course, between those.

We've seen that business performing really well ahead of its overall performance expectations. I would say we're doing a lot of work structurally on that business at the moment.

We've looked at how we integrate it into our organization. We have the acquisition of Bridgeify that will give us more ability to onboard more activities in a much faster pace than we have done previously using smart AI technology.

Albeit, I would say that's still a challenged marketplace, still not quite performing where I'd like it to, and certainly not at the level of the accommodation business in terms of year-over-year trajectory. There is work to be done.

We think we have the right strategy, we've done a lot to change the structure there, to make sure it's very embedded, and we're moving it in the right directions. I think there are some signs of positive traction as we go forward, and we're very excited about the Bridgeify acquisition.

The rest of those businesses, that's M&E, that's fintech, Roiback, I think, remains solid, strong, continues to be a good part of our organization. As we've brought in Thinkin, really now leveraging AI into that business as well, which is a kind of a new step for them in terms of their technology platforms.

We see it as a continuing story, the probably star of the class being fintech at the moment.

Hi, Olivia from Barclays here. Thank you for taking my questions.

Just two from me. First, can you give any color into current trading and kind of how summer bookings are going?

Then, secondly, the slide on take rate was super helpful. Regarding your commentary on take rate declines flattening, how should we think about that mix going forward then?

Sure. Do you want to start with the trading update, and I'll do the second step?

Yeah. I think it's, of course, by definition, more erratic.

We commented on the impact on March, which was very strong. Cancellations, they not only have impact on our volume, but they also have impact on our revenue and overall profitability.

By definition, with force majeure, which is what happened, you have to cancel everything, and then all of the refundable, non-refundable notion just disappear because our role is to protect the traveler. We've done a great job.

We had people on the deck 24/7 crisis teams, and I think it's something which is really valued by the clients. Interestingly, the volumes these days are actually very good.

Brendan said that, we have repositioned into different corridors, grabbing the growth where it's still. Some of it, it's easier for us; some of this requires more agility, but we're doing a big effort on that,

yeah. Yeah.

I'd say, yeah, it's been very positive over the last number of weeks. We think we've seen certainly that spike in cancellations decrease.

We're definitely through the worst of that, and as Nicolas said, a kind of a positive trajectory. I think from from a take rate perspective, we wanted to give you that much more color this time out.

I think it helps some of the narrative. We're, as we've said repeatedly, taking deliberate actions that are changing the mix of our take rate, albeit the underlying elements are still very, very solid.

That just changes from a from an absolute growth perspective, of course. I think when we talked about, the the idea of it flattening out in the second half, of course what we saw into last year, and to reiterate the point maybe, had it not been for the Middle East crisis, we do feel that both at revenue and EBITDA, we would be on guidance this year.

There would be that that was by far the biggest factor that had a kind of a negative impact, if you like, on performance. We did see in the second half of last year, as you recall, a softer trading period, and we were starting to react to it then, albeit, as we said at the year end, probably not at the speed with flexibility that we would we should have done at that point.

I think that gives us relatively an easier comp in the second half from a take rate perspective, as we started to adjust our our structures to be more, if you like, commercially competitive in the second half of last year. The the variance, if you like, isn't isn't as great in the second half of the year, plus, of course, now you'll see half-over-half, quarter-over-quarter, an easing in that overall trajectory.

We feel like in the first half of this year, we've done a lot, we've changed a lot as an organization. We've taken some of that that change, if you like, in the first half of the year, and our trajectory is that we should be able to see that flatten out in the second half.

I think the third quarter will be still impacted by probably most that's going to be the quarter that's most impacted by the Middle East, let's be honest. As we go into quarter four, I'd like to see us really getting back on the right side of growth from a revenue perspective.

Hi, it's Luka from Berenberg. Thank you for taking my question.

Just two from me. I know on the guidance a bit you've mentioned that you assume a 4-month conflict, followed by a gradual period of recovery.

I was just more curious, what do you mean by gradual recovery, and if you could maybe give it a bit of a context around the kind of -50% to 70% we saw in March and April, and how that could look like in Q4? Then just, I guess, a follow-up on the take rate bit.

You mentioned about a 30 basis point portion of the take rate decline was driven by commercial pricing actions. I was curious, is that something that you expect to kind of be structural and remain looking ahead into full year '27 as well, or is that more one-off kind of Middle East driven?

Thank you.

I'll start with your second question, and go back to your first one. I suppose, on the commercial actions that we've taken, I do think, again, as we said, we looked at the shifting of channels, but we also, and I said this in Q4 into Q1 as well, we also felt we needed to be more commercially competitive.

I always use the phrase sharper elbows, right? Make sure that we have our place in the marketplace.

It is a competitive, dynamic environment. I would never apologize for being a strong competitor in that space.

It is something that we look at. I think obviously you would say, yes, predominantly the Middle East crisis has made the environment more competitive, and so as a consequence, yes, I think that level is probably elevated, albeit again, as I said, I wouldn't say that that won't be a part of the math as we go forward.

What we would say is that certainly the quantum that we saw this half, if you like, was certainly impacted by that piece.

Sorry, just remind me on your Sorry, if I may,

Brendan,

while we go to the other part, which was I saw questions on the take rate and the impact, if I'm not mistaken. When it comes to commercial action, it's not something that we would do only for the short term.

It's really what, as Brendan was saying, we are building a distribution engine for the mid and long term, and that's very important. I could give you many examples, but I can build on Despegar that we announced literally a year ago.

When I look at the results this year, it's just flying. The relationship is way more efficient, and because we have this market share in the region with the hotels, we get the granularity.

Because we have both of that, then we get the Tier 2 players, some of them have already been announced, that are been signing with us also long-term agreements, no? Dida is another very good example.

It's not about only China and outbound and inbound as I have simplified earlier on. It's also about them leveraging our global sourcing capability.

For us, for instance, China was not open to our retail activity because of a geolocation constraints and many others, then through Dida, we will be able to deploy retail and just imagine the number of travel agents that you have there and how good they are. It also enable us to access the non-traditional players, which are very important in China and that they are very good at.

I would say, to make it clear, we always get into the first steps, but as we did for fintech and others, we have with this long-term partnership several steps that would go ahead and that we would keep announcing as we go through.

I think your first question, if I recall, was around what does returning to normal look like after that 4-month dislocation period?

Yeah.

I think one of the big things, obviously, and what we saw was, and this will surprise no one in the room, in terms of our corridors, not only in the Middle East, but one of the more impacted corridors was Europe to Asia, and of course that is very dependent on air travel through the UAE, through Qatar, through Saudi, and other areas that, of course, we've all traveled through and become very accustomed to travel through. What we're saying is our expectation is that the general population or the general public are much more comfortable traveling back through those areas again.

What I would say is that even in terms of if you look at the travel between Europe and Asia now, Istanbul has become a big hub now in terms of how people travel through these areas. We always make the point that there is short-term dislocation in our business, but like water, it finds a way to flow to how it needs to get there.

We do see demand being now rerouted. It's the combination of normality returning to the UAE, no further strikes and all the very significant destabilization we've seen, as well as these other hub areas really picking up and taking some of the previous volume that we were seeing traveling through the UAE territory.

For us, that's probably the biggest corridor that's impacted, or certainly one of the biggest pieces. UAE on its own and the Middle East, of course, is an important market and was a high-growth market, but relatively small in our overall business.

The other factor that we want to see obviously have a stabilizing effect is more certainty around jet fuel prices, of course, as well as you'd expect, and that I think is probably the biggest unknown at this point in terms of how that market will evolve over the next number of months with the Strait of Hormuz situation.

Thank you.

Hi, Chris from UBS. Maybe just one question from me on kind of the medium take rates.

You mentioned that this half was sort of impacted by sort of the Middle East crisis, and you said that the second half would be sort of a bit better, that the decline would sort of moderate a little bit. I guess, when we sort of think of next year, do you see that take rate decline moderating such that you shouldn't expect to see sort of a big deterioration, or how should we think about this?

It's a good question.

You'll have noted that we specifically maintained our midterm outlook in terms of the double-digit TTV growth with high single-digit revenue growth. We've had a couple of years where we haven't been able to deliver upon that, obviously, with whether it be tariffs last year and obviously this year with Middle East issues.

We do feel that the actions we've taken were necessary. We think it makes us more flexible as a business and a more fierce competitor in the marketplace, which we think is extremely important in terms of the market that we are in and making sure that we maintain and develop our scale as a real, real big competitor in that space.

As we go into 2027, our thesis hasn't significantly changed, i.e., that we can have a more flattened, if you like, detrimental impact between TTV and revenue, and that we should be able to maintain that midterm guidance.

Got it, thank you.

I think we've got clear in the room now, if we go to the conference call questions that we've got waiting in the queue, please. Conference call operator, can you open the line for questions, please?

Hello, thank you for taking my questions. Two here from mine.

The first one, regarding your guidance. If my calculations are correct, your guidance implies year-on-year OPEX growth in fiscal second half.

Could you provide a bit more color on this? Second, I appreciate the color on TTV that you provide across the different regions, especially on Middle East.

How should we expect take rates differences across regions to evolve in the second half of this year? Thank you.

I'll take a crack at both of those. The first one, I believe, was around the cost base development in the second half of the year.

I would say predominantly what we're seeing is that we continued to see good control in our cost base. There is a slight differential in terms of variable pay elements this year versus last year.

We are seeing, as we talked about, a lot of good trajectory in our overall business, but probably the predominant piece is the additive element of the acquisitions that will have an impact in the second half of the year versus the first half of the year. As you guys know, we effectively did two acquisitions, both of which will really only impact from H2, PerfectStay being the larger of those two, Bridgeify being relatively small cost base.

That's probably the biggest predominant change in terms of the cost base for the first half versus the second half. I think if I can just clarify in your second question, it was around the evolution of take rates by region, is it?

It was, yeah. How do we see it next year?

The evolution across regions this half or in March and how should we expect this to evolve in the second half of the year.

We've seen it, as I said, probably the predominant elements around take rate and take rate movement are the elements that we put on our slide today, which was around more of the mix around the distribution channels, as well as the lead times, as well as our mix of direct to TPS. They're probably the biggest moving elements.

That's why we call them out specifically. We have seen good, strong growth in Americas market, which is decent from a take rate perspective.

As well as, I suppose, one of the things that we pointed out, which is probably more of a negative on take rate in absolute terms, is we've seen more interregional channel rather than transregional channels. We're seeing more Europe to Europe, more Americas to Americas, less of the US to Asia, less of the Europe to Asia.

Obviously for us, take rate is optimized when we see well in advance, well-curated trips that have multiple destinations, and usually you're traveling from continent to continent. That is a negative impact, certainly.

We don't see that really predominantly changing or having a significant impact in the second half versus the first half. I think the big pieces at play will probably be thematically the same as we laid out in the slide for the first half of this year, albeit of course we're coming into the summer period, and as you guys know from experience, we see a lot more volumes interregionally just in the summer months, particularly in Europe, which has a negative impact on take rate overall.

hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Two questions, if I may.

The first one, it will be regarding OPEX. Making some calculations at the midpoint of your guidance, I obtain that you are assuming OPEX at around €285 million for this year.

Looking at the evolution of the first half, and also considering that last year you were reducing OPEX at around €24 million because lower variable compensation, I was wondering if you are assuming that you are coming back to normalized variable compensation in your guidance, or you think that looking at the current trading evolution, perhaps this figure could be lower, this has an impact in your OPEX? My second question will be a new follow-up on the take rates.

First one, on the non-trading factors impacting the take rate, I was wondering if the impact, for example, coming from cancellations is something that you had seen in March and April, but we should see a kind of normalization, and this should not impact moving forward over next month, or this could continue much months moving forward? Also, on take rates, from a geographical point of view, while clearly the Middle East conflict is impacting the business in Asia, where you have lower take rates, you are highlighting also that this is benefiting Southern European countries, where I think your take rates is higher.

I was wondering if we could see a significant positive impact from a geographical point of view in the take rate in the second half of the year. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll start with your OPEX question, and we'll come back to your take rate, and particularly your good point, which is a good point around the movement on the other items, if you like, that are impacting on the take rate evolution over time.

On the OPEX, as I kind of made reference to, obviously one of the biggest things that is increasing OPEX in the second half of the year is the addition of the new acquisitions that weren't previously in the business, that's the full impact of PerfectStay predominantly in the second half of the year. You're quite right, we reduced it very significantly, effectively zeroed it last year as a result of performance.

As we come into this year, we're still looking at that, and we're still viewing it. There is an additional amount, absolutely, in the cost base this year for that.

A lot of the factors are outside of our control this year. We think we are moving in the right direction, we're doing the right things, we want to have a bit more leverage on that particular point as we go through the course of the year.

Of course, that will be dependent upon results and performance in the second half of the year as well. We will judge it on that basis, and either wind it down, it'll be less of a differential perhaps than you're currently seeing in the midpoint, certainly, of the guidance.

Your point is a really good one in terms of the other elements of take rate where we have had those elevations and cancellations. We don't anticipate that to be as significant in the second half of the year versus the first half of the year.

We do see that as one of those elements when we talked about the flattening out of take rates decline. That's certainly an element that's going to play well there.

Did you want to come in on that last point re the regional of Europe piece, or are you happy for me to

No, I can just give the headlines, and please help me with that. You're right, we have a geomix which has an impact on the take rate, and you've followed us very well.

We said that historically Asia was the lowest take rate. You're just combining and saying that as we add more Southern European, we should improve.

All of this is absolutely true. There is one thing, if you remember that we've explained again and again, the difference between the summer in these regions versus the rest.

That, by definition, the Mediterranean region, for instance, is more competitive in the summer. We work with huge flows, and usually lower margins.

I wouldn't oversimplify the calculation. It's a complex one.

We're spending a lot of time to build all of this mix together, and once again, we've tried to make it very clear, very transparent to you with this slide and this explanation that Brendan provided.

Absolutely agreed. Fully agreed.

Thank you. Good morning, thanks for taking the questions.

I have a couple. Maybe starting with the supplier preferential agreements, I was wondering how they are evolving in the TTV mix.

I think in the last couple of quarters, if I'm not mistaken, you've talked about having a good pipeline on new SPAs, I was wondering if that's again increasing in the TTV mix. If not, could it be maybe a tailwind to take rate later in the fiscal year?

Secondly, it kind of relates to the point you were making earlier, Brendan, but on your balance sheet, I think trade prepayments assets were about 30% year-on-year. Can you elaborate again a little bit on the dynamics here?

Is it more related to SPAs, maybe, or is it distributor's financing? Does it relate to many different suppliers/distributors, or is it concentrated into just a few of them?

Thank you very much.

Sure. Maybe I'll start on your second point, if that's okay, which is, I think, again, looking at that working capital movement, particularly in the first half of the year, and what elements we were thinking about.

I think the quick answer is, listen, we do both. We look at both the supply and distribution side of our business in terms of how we use our balance sheet.

That is fair, and it is true. I would say on the SPAs, particularly, this is an area we're willing to support, and we have seen and saw that through the past.

We'll continue to do it. We think it's very additive to our overall margin mix, and I'm sure we'll talk to that in the next point when we get to the second part of the question.

It's certainly something we're going to continue to support. It's fairly broad, I would say.

As we talked about it, we have numbers of thousands, circa 4,000 to 6,000 SPAs. It is something that's continued to develop, and something where we will continue to use, and obviously that proportion of our business is meaningful in terms of EBITDA contribution.

On the distribution side, yes, this is, I think, something I wouldn't say it's new to us as an organization, but certainly we have significantly increased our focus, and I've been delighted, quite frankly, with the level of traction we've seen. Some of the announcements that Nicolas made earlier on today, Dida particularly has been an extraordinary relationship.

Despegar continues to be an extraordinary relationship. I talked about that quadrupling in volumes from last year.

Yes, I think I would say on the distribution side, it's more about significant relationships, and that's where we are supporting from a balance sheet perspective, and gives us significant regional opportunity.

Maybe at the sourcing, no? Thank you for giving us the opportunity to update everyone on sourcing.

Just for the sake of clarity, if you remember, we have four buckets to keep it simple, based on differentiation and the value add that we bring. The first one is what we call primes and SPAs.

This is where we have this very specific contractual relationship. It almost goes one by one, it's a negotiation, it's a longer-term commitment, and this part has been working actually better every time.

We were on the 27th of Feb, we were having this deep-dive review on SPAs, which you know are very important to us, differentiation, but also margin, and we're saying that we were really getting on the good side of it. It was very positive.

Of course, it's a part of our business, we didn't get into the detail, which has been impacted a lot by the Middle East. For instance, where we have, because of the five stars hotel concentration, etc., we have a very strong share of SPAs there, so that's something that we see luxury SPAs being impacted and in Asia all together.

We know that the trend would remain good because we were, of course, recover from that. Then we have the second bucket, which is select.

You remember we started last year this full automation, digitalization, AI enablement, where rather than having a people-intensive activity, we want to have all of this optimized. It was one of the big bets and initiative that we took last year, if you remember, and it's paying off very nicely.

All of the rationalization, regional deployment, concentration is done. We're moving into the AI enablement, and we're having the update with Brendan with these guys last week, I think, in one of our monthly business reviews, and it's working very nicely.

At the end of the spectrum, TPS is flying. As you've seen, we've invested a lot over the past 12 months.

We're very happy with the results. It's working better every day.

What you will see that it would work much, much, much better, three-time much, next year, as we're investing into a lot of new connections that will bring us literally dozen of thousands of hotel that we will make accessible to our partners. Keep an eye on this because it should pay off even nicely.

Then we have this part, which is in the middle, where we are probably differentiated, but maybe not enough. It's what's we call rest of DC, rest of direct contracting, and this is the next big thing to come.

The next big initiative for next year is probably, once we've optimized all of the rest, how do we make sure that we keep working on this one, no? All heading in the right direction, not to confuse you.

Tell us when to stop.

We're running over time,

but

we do have a couple of questions online. I'd like to squeeze a couple of those in, if I may.

Short answers.

Short answers,

quick-fire round. The first is a three-part question from one of our analysts, Nezla Nazir from Deutsche Bank.

Can you remind us the FX impact in 2026, specifically she's looking at EBITDA? What happens to outlook if the conflict prolongs beyond June, and do you expect a positive impact from the World Cup in the US over the summer?

I take the last one. I leave you with the two serious ones, and I take the last funny one.

Fair enough. Yeah.

2% is the quick answer. We said 2% was a headwind to our revenue and our EBITDA as we came into this year.

That's that point. The second question was, sorry, Isabel, my brain is gone a bit squiggly.

What happens to the outlook if the conflict prolongs?

Oh, sorry. Yes, of course.

Yes, yeah. Obviously, what we're saying is we've been very specific.

It's 4 months is what we modeled in with a gradual return to normality thereafter. If it continues for a 6-month conflict, some of that is kind of in our range, but it just depends on the level of conflict, to be honest.

We want to see some level of normalization before the end of the year. That's not to say that if it continues in the vein that it's going, I think our current range covers that at the lower end.

However, if it escalates, I think that's when it possibly there's additional risk.

On the US and the World Cup, I'll take it because I will give you the very short answer on the World Cup, and then use it to pass on a few messages on the US all together. It's working as usual.

These big events, Olympic Games in Paris or now the World Cup, for us, it's very specific, because the federations and the big companies, they come, they grab, they pre-book the hotels. As we get closer, very close to the date, then they say, well, we don't need it, and then they free it up, no?

Then this is where the machine starts, and where we have to, in the last minute, start relocating and all of this, and making sure that they would be sold. The hotels, they trust us a lot with that.

We did a great job in Paris, you remember. We did not such a good job in Qatar, with a very different setup, not such a big cities, where we probably didn't have the connection.

The US is a country where we have invested a lot over last year. You remember that we grew massively post-COVID, and then '24 was a stabilization year.

'25, we started this tiering strategy that I've explained here, expanding into Tier 2, Tier 3, building on distribution. The US, I can say that probably it's flying, no?

The numbers are just amazing right now. We see that this strategy, this investment is paying off, which then helped me to loop back to the World Cup, to keep it simple.

We're certain that as we get closer to the World Cup, we'll keep selling more and more rooms there.

Thank you. I've got two two small strategic questions to finish us off with today.

Firstly, can we have a bit more detail, examples of how the balance sheet is being used for new partnerships and hotel sourcing? Maybe I can,

sorry, if you allow me, because we never say that, but I'll start with M&E, like what we've been doing. I think we've tried to bring the bricks together.

PerfectStay, it's about dynamic packaging; Civitatis, it's about making sure that we get into the hotel systems, PMSs, etc., and we create a frictionless relationship. If you remember, I could keep on with the others, no?

Here we've tried to do that on a clearer way from a cash allocation perspective, and you may have seen that the structure is usually not to pay a lot of money upfront, but to build these based on success, etc., success together, which is very important. You want to go into the others,

yeah? I think the structural point on this one is, and to specifically speak to the question, what we see is that on significant distribution relationships, usually they're pre-existing relationships, and so there is an element of volume that goes through the business as a consequence of that.

We often look at these relationships in terms of, well, what kind of upfront investment do we need to do in the relationship? The growth that we substantially see, and we've seen this very very meaningfully with Despegar as a really good example, comes usually 18 months or a year, 18 months into it.

It's about making sure that we have done the investment in the first place with them, that it could be helping to build out a kind of almost joint venture-like type structure in the place where we're going to be working with them in a much more detailed way. That does require some upfront investment, and we sometimes use our balance sheet to capitalize on that.

Oftentimes you're seeing building of revenues thereafter, but significant benefits come in the outyears. You're kind of upfront investment with the promise of significant growth thereafter.

Hope that helps.

Last one, you said, no?

Last one, and it's a fairly specific, but direct question: are you looking for or pursuing any fintech partnerships in APAC?

Oh, listen, we are definitely looking to expand fintech. I think it's one of our successes.

You may have noticed that for one of the first times, we gave you an indication of what all of these new businesses are already bringing together, consolidated, and they are evolving very nicely. You've seen that we've developed our fintech approach by partnership, and I explained Outpayce, Mastercard, but there has been others, if you remember.

We'll come a point where we will have to see if this partnership strategy good enough to where we want to go, or will we need to start building up on some other kind of approach? We're not yet there, but it might be a question for the coming years, possibly.

We're done. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

It's been quite a good session. Thank you very much.