DonkeyRepublic Holding A/S

DonkeyRepublic Holding A/S

CCPH:DONKEY
8.20
DKK
0.00
(0.00%)
313.89MMarket Cap

Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptMarch 19, 2026

Moderator

Welcome to today's event where we have the pleasure to present Donkey Republic. As here highlighted on the front page, we are going to look at the annual report, the results, the expectation for next year.

We are joined by the company to help us through today's presentation and answer question by CEO Thor Møer and CCO Signe Storgaard. As always, there's a box down below where you can ask questions.

We unfortunately have a firm deadline. You need to be somewhere later on, we can go a little bit over 1:30, but we already have a lot of questions, I guess we will catch the ones who has already gotten in, but do feel free to keep asking questions in case we have the time, but we have a firm deadline.

For now, I think I will hand the call over to you, Thor.

Thor Pedersen

Thank you very much, and good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for joining this call.

My name is Thor Møer Pedersen, and I'm the CEO of Donkey Republic. Together with me, I have Signe Storgaard Sørensen, our Chief Operating Officer, and together, we have been looking very much forward to this presentation of our annual report 2025 and also present our outlook for our company and have a deep dive into our strategy.

Let's get to it. We expect to present 10 to 15 minutes, and then we have time to questions and answers afterwards.

If we start looking at the big picture, it has been an important year for Donkey Republic, 2025. I would like to highlight that we have launched our company strategy, titled Ride and Do Well.

We have enforced a very clear focus on disciplined and profitable growth, and right now, the entire organization is in execution mode, and quarter by quarter, we execute the strategy, Ride and Do Well. We will get back to that later in the presentation.

Also, 2025 was a year where we, as a company, strengthened our market position. We expanded as trusted micromobility partner across Northern Europe, and we did that by fortifying our position in existing cities, and then also, we managed to sign two very important new contracts in Germany.

We will also get back to that later on. As a third very important point for 2025, we created the sustainable foundation for scaling the company further.

That meant a structural cost reduction and also implementation of a new operating model, securing that we now can scale the company in a profitable and sustainable manner. All in all, we have a very bright outlook for 2026, and that was also sort of made clear by the completion of a oversubscribed private placement early 2026, based on our company strategy and the new strategic important contracts and also the new operating model.

We managed to execute a private placement of DKK 75 million that will fund our capex investment and also capitalize the company for future growth. All in all, a very bright outlook for 2026.

Now let's look at the figures in the annual report. We are very pleased to present an annual report without any surprises.

Financial performance is within our latest guidance announcement published in July 2025 shortly after I took over as CEO. What we see in the numbers is that bike sharing continue to increase.

Our number of active riders and also number of trips performed by our fleet increased and also outpaced the fleet expansion we executed, meaning that we actually have an increased adoption of our existing systems across European cities. Citizens are choosing to use bike sharing as an integrated way of transporting around cities.

That is very positive. That is demand increase.

Also, 2025 showed that we were able to fortify our fixed-fee revenue base. We did that without onboarding new cities or contracts, meaning that we actually managed to expand our existing contracts and thereby growing our fixed-fee revenue.

All in all, rider revenue and fixed-fee revenue grew and totaling a revenue increase of 13%, meaning DKK 166 million is a very good performance also based on the fact that we did not onboard new cities during 2025. Turning towards profitability, profitability performance 2025 was negatively impacted by legacy cost, also organizational restructuring and timing effects of licenses in the Netherlands and delayed tender processes across our core markets.

Nevertheless, adjusting for only the one-off nonrecurring restructuring cost, EBITDA actually increased 18% compared to 2024, meaning that profitability overall is in line with our expectations. Now, Signe, you will take us through a couple of important business highlights?

Signe Sørensen

Yes. It has been an important year, and as part of our strategy execution, I would like to highlight four strategic priorities.

First off, during Q3 and 4, we executed a comprehensive restructuring with a dual aim. First off, we did central cost, and unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to many valued colleagues.

Secondly, we also implemented a new operating model that allow us to scale growth efficiently going forward. I also want to highlight that we introduced our new Gen 4 bike platform, both including a new pedal bike and an electric bike.

It has been designed to optimize the operational performance, but will also increase our competitiveness across city tenders. We're also in the phase of using AI and machine learning more integrated in our organization, right now focusing on both software team, our street operations, and rider support.

This will continue to be a focus throughout 2026 and beyond. Lastly, we ended the year off with signing two strategic contracts in Düsseldorf and Ruhr.

Right now, we are preparing rollout. The first bikes will be on the street in Germany in April, and the roll on will continue until end of September, where we will then have these more than 8,000 bikes on streets.

Yes. Can

Thor Pedersen

we move on?

Signe Sørensen

Yes.

Thor Pedersen

As a part of our enhanced transparency, we have as of our half-year report 2025 disclosed regional performance, and we will also go through that, Signe.

Signe Sørensen

Exactly. In 2025, we also implemented a new organizational structure with three P&L centers being DACH, Benelux, and Nordics.

What we see in DACH was that we saw a strong revenue growth, and despite actually both scaling and increasing trip volume, we were able to keep the operational cost tight. This has led us to a strong and stable contribution margin of 54%.

Thereby, we also feel confident in the position of scaling both to Ruhr and Düsseldorf contracts. Yes.

For Benelux, we did see a slight decline in revenue due to downscaling of activities both in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Luckily, we also managed to basically increase the growth in both Antwerp and Den Haag.

The 4 percentage point drop in margin was due to one-time hits on both redeploying the fleet, but also exit cost. However, we're very confident going into 2026 that we will be able to restore the margin levels.

Finally, we have Nordics, coming from a period of stable revenue. We've seen an impressive improvement by 12% increase in revenue and also a improvement in the contribution margin even in a very competitive market.

This due to the rollout of the Gen 4 platform, which we did in Copenhagen, but also a structured, more data-driven approach to our pricing model and a continuous focus on making sure that operational excellence has been implemented. Now over to the company strategy?

Thor Pedersen

Yes. Thank you very much, and I would like to have a deep dive into our company strategy, Ride and Do Well, because that is the foundation of all our daily activities and also the outlook for our future expectations to our performance and company development.

Looking at the market trends towards 2030, we do see and expect a market volume growth, a market for bike sharing doubling in the period from 2025 to 2030. Also, we do see that bike sharing as a infrastructure transportation component is maturing, and we do expect that bike sharing will increasingly be integrated with public transportation in general as an infrastructure component.

We do see that already in many of the cities where we operate. It's, for instance, Geneva and Hanover, where we have close links between our bike sharing systems and the public transportation network in general.

We see this trend as a key driver for future market opportunities and also as a way to actually enhance the benefits of bike sharing systems in larger cities. Coming from there, we do also see right now a tendency, and we expect that to increase, that long-term contracts will be dominant in the bike sharing market across Europe and especially in our core markets.

Looking at Donkey Republic, we are very much aware that we are doing business in a very competitive environment, as Signe also alluded to, where we really stands out and where we continue to focus, that is aiming to be the preferred, trusted city partner within micromobility. We have a very strong point of departure with long-lasting relationships across cities in Europe, and we do have the ability to take our experiences to new cities.

Also, we have a proven track record of integrating our system, both on the software side and hardware side, into public transportation systems and making a holistic and good user experience by doing combination travels between metro, buses, bike sharing, and trains. Lastly, we do have a continued focus on delivering highly efficient operations, making sure that we always and continuously improve our activities on the streets and in our workshops, in improving our spare part management and so forth, making sure that we can actually run profitable and increasingly profitable operations.

Looking at the roadmap towards 2030, we aim to grow our business in volume and also harvesting the economy of scale effects. In 2030, with this plan, we do expect to have 30 to 35 million annual trips, and that would be serviced by a fleet of 60 to 75,000 bikes.

On the more short term, we have published guidance for 2026 back in January, and we can confirm this financial guidance also today. We do have a strong focus on implementing our operating model, increasing operational efficiency, and, of course, rolling out our new operations in Ruhr and Düsseldorf.

That will be key task for 2026. We do also pursue attractive market opportunities in 2026, enabling us to grow our fleet in 2027, not only reaching the lowest range of our ambitions, but moving towards the high ranges.

That will require additional contracts, and we will come back to that in a little while, how our pipeline looks like. For 2027, we do aim to onboard additional cities, and we also have a disciplined focus on continued operational efficiency, expecting to increase our overall contribution margin to the level of around 55%.

I think that was sort of the short version of our strategy, and more can be found in our annual report that was published a few days ago.

Signe Sørensen

As you see here, this is the tender and prospective license pipeline, which is basically the engine that underpins our strategic ambitions and also proves that the market demand is growing. We remain dedicated to actively pursue disciplined growth, and in 2026, we will continue to pursue the strategic opportunities within our defined markets.

As you can see here, the final award stage, which is the two contracts that we have alluded to before, being Ruhr and Düsseldorf, have been awarded, and we are in motion with rollout. On top of that, we are right now both in the process of the application for three tenders and are preparing additional above 10 numbers of tenders with corresponding to more than 30,000 bikes.

A lot to come and a lot to focus on in 2026 as well.

Thor Pedersen

Exactly. Now, thank you for being patient and listening.

Now it's also time for some questions, and Michael, can you take us through?

Moderator

Yes, surely. There's a little bit whether the cost of a standard bike and an e-bike cost.

Can you elaborate a little bit on these cost structures on these bikes?

Thor Pedersen

I can at least summarize what can be interpreted by already disclosed data points, and from there, you can extract that the blended average capex for a bike is €1,000 per unit. Thank you.

Then

Moderator

regarding the new agreements in Germany, are you rolling out both e-bikes or we see the standard bikes there in these contracts?

Thor Pedersen

It is only classical pedal bikes in Ruhr and Düsseldorf contracts. That was a part of the tender requirement, so that was the preferred solution for those two tendering bodies, and it is a city preference in both the Ruhr region and in Düsseldorf.

In other cases, we do see cities prefer e-bikes, so that is very much to follow the city requirements and requests.

Moderator

Because there's a question also, is it coincidental, meaning that those two cities are just preferring mechanical bikes, we shouldn't read too much in it, you are still targeting a strategy with both bikes? Is that correct?

Thor Pedersen

Most definitely, and we do have a hybrid fleet and will continue to have that. We do see also synergies in systems with both e and what we call p-bikes, classical mechanical bikes and electric bikes.

There is also in both Düsseldorf and Ruhr contracts expansion options, potentially in the future, those systems can also be expanded with e-bikes, but no decisions has been made at this point. That

Moderator

actually answered the question on whether there was any expansion in the two German contracts. Regarding these contracts

Thor Pedersen

A short one, Michael, on the expansion

Moderator

side.

Thor Pedersen

It is an important highlight that from an historical point of view, we have been successful in actually expanding our activities within an existing contract. That was also what I alluded to in the run-through of our annual financial performance.

Moderator

Perfect. Then can you get a little bit closer to the timeline for when will this rollout start and when will the, I might say the financial impact be?

Is it a little bit back-end loaded or is it a stable rollout through to the start of this year and the rest of the year?

Signe Sørensen

Yeah. As I already said, the first bikes in Ruhr will be available in the beginning of April, and then, you can say, the more heavy lifting of the rollout will take place over the course of July, August, and September.

Then by the end of September, we will have reached the final number.

Moderator

Perfect. If someone wants to model that, then at least we have an idea of that.

Thor Pedersen

With the point from Signe, you can then also calculate that the full P&L effect of Ruhr and Düsseldorf will emerge in 2027, but of course, we will also have positive effects already in 2026. Then

Moderator

there's a specific one for the city contract with Turku, was announced in '22, a four-year contract with option for two times two years extension.

Thor Pedersen

Seems

Moderator

to be very successful.

Thor Pedersen

Yes. The question is?

Moderator

Has that decision been made to extend the contract? There's a little bit here about this specific contract or in general, where are you seeing some extensions being important?

Thor Pedersen

I think Turku is a very well-driven and very used bike system, and we appreciate very much our collaboration and partnership with the city of Turku. The contract, as you said, is a four-year contract with two times two-year options of extension, and back in June 2025, the first two-year extension option was signed, for now, the first extension has already been agreed upon.

Moderator

Perfect. In general, are you seeing a lot of extensions, a lot of opt for extensions?

We have the idea about your pipeline, but also, I guess the extensions is also an important part of

Thor Pedersen

Exactly. Sort of defending existing cities and business is a vital part of our everyday business activities, and we do see a positive outlook and also have the confidence in us being able to secure prolonging of the contracts needed.

Then

Moderator

there's a little bit broader question about the competitive situation in these long-term city contracts. There's a little bit about has it intensified?

Has that meant that there's more pricing pressure than what you maybe have seen earlier on? A little bit insight into these long-term city contracts, what you meet by your competitors and whether it's pricing pressure out there.

Thor Pedersen

Yes. I think it's a very relevant question, and it is important to highlight that we do see that the bike sharing industry in Europe is a highly competitive environment, and for public tenders, price and quality are the key parameters, and especially price is the defining sort of point in order to secure contracts.

Yes, we do see competition. We do also see ourselves in a position where we are able to win that competition, latest proven by our securing of Ruhr and Düsseldorf contracts, and also, that is, for us, a proof point of the success of our Gen 4 platform.

We bid with the Gen 4 platform and had a price-competitive offer, and therefore, we can also now roll out in those two cities.

Moderator

You already touched a little bit on the next question then. Are the fourth generation living up to expectation regarding service cost, durability, and user satisfaction?

I guess that's also a big part of it, you have already started that, let's get these question out.

Signe Sørensen

Yeah. As said, we started the rollout in 2025 in Copenhagen, where we both launched the classical pedal bike, but also the e-bike, which was new here in Copenhagen.

We have seen very good user satisfaction and also very high adoption rates to the e-bike, and while doing that, we have seen continuous sort of low maintenance cost so far. It's been really nice for us to test with just 1,000 bikes here in Copenhagen before rolling out the two major contracts in Germany.

Far, we are very satisfied with the results we're seeing.

Moderator

Any on the user satisfaction, how do you measure that? Do you have some kind of surveys or something like that to ask about that?

Signe Sørensen

We do. Every time a rider has completed a ride in the app, they will get a question about how the ride has been, and obviously, we do measure across all the different variants of bikes that we have, what was the satisfaction level, how good was the ride, how easy was it, and also if there's been any challenges with the bike.

We are also measuring that per bike generation. Then

Moderator

we go a little bit into the accounting notes. You have a deferred tax asset.

Let me see here, 43.2 million that you potentially could activate if auditors start to get convinced that it's a sustainable, well-run, profitable model there. There's some questions about it.

Do you expect to start, yeah, taking that in over the P&L and put it on your balance sheet in '27?

Thor Pedersen

It is a good question, and also, thank you for reading through our annual report. That shows that we have participants here that have done their homework.

Thank you for that. Yes, we have identified a deferred tax asset of DKK 43.2 million.

It is not recognized in the 2025 financial statements. The deferred tax asset will be recognized when the group generate profitable, taxable results in Denmark.

Moderator

Perfect. We actually catch the question we had gotten in advance, we have 4 minutes.

In general, there is a couple of questions around your capital needs for this Germany, there's some calculation. You said a standard bike, €1,000, 8,500 bikes, and so on, and what capital you have raised.

Can you comment a little bit on the capital situation? I know you can't be specific, but a little bit on how much is used of the new money for rolling out here in the Ruhr and Düsseldorf and so on and how you see this situation with your capital and your investments going forward?

Thor Pedersen

Thank you for the question. Overall, it was a very successful capital raise we executed in the early 2026.

The utilization of the capital will, of course, be, number one, execution of the Ruhr and Düsseldorf contracts with the related capex cost, but also an overall optimization of our financial structure and making sure that we have the capital muscles to react on market opportunities in both '26 and '27 and onwards, making sure that we can actually fund the company strategy as I presented. All in all, we do have a, I would say, game-changing event with the capital raise that we executed in early 2026 and really putting the company into a position where we can now focus on optimizing our capex funding, optimizing our financing structure, and executing the growth plan that we have laid as a company.

Moderator

Perfect. Then maybe also a little bit I'm jumping a little bit because I try to choose.

You talked about AI and machine learning. I guess that must be a big part of running a big fleet, running a lot of employees who need to service them, getting customers into the business.

You mentioned that you're doing it. Can you elaborate a little bit more on the parts you are using here, and maybe a little bit about your expectations for efficiency gains or maybe that's a little bit too early, but elaborate a little bit about how you're doing this?

Signe Sørensen

Sure. I think, as you say, it's a little too early to really sort of show the results, but as an example, in the street operations, we are getting the AI to basically tell and plan the route for our mechanics to go out and fix the bikes, instead of them planning themselves, we have artificial intelligence telling them what's the good route, what needs to be available for them to fix the bike.

In the rider support team is obviously making sure that with the generic questions coming in, that a lot of these answers can be generated by AI and support the team by making sure that it's more efficient, but it's also basically the standard answers that everybody gets so that it's the same user experience no matter which city you are calling from, to speak.

Moderator

On the customer side, moving the bicycles to where they are used, is there any thoughts about that, giving people a free ride if they move it to a place where they will get rented out? Absolutely.

Yeah.

Signe Sørensen

We are also working on rebalancing as part of this basically to make sure that we can support that the bikes are where we would like them to be based on where we see the biggest potential for revenue. That is a project that we are currently have in motion and that we will hopefully launch around summer.

Then

Moderator

there's also a general question. You talked a little bit about your market outlook, how much is growing.

Do you expect in those market outlook also to take market share from the scooter? I think more and more people are getting tired of scooters in the cities.

Any thoughts about the market development here, whether you also expect or have read that in the future, the bikes are going to take over for scooters?

Thor Pedersen

I think that, of course, we do think that bikes offer a much more reliable infrastructure component compared to e-scooters. Nevertheless, what we do see, that is a general quite rapid growth in demand for micromobility shared solutions, both being e-scooters and bikes, classical mechanical bikes and e-bikes.

My guess would be, and that is also what all sort of market intelligence will show, that is that moving forward to 2030, we do expect that from a European level, we will have much more e-scooters and much more shared bikes. It's a general

Moderator

They're growing together is that

Thor Pedersen

It's a growing trend with shared micromobility, both being scooters and bikes.

Moderator

Perfect. I have already run you a little bit over time.

I'm not allowed anymore. There's some questions I'm sure if somebody wants a question answered, they can contact you for that direct question to that.

Thank you for you two for taking us through your results and answering questions, and thank you for a lot of good questions.

Signe Sørensen

Thank you.