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Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptMarch 23, 2026

Operator

Clean punctuation and capitalization. - Keep spoken words verbatim, no paraphrasing, no shortening, no fixing grammar.

- Exact numbers/monetary amounts/percentages (digits & symbols). - Mark uncertain speech with [brackets?]

. - Final response contains ONLY the transcript text (no preamble, no closing remarks, no markdown fences or blockquotes).

- Every paragraph begins with a speaker label: "Speaker Name: " or "Speaker Name (Role): " if introduced. - Plain text, one paragraph per speaker turn.

1. Operator: 2.

Fabrizio Reignacci (Head of Investor Relations): 3. Pasqualino Monti (CEO): 4.

Luca Colman (CFO): 5. Pasqualino Monti (CEO): 6.

Operator: 7. Carlos Capurasi (Kepler): 8.

Fabrizio Reignacci (Head of Investor Relations): 9. Luca Colman (CFO): 10.

Carlos Capurasi (Kepler): 11. Operator: 12.

Niccolò Pessina (Mediobanca): 13. Luca Colman (CFO): 14.

Pasqualino Monti (CEO): 15. Niccolò Pessina (Mediobanca): 16.

Operator: 17. Marco Limite (Barclays): 18.

Fabrizio Reignacci (Head of Investor Relations): 19. Pasqualino Monti (CEO): 20.

Luca Colman (CFO): 21. Marco Limite (Barclays): 22.

Operator: 23. Luca Bacoccoli (Intesa Sanpaolo): 24.

Fabrizio Reignacci (Head of Investor Relations): 25. Luca Bacoccoli (Intesa Sanpaolo): 26.

Luca Colman (CFO): 27. Pasqualino Monti (CEO): 28.

Luca Bacoccoli (Intesa Sanpaolo): 29. Operator: 30.

Amal Patel (UBS): 31. Fabrizio Reignacci (Head of Investor Relations): 32.

Luca Colman (CFO): 33. Pasqualino Monti (CEO): 34.

Operator: 35. Fabrizio Reignacci (Head of Investor Relations): 36.

Operator: Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator.

Welcome and thank you for joining the ENAV full-year 2025 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode.

After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone.

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Fabrizio Ragnacci, Head of Investor Relations.

Please go ahead, sir.

Fabrizio Ragnacci

Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the full-year 2025 results presentation, which will be hosted by our CEO, Pasqualino Monti, and our CFO, Luca Colman.

In the presentation, management will provide some highlights of the period and then will walk you through the operational and financial performance for the group. Following the presentation, we will have the usual Q&A session.

Before we start, let me remind you that media can be connected to both the presentation and the Q&A session. Thank you, and now let me hand over to Pasqualino.

Pasqualino Monti

Thank you, Fabrizio, and good afternoon, everybody. I will start with a closer look at the operating performance.

Since 2023, the Italian airspace has shown a full recovery and continued to grow year after year. In 2025, en-route traffic for Italy stood at plus 24% versus 2019, up by more than 10 percentage points versus the comparator group in Europe.

2026 started on a strong note. As of February, en-route traffic is up by 7.6% versus 2025.

In this record growth environment, ENAV's operating performance has been remarkable and confirmed our role as best-in-class in Europe. Results in terms of quality of service are evident.

The number of flights assisted has grown over the years, and still we have always beaten the regulatory target, even by quite some margin. This track record gives us confidence that we will continue to overperform and achieve the performance bonus also in the coming years.

The significant operating performance was coupled with visible results also on sustainability. We have achieved a reduction in CO2 emissions of 86.4% versus the 2019 baseline.

We have been confirmed in the Climate A List by CDP for the second year in a row, and we have been included in the Sustainability Yearbook of Standard & Poor's for 2026. Besides the core business, the risk-return profile of the group has improved also thanks to the focus on the non-regulated business.

Managerial efforts to valorize ENAV's expertise and know-how resulted in a growth of around 1.6 times in revenues from the non-regulated business that now accounts for approximately 5% of total revenues. The acceleration started in 2023, and in 2025, this business recorded revenues of €52 million, positioned us well to reach our target of more than €100 million by 2029.

We have exposure to growing markets and technologies, with almost 50% of the revenue stream generated outside of Europe, and with a well-diversified portfolio of products. The growth has been achieved both organically and through M&A.

In the defense sector, the higher spending planned by the government offered us the opportunity to contribute to modernization of radar surveillance systems at six Italian Air Force bases. In Malaysia, we have proven the commercial feasibility of the remote tower concept.

Ultimately, with the acquisition of Aiview, which we expect to finalize in the coming days, we can expand further our presence in the drone segment, which we believe will grow significantly in the future. The solid trajectory of both core business and the non-regulated segment are mirrored by the performance of the stock.

Since the start of the mandate, the re-rate of the stock has been consistent. The share price is up by 51% versus the average level recorded in 2023, recorded a growth of 46% since the Capital Market Day back in April 2025.

The visibility of the path forward and our focus on shareholder remuneration resulted in a distribution of around €430 million in dividends over the 2023-2025 period. As a result, total shareholder return for the period is equal to 57%, higher than the TSR recorded by the Italian mid-cap index by 6 percentage points.

As we are now at the beginning of a new year, the focus on shareholder remuneration remains unchanged and our dividend policy fully confirmed. Let's now start on full-year 2025 results.

2025 results show our ability to execute and be resilient. We have fully met the guidance upgraded as of last July and even outperformed in terms of net income.

Luca will elaborate on the key drivers, but let me highlight the result at EBITDA level. EBITDA came in at the higher end of the guidance range, as we were able to extract additional efficiencies and react to the weaker traffic trend emerged from August 2025.

Results were strong also on cash generation. Free cash flow reached a higher level than projected, with around €260 million, up by €20 million versus the initial expectation of the year.

These results are the best basis for the next steps in our path to 2029, but the external context is currently very difficult to predict. We are facing an extremely volatile environment, with recent turmoil in the Middle East generating potential consequences that are difficult to forecast and are still evolving on a daily basis.

In terms of our exposure, Middle East accounted for only 2% of en-route service units in 2025. We are monitoring the situation.

January and February have shown solid growth and route traffic is at plus 7.6%, but actual data for March will be available only at the end of April. In order to grasp better the potential size of the impact, we are also waiting from the update of traffic forecasts from Eurocontrol.

For what concerns the impact, let me highlight that our regulatory framework foresees a balance mechanism on traffic that protects in case of volatility. Beyond a 2% decrease in traffic versus the planned level, the downside will be shared with the airlines, with only 30% left on ENAV's accounts and 70% borne by airlines.

As a sensitivity, you can consider that each percentage point in route traffic accounts for around €6.5 million in revenues. In light on the ongoing crisis and the lack of actual data to elaborate on, we have decided to postpone the communication of our 2026 targets to the Q1 results at the beginning of May.

Operating variables are under our control. Bear with us as we develop a more refined view on traffic for the coming months.

Despite the turmoil, can look ahead to 2026. Our results have proven the resiliency and predictability of our business model and the solidity of our strategy.

We improved our targets for 2025, delivered on expectations, and want to share the incremental results with our shareholders. To this end, we are upgrading the DPS curve for the next two years.

We will propose to the next AGM in May a DPS of €0.29 per share for 2025, and Board of Directors approved a DPS of €0.30 per share for 2026. As I said, our dividend policy is fully confirmed and based on cash flow generation, which remains visible and supported by a protective regulatory framework.

Now, I hand over to the CFO that will walk you through the numbers of 2025. I will come back later for closing remarks.

Luca Colman

Thank you, Pasqualino, and good afternoon, everybody. Let's start with the operating details.

Traffic in 2025 continued to be robust and, as said by the CEO, outperformed the European average. En-route service units grew by 5.9% year-on-year, driven by overflight and international, up respectively by 7.8% and 6.9% year-on-year, which mitigated the national traffic, which is down by -2.1% year-on-year.

Terminal traffic increased by 3.4% year-on-year, with growth in both charging zones 1 and 2, mainly driven by international traffic that more than offset the weakness in national traffic. As a result, terminal performance came in below plan expectation by 3.6 percentage points.

Let's move now to the economic results, starting with revenues. Total revenues for the period amounted to €1.025 billion, supported by the continued strength of the core business regulated activities and the positive performance of non-regulated business.

Looking at regulated business, net regulated revenues amounted to €12.1 million, driven by en-route revenues that increased by 15.5% year-on-year. Terminal revenues remained broadly stable, reflecting the slowdown in national traffic that we mentioned earlier.

The non-regulated business contributed with plus €2.8 million, achieving the target for the year in line with the plan expectations. Balance for the period impacted for a negative €32 million, as a result of a positive balance for the period for around €49 million in 2024 and only €17 million in 2025.

Let me highlight the following: in 2024, we accrued a positive balance related to inflation worth of around €64 million, which has been reset in 2025 for the start of the new regulatory period. Then, 2025, we recorded mainly a negative inflation balance for around €5 million, a positive balance for traffic overall of about €4.9 million, and €13 million related to the en-route performance bonus, achieved thanks to the remarkable result in terms of punctuality versus the regulatory target set for ENAV.

Moving to costs on slide 11, total operating costs for the period amounted to €772 million, up by 6.4%, well below the projected 9% increase embedded in the plan, thanks to the efficiency measures and cost control initiatives that were also activated in response to the traffic dynamics in the second half of 2025. Personnel costs reached €633 million, up by 6.8% versus the previous year, as a consequence of higher fixed component due to contractual wage adjustments mainly linked with inflation and higher variable component mainly driven by union agreements to handle the higher traffic volumes.

Other operating costs increased by 7.6% due to higher maintenance costs, Eurocontrol contributions, and other personal expenses. Moving on slide 12 on EBITDA, EBITDA for the period reached €253 million, meeting the higher end of the guidance range for the year.

This result has been achieved thanks to the focus on cost efficiencies that allowed us to mitigate the impact stemming from the softening of the en-route traffic started in August '25, as well as the weakness in terminal traffic. Moving now to slide 13 on the profit and loss statement, D&A decreased by €10.4 million to €109.3 million, as the negative impact from provisions of €2.7 million was more than offset by lower depreciation, following the full depreciation of some assets as well as the dynamics related to the accounting of the EU grants like PNRR funds and other forms of subsidized finance.

Net financial expenses of €8.1 million decreased by 2.5% year-on-year, reflecting lower interest expenses on variable cost of debt due to falling interest rates, partially offset by an increased charge related to the first tranche of EIB loan. Cost of debt in 2025 was equal to 3.59%, down by 47 bps versus the previous year that was 4.06%.

Let me highlight that at the beginning of 2026, we executed a liability management exercise and subscribed two new loans, three- and five-years bullet, with a pool of banks that fully cover our needs for the plan period. This liability management will help us drive further down the cost of debt in 2026.

Net result amounted to €93.1 million, marking an 4% increase compared to nine months 2025. Let's move to cash flow and net debt on slide 14, where we can see that net debt for the period is equal to €137.5 million, down by €120.8 million versus December 31st, '24, and that was driven mainly by the strong operating cash flow generation of €340.6 million, up by 1.2 times versus 2024.

Then we had also the cash absorbed by investment activities for around €77 million, and the dividend payment of €146.2 million. Free cash flow for the period was equal to €263.6 million, up by €64.5 million year-on-year, or 32%, confirming the company's strong and consistent cash generation profile.

To the same extent, in 2026, we expect to generate a free cash flow of around €250 million. Now, hand over back to the CEO for the closing remarks.

Pasqualino Monti

Thank you, Luca. 2025 results proved our ability to deliver, the solidity of our business model, and our technical excellence.

2026 will drive significant progress in the implementation of the key strategic initiatives at the core of our industrial plan. We are currently experiencing high levels of volatility in light of the situation in the Middle East.

The year started on a strong note in terms of traffic, but we must monitor the evolution of the events and their implications. We are confident on the evolution of all the business variables under our direct control, and we'll share with you the targets for 2026 in the Q1 results presentation of next May.

Based on this confidence and the robust delivery of 2025, we have improved the DPS curve for both 2025 and 2026. Now, let's open the Q&A session.

Operator

Thank you. This is the Chorus Call conference operator.

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone.

To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions.

Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Carlos Caburrasi, Kepler.

Please go ahead.

Carlos Caburrasi

Hello, Pasqualino, Luca, Fabrizio. Thank you for the presentation and for taking my questions.

Two from my side. First on the 2026 guidance, I understand your cautious stance and I know you've said that more visibility will be provided in Q1, but at the same time, you are providing a free cash flow target of €250 million.

I was wondering if you could at least provide some visibility on the key assumptions of that figure. Second, on dividends, here it's actually two quick questions.

One is that while you haven't provided guidance yet in 2026, how likely is that we see the €0.01 upgrade or improvement continuing through the rest of RP4? The second is that although it's still far away, how should we think about dividends in RP5, given that in RP4 these are largely supported by balance reversals?

Would it be something reasonable to expect higher debt to sustain dividend payments? Thank you.

Fabrizio Ragnacci

Thank you, Carlos.

Pasqualino Monti

Carlos, I will go directly to the second one and then back to the cash flow. If you look at what is our profile, our net debt on EBITDA ratio, above all target in 2029, we have a lot of room, we can even have more debt with no problem.

In general term, I would answer yes, there is the possibility to. This will be decided by the future board of director in that time, also looking what would be the real free cash flow generation in that time.

In general term, we would say yes, we definitely can use debt to pay our dividend, to increase our dividend. Said that, coming back to the cash flow, to just give you flavor what is the main item in 2026.

If you think that in 2025 our forecast was around €240 million of free cash flow and now we are at €250 million, you should consider more or less the same assumption that we had last year, a little bit more, an improvement that would be around €10 million on a plan base, mainly related to more traffic, en-route, and related to the fact that the cash flow that is supposed to be cashed from the balance of the previous year in 2026 tariff is more or less the same on 2025. It doesn't really move too much the figures.

Carlos Caburrasi

Grazie, Luca. Very clear.

Operator

The next question is from Nicolò Pessina, Mediobanca. Please go ahead.

Nicolò Pessina

Hi, good afternoon. First question on CapEx.

€77 million of CapEx is or looks the lowest level since the IPO at least. I'm wondering if you can elaborate a little bit more on why such a low figure.

I'm also wondering if the target of €570 million total CapEx plus recovery of past delays over the 2025-29 period that you provided a year ago with the update of the business plan is still valid, because it implies a sharp acceleration in the next few years. In particular, following on the previous answer, which amount of CapEx is included in this €250 million free cash flow generation for 2026?

Second question on the defense spending by the Italian government you mentioned during the presentation, I'm wondering if you can provide maybe some example of additional opportunities of new contracts maybe similar to the one you signed for the surveillance systems in the Air Force bases. Maybe there are other opportunities with Italian military institutions or other government institutions.

Many thanks.

Luca Colman

Nicolò. For what concern the CapEx, just think that we always think about cash CapEx if you look in the impact on the cash flow.

The cash CapEx of this year in '25 was very close to 2024, we didn't have so difference, and we believe to have more or less the same for the next year in term of cash CapEx. In term of CapEx of the year, we still have an amount of money that is affected of three things mainly.

One, the discount that we have. As every time we buy something, above all on investment side and CapEx side, we always go on bid, and this allowed us to have a discount on the price that we planned in our figure.

This is effect positively in terms of the saving money that we spend, but actually, we already do exactly the plan that we are thinking to do, this doesn't really impact in any way our investment plan, just to save money. Second of all, if you look at the D&A, the D&A will be lower from the one that was planned just because we have two impacts.

The first one comes from the PNRR and PON and CEF, all the grants that we are getting from European, from the Italian state. This will reduce the amount of D&A in our P&L and also in our tariff.

The second one was also the fact that we had actually fully amortized a couple important asset. They came out from our D&A, and so actually, this is impact a little bit more the value.

In general term, we don't see any particular impact on our planned CapEx, just think that is more related to the discount that we had and the other factor that I explained. For the other point, I will hand Just a second.

Yes. We are always looking for new opportunities.

We are working on some options. One example is the control of prisons with drones, where we wait for a tender to be launched.

Defense opportunity will grow also because the initial contract is expected to extend to other Air Force bases. That's it.

Nicolò Pessina

Thanks a lot. Very clear.

Operator

The next question is from Marco Limite, Barclays. Please go ahead.

Marco Limite

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question.

My first question is on M&A. You have announced an acquisition of Aiview a few months ago.

Any updates you could provide on that front is the first question. The second question is more, let's say, on the strategy around M&A, because clearly, this deal is not huge.

Back at the CMD, you were planning for a pretty sizeable firepower balance or pool for M&A. The two questions are: number one, if you are expecting more M&A activities, maybe of larger companies; and number two, if you don't, do you have, let's say, leverage target that you have in mind and therefore we should start thinking about extraordinary dividends or distribution to shareholder in order to have a slightly more efficient balance sheet?

Thank you.

Fabrizio Ragnacci

Thank you. Thank you, Marco.

Pasqualino Monti

For M&A, we expect to finalize in the coming days the acquisition of Aiview. In the past, we shared with the market that we were running a due diligence also on another target.

We are currently still evaluating, but there has been no further progress on that target. In general, we continue to scout the market for opportunities and keep looking at different potential targets, maybe bigger than the first one.

Luca Colman

As Pasqualino said, in case we need to raise money, more debt, they will be focused on this M&A, for even bigger targets, and for CapEx. That's our profile at the moment.

Marco Limite

Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from Luca Bacoccoli, Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead.

Luca Bacoccoli

Hello everyone. Could you hear me?

Fabrizio Ragnacci

Yeah. We can hear you, Luca.

Luca Bacoccoli

Thanks. First question regards the traffic trend on March.

Looking at Eurocontrol data regarding the first week after the war in Iran and the third week, it seems that traffic, or better, the average flight per day are still up in the region of 3-4%. Can we assume this data as a proxy of the en-route unit service for the whole March data?

The other question regards the OpEx trend in 2026, on which you can probably have good visibility. I was wondering what should we expect in terms of cost efficiency, given the very positive results delivered in 2025?

Then the other question is on the non-regulated business for this year, if you have any target that you can share with us. Finally, a question for Mr.

Monti. For several months now, the Italian press has been reporting that you might be moving to another listed company controlled by the government.

My question is, do you feel that you have successfully completed your mission at ENAV? Thank you.

Pasqualino Monti

On traffic, as you said, Luca, we only have the number of flights for the first half of March, two weeks since, the war started actually. Flight, I confirm that the flight for the first few weeks of flight, not service unit, of March are up by low-to-middle single digit year-on-year, still positive.

If we compare these to the last year period, same period, we had an increase. We are having an increase, still an increase.

We don't see how we don't have the information to understand what will be an impact on service unit. We believe it could be, still positive, but for the service unit of March, we need to wait the second half of April when, Eurocontrol publish the actual the actual value.

Also Eurocontrol, as you see, normally they publish the update on traffic in the middle of March, the new update, the forecast for traffic. They didn't they haven't published yet.

That's the reason why they still are they also want to see what will what is happening in this in these couple weeks. I'm sorry, the the couple weeks of of of March.

Luca Colman

We need to wait a little bit more to be more precise, even if, the impact at least in term of flights seems to be not bad at the moment. For what concerned costs, let me say, you should consider that we haven't anticipated most of the costs that, part of the costs, the efficiency that we could have done in 2026, also for, the traffic impact above all for what we had in 2025 for the terminal.

We anticipate part of these these these effects. This is a part of of answer why why we are, performing so well in 2025 costs.

Pasqualino Monti

You should translate part of these efficiency also in 2026, but you should also add the part of the consolidation, of course, of IV Group, that you know is the company that we have we are acquiring, and and also the increase of, the costs that we have started from 2025 related to the agreement on the performance bonus sharing with air traffic controllers. You remember that this year we we we had this agreement with them that, pushed us to get this pushed them to get the performance plan, and so this seems to be so sorry, the performance bonus, and this is works very well, and we will also apply this year.

In general term, you should consider an increase of around 6% probably, more or less, an average that you could consider in your assumption.

Luca Colman

On the non-regulated business, the not-regulated business will grow by around €10 million from €52 million of 2025 to around €62 million in 2026. On my mandate, the decision will be taken by the majority shareholder.

I'm happy at ENAV, and I'm focused on the implementation of the strategic plan.

Luca Bacoccoli

Thank you. Very clear.

Operator

The next question is from Amal Patel, UBS. Please go ahead.

Amal Patel

Hi, Luca. Hi, Pasqualino.

Thank you very much for the presentation and taking my questions. Just two from me.

Just on AI, can you articulate a bit more how you're leveraging AI to achieve cost savings in the business? Clearly, the shift from digital to remote towers will be a tailwind to OpEx towards the end of the decade.

You already have the AMAN system, which you're employing. Can you maybe talk about any new AI initiatives that you expect to implement in the coming years and what incremental cost savings you expect these to achieve?

My second question is, can you help me understand a bit better the age distribution of your workforce? Approximately what proportion of your workforce do you expect to retire in the next 5 to 10 years?

Thank you.

Fabrizio Ragnacci

Thank you, Amal.

Pasqualino Monti

For what concerned the curve of the retirement, let me say, important number of controllers that we retired. Our purpose is not to substitute all these controllers, thanks to the fact that the implementation of our business plan related above all in remote tower and digitalization of the tower will help us to optimize the number of people.

Depending on the trajectory and the respect of the timing of it is 10-years project, we adjust the number of controller that we will hire in the period. In the moment, above all by the end of this business plan, '28 and '29, we foreseen to have a very positive impact on personal costs thanks to what I just said, technology and the capability not to hire new controller when they will go to retire.

That is more or less our strategy on this point.

Luca Colman

On AI, digitalization is one of the strategic pillars for us, and we are already one of the more advanced in Europe from a technology standpoint. Artificial intelligence can be a lever to improve over time the efficiency and capacity of the airspace.

It's important to highlight that in our sector, technological evolution can only happen progressively and in line with the safety standards and regulatory framework defined at EU level.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time. I turn the conference back to you for any closing remarks.

Fabrizio Ragnacci

Thank you. Thank you to all who participated, and we'll be in touch at the Q1 results in May.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.