Margherita Sacerdoti
Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to the Ferretti Group first quarter 2026 conference call. Thank you all for joining us.
We appreciate your time and interest in Ferretti Group as we share an overview of our performance over the first quarter and discuss the outlook for the future. Before we begin, let me introduce our speakers: Mr.
Stassi Anastassov, our new Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Marco Zammarchi, our Chief Financial Officer, and myself, Margherita Sacerdoti, Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability.
Today's agenda will cover key highlights from Q1 2026, business dynamics, financial results, followed by a Q&A session. Throughout the audio webinar, you may submit your written question using the Q&A function in the Zoom menu.
We will address as many as possible at the end of the presentation. You can also ask live question by using the raise your hand feature in the Zoom platform.
With that, let me hand it over to Mr. Stassi Anastassov to get us started.
Mr. Anastassov, the floor is yours.
Stassi Anastassov
Thank you, Margherita. Good afternoon, but also good morning to our investors in North America, and good evening to our investors in Asia.
This is the first time that I have the chance to speak to you, and therefore allow me to take a few minutes to introduce myself and to tell you about how I look at the business and what has shaped me, because I believe that that's going to be an important investment for you to understand, and will maybe avoid some of the questions that you may have on your minds. Throughout our lives and careers, we're all shaped by beliefs based on experiences we all have.
I would like to share five of the beliefs that I believe are relevant in the context where we are today. The first one is that throughout my career, I've always been fortunate to work with very strong brands, sometimes iconic brands.
However, I have never been the founder. I have not invented those brands.
I've always been a custodian, a caretaker of those brands. My job has always been to take a brand, take a business, and leave it to the next person and to the next group in better shape than what I took.
Typically, when we want to reach higher at home, we would take a ladder and climb the ladder. In business, I believe that in reality it is standing on the shoulders of the people that have been building the business before us, and sometimes the people that have created the business that I'm in charge of currently.
I do want to mention to you that I think that I am standing on the shoulders of five amazing groups of people. The first one is the obvious one, Carlo Riva, who in my view created the most inspirational and still the greatest brand and the greatest yacht in the world.
It's a true icon. The second one is the person that actually the company, the Ferretti Group, is named after, Norberto Ferretti, that founded this company more than half a century ago.
The third one is Mr. Alberto Galassi, 12 years of turnaround and 12 years of turning a company that was small into the greatest yachting company in the world.
The fourth one is Mr. Piero Ferrari.
Mr. Ferrari was honorary chairman for the group for nine years.
Many of the innovations and many of the ideas were, of course, colored from his experiences and by his background. Thank you.
Lastly, all the shareholders: small, big, medium. All the shareholders that believe in this company, that invested in this company during various stages of its development.
These are the five, the four individuals and the fifth one is a group of people, that have shaped what Ferretti is today. Ferretti today would not be what it is, the greatest company in yachting, without your help.
Thank you very much. This is a legacy inherit.
By the way, I'm not taking lightly on naming these people because I am very keen, and I've already met several of these people that I've mentioned. Unfortunately, Carlo Riva is not among us, but I've already met and discussed with his daughter, Lia, most recently only an hour ago.
I am very much looking forward to learning because these people are going to be my teachers and are going to be very important for me, not only in understanding what has been built and the history, but also shaping the future of the company. My second belief is about accountability and clarity of roles.
I am a great believer that the clearer the accountability, the clearer the understanding of who does what in a company, the better the results. Great companies have clear accountabilities, and great companies have consistency in what they've been doing.
For example, I have already met the past 48 hours that I've been on board the majority of many, many employees at different level, suppliers, partners. I typically ask three simple questions: what is your title, what is it that you are actually doing, but most importantly, what do you believe you're solely accountable for?
Typically, that is maybe the most important question and the most important answer that I then judge whether there is any clarity and no overlaps and no confusion. Clarity and accountability is also something that is very important to me when it comes to governance.
When I was doing my due diligence for this role, I was very encouraged by the fact that we've had a governance structure for the past 14 years largely unchanged, with supportive shareholder groups. We've had a CEO for 12 years that has been carefully guiding the company towards where it is.
Stepping into a company where the governance has been clear and stable for 14 years, the leadership has been clear and stable for 12 years, that's very reassuring to me because it gives me a great base to build upon, and I believe this should be very reassuring for all the shareholders today and all the stakeholders. My third belief is based on brands and iconic brands, and those are brands that need to be fed.
If they are not fed properly with strategies, with actions, nobody cares a brand that was great several years ago. Nobody cares about a Kodak, or I don't want to get into other brands that were not perfectly managed.
When I say that I need to understand the brands, I'm only doing that because I want to be able to expand them, strengthen them, make them stronger than ever. Many of you will be questioning and maybe asking yourselves: what can a person that has been managing Pampers diapers, Duracell batteries, Head & Shoulders shampoos, what does this person know about yachts?
I know how to manage brands, and our brands are iconic, and those brands must be fed with innovation, innovation, innovation. Because we need to make sure that people buy a Riva yacht or Ferretti yacht not because it was great a few years ago, but because it's going to be great tomorrow, the next three years, and the next 10 years.
This is where the difference is between great iconic brands growing and brands that have been great, full stop. I want to believe that the brands we have in the Ferretti Group are the brands that are going to be even more successful in the future.
However, a brand is the tip of the iceberg. For example, people talk about Ferretti being a luxury company.
Yes, Ferretti is magic, the brands are magic, the brands are iconic. However, Ferretti is not a handbag.
It needs to be a very sophisticated, durable machine and a vessel where people can entrust their families, their friends, storms, saltwater, hard winds. You do not expose your beautiful watch collection or your beautiful handbag collection to this.
Ferretti yachts are some of the most complicated industrial processes, and this is where quality, endurance, materials, connectivity of all technology needs to hang together. That's where we need to continue delighting and delighting and delighting our very, very discerning group of people that want to invest into our yachts.
I'll be very keen and I'll be focusing a great deal of my time on how to drive the business forward. This is going to be with great innovation to make our brands greater.
Every time somebody says, "I want to buy X brand," or Riva, or Ferretti, or Itama, or Wally, there needs to be something that comes more than just the brand, something that is a superior quality, superior performance, superior materials, durability, and the classical features of what most brands are today. However, a brand cannot be great if it's not profitable.
Profits comes from everything that I call below the iceberg. The brand, the image, the quality, the shine of the teak is above the surface.
The engineering prowess, every moment, every element in our factory from purchasing materials to the connectivity, to durability, after-sales service, all that needs to be perfect, but it doesn't need to be perfect just for quality, but it needs to be perfect also for costs. Because if I want to be able to drive the top line of this business, I need to find invisible costs to be able to fund our investment.
Because I do have a commitment of profitable growth, and there is nothing that I would ever give up in order to gain cheap volume, or to give up growth because of cost-cutting. Great businesses have to do and must be able to do top-line growth and bottom-line growth.
This is what I will be focusing on, and this is what I'll be doing with a team, because we do have a great team around me. I do want to share a personal story that would tell you why and how I am approaching most businesses.
My parents left Bulgaria 1965. I was 4 years old.
They left with nothing other than their talents. My father was a concert violinist, my mom was an opera singer.
They did have a secret weapon, and that weapon was the ability and willingness to work hard. I've inherited, hopefully, and I have inherited that secret weapon.
I'm not going to leave one stone unturned until I've been able to find the levers that are going to unlock top-line growth and bottom-line growth. This is why I'm meeting everybody I can.
This is why when I received a phone call about one of our clients potentially not being sure about an order, my answer to Giordano in sales was, "Except for Tuesday when I'm busy, give me one time and we're going to take the flight—and it's an overseas flight—and meet the customer to turn that order into actual down payment and confirmation." There is nothing more important than to work hard to delight our customers, our employees, and our shareholders.
Last but not least, you'll be asking, "Okay, all is great talk, great strategies, but what actually are we going to do?" I already told you we want to focus on innovation.
I will be focusing on better design, because design is something that actually doesn't always travel. In the US, people have some different expectations compared to Europe.
We need to evolve our offering to also meet those expectations. US is going to be a major priority for me.
Technology: we're living in the decade of technology that obsoletes itself very rapidly. We don't want to have what's best today, we want to have what's best tomorrow in everything we do with our yachts.
Performance is important, but performance is not anymore raw performance in horsepower. It's performance that also is sustainable, lower emission, and lower impact to the world.
That's what we need to look at, and that's what our new consumers are looking for. Materials: materials innovation is one of the most exciting areas to look into, durability that comes from material innovation, etc., etc.
There are not going to be any shortcuts, because shortcuts are what makes great brands fail. To make a long story short, you have my commitment to work very hard to make sure that our brands will be healthier than ever, and that I'll be able to leave those brands one day much stronger, better, bigger, more profitable, and more known across the world than what they are today.
Our shareholders, my ambition to you is that we will be focusing on everything from comp data versus competitors, but it is not going to be our target. I've never had a target to be as good as a competitor.
I've never had anything else than being better than all competitors. Thank you very much.
I leave it to Marco.
Marco Zammarchi
Good afternoon. We start presentation of sharing the financial data of last quarter.
Going to the key highlights. The order intake in the quarter was lower year-on-year, reflecting a softer quarter and timing in signing, particularly on larger boats.
At the same time, as we highlight in this slide, negotiation remain at elevated levels with ongoing discussion amounting approximately to €630 million, 75% better than prior year, that confirm in our opinion that underlying demand remain present despite longer conversion time. Order backlog stable at €1,718 million, confirming the solid foundation of the business and supporting revenues visibility for the year.
Against this backdrop, revenues in Q1 were modestly below prior year levels, declining to around €302 million compared to €329 million last year. Profitability nevertheless remain resilient, with adjusted EBITDA margin broadly stable at around 16.1%, up by 10 basis points year-on-year, reflecting two things, two factors quite important for our company: supportive mix and disciplined cost management.
Now before to go in deep diving this figure, offering you several aspects of prior quarter, I leave the floor to Margherita to introduce the business dynamic that's currently in place.
Margherita Sacerdoti
Thank you, Marco. Starting from the boat shows, the European boat show season is about to start.
We already attended the two major boat shows in the US, Miami in February and Palm Beach in March. We could not attend the Dubai boat show in April because that was postponed due to the war to November.
Moving to the newly splashed product in the first quarter, we can see the wallypower50, the outboard version of the wallypower50 inboard, where we sold 14 units already. This is a very promising model for the upcoming months.
You can see the model in the video. We also announced some new models in different brands.
For the range updates, the restyle that we do every 4 or 5 years to the most successful models, you have the new Ferretti Yachts 720. We already sold three units, but the previous version had been very successful and we sold 48 units.
You can also see the latest model of the Pershing GTX series. Just to remind you, the GTX is what we call the SUV for yachts.
We had the GTX116, the 80, and now the 90 is out. Moving to Riva, we have another restyle, is the Rivale Super 56 that is taking the place of the old Rivale 56.
Again, in the 56, the previous version, we sold 60 units. Again, it has been a very, very successful model.
We decided to restyle the design. The last model that we presented is a range expansion, is the Itama 70, where we already sold one unit, and is a new model after the Itama 54 that we already presented last year.
Having said that, I move back to Marco for the financial results.
Marco Zammarchi
Thank you, Margherita. Let's start analyzing the Q1 order intake and negotiation.
Q1 order intake was mainly affected by delays in contract conversion rather than by weaker underlying demand. These delay were concentrated, and we'll see later, in larger contract, particularly in superyacht and made-to-measure, where negotiation and decision cycle are typically longer and more complex compared with composite one.
On top of that, geopolitical uncertainty in in the MEA region contributed to slower final signature in in the quarter. This is reflected in the rolling book-to-bill ratio that temporarily remain below 1, at around 0.8% for made-to-measure and superyacht, and around 0.9% including composite.
At the same time, and this is the point that we wanted to remark, negotiation remain well above last year level, confirming solid underlying demand across all geographical areas despite longer conversion time. The backlog remains solid and broadly stable versus prior year, and reflecting the sound order collection in 2024 and 2025 in made-to-measure and superyacht.
Order backlog, as I said before, stood at approximately €1.7 billion at the end of March, in line with December. Instead, net backlog provide clear visibility for a year, for the current year, with around €470 million allocated to 2026 deliveries.
In addition, a meaningful portion of the revenue is already secured for for the current year, for 2026, amounting to approximately €772 million. If compare this number with the same situation of prior year, we have a 5% more than 2025.
Overall, the backlog profile continue to support revenues coverage and planning visibility for the year, granting so the the visibility and the cash generation of the company. In terms of order intake by segment, the softer order intake that we mentioned before was not uniform across the portfolio.
Composite show resilience with growth year-over-year, supported by seasonal demand in Europe ahead the summer season. On the other hand, the following on the other hand, made-to-measure instead was to be compared was affected by two factor.
Last year same quarter, we had the best quarter ever for MEA last region last per MEA region, and slower contract conversion in the current quarter due to the regional tension. I'd like also to remind that our business is made of collecting more or less 200, 250 orders every year.
With a with a logic of the cutoff, a couple of units signed in April make the difference. In superyacht instead, negotiation remain a good level.
Out of the €630 million that I I mentioned before, nearly 300 are related to superyacht, and order intake is also affected by the scarcity of available production slot, as the waiting list now extended to the end of 2029 and in some cases for the larger yacht to 2030, confirming the strategic relevance of capacity management in this segment. Analyzing the order intake by geography, Europe remained the most supportive area in the quarter, with a sound order mix and more resilient commercial activity.
MEA instead was clearly impacted by local geopolitical tension, with delayed contract finalization. AMAS instead reflected, as you know is a is a point that always is recurring, a more conscious customer stance, with longer decision-making and signing timelines.
In other words, what's what we analyze about the Americas is it happened the same during the election year. When there is some uncertainty, the market continue to discuss, but closing time, conversion time of negotiation is longer and longer.
We had this experience last year at Q4 2024 with a a good result in the following quarter when the the the election was was completed, and we expect something similar in in this year. In terms of revenues by segment, we see that the revenues were supported by the existing backlog.
As a result, the year-on-year decline in revenues was much more limited compared to the reduction in quarterly order intake. In particular, superyacht revenues delivered double-digit growth of around 20%, reflecting the solid backlog, the support of the backlog.
At the same time, the overall revenues declined was around 8% year-on-year, showing the cushion effect of the backlog on quarterly deliveries. Moving our focus on profitability, adjusted EBITDA, as I mentioned before, remained resilient, with margins slightly improving year-on-year, supported by an improved backlog mix and continued cost discipline.
Net the the same trend as been seen on on net profit, reflecting the lower volume environment. Talking about capex, capex in the quarter remained quite selective and strategically focused, at around €13 million, with roughly two-thirds allocated to new product development.
We strongly believe in the power of renewing, keeping update, keeping at the state of the art our product portfolio, because is has been paid off in the last year. This is confirmed, this factor is the the the investment of just €13 million, the group disciplined approach to capital allocation, and with maintenance capex and cash conversion remain under control.
What do we expect, as we mentioned several times before, that this is a reflect the completion of the main capacity expansion cycle carried out in prior year, you see '23, '24, and partially '25, with capex now moving into a normalization phase that is expected to remain below 6% of the revenues in 2026, and most likely in the in the following year, without taking into consideration any any M&A. About cash flow and net financial position, Q1 usually is typically characterized by seasonal cash absorption related composite build-up ahead of the European summer season.
In Q in Q1, as I mentioned before, we also saw some delays in order collection, resulting in a lower level of down payment and stage payment. In addition, we had also some delivery postponement linked to geopolitical tension in Middle East region.
In other words, some customer belonging to this area asked us to postpone the delivery in this area, and we fully understand that desire, and this is a situation that now is solving step by step. All these element together draw temporary cash absorption in the quarter, with an expecting improvement in Q2.
We see you see also last year we had this usually the second quarter is is a a quarter where this company generate cash, supported by the start of the delivery season. Despite this temporary absorption, the net financial position remain positive at around €18 million.
Final remarks of this call, but before to to to provide final remarks, as every year after the Q1, we provide the annual guidance. The guidance set out expected net revenues in the range of approximately €1,250 million to €1,265 million, and adjusted EBITDA in the range approximately €203 million to €210 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin between 16.2% and 16.6%.
Capex is expected in the range of approximately €70 million to €75 million, but is currently under revision. The guidance is frame out is framed around our current backlog and expected delivery schedule, while acknowledging that timing dynamics can influencing pacing phasing through the year.
We are confident to to provide this guidance. Final remarks before to to step down and leave the floor to Stassi.
Negotiation in place, just to summarize our point, negotiation in place reached record level. The demand is there, and we now we have to be focused in converting the negotiation into order.
Europe remain a key growth driver, and we'll we'll see the next effect with the Venice Boat Show that will start in few days. Other point regarding financial communication, is is important to remark that with appointment of the new board of directors, the company is entering a new phase of strategic development.
The management is already working with the board to define a new business plan that will set priorities and clear ambition for the next phase. An update strategy will be formally presented to the market through a capital market day by the end of 2026.
Thank you so much. Stassi, the the floor is yours.
Stassi Anastassov
Thank you, Marco. Look, it's clear that Q1 was softer than what we would have wanted.
It is equally clear that we are all confident that this is something that we're going to be catching up over the next coming quarters. Confidence, however, should not be confused with complacency.
We're already now putting actions in place, following up with customers, reviewing our invisible costs, and we are going to work very hard together to develop both the short-term, mid-term, and long-term plans to make sure that we deliver against our commitments. Thank you very much.
Margherita Sacerdoti
Thank you for listening to our first quarter 2026 result presentation. We are now ready to start the Q&A session.
We will start by live question and later move to the written question. The first question is from Emanuele Gallazzi from Equita.
Emanuele, unmute yourself and go ahead.
Emanuele Gallazzi
Can you hear me?
Margherita Sacerdoti
Can you speak louder? Yes.
Emanuele Gallazzi
Perfect. Hi, everybody.
Thank you for taking my question. I actually have three questions.
The first one is for Mr. Anastassov, if I may.
Thank you for your presentation. I know it's very early, but can you share with us your, let's say, initial thoughts on the yachting industry momentum and, let's say, the very first strategic aspect that you would like to start working on, I don't know, it's distribution, new model, brand development, or cost control?
The second one is on the order intake. Clearly, in the first quarter, the order intake was weak.
You mentioned a high level of negotiation. Can you just give us a sense on how the order intake has evolved in April and early May, and how confident you are on converting the current negotiation in actual orders in this environment?
The last one is for Marco. The net working capital was over 20% 20% of sales in the first quarter.
How do you see it evolving through the year? Thank you.
Stassi Anastassov
Thank you. On the first question, a business is a business, and ultimately people buy a combination of a brand and a technological performance.
That in itself is not very different from many other businesses. There, we really need to make sure that there are some short-term actions and obviously some longer-term actions.
The shorter-term actions are delivery timing, how do we make sure that we reassure some of our customers about the stability of the company, to turn this backlog into numbers that are going to be visible in our next presentation. Clearly, my short-term focus is on converting all these discussions and negotiations into actual orders.
That is and also is driven by the season, as you can see, that we do have the next coming 2, 3 months that are dictating my agenda and my travel plan. In parallel, I would be looking at what goes below the so-called iceberg, meaning the cost structure, platform thinking between the brands.
Have we really exhausted those opportunities? What are the decisions we need to make today that would be impacting our product and range in the next coming 24 to 48 months cycle.
I hope that that answers that priority. On the second question was, I think, Marco, you take that as well.
Marco Zammarchi
Yeah. Order intake.
Emanuele, order intake, what is our guess for next quarter? I can tell you that April was not bad if compared with prior year, with April last year.
Currently in May, we have a significant number of negotiation currently under discussion and hopefully in conversion already in May. Again, with Stassi on board is our priority to go and meet personally many of these negotiation in place, especially for mid and bigger size boat in order to speed up this process.
Last point about networking capital, yes, networking capital is been affected, okay, I explain to you before the seasonality first, but on top of that, the seasonality was affected by two points. One is we don't wanted to hide the elephant in the room.
Lower order intake means lower down payment. Down payment, I explained several times that we consider order at least not only contract sign, but must be secure by a nonrefundable deposit of at least 10%.
You can close also this gap with it. On top of that, the postponement requested by some Middle East customer that for sure we wanted to make them happy, and now step by step we resolve it.
Again, is something unexpected due to the slowdown of the order intake, but we are confident to bring this figure again ranging between 12% and 16% across the year, but in very short term.
Emanuele Gallazzi
Very clear. Thank you all.
Margherita Sacerdoti
The next question is from Adrien Duverger from Goldman Sachs. Adrien, go ahead.
Adrien Duverger
Hi. Good afternoon, Mr.
Anastassov, Mr. Zammarchi, and Margherita.
Thank you very much for taking my questions. That's Adrien Duverger from Goldman Sachs.
My first question would be for you, Mr. Anastassov.
What has surprised you the most since joining the business? Obviously, I know it's still a very early days, but hopefully you had the opportunity to start getting a better understanding.
What do you currently see as your top priority? Is it the US market, and what actions can you take to improve the order intake?
My second question would be on the EBITDA margin guidance that you provided today. What are the different building blocks?
What can we expect in the outer years? Thank you very much.
Stassi Anastassov
Thank you very much. It's very interesting that the most surprising thing to me was not in the actual product or category, but in the customer base.
We're talking about a couple of hundred of products that are being sold per year compared to the couple of hundred millions of products that are in the FMCG industry. The whole commercial process is the one that is at the heart of this company: how to delight, how do we convert a high-net-worth individual that is aspiring to have one of our beautiful products, not only to a initial purchaser, but to a repeat purchaser that stays with our franchise and evolves with us over time, and ideally buys even more than one vessel.
This is why also when Marco talks about the numbers, sometimes one closed deal or two would have changed totally the presentation of today. Yes, there is a sub-question in your first question, which is about the US.
I understand and I agree that the current share of the US business of the total franchise today is something that is a significant opportunity. It's way too early for me to understand exactly what is driving that lower than my expectations number.
I believe it is usually a combination of slightly different tastes in terms of what are the requirements from a yacht and how it's being used in the US, to also our ability to serve and identify also a growing number of high-net-worth individuals in the US. It's both understanding what they really want and how we can adapt our portfolio to better meet their needs.
As maybe at Procter & Gamble we call this "consumer is boss." We need to understand what the boss wants, but also how do we actually penetrate that segment and market ourselves in that segment in the US that may be different than what we've come to become comfortable with in Europe with Monaco, the boat shows, and so on.
There are different touch points that we need to understand. As you said, it's a bit too early for me to give you a definite answer.
Thank you. Adrien,
Marco Zammarchi
about EBITDA, we reported 16.1%, that is higher than 10 basis point, by 10 basis point versus prior year, and we provide a guidance to be in between 16.2% and 16.6%. The rationale behind our guidance are the mix, because we continue to generate, we expect to generate more and more revenues in the most profitable segment that are high composite and made-to-measure together coupled with branded superyacht first.
We expect thanks to the market dynamics to get some more favorable condition in procurement, and to continue to leverage on fixed cost absorption, that is one of our winning point of the prior year. Again, as we did last year and that we never give up, a very focused cost discipline on SG&A.
That's are the rational behind the guidance between 16.2% and 16.6%. I hope it's clear.
Adrien Duverger
Very clear. Thank you very much, both.
Margherita Sacerdoti
The next question is from Carmen Novel from Akros. Carmen, go ahead.
Carmen Novel
Hi, everyone. Can you hear me?
Margherita Sacerdoti
Yes.
Carmen Novel
Okay. Thank you for taking my question.
I just have a quick one on governance, if I may. We recently read some articles on the newspaper about some comments made by KKCG on the shareholders' meeting of last week.
I was wondering if you can give us some comments on color on that, if you can.
Stassi Anastassov
Is this directed to me?
Carmen Novel
Yeah.
Stassi Anastassov
Could you specify there have been a lot of articles, and what specifically is it that you are wondering, and that will help me answer?
Carmen Novel
A bit in in general, sorry, I hear my my voice in in in the audio, a bit in general on the comments about, the the the management of the shareholder meeting and the yeah, about the the potential strategy that that you can implement in the in the future year years, and yeah, a bit in general, a bit in color on that, if you if you can. Sure.
Stassi Anastassov
Sure. Look, I see my role as running the company and delighting our customers and our shareholders based on the results.
My role is not political in any way, but I will give it a try. If you have had a shareholder for 14 years and a leadership team and CEO for 12 years, that shows a lot of stability.
The only thing that has changed is that there is a new CEO. From a governance standpoint, I think I've had now the chance to meet our board.
We probably have the board with the largest number of independent board members. They're all great professional people.
The majority shareholder has invested in the business 14 years ago when the business was not doing well, and put in capital and resources in making Ferretti what it is today. The previous management team, led by the CEO, had the chance to do this for 12 years.
I do not necessarily, from my vantage point, see anything different or anything that would worry, whether that's a customer considering to buy a boat from us, or anybody else. As said, that's my take from it.
My job is to deliver the results and to inform you about our outlook in the most fair and honest way. The rest, I will leave it to our shareholders to sort out.
Carmen Novel
Thank you very much.
Margherita Sacerdoti
The next question is from Chiara Tomesani from UBS. Chiara, go ahead.
Chiara Tomesani
Hi, can you hear me?
Margherita Sacerdoti
Yes.
Chiara Tomesani
Thank you for taking my questions. I have three.
The first one is on the capex guidance, and I wanted to ask if you could provide more color on the split between gross and maintenance capex. My second question is on the current pricing environment, and I'd like to ask if there's been any changes since the 2, 3 percentage point mentioned at FY results.
My third and last question is on the demand dynamics, and I'd like to ask whether any orders have been canceled or postponed, or is this just the buying decision that is being delayed? Thank you very much.
Marco Zammarchi
About capex guidance, as we mentioned in our guidance, we believe that this year we'll spend between €70 million and €75 million. Most of them will be focused in R&D, as just following the trend of the first quarter.
We have more than 60 models in our product portfolio. We are planning to reduce, as usual, something between three and four models that have been decided 3, 4 years ago and now they are ready to enter into the market, and we are preparing for the next generation model.
Meanwhile, we are refreshing. We are talking about restyling, facelift, technological update of some models.
This is the backbone of the capex that we think to spend in 2026. The residual one-third is just ordinary maintenance, a small expansion of our current facility.
Now our occupancy, the utilization of our facility is about 80%, we don't need additional capex on production capacity. Maybe something that we have to think about superyacht, but is not for sure for 2026.
The second one, it was about pricing environment, right?
Chiara Tomesani
Correct.
Marco Zammarchi
Okay. Nothing has been changed from 2025.
For boat product over 30 m, I'm speaking about made-to-measure and superyacht, competition is not on pricing. We are still fighting with the other three, in some cases four competitors in this segment, but usually is not on pricing.
What we see in pricing is something that is already happened in 2025 for the entry-level model, boat below 24 m, 80-footer. There are still some competitors, especially the British one, that are continuing to be quite aggressive into the market with very, very aggressive pricing.
As we already said last year, we do prefer to slow down our production rate and not to enter in this kind of competition, because it's very, very easy to provide a discount in order to sell some more unit, but then to recover the marginality and the prices, it takes years. We don't want to enter in this kind of competition.
In fact, also in consideration that discounting policy cannot last forever. Sooner or later, when they have finished the inventory, for sure they have to stop this process.
On top of that, according our current strategy, we wanted to be more and more focused in the most profitable segment, the high composite, made-to-measure, and branded superyacht. We wanted to skip this kind of competition.
Stassi Anastassov
If I may add, it's very easy to destroy a brand. The first and surest way to destroy a brand is by starting to discount it in the face of competitive pressure.
We need to really be careful. We cannot be commercially ignorant, but we need to be very careful to be guided by what competition is doing, and instead find ways to delight our customers with our box, which should be a superior quality and superior design, so that we in reality would not have a directly competitive offering.
Clearly we would not be considering to enter the game of the discounting. That is not the right way.
I'm fully aligned with the long-term management and guidance of my predecessors on this point. The
Marco Zammarchi
last point instead was about order cancellation, if any, right?
Chiara Tomesani
Yes, please.
Marco Zammarchi
Okay. Nothing has been changed in our business, at least in our company.
We don't see any cancellation. Or they were very rare.
We are talking about 3, 4 per year in the last 5 years, and no cancellation till now. I wanted to remind that it's according our selling approach, as I mentioned before, when someone is signing an order, he has to deposit a nonrefundable deposit of at least 10% and then following some stage payment.
If a customer decide to step down, he lose at least the nonrefundable deposit plus the reselling cost of selling his boat. In many cases, and it could happen that a customer decide to change idea and to step down this process, it's better for him to take deliveries and then to resell it by itself once delivery is done.
That's the reason we are quite protected as business model from this kind of event.
Chiara Tomesani
Got it. Thank you so much.
Marco Zammarchi
Welcome.
Margherita Sacerdoti
The next question is from Niccolò Storer from Kepler. Niccolò, go ahead.
He disappeared. The next question is from Michael Nizienski from Roche Capital.
Please go ahead.
Michael Nizienski
Hi, can you hear me?
Margherita Sacerdoti
Yes.
Michael Nizienski
Yeah. Hi, everyone.
I have a question for the new team. Can you please give us your thoughts on the company's free cash flow generation over the years?
Because if we look at the past 8 years, Ferretti generated about €964 million of cumulative EBITDA, close to €1 billion. Then if we look at the free cash flow generation for those same 8 years, it only comes to about €100 million, which implies a very, very weak free cash flow conversion from free cash flow to EBITDA conversion 10%.
We saw again obviously Q1 quite weak with close to €100 million negative free cash flow generation, which beyond the normal seasonal weak Q1. Question for the new CEO, have you identified that?
Is this going to be a priority for you in the future to make this not only a profitable company on EBITDA and EBIT, but also a company that actually is cash, because it has not been the case for the past 8 years, unfortunately, and it has become a concern, I believe. Then I have a second question.
The management transition was obviously quite brutal, and some shareholders like myself worry about some of the client relationships that could be damaged as a result of this unusual transition. Can you some reassurance on that?
That'd be helpful. Thank you.
Stassi Anastassov
Thank you so much. Let me start with the second question.
This, as I mentioned to you before, is the number one priority to reassure our current customer base. Also let's not forget that no company is one person, and there is a very capable, brilliant team that is behind the results at Ferretti.
That's a team internally, but that's also a team externally. Having spent the past 72 hours, or actually 48 hours with the different people, I do not see a company here in crisis, or a company here with people walk in the corridors worried.
I see people that are incredibly motivated to, as they call it, deliver the season. All resources available to the company are being put against securing this season and reassuring.
This is why, as I mentioned maybe during my comments, I've even spoken to several of our agents and distributors, thereof Lia Riva in Monte Carlo. We're on it, and we're doing what we can with a great Ferretti team today.
Marco, do you want to take the second question?
Marco Zammarchi
Sure. You mentioned the cash flow generation.
Let me recap some points. EBITDA is what you mention.
On the other hand, capex cycle, it was this company needed in order to continue to grow. In 2022, the facility utilization, it was 97%, fully occupied.
It was not possible to continue to grow unless this company could make some capex in order to expand the production capacity. At that time, the company decided to expand our production capacity thanks to the investment in Ravenna shipyard that provide us an additional 30% additional production capacity, plus some expansion in Ancona and also in La Spezia, for a total of roughly €380 million in the last 3 years.
As I mentioned before, unless some M&A activity that at the moment we are taking into evaluation, we don't expect from 2026 to have a huge investment, it should help a lot the cash generation. Secondly, I don't know if it's good news or a bad news, in 2024 we completely offset our tax asset.
Thanks to the tax losses that this company has generated before the crisis, we accumulate more than €140 million of tax asset, and step by step we consume it. In 2024, 2025, and hopefully in the next year, this company start paying taxes.
Dividends: we are already distributing 40% of our consolidated net income. In a nutshell, these are the main rationale about the cash flow generation.
I believe that unless a new capex plan, this company could start to convert most of his EBITDA in cash. Last but not least, the working capital.
I don't wanted to skip this one. In 20 the starting point that you mentioned, it was very, very peculiar starting point.
At that time, let me explain that the working capital dynamics. The working capital dynamics of every segment is quite different.
For example, in superyacht, the working capital is negative because we produce just an order, is usually ranging between 0 and -10%, depend on the stage of construction. In made-to-measure, it was neutral because in order to squeeze the production time, we produce in advance without an order hull and superstructure, the working capital is neutral, is ranging between -5% and +5%.
What is really expanding the working capital is the composite segment, that usually is ranging between 20% and 30% because we have to produce in advance something ready to be bought by our potential customer. This is practically a normal, ideal situation of our business.
If we go back to 2021 and also 2022, we were living with an, in my opinion, unrepeatable situation where the working capital of the composite yacht was negative. The incredible demand that we receive for our order had the two effect: first of all, to clean up all the inventory that usually we keep on display on the US market, and on top of that, we had a lot of advance payment also for composite yacht.
This is bring, if my memory works well, the working capital of the composite segment in a negative field, and also the made-to-measure was extremely negative. I believe this was something that I don't believe we can repeat.
What we have to work with is to be quite careful in capex activity, and to be more focused in generating EBITDA. I hope it's clear.
Because your question was: is it on my radar screen? The answer is yes.
Is it important? The answer is yes.
Are we going to look at different options that we have? The answer is yes.
It's a very good question.
Michael Nizienski
No, thank you. I'll say one thing is, I appreciate there was Ravenna and the other expansion plan, which cost €350 million over 3 years, or 4 years.
Even if we adjust for that, the free cash flow generation over those past 8 years was 100 to 450 versus an EBITDA of about €1 billion. Even if we adjust for that, the free cash flow conversion wasn't great.
You're right, a lot of it came to working capital and the working capital dynamics. I understand there are moving parts with composite, very different dynamics than the bigger boats, but yeah, if there could be some focus on this and just cash generation in general, I think that'd be great.
Just you said there would be a normalization of working capital after the Q1, which was quite weak. Can you perhaps give us a sense of where you would want Q2, working capital as a percentage of sales Q2 to roughly?
Marco Zammarchi
I believe that we usually bring in Q2 in the range between 12%, 14%. Usually our company is reacting immediately to the working capital by adjusting production outflow, and so is a company that usually react quite well.
I believe we should be in this range.
Michael Nizienski
12% to 14% in the Q2.
Marco Zammarchi
Yeah.
Michael Nizienski
All right. Thank you.
Marco Zammarchi
Welcome.
Margherita Sacerdoti
We have one last question from Niccolò Storer. Niccolò, please go ahead.
Niccolò Storer
Okay. Thanks for taking my question.
Actually, follow-up to Emanuele's question on working capital. Is possible to quantify the amount of higher working capital which was due to the mentioned delivery postponements to Middle Eastern client?
Was it a big portion of the €100 million,
Marco Zammarchi
if I made
Niccolò Storer
right calculation, build-up you had in Q1? Thank you.
Marco Zammarchi
Niccolò, it was about €20 million, now fully collected.
Niccolò Storer
Perfect. Thank you.
Marco Zammarchi
You're welcome.
Margherita Sacerdoti
We have no more questions, thank you again for following our results, and have a good day. Everybody,
Marco Zammarchi
thank you. Bye.
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