Materialise NV (NASDAQ:MTLS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Alexander Craeymeersch: That’s perfect. So I’m just wondering for — so you expect an adjusted EBITDA of €25 million to €30million for 2020 which is significantly higher than the Q4 run rate. I’m just — it’s already been discussed somewhat, but what are you specifically banking on to reach these targets? And what would make you overperform or underperform on those targets? And then the second question would be, if you could just provide what a bit of insights on what your customers are thinking at the moment? So — because I mean, a lot of your customers are related to CapEx budgets. So what are the CapEx budgets going into 2023, and maybe as a last question, I have several more, but maybe as a last question. What would be the current usage rate of the ACTech existing machinery as you’re expanding that plant, but it would be interesting to know what’s the current usage or capacity rate at the moment. Thank you for taking these questions.

Peter Leys: Alexander, I will take your first question on the EBITDA guidance. As I already hinted that during the prepared remarks, a growth of the margin of the three segments will contribute to the €25 million to €30 million. And I mean, in absolute numbers, the medical will contribute most — then we see an increasing margin for manufacturing contributing second. And then third, software rebounding, but not yet to the levels of 35% plus where there would be in a couple of years, but still will be bounding to double-digit margins will be the third contributor to this growing EBITDA margin. Now what can make us over perform two things. If we further over perform on revenue, that should with expanding margins that should have a positive impact on our EBITDA.

That would be excellent news. And second, possibly not so good news. If we do not find the right talent to continue our investment programs because we will expand our margins and continue to invest as well, if we do not find the talent and to not accelerate our R&D as much as we still want to in 2023, then that may have a positive impact on our margins for 2023, but we definitely will not be managing the company in that direction. But those are two situations where I could see that could eventually result in an EBITDA in excess of the range that we guided. And for the second question, which I really didn’t take down very much in detail. Please, can I look at you? I will just repeat the question maybe. I just need to wonder what your customers are thinking at the moment.

So how do the CapEx budgets are going into 2023?

Johan Albrecht: Yes. Well, I think in most cases, I want to say that we are not in the CapEx budget, but rather in the OpEx budget that’s one of the consequences of our growing shift towards cloud-based platforms and our licenses. So the amount of situations where we are in the CapEx budget has really becoming very limited. That’s one element there. But indeed, we see in the market that there is uncertainty. And people fear that the year ’23 could still be a difficult year. We can say we are rather optimistic because we believe we are in a large number of applications that are really very much on the rise even in difficult economic circumstances. And then finally, with respect to your question on the capacity utilization of ACTech, that is really very high at the moment.

85% and maybe even higher, which means that there is very little room on the existing capacity, but that’s exactly why we have started earlier last year, the expansion. And during the remainder of this year we expect extra machinery to come in, in order to increase the capacity. In the meantime, we also have some subcontracting opportunities to support growth on a very short notice.

Operator: Thank you. And I’m not showing any further questions at this time. I’d like to turn the call back over to Peter.