15 February 2023, 17:52
Artificial Intelligence drives revenues and all the main KPIs • Half-year revenues up to around € 145 million (+47% YoY) • Cash cycle with Net Financial Debt at € 4 million • Number of users served in the Electricity commodity at 240,000 (+41% YoY) Implementation procedures for the launch of the buy back programme approved
Saluzzo (CN), February 15, 2023 – The Board of Directors of eVISO S.p.A. (symbol: EVS.MI) – a digital company, listed on the EGM, with a proprietary artificial intelligence infrastructure operating in the commodities sector (electricity, gas, apples) – meeting today, reviewed the unaudited first-half July-December 2022 revenues and main KPIs.
Growth accelerated at eVISO, which posted revenues of around € 145 million in the six months of July-December 2022, up +47% compared to the same half of the previous year.
The phenomenon of high energy prices, which characterised the entire calendar year 2022, peaked in the period July – September 2022. The most significant impact was on the electricity sector where the average revenue per MWh increased to around €425/MWh, up around +64% compared to around €259/MWh recorded in the same six months of 2021.
“I am convinced that in the electricity arena – commented Gianfranco Sorasio, CEO of eVISO – the very strong fluctuations of the last six months, unprecedented in history, have accelerated the adoption of Artificial Intelligence as a tool to compete and face the energy challenge head-on. If we focus on growth compared to the IPO year, revenues grew by +467% compared to the € 31 million in revenues recorded in the same period of the IPO year (2020). The volumes of energy supplied grew by +162%. EVISO’s proprietary technology has multiplied the number of services delivered per month by 7X. The scale achieved through the contracts signed for the year 2023 allows us to start extracting concrete value from the competitive advantage of our business model. eVISO’s business model is to use our proprietary artificial intelligence tools and the huge amount of data collected every day by our robots, to grow strongly with fast, competitive and scalable services: since the IPO +162% of energy volumes, +5,540% of gas volumes, +788% of users served and finally 100 tons of apples successfully traded in our proprietary marketplace smartmele.eviso.it. All this, however, taking into account a general macroeconomic context significantly impacted by an inflationary dynamic on energy and raw materials never observed in the recent past”.
Net Financial Debt amounted to €4 million. The change in Net Financial Debt was influenced by the +95% increase in the average price of energy (PUN) compared to the same period of the previous year, by the payment of the extraordinary and tax non-deductible “contribution on extra-profits” in the amount of € 2.9 million, and by the payment of € 0.9 million in advances on gas supplies. With regard to the issue of extra-profits, please note that on 15 November 2022, eVISO filed a petition for reimbursement with the Cuneo Revenue Office due to the constitutional illegitimacy of the rule in question. The Net Financial Debt reported above no longer takes into account guarantee deposits receivable from institutional suppliers amounting to € 6.2 million at 31.12.2022, up from € 4.2 million at 30.06.2022 and € 2.9 million at 31.12.2021.
KPIs BY BUSINESS SEGMENT
The electricity sector led the dynamics of the semester, with strong growth in terms of users.
ELECTRICITY
The total number of rolling 12-month users served increased by +41% (compared to 170,000 users served in 2021) to 240,000, in line with the strategy of focusing, in the Reseller segment, exclusively on operators with domestic, micro and small business users, and at the same time moving away from industrial users.
The number of matched resellers amounted to 94, an increase of +54% compared to the 61 at 31 December 2021, representing a share of 9.3% of the free market sales operators surveyed in Italy as at 15 February 2023[1], up from 7.5% recorded at 31 December 2021.
In December 2022, the contract renewal phase was successfully concluded for almost all contracts with resellers, for a total allocated volume cap of 700 GWh, a number that guarantees high visibility for the segment. The renegotiation and renewal phase involved both an increase in the cap granted to some worthy resellers, and the skimming off of operators with practices, methods and users that were distant from the eVISO strategy. Following the renewal phase, the security deposits paid by resellers to eVISO rose to € 9.6 million, up 182% from € 3.4 million at 30.06.2022.
Total energy delivered fell by about -15% to 290 MWh (compared to the same half of 2021), in line with the reduction in domestic consumption noted by TERNA[2] and with the strategy of focusing on reseller operators with low consumption users.
Specifically, energy delivered to the reseller channel recorded -12% to 183 MWh (compared to the same half of 2021) and energy delivered to the direct channel recorded -21% to 107 GWh. The reduction in consumption in the direct channel is also partly related to the higher switch-out recorded in the period from March to June 2022 associated with the greater attractiveness of fixed-price offers practised by some competitors. This phenomenon then vanished from July 2022 onwards.
ANCILLARY SERVICES
The number of ancillary services subject to invoicing provided in the half-year was 23,000, up +163% compared to the same period of the previous year (9,000 files). Specifically, the greatest growth was reported in the reseller channel, where ancillary services provided totalled 22,000, an increase of +203% (compared to the same period in 2021).
GAS
The gas supplied reached about 563,000 smc (standard cubic metres) compared to 664,000 smc as at 31 December 2021, a decrease of -15%, mainly caused by a relatively warm winter, with semi-summer temperatures from October to the beginning of November.
In the six-month period of users served was stable at 1,000, as a result of the deliberate strategy not to expand the gas customer portfolio in 2022 pending a less critical period. The positive signs of stability recorded in January 2023, the introduction of the Price Cap at EU level, and the high percentage of storage prompt us to confidently resume the purchasing campaign.
APPLES
In the six-month period, 106 tonnes of apples were delivered. By 31 December 2022, there were 2,000 tonnes with limit price orders on the platform. The number of registered users on smartmele.eviso.it exceeded 297.
The above figures are management data and are unaudited.
The full financial figures will be published following approval by the Board of Directors, scheduled for Tuesday, 28 March 2023, as per the Company’s financial calendar.
The Company will present the preliminary financial data to the financial community via conference call on Thursday 16 February 2023 at 3 pm CET
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Furthermore, also today, eVISO S.p.A. announces that, in execution of the authorisation granted by the Shareholders’ Meeting of 27 October 2022, the Company’s Board of Directors approved the implementing procedures for the launch of a buyback programme for a number of shares not exceeding 10% of the Company’s pro-tempore share capital.
The shares purchased in this manner may be used, in accordance with the shareholders’ resolution of 27 October 2022, (i) to hold treasury shares to service any future incentive plans in favour of members of the board of directors, employees or collaborators of the Company that entail the disposal or assignment of shares or financial instruments convertible into shares, (ii) to hold a securities portfolio (so-called “securities warehouse”) to be used, consistently with the Company’s strategic guidelines, to service any extraordinary transactions and/or the possible use of the shares as consideration in extraordinary transactions, also involving the exchange of shareholdings, with other parties in the context of transactions of interest to the Company, and (iii) to pursue an efficient use of the liquidity generated by the Company’s core business, also through medium- and long-term investments in treasury shares.
Pursuant to Article 2357, paragraph 1, of the Italian Civil Code, treasury shares must be purchased within the limits of distributable profits and available reserves resulting from the last duly approved financial statements and, when shares are purchased or disposed of, exchanged, transferred or written down, the appropriate accounting entries will be made, in compliance with applicable laws and accounting principles.
Shares may be purchased at a price that does not deviate downwards or upwards by more than 20% from the reference price recorded by the share on the stock exchange session on the day prior to each individual transaction. In particular, in compliance with the legal and regulatory provisions in force pro tempore, purchases will be made at a price that is no higher than the highest price between the price of the last independent transaction and the price of the highest current independent bid on the trading venue where the purchase is made.
In terms of volume, daily purchase quantities will not exceed a volume greater than 25% of the average daily volume of shares on the trading venue where the purchase is made over the 20 trading days preceding the date of purchase.
The purchases will be initiated as soon as possible and consistent with market conditions and will be carried out on Euronext Growth Milan, in compliance with the conditions set out in the resolution of the Shareholders’ Meeting of 27 October 2022, as well as in a manner that complies with the provisions of Regulation (EU) 596/2014 on market abuse and Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052.
As of today’s date, the Company does not hold any treasury shares.
For the purposes of executing the programme, the Company will give a mandate to an authorised intermediary, which will make decisions on purchases in full independence, also in relation to the timing of transactions and in compliance with daily price and volume limits. The details of the transactions carried out will be communicated to the market within the terms and in the manner provided for by the regulations in force.
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This press release is available in the Investor Relations section of www.eviso.ai.
For the transmission of Regulated Information, the Company uses the EMARKET SDIR dissemination system available at www.emarketstorage.com, managed by Teleborsa S.r.l. – with registered office in Piazza di Priscilla, 4 – Rome – following the authorization and CONSOB resolutions no. 22517 and 22518 of 23 November 2022.
[1] Operators Portal, ARERA.
[2] TERNA table on page: https://www.terna.it/it/media/comunicati-stampa/dettaglio/consumi-elettrici-2022