Operator: Hello, and welcome to the 2026 Half Year Results Conference Call and Webcast. Please note that today's conference is being recorded and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen-only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. If you require assistance at any point, please call our support number provided in the invite email to you. I will now turn the call over to your host for today's conference, Richard Piekaar, Head of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.
Richard Piekaar: Thank you, and good afternoon, and welcome, everyone, to our results conference call and webcast. And with me today are CEO René Moos and our CFO, Maurice de Kleer. This call is being broadcast live on our website, and a recording of the call will be available shortly afterwards. And as usual, I would like to point out that safe harbor applies. We will start with René who will discuss the highlights and the operational developments during the first half, followed by a more detailed look at the financial results by Maurice. After these prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. And the call will finish no later than 3:00 p.m.. And with that, René, I hand it over to you.
René Moos: Thank you, Richard. And welcome, everyone, to today's call. We have delivered a strong first half of 2026 with double-digit growth across every headline metric. Our club network grew 35% year-on-year to 2,190 clubs, and our membership base grew with 34% to 6.1 million. Revenue increased by 18% to €800 million underlying EBITDA less rent increased by 36% to €204 million. Our results fully reflect the strength of our underlying business. And the underlying EBITDA less rent is even tracking ahead of where we need to be to deliver our full year outlook. Which I will come back to later in the call. The club and membership growth rates are elevated by the consolidation of Clever Fit. Which we acquired last year. Stripping that out, our organic Basic-Fit branded network is still growing very strongly. As I will show you on the next slide. Looking specifically at our Basic-Fit branded owned clubs, so excluding the Clever Fit acquisition, we ended the first half with 1,700 clubs up 4% year-on-year. And 5.1 million memberships up 13% year-on-year. The average number of members per Basic-Fit Club increased by 229 year-on-year, to 3,000. This compares to 2,900 members per club at year-end 2025. So up 97 members on average per club. This confirms that our organic growth engine remains strong while we integrate Clever Fit. And are in the process of closing the Wellyou acquisition in Germany. Which we will discuss shortly. Let's now look in more detail at our club network development. At June 30, 2026, we operated 2,190 clubs. Up from 2,150 at the end of 2025. A net increase of 41 clubs in the first half year. Of this growth, owned clubs added 35 net new clubs to reach 1,750. While our franchise network added 6 net new clubs to reach 441. The majority of our club openings were concentrated in our growth countries. Germany added 19 net clubs, Spain added 11 and France added 8 clubs. As part of the sharpening of our focus on market leadership in our core countries, we discontinued our franchise operations in Romania and The Czech Republic during the period. With the organic club growth of 35 clubs, we are on track to reach our target of around 150 clubs in 2026. Let's move to the membership development slide. As mentioned, we continue to see strong momentum in our membership growth. As of June 30, 2026, we reached 6.1 million memberships, 34% year-on-year increase. Growth was recorded in every country in which we operate, with particularly strong performance in France and Spain. Our membership base of Basic-Fit branded clubs increased by 269,000 in the first half of 2026, up from 256,000 in the first half of 2025. This, despite of fewer opening this year. On a year-on-year basis, our total membership base increased by 1.5 million. This was driven by the consolidation of the Clever Fit acquisition together with the 576,000 growth in our Basic-Fit clubs. Let's now turn to our multivertical growth strategy. As many of you will recall from our Capital Markets Day, spoke about Basic-Fit entering a new era. First era was about rapid expansion and building scale in a stable environment. The second era, spanning the pandemic and recovery that followed. Was about resilience. We kept investing through extreme uncertainty. We are now firmly in our third era, an era of quality, capital-efficient growth. In this new era, growth remains essential. But it increasingly needs to translate into stronger returns. Cash flow and capital discipline. That is also why we introduced Group ROCE. As our new guiding metric, alongside our long-standing mature club hurdle, of a return on invested capital of 30%. Group ROCE let us steer capital to whatever route generates the best return at any point in time. A medium-term return target for the group within the next three to five years is low- to mid-teens. This is powered by three complementary growth verticals rather than a single expansion route. Organic growth remains our core engine for the coming years, inorganic growth adds speed and strategic advantage, where the trends are sufficiently attractive, drawing on our scale and integration know-how. And franchising over the medium term as a capital-light route that leverage our existing brand and scale. Can meaningfully accelerate our group-level returns. Combining these three routes gives us more flexibility to allocate capital to the best return opportunities, and over time, that will lift our group returns. By optimizing the capital intensity behind our future earnings growth. The franchise growth was started with acquisition of Clever Fit. In the coming period, we will launch our Basic-Fit franchise. And in the coming years, it will contribute meaningfully to our returns. But it is now too early to give any guidance on that. We continue to see interesting inorganic growth opportunities, the acquisition of Wellyou that we expect to close in the coming months, is a good example of bolt-on acquisition that we aim to do. Brings me to the next slide. Let's turn to the Wellyou acquisition in Germany. The acquisition of Wellyou is fully consistent with the multivertical growth strategy we set out on the Capital Markets Day in 2026. In addition, it is important for us as it accelerates our path to critical mass in Germany. Transaction adds 41 owned clubs, mainly located in Northern Germany. And around 110,000 members across the acquired locations. The purchase price of €52 million, cash and debt-free, represents a multiple of 5.3x 2025 club EBITDA. We have received government approval, and the transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026. Once closed, the transaction will expand our German owned club footprint from 74 to 115 clubs. Rebranding the Wellyou clubs to Basic-Fit will bring it closer to the goal to reach 200 branded Basic-Fit clubs in Germany. Which is the critical mass we need to unlock national marketing campaigns and build strong brand recognition. All clubs and network will benefit from this as we have seen previously in Spain and in France. Let's move to the operational performance. Since this year, new clubs are being built with a refreshed club design after the extensive testing last year and showing us good results. Those present at our CMD in April this year and who joined us with our field trip have seen clubs with the new look and feel in real life. But for those that could not be there, we give an impression on this slide. This refreshed look is important as we believe our members expect our clubs to always look fresh and well-maintained. This will help both for the retention of our members, but also contribute to the attraction of new members. Though the maintenance cycle through the maintenance cycles, we will bring the new colors and lighting to our existing clubs over time. The changes to the visual identity of our club support our member value creation engine. The engine is based on three core drivers: grow, keep, and value. We focus on grow, so we acquire members efficiently., This is delivered through brand strength, creative excellence and smart investment. Keep we retain members longer is the focus point, and this is delivered through experience design, habit formation and service quality. Value, we increased the revenue per member, This is delivered through an evolving offering targeted upsell and secondary revenue streams. Combined, this ensures we optimize member per club under both our owned and franchised models. And ensure that new club openings reach breakeven increasingly quickly over time. This de-risks our growth strategy. In the past period, we made some major improvements to boost the member value creation engine. Behind the refreshed look of our clubs, we continue to improve our service to our members. Clubs have extended opening hours, which many are open 24/7. This mainly applies to the growth countries, Germany, France and Spain. As in the Benelux countries, the vast majority of our clubs have been already open 24/7. We are continuing with the testing of our relax and recovery zones in our clubs, as this fits the more holistic trend towards well-being. We have expanded the testing and will evaluate the results so we can further optimize the perceived value of our offering by our members. In the same trend towards well-being, there is also increased demand for health information and guidance. We are facilitating this with our improved body composition measurement and tracking, our Body Analyzer 2.0 offers more details and broader information about one's body composition and tracks the progress that you are making as you continue to work out in our clubs. We also continue to build on the service in our app, through our Fit Bodies, and developing even more engaging virtual group classes, we help our members stay motivated. Engaged, and active. This all supports our mission to make fitness accessible to everyone and getting people to love their fitness habits. Let's now turn to the updated outlook for 2026. As mentioned, we are on track to achieve our target of 150 net club openings and memberships continue to develop well. We are therefore confirming our revenue guidance of between €1.64 billion and €1.69 billion. As our focus on cost control is paying off and operating leverage is kicking in, we are now also able to increase our expectation for underlying EBITDA less rent for the second time this year, to a range of €430 million to €460 million compared to the old range of €415 million to €455 million. We confirm our expectation of a significant improvement in positive free cash flow compared to last year. And like last year, the second half of the year, will see significantly more cash generative than the first half of the year. With this positive note, I would now like to hand over to Maurice who will elaborate on our financial results
Maurice de Kleer: Yes. Thank you, René. Before I turn to the numbers, I would like to take a brief moment to mark special milestone. On June 10, we celebrated 10 years since Basic-Fit's listing on Euronext Amsterdam. And on that day, I had the honor of sounding the Gong at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange together with a group of fellow Basic-Fit colleagues, many of whom have been with the company since long before the IPO. They helped shape the company and make the success of the last 10 years possible, and they continue to do so today. Let's move to a well-known slide highlighting the success of this period. We continue to show this slide in our presentation as it perfectly visualizes the strong growth over the last 10 years. In this decade, every one of our key performance indicators increased by double-digit compound annual rate. Between 2016 and the first half of 2026, our club network grew at 19% per year. Our membership base at 18 percent a year. Revenue at 21% per year, and underlying EBITDA less rent at 19%. Per year. We can see the success of our previous strategic cycles will continue this growth trajectory. Our new era of quality growth will maintain the momentum through our multivertical growth strategy, while at the same time, focusing on quality returns. And with that as the backdrop, let me turn to the results for the first half, revenue increased 18% to €800 million. And within that, club revenue grew 17% to €783 million. This strong growth was driven primarily by the excellent membership development in our clubs in France and Spain. ARPU defined as average club revenue per member per month of owned clubs, came in at €25.64 per month, up 1% year-on-year from €25.46. We changed the underlying metric for our ARPU calculation from fitness revenue to club revenue following our new reporting structure and to better reflect economic value per member. Founding member campaigns and flat other club revenues muted ARPU growth. However, this is in line with our expectations, and ARPU will increase going forward. As part of our new era of quality growth, we are prioritizing cost control and operational excellence. We have hired key personnel across procurement, property, and facility management to drive further organization of our operations. These improvements are already delivering results. The underlying EBITDA less rent increased by 36% to €204 million with disciplined cost control, including the hedging of energy costs being a significant contributor to this growth. Operating profit increased by 67% to €96 million. Continued operating leverage is playing a major role in that improvement, as an increased number of members per club drives up returns per club. This strong EBIT improvement is also a good outcome for our ROCE focus. Net profit was €24 million, compared with a loss of €8 million in the first half of 2025. Free cash flow improved to €25 million from a negative €57 million in 2025. Which I will come back to shortly. Let's take a close look now at CapEx on the next slide. Expansion CapEx was €39 million, down from €68 million a year ago, explained by the lower number of club openings this year. The average investment per newly built club increased to €1.47 million from €1.38 million in the first half of 2025, reflecting the increased size of the new clubs opened in the first half. And then maintenance CapEx. Maintenance CapEx was €54 million or €31,000 per club compared with €36,000 per club a year ago. I will continue to expect approximately €60,000 per club for the full year. Other CapEx was €11 million, compared with €9 million a year ago, and we continue to expect approximately €25 million for full year. Let's now look into our free cash flow generation in the first half of 2026. Free cash flow came in at €25 million in the first half, a strong improvement from the negative €57 million in the same period last year. The main driver behind the strong improvement versus last year is the €55 million higher EBITDA. The lower maintenance and expansion CapEx, as discussed in the previous slides, combination with a less negative working capital, offset slightly higher interest, tax, and other CapEx cash-outs. Summary, this leaves us with a positive free cash flow after expansion CapEx, which we expect to increase further in the second half thanks to continued EBITDA growth and fewer club openings. First half performance shows we are on track for the significant free cash flow improvement we have guided for the full year and validates our strategic focus on improving ROCE Let's move over to an overview of our liquidity on the next slide. We finished the first half of 2026 with access to liquidity of €359 million. Our cash balance grew €30 million to €145 million at the end of June. This growth came from two main sources. Free cash flow contributed €25 million and as you may know, in April, we issued a new €308 million convertible bond maturing in 2031. After repaying the previous convertible and other loans, this added €21 million to our cash position. This was partly offset by €60 million cash outflow relating to finance costs and other items. The new convertible allows us to replace more expensive short-term bank facilities and slightly reduce our overall financing costs. This strengthens our financial flexibility. Together with our undrawn RCF facilities, we have €359 million in total liquidity. This gives us substantial room to fund both organic and inorganic growth from our existing cash position. Let's take a look at our future debt obligations. In April, we issued a new €308 million senior unsecured convertible bond maturing in 2031 and used part of the proceeds to fund the June put option on our existing 2021 convertible bond. We replaced more expensive short-term bank facilities and extended our debt maturity profile Bondholders representing €138 million in nominal value exercised a put option, while holders of €166 million did not exercise it. With our main bank facility maturing in 2029, we have no short-term debt obligations outstanding. Our net leverage ratio improved to 2.3 times at the end of June from 2.7 times at both year-end 2025 and a year ago. Together with our free cash flow generation and our €145 million cash position, this gives us sufficient financial flexibility to execute on our multivertical growth strategy. With that, let me look back to our 2026 guidance. To conclude, the results we have outlined today demonstrate strong progress against our guidance. Revenue growth, improving profitability, and positive free cash flow momentum give us confidence to reiterate our revenue guidance and raise our underlying EBITDA less rent guidance for the second time this year. Our leverage ratio is also on track to reach just over two times by year-end. This performance reflects continued execution of our multivertical growth strategy, combining organic, inorganic, and franchise growth and it reinforces the new era of quality growth. We set out to deliver. And with that, I will end the presentation, and we can move to the Q&A. Operator, please open the lines.
Operator: Thank you. We are now ready for the question-and-answer session. Keypad. Please ensure that the mute function on your telephone is switched off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. If you find that your question has already been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing the hashtag key. The first question comes from Natasha Brilliant from UBS. Natasha, go ahead. The next question comes from Natasha Brilliant from UBS. Please go ahead.
Natasha Brilliant: Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have got three questions if I may. The first one is if you could just give us an update about the Clever Fit integration. So how are those conversations going with the franchisees? Have you had any learning? Or any changes in how you are thinking about it? And can you tell us how many Clever Fit franchise gyms have converted to Basic-Fit in the first half? My second question is just around the average members per club. So for the Basic-Fit owned clubs, it is up 8% year-on-year. Can we think about a similar trajectory for the full year? And then my last question is back at the CMD, you talked about the possibility of maybe selling some clubs in France for a franchise opportunity. I just wondered if there have been any conversations or anything you can share about that, please? Thank you.
René Moos: Yes. Something to share about the Clever Fit learnings I think it is going very well. We are very working very closely with the franchisees. there is a new franchise board installed with 8 people on it, and it is working very well with us. What we have seen is that we have improved already some of the suppliers' contracts or suppliers of equipment and so on. So for better deals for the franchisees. Also, marketing, we have taken some really good steps already, but it is still early days. there is still a lot to improve, which is good for a Basic-Fit, but also for the clever fit franchisees. Your question's about how many clubs have been converted. it is a bit too early for that. If you look at we are definitely in different conversations with franchisees. But I think what is important, especially for Germany, is that we first reached the 200 clubs, Basic-Fit clubs in Germany so we can start the national marketing campaign, and then it also makes sense to really join that group since the Basic-Fit name currently with around 70 locations, 60-70 locations. it is just a very small footprint. So we are in conversations about converting. We have also some franchisees that have currently Clever Fit clubs that want to open the Basic-Fit franchise clubs. But that will take some time before that starts. And again, the focus first should be to reach the 200 clubs and start national marketing. The average member base that increased in the first six months is where we do not give any guidance for the rest of the year. But we do expect as of last year and the years before that also you will see growth in the second half of 2026. The question is about the CMD selling franchise. I think it is pretty much the same story. We are having several conversations but it will take some time, if and before, some transaction will occur.
Natasha Brilliant: Perfect. Thank you very much.
Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from Robert Jan Vos from ABN AMRO, Oddo BHF. Robert Jan, go ahead.
Robert Jan Vos: Yes, hi. Good afternoon. I have a few questions as well. First, the free cash flow guidance. If I take the updated EBITDA guidance plus the impact from lower expansion CapEx, GAAP free cash flow should be at least €50 million to €80 million higher in the second half. Versus H1. So my question, probably, Maurice, is that it, or are there additional positive drivers for free cash flow in the second half? And my second question also related to free cash flow. Can you explain the working capital component? it is quite different from the working capital component in the consolidated cash flow statement. So how should we bridge that? And my third question is, what do you mean by a ramp up in franchise revenue in H2 versus H1? Maybe you can quantify this a little bit. Thank you.
Maurice de Kleer: Yep. Thank you, Robert Jan. three good questions. Maybe first about the free cash flow. And looking forward as you have seen, we made in the first half of this year a significant improvement of our free cash flow, if you compare the negative of the first six months of 2025 and the 25 million positive free cash flow in 2026. So we are taking steps in the right direction. Also important to see that there is quite some seasonality in our free cash flow. If you look at 2025 and you compare the first half and second half of this year, then you see really a ramp up in the second half, and that is what we expect also for the second half of 2026. And that is also reflecting, of course, in our let's say, adjusted guidance on EBITDA for this year. If you look specifically at working capital, yeah, that is something that tends to fluctuate also because of a lot of timing differences. When you pay for, for example, new club openings, etcetera. So that is yeah. That influences the working capital. And what we also start to do is that, actually, we are paying our suppliers much sooner than in the past. So that has an impact on fluctuations in working capital. If you look at franchise, and that is specifically then the Clever Fit franchise, of course, and you compare, for example, the last two months in 2025 and first six months of 2026. The main difference is actually now the commissions that we have for received on, for example, fitness equipment and etcetera. Which tend to be more at the end of the book year of calendar year. So we expect also for the coming six months an increase in our franchise revenue. So but that explains the difference between first six months 2026 and the last two months of 2025.
Robert Jan Vos: Okay. Maybe to come back on free cash flow. First, on working capital, understand what you say, but why is there such a significant difference between the bridge on in your press release on free cash flow for the working capital components versus what you show in working capital movements in the consolidated cash flow statements. I think it is €20 million in the cash flow statement, and €35 million in the bridge that you show in the press release. So why there a big difference there?
Maurice de Kleer: Yeah. I think that, as I said, I had I it has to do with the timing differences. You know, in CapEx. We will get back on that. We will we will Yeah. Look at it into more detail, and we look we come back at it. But a lot of them is about timing.
Robert Jan Vos: Okay. Thanks.
Operator: The next question comes from Leo Carrington from Citigroup. Leo, go ahead.
Leo Carrington: Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I will take three, please, all around CapEx. Firstly and free cash flow. Firstly, in terms of the free cash flow outlook for the year, refer to an improvement in H2 barring any unforeseen circumstances. Is that any particular risk that you see or investments you are considering making? Just wondering if there is anything specific in that comment. Secondly, in terms of the maintenance CapEx, it appears to be synchronized towards H2 this year. Any particular reason it is H2-loaded? And then lastly, in terms of the expansion CapEx, I get the point about the larger clubs driving up the CapEx per club. Is this something that we should expect for 2027 and beyond too, or does the size factor in the CapEx per club normalize somewhat going forward? Thank you.
Maurice de Kleer: Thank you, Leo. So your first question was on expansion CapEx. So any risks or surprises in there? No. I do not I do not think there will be any differences, major differences between, let's say, the first half of this year. Of course, as you know, based on the multi-vertical growth strategy, we are always looking for let's say, bolt-on acquisitions that hit our profile really hits our profile. But that is difficult to, of course, difficult to predict also the timing of that. So no risks or surprises there, I would say. If you look at maintenance CapEx, yeah, you have seen that we are pretty well in line with our expectations for the full year. And lower in the first six months of 2026 compared to the first six months of 2025. But, also, that has to do partially with some timing differences Some of our maintenance is only done in, let's say, in low-competing months. So we are always in a, let's say, in a squeeze timing squeeze to do that maintenance CapEx without hindering a lot of our members. And there is also for example, some one-time deep cleaning programs that can be either in second half of the year or the first half of the year. But, again, as I said, we expect to come in around that €60,000 for a club on average. Expansion CapEx, yeah, that is what I shared. So due to mainly due to higher because of bigger openings of bigger clubs. We have also higher expansion CapEx per club. If you look forward, then probably it will tend again to a lower a lower amount because of a larger amount of clubs opened then and will trend more to the average. that is what we expect. But, of course, there is also an element that the new the club openings that we do in the new look and feel certainly in this phase has a let's say, upward effect on our expansion CapEx.
Leo Carrington: Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Sure. Thank you. I was just going to add my first question was yes, about CapEx, but also free cash flow outlook generally. I just wanted to check that in the outlook comments about barring unforeseen developments there was not anything in particular to call out there.
Maurice de Kleer: No. You are right. No. Not anything new or anything particular for the next six months. No.
Leo Carrington: Thank you very much. Yep.
Operator: Next question comes from Baudemon Flavien from Bernstein. Baudemon, go ahead.
Baudemon Flavien: Yes. Good afternoon. Congratulations for the results. I have two questions on my side. First, can you give us an update on the Clever Fit branded owned club in Germany and Austria? Did you already refurbish them into Basics Club? And if not, are they going to be converted by the end of the year? And the second question, it is on the cost. Can you give more color on the trajectory of the overhead cost excluding the Clever Fit effect? Yes.
René Moos: So if you look at the owned Clever Fit clubs, they are currently in Germany being rebuilt to change to Basic-Fit clubs. I think the first two clubs are finished. So in Germany, it is going smooth. Austria, it will take a bit more time because we have to get approval from local authorities. Working on that already for quite a few months, but we are not sure when that will be done, and we will not change labels in our sales period, like September, October or January, February. So we can do it in November, December. And if that is not the case, we will postpone it till summer next year. But it all depends on authority approval, so it is not in our hands.
Maurice de Kleer: If you look at the questions about overhead, I think the overhead is slightly higher than the first half of last year. Reason is clear. Last year, we did not have the overhead of Clever Fit in our numbers. This year. We have. So that is the big difference, and we think that we are optimizing the head office cost as we speak. So the second half, it will be better. So the percentage will be lower.
Baudemon Flavien: Okay. it is clear. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from Lynn Hautekeete from KBC. Lynn, go ahead.
Lynn Hautekeete: Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two left. So congratulations on upgrading your EBITDA guidance. I was just wondering, in which buckets do you see the particular cost reductions Because especially, there might be an inflationary environment coming up. So that is already one of them. And secondly, is part of it also related to an anticipation of further personnel cost reductions in France on the 24/7 clubs.
René Moos: Well, I can answer your last question. I think, yes, the second half, we will have definitely less cost than we had in the first half because it took some time to convert all the clubs to the system, and we did it gradually. So the second half of this year, we have all the clubs that we converted to the staff less system. We have them for the full 6 months. So for sure, it will be less cost, lower cost in the second half of this year.
Maurice de Kleer: Maurice de Kleer: Yes. Of course, Lynn. Thank you for your question. And if you look at cost, we are still making quite some progress in our procurement department. So we are much more efficient and effective in using that purchase power that we that we have. that is 1 thing. Of course, as we said before, we are still also focusing continuously on our overhead so that certainly as in expressing percentage of revenue that will come down in the second half of this year. And further to, let's say, procurement, we see the main advantages in still reducing, let's say, the maintenance OpEx and maintenance CapEx for the second half of this year.
Lynn Hautekeete: Okay. that is clear. And then for my second question, it is already been touched upon very briefly in the beginning of the Q&A, but it is indeed on the Clever Fit revenue coming down. So if I extrapolate the fourth quarter of last year, you would have had around €19 million. That came down to €16 million in the first quarter this year and then €14.8 million in the second quarter. So I am just wondering if it is fully related to the commissions on the equipment or if something else is going on there.
Maurice de Kleer: No. Good question. No, good question, but we made a, let's say, breakdown of that of that revenue streams, and it is about commissions, which are, of course, very subject to timing, subject to, of course, the decisions made by franchisees. Doing their investments in new fitness equipment. And if you look at, actually, at EBITDA for Clever Fit in the first six months, which is also part of our half year results, And then you see that we have made €11.5 million EBITDA, and we expect that actually to increase in the second half of this year, and that comes in the guidance that we already shared before. So we are actually quite happy with where we are today with Clever Fit still needs, of course, needs attention, still needs some work, but it is going in the right direction.
Lynn Hautekeete: Alright. Alright. Thank you, Maurice. Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from Marc Zwartsenburg from ING. Marc, go ahead.
Marc Zwartsenburg: Yeah. Good afternoon. two questions for me. First, coming back again on the free cash flow. So we had €25 million in the first half. We have a higher guidance for the full year, so more EBITDA in the second half. But also, yeah, net working capital last year was in the end, for the full year, a positive. So a huge swing from first half to second half. Given normal seasonality and not knowing about the timing and your opening not that many clubs in the second half, I guess it is it could not be that far off from last year. So I would then guess that you will have with the extra EBITDA lower club openings and the net working capital swing, which is tens of positive in the second half, you should get a triple-digit free cash flow in the second half. Is there anything wrong in what I am saying now? Is there any color I missed?
Maurice de Kleer: Well, it is a very good question, Marc, but as always, I think the that the fluctuations in the working capital are a bit less predictable, of course. So we are getting, of course, into a much more, let's say, mature phase of Basic-Fit where we expect to see that even out over time. So we expect those situations to become less of an aspect. I think your yeah. You are in the right direction. We are not giving specific guidance on, let's say, the free cash flow. We are, of course, considering to do that in the future a bit more but we have not done it so far. And part of that is, of course, that fluctuations in the working capital.
Marc Zwartsenburg: Yeah. Yeah. Because that should get more predictable with less club rollout, etcetera. Yep. Correct. So And then on your -- on your outlook, you are you are basically raising the midpoint of your guidance by €15 million. And part of it is explained by a further postponement of the VAT increase in Belgium. Well, let's say, million for extra three months. And then you have the contribution from Wellyou acquisition and looking at the multiple and EBITDA geared to the second half, if you consider at least a quarter or four months of contribution, it can be something like well, €5 million or so. Then you are already close to €10 million. The midpoint only increased by €5 million than underlying. Looking at your membership growth, which is trending above last year, I think also above expectations, Yeah. You only need 10,000-15,000 extra members on average on the year to get to that number. So is it then fair conclusion that you are still being very cautious in your outlook. Because there is not that much added if you add the external factors that are just there.
René Moos: Marc. Maybe to start. So we started the year with the guidance of €440 million or €445 million. And then we increased it with €10 million on the low end and the high end. And now in mid we now increase it again €15 million on the low end and €5 million, so in the mid again, €10 million. So two times €10 million increase from the beginning of this year. And you are talking about the VAT, that is already also was included already in the first €10 million we talked about. We do not know exactly when it is raised. So it could be that in August, that will be the higher number. So overall, the €430 million and €460 million, which we are giving guidance on now is something we feel comfortable and in the midterm. In the midpoint, it is €445 million. We think it is it is something that we feel good about. So overall, I do not think we are keeping it extremely low. This is what we think we are going to reach.
Marc Zwartsenburg: Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Because you mentioned the VAT with it.
René Moos: Yeah. Part of the former may increase a little bit, the VAT, and then we had, of course, the savings in France, etcetera. Yeah.
Maurice de Kleer: So We increased underlying by €20 million. And the value, of course, is so let's say, we closed the deal in September, then you have one quarter, so that is €2 million.
René Moos: And the VAT is I do not think No, I do not think so.
Marc Zwartsenburg: Last quarter is the strongest. Yep. So little members contribute.
René Moos: Okay. Well Yeah. But not with my math. Okay.
Marc Zwartsenburg: But fair enough. Okay. Okay. And you feel comfortable with your outlook and let's say but I am I am also trying to guess maybe that I missed something. Maybe there is a bit of extra cost somewhere for redesign or indeed some maintenance or whatever. that is not the case. Okay. No. Alright. Were my questions. Thank you very much.
Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from Jeremy Kincaid from Van Lanschot Kempen. Jeremy, go ahead.
Jeremy Kincaid: Good afternoon. Two questions from my side. First, could you just talk about the state or condition of the Wellyou locations or clubs and give us an idea of how much CapEx you expect to spend to rebrand those. And then my second question is on France. If I look at the revenue per location in France, it is gone up maybe around 14% this half compared to the first half of last year. Could you talk to why that increase looks so strong? Is it a regional versus city splits, or is it due to the fact that the locations that are now 24/7 are getting a lot more members?
René Moos: Yes. I can start with the first one. Wellyou I think we are still working on the CapEx cost, but that is for sure CapEx is involved. I think we have a good thing about the Wellyou transaction is that they are average ARPU is around is much lower than ours. I think that is a very good opportunity to actually get them in our system and that way, increase the turnover. To what they have currently. So for that, I think we see very good upside on that Wellyou transaction. They have a lot of newer clubs also, so it is it is not only the 41 clubs, but they also have three clubs in that they are currently building. So we think it is a very strong brand and a good group of people. So we were happy that we could do this transaction. And the CapEx cost will be there, but we do not have the exact number yet. But it is not that we have to change the equipment, but, of course, we have to rebrand it paint it, and put the camera system in. So will be, for sure, around something like €250,000 per club. So it will be substantial amount. It could be a wrap it could be something around that number, but still working on that.
Maurice de Kleer: Yes, Jeremy. And, as for your second question, especially specifically for France and the revenue development there, If we look at France, we are, of course, very happy with the results in first six months. We really think that the investments that we made in opening those clubs 27 that was possible are really paying off. If 24/7 is not possible, then we go for extended opening hours to get a better member experience than we had before. it is also really at, let's say, steering on operational excellence. We developed a specific set of KPIs for staff in France. working with that for now for one year. We heavily invested in the maintenance of our clubs. Not only the clubs, but also the equipment. And we also invested in extra equipment in our clubs. And I think all in all that is what now is delivering positive results in France right now. But let me be very clear. We are not there yet. And that coin has two sides. So we are not there yet, but there is also huge upside potential in France for us.
Jeremy Kincaid: Great. Thank you. Thank you.
Operator: As a reminder, you want to ask a question, please press *5 on your telephone keypad. We have reached the end of today's conference call. I would like to hand the call over to Richard Piekaar for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Richard Piekaar: Well, thank you, Bertrand, and thank everyone for dialing in for today's call. And if any other questions come up, we are here to answer your calls. So stay in touch. Have a nice day. Bye.