FINANCIAL INFORMATION

2023 FINANCIAL REPORTING

GIGAS HOSTING, S.A.

10 April 2024

Pursuant to article 17 of EU Market Abuse Regulation (596/2014) and article 227 of the Law 6/2023 of 17 March on Securities Markets and Investment Services (Ley 6/2023, de 17 de marzo) and related provisions, and Circular 3/2020 of the BME Growth Segment of BME MTF Equity (the "BME Growth" segment) on information to be provided by companies admitted to trading in the BME Growth segment of BME MTF Equity, the following disclosure contains relevant information on Gigas Hosting, S.A. and its subsidiaries ("GIGAS", the "GIGAS Group", the "Group", or the "Company") in relation to the annual financial results for full year 2023 and the level of compliance with the Company's 2023 budget included in the Inside Information published on 7 February 2023:

  • Summary of significant information for 2023 and compliance with the budget (included in the Inside Information published on 7 February 2023)
  • Guidance for 2024
  • Auditor's report and consolidated financial statements of Gigas Hosting, S.A. and subsidiaries for the year ended 31 December 2023 and consolidated management report
  • Non-financialstatement of Gigas Hosting S.A. and subsidiaries for the year ended 31 December 2023, audited
  • Auditor's report and separate financial statements of Gigas Hosting, S.A. for the year ended 31 December 2023 and management report

The Company has scheduled a webinar on its earnings, during which the CEO and CFO will provide more details on the numbers presented in this document and an update on the integrations and the new convergent services. It is open for attendance by all investors, analysts, and anyone else interested, who can follow the presentation on-line and submit questions:

FY 2023 EARNINGS PRESENTATION WEBINAR

DATE AND TIME: Wednesday, 17 April 2024, 10:30am

LINK TO REGISTER:http://gigas.com/ResultadosGigas/FY2023

SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT INFORMATION

Dear shareholder,

We are pleased to present our financial statements for 2023, the eighth full year since GIGAS' shares were admitted for trading on the BME Growth market (formerly the Mercado Alternativo Bursátil or the Spanish Alternative Equity Market), on 3 November 2015. The year featured organic growth and completion of the consolidation and integration of the companies acquired in 2021, which resulted in a significant change in the Company's size.

2023 financial and operating highlights:

  • 4,954 business customers at year-end 2023 (2022: 6,952), including Onmóvil's slightly more than 200 regional partner operators, through which most of the subsidiary's 91 thousand mobile lines at end-December 2023 (2022: 81 thousand) are served.
  • EUR 67.68 million of net revenue, up 9.9% from EUR 61.56 million in 2022.
  • Adjusted recurring EBITDA, i.e., excluding M&A related costs, multiyear remuneration plans and other non-recurring expenses, of EUR 16.70 million, 1.3% higher than the EUR
    1. million of 2022.
  • Net loss of EUR 4.88 million (2022: EUR 3.78 million net loss), mostly due to higher amortisation and depreciation arising from acquisitions and the increase in finance costs from the syndicated facility arranged in 2023.
  • Investment in intangible assets and property, plant and equipment, excluding the capitalisation of leases under IFRS 16 and in-house labour, of EUR 6.54 million in 2023 (2022: EUR 9.90 million), equivalent to 9.7% of revenue, marking a significant improvement from 16.1% in 2022, which was driven by the deployment of a new 10 Gbps fibre network in Portugal and the rollout of new convergent services.
  • Operating cash flow of EUR 9.5 million (2022: EUR 14.26 million), with the decrease due to non-recurring working capital changes caused primarily by acquisitions, which resulted in an outflow of EUR 10.57 million in the year (2022: EUR 2.95 million inflow). Subtracting maintenance CAPEX of EUR 1.99 million, well below the year-earlier figure (2022: EUR
    1. million), positive free cash flow (i.e. cash flow from operating activities minus maintenance CAPEX) was EUR 7.46 million (2022: EUR 10.35 million).
  • Cash position at year-end of EUR 19.30 million, significantly higher than the EUR 13.70 million at year-end 2022, but also linked to an increase in gross debt.
  • Acquisition of fibre and communications infrastructure company Alterlinks in Portugal in October 2023, which bolsters the Company's operating position in strategic assets, in addition to a strategic alliance with Lyntia for cooperation in both Portugal and Spain.

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MARKET

As a converged cloud/telco/cybersecurity solutions provider, GIGAS operates primarily in the telecommunications and cloud markets. These are two distinct markets at different stages of maturity, and as such, are shaped by different dynamics and growing at different speeds.

Cloud is still expanding rapidly, especially in the IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) segment, which is where the Company is active. In its November 2023 report, Gartner estimates the worldwide IaaS market reached USD 143.9 billion at the end of 2023, with growth of 19.6% from an estimated USD 120.3 billion in 20221. In the same report, it said that analysts are forecasting 26.6% growth in this market in 2024, to USD 182.2 billion.

Gartner also predicts that growth in 2024 will be supported by two growing trends: i) artificial intelligence (AI) service adoption and growth and ii) continued growth in industry cloud platforms, which combine optimised infrastructure for certain applications and platforms. Its take on the situation is interesting since Gigas is a renowned player in the fast growing ERP hosting segment, mainly SAP but also others. The report also highlights that "Cloud has become essentially indispensable".

The large hyperscalers (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and, to a lesser extent, Google Cloud) combined continue to represent a large share of the worldwide IaaS market, at 66% in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to data by Synergy Research Group2. Amazon Web Services remains the market leader, not least because it is pioneer in this type of services, but it did see its worldwide market share drop to 31% from 33% the year before, as Microsoft Azure's share increased to 24% in Q4 2023, a nearly 2 percentage point increase for the year to a new all-time high and growing strongly. Google Cloud still trails the two leading players, but its share also increased from the year before, to 11%, according to the same report.

The telecommunications market, meanwhile, is still seeing scant growth in revenue in Spain and faster growth than in previous years in Portugal. Portugal's telecommunications market generated total retail revenue in 2023 of EUR 3.92 billion (2022: EUR 3.70 billion), an increase for the year of 6.0% (2022: 3.7%), according to a report 3 from the country's regulator, Anacom (Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações). In Spain, the Spanish National Markets and Competition Commission (Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y Competencia or CNMC) reported4 EUR 6.13 billion of retail revenue in the telecommunications and audiovisual market in Q4 2023, up 0.8% year-on-year.

GIGAS targets primarily the B2B mid market (medium-sized companies), where companies generally look for one-stop solutions to their communications, cloud and cybersecurity technology needs and find GIGAS to be the ideal partner for migration to the cloud. This B2B mid market is relatively underserved, since most of the world's largest cloud services providers focus on the large businesses segment and telecommunications operators on the residential and small business segment, and the large enterprise segment. They end up neglecting the medium-sized companies, which require more sophisticated solutions than residential customers but lack the volume to warrant tailored projects like the large accounts. There is where GIGAS can leverage its key

  1. Gartner, November 2023. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/11-13-2023-gartner-forecasts-worldwide-public-cloud-end-user-spending-to-reach-679-billion-in-20240
  2. Synergy Research Group, February 2024. https://www.srgresearch.com/articles/cloud-market-gets-its-mojo-back-q4-increase-in-cloud-spending-reaches-new-highs
  3. Anacom, March 2024. https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1775228
  4. CNMC, March 2024. https://www.cnmc.es/prensa/trimestral-4T23-telecos-20240322

2023 EARNINGS - GIGAS GROUP

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competitive edge of having local datacenters and being a local, flexible, highly agile and customer- oriented business that provides unrivalled levels of support in the customers' language to help customers with their IT needs and migration to the cloud. GIGAS continues to enter into strategic partnerships with systems integrators and local consultancy firms in a bid to extend the Company's marketing reach and offer its customers a more comprehensive and customer-centric service. It is achieving this through a channel that offers additional services and is already accounting for a sizeable part of GIGAS' new leads and sales.

GIGAS' entry into the telecommunications services and datacenter market has expanded the Company's total target market considerably, from approximately EUR 700 million for the IaaS market in markets where the Company operates, to EUR 25 billion in the Cloud, IaaS, Datacenter and Telco markets, based on 2019 data.

INORGANIC GROWTH AND CUSTOMER BASE

After an extremely active 2021 on the M&A front, with four acquisitions that enabled GIGAS to grow in size by nearly five-fold and penetrate the adjacent telecommunications market, the Company geared efforts in 2022 and part of 2023 towards integrating and consolidating the companies acquired, and in 2023, especially in the year's second half, focused on organic growth and strengthening the Company's partner network.

Turning to the customer base, GIGAS had 4,954 business customers at year-end 2023 (2022: 6,952), including Onmóvil's slightly more than 200 regional and other partner operators, through which most of that mobile subsidiary's services are marketed. The total customer base contracted considerably following completion of the migration of the B2B telecommunications customer portfolio acquired from MasMóvil, which resulted in considerable churn, but of customers with low ARPU and added value.

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Onmóvil delivered strong growth during the year, outperforming the sector average and ending 2023 with a total of 91 thousand mobile lines, 12.3% more than the 81 thousand it had at year-end 2022.

Blended ARPU (average revenue per user including both telecommunications and cloud services) in 2023 amounted to EUR 772.6 a month (2022: EUR 754.5). ARPU is much higher from cloud than from telecom services, except in ONI's case. It enjoys a high telecommunications services ARPU thanks to the wholesale services offered to other operators and services to large corporates.

In October 2023, GIGAS acquired Alterlinks (see Other Relevant Information disclosure of 12 November 2023), owner of the backbone network (fibre optic transmission network) used in the Group's Portuguese subsidiary, Oni. The acquisition bolsters GIGAS' infrastructure in Portugal and provides it with a next-generation Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) network for offering high-capacity circuits and wholesale services to its customers. At the same time, the Company ensures control over its backbone operations while opening up new growth opportunities.

Factoring in the new infrastructures acquired with Alterlinks, not to mention the deployments carried out over the past two years, above all the new state-of-the-artXG-SPON network to provide FTTH fibre accesses with symmetrical bandwidth of up to 10 Gbps to customers, GIGAS now has a fibre optic network with a route length of over 9,300 km, with more than 75,000 fibre pairs. As well as the fibre assets, the Group has other valuable assets in Portugal; e.g. more than 300 PoPs, two own datacenters in Lisbon and Porto, more than 80 telecommunications towers and a network of 230 km of proprietary cables (conduits) built mainly in Lisbon and Porto.

As part of the deal, GIGAS also sold fibre optic pairs distributed throughout Portugal to Lyntia. In addition, the two companies entered into a long-term strategic alliance under which GIGAS will provide Lyntia with co-location services (equipment hosting in data centres and PoPs), DWDM network access and O&M services in Portugal.

FINANCIAL INFORMATION

The Company reported net revenue in 2023 of EUR 67.68 million, compared to EUR 61.56 million in 2022, i.e. an increase of 9.9%. Growth in the year was driven primarily by the contribution for the full year of TPartner, acquired in September 2022, as well as organic growth. The following charts show annual trends in net revenue:

9.9%

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The geographical breakdown of gross revenue of EUR 66.72 million in 2023 (i.e. excluding non- recurring income, grants and other), by subsidiary5, is as follows:

  • Portugal: 50.2%, EUR 33.50 million (2022: 50.1% and EUR 30.82 million)
  • Spain: 38.0%, EUR 25.36 million (2022: 37.6% and EUR 23.12 million)
  • Latam: 8.6%, EUR 5.76 million (2022: 7.8% and EUR 4.80 million)
  • Ireland: 3.1%, EUR 2.10 million (2022: 4.6% and EUR 2.81 million)

As illustrated, revenue is mostly generated in euros and exposure to Latin American currencies is far lower, at just 8.6% of revenue invoiced from subsidiaries there (2022: 7.8%). Moreover, the bulk of revenue is invoiced in US dollars, with only a small part in Colombian pesos.

Net revenue amounted to 93.1% of the EUR 72.64 million budgeted for 2023 (see Inside Information of 7 February 2023). Revenue from telecommunications services was flat during the year (up just 0.6% from the year before), but 95.9% of amount budgeted, with the shortfall due mostly to churn in the business customer portfolio acquired from MásMóvil, which also resulted a lower price paid. That portfolio will have its last negative impact in 2024, of approximately EUR 1 million less revenue compared to 2023.

Cloud, IT & Cybersecurity Services achieved considerable growth in net revenues, of 24.7% from 2022, underpinned by strong growth in cloud in Latin America and the consolidation for the full year of TPartner. However, the final figure for the year was below budget.

In addition to the budget, the Company provided guidance for FY 2023 with the release of its H1 2023 earnings (see Other Relevant Information of 11 October 2023), which it subsequently ratified with the presentation of its Q3 and 9M 2023 earnings (see Other Relevant Information of 19 December 2023). According to this guidance, the Company expected to end the year with net revenue of around EUR 66-67 million. The final figure was EUR 67.68 million, just above the high end of the guidance range thanks to strong growth in Q4 2023, of 14.0% year-on-year to EUR 17.90 million (excluding non-recurring income, grants and other).

Cost of sales rose by 14.5% in 2023, to EUR 26.84 million from EUR 23.44 million in 2022. This increase, which outstripped the growth of the Company's revenue, was due to non-recurring items related to wholesale contract renegotiations, which resulted in exceptionally low cost of sales in 2022. Stripping out this impact, cost of sales was only slightly higher than normalised cost of sales the year before thanks to optimisation. As a result, gross margin ended the year at 60.3% of revenue, a touch lower than the year before (2022: 61.9%), but comfortably above the 58.6% budgeted for the year.

Cost of sales includes direct costs related to services provided by the Company. To help readers of GIGAS' financial statements have a better understanding and to provide additional information, there was a change in the classification of direct costs, aligning them with the classification of revenue; i.e. providing a breakdown between cost of sales related to Cloud, IT & Cybersecurity

5 Historically, a geographical breakdown was provided based on customer location, irrespective of the invoicing subsidiary. For instance, revenue from a customer in Mexico invoiced by a Spanish subsidiary was treated as revenue from Latam. Since 2022, the geographical breakdown is based on the location of the Group subsidiary issuing the invoice, as shown herein and disclosed in the 2023 financial statements. Based on this criterion, revenue from the customer in Mexico invoiced by the Spanish subsidiary is now treated as revenue from Spain.

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services and costs of sales related to Telecommunication services, rather than the previous classification, which included less information and precluded the association of costs with revenue.

The main direct telecommunication services costs include whole access to fibre optics, use of mobile networks, lease of lines for customers, and third-party voice interconnection services. Direct costs of Cloud, IT & Cybersecurity services related primarily to the costs associated with the Company's datacenters and their related electricity and connectivity costs, and the costs of computer hardware maintenance and third-party licenses assigned to customers.

Gross margin in 2023 totalled EUR 40.83 million, 7.1% higher than the EUR 38.11 million of 2022. This amounted to 60.3% of revenue in 2023, down from 61.9% in 2022 for the reasons explained, but still considerably above the 58.6% budgeted.

Broken down by services, gross margin for Telecommunication services was 53.6% of revenue from those services in 2023, while gross margin for Cloud, IT & Cybersecurity services was 69.8% of revenue from those services in the year.

GIGAS obtained adjusted EBITDA (i.e. excluding M&A related costs, multiyear remuneration plans, and other non-recurring expenses) in 2023 of EUR 16.70 million, an increase of 1.3% from EUR 16.49 million in 2022 due to the impact of the reduction in gross margin from non-recurring items in 2022, as explained, and higher costs primarily from the inclusion of costs of TPartner. EBITDA for the year was slightly short of budget (-3.3%) even though revenue was 6.8% below. The EBITDA margin was 24.7%, above the 23.8% budgeted for the year but lower than 26.8% achieved in 2022, as expected.

Compared with the guidance provided to the market in the latest earnings releases, the EBITDA forecast range was EUR to 16.3-16.6 million, so the actual figure was slightly above the upper end of the range thanks to the healthy performance of Q4 2023.

The following chart shows the trend in EBITDA in recent years:

1.3%

As illustrated in the income statement, the Company reported an EBIT loss in 2023 of EUR 0.83 million (2022: EUR 1.15 million loss). Adjusted EBITDA, after adding the EUR 16.05 million of amortisation and depreciation, the EUR 0.5 million of multiyear remuneration plans, the EUR 0.7 million of costs related to M&A deals and integration, and the EUR 0.3 million of other extraordinary expenses, amounted to EUR 16.70 million.

2023 EARNINGS - GIGAS GROUP

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Personnel expenses totalled EUR 12.86 million in 2023, up 13.8% from EUR 11.30 million the year before and slightly under budget (-4.8%) due above all to additions to staff from TPartner, as well as the reinforcement of the Group's management team.

Other corporate costs totalled EUR 11.27 million, up 9.2% from EUR 10.32 million of the year before, but 4.5% less than budgeted for the year. The increase was in line with the growth of the business and resulted mostly from the inclusion of costs of TPartner and higher network, operations and IT costs from the inclusion of Alterlinks. Corporate costs include expenses related to customer service operations, communication and marketing campaigns, telecom network operating services, IT and infrastructure maintenance services, and customer management system costs to provide services. Other corporate costs include office external professional services, audit services, insurance, etc.

Net finance expense for the Group in 2023 was EUR 5.36 million, marking a considerable increase from the EUR 2.80 million net finance expense of 2022, with the increase down to the finance costs of the new syndicated facility arranged in the year. In addition to the costs of bank borrowings, which totalled EUR 3.3 million in 2023 (including EUR 1.4 million of non-recurring cancellation and debt structuring fees and commissions), part of finance costs stemmed from IRUs (Indefeasible Rights of Use) for long-term leases of telecommunications infrastructure in Portugal (EUR 1.54 million), leases of premises from the conversion to IFRS (EUR 0.14 million) and the convertible bond issue carried out in April 2018 (EUR 0.35 million - see Price Sensitive Information disclosed on 26 April 2018), although over half of the amount of the issue is implicit interest, which does not result in any cash outflows for the Group.

2023 EARNINGS - GIGAS GROUP

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The amortisation and depreciation charge for 2023 was EUR 16.05 million (2022: EUR 13.56 million), driven by the amortisation and depreciation of assets from the companies acquired and the assets arising from acquisitions, especially customer relations and goodwill.

Turning to cash flows, the Company generated EUR 9.45 million of operating cash flow, almost five times the year-earlier figure (2022: EUR 14.26 million). Subtracting investments in property, plant and equipment (maintenance CAPEX) from operating cash flow leaves positive free cash flow of EUR 7.46 million.

The Group's balance sheet as at 31 December 2023 is as follows:

Acquisitions of intangible assets and property, plant and equipment in 2023, excluding the capitalisation of leases under IFRS 16 and in-house labour, amounted to EUR 6.54 million, well below the EUR 9.9 million invested in 2022 and representing 9.7% of revenue for the year (2022: 16.1%). The lower investment in the year was above all a consequence of one-off investments made in 2021 and 2022, such as the deployment of the XG-SPON fibre optic network in Portugal and the development of convergent services, as well as the optimisation of investments and especially maintenance CAPEX, which was cut virtually in half, to EUR 1.99 million from EUR 3.92 million the year before.

Trade and other receivables increased slightly in 2023, to EUR 13.95 million (2022: EUR 12.46 million), after including the balances from the company acquired toward the end of the year and the increase in business volume. Collection periods for outstanding receivables from companies are reasonable.

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Trade and other payables decreased in the year to EUR 18.48 million (2022: EUR 20.12 million), due to working capital changes, as explained previously. The average supplier payment period was still around 50 days, which can be optimised going forward.

The Company ended 2023 with total gross financial debt including EUR 6.45 of outstanding payments for acquisitions of EUR 57.15 million (2022: EUR 45.64 million), with the increase due to investments and deferred payments related to acquisitions. The calculation of financial debt does not include the amount of the convertible bond, which is in the money currently (so conversion in April 2025 is likely), or the debt arising from long-term telecom infrastructure leases (IRUs) or leases arising from the conversion in financial reporting to IFRS.

The Company ended 2022 with cash and cash equivalents of EUR 19.30 million (2022: EUR 13.70 million), enabling it to meet its short- and medium-term financial obligations. The Group's net financial debt stood at EUR 37.83 million; i.e., 2.27x adjusted EBITDA for the year.

2024 GUIDANCE

In keeping with current trends in corporate governance and focusing on the medium and long term, the Company has decided that it will no longer be releasing detailed quarterly earnings, as it has done until now, and only publish earnings twice a year with its interim half-yearly financial statements (subject to a limited review by auditors) and its annual financial statements (together with the auditor's report).

Similarly, the Company will issue annual guidance for its key business metrics rather than a detailed quarterly budget. At the end of last year, GIGAS' Board of Directors approved the Company's 2024 budget, which calls for net revenue of EUR 70.4 million, up 4% from 2023. For EBITDA, the Company's target is adjusted EBITDA of EUR 17.6 million; i.e. 5.4% higher than in 2023.

2024 will be shaped by organic growth, especially in the cloud business, of nearly 10%, and slightly higher in telecommunications services. The Company also expects some improvement in gross margin and EBITDA margin during the year.

After three years featuring major acquisitions (six since 2021) and strong efforts to consolidate and migrate the companies acquired, the Group is now firmly focused on generating organic growth and is very confident that it will achieve its targets for the year. Indeed, in the wake of a Q4 2023 with healthy earnings, the Company has started off the new year with considerable momentum. It earnings so far are well above budget, making the Company extremely upbeat about its FY targets.

On top of organic growth, GIGAS' management team continues to evaluate opportunities that could scale up the Group. The Company is currently look at several potential targets in some the countries where it already has operations that, if completed, would lead us to revise up its earnings guidance for this year..

Pursuant to Circular 3/2020 of the BME Growth Segment, for the record the information provided herein has been prepared under the exclusive responsibility of the Company and its administrators.

Alcobendas, Madrid, 10 April 2024,

Diego Cabezudo Fernández de la Vega

CEO, GIGAS GROUP

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Gigas Hosting SA published this content on 10 April 2024 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 10 April 2024 22:24:05 UTC.