Inelo acquisition boosts Eurowag's first-quarter numbers

WAG Payment Solutions, trading as Eurowag, said in a trading update on Tuesday that its first quarter net revenue was up 30.7% at €52.21m (£46.23m).

The FTSE 250 payment and fleet management technology specialist said organic net revenue was ahead 16.6% at €46.5 million in the three months ended 31 March, which was in line with management expectations.

It said the growth was supported by its business model and mission-critical services, as well as attractive contributions from acquisitions.

The board noted that if Eurowag had acquired Inelo at the start of the year, its first quarter net revenue contribution to the group would have been €11.1m.

Eurowag's last-12-months organic net revenue was 19.7% firmer at €189.4m, with revenue growth was supported by strong non-financial key performance indicator (KPI) performance, such as the average number of payment solutions active customers, which rose from 16,221 in the first quarter of 2022 to 17,843 in the same period of 2023, representing 10% year-on-year growth.

Additionally, the average number of payment solutions active trucks rose from 87,085 to 91,288 over the same period, representing 4.8% growth

The firm said its medium-term guidance, which it confirmed at the year-end results on 16 March, had not seen any significant deterioration in terms of the economic and macro environment.

As a result of its strong first-quarter performance, the Eurowag board confirmed the company’s medium-term guidance.

“Eurowag has delivered a strong first quarter, maintaining the momentum we saw at the start of 2023,” said founder and chief executive officer Martin Vohánka.

“These results further highlight the resilience of our business model and the importance of our solutions to our customers.

“In-line with our strategy, we continue to focus on growing our footprint and services through organic and selective inorganic opportunities.”

Vohánka said that with the completion of Inelo, Eurowag had expanded into “important new geographies” and brought “leading fleet management solutions” and working time management software into its product suite.

“We have a lot to do this year and our focus remains on integrating the businesses we acquired over the last 12 months, so we can capture the expected revenue and cost synergies and deliver our vision of providing a fully integrated end-to-end platform.

“We are also committed to reducing our leverage to within the 1.5x to 2.5x net debt-to-adjusted EBITDA guidance range in the near term.”

The company’s platform continued to be enhanced through its capital expenditure programme, Martin Vohánka explained, which was on track to finish at the end of the year.

“All this, alongside a strong first quarter, continues to give me confidence in delivering the medium term-guidance.”

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.