ASPIRATIONS AND STRATEGY

Strengthen our leadership

Offering an innovative customer experience, growing across core markets worldwide, and building an even more efficient and talented organization: these are the foundations of our strategy, which sets ambitious financial targets.

To strengthen our global leadership, positioning our company at the forefront of innovation in the industry: this is our main aim.

2020 strategic plan

customer experience

leadership

Organization

customer experience

Innovative and distinctive

Our growth strategy is built around the customer, to whom we offer a distinctive and highly innovative customer experience, also by means of our new Amplifon product line and multichannel ecosystem.

By leveraging on unique and distinctive assets such as the data we own, the strength of our brands and the close relationship with our customers, we aim to transform the retail hearing care market thereby opening up new business and value creation opportunities.

leadership

in core markets

Our growth strategy is differentiated according to the countries in which we operate and focuses on the core global markets: Italy, Spain, France, Germany, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and China. These markets together make up around 80% of the retail hearing care market.

We intend to continue to grow on mature markets, through organic growth and through targeted acquisitions in France, Germany and Canada.

Organization

Effective and talented

In order to support the implementation of our strategy, we will continue to invest in our people and in a distinctive corporate culture, as well as in attracting the best talents, sharing best practices within the group, always leveraging on our globally integrated IT infrastructure, thus creating a more effective organization.

Our strategic plan was first presented to the financial community in March 2018, and later updated in March 2019 to reflect the additional drive to our growth made by the acquisition of the Spanish group GAES, finalized at the end of 2018. In addition, in 2018 we also announced the joint venture with the main retailer in Beijing - which represents the first step towards building a local presence in China, a key market for supporting our growth in the medium-long term. Finally, we launched the Amplifon Product Experience in six countries: Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the US and Australia.

Focus: The acquisition of GAES

Announced in July 2018 and closed in December 2018, the acquisition of GAES, the largest ever undertaken by Amplifon, enabled us to strengthen our global leadership, which now makes up 11% of the retail hearing care market worldwide. With a value of around 530 million euros, this deal allowed us to become the undisputed leader in the attractive Spanish market, to consolidate our presence in Portugal and to enter the Latin American market. The integration process is making significant progress and creating important synergies, as demonstrated by our nine months 2019 results.

Focus: Amplifon product experience

The Amplifon Product Experience, consisting of the Amplifon product line and our multichannel ecosystem, redefines the experience throughout the entire customer journey. Launched with great success in Italy in May 2018, it made up 90% of our total sales on the private and paid-up market at the end of 2018, while the App attained 15% of penetration on compatible Amplifon devices.

In light of the excellent results in Italy, we anticipated the roll-out in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the US and Australia to 2019, with other countries following in 2020 and 2021. Technological innovation and hearing aid usage data collection will allow us to provide even more personalized services with high added value, with the aim of offering tailored experiences for every single customer.

innovation and technology

The new Amplifon Product Experience allows us to provide even more personalized, high added value services.

Learn more

2020 financial targets

The excellent results reached in 2018, together with the important strategic initiatives introduced over the course of the same year, enabled us to update our growth plans to 2020 with even more challenging targets. The contribution from the integration with GAES will be fundamental to our success: we expect annual synergies at EBITDA level between 20 and 25 million euros from 2021. Such synergies are higher than the amounts initially reported at the announcement of the acquisition and will require around 20 million euros of cumulated one-off costs over the two-year period 2019-2020.

In 2020, we expect to achieve:

Consolidated revenues¹ between 1,785 and 1,845 million euro
Recurring EBITDA² between 320 and 335 million euros
A cumulated operating cash flow for the two-year period of approximately 480 million euros

Net profit for 2020 is expected to increase thanks to greater operating leverage and our continued focus on financial costs and tax rate, estimated to be below 30% in both 2019 and 2020.

The significant cash generation will fully support the investments expected between 2019 and 2020 which total around 170 million euros for Capex and 160 million euros for cash-out for acquisitions, while reducing the Company’s financial leverage to a net financial debt/EBITDA³ ratio of around 1.8x in 2020.

¹In local currencies

² Excludes IFRS 16 impact

³Calculated according to the redefinition of the covenants agreed with banks and investors in 2019, after the introduction of the new IFRS15, IFRS9 e IFRS16

Execution in line with expectations

The results achieved in 2018 were in line with the targets set for 2020.

Revenues growth in local currencies

Recurring EBITDA margin ⁴

Cumulated operating cash flow

Target 2020

Revenues growth in local currencies	High-single-digit CAGR4 2017-2020
Recurring EBITDA margin ⁴	~18.5% in 2020
Cumulated operating cash flow	~€600 million 2018-2020

Results FY2018

Revenues growth in local currencies	+10.6%
Recurring EBITDA margin ⁴	17.6%
Cumulated operating cash flow	€186 million

⁴ Excludes IFRS 15 & 16

2019 outlook

We expect to continue recording a favorable, above market trend in revenues in the last quarter of 2019, thanks to the contribution of all the geographic areas in which we operate, driven by solid organic growth, the integration of GAES and the contribution of acquisitions, mainly in France and Germany. In 2019, we also expect the recurring EBITDA margin to be higher than in 2018, even after the consolidation of GAES. Lastly, we expect to proceed at a steady pace with the execution of our strategic plan for 2020 mainly thanks to the progressive roll-out of the Amplifon Product Experience in other countries and the GAES integration process. Regarding the latter, we now estimate run-rate synergies at EBITDA level at around 25 million euros from 2021, namely at the high end of the previously disclosed range, also thanks to the excellent results reached until now, which have exceeded initial expectations.

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ASPIRATIONS AND STRATEGY

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Strengthen our leadership

2020 strategic plan

customer experience

Innovative and distinctive

leadership

in core markets

Organization

Effective and talented

Focus: The acquisition of GAES

Focus: Amplifon product experience

innovation and technology

2020 financial targets

Execution in line with expectations

2019 outlook

Related documents

Annual Report 2018

Interim Financial Report as at 30 September 2019

Q3 2019 results presentation

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