This Thursday, Hotelbeds presented to the market its intention to go public. And with this declaration of intent, the company presents its accounts and growth plans to potential investors. Likewise, the main objective of the aspiring listed company with its IPO is to reduce your leverage and gradually increase your profit margin operating gross until reaching 60%.
The aspiration of HBX Group, holding company with the Hotelbeds brand, is to carry out a public offering of shares (IPO) of 750 million euros and a secondary offer of existing shares for part of its current shareholders. To date, the company has managed to reduce its leverage thanks to the normalization of its accounts in recent years. Thus, the group’s adjusted net debt divided by its ebitda (leverage ratio) went from 9.5 times to 3.2 times at the end of 2024 (Hotelbeds’ fiscal year runs from September to September). And the company’s intention is further reduce this ratio to 2.5 times with the operation of its IPO.
In parallel with the offer, the listed applicant plans to refinance all of its debt, that amounts to 1,700 million eurosand replace it with a new structure: a tranche A loan of 600 million euros (generally with senior debt), a tranche B loan of 600 million euros (usually subordinated debt) and an available multi-currency revolving credit line of 400 million of euros at lower interest rates than the current lines.
Along the same lines is the objective of improving the company’s profitability in the coming years. The group’s EBITDA margin has already climbed from 37% in 2022 to 54% in 2023 and to 57% in the last closed year. And now, Hotelbeds proposes to its potential investors to take this income profitability indicator above 60% gradually.
To date, HBX Group has increased total transaction value (TTV, which is the common metric used to record purchases or sales on-line) of 12% in 2024. This allowed the group to close 2024 with a gross operating profit of 397 million euros, 12% more than the previous year.
From now on, Hotelbeds hopes to grow expanding its network of the accommodation, mobility and experiences business and fintech and insurance with new suppliers and increasing its market share. They also plan to boost profit growth with the use of data analysis and solutions thanks to generative artificial intelligence.
The company considers that the group will increase its TTV in 2025 between 10% and 16% year-on-year with revenues that could reach 790 million euros in the most optimistic horizon. More long term, Hotelbeds expects to grow its revenue in the high single digits and cash conversion of approximately 100%.
A payout of 20%
In parallel with reducing debt and increasing profitability is the profit sharing policy. But that does not eliminate shareholder remuneration from the discourse. For this reason, the company declares its intention to review the dividend policy annually with a payout of 20% for the fiscal years from 2026 to 2029.
The company has not approved any dividend policy to date. However, he does not rule it out while they set a objective of distributing up to 20% of its profits among shareholders from 2026.
With the accounts presented by Hotelbeds for 2024 (they have not yet been audited) the first assessments made by elEconomista.es of How much could the company be worth as a listed company? based on the multiples given by the average of its comparables already on the stock market. Thus, the initial valuations, with its debt, would be over 5,000 million euros.
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