With a footprint that includes 70 countries, Avolta operates over 5,100 outlets and addresses 2.5 billion passengers across over 1,000 airports, motorways, cruise liners & ferries, seaports, railway stations and other locations. Our unique value proposition for travelers focuses on innovative store concepts, hybrid offerings, data-driven customer insights and digitalization, thus benefitting customer conversion and spending. This continues to contribute positively to our strong industry fundamentals of travel retail and F&B – with proven secular long-term global passenger growth fueled by an increasingly affluent and expanding population across many countries.
Unique opportunity to invest in Travel Retail and F&B.
From an organic growth standpoint, we develop our footprint in all four of our regions, as they provide strong fundamentals and demand. In this context, our strategic expansion continues with a keen focus on the highly attractive and resilient North American market. At the same time, we are enhancing our dedicated strategy for the Asia-Pacific region where we are bolstering our team to capture the growth driven by the continued recovery of Chinese travelers, and the rising trend of domestic, intraregional and international travel among other Asian nationalities. In Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, Avolta continues to fine-tune its business development approach with clearly defined priorities and goals. Our Destination 2027 strategy targets mid-term annual organic turnover growth that outpaces passenger growth in the locations operated by Avolta. Over and above this, the fragmented nature of the industry presents opportunities for selective bolt-on M&A with Avolta aligning seamlessly to its clearly defined capital allocation policy (see dedicated paragraph below).
Resilient business
Despite transient macroeconomic challenges faced by our industry, Avolta maintains a strong belief that travel retail and F&B is a very resilient industry. This is underpinned by the ongoing increase in global passengers – as corroborated by external aviation industry sources – and the still progressing recovery momentum observed throughout 2024, as well as the willingness of people to travel and prioritize travel-related spending. Travel retail and F&B remains a central component of the overall travel experience, and customers continue to be drawn towards attractive product assortments, hybrid offerings and unique travel experiences in-store and online. Future F&B growth is poised to be supported by favorable industry dynamics including limited in-flight offerings, a growing trend of travelers opting for pre-boarding “grab and go” services, increasing interest in regional cuisine and demand for new experiences and concepts.
Sustainable profits and strong cash flow generation
Avolta is committed to delivering turnover growth, improved CORE EBITDA margins and sustainable cash flow generation, as well as to evolving our ESG performance, in line with our mid-term outlook provided to the market. Our focus on enhanced profitability is rooted in a zero-based budgeting approach ensuring resources are allocated to activities that make the most impact on the customer, while leveraging technology to streamline work and operations. In line with this budgeting discipline, Avolta actively and systematically manages its concessions portfolio, prioritizing profitability and cash flow contributions. We expect ongoing medium-term improvements in CORE EBITDA gross margins. Having already realized CHF 30 million in integration synergies in 2023 ahead of expectations, we generated an additional CHF 55 million in synergies in 2024, thus achieving the full run-rate of CHF 85 million one year earlier than we expected at the time of announcing the Dufry/Autogrill business combination. 2024 also saw the remaining CHF 25 million integration-related costs, which add to the CHF 25 million already booked in 2023. Our continuously improving profitability is driving a resilient, sustainable Equity Free Cash Flow (EFCF) conversion from CORE EBITDA.
Over a long-term perspective, our travel retail and F&B business has consistently pursued a strategy focused on growth and cash flow generation. We have a demonstrated track record of organic growth aligned with regional passenger trends and passenger mix, with overall growth boosted by selective M&A as underlined in 2024 through the purchase of the Free Duty concession, a leading border travel retail operator in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area. Completely cash funded, this acquisition allowed us to considerably accelerate our regional APAC sales growth and provides access to a potential additional customer base of 150 million travelers going forward.
Business combination run-rate synergies of CHF 85 million achieved one year earlier than expected.
Reinforced capital allocation policy
In 2024, aligned with its expected strong EFCF projections, Avolta reinforced its capital allocation policy. Avolta’s aim is to align continued balance sheet deleverage with shareholder returns, all the while maintaining some flexibility for organic growth and smaller bolt-on acquisitions. Our medium-term Destination 2027 strategy is based on a target leverage of 1.5x – 2.0x net debt / CORE EBITDA with near-term flexibility of up to 2.5x for relevant business development and / or bolt-on M&A opportunities. We will continue to pay a progressive dividend, returning one-third of EFCF to shareholders under the defined dividend policy. For 2024, this equates to a proposed dividend of CHF 1.00 per share, subject to shareholder approval at the AGM in May 2025. Over and above dividends, Avolta now has the ambition of distributing medium-term excess cash by way of share buybacks; e.g. as the one recently announced in January 2025. Beyond capital allocation, Avolta remains committed to advancing its sustainability commitments and engagement for all stakeholders.
Member of the SMI MID (SMIM) Index
With a market capitalization of CHF 5,324.2 million as per December 31, 2024, Avolta is part of the SMI MID (SMIM) Index on the SIX Swiss Exchange. This index includes the 30 largest publicly listed companies in Switzerland that are not already represented in the Swiss Market Index (SMI).
Avolta’s trading volume in 2024 remained healthy, with an average daily trading volume of approximately CHF 31.0 million. The SIX Swiss Exchange remains an important trading platform, where the average daily volume of Avolta shares reached CHF 10.2 million in 2024. Avolta’s trading volumes are mainly concentrated at the SIX 32.6 % and BATS Chi-X OTC 30.8 % platforms.
In 2024, Avolta’s group of longstanding shareholders continued to provide the company with unwavering support. While Edizione continued to be Avolta’s largest shareholder (22.17% as per December 31, 2024), other important participations (>3 %) included Advent International Corp., Qatar Holding LLC, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Richemont, BlackRock Inc., UBS Fund Management (Switzerland) AG and Helikon Investments Ltd together representing 54.99 % of our share capital.
Strong investment track record for bondholders
Avolta has been a well-established investment opportunity in the bond market since our first Senior Notes issue in 2012. On the one hand, the bond market represents an important source of financing for the company, while on the other hand, our low operating leverage as well as the strong and resilient cash flow generation capabilities are characteristics welcomed by the fixed income market.
In April 2024, Avolta successfully refinanced the outstanding EUR 800 million Senior Notes due in 2024, with the placement of EUR 500 million Senior Notes due 2031.
In October 2024, Avolta successfully amended and extended its existing Revolving Credit Facility (RCF). The amended EUR 2,400 million RCF with maturity in 2029 replaces the EUR 2,750 million RCF expiring in 2027. Thanks to the renegotiated margin, this amended facility saves approximately CHF 10 million in interest expenses per annum.
Long-term financing strengthened.
These refinancing initiatives allow the company to foster its well-balanced debt structure. Its weighted average maturity is now 4.1 years with no material debt maturity before 2026.
Currently, Avolta holds a (BB+) rating with Stable Outlook by Standard & Poors and a (Ba2) rating with Stable Outlook by Moody’s. Both rating agencies have upgraded the credit ratings in the reporting period 2024.
Fair and comprehensive market communication
Avolta is committed to open and transparent communications with the financial market as we present our equity story and investment opportunities. This includes a constant, open dialogue with investors, analysts and the media through direct phone and email exchanges, regular roadshows and conference attendance, one-on-one meetings and dedicated investor days, either in person or virtually.
Senior management actively engages in presenting and discussing our financial performance on a regular basis, and we provide the financial community and media with detailed reports and information through press and analyst conferences, conference calls and webcasts. In this context, Avolta consistently releases quarterly trading update statements for Q1 and Q3, along with publishing full financial results for the half-year and full-year periods.
As part of our 2024 Investor Relations activities, the Investor Relations team participated in several roadshows and conferences in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia to meet investors directly or virtually. During this time, we met 185 investors in one-to-one or group meetings and many more in presentations. Additionally, the Investor Relations team answered 263 calls and emails in 2024, resulting in a total of 448 contacts with investors and analysts. For contact details of Investor Relations, please see the contact section in the bottom right hand corner of this page.
