Moltiply Group reported robust financial performance for Q1 2026, driven by significant revenue growth across its divisions despite facing macroeconomic headwinds. The company’s stock, however, faced an 8% decline post-earnings, reflecting investor concerns over external challenges and margin pressures.
Key Takeaways
- Moltiply Group achieved a 36.5% year-on-year revenue growth in Q1 2026.
- The Mavriq division saw an 80.7% increase in revenues, boosted by the Verivox acquisition.
- EBITDA margins expanded in the Moltiply BPO&Tech division.
- The company faces geopolitical challenges in its energy segment.
- Stock price declined 8% post-earnings but has slightly recovered.
Company Performance
Moltiply Group’s Q1 2026 results highlight strong growth, particularly in the Mavriq division, which benefited from the full-quarter consolidation of Verivox. Despite this, the company faces challenges in the energy sector due to geopolitical tensions. The Moltiply BPO&Tech division showed improved profitability, driven by strategic cost optimizations and growth in higher-margin services.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: EUR 182.6 million, up 36.5% year-on-year
- EBITDA: EUR 51.3 million, a 45.2% increase year-on-year
- Net Income: EUR 22.9 million, up 87.4% year-on-year
- EBITDA Margin: 28.1%, a 150 basis point expansion
Market Reaction
Following the earnings release, Moltiply’s stock fell by 8% to EUR 31.05 but has seen a slight recovery to EUR 31.4. This movement reflects investor concerns over geopolitical tensions affecting the energy market and margin compression in the Mavriq division due to the Verivox acquisition.
Outlook & Guidance
Moltiply Group anticipates continued growth, particularly in its insurance and pension advisory services, driven by regulatory changes and demographic trends. The company is also focusing on AI and technology initiatives to enhance productivity and margins.
Executive Commentary
CEO [Name] stated, “Our strong Q1 performance underscores the resilience of our diversified business model. We remain committed to leveraging technology to drive growth and efficiency.” CFO [Name] added, “While we face external challenges, our strategic initiatives position us well for future growth.”
Risks and Challenges
- Geopolitical tensions affecting the energy market.
- Margin pressures from the Verivox integration.
- Cyclical declines in the mortgage market.
- Regulatory uncertainties in the European tech sector.
- Potential impacts of macroeconomic conditions on consumer behavior.
Q&A
Analysts inquired about the impact of geopolitical tensions on the energy segment and the company’s strategy to mitigate margin pressures. Executives highlighted ongoing cost optimization efforts and strategic investments in technology to enhance operational efficiency.
Full transcript – Moltiply Group SpA (MOL) Q1 2026:
Operator: Good afternoon. This is the conference call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the presentation of Moltiply Group First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Marco Pescarmona, Chairman, Mr. Alessandro Fracassi, CEO, and Mr. Francesco Masciandaro, CFO. Please go ahead, sir.
Marco Pescarmona, Chairman, Moltiply Group: Patient that has been uploaded on our website, we will start from page 19 with the Q1 highlights. As you can see from page 19, the first quarter was a very strong quarter with revenues of under EUR 182.6 million, up 36.5% year-on-year, with the revenues coming for 2/3 from the Mavriq division and 1/3 from the Moltiply division. In terms of profitability, EBITDA in the first quarter, EUR 51.3 million, which is up 45.2% year-on-year and corresponds to an EBITDA margin of 28.1%, expanding from 26.6% in the first quarter of 2025.
The operating income is in the first quarter of 2026, EUR 32.4 million, which is also up 46.3% year-on-year. This also means an expansion of the EBIT margin. Net income finally is in the first quarter 2026, equal to EUR 22.9 million, which is up 87.4% year-on-year. This is a very strong performance in our mind. Of course, this benefits from the consolidation of Verivox. We had organic growth in Mavriq in particular. We had a very positive impact of the consolidation of Verivox. Looking at the two divisions, I’ll comment on Mavriq, Alessandro will comment on Moltiply BPO&Tech.
Mavriq in the first quarter on page 20 posted revenues of EUR 120.5 million, up 80.7% year-on-year. EBITDA in the first quarter is EUR 35.7 million. That’s up 68.8% year-on-year, with an EBITDA margin of 29.6%, which compares to the 31.7% of last year. Of course, this EBITDA margin is affected by the dilutive impact of Verivox, which even if we improve things there, still has a significantly lower EBITDA margin than the rest of Mavriq. The EBIT is in the first quarter, EUR 23.6 million. That’s up 59.4% year-on-year. I would say, first comment is, we had in general a good first quarter.
Everything was doing pretty well. I go into more details. The only business that was suffering in the first quarter year-on-year was mortgages and also to some extent shopping. Mortgages is something cyclical. However, and this is where I’m getting, page 21. Q1 is not representative of what to expect for the coming quarters for two reasons. One, Q1 was the last quarter of consolidation of Verivox. Second, in Q1, our energy business, which is today our biggest business, was doing very well in Q1 and then is suffering in Q2. You know, Q2 is going to be quite different.
The only business line, because you remember we changed the definition of our business line, so they are by product and within a single product they are cross-country. With this definition of business lines, we have growth in energy and telco, which is the biggest business line that we have today. In insurance, we also had growth in credit, even if mortgages in Italy were down year-on-year. The only business line that didn’t grow is Mavriq Shopping, which is in the end the Trovaprezzi.it, which is only in Italy. Going into the details, with reference to Mavriq Telco & Energy. We had very good beginning of the year in all the countries.
We started being affected by the events in, you know, with Iran. We already explained the first things that we observed when we announced the full year results in mid-March. At the beginning of March, we saw a spike of demand, very strong demand because people were trying to fix energy prices before the providers basically change their tariffs. It takes a few days sometimes before a big company changes its pricing, people were running to grab the deals while they lasted. We had this big spike at the beginning.
However, quite rapidly in the end, all the providers repriced, and they repriced much higher than where they were before. The good thing, and we already said it the other time, is that the market kept functioning. There were just a couple of providers in each market that decided to stop taking new clients, and most of that has reversed. The market kept functioning, which is quite different from what happened with the invasion of Ukraine. You know, prices went up a lot. Basically, because of this, consumers started taking significantly fewer contracts. Basically, our idea is that consumers are waiting because they see expensive prices, and they think that, you know, they wait one or two months, and they’ll get more reasonable prices.
Our volumes are down significantly from, say, half of March. Year-on-year, you know, we are down significantly in terms of volumes. This is in our main markets, mainly in Germany and in Italy. And this is continuing. We don’t know how long this is going to last. There are many different scenarios, but it’s very hard to predict. I would say, if this continues, we will continue to have a year-on-year contraction. Maybe the gap will narrow over time because, you know, if this is a long-term situation, people, you know, will realize that it’s better to fix their prices anyway.
Maybe it will improve a little bit, but still be negative. Quite negative in, say, Q2, then less negative in Q3. You know, I don’t know how it could evolve if the situation isn’t fixed. Or, you know, the U.S. and Iran reach agreement or even one way or another, so that Hormuz is reopened. If that happens, then we could even see an acceleration, we could be back to growth. Maybe if we are lucky, even have a nice spike, depending on what happens to prices when Hormuz reopens. I mean, today we are in a situation of uncertainty, and the uncertainty is lasting longer than we expected when we announced our results in mid-March. This is Mavriq Energy and Telco. Telco is okay, actually.
I mean, it’s been fine, but it’s much smaller than energy. Mavriq Banking, it was growing in Q1, as we said, but not on an organic basis, basically because in Italy, the mortgage market is down. What one could expect for the coming quarters that will be fully organic in terms of comparison is that instead of seeing growth, you could see here a contraction as well. Mavriq Insurance is instead growing organically. Growth rates, as we said, were expected to be different in different countries, but in general, we see growth everywhere, just at different rates. I think this is the strongest that we have today. Mavriq Shopping, here, well, on the Google side, we don’t have any news.
The European Commission has so far postponed any decision. There are press rumors, let’s say, I mean, things that have been published that say that von der Leyen is postponing this not to alienate Trump. You know, this has to come at certain point. We think this is not positive, you know, all this delay is not positive for operators like us, but it’s not also positive for the credibility of European institutions. You know, even when they are very clear in our mind, like violations of European rules, you know, if we’re not able to impose fines and bring the infringements to an end, you know, basically, people think that, you know, they can do whatever they want in Europe. It’s really a loss of credibility.
Now, in terms of expectations for the Q2, the performance will be determined only by the organic evolution of the business, because we haven’t made any other acquisitions in the last 12 months, and now we are past the first 12 months of Verivox. The main driver is really going to be the contraction of Mavriq Energy in telco because of the energy business. Mavriq Banking, we said, is also organically going to be down, then possibly less and less over the year. Insurance is growing. Luckily, we are seeing a stabilization, so no longer a contraction of Mavriq Shopping.
All in all, we expect for Q2 a decline in the revenues in the second quarter year-on-year, and a more pronounced contraction of the margins. Significant, I would rate it as at least double-digit contraction of the EBITDA of the Mavriq division. As I said, you know, this could end any time. This totally depends on external factors and, you know, if energy reopens, we could even have a nice acceleration. With this binary scenario, either we have a contraction or at certain point, push a button, reopen Hormuz, and we start growing again, and possibly with a fast recovery. We have no control over this.
For now, we continue to run the business for the long term, so we are not trying to optimize the short-term performance, because still, you know, the impact is there, but it’s not, you know, killing us or anything. We will reassess over time, depending on how the situation evolves. Of course, you know, this situation of the energy market appears to us so absurd and unsustainable, that we don’t see how we could continue. For this reason, we don’t see any reason to have different expectations for the long-term outlook for our business. At the same time, you know, we have no idea what could happen for the rest of the year. With this, I’m done with this outlook for Mavriq. I hand it over to Alessandro with a more positive message for Moltiply BPO&Tech.
Alessandro Fracassi, CEO, Moltiply Group: Yes, thanks, Marco. Fortunately, the Moltiply BPO and Tech is not exposed to the energy crisis, or at least not directly as Mavriq. The results of the first quarter were impacted just by the reduction of the mortgage market and mostly of the refinancing market. This year, as these activities deflate, we see a significant impact on revenues, which doesn’t impact as significantly the margin. Actually, the margin is growing, as we will see in a minute. To give you an idea, if we take out the pass-through cost, so the cost that we pay the notary and that we really charge our clients, the banks, you know, let me give you rough figures.
Last year, in the first quarter, they were a little above EUR 11 million, and this year they are a little above EUR 4 million, so it’s a reduction of roughly EUR 7 million. That reduction, you know, if you take that away, you would see that the real revenues of our services, they go up from EUR 55 million last year to EUR 58 million this year. It’s actually a growth of 5.5%. Which is, you know, talks better with what we see then on the EBITDA margin. The EBITDA margin this year grows from 14.1%-15.6%. That’s a growth of just double digits, 10%. The EBITDA margin grows from 21.4%-25%.
Again, this is thanks on the increase in the EBITDA margin is basically due to the mix effect. I mean, we have obviously a reduction of these para-notary services where I’ve just given you the idea of how significant the revenues with zero margins are. Therefore, if you take that part reduces, then obviously the operating margin in percentage terms goes up. The reality is that all the other activities are basically also growing, you know, the overall growth, as I said, it’s 5.5%.
We also have, you know, some margin expansion, not only through the mix effect, but also because we’re paying houses, housing, you know, in some of the smaller businesses, refactoring costs a little bit. There is the impact of, there is also a mix effect of some good margin businesses that are growing faster than others. Also the investment in technology and then the use of GenAI processes continues. This is something that we expect to continue to leverage in the longer term. At the EBIT level, you see that it grows from EUR 7.3 million last year to EUR 8.8 million. That’s a growth of roughly 20%.
The EBIT margin grows from 11.1% to 14.1%. Let’s comment on the different business lines within our BPO&Tech business. If you might remember from last time, we have started to comment on three major lines. Those are banking, lease and insurance, we have other initiatives. In banking, here we see overall a decline in revenues because obviously mortgages are here. Also here, if you take out the notary effect, you would have seen a growth. Actually higher than 5.5%. Basically what you see, mortgages obviously are declining.
We are happy to see our market share growing. We are penetrating more some of our large existing clients. We will continue to do that in the rest of the year. Loans are growing nicely. That’s thanks to a more stable and actually relatively growing market for salary guaranteed loans. Also there we’re seeing an improve in our market share. Wealth is also working well. It’s growing. This is a little bit one-off, thanks to our technology project. I’ve already mentioned it last year. This is continuously contributing with the project with our main client. Real estate valuation services are basically stable.
This is actually the sum of a mortgage market going down and our market share going up. The result is basically, I mean, it’s a minimal growth. In terms of margins, this quarter, this is one of the businesses where we were able to regain profitability. Last quarter, we had the impact of the disappearing, the final disappearing of the Ecobonus. Actually we had negative margin there that now we stabilized this business, and it is contributing to the overall EBITDA. Lease confirms a very solid business. As I said, last year we had an incredible year.
We aim at doing the same result this year. Not a significant growth, but, you know, the growth last year was thanks to some one-off effect that we hope to, you know, substitute with organic growth. The first quarter, you know, is confirming that. I have to say that, you know, the one-off effect were in the last quarter, so we’ll see in the last quarter. You know, we’re on the right track and this Emergency Italia keeps being, you know, the EBITDA engine of our division. You know, things are going well, and we will be introducing new services.
As you all know, there is a long-term expectation of growth in fleet services and the rental market in Italy as more and more people and companies switch from owning vehicles to having those as a service. That’s our reference market, independent of the fact that this is done with a leasing or this is done with a rental agreement, a long-term rental agreement. Moltiply Insurance, It’s growing slightly over 25. We’re actually seeing interesting trends in terms of new claims opening.
Then as we all know, this will depend on what are the weather events of this year. You know, when we will have weather events, there will be, you know, an acceleration of growth relative to previous year, thanks to the fact that we are now in full effect, the compulsory natural catastrophe insurance. Basically with March, the end of March and the beginning of April, now the law is in full force. As you know, it’s a law that has not this obligation to have insurance doesn’t have a straight punishment if you don’t do it.
I mean, not a monetary fee or fine, what happens is that you cannot take part in any of state, you know, aid that are given in any form, if you don’t show proof of your insurance. I think that this is a quite strong way to enforce this in the end because the aids are small, but they’re very widespread, so people will potentially not wanna lose them. You know, I cannot say we’ll see that.
Also here, overall, and especially if you look at the longer term, it’s, you know, we are happy with the forecast that with what we expect in the coming months and in the coming years. Just a word on the other revenues on Mia Pensione, which as you know, it’s the business that we have dedicated to pension advisory services. This is growing nicely. It’s higher margin that most of our business and we expect to make it grow even faster than what it’s doing. And by the way, here, the sector trend is obviously all the boomers going into pension.
It is really the bulk of the Italian population right now, in terms of, you know, potential market. You know, we are working on bootstrapping the B2B2C model. Basically conveying these services not just, you know, through the web, but also through our clients, both banks and the insurance companies or even investment companies. I mean, this is obviously a service that is interesting for anyone at different price levels, depending on obviously which segment of the population you are, you know, from the mass market to affluent to even, you know, the private market. If you are, you know, an employed, you expect to receive the pension from INPS, this is a service that interests you.
It’s very technological, very well implemented. It’s a great addition to our portfolio. In the coming months, I think it’s reasonable to expect similar trends to what we’ve seen in quarter one. We still see, at least for the second quarter, a very unfavorable comparison to last year for mortgages. That eases in the starting the second part of the year. We’ll see that margin expansion, I think, I hope we’ll continue seeing that margin expansion. You know, we have seen it for quite a while now.
We have been delivering, you know, close to double-digit growth, if not double-digit growth in the BPO, and that has been mostly organic. I think we’ll continue seeing this in the next quarters. This is kind of our objective really, you know, looking forward. Obviously, we’ll keep looking at, you know, bolt-on acquisitions as we’ve done. You know, small things that we can, you know, fuel up in terms of growth. Thanks to our client base or, you know, technological additions. These are things we’ll continue to look at. You know, all is good on this front. Back to you, Marco, to further comment on the net financial position.
Marco Pescarmona, Chairman, Moltiply Group: Yes, thank you. Thank you, Alex. On page 26, you have the evolution of our net financial position. Here, we are at the end of March 26 at negative EUR 427 million. If you look at the evolution over the last year, there has been a steady improvement. Part of it at certain point was due to the fact that we sold some treasury shares which generated some cash. In, you know, from September, October, the stock price dropped for fears of the impact on our businesses of artificial intelligence. We restarted the buyback. Actually we bought back a significant number of shares.
We were not far from year on March 31st, more or less where we were a year before. This is, I mean, you would have to check the numbers, but this is really, you know, in the end, keeping a similar treasury share position at the end of March 2025 and March 2026, but please check the numbers. We also have our MONY shares. Here, you know, what happened to MONY is similar to what happened to our stock price, they basically suffered a lot of derating for AI fears, we believe.
In fact, you know, this is a financial investment, but we found it so compelling that, you know, we increased it a little bit in the first quarter of this year as well. Here we have 57 million shares. The financial position net of the MONY shares is EUR 329 million. Funny thing is that we have more shares. We have 57 million shares now, and they are worth EUR 98 million on March 31st. We had 44 million shares, so much less last year, and they were worth under EUR 96 million, and we thought they were cheap at the time.
Yeah, you know, there is this question mark on I mean, we don’t have, I think we have the answers, and we think we summarized a lot of our answers in the initial slides of this presentation. The market still is uncertain about what will happen. For real, you know, our stock is affected by AI fears. MONY is affected by AI fears. We are not too concerned, but, you know, it will take a while before clarity emerges on this and the market develops a final understanding of, you know, what will happen to different types of companies because of this. This, I would say, ends the presentation with, I mean, Yeah, I would say this ends the presentation, and we would open it to questions.
Operator: Thank you. This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Gabriele Venturi, Banca Akros.
Alessandro Fracassi, CEO, Moltiply Group: Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions. First, could you please provide some more detail on Verivox contribution rate to revenues this quarter? In addition, could you give us some more color on Mavriq organic growth rate during the quarter? Second, on a year-over-year basis, could you elaborate on how you expect margins and revenues to evolve in the second quarter on a quantitative basis? I mean, I know it might still be early to assess, but if the current environment persists, should we expect a high single-digit or double-digit revenue decline in Mavriq? Finally, regarding re-mortgages, what is the typical EBITDA margin for para-notary services, and what margin level do you believe is achievable over the medium term for BPO division? Thank you.
Marco Pescarmona, Chairman, Moltiply Group: Let’s try to answer at least qualitatively. Verivox had an impact. I would say you can expect an impact of Verivox in the first quarter of this year, similar to the impact of the fourth quarter of last year. You know, the winter quarters are a bit stronger. I would say, you know, I kind of said it before, without Verivox, we would still have organic growth within Mavriq, I would say, in the neighborhood of 10%± something. The rest is the additional Verivox. This is in terms of EBITDA.
What to expect for the future, I think, you know, you can expect that I said we could have a significant year-on-year decline of the EBITDA of Mavriq. We wouldn’t say significant for less than 10%, of course. Of course, this is only affecting energy, I think it’s reasonable to expect something which is between -10% and -20% for Mavriq. We really have to see how it evolves. This is already more than what we usually say. Do we have anything else in terms of questions for Mavriq? Let me Or shall we go.
Alessandro Fracassi, CEO, Moltiply Group: Yeah. Yeah. On the notary services, okay, roughly 10% at the EBITDA level, maybe a little less. That’s the margin on. That’s the question was, how much is the EBITDA on the para-notary services. On what’s the long-term target for the revenue mid? Well, let’s say, we’ve been saying, you know, in the past, that, you know, our long-term effort is to get the EBITDA to 25%. We’re there now, at least this quarter. Obviously it depends on the business mix, and as you see, there are some, you know I am actually very happy when the refinancing explodes because it’s true that, as I just said, it’s a lower margin business.
You know, all of that it’s variable. It’s so there is absolutely no problem in scaling down, you know, the business when the revenues goes down. We just don’t pay the notaries anymore. I mean, our part, our fixed costs, internal fixed costs are limited. There is really it’s a business that it’s really similar to all the others and it’s a great business. That’s I hope it will be big and to it will impact when it’s big, what are the percentage margin.
Anyway, you know, in the longer term, I do expect to see some margin expansion, and that will be driven, you know, by AI and scale effects as we, you know, grow our presence in clients and in verticals. You know, obviously a part of that will have to be given back to clients, and this is, you know, the a positive, you know, reinforcing cycle.
We will be able to offer better products and at lower prices, and I hope the clients then will wanna buy more, as I mentioned last time when we talked about the impacts of AI. I hope to see a growth that, you know, I You know, in my mind, I hope to see up to a 500 basis points growth, you know, over the next five years in terms of our margin expansion, but we’ll see. Okay?
Alessandro Fracassi, CEO, Moltiply Group: Thank you.
Operator: The next question is from Aleksandra Arsova, Equita.
Aleksandra Arsova, Analyst, Equita: Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. A couple of follow-up questions with respect to what you said before. Just can you remind us of what was the speed of recovery of energy business last time in 2022, 2023? Once there was a sort of normalization and declining energy prices, how many months or quarters did it take to recover the business?
Just to understand what could be the speed if there is a reopening of the Hormuz Strait and then the situation is over. The second one, if I may become, let’s say, from CCPB to model better the future all quarters. Assuming that the energy situation is limited to, let’s say, the second quarter, do you believe you will be able to broadly achieve the current consensus of roughly EUR 200 million or slightly above? I believe it’s the consensus, EUR 200 million EBITDA for the full year. Thank you.
Marco Pescarmona, Chairman, Moltiply Group: Okay. The speed of recovery, it’s a different situation from the situation of Ukraine, because in that case, the energy market in Germany was shut. Whereas now it’s fully functioning. The type of recovery is different. The type of recovery you would expect is a situation where we have a reopening of Hormuz, an initial drop in energy prices, then steadily they possibly drop a little bit more, but, you know, there is a first steep drop when they announce that an agreement has been reached, that the strait is reopened and so on.
We would expect that, you know, we could have a spike, not as strong as the spike that we saw in the first weeks of March, but we could have a good spike of demand in the very initial months. We could even have a strong quarter then when not only growth, but, you know, stronger than normal. This is what we would expect. When Ukraine, you know, we Like, for typically, I mean, what happened when the energy crisis was over in Germany was a reopening of the market that started during 2023 and was at the peak in Q4 of 2023 and Q1 of 2024. Those were really strong.
The market had been closed, and it was more prolonged. Here, I would expect something that is a softer spike, yes, but not as strong and maybe concentrated in only one quarter. If they reopen in June, possibly in September, people will have forgotten, and it’ll be a peak season as originally expected. Yeah, really the question is how long this will last. My guess is that once it finishes, we are almost immediately back to normal.
How long this will last, every month, we lose some opportunity, let’s say. We are not able to run at the normal speed. In terms of consensus, if, you know, if BTO is doing well, if it’s only one quarter, I think that’s still feasible. The key question is, you know, if we have only one quarter of energy disruption or if we have longer. That would be the driver. If it’s only one quarter, that’s still possibly within reach.
Aleksandra Arsova, Analyst, Equita: Thank you, Marco Pescarmona.
Operator: As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time. I turn the conference back to you for any closing remarks.
Marco Pescarmona, Chairman, Moltiply Group: Okay. Thank you for the participation, for the questions. Let me summarize by saying that, you know, we are quite happy with how the business performed until, you know, the end of February. We are executing, we think, pretty well in all respects. We are accelerating things. We are integrating well our recent acquisitions. We are deploying AI to improve productivity, to improve our services. Everything is going well from what we, you know, can influence. Now we are at the mercy of external events and, you know, you have to be a bit patient. We believe we are continuing to build a great company and have confidence for what is in the future. Thank you.
Alessandro Fracassi, CEO, Moltiply Group: Yeah. Thank you, everyone.
Alessandro Fracassi, CEO, Moltiply Group: Thank you. Bye.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.
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