Ori­gi­nal-Re­se­arch: ELARIS AG (von ELARIS AG): GBC Ma­nage­ment In­ter­view

Ori­gi­nal-Re­se­arch: ELARIS AG – from GBC AG­Clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on of GBC AG to ELARIS AG

Com­pa­ny Name: ELARIS AG
ISIN: DE000A37FT17

Re­ason for the re­se­arch: GBC Ma­nage­ment In­ter­view
Re­com­men­da­ti­on: GBC Ma­nage­ment In­ter­view
Last ra­ting ch­an­ge:
Ana­lyst: Mar­cel Gold­mann

25/03/2024 – GBC ma­nage­ment in­ter­view with Lars Ste­ven­son, CEO of ELARIS AG

‚We ex­pect a strong fi­nan­cial year in 2024, as dri­ven by the con­tin­ued strong growth in the e‑mobility mar­ket.‘

ELARIS AG (ELARIS) is a Ger­man com­pa­ny and a pro­vi­der of ful­ly elec­tric e‑vehicles in the fast-gro­wing e‑mobility sec­tor. As an au­to­mo­ti­ve ma­nu­fac­tu­rer, ELARIS sources its elec­tric cars from well-known Chi­ne­se e‑vehicle ma­nu­fac­tu­r­ers (con­tract ma­nu­fac­tu­ring) and sells them its­elf (on­line sa­les) and via sa­les part­ners un­der its own ELARIS brand in Ger­ma­ny and a num­ber of other Eu­ro­pean count­ries (e.g. Aus­tria). The com­pa­ny has ex­ten­si­ve tech­no­lo­gy, de­ve­lo­p­ment and ma­nu­fac­tu­ring part­ner­ships with the­se ma­nu­fac­tu­ring com­pa­nies (OEMs). In Ger­ma­ny, ELARIS has curr­ent­ly en­te­red into a co­ope­ra­ti­on with 82 car dea­lers and 86 Eu­ro­mas­ter lo­ca­ti­ons for the sale (in­clu­ding ser­vicing) of ELARIS elec­tric cars and char­ging sta­ti­ons.

Af­ter ELARIS re­cent­ly an­noun­ced that the com­pa­ny was plan­ning its in­iti­al lis­ting on the m:access of the Mu­nich Stock Ex­ch­an­ge on 14 March 2024, we took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­duct a ma­nage­ment in­ter­view with Mr Lars Ste­ven­son, CEO of ELARIS AG. The in­ter­view fo­cu­sed in par­ti­cu­lar on the IPO, the company’s cur­rent growth stra­tegy, the tar­gets for the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year and the company’s pro­s­pects.

GBC: What were your mo­ti­ves for the IPO?

Mr Ste­ven­son: The IPO will in­crease our vi­si­bi­li­ty and awa­re­ness. It will enable us to si­gni­fi­cant­ly ex­pand our mar­ket po­si­ti­on as an in­no­va­ti­ve elec­tro­mo­bi­li­ty com­pa­ny and make a con­tri­bu­ti­on to the glo­bal en­er­gy tran­si­ti­on. Needs-ba­sed and af­forda­ble elec­tric cars are an im­portant fac­tor in the glo­bal en­er­gy tran­si­ti­on. In ad­di­ti­on, vi­si­bi­li­ty on the ca­pi­tal mar­ket and fu­ture fi­nan­cing op­ti­ons will help us with our fur­ther growth stra­tegy.

GBC: Could you plea­se brief­ly ex­plain your busi­ness mo­del and what sets you apart from other e‑mobility pro­vi­ders (USP) to our in­ves­tors?

Mr Ste­ven­son: We want to be a dri­ver in ma­king elec­tric mo­bi­li­ty sui­ta­ble for the mas­ses, so that ever­yo­ne can af­ford a good elec­tric car. That’s why we curr­ent­ly of­fer a ran­ge of six elec­tric car mo­dels in Ger­man-spea­king count­ries, from sub­com­pact cars to SUVs and sa­loons to vans. We are fo­cu­sing on af­forda­ble and needs-ba­sed elec­tric mo­bi­li­ty and are working tog­e­ther with lar­ge elec­tric ve­hic­le ma­nu­fac­tu­r­ers in Chi­na. They pro­du­ce ve­hic­les on our be­half that are cus­to­mi­sed to the re­qui­re­ments of Eu­ro­pean cus­to­mers and the lo­cal mar­ket. In some ca­ses, we also cus­to­mi­se the ve­hic­les our­sel­ves, par­ti­cu­lar­ly in the soft­ware area. The mo­dels are the­r­e­fo­re uni­que. It is im­portant to us to of­fer elec­tric cars at fair pri­ces. The che­a­pest elec­tric car is available for less than 21,000 eu­ros (ex­clu­ding VAT).

One of our gre­at strengths is our fle­xi­bi­li­ty and speed. We quick­ly ad­apt mo­del spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­ons and ran­ges to ch­an­ges in the mar­ket and de­mand. Cus­to­mers are assu­red of ve­hic­le re­pair and main­ten­an­ce as well as the sale of ac­cess­ories via ELARIS part­ner car dea­ler­ships. It goes wi­t­hout say­ing that our elec­tric cars can also be ser­viced by other ga­ra­ges. Our ve­hic­les are curr­ent­ly sold pri­ma­ri­ly in Ger­ma­ny, Aus­tria and Switz­er­land. In ad­di­ti­on to our own di­rect sa­les, we rely on a part­ner net­work of car dea­ler­ships, which will be con­ti­nuous­ly ex­pan­ded.

In the char­ging in­fra­struc­tu­re di­vi­si­on, we also of­fer char­ging sta­ti­ons and wall­bo­xes. Con­sul­tancy and ser­vices in the plan­ning of char­ging in­fra­struc­tu­re so­lu­ti­ons are also part of our busi­ness mo­del. Our aim is to in­cre­asing­ly le­vera­ge cross-sel­ling po­ten­ti­al bet­ween the are­as of elec­tric ve­hic­les and char­ging in­fra­struc­tu­re. We are the­r­e­fo­re very di­ver­si­fied in the field of e‑mobility.

GBC: How do you see the cur­rent mar­ket de­ve­lo­p­ment in the e‑mobility sec­tor? What mar­ket trends do you see and what fu­ture de­ve­lo­p­ments do you an­ti­ci­pa­te?

Mr Ste­ven­son: E‑mobility is a strong growth mar­ket. This is also con­firm­ed by va­rious stu­dies. For ex­am­p­le, sin­ce the COVID pan­de­mic, the share of elec­tric ve­hic­les in to­tal ve­hic­le sa­les in Ger­ma­ny has in­creased ten­fold. De­pen­ding on the fo­re­cast and stu­dy, it is as­su­med that bet­ween 240 mil­li­on and 250 mil­li­on elec­tric ve­hic­les will be on the road world­wi­de by 2030, thus achie­ving a glo­bal share of 10.0% to 30.0%.

Ac­cor­ding to the In­ter­na­tio­nal En­er­gy Agen­cy (IEA), ma­nu­fac­tu­r­ers out­side Chi­na will need to of­fer af­forda­ble, com­pe­ti­ti­ve op­ti­ons in the fu­ture to enable mass ad­op­ti­on of elec­tric ve­hic­les. Th­rough our col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with Chi­ne­se OEMs, we the­r­e­fo­re be­lie­ve we are well po­si­tio­ned.

GBC: You are a fast-gro­wing com­pa­ny: What spe­ci­fic growth stra­tegy are you pur­suing with ELARIS?

Mr Ste­ven­son: Among other things, we want to fur­ther ex­pand our sa­les and ser­vice chan­nels in or­der to in­crease sa­les, im­pro­ve cus­to­mer ser­vice and streng­then the brand on the mar­ket. In par­ti­cu­lar, we are fo­cu­sing on ex­pan­ding the net­work of af­fi­lia­ted car dea­ler­ships, which are to be­co­me sa­les and ser­vice part­ners for our pro­ducts. We also want to ex­tend our part­ner­ship with ser­vice pro­vi­ders for the ELARIS elec­tric car to other Eu­ro­pean count­ries so that lo­cal dis­tri­bu­tors of the ELARIS brand ab­road can also be­ne­fit from this part­ner­ship and gua­ran­tee their cus­to­mers a na­ti­on­wi­de main­ten­an­ce net­work.

We want to con­ti­nue to rai­se our pro­fi­le th­rough tar­ge­ted mar­ke­ting ac­ti­vi­ties, e.g. via so­cial me­dia. We also want to open up fur­ther Eu­ro­pean count­ries as part of our in­ter­na­tio­na­li­sa­ti­on stra­tegy. In 2024, we plan to en­ter the French, Po­lish and Spa­nish mar­kets via lo­cal dis­tri­bu­tors. We want to fa­ci­li­ta­te ac­cess to our ve­hic­les th­rough spe­cial sub­scrip­ti­on mo­dels.

With the ELARIS mo­bi­le pho­ne app, for ex­am­p­le, every mar­ket par­ti­ci­pant could be­co­me a ‚car hire com­pa­ny‘. Our ELARIS World plat­form ta­kes care of the en­ti­re pro­cess. The first ELARIS taxi is also on the road in Ham­burg.

GBC: What can in­ves­tors ex­pect from ELARIS in the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year?
What sa­les vo­lu­mes and sa­les fi­gu­res are you ai­ming for in the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year? Will 2024 al­re­a­dy be a pro­fi­ta­ble year?

Mr Ste­ven­son: We ex­pect a strong fi­nan­cial year in 2024, dri­ven by the con­tin­ued strong growth in the e‑mobility mar­ket. We will launch new at­trac­ti­ve mo­dels with high avai­la­bi­li­ty, a long ran­ge and fa­voura­ble pri­ces on the mar­ket in the short term. The­re will also be an e‑scooter from ELARIS in 2024, for ex­am­p­le. Over­all, we see 2024 as the first year in which we will be able to reap the re­wards of the stra­te­gic cour­se which we have set in re­cent ye­ars in terms of sa­les and move into com­ple­te­ly new dimensions.GBC: Will ELARIS con­ti­nue to stri­ve for the de­si­gna­ti­on or sta­tus of a clas­sic (do­me­stic) au­to­mo­bi­le ma­nu­fac­tu­rer (so-cal­led OEM) in the fu­ture?

Mr Ste­ven­son: The ELARIS BEO with the ELARIS VIN num­ber will be available as ear­ly as April. We are in the pro­cess of swit­ching from OEM to Ger­man ma­nu­fac­tu­rer. By the third quar­ter, we plan to place all ve­hic­les on the mar­ket as a Ger­man ma­nu­fac­tu­rer.

GBC: What is your ge­ne­ral cor­po­ra­te vi­si­on? Whe­re do you see ELARIS in th­ree to five ye­ars in terms of sa­les re­gi­on, tur­no­ver le­vel and pro­duct port­fo­lio?

Mr Ste­ven­son: ELARIS wants to play a meaningful role in sha­ping elec­tro­mo­bi­li­ty as a fa­mi­ly of va­lues th­rough in­no­va­ti­on, cus­to­mer-ori­en­ted mo­dels, pri­ces and struc­tures. We com­bi­ne ac­cess to ef­fi­ci­ent pro­duc­tion fa­ci­li­ties with an un­der­stan­ding of cus­to­mer re­qui­re­ments in a wide ran­ge of re­gio­nal mar­kets. Our lean struc­tures and wil­ling­ness to break new ground make us fle­xi­ble and fast. ELARIS cle­ar­ly ad­dres­ses Eu­ro­pe and the Midd­le East. Our li­cence mo­del in par­ti­cu­lar en­ables ra­pid growth. Our pro­ducts can be fle­xi­bly ad­apt­ed to lo­cal mar­kets.

A Ger­man brand still has gre­at ap­peal. The fact that pro­duc­tion ta­kes place in Chi­na is not re­al­ly any­thing new for the mar­ket – many es­tab­lished ma­nu­fac­tu­r­ers pro­du­ce in Chi­na.

In five ye­ars‘ time, our key fi­nan­cial fi­gu­res should be in line with our cla­im to be a suc­cessful glo­bal elec­tro­mo­bi­li­ty com­pa­ny. As a pro­fi­ta­ble com­pa­ny with very dy­na­mic sa­les growth, we want our share­hol­ders to par­ti­ci­pa­te in the next suc­cessful chap­ters of the ELARIS sto­ry.

GBC: Mr Ste­ven­son, thank you very much for tal­king to us.

You can down­load the re­se­arch here:
http://​www​.more​-ir​.de/​d​/​2​9​2​3​5​.​pdf

Cont­act for ques­ti­ons
GBC AG
Hal­der­stra­ße 27
86150 Augs­burg
⁰⁸²¹⁄₂₄₁₁₃₃ 0
research@​gbc-​ag.​de
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Of­fen­le­gung mög­li­cher In­ter­es­sens­kon­flik­te nach § 85 WpHG und Art. 20 MAR Beim oben ana­ly­sier­ten Un­ter­neh­men ist fol­gen­der mög­li­cher In­ter­es­sen­kon­flikt ge­ge­ben: (5a,6a,11); Ei­nen Ka­ta­log mög­li­cher In­ter­es­sen­kon­flik­te fin­den Sie un­ter: http://​www​.gbc​-ag​.de/​d​e​/​O​f​f​e​n​l​e​g​ung
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Date and time of com­ple­ti­on of the stu­dy: 25/03/2024(8:46 am)
Date and time of first dis­tri­bu­ti­on: 25/03/2024(10:30 am)

——————-trans­mit­ted by EQS Group AG.——————-

The is­suer is so­le­ly re­spon­si­ble for the con­tent of this re­se­arch.
The re­sult of this re­se­arch does not con­sti­tu­te in­vest­ment ad­vice
or an in­vi­ta­ti­on to con­clude cer­tain stock ex­ch­an­ge tran­sac­tions.