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How Each Of Yoma Strategic's Core Segments Drove Its 1H2026 Performance · Investor Exchange

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  Time for another Investor Exchange Podcast. Here are your hosts, Matt and Sally.
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  Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we're strapping in for a high-speed tour
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  of Yoma Strategic Holdings.
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  A really complex one, too, a diversified holding company. Absolutely.
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  They're into everything, land, motors, finance, F&B,
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  all of it operating in a pretty fluid environment like Myanmar.
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  So our mission today is to take their latest earnings report,
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  the one for the first half of 2026, and just cut through all that noise.
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  That's exactly it. Because with a company this big and a market this volatile,
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  just looking at the raw numbers, it's not enough.
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  You don't get the full story. No. We need to find the structural changes driving
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  their success and also pinpoint where the environment is still creating bottlenecks.
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  Okay, so overall financial health, the drivers, and the outlook. Let's do it.
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  So let's jump straight to the top line. What's the big picture verdict?
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  Well, they managed to grow and grow significantly.
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  Overall, revenue was up 19.3% year over year. That's U.S. $113.6 million.
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  That's a solid number. It is. But the real headline figure, the one that tells
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  the story here, is core EBITDA. Right, the core operational profitability. Exactly.
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  And it soared by almost 50 percent, up 49.8 percent to U.S. $20.5 million.
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  Wow. A near 50 percent jump. That's massive. That tells me this isn't just about
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  the market growing. This feels structural.
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  It is. And that's why we focus on core EBITDA here. Can you just quickly remind
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  our listener why that metric is so important in a market like this?
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  Of course. I mean, in a fluid environment, your standard net profit gets hit
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  by all these non-cash, non-core things. Asset revaluations, currency swings.
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  All of it. Core EBITDA strips all that out. It gives us a clean look at how
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  management is actually running the day-to-day business.
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  The nuts and bolts. Oh, they ran it well. The margin expanded too, right? It did.
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  The core EBITDA margin went from 14.4% up to 18.1%, a very healthy improvement.
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  And I see the net loss narrowed quite a bit. It's now at U.S.
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  $8.7 million versus over $10 million last year.
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  So positive movement all around. Definitely.
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  Okay, let's unpack this. Where did this growth, this margin improvement come from?
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  Which part of the business was the bedrock for this success?
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  The primary engine, without a doubt, was Yoma Land Development. The real estate arm.
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  That makes sense. Its success is kind of key to the whole group's viability.
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  It's absolutely critical.
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  Land development revenue grew almost 30 percent to U.S. $68.5 million.
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  But its core EBITDA, that jumped even faster. A staggering 70.8 percent to U.S. $18.0 million.
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  So over 60 percent of the group's entire revenue came from just that one division. Yep.
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  It was the most critical factor this period. That margin growth is just exceptional.
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  It can't just be about selling more apartments. they must be selling better
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  apartments. What was the secret sauce?
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  Well, there were two big drivers. First, you're right, sales momentum was strong,
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  especially from their newer projects.
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  A project called Sandiku Alone brought in U.S. $24.6 million.
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  But secondly, and this is the really strategic part, was the margin uplift.
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  It came from the project mix. The mix. Tell me more about that.
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  Well, they made a conscious choice to shift away from a lower margin project called a Sella.
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  Instead, they focused their capital and their attention on the premium stuff
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  at Pundling estate. Things like ARA, the REN.
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  Exactly. And crucially, they were able to raise prices on the ARA units they sold this year.
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  So better project mix, better pricing.
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  That's what drove that explosive core EBITDA growth. But I have to ask,
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  in such a fluid environment, isn't there a huge risk in relying so heavily on
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  just a few high-end real estate projects? I mean, how sustainable is that?
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  That is the right critical question. And they're clearly trying to mitigate that risk.
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  They're pointing to a very significant backlog of unrecognized revenue.
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  How big a backlog are we talking about? U.S. $93.0 million.
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  That's scheduled to be recognized over the next 18 to 24 months.
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  So that gives them some stability, some visibility. A nice cushion. A very nice cushion.
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  And their strategy is super selective. They're launching new Villas,
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  Wisteria, and Evergreen.
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  And they're reporting, and I'm quoting, healthy buyer interest,
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  with over half the launched units already booked.
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  So they're proving that the domestic demand for hard assets for a premium lifestyle is still there.
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  It's resilient. It lets them manage that exposure.
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  And all that performance must have generated a lot of cash for the group.
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  The operational cash flow jumped right. It really did. Jumped dramatically to U.S.
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  $16.9 million, up from just U.S. $6.8 million.
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  And that cash generation, mostly from collections from those Yomoland customers,
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  is absolutely crucial. It lets them navigate risks in other parts of the business. Exactly.
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  Which brings us neatly to Motors.
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  Right. Yoma Motors. They saw the
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  biggest percentage jump in revenue of any segment. A huge 122.7% increase.
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  But this segment is totally reliant on imports, which we know can be a problem. Absolutely.
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  So, Motors' revenue soared to U.S. $7.1 million, and the core eapbit rose by
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  an even crazier 238.9%. That sounds almost too good to be true.
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  It does, but it's a direct result of them overcoming a major hurdle inventory.
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  This whole increase was simply because they resumed vehicle sales after unnecessary restocking.
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  Wait, so the sales weren't down because of a lack of demand, but a lack of supply.
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  Precisely. They were bottlenecked by import constraints. Passenger vehicle sales,
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  for instance, shot up from just $200,000 to U.S. $2.4 million.
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  So that's just pent-up demand being met once they finally got the cars in the
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  country. That's it. In this market, just getting inventory is an operational
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  triumph. It's not a given.
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  Speaking of operational triumphs, let's look at debt. With all the currency
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  volatility, how do they manage their finance costs? They actually reduce them.
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  Total finance costs went down from U.S. $20.1 million to U.S.
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  $18.0 million dollars. And that wasn't from paying down debt?
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  Not primarily, no. It was about currency risk management.
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  Specifically, they saw lower translation losses on their Thai Baht bond.
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  The Baht just didn't appreciate as much against the U.S.
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  Dollar this period compared to last year. Ah, so a bit of a currency tailwind
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  for them there. A helpful one, yes.
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  That is a great segue into the segment with the most surprising shift of all,
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  mobile financial services.
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  Wave money. The paradox. It really is. The numbers are confusing.
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  Revenue dropped 32%, yet their core EBITDA was up nearly 7%.
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  How do you even reconcile that?
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  This is where we see the most profound strategic pivot in the whole report.
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  Yeah. And it really speaks to their resilience.
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  Okay, so the revenue decline was real. What caused it? A mix of things.
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  There were external challenges like an earthquake disruption and some outages.
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  But more critically, it was a strategic shift. They moved away from high commission,
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  over-the-counter agent transactions.
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  So people going to a local agent with cash to send money. Right.
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  They push customers towards their digital channels, towards the app.
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  So when a customer uses the app directly, that high commission revenue,
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  the fee the agent took, that disappears from their top line. It disappears.
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  But their profitability improves. Why? How? Two fundamental reasons.
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  First, even with that revenue drop, overall transaction volume still grew by
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  a massive 41.7%. Usage is high.
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  Especially digital. Especially digital, up a 52.1%. And by shifting to digital,
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  they cut out the high commission they had to pay to all those agents.
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  That slashes their operating expense.
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  Okay, lower costs helps the core EBITDA.
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  But that alone doesn't explain how they offset a 32% revenue drop. What's the other piece?
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  This is the genius of it. It's what we call maximizing the float.
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  Their interest income, which they record under other games, more than doubled.
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  And that income comes from where exactly?
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  It comes directly from the higher balances sitting in their customer trust accounts.
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  Because the digital wallet is bigger, they're holding more customer money.
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  Let's just pause on that float idea for a second for our listener.
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  Can you break that down? Sure. Think about it like this.
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  When you put money into a digital wallet, like Wave money or even PayPal,
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  that cash doesn't just sit in a vault.
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  It sits in a segregated, regulated trust account.
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  And that account earns interest for the company. That's it. That balance,
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  the float, is essentially an interest-earning pool of cash.
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  And in an unstable market where interest rates can be high, generating returns
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  on that massive pool of capital is a much more reliable profit source than chasing transaction fees.
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  So they've shifted from being a pure payments company to being a financial services
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  entity that leverages its own balance sheet.
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  That is a game changer for resilience.
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  They're prioritizing stable interest-based income over volatile transaction
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  fees. That's fascinating.
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  OK, let's move to F&B KFC and YKKO.
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  This segment showed resilience, but you can see the pressure.
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  Revenue was up 18.5 percent, but court EBITDA only grew by about 10 percent.
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  Yeah, the demand signal is good.
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  People are still going out to eat and they're leveraging their big platform
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  of 37 KFCs and 42 YKKO outlets.
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  But they're in a constant fight with inflation.
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  Squeezed margins. Severely squeezed, rising costs for raw materials, imported ingredients.
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  It all comes back to that tough operating environment and the import constraints.
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  Were they able to pass those costs on to customers? Only partially.
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  They had to implement multiple price hikes, but those were purely defensive.
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  They were just trying to mitigate the cost increases, not raw profits.
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  And the final segment, leasing.
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  This one looks like it really faced some headwinds. It really did.
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  Leasing revenue was down over 8 percent and core EBITDA just fell off a cliff,
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  down 74.4 percent to only half a million dollars.
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  What happened there? The core reason was just the difficulty in getting assets,
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  those import restrictions we talked about.
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  They severely constrained new finance leases. It was hard to replenish the fleet.
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  So while the Motors division managed to get inventory for retail sales,
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  the leasing side, which needs assets for financing, bore the brunt of it. Precisely.
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  They also recorded lower gains from selling off their old X-Fleet vehicles this
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  period, which hurt the Eva DeLine even more.
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  Any bright spots of all? A small one.
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  Their operating leases saw better utilization, and their newer segment,
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  Yoma Plus, which does consumer electronics leasing, showed some growth.
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  So maybe a necessary diversification away from heavy equipment.
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  Okay, let's zoom out and look at the overall financial health and the outlook.
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  The debt picture is always so critical. How's the balance sheet? It's holding up.
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  The net gearing ratio stayed stable at 18.6%, which signals good financial discipline.
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  And they saw a really welcome increase in their cash balances. Up to what? Up to U.S.
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  $30.9 million, and that's largely thanks to those collections from the land division.
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  That cash is a vital buffer. But I did see that the net asset value decreased slightly.
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  Which brings us back to currency risk, doesn't it? It does. NAV went from about
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  $350 million down to $335 million.
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  And the main culprit wasn't operations. It was those negative currency translation adjustments.
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  The depreciation of the Myanmar kiyot against the U.S. dollar. Exactly.
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  When they consolidate their financials, the value of all their local assets
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  is just worth less in U.S.
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  Dollar terms. It has to be forcing them to rethink their whole financial structure.
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  What are they doing to manage that ongoing currency risk?
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  This is a major strategic focus for them now. Their key plan is to actively
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  shift their financing towards borrowings denominated in the local currency, the MMK.
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  A natural hedge. A classic hedging strategy.
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  You denominate your debt in the same currency you earn your revenue in.
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  So if the MMK depreciates, the value of your debt also depreciates in dollar
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  terms, and it mitigates those translation losses.
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  Smart long-term planning. It's an acknowledgment that the environment isn't changing anytime soon.
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  That's right. So what are the specific growth plans they've announced for the next year?
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  In land, the focus stays on those selective high-margin projects like the new
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  villas, capitalizing on that confirmed buyer interest.
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  And F&B. Cautious expansion, maybe three to four new restaurants in Myanmar
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  and one or two new ones in Thailand, leveraging the brands they have but staying
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  flexible with capital. And the next step for wave money.
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  Confirming that push into broader financial services. They're expanding cross-border.
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  Just after this period ended in October, they launched the 2C2P Wavy app in Thailand.
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  That's huge. It's crucial. It allows for fast, secure remittances from overseas.
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  That captures a really high-value income stream and further embeds the digital
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  wallet into the financial lives of people working abroad.
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  So if you tie it all together, the central theme here is adaptation.
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  The group is thriving, not by just waiting for things to get better,
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  but by maximizing domestic demand and structurally transforming its biggest
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  growth driver, wave money. Absolutely.
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  And if we connect it all back to the beginning, that ability to grow core EBITDA
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  and wave money while watching traditional revenue fall, that's not just surprising.
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  It's a blueprint for resilience in these complex markets.
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  It confirms they're pivoting from pure commission revenue to,
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  as you said, financial asset monetization.
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  They're changing the model. Which raises an extremely interesting question for
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  you, the listener. As you watch these digital economies mature in volatile markets?
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  Does a business really need to focus on chasing every single high-commission transaction?
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  Or is leveraging large regulated trust fund balances and minimizing those external
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  costs, maximizing that float-the-new, more resilient profit model?
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  That pivot from transaction fees to interest income might just be the biggest
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  indicator of their long-term stability. It's a fundamental shift.
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  A fascinating deep dive. We hope this gave you the shortcut and the insights
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  you needed. We'll see you next time on The Deep Dive.