Edited Transcript of SCHO.CO earnings conference call or presentation 7-May-20 12:00pm GMT

Looking at expectations for 2020, we can say that we still expect the BioMar to deliver attractive profits. But it also have to be said that fish consumption in especially the Horeca segment has restaurants, catering, flight businesses and so on. It’s, for the time being, very low hit by corona. May affect fish sales in general, and thereby also affect our customers financially as well as the feed consumption. We will continue to have a strong focus on our customers’ financial development in the coming year. But again, as I said, we still expect to deliver attractive profitability in BioMar in 2020. From BioMar to the Fibertex Personal Care, where we could see first quarter with a decreased revenue, but it was only due to raw material — prices of raw materials. So we’ve had a turnover of DKK 536 million. Our volume was up by 4%. We experienced strong demand from all customer types and we also had some interesting new opportunities in the medical segment, mainly for protective clothing. And we saw effect from globally supply chains changing.

EBITDA, same level as 2019, EBITDA of DKK 101 million. It’s a satisfactory development as we, in 2019, had very positive one-off effects on raw material and products.

We also experienced a very positive effect from strong capacity utilization in the quarter. During the quarter, we have seen our new print facility in U.S. running well and also being able to attract new customers in the quarter. Our 3 nonwoven factories, one in Aalborg, Denmark and 2 in Malaysia, they are now running at full capacity. And it gives also a good reason for being much more specific on guidance at Fibertex Personal Care due to good visibility. We expect revenue to be unchanged, DKK 2.1 billion, but the EBITDA is now expected in a range of DKK 320 million to DKK 360 million. And of course, it’s a strong positive effect from corona cost demand.

From Fibertex Personal Care to Fibertex Nonwovens. Happily to announce that they had a very strong development in Q1, the best Q1 ever in Fibertex Nonwovens’ history. They have been struggling for some years, and it’s very positive to see this. Revenue was DKK 445 million. Our U.S. operation continues very good strong development, whereas the important automotive segment really reduced the demand significantly, especially at the end of the quarter. Then we saw a positive increase in sales of materials to medical hygiene segment in the quarter. EBITDA increased from DKK 39 million to DKK 54 million. And one of the things also was that we could see good effect from overall efficiency improvements in all operations. And then, of course, a changed product mix.

In the quarter, we have been working hard on mitigating corona effects. We have been downsizing our production capacity due to low demand from auto segment, whereas we have been pursuing the strong demand from medical segment to build lasting businesses. Outlook for 2020 is, in spite of the crisis and the automotive, negative outlook for the automotive segment, not too negative. We see kind of a balance between the auto demand, with demand from new segments, we expect to continue our strong development in U.S. However, we expect also EBITDA to be reduced slightly, but it could end up close to the bottom of our previous guidance.

From Fibertex Nonwovens to GPV. Here, we experienced revenue down with 6% to DKK 718 million. And that was caused by rather slow demand from large industrial customers across markets. We also had — or saw impact from temporary closedown of important production sites among other sites out site in China and also our site at Sri Lanka. Our EBITDA was 2019 level of DKK 46 million, of course, effect from lower turnover and product mix. And it also had to be said that GPV had a — in 2019, they had a negative effect of PPA of DKK 8 million. So that should be taken into consideration also when looking at 2020. During the quarter, of course, a lot of efforts has been spent on mitigating the corona effects. We have also locally wise seen stronger demand on customers supplying the medtech industry. And here, we could foresee interesting new opportunities. And we still also have a very interesting project pipeline and large outsourcing cases to look at in GPV. 2020 outlook is blurry due to uncertainties from our large industrial customers. We expect lower sales and thereby also reduced EBITDA. Q2 is expected to be hardest hit. Order backlog, it’s not too bad, but we expect Q2 to be hit. And then as I mentioned, we also see interesting opportunities arising in the medtech segment with supplies out of Switzerland and with good profitability.

From there to HydraSpecma, where we had a revenue 4% down to DKK 530 million. Still, our wind segment business is a key driver for growth, have been performing well over the quarter. But the soft demand we have seen from large customers from the vehicle segment continued also in Q1. And it also had to be mentioned that our 2 Chinese factories, they have been closed down for some time in the quarter. EBITDA was DKK 57 million, but with the EBITDA margin at 2019 level. We had, of course, a negative impact from lower sales, but then we saw a good effect from efficiency and investments we have been making over the year to increase productivity. Also our factory footprint with production in low-cost countries is important. The quarter, again, strong focus on adjusting the business to the current situation, especially in Sweden, where large Swedish industrial customers, more or less, closed down in March, April. We had to take end on that. We are building a new production facility in Gothenburg, and it’s well on the way. We also had a successful CEO succession and a new management structure implemented during the quarter. Outlook for 2020 is quite blurry. However, we foresee continued good demand from our important wind segments. Large industrial OEMs will continue to show soft demand. We expect that to last full 2020. So thereby, we, of course, expect lower sales and EBITDA in the — in 2020.

And then last, Borg Automotive, where we saw a flat revenue of DKK 232 million. In fact, we had a very strong start of the year. We were happy, and it was positive. Thought we were — now we are back in business, having defended our position in 2019, but we have also seen an instantly effect when all — most countries in Europe closed down. No cars on the road means no cost of service. And it has been very difficult to move products around in Europe also. So Borg Automotive, by far, are the hardest corona hit of our 6 companies. EBITDA fell from DKK 33 million to DKK 24 million, not all corona related, but here, we saw quite strong effect from government impose salary increases in Poland. And also product mix with increased sales to OEM, meaning lower sales prices and margins as expected.

During the quarter, of course, Borg and the management team has had full focus on how to mitigate this corona situation, and we have to say also that the start of the crisis, it was really difficult to look into the situation. We have now a much better view on what to do. And then we have reduced and downsized a lot of places. We’ve also been able to improve the productivity in Poland a bit to offset salary increases but again, we are focusing a lot on adjusting our production capacity and our supply chain. So that being said, outlook for 2020 is very uncertain and of course, due to our main markets more or less are closed down. But then still, we expect to strengthen our market position when things opens up again. By taking advantage of our size and our product range, we are looking into reduce cost base, but also in respect for being able to taking future opportunities. So this said, we expect sales and EBITDA to see a significant drop in 2020.

Wrapping up. At Schouw, we have full focus now on protecting people and profitability. We have a very clear corona strategy with strong actions implemented in each company. We are also going to utilize strength and position both short and long term. And we also — we have the willing to be both if we see interesting opportunities arise in this difficult period here. Outlook is blurry and uncertain, but we think our conglomerate strategy now shows strength and spread risk. We expect, in fact, to deliver quite strong cash flow in 2020. And as I said, profitability will be reduced, but we still expect it to be at a rather attractive level. And we also say the world will normalize, but at what speed, we do not know, and that’s why we still have suspended the guidance for 2020.

So with that being said, I will open up for questions.

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Questions and Answers

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Operator [1]

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(Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from the line of Jonas Guldborg of Danske Bank.

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Jonas Guldborg Hansen, Danske Bank A/S, Research Division – Analyst [2]

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I have 3 questions, and I’ll take them one by one. So first of all, your net working capital in BioMar is up 50% year-on-year. And you mentioned a lot of reasons for that in the report, but I feel pretty confident that you are not satisfied with this level, which is more than 13% of revenue. Could you talk a little bit about how you see this develop for the rest of the year? And what level relative to revenue, you will be satisfied, so to speak?

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [3]

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Yes. Thank you for the question, Jonas. And I’m sure you’re right. We are not satisfied with that because you also know that we have a strong focus on net working capital. There is some geography in it also, meaning that we have more volume sold in markets where there are longer credit terms. But then we have also the utilization of supply chain financing has had an impact also in the quarter. And then we have our new implementation of a new setup in Norway with — where we are a shareholder in a company called, LetSea. And now we have to take the fish stock into our — as inventory, so that’s also up. And then, of course, we have our buildup of a new factory in Tasmania, where we have produced a lot in U.K. to make a safety stock in Tasmania. So it’s tying up quite a lot of capital also. So these 4 things are key drivers. And then of course, also we have the effect from taking over Alitec, our new company in Chile, the joint venture. So these things are main drivers. We expect net working capital to be reduced in the coming — over the year, and our objective is 10% net working capital of turnover. And we have a strong position.

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Jonas Guldborg Hansen, Danske Bank A/S, Research Division – Analyst [4]

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And do you expect to reach that by the end of this year, 10% revenue?

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [5]

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We do not expect that. It’s our objective. What we see this year will also because we — and we face some customers asking for longer terms because they have still fish in sea and things like that. And therefore, we need to balance risk and outstandings and things like that. So it’s our objective.

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Jonas Guldborg Hansen, Danske Bank A/S, Research Division – Analyst [6]

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Okay. Okay. Then my second question is on margins in BioMar. First of all, if you could put some color on what is driving the margin improvement in the quarter? And then also, cite a few comments to what is an attractive earnings level in BioMar for 2020? Is it 4% or 5% or 6% the EBIT margin?

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [7]

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As the — of course, you know it’s low season, meaning also that the efficiency in the factories in some areas will be low, but we have seen a margin improvement also because we have more — some of our segments in shrimps and so on, margins are different than salmon. So there’s a species mix. And then there’s also a product mix, added-value products, things like that. And then we have had also interesting raw material positions in the quarter. We expect EBIT margin, of course, to improve over the year, and we have an objective of 6% EBIT margin for BioMar. And that’s what we are looking into.

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Jonas Guldborg Hansen, Danske Bank A/S, Research Division – Analyst [8]

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Okay. And then my last question is for GPV and Borg Automotive. If you could give us the growth rate for March and for April for these 2 companies, that would be very helpful in trying to model the coming quarter. And then also, if you could put a number on the share of fixed operational costs versus variable costs in these 2 companies?

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [9]

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To be honest, I cannot be that specific. Maybe we can elaborate on that a little bit later and maybe Kasper can look into it. But of course, if you take GPV, it has been more soft demands over the quarter. It’s not just end of or mid-March and so on, whereas Borg really, I think, down to index 10 or 20 the last weeks of March. Without disclosing too much on April, I can say that the index in April for Borg was not as bad as we expected or feared. I think we saw index between 60% and 70%, closer to the 70s — the 70% index on turnover, whereas we expect May to be lower because there we really see the impact. So that’s as it is. GPV more over the quarter. And then, of course, also now, we expect May, June to be lower because we have delivered on our backlog and the order intake has been lower for the coming months. Then you asked on, was it specific on costs, Jonas, or…

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Jonas Guldborg Hansen, Danske Bank A/S, Research Division – Analyst [10]

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Yes, how much is fixed and then how much is variable in these 2 companies as a share?

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [11]

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I think we could come a little bit back to that. But of course, it’s not — fixed costs are not that big because component costs, especially in GPV, are very, very high. So — but let’s come back on that. It’s not — you cannot do a lot of things on fixed costs, to be honest, in these companies. More to say like that. It’s not that you could say, okay, let’s half the fixed cost and then we will see a significant improvement. That’s not cost improvement.

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Operator [12]

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Our next question comes from the line of Claus Almer of Nordea.

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Claus Almer Nielsen, Nordea Markets, Research Division – Senior Analyst of Capital Goods and IT [13]

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Also a few questions from my side. Coming back to Jonas’ question regarding how Q2 has started. My question is a bit broader. How have you seen Schouw Group performing so far in Q2? That would be the first question.

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [14]

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Yes. To be honest, Claus — and thank you for the question, we have April and then a few days into May. But to be honest our PC business, and we also — as expected, they have really been doing well. Fibertex Nonwovens is better than feared because when I say feared, we always look into what is going to happen, but they have been doing quite well. As I also said, Borg, a bit better than feared, BioMar good and as expected. Then I don’t really know about the GPV and HydraSpecma precisely, but not disastrous for the first months here. So far, April is not a disaster, and we feel quite comfortable on that. We are a little bit more reluctant and hesitant when we are looking into May, June in some of the companies because there we see backlog and orders and so on, really frequently.

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Claus Almer Nielsen, Nordea Markets, Research Division – Senior Analyst of Capital Goods and IT [15]

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Excluding those being exposed to automotive, do you think is it 20% revenue drop? Could it be 40%? I know this is the impossible question. But if we try it anyway to give some color to the magnitude.

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [16]

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I couldn’t — Claus, to be — I couldn’t really hear what was the question specifically?

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Claus Almer Nielsen, Nordea Markets, Research Division – Senior Analyst of Capital Goods and IT [17]

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No, no. Sorry, I’m just trying to — a bit more into Q2, and I know it’s very difficult to give any exact answer. But in round numbers, do you think it was — on group level, is it minus 20%? Is it minus 50%? Is it — your best guess?

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [18]

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Yes. It’s absolutely not minus 50%. I have to say that. It will not be that. It will be — we will see things down. But again, it’s a mixed bag of candy. And as I said, Fibertex Personal Care, they really had a strong April without saying too much. And as I said, the one who has been most hardest hit is Borg. They were index 70%, will be lower in May and June, but we will not see a disaster, not at all. And BioMar, which — they are so large in our portfolio, and they are not looking into disaster either. They are working hard to try to keep volume at the level the expected to be. It’s not — it doesn’t look too big.

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Claus Almer Nielsen, Nordea Markets, Research Division – Senior Analyst of Capital Goods and IT [19]

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Okay. And maybe keeping an eye on BioMar. What — when you have discussions with customers, what are they saying about volume, about their willingness to still buying high value-added products? That would be the second question.

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [20]

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Yes. That’s a good point, Claus. You could say, of course, also in — always in crisis like this, there will be — they will start to challenge value-added products, not because they are not good, but they don’t need to grow the fish as fast as they would before because they have too much biomass standing at sea. But they need to feed. So there will be more basic feeding. Then when you have a lot of fish at sea or a big biomass then something could happen with diseases, things like that, and then they will have a use for that. But it’s for certain that they are, of course, more on, what should we say, traditional feed, but they will have to feed. Then of course, if you look at it from segment to segment, you could say, looking at South Europe, where Greece, Spain is big on farming bass and breams. Majority, let’s say, 70% to 80% of these fish, they are sold fresh and they are sold to the restaurant business, most of it. And you cannot freeze that fish down. So of course, there’s something they’re nervous, will consumption come up again. I think in the salmon business, you would see they can freeze, they can do a lot of things, and they are quite smart in changing supply chains. They have a big marketing setup, more and more moving into the supermarket private consumption. And then one that has really been a concern for us has been shrimp out of Ecuador. Ecuador is the largest exporter of shrimp — high-quality shrimps to China. And that has stopped, no Chinese New Year, things like that, but it’s back, nearly 90% consumption in China now. So that’s a broad perspective on it. And then, of course, some of the customers having fish at sea don’t sell the volume as expected, they can be a little challenged on liquidity. And there, we have to really carefully look at that and balance that.

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Claus Almer Nielsen, Nordea Markets, Research Division – Senior Analyst of Capital Goods and IT [21]

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Okay. And then just my final question. That’s about this wording guidance you gave in the report. Maybe you can try to explain what is behind this guidance? Is it the normal input from the different managers and then you are putting the scope filter on top of that? Or how we really…

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [22]

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Yes, it’s a kind of a — sorry. Yes, it’s kind of a combination, Claus. Yes.

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Claus Almer Nielsen, Nordea Markets, Research Division – Senior Analyst of Capital Goods and IT [23]

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A combination. What do you mean by that?

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [24]

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No. I mean, of course, when you said it’s a normal scope filter on that, it’s — that’s why we are here. We are collecting all numbers. We’re discussing it with the CEOs. And of course, we have our view on things also. But of course, we can take a lot into consideration what’s coming from each company. And just to be specific on it, you could say, why do we continue to suspend guidance because still, there’s a lot of speculations. We don’t know if things will open up next week or what will happen and things like that. And it would be — so that’s why we’re saying, well, we don’t know more about what’s going on, on the political side, then we cannot be more specific. But still, we have a flavor. Looking into BioMar, when we are saying that we are still expecting attractive level EBITDA that will be challenged, meaning that because our customers are challenged, then, of course, there will be challenges also, so we will fight back, and you’ll see if we can defend our EBITDA position or even our original guidance. But of course, there will be challenges around it. We do not expect BioMar to be hard hit. Then you take — we see no reason to comment on that. That’s a clear figure. If you take Fibertex Nonwovens, we expect them really to — or we can see they are stepping up on added-value products on nano for protective clothing, mask, et cetera, that will compensate a lot. Then we have GPV, where we’re saying a little bit under the expected first guidance because we think that can compensate something from medtech, new customers. Then we have HydraSpecma where we’re saying quite a bit — or not a quite, but some below the expected guidance because the entire heavy vehicle construction segment is down a lot. Then we have wind to compensate that. And then Borg, to be honest, very difficult to say anything about the cost, a small garage at our main markets. U.K., France, Spain, Italy, closed down. When do they open up again, that will be speculations. So that’s kind of flavor, Claus, clouds on that.

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Operator [25]

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Our next question comes from the line of Ulrik Bak of SEB.

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Ulrik Bak, [26]

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Yes. Jens, just a couple of questions from my side. So in your guidance for BioMar, you seem more confidence that the revenue will be close to the original revenue guidance at DKK 12 billion. And you seem to be more confident then on EBITDA, where you say that you will be lower probably. Can you please elaborate a bit on that? Is it because you assume the same volumes and less profitability? Or how do you look at that?

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [27]

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Yes, more or less, you would say, because, as we discussed previously, I think some customers will change their feeding machine, meaning they are not too eager on functional feed because then the fish might grow too fast and they can’t sell it and so on. So meaning profitability on some of our functional feed is a bit higher that can maybe be offset a little bit by medicated feed or things like that. But that’s the rationale behind. And then also geographical spreads where some of our maybe more profitable smaller segments are a little bit challenged compared to the larger ones. So that’s the way we see it.

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Ulrik Bak, [28]

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Okay. And also another question for BioMar. You alluded a bit to it earlier, but have you seen like a drastic change in customer demand between mid-March when the COVID-19 pandemic really kicked off? And now when adjusting for the normal seasonal swings, and in particular, in the salmon division, which showed very strong volume growth in Q1.

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [29]

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We haven’t. What we have seen is that contract negotiations might be postponed because customers are not doing that for the time being. They are sticking to their normal suppliers, et cetera, et cetera. So there’s been a little bit around that, but we have not seen big volume changes, not yet. No.

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Ulrik Bak, [30]

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And just can you remind me how much more capacity you have in Q2 this year compared to Q2 last year as a percent?

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [31]

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We have in Chile, even we have taken in the — taken over the joint venture, no more capacity sold out. Norway has seasonal capacity, but you could say, in Norway, we have capacity to maybe run 60,000 to 80,000 tonnes more annually based. Yes. And then some of the other smaller contracts, we do not have much capacity.

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Ulrik Bak, [32]

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Okay. And then a final question on Fibertex Personal Care. You increased your guidance on EBITDA. So how much of this guidance increase is due to FX and raw material working in your favor?

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [33]

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Nothing. It’s only on volume and product mix based on the level index on raw material. So we have not taken that into consideration.

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Ulrik Bak, [34]

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Okay. Oh and — yes, I just still have a last one. On Fibertex Nonwovens, you reported very strong EBITDA margin for Q1. Can you just put a few words on that performance? And can this level be sustained in Q2 despite lower activity in the automotive sector?

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [35]

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I think it can be more sustained as the margins in the new products. It’s more depending — or it can, but it’s depending on how much sale will we lose to the automotive segment. And the index for April — of May, sorry, for that was not encouraging for them, but we had the other businesses quite promising. So I think we — if we — the volume we are getting from the new businesses, they have very attractive margins compared to the automotive.

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Operator [36]

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(Operator Instructions) And there are no further questions at this time. Please go ahead, speaker.

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Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. – President, CEO & Member of Management Board [37]

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Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this report in these difficult times. And then I wish all of you a good small holiday. Weather seems to be good. Thank you for that. Bye.

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Operator [38]

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This now concludes our call. Thank you for attending. Participants, you may disconnect your lines.