5/11/2021

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Facilitator

And gentlemen, welcome to Technicolor's conference call, chaired by Richard Maud, CEO, and Laurent Carolzi, CFO. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will continue to Q&A session. If you would like to register a question, please press 01 on your telephone keypad. Just to remind you all, this conference is recorded. We would like to inform you that this event is also available live on Technicolor's website with synchronized slideshow. During this conference call, statements could be made that constitute forward-looking statements based on management's current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the future results expressed, forecasted, or implied by such forward-looking statements. for a more complete list and description of such risks and uncertainties refer to Technicolor's feelings with the French Autorité des Marchés Financiers. I would now like to hand over the call to Richard Mott. Sir, please go ahead.

speaker
Richard Maud
Chief Executive Officer

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Technicolor's first quarter 2021 results are an encouraging signal that our turnaround strategy is going well and each division continues to redefine content experiences through innovation and improve its performance. However, the unpredictable headwinds and challenges caused by COVID aren't over yet. And I hope you and your families are keeping safe and secure. Thanks to the significant worldwide vaccination campaign, we're starting to see signs of improvement nevertheless. For example, the recent announcement in the US and France of upcoming reopening of cinemas. So if we move to slide four, key figures from continuing operations. In the first quarter, all of our activities benefited from a strong and growing demand driven by the urge to equip homes with strong broadband access, the need for original content from studios and streamers, and appetite for catalog DVDs. And in this context, our unrivaled talent pool across 25 countries has proven very nimble and innovative in delivering high value added services to our clients. So our revenues of €711 million were up 4% at constant rate, demonstrating a very positive first quarter 2021, primarily driven by lower revenue in film and episodic visual effects and DVD services, but a strong performance in connected home, particularly in North America and Eurasia. Adjusted EBITDA was up 72% at constant rate to €43 million, reflecting operational and financial improvements across all activities, in particular in connected home. The ongoing implementation of our cost transformation programme delivered €20 million of cost savings in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was almost break-even, a €33 million improvement as a result of the EBITDA increase and lower DNA related to efficiency measures. Our free cash flow before financial results and tax was still negative, but it was higher by €118 million at current rate compared to the first quarter of 2020, driven by that good performance in connected home, working capital improvement and the ongoing implementation of our cost transformation programme. Based on the profitability improvement in this first quarter, despite some challenges related to our capacity to deliver, relating to key components and recruitment constraints, we're confident of achieving the outlook presented in our full year press release, which we issued at the beginning of March. Turning to slide five, production services revenues amounted to 140 million euros, which was down 16.6% at constant rate due to slower than anticipated ramp up of projects following the pandemic related impact on production around the world. but this was partially mitigated by significant revenue growth for MPC Episodic, where sales have more than doubled in absolute value. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to 14 million euros, which is up 3 million euros year on year at constant rate. So just to give you a few highlights, in film and episodic visual effects, teams worked on over 12 theatrical films from the major studios, including Cruella and the Lion King prequel for Disney, Mortal Kombat for Warner Brothers and Nightmare Alley for Searchlight Pictures. Our teams also worked on over 25 episodic and streaming projects, including Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers for Disney, The Nevers for HBO and The Wheel of Time for Amazon. Revenues were significantly down due to the continued impact of the pandemic on live action film shoots. Our advertising businesses delivered over 1,000 commercials, including 20 out of 42 Super Bowl spots this year, whilst winning three Visual Effects Society awards and six British Arrows. Notable projects included Audi's Future is an Attitude and Samsung's Awesome is for Everyone 2. Revenues were lower compared to last year, but operating performance increased, showing the positive impact of the transformation program on margins. In animation and games, revenues were stable compared to the prior year. Mikros Animation was in production on multiple films, including Spin Master's Paw Patrol the Movie and Paramount's The Tiger Apprentice. It has also secured two additional projects in the recent past. On the episodic side, our teams continue to work on several series, including Chicken Squad and Mira Royal Detective for Wild Canary and Disney, Fast and Furious Spy Races for DreamWorks, and Camp Coral SpongeBob's Under Years for Nickelodeon Paramount+. During the quarter, we continued the harmonization of technology infrastructure to eliminate inefficiencies from what were previously siloed operations. We also further reinforced our top management, Josh Mandel was appointed CEO of The Mill, and Andrea Meloro was hired from Blue Sky as president of Micros Animation to expand our global feature and episodic animation services. Looking ahead, following the disposal of post-production, we have renamed production services as Technicolor Creative Studios to showcase our global family of leading VFX and animation studios servicing the theatrical, episodic, streaming, games advertising and experiential marketing industries we've been awarded numerous new projects securing approximately 90 of the expected 2021 sales pipeline for film and episodic visual effects and animation and games recent surges of the pandemic in india toronto and montreal have required a shift back to work from home for almost all staff during the second quarter in order that we maintain full operating capacity. Nevertheless, as vaccinations continue to roll out globally, the industry is optimistic about a steady return to normalcy during the back half of 2021. Turning now to slide six, connected home revenues total 428 million euros, which was up 18.3% at constant rate. driven by strong demand in North America and Eurasia to supply higher power broadband in support of pandemic-related remote work and education activities. Demand was, however, down in Latin America due to the difficult macroeconomic situation in the region. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to 28 million euros, up 14 million euros at constant rate, driven by the increased demand for the North American Cable Division and OpEx improvement initiatives implemented in 2020. The division maintained its market leadership in the broadband segment and in the Android-based video segment, where we achieved the deployment of over 10 million set-top boxes since the beginning of 2016. Adoption of DOCSIS 3.1 and Fibre Gateways is expected to continue through 2021. and we're already working with multiple Tier 1 operators in North America, Europe, and Latin America to meet current deployment demands. The next wave of the expansion will be driven by the next generation Wi-Fi technologies and higher speeds like 10 gig. Looking ahead, demand is going to remain strong throughout 2021, and we're going to continue to focus on selective investments in key customers, platform-based products, and partnerships to improve margins over the year. The COVID pandemic has, however, created distortions in the industry, with in particular global logistics disruptions in semiconductors. We're continuing to work with our partners to minimise supply disruptions, and we're engaged in commercial discussions in order to pass surcharges through to customers wherever possible. Now on to slide seven. DVD services revenues totaled €139 million, down 7.7% at constant rate, which I think is a very good performance when you consider that Q1 2020 was a quarter which was largely unaffected by COVID and when cinemas were open and new releases were taking place. Total replicated disc activity was down 11%. However, standard definition DVDs were up 1% year on year, driven by the ongoing push of back catalog products. However, Blu-ray was down 31% due to the lack of new release content and CD volumes were down 34% as a result of structural decline and the COVID-related impacts. The decrease in volume, however, was partially mitigated by pricing improvements following the studio contract renegotiations that we did and by growth in non-disc related supply chain activity. Majestic EBITDA amounted to €4 million at current rate, which was much better than expectations. The division continues to adapt operations and related customer contracts in response to continued volume reductions, and two significant North American facility closures were effected in the first quarter of 2021 as part of the ongoing transformation plan. Going forward, Theatrical new releases showed an increasing trend over the course of Q1 2021, as theatres began to reopen and major new titles like Godzilla vs Kong were well received by audiences. Studios continue to have DVD releases alongside their various experiments in video on-demand strategies, and most major retailers continue to remain open and to allocate shelf space to catalogue and library content promotions. With David Holliday as the new president of DVD Services, the division has already accelerated its restructuring plans to continue to adapt to the evolving situation. Over on slide eight, to conclude, we will continue to improve efficiency and productivity throughout 2021 and 2022. Thanks to the ongoing transformation initiatives which we began over a year ago, we've been able to invest more in hiring and unleashing top talent whilst consolidating, sharing and harmonising best practices. These efforts and investments are fuelling our vision for transforming the future of film, episodic, gaming, integrated marketing and advertising campaigns and give us the confidence that we will continue to deliver improved operational and financial performance. With already €20 million of cost savings realised in the first quarter, We're well on track to achieve more than 115 million in the year 2021 as planned and to deliver cumulative 325 million by the end of 2022. So looking at our guidance for 2021, we confirm revenues from continuing operations will be broadly stable versus 2020. Adjusted EBITDA will be around 270 million euros. Adjusted EBITDA will be around 60 million euros. Continuing free cash flow before financial results and tax will be around break even. And net debt to EBITDA covenant ratio will be below four times at year end. And we're also maintaining our previously issued 2022 guidance. So with that, I'll hand over to Laurent, who will go into our Q1 2021 performance in some more detail.

speaker
Laurent Carolzi
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Richard, and good evening all. So I will now provide you with further details regarding our Q1 results. So overall, as mentioned by Richard already, they show significant improvements versus last year, driven by sales growth despite the supply constraints, and quite significantly by improved margins. It should be noted, before we go into the details, that post-production has remained consolidated during this quarter. It says we're down quarter-on-quarter 24% at around €20 million, and its EBITDA remained flat at around breakeven. So if we move on now to the slide 10, I'm going to present you our consolidated profit and loss. So our revenues of €711 million increased by 26 million at constant rate, representing an increase of 3.6%. In production services, production services revenues amounted to 140 million in the first quarter of 2021, down 16.6% at constant rate and 20.8% at current rate year-on-year. More specifically, film and episodic visual effects Revenues were significantly lower year on year, mainly due to slower ramp up of projects following the continued impact of the pandemic on live action film shoots. Q1 2020 was still an active quarter for film and episodic. Advertising revenues were also lower due to the impact of COVID-19 on client spend and live action production shoots. Animation and games revenues were stable versus prior year, and post-production accounted for lower revenues compared to the prior year, driven primarily by the pandemic's impact on productions. In Connected Home, revenues totaled €428 million in the first quarter, up 18.3% year-on-year at constant rate, and plus 8.7% at current rate. This has been achieved despite the start of the negative impact on sales of supply shortages. So if you want to be more specific, in North America, the revenues remain strong, driven by increased demand from cable customers for upgrades to high-power broadband to support remote work and educational activities. Latin America encountered difficult macroeconomic environments and this has continued to drive the demand down, particularly in Mexico and Argentina. In Eurasia, Europe, Middle East and Africa enjoyed significant increase of revenues due to strong demand in Europe, both for broadband and video products, and expansion of new GWs and STWs technologies to a larger customer base. Asia-Pacific exceeded prior year revenues driven by demand in India and in the Australian and Korean markets. If we now turn to DVD services, their revenues totaled €139 million in the first quarter, so down 7.7% at constant rate and 13.4% at current rate compared to 2020. Our adjusted EBITDA at €43 million is up 72% at constant rate. This reflects operational and financial improvements across all activities, and particularly in connected home, despite lower business volumes in film and episodic visual effects compared to first quarter 2020. I remind you that the quarter at the time wasn't yet affected by COVID-19. Production services adjusted EBDA amounted to 14 million, or 9.7% of revenues, up 3 million year-on-year at constant rate, despite the lower sales. Connected Home adjusted EBITDA amounted to 28 million euros in the first quarter, or 6.4% of revenues, up 14 million at constant rate, driven by the increased demand from the North American cable divisions and OPEC's improvement initiatives implemented in 2020. Clearly, Connected Home enjoyed a very strong quarter. DVD services adjusted to 4 million, plus 3 million versus last year, despite lower volumes of sales. So the margins benefited from better replication pricing, better consumer mix, and cost-saving actions, particularly and partially offset by labor cost pressures and various impacts from severe weather events experienced in the U.S. in the first quarter. If we move on to the adjusted EBITDA, it is at breakeven and represents a 33 million euro year-on-year improvement at current rate as a result of on one hand the positive increase of EBITDA but also of the positive impact of efficiency measures in particular lower rendering spend for production services and positive impact of client contracts renegotiations for DVD services. The P&L non-recurring items at a charge of €15 million are mainly related to the restructuring costs and are accounted for €14 million at current rate. They include €11 million coming from the DVD services cost of footprint optimization. The change in working cap. of negative 192 million reflects the end, and that's very important, of the payment terms normalization at Connected Home. It is an 82 million improvement versus last year. And if we focus on Connected Home, it has to absorb 120 million euro impact of cash out to finish its cycle of payment terms reductions. It will start in the second quarter 2021 to benefit from a normalized and de-risked working cap contribution. It should also be noted that production services have started to benefit again from down payments, the mark of the return of studios to large orders. Free cash flow before financial results and tax from continuing operations amounts to a loss of 196 million euros and it represents still 118 million year-on-year improvements at current rate and that's driven by a significant improvement in connected home operational performance, working capital improvements in production services and DVD services and the ongoing implementation of our cost transformation program. So clearly a sign that the turnaround is underway. The net debt at nominal value amounts to 1.1 billion euros and IFRS net debt amounts to 1.074 million euros. The difference mainly relates to the mark-to-market debt valuation on issuance and will be reversed through a non-cash interest charges over the life of the debt. If we move now down to the slide 11, I'll be now much more quicker on all the remaining slides. So on this slide, the 19 million increase in adjusted EBD at constant rates is due, as you can tell, mainly from the 14 million increase in connected home, followed by the 3 million increase in production services and the same amount at DVD services. Corporate and other decreased its contribution by 2 million and was driven mainly by lower revenues at Trademark versus last quarter. The Forex impact was a negative 3 million on EBITDA. Slide 12 provides you a bit more details on production services. So revenues amounted to 240 million in the first quarter, down 16.6% at constant rate. This reduction is due to a slow ramp-up of projects following pandemic-related impacts on productions around the world. The revenue decline was partially mitigated by significant revenue growth at MPC Episodic, where sales more than doubled in absolute value. MPC Episodic, to make it clear, serviced mainly what we call the streamers, so the Netflix and Amazon of this world. Advertising revenues were also off. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to 14 million, of 3 million year-on-year at constant rate, and adjusted EBITDA was a negative 2 million, up still 13 million year-on-year as a result of cost optimization, primarily in advertising and lower cloud rendering costs. Advertising EBITDA and EBITDA, despite a sharp drop in its revenues linked to the pandemic, increased in absolute terms compared to 2020, showing the positive impact of the transformation activities on its margin. Moving down to the slide 13. Let's have a look at Connected Home. Revenues total €428 million, up 18.3% year-on-year at a constant rate. The division continues to experience supply challenges due to COVID. Demand is strong, very strong in North America and in Eurasia, but Latin America is continuing to prove difficult because of currency weakness and supply constraints. The division is maintaining its market leadership in the broadband segment, and in the Android-based video segment. Although demand will remain strong throughout 2021, I'm talking about final demand, customer demand, the COVID pandemic has created distortion in the industry with disrupted global logistics. Shortages in semiconductors, and Richard has touched upon this, which started in the second half of 2020, are affecting many industries and will continue to impact the remainder of 2021. In particular, difficulties with component supply due to high overall demand is increasing the price of some component costs, and component shortages could delay sales during the coming month. In consequence, Connected Home will continue to work with its partners and customers to minimize supply disruptions. Technicolor has engaged in commercial discussions in order to pass surcharges through to customers. The situation is currently in line with expectations used to set the 2021 guidance, but they are not improving. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to 28 million euros in the first quarter 2021, or 6.4% of revenues, up 14 million at constant rate, driven by the increased demand from the North American Cable Division and OPEC's improvement initiatives implemented in 2020. Adjusted EBITDA €10 million, increased by €12 million at a constant rate compared to the prior year. This positive evolution in profitability is the result of the significant transformation plan launched three years ago. Moving to slide 14, DVD revenues, they totaled €139 million in the first quarter. They're down 7.7% at a constant rate. This reduction is mainly driven by a 10.7% reduction in total replicated disk activity. This negative trend was partially mitigated by pricing improvements following the studio contracts renegotiation and by growth in non-disk related supply chain activity. COVID-19 continued to have a negative impact in the first quarter, predominantly related to a significantly reduced level of new release activity as compared to the first quarter of 2020, which was largely unimpacted by COVID-19. The adjusted EBITDA amounted to 4 million or 3.1% of revenues. The 3 million improvement year on year is explained by better replication pricing, cost saving actions, partially offset by labor cost pressure and various impacts from severe weather events impacting the US in the first quarter. These overall positive actions more than offset the negative impact of lower volume sales. So clear improvement here of profitability thanks to the hard work being implemented by the new management team. Lower depreciation and amortization and positive impact of past contracts renewal helped to deliver an adjusted EBITDA of negative 6 million. to be compared to a negative 16 million in the first quarter 2020, so a plus 10 million euro improvement in a tough year, in a tough quarter. Non-recurring items at minus 12 million euro have remained high as the transformation plan is being currently further implemented. Slide 15. This slide takes us from EBITDA to EBIT. Nothing major to note here. So between adjusted EBITDA of negative 1 million euro and continuing EBIT of negative 26 million, we have only two items. 9 million of PPA amortization, non-cash as you know, and restructuring costs amounting for 14 million at current rate and mainly coming from 11 million of cost optimization at DVD. Slide 16. We're moving from EBIT down to the net group results. So the EBIT amounted for a loss of 26 million in the first quarter of 2021. Financial results totaled a negative 32 million in the first quarter again, compared to 25 million in the first quarter of last year. The change reflects net interest costs of 31 million. They are up from last year by 17 million. primarily due to the higher interest rates on the new debt structure. And we have other financial income. They improved to negative 1 million in the first quarter of 2021 compared to negative 9 million in the prior year. And that's mainly due to financial fees on the bridge loan put in place in March 2020. Income tax amounts to negative 1 million compared to breakeven last year. Group net income, therefore, amounted to a loss of 61 million in the first quarter of 2021 to be compared to a negative 87 million loss in the first quarter of 2020. Slide 17. As shown previously, the free cash flow after financial results and tax from continuing operations amounted at 227 million negative, and they represent 111 million year-on-year improvement at current rate. They are driven by significant improvement in connected home operational performance, working cap improvement in production services and DVD services, and by the ongoing implementation of a cost transformation plan. In particular, it should be noted that the working cap variation has absorbed 120 million negative charge of payment term reduction in Q1 2021, And this same movement was only 40 million in Q1 2020. So we absorbed a negative 18 million through this quarter. And despite that, we managed to improve. As mentioned previously, the group has now reduced its payment terms to a competitive level. And the working cap, starting in H2 2021, we no longer reflect the negative adjustments recorded in the past few years. Slide 18. Provides you with the debt structure. So we have 102 million of cash and cash equivalents and our net debt amounted to 1.074 million under IFRS 16. Liquidity, so in the slide 19, our total liquidity amounted at the end of the quarter to 175 million euros. with 102 million of cash on hand and 73 million of undrawn Wells Fargo credit line facilities. This concludes my presentation, and with this, Richard, I hand over to you the microphone. Thank you.

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