Tristel PLC

Good morning and welcome to the Tristell PLC preliminary results investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time by the Q&A tab situated at the right corner of your screen to simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives to the meeting itself. However, the company will review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you up to Liz Dixon, CFO. Good morning.

Good morning and hello everybody. Welcome to Tristell's preliminary results presentation. So these are our June 23 results. I'm joined in the room by Paul Swinney, our CEO, and also Heidi Ellard, our chief financial controller. And they will both join for questions later on, but I'll just lead us through the presentation. So for those of you who don't know the business, Tricell is an infection prevention company. We focus entirely upon the hospital and we have a unique proposition which is our chlorine dioxide proprietary formulation which we use to decontaminate both medical devices and disinfect surfaces. We have a very simple product We're very focused upon the hospital and this is a global opportunity which we are addressing. Our products can be used for multiple applications around the hospital. The Tristell branded product range focuses upon medical devices and within the hospital there are numerous departments that our products are used within. And we list on this slide the medical devices that are appropriate for decontamination by chlorine dioxide. These medical devices have the unique properties of being heat sensitive and made of plastics and polymers, which means they can't be sterilized, but the type of pathogens that cause risk to patients mean that they must be disinfected to the highest possible level between use. The departments that we address are those in which invasive ultrasound probes are used, so the probes that go into the various orifices of the body, transvaginal ultrasound probes, transrectal, and also skin surface ultrasound probes. And these probes account for the largest proportion of our medical device revenues. We also use our chemistry to decontaminate echocardioprobes, which are used within cardiology departments within hospitals, ENT nasendoscopes, and various other pieces of medical equipment that contain cameras or electronics or plastics that are listed here that make up the remainder of our medical device revenues. We are currently the global market leader in manual high-level decontamination or disinfection of medical devices. So our products are applied by hand. They come in the form of a wipe or a foam. And we compete in this market with machines, pieces of equipment into which you can place these medical devices for disinfection. But our products are unique in the fact that they are the chemistry is applied by hand. And why do we do that? Well, we do it because carbon dioxide is such a safe molecule. It can be handled, it can be used within the breathing zone, whereas the types of chemistries used in machines are noxious, and so they need to be contained within a box to protect the nurse or the physician who is carrying out the decontamination process. But as a consequence, Our products are mobile. They can be carried around the hospital. We don't have to take the medical device into a room where a box or a washing machine or a cabinet is located in order to disinfect it or decontaminate it. Our products can be used anywhere. It can be used in the field. It can be used in a department. It can be used in an ambulance. And as a consequence, they are extremely flexible and provide real alternative, a true competitive edge against fixed installations of machinery. The chemical chlorine dioxide is also very suitable for the disinfection of medical surfaces and we list here some of the areas, the surfaces within a hospital where dangerous pathogens can lurk. They are high touch surfaces. and where you have immune compromised patients or basically anyone who's sick within a hospital, then you want to make sure that they don't acquire an infection whilst in the hospital from one of these surfaces. So mattresses, IV poles, trolleys, commodes and so on, these are the areas that our products are used to disinfect. This is a much smaller element of our revenue, but it has the potential to rival medical device decontamination products in terms of value over time so the financial year that we're reporting upon is the year to 30th of June 23 we achieved a 16% growth in turnover up to 36 million and that's after in an incomparable period we had a number of products which we discontinued So looking at continuing products, we achieved 22% growth compared to the prior year. Overseas sales grew by 17%, up to 23.5 million, and we address our overseas markets via 14 wholly owned subsidiaries and some 35 third party distributors, many of whom we've been working with for over a decade. Our gross margin was relatively steady, increased very slightly, up to 81%. We achieved an adjusted EBITDA margin of 25% and adjusted pre-tax profit of 6.2 million compared to 4.5 million the year before. And we adjust for share-based payments each year. We have an all-staff share option scheme, which We issue shares to all of our staff to gain a company ethos aligned to shareholders, but as a consequence we do have a large share based payment charge each year, but we add it back so that the shareholders can see the underlying performance of the business. EPS grew by 39% in the period up to 10.67 pence per share and our dividend for the full year is up by 10% to 10.5 pence per share and that's an increase of 10% on a prior year that included a special dividend of 3 pence. So what we've sought to do this year is achieve growth upon the larger than normal dividend of the prior year but we've also restated our dividend policy whereby we will be increasing the dividend by a minimum of 5% per annum going forward. Our net cash at the end of the financial year was £9.5 million and that included funds on deposit and as an indication of how things are going in the current financial year cash is now up to £12 million Moving on to operational highlights, the key event during the year we're reporting upon was the achievement of clearance to sell our high-level disinfecting foam for ultrasound devices by the FDA into the US market. It's a program that we've been working on for quite a few years and has cost us in the region of three million pounds to achieve. Finally, on the 8th of June, we received clearance from the FDA to sell. We are now in the launch phase of the product and we're partnering with a company called Parker Laboratories who manufacture ultrasonic gels which will be used in the same same procedures as our disinfecting foam will be used. And Parker will manufacture our Tristell Alt within their manufacturing facility in New Jersey, and they will ship the product out to customers via their existing distribution channels. And we can report in this set of numbers that we have now started to sell, or Parker has started to sell, Tristell Alt through distributors into the U.S. market. So it's a very exciting time for the business. We also achieved in the period regulatory approval for our ophthalmic high-level disinfecting foam, and we also recorded first sales of that product within the quarter just ended. So our North American program is well underway now. The majority of our UK and European regulatory approvals for cash are expected to be secured in the current financial year. So here we're talking principally about CE marking and UKCA marking. It's been a little frustrating for us trying to obtain approval via our notified body, BSI, but we know that the technical files are under review and we're receiving questions from BSI and so we're confident that come 30th of June this year we will have clearance to sell all of our tank and capsule surface disinfecting products throughout the UK and Europe and we are also working upon further approvals in other regulatory authorities such as the TGA in Australia and so on. And we have a continuing investment in new product innovations. I'll touch on those as we go through the presentation. But one of the features of TriStyle is that we are an innovator. The chlorine dioxide chemistry that we work with requires innovation because it comes as two chemicals which need to be brought together at the point and place of use. And as a consequence, we need to have delivery systems, we need to have formulations, and we need to have electronic devices and apps which can monitor and track and trace the process as the decontamination event is taking place. And we innovate and we develop all of these technologies in-house. During the period we increased our headcount by 10% and that was in areas such as sales and marketing but also within regulatory and product development. So the key areas of business growth as where we invest continually. Over the last 10 years of our business, we can show here that our compound growth rate sat at around the 13% mark. And you will see within the graph that we had two years of no growth caused by the closure of outpatient diagnostic departments within hospitals, the areas that we focus upon. Well, these are now open again, and as a consequence, our growth trajectory is back on track. We sold £4.9 million more of product during the year just ended than we did the prior year, and we just give a little breakdown there of where that came from. We gained £700,000 as a consequence of currency fluctuations. £2.8 million of that growth came from volume. and 1.4 million pounds from pricing. So we do have pricing power and the increase in pricing that is applicable in this period was 4.5%. So looking at our sales by geography, then you can see that our 14 distributors, they're spread completely around the world. And we saw strong growth across the piece. All areas of the company grew in accordance with our corporate and above our corporate growth targets and hurdles of 10% to 15%. And we can see in Australasia, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Singapore, APAC, as we bring them together in our financial statements, APAC was £7.4 million of revenue within Europe. Those three areas total 13.3 million pounds of revenue and Europe now exceeds our home market of the UK which is 12.5 million pounds. So we have a very well balanced geographical picture of revenue and all areas growing at a good healthy rate. With respect to sales channels, we sell direct from our own subsidiaries and then we also have a number of distributors in place. In our two segments of medical devices and surfaces, you'll see that cash is much, much, much smaller than medical devices at 3%, and with 3% growth in the period was growing much slower. But attaining regulatory approvals is the key to igniting progress in that area. And as I say, we're hoping that our cash approvals will come through during this current financial year. Our worldwide distributors contain three areas that are all performing particularly well, and they include Ireland, Korea, and Chile. So we have again good regulatory, good geographical spread in terms of our growth areas. We detail in the next slide some tailwinds and headwinds. Those that are positive, so our tailwinds include an increase in diagnostic procedures globally, so we can see an increase year on year of the number of diagnostic procedures that are carried out. This comes from factors such as aging populations needing increased healthcare provision, an increase in diagnostic procedures due to new technologies, so new medical devices that are available to diagnose, and also health screening is becoming more and more available throughout the world and more common for us all to participate in, all of these things push up the number of procedures that take place each year, which benefits us. Every single diagnostic procedure that happens results in the use of a device and those devices need to be decontaminated between use. Hospitals are selecting more appropriate surface disinfection products and they're better informed, our infection prevention colleagues within hospitals are increasingly better informed about what is an appropriate product to use and subjects such as or areas such as resistance to disinfectants all feed into our sales teams being able to offer a tri-cell product which can help those infection prevention teams get a better outcome at the end of their decontamination process. There is of course unprecedented concern around the use of pre-wetted plastic wipes in healthcare and our cash product range feeds into that need by providing a break between the use of the wipe and and the chemistry, so we provide chemistry, the hospital can choose its whichever type of wipe it would like to use, and that can be paper, it can be a launderable cloth, microfiber cloth, which means that the use of plastic can be drastically reduced within hospitals. We do have insulation from inflation because of our very high gross margins. And we have very low energy costs within the business, within our manufacturing processes, which gives us some protection from energy cost increases. And we do have pricing power. Indeed, we increased our prices. We do increase our prices annually. And we align those to the global inflation rates. In terms of headwinds, then, As we found with our cash product approvals, under-resourced regulators will slow us down, and that's just a feature of the market in which we operate. And of course, hospital staff shortages, COVID waves, any future COVID waves or existing COVID waves, and also any industrial action, which is a feature, I think, principally of the United Kingdom, they will disrupt diagnostic services and as a consequence, our revenue growth trajectory. So we have focus upon geographic growth within the business, but we also are bringing a number of new products to market so that we can expand the product range and add some security to the products that we already sell. And the key areas that we're focusing upon on this slide are digital products. So 3T is an app platform. It provides to the user traceability. It demonstrates that the product has been used appropriately. It provides in-use training for the clinician. And it records all steps of the decontamination process. So we provide assurance to healthcare institutions that their medical devices have been decontaminated between uses. And then as we move on to the next product in development, which is our AI program, here we can demonstrate that the chemical has been provided at the right concentration, that the device was fully covered, and that the contact time of the chemical on the device has been adhered to. And by providing all of these assurances, we demonstrate to the user in the same way that a machine might demonstrate that all elements of the decontamination process have been performed adequately and to the right level. We're also developing a range of products which can provide further assurance by applying color to a medical device and demonstrate that the user by removing that color or by the chemistry neutralizing that color that the key steps have also been performed. So in every part of our product development program we are offering assurance to the end user that the process has been completely performed and and totally enacted in accordance with the requirements. During the financial year, we put in place 62 patent applications. So we do provide patent protection as far as we possibly can. Six of those applications went to grant and we invested £900,000 in product development and £300,000 with respect to patent protections. And then looking at the North America again, looking back at our product strategy in North America, then here we can see the various products which we are taking through or have taken through the regulatory process and are now taking to market. They are all our foam-based products. So within each of these images that you'll see a foam-based product. We call it DUO. In the US, we've got Tristel Ult, which is a Duo product, which is now on sale. Then we have Tristel Duo, which is an EPA mid to low level disinfectant, which is also on sale. This is for ultrasound equipment. The first one is for the probe, so the part of the medical device which enters the body. Second one is for the rest of the probe, rest of the device. They're both on sale now in the US, and we have orders being shipped as we speak. Within Canada, we have the same product, but this time it's being used upon ophthalmic devices to high-level disinfect, and that's in Canada. We are regulated by Health Canada, the regulatory authority in the country. That product is on sale. And then Duro-Alt, which is principally the same product as Tristell Alt, certainly within the bottled chemistry is exactly the same and the use pattern is the same as Tristell Alt, but this time in Canada it requires a separate registration and we have submitted that dossier into Health Canada and we expect approval from there before the end of June 2024. Moving on beyond that point, Then within the US, we will take our de novo application that was applicable for Tristell Alt and we will use it as a predicate for 510K applications for Tristell OPH and Tristell ORL, which will cover ophthalmic devices and ear, nose and throat devices. So as we have in the rest of the world, broadening our use within the hospital through the various departments that carry out diagnostic procedures. And in Canada, we will also make a submission of Duo-ORL, which is our ear nose and throat device, nasendoscope, predominantly a high-level disinfectant. So operationally, within North America, we can report now that we are manufacturing products. We've gone through our process validation, ensuring that manufacturing is to the right standard, it's repeatable, and that Parker are able to produce the product in accordance with the FDA specification, which we've completed. So we now know that Parker are working are and were the appropriate partner for manufacturing our Tristell Alt and they are now making product inventories available and indeed it has now been shipped and invoiced within the US so we are on track with our operational timelines and the next steps for us will be for Parker to work with their distribution partners and also hospital procurement departments to list the product on the internal platforms, ordering platforms, so that customers can order the product smoothly and easily. And then in the meantime, both we and Parker have been exhibiting the product, we've been showing it And we've attended a number of conferences, both infection prevention, but also ultrasound-related conferences. And a few of those are shown on the slide here. So Association for Vascular Access, the Infection Prevention Society within the United States, and the Society for Diagnostic of Medical Sonography. So these are all very relevant to our product, and we are showing the product Parker has shown the product at all of these events. And just as a quick reminder, our arrangement with Parker is that they will manufacture and sell. We will attain a 24% royalty on their sales value. And we anticipate that Parker will sell into their distributors at $2 a unit. And the distributors will sell on to end users at $3 to $3.50 per procedure. There's a procedure cost. So we attain 24% of the $2 per procedure. And that will come into the Tristell financial statements as a royalty with a 100% margin. So we set for ourselves internal financial targets or hurdles. And the existing hurdles that are in place are to attain a 15% growth rate, sales growth rate on average over a three-year period, and to attain at least a 25% EBITDA margin. These will be revisited in February this year. Why in February? Well, because by then we should have some real traction occurring within the United States it'll enable us to make sure we're setting appropriate targets for ourselves in the coming three years so now just looking at dividend I mentioned before we have changed our dividend policy well we've moved to a progressive year-on-year dividend we're increasing by a minimum of five percent per annum we will link it to earnings and but setting ourselves that hurdle of at least 5% growth year on year. In the year that we're reporting upon, then our final dividend will be 10 point, sorry, full year dividend will be 10.5 pence, and that means a final dividend of 7.88 pence paid along the 22nd of December. We have Put a slide in here in relation to ESG. So during the financial year, we published our ESG strategy. We were assisted in that by a company called Simply Sustainable, who helped us create that strategy. And we have set ourselves a carbon zero target of 2030. And we have defined the route by which we can achieve carbon zero for our scope. one and two emissions during that period of time. We are carbon profiling all of our key products so that we can make adjustments to packaging to bring in more recycled and more recyclable elements to the product and also reduce the packing generally so that we can improve the profile of all of our outputs. We have recruited or we're in the process of recruiting a sustainability officer into the business to help us with what is quite a considerable burden of administration in terms of all of the admissions calculations and so on. And then outside of environmental concerns but under the ESG banner we carried out a board evaluation using external consultants a company new role they helped us with that process we came up with a number of actions which have now been undertaken and we continue with our standard staff well-being and support initiatives we've built that out we further support around key subject matters such as mental health such as menopause and and so on and also We continue to support a number of local community initiatives and local youth sports teams and the like to bring ourselves closer to our local environment. So as a summary and an outlook, then we believe, I hope you also believe, that this is a strong set of results on all levels. We are certainly very pleased with the performance of the business over the course of the last 12 months. The global expansion will accelerate now with America's launch, but as you can see, it is happening already on all levels. So we are not a one-trick pony. This company is not about North America solely. There's plenty going on in other parts of the globe. We have significant growth opportunities in both of our portfolios. The cash portfolio may not be as large as the medical device portfolio at the moment, but we predict it will be in time. And the business, of course, is profitable, cash generative, debt free, and we now have a progressive dividend policy. So we view it as having a very exciting future ahead of us. Okay, I can pass over to questions.

Perfect, Liz. Thank you very much for your presentation. What I'll do is I'll just bring your camera back up now. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions by using the Q&A tab, which is situated on the top right-hand corner of your screen. Just while the company take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I'd like to remind you that recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can be accessed via your investor dashboard. As you can see, we received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. And Paul, if I could just hand over to you just to share the Q&A, then I'll pick up from you at the end.