Azelis Group Nv

Good day and welcome to the Azalea's full year 2023 results presentation. My name is Pam, Investor Relations, and I'm joined today by our new CEO, formerly our EMEA president, Anna Bertona, who will give an operational update and as well as a review of our industry and business fundamentals. We are also joined by our group CFO, Thais Bakker, who will walk us through the 2023 numbers. As a reminder, today's presentation may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risk. We'll make a recording of this webcast available on our website. We will take questions after the presentation, but until then, you will be on listen-only mode. With that, I will now hand you over to Anna.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We understand this is the busiest day for results this earnings season, so thanks for tuning in. I'm Anna, and I'm the Group CEO since the 1st of January. For most of you, this is the first time you are seeing me, so a little introduction about myself. I've been with AZEDIS for more than 10 years, of which seven in my previous role as the regional CEO of EMEA. And that's the larger region of AZEDIS. And that prepared me well for my new role. I'm pleased to be here and look forward to meeting you in person in the coming months. I will be going through the highlights of our results, after which Thijs will take over to give you some more details. You can also find a lot of interesting facts about Azelis in our first integrated report that we just published. Now let's dive into the presentation. There are three points that are important to mention. First, I'm happy to report a strong performance in a challenging year. Second, yes, markets have been tight last year, but we believe the challenging markets are not changing the fundamentals of our industry. And based on more than 10 years of experience at Azelis, I can say the distribution market is very attractive and Azelis is well positioned to capture the opportunities. And last, we outperformed our midterm guidance, which proves that our direction of travel is the right one. Let's start with the key updates from 2023 on the next slides. In 2023, we achieved a revenue of 4.2 billion and an adjusted EBITDA of 466 million. In constant currency, they represent a year-on-year increase of 5.3% and 6.6% respectively. The growth that we delivered during the year is testament to our diversified business, allowing us to offset the ongoing challenges we face in some of our markets, which have pushed our organic revenue growth down by 5.9%. Our industry remains under pressure, but it's also worth noting that in the previous year, we delivered an organic growth over 20%. The resilience of our business is reflected in our conversion margin, remaining stable at 47.4%, and that's the record level of 2022. Thijs will discuss our financial performance in detail, but I want to point out the excellent cash generation in 2023. We achieved a 127% cash conversion ratio, and that speaks to the asset-light, cash-generative nature of our business. We also continued our M&A strategy to expand our footprint and we acquired seven companies across three regions. These companies had a combined annual revenue of 400 million in the prior year. Here are some more details about our different growth drivers. On the organic side, the impact of the pressures in the industry vary across our regions and segments. And it's exactly this diversified footprint and the general defensiveness of our business model that allows us to mitigate the impact of the current volatility. Demand is actually generally holding up better in life sciences, and we benefited from stable trends in food and nutrition, which is our largest segment in life sciences. Our pharma business also delivered a strong performance across geographies. On FNF, we saw a stabilization, and Southeast Asia and Middle East also performed well. The performance in life sciences cautioned the impact of the weak results in industrial chemicals, and especially in case. Pockets of positive trends, such as those we see in Loop's metalworking fluid, helped to mitigate the demand pressure in the industrial chemical segments. Now, in terms of industry consolidation, we completed seven acquisitions. In EMEA, we had Smoky Light and Sirius that were done in the Benelux. gives us a stronger foothold in the very attractive agricultural and environmental service markets. And BLH was an acquisition in France and a very strong complement to our global FNF platform. In the Americas, we did two acquisitions. Vogler was an important expansion in Latin America, where we are building our footprint. And Gilco gives us entry to the U.S. food and nutrition market, filling a large gap that we had in that segment in the U.S., And then finally, in APEC, we acquired ChemiePlus, and that significantly strengthened our footprint in Australia and New Zealand. We still see many excellent opportunities, and we have a strong pipeline of potential acquisitions for this year as well. Now, let's take a closer look at the developments in our industry, our performance against the debt backdrop, our strategic focus, and what it means for us in the long term. In 23, the market was challenging for all the industry players. We saw events like overstocking, a weak China and high inflation. Azelis dealt with these challenges in an appropriate way, doubling down on our commercial efforts and managing our costs. We had several programs in place to be close to our customers and capture the business when it would rebound. This led to a strong performance with a modest top line growth, a resilient high margin and a very strong cash generation. Having been part of shaping the strategy of Azelis, I can say the actions we took in 23 are also supportive of our long-term strategy. They reflect our agility and commitment to this strategy. And following this strategy, we are constantly investing in expanding our footprint through M&A where we have gaps, as I just explained before. And we also proceeded to make progress on our three growth drivers, innovation, digital, and sustainability. On innovation, we continue to focus on technical innovation capabilities, which both benefit our customers and principals. And our efforts were once again recognized with three industry awards in 23. In digital, we want to remain the leader we are today. Our portals and e-labs support our services and business development, increasing customer stickiness, wallets, and market share. And last but not least, we remain committed to sustainability. As mentioned, we have just published our first integrated report. And there you can also see more about our progress on sustainability. And all our efforts resulted in the top ranking in the industry on ESG amongst our peers by Sustainalytics. 2023 might have been a difficult market, but this is temporary. Structurally, nothing has changed. The fundamental drivers of the industry remain very much in place. Sustainability and tightening regulation will push the need for innovation and principals are constantly looking for growth into areas that they can't address themselves. So we are in an attractive market and Azelis is well positioned to benefit from it. Now the strength of our business is very well reflected in the results that we have delivered in the past three years. In the last three years, we achieved 23% average revenue growth, of which 10% was organic. 35% annual EBITDA growth. We delivered an annual average EBITDA margin expansion of 90 BIPs. And on average, we have converted 97% of our EBITDA to free cash flows. And these achievements include the industry downturn in 23. That means we have outperformed the midterm guidance that we set at the time of the IPO. We then committed to an 8 to 10% revenue growth, half organic, half through M&A, and a 10 to 15 bps EBITDA margin expense. We are building a strong company in an attractive industry. The results that we delivered in what many say is the most challenging period in recent history speaks to the resilience of the business. fundamentals of the industry remain positive and therefore as a bigger and stronger company we have every opportunity to accomplish more and create more value going forward now let me hand over to thijs to talk more about our financial performance over the year okay thank you anna happy um that you join us in the call today everybody we have published this morning uh our integrated report

all kinds of interesting material and information points both non-financial and financial elements and has given you a high level overview of the business development as well as a review of our business drivers now let me talk you to the financials of the group and walk you through uh through that and let's start with the growth breakdown of our headline results on the next slide Overall, we are satisfied with the performance of the group following a record year in 2022. We executed well on the elements, which are all under our control, namely margin management, benefits of controlling our cost, and our working capital improvement programs. Just as a reminder, back in 2022, we reported revenue growth of 45%, cross-profit growth of 48%, and EBITDA growth of 71%. These are, of course, tough comes to beat. And obviously, 2023 is a different year where normalization towards more historical trends took place. But overall, we're quite okay where we landed. Now, let me zoom in on the table here. Where we have broken down our reported growth and revenue, gross profit, and adjusted EBITDA into organic growth, M&A growth contribution, and a fixed impact. let me give you some voiceover on the revenue developments specifically. Following a record year in 2022, where organic revenue increased 20%, for the full year of 2023, the organic revenue decreased 5.9%, as you can see to the right of the slide. The rate of decline slowed to 6.6% in the final quarter from minus 7.5% in Q3 and minus 8.1% in Q2. The organic revenue decline during the year was driven largely by lower revenue in the Americas, where the group has a higher mixed exposure towards industrial chemicals, predominantly the case industry, which saw lower demand, but also slower than anticipated recovery in the FNF segment, and also pressure from general macroeconomic weakness in South America. The organic revenue decline of 2.7% in EMEA was largely driven by slower demand in industrial chemicals in Europe, mitigated by excellent growth in Middle East and Africa. Please note that in the fourth quarter, our performance in EMEA includes also a negative impact of over 8 million euros from portfolio optimization programs, which we mentioned earlier in Q3. If you put this aside and back out this effect, the organic revenue decline will be around 2%. In Asia Pacific, organic revenue was broadly stable as growth in Southeast Asia offset the continued softness in China. The 11.2% revenue growth contribution from the first time inclusion of acquisition offset the weaker organic revenue development, as well as the 4.2% negative impact from AVIX translation. A strong performance together with the execution of our cost initiatives means that we are able to mitigate the impact on our adjusted EBITDA and report a modest growth of 2%. This demonstrates the resilience of our business and also our ability to leverage scale and cost initiatives across all environments we operate in while continuing to invest for the future where Anna alluded to. Now let's zoom in on our regional performance on the next page. Let's start with EMEA here on the left, which makes up 43% of the group's revenue. Revenue was stable at 1.8 million euros. On a reported basis, this is a 1% decline. But on constant currency, this represents a 3.9% year-on-year growth. On an organic basis, revenue was 2.7% lower, as softer industrial chemicals demand outweighed the good performance in pharma and growth in the Middle East and Africa. As mentioned in the previous slides, EMEA's results include the negative impact from our portfolio optimization program, which was for EMEA a net effect of 30 million euros, which roughly 8 million euros was in Q4. Bit more on that in a second. EMEA's gross profit increased by 8.1%, out of which 4.5% was organic. Due mainly to the shift towards life sciences and execution of commercial excellence programs. The region executed very well in operational efficiencies and cost control actions, which commenced in April and May, which led to 101 basis points expansion in conversion margin from 49.8 to 50.8%. So some context here, this achievement is on top of a 700 basis points conversion margin expansion in EMEA in the prior year. So this is an excellent performance. bit more color on the Q4 development as the combined impact of our portfolio optimization program. To be clear, this is related to gas-related end product lines and hyperinflation accounting in Turkey impacted Q4. In the fourth quarter alone, These two effects had a negative 230 basis points impact in the region's conversion margin. If we back out these two elements, EMEA's conversion margin in Q4 would have been 44.3% or 35 basis points expansion versus the prior year on a like-for-like basis, explaining the drop in Q4 specifically. Let's turn to Americas, which makes up 35% of the group revenue. Revenue decreased by 6.2% to 1.5 billion euros, with organic revenue declining by 12.4%. Although we see trends gradually improving, the fourth quarter showed modest sequential improvement, although demand, especially in industrial chemicals, remained softer compared to the previous year. Throughout 2023, our business in the Americas was impacted by its higher mix of industrial chemicals, as well as slower than anticipated F&F performance and macro weakness in South America, in particular Mexico and Colombia. The adjusted EBITDA margin for the year came in at 12.7%, a decrease of 98 pips, driving conversion margin down with 139 basis points to 53.6%. Now let's move on to Asia-Pacific, which makes up 22% of the group's revenues. versus 18% in 2022, as it remains one of the key areas for growing our footprint. Overall, it was a solid year, where a lot of activities took place to integrate the acquisitions from 2022. Revenue increased by almost 21% to €904 million, with organic revenue holding up, as sustained growth in Southeast Asia offset the continued weakness in China, particularly driven by the construction and markets. The growth during the year was entirely from M&A revenue, though, and the growth from M&A diluted by FX headwinds 5.9%. Faster growth in adjusted EBITDA resulted in a 90 pips adjusted EBITDA margin uplift, translating into a 490 basis point improvement in conversion margin to 45.7%. Again, reiterating the point that we see no reason why Asia will be able to catch up to similar margin levels as EMEA and Americas over time. Now, let's wrap this all up into our full P&L by business segment on the next slide. Group revenue for the year was around 4.2 billion euros, representing a year-on-year growth 1%, or a constant FX rate 5.3%. This growth reflects the performance of our resilient life science business, which grew 3.7% or at a constant of 7.7%, offsetting the weaker trends in our industrial chemicals business, which contracted by 2.9% year on year. At constant currency, industrial chemicals actually grew by 1.6%. In the fourth quarter of the year, revenue ended at €972 million, representing a 2.9% year-on-year decrease, with organic revenue declining by 6.6% as demand was soft compared to Q4 2022. Notably, in EMEA and Asia-Pacific, organic growth was still in double-digit levels. Please note that. His performance is not only in the context of a more challenging environment, but also against a very tough comparable. Cross-profit for the year came in at 984 million euros, representing a year-on-year growth of 2.4%, or at constant eviction rate 6.5%. Gross profit as a percentage of revenue was 23.7%, representing a 32 basis points margin expansion. But this is mainly supported by a favorable mix shift towards life sciences, which has a higher gross profit margin driven by more formulation requirements for the customer. In 2022, we expanded the gross profit margin by 39 bps. So we're quite happy to hold ground despite less favorable market conditions and dilution from new acquisitions, which typically come at lower gross profit percentage levels. To illustrate this, gross profit margin for organic business improved from 23.4% in 2022 to 23.9% in 2023. implying a step-up of 51 basis points, again, all predominantly mix-driven. For 2023, conversion margins held up well, remaining broadly stable at 47.4%, supported by these positive mix effects, excellent cost management, which, by the way, also included a shift from CapEx to OPEX, as our IT investments in digital came more to an execution point, This excellent performance and our sustained margin reflects our ability to manage all the elements in our business that are under our control and a testament to the resilience of our asset light business model. Net profit for the year ended up at 189.3 million, for which the drivers are on the next slide. Net profit after tax, as I said, came in at 189.3 million, a decrease of 13.5% on a reported basis, or 10.9% in constant graphics. This is driven predominantly by a significant increase in interest expense, which was roughly 2.7 times the amount of the previous year. This is due to higher gross debt levels and the full impact of higher interest rates. In 2023, our weighted average interest rate rose from 2.7% in 2022 to 5.6%, despite the base rate on a large part of our capital kept at 3%. Secondly, the group incurred a negative non-cash impact from hyperinflation accounting in Turkey, where both balance sheet items and P&L are adjusted for inflation, as well as some negative impacts from the fair value adjustment on our interest rate and our VIX hatching instruments. Details can be found about that in our year end report. Now let's look at the cashflow performance of the group during the year on the next slide, page 50. For the year, Azaleas delivered an excellent free cashflow of 601.2 million euros, an increase of 37% compared to 2022. We achieved a record cash conversion ratio of 127% as we focus on cash preservation and cash generation while we face some uncertainty in the industry as Anna already alluded to. As you can see in the bridge, working capital was obviously one of the key levers for cash generation. So let's take a look at our working capital performance on the next slide. Networking capital to revenue, normalized for acquisitions, ended at 13.4% at the end of 2023 versus 15.4% at the end of June and 13.8% at the end of 2022. On an organic basis, working capital was reduced to 12.5% by improvement mainly around operational efficiency of our working capital programs via our state-of-the-art ERP and planning systems. The overall reduction in working capital intensity was wider, obviously, in the M&A scope. This is where the main improvement is coming from, as communicated early. I'm gone from 34% in the prior year to 23% in 2023. And this demonstrates the working capital improvements we have delivered, and it demonstrates our integration capability as the improvement is mainly driven in the area of the acquired holdings. As DAOs stayed mainly flat, improved slightly to the last year, it's still on the higher end compared to historical trends, which you can see on this chart. And we took on board more inventory towards the end of the fourth quarter to support 2024 ramp-up. But it also reflects more work required here to unlock the full opportunity, of course. In summary, this is an excellent performance during uncertain top-line developments. as our cash flow also helps us to manage our net debt levels, which we show in the next slide. The change in net debt during 2023 reflects a strong operating cash flow of 618 million euros. The 200 million capital increase completed in May and an M&A spent approximately 585 million euros, which includes deferred payments to acquisitions from prior years for approximately 54 million euros. We ended the year with a leverage of 2.5 at the lower end of the stated average policy between 2.5 and 3 times. At the end of 2023, we have a strong liquidity position of 835 million euros, both in cash and unused credit facilities. Our balance sheet, both in terms of leverage and liquidity, provides an excellent runway to continue to execute our strategy. So in summary, We continue to make good progress on our strategic and financial objectives in 2023 with all the elements that are under our control. This is obviously a more difficult operating environment than we have seen in recent years, but we believe Azadis is stronger than ever and is ready to perform for our principals, our customers and shareholders through the rest of 2024 and beyond. Now, let me give it back to Anna here for some closing remarks and outlook before we go into Q&A.

Thank you, Thijs. The market has been difficult, and there's currently too much uncertainty to provide a detailed short-term outlook. Based on my current insight and conversations I had with customers, principals, and our own organization, it seems we are through the toughest part. We have some indications that we are at the end of the stocking, and supply chains have mostly normalized, and with it, eventually volumes and pricing should follow. Now the weaknesses we are seeing in some of our markets like China and Latin America, that's driven by macroeconomic cycle. What we can say at this point is that we expect to return to organic growth in 24 and that we will continue to manage our costs while demand outlook remains uncertain. We have proven in the past our ability to execute efficiency programs and we will continue to do so in order to show a profit growth. I believe the current adverse market circumstances are temporary, and the market in which we play remains an attractive one. In the medium and long term, there's still a lot of value to unlock, both in our markets, but also internally. We have been growing rapidly in the last few years, developing new competences and new opportunities on which we can further build. And having been part of building the Azelis story, I can confirm we have the right strategy in place with some finding to be done. I will be working with my team on sharpening this plan, and I look forward to presenting an update of Azelis at our Lab Investor event in September. Now we are happy to take questions regarding results. So operator, if you can open the line for Q&A.

Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please press the star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for a moment to assemble the queue. We'll take our first question from Lauren Far of BNP. Please go ahead.

Yes, thank you and good morning all. Anna, you've talked about focusing on controllables and ability to show, I guess, profit growth. I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on this, and in particular, as you talk about return to organic growth in 2024, I mean, does it mean that you think that for the overall year, it may be a struggle to show organic growth? That's my first question. And then the second one on the demand side, we've started to hear producers talk about signs of restocking, in particular with impact from the Red Sea situation. I was wondering if this is something that you can also confirm. Thank you.

Thank you for your question. So I think that we still have a lot of pockets to continue to improve our profits. There's, for example, the acceleration of the use of digital, where we are already quite ahead, but there's plenty of opportunity by further using AI from also monetizing on the investments that we already did, where we think we can continue the improvements. But it's also true that we are a global company. I've been running EMEA and there we actually did quite some improvement that I think we can also use in the other regions. And so we can use these best practices to increase the performance in these regions as well. I've been traveling quite a lot around the other regions as well in the last months. And there I also saw quite some good practices that can be leveraged across the globe. So I'm very optimistic that we can continue our optimization programs. Now, on the organic growth, I really think it's a very volatile market. It's difficult to say when the organic growth will come back, but I am convinced that within 2024, we will see it back. At 23, I had some difficult market circumstances that will come to an end. We had, for example, the FNF business that was depressed. We saw it already picking up in Q4, and we see that continuing, so that will definitely give an upside. The ANS segment was also depressed in last year. We believe that will pick up again. Back to the last point, that's maybe a good bridge The third question you had on demand and destocking. We see destocking coming to an end. We see, though, that customers are still very, I would say, a bit prudent. So they order in last minute in smaller quantities. On the Red Sea, it has been pushed up. It has been pushed up the, I would say, the rates, the transportation rates for us. Today, we didn't really have a big impact on it, and we don't think that it's in our results already visible. It's a delay. Yeah, in need.

Sorry, I didn't mean directly in terms of transportation costs for you. I was more thinking in terms of your customers perhaps, I guess, feeling a little bit more of an urgency or a need to

or the now rather than later if the situation gets worse and therefore a bit of restocking but it sounds like you're not seeing that as well so far in q1 no that's not something that we have seen and talking to customers it doesn't seem that that is driving the say the rebound of volumes we have obviously especially in the middle east we have

We have some containers, Laurent, that basically are delayed at port. So there's a bit of delay in the supply chain, but it's not that there's a panic reaction in the supply chain like maybe we had in the COVID period.

Okay. Thank you, Tej.

We'll take our next question from Stijn de Meester of ING. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions, too, if I may. First one, how should we think of gross margins and conversion margin 24, assuming there's a recovery in the industrial chemical segment and life sciences becomes less dominant in the mix? On a related note, do you see more potential to rain in costs after the strong year of cost control in 23? And what is your view on wage inflation, et cetera, in this time? Second question is on M&A. It seems your pace of M&A has somewhat decelerated in the second half. Is there a particular reason for this, such as reluctance from sellers or unattractive multiples? Or is it mostly due to the timing of acquisitions? And how should we think of 24 in terms of M&A? Thanks.

Thank you for your question. I'll take the M&A question and maybe you can, Thijs, you can go for more deep into the conversion margins. So on M&A, the pace is actually not decreasing. We had a couple of them that we were expecting to close already in 2023. But these are smaller companies. Sometimes things take a little bit longer than expected. and we still have a very good pipeline for uh for 24 as well so i'm not concerned there what we've seen is that the owners they had of course a very good 22 and another grade 23 so their expectations are are based on the 22 results. We don't want to overpay. We are patient. So sometimes we are already in discussion, but again, we are patient to make sure that we pay the right amount for the businesses that we acquire. So I don't see a structural trend in deceleration, a full pipeline over the three regions. Maybe you can take the second question.

So Steiner, on the industrial chemicals and the mix effect, yes, that will have some effect on us. But as Anna already explained as well, we also had certain components in 2023, which basically we're having a lower than anticipated recovery, like the ag site AS, we call that. and also the FNF side. These are at a much higher margin even than the personal, than basically the life science area. So we do think that that is an offsetting element into that. Also within the industrial chemicals segment, we have quite some areas where the margins are quite low, especially in Asia. We see that recovery and where basically this will also have an uplift for us. Now, when we talk about, if we talk about, also you need to take into account saying that our conversion margin increased in 2022 with 635 basis points. Let me also take into account, if you take our performance overall, we kept basically the conversion margin stable. Q4 was a little bit lower due to seasonality. There was this hyperinflation effect, mainly in EMEA. Take this out also on EMEA, it was still actually a very good performance. And in North America, it's obviously a bit more challenging program. On the cost control and cost containment programs, please note, they started at different timings. In America, we started early. And basically, because Q4 2022, we saw already a revenue decline from an organic point of view. And EMEA actually had a very strong performance in Q1. We also have to take that into account when we're talking about POMs. So we saw basically their turning of the market in April, May. So we took action since then. And Asia was performing actually really well. And we're basically started with the programs in June, July. We also mentioned that sort of full run rate of those programs are being executed as we speak. And then obviously we bring some programs, especially in the operational excellence in the M&A side, we brought that forward. So I'm quite confident that also in 2024, that will give us enough question to basically show conversion margin at reasonable levels. Okay.

Thank you. Our next question comes online of Chetan Hudeshi of JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Mr. Hodeshi, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi. Can you hear me? Yeah. Cool. Morning. Things are clearly uncertain from what you are saying, but typically in your business, and also as a broader sort of chemical industry, so seasonality is that Q1 usually tends to see a decent pickup versus Q4. both in terms of activity and also earnings. Is that something you are able to confirm that we should see a decent pickup in earnings in Q1 versus Q4, even if it's lower than last year just because of comps? And secondly, can you talk about what sort of pricing dynamics you see in your business right now? And when I say pricing, I mean more for you in terms of you know, more on a gross profit basis rather than, you know, just passing on some of the declines that you might be seeing from your suppliers. So if you can just update us on how do you see the pricing dynamic as far as your gross profit management goes. Thank you.

I'll maybe take the pricing question, Taish. Sure. On pricing, actually pricing to our customers, that's something that's just ingrained in our commercial approach. It's part of our normal way of working. We adjust and adapt to the market circumstances. And we have a very vast portfolio and it's really dependent on the product range, the customer group. what we uh what we do and uh obviously it's uh yeah now a good finding the right balance between uh um capturing the volume and uh also protecting our margins but that's yeah formal way of working i would say i i don't see anything specific there to uh to mention that yeah is it done normally there's seasonality in our business

We normally see Q4 is basically the lowest quarter of our year. So the effect on the group is roughly about 70 million euros on top line. This year was not different. It is a very stable business in that respect because basically the peak quarter is Q3. So normally Q1 always picks up versus Q4. And there's one element which you also have to take into account, is of course the Chinese New Year, and that's quite different in phasing, so you need to look at January and February together a bit, but last year, it was in January, so there was basically order pickup in December, which YY now should see that a bit more in January. So I hope that answers your question.

No, I think that that helps, but you still think, you know, Q1 should be better than Q4. Just so it's at least that we are seeing that seasonality in your business in Q1.

Yeah, the seasonality didn't change.

Okay.

That's clear. Thank you. We'll take our next question from David Karestans of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everybody. I've got two, please. First of all, Anna, nice to meet you. I understand you will give a strategy update later this year. Does it mean that there will be new medium-term objective sets and that the previous ones that you said at the time of the IPO are now currently no longer valid since you have already achieved those targets? And then secondly, maybe on the acquisitions, you made seven acquisitions last year. I think total spent of 585 million in the cash flow statement. That seems a relatively high number compared to your competitor in the Netherlands. I think it's roughly one and a half times sales. It seems up a little bit from one time last year. And clearly you made some larger strategic acquisitions this year, Vogler and Gilgo. What is your view on that development going forward? Will you start focusing more on Bolton M&A or will you have the same mix of Bolton versus strategic M&A leading to that relatively high in multiple than compared to IMCD, for example?

Thank you for your question, David. The strategy update, as I was already alluding, I think we have a good strategy in place. But it's also the time, a new CEO coming in, to re-look at it. We grew enormously since the last strategy, so it's also time to look again. Our ambition is to be a growth company, and so we will continue to deliver growth. we see also a lot of opportunities. The market remains a very attractive one, it's the GDP+. There's plenty of opportunity both internally and externally to capture more value. So it's something that we will continue to have ambitions to grow the business further. And how much and how big these ambitions are, that's exactly what we are working on in the next months and that we will present in September. Part of that strategy is M&A. M&A is a big value driver, and we will continue also in our strategy with that. And it will continue also to be both platform acquisitions and bolt-on acquisitions. They are both important for us. We have still quite some platforms to fill, but also a lot of opportunities from little bolt-on acquisitions. that are just smaller, but very valuable for that country and that segment, and enhancing our lateral value chain in that segment. So it's a continuation. There's no change there foreseen in the strategy. And I also don't see any change in the market dynamics that will make us change our route there.

Maybe a bit of comment on the metrics that you labeled here. Yeah, M&A is a people's business, and there's a timing in it, and there's a portfolio element in it. If there's a platform acquisition, we've been quite open about that, like where we see Vogler or Jilco. We have a limited presence in the U.S. and in Brazil. Vogler is basically the number one platform in that region. Obviously, the price we pay is a little bit higher than we normally do for a token, a small one. In general, our M&A strategy is focused on these smaller tuck-in M&As. On the other hand, if you have a larger one like platform acquisition with Anasys, there's obviously also much more synergy. So take Vogler, for instance, in Brazil. We're obviously going to complement the platform there. They are mainly in food. So we're going to put in, for instance, pharma, personal care, heck, all those kinds of segments, we're going to add that in there. And overall, then you have a very synergistic case, especially on the commercial side, where we service basically the needs that our principals, our customers basically expect from us. Not only 2023 was a bit of a, yeah, I would say a little bit different in shape when it came to the M&A, because the M&A was made in the year, And it was a little bit larger. So Vogler, Dilco, but also Lidor and Chemplus, they were a little bit larger acquisitions that we basically did throughout the year compared to the normal tokens. At the end of the year, there were also some M&As that we have already seen three basically that were announced. And yeah, there's a timing element in that. They could have well-being in Q4, but it is people's business, and it is a very emotional journey that also a person on the other side, the acquirer, goes through. And that's basically, you cannot time that completely.

Understood. So you would say that 23 was a bit atypical, and 24 you would see more tuck-ins?

Our strategy has always been focused more on the tuckings. But of course, if there's an opportunity like Vogler, which is quite unique when that shows up, yeah, obviously we go for it.

Understood.

Thank you very much. Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press the star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll take our next question from Eric Wilmer of Kempen. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. First, can you talk a bit about the pricing dynamics in the case segment in North America in Q4 and perhaps in the first months of this year? Is there a need to give away some pricing to obtain volumes? And then secondly, on Turkey, can you talk a little bit about your ability to continue to pass on inflation to your Turkish customers? And does the track record of the Turkish lira make you somewhat cautious regarding future M&A in the country? Thank you.

So on pricing, as I said, we constantly adapt our approach. It's part of our commercial approach to customers. Pricing in Q4 is, in case US, as you are specifically asking, it's actually not really changing. We see the volumes coming to a stabilization, but the pricing remains more or less the same And I see for the first couple of months this year, also, they are not really changing that.

Yeah. On the Turkey comments, very good question. Note that this hyperinflation is a very complicated accounting material, where basically the P&L needs to be restated, consumer price index in Turkey. We need to translate it into our P&L based upon the spot rate instead of an average rate. So in a perfect world, you would expect there's parity between the change in inflation and the change in EVX, but that's not always the case. So this was one, and quite some chemical companies and other companies have reported this. This was a bit of a Nasty surprise towards the end of the year, especially in Q4, because in Q3, basically it had an effect on Q2 to Q3. So it was a neutralizing effect. But in Q4, this one hit us with roughly an impact of about two, a bit more than two million euros on the bottom line. So that also has, of course, an impact on the conversion margin there in EMEA in Q4. Now, if I look at the underlying business and your question is coming from, hey, would that hold you back on inflation and what are you doing? Actually, Turkey, we are naturally hedged. So what we do there, we quote in euros, we quote in dollars. And basically on the day of payment, we switch it back. Basically, we receive Turkish lira and we switch it back to US and euro. So actually, there's no transactional effect for us. In fact, Turkey is for us really a powerhouse organization with fantastic track record and one of our best teams in the company. So, yeah, we actually want to do more M&A in that market because we see a lot of opportunities there, and we are a very established player in that market. So, what you were after, Eric?

Yeah, that was very helpful. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Thibault Liniers from KBC Securities. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I was wondering, you were talking about Asia-Pacific getting to the EBITDA margin to the group level margins. When do you think or what is the timeframe you have in mind for Asia-Pacific to reach group levels because of those times?

Should I take that? Yeah, that's okay. This is our long-term ambition. It is about the drivers of this business. In Asia, we are relatively small. It's the smallest region between Europe and America. We are in building mode there. You can also see that on the amount of M&A, but also the infrastructural investments that you need to do. It takes a lot of upfront investments. You need to put an M&A team in place. You need to put a finance team in place, supply chain and operations. The system part is, of course, very important that we keep a finger on the pulse, especially in a more emerging markets like Asia, you need to build organizations like India, China, where you have basically stable and reputable teams towards your customers and your principals because you have a reputation to protect as well. And that takes time. So what you will see in Asia, it will go up every year a little bit because obviously you're growing and you have G&A dilution because those investments are all front-loaded. If we look at it in the longer run, The growth opportunities in the market studies, they show that as well, that Asia is obviously an engine for growth for us. So the interim business model, we also have countries in Asia that are performing at fantastic EBITDA levels. And it all depends how many segments do we add basically into that country, how much G&A dilution we get, and how our lateral value chain is comprised in this country. So obviously, there are a lot of opportunities in this area. We're talking here and we're saying we see no reason why they cannot come to a group or the profit levels of the other regions. We take a strategic view, so that's basically five years.

And maybe also good to mention is that we have shifted resources also from EMEA to Asia-Pacific. I think the most evident is Serdar Çurur, who is leading our APEC business and was the managing director of Turkey before. And they are leveraging and building on the experience and the best practices that we had in EMEA and implementing that now in APEC. So, yeah, we are putting there also, I would say, the right resources and actions in place to get to our long-term objectives.

Okay, clear. And coming back to the cost-saving measure program that you earlier talked about, if I remember correctly, at the first half, 23 results, You said that the cost measure programs had started. Now, if we look at the conversion margin in the first half of the year, we saw significant improvement, whereas in the second half, it was a little bit less. I think you also talked about the fact that the bonuses, et cetera, for employees would could contribute to some better margins while the inflation costs would offset so I was I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more in detail about um yeah the the improvements that you then expected in the first half of the year and did they fully materialize in the second half of the year like you expected these programs are continuing I gave you the timing uh already where America started a bit earlier

And a media basically mid year, so we will see the effect of these programs at a coming to fruition in the coming year as well, we keep going on them. This is not when you run a portfolio like as a so many countries and so many segments it's very to pinpoint exactly this is when what is going to happen and when. Before, actually, these programs were on track. There were some incidentals. Like I mentioned, this hyperinflation, that was not really what I expected. But there were also smaller elements, like Middle East Africa had a very strong performance. So, actually, we had to top up our bonus accruals there as well towards the fourth quarter. But that didn't – yeah, that maybe masks the view that you might have in that area. And then, obviously, our – Our product specialization program, we continue with this. We're in here for the long run. We're not running from quarter to quarter. So I think all the elements that we have under our control, M&A integration, executing on those cost control programs at various times, they are continuing. So we are on track when it comes to the execution of those. And that will continue in 2024, obviously, to offset the things that you just mentioned.

Okay, clear. And then a last question. With respect to future M&A, you talked about it before. Looking at the financing for future M&A, do you expect future M&A to be financed with free cash flow, or do you think that it could still be depending on the opportunity and increase in debt levels?

In general, with the cash generation that we have, We have enough cash. We have 835 million in unused credit facilities as well. So we have sufficient cash to basically generate or go into the M&A. There's no large-scale M&A in the pipeline, as I already answered before. These are small tuck-ins, so they should be funded from our own cash flow. And please note, when we do M&A, they also come with an associated EBITDA, which then basically has an impact on our leverage as well. So no, that's not really a concern for us. Thank you. Thanks. That's all.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Stijn de Meester of IMG. Please go ahead.

Yes. Thanks. To follow up, as I believe you have missed my earlier question. First one is, should we account for an additional impact of portfolio optimization in initiatives in 24? And then the second one, in your integrated report, you mentioned pro forma EBITDA for 76 million, if recent acquisitions were fully consolidated. Can you confirm this number does not include the three acquisitions which closed off the year end? And if so, is that a material impact that we should consider? Thanks.

So, Stijn, what was your question on the portfolio optimization if we also will see these kind of things in 2024?

Yes, and if possible, give us an idea on what this is going to do.

Now, the last one is the easy one. Those free acquisitions are not included in the 476. On portfolio optimization, obviously, when you run so many segments and you run across so many verticals and in so many countries, the level of combinations you can make are mind-boggling. And obviously the chemical industry and the sustainability drivers and the emphasis that we put on innovation around our labs, and you guys have seen that yourselves, they are extremely a driver. Our portfolio is always in movement. So normally if there's a product replacement or we basically, our principals are coming up with a new formulation or new product section opportunity for us because we can use our sustainability mechanism and the backbone of our labs. We can use them to basically get a foot in the door at customers and sell more products. It's actually a positive thing for us. That said, sometimes there are incidental items where we basically take out certain product lines So this can be ESG-driven, like, for instance, we have been quite vocal about vaping, for instance, in North America as part of the F&F segment. That's a segment we do not want to be in. That's an impact, and that is also included in the results in North America on an annualized basis of roughly 12 million gross profits. Second one, the one that we mentioned here in the call is mainly related to gas-related end products. That's not a market that's commoditized. That is not where we want to be in. It's a little bit of a difficult decision to make because you take basically a hit on your net sales and on your GP. But on the long run, it will serve the company, of course, better.

so um there is an element of continuing doing this as part of our normal portfolio but these two items they were a little bit exceptional yeah it's also fair to say when we do acquisitions they might have also some little parts of the portfolio that we are not interested in but the acquisition by itself is very interesting and yeah over the years we will also prune these kind of things and discontinue so it's an ongoing activity

Understood. That's very helpful.

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Laurent Farr of BMP. Please go ahead.

Yes, thanks for taking the follow-up. It's actually related to the question that was just asked. Can you perhaps give us a steer on the number in terms of GP or EBITDA that you know you won't add in 24 versus 23 because of that discontinuation of products? I think you talked about single millions for Q4. Should we assume that it's single millions times three for the rest of the year, Q1, Q2, Q3? And on the FNF side and baking, was that impact already fully annualized in 23? Thank you. That's really fantastic.

I don't want to go into specific product lines. We can take that offline. The only message that I want to give is that these two elements, they were a bit more exceptional and larger by nature. So if you take a look at the total discontinued business, this basically, we see still the effect up till March. But it is, of course, it starts at a big base and then it slows down. Take, for instance, the element in Europe. That was where the peak, because gas-related products are normally the demand is higher in the fourth quarter. That's where we saw basically an impact of around 8 million. The vaping that already started much earlier has also been disclosed even at the IPO that we were doing that. And there the effect for the prior year is roughly 8 million. But hold on, there's a GP effect of about 4 million GP. So that effect will be fully gone in January.

For the US side, and you think for the European side, it might be another 4 million in the first quarter, next year on air?

Yeah, something like that. Okay.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. We'll take our final question from Luc Van Beek of De Groot Petrochem. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. I have a question about your dividend, because on the one hand you have record cash flows and a very resilient model, and yet you reduce your dividend quite significantly, also slightly reducing the payout. Is it because you want to keep as much cash available for acquisitions, or is there another reason why you didn't try to stabilize the dividend?

That's a good question, Luc. We see this, we have this policy, 25, 35% of net profit. And obviously, the question you should ask, we are a growth compounder, but we also have to pay our dividend for certain shareholders. They have also requirements around that. But indeed, we want to keep enough firepower, obviously, for future M&A. Okay.

Okay.

There appear to be no further questions on the conference line. We have come to an end of this conference. I will now hand over to Chief Executive Officer Anna Paterna for closing remarks.

Thank you. And thanks everyone once again for your interest in Azelis. We ended 23 with strong results in a difficult market. And I'm excited to continuing the growth journey of Azelis and capture the many improvement opportunities while building on our strong legacy. We look forward to seeing you, speaking to you in the coming weeks and months. And in the meantime, as always, if you have questions that have not been addressed in this call, don't hesitate to reach out to our investor relations teams. Wish you all a good day.