Beierdorf Ag Unsp/Adr

Welcome, everyone, to Biasdorf's Q1 conference call. Our CEO, Vincent Warnery, and CFO, Astrid Hellmann, are here with me this morning, and we would like to share Biasdorf's business results of the first quarter of 2023. We will start with the presentation and the business review. Just some technical remarks before we get going. All participants will be in listen-only mode during today's presentation. It will be followed by a question and answer session. And when you register for Q&A, please just remember that there is a limit of two questions per caller. And with that, I will now hand over to Vincent.

Thank you, Jens, and good morning to all of you. Welcome to today's conference call regarding our business performance in the first quarter of 2024. Astrid and I have the pleasure of presenting our strong financial figures for the first three months of the year. Beiersdorf is off to a truly great start in 2024. We were able to keep up the positive momentum from our record year in 2023, and achieved sales growth across the brand portfolio in the consumer business segment in the first quarter of 2024. This performance led to impressive double-digit growth of 10% for the consumer business. Nivea and our dermabrands were the main driving forces here, both with double-digit growth figures in the first three months. As indicated earlier, our luxury business has returned to growth and is gaining speed toward the expected full turnaround after a tough year in 2023. At TESA, we saw a decline in sales in the first quarter, mainly due to a slow start in the electronics and electrical systems divisions. Together, these results translate to strong growth of 7.3% at group level. Based on this promising start to the year, we are upgrading our full year guidance for the group and the consumer business today. More details on that will follow later. So let us take a closer look at our Nivea business. Our iconic brand is a global powerhouse and continued its remarkable growth trajectory in the first quarter of 2024. Once again, we grew in all regions, leading to an overall organic sales increase of 12.6%. Its outstanding figures is also the result of our strong pricing and volume growth with Nivea. The figures in Europe and in the emerging market regions were impressive. as both key regions delivered stellar double-digit growth. A particular highlight is our sales in Germany, which increased by 20% in the first quarter. I'm truly proud of the fact that we achieved this both in an already established market environment in Europe and in the expanding emerging markets. This underlines the global appeal of our icon and showcases once more the immense potential of Nivea. In this first quarter, we were particularly successful in the sun and face care categories. In sun, we grew by 23% in Q1 and in face care by 12%. One of the reasons for our continued success in the face care category is our patented ingredient Luminous 630, the most effective anti-spot ingredient in the world. Fueled by the ongoing expansion into new categories with products containing these ingredients, we doubled the business in the first quarter. The potential for this product range remains very high, and we are planning several additional launches throughout 2024. Based on these results and with a full innovation and launch pipeline for 2024 in mind, we are confident that Nivea will continue its strong performance in the coming quarters. Now coming to our dermabrands. We grew our dermabrands usually in Aquaphor 10.2% in the first quarter of 2024. This growth rate was significantly impacted by the high comparison base of the very strong first quarter in 2023, the weakening U.S. market, and extreme inflation in Argentina. Nevertheless, this is still a strong result with double-digit growth that makes us confident in the successful future of our dermabrands. Let me explain why. In the first quarter, one of the key drivers for Usurin continued to excel. The Usurin Sun business reported remarkable global growth of 36%. Especially in European countries, the summer pre-season was well underway and led to strong sales numbers. We are also currently rolling out the face care category in the U.S. market. As the year progresses, we are getting closer to the launch of our first product, containing our breakthrough innovation in the field of epigenetics. It will be introduced to the market in late summer 2024. As a first mover in epigenetic skincare, we are ready to turn back the skin's age clock and we'll share more with you on our Capital Markets Day in June. Regarding our luxury business, I mentioned in the full year results call in February that we expect a return to growth for La Prairie in 2024. This expected turnaround is now taking shape and gaining momentum. Following the minus 15 degrees year-on-year for La Prairie in 2023, we have now achieved slight growth for the first quarter of 2024. And if you look at the key market of domestic China in this context, we achieved strong growth of 14%. We also... fully completed the cleanup of our stocks to normalize inventory levels for La Prairie in travel retail at the end of the first quarter. The brand also saw the first promising results for its new line extensions. All of these combined with our stronger strategic e-commerce setup for luxury brands, is fueling our optimism about the further acceleration of this positive momentum for La Prairie in the second half of 2024. Astrid will now take you through our detailed financials.

Thank you, Vincent, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to present our performance for the first quarter. Let's begin with an overview of our sales figures. During the first three months, our consumer business reported double-digit organic sales growth of plus 10.0%, as Vincent mentioned earlier. Due to unfavorable foreign exchange effects, our nominal growth was lower at plus 7.3%. Conversely, our TESA division declined by minus 5.4% organically, with nominal sales slightly lower than that. Overall, the group achieved around $2.6 billion in revenue, for the first quarter, growing plus 7.3% organically and plus 5.0% nominally. Our consumer business continued its positive development, building upon the strong performance of the previous year. This was driven by the impressive start to the year of our mass market brand Nivea, the robust first results of Derma, and the recovery of our luxury business. The first quarter showcased well-balanced growth in both volume and pricing. now shifting focus to the regional breakdown within our consumer business. In the first three months of the year, all but one sub-region achieved double-digit growth. Europe reported like-for-like growth of plus 10.7%, driven notably by a successful start to the sun season, which benefited our Nivea and Derma brands. Within this region, Western and Eastern Europe both achieved double-digit organic sales growth, with plus 10.3% in the West and plus 12.4% in the East. In the Africa-Asia-Australia region, we delivered strong growth of plus 12.4%, achieving a double-digit increase for both Nevaeh and Derma. On top of that, our luxury business in China is finally recovering with double-digit growth for La Prairie in the first quarter. In the Americas region, LATAM maintained its successful trajectory with organic sales growth of plus 10.6%, mainly driven by Brazil and Mexico, while Argentina's high inflation and unfavorable foreign exchange dampened the growth. In North America, we saw a slowdown in our sales in a challenging first quarter. The growth in the region was impacted by a tough comparison versus prior year with a strongly growing market. This year, we are growing market shares in a declining market. That said, we are set up for success in this region with our strong brands, impactful innovation, and new category entries, such as our user and face care launch in the U.S. this year. Our TESA business had a challenging first quarter with organic sales growth of minus 5.4%. The decline in sales was particularly evident in Asia and North America. However, a softer start had been expected, so we are confident to reach our full year guidance. Our automotive business continues its positive trend and records slight growth. We enable reliable and efficient production processes for next-generation human-machine interfaces. This includes a variety of adhesive tape solutions for large curve displays, head-up displays, and smart surfaces. As expected, sales in the electronic segment in Asia declined after a strong Q4 2023, but TESA expects to expand its business with innovative and cohesive solutions for the electronic sector going forward. Our TESA consumer segment is slightly declining. However, in a tough environment, we are outperforming the market and winning market share. I now hand back to Vincent for an update on our guidance.