Elopak A S

Good morning and welcome to the Q1 2024 earnings presentation for Elopak. My name is Mirza Koristovic and I'm Head of Investor Relations. Today's presentation will be held by the CEO Thomas Kermendi and the CFO Bent Axelsen. The presentation will last for approximately 30 minutes and is available on live webcast on our webpage under the IR section. We will have a Q&A session after the presentation. There will be a possibility to ask questions from the audience here in Oslo, as well as for the audience following us on webcast through the chat function. So with that, I leave the word to the CEO, Thomas Kermendi.

Thank you, Mirza, and good morning to all of you here in Oslo. It's very nice to see such a room full of people here. And of course, welcome to all of you who are listening in on the conference call. Before we start, let me just say it's a pleasure, frankly, to be able to present today yet another strong quarter and moreover, a very strong start of the year. So let's get into it. As always, we start with a little bit of updates. Who is LOPAC? And we are... the world's largest fresh liquid carton producer, producing and selling around 14 billion cartons around the world, currently in some 70 plus markets, and with 2,700 colleagues spread around two regions, Europe, what we call EMEA, consisting of Europe, evidently Middle East, Africa, but also India and Americas that consists of Canada, US and Central America. We have, as you can see on the slide, had a Very good development in revenue terms over the years. We've also seen that our business is spreading more evenly between, on one hand, the EMEA region and also an ever-increasing presence in the Americas market. The portfolio we serve is partly fresh to the largest extent, but also a septic portfolio that we are deploying in the various markets that we are operating. All in all, we are actually in the business of sustainable packaging. That is what we do and we do that through protecting essential commodities such as, but not only milk, dairy products, juice products, other food products and also non-food products in as much as we protect detergents, conditioners and avoid the waste that can occur. With all the food focus, we are, of course, enabling the world nutrition. And also, very, very importantly, we are part of the global trend to reduce plastics around us. So that's us. So let's look at the quarter. And as I started off by saying, it's been a good quarter and it creates, we have a good momentum for Yellowpack, which we see in the beginning of the year. Growth in both top line and bottom line, we see a growth of around 3%, ranging to 200, just shy of 300 million euro in Q1, leaving us with an EBITDA margin of 15.8%. and an idea of 46 million, driven in part by the European business or the European EMEA region, market share and also MENA. And at the same time, we are well advanced on our manufacturing and construction of the plant that we've announced and setting up in Arkansas. All of that leads to a quarter with good cash generation, a leverage ratio that is now down to 1.8. You recall maybe that we moved all the way down to 1.9 in Q4 and now a little bit further down. So we are leaving the quarter and moving into the next quarter with a high level of confidence. We see a good momentum in our business and are confident for the outcome of 2024. Let's be a little bit more specific then. Revenues. In fact, we are up 3%, but if you look at it from an external revenue growth, we are in fact up by 5%, because we have an IFRS 15 impact due to a lower build-up of finished products. goods in this quarter versus the same quarter a year ago. That has to do with seasonality and the way we've been planning. So in many ways, actually, we are looking at a stronger revenue growth than what we are reporting here. We're also seeing that, interestingly and very positively, we have very good growth in the PurePak segment of our business, the PurePak portfolio. We have that in both fresh, the fresh business is growing nicely for us. And as you know, the fresh business from a consumption point of view, has been under some pressure recent years. And we are now seeing that our market share is growing and we are seeing the growth of this business. Equally, are we seeing growth in parts of the aseptic business and in parts of the role fed business. So let's just continue and look at the regions. And in what we call EMEA region, we are seeing a very solid growth of around 8%. This is driven primarily by market share. Market share gained in what you could call core Europe. And that market share, of course, we see the impact of contracts which we took last year. but it's very much supported by the development we're seeing currently in MENA. And for those of you who have been listening in on some of these calls will know that we saw in 23 a raw milk shortage, a distribution of raw milk more from liquid into the yogurt business and eating milk more than drinking milk. Now we are seeing that the milk consumption, the milk drinking milking drinking milk is returning and this is primarily in countries such as Morocco. So positive development and very positive clearly also now around the Ramadan. Filling machines continue on a path of growth and we see that in this region as well. And we also see that our role fed business, albeit declining somewhat in some parts of our region. It is growing in other parts, particularly in India, who's showing very solid results this year compared to last year. In Americas, we have been reporting very solid growth levels. And now the issue is we are reaching some level of maximum that we can get off. Hence why we invested and are investing in the plant to secure that the growth that we can get will continue also there. But we have seen a mix of a product mix change in this quarter from what is called half gallon, typically roughly two liter size cartons into smaller size cartons. So albeit from a volume point of view, there's not a big difference. There is a difference in the mix. What also characterizes the America's business is that the school milk, overall school milk in America, is a very, very contentious topic with lack of supply, high demand, and issues in how the industry as such secures the school milk cartons for the dairies and the schools. We are absolutely taking our share. We are growing our school milk. business but we are also at a capacity level there in as much as how much we can continue to grow filling machines something we've been talking about continues in us we're commissioning machines selling machines in line with the plans or slightly above the plans that we presented originally and very importantly for our growth which we, as you can see, absolutely need, is the upcoming plant in Arkansas, which is coming along with the plans as well. We have broken ground, the construction is on its way, and we look forward to inaugurating the plant sometime during the first half of next year. So what is it that we have been doing? And this is a slide. outlining the strategy, not in a sequential format, but rather in a form to describe the various items that delivers the growth, both in top line, but also the margin improvements that we've seen. We have, on one hand, the Americas business that I just mentioned that is doing very well. We have the aseptic growth business that is linked to both our pure fill system that we are selling and also our development on sustainable materials such as the essence, replacing the aluminum foil in the carton with another barrier. We have been broadening our geographic footprint with the establishment in Mena. I'm coming back to that. And very, very importantly, as I started off by saying initially, the plastic to carbon mega trend that we are clearly a part of. All in all, of course, the commercial excellence we are seeing very good performance from an operational point of view in the plants. And also clearly we are seeing a constant drive for us to work on our cost base, work on our margins to secure the development moving forward. Now, talking MENA, if we just take a few moments looking at MENA. And for those of you who recall, when we made the acquisition back in 2022, we had a presentation around MENA. I just want to give you an update of where we are compared to that. So this is, in our world, a very significant growth opportunity. And the drivers were a couple, namely a growing population, a young population. Young population tends to mean as well a good milk consumption, a rising income level, and a situation where fresh and aseptic both play a significant role. We are currently present in about 16 countries in MENA. We have been working with MENA previously in a joint venture. But in 22, when we bought NaturePak, we got the access to a plant in Morocco and Saudi. And our intention is to expand our leadership, in fact, in the market by utilizing the portfolio that we have in the group. meaning the full product portfolio, but very importantly, and in many ways more importantly, also to utilize the service portfolio that we have in Groot. Use the service technologies we have, providing our customers with longer shelf life, more hygienic solutions, and hence lower waste and a better profitability. This we have seen. with customers where we are currently offering them solutions that can extend their shelf life, which happens to be very short in many countries in the MENA region. But with this, we get into a situation where they can, in some cases, with the same milk, using the same distribution channel, double the shelf life of the product. Of course, it has a very significant financial impact. We can also see that we talked about, at the time of the acquisition, a high growth area. We have actually been delivering somewhere around 6% to 7%. When I say somewhere, it depends on which, if you disregard the currency effect, it's actually 7% CAGR since 2020. when we originally assessed the opportunity. So what we are saying here is that we are strongly believing in the area. We are strongly believing in the development of the area. We are, of course, concerned, as everybody else in the world, of the ongoing political unrest in the area and very frightened as to what that may lead to. But we are supplying milk gardens and milk primarily in the area to consumers across the entire MENA region. Another example of things happening in our world and in our market is more around the sustainability trend, because We took this example because this is an example from UK. And it may not look like that, but this is actually a milkman. So it's a different milkman than what we have seen previously. It's a company called Milk and More. They called it Milk Round Company now. And this is a company, the largest in UK, supplying 1.9 million households with breakfast stables. So that means milk, eggs, breads, yogurts, and anything you can think of for a breakfast meal. Doorstep delivery. And what they found was that more and more of their customers actually asked for more sustainable packaging solutions. And hence, they decided just now, in April, in fact, to start with cartons in the supply of milk simply because of consumer demand and driving on the belief of also UK customers that we must reduce our plastic consumption and that we must limit the use. In fact, of a study which was just made now in 23, just now, last year. Two thirds of the UK consumers asked were telling us that they tried everything they could to limit the amount of plastic they used. And this is one example they came. It's not all about plastics here. They also have other products, of course. Now on that note, plastics. And we've talked about plastic to carton many, many times. And this is, of course, because inherently we're in sustainable packaging, and we very much believe in this mega trend. And an example here is that Okla, the Norwegian FMCG company with a wide range of household chemical products, cleaners, detergents, soaps, conditioners are currently further expanding based on the success they have. They have invested in more production capacity. In fact, in these days, they are launching new sizes and formats, more brands. And the argument you can see here on the slide is simply related to the advantages on replacing plastics with a paper solution, both from a sustainability point of view, but the sustainability is very much linked to cost as well. In fact, they have told us that by doing this, they can reduce the number of trucks transport they use by 96% simply by using flat packs instead of transporting empty plastic bottle. It also means the more than 80% reduction in their plastic use by making these changes. So very, very significant amounts and part of this trend that we see in many places. So with this, I will hand over to you, Bent, and we'll join you in a little second again.

Thank you, Thomas. A great start of the year, as Thomas mentioned. I think this is also a different year because this time these improved results, they don't come from price increases. And it's also interesting to see that we see volume growth in our core business in Europe. So that is a very good development. So let's start with our operating segments, EMEA and Americas. And we are referring to this as adjusted EBTA, but we have no adjustments neither in 24 or 23 for any one-off effect. So it's actually EBTA. If we start with EMEA, we have an EBITDA of 37 million euro with a margin of around 16%. This is driven by the positive volume development for PurePak in Europe and MENA in particularly. We have seen favorable raw material developments, and that is particularly for LDPE and utilities. We have had some minor price adjustments and that comes from the raw material clauses that have in some of our customer contracts in EMEA. It's a part of our commercial hedging program. Finally, we do have fixed cost increases, mainly from wage inflation, but we also have an FTE ramp up. If you go to Americas, we have rather stable volumes year over year, with the negative mixed effects, as Thomas has explained. The issue is that we do have this negative mix effect, but we also are very close to full capacity, so it cannot be easily mitigated in Montreal by signing new contracts. So it's really with the new plant in Little Rock that we can pursue the interesting growth opportunities in America. Thomas mentioned the school milk situation and that has a financial impact for our joint venture. So those two joint ventures, they have our share of the net profit is two point two million euro. And for those of you that are doing the calculation, remember that this comes in as a part of our adjusted EBITDA, but it doesn't affect the group revenue. So that is actually three percentage points on the EBITDA margin in America. Just something to remember there. In America, we also do have fixed costs increase from wage inflation as well. If we go to the bridge from 41 million euro to 46 million euro, we can start then with the net revenue mix. And what is that? That is basically the effect of price, its effect of volume and commercial results of the equipment leading to 2.8 million euro. for the reasons that I just explained. The raw materials here, 4.4, so that improvement comes from LDPE utilities, but it's important to remember that it's still at a rather high level and the board costs are not softening. On operations, we see three million euro for the group. So wage inflation, we do also have FTE ramp up, and especially in our equipment area where we are ramping up our solution sales in America, and also we are adding more people to develop the company. On other, that is the improved net results in the joint venture. So the results are 2.2 and the improvement is 1.2. So relatively speaking, a very great development among our two joint ventures in Americas. If we go to the cash flow, then I'll just start that we have changed the chart somewhat. So usually we have started with profit before tax and interest paid. This time we are starting with the adjusted EBITDA to make it more consistent with the rest of the presentation. So we start here with 46 million euro. We are deducting the net income from the joint ventures. On working capital, we have no change. That is a combination of reduced raw material inventory, which offsetting an increased inventory of a filling machine. On other, that is mainly increased tax payment related to the strong results in Americas in 23 and also 24. And that tax payment is around 11 million for the group, but it's really Americas that drove that increased tax payment. When you make money, you have to pay taxes. That gives us a cash flow from operations of 34 million euro. Cash flow from investments is minus six so that we have the 11 million which is purchase of non-current assets that is a normal level as far as plant maintenance goes and also an expected level for filling machine investments in europe the four million is dividends received from our joint ventures in americas That leads us to the next, that is cash flow from financing activities, minus 22. We have paid 14 million euro down to our debt. We also had interest payments and lease payments adding up to 8 million euro, giving us cash at 20. So one remark there is that the cash level is 7%. million higher than the beginning of the period, which means that the reduction of net debt is higher than the 14. Which leads us to the next illustration, which is our financial position. And we see a further strengthening of our leverage ratio from 1.9 to 1.8, or from 2.7 one year ago. The net debt is now 313 million euro. That consists of the bank debt, which is reduced by 23 million euro. We have an increase in lease liabilities that comes from tethered cap contracts during the quarter. On the denominator side, the EBITDA LTM basis has increased by 5 million euro. So with this financial position and with the cash load, that concludes a very strong quarter. And it also enables us to pay a dividend of around 34 million euro in May, subject to AGM approval and also depending on the currency rate between the euro So that wraps up the financial part. And then I will leave it to you, Thomas.