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Grifols Sa Barc Ord New
7/30/2024
Hello everyone and welcome to Grifols Conference Call. Today we will be sharing our second quarter financial results. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us today. My name is Dani Segarra and I'm Vice President of Investor Relations and Sustainability. Today I'm joined by Grifols Executive Chairman Thomas Glansman, Chief Executive Officer Nat Chavia and Roland Vandeler, President of BioPharma. Today's call will last about an hour, including a 30-minute presentation, followed by a Q&A session. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. All materials used during the call are available on the Investor Relations website at griffols.com. The transcript and webcast reply will also be available on the Investor Relations website within 24 hours after this call. Turning to slide two, I will first like to share a disclaimer on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties. They are only valid on the day of the call and the company is not under obligation to update or revise them. Grateful financial statements are prepared in accordance with EU IFRS and other applicable reporting provisions. This includes... alternative performance measures, also known as APMs, prepared under the GRU financial reporting model as defined by the guideline of the European Securities and Markets Authority. Please note that Grifols Management uses APMs to evaluate its financial performance, cash flow and financial position as the basis for its operational and strategic decisions. These APMs are prepared for all time periods presented in this document. Thomas will start the presentation with some opening remarks, and then we will transition to Nacho's discussion on the business, the financial result for the quarter, and his key takeaways following his first 100 days as CEO of Grifols. With that, thank you very much again for joining us today. Thomas, please, over to you.
Thank you, Danny, and good evening, afternoon, and morning to all on the call. I appreciate you all dialing in for our Q2 call. Before I turn to the quarter, I would like to comment on two filings. First is the request from the Griffles family shareholders and Brookfield Capital Partners to perform due diligence as a step towards potentially taking Griffles private. The Board has responded to the request accordingly to ensure that all shareholders' interests are warranted and protected throughout this process. It has established a transaction committee comprised of independent directors to oversee the due diligence and evaluate any potential future offer. The Board has retained Letham Watkins as legal counsel, and Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs as financial advisors. The Board has also agreed on the governance of the potential buyout process, respecting the request of conflicted Board members to recuse themselves from any deliberations and decisions related to the request and potential future actions coming out of the due diligence. with the guidance of the advisors and NDA has been agreed upon, and the due diligence process has been initiated. At this time, and I want to be clear, there is no offer, agreement, or decision regarding a potential transaction or the related terms and conditions, nor is there any guarantee that Brookfield and the reference shareholders will make an offer for Griffle shares. Any further update will be communicated to the market in due course and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. As always, the Griffiths Board of Directors and management team are committed to acting in the best interests of all shareholders, and we remain very focused on continuing to execute the company's strategy and deliver to our commitments in the meantime. We are not going to make any further comments on this matter on today's call. I thank you in advance and appreciate your understanding. Second is the IP filing that we announced before this call. As requested by the CNMV and after being reviewed and agreed upon with our new auditor, Deloitte, we have included some adjustments to the previous year's balance sheet and P&L as of June 30th. These adjustments related to the Immunotech and Shanghai Rust transactions at the time of the acquisition back to 2020 have no material impact on the results and no impact on cash flow or leverage ratio. With this communication, the company has provided a response to all information requested by the CNMV. These updates underscore our continued dedication to working closely with regulators and auditors to fortify financial reporting. Now let us turn to the business at hand and slide five. Over the last quarter, Griffles has continued to deliver on its promises. From a corporate governance perspective, we have implemented all the committed and announced actions to further enhance our corporate policies and governance. With the recent changes in the board membership, we have reorganized the committees and appointed a new lead independent director, Montserrat Munoz. With her expertise and experience, she will continue to ensure board independence and she will act as a key liaison among independent directors, all to better serve the interests of minority shareholders. We, as a board and company, are fully committed to ensuring that we continue to meet best governance and financial practices as we move forward. As part of this, and as you know, my position as Executive Chairman is transitioning to a non-executive role in line with good governance practices, and I, alongside the board and management team, stand by that commitment. With regards to the company management, Nacho has established a new executive committee, and we have added Rahul Sirvinivasan as the new chief financial officer to the management team starting in September. Nacho will share more on his background in a few minutes, but we are pleased to add one of the last remaining pieces in completing our leadership team. Nacho himself joined in April, as you know, and since then, we've had a smooth handover and seamless transition. Our common primary focus has been to meet all of our commitments, execute on our strategic initiatives, deliver the financials with a key focus on free cash flow, and continue to evolve the organization for the future. I also want to touch briefly on the follow-up of the closing of the higher transaction this June, which was a key commitment from us. We are now progressing with the Strategic Alliance to explore all potential opportunities. We know this partnership will drive synergies by combining our expertise with Hire's innovative technologies. As part of this strategic alliance, our album and distribution agreement has also been extended for the next 10 years with an option for a further 10-year extension. This partnership enables us to enhance our diagnostics business with Hire in China, a critical market for griffles, as we aim to continue our expansion there, and it will also provide us with the opportunity to further leverage China's hemoderivatives market. Turning to slide 6. On the debt management front, I would first like to take this opportunity to provide additional clarity on the company's commercial engagement with Moody's. Griffles decided to terminate its commercial relationship with Moody's, as we believe that having ratings from two international credit-rated agencies is sufficient and a common market standard. The end of this commercial relationship is the sole reason why they will no longer have access to all of Griffith's information and financials. It should be noted that Griffles has always provided all the required information to Moody's in a timely fashion, as we do with other rating agencies. From now on, we will continue to work closely with S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings. As we have previously stated, debt management is one of our top priorities, and we have made good progress with the Euro 1.6 billion proceeds from the sale of the 20% stake of Shanghai Ross, as well as the issuance of the Euro 1.3 billion private placement notes due in 2030. The completion of these initiatives clears our debt profile until 2027, which Nacho will review in further detail later in our presentation. Separately, innovation continues to be a key priority and future engine for growth. Given this, there are three specific updates I want to highlight. One is the strengthening of our IG franchise with the FDA approval of BioTest Simugo and its upcoming commercial launch in the United States. This marks a significant achievement, not only for biotests, which will have a commercial presence in the U.S. market for the first time, but also for griffles as it strengthened our commercial strategy in the largest plasma market. Also noteworthy is the traction Zembify, our subcontinuous IG, continues to gain on the back of a strong performance in the U.S., coupled with a commercialization in seven European countries to date and additional ones planned for the remainder of 24. On a very positive note, the FDA recently also approved extending the label for Sembify to include biweekly dosing. The new FDA approval also covers naive patients, meaning that we are the only 20% sub-QIG approved for patients who have never been treated with any type of IG product. The third update is that following the release of positive topline fibrinogen results in February, we completed the clinical study report and found the results to be extremely promising. This completion triggers the regulatory approval process, which we, as planned, will begin in the fourth quarter of 24. We expect to launch the product in the second half of 2025, first in Europe and then in the U.S. These milestones represent significant steps on our path towards revenue growth and margin expansion. Finally, I want to reaffirm our full year 24 guidance as the strong operational performance reported in the first half of the year is evidence that the company is on the right track to meet its target across all key metrics, revenue, EBITDA, free cash flow, and leverage ratio. Before I turn it over to Nacho for more details, I want to recognize the Griffles team and summarize the progress that the company has made since early last year. We have further enhanced our corporate governance. restructured and delivered on the cost improvement plan, divested 20% of Shanghai Ross for Euro 1.6 billion to reduce our debt, cleared the path of debt until 2027, recruited a new CEO, made significant management changes and additions, and delivered on all our financial commitments to date. Needless to say, we have more work to do, but we continue to be confident in the fundamentals of our business and the opportunities that we are executing to further improve our financials and sustainably grow the company. With that, I will turn over the word to Nacho. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Thomas, for all those relevant updates. Hello to everyone. Today, it marks my fourth month anniversary as CEO of Grifols. And while a lot of things have happened in the last 120 days, as we promised in the quarter one call in May, we have been able to focus on business execution and achieve the goals we set for the second quarter of 2024. I'll explain more about it in the next slides, but first I'd like to provide an update about the leadership team. As part of our efforts to re-engineer the leadership structure for more effective execution of our priorities, we have a streamlined Grifols Executive Committee, which is now comprised of a combination of some external senior executives and some seasoned professionals from within the company. This executive team, which is by now completed, includes the presidents of biopharma, plasma, and diagnostics, along with the chief corporate affairs and legal officer, the chief industrial service officer, the chief human resources and talent officer, and the incoming chief financial officer. Regarding the corporate finance function, as Thomas mentioned, we are pleased to welcome Rahul on board. With his recent role as head of EMEA Leverage Finance and Capital Markets at Bank of America in London, Rahul brings extensive experience in senior finance leadership. His expertise spans advisory services, global capital markets, risk management, financial planning and analysis, compliance, governance, and audit. Rahul will play a crucial role in implementing effective cash flow strategies and driving our debt management plan, two of the company's two priorities. To complement and support the senior executive team, we have established as well an extended executive committee that includes other key functions that will work alongside the executive committee to further enhance Grifold's value, mission, and strategy. These two groups will become paramount to the definition and implementation of our strategies moving forward. And I'm very pleased with the caliber and talent of the team that we have assembled. Turning to slide nine, our second quarter performance was strong and supported the delivery of a solid first half start to the year. Given this, as Thomas shared, we are reaffirming our full year of 2024 guidance. In terms of revenue, we reached 1,881 million euros in the second quarter, bringing the first half to almost 3.5 billion euros. This represents, on a constant currency basis, an increase in sales in Q2 of 9.3% versus previous year, and a 7.5% in the first half of the year. Adjusted EBITDA stood at 441 million euros this quarter, with a margin of 24.2%, which led to an adjusted EBITDA of 791 million euros for the first half of 2024, which represents a 22% increase of EBITDA value versus last fiscal year. This result aligns well with our expectations to meet our guidance for the coming quarters. As mentioned in our last call, cash flow was an absolute priority for me and for the company. And with that focus, in the second quarter, we have generated 57 million euros of positive free cash flow. This was mainly driven by improvements in EVDA and working capital. And we will provide a more detailed analysis of free cash flow in a later slide. Finally, our leverage ratio as per the credit facility declined to 5.5 times, driven by the combination of EBITDA improvement and the €1.6 billion cash inflow from the Shanghai Rush divestment. Without including these proceeds, our liquidity improved to €950 million, with cash on hand of €565 million. All told, we remain confident in our continued progress and anticipate improvement across key financial metrics throughout the remainder of 2024, alike with the guidance we provided in February and reconfirmed in May. Diving into the specifics of revenue across all business units, as mentioned, total revenue grew by 7.5% in the first half of the year. with a strong second-quarter growth of 9.3%, both on a constant currency basis. Biopharma results were just short of 9% growth in the first half of the year. And I'll provide some more details in the next slide. This acceleration of revenue growth has been supported by a strong double-digit growth of ex-USA markets and a steady progress in the USA. The diagnostic division delivered a positive second quarter with an increase of 1.2% on a constant currency basis, with blood typing solutions and immune assay donor screening as the main drivers. This partially offset the negative growth reported in the first quarter that was due to one-off settlement impact in the first quarter of 2023. Excluding this impact, diagnostic would have grown close to 2% on a constant currency basis in the first half of 2024. Finally, biosupplies delivered a strong performance in the second quarter, leading to an overall growth of 33% on a constant currency basis in the first half of 2024. Biopharma continued to drive growth in the second quarter, with just short of 9% constant currency increase in the first half of 2024. Immunoglobulin was the highest growth protein, up 13% in constant currency versus previous year, due to a strong IVIG demand and increase in subcutaneous IG traction in the U.S. and Europe, with a remarkable 60% increase. Our subcutaneous IGF-MB5 remains a key lever in our product mix and continued EVDA expansion. Albumin saw close to a 10% growth on a constant currency basis, driven by higher demand in China and in the U.S. Meanwhile, Alpha-1 and specialty proteins revenue were flat, mainly due to some delays in the transition of the Alpha-1 specialty pharma distributor in the U.S., which is expected to bear fruit starting at the end of 2024. Switching to a new specialty pharma distributor will enhance the value proposition for our Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency patients and will drive revenue growth over time. On the plasma front, plasma supply continued to increase compared to the same period in 2023. And we optimized our inventory levels through the management of our network of more than 390 plasma centers globally. In parallel, the cost per liter has stabilized compared to the first quarter of 2024, after declining by nearly 25% from the peak in July 2022. Finally, as part of our continuous improvement initiatives, we are working to enhance efficiencies in plasma and manufacturing yields and to advance our digital technologies to improve the donor experience. Thanks to the solid top-line growth and supported by operational efficiencies, our adjusted EBITDA stood at 441 million euros this quarter, with adjusted EBITDA margin of 24.2%, up 250 basis points versus the second quarter of the last year. This led to an adjusted EBITDA of 791 million euros for the first half of the year, with a margin of 23%, up 2%. 240 basis points versus one year ago. Gross margin stood at 37.8%, representing an expansion of 140 basis points compared to the first half of 2023. This is on the back of product mix, lower cost per liter from the second and third quarters of 2023, not in the nine-month lag coming from our long inventory cycle, and importantly, to a larger operational leverage. Our performance this quarter serves as a bridge to the forecasted sequential growth in the third and fourth quarters this year. This continued improvement provides further confidence in achieving our full-year guidance reaching adjusted EBITDA of €1.8 billion plus for the fiscal year 2024. I'd like to spend some time now talking about cash flow and debt reduction, which, as stated many times, remain our top priorities. In the second quarter, the companies generated a positive cash flow of 57 million euros, representative of our cash flow turnaround and expected improvement throughout the remainder of the year. This figure includes a €119 million payment to Immunotech and €20 million in restructuring and transaction costs associated with the extension of the operational improvement plan and the Shanghai RAS deal. Excluding these items, free cash flow would have been close to €200 million. EBITDA and effective working capital management were the primary drivers of this quarter's improved free cash flow performance. Notable improvements include more efficient inventory management and better plasma supply handling. Additionally, receivables benefited from the catch-up of $150 million payment from China in the first quarter and the normalization of payables. Meanwhile, CapEx, IT, and R&D expenses remained stable. On this note, I would like to update you on the progress we are making on the cash flow improvement plan. As you know, the company is actively implementing the plan, focusing on the five main levers. Normalization of our working capital, continuous operational improvement, stringent control of SG&A, spending optimization of real estate, and thorough portfolio analysis. We have progressed well since kicking off this project at the beginning of April. As I initially presented in last quarter's call, this initiative will be constant as we continue to execute on improvement of cash flow generation. On our efforts around working capital, a significant achievement this quarter was the improvement around the management of inventory level of the normalization of receivables and payables. Looking ahead, we anticipate a moderate increase in working capital, following continued strong underlying demand across all business units and the inventory built-ups to prepare for 2025 growth. But we will continue paying strong attention to tight working capital management. On the operational improvement front, we are continuing to streamline operations. This covers not only plasma operations, but also manufacturing operations and all tangent functions, including yields enhancement, donor fee optimization, and improvement of industrial processes. While we have made substantial efforts to improve our cost structure last year, we remain focused on this continuous exercise in controlling SD&A spend to operate more efficiently. Looking beyond 2024, we have commenced a review of our real estate footprint and initiated a comprehensive portfolio analysis to ensure all projects and business units met expected performance level. These final two pillars are inherently more complex and take more time, but they will contribute to cash flow improvements in the mid and long term. Real estate optimization includes consolidating underutilized office space, option for sales and leaseback transactions, and optimization of our leases. And the analysis of our portfolio assesses new opportunities and identifies underperforming assets. To finish this chapter, let me say that Grifols possesses the necessary levels to enhance its cash flow profile and generate substantial additional free cash flow in 2025 and beyond. Currently, some key aspects of the free cash flow improvement plan are under detailed assessment, which require further work before we can provide specific updates or guidance on future cash flows. However, we remain committed to achieving the previously provided free cash flow guideline of positive for 2024, which included an impact of 480 million from extraordinary outcomes. Moving on to slide 14, I want to address another of our top priorities, debt reduction. In the first half of the year, we have reduced our leverage from 6.3 times to 5.5 times as per credit facilities. The leveraging process was primarily driven by the 1.6 billion euros proceeds from the Shanghai Rush transaction, as well as second quarter SEBI-DA improvement of more than 440 million euros. In the second half of 2024, we anticipate another reduction in our leverage ratio, primarily driven by continuous growth in EBITDA and enhanced cash flows. We remain confident to achieve a target leverage ratio of 4.5 times by year-end. My presentation is about to conclude, but I hope that with all the developments we have shared today, you can agree with us that Grifo is well on track to meet its full year 2024 guidance. The company's performance in the first half of the year is clear testament of our ability to deliver on this year's commitments. In terms of revenue, we continue to see a strong momentum in the second half of the year, mainly due to IG growth on the back of a strong performance in the U.S. and new opportunities in Europe. as well as subcutaneous IG, continues to gain traction, supported by launches in Europe. Albumins increase thanks to a strong underlying demand in China, and improved performance on Alpha 1 by the end of this year will also contribute to this growth. Adjusted WDA is expected to sequentially improve to over 1.8 billion euros, rising from a 24.2 margin in the second quarter to 27-28% in the second half, supported by revenue growth with better product mix, lower cost per liter, and increased operational leverage. And regarding free cash flow, we have delivered on commitment in the second quarter, and we continue to be confident that we will reach positive cash flow for the full year. To finish, let me summarize a few important takeaways. My management approach focuses on the execution of clear and simple strategies with solid operational and financial discipline that provide optimized business performance. Through this, we will grow our businesses and expand our ABDA levels while improving free cash flow and reducing our debt over time. Many initiatives are already underway in these directions. Grifols Businesses is underpinned by solid market and product fundamentals, and we operate in a high-growth industry with compelling market dynamics. This environment offers us significant opportunities for expansion and innovation. In addition, our business operations product portfolio and customer-based loyalty are a robust base to ensure we remain strong and we continue to grow profitability as we move forward, allowing us to deliver substantial value for our shareholders. In this quarter, we have delivered on our commitment, executing the Shanghai Rush Transaction to reduce our debt, enhancing our governance, improving our cash flow, and accelerating our overall performance, all of which ensures we are on track to reach fiscal year 24 guidance. We are implementing a cash flow improvement plan that is already delivering the results, and in terms of debt management, we have addressed our 2025 maturities and cleared a path for financial stability until 2027. Operational excellence and efficiencies continue to be a focal point for us as they drive top-line growth, expand our margins, and improve our free cash flow, each of which is crucial for Olympus, for Grifols' long-term success and competitiveness. And finally, our innovation milestones are well on track for 2024. We're excited about the upcoming commercial launch of Jim Mugu in the U.S. and the progress made in the Fibrinogen clinical trial during the first half of the year, which will continue in the second half with the initiation of the approval process. These milestones mark significant progress in our innovation and growth strategy, enhancing our ability to broaden our offerings, and more importantly, better serve our patients by addressing our main needs with differentiated products. Thanks for your attention and time today. And with that, Dani, back to you.
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