2/1/2022

speaker
Operator
Operator

Welcome to the Novozymes Q4 conference call. Throughout the call, all participants will be in listen-only mode, so there's no need to mute your own individual lines. And afterwards, there'll be a question-and-answer session. Today, I'm pleased to present Tobias Cornelius Björklund, Head of Investor Relations. Please begin your meeting.

speaker
Tobias Cornelius Björklund
Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, Operator, and welcome, everyone, to Novozymes' full-year 2021 conference call. My name is Tobias Björklund, and I'm the Head of Investor Relations here at Novozymes, as mentioned. At this call, our CEO, Esther Bajé, and our CFO, Lars Green, will go through our performance in key events of 2021, as well as the outlook for 2022. Also present at this call are Tina Feiner, EVP Agriculture and Industrial Biosolutions, Amy Byrick, EVP Strategy and Business Transformation, Anders Lund, EVP Consumer Biosolutions, and also Klaus Fuglsang, CSO, EVP of Research and Development. The entire call will take about 50 minutes, including time for questions at the end. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that the information presented during the call is unaudited and that management may make forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in any forward-looking statement. With that, I now leave the hand to our CEO, Esther Bacher. Esther, please.

speaker
Esther Bajé
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Tobias. And thank you all for calling in. Please turn into slide number two. I'm very pleased with our performance in 2021. We delivered strong sales, earnings and non-financial numbers and advanced our business in accordance with our refreshed strategy, Unlocking Growth, powered by Biotech, that we launched last September. Organic sales grew 6% and benefiting from our diversified portfolio. Performance was particularly strong in food, beverages and human health. in bioenergy and in grain and tech processing. All three business areas delivered strong double-digit growth. Household care declined slightly, and agriculture and animal health and nutrition was flat. And when both business areas were soft, they were roughly in line with our latest expectations for the full year. Over the past couple of years, we have invested in our commercial activities, especially in emerging markets. And it's very, very encouraging to to see the sales here growing by an impressive 18%. Sales in the developed markets also grew, although at a more moderate rate. Sustainability, it's part of our DNA here at Novozymes. And I'm very pleased to say that we are on track to meet 12 of our 30 non-financial targets. While the targets are for 2022, we actually exceeded several of them already in 2021. The benefits to the world from the use of our products are something we are all very proud of, and we embrace the responsibility to be at the forefront of the movement for a healthier planet as a company with a strong purpose. We are committed to support the transition towards a climate-neutral society, and in 2021, 77% of our revenue was generated from products that contribute to lowering CO2 emissions by reducing the use of fossil-based resources and by reducing waste. Another key to achieve a more sustainable world is to transform food systems. In 2021, 35% of our revenue came from products enabling our food production systems to produce more food from less and improve nutrition and quality. Additionally, we strongly committed to enabling healthier lives, and 5% of our full-year revenue came from products that enable a better health for people around the world. From an innovation perspective, 2021 was another strong year with the launch of market-leading products such as Pristine, which is the broad-market freshener solution, and Prague 360, which improves the gestability of proteins for animals. In total, we launched 14 products during 2021, including six in the fourth quarter alone. This is much in line with previous years. Turning to our financials, we delivered a strong EBIT margin and ROIC, including Goodwill. as well as a strong free cash flow. And while reinvesting significantly in commercial activities, making several acquisitions and increasingly experience the headwinds from higher input costs towards the end of the year. Executing on our strategy has been our number one priority in 2021. After acquiring Microbiome Labs and the Biota Technology Asset in the first quarter, we took another important step to advance our biohealth business in the fourth quarter with the acquisition of Synergia Life Science. Synergia is a leading developer and manufacturer of spore probiotics and natural vitamin K27, and it will play a key role for us in expanding our position in human health and also in functional foods. Also in the fourth quarter, we enter into a very exciting collaboration with Saipan on enzymatic carbon capture and continue the construction of the new state-of-the-art production for advanced protein solutions in Brea, Nebraska, in the US. The steps we have taken during the last couple of years sets us up to deliver another good year in 2022. And we expect to be off to a good start for the year. In 2022, we expect sales to grow by 3% to 7% organically. With growth across all business areas, sales in Danish Kroner is expected to be around 3 percentage points higher. The EBIT margin is expected at a solid 25 to 26, despite significant pressure from higher input costs. And lastly, we expect ROIC, including Goodwill, to end between 16 and 17%, while the free cash flow before acquisitions is expected between 1.7 to 2.1 billion Danish kroner, including a significant uptick in capex, mainly driven by the new production line in Blair. With that overview, Let's now look at each of the five business areas in more detail, starting with household care. Could you please turn to slide number three? Thank you. Household care declined by 1% organically in 2021. The soft full-year performance came against a strong performance in 2020. Emerging markets performed well, supported by investments to expand our commercial footprint and tailor solutions, resulting in an increased enzymatic penetration. Our sales in developed markets declined as European consumer demand was significantly lower than expected. Performers further worsened in the second half of the year where also two mid-sized private label players went out of businesses. The freshness technology performed well and in line with expectations. It was made available across multiple countries in Europe and the broad market solution was successfully launched in the third quarter. Sales in the fourth quarter declined 3% organically. Similar to the full year performance, emerging markets performed well, while Europe in particular continued to decline for the same reasons as mentioned for the full year. While the 1% decline in 2021 was not satisfactory, an average annual growth rate of 2% over the past two years is a meaningful step in the right direction. Looking ahead, we expect sales in household care to grow by 2%, to 4% in 2022. Growth is expected to be driven by increased market penetration in emerging markets, by freshness, as well as in the non-laundry areas of professional and medical cleaning and in dishwasher. As mentioned, we launched the broad market version of freshness technology in 2021. This was a significant milestone, and freshness is expected to increasingly contribute to growth as the year progresses as well as in the years to come. Could you please turn into slide number four? Thank you. Our food, beverages, and human health businesses had an excellent year, and the team has done a terrific job in executing on the strategic direction while also capitalizing on the supportive market conditions. Sales grew 14% organically in 2021, with all three main categories growing by double digits. Growth in food was mainly driven by market penetration, and demand was particularly strong for health-focused solutions such as acrylamide reduction in baking, sugar reduction in dairy, and solutions for plant-based protein extraction. In addition, baking benefited to some extent from raw material optimization and ingredient substitution. Beverages performed well and outgrew the underlying market while also benefiting from a recovery in global beer volumes. Growth in human health was very strong, and driven by cross-selling and geographical expansion. In the fourth quarter, sales grew 13% organically. The performance was led by food. Beverages grew slightly and was somehow impacted by the stocking, whereas human health performed well and according to the expectations. Also, in the fourth quarter, we strengthened and accelerated our biohealth business by acquiring a majority stake in Synergia Life Science, and as I've already mentioned. Let me now turn to the outlook. In 2022, we expect organic sales in food, beverages, and human health to grow by high single-digit rate, with all sub-areas contributing to growth. Growth in food will be driven by market penetration, supported by health-focused solutions, and raw material optimization in ingredient substitutions. For beverages, we expect growth on top of the double-digit growth in 2021. And for human health, we expect continued solid double-digit growth driven by innovation, cross-selling, and regional expansion. Please turn into slide number five. Thank you. Full-year sales in bioenergy grew 11% organically. The strong performance was driven by the recovery of U.S. ethanol production and growth from innovation, capacity expansion of corn-based ethanol production in Latin America, and market penetration with enzymatic solutions for biodiesel production. Putting the U.S. development a bit into context, it's important to remember that U.S. gasoline demand and ethanol production were severely disrupted during 2020. U.S. ethanol production rates gradually recovered during 2021, but still remained lower than the 2019 pre-COVID level. Organic sales in the fourth quarter grew 10%, driven by the same factors as already mentioned for the full-year performance. Additionally, sales benefit from growth market conditions for ethanol producers with some of the biggest crash margins in almost a decade. For 2022, we expect sales to grow by low to middle single digits. And as in 2021, Growth continues to be driven by the recovery of U.S. ethanol production, innovation capacity expansion in Latin America, as well as market penetration in biodiesel. And as a final note, the past two years have been unusually volatile for the ethanol industry, and uncertainties related to the pandemic and volatile market conditions are still present. This is also why bioenergy covers a relatively broad range, broadly growth range. Please turn into slide number six. Thank you. Grain and tech processing sales grew 13% organically in 2021. Sales in both grain and in tech grew by double digits with strong performance across sub-areas. The growth in grain was led by market penetration with solutions for vegetable oil processing, innovation in starch, particularly in grain milling, as well as an increased end market demand for starch-derived products, especially in emerging markets. Tech grew primarily due to the recovering sales in textile following the negative COVID-19 impact in 2020. Good performance in areas such as pulp and paper, leather and diagnostic enzymes for the pharmaceutical industry. They also contributed to the full-year performance. Four-quarter sales grew by 15% organically. The performance was also broad-based in the quarter, with growth being fooled by innovation and high-end market demand in starch-derived product, market penetration in vegetable oil processing, and sales of diagnostic enzymes for pharma. Looking at 2022, the development is expected to be more moderate compared to 2021, and thus we expect the sales performance to range from flat to low single-digit growth. Growth will be led by continued market penetration in vegetable oil processing and from innovation in starch, such as for grain milling. Similar to the situation in bioenergy, the relatively large uncertainty related to the pandemic and the volatile market conditions are affecting the way we see prospects for grain and tech processing. Hence, we have applied a relatively broad sales range for this business area as well. Could you please turn to slide number seven? Organic sales in agricultural and animal health and nutrition ended the year flat, despite a negative base effect from 60 million one-off in the second quarter of 2020, related to the former bioact setup. Sales in animal health and nutrition grew primarily from increased market penetration, driven by innovations such as Valencius and Prague 360. Sales in agricultural declined to the aforementioned base effect and increased if adjusted to it. The adjusted performance was driven by market penetration led by Latin America. Four-quarter sales grew 7% organically. Growth was as strong as in animal health and nutrition, with increased demand for both protein and health solutions. Sales in agricultural also grew, driven by higher demand for bio-yield solutions. In 2022, we expect organic sales in agricultural, animal health and nutrition to grow in the high single digits to glow teens. Growth will be led by agricultural, which is expected to grow at double-digit rate. Good market conditions and beneficial sustainability pool is expected to benefit a higher usage of inoculants. This, combined with innovation and a refined go-to-market model, will enable increased market penetration of both bio-yield and bio-control solutions. Animal health and nutrition sales are also expected to grow, full mainly by innovation and market-driven volume growth supported by favourable market conditions. And with that, I'll hand over to Lars for a review of the financials. Lars, please.

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