Sartorius St Bt Unsp/Adr

Thank you very much, and also good day and welcome from my side to our Q1 call for both Sartorius AG as well as Sartorius Stadium Biotech. As always, we would like to start with highlighting some of the key achievements and results of the first quarter. Then Rainer will walk you through the key numbers, P&L, et cetera, for the Sartorius group. And then I will take over again for Outlook as well as for Sartoria State and Biotech. And before we start with the highlights, I would like to remind everybody that some of the following statements are related to the future and therefore, of course, are based on some assumptions so that we can't take a guarantee for any of such future-oriented statements. So let's start talking about the highlights of the first three months of 2022 for the Sartorius Group. I think we really had a dynamic start into the year with double-digit growth in sales as well as in earnings, and that's the case for both divisions. We overall have seen a healthy demand situation, while at the same time, as expected, we recorded a normalization of the corona-related effects as well as of order intake development overall, i.e. related to these earlier order placements that we have seen particularly end of 2020 and then for the first couple of months in 21. We have seen the increase of profitability despite some FX headwinds and even though we have seen some higher costs for logistics that we have seen already partially last year, but for some materials, of course, we now also see some increasing costs. Our capacity expansion initiatives are on schedule, and I think it's also worth mentioning that we have been able to close two acquisitions successfully. That's nothing new. We have reported on that before, but nevertheless, I think it's, yeah, as I said, worth mentioning in regards to what we have been busy with and what we have achieved during the last three months. For the full year, we are confirming our forecast. But of course, at the same time, we also have to make the statement that the overall global uncertainties for sure have substantially increased. And with that, I would like now to hand over to Rainer.

Thanks Joachim, and also welcome everybody to the call from my side. As Joachim mentioned, the dynamic start really led to a nice revenue increase of 25.4% in constant currencies to 1.25 billion. This is the record quarter for us, the first time that we actually cracked the billion euro mark, so great achievement here. Out of those, 25% growth approximately two percentage points are related to the recently made acquisitions. And the COVID-related revenue is really on previous year level. Of course, you can do the math by doing that. It's basically approximately 100 million of that billion here is related to COVID. Order intake, as expected, and Joachim mentioned as well, is normalizing. This is a process that is in line with our expectations. We see here a decrease on a group level of almost 6% to 1.12 billion. I'll come and comment that a bit more in detail when we come to divisions because clearly the effects of BioPROs and LPS are substantially different. Underlying EBTA. Amounts, 349 million, so this corresponds to an ABDA, underlying ABDA margin of 4.1%, so an increase of 0.8 percentage points. This is already including the increase that we are seeing in the logistics and in some raw materials, but most likely not the end of those increases, and it also includes some FX headwind, and let me give a little bit of color for you there, because one would expect within strengthening of dollar and day one, that actually there would be some positive effect on the EBITDA. That is true for the true, if you just have the translation on the P&L and balance sheet, but this was overcompensated by some negative effects out of our hedging that we do in a normal course of business. EPS, earnings per share for the ordinaries increased by 37.6% to 2.44 euros. And for the prefs, one cent more by 37.3% to 2.45%. If we look at the regional distribution of our revenue, we see that in the Americas, we're able to increase or grow substantially once more by 32.6% in constant currencies to almost 360 million. This was specifically also fueled by the great performance of our bioanalytical business on the LPS side. But of course, BPS also performed there very well. EMEA, one could say only 20%. But let's keep in mind that here, especially on the BPS side, we are facing high comparables. Those, as you know, were driven by the different order pattern that our customers clearly showed last year in conjunction also with the COVID pandemic, but also with COVID-related effects. LPS in EMEA still was a robust performance. If we then move East Asia Pacific, here we also see great development, 25 percent in constant saliency growth to 264 million. Solid performance here really on the BPS side. LPS also fueled by great development of the bioanalytical business in this region. On the right-hand side, you see only a small little shift actually. for the regional distribution of our revenue. EMEA, if you looked at last year's year-end figures or even at Q1 2021, you see there were a few more percentage points on EMEA. It was like 42. So those shifted to the Americas. So now we see, again, a little bit more balanced regional distribution in line also what we had before the pandemic outbreaks. On the next slide, let's have a deeper look onto the bioprocess solutions. Here on the left side, we see the decrease of the order development of almost 10% to 890 million. That was in line with our expectations and is definitely impacted by the current pandemic we're in and, of course, the clearly changed ordering pattern that we see specifically compared to Q1 2021. Sales revenue increased by 29.2% in constant currencies to 814 million. Here, two percentage points were contributed by the acquisitions, and the underlying EBITDA margin were able to improve by 0.4 percentage points to 36%, amounting then to 293 million, despite the just-mentioned In fact, these comments that I just made on a group level are valid for both divisions. Here also, of course, we already see an increase in the logistics and materials, and that we'll see on both divisions as well. On the next slide, if we look on the performance of LPS, on the left-hand side, the order intake grew by 15% and constant currencies to 222 million. Fueled, of course, also by BioA, who really did a great performance in the first quarter. Sales revenue grew by 12.4% to $210 million. That increase includes one percentage point from the acquisition of ALS that we just did at the beginning of the year, and Joachim is going to say something to that later on. Also, the sales revenue really, again, driven by very good performance of our biological portfolio. ABTA margin. Compared to previous year, we could increase from 25.7 to 26.5%, so an increase of 20% to 55.7 million. Again, here, we not only are taking advantage of economies of scale, but also the favorable product mix, i.e., the higher profitability of our bioanalytics portfolio contributed to this effect despite the aforementioned FX effects. If we have a look onto some key financial indicators, see extraordinaries, there's really not much movement, stay on a low level, and are attributed to the regular M&A and integration activities. Financial result, just as a side note, I know I've been commenting that in the past quite elaborately, it's really related to the fluctuation of our earn-out liability. that is in conjunction with the acquisition of BIA Separations, so we will continue to see that. Driver here is, of course, also the share price performance. And the underlying profit increased by 37.5%, $267 million. And the operating cash flow, driven by the strong profitability, is $190.2 million. Why is it a decrease compared to Q1? We really see a substantial increase still in our working capital, specifically on the inventory but also receivable side. That led to that part. The capex ratio is currently at 9.5%. We are guiding for this year 14%, so quite below, but it is fairly in line also with our expectations. Generally, at the beginning of the year, we have some lower capex. The CAPEX by itself is 96 million. The rest, the difference with investing cash flow of 163 million is related to the acquisitions we made. If we look then at the financial indicators, and here our key ratio, the equity ratio for the group is at 33% increase compared to previous year of three percentage points. Of course, profitability is driven. but also the fluctuation of the earn-out liability and the conversion of first payment of the earn-out liability increased the equity position. Net debt, slight increase. Keep in mind here that we have still a substantial increase in working capital, but also we had in the first quarter the dividend payment to our shareholders, which is a temporary impact on the net debt. net debt to underlying EBITDA is in line with expectations as well of 1.4, and you see on the right-hand side on the bar charts in the line the continuous deleveraging of the Sartorius group. And with that, I'll give back to you, Joachim.

Yeah, thank you very much, Rainer. Before I come to the guidance for full year 2022. I would like to briefly elaborate on the two acquisitions that we have closed in the course of the first quarter of 2022. On the left-hand side, the one that we have closed first that was beginning of January this year, it's a further expansion of our offering in the bioanalytic segment in the LPS division. This time it's an automated system for the analysis, selection, and isolation of cells. This serves numerous applications of our customers and fits nicely to the other products that we have here in the bioanalytic segment as there are our live cell imaging system or our protein analytic systems, for example. On the BPS side, we finally closed the acquisition that we were working on for a long time, and that was the chromatography business from Novasep in France that we closed beginning of February. This is another building block of our downstream processing business that we have built throughout the last roughly 24 months now by acquiring companies a portfolio from Dennaher by acquiring, by a bioseparation, sorry for that, Watersap and now this business so that we now really have an innovative portfolio for this downstream applications as well. So, and then coming to the guidance, we confirm the set of numbers that we have communicated a couple of weeks ago. when we introduced this guidance to you, and this represents a significant double-digit sales growth as well as a sustained high level of profitability as we have achieved that with a step increase last year. Of course, at the same time, it needs to be said that we see even higher uncertainties than a couple of months ago, a couple of weeks ago even, when we published and communicated this guidance, and that to quite some extent has to do or has been triggered by the war in Ukraine, and then following, of course, the increased risks regarding supply chains, and then, of course, the further substantially elevated inflation rate levels. So, however, from today's perspective, assuming that we don't see Any spillover of the war in Ukraine, for instance, no further substantially constraints regarding supply chains, etc. We are expecting, and now I go from the bottom to the top, for the LPS division, a 6% to 10% sales revenue growth in constant currencies, of which one percentage point should come from acquisitions for BPS shares. We expect 17% to 21%, including two percentage points from acquisitions. And for the group, that adds up to 15% to 19%, including two percentage points from acquisitions. And profitability levels would then be 26% for LPS, 36% for bioprocess solutions, and 34% for the sartorius group. Again, we would like to underline that this profitability level includes additional spendings and costs of roughly half a percentage point related to our initiative to reduce our greenhouse gas footprint, more precisely to reduce our CO2 emission intensity by 10% every year. We elaborated on that extensively end of January as well. For the CapEx ratio, we continue to expect 14% of sales. And for the net debt to underlying EBITDA ratio, we anticipate a number around 1.1, as before. And, of course, all those numbers are based on the assumption, besides those that are made regarding the uncertainties, on no further acquisition. So let me briefly walk you through the set of numbers for saturated state in biotech for the first quarter as well. Here we see, of course, a very similar picture to the BPS division. Sales revenue came in at 863 million euros and order intake at 950. The latter represents a decline of 8.5%, whereas sales revenue is up by 27.5%. It's important to note that we are talking about the book-to-bill ratio above one, so Yeah, clearly, decline of order intake. Rainer, I think, explained that before. Very much expected because of the extremely high level from last year, but still, I think, a very positive number in our view. Underlying EBITDA at 304 million euros, which represents a margin of 35.2%. Again, we have to mention that this is despite this pretty much same level as the year before we achieved despite some ethics headwinds around half a percentage point as well as some additional or higher costs for logistics and materials in particular. For the regional perspective, I think most has been mentioned by Rainer. And this set of numbers pretty much shows a similar picture, very strong growth in the Americas and in MIA and Asia Pacific, a little bit below that, but still very substantial double-digit growth rates and very much in line with our expectation. For the cash flow, I think also here pretty much a comparable picture. given the size and relevance of our SSB, respectively BPS business, it's clear that that is very much the driver for most of the numbers that you see on the group's level as well. And that is particularly the case, of course, for the impact from the valuation of the earn-out liability as well as regarding CapEx and also working capital. So maybe I don't need to repeat all those comments that have been made before here. And that pretty much also holds true qualitatively, at least regarding the key financial indicators, where we have seen a certain increase of our equity ratio to 48%, a slight increase of our net debt, and pretty much a stable indebtedness ratio on a very low level, which is 0.4 only. And for the guidance, again, confirmation of all numbers that we have communicated a couple of weeks ago. So 15% to 19% sales revenue growth, which includes two percentage points that we expect to come from acquisitions, and an underlying EBITDA margin above 35%. I don't need to repeat, I think, the comment regarding our greenhouse gas emission reduction initiative and the impact that we have already included here into the profitability guidance. CapEx, we continue to expect to come in at 14.5% approx, and net debt to underlying EBITDA, we expect a further decline to 0.2. And with that, and with saying thank you for your attention, we can now turn over to Q&A.