BioGaia AB (publ)

Hi, this is Teresa Agnew, CEO of BioGaia, and I'm here with Alexander Koutsinos, our CFO. So we are here to report on our Q1 2025 results. For Q1, our sales were 366 million SEC, which was a decrease of 1%, so relatively flat to last year. This was mainly due to lower sales in Asia Pacific and as well as Europe, Middle East, Africa. Specifically in Europe, Middle East, Africa, our sales decreased by 23%, and this was mainly in France, Central Eastern Europe and South Africa. We did see a nice increase in certain markets such as Italy, where we are returning to growth. In Asia Pacific, we saw a decrease of 19%, and this was mainly in China, and it was also due to some order fluctuations where we had significant orders in Q4. While the Americas increased significantly by 42%, we saw strong growth in the U.S. that was fueled by additional marketing investments that we've been doing. We also saw strong growth in Canada as well as in Brazil. Our EBIT was 97 million SEC, which was a decline of 32%, and our EBIT margin was 37%. We did have some launches. What we always like to report is when we launch our products into new markets. So you see here a number of launches in Morocco, Nicaragua, Vietnam, China, United Kingdom, and Hungary. We do have a sub-brand called BioGaiaFarax that we are continuing to launch around the world, and China was one of our next markets this quarter. We also had some key events. In January, January 16th, we announced that we were going to be taking our Business Direct in France, so we did terminate the agreement with our partner in France, and we will see some temporary sales fluctuations due to this. But now we are positioned in France for long-term growth, which we'll talk about as the quarters unfold this year. We also announced in March, on March 20th, that we do have a new anchor shareholder, which is Anatom Holding. So Anatom Holding had already acquired shares last year. They are a Switzerland-based investment firm. They have experience in health and ingredients markets, and we are happy to welcome them as our anchor shareholder. I also want to take this opportunity to thank Peter Rothschild and Anwal in Rothschild Investments. Peter Rothschild is the founder of our company, has been with our company for 35 years, and we really appreciate everything he has done as the founder, and we are sad to see him go, but we know that his contributions will be remembered forever. So we will have more announcements about Peter in the future. In May, actually earlier today, we announced that we are taking our sales direct in the Netherlands. Actually, the Netherlands is one of the European markets that we did not have a business either through a partner or direct distribution. So now we will have direct sales, and we are primarily doing this through online channels, so local marketplaces such as Amazon and Boll. So more to come on this in the future since we are just starting, but this is an exciting opportunity for us. A little bit on the sales per segment. Our pediatrics segment did decline by 8%, and we saw these decreases mainly in Europe, Middle East, Africa, so it was Eastern Europe, France, as well as Asia Pacific, mainly in China. In our adult segment, we saw an increase of 26% for the quarter, and this was primarily due to increased sales of Prudentis as well as Gastros, that was mainly in the US, and also Protectus tablets, which was mainly in Hong Kong. So currently, our pediatrics represents 74% of our business for Q1. If you look at by region, as I said previously, Europe, Middle East, Africa declined 23%, that was mainly in France, South Africa, Eastern Europe, and our sales were negatively impacted in the quarter with our decision to start selling direct in France. So we do see some fluctuations in sales when we do take a market direct, so that is expected. Sales were positively impacted, though, by a royalty agreement extension that we had as well for Europe, Middle East, Africa, and sales were positively affected, like I said, in Italy. So we are returning to growth in Italy. For Asia Pacific, as I said previously, our sales decreased by 19%, which was mainly in China and that was due to some quarterly variations for orders. And in the Americas, as I said, we increased by 42% driven in the US, Brazil, and Canada. And in both US and Canada, our sales on Amazon increased significantly, as well as through some of our wholesale channels. So now I'll turn it over to Alex to take you through the specifics on the financials.

Thank you, Theresa. So first of all, just to summarize the financials, we had a sales decrease, as we heard, of 1% to 366 million SEC. Our gross profit increased with 1% due to a higher, slightly higher gross margin of 73% versus 72 one year ago. And our earnings before interest and taxes decreased with 32% to 97 million and a margin of 27% in the quarter. In terms of the sales, we had an organic growth of minus 4% and a currency effect of plus 3% and all in all, the decrease of 1%. If we look at our gross margins, we had gross margins of 73% versus 72 in the same quarter last year, an increase with 1%. In terms of distribution between the segments, pediatrics had a stable gross margin of 75%. However, adult gross margin increased from 57% to 67%. This increase was mainly due to some mix effects, geographic mix effects, but also partly due to a previous price increase that we did. If we look at our operating expenses, they were at 171 million SEC versus 123 million one year ago, an increase of 40%. If we look at the line items for the OPEX, we see that sales and marketing increased with 18%. This is mainly driven by increased costs for our subsidiaries due to the large increases we are having in sales and marketing and the things we are doing there. But it's also partly also due to some of the startup costs we have in relation to France, which is not yet generating any sales. Sales and marketing costs were flat or actually down 10% at 23 million. This is mainly due to phasing of our clinical study costs. We will probably see these costs increase eventually. Administration costs were down 20%. This is mainly due to that we had a one time cost in the same quarter last year for the litigation and termination of the distribution agreement in Italy, excluding that our costs were sort of flat. And then we have a big change in what we call other OPEX. This is mainly losses in receivables, exchange rate losses in receivables. And we took a cost of 24 million in the quarter versus a gain of 12 million in the same quarter last year. And all in all, this leads to an OPEX 171 million. And we don't have any adjustments in the quarter. However, as I mentioned, we did have an adjustment last year due to the distribution agreement litigation in Italy. If we move on to the profit and loss, just to summarize, sales were 366 million, OPEX 171 million, and an EBIT of 97 million then, a decline of 32%. And all in all, this leads to a margin in the quarter of 27% versus 40% in the same quarter last year. However, if you then would exclude the other OPEX line, which is the exchange rate loss on receivables, the margin was 33% in the quarter. So that currency effect explains a lot of the decrease in the profitability in the quarter. In terms of the cash flow, the cash flow reflects the lower profits and we have an operating cash flow of 36 million. We had very low investments in the quarter. This was more due to timing effects. They will increase going forward, obviously. But in the quarter, they were low. And we had a total cash flow in the period of 33 million versus 41 one year ago, a decrease of 19%. And cash at the end of the period was 1.25 billion SEC versus 1.6 billion SEC one year ago. So with that, I hand over to Theresa for some concluding remarks.

So as we said, for Q1, our sales declined 1%. So sales were relatively flat versus last year. And we anticipate to get back to growth in Q2. Our sales did decrease in Europe, Middle East, Africa. We saw the decline in France to our termination of the distribution agreement. We also saw a decline in sales in Eastern Europe and South Africa. But we also had strong results in Italy, in Finland, and also in Belgium. In Asia Pacific, we saw a decrease of 19%. That was mainly due to weaker sales in China and also some sales in Japan due to order variability. And just as a reference, the same quarter last year was exceptionally strong. So we were comparing to a strong quarter last year. We also had very strong results in Australia, Hong Kong, and Indonesia throughout Asia Pacific. And in the Americas, as we said, we had excellent performance with growth of 42%. The US and Canada both demonstrated strong growth in sales of pediatrics as well as higher growth of our adult products. In Latin America, we had double digit increases with strong development in Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, and Colombia. As Alex said, our operating expenses grew by 40% and our EBIT margin came in at 27% for the quarter. So thank you and we will open now for any questions.

To ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. To enter the queue, if you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Mathias Vadsden from SEB. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have a few today. The first one was if you could talk a little bit more about France maybe. So any potential to quantify how much it was out of sales in 2024 maybe? You know, were there any sales in France this Q1? And then also if you could speculate a little bit when France could get back to the previous level. And then to squeeze in one on Italy as well. Just sort of where are we in Italy now versus historical normalized sales level? That's the first one.

Okay. Thank you for the question. So in France, we did see some sales in Q1 for our partner. We are starting to see sales now in Q2. So we're starting to ship product. So I would say, you know, we will see more sales coming in in the back half of the year because there are many customers who have stock currently. So that would be the expectations on France. But we have started shipping product as of now. And so we will start to see more sales coming in the back half of the year. In terms of Italy, we feel really good about the rebound that we've had. So our sales are very strong to our partner as well as our sellout in the market is also very strong. So we are gaining market share in the market. So winning versus the competition. So that also makes us very hopeful for the future for Italy.

Okay. So what's France like 2 to 3% of sales in the GAIA 2024? Do you believe or is that a reasonable assumption?

We don't really comment on the exact sales we have in each country. But I mean, France was a substantial part of our EMA sales. It was one of the larger markets in EMA previously in the previous year. And with the sales we had now in the first quarter was very small, actually, very small. It was one last order from the previous distributor that we had to fulfill, so to speak. So the negative effect is quite substantial in the first quarter.

Thank you. Then the next one, if you could help us a little bit on, you know, talk a little bit how important the US is out of the group sales currently. And there is sort of a general run through perhaps as to how to look on tariffs for the GAIA. I guess everything is fairly subject to the tariffs as of today. But maybe some commentary there.

Yes. So the US sales is very important to us overall. It's one of our largest markets. It's doing extremely well across the various channels. So online channels as well as offline channels. We actually recently got distribution in Walmart for our protective drops. We got distribution for Prudentis in CVS, which is the largest pharmacy chain in the United States. We're expanding distribution at a current retailer target, which is a mass market retailer. So US is doing very well for us. How we look at the tariffs. We have a current tariff. We're classified in the US as a food. It's a low percentage, a small tariff. We have not seen any tariff increases yet on our business. So if we were to have tariffs impact us, as you know, our products are very premium. Consumers are willing to pay for our products because they have efficacy and safety. So we would anticipate that if we were to take a price increase, that consumers would be willing to pay. So at this point, we don't know what's going to happen with tariffs. We haven't seen tariffs yet, but that's our overall outlook.

All right. I agree. Thank you very much. Then what sort of the last question is really what makes you confident to get back to organic growth in Q2? And so any specific reasons here?

I would say some of our order variability that was impacting us for this quarter is one of the factors. I would also say our growth that we're seeing in some of our markets that are important, such as US and Canada. So I would say that's the main areas.

Thank you very much.

The next question comes from Matthias Hegblom from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Matthias Hegblom, Handelsbanken. Thanks so much for taking my question. I have two, please. So you spoke about return to growth in Q2. I was wondering if you would be willing to maybe help me understand the magnitude of the growth. Should we think of double digit or more modest and related to this? Are there any timing of orders in Q2 that we already know of or anticipate that explains the return to growth? Or is it more dependent on the underlying growth that you foresee in important markets? And then I have a follow up.

Yeah, so we do see orders from our partners. So, you know, we do know in Q2 that we do have some healthy orders across some of the partners where we had lower orders in this quarter. So we don't share specifically numbers, but we do think it will be modest growth overall. But we do anticipate, you know, in the back half of the year, we'll be continuing to grow in our prioritized markets. So Q2, we will get back to growth.

Okay, and then secondly, common incoming investor feedback is how to think about this volatility in between quarters. You know, certain quarters you get overwhelmed by the strong growth and then you get disappointed. So, you know, maybe taking a step back, how should I think about 2025 overall when we summarize in February, whatever, 26 when you report? Will this be perceived as a normal year? Or, you know, how should I think about perhaps not next quarter, but more of a medium term, the year as such?

Yeah, I mean, I would say for overall for the year, we would consider this a normal year. We do have order variability in the quarters. It's the nature of our business because we do have distributor partners that will place large orders in one quarter and they don't place large orders the next quarter. And they're preparing for different events, whether it be when they change packaging across our product line or specific promotional events, such as in China, you know, around, you know, Chinese New Year, things like that. That timing shifts depending on when that is. Also in China, you have things like singles day because we have a big online business. So we do see quite a bit of order variability from our partners due to various things happening in their markets, but also just due to their order patterns. Some tend to order more in one half and less in the other half. But I would look at this overall as a normal year.

Thank you. Final question for me. Very strong growth in the quarter for America's up 42% on a reported basis. You single out both US, Canada and Brazil. So it seems to be fairly broad based. If you would have to point to one particular market that helped you reach this growth, which of the three would that be?

Definitely the US. The US is performing exceptionally well. We have put additional investment into the US. So that is reacting very positively in terms of our marketing investment. So the US, I would say, is the most important. It's a large market, has a lot of opportunity for increased penetration for us now and into the future.

Perfect. Thanks so much for taking the questions.

The next question comes from Christopher Lilleberg from Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hi. Four questions. The first one, we have come back to France. It's not possible for you to just give a figure how much of the negative group rate comes from the temporary effects in France or in Ea?

No, we would prefer not to quantify that. It is a substantial part of the negative performance in Ea Mea, but it's not the only one. We mentioned some other areas where we would like to see a better performance, so to speak. But it is a substantial part of it, like I tried to comment.

And in the Mea specifically, were there some phasing effects there as well, or was that only in APEC?

There were also some phasing effects. So South Africa, there are some phasing effects. So we'll see that come back. There's also, I would say, some phasing effects in some of our EVO pharma markets, which is Central Eastern Europe.

Okay.

Then I was wondering about the gross margin for adult health. Higher level now for three consecutive quarters. Is that because of the price increase you mentioned or something else?

No, it's mainly, I would say, mix effects, but it's partly due to the price changes we have made, both historically and last year. But it's mainly mix effects.

And then I wonder on the strong USA, if you could say something about how Prudentes is doing there.

Prudentes is doing extremely well, and it continues to do well. So it grew high double digits last year. It continues to grow. We have a lot of effort in this area. We focus on dental professionals, such as dentists and hygienists, as well as consumer marketing in this area. So we are really seeing this respond well. And a testament to that is also CVS now putting Prudentes in distribution. Because when a large pharmacy chain reaches out and wants a product, they see that it's doing well in a lot of the other channels, like online. So that's a really good indicator.

Great. And just finally, the China weakness you mentioned, was that phasing effects or something else?

It was phasing effects. So there's a number of things where large orders in Q4, different timing than last year for Chinese New Year. But it was phasing effects.

Great. Thank you.

Question comes from Mathias Vadsden from SEB. Please go ahead.

Hi, I have two follow ups. The one is following up on Christopher's question on gross margin in adult health. Would you say this is a new sort of normal level that is the recent three quarters

order? To be honest, it's a bit difficult to say because it depends on the future development of sales, both in terms of which products and which markets. But we would hope that, of course. I mean, we have seen a lower margin historically, which we try to, of course, improve our margins. But it's a bit difficult to predict, to be honest.

Thank you. Then one last from me. I guess if you compare and zoom out a little bit, compare the growth profiles between pediatrics and adults. Over the past five years, organic keger for pediatrics has been 10% and just short of 10% for adults. If you look over the next five years, would you expect a similar pattern or are there any reasons to expect a swing in any direction between them two? And I think recently we are impressed by, in particular, the adult segment growth, and that has been very strong. So anything you would want to highlight here?

Yeah, I think we can expect that the adult area will continue to grow disproportionately for us. We are putting more focus in that area, specifically around predentists, also some on gastric, but very much heavier on predentists. We have a really unique opportunity with those products where we have a lot of differentiation in the market with our clinical studies and our clinical evidence. So I would say that the disproportionate growth of adult will continue. You know, we strive to continue to grow our pediatrics business because when we have this order variability, because the pediatrics business is such a big part of our sales, that's where we see the kind of increases and decreases in the pediatrics business because of that order variability quarter by quarter.

Thank you very much for today.

Question comes from Christopher Lilleberg from Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Yes, one more. You comment about the tariffs. Yes, one more. Are you not impacted by this 10% tariff?

We have not been impacted.

We

have not been impacted yet. There's no we don't know about the future, but we have not been impacted yet because we actually have shipments that we have sent to the US and picked up recently that have not had a tariff.

OK, and do you know why that is?

We don't know why. We are classified. We are classified in the US as a food product.

OK,

thanks. If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. More questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

So thank you for participating in the call and thank you for the very good questions and we will be back to speak with you again in Q2. Thank you.