Kimberly-Clark de Mexico SAB de CV

BMV:KIMBERA

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q1

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, we now have your presenters in conference. [Operator Instructions]

I would like to now turn the conference over to Mr. Pablo Gonzalez. Please go ahead.

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for your participation on the call, and we hope you and your families are all doing great. Let me start by making a few brief comments about the quarter.

Despite the many challenges we faced in the first quarter, we posted top and bottom line growth, and very importantly, we maintained healthy margins. We posted sales growth for the 26th consecutive quarter, despite of a top COVID-19 comparison [ and weak ] retail environment. We achieved better pricing realization in consumer products, and export sales were very strong. However, top line was affected by the impact from the February winter storms in the Southern U.S. that affected some operations.

We also posted very healthy and strong margins. Our higher realized prices, together with increased operating efficiencies and the positive results from our permanent cost reduction program offset the effect from a very challenging cost environment. Costs were negatively impacted by rapid and unexpected increases in raw material prices as well as from the impact on energy costs and reduced production from the winter storm I alluded to.

In summary, we had another strong quarter in a particularly challenging time. We are pleased with these results, which reaffirm the resiliency and strength of our business model and give us confidence that we will again deliver strong results in 2021 and continue to strengthen KCM for the future.

Xavier will now provide additional details on the quarter.

[Xavier Cortés Lascurain, executive]

Good morning. During the quarter, our sales were MXN 12.1 billion, a 4% increase versus the first quarter of 2020. Volume decreased 2% and pricing mix grew 6%. Consumer products grew 3%. As mentioned, we faced a still partially closed economy as well as a difficult comparison due to increased volumes in the first quarter of last year given early COVID pandemic purchases by consumers.

Our sales were also impacted by forced shutdowns related to the severe weather conditions in the Southern U.S. in February. During the storm, some of our facilities did not receive electricity or gas, so they could not operate; and in others, we decided to reduce production in view of the spike in gas prices. These shutdowns reduced product availability in the quarter and had an impact on sales.

And with respect to 4e, sales were affected by its product recall in the U.S., which is still underway. Given the recall not only is 4e not selling in the U.S., but we are creating provisions that further affected this year's sales and results. Our wear-from-home product sales were down 14%, reflecting continued effects from the COVID pandemic, particularly in offices, hotels and restaurants.

Finally, our exports business continues to perform very well, with overall sales growing 36% and sales of converted products more than doubling versus last year. Cost of goods sold increased 5%.

We faced rapid and unexpected raw material cost increases in pulp and fibers to be recycled and very significant increases in the prices of oil derivatives. Against last year, pulp, fluff and superabsorbent materials were relatively flat in dollars. Imported and domestic recycled fibers, resins, gas and electricity prices compared negatively. The FX was also higher, averaging 6% more.

Our cost reduction program once again had very good results and yielded approximately MXN 350 million of savings in the quarter. These savings are mainly at the cost of goods sold level and are generated by sourcing materials improvement and process efficiencies, with all contributing in a meaningful way.

Gross profit increased 1% and margin was 38.5% for the quarter. SG&A expenses were flat year-over-year and as a percentage of sales were 50 basis points lower. We achieved better efficiencies in distribution expenses and continued to find ways to invest more efficiently behind our brands, balancing advertising with point of sales promotion.

Operating profit increased 2%, and the operating margin was 22.6%, 50 basis points below last year and representing a sequential reduction of 30 basis points. We generated MXN 3.2 billion of EBITDA, a 1% increase; and EBITDA margin was 26.8%, a year-over-year reduction of 70 basis points, were in line sequentially despite the above-mentioned impacts.

Cost of financing was MXN 422 million in the first quarter, compared to MXN 412 million in the same period of last year. Net expense -- net interest expense was 3% lower. During the quarter, we had an MXN 18 million foreign exchange gain, which compares to a MXN 42 million gain last year. Net income for the quarter was MXN 1.6 billion, a 5% increase, with earnings per share of MXN 0.52.

Excluding the onetime Texas winter storm-related effect and expenses connected with the 4e recall, net sales grew 5%, EBITDA was 9% higher, and net income increased 15%. We have a very strong balance sheet, which reflects solid cash generation from EBITDA with MXN 8.5 billion of free cash flow generated in the last 12 months, positive results from working capital management and, in general, our priority of protecting cash.

Our total cash position at March 31 was MXN 16 billion. Our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 0.9x with an EBITDA to net interest coverage of 8x.

With that, I'll turn it back to Pablo.

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

During the rest of 2021, and particularly in the second quarter, we will continue to face tough comps and a challenging environment in the economic and cost fronts. We must continue to focus on strong execution on our short-term priorities as well as on planning and acting to strengthen and leverage our capabilities and business model to better position KCM for continued success in the mid and long term.

In the short term, during the second quarter, we will face the toughest COVID-19 top line comparisons, particularly given very strong 4e sales in the U.S. now undergoing a voluntary recall. And we'll continue to face significant raw material pressures. On the positive side, the FX will very likely confer positively.

To address the situation, we will stay focused on achieving greater price realization, operating ever more efficiently, leveraging our raw material purchasing contracts and accelerating our cost and expense reduction efforts. While we expect top and bottom line to contract in the second quarter, our efforts will allow us to grow in the second half of the year and continue to post strong margins. We expect to conclude 2021 with another good year.

With respect to achieving greater price realization, we are in the process of implementing a price increase of roughly 4% in our consumer and professional businesses, which should impact results starting in June, and we continue to look for ways to invest more efficiently and identify other opportunities to improve our price and mix.

Additionally, if cost pressures persist, we may need to implement additional pricing. On the cost side, increased demand, particularly from China, together with supply constraints because of forced shutdowns and supply chain complications like lack of containers and increased shipping costs has caused rapid and important increases in many raw materials. With most capacity coming back online and with global logistics issues being worked out, we should see prices start to come down. It's already happening in all derivatives and pulp and fibers to be recycled, most likely have hit or close to their peak price.

But in the coming quarters, most of these prices will compare unfavorably and put pressure on our costs. Energy will also compare negatively. In addition to achieving higher effective prices, we need to take full advantage of our contracted volumes, particularly in pulp, continue to negotiate aggressively with suppliers, further increase our operating efficiencies and continue to deliver very good results on cost reduction program. We are accelerating our efforts in each of these areas and believe that for the full year, we will sustain margins within our target range.

Before we turn the call over for your questions, let me make brief comments on several topics. KCM sustainability aspirations, CapEx, profit sharing and our February shareholders' meeting. In May, we will publish our 2020 sustainability report, and it will contain all the information related to our new sustainability aspirations. We have made great progress on the goals we set back in 2015 and are in a great position to achieve even more.

Some of the new goals are 100% of virgin fibers will be certified as coming from sustainable sources by 2022, 100% of our packaging will be either recycled -- recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2023. Our processes will generate 0 landfill waste by 2025. We will reduce water usage by 25%, direct emissions of greenhouse gases by 50% and the usage of virgin plastics by 50%, all by 2030. And we will positively impact 25 million Mexicans through direct action programs by 2025.

We have specific plans behind each inspiration to ensure we are successful in achieving them. And in the coming weeks and months, we will communicate more details. The 2021 CapEx program is proceeding as planned, and investment is expected to be approximately MXN 2,000 million compared to MXN 1,100 million invested in 2020.

KCM's profit sharing, one of the highest in the country, will reflect an important increase this year because of the company's good results in 2020. We're very proud of distributing it to our employees, as has always been the case.

And finally, with respect to our shareholders' meeting, we are all aware of the approved resolutions, but I want to take this opportunity to highlight a few of them. The payment of the dividend in the amount of MXN 1.72 per share, which represents an increase of 7.5%; a share repurchase program plan of up to MXN 850 million; and the election to our Board of [indiscernible] which together with last year's election of Fernando López Guerra is part of our plan to strengthen our Board with very capable and independent young members.

With that, let me open it up for questions, and thank you all again for participating in the call.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Ben Theurer with Barclays.

[Benjamin Theurer, analyst]

Congrats on the results. Just wanted to follow-up a little bit. I mean you've highlighted already in your prepared remarks, obviously, the relatively tough comp base because of the strong sales in certain channels last year. But you've also made some comments around the significant spike in raw material prices, and we're seeing some sort of raw material pressure in various industries.

So just to get a little bit your sense and your approach for the coming quarters on pricing -- price increases, how you think about to implement those in order to offset some of the cost pressure? And how you think about several opportunities to maybe squeeze out some cost efficiencies, be it on the gross profit line or on the SG&A line, to also help offset some of that input cost pressure?

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Sure, Ben. Thanks for your questions. With respect to pricing, as you see in our results, we've been able to achieve better pricing realization, and we've been working really hard at that. And now we're in the process, as we mentioned, of implementing a price increase of roughly 4% across the board in consumer and professional businesses that should impact our results late in this quarter. And we will continue to look for other selective pricing opportunities as well as be very aggressive in identifying and reducing, if possible, our promotional activities and investing more efficiently. So it's really a combination of issues that we're working on to achieve greater price realization. It's worked very well for us in the past couple of quarters. And it's very important that it continues to go well for us in that sense.

And when it comes to costs, again, we need to be very aggressive in taking advantage of our contracted volumes and be very aggressive on negotiating with our suppliers as we see prices starting to come down in resins and all derivatives, and not yet in pulps and fibers to be recycled, but we believe those are approaching their peak and will start to come down given market dynamics. So again, use our contracts very effectively and be very aggressive in our negotiations.

And other than that, operate very efficiently, as we usually do, but we need to step it up a notch and continue to accelerate our price -- our cost reduction program, which again has been very effective over the past years. We're doing well in the start of the year, but we need to continue to focus on that and accelerate.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Bob Ford with Bank of America.

[Robert Ford, analyst]

Congratulations on the quarter, Pablo. I really do think you're up against some extraordinary pressures. Can you comment a little bit about the trade, the competitive and the consumer response to pricing? And then there's also been this larger kind of North American production rework, right, for KCC. And I was wondering how that's shaking out and how we should think about your ongoing role in that process?

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Sure, Bob. Thank you for the questions. Well, when it comes to our pricing, well, again, the pricing realization that we've been able to achieve has not so far affected our shares, so we find that what we've done so far has been very effective and has been well received or just absorbed by the market, if you will.

As we move further into this price increase that we're doing across the board, we will certainly monitor closely the market reaction. We are all being impacted by the costs. So we'll see what the competitive dynamics bring. And we'll see how the consumers react, and we will certainly be monitoring it closely. But at this point, we're moving ahead and we'll see how costs behave and whether we need to think of some additional pricing further out in the year or whether that's not necessary.

When it comes to our the reorganization -- product reorganization and supply chain interaction, if you will, with KCC, as you can see from our results, we've been very effective on that. We continue to have a very fluid and coordinated approach with them, and we are looking at all the different opportunities in both the tissue front, the professional business and personal care business also. And as we find more opportunities and we figure what's the best alternative for both companies, we have to continue to supply more to them. And we will just continue to work very closely with them to identify opportunities and see where it takes us.

So far, very effective. As we mentioned, our sales of export products have finished -- export products more than doubled versus last year. And the trend going forward looks very good. So we'll continue to, again, work very closely with our partner to find the best alternatives for growth.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Jens Spiess with Morgan Stanley.

[Jens Spiess, analyst]

I just wanted to ask, it seems that these one-offs you had, particularly related to the winter storm, could you maybe give a more precise number of how much costs were impacted by that? Just to take that out from our modeling, considering that it's basically a one-off. And also, if I understood you correctly, let's say that pulp prices and all derivatives remain at current levels, you would need to implement further price hikes in order to avoid margin compression in the second half of this year, correct?

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

On the first one regarding the situation in the Southern U.S. and Texas, particularly, basically, the impact we saw on costs from that was about MXN 130 million. That's on the cost side. And as we had to stop some of our operations, we also lost some sales which, again, together with the voluntary recall from 4e, they both represent about an increase of a little bit over 100 basis points of the 4% that we reported. And that's -- when you put it all together, that's why we're saying that sales would have been 5%; EBITDA, 9%; and net income, 15%. And of that increase in EBITDA from 1% to 9%, about half has to do with this situation in Texas with the gas and about the other half has to do with the voluntary recall of 4e. I hope that provides a little bit more detail.

And then with respect to the cost pressures, yes, I mean as we mentioned in our remarks, pressures will be substantial in the second quarter. But we expect that to continue -- or those to subside in the third and fourth quarters. And that, together with the -- our pricing initiatives and our cost reduction programs and all of the different actions that I talked about in cost efficiency, et cetera, we expect that, again, for the year, we'll be able to, again, deliver margins in our target range and have another very good year.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Mohammed Ahmad with FGP.

[Mohammed Ahmad, analyst]

Hope you are all well. Just a quick question on consumer segment volume growth. If you could give me some proximate number there, that would be great?

Hello?

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Sure. Yes, Mohammed. Thanks for being here, and thanks for your good wishes. Same to you and your family. Volume growth in consumer products was -- I mean very similar overall results. Volume was down 3% and price and mix was up about 6% and that's how you come up with a 3% growth in net sales in consumer products.

And again, volume was impacted by COVID-19 comparisons, and the fact that the -- we're still working on a partially closed economy and it's still having an impact. So the volume comparisons are tough and will continue to be tough in the second -- particularly, I would say, in the second quarter, again, very -- because of very strong volume growth in the second quarter related to COVID-19 sales last year.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Nicolas Larrain with JPMorgan.

[Nicolas Larrain, analyst]

I wanted to ask you a bit if you had any targets this year in terms of cost savings? You guys bring to MXN 350 million this quarter. I just was wondering if you had like any hard target for the rest of the year? And also understand on the 4e recall, should we see more impacts on upcoming quarters? And congrats on the results.

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Let me quickly take the second one. We should still have some impact on the second quarter, which are going to be similar to what we had this first quarter, and we are expecting to be done with that one.

Great. And then with respect to our cost reduction program, we're again working very hard at it, Nicolas, and we hope that we can at least replicate what we achieved in the first quarter for the next quarters.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Rodrigo Alcantara with UBS.

[Rodrigo Alcantara, analyst]

This is Rodrigo Alcantara from UBS. Just more like a long-term question, Pablo, here, if I mean. Just looking up what Kimber is doing in LatAm countries, launching marketplaces, exploring B2C. Just curious how do you see for -- in your case, are you exploring the possibility of business-to-consumer e-commerce? Or what's your view here? That would be my question.

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Thanks for the question, Nicolas (sic) [ Rodrigo ]. So far, we're focused on really being -- working very closely with both pure players and brick and mortars who have a very important e-commerce business. And we're growing nicely with them. We're doubling the business quarter-on-quarter, and we believe this is a -- this is something that here to -- is here to stay, and we'll continue to grow aggressively. So we're even reinforcing our teams and we're reinforcing our strategies to make sure that we stay one step ahead and we deliver very good results on e-commerce.

When it comes to business to consumer, we really have -- what we've done so far is more from a promotional standpoint or either just from a sampling standpoint to make sure that consumers get to know our innovations, particularly. We have no further plans at this point. But there's no doubt that when it comes to growth, we're looking at all the different alternatives to see what -- where we see opportunities and how we can take advantage of them.

[Rodrigo Alcantara, analyst]

That's very clear. And just if it's possible, can you comment on or give us the revenue share that is already coming from e-commerce? That would be great.

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Sure. I mean, overall, when you take into consideration what we sell through pure players or what we sell through the retail channels that goes then through their e-commerce, our sales are probably in the 2.5% range.

[Operator]

There are no additional questions at this time.

[Pablo Roberto González Guajardo, executive]

Well, thank you, all, again for participating in the call. We hope that you and your families all stay safe and healthy and look forward to talking to you at the -- in July with the second quarter results. Thanks, again. Have a great weekend.

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's presentation. You may now disconnect.