Aker Biomarine ASA

OSE:AKBM

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q1

[Matts Johansen, executive]

Good morning, and welcome to the presentation of the first quarter results for Aker BioMarine where myself and CFO, Katrine Klaveness will take you through the highlights and the financials from the quarter. At the end of the session, we will host a Q&A session, and you can already now start sending in your questions to [e-mail]. I'm really looking forward to present to you today good development across all segments in Aker BioMarine resulting in $69 million in revenue for the quarter, up 22% compared to the same quarter last year.

We delivered a fairly low EBITDA of $6 million and a negative net result of $17 million, as expected, following high unit costs coming in from lower production in the fourth quarter. Harvesting year-to-date is on par with a very strong beginning of last year. And especially the ingredient segments are showing really strong sales with 46% growth in the Qrill or the Animal Health & Nutrition segment and 44% growth in the Superba segment.

Brands are also delivering good results with 10% growth year-over-year. Also, last week, we achieved a key milestone for Aker BioMarine, where we finally got our approval for the South Korean market, it can reenter this important market for our company.

As mentioned, $69 million in revenue, up from $57 million in the same quarter last year. The EBITDA of $6 million is impacted by higher COGS coming from low harvesting and limited production in Houston at the end of last year. Harvesting is off at a very good start. And year-to-date, we are on par with a very strong beginning of 2022.

Last year was especially strong in the first quarter and the third quarter, and weaker in the second and the fourth quarter. So I would say we are tracking good towards a normal harvesting season of about 55,000 tons of production. Our USV or drone is on track to be delivered now in June, and this will help us optimize and improve our fishery significantly.

It's also worth noticing that on the harvesting field this year, there's less competition than what it has been in the previous years. This year, there are 6 other vessels involved in harvesting krill compared to 9 vessels last year. And it's mainly the Koreans and the Chinese that has limited their activity on the harvesting side. From a krill availability point of view, 2023 has started okay, but '22 was higher, which means that the performance that we see in the first quarter and year-to-date is driven by operational excellence.

And that is through systematic hard work from the crew onboard our vessels and the management of our harvesting organization that has identified and implemented several initiatives that will both, do optimize the time the trawls spends in the water, making sure that we are fishing as much as possible over time and also optimizing our factory to make sure that we get as high output of product as possible.

Examples of those initiatives connected to optimizing time in harvesting are different initiatives related to the offload operation which is a time which we have taken away from fishing. For instance, we have now started offloading 2 fishing vessels at the same time. You can see that on the picture to the right. That saves time. We have also optimized our crane operation, meaning that it goes faster to move products from one vessel to the other vessel. And through optimizing this, we can spend more time fishing and get higher catch.

We've also done other examples or changes to our equipment. For instance, the hoses that we use to pump the krills from the trawls into the factory. There's a lot of wear and tear on that equipment. And historically, we had to change that quite often and then stop the operation while we do so. Now we have done improvements on that equipment, so we don't have to change it that often. Also in the factory, [ they've ] done lots of initiatives that both, will take down energy consumption, improve our CO2 footprint but also improve the yield, meaning that we get more product out with the same input coming in.

On the Animal Health & Nutrition segment, the Qrill segment, we're continuing the positive development that we have seen over a long period of time for that segment. We're delivering 46% growth for the quarter driven both, by higher prices and higher volumes. And generally, we see increasing demand across all the markets where we operate with our Qrill product portfolio. Also, we are very glad to announce today 2 new strategic customers coming on board during the first quarter, representing between 9,000 tons and 10,000 tons of volume for 2023.

We haven't started delivering on those contracts yet. We will do that at the end of second quarter. But that represents 20% of our total product availability. So that's 2 new key customers coming on board with our product. And as a result, we expect the second quarter to also continue the positive development with good growth versus the second quarter last year and also worth mentioning that the second quarter last year was especially strong.

There are also some external factors that are going to impact most likely our business in the Animal Health and segment midterm and long term. And that's related to the availability and pricing of comparable ingredients in the aquaculture market. The main source of fishmeal and fish is coming from the Peruvian anchoveta fishery. And typically, our ingredient replace those type of ingredients. Now there has recently been a regulatory change in the Peruvian fishery where fishing vessels are no longer allowed to catch anchoveta within 5 miles from the coast to make fish meal or fish oil.

They can only fish within the 5-mile zones to make food, which means that the product availability for fishmeal and fish oil will go down. Also with a similar impact, it's expected now warmer waters outside the South American Coast, something that happens in cycles between 7 and 8 years in between. Last time, it was within 2014 and 2016. But now that's expected to hit again. And then when the water gets warm, the fish will go deep, and fisherman can get to it.

So that -- those 3 initiatives will probably drive increased demand from our product as farmers need to find replacement for fishmeal and fish oil and probably also drive prices up going forward. And then to the highlight of today's presentation, which is the Superba segment, 44% growth year-over-year. And you can see to the graph to the right, how the last 5 quarters, we've been showing a positive trend for the Superba segment. And that growth is driven by improvements in many regions in Asia, in the U.S., in Europe, as a result of the sales activation plan or the turnaround plan that we communicated through our capital market update 18 months ago. So it's great to see that it's starting to work. And we also then, on the back of that, expecting a good second quarter this year.

[ We both, ] expect higher growth compared to the second quarter last year, but also expecting sales to be on par or higher than this quarter, the first quarter of '23. And as mentioned in the beginning, a key milestone that we've been waiting for, for a very long time here in Aker BioMarine; finally getting the approval to enter back into the Korean market. It has been a process that's been taking almost 2.5 years with hard work. And finally, we have it, and we can now reenter into the Korean market. And just a few words about that. As you all remember, back in 2019 and 2020, we had about $25 million of sales in Korea. Then in the second half of 2020, the market was shut down through a regulatory change from the government, meaning that the run rate we were having prior to the shutdown was even higher than the $25 million per year that we saw in those 2 years.

Their regulatory change came because of that explosive growth that we saw in Korea attracted unserious suppliers that had questionable quality that had 2 aggressive marketing claims. And then the government in Korea overnight decided we have to have a much stricter regulation for krill oil products, which means that the Korean government will have to approve the quality of your product, your production process, all the studies that build how you market the product.

All this needs to be preapproved by the government. And even if we have a large database of clinical trial that we can build on, we also have to replicate some of those studies locally in Korea to show that we have the same effect there as we see from other regions of the world. But again after 2.5 years of hard work, working with the Korean government, finally, we have the approval, and we can reenter into the market.

We have now an oral confirmation of the approval. We are waiting for the document, should be here in a couple of days. And when we have those documents, it's possible to start importing krill oil to Korea, and marketing and sales activities locally can start. We expect with our all-time local partner to start rolling out home-shopping programs and marketing in about 2 months from now. And during those 2.5 years, waiting for the approval in Korea, we have built a strategy for how to maximize results in Korea after we have the approval. And that strategy starts with where we ended last time, meaning, with TV shopping. We're not too familiar with that here in the West, but in Korea, TV shopping is an important part of the culture. And the most popular TV shopping shows have more than 6 million views.

So we're going to start with that, which is a great platform to educate consumers. You will have 45 minutes up to an hour to tell the deep story about our product, where it comes from and the benefits. And on the basis of that consumer education, we're going to start to roll out in something we call the Superba lines which is with other customers, other brands in other sales channels like traditional retail, like multilevel marketing, e-commerce and so on. And then on the back of all that, we will also start leveraging our strong position in Korea and the knowledge about krill to launch our new innovations in Korea, like Lysoveta, like our protein product, PL+ and so on.

Moving over to brands on the private label side that we have organized under Lang. That's where we are making distributing and marketing the retail chains on supplement brands within the [indiscernible]. We saw a 13% growth in the quarter, basically driven by sales out of the shelf of the stores. All the new contracts for 2023 with new products starts rolling out in the second quarter. And if you pay attention to the graph to the right, you will see the overall development in vitamin private label sales in the U.S. And as you can see, we have had 2 challenging years with actually negative growth or decline in the overall sales of vitamin private label products.

So you can say that our performance in that period has been especially strong given that kind of market backdrop. But now coming out of Q4 into Q1, we see a significant uptake in growth for private label supplements. And I think that's also what's impacting the performance of our business in the first quarter. We have won many new products for 2023. And as mentioned, we'll start to roll those out now in the second quarter. The most important one is a new category that we are launching that we're going to build. And that's the new delivery platform of these Gummies, where you can put different type of vitamins into that format to make it more easy accessible for those that don't like swallowing a pill.

So we're starting out with a contract with Walmart's Club concept, Sam's Club, where we're launching both, multivitamin for children and a multivitamin for adults. And then the plan is to roll that platform out with more type of vitamins but also to the other retail chains. So that will be a new platform for our private label business to grow. We also have positive development in margins for our private label business.

We increased prices at the second half of last year. And at the same time, we have inflation under control, driving our margins up. On the Epion side or for our own brand, Kori, we also had a good development in the quarter. If we look at sales coming out of the stores, so basically what retailer sells to consumers, we have 44% growth in the first quarter compared to the same quarter last year, while our revenues from us to the retailers were slightly down. As the first quarter last year, we were loading in lots of products to Costco and Sam's Club as they were launching.

We have also signed on 5 new retailers for Kori. That's going to start rolling out in the second quarter and then towards the autumn. Those 5 retailers are mainly in the grocery and pharmacy types of stores, and they represent about 6,000 new stores that will start selling Kori during 2023. Also glad to inform that Walmart, one of our key customers, has also decided to increase the distribution of Kori during the 2022 reset of shelves that they do on an annual basis. So that's also going to start later in the spring. So with that, I'm going to give the word over to Katrine that will take you through the financials.

[Katrine Klaveness, executive]

Good morning. I will take you through the financial figures for first quarter. The first quarter was a good quarter with strong growth year-over-year across most of our categories. Revenue for the group was up 22% from $57 million in Q1 last year to $69 million this year, driven by increased sales in both, Aqua, Superba and Lang Pharma, our private label business. Despite higher sales, the adjusted EBITDA was lower, at $6 million versus $8 million same period last year.

There are 3 main reasons for this, all deriving from the Ingredients segment; higher unit costs, inventory adjustments and lower depreciations on our producing assets. The EBITDA contribution from brands were up compared to last -- same quarter last year. The profit realization as a result of external sales of krill from the brand segment was at $2.3 million in the quarter and is booked on the group level. EBITDA margin was at 9%, down from 14% same quarter last year. Gross margin for the group was 30%, down from 37% same quarter last year, mainly as a result of the higher unit cost and the inventory adjustments. Net interest-bearing debt was at $373 million per end of Q1, up from $359 million previous quarter. This is a result of key investment projects, including the protein launch plant, the Lysoveta production setup and product development in Houston and as well as last year's shipyard.

Moving into the Ingredients segment. First quarter is seasonally the lowest quarter during the year for the Ingredients segment, both on sales as Aqua as the Aqua business usually picks up later when the waters get warmer and on margin as we sell Aqua with low or 0 profit. And this is due to high cost coming in from a low harvesting season in Q4 every year. This year, we had a good first quarter with regards to sales as both, Aqua prices and volumes, were up compared to same period last year, increasing revenues with 46%. Superba increased revenues with 44% compared to same quarter last year. Furthermore, Superba also showed growth from previous quarter with an 8% increase, continuing the planned growth coming from the turnaround plan.

Gross margin for the segment was 21% in the quarter, down from 32% last year. The gross margin is currently harmed by low production in Houston end of last year, driving unit cost up for Superba. Once Houston is ramping up towards full production, the gross margin for Superba will restore and improve significantly. In addition, higher unit cost for Qrill Aqua as we didn't do any NRV adjustments last year, has driven margins for Qrill Aqua to 0 for the quarter.

Finally, there were inventory adjustments of a negative $1.3 million in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $4 million and 9%, down from $7 million and 23% same quarter last year. In the Brands segment, revenue increased with 10% from same quarter last year, ending at $34 million. Lang had a strong quarter with 13% growth year-over-year, driven by both, price increase end of last year as well as promotional activity from one large retailers on fish and krill oil products. Lang had a record customer inflow in the quarter of $46 million.

Epion continues to add new retailers with 3 new in the quarter and 2 more in April, in addition to one of the major retailers increasing distribution with 10%. In total, this means that Kori can be found on the shelves in more than 6,000 new stores once the product is shipped. Sales in the quarter is down compared to same quarter last year as a result of the -- as last year included pipe fill for the national rollout for both, Costco and Sam's Club.

However, POS figures, sales out of store have increased 44% year-over-year, showing strong continued growth in retail sales. Gross margin for the Brands segment was at 29%, up from 25% same quarter last year. Last year's price increase at Lang's, coupled with cost inflation being under control drove margins up for key retailers in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the Brands segment was 0 as a result of Epion's marketing spend of $2.5 million. This is nevertheless an improvement from the previous quarter where we had a negative $2.5 million in EBITDA.

A few items I would like to mention in the P&L. The increase in COGS from the same period last year is due to increased sales but also higher unit costs and inventory adjustments. SG&A is on par with last year if cost related to the improvement program is adjusted out, demonstrating good cost control. Depreciation and amortization for producing -- for nonproducing asset is up as 1/3 of the Houston depreciation is allocated from the producing assets to the nonproducing assets, reflecting limited production activity in Houston in the quarter.

Net financial items reflect higher debt and higher interest rates. The depreciation for producing assets is down as a result of the Houston shift, longer useful life for Saga Sea that was extended last year and certain fixed assets onboard the vessels that have come to an end of the depreciation life in 2022. Adjustments of $3 million for the quarter include costs related to the improvement program, including severance packages that were taken in full in the first quarter.

Moving over to the balance sheet. Investments in the quarter amounted to $8.2 million and included a protein launch plant, the Lysoveta production set up in Houston and offshore assets. The protein launch plant investment will be finalized in the second quarter this year at a total budget of $21 million. Inventories are at $185 million, up from $155 million same quarter last year and up from $183 million first -- end of 2022. The increase from previous quarter relates to krill mill. Q1 is a working capital-intensive quarter, and this is normal seasonality with strong harvesting in Q1, filling up our warehouses with products that will be rolled out to customers over the next few months.

The Superba inventory is decreasing as planned as no oil extraction has taken place in the first quarter in Houston. Cash is significantly up in the quarter. Both, Ingredients and Brand, segment have factoring arrangements in place and have released cash through these structures in the quarter. Interest-bearing debt is at $373 million, up from $359 million end of last year. The increase is mainly related to the growth investments in protein and Lysoveta as well as shipyard settlements from last year. Equity ratio was at 44%.

Finally, the cash flow statement. We had negative cash flow from operations of $5.4 million, driven by a net loss of $17.6 million, higher interest rate and lower depreciation compared to same quarter last year. Cash flow from investing activities amounted to $8.2 million in the period and relates to the before mentioned investment activities. Cash flow from financing activities includes the net gross debt increase of $21.2 million. And finally, net change in cash was $7.4 million in the quarter.

That concludes the financial section. And I will give the word back to Matts to take you through the outlook.

[Matts Johansen, executive]

Thank you, Katrine. So looking at the outlook on the operational level. As mentioned, we had a good start on the harvesting season. And we are tracking well to achieve a normalized harvesting season of about 55,000 tons of production. In Houston, we're going to have limited production throughout the whole 2023 as we're building down inventory to release cash from our inventories. We might produce more if we see good traction, especially in Korea.

Then across all 3 segments, we're expecting good growth in the second quarter compared to the second quarter last year. And in addition, for Superba we also expect the second quarter to be higher than the first quarter this year. So that concludes our presentation. And we'll now enter into the Q&A session where you can send in your questions to [e-mail].

[Unknown Executive]

Yes. So we have received quite a few questions there. The first one: Can you put some more color on the margin development in the Brands segment?

[Katrine Klaveness, executive]

So the Brands segment is developing well. As you know, the Lang business increased prices end of half year, which, of course, then affects gross margins for most retailers in a positive way. So we expect to see continued strong development in -- the development in Brands.

[Unknown Executive]

Okay, next. So how much working capital you expect to release in the second half of 2023?

[Katrine Klaveness, executive]

So as mentioned, Q1 is a capital-intensive quarter. We harvest a lot, almost 20,000 tons, selling only half of that. So throughout Q2 and Q3, the krill mill will balance back to a balance of supply and demand, while we continue to build down the krill oil inventory in Houston. As Matts just said, we will have limited extraction or production in Houston also for the second quarter, meaning that we expect to release quite significant inventory throughout the year. In addition, we also have the factoring agreement in place, both for Brands and Ingredients segment to make sure that we can release cash from increased sales and customer receivables.

[Unknown Executive]

So you said that you expect higher krill sales in the second quarter of 2023. What were the driver, volume or price?

[Matts Johansen, executive]

It will be a combination of both. So we expect both, higher volumes as we have more product availability from good harvesting last year and into this year, but also higher prices based on the price increases we did at the end of last year and holding that level and then when that anniversary, you'll get that effect on price as well.

[Unknown Executive]

And going on. Can you comment on the expected gross margin for Qrill Aqua and Superba for the second quarter of 2023 versus last year?

[Katrine Klaveness, executive]

So we haven't guided explicitly on the margins, only on sales. But as you know, we will -- or we have had more or less the same harvesting levels in Q1 this year as we had last year, which is the main driver of the Aqua margin in subsequent quarter. For Superba with low production in Houston and lower production than we had last year, both in Q1 and Q2, that of course, will affect negatively, the Superba margin. So when we ramp up the Houston production, that's where we will see a significant improvement in krill oil margins.

[Unknown Executive]

Yes, and a bit similar here. Regarding the limited production in Houston, how should we think of margins going forward? Will COGS in the Ingredients segment remain elevated? And when do you believe production will resume?

[Katrine Klaveness, executive]

So yes, I guess I answered that earlier. So as long as Houston stay on a low level, this will, of course, increase unit cost and hence, the COGS for Superba. And when the ramp-up will start in Houston? Depends very much on sales development, particularly in the South Korea market.

[Unknown Executive]

So changing subject here a bit. So you guided for cost savings of USD 10 million. How is this progressing?

[Katrine Klaveness, executive]

So we are tracking well on plan for the improvement program and are very kind of happy with the progress that we're seeing so far. We have also added new initiatives during the first quarter that will add to the benefits already mentioned. So we see good results of this program and in the Q&A -- no, sorry, the SG&A already this quarter, we are able to keep costs at a flat level compared to Q1 last year despite higher sales.

[Unknown Executive]

The plant in [ Xi ] is planned to begin producing in 2023. Do you have any indications on sales of protein powder for 2023? Have you entered any partnerships or got any indication of demand?

[Matts Johansen, executive]

Yes. So we'll start doing commercial production in [ Xi ] in this summer. And we also expect to have the first orders with customers later this year. Volumes will be limited, because it will take time for the customers to get their product produced on the shelf and ready-to-consumer. So you wouldn't expect large revenues in 2023. But at the same time, we have good indications from the market that it's an attractive product in a market of strong growth, looking for innovation. So we expect to sell out that capacity fairly fast.

[Unknown Executive]

And then, can you comment on how harvesting has been so far in the second quarter? And how do you expect this to develop through the rest of the year giving year-to-date harvest volumes?

[Matts Johansen, executive]

Yes. So April has started really well, much better than we anticipated. So the vessels got full very quickly, while our logistical boat was down in South America to do offload of the first quarter harvesting. So we have to wait for it to come back. So that's a luxury problem, but a good start of the second quarter. But it's too early to conclude before the year is finished, and we can see how it ended.

[Unknown Executive]

All right. Can you say anything on the fixed cost based on the Houston operation? What is the run rate fixed cost of Houston in USD million?

[Katrine Klaveness, executive]

So we don't comment specifically on that cost. But of course -- I mean, we have communicated earlier that about 60% of the Houston cost base is fixed. We have, of course, tried to push that down as much as possible while the Houston is now in the shutdown phase, but we won't comment specifically on that figure.

[Unknown Executive]

And that was actually the last question.

[Matts Johansen, executive]

So with that, we thank you all for participating here with us today and looking forward to meet you next quarter.