Bewi ASA

OSE:BEWI

Hello, and welcome to the presentation of the results for the fourth quarter of 2024 for BEWI. My name is Christian Bekken, and together with me, as always, our CFO, Marie Danielsson. In addition, I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce Stein Inge Liasjo, who is the Chief Strategy Officer at BEWI. He will update us on the transactions.

Today, we will touch upon three things: one, the markets, we see organic growth; two, we have a solid progress within Circular; and we'll also talk about strategic transactions.

This quarter, we have organic growth in both the top line and EBITDA for the first time in 9 quarters. We are seeing increased volumes in insulation in Q4, and these trends grow stronger into this year. Volume-wise, we also have an increase in fish boxes this quarter. Although this will variate between quarters, we expect an overall growth in the fish box volumes from '24 to '25. Both downstream segments have done a great job with what we call price management, which isn't just about adjusting prices, but also about choosing to say no to unprofitable volumes.

Back in 2021, we set an ambitious target of collecting 45,000 tonnes of used EPS in 2024, meaning this year. We didn't reach this target, or we haven't reached this target yet. Still, we are very proud of what we have accomplished. Last year, we collected 35,000 tonnes of used EPS. 35,000 tonnes, this is the equivalent of 95 fully loaded trucks every single day of the year, filled with empty fish boxes. This marks an increase of nearly 30% from last year and more than any other player in the industry. And I would like to point out how important it is for us to continue to increase our effort to recycle what we produce. That's the equivalent of 95 fully loaded trucks every single day of the year filled with empty fish boxes. This marks an increase of nearly 30% from last year and are more than any other player in the industry.

And I would like to point out how important it is for us to continue to increase our effort to recycle what we produce. Let there be no doubt, BEWI will continue to grow in recycling. We are the only company in our industry that controls the full value chain from production of raw materials and end products in downstream to collection and recycling in Circular, taking responsibility of the whole life cycle of our products.

Last week, we announced the merger of BEWI RAW with a Dutch raw material company, Unipol. This transaction, along with the packaging transaction we announced in October, positions us for further growth in higher-margin segments.

And then to the numbers. This overview shows reported number for business, excluding RAW and traded food packaging. The net sales for the fourth quarter came in at EUR 191 million, up 3% from last year, which we are pleased with. The EBITDA was EUR 19 million, excluding RAW and trading, up by 10% from the same quarter last year; and with an EBITDA margin of 9.7%, also up by 0.5 percentage point. We are making progress across all these numbers. This is a result of several factors. It reflects the impact of the strategic decisions we have made, we benefit from all the right actions we have taken operationally in challenging times, and the market has turned and it's growing.

Looking at the numbers for the total operations, also including RAW, like you are used to, EBITDA came in at EUR 20 million for the quarter. The recent transactions lift our EBITDA level, which we will continue to lift, bringing us closer to the financial target we have at 15%.

Then let's look at the operational highlights for our segments, starting with the upstream units, RAW and Circular. As mentioned, we are merging RAW with Unipol. The joint venture will become the most cost-efficient producer in Europe and the one with by far best recycled offering. This benefits all divisions in BEWI. Last quarter, we announced a comprehensive cost-cutting program in RAW, targeting annual savings of EUR 6 million, supporting this strategy. The measures were implemented as planned in Q4, and we expect to see some results from this already now in Q1. We see large synergies from this merger and the joint venture will continue to grow. Stein Inge will come back to this more in his slides.

In the quarter, our raw material factories were certified under Operation Clean Sweep. Operation Clean Sweep is a recognized global initiative that helps companies, preventing plastic from ending up in the environment.

And then to Circular. We are increasing collection by nearly 30% in 2024, reaching 35,000 tonnes. We are very proud of this and plan to increase even further in the years to come. We will, for sure, reach our target on 45,000 tonnes in '25, but we will also continue towards our goal of 60,000 tonnes. We are also seeing record high sales of recycled GPPS in the quarter.

I'm especially pleased to see how much we have increased the use of recycled material in our own downstream, bringing us to the insulation in 2024. In 2024, we have increased the use of recycled material in our own production by 77%, meaning that we are in front of our competitors in this change. As mentioned, we are now seeing volume growth in most regions. This is especially good, taking into account that we are operating at a much lower cost level across the organization.

Finally, a look at our packaging business. Packaging has exposure to various end markets, with seafood being the most significant. The slaughter volumes in the seafood industry directly impact the number of EPS boxes sold. Also in 2024, volumes were clearly stronger in the second half than in the first half. And this trend seems likely to continue in 2025 with even higher volumes. And things are going well in nearly every part of this business now. Even in HVAC, we see some small improvements from relatively low levels, and we have high expectation for this market going forward. We announced this transaction with STOK last quarter, and we expect to complete it in the first quarter.

Then I leave the word to you, Stein Inge.

Thank you, Christian. Just quickly introducing myself. Since November, I've been heading up what we call the strategic functions in BEWI. That includes strategy and M&A. And before this, I led the Packaging & Components division. So I bring a very operational mindset to the table. I've been 4 years with BEWI.

Last week, we made public the merger between our RAW division and Unipol. With this move, we go from the 3 production facilities we have today to 4, and we create a very competitive and large player in the market. Christian mentioned the cost saving program in RAW, which, together with the expected synergies, will make the joint venture the most effective producer of EPS. In general, we expect synergies of around 2% of revenue in our transactions, meaning at least EUR 8 million in this case.

No other player comes close to having access to equal amounts of recycled feedstock. This makes the company the most sustainable in the market and gives BEWI a strong competitive advantage with a low-carbon offering. We're establishing this as a true joint venture with joint control and solid corporate governance in place. And let me be clear, BEWI has eternity as perspective for our ownership in RAW. We are fully committed to developing this business further in the new structure. And remember that growth in downstream, whether it's organic through market rebound or strategic through acquisitions, both of them lead to increased demands for raw materials delivered from the JV. Additionally, increased collection in Circular will also increase the low-carbon feedstock in the joint venture.

The transaction enables a reallocation of resources towards higher-margin segments. We expect to release EUR 75 million in the transaction. And summing up, in other words, we get the best from two worlds, strengthening RAW and strengthening BEWI.

Based on the 2024 figures, the joint venture has a turnover of EUR 400 million. This is on volumes that are 20% lower than the average of the last 5 years. And we expect already now in 2025 to see the volumes growing, and we also expect the JV to deliver dividends from year 1.

On the right-hand side of the graph, we see that the results in BEWI's RAW division has been very volatile with 2 exceptionally good years in '21 and '22. On average, RAW has delivered 8% EBITDA the last 10 years. And also in the graph, we show the historic margins on our downstream segments where we expect to grow.

The joint venture will be investment light and have very little debt in the structure. We expect the profitability to significantly increase from today's level as market rebounds and the effects of both cost savings and synergies occur. And we've done this before, both with Synbra and with Jackon, so we're confident that the process will go well and the expected results will come.

Our clear expectation is that the joint venture will be in a position to pay solid dividends going forward. And we also expect to book capital gains on the transaction around EUR 100 million based on the low book value for our RAW business.

When we have crunched the numbers on this transaction, we have estimated that the pro forma 2024 EBITDA margin would increase from 9% to 9.8%, when including our share of net profits from associates. Leverage will go down from 4.5 to 3.6 when we take in the proceeds from both the sale of the trading business, the RAW joint venture and working capital improvements. You know that part of this is, of course, an earn-out, which will materialize over some time, but this is our high-level calculation. And as you know, leverage is an equation with two parts and an increase in EBITDA, which we maybe expect going forward, will, of course, impact heavily. Of course, the same goes for a reduction in EBITDA.

We continue to make progress on the most important areas for long-term growth. We will increase the collection and use of recycled materials. BEWI is leading the way, creating a great competitive advantage. Secondly, cost levels are adjusted. We're coming stronger out of difficult times. We always need to be best-in-class on cost. We're also capitalizing on the investments already done and have limited needs for new big investments to capture market growth. We can ramp up production on very short notice. We have strengthened our financial position, and we'll continue to do that, but also be ready to move when opportunities come.

And finally, we've done 2 transactions, reducing exposure to certain markets. Going forward, we will increase exposure to high-growth, higher-margin segments such as insulation.

Then Marie, you will take us through the financials.

Thank you, Stein Inge. Then we look more closely to the financials, and we start with the full year.

We went into 2024 in a declining market. And even if we, during the year, have noticed signs of improvement, the fact is that we have had negative organic growth in all the segments in the first 3 quarters. And now in the first quarter, we had opposite. Now we have positive organic growth in all our continuing operations.

So what we have done then in this year is, of course, that we have been adapting to the market situation, we have had a strong focus on the price management. We have adjusted capacity. We have reduced cost base, and we have strengthened our balance sheet. And this means that even if this has been a year with lower volumes and lower sales, we have been able to keep the margins rather stable. They have gone from 9.5% to 9.3%.

And I think it's also worth mentioning here, you can see that most of the lost earnings is in Insulation & Construction and more than 50 percentage of this loss is coming from our joint ventures that operate in Germany and France, and those markets has been extremely tough. So if you exclude that, margins are actually improving in 2024.

Then mentioned, if we go then to the fourth quarter, now we have organic growth in all our segments, in all the continuing segments. And sales is up 3%. It ends at EUR 190.7 million. And we are happy that volumes again are growing in Insulation & Construction. We also have good sales in the fish boxes. We have good sales in the components to the automotive industry. And with this, EBITDA ends at EUR 18.6 million. It's 10% higher than last year. And you can see that we have a positive development in Packaging & Components, in Circular, but we do have a reduced contribution from Insulation. And this is explained by product mix and also lower contribution from the associated companies.

If we then look more closely to the segments, and I will make a few comments to RAW even if this now is reported as discontinued. We do have lower volumes in the fourth quarter in RAW, and that is contradictive then to what we experienced in our own downstream. This is due to regional market differences. And we also have had low sales in December, following that customers have been very cautious on inventory buildup.

When you look at the EBITDA, this is not high in the fourth quarter, basically explained by two different things. You might recall from last quarter that we had low sales in September. This was following that there was an expectation on falling market prices into October. That happened, styrene prices actually fell with 15 percentage. There was an expectation then also, of course, that the selling prices should drop similar. So October month, it's a good month from a volume perspective. Sales prices dropped. We had higher prices in inventory, so margin squeeze. And then back to that we did have low sales in December.

Circular. In Circular, we have increased sales of approximately 10%. And this is driven by internal sales, and that is driving the increase. And as mentioned earlier in this presentation, we use more and more recycled material internally. And this is a consequence from all the recent investments that we have done in RAW and in Circular that we can actually use recycled material in-house, so to say. EBITDA is still negative, but it is up from the third quarter, it is also up if you compare to the fourth quarter last year.

Moving into downstream then, starting with Insulation. And again, sales is up, it's at best 2 percentage, but volumes are now increasing, and that brings confidence that the market slowly recovers. EBITDA is still decreasing. We lose EUR 1 million. And we can conclude that the margins are affected by product mix. We sell more on renovation applications. We have lower margins in into this market. And I mean, even if the market is improving slowly, the competition is still extremely hard. So there is a fight for the volumes, pushing pressure to the margins.

And then again, the joint ventures, the associated company in Germany and France that directly impacts the margins negatively then. As we have already mentioned in the third quarter, and that stands into the fourth quarter, it is very nice to see that where the market has been the toughest, and that is the Nordics and also in Germany, and where we have had the biggest turnarounds, those are now the markets that contributes the most in relation to last year.

If we move into Packaging & Components, now trading operation is taken out from this. The sales has increased 4% compared to last year. This is coming from mentioned then fish boxes and also the components that we sell into the automotive industry. EBITDA and margins, they are improving as well. And this is partly driven by the factors that impacts the top line. And of course, the fish boxes, that we have good sales in fish boxes, impacts the EBITDA good. But even more fun is that we have lower sales in our industrial segments, but those units, they are contributing even more to the EBITDA. And that is coming back to that we have been working on price management. We have been working on reducing cost base. And all of this then drives improving results even with the lower volumes. And this compensates for some lower contribution in the automotive segment.

Moving into the consolidated income statement, and a few things that I would like to highlight. This is the total income statement, but discontinued operation is reported just on one line. If you look at raw materials and goods for resales, now as a percentage of sales, that is approximately 45% and that is lower compared to what it has been, and that follows that trading and RAW is now reported below. And RAW and trading, they have a higher share of material in their bill of material. And then you have the opposite then on external costs where the percentage will increase for the same reason then as RAW and trading is out.

If you look at personnel, it's pretty in line with last year. It has increased, following inflation and changes to FTEs. I would also like to mention depreciations. It has increased a bit. That follows recent investments, but it's also a consequence from that we have divested real estate. So part of rent is reported as depreciations. And in the end, this means that EBIT is increasing and it ends at EUR 0.7 million.

In the financial net, you will find that we have a revaluation of the bond of EUR 1.2 million, and this is a consequence from that we didn't reach the sustainability performance target, and an additional EUR 0.7 million that will be accounted for over the remaining term of the bond, which then is until September '26. The net interest cost, if you exclude this revaluation and ex IFRS, that has actually decreased approximately 5% compared to last year.

Then we move into cash flow. Operating cash flow in the quarter amounts to EUR 33 million. And this is basically coming all from positive working capital development. And it's a mix from the normal working capital release that we always have in the fourth quarter and also that we have extended the receivable financing scheme.

Not visible in this presentation, but what I would like to bring your attention to is that inventory has been reduced with EUR 13 million in the year, and that corresponds to approximately a reduction of 10%. And this is a focus area, and we continue, of course, to focus on this.

If you add the operating cash flow for all the 4 quarters in '24, you will come to a number of EUR 85 million in operating cash flow. And then, of course, EUR 55 million of this is related to the receivable financing scheme. But nevertheless, EUR 30 million positive operating cash flow in this tough year, which we are proud of.

And then last on CapEx, I think well-known is that we have said that we target to not spend more than EUR 20 million this year. We have taken strategic decisions in automotive. We have great customer initiatives and contracts. And that means that we have invested in automotive, approximately EUR 11 million. So if we adjust for CapEx spend of EUR 32 million for what's in automotive, we are closer to the EUR 20 million. And as you can see, nevertheless, we have reduced the CapEx significantly if you compare to 2022 and 2023, and we will continue to be restrictive on CapEx into 2025 as well.

Finally, then before I leave the word back to Christian, if we look at the capital structure, we have said it before, and it's no secret that the balance sheet has been too big in relation to current earnings and the leverage has been above the target for a while. And this comes from, obviously, back in 2022, we acquired many companies. We basically became twice the size. Most of those acquisitions were closed in the fourth quarter when the market started to decline, heavily impacting leverage and also impacting the return on capital employed.

But we have been focusing on the balance sheet. We have been able to reduce net interest-bearing debt ex IFRS with EUR 67 million in this year. And this is, of course, following all the operational measures that we have been running: the restructuring schemes; we have been conscious on cost; we have been reducing CapEx; we have been working on the working capital; we have divested real estate; and on top of that, we have the receivable purchasing scheme. And cash end of the year, EUR 73 million. And on top of that, we have an additional EUR 30 million in available facilities.

Leverage is increasing slightly in the fourth quarter, and that's back to that even if in the continuing operation, it's improving the earnings. If we take in the total operation, which this calculation is based upon, it is slightly declining. But I would like then to refer back to the slides that Stein Inge presented here earlier that you need also to take into consideration what the transaction now, how they will impact the balance sheet and that we look upon further reduction in the leverage.

So with that, I leave the word back to Christian.

Thanks, Marie. Now let's move on to our strategy and outlook.

Repeating our long-term view, we have strong ambitions for growth. And we believe that the biggest growth will come from the need for more energy-efficient buildings. We believe this will be an exceptionally strong market in the long-term perspective. Although the latest transaction don't contribute to increase the revenues, they will increase our exposure to the building efficiency opportunity and put us in position to capture new strategic opportunities.

We have a proven business model, and now we are accelerating growth across our value chain. For RAW, we joined forces with Unipol, making us bigger and more cost efficient and ready to grow with BEWI downstream and other customers. For downstream, we see organic growth and we free up capital for new acquisitions, also benefiting again then RAW. And we will continue to grow our Circular, providing feedstock to RAW and enabling low carbon solution for downstream. Of course, this will benefit all our end customers.

We are now in a good position for long-term growth. We strengthened our focus on markets with strong fundamentals. We have adjusted cost and capacity throughout the group. We have the capacity for much more volume across all divisions without needing to invest more. We have strengthened our balance sheet. Plus, we have a clear growth strategy and solid targets.

And to sum up, the markets are growing, and we see increased volumes in Insulation, especially. We increase collection and use of recycled materials, and we do strategic transaction to position ourselves for growth.

And with that, I'll leave the word to you, Charlotte, for questions.

I'm going to say this in English. We have an English webcast. We will do the Norwegian questions in Norwegian here in the audience. And if there are any English questions, we will do those.

So I will start with the first question from the webcast. No, I'm going to do that in Norwegian. [Foreign Language]

[Foreign Language]