Borregaard ASA

OSE:BRG

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q2

[Per Arthur Sørlie, President & CEO]

Good morning, and welcome to this second quarter 2021 presentation for Borregaard. My name is Per Sørlie. I'm the CEO of the company. And I will be joined this morning by our Chief Financial Officer, Per Bjarne Lyngstad, and we will take you through the following agenda, where I'll go through the highlights from the quarter, the business segments and the market situation, the outlook for the remainder of the year. And then Per Bjarne will take over and take you through the financial performance in more detail.First, on the highlights. We reported an all-time high EBITDA for a single quarter of NOK 416 million. This is compared to NOK 361 million in the same quarter last year, which was actually the previous all-time high. We delivered a very strong performance in BioSolutions. We had an improved product mix and high deliveries in BioMaterials, quite a large negative net currency impact because of the strengthening of the Norwegian kroner year-on-year. And we also delivered a strong cash flow that led to a better leverage ratio. And finally, we completed the construction of the increased biovanillin capacity, which has now been put into operation on time and within cost.First, let's see -- look at the BioSolutions market side. The average price in sales currency came up 18% compared to the same quarter last year. I should remind you that the Norwegian kroner was particularly weak in the second quarter last year, and the difference in currency value is actually 14%. So that's why when we look at the average gross sales price curve in the upper left-hand corner, you will see that the prices in Norwegian kroner is up just below 4%. But like we have reported in sales currency, it's up actually 18%. And there are 3 different factors: first of all, there are price increases across a number of product segments; and there is a favorable product mix in the quarter; and also we sold less volume and the volumes that were dropped in the portfolio were the lowest priced volumes. So technically, you also generate a price increase by a -- through a reduced volume.Then to follow-on to the sales volume. The sales volume came in at 100,000 tonnes, which is 6% below the same quarter last year. And of course, this is still the effect of the reduced raw material supply through the closure of the South African operation and also the Spanish operation, which took place at the end or at the beginning -- end of the first quarter last year. We -- this was partly -- the effect of these reduced raw material supply was partly offset by increased volume out of Florida, but also in this particular quarter inventory reductions. We also had no raw material deliveries from Park Falls, the former Flambeau River Papers in Wisconsin throughout this quarter. This business area had also a significant negative foreign exchange impact in the quarter. This is the business area that where a lot of disruption took place last year. And at the Capital Markets Day in September last year, we sort of introduced a revised strategy for the business area. So I would like to take a few minutes to remind you of how we operate this business area right now. The new supply situation, which seems to be permanent, is also an opportunity to sharpen the strategy. Previously, we were operating this business area under a dual strategy with both volume driven part and also a specialization part in the strategy. Now we are fully focused on specializing and creating more value in this business area in the new supply situation. So basically, the priorities are, first of all, specialization, both through innovation but also through market development and market penetration, geographic penetration, if you like. And the basis for this is to drive value growth based on our expertise and also the sustainable solutions that we can offer to the market. At the same time, we want to balance the market risk by diversifying the product portfolio. But again, the focus will be on the high value-added applications and where we have more stable demand and stable growth and where there is a preference for sustainable solutions. So the effect of this means that we will reduce the exposure to the low end of the product portfolio and cyclical markets. And this is what is ongoing -- this process is ongoing as we speak. And we started to see results from this, both in the first quarter and even stronger in the second quarter. Let me also remind you that we have invested close to NOK 0.5 billion in the Norwegian biorefinery here in Sarpsborg, where we have particularly valuable raw material for biopolymers. So we want to leverage this high-value raw material and use our unique technology and increase the specialization capacity. And this is also what we are benefiting from in this situation that we have made these investments in some years ago that are now available and can be used to increase the specialization in the business. And finally, a part of the specialization is also linked to the biovanillin capacity. And like I just mentioned earlier, we have now completed the construction phase here and the capacity is available. And we will phase it into the market as the market allows going forward.Then let me turn to BioMaterials. Second, or I may say, even third consecutive quarter of high deliveries in this business area. And this, of course, means that we have to sell part of this from our inventories as we regularly produce between 150,000 and 160,000 tonnes per year. So the two -- the first half of this year has very high deliveries even compared to our normal production rate. We can also report that we have an improved product mix, and this has compensated to a large extent for the slightly reduced sales prices that we see for certain grades, and the average price in sales currency in this particular quarter was 3% lower than the same quarter last year. Then again, let me remind you about the big difference in currency rates between this quarter and the same quarter last year. In this particular business area, this accounts for 11.5%, the currency alone. So if you look at the Norwegian sales curve here, price curve, this is down 14.5%. But out of that, roughly 3 percentage points will be the lower prices in sales currency. In this business area, then, of course, because of these currency fluctuations, also a negative foreign exchange impact.Then on to the Fine Chemical markets. We had a weaker -- as you can see, overall, a very high sales in this quarter. As we reminded you last quarter, when we had low sales, we said that this is not an indication that there is a market-related problem and the sales came back to even high level in the second quarter. The weaker product mix in Fine Chemical intermediates, however, has an impact on the bottom line. Bioethanol sales volume increased. We have a strong demand and slightly higher prices to the biofuel market. But let me also remind you that in the second quarter last year, the bioethanol sales and profits, not least, were highly positively affected by the sales into disinfectants, which was -- is a nonrecurring revenue that was driven by the COVID-19 pandemic at the time. Then I will complete my first part of the presentation with the outlook in BioSolutions. For the full year, we expect the volume to decrease by between 10% and 15%. And this will -- the reason for this range is that it will mainly depend on the raw material supply, how that will evolve in the second half. The sales volume in the second half will be lower -- is expected to be lower than what we saw in the first half. So it's -- and this is partly -- like I already mentioned, that we sold some volumes out of inventory in the second quarter this year. The new biovanillin capacity is available, but it will be gradually phased into the market as the market allows. But the market is stable, I would say, positively stable at the moment. BioMaterials. The average price in sales currency is expected still to be 2% to 3% below the 2020 level. Of course, here, we have contracted volumes for the calendar year. The full year sales volume is expected to increase from last year due to the high deliveries and the inventory reduction that we had in the first half '21. So the increase year-on-year has -- most of it has already been delivered through the relatively high deliveries that we have seen in the first half. The share of highly specialized grades will be higher than last year. But just to caution you that all of that will not come down to the bottom line because a more specialized portfolio also means higher manufacturing costs on average. The wood cost, the lower wood costs is expected to continue and will, to a large extent, compensate for the higher energy costs that we are seeing in this calendar year and also the higher freight rates that we expect in the second half. In Cellulose Fibrils, we have a positive sales growth, and we expect that to continue. We also expect the new business development customer trials to increase as we gradually get out of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Fine Chemicals, we don't expect any changes -- major changes in the market conditions, either for the Fine Chemical intermediates or for the bioethanol. We cannot exclude that there will be further consequences from the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though things are normalized in several of our markets, we are a global company servicing all parts of the globe. And of course, there are still a lot of areas where there is a significant impact from the COVID-19 pandemic.So with that, I will conclude my presentation and hand over to Per Bjarne Lyngstad.

[Per Bjarne Lyngstad, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Per, and good morning, everyone. In the second quarter, Borregaard's operating revenues increased by 11% compared with the second quarter last year due to high deliveries in most business areas. EBITDA increased by NOK 55 million to an all-time high of NOK 416 million. We had a significant improvement in BioSolutions. BioMaterials had a result in line with the second quarter last year, while Fine Chemicals had a decline. We also saw a strong production output at the Sarpsborg site in the quarter. The net currency effect was negative by NOK 45 million compared with the same quarter last year, mainly as a result of a 14% stronger Norwegian kroner using Borregaard's currency basket. The EBITDA margin was close to 1 percentage point higher than last year. Earnings per share ended at NOK 2.34, a significant improvement compared with the second quarter last year, which was affected by impairment of assets and restructuring costs, mainly related to the operation in South Africa.In BioSolutions, operating revenues increased by 8% compared with the second quarter last year. The discontinued raw material supply in South Africa and Spain resulted in 6% lower sales volume. However, the discontinued sales from the South African joint venture only had a limited impact on the top line because we apply the equity method for accounting of the joint venture in 2020. EBITDA increased by NOK 79 million to NOK 272 million. The significant EBITDA improvement was mainly due to price increases and a favorable product mix, partly offset by negative net currency effects. BioSolutions had a strong 31% EBITDA margin in the quarter, an increase of about 7 percentage points compared with the second quarter last year.High deliveries of Speciality Cellulose were the main reason for the 16% increase in BioMaterials operating revenues in the quarter. EBITDA was NOK 102 million, NOK 1 million above the second quarter last year. High deliveries of Speciality Cellulose and an improved product mix compensated for reduced sales prices for certain grades and a negative net currency impact. The effect of lower wood costs was largely offset by higher energy costs and increased freight rates. The EBITDA margin was about 21%, 3 percentage points below last year. Higher deliveries for both Fine Chemical intermediates and bioethanol resulted in an 18% increase in revenues for Fine Chemicals compared with the second quarter of 2020. However, EBITDA decreased by NOK 25 million to NOK 42 million. The second quarter last year was positively affected by high bioethanol sales to disinfectants. EBITDA in the second quarter this year was negatively affected by weaker product mix and higher raw material and energy costs for the Fine Chemical intermediates. Increased bioethanol sales volume and continued high bioethanol production volume with improved yield and lower costs had a positive impact on the result in Fine Chemicals. Also in Fine Chemicals, the net currency impact was negative. And the EBITDA margin was 27%, significantly below last year. The net currency impact on EBITDA was negative by approximately NOK 45 million compared with the second quarter last year. The negative impact came from, as I said, a stronger Norwegian kroner, which strengthened by approximately 14% compared with the same quarter last year using Borregaard's currency basket. In the second quarter last year, the Norwegian kroner was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and was historically weak. Higher-than-expected second quarter deliveries and therefore, lower hedging coverage contributed to a more negative net currency impact compared with our forecast from the first quarter report. Hedging losses were reduced to NOK 4 million compared with a loss of NOK 84 million in the second quarter last year, partly offsetting the negative impact from a stronger Norwegian kroner. Using currency rates as of yesterday, the net currency impact in the third quarter is estimated to be positive by NOK 5 million compared with the third quarter last year. The corresponding impact for the full year of 2021 is estimated to be minus NOK 50 million compared with the full year of 2020. We had a strong cash flow from operating activities in the second quarter, mainly due to the strong result. In addition, the net working capital was reduced in the quarter, mainly from inventory reductions. Investments were slightly below the level in the second quarter of 2020. The 2 projects contributing the most to investments spending so far this year are the upgrade of the chloralkali plant and the capacity expansion for biovanillin, both projects at the site in Sarpsborg.Net interest-bearing debt decreased by NOK 70 million in the second quarter despite the dividend payment of NOK 249 million in April. At the end of the second quarter, Borregaard was well capitalized with an equity ratio of 56% and a leverage ratio, which is net interest-bearing debt over EBITDA of 1.29.And that concludes today's presentation. If you have questions, please contact Borregaard's Investor Relations by phone or e-mail. Thank you for your attention.