Hexagon Purus ASA

OSE:HPUR

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Mathias Meidell, executive]

Hi, and welcome to Hexagon Purus Q3 2022 Presentation. My name is Mathias Meidell, and I am the Director of Investor Relations in Hexagon Purus, and I will be moderating from the studio here in Oslo.

From the studio, I'm also joined by company's CEO, Morten Holum; and via Teams from his home office, company CFO, Dilip Warrier.

The agenda for today includes highlights from the quarter, a company update, the financials, and the outlook. [Operator Instructions]

So with that, I will pass over the word to you, Morten, who will take us through the highlights of the quarter.

[Morten Holum, executive]

Thank you, Mathias. And good morning to all of you following our webcast. Thanks for dialing in this morning. We've put another solid quarter behind us and look forward to sharing the Q3 results with you today.

Key highlights. Number one, we continue with the strong revenue growth as we move closer to our target for the year. Number two, we continue to have strong commercial momentum, particularly in the hydrogen distribution business, where our order intake has grown by more than 100% from last year.

And this leads me to number three, we now have an order book of around NOK 1.3 billion. The majority of that, around 70%, related to hydrogen distribution, and a good portion of it is for 2023 delivery. I'll come back to that shortly.

But first, revenue. Starting on the left, revenue in Q3 was NOK 222 million, which is up 115% from Q3 last year and 61% higher than last year on a pro forma basis. In the middle, you can see that our LTM revenue curve continues to rise upwards and is now standing at NOK 850 million.

And in terms of order book, we have now collected firm purchase orders in the amount of NOK 1.3 billion. 25% percent of those are for delivery this year, so little more than NOK 300 million. And this is more than enough to take us to the targeted NOK 900 million in revenue for the full year. So there's no demand risk in our target.

And the main part of the order book is for delivery in 2023. And I'm pleased to see that we already, in Q3, have collected firm purchase orders for next year amounting to around NOK 1 billion, which bodes well for continued revenue growth also in 2023.

As we have seen in the previous quarters, the main revenue growth was in the hydrogen distribution business, mainly deliveries to the large industrial gas companies. For the other segments, we saw growth in rail with deliveries to the Alstom and Stadler programs, and in heavy-duty truck with preproduction cylinders delivered to Nikola. We also had growth in transit bus, which we mentioned last quarter that we also expected.

And please note that this revenue work is on a pro forma basis. So we find that to be a more relevant measurement of underlying growth since we did not have the Wystrach business in our portfolio in Q3 last year.

Besides hydrogen distribution, which is in the early serial stage and on the secular growth path, the other segments will still be a bit up and down between the quarters until they reach the commercial stage.

Overall, the third quarter was broadly in line with our expectations. Demand continues to increase, but the supply chain continues to be challenging to manage. We do see some sign of easing, but we also experienced that some deliveries scheduled for Q3 were pushed into Q4, which makes for a very busy last quarter of the year. But we're tracking well towards our year-end target.

Distribution remains our main growth driver at the moment, as one of the few areas that has already reached the commercial stage. We had strong order intake in hydrogen distribution in the quarter, and you can really see it kicking in from the summer and onwards.

As the effects of the Ukraine war are becoming increasingly clear, and the consequences of the war and of climate change are starting to sink in, people recognize and understand that there is a strong need to accelerate the energy transition. That's what we hear from our customers, and we see it in how they are positioning themselves for a much higher volume of hydrogen to be transported in the coming years.

Looking at the numbers, they're quite convincing. The year-to-date value of purchase orders is close to NOK 0.5 billion, more than twice that of last year. And our capacity in that business is now fully booked through 2023. And if you remember back to our Q2 presentation, we entered the quarter with around 60% coverage for '23 and now ended the quarter fully booked.

We have already initiated the process to more than double our distribution module assembly capacity in Wystrach. And this expansion project is scheduled to be completed in Q3 next year.

The robust commercial momentum in hydrogen distribution is further demonstrated by the recently announced commercial cooperation between Hexagon Purus and Lhyfe, one of the pioneers in the production of green hydrogen in Europe. Lhyfe is an early mover, that's already today producing green hydrogen for both industrial and mobility purposes. And they're expecting demand to rapidly increase in the coming years due to the acceleration of the ongoing energy transition.

This commercial cooperation will enable Lhyfe to distribute green hydrogen to their customers in Europe using Hexagon Purus technology, the most cost-efficient and preferred technology for both distribution of compressed hydrogen. Making green hydrogen available and affordable is a key necessity to increase the adoption of hydrogen for both industry and mobility, of course.

This agreement adds to an already strong list of commercial agreements that we've made over the past 2 years. And these agreements give us better revenue visibility in the near to medium term.

And I'd also like to add that Mitsui, which is a shareholder in both Lhyfe and Hexagon Purus, they played an important facilitating role in the relationship between Lhyfe and Purus. So this also serves as a good example of how the industrial partnership between Mitsui and Hexagon Purus adds value to our business.

Another recent example is the ZE PAK Group, which is Poland's largest private electricity producer. They're currently going through an ambitious transformation from being mainly a coal-based energy supplier to being a renewable energy producer and supplier of hydrogen infrastructure and mobile applications, basically covering the full hydrogen value chain to support Poland's ambitious hydrogen strategy.

Our core hydrogen storage technology plays an integral role in ZE PAK's transformation by delivering hydrogen storage technology for distribution, mobile refueling, and transit buses. We have industry-leading technology and capabilities, and our relationship with ZE PAK is a great demonstration of the versatility of our core technology and how it addresses several different customer needs.

And yesterday, we signed a multiyear supply agreement with CaetanoBus. The transit bus business is in the early commercial stage, and we expect volume to increase significantly in the coming years. We're already a proud supplier to Caetano, so this supply agreement serves to further formalize and cement our relationship. The agreement has an estimated value of EUR 35 million through 2025 and adds to our existing portfolio of customer agreements in the transit bus space.

In addition to the commercial momentum, we see growing momentum for hydrogen also on the regulatory side, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. So far, we've seen a lot of focus on targets and ambitions, but it now looks like we're moving into the execution phase where both the EU and U.S. governments are launching practical programs to specifically address some of the key challenges and roadblocks to hydrogen adoption.

And in September, 2 important funding programs were launched. The EU announced the creation of the European Hydrogen Bank, which will act as a market maker in the period before an efficient commercial market for hydrogen has been established. And in the U.S., the government launched a $7 billion program towards the creation of green hydrogen hubs across the country. This will help stimulate the development of an active green hydrogen market and will be supportive for our business.

And we also see important moves that address the chicken and egg problem around refueling, that you won't see adoption of hydrogen-powered vehicles until there are stations where you can get them fueled.

And there was an important event in Europe now where the European Parliament voted in support of a hydrogen-based green transition in the transportation sector with clear targets set for the number of refueling stations and the maximum distance between them. This will help establish and stimulate a Europe-wide network of hydrogen refueling stations.

Similarly, across the Atlantic, the Canada Infrastructure Bank launched a CAD 500 million initiative to establish a charging and refueling network to stimulate the adoption of zero-emission vehicles. So things are increasingly moving in a more practical direction.

At the end of August, Mitsui & Company made a NOK 70 million investment into Norwegian Hydrogen, becoming the second largest shareholder in the company. Norwegian Hydrogen plans to develop, to build and to operate green hydrogen production sites and establish an infrastructure for green hydrogen in the Nordics. Their first project, the Geirangerfjord hydrogen hub in Hellesylt is scheduled to start producing green hydrogen by the middle of next year.

Now I'm happy to see that green hydrogen projects are finally starting to move from the drawing board to becoming actual reality. We need hydrogen available at the pump before any meaningful adoption can happen.

Hexagon Purus is a shareholder in Norwegian Hydrogen and the investment from Mitsui triggered a reclassification of our shareholding, which in turn generated a onetime accounting gain of NOK 63 million in the quarter. Thus, we have gotten a nice valuation uplift on our shares in Norwegian Hydrogen.

And as I mentioned earlier, Mitsui has been and still is a good industrial partner for us, and we're confident that they will be a good industrial partner also for Norwegian Hydrogen.

So with that, I will hand the word over to Dilip, who will take you through the financials. Dilip?

[Dilip Warrier, executive]

Thank you, Morten. So Q3 revenue came in at NOK 222 million. This represented year-over-year growth of 115% on an actual basis and 61% on a pro forma basis if Wystrach was part of Hexagon Purus in 2021.

The year-over-year revenue growth was driven mostly by hydrogen distribution, while sequential revenue growth came from transit bus and heavy-duty, i.e., Nikola. We expect revenue will increase sequentially in Q4, driven by heavy-duty vehicle programs as well as hydrogen distribution applications.

Q3 EBITDA loss was $92 million, and that was driven by the continued scale-up costs we're taking in the business. It was in line with our expectations.

Wystrach now has generated NOK 394 million in revenue year-to-date, which is more than they generated all of last year, and it has been at a fairly steady 7% EBITDA margin, in line with our expectations.

Next slide, please. Here, we see the breakdown of revenue by application in the current quarter and the year-to-date. We've said this several times in past quarters, hydrogen distribution and transit bus have been the primary drivers of revenue.

With the acquisition of Wystrach, industrial gas bundles have also become a significant portion of our revenue captured in the other category. We do not expect this mix to remain stagnant. Over time, we expect that heavy-duty vehicles and distribution will drive the majority of revenue and industrial gas bundles will represent a much smaller portion of the overall business in the future.

And then on to our balance sheet. And we ended the quarter with about NOK 480 million of cash, slightly up from NOK 450 million at the end of last year, down from about NOK 700 million at the end of Q2. Overall, net working capital levels have increased, mainly driven by inventory, which reflects the expected pickup in Q4.

And then on to cash flows. Cash outflow from operations for the first 9 months were NOK 341 million, which included a working capital increase of NOK 71 million. Note that the investing cash flow included here, NOK 34 million for the acquisition of 40% of Cryoshelter. And then the financing cash flow reflects the NOK 600 million capital raise earlier this year in February.

And with that, I will turn it back to you, Morten.

[Morten Holum, executive]

All right. Thanks, Dilip. So on to the outlook. The outlook for 2022 remains unchanged. It's the same revenue and EBITDA guidance that we have given all year long. And for every quarter, we have increased our confidence that we will reach the target of NOK 900 million for 2022.

LTM revenue is already standing at NOK 850 million. And we've got a solid order book for Q4, as I mentioned earlier, around a little over NOK 300 million. So I don't see a demand risk for the NOK 900 million target.

The risk is more on the supply chain and execution side, but we've also got a good track record for managing that. So we're confident that we'll be able to meet our targets for the year.

And the new LTAs that we signed recently, they add to an already strong list of commercial agreements that will be executed in the coming years. We see that customers are increasing their projections, and when they're expecting higher volume in the future, they also try to secure their supply through long-term agreements and to book capacity with reliable suppliers. And for us, this improves our line of sight and it increases our confidence in our targets.

We've previously talked about our capacity expansion program. So I wanted to show you some pictures and give you an update on where we stand on that. So on the top left, you see the new greenfield cylinder production hub in Kassel, Germany. The roof is now on, so we can soon start moving in equipment and the facility will be ready by midyear 2023 and should be operational sometime in Q3 next year.

On the top right, you see the new cylinder production facility in Westminster, Maryland. It's a month or 2 behind schedule, but will be ready in Q1 next year.

Bottom left is our new battery and hydrogen systems facility in Kelowna, Canada. The construction there should be completed by Q1 so we can start installing equipment and begin the production ramp-up in the second quarter of next year.

And finally, on the bottom right, we have broken ground on our greenfield hydrogen cylinder and systems facility in China. This facility is also scheduled to be completed next year.

And as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, we have just kicked off the Wystrach capacity expansion program, which is scheduled to be completed sometime in Q3 next year. All these expansion projects are more or less on track, and we're really excited to see the new sites materializing. And when completed, this will give us more than sufficient revenue capacity to deliver on our 2025 revenue target.

And speaking of that, we're on track to deliver on that target. We've already addressed '22, so let's look at next year and beyond.

We have around NOK 1 billion worth of purchase orders in the book for 2023, so our confidence for next year has increased. Then the additional LTAs and increased projections from our customers have given us improved line of sight to the 2025 revenue target, now standing at roughly 2/3 coverage. The capacity expansion programs are also on track, giving us more than enough revenue capacity to reach the NOK 45 billion. So overall, we feel confident in our ability to execute our plans and meet the 2025 revenue target.

To sum it all up, we're well positioned to continue on our growth path with our industry-leading technology position as a starting point. We've got strong commercial momentum across the business. We operate in an increasingly supportive regulatory environment.

We're executing on our capacity expansion plans, and the success we've had with customers have given us a strong order book and a healthy collection of long-term commercial agreements that gives good line of sight to higher volume in future years. We've built a solid foundation. We've got forward momentum, and we're confident that we will succeed.

So that concludes our presentation for today, and we'll now open it up for Q&A. Mathias?

[Mathias Meidell, executive]

Thank you very much, Morten and Dilip. So I guess we can jump straight into the questions that we received. And the first one is for you, Dilip.

When will you turn cash flow positive? It's from [ Martin ].

[Dilip Warrier, executive]

I think we have consistently said that we're targeting NOK 4 billion to NOK 5 billion in revenue in 2025 or so. At that revenue level, we expect to be roughly EBITDA breakeven to slightly better.

In terms of true free cash flow positive, that's probably out a year or 2 from that, because keep in mind that we are a high-growth company, and working capital is going to be a significant use of cash. But we stand by our guidance to achieve EBITDA breakeven by the middle of the decade.

[Mathias Meidell, executive]

Thanks, Dilip. And I guess the second one here is for you as well. It's from Thomas Dowling Naess in Sparebank.

How much of this year's revenue was secured into a year? Or maybe more relevant, how much of 2023 revenue would you assume to be added to the current order book from now until 2023?

[Dilip Warrier, executive]

So let's see if I can answer this in a way that's helpful, Thomas. So we started the year -- and if I recall right, when we came out with Q4 results and guidance for 2022, of NOK 900 million in revenue. Our backlog at the time was about NOK 700 million, and we disclosed that in the presentation. So from where we sit, we feel pretty good about 2023 to have NOK 1 billion in coverage already.

[Mathias Meidell, executive]

Thank you, Dilip. And then a follow-up question here from -- not a follow up, but another question from Thomas.

What drove the significant uptick in your Q3 gross margin?

[Dilip Warrier, executive]

Yes, I think that's a question we keep talking about, Thomas. But to be honest, it is driven by product mix, and margin has been quite strong. There are also some balance sheet effects that we should talk about offline.

[Mathias Meidell, executive]

Thank you, Dilip. And then Morten, a question here from [ Martin ].

What is the share of battery related revenue compared to hydrogen related revenue? In which segment, battery/hydrogen, do you expect more growth for your business?

[Morten Holum, executive]

Yes. So at the moment, a lot of the business, as you've seen also in the results, is driven by the hydrogen side of things. And then there are sizable things ahead of us on the battery electric side as well. And what precise share that's going to be in the end stage, it's hard to say, because it moves a little bit between quarters and also between years.

And keep in mind that, again, the only business that's really in the commercial stage at the moment is the hydrogen distribution business and also partly the transit bus business, which is starting on that journey.

The other segments will be a little bit lumpy, because they're now about prototypes, test vehicles, test fleets, and so forth that it's being delivered. So it's not meaningful to talk about how much is this and how much is that in terms of a measure of what the future will look like.

But I think the way we think about our addressable market in the long term, the majority of our business, as we see it now, is going to be hydrogen related. But there is also a sizable battery business in North America. And keep in mind that even on the hydrogen truck, there is a sizable battery on there. And so, there is going to be a mix of both, most heavy I think on the hydrogen side in the end.

[Mathias Meidell, executive]

Thanks, Morten. And then a question from Haakon Amundsen in ABG.

You state you are fully booked in distribution in 2023. Does this mean that all incremental revenues in 2023 outside, was it what is in the current backlog of NOK 1 billion will need to come from other segments?

[Morten Holum, executive]

Yes, it means that we -- since we are fully booked, we don't have any more capacity in that business and the growth will then have to come from other areas.

Now as I mentioned, we are doing the expansion project, which we are running as fast as we can on, but likely it's going to be sometime in Q3 next year where that will be ready. So if we can steal a week or 2, there might be a possibility, but it's not going to be a meaningful change to what we have. So I think the majority of the other volumes -- or in the totality, it's other areas that will account for the growth.

[Mathias Meidell, executive]

Thank you. And then another question for you, Dilip from Thomas in Sparebank.

Are there any changes to the guided CapEx program for '22 and '23?

[Dilip Warrier, executive]

Yes. So look, I think we've provided some guidance on '22 through '24-ish CapEx. Generally speaking, there's been no change to the overall numbers. Timing can shift. It is notoriously difficult to predict the timing of CapEx outflows. But generally speaking, we are on track. We are executing to the programs that we've talked about, and therefore CapEx number shouldn't change.

[Mathias Meidell, executive]

Thanks, Dilip. And then a question from Joakim Pettersson in Danske Bank for you, Dilip.

We see stronger margin on distribution/Wystrach than on group level. How much of total sales EBITDA do you expect it would contribute to in coming quarters and for '23 and '24?

[Dilip Warrier, executive]

Yes. So look, we don't guide specifically on the Wystrach business unit. But as you can see, they have already generated NOK 392 million in revenue year-to-date. You could analyze that and you'll probably end up in somewhere north of NOK 500 million already this year. And then you can see that it has a pretty substantial pickup in distribution revenue next year, and all of this is profitable revenue.

[Mathias Meidell, executive]

Thanks, Dilip. And then a question for you, Morten from [ Henrik Salam ].

Can you describe the competitive environment, both products and companies?

[Morten Holum, executive]

Yes, it's quite a big question. But it's fair to say that there is now a tremendous pickup in customer interest for what we're doing. So right this moment, I think we are leading the pack on the technology side and on the readiness side when it comes to having the required technology background, having the practical experience with applications and use applications, and also having already an established legacy of being able to produce and deliver what we do also in larger volumes.

But needless to say, we expect the competitive environment to be also -- what we do and the curves ahead of time and how the growth looks that is going to attract new competitors to this market. We are quite calm on that. We are confident of our own abilities, and we need more competitors in the market for this industry to be able to develop and grow. So I'd say that competition at the moment, it's normal and quite healthy.

[Mathias Meidell, executive]

Thank you, Morten. And then I guess this question is for you as well. It's from [ Cyrus ].

So what does the backlog of NOK 1 billion mean when you have contracts with Toyota, Nikola, et cetera worth NOK 10 billion? Have they been canceled?

[Morten Holum, executive]

No. But when -- so it's important. When we talk about backlog here, we talk about confirmed purchase orders. So it's an order for a specific thing at a specific time. And so when you're involved in these kind of programs that are lasting for several years, you don't get purchase orders for all of those at any -- at the one time, so they get spread out.

And then the same with, when you have a long-term agreement, there is some forecast there that tells us about what the customers will be needing, but it's only the first portion of that, which actually translate into a purchase order. And so we try to be a little bit clear on that. When we say order backlog, it's confirmed. So there is no fluff in there. It's a clear legal agreement to produce and to deliver something to our customer.

[Mathias Meidell, executive]

Thank you, Morten. And then a question from [ Ivan Stepic ].

Do you receive energy from solar and hydrogen for the production, i.e., green energy? And how does the energy crisis in Europe affect Hexagon Purus at the moment? Dilip, Morten?

[Morten Holum, executive]

Yes. Maybe the energy crisis in Europe, that affects everybody, because energy is an input factor to almost everything. So we do see, of course, that our costs are increasing for several things. And so to that effect, it has an impact.

Our business is not particularly energy intensive. So there are certainly other industries that struggle a lot more with this than what we do. But needless to say, we are also working to remain cost competitive, reducing costs whenever we can and balancing that also with the other part, and the first part of your question, which is trying to increasingly move all of the energy we use in the renewable way.

[Mathias Meidell, executive]

Thank you, Morten. And then a question from [ Omnish ] here.

Please give an update on CIMC Enric, when can we expect revenues and how much?

[Morten Holum, executive]

Yes. So what we have said, and I think we mentioned this last quarter as well, we are somewhat delayed in China compared to our original plan back in the day when we announced it. But it's been quite clear that it's going to be 2024 before we will see any meaningful revenue from China. There might be some bits and pieces in 2023, but most likely, it's going to be 2024 until the large factory is ready and starting to churn out product.

[Mathias Meidell, executive]

Thank you, Morten. And then a question for you, Dilip from Helene in DNB.

How strong is the visibility on delivery timing for purchase orders placed?

[Dilip Warrier, executive]

Yes. So our backlog, I think as Morten covered it, right, we got NOK 1.3 billion of backlog and about 25% of that is for Q4. And then you've got 75% coverage now for 2023. As far as the -- 70% of that is distribution, and that is going to be spread out over the course of the year. So we're not sitting here and saying that our Q3 and Q4 is fully loaded. In fact, I just think that, generally speaking, 2023 -- we're not providing 2023 guidance at this point, but 2023 will be a back half loaded year as well.

[Mathias Meidell, executive]

Thank you, Dilip. And then I guess this question can also go to you. It's from [ Martin ] again.

Do you cover inflation effects in your agreements?

[Dilip Warrier, executive]

Yes, absolutely. The LTAs that we have cover commodity inflation. We have the ability to pass these costs on to customers. Even on a business that we don't have LTAs for, but we are providing on a purchase order basis, we are actively quoting with -- based on higher materials costs in our cost structure. So, absolutely.

[Mathias Meidell, executive]

Thank you, Dilip. And I think that was the last question for today. So I would like to -- on behalf of the whole Hexagon Purus team, thank you, everyone for tuning in this morning, and I wish you all a good rest of the day. Goodbye from Oslo.