Leroy Seafood Group ASA

OSE:LSG

Earnings Call Transcript 2018-Q3

[Henning Kolbjørn Beltestad, Group CEO]

Welcome to Lerøy Seafood Group's Third Quarter Presentation 2018. My name is Henning Beltestad, I'm the CEO of Lerøy Seafood Group. Together with me today, I have, Sjur Malm, CFO in Lerøy Seafood Group. First of all, I will take you through some highlights in the quarter, then Sjur will take you through the key financial figures, and then I will come back and talk a little bit about the market outlook and the supply and demand. Third quarter, it's been a good quarter with NOK 660 million in EBIT. Harvested volume is 37,000 tonne. EBIT all-inclusive of NOK 16.6, exclusive of Havfisk and Lerøy Norway Seafood. We have had contract share of 25%. And net interest-bearing debt of NOK 3.1 billion. Harvest guidance of 166,000 tonnes. And expected cash volume in Havfisk is about 65,000 tonne. If we look at the quarterly historical figures, we see that we have had -- the first 2 quarters of the year has been very high and this quarter is a little bit lower, and we also see the same at the EBIT per kilo, all-inclusive. We are reporting into 3 different segment: Farming, Wild Catch and VAP, Sales and Distribution, and we start with some highlights from the Farming side. The NSI third quarter prices, it's around NOK 55 and same quarter last year is about NOK 56.40. Compared to second quarter this year, the price is down by NOK 14 and down by NOK 2 compared to the same quarter last year. The trout price achievement is below the salmon in this quarter. Main reason for that is lower average weight of the trout in this quarter, but we expect the average weight to be higher going forward. The contract price is above the prices -- above the spot prices. The cost is down quarter-on-quarter and also year-on-year, and we also expect a positive cost development going forward. The biomass at sea is about 112,000 tonne compared with 108,000 tonne last year, which is up 4%. And we remember that at end of the second quarter, the biomass was 6% lower. So we have build biomass through this quarter. If we look at the Farming volumes. We see in estimates for 2018, we have 36,500 tonne in Lerøy Aurora, 71,000 tonne in Lerøy Midt, 58,500 tonne in Lerøy Sjøtroll. So total a volume in Norway of 166,000 tonne. And our share of Norskott Havbruk, Scottish Sea Farm, is 13,000 tonne, so a total of 179,000 tonne for 2018 estimate. 2019, we expect 37,000 tonnes in Lerøy Aurora, 71,000 in Lerøy Midt and increase in Lerøy Sjøtroll to 66,000 tonne, which gives a total of 174,000 tonne in Norway. And with the estimate for Norskott Havbruk is increase of 6,000 tonne totally and 3,000 tonne increase in our share of the volume. So a total 16,000 tonne our share. And the total volume is about 32,000 tonne in Norskott, which is a good volume. So a total of 190,000 tonne 2019 estimates. If we look at the Wild Catch. Third quarter, the harvest volume is 14,282 tonnes. A decrease in catch of cod and haddock and an increase in shrimp compared to third quarter of '17. The average prices is up by 23% year-on-year, and the year-on-year prices for cod is up 23%, haddock up 38%, while saithe down -- while saithe is down by 5%. On the land side, or our factory side, it's still challenging with increased prices of raw material, and also we are doing a lot of adjustments and investments in the factories to make improvements going forward. If we look at the remaining quotas for Havfisk, we see it as have 6,500 tonne of cod, 2,100 tonne haddock and 6,500 tonne of saithe, which is a total of 15,000 tonne, which is in line with the remaining quarter for same period in 2017. For the VAP, Sale -- Sales and Distribution, it's been challenging year and also a challenging third quarter, main reason for this is volatile prices and also new investments in new facilities, especially in the Netherlands and in Spain. But we still have a good development with the key customers in all market, and we expect to have improved results going forward in fourth quarter. Then Sjur will take you through the key financial.

[Sjur S. Malm, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes, thank you, Henning. Key drivers in this quarter on the redfish side has been that we've had a good production in sea. That has given a good biomass growth. We haven't harvested all that much of that biomass growth this quarter, but we built significant inventory at sea. So low redfish volume impacts profitability this quarter, high production impacts working capital. Whitefish side, good price development. Third quarter normally a seasonal low quarter and has also some inventory adjustment of about NOK 30 million impacting the figures. So this NOK 33 million of goods cost price, which was harvested in Q3, but was an inventory not sold and not booked this quarter. Key drivers on the lateral lines, we can see that the harvest volume is 19% below last year. The profit level, EBIT per kilo is about the same level as last year, slightly down. Drivers for the EBIT per kilo is price, which is lower this quarter compared to the last quarter, and cost, which is lower this quarter compared to last quarter. But in sum, our EBIT is 23% lower this quarter compared to the same quarter last year. We continue to have a good profitability in associated companies. I return to, in particularly, Norskott Havbruk, which is one of them, but we also have well boat company, a significant operation in Denmark. So we would say a decent quarter in terms of profitability and a very good quarter in terms of biological production in redfish. Year-to-date, we have harvested 2% less fish, profitability is slightly lower. Year-to-date, we're at about NOK 2.6 billion compared to NOK 2.9 billion, and the port Borås is communicating that, as of today, they expect a higher profitability level for 2018 compared to 2017. So expectations are for a better Q4 this year compared to last year. Looking at our balance sheet. Big changes from last year is particular in tangible fixed asset. This is then the reflection of the biggest investment program in Lerøy's history. Those investment includes a new trawler in Havfisk. It includes several investments in whitefish on the land side to improve profitability. In the Farming segment, we have just opened the -- perhaps, the world's most modern facility for harvesting and filleting of redfish. We are investing in smolt, so we have one of the world's largest recycling sites for smolt being built in Hordaland, and we're building out in Aurora. And then value-added processing sales distribution, we are investing significantly both in Spain and Netherlands, to mention a few. So a significant investment program, in which we haven't started benefiting from the gains just yet. So we are investing in growth for the future. Looking at biological assets, redfish in sea. You can see that, that figure is 11% higher than last year. Henning just commented that the biomass in weight is 4% higher. So it appears the cost per kilo is higher than last year, that is true. But it's also true that we have more fish with low average harvest weights, so that's the reason why the biological -- or the 11% growth in cost compared to 4% growth in kilo. When it comes to cost development forward, we are in a good position to continue to see cost improvements in Q4 and into next year. Overall, we believe we have a strong balance sheet. Equity ratio of 60%, net interest-bearing debt of NOK 3 billion and a total asset close to NOK 30 billion. This just highlights the funding amortization. There's one refinancing to do in connection with 2021, above that we have a flat -- pretty flat amortization schedule. We are well within our covenants. Cash flow, I already touched upon key driver, which is the biomass build in the quarter, and you can see that also in the cash flow. So we have built above NOK 500 million in working capital this quarter. As commented upon, we are investing heavily. So in sum, we've not -- get rated any big changes in net interest-bearing debt this quarter. Looking at the year, starting with the EBITDA of NOK 3.1 billion, we have paid our -- all our taxes for the year. We can see the working capital build, we are investing heavily, and we paid a dividend of NOK 950 million. For the year, we actually increased the net interest-bearing debt by NOK 850 million. Looking into Q4, we don't expect any further working capital build. There might be a significant release, that is dependent on timing of sales and prices close to Christmas, and we do expect a significant cash flow generation in the quarter we are in. Henning has already touched upon the profitability in the different segments, so I'll look into the details. Another [ most ] operation, Lerøy Aurora, another good quarter, strong profitability, and not any changes to outlook. We expect continued low costs going into 2019 and a good production. We are building a new recycling facility for larger smolt, which will enhance potential for further volume growth beyond not -- '21, '22, 2021, 2022.And looking at the realized costs this quarter, it is impacted by the fact that we have a low harvest volume, and that gives a slightly higher harvest cost this quarter compared to -- to previous quarters. Lerøy Midt. Lerøy Midt saw significant challenges in 2015 and 2016. We have seen significant improvements in production in sea from 2017 and that has continued. It's still not perfect but development is good. This is the fifth consecutive quarter with the decline in release from stock cost. And we are impacted by cost in connection with the startup of our new industry facility, and we do see potential further cost reductions into 2019. Healthy and good quarter and promising outlook for 2019. Looking to Lerøy Sjøtroll operation in Hordaland. This has not been a good quarter when it comes to reported figures. This is in line with expectations and in line with what we communicated in the second quarter. We have now harvested out the spring 2017 generation, which was not faring well. And we have seen a significant discount on our trout sales. That said, when we look to what actually happened in third quarter and the biological production, it's been a significant improvement in biological production, in third quarter, which poses well for cost potential in fourth quarter and also poses well for 2019. So it's been not the best quarter when it comes to reported figures but when it comes to actual underlying development, it's been a very good quarter compared to recent quarters. Within the whitefish Wild Catch segment, third quarter is normally seasonally lower. There are some inventory effects, which impact realized profits this quarter. The headlines, not going into all the details, is that there has been a lower quota for high-value species like cod and haddock. That has given spare time with some of trawlers, that's been used for catching of shrimp. So we're very happy with the significant improvement in shrimp catches in 2018 compared to 2017. Also looking at cod and haddock, there has been a significant lift in prices, which is positive. So despite lower quotas, development year-to-date and expectations for Q4 are good. This is operation in the U.K., which we own together with SalMar. It's strong and very good, a very well-run company. We can see it's a steady performance over time. This has also been a healthy and good quarter with high profits. We are investing in a new recycling facility, which we will -- laying eggs in Q4 this year with the first smolt in 2019. 2018, we have not taken out the potential when it comes to volume harvested. So into 2019, expectations and guidance is for an increase in volume and there is potential for further growth beyond that in the coming years. Henning has already touched upon value-added processing sales and distribution. There is some improvement from second quarter, but we are not happy with the profitability level as seen in Q3. We are starting up several new facilities, and we are impacted by both low contractual and volatile prices. And we do expect to see improvements in Q4 and into next year. So now let me give it back to you, Henning.

[Henning Kolbjørn Beltestad, Group CEO]

Thank you very much. Then we will look at the supply and demand for salmon. First of all, we -- this is the updated estimates from Kontali end of October. We see that the global volume for 2018 is estimated to be around 5%. We see Norway is up 4.5%; United Kingdom, down 15%; Faroe Island, down 10%; Ireland is down 16%; and we see that Chile is improving their volumes by 16%. So they will have a total production of 652,000 tonne in 2018.If we look into 2019, we see a same change in estimates in 2019 from Norway, 4.5%. We see that U.K. is up 17%. So they are back on track with the same volume that they had in 2017.We see that Faroe Island is up 6%; Ireland, up 18%; and the estimate for Chile is 1.7%. So a global increase in production of 5% for 2019.So then we see that for '16 to '17, 6% growth; '17 to '18, 5% growth; and '18 to '19, 5% growth. So it's a stable growth. And if we also -- but the prices, it's not stable. But we see on a yearly price level, we see that it's stable. If we look at the total -- the average price in 2016, it's NOK 62; 2017, NOK 59; and 2018 estimate is around NOK 60. So 3 years with stable yearly price level.And if you go back to 2013, '14 and '15, we see that we averaged around NOK 40. So with 5% increase on a yearly level, we see that we lifted the prices from NOK 20 to NOK 60. So we can say that demand increase has been very strong the last 3 years.If we look at the -- estimates on a monthly level, from Norway, we see that we were down 10% in September, October is up 3%, November is 2% and December, minus 1% compared to last year. And so we will see -- we will have stable volumes in the last 3 months. If we look at Europe, it's the same picture. If we look at Chile, there is no growth the last quarter. If we look at the worldwide it's the same. There are no growth fourth quarter of this year. If we look at the consumption side, we see in third quarter, increase in consumption of 5%. We have 1% in EU, 12% in U.S, which is really strong and is -- like we also said earlier, it's one of the markets that we expect that will have the highest growth going forward, together with the other markets, which is up 5% in this quarter. And Russia is up 34%. If we look at year-to-date numbers, we see EU is up 5%, other markets 9% and U.S. 11%. And -- yes, the total growth in consumption of 8% so far this year, which is very strong at a high price level of NOK 62.2, which is down 3.1% compared to same period last year but with 8% growth in volume on the consumption side. If we look into 2019, we -- in Norway, we don't expect any growth the last 3, 4 months, 1% in January, 3% in February, 2% in March and 4% in April. And a yearly growth of 4.5%. But the good thing here is that we see relatively stable volume through the year. Even though the second half of the year is higher than first half but on a monthly level, it's more stable than normal. If we look at Europe, it's the same picture. If we look at Chile, which we're up 1.7% in total. The first 3 months going to be a negative growth, some growth in second quarter, negative growth in third quarter and a positive growth in the fourth quarter compared to last year or compared to 2018. But it's interesting to look at the stable level on the monthly level that we see in 2019, which is very positive. And yes, if we look into the possibility of building a market on a more stable volumes. And we see the same at the worldwide perspective. Then the outlook, summarized outlook, the demand for seafood remains very strong, and we'll also remains -- we are positive going forward. The harvest guidance for salmon and trout, including associates, is around 179,000 tonne this year and 190,000 tonne for year 2019. We expect a contract share for salmon and trout in the fourth quarter of 20%. We see a significant potential in whitefish. We expect the catch volume in 2018 of 65,000 tonne. The quota in 2019 is down -- for cod is down 6.5%, the haddock down 15%, Greenland halibut is unchanged and the redfish is up 64%. 2019 quota advice for saithe down 13% of -- north of 60 (sic) [ 62 ] north and up 21% in the North Sea. That's what we had, and thank you very much for looking at the presentation. Thank you very much.