Cloetta AB
STO:CLA B
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Cloetta AB
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Cloetta Quarterly Report Q3 2018. Today, I am pleased to present Henri de Sauvage-Nolting, President and CEO; and Jacob Broberg, SVP, Corporate Communication and Investor Relations. [Operator Instructions] Speakers, please begin.
Thank you, operator. Jacob Broberg of Investor Relations here. Today, I have Henri de Sauvage-Nolting, our CEO with us. We don't have a CFO today. New CFO will start us on mid-November. So as of Q4, you will meet and hear more from him. But with that, I hand over to Henri. Please go ahead, Henri.
Yes, thank you, Jacob. Welcome everybody Q3 results. If we look on the highlights, we can see that with the FX effect, we ended up in positive growth that -- of course, the organic growth is much more interesting and how we are managing the business. We saw a decline of minus 3.6%, all coming from the pick & mix business. And it was good to see that the branded business did actually grow with 1.6%, due to a lot of factors, but one of the main ones is production volumes. We could see the operating profit adjusted going up to SEK 194 million. And that then also comes through into profit for the period at SEK 132 million versus last year. Cash flow, I'll come back to, there is an Italy affect in there. And the net debt/EBITDA was at 2.48x, so again, within the target we have on that parameter. If we look at the markets, we could see that, in particular, July and August that we could see that the markets declined in most of our core -- in our core markets. That are the markets we can measure, which is measured by Nielsen and IRI Gfk, 2% to 5%-ish points, but very good to see that we grew our market shares, I'll come back to that. Pick & mix, where there are no external data available, we estimate actually a slightly larger effect of market decline. As said, we had a negative minus 3.6%, driven by pick & mix brands, which is, again, where our EBIT is generated for the time being grew with 1.6%. And in such a market, it's important to see what is our competitive growth. And in 14 out of the 16 category core markets combinations, so let's say, chocolate in Sweden or gum in Holland, we have been growing market shares, and that is of course a good signal that we are getting more competitive in the markets.Then the pick & mix declined with 15%. The main thing is still the lost contract in Sweden, the non-promotion policy in Norway due to the sugar tax and the PR over there, and also the market in itself. And the fact that we're also preparing the pick & mix business for future growth by integrating, restructuring and working on improvement of the EBIT. If we then look at the strategic focus areas, it's simple. It's growing the base business, growing the branded products, which we are -- which we're doing. We have a focus on strengthening the brands coming with relevant propositions, coming with innovations, but also just the base business in distribution pricing promotion is starting to give results. We're also increasing the so-called pure media investment, so this is the money we are investing which the consumer is actually seeing, so it's not the money which goes to agencies to develop campaigns or doing market research. This is really the money which is effective because that's the money which gives the result. So we're on our journey to increase the pure media. And then quite some good core innovation, so innovations on our core business. Again, really important because on the core brands and the core business that's where we have our areas of strength and competitive advantage over developing that. And we can see, in particular, quarter 4, there's a number of really big activities and innovations coming to the market, which we'll also support consequently. Then the cost of margin, really important for the funding and for the EBIT development. So the cost efficiency program is in full swing and will continue also in the coming years. We have had the Swedish krona weakening. We've taken pricing for that to mitigate that, but that is always a few months later than when it comes in. And also the insourcing is actually going really well. That's insourcing of Candyking products and some other third-party production, and we can see that we're ahead of plan and coming to the levels of production utilization which are very favorable. And we now need to, as communicated before, in the Candyking integration project, we're going to invest in some extra drying capacity in order to do even more insourcing. So that's then the last important area that's the capacity investment, which we are planning for 2019 as previously announced when we did the Candyking integration. We have now in the Nordics put the former Candyking business into our ERP system, which also gives us a lot of insights on how to structure and start to get the EBIT up, costs down. And then next year, we will do the same in the U.K. business. And then last but not least, looking at the EBIT in the former Candyking business, now the combined pick & mix business. How are we going to get better commercial margins in all the markets? There are quite some differences between the markets on that, and we're taking steps to improve the EBIT margin to a better commercial margin in all the markets. So those are the 3 main areas. If you then look at little what we're doing. I took 3 other things out, which I think are interesting to talk about. So as I said, more pure media. Like-for-like, we can see that we get 10% more bang for our bucks, you could say, 10% of the money going more to consumer, so it is very positive. If we then look at Venco, which is our -- which is the #1 licorice brand in the Netherlands, have not been supported for 8 to 10 years. And now we're on TV, on social media, on outdoor, reclaiming the territory, which this brand is owning and strengthening the key difference between this brand and its competition. So really good to see that will happen in Q4. In Sweden, we've taken our very famous local Plopp brand into the tablets market, by introducing Plopp with taste from our candy and other chocolate brands. Also initially really good results. And as we discussed before, we're -- we keep on expanding the Choice for You program, where we give people next to the original products a choice with 30% less sugar and no sugar, and that's going into Sweden and Norway, again, with a combined campaign where we're leveraging scale. That will all happen in Q4, which also means I'm really pleased to see that now that we have higher efficiency on the media, budget -- we're also going to increase the absolute media budget in Q4 as we already communicated that we would have higher absolute investment in the second half of this year. We're now ready to do that to make those investments in a good quality way, so that will happen now in Q4. Then we go to the financial updates. So there's no structure. Candyking has been with us for more than a year. So it is actually quite an easy way to look at it. We can see the organic growth at minus 3.6%, and then compensated by the exchange rate with 5.8%, we come to a total of 2.2%. Again, we are looking at the organic growth of Cloetta and we do not steer the business on the exchange rate differences. This is something you have been asking for. We really think we have 2 businesses within Cloetta, one is the branded and the other one is the pick & mix business. If we look backwards into time, which you can see on this chart, as from -- what was it Jacob?
'16.
2016. And that is now the third consecutive quarter where we have growth on our brands, so that is really important because that's where the margin is being made for the time being, while we are making the pick & mix business ready for competitive growth by increasing the EBIT level. So this is positive news to have. I would say first signs that we are getting where we want to be that we're starting to grow the business and we're going to grow market share as with all the strategic initiatives we have put into place last year.Now there's also work to be done. As you can see on the next one, because of course here, you then see that we have also 3 consecutive quarters with negative growth on the pick & mix business, which, if you go back in history, has been one of the growth drivers for the top line of Cloetta and now you see that we have work to be done. Of course, the lost contract is a big one. The Norway sugar tax impact from the promotions is a big one. But there's also a lot of underlying things, we still need to show to start making our proposition more interesting and for customers to be willing to pay a higher price for the Cloetta pick & mix business, in all countries, not only in a number of them. If we then look at the P&L, it's good to see that the net sales, of course, went up with SEK 33 million, but it is fully driven by the ForEx. If we focus again on the organic growth, it's negative with minus 3.6%. Gross profit amounted to SEK 559 million in the quarter, which is SEK 32 million higher than last year. The improvement is mainly coming from the margin effect we get from the retranslation from euro into SEK, but also higher production volumes versus last year. That's all coming from the insourcing and the growth we have on the packed business. If we then look at gross margin, it's 1.3% higher than quarter 3 2017, which then is driven by the production volumes and the higher organic growth in the branded and packed products, which has a positive effect on the mix, which comes through in the gross margin. Operating profit adjusted is at SEK 25 million higher than last year, again driven by the higher production volumes in our factories, together with cost efficiencies and also the growth of the branded products, of course, trickle down over here. The operating profit, non-adjusted you could say, is SEK 180 million, this is an improvement of SEK 11 million versus last year. It is lower than the operating profit adjusted because we have SEK 14 million of one-off cost in the quarter, mainly related to Candyking. Half of that is the remeasurement of the Candyking earnout, which every quarter, we recalculate the earnout consideration. And given the forecast we have, the earnout has been adjusted upwards and the other half of this one-off cost is related to the Candyking integration, which is still ongoing. If we then look at net financial items, they were lower in the quarter compared to last year. The improvement is mainly to the exchange differences on borrowings and cash equivalents related to the development of the Swedish krona against the euro during the quarter. Our income tax, the effective tax rate for the quarter is somewhat lower than last year, due to a one-off positive effect resulting from the closure of a previous ongoing tax case. And if we then look at cash flow. The cash flow from operating profits did improve, mainly driven by higher operating profit. Here, it is important to remember that the comparator was negatively impacted by the cash flow from the now divested Italian business, and this was about SEK 95 million. So that's important to make this like-for-like comparable. The cash flow from the investing activities were on a comparable level with last year, when adjusting for the fact that Cloetta Italy was divested in the comparative figures. So if we go to a summary of what has happened in Q3 and what we're doing, good to see that the brands are growing now for the third consecutive quarter. Too early to say, well, hurray, we've solved everything, but I think, it's good that we step up gradually quarter-after-quarter, getting the strength back in the brands and also making better investment choices in the pure media, going up with 10%. We're not yet at the goals we have set ourselves for that in the strategic 5-year plan, but we are -- we're certainly improving, which gives me also the then the confidence that we can actually start to spend on an absolute level more in the next quarter.Pick & mix declined, not good. Building it for competitive growth, making the trade-offs between the top line and the bottom line, when we're looking at how we do business across all the markets. And at the same time, taking cost out, getting more efficiency in. So that is a project which we already discussed was going to take us up till 2020 on the insourcing and getting all the synergies ready. The operating profit adjusted improved. Candyking integration is line with the plan, but will take more time. And then again, because of the insourcing, as discussed before, part of the SEK 175 million of integration cost is going now into increasing the production capacity. It's not actually the lines which are producing the products because those we have, it's the drying capacity for molded products, which have to dry between 24 hours and more in drying chambers before we can pack them. And that was it. So we now can open for questions.
[Operator Instructions] We have a first question from Mr. Nick Fhärm from SEB Equities.
So my question is really if you could give us some insight into the disposition of the organic sales developments in terms of how much of that is volume related, what is the price component and what is possibly the mix? But in order to make this useful, I would like to start by asking you, how much of the lost revenue is actually due to the Coop contract recorded in Q3? Could you give us a ballpark number, please?
Yes. So the Coop contract takes about 50% of the lost revenue. It's about SEK 35 million to SEK 40 million. Now that it by far the number one explanation for the loss. And then the reason -- the second biggest factor is the sugar tax impact in Norway on the promotional activities of the customers. So customers are not promoting pick & mix anymore, which is an important part of the volume rising activities. The third one was that we could see, in particular during July, August that people in the Nordics were staying more in the countryside and there is less pick & mix availability in the smaller stores. But there's also still a lot of integration work to be done, which is sometimes leading to -- we're not completely on the ball when delivering products to the stores, so that we have out of stocks in the stores that is fourth the explanation I would say. And then last but not least, we're also looking, of course, at how to improve profitability for the business going forward.
That's very helpful. So if I may, is it a fair conclusion then that pricing is probably up a bit, mix is probably unchanged or better, but it's mainly a volume issue explaining the sort of organic like-for-like decline in the quarter?
No, I mean the -- what I would like to stressed is that you really need to -- or you don't have to, but I'm really looking at this 2 different business model, yes? We have the, let's say, traditional FMCG branded business, which of course is a combination of volume and price. With investments in A&P, where we are making, of course, a lot of profit. You all have seen the P&L of Candyking when we bought them and the profit levels we have on that business, which is then the second leg. Here, they're now completely integrated. It's impossible to make a difference between the former Cloetta business and the Candyking business. So we really look at 2 different business models, branded and pick & mix. And of course, in pick & mix, volume is much more a driver because we put the volume into our factories and then get an effect across the whole portfolio of Cloetta, with better in the red coverage. And of course, when factories are running at higher capacity utilization, it trickles down in the transfer prices of all the products. But at the same time, we know that we have still optimizations to be done in some of the markets on the pick & mix, yes? We have merchandisers driving around and that is partly, of course, more efficient when you have more volume in the system. On the other hand, we don't think that for the future that we should accept the kind of EBIT level we have in some of these contracts or some of these markets. And that's what we are looking at right now, so that we get to a better EBIT margin for the business because we have a target to get to 14% and here we need to make then sometimes the trade-off to take a bit more risk in 2019 on the top line, on the pick & mix business in order to get a better EBIT delivery.
Can I possibly also follow-up with basically the same question, but if you could you elaborate on volume versus price and mix in terms of impact on organic growth for your branded goods business, all that it is.
That's a little bit dangerous because then I talk, of course, indirectly to my competitors as well and also our customers. And it is also -- it is so different market by market. Of course, when you have the weakening of the Swedish krona, we take action in Sweden in order to compensate for that on a full year run rate. And in other markets where we already have good margins, we try to be more volume focused. So of course, we could -- we have those figures, but I wouldn't like our competitors to know exactly what we are doing. But be assured, we do, like a professional FMCG company, constantly looking at volume and price and seeing what is the best EBIT delivery in a competitive step of the different markets we are operating in.
Sure. I appreciate that. Final question on the same topic. Would you care to give us some elaboration on any possible impacts on volume from at least some more grocery trade going online and the propensity for customers to actually put in a pick & mix bag in the shopping basket, checking out, et cetera. Is there any signals, any updates you can give us on consumer behavior that possibly is impacting your organic growth rate already now, please?
No, at the moment, it's not having a serious impact. But of course, we want to be ready for the future. So we have e-category managers in all of our main markets, with the central resource coming from one of the top e-commerce platforms in the Netherlands. And now we are having several, call it, experiments, several corporations with the e-commerce players, both the pure players and the e-retailers in each of the countries to see how is consumer behavior at the moment on the impulse products like candy and chocolate. But also how can we stimulate people in that e-commerce environment to then still buy those e- -- sorry, these impulse products. We even have an experiment with pick & mix ongoing with one of our retailers where people can do actually pick & mix online. So they can choose from the screen which products they would like have in a pick & mix basket and then that retailer is choosing those products. So it is very much something for the future. And then the good news is, it is impulse, so we're also very much looking at other channels. At Clas Ohlson, which is an important retailer in, call it, do it yourself and peripherals and they're now selling our products. And of course, people are interested to buy our products. So under control.
We don't have any more questions for the moment. [Operator Instructions] We have the next question from Nicklas Skogman from Handelsbanken.
The comparable for the packaged branded business was quite -- it was very easy, it was minus 4% in Q3 last year. And you do grow this year, but it's -- you're not sort of recapturing the organic sales you lost last year. What is turn issue here?
I mean, you could look at the comparator. I think, if there would be an issue, then we would not be growing our market shares in 14 out of the 16 markets. So that is probably something I would be looking at. So are we growing competitively, and I would say yes, then of course, I'm not saying that the job is done and that now everything is in place. No, it's only 3 quarters in a row, we're seeing market shares improving, as we said, in a tougher market during July and August. So that's pleasing to see that we are growing market share. That, for me, is the ultimate proof, but this has to continue. And we're having better people in, we're having more focus on where we spend on media, we're renegotiating contracts with media agencies, research agencies to get cost down. We are now only working with Läkerol with one brand team across all the markets rather than 4 or 5 markets doing it on their own and spending cost on the agencies or research for consumers. So that has a little bit of efficiency coming in. That all then should trickle down, of course, in making our brands more competitive in the markets. But that's probably now a 2-year journey. I mean, if I were you, I would only believe this when I would see 2 years in a row, or at least, 6 out of the 8 quarters of growth. But that's very clearly what we are doing on the branded business. And again that is where the EBIT margins are very high and that of course then is also trickling down into the bottom line. And at the same time, we're preparing this pick & mix business for future competitive growth. And not call it inflation, call that sharpening the proposition, taking the cost down with this 2 very different business models we are working with.
I think you said July, August market -- the market was down 2% to 5% in packaged. Was that correct?
The Nielsen.
Yes.
Okay. What about September?
Yes. I mean, September was more back to normal, so that we can see the other kind of 0% volume growth in the market and then a bit of price growth depending on market. But I don't want -- we try to sketch a picture what happens with the markets. And of course, you could say it was warm, maybe people are then eating less chocolate. On the other hand, I don't want to hide behind the weather. There's a lot of more things we need to fix which are having a bigger impact than the weather impact. And that's what we are -- that's what we're doing and that's what our investors can count on. So that's why you also don't read in our report an effect of weather on business, et cetera.
I have a question here from the web, where -- earnouts for Candyking, when the organic business in pick & mix actually declined, is it all coming from the Cloetta pick & mix? And Candyking shares are performing well. How is that possible?
Yes. So it's -- first of all, it's important to understand that the total business is on the earnout. So the earnout which we have defined in the deal with the former owners is that it looks at the total volume of pick & mix, so old Cloetta plus old Candyking together. How this works is that in each quarter, we have a S&OP process where we do a sales and operational planning, which is looking forward. If we are seeing now that there are -- there's a better forecast in quarter 4 than we had in the earnout consideration, we adjust the earnout consideration up, and of course, also down when it will be lower. And that is the way this works. And of course, then at the end of this year, so by December, then we know the total volume development and we can calculate the exact earnout consideration, which we'll then publish in 2019.
No further questions?
Yes, we have 2 more question. Next question from Mr. Nick Fhärm from SEB Equities.
So my next question would actually be on the gross margin bridge. I understand perfectly that most of the very positive development year-on-year is because of insourcing efficiencies. But still, I was wondering if you could give us an update on any implications from raw material and cost of goods. And implicitly, I guess, what I'm asking is, if there any other negative parts in the gross volume bridge, which actually means that the effect of insourcing is actually even higher than the total net change year-on-year, please?
Of course, these are -- added in -- gross margin, of course, has many different factors in there, as such, the insourcing was the biggest effect. Then of course, we can see that some of the raw materials like sugar is going down, so that is a positive. On the other hand, we have a very big business in Sweden, which is buying a lot of the products from Europe, where we then see a transfer price or a negative effect on the transfer price because they're producing in euros and then selling here in Sweden. And as we explained last time, the way of working in Sweden with customers is that 3 months after such SEK weakening has started, we can start to negotiate and then there's an implementation time of 3 months. So -- and there's always a minimal of 6-month lagging in that process. So it's a -- that's a mixed effect. Also the way we work with customers between ForEx and raw material. Then of course, we also are trying to improve the mix, which is an element we are bringing into our planning that we are looking at, okay, how we can improve the gross margins through the mix, which is something we -- also with our new marketing organization and planning forward is getting a lot of of attention. And maybe last but not least, it's the there's the whole trade spend. So how can be more efficient in promotions? So there are different elements where we're working on in order to work on gross margins.
I guess the production line in Belgium was up and running as of Q2 this year. And I was just -- I just meant to ask you that is there any particular reason for why we should not expect similar positive contribution to gross margin developments for the coming 6 months as well?
Yes. We have the -- we, of course, have the -- what is called the T-minus 1 principal. But I don't expect a big impact. And we were running on full capacity, and we're actually making extra shifts in most of the molded network factories also in the chocolate factories in order to produce more. And if you have to work weekends or some some of the Christmas or New Year days that also comes at a cost. But that is a positive problem to have because it means we're selling more branded business and that the insourcing is ahead of plan. And then as we previously communicated in the Candyking synergies and insourcing that we're expanding now the drying capacity in 2 of our main factories in order to be able to produce even more than on the production lines we have.
Now can we also come back to your earlier statement, Henri, on marketing spend in A&P in absolute terms going up in turn trading? Does that also imply that you are planning at least for a positive impact on organic sales? Or is this more sort of A&P spending that that's -- sort of is an investment for 2019? How should we look upon that statement from you?
I think you're right to say whether that's a plan we have for quarter 4 to invest more in the brands, also now in an absolute level. Up the first 3 quarters, we've been very focused to get the efficiency up. I mean, I don't want to invest in something when too much of the investment is leaking away to, let's say, third parties. Of course, they're doing an important job. But we now really have the whole marketing organization lined up that more and more of the money has to go into, you can call it, pure media. So that's media which is being seen by the consumer rather than paying. And agency -- and the second part is that we now also have worked on getting some of these launches really back, I call it perfect, but that we're really in the good seats and only then start to invest. So that comes together now in quarter 4 and that's why we're going to invest more in quarter 4. But that -- this will be a theme going forward, of course, as well towards 2019. But we do that because we want organic growth on the branded business. Because that's again also for gross margin a very good way to improve EBIT of this business.
Final question. There's a SEK 80 million buildup of in stocking trade in -- towards the end of Q3 of this year compared to last year. But at the same time, there's a nice little working capital release in the cash flow statement compared to a quite negative development or working capital buildup at least in Q3 last year. Could you just briefly walk us through the main reason for the working capital release, given that stock in trade is actually up.
The main working capital is Italy,yes? Last year, we had Italy in the comparator. You remember that we stripped it out as divested -- to be divested business, but we did not do that in the cash flow. From the top of my head, it's the majority of the cash flow benefit, but also the ongoing business or, let's say, the retained business or the Cloetta plus Candyking business. We see an improvement in the working capital, but it's in the order of SEK 4 million or SEK 5 million.
Next question from Nicklas Skogman from Handelsbanken.
Yes, 2 more, please. Firstly, on the price increases you've been doing. Do you expect to see any sequential positive impact in Q4?
We never give forward-looking statements. But as already mentioned, we have increased prices due to ForEx in August. But the way I described how we work with ForEx, of course, a lot will depend how the SEK is going to behave in the fourth quarter because we are doing price increases based on an average SEK rate over a 3-month period and that we announce a price increase. And that is then common practice in most of the Nordic markets, but certainly in Sweden, what we're talking about that -- and this is a 3-month negotiation. So in total, we have about a 6 months delay. So if the SEK would strengthen a lot, it will be a benefit for us. If it would -- we can -- we will have to plan for further price increases. So this is not something which we can predict. Then I would probably be doing another job than the CEO of Cloetta, right, if I would know where the SEK would be going.
Yes. Okay. So you raised -- you announced new prices in August and then that...
We implemented a price increase on the 1st of August. So that is in. We will not communicate due to competitive reasons what then the price increase was or at which SEK level we are. But of course, if the SEK would deteriorate, we have to do another one. And if it doesn't deteriorated or goes below where we have landed the price increase, it could be a help.
Okay. Good. And then the last one is on M&A. When do you think that your balance sheet is ready for another acquisition?
Well, the balance sheet is actually ready for another acquisition. That is not what is holding us back. We've done some fantastic refinancing, some very good commercial paper programs, which are -- is giving us access to loans at a very competitive or extremely competitive rate, I would say. But I am a believer myself. And then we first need to integrate the Candyking business in a good way. So that house needs to be 100% on order. We need to have the business in each of the markets gaining competitive growth. We need to get the EBIT up, the costs down. And that takes a lot of, yes, focus from the organization. And therefore, we are a little bit more careful at the moment by ourselves actively going out and, call it, hunting, or looking for new acquisitions. So that will be somewhere next year that we will be actively going out again looking for acquisitions. But the core is what we have -- that needs to grow. And if that grows, we can start to add acquisitions.
Ladies and gentlemen, we don't have anymore questions for the moment. [Operator Instructions] We don't have any more question. Back to you for the conclusion, sir.
Okay. Thank you very much for listening in and asking questions. And say thank you for today, and speak to you next time. Thank you and good bye.
Thank you.