Hexpol AB

STO:HPOL B

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Operator]

Good day, and welcome to the HEXPOL Q3 2022 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that the event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Peter Rosen. Please go ahead sir.

[Peter Rosén, executive]

Welcome to this presentation of the results for the third quarter of 2022. Presenting today will be Georg Brunstam, the CEO; and myself, Peter Rosen, as CFO. The agenda for today is to first give you a business a update, then go through how we continue to execute our business model, not least when it comes to sustainability, then go through the financials and the focus areas for the rest of the year, and we will finish off with a Q&A session.

And with that being said, I hand over to Georg who will take you through the first part of the agenda.

[Georg Brunstam, executive]

Hi, Georg here. I will start on Page 4. And I'm glad, I'm happy to say that we delivered again a very good result, actually our best quarter ever. We executed very well on our strong business model and on our strategy, including M&A and sustainability. We had a record sales and record result in the quarter. Sales was 44% up, and we have strong sales in all regions and all product segments, especially so in Americas.

And as you know, Americas is close to 60% of our business. We have continued, as I said, very good execution on our strong business model, where price increases are key, and we pass on the cost increases and the raw material increases to our customers, and we have done that and we have continued to do it. And hence, we recorded a record EBIT of SEK 838 million quite substantially up from last year. It's a continued turbulent and to some extent, difficult environment, but we are delivering in that environment since long.

Global automotive sales has varied, but we have seen improvements in our automotive sales towards the end of the quarter, especially in the Americas. We have seen uncertainties at the end of the quarter within the building sector in Europe, which is, of course, not the biggest sector we have. And Europe is absolutely not the biggest region. We have seen continued global surprises and still continued price increases on raw material.

And of course, as you all know, escalating energy prices. Our M&A journey continues and our focus is strong and almaak, which was acquired lately, is delivering in line with our expectations, and it really supports our sustainability agenda as it is a highly engineered compounder based on recycled raw materials. Going forward, we do see global challenges with high inflation and high interest rates. We also have a tight labor market in most of our markets. And we see these things continuing. Our strong bit as before, we have been handling them in a good way, actually delivering the best quarters ever in that environment.

And our strong customer focus and our geographical proximity to customers that really strengthens this. And we are, as I said before, close to 60% with our sales in the Americas. We are, as before, flexible, and we are on our toes, and we are ready to meet the forecasted increases in light vehicle production.

If you then turn to Page 5, I will make some small comments on the 2 business areas and on the export compounding, which is our biggest by far business area. We had strong sales in all regions and product areas and in particular, in Americas. And some improvements in automotive sales at the end of the quarter. And as I said, some European uncertainties end of quarter within building and construction.

We strong EBIT in the expo compounding, and we are handling all the challenges which are prevailing. We also have a management change in Americas, completely in line with what was planned with Ken Bloom. He has announced that he should retire some time, and he has been doing a great job for us, and he has announced his retirement. And we have therefore appointed Gary Moore, the second guy in charge, second manning command in Americas, and he has been 16 years with HEXPOL and a huge number of years in management positions in the last couple of years in Chief Operating Officer in the Expo Compounding America.

So a very experienced, well-known person for us, and Gary has the perfect background to take over from Ken. And we would like to thank Ken has done a great job for us, and he will stay on as a senior adviser until at least end of quarter 1. HEXPOL Engineered Products, very good quarter, particularly performing well in export Wheels, strong EBIT and a strong growth and a good margin was achieved. We have continued focus on our sustainability and our sustainability target of a 75% reduction of CO2 emissions. We see good by 2025. We see good progress in that. But we also see good progress in developing new green products biobased or even more recycled-based products.

And we were also selected as a partner in the Polestar Zero project, which was announced with a big press release just recently. And on M&A, high activity levels, and then we see good activity in the market.

If you then turn over to Page 6, I just want to comment on that slide that our culture is strong and it's a strong culture delivering with the purpose that we create a material difference. We are, as you know, decentralized debt very strongly coordinated in all our activities.

If you turn to Page 7, then you will see the business model, which is a very strong business model with the core values in the middle. And then we are benefiting, of course, on the shorter supply chains, which is a strong trend, where we have a strong global presence with the global footprint. And the sustainability is a big part of our business model. And not at least, we have a business model where we do pass on raw material and cost increases.

And you can see that on the numbers. And if we then turn to next page, just to recap on our sustainability strategy that is to, as I said, reduce the carbon footprint in our own energy use and then to develop green products to our customers.

And the further development, if you take the next slide, you can see the Polestar 0 pro I just mentioned. It's a great product, and we have chosen as a partner for that. And then also along the strategy in sustainability. We have acquired a highly engineered TP compounder in Germany with recycled material as a base. And we are very happy with that company. It's performing according to plans and it's giving us a much stronger sustainability profile.

[Peter Rosén, executive]

And if we then turn to Page 10 to look a little bit on sales development for the quarter. We can just see that the challenges that we saw during the first 6 months of the year with component shortages of the transportation issues and raw material price increases, continued also during this quarter. But despite all this, we increased our sales with 44% compared to the same quarter last year. And out of this increase, about 20% came from organic growth. 6% came from acquisitions.

And in addition to this, we had positive FX effects, especially related to the U.S. dollar of some SEK 700 million. So in total, that gave reported sales of just below SEK 6 billion in the quarter. And when we look at the markets and product areas, they all showed good sales, especially Americas show good growth, the highest growth that we had with 48% followed by Europe with 41% increase; and Asia with 28% growth compared to the same period last year.

And part of the European growth is driven by the acquisition of almaak that we did earlier this year. And if we then turn to Page 12 to look at the more specific financials -- as Georg mentioned, we delivered a record operating profit of SEK 838 million in the quarter, which is just above what we did previous quarter, that was also a record quarter and is well above what we did last year in the same period. The margin came in at 14.2%, which was negatively affected by the acquisition this year, which is currently running at lower margin levels than the other export companies and the challenges related to raw material shortages and the price increases that we push through to our customers.

Looking at the balance sheet, we see that the equity asset ratio remains high at just below 60%, and the return on capital employed is high at just a lot of 19% for the quarter. And if we then move to Page 13. -- we see that the development compared to the same quarter last year, we see that the sales increased with 44% to the SEK 6 billion. At the same time, we saw the profit coming in at SEK 838 million, which is an increase of 24% compared to the same period last year. But at the same time, we saw the margin -- operating margin coming down to 14.2%.

And as I mentioned before, that's partly related to the acquisition this year with lower margin, but especially the effects from the price increases that we've been doing for raw material and lately also energy surcharges. And this may -- the lower margin is logical when taking into account the mechanics of our price increases. We pass on absolute price increases to our customers, not the relative increases, which means that everything else being equal, this will have a mathematical negative impact on the margin but not on the profit in absolute terms, which is also demonstrated by the high absolute profit in this and also the last quarter.

If we then turn to Page 14 and look at the drivers of the profit, we see that the increased sales added substantially to the bottom line, but they were partly offset by the lower gross margin and also partly by higher OpEx. The higher OpEx is in line with previous quarter, while the increase versus last year is affected by acquisitions, inflation and not least the negative FX effects on this line in the P&L.

If we then move over to Page 15 and look at our business segments. We'll start with HEXPOL Compounding. They delivered sales of SEK 5.6 billion in the quarter, which is an increase of 45% to same quarter last year. And this increase is driven about 25% is organic growth. and another 7% is acquired growth, which is almaak in this quarter. And we did see the sales improvements in most customer segments and in all product areas, especially positive was the strong development in the Americas.

Operating profit came in at SEK 765 million, which is well above last year, where higher sales were offset by the lower margin driven by the acquisition and the raw material challenges. And if we then move over to Page 16 and take a look at Engineered Products. The sales increased with 30% to SEK 367 million, compared to last year SEK 282 million. And here, we saw overall strong performance in the various product areas, but especially so for hectical wheels that performed very well.

Operating profit also showed a very good growth with 24% increase compared to last year, ending up at SEK 73 million, driven by higher sales, partly offset by somewhat lower operating margin. That ended still at high 19.9% for the quarter. And if we then move over, take a look at Page 17 and the working capital. We did see an increase year-over-year, both in absolute and relative terms.

And as mentioned in the previous quarters this year, this is driven by an increase of inventory mainly. And it's a conscious decision that due to raw material shortages and risk of even more, we decided earlier this year to purchase what we can in order to secure all orders that we receive, which we've done throughout the year. And in addition to this, we have the recently acquired almaak included, which adds another SEK 250 million in working capital compared to the same period last year.

And if we then move over and look at the cash flow for the period, it's a quarter with a solid good cash flow in the quarter, delivering about SEK 700 million in operative cash flow -- and the investment level was somewhat higher in the quarter, and this is driven partly by acquired Almaak, where we see some more investments and the specific acquisition of a production building in the U.S. But apart from that, very good solid cash flow. And that leaves us with -- turning to Page 19, looking at the net debt. Net debt increases some compared to end of last year as does net debt-to-EBITDA ratio, which now stands at 0.8, but this growth increase is driven by -- temporarily driven by the extra dividend that we did this year and also the acquisition of Almaak in the second quarter.

So all in all, when we closed this quarter, it's a record quarter from an EBIT point of view, and it's a very strong financial position that will help us fund the M&A strategy that we have for the company.

And by that, I hand over to Georg.

[Georg Brunstam, executive]

Yes. I just want to sum up what I really started with, and that is that we delivered a very good quarter again, actually the best quarter so far. And we executed very well on our pricing and strategy and on our business model and the long-term strategy, including M&A and sustainability. Strong sales growth and a strong EBIT growth in the quarter, driven particularly by our biggest region, which is America, we were close to 60% of our business. We saw some improved automotive business at the end of the quarter, especially in Americas.

And we had a good start of the acquired company, Almaak, which is really based on recycled raw materials, and it's driving our sustainability profile in a big way. We are very happy with that acquisition. And -- if I then turn to the focus going forward on Page 22. I can just say that we will continue to handle the health and safety of our employees. And we will be on our toes to manage volatility in demand, and we will be on our toes for flexible level and ready to meet the forecasted increase in light vehicle production. And we will continue to execute well on our strong business model, including pricing power. And I guess that was all from us delivering the best quarter so far.

[Peter Rosén, executive]

And then we will open up for Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Douglas Lindahl with DNB Markets.

[Douglas Lindahl, analyst]

Peter, congrats to a solid report. A few questions from my side. You mentioned the Americas, especially automotive improving towards the end of the quarter. My question is, did that already result in positive volumes in Q3? Or will that come in Q4? And also, if you could add a bit of color to the comment on the weakening building construction market in Europe. I guess that shouldn't really come as a surprise to start with those.

[Peter Rosén, executive]

Yes. We saw that already in Q3 with the automotive uptick in Americas. So yes. And then on the comment on building and construction in Europe, we saw uncertainties among our customers at the end of the quarter with somewhat hesitant order intake -- but we are a little bit uncertain if that's destocking demand. It's also a winter season coming up. So we saw some uncertainties.

[Douglas Lindahl, analyst]

Okay. My second question is on the organic growth. If you're able to break that out, pricing and volume, I guess. -- the 20%.

[Peter Rosén, executive]

Yes. As you know, we do report volumes per [indiscernible], but good try.

[Douglas Lindahl, analyst]

That's why I'm asking the question.

[Peter Rosén, executive]

Yes. gives some flavor anyway, Douglas -- when we look at volume growth, we do see some volume growth, and it's in the single digits...

[Douglas Lindahl, analyst]

Yes. And Peter, I guess, then my final question for you or you have to answer, if you can as well. You've seen some challenges throughout the year. I guess the shape and form of these challenges have varied, but it is my sort of thinking that some of them have been quite similar. As we start to approach the end of this year and move into next year, how are you thinking about these challenges on raw mats, transportation some of all of those basically going forward, how are you thinking about this?

[Peter Rosén, executive]

I mean it's really difficult to answer that question. I mean, during the quarter, we have seen, like in previous 2, 3 quarters with the escalating raw material prices, transport issues, availability issues and so on. But having said that, during this quarter, the availability problem is still there, but maybe less slightly less than before when it was really dramatic. But it's still there, but maybe less. And we still see price increases on raw material, but also less. But on the other hand, the energy prices are more than before.

[Georg Brunstam, executive]

But again, I mean, our pricing model has to take care of this.

[Douglas Lindahl, analyst]

And you talked also about sort of changing behavior from your customer side being you can try optimize manufacturing. Is it possible to give us a sort of comment on that?

[Peter Rosén, executive]

You mean the recipe side.

[Douglas Lindahl, analyst]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Peter Rosén, executive]

Yes. I mean that is also still a problem in some areas, but of course, it's not becoming worse. It's the right direction, but it's not going.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the start of the of Gustav Österberg with Carnegie Investment Bank.

[Gustav Österberg, analyst]

A few questions from my side, please. Firstly, on the positive comments in the Automotive segment in the U.S., which, as you mentioned, is obviously an important segment for you. Could you provide some more detail on what's driving that? Are there any indications from larger OEMs on production increases? Or are there supply chain availability considerations on your side that it's driving that more positive outlook?

[Peter Rosén, executive]

Yes, we can comment that and it's from the customer side. So it's not from our side. We've been very good in spite of all problems and challenges. We've been good in delivering. So it's -- it's coming from the customer side. However, it's varying quite a lot between our customer base and what customer base they have. So it's not a uniform picture but we see improvements in the quarter, particularly in America.

[Gustav Österberg, analyst]

Perfect. And then just a follow-up on I think we've been talking about from time to time historically with sort of the near-shoring trends or your customers wanting to have more local production facilities in the U.S. and in Europe? Have you been seeing any developments on that front recently that you think is important to mention.

[Peter Rosén, executive]

Well, No. And yes, same trend as before, getting stronger in our feeling -- and for sure, it's much more regionalized than ever. And everybody is avoiding long supply chains.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Johan Dahl from Danske Bank.

[Johan Dahl, analyst]

Just on the -- we talked about the organic volume growth. So can you say was it better than the previous quarter or in line? Or was it worse in terms of organic volume growth case.

[Peter Rosén, executive]

Fairly similar to what we saw in Q2.

[Johan Dahl, analyst]

How much is recycled fiber now when you look after the exclusion of Almaak in the group?

[Peter Rosén, executive]

Yes. It's getting bigger and bigger. I mean, last year, it was 10% of our raw material consumption. And of course, it's increasing quite a lot with the Almaak acquisition, which is maybe around 85% to 95% recycled material in that. So quite a big increase of that. And in addition to that, we have 10% natural rubber. So I mean, the nonfossil content is getting less -- improvement. Sorry... The non-core side is improving. I should say, sorry.

[Johan Dahl, analyst]

Just on your pricing, your ability to price for cost increase. I mean, when you talk more broadly to various industries, it just seems that the ability to price for some sort of general wage inflation or energy cost inflation seems a bit trickier when you look across several industries. I don't know, would you ascribe to the idea that it's more difficult for you guys to raise prices due to energy, et cetera, compared to when it was raw mat induced?

[Peter Rosén, executive]

Well, none of them are easy. It has been extremely tricky to increase the raw material cost increases, and it will be extremely tricky to increase the general cost increases, too, but we have always done that, and we are doing it.

[Johan Dahl, analyst]

Got you. Can you say anything here about this, the turnaround of these companies that you acquired running at lower margins compared to the export average. So what's your plan there and outlook, if you can say anything about that?

[Peter Rosén, executive]

Yes. I mean that is progressing quite according to plan. Maybe it took a little bit longer at the beginning because I mean, the pricing, should I say, the pricing models those companies had wasn't really adaptive for that quick raw material increase. So they -- it took us some time to get our arms on that. But that is getting better and better. So moving absolutely in the right direction but still a lower margin than the group.

[Johan Dahl, analyst]

Okay. Is there a negative margin mix as U.S. could grow significantly faster than the European operations at the moment? Do you get the question there?

[Georg Brunstam, executive]

No, no, no. There's no negative margin mix with U.S. America is growing faster.

[Johan Dahl, analyst]

Okay. And so is it positive or is it equal?

[Peter Rosén, executive]

It's fairly equal.

[Johan Dahl, analyst]

Okay. Just a final question. That's on -- I mean we've talked about construction, automotive. Can you say anything about the general industry which is a big customer group of yours?

[Peter Rosén, executive]

Stable during the quarter.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Andres Castanos-Mollor with Joh. Berenberg.

[Andres Castanos-Mollor, analyst]

Congratulations on the strong print. One question for me is about the raw material costs. Are you seeing any improvement yet? Or do you expect to see it in the next quarter?

[Georg Brunstam, executive]

That's a good question. We haven't really seen any improvements in the quarter over the opposite. And we still have substantial increases in some areas, maybe more specialties than the big ones. Going forward, it's very difficult to judge. So my crystal ball is no better than anyone else. So I we try to maneuver us when we know.

[Andres Castanos-Mollor, analyst]

Okay. The next one on labor inflation. Do you expect to see significant labor inflation in '23?

[Georg Brunstam, executive]

Yes, we do. But we will compensate for that in our pricing margins.

[Andres Castanos-Mollor, analyst]

Understood. And final question, please. On the CapEx outlook for Q4, should we expect to see a regular trend like an extra spending on projects that need to be completed by the end of the year or something in line with what's been -- what we have been seeing in this year so far?

[Peter Rosén, executive]

Generally, one can expect us to come back to, let's call it, somewhat lower levels than what we saw in Q4. The only but in that answer is that it depends a little bit on the completion of some of the CapEx projects that we're currently running. But if we look forward another quarter, just to give us a little bit more time, then one can expect us to come back to the lower CapEx levels.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Karl Bokvist with ABG.

[Karl Bokvist, analyst]

And so just a follow-up on something you mentioned there, you've been very quick to adjust for raw material input cost changes, but now you also flagged that you also take energy surcharges into account in your pricing model. Just -- do you see a similar kind of fast price adjustment on energy surcharges as with the kind of very widely acceptable raw material adjustments in your contracts?

[Peter Rosén, executive]

Those, the overall answer is yes. But underlying is, of course, tricky and more difficult as it varies. I mean, just take Europe, how many countries are there and how many different strategies are they choosing in spite of what European Union are saying. And so -- and then what contractual situation do you have and your competitors have. So it's -- we will -- the overall answer to the question is still, yes, we will absolutely adjust for that like we do for any cost increases, including raw materials and wages and others. But that it sees absolutely a lot of work and not so easy.

[Karl Bokvist, analyst]

Understood. And speaking of the crystal ball, but I think historically, you -- or this past kind of 12 to 18 months, at least you believe you were able to gain market share because of having volumes available, for example, but one question for me is just on insourcing and/or outsourcing among your customers. Have you seen or heard anything about this trend in the past months or year?

[Peter Rosén, executive]

I mean if you look at the in-sourcing situation, I mean, we're talking about rubber compounding only, of course, in that segment for us. And if I look at the long trends, it's always been an outsourcing there. But of course, from time to time, there's an in-sourcing from time to time, there is -- there's a big outsourcing, but the net has always been an outsourced...

[Karl Bokvist, analyst]

Okay. Understood. And then just on -- we talked about this the last quarter, but you haven't seen any kind of indications from your customer about destocking. I mean it seems like every company in every part of the value chain is now flagging that they will try to reduce inventory going into the end of the year. So what do you hear from your customers?

[Georg Brunstam, executive]

No, we hear that -- we hear exactly what you're describing on the other hand. But on the other hand, I must say that you know that we supply just-in-time products, basically all of it. And on the rubber side, it has actually a limited shelf life as well. And then our customers are also adjusting time to the OEMs. So I think in our part of the supply chain, it's not so much. But we also hear it from the OEMs, but we don't know for [indiscernible].

[Karl Bokvist, analyst]

Okay. Understood. My final one is just on the margin impact of the acquired units. And forgive me if you mentioned this and I didn't hear it, but would it be possible for you to give some kind of rough impact from these units?

[Georg Brunstam, executive]

The one unit that we have impact from this year compared to last year's Almaak. We haven't specified yet the impact of that. So -- but -- it makes up a part of the decrease in margin compared to last year. But the bigger part is the raw material and energy price increases that we're pulling through. And also the acquisitions we did last year, they are also below the group average, still although improving.

[Karl Bokvist, analyst]

And this dilutive margin impact, so to say, that's visible also on the EBITA level. Yes -- I imagine -- Yes. Perfect. That's all for me. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Julia [indiscernible] with SEB.

[Unknown Analyst]

Hello Julia with SEB. My first question is if you can help me to bridge the EBIT in the quarter a little bit further because recently, we saw declining raw mat prices and the acquisition cost seems to be in line with previous quarter. So I guess that should mean like the margin should be in line then, except for the energy prices coming up. So is there anything else that you see the depressing the margin in Q3 compared to Q2?

[Georg Brunstam, executive]

If we look at the margin decrease that we see compared to the previous quarter, in the second quarter, we had a 14.8% margin in Q2. We have 14.2 million this quarter. And the primary driver of the lower margin is that we've continued to push through price increases to our customers on raw materials and energy surcharges. So that compared to the second quarter, that's the key driver.

[Unknown Analyst]

So except from the energy prices, it's also a price adjustment lag, if I understood it correctly.

[Georg Brunstam, executive]

That is very difficult to specify, but what we see -- what we do know is that the increases that we put through on raw materials and energy has increased compared to the second quarter. And that drives it has no impact on the EBIT in absolute terms, but it drives the mathematical negative impact on the margin.

[Unknown Analyst]

Yes. So slightly more positive cost price balance for Q4 might we expect that then if raw prices come down further and you get through your price adjustments?

[Peter Rosén, executive]

We didn't see any pricing down in the quarter. We saw an opposite. We saw still increased prices in quarter 3.

[Unknown Analyst]

Okay. And the next question is on the financial expenses. It seems that it has more than doubled in this quarter year-over-year. So could you say something about what this is related to?

[Georg Brunstam, executive]

The changes that we see on financial that are driven by 2 things. One is the funding costs, of course. And in this case, also the FX effects that we have in some areas.

[Unknown Analyst]

Yes. Okay. Could you give us some more details on the FX effect -- if I understood correctly, you have approximately the same cost and revenue exposure to, for example, Americas. Is there a difference in or...

[Peter Rosén, executive]

I think we can take that on a separate call, but it depends on the currency movements that we see, for example, like the Turkey, China, et cetera. So it's a mix.

[Unknown Analyst]

And one question on the M&A and the cost of integration. So would you say that the integration costs would vary depending on what you acquire. For example, if you acquire a company within rubber or within thermoplastics, would it be different investment costs and integration costs related to this...

[Georg Brunstam, executive]

I mean we don't see any substantial integration costs. We see synergies in all our acquisitions. And if we make a rubber compounding synergy, the cost synergies are better normally. And in other areas, we might see better cross-selling synergies. So basically, cost of integration -- it's not there. I mean, we have seen it... In our acquisition...

[Operator]

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Peter Rosen for any closing remarks.

[Peter Rosén, executive]

Okay. Thank you very much, everybody, for listening in and posing questions to us. We wish you a very nice weekend when you get there. Thank you.

[Georg Brunstam, executive]

Thanks a lot. Take care.

[Operator]

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.