Probi AB

STO:PROB

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q4

[Operator]

Hello, and welcome to Probi Year-End Report for 2020. [Operator Instructions] Today, I am pleased to present CEO, Tom Rönnlund; and CFO, Henrik Lundkvist. Please go ahead with your meeting.

[Tom Ronnlund, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you very much. A warm welcome to you all, and thank you for dialing in to Probi's presentation of our Q4 and full year results for 2020. Together with me here today, I have our CFO, Henrik Lundkvist; and I am Tom Rönnlund, CEO of the company. Next slide, please, and please familiarize yourself with our safe harbor statement. Please turn to Page #3. So in today's agenda, we will cover an overview of our results for the fourth quarter as well as the full year 2020, some additional details on our financials as well as some comments on our outlook for the year, and we will finish off by opening up for questions-and-answer session. Please turn to Page #4. Probi had a very successful year in 2020. We finished with a strong fourth quarter as well, closing a hugely successful year for our company. We continued the strong momentum that we built throughout the year with double-digit growth in the fourth quarter, particularly driven by strong sales performance in the U.S. As in Q3, though, we had weaker development in our other regions, EMEA and APAC, partly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, as we have earlier discussed as well. With this strong finish to the year, we managed to post a full year currency adjusted growth of approximately 15%. And our margins though came in a bit lower in the fourth quarter compared to earlier in the year, and we posted thereby a full year EBITDA of 27%. The COVID-19 pandemic has obviously been a significant denominator for the year in 2020, and we are very happy and proud that we have been able to remain operational throughout this period and have had manageable effect on our overall operations throughout the year. At the same time we have experienced positive effects on our business, as we have leveraged our U.S. presence in capitalizing on the increased demand for probiotics in that market throughout last year. As earlier stated, the pandemic has had a more dampening effect in our other regions, in EMEA and APAC, likely caused by the somewhat different sales channels that are dominating these markets where the e-commerce channels are not necessarily built out to the same extent as, for example, in the U.S. as well as the lockdown -- the stricter lockdowns in certain markets have affected the pharmacy sales channel, which we, in certain markets, are quite dependent on. However, we do see positive signs for 2021 in these regions as well, and we hope to return to growth also in EMEA and APAC throughout 2021. Following this strong year, we are happy to announce that our Board of Directors are proposing a dividend also in this year, and it's increased by 10% compared to previous year. So the proposal is to distribute SEK 1.1 per share. Please turn to the next page, Page #5, please. So we have had, for the full year, a very successful year for Probi. For the first time, we have posted sales above SEK 700 million, which is a growth of 15% compared to previous year. It's obviously been a turbulent year due to the ongoing pandemic, but our teams have done a fantastic job in managing the challenges presented by the pandemic. And at the same time, we have been able to stay focused on executing on our priorities and driving growth for our company. We have added more than 20 new customers to our portfolio crop last year, and these 20 -- more than 20 new customers are responsible for approximately 20% of our growth in last year. We've also worked very hard together with one of our largest customers in updating their product portfolio and taken important steps together with them in deepening our relationship by taking on additional steps of their manufacturing process. We have initiated 2 important strategic partnerships with Vital Nutrients and VivaPro, targeting future growth opportunities for our company in sales channels and offering areas where Probi is not very present today. We've also updated our long-term financial objectives to better reflect our ambitions in returning to long-term growth as a company. And also very important, we have worked very diligently on our factory upgrade projects and have, early this year, started the first trial runs on -- or in our new equipment. We expect to see positive impact of these investments towards the second half of this year and moving forward on from there. Throughout the year, we have also continued to deliver on probiotic innovation. We have published exciting data on our probiotic's impact on inflammatory markers coupled to acute stress as well as the largest ever double-blind, placebo-controlled immune health study, solidifying the body of evidence for Probi Defendum's ability to support the healthy immune system. Toward the end of the year, following challenges in the midst of the pandemic, we have also initiated multiple new clinical projects in bone health, in stress and female health as well as Probi's first large-scale trial on digestive health on the -- in the important Chinese market. So in summary, our teams have weathered the storm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and at the same time been able to deliver on our business objectives throughout the year. It's a huge achievement by our teams, and we're very proud to post these results for the full year. Please move to the next slide, please, that's Page #6. So as we, towards the end of the year, experienced some currency fluctuations, particularly caused by weaker dollar, but we were still able to post double-digit growth, both in the fourth quarter of 11% as well as for the full year with 15% for the full year, which is well in range for our long-term financial objective of growing more than 7% on an annual basis. Our profitability in the quarter as well as for the full year was lower though than our long-term objective of 29% EBITDA or more. Particularly, our profitability was affected by partly product mix, where we had, throughout the year, higher sales in the U.S. and where our gross margin is relatively lower compared to the other regions in the EMEA and APAC, and which -- and those regions, as earlier mentioned, have been affected by the COVID-19 related pressure on sales. We've also, towards the end of the year, accelerated our activities and investments in R&D, which affected particularly the fourth quarter OpEx. After a period when there -- throughout last year was a bit challenging to initiate new clinical projects, but we have definitely caught up in this area, and we're very active in the fourth quarter and will continue to be that also as we move through 2021. And with an expected normalization of demand and return to growth also in EMEA and APAC throughout 2021 and beyond that as well, plus towards the second half of the year, an increasing positive impact from our factory upgrade, we feel confident that we will be able to deliver in 2021 on our long-term profitability target of an EBITDA of 29% or more. Please move to the next slide, please, which is #7. And if we look a bit closer at our regional perspective, regional -- region Americas have had a particularly strong year, with a full year growth of 20% as seen here, and this is even despite the weaker dollar towards the end of the year. If we accounted for the currency, our growth would have actually been around 24% on a full year basis in that region. EMEA and APAC have had a weaker year due to the circumstances I mentioned before, where EMEA was down on a full year basis of 7% and APAC grew with 6%, actually falling short of our ambitions in that region, but we didn't account in the beginning of last year that we would be so affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. But we continue to have a very positive view on these regions' growth possibilities and our ability to return to growth in 2021 in this region following both the recovery and expected recovery of demand as well as a delivery of our pipeline of new customers and projects which is in a better shape than in a very long time for our company. We also believe that the global growth rate for probiotics are -- following this somewhat unusual year will remain in the range of around 4% as a CAGR for the next 4, 5 years. But with regional differences where APAC will most likely post stronger growth in the high single digits, the U.S. probably, as a market, combined, more flattish or smaller growth and EMEA potentially posting somewhat higher growth opportunities following the recent positive developments regarding the use of the term probiotics in marketing messages or labeling of products in -- for example, Spain and some other European markets, we hope to continue to see a positive development in that regard. So if we turn to Page #8, and I will there hand over to my colleague, Henrik, and -- for the financial review.

[Henrik Lundkvist, Chief Financial Officer]

Okay. Thanks, Tom. Good morning, everyone. I will now walk you through the financial section. Please turn to Page #9. As Tom had mentioned, our growth was strong in the fourth quarter, but we experienced some headwind related to FX. Net sales grew by 11% compared to last year, but adjusted for currency effects, the sales growth was 20%. Our EBITDA landed at SEK 47 million, which was a decrease by 12% compared to last year, which was explained by a lower gross margin, together with increased operating expenses. The lower gross margin was related to product mix, and increased operating expenses were related to more activities in R&D and together with more business development activities. This gave us an EBITDA margin of 25.4%, which was 6.7 percentage points lower than last year. Consequently, EBIT was 14% lower than last year, and net income and earnings per share was 15% lower than last year. Please turn to Page #10. For the full year, our sales reached all-time high and landed at SEK 717 million, which was a growth of 15% or 17% adjusted for currencies. Our EBITDA increased by 7% to SEK 196.5 million, which was an effect of the volume growth. The increased activities in R&D and business development, together with lower gross margin, reduced EBITDA margin to 27.4% compared to 29.3% last year. EBIT increased by 11% and net income and earnings per share increased by 8% compared to last year. To summarize, we are pleased with the year and the strong sales growth that we have delivered together with an increased EBITDA. Now turning to Page 11. Net income for the fourth quarter landed at SEK 22 million, which was SEK 4 million below last year. Compared to last year, we had a positive volume effect in the quarter. The lower gross margin, together with increased activities in R&D and business development, reduced the net income compared to last year. Please turn to Page #12. Net income for the year grew by 8% and landed at SEK 93 million. The largest contribution to the increase came from volume growth, but this was partly offset by lower gross margin. The gross margin was negatively affected by production issues during the first quarter of the year and a less favorable product mix during the year. Regarding the operating expenses, the reduced spend in sales and marketing due to COVID did not fully compensate for the increased activities in R&D and business development activities. Now turning to Page #13. The gross operating cash flow amounted to SEK 198 million during 2020, which demonstrates a solid business model. During the year, we have increased our working capital or more specific our inventory due to the increased collaboration with a large U.S. customer in connection with an updated product. Tax payment has been higher this year, but it's only related to timing effects. In the CapEx bar, there is SEK 53 million included for the investments of Vital Nutrients. The remaining SEK 43 million is mainly related to the upgrade program of our manufacturing site in Redmond, U.S., amounting to approximately SEK 30 million, but also connected to further reinvestments in clinical trials, patents and IT amounting to SEK 13 million. The cash flow from financing activities includes a dividend payment of SEK 11 million based on the decision at the AGM last year. The remaining SEK 17 million are related to payments and interest for lease obligations. To summarize, our cash generation was strong during the year, and we managed to finance the acquisition of Vital Nutrients and the manufacturing upgrade in Redmond without an effect on the cash balance. Now turning to Page 14. We continue to have a very strong balance sheet with no external loan. Our equity amounts to SEK 1.1 billion with an equity ratio of 90%. This means that we are well equipped to continue to evaluate the interesting business development activities, so we can continue to grow our business not only organically but also through M&A and different types of strategic partnerships. Now turning to Page 15, I'm handing over to Tom again.

[Tom Ronnlund, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Henrik. Thank you. So please turn to Page 16. Probi remains committed to its strategic focus, as earlier communicated, where we intend to continue to drive growth in our portfolio with maintained or improved profitability over time. We have opportunities for organic growth, both with existing products and existing customers as well as we've been able to prove in the year -- last year also significant growth opportunities with new customers as well as a company. We're available. We are established in the premium probiotics segment with our portfolio, which we have renamed recently to ClinBac, which includes our most scientifically validated probiotic concept. We saw strong growth in this segment of our portfolio throughout 2020 and expect that to continue as we move forward, another important piece for us to continue to improve our gross margins and EBITDA margins as well. We are working in strategic partnerships to leverage expertise and knowledge in areas, where Probi is not present today but where we see that our capabilities can provide significant future growth opportunities, and we also have on the agenda to strengthen our company through acquisitions or mergers to take an even stronger position in our product portfolio or in our geographical presence. We continue to be focused on being a leading scientific innovator within the field of probiotics. As mentioned, we initiated a number of new clinical trials towards the end of last year. We will, in 2021, have our biggest resource allocation ever in our history as a company towards our R&D activities. And we are actively also searching for additional opportunities to bolster our portfolio with interesting scientific projects. Thirdly, we are well on our way to achieve our objectives in relation to manufacturing excellence to ensure high quality production and with the flexibility as a vertically integrated global business-to-business company in this space. We can offer to our customers flexible solutions. We have the opportunity to deliver pure raw materials all the way through to ready-made consumer products. We have control over the supply chain. We can work with short lead times and unparalleled sort of delivery certainty for our customers. And through investments and improvements in our facilities, we are also well on our way towards our objectives of improving our gross margins and raising our profitability moving forward as an organization. So in summary, we're closing a very successful 2020 for Probi, and we're well equipped to continue our growth journey as we move forward into 2021. If we turn to the next page, please, which would be #17. And with that, we thank you for your attention in this call so far, and we're happy to open up for questions and answers.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from the line of Rickard Anderkrans from ABG Sundal Collier.

[Rickard Anderkrans, Analyst]

So first of all, I have a question regarding the price mix in the U.S. If you could just add some detail on the drivers there that sort of pressured gross margins in the quarter because it'd be interesting to find out if it relates to some type of product that's especially popular during the COVID-19 pandemic or is a result of an increased shift towards e-commerce or -- can you talk a bit about the drivers there would be helpful.

[Tom Ronnlund, Chief Executive Officer]

I think for the U.S., in particular, as we mentioned, we're quite focused there on ensuring that we drive our ClinBac part of the portfolio, and we've been very successful in that in 2020. However, we're starting from fairly low levels there as well. So the impact on gross margins there will be seen in the future, we would assume there or as an effect of that. What we have seen in the fourth quarter was a large delivery, which was caused by sort of a bit of delayed demand from 1 customer, which is a lower priced product. We had big deliveries of that product in the fourth quarter, and that affected our gross margins negatively in the U.S. market. Longer term, we expect to return to -- or throughout this year, we expect to return to more normalized level in the U.S. market. We also have some challenges as we mentioned we are shifting out our old equipment and moving over into our new equipment. And we had a few instances of -- or minor hiccups on the old equipment which also caused us some lost batches, et cetera. But that -- those are -- we would see these as temporary effects.

[Rickard Anderkrans, Analyst]

Great. That's very helpful. And just on the cost base a bit, it sounds to me like the R&D efforts will be a key driver of driving up the cost base into 2021 and possibly even beyond that. Can you talk a bit about -- if that's sort of a correct assumption, how we should think about the cost base in general? Also, perhaps if you can mention anything in terms of sales and marketing activities, that's -- it feels like that should pick up as well as COVID normalizes during the year maybe?

[Tom Ronnlund, Chief Executive Officer]

Yes. Thank you for the question. And with regards to both R&D and sales and marketing, of course, there was a period last year where activity levels were not as high as it's been historically. And that gave us some savings on OpEx, which, at the same time also, I would say, was offset to some extent by increased -- sorry, increased transportation cost and in certain instances as well some increased raw material costs. So even though I think -- and in total there, I think the effect on our P&L was, as we've mentioned before, manageable. When we go into 2021, we were planning for a more normalized activity level in the first half. What we see is that the rollout of vaccinations, et cetera, and return to more normal conditions is still taking a while. So the first half will most likely or will not be returning to the same activity level as in the past, but that we expect to accelerate more during the following quarters. And -- but our cost base, we manage that through ensuring that we are continuing to grow our company. We've also mentioned before we have not been super aggressive on our EBITDA target. We wish to have the possibility to invest in our teams and to add resources and activities in those areas where we see growth opportunities. We built out, throughout last year, our regulatory team, for example, with adequate resources in markets where we were weaker before as well as ensuring that we are accelerating our R&D agenda. But that being said then, we intend to grow also this year, in line with our long-term communicated objectives and also then return to our long-term communicated targets with regards to the EBITDA of 29% or more.

[Rickard Anderkrans, Analyst]

Great. Great. And just a final one on APAC, which obviously seems to continue just facing some headwinds. Can you talk a bit about the market environment in APAC in terms of perhaps competition and pricing? And can you talk a bit more about what you believe has been the main drivers of the challenging growth performance, if you will? Can you talk about that? That would be helpful.

[Tom Ronnlund, Chief Executive Officer]

For Probi, the APAC region has, for a very long time, been identified as an opportunity for us to grow. And I think our inability to build on that growth over the past few years is -- there's multiple factors for that. We believe that our offering is well suited for the market. We see strong interest in our ClinBac part of our portfolio, providing us with opportunities to grow with major consumer health care as well as pharmaceutical companies in the region with clinically well-documented probiotic concepts. But historically, I think we have not necessarily had the right type of resources and the right amount of resources to be able to capitalize on that. Throughout last year, we built out the back office and regulatory support for the region to be able to more effectively serve the region. We have grown our team, not so much perhaps last year. We have made some executive management changes there as well to ensure strong execution capabilities. And we're also adding resources as we move into this year for that particular region to aid us in our growth agenda there. So yes, we were affected by the headwinds caused by the pandemic, definitely. But we have also ensured that we have invested in the right type of team to drive the success for that market as well for this year and onwards. And we have a healthy pipeline right now, I would say, of products that have either already been initiated or close to initiation with highly relevant partners in that region. So we do expect -- we're still coming from low levels, but we do expect that, that we will return to strong growth in the region.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from the line of Mattias Vadsten from SEB.

[Mattias Vadsten, Analyst]

Most of my questions were already asked before, but I have a few. So on the gross margin side for the full year of 2020, I mean, I understand the development in EMEA and Americas, but it is slightly more difficult to understand the development in APAC as you have higher sales in the region in 2020 compared to 2019. What is the main reason for the gross margin drop in APAC for the full year and take that metric?

[Tom Ronnlund, Chief Executive Officer]

Mainly additional regulatory resources and activities in the market. So our regulatory activities in the region will affect the gross margin. So it's mainly related to that. We have worked both with external consultants as well as increased our internal resources to be able to have a higher activity level in product approvals together with customers for, for different markets there. So that -- I would say that's the main impact there for last year.

[Mattias Vadsten, Analyst]

That's very clear. And then when we look at the gross margin in its respective region, what are the main drivers for potential improvement in full year 2021? I mean, should we view this as rather a mix shift, including relatively more sales, I mean, from in APAC relative to Americas? Or is it also region-specific gross margin improvement that we will see for next year?

[Tom Ronnlund, Chief Executive Officer]

I mean we're targeting all available tools to raise our gross margin to the levels where we believe they should be, including pricing adjustments, including then particularly our upgrade program in the U.S. at our facilities as well as ensuring a focus on our ClinBac part of the portfolio. All those 3 elements are beneficial to our gross margin development.

[Mattias Vadsten, Analyst]

And congrats on yet another quarter with strong growth figures here.

[Tom Ronnlund, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you. Thank you, Mattias.

[Operator]

There are no further questions at this time. Please go ahead, speakers.

[Tom Ronnlund, Chief Executive Officer]

All right. Okay. Please switch to the last picture on the presentation, where we have our annual calendar. We're looking forward to meet you then again. And thank you for your attention this morning. Have a great day and week. Thank you. Bye.