Teijin Ltd

TSE:3401

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q2

[Akihisa Nabeshima, executive]

I am Nabeshima. Thank you for joining us today. I'll explain the financial results for the second quarter of FY 2022.

First, please turn to Page 1. This slide shows the results for the first half with year-on-year changes. Demand was very strong, and net sales were up 12.6% to JPY 510.5 billion. This is due to increased sales volume, revisions of selling prices in response to the rises in material and fuel prices and weaker yen. However, operating income declined 54.8% to JPY 14.2 billion.

The Materials segment recorded an operating loss of JPY 4.5 billion due to a decline in productivity caused by the labor shortage in the U.S. and Europe, the lockdown in China and rises in material and fuel prices, despite its contribution to earnings with an increased sales volume mainly for automotive and aircraft applications and foreign exchange gains. As for the Healthcare segment, profits decreased, affected by the introduction of generics for FEBURIC in June and NHI price revision. As a result, net profit for the quarter decreased by 64.9% to JPY 7.6 billion due to a rise in the tax burden rate with an increased deficit of overseas subsidiaries.

The full year forecast is described with a comparison to the previous forecast. We have revised the forecast upward for net sales to JPY 1.05 trillion and revised downward for operating income to JPY 25 billion. We estimate a significant decrease for profits of the Materials segment due to further price hikes for natural gas in Europe and the decline in productivity at U.S. and European bases because of the labor shortage. Healthcare is forecasted to decrease its profit due to the greater-than-expected impact of the generics.

As a result, the forecast of profit attributable to owners of parent has been revised from JPY 28 billion to JPY 16 billion. The year-end dividend forecast has been revised to JPY 12.5 per share from JPY 27.5 in the previous forecast, and the annual dividend forecast is revised from JPY 55 to JPY 40 per share.

Please turn to Page 2. They are the key assumptions for our main target markets. Demand is generally firm in each business, and it is expected to continue in the second half. Demand for Aramid is firm in automotive market for tires for high-end cars and EVs, industrial materials market for optical fibers, as well as ballistic and protective apparel market. This is expected to remain firm in the second half.

With regard to resin, customers' manufacturing of office machines declined in the first half due to difficulties in procuring parts caused by lockdowns in China, and this situation is expected to continue in the second half. For automotives, while customers' operation declined in the first half due to the shortage of semiconductors and electronic parts and lockdowns in China, we expect a slight recovery in demand for the second half as the impact of the lockdown in China is resolved. With regard to carbon fibers, the number of passengers has recovered gradually, and this is expected to continue in the second half.

For composites, OEM production continued to be constrained in the first half due to the semiconductor shortage and the disruption of supply chains. But this is expected to be gradually resolved in the second half. Our forecast incorporates the assumption that natural gas and raw material prices at the end of Q2 will continue to be at the same level for the remainder of the fiscal year. We have not factored in the impact of the global recession or further lockdowns in China.

Please turn to Page 3. In the Healthcare segment, our NHI price base pharmaceutical sales for gout and hyperuricemia treatments will shrink due to the introduction of generics, despite the increasing number of patients with these diseases. The market for diabetes treatments will slightly grow, but tough market competition is expected to continue with competitive products. Home healthcare market will perform well.

In the Fibers & Products Converting segment, consumption of fiber materials and apparel textiles has recovered in Europe and U.S. And in China, the market remained firm in the first half. Despite the impact of lockdowns in Japan, consumption was on a recovery trend. However, for the second half, the situation will remain uncertain due to inflation and interest rate hikes in Europe and the U.S. and the zero-COVID policy in China. And in Japan, rising prices may decrease the appetite for consumption. Industrial materials will return to normal in the second half, and growth of e-comic will continue.

Please turn to Page 6 for highlights of first half results. I have already touched upon them, so I will be quick. Operating income was down 54.8% year-on-year. The Materials segment recorded an operating loss due to a decline in productivity at bases in the U.S. and Europe caused by the labor shortage, lockdowns in China and increased raw material and fuel prices, despite contribution by improved operations by aramid after large-scale periodic maintenance in the first half of FY '21, the full implementation of new large-scale composites programs and favorable foreign exchange rates. Healthcare business was affected by generics of FEBURIC.

Please turn to Page 7. Operating income decreased year-on-year, and each profit item also recorded negative results. ROE was 3.4%. ROIC was 3.4%. And EBITDA was JPY 51.5 billion, decreased year-on-year. Regarding CapEx, there was an increase in intangible assets due to the takeover of the sales rights for diabetes treatment in the previous fiscal year. But in this first half, only regular CapEx was recognized. Depreciation and amortization also increased, partly due to the effect of foreign exchange rates. The interim dividend was decided to be JPY 27.5 per share as planned.

Please turn to Page 8. The Materials segment increased sales and decreased profits. By subsegment, both sales and profits increased for aramid. This was because operation improvement after the large-scale periodic maintenance last year and favorable exchange rates contributed to earnings, and selling prices were revised to address increased costs caused by the natural gas price hike, although its sales volume decreased due to declined productivity caused by the labor shortage and the constraint on the supply of major consumables by suppliers.

Sales and profits decreased for resin, affected by the lockdowns in China and other factors. Sales and profits increased for carbon fibers attributable to firm demand for most applications, including aircraft. For composites, there was a shortage of parts, including semiconductors, and OEM production continued to be suspended. However, there were positive factors like increased sales volume owing to the full-scale large programs and conclusion in the negotiations for selling price revisions with multiple OEMs that have been mentioned since the beginning of the fiscal year. As for the negative factors, a decline in productivity due to the labor shortage, temporary deterioration in productivity due to machine breakdown at the plant in the U.S. that incurred additional costs that led to a substantial decline in operating income. Separator sales and profits increased due to strong demand for smartphones.

Please turn to Page 9. The Healthcare segment recorded a decline in sales and profits. This was due to the launch of generics for FEBURIC and June as well as the impact of the NHI price revision. Home healthcare business performed well in terms of the number of rented equipment.

Please turn to Page 10 for the Fibers & Products Converting segment. Both sales and profits increased with strong performance in industrial materials and fiber materials and apparel, as well as increased selling prices to address the rise in raw material prices. The IT segment decreased its profits year-on-year as advertising and promotion expenses increased in the first half. Orthopedic implantable devices business increased both sales and profit, and regenerative medicine business by Japan Tissue Engineering recognized decreased sales and profits with declined sales of autologous cultured epidermis JACE.

Please turn to Page 11 for nonoperating items. We recorded a significant increase due to foreign exchange rates. In extraordinary items, impairment loss decreased, but at the same time, gain on sale of investment securities also decreased, resulting in an overall loss.

Please turn to Page 12. Total assets increased from the end of March and liabilities and net assets also increased. This was mainly due to the foreign exchange rates. D/E ratio, including the one after capital adjustment, slightly increased. Inventories increased mainly due to higher cost of raw materials and an increase in inventories of aramid and other products, in addition to the impact of foreign exchange rates.

As for cash flows, the cash flow from operating activities was almost on par with the previous fiscal year or with a slight decrease, but we recognized a positive free cash flow of JPY 2.3 billion. This concludes my explanation on the financial results for the second quarter of FY 2022.

[Akimoto Uchikawa, executive]

I am Uchikawa, and I will explain the outlook for FY 2022. Please turn to Page 14. As explained for the second quarter results, we expect a slight increase in net sales mainly due to the yen depreciation and the selling price revisions in response to rising raw material and fuel prices in Materials business. On the other hand, we expect a decrease in operating income due to a decline in productivity by the labor shortage in the U.S. and Europe, a further rise in natural gas prices in Europe and faster-than-expected replacement of FEBURIC, a drug product in the Healthcare business with generics. We forecast operating income of JPY 25 billion for the full year, which is a 50% decrease from the previous forecast.

Please turn to Page 15 for the summary of full year outlook. As I said, the forecast for ROE, operating income and ROIC has been revised downward significantly due to the large decline in operating income. CapEx is expected to be roughly on par with last year if we subtract the amount of intangible assets acquired last year by the takeover of the sales rights for diabetes drugs. Lastly, the D/E ratio is expected to worsen slightly from the target of 0.9 to be around 1.0.

Please turn to Page 16 for the forecast by segment. As mentioned earlier, Fibers & Products converting and IT segments are expected to remain firm, but we are forced to revise the operating income forecast downward for Materials and Healthcare segments. I will explain about them, respectively.

Please turn to Page 17 for the Materials segment. Demand for aramid remains strong. But with the sharp rise in raw material and fuel prices, including higher-than-expected gas prices in the summer, we have worked to revise selling prices. Still, these efforts could not keep pace with the rising prices, and profitability has worsened. In addition, due to supply constraints of key consumables, we considered switching to substitutes, but their performance could not match that of products we used, and this required more labor. And this led to a decline in productivity as we could not secure the necessary personnel due to the labor shortage in Europe. This is another reason for the decline in profits.

The resin business was affected by the lockdown in China at early spring. And after that, Chinese economy seems to have slowed down, and this is expected to lower the earnings forecast slightly. The carbon fiber business forecast is revised upward as sales to the aircraft industry continued to recover steadily and the sales mix is expected to improve as well as favorable effect of foreign exchange rates with weaker-than-expected yen.

Lastly, the composites business. As mentioned in the Q2 results presentation, we were able to pass on a certain amount of material price inflation to our customers. But we had a machine breakdown at the U.S. plant in summer, and we had to outsource production to a third party and to implement support production at other plant that had been already suffering from labor shortage, and that resulted in a deterioration of overall productivity. This is the major reason for the downward revision from the previous forecast.

Next, please turn to Page 18. As explained for the second quarter results, replacement of FEBURIC with generics is progressing faster than expected. And as shown in the changes in EBITDA, we estimate a year-on-year profit decrease of JPY 20 billion for FEBURIC, and the forecast was revised downward.

Page 19 shows the factors of changes in EBITDA. As I said, volume was positive mainly in materials, but we were unable to catch up with rising material and fuel prices, especially gas prices in Europe by price revisions. This led to the decrease in spread. Foreign exchange was positive due to the yen depreciation, and others reflect increased costs mainly due to the decline in productivity mentioned earlier. And downward revision was made for EBITDA.

I just explained major factors for the downward revision of operating income forecast, but more details are provided on Page 20. For aramid at first, we realized a supplier would constrain the supply of key consumables, and we started to use substitutes, but this deteriorated the productivity, and we had a difficulty to secure labor force to make a recovery and could not increase the shipment volume as planned. In addition, the price of natural gas rose higher than expected in summer, triggered by a pipeline breakage accident, which further deteriorated profitability. This is the situation from Q2 to Q3, and it is expected to continue for Q3 onward.

Resin and plastic processing and carbon fibers businesses are as already explained, and we expect the demand increase for aircraft will continue in the second half. Composites are also, as explained earlier, we said price revision could be difficult, but we would take on this challenge at the beginning of this fiscal year, but it is progressing as planned as we have already concluded an agreement with our customers to cover a little over 80% of the raw material price hike in the previous fiscal year.

On the other hand, as mentioned earlier, we had to take a large volume of orders in summer due to strong sales at customers, which resulted in the machine breakdown at our plant caused by overload operations. In order to compensate for this, we had to use subcontractors or have other plants in the U.S. work for support production, which had already been suffered labor shortage. This unfortunately resulted in a decline in overall productivity. The labor shortage still continues, and these are factors of the downward revision. Battery materials was revised upward due to strong sales of separators for smartphones. And for Healthcare, the replacement of FEBURIC with generics is unfortunately expected to be faster than expected, and this led to the revised outlook, as explained earlier.

On Page 21, measures for profitability improvement for each business are summarized. As we have been repeatedly saying, we were forced to make a significant downward revision for the operating income forecast. So we are taking measures to rapidly improve profitability in each business segment, especially in the Materials business. In the aramid business, the pending labor shortage has been resolved by hiring temporary employees.

Also, we continue to work for stable procurement of consumables as a top priority, which has been causing malfunctioning of production processes. In addition, the price of natural gas has been rising considerably beyond our expectations, and we are working to gain the understanding of our customers so that they will accept our selling price revisions. And at the same time, we are working hard to reduce costs so that we can maintain profitability even if the natural gas prices stay high. As the price hike of raw materials and fuels in Europe is quite sharp, so we are considering to decentralize raw material procurement and production sites to outside of the region.

For composites, it is necessary to quickly restore the machine that broke down in summer. Now we have almost clarified the repair schedule, so we want to resume stable operations at the earliest possible time. As I said, the breakdown at one plant caused a burden on other plants that should have promoted cost reduction through implementation of in-house production and automation, and these intended initiatives were delayed as a result. We will proceed with in-house production and automation as planned to maximum effect as soon as the breakdown is repaired.

We have been saying that we would review the allocation of resources. And we are now considering the selection and concentration for our global bases, including the possibility of a sale with no sanctuaries. We have set certain criteria for program profitability, and we will continue to stick to our policy of gradually withdrawing from unprofitable programs that do not achieve the criteria. Also, we have reshuffled management human resources at the headquarters to enhance local management capabilities for thorough execution of measures, shown on the slide with stronger management system.

In the Healthcare segment, while generics are replacing FEBURIC, we have a plan to launch a new drug in the orthopedic field, where we have an advantage, and we expect to generate profit by expanding its sales. Despite the tough competitive landscape for diabetes treatment, our operations in this field have been successful after the takeover of the sales right for diabetes drugs. Going forward, we intend to increase our market share in the field of DPP-4 inhibitors to secure stable profits.

Recently, we executed some small-scale M&As. And together with leveraging utilization of our own business foundation, we'll continue to expand comprehensive healthcare services to improve profitability of Healthcare business. These are the measures for profitability improvement for each business.

Lastly, I would like to talk a little about the summary of the current medium-term management plan and the next medium-term plan. As you know, we set the goal of creating growth platforms for 3 years, from 2020 to 2022. Regrettably, I have to admit we have not made an adequate progress in pursuit of the goal, even though we were affected by external environment. In the area of strategic focus to develop future revenue sources, I believe we have made a progress, as planned, in acquiring new programs for composites for the automotive industry, and we have strengthened our presence, especially in North America.

Also, although COVID created a difficult environment, we succeeded in establishing a carbon fiber plant in North America as a new production site, and we're able to make a certain degree of progress in the development of carbon fiber intermediate materials for aircraft. In the Healthcare business, we intend to develop a comprehensive community healthcare service business and have been actively investing in this area. We believe that we have achieved a certain outcome.

Unfortunately, however, as mentioned at the beginning of this presentation, these achievements have not made a significant contribution to profits, resulting in a wide gap between our initial forecasts and actual results. Profitable growth is the area of growth to support these efforts, and the aramid business strengthened its production capacity to address strong demand, but this initiative was delayed due to COVID.

In the Healthcare business, we decided to introduce diabetes drugs, and we believe that we were able to increase earnings and strengthened the business foundation. Regrettably, there was a delay in launching new drugs, and we are aware of the gap between our expectations and reality. There is an urgent need to reconstruct the profit structure in both areas of strategic focus and profitable growth. Therefore, a major revision of our strategy, including changing the course and the strategic focus area is inevitable in the next medium-term management plan to be announced in February.

In this plan, while we place an importance on the medium to long-term growth, it's imperative that we set the first priority on stopping the ongoing deterioration in profitability and establish a profitable structure for the business. We will announce the plan that includes drastic measures to realize this idea.

That is all for my explanation on the summary of the financial results and our thought on formulation of the medium-term management plan. Thank you.