Gerresheimer AG

XETRA:GXI

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q3

[Operator]

Welcome to the conference call regarding the publication of Gerresheimer AG's Q3 Results 2021. [Operator Instructions] Now I hand over to Ms. Carolin Nadilo, Head of Investor Relations at Gerresheimer AG.

[Carolin Nadilo, Corporate Director of Investor Relations]

Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us to our Q3 conference call. As always, with me today is Dietmar Siemssen, our CEO; as well as Dr. Bernd Metzner, our CFO. We will present a set of slides accompanying the management's notes. The quarterly statement, the presentation and the press release are posted on our website, too. Please note, this call is webcast being live and will be filed on our website. Before we start, I have to remind you that the presentation and discussions are conducted subject to the disclaimer. We will not read the disclaimer but propose take it as is read into the records for the purpose of this call. Now it's my pleasure to hand over to Dietmar Siemssen. Dietmar, please go ahead.

[Dietmar Siemssen]

Thank you, Carolin, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning to those of you joining us from overseas. Welcome to our Q3 conference call. Yes. Gerresheimer is on a growth course. This is the headline of our third quarter results. The transformation, which we are continuously implementing, is bearing fruits. And it's even more than that. The effects of our growth strategies are kicking in, and we will maintain the momentum for growth also in the quarters and years to come. We are on track for sustainable growth. The strong growth in the third quarter proves that our growth strategy is successful. The increasing demand of our innovative and sustainable solutions show that our transformation is bearing fruits. As an innovative solution platform provider, we are a strong partner of our biotech, pharmaceutical and beauty customers. This is exactly what our new Gerresheimer stands for. We are innovating for a better life. As one Gerresheimer, the team is working on the best solutions for our customers, offering and continuously extending our unique product portfolio. Now this clearly translates into growth. Let's start with the key takeaways of the third quarter. In the third quarter, we showed organic revenue growth of 10% on group level and 9.8% in our core business. Year-to-date, we are now on 6.9% organic revenue growth. With that, we are on clear track to deliver our guidance. Significant revenue contribution, again, comes from our high-value solutions and our dedicated business unit, Biological Solutions, both growing by approximately 30%. And we expect this trend to continue. Looking at the bottom line, the organic adjusted EBITDA margin reached 20.9%. A solid result with raw material prices and energy costs are continuously and significantly increasing. The adjusted earnings per share increased on an FX-neutral base by 5.2%. Also for this KPI, we are well on track to deliver to our guidance. Dear ladies and gentlemen, we are already in the middle of the fourth quarter, and we are looking confident into this quarter and our full year results. With this, we can confirm our guidance for the fiscal year '21 and for the midterm as well. Looking selected at Q4, we will maintain the momentum of growth. Capacity increases in various product segments will turn in, and we will see additional revenue contribution in the area of contract manufacturing projects. Let us now have a closer look into the growth drivers of the third quarter. Good proof point for our new reshaped Gerresheimer and growth comes alongside the whole portfolio. Let's start with our high-value solutions. Here, in particular, biologics are a strong growth driver. In this business, we are supported by the global megatrends towards more and more biological medication, which are mainly administered by injections. In the underlying business, we see positive effects of our regional expansion initiative. Just to mention a few examples, the vial expansion in China, primary packaging solutions in Brazil and also high-quality type 1 glass in India. With our global footprint, we are close to our customers, a clear success factor for us. For our contract manufacturing business, the order intake has been continuously strong, and the order books have been filled very well over the past 2 years. With this, a solid foundation for growth in the next years has been put in place. The growth opportunities in this business are very attractive. For sure, with regards to the new auto-injector business but also with regard to further projects, which will turn in over the next quarters and also years. Important today is for me to have a closer look into our business solutions, serving the market for cosmetics and beauty, in particular, the business for high-end cosmetic products, such as perfume flacons, has been hit by the global pandemic. Nevertheless, this business must not be underestimated as we expect the recovery to be strong. Even more important is that we further developed our business for Cosmetic and Beauty. Now we see first recovery of this segment, and we see strong potential by new innovative products, which will be accretive for both revenue growth and also margins. This is why I will, today, elaborate in more detail on that topic. For our Beauty segment, we anticipate global megatrends, and we are sizing attractive niche markets also in this business. One of these global trends is the focused shift from pure beauty and cosmetic towards health care. What does that mean? More and more beauty and cosmetic companies are further developing their products and product innovations alongside global health care trends and have, in a consequence, significant higher requirements to our solutions. We are talking about the increased focus on health care and nutrition, in general, as well as the continuous trend for advanced cosmetics like more health care applications at home. Another, for us, relevant trend is the increasing demand towards a strong sustainability positioning. An important end from Gerresheimer, very much appreciated trend, as we, with our strong experience in pharma, are well positioned to fulfill this. We anticipate and understand these trends, and we are innovating towards the best product and customer solutions. We are leveraging our long-term pharma competencies in order to innovate on new solutions for the cosmetic and beauty market. The expertise we established over decades helps to define new markets and convince existing as well as new customers to partner up with us. We already have a leading market position in the Cosmetics segment, and we are continuously increasing the amount of high-value beauty solutions in this segment. The broad portfolio in products and capabilities of Gerresheimer is a key success driver. We are offering the best customer solution through joining forces of our businesses and business units, concentrating our capabilities in our newly formed network of innovation centers. In order to find the ideal customer solution, it is essential to integrate products and know-how from all divisions and all business units. By this, we customize our product alongside the customers' requirements and have a unique competitive advantage. Based on global trends in pharma and beauty, we see increasing requirements of our beauty customers, upgrading their demands towards pharma and health care standards. These are exactly the customer needs we will serve, and this corresponds perfectly to our expertise and the strategy of formula G. Already now, the range of product solutions for our cosmetics and beauty customers is diverse as well as solution combining glass and plastics. We are focusing on the best solution for the customers, and we are continuously enlarging our portfolio. I will give you some examples. We extended our portfolio in perfume samplers by vials for small-sized cosmetic products. The latest innovation for beauty customers is a dropper solution, combining our capabilities in tubular glass, molded glass as well as plastic packaging. In addition, we are providing ampoules in various sizes and diameters as well as tube containers for liquid cosmetics, such as Mascara. Within the production and manufacturing process, we are continuously moving up the value chain by offering various decoration options and finishing techniques such as lacquering, printing, met treatments and metallization and so on. Also here, we are using our long-term expertise and decorating our pharma solutions. Furthermore, we are expanding the business with customers in the selective segment, in particular, for premium skin care products as well as for selective fragrances. The underlying market growth for this selective segment is very attractive, and the recovery since the COVID-19 pandemic is dynamic. We are following these trends with our regional expansion plans. And this approach contributes to our strategic target to move up the value chain of our customers. A third point and very important, is sustainability. Sustainability is a key pillar of our growth strategy. We are fully committed to our ambitious sustainability targets that are contributing to these goals and targets of our customers. We are offering to our customers the usage of cost consumer recycled glass as well as recycled plastics. Together with our customers, we create products developed under eco design principles. Together, we are considering sustainability requirements right from the beginning of the product life cycle. Already today, many of our cosmetic and beauty customers are convinced by our high quality of products with recycled glass content up to 40%, 45% and up to 100% recycled plastics. Besides the reusage of resources, we are focusing on further key criteria such as, for example, weight reduction or packaging density. The extension of our portfolio for cosmetic and beauty customers alongside a holistic cross-divisional developing and manufacturing approach offers promising growth opportunities in all divisions. This doesn't only apply to the cosmetic business. It's a building block on our way to become a complete solution provider. We will leverage that in each business unit and alongside the whole product portfolio, always focusing on our target, transforming our Gerresheimer into a growth company as innovation leader and solution provider. We will continuously implement this approach globally. We will innovate globally with a particular focus on own products and own IP with strong partnerships and collaboration. With this, I hand over to Bernd to elaborate on the financials. Thank you. Bernd, go ahead.

[Bernd Metzner, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Thank you, Dietmar, and welcome, everybody, also from my side. Before we go into the analysis of our Q3 2021 figures, I want to briefly summarize our achievements in the third quarter. First, the revenue development was strong, achieving double-digit organic revenue growth, marking one of the strongest quarters in Gerresheimer's history. Second, our revenues were, again, particularly boosted by our key growth drivers. High-value Solutions grew by almost 30% and Biological Solutions outperformed again with more than 30% revenue growth year-over-year. Third, we achieved an organic adjusted EBITDA increase of 3.5% despite significant headwinds from higher prices for raw materials and energy. This shows that we are quite resilient against the inflationary pressure and demonstrate that our strong market position provides significant pricing power. Now let's dive into the analysis of the key financials for the third quarter 2021. Reported revenues increased from EUR 349 million in Q3 2020 by [ EUR 30 million ] to EUR 382 million in Q3 2021. This represents a strong organic revenue growth of 10% for the group and 9.8% for the core business, respectively. FX had only a slight negative impact of a low single-digit million euro amount, resulting in a reported sales increase by 9.4% for the group. This is a strong accomplishment even without considering approximately 2.5 to 3.0 percentage points as tailwind from passing through inflation effects. Now let's turn to the earnings. In Q3 2021, we were able to organically expand our adjusted EBITDA. For the group, we reached an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 75 million. This represents an organic increase of 2.1%. FX headwinds were minor and amounted to a low single-digit million euro amount compared to previous year. In our core business, we reached an organic adjusted EBITDA growth rate of 3.5% year-over-year for the adjusted EBITDA. This is with a corresponding organic margin of 20.9%. I will later zoom into the margin details, but the adjusted EBITDA expansion of our core business compared to the previous year is very reassuring. For the first 9 months, we achieved an organic adjusted EBITDA growth of 4.2% year-over-year with a corresponding margin of 21.1%, which is only slightly below previous year's level of 21.6%. Before we come to the net result, I will briefly comment on our EBITDA adjustments. In Q3, we had adjustments at the EBITDA level of around EUR 6 million. As in previous quarters, our main adjustment in Q3 was related to COVID-19 onetime costs associated to quarantine obligations of employees, which have been compensated by part-time workers as well as hygiene measures, in particular, in our plants in Brazil and India. Good news: These costs are exceptional in nature and will not exist going forward. So we will see a significant reduction in the EBITDA adjustments from now onwards, starting Q4 2021. Let's move to the bottom line. The adjusted EPS adjusted by FX effects increased from EUR 0.96 by 5.2% to EUR 1.01. This brings us to an organic year-to-date growth rate of 16.3%. By the way, also in Q4, we will see a double-digit EPS growth. Before we look into the divisional performance, I will put our core adjusted margin of 20.9% into perspective and briefly explain the adjusted EBITDA impacts from pass-through effects for resin prices and the energy costs. What you will see is that we are well positioned to weather the inflation pressure. We are able to pass on the sharp rise in resin prices to our customers on short notice. While revenues benefit from these pass-through effects, there's almost no contribution to adjusted EBITDA. This effect technically dilutes the adjusted EBITDA margin by approximately 60 basis points. The rising energy costs have, however, burdened our adjusted EBITDA with a mid-single-digit million euro amount. Good news is that these headwinds are only temporary in nature and will be passed on to the customers with a certain delay of a couple of quarters. If you exclude this temporary burden, the adjusted EBITDA margin would have increased by approximately 1.5 percentage points. So on a pro forma basis adjusting for these 2 effects, you would arrive to an adjusted EBITDA margin of around 23.0% compared to 22.2% in Q3 2021. It shows that the positive trend in structurally improving our profitability continues. If you look at the big picture, the transformation of our Gerresheimer into a growth company is successful and backed by global megatrends. We are well positioned in attractive niche markets. This enables us to -- almost completely to pass on the inflation pressure either in the short term or at least in a couple of quarters. Now let's have a closer look into the divisions. Plastic & Devices. Revenues in Q3 increased from EUR 194 million in Q3 2020 by EUR 14 million to EUR 208 million in Q3 2021, and were partially supported by pass-through effects from increasing raw material prices, so organic growth amounted to a strong 80%. Adjusted for slight FX headwinds of a low single-digit million euro figure, the reported revenue increase amounted to 7.1% year-over-year. The revenue tailwind from passing through rising resin prices amounted to a high single-digit million euro amount. Let's have a look at the moving parts within Plastic & Devices. First, the divisional growth was strongly supported by primary plastic packaging, including Centor, which benefited from passing through higher raw material prices. Second, our RTF syringes business improved again and showed solid mid-single-digit revenue growth. We are continuously ramping up new capacity lines, which will continuously kick in from full year 2022 onwards. Third, the contract manufacturing business was stable, which was due to a slight shift of revenues amounting to a mid-single-digit euro amount from the third into the fourth quarter. The underlying organic adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was stable and reached EUR 51 million in Q3 2021 compared to EUR 52 million in Q3 last year. In Q3, FX was of minor importance and only slightly impacted EBITDA. The organic adjusted EBITDA margin amounted to 24.6% and compares to 26.8% in Q3 last year. As mentioned before, there are, in particular, 2 factors impacting the organic adjusted EBITDA development: first, this is a technical effect from the pass-through of resin price, which only supported our top line; second, but to a lower extent, a slight shift in the product mix. We had phasing effects in our contract manufacturing business, resulting in a slight weaker mix. Looking at the broader picture and comparing the adjusted EBITDA margin of 23.6% in Q3 2019 with the 24.6% in Q3 2021, we show a solid margin improvement in our Plastic & Devices division, and this trend will continue. Now let's turn to Primary Packaging Glass. The Primary Packaging Glass division showed another impressive double-digit organic revenue growth. This is the second consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth for Primary Packaging Glass. Revenues increased from EUR 156 million in Q3 2020 by EUR 18 million to EUR 174 million in Q3 2021. The organic revenue growth amounted to 12.2%. The FX effect had only a marginal negative impact resulting in a reported revenue increase of 11.8%. The Tubular Glass business once again benefited from a high demand in high-value solutions. Our high-value solutions increased by around 30% in Q3 2021 year-over-year, which was mainly driven by Biological Solutions, Elite Glass and RTF vials. The adjusted EBITDA increased from EUR 32 million to EUR 35 million in Q3 2021. Adjusted for FX effect, the organic adjusted EBITDA growth surged by a strong 11.2% year-over-year despite the strong rise in energy costs. So we are able to largely compensate for the notable energy cost increase and achieved a solid organic adjusted EBITDA margin of 20.3%. Now I come to Advanced Technologies. Revenues amounted to EUR 2 million in Q3 2021 and were in line with our expectations. Further, adjusted EBITDA loss in Q3 totaled minus EUR 4 million, also as planned. Please note that GAT Advanced Technology is not part of our full year 2021 and midterm guidance. Let's turn to the cash flow. During our analyst call for Q2 2021, we indicated that the second half of the fiscal year 2021 will be, as usual, significantly stronger compared to the first 6 months of this year. And the development in Q3 2021 clearly demonstrates this and a strong Q4 will follow. In Q3, we generated a free cash flow of EUR 39 million, which is comparable to the prior year. And we achieved this development despite EUR 20 million higher net CapEx. We managed to compensate the higher CapEx through a strong improvement of net working capital by more than EUR 20 million. Let me conclude the cash flow discussion with a comment on our CapEx program. We are executing on our unique business opportunities. As you know, we are sizing attractive business opportunities to accelerate our profitable growth performance. So we are investing, for example, into the capacity extension for injectables and build up the capacity to accommodate announced attractive auto-injector contract. As a summary, we have once more accelerated the organic revenue growth rate to a high single-digit range in Q3. We expect the positive momentum to continue in the fourth quarter of the financial year 2021. Our structural growth and profitability drivers, high-value solutions and biologic solutions are sustainable and will continue to further contribute to profitable growth. With this positive outlook, I now hand back to Dietmar. Dietmar?

[Dietmar Siemssen]

Yes. Thank you, Bernd. Yes, we are looking into a strong fourth quarter. The growth drivers defined at the beginning of the year are developing as expected. We will keep the momentum for growth, again, with strong contribution from High-value Solutions. In more detail, for Plastics & Devices, we expect mid- to high single-digit organic revenue growth from our plastic business as well as drug delivery devices. For Plastic Packaging Glass, we expect double-digit organic revenue growth, backed by a further strong development in our High-value Solutions. We expect both molded and tubular glass to contribute strongly to this growth story. The projects we are working on in Advanced Technologies business are on track, and we are continuously evaluating and working on new projects and business opportunities. This business is getting more and more exciting, has significantly changed in the last 2 years, in particular, with new business and growth opportunities with own IP products and also digital connected solutions. For the guidance, we reaffirm our guidance for the current fiscal year as well as our medium-term outlook. The current developments mean that we expect to achieve the upper end of our guidance for fiscal year '21 with regards to organic sales growth, while the adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to be at the lower end of the guidance. And good to see regardless of some headwinds from rising raw material and energy cost, we are very well underway and on track to achieve the absolute adjusted EBITDA targets. By implementing our growth strategy, formula G, we stated that every business unit will contribute to our growth track. This turns in, with fiscal year '22, we will improve further significant revenue contribution from our high-value solutions through the one side capacity expansions as well as through further innovative solutions. We will continuously implement our regional expansion plans in order to accelerate growth with existing customers but also to win new customers globally. The contract manufacturing business will also increase its growth momentum based on the strong order intake over the last years, for example, auto-injection devices, pens and diagnostic devices. With these order intakes, we are successful defending our global leading position in contract manufacturing for inhalers, pens, and all auto-injector devices. Additionally, we expect further recovery in our cosmetic business as well as revenue contribution from the new innovative beauty solutions as elaborated earlier in this call. Ladies and gentlemen, we at Gerresheimer are on a mission. We are transforming our Gerresheimer into a growth company as innovation leader and solution provider. With an intense focus on profitable sustainable growth, we will consistently prove that the transformation is happening, and we will bring evidence to our long-term guidance for high single-digit revenue growth from '22 onwards. With that, I hand back to Carolin and look forward to your questions.

[Carolin Nadilo, Corporate Director of Investor Relations]

Thank you for your presentation, Dietmar and Bernd. So let's enter into our Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from David Adlington, JPMorgan.

[David James Adlington]

Yes. A few, please, mostly financial. So I just wondered, in terms of the, I think, it's EUR 5.7 million of exceptional costs this quarter being related to COVID. I just wondered actually what those costs were and how you see those evolving from here. And I think you mentioned that you're expecting those exceptional costs to come down both into Q4 and to next year. So as we think about that, what sort of base should we be assuming in terms of the EBITDA margins? And then if that supported your EBITDA margins in some ways, I'm just wondering how much do you think about the margin as you go into next year. And then following on from that, the guidance for both this year and last year, I don't think anticipated any inflation, sort of mid-single for this year and a high single for next year. Should we be laying the inflation tailwinds on top of that, so 5% to 6%-plus? I'm guessing about 2% for the full year, for this year, and what sort of tailwind do you expect from inflation for next year?

[Bernd Metzner, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Thanks, David, for the question. Although, actually, you touched the exceptionals. Practically, we have exceptionals linked to COVID mainly, and this was basically also guarantee measures in place. If you look orders in Europe, but you have to look at Brazil, India, and it was basically due to the temporary workers where we have to take over and so on, so this was basically the brunt of our exceptionals. What is very important is that we don't see -- this obviously will not exist going forward. You will see a significant reduction from the EUR 5 million to EUR 6 million in Q4. And also going forward, we don't expect any relevant exceptionals. That's basically our -- how we see and how we plan going forward. Regarding the margin for the next year, I mean, what we clearly see is that we will have this strong growth momentum. What you see will continue, as we speak. And we want to discuss our guidance for the next year in February, what we are doing regularly. I'm talking about sales growth and EBITDA growth. And what we can see is definitely that we will grow also our EBITDA into -- going into the next year. That's all I can answer to our outlook for 2022.

[Dietmar Siemssen]

Yes. I think we gave a midterm guidance for the year out, which is high single digit. I have no doubts in this, actually, that we will also confirm this guidance. You asked the question how much the inflation would impact. Honestly spoken, when we guided mid-single digit for '21, we didn't see any impact coming from inflation. We stick to this when -- at this time, we also guided high single digit for '22, and we did not consider any inflation. So if there would be an inflation, that would come on top.

[Carolin Nadilo, Corporate Director of Investor Relations]

Next question comes from Veronika Dubajova from Goldman Sachs.

[Veronika Dubajova, Equity Analyst]

I had 2 please, to start with. One, I just want to follow up on the energy cost headwinds and kind of a 2-parter here, if that's all right. One, would love to understand what your expectations are for the headwinds from elevated energy costs as you think about the fourth quarter and how much visibility you have on those headwinds in terms of the proportion that is hedged versus unhedged? And then the second part to the first question is, as you think about 2022, if my math is correct here, I think this year, you will have incurred about EUR 10 million to EUR 15 million of EBITDA headwinds from higher energy costs. What proportion of this do you think you can offset through price increases as you transition into fiscal year '22? Just a rough guide here would be helpful. And then my second question is on AT, I think you have mentioned, Dietmar, on multiple occasions, potential for new customers here on the auto-injector. And I'm just curious if you have an update on that.

[Bernd Metzner, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Maybe I'll take your -- the first 2 questions, Veronika. First, regarding the energy cost. Basically, we assume that probably you have also a mid-single-digit Euro amount as a headwind in our bottom line. But don't forget, partially, it was already planned for. Partially, we are increasing the prices and partially how we have demonstrated this so far, we will compensate for that in this area. And with this, we really come to our budgeted numbers for the full year. That's the outlook for Q4 and beyond the middle of Q4, so we have a very good forecast accuracy on especially Q4, as you can imagine. On the other note, the price increases. The price increases overall as of -- regarding the inflationary pressure basically, for the resin prices, it's already transferred to our clients. For the energy prices, what we're always saying, you have basically trickling in in the next couple of quarters. And we expect that over the course of the next year, we will be able also to pass on the price increases totally to our customers. That's our work assumption for the next year.

[Dietmar Siemssen]

Yes. I take the other questions around Advanced Technology. Veronika, you're a bit too early with this question. As I can't disclose any details because we have not signed the contract, but factors that in Advanced Technology, there's a lot of very positive and strong use that we most likely will disclose with the Q4, if not, a bit earlier. We think about this at the moment. It's not only a new contract with a new customer, it's also a couple of other news that are really strong. For me, it's really motivating. The existing projects are running very well, finally, which is very positive. There are new businesses coming in. It's not only in the direction of additional pharma customers, but it's really also maybe going in another direction with smart devices in, for example, even cosmetics. So it's really dynamic here. And very positive to see that finally, here, the success stories are coming in. But it's a little bit too early to disclose at the moment because I would like to sign the contract first.

[Veronika Dubajova, Equity Analyst]

Understood. And just to circle back on the energy question, Bernd, if that's all right. So if I look at sort of the EUR 15 million or so of EBITDA that you will have lost by the end of this year from higher energy prices, we should assume that through the course of next year, you basically offset that through higher prices?

[Bernd Metzner, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Exactly, Veronika. That's exactly our base case.

[Carolin Nadilo, Corporate Director of Investor Relations]

Our next question comes from Scott Bardo from Berenberg.

[Scott Bardo, Analyst]

So first question, please, I'd like to understand a little bit the capacity considerations, constraints in syringes. I think you mentioned a mid-single-digit growth this quarter, which I think is a little bit below market and somewhat contrary to your growth ambitions in that segment. I was under the impression that you were building out additional capacities for this year. So perhaps give us an update on that and when you believe that you can start to, say, take market share again in those categories, please.The second question, please, it relates a little bit to this energy topic. I understand that you're already in discussions, negotiations with price pass-through for your glass business. Can you help us understand a little bit in terms of the magnitude of price rises that you consider here? Also give us some sense of the attitude towards customers for these price hikes. I think historically, Gerresheimer has not been so aggressive with price, so maybe some feedback on this notion. And also help us understand, is there any clause with this price rise such that if energy costs come down, you need to concede and go back to the old prices? So I'd like to understand that, please. The last question, please, relates to the Advanced Technologies business. Obviously, a technology-rich area, which has been pretty slow in contribution, still significantly burdening your profits. Am I right in saying that your pre-communicated financial guidance for this division into next year being that losses will significantly abate in 2022, and maybe even indeed in some sort of EBITDA-neutral situation. I'd like to understand whether you're following that trajectory.

[Dietmar Siemssen]

Yes. I take the first question around the syringes. The syringes, actually, I cannot confirm your statement here. There are some smaller mix effects probably in the third quarter. But the growth story in the syringes is fully ongoing. The ready-to-fill sixth line is in the ramp-up, which is in plan, and we will continuously see strong growth in the syringes that will be solid. I would call it solid double digit, for example, for '22. And we are, here, on track.

[Bernd Metzner, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Scott, I will come to the second topic, the energy, how we are behaving towards our customers. I mean, it's a very sensitive topic, as you can imagine, also from a competitive point of view. But obviously, you said we are not, let's say, in the last 10 years, we're not used to really approach our customers with -- let's say, we never have seen such a hike in prices. So we really mobilized our sales organization to really make sure that the energy cost hike is really transferred to our customers. And we are doing this, I have to say, in a fair but very effective way. That's what I can say. And regarding the clauses, whether it comes back, the price decrease if the energy price goes down. It's something I would like to keep a competitive secret. It really depends from the customers in the end of the day how you're managing this, if that's clear. The last topic regarding Advanced Technology. It's -- Advanced Technology from a concept is obviously at the core of our company. And we see here the -- really the success potential of our growth story as well. As you mentioned, yes, this is not part of our guidance. Why? Because we always said we want to not overpromise and under deliver, but the opposite to under -- to over, really, deliver. And therefore, we said better to keep this aside. This was our Advanced Technology approach. And we'll reassess whether this is now the appropriate way going forward as closer we get to the realization of the project, which was mentioned by Dietmar.

[Scott Bardo, Analyst]

Well, just furthermore, I mean I think you -- this is loss-making to the tune of EUR 15 million or so annually. And I understand, of course, that this is an investment for the future. But I think your pre-communicated structure was that this was going to become less burdensome on EBITDA from 2022. So can you confirm that today? Is that the outlook that you foresee?

[Dietmar Siemssen]

Yes. I think we can also confirm this because also the new projects will support. What I forgot to mention is that one of the new projects we are discussing, usually when you win a new customer, it takes a couple of years in the advanced technology area to launch this products. Here we are now talking an application where our go-to-market would be significantly faster than normal, and it's not unlikely at all that we also here in late '23, latest '24, really see already strong sales. And that is really a great thing and a good story. More in a couple of months when we disclose the -- Q4 in the details.

[Scott Bardo, Analyst]

Very good. And maybe 1 last question, if I can, please, and maybe somewhat of a difficult one to answer. But we're seeing, of course, lots of your competitors like come to the capital markets. I'm thinking Stevanato Group in the U.S., and there are obviously other publicly traded peers that are seeing strong growth and enjoying very high valuations. And I think that compared to Gerresheimer now trading on 52-week lows today, I'd like to understand from you, Dietmar, why you think there is a different performance or perception of performance, and indeed, why you think Gerresheimer is not resonating, if you like, with the investment community today.

[Dietmar Siemssen]

Yes. It's a tricky question. And I'm not sure whether I'm the absolute market specialist. But I -- from my point of view, what we see out there is that there is a lot of our investors but also some of our analysts that are still sticking with the old Gerresheimer. And we have a history of the old Gerresheimer, and they are in this old Gerresheimer mode, whereof we have obviously not successful enough been able to bring the new Gerresheimer story across. Because what we actually are doing at the moment, the kind of story that we are writing is really amazing. And what you see, meanwhile, 2 years ago, I was talking about the story. Now we are in the middle of the story, and it's happening as we talk. And we have really [ transferred ] the company from a classic packaging company into a med tech, high innovative company. And it is on us, on the one side, to upgrade the story, bring it across -- the story across in a better way. But also our performance deliveries over the next quarters and years will also help to underline the strength of the story. From my point of view, we are extremely well positioned in Gerresheimer. And it's more likely that we were writing a story that is probably significantly more interesting than the story of one or other of the players that are doing an IPO at the moment to an extremely high valuation.

[Carolin Nadilo, Corporate Director of Investor Relations]

The next question comes from Chris Gretler from Credit Suisse.

[Christoph Gretler, Managing Director in Equity Research]

Dietmar, actually, it's just 2 questions. Now the first relates to your guidance. Actually, if I look at your year-to-date growth performance of 7.3%, I'm essentially -- actually, I'm also [ not ] a bit surprised by your optimism about Q4 growth, particularly with the double-digit growth in Primary Packaging Glass. I mean wouldn't that be kind of enough to know for an upgrade to the growth guidance? Because -- I mean, I think mid-single digit could still be up to 7% [indiscernible]. And I guess just now doing the math, you probably, given your plans here in Q4, you will likely end up above the 7% range. So what kind of not would trigger you to kind of not actually upgrade your revenue growth guidance or what prevents you from doing so? And the second question is just with respect to your energy hedging, cost hedging strategy. I think down to a predecessor provided at some stage EBITDA guidance on kind of your hedging strategy. Maybe could you update us on kind of how that works now at the moment and what your strategy is in this relatively volatile environment? That would be great. Thanks.

[Dietmar Siemssen]

Yes. I think I take the first question. Bernd, you do the second or -- okay. We are aligning here a little bit, sorry. Yes, upgrade your guidance, it's a good question. It's what I usually love to do the most. At the moment we stay a bit conservative here, but there's no doubt. We guided mid-single digit. You heard that we expect that it'd be some 2% tailwind coming from the inflation. And I told you also that my earlier guidance did not include the inflations. You can add up, whether it's now 7 or 7-something or a little bit more. It's up to your fantasy. I think we are very well underway. Q4 will be strong. You're right. It's not a total surprise that the Q4 will be strong because actually, we planned a strong Q3, and we also planned a very strong Q4 from the very beginning. And it's not a total surprise that Q4 will now come in very nicely. So let's see for the Q4.

[Christoph Gretler, Managing Director in Equity Research]

I'm just saying on my end, sometime it's good to kind of also to provide positive surprises to the market and to get this beat and race going. So just to count some of the headwinds, I think, Scott was mentioning before, for example on the financial market side, at least. But appreciate your comments.

[Bernd Metzner, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Just to take your second question regarding our policy regarding hedging. I mean as you -- I'm sure you understand, I mean, we are now in the middle of the price negotiations in these areas. And in the end, we keep this precisely -- the precise amount a secret. But be assured we are really appropriately hedged, especially also for energy and gas and electricity in particular.

[Carolin Nadilo, Corporate Director of Investor Relations]

Okay. Next question comes from Falko Friedrichs from Deutsche Bank.

[Falko Friedrichs, Research Analyst]

Two questions, please. My first one would be whether you still expect to be free cash flow positive in fiscal year 2021? And then the second one would be great if you could provide an update on the SQ Innovation project and whether you still expect your first revenues from that project next year.

[Bernd Metzner, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Thank you, Falko. For the first question, I thought that maybe it's forgotten, the free cash flow. It depends a little bit, our free cash flow, whether we will arrive to basically to a black zero, it depends a little bit from our CapEx program. But what I can tell you is that we will have -- that our plans is strong as cash flow quarter of the year in Q4. In this quarter, Q3, we had EUR 40 million. So if you calculate this, it should be very strong Q4 as well.

[Dietmar Siemssen]

Yes. I'll take the SQ Innovation project. The SQ Innovation project is on track. For the ones that are interested, we just made it, I think it was last week, on the top page of the Harald in Scotland next to the Queen. It was a picture of the Queen next to our article that said Scot Medics in world's first trial to treat heart failure cases at home, which is another confirmation of a very positive clinical study. The project is in plan. It's of course -- at the moment, of course, it's -- the customers are driving it. We are still planning -- or the customer is still planning to bring it into the FDA beginning of next year. And as such, if things run further according to plan, it's true that we are shipping the first pumps, hopefully, by end -- in the end of '22, whether it's then November or December, but that's clearly the plan. And at the moment, everything looks very positive here.

[Carolin Nadilo, Corporate Director of Investor Relations]

Now we have Daniel Wendorff from ODDO BHF on the line.

[Daniel Wendorff, Analyst]

Three also, if I may. And the first one is on the margin development in PPG. If you would exclude the negative impact from higher energy cost, then the margin development would have actually been quite strong in my view. And in that division in the quarter, maybe you can give a bit more color here, where is it coming from, how sustainable that is. Maybe related to that question, that's also my second question, on the number of new beauty solution products within the cosmetics part of the business you highlighted for us. How important are these already? And has this any impact on margin development in this division? And then my last question would be on the High-value Solutions part of the business and the strong growth you presented to us. Is that more related to really product lines, which are growing so strongly? Or is that related to very specific peculiar products for single customers? So I think I try to understand a bit the granularity -- whether you can provide here a bit more granularity of where the growth is really coming from for High-value Solutions.

[Bernd Metzner, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Daniel, I would take the first question regarding the margin development for PPG. Actually, pro forma, if you really want to see it, you have to increase actually your EBITDA slightly in PPG by EUR 3 million or EUR 4 million if you really want to look through the inflation. And then you really see the structure growth momentum also as far as the margin is concerned, the margin expansion is concerned, if you really want to look through. And one of the key drivers is obviously that we have in our High-value solutions area and in the Biologicals, definitely also a nicer margin than you have with your, let's say, standard business, if you want to, and this helps us. It's basically a product mix effect. And therefore, I can answer that this conception is structurally sustainable.

[Dietmar Siemssen]

Yes. I'll take the second question. The beauty and cosmetic, it's interesting that, especially last year, we always discussed Cosmetic to be something negative because due to the COVID, perfume flacons, they didn't sell well. Actually, the rest of the cosmetic business also in 2020 did very well. And it is, in general, an effective business with also reasonable margins. The recovery now, of course, helps. That is coming back. But on top of this, we should not forget that cosmetic business, if it's not COVID, is actually a business that is almost growing double digit. And this is what we will see again in the loop of the next quarters and years. And the new products, which are on the one side upgraded perfume flacons that are decorated in a certain way. But we also talk about the new pipettes, for example, the things I spoke about, where we include the know-how of tubular layers and plastics together. It's a product that is used quite a lot now, not only in cosmetic, but also in pharma. But in cosmetics, it's -- does the ramp-up of the sales starts in the fourth quarter. And it's -- I don't know exactly how many million, but you will probably see the first million of sales in the first quarter. And we probably see EUR 5 million to EUR 10 million of these sales already in '22. So it's pretty interesting to move into this business segment. It's a little bit, as I said in the speech. The advantages that we have in Gerresheimer is that we -- other than the normal cosmetic customers really have this pharma know-how and can easily include this. Then the next question was regarding of high-value solutions. Of course, there is a broader portfolio of high-value solutions that we, for example, sell especially into the biological market with our new founded biological segment. These are, for example, very special syringes, whether it's COP syringes or syringes with metal-free, tungsten-free or special surface treatment. But it's also ready-to-fill vials and Elite vials that we are doing pretty good sales with end of Q3 already, Q4 will be more and even more in '22. Important is that these ready-to-fill vials are increasingly strong market. And that's the area where capacities that we actually added for COVID will easily and heavily be used up. When the COVID topic is over and the sales goes down in this area, we are using the free capacities to add up on our ready-to-fill and also Elite vials. And that's a pretty good story. Another high-value products are, of course, solutions that we are now bringing by combining know-how in plastic and glass. For example, via glass container with plastic closure, which is a system, big added value for the customer. And we are selling this.

[Daniel Wendorff, Analyst]

Yes. Definitely. I just wanted to know whether there are really very peculiar product for single customers involved, really.

[Carolin Nadilo, Corporate Director of Investor Relations]

Are there any further questions from you, analyst side? This seems not to be the case. We would like to thank you for the call today and for joining us, and all the best and stay healthy.

[Operator]

Thank you for your attendance. This call has been concluded. You may disconnect.