Agrana Beteiligungs AG

VSE:AGR

Earnings Call Transcript

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the AGRANA Results for the First 3 Quarters of 2024-'25 Conference Call. I am Maria, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.

At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Hannes Haider. Please go ahead.

[Hannes Haider, executive]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our conference call presenting our results for the first 3 quarters of '24-'25 financial year. First of all, a Happy New Year and all the best and good health for 2025.

With us today are 3 -- 2 out of 3 members of the Management Board. Stephan Büttner, our CEO, will start the presentation with an overview on the highlights of the first 3 quarters. Afterwards, CTO, Norbert Harringer, will tell you what is going on in the group regarding raw materials, production and investment. He will also comment on the group's ESG news. And in the last part of the call, CEO Büttner, will comment on the business development in the 3 segments, he will also report on the condensed financial statements and he will conclude with an outlook for the remaining business year.

As always and as announced in our invitation, a presentation is available in reference to our call. You can find this presentation in the IR section of our website. The presentation will take about 25 minutes. And afterwards, the line will be opened and CEO and CTO will be glad to answer your questions. And now I may pass over to our CEO, Stephan.

[Stephan Büttner, executive]

Thank you, Hannes. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. So welcome to our conference call for the first 3 quarters of the actual business year '24-'25.

So we would like to start with the general overview, let's say, the highlights of the actual business year first 9 months. So unfortunately, business performance remains very weak also in the third quarter. EBIT in the third quarter was slightly negative. The economic overall environment in Europe is still very weak. Also in Austria and Germany, we are facing a recession.

Also, we are facing still high volatility in the raw materials and also on the energy side. So overall, a very challenging environment for the whole organization. Positive, we would like to report the Fruit segment. So here, despite the difficult economic situation, we were able to deliver a very solid performance in the first 3 quarters. And as already reported in the previous market, Sugar remains the biggest challenge for our group.

Key figures. So revenue, we ended in the first 3 quarters with EUR 2.7 billion. This is a minus of 8.1% versus previous year. EBITDA of EUR 138.1 million, minus 44.7%. Also, operating profit significantly down to EUR 54.3 million. This is a minus of 67.1%. And this is also shown on the EBIT level with EUR 51.1 million. This is a minus of 65.8%. The earnings per share amounted to EUR 0.18.

Also, we would like to give you a quick overview of the strategy update. Our corporate strategy, NEXT LEVEL, was unanimously decided by the Supervisory Board on 12th November 2024. This is very important while we are facing these very difficult and challenging environment. So the core element of the NEXT LEVEL strategy is, of course, the restructuring of the whole AGRANA Group into a streamlined strategic holding company with 2 strategic business areas, one is Agricultural Commodities & Specialties and the other one is Food & Beverage Solutions.

So we will reorganize the whole organization into these 2 overarching, interacting business areas. Then we would really like to foster collaboration and also get the advantage out of all potential synergies between the different segments. They should work together within the segments, but also between the 2 business areas in the future. And also, we will have a strategic holding [ line ] in the future, which should enable us to strategically steer the whole group; and on the other hand, also to deliver vertical synergies for the bottom line.

Also, we already communicated or announced that we are going for savings of EUR 80 million to EUR 100 million per year, effective -- fully effective from the financial year '27-'28. The first progress on these savings on the restructuring of the whole organization will be presented to the public at our Capital Markets Day on 16th and 17th January 2025.

Also, we would like to report on the changes on corporate governance level. So a fundamental step in the transformation of the group is the conversion of the current holding structure into a more streamlined and efficient strategic holding, as already mentioned.

So one thing is that we already eliminated, after our Supervisory Board on the 12th of November, the individual responsibility of the Management Board for a specific business segment. Instead of this, we now, as a Board of AGRANA Group, share joint responsibility for all segments and we have a pure functional reporting structure.

Also, we will have a very clear delineation of responsibilities on holding level but also on the business level. So this means, on one hand, that the Board will really focus on the strategic management of the whole group. On the other hand, we have clear responsibilities also on business level where the operated business will be executed.

The new functions of the different Board members are also shown on the next slide of our presentation. So you see that the CEO in the future will have a function of strategy and transformation, including mergers and acquisition, finance, commercial excellence, information technology, corporate communications, human resource, business development, compliance, legal and investor relations.

CTO will be responsible for operational excellence, including occupational safety and investment purchasing. This means strategic purchasing, logistics, supply chain, sustainability, research and development, agricultural raw materials and quality management. And our Chief Auditing Officer will be responsible for internal audit. Here, we have no changes.

So lastly, let me hand over to Mr. Norbert Harringer, who will give you an overview of raw materials and production.

[Norbert Harringer, executive]

Thank you, Stephan. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to today's conference call. Let me start with a short overview about raw materials and production.

And here, let's start with the Fruit segment. In the juice concentrates business, we have an apple harvest which was significantly below that of the previous year at about minus 20%. In the fruit preparations business, the AGRANA's demand for strawberry for the current business year is already fully contracted. Average purchase prices were moderately lower than in the previous year, mainly due to the sufficient availability of the raw materials globally.

In the Sugar segment, we are confronted with high sugar stocks and declining sugar selling prices, as we already know. But we see additionally, since the full start of the beet campaign in the last year in October 2024, that the campaign expenses for the '24-'25 sugar marketing year will be higher than expected mainly to a very low sugar content in the beets and overall reduced quality due to the climatic conditions during the vegetation and the growing period.

In the Starch segment, we see an EBIT decline sharply year-on-year, particularly in the third quarter as a result of the flood damage of September 2024, where the starch factories were mostly effected.

On the next slide, we see the development of the commodity prices on the market, the Euronext in Paris. The closing prices after the third quarter with -- 29th of November were: for wheat, EUR 209.5 per tonne; and for corn, EUR 203.8 per tonne.

So let me now continue with a short ESG update. Ladies and gentlemen, an important milestone in this year in the sustainability reporting will be the implementation of the new European Sustainability Reporting Standards. We are on our way. And the aim is not only to produce the ESRS-compliant report, but also to intensify the integration of sustainability considerations into all our existing corporate structures.

After the flooding disaster in September, the goals of our AGRANA climate strategy appear more and more significant. And I have to report that we continue to make good progress on our way to achieve our climate targets. In these 3 quarters -- in the first 3 quarters of '24-'25, the switch from [ charcoal ] to natural gas. And our last [ charcoal-fired ] factory, sugar factory in Opava, is also on its way. And it is expected that we will start the next campaign '25-'26 already on natural gas.

So last but not least, a short update on our investment and an overview. The AGRANA Group invested in the first 3 quarters of the current business year EUR 72.4 million within the Fruit segment for capacity expansion in Mexico, the expansion of the food service area and capabilities in Centerville in the U.S.A. and the expansion of solar plant stations all over the world.

In the Starch segment, production capacity for drum-dried, nonfood specialty starches in Gmünd; we increased the bedding capacity for wheat starch and gluten in Pischelsdorf; and we did an upgrading of the biofiltration plant in Aschach. And in the Sugar segment, we had the optimization of the evaporator station in Roman. And as I already told you, the conversion of the fuel supply from coal to natural gas in Opava.

On the next slide, you see our plans for the remaining business year. We plan a total investment of about EUR 120 million for the current business year. This is in line with the budgeted depreciation of about EUR 120 million, and at about 12% of this capital expenditure will be dedicated for emission-reduction measures.

So that's everything from my side for this time, back to Stephan.

[Stephan Büttner, executive]

Thank you, Norbert. Let's move on with the results by segment and the market environment.

So first of all, please let me draw your attention to the development of the European and the world market prices for sugar. So as you can see in the graph, this is the significant decrease of the world market prices followed by a sharp decline of the European prices for sugar. So already in October, we ended up with an average price of EUR 619 per tonne for sugar, versus September '24 with EUR 758 per tonne. So the decline of the prices is still ongoing with the new contract prices out of the sugar campaign '24 coming into effect.

When we look at the revenue by segment, so we see an increase in the Fruit segment of 3.8% up to EUR 1.22 billion in the first 9 months. Starch declined by 15.5%, down to EUR 767 million. And we also have a decrease in the Sugar revenue, down to EUR 717.4 million. This is a minus of 16.7%.

Reasons for the increase in the Fruit segment is, of course, on volume increase in our fruit preparations business of around 3%. Also in the juice business, our sales volumes increased by 1%. And also, the prices in the juice business increased versus prior year. In Starch, overall, we see an average price decrease of 20% across the whole portfolio, mainly impacted here by native starches and saccharification products and bioethanol.

And in Sugar, of course, there was also a massive price decrease. So we lost revenue here of [ EUR 140 million ]. And this is really only driven by lower prices, with an enormous negative impact on our profitability, as you can see on the next slide.

So here, we are going down in our Sugar segment from a positive result last year of EUR 41.3 million in the segment down to minus EUR 50.2 million. So there, we really have the biggest challenge in the actual business year. But this will also accompany us in the next year as our Sugar contracts are valid for the sugar marketing year, which means until September 2025.

In Starch, here, of course, also the price pressure has a negative impact also throughout the whole portfolio. So mainly in the saccharification products, we have enormous price pressure. But also ethanol is not very profitable at the moment, but it is slightly better than last year. And Fruit shows really a positive performance with an increase of 45.5% on EBIT level up to EUR 72.9 million. So we are fine with the actual performance and we also expect that this will go on in the next month.

So let me come quickly to the financials. So here again, the consolidated income statement. So we already reported on the revenue of EUR 2.7 billion in the first 3 quarters. EBITDA, EUR 138.1 million. I also reported about the Q3 results, here you see EUR 846.1 million revenue. EBITDA, EUR 30.5 million.

We also had exceptional items in Q3. This concerns the temporary closure of our refinery for sugar in Romania, in Buzau, with an amount of EUR 3.8 million. So EBIT negative with EUR 5.5 million. Overall, our performance in the first 3 quarters on EBIT level EUR 51.1 million. EBIT margin is very low and even negative in Q3. And profit for the period, EUR 14.5 million. And earnings per share, EUR 0.18.

Energy costs are significantly lower than previous year, but still are high. So when we compare it with our energy cost before the outbreak of the Ukrainian war, it's still double the cost. So before 2021, we had energy costs in total in the first 3 quarters of around EUR 18 million. So this is still, I would say, a burden for our performance and still a very challenging situation.

Net financial items [ in the tune ] of minus EUR 24.3 million. So we have a significant improvement. We are coming from minus EUR 37.7 million. So here, especially the currency translation differences are much better than previous year. Profit before tax, EUR 26.8 million and tax rate 45.9%. So this is, of course, due to the mixture of results in different countries with different tax rates. Therefore, obviously quite high.

The consolidated cash flow statement. So here, positive is we have a free cash flow in the first 3 quarters of nearly EUR 90 million. So this in the middle of the very challenging environment and the poor profitability of our whole group, a positive effect.

And the balance sheet, so here we see no major deviations versus prior year. Equity ratio with 43.2%, stable. Net debt are slightly down to EUR 612.2 million. Here, we expect a further improvement during the last -- the fourth quarter of the actual business year. And the gearing ratio with 50.5%. Not low, but also not high, and therefore acceptable.

Yes, outlook, EBIT '24-'25, of course, we made an ad hoc announcement a couple of weeks ago where we reported the expectation of operating profit for the whole business year between EUR 55 million and EUR 75 million. So this is something we can confirm from today. Of course, we expect a very significant reduction in EBIT for the whole business versus prior year, and the group revenue is projected to show a moderate decrease.

By segment, so Fruit, a slight increase in revenue, a significant increase on EBIT level. Starch, moderate reduction in revenue, and EBIT should be significant. So it would be reduced significantly. And in Sugar, we expect a significant reduction in revenue and a very significant reduction in EBIT.

So thank you very much for your attention and participation. And now let me hand over again to Mr. Haider, who will inform you about the financial calendar.

[Hannes Haider, executive]

Yes. Just one remark before we go on with the Q&A session. I just wanted to mention again that our Capital Markets Day will take place on Thursday and Friday this week. And therefore, presentations in connection to this event will be published on our website, meaning the presentations will be made public for the whole financial community as soon as the Capital Market Day starts.

We will now go on with the Q&A session.