Lanxess AG

XETRA:LXS

Earnings Call Transcript

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining the LANXESS Conference Call. I would now like to turn the conference over to André Simon, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[André Simon, Head of Investor Relations]

Yes. Thank you very much, Judith, and a warm welcome from Cologne also from my side to our Q3 conference call. As always, I have with me our CEO, Matthias Zachert; and our CFO, Michael Pontzen. Please take notice of our safe harbor statements. And on top of this, I would like to flag our executive call, which will take place virtually tomorrow at 2 p.m. CET. With that, I'm happy to pass on to Matthias for a brief presentation afterwards for the Q&A. Matthias, please go ahead.

[Matthias Zachert, CEO & Chairman of the Board of Management]

Thank you very much, André. And ladies and gentlemen, warm welcome from my side as well. I would like to start the presentation directly on Page 4, where we give some key highlights on the third quarter. Q3 clearly shows that this so far in the running year has been the strongest quarter which normally is not the case. Normally, Q1, Q2 are the strong hitters whilst Q3 and Q4, you see the normal seasonal leveling off. This was different in Q3 because we had set 3 months ago, that we still have to catch up on raw material price inflation, on energy and logistics cost inflation. And if you look into the EBITDA performance, Q3 is [ EUR million ] stronger. So at higher levels than Q2, which is abnormal, a 44% rise versus previous year is pretty strong, and it's predominantly stems from pricing, pricing, pricing. On the middle part of the slide, you see the developments on pricing versus Q2 versus Q1. So when prices started to escalate in Q1, we promised to roll them over in Q2, which we did. Prices moved up further in Q2 and as a matter of fact, in Q2, we also saw that energy prices were on the rise. And what happened in Q3 is exactly what we told you, we will start rolling them over. With around about 20% price increase, which we have seen in the third quarter, we have, for the first time, not only pushed on the entire raw material price inflation. The good news is we started to roll over energy prices, not 1:1, but we started getting them into our contracts. Besides this, the volume increase of 10% also shows your current market environment. So all in all, Q3 should be a clear strong sign that the portfolio that we have is as strong to address all price elements. In some cases, with a time lag, but the most important element is we get them rolled over. What we flagged for Q4 after -- from our point of view, fundamentally strong Q3. There are logistics and freight cost constraints reflect them. What we do have to flag as well is in fourth quarter different to third quarter, we do have reduced volumes because, unfortunately, after the explosion in the incinery in Leverkusen in summer this year, which did not really impact us in third quarter. The second fallback solutions. We have established a variety of other second opportunities where we can dispose our leftovers. But one of the bigger companies went into a standstill now for 4 weeks. This is, of course, not that nice because it comes next to the Bürrig incidents, it leads to now a volume reduction in some of our plants like intermediates in Saltigo. This leads to then, of course, a shortage on volume and profitability. So we take the [ hedge ] in Q4. This plot -- this fallback solution is back on stream in mid-December, and we consider that also Leverkusen will be back in Q1 next year. So this is a quarterly event, nothing for the long term. Of course, we also are confronted with energy cost inflation. We took the decision not to hedge. We rather want to get them into our underlying contracts, which take some time. But of course, in the fourth quarter, we will not be able to roll over the complete energy cost inflation, but we will work on the contracts to get that addressed for 2022. There are some shutdowns in China. But as far as majority is concerned, points #1, 2 and 3 are definitely the more visible ones. Now let's come to the highlights on Page 5 as far as third quarter is concerned. We announced the acquisition of IFF Microbial Control. This is a business, if antitrust rulings will be favorable. And the good thing is, by now, the -- from our point of view, the biggest obstacle has been cleared that was the antitrust approval in the United States. So this is done. We are now addressing one by one the other jurisdictions. And from our point of view, we consider that they will also be cleared. But of course, we have to still apply everywhere and get the data and questions answered. We closed the Emerald -- by the way, this industry is about to consolidate further. Yesterday, there was the announcement that the former Lonza Specialty Ingredients business who according to The Wires were the second in the bidding process for IFF Microbial Control. They lost against us according to The Wires. Now went out and announced the acquisition of Troy, which was the fifth biggest player. So with this announcement, basically, the 5 big Microbial Control players in the markets have shrunk to 3. And it goes without saying, we are definitely a decent global player in this regard. The second global player we created is in the F&F industry, supplier or precursor industry with the Emerald Kalama acquisition, we took on board a pretty good global player with 3 production sites in the F&F area we add to. So we will show tomorrow in the executive call how this business would be configurated. And definitely, it is a global player leading in this industry. This is what I would like to convey on the portfolio. More to come. Earnings versus previous year have improved in all segments, especially Specialty Additives and Engineering Materials. Additives has posted its strongest EBITDA since its formation. So they suffered last year. So the rebound is quite strong. And as a matter of fact, all 3 business units have contributed to it nicely. Engineering Materials with a strong rebound too, but this was, I think flagged before, it's a continuation on second quarter performance. And of course, here, massive price increases had to be rolled over to the end customer, which we did. Also consumer protection did well, but here you need to consider that in Q3, we unfortunately had a production -- unplanned production fallout shortage, and we lost around about EUR 8 million to EUR 10 million, we are -- basically a production vessel compressor fell off or fell out. It had to be replaced. We went offstream for around about 3 weeks. The production is back and running on the fourth quarter, but Q4 was hit. And of course, the volumes are lost for the entire year, which is, of course, sad. But these onetimes happen every now and then. Operating cash flow was substantially impacted by working capital increase. And just to make it very simple, if you post a price increase of 20% on your receivables, you post the invoices in the running months in September, but you only collect the money next quarter. And the same, of course, holds true for the inventory. So if you look into the net working capital that has inflated because of raw materials and energy costs, et cetera, we took here an increase and we had to absorb a working capital increase of [ EUR 400 million ]. I've never seen that before. Of course, we need to collect it in the forthcoming quarter or quarters, but that was impacting operational cash flow. In the capital markets, Oliver Stratmann and Michael did some nice piece of work of EUR 500 million benchmark bonds with a zero coupon. I was not capable of issuing at the time of being in the finance leadership and it's good to have gifted people that do better than you are -- that you have done. So with this, I move to the Slide #6, we are trying to illustrate here to you the raw material, energy, logistic prices in an illustrative way. So you see that raw materials skyrocketed this year. They are somewhat now leveling off, stagnating at a high level. What is now moving up quite substantially across the globe, but notably in Europe are energy prices. In Q2, it happens -- it started. It went on in Q3, further escalated in Q4. We suppose that this is going to be an element to stay potentially not at that high levels, but we should consider that Q4, the pricing has to be embedded going forward, which we are addressing customer by customer, with a certain time delay that we can do it. I think, Q3 fundamentals have shown and proven. Logistic prices, not as important as energy and raw materials, but they're also on the rise and need to be addressed and pushed to the next level. On Page #7, we show you that we also further advance on ESG. So sustainalytics, we wanted to improve our rating here clearly as well. The last time we could show you that also MSCI upgraded us now further indices or ratings follow. So we are happy that we are also here now in the top range of ESG ranking. And as far as products are concerned, we signed an alliance with bp, a company most of you know. And we are here addressing to source bio-based raw materials, and they would be embedded, for instance, into our cyclohexane. And therefore, we are producing a product called Durethan Scopeblue, which is 92% bio-based, Wow!. So also on not only climate and on water efficiency, we are working, we're also addressing cyclical economy, we also address bio-based raw materials. Of course, as far as the latter is concerned, we are at the beginning. This will take a few years, but we are addressing it business by business. And I think you see that we also take first strides in the right direction as far as this is concerned. LANXESS, we specify the guidance. I think macro economies have been addressed during the reporting season. No need to shed further light on this. And as far as our guidance is concerned, we stick to what we have said before. However, due to the various onetimers that we've seen with Saltigo in Q3, rolling over into the full year guidance. but also constraints on freight costs. The hit on reduced wastewater management capacity, which will be visible in November, fully and first week of December. We take that into consideration and energy cost inflation. We have no financial hedge. We always considered that this is something we should be able to embed in our operational contracts. This takes time. We are working on that. In Q3, you saw that we advanced nicely on this one. But those [ were ] financial hedges will most likely still have to do the work in 2022. We are starting to take the pain now, but hopefully will then be in a better shape in 2022. Shutdowns in China, we see that, but it's in the single-digit million area. It happens everywhere. Sometimes you get notification 3 hours before. Sometimes, it's a little longer a lot time so that you can preparatory steps, but this is a little erratic. And our assumption is this will still be a theme coming or lasting until February next year and potentially will then be done with, but at this point in time, we still have that on the radar even though with only a small blip. Based on this, I cut a long story short. I think the key theme out of Q3 is we have pricing power and momentum is strong. However, we are living in an environment where you continue dealing with price inflation, but Q3 has shown that we are able to mitigate that. And therefore, our company is on track, and we will continue driving with all energy into the strategic direction that we have highlighted in the past and will also do tomorrow. And with this, I open up the call for your questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And the first question is from Martin Roediger, Kepler Cheuvreux.

[Martin Roediger, Equity Research Analyst]

2 questions. Firstly, what is your visibility in your order book? And what can you tell us about the demand pattern going into the year 2022? And the second question is on your guidance. You mentioned 4 reasons for the slight cut. Is the order of the reasons an indication about the expected earnings effect? So number one reason, logistic issues, freight costs, most important factor, waste management, the second and then, for example, reason number 4, the shutdown in China on electric rationing, the least important.

[Matthias Zachert, CEO & Chairman of the Board of Management]

Well, thank you for your 2 questions. On the order book, I mean, we do have, of course, stronger visibility for the next 2 months. We have visibility also for -- in light of the shortages that we have in various value chains, of course, there are the customers started to go for longer time indications that are not binding -- contractually binding, but -- Of course, they try to secure volumes due to the disruptive value chains in the last 2 quarters. So we do see that the completely overheated environment levels off a little. Some regions contribute to this like China, for instance. So here, there is a clear softening, not a drastic decline but a softening. So the overheated saturation levels off, which might not be that bad. It should lead to softening in [indiscernible] as well and with more reach from my point of view, in '22 towards a good economic environment. However, then with running value chains and not disrupted value chains. As far as Q4 order book is concerned, the order book is healthy. However, despite this -- in the past, we had to -- in the third quarter, we still had to go on allocation for C customers. This will no longer be the key theme for Q4. So the order book is still strong. but we don't need to decline C customers anymore, which, of course, was different in Q2, Q3 and also this, I would say, is healthy. Now to the 4 bullet points on Q4. I would like to put things into perspective. Our guidance was [ 1,000 to 1,050 ] midpoint being 1,025. We go to the lower end. So we are talking about something like EUR 25 million. So whatever the magnitude is the first 3 bullet points are definitely the bigger bullet points, the fourth one being the lowest, but none of them is one that should send shock waves through the system. And I hope that clarifies the second question of yours.

[Operator]

And the next question is from Andrew Stott, UBS.

[Andrew Gregory Stott, Managing Director and Research Analyst]

So the first thing is on the consolidation comment you made, Matthias, around the buy-side market. So you see that -- I think they're calling it [indiscernible], I don't know I think I can pronounce that, but the Lonza-Troy deal yesterday, you're seeing that as a positive. Is there not also the flip side of that argument whereby those 2 become a lot more powerful and make your life as a new owner of the IFF business a bit tougher. I'm just interested in specifically where you overlap with these guys and where you don't. It's not a market where I can get a lot of facts. So I'd appreciate any insights there. That's the first question. The second question was a bit more straightforward on 2022. You helpfully pointed out that Saltigo is an $8 million to GBP 10 million impact. So roughly that seems to me you were traveling between 19% and 20% underlying EBITDA margin in Q3 for consumer protection. What's your thinking around 2022 all in, so thinking about the 2 deals plus the underlying business in terms of your margin opportunity?

[Matthias Zachert, CEO & Chairman of the Board of Management]

Andrew, on the first question, it's -- as we've indicated in our e-mails and invites for tomorrow, let's address the first question, I think, tomorrow we will shed more light on F&F and also on the acquisition of IFF Microbial Control. So we clearly think this is a positive for the customers. It's a positive for ourselves. We think it's a positive for the industry. It's a natural consolidation. In light of what I always conveyed, this is an industry that needs quality, an industry that needs highest standards, an industry that is exposed to high regulation and only the strong ones will make it happen. And therefore, what we offer to the industry will be compelling. I fully understand the consolidation process that the PEs like to do. This is their buy-and-build strategy. I think we were a little faster and potentially even a little smarter as far as the IFF move is concerned. But all in all, I fully understand what [indiscernible] are doing on Troy. And I think all of us will contribute to consumer happiness, customer satisfaction and contributing to the improvement of addressing viruses and diseases and what have you worldwide. More on this one tomorrow. On Saltigo, I mean Q3, without Saltigo production shortage, the business would operate around 19%, 20% margin. If you address the -- I mean fourth quarter is normally seasonally weaker, but we assume that Q4 will be operationally better than Q4 last year. If I look into 2022 for consumer protection, of course, we will close the transactions -- or if we close the transaction on IFF, but even without the closure of the IFF transaction, the business from everything that I know as of today will be clearly a 20%-plus division as it used to be in last year, and that should also be the theme for 2022 without doubts. And more to come on this one also tomorrow.

[Andrew Gregory Stott, Managing Director and Research Analyst]

And sorry, just a quick follow-up, Matthias. can you just explain again what happened in Q3 with Saltigo? I didn't quite catch the detail.

[Matthias Zachert, CEO & Chairman of the Board of Management]

In the production, sometimes you have some valves or compressors simply falling off because of there's -- they come somewhat -- they are coming to end of life, and it was not seen and then the production, you need to replace a machine and then you replace a machine. The machine has been replaced, production is running again, but you had 2, 3 weeks of product shortfall. You most like -- you're most welcome, and I hope that my treasury team could address the 911 questions.

[Unknown Executive]

I spotted it...

[Operator]

The next question is from Jaideep Pandya, On Field Research.

[Jaideep Mukesh Pandya, Analyst]

The first question really is on the Specialty Additives and well done on a very good result. Just around sort of the flame retardants market, especially with bromine, where things have gone a bit crazy in China. Can you just give us some indication about sort of your length of contracts? And are there going to be massive sort of price negotiations towards the end of the year into next year, given that the Chinese market is structurally short and demand is really, really good. That's my first question. And the second question is really around cash flow. And I appreciate the comments you're making, which are current comments around energy cost and pricing and receivables. But just taking a step back, Matthias, here, I would actually like to sort of not say that Michael and Oliver haven't done a great job, well done on the treasury 0 coupon bond. But when you were the CFO, LANXESS had one of the best-in-class cash generation profile. In the last couple of years, that's been a bit lagging. So when will...

[Unknown Executive]

You heard that Michael, Oliver? That's what I keep telling you all the time. [indiscernible].

[Jaideep Mukesh Pandya, Analyst]

No, it's very simple, really is when will LANXESS go back to consistently converting the EBITDA into cash generation? Because I guess we're looking at the share price, I guess, this is the only justifiable point why stock hasn't re-rated.

[Matthias Zachert, CEO & Chairman of the Board of Management]

Yes. Well, it's valid comment, Jaideep. So let me address them one by one. And of course, as you ask me, I take the liberty to make some comments on cash flow. Otherwise, Michael would be more qualified to do this. The length of contracts, I mean, we do have here and there longer-lasting contracts. Some of them were addressed in Q3 already. I mean you saw also that Specialty Additives that did well in Q3, strong rebound, strong absolute EBITDA, EUR 100 million plus we so far never achieved. So they did well also because of pricing came through and some contracts were renewed. So we could adjust for bromine prices and also energy prices, so clearly positive. What I clearly need to convey to you, however, is we could have done more Jaideep -- if we could have done more, Jaideep, if we had less logistic constraints. Please understand we are shipping from the United States to China. And this is a complete rack. You most likely have heard about congestions not only in the United States. So you have difficulties getting your containers on the ships. And then when they are finally on the ships, getting them [ discharged ] in Asia is simply bloody -- not only blood expensive, if you get volumes at all on time, shipped to China. So here, it's not so much the pricing. But in the length of contracts, we see that the length of contracts, some turn towards better pricing now. But we could not deliver all of the goods we wanted to ship to China. So this is the point number one. I think it will still be stress in the logistic chain in the next 6 months. So in the first half of 2022, I think it will take some time to level off. I spoke to the logistics industry. I even spoke to a CEO of one of the biggest container companies in the world. They are adding capacities, but the first ones would basically come summer next year. And then they will improve further. The other companies are going to follow. So you will still have constraints on container capacities for the next at least 6 to 8 months. And then the situation should be potentially leveling off. But of course, I wanted to see that. Now on cash flow, exactly what you're saying. I -- yes, that's my point, clearly. But now let's take the humoristic side out. Oliver and Michael, I cannot blame them for price escalation on [indiscernible] that we've seen this year. I mean the price escalation in Q4 -- Q3, sorry, EUR 400 million within 1 quarter on net working capital, which is not stemming from a big volume increase on stocks. It's basically pricing, pricing, pricing. I cannot blame them for that. That's basically the current situation that we are in. You've seen that most chemical companies had a huge increase in net working capital, it's the same on our ends. The second thing that I also don't blame Oliver for and also not Michael, if you look into third quarter, we completed in the third quarter the Emerald's transaction. So all -- normally, when you do an M&A transaction, you cash out at the closing. You also cash out when you announce deals like the IFF. So we did basically in Q3 closing of Emerald, we announced IFF. So we had double-digit million tickets for M&A coming through. If you look into our quarterly reports, we will have year-to-date, I think, something like EUR 40 million, EUR 50 million for M&A. This is a reflection of the company transformation, business transformation that we have done. Of course, this is something that I have on the agenda. We want that cash flow definitely has to improve. It's on my radar now. It's on my radar, not only Michael's and Oliver's. So we will make sure that the cash burners, like digitization, M&A will somewhat still be a theme for next year, but then level off. And then we need to have definitely the company at a higher cash conversion going forward because I want to make sure that we come back to levels where the capital market understands that not only in absolute EBITDA terms, we are moving up, but also cash-wise. We move up in order to show you that this portfolio is as strong as we are communicating to you. I hope, Jaideep that this clarifies the question.

[Operator]

We have another question on the line. It is from Matthew Yates, Bank of America..

[Matthew John Peter Yates]

I actually like to follow up a bit on the last question. Given the moves in the working capital and assuming the IFF deal closes, where do you think you land in terms of net debt at the end of the year? And when you look into 2022, how much flexibility or headroom does that give you to fund interesting CapEx projects or interesting acquisition opportunities? Does the working capital essentially remove some of the flexibility you have unless you look at potential disposals?

[Matthias Zachert, CEO & Chairman of the Board of Management]

Yes. Michael will take the first part, I'll take the second part. Michael, come on, start with the first one.

[Michael Pontzen, CFO & Member of the Board of Management]

Hi, everybody, as well warm welcome from my side. Yes, at this point in time, as you all saw, indebtedness of the group is around 2.2. We indicated that the transaction of IFF is at the amount of USD 1.3 billion, which would then lead to a pro forma indebtedness of [ 3.4 ]. On the other hand, we said that for the next months to come, we will focus on reducing our net financial debt. And I think given the pattern, which we saw in the past and the pattern we saw in the past was that there is a relief from working capital in the fourth quarter, especially if you look, for example, last year, in the fourth quarter, we were able to release some EUR 200 million in the fourth quarter. It's too early to say what the effect will be for this quarter, given the still high raw material and energy price inflation. But again, the pattern shows at least in the past years that the Q4 will give a relief on the working capital. With regards to our ability to fund CapEx, like Matthias said, we will clearly look into 2022 and our expectation as well when it comes to our ability to generate cash that will hopefully -- or our expectation is that some of the exceptionals will no longer be in the P&L in 2022. And according to that, we will then decide on the budget for CapEx, but the group is in a position to improve cash flow next year, and that will then decide over the CapEx budget. All in all, under the line with regards to our indebtedness, we will, of course, remain focus on our investment-grade rating, which is still one of the major, let's say, underlying definitions which we have here in the group.

[Unknown Executive]

So then on the strategic side, I think we clearly flagged the 12 months of now digesting the 2 M&A moves we made on the bigger scale. And clearly, for the next 6 to 12 months, we will digest and start deleveraging. And then, of course, if we move further on CapEx or on M&A, it means that we have to get the respective proceeds first. This can be achieved through divesting other businesses or swapping like we have done in the past. If not, we have to be more humble. And that would be the direction that we take going forward.

[Matthew John Peter Yates]

Just to follow up, Michael, then. So if I include the pension deficit, you're not too far away from about 4x net debt to EBITDA. Is that a concern for the rating agencies and their view of investment grade? Or is there a kind of a pathway that's been communicated to them as to how you work that leverage down over time?

[Michael Pontzen, CFO & Member of the Board of Management]

Yes, Matthew. If you take a look at the reports, which were displayed by the rating agencies when we announced our transaction with IFF and they included in their models, the implication from IFF, they didn't seem to be overly concerned. If you refer to this year's EBITDA, you are right that we're going in that direction. But the rating agencies like you guys, they apply as well forward-looking DCF models. And with regards to the implication, we will receive from Emerald the benefit from the first time full year consolidation, then we have consolidation effects from IFF, both businesses attractive when it comes not only to margin, but as well when it comes to cash conversion profile. They will further improve the business risk profile for the group. So therefore, at least with regards to the report from the rating agencies published a few months ago, there are no red flags. Just the opposite, they basically didn't even move the outlook for our rating.

[Operator]

We have another question. It is from Chetan Udeshi, JPMorgan.

[Chetan Udeshi, Research Analyst]

It is Chetan now, actually. I just had one question, and it's more on the Engineering Materials business. We've seen DSM talk about putting their materials business on the block. We've seen DuPont announced something. Like what is the LANXESS strategy on the Engineering Materials business from a long-term perspective, given some of these large transactions being announced by the key players in the industry. That's the only question I have, Matthias.

[Matthias Zachert, CEO & Chairman of the Board of Management]

Yes, Chetan, that is a valid question. The only -- I mean, the only comment I can make is we are aware of what is happening. And our plans are prepared. So we know how to move into one or the other direction. I'm not in a position to convey more. But everything that is currently happening does not surprise us. And I think we can operate out of a position of strength.

[Operator]

So far, we have no further questions. [Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. I hand back to Matthias to have for some closing remarks.

[Matthias Zachert, CEO & Chairman of the Board of Management]

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it was a pleasure talking to all of you. And I think the key comments that we made. Third quarter was a strong quarter with strong operational performance. We are looking forward to, first of all, if you -- if your time allows in the call tomorrow, where we will explain our recent acquisitions that we have done, the strategic rationale. And -- Of course, then next week, we will be the first time physically on the road. So I hope then to speak to you no longer through Zoom, Teams and webs, but face-to-face and looking forward to doing that. All the best until then, stay passionate about the industry and stay healthy, of course, as well. Thank you very much. Bye-bye from Cologne.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the LANXESS conference call. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.