Alliance Pharma plc (APH) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and a very warm welcome to our interim results. It's my first presentation since joining as CEO on the 13th of May. I'm delighted to have joined Alliance at such an important and exciting time for the company, having spent 30 years predominantly in the consumer health industry with a number of European, U.S. and global roles, at large multinationals such as Reckitt and Coty. Andrew will walk through the highlights of our first half and cover our H1 financial results in more detail. Only 3 months have passed since we presented our results for full year '23, and whilst little has changed financially, since then, we've begun to implement the changes to our operating model, our organizational structure, and recruited some great talent, which I will cover later. I will take you through each of the key brands before finishing with my observations from my first 100 days at Alliance and after that, we'll move to Q&A. So over to Andrew.

So thanks, Nick, and good morning to you all. As previously reported in our trading update in July, we started the year well, delivering 5% revenue growth at a constant currency for the group with strong growth from the Kelo-Cote franchise, offset by expected declines in Nizoral due to destocking ahead of a planned change in manufacturing in the first half of the year. Amberen revenues declined in the first half of '23. But as Nick will explain later, we're beginning to see improvements. Other consumer healthcare brands performed well, and Prescription Medicines revenue increased 3% on a constant currency reflecting the full availability of products that were impacted by the MDD to MDR transition last year. Group revenue growth was accompanied by positive product mix driving strong gross margin improvement, which we used to increase investment in marketing and innovation. I'm also pleased to report that we generated robust free cash flow in the period, which allowed us to reduce net debt and lower group leverage to 1.8x. The progress we made in the first half performance means that we remain on track to meet our full year guidance. Looking at the first half performance in more detail, our new product development pipeline continues to build momentum with 6% of consumer revenues in the first half of '24 being delivered from products that we developed in-house and launched in the last 3 years. This is up from 2% in the first period last year. There were 3 significant launches in the first half, a new Amberen gummy designed to improve energy, mood and sleep, an extension to the MacuShield range containing Omega 3 and ScarAway Kids gel for the U.S. market. In August, we completed the rollout of our global ERP system with a launch in China. And we now have a single ERP platform across the whole of Alliance which will provide greater efficiency for the business. And we continue to make progress on our sustainability journey with the publication of our second full TCFD report. This is a voluntary report and can be found on the Sustainability section of our website. We have also joined with the UN Global Compact which commits Alliance to meet fundamental responsibilities in 4 key areas, of human rights, labor, the environment and anticorruption, whilst also providing access to global expertise and thought leaders. With that, I'll now focus on the financials in more detail. As already mentioned, see-through revenues increased 3% on a reported basis to GBP 84.8 million, and increased 5% when adjusting for currency. Gross margin increased 300 bps to 59.8% due to changes in revenue mix assisted by a high proportion of Kelo-Cote franchise revenues. We continued our investments in the business over the period, improving our operational capabilities and marketing effectiveness. Consequently, EBITDA increased 6% to GBP 19.1 million, representing a healthy 22.5% to sales. As a result of high interest rates, our interest cost increased slightly, but this was offset by net exchange gains versus the first half last year, which meant our underlying profit before tax increased 23% to GBP 12.7 million, but with an increase in effective tax rate from 17.3% to 23.4%. Underlying basic earnings per share increased 14% to 1.8p per share. With strong cash generated from trading, we were able to reduce net debt and lower leverage from 2.05 at the end of 2023 down to 1.81x by the end of June. Kelo-Cote franchise revenues rose 18% at constant currency in the period or 14% reported. And this benefited from a weaker-than-usual prior year performance when sales to our cross-border e-commerce partner were more heavily weighted to the second half. However, it is encouraging to note that in-market demand remains strong with Kelo-Cote continuing to gain share, particularly in the important Chinese and U.S. markets. Nizoral performance was impacted by destocking following a buildup of inventory in the first half of '23, ahead of the planned move to a new manufacturer. Consequently, net Nizoral revenue down 21% at the constant currency or 25% on a reported basis. And we anticipate to return to growth in the second half this year. Amberen revenues declined 9% at constant currency, and 11% on a reported basis due to softer trading on Amazon as the market continues to pivot from bricks-and-mortar to e-commerce channels. Other Consumer Healthcare brands performed well, up 9% at both constant currency and on a reported basis. And this includes strong growth from both MacuShield and Aloclair, and demonstrates the benefits of our diversified portfolio. With Prescription Medicines portfolio delivering good revenue growth of 3% from both reported and at constant currency, with strong growth from Hydromol and Forceval. This slide walks through the movements in revenue and underlying profit before tax. And looking at the revenue bridge on the left-hand side, this shows the strong performance of the Kelo-Cote franchise, the destocking in Nizoral and the challenges faced by Amberen, both of which were broadly offset by growth in Other Consumer and Prescription Medicines. Sales for H1 2024 grew 5% at constant currency to GBP 86.6 million, and 3% on a reported basis to GBP 84.8 million. Looking at the profit bridge on the right-hand side, you can see the benefit from a positive revenue mix at the gross profit, the planned increase in operating costs, namely in marketing and innovation to support our long-term strategy. However, these investments were partly offset by FX movements. I mean, we ended the year with an underlying profit before tax of GBP 12.7 million. In the period, we generated cash flow from operations of GBP 16.9 million. And after taking account of non-underlying expense of GBP 2.1 million and working capital outflow of GBP 0.9 million due to an increase in inventories and a decrease in accounts payable being partially offset by an increase in -- a decrease in receivables. Tax payments of GBP 2.6 million and interest payments of GBP 4.8 million, our free cash flow for the year or -- for the half year was GBP 8.8 million. The chart on the right-hand side shows the movement in net debt. We started the year with a net debt of GBP 91.2 million, and a leverage of 2.05x. However, with strong cash flow from trading, we closed the half with net debt down GBP 8 million to GBP 83.2 million and a leverage of 1.81. And we remain focused on cash generation and debt reduction, and expect leverage to be around 1.5x by the end of this year. We've included some technical guidance in the appendix to indicate our full year expectations for items such as tax rate, interest charge and CapEx. Now turning to our outlook. Our outlook for 2024 remains unchanged. Our core priority markets remain competitive with our key brands well placed in their categories, and we continue to invest -- increase investment to maintain their leadership position. The majority of investment will focus on sales and marketing, which will be supplemented by investment from our distributor partners. We will also double down on innovation development and brand activation. Finally, we must remember that people are our biggest asset. We work hard to ensure we recruit and retain the right talent, and we continue to invest in our colleagues. And as a result, the Board expects that underlying profits for 2024 will be in line with 2023. And we remain focused on cash generation and expect to reduce leverage to around 1.5x by the end of this year. And with that, I'll now hand back to Nick, who will take you through our key brands, Nick?

Thanks, Andrew. We are rightly proud of our Kelo-Cote franchise. Kelo-Cote is the leading silicon scar treatment brand globally with 11% market share. Our extensive product portfolio comprises gels, sprays, sheets and the kids range, all of which are now also available in the U.S. under the ScarAway brand, which we acquired in March '22. With a global footprint, we can really lean into our marketing, making use of key opinion leaders, and our health care professional relationships to drive our brand forward. During the period, we launched 2 brand extensions in the U.S., ScarAway Kids and ScarAway acne gel, both of which enable market share gains. ScarAway now commands 13% share in the U.S., booked 200 bps in Q2 2024. We continue our ambition to move to smaller, more regular orders but stress that this is a slow process, given the long lead time for manufacture and existing stock in the supply chain. We continue to anticipate mid-single-digit revenue growth in 2024. Looking to the future, we remain focused on reducing the dominance of sales in China by driving growth in other markets. Turning now to Nizoral or Triatop, as it's known in China. Nizoral is a treatment for severe dandruff, which affects around 3% of the population, creating a market worth some $235 million and growing at 4% per annum. However, growth is forecast to accelerate to 6% from 2025 as young adults look to improve their personal appearance to be accepted socially and get ahead professionally. Nizoral currently holds leadership positions in 4 key markets for us: Australia, South Korea, Thailand and Japan, and is the second largest brand in China. In H2 2024, we've launched a new product in the adjacent derma cosmetic market. Derma Daily is intended as a maintenance product to be used between flare-ups. The product is currently available in 5 markets, where we can test and learn to refine our marketing campaigns before launching in the bigger Chinese market in 2025. We have recently appointed a new Head of China, who is conducting a thorough review of the business. With further marketing investment planned, we remain confident about the mid- to long-term prospects for the brand. Turning to Amberen. The U.S. market for menopause relief products is valued around $200 million. The market is pivoting rapidly from bricks and mortar to e-commerce. We've already explained that Amberen sales are more weighted to the bricks-and-mortar channel. However, we focused our marketing efforts on e-com. Amberen has a 16% share in bricks and mortar and an 8% share on Amazon, which accounts for the majority of e-commerce sales in the category. The e-commerce market has rapidly expanded with a number of new entrants. In June 2024, we introduced our second gummy in the Amberen range to improve energy, mood and sleep. This product helps expand our presence in the perimenopause market. As we reported at the FY '23 results, our sales on Amazon have been affected by the loss of the buy box to cheaper, unauthorized resellers. To resolve this, we've appointed a new brand protection and legal partner as well as a security audit team, which I'm pleased to say is improving our share on the buy box in certain SKUs in recent months. Whilst we're still working to build the appropriate capabilities internally, we continue to believe in the long-term growth of the menopause category. We have recently appointed a new Head of North America, who brings significant consumer health experience, particularly in the vitamin, minerals and supplements category. She is conducting a thorough review of the business, to help shape our future strategy, strengthen our action plan and accelerate growth. I also want to take a little time to talk about our next biggest brands, MacuShield and Hydromol, both of which generated around GBP 5 million worth of revenue in H1 '24, both of which have the potential for further geographic expansion. MacuShield is a vitamin and mineral supplement to promote eye health, it's currently sold in 21 countries, but the majority of sales are generated in the U.K., where we have a leading market share. MacuShield revenues grew 16% in H1 2024 before any market expansion. Our aim is to build on our success through health care professional recommendation. And in those markets where we've already established a presence with the eye health professionals, we'll extend our direct-to-consumer activity. We've just launched MacuShield Omega 3 in the U.K., and it will be extended to other markets soon. Hydromol is a treatment for eczema, which is currently sold in 4 markets. We delivered 10% growth in H1 2024 as we partnered with health care professionals to raise the awareness of the brand within the NHS. As a result, Hydromol ointment is the #1 prescribed ointment in the U.K., and the brand holds the #3 position with a 7% value share of a market worth GBP 130 million. We see further opportunity to reposition the brand in the OTC market with potential to expand the range with a greater focus on cosmetic use. I'd like to finish the presentation with my observations from my first 100 days at Alliance as this will shape the longer-term strategy we are working on. To be a high-performing consumer health business, we need to improve in 3 areas. Firstly, we need to change our mindset to think consumer first. Many brands in consumer health are similar to each other. So we have to move faster, we have to be more agile, and we have to be more competitive to win. Secondly, we need to upgrade our capabilities in insights, e-commerce and innovation. If we know our consumers better than our competition, we can market our brands better and out-innovate the market. We are currently at 6% of revenue from innovation launched in the past 3 years. However, we have plenty of opportunity, but a lot of work to hit the 10% target. E-commerce will continue to outpace bricks and mortar globally, so we must ensure we have the right capabilities and go-to-market models to win. Thirdly, we need to move from a brand in market view to a categories globally view. We have bought many assets over the years, but not globally expanded them to key markets. We are now focusing our efforts on winning in the key category market units, or CMUs, as we call them. Kelo-Cote China is an example or MacuShield U.K. I've already made some changes to our organization to bring the markets closer to the heart of the business and ensure we have the right management structure to support our long-term objectives. In order to reduce complexity and accelerate decision-making, we have removed the Chief Operating Officer role. We have also recruited a Head of the North America business, Teresa Gonzalez Ruiz, who has a strong consumer health background following a career at Bayer Consumer and J&J. Our new Head of China, Amy [ Mi ], joins from Coty, having previously worked at J&J and L'Oreal. In line with a flatter organizational structure, both now report to me and further changes will follow. China has also been separated out as a stand-alone region to allow full focus on both China, but also the rest of APAC. We are now working to build a consumer insights function, and will strengthen our e-commerce center of excellence. This next slide is intended as a very high-level overview of the longer-term strategy we're working on. Our vision remains unchanged, to be a high-performing consumer health company built on a portfolio of leading, trusted and proven brands. I want us to be delivering predictable organic growth ahead of the market with strong EBITDA expansion. We will focus on growing the core and building scale in the key global markets by being consumer-centric, simplifying our business and becoming fully global. We will add to this by gaining scale inorganically outside of China when the opportunity arises. Our capabilities will be focused on being customer and category focused, with a challenger mindset, innovating harder, improving our commercial execution across an efficient global footprint. I am very positive about the company's mid- to long-term prospects as we continue our journey to transform into a high-performing Consumer Health business. We are building a stronger team, improving our operating model, increasing the pace of decision-making and focusing our investments on the best opportunities for growth. Andrew and I will now be very happy to take your questions. Thank you.

Paul Cuddon from Deutsche Numis. On the geographic expansion and focusing on MacuShield and potentially Hydromol, I mean, how will you go about sort of building the same level of clinician awareness for those brands in totally new markets for those 2 products?

Yes. So we are looking at, as I mentioned, Paul, around key CMUs. So key market brand opportunities where we believe we can gain sufficient scale, market share and have a right to win. That obviously takes time when you enter a new market, particularly from a health care professional perspective. You can't certainly -- we have consumer brands, but they start with health care professionals. So you have to build that over time and clearly, that will build as we go. The good news is that is all incremental business because you launch a new brand in a new market, it is all upside to the current business, but we have to choose wisely to make sure we're going after the biggest opportunities. So there is a more, shall we say, structured view of how we go after opportunities, and there's more to follow on that.

And secondly, on the kind of green shoots for Amberen in the U.S. I mean, do you think the sort of proven kind of clinical benefits of Amberen being recognized against the Better Body kind of product? Or are there other dynamics that we...

We're not out of the woods yet. The first thing to fix is buy box because if you don't have the buy box, you can't activate many of the marketing tools we'd like to. So we are focusing on getting the basics right. Teresa, who I mentioned, has recently started a couple of weeks ago. Her first priority is to do a full review on Amberen's price. So she's got a very strong consumer marketing background. She's done some brilliant stuff at Bayer Consumer and J&J previously, and she's got a VMS background as well. So she knows the U.S. market. She knows VMS and therefore, she knows what's required to win. So she's doing a full review on that. So that will come out in time.

It's Sam England from Berenberg. Just 2 for me. So first, can you give us a sense for what the stocking cycle looks like in Nizoral in the second half of this year? And how sort of heavily back-end weighted is it -- have you seen some larger orders already coming in, in Q3, just to give us a sense of the phasing there? And then I'll follow up after that.

Yes. So the first half, as we mentioned at full year results, long story, but we moved supply from Belgium over to Thailand and build stock to our main security of supply. So that has been burning off in the first half. We're now to the point where that stock has been burned through, and therefore, we get sort of back to normal trading. Nizoral generally performs well in our markets. We focused on 5 key markets in Asia. We're #1 in 4 and we've just become #2 in China. We also have Derma Daily and also [ 100 mill ] launch. So we have positive momentum in the second half from a sales-out perspective.

Great. And then on Amberen, I mean, you've obviously said you're conducting an in-depth review of the U.S. business. Can you just give us a sense for what options are on the table for that franchise. And I suppose the remit that you've given, the new Head of the U.S. to sort of review that business?

Yes. Just to be clear, it is not a strategic review of the U.S. business. It is a key critical market for us. It is currently under scale, and Teresa's job with our support is to significantly increase the size of that business. So she's looking at significant growth opportunities which are not easy to deliver, but we're very focused on going -- U.S. is the #1 consumer health market in the world. And so we have to be a good player there. And therefore, that's, in effect, a remit to go after growth.

It's Andrew from Investec. Two questions, if I may, please. It feels like we're -- looking through the deck, you sense there's more value in your existing portfolio, whether that be through brand extensions in I&D or geographic expansion. I'm just trying to think about how that reflects -- how that gets reflected in the P&L? Because you're talking about EBITDA margin expansion, but you're going to have to spend. Is there a timing part we have to think about there? Is there an upfront spend and then expansion comes later? Or how does that work?

I would love to expand tomorrow, but we -- our profits would not be able to sustain that. So we have to be choiceful about where we expand and how. But there the portfolio we have, particularly our consumer brands are -- some of them are very profitable. So there is space in the P&L to invest as long as we're obviously, we're delivering incremental business. And as I mentioned earlier, going into a new market, you automatically have incremental business. But that's -- it's not an easy win. You need people who really understand the market, and that's why I said we're working on an insights team because we have to understand the consumer first. Because we need to understand how that brand will play a role in their life, and therefore, we need to position that brand locally much more effectively to win. So that takes some time. So that buys us a little bit of time with regards to a market rollout perspective. But then on innovation, as Andrew mentioned, our innovation is now beginning to kick in. We're at 6%. We want to be at least 10%, and that is more pipeline driven. So we have stuff in the pipeline ready to go. So from the two things that the market rollout will take longer, but that is very incremental, whereas the pipeline is more ready to go over the next 2 years.

That's helpful, and then just a follow-up. I think you said China is a stand-alone business, I guess, the mid- and longer-term growth dynamics, they might be different to other APAC regions. Do you think you'll split that out we will -- for us to model it differently. Is that the right way to think? Or...

No. I mean, clearly, there's an economic slowdown in China, but our categories are relatively resilient because they're very problem solution. If you have a significant scar, you'll want to treat it with something. So from that perspective, we're a little bit protected. But our job is to rebalance the portfolio and grow the markets outside of China, faster than China to help redistribute the share of the business. And as I mentioned, when we get to inorganic opportunities, we'll be looking outside of China, probably U.S. or Europe or even Lat Am to even up the portfolio.

Charles Weston from RBC. A couple of questions as well, please. First of all, on the -- should we be thinking of 2024 as a sort of a setting a new base for growth from 2025? And specifically, are there any one-offs that you would point to in 2024 that we should think about with regard to 2025 growth? So for example, destocking in Nizoral might make for slightly easier comps. There's some annualization in costs presumably to come through that you've hired new people in marketing or spent more money in marketing. So how should we think about another product-based or cost-based one-offs to either create tough or easy comps next year?

Andrew, do you want to have a go?

So on the -- on the -- shall we say, the people and the structure, as I said, we've recruited 2 new heads of, they're obviously replacement roles. But we are also looking at my wider team. I'm making sure that we have the right team to drive the business forward, who are very consumer health-focused and very experienced and know what a good job looks like. So to be able to really accelerate the business. So from a one-off perspective, there will be one-off changes, but it's not necessarily one-off costs, if that makes sense. The challenge that we have is bringing new people in, it takes time for them to bed in, and they will need to then get firing and look at how we operate as a business. So they need some time to bed in and then we can accelerate the business. So the way notice periods work, even if I sign someone today, I probably don't get them until January. So it's going to take some time to get the right people in. But once we do that, we will then be looking to accelerate the business. So from an expectations perspective, a bit of a slow start because of the changes that we're putting in place, but they are the right changes, but then we're looking to accelerate.

And to the point around Nizoral, you're right, it's -- we've gone through transitioning phase, where we've now finally got total control of that supply chain, moved it to the right area, which has resulted in some gross profit improvement. So that's where you've seen some of that come through the P&L. And also, we've moved through that MDD/MDR transition phase, which impacted both some of the consumer brands as well as the pharma brands as we've moved through that. So yes, I think it sets a good base for '24 then to go into '25.

And just on Kelo-Cote, would we say that we're at a normalized base that you're looking to grow from?

Yes. I mean the market in China, in particular, is in double-digit growth, and we're ahead of that. So our sales out are very strong. There's obviously been some noise in the system around stocking and destocking, et cetera. So we're looking to sort of clean that out and manage the P&L accordingly to make sure that we're delivering consistent performance. So we're expecting Kelo-Cote, obviously, to get back to better growth next year.

And just second question on dividends. You cut the dividend with the assumption that you'll be reviewing the policy. No policy announced today. Should we expect something at the end of the financial year?

I think we've made It clear what we're focused on doing at the moment is actually getting that cash generation through the business, and get that debt down at the moment, the GBP 80-plus million at 1.8x is still too high. So that's just going to flywheel the business working really effectively. Nick explained that we're actually gone through a transition within the business through the recruitment of new hires. Let's get through next year.