AlzChem Group AG ($ACT)

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Q1 earnings call 2026 of AlzChem Group AG. I would like to welcome the company's CEO, Andreas Niedermaier and CFO, Andreas Losler, who will guide you through the presentation in a moment, followed by a Q&A session via audio line and chat. And with that, I hand over to you, Mr. Niedermaier.

Yes. Thank you for your warm introduction. Thank you for joining us today, and welcome to our quarter 1 analyst call here. As always, we will go through the presentation first and then will be available for all the valued questions at the end. So let's skip the disclaimer and go directly to Page 5, I think, yes, you should see the presentation. Let me briefly summarize our performance in the first quarter of 2026. We have made a very solid start into the new year. Group revenue increased by approximately 3% here on a year-on-year basis to approximately EUR 149 million, building on an already strong comparison base. So at the same time, profitability developed significantly better than revenue, EBITDA rose by 18% to EUR 32 million, and our EBITDA margin expanded to markedly 21.7%. This clearly reflects the success of our strategic focus on high-margin specialty ingredients. In particular, our ingredients once again proved to be the key growth driver here. Growth was predominantly volume driven, with strong demand across human nutrition, animal nutrition and defense-related applications here. As a result of this strong operational performance, net income after taxes increased by more than 20%, underlining the scalability of our business model and our disciplined cost management. From a capital markets perspective, we further strengthened our equity story by increasing the free float to around 75%, improving liquidity and visibility of the stock. On the operational side, I am pleased to report that the scheduled overhaul of the carbide furnace is fully on track, recommissioning is expected in early July as planned. So against this backdrop and despite the still volatile macroeconomic environment, we are confident in confirming our full year outlook for 2026, we expected additional growth momentum, particularly in the second half of the year. So overall, quarter 1 has laid a strong foundation for another successful year here. Based on this strong first quarter performance, I would now like to turn the key strategic projects that will further drive our growth in the coming years. Let me start with the nitroguanidine expansion in Germany. Progress in the first quarter was fully in line with our ambitious targets. Construction and preparation activities continued as planned, and we remain on track to commission the additional capacity in the second half of '26. This expansion will allow us to meet the structurally growing demand from the defense sector and further strengthens our position as a reliable European supplier. So second, in parallel, we advanced our bands for our nitroguanidine production side in the United States. During the first quarter, we continued to intensify the site selection process here. The site selection process is close to final. And the basic engineering for the plant has already been awarded to the engineering company, and has also already started. This project is a key strategic step to pound transatlantic footprint improve proximity to customers and enhance supply security for our international partners. And thirdly, finally, let me briefly touch on our creatine investment program, driven by sustained strong global demand, we continued to execute our EUR 120 million investment program exactly as planned here. The construction of the new highly automotive production facility and the expansion of the surrounding infrastructure progressed smoothly in the first quarter. So the project is scheduled for gradual commissioning from the second half of '27 and will secure long-term growth in our premium brands. Creapure and Creavitalis and further reinforce our leadership position in high-quality specialty ingredients. So let me now briefly walk through the development of our operating segments, starting with the Basics & Intermediates here. Let's turn the presentation page as well, you should see now all the respective figures. So in the Basics & Intermediates segment, revenue declined by 14% year-on-year to EUR 36.7 million, fully in line with our expectations and European chemical development. This development was driven by both lower volumes and prices and price pressures, reflecting the continued weak market environment, particularly in agriculture and pharma and steel-related end markets. Despite a lower revenue base, EBITDA improved a little bit to EUR 0.3 million, and the EBITDA margin increased to 0.8% here. This clearly demonstrates our disciplined approach to pricing and cost management as we deliberately refrained from unprofitable volumes, while safeguarding the integrity of our integrated production tree. Operationally, the carbide furnace overhaul is progressing fully according to plan and the segment supply capability remained fully secured through inventories and our second furnace. Overall, the segment performed exactly as anticipated and continues to provide a stable backbone with in our group structure. Let's now go where we are already much more successful to our Specialties segment here. This segment delivered another very strong quarter. Revenue increased by 11% year-on-year to EUR 105 million approximately with growth predominantly driven by higher volumes, while pricing contributed positively as well. The strong volume momentum was driven by our ingredients portfolio, in particular, in Human Nutrition, Animal Nutrition and defense-related applications, reflecting robust end market demand and our expanded capacity base. This favorable volume mix, combined with the continued shift towards high-value ingredients translated into a 21% increase in EBITDA to approximately EUR 31.5 million. At the same time, the EBITDA margin improved further to closely 30% and underscoring the scalability and high operating leverage of our specialty ingredients business. Overall, Specialty Chemicals and its ingredients portfolio remain the core growth and earnings engine of our group here. So let me briefly complete the segment review by turning to Others & Holding. Let's turn the page as well. So in the Other & Holding segment, revenue came in slightly below the previous year, mainly reflecting lower pass-through revenues, in particular, reduced grid-free recharges to our customers. Accordingly, EBITDA declined modestly to EUR 0.2 million, largely in line with the revenue development. Overall, this segment behaved as expected and does not alter the underlying earnings momentum of the group, which continues to be clearly driven by our specialty chemicals and ingredients business. That was all for the detailed view on the segment development. Let's now take a look at the overall group figures and hand over to my highly valued colleague, Andreas Losler.

Okay. Also good morning from my side, and thank you, Andreas, for the insights in our segment development in Q1 '26. As always, I'll start my analysis with looking at our P&L. Our group sales amounted to almost EUR 149 million within the first 3 months in '26, an increase of EUR 4 million compared to last year. Compared to our guidance, we are exactly on the anticipated level not only for the group, but also if you look at the segment stand-alone. The different developments within our segments have been discussed already by my colleague, Andreas. On a regional basis, the major sales increase could be achieved in the U.S. once again and can be allocated to the Specialty Chemicals segment. Our EBITDA grew even more. After 3 months in '26, our EBITDA amounted to EUR 32.3 million. This represents an increase of almost EUR 5 million or 18% compared to Q1 last year. As already discussed, the major portion of this increase came from our high-value products sold within segment Specialty Chemicals. This development is also completely in line with our expectations and our guidance. On the cost side, we have to report increased personnel expenses based on increased union tariffs and slightly increased number of employees for our growth projects. Our operating costs increased mainly resulting from higher maintenance costs in conjunction with our carbide furnace renovation and higher rate disposal costs resulting from our increased business volume. Our Q1 were not yet affected by the possible cost increases resulting from the conflict in Iran. As mentioned already by my colleague, our sales and EBITDA development led to a further increase in our EBITDA margin. In that reporting period, the EBITDA margin reached 21.7%, significantly higher than the 18.9% achieved in the corresponding prior year period. The improvement in the group's overall profitability was primarily driven by the continued shift in the revenue mix powered the Specialty Chemicals segment, which comprises highest value specialty chemical ingredients. Our depreciations increased slightly and so did our financial result. The latter was mainly impacted by noncash interest for noncurrent provisions. All put together, we could also increase our net result up to EUR 18 million, this represents a significant increase of more than EUR 3 million or 23% compared to the prior year Q1. The same applies to our earnings per share. That was the big picture of our P&L. Now let's move on to the balance sheet and cash flow figures. Our balance sheet and cash flows are still very healthy and developed as expected. Our balance sheet total increased by EUR 37 million since our last reporting date. The assets mainly influenced by our growth projects and accordingly, noncurrent assets showed with EUR 22 million, the highest portion of this increased balance sheet total. Major CapEx spending is related to our nitroguanidine expansion, but we also started with first payments for our creatine investment. Our inventory level increased slightly, reduced carbide stock levels were overcompensated by increased stock levels for our multipurpose business in preparation for production campaigns. Our equity increased by EUR 18 million, and our equity ratio could be improved to 42.2%. That increase was supported by our very strong net result and increased interest rates for our pension valuation. Additional payments from customers for our nitroguanidine investment further increased our contract liabilities which amounted to EUR 93 million by the end of March '26. Our current liabilities increased as a result of our increased business volume in Q1 compared to Q4 of last year. As of our reporting date by the end of March '26, we can again report a positive net cash position of almost EUR 30 million. Our operating cash flow was EUR 12 million lower than in Q1 last year. While we improved our net working capital with positive impact on our operating cash flow, the main reason for the decline in our operating cash flow was attributable to reduced customer grants for our CapEx program. Such payments amounted to EUR 6 million in Q1 2026, but almost EUR 40 million in the comparative period of last year. Investing flow was highly above prior year and clearly shows the progress in our current CapEx program, especially for the nitroguanidine expansion. Despite this highly increased CapEx activities, we can still report a positive free cash flow. Our financing cash flow shows regular loan repayments. Last year, Q1 was affected by our share buyback program. As you can see, AlzChem is in a very healthy cash position and ready for future growth. Future is a good keyword. Let's now discuss our outlook for financial year '26. As already mentioned by my colleague, we can confirm our guidance as set out at the beginning of the year and see further growth for '26. Sales are expected to grow to approximately EUR 600 million and EBITDA is expected to grow to approximately EUR 126 million. This represents a sales increase of approximately 7%, while EBITDA is expected to grow by approximately 8%. The planned sales growth shall continue to be achieved organically. The fundamental growth drivers are expected to be volume effects within segment Specialty Chemicals. As already outlined, we do expect that volume growth in the area of human nutrition and defense the latter expected in the second half of the year. For the Basics & Intermediates segment, we expect overall sales to be at the previous year level. We are currently experiencing increases on raw material prices as a result of the conflict in Iran. Our outlook is based on the assumption that such increases can be passed on to our customers and that this conflict will not last for very long period. Our EBITDA increase for '26 is mainly driven by the development in our segment Specialty Chemicals. This also applies to our EBITDA margin. The recently announced industrial power price in Germany has not been included in our guidance as we are currently analyzing the new regulations and its accounting treatment. However, we do not expect a huge impact out of this regulation. As you can see, we have interesting times ahead of us. At this point, we would like to thank you for your appreciated attention and are now at your disposal for possible questions.

[Operator Instructions] And we already received 2 risen hands, one by Mr. Christian Faitz.

Congrats on the results. A couple of questions, please. First of all, Andreas, you mentioned the possible cost increases on the back of the Middle East situation. Can you locate this a bit and perhaps also put some numbers on it. I guess your remarks mostly concerned raw mats as well as energy. And yes, I'm aware you try to pass this on via pricing. But just on the cost side, some comments would be helpful. And second of all, how is the retrofitting of the housing carbide ongoing, everything according to plan and schedule, should we count on a rent per July. That's it from my side for now.

So let me start that, Andreas speaking. Let me start on the carbide oven. Yes, the start-up of the carbide plant July. So all things are in the right order. And we think that, that should be no problem to open the carbide kiln there. So for the cost increases of the Middle East, Andreas, I don't know if you can elaborate a little bit on it from my point of view, so we will see higher transportation costs and some raw material increases, but we try to hand that over to the customers. But if you have some more details please.

That's completely right. And as we mentioned, we did not see an impact in Q1 because it was too late for Q1, let's say. On some raw materials, we see slight increases, but we are managing on passing that through to our customers. And your question was also related to the energy prices. And this was -- the energy prices in Germany were not so much affected. And this is not as surprisingly as someone might assume because we have a very good renewable energy mix at the moment. We have wind, we have sun, which means that the portion of the energy or renewable energy production in energy pricing is very high at the moment. So the energy prices did not increase that much as someone might expect.

And can I -- as a quick follow-up, in terms of your, let's say, nonrenewable positions in energy, are you -- how is your hedging there? .

Yes. Good question. We have a very smart energy team who informed us on a daily basis about all the actions going on in the Iran conflict, and we managed to secure a certain portion of energy in advance. And during the conflict, whenever good prices for the next quarters were available. So at the moment, I would assume, looking at Andreas, I think it's 25% to 30%, something like this is is hedged at very price.

For direct electricity, yes. But to be honest, we hedged a lot of carbide coming out from last year in stock because we overproduced for the standstill last year very much carbide with lower energy prices, and that helps a lot to bridge that year.

Okay. Great. Thanks very much, and good luck handling all the supply demand challenges in this current geopolitical environment.

We have another risen hand by Mr. Hesse.

I'd just like to start with one. Could we potentially see any positive surprises in the Basics & Intermediates segment particularly due to supply chain disruptions in Asia on fertilizers. So could we potentially see more demand for your fertilizer solutions due to potentially the lack of imports. Is there anything that could potentially surprise us there? That's my first question.

Constantin, that's a really good question. I tell you. So we crossed our fingers to receive that hopeful surprise or hopefully surprise. But to be honest, with in short notice in the fertilizer business, I don't see that really within short notice. Within longer time period could be a positive development there, but farmers decided not to fertilize as much as the last year. So from that point of view, I don't really see higher growth possibilities for that year. .

They are not. Then the last 2 questions are a bit more short to medium term. One of them, could you potentially comment on -- I mean this U.S. facility, I think, we're all kind of obviously in anticipation of it. So hopefully, we'll see the announcement soon. But can I ask, beyond nitroguanidine, is there anything else that you see an opportunity for in the U.S. to expand capacity potentially?

Yes. So we think about that. And we have chosen within the site selection process side is a possibility to develop more, but to be honest, we have 3 big projects running at an investment program running for more than EUR 400 million. And from that point of view, we will do that step by step. We will do first the German and co plant second and parallel then the NQ plant in the U.S. and certainly, the creatine plant and that will really fuel our growth a lot, then we will concentrate more, let's say, on that 3 big projects, actually.

That's great. And then last question, just out of curiosity, I'm just keen to just really get a clearer picture again on Creavitalis, the opportunity there. So I know that you currently are in contract with Ehrmann. But -- and we discussed this also in other instances where you are talking to all the large consumer good companies. But maybe you can just give us a bit of a bit more detail or a bit more color on timing. How should we think about that? So when does the contract with Ehrmann end? When could there be potential further opportunity to see larger players wanting to work with you with Creavitalis?

So hopefully, the contract with Ehrmann does not end at any day. And I think that should be the position. Actually, we have several discussions with many customers, with many additional customers out of that branch. But to be honest, we have to develop the use case with them. It's not so easy to stabilize creatine within, let's say, dairy products and on the one hand, and on the other hand, we have to develop capacities for creatine that we can fuel the growth. So from that point of view, we should be ready next year really for the next growth step and we try to develop all the customers when we have additional capacity available. And we think that, that additional capacity is really needed and could be fueled and filled up very quick then.

Okay. So just to understand, the contract with Ehrmann is not something that hinders you from doing business with other players? Because I had initially understood that the Ehrmann contract was an exclusive contract.

So it hinders, let's say, or let it say it that way around. It does not hinder us to sell additional creatine capacities to additional customers. For some countries, they have exclusivity, but that exclusivity is very short. And I think the additional capacities of creatine are available, then it should be no problem to sell the product in dairy use cases as well. .

We have another risen hand by Mr. [indiscernible]

Yes. And from my side, also congrats on the very solid results in the first quarter. My first question is, again, on your [indiscernible] business because I was wondering, too, why this did not have or not yet an impact on your sales in the Perlka. Could you tell us maybe do you offer 100% substitute with Perlka compared to urea? Or are there any structural factors maybe that might make it harder for farmers to just switch to your product?

Yes. So it's a very technical question, but let me answer that in the following way. So we have a real good fertilizer -- nitrogen fertilizer with Perlka with some additional side effects. And that additional side effects are just under discussion with EU at the EA process because we have this positive side effects of the nitrogen fertilizer here. So which does not -- which does not receive from the competitive fertilizers. So the competitive fertilizers do have only nitrogen or some additional phosphor or calcium on it, but not the the side effects that we have. So what do you have to take into calculation is additionally that very much of nitrogen fertilizer comes out of Russia and the Eastern countries on very low prices. And from that point of view, many, many farmers decided. And the third point is that the farmers products are on the lowest prices ever I tell you. So corn, wheat and potatoes are so cheap, actually that farmers does not use more fertilizes within a short notice. So I think that could be a chance for the future for the next season, because in that season, fertilizer has been already distributed to farmers. And I think farmers decide really to stop fertilizing the last portion, they can spread out.

Yes. And that's the reason why there is not that big growth story behind for us actually.

Very interesting. My second question is you're planning for price increases you said -- could you quantify that a bit? And maybe also quantify the cost burden we saw in the first quarter due to your oven maintenance?

Yes. So in principle, we managed it. You see that the we had some price increases in the specialty chemicals surrounding and that overcompensated already the cost increases. We think that we will receive a low double-digit million cost increases, and we are prepared to hand over that to our customers. So price increases are already started, and we are in good negotiation phases so that we stick to our outlook here.

And the second question to your -- to the cost of the calcium carbide, overall, in our last call in our communication, we announced that we estimate the cost to be approximately somewhat like EUR 10 million over the year. So if we want to calculate, half of it will be recognized in the first half of the year and the other half will be spread over the whole year because it has something to do with energy price or energy cost regulations. But here, we are clearly, as Andreas mentioned in the first question, I guess, completely in line with our expectations.

Yes. So then I will take the chance to take one question, which was handed in written here. On the German nitroguanidine expansion, you indicate commissioning in half year 2 '26 with first deliveries from the new plant in half year 2. So commissioning in half year 2 '26 and first deliveries from the new plant in half year 2 '27. So that's misunderstood -- sorry for that, we will start up the plant in the half year '26, and we will start delivering in '26 as well. So the question was then, can you walk us through the bridge in between specifically, how do you think about utilization rate in half 1 '27? How much inventory you can practically hold? And at what point do you expect the new line to reach full utilization? So we will ramp up the production plant that year. We will produce first quantities, and we try not to build up a huge stock level. So we tried to sell all the material coming out of the plant directly to the customers. And we think that the full utilization rate could be by the big end of next year, beginning of the year to come in '28, and that's the reason why we really need the next capacity increase with the U.S. production plant. Next question was on NQ pricing are the long-term offtake contracts indexed to raw material and energy inputs or are they fixed price for the contract duration. So here, we can disclose that in principle, we always try to increase index prices, and so we received that in the NQ contracts as well. Third question on creatine. Quarter 1 segment, performance was driven by a combination of volume and price effects with specialty chemicals pricing up 8.4% overall. Can you break out what you are seeing specifically on Creapure pricing, both the premium versus Chinese prices today and how that spread has evolved over the last 12 months? So Nicholas, in principle, we don't disclose information on the product level, but I can tell you that we see many Chinese raw materials, not only limited to Creapure, where the Chinese material undercuts us. But at the end of the day, our customers like the high quality like our services and like the reliability of our product. So if you take 2 products on the table one from Germany and one from China, and the customers know better product comes from most of the Western customers. And I tell you the Eastern customers as well will take divest on quality and reliability. And from that point of view, we see a good price development and stable prices within creatine for sure. creatine is available on lower prices than for us, but please think about that, that the 1-year doses for creatine and for everybody, is below EUR 100 year-over-year, so from that point of view, it doesn't matter if you pay EUR 20 or EUR 30 more or less for the 1-year doses, receiving the high quality out of our production. Yes. Then that's understood the outlook. Slide 16 states that first NQ deliveries will be in half year '27. So then I'm very sorry if that is -- first quarter is yes, then that's a mistake, we have to correct it, and we will do that immediately after the call. Thank you for that.

Thank you so much, Nicolas for your questions. We have one last risen hand by Mr. Hasler.

Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to ask my 2 questions. I'm impressed by your coolers with regard to the electricity prices, which everybody is complaining about. You explained that by the high renewable energy ratio in Germany. Could a lower renewable energy ratio in other countries negatively impact the pricing power of your competitors there? This would be my first question. And the second one is maybe a little bit in early on. It's -- you mentioned that you are evaluating the accounting treatment for the [indiscernible] price. So which possibilities are there for you? And how could this have an impact on AlzChem?

Okay. Yes, let's take your first question, Thilo. On the competitor side, as you know, most of our competitors are sitting in China, and China is a completely different energy pricing than we have completely lower energy prices than we have at the moment, maybe China may be affected by higher oil prices but we don't know the exactly energy prices in China. So we do not think that there will be a big cost burden for our Chinese competitors out of this. And I don't know that the part of the renewable energy mix in China for their energy supply. And the second question.

Second was part of the industry, strong price. That's a very interesting task but I tell you. Yes, it's a nice topic. We are talking about a few millions, a very low single-digit million pursuant for us. We calculated that between EUR 2 million and EUR 3 million for us. And you can ask for that subsidy up to the mid of '27, and you could receive that by the end of '27 or autumn '27. So that's not what we think it's an immediate effect. It's more a midterm effect and positive thing.

Right. And the accounting treatment today needs to be analyzed whether it should be recognized in '26 or in '27 or even later, if you fulfill all the complicated requirement, and that's what we mean that we are working on the accounting treatment. .

We have not received any further questions so far. [Operator Instructions] But I guess if there are no further questions, we will come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you very much for your interest in AlzChem Group AG. We thank you also to you, Mr. Niedermaier and Mr. Losler for your presentation and the time you took to answer all the questions. If you have any further questions at a later time, please feel free to contact Investor Relations. I wish you all a successful day, and I'm handing over once more to you, Mr. Niedermaier for your closing remarks. .

Yes. Thank you all for your questions. We can now offer you the opportunity to visit us again. As you can see here, virtually at the Annual General Meeting next week, May 5, or virtually in person at the conferences as shown above. Otherwise, we will be back with our half year and second quarter statement '26 on July 30. Stay safe and sound, stay in our good graces, and goodbye. Thank you.