Aquafil S.p.A. (ECNL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Aquafil Group 9 Months 2024 Results Web Call. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Giulia Rossi, Investor Relator of Aquafil. Please go ahead, madam.

Thank you, operator. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Aquafil Investor Conference Call. Today, we will update you on company first 9 months results. Before going ahead, let me remind you that this presentation may contain certain statements that are neither reported financial results nor other historical information. Any forward-looking statements are based on Aquafil's current expectations about future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ from those expressed by the statements. For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, you should review the disclaimer in the presentation we issued today. I will now leave the floor to Mr. Giulio Bonazzi for his remarks.

Thank you, Giulia. Good evening to all, and thank you again for attending our video conference. We are particularly satisfied with the results achieved in the third quarter, which showed a significant increase in profitability over last year and continuously improving the percentage marginality confirming our goal. The cost containment actions and sales raised initiated last year are generating the expected results and will have even greater impact in the coming periods. The net financial position, excluding the impact of IFRS 16 accounting standard is markedly decreased from the same period last year. The net financial position-EBITDA ratio also continues to decline, even considering the effects of the aforementioned standard. Product line dynamics in EMEA finally recorded increase in volume for fibers for textiles in the third quarter, while fibers for carpets and polymers remain in line with the expectations. In the United States, both fiber product lines showed signs of recovery despite the penalty resulting from the impacts of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. In Asia Pacific, volumes are confirming what was forecast in the plan. In the fourth quarter, we expect a further increase in margins, a continuation of the decline in debt and volumes increasing compared to last year. In relation to the capital increase operation, we are completing the preparatory activities for the launch of the rights offering, which we expect to conclude by the end of the year. If any rights remain unopted at the end of the subscription period, the final deadline to execute them will be January 31, 2025. We remain confident in achieving the goals of the plan and obtaining the support of our shareholders. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Tommaso Nieddu of Kepler Cheuvreux.

Just 3 on my side. First one, just trying to understand here how the price mix are affecting the results, if indeed, I look at the different regions, it seems that the U.S. was the only region with positive volume growth, however, was highly impacted by a negative price mix contribution while the other regions, the opposite. So can you explain that? And that afterwards in the presentation of the industrial trend, you were talking about the exit from the market by a few competitors, with the largest being in U.S. and Asia. Please, can you give us an update on that? Do you see the clients being reactive in choosing your offering? And then finally, if you can give us a little bit more of info on how you see headcount going forward now that you have done the effort to reduce personnel cost would be very helpful to understand where we go from here.

Well, honestly speaking, I don't see a big change in our marginality and also in our volumes with what we have described so far. We have got the first 6 months and the 9 months are confirming in EMEA and Asia that we are following our plan. And the margins getting better in the second semester also for the reason that raw material prices are going down while our prices are moving up. We all know that we are going for a price fixing of our prices on a quarterly basis based on the previous quarter average. So clearly, we are now enjoying better margins because, of course, we are recovering margins that were, in fact, part of the first semester with regard to Europe. In United States, we are seeing, let's say, a little better volumes starting from mid of July. So from the return of July 4 vacations, and this is still confirmed during the month of September and October. With regard to Aquafil O'Mara, we were having and enjoying a robust order intake during the month of August and September, but unfortunately, because of the hurricane during the last week of September and the first week of October, we were practically forced to stop the activities even if, of course, fortunately, our plan was not directly impacted. But our customers, roads, electrical, say, distribution systems were highly impacted in North Carolina as we all know. We are confident to recovering part of these volumes during the fourth quarter and hopefully, to, let's say, continue the trend of getting better order entry also in this business. So we are seeing a price/mix volumes, let's say, stable with regard to our forecast with some average in the second quarter, but this is in reality to be seen for the entire 2024, if we want to have an idea of the actual marginality that all our businesses also geographically are giving. With regard to our competitors in the month of August, with the fact that starting from September, a producer based in Belgium called NYOBE ceased its activities. While in Asia, another producer from Korea has stopped all its nylon fiber activities, partially relocating them, at least for the textile part in Vietnam, but not the BCF as far as we know. While another competitor who is operating in the United States has confirmed that during the month between December and January, they will stop their operations, thus, of course, leaving part of the market open for our, let's say, sales. We are still confident to taking part of these quantities in our business plan, as we have said during the presentation, which we made in September we think or we are counting of taking, let's say, around 40% of these volumes left as well as we are also confident that partly the market will start bouncing back, especially in the United States. So this is how we have built our business plan with regard to volumes. Headcount, let's say that between June of 2023 and June of 2024, we have acted very promptly and strongly to reducing our personnel in correspondence with the volumes reduction. We are now stabilizing the system, but nevertheless, also targeting to continue to continue our actions of cost rationalizations. We are still acting in all the 3 continental areas to keep our cost under control and continuing to reducing them. We think that the mix between higher volumes and lower cost will result in respecting our business plan for 2025 and 2026.

The next question is from Amit Dayal of H.C. Wainwright.

Could you provide some clarity on what the use of proceeds from this EUR 40 million raise is going to be? And are you planning to raise all the EUR 40 million or will you potentially -- given the margin improvements and cash flow improvements you are seeing, maybe you don't have to raise all the EUR 40 million?

Thank you, Amit. The use of proceeds are -- have been presented during our conference of middle of September. But basically 3 main investments with the biggest one being the capacity increase of our Chinese operation, which is still short of capacity in correspondence with the market demand. Even during 2024, we have continued to outsource part of the volumes, either importing them from Europe or buying on the local market, producing on commission for us. So we are pretty confident to be able to, let's say, as soon as the new capacity will be operational, which should be around the second quarter of 2025, to operate it continuously and with good marginality. Around EUR 20 million, a little bit more than that will be the use of proceeds from the EUR 40 million that we are raising. And it's purchasing of a piece of land, which is adjacent to our property in Jiaxing, building let's say, a new warehouse plus extrusion tower for hosting the new extrusion capacity for especially the commercial market of China, Southeast Asia and Japanese customers. And then, of course, the machinery that we are going to commission inside this extrusion tower. With this, also we'll stop the usage of the external warehouse, which is costing around $1 million per year, and it's on the rise because renting fees in China are becoming as costly as in Europe and in the United States. But of course, having this new, let's say, space, we can stop also doing this. Please remember, it was the last piece of property free that we could purchase in order to expand our operations in China. The second use of proceeds, there will be a strong activity of automation starting from our Italian operation here in Arco. We all know the growing difficulties in finding shift workers and the necessity of keeping cost under control. We have a part of our, let's say, latest extrusion plant, which is under testing of this new automation already now since almost 24 months. So we feel the times are mature for let's say, expanding this automation also in the rest of the plant as well as in the future, possibly also to make the same investment in United States. Of course, where labor costs are, let's say, highest and growing faster. The third usage is the expansion of capacity of what we call one-step technology, which is a quite unique technology that Aquafil has developed by itself in the last decade or so. And this is also an area which we are running at full capacity here in Europe, and we could, let's say, have opportunities for increasing our sales. But as you clearly understand, if you're running at 100% of capacity and you have some more market demand, you are not able to respond to this market demand. With regard to your second question, we are planning to raise all the EUR 40 million, and we are confident that we may be in the first round, but latest for the end of January, we will be able to raise all the EUR 40 million. And this is the exact number and figure that we were looking for. Because if you look ahead into our business plan, we think to return into a profitable let's say, position during 2025 and to increase our profitability during 2026. And also this because of the depreciation, which is starting to decrease because, of course, it will be a certain number of years, we've reduced the capital expenditures. Clearly, from 2026 onwards, we should be finding ourselves in a position of higher profitability and lower debt. This, of course, could also result, I don't know, but that we could think to returning to a dividend distribution. So to ask for more money to our shareholders and then after 2 or 3 years to start distributing dividends was not making much sense. So we were just looking for the exact figure that was necessary to cover our capital expenditure program.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Carlo Maritano of Intermonte.

I just have a question on the NTF performance in Europe. So we've seen in the third quarter a strong rebound compared to the previous quarter. Do you think it's a sign that the destocking from your clients is finally over and now there's room to improve compared to the previous quarter?

Thank you, Carlo. I think that unfortunately, I cannot speak of a very strong rebound, but I can speak of a rebound, okay? If it was stronger, I would have been even happier than I am. But we know because, of course, we are regularly visiting our customers that the pipeline is now being emptier than it was before. It is still difficult to have visibility with regard to the final stock level by the shops and by the, let's say, brand owners and also the level of the market demand. So we think and we know that the market demand will not continue at such a reduced level as it has been for 2023 and 2024. There is confidence between our customers that 2025 will look a little better than 2024. But on top of that, we are also confident that our actions are for, let's say, broadening our customer base and broadening our product mix and product offering will help us to win more markets and more sales. And this is valid both for NTF in Europe as well as for Aquafil O'Mara in the United States, where we have started several actions for introducing our products into other applications that are different than our historical ones of upholstery and mattresses in that area. This is what is making us confident to reach the targets that we have fixed in our business plan, which I remember are always far lower than the sales that were in 2019 or in 2021, 2022.

[Operator Instructions] Mr. Bonazzi, there are no more questions registered at this time.

Well, I thank you all for taking part to our 9-month report. I hope that you are, let's say, sharing the confidence that our management team and the Board of Directors is having, and we hope to have the chance to talk to you soon again with positive results.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your devices. Thank you.