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 Full Year 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 the company's full year 2024 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 give 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. Before starting and sharing with you my view about the 2024 full year results, let me, first of all, thank Mr. Roberto Bobbio, who has served Aquafil during the last couple of years and who decided to return closer to home, and a warm welcome to Andrea Pugnali, who is here on my left, who will serve shortly as the new CFO of Aquafil Group entirely. He is now our American CFO, and he will return to Italy soon. The 2024 represented a key year in our journey of growth and innovation. Despite global macroeconomic challenges, we have demonstrated resilience, achieving results that prove the strength of our business model with a profitability exceeding the plus 30% compared to the previous year. In terms of volumes sold, it has been recorded a 7% increase compared to 2023, largely driven by the polymers business line. As for the fibers for garments, the business line did not show the expected growth, mainly due to protracted destocking of the entire supply chain and the general slowdown in the end market, heavily impacted by the inflationary effect. EMEA and Asia Pacific geographies posted positive results, confirming the outlook. The United States instead showed a general weakness in fibers markets during 2024, while the beginning of the current year shows a recovery in fibers for carpets. The excellent capital increase transaction allowed us to continue with the growth of the business plan presented last September. We continue to invest strategically to increase the industrial efficiency in our production capacity and in technological innovation, which represent key elements for our success. We are proud of our progress in achieving our sustainability goals with a special focus on ECONYL branded products, which reached the 55% of our fibers turnover. The early months of 2025 are recording an order intake in line with the plan for both polymers and fibers for carpets, while fibers for garments remained more restrained. For these reasons, we are confident that the performance in the coming period will enable us to achieve the results defined in the business plan disclosed to the market. Thank you for your attention, and we are now ready to answer to your questions.

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

The first one, it is on the D&A. It seems you have had some much higher D&A in the fourth quarter. So can you give us more color on this? And what should we expect next year? The second one is on the new high-performance fibers and the other applications you are developing. Can you please give us an update on this? What's the contribution you are looking for to have at the end of the plan? And if you can, in what geographies? And then just the third one very quickly. We are seeing more tariffs being implemented recently. So my question is, at the current state, how are you impacted? If you are not impacted, what's the reason behind it?

I'm sorry I've lost your third question, but I will first answer to the first two. Well, depreciation and amortization last year, so the last increase, and then we will start seeing from the coming years a sharp decrease that will result from 2027 and particularly in 2028 in a very small and lower numbers with respect to today. Nothing else than new assets that were previously invested and that started its depreciation period as well as, of course, the IFRS 16. So renewal of some rentals that have impacted our numbers. So we went from EUR 49 million to EUR 54 million for 2024. The continuous work of developing new applications is not only related to enlarge and broaden our spectrum of application within the carpet and rug and textile business. But also as you know, we have started some new circular applications like circular fishing net, technical ropes and other applications that will help us to grow during the coming years. Of course, these are niche products that will not change the core activities of our company. So please, don't think that we will develop 10% additional revenues coming from this product soon. But indeed, they will help us to keep a utilization rate higher and higher during the coming periods with products at very high unit margins. So this is, of course, very important, together with the Engineering polymer business, which, as you have seen, have started its trajectory of growth during 2024 and will continue a very interesting development during 2025 and 2026 in order to give our company the possibility of expanding its revenues. So now, please, Tommaso, sorry, but I was focusing on the first two questions. Can you repeat the third one?

Yes, yes. No worries. The third one was on the tariffs because we have seen some tariffs that have been implemented. And so the question was if you are going to be impacted. Or if not, what is the reason behind it?

Well, as you know, Aquafil has its own production capacities in the North American markets and tend to serve the North American markets from its operations that are based in Georgia and North Carolina. And normally, we are exporting waste coming to Europe that are more or less corresponding to the quantities of polymers that we are reexporting to United States. Clearly, if nothing changes from the ordinary course of actions over the last 20 to 30 years, nothing should impact directly our business activities. But of course, if there is a problem on the general market, for example, let's assume that the automotive market slows down because of lack of spare parts or components or because of temporary blockade by the custom, let's say, gate, this, of course, might have an impact also on ourselves. It is, of course, difficult to understand and to predict now if some of these possible things may have an impact. We are, in any case, preparing to minimize every possible impact that may hit directly our revenues and sales. What we can see now is a strong order intake for our carpet yarn activities that are exceeding our, let's say, budget and business plan. Whether this is a temporary reaction of our American customers or it's a stable consequence also of the shutdown of our competitors that actually took place between December and January, we will discover during the coming period. Of course, for the first quarter, we will enjoy the good part of having a very strong order intake. On the contrary, and we were expecting exactly the opposite on our Aquafil O'Mara, so textile NTF activities that are more directly impacted by imports coming from Asia and from, say, Central American countries we have seen a slowdown from middle of February. So for that, of course, Aquafil O'Mara is much smaller than our carpet yarn activities that are more than compensating this, let's say, temporary decreases. We will see. Of course, just for everybody, also for Aquafil, it's not easy to predict what the eventual trading barriers might cause to our global demand, not only to our American demand, but also to our European system and Asia system. So I wish I could tell you more, but...

The next question is from Dave Storms of Stonegate.

Just two for me. The ECONYL as a percent of your revenue increased by, it looks like, 520 basis points year-over-year. Really strong growth there. What do you see as the ceiling on that? And what could that growth look like in 2025? And then as far as the fiber recovery, you mentioned in your release that it was protracted destocking, partly due to supply chain issues, general market slowdown and inflationary effects. Is there any way you could parse out maybe what might have been the key drivers there? And any major impacts we should keep an eye out looking into 2025?

Thank you, Dave. ECONYL has posted a very strong year during 2024, even stronger than we were imagining. To be honest, we are always giving the percentage on our revenues. So this could be also impacted by lower sales on the non-ECONYL side. Maybe for the future, we will have to find out some better indicators that are creating a more transparent and correct representation. Nevertheless, last year, we actually had a 5% increase in comparison with the previous year also in absolute terms. And in reality, during the fourth quarter, this performance was even higher. We posted a 57% on our fiber revenues. But in this case, the impact was more on the non-ECONYL side rather than on larger sales numbers. The target, as you know, for the end of 2025 is to touch or to get as close as possible to the 60%. So the program and the budget and the prospects are still to continue our growth for our ECONYL products in the fiber applications. And also we will start seeing some positive impact of ECONYL also on the polymers and engineering polymers applications. So what's the ceiling? In terms of production capacity, we have more than enough to fulfill our business plan for 2024, 2025 and 2026. Clearly, if we are caught by surprise by even higher demand, well, that would be a good question. But nevertheless, we are pretty confident to reach the target or possibly also to make a little better. With regard to NTF, what we are seeing is what all the markets are reporting. Our fashion business, which is still slow worldwide, unfortunately, while what we are seeing are some positive signs of recovery of the sport applications like cycling, yoga wear, pilates wear and things like that. That were pretty, pretty slow during the last 2 to 3 years. This is very important for us because in terms of quantities, these markets are bigger than the fashion ones. So if this continues during the coming months, we should assist to a recovery also of our NTF business. With regard to our American NTF activities where we are working hard and, let's say, making us very confident to post not only a recovery, but possibly during the second part of 2025 even to go a little higher than what we had previously forecasted is the development of synergies between our textile activities and our CapEx activity. So there are some, let's say, area of applications where the two systems are, let's say, getting closer together, and customers -- and carpet customers are buying some yarns that are coming from our NTF division. It's a continuous work, trying, of course, to broaden our product portfolio, to broaden our customer base and possibly developing new products for, let's say, not being only dependent on upholstery and residential market in U.S.A., which is strongly dependent on the interest rates for the consumer side.

The next question is from Carlo Maritano of Intermonte.

I just have three questions from my side. The first one, you already partially answered, but on the performance of the NTF in the fourth quarter, I was wondering from a geographical point of view, which was the trend because in the third quarter, there was a rebound in Europe. Given the slowdown in fourth quarter, I imagine that Europe again worsened. So I was just wondering if you can provide more color on this. The second question is on the current trading. So you said the order book is quite good at the moment. So I was wondering if you have more -- if you have more -- if you can provide more color on the trends in the three divisions? So to -- just to understand the trends, especially in the polymers after the very strong 2014 -- 2024. And the final question is on the energy cost. So I imagine that part of the disappointment in terms of margin was related to the increase in energy cost in the last part of the year. So I was wondering what measures can you adopt to partially neutralize this effect or if it's possible to pass part of this increase to the clients currently.

Thank you, Carlo. If you don't mind, I will start from the third question, which is very, very interesting because the major part, actually, more than 2/3 of the difference between the business plan and projected number of [ 65.7 ] and the actual number is coming from the energy part, okay? So only a minor part is coming from the slower and little -- or lower volumes that we experienced between end of October and middle of November, especially on the American market. In reality, this energy, we have to split in two parts. One part, which is deriving from the higher natural gas prices that we have experienced between November, December, January and February and now finally is going back to, let's say, our budget numbers. So we're currently between the quota for the CO2 emissions and the gas prices. We are, in fact, already inside our budget numbers for 2025. But November and December and January and February, we have got a little higher prices for energy that has impacted us in the last couple of months for around EUR 700,000, and very likely it will be again in the range of EUR 1 million or a bit -- or a little higher than EUR 1 million during January and February. But also, I must tell you that when we budget our cost, we go flat on 12 months. So clearly, normally, during the summer period, we enjoy lower natural gas prices and, as a consequence, better than the budget forecast numbers. So what we have to check is, of course, the full year numbers. The other bigger factor was a dispute that we have with our energy provider in Slovenia that is managing the power plant, that is supplying to us electric energy and steam. That, according to the contract that we had the option of exercising one right that would have given us a benefit of EUR 1.5 million. But with the letter that we have received on the 30 of December, so as end of the year present, they, with an excuse, denied this option that was given by the contract. As you can imagine, we are now in a discussion. But of course, our auditors for the sake of, let's say, security and minimizing, let's say, problems forced us to post this EUR 1.5 million, let's say, higher energy prices that we should have not got. Very likely, it will be compensated during 2025. But this will be coming from the discussions that are ongoing between our lawyers and our technical people and the lawyers and the technical people of the energy provider. Returning to the numbers of the fourth quarter, what we have seen is, let's say, a lack of rebound of our NTF during the fourth quarter. So it was not in fact lower than, let's say, the previous ones. But simply, we were expecting some better demand during October and November that didn't take place. What has hit us a little bit has been a temporary slowdown of the American automotive market that for reasons that very likely were due to higher inventory levels for a couple of weeks have seen a bit lower demand. So putting together these two factors, we have lost around a little less than EUR 1 million EBITDA or around EUR 0.7 million or EUR 0.8 million. So nothing, at the end, very significant. What we are seeing now is the opposite, as I have said. So finally, in U.S.A., we are running at full capacity, and we are even short with product. I know that may sound a bit strange that from 6 months to 6 months, things are changing so quickly. But please remember, that we are now assisting to two factors. First factor, the disappearance of one important competitor, Ascend, that shut down in December and January, and we are seeing the first signs of orders that are set to replace this vendor who has stopped its production and, of course, a reaction of the market very likely to build up higher inventories in order to prevent eventual progress. With that being said, all our customers are reporting, let's say, stronger sales during end of last year and beginning of this year, apart the automotive that I have mentioned, so commercial and other people. So they are confident to give us volumes during 2025 that are even higher than our forecast with regard to American this year.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Gianluca Pediconi of MOMentum.

I have just a quick question. During the presentation of the industrial business plan, you also provided some guidance for 2025. In the press release, you just mentioned some qualitative growth in EBITDA and you confirm the '24, '26 plan. The reason for which you are not providing any quantitative guidance on '25 is due to the current lack of visibility and, let's say, uncertainties that you mentioned before due both to energy and market conditions.

No, it isn't. I think that we are very early in the year because we have just seen a couple of months that we have now the first feelings about the quarter that, as I have said, is confirming our confidence of reaching the targeted numbers as we have also written in our statements, okay? Energy, as I said, is reentering in our budget forecast. So it is not presently a matter of worriedness. So this is not the case. Clearly, it's early in the year, and the uncertainty which is spread everywhere around the world, not only in Europe or in the United States, but also in Asia Pacific, are making us, how can you say, a bit cautious before making announcements that it will be a terrific year in terms of growth and revenues. So if nothing happens, strange or stranger that what we are seeing right now, we should be able to reach the target or possibly for certain parameters even had to do a little better. So we are confident to grow our revenue strongly and also to keep our net financial position under strict control. Maybe you have noticed that at the end of 2024, we have been a little higher in terms of debt, but this also was caused by larger purchasing of raw materials during the month of November and December. So we filled up a little bit our inventories, forecasting price growth of the raw materials during the first quarter, which happened. So this was made, of course, in order to have better margins during the first quarter of 2025, where we have also made a little price increase to recover energy and inflation here in Europe, okay, and also by capital expenditures because we have speed up some investments like the one in China, where we were short of capacity, which entered in production even earlier than scheduled. So during the month of December, we started the first, let's say, lines. And in the month of January, we have completed also the start-up of these lines in order to follow the market demand that we are considering to drop in Asia Pacific. So this, of course, should be reflected in better numbers in terms of lower CapEx than what is on the business plan for 2025 and, of course, to stay in line with the global, let's say, expectations that we had given for 2024, 2025 and 2026.

I have just a couple of follow-up questions. The first one, you mentioned price increase that I remember you were expecting to be able to pass on to end -- to your customers because of the consolidation in the industry, some competitors exiting. That is still the case. So are you able -- or were you able to actually increase price as you were expecting? And the second one is just to be sure not to have properly understood your message. So the '25 guidance that you provided during the plan is still valid.

Yes. The '25 guidance is still valid, and as we have repeated several times, while for the price increase, I strongly deny that I have said that we are going to increase prices because some competitor is disappeared. I said we are going to make and we have made in Europe a price increase, and we are working on something like that also in United States to recover inflation costs that are growing higher, like labor, energy and transport, okay? So this is something...

Sorry. You are right. It's not what you said.

It is not a speculative approach, the one that we...

No, no, no. My point was that just because with -- now it is easier to pass on also because of less competition.

Well, historically, we have always shown that Aquafil has strong capabilities of passing through price increases of raw materials. But also during 2022, also of inflation, even high inflation like it happened during the period of spring-summer of 2022. So clearly, with lower competition should be even easier. But of course, we always keep a very serious behavior with our customers without speculating on an eventual market situation that can see a shortage of capacity in our system. We, of course, want to protect also the profitability of our customers as well as of the entire market. If we make money, but -- and they don't make money, well, it is not working well.

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

Well, in this case, thank you again for assisting to our 2024 full year results, and hope to see you soon with the first quarter financial results that should come in a matter of weeks.

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