Aspo Oyj (ASPO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Interpreted] Welcome to the Q2 reporting of ASPO 2024. If we look at the header, successful strategy execution and improved profitability, I think that's a good summary of our Q2 performance. Strong growth in net sales, 16%, comparable EBITA of EUR 7.4 million, strengthening cash flow, actually also the balance sheet developing in a good direction, good liquidity, even sustainability, very good development. And on top of that, good development when it comes to strategy execution. We sold the two Supramax vessels. We have now two green coasters in traffic here in the Baltic Sea. And Telko has made acquisitions, entering into Germany, strengthening the position in Swed, in Sweden, and then also Leipurin has strengthened their position in Sweden via Kebelco. Looking into sustainability and emissions. Emissions were a lot lower in Q2 compared to Q1. The reason is the market conditions, basically the ice conditions. And then in addition, during Q2, we had good sales growth. And hence, the emission intensity is 0.35, a lot lower than Q1 and also a lot lower than last year. Also safety, I think we have a record half year. If you look at the injury frequency, 3.3, where all injuries are included, and that is compared to 3.8 in Q1 and 4 last year. Overall, good development. And if you go into the financial figures, as said, good net sales development 16%, basically taking ASPO back on a growth track after a couple of quarters with negative development. If we look at the specific businesses, ESL Shipping, good contract volume demand. And then we sold Stellamar, the second green coaster vessels, to the pool of investors. And this was -- basically EUR 12.8 million was reported part of net sales. And to recall, this strong growth of ESL shipping is to be compared against a fairly weak market during Q2 last year. Telko, 12% growth. Actually, demand was fairly weak, but the good news is that we were able to develop our volumes in a positive manner, taking basically market share. And then we also had the acquisition in France and Benelux, optimal and green [ fluid ], which clearly then contributed also to net sales. Sales prices on a lot lower level than previous year, if you compare averages. Then Leipurin, minus 6%, basically nothing new compared to Q1, very much impacted by deflation in the market. And then in addition, kind of a strategic intent, Leipurin focusing more and more on high-margin product and leaving some commodity categories. So overall, good solid growth. If we then look at profitability and maybe first commenting on the first half of year 2024, basically flat profitability development compared to last year, EUR 12.4 million. Here, I think it's important to recall, if you kind of summarize the strikes and weather conditions, the negative impact that we estimate is EUR 4.2 million on an ASPO level, and in addition, we have -- this year, during the first half, we have M&A costs of something like EUR 2.5 million, which is reported as part of the comparable EBITA. Then digging into Q2, EUR 7.4 million ESL Shipping, basically the good volume supported good profitability improvement. Also the fact that the market environment, the strikes, the ice conditions, they only had a negative impact basically during -- primarily during April with EUR 0.5 million of negative impact. So a lot less naturally than compared to Q1. Telko had some benefits from stable price development and improving sales margin. If you recall, last year in Q2, the plastic market, [ it was ] kind of severe price decline, and that had a negative impact on the sales margin last year. So kind of clear improvement then also for Telko. And then what is also important to understand looking at Telko's figures, they are negatively impacted EUR 1.6 million during Q2 due to both M&A costs, basically due diligences, et cetera; and then also the IFRS-related valuation of the inventory, which takes down the profitability of the acquired companies. Leipurin, good to see that the positive development is continuing in this [ deflationary ] market. I think a lot of successes both in sourcing, pricing development of the product assortment and a lot of other smaller actions. And on ASPO Group level, basically flat cost development compared to last year. If we then look at the extraordinary items, we have, for the first half of this year, EUR 8.5 million. Basically, these are two things: sales of the Supramax vessels and then costs related to the injection of equity into ESL by these two new minority owners [ both paying from Varma ]. If we then specifically look at Q2, EUR 0.5 million, EUR 100,000 related to the ESL ownership structure, Telko leaving Azerbaijan, that's second EUR 0.1 million; then still some losses from Russia and basically cost taking for a process, EUR 200,000. And then we reported the due diligence cost of Kebelco, that is taken as an extraordinary item, EUR 200,000, whereas all the costs related to Telko are part of the comparable EBITDA. Cash flow, strong development, actually improved compared to last year. If you look at the operating cash flow, negative impact by increasing inventories of Telko, that was a level of some EUR 7 million, partly due to the acquisitions. And then, if we look at the major items impacting free cash flows, we have the sales of the Supramax vessels. We still had a final installment regarding the sales of the Tyreso property, EUR 2.3 million, that we receive now. And then we have cash outflow, some EUR [ 80 ] million for the M&A and then ESL, EUR 12 million, primarily green coasters. And financing cash flow, the share ratio in ESL is basically the major item, EUR 45 million. Return on equity, significant improvement in Q2 versus Q1. These are cumulative annualized figures. So basically 8% return on equity, a good development compared to the last quarter. Then back to kind of the overall picture on our strategy, which we presented in the Capital Markets Day, ESL shipping focused on the growth and green transition. I think, overall, very good progress. We have strengthened the balance sheet via changing the ownership structure, injecting more equity. We sold the Supramax vessels, and then we invested in 12 green coasters. Telko focusing on the compounding strategy. Now we have solid evidence of making a lot of acquisitions, particularly during this year. And then Leipurin strategy kind of full profit potential with growth. And here, we have a focus, which has generated improvement, basically departing from some of the businesses and then also acquisitions, both Kobia as well as Kebelco. Then digging into the events of Q2. So as said, we sold the Supramax vessels EUR 33.5 million, taking a loss of EUR 7.2 million. Still, I think this is a very good move for us ASPO and ESL. This tells us that we are kind of departing more from the spot market, getting resilience to our profitability improvement -- to the profitability generation, and it improves our strategic focus. So basically, now we're more focused on the coaster and handy segments, and they generate a lot better profitability than the Supramax vessel. So kind of overall figures, if the Supramax vessels, over the past years, maybe they represented some 25% of fixed assets, but they only generated some 10% of the profit. And naturally, this also frees up then capital for our future growth initiatives. Polyma acquisition in Germany, EUR 15 million net sales, EUR 0.5 million of EBIT for -- estimate forecasted for this year. I think this is an important step for Telko going into the German market, it's clearly the biggest plastic market in Europe, but also taking a platform to build a position not only in plastics, but also in the other product lines. And this company is now focused on the North of all Germany, but giving lot of opportunities to expand within Germany. Looking at what the synergies are, I think Telko has good opportunity to strengthen the supplier base of Ployma and then also giving kind of customer and product expertise to the company. Swed Handling, the biggest and most significant acquisition that we made so far in Sweden in chemicals, basically revenue of more than EUR 50 million, a very profitable company with EBIT close to 10%, and a very strategic acquisition. So doubling the chemicals business of Telko and making Sweden the largest country in terms of net sales, both for ASPO as well as Telko. And enterprise value, EUR 43 million plus an earn-out, depending on this year and next year's profitability. Synergies with Telko significant, both kind of from an operational perspective, with the existing lubricants, chemicals business in Sweden, but also good opportunities for kind of cross-sales between Sweden and other countries. And the good news is then that via Swed Handling, we also got Kebelco with net sales of close to SEK 100 million and also very good EBIT of the company. This is a company focused on technical products and on the food industry. So exactly from a strategic perspective, what Leipurin needs. We have a very strong position in the Bakery segment, but has -- we have a lot of opportunities when it comes to the food industry. And naturally, here, it's good opportunities to sell the products of Kebelco flavors, colors, to the existing customer base of Kobia in Sweden and also to the Leipurin's customer base in Finland and the Baltic countries. Looking at our financials. As communicated in the Capital Markets Day ambition to reach EUR 1 billion and 8% of EBITA year 2028, this is then compared to last year figures, here, it's important to understand that we've taken already a lot of steps towards this ambition. So we have now a strong balance sheet for further investments due to the minority ownership in ESL, due to the Supramax vessels. We have growth investments of -- particularly at Telko and Leipurin, the acquisitions year-to-date, approximately EUR 100 million of net sales with a very good profitability already from the start. We have the green coaster vessels, which will -- over the next couple of years, we will have 12 green coaster vessels in traffic here in the Baltic Sea. And what we communicated earlier on was that this will generate some EUR [ 50 ] million of EBITDA. And then, of course, a lot of other development actions throughout the company. We also communicated in the Capital Markets Day our vision to form two separate companies out of ASPO by year 2029. ASPO Infra, basically very heavy balance sheet, strong CapEx -- heavy CapEx investments, green transition, good returns and resilience. And then we have the ASPO Compounder, light balance sheet, a lot of acquisitions on top of organic growth and also very strong returns. Nothing further to report on this vision. We were looking at alternative models, and our objective is to maximize value basically, when it comes to how we do it and when we do it. Then I would ask Erkka to come on the stage and dig into the specific businesses.

Thank you, Rolf. Then on ESL Shipping, we had a very good quarter with good volumes, especially on the steel industry. The forest industry volumes were still moderate. And the spot market volumes remained fairly limited on the quarter. We started on the second quarter, the green coaster pool, the first 2 ships out of the 12 started operations. And every other ship will be sold to the pool investors. And while we are at those ships that we are selling to the pool investors, we are recognizing that the ship during the construction time in our inventory and then when the sales happens, we show it as a sale. And in the second quarter, we had the first -- the Stellamar that we sold to the pool investors. The impact was EUR 12.8 million in our net sales of ESL. We are selling the ship that we are -- to the pool investors at full cost. So no impact to the profitability from there. When the pool started operations, we are recognizing the entire pool revenues in our net sales. And then we are paying a variable lease payment to the pool investors for the vessels that the pool investors own, and there is no lease liability recognized as there is no fixed lease payment, only variable -- fully variable lease payment, based on the result of the entire pool. And the second quarter revenue, naturally, was negatively impacted by the sale of the Supramax vessels, so as -- the revenue for those have ended there. Second quarter, from profitability point of view, was good on ESL. Still, negatively impacted there on May for the strikes and ice conditions and -- with EUR 0.5 million. But overall, good volumes and good efficiency from operations. Overall, the spot market rates were fairly low as most of it was open water trade there, no support from the spot market that much on the second quarter. But the good contract volumes were behind the good profitability there. Then on Telko, the quarter was very similar than the first quarter. The overall market remained fairly soft. We have seen good volume development compared to last year. We expect that we have gained a market position in the soft market with the organic volume development that we have had. The prices overall have been lower than last year. The price decline mainly happened last year. During this year, the price development and also the volume development has been fairly stable. We see the impact on the revenue and also on the acquisition of the Optimol, Greenfluid on the -- partly -- already on the second quarter. Then, when we look at the profitability of Telko, that is very heavily impacted by the acquisition-related costs, of the inventory-related cost and also the due diligence type of costs. When we look at the operative performance, that, throughout last year and this year, apart from the second quarter last year; has been fairly -- actually fairly stable. On third quarter last year, we had very little costs related to M&A. And all the other quarters, actually, the operative performance have been very comparable to the third quarter of last year. Actually, the second quarter this year was slightly higher than the other quarters from the operative performance point of view, but the high M&A costs are impacting the result. Going forward, we will see then on the second half, the full, kind of, impact from the acquisitions in our results. And we are not expecting to have any significant acquisition-related cost in the coming months, as our focus will be on integrating now on the completed acquisitions. We still will see on the third quarter, the reversal of fair value of the inventory impact on the -- from the Swed Handling. But other than that, we will start to see the full impact of the acquisitions now in the results of the second -- on the second half. Also, on Leipurin, the market on the second quarter was very comparable to the first quarter. Overall market has been fairly soft. We have been focusing on the mix improvement with reducing low-margin businesses and improving the business mix. In Sweden, there was a slight increase of the of the net sales. On all other markets, the volume -- the net sales development was negative. And especially in the Baltics, impacted by the mix improvement actions that we have taken -- has taken place. And the profit improvement actions are visible on the result, with a positive development continuing now the EBIT percent -- percentage being 4.1% in Leipurin, a good development to the right direction, now with the profit improvement actions that we are continuing to implement in Leipurin. Then our balance sheet has been strengthened, especially with minority sale in ESL Shipping and also with the sale of the Supramax vessels. Our balance sheet is very strong with the net debt to EBITDA at 2 at the end of the quarter. Also good to remember that on the first of July, right after the reporting period, we acquired Swed Handling with about EUR 43 million then impact. But after that, our balance sheet remains very, very strong and gives us good possibility to continue our strategy implementation. And from the liquidity point of view, we had have EUR 87 million of cash. Obviously, there also, the cash was lower right after the Swed Handling acquisition. But also there, our strong position continues, and that gives us good possibility to further take our strategy implementation. Then handing back to Rolf for a summary.

So basically, a strong quarter, EUR 7.4 million and all business improving their profitability. From a strategic perspective, a good progress, if you look at year -- particular year-to-date and Q2 performance, so basically, a minority equity injection into ESL, sales of the 2 Supramax vessels, now we have 2 green coasters vessels in traffic, the third one coming by end of September. Telko giving strong evidence of its compounding strategy, and also Leipurin then adding Kebelco and furthermore successful kind of transformation of Leipurin. Then the outlook for the remainder of the year. We expect ESL shippings contract volumes to remain at a fairly good level. The summer months are coming up, which are typically weaker than the end of the year. And longer term, we see a very strong positioning of ESL, a combination of the green transition with the fact that we see a fairly low capacity in the market due to an aging fleet overall. Telko, we expect stable market development, which is good for Telko, with stable price levels and still gradually, slowly improving both demand and price levels. And as Erkka stated, so over the next couple of months, more focus on integrating the acquired companies, which then says that we will have lower M&A costs in H2 compared to the first half of the year. Leipurin basically more of the same, deflation, modest volume growth but then good opportunities in the food industry, specifically supported by Kebelco. Our guidance for this year, comparable EBITDA of EUR 32 million -- to exceed EUR 32 million in 2024. And this is basically based on three specific items, basically, the green coaster that we get in traffic, generating results, then results of the acquisitions completed by Telko and then profit improvement actions throughout ASPO. And then, if we look at the market development, we currently expect limited support from the market during the second half of the year. Basically the overall economical development being delayed and then therefore, also a delayed positive impact. Then let's move to the Q&A session, and we're pleased to take any question you might have here on the floor.

Joonas Ilvonen from Evli. Telko is increasing prices, whereas Leipurin faces slightly decreasing prices. I guess there's really nothing that surprising there, but have you seen any changes to the H2 outlook since the spring months?

When it comes to Leipurin, I would say, no changes. So basically, we think kind of low level of deflation will continue. When it comes to Telko, the change is that, I think, we will get a less support from the market during the second half of the year compared to what we believe still some months ago. So basically, we still see the demand growing. We see the price level increasing for Telko, but at a very slow pace.

Right. Is it kind of the same case for ESL's H2 outlook as well? And could you remind us how many green coasters will you have by the end of this year? 2 or 3 that you will have? I guess those will have only rather limited profitability impact at this point.

We have -- the third green coaster will come into commercial traffic by end of September. So then we have 3 vessels up and running. And as we stated, so the total profit impact of the 12 green coaster vessels will be EUR 15 million of EBITDA. So then you can calculate basically the impact for this year. And if you look at ESL's outlook, again, a couple of months ago, we thought we would have better support from the market, basically the basic industry gradually picking up. And now, we see that the support from the market development will be fairly limited, still, during H2 this year.

All right. And just coming back to the green coasters, so there are like no, sort of, ramp -- there is no profitability ramp-up curve or anything when it comes to one specific vessel, it basically can earn that profitable potential that you imply like from day 1 basically, when it's fully employed.

That's clearly our objective. So if you look at Electramar who was at the pier here in Helsinki during the Capital Markets Day. So basically immediately when it left the pier, it went in to [ Hong Kong ] and into commercial traffic. So our objective is to get them up and running immediately when they run here. Any further questions? If none, I want to thank you a lot for attending this session and thank you on the behalf of ASPO.

Thank you. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]