Bufab AB (publ) (BUFAB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi, everyone, and a warm welcome to this Q4 and year-end report for Bufab. My name is Erik Lunden, and I am President and CEO of the Bufab Group. And together with me here today, I have Par Ihrskog, my CFO. This presentation will be recorded and by attending to this meeting, you agreed to the recording. I would like to start this presentation to give some group news today before I jump into the full year highlights and Q4 results. So let's start with some group news. And the first thing I would like to talk about today is the acquisition of VITAL, a leading Italian C-parts distributor. In November last year, we acquired VITAL that is one of the leading players in the Italian market with a head office in Milan. They have a net sales of EUR 48 million in 2023 and operating profit above Bufab's 2026 profitability target. We see VITAL as a platform acquisition. We have 2 types of acquisitions in Bufab, platform and add-on and this is a typical platform acquisition. By acquiring VITAL, we have deepened our presence now in a very important market for us in Southern Europe. And by doing this, we can increase our service level to current customers that we have, that have operations in Italy, but of course, also help new customers in Italy market. And we believe that VITAL is a perfect fit to Bufab. They can learn from Bufab and the other way around. And therefore, we think that this partnership will be adding a lot of value to Bufab shareholders. The former owners will stay in management positions, and we have an earn-out structure linked to this acquisition. If we then jump into the full year highlights and Q4 results, and I would like to start to talk about the full year performance. If we sum up, 2024 is another good year for Bufab. We delivered a stable result despite weak demand in the market overall. And I think this year, we're demonstrating our resilience in a challenging market. Total growth was minus 7.4% for the full year, and organic growth was minus 5.4%. We delivered a record strong gross margin reaching 29.7%. And this is a good indicator that the value that we create to our customers are improving. We delivered also stable adjusted operating margin at 11.9% and also solid cash flow. And the Board proposed a dividend of SEK 5.25, this increase versus SEK 5 per share last year. If we then also look back on the execution of our strategy that we launched at our Capital Markets Day at the end of 2023, I am overall pleased with the execution of our strategy. First of all, I would like to mention how we have strengthened our value proposition. We have expanded our service and product portfolio, becoming more of a full range supply C-parts provider to our customers. One example is -- for example, that we have during 2024, delivered a record number of logistics solutions for our customers. We are convinced that this value we provide to our customers will help us to increase our organic growth rate, and I think also what we've seen in the GP development in the last couple of quarters is an indicator that we do the right things here when it comes to value selling to our customers. We also have a clear focus on profitable growth. We aim to gradually improve our customer and product mix, and I think we're taking good steps in the right direction throughout 2024, but more to come here. I think also we have stepped up when it comes to sustainability and going to our next level when it comes sustainability from a lot of internal focus to actually now go over to how we can add value to our customers through sustainability. We have improved our offering when it comes sustainability, and we can see that this is a driver for us to take market share, especially in Europe as of today. And more and more offering within this area will be developed in the coming quarters. I also like the way we have improved our operating model in Bufab. As you all know, we are running with the full P&L in the different sister companies, and we are very keen to have tailor-made plans for each sister's needs. So this implies operating model with strong performance management. And I think we are taking good steps in 2024 and have a more solid platform and better positioned sister companies than 1 year back. Another big milestone is, of course, how we have decided to focus on, what we call, trading and niche businesses. In 2024, we divested Bufab Lann and Hallborn, our manufacturing companies and instead acquired VITAL. And this is an example of how we also do going forward by investing in companies that we think a bigger potential for profitable growth going forward. And all in all, I think we put ourselves in a strong position to deliver on our financial targets in the coming years. If we then jump over to the fourth quarter of 2024 and start to talk a bit about the market situation. We still continue to see a cautious market out there, and there's a large variations across industries. The strongest development was noted in Energy and Defense like previous quarters. The important mobile home and trailer industry for our U.S. market remained challenging. And also, we see still a challenging trend when it comes to construction, automotive, bath and kitchen and outdoor. But having said that, we see some light in the tunnel and the organic growth is improving. In Q4, we end up an organic growth of minus 1.5%, and that is an improvement over Q3 that we had an organic growth of minus 2.6%. Another positive thing is that we continue to do a good job when it comes to our gross margin. It improved by 0.4 percentage points, reaching 29.7% in Q4. And this is mainly driven by our trading business that had really solid development in also Q4. If you look at our operating expenses, it was higher in Q4, driven by one-offs and currency effects. If we look at the underlying cost base, it's actually a reduction in Q4 versus Q4 last year. All in all, then, we end up on an adjusted operating margin of 10.8%. I will then leave the word over to Par for a few financial highlights. Please, Par.

Yes. Thank you. Yes, I will share you with some more financial details. Let's start with the sales. We ended up at SEK 1.863 billion in the quarter, which is a reduction of 4.1%. That is explained by -- we have a negative organic growth of 1.5%, a positive currency effect, but also the effect of both the acquisition of VITAL by divestment of [ Hallborn and Lann ], that explains there 4.1%. And the 1.5% organic growth is improvement quarter-over-quarter, less negative. We had 2.6% in Q3, and we had minus 6.6% in Q2. So gradually, we are getting closer to zero. Next, then looking into the gross profit margin, we ended up at 29.7%, which is an improvement of 0.4% compared to Q4 last year, mainly driven by our focus on delivering customer value, product and customer mix, but also sourcing savings. Our adjusted EBITDA ended up at 10.8%, which is a reduction compared to last year. It's mainly explained by lower sales in the quarter compared to last year, but also one-offs in OpEx, which I will explain on the next couple of slides. So then going over to OpEx. We ended up at SEK 376 million in operational expense in the quarter, which is a slight reduction compared to Q4 last year. But last year, we had a big revaluation of an earn-out. So the underlying cost base last year was SEK 340 million. I will come back to that explanation on the next slide. The quarter was having an impact of a couple of one-offs and some adjustments, obsolescence reserve, acquisition costs, restructuring costs and some negative currency effects. But adjusting for all this, we have the underlying cost base under control and actually a reduction. We continue our work and effort to have a focus on cost control and savings throughout the whole business going forward as well. Next slide. Yes. So here is an effort to explain the OpEx development. Starting on last year, starting on the left side, we had SEK 388 million in OpEx. But in that number, we had this earn-out adjustment of SEK 48 million and earn-out related to TIMCO. So adjusting for that, we had an underlying cost base of SEK 340 million. And then in Q4, we had some one-offs and adjustments explaining the increase to SEK 376 million. We're starting with the increase of obsolescence reserve. This reserve is related to a specific product group we have. And then also, we have SEK 40 million inflation -- salary inflation compared to Q4 last year. We had some negative currency effect, translation effect. And then we had acquisitions cost, et cetera, restructuring costs amounting to SEK 22 million. Then our effort that throughout the year 2024, we have been working on cost reduction and the effect in Q4 was actually minus SEK 23 million, offsetting the inflation and also reducing the cost base in total, adjusting for these one-offs. Next slide, please. Then moving over to the cash flow. We had a cash flow of SEK 125 million in the quarter. It's lower than previous quarters, and it's explained by -- we have a negative change in net working capital. If you have been following us for a while, you know that last couple of quarters, we had a positive effect by reducing our inventories. But in Q4, we actually invested in inventories in a couple of big units, explaining the lower cash flow in the quarter. Next slide. Moving over to the net debt. We saw an increase in Q4 in our net debt, and that is related to the acquisition of VITAL. We increased our euro loan base there to finance within the debt facility -- loan facility. We ended up on a leverage of 2.8 versus then 2.4 previous quarter and 2.6 Q4 last year. And in this 2.8, you should keep in mind that we have 1 month of the VITAL result, but we have the full effect of the balance sheet from VITAL. So this, of course, will gradually be reduced as we get more months of VITAL result in the numbers.

Thanks a lot, Par. I will then continue with some regional highlights. And I would like to start with the region Europe, Northeast. The total growth in the region was minus 12.4% and the organic growth was minus 0.6%. In the region, we see continued weak demand in kitchen and bathroom, but also in Bufab Finland, while Tilka, very strong in defense had a very strong demand in the quarter. Very strong gross margin in the region, up 2.7 points due to active work on customer offering, improved customer product mix and also some savings coming in. And here, we see a higher share of OpEx, and this is mainly through obsolescence reserves linked to one customer in the region then. We also have negative currency effects in the region for the quarter. All in all, ended up on an adjusted operating margin of 10.5%. If we then continue with Region Europe West, total growth amounted to 7.1% and organic growth was 0.1%, so almost flattish there. The total change in sales, 8.4% was attributed to the acquisition of VITAL in Q4 last year. In the region, we can see that the Energy industry continued to developing very well, especially then in Bufab France, but also Bufab Czech had a very strong development in the quarter. We see in the West quite low activity in automotive and also in Construction Industries. Gross margin was up also in -- for Europe West, 0.4 points due to purchasing savings, price increases and improved customer mix in the region. The OpEx was in line with last year, and the adjusted operating margin improved to 11.1% in the quarter. If we then go over to Americas. Here, we had a negative growth, 13.3% and organic growth was minus 11.3%. And the reason behind this decline was the low demand in the mobile home and trailer market for ABS. But also we see low demand in the automotive industry, which is impacting our CSG sister company in Americas. We also had decreased gross margin, 1.8 points due to price reduction, and that is for one customer actually that a quarterly pricing for ABS that's impacting and also higher share of OpEx due to lower sales in the quarter. The adjusted operating margin declined to 7.6%. And I'd also like to briefly comment about the political situation in the U.S. We think overall that we are well positioned to manage the uncertainty in the market in Americas in terms of tariffs and other potential threats. And we will, of course, carry on tariffs and others to end customers, and we are in a good position to do that. But there could be some turbulence in the short horizon when it comes to Americas. Also then U.K. and Ireland. Here, we see a total growth of minus 0.5% and organic growth was minus 5.1%. Here, we see a decline linked to market prices for Apex, but also for TIMCO. We had a big drop in gross margin, 3.8 points, and this is driven by higher global freight rates, which peaked during the previous quarter, and this is mainly for TIMCO. Operating expenses decreased in the quarter as Q4 '23 was impacted by a negative effect from remeasurement of additional purchase consideration, as Par pointed out before. Adjusted for this, the share of operating expenses to sales were in line with last year. And to sum up then, the adjusted operating margin was 9.0% for the quarter. And then finally, Region Asia-Pacific. Total growth amounted to 29.4%. So really strong growth in Asia and organic growth was 27.4%. Here, we can see strong demand in all companies, led by, [indiscernible] but also China had a very strong development in the region. We also saw positive development on gross margin, improved 1.3 points due to purchasing savings in combination with a favorable customer and product mix. We also a lower share of OpEx compared to last year, impacted positively by currency effects and also good cost control throughout the business in Region Asia Pacific. All in all, end up in a very strong operating margin to 16.5%. If we then take and sum up the year-end quarter and then also look at outlook and priorities. And I would like to start with the quarter. We see a continued improved gross margin in the quarter, mainly driven by trading business where we see really strong development and a little bit weaker for our niche companies. We also have lower results in the quarter, and this is driven by one-offs and currency. And also, as I mentioned initially, we are proud to now having VITAL on board Bufab Group. When it comes to the market and the outlook, there is still uncertainty in the market. However, we see indications of improved demand, especially from general industry that will come in now in 2025. We have done a lot of efforts to strengthen our gross margin in 2024, and this work will continue, and we expect the gross margin to continue to have favorable development as we see this as one of the key KPIs for a trading business to improve the margin going forward, also on EBITDA level. Combined with working on improving our gross margin, we will put a lot of focus on cost control and savings to ensure that we are in a really strong position once the market rebounds and we get higher top line. And to sum up our priorities, they remain the same. I think we've taken a good step this year on the execution of our strategy. And hopefully, we will take another step in 2025. We will continue to be very active on the market to grab market share. I'm pleased with the work here we have done in 2024 with really good activity. I also would like to continue improving our margin. As I mentioned, key thing will, of course, be to continue strengthening our gross margin and drive value to our customers that will give us higher gross margin also going forward. But then, of course, also balance that with good work with our cost control and cost savings where it makes sense in the organization. Finally, continue working on net working capital and secure strong cash flow. I'm overall pleased with the cash flow in 2024. In the end of the year, we decided to invest in inventory for future growth in a few sisters and that impacted our cash flow in the quarter. But all in all, I'm pleased with the performance in 2024, but more to come in the coming quarters. That was it for today. We will now open up for questions, please.

[Operator Instructions] So we start with the first question from Karl Noren.

A couple of questions here. Maybe if we start on this inventory write-downs or reserves that you're taking here. I'm just wondering, is this purely related to Q4 and we should not see any impact of this going forward in 2025 in the numbers?

Yes. So what we've done now is a specific type of products with specific mainly for one customer that impacted in Q4. So this is not something you should see as a standard going forward.

Okay. That's clear. And then just on the gross margin, I mean, the sequential weaker versus Q3, and it's related, I guess, to Americas and U.K. Can you say anything about -- I mean, you mentioned TIMCO having some problems here with higher freight rates. Is that expected to impact also the coming quarters? Or have we now raised prices to offset this?

Yes. So first of all, if you look at the overall development of GP, you can say that the trading part of the business, the majority is doing very well in the quarter. Where we see challenges in the Q4 was mainly driven, as you said, by TIMCO that have, you can say, short-term challenges. And the same thing then for ABS that also have short-term challenges on the gross margin. So all in all, I can say that I'm pleased with the development and how we're doing in gross profit. But of course, we want to avoid situations like we had now impacting for [ 2 cases ] actually that is making the overall situation not developing as good as it was in Q3.

But do you think it will improve? I mean...

Gradually...

Yes, but maybe a bit weaker in Q1 or the coming quarters as well?

I think it will be gradual improvement. So a gradual improvement we expect.

Okay. And then a question on organic growth as well. I mean, continued sequential improvement here. Do you feel that the momentum is continuing to build up and we should expect further sequential improvement here in Q1? Or what's the general feeling?

Yes. First of all, I think that there's still uncertainty in the market. So that has not changed. But having said that, what we've seen now for a couple of quarters is a gradual improvement, and we don't see any indicators that should not continue even if we don't have any huge changes in the market. But best guess is gradual improvement.

Okay. That's very clear. I guess the -- what you say, the Nordics, Europe is trending in the -- or the North and East is trending in the right direction also West and then you have Americas a bit softer and also maybe APAC, I guess. But can you say anything about Americas having continued to have quite negative organic growth. And you mentioned a price decrease to a customer as well there in the report. Just be interesting to hear what's going on?

What's going on is that in Americas, as you know, we have 2 sister companies. And the biggest ABS has a lot of sales to the RV and the mobile home industry that is right now on a very low demand. I think ABS is doing a good job in -- within their control, so to say, managing the situation, but the overall demand is on a very low level. We see indicators on improvement, but we don't expect them to come in the coming quarter or so, but we don't think we're getting worse. And combined with that, the overall situation for the automotive industry has also been tough in the U.S. in 2024. Of course, linked to uncertainty before the election and also actually some uncertainty after election as well. That's also impacting the demand in automotive, where CSG has a quite strong position. So you can say that our niche focus in the 2 segments in Americas is impacting the situation. And then as I also pointed out, the biggest impact on the gross profit here is actually just linked to one specific customer for ABS. And that also we expect to gradually improve. We have, in this case, quarterly pricing, and this will gradually improve also in 2025.

[indiscernible].

So I just wanted to ask, you said you invested in inventory in the quarter. Is that a reflection of your expectation that the organic trend will continue to improve sequentially or how should we read that?

Yes. We are coming from a situation where we had a lot of inventory around the globe after the pandemic. And we have, as one of our key targets in 2024, gradually decreased our inventory levels in many sisters. And now we are coming to a stage that there are a couple of handful sister companies that need to build up inventory again because the levels are on a too low level. And in some cases, also because of the Chinese New Year was also giving some extra reason for building up some inventory. And the demand for those sisters has been -- in a tough market, been, I would say, good and holding up volumes very well, for example, TIMCO. And therefore, we see the need to build up some inventory to be able to offset demand from our customers. So quite natural after many quarters of building down, you can say, inventory that we also, in a few cases, gradually to build some inventory up. But there are a few season we're talking about.

Yes, that makes sense. On the M&A and restructuring costs that you adjusted for, I think it was SEK 22 million. If I remember correctly, SEK 8 million of those SEK 22 million were for VITAL. Could you just give some comments on what the remaining costs were about there?

Yes. It's a combination of acquisition costs, but also some divestment costs related to Hallborn Lann and also restructuring costs we have taken in Q4, mainly related to some severance pay or layoff pay, but also we are in U.K., closing down 3 warehouses, building up a new one, replacing the 3. This in the end will provide a lot of efficiency improvements and also cost savings. But of course, during this transition period, we have some extra cost related to that, that hits Q4.

All right. Very good. You gave some comments on potential effects of tariffs on your Americas operations. Could you just walk us through a bit exactly how that would affect you and your supply chain and what you would be doing to counter any effects?

Yes. If it happens, we will pass on tariffs to the end customers. That is what we aim to do. So -- and if you look at the midterm horizon and so on, I'm not -- we are not that worried about disturbance when it comes to tariffs and other things that could happen in the U.S. market. We are even if you are a small player in U.S., we are much bigger than majority of our competitors that we compete with on those segments. And often when we see turbulence like this, smaller players struggle more than bigger players. So what we do now is to prepare ourselves for different options that could happen depending on what the President decides and be well prepared to take actions to minimize the impact for American business then. So we feel that we are quite well positioned to manage this potential turbulence that could happen if something now will happen in the coming weeks.

All right. And then finally for me, on the very strong organic growth in Asia, could you just give some comments on whether that is mainly market-driven or if your companies there are doing something particularly good?

I would say that we do something particularly good. As we have pointed out for a couple of quarters now, we have seen very strong development in China and driven by market share growth. And also, we have seen improvement now in Kian Soon that is based in Singapore and operating in Southeast Asia. We also see improvement in terms of sales coming from a lower starting point. So it's a combination of really good job done by the sisters there and also that -- yes, for Kian Soon, bit softer comparison numbers to compete with. They were up against very tough numbers also during the pandemic time there. So -- but overall, a good job done by the team in Asia Pacific.

Gustav Berneblad. You're welcome to ask your question.

Gustav from Nordea. Maybe just to build on the tariffs there. It would be interesting to hear if you have seen or noticed any effects of sort of preordering here in the quarter?

No, there has not been much of preordering or changes. Everyone seems to wait to see what happens. So to be honest, not much have actually happened more than a lot of speculations.

Perfect. And then it would be interesting also. I mean, how fast can you pass on the prices, just to think about the dynamics here if sort of the tariffs are implemented?

Quickly. If -- normally, we are doing that in a quite quick way. Of course, it depends because contracts looks different. But all in all, we are, as I said, well positioned to those kind of changes.

Okay. Perfect. And then regarding sort of the obsolescence there in the reserves, I mean, you say it's related to one customer. Does this mean that you lost this customer or is that a risk?

No. I said mainly one customer. No, it's not lost. We had a situation for quite some time after pandemic, we build up inventory for several customers that had a very strong development. And now we have a specific case where we still have a good relationship with the customer, but that is now come up in situation where the lower demand, we have decided to make this adjustment or reserving them in Q4. But it's not a lost customer, and it's not something that is an overall, you can structure a problem. It's more related to a specific product and customer, the biggest part of this obsolescence.

Okay. That's very clear. And then just the last one here on Americas and your comments on prices. I mean, do you think that this will be isolated to Americas and you say it's related to one customer. So it would just be interesting to hear how confident you are that this will be isolated there. And also, if you can say anything about the magnitude?

Are you talking about the gross profit impact?

Yes, exactly.

Yes. So it is only -- in the Q4, if you compare the Q4 versus -- yes, Q4 last year, it is only related to one customer that have quarterly pricing does make a big impact on the GP for the quarter. So that is how it looks. And then, of course, the overall situation for our Americas business has been tough due to the low demand in the market. But as I pointed out before, I think ABS in this case is the biggest player and also impact with GP have done a good job to manage that, keeping up the margin in a very challenging situation. So the time will help them. So we expect a gradual improvement. But as I said, it's not -- won't be something dramatic that will happen on demand, but we hope to see a gradual improvement in demand for ABS as well. It's just one customer that has impact on this GP in Americas.

All right. But it doesn't sound like we should expect you entering a new phase where you expect price -- where you expect your customers to demand price decreases in other regions. It's just very isolated here?

Yes, yes. I mean if you look at the price pressure from that point of view globally, that have then taken place for quite some time. And that I think we have shown in the resilience overall that our value and how we now are able to show customers the real value and what we can provide is actually helping us to improve our gross profit as we have seen in the last couple of quarters. So that I don't see as any problem in that sense. That will continue. When we have the niche companies, some of them, they're a little bit different when we don't -- when they have a different kind of operating model and business model. So that -- in those cases, we can see more of a price pressure in a few niche companies. But for the trading business, where we more or less create peace of mind and do consolidation, we don't have a specific market price, it's a different situation. So no, I'm not worried that we're getting worse. I think that we have had already that for the last couple of quarters or years actually.

Marcus Develius. You're welcome to ask your question.

Most of my questions have been already asked, but a quick follow-up on working capital. Can you maybe talk -- this is more a general question, but talk about your efforts to improve your working capital profile. We saw inventory coming up slightly in Q4. So my question is relating on how efficient or well oiled the Bufab machine is. Could you maybe spend some time there and talk about where this could be going in the next year and so on?

Sure. We often said that when we got this question the last couple of quarters that there are 2 different phases that we have been going through. First of all, if we're looking after the pandemic, we have a situation we built up a lot of inventory around the globe. And that has -- and then we have done a good job, I think, last 12, 18 months or so to gradually decrease our inventory levels to come to a solid level. And here, I think we have gone far on that journey. The second phase, as we call it, is to get a better working when it comes to net working capital into our DNA. And here, we are not where we want to be. And that work is not a quick fix. That is to ensure that the whole chain, you can say, starting with the sales guys, how they work with forecast with customers throughout the whole operation in Bufab becomes more efficient and better. And here, I would say we are in a quite early phase and still will work on improvement. And that work will continue, and we hope to be better at this in the coming quarters to be able to release more cash actually and to serve in a more efficient way our customers and be equally good on net working capital, especially inventory as we are in other areas. So this work will continue in the coming quarters.

Okay. And then a quick follow-up on Americas. It was quite soft, but there's maybe a bit more basic question. But looking at the gross margin, Americas is much higher than the rest of the regions. Why is this the case? Can you spend some time there?

Yes, I can. When it comes to Americas, there's a little bit different kind of exposure for us versus other parts of the world. In Americas, we only have 2 companies yet, and that is ABS and CSG. And you can say both of them are more of a niche type of companies where ABS is strong in the mobiles and RV industry and the CSG are actually mainly in the automotive. If you look at other regions around the globe, we have more of a base of trading business. We will consolidate all types of parts and for our customers and help them create peace of mind and have broader scope. And that is also impacting how the GP structure and model look like in the different versus Americas, for example. So that I would say is the main reason why you see a different GP structure for Americas versus the rest of the world.

Karl, did you have a follow-up question?

Yes. I have a follow-up just on the acquisition of VITAL here. I can see it looks to be quite profitable here with an 18% EBT profit before tax margin here pro forma for 2024. I'm just wondering if that's -- what we can expect also going forward or if it was any specifics here in this year for VITAL?

Yes, we don't disclose specific companies' profitability like that. But it is, as we have said, a profitable company, well in line or actually above Bufab overall profitability. And those numbers you refer to is from 2024. And yes, we expect them to deliver high profit. If it -- on that level, we will not disclose here.

But the earn-outs are they based on kind of their holding up their current prices?

Yes. Yes. We have an earn-out structure that is built on both increased profit in absolute terms, but also in the margin year-over-year. And it's a cap also to the earn-out.

[indiscernible], did you have a follow-up question?

Yes. Just a small housekeeping question. Last quarter, you got a negative effect on order intake from the divestment. Did you choose not to do that the same way, but in reverse with VITAL now? Or how did you do that in this quarter?

No, we add their order book when they now report it for the first time. So that should be in the numbers.

[indiscernible]. Please ask your question.

Yes, please. Could you comment on the order intake decline to 9% in Q4? How should we read that into Q1 when you mentioned you expect sequential organic improvement in Q1. So how do we read this order intake decline in Q4?

Yes. I don't think you should put too much thoughts around the order intake because we look at our different sisters, many of our sisters actually -- order intake will not help you to guide you on how the future will look like as it is for other companies. So I should be not spending too much time on the order intake numbers and compare that to how the outlook for Q1 will look like. Okay. I think that was the final question. So thanks, everyone, for joining this call. Wish you a nice day ahead. Thank you.