DGL Group Limited (DGL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Simon Henry. I'm the Founder and CEO of DGL. I'm here with Gagan Singh, our CFO, to present our FY '26 financials. After presenting this pack, we will go to questions. Let's turn to Slide 5. FY '26 was a tough year for DGL. We have suffered significant losses in production and profit due to the holdups caused by the rollout of a complex group-wide ERP system. We have also suffered significantly as a result of the conflict in the Middle East. We've also invested heavily to support future growth, which has impacted on profit. We continue to relocate to larger and more efficient chemical storage facilities. We have worked tirelessly to integrate the 30-plus companies we have bought since listing to form one large industrial group. Turning to Slide 6. As I've stated, FY '26 was a tough year with management focused on building out the infrastructure necessary to support future growth and integrating the various companies we have acquired over the last 4 years. The good news is most of the heavy lifting has now been done, and we are poised for growth. Let's turn to Slide 7. Health and safety. We have made great progress building the internal systems and controls necessary to ensure we operate safely and in full compliance with all the relevant legislation. Turning to Slide 8. DGL is a vertically integrated chemical manufacturing and logistics group with an annual throughput of over 1 million tonnes of materials a year. The group is divided into 3 divisions: chemical manufacturing and formulation, warehousing and transport, and environmental services, mainly focused on the treatment of liquid industrial waste. Turning to Slide 9. Since DGL was founded in Wellington, New Zealand 25 years ago, we have built an extensive and integrated network of assets across Australia and New Zealand. We have an ongoing program to rationalize and improve the efficiency of our network. I will now hand the pack over to Gagan, our CFO.

Thank you, Simon. Next slide, please. We delivered higher revenues in manufacturing and logistics in FY '26 despite global volatility. However, environmental services revenue was significantly lower. This was mainly due to closing our loss-making battery recycling plant in Victoria in late FY '25. Higher input costs reduced margins, and low-cost import competition added pressure to pricing. Driver shortages led to more use of contractors, which increased costs. The higher cost and reduced availability of lead acid batteries for recycling also impacted margins. We expanded capacity in both manufacturing and warehousing, but in the short term, that reduced margins due to underutilized capacity. The driver shortage has been largely resolved, and we are seeing better utilization of our transport fleet. We are also increasing utilization in our larger warehouses in particular. Next slide, please. Our focus on productivity reduced operating costs by $11 million in FY '26. This included lower headcount along with other productivity gains. Most of the cost reductions occurred during the year, so we will not get the full annualized benefit until FY '27. The large statutory loss is driven by noncash write-downs. These include write-downs of plant and equipment in our environmental division and a write-down of goodwill in our logistics division to more conservative levels. A large part of the drop in operating cash flow is the payment of tax liabilities, which were an adjustment from prior years but paid in FY '26. Next slide, please. Manufacturing profitability fell despite higher revenues. This was driven by higher operating costs following a significant expansion at one of our major facilities, reduced demand for crop protection products, which was weather-driven, and competition from cheap imported chemical products. The ERP system implementation also impacted some production for a period, but this has been resolved. We are positive about improving utilization and profitability in this division. Next slide, please. Logistics revenue was solid, but earnings were impacted by fuel costs and driver shortages. We pass on fuel costs where possible, but volatility makes it difficult to recover the full increase. Our driver recruitment practices have improved along with utilization of larger warehouses. However, it was a drag on earnings last year. Next slide, please. Environmental services revenue dropped largely due to the sale of a loss-making battery recycling plant in Victoria. This improved annual profitability, and we have also reduced overheads. Pricing and supply of used lead acid batteries has improved recently, and we expect our new liquid waste treatment plant will contribute to earnings next year after extensive delays. Next slide, please. On the balance sheet, working capital improved due to lower inventories. Net assets declined due in part to our underlying operating loss, but mainly due to a conservative approach to nearly $30 million of noncash write-downs on goodwill and plant and equipment. Next slide, please. Managing our operating cost is a key focus. We have improved productivity and reduced headcount and overheads. Maintaining our focus on costs and realizing efficiencies across the business is a key part of improving our profitability. Next slide, please. Operating cash flow was reduced by lower margins and payment of tax liabilities, mostly from adjustments relating to prior periods but paid in FY '26. Our investing cash flows included $30 million in sale of non-core assets and $18 million investment in new plant and equipment. Financing cash flows include the repayment of debt and lease liabilities of $23 million. Overall, our operating cash flow cash conversion remained solid at 100% in FY '26. I'll now hand it back over to Simon.

Thank you very much, Gagan. Turning to Slide 20. Our strategic priorities for FY '27, health and safety, the ongoing investment into systems, trainings and controls to ensure that we operate at the highest achievable standards possible, increased profitability. Our hard work is paying off, and we are seeing the early signs of a significant improvement in profitability in FY '27. Organic growth. DGL will continue to reinvest its free cash back into the business to drive organic growth. Integration and consolidation. We continue to fully integrate the companies we have acquired since listing to create one scaled industrial group. Turning to Slide 21. Trading update and outlook. We are seeing significant improvement in profit thus far in FY '27 as a result of the hard work and tough decisions we made in FY '26. We do expect ongoing challenges from the conflict in the Middle East. DGL is now a well-structured industrial group of significant scale, and management is very much focused on improving profitability throughout FY '27. I thank you for listening, and we'll now open up the floor to questions.

Thank you, Simon. We've got a few questions coming through. So I'll -- and just bear in mind that some questions, if you have typed in a question, other people may have asked a question of the same nature. So it won't necessarily be read out verbatim. I will be collating questions as they come in. The first question is, the Board highlighted that the recent capital investments that have dragged on earnings but provided significant growth capacity for FY '27. What specific capacity utilization targets and/or revenue thresholds across the DGL production and storage networks needs to be reached to bring the group back to underlying net profitability?

It's quite a complex question. Of course, any utilization less than 100% is not ideal, but it's extremely difficult to get all assets to 100%. We do have an internal ambition of driving revenue above $0.5 billion a year, and we are tracking well towards that target and the early signs here in FY '27. And we are looking to achieve EBITDA margins between sort of 8% and 9% on that, but it's very early days yet, but they are the internal targets that we are working towards.

Thank you. One shareholder has pointed out that the business was worth more, arguably, prior to IPO without the use of the shareholders' funds. To that end, what is DGL doing to correct the flawed capital allocation process? Are you considering adding people to the Board that have a track record in this regard?

Look, it's a valid question or a valid criticism, if I can say that. I believe that we have far better internal controls and disciplines now surrounding -- regarding how we allocate capital. I've got a solid and experienced CFO at my side. I have an experienced Board, and we are much more careful about how we spend capital. And we are much more cynical about some of the promises that have been given to us in business cases of why we should spend here and there. We don't actually need to spend much capital now. We've got the assets, and we've got the capacity to achieve the profit targets that we've set for ourselves.

Thank you. There are several questions regarding the impact of Chinese imports. So I'll paraphrase a few of them. But the first one is, which product categories is this specifically impacting?

I'm not going to go into the commercial granular details of it. China has excess capacity across the board with chemicals. We have faced competition in the past from China. They're also our biggest provider of raw materials. It's about being smart and understanding what products are best formulated locally and not actually competing head-on with some of the commoditized products coming out of China.

Why have Chinese imports only now become an issue? And how can Australian manufacturing compete?

Well, they've always been an issue, or they've been an issue for a number of years. They come and go. How does Australia's manufacturing compete with the cheap [ Australian ] imports? Well, it really goes back to my answer before. It's about identifying those products that need to be made locally. Keep in mind that it's expensive to ship liquids. So a lot of chemicals are obviously in liquid form, and that's where we come in by buying the dry raw ingredients and formulating them locally for consumers.

Following on, on the topic, what's the value of DGL's integrated services if clients are simply willing to shift to lower-cost Chinese products? And what strategic changes is DGL willing to adapt to this problem?

Can you read the question again, please, Andrew?

What is the value of DGL's integrated services if clients are simply willing to shift to lower-cost Chinese products?

Once again, our customers, our clients have always sourced some of their materials directly from China, and they have sourced other materials from us, and that's the case today. There's always competition from China that keeps us honest and causes us to have to run a very efficient company. For every challenge we face from China with fully formulated materials, there's an equal number of opportunities in Australia for us to tap into other markets and other consumer products that we're not currently involved with.

Thank you. Some shareholders have expressed some frustration at the continued delays in delivering commitments. The New South Wales environmental project is highlighted as one of those. What strategies have you got in place to make sure the commitments can be met year-on-year?

So there are 2 sides to that question, really. There are a number of projects that we have executed on that have come in on time and on budget. The liquid waste treatment plant at Unanderra has been delayed, primarily as a result of the incredibly complex and frustrating licensing processes we have to go through with the authorities, with multiple authorities, with overlapping and conflicting regulations. That said, we are treating liquid waste there. We have treated some liquid waste through the new plant on a trial basis. And I'm confident, as the largest shareholder of DGL that, that plant will come on stream in the coming months and will, over time, prove to be a very, very significant contributor to our profit. Now there's another part of that question I want to answer, and it's valid, and that is what are we doing to sort of stop this happening again in the future. It's really about having a quality project manager at the outset of the project with a clear program and timetable and expectations. In the past, we've tried to do it internally, and that has failed, and we acknowledge that.

Next question is, how confident is DGL of filling the capacity over -- and over what time frame will it be filled?

The capacity of the liquid waste treatment plant?