Drägerwerk AG & Co. KGaA (DRW3) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Drägerwerk Q2 2024 Earnings Call. My name is Francie, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] At this time, it is my pleasure to hand over to Stefan Dräger, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining our conference call on our financial results for the first half of 2024. I have with me today, Gert-Hartwig Lescow, CFO; as well as Tom Fischler and Nikolaus Hammerschmidt, both Investor Relations. We would like to take you through the results with the presentation that we made available on our web page this morning. Following the presentation, we will open the floor to your questions. Let's get started on Page 5 with the business highlights. Following our return to growth and profitability last year, our business performance was solid overall in the first half of 2024. That said, we are well on track on achieving our annual targets. At around EUR 1.5 billion, net sales in the first half of 2024 did not quite reach the high level of the prior year period, which was positively influenced by an improvement in delivery capacity and a surge in demand for ventilators in China. But thanks to our solid operating performance and some onetime effects, earnings were up by around EUR 8 million on the prior year, at almost EUR 56 million, corresponding to an EBIT margin of 3.7%. This enabled us to make up for the shortfall in earnings from the first quarter. Demand for our Technology for Life remained high in the first 6 months of 2024 even if things did not run smoothly in all regions. In the APAC region, order intake fell significantly due to the challenging market environment in China. In Germany and in America, however, our order volume increased. Overall, our group's order intake was above the high prior year level, but below our expectations. Our goal remains to improve profitability. To pursue this, we also withdrawing in individual cases from businesses that are not part of Dräger's core business. In the first half of the year, we not only sold the fire alarm systems business in the Netherlands, but also discontinued the business activities of Dräger MSI in Hagen. Dräger MSI's product portfolio is designed for an analysis of flue gas from furnaces burning fossil fuels. Due to the impending energy transition and the changes in air conditioning technology, the business does not offer any prospect of long-term profitability. We are, therefore, exiting the fossil fuel flue gas analysis business. It also remains important to strengthen our innovative power and expand our competence in the areas of interoperability and systems business. We have advanced both goals by launching new products such as the Vista 300 patient monitor. We are also pleased about the approval of our Evita V600/800 ventilators in China. In addition, we have made further progress and completion of the previously established warning letter commitment. We have completed all activities defined in our warning letter corrective actions and has now respectfully requested from the FDA to lift the warning letter. Prior to this, the FDA will conduct another inspection at the Andover site. Actual timing, scheduling and execution of this inspection is at the FDA's discretion. Sustainability has always been deeply rooted in Dräger's corporate culture and is becoming increasingly important for the future. It is a cross-cutting topic and affects all processes and areas of our company. We have strengthened our focus on these topics by appointing a dedicated Board member to take responsibility for group-wide sustainability topics as well as quality management. I'm delighted to have Stefanie Hirsch as an experienced and committed colleague on the Executive Board. Stefanie is a biotechnologist by education and has an extensive track record in quality management and the medical devices industry. She joined Dräger in 2018 and was responsible for quality management in our medical division. Profitability, innovation, competence, sustainability and quality, we will continue to drive these topics forward in order to exploit our potential to increase value for our customers. As communicated 2 weeks ago, we confirmed our annual guidance while narrowing the ranges for net sales growth and EBIT margin. I'll come back to this in the outlook at the end of the presentation. With that, I turn over to Gert-Hartwig for a review of the financials. Gert-Hartwig, please?

Thank you, Stefan. I also would like to welcome everybody to this conference call of our results for the first half of 2024. Please turn to Page 7 for a view on the Dräger Group. As usual, I will be stating currency-adjusted figures whenever referring to growth rates. As Stefan pointed out, demand for our Technology for Life remain high. Overall, orders in the first half of 2024 increased by roughly 1% to around EUR 1.6 billion. This was primarily due to strong growth in the Americas and the positive development in Germany. However, we recorded a significant decline in APAC, and our order intake in EMEA was also down on the previous year. Net sales in Q2 rose by about 2% due to the positive development in the EMEA and Americas region. In the first 6 months, however, net sales were just 0.3% below the prior year level at around EUR 1.5 billion due to the base effects which Stefan mentioned. In both reporting periods, our safety division was the growth driver, while medical remained weak. Due to the increased share of net sales and the improved gross profit margin of the safety division, our group's gross profit margin increased by 1.3 percentage points in Q2 and 0.8 percentage points in the first 6 months, reaching almost 45% at the end of the first half of '24. Functional expenses grew moderately by around 2%, particularly due to higher sales expenses in the safety division. As Stefan said, we benefited from a onetime effect in the second quarter. One effect was the sale of our fire alarm systems business in the Netherlands. In 2023, this business delivered net sales of around EUR 20 million. However, there were few synergies with the main customer groups for our safety products. We've therefore decided to exit this business. In addition, we sold an unused plot of land in the U.S. In total, the one-off effects contributed around EUR 20 million to our EBIT, of which roughly 1/3 is attributable to medical and 2/3 to safety. Overall, our EBIT increased by EUR 22 million to EUR 41 million. Consequently, our EBIT margin increased from 2.4% to 5.2% in the 6 months. Our EBIT rose by around EUR 8 million to roughly EUR 56 million, which corresponds to an EBIT margin of 3.7%. The rolling 12-months DVA also improved and amounted to around EUR 33 million. Let us now take a closer look at the development of the 2 divisions, starting with the medical division on Page 8. Both in the second quarter and the first 6 months, order intake was slightly below the prior year level. In the first half of the year, order intake decreased by around 2% to roughly EUR 918 million. The main driver of the decline is from the region APAC, particular due to a base effect from a decline in ventilator demand in China. There is an additional effect to consider, as we pointed out in our last call. The current health care reform in China is slowing down health care orders throughout the industry. As a result, our China medical business is below our original plan and is one of the main reasons for lowering our top line expectations for the full year. It is difficult to say when the situation might normalize again, so we are taking a more conservative outlook. On the other hand, the order intake from the Americas region is quite strong. With a decline of just over 2% compared to the previous year, sales in the second quarter fell not as sharply as in the first quarter, which has still been affected by the strong China effect in the previous year. Overall, net sales in the first 6 months were around 7% below the prior year level at around EUR 846 million. In addition to ventilator demand in China, the positive effects from the improved delivery capacity in the prior year period were missing, as expected. Mainly due to lower costs for unplanned field actions, the gross margin in Q2 increased by 1.3 percentage points. After 6 months, the gross profit margin is roughly on par with the prior year's margin. As in the same period of the prior year, EBIT in the second quarter amounted to minus EUR 12.9 million with an EBIT margin of around minus 3%. After the first 6 months, our EBIT was around minus EUR 24.2 million after minus EUR 2.6 million in the prior year period. The EBIT margin decreased by 2.6 percentage points to minus 2.9 percentage points. The rolling 12-months DVA improved significantly and increased by roughly EUR 40 million to minus EUR 64.4 million. I will now turn to our safety division, which recorded another good performance. We are now on Page 9. Our safety business continues to grow. In the second quarter, order intake rose by just under 2%. In the first 6 months, it increased by more than 4% to around EUR 704 million, thanks to a higher demand in almost all product categories, especially occupational health and safety equipment. In both reporting periods, all regions, except the Americas, recorded higher demand. The order situation developed particularly well in Germany and in the EMEA region. The good order situation also contributed to a higher net sales, which rose by roughly 8% in Q2 and by roughly 9% in the first 6 months. At around EUR 674 million, order intake in the first half of the year was clearly above the prior year figure, with all regions contributing to growth. The gross margin went up by 0.9 percentage points in Q2. During the first half of the year, it rose by 1.5 percentage points, thanks to a positive currency effect and an effective price enforcement. Functional expenses were around 9% higher than in the prior year period, mainly due to higher R&D expenses and higher sales costs in the regions. In the second quarter, EBIT amounted to around EUR 53.7 million after EUR 31.5 million in the prior year period. The EBIT margin rose from 9.5% to 15.1%. In the first 6 months, EBIT amounted to around EUR 80 million, and the EBIT margin improved from around 8% to 12%. To that improvement, the one-off effects mentioned above naturally contributed. Still, the operating result adjusted for these one-off effects was also up on the previous year. The rolling 12-months DVA also improved significantly by around EUR 61 million to around EUR 98 million, coming from EUR 37 million in the prior year period. All in all, a very positive development in our safety business. Let's now move on to some key ratios on Page 10. In the first 6 months of '24, we recorded a slight improvement in the operating cash flow. Next to slightly higher earnings, also, working capital management contributed with improved payables, inventory and receivable management. Furthermore, lower cash-relevant investments also contributed to higher free cash flow. While we expect to see further improvement in cash generation going forward, free cash flow after 6 months is still slightly in negative territory. Net financial debt has improved strongly over the year. As a reminder, in January '23, we took out a 5-year loan of EUR 100 million to strengthen our operating liquidity after the repayment of the remaining participation certificates. Net financial debt-to-EBITDA has improved over the course of last year. Now due to the improved profitability, our leverage of 0.9 is back to a much lower level. Net working capital was 1% below the prior year level at around EUR 739 million. And the significant improvement in the operating results over the past 12 months and the slight decrease in capital employed as at the reporting date also led to an improved 12-months return on capital employed of around 11% compared to 4.4% in the same period of the prior year. The positive business development next to other things also resulted in a further increase in the group's equity position. As of June 30, the equity ratio was almost 48%. Now I hand back to Stefan Dräger for the outlook on Page 12.

Well, thank you, Gert-Hartwig. Ladies and gentlemen, considering the extraordinary improvement in the prior year period, we had a solid first half of the current year. The extraordinary tailwind from China regulation orders last year, as expected, did not repeat. This is compensated by some one-off effects from the divestiture of noncore assets. The current headwinds for our Chinese medical business are stronger and are prevailing longer than we had anticipated. Therefore, we are becoming more cautious on our full year top line expectations. For 2024, we continue to expect, and as previously guided, a net sales growth of 1% to 5%, net of currency effects, and an EBIT margin of between 2.5% and 5.5%. At the same time, we now mostly expect net sales growth in the lower half and an EBIT margin and DVA in the upper half of the forecasted range. With this, I would like to end the presentation and hand over to the operator to open the line for your questions. Please.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Oliver Reinberg.

A few questions, you can take them one by one. The first one would be on China. Just can you just provide a bit more color on what is now the expected outlook for China for the full year, ideally adjusting for ventilator base effects? I mean, are we talking about a kind of 5% decline? Or was it kind of double-digit decline? Just to get some kind of flavor here. And when you talk about this kind of health care reform, are you referring to the anticorruption campaign or anything else that you're seeing? And also in China, can you just share your thoughts in terms of what you see in terms of this kind of stimulus work that is in preparation? What is your understanding of this kind of process and when this is going to take you through the system? That's question number one.

Well, the health care reform, we mainly refer to the anticorruption campaign, which is one of the elements of it and probably for us, the most important. This one, we expect it to end, actually, I think the week before last, but it was announced that it continues, so until further notice. So that takes longer than expected. So it definitely will remain below our original expectations. And I would think it's a double-digit decline eventually for the full year. And your last point, was it what -- the stimulus or defective -- could you please repeat on that?

Sure. If you have any kind of insights how exactly this kind of stimulus discussions are working? What does qualify under these kind of stimulus packages? And where does this portion actually stands, if you have any insights here?

I'm not exactly aware of a stimulus campaign. You mean inside China for -- so for our businesses, I'm not aware. So maybe other industries. I am aware that the European Union is collecting data and defending the free trade. And so we have also been asked to contribute what obstacles we see in the free trade, but that's more the contrary of a stimulus.

Absolutely. No, I think there are some kind of talks that there's more money to be made available for the replacement of certain medical products, but I think it's quite [ away ] so far. Okay. And second question would just be -- I think we discussed the part in the last call. I mean, obviously, Philips moved out of the kind of ventilator in the market in the U.S. I think your peer, Ettinger, talked about they have seen some kind of benefit from this kind of pullout. Can you just update us if you're seeing any kind of benefits here and how well are you positioned with your ventilator product portfolio in the U.S., please?

Why not only peers has withdrawn, also what used to be Puritan Bennett and Mallinckrodt, then Medico, then Tyco, and then PE and likely this is Medtronic, also announced to withdraw from the ventilator market altogether. We are very well positioned to benefit from that and running campaigns to target the installed base and customers that have traditional, say, relation and/or open orders with these players that withdrew. How -- and we do have all the necessary approvals in the meantime for our -- the devices that are relevant for this. However, we do not yet see it in the numbers. Although our numbers in the U.S. on the, let's say, more than the bright side after first half of the year already. But I would say that more or less, the result of the business is coming back after now we have the necessary improvements. And the effect from the withdrawal of the competition in the U.S. and also worldwide is still to come. I think it takes some time.

Okay. Perfect. And last question for me. Is there any other market developments in medical to be called out that are a bit special these times? I mean if I just look at the Q2 order intake, obviously, EMEA was down 17%, Germany, a bit down. I guess it's probably related to just base effect, but I'm just wondering, is there anything of market dynamics outside China that we should be aware of?

There's smaller ones in Korea, which is not the greatest -- largest market for us. However, all the doctors are on strike, as you may have heard. And that's a real challenge for the country and also, of course, for the market, as for the American market. And so you should better not get sick in Korea these times. It is because the government wants to withdraw some privileges from the existing doctors because there is a shortage of doctors. And the existing doctors, of course, they insist on keeping their privileges, and that is what it is about. So in Korea, it's really a big thing. Other than that, so an overarching in the whole region, but I'm not aware that there's any extra effect. On a global scale, geographically, we do also see a decline in Russia. We continue to do business in the medical division in Russia, but it's becoming more and more difficult and declining, and it used to be very profitable. So to make up for that is not an easy challenge.

Can you just remind us what was the base of the Russian business of medical last year? 2% or so?

Yes, it's more to the tune between 1% and 2% overall on the medical side. On the safety side, we don't do any business in Russia.

That's already, in Russia, that's already down, say, to about 1/4 of what it used to be in high times. So a 75% decline. While it's interesting to see that GE is up, to my knowledge, and the biggest winner is Mindray from China.

The next question comes from Alexander Galitsa from HAIB.

Maybe the first one, on the medical margin, you mentioned that lower cost for unplanned field campaigns were benefiting the gross profit margin. Can you just maybe add a little bit of color here, whether you expect a sustainable relief for the margin based of that, that these costs are normalizing? Or is it just onetime benefit to this quarter and then we go back to the sort of normal cost that you typically see for these kind of campaigns in the following quarters? That would be number one.

It's a very good question, but these are specifically not planned costs. But they occur once there is a field action and/or the necessity to plan something. The current outlook for the year is that we also expect reduced cost for -- with the nonperformance also for the full year. And of course, we are working on keeping it at that level. However, there is some uncertainty. As I said, these are not, if you will, planned campaigns, but our reactions are to deficit that we find in the field. So we typically work with an average over a few years. And currently, we would work with the same average. So this development is probably more on the positive side. But again, it's also for the full year, we do not expect that it comes in the second half of the year, if that's your question.

Yes. That's clear. Maybe staying on the margin for the group, I wonder why you would not specify the gross profit margin guidance to the upper half following the rather strong development in H1, especially considering that the second half should clearly benefit from greater cost coverage, et cetera. If there is any specific reason that makes you more cautious or significantly more cautious on the second half.

Well, we did say that the EBIT margin would be more in the upper half of the guided range. And please keep in mind that in the first half of the year, there were some onetime effects, like I said, of a plot of land or a business which we do not plan to further in the second half. That's on the EBIT margin.

Understood. And then maybe on the patient monitoring franchise. In terms of innovation, you mentioned the launch of Vista 300 patient monitor. I just wonder whether this is a meaningful enhancement of your patient monitoring portfolio that makes you more competitive or is there still more to come in this area?

Well, in this field, it is meaningful in the midsized monitoring. And so our organization is quite excited in now having this, that it's coming together with an OEM partner. And so that will last for quite a while, the benefit from this one. On the longer run, there's more to come on the upper end of the monitoring portfolio. We are still working on that, and that will still take a while, as we said in the past. So it's not this year and not next year.

Understood. And then the very last one from me. Just back to the medical division, just wondering, in Q2 -- or rather, in Q1, you seem to have had some progress on controlling OpEx in this division. Now in Q2, if you basically back out the benefit that you suggested was in there from the one-offs, and it seems that the OpEx has grown again around about by 4% year-on-year despite again lower revenues, just wonder what -- why there is sort of not a consistent success on keeping the cost in this division tight.

Well, in general, the growth is to a smaller portion that's coming from added resources that we need to cover the added volume, in particular, in the safety division, they're mostly in the COGS as they do service and installations or direct salespeople, customer-facing. And there is quite a cost or expense increase that we did plan for as a tariff increase coming being effective, say, in the late part of Q1 -- of H1 and will be effective for the remainder of this year. I think it's around 6.9% or something. It's from the -- it's negotiated with the trade union already a while ago. So we planned for this.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Christian Ehmann.

So I just have one left. So I would like to understand, under what circumstances you could feel comfortable or would feel comfortable probably raising your guidance? I mean I appreciate the fact that you have given us a more precise range for now, but what kind of development are you looking for where you can translate these kind of, let's say, qualitative indications into a more concrete evidence?

Let me get a start, and I think Stefan Dräger will add to that. Clearly, one, in particular, if you look at a more positive development and tighter quantification, if a more positive development were to occur in China, in particular, in the Q3 to be effective also for this financial year, that would give rise to a more optimistic outlook for the net sales development and would directly translate also in profitability as China normally is also a profitable market. In addition, some of the, if you will, lower net order entry development in other product categories could also lead to that and also a continued strong development in the Americas. We already see very good order entry. If this continues at that level and, I think, from a [ tunnel ] point of view, there is even some upside, if this were to translate, that would again lead to that. So it's mostly driven by regional developments translating in demand on the medical and on the safety side. And clearly, in order to then quantify that, we would like to see that. So already today, I would say if we have that more clarity in the course of the third quarter, we will strive to provide you and the colleagues with a more concrete outlook for the year to the degree that that's possible.

Yes, I can just confirm that. I would say since Putin started to attack the Ukraine, since then, we have more, say, risk and opportunities in general. And so that has factored in for the remainder of this year. If that would reverse, then we have more opportunities than risks, then we can exceed our guidance.

We have a follow-up question from Oliver Reinberg.

You announced, again, some kind of divestment this current quarter. Can you just talk about, is this post already complete? Or is there more to come also anything that would be sizable? And then on safety, I mean, this is really kind of a quite impressive growth engine for quite some while. I guess, Q2, we have seen a slight tick down sequentially in terms of orders. I guess there's not much to be read into that, but I'm just checking, is there anything -- any areas of weakness in the order intake in safety or it looks the future are continuously bright here?

Well, that is correct, it's a bright side for quite a while now. However, of course, within that light, there are dark spots, in particular, into our, let's say, with the big boost that our FFP mask business had in the pandemic time, so we had expected that when that settles, probably the market shares would be distributed differently than before the crisis, where clearly, 3M is the undoubted market leader. So the way they treat some channel partners, in particular in Africa, also discussing that there was an idea they can have a larger share after the dust settles, that has partly not so much materialized. As you are aware, Mr. Reinberg, we had some overcapacities in the FFP factory. And so that is -- it's a not-so-ideal site of the safety business. Other than that, it is in -- and it's safe. It has a very great diversity and there is no bigger parts there, I would say, that is a doubtful future. Other than the divestments that we already now have announced with MSI in Hagen, making the flue gas analysis and the smoke detector business in the Netherlands, other than that, there are no sizable [ stuff ] to expect that has a significant impact on the overall business. That does not mean that we leave everything as it is. We continue to scrutinize the business and identify parts of the portfolio that can be products or businesses or locations. We do have a location consolidation program for our German sites, for instance, at the moment. So it's a continuous process of improvement to improve our profitability.

Okay. Super. And if I can squeeze in last one. I think GE HealthCare is a listed [ base ] since the beginning of last year. I guess, the overlap in the product portfolio is not too meaningful, but I'm just wondering, is there any kind of difference in the market behavior that you have seen since they became a kind of listed independent company?

Not at all, no difference in the behavior. So with a -- from overall, it's various aspects.

We have another follow-up from Alexander Galitsa.

Just a quick one on the one-offs. If you're able to provide any color as to the allocation of the one-offs between -- is that fully OpEx? Or is there any meaningful part that has been booked in gross profit per division?

Well, I said in my speech, the 1/3 goes to medical and 2/3 of the impact goes to safety, that's by division. And there is a negative impact on the COGS that is about EUR 1 million in size. And on the functional expenses, it's a little bit more or less close to EUR 2 million. But -- and so it's relatively smaller.

[Operator Instructions] It seems to be no further questions at the moment, and I would like to turn back to Stefan Dräger for closing comments.

Well, as there are no further questions, I would like to thank everyone being with us today for your time, your attention, your interest in Dräger. So I wish you all a pleasant remainder of the day and the wonderful summer days, and look forward to see or meet you again in the hopefully not-so-distant future. And for now, say bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you very much for joining. Have a pleasant day and evening. Goodbye.