Eckert & Ziegler SE (EUZ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

A big welcome to everybody. [Operator Instructions] I have the pleasure to lead you through the first half year of '24. My voice is a little bit warm because I have a cold throat. But that shouldn't disturb us too much from presenting wonderful numbers, which you have preliminarily received a while ago, when we had a proper release. And now with more precise data, I would like to share more in-depth details here with you for the last 6 months and also for the outer period of this year. It will take some 20 slides. And then as usual, we will go through the list of questions. Whoever wants to join is very much invited. Good, then let me see. Here we go. This is the usual disclaimer. As you know, now the Board of the -- first of all, the Executive Board hasn't changed. China is of highest importance, as you know, for our corporation, and Frank Yeager running the U.S. business for the IP segment is also later on available via e-mail if you have any specific questions you want to raise. Now this is the summary. And I've spoken to a consultant firm, and they basically did repeat the USD 30 billion as overall market size, increasing demand for radio isotopes. And it's confirming that Eckert & Ziegler's strategy in focusing on the production of radioisotope is the right strategic approach to cover and to cope with all the needs. You are seeing here companies, bigger companies acquiring smaller companies, bigger companies also entering the field of radiotheranostics. And if the strategic approach of Eckert & Ziegler remains unchanged by, i.e., developing isotopes for imaging and therapy on the one side and then also the surrounding services like hot cells, CMO activities, then we are in the right shape. We are demonstrating here our customers, which we have published so far. If you start with the existing bread-and-butter business that is gallium-68, where we have LOCAMETZ and Illuccix TLX and Novartis being supplied this gallium. Lutetium, Eli Lilly, now a big customer entering the field. Sirtex, ongoing for Y-90. Actinium, very exciting moments and weeks for us ahead and taking up the production with our prior cooperation pretty soon and then hot cell business, which are used by basically everybody. Here, you see some of our customers for the three big topics, lutetium, actinium and CMO activities. And it shouldn't be a surprise if there are more press releases to come pretty soon. The upper part of that slide shows you in which field we are active for the radiopharmaceutical development and manufacturing, so producing radioisotope for all medical businesses on the one side and then, on the lower part, you see imaging sources or quality assurance issues in the industry area, so the IP segment. And if you see the numbers in a minute, then this is split between the two areas. What are the highlights of the last quarter, of the quarter which just has finished? I start not from left to right, but from right to left. We have started the production, the grand opening, actinium in Czech Academy of Sciences took place. And we are looking forward that, still as promised, earlier by Q3. So by next month, the first production should start here and then first deliveries out of actinium to be delivered by still during this year as forecasted all the time. We have posted an event, where Eckert & Ziegler is seen as a big player, a key player in the Radionuclide Theranostic Forum in Boston. And that is an attractive momentum, where we get partners, competitors, customers or also corporation partners all together because it is a small world and we want to make sure that we are all together in driving the industry in the right direction. Eckert & Ziegler has awarded the Best Managed Companies Award recently, and that is thanks to all the employees, which are working for the joint success. Now these are numbers of last year, should be known to everybody, basically split between EBIT and revenue between the two segments. Those are the number of employees in the IP segment, is basically twice as high as for Medical. This is going to change. You see an increasing number in Medical. And that is also reflected in higher numbers, higher HR costs for the Medical area. Because we are investing in that area, I want to make sure that we can cope with all the needs here. Now let's look to the numbers for the first half year on a broader scale and then later on, we will move into more detailed numbers. We can really look back to a fantastic first half year, where the sales grew up by 23% basically in both areas. Strong performances, Medical growing faster by almost 32% versus prior year and the isotope area, also double-digit growth, which is unlikely for that industry that we have such a strong and outperforming market growth here in the first half year. That is also mirrored then in the bottom line numbers. And we are focusing here on the EBIT adjusted. Since the beginning of this year, that is the number. And we have an overproportional growth in the EBIT adjusted, which leads to those who are keen on listening and watching margin numbers that from prior year 90%, we overjumped -- we jumped over the 20% hurdle again and are now with 22%, 20% is our objective. So we are pretty proud that we could achieve that number for the first half year. There were some issues still have to be coped with. Of course, I mentioned higher COGS, raw materials getting more expensive, more HR costs are coming in. On the other side, we could also increase prices. And in particular, in the isotope area, we have an increased gross margin due to our oil well logging business, which is contributing to higher performance. For those who are still interested in the very bottom, bottom line, the net income line, even stronger growth here with 65%, depends how you see, including Pentixa, excluding Pentixa, we want to eliminate all these effects, therefore, even it's more important. But still, we have still the hyperinflation effect from Argentina, which is impacting our business with something around EUR 2 million on a yearly basis, EUR 1 million for the first half year. But we had also some positive currency effects. So that was basically counterbalanced. Let's look to Medical by itself. Here again, you see 32% growth top line, 32% growth bottom line. And basically, what is happening, that our generator business had a very strong performance, in particular, in the U.S. area, where more and more radiopharmacies are purchasing generators. And for those who are familiar with the details of Eckert & Ziegler, we have a 50-millicurie generator. This is state-of-the-art. But we're also now selling more and more generator twice as active as the 50 millicurie. It's 100-millicurie generator, basically also priced twice, proportionally more effective and brings more income to our company. And there was a strong demand also in these generator 100. That's why the pharma business is improving. But also in the hot cell areas and our generic -- in our engineering area in place, where we are producing all these lead-shielded facilities, we have a strong growth of EUR 7 million compared to last year. Radiotherapy is also performing quite well. But we should remember that we spin off the afterloading business or the HDR business, so it's a smaller business all-in-all. Now looking to the profitability, I mentioned that we have higher COGS on the one side, so there is a slight increase. But if you look to the overall EBIT margin, then 24% compared to 24% of prior year '23, so same level of profitability, which is important. Because the more you increase the sales and then you have to also increase here other fixed and variable costs. And we are pretty confident that this could be managed in quite a satisfying manner. Looking to the isotope business, 16% growth, extraordinary high growth, in particular because of the industry and the oil well logging business. And oil well logging, so looking for new sources in [indiscernible], is bringing and delivering here good profits to the company. And that is one of the reasons why also EBIT adjusted has a growth of 71% from EUR 10 million to EUR 18 million, extraordinary high. And for the controllers here, participating, you can not extract these numbers for the entire year. Because normally, there is a certain amount of oil well logging sources being acquired, being purchased, being ordered during the year. And basically, that has happened to the large extent by the first half year already. So we do not expect such a strong growth for the second half year. I will come to the outlook later on. But for the first half year, really super results on the IP area. And we are always saying this is our cash cow. Yes, it is our cash cow, but we also see here that it continues to grow and delivering incremental profits. EBIT has been adjusted and we have the effects. We are always using the same effects on a yearly basis. Basically, it's financial effects of currency FX gains or losses and then divestments effects. And we have sold a remaining part in our afterloader and brachytherapy business. And that contributed with an extraordinary profit, which you see here, of EUR 1.2 million. So if you want to compare EBIT adjusted, that is the bottom line from EUR 22.6 million to EUR 32.5 million on a half year basis, not so many effects that we have had last year, but still it's worth mentioning here the effects which are taking place. Looking to the regional split. You are well aware that we are having a closer look to the Asian business. Because here, China is contributing a lot to the performance and 24%. So 1/4 already of our entire revenues is coming from the Asian business, out of which China plays a dominant role in it. Now if you look to the first half year, it goes without saying that majority of the growth momentum is deriving from North America. North America, which is basically the big generator business, is contributing here to a strong growth of 42%. And if you then see also positive currency gains, which were also contributing, then you see that the sales growth, price increases and then also some extraordinary FX effects that are really something we are happy here to report on. Europe is stable, basically compared -- is growing with the market 3% and representing 1/3 of the entire business across all countries. We have just received, a couple of days ago, the registration approval to launch all gallium generators in the EEA, so in the economic union here in Europe, and that we add some additional countries, which haven't been supplied yet with generators, not the biggest one, but the smaller one, but 1 plus 1 is 2 and 2 plus 2 is 4. So one comes to the other and that will then also bring us more sales in the future. Now here, the core business of Eckert & Ziegler, radiopharmaceuticals or the radioisotopes, which are producing either in liquid form or in generators, gallium and technetium, our generator business, cold kits, the engineering part in Dresden, and you see a continuous growth here from EUR 85 million last year, and prognosis is something around EUR 115 million. That is basically the same number which has been reported last quarter. So it is continuous growth here on a yearly performance. But also if you look to the quarter-by-quarter, then the important part of radiopharmaceuticals is also growing here. And it wouldn't surprise me if also in Q3, we see a similar growth number as for the first 2 quarters. The balance sheet of the company is as usual, I could say. It's not really as usual because we have currently a little bit more cash than we plan to have, EUR 77 million in cash deducted by loan liabilities of EUR 24 million. So overall, it's a net cash position of EUR 50 million. That is a little bit more than we anticipated earlier on. That is due to the CapEx we wanted to execute. And that is, you might say, as always, a little bit slower, in particular, our production site here in Europe for actinium, we have not really kicked off all the investments yet. We want to make sure that, first, we produce in our Czech cooperation later in this quarter. And then we'll kick off that CapEx investment as planned. That's why the investment numbers for the last quarter are a little bit lower than foreseen. We used that to repay some of our loan liabilities. So we have only EUR 20-plus million left on loan liabilities. All the rest here, what you see on that balance sheet, is pretty much the same than before. EBIT adjusted, the number we talked about. Cash flow really positive, EUR 17 million due to the strong performances, which we demonstrated early on. Cash, I talked about loan liabilities, slightly reduced. Equity ratio, above 50% and headcount above 1,000, increased by 5% due also to the business in Braunschweig, where we have enriched our activities for labeling, for contract manufacturing, but also in Dresden for our hot cell business. That's the reason why we are increasing here the numbers. That is the summary of our financial numbers in a different version. But all is very much happy to report on. And that leads us to the big question, what is happening with the remaining part of the year? We have published a guidance in March of this year. And then we increased it last 2 weeks ago, I think, by saying revenues should remain in the corridor of EUR 265 million, whereas we are pretty confident that the profitability should be 10% higher than previously calculated. So it's EUR 55 million as of today. And that should give us a good corridor to maneuver the remaining part of the year. The financial calendar is important for those who want to meet us either virtually or in person here, some of the conferences Eckert & Ziegler is going to participate in the next weeks and months before the year's end. And we are very much looking forward meeting you at one of these conferences. These are my first 15 minutes going through the presentation.