Kri-Kri Milk Industry S.A. (KRI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello and welcome to this webcast. I am Konstantinos Sarmadakis, Kri-Kri's CFO. In this session, we will discuss in detail our performance for the full year 2024, and I will give you an update on the business for the current year 2025. After a short presentation, Q&A will follow. You can post your questions using the chat tool. Let's now have a look at our P&L statement. Sales saw an increase of 18.5% exceeding to EUR 256 million. The increase of EUR 40 million in sales is attributed to higher selling quantities while there is a negative effect of reduced selling prices of yogurt of about EUR 5.4 million. Gross profit margin reached 29.7%, this is about 3.8 percentage points lower than that of 2023. EBITDA stood at EUR 42.6 million with a margin of 16.6% and EBIT was EUR 37.2 million with a margin of 14.5%. It should be noted that profit after tax had a benefit of EUR 5.3 million that relates to a tax relief as a state subsidy for completed CapEx projects. So this explains the low effective tax rate for the current period. Now compared to target, actual sales figure well exceeded the revised estimate of EUR 245 million. On the other hand, although the achieved EBIT margin is close to 15%, the level that we believe is sustainable in the future, we missed the revised target of 16%. On the next pages, I will explain why this happened. This graph shows the evolution of raw milk prices. The blue line shows the price of Greek milk, which consists our basic raw material. You can see that after July, it started climbing. The average price of the second half of the year is 3% higher than that of the first half. And with the purple line, you can see that it continues at high level also in the first months of 2025. The graph also shows the trend of EU milk that defines the price of important milk components such as butter and proteins. On the second half of the year, it's price jumped by 10% on average. Higher input costs of the second half reduced gross profit by EUR 4.4 million. On this page, you can see the gross profit bridge starting at the gross profit of 2023, there was an increase of EUR 13.1 million coming from increased sales quantities. On the other hand, the lower price level drives gross profit down by EUR 3.5 million. On the first half of the year, input price level was stable with little effect on gross profit. On the second half, however, input prices started climbing quickly as we've seen on the previous slide. This had a negative effect of EUR 4.4 million. Also, production expenses went higher, leading to a reduction of gross profit of EUR 1.2 million. Increased labor cost was the key driver of this increase, and that relates to some initiatives of HR, such as salary increases to stand above market average and then one-off bonds. Therefore, the gross profit for 2024 went to EUR 76.1 million with a margin of EUR 29.7 million. On this page, you can see the EBIT bridge. Starting at the EBIT of 2023, increased gross profit adds EUR 3.7 million. Increased OpEx reduced EBIT by EUR 6.7 million leading to a final EBIT figure of EUR 37.2 million. There is an erosion of the EBIT margin further to that of the gross margin of 0.3 percentage points, and this is attributed to increased transportation costs and is explained because of the change in sales mix. For example, U.K. sales, one of our most distant export destination have increased by 43%, and this drives higher the average transport cost per pallet. On this page, I would like to elaborate on a couple of figures that need further explanation. First is the labor cost. You can see that the headcount increased by 26%. And this is more than the increase in production volumes. It is explained by our attempt to change all production workers from 6 days working week to 5 days working week. So the cost was not changed that much, even it included about 7% rise in salaries. Let me now discuss the cash flow statement. You might have seen that operating cash flows were about EUR 30 million, and that is about EUR 20 million lower than last year 2023. Outflows for income tax accounts for about EUR 10 million, and about EUR 2 million is the difference of profit, and the rest, about EUR 7 million are coming from the change in working capital. As you can see on the table on the right-hand side of the page, summing up inventories and payables gives a change of only EUR 600,000. This increase in inventory has to do with purchases that were not paid yet. Receivables on the other hand, shows a different picture. In 2023, because of the reduction of receivables days, cash flow was improved by EUR 3.3 million. In 2024, maintaining the same receivable days have increased trade receivables to EUR 26.6 million from EUR 23.4 million, up by 13% following the trend of sales. Moving on to segment review. Yogurt export sales saw a strong double-digit growth of 32.5%, reaching EUR 130 million. It is also worth mentioning that yogurt export sales make up to 62.8% of total yogurt sales. Also, there is a strong boost in our sales contributed by the major markets of U.K. and Italy as well as from our entrance in new markets such as France. Moving on in the domestic market. Yogurt sales reached EUR 76 million, stable in value, but increased by 4.5% in volume. In the current inflationary environment, we kept our prices at a low level but that has a negative impact on the value of our sales and at the same time adds pressure on our profit margins. As far as the market condition is concerned, it seems that consumers' real income is weakening, and this drives the market to a period of realignment in terms of categories and product preferences. Kri-Kri-branded yogurts lost 1.2 percentage points in market share, bringing market share to 14.9%, while still maintaining our second place. Also note that the law that sets a cap on gross margin, not to exceed that of 2021 is still effective. Last year, we had an audit on that from state authorities, which we have passed successfully. In the ice cream segment, in the domestic market, our sales saw a double-digit increase, 13.4%. With the current high inflationary environment that facilitates private label products growth, Kri-Kri tries to mitigate lost sales by expanding its sales network. Also, it is worth noting that we successfully adjusted the prices to respond to increased cost, mostly from cocoa and chocolate, and therefore, the effect on gross margin was low. A big bet for us is the launch of our Greek frozen yogurt series in U.S.A. At the beginning of September, we have launched it in Texas with 6 coats in a variety of flavors and packages. It is an important milestone as it has opened large and promising market for us. We are now having presence in 250 stores. We are a little behind schedule as our initial plan was to reach 300 stores by the end of March. For 2025, we do not expect any material impact on results as the project is running on a pilot base. Besides our presence with branded products, we are making progress to sign a contract for private label with a large retailer. We have an initial agreement on commercial terms. And in next month, we expect an audit to our production facilities. Of course, a major risk for us is the imposition of tariffs to goods importing to U.S. We are keeping a close look to the developments. Tariffs may undermine the quick expansion of our products to USA. However, we are confident that our products have such differentiation characteristics that will not have high price elasticity. This is, however, to be proved. Also, margins on the current pricing structure can allow for some maneuvering in commercial practices. Let me now move you to our estimates for 2025. We expect sales growth to continue at high pace. Our estimate for 2025 is sales to reach EUR 300 million. This is 17% higher than 2024. On the first quarter of 2025, sales are up by more than 20%. So the current evidence supports this estimate. EBIT is expected between 14% to 15%. Also, CapEx is estimated to between EUR 21 million to EUR 25 million, according to our 3-year plan of about EUR 50 million that we expect also to be subsidized. And finally, the shareholder structure. Tsinavos family holds about 70% of the total capital. Last October, there was a successful placement of 3% from the family to institutionals. Institutionals abroad hold 12%, a similar percentage domestic institutionals and individuals retail 6.5%. Now we will stop for a couple of minutes. You can post your questions, and I will try to answer as more as possible. Thank you.

Thank you all for posting your questions. Hopefully -- there are many questions here. I'll try to answer as much as possible. Firstly, we have a question about input costs and how we're involved in the first months of 2025. And as we also -- we have shown before costs are now keep on a high level in 2025. Prices of raw milk in EU have some sites of the escalation, but this has not yet come to affect the Greek raw milk. A question about nonrecurring or extraordinary Q4 costs. Yes, we had about EUR 1 million one-off cost that relates to a bonus -- an extraordinary bonus that were given to each employee. And a question about an article of a revenue target of EUR 500 million. Yes, this was an article following an interview of Mr. Tsinavos. He said that after the completion of this CapEx plan, we will have the capacity to reach sales of EUR 500 million. Of course, this depends on the demand. Question about if we will increase prices to balance higher cost of milk. Yes, this is something that we are now considering. There are discussions with some large customers to proceed to some adjustments. And also, we have contracts that automatically adjust prices if costs on raw milk price, especially reaches a certain limit. So we expect some price adjustment in 2025 to be seen. A question about our target of EBIT margin. This target -- on this target, we have incorporated an adjusted inputs current level. And also, it was adjusted because we expect some dilution of fixed costs because of much higher top line. How do you explain the rise in milk prices when inflation is falling? This is difficult to explain. In my view, it is not the cost that drives pricing higher. Perhaps, it is demand or some restriction, especially in countries in Northern Europe that affects supply. Should we expect the tax credit from CapEx subsidies to continue at a similar level this year? We have -- for next year, we expect about EUR 4.7 million in tax relief on CapEx. In 2026, about EUR 3.2 million and about EUR 2 million in 2027. Perhaps the timing might differ because this has to do with the completion of the audit from state authorities. A question about our high market share, domestic private label yogurt. This happened because we were the first movers. And so we built a high market share from the beginning. And then with economies of scale, we had a cost advantage to continue and grow sales and our presence there. Question about domestic price reductions. We have the initiative to reduce our prices, especially in the domestic market, both to defend our business in private label where it is more sensitive to prices and also to be competitive with branded products. A question about effective tax rate. Yes, I don't have calculated this, but given this tax relief of EUR 4.7 million, I think it is easy to calculate. How long does it take to pass on higher milk prices to domestic and international private label customers? It takes some time, and this depends also to the level. So if there's a severe increase in milk prices, it takes less time to discuss this with customers and pass on price increases. A question about Q4. I think we have answered this. So you can refer to the audio. Our assumption about transportation costs. We expect stable transportation prices. And so the overall transportation cost will depend on the sales mix of customers and because we expect growth to come from exports, this leads to higher transportation cost. Question about gross margin. Gross margin depends on many factors. So it is difficult to set a target there. This is why we set target mostly on EBIT. Question about U.S. exports. I think we covered that. Our expectations from U.S. As I said, we don't expect any material impact from U.S. in 2025. We expect to see some sales in 2026, but this is very early to say. A question about the project [indiscernible]. This is a project that we have applied for a state subsidy. In case it is successful, we will have about 50% subsidy in the form of tax relief. The project is about increasing capacity, both in the yogurt factory, the ice cream factory in order to cope with the demand coming from U.S. that we estimate. And also, we have the biogas plant expansion. So it is an integrated -- fully integrated project that will allow us to increase capacity. New countries that we aim to export in Europe. There are no great news in that. I think we have good presence now in many countries, and we try to develop. Of course, if there are some opportunities, we try also to take advantage of this. A question about tariffs. There is no much to say now about tariffs. We keep a closer look of that what will happen. Currently, our exposure to the U.S. market is not great. So this -- there is no actually effect on our figures and performance. Of course, this can undermine future growth, and this is why it is important. Also another thing about tariffs is that it is of our concern is possible retaliation of EU, for example, mainly by imposing tariffs in imported goods from U.S.A. And in case this also includes agricultural commodities, such as soya or corn, this will drive higher the animal feed prices and also the cost of production of raw milk and this might trigger an inflation spiral also in milk. But this is too early to say more on this. Is there room for margin growth in the coming years? Of course, there is room for margin growth because we try to reduce our exposure to commoditized products that -- where competition is hard and this press prices down and try to differentiate and develop niches of each market that have higher price per kilo and higher margins. Question about distribution costs. I think we covered that. A question about exposure to U.S. dollar. Currently, our exposure is very low. But in the future, we are considering doing some hedging on this -- on U.S. Question about CapEx. I think we also covered that. Question about frozen yogurt sales also. A question about the working of our employees. Just to make it clear, we had many workers in production that we -- they were working 6 days per week. And because the week is considered of 40 hours week, so they were working for 6 days and were paid to work 8 hours each day, so they were getting some payment for this extra time. Of course, this is a very -- is not good for work-life balance. So we changed this, and we had them to work 5 days per week. Question about our Investor Relations practices. We try to do what is best practice. Of course, we cannot do magic. We try to increase our visibility and reach more people in investment community. A question about our assumption for 2025. I think we covered that. Question about our performance in France. Yes. In France, our performance is above our budget. I think it is a country with great potential there, and we try also to expand our business in the current year. A question about tax relief subsidies. We covered that. An update on foreign markets. Yes, we expect the growth in European markets for Greek yogurt to continue at high pace. As I said in the first quarter, our total sales saw an increase of more than 20%. And this is coming from our exports -- exporting operations. So yes, there's potential and the markets are growing very fast. Question about the U.S. frozen yogurt. We don't have such big -- such a clear view on what is the potential of sales per store. This depends on location and store category. Question about dividend. We expect -- if our high operation cash flows continue, we expect that there will be a room for a much higher dividend in the coming years. Question of our current capacity utilization. After finishing some CapEx projects on last year, this made room for unutilized capacity, and with this project of EUR 50 million overall capacity is expected to increase by about 30% to 40%. But in some critical stages of production, the capacity is doubled. So this extra capacity can be then released with low investment in the future. Guidance on dividend payout ratio going forward. No, it is too early to say more. We will post the transcript and also the audio version of this call in our website. Question about our EUR 50 million CapEx. Yes, this EUR 50 million CapEx is a project that we have applied for state subsidy. In case it is approved then we will have the right to recognize this tax relief after finishing the project. So this is why we do not recognize it in the financial statements yet. Question about the cost of sending to U.S. Additional tax relief. No, this tax relief, the right to recognize tax relief is -- it starts after the completion of the project. So in our case, we expect the project to take 3 years. So this is to end by 2027. And this -- the first chunk because it is on 3 chunks to take place in 2027 or 2028. I think we're finished with questions. Thank you all very much for joining this call. Have a nice day. Goodbye.