LANXESS Aktiengesellschaft (LXS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining the LANXESS Conference call. I would now like to turn the conference over to André Simon, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Yes. Thank you very much, Judith, and a warm welcome to everybody to our Q4 and full year 2020 conference call from my end as well. As always, I have our CEO, Matthias Zachert; our CFO, Michael Pontzen, with me. Please take notice of our safe harbor statement. Since we assume most of you have had a look at the presentation already, we have again decided to only briefly set the tone today with Matthias highlighting some key aspects of Q4, full year 2020 and, of course, the outlook on '21. So we dedicate more time to your questions. With that, I'm happy to turn it over to Matthias. Matthias, please go ahead.

Yes. Thank you, André. So ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome from my side as well full year performance. And I will address the one pager that by now should be in front of you and on the screen. So overall, we finished 2020 with a strong performance. Fourth quarter was one of the best quarters, fourth quarter performance finishing quarter in the last several years. EBITDA at roundabout EUR 200 million despite some onetime losses like the unplanned force majeure in HPM. So overall, a strong operational but also strong performance on our operating cash flow. And we clearly see that in the fourth quarter, business was coming back. We had in the December month a utilization, which we never had before, roundabout 80%, which for December has been impressive, and the good momentum has continued in Q1. So overall, the industry started with strong volumes, momentum and many of the industries with the exception of aviation, is coming back in the order book. We clearly see that Q1 is dominated by rebound in demand; however, also stemming from replenishing of tight inventories. So while we see that this momentum in Q1 is pretty healthy, I would like to give reference towards 3 elements that somewhat hurt us despite the operational strength. One is definitely U.S. dollar weakness. We compare here to a U.S. dollar which is far stronger in Q1 2020. Second, as far as raw materials are concerned, you have realized now for the last few years that in a few businesses, especially in Intermediates, we do have quarterly swings. I give reference to Q3 last year when Intermediates performed soft and you saw now in Q4, a strong rebound in Intermediates. And this is a trend that we've seen over the last several years. Whilst this so we are in a fortunate position to have contractual agreements to pass on raw materials volatility. Thus, this gives the business stability whilst in a running quarter we sometimes simply have to absorb the raw materials on the spot market. So in Q1, in this segment, we will take hits due to the inflationary environment of raw materials. But please take note of the fact you would see a rebound then in the second quarter. So next to raws and FX, notably U.S. dollar. We were hits in February quite heavily due to the severe winter season in the United States. We even had -- in states like Texas where you normally don't have severe winter seasonality, we had to shut down our plants in Memphis, Tennessee, which never happened before in the plant's history, but no energy electricity was there and the net water supply was not given because water pipes did freeze and burst. And our plant in El Dorado was down for 2 weeks because the wells were icy. So February, we were hurt due to maintenance -- sorry, due to winter shutdowns. Fortunately, plants are back up and running and in solid state. But this, of course, has impacted or will impact Q1. And as far as winter standstills are concerned, it takes roundabout EUR 10 million, EUR 15 million of idle costs in our P&L, which is sad but not ongoing. And the sun is shining, not only here in Cologne I was told yesterday, sun is shining back in Texas. Now as far as margin is concerned. If you look into 2020, we have finished the year with a 14% margin, which is in light of the heaviest recessions, at least that I have seen in my professional career. Still in the range of our target corridor of 14% to 18%, and we've achieved the 14% despite a plant utilization of around 72%. Achieving such a margin -- EBITDA margin with such a low utilization in your plants gives us the indication if volumes return, this portfolio will not only be at different levels in absolute EBITDA terms but also as far as EBITDA margin is concerned. Now based on our performance and financial strength of the balance sheet, we've decided in the management team to propose to our shareholders for the AGM a dividend increase of 5%. And this surely demonstrates our belief and our confidence in the strength of LANXESS going forward. Ladies and gentlemen, we are not only looking at financial excellence, operational excellence and strategic improvements. We clearly have ESG targets, improvements, sustainability targets, improvements clearly on our radar. We don't only talk about that. We implement it. I'd like to make clear reference that we don't shy away from hardest benchmarks to the industry. If you look into the European industry, with the climate neutrality targets 2040, we are 10 years ahead of the curve. If you look at our CO2 reduction performance from spin to in 2020, we have achieved an absolute reduction in CO2 emissions of more than 60% as of now. And further steps will be taken through key projects that we have identified and executed. So we are clearly here accelerating. We want to be at the top of the pack -- top of the ranks. And because of that and also to clearly implement that company wise, we have now decided and are implementing it as we speak for this year already to set Board's and leadership team remuneration on absolute CO2 reduction targets, not relative, we are going a step further, absolute CO2 reductions. So we walk the talk. Now let's come to 2021. Ladies and gentlemen, normally, we give, at this point in time, only a qualitative heads up on what we expect for the running year. Due to the fact that in light of pandemic and further clarity, transparency that shareholders should have from our side, we decided to give a quantitative guidance. This begins with EUR 900 million and finishes with EUR 1 billion EBITDA. It's a broader range, but we are at the beginning of the year, and corona has shown that unexpected surprises have always occurred in the last 12 months. All in all, we think that surprises should gradually decrease going forward, but you never know. And for that very reason, I think for the starting of the year, this is the the right approach in line with our company history, and therefore, please take it as that. Now in terms of 2021, you have seen that we started the year with 2 small bolt-on acquisitions in the disinfections area. We've continued in February with acquiring -- or signing a binding agreement to acquire Emerald Kalama. It's a business that fits very, very well into our consumer protection business. We have, by now, seen, of course, further the management team and had some discussions, of course, strictly adhering to legal standards. But of course, first contact that we made, I'm impressed by the team, by the energy, by the competence and we are now gradually working on the integration, but first thing that's top on the agenda is to do the antitrust filing. And as far as what we can say is everything is running according to the plan. We're impressed by the team, by the products. Hence, therefore, once we advance further on antitrust, we will also then give communication to The Street how we are going to integrate that within our portfolio and, of course, what kind of implication this also has for our numbers. As of today, we don't factor in -- any penny in our guidance because, first of all, we need to get the transaction closed. And once this is happening, we give you feedback when and where it's going to improve further our EBITDA. Now with this, ladies and gentlemen, I turn the call swiftly immediately after quarter to the Q&A floor. So we are all yours. Please go ahead.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question is from Thomas Wrigglesworth, Citi.

Two questions, please. The first is on your thoughts around capital allocation going forward. Where does the [indiscernible] currently sits? How much capital are you willing to allocate towards that? Can LANXESS still has balance sheet firepower? Can you do Emerald another deal or does Emerald consume enough management time that it's that's going to take time to digest? And then in terms of -- you've built the organic growth, the CapEx level, what's defined that this year? Can you go for more? How are you thinking about that level of driving growth organically and the amount of capital to allocate to that? That's the first question. Second question is, you highlighted one component of your bridge, it doesn't include Emerald in the guidance for 2021, but are you assuming kind of consumer unwinds a little bit and note some kind of exceptional gains, any one-off costs that are repeating that will come back into LANXESS for 2021?Just a little bit of color around maybe what you're kind of assuming normalizes versus, obviously, the clear strength we're seeing in Advanced Intermediates and the Engineering Materials business?

Tom, good to hear your sound and healthy voice, and we will -- Michael and myself, we will address the questions one by one. And I would take capital allocation. So all slots on capital allocations are possible. We've clearly flagged that 2021, 2022, we see years of organic and inorganic acceleration. We have entered into the chapter of acceleration as defined and explained to you in November 2019. So this chapter is on, and we will do this on the inorganic side, as we have shown through the 2 transactions beginning of the year and followed by Emerald in February, and we will continue doing this because our our balance sheet is still in a very strong position. We have still headroom for doing further focused acquisitions, which will rather follow the current pattern that we have done over the last few years. And therefore, is Emerald something -- is Emerald a business that will be complex and long lasting as far as integration is concerned? No. I recapitulate -- reiterate we are talking here only about 3 sites. The chemistry of these sites, we understand. Second, we are talking here about -- roundabout 500 top notch people, great culture, great expertise, strong chemical engineers, strong chemical sales force motivated teams. They've seen different markets, different companies. So I'm impressed by what I've seen. It's a business where that we understand market-wise, product-wise, customer-wise. So integration will be relatively fast and not very complex. So therefore, we have the corporate muscle and capacity to continue, but, of course, it has to fit with our strategic direction. And we will not just go for acquisitions to grow size. We only do acquisition if the strategic rationale is strong and the financial fit also is appealing. So inorganic investments definitely are on, but also organic investments. We are yet in the process of analyzing with what kind of strength we will invest in battery chemistry. We are running or working on several projects here on existing plant capacities like hydrochloric acid like phosphochlorides. We are here in an area where we can grow organically with existing capacity. But we might also enter, as you know, into a third precursor of battery chemistry like lithium, which is still on as far as testing is concerned. And we might even consider to move further into the electrolyte value chain. This depends also on discussions we're having with world-class leaders in this segment. And therefore, this might be an area also where we could accelerate further. It would be something that would take time because capacities would have to be built. But the growth prospects, especially in this chemical area is substantial. So far, we see that the public is focusing very much, potentially too much only on the anode and cathodes. If you look into the battery cell, however, there's quite a lot of chemistry in the housing and the biggest part is in the area of the electrolyte and electro salts. And this is exactly an area where we are playing in, and that's the reason why here, we are in intensive discussions, and this might determine also our appetite for organic investments. Now share buybacks, of course, are also one category. We have announced today that our overall program remains in place. And therefore, we have all optionalities to decide on our future capital allocation, depending on what is on and what makes sense from an overall company perspective. Now as far as the consumer segment is concerned, one point I would like to clarify, and then Mike will take on costs that will come back that has been cut last year. Consumer segment -- Consumer Protection segment, please understand that on Saltigo basically, momentum has improved in the agro industry modestly, 2021 versus 2020, comparable base. As far as the MPP business is concerned, we had a very, very strong year last year in the disinfect area. We assume this is going to stabilize. But the business, nevertheless, will continue growing more modestly than 2020, which was an exceptional growth year, but it will, despite that, still continue to grow, which is a strong sign. As far as our water purification business is concerned, this business should also improve margin-wise, EBITDA wise, because the membrane polluter, so to say, is gone, and the resins business, per se, is growing. So that should give you a color. On Consumer Protection, it's clearly a growth engine. But of course, you cannot grow every year with something like 18 percentage points. I think it will be more in the high single-digit percentage points area in course of 2021. Nevertheless, it should continue growth. Michael, on costs?

Happy to Matthias. Yes, with regards to cost, we told you guys that our plan is to save around EUR 50 million in the course of 2020, and that target was achieved. So tick the box on that. And we told you as well that the majority of these costs are variable costs, and we expect them to largely come back into 2021. So be it now 70% or 80%, that depends on the further development on vaccination because, as you can imagine, a portion of that is travel cost or other variable cost. But in our books, we expect the majority to come back in 2021.

Your next question is from Martin Roediger, Kepler Cheuvreux.

Three questions from my side. Firstly, how much of the current demand is due to restocking as customers expect rising chemical prices? And please differentiate your answer by the regions because in the past, I understood that customers in Europe and the U.S. did not do stocking is the -- their focus was on tight working capital, while in Asia, in particular, China restocking and destocking is very pronounced as a lot of traders are active in chemicals. The second question, you indicated that the good momentum in Q4 continued into Q1 this year. But you and also other companies mentioned that uncertainty is still very high. But the order book is still unchanged compared to, for example, September last year, i.e., customers still buy on short-term notice. And the third question is on logistic costs. I would assume that they may go up in various regions this year because we hear about logistic issues in the U.S. and limited availability of ships in Asia. Are logistic costs a concern for you or is it not relevant as you are very close to your customers and shipment costs are low anyway?

Well, all valid questions. I take them one by one. I mean our customers are not telling us bluntly with every order if this is restocking or not or if it's underlying demand. But the one thing that we can tell you is, of course, we do our own corporate intelligence. And I've conveyed over the last 3 to 6 months when I was on the road, or virtually on the road, that inventory levels are now. We have seen that they have been hammered down in December 2019. We saw then a replenishing in Q1 last year, first 2 months, and then we saw a brutal collapse rundown of working capital. And this only changed now in -- from November onwards. And from my perspective, from our corporate intelligence, it is still ongoing. How much it is in the order book? I think it's very, very difficult to tell, but it's definitely driving currently demand upwards. And we also see on the tightness of delivery chains that at least in Europe and also North America, you get at this point in time, more visibility from the customer side instead of short ordering and even on short notice cancellations, you see that companies are starting to more flex annual demand again and also demand for the next 3 to 6 months. So there is an increase in visibility again. And my personal assumption is due to the trillions and billions of governments stimuli that now enter into North America and Europe, my personal assumption is that this momentum is going to continue as also pandemic uncertainty is going down. Now your point on customer pattern in Asia and Europe, I can simply confirm Asia is very strongly on spot and distributing and dealing and wheeling. This is only modestly changing here and there whilst Europe to a high extent is more on a contractual indication. And therefore, we have more stability and also less volatility as far as ordering is concerned here in Europe. On pricing, prices on raws are by and large on the rise. It started in November, December and continued. We've seen some of our petrochemicals and aramids like Benzene, Toulene where prices in the last 2, 3 months, basically doubled. I've not seen that very often in my professional career. But we've seen that within a short period of time. Now thanks to our contractual agreements on benzene, for instance, we can pass that on, but we will pass that on due to contracts in -- with a 3-month time lag. So this gives you indication on pricing. Then on uncertainty question on customer side, I think I've answered. Last point is on logistics. Logistic costs are on the rise. On freights, for instance, shipment freights, container shipments in some cases have quadrupled. Again, this is something I've rarely seen. Idle capacities are currently being mobilized and brought into the logistics chain. So our assumption is this will moderate. Now the good thing in our company we try to get logistics, especially ship logistics, which is very important. It's the most important driver next to railway. On shipping and containers, we try to have contractual agreements and here rather on a yearly basis. So here, many of our underlying costs are protected through long-term contracts, which have seen an increase versus 2020. Therefore, we will not be penalized by these 2 400% or 500% price increases. On the spot market, you see that. In some cases, we take the hit here as well. But the big portion of our freights and logistics fortunately covered. That's, therefore, the beauty that we avoid huge swings, of course, in third quarter last year when logistics collapsed, we did not benefit from the short-term reduction in pricing, but currently, we definitely are not taking the hits whilst others face here the cost volatility. With this, I think all questions have been answered.

Your next question is then from Samuel S. Weber, Vermögensverwaltung.

Yes. Hello, can you hear me?

Loud and clear.

Okay. Perfect. So you know that I'm invested in LANXESS since a few years. And despite all the stock volatility, I was never concerned about the true value of this company, and that's because it's in the best possible hands. So thank you very much for that. Now my first question is, there is one -- despite the solid set of results, there is one consistent little blemish and that consistently shows up and the operating cash flow is strong compared to 2019, but compared to maintenance CapEx, the excess is around EUR 300 million, and that seems to be well below the potential of your company. So my question is how will this excess of operating cash flow over maintenance CapEx developed in the next few years? And the second question would be, are there any news about your exciting startup, CheMondis?

Samuel, thank you so much for your questions, and thank you also for your introductory comments. Now you addressed value of the company. It has -- you see the value of the company, so do we. And therefore, you can assume that we are energized to further work on unlocking unhidden value, which, according to our own investments in the shares, has been at higher levels. So we feel good about the future prospects. Now to your questions. You've indicated flat maintenance of EUR 300 million. Our guidance is maintenance being around EUR 300 million, EUR 350 million. So definitely, we have in the past done higher operational investments in the last 2 years. Some of them, of course, we are associated to upgrades as far as acquisitions are concerned or referred to the EUR 50 million in Chemtura. Some of them have related to organic growth. Now going forward, to answer your question, we have to be clear on what we want to do organically. If organically, on the -- on our portfolio, we take further strides, we will, A, further now invest into Emeralds. We flagged here that we want to upgrade production facilities by roundabout EUR 40 million, EUR 50 million going forward. We flagged that at the day of the announcement because we see worldscale capacities. They have been in the private equity hands. So here and there, we would like to make technology upgrade because we are long-term profits thinkers and not short-term cash flow optimizers. So this would be one element, making sure that our plants are worldscale and long-term worldscale competitors. The second depends pretty much on our organic appetite. I just flagged a few elements. And they relate in this case towards battery chemistry. It's a big field that we see profit and turnover wise only in 3 to 4 years to come. But we see here that opportunities are big. Lithium is known. I think in the next 3, 4 months, we will eventually be able to test the technology live. So far due to corona, it was very burdensome. There was some improvements here and there, but we need to check the the technology. Second, we indicated that we are working on the electrolytes and with electrolyte companies. And here, not with the micky mouses but with the giants of the world markets. And this is something get too early, but should we engage in the production of the electro salt purely as raw material supplier, we don't need big investments. Should we decide, however, to really, with a worldscale giants to enter into the European markets and to create here a team up for the powerhouse of electrolyte supply, this will take money. And that will drive the organic investments going forward, but the return would be significant according to what we see. But here, we will only communicate once we advance further in our analysis, strategic partnership analysis, cultural fits and, of course, eventually, the financial terms need to be convincing for both sides. Now I come to CheMondis. Well, CheMondis, we will do or we will provide on a yearly basis update. The only thing that I can say to you right now we have further worked on this in the last 3 months. Like I've indicated to you in the last conference call, we are -- have analyzed in the last 3 months with the top 25 customers, so-called monetization features. We have a concept in place. This concept will now be tested on a pilot basis in the second quarter, then we see what reaction the monetization features lead to the traffic on the platform. And if this is all positive, we will introduce that in the third quarter to the entire customer base, to the suppliers as well as to the customers. And then we would see how the monetization features work and then we will scale that up. And latest with Q3 numbers. In November, we will give then again a full-fledged update on -- after 12 months where traffic on the platform how monetization has worked and what have you. So we are energized on CheMondis and, of course, it's hard work. And as I always said, the jury is out. But as far as public traffic data is concerned, CheMondis is the most active and strongest trading platform for chemicals in the European region. So we are proud on what we've established so far. I hope with this, all questions are detailed -- in a detailed way answered.

Yes, may I just ask 1 clarification. I think there was a little confusion because the EUR 300 million that I mentioned were related to the excess of operating cash flow over maintenance CapEx and it's the same number as for the CapEx itself. So your answer addressed CapEx. But my question was more focused on the operating cash flow, where there seems to be a lot of potential going forward. And perhaps any words on that, and then I'm perfectly happy.

You might further clarify your question with IR later on. I give you high-level feedback. If you look into the cash flow statement that we have, we have an operational cash flow of roundabout despite corona and lower profitability roundabout EUR 600 million, which is pretty equal to last year, even though last year, there was corona. We digested in the operational cash flow of EUR 600 million, close triple-digit millions for Currenta taxation, which you have to pay, if you get a capital gain of nearly EUR 1 billion, which was unexpected, I think, at that point in time. So if you exclude the capital gain tax, operational cash flow would even be higher. Now if you also look into the exceptionals which we incur deliberately because clearly, we will do M&A. We will continue with CheMondis as long as this is something where we believe we can have success. So all in all, we had exceptionals in the company, not all being cash relevant, but roundabout 70%, 75% of it being relevant for restructuring, M&A transactions and also for digitization like CheMondis. So if all of that we would stop, cash flow would be definitely higher. But guess what? If we continue doing good M&A deals on the divestiture side, look at this, we've divested in 2018 for second tranche, EUR 1.5 billion roundabout cash. If we had used our put option on the basis of the contractual agreement we had right now, the proceeds would have been pretty limited. Did we pay M&A costs for lawyers and bankers in 2018? We did because we thought it was the smart move. And therefore, we will continue doing exceptionals which are truly onetime in nature if we consider this will unlock value in the future. And therefore, we continue working on getting this company to a position that will definitely, in a few years, be in a completely different league than where it operates today, also cash flow wise.

Your next question is from Matthew Yates, Bank of America.

Couple of questions then, please. The first one would just be around Saltigo. There's obviously been a significant improvement in some of the agricultural crop prices. Can you just remind me, does Saltigo have much leverage to that general backdrop or is its growth much more driven by the timing of product introductions and contract wins? The second question would be around the Additives division. I mean, obviously, volumes have fallen about 15% over the last 2 years due to some of the weakness in the end markets. I think the slide alluded to some restructuring in the rubber business. Would you mind just elaborating a little bit on what you're doing and what benefit you expect to get from that?

Well, Matthew, on Saltigo, in general, if pricing is healthy on soya crop, whatever, in general, this is something that is benefiting everybody in the industry because normally, when farmers have more money, they go to more sophisticated instruments with higher productivity and yields. And the most expensive products they can use are fungicide or crop protection. They simply cost more. If you don't have good earnings, you go for the commodity stuff, which is cheaper. And therefore, by and large, Saltigo is a prime supplier of higher technology, focusing on fungicides and therefore, by and large, we benefit if pricing is solid. However, whilst this is the general environment, it always boils down to specific projects. So Saltigo is not a spot producer that gets ordered today and produces tomorrow. For this, the sophistication is clearly more advanced. That's the reason why in the past 2 years we sailed through the downturn reasonably well because we are in Saltigo pretty much a contractual business. When we have blockbusters, we have long-term contracts. And therefore, long-term fund rates with take-or-pay clauses, not 100% slotted in, but roundabout 70%, 80% slotted in on take-or-pay as far as volumes are concerned. So therefore, whilst overall environment on prices is good, it also helps you on negotiating prices for new projects. It eventually always boils down on contract-specific negotiation. I hope this answers the question. And Michael will address the reorganization rubber additives. Michael, go ahead.

Thank you, Matthias. Matt, yes, indeed, we decided mid of last year to change the organizational set up. As you know, some 2 years ago when we split up the former business unit, Rubber Chemicals, we decided to put the rubber accelerator Additive business into AII and to leave the Rubber Additives business within Rhein Chemie. Over the past couple of years, we saw some developments in the market, and we told you guys in the Capital Markets Day 2019 that there are some businesses which we are still looking into how to organize it in future. At that point in time, that was the membrane business, that was OMS, that was leather and that was the Rubber Chemicals business. On the first 3, we ticked the box, we cleaned the portfolio, we addressed the portfolio. On the latter one, on the last one, the Rubber Chemicals business, we decided now to integrate both businesses. One, the more specialized business in the Rubber Additives business formally or as of today, still in the Rhein Chemie and the more volume business which used to be in the AII business unit and now will be in the rubber Rhein Chemie business or Rhein Chemie business unit. The idea behind is that we can review the setup when it comes to sales and marketing organization. And that is why we put a new management in place on the business unit, Rhein Chemie. And the management team is asked to present to the Board the way forward, which will be due in the next months to come. And we think with the new setup with the integration of our remaining Rubber Additive businesses, we might have better opportunity than on 2 separate standalone businesses. That's the reason behind.

And I would like to add to this because some of you -- I look here at one particular investor in London will raise the question going forward. On the Specialty Additives margin, we flag that this business should move up up to 20% when we did the Chemtura acquisition. We have moved up since 2017 from 15% to 16%, 16% to 17%. In 2019, we closed at 18%. So we did pretty well in each consecutive year following the acquisition. What we now do, we move roundabout EUR 300 million sales from Advanced Industrial intermediates with literally no EBITDA into Specialty Additives. This will lower, of course, the underlying margin in the segment. But we see this as an opportunity as far as not margin, underlying features are concerned, but, of course, this business will rebound. And therefore, in the combination of accelerators and antioxidants rubbers with our Rhein Chemie rubber additives, we will, of course, work on the the sales force on streamlining it, go-to-market approach, making the organization faster, leaner, and this should leave its foot mark on the profitability, even though we bring into additives business, which per se is lower in the underlying margin profile.

Your next question is from Markus Mayer, Baader-Helvea.

Only 1 clarification question left. You said in your guidance, of course the earnings are not included. Are there also no costs included from this acquisition?

Markus, thank you for your question. Now at this point in time, and we gave the indication that the first OTCs are expected to start beginning of next year. What we have in our numbers is under the assumption that there will be maybe at the end of the year -- we said in the second half, but rather towards the end of the year, the closing of the transaction that we put some EUR 10 million to EUR 15 million into our CapEx budget because we told you guys that with regards to the asset part, we think we have to invest some EUR 50 million to upgrade that. And therefore, we already put into our CapEx numbers some EUR 10 million to EUR 15 million for 2021, but that's it for color.

Your next question is from Chetan Udeshi, JPMorgan.

I was just following up on your previous comments on investment opportunity in electric vehicles. It seems interesting. How is the company going to manage what it seems like a problem of multiple investment projects. You've got, on one hand, a decision to make on lithium, which, I think, at some point last year, you talked about up to EUR 400 million of investment over multiyears. Now you're talking about electrolyte possibly investment opportunities. So how do we think in terms of managing this different sort of significant growth opportunities along with maybe some more inorganic sort of investment to come in terms of prioritizing all of these?

Well, the good thing here is Chetan, we have alternatives. If you don't have alternatives, you eventually just go for your one possibility on the table. If you have alternatives, you can make the call. So what is strategic wise from your perspective the best in terms of execution possibilities, in terms of financial accretion, in terms of culture if it comes to partners and in terms of competencies. So if you have only high-risk opportunities with low financial attraction, I mean then go for buybacks. If you have high-growth opportunities financially with modest risk profile, this might be, in the long term, far more interesting for all stakeholders and also shareholders. So for me, what I always strive to have in the organization as a culture of bringing up ideas. And if you have a culture of bringing up ideas, then you create something like CheMondis. Again, I stress this is not -- the jury is still out. But I see here from the feedback I'm getting out of the digital and software industry, I mean people are calling us. This is not a given. On electrolytes, the agents are calling us. We have not called them. So apparently, we are attractive to them. We are not contacted, as I said before, from no names or nobodies. We are contacted here by the top 3 players in the electrolyte industry. And therefore, if you have these kind of data points at the end of the day, you need to start sorting out your alternatives, you need to look at the cultural fits at the negotiation. Sometimes you negotiate with great partners, but I think they can squeeze you like a lemon, and we are not a lemon. We are world-class players on our side as well. We know this. We have something to offer. And when you come to win-win solutions on a acceptable risk profile with attractive financial conditions for all sites, then you can say we go for it. And therefore, my objective clearly in this organization is get a culture of openness, speeds and ideas on the table. If you do that, if you achieve that, you can choose on the alternatives. And then normally, you go in the right direction. Wherever this direction will eventually end is something that you would see in 3, 4, 5 years, but we love to have alternatives.

Got you. And can I just confirm one thing from what I heard previously, it seems there is no contribution at all from Emerald included in the guidance. But what about the other smaller acquisitions? Are they material enough to move the needle at all in 2021 numbers?

Emerald is not included because, first of all, we need to get the filing done. And once we have further back and forth with the antitrust authorities, we will communicate the time line as we have done in the past. We see no hurdles in the approval. But nevertheless, we are here in the early stages. And next week, we are going to file, and then we will see the kind of interaction we have in the respective filing jurisdictions. Now on INTACE, INTACE is a business where turnover digit. So the business should perform great. But even if the profitability should double, you will not see it. As far as Theseo is concerned, this is different. We see very high synergy potential. The business, all in all, reported roundabout EUR 30 million sales. We assume that over the midterm, you will see nice contribution, but with EUR 30 million, give this business the chance to accelerate in growth. With this, we see profitability growth at the same point in time, but this will rather be something you would see in 2 to 3 years once we've pushed the product portfolio of Theseo through the LANXESS' worldwide sales muscle. So this is nothing for this year. But we are excited about the opportunities down the road.

Your next question is from Jaideep Pandya, On Field Research.

Firstly, you have ion-exchange resin, which, at least from the literature I read, can be used to clean PFAs. Can you just confirm if this is the case, is there any people that have contacted you, as you've alluded to in other areas in this area as well? And as heat increases on -- in the U.S. under the new president, whether we could expect some interesting nice things on this side? And then just secondly, on bromine, if you can just give your view on what you're seeing in China with regards to prices? And then just your security of supply in your brine assets. Is there a contract coming up in the next couple of years, renegotiation wise? Or are you very comfortable that you have long-term supply in brine and bromine?

Jaideep, thank you for your questions. Let's take them one by one. As far as our resins business is concerned, you can do purification, as a purification with all sorts of ingredients or toxic materials. And, of course, this is something we follow the request by our customer base. At this point in time, we focus customer wise on a variety as far as process industries are concerned, it's again water purification, depending on what kind of toxic assets you have in mining. We are in nuclear power plants. So PFA is not a topic there, but PFA is, of course, also a toxic element that needs to be followed. So the resins business can purify water in general, whatever ingredients are there. What is going to be purified eventually depends on the functionalization of the little ball of the polymer ball and either monodisperse or heterodisperse. So this is what we are doing. But the core area is, in general, water purification. We don't go for one or the other toxic application. This would be in the detailed categories where we don't communicate on. As far as bromine prices are concerned, bromine prices, as far as the Asian spot markets has gone up. We are now in the areas of USD 4,000 or 5,000 -- below USD 5,000. So the bromine market has gone up. And therefore, this in general, as far as seasonality is concerned, no surprise. If you look at the underlying yearly trends, bromine prices in Asia are on the rise. Now as far as contracts are concerned, we have, in the brominated business, a variety of contracts. So this is normal in this industry. And on what we normally do on bromine is always the call on make or buy decisions. We have massive supply that we have licenses to in El Dorado. So we have basically the beauty of having ample free capacity that we can extract. And therefore, when we want to extract, we need to invest in order to open up new wells or in specific cases super wells where the bromine contract is extremely high. This is something that we always decide on year-to-year basis when external contracts are running out. And this is a normal make or buy decision that we do, and this will not change going forward.

Your last question for today is from Andrew Stott, UBS.

It's about Advanced Intermediates, given that, that's probably the most conservative guidance you provided divisionally. And this is probably from someone armed with the spreadsheet getting it very wrong. But if I go back in history, that division, and I know it's changed, you've got pigments in there, but you're not calling out pigments as an issue. You've done well in inflationary environments. If you go about 2010, you added 400 basis points. You kept that in 2011 as well, broadly. So why is it different this time? Is it the scale that you're talking about, Matthias, on some of the moves in benzene, et cetera, or is it just conservatism?

Andrew, I see that you have been around in the industry for some time, so you are addressing one specific topic that I fully understand. Let me give me -- give you some color on Advanced Industrial Intermediates. So if you look at the 5 to 10 years trajectory of this business, it has been on the rise all the time. And on an annual basis, being a high-margin business throughout the years. This has not changed. So the business continues doing nice debottlenecking projects like synthetic menthol and other great individual projects. So this business should normally, for the next few years, continue expanding leadership positions and continue to grow in absolute terms. And it has even the potential to improve the margin. Now on the raws, I am -- on a yearly basis, I'm not concerned. I would not say I'm relaxed. I'm never relaxed as a matter of fact. On a quarterly basis, we have our volatility. While a conservative now or cautious on the yearly guidance is what we see different to the years before is energy cost are going through the roof, notably in Germany. This has to do with the German legislation on so-called the EEG, as it is called. It's a complete bureaucratic monster with complexity all over the place. We understand it's going to be addressed by whenever the new government is going to be in place because everybody sees that this penalizes the business quite intensively. So here, we take a -- currently, energy prices have really gone through the roof, substantially higher than last year. The one division that is most energy-intensive in our group is Advanced Industrial Intermediates. And here, energy prices, we don't have price escalation clauses in our contracts. So we currently take the hits. This is not single digit. This is double digits. And this is something in light of the volume uptick. We are trying in a professional way to talk to our key customers about that and basically agree with them on a win-win situation that we continue investing in this business. But here, this is pain. And in some cases, we hope that we will share the pain because we will continue growing together. But I stress it again, in Advanced Industrial Intermediates, it's one of the flagship businesses with long-term contracts in place. This is because of their strong negotiation position and market leadership. But energy pricing, normally in the chemical industry is never being factored in. You just have to absorb them on the up, but also on the low. And right now, they simply escalate through the roof, and that's the reason why we are humble in the guidance for Advanced Industrial Intermediates because of this very element. I hope this clarifies the topic.

We have no further questions. I hand back to Matthias Zachert for some closing comments.

Well, you're so kind. And I would like to thank all of you, I think, the operator, of course, for orchestrating this conference call. I thank you for your participation. We are and adjust here in Cologne or wherever we are around the globe and looking forward to see you on the virtual roadshow. And hopefully, we would see us all face-to-face once we are all fully vaccinated once and 2 times, and then we are going to accelerate even further and have fun and are energized as we go. Thank you so much. Bye-bye. Take good care. Stay healthy.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attendance. This conference has been concluded. You may disconnect.