medmix AG (MEDX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the medmix Full Year Results 2021 Conference Call and Live Webcast. I'm Moira, the Chorus Call operator. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Christoph Ladner, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Moira. Good morning, and welcome to medmix Full Year 2021 Results Conference Call. Today with me is our CEO, Girts Cimermans and our CFO, Jennifer Dean. For this call, we have prepared a presentation, which you can find on the medmix homepage. Please note that if you want to ask questions, during Q&A after the presentation, you have to dial in via the phone number that was sent to you when you registered. And as always, I want to draw your attention on the safe harbor statement on Slide #3. The call may contain forward-looking statements containing risks and uncertainties. These statements are subject to change based on known or unknown risks and various other factors, which could cause the actual results or performance to differ materially from the statements made in the call. Having said that, it's now my pleasure to hand over to Girts for the presentation.

Thank you, Christoph, and good morning. medmix was born September last year with the decision of Sulzer's extraordinary AGM on September 30. On September 30, our shares were listed on the SIX Swiss exchange and also traded the first time. In parallel, we have raised successfully CHF 295 million that we will use to invest in organic and inorganic growth. Everything went smoothly, and our operations have not been impacted by the spin-off. But while most of our markets recovered relatively quickly from the lows in 2020, the pandemic itself with continued lockdowns and restrictions as well as knock-on effects in the supply chains remain a challenge. Still, we have delivered fully on our guidance as announced at the Capital Markets Day in June last year, and we have made major steps towards our midterm targets, particularly in drug delivery. Our revenue increased by 30% to CHF 457 million. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was up 6.2 percentage points to reach 25% and free cash flow came in at CHF 56 million, which is CHF 46 million higher than last year. Part of that will benefit our shareholders as our Board proposes a dividend of CHF 0.50 per share to the AGM. As mentioned before, we delivered revenue of CHF 457 million, 30% above the previous year, 21% on an organic basis. We are back to 2019 pre-pandemic levels on an organic FX-adjusted basis. Healthcare business area revenue grew 64% over the previous year, 34% organically and represented 37% of our revenue. Consumer and Industrial business area grew 16%. Dental segment grew strongly, thanks to the pent-up demand across the value chain as the dental practice occupancy gradually recovered. Our revenue in Dental segment grew 42% to CHF 116 million and thus is around pre-pandemic levels of 2019. Not all end-use markets have fully recovered yet. We grew through expanded product portfolio and through improved market coverage as we deployed resources to the U.S., Brazil, India and China to work with local trade. We are very pleased with the traction of the market coverage initiative. 2021 was the first fully integrated year for Drug Delivery. In the course of the year, we strengthened our commercial and R&D teams made good progress on the autoinjector development, as well as secured new customers for our D-Flex injector pen platform, including U.S. biotech companies. With this, our Drug Delivery segment has successfully started the transformation from a predominantly European player to a global business. Our organic growth in 2021 was 38%. Surgery segment delivered CHF 13 million. The strategic focus on the tissue banks in the U.S. proved to be success with strong growth in the first year of this initiative and partly compensated for a non-repeat projects we had in 2020. Industry segment experienced a very early and healthy market rebound across key industries like construction and electronics. 2021 was a record year for industry, delivering CHF 161 million. The 28% growth from prior year was a combination of pent-up demand, market share gains temporary growth spikes in some markets and higher underlying market growth as chemical Haag selling applications gain popularity. Beauty segment experienced slower post-COVID recovery than other our segments, as the global demand for liquid color cosmetics remain dampened due to continued lockdowns, home office work and low travel activity. Nevertheless, the Beauty segment grew 4% to CHF 127 million. In the last few months of 2021, we saw encouraging signs of accelerated market recovery also in beauty. We expect that the beauty segment will recover to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022. Overall, we're happy with the performance of all our segments. In the next few slides, let me talk more about the health care business area. Revenue for the Healthcare business area grew 64% adjusted for FX over the previous year, 34% organically. With markets rebounding significantly from lockdowns and the closure of dental offices that we experienced in 2020. The healthcare gross profit margin was 3 percentage points lower at 61%. This is mainly due to the consolidation of our Drug Delivery business for the full year versus only 1 quarter a year earlier. In addition, Haselmeier had more development and customization projects in 2021. Such projects carry a lower margin initially but guarantee future sales. We had said that we have won 1 larger project in first half, and we have won additional 3 in second half. So things are really on track here. Without these effects from drug delivery, our gross profit margin in health care stayed essentially flat. On the next 2 slides, we show you some products we launched and awards we have won in health care. MIXPAC T-Mixer for dentistry launched January 21, was awarded dental advisers coveted top product and outstanding quality award in '21. Since 1983, dental adviser has been a trusted experts to dental professionals worldwide. The mission of dental adviser is to provide the dental profession with evidence-based and clinically relevant information on dental restorative products, infection control products and dental equipment. The T-Mixer is offering same or better mix in performance at previous generation mixers, while being 30% to 40% shorter, thus reducing extensive waste of dental material. This award yet again, affirms our position as the innovation and quality leader for precision delivery devices in dentistry. Colibri Plus Breakable was also launched in January. It is an all-in-one solution for multiple dental materials and specialty applications. One mixing tip for several applications like impressions, root canal and canopy preparations, has integrated smoothly rounded stainless steel cannula for easy access to difficult areas and minimize the risk of soft tissue trauma. Colibri Plus Breakable allows us to expand to care areas outside of prosthetics and restorative and provide solutions for an unmet need in dentistry. In Surgery segment, we launched medmix ErgoSyringe, a ready-to-use biomaterial system for storing, hydrating and delivering biomaterials. ErgoSyringe is an amazing productivity enhancement for the surgeon. It eliminates the need for manual mixing in the operating room and enables single-handed operation for physicians. We have also delivered on significant milestones in drug delivery, the segment with the strongest growth outlook in the coming years, as seen on Page 9. The deflect ecosystem automatically collects and manages self-injection data directly at patient's homes. Using integrated optical sensors, this connected solution provides valuable feedback not only confirming that the patient has taken the medication, but also indicating the precise amount administered each time. Connectivity via smartphone app means patients receive a reminder if they forget to take a dose. It allows pharma companies to truly understand real patient behavior and its impact in new therapies. Wearables may be integrated to complement the clinical picture of patients, which is particularly beneficial during new drug development and clinical testing. Early 2021, the D-Flex ecosystem was announced the winner of the prestigious Good Design Award for 2020. We were laying the foundation of a future growth in drug delivery also in innovation. In the course of 2021 alone, we filed for more than 15 patents not only for the upcoming auto-injector addition to the device portfolio, but also for D-Flex platform and connected cap. Our first prefilled syringe auto injector will be launched in the course of 2022, available in 1 and 2.5 milliliter versions, it will be like D-Flex compatible with the connectivity ecosystem. Our D-Flex platform continues to resonate with pharma and biotech companies worldwide. As of end of '21, we have development agreements with 6 customers for D-Flex platform. Moreover, we have expanded our offering to include pharma licensed services such as final assembly and packaging and have already won several projects. Therefore, we're confident about our growth outlook in drug delivery. Moving on to Consumer and Industrial on Slide 10. In this business area, our revenues went up by 16%, FX adjusted and organic. On the industry side, we benefited from a recovery in electronics, construction and automotive markets, in a latter mainly thanks to electric vehicles. Beauty grew also but at a slower pace as there have still been pandemic-related impacts in retail and travel. While we do bulk of our Beauty business still with the traditional beauty companies, 20% of our revenues stem from independents or indices we call them. So our new offering based on the extended a revamped factory in Bechhofen starts to pay off. Thanks to a better mix as well as improved margins in beauty, our business area gross profit margin was up 1.9 percentage points to 41%. Also, in Consumer Industrial, we have some exciting new products to show. Two of GEKA's product innovations won IT product awards at makeup Shanghai industry events in 2021. In our core category, Mascara brushes, we won innovation awards for the pure definition mascara brush. It is a new design brush created using our bi-injecting sandwich technology. Many molded mascara applicators are made from only 1 plastic, meaning the bristles are hard and too harsh for sensitive eyes. Our sandwich technology combats this issue. A buying injection process manufactures the brush from 2 different plastics, allowing the applicator to have both a hard core and soft bristles. For a launch in our Beyond Mascara strategic initiative, Fusion Applicator was selected a winner among 38 novelties in the packaging innovation category. It is an innovative applicator with very delicate micro bristles for precise, pure, hygienic and smooth application of formulation. With overall 50 bristles with more than 4 bristles per square millimeter, Fusion applicator is ideal for skin care treatment like vitamin D application to ensure dosage application with maximum precision. The Nano Twisted Wire Brush also launched last year is the fiber brush with a wire diameter of less than 0.5 millimeter and a trimmed diameter of less than 4 millimeters. It is ideally suited for professional brow treatment as well as for mascara for, for example, Asian market, matching the local needs of Asian lash characteristics. Last year was also a busy year for Innovation & Industry segment, as seen on Slide 12. We are supporting our customers in reducing their CO2 footprint through the entire value chain by following ecodesign principles in our product development process. Ecodesign principles guide our design teams, optimizing new products by reducing size, weight and number and type of materials. We proved the impact of our design improvements with life cycle analysis for new products. As an example, ecopaCC is 1 of its products. It has been proven to reduce CO2 footprint by more than 75% compared to solid cartridges due to significant reduction of weight and volume during transportation and storage as well as waste volume, massive CO2 reduction compared to standard coverage. We secured several new customers for this award-winning products last year, including Chinese customers active in a Tile Grout segment, 1 of the untouched markets we have planned to address. Blueline system launched in 2021 is an enhanced dispensing system, specifically addressing high viscose and compression sensitive materials. Blueline allows for much faster application up to 3x the desired amount of adhesives in a wide range of construction and industrial uses. And in combination with T-Mixer, it contributes to significant waste reduction. Thus, ecodesign principles are in core of our product development for industry segments. Now let's talk about sustainability on Slide 14 and 15. Our approach is based on 3 pillars: planet, people and profit. For planet, we have taken actions to reduce our emissions and switch our sites to low-carbon electricity. 8 out of our 13 sites now operate a low-carbon electricity. We also aim to reduce water consumption of our own operations and minimize waste to landfill. We have made progress on both targets. For people, we conducted an employee survey last year, 89% of our employees participated. Out of these, 83% responded that they are sustainably engaged. This is a higher score than for other comparable companies. We undertook 18 community engagement initiatives, ranging from clothing and food donations to special equipment for certain groups of people. On profit, we successfully introduced ecodesign principles into our product life cycle. We completed EcoVadis assessment for 5 out of 13 sites and achieved platinum status for Bechhofen for the second year in a row. It was also the first site to receive the status in the industry. A platinum rating reflects a sustainability score among the top 1% of companies worldwide. We achieved gold status for Elgin and silver status for Hungerford. On Slide 15, some additional examples of how sustainability drives our product portfolio across the company. Beauty segment is the forerunner in this field. Cosmetic companies were among the first ones to incorporate sustainable and recycled materials in their products. PCR, meaning post-consumer recycled materials are already actively used in beauty. On the left-hand side of the slide, you can see the new liquid concealer system with a crystal-clear PCR container. Most of the beauty product range can now be made of sustainable materials. Leveraging material know-how, best practices from beauty, we have finished development of green line cartridge for industry, our first 100% PCR polypropylene cartridge that retains full functionality of the standard cartridge and with significantly reduced carbon footprint. Also on drug delivery, we started to use bio-based plastics instead of oil-based materials, which reduces CO2 footprint by 84% per kilo. We take multiple actions to reduce our CO2 footprint and also that of our customers. Let's turn to operations on Slide 16 and 17. 2021 was the second year of the pandemic, and we experienced significant headwinds with respect to material availability and pricing. We also had to cope with a steep increase in logistic costs and supply chain turbulences. In addition, COVID waves have also affected our workforce in the factories quite a bit. But despite all this, we ensure the availability of raw materials and transportation without supply disruptions. Here I must highlight the incredible work of our global procurement team has done. Here, our setup with different end markets, but mutualized operations made a clear difference to competitors. We maintained our production throughout 2021. All factories remained open at all times, even with reduced workforce availability due to COVID. We completed the integration of our drug delivery business. And the best is that you will find no trace of the headwinds and hassles in our financial performance. Revenues were up 30% and our adjusted EBITDA margin was at 25%. In addition, we moved forward with some significant footprint projects that will support our future growth. We have completed the site expansion project in Bechhofen Germany, and introduced advanced manufacturing, automation and quality technologies. We increased our capabilities by enforcing decoration. We doubled the capacity of our production facility in Wroclaw, Poland, which mainly caters to our industry segment. We also doubled the capacity at our logistics hub in the U.S. which will reduce the lead times and increase service levels for customers of our industry and Dental segments in the U.S. We will expand further in '22. For example, we have signed a lease contract for a new production facility for our healthcare business area in the U.S. We have already started to work on the fit out. Now over to Jenny for the financial review.

Thank you, Girts. Good morning, and welcome also from my side. Girts has already mentioned some of our figures, and I'll comment a little more starting on Slide 19. Firstly, the most important thing for me to say is that we did what we said we would do. We delivered strong financial results in this year of our spin-off from Sulzer and delivered on our guidance for 2021. That's definitely enough to make this new CFO smile. Our revenue was up 30%, adjusted for FX, 22% organically and is back to 2019 pre-pandemic levels. Our business area gross profit margin increased by 2 percentage points, as healthcare is growing faster than the industrial and consumer business. Our gross profit margin increased to 5.1 percentage points, driven by the improved mix just mentioned and as well our higher volumes increasing utilization rates in our factories. The difference between our business area gross profit margin and the gross profit margin reflects that our manufacturing footprint is mutualized to a large extent. Transverse costs, global teams and impacts of utilization are therefore reflected below business area gross profit. Adjusted EBITDA margin increased 6.2 percentage points and was in line with our guidance. I'll give you some more insights here on the next slide. The impressive improvement in net income is due to the higher adjusted EBITDA as lines below have not really changed that much, maybe with the exception of tax, which is again on a normal level. Finally, free cash flow has also multiplied from the previous year's level, driven by higher profits on higher volumes. Now let's move to Slide 20 and our adjusted EBITDA bridge. Our adjusted EBITDA margin is approaching pre-pandemic levels though we are not there yet. Most of the uplift came from higher volumes, as you can see, price and mix also had a significant impact, mix more than price, with health care moving from 30% to 37% of medmix revenue. The other bar here shows the impact of several items the positive impact of the additional 3 quarters in 2021 of Haselmeier and the negative impact from the partial reversal of the OpEx squeeze we pushed in 2020 during the first part of the pandemic where we lowered our discretionary costs, such as travel and entertainment, marketing events and found creative ways to work with our customers for consulting, et cetera. On Slide 21, you see the bridge from adjusted EBITDA to net income. There's not too much to comment on here, I'm happy to say, just briefly, nonoperational costs are predominantly one-off costs related to the spin-off from Sulzer and the set up as a stand-alone company as flagged during the CMD, and income tax was again at a relatively normal level of CHF 7 million, resulting in an effective tax rate of 14.3%. Moving on to Slide 22 and free cash flow. Our net working capital increased in 2021 due to higher volumes and the rebuild of inventory to gradually transition back to our make-to-stop model and secure the lead times and remain agile after the turbulence of 2021. Capital expenditure remains a little ahead of depreciation as is normal in a growth business like ours, but at 7% of revenue was a little lower than planned. We said we'd be closer to 9% revenue. The shortfall was mainly the result of some projects not moving as fast as planned, held back by various pandemic-related impacts, including machine lead times. We plan to spend a little more in 2022 around 9% of revenue, and our key focus will be on the ramp-up of our U.S. health care footprint. With free cash flow of CHF 56 million, we converted 126% of our net income to free cash flow. The last slide for me is Slide 23, but an important one. With our strong balance sheet post spin-off, we are able to support our growth ambition through organic scale-up and efficiency projects as well as targeted M&A opportunities. The proceeds from the capital increase were used to strengthen our equity base as well as to repay a part of our debt. Our loans with Sulzer will be paid and we refinanced with banks. At the end of 2021, our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio stood at 1x. With this, I hand back to Girts for the outlook.

Thank you, Jenny. Now let's move to Slide 25. For 2022, we target organic revenue growth of 8% to 10%. We expect more normalized volume development as compared to last year. We also expect to recover to pre-pandemic levels in all segments by the end of '22. The targeted growth also means that we are growing 1 to 2 percentage points above our markets, gaining share. We started very well in January and February results are very promising months to date. We expect our adjusted EBITDA margin to go up by 1 percentage point to 26% mainly driven by continuing shift in mix and obviously also by again higher volumes. Still, we will have to cope with continuing pressure on costs and supply chain and we are also investing in projects for our future growth. Our midterm ambition remains unchanged. We target a revenue CAGR of 8% and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 30%. So let's summarize on Slide 26. 2021 was an excellent year for medmix. I am very proud of what we have achieved. The spin-off was successful, and we have not seen any adverse commercial or operational impact because of it. We see good traction on our growth strategy with projects gaining momentum with customers and innovative product launched. We reached the targets that we have set for 2021, and we will do our best to do the same in '22. The strong free cash flow and balance sheet will support our organic growth and allow for targeted M&A. It also allows to propose a dividend of CHF 0.50 per share to the AGM. On these words, we're at the end of the presentation, and we'll now take your questions.