Noumi Limited (NOU) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Freedom Foods Full Year FY '21 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Michael Perich, Chief Executive Officer for Freedom Foods Group. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome everyone to the presentation of the FY '21 results for Freedom Foods Group. I'm the CEO, Michael Perich, who has the pleasure to be with you here today. I'm joined by our CFO, Josee Lemoine, who will take you through the financial results. If you have the presentation in front of you, we will talk to each slide and refer to the page numbers as we progress. Slide 3 is the agenda for today's call. We will focus on the FY '21 highlights and present the key parts to the transformation and evolution of the group. We'll then move into a more detailed discussion on our financial performance, and I'll present the future strategy of the group after touching on the challenges and opportunities presented by COVID and then closing remarks. We will be available for questions at the end of the presentation. Moving to Slide 4, highlights for FY '21. In the last 12 months, there has been an enormous effort by the Board and the executive team to reset the business under our Reset, Transform and Grow strategy. This has been multifaceted across the entire business, and the results are starting to show with significant changes in the performance of the group. Adjusted operating EBITDA for FY '21 was $22.4 million. That is a $76 million or 141% turnaround in FY '20. This was achieved on the back of revenue growth of 8% as we continue to focus on profitable products. We've seen growth in volume of both shelf-stable Dairy and shelf-stable Plant-Based Beverages, with both delivering more than 5% growth from prior year. Lactoferrin sales are up 170% in volume as we completed a full year with over 28 tonnes of lactoferrin sold in FY '21, aligning with our presentation earlier in the year. Moving through to Slide 5. FY '21 was truly a defining year for Freedom Foods Group as we pursued our Reset, Transform and Grow transformational program. I'm pleased to report that Phase 1 of the program, the reset, is substantially complete. In May, as you are all aware, the recapitalization of the group is complete with the raising of $265 million with the support of our majority shareholder, our lenders and existing and new investors. This has given the group the ability to repay senior debt, providing a solid financial base to enable our transformation program to proceed. At the end of March, the sale of Cereals & Snacks business was completed with the strategic plan developed for the core businesses, Dairy and Nutritionals and Plant-Based Beverages. As discussed previously, we are reviewing the Specialty Seafood business for divestment and option. We have recently launched 2 significant products, MILKLAB Oat in the out-of-home channel and Australia's Own Oat Barista into Coles. Both of these products are credit to our team and have attracted a great interest in their respective channels. The Plant-Based Beverage market in Australia continues to grow as consumers turn to healthier lifestyle choices with oat beverage category growing at one of the fastest rates. As outlined in our ASX release last week, we have completed the full executive team rebuild with the recent appointment of Denis Phelps as Chief Customer Officer and Gerard Smith as Chief Marketing Officer. The transformation program, as I have mentioned, is very much underway and, as a result, demonstrate some early returns from the program. We're continuing to focus on the future on how we can grow the group and return to long-term sustainable and profitable growth, utilizing our world-class assets and brands. The Reset and Transform, Grow initiative on Slide 7 talks to the work the Board and the executives have focused on throughout FY '21. To summarize the program, the financial, structural, operational and cultural reset of the company was substantially completed in FY '21, providing the company with the platform and talent to transform the business. Actions to transform the company are now well underway with operational improvements across the business already driving improved sales and earnings performance. Those improvements provide the springboard to grow the business through our 3 streams: products, channels and geographies. Moving to Slide 8, what has been achieved so far as part of the reset. Firstly, there's been a major improvement in financial performance as we are focused on every aspect of the business, ensuring that we're operating efficiently, reducing wastage and pursuing profitable growth. Most importantly, at an adjusted operating EBITDA level, we have delivered a $76 million turnaround from a loss to a profit. This is an outstanding result and is a testament to the asset of the team. We have built and we are executing a detailed business team as part of our transformation program with a number of specific initiatives underway. We are working closely with Pollen Consulting, an expert in end-to-end company transformations, to assist, bringing further expertise into the group. As mentioned with our recent appointments of the CCO and the CMO, we've completed our executive rebuild, which commenced with my appointment 12 months ago and includes Josee and a number of critical new finance roles. We've also refreshed our Board, which now comprises a majority independent directors led by Genevieve Gregor. The cultural reset of the group has been fundamental as we build the business. We have undertaken a company-wide survey, [ Our Voice ], to establish a baseline for our cultural change program. Even at the early stages, we are seeing improvements in engagement and retention. We employ over 550 people in Freedom Foods, and they are all key to our success. Through the cultural change, we are creating more accountability at all levels, and the team are enjoying the new opportunities that exist. On Slide 9, notwithstanding the early signs of the progress we've seen in FY '21, it is worth reinforcing that the benefits of the transformation program are not immediate and will be delivered over the coming years. The program has 3 streams focused on company-wide transformation as we focus on our 2 main growth pillars: Dairy and Nutritionals and Plant-Based Beverages. At a corporate level, we are very focused on ensuring our key brands have the right marketing support. Freedom Foods Group has a culture of innovation and new product development across our beverage and Nutritionals portfolio. New product development is critical to our future success. We are well advanced on an ESG framework that talks through our ambitions into the future around sustainability and change. We're also investing in our e-commerce channels where we are seeing strong growth in segments such as consumer nutritionals. This is a natural hedge against COVID-related movement restrictions. In Dairy and Nutritionals, we've continued to drive focus at the operating sites around overall operating effectiveness, a key driver in asset utilization. The last 12 months has been fundamental to our business. We directly contracted over 230 million liters in plant-based beverages. Our objective is to capitalize on the significant market share and customer brand awareness of MILKLAB to launch new products, meeting consumers' evolving pallet. To that end, we are undertaking disciplined capital investment to increase production capacity to meet growing demand. And within our facilities, we are working with our engineers to ensure equipment is efficient with extended run times, minimizing any downtime between products. I'll now hand over to Josee to present the financial results and the segment performance.

Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everybody. The financial performance of our business during the year will highlight 3 key points. First, we've actively executed the key elements of our transformation strategy during the year. Second, benefits from the turnaround are being realized. And third, we have built a stronger balance sheet. You will find further details on impacts of accounting changes, reclassifications and shared services overhead allocations in the appendices. Firstly, let me take you through the overall performance of the continuing operations. Please turn to Slide 11. The table shows a summary of the income statement and other key metrics. Before I walk you through the detailed financials, let me bring to your attention the following. With the reset of the business, which included the disposal of the Cereals & Snacks division, the financial performance is reported on a continuing operations basis, which means excluding Cereals & Snacks, except for certain retained products, which are now grouped with the Dairy and Nutritionals segments, the reporting requirements for the balance sheet and cash flows are different as required by the accounting standards. We're also focusing on the adjusted operating EBITDA, meaning that we have adjusted for nontrading and nonrecurring items and shown as pre-AASB 16. I will expand on the nonrecurring items shortly. And for FY '20, it was restated with the recent adoption of the IFRIC accounting interpretation for Software-as-a-Service. Okay. As highlighted by Michael, the transformation is well underway, and the company delivered an EBITDA improvement of $76 million or 141% at an operating level from continuing operations in the past 12 months and continued strong revenue growth across its key businesses in Australia and in export markets. While the company reported statutory net loss after tax of $38.8 million, the result was affected by several legacy one-off items and the overall margin and earnings trends are positive. Three highlights include: following a difficult 2020, the business delivered an adjusted operating EBITDA of $22.4 million compared to a restated loss of $54 million in FY '20 with a 4% EBITDA margin, an improvement of 14.4 basis points on the prior corresponding period; cash at bank of $31.7 million, plus $47.9 million of undrawn facilities provide sufficient liquidity for day-to-day business operations. I'll expand on the balance sheet and the restructured capital base in a moment; and a pro forma net equity of $252.5 million as a result of the recent recapitalization, which includes the impact of the convertible notes if classed as equity. Let me take you through the impact of the significant items. Would you please turn to Slide 12? The FY '21 financial results include a number of nonrecurring expenditure items related primarily to costs related to accounts restatement and recapitalization, insurance claim related to product recall and an impairment of plant and equipment identified through the transformation program as lower priority. Of the current nonrecurring items, we only expect some future costs in relation to litigation. Please turn to Slide 13 to get a sense of the revenue composition. The pie charts highlight the revenue composition relating to continuing operations, excluding Cereals & Snacks. As you know, growth for an FMCG food business typically comes from 3 streams: products, channels and geographies. These charts highlight strong overall revenue diversification for our continuing operations. A couple of notable points. On the segment side, we've actively grown the relative revenue from plant-based, which I will expand on shortly. In a regional context, we are continuing to drive our growth in export markets, particularly in Southeast Asia. And in brand revenue, 60% is derived from our own products versus private label and contracts. This focus will help deliver positive margin. Please note that brands and private label typically cover both dairy and plant-based products. Let's turn to Slide 14 to look more closely at our Plant-Based segment. We are seeing strong momentum in our Plant-Based performance. We've increased revenue by 15.6% to $152.9 million, with this business overcoming COVID impact on the out-of-home market to deliver growth across all channels and brands. We've driven strong growth in MILKLAB domestic sales by 50% and export sales by 46%, and we are now selling this brand in over 20 countries. We have driven adjusted operating EBITDA up by 194% to $25.6 million and continue to further improve profitability as we improve operating leverage. Our market share and customer loyalty performance are continually building as consumers switch to plant-based products. And we have successfully launched our oats product in retailers and out-of-home channels across MILKLAB and Australia's Own brands. So overall, a strong performance in the Plant-Based segment. Now to Slide 8 for Dairy and Nutritionals -- sorry, Slide 15, apologies. As Michael mentioned, the transformation is well underway, as evidenced by both an increase in revenue for the 12 months by 6.8% to $394.3 million and significantly improved profitability with an adjusted operating loss of $4.1 million compared to a loss of $56.7 million in the prior year. Our modern Shepparton plant is now operating on a much improved basis and with increased sales of our consumer nutritionals by 5% during the year despite the slowdown in sales caused by temporary closures of gyms and specialty stores during COVID. While there is more work to do on the transformation, significant improvements have already been delivered in key areas, operating efficiencies, cost reductions, building profitable product portfolios by rationalizing unprofitable product lines, understanding our true cost per unit and reducing wastage and surpluses. We've also targeted better marketing spend, and you can clearly see the positive impact of our efforts so far. Let's move to Slide 16 for an update on our last segment. Performance of our Specialty Seafood business was impacted during the year as COVID disrupted our supply chain and caused stock shortages. Our revenue fell 21.7% to $11.8 million. We continue to review options for this business and recently launched a dual track process as part of that review. Please turn to Slide 17. You'll note the significantly improved capital position. As underpinned by Michael's comments earlier, FY '21 has been a defining year for Freedom Foods. The company has undergone a major reset, which has been multifaceted across the entire business. We changed the business model, namely through the divestment of Cereals & Snacks and the simplification of the remaining business to focus on our core strength in Plant-Based Beverages and Dairy and Nutritionals. We undertook a detailed review of our financial accounting, which led to a restatement of the company's financial statements and importantly, streamline and improve financial system and processes to improve governance. We reset the entire senior leadership team and Board. We amended and improved governance policies and procedures. We are setting operations to align with our new focus and to improve productivity. We're also reviewing and focusing our products, and we have renewed our focus and engagement with suppliers and customers. These changes enabled the company to recapitalize itself with an oversubscribed $265 million convertible note issue in May 2021 and amended senior debt facilities, providing financial stability and time to enable the company to execute its operational turnaround, transform the business and pursue focused growth opportunities. With the successful completion of the recapitalization, the company has solid financial foundations, enabling it to execute its transformation and pursue growth opportunities. The company now has sufficient liquidity by its working capital facilities and cash at the bank from the capital raising to run the business on a day-to-day basis. As of 30th of June 2021, the company had $340.9 million of borrowings and $41 million draw in off-balance sheet facilities. The pro forma net assets at $252.5 million when including the convertible notes of $251 million. Net assets had been unfavorably impacted by the convertible note, which, under Australian accounting standards, are treated as a hybrid instrument due to their conversion feature. This means that they are classified as a long-term liability and accounted for at fair value in the balance sheet, with any change in fair value reflected in the profit and loss. You will note that in FY '21, the drop in the company's share price between the convertible note issue date and the balance date has resulted in a drop in the carrying value of the note of $14 million. If the convertible note was carried as equity on the basis of the share prices at the issue date, net assets would be greater. The company does not carry any intangible asset values for the company-created brands such as MILKLAB. Only brands purchased may be carried as an asset in intangibles. And finally, if you may turn to Slide 18. Our improved operating performance has resulted in FY '21 cash flow from operations being $50.4 million higher than the prior corresponding 12 months. While cash flow from operating activities for the year was negative, removing legacy creditors paid during the year relating to FY '20 and restructuring an interest expense associated with the senior debt would have resulted in a positive cash flow. Our efforts to working capital management have reduced the days outstanding by 5 days to 55 days, decreased trade and other payables by 39% and reduced inventories by 24%. Cash flow from investing is lower by 19.6%, following a significant reduction in capital expenditures throughout the year. Cash and cash equivalents, as mentioned before, have increased by $14.5 million to $31.7 million following recapitalization. I will now hand back to Michael who will provide an update on our strategic priorities. Thank you.

Thank you, Josee. Referring to Slide 20. As mentioned earlier, we've completed the executive leadership team renewal, and this brings in a team of enthusiastic and motivated executives with significant experience in FMCG. I'm personally extremely excited with the team and can see the leadership developing across the business. With [ Our Voice ] survey being led by our Chief People and Culture Officer, Fiona McGregor, we're communicating our new values within our business: respect, excellent, integrity, creativity, collaboration and accountability, all being key to driving performance within our business. Slide 21 showcases our key brands and how we will prioritize and categorize them. The focus brands we consider are true growth engines; those brands that we are nurturing to deliver long-term growth; and trade brands where we are focused on maximizing profitability. Obviously, we are focusing on our marketing efforts and our new product development as demonstrated by the recent successful launch of MILKLAB Oats. In all cases, our focus is on brands that can deliver sustainable and profitable long-term growth. On Slide 22, as important as our financial reset is the development of our ESG framework, given our mission to create on-trend, responsively produced dairy and plant-based beverages, nutritional products and ingredients. We are continuing to develop the ESG framework with key alignment to a number of UN goals. Our commitment is to protecting the planet and nurturing life with ambitions around water use and sustainable farming practices, together with reduction in nonrecyclable material and gear our landfill into the future. While we have already implemented substantive ESG initiatives, we will release further details on our ESG strategy at the AGM later in the year. At our AGM, we will also ask shareholders to vote on a new corporate name for Freedom Foods, which is required after the sale of Cereals & Snacks business and associated Freedom Foods brands. The new name represents a clean break with the past and the emergence of a reset and refreshed organization with significant opportunities ahead of its leading Australian beverages and nutritionals company. Turning to Slide 23, a few comments on the impacts of COVID-19 on our business. COVID-19 has definitely brought challenges to our business and our community over the last year. The safety of our staff, customers, suppliers and stakeholders has been and remains our #1 priority. As Freedom Foods is classified as an essential service, our 3 operating sites have been able to operate with only essential workers. All staff were not -- all staff that were not required on site during the government restrictions have worked from home. We also have not had a positive case within our workforce during the pandemic within our current facilities. We are continuing to monitor the situation and are working with the authorities, ensuring the safety of our staff and suppliers, especially our farmers who need to feed and milk the cows every day. The cases in regional towns such as Shepparton have placed approximately 1/3 of the population into isolation as secondary close contacts. We've invested heavily into technology to ensure our staff can operate safe and securely away from the workplace. While it's too early to tell exactly what impact the extended lockdown will have on our business, our experiences last year provide us with some insight. Prolonged lockdowns also have the potential to affect overall revenue and earnings by changing the revenue mix. During the lockdowns in 2020, sales reductions in out-of-home export channels were partly offset by increased in others, such as pension stocking via the grocery channel. Supply chain logistics were impacted with longer lead times and increasing freight costs. Vaccinations are key to being able to return to some form of normality. We are working closely with the government authorities to assist in the vaccination of our staff. Due to the nature of our business, we've been able to receive priority bookings, and we are working with each staff member to allocate time to allow them to be vaccinated. We'll be closely monitoring the COVID impacts with the changes in consumer behavior and other potential impacts to the business. As I close out the presentation, I want to take a moment to thank all of our staff, the Board, our suppliers, customers and our stakeholders, existing and new, for their support over the past year. We wouldn't be here without your support. Looking ahead for FY '22 and beyond, the reset is substantially complete. We are now focused on the transform and growth stages of our strategy. Internally, we continue to drive the transformation program and focus on our operational turnaround initiatives, which are critical to improving processes at site, particularly Shepparton. Externally, while there may be temporary headwinds from COVID-19, there is no doubt that the long term we are riding strong tailwinds. We see significant export opportunities as the demand for Australian-produced foods continues to grow. We are well placed to participate in this market with a focus on operational effectiveness and asset utilization key to delivering in this market. We see continued growth in demand for Plant-Based Beverages. We will leverage our market-leading brands, innovation and expertise in producing new products that respond to consumers' expectations. MILKLAB and Australia's Own will be key to this growth and the new oats beverage will be a key initiative and an example of where we can find and deliver value. This focus will be supported by disciplined investment in new products and marketing support for them. And all of our efforts are underpinned by the ongoing cultural transformation of the business and enhanced governance that prioritizes integrity and accountability. I'd like to thank you all for listening today and wanted to reiterate that significant transformation of the group is well underway. The results we are delivering today is a testament to that. But be assured, we are not finished, and we are very focused on the opportunity to deliver long-term, sustainable and profitable growth. This concludes the formal part of the presentation. We'll now take questions.

[Operator Instructions] I've seen that there are no questions on the line. I would now like to hand the call back to your presenters for closing remarks.

Thank you, Vincent. Thank you all for listening today. And I appreciate all the efforts that all our stakeholders have put forward within this time. But the transformation, as I mentioned, is significantly underway. So thank you for your time, and stay safe. Thank you.

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference call. We thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.