Novem Group S.A. (NVM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Full Year 2023/'24 Preliminary Results of Novem Group, which will be presented by the CEO, Markus Wittmann; and CFO, Dr. Johannes Burtscher. [Operator Instructions] At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Markus Wittmann, please go ahead, sir.

Yes. Thank you very much, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Novem's preliminary results presentation. Novem generated a full year revenue of EUR 635.5 million. Compared to last year, we're falling short by minus 9.3 percentage. Reasons for such were the weak call-offs especially in the last quarter of the fiscal year, mainly driven by Europe due to underperformance of certain platforms and the structural weakness of electric vehicles. Asia was influenced by several model changes and weak launch of new platforms. America Series revenue moved sideways. The lower turnover left its marks on the adjusted EBIT of EUR 69.1 million, what is 15.5 percentage below prior year. Percentage-wise, we see a solid profit margin of 10.9 points. In order to adjust the cost structure to the reduced revenue, Novem laid off more than 60 employees in the operations in Vorbach. This was the second key restructuring initiative besides Bergamo to adjust the European footprint. Going ahead with order intake. As in Q3 reporting implied, we can announce today a record order intake of more than EUR 150 million, which will strengthen our midterm guidance of a growth about 5 to 6 percentage. Among others, we awarded Tesla Model Y in Europe and U.S. in all surface variants. In addition to that, we won a Tesla's aluminum tailgate premium exterior part. This is a strategically major milestone for Novem. With that element, Novem will present its first exterior part on the automotive market. Nonetheless, the short-term market conditions remain challenging. And at the moment, we see for the next coming months a sideways move at the current low level revenue. Going ahead with financial highlights, starting with Q4, which ended in -- with a revenue of EUR 149.7 million, what is minus 14 percentage below Q4 -- quarter 4 -- Q4 previous year, sorry, for that. So ending in adjusted EBIT at EUR 14.4 million and a margin of 9.6% compared to last year 12.2 percentage. Nevertheless, we achieved an excellent cash flow from EUR 24.2 million and ending up in a net leverage from 1.6x, what is a slightly improvement compared to quarter 3. Going ahead with fiscal year highlights, complete year. So as already mentioned, revenue was at EUR 635.5 million and minus 9.3 percentage below last year's revenue. According to this revenue, we achieved an adjusted EBIT of EUR 69.1 million and 0.8 points below last year's margin at 10.9%. Free cash flow ended up at EUR 53.8 million and net leverage 1.6x. Saying this, I'd like to hand over to Johannes to present in detail the group results, Johannes?

Thank you, Markus, and also from my side a very warm welcome to everyone. As you've already heard, the top line of EUR 149.7 million was badly hit by the weak market demand in Q4 and this is similar to the preceding reporting period in Q3. As in previous quarters, we saw a negative foreign exchange impact this time of around EUR 1 million positive, both relating to the U.S. dollar and the Chinese renminbi with an impact of around EUR 0.5 million each. Tooling revenue came in favorably in comparison to last year at EUR 20.3 million with some significant tooling closures in Europe and in Americas. When we look at the Series revenue only, we see the whole magnitude of the weakness in the market down by almost 1/3 or 20.4% -- EUR 33 million, sorry, and around 20.4%. So this is a sideways development to the previous quarter. And with a view on the chart at the bottom left, we see that structurally, our top line is for the last 2 quarters, structurally lower at EUR 140 million, EUR 150 million compared to the preceding quarters, Q1 and Q2 of the financial year. The numbers reported by LMC also underlying the lackluster demand in the automotive industry and also the relatively better performance of the lower end of the market in the non-premium sector. On a full year basis, as already heard, we achieved EUR 635.5 million. At this point of time, we do not see any indication that this trend that we saw over the last 2 quarters will change in the short term. Therefore, top line will remain heavily under pressure in the financial year 2024, '25. Bottom line was driven by lower revenue. This goes without saying and clearly, again, we saw the biggest pressure point in Europe with the lower turnover. And therefore, also with a weak cost coverage, especially in our plants in Europe and mainly in our volume plants in Slovenia and the Czech Republic. In response to this, we started a further restructuring as Markus already explained after Bergamo, which was successfully closed with little frictions. We also adjusted the labor force in Vorbach by around 60 employees. We see from our financial point of view the restructuring-related costs in the adjustments, EUR 5.3 million relating to Bergamo and EUR 3.5 million for Vorbach. As we worked pretty fast in executing this second restructuring measure, we should see the full savings impact, starting with the new financial year '24, '25. But a part of this, we also launched a further cost savings program across the entire organization, again, in response of the weak market demand. In addition to this, we also experienced the further implications from the model changes, both in Europe and in Asia to the most important impact. And this also had a negative impact for our bottom line. Nonetheless, with a view on the various cost items, we've made good progress with regards to material expenses and the related freight input costs as well as energy fully in line with the reduced volume and also the other operating expenses, only the personnel expenses have developed unfavorably as a ratio to the operating performance, and this is reflected in a relatively higher personnel cost ratio. If you look at this in more detail, you'll find a 28.8% ratio compared to last year of 24.2%. So more than 4.5% higher, and this is and remains the key critical area for us. In this last quarter, we also saw a onetime impact in the personnel expenses and that is relating to a wage inflation compensation agreed here in Germany, and that came through with a charge of EUR 1.1 million in the last quarter of our financial year. As said, on a full year basis, we generated EUR 69.1 million adjusted EBIT with a profit margin of 10.9%. Free cash flow showed a strong performance in the last quarter at EUR 24.2 million, still lower than last year. There were basically 2 factors that affected the still positive free cash flow performance. First, we had high tax payments in the last quarter, basically relating to previous periods and a part of it also relating to a deferral of tax payments in conjunction with COVID-19, but also income tax prepayments all in Germany. And that is one of the areas in the cash flow, where one can see a quite significant cash outflow relating to income taxes. The second point is to the aforementioned restructuring expenses that led to a reduction of the provisions that were provided for these restructuring expenses and we had a significant outflow of those costs in our Q4. Other than that, still a positive, strong cash flow in the last quarter, being the strongest across the entire year. Capital expenditure came in at EUR 3.5 million, 40% almost down compared to last year. As mentioned and reported in previous results presentations, we tightly control capital expenditure only relating to growth CapEx, which means to new launches in the various operations of our organization. In overall, we had EUR 16.1 million CapEx for the full financial year, which translates into a 2.5% CapEx ratio, which is considerably lower than our target ratio. What we can already say also in conjunction with the new business won primarily relating to Tesla that there will be some more CapEx to come in the new financial year. Nonetheless, we diligently review all investments and adjust CapEx spend to the lower volume. Even with this further CapEx concerning Tesla, we expect to remain within the 3% range of revenue concerning the next financial year. Working capital slightly decreased -- deteriorated compared to last year. It increased -- sorry, and this is mainly relating to tooling net. So there is more costs capitalized on our balance sheet. And as you know, this is generally a very positive signal. It directs into the future with new business to come, i.e., with new platforms and programs to be prepared. And here, once again, Tesla has already an impact where we already started preparing the programs that will be launched next year starting at the beginning of the calendar year 2025. And this led to a relatively higher tooling net. We can see it here in comparison to last year that walked from EUR 55.5 million to EUR 67.3 million. Other than that, the trading -- trade working capital moved positively. Yes, payables came down as a function of the lower volume. The same is true for receivables and the stock levels we could quite successfully reduce and adjust to the lower trading volume. If one looks at the days outstanding, we see a slight deterioration across all the KPIs, but only at a marginal level. What we can also say at this stage, in these quite challenging trading conditions that we do not face significant overdue payments, late payments by our customers. This is also one of the areas that we pay an utmost attention on. Capital structure as Markus already outlined, the net leverage ratio stands at 1.6x LTM EBITDA at the end of the financial year compared to 1.1x last year. This is a significantly higher leverage ratio, but nonetheless, we still remain within our target range of 1.5x to 2x EBITDA, and we keep continuing having a close eye on this key ratio given the unfavorable trading conditions we operate in. But having said this, the financial -- that the gross financial debt increased, partly driven by the increased lease liabilities. We reported about this in the past as this is relating to the extension of lease contracts of our plant in Carretera in Mexico. This is one of the sites and the other element is the slightly lower cash balance that reduced from last year to this year from EUR 165 million to EUR 123 million, leading at the end of the day to this net leverage ratio of 1.6x LTM EBITDA. So that's -- as a summary on the group results. As always, in the next chapter, we dig a little bit deeper into our reporting segments. And first, if we've a look at the revenue development, what this is basically a continuation of the pattern that we saw in the past, structurally weak business in Europe, relatively stable development at a high level in Americas, which is very positive and a low trading volume in Asia due to the changeover of programs. In Europe, we've to say that the structurally lower trading volume goes basically across all programs with a few exceptions only. Vorbach is just one example where we responded to the lower call-offs of Mercedes-Benz S-Class and Porsche 911. So platforms that traditionally have a high stability and a high reliability, but nonetheless, this is just an example. I'd like to allude on that this goes across. In addition to this, it is relating to especially Mercedes platforms, E-Class, TLC and then also the electric vehicle, this EVA, Electric Vehicle Architecture that is mainly affected by the structurally weak call-offs in Europe. Americas once again performed very well. We had tooling business that also outperformed last year, some big closures relating basically to GM platforms. Here again, SUVs, Denali, Escalade. With regards to the Series turnover, we moved more or less sideways but again, on a stable basis, and this proves also once again the high stability of our Americas business. If we actually had not faced the Audi strike action in Puebla in Mexico, we'd have seen a further outperformance of Americas in this last quarter. In Asia, here as well, we saw a continuation of what we said in the past. We're still in this transition period of lower business from Western platforms and ramping up local Chinese platforms also mentioned here on the deck with FAW, Hongqi, Lotus, Avatr still not at our level of expectation and not yet able to compensate for the platforms that trade at a lower level. Here, in particular, Mercedes E-Class, where we still have this changeover from old to the successor platform, and that trend will also for Asia continue in the next quarters to come. Now with a view on the bottom line, adjusted EBIT, this goes basically accordingly with the revenue and once again in line with this revenue development, which is very positive in the Americas, the profit is basically generated by this region. If we've not had the strike at Audi in Mexico as mentioned. And in addition, if the peso had not been that strong, the bottom line for the Americas region would have been even higher. So this is the very positive news and the backbone of our group's results also leading here to an outperformance in the profit margin of almost 20% adjusted EBIT. Having said this, on the other hand, the other 2 continents, Europe and Asia continued to underperform for the known reasons, mainly relating to the low and volatile call-offs and could hardly contribute to the group results in this quarter, which, again, is in line with previous quarters, we reported already on. And that summarizes also our outline on our segmental presentation, and we'd now hand over to you and take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from Christian Glowa from HAIB.

A couple of questions from my side, clarification questions. So I suggest we do them one-on-one. My first one would be on the new Tesla order win. Can you basically confirm that this new order for Tesla is exclusively on exterior trim parts? Or does it also include interior trim parts? That would be my first question.

Yes, I'll answer that. So you're talking about interior and exterior. So we want both. And as I said, for interior in all variants of surface means in aluminum and carbon and the exterior part is an aluminum part.

Okay. Fantastic. And for the exterior part, you said basically that this is a major order for you because it's an entry market opportunity to go into exterior. Can you share your view on what's the market size potential for you? In other words, are your main other 2 customers potentially also interested in these kind of product applications?

At the moment, we cannot give any expectations about the market, but we see high potential that Tesla will have fast followers for that exterior part because it is -- more or less from the surface it's the same as an interior and the premium interior is going now into exterior. And therefore, we see, as I said, many fast followers who could be interested in that.

Okay. That also means that there might be some cross-selling opportunities to other customers, too. And also, I'd be interesting for exterior trim parts. Is that changing the business model in the sense that potentially these parts need to have a replacement at some time because of accidents or whatever? Is that opening up a new revenue stream with regard to a high-margin after-service business? Is that completely different to what you currently do with OEMs in that regard?

No, no, no. So that's a -- good thing on that, that is more or less the same technology we're using already for interior. So we've really good synergies for interior and exterior here.