Polytec Holding AG (PYT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Dear ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us for today's investor and analyst conference call on POLYTEC's quarter 1 2024 results. First of all, let me excuse our CEO, Markus Huemer, who will not join today's conference call. Three weeks ago, we published our full year 2023 report, including a disappointing financial performance in previous year with a negative trend in EBIT from quarter-to-quarter. This negative trend has been stopped. As part of the release, we hinted out -- or we hinted in our outlook that the current year will be a better one. We have maintained our positive outlook. The additional information gained since the end of April has been limited; however, it is now certain that we have achieved a turnaround. EBIT moved into positive territory in the first quarter of 2024 after EBIT was strongly negative in both quarters Q3 and Q4 2023. Let me give you a short summary. As announced in the outlook for the full year 2024 as part of the recent publication of the 2023 annual figures, an improving in the earnings situation was expected for the first quarter of 2024. Negative trend of EBIT has been stopped. After minus EUR 3 million in quarter 3 and minus EUR 4 million in quarter 4, POLYTEC turned the EBIT back to positive level, amounting to EUR 1.4 million. The EBIT margin rose by 0.7 percentage points, from 0.1% to 0.8%, compared to quarter 1, 2023. POLYTEC GROUP's consolidated sales increased by 2.7% in the first quarter, amounting to EUR 172.3 million, compared to the same period in 2023, after sales revenue in the third quarter of 2023 and in the fourth quarter of '23 had remained significantly below the planned call-offs. The high level of personnel expenses continued to weigh on the group's earnings situation in the first quarter 2024. Now let's have a look on the improved performance of the first quarter 2024, and I would like to start with an overview of POLYTEC GROUP's sales split. Since the first quarter of 2024, sales revenues in the Smart Plastics & Industrial Applications market area have shown a pleasing development. After sales at a major customer had remained below expectations for several quarters, sales now rose significantly. In the Smart Plastic & Industrial Applications market area, the revenues increased by 46.3% to EUR 19.6 million. The share of this market area within POLYTEC GROUP's consolidated sales rose by 3.4 percentage points year-on-year, from 8% to 11.4%. We'll expect Smart Plastics Applications to remain on a high level at least until quarter 3. Passenger Cars & Light Commercial Vehicles market area, which is the POLYTEC GROUP's strongest revenue area, sales revenues of EUR 126.9 million were generated in the month of January to March 2024, up to 1.8% or EUR 2.2 million (sic) [ up 1.8% or EUR 2.2 million ] on the same period of the previous year. Sales revenues in the Commercial Vehicle market area decreased by 13.1% year-on-year, from EUR 29.7 million to EUR 25.8 million. We have already noted in our outlook that sales of heavy commercial vehicle are expected to decline in volumes in fiscal year 2024. Now let's have a look on the financial figures. In the first 3 months of 2024, EBITDA of the POLYTEC GROUP increased by 9.2%, from EUR 8.4 million to EUR 9.2 million, compared to the same period of the previous year. The EBITDA margin increased by 0.3 percentage points, to 5.3 percentage, compared to the same quarter of the prior year. The high level of personnel expenses continued to weigh on the group's earnings situation in the first quarter of 2024. As a result of the higher number of employees and the collectively agreed wage increase, which mainly occurred since quarter 2 and quarter 3 in 2023, the group's personnel expenses increased by 7.3% or EUR 4.1 million, to EUR 60.8 million, compared to the same quarter of the previous year. As of March 31, 2024, POLYTEC had a total of 3,968 employees. Compared with the previous year's reporting date, the number of employees increased by a total of 84 FTE or 2.2%. The material ratio decreased by 2.8 percentage points, to 51%, because of lower purchase prices, but, therefore, lower sales prices in combination. I already explained at the beginning of my statement that EBIT turned positive in the first quarter, so I move on to the financial result. The financial result in the first 3 months of 2024 amounted to minus EUR 2.6 million. The increase was due to higher level of interest rates for variable loans and as well higher cost for factoring. Consolidated earnings after tax in the first quarter of 2024 amounted to minus EUR 1.4 million. This corresponds to earnings per share of minus EUR 0.07. When we published our annual results, we pointed out that the Management Board and Supervisory Board of POLYTEC Holding AG will propose to the Annual General Meeting that no dividend to be paid for the 2023 financial year. But that has returned to quarter 1 2024. As of 31 March 2024, the group's balance sheet total increased by EUR 5.2 million to EUR 538.2 million, compared to the December figure. The equity ratio was 41% and remains at a solid level. Net debt amounted to EUR 93.7 million as of 31 March 2024, an increase of 17.8% compared to the balance sheet date of 21 December 2023 (sic) [ 31 December 2023 ]. The gearing ratio rose from 0.36 to 0.43 from the last balance sheet date. Those numbers have decreased (sic) [ increased ] due to less factoring utilization [ to explain those ] costs and higher working capital. We assured that the year 2024 will definitely be a good year, we told you before. Measures introduced in the previous year to increase operational efficiency, especially for 2 plants, are already showing improvements. However, their full implementation may still take time. There are no additional news concerning these issues compared to our conference call 3 weeks ago. From today's perspective, management of POLYTEC Holding AG furthermore expects planned consolidated sales revenues in the range of EUR 660 million to EUR 710 million for the 2024 financial year, and is targeting an EBIT margin of around 2% to 3%. The rising sales trend will be strengthened by the ramp-up of new projects, which are a consequence of the high order intake of previous year. Please find the complete text of the outlook in the report. This was our statement of the quarter 1 2024 results.