R. STAHL AG (RSL2) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, a welcome also from my side. I would like to give you a very brief introduction on myself. My name is Judith Schäuble, and I have been with R. STAHL for several years. Some of you might remember that I used to be in Investor Relations up until 2012. After some years of experience in HR, I have been back in Investor Relations since 2 years. At first, I supported Thomas Kornek, and since he has left the company at the end of last year, I will be your contact with regards to all Investor Relations matters. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. And now I pass on to Dr. Mathias Hallmann, our Group's CEO, who will walk you through a presentation in a minute. The slide deck is also available under the Investor Relations section of our website, www.r-stahl.com. Before we begin, allow me to draw your attention to our safe harbor statement, which you will find at the beginning of the slide deck. And now, I hand the call right over to Dr. Hallmann.

Thank you, Ms. Schäuble. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our 2021 Analyst and Investors Conference Call. Let me start with a quick summary of 2021. Our sales were still on the level of 2020. Also, we had good orders or increasing orders in 2021. We were still suffering from the weak order intake in the second half of 2020, and then when we thought it could recover, we were also hit by some supply issues, mainly by performance plastics and electronics so that our sales at the end of the year came out with an increase of 0.7% at a level of EUR 248.1 million. Our EBITDA fell moderately to a level of EUR 17.9 million, demonstrating a good ongoing cost and margin control, which then resulted in a EBITDA pre margin of 7.2%. Net profit came in at a loss of EUR 4.9 million, down EUR 1.4 million against 2020. Our financial position remained strong with net debt of EUR 18.3 million, and our outlook, and I will explain that more in detail later, is positive for 2022. If we look into the detailed financials, we see ongoing strong development in our main market in Germany. A good development in the Central region. We were suffering there a little bit from the Nordic part from Norway and the U.K., but I will explain that in detail. Americas was still weak, and Asia/Pacific started to recover. The interesting part is the next slide. On this slide, we indicated for you where we were actually growing in the period 2021 in comparison to 2019, and where we were losing. And what you see is that, in Germany, in Italy, in Africa, in the Middle East, in India, but also in China, we could grow our business against difficult markets. We were more or less stable in other core markets in Europe like Spain, France, the Benelux, but also in the rest of Asia, in Singapore, Korea and Australia. And we were losing sales significantly in North America, in the U.K., in Norway and in Russia. And all these sales losses were basically driven by kind of a collapse of the oil market. Not the gas market, but the oil market. In all other regions of the world, we could successfully implement our strategy, sometimes against shrinking markets, which gives us good confidence for the future that, with the execution of our strategy, we are well on track. Some details on our income statement. Sales, we already explained. You see pretty much stable cost of materials, so that was good work from our purchasing departments that we really started to fix some long-term contracts, foreseeing the strong increase in raw material prices but also good pricing control of our sales where we could implement price increases. We still keep our personnel costs under control, and we lowered again our other operating expenses so that, overall, we could stabilize results in this difficult phase. Cash flow came in -- free cash flow came in pretty negative. That was due to a net profit of minus EUR 4.9 million that I already explained but also due to significantly higher investing activities. We performed heavy investments in R&D. We will -- we executed on our IT strategy, and we also executed on our automation and modernization strategy in all parts of our production facilities. And that drove higher expenses for our investments, and we see that in our free cash flow. Let me quickly jump over to our strategy. Those who follow us for more -- for a couple of years, they know pretty well. The upper-left corner of this slide, that's where we started with our Strategy 2020 where we focused on central organization, complexity reduction, lean fundamentals, and standardized sales processes, and IT consolidation. We developed that further. That program, it's an ongoing program, and it helped us very much during this strong -- during this crisis. More and more data-driven organization. We don't think about complexity reduction that much anymore, but we think about and manage actively our portfolio. We drive lean processes and lean culture and lean thinking into all parts of the organization, and we start developing sales and IT into competitive advantages. On top of that, we strongly focus on innovating and portfolio renewal. We focus on long-term market development, and we clearly follow -- or I think in many cases, we were already ahead of strong mega trends we are seeing right now in our world like the energy transition, like automatic, say, automation, and a stronger focus of many, many countries on corporate social responsibility. So the overall strategy, while we continue to drive efficiency, more and more focuses on technology and return to growth. Yes, I think we were communicating that we see natural gas and especially LNG as bridging technology to a hydrogen economy. And that bridging technology, that will definitely be very important for us in the next 20 years, maybe 30 years. Natural gas is the most eco-friendly fossil fuel with the lowest carbon content of all fossil fuels. Due to political developments in the last weeks, everybody knows these LNG ships, and we at R. STAHL are very well-positioned in this market. We are in the natural gas production. We are strong in liquefaction terminals. We are very strong. We are actually the global market leader in shipping, in automation solutions for LNG ships, and we more and more now move with our activities towards end users. And just a side comment before I switch to the other slide, we think that the value chain we are managing with in the LNG business will be very, very similar to the value chain. We will be seeing to develop for a hydrogen economy because hydrogen will also be produced somewhere in the world, will be shipped to other places where it will be consumed. And what we learned from LNG in the next couple of years will be helping us to also build a very strong position in the hydrogen market. Hydrogen will then be carbon-free. It will be used in all kind of applications. And what you see here on the right hand of this chart is where we, as R. STAHL, see potentials. We today have some potential in power generation. It's not the biggest part of our business, but there is some potential. But there will be huge potential for us in hydrogen storage and distribution, and it will also be very good potential for us when it comes to the application when we really think about application where hydrogen is then being used from end users. So we are already heavily investing in the hydrogen market. We are engaged in all kind of committees. And 90% of all R. STAHL products, even today, are approved for hydrogen applications, and I think there's no other player in this industry who can say that. On top of that, we focus on the automation and digitalization of our complete business. We are investing in digital infrastructure and processes. We discussed that we are investing in more digitalized and automated production. We are digitalizing all of our products. 10, 15 years ago, for example, all of our luminaires were standard luminaires. Today, or in probably 2 years, everything we produce in our factory in Germany will be LED lighting, and all of these LED lights will be equipped with DALI interfaces and can work as part of automation network. So besides our automation products, all of our lighting products and many, many of our low-voltage Switchgear products will be digitalized, will be able to work in fully automated digitalized networks in the coming years. And we move more and more into first applications where we start discussing digital service models with our customers. All that needs strong investment in R&D. What you see here is that we actually increased our R&D levels in -- during this crisis, and we will need to increase this a bit further in the coming years in order to deal with the mega trends we just described. But that will definitely help us to strongly differentiate from our competitors and build a very strong position of R. STAHL in this changing world. Coming to our outlook. What you see here is the development of orders in the last 2 years. And yes, on the -- we see very, very low orders after a good start into 2020 when we were all positive that we would start earning the benefits from our restructuring. Then the crisis hit us. We had very low orders in Q2, 3 and 4, and that those orders were -- the sales we couldn't generate in the first half of 2021. Orders recovered in 2021, and what we see right now is a very strong recovery starting in Q4 and in Q1 2022. In Q1 2022, we are 15% higher against average of '21. And in '21, we were already significantly higher against the second half of '20. And what you also see here is an order backlog of EUR 86 million, which is the highest order backlog I personally saw since I joined this company in 2017. Particularly strong orders we have from modern LED lighting. There will be a very strong trend to modern LED lighting in the chemical industry, in the pharmaceutical industry over the next years. And from automation, the challenge we do have right now is turning these orders into sales, which is very much dependent on ongoing shortages in raw material supplies, especially performance plastics and electronics. Coming to our guidance. Even looking at all the challenges we do have in our world today, with COVID ongoing, with the Russia crisis, with supply issues, we still expect sales to show low double-digit growth with increasing momentum in Q2. We also expect EBITDA to have double-digit growth year-on-year. And we do expect a moderately negative free cash flow as we will still keep our investing activities on a very high level and, therefore, a slightly higher net debt due to these investments. The risks, I think we are all aware of it. The -- it's those supply chain issues, which may delay sales. But it's also the Russia-Ukraine crisis, and we should expect and we will see a partial writeoff of our Goreltex investment. That's our Russia investment in the first quarter of 2022. That's it from my side. I will be open for questions. Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions] There are currently no questions in the queue at this time. We now have a question. We will now take our first question from Christian Sandherr from Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe.

I would have a first question on your guidance. So you guide for a low double-digit sales growth. And if I look at your slide with order intake and order backlog this basically implies, if you do the math, that you have in Q1 some EUR 61 million sales, which would be a 5% year-on-year increase versus 2021. So you are expecting an accelerating -- an acceleration then in Q2, 3 and 4. What is this based on? And why is then Q1 -- the implied Q1 only 5% versus 10% for the full year? That would be my first one.

The point is actually very simple. It's supplies. We were heavily suffering in -- at the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 from shortages of performance plastics, and we also saw significant shortages due to the Ukraine crisis where some of our suppliers were really not able or not in a position to understand the restrictions they have when it came to deliveries. So for example, one of our most important suppliers just stopped deliveries for 1, 2 weeks because he was not sure about the implication of U.K. sanctions. And we do have ongoing supply issues in the electronics market. But the orders are strong. The order intake, if I look into April, is still strong, and we do see good improvements on the performance plastics. We do see good improvement on the general supplies. We also see that we can bring our sales price increases into the market, and we still do expect some relaxation of -- on the electronics side, and that brings us to that guidance. And we would -- we still positive that we see significantly higher sales levels in the second half of the year, starting in Q2.

We will now take our next question from [indiscernible].

Klaus Schlote from Solventis. The Goreltex issue with the Russian participation that R. STAHL is having, what is the book value of that? And you're right in the -- in your report that you might have a write-down of the high single-digit million area, let's say, EUR 10 million. But what's the book value? The book value is then 0, or what is the book value for write-down?

The book value at the end of the year was, I think, EUR 11.2 million. That was in -- that was the book value at the end of 2021 under IFRS. It's significantly lower in the HGB reporting were at EUR 6.4 million. In the -- and the situation is changing every day. The write-down will only result from one thing, and that's the rating of Russia. Our business of that Goreltex, the Goreltex business only takes place in Russia, and what I know from the management there is that it's actually strong. And at this point of time, we will see a growing business in Russia of Goreltex. We only have very limited deliveries to Goreltex, so it's not affecting the global STAHL organization. The write-down comes from the country risk of Russia where Moody's, for example, reduced the credit rating to 1, the latest stage above complete default. And that will in the Q1 drive a writeoff of roughly EUR 3 million. If we would do it today, it would be less where it's changing every day. It's changing every day, so we will see a write-down of roughly EUR 3 million in Q1. We don't know what's going to happen in Q2, whether we will get something back, whether there will be another write-down. This is something we cannot foresee. As you are all aware of these discussions that the Russians might even decide to take away the business on their foreign owners. And then we would see...

Is R. STAHL currently receiving a dividend from this -- from Goreltex?

We just had a general annual meeting, and the dividend discussion was delayed to December. But that's not related to the crisis. That's related to a shareholder change, and the new shareholder would need to pay strong or high taxes on the dividend if they collect the dividend within 12 months after acquiring their shares. So we made a decision that the dividend payment will be delayed to December this year, but we do have a very strong cash position in Goreltex, and we would expect the dividend payment then.

And then do you think that the dividend is -- can be transferred to R. STAHL to Germany?

Right now, we still have some smaller ongoing transactions where we are obliged to. Also, we are not taking orders from the Russian market, but we have some ongoing contracts which we have to fulfill. And we are paid right now. We are paid right now, and we are paid in advance before, so we are paid in advanced.

So the risk is obviously that the dividend at the year-end is the dividend is paid, and the dividend might not be transferred to German banking accounts?

Yes, yes. A good -- but this is the risk. I mean, everybody has that risk. At this point of time, we have that valuation of EUR 3 million, which will not harm us too much under IFRS because we have -- on the other side, we have strong equity gains from the increasing interest. Position will be stronger, way stronger than before, and there is no writeoff on the HGB at this point of time.

Dr. Hallmann, can you please tell us the interest rate went up by how much to what level?

It went up from 1.35% to 2.07%, I think. So -- yes, from year-end to the first quarter, and that will drive roughly EUR 7 million to EUR 8 million of positive equity.

Okay. But that might also changed in the future, let's say -- let's see. And then I have a question with regard to negative cash flow where you -- the tax is written that you invested liquidity long term, in my understanding. Why did you do that?

That's why, I think, it's not that long term. We do have cash in India, and if we -- if you want to bring that back as a dividend, you pay high dividend taxes. That's the specialty of India. And as we want to -- as India is really developing nicely and from many aspects, is one of the best plants we have or one of the best locations we have in the group. We are planning investments in India in the next 2, 3 years, therefore, we decided not to bring the money back, and then we wanted to collect some interest.

Can you tell us the amount of this investment?

It should be around EUR 3 million, EUR 3.2 million, I think

Okay. Then there was the announcement that SpiraTec has bought a huge stake of onoff. I don't know whether these companies are known to you. But would -- does that have any impetus on R. STAHL?

I have to be honest, I'm not aware of this. I don't -- I'm not really familiar with those companies, and -- but I would have heard if it would impact us. When the players in our industry are -- it's R. STAHL. It's Pepperl+Fuchs. It's Eaton. It's BARTEC, and those are -- dominate, and then you have some American players and some in Asia. But those players you mentioned are not really very known big players in our industry.

And last point with regard to covenants, is that at risk in your perception? Or is there any covenants on your banking credits?

As you know, banks would not give credit without covenant. No, we have -- surely, we have equity covenants, and we also have covenants on our results with EBITDA multiple. At this point of time, we don't see risk of a covenant break. We already discussed the interest development, which is helping us, which is good luck because -- but we were also suffering from bad luck when interest we're going down on an unreasonably low level. And we have a historical pension provisions in our balance sheet, and so the interest is affecting us heavily, and now it's helping us heavily. And therefore, we have enough water under the boat with respect to equity, and we are not at all stressed with the EBITDA multiple because our debt level is still on a very low level.

We will now take our next question from Christian Sandherr from Hauck Aufhäuser.

Just one follow-up. Sorry, I was just disconnected and I don't know if you mentioned it in the meanwhile, following the EUR 3 million writeoff, what's the remaining risk that you have on your books in case the whole 25% stake will have to be sold or discontinued or whatever?

I mean, if we -- I don't think it will be discontinued because it's a critical company in Russia. It's critical for our Russian infrastructure, and the company will definitely remain. If we would sell it, and I don't think there would be a risk at all, we would. The risk only comes from the political side that Mr. Putin decides to take it away from us. And then the risk would be the remaining roughly EUR 8 million, EUR 11.2 million minus EUR 3.1, should be EUR 8.1 million, which should be on the books when we finally publish Q1 results.

Thank you. There are no further questions in the queue at this time.

Then thank you very much for your participation in our annual 2021 Analyst and Investors Conference Call, and talk to you in May when we will publish our Q1 numbers.