Raute Oyj (RAUTE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this Raute's Q4 2023 financial statements release event. We will go through the highlights of our announcement, which was made today. My name is Mika Saariaho president and CEO, and I will have also Ville Halttunen, our CFO here, sharing the presentation. So I will start with some of the highlights on the group performance. And if we look at the overall year 2023 and also Q4, the key highlight is truly that we had a record high order intake during Q4. If we think about the whole year 2023 in Q2 last year, we already made all-time high order intake in 115 years of history of Raute. And now in Q4, we had a new record. It was EUR 118 million of orders in 1 quarter. And the full year order intake was EUR 315 million in 2023, also a record year ever. Our order backlog, order book is also now at record level in EUR 266 million. In Q4, we also had the single biggest order of all-time in Raute's history, which was EUR 93 million order from Metsa Wood Aanekoski for their new LVL Kerto plant. So overall, in Q4 and the full year, we are very happy, and we've been very successful in getting this high -- there has been a high demand for this mill-sized project, and we have received 4 key projects during the year. But then if we look at the overall market sentiment, it's actually been a quite challenging market to our customers. So these mill size orders are a sign of a strategic belief in this industry, which is very good for us. But then on operational level, 2023 in customer operations was really challenging. And we saw this as a lower demand for single production lines and also to spare part offering from Raute. But overall, very good situation, strong position now also starting year 2024. 2023 was also a significant year for us in terms of recovering our profitability after a couple of loss-making years, so we were able to generate profit as a company. We also were successful in completing the planned profitability improvement program, which was targeting EUR 4 million to EUR 5 million savings. -- and that was completed successfully at the end of the year. So now our focus is very much on implementation of our new growth strategy, which we announced springtime 2023. In the center of the strategy is our ESG agenda, environmental, social governance topics, sustainability topics. We are driving that agenda and taking development initiatives in that area. We're also expanding our portfolio to new engineered wood products segments, including solid wood production segments where we have the first customer cases, and we are delivering our solutions to those segments. These segments will significantly open new opportunities for us, increase our addressable market in the other engineered food products areas. One of the key topics last year and has been this new ERP, enterprise resource planning system that we have implemented on our main production site in Nastola. There was a go-live and now we are focusing on really getting the full benefits of this system as we move forward. And then as a very important highlight for us is that we were able to complete the exit from all the customer-related -- customer projects from Russia at the end of 2023. As a reminder, when Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022, we stopped taking any new orders from Russia. But we had a long big backlog to Russia, and we had the liability to deliver those projects and which we have been delivering now taking into account the sanctions and the developments since that time. And now I'm happy to say that we were able to complete the last projects, and there were some projects that we then just decided to terminate at the end of the year. So now going forward, our business is entirely business outside Russia. Looking at some of the numbers highlights. So net sales, EUR 145 million, some decline from the comparison period in Q4 '22. But in '22, we had quite significant volume still coming from Russia. So now the volume is then really focusing on other areas of the world. And in Q4, net sales of EUR 45.2 million, roughly on the same level than a year earlier. Comparable EBITDA, which is the profitability measure, EUR 9.3 million, a significant increase, of course, from 2022 numbers. And we are now back in the profitable numbers. We are profitable as a company, and this was also very -- it was in line with our guidance also to the market. So we should be overall happy with that achievement. Q4 was EUR 2.7 million, same level as a year earlier. I already mentioned the order intake and order backlog also on the record levels. Equity ratio, which is a key measure of strength of our balance sheet is now more than 50%. As a reminder, our guidance and the target for the equity ratio is more than 40%. So we are in that range, and that's a solid good position for us to be. 754 people working at rate at Raute at the end of the year. Order intake, I already mentioned the big order from Metsa Wood in Finland during Q4, and that can be seen in this pie chart, which is then showing that most of the orders came from Europe, but there were also good orders coming from North America and other parts. I think in addition to wood possessing getting this big mill-sized orders, we had quite good order intake also during Q4 in Analyzers business as an example. Order book at a record level, we can see here, history, some 6 years of history, and this is by far the highest level we've ever been in opening a new year now going to 2024. So very happy, very good position from that point of view. This includes those 4 mill-sized orders. And then despite the softness overall and uncertainties in the market, we were able to collect this good level of new orders and also orders for analyzers and modernizations were at good level. So the market uncertainty that we have experienced is impacting then mostly single line orders and spare parts. Net sales. Here, we can see how the EUR 145 million is coming together for the full year. This Q4 was the highest net sales quarter in last year. So we see the increasing trend in terms of our top line development, which is good. And we also -- when we move -- at the end, I will talk about the guidance for 2024. We see that this is also an indication that we are moving to higher level of operations and the net sales recognition from that point of view. One thing to emphasize is that we have this high backlog of orders. But now as they are weighted towards these mill-sized orders, they have a somewhat slower revenue recognition pattern compared to some other orders. So it takes a little bit longer time for the revenue, net sales to be recognized from that -- those mill-sized orders. Comparable EBITDA, EUR 2.7 million in Q4 and the full year, 9.3 million, as I mentioned already. This was supported by the profitability improvement program and the steps we've taken in that area. We also got some positive impact from the release of some provisions related to last Russian projects during Q4. And as I said now, we are done with the projects, there's nothing left. So that was the closing of those cases. So we were successful in exiting the Russia from that point of view. I have to say that there was a somewhat elevated costs during Q4 overall. There were some projects to implement our growth strategy, some initiatives taken, including also work to drive the ESG agenda and somewhat the costs were elevated and maybe on a little bit higher level than would be the normal level for us at this point of time. And there were some items affecting comparability, which were excluded from the comparable EBITDA. That was still some provisions or some cost related to ERP system and then also a write-down of Russian operations. There was roughly EUR 300,000 of write-down costs related to now fully completing the exit from Russia from that point of view. Operating profit. Also positive, obviously. Very, very important for us after 2 years of losses, we are back in profitable numbers. And this is, of course, important now for us going forward with a strong backlog and ability to generate profit, we are in a good position as a company going forward. 754 people working throughout the main sites in Europe, in Finland, but then also other locations globally present in the pie chart here. A little bit more deeply looking at the segment performance. Wood Processing, which is the biggest business unit we had have already means that net sales came down a little bit. But the comparison period had a significant part of sales to Russia, which is not anymore the case. Then these mill-sized orders that we received, they have this slower revenue recognition pattern, and that is somewhat delaying the revenue recognition. Comparable EBITDA for wood processing was somewhat disappointing in Q4. It was somewhat EUR 100,000 negative. This was mainly due to lower sales. And then those somewhat elevated costs that I mentioned during Q4. And this way goes to drive our growth strategy. So in that sense, important kind of for the future success of our business. Services, good performance in Q4. Sales increased compared to the comparison period and also profitability on a good level. We were also able to recover during Q4, some of the volume that we lost -- was delayed during 2023 when we went live with our new ERP system. So now we are in a better operational position from a services point of view as well and the profitability is at a reasonable good level. Analyzers business, a very important business for us for the future -- in the future strategy as well. Very good growth for -- in 2023 and also in Q4, a significant increase compared to previous quarter. Very happy with this performance. As I said, also good order intake in the recent quarters in Q4 as well and a profitability at good level, there was also a good product mix inside Analyzers' offering. So that was shortly and then maybe I give to Ville to go thoroughly about the balance sheet situation and financial position. Ville, please?

Okay. So I will go through cash flow and financial position and some key figures for Raute. Then starting with the cash flow and EBITDA. We had a very strong cash flow in 2023 amounting to EUR 39 million in total. This was supported by improved profitability and also the new orders for which we received repayments and they then improved our net working capital position and cash flow. During Q4 also, the cash flow was strong, EUR 9.8 million, whereas the EBITDA was EUR 2 million. So they're also the same element. The net working capital improved during the third -- fourth quarter and helped the operating cash flow. Then looking into the net working capital. So we ended at the end of the year at a negative minus EUR 36.2 million of net working capital. And during the fourth quarter, net working capital decreased still minus EUR 8 million in the quarter, so improving then our balance sheet position in total. And during the whole year, our net working capital has improved by EUR 31 million. So we have now a very, very strong balance sheet, and we have taken in prepayments and -- and basically, we will then utilize this to execute the orders that we have received. Then looking into the balance sheet strength. So equity ratio is the metric that we are measuring our balance sheet strength. And we are having at the end of the year, now 50% equity ratio. So clearly improving during the year, our balance sheet strength and the main action there was that we raised new equity during the second quarter and raised EUR 15.5 million of new equity. So we executed rights issue and directed share issue. And then also we have now this junior convertible loans in the amount of EUR 3 million. And now we have a strong balance sheet to execute our growth strategy. Our target is in this metric to maintain it above 40% level. So we are clearly exceeding that level. Then the investments CapEx level. So for the full year, our investments was EUR 4.5 million in 2023. A year before, investments were EUR 6.5 million, so we reduced our investments during the year and the many investment have been the ERP renewal. And also there, we have now reduced the amount of investments that we do for the system development. And still looking into the research and development costs. So for the full year, we ended at EUR 5.2 million of R&D costs as a whole. And this was also now comparing to last year, a reduction of EUR 1 million compared to 2022. So this was also one area of prioritization, which we did as part of our profit improvement program, and we reduced our R&D efforts by EUR 1 million in total during the year. So that's it. And then I hand back to Mika to continue with the strategy and outlook.

Okay. Thank you, Ville. So just a couple of words about our strategy. As the audience might remember in 2023, we announced our new growth strategy Spring 2023. And now we are in process of executing that. We are talking about the vision and ambition for year 2028, when we want to be a company of EUR 250 million of net sales, profitability on comparable EBITDA around 12%. Over cycles, we want to increase the share of our Services and Analyzers business to more than 40%, and we want to maintain a strong balance sheet with the equity ratio of more than 40%. And here, you can see actually an illustration of our strategy. This is internally important for us that we have a joint journey with our employees that we are taking. Our employees, our people can find themselves in this picture. We can see how Raute has a contribution to the customers' operations from forest to modern societies where wood plays a very important role, and we have a contribution throughout the chain, which also shows that we are able to take a complete role, end-to-end life cycle role with our customers. And that's what we are doing also with these mill-sized orders in particular. But we have a strength throughout this process. We want to develop that. And this is a journey we are taking together with our own people and with our customers. We also have our new values, which are creating the culture by which we want to operate when we are on this journey towards our new ambition for 2028. Overall, we want to show the way, drive change. We want to take this bold role in the industry. Customer is in very center of our values, creating customer success, very closely working with our long-term partners in that area, promoting development, which is really about making sure our innovations, our offerings, our products are really promoting the latest thinking. But also we have -- for our own people, we have interesting career opportunities tailored that they developed during the strategy period. Acting sustainably very in the core of our strategy. This is something not just must have for ourselves, but this is also a business opportunity for us. I truly believe that when we talk about this big mill-sized orders, for example, or Analyzers solutions or Service concepts where we actually promote and enable resource efficiency with our customers, it truly is not only the right thing to do in the world but also business opportunity for us. And achieving all this together is something of a culture we want to embrace in the way we operate. So these are forming the culture, how we operate and the strategy is then targeting to this 2028 targets. If you look at some of the development steps now in the recent times, in terms of the strategic 3 key themes towards '28, here are some things mentioned. First target on increasing profitability, decreasing volatility. Very good development on that one, of course. Last year was a turnaround year for us for -- in terms of profitability. We were also able to complete the plan EUR 4 million to EUR 5 million profitability improvement program. Exit from Russia, very important. So now the profitability and all these business aspects are not relying on what happens in Russia. Our business is entirely looking at other parts of the world, very important for us. In terms of volatility, the target to increase Analyzers and Services sales -- net sales is important. The relative share increased from 32% to 36% in '23. Analyzers, in particular, had a very good growth year last year; very important achievement, right direction for us. Expanding market -- exceeding market growth and expanding our offering. Obviously, with this record high order intake and order backlog, we are making very good progress in that. Clearly, obviously, growing much faster than the market and taking bigger, bigger role with our customers. There has been this strong interest on mill-sized projects, but we are also then expanding our addressable market when we look at the other new opportunities, for example, in the solid wood products segment, and we have these new openings in those areas, very important for us. Then we are targeting to drive the ESG, environmental, social governance agenda in our industry. So we have done our own double materiality assessment. So we are developing to be fulfilling to CSRD requirements, good progress in that sense. We have also put in place our own ESG governance model and strengthened resources in this area. And as I said, this is not just the right thing to do. This is also a business for us. So we want to be strong in that area, driving the development for our industry. And in all of our R&D efforts as well, we are using the ESG criteria and filter when we decide in what initiatives we are investing in. So looking at our outlook for 2024. Overall, the business environment, I've talked quite a bit about that already. Still it's a valid conclusion that the market has uncertainty. This is seen in our demand for our spare parts and single line orders when the customer operations are still not operating at the full speed. Then on the other hand, there seems to be continuing very strong interest into mill-sized orders, plant orders. So the strategic investments into this area from customers' point of view seems to be on a very high level, which is a sign that there is a truly strong belief in the future of engineered wood products. And this is, of course, a big opportunity for us as well, and we share this vision with our customers and are the prime partner to provide these solutions to our customers. Then for 2024, we've also announced today our guidance. We are now guiding that the 2024 net sales will be in the range of EUR 170 million to EUR 195 million and a comparable EBITDA between EUR 10 million and EUR 14 million. So as a comparison, as I just introduced, our 2023 net sales was EUR 145 million. So this is really showing a clear increase in terms of the top line in 2024. And then the comparable EBITDA in 2023 was EUR 9.3 million. So this range EUR 10 million to EUR 14 million is also showing significant or clear improvement in that sense. Then as a final figure. Also, we announced that our Board of Directors is suggesting to our Annual General Meeting a dividend of EUR 0.10, EUR 0.10 for -- to be paid during the Spring 2024. And that is then subject to our AGM decision later in April, early April. So that was the conclusion of my short presentation with Ville. To really conclude, I think we had a good turnaround year 2023. We are now in a strong position to execute and take forward our strategy in 2024, and the guidance, which I just explained is also reflecting that belief that we have on the performance in 2024. Thank you very much.