Ridley Corporation Limited (RIC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Ridley Corporation Limited first half FY '24 presentation. [Operator Instructions] And finally, I would like to advise all participants that this call is being recorded. Thank you. I'd now like to welcome Quinton Hildebrand, Managing Director and CEO, to begin the conference. Quinton, over to you.

Good morning to you all, and thank you for your attendance today. Richard and I are pleased to provide you with our performance results for the first half and update you on the progress that we've made regarding the growth plan. We'll be taking you through the slides that were uploaded on the ASX website this morning. Starting with Page 2, the financial summary. The business recorded its ninth consecutive half of earnings growth in our key metric underlying EBITDA, which was $48 million, a year-on-year increase of 8.8%. I'll speak to the performance of each of the segments in the next few pages. Our cash conversion reflected a lower payables number at the half due to our procurement strategy, and Richard will elaborate on this in the financial section. And lastly, on this page, I'd like to bring your attention to the fact that the Board determined a dividend of $0.044 per share, in line with the capital allocation framework payout ratio, which is a 10% increase on the pcp. Moving to Slide 3, the reporting segments. The Packaged & Ingredients segment delivered an EBITDA before significant items of $31.5 million, down 5% on pcp, albeit there was an increase in the EBITDA ROFE to 33.1% due to the lower inventory levels. The EBITDA reflected the lower tallow and meals prices in the Ingredient Recovery business, which we had foreshadowed at the AGM in November in our trading update. It was also the underperformance of the aquafeed sales. Pleasingly, this was partially offset by the increased volumes in rendering raw materials at both Laverton and Maroota. Earnings growth in our packaged products business and lower NovaqPro production costs. Moving to the Bulk Stockfeeds segment on Page 4. This segment delivered an EBITDA of $23 million, a 29% increase and an EBITDA ROFE of 27.5%, reflecting the increase in inventory at the period end. This significant earnings improvement was driven by 3 factors: market share gains in the dairy sector enabled by the debottlenecking of two of our Victorian ruminant mills in 2023; secondly, some supplementary feeding in New South Wales and Queensland in the first quarter before we experienced widespread rain; and thirdly, improved margins on pcp as we took advantage of the more favorable harvest conditions and acquired more grains from regional distributors and farms. I'll now hand over to Richard, who will take you through the financial performance and capital management in greater detail.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Quinton. Turning now to Slide 6, the profit and loss summary. As Quinton has already walked you through the operating segments delivered a combined EBITDA for the half of $54.5 million, representing an improvement on the previous corresponding period of $3.7 million or 7.2%. The corporate costs decreased by $200,000 to $6.5 million, despite the underlying inflationary pressures in the wider economy. This balance includes the accruals associated with the employee incentive schemes, which are aligned to the increase in the performance of the business. The business reported individually significant costs of $1.7 million or $1.4 million after-tax. These costs related primarily to the transaction costs associated with the proposed acquisition of OMP. Further costs are expected in the second half in relation to the completion of this transaction as foreshadowed at the time of the announcement of the acquisition. $300,000 was incurred in relation to property management costs associated with surplus land that was associated with the previous sale. The benefits of the sale of this land was reported as a significant gain in FY '22. Depreciation for the period was $12.5 million, in line with the pcp. Depreciation from the increase in capital investment was partially offset by the finalization of the depreciation of the acquired assets of the CSF business. Finance costs increased from $1.7 million to $3.8 million, which related to the small increase in net debt, but was primarily due to the higher interest costs. The increase in income tax of $300,000 was commensurate with the increase in underlying profit, resulting in an underlying tax rate of 28.6%. The majority of the transaction costs that were reported as a significant cost are not tax deductible and therefore, are taken to the asset cost base for tax purposes. This has meant that the consolidated group tax rate was 29.3%. The net impact of the above was an increase in the net comprehensive income of $400,000 or 2% to $21.4 million. However, pleasingly, before individually significant costs, the increase in NPAT was $1.8 million or 9.1%. Turning now to Page 7 and an overview of the balance sheet, which shows an increase in net assets of $5.7 million since June '23. This is based on an increase in property, plants and equipment of $9.6 million, which included the debottlenecking projects within the Bulk Stockfeed segment and the finalization of the new packing line for the companion pet business at Narangba. The net working capital has increased by $14 million since June '23 and $11.5 million versus the pcp, despite both inventory and receivables falling over these periods. The movement in working capital is associated with a larger reduction in accounts payable, which relates to an increase in grain purchases as the business delivered a cost advantage for the Bulk Stockfeed segment from acquiring grain direct from regional distributors and farmers on shorter payment terms. I will discuss the impact of this in greater detail later in the presentation. While the net increase in working capital was in line with expectations, the strategy did result in an increase in net debt. However, as noted previously, this helped deliver the 29% increase in the Bulk Stockfeeds EBITDA. Turning now to Page 8 and the group cash flow. Net debt increased by $17.9 million during the period to $43.6 million, which represents a leverage ratio of 0.47x, well below our target range of 1 to 2x. The increase in net debt relates primarily to the increase in working capital for the bulk segment, and more specifically, the decrease in accounts payable associated with both the decision to buy grain on shorter terms, and secondly, the timing of weekly payments around the period end. The impact of this timing is highlighted by the fact that there was a sizable decrease in working capital in FY '23, offset by a sizable increase in FY '24. However, the net movement is minimal. CapEx during the period was $18 million. We continue to prioritize the reinvesting in the quality of our asset base with $8 million or 44% of our total CapEx spend relating to maintenance and sustenance capital. The growth capital of $10 million included the investment in the debottlenecking projects and the new packing line. Net financing costs increased by $1.3 million to $3.2 million on the back of slightly elevated debt levels, but the majority relates to the rising interest rate environment. Tax payments were well down on the pcp as the prior year included a $10 million true-up payment that related to prior years. The strong cash position and the increase in earnings, has supported the continuation of the progressive dividend policy. During the period, a total of $13.3 million was paid to shareholders by way of a fully franked dividend. As set out on Page 9, the group working capital has increased by $11.2 million versus the same period last year. The graph on the top right shows the last 3 years to demonstrate the variation that has been driven by how the business reacts to opportunities created by the various seasonal conditions. And while the net movement in working capital across the combined December '22 and December '23 is negligible for the Bulk Stockfeeds business, the operating conditions that supported our strategic positions were completely different. In the previous financial year, the new crop was delayed due to the weather, which meant that inventory levels were very low at 31 December 2023, whereas this year, the availability of inventory was more abundant due to the earlier harvest. This provided an opportunity to acquire additional stock from regional distributors and direct from farm. Whilst this was acquired on shorter terms, it did enable us to improve grain margins. In the Packaged Feeds and Ingredients segment, the business is holding lower aqua inventory as we reduced our exposure to the aqua sector, and the impact of lower input costs into the ingredient recovery inventory values. As set out on Page 10 of our presentation, net debt of $46.3 million is still well below historical highs. The balance sheet is in a very strong position with a gearing ratio of only 13.6% and a leverage ratio of 0.47x. Enabling the recently announced acquisition of OMP to be fully funded using previously negotiated funding lines, while the leverage ratio will remain at the bottom end of our target range once the acquisition is completed. Project Boost, which is discussed on Page 11. Boost was announced in July 2021 as the consolidation of a number of smaller projects costing approximately $15 million to implement, delivering payback of less than 3 years with an annualized earnings boost of $9 million once fully implemented. Despite challenges during the COVID period that delayed the timing of the CapEx spend, the business is now in the final stages of implementing all Boost projects with a total of $15.8 million expected to be spent, which is only slightly higher than the original forecast of $15 million. However, more importantly, the annualized return has also increased to $9.3 million. The benefit in year is expected to be approximately $3 million. It is very pleasing that Boost has delivered the communicated deliverables. However, just as important is the legacy that Boost has left the business regarding the efficiency culture that will support both growth and partially offset the macro factors associated with the inflationary environment. Turning now to the capital allocation model on Page 12. This was first implemented at the end of financial year '21 and continues to be used to support the prioritization of our available capital by aligning the returns from the investments we make with the returns to shareholders. During the period, the business delivered strongly against the model with the following key deliverables. The business was able to support a higher working capital balance within Bulk Stockfeeds segment to enable us the opportunity to improve EBITDA returns. We continued our focus on investment in maintenance and ESG capital. And we were able to increase the interim dividend to $0.044 per share, an increase of 10.10%, and the ability to accommodate the proposed acquisition of OMP. Bringing this all together, the business has delivered a shareholder return for the last 12 months of 43% and still has the balance sheet capability to support further growth initiatives. That concludes the financial component of the presentation. I will now hand back to Quinton to run through the growth strategy.

Thanks, Richard. Picking up on Page 14. In the first half, we made good progress on our FY '23 to '25 growth plan. We've pressed on with the sustainability pathway, which is a foundation to the plan, making progress towards the 2030 targets disclosed in our 2023 annual report. Of particular note, I want to mention how we have accelerated our CO2 reduction initiatives. These involve CapEx and maintenance to reduce gas, electricity and compressed air consumption, all of which have a cost reduction benefit and an environmental benefit. We also progressed some of the key optimization and growth initiatives, and I'll deal with these in the coming slides. Slide 15 is just included as a pictorial reminder of our Bulk Stockfeeds plan, which is focused on increasing our market share with our strategy to improve our customer experience, winning business, getting higher utilization and debottlenecking our existing plants, in effect, driving the flywheel. The next slide describes the current initiatives that we have executed in the Bulk Stockfeed segment. We delivered the Pakenham press upgrade in November and currently have a sales pipeline that will fill this capacity in the next quarter. We are also on track to complete the Clifton feed mill upgrade, which is a 50% increase in throughput underpinned by a long-term customer contract, which allow us to supply their increased demand. When complete in June, we'll be able to accommodate the increased volumes on a five day operating basis rather than the current 24/7, and this will also give us cost savings. We have further debottlenecking projects on the drawing board, which our project team are working on, and subject to us getting confidence in the customer offtake and attractive paybacks, these projects will form the basis of our FY '25 capacity expansions. We also put on additional shifts at our ruminant feed mills in Maffra, which is in Victoria, and the Tamworth and Taree feed mills in New South Wales. And we did that as we enjoyed some supplementary feeding at the start of the financial year. But as the forecast dry conditions for El Nino did not persist, the increased demand fell away. So as we go into the next few months and with the bureau forecasting that there will be drier conditions again between March and May and above-average temperatures, we're going to have to watch this closely and then make a call as to whether we maintain these ship structures or reduce them. Moving on to the Packaged and Ingredients reporting segment. And in this segment, we have four business units, all with different premiumization strategies, and I'll deal with these one at a time. Moving first to Page 18. We continued to grow our packaged products business. In December, we completed the new packing line at Narangba and you can see a photo of that in the picture. This provides us with improved throughput for our extrusion facility and removes labor costs. With this and the restructure of our aquafeed business, we've pulled Narangba to a five-day operation from January and given ourselves future growth capacity for companion products. Structurally, the packing plant completes our value proposition as a large-scale producer of pet food. This is coming from us being firstly suppliers of protein meals from our ingredient recovery business, having a large extrusion plant and now having a purpose-built packing facility. So we're well positioned to expand this part of our business. In our Barastoc poultry line, we've launched a small 10-kilo range to target the peri-urban urban users and expand our footprint through these distributors. Moving on to Page 19. As you know, our aquafeed sales have been underperforming for quite some time. And through the 2023 tender processes, we positioned ourselves for a binary outcome, either we supplied on favorable margins and terms or we exited certain businesses. As we lost some business, we restructured our Aquafeed business in January, bringing the Narangba plant back to the five days, as mentioned before. We also combined our Aquafeed business with our NovaqPro operations into the Aqua Nutrition business and this has given us employee savings. So our key focus domestically is developing the NovaqPro sales as the platform for our international sales program. International NovaqPro sales have commenced with repeat orders into a few countries, and we're working hard on the product registrations into the major prawn markets. Based on the work that we have done with the domestic prawn with a domestic prawn partner, we have developed a supplementary feed. And that is a feed -- that's a supplementary feed that we will add through all life cycles stages in prawn production. And this will come in addition to their base diet. And we think that this product has promising application internationally as we won't be displacing the domestic feed producer, but rather complementing them with the addition of our boosters. And I probably don't need to say, but this is obviously a high-margin product. Moving to Slide 20. Notwithstanding the fall in the tallow price in recent months, we remain positive on the long-term fundamental outlook. Currently, global demand for tallow into biodiesel has been delayed as commissioning the new builds in the U.S. has been deferred. The soy oil production responded to the anticipated demand. So obviously, these renewable plants consume tallow as well as soy oil. And we saw the production response from soy oil as they also expected these plants to be online. In addition, domestically, in Australia, we've seen higher slaughter numbers. And so we have high domestic tallow production and all of that needs to continue to be moved. If we look at the meal prices, meal prices have softened, albeit not as dramatically. And this is in response to the increase in domestic supply. We've also seen international supply chains, reducing their contingency stocks of protein meals. And so importantly, through this period, we have seen a softening in prices, but this will come back in time. As you know, we have sharing arrangements with our raw material suppliers in the ingredient recovery part of our business. And that means that we share the ups and downs through our contracted arrangements. The impact, therefore, on Ridley is that we lose our share of the upside in the high prices, just our portion of that. And then there's also a lag as we pass through the lower pricing on to the raw material suppliers. So the lower tallow and meal prices, we expect to prevail for the short term. But in the long term, we remain positive on the fundamentals for both these commodities. Next to update you on the OMP transaction, which we announced on the 18th of December. The planning for completion is on track for the 28th of March. And the initial response that we received from customers has been very positive. We've enjoyed good interaction with the major customers. And this has circled around positive interaction regarding Ridley's involvement behind the OMP business as well as opportunities for us going forward. Internally, the integration planning is well underway. And we are structuring the combined business to better service customers and drive efficiencies. Just for completeness, I've included a summary of the transaction that we provided to the market on the 18th of December. We've included 1 page share on Page 21, and then in the appendix, we have the additional detail. In summary, the acquisition will see Ridley paying NZD 57 million or just under AUD 53 million for OMP. This is a 5.4x multiple on the $10.5 million earnings of OMP in the 12 months to September 2023. Ridley, will debt fund this acquisition, which will take our leverage ratio up by about 0.5 turn. The transaction costs are expected to be circa $2 million, which will more or less take care of the earnings in the FY '24 year. However, the transaction is expected to be EPS accretive in the first year post acquisition. And that brings us on to the outlook. Firstly, as I've repeated the page that we've presented previously with the summary of our investment proposition. We have a well-defined growth plan, a strong balance sheet and a disciplined approach to capital allocation, putting us in a good position to execute on growth opportunities that create shareholder value. Ridley is a market leader in the animal nutrition sector. And this provides us with scale benefits and the capacity to employ specialists and adopt technology and to continue differentiating our offering and margins as a result. Ridley has a competitive advantage in our sector. And as sustainability expectations arise, we should be well positioned to take advantage of this. Ridley's geographical spread, multi-species offering, customer mix and disciplined risk management provide earnings resilience through weather, disease and market cycles. And human and pet food protein consumption and renewable fuel demand is forecast to increase over time underpinning Ridley's demand -- underpinning demand for Ridley's products. And I hope that you'll agree with me that we continue to demonstrate good execution on these points. And that the resilience of Ridley's portfolio of businesses is providing stability despite changes in the weather and commodity cycles that we've endured and even endured in the last half, which brings us to our outlook statement. Macroeconomic conditions are likely to be challenging in the short term. And the business is taking steps to reduce the adverse impact of inflationary pressures and changes in commodity cycles. Ridley expects ongoing earnings growth in the second half from premiumization in the Packaged and Ingredients segment, including a contribution from the planned acquisition of OMP and leveraging the flywheel effects of scale in the Bulk Stockfeeds segment. Thanks for staying on the call to the end. And I'll now hand back to the moderator to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of James Ferrier from Wilsons Advisory.

Quinton and Richard, congratulations on the result. Can we talk about the Bulk Stockfeed segment first, obviously, a really strong result there. And the reference in the deck today around procurement margin improvement. Can you just give us some context there as to whether you feel that was a return to more normal procurement margins? Or do you think you've flipped it and this result demonstrates a sort of a period of overearning?

James, well, it's a combination there. Firstly, we're always working hard on our efficiency. And we've got to be retaining some of that into our margin. So there's an element of that. But yes, as we've elaborated in the December '22, we had that very challenging wet season with rain during the harvest, which limited to some extent, our ability to take advantage of trading positions before the 31st of December. Whereas at the 31st of December 2023, just gone, we had a better harvest conditions. And our team were able to take advantage of that. And you can see that we've exploited that strategy to a full degree. So that will depend on future situations going forward. But we've probably got an element of overachievement in -- as a result of that procurement strategy.

Understood. And then just trying [ to understand the ] segment there. Again, good earnings result. Can you shed some light on what sort of volume growth you got out of monogastric and ruminant, because it looks like it was more a story of notwithstanding your comments just a moment ago about procurement margins. But it looks like it was also a really strong story around operating leverage and the benefits of some of the recent debottlenecking.

Yes. It is, particularly in the dairy sector. So in the Western districts, we expanded the Terang mill. And in Gippsland, we expanded the Pakenham mill. So as a result, we've picked up additional customers in both those areas with that capacity. So that's been positive. And we also, on the ruminant side, got some supplementary feeding that took place in New South Wales and Queensland. On the monogastric, the demand from our poultry customers has been flat. And that's just as they worked through their production cycles and challenges. So we haven't -- we didn't get much growth there, albeit we drove efficiencies in that supported margins. And pretty similar on the pork side where that sector hasn't been growing. So yes, it's -- the volume growth has been predominantly around the ruminant part of the business.

And your next question comes from the line of Apoorv Sehgal from UBS.

First question, just on the tallow price headwind. Just confirming in the end, was it about that $3 million odd year-on-year headwind in the ingredients' business the first half '24. And then, just given the moderation you've talked about in recent months, particularly in January, is there a sort of year-on-year headwind we should be baking into our forecast for the second half of '24 as well?

Yes. AP, the tallow price has played through as expected and as we foreshadowed. So yes, the sort of net impact there of around $3 million is correct for the half. And given the recent weakness, we could have a similar affect in the second half, so a similar delta in the second half. So it's difficult to know when the prices of tallow will recover, fundamentally, the demand will be there. And as those plants come online and the factors that I mentioned with the soy oil production as that works through and our own domestic supply. That will come prices, we anticipate will recover. However, we're probably expecting a similar delta in the second half at this point.

Okay. And then second question, just on the supplementary feeding you guys did in Q1. Are you able to roughly quantify that kind of one-off sort of EBITDA contribution that that supplementary feeding gave the business in the half?

Yes. That we if we put the ruminant advantage, within that sector, it's about 50% of the growth in that Bulk Stockfeeds segment. So Bulk Stockfeeds went up by circa $5 million. We would say half of that would have been the margin improvement across the entire Bulk Stockfeeds segment and the other half would have been increased volumes. Again, probably half of that or 25% of that increase would have been supplementary feeding and 25% would have been the growth in our dairy sales.

Sorry, can I just clarify that. The $2.5 million from high volumes. Of that $2.5 million, half of that $2.5 million is related to the supplementary feeding?

That's correct. Yes.

Okay. That's clear. Final question for me. Just maybe on Novaq. Typically, Novaq production cost heavy, obviously, in the first half. You said the costs this time were a bit lower. Are you able to roughly quantify what the EBITDA loss of Novaq was in the first half? And then if we think about the full year, are you still kind of expecting $1 million or a couple of million dollars of EBITDA profit at the full year level?

Yes. So just to that point, the assumptions, as you said, we are heavy on cost in the first half. We did generate good value in comparison with the prior corresponding period. And then, we obviously moved into the sales period in the second half. In terms of delivering an overall year-on-year increase in Boost, we're still expecting -- sorry, we're still expecting an increase roughly of the $1 million plus number.

[Operator Instructions] And you have a further question from James Ferrier from Wilsons Advisory.

Just like the AP, we might just tag team it the whole way through. So my follow-up was around the securitized payables facility. I would imagine perhaps if you've been procuring more directly from farmgate, you probably don't have that securitized payables facility is drawn as it normally is?

Yes, it was. So I mean, just for those who are not aware, it's a $50 million facility. It was underdrawn, James, as you said, by about $4.5 million exactly for the reason you said that we're purchasing more from the smaller distributors in the farmgate. So it was about $4.5 million underfunded.

Yes. And in the packaged business, so first half was a story of margin improvement. And we've sort of come from a period where there was some reasonable volume growth there. There wasn't any mention to volume growth in the first half, so just keen to hear your thoughts on that. But then as we look to the second half with the new packing line at Narangba now in place, can you remind us of what the business case and the sort of the earnings benefit is expected from that?

The packaged products volume was up slightly. So the main contribution was due to the margins. And our impact in the next half based on the commissioning of the packing line is about a $1 million saving in that period. And that's through substituted manual handling and the labor and efficiency benefit.

Is that the full run rate, Quinton? Or are you sort of thinking that there's still commissioning sort of period ahead and you wouldn't get the full run rate on the return on capital until the first half of FY '25.

No. It's fully operational. So that's -- we're not expecting any need for it to phase in, in this half.

Your next question comes from the line of Richard Amland from CLSA.

Just a quick question. You mentioned earlier that domestic tallow production is up. And I just wondered if you could talk us through why that is because it's not necessarily self-evident. And similarly, meal prices have softened. What are the drivers around that, please?

Great. Thanks, Richard. The same driver really. We did have -- in the first quarter, we had those dry conditions. And we saw quite a significant destocking happening across all the graziers. So tallows were at full tilt. And as a result of that, we -- there was a high production of protein meals and tallow. And that is in the system, the storage. As the prices were a bit lower, people held on to stock. And so we've got a bit of a carry-on of increased inventory levels in the industry within Australia. And so that's sort of the baseline that we've got.

Okay. So that's quite simply that's the dry conditions and the slaughter rates in the beef herd sort of, yes, in the first quarter, as you said. Okay.

That's right.

Second question, volume growth in monogastric. It seems like the chicken guys should be doing reasonably well at the moment. So I'm just -- can you flesh out why you have seen the volume growth that perhaps some may have expected, given strength in the Chicken segment?

Yes. I know that this has been discussed in the markets generally by poultry producers. But there's still a lag impact on the genetics impacts that the -- so there was a change in male bird line by one of the major genetics companies, suppliers of the layer birds. And through that process, the fertility of the eggs has been compromised. And so their production numbers have been constrained by the availability of the number of day-old chicks they're producing. And as a result of that, we haven't seen the 3% to 4% increase that you would have expected that we see over -- have seen over the long term. So all the poultry -- all our poultry customers are expecting this to adjust. But it's -- and that hopefully will come through in this next half. But in the half that we're reviewing, we had flat poultry numbers.

Okay. So I guess, for us, for our interpretation, there was a -- there's been a depressive impact from the big fertility matters that you mentioned. And that is unlikely or that is likely to unwind as that period goes. And then you guys will resume a growth rate more consistent with what we're seeing in the chicken in the poultry space. Is that a correct summation?

Yes. That's how we see it. We don't expect them to be able to catch it up, if you know what I mean. They'll just resume at the 3% to 4% per annum.

Your next question comes from the line of Max Andrews from PAC Partners.

Quinton and Richard, congrats on the results. You mentioned the highest quarter rates. Just wondering on the kind of normalize what the impact might be on the ingredient recovery business.

Yes. So I think the graziers have more optionality right now with the widespread rains. And so those sorter numbers are tempering a bit. We'll see what the coming weather conditions will be for the next 6 months, and that will drive behaviors of graziers. But in the event that we -- wet conditions were to prevail, we would obviously see slaughter numbers come down. And that will mean that there will be a drawdown on the inventory that we have of meal and tallow and prices should firm in response to that. So that will be a domestic play. Obviously, tallow is -- prices are more heavily influenced by the global demand. And I think we've outlined what the factors are there. If dry conditions were to resume and that is the BOM outlook, then, I think you would see slaughter numbers; proceed at elevated levels. And that would provide more product protein meals and tallow. And so domestically, that would keep prices where they are, again, subject to the global demand for tallow resuming.

This does conclude our Q&A session for today. I would like to hand back to Quinton and Richard for closing remarks.

Great. Thanks very much. I'd just like to thank everybody for their attendance today and the questions that were put forward. And we look forward to engaging you in the coming weeks as we go through our road show. Thanks very much. Have a good day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect.