Robit Oyj (ROBIT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to Robit's second quarter and half year results analyst and press conference. My name is Arto Halonen, and I'm the CEO of Robit, and I'm here with Mr. Ville Peltonen, our CFO. We'll start the event by a presentation and after the presentation we'll have a Q&A session. You have possibility to ask questions either through the chat channel which is open and live already now, so you can post questions at any time, as well as then you can ask questions through the teleconference by using the raise hand functionality that you should see on your end. Let's get going. First, a standard disclaimer about the forward-looking statements and to the results. So Quarter 2 2024, we recorded a healthy growth in orders received as well as a clear improvement in our profitability. If you look at the market demand, market demand as such remained good in mining sector and remained satisfactory in the Construction segment. We didn't see a recovery in the construction demand that we had anticipated earlier this year, that would start gradually towards the end of the year. And we expect that the construction market will remain at the current satisfactory level also until end of 2024. Our orders received grew by 13.6%. This was driven by our Top Hammer business, but also despite the lower underlying demand in the Construction segment. Also in the Geotechnical business we recorded a healthy order growth. This was driven by couple large orders that we got during the quarter. Our net sales grew by 0.9%, same in constant currencies, and resulted in EUR 24.6 million. The growth came from Top Hammer segment, and especially from the Australasian market there. Our profitability also clearly improved. The comparable EBIT was EUR 0.7 million compared to EUR 0.2 million in the comparison period. The improvement was driven by the savings actions that we have been implementing, let's say, over the last 12 months, especially those are visible in the results. However, the improvement was below our targets as we had high freight costs during the quarter. We were forced to use high share of air freight during the quarter, that impacted our profitability negatively. We did this to maintain a good service level to our customers. One highlight that we've achieved is the clearly improved financial position. Our gearing now is 34.6% compared to 59.6% 12 months back. This is as a result of the improved profitability as well as the positive cash flow generated during this period. Net cash flow from operating activities was EUR 2 million in the quarter. We did see some increase in our inventories. The trade times, the transit times all in all have increased, and that's causing inventory to being transit for a longer time, therefore increasing our inventories. And also, we did ramp up the inventory for some of the customers we have won during the quarter. I'm also pleased to see that we have taken some clear steps towards our sustainability targets, especially I would say as a highlight this emission -- CO2 emission intensity, that we are now 36% below the benchmark year or the baseline year of 2020. And this is 10 percentage points down from the end of last year. So a clear step forward on this front as well. If you look at the first quarter, all in all, our net sales grew 2.4% and in the constant currency is 3.6%. The growth came from Top Hammer segment. The growth in first half there was 8.6%. Whereas in the Down the Hole and Geotechnical, we had a decline in percent. Clear highlight is this improvement in EBIT. All in all, our EBIT has improved by EUR 3 million, and the first half EBIT was EUR 1.7 million compared to negative EUR 1.3 million in the first half of 2023. Cash flow from operations also has been improving and the first half was EUR 2.8 million, and it's coming now mainly from the improved profitability. If you look by market area, the sales during the first half of the year, as mentioned earlier, the growth has been driven by Australasia, which has grew 30% during the first half, driven by new one customers there, especially in our Top Hammer business. On the other hand, one larger supply agreement in Australasia indeed at the end of the second quarter. So that will then naturally impact with the sales in the second half of the year in Australasia region. Sales in Asia and EMEA and East have been relatively flat during the first half of the year. It's a bit mixed picture within those regions in EMEA. We have a stronger performance if we look Southern Africa or Nordic countries, and then there we've been also able to grow quite nice. Americas is down 10%, and this is mainly coming from South America related to some of the contracts that did end second half of 2023. On kind of steps towards our sustainability goals, I mentioned this great improvement in the CO2 emission intensity reduction. And there, we have taken actions to utilize, let's say, green energy, also looking kind of if it's emission efficiency of our supply chain that has impacted to the results. There are also other areas that have progressed well, but naturally many areas still that we must put strong emphasis on. Especially a focus area for us is to improve still our safety culture, safety performance to reach also targets on that area of our sustainability growth. We've also launched new innovations to the market. In quarter 2, we launched Extreme Carbides for our Top Hammer business. These are carbide designed for hard and abrasive rock conditions, and help our customers to achieve increased lifetime up to 30%, improved rate of penetration and also reduced grinding interval. So kind of clear tangible excellent benefits to our customers for hard applications. We mentioned earlier that we have launched our first model on the Robit H Series hammer family, that was the 4-inch model. And now we have launched the full range from 4 to 8-inch hammers. Really, it's a modular hammer family with improved energy efficiency. Thus also impacting positively on the customers' CO2 generations as well as the operating costs, high performance, high rate of penetration hammer. And also due to its modular design, capability to easily adjust it to varying conditions, therefore, providing flexibility of the drillers. But let's look at a short video about the H Series hammer. [Presentation]

So we say that the H Series hammer is a modular hammer. What does it mean in practice? So what you see here is actually 4 different hammers. So we have an H4 hammer, we are -- here with the standard high-power configuration. Let's say, if the customer would be utilizing the hammer in a softer ground condition, so -- or the compressor power wouldn't be enough, what would need to be done is just to change the inner cylinder, which you can do in a matter of some minutes. Then you have a new configuration of the hammer for different ground conditions. Also, there's typically a standard version and a tubeless version. There are different configurations of these hammers, and some customers do prefer a tubeless version. To convert a standard hammer to a tubeless hammer, there's 2 components you need to change. You need to change the piston and the guide bush. Again, a simple operation to be done, and then you have again a new configuration that you can have either as a low-flow or high-power version. So essentially, what we see here is 4 different hammers just with changing a couple of different components. So that's what we mean when we say that the design is modular. But let's go back to the results and finance. So I hand it over back to Ville.

Thank you, Arto. So to recap the financials, as said, our profitability improved. Net sales grew by 0.9%, totaling at 24.6% (sic) [ EUR 24.6 million ] in the second quarter. Our Q2 comparable EBITDA percent, it's also improved to 6.8%. And our comparable EBIT percent improved to 2.7%. As we've stated, our long-term target is 10% EBIT level and the work continues to reach that long-term target. Our Q2 results for the period improved also and was EUR 0.6 million. Our net working capital development was steady in the second quarter. We're pretty much on the same level as at the end of the year and at the end of Q1. Looking at year-on-year development, our net working capital decreased by EUR 4.4 million. Our inventories decreased EUR 36.3 million. Receivables increased to EUR 21.7 million, and payables decreased to EUR 19.2 million. Our net working capital percentage of the last 12-month sales is 41.3%. So the development on that front is also pretty positive. It's been decreasing and we're targeting below 40% levels. Cash flow before changes in net working capital was EUR 1.4 million, and operating cash flow was EUR 2.0 million. Cash flow from investing activities was minus EUR 0.1 million, so we haven't been doing too many investments in the second quarter this year. Cash flow from financing activities resulted in minus EUR 1.8 million as we add the loan amortization payment at the end of June. So as mentioned, our financial position has been developing positively. Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the second quarter were EUR 13.5 million, and our total interest-bearing loans were EUR 29.9 million, and that includes EUR 4.4 million from that lease liabilities that we have. Capital structure, so our net debt continued to decrease and year-on-year development on that was over EUR 10 million. So we have EUR 10 million over net debt at the end of H1 this year. Net debt to 12-month rolling EBITDA ratio has been going down and is now 2.18, that has a direct effect also to our financing costs, it's equivalent level at our financing agreement. So we have been working on that -- getting that lower, and now that is clearly below our covenant level that is 3.5. Our interest expenses are also significantly lower at the moment. Equity ratio remains strong at 48.6%. Loans from financial institutions at the end of the second quarter was EUR 25.4 million, and our senior loan agreement is ending at mid '26. And we have those senior loan amortizations biannually EUR 1.5 million at the end of June and at the end of December. And we also have this interest rate swap for EUR 10 million that took effect on the end of June last year and will end at the end of June '26. Back to you, Arto.

Thank you. We have also renewed our strategy for 2024-2027. What we aim to do is we want to help our customers to drill better. We want to help our customers achieve the lowest total drilling costs. So how do we do this? How do we help our customers to drill better? First of all, we need to know our customer needs, work closely together with the customers, be active in the customer front, and design and deliver high-performance products. Our H Series hammer that we just looked is a good example of actually believing this strategy already. To drive growth, we continue to accelerate our growth through our distributors to expand our distribution channel, but also working closely with our existing distributors to grow together with them. We have a good network of distributors around the world with great growth opportunities in the markets they serve. Also, we have selected few high-potential focus markets, and those are where we will focus our growth actions, focus our possible growth investments to be sure that we will take a leading position during the strategy period in those focus markets, at the same time maintaining and defending and growing our position in the current existing markets that we -- strong existing markets that we have. Our values remain intact. We want to serve with speed, maintain that kind of agility, entrepreneurship type of mentality, drive change and respect everyone. Our long-term financial targets is to achieve faster than the average market growth and as Ville already mentioned, achieve comparable EBIT profitability of 10%. And we are committed to these targets during the strategy period. Our guidance remain intact. Our guidance is that we expect net sales for '24 and comparable EBIT profitability in euros to improve from 2023. Thank you, and we are now ready for questions. We'll take first questions from the teleconferencing, if there's people who are willing to ask from that.

[Operator Instructions]

We'll have questions coming from...

There are no voice questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers.

So we'll have questions posted through the chat. So maybe Ville, with your better eyes, you read them and we'll go through them.

Right. So our first question from Erkki Vesola. Prices for basic steels and even aluminum declined by minus 20% year-on-year in Q2. Did your material cost sink as a percentage of sales?

Basically, the raw material price development or the kind of the steel grade development that we saw -- we use, remained relatively stable during quarter 2. We start to see some upward pressure also on the raw material side, which will not really impact in a significant way necessarily in 2024. But I think it seems that the trend is actually been turning to upward direction rather than downward direction on the kind of the steel price cost of the grades we are using.

Then the second question also from Erkki Vesola. How big were the freight costs in Q2? And what was the build-up versus Q1?

Yes. The freight cost in Q2, they were clearly higher than they were in quarter 1. And the negative impact from the freight cost to a normal, fairly steady situation, it was clearly over EUR 500,000. So it was a meaningful impact, that we now have actions in place to reduce in the second half of the quarter. We will still see -- maybe the first month or 2 we'll see a bit higher levels, but we expect that the freight costs clearly to go down overall. If you look at freight market all in all, then the freight costs have been trending up for sea freight. But despite that, I think our realized freight cost will be lower in the second half of this year.

And the next question also from Erkki. How big were the -- how were the ForEx gains and losses in Q2? I can take this one. It was a little under EUR 0.2 million.

And we can take Erkki on the line, so we can take Erkki to the call.

The next question comes from Erkki Vesola.

Yes. Still -- coming back to your new customer acquisition, could you describe briefly how have you succeeded both in Europe, in the Americas and in Australasia?

Yes. I think -- as being said, I think we've been most successful in Australasia with [ multiple ] new customers there. You specified the question to Europe, but maybe another area where we have been able to convert new customers is in the Africa, especially in the Southern Africa area. There we have multiple new customers. Varying sizes, not all kind of big mining customers, but still clearly, let's say, the number of active customers is increasing there. Europe, Americas has been a bit more stagnant on this front. We have there also healthy funnel, but, let's say, the decisions from the customers have been postponed. We were expecting some cases to come to a close already during the quarter 2, that we see now that the decision-making process has been postponed to quarter 3. Okay. Any other questions from the call? If you have -- Okay. No more questions, I guess, from the audience. Do we have some more from the chat?

No more questions from the chat. There was one from Erkki, but he asked that one already.

If no further questions, we will -- we thank you for joining this event and you will find the recording later in the internet. Thank you very much, and have a good day.

Thank you.