Sigma Healthcare Limited (SIG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Sigma Healthcare Half Year Results Briefing. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Managing Director and CEO, Vikesh Ramsunder. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I'm Vikesh Ramsunder, the Chief Executive of Sigma Healthcare, and welcome to our results presentation for the 6 months ending July 2024. Before I begin, I wish to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation and recognize them as the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging. I am joined here today by Mark Conway, our CFO; and Gary Woodford, our Head of Corporate Affairs. In line with Sigma's ongoing disclosure obligations, we are also joined today by Mark Davis, the CFO of the Chemist Warehouse Group, who will be providing an update on their full year financial performance. [Operator Instructions] To comply with our regulatory obligations, we are all unable to respond to any questions on Chemist Warehouse today. Turning to the agenda. I will cover a few highlights from our performance for the past 6 months. Mark Conway will cover the financial performance in more detail. I will then provide an update on our operational performance, the merger proposal and the outlook for the year. Mark Davis will then provide an overview of the Chemist Warehouse full year performance. We will then answer your questions relating only to Sigma. The last 6 months has been a critically important period for Sigma, requiring strong execution of our operational plans. Results have been consistently improving over the past 2 years, in line with our strategy to simplify the business, strengthen our core, diversify our earnings and establish pathways to growth. There are 5 progress areas I want to highlight upfront. Firstly, on a normalized basis, we have grown revenue by over 17% in the half. And with the successful onboarding of the new Chemist Warehouse supply contract, we have a strong pipeline of growth in what is a very competitive but also relatively defensive markets. The new contract is worth $3 billion in annualized revenue, with approximately $2 billion of this being new revenue to Sigma. Pleasingly, our performance was also supported by strong like-for-like growth in our Amcal and Discount Drug Stores brands, which was up 13% for the half. After adjusting for the $11.2 million in one-off costs relating to the Chemist Warehouse merger proposal and new supply onboarding, normalized costs were up 2.4%. Normalized EBIT of $18 million was up 20% and normalized NPAT of $13.7 million was up over 300%. Secondly, for several years, Sigma has had to carry infrastructure investment costs without sufficient volume to provide adequate returns. We anticipate volume to increase by over 40% on an annualized basis this year, and we are now entering a phase of improved fixed cost absorption. Importantly, we have also retained almost 35% available wholesale capacity to support our future growth ambitions. Thirdly, we continue to deliver service excellence to all our customers through the Chemist Warehouse onboarding phase, delivery in full and dispatch on time was above 99% and having invested an additional $151 million in inventory, stock availability improved to around 95%. We continue to execute on our transformational strategy, which is resulting in improved performance and cost discipline. The equity raise completed at the start of this year has strengthened our balance sheet and underpinned our business growth initiatives. The merger proposal between Sigma and the Chemist Warehouse Group is proceeding in line with our expectations as we continue to work closely with the ACCC to ensure a deep understanding of our industry and the competitive landscape. The ACCC has identified an indicative date of 24th of October 2024 to announce their findings from this review. Lastly, an outcome of the improving business performance has been Sigma's inclusion in the ASX 200 Index in May this year. Taking into consideration the positive growth trajectory of the company, the Board has declared an unfranked interim dividend of $0.005 per share scheduled to be paid on 17th October. With that overview, I will now hand over to Mark Conway to take you through our financial performance in more detail.

Thanks, Vikesh, and welcome, everyone. As Vikesh has outlined, Sigma has demonstrated continued improvement in line with its strategy, which is being demonstrated in the first half financial performance, which I will now take you through. For the first half of FY '25, sales revenue was $1.8 billion, up $158 million or 9.4% on the prior period. Removing the nonrecurring revenue as a result of the divestment of the Hospital business, revenue was up $272 million or 17.3%. The higher revenue flowed through to increased gross profit, up by $9.7 million or 8.8%, with the increase driven by the additional volume offset by slightly lower overall margin. Pleasingly, despite the strong revenue growth, operating costs were well contained and demonstrate a continued focus on disciplined cost management and productivity improvements. Operating costs were up $3.3 million or 2.4% when normalized for the $11.2 million of one-off impacts. I will discuss both gross profit and operating costs in more detail shortly. Statutory EBIT was $6.9 million for the period with normalized EBIT up 20% to $18 million after adjusting for the Chemist Warehouse transaction cost of $8.4 million and contract onboarding costs of $2.8 million. The prior comparative period also reflected a net gain on sale of hospital business of $8.8 million less than operating loss. The interest line was also favorable when compared to the prior year, driven by our net cash position in the current year due to the proceeds from the capital raise received at the end of FY '24. This has resulted in a statutory NPAT for the period of $3.7 million, which were normalized for one-off offs with an NPAT of $13.7 million. This equates to an increase in NPAT of $10.3 million or greater than 300% when compared to the prior comparative period. A full reconciliation of normalized EBIT and NPAT is included in the Appendix of this presentation. Turning now to gross profit. Overall, absolute gross profit was higher for the period, reflecting the onboarding of the new supply contract in July. This was in part offset by the loss contribution of the hospital business, which was nonrecurring from the prior period. Overall, gross margin percentage was down slightly during the period from 6.6% in the first half of FY '24 to 6.5% in the first half of this period. This was driven by 2 main factors. Within the PBS category, there was a higher proportion of high-value but lower-margin PBS medicines sold and a lower Community Service Obligation or CSO revenue due to the fixed nature of the CSO funding pool. Moving now to operating costs. Disciplined cost management and continuous improvement remain a focus area of the business with the realization of operational efficiencies and the benefits of a simplified business model. Warehouse and delivery costs were a standout feature of the result, slightly down for the half despite an additional 9.8 million units shipped for the period. Productivity dipped in the May to June period due to the onboarding of approximately 300 additional employees across the May and June period and an investment of 15,000 additional training hours for both existing and new employees. The benefit of the investment in training is expected to be experienced in the back half of the year as the business beds down the additional volume. During August, we have already seen the Warehouse Productivity Index rebound to greater than 130. Continued optimization of both vehicle and delivery routes saw freight savings realized during the period. Sales and marketing costs were up $3.6 million when compared to the prior period. This was driven by a nonrecurring benefit of $2.4 million in bad debts written back in FY '24. There was also increased people costs in sales and marketing as a result of the investment in capability in the area and completion of recruitment and onboarding of the new team. Administration costs were up $1.1 million, driven by general OpEx increases. As previously outlined, there was also $11.2 million in one-off costs. Overall, the results to date demonstrate the benefits of the simplified business model, disciplined cost management and early realization of the operational leverage in the business. The strength of the balance sheet remains a key focus to support both strategic growth areas of the Sigma business, but importantly, growth of our customers. We remain in a strong cash position for the period despite the significant investments in working capital. Inventory for the period was up $151 million due to substantial inventory build that occurred through May and June to support the successful go-live of the CW supply contract on July 1. Working capital management remains a key focus area, including inventory optimization to reflect the new operating rhythm of the business. Inventory is expected to reduce in the second half of the year. To support this growth, Sigma has secured an upsized debt facility of $500 million during the period, maturing late in the 2026 calendar year. Sigma expects to maintain significant headroom under the facility at the conclusion of the financial year. Operating cash flow was negative $107 million for the 6 months, reflecting a significant inventory build to support the onboarding of the increased CW supply contract volumes. Inventory management remains a focus for the business as its overall working capital management. We will continue to work to optimize inventory levels as well as work with suppliers to optimize payment terms. CapEx during the period was modest at $2.1 million with a targeted investment in capacity and automation at the Berrinba and Canning Vale sites to support the additional volume and throughput required. As previously communicated, the business remains largely ex CapEx, with a CapEx envelope of $5 million to $10 million per annum and is expected to be at this level on an ongoing basis. I will now hand back to Vikesh to take you through the results in further detail.

Thank you, Mark. I will now provide more detail on the operational performance of the business. On 1 July, we commenced a new 5-year Chemist Warehouse supply contract with approximately $2 billion in annualized new business to Sigma. Clearly, preparing for a contract of the scale presented significant planning requirements. A detailed project management framework was established in November last year to ensure a successful implementation. As Mark indicated, we invested $2.8 million in operational costs and $151 million in inventory prior to the contract starting to maintain high service levels for all our customers. We also invested $4.2 million over the last 12 months to increase our physical and ERP systems capacity to absorb the volume growth. The seamless onboarding of the contract demonstrates the enhanced execution capability of the business today. We recruited and trained almost 300 new team members in preparation for the significant increase in volume with safety in the workplace a particular focus. We reconfigured our DCs to optimize the picking and throughput of the inventory to free up picking and stocking points for expanded ranges. These changes enabled us to purchase and put away almost 10 million units as part of our inventory build phase. During the month of July, our outbound volume grew by 57% with our team and infrastructure absorbed seamlessly. At the same time, our warehouse and logistics costs were slightly down, and the kilometers traveled to deliver the product to pharmacies only grew by 2%, reflecting our ability to efficiently leverage our existing operating capabilities. With the transition now complete, we are looking for opportunities to further streamline our processes and drive efficiencies through the value chain. Wholesale volume for the first half grew 9% to 123 million units. And with Chemist Warehouse fully onboarded, we expect volume to increase by over 40% on an annualized basis. Importantly, we retained approximately 35% available wholesale capacity without the need for major capital expenditure to absorb future growth. Pharmaceutical Wholesaling is core to our business, and we maintained high levels of customer service during the half, Delivery in Full and Dispatch on Time metrics were maintained above 99% across our network. Inventory on hand grew to $372 million, reflecting the build required to service the new CW contract. This has resulted in stock availability to all customers, improving to 95%. As the forecast demand settles over the next 12 months, we will continue to refine our inventory management position while maintaining our commitment to stock availability. We also worked collaboratively with suppliers to simplify and streamline inventory processes on an ongoing basis, including the introduction of mobile doc technology at our DCs to provide certainty in scheduling. In keeping with our commitment to improve customer service, delivery routes were reconfigured which resulted in improved delivery times for over 800 pharmacies across the network. Turning now to our retail strategy. Pleasingly, with a significant increase in competition post the CW merger announcement, we have managed to settle our network at 208 Amcal pharmacies and 104 DDS pharmacies across Australia, with an additional 8 new Amcal franchisees contracted post the half year results. More important at this stage of our brand strategy is that the pharmacies in the network are performing stronger with like-for-like sales up 13% for the half. This is a good reflection on the quality of the network and the improvement in brand execution by our members. In fact, the quality of our network was recently recognized by consumers with Amcal being awarded the Canstar Blue’ 2024 Most Satisfied Customer Award for Pharmacies and DDS coming runner up. I congratulate all our members for this achievement and thank them for their commitment to the brands. With positive momentum in brand performance, we now turn our attention to better supporting these 2 brands and growing our member base as we pursue our medium-term targets of 300 Amcal and 150 DDS stores. Recognizing the need to invest in the brands, we will commence in the second half of this year with a new marketing campaign in support of building the Amcal brand equity. Turning to our private and exclusive label strategy, where there is approximately an 18-month lead time from product design and development through to manufacture and launch. Private and exclusive label sales were up 16% for the half but remain subscale at less than 1% of total sales. We flagged at our FY '24 results the expectation that 80% of our new products in development will launch in the second half of this year. And pleasingly, the pipeline remains on track. We successfully launched 32 products in the first half. This included our own Amcal branded products as well as our partnership with the [ Tradie ] brand. We currently have 460 private label products in market with a further 220 launching in the second half to help contribute to our FY '26 results. Product categories will include natural medicines, beauty, baby, skincare, suncare and feminine hygiene. This is an important component of our margin growth strategy as it provides a quality and affordable product for consumers, differentiation for our pharmacies and delivers gross margins 4 to 5x higher than branded products. Third-party logistics is complementary to our wholesale business and remains an area of growth. During the first half, Sigma dispatched over 65 million units for manufacturers from our ISO 9001 accredited DCs. Sigma currently has 3PL storage capacity for approximately 50,000 pallets with around 45% currently utilized, leaving significant spare capacity to grow. The next phase of development to enhance our capability is GMP certification and moving warehousing and distribution onto our core SAP platform, which will be executed in a phased manner. Through market activity and the development of our pipeline, like-for-like contribution is up 17% for this half. Turning now to the proposed merger with the Chemist Warehouse Group. Firstly, a quick recap on the proposal that was announced on the 11th of December to create a leading pharmaceutical wholesaler, distributor and retail pharmacy franchisor. Submissions were made to the ACCC in February this year, and in March, the public consultation process commenced. This culminated in the release of a statement of issues in June and the consultation process has continued. The ACCC has subsequently indicated a proposed date of 24th October 2024 to announce their findings. If the merger is approved on 24th October, we anticipate the process to continue for several months to completion, including the release of a prospectus and scheme booklet, shareholder votes for Sigma and Chemist Warehouse shareholders and the court approval process. As the transaction is currently under consideration by the ACCC, we are not able to provide any further updates at this stage. Finally, turning to our outlook for FY '25. Sigma operates in a very competitive, yet defensive market segment that is resilient to macroeconomic downturns. The business has a strong growth profile, benefiting from the sales growth of the new 5-year Chemist Warehouse supply contract, which only began on 1 July 2024. Importantly, even after including the new Chemist Warehouse volume, we will have 35% available wholesale capacity to efficiently absorb future growth without the need for major capital investment. Whilst we are only 8 weeks into the second half, momentum is positive, and the business is effectively converting volume growth into improved overall profitability. Normalized EBIT is, therefore, anticipated to be between $50 million to $60 million for the full year, and we maintain our medium-term EBIT margin target of 1.5% to 2.5%. By the NPSA, negotiations are well advanced with the Health Minister and the Department of Health for a new industry funding agreement that will provide enhanced financial support to CSO wholesalers. The agreement is expected to be concluded in the next few months, and may provide upside to guidance. Finally, as I outlined earlier, the ACCC has indicated 24th October as the possible date for an announcement on the proposed merger with Chemist Warehouse Group. This is a highly complex and rigorous process, which we continue to engage and support. I will now hand over to Mark Davis, who will provide an update on the full year results for the Chemist Warehouse Group.

Thank you, Vikesh. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to present the Chemist Warehouse Group FY '24 results to you today. This morning, I'll take you through the headline financials, our execution priorities going forward and our positive outlook. Put simply, these results show our compelling value proposition is resonating with more customers, particularly given the cost of living pressures that many face. We're making good progress expanding our store network both in Australia and internationally. We have large long-term growth runways ahead of us in all markets. In addition, we're complementing strong network sales with successful online profitability initiatives and supplier support income. The business is performing well with more to come. As this slide shows statutory PBT was $574 million, up 33.7% versus the previous corresponding period. As we reported in March, these are statutory results. There are no adjustments for any costs we've incurred with the proposed merger or any other one-off costs incurred during the year. At the risk of being conservative, we like to keep the numbers clean. We're pleased with the sales growth that's been achieved in the year. Total network sales, including online, were up over 14%. This reflects the value through discounted prices and special offers provided to customers. We closed the year with 637 network stores. We added 35 new stores in the year with 18 openings in the first half and 17 in the second half. That's broadly consistent with our long-term store growth strategy. We had 567 stores in Australia, adding 19 new stores in the period and 70 stores offshore, a lift of 16. New Zealand is our largest international store network with 50 stores, followed by China and Ireland where we are earlier in our trajectory. The Australian store network delivered sales of $7.9 billion, up 12% over the prior corresponding period with like-for-like sales growth in Australia stores, up 11%. Some of you may remember that the number -- that number was 9% in 1H. So stores saw some second half acceleration. These results were achieved, including the initial impacts of the new 60-day dispensing rollout. International stores delivered strong revenue growth. Sales grew by 33% and now exceed $1 billion. We are successfully building scale and driving operating leverage in these newer markets. New store openings, growth in existing domestic and international stores and online sales, more supply support income and improved wholesale efficiencies and margins are driving the growth and improved profitability. Statutory NPAT was $540 million, a rise of 78%. As I called out 6 months ago, NPAT benefited from $135 million one-off tax credit in the first half, which related to a material onetime expense back in FY '21. Moving now to the next slide, where we show more detail on the statutory profit and loss and balance sheet. Profit before tax is our key earnings metric. As I mentioned, it increased by $144.8 million to $574.1 million. The earnings split was 56% in 1H and 44% in 2H, reflecting our typical seasonality with strong trading in the Christmas lead up and a quieter January period. I'll remind you, from the 1st of February 2023, Chemist Warehouse Group implemented certain changes to commercial arrangements with our franchisees. These changes have no impact on profit before tax, but they do reduce the reported revenue, gross profit and EBITDA with a corresponding reduction across the depreciation and amortization and net finance cost line items in the P&L. Again, as I've noted previously, these changes have no impact to PBT. The earnings have strengthened our balance sheet. We are well placed to self-fund our growth strategies and reward our shareholders through dividends. Net debt fell to $60 million at the end of the year. That's a reduction from $238 million from the end of the first half. As we said at the time of the merger announcement in December '23, we anticipate that the Chemist Warehouse Group will have circa $300 million in net debt at the time the merger with Sigma is implemented. Cash flow from operations was $273 million for the year. Working capital reverted to more typical levels having been unusually low at 30 June last year. Inventory levels at 30 June were a little elevated as we plan for further growth. The interim FY '24 dividend of $117 million was paid in March, and a final dividend of $149 million will be paid tomorrow. Turning to our execution priorities and outlook. The focus across the Chemist Warehouse Group is very much on continuing to provide discounts and compelling value for customers to drive sustained long-term growth. So how are we going to maintain our momentum? We'll continue to drive value for our customers. Benefits to our brand partners and efficiencies across the network. We continue to have significant growth runway in Australia, and we are still in the very early days of our overseas growth. We can see scope for significant new store openings in all of our markets. The key to the model is ensuring it's compelling for our stakeholders. Customers can trust Chemist Warehouse to provide great value. Franchisees can trust our campaigns and offers will resonate with customers, and our brand partners can trust, we can deliver their campaign successfully across the network and deliver a superior return on investment. Moving now to FY '25, where we have a positive outlook. We are focused on the continued rollout of new franchise stores both internationally and in Australia. Operationally, we are focused on ensuring a smooth transition to new supply agreements. These are large logistical projects that will provide further efficiencies and benefits in FY '25 and beyond. And finally, we're making good progress with the various required steps for our merger proposal, but naturally, it all remains subject to the required regulatory and other approvals. I'm pleased to say FY '25 has started well with positive network sales momentum continuing, like-for-like sales growth versus the previous corresponding period in network stores and more store openings. I look forward to updating you as the year further progresses. With that, I'll now hand back to Vikesh.

Thank you, Mark, and we now have to respond to any of your questions on Sigma.

[Operator Instructions] First question from [ Rosemary Tan ]. I'll probably direct this to Mark. With the $2.8 million EBIT impact from the onboarding of Chemist Warehouse contract, can you provide some examples of the onboarding costs you incurred? And do you expect to see some residual impact remaining in the second half?

Yes. Thanks for the question. As you can imagine, recruiting sort of 300 people in a tight labor market, we needed to bring those on progressively. So the $2.8 million really reflects bringing those people on through May and June period. It also reflects the training efforts. So additional employees needed to be backfilled while we train them. So in summary, it was a really, the lion's share of the cost was bringing on the people ahead of the volume. There were some small amounts of project management costs, but that was relatively immaterial. And in terms of residual, no, the contract is up and running. As Vikesh outlined, it's running very well. So we don't expect any sort of residual in the second half of those onboarding costs.

Next question from Dave Stanton. There's a number of questions in this -- so I'll take them one at a time. For Vikesh, what has been the impact of the 60-day dispensing rule on wholesalers and retailers?

Certainly, from a wholesale perspective, it has not been material. And from what I can understand, the uptick in retail hasn't been that great either. So currently, since it's only really completed in September, we haven't really seen a material impact from 60-day dispensing.

Two, do you still expect the CW transaction to complete in the second half of this year?

Well, we are dependent really on the ACCC either approval or rejection. And then we'll take the process from there. But as I've outlined, once we do get ACCC approval, if it is approved, there are several steps to conclude before that. So timing really subject to the regulators at present.

And part three, what do you expect the industry negotiations with government for the next funding agreement? What is the potential for upside in FY '25?

Well, certainly, if we're negotiating, our ambition is to go negotiate an improved CSO and margin outcome with government. Certainly, we don't get the inflationary benefits that come through as our pharmacists do, et cetera, and we are working with government to try and find ways to improve our service levels, I guess, to pharmacies into the future. And to be able to achieve that and secure the supply of medicines to all pharmacies, we certainly need an improvement in support funding from government.

Question from [ Hana Mitchell ]. What of Sigma's best estimates of one-off costs associated with the CW merger that will be incurred in the second half? And do you expect to see any further one-off costs past FY '25?

Well, it's certainly difficult to tell. It depends on how long we work with the regulators. We do -- I still expect some more costs in the second half of this year as we continue with the process. And ultimately, it's very difficult to answer the question with the level of certainty.

A question from Tom Godfrey for Mark. Please comment on other revenue performance in first half '25.

There's no specific callouts in terms of other revenue for the first half. Yes. I mean hospitals revenue set in there, and we obviously have our MPS business that sits in there as well, which is trading quite well. So overall, I think that was in line with where we expected.

The biggest impact is the gain of the sale of hospitals in last year isn't in that number this year.

The $8.8 million that I called out in the presentation.