Swedencare AB (publ) (SECARE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi, and welcome to the Presentation of Swedencare's Q4 Report, led by our CEO, Hakan Lagerberg; and CFO, Jenny Graflind. We will have a Q&A after the presentation, so please raise your hand if you have any questions, and we will answer them in the end. Over to you, Jenny and Hakan.

Thank you so much. Welcome all to our highlights presentation or Q4 presentation '23, Hakan Lagerberg here and with Jenny Graflind, our CFO. Yes, the end of the year finished strongly and we had another sales record growth in all channels and in all regions. I will present those later on. The organic growth was 23%, the best for the year and full year was 15%. And for those of you that remember, we had roughly 10% growth in first half of the year and then in Q3, we had 17% and now we have 23%. So, as we discussed and anticipated was that the second half of the year should yield better numbers, and it sure did. Very strong cash flow continues, 93% cash conversion from EBITDA. So we managed to amortize SEK 75 million on our debt. And we also made a minority acquisition of Riley's Organics, that I also will present a bit later on. Our process of focusing to leave the external manufacturers and transfer them internally has continued. We have now 84% of the products that we sell are manufactured internally. And we have also improved the output in all our manufacturing sites, both in California and in Vetio South primarily, and also in Ireland, where we have made lots of new, let's say new setups, predominantly for the soft chew launch in Europe. We made an acquisition of Riley's Organics. It was finalized the 2nd of January. And it's a very new and interesting area for us. We haven't been in the treats sector previously, but we see that it's a really high-growing and very interesting area where we see lots of opportunities to be able to grow a lot faster than the market in that sector as well. As we have been looking at different treat brands thoroughly, and we really wanted to find something that was a bit different than the normal Vetio products. And Riley's Organics have had a really stronger presence in the market, a small brand, but being true to their objective of having really high-quality products. And we have a strong pipeline of new products being launched within that brand. And we will also take that brand has been sold in online. And with some wholesalers, we see opportunities in the vet channel, we see opportunities in the Pet Retail space. So that will be a very interesting sector of our business. The proposal from the Board is that we increase our dividend this year to SEK 0.23 per share. And this is predominantly due to the fact that we've had a very successful year and had a very strong cash flow. So we see there's good room for this. Our ESG work continues. We have now completed the implementation of a sustainability platform, where relevant KPIs have been carefully selected and we will measure all of those in 2023, and then we will start communicating hopefully the improvements that we will be doing over the year in 2024. So it's been a big project and now been finalized and now we're starting to implement it with all of our group companies. We also made a lifecycle analysis for ProDen PlaqueOff. As most of you know, it is an organic material in the product. But we have been looking at the whole process and see where we can -- we now know the imprint and we will now look if we can make further improvements. And then we also obtained the certification of NASDAQ ESG transparency. We have been working very hard in improving our communication when it comes to ESG and it's great to see that we get this recognition from NASDAQ.

Okay. Some figures. Let's start with revenue. The net revenue for the quarter amounted to SEK 627 million. That's about an increase of 26% compared to Q4 last year. This is including the, like Hakan said, 23% organic growth, 1% currency impact, and 2% organic growth. And the organic growth came from Vetio UK, acquired growth came from Vetio UK and Axiom, which we acquired both in November '22 and April of '23. Net revenue continues to grow quarter-by-quarter. The increase from last quarter was 4%, and that's with the same company structure. The operational EBITDA is the same as EBITDA because there was no adjustments except for a very small one this quarter, so that is 21.6%. Some other KPIs. Operational gross margin is 58.2%. During the fourth quarter, this gross margin was positively impacted about 3.6 percentage because we did a reclass between indirect and direct labor cost. We had a negative impact of gross margin due to write offs of inventory. But if I exclude this inventory write off and the recast, the gross margin would have been at 56.9%, which is the strongest for the year. The operational EBITDA amounted to SEK 135.5 million, this is an increase of 13% compared to last year and the margin was 21.6% compared to 24.2% last year. And this margin was impacted partly by a write off or reserve of receivable as well as a one-time cost, which related to the fact that we have relocated our Rx from New York to Florida. In addition to that, we have increased marketing spend with Amazon, which was higher in Q4, and we also have some double expenses for some positions second part of the year, which has doubled because we have done a handover for some positions at year end. Adjusted for this one-time cost of the write-down and the EBITDA margin would have been a little bit over 25%. We also did -- in Q4, we did an annual tax expense for the U.S., which was recorded and this had resulted in a negative profit margin for the quarter. However, excluding this depreciation on acquisition-related assets and related deferred tax, the group has an effective tax rate, which is about 10.7% for the year. We had another strong cash flow for this quarter, SEK 126.3 million. This is like, Hakan said, 93% cash conversion against EBITDA. We further decreased our working capital, despite that we are able to increase our sales which is great. And yes, just like what Hakan said, we have done the minority acquisition and also amortizing our loans. And one other thing is that despite the fact that the interest rates have continued to increase, our interest expense has actually decreased due to the fact that we have now a lower debt. And our net debt-to-EBITDA is now at 2.63%. This is compared to 3.39%, which we had at December last year. Some annual numbers. Net revenue was SEK 2.3 billion, an increase of 27%, which of 15% was organic growth. And like Hakan said, all geographical markets have shown growth, which is great. And operational gross margin of 55.4% is a bit lower than last year, but that's mainly due to product mix. We have had raw material cost, which has increased and we also had higher inventory write-off this year. The operational EBITDA is about SEK 500 million and this is an increase of 14% compared to SEK 440 million last year. OpEx is adjusted for the reclass and acquisition costs. If I adjust the OpEx for the reclass and acquisition costs, we are at the same level as last year. However, Amazon represents 35% of the external cost this year compared to 25% last year. So if we think about the remaining external cost, we have actually had a decrease as part of sales from 14% to 12.6%, which shows then a scalable operations. The operating cash flow is SEK 444 million, a positive effect of working capital for the year of SEK 60 million due to less inventory and also an increase of operating liabilities. Investments in tangible and intangible assets or CapEx amounted to SEK 36 million for the year. That's about half of what we spent last year. And it's about 1.6% of net sales and last year that was 3.6%. And in addition, we have also amortized SEK 200 million on our loans this year. Our rolling 4 quarters continue to show a nice trend. Of course, this is the full year numbers. Product and brand split. I will mention a few. Nutraceuticals, which is the largest product group, has shown a growth of 24% compared to last year and 35% for the full year. The ProDen PlaqueOff has had a fantastic -- just another fantastic year, it increased with 46% compared to last year and 50% for the full year. It's mainly the powder, which is behind the increase. There has been efforts to remove third-party sellers at lower prices and they have begun to yield results which for us result in a higher sales price for the product. There's also been a very strong increase of soft chews for the quarter and also for the year. And this only includes the launch of soft chews on the U.S. market, because the launch in Europe will take place this quarter. The Topical and Dermatology is down -- or is up this quarter, but down for the year. And this is partly due to this ingredient Chlorhexidine, which is found in many of our products that we sell online. And this ingredient is the prescription ingredient for humans, but not for pets. However, Amazon's algorithms and guidelines are still influenced by this. So we had to do a necessary write-down of some of these products and also we have lost revenue because of this. It's about SEK 20 million for the year.

Yes. Looking at the different regions. North America, net sales of SEK 474 million, that's 76% of our total sales, had 19% growth. So steady and good growth despite having some entities that didn't perform as well as others. But we see that we have built a very good foundation for going into '24. So for the vet channel, that was a bit disappointing as a whole for the year. We see a strong comeback in Q4. And also we have good trust in the vet channel going into 2024. So it's looking solid and coming into the vet channel, Vetio South and Vetio North, as you know, had a tough year and we all expected a solid recovery in Q4, and we absolutely had that. So, we're back on track at roughly 20% growth in both entities and looking good for 2024. So the highlights for the different entities there, you could say that Vetio North was very dependent on a couple of customers going into 2023 and there we had a setback with a big project. So that affected us. But we have come out real strong there. We have several new customers and a full pipeline for 2024 going forward, so looking really well. And for Vetio South, we had some challenges in the output and the manufacturing lines and we have come out of that as well. So really strong second half year in Vetio South and also looking good going forward. So it's been a bit tougher year for those 2 entities, but really have delivered what we expected and said in the beginning of the year that we had a plan to get back. So, looking forward to 2024. A couple of different group companies that really were successful. Pet MD continues a really, really strong growth, 44% for the quarter. ProDen PlaqueOff 46% and that including launch now in basically all of the big box retailers. So we launched ProDen PlaqueOff for the first time with PetSmart in January and those were shipped in Q4. NaturVet 20%-plus and have also had a really strong contract manufacturing demand. So really, we are now able to offer contract manufacturing capabilities as well and that's a very good -- has a very good positive effect on our profitability from the manufacturing point of view. The relocation of Rx Vitamins was a big project, moving it down from New York to Tampa. Also the transition, so Lynn Bowgren has taken over as new CEO. She has a background in distribution and have made a revamp of the brand and also expanded the product line. One liquid dermatology line from our -- that we manufacture ourselves is being launched now in Q1. And we have also for the first time launched one soft chew product within the Rx Vitamin line. So it will be really interesting. And we have also for the first time this in 2024, we will be going into national distribution with this brand. We have not had that previously. So that's exciting to see. Geoff Granger, as we announced, came in as the new CEO second half of last year, and he has now fully taken over from Scott Garmon, the Founder. And now Geoff took over in December and it's building not a new strategy, but adding some important features so that we will -- our biggest brand will continue to have strong growth. Vet Classics, it was a veterinary focused brand that was within the NaturVet/Garmon line. It's still being manufactured there, but we have moved the distribution and sales responsibility to our Vet division based in Tampa. So, there will be some changes and offerings for that brand. We have also a fully operational new Swedencare North America distribution center, where we will -- over this year, we will move several of our group entities that are based around Tampa into this distribution center, and we see lots of opportunities, predominantly from a cost perspective that will definitely help us improve our group margin. Several projects going into 2024, when it comes to sales, synergies, and cost savings that been focused in 2023 and we will see effects of that in 2024 definitely. Looking at Europe, continues to have a really, really strong growth coming into from Q3 53% growth, the SEK 134 million in sales and that was 21% of our group sales. And we see all over the markets wherein that the demand is high on all channels, so nothing is really sticking out. Double-digit growth on most European markets, some exceptional, Spain 57%, Ireland 63%, and that's really based from lots of internal demand when it comes to manufacturing from Ireland. Greece, France, Italy and nutravet they had all their best quarter for the year and so happy to finish out strong. Vetio UK surpassed its combined sales for the first 9 months in Q4. So it's really from Q4 that both from internal demand and also external that we see the movement or the expansion and demand for soft chews in Europe is really taking off now. So we're excited about that. And every 2 years the biggest Pet Expo is in Nuremberg. It's called Interzoo. And this year it's always in May. And we're very excited to be presenting and launching a couple of new brands and also the product ranges that has soft chews at that show. So we're preparing that. Swedencare Ireland has been building up the capacity for soft chews manufacturing and it's ramping up and it will continue to ramp up in 2024. Swedencare UK had not a growth quarter, but that was expected since we are moving from vendor to FBA on Amazon. And that means that we will have the full top line sales on Amazon sales in Europe and we will also be more in charge of marketing and how we present the product. So very excited about that. We've had a good collaboration with Amazon. We will continue to have that, but we will be more in charge of the marketing so that we can fully utilize our strategy and capabilities that we have successfully done in the U.S. So it will have a very positive effect on sales in 2024, but I expect Q1 to be a bit slower also for Swedencare UK since Amazon is selling out its inventory in this quarter. And exports, SEK 18.2 million, 3% of total revenue, and had 70% growth. Behind those growth numbers is basically lots of our group companies is starting to focus a bit more on exports, and also from the Swedencare group we are helping out with distributors where we're not present. And I expect the trend to continue very strongly for the exports. Some highlights, Vetio North had a new Asian customer and that continues to grow. We now have -- we had one big project start up in Q3 or Q2 or Q3 and that customer awarded us a new project in end of this year and there are several more in the pipeline for that. So exciting to see. Increased sales and interest of FlavorPal, for those of you that do not know, it's a flavoring product that are utilized for pharma products predominantly and we have a very high interest there because it's a fairly unique composition and good results. So it's a longer process in adding FlavorPal to existing drugs. But for all of the drugs that we develop for other customers, we propose this FlavorPal ingredient and most customers accept and you can expect that section to grow basically, definitely year-by-year, but probably over every quarter as well. NaturVet and Rx Vitamins are primarily Asian sales and it's increasing. So we're helping out there, launching a bit new -- on a couple of new markets. ProDen PlaqueOff sales were solid. Some markets really, really good and still waiting for the China comeback and hopefully 2024 will be the year. We have positive indications on that. And one other aspect of China that's really, really gratifying is that our manufacturing site in Ireland, they have been applying for getting on a GACC list, white list, that means that the manufacturing site is approved for exports to China and it's a complicated process and definitely has taken a lot longer than we expected, partly due to COVID. We applied during the COVID year. So -- but that is finally approved now. So that gives us a completely different opportunity to export supplementary products into China, so that we are ramping that up for 2024. And then looking for priorities in the coming year, it should be '24, not '23, basically the same as we have communicated to the market. Growth and profitability and lowering debt level, that's the overall, I mean, what we focus on. We have so many opportunities to grow faster than the market and we are really, as a group, coming together better for every year and every quarter. So we have had several, let's say, internal meetings both in Europe and in the U.S. and for the different channels. So, you can definitely -- I expect that we will continue our growth journey and the profitability to increase in the coming years. Execution on synergies, sales and cost savings, yes, lots of opportunities still, we are predominantly focusing on all of our customers and value creation for them. But of course we do have lots of internal projects that will help us improve our business as a whole. Continue to move from external to internal, that work continues. We will probably never get to 100%, and we don't need to get 100% because we have some smaller products that we don't see the reason for us to produce. But definitely we will be marching towards the 90% in the coming year. Strong pipeline, both from a customer collaboration perspective in all of our channels. Product launches continues all year for all of our group companies, both, let's say, just adding new products from one brand that we already have. But we also have lots of exciting R&D in our pipeline. So expect us to be launching new products in all of our brands this coming year. Other more integrated corporations are developing with major players in the market and we are always open to that. And discussing M&A, we have communicated that we are interested in getting back a bit more perhaps on the M&A trail and there's lots of interesting companies that we have discussions with, so let's see when and if it happens. But it's a focus area for us to add new, interesting companies to the group where we see that they can add new things to us. And also looking from a geographical perspective, we are widening a bit in the scope. So we're looking at Asia, New Zealand, Australia, interesting markets where we don't have physical presence. So could be -- that's probably a focus area for us. But the overall importance is really the perfect fit for our group when it comes to company growth and profitability and most importantly, the -- let's say, culture of the business and having the same priorities that we do as a group. And then just small indication is that 2024 has started well, very strong start, lots of things happening, lots of expos, and expecting definitely double digit growth going forward. Thank you.

And by that we are open for questions and the first one comes from Rickard.

So, Hakan, a bit of a follow-up there on the number of new product launches this year and how many do you have sort of lined up for '24? So that would be the first one, please.

I would say roughly 10. And that's all over the different brands. But if you add product offering expansion from different brands, then there's a lot more. Looking at the -- for example, the dermatology products, we haven't been selling dermatology products in Europe and we are just about to launch a couple of dermatology products under the nutravet brand that will be launched now in a couple of weeks at Crufts, the biggest pet dog show in the world, actually. So that will be exciting to see. We have branded 4 or 5 products that will be launched there. But I would say completely new products. It would be around 10.

That's helpful. And what are you planning for price increases in '24 versus what you did in '23, that'd be helpful as well.

The main price increases in '24 is going to come from Vetio because of the higher ingredients. So that's going to be in the range of 5% to 10%, but the other ones are close to 3% to 5%, I would say.

All right. That's helpful. Just follow-up also on sort of current trading dynamics, you mentioned, good start to the year. Is it sort of low teens or like low double-digit, if you will? Consensus seems to be around 12% to 13% growth for full year and EBITDA margin 25.5% for full year '24. Does that align with your expectations or would be interesting to hear your thoughts on how to set expectations for next year because there was some extraordinary things happening this year, both on top line and profitability, right?

No, yes, I would say definitely, I should say that I expect us to continue to have double-digit growth every quarter. Looking at the individual month, it's a bit, yes, perhaps not a good, let's say, reference. But I mean, it started really well this year, but I definitely expect that we should be delivering double-digit growth probably closer to 20% than 10%.

All right. On the margin side, just to sort of frame expectations, how big of a step up should we think about for next year? Is it sort of like that 25%, 26% level? That sound reasonable? Or is it, where should we think about the full year margin dynamics for next year?

But as Jenny said, looking at this quarter without adjusting for some one-offs, it would be around 25%. So I don't expect us to deliver less than that because we have put in place lots of new, let's say, processes. So we will not -- we do not expect to have those kind of one-offs in 2024.

Your next question comes from Adela.

Adela Dashian from Jefferies here. Just one question on your M&A pipeline. Obviously, the main focus seems to still be, at least, now in the very short term, organic growth, and we're seeing good potential for that. But if you were to compare, I guess, your current funnel versus what you had at this time last year. Do you feel like it has materialized in a certain way? Yes, maybe start there on M&A.

What has materialized?

Your pipeline.

Okay, okay. Yes, I would say that '23 was kind of a bit different year for the sector as a whole, a bit cautious and also saying that sellers expected perhaps a bit higher multiples than the buyers were thinking about. So it really has been a year of the market settled itself. So I think it's more realistic expectations now and also the prospects of having lower interest rates going forward. I think that probably helps the appetite. And I think most predominantly also that the market has seen that the industry as a whole is very solid and there is growth as a whole. So I would say that some players that were very cautious last year are being a bit more active on the buy side and then on the sell side. People have realized that perhaps the '21, '22 multiples is not really realistic now. So let's start to discuss. So I would say that the pipeline is definitely -- there are more discussions than, let's say, a year ago.

Okay. So, both -- it's a combination of prices rationalizing versus last year and better opportunities, I guess, for you to take on now with...

Exactly. And also from our perspective, I mean, we communicated that '23 would be a bit slower year and really focusing on getting the debt levels down. And we have continued doing that. So -- and we are happy with the growth of the company and that also helps us. So yes, it's both predominantly from the market and the expectations, but I would say also from our perspective, we weren't really on the M&A trail last year.

And your next question comes from [ Johan ].

Starting off with a question on the production segment, it grew sales pretty impressively, 30%, I think like full year 2023. Given your positive comments on the order backlog in Vetio and sort of the operational issues being mostly behind us, what can we expect in terms of sales growth in 2024 for the segment? That's my first question.

Haven't really communicated that, but definitely that it will probably -- it will be stronger -- one of the stronger for us both from, let's say, internal perspective, the demand that we have there for our removing and also from external position that we are more built to serve more external customers and there are a big demand. So I will say that my expectations on the production side is that it will be one of the stronger sections of our business.

Okay. Got it. And the question on gross margins, and there were a lot of adjustments and cost of sort of one-off nature in the quarter. And also, you've talked previously about price increases in Vetio going into 2024. How should we think about sort of normalized gross margin coming quarters?

Well, we would have been at 56% or something if I take away the adjustments and I expect them to be a little bit higher now when we have price increases going through. And then we also have some projects where we are working on the raw material costs. So I expect it to be a little bit higher than the current 56%. So somewhere between, yes, I don't know, 57% maybe, or something like that. I communicated last year that we were hoping to be a 58%. So, yes, that's what we're aiming for the end of the year.

That's very clear. And question on cash flow and working capital. You mentioned lower working capital. Do you expect this trend to continue into 2024, and if so, by what magnitude?

It's difficult. I didn't think that we were going to be able to decrease working capital further actually in this quarter. We did SEK 60 million for the full year, which I think is quite impressive if you compare to our growth. And due to the fact that we are expecting high growth last year or next year or this current year, I would be fine if our working capital is flat. So maybe there's a little bit of improvement, but I don't expect -- I think we have pulled out a lot of the improvement so far.

Okay. That's very clear. Also a follow-up on CapEx. Same question there really. Do you expect to see sort of similar trends into 2024 with CapEx coming down? Or should we expect CapEx in relation to sales to be in line with the numbers in 2023?

We have communicated that we are expecting CapEx to be around 3%. So it was a little bit lower this year because we did a lot the year before. I would be fine if our CapEx to sales is 3% this year.

Okay.

I just wanted to follow-up on that. Like Hakan mentioned, we are doing a lot of investments right now to improve our soft chews production, especially in Europe. So I expected to be a little bit more investments due to that and a couple of ones in the U.S. So 3% of the sales.

And the final question on gearing actually is sort of your -- I struggle to get the math straight because your full year 2023 operating EBITDA was roughly SEK 500 million or SEK 499 million. And you reported a net debt of roughly SEK 1.4 billion. According to my math, that equates to a gearing of 2.85x. Could you just help us understand how you get to the reported number of 2.63, please?

Yes, it's partly including a pro forma EBITDA. So the entities that we own at the end of the year, you use the pro forma EBITDA for the full year. That's one of the difference. And also it's adjusted for the leasing, the IFRS 16, the leasing adjustments.

Okay, got it. And what are your sort of long term, I know you've communicated that you're sort of planning to reach levels below 2x EBITDA at the end of 2024. But beyond that, what is sort of your long term targets in terms of gearing? Do you feel like it's something that you will continue to have going forward or given your strong cash conversion? Is this sort of something that belongs to the past and you can become net cash and sort of finance acquisitions through -- for your own cash flow? That's my final question.

I think that all depends on what kind of targets we're looking at in 2024. So if we are not making any big ones similar to what we did in 2023, I think we will be at 2.0. But I'm not saying we haven't set a long-term target if we want to be at a positive net debt or we haven't set that. But I will be quite comfortable to be at 2.0.

Yes. And also development on the interest rates. I mean, that depends. No. So we haven't set a fixed target.

Next question comes from Christian.

I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on your acquisition agenda that is focused on finding assets that bring something new to the group. What are you missing in your product portfolio for the current moment?

I mean, we have a solid portfolio, so I wouldn't say there are any big gaps. But of course, as we now have entered into the organic treats with Riley's, we do not have the capabilities of those kind of products, the full protein, freeze-dried and that could be something that we would look into, but that could also be set up from a greenfield. But otherwise it's more looking at, let's say niche products that could expand in areas where we are strong. For example, we're always looking for interesting oral care products. We are looking for interesting, let's say, new innovations when it comes to ingredients. So I wouldn't say that there's not any big areas where we see a big gap. And then also, coming back to the question, I said that we are a bit focused looking at some interesting geographies. And when it comes to geographies, we are a bit more open to perhaps make an acquisition where there's a company that has similar products of ours that we see as a good starting point for that region or for that country to launch new brands that we have. So I would say that it's dependent on which geographies, how focused we are of getting the uniqueness into the group.

That's very clear. How easy or difficult would it be for you to make acquisition in China, for example?

Yes, China is a bit special market, as you all know. So I wouldn't say it's probably not an easy transaction and it's not that many interesting targets there because China is really, let's say, startup market still when it comes to supplementary products, where we are active. I mean, China has grown a lot within the pet sector, but that's predominantly within pet food. So I would say that China is probably a challenging market to find a really good target for us.

Thank you. That concludes our Q&A session. Back to you for any closing comments, guys.

Thank you so much for the interest and Jenny and I and the whole team are really excited for the year to come, and looking forward to presenting next quarter for you.

Thank you.