Tessenderlo Group NV (TESB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our webinar for our half year results. We will start with a presentation from our CEO, Luc Tack; and our CFO, Miguel de Potter. After that, we will give some analysts the chance to ask a live question. [Operator Instructions] So with that, I hand over to, Luc.

Good morning. Good afternoon. Welcome, and thank you all for joining us on the call on our H1 results. As you can imagine, it has been a busy first half year and also turbulent first half year with all things happening in the world in the respect of the Strait of Hormuz, et cetera. But I must say I'm extremely pleased with how the troops worked, how we, as a company, performed, managing the different hurdles that came on the path during the first 6 months. So I will start by first giving you an overview of some of the key events of this morning. This will then be followed by Miguel, who will highlight you everything on the financials and the financial performance of the company. So first, let me start by repeating that the joint venture with the Tessenderlo Group and Darling Ingredients entered into a definitive agreement in December 2025. This partnership aims to create a top-tier collagen-based health, wellness and nutrition products company poised to capitalize on global collagen markets. And the JV, Tessenderlo will have 15% and Darling will have the majority of 85%. Of course, we, as Tessenderlo, will be present in the Board, and we will further contribute to the success of our Gelatin business. So the JV will combined Darling Ingredients collagen and gelatin with our branded Rousselot with the branded Rousselot and our PB Leiner activities. We will also bring together our know-how, which will also help us to develop further new products going forward. The transaction is expected to close after having received the pending regulatory as you might not be surprised, some countries are quicker than others. And so we are still awaiting some approvals. We cannot tell you as of today when exactly we believe accept them because we will get them that is beyond our control, but we are making progress. So then we had Akiolis, the biomass cogeneration facility to reduce our carbon footprint. So the integration was in April 2026. So this good generation plant will be powered by animal byproducts. This is truly an innovated installation and marks a major step in our decarbonization strategy. thus reducing fossil fuel energy consumption and producing renewable, call it, green energy. So we have started up the plant as always, there are some bucks to be worked out, but we are expecting to scale up further in the fourth quarter of the year as we go forward. So then we had Mr. Karel Vinck, who resigned from the Board. Most of you probably know Mr. Karel Vinck. He has really served our Board so many years, and we have really a sincere gratitude for his dedication and service and value that he gave to the Board. So in the meantime, we have the pleasure of announcing or telling you that Ms. Beatrice Bruey has been quoted to Mr. Vinck's mandate. And we welcome her as a non Executive Director to our Board for the remainder of the mandate of Mr. Vinck's. Then going forward, we have the acquisition of the Cinis Fertilizer plant in Sweden. The acquisition was done in May 2026. This is an SOP production plant. We bought it out of the bankruptcy of Cinis Fertilizers, which really was never able to produce on-spec product all the time. We are now working on the plant. We are making changes to it, and we expect to ramp up the plant in Q1 of 2027. This is really a very environmentally friendly way to make mineral fertilizers for sustainable agriculture. So this will be a sulphate of potassium that we will be producing, which is that we know since we also produced this in [indiscernible] Belgium. Then we were able to acquire PB Leiner, the 40% minority stake from our Brazilian joint venture partners. So this is -- following this acquisition, we now own 100% of this subsidiary. Of course, this subsidiary will then go into the contemplated JV with Darling Ingredients. So then after the balance sheet, we were not sitting still there. We kept going. And so reached an agreement with the Board of FMC to do a capital increase of $400 million into FMC for provision. So FMC Corporation is a really innovator, a technology company. They are very strong in AI. And I'm sure you're mediating AI, you think about artificial intelligence. Well, I mean, AI, I mean active ingredients. And we are doing this investment because we believe that FMC has a lot of technology has a lot of molecules in development, but also moreover, has 4 molecules which will come to the market and -- which will come to the market in the coming years. I think it is important we understand that both crop protection and fertilizers. The businesses that we are in contribute for 50% of all agriculture production worldwide. And therefore, it is important to further create new products FMC can do so. And that's why we are very glad that we can contribute a capital increase, which will further help the company to further develop new molecules. For our company, this is a long-term cornerstone investment. It's a part of our corporate strategy, and we see this as a generational investment for the long term. And I'll give you one more example why we think also FMC is a good investment. Within Europe, we have had over -- since 2019, we have lost 16 molecules. At the end of the day, the farmers need to farm. And at the end, they end up with an empty toolkit. They need tools too far. And for instance, FMC received approval for Isoflex and Isoflex is a new herbicide, which has been approved by Europe some months ago. And this herbicide is important. And why do we like molecules like that and other ones which are in development, when you are having crops and you have herbicides. The herbicides compete for the nutrients in the ground against the crops. In the case of Isoflex. Isoflex is a herbicide which is really meant from a grass crops. I'll give you an example. Wheat, all grain and most grain crops are not most, but a lot of grain crops are grass crops, for instance, like wheat. But by applying in the late season after the season, Isoflex, you are really avoiding the growth of wheat, so that the grain crop capture all the nurture and that the yield of the grain crop is so much higher. And this is really what European farmers, big farmers in U.K. where the product has already been approved and which is where it is already put on the fields. But France, Germany, all these huge because Europe is a large producer in wheat will cause opportunity. I'm just giving this as one example. It's one of many where we believe that agriculture, the future of agriculture is technology, the future of agriculture also is like we do with our fertilizers to grow more with less. Then we have the intention to close the Vilvoorde plant. So in July 26, we announced the intention to close the plant. That intention to close the plant came after anatement process where we tried to sell the plant because we wanted the people who have jobs for the future. And so that's why we tried very hard to print buyers for the plant. I must also say the people within the plant helped us very much to show the plant that are best for buyers. But at the end of the day, we did not find a buyer and nobody taught that plant had a viable future and could be viable going forward. So that's -- then we decided to -- we went to consultation. Then we have the LOE representatives, and then we reached the formal agreement to close the plant on August 21, 2026. So the execution of the restructuring process and now started and will be finalized by H1 2027, and we will have production running if I recall well till end of October. So this restructuring impact is estimated at approximately EUR 31 million, which will be recognized in EBIT adjusted items in H2 2026. Furthermore, the group is now looking at the future and looking at how we can bring this 24-hectare real estate site logs to Brussels and Vilvoorde to the market. And now we are considering different options on how to come to market with this site going forward and hopefully be able to do a transaction next year. So then we have T-Power. T-Power entered into a 6-month tolling agreement -- for the 425-megawatt power plant. I must say you that T-Power has proven again to be a very important asset in the Belgium landscape, especially this summer, the plant has been running a lot to help provide power for the country to keep the air conditioning going to keep things going. So again, we have proven that CGT plants, like T-Power have an important role to play in the future for energy security. Of course, with this transit that we call the transit coming agreement of 6 months. This is giving us more time to assess other various available options for the long-term utilization of the T-Power plant as a safe and reliable bond. So we are currently assessing that. And and developing and looking at different options going forward. So now I will pass it to Miguel, who will take us through the H -- to the financial numbers.

Thank you, Luc, and good morning, good afternoon, everyone, wherever you are located. We are here in Brussels in our office and I have the pleasure of guiding you through our first half figures. Our first half figures, as you might have read already in the press release this morning, we are revenues that are just short of EUR 1.5 billion and an adjusted EBITDA of just near EUR 177 million, that's an EBITDA margin of close to 12% for the first half of the year, which is higher than the first half we had last year. The profit for the period for the first 6 months is nearly EUR 66 million, which is much higher than the negative loss we had for the same period last year, but that negative loss was mainly impacted by noncash foreign exchange translation for intercompany loans that we had which was revised positively -- slightly positively this year. Our CapEx for the first half of the year amounts to EUR 43.7 million that's lower than last year. It has also to do with some timing effects and postponements or permitting that we are still waiting receive from several projects that will be ongoing. And we expect that this CapEx will be higher in the second half of the year. The cash flow from operating activities is above EUR 103.8 million, and our net financial debt thanks to some acquisitions that Luc already mentioned and has increased in the first half of the year. If we go to the revenues per segment, you will see that the balance of the revenues is still mainly very similar to what we had last year with Agro, the largest contributor for all segments, followed closely -- followed by Industrial Solutions and bio valorizations. Machines and Technologies has had a more difficult first half of the year, and I will come back to this and T-Power with its revenues guaranteed from the tolling agreement was very stable. When you look at the adjusted EBITDA per segment, you will see that nearly every segment, apart from machines and technology, i.e., the Picanol Group has grown in terms of EBITDA and margins in the first half of the year; two, I already mentioned EUR 176.8 million. So if we go segment to segment, the first segment, the Agro segment, which has known force increase in EBITDA of 17.3% if you exclude foreign exchange effects. Obviously, we are selling a lot in U.S. dollars and also in other currencies, but that always has an impact in our results one way or the other. But we ended the year -- the first half of the year with an EBITDA of EUR 75 million. That's an EBITDA margin of 13%. We have seen in our Agro division. So we have the brand name, the Crop Nutrition, Tessenderlo Kerley International Crop Protection and Violleau. We have seen higher sales volume across the board and also higher sales price, which are actually a result of higher raw material prices that we were lucky enough convincing to pass on through our customers. the market circumstances have been better for us. And you have to know and to understand that the Cinis plant that Luc was mentioned that we acquired in the first half of this year in Sweden to produce sulfate of potash has not been contributing to those results yet. And we expect this plan to ramp up in the first quarter of 2027 because when we acquired the plant, as Luc mentioned, the plant was not functional, and we are upgrading it to make it fully functional for the year 2027. So do not expect a big contribution from this plant in the second half of the year. For the bioviralization segment, you see here an EBITDA margin that is higher than what we had last year. We were quite fully successful in restructuring some of the PB line or [indiscernible] remember that we closed our bond Gelatin activities in 2027. But we were also negatively impacted by some of the restructuring costs and by also an incident that we had at the end of last year in our plant in Argentina for PB Leiner. Otherwise, the result would have been better. The incident in Argentina is being solved as we speak, and we expect the plant to go back to full production next month. the Akiolis revenues were relatively stable. And we have not received the full insurance proceeds for the incident in Argentina. So these are not recognized in those figures for the first half. We expect those to be recognized in the second half. Industrial Solutions segment, we have DYKA, Kuhlmann and Moleko, where you see revenues of just short of EUR 350 million and an EBITDA margin of 10.8%, which is definitely tough last year. First of all, where did it come from? DYKA mainly is the driver between the forward growth here in Industrial Solutions segment with higher sales price, higher sales price that are also results of higher raw material prices, but meaning that we were successful in passing on those additional prices to our customers. Obviously, as a worldwide group, we are confronted to geopolitical challenges and the price of sulfur or the price of ethylene, which are definitely big raw materials that we use are definitely affected by the conflict in the Middle East. For Kuhlmann and Moleko, the revenues remained stable in the first half of the year. If I look at the machines and technologies, so the Picanol Group in general with Psicontrol, Proferro, but also now Melotte and Osterwalder. Osterwalder which is our Swiss press company that we acquired last year. We see that here, we have a decrease of the revenues and the margin as we had last year. It's mainly due to a slowdown in the activities for the weaving machines that are built out of Europe or by the weaving machines that are built outside of Europe have known growth path in the first half of the year and expect it to continue to grow in the second half of the year. These are less fancy machines. And so the margins are lower on those machines. Both Proferro and Psicontrol have grown in terms of revenue despite the lack of order from Picanol weaving machines, but they were not able to offset basically the order intake there was less than expected in the first half of the year for the weaving machines. When we talk about Osterwalder and Melotte contribution were immaterial in the first half of the year or too small to mention. For last division, T-Power or Energy division, well, the revenues remained stable as we were continuing our tooling agreement with RWE that came to an end on the 30th of June 2026. As Luc already mentioned, we have decided to embark on the 1st of July on a short term tolling agreement in order to assess different options that we have for the future of T-Power one way or the other. When we do the EBIT and the EBIT adjusting items analyzes these are way less impressive than the same period last year, where we had big swings in foreign exchange results. Here, we have EUR 15.3 million of EBIT adjusting items that are relating to mainly 3 position. One is additional cost incurred for the formation of the joint venture between Darling Ingredients and Tessenderlo on the gelatin and the collagen. We had also derecognized contingent consideration that we should have maybe obtained should we keep our Brazilian partner on board, but we decided to buy our Brazilian frames out of our plant in Acorizal. So this is a contingent consideration that we will not receive and that we have taken in EBIT adjusting items, and then we had some restructuring expenses additional restructuring expenses, mainly for PB Leiner and for Picanol in Ypres. Our net finance results is mainly marked by a net foreign exchange gain of close to EUR 9 million. And you will remember, we had a loss there at the same cost last year of more than EUR 50 million. And our net result, as I already mentioned, amounts to close to EUR 66 million. So what have we done with everything we have gained in the beginning of this year, the EUR 176.8 million EBITDA. We basically invested in several acquisitions we mentioned the SOP production plant in Sweden. We mentioned the acquisition of noncontrolling interest from the Brazilian partner in our plant in Acorizal in Matto Grosso in Brazil. We also did acquisition of some shares of FMC, and we invested in some growth CapEx, all in total, these acquisitions and the growth CapEx that will bring additional revenues amount to EUR 72 million -- close to EUR 72 million. And on top of that, we have also paid a dividend this year in June for EUR 44 million. That brings me to our outlook. And as already mentioned, yes, the world is volatile. It's changing on a daily basis, especially when you work actively on the sulfur fertilizers actually in market for the PVC and the PVC market in general. Also for the textile industry and the weaving machines. But based on what we know so far, we are pleased to say that we want to upgrade a little bit our outlook going forward. where we expect to have an adjusted EBITDA higher between 5% to 15% than the 1 we had last year, which was for the full year, EUR 288 million, as you remember. Then our financial calendar. It's before I open the floor to your questions. As we get back online for our webinar next year in March, on March 25. But before going to the Q&A, I will hand over the word to Luc.

So I would like to give as a final comment to the outstanding presentation from the analyst that we are a company with long-term relationships. Most of our biggest customers have been with us 10 years, 20 years. And then you have a difficult environment. And when some Germans are calling us back in March, April. What are you going to do Strait of Hormuz. There's no more [indiscernible], there's no more this, there's no more that. There's no more the other. I'm so pleased that we were able to work with our customers in a way that we did not take advantage from our customers that we were also able to keep them servicing and keeping them in business while us not lose a lot of money because that's always -- I must say, it's dancing on our own. It's a difficult situation. The raw materials go up 10%, next day, 20%, 30%, et cetera, and you need to manage that. And that is something that I feel that I will always bear fruit in the future as well. We have long-term relationships with many of our customers. Quite a lot of them are family owned. I know the families very well. They know our families. We have these long-term relationships. And for us, it's always about customers, how can we delight the customer, how can we service the customer. And that's also how you must see this because I know that some of you are hoping for higher EBITDA for the first 6 months. Could you have achieved that? Maybe, but you destroy -- you would have destroyed many, many relationships. Then there is also a huge gratitude to everybody who works within the stand-alone group and all the different companies without the hard commitment, the hard work and driven our collaborators being driving working like a team, we were able to service the customers. And I'm also very thankful together with my whole ExCom team to everybody within our company that we were able to deliver these results. I think with that, we can now open the floor for questions.

Yes. To start with, we will we hosted from [indiscernible]. We will take you on screen screen. Yes. Wim, if you can unmute yourself, you can ask your questions.

Thanks for allowing me to ask a few questions. I have 5 actually, if that's okay. The first one would be on the situation in the Agro business and specifically with regards to raw material sourcing, sulfur. Can you maybe discuss the overall availability for you and then specifically on MOP. Is there any chance that volumes from Russia, Belarus will become available? Any thoughts on that? So that's the first question I posed here.

Can you give you all your questions, and we will answer them all in one go.

Sure. That's fine also. Second one, would be on T-Power. Can you maybe elaborate on what kind of options you're looking at that also looking at longer-term tolling agreements again? And any thoughts on a second plant project? Is that still on the table or possible? And then the third question is on Picanol. Can you maybe elaborate a little bit more on the difficult market conditions? Is it due to competitive pressures from Japanese, which are made maybe enjoying the weekend to compete fiercely or are there other things high interest rates that -- or other elements that are playing a role? Then the fourth question would be on capital allocation. You did a big move with FMC. Can you maybe help us understand how you're looking at capital allocation now share buybacks versus other opportunities? What are the kind of priorities or criteria for putting your money at work? And then fifth and last question would be on Lenova. Can you maybe elaborate on any exposure you might have to Lenova and the supply agreement, sourcing, whatever and tell us what is baked into your guidance with regards to Lenova scenario. Those are the questions.

All right. That's a tall order. So raw materials, indeed. So our supplies have been challenged. And of course, with the current situation with Russia and Bella Russia, we are not expecting any of these products to flow to Europe many times soon. Once that is peace, maybe then things can change around. And in the meantime, we will keep sourcing from further away. So indeed, this has caused pressures on pricing and it has also caused pressure on availability, especially and respect of the total. I will, at the same time, take your last question, the Lenova because that is related to our SOP production. As you may know, some of our HCL, which is a byproduct has been used by Lenova to go into PVC. And so Nova has again asked for the extension because they believe they can still get higher. And so we will have to see how that process works out. But of course, this has been going on for 9 months. And if no buyer or investor would be found for Lenova, we have worked out different scenarios on how to manage that. Then in respect of T-Power, I think that your question on the second plant. Well, indeed, we still have a permit to build a new gas power plant. And of course, such a large investment is only viable if there is a correct compensation capacity remuneration mechanism is that if there is a good compensation for that. This does not seem to be the case in the near future. So we do not expect anything there in the near future, but the option is still there. And if the government were to decide that more capacity is needed because this capacity has proven again the CCGT capacities are proven again to be very valuable especially and heat waves or no kind of cold situations. So we have that option. And so for T-Power, we have really different options that we are looking out and -- and we need to understand a little bit better. We need to do more homework on it. And of course, we will report to you as quick as we can when we know more. Then in the respect of Picanol. Indeed the first 6 months were somewhat weaker. The Japanese yen at 185 is, of course, not helping us and the competition. But having said that, the outlook for the second quarter is better our order intake has improved for the second half of the year. But for most and more important, I follow very closely pipeline of product developments that we are developing. We're going to be launching new products early next year. And I'm confident that we will be able to create further value our so many valued customers worldwide. And then in respect of the capital allocation...

Yes. In respect of the capital allocation, we are aiming at creating value for obviously, all the shareholders. Currently, we have decided that it is better for us invest capital in minority stake, let's say, from a listed company. like FMC, we have not restarted our buyback program, but we might so in the coming months, depending on how we are evolving. But the group is currently evolving from a group of 100% controlled and owned company to a group where we're going to add, I would say, another investment arm, a long-term investment arm, where we will have minority stakes in companies like FMC or like the joint venture we are currently creating with Darling Ingredients. And this is definitely a goal of diversification of the group, creating value and unlocking value by having major stakes in listed entities worldwide is definitely something we like to do. The capital allocation will not go at the expense of our CapEx program be it maintenance CapEx program of growth CapEx program. Earlier this year, in the first half of this year, you have seen we have spent less CapEx than the previous years. But the previous years, we had also some huge plants that were in construction, like the one in Ohio, the one in Gilen, the Netherlands and other projects like that. This year, we don't have those very large projects, but restore, we're working on several other projects, but it's time consuming and awaiting permits and licenses to start construction.

I think Miguel is summarizing this very well. It's not one or the other. We do all, right? We do we buy companies. We do M&A transactions. We we acquired Tiger-Sul. We bought the Madame business from Eastman, and we bought the Cinis asset in Sweden. So when we can acquire stuff, which makes sense, we do so. Then, of course, organic growth wherever we can, we invest in our plants and see what we can do. And then thirdly, as we already highlighted last year, this cornerstone investment and businesses that we understand and that we believe can create value also capital allocation because that was your question on the capital allocation. Also keeping into mind that this cornerstone investments are listed investments and as such, are also creating financial flexibility if it were to be needed. Thank you.

So now we can go to the Q&A box. There's many questions. I will have a look and select some of them. Question from Christian Faitz. Can you please elucidate your strategy behind taking a 20% stake in FMC? And what is the time line in terms of approvals for this?

So let me for go to the easy part of the question, which is the time line for approvals. We expect that we will get all the regulatory approvals somewhere around the end of September or in October. Obviously, we know that we are not mastering the process in several jurisdictions, but we have already approval from some transactions. So that's positive. But the process is ongoing, and we don't expect it to go much longer than October. So it should be finished by then. What is the rationale for taking a 20% stake in FMC? Well, it's -- as Luc was saying, it's a business we understand. And it's a business of active ingredients that we believe we understand you have to know that today, our crop protection business is a relatively successful business of all molecules that are off patent. With FMC, we are entering into the world of patented molecules. And we believe that in doing our work and contemplate FMC that FMC has a nice product portfolio going forward. It's not a secret because they are publicly listed and the report on this. But they will release 5 new molecules in the coming 5 years, which is a very good portfolio. We believe also that FMC was attractively priced recently because of more balance sheet issue and by contributing to a capital increase of EUR 400 million. FMC will be able to reduce its debt by its indebtedness by EUR 1 billion over the short term. So we believe that we will -- we entered the company at a turnaround that might take some time, and we are ready to be patient and to help the company through this turnaround to go back to more a creditworthiness company and create value there for us, but not only as a shareholder of FMC, but also to create value from things we can learn from them for our own Ag divisions.