Toyota Tsusho Corporation (8015) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend today's briefing on Toyota Tsusho Corporation's consolidated financial results for fiscal year 2023. Present at today's briefing are Ichiro Kashitani, President and CEO; Tominaga, CSO; and Iwamoto, CFO. Before I start the presentation, I would like to make a few remarks. In the presentations, we may make forward-looking statements based on our current expectations, all of which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Please note that actual results may differ from these forward-looking statements. We will begin with a few words from Mr. Kashitani, President and CEO.

Hello and how are you? I would like to thank you very much for your continued support. Today's meeting will be held in a hybrid format with participants coming to the venue and live streamed meeting. For those of you participating in the live streaming session, please understand that we will be providing explanations through the screen. Our CFO, Mr. Iwamoto will explain the details of the financial results immediately after this. But I would like to say that our net income attributable to owners of the parent for the fiscal year 2023 was JPY 331.4 billion, a record high. CFO Iwamoto will now explain the details of the results.

Hello to all of you. Thank you for joining us today despite the Golden Week holiday. I will now review the consolidated results for fiscal year 2023 and the earnings forecast for fiscal year 2024. First of all, please take a look at the second page. As shown in the upper right corner from the previous fiscal year, the U.S. dollar appreciated by JPY 10 to JPY 145 per dollar. The euro appreciated by JPY 15 to JPY 156. Revenue was JPY 1.1889 trillion exceeding the JPY 10 trillion mark. Gross profit was exceeded JPY 1 trillion at JPY 1.523 trillion. Operating profit was JPY 441.5 billion, and net profit was JPY 331.4 billion, all record highs. The impact of foreign exchange rates on profit was a positive JPY 11 billion, while the impact of foreign exchange rates on revenue was JPY 468.7 billion. Excluding these effects, revenue would have decreased slightly from the previous year. Waterfall model is shown on Page 3. Operating profit was JPY 441.5 billion compared with JPY 388.7 billion in the previous period, an increase of JPY 52.8 billion. The foreign exchange effect was positive JPY 16.6 billion, while the markets and prices were negative JPY 23.5 billion, mainly due to lower metal and lithium prices and a decline in steel price wrapped gains. Demand is growing and trading volume increased JPY 24.6 billion. Only in machinery and energy, including electricity in Europe declined. Automobile sales increased in both Africa and other regions, resulting in an increase of JPY 38 billion. The fourth page shows analysis other than operating profit. Regarding the financial income and costs, interest expense increased and was negative at JPY 4.6 billion. However, due to the effect of onetime gains and losses in the previous period, financial income increased overall. Equity gains and losses were negative year-on-year due to the impact of declining electricity prices in both Europe and the U.S. However, there was a gain of JPY 5.1 billion from the sale of real estate in Japan in the previous fiscal year. So there was a slight increase. Including the reversal of the previous year's gain, the total loss was JPY 11.4 billion. Noncontrolling interest gain benefited from the acquisition of 100% of Eurus Energy. In addition, the Lithium business is fully consolidated but 75% of the equity belongs to our partners. So there's a loss for that position. Including this, the total gain was more than JPY 20 billion. For information on one-off gains and losses, see Page 5. Compared with the previous year, the total amount of one-off gains after tax profit for the current year decreased to JPY 4.5 billion. The target loss was JPY 2.5 billion. This is disclosed and is the extraordinary loss of Sanyo Chemical Industries, our associated company, which is included in the consolidated financial statements. Page 6 shows profit by division. I'll explain this in detail using the waterfall model later. So I will not go in to it here. But the results were generally positive, except for Metals and Machinery & Energy plant with Africa showing a 90% increase. Page 7 shows the consolidated financial position. Total assets are JPY 7.0599 trillion. Although there is a foreign exchange impact of JPY 312.2 billion, the value exceeds JPY 7 trillion. Inventories were JPY 1.2036 trillion, a decrease of JPY 23.7 billion and a decrease of JPY 112.6 billion, including the effect of foreign exchange. I believe the inventories have finally settled at an acceptable level. Net worth was JPY 2.4671 trillion, an increase of JPY 552.8 billion. Net interest-bearing debt was reduced by JPY 126.1 billion to JPY 1.1722. As a result, net DER improved by 0.2 points to 0.48x. Cash flow is shown on Page 8. Operating cash flow was positive at JPY 542.1 billion, which was also good in the previous fiscal year, and it was even better in fiscal year 2023, with an increase in cash flow of JPY 97.9 billion. Investment cash flow was JPY 219.5 billion. And if you look at the gross amount, we invested JPY 327.7 billion. The balance of JPY 110 billion is cash inflow from the sale of shares and so on. The balance of JPY 139.9 billion in fiscal year 2022 was JPY 206.6 billion on a gross basis. And adding Eurus' 40% share of JPY 185 billion, the balance was JPY 391.6 billion. The total for fiscal year 2023 was JPY 327.7 billion, so we believe we have made sufficient investments for the past 2 years. On the other hand, free cash flow after dividends increased from JPY 238.9 billion to JPY 241.3 billion, maintaining a very high positive level. From here, let me show you a comparison of operating profit. The Metals division had a negative JPY 22 billion compared to the previous fiscal year 2022, which was JPY 97.4 billion. On the right side, you can see the main factors behind the change in operating profit. Foreign exchange effect was positive JPY 4 billion. Prices were negative JPY 30.7 billion, and demand was positive JPY 11.6 billion. In terms of prices, lithium had an impact of about JPY 10 billion. As for demand, the figure for China is negative due to a slight decrease in production. Global Parts & Logistics division on Page 10 shows operating profit of JPY 60.1 billion, an increase of JPY 11.2 billion from the previous fiscal year 2022. The operating profit of the Global Parts & Logistics division was positive for the entire world with a ForEx effect of JPY 2.2 billion and demand and trading volume of JPY 9.8 billion. Although there was some foreign exchange impact, total operating profit increased due to a large volume of transactions among the 3 countries, including China and in the case of China, increased imports from Japan. Page 11 is a slide on the Automotive division. The Automotive division showed very high growth with operating profit of JPY 74.3 billion, an increase of JPY 14 billion from the previous fiscal year 2022. As shown on the right side of the slide, operating profit increased in all regions due to a significant increase in exports and sales between the 3 regions. Demand in Cambodia, which we had expected in the previous fiscal year was not what we had anticipated, but it was far exceeded by Latin America and Europe or the Caucasus, which made up for stagnant demand in Cambodia. Page 12 is for Machinery, Energy & Project. Operating profit increased by JPY 1.5 billion compared to the previous fiscal year, which is on par with our previous fiscal year 2022. As shown on the right, in terms of demand and trading volume, renewable energy decreased by JPY 12.2 billion, mainly due to the Eurus business in the Netherlands. On the other hand, below that, there was a substantial onetime loss related to Eurus in the previous fiscal year, but there is none in fiscal year 2023. So the plus/minus is almost 0. The nonconsolidated performance of Eurus Holding is almost unchanged compared to the previous fiscal year. Turning to Page 13. In the Chemical & Electronics division, operating profit was JPY 76.5 billion, an increase of about JPY 5 billion. In Chemicals, operating profit related to automotive production increased JPY 5.9 billion due to growth in automotive materials and battery materials. In the chemicals business, the naphtha business was negative, but iodine, for which we released trial products was a major contributor, resulting in a JPY 0.5 billion increase in profit in the chemicals business compared with the previous year. In the electronics business, the in-vehicle electronics-related business is still going strong and driving profits. But the display business, which is the business for LCD panels and touch panels or in other words, for smartphones, saw profits declined by JPY 3.1 billion. In the in-memory related business, which mainly handled Samsung's memory products, profits also fell significantly, but recovered by the middle of the year, resulting in a decrease of only JPY 0.1 billion. The losses related to the domestic semiconductor business were about that loss of FC&T from Tomen Devices Corporation. Page 14, the Food & Consumer Services division posted an operating profit of JPY 21.1 billion, an increase of JPY 10.9 billion from the previous fiscal year 2022, partly due to the poor performance of the previous year. NovaAgri, our Brazilian grain subsidiary also posted a significant increase in profits of JPY 10.9 billion. The significant return to profit was mainly due to the fact that we were able to cover all domestic transportation costs that we had to bear ourselves in the previous fiscal year, which resulted in a loss. On the other hand, the overseas manufacturer and sales edible oils subsidiary called Menu, which deals with cotton oil had a large profit in the previous fiscal year due to a very good market, but the market returned to normal this year, resulting in a decrease in profit. The 15th page shows the Africa division, which posted an operating profit of JPY 11.2 billion, a significant increase of JPY 40.9 billion from the previous year. As shown on the right, the foreign exchange effect increased by JPY 8.7 billion. Automotive increased by JPY 25.6 billion and West Africa increased by JPY 19.9 billion. In addition, the impairment of goodwill/PPA for automotive in the acquisition of CFAO contributed JPY 5.7 billion to the increase in profit for fiscal year 2023. In the nonautomotive business, the health care business is performing well with an increase of JPY 2.1 billion. Page 16 shows the forecast for fiscal year 2024, the target. We have a profit target of JPY 350 billion, up 6% year-on-year. We hope to achieve it steadily. Operating cash flow is somewhat conservative. We expect sales to grow a little more and the so-called FFO to remain the same, but we have been conservative in our operating cash flow forecast because we have been able to reduce inventories significantly, and we have taken into account the balance between receivables and payables. Net DER is also a very solid number. But we have set it at less than 1x because we want to reserve it for any sudden major M&A transactions or something. As for ROE, which is the most important factor, we will do our best to keep ROE at 13% or higher. I think we can keep maybe 13.5% from the projected balance sheet. As you can see on Page 17, we have made some changes to our divisions from fiscal year 2023. We have split Metal division and Chemicals & Electronics division into 3 divisions: metals plus circular economy and digital solutions. I wanted to show the actual results for fiscal year 2023 by division, but the audit has not been completed yet. And as soon as it is completed, I will disclose the comparison with the previous fiscal year. But for now, I have compared the actual results for the fiscal year 2023 for the 3 divisions combined with our forecast for 2024. We are currently forecasting increased profits for metal, circular economy and digital solutions. As you can see on Page 18, our shareholder return policy remains unchanged. In fiscal 2023, the dividend per share was JPY 280, an increase of JPY 30. In the 2 previous fiscal years, the dividend increased by JPY 78. We have been able to increase the payout ratio to 29.7%. In fiscal 2024, the dividend per share is JPY 300. The payout ratio will be at 30.2%. The message for the current fiscal year is to achieve JPY 350 billion and pay a dividend of JPY 30 billion. And in terms of supplementary information, we have disclosed power generation capacity in terms of equity on Page 23. We have also disclosed generating capacity by source on Page 24. We'd like to work on the coal issue, but in any case, we have disclosed the content so that there will be no misleading information. That is all for me. Next, President and CEO, Kashitani, would like to talk about the midterm business plan.

I will now explain the midterm business plan from fiscal year 2024 to fiscal year 2026. The midterm business plan is divided into 3 parts. First, I will review the midterm business plan from fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2023 that was announced in May 2021. Then the new midterm business plan from fiscal year 2024 to fiscal year 2026. And finally, the quantitative targets. First, I will explain the review of the medium-term business plan for the period from fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2023, which was announced in May 2021. Prior to this review of the midterm business plan period, we compare the company's stock price with a Nikkei Stock Average. And although there was some impact from the high stock price at the end of March 2024, the Nikkei Stock Average increased 38% at the end of March 2024 compared with April 1, 2021, and our stock price increased 121% from JPY 4,645 to JPY 10,265. The company's PBR increased by 0.4x from 0.2x to 1.6x, indicating the market's growing appreciation of the company over the past 3 years. Next, I would like to review the quantitative targets of the medium-term business plan. We met all of the targets for net profit, operating cash flow, investment cash flow, investment cash outflow, ROE, net DER, risk-rated assets and risk buffer. In terms of shareholder returns, we continue to increase dividends in line with our core policy of a payout ratio of 25% or higher. As I explained to you last November, we have decided to implement progressive dividends from the fiscal year 2023 to the fiscal year 2025 to achieve a payout ratio of 30% or higher and to consider additional flexible total return measures based on cash flow trends. In addition, in the fiscal year 2023, we planned to increase the dividend for the 14th consecutive year. Next, I would like to review our net profit target for the fiscal year 2023, which was JPY 180 billion when announced in May 2021. And as shown in that chart on the far right, we have achieved a significant increase to JPY 331.4 billion for the fiscal year 2023. The breakdown of this figure is as follows: the profit of JPY 134.6 billion for the fiscal year 2020 was the starting point and the foreign exchange impact added JPY 38.8 billion to the target. As for the organic businesses, in addition to the original target of JPY 30 billion, profit increased by JPY 53 billion due to automobile sales and market or price increases. In total, the organic businesses segment posted an increase in profit of JPY 83 billion. We had forecast an increase of JPY 15 billion over the 3 years in the 4 priority areas of Next Mobility, Renewable Energy, Africa and Circular Economy. We added JPY 60 billion to this figure, resulting in an increase of profit of JPY 75 billion. We further accelerated our efforts in the mobility and health care businesses in Africa and in the renewable energy field. Over the past 3 years, we have achieved significant growth, not only in our organic businesses, which form the basis of our profits, but also in the 4 priority areas. I will now review our cash flow targets. Investment for growth and shareholder returns for the fiscal year 2023. Our target for operating cash flow was JPY 600 billion. But due to profit growth and lean management during the medium-term business plan period, we were able to increase this by approximately JPY 400 billion to a cumulative total of JPY 1.0364 trillion. Investment cash outflow totaled JPY 917.1 billion compared with a target of JPY 400 billion due to investments in renewable energy, including the acquisition of Eurus as a wholly owned subsidiary and Terras Energy as well as steady investment in the expansion of organic businesses. Returns to shareholders for the 3-year period totaled JPY 226 billion compared with a target of JPY 130 billion. Please refer to the details of investment cash outflow. We're safeguarding earnings by investing JPY 244.9 billion over 3 years to refine our core businesses while making balanced investments in each of our priority areas. Among these, we're accelerating our efforts in the renewable energy and energy management fields with large-scale projects such as the acquisition of Eurus as a wholly owned subsidiary and the purchase of Terras Energy shares. I will now explain our midterm business plan for the period from fiscal year 2024 to 2026. I would like to reiterate our goal for the company in order to achieve growth beyond the conventional growth line, we believe it is necessary to further accelerate our growth strategy. We will achieve this by consulting with various business partners and partners who will work with us to solve problems. And as a leading carbon-neutral circular economy provider, we will contribute to solving social issues through our growth as a company. As a result, we aim to become a unique and irreplaceable entity, in other words, to realize our global vision of be the right one. The external environment surrounding our company is changing faster than expected. Under these circumstances, we have continued to grow as a companion to our customers, partners, shareholders, local communities and future society around the world by meeting the needs of our customers and partners locally and in real life. From now on, we will not only respond flexibly to the changing external environment, but also anticipate environmental changes and open up a new world, aiming to be a leader that guides our customer partners. We will continue to read the winds of change and play a leading role in opening up a new world. In April last year, we identified 7 new focus areas by combining our carbon neutrality and circular economy initiatives with our 4 existing priority areas. In April this year, we reorganized our organizational structure to further accelerate our growth strategy in these priority areas and to actively allocate management resources to these priority areas. We also revalued the value we provide to our customers and changes the names of our businesses from those based on the products we handle to those that express the value we provide to society and our customers based on a clear mission. Please refer to the slide for the new division names and the missions of each division. I will not read them one by one here, but each division has a clearly defined mission and will contribute to solving social problems as we grow as a company. In the first slide of this part, I explained the vision of our company. And in order to realize this vision, I would like to explain the priority issues to be addressed during the period of this medium-term business plan. There are 4 main areas of focus for the next 3 years. The first is to promote investment in priority areas. The second is to promote projects to achieve the 2030 carbon neutrality target. The third is to promote human capital management. And the fourth is to strengthen the foundation for further growth. I will discuss the details of each of these in the following slides. First, let me talk about our investment approach. We will generate cash through businesses that are unique to Toyota Tsusho and reinvest in businesses that contribute to solving social problems and reducing environmental burdens in the future. We will generate strong cash from our core businesses, Africa and Next Mobility, which demonstrates Tsusho's uniqueness and through investments in recycling batteries and the economy of life, we will further strengthen relationships with customers and communities and increased social value. We will also enhance the value of nature by investing in renewable energy, energy management and hydrogen alternative fuels. The left side of the slide illustrates the cycle of reinvesting the cash generated by the businesses that enhance social and neutral value and the company's reputation in each of the priority areas, including the core businesses. We will continue to increase our corporate value by increasing social and natural value while generating profits as a business. From here, I'd like to introduce specific initiatives for each of the 3 values. The core value, mainstay businesses that's unique to Toyota Tsusho is represented by our mobility-related value chain. Not only do we cover a wide range of areas from upstream to downstream, but by refining our mainstay businesses, we aim to become a unique presence in each area of the value chain. Another aspect of our business in Africa and our commitment to Africa is unique to Toyota Tsusho CFAO. Toyota Tsusho group company has been operating in Africa for more than 170 years and is now developing its business from upstream to downstream and the mobility value chain. We're also focusing on the health care business in the region. Under the philosophy of with Africa, for Africa, we aim to contribute to Africa's economic growth and industrialization and to be the #1 presence in the region. Next, I would like to talk about social value. In the field of batteries, which are key to the proliferation of electric vehicles, we're building a battery value chain from lithium resource development to battery manufacturing and supply to recycling of battery materials. We believe that everything is a resource, and we are contributing to the realization of our recycling-oriented society by collecting, sorting and recycling waste materials and promoting resource recycling that supports manufacturing. A recent example of this is car to car recycling by Toyota Metal and Planic, 2 of our group companies, which recycle automotive scrap plastics into high-quality recycled plastics for automobiles. The economy of life, shown in the lower right corner of the document, plans to open its second general hospital in India in early 2020 following the Sakura Hospital with the aim of contributing to the realization of a comfortable and healthy society of the future. Next, I'd like to talk about nature value. We have been in the renewable energy business since the 1980s, generating electricity from various sources such as wind, solar, hydro and biomass in different parts of the world. In addition to the production area, which we have been involved in for many years, we're now expanding into the areas of collection, conditioning and delivery of electricity using storage batteries to stabilize power supply and AI and IoT technologies, which are the strength of Terras Energy, which we acquired last year. In our solutions business, we offer the expertise we have gained to customers in the mobility supply chain, who are both customers of our core value business and consumers of renewable electricity, and we make a profit while contributing to our customers' carbon neutrality. Here's an explanation of our carbon neutrality efforts. In July 2021, we announced the Toyota Tsusho Group carbon neutrality declaration, setting a goal of reducing our own CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 with 2019 as the base year and are working to reduce our own CO2 emissions or Scope 1 and 2 emissions. In terms of our progress, although there has been an increase in new emissions due to investments for growth and business expansion, we have made steady progress in reducing emissions as a result of reduction in activities that have outpaced the increase in emissions. We will continue to accelerate our efforts in the 3 initiatives that have already achieved significant reductions, increasing efficiency, fuel switching and introducing renewable energy sources and all of our employees will work together to achieve our goals. Next, I will discuss our Scope 3 initiatives. Our Scope 3 CO2 emissions totaled 116 million tonnes, which is a very large amount compared to the 740,000 tonnes emitted in Scope 1 and 2. On the other hand, we do not handle many environmentally hazardous resources, and our Scope 3 emissions come mainly from our mobility supply chain. In the mobility supply chain, for example, by proposing and supplying recycled materials through the recycling of end-of-life products, providing renewable energy and supporting the spread of electric vehicles through the development of lithium resources and the supply of parts. Our Scope 3 emissions will be reduced. And at the same time, our suppliers and customers will be able to reduce their CO2 emissions. The Toyota Tsusho Group is committed to reducing Scope 3 emissions through these unique initiatives. Finally, I would like to explain our divestment from fossil fuel-related businesses as a carbon-neutral initiative. Anticipating changes in the environment, we have taken the lead in promoting businesses that contribute to carbon neutrality, such as renewable energy and will withdraw from fossil fuel-fired power generation in North America and Pakistan, starting with gas-fired power generation in Canada in 2019 and we'll completely withdraw from the oil and coal trading business in 2020. Although some fossil fuel-fired power generation remains, by the end of this fiscal year in March 2025, we will completely withdraw from coal and heavy fuel oil-fired power generation, which have a high environmental impact among fossil fuels, and we aim to withdraw from gas-fired power generation as soon as possible. Through these efforts, we will focus our management resources such as capital and human resources on clean energy and further accelerate our efforts to become carbon neutral. Next, I'd like to talk about human capital management. We will continue to strengthen our human capital to fulfill our leadership role. We define human capital management as ensuring the quality and quantity of human resources necessary for our business strategy and creating an environment that maximizes individual strength. And based on this, we implement various human resources-related measures. To ensure the quality and quantity of human resources, we are strengthening the link between succession planning, training and placing the right person in the right position, creating succession plans for key positioning and conducting training to develop global leaders. In the environmental pillar, we're working to ensure the health of our employees and the human rights of those around us on the health front. We have developed a health management strategy map and disclosed its KPIs and have been awarded a Health & Productivity Stock for 4 consecutive years. We also conduct human rights due diligence on our consolidated subsidiaries and supply chain. On October 31, 2022, we obtained ISO 30414 certification, a guideline for human capital disclosure. This is the second certification in Asia and the first in the wholesale industry. Based on this guideline, we published quantitative human capital targets in the form of a human capital report. We promote human capital management by visualizing the current status of our own human capital management and implementing the PDCA cycle. Next, I would like to talk about safety and compliance as a means of laying the foundation for further growth. I tell our employees in every opportunity that safety and compliance is a gateway to everything we do. We incorporate various indicators, systems and training into our operations to ensure safety and compliance. However, the effectiveness of these systems and altitudes can only be realized if there is an organizational culture of mutual trust and support among employees. In addition to understanding the mechanics and training content, we're working to create a corporate culture that allow us to pull our long-term strength, that is to light the lamp that alerts us without hesitation when an anomaly occurs or when we detect anomaly. As I briefly mentioned in my previous presentation of the medium-term business plan, we are currently promoting a project for the succession and evolution of Toyota Tsusho's DNA. Well, looking back at the history of our company since its founding and repeating the discussions, we're organizing our discussions from 3 perspectives. The precious hearts that are the basis of all actions that have been cultivated, the important spirit that have been the source of our uniqueness and the aspirations that we want to nurture in the future. We plan to announce the content of this report in July of this year. In the last part of this presentation, I will explain the quantitative targets of our medium-term business plan, which is to achieve a record-high profit for the third consecutive year with after-tax profit of JPY 331.4 billion for the fiscal year 2023. In the 3 years through the fiscal year 2026 we will further accelerate our efforts in our core businesses and priority areas. In the next fiscal year, 2024, we aim to increase profit by approximately JPY 20 billion to JPY 350 billion. And in the fiscal year 2026, we aim to achieve an even higher level of JPY 400 billion, and we aim to maintain ROE of 13% or higher over the next 3 years while maintaining a balance between our core businesses, social value and nature value. As for our basic financial policy, we will continue to thoroughly control interest-bearing debt and maintain a net DER of 1x or less. We will also maintain a strong financial position by keeping the ratio of risk assets to risk buffer, which indicates the financial strength of the company below 1.0 to prepare for risks. Next, I will discuss our cash allocation for the next 3 years. Through profit growth and lean management, we will generate more than JPY 1.3 trillion in operating cash flow over the next 3 years. Of this, we will use JPY 1 trillion for capital expenditures to accelerate growth and further strengthen shareholder returns. We hope to return more than JPY 300 billion to shareholders, far exceeding the JPY 226 billion we have returned over the past 3 years. I'd like to explain our basic financial policy and our approach to cash allocation. As shown in the previous slide on promoting investment in priority areas, we will generate cash from our core businesses, and reinvest in the areas of social value, which contributes to solving social problems and nature value, which contributes to reducing environmental impact. In addition to clarifying the direction and goals of each business value, we will also carefully evaluate profitability and capital efficiency. Specifically, we have set ROIC or R-O-I-C for each value as a reference for the fiscal year 2026. By being aware of the ROIC for each value, we will strive to meet market expectations and increase our corporate value. Here is a summary of the quantitative targets of our medium-term business plan for the period from fiscal year 2024 to 2026. As always, Toyota Tsusho will continue to pursue the be the right one vision by further refining the Toyota Tsusho way of doing things and taking a lead in opening up the new world and guiding our customers and partners. Thank you for your attention. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]