Troax Group AB (publ) (TROAX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi, everyone, and very welcome to this first quarter presentation for the Troax Group. My name is Martin Nystrom, and I'm the CEO and President of the Troax Group. Together with me, I have Anders Eklof, who is the Group CFO. And together, we will walk you through the quarterly results, give some extra color to this as well as open up for a Q&A towards the end of the call. Before we move into the topics, I'd like to make a comment on how we report the numbers from 1st of January. And we have launched a slightly revised organization starting from the 1st of January. And we really aim then to put -- to decentralize the Troax Group to further extend, we aim to put a bit more of decision-making as well as empowerment closer to our customers with the aim that things will go quicker, smoother and contribute to more growth. This way, we think we can cater for different customer preferences as well as also keeping our global standards well together. And this way, we also believe that we will become more agile going forward in terms of balancing supply and demand as the world moves different in different parts of the world. So, starting from this quarter, we'll then report our order intake and sales in adjusted regions. So EMEA, we will have North and South, for Americas, which consists of North and South America. And APAC, we look at Asia, excluding Middle East, which then belongs to EMEA. And I'd say this reorganization is not a revolution. It's more of an evolution to create Troax 2.0. So with that, I'll move into the summary of the first quarter. And I'd say that the picture largely remains from the fourth quarter, which means that we have a mixed market. We have a slower Europe. We have a slightly stronger Americas, and we have a stronger Asia. So you could say the developments that we saw towards the end of the year last year continued also into the fourth quarter. If we start with North Europe, we continue to develop and it continues to develop weaker. This is mainly driven by the construction segment in the Nordics as well as general industry in Central Europe. We also noted that the demand started slower in the beginning of the year, and it was a little bit slower than usual. But we also saw that we had improvements through the quarter and out of the quarter. So that was good to see at least from a sequential point of view in the quarter. We also had Americas with solid growth this time mainly coming from the warehousing segment, and we have not noted any significant change in how the Americas market were -- develops for us during the quarter given the macroeconomics as well as uncertainty. And last but not least, we had a very strong start of the year in APAC with significant orders, both in the automotive as well as in the warehousing segment with very strong growth number. If we move on to the bottom line instead, we had a lower EBITA margin, and I'd say this is predominantly driven by the production volumes in Europe. And I'd also say that the EBITA margin is on the low side as well as a bit of a disappointment also for us. If we start with what -- drives this, we continue to have a solid gross margin. And I'd say for the first quarter, it's also well in line with our informal target despite the lower volumes overall. If we move over to SG&A costs, they continue to be in line with our long-term strategy and our plan. But at the same time, I think it's also fair to realize that given the headwind in the European market, we are having too much sales and admin costs short term given the volumes. I'll come back to that, I think, later on in the presentation. Then I think we also kept working capital discipline, which meant that we, for quarter 1, kept our cash flow reasonable even though we -- we would always like to enjoy stronger cash flow. And it also means that our net debt is stable. And I think we have been -- continue to be disciplined when it comes to managing our inventories as well as how we manage our accounts receivable as well as accounts payable. So I'd say a very stable development on accounts receivable and payment and payables and well job well done by the team on how we manage our inventories. And of course, given the net debt level and that being stable, our balance sheet is still a strong balance sheet, which enables us to grow further when the market allows. During the quarter, I think we've also done a few -- really and passed a few good milestones on our strategic journey. Our factory in the U.S., which we have announced before, we can now gladly say that this will be located in Tennessee and also that the project progresses very well according to the plan, and we're on plan to open up our new facility while shutting the old -- the current facility down in Illinois, Chicago, and we will be up and running mid-2026. Equally good is that we continue to see good progress within the active safety segment, which continues to grow well for us. As you know, it's not our biggest segment. But at the same time, it's a strategically very important niche for us to be successful within. So that also continued in the first quarter. Summarizing this, all in all, takes us to minus 5% on order intake, 14.0% EBITA margin and a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.9. If we then move into the market development, and here, you can then see our new geographical segments and their share of sales 2024, the order intake change and then also the directional development in the 5 different segments that we operate in or the clusters. If we start with Europe being the largest of our segment, we see a weakening order intake year-on-year with 12% and 13%, respectively. If we look to what's driving that, that's mainly the warehousing market that continues to be weak. We continue to see the construction market in the Nordics continuing to decline. And then I'd also say that the general industry climate in -- especially in the northern part is also weaker than when we compare to last year. Perhaps if there is a glimpse of positive in Europe, we see -- we do see the automotive business still continuing on a relatively strong level, but also keep in mind that our business is relatively late in the cycle. Moving over to Americas, which grew by 7% in the quarter. We had good orders from the warehousing segment in the quarter, and we also saw some nice orders in the automotive sector, while the rest is more or less stable. Then I'd say we come to the exclamation point of the group in the first quarter with APAC growing 94%, very good development in the automotive segment, very good development in the warehousing segment, which took the whole region up by 94%. So very, very happy to see the development in the APAC market. I'd say also here, it's good to see all the main countries contributing to the growth. Then with that, I'll hand over to you, Anders, to run through some numbers in more detail.

Yes. Thank you very much, Martin. I will give you a short update with some hard numbers here. And we start with the order intake. We reached EUR 69.5 million in orders for the first quarter, which is 4% down compared to Q1 of last year, and that consists of 5% decline in organic growth, and we gained 1 percentage in FX during the quarter. If we look sequentially, we can see also that we are up in Q1 now versus both Q3 and Q4 of last year, and we are on par with Q2 of last year. So from a sequential standpoint, we are doing better than we did in the second half of last year. Next, please. If we then look at the sales side, we reached EUR 68.3 million in sales. That is also 4% down compared to prior year Q1 and also consists of 5% decline in organic growth and 1% back on FX. Next, please. And then we have the EBITA that reached EUR 9.5 million in the first quarter of this year compared to EUR 11 million in last year. That means 14% of EBITA percentage compared to 15.5% in Q1 of last year. And as Martin has mentioned before, it is driven mainly by a higher SG&A cost in the quarter. Next, please. Working capital development is rather stable. We are slightly down in the quarter compared to the same period last year and also to the periods in the second half of last year. So doing a good job on the working capital side. We are stable as a percentage of sales. We are at 20.4% of sales in Q1 of this year, which is the same as we were in Q1 of last year. Next, please. When it comes to operating cash flow, we reached EUR 3.8 million in the quarter, which is comparably low perhaps. But if you look at the Q1 in this chart, you can also see that Q1 is normally a weaker quarter from an operating cash flow standpoint. So you can say that we are following the same pattern as we have seen over the years. And we expect the free cash flow to be better -- much better in the remaining quarters of the year. Next, please. And then lastly, we have the net debt development. It's stable. It increased from 0.8 to 0.9, but still very stable on well below 1, where our target is to be below 2.5. So next, please. And here is just a summary of what I've already mentioned, so I will not repeat myself. The only thing I can mention here is the adjusted earnings per share reached EUR 0.10 in the quarter compared to EUR 0.12 in the first quarter of last year. And by that, I hand over again to you, Martin.

Thank you, Anders. So then quickly then the summary. We see continued weaker demand in Europe. We see Americas and Asia being stronger. We had a lower EBITA margin in the quarter, both coming from volume, but also from SG&A. This is something we are going to be addressing starting in the second quarter a bit to balance our longer-term view with the shorter-term need for delivery. We have kept capital -- working capital discipline and our cash flow is reasonable given the quarter. And we've also just put the quarter 1 to bed with making good progress on some of our strategic priorities for the future. So with that, I'd like to end the presentation, and we'll move over to the Q&A.

Okay. Let's see here. Let's start with Jonny from [indiscernible]. Let's start with Jonny from SEB, please.

Could you hear me?

Wonderful. It seems a lot better.

Just want to start a little bit on the cost side of things. I want to understand that a little bit better. So it looks like, for instance, the number of employees is actually down year-over-year. But as you said, admin and selling expenses is up. So could you maybe elaborate a little bit more what happened here? And also, how should we think about the cost development going forward? You mentioned you will take this action, but can we expect lower costs already taking effect in Q2? Or could you give some timing and quantify that a little bit further, please?

Yes. No, I think that's a great question, Jonny. I think when it comes to the SG&A development, year-on-year. You're right that most of this does not come from more headcount in the group. In fact, on the contrary. We do have, of course, some salary inflation driving our SG&A costs up. We do have some, what I call discretionary spending. There is definitely costs going into digitalization of the group. There is -- in the first quarter, especially, there are also like every year, costs related to fairs exhibitions and things like that. So there is a bit of a seasonal pattern in this as well. Some of this cost, we will naturally not have as much of it in Q2. That being said, I think though, we do need to be careful on how much we spend on SG&A and also if we're doing all of these initiatives at the same time. So we'll come back latest by the quarter 2 report with a bit more information on that.

Okay. But were there any unusual costs in the quarter? So for instance, in conjunction with the adoption of the new organization or you also mentioned you're adjusting some capacity in Europe, where there some unusual costs in that aspect in the quarter?

Yes. No, I wouldn't put any material costs to Q1 for that reason.

Okay. Okay. And then on the demand side of things, you mentioned that you saw somewhat higher activity in Europe towards the end of the quarter. Were there anything particular that drove that? Or were there any specific customers? Or was it more broadly based? And also, if you could say something, was it the warehouse segment? Or can you say something about that?

Yes. No, I think overall, we had a quite slow start to the quarter. I think January, February were slower than usual. Then I think we picked up pace more broadly in March, which was good to see. I wouldn't pinpoint any specific customers to this really. I think the overall, you could say, picture of slower in warehousing and Europe, for example, or slower in North Europe with construction. I think that pattern remains. I just think that the activity level and the closing rates went up towards the end of the quarter, which was good. And I think that also bodes well going into the second quarter. But nothing that sticks or stands out from the bigger picture.

Okay. Okay. And just one final one. It's the same question in APAC region, obviously, with strong growth here in Q1. Was there anything particular that happened in Q1? Or has this momentum continued, would you say?

I'd say it's a combination of a few things, Jonny. I think there is definitely a few more larger, you could say, projects in there, which would -- I wouldn't consider them to be repeat. So please don't put 94% as growth year-on-year for all the quarters this year. I think that would be a stretch. So there are, for sure, a few larger orders in there as well. That being said, though, I think we also see a more broad-based customer gain in Asia. I think that holds true for China. I think it holds true for Japan and partly also for Australia. So I think it's a little bit both of, you could say, bread and butter as well as something that's in relative terms, larger. Thanks, Jonny. Then we'll go to Anna from Carnegie.

Am I back?

Yes. Sorry about that.

No problem. So just on sort of the capacity situation in Europe and some of the commentary on maybe scaling this depending on market dynamics in 2025. Could you maybe give us some more details? Are you mainly sort of thinking about maybe scaling down capacity? And could we see some positive cost effects from this already in '25? Or just some more details on your thinking?

Yes. No, I think we have a few markets and a few segments which are -- have been weak for some time. And I think in quarter 1, we saw those segments continuing to weaken. And I think that is both those would be areas where -- which are -- where we have a bit more competition of the assortment as well as then lower volumes. So for -- in those cases, I do think that we need to adjust our capacity a bit more to what the market demand and also what we could or should expect from the market also for the rest of a few quarters out. So I think we do need to make some volume adjustments in parts of our supply chain to align with this. That would then be -- if we, for example, see that we have construction market being a little weaker or warehousing market being a little weaker, I think we need to adjust accordingly.

So also thinking about some price and volume effects, would you say that there are any regions that is showing some price effects in top line? Or is all of this very volume-based?

I'd say, overall, it's very volume-based. We are not having any real cost pressure in neither in Europe nor in Asia out of the ordinary. And at the same time, I think we are pretty much also the price and price leader in the market. So I do think the price component of this is very stable, where I think there is a bit more volatilities in the U.S. And that, I think, stems very much from the threats of tariffs or a different tariff or what will be the new rules of tomorrow. So I think both when it comes to the raw material market, we have seen more volatility there. And of course, we're making sure that we're adjusting for that input cost change also in our pricing. So there might be a small slice of that in the Americas price volume number, but it's not material.

Okay. Good. And maybe if we can talk a bit on the effect from -- because in Q4, we had the sort of timing aspect that we talked a bit about and maybe how much in either the revenues or the order intake that you would sort of categorize as being pushed from Q4 into Q1.

Yes. It's -- I think after Q1, we're probably caught up on what we think was, you could say, somewhat delayed over the Christmas break. I don't think we have any material effects from quarter 1 going into quarter 2. So I'd say we're pretty much caught up with the, you could say, the holiday season effect that we saw towards the end of Q4.

Okay. So we should view sort of the order intake as quite representative of the activity level during Q1.

Yes. Thank you, Anna. Then we move over to Zino from Handelsbanken. Let's see if we can get... it works for you as well.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Perfect. Just going back a bit to the SG&A expenses, you highlight amongst other things that you also are expanding into new markets. Can you give some color into that?

Yes. No, I think we can. We are expanding to a few new kind of, you could say, countries or regions. We always have something or a few cooking. And before we get those to breakeven and they start to make money, it usually takes a bit of time. For the time being, we have a few markets in that situation where basically the volumes have not picked up as much as we would have liked them to, which means that we are, in a sense, I wouldn't say losing money, but where we have SG&A ahead of sales, which then pushes down both sales efficiency as well as the SG&A ratio. So that, I think, is one area, and that would go for a handful of geographical markets. The second topic, which then belongs to the SG&A story is the -- you could say, the investment and the growth potential in active safety, which is also an area which is still under development. I don't think we have harvested enough yet. And thirdly, what would also contribute to driving the SG&A cost is the structural effect from the 2 acquisitions that we made last year, which also impacts and drives the SG&A upwards.

Okay. Understood. And if we go to talk a bit about the automated warehouse customers in -- I think in the last quarter, we talked a bit about presales activity being better than the quarter before that. Can you give some more color to that? And I assume that the current market environment might have made customers more hesitant since we're not mentioning in this report. Is that correct?

Yes. I'd say it's a 2-sided story, Zino. I think on one hand, there are some customers who are pulling through. And I think you'd see that in the numbers already this quarter in Americas as well as in APAC. At the same time, there are also customers who are, as you rightly point out, becoming more hesitant. So I'd say some of what's going on in Europe is probably becoming a bit more hesitant. Americas, Asia is probably then a bit more for pushing through or at least was more pushing through in Q1. So I think it's a mixed picture there. But overall, I think with more uncertainty in the macroeconomics, obviously, that's not healthy or great for our customers to make larger investment calls. That's I think, fair to say as well.

Yes, very understandable. And talking about that topic, and we have talked about reshoring and similar before. That is not something that happens overnight, but given the turbulence from the U.S., have you heard more about or had more dialogues with your customers on this topic, if you understand.

Yes. I wouldn't say that the picture has changed during the first quarter. I think the reshoring topic or trend is there. I think it's there to stay. Perhaps it can -- after all of this dust has settled, perhaps that can be accelerated. But at the same time, I think what reshoring means for Europe, at least to me, is relatively obvious, meaning that we get more reshoring done into mainly Eastern Europe. perhaps also partly Turkey. If we then look to what reshoring means for U.S., I'm not convinced I know where this will end up, whether that means reshoring into Mexico or whether that means reshoring into U.S. or whether it means that for the foreseeable future, of course, a lot of that manufacturing base will still stay in Asia. So I think it's very difficult to have overview and realize where this will all end up. And while we're all waiting for this to pan out, I think there are more customers and more people kind of in a wait-and-see mode. Then we have Gustav from Nordea.

I was just wondering if you could give any more flavor or should we interpret it that the organic sales or volume decline here is 5%? Or is the price component slightly smaller positive, so it's a bit more or.

No, I think you should interpret this as volume overall is approximately 5%.

Okay. Perfect. And then I was just wondering if you could quantify a little bit more what you talked about earlier there about some of the cost here or OpEx that we're seeing here in Q1, we should not extrapolate into Q2. Is that -- can you give any sort of ballpark figures?

I would say -- put it this way. I think when we look at our SG&A, we do have some costs that are not recurring in the first quarter, but they are recurring every first quarter. So some of the costs that we usually carry in the first quarter are not part of Q2, but we had costs for the same exhibitions, the same marketing, et cetera, et cetera, the quarter 1 last year. So there is a bit of, you could say, in between quarters effect of that. I wouldn't dare to give you or put a figure to that. But I would also say that it is a somewhat significant number.

Okay. Perfect. But is it fair to assume or could we reason you know that the general delta between Q1 and Q2 is sort of -- it's quite constant and we should sort of read in from this Q1 sort of OpEx numbers or meaning that the drop we saw in Q1 and Q2 last year is likely to be similar -- in a similar magnitude also this year.

Yes. Well, conceptually, you can play with the idea at least. Then we have Daniel from Danske -- let's see if we can get Daniel online.

So can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes. Perfect. So I think you touched upon this with Anna, but just wanted to check once more. The postponed volumes that was an issue in Q4, should we read that those have been developed and sorted in Q1? And what is that to then -- how do we read the conversion in Q1 that should be rather low than on the order intake from Q4. But still, it seemed like nothing major was postponed into Q2. Are there any long projects in those numbers that could be for later delivery then?

Could be I'd say this, there is always -- you could say, we always run with our order book open and things that could be squeezed into the next or the next quarters. I think you should read or understand my comment as there is nothing out of the ordinary or extraordinary that impacts this balance for the time being. So it could be projects that run over multiple quarters. There is nothing that we have on orders that we haven't been able to ship for whatever reason, like what we had during Christmas, which then impacted the delta between orders and sales. I'm not sure if that made it any clear.

I'm not sure either, to be perfectly honest. But then just on the Garantell, I had some optimism on the Garantell business picking up this year versus last year. How has that developed now where you have low warehouse activity in Europe? And if there's been anything special to think about given that.

Yes. No, I think largely the development in Garantell follows the pattern from last year. I do think Garantell is doing a decent job in a very tough market. Now I think we see the European warehousing market being a little slower than last year, and that also impacts Garantell. But I'd say, though, in relative terms, I still think Garantell is doing a decent job.

Okay. Perfect. And then just finally from my side, now the -- I was taken a bit by surprise from the geographical area change in the accounting. So, my question is basically, could you guys consider providing us with 4 historical quarters with the yes, that would be great.

Yes. We will distribute that. We now distributed quarter 1 and full year in the interim report, but we will provide all 4 quarters for last year. That will come after the call here. Absolutely.

Thank you so much.

All right. Let's see if we have any last questions. Okay. That takes us to the end of the interim report for quarter 1 for Troax Group. Thanks a lot for calling in and listening, and I hope I hear from you again or latest in a quarter's time. Thank you, and bye-bye.

Bye.