Zumtobel Group AG (ZAG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Zumtobel's conference call on our Q1 results for our 2023, '24 financial year. With me on the call are Alfred Felder, our CEO; and Thomas Erath, our CFO. Alfred will walk you through the highlights of the quarter while Thomas will discuss the financial performance. After the presentation, both gentlemen will be available to answer your questions. In case, you have not a copy of the report and the presentation, you may find both documents for download on our web page. After the call, a playback of this conference call will be available on our webpage as well. And with this, I hand over to Alfred.

Yes. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your interest and your participation in today's call. As you know, we unfortunately had to publish an ad hoc announcement 2 weeks ago on August 22, a sharp drop of revenues in the Components segment was unexpected and it's a consequence of customers' high stock levels. We'll come later to that one in more detail. The end of the market weakness in this business is however, not in sight yet and we have adjusted our revenue accordingly. Looking at the numbers for the first 3 months of our current financial year, unfortunately, not look like the sound performance we had back in '22, '23. And the revenue was relatively stable in the Lighting segment. That already, as I said, we had quite a sharp decline in the Components segment, leading to an overall 9% group decline to EUR 286 million in the first quarter. This substantial decline in revenue combined with the personnel cost increase by collective agreements also had an effect on our operating results, the EBIT of the Lighting segment still increased slightly, but the operating profit at the group level fell from EUR 19 million in the quarter to EUR 14.5 million. Considering this development, the EBIT margin of 5.1% for the first quarter, can be seen here in this chart, is very respectable. In the Lighting Segment, we are continuing to benefit from the highest electricity prices because customers are investing in more energy-efficient lighting solutions. This will even be accelerated. As you know, we have discussed this in the previous quarters, end of August, the European Union has banned florescent in halogen lamps. And last but not least, the net profit has declined slightly to EUR 9.8 million, but still -- and Thomas will share as we do -- we have a strong balance sheet and our equity ratio increased to 43.2%. Before we dig deeper into this first quarter, again, as usual, I would like to share with you a few highlights on projects, reflecting our strategy moving forward with the first one, again, a stadium, the Lee Valley Velopark in the U.K., where we had done the outdoor illumination with our new Altis product portfolio, but as well as the inside with CRAFT luminaires and just to highlight, this is basically now a energy saving of 50% in addition with all the connectivity that we have using DMX and value controls so that each of the individual luminaires can be switched on and switched off. Another segment where we are extremely active, as I highlight, our schools and hospitals really providing better light for better learning effects in schools, and these are 2 examples what we had done in Austria with our high-end luminaires here, where we had basically equipped those schools with the different programs. I think I highlighted in a couple of quarters ago also, same trend we see in Germany. On the bottom right side, Volvo Trucks, that's a long-lasting client of ours, where we are constantly equipping especially big industrial halls, mainly with our flagship TECTON luminaires in the emergency [ rescue ] light luminaires, again, controlled by our Litecom software system here a project in Belgium. And last but not least, a church in Italy, the Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle in Italy, where we had an outdoor project here in illuminating the facade. With this, I would like to hand over to Thomas, who will explain the Q1 results in more detail.

Thank you, Alfred. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Let me start with the Lighting segment on Slide 5. Revenues in the Lighting segment amounted to EUR 224 million and were flat compared to prior year's quarter. The decline in sales volumes and the negative exchange rate development were largely offset by an efficient price management and increased sales in high-margin countries. EBIT in the Lighting segment increased from EUR 16.7 million to EUR 17.3 million. The slight decline in sales and increase in fixed costs were more than offset by higher sales volumes in high-margin countries. As a result, our EBIT margin increased from 7.4% to 7.7%. Let's now move on to the Components segment. The Components segment lost unfortunately 25.4% in revenues and recorded sales of EUR 77 million in the first quarter. The key factors were limited demand as a result of still high customer inventories and low momentum with customers. Due to this challenging market situation, EBIT in the Components segment fell from EUR 7.6 million to EUR 2.2 million in the first quarter. Despite an improvement in the gross profit margin that was based especially on the favorable U.S. dollar development and lower obsolescence. The EBIT margin declined to 2.9%. Slide 7 shows the overall results of the group. Our top line declined by 9% to EUR 285.6 million in the first quarter driven by the low momentum of the Components segment. The decline in revenues and increases in personnel costs were to a significant extent compensated by higher prices and lower material costs and lower transportation costs. As a result, our EBIT decreased from EUR 19 million to EUR 14.5 million. The EBIT margin reached 5.1%. And let me now explain the main building blocks of our [indiscernible] EBIT development for the first quarter in more detail. We start with prior year's EBIT of EUR 19 million. As already mentioned, our negative volume development, especially to the low demand from customers in our Components segment had a negative effect of EUR 14 million. Higher personnel expenses due to salary increases under the collective bargaining agreements had also a negative impact. These negative impacts were partly offset by lower material and transportation costs. Based on these factors, our EBIT declined to EUR 14.5 million. Slide 9 provides you with the information on our income statement. I have already indicated that EBIT reached EUR 14.5 million. Our financial results amounted to minus EUR 3.5 million. Our net financing costs increased to EUR 2.4 million, mainly due to higher interest costs for current loans and [ foreign exchange ]. Other financial income and expenses amounted to EUR 1.1 million and included the interest expense for our pension obligations, earning effects from exchange rates and hedging valuation. After deduction of our income taxes, our net profit for the first quarter of our '23, '24 financial year amounted to EUR 9.8 million. As a consequence, earnings per share stood at EUR 0.23. Let's now move to Slide 10, our cash flow statement. Cash flow from operating results fell slightly year-on-year from EUR 32.8 million to EUR 29.2 million, mainly due to decline in volume. The changes in working capital improved compared to last year. As a result, cash flow from operating activities stood at minus EUR 0.5 million and therefore, was above previous year's. Cash flow from investing activities totaled EUR 6.2 million compared to EUR 14.4 million in the previous year. In addition to investments in property, plant and equipment, this position also includes cash outflows of EUR 2.3 million for capitalized development costs. As a result, free cash flow came in at minus EUR 6.7 million in the reporting period compared to minus EUR 15.8 million last year. Let me finish with Slide 11 and some comments on our balance sheet. The balance sheet structure has improved since the end of April '23. The equity ratio rose to 43.2%. Net debt increased to EUR 98.2 million, and the debt coverage ratio is still very healthy at 0.72. And with this, I hand back to Alfred.

Yes. On Page 12, you see our development. And obviously, unfortunately, we have to claim that we had a decline of the 9% in quarter 1. We were aware that this would be a difficult quarter, if not impossible to beat the previous year performance. And we have communicated this very openly. But however, as you already know, we did not expect it to be this challenging, especially with a quite sharp decline of the Components business. On Page 13, you'll see the regions. Luckily, we have been able to perform in the D/A/CH region driven by mainly Switzerland and Austria, with an growth of 5.2%, on FX adjusted of 3.3%. However, the other regions, the North and Western, Southern and Eastern region were declining. Here, we have to say a little bit different in the different countries good performing, Benelux in Northern and Western territory, in the Southern, across the board, a decline with the biggest decline is in Asia Pacific, mainly coming out of Australia. Before I come now to the outlook, let me briefly show on Page 14, how we see the environment, what is the data of the latest euro construct statistics from June '23. And it shows basically the development of the different markets. As you see, there are a couple of markets what are still showing a slight growth in '23. Others are negative, especially that the news, what we're getting out of Germany, also out of Austria. And you'll see that '23, especially when it comes to new build, will have a slight negative growth. But however, the renovation will still have a momentum and the outlook is a little bit more positive, especially when we are moving towards '24 and towards '25. On Page #15, obviously, we have reacted to adjust already our cost level, just a couple of examples, what is basic -- what are basically the initiated measures what we have. The development in the Components segment was unexpectedly tough to us and basically, we decided then to implement even more severe measure. On the 1 side, we have adjusted our staffing in all the functional areas. Obviously, we are lucky that we are having the different factories in the different countries where we can adjust the volume accordingly. We have worked on and we are continuing to working on the operational efficiency despite the low load that we are having. On the manufacturing cost, we have continued to increase the automation in our manufacturing processes where we are seeing already first results in increased efficiencies in the factories. And obviously, we are heading full speed ahead with the refurbishment. Meanwhile, we have standard refurbishment kits for most of our luminaires available to our customers who are not willing to replace the entire luminaire, but more or less only the driver in the LED module and that is gaining momentum despite the fact that the new construction is going down. And constantly, we are working on value engineering design to cost program for our luminaires and also our drivers so that we are able to become more competitive and cost-effective in this difficult environment. I would like to conclude the presentation of today with a few words on our outlook. As already previously mentioned, the demand in components did not pick up contrary to our expectations. The main reason for this is that there are high inventory levels on customer side. So the flow out of the goods is not as fast as we expected. So that the momentum will come back later than expected. And therefore, we expect a decline in sales in the mid-single-digit range for the '23, '24 fiscal year. And this is very important. The measures taken in the past are now paying off. And the current Zumtobel Group is not compared with that in the past. Our costs are under control. and we, therefore, expect an EBIT margin of 3% to 6% for the full financial year. And that is subject to the assumption that there's no further economics deterioration. We will stick with the CapEx in our plants for both the new products as well as the digitalization projects of EUR 60 million in Europe in '23, '24. And with that, I would like to conclude the presentation and now Thomas and I will be happy to take your questions. Thank you again for your attention.

[Operator Instructions]. And we have the first question from Markus Remis with Raiffeisen Bank International.

A couple of questions, please. First, as it relates to the Components business, and I'd like to get a better understanding of the volume versus price dynamics. I mean when I look at the momentum in Q2, apparently it got worse also versus the rather seasonally weak Q4. So was it purely the volume drain? Or did price pressure additionally kick in? And maybe you can help us get the sense of the trend over August and eventually early September, you have already a feeling for that.

Yes. Thank you, Markus, for the first question. What we are seeing, let me just go a little bit back. Originally, we expected that we have a decline compared to the extremely strong quarter 1 what we had last year. The decline is mainly a volume decline, roughly of 21% what we had. Currently, we are not seeing a pressure on the prices. We also believe that this will stay until the end of the calendar year. And as you had this question, trends for August and September, we see a slight recovery in the order intake. As you know, Components business is typically a very short-term business. So the orders are coming in 2 weeks before delivery. And we are seeing -- and August is always a difficult month to judge because there is the vacation period, but we are seeing a slight positive trend compared to the quarter 1.

Okay. So is it then fair to assume that the revenue level of Q1 is rather the bottom?

Can you repeat the question, Markus?

Is it fair to assume that the Q1 revenues in the Components segment should be rather the bottom or...

Yes. We are -- we believe -- obviously, we had the EUR 103 million, an all-time high. And we believe that now the inventory levels are decreasing. Also that's what we are getting from our customers despite the fact that this is coming at least 1 potentially 2 quarters later than we originally expected.

Okay. And I got it right that the price pressure, you don't expect to emerge for the remainder of the year. Was that what you're saying?

At least out of today, we are not seeing this. Obviously, the Components will be a first, seeing the price pressure. And I think as we discussed it already last time, that's already the question mark for both businesses. When is it, because the demand is basically shrinking that we see. But we expect that until the calendar year, we are safe and then we need basically to be prepared for a price decline. But of course, there are price declines already implemented. So for example, we have Components business is not charging anymore or able to charge a supplement for the logistics. We had this high transportation cost because we have quite a large amount of drivers still produced in Shenzhen. That's gone, but it's already got -- was already gone more or less end of last fiscal year. So it's full incorporated in the results what we have in Q1. And that will not come back anymore. This decline we see already in [ price. ]

Yes, very clear. And yes, on the Lighting segment, I mean, currently, it's much more stable and even a marginal earnings increase I mean can you maybe decompose that a bit in a sense is it -- I don't know, more cost driven? Or was it a mix effect? Or what has helped sustaining the earnings level?

Yes. Maybe Thomas can comment on that one. Generally, the Lighting business is a little bit different. We are benefiting, like we have been suffering of more the long-term projects. So obviously, we still have been able to hand over some of the cost increases in terms of price increases that was helping us. Then we do have, due to the good, let me say, performance of Switzerland also here some positive, let me say, exchange effects and we had to basically accept again also a single-digit drop on the volume of the luminaires.

So to be precise, we increased selling prices by 2.7% and had a negative effect -- volume effect of 2.9%. And then material -- helped us to increase the margin.

And again, Markus, I repeat myself. The reason why we are in the luminaire segment, a little bit more I would not say relaxed, but a little bit more optimistic is we do have still a solid order book. The projects what we quoted, where we are expecting orders are all quoted with reasonable high prices. So obviously, we have always an effect of 6 to 8 months in terms of pricing development. So it's much more stable than it would be for the Components business. And therefore, we leave with the combination of our efforts to do refurbishment and catch whatever we can, the new projects we are able to navigate to this downturn in the construction industry.

Okay, that already answers my next question because historically, if I'm not mistaken, the Components business observed some sort of a prelude to the dynamics than in the luminaire business. So I was wondering if there's any weakness emerging, but apparently, this is not the case.

Well, the weakness is, of course, after 2, let's say, exceptional years, especially in the Components business, the Components business also in volume, what we had was unhealthy. So we had partly 3x the volume in orders in our books simply because we were in a location. So now we are definitely out of the catch-up effect from Corona and we are getting back to normal. We believe with all the information that we have from Tridonic customers that this is mainly driven to this high stock level because obviously, and the fact, I repeat myself, similar to our suppliers, we had shipped all the open orders to the customers because they were not cancelable. And so therefore, automatically, that needs to be used up before new orders are coming in. And this Components business is a very short-term business. We believe once this -- we are getting back to normal. It's not something what basically goes down. Obviously, all in all, volumes have been shrinking, and we need to adapt to this new reality in our factories.

Okay. On the cost measures you've outlined, I mean, how much should we regard as kind of incremental and just to get a better understanding of how much more potentially you have on cost savings? I mean, is there anything you can share with us?

So maybe, Markus, obviously, the good news what we have, we have now, let me say, with [indiscernible], with [indiscernible] and we're spending more, 2 factories that are helping us with the cost. And obviously, we are now optimizing the production volume, so we can do that. And the second one is similar to that, also when it comes to management levels or white-collar workers, we are also adjusting to that.

Okay. Okay. But it's more of a gradual effect, but...

Obviously, if you can imagine, you know us, we are now revisiting all the cost structure. And depending on the development, there might be also more severe measures what we need to implement if the situation is not improving.

Okay. Right. Final question on the topic of buyback. I mean you got the AGM approval, I think it was indicated that there might be a supervisory decision in fall. Any update you can share with us?

Yes. As said, we will place this question to one of the next Supervisory Board meetings, whether it's the next one or one later, I can't say exactly. But it's in our agenda, and we want to ask the Supervisory Board this question.

The next question is from the line of Michael Marschallinger with Erste Group.

I have two. Firstly, on the market outlook you presented on Page 14. And here, you're showing -- you expect that Germany and Austria, some negative growth for 2023 year. However -- have some nice single-digit increase. So would you assume for your business also to deteriorate some negative? Or is there any reason for this outperformance in the first quarter to continue?

Thank you, Michael, for the question. No. When it comes to Austria, for example, the project pipeline we are not really expecting that -- it to be within this fiscal year. So we will be solid. A little bit different in Germany as we are seeing definitely our business in the market. But when it comes to Austria and Switzerland, we are quite optimistic that we can continue with a slight growth compared to last year.

Okay. Understood. And then lastly, Markus touched it already, the topic of [indiscernible]. So on the timing -- on the timing here, when should we expect the first effects to be visible? Also, is it fair to assume that to reach the upper guidance range of this 6% EBIT margin that you are confirmed today, do you think this will rely on the implementation timing of these measures?

So your question is to -- it was a little bit interrupted. Your question was what does it mean -- what would be necessary to do to reach the upper guided EBIT...

Exactly? Does it also rely on the implementation timing of this cost-cutting measures?

Well, on the one side, it depends on the implementation of cost-cutting. We are already cutting our cost but have an effect, which is delayed as in every cost-cutting initiative. And the second one will be dependent on the momentum of the Component business. The sooner the engine of the Component business switches on again the better the margin will be for the whole group.

So you said the cost-cutting effect will [indiscernible]. So is that already in the second half of the year that should be visible or...

Yes. Some will be visible. But Michael, as you know, we have already anticipated that our fiscal year '23, '24 will be more difficult because, as you know, we have already up slight decline in our quarter 4, we saw this on the Components, maybe driven by the Components business. And in line with that, we have already done measures what we are already seeing now and what we also see in the second half. Obviously, like Thomas said, is -- the deterioration of the business now in quarter 2 will be a decisive quarter for us, if continuing, then we will have to implement more measures and that most likely will not have the immediate effect for this year but will basically pave the way for our '24, '25 year.

[Operator Instructions]. And the next question is from the line of Roland Könen with Value-Holdings.

Only two minor questions are left. First one is on the very low tax rate. Could you elaborate a bit on this and the outlook for the whole year. And the second one is on your cap target of EUR 60 million. If I got it right, you only invested roughly EUR 6.5 million in the first quarter. So I guess it's more back-end loaded in this year or is there something that switch from this fiscal year to the next year?

Your first question on the tax rate. As I think in every call, I tell you, it's very difficult because the deferred taxes make a high chunk of our tax rate. And what I can tell you is that we will be below 20%. But depending on the effects, you calculate only at the end of the year or basically at the end of the year. It's difficult to foresee. But what I would say is the tax rate will be between 15% and 20%, maybe a little bit less.

On the second question of the CapEx, you're right. There is -- and I think we have discussed this a couple of quarters ago. We are currently in the Phase 3 of the development of a completely new trunking system and quite a significant amount of this CapEx will go into the manufacturing equipment that we have, and that is coming in the second half of this fiscal year. And therefore, the CapEx will be basically then coming there in the second half.

We have a follow-up question from Markus Remis.

Yes, for the sake of complexity. On the M&A topic, anything you can share with us any perception of, I don't know, if the market pool gets more attractive or any development there?

Good question. Thank you, Markus. Obviously, you can imagine, we are now concentrating mainly of navigating into this fiscal year. Of course, we are working towards positioning our company beyond now '24, '25. And we are looking into that, what is necessary and we will most likely then beginning of next fiscal year or begin to have -- having a solid plan once we also know how this fiscal year goes. But in terms of attractiveness of the market, obviously, the time has changed in the luminaire segment. We are not alone in this market, we need to be very careful considering what we are doing here in that segment.

Okay. So you're saying management's attention rather on internal stuff and looking for external growth opportunities...

At the moment, yes.

So far there are no further questions and I hand back to Alfred Felder for closing comments.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for your attention for listening to us today and also for your very valid questions. Obviously, it's clear to us that now the strong quarter 2 is coming and we will be monitoring very carefully how the Components business develops with the measures implemented. And basically, we talk again after Q2 where we definitely will have more visibility how the whole market develops. Thank you so much for your attention, and have a great day.