Zumtobel Group AG (ZAG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Zumtobel Group's conference call on our Q1 results for the 2024, '25 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 web page as well. As a reminder, due to technical issues, we sent a couple of minutes ago again, a message for the dial-in link for the slide presentation, if you want to follow our slide presentation as well besides our conference call. And with this, I hand over to Alfred.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your interest in today's call and your participation to listen to our Q1 results. We can be quite satisfied with the development of the business in the first 3 months of our current fiscal year. Above all, we are seeing finally a slight recovery of our Components business, which has returned to growth for the first time in 6 quarters with a 4.3% increase in sales. And after this long period of well stock customer inventories, I think we have discussed this in the previous calls, lately, we do see an increasing demand for components that also is reflected in our order books. On the Lighting segment, also we recorded a slight growth of 1.1%. And therefore, the Zumtobel Group's total revenue rose by 1.2% to EUR 289.1 million. If you look into the different regions. We registered a substantial revenue growth in Northern and Western Europe in contrast to the weak quarter of '23, '24, driven by U.K. and also by France. Revenues in Belgium and Sweden, however, fell below previous years, and the positive development in the DACH region resulted also primarily again from Austria and Switzerland. In the Asia and Pacific region, the Components segment recorded growth in Greater China and revenues in the Southern and Eastern Europe declined primarily to the weakness of the Czech Republic and Poland. The negative development of the revenues in America and MEA region was a result of, unfortunately, disappointing sales in the U.S. while growing in the Middle East. The overall positive development in the first quarter is reflected then in the adjusted EBIT of EUR 20.2 million with an increase in revenue and a better material, which Thomas will highlight this in a second. The adjusted EBIT margin is at 7%, which is quite remarkable. Let me just, before I hand over to Thomas, share to you again, as usual, a couple of highlights. This time quite substantially driven by the momentum, what we see in the refurbishment. That's also the first one in the middle here. The Munster Technology University, a complete refurbishment project where we upgraded the existing street and exterior lighting and the CO2 emission was significantly reduced, their maintenance needs also have been decreased by 30%. And another one is the Vienna Airport. As those who follow us longer might know, we have been the main lighting supplier for the new Vienna Airport a couple of years back. And now we have done the refurbishment of our own light cushions what we have the airport [ beer ] and in the terminal area, and this is a couple of projects what we have driven in the last quarter. Also, Maserati, Maserati is one of our global key accounts, showroom in the Czech Republic, what we did using our, let me say, high-tech CIELUMA area light sources, it is the very first installation of CIELUMA in the Czech Republic, we have done it in other shops in Maserati in other countries. Then we have, again, [ Dana ] Stadium in this case in Catania with our Altis. It's a refurbishment taking out the old energy consuming luminaires and replacing it by the LED Altis luminaires. And last but not least, the National Archive Luxembourg, compact functional energy-efficient a high-quality building of 16,000 square meters and 7 floors. And also here, we have done the state-of-the-art technical installation of luminaires and light management systems products are here our [ high-run ] TECTON C [indiscernible] and also the battery-driven [indiscernible] system. With that, I would end now and hand over to Thomas, who will give you the additional and deep information on our Q1 results.

Thank you, Alfred. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome also from my side. Let me start with the Lighting segment on Slide 5. Revenues in Lighting segment amounted to EUR 226.6 million and were slightly above the previous year's level. The sales increases were achieved primarily due to growth in the U.K. positive FX effects and efficient price management from our side. We were able to more than offset the increase in fixed costs by increasing sales in high-margin countries. As a result, adjusted EBIT in the Lighting segment increased from EUR 17.3 million to EUR 20.1 million. Our adjusted EBIT margin rose from 7.7% to 8.9%. Slide 6 shows our Components segment. Revenues in the Components segment rose by 4.3% to EUR 80.3 million in the first quarter. Sales growth was achieved primarily in the U.K. and DACH and Greater China, partially offset by price pressure and negative FX effects. Despite the challenging market environment, both sales and the margin increases in the Components segment, increasing the Components segment. In combination with strict cost discipline, adjusted EBIT in the Components segment rose from EUR 2.2 million to EUR 4.7 million in the first quarter. Adjusted EBIT margin increased to 5.9%. Slide 7 shows the overall result for the group. Our top line rose, as said, by 1.2% to EUR 289 million in the first quarter. Higher sales and the better material ratio more than offset the increases in personnel and other costs. As a consequence, our adjusted EBIT rose from EUR 14.5 million to EUR 20.2 million. Adjusted EBIT margin increased to 7%. On Slide 8, are the building blocks of our adjusted EBIT development. Let me start with prior year's adjusted EBIT of EUR 14.5 million. The positive volume development, especially in our Components segment had a positive effect of EUR 0.8 million. Looking at our COGS, an efficient price management and positive country mix effects more than offset the higher external service costs and the higher cost for patents and licenses. We recorded a positive effect of EUR 7.9 million. SG&A and research costs were impacted by higher personnel expenses due to salary increases as a result of the merit round and had a negative impact of EUR 3 million on our result. Based on these factors, our adjusted EBIT increased to EUR 20.2 million. Slide 9 provides you with information on our income statement. As I previously indicated, our adjusted EBIT reached EUR 20.2 million, special effects were negative at EUR 1.5 million and related to personnel expenses due to a restructuring in Germany. After the reduction of these special effects, our EBIT stood at EUR 18.7 million. Our financial results amounted to minus EUR 4.6 million. Our net financing cost amounted to minus EUR 2.6 million. Other financial income and expenses amounted to minus EUR 2 million and included the interest expense for pension obligations FX and hedging valuations. After the reduction of our income taxes, our net profit for the first quarter amounted to EUR 12.8 million. As a consequence, earnings per share stood at EUR 0.30. Let's now move to Slide 10, the cash flow statement. Cash flow from operating results increased from previous years from EUR 29.2 million to EUR 32.4 million. The changes in working capital were almost flat compared to last year. Total cash flow from operating activities improved by EUR 0.5 million. Cash flow from investing activities totaled EUR 11.2 million compared to EUR 6.2 million in the previous year. Increased investment activity is mainly related to our new trunking system, which is TECTON 2 in the future. In addition to these investments in addition to these investments also property, plant and equipment, this position includes EUR 2.8 million for capitalized development costs. As a result, free cash flow stood at minus EUR 11.2 million in the reporting period, compared to minus EUR 6.7 million last year. Let me finish with Slide 11. Our balance sheet structure remains stable and strong. The equity ratio improved slightly to 43.5%. Net debt increased to EUR 93.3 million and the debt coverage ratio is at a very healthy rate of 0.86. And with this, I hand back to Alfred.

This slide you know already, on the current market outlook, nothing has been changed. We will see in '24, '25, still a relatively weak development of the new construction, while the refurbishment, what I mentioned in our project, gains a certain momentum. So that means that '24 will still be a difficult year for us in the construction sector, but we remain optimistic and as mentioned recovery in 2025. I mentioned this already. We do see recovery in the U.K., we're also believing that in France. We continue difficult remains Germany as a whole industry. And that is especially valid for the rural nonresidential construction, who is expected to decline in '24. The shift into the refurbishment creates opportunity for the Zumtobel Group, just maybe to highlight for those of you who are not following us regularly, we started that a couple of years back with tailor-made product, especially the kits what have been used to refurbish the luminaires. Meanwhile, a lot of those became standards, so we can basically address a much broader market. With that, we see a recovery most likely in the second half of '25 with the improvement of the sector. With this in mind, let me finish with our outlook '24, '25 despite the recovery of the Components segment, what we believe should continue on a slow pace moving forward. We are remaining carefully optimistic for a couple of good reasons. One, I mentioned, is the market itself. Secondly, is the geopolitical situation what stays dense, and it's very difficult how the market progresses, and that makes it quite difficult to see how the different markets develop. In the light of this, we are leaving our guidance unchanged for the '24-'25 financial year. We continue to expect sales to be at least slightly above the previous year level and the adjusted EBIT margin between the 3% and 6%. Thomas mentioned it already, the CapEx spending is expected to be around the EUR 60 million as our new trunking system and what we will launch in spring, early summer next year is in a ramp-up phase for ready for production. And with that, I would like to thank you very much for your attention. Now Thomas and myself will be more than happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from Markus Remis from RBI.

I have a few questions. Firstly, on the sustainability of the revenue or the positive revenue momentum. I mean, your guidance suggests that it's going to be positive also for the upcoming quarters. I think it is still a weak base. I'd like to get my head around the development, especially components to which extent this moderate growth is now just a reflection of the easy base or whether you see an increasing momentum, meaning that the underlying demand is actually improving? Or is it just the lack of destocking that is enabling the moderate top line growth?

All right. Markus, thank you for your question. As we said the Q1 was 4.3% growth. But if you remember, we have been over 20% declining last year versus the previous year, so to speak. We do see a couple of effects. On one side, we see that the destocking time comes to an end, definitely, customers are ordering. We are back to the old behavior with a relatively short notice 2, 3, maximum 2, 3 weeks, and that's a good momentum. On the other hand, we also do see, like we faced it in the Lighting segment that the market is not really having, let me say, tailwinds in different markets. So the customers of Tridonic, our competitors are also not seeing a big growth. And the third one is that we, of course, see now already a decline in pricing. So the volume revenue increasing -- was increasing compared to last year because we see the 4% to 5% price decrease all in all. So summing up those 3 parameters, we believe that on one side, the end of the high stock level helps us, but on the other hand, price decrease and a rather flattish market size will lead to that what we said, a relatively moderate growth of the Components segment.

The flat underlying demand, okay, that?

Correct?

Yes. Okay. And the prize decline are the 4% to 5%, maybe I got it wrong. As I say, a wrong interpretation of the most recent data points, but does it suggest that price pressure did accelerate a bit sequentially? Or am I wrong? I felt something like more 3% in mind from the Q4 conference call early July.

Yes, you're right. What I mentioned is, as you remember, we had additional, let me say, cost increase with them surcharges of transport, what basically was the first -- the real price increase is more on the 3%. But if you could just compare to that what we had previous year, then that is the overall decline.

Okay. And then staying with Components, I mean looking at the development, you've got a few more millions in terms of revenues and all of that actually seems to drop through to the EBIT line. So just at least from my perspective, suggests that you had some tailwinds from the material cost. Is it fair to assume that material cost deflation was more helpful in Component than in Lighting? And maybe you can also shed some light on the drivers there? And to which extent do you think you will be able -- however that will help you also in the next 1 or 2 quarters?

Well, it's more the headwind or the tailwind we have is more from the valuation of our material as we have increased stock turns now what we didn't have in the previous year. So 3 million in the Components segment comes from revaluation, positive revaluation of inventory. But we see on both segments, decreasing prices for material.

Okay. So -- okay. Got it. Because in the report, it actually says an inventory write-down, but you had an inventory write-up.

Write up, yes.

Okay. Okay. So that was actually the third question I had, EUR 3 million positive revaluation, okay, got the point. Good and then the last question -- sorry, I lost a bit, yes. On the one-off cost is EUR 1.5 million. I mean that's currently related to redundancies. Is there any sort of guidance you can give us in shorter term, if more restructuring charges will have to be borne?

Markus, as you know, we are still in an extremely dense situation. So if you just look into both segments, we believe that the market in this segment not growing. There is an oversupply, which will put more pressure on the prices on both segments, and we are constantly looking into proficiencies, which means cost down. Moving forward, if the situation deteriorates, it might also be that we have to look into some more restructuring on the different segments. But currently, we are constantly working since couple of years already to adjust our cost to the market situations.

And the next question comes from Patrick Steiner from Kepler Cheuvreux.

It's Patrick speaking. A couple of questions from my side as Markus asked the most important ones already. Firstly, on regional sales development, I mean, you've touched on this already in Q2. We've seen strong growth in North and Western Europe, Asia Pacific and some decline in America and then in South and Eastern Europe. You touched on the U.S. and Czech Republic, but could you also share your thoughts on the other regions, your growth expectations going forward and also maybe some major regional drivers, if possible? That would be the first one.

So as you know, last year, the main drivers for our business came from the DACH region, where U.K., France and so on were weaker. So we see a quite positive development, especially in the U.K. followed by France, what we have. The weakness in the Eastern Europe in some of the countries has also to do with some market weakness and also some price pressure, especially in the Eastern Europe, we see this on the Luminaire segment. But on the Components segment, it's pretty much a similar big term. China is recovering compared to the very low development what we have. Middle East is developing quite nicely. The bottom child for us is and remains this year our U.S. business. But to summarize, we believe in Europe, also the other bigger countries be it Italy, be it France, be it U.K. will contribute to the growth, while the DACH region remains a performing region.

Okay. Very helpful. I mean the second question deals with -- I'm trying to wrap my head around your current full year guidance basically. And for what I've heard and read now is basically we see price pressure in both segments. And given that there's usually a time lag between the construction for nonresidential building in your case in the installation of the lighting systems, wouldn't that indicate that you could see more softness in lighting revenues towards the end of the current financial year, if I look at the current construction outlook for 2024? And I mean, how does this -- how do you view this in light of the current full year guidance given that you just see moderate expected sales increase in Components?

Yes, you're absolutely right. I think it's already in your question, half the answer. We are careful even though we had quite a reasonable good Q1. We believe that the second half will remain flat, potentially also on the lighting brand side a little bit more price pressure, it effects obviously top and bottom line. But on the other hand, we are seeing that the refurbishment market or the refurbishment applications are partly compensating that. So that's why that what we know now was something what has been projected back in '23 in a typical construction phase. And we see this rather flat or partly also declining in certain markets. U.K., as an example, was extremely low. We are seeing a momentum where basically more activities are coming up. And that's completely in line with the prediction of what we have from Euro construct that most likely all in the second half of '25. We will see now a recovery. So our fiscal year remains a challenging one until the end of April.

Yes, makes total sense. And given the current political landscape, do you expect any major changes in government subsidies related to energy-efficient refurbishment? Any positives/negatives you expect?

No, we are benefiting from that already in Europe as obviously with the green deal, we are seeing that money flows into certain markets here that we are not expecting any change. So politically, if something would change in the U.S., it will not affect us that much because our revenue in the U.S. is relatively small.

Okay, okay. That makes sense. Last question. All inventories reduced quite markedly compared to Q1 last year. How should we think about this for the rest of the year in terms of inventory development? Are there any plans to further reduce the current levels? Or is this sustainable for the year?

Well, I think we are -- it will improve a little bit our inventory until the end of the financial year, but not substantially.

[Operator Instructions] And the next question comes from Miro Zuzak from JMS Invest AG.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Just a quick one from my side. Obviously, there were some like shifts in the geographical mix. And I think it became more and more apparent that in the Americas and in Asia Pacific, your business seems to be rather small, and one could argue potentially at the subcritical level to justify maintaining the organization in these countries. How is your -- and just considering that the excellent performance that you, for example, deliver in the DACH region or also in Northern and Western Europe. How do you -- just wonder how your -- how you think about these regions from a strategic point of view? Wouldn't it make sense to basically fully focused on the European area and maybe close down or sell the other organizations in the other continents?

Absolutely valid and good questions. Thank you, Miro. So obviously, looking into our strategy, the main focus is and remains on Europe, which means that the other markets, we are more addressing on an opportunistic approach. So for example, in the U.S., we are only present with our brand Zumtobel. So main reason is that in the U.S., there are a lot of international acting architects who do generate projects outside of the U.S. So if we are not engaged with them on site, you will not win in the Middle East, for example, in Saudi Arabia, where there are big projects. And that's one of the motivations why we remain in the U.S. But it's clear that we are not satisfied with the performance of some of those markets. And as Markus mentioned, this is something what we are investigating very heavily. And if the markets are not recovering for us, we might need to think in the direction of restructuring and downsizing or even closing. But the business, especially for spec business, international big projects, there are a couple of initial hubs. London is one, New York is one, Hong Kong is one, where those international architecture sitting, who have quite a large influence on the construction of the buildings. And therefore, that is extremely important for us to stay on site and engaged with the stakeholders.

And we do have a follow-up question from Patrick Steiner from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Last one from my side, I promise. You've talked quite a lot about the inventory digesting components, which is likely over -- in this case, you've given very good insights into these developments. Do you see any risk of a so-called fitful volumes, and this is stronger-than-expected price cuts among component producers given the increasing demand now from lighting customers is something that we should keep an eye on?

Yes. We are, of course, seeing -- or we have seen I think I mentioned it in some previous calls, a change in the competitive landscape that competitors of Tridonic from Far East have become stronger. They obviously have been using this gap when established component suppliers were not able to deliver after COVID, after basically the disruption of the supply chain and the product quality is not bad anymore. So we see that already that, that increases the pressure on the prices. However, as the established player and including us, have the organization, the service level closer to the customers, customers is accepting a slightly higher price from us compared to competitors because quality issues are treated differently as those companies typically have nothing else than the distribution or a sales organization, but no other infrastructure here. But of course, this pressure will eventually increase over the next couple of quarters and years.

Okay. And do you think like thinking about the long term, do you think this could hurt margins in the Components business in the long term, this kind of increased competition from the Far East?

Yes, we have this now since many years. But as we mentioned about the question from Markus. On the Components level, we reacted last year by closing down 2/3 of our factory capability here in Dornbirn. Obviously, we have -- with the high wage increases, Thomas was mentioning it, the last 3 years, a cost situation in Austria, especially what makes us less competitive. We are reacting constantly by shifting production volume low-cost locations, and that will help us. That's our daily management job. I think, yes, there is a threat that the margins will be hurt. But we are also having, let me say, countermeasures constantly in place to more or less gain efficiency.

And we have another follow-up question from Markus Remis from RBI.

One question on the kind of restructuring that might come up in the downsizing. Is that -- or are your considerations also including the cessation of certain markets like exit to the U.S., for instance, those markets where you are making scale essentially? Or is it limited to the production footprint and headcount?

So first, obviously, Markus, it's clear we are still having not fully loaded factories. We are seeing a positive development in Tridonic here where partly we increased, again, capacity, but it's rather flat on the luminaire side. Therefore, obviously, this is one hot topic on cost optimization for the factories. And when it comes to the markets, as you mentioned, U.S., that could be a situation that we are focusing mainly, as I said, on a smaller scale set up to maintain the contact with the stakeholders like the architects, the life planner [indiscernible] international and more or less also close down our factory what we have. But currently, this is all under investigation. The biggest portion is to see how we can load the factories. If this is not the case, we have to adjust constantly.

Okay. Very clear. And then just one kind of clarification when you have like a EUR 3 million positive impact from the revaluation. Why is that not adjusted from the -- or stripped out from the adjusted EBIT just as we...?

Because as the write -- because we consider this as normal fluctuation also the write-off is not adjusted.

And we do have one more follow-up question from Miro Zuzak from JMS Invest AG.

Yes. Actually a couple of, so the first one is the selling cost increased quite significantly to almost EUR 81 million. It's just due to the high basically wage increases in Austria? Or was there any special effect in this line?

No, no, the wage increase -- yes, you're right, right question. It was generally wage increase. Austria, of course, in absolute terms, was the highest because the salary levels are already high, but we do have in a lot of countries, especially in Eastern Europe, double -- we had double-digit wage increases, and that's the main driver for the higher cost.

So the cost will remain on this elevated level in absolute terms of the EUR 81 million per quarter, if you could estimate?

This is what we look into also some segments where we look how we can optimize the SG&A. But obviously, you see with being in project business, especially on the luminaire side, you need to have the people on the ground. But on the other hand, we are constantly looking how we can optimize this. But I'm afraid, yes, that will stay at that level.

Okay. But G&A went down actually. So there is a good job. That was more the [indiscernible] where there was a high increase. Now just the gross margin went up to 38.1%. I think it's the highest margin that you ever posted on a quarterly basis. I cannot see any other quarter in my model, which was set to 2012, you had 38%. Could you please just -- maybe we've said it again in the call what -- were there any special effect or was the like -- and is this like a new normal level, should we assume 38% going forward? Or was there anything to mention? And will it come back to the 35-ish you posted last year?

Well, as you said it, this is also in our view, one of the highest margins we ever had. And this is driven by the effect that we have in very high-margin countries, big sales increases. And on the other hand, that we don't have write-offs in our inventory. But on the opposite, revaluation effects, positive revaluation effects of inventory. And we also have to say that the costs for our raw material decreases currently.

Maybe in addition to that, what Thomas said, we are also seeing over the last quarters, quite some significant progress in improvement of margins of our Thorn Luminaire business and what was obviously quite weak, especially on the outdoor level.

So it's a mix of both some points which were one-offs, the write-ups. And but on the other hand side, the rest, like the mix effect, [indiscernible] business and the Thorn business probably that's going to stay. So what is a good level to assume for the next quarters for the gross margin? Probably not the 38% again, but probably higher than the 34% of last year?

I would say, in the next quarter, I would say it's between 36% and 38% as we still have positive momentum. But going forward, it's more between 34% and 36%.

It's a little bit in line what I said before. We are -- the projects, what we do have in the pipeline now assuming that delivery is out between 3 and 9 months are [ good ] prices, what are today's prices. So if, let me say, the pressure is increasing on the prices, and we also always having a certain delay between 3 and 9 months where we see that. And as I said at the beginning, we believe with stagnating partly shrinking markets in some countries, we will see a higher pressure on our prices.

[Operator Instructions] So it seems there are no further questions at this time. And I would like to turn the conference back over to Alfred Felder for closing comments.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for your time for listening to us, also for the interesting questions. With that, we are coming to an end. And thank you for listening and see you next time when we publish the half year results. Thank you very much.