Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Frigoglass Q2 2022 results conference call. Throughout the call, all participants are in listen only mode, and afterwards there will be a question and answer session. I will now pass the floor to one of your speakers, Mr. John Stamatakos. Please, sir, go ahead.
Thank you all for joining us today. I'm joined by our CEO, Nikos Mamoulis, and our CFO, Manos Metaxakis. Nikos and Manos will present our Q2 2022 results, and after that, we will open the floor to your questions. Before we get started, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call contains various forward-looking statements. This should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statement set out in our presentation and press release, which published on Friday. Please turn to slide four, and I will now turn the call over to Nikos.
Thank you, John, and many thanks to everyone joining our call. Let me begin by highlighting that apart from January and February, it has been a very challenging H1 for us. The escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has materially impacted our results in the commercial refrigeration business. We experienced order cancellations primarily from customers in these two countries. We also faced significant challenges in supporting our strategic beverage partners across Europe due to the disruptions to our logistics activities. During this period, there was scarcity of available trucks to transport our coolers and other materials out of Russia. However, during the last couple of months, visibility has improved, which helps planning our production more efficiently.
We continue supporting our customers and adapting our cost base to this environment through the implementation of several initiatives and execution of contingency plans, which among others, included alternative logistics routes and the enhancement of the temporary assembly line in Romania. Against these challenges, we delivered sales growth of 22% in the Q2 . Our focus to gain market share in Asia and the increased demand in Africa resulted in sales growing by high single-digit rate in the commercial refrigeration. Glass had an excellent performance with sales growing in double digits. This demonstrates our strong execution capabilities and how attractive the market remains.
Operating leverage in glass and the insurance reinvestment related to our business interruption claim resulted in a 500 basis points adjusted EBITDA margin improvement. We received in the quarter EUR 12 million insurance proceeds, which further supported our cash balance of EUR 67 million.
Finally, the cash flow was EUR -36 million, impacted by an outflow in net trade working capital. Turning to the next slide, I will take you through the key drivers across our geographies in commercial refrigeration. Sales in East Europe were severely impacted by order cancellations in Russia and Ukraine, as well as delays in customer deliveries due to the intensified transportation challenges caused by the conflict. In this environment, our sales declined by 21.5%. Combining Russia and Ukraine, sales were down 51%, whereas excluding those two countries we experienced growth of 19%, primarily driven by increased orders in Romania and Poland. In West Europe, sales were unchanged compared to last year.
Increased demand in Italy and Greece was offset by lower orders in Sweden, France and Germany. Production constraints at our plant in Romania resulted in significant delays in delivering coolers to our customers.
Our ability to capture demand in Western Europe was deteriorated by the constraints in logistics for transporting finished and semi-finished goods from Russia. In Asia, our sales more than doubled following strong demand in India and market share gains in Central Asia. Particularly in India, we continue to take a targeted approach for our local offering that resulted in increased orders from soft drink customers. India's strong performance was also driven by the increased penetration in the distributors channel in the white goods market. Price adjustments earlier in the year supported sales growth in the quarter. We also experienced strong growth in Central Asia after acquiring a higher share with key customers. Growth momentum accelerated in Africa, with sales increasing by 79.1% following continued demand recovery and pricing initiatives.
Sales in South Africa grew in mid-80s%, reflecting increased demand from soft drink customers and breweries, price adjustments, and Frigocels expansion with a key brewery customer. We also experienced sales growth in Nigeria, driven by higher orders from a soft drink customer. Moving to the next slide and our glass business, which delivered an outstanding performance. On a currency neutral basis, sales were up 57%. The appreciation of naira had a positive effect, resulting in a 74% growth on a reported basis. This performance was the result of higher volume and price adjustments. Volume added EUR 8 million of sales, driven by increased orders in glass containers and crowns operations. Volume sold in the glass container business grew in mid-40s%. Key to this was the strong demand from breweries and spirits following the continued recovery of the on-trade channels.
Growth was also driven by increased export activity, primarily towards breweries in Ghana. Metal crowns performance remained strong, assisted by orders from soft drink and brewery customers. We took further pricing across all operations in the quarter, resulting in a positive contribution of about EUR 4 million on sales. Finally, sales were supported by a favorable currency effect of EUR 3.5 million. With that, I will turn the call over to Manos for the detailed financial review.
Thank you, Nikos, and hello to everyone on the call. Let's turn to slide 8. Starting with the commercial refrigeration, sales increased by 90% as growth in India and Africa more than offset the impact from order reductions in Russia and the constraints in logistics we faced in delivering coolers to customers. Top line was also assisted by pricing initiatives implemented early in the year and lower discounts to customers. The gross margin declined by almost 10 percentage points versus the prior year Q2 . This was driven by higher raw materials and logistic costs due to supply chain constraints and lower cost absorption in Romania. For example, transportation cost per truck from Russia to Romania has increased three times compared to the pre-conflict period. Currently, such costs has been reduced but remains well above last year's level.
On an absolute basis, operating expenses were higher by 22%, driven by increased warranty-related expenses. All in all, this resulted in adjusted EBITDA of EUR 15.3 million, up 57% with expected margin improved by 510 basis points to 16.6%. Adjusted EBITDA was also supported by EUR 13.9 million insurance reimbursement related to our business interruption claim following the fire incident in Romania. Moving to glass. Growth momentum sustained in the Q2 following strong demand for glass containers and increased orders for crowns. We also did price increases across all our operations, whereas currency translation had a positive effect on our reported sales. Gross margin increased by 1.9 percentage points following price adjustment and the favorable recovery of production costs given the higher volumes.
We continued to face higher energy-related costs due to the unfavorable sourcing mix, as we have increased the usage of diesel due to disruption in gas supply at one of our plants. Operating expenses as a percentage of sales improved by 1.7 percentage points, reflecting higher year-on-year sales. As a result, glass adjusted EBITDA increased by 78% with expected margin improving by 60 basis points to 25.1%. Turning to the next slide and the group's results. Group's adjusted EBITDA increased by 64% to EUR 24.6 million in the quarter. Net finance costs amounted to EUR 17.9 million compared to EUR 5.2 million in the Q2 of 2021, primarily reflecting significant foreign exchange losses following the appreciation of naira and rouble.
Overall, we reported a net profit of EUR 6.8 million compared to a net loss of EUR 12.2 million in the Q2 of 2021, supported by EUR 10.6 million income from insurance compensation after deduction of certain related expenses and reported below operating profit. Last year's Q2 was impacted by non-recurring charges of EUR 13.9 million related to the fire incident in Romania, including non-cash fixed assets and inventory write-offs of EUR 12.9 million and cash expenses of EUR 1 million. Turning to slide 10 and the components of the free cash flow. Adjusted free cash flow was an outflow of EUR 36 million compared to an inflow of EUR 5.4 million last year. Despite the improved operating profitability, adjusted free cash flow was impacted by a material trade working capital outflow following increased business activity.
Working capital was impacted by increased trade debtors following sales growth in the Q2 and inventories built up in glass to support demand. CapEx was around EUR 11 million versus EUR 4 million last year, and included primarily spending towards the reconstruction of the plant in Romania. Adjusted net debt was EUR 287.1 million in June 2022, compared to EUR 261.2 million in June 2021. Our cash position was EUR 66.9 million compared to EUR 61.2 million last year, assisted by insurance proceeds. As we are already in October, we can also provide our cash balance as of end of August, which was EUR 63.7 million. Out of that amount, around EUR 46 million was held in Nigeria. Let me update you on the insurance proceeds received to date.
In July this year, we reached a definitive agreement with a co-insurance scheme for EUR 61.6 million aggregate net compensation related to the property damage and the business interruption claims. By the end of August, we have received EUR 52.4 million out of which EUR 15 million in 2021 and EUR 37.4 million in 2022, where the remaining EUR 9.2 million related to the property damage claim is subject to the proof of the actual expenditures related to the reconstruction phase of the building and the purchase of equipment. I will now hand over back to Nikos for the business outlook and concluding remarks.
Thanks, Manos. Please go to slide 12 and our outlook for 2022, which reflects current market conditions. We anticipate demand to remain soft in Russia, our single most important market in the commercial refrigeration segment. While we have experienced a gradual improvement in July and August, logistics constraints will continue to drive longer lead times in deliveries of coolers across Europe. We closely follow developments around Russia and remain very mindful of the more uncertain outlook. To mitigate potential risks, we immediately ship finished goods from Russia to our European warehouses and accelerate cooler dispatches for direct deliveries to our customers. As we have entered the low season for our business, our focus is currently on building up finished goods stock to support orders from our European customers in the Q1 of 2023.
This will be achieved through the effective production planning in our Russian facility and the limited assembly line in Romania. Price increases implemented earlier in the year and the strong execution of our commercial strategy leading to increased orders and market share gains in India, Africa, and Central Asia will help to offset the soft sales in Russia and across Europe. In Glass, driven by a very strong performance in the H1 of 2022, we are more than confident for delivering double-digit sales growth this year. The favorable market conditions in Nigeria, our effective pass-through pricing mechanism, and initiatives to increase export activity support our view for the remainder of the year.
Supply chain constraints and inflationary pressures will continue hitting our cost base in the H2 . While it is early to provide guidance for 2023, these factors will result in further pressure next year.
The production disruptions we are facing in Romania, the dependence on Russia's production until the Q1 of 2023, and the subsequent incremental logistic costs will continue to significantly impact our profitability and liquidity this and next year. We remain focused to grasp any opportunity for increasing prices and take out costs to partly offset the adverse impact on profitability. Key to gross profit margins improvement of the commercial refrigeration business will be the return to production of our new plant in Romania next year. Glass will continue to support group profitability in 2022 and 2023. We are also reiterating our capital guidance for around EUR 60 million in 2022, which primarily includes the reconstruction of our plant in Romania. We made good progress so far with respect to the reconstruction project.
Construction works are in advanced stage, and orders for the related equipment have almost completed. This provides us with comfort that the plant will be operational at the beginning of 2023. As we continue to face an uncertain outlook this year and beyond, we have been working with our advisors towards reviewing our financial and strategic options, aiming to improve the group's capital structure and secure additional liquidity for our business. To that end, we expect to execute a support agreement as promptly as reasonably possible with a committee representing 66.9% of the holders of the outstanding notes.
This agreement includes a $30 million interim super senior financing commitment and the deferral of interest payments on the notes for 2023. The agreement is subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions precedent. This represents a short-term bridge financing that will bring stability in our business.
With this, we will be able to secure the needed working capital to weather next year's peak production season and seamlessly execute the reconstruction works of the plant in Romania. We are also committed to negotiate a broader capital restructuring transaction in good faith and enter into a lock-up agreement with the committee of the note holders and our majority shareholder that will improve our capital structure and enhance our liquidity. Lastly, let me express how pleased I am with our recent commitment to net zero carbon emission. We initiated the development of our science-based targets plan to support our customers and our own net zero strategy. This marks a significant milestone in our sustainability journey.
We are building on the progress made so far, and we now have set an ambitious plan to drastically reduce the carbon emissions from all stages of our value chain by 2030, with Scope one and two emissions to be reduced by 48% and Scope three emissions by 97.5%, and ultimately reach net zero by 2050. With our net zero strategy, we support the industry in transforming towards more sustainable business practices. Before handing over to the operator and consistent with the last two earnings calls, we will be restricting the Q&A session. We will not be taking questions on certain topics, mainly in relation to sanctions. Now, we would like to open for questions. Over to the operator.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Please be informed that there might be a short silence while questions are being registered. Thank you. The first question comes from Juan Irina Arriaga from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hello, good afternoon. Thank you very much for the presentation of the results, which I think are better than what some of us initially feared. In that respect, I think I would say they are positive in some way. I have two quick questions. One is in relation to this interim financing, the EUR 30 million new facility that is intended to be put in place. The question is the intention that it is fully subscribed by the other members of the group or is it gonna be offered to all note holders pro rata? That's question number one. Question number two is, this is something that's come up in the past.
What are your plans in terms of streaming cash out of Nigeria, try to approve or get approval for dividend payments so that you can utilize some of the cash in Nigeria. Anything expected or planned for 2022, for this year or early next year? Those are the two questions. Thank you.
Hello. Thank you for the questions. Let me start with the first question about the support agreement. As Nikos mentioned, the support agreement is between the note holder committee and creditors. You can assume who will provide liquidity. As regards the dividend payment, we have proved in the past that we are able to upstream dividends, and we are planning our liquidity outside Nigeria, and if required, we will do that again.
Thank you. Can you provide any specific, I mean, any specific amount you hope to get out of Nigeria?
Uh.
EUR 5 million, EUR 10 million.
Let me answer this. There is no specific amount depending on the liquidity outside Nigeria or in the ICM business. Of course, on the capacity of Nigeria to extract dividend to, let's say, upstream money, let's put it this way, to Europe. It is not a dividend capacity only related. It is also hard currency availability. Yes, we can utilize our own dollars, for example, but don't forget that we are running an operation in Nigeria, that we are importing a lot of raw materials. We need to balance how much money we can upstream from around our own dollars, homegrown and seek in the market to exchange our naira into euros or dollars.
This is a quite expensive exercise, and several calls we have explained that the cost of this might exceed 50%. I think that this answers your question. We cannot specify an amount.
As we stand now, we don't specify the amount. As you understand, we plan our liquidity outside Nigeria accordingly with any amount if needed.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Rowan Felix from Sarris. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Thank you. I have three questions, if any, and one of which is more of a summary perhaps. I don't know if you have all of that to hand at the moment, but first of all, I was going to ask what your cash level is now, and I realize Juan just asked about the potential cash upstreaming from Nigeria. I understand from that, from your response, that you haven't yet done so since the Q2 numbers, i.e., in the last two months. If you could just confirm that.
My second question, I was wondering how much revenue this year then you've been doing with Hellenic Bottling, and if there's sort of been any change in revenue or margin in your relationship with that important customer of yours. The third question I have relates to insurance payments and potential write-offs and how they have impacted your reported numbers since frankly on a quarterly basis since last year, because it seemed like you've accounted for them slightly differently this quarter. I'm not entirely sure if I got that correctly. Thank you.
Manos will answer your question one and three, and I will answer your second question.
Okay. Let me start with the first question about the cash level. End of August 2022, our group cash level was EUR 63.7 million, out of which EUR 46 million held in Nigeria. Around-
Okay.
For the amount held in Nigeria, around one third is in hard currency.
Okay.
This addresses your question on liquidity. Also, you asked us, we have already obtained dividends during the year from Nigeria. Now, going to your third question about the insurance claims. As you know, in July, we had the agreement with the co-insurance scheme for a property damage and business interruption claim of EUR 61.6 million. Out of which we have already received EUR 52.4 million in 2021 and 2022. The remaining EUR 9.2 million is subject to the actual expenditure of the plant reconstruction. We have reported in our EBITDA, just for you to know, around EUR 14 million from the business interruption claim.
In the Q2 .
In the Q2 yes.
Okay. Can you please repeat your second question just to make sure that I got it right?
Yeah. No, I was just wondering if you've had any sort of change of terms or so with Hellenic Bottling in terms of maybe more a shorter days payable from there and perhaps or any change in margin or volume with that customer.
Not really. The answer is very simple. Nothing has changed in our commercial relationship with Coca-Cola Hellenic.
Okay.
The only one that I can say that happened is that we got some order cancellations in Russia because we stopped placements. This is something that everybody understands. Also we got some order cancellations in other territory, in other geographies of Coca-Cola Hellenic of a big amount of units because we were not able to deliver on time following the disruption we had from the war in Russia. Based on what we had already pre-agreed that we are doing with Hellenic towards November for the following year deliveries month by month, country by country, this was affected and resulted in these two let's say elements I just explained.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Bianca Burer from Nineteen. Please go ahead.
Hi. I was just hoping to get a bit more detail on the EUR 30 million facility. You mentioned it was sort of short term financing. I was hoping to get more detail about what exactly it was gonna be used for. Also you mentioned it's cash and PIK interest. I don't know if you're willing to disclose sort of more information on pricing. With the deferral of bonds coupon payments, is there any fee that one will receive in return for that? Will the interest be rolled up sort of further down the line?
Our answer is quite simple. As I said in before I hand over to the operator, that we will be limiting our answers for certain points. I think the questions you have you are asking are what we can disclose at this stage are both in our press release and financial statements. There is enough information, I think, in these two documents in order to cover your questions.
Lastly, I think the only other question I had was whether there will be any kind of contribution from the shareholders.
As I said, we are not commenting.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you, in order to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. The next question comes from Osman Memisoglu from Ambrosia Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thanks for your time. I have two questions. One is on demand outlook for H2, particularly with production issues. I'm wondering if you have any slippage from Q2 to Q3, i.e., maybe the seasonality changes. Related to this, have you seen or are you seeing any changes in customer relationships other than CCH, which you commented already? Customer relationships, market share. You mentioned slowdown in Sweden and some other countries. Was that just the markets or market share related? The second bit is on working capital. If you could just give us some color on the outlook, I'm guessing it will be a burden for the year, but maybe not. Any color there on outlook for working capital would be helpful. Thank you.
On your first question, what business visibility again, and subject to the developments that are changing the environment day after day, the way we see in our ICM business, our sales ending, how I would say at the end of the year, will not be far from last year, for that part. Now, on the relationship with other customers, nothing has changed dramatically. We are, as every year, this period of time, we are negotiating allocations. We are participating in bids. Business as usual, I would say in these terms. I assume you are asking this question given the adversity of the overall financial position.
As long as our going concern is in place, we see no challenges with our customers, suppliers, et cetera. Now the working capital, Manos will address.
Thank you, Nikos. Regarding the working capital, you see our Q2 results. We end up doing with, as a group with net working capital EUR 101.143 million, more or less. For the end of the year, what we see is because we have entered the low season and we are collecting the receivables, this amount will go down as you understand.
Despite getting ready for next year with Romania?
Despite it, yes. If I'm assuming some in Romania from the new line and in Russia, other than. What we are expecting for working capital is the number that you see now in June to over the course of the year to go down.
Maybe I can kind of follow up on this. You had mentioned in the previous call an expansion of the assembly line in Romania. Can you comment on the dependence of the production in Russia for European deliveries now? How should we think about that?
I think Manos will mention this, that we are still dependent on Russia to an extent, not to the extent pre-war because we are not so dependent on Russia to produce cabinets and deliver them to Romania for assembly, as we now have a full production line in Romania. However, this one production line cannot cover the demand for Western Europe. Up until the plant is fully built, ramped up and running, which is expected in early 2020 next year, there will always be a dependence for Europe to Russia.
Is there a rough number you can share with us, like half of the?
No, no.
-
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, in order to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. The next question comes from John Galari from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Congratulations on the results, I guess, given the trying circumstances. Just really the question I've got here is around the audit opinion and you've still got going concern, which I take it is pretty important for winning new contracts. And around the money to be provided by the ad hoc committee members. Are they tied in? Because it feels like there's still some things to be negotiated and sorted out. I'm just wondering how tied in. Are those negotiations close to being completed?
I'm not very clear about your question. We got an audit opinion which actually certifies and validates our going concern accounting for our H1 results. This is a fact, and the next assessment will happen in December when we will have our full year accounts. If you want some more details, Manos can give you.
Let me jump in. The assumptions for the going concern, I think, are fully disclosed in our financial statements. You can see the note four on the 1.6, where we have all the assumptions about the going concern. I think they are very clear. Regarding the support agreement, you can see our announcement. What we expect is to be agreed as promptly as reasonably. In case there are any other developments, we'll make any public announcement immediately.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions. I will now give back the floor to our speakers. Thank you.
Thank you, operator. Thank you for your questions, and we appreciate that we could not answer all of your questions at this stage, considering the very delicate geopolitical situation and financial situation that pose significant challenges for us. Be sure we are doing everything we can to rise to the challenges we are facing. We expect to make an announcement once we will sign the support agreement, and we will further update the market with more details once the lock-up agreement is signed. With this, I'd like to thank you, and don't hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions. Thank you so much.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.