Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Orsero First Quarter 2024 Web Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. For operator assistance via web call, please press the headset icon on the bottom left side of your screen. For conference call assistance, please press star and zero on your telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Rebecca Cancellieri, of Orsero .
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for this Q1 results conference call. For this call, we decided to improve the service together with the tool which allow you to follow the call and look at the results presentation and that we're projecting today. I thank you very much, everyone, for following the call, and I'm gonna turn the call to Mr. Paolo Prudenzati.
Thanks. Good afternoon to everybody. Before we talk about-
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Before we go to talk about the results of the first quarter, I would like to spend a couple of words in general on the company. As you know, this company has changed totally its phase in the last seven to eight years. Seven years ago, we had a company with about EUR 700 million turnover, now at EUR 1.5 billion, and we were struggling to achieve an EBITDA adjusted of EUR 35-40 million. Now, our goal for this year is between EUR 77 million and EUR 84 million. So this is our... The number changed, but I think even more important that today, this company is mainly driven by the distribution, fresh fruit and vegetable, and within the distribution, day by day, we play more and more with value-added products, and I think this is very important for the stability of the business model.
Having said so, our first quarter, we have to keep in consideration a few assumption. First of all, the economic situation overall in Europe, which is bringing a rather flat or, let's say, in a slow erosion of consumption in general, foodstuff and also with fresh fruit. Second, the expected that we have in our goal for 2024, the expected normalization of the shipping activity, which was spectacular in 2023, and we knew was coming back to a normal status. Third, some erosion, consequent also to the normalization of the shipping business, some erosion of the profitability of the banana business, which was somewhat expected, at least from the quality standpoint of view. And last, we had-
Can you hear me? This is the operator. Hello? Hello, can you hear me?
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I pass the word to Matteo. He's allowing us to confirm the goals that we gave for 2024. Matteo, please go ahead.
Thank you, Paolo, and good morning, everybody. Good afternoon, everybody. As Paolo said, we are satisfied of our first quarter because we, as a company, as a group, we faced different difficult situation. First of all, the market, the overall market context, the climate conditions that is affecting both our origin, the country of origin of our supply and our destination countries and destination market. And then a general overall economic situation that is not really booming in Europe, so we have to pair with this, let's say, total situation. In this context, the group was able to achieve a good result that was in line with our expectation both on the shipping side and on the distribution side.
As Paolo said, the two main, let's say, situation regarding the Q1 are the normalization of the shipping activity and the normalization of the profitability of the banana business. For the rest, each quarter, each month is different in the fresh produce because it's depending on many different factor. But all in all, we had some headwinds on the winter campaign, but we are pretty confident that then we will recover with the other campaign in the next months of the year. Going into figures, the figures, the net sales declined by 2.7%, mostly related to the shipping activity.
This decline is related just for 0.9% to the distribution and mainly connected to the banana, the banana business. For the shipping, as we said, we had a normalization both on the front haul freight rate and on the backhaul freight rates, and this was highly expected by us. Going to the profitability to the EBITDA, we had a decline on the distribution that amount accounts for EUR 3.9 million. Here again, mainly related to the banana business effect. Shipping was down by 5.7%, and perfectly in line with our estimation. Going on the next page, commenting a bit the evolution of the net profit.
We had in Q1 2023 a record net profit of EUR 13.4 million. That is going to EUR 5 million in Q1 2024, mainly related to the adjusted EBITDA decline, as we commented before. The other main impact that we had is positive, because we had a tax effect lower by EUR 1 million, but obviously, if we pair it with the tax rate, actually, the tax rate of Q1 2024 is higher, around 23-24%, compared with the one we had in Q1 2023, and this is the result of the lower shipping result pairing with the consolidated one.
Obviously, as you probably know, the tax regime we had in the shipping activity is the tonnage tax, and is a fixed regime, so once you have a lower impact on the result connected to the shipping activity, your tax rate is getting worse. Anyway, still is a good one. We had no main adjustment on Q1 2024, so the adjusted net profit is almost equal to the reported one. Please, Raffaella, next one. Commenting the evolution of on the net equity.
We grew from EUR 238.5 million- EUR 245.6 million, mainly thanks to the net profit of the period, and thanks to the value of the hedging reserve, the positive hedging reserve, that we have in our books, thanks to the oil hedging, interest rates, and U.S. dollar hedging. All the hedging that we perform are strictly connected with the business, so there's no speculation at all. Going to the cash flow evolution, net financial position and cash flow evolution. We are experiencing a seasonal growth of working capital that accounts for almost EUR 12 million.
This is perfectly normal for our first quarter, because the first quarter is the quarter where we have to book the campaign for the spring and the summer, and so we have many anticipation, payment anticipation to our suppliers all around the world. So net financial position last year was EUR 67.1 million. We had a cash flow generation net of EUR 5.2 million, EUR 11.8 million net working capital change, and operating CapEx that accounted for EUR 3.6 million. So net financial position, excluding IFRS 16 liabilities, for Q1 2024, is EUR 77.3 million. Then IFRS accounts for almost EUR 62 million, for a total consideration of EUR 139 million, Q1 2024 reported figure.
On the work, then we have a last analysis on the commercial Net Working Capital path for the period. So, we can see how the quarter by quarter, the working capital flows. And actually, so we passed from EUR 37 million Net Working Capital value end of the year to EUR 49 million end of March. Please, next one. I think the document is completed, but just wanted to say that, given those numbers and our feeling on the evolution of the year, we feel confident to confirm the objective for the full year of 2024. Thank you very much, and I will leave the rest of the time for the Q&A session.
This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. To enter the queue for questions, please click on the Q&A icon on the left side of your screen, and then press Raise Your Hand. Please do not move your microphone locally, and when prompted, make sure that you turn your webcam on in the pop-up window. If you are on the phone instead, please press star and one on your keypad. The first question comes from Andrea Bonfà of Akros.
Hi, good morning to everybody. I hope you can hear me. My first question is related to actually your mix and the comparison between the first quarter of this year and last year. We now know that last year was very good for bananas. We were wondering if last year there was also... how much was the peak of profitability in bananas in order to take into account the evolution or the say of the progression profitability for the current year? So is the worst over in term of comparison for the profitability of that particular item, or need to include also likely the second quarter, and then after the comparison is better? Or how? If you can elaborate on that. Thank you very much.
Andrea, good afternoon. Actually, in banana business, normally the first two quarter are the strongest one in terms of profitability. Not all the effect, the comparison effect with last year is related to banana business, but the biggest part, yes. We are not really concerned about the evolution of the year in the banana business, because the first quarter was affected as well, in general terms, all over the world, by a very bad quality condition of the fruit arriving to Europe. So a portion of this lack of profitability is related as well on quality issues that are totally solved from the beginning of March. But the first two months were pretty difficult in terms of quality.
So, the worst is gone, if worst is the right word. Anyway, once we defined the guidance, we took into account a strong adjustment on the banana profitability. So, still we are perfectly in line with what we imagine, even considering the quality issue that was not considered within our forecast, because it was not possible to have a preview on that.
Okay, thank you very much. In case I will come back. Okay.
The next question comes from Gabriele Berti of Intesa Sanpaolo.
Hi, good afternoon. I think my webcam is not working well. Sorry about that. Thank you for taking my question. My first question regards selling prices. You mentioned in the press release that you are starting to see the declining trend. Is this mainly related to commodity products, categories such as bananas and pineapple, or it is a trend you are experiencing also for other product categories? And then if you can provide some indication on the performance of Blampin and Capexo so in the first Q. Thank you.
Good afternoon, Gabriele. Okay, in terms of pricing of the product, still we're seeing, all in all, an inflation path around 3% overall in general terms. If we exclude bananas, mainly related to the tenders with the big retailers in Europe, the rest of the mix is still experiencing a general price increase. Obviously, bananas in the first quarter is one of the biggest items in terms of volumes and revenues, because still we don't have any spring or summer campaign. Our sales mix over the quarters is not well balanced in the first quarter, because there's a lack of seasonal fruit, and the big volumes that we move are bananas, pineapple, avocados, and citrus.
So bananas had. But we knew that, and was part of our forecast and guidance. The big retailer chain all over Europe, let's say, there's no exception on that, tried to recover and to negotiate lower price on banana tenders. And this comes with a lower profitability because the price, the price in the region were not declining with the same path. So at the end of the day, we were not experiencing a very healthy dynamic on the prices. The only exception are bananas, as I said, and obviously banana in the first quarter has a big weight. So I hope I answered to your question.
On Blampin and Capexo, the two company are running well, perfectly in line with our expectation. Thanks given to some climate, bad climate condition in South America, there's a lack of some product lines that are relevant for Capexo, but the final result of the quarter is not strongly affected by that. So, still, they are performing very well, with strong cash flow generation and profitability. So nothing, let's say, different from last year related to the two companies.
Okay. Thank you, Matteo.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press Q&A on the left bar and raise your hand, or press star and one on your telephone. For any further questions, please press Q&A on the left bar and raise your hand, or press star and one on your touchtone telephone.... The next question is a follow-up from Andrea Bonfà. Please go ahead, sir.
I thank you again. It's just a personal curiosity. I was wondering the range of your, let's say, EBITDA guidance, is that essentially related to higher volumes or could be a better mix? If you can elaborate on that.
Are you talking about sales?
Uh, both-
Or-
Both sales and EBITDA. Mm.
Actually, in our guidance, in terms of sales, we consider, let's say, a flattish, let's say, volume effect. Because we thought, and we are seeing that the economic context is not allowing, let's say, a growth in the volume consumption and a slightly price increase, mainly related, as we said, to added-value products. So we took in consideration a relevant adjustment of the banana average price. And we're working, we're always doing that since three, four years on the mix. So we are pushing on exotic gamma, we are pushing on berries, we are pushing on fresh cut, we are pushing on added-value product line.
So, as I was commenting before answering to Gabriele's question, the issue regarding the first quarter is mainly related to banana, and we perfectly know that we are exposed to banana fluctuation as a group, and mainly we're exposed in the first quarter, because it's the quarter where banana business is more relevant. So, now we have to see the evolution of the year, and if I can add something, the month of April and the starting of May are encouraging, both in terms of sales and evolution of the product margin. General cost and then direct costs are perfectly under control and managed, so that's why we're really confident to get our goals.
Thanks. And is that correct to assume that bananas weigh your, let's say, total volumes are... I mean, the first and the second quarter are the most important, then there is a decline with the fourth one-
Yeah
... with the fourth one, the least important for this year?
Yeah. The third one is the less important in terms of sales, because you have the seasonal fruit. So banana consumption is starting stronger, let's say, end of January, beginning of February, and it stays strong until end of May, beginning of June, depending on the climate condition and on the different campaign. And then the consumption is going down in the third quarter, and it's starting to grow again, end of the year, let's say, between October and November.
But basically, that was our main concern a few years ago when we decided to rebalance the company on other products because, as you perfectly understood, it is slightly difficult to control the banana evolution, but it's something that we need and we must have to be effective on our sales strategy. So the idea was to complete our gamma with other products, but those products are seasonal. Most of them are seasonals. Some of them we are able to maintain a 12-month supply, for example, avocados, kiwis as well, working on the different region and different campaigns. But the biggest effect that we achieved so far are the second, third, and fourth quarter.
Actually, the two strong quarter for us used to be, but still are, the second and the third. Then obviously last year, with the banana business booming, the first quarter was really good, but this was totally extraordinary compared to the normal flow of the business.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
For any further questions, please press Q&A on the left bar and raise your hand or press star and one on your touchtone telephone. Mr. Prudenzati, gentlemen, there are no questions registered at this time.
Okay. Thank you to everybody, and, let's talk again for the first half. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.
Thank you. Bye.
Excuse me, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.