Welcome to Schouw & Co.'s Q1 reporting. As usual, I will do a rather fast presentation of our results and our companies, and then afterwards we will have our normal and usual Q&A. Schouw & Co. had a very satisfactory Q1. Our turnover was down as expected 9% to DKK 7.8 billion. That's the effect of some of our markets are still soft and also a lot of our raw materials and input costs were declining. EBITDA, however, very, very solid up 28% to DKK 652 million for the quarter. It's the strongest quarter we ever had, and it was mainly driven by impressive results by BioMar. We had very strong focus on our margins, strong margin management, and we have really been looking for profit before growth in the quarter.
In fact, something we have worked on for quite a long time that we are looking more into our profitability than in growing. We have had a good capital discipline also throughout the quarter. Our cash flow has been positive for the quarter, and I think we have to look many quarters back before we had a first Q1 cash flow positive. Net working capital stable. We continue to push all our companies to deliver on our net working capital targets. Our investments, as also announced when we had our annual accounts, will be down and lower in 2024, and we are down at a much lower run rate. Our guidance will have an uplift. EBITDA will be in the range of DKK 2.74 billion-DKK 3.04 billion. We have a very strong focus on operations throughout 2024, and we'll continue to push hard for capital discipline. Let me move on to BioMar.
If the technology will work, it will. BioMar really had a rock-solid first quarter. Performance was strong. Turnover was DKK 3.2 billion. Volume was down 8% to 262 tons, an effect of different things. One of them, biological conditions, mainly in the salmon markets, has been difficult. We have also said no to some rather large volume contracts, so kind of pruning on contracts. As I mentioned from the start off, we are looking at profit before volume. EBITDA at DKK 270 million, which is all-time high and very, very strong. Different things place in here. We have had a very positive effect from our commercial excellence strategy, mainly in our salmon division. We have had a very good profit mix, product mix, and also strong sourcing throughout the quarter. We also have had some special effects and some special items of about DKK 65 million throughout the quarter.
Our EBITDA guidance will show an uplift in spite of expected lower volumes the rest of the year. Now we expect EBITDA in the range of DKK 1.27 billion-DKK 1.35 billion. We will keep very strong focus on delivering on our commercial excellence strategy and also push hard for cash flow and on net working capital. We're also looking into debt to EBITDA and things throughout the year in BioMar. From BioMar then onto GPV. Turnover as expected down 13% to DKK 2.32 billion. We have experienced, as expected, a lot of destocking from many of our major customers throughout the quarter. EBITDA also as expected a little bit lower, 13% down compared to last year to DKK 155 million. Of course, also that means we have had a lower capacity utilization, but that has really been offset by very strong cost control.
GPV has also over a long period had a very strong focus on inventory and delivers a very solid cash flow. We have really managed to bring down inventories that were built up in the last years. GPV also has a strong focus on optimizing and pursuing the one GPV strategy, meaning we are doing a lot of footprint decisions and we are starting to implement one ERP system throughout the company. Guidance will be maintained. We expect an uplift on turnover in the second half. We see slightly slow demand, but it's picking up and it's positive, and as I said, expect an uplift in the second half of the year. EBITDA expected to be in the range of DKK 700-760 million. From GPV onto HydraSpecma, where we can say markets are volatile, revenue throughout the quarter of DKK 775 million.
We see a lot of our customers with unstable and fluctuating offtake, mainly from large global OEMs. EBITDA same level as last year, DKK 85 million for the quarter. However, we also have to say that we had in Q1 2023 PPA effects of DKK 23 million in the quarter. The margin pressure continues, as we also have elaborated over the last quarters, but HydraSpecma has been quite good in offsetting that. There's a lot going on integrating our acquisition in the renewable division, and we have also a lot of footprint decisions and focus going on. New facility in Poland is now really up and running, and the facilities we have in India and China will be consolidated. Guidance maintains. Our top line expect stronger growth in the second half. We also here see that order intake is recovering slowly, and EBITDA expected DKK 300-340 million.
Then the last really industrial company, BORG Automotive. Here we really saw significant progress in our Reman business. Reman really drives a good and strong development for BORG. Turnover up 5% to DKK 503 million over the quarter. Still volatile markets, but we see that BORG really holds a strong position in the market. EBITDA up 60% to DKK 447 million. We had in 2023 one ERP cost of DKK 7 million impacting the quarter, but still strong development. Also here we have seen strong margin management and good and profitable product mix. BORG really have focus on building their market position after we acquired SBS. We are now offering our market a combination of Reman and Newman products and really expect to benefit from that over the coming years. Guidance for BORG maintained. Top line DKK 1.9 billion-DKK 2.1 billion and EBITDA in the range of DKK 107 million-DKK 200 million for 2024.
Then moving on to Fibertex Personal Care. That have had a quarter as difficult as we expected. We have seen very tough Asian markets, and also lower raw material prices really drive top line down. Turnover down 9% to DKK 465 million for the quarter. Our European base with deliveries out of Aalborg in Denmark had very good volume growth. EBITDA also as expected down 30% to DKK 49 million. Our margins in Asia, they are squeezed from competition and low volume have also elaborated earlier on the lower birth rates in China and a lot of material and products flowing out of China into Asia. We are affected from that. We have full focus on utilizing our Asian capacity, trying to build a seamless supply chain to Europe and US from Asia or from our facility in Malaysia.
Takes time, but we are really determined on trying to build that supply chain up. Guidance maintained DKK 1.6 billion-DKK 1.8 billion and EBITDA DKK 160 million-DKK 200 million. Of course, raw material development as always very important for Fibertex Personal Care. Then last, our Fibertex Nonwovens business overall showed a very satisfactory development. Turnover DKK 579 million, volume up more than 10%. We have seen a very good uplift in some of our very important segments as automotive and industrial products. EBITDA up 41% to DKK 59 million. Here we saw effect from volume, strong margin management, and also product mix. Our US wipes business and operations still challenged, but improved slowly. We have also in Fibertex Nonwovens a very strong new project and innovation pipeline. A lot of Tier 1 customers are pushing hard for volume and new products, and we are really trying to work up to that.
Our guidance for Fibertex Nonwovens maintained. Turnover DKK 2.3 billion-DKK 2.5 billion. EBITDA in the range of DKK 200 million-DKK 240 million. We expect positive demand and could also see an uplift from continued US recovery. So with that summing up into our overall guidance, where we are saying that turnover slightly down to DKK 34.8 billion-DKK 37.3 billion, as elaborated on earlier on, raw material prices volume down in BioMar because we are offsetting some contracts. EBITDA now DKK 2.74 billion-DKK 3.04 billion. BioMar up. The remaining five companies or portfolio companies maintained. So with that, I will open up for questions.
Miel Haugaard.
Yes, thank you for taking my questions.
Of course.
My first question, of course, concerns BioMar. So first of all, congratulations with the impressive operational performance in Q1. In the report, you mentioned that the performance was driven by the salmon division commercial excellence measures in combination with a positive effect of a special nature of approximately DKK 65 million. So could you please clarify for us what is meant by commercial excellence measures and a positive effect of special nature? And should we expect this to be recurring or as part of it non-recurring?
Yeah, thank you very much for the question. You could say let me start with what we call special items. We have had payback on insurance claim, which came in in the quarter, and then there have been some bonus things relating maybe a little bit to 2023 bonus on raw material sourcings and different items there. So all in all, we say we have DKK 65 million that we will not see as normal in the operations.
Then looking into commercial excellence, what does that mean? It's a strategy we have worked on for quite a long time and really pushed hard to improve margins, especially in our salmon division, where we are looking into every contract and really saying we are going for profit to volume. We have been very volume driven, looking a lot into the way we treat and work with functional feeds, also being good in if we have good raw material sourcing that we have now and then, then being better in maintaining a good pricing discipline in the market. So commercial excellence is an effect of a lot of things, but also a clear strategy on saying there are some contracts where we are declining, there are contracts where we try and sell up and be more into functional feed.
So a product mix, customer base geography plays a huge role in this. And then you ask, is this something we will see continuing? Of course, we will continue to push hard on commercial excellence. The guidance we are giving for BioMar now is what we are seeing. And of course, we also look into the coming quarters where we expect a little more pressure on margins and pricing, also depending on what kind of raw material contracts, etc., can we have. But we have overall a positive expectations and feel a good comfort on BioMar. Perfect. Thank you for clarifying this. So related to the new BioMar guidance, it implies an EBITDA margin of 7.5% up from the 7% BioMar delivered in 2023. So should we see these 7.5% as a more sustainable level going forward, or could this be improved even further?
We would like to improve it further, but we are also realistic and we are living in a very dynamic market with a lot of tough competition going on, and we have seen also how things develop in this industry, in this business. But we have worked so hard on margin and commercial discipline that, of course, we expect this to have a kind of staying power in that. So we are looking to continue to improve our margins, but it's not just a walk in the park, and that's also reflected in the guidance we are giving.
Perfect. Thank you. That was very clear. So my last question goes to Salmones Austral. So based on the updated guidance you have provided on associates and joint ventures, could you please elaborate on your expectations for Salmones Austral in 2024? Is it a fair assumption that we should expect, in line with last year, that the majority of the earnings will originate from the two feed joint ventures?
Yeah, you could say so. Again, I think I elaborated on it also earlier that Salmones Austral, we are controlling or owning 23%. Of course, a lot of things is going on in the company that we cannot control, but still we expect then a profit uplift in Salmones Austral. But you are right that the two other joint ventures, also Turkey and China, they will be the main drivers in what we expect of profit uplift in 2024. But again, Salmones Austral is also very, very dependent on salmon prices, especially on US prices, also for fillets out of Chile. That's one. And then the other one is the Coho market in Japan. That's really something Salmones Austral is very dependent on, depending a little bit on what happens there. Then let's see.
That's good. Thank you for taking my questions. I'll jump back.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Claus Almer, yeah.
Hi Jens, I hope you can hear me.
I hear you loud and clear, Klaus. Thank you.
That is perfect. So I also have a few questions regarding BioMar, and the first one is about the DKK 65 million in non-repeated gain. Does any of this—was that any of this already included in the guidance, in the initial guidance? No, maybe a little bit of—no, I could say it wasn't. But of course, we have always some supplier bonuses and so on. But insurance, no one expects that that can go to—we get it or not and so on. So we didn't really include anything into that, no. So why are you then that skeptical about the next three quarters, Jens? Is this the typical Schouw guidance, or what are you not telling us that will happen in the next three quarters?
Yeah, if there were something very dramatic that we expected to happen, then of course we would tell it to you. I think also you know the way we think guidance and so on. Of course, we have to tell the market what we see and what we expect. And we also had a very, very strong and surprisingly strong Q1, and we really see that it's coming from a very strong discipline on margins, on contracts, and so on. And of course, we are pushing hard for that to continue. But we are seeing also that the raw material situation is changing a little bit and so on. What kind of contracts do we have?
So we are guiding what we are seeing for the time being. We are, as I said also earlier, we have a very good comfort on BioMar. And let's see when we get out of Q2 and we really have a good view on the second half, what happens. But this is—we are saying what we are seeing now. So that's a Schouw guidance, as I hear you say. Is it fair to say that Q2—That's your interview. Is it fair to assume that Q2 so far has been a repeat of what you saw in Q1, excluding the one obviously? To be honest, Klaus, we have the 30s of April, so I don't know exactly how Q1—I can look into volume and so on. But fair to say that I expect a good April. I expect also good development in Q2, but I don't think we can keep the same level as in Q1, but it will be good. But I cannot say that we have seen it yet.
Right, OK. Then my favorite question, and I guess your favorite question: cash flow and net working capital. And you sounded proud and satisfied by the Q1 performance. Would it be fair to assert you could actually have done slightly better? Now, if I look at level down, looking at how trade payables have developed and the inventory has developed, there's not been a massive improvement. There's actually not been an improvement. So wouldn't one be a little bit more aggressive in, or one should hope for more improvement in the net working capital?
Yeah, I think also I said, Klaus, that we are really pushing hard for that. And you know, yeah, we have discussed it many times, and we have the same opinion on it. And I think exactly our debtors—we had more debtors than I expected out of the quarter. But then also it's overflow from Q4 and so on. So we are pushing hard on that, and I expect net working capital to become lower, to drive better cash flow. And that's what we see. But also, as I said, I think we could be a little bit not proud, but satisfied with that we, for the first time for over a long, long time, have had a positive cash flow in Q1, mainly driven, a lot of it driven from very, very strong inventory control from GPV. It was a concern for us that inventories had become too high.
Right, OK. That was all from my side. Thanks, Jens.
Thank you, Klaus. Then Ulrik.
Yes, thank you. Also a couple of questions on BioMar from my side. It sounds as if that you have said no to some high volume, low margin contracts over the past year. And clearly, we can see that in your volumes, that they have declined as a result of that. But can you perhaps give some flavor on how many more of this type of contracts remain in your contract portfolio, which we could expect to not be renewed when they're up for renewal? And also in this context, how should we think about BioMar's volume growth? What I'm trying to get at is, when would we see a stabilization of this volume growth?
Two things in the volume, as I also said. There's the biological issues, and we are a little bit concerned for Chile for the time being because of algae bloom and things like that.
So there's always climate and biology playing into the volumes. And we have seen some effects in Chile that were not on purpose from our side. But we have, as you also said, declined non-profitable contracts. I think we are more or less at the end of these contracts. We are out of one of the big ones that we didn't take. So now we start to see that it's not in the books any longer. So we have a contract base that we are rather satisfied with. Of course, there are things to work on with the contracts, and especially also to see if we can get a position where we are selling more functional feed, growth, fry feed, and things like that into these customers.
OK, understood. And then also to these volumes, we saw your salmon volumes decrease by 18% in Q1.
Can you provide a geographical split of this development and just how such large decline impacts your utilization and also thereby your profitability at your facilities? Because it's quite counterintuitive. Your profitability is very, very strong, but you saw such a large decline in volume. So can you please help bridge that gap?
Yeah, main decline is seen in Norway, also really on purpose, so that we have managed. We saw it, and that was on purpose, most of it, some of that also because the growth in Norway was not as big as expected. But so we have seen most of it in Norway, and there it's, but we can control our products. Even it's a very profitable quarter. Then in Norway, it's a rather small quarter. So we can't really say that it has had any scale effects yet. It's first when you really get into Q3 that you will see that, and there we expect to be more or less full.
OK, and then also to this profitability topic, even if I adjust for these DKK 65 million positive impact from special nature, your gross profit per kilo is quite extraordinary for Q1. It is. And my impression is that you get some tailwind from the declining raw material prices. So can you perhaps quantify it or perhaps talk into your guidance what you have assumed there in terms of this tailwind?
Yeah, and that's a fair question. It's super difficult to quantify, Ulrik. But of course, it's also a matter of discipline because the most easy thing is to, when you really, your raw material starts to decline, then customers start to push you and you give in.
Here we have had this strong discipline, and I think also all cards have played into our hands over the quarter, which we haven't seen normally. So in all businesses, we have been really, really good on this. So of course, an effect there, but I would say I cannot quantify it. But positive effect from that, but the biggest effect is coming from strong discipline, product mix, functional feed, all these things that we have controlled ourselves.
Understood. Then a question on GPV. The midpoint of your guidance for the rest of the year suggests that the EBITDA margin should be slightly above 8% for Q2 to Q4 compared to 6.7% in Q1. I know you are integrating Enics and talk about some of these synergy impacts, but is that the key driver to expand the margin over the coming three quarters compared to Q1, or what will affect that margin?
Yeah, that's one of the key drivers. And then you could also say that we are consolidating some factories, moving volume from one factory to another. We have factories where efficiency is not as high as expected, and we are starting to move it to some of the other factories. We are consolidating our factories in Slovakia. We are closing down in Malaysia, as we already announced last year. So a lot of effect from these footprint decisions taken last year. We will see that come into play over the next quarters. Absolutely. And then expect also a little change in customer mix and so on.
Some of the big customers that have been destocking a lot, that also means something here.
OK, and then in terms of your assumption for GPV, that the order intake will pick up during the second half of this year. So just how firm-I just want to get a comment on how firm you are about this assumption, because when I look at some of your Nordic peers, they report in their Q1 reports about declining order books, weak order intake. So is there a risk here that those anticipated orders, they won't come in at full scale as what you have assumed?
Yeah, of course, there's always a risk on that. But as I said, we also see order intake picking up slowly. But we have seen it picking up, and orders for the second half of the year are coming in now. So that's what we are building our guidance on. Of course, if things change and so on, then we will see something else. But we think and expect that our order intake will be sufficient to cover what we will have to have of turnover in the second half. But I think you are touching on maybe one of the things where we have less comfort because we are dependent so much on the global industrial companies, what they are doing, how they are seeing. But we are not seeing any crisis in that for the time being. We expect it to pick up.
Understood. Thank you, Jens.
Thank you very much, Ulrik.
Thank you.
OK, I think that was the questions that were on the line. So if no further last-minute questions, then we would cut off from here and thank everyone for listening and also for the questions. So thank you very much, and goodbye.