Welcome to Schouw & Co.'s Q3 presentation. I will shortly give a highlight update on the group and then step in to give a small dive into all of our companies. From an overall point of view, it has been a turbulent and volatile markets also in Q3. In spite of that, I think we could say that we have had a satisfying Q3 result. Our main costs really continued to increase over the quarter. Energy and freight were up with more than DKK 119 million, which we had to go to the market and ask for compensation for. There's been hard work in all our companies to get these compensations through, used many tools from the operational toolbox.
We saw a strong growth, +33% up to a turnover of DKK 9.2 billion, and input costs were the main driver for this growth. In fact, we had lower volumes in most of our companies. EBITDA was at a very satisfactory level at DKK 677 million. In fact, best EBITDA in a quarter ever in Schouw & Co.'s history. Our net working capital continued to grow. We have had a lot of focus on reducing our net working capital or balancing our net working capital, but inventories increased, but it might have topped now. We, of course, see a negative effect on our return on invested capital now, and it's below our target of 15%.
Looking at BioMar, revenue was up 15% to DKK 5.8 billion for the quarter. There was a huge impact from raw material prices. Volume declined 2%, mainly because of lack of sales to Russia. We also saw volume decline in Chile due to regulatory things. EBITDA came up at a very satisfactory level. It was up from DKK 278 million to DKK 403 million. We saw a very good margin development in salmon, and especially our operation in Chile have improved margins significantly compared to Q3 2021. Of course, also, we experienced a negative effect from lack of sales to Russia, which was and has been an important market for our Baltic operations for many years.
Energy and freight also increased a lot for BioMar in the quarter, DKK 72 million up in the quarter. BioMar had to offset that in the market. BioMar continues to expand and pursue a very ambitious growth strategy. We have had integration of the newly acquired tech company AQ1. The start-up of a new technology activity in BioMar. The start of AQ1 has been very positive. We also had a buy option on the remaining 30% of our shares in Ecuador. This buy option has been prolonged for 5 years, and we continue our collaboration with the partner Lanec, in Ecuador. BioMar upgraded the guidance due to the optimizations and very good margin management.
Revenue expected now to be DKK 16.5 billion-DKK 17.5 billion, of course, because of raw material price increases. EBITDA now up in the range of DKK 960 million-DKK 1 billion. Cash in Russia has to be mentioned that we have cash in Russia or liquidity in Russia of around DKK 14 million, which could be at risk. From BioMar to GPV, continued strong development, sales up with 46%. Demand still at a very high level. Turnover now at DKK 1.2 billion in the quarter. We still have a very solid backlog, and we continue to see strong order intake in GPV. EBITDA flat, DKK 96 million, but a little bit better than expected.
Here in GPV, we have seen increasing input costs, but we have had a very high efficiency in our supply chain. Still very difficult component situation continue to put pressure on our net working capital and also on our organization. There's a lot of hard work to try to manage to get components in on time. We have a huge inventory builds up because of this component situation and also to support our backlog. A lot of effort is going on to try to reduce and balance our net working capital and inventories. We have merged the Swiss-based Enics into GPV starting from first of October after we got the closing and all the approvals in place.
Integration is up and running, and we are now in the making of a very strong European number two EMS player. GPV have the possibility to upgrade their guidance, of course, because we see very strong development in what we call legacy GPV, but also because Enics is coming in now in Q4. Revenue expected to be around DKK 5.2 billion-DKK 5.6 billion. EBITDA in the range of DKK 370 million-DKK 410 million. Here we expect a positive impact from Enics of DKK 20 million-DKK 40 million. It is expected that Enics will contribute with DKK 60 million to EBITDA, but then there'll be some PPAs, and we do not have a total overview of the impact on these PPAs so far.
Just for a small recap, Enics, Swiss-based company in 2021 had a turnover of DKK 4 billion and EBITDA of around DKK 220 million kroner, just to mention the size of Enics. From GPV on to FPC, Fibertex Personal Care, revenue here was up 11% due to increasing raw materials, volume 4% down. We are still challenged in Asia, at the factories in Malaysia, which we have been throughout 2022. EBITDA was, as expected, down 33% to DKK 63 million. Here we, of course, see impact from a lower Malaysian volume, but also the continued increasing energy costs really impact.
We had an increasing energy cost of DKK 24 million in Q3, costs we are not or we don't have any possibilities to pass on to our customers. Looking a little bit further ahead, we could say we still expect the Asian markets to increase over the coming years, and we will need more capacity and more volume years ahead. We have also our new Reicofil 5 line already installed in Malaysia, but we will not be able to start it up and operate it before beginning of 2024 due to several technical issues. Guidance in FPC downgraded because of costs increasing, especially or mainly energy and then as a volume effect from Malaysia.
Turnover now expected to be DKK 2.4 billion-DKK 2.5 billion and EBITDA around in the range of DKK 250 million-DKK 270 million. From Fibertex Personal Care to Fibertex Nonwovens. Fibertex Nonwovens had a really challenging and also unsatisfactory quarter. Turnover was up 22% to DKK 509 million, of course, also mainly driven because of input cost of raw material prices. We have seen a slowdown for Fibertex Nonwovens in important segments and mainly in the wipes segment in the US. However, we have seen the important auto segment starting to bounce back. EBITDA was down from DKK 38 million to DKK 20 million, and as I mentioned, very slow US wipes market hampering our profitability over the quarter.
In fact, we could say main problems in Fibertex Nonwovens today is our development in the U.S. We've also seen a change in product mix and higher input costs had negative impact on our earnings. Energy was up DKK 19 million in the quarter compared to last year. It's been also a lot of hard work going on in Fibertex Nonwovens to compensate these increasing costs. We have initiated a very thorough and strong protection plan for our profits. We have implemented new management structure, a new set up in the U.S., and as I said, our wipes business are in a difficult situation because the wipes market in general in U.S. is slow.
We have also been looking at competitors and what's going on there, and it's exactly the same outlook from our competitors. Guidance for Fibertex Nonwovens downgraded turnover now in the range of DKK 1.9 billion-DKK 2.1 billion and EBITDA at a level of DKK 110 million-DKK 130 million. A big challenge and task for Fibertex Nonwovens is really to fight for getting sufficient volume into the system. From Fibertex Nonwovens and then to HydraSpecma had a very high activity over the quarter and a very strong margin management satisfactory development. Our global OEM customers continue their positive development, whereas wind, our wind segment, was a little bit slow but it was also expected. Revenue up 12% to DKK 589 million.
Order intake from global OEMs still very positive. Looking at the EBITDA in HydraSpecma was up 10% to DKK 71 million. Also in HydraSpecma, we see increasing costs on on components and other variables, but HydraSpecma has really been strong in offsetting those increases in the market. Margin management as we call it has been very well executed at HydraSpecma. HydraSpecma is also looking into future construction of the new 15,000 sq ft production facility in Poland has started, and it's really a part of optimizing the overall global factory footprint for HydraSpecma. That comes also out with the guidance upgrades. EBITDA now in the range of DKK 290 million-DKK 310 million.
Of course, there's a huge challenge to deliver on backlog, but we think the backlog really supports this upgrade. Last quarter that sustained the revenue, and we also saw a small improvement of earnings. Turnover was up 6% to DKK 459 million, mainly due to the positive effect from our newly acquired SBS. Demand on what we call reman products slowing down due to less mobility in Europe. That's what we normally see when the financial situation, economic outlook gets slow, then we will also see a slowdown on mobility. EBITDA was flat of DKK 42 million. We experienced some lower volume on key reman products as brake calipers, et cetera.
We saw increasing costs, but most of that was offset by efficiency gains, mainly at our production facility in Poland. The market is difficult for the time being due to inflation, and as I mentioned, also less mobility in Europe. We expect to come back with full force mid-2023 again on demand. Guidance is narrowed. EBITDA now DKK 170 million-DKK 190 million. We also have an earn-out value on our SBS, which for the time being is unchanged. Summing up on our guidance, here you will see a chart on guidance for each of our companies.
Summing it up to the group guidance saying that turnover now expected to be around DKK 30-32 billion here impact from Enics is kicking in. EBITDA now between a range of DKK 2.09 billion-DKK 2.6 billion. A guidance we feel good comfort on, but of course, still uncertain and fluctuating times. With this guidance update, I will open up for questions.
Ulrik Bak, please.
Yes. Hello, Jens. A couple of questions from my side. Firstly, on the Fibertex Personal Care and Fibertex Nonwovens. Can you perhaps talk a bit about how the Q3 result was affected respectively by demand slowdown and costs, and also how you view Q4, splitting into these two components, considering the downgrade of guidance for these two companies?
Yeah. Thanks for the question, Ulrik. I'll just look into the figures here. You could say, if we look at the most important two very important costs for both companies, of course, raw materials and then energy. Looking at the energy impact on both companies would be in the range of DKK 42 million in the quarter, respectively, DKK 23 million on Fibertex Personal Care and DKK 19 million on Fibertex Nonwovens. Then, of course, also we have had a lot of fluctuations on the raw materials, but, as you know, Fibertex Personal Care, they have a positive pass-on mechanisms going on, but that could not offset the energy increases. In Fibertex Personal Care, we have had impact on lower volume in Malaysia.
Looking at Fibertex Nonwovens, two things really, as already said, the energy DKK 19 million, but U.S., it is really U.S. driving the very unsatisfactory results in Fibertex Nonwovens. We have a over the year very big swing in earnings and profitability in U.S., and it's due to wipes. We have a lot of good business going on in filtration and so on, but I would say most of the deviation for Fibertex Nonwovens is coming from U.S. We have seen this, as I said, slow down in wipes sales, wipes demands expected to pick up when we get into 2023 because most of the company seems to be at the end of their destocking.
Okay. A follow-up question to one of your remarks during the presentation that you say that you want to fight for volumes in Fibertex Nonwovens.
Mm-hmm.
That sounds as if prices are not gonna come up in 2023 and thus margins won't come up. Is that correctly understood?
Maybe I think you're a little bit too strong on that. I said fight for volume, meaning we want volume into also to run on scale and so on, but we are not fighting for it for any price and so on. We expect margins to come in at a reasonable level, but we need volume also really to improve profitability. Of course, there's a lot of sales work going on in the market when we have seen this slowdown. Also we expect to get volume back because the market is getting more positive in general.
Understood. Then about costs in 2023, also looking at Fibertex Personal Care and Fibertex Nonwovens, will you be better able to pass costs through to your customers in 2023 compared to Q3 and perhaps Q4? How fast will any reduction in raw material costs filter through to the P&L? I know there's different dynamics between the two companies.
Yes. Yeah, in fact, I didn't really answer your question on the Q4, because in Q4, I think we are a little bit more optimistic on energy than we were some months ago. Maybe impact on energy will not be as tough as expected. Mainly, we were very nervous on Fibertex Personal Care because, as I elaborated on also earlier, that in Fibertex Personal Care we do not have pass-on mechanisms on energy we have on raw materials. That's why we are much more confident on raw material because that we can pass on a quarterly basis. Looking into 2023, we, as we speak, expect lower energy costs. Again, things are very volatile.
Looking into Fibertex Nonwovens, then we are working very hard on getting, as I said, volume back into the up markets, wipes or added value wipes. One of the problems in Fibertex Nonwovens has also been that some very interesting profitable segments have slowed down, and we expect them to come back a little bit. We are working hard on offsetting costs, but in Fibertex Nonwovens, we cannot go out and just ask for compensation if raw materials increases. However, we expect raw materials to decrease, and then we do not have any obligation to pass that decrease onto the market instantly.
Understood. Have you been looking at FTE reductions already, or are you planning to do so also? Yeah.
Yeah, we have been looking a lot into that, and we have already reduced FTEs in several places in our European setup of them. We are looking a lot into to move production around between the European factories utilizing a best cost position in the factories we have in Europe. A lot of work is going on that. Of course, reductions on FTEs and everything in place. We have a profit protection plan going on and we are using all possible tools in that toolbox.
Okay. Thank you. A final question on some of your CapEx investments in the Fibertex companies?
Yeah.
especially Fibertex Nonwovens.
Yes.
Can you just provide a brief recap of what you have committed to in terms of CapEx, when it will be finalized? Also, I'm sure you've mentioned several times that you target a ROIC of 15% on these investments. Just what is the timeline? I realize the outlook is very uncertain, but if you could just provide some color would be great.
Of course. Yeah, we have two new production lines in the pipeline for Fibertex Nonwovens. One in U.S., it's spunlacing technology, one in U.S. and one in Europe. Let me elaborate on the European one first. It was intended to be set up in the Czech Republic, but due to the energy development, as I said, our Czech has a very high energy price. As I said, we are reevaluating should we place it maybe somewhere else in Europe. This new line intention was that the new line should start up Q4 2023. Might be postponed a little bit because we are reevaluating, and we could move it somewhere else. First, if it was expected to be a Q4 2023.
We have a new spunlace line in U.S. for a totally new kind of wipes. We call it sustainability wipes or wipes made out of a new material and so on. Expected to start up in 2023, mid-2023. Of course, first expecting profitability to kick in in 2024. This line is on time, plan, and we expect to start it up in 2023, and we are in negotiation with very, very large blue chip customers on this new sustainability product. So a lot of interesting things is going on there. Two new lines, one might be postponed.
We have invested and paid most of it, so it's on the books, and it was first expected to come with profitability in 2024.
That's very clear. Thank you so much. No further question from my side at this time.
Thank you.
Claus Almer. Claus, you're welcome if you're there. Maybe you should unmute, Claus. I don't know. Or, Kasper?
Let me wait a little bit for Claus. If Ulrik had further questions, then Ulrik, maybe you could.
Yes, sure. I can jump in with a new one. Just a question on BioMar.
Yeah.
Obviously, you improved your gross profit per kilo quite considerably during Q3, and also the EBITDA per kilo by more than 40%. How is that possible given that input costs have increased compared to last year? What has been the key drivers? You mentioned something about Norway, Chile. Which had the most impact from?
I mean, I would call it kind of turnaround in Chile has really had a huge impact as margins in Chile improved so much. We were really under pressure last year. The Chile impact. Also in Norway, now we see profitability improving, efficiency higher, and there are also good mix of added value products especially in the salmon market. It's the salmon markets that drive. I would in fact, to be fair, say all four segments in the salmon market, that's Norway, Chile, U.K. and Tasmania. All four of them improved their margins. There's a big volume in Q3 going to the salmon market. It's the key driver number one and two, I would say.
I suppose you would get even more tailwind when and if input cost, freight cost, energy cost decreases.
Yeah. I would say in general, Ole, that we are positive on BioMar and the outlook for future if nothing seriously happens. We have a very good position, high efficiency, and as you also say, input cost will change. Of course, also the larger customers want their share of that. We are positive on the outlook for BioMar in the coming years. Yeah.
All right. A question about GPV. Previously, you've mentioned that you had quite a long order book and quite a good visibility, and the challenges was about sourcing the raw materials. How has the order intake been in Q3, and how long is it? Is the duration of the order book currently compared to perhaps one quarter ago?
I think still very attractive order intake. I think it was the same level as in Q2. Also orders kicking in to 2024, so nothing has really changed. Of course, we are evaluating that every month, what is happening in the global OEM market, et cetera. There's still a very strong demand and no changed outlook on that. It's really something we're evaluating because, as I also mentioned, we are building or have built a lot of inventory up and we need to be on top of that.
Do you have any downside risk in terms of customers delaying or canceling delivery of orders?
We don't have a long-term downside risk on it, but of course, if some of our good and loyal customers start to postpone and so on, we will also be part of that, meaning we could sit with inventory longer than expected, meaning also we would tie up more net working capital. There's an obligation to take these, the parts we have in inventory within a certain period. Of course, also, you know, if a big customer suddenly starts to reduce demand, then we need to also be flexible.
Sure. Yeah. I have another question on net working capital.
Yeah.
As you noted, it increased quite a bit in Q3 versus Q2 and also compared to last year. What is your outlook for the upcoming quarters? Has it peaked now, and will it improve from here due to, you know, lower raw material prices and so on? Or what are your thoughts?
Yeah. Thoughts are it. We will reduce it. We have a very strong, as Q4 is also important for BioMar, and a lot of working capital is tied up in inventories on raw materials in BioMar, and they're using that here in Q4. You could say, in fact, our net working capital increased by DKK 2.4 billion. It is a lot, and I think I said last time we were on a call that, of course also it has surprised us that it should be that big, but that's where we are now. I think all our net working capital can be explained two places.
We have DKK 1 billion more in BioMar, mainly in raw materials that we know will be used over the coming quarters. We have DKK 1 billion more in GPV, where we have backlog and customer support on that. That's where we need to reduce, and we are pushing hard on that. We will reduce our net working capital. As you also said, we expect component prices, raw material prices, et cetera, to go down, and of course that will also reduce it.
Very clear. No further question from my side. Thank you.
Sure. Thank you very much, Ole. Claus?
Yeah. Let me follow on the net working capital thing.
Yeah.
It sounds good that you want to reduce the very high level, given your revenue in the next couple of quarters. I guess you will also need to add to the inventory for the revenue beyond that. Is it actually realistic to lower the level without cost deflation and raw material deflation?
As I said, take GPV, maybe the one that has increased over a long period the most. DKK 1 billion more tied up than we used to have. Then look at the days of inventory, and that's a key driver for me. They have doubled the days of inventory because of a lot of different things. In future, we do not need to have inventories sitting on for 200 days. We need to reduce that number because we used to have much lower number of days. We can do that.
Okay. When we talk about GPV, is the guidance you have now, is that based on no supply chain constraints in Q4, or how should we think about your implicit Q4 guidance?
As you think about, yeah, of course, on that. Then also, as I said, Enics kicking in with as they come in with an EBITDA of expected DKK 60 million, and then we have all these PPAs, and we don't have a full overview on that yet. That's part of it also, Claus.
Normally, you say that if the world were perfect, you will be able to deliver much better performance. You always, you know, unsure whether, you know, supply chain will ease or not.
Yeah.
Given the new guidance, excluding the M&A part, obviously.
Mm-hmm.
How do you see the whole supply chain delivery situation?
Yeah. We still.
What do you put into the guidance?
Yeah. We have put in that we still see difficulties in Q4. We also expect it to ease up when we are looking into 2023. For Q4, still a lot of challenges on it. Also we have a new company coming in, a lot of efforts in a big company coming in. A lot of work going into that. I think that there's a little bit of uncertainties in also how will it come in when we have to manage these two companies from day one of.
Sure. Okay. As to BioMar and the impressive performance here in Q3, despite a negative volume trend.
Yeah.
Should we expect a positive full year impact in 2023?
Yeah. As I said, we are positive on BioMar. We see they are on a very good direction. Even though they lost a little volume in Q3, mainly driven by regulatory things in Chile. We are positive on BioMar and expect it also to continue that the coming years. There's a lot of things driving that. We have changed the profitability in Chile. We expect Norway to continue the very good developments. A lot of things is going on then. We are, yeah, I think you could expect to see that.
Okay. About personal care, you have a ROIC of 7%. I know we've been discussing this over the years, whether it you know, really made sense to add all these new lines.
Yeah.
What do you think about a 7% ROIC, and you know, your willingness to keep investing in this business?
Our target is of course 15%. We are not satisfied with the 7% ROIC. We've also been you could say disappointed about what happened in Asia in 2022, because we expected and everyone expected the market to continue to grow. But then all the COVID things and so on changed, also what happened in China. That was a surprise, I think, to the entire nonwovens world. We want to move the ROIC up to the 15% again. I don't think you will see investments in capacity for some time. We have a new line in Malaysia that, because of technical reasons, they said that we cannot start it up.
We expect first to start it up 2024, and we have the capacity for some time. That's how we view that.
Just a few more questions regarding this topic. First of all, what sort of technical issues you have with the new factory? Now, you have been adding new lines and factories for decades.
Yeah. It's technical, but it's the back end of the big production line where you do all the slitting and the rolling and so on. Unfortunately, it was misdimensioned. A lot of things happened on that. We know 100% how to run it. It's called a Reifenhäuser line or RF5 line. We can run it more or less blindfolded. This back end has been redesigned, and with new setups tried, and it didn't function. Unfortunately, something we need to. Then there is the delivery time on getting the right equipment in itself.
But, but-
We have a solution in this one. Yeah.
You have solved the issues, but just in time.
Yeah. We have.
This heavy pressure from Asia, as I recall past comments, was that these Chinese manufacturers, if that's where it comes from, there was more a commodity production capacity that was added. If that's true, why do you really see this heavy pressure from Asia?
We have two segments we supply. Of course, we have the tier one segment as the Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark and so on. Still want from us. Then we have a tier two segment, and they are more price sensitive. They are also sensitive to transport and freight costs have been. It's been difficult to supply Malaysia from India and so on. China has been more easy. It has been easier for China to deliver in. Then also, China has also had capacity they've been willing to sell at lower prices. That's the way it is. We see also that we will be able to come back when freight costs will go down.
Another thing also, in fact, consumption has decreased and we have been analyzing on that. Normally, you use 4-5 diapers in a day, and when economics are tough, then you sometimes reduce from 4-5 to 3-4, and that means a lot also.
Okay. Just the final question, which is another Fibertex company, the Nonwovens.
Yeah.
You know, is this really a division that you should own? Are you the right owner of that?
No.
This will be the broad question.
Yeah, I think that's a very relevant and right question. Of course, with a ROIC of 1.5%, it's very unsatisfactory. As I also said, mainly driven down by the development in the U.S. and the certain added value segments where we have a strong position, but where demand just slowed. We expect that to pick up. Looking around the industry, you could say all our colleagues or competitors, they are suffering exactly the same way we are. We still think we have a company that we can develop. We have a clear plan, short-term profit protection plan to move it up, and then a long-term plan to move ROIC +10%.
I think we had the discussion also back in 2018, 2019, where we did a big strategy survey on Fin. We also said, if we cannot see a plan for bringing it up +10%, then we need to do something. We think still that we can do that, but of course, we are very unsatisfied with the situation as it is for the time being. We are a good and relevant owner.
If you say the whole industry is not making any real ROIC, then I guess it's more the industry than it's your ability.
Yeah.
It might be more difficult to suddenly make a much better profitability than your peers.
Yeah. Now I'm saying it's not all beer. I said, where we are in the wipes business and so on in U.S., but we are also moving away, and it was part of our strategy from low margin commodity wipes and then into much, much more advanced wipes. We were on a good move there, but things slowed down. The strategy for us is to get into much more advanced products, nanotechnology, a lot of things that we have worked on for quite a long time, and we still expect to see good opportunities there. Of course, we need to reevaluate ownership, everything, and we always do that, but we still think that there's a clear plan and structure for moving it into a +10% ROIC.
That sounds great. Looking forward to see that materialize in the numbers. That was all for me. Thank you.
Super. Thank you very much, Claus . Thank you, Ulrik. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you very much for listening and also thanks for the questions.