Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Matt, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Schouw & Co. conference call 2021 quarter two report conference call. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star, followed by one on your touch tone telephone. Press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jens Bjerg Sørensen, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, and welcome to everyone to the short presentation of our Q2 report. Overall, we had a very satisfying and strong quarter. We are still operating in a turbulent world, but demand for Schouw & Co. is in general very strong. Our revenue was up 13% to DKK 5.6 billion, and EBITDA increased 8% to DKK 557 million. Cash flow from operations was DKK 269 million. Our return on invested capital had a very satisfactory level at 16.2% and is well above our 15% target. Looking a little bit into the quarter, we could see we have had increasing costs on raw material, components, and transportation, and it has really been a key challenge for all our companies. We have seen very high activity levels in all companies, and that has given a positive pressure on capacity and also on our supply chains in general.
The order intake for most of our companies are at a historic. The Corona situation, especially in Asia, is still a concern, and our net working capital increased due to the strategic decision on being able to deliver, and also we saw an effect from high raw material prices. The guidance for 2021 is slightly up, and that is due to a strong first half and also the attractive backlog we are having. Turnover is now expected around DKK 23.7 billion and EBITDA now at a level of between DKK 2.155 billion- DKK 2.340 billion. Still, we expect to implement or to do CapEx at a level around DKK 1 billion. That was the general overview. I'll now move into each of our companies, starting with BioMar, where we in Q2 saw a very good volume development and also saw that market demand slowly is recovering.
Revenue was up 6% to DKK 2.85 billion, and volume was up 4% to 322,000 tons. EBITDA was slightly reduced to DKK 250 million. Net working capital in the quarter for BioMar reached a level of DKK 1.4 billion, and return on invested capital still at a satisfactory level of 18%. Volumes in Chile was, as expected, lower and also had a negative effect on our EBITDA. We have seen a margin pressure throughout the quarter due to steep increasing costs of raw material transportation and also a fiercer competition than normal. We have a very strong contract position, and as you know, we have always in Q2 negotiating a lot of large contracts, and in all main markets we have good contract positions and increasing volume expectations. We also saw a positive development in our joint venture in China.
Very good for us is also to see that salmon prices in general have recovered both in Norway and in Chile. Guidance for 2021 is now a turnover up with DKK 1 billion- DKK 13 billion, and that's due to more volume and a positive effect from raw material prices. EBITDA, however, is slightly reduced now to a spread of DKK 940 million-DKK 985 million, and that is due to, as I said, increasing raw materials. We see more and more difficulties in getting full compensation at all customers on these increasing raw material costs. Our associated companies also developed positive, especially will I mention Salmones Austral, our Chilean farming company. We now guide them with a result of around DKK 50 million into our books, following the recovery in the Chilean salmon prices.
From BioMar to Fibertex Personal Care, where we saw a very volatile raw material situation. It has been very challenging. Revenue was up 2% to DKK 558 million. EBITDA, as expected, down more than 50% from DKK 63 million- DKK 61 million. Return of invested capital now at 13%. We had strong demand. It continues in both Europe and Asia. A huge negative impact from raw material, especially the most important, polypropylene, where we have a negative effect of DKK 65 million compared to Q2 in 2020. If we look at Fibertex Personal Care in general and exclude the impact from raw materials, we saw a very strong performance in general, very high efficiency in all factories. Factory, in fact, at historical high levels. Guidance for 2020 is maintained. Revenue unchanged, about DKK 2.2 billion-DKK 2.3 billion. EBITDA still expected in a range of DKK 320 million-DKK 360 million.
We keep a large spread because the raw material situation is a continued concern for us. The COVID situation in Asia in the three countries, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka is a concern for us. This situation in Asia postpones, in fact, the installation of our new line, number nine, with around three months. Looking at Fibertex Nonwovens, I think it's a pleasure to see how that has developed. The solid and very satisfactory development continued also into Q2. Revenue up by 30% to DKK 511 million, and EBITDA increased from DKK 22 million- DKK 82 million, giving a 16% EBITDA margin and EBIT well above 10%. 10% has been a long-term target we have for Fibertex Nonwovens. Return on invested capital also at a very satisfactory level of 16.2% and well above our target. We have seen a very good and strong development in Europe.
Our auto and construction segments, they are more or less back on track. Our U.S. market has been very strong, especially on materials to what we call specialty wipes and filtration. Still a high activity in U.S., short-term demand on specialties in U.S. is softening a bit. We see that some of our large customers have been building stocks over the last quarters. We have a guidance uplift coming from strong first half turnover of DKK 1.9 billion-DKK 2 billion. EBITDA now expected from DKK 270 million-DKK 290 million. Raw material situation is a concern in general, could impact negatively in H2, the strong start and the good order backlog we have is positive. Looking at GPV, also here we saw very strong market demand. It continued, we had a very high order intake. Revenue was up 13% to DKK 763 million.
EBITDA increased 24% to DKK 77 million, and return of invested capital nearly at our 15% target. It was, in fact, 14.8%. We have had very high activity, and that has really given good efficiency in all production units, but it's also pressing our capacity at some of our larger factories. We see continued increasing component costs and pressure on allocation on supply of critical parts. We have been investing and installed new lines on several factories, and we have decided to move ahead with the consolidation of our Asia footprint and investing in developing our facilities in Thailand and Sri Lanka. We have a guidance uplift due to a strong first half and a very solid backlog here. We could say we have a really historical high backlog. Turnover now expected between DKK 2.9 billion-DKK 3 billion. EBITDA, around DKK 260 million-DKK 300 million.
That's based on our core customer base and not as last year where we had a big medical order that had a very positive impact on 2020. We won't see that in the second half in 2021. HydraSpecma saw all their large customers continue to grow. Revenue was also up here with in the 30%s, 33% to DKK 609 million. EBITDA increased DKK million-DKK 86 million, and ROIC again very satisfactory at 16.3%, again above our 15% target. We sold a facility in Denmark, Greve, and had a positive contribution of DKK 12 million on EBITDA, but still very satisfactory EBITDA development. We have had a really solid demand for components and systems within the Power & Motion segment. Continued strong order intake from all important segments. We are seeing increasing activity in Asia, recquires a new facility we have decided to build in India.
Not a big investment, a DKK 10 million investment in a 4,200 sq m site. We have a guidance uplift due to strong demand and as I mentioned, a solid backlog turnover expected DKK 2.2 billion-DKK 2.3 billion. EBITDA now around DKK 240 million-DKK 265 million. Here also, we still have global pressure on raw materials and shortage of components continuing, and we do not expect the wind segment to continue the strong momentum in the second half. Finally, BORG Automotive really had a solid market position as basis for strong development. Revenue up from DKK 173 million-DKK 293 million, nearly DKK 300 million in the quarter. EBITDA increased impressively from DKK 11 million-DKK 48 million. Also here, we have to remember that Q2 2020 was a quarter with very low activity due to COVID. Net working capital increases from low level to around DKK 229 million.
Return on invested capital also here at a very satisfactory level of 23.8%. Here we also have seen solid demand from all segments and all countries. We have a very high efficiency in production and what we call best-in-class deliveries in the industry, and it really strengthened our position. BORG continues to pursue ambitious growth plan with the latest acquisition of SBS that was approved the 1st of July. Now we start to implement that into BORG. We have a guidance uplift also here. Positive demand. Turnover now around DKK 1.3 billion and EBITDA in the spread of DKK 160 million-DKK 180 million before PPA purchase price allocation effects from SBS. Wrapping up, strong and satisfactory Q2 developments. We see that our conglomerate strategy continues to show strengths, the diversification. We are in a good financial position, and we have potential for seeking opportunities.
We are, of course, looking and as always, having a lot of dialogues going on. We are lifting our guidance due to strong first half, still we have concern on what happens on the raw material prices and also on the freight and transportation side. Backlog is solid. Our guidance is also based on a more normal market condition in the second half in general. With that concluding remarks, I would like to open up for questions.
One moment for the first question, please. Our first question will come from Ulrik Bak with SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, Jens, congratulations on the solid Q2 numbers. I have a few questions on BioMar, if we start with that. You state that part of the EBITDA decline versus last year is due to raw material price increases. Can you maybe just explain this dynamic, how it works? I'm quite sure you've previously stated that the changes to raw material prices don't affect BioMar's earnings because there's almost 100% pass-through to your customers. If you could please elaborate on that.
Yep. Thank you very much for the question, Ulrik. I think I stated that in the Salmon division, we have these pass-on mechanisms in most of our contracts. Of course, there's a time lag. When prices are increasing heavily and fast, then we will be lagging, and that will have a negative impact on us. In the EMEA division, with a lot of small customers and a different way of doing business, we do not have pass-on on all customers. In Salmon division, yes, we have this, but not in the other division. As also in other of our companies where we have these pass-on mechanisms, we tend to lag when prices are increasing fast.
Okay. Thank you. We would be able to see a similar positive effect if and when raw material prices decline again?
We will, yeah. Maybe also, of course, sometimes we also need, even we have pass-on mechanisms, sometimes you need to negotiate, you will be able to see that effect, yes.
Okay. Very clear. Another one on BioMar. If I look at the historical gross profit per kilo, I can see that it peaked in Q3 and Q4 2019, and then declined significantly last year during the pandemic. I believe there was some FX effects, which was unfavorable for you guys. Are there any reason why you cannot return to these peak 2019 levels in the second half of 2021, or 2022 for that matter? If not, what would be the key reason?
Yeah. I mean, that's a good observation, Ulrik. We think on the longer term, we can. As we also discussed earlier that during the pandemic and so on, a lot of our customers turned away from value-added products or functional feed and onto more ordinary feed and so on with lower margins. We have had a huge effect also with the lower volume in Chile. In Chile, we have less biomass in the sea. There have been algal bloom and a lot of things. We see a huge effect from less volume in Chile, and we expect, of course, volume in Chile to pick up again, more biomass in the sea now we see much better salmon prices and so on.
In general, we will on the longer term expect to be back on profitability levels like that, but short term, second half 2021, we cannot see that.
Okay. Thank you. Then a final one. On the competition you mentioned in BioMar, can you maybe shed some light on whether the competition has intensified compared to pre-COVID-19? If so, where do you experience it, and is it something that is temporary or permanent?
It's difficult to say if it's permanent, but it is more fierce. Also because some contract has changed hands, et cetera, and this is especially in the Salmon segment where we really see it. We also know that there are these annual contract negotiations. There we see some competitors really pushing hard for getting contracts, not at all prices, but at very low prices. We have seen also a change in Ecuador, where we have moved into larger customers and so on. Small change in Ecuador, also in competition. If it will last, I cannot say. We have had very good contract positions, fighting for them, and now it's up to us to make these contracts more profitable by trying to push for more functional feed and things like that.
Okay. Thank you very much. No further questions from my side.
Thank you.
Our next question will come from Claus Almer with Nordea. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Yeah, also some questions from my side, and I will take them one by one. First of all, Jens, I know you are looking forward to this question, net working capital . Unfortunately, compared to past quarters, the development is not as good as we have been used to. Is this purely due to raw mats or why is that? That'll be the first question.
First of all, I agree on your observation that it is not as good. Of course, it's something we are observant on, but I think also I said at last call that we have decided to favor delivery, being able to deliver and source home critical components and so on. That's one reason. We are stocking more than we used to. We have a high activity level that also ties up more in net working capital . We have also seen other mix of customers in terms of payment and so on. It's right. Some of it is really a strategical decision and some of it due to the situation. We will continue to push hard for that also in future. I think for the next quarters, we will allow our companies to be a little bit more soft on networking capital.
Sure. That makes sense. Moving to HydraSpecma. You also mentioned in your presentation, it's also in the report, that demand will shift to Asia. Is that Asian customers or is it Asian markets? Does it mean that you're more going for offshore than onshore? What's actually behind that comment?
Yeah. It's Asian markets, not Asian customers. It's large global OEMs moving more activity to Asia. Yeah, you could say, of course, it's in wind. That's why we also are building up in China. We see also some of the large construction material producers as OEM for off-highway and so on, moving activities into Asia. We follow them, and we are there. That's why.
Okay. You mentioned that you don't expect the current demand or the first half demand within wind will continue in the second half of this year. Is that correctly understood, and why is that?
That's correctly understood. We saw Vestas yesterday announce that they were not expecting to be able to deliver. We see that the activity level is declining a little bit. Also due to circumstances from outside, difficult to get the components, enough transportation and so on. It's not because we lost orders or anything, but they are just postponed.
Okay.
Due to supply struggles, you could say. Yeah.
Sure. Coming back to Ulrik's question regarding BioMar and price. You mentioned, yeah, it's also in report with intensifying pricing environment. This coming back to the old discussion, price versus volume, and as I heard you stating in this call that you were actually fighting for volumes in contract negotiations, which I think is a different wording than you have said for quite a while.
Yeah. Maybe you could say fighting for is, maybe it was too hard a word, as we are also defending positions, as we have had a very good contract period, in fact, without really fighting for it, because we have customers that really wanted us as a supplier because we have had a very, very good quality and delivery situation over a long time. Also good performance on our feed. Pricing had just been lower than we have seen before, and we have of course defended our positions and got more volume with some of our key customers.
We know price is important part of attracting volumes. As I recall you, Jens, you said you would rather walk away from intense margin pressure contracts, and thereby trying to help more pricing discipline in the industry. That sounds to be a bit different today.
No, but we-
Did the competitors listen to what you said?
Yeah. No, you're totally right. That was our strategy. I would say also, we still have the same opinion on that, but also we have to see that in Chile, we have lost a lot of volume, not because we lost, but because the biomass is much smaller. There's a situation also where we need sufficient volume to run the factories at an efficient level. That we look into also. We have not really been fighting to take new contract. We have been defending, and we have also been in position where we said, "Okay, this one, we don't take." In fact, we had a rather large contract that we declined.
Okay, thank you so much, Jens.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star followed by the one on your telephone. Our next question will come from Klaus Kehl with Nykredit. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hello, gentlemen. A couple questions about these raw materials. First one, if we take it on a high level, on the updated guidance that you provide, is that based on current raw materials and freight rates, et cetera, here at the beginning of August?
It's based on the actual contract situations we have on raw materials. Of course, also on the expectations on some of the very large raw materials, for instance, polypropylene, which we expect to decline or to fall in Q4. It's really updated on actual contracts we have on what we see from the market, et cetera. Also it's on actual freight and transportation costs for us.
Okay. If we turn to Fibertex Personal Care, here in the first half of the year, you have generated an EBITDA of DKK 140 million.
Yeah.
If I just say that you generate the same in the second half, that will take it to DKK 280 million.
Your guidance is somewhat higher.
Yeah.
I guess, Fibertex Personal Care is pretty affected by these raw material prices right now.
Yeah.
How certain are you about this outlook for 2021?
We are as comfortable as we can be because we've been looking into expectations of as our input costs, polypropylene. We have also contracts going on, and we can see now it's something that these mechanisms, they start at the beginning of a quarter. We know more or less now what is the polypropylene price for Q3, and that we have adjusted prices to our customers, and we have based it also on expectations for Q4. We can see the positive thing is that more production capacity or cracking capacity, as it's called, on polypropylene, has come into the market, specifically in Europe. We feel quite comfortable, although we could also say, I think we said also that we maintain a spread of DKK 40 million also into second half in our guidance.
That's because there are still some uncertainties, but we feel quite comfortable that we will be within that spread.
Okay, great. If we turn to Fibertex Nonwovens, I guess they are also, or will be pretty affected by the higher raw materials, especially in the second half. If I look at the margins, I guess you have produced a margin of around, let’s see here, on EBIT level of around 12% in the first half of the year. The implicit guidance for the second half of the year is around 5% or something like that. How should I think about the dynamics in this company, especially going into 2022? What would be a reasonable-
Yeah.
...starting point for 2022 in terms of margins?
Yeah. No, good question. We have not disclosed that yet, and we are of course looking into it. When I think maybe it's not 5%, but you are right that we expect the margins to decline in second half due to raw material prices. We have had good raw material positions in the first half, easing it off in Q2. Now we see we face high raw materials in all segments, but we have been good also in getting price compensation in most of our segments. What we see here is also, as we said, we see some of our high-value segments in U.S. softening a little bit in Q3, maybe also in Q4. It's for filtration and for specialty wipes, but we expect that to peak up again.
We expect also to see at a margin higher than what you are looking at in second half of this year. Maybe 12% EBITDA is not what we are aiming for. It's not maybe, we are aiming for 10%+ EBIT for Fibertex Nonwovens. That we think is very realistic.
Could you repeat that? You're aiming for what?
10% EBIT margin, and we think that is realistic.
10% margin for Fibertex Nonwovens going forward?
Yeah, that has been part of our long term. In fact, we had a long-term margin, when we started that on 9%. Now we see if we're looking a little more long term with our new investments, with the way we have positioned ourselves into these high-margin segments, that's doable on the little longer term, yeah.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We have a follow-up question from Ulrik Bak with SEB. Please go ahead with your question.
Yes. Hi again, Jens. Just a follow-up question on Fibertex Personal Care. I think you stated in the report that volumes dropped in Q2 compared to Q2 last year. Considering that you're now investing in new capacity and you're also talking about softening demand in your high margin segments of Fibertex Nonwovens, where you also are investing in additional capacity, are you in any way concerned about this development that the volumes were a bit soft in Q2?
It would not be fair to say that we are not concerned. We're always looking into it, and of course we have also done our analysis and so on, but we see underlying that the market continues to grow. We see Asia really continuing to grow also. This line nine in the Fibertex Personal Care will first be up and running, hopefully, late first half 2022. We have a lot of activities going on securing volume and so on. Then also we are looking into efficiency possibilities. Maybe we are reducing production on one of the old lines because the new one is much more efficient. I think we are well in control, but it's of course something we are looking a lot into.
Okay. Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time. I hand back to Mr. Jens Bjerg Sørensen for any closing comments.
Thank you very much. Thank you for hosting us, and also thank you for listening and asking questions. Goodbye to everyone.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.