Earnings Call: Q2 2022

Aug 19, 2022

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to TCM Group Interim Second Quarter 2022 Report Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be the question and answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to our speaker today, Torben Paulin. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the presentation of the Q2 results for TCM Group. Presenters today are our CFO, Mogens Elbrønd Pedersen, and myself, CEO, Torben Paulin. We will comment on the business and the financial results, after which we will hand over to the operator for the Q&A session. Let us start the presentation and turn to page two for the business update. In Q2, we saw a continued solid demand for kitchens. Underlying like-for-like growth in our core business, excluding the third-party revenue, was 11%. The growth was driven by both Nettoline and Svane in the Danish market, and a strong growth in our Norwegian business, which drove the growth of 24% in other countries. The growth was a mix of volume growth and impact from the implemented sales price increases. We are pleased that the supply chain situation normalized during the quarter. Therefore, we, through a huge effort from our dedicated employees, were able to meet the demand in the quarter and deliver significant top-line growth. The Russian invasion of Ukraine impacted the overall supply chain in the European market. For TCM Group, this led to higher input costs as well as higher energy and transportation costs in the quarter. During the last 12 months, we have increased our sales prices three times, all of them significantly higher increases than normal. Two of those were inflated during Q2 with shorter notice period than normal. We are mitigating higher input costs as fast as possible. However, due to the nature of our business, the positive effect hereof comes with some delay. Input costs have now stabilized, and from the middle of Q3, the implemented sales price increases will level out the negative impact from the higher input costs. Going into Q3, the order book is solid. However, the high inflation, increasing interest levels, et cetera, creates a high level of uncertainty regarding the housing market and the future demand for kitchens. We monitor the development closely, and we have prepared a number of initiatives which can be put into action if we see a drop in demand. Overall, we will adjust our capacity, and thereby manning, according to the demand. We have short notice periods, especially for blue-collar workers, if we have to man down. Number of branded stores was 94 end of Q2. During Q2, a new Svane Køkkenet store opened in Fredrikstad in Norway, and shortly after, another store opened in Oslo. Please turn to page three. Some financial highlights for the quarter. Reported revenue was 325 million DKK, corresponding to a revenue growth of 11.7%. Adjusted EBIT was 39 million DKK, compared to 44 million DKK in Q2 last year. Adjusted EBIT margin was 12%, compared to 15.2% in Q2 last year. Mogens will elaborate on the underlying drivers of this development. Net working capital ratio was -2.6%, compared to -7% last year. Cash conversion was 49.5%. I will now hand over to Mogens to go through the financial highlights. Thank you, Torben. Please turn to page four. The revenue in Denmark grew 10.5% in the quarter. The underlying revenue growth in the Danish market in our core business was 9% in the second quarter, excluding third-party revenue. The growth was driven by our DIY segment, Nettoline, and by Svane Køkkenet. The growth was supported by a higher share of revenue from third-party products and negatively affected by the technical impact from the merge of the e-commerce activities in køkken.dk and Silvan. This is the last quarter where we see this technical effect in the comparison figures. Revenue to other countries increased by 23.5%, driven by sales to the Norwegian markets, both organic growth and growth from new and recently opened stores within Svane. Please turn to page five. Gross margin declined from 25.7% to 21.3% in Q2. The technical impact from the merge of the e-commerce activities in køkken.dk and Silvan had a negative impact on gross margin of 0.6% in the quarter. The higher input costs have been mitigated by increased sales prices, which, however, due to the nature of our business, means that the impact comes with a delay. There is a time gap from when an order is placed and agreed to the time of delivery, and thereby time of impact on the implemented sales price increases. The net impact from increased prices on raw material and energy was approximately three percentage point in the quarter. As Torben mentioned, we expect that the implemented sales price increases will level out the negative impact on earnings from the middle of Q3. Operating expenses decreased by 0.3%. The decrease was primarily due to the merger of the e-commerce activities within køkken.dk and Silvan. In the second quarter, non-recurring items consisted of a technical gain from the final settlement earn-outs of the Silvan-køkken.dk transaction. Adjusted EBIT ended at DKK 39 million compared to a strong Q2 last year of DKK 44 million. Please turn to page six. Net working capital end of Q2 was minus DKK 29 million compared to minus DKK 76 million last year. Our inventory levels remains significantly higher than last year, which is a combination of increased raw material prices and a deliberate decision to establish a buffer of raw materials to ensure higher delivery assurance, given the unstable supply of parts and raw materials in general. Compared to Q2 last year, other payables were significantly lower, which was primarily due to a change in the holiday allowance systems. Therefore, during Q3 last year, our obligation was transferred to a government fund, impacting net working capital comparison to last year by DKK 19 million. Further to this, net working capital last year was favorably impacted by the extended credit on VAT and payroll tax as part of the stimulus packages by DKK 10 million. Net working capital ratio was -2.6% compared to last year, -7%. If we were to adjust for the impact from holiday allowance and stimulus packages, net working capital ratio last year would have been -4.3%. Net debt was DKK 333 million in Q2 compared to DKK 153 million at the end of the second quarter. If we exclude the liabilities related to IFRS 16, net interest-bearing debt was DKK 264 million compared to DKK 118 million in Q2 last year. Compared to last year, net debt is impacted by the payouts through ordinary dividends of DKK 54 million and the share buyback program of DKK 150 million. Leverage ratio excluding IFRS 16 increased from 0.7 to 1.9. Following the AGM, in April, TCM Group's share capital has been reduced by 8.6% of the shares to an annulment of the vast majority of the company's treasury shares. Please turn to page seven. Free cash flow was DKK 27 million in Q2 compared to DKK 52 million in Q2 last year. The variance compared to last year was primarily due to the negative change in net working capital compared to Q2 last year. CapEx ratio was 1.4% compared to 2.0% last year. Cash conversion ratio measured over 12 months was 49.5%. Please turn to page eight. The financial outlook for the full year. Based on the current market conditions, which is subject to a high degree of uncertainty, we revise our financial outlook on EBIT. Our full-year outlook is a revenue in the range DKK 1.15 billion-DKK 1.225 billion, which is unchanged, and an adjusted EBIT in the range DKK 130 million-DKK 160 million, which was previously DKK 140 million-DKK 170 million. Thank you, Mogens. Uncertainty is higher than normal. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, increased inflation, and higher interest rates lead to high uncertainty on the future consumer demand. In the short term, the order pipeline is solid, providing some visibility and assurance of the short-term customer demand. We are monitoring the development in customer behavior and demand closely, and we are prepared to put a number of initiatives into action if necessary. I would like to point out that a substantial part of our cost base consists of variable costs, and therefore, we have a very flexible setup and can quickly adjust our cost base according to demand, thereby protect our margin and profitability. This concludes our presentation, and we will now hand over to the operator for the Q&A session. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for a name to be announced. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Dear speakers, there are no questions at this moment. Dear participants, as a last reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one. Dear speakers, please be advised there are no questions. I would like to hand over back to Torben Paulin for closing remarks. We might face some technical issues, which is not allowing participants to get through with their questions. We have the line of Benjamin Silverstone from ABG. If you have a question, Benjamin, you may well can please ask a question. Thank you so much. Just checking that it's going through. It is. Hi, Benjamin. Hi, Mogens, hi, Torben. I hope you're well. I just have a quick question in terms of demand. You do mention that obviously Q3 is looking quite solid. In going into 2023 and beyond, do you have any sort of visibility more than for Q3, or how is the current pipeline looking post Q3? Actually, that's the basic question for demand. Additionally, I have a question for margins. We are now seeing that the supply chain is normalizing and input costs have stabilized. How should we think about the gross margin going into Q3? Is it reasonable to expect that it will increase from this current 21%-ish level that it's been for at the past couple of quarters? My last question is in terms of the initiatives you do mention in terms of mitigating a potential demand slump. Could you just please give us some more details about this? You did mention that you do have a short notice for manpower, but are there any other sort of initiatives that you are able to share at this point? Thank you so much. Thank you, Benjamin. I will try to answer your first and third question and then hand over to Mogens for the second question. You are right. We do see something also further than Q3 on demand as a part of our business is B2B orders, and they have a longer lead time and project time. Of course, a part of our pipeline is also longer than Q3, and it's also going into 2023. That is quite normal at this time of the year. For us to be more specific on the long term, we need to see business coming back from holiday. In our kitchen industry, it's quite common that we start out with stores opening weekends, what we call design weekends, in the beginning of September and October. We need to see how traffic is on those 2 months before we can say more about how it will look like. It's too early. Vacation is still going on for some people, and school is just getting back to start, so we need a little bit more time to see how B2C will develop. The B2B has been increasing share of our business in Q2, and the pipeline is also there okay for the autumn. You ask for the mitigation actions. Blue collar is, as we're saying, with a shorter notice. There is further cost, can be sales and marketing cost, where we can reduce planned activities. Of course, we also have some white collar cost that we then need and project cost that we then need to consider if the market is not developing. That is the mitigation actions. Mogens. Yeah, regarding the margin. comment on margin. Yeah. When we say that during Q3 that it will level out, we will see an improving impact on the margin coming from the level in Q2, going from a negative impact to a neutral impact. There will still be a diluting impact in Q3 until the sales price increase are fully implemented with or coming with full effects, so to speak. Coming back to historic levels, we will look into next year before we have the full impact. In Q3, it will level out and not be negative in that sense. Thank you very much. Just a quick follow-up question in terms of the lack of the impact of the price increases. We are now seeing input price or input costs are stabilizing. Going forward, if we were looking into a scenario where demand would go down and input costs will also go down, should we then expect that the prices will actually come down on the kitchens as well? Or would they be reiterated? That is, of course, to see. On a longer term, there is a clear expectation that prices will go down on input costs and probably be reflected also for the end consumers. When that will happen and to what extent, it depends on the market situation. Thank you very much, Monsen Tom. Thank you. Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Dear speakers, there are no questions at this time. Please continue. Yeah. We will then end our presentation today. Thank you for participating and have a nice day and a nice weekend following after. Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect. Have a nice day.