Welcome to the conference call regarding the publication of Gerresheimer AG's first quarter results 2016. At the moment, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Now, I hand over to Nicole Winkler.
Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us to review our first quarter results 2016. With me today are Uwe Röhrhoff, our CEO, and Rainer Beaujean, our CFO. As we did in the past, we are presenting a set of slides to accompany our remarks on this conference call. The quarterly report, the slide presentation, and the press release are posted on the investor relations page of our website at gerresheimer.com/investor-relations. Please note that this call is being webcast live and will be archived on our website. Before we start, I would like to remind you that the presentations and discussions are conducted subject to the disclaimer. We will not read the disclaimer, but propose we take it as read due to the record for the purpose of this conference call. Our agenda for today starts with presentations by Uwe Röhrhoff and Rainer Beaujean.
After that, we will enter into the Q&A session. Now it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Uwe.
Thanks, Nicole. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining our Q1 conference call. We had a very good start in our financial year 2016. On a reported basis, group revenues rose by 13.4% to EUR 342.3 million. Centor is now included for the first time in the first quarter, and of course, our tubing business, after its sale to Corning in November 2015, is not included anymore. We also had a very solid organic business performance of plus 4.4% revenue growth quarter-over-quarter, with strong revenue development in our core regional markets, Europe and U.S. First, let's talk about America. On this slide, you can see why we were very excited about the revenue contribution of Centor to our North American sales. It significantly strengthens our presence in the Americas region, underpinned by the fact that the plastic packaging for prescription medicine now has a major footprint in the U.S.
The purchase of Centor enhances not only our product diversification but our regional diversification as well. Overall, we have increased our Americas revenue share from 21% to 30% quarter-over-quarter. With this acquisition, we have improved our U.S. presence. The U.S. market continues to be the biggest and most important market in the world in spending on medicines. As for our existing business in the U.S., we are also pleased with the revenue development, especially in our Primary Packaging Glass business, where we continue to make good progress. Based on the implementation of our technology strategy, we have further improved our cost and quality position, resulting in strong revenue growth in Q1. Moving on to Europe. We are currently very satisfied with the good business performance in Plastics and Devices, especially driven by good growth with medical devices.
Our Moulded Glass business is doing well, too, notably due to a strong cosmetic business uptake in Q1. In the emerging markets, we saw some weakness in our revenues. This affects mainly our Primary Packaging Glass and plastic business after many years of very good growth. This comes on the one hand as a result of the recession in Brazil, as well on the other hand by a modest market development in China. However, the overall impact on our group is relatively minor. Generally, we are very optimistic with regard to our investments in China, Brazil, and India, because the long-term growth perspectives are intact as the emerging markets remain the growth drivers for the worldwide spending on medicine. Let me remind you what I've already said on our year-end conference.
According to IMS Health, over 50% of the world's population will consume more than one dose of medicine per person per day by 2020, up from only one-third in 2005. The growth will be driven mostly by the far emerging countries as the availability of drugs at affordable prices boosts drug sales, thus generating greater demand for packaging. This is important for us since the number of packaging units being sold is most relevant to Gerresheimer. Please move on with me to slide five. Our reported sales grew by 13.4% to EUR 342.3 million, which corresponds to an organic growth rate of 4.4%. As I have said, a very good development in the first quarter. As a consequence of the increased sales in the U.S. and Europe, adjusted EBITDA performance was excellent in the quarter, growing by 29.6% to EUR 66 million.
The adjusted EBITDA margin was up from 16.9% a year ago to now 19.3% in the first quarter 2016. A Gerresheimer record for a Q1, just as expected. The increase on group level came mainly from the first-time inclusion of Centor. This shows in the EBITDA margin of our Plastics and Devices business that came in at 23.7% compared to 18.5% in prior year's quarter. The favorable first quarter margin development in our device business contributed to that development as well. The margin in Primary Packaging Glass came in a bit better than expected with 18.3%, but lower than prior year's quarter due to the effect of the sale of the tubular glass business in November 2015. The higher group-adjusted EBITDA base is also well reflected in the growth of the adjusted earnings per share in the quarter, which were up by 72.1% to EUR 0.74.
Markedly higher than the EUR 0.43 just a year ago. Last but not least, our operating cash flow was up quarter-over-quarter as well. In fact, it more than doubled to €33.5 million, which was mainly driven by the higher adjusted EBITDA that we achieved in Q1. Overall, the favorable impact of our portfolio changes last year with the acquisition of Centor, the sale of the tubing business, and the portfolio adjustments is already very visible on all our financial figures in Q1, demonstrates the development of our business towards higher profitability and cash generation. To sum it up, we had a very good start to the financial year in the first quarter, which developed fully according to our expectations. That said, let me now hand it over to Rainer, who will run you through the financials.
Thanks, Uwe. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome also from my side. Let's have a look at the revenue development for the first quarter 2016 on slide seven. On group level, revenues were up by 13.4% and amounted to €342.3 million. This is an outstanding growth rate, which was mainly driven by the inclusion of Centor. On top, we had some positive foreign exchange rate translational effects, which can be attributed to the stronger U.S. dollar quarter-over-quarter. In the Plastics and Devices division, reported revenues increased by 29.1%, which is a very good performance, too. Centor made a big initial contribution in the first quarter. As you know, we bought it just last year on September 1st. Furthermore, our device business grew quite significantly, especially this effect pushed our organic growth in the Plastics and Devices business to 4.2%.
Looking at the performance in the Primary Packaging Glass division, we might have expected a steep downturn in revenues as a result of the sale of our tubing business on November 2nd, 2015. With our converting business showing strong growth and our Moulded Glass cosmetic business doing very well, we managed to have only a decline of -2.5% in the reported growth rate, even though we decided to close down our Moulded Glass plant in Moers in the third quarter 2015. These measures made a decisive contribution to improve the efficiency and profitability of our business. The result is visible in our organic growth rate of +5.6%. To sum it up, the Primary Packaging Glass division is fully on track and meets our expectations for the quarter.
Finally, in Life Science Research, demand continued to be muted due to the inventory management by some of our customers, optimized their inventories towards the end of their business years in a seasonally driven fashion. During the quarter, we acted quickly and put in place countermeasures such as extended plant holidays and output management. This reflected in the -3.5% organic growth rate for the first quarter. However, with the strengthening of the U.S. dollar, we got a 2.4% rise in reported revenues in Q1 2016. To summarize, the first-time inclusion of Centor pushed the reported growth rate up even much further. A smaller but still positive impact came from the strengthening of the U.S. dollar versus euro. Overall, the developments in Q1 2016 were positive, fully as expected, and fully in line with our guidance for 2016.
Let's move on to the adjusted EBITDA slide, that's slide number eight. The adjusted EBITDA margin amounted to 19.3% was therefore markedly above the level of Q1 2015, where it had been 16.9%. You can see the enhanced earnings power from the Centor inclusion. The group's adjusted EBITDA came in at EUR 66 million in Q1 2016, compared to EUR 51 million in Q1 last year. In the second line on the slide, you can see that the margin in Plastics and Devices went up from 18.5% in Q1 2015 to now 23.7% in Q1 2016 because the business performed well especially because the high-margin Centor business was included for the first time in a quarter. This was fully as expected and as indicated on the full year 2015 results conference call.
The earnings power for that business has now become visible compared to our other business, the margin profile of the Plastics and Devices business is now clearly superior. In Primary Packaging Glass, we can see positive effects in Q1. This is strong business development in tubular glass converting, especially in the U.S., where we were able to increase sales and productivity. Furthermore, molded glass contributed also good margin expansion, especially due to the optimized fixed cost structure as a result of the Millville plant closure in 2015. Thanks to these effects, we were able to generate 18.3% margin, which was only slightly below the margin level in Q1 2015, with 19.1%. Don't forget that we had expected an even greater decline caused by the sale of the tubular glass business.
We are happy that we were able to almost offset the now missing contribution from the recently sold tubular glass business that was still included in last year's Q1. We are very satisfied with the margin development in Primary Packaging Glass. Finally, in Life Science, the muted revenue development led to a 1% lower adjusted EBITDA margin year-over-year. Overall, we managed to show a very good margin performance on group level in Q1 2016, not only because of the positive impact from the integration of Centor, but also by having positive margin effects to our strong portfolio optimization efforts. We have a clearly improved earnings profile, which enables 240 basis points margin growth on group level in Q1. This clearly was a positive start for the year, also in terms of earnings performance, which came in fully as expected.
Now please move on with me to slide number nine. Here you can see that this was a very successful quarter financially. The key points are, as already discussed, adjusted EBITDA was up by 29.6% amounted to EUR 66 million. Depreciation was a little bit below the prior year figures amounted to EUR 21.5 million. Adjusted EBITA was even a bit stronger than adjusted EBITDA amounted to EUR 44.5 million, that's a plus of 55.1%. You see the one-offs that we recorded. You can see that now in Q1, we have a total of minus EUR 1 million in one-off effects, which were mainly coming from our portfolio optimization that we implemented in 2015, but were only now bookable in Q1 2016.
Smaller and even positive amount of €4.3 million was related to the adjustment of the purchase price, related to the sale of the glass tubing business in the past financial year. That means, in total, we had a net effect of minus €1 million when it comes to the one-off effects in Q1 2016. By last year in Q1 2015, one-offs had been minus €4.4 million. Amortization of fair value adjustments was up year-over-year, coming from the effect of the purchase price allocation from Centor. The figure in Q1 2016 attributable to Centor was $7.8 million. For the full year, the total Centor effect in 2016 should be approximately $31 million. Overall, our EBIT grew by 35.8% in the first quarter and amounted to €33.3 million, which is the highest EBIT figure that we ever recorded in the first quarter.
Going further down, net finance expense of €8.4 million was slightly higher than last year in Q1, even though we have increased our debt level markedly in the meantime. Overall, it's a very good figure, which underlines the attractive interest rates that we got as part of our refinancing activities last year. Accordingly, earnings before taxes amounted to €24.9 million, a plus of approximately 43% year-over-year. Finally, taxes, even though they are higher than in the last year, this is just a consequence of reversion towards a normal 29.5% income tax rate. You may recall that last year's Q1 taxes had been extraordinarily low. Net income was up by 38.9% to €7.6 million, which is also a very strong development. Let me now reconcile for you to the net income to adjusted net income, which is with a focus on adjusted net income after non-controlling interest.
As you know, this is the basis for our dividend payment. We have that here on slide number 10. Reconciliation can be described in a few steps. I already explained the one-off effects and the fair value amortization on the last slide. Here on slide 12, these two positions are shown in lines 2 and 3, net of their associated tax effects. The net figures for the ass-backs are EUR 0.6 million in total, one-off effects, and EUR 6.8 million in amortization of fair value adjustments. After the add-backs, adjusted net income was up by 60.6% and amounted to EUR 25 million in the quarter. Overall, there's a strong increase in adjusted net income after non-controlling interest, and therefore, also an adjusted earnings per share, which is up from EUR 0.43 to EUR 0.74 per share. That's a new adjusted EPS Record for Gerresheimer in the first quarter.
Please move forward with me to slide number 11. Let's just have a quick look at the development of our financial debt as of the end of February 2016 compared to the previous reporting date on November 30th, 2015 on the right-hand side. Overall, the main message is that the net financial debt position was slightly up, but only because we paid approximately €35 million of taxes related to the sale of the glass tubing business in the U.S. We had already flagged that in February during our financial year 2015 results conference call, and now these taxes were paid as expected. Excluding this one-off tax payment, net financial debt would have been down quarter-on-quarter and also, very importantly, even including this tax payment, our leverage remains unchanged at 2.9 times adjusted EBITDA.
The first position on top in light blue is the Schuldschein emission that we concluded in November last year. The total amount here is EUR 425 million. The figure remains absolutely unchanged compared to the end of November because this debt consists of tranches of five, seven, and 10 years to maturity with interest rates roughly between 1% and 2%. Secondly, in the darker blue, you see our corporate bond in the amount of EUR 300 million, which matures in May 2018. That also did not change during the last three months. The third big position in green represents EUR 241.6 million in our revolving credit facility, which was drawn by about EUR 9 million more than three months ago. We have put the facility in place in June 2016 and it also carries a very good interest rate of roughly 1.2% at the reporting date, and it matures in 2020.
The remainder in our slightly higher net financial debt position can be explained by the slightly higher local borrowings and leasing, which was almost EUR 3 million higher compared to November 30, 2015. Secondly, the cash balance was lower by EUR 5.4 million compared to the level three months ago. With this, we continue to have a strong financial structure in place, which is very attractive interest rates and gives us a lot of headroom to execute our strategy for profitable growth. As I said at the beginning, our leverage remained unchanged at 2.9 times adjusted EBITDA. We intend to bring that down with cash that our business generates. To remind you, our ideal structure should be 2.5 times, and we intend to reach that in approximately 24 months.
Let's have a closer look at the key balance sheet and cash flow figures on slide number 12. Overall, a good set of results that we achieved in the first quarter of 2016 is reflected also here, meaning our balance sheet remains healthy and cash flow developed very favorably. Total assets were down by 2.5% compared to November 30, 2015 decline. On the asset side of the balance sheet, mainly results from amortization of the intangible assets in regards to the Centor deal in 2015, as well as changes from foreign exchange rates. On the liability side, the decrease mainly results from the EUR 35 million tax payment in Q1 2016 regarding the sale of the tubular glass business in the U.S. Group equity was down by 1.4% to EUR 288 million compared to EUR 698.1 million as of November 30, 2015.
The main reason for the decline is the change of foreign exchange rates, which overcompensated the positive net income in Q1 2016 amounting to EUR 17.6 million. Let's turn to net working capital. Due to the tubular glass business sale and the acquisition of Centor, we believe that we can reduce the average net working capital in relation to last 12 months revenues to a good 17% starting in 2016. This figure amounted to 18% at the end of Q1 and was therefore improved from the 19% as of November 30, 2015. Aside from that, reported net working capital percent of last 12 months revenues was 16.2% at the end of the first quarter, compared to 15.5% as of the end of our last financial year.
As we have repeatedly said, the number to monitor and in that sense, the real run rate is the average net working capital figure in percent of last 12-month revenues that I mentioned before. Here the 18% that we had at the end of Q1 2016, you can see that we are coming closer to our 17% target for the full year 2016, means we are fully on track to reach that number. Looking at the operating cash flow figure in Q1 2016, you see that it came in at EUR 33.5 million, which means that it is more than twice as high as the figure generated in last year's Q1. As indicated before, this development is clearly driven by the first-time inclusion of the very profitable Centor business.
The line below, which is the free cash flow line, you see reflected that we paid the one-time taxes in relation to the profit of the tubular glass business sale of about EUR 35 million in the U.S. in Q1 2016. Therefore, the free cash flow was lower than in last year's Q1, but obviously this is only a one-time effect. As indicated on our 2015 year-end conference call, the full positive annual effect of the improved cash profile due to the sale of tubular glass business and the acquisition of Centor will be seen starting with the financial year 2017. By the financial year 2018, we expect the operating cash flow margin to be at approximately 13%. That would be another very strong improvement. Finally, looking at the CapEx figure, nothing surprising, everything in line with our expectations.
Overall, the good performance in Q1 2016 is for sure reflected in the balance sheet as of February cash flow figures. Finally, let me sum up with the key financial takeaways from Q1 2016 that you can see on slide number 13. First, let me reiterate that our financial profile clearly improved as a result of the Centor acquisition. It is a game changer because we had a broader footprint in the U.S., and Centor markedly strengthens our margins and cash generation. You are starting to see that in these Q1 figures with revenues, adjusted EBITDA margin, and earnings per share all markedly up versus prior year. Secondly, we are fully devoted to primary pharmaceutical packaging. You see now our strong setup with both Plastics and Devices and Primary Packaging Glass showing mid-single-digit organic growth rate in Q1.
That is what lays the foundation for the overall very positive financials in the first quarter of 2016. Thirdly, operating cash flow was markedly stronger in Q1 now including Centor, which shows the strong cash generation of that business. As I just outlined, for the whole Gerresheimer Group, we want to increase the cash generation even further over the course of the coming years. The fourth point is our very solid financial structure, because our leverage remained at 2.9 times at the end of the quarter, even though we made the one-off tax payment of about EUR 35 million related to the sale of the tubular glass business in the U.S. Besides, our financial structure has very attractive interest rates and still gives us further headroom.
Last but not least, we now have lower CapEx requirements and a better risk profile from our fewer furnaces, which is mainly driven by last year's disposal of the tubular glass business. Also, the lower average net working capital requirements of the business excluding tubing have started to materialize in the first quarter as well. Overall, the strong financial situation and increased profitability of the company gives us the power to continue to execute our strategy for profitable growth. With this, I hand it back over to Uwe.
Thank you, Rainer. In summarizing what we have said so far, Q1 came in absolutely in line with our expectations. Therefore, we fully confirm our guidance for fiscal year 2016. We are also fully reiterating our indication for full year 2016 to 2018. Our target is, and will remain, to profitably grow our company. For 2016, we continue to guide for approximately EUR 1.5 billion revenues at constant currencies, which gives us 9% FX neutral revenue growth. Underlying organic growth will be about 4%-5%. Our guidance continues to be based on an assumed euro-U.S. dollar exchange rate of EUR 1 for 1.12 U.S. dollars. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to come in at approximately EUR 320 million at constant currencies. Centor, as part of the Plastics & Devices division, will generate a full year of adjusted EBITDA contribution compared to the Q4 2015 contribution of approximately EUR 11 million.
CapEx requirements will be at about 8% of FX neutral revenues, which is substantially below historic CapEx levels. Let me tell you again that this is not a temporary effect. The lower CapEx rate reflects the structurally lower CapEx intensity of our business, driven by the disposal of our tubular glass business, the shutdown of our Moers plant, and the purchase of the Centor business. Also, average net working capital will improve from the 19% in 2015 to approximately 17% in the coming years. We are also fully reiterating our indication for the year 2016 to 2018, with a CAGR of 4%-5% organic revenue growth. For the adjusted EBITDA margin, we still target approximately 22% by full year 2018. CapEx requirements as in 2016 will stay at about 8%.
Let me finish in saying Gerresheimer is well prepared for the future because we see very healthy market dynamics supporting our growth with stable and highly diversified growth prospects based on long-term mega trends. Our portfolio changes in 2015 and our growth initiatives that further improve the robustness of our business model with an enhanced product portfolio, greater regional diversification, and an expanded customer base while reducing our capital requirements. Our business is more profitable after our two big divestments and including Centor, and the Q1 figures makes this visible. We focus on de-leveraging while continuing to invest in the future of the business to generate high shareholder returns also in the future. If there are interesting M&A opportunities, we would be ready to act because of our good financial profile.
We are fully committed to move consequently forward on our path to becoming a leading partner of the pharma and healthcare industry worldwide. We have a high confidence in the setup of our company, and I am excited about the future of Gerresheimer. With that, I would like to hand it back to Nicole.
Thank you for your presentation. Let's enter into our Q&A session. The lines are now open for any questions you may have. To register for a question, please press star nine on the telephone keypad. In case you want to cancel your question, please press star nine again. The first question comes from Mr. Romer at Deutsche Bank.
Thanks for taking my question. The first one would be with regard to FX, and specifically whether you can break out the effects FX had on sales, both for the group as well as the divisions. Secondly, also in order to better reconcile the organic performance, would you be able to share with us Centor or adjusted EBITDA contribution of Centor in Q1 this year and maybe also the comparable figure from Q1 last year. Same for the Tubular Glass business, obviously here, for the Q1 last year, the adjusted EBITDA contribution. My last question would be with regard to Primary Packaging Glass. I think, Uwe, you highlighted that the margin was slightly better than expected. Was that down to the good performance in Moulded Glass and therefore better capacity utilization? Or was there anything else behind it? Thank you.
Yeah. I might start with the PPG margin. As a matter of fact, the main contributor for the improvement was our West business, quite frankly. Here, particularly the Tubular Glass business was the main driver with two effects. Number one is obviously higher utilization due to a higher revenue base and more so higher productivity due to the implementation of our machine strategy. The improvement in Moulded Glass we saw was compared to Centor.
Let me answer, first of all, your questions about the reconciliation of numbers. I would expect that the next question would be about revenues. I start with revenues and then give you several numbers about the EBITDA. When we start with the revenues for Q1 2015, you can see in our report that we had EUR 301.8 million. Tubing was included in Q1 2015 with approximately EUR 8 million. Portfolio optimization means Millville was included with approximately EUR 4 million. Remember, we closed our Millville facility in Q3, and it's mostly Type III glass type revenues. You end up, when you take out these effects, at EUR 289.8 million. Then the pro forma figure of Centor in Q1 2015 for revenues was approximately EUR 38 million.
Now, when I give you 38, that means this is based on IFRS numbers on the accounting principle of Rexam. We haven't reconciled, and they weren't all reconciled to Gerresheimer numbers in our pro forma figures, which we have given to you in the annual report. When you put then the 38 on top, you end up at EUR 327.8 million of revenues. If you then compare this figure to the EUR 342.3 million revenues for Q1 2016, you see a difference of 14.4%. This difference then actually shows you our organic growth of 4.4%, which you can see in our report for the group. For the EBITDA, the same reconciliation. Q1 2015, EBITDA was EUR 51.7 million. Tubing, EBITDA was approximately EUR 5 million. Portfolio was approximately EUR 0.6 million.
Portfolio optimization, you end up when you deduct these two effects of EUR 5.6 million, you end up at EUR 46.5 million. You add back, and you have to add back the pro forma figures from Centor, EUR 17.4 million in Q1 2015. Then you would end up for the comparable EBITDA, which is then approximately for Q1 2015 with 63.9, somewhere around that. And when you see our current Q1 figures, which is EUR 66 million, you see that we had an increase year-over-year of EUR 2.1 million. Again, Centor figures based on IFRS for Rexam, not ours. That's always a little bit an insecurity also going on further. The second question was eating together with currency effects. Two main effects. We had a positive effect in currency, also can split that up in sales and EBITDA.
Sales effect was approximately year-over-year, EUR 4.7 million, and EBITDA was roughly EUR 1.7. You had a positive effect out of the U.S. dollar with EBITDA of approximately EUR 1.9 million, and then several negative effects. Brazilian real, for instance, was approximately EUR 200,000, and Mexico was approximately EUR 300,000. Poland was approximately EUR 100,000, EUR 200,000. You come to the numbers. Those are the big effects, same effects approximately for revenues. The correlation which we have given you in the past are mostly based on U.S. dollars and is still in place, which means, when the U.S. dollar change roughly 10% up and down, you have $0.10. Yes, roughly $0.01 means EUR 4 million revenue effect, and $0.01 adjusted EBITDA means approximately EUR 1 million EBITDA effect. This is roughly in line. Hopefully that answers your question.
That's great. Thank you. Maybe just one follow-up. On the group level, that would mean roughly 1.5% of tailwind from currency in the quarter. Can you break that down for the divisions respectively? I'm just asking that question because historically, I think that the tailwinds have been somewhat more limited in the Plastics Division, which probably should have changed now with the Centor acquisition.
I'll give you one example. When you look on the numbers which we had planned with the 1.12 and all the currency which we had planned, we are totally in line, because overall, the effects, positive and negatives, offset roughly, especially on the adjusted EBITDA, because we had the discussion also in our Supervisory Board. We had EUR 66 million, which was from the currency effect totally in line with the numbers, which we all had here. This is not a huge effect, coming out of currency up to now. Nobody knows where currency will go. That's the reason why we always give you numbers based on 112. I don't want to go too deep into this or that discussion, because at the end, most important is the U.S. dollar, and that's what you have to look at.
The effect was nearly offsetting in the first quarter with the other currencies.
Okay. We move on. The next question is from Daniel Enders from Exane.
Thanks for taking my question. It's really related to the Plastics & Devices division. Can you give us a little more color on how you expect the tooling revenues develop in 2016 compared to last year? Also with regards to the Centor business, can you tell us a little more about the seasonality you would expect from that business during 2016? Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks for the questions. I think, I can reiterate what I said in February. We still expect for the tooling revenues about the same level that we had in prior years. We will see, that is a relatively volatile business. If something, some larger development things can come in, it could influence, but we have no different visibility today that we had in February on that business. The assumption should be, and that is included in our guidance, it's about at the same level. On Centor, we are still learning the seasonality. Since some of the business goes direct, some it goes through distribution, and then you have the so-called flu season, or you do not have the flu season, or you do have the flu season earlier, or you do have the flu season later.
We just finished our IT integration into Centor just a few weeks ago, and there's more analytical tools. We probably look at it. I still reiterate what I have said in February. Give us a little bit more time to fully understand that what I see today is that it can fluctuate from month to month. Overall, since we have a very stable and robust business model with limited competitors and a stable amount of customers, on a year-to-date basis, then this smoothes out quite normally. Probably a little bit more color in the next quarter, and then we have 6 months on overall. Far, it looks like between the months it is more volatile, but it catches up quickly.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay, now, Veronika Dubajova, Goldman Sachs, please.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two, please. The first one is just on Centor. If you can give us a sense on a underlying basis, what kind of growth rate that you saw in that business year-on-year in Q1, that would be very helpful. Just so that we have a sense whether it's tracking in line with the expectations that you've communicated to us previously. My second question is on M&A. It sounds like you feel that you have the ability to integrate transactions. Are you seeing more assets out there available for sale, potentially? Is that what's driving your commentary, or is it simply that we are ready for potential transactions should the assets be available? Thank you.
Thanks for the question. I start with the last one. As a pharmaceutical component supplier, we are in a very small niche. In that niche from an M&A perspective, there might be opportunities opening or not. Sometimes those opportunities are there or are not there for a number of years. What I wanted to say, I probably haven't done that as precisely as I should have done, is that we continue to keep an eye on those targets that might be interesting for us. Those targets can be basically two. It can be technology add-ons in our device business. That field is probably a little bit wider than what I call more strategic assets that can move the needle. That amount of businesses is very limited.
Some of that is in private equity hands. If one of the private equity company sooner or later decides to put something on the market, some of those assets we would probably look at very intensively. This is not much different than in the past. I didn't want to confuse anybody here with my comment. I hope that clears it up.
Yes, that's very clear. Thank you.
On the Centor, I would say, we are quite very much in line with our expectation. We always said that this is not a business with a significant organic growth rate, very stable type of a non-discretionary spending business. It tracks in line with us and generally what drives the revenue is what I said before on the volume side. It is whether particularly you have a strong flu season or not, which so far, actually in the U.S., we obviously didn't. The second one is we have pass-through clauses on resins. You can imagine that compared to the first quarter last year and the first quarter this year, the oil price and therefore resin prices have decreased. They had a small contribution in that number from a reduced resin prices, which do actually not affect the margin in this case.
I would say from our perspective, first quarter was well in line with our expectations.
Okay.
Those are the two things you have to keep an eye on the Centor.
Okay.
To add on that, when you look on statistics like IMS or whatever, that's also pretty good reliance to us, when it's going down, it's going down, and when it's going up, it's going up because we are well above 50% market share. These numbers gives you a good indication how the business goes, where the market goes.
Understood. Thank you very much. That's really helpful.
Okay, next question please comes from Scott Bardo, Berenberg.
Thanks so much for taking my questions. First question, please, just relates to the Plastics and Devices business. It seems to be posted around just over 4% organic growth in that business. Whilst that's still healthy, I think compared to the relatively low base that you had last year with the Delay in the asthma inhalation product last year. Considering the investments that you've made in Czech Republic and Peachtree City also, I just wondered if you could frame that sort of performance and give us some feeling on whether you expect that organic growth number to accelerate over the course of the year or whether that's a relatively good proxy for how you see the organic performance of the Plastics and Devices business over the course of fiscal 2016. Second question, just coming back to Rainer's reconciliation.
Was I right in understanding that there wasn't too much in the way of underlying margin expansion in the group when, from just for the portfolio effects of Tubular Glass and Centor. I just wondered if you could give us a feeling for what the underlying margin development was for Plastics and Tubular Glass, and the Primary Packaging Glass business was, please, and how you see that, when you see that trending up. Third question just comes back to some one-off restructuring charges. You started to modestly put through in the first quarter. Just wondering if you could remind us of what, in absolute terms, do you expect for the full year fiscal 2016, and what the sort of restructuring projects relate to. What are they actually and what will be the benefit for those? Thank you.
As Uwe, I take the Plastics and Devices question. I think you can answer almost the question yourself. Looking at the numbers we gave an indication of organic growth rate of 4% to 5%. The Primary Packaging Glass business, to my joy, since I'm responsible for that, did better in that quarter. I really do not believe that we can run over 5% going forward, because otherwise I should have changed the guidance, that was based on a lower number subsequently. Obviously, we expect P&D to be in line with the guided number that we had. What you shouldn't forget, if you look at P&D, we have here a Plastics, a Primary Packaging Glass business in it, which heavily relies on sales also in emerging markets, particularly Brazil. I mentioned that those revenues did not come in as we initially had expected that.
That was, it was compensated pretty much by devices. I relate here and refer to the strength of our portfolio that due to the different regions, the different products we are pretty much capable of achieving our numbers that we have guided when one or the other business might be doing a little soft time, the others are doing a little stronger, which is generally, I think, the benefit of our wide portfolio.
Remember what we have said at the beginning of last year for the margins and the restructuring. We've said we've given you the pro forma numbers for the full year. For 2015, including Centor and internal packaging glass, you have to have in mind that the ex-tubing business, especially with a very high margin, if you set for Plastics and Devices, that 2015 number somewhere around 25%, and you can go to 25, we'll stay on that level a little bit above. For Primary Packaging Glass, from the 22.1%, which we had in 2015, you first of all have to deduct for the tubular glass business approximately 2%. From that basis then perhaps there is an organic growth of a little bit but not more, therefore there's nothing surprising right now in the numbers.
That's totally in line with that what we have communicated and we are totally on track to reach those numbers. Restructuring, I explained in my speech, EUR 0.3 million from the tubular glass business is nothing else than a recalculation which was positive for us for the purchase price. The other effects are, for instance, cleanups. When you need people to further deliver to customers out of your inventory, for instance, that's something which you can't build and accrue for at the end, that's the reason what the numbers are what. This is directly together for sure with the close of our Millville facility. There's nothing new coming in. That's only the add-on effect for the first quarter based on that. It's only accounting. We're talking about accounting.
Okay, thanks very much. Perhaps just a couple of quick follow-ups, if I may then. Are we correct to assume that we shouldn't see too many in the way of additional restructuring costs over fiscal 2016 or would you anticipate more? Just lastly, following up on Uwe's comment, can you confirm that you're starting to ship products now out of the Peachtree facility and the new investments there for asthma? Also, are you now starting to ship the asthma product that was delayed in fiscal 2015 in line with expectations? I know that this was clearly delayed last year, but is that back on track? Thank you.
Well, I cannot make a forward-looking statement with respect to Peachtree shipments, but I can confirm that we have not made shipments out of Peachtree in the first quarter related to the asthma inhaler. I can confirm that we have increased shipments out of the late asthma projects in line with our expectations out of the Czech Republic perspective, yeah.
For restructuring, for portfolio optimization, that's an exercise that you normally do at the end of the year. We also don't forecast that right now, because it has to come during our assessment of our business.
Okay, thanks guys.
We have a follow-up from Torben Teisler, Hauck & Aufhäuser.
Hello, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my question. I would have actually only one left, and that's related to the Life Science Research business. You said you were generally willing to sell that business if there was a buyer. That's a JV you have there. First of all, what's the JV partner thinking about that? Are they maybe the natural buyer? Are there any talks with that partner? Or if not, do you have any feedback from the market whether this JV structure is really a problem? Just to get a feel for how realistic and maybe easy this business could be sellable and what the current status is for that.
I think that is fairly easy to answer. We have not made a decision whether we sell it or not. We have said we would entertain the idea. We do have discussions with our joint venture partner about such a potential process, given that we have the right valuation. We have no active sales process running, and that's pretty much it.
All right. Okay. The margin level in U.S. dollar terms, could you give a feel for that? Because you initially said, okay, if it's 15% margin-
It was 15% last year. I think that Rainer worked hard on keeping the margin. The first quarter is generally a weak quarter, you saw that last year. I'm quite confident that our folks can deliver the target margins on that business. I would not worry too much about it.
All right. Okay.
No problem.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Okay, as there are no further questions, we would like to thank you for joining us today. Please note that we are going to publish our second quarter results for 2016 on July 7th, 2016. Thank you so much.