Earnings Call: Q3 2017

Oct 26, 2017

Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Third Quarter of Wacker Chemie twenty seventeen Conference Call. At our customers' request, this conference will be recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. May I now hand you over to Jorg Hoffmann, who will lead you through this conference. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, operator. Welcome to the Rakuten EAG Q3 twenty seventeen Conference Call. My name is Joerg Hoffman, and I'm the Head of Investor Relations at Rakuten. With me are Doctor. Rudolf Zaubigle, our CEO and Doctor. Tobias Ola, our CFO, who will take you through our presentation in a minute. The presentation is available on our web page under the caption Investor Relations. Before they begin, please have a look at our safe harbor statements, which you will find at the beginning of the presentation. With this, let me hand the over to the first conference to our CEO. Mr. Olivier? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our Q3 twenty seventeen conference call. This quarter showed a good performance with strong results and cash flow generation. Our strategic plan is working, and this quarter shows typical results of the so called leverage phase of our strategy. As presented on our last Capital Markets Day, we stick to our strategy. We look to keep CapEx below depreciation. We strive for growth higher than the chemical industry and work hard to sustain attractive margins throughout the economic cycle as our assets generate cash. Led by strong volumes in chemicals and rising demand for mono capable material in polysilicon, our Q3 sales increased 14% over last year and 8% sequentially to EUR 1,300,000,000.0. Strong demand, high loading, a good cost performance and the contribution from Siltronic drove EBITDA in Q3 up to €298,000,000 That is 18% better than last quarter and 13% over last year. We achieved this despite higher raw materials and some currency headwinds. As we previously reported, we had an incident in Tennessee on September 7 that resulted in a shutdown of the polysilicon plant at the site. A hydrogen explosion damaged piping, which resulted in a chlorosilane leak. Importantly, there were no serious injuries to our employees. And thanks to the immediate action of the response teams, there was no risk to the surrounding community. We are investigating the root cause of the incident with outside help and have started repairs. From today's perspective, it is not clear yet when the plant will restart. We expect the outage to last a few months. At this time, however, we expect no meaningful financial impact from this incident as our insurance should cover the damages and business interruption. We are seeing strong growth in the solar industry, targeting about 25% growth in global installations to almost 100 gigawatts this year. The big driver here is the industry wide efforts to increase conversion efficiency, which further unlocks solar cost competitiveness. Solar PV has reached a point now where it is competitive to fossil fuels fuel based power generation. In polysilicon, we will focus to expand our cost leadership while maintaining industry leading quality levels. Our chemicals businesses reported strong volumes in Q3. Especially, silicones benefited from a global tightness in silicones products and from an improved operational performance. We are looking at debottlenecking efforts to meet customer demands. In line with our strategy, we will continue to improve mix while we maintain a full portfolio with benchmark costs for the industry. Polymers saw strong volumes again in Q3 but suffered from higher raw materials as price increases in the surgeons continue to take hold. In addition to growth in traditional applications, we drive the replacement of other binders by a better performance based value offering in VAE. In Powder, we pushed the transformation of construction materials towards higher building standards, deploying advanced additive materials. BioSolutions is well on track with good demand in PharmaArgo. We are making good progress in developing our biotechnology businesses by leveraging our know how and assets. Given the strong performance of our businesses and the highest electronic equity results, we now increased our EBITDA guidance for the full year 2017 to €1,000,000,000 up from €935,000,000 last year. Xavier? Thank you, and welcome. We show our P and L on Page three. Strong demand for our products led to a 14% increase in sales with volume and mix being the primary drivers. Our strong operational performance drove operating profit up 28%. Things to note here are the improving business at Siltronic increased our Q3 equity result by €16,000,000 Our reported tax rate declined in the quarter due to the Siltronic at equity result and following better results in overseas operations. Hence, we adjust our guidance here and now expect for the full year a tax rate of around 25%. Moving on to the balance sheet on the next page. Not much news here. Please note that we have stopped reporting on the remaining prepayment levels in our presentation because that number has now dropped to below €200,000,000 and is no longer an important factor. On Page five, silicones saw Q3 sales increase by 11% to five fifty nine million euros following very strong volumes and global tightness. High loading and operational efficiency drove EBITDA up by 27% to €128,000,000 in Q3. Given the strong performance and the order book, we upgrade our full year 2017 outlook for the segment. We now look at full year sales growth in the high single digits and an EBITDA margin of about 20%. Looking to Page six. Polymer sales came in at €380,000,000 held back by currency effects. EBITDA was, as expected, sequentially somewhat down at €57,000,000 Strong volumes and pricing initiatives in Dispersions were not sufficient to counter the effect of higher raw material costs. While we continue to see strong volume growth in both Dispersions and Powders, we keep our full year guidance for this segment unchanged. BioSolutions reported sales of €53,000,000 with €10,000,000 in EBITDA. We reached our original guidance for the 2017 numbers with our nine month results today. We now see full year sales at prior year given the impact of currencies with a somewhat lower Q4 EBITDA contribution than last year. Polysilicon on Page eight saw strong demand at lower average pricing. Sales in the segment reached €342,000,000 up 35% despite reduced availability of material out of Tennessee. EBITDA came in at €85,000,000 following cost reductions and inventory effects. For the full year, we are raising our guidance and now see EBITDA in Polysilicon at about 10% over last year, excluding special income effects from prepayment contracts. On Page nine, gross cash flow from operations is at €548,000,000 Our net financial debt is at €464,000,000 over €200,000,000 less than at the end of Q2. Net cash flow in Q3 was $2.00 €5,000,000 underlining the strong cash generating capability of our assets while continuing to fund growth in our Chemicals businesses. Moving on to Page 10. With upgrades in three out of four segments and the better result from Siltronic, we increased our annual EBITDA guidance now to €1,000,000,000 We also upgrade our cash flow guidance for the full year. Given our CapEx plans for the last quarter, we now see net financial debt at about €500,000,000 at the end of the year. With this, let me hand you back to Rudi. Thank you, Tobias. Ladies and gentlemen, we have seen a strong performance in our businesses this year so far. The recent trends are set to continue into the fourth quarter. The tightness in silicones continues as demand for our value added silicones stays strong. We work with our customers to help them navigate the tight market conditions globally in this business. Polymers' volumes remained strong despite an expectation of a seasonal downturn even though raw materials dampened short term performance. Polysilicon reports strong orders for high performance enabling materials starting into Q4. We are looking into the very high capacity utilization rates in our businesses and are increasing our efforts to debottleneck plants to provide some relief. These developments are the result of a lot of hard work and dedication to cost efficiency and a close commitment to our customers from our entire organization. We are positive about our demands in all our businesses, and we are very confident about our market position and the strategic direction of our businesses. Operator, we're ready to take questions Once your name has been announced, you can ask a question. If you find your question is answered before it is your turn to speak, you can dial 02 to cancel your question. If you are using speaker equipment today, please lift your handset before making your selection. One moment please for the first question. The first question is from Andreas Heinemann. First, your line is now open. Thank you very much for taking my question. I'd like to start with Polysilicon. As far as I know, you have not booked any insurance coverage in the third quarter. Could you outline a little bit what the impact was from the incident you had in Tennessee and how you see this in Q4 and how you have baked this in the guidance you have just given? And maybe a little bit on the pricing, the price you booked, so what you have in your P and L is obviously lagging to what we see on the spot market. But I would assume there was only a slight increase in Q3, but the stronger one in Q4. Is that what you have also baked in the guidance? And last but not least, having no tenancy no volume from tenancy for a couple of months, so it means nothing in Q4 and already working down quite a bit on the inventories, I guess, doesn't mean that Q3, Q4, the volume will be significantly down in polysilicon? And maybe if I have a chance then also one question on silicones. If you would do a ranking, what has driven the margin up? What would be the ranking from the three factors operational leverage, the product mix and the increase in prices? Andreas, quite a lot of questions. I will start out with the question on the insurance coverage. You're rightly assuming that there was no booking in the third quarter, and the incident happened on September 7. And as the claim is complex, I mean, there was no big accounting for that. But we felt already the impact that we had to reduce our spot rates. So we drew a lot on the inventory. And that means that we can expect for the fourth quarter that our volumes will be, as you said, significantly down as I mean, it will be only the German plants available for production. With respect to pricing, there's always the discussion about the time lag and maybe that's a little bit difficult to read out. I put it simple. What we baked into the guidance is we said we are now expecting about 10% increase in EBITDA. And if you do a rough calculation on that, that could mean that we are expecting somewhat about €300,000,000 in EBITDA, and that leads you to our assumptions for the fourth quarter. But it also means that we would need to account for the business loss in the quarter as the insurance negotiations will proceed, we will need to book a claim also against the insurance in this quarter. But the revenue from tenancy, we will definitely miss. Yes, that's how we see it for the rest of the year. So in Q4, you baked in an insurance gain? Yes. Okay. On the silicones, I think you have to look at the total scenario there. First, silicones, I mean, demand is very strong. And we certainly have made significant progress in our strategy towards higher value add material. And I think our cost position, especially in the basic siloxane, is very good and certainly up to par with the best in the industry. And as you know, in Europe, there has been one siloxane facility shutdown, which contributed to lesser availability of basic material. In China, there have been many small players shut down for environmental and safety inspections. And yes, and of course, when demand is very high, production usually excels in operational performance. So these are the main effects at this point. At this point, I would not put price on top of the list of the impacts right now. The next question is from Patrick Rafaisz, UBS. Your line is now open. Thank you. Three questions, please. The first is on Hennessy. Obviously, you said the financial impact is small because of the insurance claims. But do you think there's a broader lost market share or reputational issue for U. S. Operations there and that could impact the business in the midterm? Then the second question, BioSolutions. Are you still expecting to incur total integration costs of around EUR 10,000,000? Is that still the case? It seems to me that profitability is stronger than originally planned here. And then the last question on the Siltronic contribution. How much do you build into the new guidance for EBITDA this year contribution from Siltronic? Thank you. Let me answer your question about polysilicon market share. Of course, I mean, this is a no brainer. Market share will be influenced in the quarter up until we are running again in Tennessee. I mean, in the past, Tennessee has proven to be world leading quality. And this is why certainly will be able to sell the full amount out of Tennessee again once we have started it up. So in other words, we do not expect a longer term impact on market share from that incident. Patrick, Tobias speaking. With respect to BioSolutions, we raised our guidance here, and part of that is also that we see now lower integration costs. So that plays a role in our changed forecast. For Siltronic, we typically we generally look at what we have as consensus for the net income because the overall calculation is we take the Siltronic net income and we take off from that the purchase price allocation effect, which I quantified at €5,000,000 per quarter. So when we increased our guidance to €1,000,000,000 in EBITDA, the change in Siltronic expectation was from a net income that was at when we released Q2 numbers at around 140 something to 173,000,000 So the delta was around €30,000,000 in expectations for net income. If you take our share of it, the 31% of net income, this equates to roughly EUR 10,000,000 increase just from Siltronic consensus going up from the second quarter to the third quarter. The next question is from Sebastian Bray, Berenberg. I would have three, please. The first is on polysilicon. I think with regards to the margin development sequentially Q2 to Q3, some of the decline was due potentially to fixed cost management in a way in which product was sold out of inventory. But the press release also makes reference to mix, which is a bit surprising given that I think mono was gaining share. Could you perhaps cast a bit more light on this? Secondly, the is it a bit clearer at this stage? I know you're in negotiations on insurance. How lumpy the impact will be the payments from the insurance will be? As in, for example, if the plant is still on offline in Tennessee next year in Q1 twenty eighteen, Are we essentially going to just is the best way to model this just to pretend the plant isn't off line and that you get the EBITDA from it? And finally, the presentation also makes reference to some pricing or mix effects in BioSolutions being a bit difficult. Could you perhaps talk about which product categories in particular were affected by this? Sebastian, Tobias here. I'll start with the question on the insurance. I think it's a good approach to model our financials from the insurance I mean, from 10% and the insurance coverage as if the incident hadn't happened. I mean that's how the contract with the insurance works. So the damage and the business loss is compensated, while the revenue, definitely, we will miss. And there might be just also from the complexity of the discussions with insurance, there might be deviations between how we account in the P and L and what we see in the cash flow statement. But those deviations, I think, we should manage. With respect to BioSolutions and the mix effect, your question, we had a very strong Pharmaceuticals and Biopharmaceuticals business. And I think that basically, we have a lot of different products going in BioSolutions. That was what we were alluding to in that statement. Understood. And sorry, the question on the mix in Polysilicon? In Polysilicon, the key effect for understanding the margin development is really to look at or to consider the inventory change. We have so strong demand that and with the Tennessee incident holding us back from starting from September 7, we had quite a potential draw on the inventory. And it means if the inventory goes up, you do not show the revenue, but you get sort of some of the profit into the inventory. And if you then draw on the inventory, you show the revenue, so the denominator gets bigger, but part of the profit was already in the inventory. And that explains those changes from quarter to quarter. And the product I mean, the mix is it's about product mix and contract mix. We always said that we are selling a lot of different specs, so ranging from semi to mono capable solar materials to multi capable solar materials, I mean, that changes from quarter to quarter, but also the mix in the contract, which changes from yes, from more long term contracts to frame contracts in our Sports business. And also from the product spec, mean, we also sell different chart sizes, and that plays a role. So there's a lot of factors going into that. Understood. Thank you. The next question is from Chetan Udeshi, JPMorgan. Your line is now open. Yes. Hi, thanks. I had a question on Silicone, where margin has you know, continued to surprise on the upside through this year. And and I heard doctor Rudolf saying earlier that the price increases haven't been a key driver. So the question now, I think, on top of everybody's mind is how much of this is sustainable? Or what could derail the margin going forward? Do you see any new capacity coming online, which could sort of have an impact? Or is essentially going to be demand driven that whenever macro slows, you could have some issue on the margin? I don't think that there will be significant additional capacity coming online within the foreseeable future. And of course, prices need to go up in order to build a good basis for additional capacities in the long run. So I think there will be a continuation of a good performance in silicones. That's useful. And on polymers, clearly, material prices continue to go higher, WAM, etcetera. So at what point do you think you will be able to catch up with raw materials in terms of your own prices offsetting the impact or headwind that we've been seeing on the margins for the last few quarters? And then last question is on CapEx. Can you explain the reason for the reduction in CapEx guidance for full year? For polymers, we just announced in October price increases for distilled powders and for dispersions. And we would expect most of the effects to be seen in next year in 2018. But you said that, yes, we still see raw material inflation from Ram, ethylene. And we had now a year 2017, which was, yes, up again, but you always compare it to very low raw material prices of 2016. With respect to CapEx, it's slight adjustment. We now see that I mean, just from the progression of our CapEx plan after the first three quarters, that it might look a little bit too ambitious to go for EUR $360,000,000 CapEx, so we might end up closer to EUR $340,000,000. That's basically the change. Next question is from Gurpreet Gurjal, Macquarie Capital. Hi, guys. Just a couple of questions from me actually. Earlier this year, there was a lot of noise around stockpiling of solar components in The U. S, primarily due to the Section two zero one case. Do you think this is still going on? It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on that as well as the Chinese solar market next year. I'd be interested to hear what your views are on that market next year. Do you think it will get growth from where we are right now? And then I have a follow-up after that, if that's okay. Well, I mean, the Section two zero one in The U. S. Is progressing. As everybody was expecting, there is the proposal for for tariff increases and but it's it's really not decided yet whether there will be tariffs or not because there is a strong movement against it because it will certainly cost many, many, many more jobs than it would say, jobs in The U. S. And I think these arguments are very strong, and they will be considered by the U. S. Government. And your second question on the growth in China, of course, it's hard to predict. But on the other hand, solar is becoming so attractive cost and wise or price wise. Certainly, China needs and the strategy is to reduce the impact of coal fired power plants. So there is a strong incentive to move to renewable energies, is the right path to progress on, no question. But we certainly have a hard time predicting an exact number for China. I think there are other people to ask that. But in general, the long term growth of solar, I think, is absolutely intact. Okay. Fine. And just back on to the product mix and contract mix that you guys were talking about earlier on in the Q and A. Is that just a quarterly nuance? Or is that something that's a structural trend here? I'm just trying to get a sense of how important that change was in terms of your product mix and contract mix change? It's a nuance in the quarter and nothing else. And the main impact in the quarter was from inventory changes to BS The next question is from Andrew Benson, Citigroup. Just a few quick ones. When do you think the intensive plant will be mechanically complete and have you identified the cause of of the problems? So do think that the delay will be sort of inspection driven rather than technically driven? Certainly, tax rate, I mean, you've indicated for this year. Can you give us some indication for the midterm? There anything you can say on time line for your remaining stake in Siltronic? And can you also just give a bit more flavor as to what's going on in China with regard to inspections and environmental compliance and how that might affect into 2018, both the silicones and the polysilicon business? On the cause of the incident in Tennessee, of course, we have a clear view of what caused the incident. On the other hand, we have hired an independent investigator to really be sure that we don't overlook anything by absolute specialists on things like that. But as long as we do not have the official paper on yes, the official document about the root cause, we are not in a position to publish anything about that. But I don't think it will be magic. I think we as I said, we have a clear understanding of the cost. And the time line is driven by just, let's say, repairing everything. So technical driven, as you said. That's going to take a couple more months, is it? Yes, as I said. Okay. Respect to the tax rate, Andrew, I think what will not go away in 2018 is that when booking the equity result from Siltronic, which is already taxed at Siltronic, this will lower the tax rate. But I need to look into the numbers before we give guidance for 2018. So we are still not there yet. And with respect to the time line of the Siltronic equity stake, there's no news to that to report. And by the way, on the penalty incident, of course, as soon as we officially know the root cause, we will make it available and then the corrective actions, we will make it available to competitors who run very similar equipment in order to make sure that this does not happen a second time, neither in Bakken or anywhere else in the industry. Mister Benson, are your questions answered? No. No. Was it was it was the the the last one was about about these the environmental compliance position in in China and how that's likely to affect silicones and polysilicon in 2018? It's we know that there is an impact, as I previously stated, on the silicones or the siloxane production, quite a few plants have been shut down. I think there is an impact on smaller polysilicon plants in China as well. And I mean, what the impact of, let's say, additional environmental standards is on other competitors in China, I think it's best to ask when. Of course, we do not know that very clearly. But in order to adhere to standards as they are in Europe, in The United States and so on, Certainly, some additional investments have to be made here and there. But we do not have a clear view on where and with whom. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. The next question is from Laura Lopez, Baader Helvea. Your line is now open. Good afternoon. So two questions from my side. First, on File Solutions. So other CMO players, we have heard from them that the fermentation or high quality fermentation capacity is rather tight at the moment. And we see in general the sector developing very well. So maybe it will be good to know for Vaca what are your current capacity utilization rates by the CMO industry? And do you think you will need capacity expansion soon so that you don't limit your growth potential? And then secondly, also in biosolutions, so I think Sebastian already asked that question, but it will be good to know exactly in what kind of products are you seeing lower prices. So it's more in the food sector or in the pharma or in agro. And then last but not least, on polysilicon again. So what is what does Vaca expect or what is Vaca's positions? What do you think will happen if the if if they approve the import duties in The US next year? So if that happens, would it be positive for you in the short term or not? What is your position or what or what do you think will happen? On bioproductions, on the CMO, fermentation capacity, yes, that's certainly true that fermentation capacity is tight in mammalian as well or at least in bacteria based CMO production where we are active in. And this is why we are certainly looking at debottlenecking and potential additional capacity. And I'm not in a position to make a statement about the mammalian capacities. You would need to ask people who are active in these markets. On the polysilicon, if the import duties in The U. S. Are approved, it certainly means job losses in installation in The United States. I think it will have an impact in The United States. And so it will, let's say, slow down the growth of of the TV industry worldwide, but we do not expect a contraction in the TV industry in the world because of that. I think, our US, if they will put up tariffs, they will take the product to use their words. They take a big gun and ship it with it. And I think there is a lot of reason in The U. S. And they will think about it. With respect to the BioSolutions question on prices, we definitely see it more in the food sector, not in pharma agro. And the food from 15% being priced lower and also from some trading effect in our Gambade business. Okay. And is this like now a sustainable level, current prices? Or do you think there's more downside potential or maybe an increase coming? I think there's no big change to be expected. Okay. Thank you. The next question is from Sean McLaughlin, HSBC. Your line is now open. Good afternoon. Thank you. A question on polysilicon. Just coming back to your strategic rationale for the inventory build. You had said it was to be better prepared to react to demand swings quickly. I see your China shipments increased significantly in Q3. So does this mean that you were able to sell more than you would have otherwise sold without this excess inventory? In other words, you were able to react more quickly on more short term contracts? Yes, that's the case. So I guess then as a follow on, is it fair to assume that you will be selling through inventory in Q4 given the lack of Tennessee? I mean, should we expect you then to be rebuilding inventory through Q1 or as soon as Tennessee is back up and running in order to reestablish that two month margin? Yes, that's certainly our intent. But as you can imagine, it depends on the market condition. Okay. Could you elaborate on that? So what If demand is very strong and prices are reasonably high and customers have no problems with ordering material and getting it a few weeks later out of 1,000, for example, then, of course, there's no incentive to build inventory. On the other hand, if prices are low, we will be thinking about using this time to build more inventory. So it's a really short term standard business decision, so no magic behind it. The next question is from Thomas Roboda, Societe Generale. Three short questions, if I may. And sorry if I missed the tax question before. Have you can you confirm what do you expect in the longer term in terms of a sustainable tax rate? That's the first one. The second one, a follow-up on dividend from the Capital Markets Day actually. I mean, the guidance on financial on financial debt you you giving of around 500 and the the EBITDA guidance of 1,000,000,000 for for 02/2017, we already bring you to the low end of your of your net debt to to to EBITDA range, at least financial financial debt. How how we think about that? He is this target range 0.5 to one financial net debt or is it is it all in? How do you think about shareholder returns? Any change on that, please? And the first one on Polysilicon, on volumes. If I understand you correctly, the first two months of the quarter demand was extremely good. Historically, there was always some lumpiness to the volume development. If you could comment on September how you started in October from volume from the volume momentum wise, what you see in the market, that would be helpful. Maybe starting with your last question, demand is still very good and especially on the high quality side, on the material for mono and high performance multi material. Thomas, to your question on tax. As I said, have the impact of the net income from Siltronic coming into the equity result already taxed, which lowers the tax rate. But as I said, going forward, we don't have the number for 2018 yet. So I think it's fair to assume for the rest that we would have the statutory tax rate as a guidance, but we will update you on that in March when we come up with first views on 2018. For the dividend policy, we discussed at the Capital Market Day that we confirmed the 50% payout ratio of net income and that we also adjust depending on where we are and where we see us developing with respect to the leverage target range. But I think it will be decided when we come there. So it's nothing that we should speculate today about. Can you confirm, please, the net debt to EBITDA range, 0.5 to one? This is financial debt, right? Yes. Thank you very much. The next question is from Andreas Heine, MainFirst. Your line is now open. Yes. I'd like to come back on the tax rate. Isn't it better to just say that you stay at 30% before the Siltronic? Is that because Siltronic earnings might increase quite a bit next year and then you would probably come up with an even lower tax rate. But my understanding is that the underlying tax rate basically 30% if you extract what is already tax eds electronic? That's the first question. And then the second, I'd like to understand a little bit more the pricing policy you have in silicones. You said that in this year prices were not a major driver, mostly operational leverage and mix effects and so on. But you on the other hand said that the market is very tight. Usually then you have pricing power. Going into 2018, could you a little bit elaborate what you think your pricing policy will be? And is the market accepting price increases nowadays? Pricing power is certainly fairly strong into the current and prices definitely need to go up. Is that one percent to 2%? Or is it five to 10%? Or what do we have to have in mind? It's certainly more than 2%. Certainly. Thank you. The tax rate question is rather complex, Andreas. I would suggest that we follow-up on that. As I also explained, there is improvement in the overseas operations that is also lowering tax rate. So we will look into that and come back. There are no further questions at the moment. A question, please press 01 on the telephone keypad now. Currently, we have no further questions. I will hand back to the speakers. Thank you, operator. Thank you all for joining us today and for your interest in Vaca Muir. We look forward to further discussions with you as the quarter progresses. We expect to publish preliminary full year results in January or early February next year, and we will be back again with a conference call on March 13 for the full year results. Goodbye. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attendance. This call has been concluded. You may