Mesdames et messieurs, merci d'avoir patienté et bienvenue à la conférence téléphonique concernant les résultats du premier trimestre de l'exercice 2023 de TC Transcontinental. Pendant la conférence, tous les participants seront en mode d'écoute seulement. Une période de questions suivra la présentation et des directives vous seront données à ce moment. Nous désirons vous rappeler que cette conférence est enregistrée aujourd'hui, le 8 mars 2023. Welcome to TC Transcontinental first quarter of fiscal 2023 results conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will be provided at that time. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, March 8, 2023. I will now turn the conference over to Yan Lapointe, Director, Investor Relations and Treasury.
J'aimerais maintenant céder la parole à Yan Lapointe, directeur, Relations avec les investisseurs et trésorerie. Mr. Lapointe, please, go ahead.
Thank you, Julie. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Transcontinental's first quarter of fiscal 2023 earnings call. Before we begin, please note that the press release, the MD&A, along with complete financial statements and related notes, as well as the slides supporting management's remarks, are all available on our website at www.tc.tc under the Investor Relations section. A replay of this conference call will also be available on our website shortly after the call. We have with us today our President and Chief Executive Officer, Peter Brues, and our Chief Financial Officer, Donald LeCavalier. Before I turn the call over to management, I would like to specify that this conference call is intended for the financial community. Media are in listen-only mode and should contact Nathalie St-Jean, Senior Advisor, Corporate Communications, for more information.
Please be reminded that some of the financial measures discussed over the course of this call are non-IFRS. You can refer to the MD&A for a complete definition and reconciliation of these measures to IFRS. This conference call might also contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the current expectations of management and information available as of today, and they involve numerous risks and uncertainties, known and unknown. The risks, uncertainties and other factors that could influence actual results are described in the fiscal 2022 annual MD&A and in the latest annual information form. I would now like to turn the call over to our President and CEO, Peter Brues.
Thanks, Yan. Good afternoon, everyone. Starting with safety, I'm pleased to report that our focus on safety is generating improved results. We're off to a good start with a 21% decrease in recordable injuries compared to last year. In terms of financial results, increased profit in packaging for the quarter was more than offset by the impact of lower volumes in printing. In this context, I appreciate the speed with which both sectors implemented initiatives that will generate savings of over $15 million in fiscal 2023. In packaging, we did not see our usual volume growth. As supply chains have improved and interest rates have gone up, many of our customers have worked to decrease excess inventories and have not ordered their usual volumes. With banana customers suffering from volume declines and increased costs, our Latin American business also experienced significant pressure on volume.
Despite these volume issues, the work the team has done to develop products that create value for our customers and focus on developing low-cost operations resulted in an 11% increase in profit versus last year's first quarter, the sector's fourth consecutive quarter of improvement. In print, having worked diligently to increase our prices to reflect inflationary cost increases, the sector experienced significant volume decline in key businesses. With fixed marketing budgets, the pass-through of increased costs resulted in a 10% decrease in retail flyer volume. This decrease had an adverse impact on our retail flyer and distribution business' profit. Coupled with a key retailer's decision to postpone its in-store marketing renewal work until later this year, print experienced a $16 million decrease in profitability. Our print team has a strong track record of adjusting our cost structure.
They've already implemented measures to mitigate the impact of lower demand. We're seeing the early benefits of our actions and will continue to adjust as necessary. Our financial position is solid thanks to our ability to generate significant cash flow and no major debt maturities until 2025. We remain focused on our disciplined approach to profitable growth while maintaining our dividend and reducing our net debt. Now, over to you, Donald.
Thank you, Peter. Moving to consolidated numbers on slide five of the earnings call presentation. For the first quarter of 2023, we reported an increase in revenues of $ 16.4 million or 2.4% versus the same period last year. This growth was driven by the impact of exchange rates and the acquisitions in our packaging and media sectors. Regarding profitability, consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $ 84.1 million compared to $89 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2022. This decrease was mainly due to a decline in our printing sector, which more than offset increased adjusted EBITDA in packaging sector. Financial expenses: increased by $6.9 million to $16.7 million, mainly due to higher interest rates and the exchange rates. As a reminder, we have no significant debt maturities before February 2025 thanks to proactive refinancing.
Adjusted income tax decreased by $5.8 million due to lower earnings and effective tax rate, resulting in adjusted net earnings of $0.24 per share for the quarter. Now moving to slide 6 for the sector review. In packaging, we recorded revenue of $405.7 million. The increase of 5.7% versus last year was mainly due to the positive change in exchange rates. The pass-through of higher raw material prices and other inflationary costs was offset by a decrease in volume due to customer destocking and continued pressure in Latin America. In terms of profitability, adjusted EBITDA in packaging grew by $7.7 million or 19.8%. Excluding the impact of exchange rate, adjusted EBITDA grew organically by 11%. This organic growth was mainly due to improved profits from inflationary cost recovery.
As Peter mentioned, all our segments improved adjusted EBITDA except for Latin America operations. Moving to printing on slide seven, revenues decreased by 3.1%. This decline resulted mainly from about a 10% decrease in retail flyer printing and distribution, partially offset by the pass-through of inflationary increases. Printing's adjusted EBITDA was $ 40.6 million for the quarter compared to $ 56.8 million last year. This decrease is mostly caused by lower volume in retail flyer printing and distribution activities. Corporate expense were lower than last year due mainly to lower stock-based compensation costs. Turning to cash flow. We generated $12 million from operating activities, an increase of $ 18.4 million versus last year due to improved working capital and lower income taxes.
Our investments in CapEx at $ 51.2 million is higher than last year due to the timing of some disbursements. In fiscal 2023, we expect CapEx to remain elevated as we continue our strategic investments before returning to a lower run rate in fiscal 2024. At the end of the first quarter, our net debt ratio was at 2.63 times, a slight increase from three months ago due to the seasonality of working capital and significant CapEx in the quarter. We expect the ratio to come close to two times in the coming quarters, giving our free cash flow generation. In turn of liquidities, $ 274 million were available at the end of the quarter. Standard & Poor's recently reaffirmed our investment-grade rating, confirming our solid financial position.
We distributed $ 19.5 million in dividends to our shareholders. Thanks to our ability to generate significant cash flows, the board decided to maintain the dividend at the current rate of $ 0.90 per share per year. This represents an attractive yield of more than 5% based on today's closing price. Moving to the outlook. As mentioned by Peter, our team implemented cost reduction initiatives that will generate significant and recurrent savings, improving our financial performance. In packaging, we expect volume growth and improved profitability into fiscal 2023. The economic conditions remain uncertain and could affect demand in the short term. In print, we continue to expect growth in our ISM and book printing activities. In terms of profitability, we expect lower adjusted EBITDA from the impact of inflation on volume and cost structure.
We expect corporate costs at the EBITDA level to be around $40 million for the year. Moreover, cash taxes should be at around $ 60 million. On that note, we will now proceed with the question period.
Thank you. One moment, please. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct a question and answer session. If you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. Your questions will be pulled in the order they're received. Please ensure you lift the handset if you're using a speakerphone before pressing any keys. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from Adam Shine from National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.
Thanks a lot. Good afternoon. Peter, can you speak to us at all in terms of any improvement in trend that you might have seen in recent weeks, or is it an ongoing continuation of the Q1 trend, at least, early in the Q2?
Adam, are you talking about a specific part of the business or in general?
Well, both sides. I mean, I guess, you know, talking about the issues that impacted Q1, and whether those have continued into Q2. Specifically, you know, are we still seeing the same level of flyer volume decline in printing? Over on the packaging side, you know, are you still seeing the same degree of LatAm pressure and de-stocking, or has, you know, some of that eased at all? Do you see line of sight to that easing potentially, at least, you know, maybe gap in Q2 into Q3?
Thanks for clarifying, Adam. Appreciate it. Why don't I start from a packaging perspective. If I'm looking in packaging, when we talk about de-stocking and softness in LatAm, which has continued from last year, we saw a volume decline of 3%. Frankly, if I split that, it split pretty evenly between the Latin American business and our beverage segment. If I look at the Latin American business specifically, in terms of from a volume perspective, you know, we know a big portion of that relates to the conflict in the Ukraine. As a result, you know, we took cost reduction measures that will impact going forward.
It's been very focused on eliminating a significant portion of costs related to the business to put it in a better position relative to the volumes we have. I'd say the second thing that's hit that part of the business is that we given supply chain issues and supply chain specific to Latin America, we had volumes of higher cost raw materials. As volumes have declined, we had an amount of raw material at higher price than you can currently buy today, and that affected us in the quarter. We worked diligently through the quarter to ensure by the end of the quarter that volume, that inventory was gone.
I'd say the two things that are important when I think of Latin America is I don't see in the current circumstances in absence of a, of a change in a conflict, I don't see volumes bouncing. I see cost structure being in a better position both from a better inventory cost, as well as an adjusted cost base. In terms of the beverage side, we saw significant de-stocking. What I can tell you is at the time, we took costs out of the business within the quarter, and that were significant. We don't include that when we talk about the $15 million. The reason is we've seen a significant inflow of orders currently.
As a result, that cost reduction, the cost taken out from a direct labor standpoint, aren't required. In terms of indirect, we are maintaining them to position us to be more profitable going forward. We do see in the beverage segment a significant strengthening coming out of last quarter. If I look, if I look at kind of the history of the business, and I look at volumes in general, I'm cautiously optimistic in terms of the way volumes are going, but certainly from a beverage standpoint, things look good. I think we're exceptionally proud in the quarter that every business, with the exception of LatAm, increased its profitability year-on-year.
The fact that we've gone four quarters in a row with growth, you know, we're pleased with that, and we're determined to continue that trend to the end of the year. From a print perspective, you know, I would say that, you know, difficult to say, you know, we've had a soft quarter, 10%. Don't anticipate that suddenly jumping back down to low single digits. I think what's key for us is that the team has reacted as we always have to take out a significant amount of costs. The costs, when I talk about the $15 million that's been taken out in the business, that's cost out now, impacting now. That doesn't mean the team didn't have other actions to continue to put into position and execute.
I would be disappointed if that number wasn't significantly higher in terms of run rate within this year in the coming quarter. Then I would also add, if we're looking at the business, when I was talking about the ISM business, you know, we had a significant retail customer that de-defer to store refresh that had a really adverse effect on our volume in the quarter. That refresh is back on, coming now. That'll have an impact, a strong impact on volume going through the year. We continue to grow with the relationships that we have from retailers through flyers. We continue to grow that side of the business, and we expect it to strengthen through the year.
From a newspaper perspective, you know, we closed the Metroland deal. That will have a positive impact on the business as we move through the year. I'd also add that we are adding book capacity. Right now, equipment's arriving and being installed, that will have an impact as the year continues. Done significant cost reductions from a print perspective. We'll continue to do so, and we'll continue to adjust as necessary. ISM anticipate strengthening, book strengthening, newspaper strengthening as we move through the year.
Peter, thanks for that color. If I could just ask one quick question related to the margin in printing. you know, in the past and pursuant to your earlier remarks about historically being able to sort of adjust the cost base to reflect some of the, or at least to mitigate some of the top line pressures. I mean, our assumption, I think, has been that, you know, the margin, you know, could stay at 19% per last year or maybe even higher. Given, given where things are and acknowledging obviously the savings you've alluded to and expectations of more to come, do we need to think about a resetting of that margin expectation, a couple of points lower, than 19%? Or, you know, is there still optimism of getting back to that level?
One thing, Adam, to consider regarding the margin is this group has been affected also by inflation of their costs.
Yep.
What we have been doing in this quarter, you realize it when you see 3% down on top line, but we say volume down 10%, that mean that we have passed a lot of cost to our customer. If you look at the drop of 5% that we had in a quarter, about, you know, close to 2% of that drop is coming just by inflation. That's part of it. We also have a part of it coming from ISM that, as Peter mentioned, we expect that business comes back. The remaining is linked to what we call the renew business.
As I, as Peter has said, as I said in my opening remarks, we're putting in place cost-cutting initiative that will hopefully push us back more in the normal margin for that part of the business.
Okay.
The inflation, the adjustment to margin as it relates to the denominator changing 'cause of inflation is something you should anticipate to continue.
Okay. No, I appreciate that. Thanks a lot.
Thanks, Adam.
Your next question comes from Hamir Patel from CIBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Peter, your outlook was pointing to year-over-year EBITDA growth in packaging, but decline in print. you know, how would you expect overall EBITDA to fare when we kind of think of the puts and takes between the two?
Well, it's, you know, we don't give forecasts, you know, but we hopefully it will respect what, you know, what the strategy of our group is that to replace the printing business with a packaging business growing. That's the direction we're going, you know, as a strategy, and that's what we expect to happen in the future regarding that. That's the color I can give you on that side.
Okay. Thanks. Just turning to growth, just wondering if you could share what you're seeing on the M&A pipeline front, and if you've seen any moderation in multiples with maybe less private equity competition.
From an M&A perspective right now, I'd say there's, I would say it's the heat that had been in the market would be diminished given the current circumstances in terms of interest rate, et cetera. Just, I think you can see there there are fewer businesses being sold, and certainly competition for assets is different.
Okay. Thanks, Peter. Just lastly, just wondering if you could speak to some of the new products that you know, you have coming to market in packaging, and specifically if there's anything to note on maybe the coffee lidding side.
I'd say that coffee specifically, we continue to work to develop a compostable solution. I think we can be really proud of the team and where we are from a development standpoint and preparing our customer to support a launch of something compostable. I would say notable things beyond that would be from a post-consumer recycled content in films. We've seen a significant beverage company launch all of its packaging having to have PCR content now. That's resulting in us having the ability to increase volume with them. We also see another significant beverage customer increasing its volume with us and being interested in going the way of PCR. We also have been successful with a major U.S. retailer and we're the
We are the first organization that's commercial with a PCR content film for poultry. We've had a successful launch with a major FMCG launching its skin care line doing 50% PCR content so that they can claim the significant content and position them for success. We've had some significant wins and we continue To have products that their customers can be proud of, that consumers can be proud of. As legislation moves in the U.S. to increase the taxes on items that aren't recyclable, we wanna position them to be in a position to avoid those taxes.
Okay, great. thanks. Appreciate all the details there. That's all I had. I'll turn it over.
Thanks, Hamir.
Your next question comes from Stephen MacLeod from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good evening. Lots of great color here so far, so thank you. I just wanted to follow up on a couple things. Just on the printing business, is it fair to assume that would you expect to see a lot of the volume headwinds to be isolated to the first half of the year, or do you expect that it is likely to continue through the year?
I think it's early to say. I think that, you know, what we've seen historically is that we saw volumes be significant around Black Friday and in April. What we're certainly seeing now is that those volume spikes are certainly much lower than they were historically. Right now, the key for us is to track volume really closely, work with our customers to understand how we can support them and adjust our cost base as necessary. We think we've done, we've identified the things we need to do in the short term, if we see that the volumes are changing, we'll continue to adjust, and we'll adjust as we need to make sure we remain in the strong position we've been historically.
Maybe to add just some color on that. Q1 2020 last year was for print a good quarter overall, we started to feel that pressure on the volume at the end of Q4 this year. The comparable to the end of the year might be less harder on that side.
Okay. I see. Thank you. Then just continuing on the printing side of things, I just wanted to clarify one thing that you said. I, you were talking about margins in printing and hoping to get back to normal margin levels with cost savings. Were you suggesting that that was a longer term target, or would you actually suggest to be in that sort of historical range in 20, in fiscal 2023?
I won't make any forecast on the timing of that, but when you look at historically of TC, when we had, you know, change in the demand, we were react with the capacity. Sometimes those actions take more times when it's, you know, you saw in the past when you close a plant, sometimes it's removing, you know, crews. It will depend on the timing of the action. There's some action already in place, but too early to make a call regarding when in 2023 we will be back to the margin. Still thinking about the impact of inflation that will definitely put weight on the margin for this fiscal year compared to last year.
Okay, I see. Thank you. Maybe just finally, just on CapEx, you mentioned that you said that you expect CapEx to continue to be elevated this year. Would you expect CapEx to be roughly in line with where it was in fiscal 2022 for the full year?
We have disclosed at the opening of this fiscal year to be, you know, the amount was $ 140. Right now the U.S. dollar is probably as high as $1.36. For sure that has an impact on us since most of our CapEx are in the U.S.. This is why now we say that it will be north of $ 50 if I have to make a call, but it's really linked to the U.S. dollars actually.
And just-
Right.
We will, you know, the bulk of those expenditures are specifically in segments, where we see that we create the most value for customers and our opportunity to grow is important and in investments that support our sustainability program from a product development standpoint. We're, we remain committed to those investments, and we'll execute them.
Okay. Okay, that's great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, if there are any additional question at this time, please press the star followed by the one. As a reminder, if you're using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. Your next question comes from Sid Dilawari from Cormark Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, Peter. Maybe if I can just ask a couple on the packaging side. You know, it's obviously good to see some organic EBITDA growth and margin expansion during the quarter. I just wanted to quickly get your thoughts around volumes and packaging, excluding Latin America. I know you mentioned the beverage vertical is doing fairly well, and you expect that to be positive year-over-year growth in the following quarters. Maybe if you can comment on some of the other verticals that will offset some of the decline in volumes in Latin America.
Sure. I think first from a Latin American standpoint, I think it's important to recognize that if we're looking at a full year basis, you know, the impact progresses, our comparables will be in line. If I look at the various segments, like there was no segment that popped. All our segments suffered destocking. The most significant two are the ones that I talked about, LatAm and beverage. There was no segment that was jumping. We saw the impact of destocking across segments, across customers. That said, what I think we can be really proud of is when we look at our EBITDA result, it demonstrates the work we've done in ensuring that inflationary cost increases were done.
That as we look at our product portfolio, we ensure we're focused on products that create value for our customers and for our shareholders, and that we continue to get a cost base that is advantage versus our competition. You know, volume is not the reason this quarter is ahead of last year. It's all the hard work behind it. If I look at the year going forward, I said shrink is much more robust than it was, and I expect all the segments. I'm cautiously optimistic that the other segments in which we participate will improve as the year progresses, and that earnings will continue doing what it's doing.
Okay, great. Maybe if I can just ask a quick follow-up on just the packaging cost. You know, I highlight two portions, a contractual portion and a non-contractual portion for price pass-throughs. You know, on the non-contractual side, obviously it's much quicker, on the contractual side, there's a fair amount of lag, maybe one-three months. Maybe if you can just comment on what portion of the top line roughly is contracted and how much of it is non-contractual.
70% of the business is contracted as a general rule of thumb in terms of the packaging business. Generally, though you're right that it's quarterly, but that those, they can vary, with some being shorter, some being longer. I'd say right now, if we're looking at raw materials, you know, polyethylene has declined a bit, but it's been relatively flat. I'd say the biggest raw material right now moving has been foil, which continues, and people may have seen that tariffs have been imposed on Russia, which will, I would expect and continue to put pressure on foil pricing.
The team understands the importance of making sure that those costs are passed through, and that we continue to make sure we find appropriate supply.
Okay, great. Thanks a lot. I'll pass the line .
Mr. Lapointe, there are no further questions at this time.
Thank you everyone for joining us on the call today, and we look forward to speaking to you soon.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call for today. Thank you for participating. Please disconnect your lines.