Earnings Call: Q4 2019

May 9, 2019

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is Yetsuzu. Nice to see you all. Let me start with the business results for the fiscal year ended March 2019. This is what I cover today. First of all, I'll go over financial highlights for the year ended March 2019, followed by a review of previous midterm management plan since we started a new management plan this April. So then after that, I will cover a new mid term management plan through March 2022. Lastly, I'll cover the earnings forecast for this fiscal year. Financial highlights. Net sales were JPY 293,500,000,000 up by 4.1%. Operating profit was 61,200,000,000 yen It went up by 3.7%. The bottom income was JPY 41,200,000,000, up by 5.1%. And conventionally, we had the growth of about 10%. So overall, it is true that we see a slowdown in the growth rate. But still, we see a growth in overall volume of the business. And we have been maintaining the business as well as the profitability, and we can further expect a growth. ForEx conditions, this year was slightly on the stronger yen, which had a negative impact on the top line worth JPY 4,000,000,000. Last year, as you know, it was on a weaker yen. So compared to the year before, it was a positive JPY 10,000,000,000 impact on the top line last year. So that's where we are right now. Looking by regions. On a local currency basis, the Americas grew by 6.1 percent, EMEA grew by 3.6% China grew by 10.1%. Asia Pacific grew by 2%. Unfortunately, Japan saw negative growth. All the other regions had positive growth. China maintained double digit growth. Looking by business types and product types. So our core business, hematology, different businesses compared to the previous year. We see some delay in achieving the target in clinical chemistry and FCM. Looking by product types. Instruments is slightly below the previous year. It was 98.6%. Considering FX rate, it was 99.8%, pretty much flat to the previous year. Reagent business has made steady growth. The services enjoyed a strong growth because in China, within the reagent sales business, now they're shifting the business more towards the service business, and that's what helped to see the growth. Overall, we don't see any major issues so far. Operating profit changes. So we were affected by the increased sales to see the growth in the profit. And we also constrained the SGA spendings. It is quite natural for our businesses. And that this allowed us to generate JPY 2,200,000,000 operating profit. So we have been continuing to grow both sales and profit. As mentioned earlier, we have reconfigurated service expenses in China, And we are continuing to invest into R and D. And we also had extraordinary factors in the previous fiscal year. We do have some special factors every year, but then still, we were able to grow the profit. This is a consolidated assets and liabilities in equity. No major change in overall structure. Inventory is slightly reduced. We have been successfully reducing the amount of inventory. Liabilities and Equity, and the majority is basically retained earnings. Cash flows. Investing cash flow has been increasing a lot. Because of the biodiagnosis center that was completed and it's going to fully operate in this coming June. And that was a major CapEx we had. In financing cash flow, we increased the dividend to some extent. As a result, our cash and cash equivalents went down by about 10,000,000,000 yen Topics. 1st of all, within IBD area, we launched CN6000 and CN3000 for coagulation analyzers. This is only in Japan so far, but we intend to expand this product into global markets. In China, we have been preparing for the knockdown production, and now we have started the knockdown production. There's been the preferential treatment on the domestic product in China. So we will need to produce more domestically in order to participate into the tenders. So including other models, we need to address this point in China. We also started to offer network solution called CareSphere, and we intend to expand this globally. This can be a unique product and service provided by Sysmex. And equipment to detect malaria at early stage called XN31, this received a CE certification. And our subsidiary, Partic, obtained a WHO prequalification. In Life Science Business, using Asana method, we introduced new products. And this is business is going quite strong in Europe so far. Within the cancer genomic business, So we obtained approval for manufacturing and sales of NCC Onco Panel System in December of 2018. And its insurance should come in this coming June when we can start cancer genomic business in a full scale. Last year, 11 facilities were designated by Ministry of Health and Labor and Welfare for their cancer genomic treatment. And underneath, there are about 100 hospitals working for those designated facilities. So we have our subsidiary, Weekend Genesis, and there is a subsidiary of Roche offering the foundation medicine who conducts analysis in the U. S. And we cover the same thing in Japan. So that's the situation we're in, and we are quite excited about the situation to come. And we also have launched new products for R and D purpose in Life Science. And we also started to offer new assay services. And we strengthened our global R and D structure to foster early stage innovation. Already in Europe, also by the end of the year in the U. S, we will subsidize R and D facilities in those regions. In order to establish a global R and D structure, including securing the right talents to support R and D activities. And we established subsidiary in Egypt to allow us to start offering direct sales and services. By region, starting with the Americas. As I mentioned earlier, on a local currency basis, the sales grew by 6.1%. Especially in the United States, business is strong, growing at a rate of 8% driven by hematology and hemostaties. Central and South America and Canada are exposed to some tough business conditions because in Canada, there was a major deal last year, and we do not have this year. In Central South Americas, the Rush business has been relatively slow. Also Clear Weaved, we have launched XW product for this market, but we face spec issues. So we fully started to offer from Q4. And actually, the complete implementation was from April. So there was a delay in starting. In any case, we are thinking of how we can play more roles in addressing Central and South Americas. And the U. S. Is still staying strong. EMEA, on a local currency basis, the sales grew by 3.6%, which was slightly on a tough end. Relatively strong businesses are seen in the main five countries, the Western European countries, France, Italy and UK. Hematology business are going strong, and Osmo has grown a lot in Spain. But other countries, especially countries like in Russia and Turkey, we exposed the currency issues. The Russian business grew by 16% on a local currency basis because of the currency issue that put us in a very difficult condition so far. At the same time, we also have a strong business with Alliance Partner that Siemens is selling a coagulation analyzer, but still that is not going strong at this point. China. China grew by double digit. But instrument business saw a decline. It was an instrument quality issue we experienced. So we struggled through Q3. But now finally, we were able to recover and saw a substantial growth in Q4. But all in all, we weren't able to catch up completely. Reagent business has been enjoying a steady growth, especially driven by immunochemistry reagents. Also, knockdown production has started in China. So it's very important to offer Made in China products because the government is taking on the preferential treatment on domestic products. So we need to address that point as well. The market itself is on a solid growth. Of course, we see difference by different regions, especially the Chinese government is now trying to focus more on disease prevention instead of disease treatment. For example, in Shanghai area, they offer free health checkups for people with 68 years old or older, but they lower this age down to 55 years old, which actually increases the number of tests. And this trend, what we're seeing in many other parts of China, and we expect to see the aging society in China. So there will be more focus on the prevention of the treatment. So China still stays a very promising market from the perspective. Asia perspective grew by 2%, and the biggest factor was in India. From this April, we started to offer direct sales. In the past, our distributor was in charge of India market, but now we are taking a role in leading the sales activities. Of course, we do use some local distributors, but we are taking a main role, and that started in April. So last year, we basically lost all the orders from distributors. And that reduced the instrument business down by JPY 1,000,000,000 That was quite big. With these distributors, they were very weak in high end business, and they were doing pretty good with mid end and lower business areas. But we also want to address high end market by taking on the business ourselves. With the introduction of Modicare, India can be a quite promising market for us, so we need to make sure to capture such opportunities. In Indonesia, the National Health Insurance Plan was supposed to be completed this year, but they're facing some of the fiscal deficits to complete, and they're going through the election. Same thing in India. In Indonesia, Jokow Widodo won the election, but Asia Pacific can be a quite exciting market for us. Japan. So Japanese business saw slightly negative to the previous year because of the dissolution of the joint venture with Bio Meru. The sales with them had about JPY 1,000,000,000. That was all gone now. Also, I think there will be many new hospital being built, mainly in Tokyo towards the Olympics time. And the installations are expected for these hospitals. However, they were not done in the previous year, and that is now being delayed into this fiscal year. That's what we saw. And MCC Onco Panel, we should be able to obtain insurance for this Onco Panel to be able to start during this fiscal year. This is the earnings at consolidated subsidiaries. Overall, they are on an improvement trend. Inostics, they will reinforce the Asset Services. And they were mainly focused on CRO Business, which exposed to lots of fluctuations. And they were struggling in developing reagents. But from now on, they will be mainly focused on the asset services. So we started a new lab in Baltimore to offer LDT businesses. That should allow us to see the improvement. ParTech obtained PQ from WHO. This should help them to see the improvement. Weaken Genesis are still seeing some losses. However, the full implementation of MCC Onco Panel will ensure that they can turn profitable. Expected dividend. So we expect to provide JPY 70 this fiscal year. Last year was JPY 66 with also 50th anniversary dividend. And this year, we forecast JPY 70.3436 our payout ratio will be 35.4%. This is just for your reference results by geographic regions. Let me move on to review our previous term management plan that was announced in May 2017. So the year ended March 2019, we missed achieving the target, but we sustained high profitability. The reason one of the reasons was the quality problems that delayed the shipment of instruments. So we saw strong growth in Q4, but we were struggling through Q3. And sales alliance partners were sluggish. We are in a middle of negotiations with those partners so far. And we saw delays in obtaining regulatory approvals. FCM will be fully starting this fiscal year, but we also saw delay in launching FCM's products and also the China situation, many different factors to affect the results last year. And reagent business has been trending stably, so that helped us to sustain the profitability. And so we made progress on investing in growth, reinforcing our foundation for the future. Our core IVD business, we focused trying to sustain affordability while promoting investment into next core businesses such as FCM and Life Science. And that was one of our strategies. And we promoted forms into manufacturing and IT foundations, especially the bioreagin business would be quite important. In IVD, not just in hemostatitis but also immunochemistry, but also under life science and companion diagnosis area. We need to build a very basic foundational technologies and capabilities. That's why we decided to invest in a large volume. And now we are ready to get started this fiscal year. A new midterm management plan. This is for March 2020 through March 2022. Operating environment. Rubber expansion is expected for the health care market. The global population is continuously increasing. In emerging markets and development markets, their economy level is also on the rise. So that means there will be a market expansion. China, they are moving towards the Asian society. And the Chinese government, their main focus used to be on tertiary hospitals, but now their focus will be on the Tier 2 or Tier 1 hospitals, and they intend to increase more Tier 2 hospitals because they want to focus more on prevention. At the same time, that can be another potential for growth. India, who has a huge population, and Modica will be starting. So this market is coming up. It's more like late 1990s in China. In addition, Indonesia, they have natural health insurance systems. Africa, there are this is also another potential markets for us. Another point is the greater efficiency in health care. We have been trying to improve the efficiency at laboratories for many years. That allowed us to be a number 1 in global market hematology business. So we have strength in this area. In the developed countries, they are forced to the cost of be facing the cost pressures. So of course, because the aging society, the number of tests are increasing, but we need to address to be more efficient in those countries as well. And we should be contributing to that area. Regulatory changes and more stringent regulations to come also in Europe as well as in emerging markets. So we need to be able to address and meet all these tighter regulations that can give us a differentiating factor. Technological innovation in genomic medicine as well as artificial intelligence, how we can implement them can also make a difference. And this is our plan overview. We in order to reach our long term management goals set for 20 25, we have identified important priorities for sustainable growth. The most important thing, reinforce strong growth in IVD business. Secondly, we need to accelerate commercialization of Life Science Business. And also, we need to reinforce quality and quality assurance system. We also need to strengthen the clinical development capability. Now that we see much more stringent regulation, we need to be capable of being able to address such regulations. And also digitization is important. From a global perspective, we need to reform our business processes through digitization and also the focus on human resource management. These are our numerical targets for March 2022. Net sales, JPY 380,000,000,000 and JPY 78,000,000,000 for operating profit, 18% for ROE and JPY 40,000,000,000 for free cash flow, JPY 75,000,000,000 for operating cash flow. This is about reinforcing growth in IVD Business. We need to increase market share in developed countries. We have been quite strong in these markets. But with the introduction of CareSphere, we are trying to change the situation. As a leading company in this market, we are thinking of providing new things to the customers at all the times. And XN, our flat sheet model, we have at this point, we also want to launch post XN product by the end of this midterm. And we have this XW product so that we can capture primary care market. Also in emerging markets, as I mentioned earlier, we need to also address the Tier 2 or lower hospitals in China by introducing the right products, also through the knockdown production, so we can increase further products produced manufactured in China. And we need to cover new markets such as India, Brazil, Russia, Turkey. We will step up sales promotion because there will be a demand growth for sure. That's why we will focus on reinforcing growth in IVD business. And we also have haemostasis, urinalysis, immunochemistry areas. So new product was launched in haemostasis business, and we will also expand portfolio of reagents developing in house. Currently, we have alliance with Siemens, and they provide us reagents and we provide instruments. But basic selling capability is actually stronger by Sysmex over Siemens. From a market share perspective, in the hematology business, we have quite high market share. And among all the IVD companies, we may have the largest group of customers in hematology. So we need to be able to utilize this situation. In immunochemistry field, we are in China, Japan and Asian countries. And we need to further enhance the reagent parameters for those markets. This is also another exciting business, especially health scores are quite well appreciated by these markets. We want to go other markets globally as well. In FCM, we have newly launched products. So now we are entering into this market. Life Science Business. It's been taking some time to commercialize this business. First, with AusNet. We have been working on AusNet for a while so far. So we are applying for approval in China. So we are challenging a large market or new market. We are trying to increase types of applicable cancers at the same time. OGT, Oxford Gene Technology, they are quite strong with FISH reagent. So we are trying to create synergies in a global market with them. Cancer Genomic Medicine, utilizing NCC Onco Panel, we will ensure this business in Japan first. Liquid biopsy testing. As I mentioned, Inostics was mainly focused on CRO, but now we are changing the direction to focus more on Asset Services to be more IVD business. So we're going to have to, of course, apply for the approvals at the same time. And we are also launching CTC Systems as LDT and biodiagnostic reagent business to support our business. As you can see in this picture, we built this facility right next to our Technopark in order to ensure stable supply of biomaterials. Unlike chemicals, there are many more different kinds of biomaterials. And also, mixing different biomaterial can mean a lot to different reagents. So we also need to improve the quality and performance of reagents. And we will also try to accelerate the development. With the biodiagnostic reagents, the larger production can be a challenge. You can make a smaller amount. But when you go larger, that requires different technology. So right next to this building, now we have built a new reagent factory. This is right next to the conventional factory, so we can cover the demand at the same time. So through this, we will reinforce reagent development and production functions. In IVD business, it's the main focus will be on Hemostatitis and Mineral Chemistry. Under Life Science Business and Companion Diagnostics Business, those are the area we expect to see the demand growth to come, and we need to be able to address and cover such demand growth. So that's why we made these investment to be ready for that. So we can also make much better products and better service. The other thing is the regulatory affairs and clinical development capabilities. Last year, we faced some quality issues and caused delay in producing instruments. So we need to review this structure overall structure to improve that system because it's very important to improve the mass production quality. In the past, our quantity wasn't that huge. But now that we cover global market, we have to produce many more. So we have to think about the best production structure. And we need to reinforce Medical Affairs and clinical development capability. Another thing is digitization. We have to think about changing our business processes through digitization, and we need to reinforce this area. And we also want to change our HR management globally. Financial policy. This is, of course, quite natural for us to work on improving capital efficiency as well as generating cash flow. And this will result improved corporate values. So in order to strengthen profitability, we need to solidify and grow this IVD business for sure. This is where we are strong at. And at the same time, based on such a solid business, we will also need to invest into R and D, also potentially M and As. So we need to be making investment into growth so that we can grow our 2nd driver business, the Life Science. And so that way, we can further improve our profitability of the overall company. This is a quite natural flow as a business, but we will also focus on improving capital efficiency to improve the corporate values, while we will try to sustain our growth at the same time. CSR. This is another important topic. So we have identified some of the issues with materiality judgment and trying to address the United Nations SDG targets. Earnings forecast. Our forecast will be JPY 320,000,000,000 for net sales, JPY 64,000,000,000 operating profit and 20% for OP margin. These are the assumed exchange rates, and we need to make sure to achieve these numbers. And we forecast to grow by 9% overall. Dividend. We expect to increase the dividend for 18th year in a row so that we can provide 72 yen for the year. This concludes my presentation. Thank you for your attention.