Wacker Chemie AG Conference Call FY 2014

Transcription

1 Wacker Chemie AG Conference Call FY 2014 March 17 th, 2015 Dr Staudigl, CEO Dr Rauhut, CFO Hoffmann, CFA, IR Page 1 of 12.

2 Hoffmann: Welcome to the Full Year 2014 conference call on Wacker Chemie AG. My name is Joerg Hoffmann, Head of Investor Relations. As usual, we have Dr. Rudolf Staudigl, our CEO and Dr. Joachim Rauhut, our CFO with us on the call today. Please note that during this call we may make statements which contain predictions, estimates or other information which are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and certain assumptions and are therefore subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Some of these risks and uncertainties are beyond WACKER s control and could cause the actual results to differ materially from results, performances or achievements that may be expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. WACKER may not update those risk factors or the forward-looking statements made during this call, nor does it assume any obligation to do so. We published today our annual report, a presentation to accompany this call, a press release on our numbers, and an excel-file detailing our data. A written version of today s prepared speeches will be posted on our website about half an hour after this call. You will find all of this on our website under the caption Investor Relations. Page 2 of 12.

3 Dr Staudigl: Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to our full year 2014 conference call. As reported in our preliminaries in late January, we have seen a strong performance overall in 2014 as all of our segments reported gains. Sales increased by 8 per cent and EBITDA by 54 percent. This strong performance is the result of volume gains, cost reductions and price increases. Sales reached 4.8 billion Euros and EBITDA over 1 billion. Special effects of 206 million supported this result. In addition, our cost reduction efforts yielded about 200 million Euros with some tailwind from higher plant utilizations, relief on energy surcharges and reductions of energy costs. The full consolidation of the Singapore 300mm assets into Siltronic also added to sales and earnings. Our net income amounted to 195 million Euros, raising earnings per share to 4.10 Euros. For 2015, we now expect further improvements in Sales and EBITDA, when correcting for special effects. Given our level of confidence into 2015 and our good result for last year, the board has decided to propose a dividend of 1.50 Euros per share to the shareholder meeting in May. Siltronic has done a great job over the last years in improving its market position and performance. The business is now highly competitive, technologically leading and well positioned to participate in future growth in that industry. Financially, our cost reductions in Siltronic have yielded great results. Despite about 70 million Euros in lower pricing in 2014, the business managed to keep its EBITDA stable. Semi wafer demand picked up in 2014, supporting the business with higher capacity utilization. We are now operating close to capacity limits. The Siltronic business is a quality leader in its industry. It has just received its fifth Intel quality award in a row. This is a very prestigious supplier prize. It is an award hard earned with technology and not bought with lower price. We continue to focus on cost reductions and have identified further actions that help us lower variable costs per wafer. The integration of the Singapore 300mm asset allows us now to look into Page 3 of 12.

4 some alternative approaches taken to reduce costs and share best practices. This is easier to do when you are in full control. Longer term, however, the industry needs to either get comfortable with capacity restricted growth rates or needs to accept meaningful price increases. Price levels are now so low, that in this capital-intensive industry, growth by capacity investment does not pay off. We share the views of our Japanese peers, who talk about the need for better pricing. Siltronic is set to achieve 20 per cent EBITDA margins in the mid-term. What is holding the business back this year are the effects of currency hedges which were put in place a year ago, when the Euro was still stronger than it is today. Siltronic may be the biggest beneficiary of a weaker Euro in our Portfolio. You have seen that we are looking at various options on Siltronic. We are beginning to work on an IPO, but also look at offers from strategic investors. In our view, this is the very first step in a win-win situation. Eventually, Siltronic gets their own access to the capital markets resulting in higher degrees of freedom to shape its future. For the WACKER Group a separation from Siltronic could also be a good move. Capital intensity of the remaining WACKER business would decline, and a renewed focus on our specialty chemicals and polysilicon businesses will certainly help in driving the business forward. We will keep you updated as the situation at Siltronic unfolds. At Silicones we continue the migration towards more specialties. Based on our 2012 available siloxane volumes, we are making good progress towards our 2017 targets, with volume growth from our dedicated customer programs. While we make good progress on what we can control, the overall business environment has become more difficult lately: Our response to this has been twofold. For one, we continue to leverage our strengths in product and process development to provide our customers with tailored products that generate value either by improving properties or reducing processing or manufacturing costs. Secondly, we have worked hard to improve the competitiveness of our units. The biggest effects here are from operational excellence gains in Page 4 of 12.

5 siloxane production. These translate frequently into higher available siloxane volumes. While this allows us to fend off competition in standards or commodity products, mainly in Europe, it also increases the siloxane base and reduces our product mix gains in margins. Joachim will go into more details as he discusses the segment performances. Frequently investors asked over the last months on the impact of a lower oil price on our business. While the initial reaction is to treat this as a positive, maybe even as a windfall, it pays to take a closer look into our portfolio to understand the various drivers. In POLYSILICON, oil does not have a direct impact. For one, less than 5 per cent of world power generation comes from oil so it does not reduce demand for solar installations, which drive growth in this business. Solar today is cost competitive to gas generation. In addition, a solar installation locks in costs and provides essentially a hedge to the volatility of alternative energy sources. A solar installation effectively locks in overall costs at the time of installation with no variable costs involved for more than the next 20 or so years. This is also one reason why we have been so outspoken about the need for the industry to supply higher power density or more watts per module area. In Chemicals, silicones are a non-oil based plastic, so the effect on the SILICONES business could be via a GDP stimulus from lower oil. Lower gas on the other hand has an influence on Methanol, which is an important raw material for SILICONES. Given that SILICONES only compete in a minor part of their portfolio with oil derivative plastics, the effect on demand from reverse substitution is muted. Our POLYMERS business however, is more directly involved. About one third of the raw material base is ethylene-based. While the correlation between ethylene and oil is not perfect, we should expect ethylene to trend down over the next quarters. Our polymers dispersions on the other hand are competing directly with propylene or butylene derivatives, which boast cost windfalls from lower oil. Overall, however, we should expect a benefit, mainly in POLYMERS from the declining oil price. Currency effects on sales were relatively small. In 2015, FX should have a positive effect on most of our businesses. Should the Euro stay at Page 5 of 12.

6 current levels or even dip below parity, we will see a positive effect on sales. On the other hand, EBITDA will be influenced by negative effects from hedges. Joachim will provide you with more detail on this. Let me sum up: We are looking into 2015 with confidence. There are some unknowns, such as GDP development or the Euro exchange rate. In most segments, the volume outlook is quite positive. If I look at our shipments so far, we seem to have been shipping more than we ever have in a first quarter. Some of that may be due to a rather mild winter and the softer Euro, but it mostly relates to where we chose to compete. We expect to advance our growth further as we continue our efforts to reduce costs and serve our customers even better. Excluding special effects, we are looking into higher sales and EBITDA for Please stay tuned, as we will report on the ongoing developments at Siltronic. Joachim will give you now more detail on all business units. Dr Rauhut I will discuss shortly full year and Q4 performance, will make then some statements on Q1 and where possible provide an outlook for the full year. At 1.7 billion Euros, sales in SILICONES were 4 per cent over 2013 following volume gains and product mix shifts. Shipments of specialties grew overproportionally, reaching 40 percent of our 2012 siloxane base. Yet, last year started with pricing pressure and ended with weaker demand, driven by unsteady economies and crisis in certain regions. Additionally the competitive intensity has increased. As a result, full year EBITDA stayed just below the level of 2013, when adjusting for special effects that supported the 2013 result. Full year EBITDA came in at 210 million Euros. We are experiencing some headwinds as silicon metal appreciates in Euro terms. The main driver for this apart from the Euro devaluation is a draught in Brazil that has reduced power supply and as a result curbed Page 6 of 12.

7 silicon metal production. We are looking with concern into supplier concentration in tariff-protected markets and will be watching those developments closely. In Q1, SILICONES came off to a good start, with strong sales in Euros in all business units. We are somewhat wary on GDP development in Europe for this business. Overall, our outlook for the full year is positive, we are looking today at sales growth in the mid to high single digits, supported by an improving EBITDA performance. Our POLYMERS segment had a difficult time last year, as sudden tightness of VAM increased raw material costs substantially. Overall, our fully year result carried about 30 million Euros in extra costs related to the VAM tightness. Despite all of this, POLYMERS reported sales of over 1 billion Euros with an almost unchanged EBITDA year over year. Sales were up 9 per cent to 1.06 billion Euros, while full year EBITDA was 150 million Euros. We achieved this good result with significant volume gains and some contributions from price increases. Especially polymer powders saw good growth rates in emerging countries and strong demand in the developed world. Our fourth quarter in POLYMERS surprised us in volumes. Typically, Q4 is a slower quarter as construction and remodeling demand for our products declines seasonally. Not this time: sales were up year over year by over 18 per cent. Performance however was below 2013 as the costs of our VAM plant turnaround in Q4 with expensive external purchases amounted to 15 million Euros. Also in Q1 POLYMERS will see significantly better sales than in 2014 with strong volume performance in powders and dispersions. The full year 2015 looks good as POLYMERS should benefit somewhat from lower raw material costs over a protracted period. We are looking here at growth rates similar to SILICONES, so between 5 and 10 per cent for the full year with improving profitability. BIOSOLUTIONS reported full year sales up 11 per cent to 176 million Euros. Growing volumes and the consolidation of ScilProteins earlier in 2014 contributed to this Sales in POLYSILICON increased year over year by 14 per cent to 1.05 billion Euros. Full year EBITDA more than doubled to 537 million Euros as special effects related to legacy contracts supported this result Page 7 of 12.

8 with 206 million Euros. Excluding special effects, EBITDA increased by 42 percent as annual shipments only increased by 4 per cent to 51 kilotons. This reflects the combined effects of cost reductions and price increases in the segment. Included in our reported EBITDA are the 40 million Euros in pre-operational costs for the Tennessee site. Expect us to update you on this figure on a regular basis. However, we will not break the number down per quarter. Industry growth continues in 2015 as we now expect at mid-point over 20 per cent growth with global installations between 50 and 60 Gigawatts. Our capacities will not grow this much. Including the new capacity at our site in Tennessee, we expect to reach 80 kilotons of production capability by Our plant in Tennessee begins its ramp in the second half of the year, with budgeted pre-operational costs of about 80 million Euros. The majority of these costs will hit the P&L later in the year. We plan to ramp the facility in less than 12 months with a focus on quality and cost. As we see it today, 2015 will see little volume contribution from the new plant. On the other hand we have additional volumes of some thousands of tons available in 2015 from ongoing debottlenecking measures at our two German sites. Global demand for polysilicon is expected to grow from 265 kilotons in 2014 to about 300 kilotons this year. Supply additions targeting the growing demand for high-quality material, however, appear to be limited. At the same time, a weaker Euro supports our cost competitiveness in a market defined by dollar transactions. Q1 so far saw strong volumes with softer prices in US dollars. For the full year, please bear in mind that 206 million Euros in special effects supported the 2014 result and that we are looking at more than twice the level of pre-operational and ramp costs than what we digested last year. Taking some pressure on pricing and rising silicon metal costs in Euros into account, a clean 30 per cent margin including ramp costs is difficult to achieve this year. As you know it is difficult to predict potential retained prepayments and damages which could add to the result. Page 8 of 12.

9 Siltronic saw a good performance last year despite negative pricing. Volumes in semiconductor wafers increased significantly after nearly three years with overall flat demand. Overall wafer area demand grew by about 9 per cent, while 300mm demand increased by almost 12 per cent. Full year sales at the Siltronic segment were 853 million Euros, some 15 percent higher than in EBITDA was 114 million Euros, supported by the consolidation of the Singapore 300mm activities in the first quarter of This is a very respectable result given that prices declined on average another 10 per cent, and that we did not get much help from currency either in Siltronic has developed an impressive track record in cost reductions, especially in 300mm variable costs. In addition, our slow exit of smaller diameters at the site in Burghausen continues. WACKER has agreed to continue the transfer of Siltronic personnel into its chemical operations at the site, as operations are reduced in volume over time. Q1 at Siltronic has seen good volumes so far, with somewhat weaker pricing on 300mm. For the full year, we would expect to beat last year s result even excluding positive price benefits. Should the industry manage to raise prices, then that would be an upside to our plans. As Rudy said, Siltronic is now in a good position to compete in this demanding environment. We have decided to look into options on the ownership structure of Siltronic. This could be an IPO or a straightforward sale to a strategic investor. As our efforts unfold, you will find that there is a deviation between Siltronic Group stand-alone pro-forma metrics and our segment reporting. A major difference is that the Siltronic Group data shows the inclusion of the 300mm business in Singapore in 2012 and 2013 You will find, however that the numbers are very close to the unaudited pro-forma data that we have furnished in the past to enable a proper valuation of the Siltronic segment. One of the major differences here was the fact that through the at-equity consolidation that we used in the segment reporting, Singapore depreciation reduced effectively the Page 9 of 12.

10 reported EBITDA of the segment. You will recall that we have discussed this prominent accounting effect multiple times in the past. Let us take a quick look into the Siltronic Group numbers: this is how Siltronic would look if it were a stand-alone company. You will find that in our charts. You will see the amount of cost reductions Siltronic Group has achieved over the last years. Please bear in mind that from 2012 to 2013 and 2013 to 2014 prices declined by 70 million Euros each single year. Yet, the Siltronic Group was able to compensate this with cost reductions. In addition, you will see that despite difficult odds, Siltronic Group managed to actually improve its margins. Please also bear in mind that Siltronic Group invested 140 million Euros in 2012 and about 40 million each in 2013 and So the Group has actually been cash positive, generating more than 100 million Euros in the last two years. Siltronic Group is at a juncture today. Demand is increasingly diversified and no longer dominated by the PC, so cyclicality will be somewhat reduced going forward. The industry is operating at capacity limits, so growth in the longer term will only become possible if reinvestment economics are reached. In line with our Japanese competitors we view price increases necessary for investments. Another major contributor to past cyclicality in this business was diameter shift. Today however, 450mm as a new diameter looks at best like a remote possibility. We have started deliberations for an IPO of the business, but major decisions, like for instance which stock market to address have not been made yet. It is our plan to keep you updated on our efforts as events unfold. Now I would like to move to some housekeeping items. As Rudy said, with the devaluing Euro, we principally see some tailwinds in our sales and earnings developing. Given that we have been rather consistently hedging 50 per cent of our net currency exposure though, the negative effects from last year s hedges will wear off in the course of the year. Overall, exchange rate moves will have a significant positive effect of about 100 million Euros on EBITDA compared to 2014 Page 10 of 12.

11 calculated at 1.15 USD per Euro. However, only about 40 million of the benefit will effectively raise EBITDA due to changes in the hedging result. In 2014 we had a positive hedging result of slightly more than 10 million Euro. For the full year, we now expect depreciation close to 625 million Euros. Capex may edge up to about 700 million Euros. Almost two third of our capex will be for Tennessee in This is a result largely of the exchange rate changes as our investments in the US simply costs us more Euros today than they did half a year ago. In addition, we experience some inflation in the Tennessee project. At the end of 2014 prepayments reached 689 million Euros, down 19 per cent after regular amortization through shipments and unscheduled reductions that we talked about last year. We expect these to decline by about 150 million Euros in the course of this year. Net financial debt should increase by 200 to 300 million Euros in 2015, following our capex program and the continuing supply of polysilicon quantities for which we have received prepayments. Our net cash flow 2015 should be slightly positive for the full year, as we do not expect further substantial working capital effects. Liquidity at year-end was 520 million Euros, and undrawn credit lines amounted to about 600 million Euros. Our tax rate for 2014 was a high 46.5 per cent, as expenses in overseas tax jurisdictions were not tax effective on a corporate level. For instance, our pre-operational costs lead to losses in our North American Polysilicon legal entity. While these lower our profit before tax they do not offset taxes paid elsewhere. As we ramp up our activities in Tennessee, we now expect to see a tax rate of over 50 per cent for the full year Our statutory tax rate is about 30 per cent. We ended last year with earnings per share of 4.10 Euros. As Rudy said we are proposing to pay out a dividend of 1.50 Euros per share. This computes to a 37 per cent pay-out ratio, in line with our target of paying out at least 25 per cent of net earnings. Our cost savings continue as our cost roadmaps in our various segments unfold. Over the last two years, we have reduced costs by over 200 million Euros. We are targeting another 100 million Euros this year. Page 11 of 12.

12 Looking into the first quarter and given the good demand for our products, we are now looking at sales of about 1.3 billion Euros with an EBITDA of about 250 million in Q1. Forecasting for the full year, however, is more difficult as we see many moving parts that could impact our results. Full year GDP forecasts for instance are difficult today, as we also should consider the risk of Greece exiting the Eurozone, a potentially deeper crisis in the Ukraine as well as monetary policy changes and their effects on exchange rates. In light of this, we expect full year Group sales to increase at least by a high-single-digit percentage year over year with support from a weaker Euro. Following strong shipments and our cost reduction efforts, we expect EBITDA excluding special effects for the full year 2015 now to increase somewhat over 2014 to about 900 million Euros. Should some of the mentioned risks turn out to have a lower effect than we currently expect, and with some potential prepayment retentions and damage payments, we may be even able to reach one billion Euros in reported EBITDA for Page 12 of 12.