Advanta Limited Q2 CY 14 Earnings Conference Call. July 28, 2014

Transcription

1 Advanta Limited Q2 CY 14 Earnings Conference Call ANALYST: MANAGEMENT: MR. NITIN AGARWAL-ANALYST-IDFC SECURITIES MR. CLAUDIO TORRES- CEO - ADVANTA LIMITED MR. MANOJ GUPTA- GROUP CFO- ADVANTA LIMITED Page 1 of 11

2 Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Advanta Limited Q2 CY 14 earning Conference Call, hosted by IDFC Securities Limited. As a reminder all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call please signal an operator by pressing * and then 0 on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Nitin Agarwal of IDFC Securities. Thank you and over to you Sir! Good afternoon everyone and a very warm welcome to Advanta Limited Q2 CY 14 post results conference call hosted by IDFC Securities. On the call today we have representing Advanta Management Mr. Claudio Torres, Group CEO and Mr. Manoj Gupta, Group CFO. I hand over the call to the Advanta Management Team to take it forward for initial comments and then we will open for questions and answers. Manoj and Claudio please go ahead! Thanks very much. Good afternoon and a very warm welcome to everyone on the call. Today, we are here to discuss about performance of our worldwide business. Today we are reporting our second quarter and half-year results for CY From revenue point of view, we have 10% incremental revenues versus last year. EBITDA has grown by 14% versus last year. This speaks about the strategy that we have put in place. Here, I would like to comment that this is highly seasonal business, therefore sometimes when we have analysis for quarter-over-quarter, we may have quarter where still the seeds planting may be going on. Page 2 of 11

3 Let me start from exports around the world. We have concluded the Canola season in Australia reporting interesting results. As announced last year, Australia is going to come next into the third and fourth quarter when we go into the next crop i.e. Sorghum. In the southern hemisphere, we have Thailand, Argentina and Brazil. Most of our crops in Argentina around the summer season are yet to come and also we have new plantings in Corn and Sunflower. In the North, we had a very good season for Sorghum in United States, where our strategy of moving into a branded business turned into a much more profitable business for us and we had very good growth in US. India is also giving good results. As we have discussed in our previous calls, we have issues in Europe as the crisis in Ukraine did not allow us to move our seed to Ukrainian Growers. The only other area of concern was Thailand where we had a very high dry season during the first half of the year and now we are revising our second half of the year. The growers usually plant the Corn in second half after the dry season which will give us the highest share in the markets. So, we are putting our efforts and trying to reverse the situation in Thailand and overall the business is doing good. In Australia, we had a very good season for Canola and we are expecting good growth from the Sorghum in the second half of the year. In Argentina, we had a very good rainy season for sowing. We are going through the Corn season whilst some of the growers have late liquidity problems. We are working towards those problems and trying to correct the situation. In US, we had a good growth and in Europe, we would be moving into Russian and some of the Romanian countries. As explained, Ukraine is not going to be available for us in the rest of the year. India is doing good as expected. In Thailand, we are putting extra efforts to have an excellent second half of the year in order to be able to recover some of our areas. We do not see any major competition in second half Page 3 of 11

4 of the year. We are expecting to maintain the same growth which we have been achieving over the last period. We are going to reflect the same in the second half of the year. That s all from my side. Now I would like to hand it over to Mr. Manoj Gupta, our Group CFO to give more specific details on the numbers. Thanks very much. Thank you Claudio. Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to Advanta earnings call. I will provide quarter and the year-to-date numbers. So, the good news is that EBITDA margins versus last year have increased from 18% to 19% mainly due to better margins on account of better prices, lower COGS and flat fixed cost. So, this has resulted in 1% increase on the EBITDA margins. In this quarter we have two important items to report, one is exceptional items to bring in more efficiencies on R&D and Nutrisun, we have drawn some efficiency enhancement programs and incurred one time cost to achieve the same t. Compared to last year our tax paying entities have performed better. As you have heard from Claudio, our Companies like Australia and others have done well, so as a result there is a slight increase on the tax number and rate when compared to last year. As a result of these three items i.e. tax expense, exceptional expenses and charging off Nutrisun and full long reach exp to income statement, we are a bit behind on a PAT vs. LY but the good news is that EBITDA percentages is up. Now let me take you to the year-to-date numbers. On like-to-like basis, last year EBITDA was about Rs. 88 Crores and this year EBITDA is about Rs. 110 Crores registering a growth of about 25% on six months basis. Sales have been up by about 11-12% and margins before inventory are up by about 16%, so overall it s a good performance. We have also taken a conservative stand on Nutrisun and Longreach by charging off these expenses to P & L account since they are on full Page 4 of 11

5 stream and going to be commercial. Till last year these expenses have been capitalized. Interest cost is more or less flat. We have converted lot of rupee borrowings into dollar borrowings which has brought the interest on to the same level despite with the increased borrowings to fund the incremental business. Another good news is that profit before tax has increased by 49% on six months basis when compared to last year. However, on exceptional items, in order to make the programs more efficient, we are incurred one time cost versus last year. Overall the Ist half has been good. Australia has done well in Canola and Sorghum and US also has done very well in Sorghum market. We have also reached new height on our branded seed in US. These are the major things which have happened in first half of the year.. Fixed cost is under control on the same level like last year. We continue to spend in R & D about 12% of our revenues. Longreach earnings have gone up almost about 50% and we are on a good growth path on our Longreach business. Few of my friends may recall that few years ago we have been investing heavily in Longreach and we have been updating that in two years time this will be a good return on investment and we are happy to state that we are on a good growth path. We are seeing 50% increases in our revenues in Longreach over LY. These are the few highlights of our first six months and Q2. We are now ready to take questions. Claudio anything else you want to add please? No let us go straight to the questions. Thank you very much Sir. Ladies and gentlemen we will now begin the question and answer session. The first question is from the line of Param Desai from IDFC Securities. Please go ahead. Page 5 of 11

6 Thanks for taking my question. What is the product line we have as of now and how many products you planned to register this year? Most of the new product registrations took mainly in Europe during the last quarter. And if you ask how much growth in each of our crops we do have I cannot give you the number today, because it is an extensive amount and we are revising our product offering. We are going to grow into a stage of growing or launching a series of new products in some of our markets.. We are looking to develop new Corn mainly for South East Asia and African markets and couple of Sunflowers in Europe. We would not be able to provide more details as to how many crops we have in India on the vegetable. However, it is very difficult at this point for me to give you the exact number, we can certainly provide the information later. Another thing, what is happening on the Sunflower program given the challenges we are seeing in the Ukraine territory, so do we see any slow down on that front? We are seeing two effects. One effect is that we are not seeing a decline in the Ukrainian market. Most of the growers in Ukraine preferred to take seeds from local suppliers because of political crisis and devaluation of the local currency. They were planting in the production areas but the companies that do not have a local presence like us get affected because of the currency risk and capacity to move the growers there. That is specifically to Ukraine. The rest of Europe, Sunflower has picked up and the number has come down and staying stable at the level. There is an effect coming from mandatory labeling that most of the European community countries need to follow at the end of the calendar year where it is not going to be enough just to label vegetable origin for that point It is needed to state which type of vegetable they used to produce that oil and because of the fact that several companies need to label palm oil origin we believe that companies for sure are already looking and we Page 6 of 11

7 also had several conversations with several companies on different sets of oils for those vegetable oils mainly coming from Sunflower. We do have in our strong portfolio high oleic, high stearic Sunflowers which we believe are going to have higher demand and we have some unique growth in that category. What will be the total R&D cost, so far in the first half? In the first half, Manoj, can you take that one? About Rs.61.7Crores. Okay and what was it last year for the first half? Last year six months was about Rs.47.2Crores. Where do we see this for the entire cost likely to go trend up? We are spending about 11%. So, for the quarter the cost is about Rs.30 Crores, for six months it is about Rs.65 to Rs.70 Crores and as we said that we are expecting about 15% growth, accordingly these expense and investment will also go up in absolute terms. Tax rate, it was 16% for the quarter, so one should assume similar rate for the entire year? General guideline is that we should have 20% as a tax rate because we are in cyclical industry and also each geography will have some high and low sales quarter. I think it is very reasonable to expect 20% as our tax rate. Thanks. That is all from my side. Thank you. We have question from the line of Mr. Nitin Agarwal. Sir, please go ahead. Page 7 of 11

8 Claudio, I would like to ask just a couple of questions. When you look at the second half of the year, do you think it is going to be more stronger business period for us to compare to the first half? Normally, the second half of the year is more important than the first half of the year between Australia, International business mainly focusing at South East Asia and Africa plus Argentina and Thailand, where we will have around 70% of the volume of our revenue. As I said in my introductory comments we are perceiving that the second half of the year is going to perform well as we will be able to sustain the growth. When you look at business from two to three year perspective, what do you think would be the big growth drivers for the business? We are taking a position as number one seed provider in the world in Sorghum and we also have good position in Sunflower and Canola in the most relevant markets. This is how we are going to leverage and synergize the actual crops we do have. We have a very strong position in tropical and sub-tropical Corn. I think it is Corn and some of the similar crops where we are going to be focusing. Geography wise, we are seeing a lot of growth in US. Argentina and Australia are more matured markets for us. We will be growing importantly in India, Eastern Europe, some of the Mediterranean Europe and Africa. Manoj, what would be the debt position, net and gross debt at the end of the quarter? Rs.930 Crores was our gross debt and net debt was Rs.856 Crores as at 30 th June end. Thank you. Page 8 of 11

9 Prakash Buva: Prakash Buva: Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Prakash Buva, who is an independent investor. Please go ahead. I would like to know what would be the research spend in the current year. How much we spent for the first half and how much will be spending for the remaining year as compared to Second question is about profit margins. Our profits margins have been very low at the gross level and the net level. Are they likely to improve? Are they likely to reach some acceptable level? Let me start answering your second question. The gross margin at the end of June was lower by 2% versus last year due to increased stock write-off and seasonality. However, we are expecting to grow at least 1% in our net gross margin at the end of the year after potential write off that is going to be happening. Coming to your next question on expenses, if you make the ratio of expenses against the revenue, you will see that we are running a little bit higher on efficiency, so the ratio is a little bit lower and also our EBITDA generation against revenue has a better indication against last year. We expect that we will be able to maintain the ratio towards the end of the year. I think we are running a more cost efficient and profitable business that we had in the previous year. What is the growth you expect for the next year 2015? What is growth in sales you expect and target for? We expect close to 15%. Prakash Buva: This year it will be how much, same about 15%? Page 9 of 11

10 Prakash Buva: My dear friend, as we discussed in the previous call we are here to turn it more efficient and more profitable. I will be ready in the next call to your questions more in terms of net gross margin generation and EBITDA. Thank you. Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I would now like to hand the floor back to Mr. Nitin Agarwal for his closing remarks. Over to you Sir! Just to conclude, we are managing our R&D investment in accordance with our strategies as indicated earlier. This quarter specifically we took a couple of actions in order to clean up that investment and revalidate some of the expenses towards where we need to be going. We have initial indications that we are moving into the right direction as our gross margins are moving higher and we are getting closer to 50% against revenues. We have a good indication over the last close in June where some of the business regions that we have been heavily investing; now it is being knocked at and we have started to receive the benefits which are Longreach and wheat business in Australia. We should start expecting about in a year from now on some of the other markets where we are funding like early investments in Brazil. Brazil is continuing itself on agriculture. Our forage business in India is also looking very good, and we have a very high competitive position in some of the important markets. Some of our crops are becoming trademarks in this forage market in India. As I mentioned at the beginning, the US moving into our own brand and dealing our own brand and own distribution network is also paying interestingly. Some of the investments do take a longer time to realize. I know there has been a lot of patience so far to our company but slowly you will see the fruits coming out of this. We are feeling very comfortable that we are on the right track and it is the invitation to stay tune and closer. We will see very good news and Page 10 of 11

11 results coming from us, consistent results year over year that is the name of the game here. Thanks everyone for taking time out and participating in the call and thanks Claudio and Manoj Thank you. On behalf of IDFC Securities Limited that concludes today s conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines. Page 11 of 11