雅虎香港財經 Oatly Group AB (NASDAQ:OTLY) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript
Oatly Group AB (NASDAQ:OTLY) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript April 30, 2024
Oatly Group AB isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Operator: Greetings, and welcome to the Oatly Group First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. At this time all participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host Mr. Brian Kearney, Vice President, Investor Relations for Oatly Group. Thank you, sir. You may begin.
Brian Kearney: Good morning, and thanks for joining us today on Oatly's first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. On today's call are our Chief Executive Officer, Jean-Christophe Flatin; our Chief Operating Officer, Daniel Ordonez; and our Chief Financial Officer, Marie-Jose David. Before we begin, please review the disclaimer on Slide 3. During this call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding our future results of operations and financial position, industry and business trends, business strategy, market growth, and anticipated cost savings. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could differ materially from actual events or those described in these forward-looking statements.
Please refer to the documents we have filed with the SEC for a detailed discussion of the risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made today. Also, please note on today's call, management will refer to certain non-IFRS financial measures, including EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, constant currency revenue and free cash flow. While the company believes these non-IFRS financial measures will provide useful information, the presentation of this information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information presented in accordance with IFRS. Please refer to today's release for a reconciliation of non-IFRS financial measures to the most comparable measures prepared in accordance with IFRS.
In addition, Oatly has posted a supplemental presentation on its website for reference. Finally, as discussed on our fourth quarter earnings call, as of the beginning of this year, we have modified our reporting segment to align with how management evaluates the business and allocates resources. We will be discussing the business using these new reporting segments today. We furnished a 6-K earlier this month that has historical financial information for the segment. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Jean-Christophe.
Jean-Christophe Flatin: Thank you, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Slide 5 has the key messages that I want you to take away from today's presentation. First, we are making good progress towards achieving profitable growth. Every employee throughout the organization, no matter their position, region or role is squarely focused on strengthening the business and bringing us to structural consistent, profitable growth. And our first quarter results reflect the progress. We had a solid first quarter, and the year is off to a good start. As you saw in today's earnings release, we are clearly seeing the benefits from the bold actions we have taken over the past two years. These benefits are most clear in our gross margin expanding nearly 1,000 basis points year-over-year, as well as our reduced SG&A, which was partially aided by certain fees and selling expenses that will hit a bit later than we planned.
While we are encouraged by our first quarter results, we recognize that we are only one quarter through the year and that our three operating segments are in very different stages of their turnaround journeys, their maturity, their execution and the amount of traction they have achieved on the strategic actions. Therefore, we are reiterating our full year guidance across all metrics. And Slide 6 is our report card on how we are progressing on our journey towards profitable growth. As you can see, our volume growth is positive and accelerated in the first quarter. The total company's 3% volume growth was driven by solid growth in both our Europe and International segment and our North American segment, which was partially offset by the Greater China segment, which continues to reflect our intentional actions to refocus the business.
Even as we were implementing our turnaround actions in 2023, we grew our total company volume by over 3%, which further solidifies our belief in the strength of our business. Gross margin continued to increase sequentially in the quarter and was nearly 10 full percentage points prior than last year first quarter. s you can see in this chart, our 27% gross margin in the quarter is a significant improvement from the 11% margin we reported for the full year of 2022. We still have plenty of work to do to get to our longer-term target, but we are clearly making good progress. Similarly, we have made significant progress on our adjusted EBITDA. In 2022, we reported quarterly losses between $53 million and $83 million. Today, we are reporting a first quarter loss of just $13 million.
Slide 7 is a reminder of the strategic pillars we are focused on in 2024. Those are, bringing the Oatly Magic to more people, continuing our work on the calibration of resources across SG&A and the supply chain and focusing relentlessly on execution. And Slide 8 gives you a brief update on our progress on these three pillars. As I showed on the prior slide, we continue to grow our volume growth in the first quarter. We intend to maintain this momentum by continuing to expand our reach. We are placing advertisements in high traffic areas such as European train stations, and we are creating great tasting experiences and various trade events and coffee festival. We even created some buzz with a pop-up value at Milan Design Week. And as you may have seen, we are expanding our partnership with Minor League Baseball to make the Oatly Magic to consumers across the United States.
Next, we remain on track with our work on the calibration of resources. This includes the work related to our reduction of the company's SG&A fixed cost by $85 million as well as the previously announced discontinuation and exit of the manufacturing facilities in the US and the UK. And we are continuing to evaluate our options regarding our Asian supply chain. Finally, the entire Oatly team is doing a very good job at focusing on execution. Our supply chain continued their strong performance in the quarter, driving down costs and becoming more efficient, whilst keeping fill rates above 95% in every region. I also see increased fluid joint work across teams, across regions, and operating segments. While we can't quantify a direct financial impact to this increased collaboration, we know there is a benefit there.
As I said earlier, every employee is focused on strengthening the business and driving towards profitable growth. And this focus on execution is critical to our success, which is why before I turn the call over to Daniel, I want to thank our employees for their commitment, dedication, and focus to driving business results, while staying true to our company's mission. With that, Daniel, over to you.
Daniel Ordonez: Thank you, JC, and very good morning everyone. I will start on Slide 10 with Europe and International, which is our largest operating segment. Europe and International reported solid results in the quarter with constant currency revenue growth of approximately 8% and adjusted EBITDA that continued to increase sequentially to $15 million, which is approximately 13% of the net sales. Slide 11 gives you an update of how we are performing in retail, which is the largest part of this segment's revenue. On the left, you can see that we continue to observe a significant difference between the category growth in plant-based drinks versus the oat milk category. And we are driving our growth well above the oat milk category.
In the quarter, Oatly outgrew the category by 200 basis points. On the right-hand side of this slide, you can see this translating into strong market shares that continue to expand in most of our major markets. On Slide 12, we give an update on the food service side of this business. For some time now, we have mentioned our intention to seize the opportunity this channel presents to accelerate our growth. This focus has resulted in a strong 20% year-on-year revenue growth. You may have seen some of our recent communications on our new partnerships like the VR Railways, Deutsche Bahn, Swiss Railways, and Coffee Fellows. In many cases, leveraging the new tailored portfolio for the channel and for the occasion like the [indiscernible]. We expect these partnerships as well as the many others we continue to pursue to drive more growth opportunities going forward.
On Slide 13, you can see an update on our performance in new markets. Now that we have changed our reporting segments, our geographic expansion initiatives will be captured within Europe and International. As such, our remarks will include both the European markets, which we have historically discussed with you as well as the other international markets where we will be increasing our focus, like Australia, North and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Volume in these new markets grew a strong 29% year-on-year in this quarter. That is approximately 2 million liters of incremental volume, which is roughly equivalent to how many liters we sell in Austria every quarter. These markets now represent approximately 12% of the segment's total volume, up from 9% in the last year's first quarter.
In short, our focus on bringing the Oatly magic in a disciplined fashion to more people in more geographies is working. On slide 14, I would like to pivot the discussion from channels and geographies to portfolio with an update on our Go Blue strategy intended to expand the usage of our products by offering them more flexibility and a wider range of options that also help improve our margins. In this first quarter, this strategy has generated a net 7% growth in volume year-on-year. Slide 15 shows the lineup of the iconic Barista Edition new items launching this year. They are meant to continue to drive new occasions, new price points and new channel opportunities, which are very significant to us. So far, these items had a very good sell-in into customers, and several of them are already in the markets.
On slide 16, you can see that our new products, including the new outlets have hit the retail shelves across Europe and are already gaining distribution and driving trial, all of that in line with our plans. I turn now to North America on slide 17. Here, you can see that revenue growth has accelerated in the first quarter to approximately 5%. This is on top of last year's very strong 36% growth in a comparable base. You can also see that adjusted EBITDA made good progress in the quarter and was just below breakeven at only $400,000 loss. This continued improvement was driven by strong gross margin expansion as we continue to see the benefit of the strategic actions taken in our supply chain over the past 18 months. This segment has clearly done a very good job of improving its cost structure, and it has done also a very good job at improving margins, mix and focusing on execution while bringing the Oatly magic to more customers and to more consumers.
Slide 18 gives you an update on the retail side of this business, which is a little more than half of the segment's net sales. On the left, you can see that similarly to Europe, there is a very clear and growing difference between the performance of the plant-based drinks category and the old milk category. And now that we have our full playbook in place, there is a growing difference between old milk in general and the Oatly brand. This is evidenced by our accelerating share gains that we show on the right-hand side of the slide. As discussed during the last call, part of our growth plans in 2024 is driven by these new products, which we show on this slide. While still is very early days, our new products are off to a good start with several items already reaching velocities that are higher than competitive products that have been on shelf for much longer.
So again, it is early days, but we see some positive signs. Turning now to slide 20 on the food service side of this business. As we have mentioned in the past, we are aggressively pursuing new customers to expand and diversify our food service customer base and hence, drive stronger growth and better margins. The food service revenue growth in North America was approximately flat in quarter one. However, outside of our largest customer, revenue has grown at a very strong 35% in the quarter. Besides, I am very glad to report that we have come now to an agreement on new terms with our largest food service customer, and we plan to move forward on this mutually beneficial basis. This is expected to facilitate joint business planning and innovation, which will further build on our overall company profitable growth agenda.
I will turn now to Greater China on slide 21. On this slide, you can see the continued impact of the bold strategic actions we have taken to refocus the business on higher-margin products and channels while reducing costs. The segment has reported just a $3 million adjusted EBITDA loss in the first quarter. That is an impressive number when you also take into consideration the impact of the Chinese New Year holiday, where we don't ship product for several days. I am pleased with the progress we have made on the first stage of this segment's turnaround plan. However, there is still plenty of work to do to get this business, where it needs to be. For that, we need to build a stronger top line with a redefined portfolio and channel perimeter, which is the second stage of our turnaround plan.
So slide 22 gives you an update on where we are with this next stage. We are very excited to partner up with China's largest coffee chain. This started only last week as part of the Earth Day promotion. While it is for a limited time only for the moment, we believe it will provide additional category momentum and brand visibility to consumers. As we mentioned last quarter, sensitive to the economic context prevailing in China and the new consumer behavior, it was clear we needed to complement our portfolio with SKUs that could hit certain price points. We have, therefore, selectively launched these value products with several customers, and they are performing well. This helps us to build a stronger service package for our customers, drive volume growth to sustain necessary levels of capacity absorption and hence, solidify our margins.
The consumer environment in Greater China remains challenging. However, we are identifying opportunities to rebuild our business in a disciplined manner with our North Star being profitable growth. While it is clear, we have not yet gained the traction needed for this business to capture the full opportunity that region provides. You can see we're starting to make progress on the second stage of this segment's turnaround plan. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Marie-Jose. MJ, over to you.
Marie-Jose David: Thank you, Daniel, and good morning, everyone. Slide 24 gives you an overview of the P&L for the quarter. We reported 1.8% year-over-year revenue growth and constant currency revenue growth of 1.2%. Gross margin for the quarter was 27.1%, which is a 970 basis point improvement versus the prior year quarter. This came in slightly ahead of our expectations as our supply chain team was able to reduce our cost structure more quickly than we planned. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $13.2 million, which was ahead of our expectations. In addition to the gross margin strength, we also benefited from the timing of certain SG&A expenses. We estimate this benefit to be approximately $3 million. These are items, for example, such as planning for various professional fees to hit in Q1 are now expected to hit a bit later.
We also chose to attend certain Trade Shows that saw later in the year. Overall, we are pleased with our performance in the quarter. Slide 25 shows, the bridging items of our quarterly revenue growth. You can see volume increased 3.1%. Price/mix was 1.9%, headwind for a 1.2% constant currency revenue growth. Foreign exchange was a tailwind of 0.6%, resulting in 1.8% total revenue growth for the quarter. Slide 26 shows the revenue bridge, by segment. Europe and International continued to report solid growth with a 7.7% constant currency revenue growth, led by a 4.1% volume growth. North America's revenue growth of 4.6% was driven by a strong 11.4% volume growth, which was added by distribution gains and continued sell-in of new products. Price/mix was a headwind of 6.8%, consistent with the fourth quarter's level.
Greater China 26.8%, constant currency decline was driven by the actions we have taken as part of the segment's strategic reset plan. Volume declined 15.8% and price/mix declined 11%, largely driven by unfavorable sales mix, as we have eliminated SKUs that were higher priced but lower margin. Slide 27, shows you the drivers of our 970 basis points year-over-year gross margin expansion. The biggest item is a 750 basis point increase, driven by absorption and supply chain improvement. For those of who, have been following us for a while, you know that we have done a lot of work on improving our supply chain operations. The Ya Ya Foods transaction and consolidations of our North American co-packer network was a big step for us in unlocking margins.
We have also done a lot of mess newsworthy work to drive margins, such as, improving our inventory management to reduce writing of age inventory and working closer with our suppliers to reduce raw material costs as well as penalties and fees. Our net pricing and product mix improved margins by 150 basis points in the quarter. This was largely driven by the work we have done in Greater China to eliminate low-margin products. Foreign exchange, increased our gross margin by 90 basis points, and we experienced a modest inflation headwind of 20 basis points. Overall, we are pleased with the progress on our gross margin so far. Slide 28, shows our adjusted EBITDA by segment. As you can see, each segment continues to report a significant improvement compared to the prior year.
I'm pleased, that for the second quarter in a row, the some total of the adjusted EBITDA for the three regions was positive. It's clear, that the strategic actions that we have been taking are driving concrete results. Quarter-after-quarter, we have been executing our plan, improving the business and driving the business towards profitable growth. Turning to our balance sheet and cash flow on slide 29. The two biggest takeaways are that our cash flow remains on track with our plan and our liquidity remained strong at $401 million. The chart on the right is our first quarter cash flow bridge. As you can see in the quarter, our total cash balance decreased by $14 million. There are a few notable calls out in this chart. Working capital was a $19 million use of cash in the quarter.
It was impacted by the timing of payables, as well as the phasing of the inventory levels around plants upgrades, where we work down inventory at year-end and build inventory in the first quarter. We do not expect such a large headwind going forward. The over notable callout is around the cash flow related to the discontinuation of construction of our manufacturing facilities in the UK and US that we have discussed on prior calls. Overall, we remain on track to have the impact of this exit result in no more than $20 million of net cash out for the end of 2025. As we have mentioned before, this net cash outflow includes the benefit of selling some of the assets. As you can see, we received $14 million from the selling of plant assets in the quarter.
We also started to pay out some of the costs related to these exits. We expect these restructuring costs to increase over time to bring us in line with the overall budget. As you can see, the restructuring cost will flow through operating cash flow, and therefore, impact free cash flow, while the benefits from selling assets will not. We encourage you to keep that in mind as you evaluate our cash flow going forward. As I said previously, improving our cash flow is a priority for me and our organization is very focused on it. Our finance teams have been doing a great job of helping us increase the organization's focus on cash. This great work has helped us improve our working capital metrics, as well as increase the visibility and predictability of our cash flows.
On slide 30, we are confirming our guidance across all metrics. We expect constant currency revenue growth in the range of 5% to 10%, and we expect currency to be a small headwind. We continue to expect the second half constant currency growth rate to be stronger than the first half, largely driven by volume growth acceleration in each region. For adjusted EBITDA, we continue to expect to report a loss of between $35 million and $16 million in 2024. With one solid quarter behind us and the continued expectations that adjusted EBITDA dollars will be stronger in the second half than in the first half, reaching the ultra variable end of this tranche is now less likely. However, we want to see additional traction on our strategic actions. Therefore, we are comfortable we are affirming the range.
Finally, we continue to expect CapEx to be below $75 million for 2024. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we are now prepared to take questions.
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