Porvair H2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
February 10, 2025
Skip to Participants
Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the 2024 premium presentation for Porvair PLC. Thank you all for coming. A much fuller room than we normally get. I can't think why that would be, but I'll introduce him in a minute.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

So let's we're going to run through the slides because we're recording this. So for those of you who've seen some of these before, apologies, but we will go quite quickly. So there is no change to the strategy, you'll be pleased to hear, nor has there been now for twenty years. And in the last twelve months, you see record revenues and profits and net cash position at the end of just under $14,000,000 We made an acquisition on the 12/04/2023. We haven't done one since, and so we've had pretty much a full year of building up our cash pile.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

So a pretty good set of results. And we've added, for the first time, the twenty year look as to what this strategy is capable of delivering. And as we say in the statement, you must make your own minds up as to whether you think that is good, bad or indifferent, but that's anyway what it is. In terms of the strategic background on Slides two or three, well, we make products that are regularly replaced. They're fully engineered, and they contain emissions, clean up processes and so on.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

And they're driven by these global growth trends with which you are all very familiar. The trick in running a business like Porvair is to make sure that those global growth trends are all running in the right direction. And as you know, the advantage of making Specialist Filters and some of the other products that we make is you have these very attractive business characteristics of niche positions, largely bespoke products for bespoke applications, fundamental demand drivers from the growth trends. And then quite generally quite good barriers to entry. Some patents, less and less actually, patent protection becomes less attractive.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

But quality accreditation and the fact that customers need to requalify if they want to change supplier is very important. And so those are the aspects of the business that we like in terms of what we the markets that we approach. You'll see color coded the three divisions, Aerospace and Industrial. And this slide, which has got rather a lot of information on it, is tries to get to grips of what we mean by regulated markets, what the growth drivers are and what the competitive advantages are. And of course, in our case, it is the installed base.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

We are one of those businesses which has very high annuity sales because if you are on the undercarriage of a seven thirty seven, you're going to be there for a very long period of time provided something disastrous doesn't happen. So that slide sort of full of information though it is really does describe why we do what we do and why it delivers the sorts of growth rates that we have enjoyed. You see the growth rates there, roughly half of what the group delivers. So half of what we do comes from the markets and the other half has to come either from acquisitions or new product developments. And we'll talk a little bit more about those in a moment.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

So strategy unchanged, the development of these businesses for the benefit of all stakeholders. I'll come back to all stakeholders in a minute. Consistent earnings growth is what we try to achieve, and then the entire management team has certain ESG metrics on which it is also remunerated. And that means focus on the right markets, a lot of customer led product introductions and allocating cash mainly to organic growth because that's where we get the best return, the odd acquisition when we can find a decent business at a reasonable price and a progressive dividend. So you've seen that before.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

Now getting on to then what trading the last twelve months really felt like. When we saw you at the half year, we were saying strength in aerospace and petrochemical, water is steady, the consumables business, both lab and industrial, have been a bit patchy in the first half, but we expect that to get better in the second half. And we were wrong about that. It didn't really get better, at least not until right at the end of twenty twenty four. And so the theme for the year was this continued destocking and reduction of lead times in the consumables businesses.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

What do we do in that case? Well, we continue to focus on margins, on cash generation, and doesn't stop us with our investments. So the ebbs and flows on the bottom left hand side there are as exactly as they were at the half year, actually. And whilst order patterns have picked up a little bit in the intervening time, I wouldn't say we are sort of out of the woods. All all aspects of the business are not yet pulling as we would like them to.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

But I've made that sort of comment to you now, I think, for the for four years. And what happens in Porvares is different aspects, like, ebb and different ones flow. So for example, in the two years post pandemic, aerospace was down, but bioscience was up. That has reversed in the last two years and so on. So there does seem to be a sort of natural hedge in the markets that we, that we cover, which means that whilst everything doesn't necessarily go to plan, the overall picture does seem to move ahead at a relatively consistent rate.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

And we'll perhaps talk a little bit more about that when we get to thinking about 2025. In terms of margins, cash continued investment, well, James will take you through that. ForEx against, he'll a little bit of hurricane, I wouldn't dwell too much about that, but it depressed our earnings right at the end of the year. We were surprised at how much damage the hurricane did and how poorly the insurers behaved. Cash, absolutely fine.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

There's a big CapEx coming starting to come through now, which we told you about at the half year in Metal Melt where we need to upgrade one of the lines towards the end of this year. So really no change from what we told you half at half time. So I'll let James go through the detailed numbers, and then I'll come back with some stuff at the end.

James Mills
James Mills
Group Finance Director & Director at Porvair

Thank you, Ben, and good morning to you all. So moving to our usual slide, which summarizes the financial performance for the year. Top left hand side and working left to right, Total group revenue up 9% year on year with revenue growth of 25% in Aerospace and Industrial, 7% in Laboratory, whilst we had an 8% reduction in metal melt quality. And as usual, I'll talk to the divisional performance headlines in just a moment. Bottom left then, adjusted PBT is up 6% to 22,700,000 whilst adjusted EPS up 4% to the 38.6p.

James Mills
James Mills
Group Finance Director & Director at Porvair

And we finished the year, as Ben mentioned earlier, with net cash on the balance sheet just shy of £14,000,000 So moving over to the income statement then. And as usual, this slide presents the adjusted results only and has ever details the adjusting items are in note one of this morning's announcement. So the 9% top line growth that just referred to delivered £192,600,000 of revenue. And as previously signaled, as Ben has alluded to, we experienced an FX headwind in the year and at constant currency revenue growth was 13% rather than the 9% being reported this morning. Clean set results.

James Mills
James Mills
Group Finance Director & Director at Porvair

These results include a full year of both Ratiolab and EFC. And if we were to exclude these acquisitions altogether from both years along with the FX headwind, then the underlying revenue growth was 4%. Operating profit of CHF 24,500,000.0, up 8% on prior year with the margin performance down 10 basis points to 12.7%, having taken a charge of 0.9% in these results for the hurricane work that hit Hendersonville towards the September. Interest increased to 1,800,000.0, mainly from the IFRS 16. Lease interest on recent acquisitions as well as the cost of borrowing as we drew down our banking facilities to help fund the EFC deal at the very start of this financial year.

James Mills
James Mills
Group Finance Director & Director at Porvair

While on tax, the effective rate increased to 21%, up from 20% in the prior year. And so with the movements in interest and tax, the 8% growth in operating profit delivered 4% growth in the earnings per share to Moving over then to the cash flow and pulling out the headlines starting from the very top moving down. So operating cash flow of £29,500,000 up 10% on prior year. With working capital increasing by £1,000,000 to a £3,800,000 outflow, cash from operations was up 7% to £25,700,000 Moving down then as presented at the half year, we invested £10,200,000 on the acquisition of EFC at the very start of this financial year. It was like a long time ago now, but it's still in this financial year.

James Mills
James Mills
Group Finance Director & Director at Porvair

So we've had a full year of EFC and we've continued with CapEx around the group with just over £5,000,000 spent, a typical number for the group, which for this year included around £1,000,000 for the first phase of the aluminium car shop upgrade and expansion in Hendersonville, which in total is GBP 5,500,000.0 CapEx project. So for the coming year, we expect CapEx to be closer to GBP 6,000,000 or over GBP 6,000,000 as we continue with that project, noting that some cash will just naturally fall into the full year 2026 when the work completes. Moving to the very bottom then on the slide, we finished the year with £13,700,000 net cash on the balance sheet and no debt, having invested just over £15,000,000 on acquisitions and CapEx. And as usual, these cash numbers at the bottom here exclude the IFRS 16 lease liabilities, which form parts of our reported position. A brief word on the dividends then.

James Mills
James Mills
Group Finance Director & Director at Porvair

In maintaining the group's progressive dividend policy, the Board has recommended a 5% increase in the final dividend to 4.2p. Okay. Moving over to the divisional review and a run through the performance headlines of each. And again, working from left to right, so starting then with Aerospace and Industrial. Revenue was up 25% to GBP 84,200,000.0 with operating profit GBP 11,800,000.0 and the margin at 14% at the lower end of the 14% to 16% target range for the division.

James Mills
James Mills
Group Finance Director & Director at Porvair

So within the top line for Aerospace and Industrial, the performance has continued to be mixed. Aerospace sales continue to be strong with a further 21% year on year increase. And petrochemical sales, which as a reminder can be lumpy, were up 37% year on year. EFC that we talked to had a really good start with the group, contributing over CHF 9,000,000 of revenue, at around 17% OP margin. You can see that in Note nine.

James Mills
James Mills
Group Finance Director & Director at Porvair

However, the margin performance was adversely affected by the relatively high proportion of petrochemical work this year and also by the operational gearing coming up through The U. S. Businesses with the reduced industrial consumable volumes, particularly in microelectronics. Moving across then to Laboratory, revenue up 7% to GBP 64,400,000.0 with operating profit at GBP 9,500,000.0, the margin just shy of the 15 plus target for the division. So these results, as mentioned, include a full year of Ratiolab, which as a reminder was acquired in July of last year.

James Mills
James Mills
Group Finance Director & Director at Porvair

And if we strip out Ratiolab from both years, then revenue reduced by 1% at constant currency. As expected, the second half performance was a slight improvement on the first. This really came through, as Ben was talking to, in the final quarter and supported in particular by sales from a new distribution channel that we have in China for CL Analytical. But with quieter demand earlier in the year, the business opportunity took the opportunity to work on a range of initiatives across the group, which included accelerating investments into the Hungarian manufacturing capability that came with Ratio Lab and various new product developments across the division, particularly with CL Analytical and K Biosystems. And last but no means least, metal melt quality revenue reduced by 8% to £44,100,000 But important to note, this revenue performance comes off the back of three strong years of revenue growth in the division.

James Mills
James Mills
Group Finance Director & Director at Porvair

Operating profit was £5,900,000 with a margin of 13.4 ahead of the 10% to 12% target range for the division, despite the business having taken a 900,000.0 charge for the hurricane. In terms of product lines, aluminium volumes broadly flat year on year. However, the turbine blade aero business had a really strong year, delivering record revenue for that product line. So again, it was mix and operational performance, operational excellence, particularly the business's response to the hurricane, which supported margins for the year and with another good performance also from our China business.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

All right. Moving ahead to ESG, we've produced this slide once a year only. Filtration companies generally have a pretty good ESG story to tell around curtailing emissions and so on. We have four metrics that we measure, very operational these. And as I mentioned, they all feed through to the general manager's incentive schemes.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

And so here are the results. I think the key thing here for you all to note is that within the ESG report, which we published today alongside the numbers, is the strategic framework on which the whole whole business is built, and it's probably worth reviewing that periodically. It is the it is the relatively short document that explains why we like aluminum and why we think that we need to do something about our exposure to the internal combustion engine, for example. So it's where we see the future. It's the planning framework, and it's worth it's worth understanding that.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

Once you understand that, you understand quite a lot of the rest of what we do. Anyway, it's published today. It's been a reasonable year, as you see there. You chip away at some of these things, and so far, so good. Now we've put a picture of Hooman up here, so you can all pick him out in a lineup.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

But we're not going to ask him to to say too much. He's been this is he's at the beginning of week five. He is very much on the learn and absorb stage of his new job, but we wanted to put up a little bit of his background. You can ask him questions afterwards. He is going to spend a little bit more time just learning, focusing on some of the new product development opportunities that we have.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

As you know, ordinarily, we list those they're all over the statement. We list those somewhere. So we just thought we'd stick them in here. We're not going to talk about them necessarily. As you know, they are critical to how we generate the sort of growth that we do.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

The attrition rate is quite high. But just at the moment, there's some stuff going on that we think is promising. And so human needs clearly to understand all of that. And as I say, when we get to questions, we'll stick him up here and you can fire away. So that's it, the summary.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

Summary of 2024, first of all. More volatility than we expected, certainly in the second half, but the group managed to work its way through that. We see quite a lot of near term opportunities. It is going to be a transition year, so Hooman and James will be finding their feet a little bit. And so the near term, we'll see.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

The longer term looks as good as ever it did. We see no change in the strategic outlook. We see no change in the drivers, the global growth drivers. We think that the businesses are executing pretty well all in all. And whilst there are near term economic there is near term economic uncertainty out there, there's no reason to think that the group won't continue to perform roughly as it has.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

And so finally, and forgive me for this, this is going to be my last set of numbers. And so I think it is worth saying so first of all, that's what's happened in the last twenty years. The reasons that it has are that Porvair has very well engineered products on the whole. It is driven by secular growth trends and annuity demand, and it has some outstanding people who, you know, on the whole, don't don't see around the group. And those don't change.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

And so I rather envy the new team, if I'm honest, because they have what I didn't have all those years ago, which is a much more solid base now than was once the case. And, you know, when I started, free cash flow was less than a million. At 50,000,000, I mean, you will all look at much bigger businesses than this. Right? But 50,000,000 is not bad as a as a as a way to start, as a place to start.

Ben Stocks
Ben Stocks
Group Chief Executive at Porvair

And so I think it's a very solid foundation for a for a new team. And I've absolutely no doubt that the best for Por Wer is yet to come.

Executives
    • Ben Stocks
      Ben Stocks
      Group Chief Executive
    • James Mills
      James Mills
      Group Finance Director & Director
Powered by Quartr
Earnings Conference Call
Porvair H2 2024
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections