Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Zumtobel's earnings call for the first quarter of 2021, 2022. Let me remind you that you will find all relevant documents, the report, as well as the management presentation on our homepage. With me on the call today are Alfred Felder, our CEO, and Thomas Erath, our CFO. Alfred will walk you through the highlights of Q1, while Thomas will discuss Zumtobel's financial performance. After the presentation, both gentlemen will be available to answer your questions. With this, I hand over to Alfred. Ladies and gentlemen, very warm welcome. Good morning from my side, and thank you for joining us for the Q1 results. I just would like to start with a couple of highlights, what we have accomplished in Q1. Obviously, we are very proud that after nearly 1.5 years of the extraordinary situation, we are almost back to the pre-COVID level. Before Thomas gives you the details on the financials, I just would like to highlight a couple of those, what you see here on page number 2. Very proudly, we have received an innovation award for an outstanding system from our daughter, Tridonic, for outdoor illumination, with reducing light pollution and also reducing CO2 emission. We have also been nominated for the Austrian Innovation Award, and we are among the six nominees. You see a little bit our international efforts. We have been able to penetrate Walmart, which is one of the biggest key accounts in retail you could imagine in South America, starting with Chile out of our office. We are back out of the COVID situation in Hong Kong. One of our strong markets in Asia, where we have won two projects, one a refurbishment project at the Hong Kong International Airport and another one, a tunnel illumination in Central Kowloon, what we have been awarded in Q1. To illustrate also a little bit what we are doing now with the new technologies. We have two examples out of Switzerland. One was the Schweizer Zucker AG, the Schweizer Zucker AG, with the modernization of the factory, where we really have been able, with our solutions, to prove an ideal solution for the challenging conditions of this environment. The second one is the postal project, what we had, where we have been able to equip the center in Härkingen and the partners to develop a benchmark lighting system, what is not only very flexible but also illuminates the areas where they need to be illuminated with a combination of LED solution sensor technologies, what we have done. We have announced that we have put quite some effort in the pillar of sustainability, where not only we have established a dedicated team to drive us towards the CO2 neutrality 2025. Also that in June, it was announced that Zumtobel Group will remain a member of the so-called VÖNIX, the Austrian Sustainability Index, as one of the 19 Austrian companies listed here, and that are leaders in terms of their environment and social actions. We are very proud in that one, that we are remaining in this index. Before now Thomas goes into the details, I just would like to share in a nutshell the Q1 results. You see it here on this side, that we have been able to continue the positive development of the previous quarter. Obviously, Q4 was already a strong growth quarter with almost 10%, and achieving the results. We have been able to grow 15%, obviously knowing that the Q1 last fiscal year was a low one and clocked at EUR 289 million, which is EUR 38 million higher than last year. The revenues in the lighting brands rose by 12% to EUR 212 million, and the upward trend continues also from the previous quarter, and the gap to the pre-crisis level was significantly reduced. It's even better on the components level, where we grew at 26.1% at up to EUR 92 million. In addition to the general economic recovery, this positive development was also supported by customers who did restocking and basically have higher inventory levels, because obviously from beginning of this year, we saw already with the shortages and the interrupted supply chain partly that this is a trend. In that case, the segment is already exceeding the pre-crisis level of Q1 2019/2020. The development in revenues given by the different countries were particularly encouraging in Austria, China and Spain. Also the revenues in other countries, they clearly exceeded already the Q1 2021/2022 levels and exceeded also the pre-corona levels. That's also true for markets in Great Britain, France, Italy, where we have been obviously very hard hit by the COVID crisis in the previous year. EBIT-wise, we rose from EUR 7 million to EUR 20 million in Q1, and the return on the sales improvement from 2.8%- 6.9%. The gross profit for the Zumtobel Group improved to 34.6% in this period, and the cost of the goods sold was negatively influenced by raising raw material costs and incoming freight charges, what we have to deal mainly since the beginning of this calendar year. Positive effect also resulted from the decline of depreciation, amortization into release of some warranty provisions. The selling and administrative expenses, and Thomas comes to this, is EUR 80 million in Q1. Other negative effects basically included custom duties in connection with Brexit and increased ongoing freight charges. Please take into account that obviously we are completely out of the short-time work since January 2021. Obviously we are not anymore benefiting from any short-time work in the quarter one. The net profit increased significantly from EUR 3 million to EUR 13 million and the free cash flow declined to -EUR 9.1, primarily to the foreign exchange effect. With that, I would like to hand over to Thomas, who now guides you through the details of the numbers of the Q1. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. A very warm welcome also from my side. Going to the lighting segment, we can record increases in revenues of 12% versus a prior year quarter and sales total to EUR 212 million. The positive trend continued from the previous quarter and the gap to the pre-crisis level in Q1 2019, 2020 was significantly reduced. Following the good top-line development in the quarter, our EBIT more than doubled from EUR 6 million to EUR 16 million in the first quarter 2021, 2022. EBIT margin followed and amounted to 7.5% versus 3.1% prior year. Let's go to the component segment. The component segment recorded a massive rebound of 26.1% in revenues to EUR 92 million. In addition to the general economic recovery, this positive development was supported by customer restocking as Alfred had already explained, and that the customers take higher inventory levels because of the disrupted supply chain. With this result, segment revenue even exceeded the pre-crisis level of the Q1 2019, 2020. EBIT more than doubled from EUR 4 million to EUR 8.6 million and as a consequence, the EBIT margin was at 9.3% versus 5.2% in the prior year. If you go to the Group, we now show you the combined results of the both segments. As explained at the beginning of the presentation, we continued our positive development during the first quarter with revenues well above and EBIT almost 3 x higher than the prior year level. We are very happy with that. As a consequence, our EBIT margin increased from 2.8%- 6.9%. Let me now move to page seven to show you the main building blocks of our EBIT development. We're starting with the prior year EBIT of EUR 7 million. The group's absolute gross profit increased by EUR 20 million, which is a result of the EUR 36 million higher revenues versus the previous period. This improvement was partly offset by rising raw material costs and increasing freight charges. As I previously explained, the increase in selling and admin had a negative impact on EBIT. Above all, this was due to the absence of short-time work in the administrative block. Other operating results, besides excluding special effects, came in at EUR -0.06 million. As communicated in the last quarter, we will focus our reporting on EBIT starting with this year's first quarter, and therefore we have to consider the special effects of last year's quarter for the bridge of EUR 2.1 million. Consequently, our EBIT totaled EUR 20 million in the first quarter 2021, 2022. On the next slide, you can see our income statement. Here is not much to add. I explained pretty everything in the previous pages. The financial result was at the same level as last year at EUR -2.9 million. Income taxes of minus EUR 3.8 million. Our net profit was four times higher than in the previous year's quarter and amounted to EUR 13.4 million. Earnings per share increased to EUR 0.31. Let's now move to the cash flow statement. Cash flow from operating results increased from EUR 24 million to EUR 34 million, mainly due our improved profitability. As of July 31st, working capital stood at EUR 176 million, versus EUR 153 million a year before. Cash inflows from the change in our operating position were not very favorable, totaled minus EUR 12 million. This is mainly due to foreign exchange measurement effects from intercompany debt consolidation. Consequently, cash flow from operating activities decreased to minus EUR 0.5 million. Cash flow from investing activities basically reflected the prior year level at minus EUR 8.6 million. Free cash flow amounted to minus EUR 9 million and was significantly lower than last year, which is due what I have explained before through the changes in our operating positions. Let me finish my presentation with some comments to our balance sheet, which also shows our solid position. Net debt slightly increased to EUR 108 million. Our debt coverage ratio is still below one at 0.86%, and our equity ratio equals almost 33%, both more than well in line with our financial targets. In summary, this strong balance sheet protects our liquidity position in difficult times we are still facing and gives us more than enough headroom going forward. With this, I would like to hand back to Alfred, who will provide you with a brief update on our regional sales development and outlook. If you look at slide number 11, you notice already the sales development over the quarters. You see we have been able to continue the upward trends from the very low of Q1 last fiscal year, where we, as already mentioned, had a growth of 15.4%, of course, based on a very low Q1. Nevertheless, we see already since the different quarters that we are now in a very positive trend and the global economy comes back and has helped us in the key markets where we are in. However, the crisis is not over, and that means there's a certain degree of uncertainty. We have it currently again with lockdowns in Asia, where it starts again in New Zealand and in Australia partly. Nevertheless, the global economy continues to grow. On the other hand, we have the situations that I mentioned at the beginning on the raw materials, what remains difficult since beginning of the year for all the producing companies, and especially it's the shortage of semiconductors and raw materials like steel and aluminum, what create the challenges for us. This limited availability was also responsible for a reduction of capacity utilization of the Zumtobel Group production facilities. Now we are confronted again with a rise in transport costs, what we have to deal with. If you look at the next page, then you see again our regions, with the DACH region, the strongest region, growing by 4.8%. Here we have to say that the DACH region was better managed, let me put it that way. During COVID, we did not have this big shrinkage like in the others. Also here we have a significant growth of 5%, led by Austria and then by Germany and Switzerland. In Switzerland, we had an extremely strong Q1, and this year the projects are phased, and we are expecting the shift towards the Q2 and the Q3 in terms of revenue. Very strong bounce back in the Northern Western and Southern Eastern Europe with 24% or almost 27% growth. In Northern Europe, it's mainly U.K. and France, what came back extremely strong, and in Southern and Eastern Europe, it's the Eastern Europe market what suffered a lot, especially in the second half of last year, where we have a strong bounce back. Same in Asia. That what was coming out first also with the quarters in last fiscal year with a growth again of 37%. The critical is the rest of the world, which is the MEA region, which is still basically out of the U.A.E, somehow in a stalling investment mode with Qatar, U.A.E. Basically the focus here is on Saudi Arabia and especially in the Americas, it is the U.S. where we had a very weak quarter, and that results in a - 35% of de-growth. Nevertheless, we believe that we had an extremely good start into our fiscal year, and we are confirming the guidance that we have. The Corona crisis is not over. The material shortage will impact a little bit our delivery situation. However, we as the management board of the Zumtobel Group confirm the outlook for the current fiscal year, meaning that we still expect a year-on-year increase between 4% and 7%. We see the catch-up effect of the pandemic. We also see, like we do it also in our company, a trend towards high energy efficiency and carbon neutrality. We have, I think, developed, especially over the last two years, the highest efficiency products, complete systems where we help our customers also to meet their CO2 requirements. Same on the EBIT. I just would like to take into consideration that we reported a EBIT margin of 4.2% in 2021. Keep in mind that out of this 4.2, 2.7% came from one-time effects like the short-time work, lower marketing, and almost zero travel expenses during the COVID-19 pandemic. These effects are no longer present. If we deduct the 2.7%, the margin start is at 1.5%, and we expect the top line giving us between 2% and 2.5%, and another 0.5% following further efficiency measures, what we will continue, even knowing that we have done the main restructuring. That's, let me say, the issue, what we have to face in efficiency gains, also given the circumstances we are in with materials and with price increases on raw material. As also explained, the companies have shifted their CapEx spending due to the COVID, and also we have done so. Now in view of the situation, we are planning to invest between EUR 45 and EUR 55 million in 2021. It's a part what is maintenance activities, what we have in all our operations, but also quite a substantial part, which is the investment, what has been shifted during COVID-19. With that, I would like to finish the presentation, but also with a reminder and an invitation. We have communicated during our Q4 results that we will plan to have a capital markets day on October 12th, 2021, where we will give you a comprehensive overview on our revised strategy called FOCUSED[+]. Here, my colleagues and I would be more than happy to welcome you in person at our new Light Forum here in Dornbirn, where we showcase our full brand spectrum, and potential as an international lighting group on the area of 4,000 sq m. The capital markets day should be a great opportunity to learn more about us as a group, the medium strategy, and the latest trends and developments in the lighting industry. Not knowing how the situation develops, we plan to organize this as a hybrid event, meaning you may either join in person or online. You will receive the invitation, including all the organizational details today. If you haven't received the invitation to our capital markets day, please contact Eric Schmiedchen, our investor relations head, and he will be more than happy to send you the registration details. With that, I would like to close our presentation. Thank you very much for your attention. Now Thomas and myself are happy to take your questions. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selection. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question. The first question is from the line of Michael Marschallinger from Erste Group. Please go ahead. Mr. Marschallinger, please unmute your telephone. Oh, sorry, I was on mute. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. Congrats to this really strong first quarter results. My first question would be on the guidance. Given this really strong first quarter results, in my view, that the guidance seems very conservative, this 4%-5% EBIT margin. Maybe can you provide us some guidance on the second quarter? Given these semiconductor shortages, do you maybe expect some production stops in your plants, similar to automotive OEMs, or any major capacity utilization reductions in the second quarter? My second question would be on the orders. At the beginning, you mentioned you acquired Walmart with 50 stores, can you give us some indication for sales volume for such an order? Also going forward, do you expect any follow-up business with Walmart in other countries? Thank you, Michael, for the question. On the guidance, let me just put up front. I think we have discussed this a couple of times already. We, as the management team, and there's no change since the second Thomas is now our CFO on board. We have the intention to deliver what we promise. Obviously, you are absolutely right. The Q1 was, in that sense, outrageously good because 4%-7% is less than 15% in the quarter. You mentioned already rightly, we have seen quite some impact on the shortages of semiconductor materials. Let me explain what this means. That's true for the components, what we source for the lighting brands from Tridonic, but also from other suppliers. There are certain ICs what go into the high-end drivers. That only affects that one. Unfortunately, these are the high-end products what a lot of customers are buying. We believe we can handle this in guiding the customers to buy other products to do the similar job. We are also designing around that we can replace the semiconductors. We are in the good phase that we are not basically like the automotive industry in a position to close or interrupt production. We have done selectively for those products where missing parts are there, short time work to basically bridge the time. Looking forward, we believe that the Q1 will be more challenging, in terms of being able to supply, not in terms of not having the order book, because our order books, both on components level and some lighting brands, are full. We believe that the next two quarters will be a little bit more challenging, followed then hopefully by a Q4, what is again back to a semi-normal issue. You are also, I guess, witnessing what is out in the industry. The pessimistic view on the industry says that this allocation situation will last until the middle of next year, which would be beyond our fiscal year. Taking all these parameter into account, we believe that we can manage this, but we would rather stay with the conservative approach for this 4%-7% growth, potentially then that we are closer to the 7%, but we are not believing that we can ship everything what we have currently in our order book. The second one on the orders. The Walmart deal, the 50 stores is in the range of EUR 3 million. Here, what we do. Walmart obviously is a target for us, which is a different dimension compared to the Lidls, Aldis, what we do in Europe. We are basically, of course, seeing this as a first enroll. We are doing business in Mexico, and we also are targeting to penetrate this in the U.S. That is one of our target accounts where we would like to sell our high-end ECOOS solutions. Okay. Understood. Thank you very much. Next question is from the line of Markus Remis from RBI. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good morning, Gents. First question relates to the pricing versus volume bridge. I think in the last call, you indicated that the bulk of the increase in this year should stem from volumes, while prices should be rather stable. Is that still the case? How do you consider your pricing policy against the backdrop of this quite substantial cost inflation you're seeing? Is there scope for price increases as we move into the next quarters? Yes. Thank you very much for this question. You are absolutely right. The major increase in gross profit came through volume and not very much came in through higher prices. Increased prices are out. It just takes a little bit until they take effect as we have arrangements with customers valid for one year, that we have quotes which are valid for three months. The price increases are necessary. In the component segment, we increased prices roughly by 5%, and in the lighting brands, there will be an even higher price increase in the coming months. It takes time until it gains momentum. Maybe in addition to that, what Thomas said, obviously the customers are facing the challenges not only from us as suppliers, but from everywhere where certain material prices increase. As Thomas said, we have a couple of framework contracts where we have annual contracts where we are obliged to keep the prices. Now we expect that the different price increases, what we have already published to the market are paying off, and we are seeing the results in the quarters to come. All right. Is it fair to assume that, I don't know, maybe then in your Q3, there will be an initial impact, and that then builds into Q4 and early next year? We are expecting it already, because what we have done, as I said, this price increase. The raw material price increase we see already since end of the calendar year. We have done a first increase already in April timeframe, what partly is showing some small effects now. We are expecting that now within this quarter one, we are seeing the effect. Then a higher effect in three and four. Maybe I can add some sentences. If you look at the Tridonic development, you saw in the last year, an EBIT margin of about 14%. Now it came down to 9%. Also on the inbound raw materials, we have a delayed effect. It takes also three months that the price increases we are facing are coming to our P&L. Yep. Fair point. Broadly speaking, we're hearing from a couple of companies that they perceive the cost inflation as peaking. Not kind of reversing already, but kind of plateauing, if you want. Is that an observation you would subscribe to? Well, I would also say, the cost inflation is at its peak. If nothing major changes in the economy, which you never know, we would think that prices will erode a little bit in the coming months. Especially, we expect that also the freight rates are coming down, but we are expecting this now for some months. If you just look into that, what we received as an information in an indicator from the automotive industry, it looked like that in China, what is a trend setter here, the peak has already been reached and we are seeing a start of the erosion or start of cancellation of orders, which is an indicator, a very early indicator, that maybe this allocation comes to an end. Fact is today that we have to deal at least until the end of quarter one, which is almost our fiscal year quarter four, with the situation where we are in. Okay. Just a clarification on the semiconductor shortage. You said you specifically are impacted on the high-end drivers where you basically had to digest some production standstills, this is more of in certain product pockets, if I understood correctly? Yep. Is that the message? Correct. Okay. there's no broader based impact. No on your production schedule. Okay. All right. No. Basically, if customers do only want good light, high quality light, high efficiency light with a simply switch on, switch off, we are not having a shortage. The semiconductor, what are in those drivers are all controllable drivers where it needs to be dimmed, connected with sensors and stuff like this. Here we have the shortage on semiconductors. Obviously the teams are now trying to convince their customers does not need all this to supply them with other products what we have, where we have no shortage. Also the short-term work is only for those components where we have the shortage, not for the rest. Right. Okay. Then just a technical question on your depreciation level, which was quite low from my perspective. Also against the run rate of the preceding quarters. I know in Q2, Q3, we had some impairments in there, is there a specific reason why it came down so strongly? Is that the run rate we can pencil in for the next quarters? In Q4 it was EUR 18 million and in the first quarter it was just EUR 13.5 million. Well, I think, we had some write-offs last year in the fourth quarter. I would say, this depreciation and amortization level is more accurate than last year's. In the fourth quarter. Okay. I thought it was only Q2 and Q3. Okay, I'll take that as a run rate. Thank you. Yeah. Next question is from the line of Charlotte Friedrichs from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Hello. Thank you for taking my question. Just one follow-up. Can you give us an update on how the components segment is doing now in the second quarter? Do you still see much stocking behavior on the client side, or has this now reached a level where clients feel comfortable with their level of inventories? It has reached a normal level. It's still on the high end of order intake. Obviously, we had a peak. When you do price increases and you announce it to the customers, they still have the chance then to place orders for lower prices, what they did. We saw this peak, and then it went down significantly. Now it has stabilized to a normal level, but also indicates that the market is still healthy and the customers are needing the components. To answer your question, we believe that the Q2 will be not that strong like the Q1 in terms of the bounce back. Depending on how much we are able to ship, it will be, let me say, a normal quarter. The order book is extremely healthy because we have a lot of backlog to work off, but the order entry is back at normal levels. Understood. The backlog that you have, roughly, with the current situation, how many months of production is that worth? Oh, now a difficult question. Very roughly. is now that we have orders visibility what goes into January because the customers have placed orders, what lasts to secure their supply for six to nine months. I think we have now a backlog what lasts at least into the next calendar year. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. There are no further questions at this time, and I would like to hand back to Alfred Felder for closing comments. Please go ahead. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much again for listening to us, to our Q1 results, also for your questions. Just one more time, extend the invitation for the Capital Markets Week, either online or physically. Of course, we would love to host you here and show you on site what we have to offer. Thank you very much and have a good day. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.
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