Aquafil SpA

MIL:ECNL

Q2-2025 Earnings Call

[Operator]

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Aquafil Group H1 2025 Results Conference Call. My name is Zach and I will be your operator for today's event. Please note this conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand you over to your host, Giulia Rossi, Group Investor Relator, to begin the conference. Please go right ahead.

[Giulia Rossi, executive]

Thank you, operator. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Aquafil Investor Conference Call. Today, we will update you on our company's first half 2025 results. Before going ahead, let me remind you that this presentation may contain certain statements that are neither reported financial results nor other historical information.

Any forward-looking statements are based on Aquafil's current expectations about future events, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ from those expressed by the statements. For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, you should review the disclaimer in the presentation we issued today.

I will now leave the floor to Mr. Giulio Bonazzi for his remarks.

[Giulio Bonazzi, executive]

Thank you, Giulia. Good evening to all, and thank you again for attending our video conference. In the first half of the year, we achieved an EBITDA margin of 13.6%, a milestone that not only confirms our ambitious planned goals, but also demonstrates our adaptability and the effectiveness of our management even in turbulent times.

Our ECONYL brand products exceeded 60% of fiber revenue, further improving the target set for 2025. In terms of volume, we saw an increase compared to last year with different dynamics across the business lines. Fibers for carpets showed remarkable strength in the United States, recording a double-digit growth compared to the first 6 months of 2024.

In the Asia Pacific region, the market was somewhat slow, while Europe remained largely in line with the previous period. Fibers for textile performed below expectations, mainly due to consumption dynamics in the downstream sectors. Polymers, by contrast, confirmed the positive trend forecasted in the plan. The Engineering Plastics segment, in particular, continues its growth trajectory, both in terms of volumes and product margins.

In this regard, it's worth noting that the reclassification of some polymers from sales to commission work affects absolute revenue, making it difficult to provide a direct comparison with the previous year, but it does not impact margins. The results we have achieved raised our expectations for the future of Engineering Plastics, a market with significant growth opportunities. In the second quarter, we launched a major cost efficiency project that includes a reorganization of carpet collection and recycling activities in the U.S. This project will enable us to achieve significant savings in the coming years, with the first effect visible starting in the second half of 2025.

The initiatives will further strengthen our profitability and competitiveness in the global market. We remain optimistic about the second half of the year, confident in the results we have achieved and the strategic actions we have taken, despite the uncertain economic and geopolitical landscape. In this regard, we can reconfirm that the duties and tariffs currently imposed by the United States do not have a direct impact on our product.

Thank you. and now we are now ready to welcome your questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Tommaso Nieddu of Kepler Cheuvreux.

[Tommaso Nieddu, analyst]

I have 3, please. The first one is on the reorganization in the United States. So can you quantify the expected annualized savings from the U.S. carpet recycling reorganization? And also when we should see them fully reflected in margins? For the second one is, would be on your volume guidance because it seems that in the other guided numbers and more specifically, in the EBITDA, you are moving well towards the guidance range. However, it seems to me that the 10%, 15% volume growth for the year would be a bit more difficult to be reached. So perhaps I was hoping to get some comments about that from you and especially on Asia Pacific, which seems lagging a bit behind. And then [Technical Difficulty] can you explain the drivers of this rebound in the BCF segment in North America? How much of it is coming from market share gain due to the exit of the large competitor? And that's it for it.

[Giulio Bonazzi, executive]

Thank you, Tommaso. The reorganization in the U.S. carpet collection and recycling activities will be remarkable. But honestly, today, I prefer not to give any quantification because we prefer to make eventually a public communication given the importance of this action. But just to spend a few words, let's say that we are going to consolidate today's activities, which is made in 5 different locations into 1 or maximum 2.

This, of course, will bring significant decrease in number of employees, which have already halved in comparison with the beginning of 2025. And there will be another important diminishing of the number of employees besides, of course, a major gain in logistical cost given the fact that we don't have to pack and transport twice the materials from the carpet collection centers to Phoenix and from Phoenix to the port facilities. The new location will be in the neighborhood of the present one in Anaheim, so in California because this will also maximize the revenues coming from subsidies, which are seeing at different levels, whether the activities are California based or based in other American states.

And also, we will be closer to the port facilities so that we will, as I said, diminish by far the transportation costs that were pretty significant in the previous system. When we speak about volume guidance, yes, you're right. Certainly, this year is giving a very good, let's say, return in terms of margins, but still we are not seeing quantities bouncing or rebounding to the levels that we wanted. And this is also one of the reason of our major project for cost reorganization because unfortunately, we are still not seeing the market growing as expected for different reasons. Of course, the turmoil that the tariff war has brought during 2025 is making important, let's say, effects on the market. We think that today, the bigger volumes that we are seeing in U.S. are the result of a growing commercial market after years of stagnation.

So projects that were previously put on hold, they have finally taken off and also a very strong demand from the automotive sector, which is very likely a result given by the tariff that have been imposed to the imported cars, as well as we are seeing now a new wave of, let's say, favorable demand coming from the new tariffs that have been imposed to countries like India. You have seen yesterday the announcement of the 50% tariff, which is making, of course, shipment from India to the American market virtually impossible.

So yes, volumes are likely not to reach the original targets, but with all the actions that we are implementing, we think that for 2025 and 2026, we will finally reach the biggest part of our targets. I think I have answered also to this rebound of the BCF market. It means that we are still opportunities for further growing our volumes, even if now we are getting closer and closer to the maximum available capacity. So this, of course, will result in, more difficulties in growing volumes because of necessity of making some investments eventually.

[Operator]

All right. We'll take our next question from Dave Storms of Stonegate.

[David Storms, analyst]

I also just have 3 quick ones. The first one, I wanted to go back and ask a little bit more about the reorganization. If there's any more you could tell us about maybe -- you mentioned that you'll start seeing the impacts from that in the second half of 2025. Should we expect that to be a onetime maybe decrease in costs? Or should we expect those costs to continue to decrease the start-up costs associated with that? I would also like to get your take on the energy pricing outlook and what kind of input costs you're currently seeing maybe with regards to any impacts that the tariffs might be having on you upstream? And then lastly, I was hoping to ask about the outlook for margins in Asia, please?

[Giulio Bonazzi, executive]

I start from the third question, which is the outlook of margins in Asia that are, I would say, pretty good. This is because we have seen, in particular, starting from the month of March, a major decrease in raw material prices, and we have worked in order to retain part of this raw material prices decrease. So yes, as we have seen, we have lower volumes, but higher margins. So we are practically close to our original targets because of the higher margins that we believe we will be able to retain because partially they are deriving from the previous actions of cost reduction and further in the future, they will come from the new actions.

When we speak about reorganization, there are 4 major projects ongoing, one which is the reorganization of the carpet collection and carpet recycling activities. As I said at the beginning of the year, we were around 100 employees, and now we are at 50 and very likely, we will finish 2025 with a further reduction around, say, 35 to 40 and the new project will be to go between 20 to 30 once everything will be consolidated in one single location. Time-wise, we will take depending on, let's say, the capability of signing the contract for the new lease between, let's say, 6 to 12 months. So there will be a partial impact on 2025, which will continue on 2026.

And once, let's say, the activities will be consolidated, we will be fully resulting in the diminishing of the cost in the 2027 exercise. Other actions are related to a major reduction of cost below contribution margin. So we have carried on a specific study in order to reduce our indirect cost and certain, let's say, cost of activities that are below the contribution margin. And this is possible because of new software technologies available because of lower volumes, in particular, in the NTF business, which has caused a first decrease in personnel in direct labor. And now we are working in order to reorganize the different activities in order to strike also a reduction in the indirect part.

There is also another action, which is reduction of medium, high-level management that is coming because of some retirement or because of, let's say, the finishing of certain long-term contracts because people are getting old and they decide to stop collaborations and also because of some, let's say, resignment that has taken place in different parts of the world without replacing the new manager. For example, Roberto Bobbio, the previous CFO, has resigned from Aquafil, I believe it was February 2025, has been replaced, and I welcome Andrea Pugnali finally here physically because last video conference, he was just virtually present.

And we have not replaced him in our U.S. location. So this means we have one less manager in our organization. Another important action is in our Slovenian plant. Again, the nature of the activities of our Slovenian plant, which I remember to you all, it's our most important operation worldwide where ECONYL is located at. Because of the decrease of NTF, we are reorganizing the activities, working on maintenance direct and outsourced personnel and working hard in order to reduce cost of energies and other factors. The fourth action is a deep study on improving the efficiency of our energy system in Slovenia.

And this will start showing its actions from the end of 2025 and will be, I would say, pretty massive during 2026 and 2027. Again, we have a system that is very new. We have a system, ECONYL, which is seeing a new technology with still a lot of room for improvement. And we are now integrating the new power plant within our operation and this will result in further savings. Energy price outlook, if we look at electric energy prices, we are seeing the stock market prices in Europe decreasing.

We are seeing in China a similar trend. We are seeing a certain stability in the U.S. When we speak about natural gas prices, you see today that the price in Europe at the TTF market is around EUR 31 to EUR 32 per megawatt hour, which if you include all the taxes and transportation, you reach a level which is around 10%, 15% below our original budget. At the beginning of the year, in the first quarter, we were in the opposite position.

So we have started to recover part of the extra cost that we suffered during the first quarter of 2025. We have hedged some of this natural gas for the third and the fourth quarter. And we have started also to make some hedging for the winter season of 2026, both for our Italian and Slovenian operation because we think that at these prices, it is wise to start having some purchasing forward of natural gas.

[Operator]

So there are no more questions at this point -- [Operator Instructions] so the next question comes from Carlo Maritano of Intermonte.

[Carlo Maritano, analyst]

I just have 2 questions from my side. The first one is related to NTF. It seems that this year will be the third of a decline after the previous 2. So I was wondering when do you expect a rebound in volumes? I know that it's difficult in this scenario, but if you could provide any color on this, it would be useful. And the second one is on current trading. So I was wondering if the trends you've seen in the second quarter are continuing at the beginning of the third quarter or if you have seen any kind of change in the trends...

[Giulio Bonazzi, executive]

In reality, NTF is not declining, it's below our expectation. It's pretty stable with last year, which is a little less worse news about it. Unfortunately, in Europe, the final market is pretty slow. And this is resulting in -- despite we have gained some new customers and some new products, we have not seen the growth that we were projecting at the beginning of 2025. While in U.S.A., starting from February, as I have explained already in the previous presentation for the first quarter, differently than what we could imagine when tariffs were announced, we have seen a big drop in market demand.

And now we are seeing depending on a monthly basis, we have months, for example, July, we have got a very strong order intake, August, very, very slow. It is very unpredictable what is happening now in the market because it seems that the customers are ordering just when they need products. Sorry, there is a fly which is disturbing my presentation, okay? But I mean, unfortunately, we don't see a strong market trend, a strong market demand. We are still seeing a market which is, let's say, similar to what we have experienced during the first part of the year. So with months with a good order intake and others with a slower one. To speak about the month of July, August and September, July has been okay.

August seems to be slower. September, of course, we will see also because in Europe, in particular, it seems that summer vacations have changed in terms of timing. In the past, in particular, in the German Holland countries, they were more between the second part of July, eventually first week of August, it seems now they are more spread during the month of July and August. But in any case, we are still not seeing the European market, let's say, strong. Our customers are not pessimistic, but of course, we would like to see, let's say, a steady order intake flow, which during the first weeks of August, we have not experienced.

[Operator]

All right. So we will take our next question from the line of [ Andrew Lawford of Funds Cowin ].

[Unknown Analyst]

Just a quick question relating to working capital and cash generation. I see that receivables have increased quite a lot. If you could just comment on whatever dynamics at play there.

[Giulio Bonazzi, executive]

Yes. This is a recurring -- I don't want to say problem, but when our revenues are stable. Also last year, if you go back in the previous year, you see for June a slight growth of our net working capital, in particular of receivables, which is then absorbed during the second part of the year when we are normally able to transform into free cash flow all the EBITDA that we generated during the year.

So we are still confident to get to the numbers of the plan that was below EUR 200 million because, in fact, EUR 50 million, as you can read from the balance sheet of [indiscernible] net working capital are coming from receivables, EUR 5 million are coming from raw materials that we are now readjusting. We have imported more raw materials than previous years and used the suppliers with a lower price, but with shorter terms of payment, and that's why you have seen this slight growth of the raw material net working capital.

But I mean, it's under control. We are controlling every day. Capital expenditures are as per our budget, let's say, under strict control. So we are very much pushing in order to reach our targets. In any case, receivables is a good problem.

[Operator]

All right. So there are no further questions at this point. I will turn it back over to Giulia for any closing comments. Please go ahead.

[Giulia Rossi, executive]

If there is no more questions, thank you all for following the presentation.

[Giulio Bonazzi, executive]

And thank you also from my side. And of course, we are always available if you need further explanation through Giulia and Andrea tonight or during the coming days.

[Operator]

All right. Thank you very much, everybody. You may disconnect now.