Ontex Group NV (ONXXF) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

2025-02-19 12:27:02 ET

Ontex Group NV (ONXXF)

Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call

February 19, 2025 06:00 am ET

Company Participants

Geoffroy Raskin - Vice President of Investor Relations

Gustavo Calvo Paz - CEO

Geert Peeters - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Charles Eden - from UBS

Wim Hoste - KBC Securities

Usama Tariq - ABN AMRO ODDO BHF

Fernand de Boer - Degroof Petercam

Reginald Watson - ING

Markus Schmitt - ODDO BHF

Karel Zoete - Kepler Cheuvreux

Presentation

Geoffroy Raskin

Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining us today. This is Geoff Raskin from IR. I'm pleased to have Gustavo Calvo Paz, our CEO; and Geert Peeters, our CFO with us today to present the 2024 full-year results.

Before that, let me remind you of the safe harbor regarding forward-looking statements. I will probably not read them out loud, but I will assume you will have duly noted it. You're well aware that since 2022, our P&L is based on continuing operations, which consists of our core market activities only, while the emerging markets are reported as discontinued operations. These continue to contribute to our results and to the presented debt and cash flow figures in particular. As we close to concluding the divestments of all of the emerging activities, this should be the last year I have to say this.

With that cleared up, Gustavo, over to you.

Gustavo Calvo Paz

Thanks, Geoff. Looking back on 2024, the second year of our transformation journey, we can see the delivery of our efforts in our financial results, building on the solid delivery in 2023. Let's look into them on the next page, please. 2024 marked yet again a noticeable improvement in our performance. First, with continued revenue growth of 3.5% like-for-like, While in 2023 this was largely thanks to price increases, this year it was entirely the result of volume growth of 6%, growing by double-digit growth in North America, in adult care category in baby pants and in other selected categories.

Our EBITDA margin has recovered to 12%, back to our historic levels, thanks to the relentless focus on the cost transformation program, which allow us to gain competitiveness, thereby supporting growth and improved profitability. While we continue to make substantial investments in our growth and in our transformation efforts, we delivered a strong free cash flow of €48 million, a strong improvement versus 2023. Finally, thanks to the strong EBITDA improvement by 28%, we have reduced our leverage ratio further to just below 2.5x. This reduction in indebtedness give us greater financial flexibility. I will pass you over to Geert for more detailed analysis on our 2024 performance.

Geert Peeters

Thanks a lot, Gustavo. Let me start explaining the like-for-like revenue growth of 3.5%. This growth is driven by strong volume and mix growth and largely offsets the anticipated lower prices. Our volumes grew in all categories, 5.7% overall. We thus outperformed the growth in the market demand in Europe and especially North America. Let's have a look at the volume development of our three product categories in Europe and then also baby care in the U.S....

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