Maple Leaf Foods Inc. Second Quarter 2021 Financial Results
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FINAL TRANSCRIPT Maple Leaf Foods Inc. Second Quarter 2021 Financial Results August 5, 2021 — 8:00 a.m. E.T. Length: 56 minutes "While Cision has used commercially reasonable efforts to produce this transcript, it does not represent or warrant that this transcript is error- free. Cision will not be responsible for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, loss of profits or other damages or liabilities which may arise out of or result from any use made of this transcript or any error contained therein. " « Bien que Cision ait fait des efforts commercialement raisonnables afin de produire cette transcription, la société ne peut affirmer ou garantir qu’ elle ne contient aucune erreur. Cision ne peut être tenue responsable pour toute perte de profits ou autres dommage ou responsabilité causé par ou découlant directement, indirectement, accessoirement ou spécialement de toute erreur liée à l ’utilisation de ce texte ou à toute erreur qu’ il contiendrait. » CORPORATE PARTICIPANTS Michael Rawle Maple Leaf Foods Inc. — Vice President, Investor Relations & Treasury Michael McCain Maple Leaf Foods Inc. — Chief Executive Officer Curtis Frank Maple Leaf Foods Inc. — Chief Operating Officer Geert Verellen Maple Leaf Foods Inc. — Chief Financial Officer CONFERENCE CALL PARTICIPANTS Irene Nattel RBC Capital Markets — Analyst Mark Petrie CIBC World Markets — Analyst George Doumet Scotiabank — Analyst Peter Sklar BMO Capital Markets — Analyst Michael Van Aelst TD Securities — Analyst Derek Dley Canaccord Genuity — Analyst 2 PRESENTATION Operator Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Maple Leaf’s Second Quarter 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being broadcasted live on the Internet and recorded. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. Please note that there will be a question-and-answer session following the formal remarks and we will go over the question-and-answer session instructions following the conclusion of the formal presentation. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mike Rawle, Investor Relations at Maple Leaf. Please go ahead, Mr. Rawle. Michael Rawle — Vice President, Investor Relations & Treasury, Maple Leaf Foods Inc. Thank you, Michelle, and good morning, everyone. Speaking on the call this morning will be Michael McCain, Chief Executive Officer; Curtis Frank, Chief Operating Officer; and Geert Verellen, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some statements made on today’s call may constitute forward-looking information and future results may differ materially from what we discuss. Please refer to our Q2 2021 MD&A and other information on our website for a broader description of operations and risk factors that could affect the Company’s performance. 3 We have also uploaded our Q2 investor deck to our website, which includes support material for the quarter. As always, the Investor Relations team will be available after the call for any follow-up questions or any detailed modelling questions that you might have. And with that, I will now turn the call over to Michael. Michael? Michael McCain — Chief Executive Officer, Maple Leaf Foods Inc. Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. As we reach what I hope will be the home stretch of the pandemic, I look back with utter admiration at the resiliency of our team and of our business. Despite many new and significant challenges faced over the past year and a half, our team has responded. We’ve adapted and delivered, I think, extraordinary results. At the same time, we continue to advance our vision to become the most sustainable protein company on earth and continue building long-term value for all of our stakeholders. I’d like to pause on that statement for a moment, continue building long-term value for all of our stakeholders. This is increasingly important to me, as the largest shareholder of Maple Leaf Foods and as the CEO who is dedicated to our vision described in our blueprint for a future of shared value creation and a sustainable enterprise. There’s too much short-termism in the marketplace today and we’re looking beyond that. We hope you do also. From 2010 through 2015 we invested significant capital to transform our supply chain. We promised 10% EBITDA margins. We delivered. In 2015 we committed to pivot from fixing a business to 4 growing a business. We committed to create systemic growth engines. We delivered. And you can see that in our top-line performance quarter after quarter, year after year. In 2017 we made three more commitments. We committed to expand our meat margins from the new baseline of 10% to a range of 14% to 16% by 2022. We are on track to deliver that and see more upside as our London poultry plant will get to cruising speed after 2022. We committed to restage our core Maple Leaf and Schneiders brands for profit and margin growth. We delivered. And finally, we committed to become the most sustainable protein company on earth. We delivered. Now we’re the only large-scale, carbon*neutral food company in the world. Each of these and more are long-term paths to build value for all stakeholders. Our choice is to look beyond the short-termism in the markets and take confidence in our consistent track record of delivering on our commitments over time. Closer to home, we advised you recently to expect margin compression in our meat business in the second quarter of 2021 and soft revenue performance in our plant business in the first half of 2021. Both have been the case. Today you’re going to hear that we expect a full recovery in our meat protein business margins in the second half of 2021, beginning in Q3, and also the restoration of our revenue growth rate to our strategic target or higher in the plant-based business over the second half of 2021 based on a range of considerations. We have a track record of delivering in the long-term and we’re going to continue to do so. I’m incredibly proud of the results our meat protein group delivered this quarter, a remarkable 7.4% increase in the top line while delivering a healthy adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.6%. This adjusted EBITDA margin was delivered despite challenging market conditions, including the temporary headwinds we highlighted in last quarter’s call. The food industry always has normal ups and downs. In my 5 experience, it’s as important to pay attention to performance in the downs as it is in the ups. We faced these headwinds, for example, this quarter, but robust top line offset small margin compression to yield but a 6% decline in our total adjusted EBITDA off a record quarter last year with full recovery expected in the very next quarter. Now, to a person committed to long-term trend line performance, this is a very significant observation and this performance continues to be led by our strategic drivers as we progress towards an adjusted EBITDA margin target of 14% to 16% in 2022. In the plant-based business, we have invested significantly over the last years to be ready for growth to build long-term value, but we have had a slow first half for the reasons we understand and that we’ve spoken about after our last quarter. Curtis is going to dive into this later in the call. The pandemic has significantly impacted our recent performance, that’s for sure; however, our unwavering persistence and commitment to our strategic objectives have set us up well as the markets will begin to normalize. We are now starting to see a rebound in demand as COVID has begun to gradually abate and we expect to see a pickup in sales in the back half of the year. Of course, a lot will depend on the degree to which our largest market for plant protein, the US, will plot its COVID recovery trajectory, but I remain nevertheless very confident and excited for the potential of this business long-term. With that, I’m now going to turn it over to Curtis and Geert, who will share more operational and financial highlights from the quarter as well as our outlook for the remainder of 2021. Curtis, over to you. Curtis Frank — Chief Operating Officer, Maple Leaf Foods Inc. Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. 6 I would also like to begin today by acknowledging how proud I am of our team at Maple Leaf. Our people have been working diligently to execute our COVID-19 playbook and they have demonstrated expertise in effectively managing the operational challenges that come with running an efficient supply chain in what has been without question a difficult operating environment. A year and half ago, when the pandemic first hit, we quickly transitioned our business to adjust for the rapid slowdown of food service activity and for the surge in retail demand. We are now managing for this in reverse, albeit more gradually, as restrictions are being lifted and consumption patterns are starting to show signs of normalization. Based on our proven track record, the support of our customers, and the competency of our team, I am incredibly confident that we will continue to manage this transition very smoothly. Turning to our Q2 operational results, our meat protein segment delivered another exceptional quarter. This was driven by the strength of our strategic initiatives in sustainable meats and in brand renovation and, as a result, meat protein sales growth was 7.4%, an outstanding achievement given the fact that we faced significant foreign exchange headwinds from a strengthening Canadian dollar and that we were lapping the pantry loading demand surge from a year ago.