Zotefoams (LSE:ZTF) — Interim Results

0:01 Good afternoon, and welcome to the ZOTEFOAMS PLC interim results investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged. It can be submitted at any time via the q and a tab situated in the right hand corner of your screen. Just click q and a, scroll to the bottom, type your question, and press send. Company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. Have the company review all questions submitted today and publish responses where appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to David Sterling, CEO, and Gary McGrath, CFO. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Thanks, Paul. Thanks, Paul. I hope everyone can see the presentation. So assuming you can't, I will just click through the slides. And as Paul said, if you submit a question at any time, we will probably keep the answers to the end and allow us to run through the presentation first.

0:59 So where I'd like to start is just a reminder of how we think about our business. We have two main technologies, auto cloud technology, which accounts for 98% of sales, and then extrusion technology in which our new cell process is based. Within autoclave technology, we have polyolefin foams, which take polyethylene as the main raw material and using that unique process, foam it to very lightweights or with specific properties, additives, etcetera for mainly technical markets. In high performance products, we're using the same asset base, the same multi class technology, but starting with different raw materials.

1:49 Those raw materials have different properties, and the properties appear in the form in the attributes such as fire retardant or very good energy management, chemical resistance, durability, temperature resistance, etcetera. So our basic technology can be used for for both polyolefins and HPP, and new cell technology is typically using other people's machinery and equipment with our added forming technology put on there, and we'll talk about that in a bit of detail later. Our purpose is to use that technology to provide optimal material solutions for the benefit of society.

2:42 This means that when we are thinking about the markets that we go into, what our solutions do,

2:48 it's thinking about what the alternatives are as well. And we believe that plastics can, in many cases, be the optimal solution, particularly when you're using less or the solution is durable and lasting a long time and end of life recycled. So we look at all of these things when we're promoting our products, and our strategy is really to use that technology to deliver organic growth over the long term and in particular, mix enrichment through higher value added products, most notably HPP, which using, again, the same technology, but we got much higher selling price per unit of foam, and that gives us a better product mix over the long term.

3:40 Our twenty twenty two first half results have been pretty good. Revenue up 23%, profit up about 40% on the adjusted method that the analysts use or, you know, standard profit, I think, is is 41%. Earnings per share, 43%, and a decent cash position debt position. Gary will talk us through the numbers in a bit more detail, so I won't belabor those at the moment. And we think about the how how the business has performed, the strategic highlights, you know, we're looking at that sustainable organic growth, mix enrichment. We have had a strong performance in the polyolefin side with volumes up 4% and pricing on average up over 20%.

4:34 And in particular, utilizing our new facility, a relatively new facility in Poland to serve customers in Continental Europe, giving us much better reach there. In our HPP business, we're seeing a return to growth from the aviation sector. That's been particularly difficult over the past few years. And although we're starting at a low base, it's finally starting to move in the right direction. Certainly continued good demand in footwear products. And in our new technology, new cell business, one of the high risk but very high opportunity potentials is resource consumer packaging. We'll talk about that later, but one of the highlights in the period is the granting of a key patent in The US in relation to that.

5:27 So these are all things which, you know, think about the strategic progress for the future.

5:36 Where that leaves the business at the half year is a fairly well diversified geographically and and by industry. We don't update the revenue by industry at the half year, but that's substantially the same proportions as we saw last year. And by business unit, you can see polyolefin about 60%, just shy of 60, HPP about 40%, and new cell development business. And from HPP and and polyolefin, the split geographically is not notably different than it was in prior periods, although you can see North America performing pretty well in that period. UK, even though we're a UK company, only about 10% of sales. And when we talk through our results, obviously, is an important factor there.

6:30 So I'll hand over now to Gary to talk us through the financials, and I'll come back and cover business units in a bit more detail later in the presentation. Thanks, David. So start off with the abbreviated income statement. David will break down revenue a bit more in the coming slides, but top top level, 23% growth, 10,800,000 additional sales period to period. 4% of that was volume, and 1,100,000 of it was was FX, and the rest of it, a sizable proportion was the was a number of multiple a number of price rises, the last one being a surcharge, which we'll we'll talk about later, no doubt. Gross profit, up 3,200,000, and that that led to a 28.9% profit margin.

7:22 The primary drivers, of movement within there, the pricing and then, polymer pricing and energy costs. Polymer polymer pricing stabilized. Energy costs are still going up. Got a slide on that, in a couple of slides time, so I'll I'll I'll dive into there a bit later and just move straight onto onto the margin. The interesting point in the margin, it's the same as as last year, but if you actually look at it on a half yearly basis, h 02/21 was 24%. The full year was 26.4%.

7:55 And here, we're reporting 28.9%. We do have currency in there. If took the currency out, we're at about 27%. So we are moving sequentially up. And indeed, if you just look at the contribution margin sales less direct input costs, we've got about a 6% margin movement since the beginning beginning of the year to now. That's averaged out, so you'll see that, additional margin benefit flow through, into h two subject to, movements elsewhere. Between margin and operating profit, we have we have distribution and admin. Distribution didn't really move very much, 3% up period on period from 5,700,000 sorry, from yep. 3% up. That really, there are some there are some additional costs in there, of course, but we've done quite well on certain areas of focus around optimizing costs.

8:50 The primary one really being around our management of, of off-site inventory, bringing that which we which we obviously pay for, bringing that on-site, finding optimal ways to use that use space on-site in Croydon, but also Poland, which is giving us the ability to store over there and so and service our Mainland Europe customers and thereby store that inventory over there. So some good optimization work there in distribution sorry, in in administration. The numbers on the p and l suggest a 19% increase. If you strip out the hedging movements, which are held within admin, that's a 9% increase, reflects, obviously, other underlying inflationary pressures around around people, etcetera, but also a little bit more investment into overseas, primarily The US.

9:42 All that yields a profit before tax of 5,800,000, which includes about a million of FX against against last year before. So reported 41% increase. The tax charge really is just a a matter of of taking the the PBT and applying the tax rates that are estimated at the time as as is per the IFRS requirement. The tax rate estimated last year was 21%. This year is 20%. So, that's where you get your 35% increase from, last year to this period. And and and what that I suppose more inter very interestingly is the adjusted EPS, 43% up on up on the same period last year. But, actually, up on the full year last year, the full year 2021 result was at 9.01p earnings per share. And that was driven by profitability, which was was was lower than than than than expected through the year, but but, you know, marginally up on on the half year this year, but 7,100,000, not significantly higher than than the half year.

10:49 But also the the impact of of of tax and the deferred tax charge. We had a we had the sus that substantive enactment of the the 25% corporation tax rate, which which was quite a an impact quite an impact on our total tax charge for the full year and led to the 9 point o one. But nevertheless, very good progress as you'll see in in earnings per share. The interim dividend is up 4% to two pence and eighteen. On the balance sheet, total assets net assets moved by about by about 7 to £8,000,000. Over half of that so half half of that is just the translation of our primary US denominated assets in the intangible assets line.

11:40 Tangible assets, we actually only added 2,800,000. In total assets, we've we've we've increased by 3,400,000 in the period. That's actually 500,000 below the depreciation charge, demonstrating, as we've said in the past, that that the the large you know, the five year past major investment in capacity really has has reached an end, and we are very much subject to the odd exception, very much focused on on on replacement investment. Within the intangibles, is that is the mail number new cell number within there is about 6.3. So as you can see, intangible assets are primarily new cell related, be it the historical acquisition and the goodwill or the more recent investments in resource. Speaking of which, the total investment to date now for resource across both intangible and tangible is £3,300,000.

12:33 Net working capital is the is the largest move across the balance sheet, and that really actually just focuses purely on receivables. Inventory has moved not very much at all, but the receivables balance really reflects two major points. Firstly, we had a bumper May and June sales months. We actually had records for each of those months. And in addition to that, we just had the way the timing works on our key footwear receivables. The payments didn't take didn't come through till July and indeed through till the August 4 on the footwear, we've recovered about 6,000,000 of that receivable. So you can see it's purely a timing a timing factor. Other major movements, post employment benefits.

13:18 A lot of the movement from 6.1 had already happened by December, as you can see, the four point seven. And then the the the additional movement to 2.5 reflects the the actuary's current view assessment based on the fact that, yes, assets have deteriorated in the period, but the corporate bond yields have actually outpaced that deterioration such that we have about a a 2,200,000 movement from the year end position. The other line of note is other liabilities. It moved between June 21 and December 21 because of the deferred tax charge I mentioned. And now between December 21 and June 22, it's moving primarily because of derivative financial instruments, the the FX forward contracts that we have, which are taken out have been taken on average around $1.35.

14:09 So, clearly, there's a a negative position there. We'll offset some part offset some of the good news that we take, hopefully, from the rest of the half year assuming that the dollar stays where it is.

14:22 Leverage to debt. Debt has gone up a little bit as a result of all the movements made I've mentioned so far, up $3.3400000 2,400,000 to sorry. Yeah. From 30 from December, up 3,700,000 to 38,000,000. But that leaves leverage at just above two, two point zero four, which is just below the equivalent period last year. And I I won't cover the financing update, but we mentioned that in in March that we that we did refinance and and and came out with we remained with the same same banks and at very competitive rates. Move on to the cash flow, much of which has already been covered through the balance sheet movements, but good profit performance, Not quite translating immediately into cash generated from operations because of the working capital movement, but like I say, that has has recovered in the past month with the movements primarily of the of the footwear.

15:20 And then really not a lot, you know, not a lot of CapEx compared to historical. So, you know, within the depreciation charge levels and after dividend paid, dividend paid leaves us leaves us with debt of 38,000,000. I said I'd talk a little bit about the the primary cost drivers to the p and l, which are LDP and energy. And for those of you who attended this call back in March, you'll recognize the chart. We've just updated it a little

15:51 bit. And what we said that we when when when I was explaining this back in March, the key messages out of it were were to sort of demonstrate why we hadn't put pricing up in, for in in h '2. And what you see here is the the the the single line is actually the total the total price. Sorry. Sorry. It's it's the spread. So the margin that the manufacturers make from converting ethylene into polyethylene. The total number, obviously, is the is the full price, and the and the mustardy color is actually the underlying ethylene price. What we were demonstrating last year was that the the margin, the spread being taken had expanded quite significantly. It was way above historical averages. And that really let was was partly what led some of our our decision making last year where we said we said, well, the pry the, you know, the reason why the pry the costs have gone up is because of the spread. This will be adjusted by the by overseas supply coming back into Europe.

16:51 And consequently, it's a short term it's a short short term event, and, you know, we don't we don't historically move price based on short term signals. What actually transpired, and when we look back to understand what you know, where we made the mistake or the oversight, it was that it's actually COVID and the and the and the the freight availability that that that has artificially supported that spread. And so consequently, the lack of freight coming and the lack of ability to get containers held that price higher than we expected, which is why it it effectively impacted our margins in h two twenty one. We've take we've recognized that. We moved the prices a few times as mentioned in 2022, and we're seeing and we're seeing a a consequent gross margin adjustment as a result. But what you see here is that we we actually went back up again. The prices continue have actually gone higher. Total price gone higher in in the first half of h one, but it's starting to drop back down again.

17:50 You can see that the spread is actually falling, but the ethylene price has has increased and is now just coming off. The consequences that we that that we you know, we we've experienced some 25% higher pricing this half versus last half. We are we do expect initially due July, August, the price to get higher because of the way our our costing works. It's about a three month delay from pricing, but we are seeing pricing come down. It's gone down from about €2,100 per q per per per ton down to about $18.60 is the current indicative pricing for August. So that doesn't mean that it's a permanent move, but certainly the signals are suggesting that that pricing is coming down. The benefit of which we won't we wouldn't see until sometime in q four.

18:39 The energy is also obviously a a key driver. Nowhere nowhere near the same impact as LDPE. We have the three main manufacturing sites in The US, UK, and Poland, but 75% of the total energy is is is consumed within The UK. There, we do we do hedge. Our utility provider does buy buy forward for us ordinarily, and indeed, that's helped the h one comparative increase only 50%. We've we've not been hedging or not been buying ahead quite so much in the last few months simply because of the significant forward pricing through through h two and into in q four, leaving us somewhat slightly more open to to the volatility.

19:29 However, you know, based on the current forecasts, we're expecting q four pricing to be about two x the the starting rate of the year. And if you just wanna do a bit of maths when we spoke when we spoke back in back in March, we said that twenty twenty one energy was about 5% of sales. With that, I'll pass back to David.

20:04 Can't hear you, David, or see you. David, let's just, refresh you. Bear with me one second. Hold on, David. One second. Let just see if we can refresh you to get you back through.

20:25 There he is. Okay, David. We can see. Can we hear you as well? Can you hear me? Yes. We can. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you very much. Carry on, sir. Yeah. Alright. So thanks for your patience. We'll move on to just discuss the different business units. So on the ZOTE polyolefin foams, it's about 58% of group sales. And you can see we enjoyed a 26% increase in revenue in the period. We also have the twenty twenty one second half revenue and profitability in there for comparative, and there's a reason for that. We'll talk about it in a minute.

21:20 But that 27% sorry. 26% increase in revenue generated 28% improvement in profit. And the main reason for that is that we were putting prices up to offset input cost inflation. As Carrie has explained other related input inflation such as other raw materials, etcetera, freight, and a little bit of energy. The energy costs really we expect to increase in in the second half. But the pricings that we put up really lagged some quick pernicious cost inflation. So as inflation is going up quite quickly, we weren't able to recover it immediately.

22:26 David, so I think we're just losing your connection a little bit. I'm just gonna pop your camera off and just keep your audio up just to hold your bandwidth. Can you hear me okay? Yes. We can now. So I'll just pop your camera off. So if you wanna go ahead that, just conserve that bandwidth. Thank you. Alright. So who was I? Yes. Europe, Continental Europe. We've seen 6% volume increase there and 23% overall growth. Obviously, the the difference between volume and and value is substantially price. In Europe, we had a bit of a currency headwind as as the the euro weakened in the period. UK, a slight volume decline, which was mainly due to availability of specialty materials in the period and again a very strong sales value increase with pricing increases.

23:24 And then finally, in North America, a 13% volume increase is translated into 47% sales growth. Although we have benefited there and in in Asia, which isn't shown separately because of this relative size, from a stronger dollar in the period. The key really on getting that profitability is managing the difference between the price that we charge and and our cost base. And as I said, our prices have gone up kind of sequentially over the period with a number of different price increases in different markets over the over the six months or so.

24:11 Where we are now is we seem to have caught up price increases or prices currently reflect our cost base. We're not seeing inflation really happening right now in most of our input costs. I think it has happened and it's been, as I said, quite severe in some cases. We're now actually seeing polymer prices moderate and come off a little bit. We're seeing some of the rest of the inflation definitely damped down. So it's it's not really at the forefront of our mind as much as it has been other than potentially energy, as I've said. So what you actually see is that you actually see that in 2021, the second half or the first half, we did okay. 5% profit margin is not great.

25:04 It's below our long term average and we need to improve that. But in the second half, we actually lost money in the segment because of the rapidly increasing polymer prices. In the first half this year, we have got a grip of that. We've got a grip of the pricing and I think we're we're now well positioned. And I I think one of the key things is looking at what happened over the six months is we saw about a 6% improvement in our gross margin from going into the the year to to the the June numbers. And mostly that's been through polyolefin pricing. And so we're now at a point where that pricing is is in a good position looking forward.

25:53 If I move on to the high performance products, slightly different position in in the cost base where the raw material prices have not been the inflation in raw materials has not been as high as in polyolefin. There have been some there. And our growth, footwear sales up 18% and other sales, fluoropolymers up 70% and teeth up eight, has really been driven by more by volume with a little bit of help from currency. So the pricing has been there a little bit in in, you know, right across these things, but it's mostly underlying activity.

26:40 In footwear, where we have an exclusive deal with Nike, the you know, we are we're pretty close to them. We are performing well. I'm I'm very pleased at how Nike are taking a product and turning it into some very interesting market products for the for the running market. So that's going very well. Aviation, you know, a few years ago, it was it was a very significant part of our business and growing very strongly. And then sort of pre COVID, it just or around COVID, it just collapsed. So it's now now starting to recover. We see the second half being much better, but up 69% from a from a very low base.

27:26 It's very encouraging because it is one of our high margin products, and that's one of the things that's buoyed the segment margin in the period, you know, up the sales up 21%. We've had a segment profit margin up 66, and the segment profit percentage up to 27. Almost all of our HPP product is sold in in US dollars, so we're having some help with the dollar there. And without that dollar movement, segment margin would have been about 23 and a half percent. The other thing that makes up our HPP business is TFEIF, that's a technical insulation product used in biotech pharma and and we're pushing into food and dairy now.

28:19 A lot of that market is in China and India where COVID is is very much still a factor. In fact, during the period, we were forced to close down our manufacturing facility that takes sheets of foam from The UK and turns them into the tubes, insulation parts in China because of government restrictions around COVID. So despite the two main markets being heavily influenced by COVID and a factory shutdown, we managed to grow sales by 8%, and we see, you know, better momentum there going into the second half. On Newsell, revenues were were up a bit, mainly sorry.

29:12 Not showing up a bit. We're actually down a bit. Why that percentage number there is wrong? But our focus in new cell is really not about licensing our technology to existing products to to make them a bit better and take a license fee. Our focus really now has moved to resource, mono material packaging technology, which is a specific application that, we believe offers a much better opportunity for us in the long term. It is high risk because it's a completely new development in an established market, but also potentially very high reward because the market is very big, It's struggling with the incumbent technologies to meet sustainability targets.

30:06 And we offer something which if successful and accepted would certainly go a long way to hit or even absolutely meet the sustainability targets of a lot of potentially very large customers. So we are putting in additional resources into this, about 600,000 operating costs there, which is the movement in the bottom line that we see. In addition to that, there has been capital expenditure in relation to both our pilot facility in Boston and also requirement under financial standards to capitalize some of our costs in relation to development here. So you can see the numbers disclosed about how much we spent.

31:01 Couple of slides just quickly on sustainability. Firstly, the resource products, you can see cartons here, but we also are looking at pouches and and other things. You know, the commercial contact base is very solid. We're not looking for other potential new customers because we need to really focus on the development and pre commercialization. Our key US patent has been issued. That's a patent that was filed in multiple territories, but The US was the first. And typically what happens is if it's granted in The US, it gives a very strong indication for other territories.

31:49 That was filed in 2019. There were other patents filed around the same time, also in 2020, right up to, you know, patents filed, you know, even a couple of weeks ago. So, you know, it is something that we are really focused on making it strongly IP backed and getting the first patent through and issued is is a real plus. The other major plus there is that we have taken our development product into a full scale commercial line, a potential customer. Very small volumes, but we have made and filled a carton on a commercial line, and the objective now is to move to higher volume trials where we can fully demonstrate the reliability and statistical have have enough trials done to statistically validate what we're talking about in terms of sustainability and also sterilizable product.

32:53 So we are progressing pouch in parallel. I say in parallel slightly behind the trial plan on on the cartons deliberately, but it's progressing well also. And sustainability more generally, ZOTEFOAMS is a business which does use plastic. We make that to meet the functional environmental needs of our customers. We are really focused on long term use and and saving weight, saving energy, helping solve recycling challenges, and having products which are robust enough to have that long term lifespan. So when we also internally are focused on how do we optimize our product portfolio to go where the market wants, and how do we save costs through polymer reduction, energy reduction, etcetera, which add to the sustainability argument of our manufacturing process. So there's a lot going on.

34:02 It's a bit like, you know, the duck paddling furiously underwater and we sailed serenely on, but there's a lot going on in sustainability and I think we are pretty well placed actually from that perspective. We think that is really based on these four aspects. We've got a unique process that uses nitrogen. We use raw material a lot more efficiently. Performance per unit weight is is better than the competition, and so ultimately you can use less material. A lot of what we do focuses on emissions avoidance, like thermal installations, etcetera. And the new product development, not just resource called out here, but other places, other products are, you know, sustainability and low carbon future is a a key component on deciding which products to develop and go to market with.

35:08 So finally, where does that leave us? Well, I think a very successful first half. Sales up strongly, very effective pricing, good pull through on the profit number, and definitely progress on resource with, you know, patent awards and trials. As we look forward, we expect further sales growth, A little bit of help from the dollar mainly, but, you know, that better pricing is now fully embedded going forward. We see our HPP business growing well, aviation growing, possibly some weakness in Continental Europe, is partly because there's a seasonality to that business, but Continental Europe and Germany in particular is is being particularly hard hit with some of the, you know, energy costs and and the impact of sanctions and the way the economy is balanced towards automotive, etcetera. They're definitely got some challenges there.

36:17 But, you know, other areas in polyolefin are busy right now. We actually have a pretty good quarter three order book including Germany, actually. But so that that's very encouraging. People are saying today, well, we're nervous, but we're not experiencing any downturn. That's the general message. So so we are somewhat cautious in that because of the prevailing risks in the economy, input inflation is there and it's difficult to see higher prices without some impact in demand. But we are mindful of those risks. However, we have guided the market to a higher profit than the analyst consensus we're expecting and, you know, the analysts are now kind of moving the numbers a little bit or at least the two two analysts that are available this week have.

37:13 So the other slides here are not for presenting, just appendices that you'll be able to access if you have any, you know, there's a bit more detail about our operational processes and board and shareholders, etcetera in there. So if I can ask Paul to stop presenting and we can we will, I think, go through the q and a. Is that Fantastic. Yeah. That'd be great. David Garluk, thank you very much indeed for the presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, do please continue to submit your questions using the q and a tab just on the top right hand corner of your screen. Just while the team take a few moments to review those questions submitted there, I'd like to remind you the recording of the presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can be accessed via your investor dashboard.

38:02 David, Gary, perhaps before we go on to those questions submitted during today's meeting, we did have a presubmitted question which reads as follows. HPP foams have compounded over 20% per annum since 2004 and such a strong rate of growth expected over the coming five years. Obviously, it's a much bigger part of the business than perhaps it was in 2004, but any further comments, that'd be great. Yeah. Well, I'm glad 20%, someone's done the math, 20% compound growth is is pretty great by anyone's means. Obviously, very strongly driven by the success in footwear. And actually, aviation was was running at 20 odd percent compound growth until it wasn't.

38:48 So I think we expect, you know, looking forward, we expect aviation to come back reasonably strongly in the second half this year and into '23, but probably not until 2024 to reach, you know, where it has been. I think, you know, the opportunity to grow very strongly with Nike rests on us being able to break into other categories at Nike. And, you know, I think they've done very, very well in running, but we are premium product in in a premium market and therefore, there's only so much business in there that we can reasonably get. So I think we're very happy to continue to innovate and keep that business and and see some growth, but if we're gonna get something else from from Nike, it's gonna be outside the that particular category.

39:48 I think looking at other opportunities within HPP, There certainly are other opportunities and, you know, one of the things that I've learned over the years is that until we've actually got it, don't count your chickens because a lot of the markets within are highly technical. They require a lot of testing of the materials. And if you're successful, it can go very well, but it does take a while. So I would say that we've got a pipeline of very interesting opportunities in each PP, but at this point, I I can't sort of point to one thing and say that's gonna be the next driver for growth over the next five years.

40:37 But certainly, we've got quite a large number of of things which would contribute to that. I wouldn't pull one of them out specifically. And I think you need to look to analyst forecasts if you want, you know, views on, you know, even two years out, three years out on specific product lines or markets. We we tend not to leave the the market that way. So hopefully, that's somewhat helpful, but I hope you also do appreciate that certain questions are asked in a way that we can't answer them directly. Are we're simply not allowed to make these types of forecasts. That's great. Thank you very much, David. May I ask you to both just to click on that q and a tab, just start at the top where appropriate to do so.

41:23 Just read out the question and give you a response. That would be wonderful. Thank you. Sure. So we have three or four pre submitted questions. The first one is, how does the resource liquid packaging system compete with both the two and three layers existing systems? How is progress going on resource pouch alternative? And have you decided on the strategy of either licensing or in production? Okay. That that's one question. Nice to pack it in there. So the the resource technology is designed to compete with multi material systems. Whether those are two or three or five layers doesn't really matter. The point is that they've got two or more different materials that give combined would give the packaging properties.

42:11 And combining those two materials or more materials together gives you something which is very difficult to recycle. And so we've got this mono material. It does the job of the multi material systems and, you know, we believe we can compete both on performance and, you know, we're looking at the economic costs, but it's pretty difficult right now because we've seen a lot of inflation in in different parts of the system and trying to figure out exactly, you know, what the underlying relative economics are on each of these things is is a bit tricky, but it certainly looks promising, you know, for both carton and pouch and and some of the other things.

42:59 Pouch is progressing. We we have two trials lined up for pouch, but those are some months behind in terms of the progress where we are in carton. And we haven't yet decided on a particular strategy for commercialization, whether that's manufacturing or licensing or regional or or global or whatever. What we have said is we've reached the point now where we feel that a partner would be appropriate because it's a big old market out there, you know, big opportunity, and we think that, you know, together with someone else who's more specialist in, you know, these markets, we're bringing the technology, we're bringing the opportunity, but execution, I think we feel we'd be better alongside somebody.

43:59 So that's something that we've we've specifically said in the statement. Next question is that how is HP capacity holding up? We must soon need to make a decision on new HP capacity, assuming a two year lead time for autoclaves and growth over the last two years. And if new capacity is required, where will the equipment be located? So by each peak capacity, think the questioner means the high pressure autoclaves. We invested in two large high pressure autoclaves not that long ago in North America, and at that time we reported that we had increased overall group capacity by 60%.

44:46 So we still got some room in that that that capacity expansion, so we have no immediate plans to invest in in additional capacity of that sort at the moment. If we were, we've got two places we could put it, either in North America, we could increase capacity there by 50% on the existing infrastructure, or in Poland, which has been designed as the first stage, you know, investment that we've already made and that we already have, you know, obviously land buildings and a lot of the infrastructure there for that. So that's something that that we will consider. We do a five year plan every every year.

45:33 Capacity investments is always part of that, and so if that changes, it'll be good news because it means the growth expectations in the business are are high. But at the moment, no flagging of of that investment. Next question, have we seen a big upsurge in military packaging in the last six months, and do we see good growth opportunities? We have seen, you know, I think upstart in all military activity including, you know, protective vests, sleeping mats, backpacks, as well as packaging. So and I guess military supplies are being depleted at quite a quick rate at the moment compared to historical numbers and and people, you know, reassessing what they actually need.

46:28 So we have seen quite a lot of activity in that. Nothing that in the first half really moved the dial significantly. And, you know, we are in discussions with quite a lot of people, you know, over the next, but I think I think probably that's something that contracts being looked at now are probably gonna make more of a difference in 2023 than than 2022. So next question. Do we have plans in place to cope with a possible energy crisis this coming winter? There are are two types of energy crisis.

47:14 One is price, and that, yes, we do. And and the other one is shutting off energy supply. There's no indication at all that that's gonna happen. And so I think we are you know, at the moment, given what we know, we're in a good place. Next question. What visibility do you have on future Nike orders? And how is the 23 Nike order book looking? The way we work with Nike is that we work with their footwear group who share long term forecast with us, and those long term forecasts get turned into actual shoe models.

48:06 For each shoe model, we know how much foam they need per pair, and when the design goes final, they'll give us the forecasts for those. So we've got reasonably good forward visibility out, reasonable time, know, eighteen months or so, talking about that, but those are not orders. The orders come when the product gets sold in the market and Nike pulls additional products through the footwear factories. The correlation between the long term forecast and the pull through tends to be pretty good. They know what they're doing. So you do get month to month variability. You do get shoe to shoe variability.

48:51 So they say, I'm gonna sell so many units of product x and so many of product y, and they might not get that exactly right, but on on average, they're they're very, good at knowing what's happening, and I would say the forecast that we have had historically have been pretty accurate. So we've got that we've got that visibility, but we don't have an official order book for for 2023. Okay. Next question. Can you talk about future catalysts for growth, new launches, etcetera for HPP? I think I've probably covered that, so I'll go on to the next question. There was a mention of a surcharge earlier in the presentation. Can you expand on this?

49:41 We have a number of price increases put through on polyolefin products over the period. In some areas, some jurisdictions, the last price increase was put in as a price surcharge because we felt that polymer prices really wouldn't stay up there but would remain volatile and energy prices were, you know, moving up. So we've said to customers, look, this last price increase may move up or it may move down a little bit over the period depending on our on our input costs. Previous price increases were less price increases, there it is, that's it.

50:27 So if we see a lot of volatility in polymer and and energy, we may end up adjusting those. I think the best way to think about it is that you kind of protect the margin, but there's no upside, if that makes sense. So if our costs go down a little bit, we'll give some back. If costs go up a bit, we'll ask for a little bit more from our customers. But I think the reality is there wouldn't be much movement in those surcharges at all given the way that although polymer prices seem to be coming down a little bit, looks like energy is going up quite significantly and they may they may net each other out. Next question, how big do you think resource could be?

51:22 You know, as a product line, it's very difficult to say. It really is. The carton market alone, you know, 1% of the carton market is about a 100,000,000, and that's excluding pouches. 1% of the pouch market is about a 100,000,000 as well, I think, maybe a bit more. So it's all about penetration. And I think when you're talking about markets that big, you're gonna find big swathes of them that actually your product isn't quite right for, or at least not initially. We may iterate and innovate into the above. You're also gonna find patches of it that you're perfect for.

52:10 So it's very, very difficult sitting here today saying, you know, give giving you a a number on those but what I will say is if it is successful technically and commercially, it would make a lot of sense that it was much bigger than the ZOTEFOAMS group today. So hope you can understand, you know, where where I'm sitting there. Christie, where do we think is a margin should be in a normal market? Okay. There's that's half a question, Chris.

52:56 And and the reason it's half a question is that we've got an investment cycle. So for example, we've invested a lot of money in Poland deliberately to give us what is a large facility that's currently underutilized to give us growth options. And the cost of that would would naturally or do naturally dilute the margin in the short term, the percentage margin. You know, hopefully we can still make it, you know, profitability, you can make it the investment makes sense, but you are gonna dilute your margin and that's so it depends what part of the investment cycle we're at. But certainly, you know, is what margins of 5% are are too low.

53:45 And I think historically, Gary, you know, we're probably looking in the 15%. Yeah. That's yeah. Yeah. That's been maybe Yeah. When we were when we were really tight just before the the capacity and we hit 17, but that really is at the at the far other end. Okay. Next question. A surcharge was mentioned. Yep. We talked about that. Is that on top of the 20% price increases and and 4% fall? And if so, what's the risk of demand destruction? So the surcharges were put in very late in the period. So you don't really see them in the profitability numbers for the full period.

54:37 But they're also designed to be reversible. And so if like everyone else in the in the market, if polymer prices drop, we will see our costs go down. Everyone else's costs going down, I think there will be a recognition of that and and, you know, allowing the customers to participate in part of that at least. And so that's why we put them through surcharges. We are always very cautious and aware of pricing and demand destruction. You know? So what we need to look at is what are the customers doing today? And by that, I mean, you know, if the customer's got a contract that's got a few months to run and you put up the prices, it's a lot of switching cost for them to go and find another supplier for two, three, four months of a running contract.

55:41 They'll just accept the price increases, run with lower profitability for a bit, and then the next contract not use you. But you would see that until the next contract starts and you don't have the business. And so what we need to make sure is that the customers are specifying our product or or talking to our sales people about the products that are available and, you know, price is one part. Availability is definitely another because that's not a given in today's market. And, you know, we we are getting more than our fair share of the the businesses around. That's the key. So it's not a perfect science. You know, customers don't always have just complete transparency with us, but that's what we're trying to do.

56:36 I think we've got pretty good relationships with with most of the customers. They recognize we're not trying to rip them off. They recognize that, you know, if you look at the second half of twenty twenty one, that we actually lost money in polyolefin business and they can see that, you know, we pointed that out to them. Like, you know, we can't do business like this. You can't do it. The prices need to go up. The whole industry's, you know, grappling with that. I think there is a risk obviously of in any inflationary environment, when prices go up, demand is at risk. You know? But and and we are profitability is partly driven by the by by pricing, partly driven by volume.

57:25 And, you know, our our teams have been told, get out there and find the areas where the volume is robust. I think one more comment on that is that our polyolefin products, you know, we make some really, really good products that are lightweight. And if you can buy those, you see they're they're cheaper, they use less material, they're more environmentally friendly, and they do a job. And with not very much change in specification to your customer. You can go to your customer, the end customer. Our our customers can go to their customer and say, how about this product from ZOTEFOAMS that's lighter, uses less materials, cheaper?

58:11 You wanna get away from the majority inflation, do this. And so we've been heavily promoting that with some success, and that's been not something the customers have been willing to do in the past. And so the beauty of that is the we have the best cost base down at that point. The competitors cannot follow us down there. They cannot make these products. So if we can get the industry to switch to these lighter weight products, then, you know, we've got much more of a chance of hanging on to the business, and it is more cost effective for the for the customer. So we're we're not just about price. We're about getting the right product for the job, and, you know, we've got a better offering in the market than other people, I think.

59:02 So That's fantastic, David. I think you covered off every single question and, Gary, that we've had through. And, course, there are any further questions, the team will be able to review those and we'll publish responses where where appropriate to do so. David, perhaps before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important, if I could just have a few closing comments. Yeah. Just to say that it's you know, there's a lot of moving parts in the world today. I've been asked not just by by this group, but by other, you know, shareholders and salespeople and brokers, etcetera, All kinds of questions. And what what is coming through is, you know, a real appreciation that we're not a one trick pony. We've got four or five or six different options for every scenario.

59:51 And, you know, we're managing the business in a proactive and and robust way. But everyone's got a different take on what the scenarios are gonna be in the second half on demand and energy and all kinds of things. So we've got to believe in the value of active management. You know, we've got a management team with a lot of experience. We'll keep Maria to the ground. We'll keep him close to the customer. And if circumstances are different than we think, then then we'll manage the business appropriately. I think we've done pretty well in the first half. It's great to see EPS up at the half year better than it was the full year last year, and it's great to give a a profit upgrade at the half year, which is something we've not done for for quite a few years.

1:00:38 So I'm pleased with the progress, and I think we're well placed going forward. So thanks, Paul, and thank all you for your attendance. Thank you very much, David. Gary, thanks for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session as you'll be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order the team can better understand your views and expectations? This will only take a moment to complete and will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team at ZOTEFOAMS PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That concludes today's session. Thank you, and good afternoon to you all.