Impacted by the strong euro, Agfa revenues 1Q13 decreased 4.0% to € 705m versus € 717m consensus. The decline is mainly attributable to Agfa Graphics (€ 371m sales versus € 383m css), which suffered from the adverse economic conditions, in particular in Europe. Driven by a strong performance of the IT business, Agfa HealthCare’s revenue (€ 276m vs € 275m css) remained almost stable.
As a result of efficiency improvements, 1Q13 gross profit margin improved to 28.8% (28% in 1Q12 and 28.1% css). Positive is that REBIT (the sum of Graphics, HealthCare, Specialty Products and the unallocated portion) remained stable at € 21m (versus € 20.0m consensus).
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In Graphcis (€ 4.4m REBIT on € 371m sales), the CtP-prepress business’ volumes continued to grow offset by the analog CtF-business which resumed its downward trend after a temporary stabilization in
2012. In the industrial inkjet segment, business was soft due to the uncertain economic situation. Agfa HealthCare’s gross profit margin declined from 36.0% to 35.1%. Agfa indicated that the effects of the efficiency program were offset by mix effects. 1Q REBIT amounted to € 11.6 m (4.2% margin vs 5.5% css).
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The positive surprise came from Specialty Products’ were 1Q13 revenue were € 58m. Two of the business group’s growth initiatives (Synaps Synthetic Paper business and the Orgacon Electronic Materials
business) performed well. Partly because of the increased capacity utilization, Speciality Products was able to considerably improve its operational efficiency. As a result, REBIT improved to € 5.5m (versus € 0.0m css expected) Recall that in 1Q13 Specialty Products announced the signing of a long-term exclusive supply agreement for microfilm with Eastman Park Micrographics (EPM).
Restructuring and non-recurring items resulted in an expense of € 9m versus € 10 in 1Q12 (in line with css). Net finance costs amounted to € 16m (€ 24m
in 1Q12). Tax expenses was somewhat higher than we expected and amounted to € 8m. As a result the 1Q13 net result iroved from € -21m in 1Q12 to € -13m, a little better than expected. Net financial debt amounted to € 337m, versus € 291m at the end of 2012 was somewhat higher than we expected. The net cash from operating activities amounted to € -36m.
Conclusion
The weaker than expected performance in Graphics and HealtCare was offset by a good performance in Agfa Specialty Products. We recently updated our Agfa model as silver declined to the lowest level since October 2010 as there is a sensitivity of around € 5m on Agfa’s gross profit per $ 1 change in the silver price. The effect will be seen as from 2H13 as there is a three months time lag. (45,91 GBP, -0,02%) to this we expect that Agfa’s growth engines – industrial inkjet and healthcare IT – will continue to perform well. Efforts to improve operational efficiency should enable further improvements to the
gross margin and REBIT. We were happy to read in the 1Q13 release that in industrial inkjet, the customer base for the Anapurna and Jeti printer ranges continued to grow.
We maintain our Accumulate rating and € 1.7 target price.