Nichols (LSE:NICL) — Investor presentation following VITHIT acquisition

0:01 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the NICHOLS PLC Investor Presentation. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time via the Q and A tab that's just situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and will publish our responses where it's appropriate to do so on the Investor Meet company platform. Before we begin, as usual, we would just like platform. And I'd now like to hand you over to the executive management team from NICHOLS PLC. Andrew, good afternoon, sir. Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. I'm Andrew, the CEO, and I'm joined here with Matt Rothwell, our CFO. Firstly, thank you very much for taking the time to dial in today.

0:52 And first, I just wanted to say we are absolutely delighted to have been able to announce earlier this week that we have acquired the Witit brand, which we believe will be a transformational addition to our portfolio and allows us to accelerate our growth, enhance shareholder returns and is a key pillar of our strategic intent. And what I would say before we just kick off is we have really taken our time to find the right acquisition, one that's operating in the fast growing health and wellness category, with an already strongly established distribution footprint, strong level of sales, profit and contribution. So what we'll now do over the next few slides is I will just, talk to you about the rationale for the acquisition and why we've made it.

1:44 Matt will take you through some of the numbers, then I will come back and summarize. And, we think that will take about fifteen minutes, and then we're we're really happy to open up to questions. Okay. So if I just kick off really with the key highlights that we'd ask you to take away from today's presentation. So I suppose, first and foremost, we're really pleased that, you know, Visit is a market leading functional soft drinks brand. It's got presence in 15 countries. The main two countries are The UK and Ireland with about 40% of the sales in each of those countries. And then there's 13 of the international markets, which account for about 20% of the sales.

2:32 And we've purchased the brand for total cash consideration of €75,000,000 which broadly translates to £64,000,000 on a debt free, cash free basis. We truly believe this is a strong strategic fit for us. And really important, it's a complementary asset light model. So this is an absolute plug and play into our business already. We already operate with these type of products in PET and in cans. So, we're really pleased that that should be a reasonably simple transition for us. As you'll see when Matt goes through his numbers, this is immediately earnings enhancing and also has been funded from cash on our balance sheet.

3:26 And we believe, which we'll show you shortly, there's clear organic growth opportunities and synergy benefits. And we're confident that this acquisition will enhance attractive shareholder returns building on the attractive shareholder returns we have already. Okay. So we were out with our interim results a couple of weeks ago. So if any of you dialed in for those, you'll remember this slide. But for people who are new, let me just remind you the key points. So we've done a piece of work looking at where soft drinks are going to grow over the next five to ten years. And there's probably three big macro consumer trends that we think are really important. The first one being the HealthNow HealthNow is seen as a lifestyle and no longer aspirational, but it's integral to everybody's, eating and drinking habits.

4:27 The consumers, particularly the Gen Zs, are really looking for elevated experiences. They're willing to experiment more and therefore trying new products. And and really importantly, you know, for benefits in those products, they are willing to pay a premium, and often they're looking for those functional benefits. Also then what our research has shown us is this three kind of categories, if you will, of where soft drinks are going to grow really quickly over the next five to ten years. The first one is the health and well-being space and functional drinks. The second one is what's called next generation energy or clean energy. So that might be things like ready to drink coffees or natural energy propositions.

5:15 And the third one on the back of younger people and, more mature people drinking less alcohol, but still wanting to have a fabulous taking product that helps them unwind in the evening will be another big space that will grow. And then if you monetize that, what you can see here is that soft drinks are forecast to grow by 2,030 by 2,200,000,000 There are six categories, that that growth, will be, across, which is enhance my body and mind, elevating enjoyment, daily connections, drink better all day, memorable evenings and relax and rest.

6:03 And you can see on the screen there that Vimto, with our current portfolio, is very much fit to play in three of those areas. However, there are three areas of white space. And on the left hand side of this chart, you can see one of those is that Enhance My Body and Mind, which is a health and wellness play. And of the £2,200,000,000 of growth, the largest chunk at £678,000,000 comes in this space. So we recently launched our new product, My Protein Protein Water, that plays to consumers who are very purposeful about wanting a functional benefit from their drink. And then we've now acquired Vitit, which is a low calorie vitamin based product that's much more of an everyday product that people will consume to put both a low calorie, tasting product, but gives you your RDA of eight vitamins in one drink.

7:06 What we're gonna do now is just play you a short video that hopefully brings the essence of the brand to life. Thank you. Okay. So hopefully, that gives you a little bit of a feel for the brand. So let me tell you a bit more about it. So the product is very differentiated.

7:59 It's proven now as it's got scale, and it's an absolute key functional drinks brand. It's it's capitalizing on all those trends we've just talked about, and it operates across three categories. So firstly, you've got seven still 500 ml products in a PET bottle that you can see there. And that really is the mainstay of the business and how the business has been launched and grown, and that accounts for the vast majority of the sales. More recently, then you've then got three sparkling products in a can format, 330 mil. And and then very recently, they've launched some effervescent powders, and there's three different flavors within those powders.

8:48 And each of the products give you a 100% of your recommended daily allowance of eight essential vitamins. Really importantly in this market, it's low sugar, low calorie, and tastes fabulous. As I mentioned earlier, it's asset light. So all of the manufacturing and all of the logistics, as per our model at Vimto, is absolutely aligned. So this is an absolute plug and play for us. And just bringing that product portfolio to life a bit more, you can therefore see the full range across singles, stills, cans, effervescence. And what we also have is a multipack of the still products, 500 mil times four bottles. And that really is merchandised at back of store, which drives that weight of purchase and home consumption, where the other packs in cans and PET tend to be an out of home on the go consumption.

9:52 And why do we believe this is the perfect strategic fit for us? Well, as we say, it really now gives us a second play in the expanding fast growing health and witness category. But absolutely, this is an everyday purchase, whereas My Protein Water is more purposeful. We feel this really complements our current portfolio of Vimto, Wunderfuel and My Protein. And this product will absolutely unlock new consumer occasion for us, one that Vimto does not reach. You'll see in that middle box, as I said, this is absolutely akin to our operating model and therefore makes and how we transition the business to us far more simpler.

10:41 And then what we have then is a very strong set of relationships with customers in The UK and internationally that we can drive both additional distribution. We can focus on the commercial execution. We can leverage our customer relationships in our Vimto brand to help drive distribution. And, you know, we have decades of experience of operating internationally that will then help us accelerate the growth internationally. In terms of what Witte have done an incredible job on, is outlined in green, and then we'll talk about how we help build on that. So they have a strong UK market presence. 40% of the sales are in The UK.

11:29 They are in, you know, most of the well known customers you would know and see on the screen there. However, they tend to have two or three facings, whereas in Ireland, where the brand was born, there's seven or eight facings of the product. So the job for us straight away is to increase the number of distribution points and visibility of the still range in The UK. So it's similar to what we see in Ireland, but there are also some new customers in The UK that we feel we can get this brand distributed into our current relationships to accelerate the growth. I think in Ireland, they have a very strong position, but really importantly, their sales and distribution is done by Richmond Marketing. Richmond Marketing have distributed this brand for a number of years.

12:17 They have a very strong portfolio in Ireland, other well known soft drinks brands and alcohol brands. And crucially, they know the market and they have very close relationships with all the Irish customers. So they will continue to build the distribution there as as we don't have our own sales force in Ireland. As I mentioned, there are 13 countries outside of The UK and Ireland where the brand is present, and as appropriate and when we feel like we've delivered the initial focus of The UK distribution, we will bring that innovation to market and we will look at where we invest extra money into the brand where we can drive a strong return on investment.

13:18 So hopefully, that gives you a feel for our strategic rationale, the brand, and our plans to grow it. Now let me hand to Matt, who will take you through some of the numbers, and then I'll come back and wrap up. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Delighted today to, update you on on the financials of VidHit, which is a profitable business. It has very attractive growth and has been a strong cash generator. As you can see, the chart on the right hand side here shows the profile of sales growth that the Vithit business has achieved in recent years. Sales in FY '25 were about 26,500,000, as a three year compound annual growth rate of just shy of 10%, and the business has grown about 90% since 2020 adjusted operating profit of GBP 4,200,000, which is a strong operating profit margin of nearly 16%.

14:13 As Andrew has touched on, it's an asset light model. And it has an effective tax rate at the moment of around 20%, and that's due to the lower prevailing corporation tax in Ireland, which we see as a future potential benefit for the business. And as I've touched on previously and we'll do later, it generates cash very well, which is one of the guardrails that we wanted for an acquisition in NICLLS. We've identified three principal levers to accelerate earnings growth from the already strong base. First one of those is revenue synergies, and these have been very well covered by Andrew in the preceding slides. So the biggest opportunity is UK distribution expansion.

14:59 We see that as having enormous headroom for us. We can obviously bring a level of greater complexity to the way in which we manage promotional effectiveness. We see international opportunities and then some very exciting NPD in the pipeline. Our second bucket of synergies are cost synergies, and we expect those to be in excess of EUR 1,000,000 per annum. First one of those is overhead leverage, where there is obviously an opportunity to link, together the two businesses and get some synergies there. There's potential opportunities in procurement and operations. We haven't factored those into our business case that delivers a strong return for shareholders, but those should be delivered and would be upside.

15:44 And then you see support function efficiencies, as we have the benefit now of our fully implemented SAP platform, and we can leverage that by bringing the Vithip business onto SAP. And then there's a tax optimization bucket. So the existing Irish business, operates in a circa 12.5% tax regime. We see an opportunity, to make sure we maintain that. It maintains the Irish heritage of the business, but benefits, that lower tax jurisdiction. And we will look at the most efficient operating structure for the business over the longer term. But three clear buckets of synergies there. The business will be immediately earnings enhancing, and that should help deliver strong long term returns for our shareholders.

16:35 It's an attractive investment because it's fully aligned to the M and A criteria and guardrails that the Board had established. You can see from the profitability that the business has generated that we disclosed in the RNS that it has delivered a clean, profit before tax. That will support accretion to earnings per share, in the sort of low single digits in 2027 moving to high single digits in '28. And because we it was in very important to the board that we maintained that dividend cover policy of 1.5 times, which we'll cover next, that means that the EPS growth will convert into a higher dividend per share per shareholder, which altogether comes culminates in a strong and attractive net present value.

17:23 So NICLLS group is financially very strong and that 1.5 times dividend cover is maintained. So I'm now going to take you through how the deal was financed and a little on the integration plan. In terms of financing, it was cash funded. The interim results showed that we had CHF 66,000,000 of cash on balance sheet. So pro form a for that, we remain cash positive. Cash will continue to build from here. The business generates very strong cash at NICHOLS, and obviously, hit will be additive to that. We maintain strong liquidity. But in the short term, we have added an RCF for working capital purposes only. And there's no change at all, as I touched on previously, to the improved dividend cover.

18:10 In terms of the integration, the integration plan is incredibly robust, and we have been clear about what we are targeting and what we want to achieve. And as Andrew touched on, the risk is managed there by the fact that it is an incredibly comparable business utilizing similar processes and routes to market as those we already operate in NICLLS. So with that, I'll hand over to Andrew to take you through a summary of the transaction and the presentation. Thanks, Matt. So just a couple of slides to finish. So I think if we take you back to the strategy we've outlined, one of the focuses was to build on the portfolio we have in The UK with a brand of scale that we felt had a clear role in health and wellness, was full of functional benefits.

19:07 And this would allow us then to make sure for the long term, we were growing the business with brands in categories that are going to accelerate at a quicker rate than the soft drinks market will, but also complements our current range and doesn't cannibalize. So now as you can see there, we still have Vinto, it's a very strong brand across a number of categories. This is My Protein that we don't think will cannibalize, but will complement each other in the health and wellness. And then we have the Levi Roots brand on license that plays in both energy and carbonates. And I think it's interesting, we were out a couple of weeks ago doing our half year presentation roadshow. And one of the things we talked about there was acquisition, and we've now made the acquisition.

19:59 So I think if you think that we delivered our half on financials slightly ahead of where we'd indicated at our quarter one update with some acceleration in both Middle East and Africa in higher quarter two. We talked to you about, you know, one of our key strategic drivers was Africa. And in the first half, we grew that business by 17% versus half of last year, and that was on tough 17% comps from last year. So circa 34% growth over the two half periods. We've talked about half year two. We've got a strong innovation pipeline this year in The Middle East on Vimto with the launch of three one liter ready to drink variants and also a new cherry variant in our kids portfolio, coupled with the My Protein protein water launch and now, obviously, the acquisition of Vittic coming in.

20:53 So we believe that sets us up very well for half year two, of which we already got momentum, on the back of, this wonderful heat wave and, you know, the momentum the World Cup generated. So we feel very confident now all that wrapped together that we will be able to continue to build and deliver strong shareholder returns. Okay. So that concludes our presentation. So I'll now hand back to yourself, Jake. Perfect, guys. That's great. And thank you very much indeed for your presentation this afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q and A tab that's situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Just while the team take a few moments just to review those questions that have been submitted already, I'd just like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can all be accessed via your investor dashboards.

21:46 Guys, as you can see there, we have received a number of questions throughout your presentation. Thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. But if I may just hand back to you to address those where appropriate, and if I pick up from you at the end, that'd be great. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. So I think the first couple are for Matt. So let me let me read these out. So first one, Matt, post acquisition, roughly how much cash does it leave us on the balance sheet? So simplest way to take this is at half year. So we reported 66,200,000 of cash at the half year. The the transaction was circa 64,000,000 on a debt free cash free basis. So pro form a circa plus two at at the end of June. Obviously, NICHOLS as a business will generate, cash, so we will rebuild from there.

22:35 By year end, we'd have expected previously to be in excess of 70,000,000. So you probably expect low single digit sorry, mid single digits of of cash on balance sheet, come year end, and to rebuild further from there, but obviously accelerate the profile from previous because VIT hit itself will generate cash. I'll then take the second question. So will we break VIT hit out separately in segmental reporting so that we can assess its sales and margin progression? Yes. We will initially. So to start with, we'll make sure that we give very clear information on how ViT is performing, and we'll break out the profit contribution. We were very clear in the bottom of the r and s to make sure we showed full detail of profit progression, any adjusting items they had, which were very few, less than 500,000 in there, and talk to the cash generation.

23:31 Over time, it is likely that as we get the the right synergies from the base, we'll combine some aspects of this with our existing package business, and therefore, we may not, keep full margin visibility longer term because it it will likely get the right synergies and and combine with our existing packaged business. However, what we will be able to do is give you clear visibility to how the synergies are being delivered, and that will demonstrate that the margin comes back to, around the 20% that is delivered for the NICLLS business. Thanks, Matt. I'll pick up the next one. So do you expect to accelerate VITIT sales growth rate to mid teens or higher under NICHOLS ownership? So yes, we would absolutely like to do that.

24:18 The focus will be to accelerate sales growth. And as a reminder, that would be in the predominant focus will be UK. It will be about protecting Ireland and obviously looking how we bring some of the innovation in there. And then we will think about the international market and how we best grow there. So I think the next one is following this acquisition, where do things lie with your WunderFuel product? For instance, I noticed that it contains many of the vitamins that WunderFuel has. So I think as a reminder, our WunderFuel product is in squash. That was developed really at the rehearsal of some strong consumer research, but also retailer request who wanted a product that was slightly higher in juice, had vitamin benefits, and also could maybe be used as an attractive breakfast proposition as some parents are moving away from fruit juice because of the amount of sugar.

25:23 So I think this product is very different to our WonderFuel squash product that's really targeted at a different consumer occasion. The next one, congratulations on a mighty, meaty or should I say thirsty acquisition. Please could you say whether Wittig gives NICLLS any greater global reach beyond Ireland and specifically if the acquisition enhances your route into EU markets. Yeah. So as I mentioned, I think it's already in 13 international markets. The bulk of them are in The EU. There is some business in The Middle East and some business in Australia. I think what we'll do carefully is assess the distributors, where they're working in Europe, how the business is performing, then we will, I'm sure, work with those distributors to accelerate the growth.

26:16 And if appropriate, we will look at growth opportunities for Vimto. But as a reminder, we already have a distributor in Europe, but our business is mainly focused on products from Africa and The Middle East that are being sold into the ethnic channel. Can you please explain if the production process is different and or if it can be produced by your existing contract bottlers? So yes, this is a process that's actually very similar to the the my protein water production process, sorry, and and and that's done in a in a sterilized format.

27:02 So the products and the bottles are all sterilized before you fill. So it it's slightly different to what we do currently. But, obviously, we do have a a co man who does that for us, on My Protein. Next question, I think we've already, covered, which was the three year compound annual growth rate, which is shy of 10%. Are you expecting similar? We've guided to double digit growth, from the brand, so around the 10% level. But obviously, we have aspirations of being delivering stronger than that, but but, we we we have confidence in maintaining or accelerating that growth rate. As said here, the name Vitit would seem to fit well with adding clear protein. Is that a consideration?

27:47 I think, no, at the moment, it's about we've bought a brand that we think is is fabulous. We think it is it's doing very well in its current format, but lots of room for growth. So our focus will be on driving this brand. Maybe in the future, we'll consider different innovation routes as markets developed. But as a reminder, we've just announced the launch of the My Protein, protein water brand, which has 15 grams of protein in. So that will be our focus from a protein perspective. What is the competitive environment for VITIT in both Ireland and UK? And how strongly business positioned within it? Well, in in Ireland, it's very, very strong. It's the seventh fastest soft drink.

28:34 We've been over to Ireland a number of times, and we've seen the brand have very strong visibility and availability there. So it's in a very strong position and an opportunity for us to work with Richmond to grow that. In The UK, it's doing well, but it's much earlier in its life there. So, again, that will be a key focus for us on how with our Salesforce and the visit Salesforce and all the customer relationships we have between us, how we can work together to accelerate that. Another question, are gym vending machines going to be a targeted route to market? Absolutely, they will. And there is some legislation pending on energy drinks where from next year energy drinks will not be allowed to be sold to children 16 and under, and that will mean they will be coming out of vending machines with gaps there. So so, yeah, that would be an opportunity for us.

29:36 There's a question here about the forecast net cash position for 2026. I think you've covered that already, Matt. That already. Yeah. Yeah. Mid single digit millions, yeah, of net cash. Would you envisage with it being launched in some existing overseas market, e. G, Saudi Arabia? Well, actually, the brand is already in The Middle East. So when I was last out in Dubai, I saw it there. So it's already in in the Dubai market and some of the other Middle East market. So, yes, we will look at how it's performing and then think can we grow that any further. Next one was is the €1,000,000, of synergies purely cost and what's plan assumed for distribution gains in in in other markets. Yes.

30:23 The, synergy there, we've, that we've disclosed is purely a cost synergy of more than €1,000,000. We outlined in the presentation three buckets of synergies. Cost was one of those. The others were revenue synergies where we see a material opportunity to expand distribution in The UK. We see opportunity as well in Ireland to accelerate from the incredibly strong base they have there. And then we see some tax synergies as well. So we we are we plan to see revenue, same where it has been over the last three years or slightly stronger. I've already covered the the RCF. Sorry. Pro form a net cash post completion, how much is it? So I've touched on that 2,000,000.

31:13 How much of the RCF do you expect to draw? And what does it mean for buyback or further m and a capacity? So maybe one for me to touch there on capital allocation. What we have been very clear on is this means, no M and A for NICHOLS, for a good period of time. We've been very disciplined in waiting for the right acquisition, and our focus now is very much on, driving the benefits that that we anticipate getting through the BitHit business, making sure that we, get the business integrated very effectively into NICL's, but also making sure that we do not take our eye off the ball at all on the core Vinto brand where we believe there are still incredible opportunities ahead, for Vinto.

31:58 So it does mean there won't be, any further M and A capacity, and the period given here is eighteen months. No. No. In terms of the rest of the capital allocation policy, it remains exactly as was. However, the focus in the short term will be removing the need for the RCF as we rebuild cash. Thereafter, that RCF is purely for working capital purposes. Okay. The next question is on synergies, which Matt's already answered. How competitive was the process to buy the business? Who from the management team is staying? And how important are they. So, yes, it was a very competitive process. We we've been talking to the guys at VITIT for a number of years, so we know them very well. But there was a a very competitive process run over the last two or three months.

32:45 We were just really, really pleased that we were successful during that process. Who from the management team is staying and how important are they? Yep. Very important. So Gary, the founder, is, staying on as in a consultancy capacity. So he's not gonna be involved on the day to day, but he's in a consultancy capacity to support us, through the next few months. Troy, his brother, who is the CEO, will stay for up to six months as we go through transition. And then Rachel, who leads the marketing team, will also stay for a period of three months as well. Then the rest of the the the management team will be working with us over the next few weeks and months as we get to understand the business closely with them.

33:40 I think that might be one more. Is there scope for further growth of the vitamin brand across Ireland using Vittit's Vittit's Vittit's brand, sorry, across Ireland using Vittit's existing distribution network. Well, Vittit's not known in Ireland, so that could be a consideration longer term. Obviously, we're not gonna take our eye off driving Vittit. We just bought the brand. If you were going to launch VIMTO in Ireland, you would need to put significant marketing because the brand is not known. So I think really, would need to think long and hard about whether we felt there was a big enough opportunity there, but it's something we will consider. Okay. That is all the questions. So thank you very much for the questions.

34:26 And Jay, can we hand them back to yourself now? Absolutely, guys. Thank you very much indeed for addressing all of those questions that came in from investors. And of course, if there are any further questions that do come through, we'll make these available to you after the presentation. But Andrew, perhaps before really now just looking to redirect those on the call to provide you their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company, if I could please just ask you for a few closing comments just to wrap up with, that'd be great. Yes. Thanks, Jake. So just a couple of comments. One is to say, as I said at the start, we are very excited about this acquisition. We have taken our time. We have waited for the right acquisition, but we really do feel this is the right acquisition for us. We've been out to Dublin this week and and met the team from Vitted, which was was great, great bunch of people.

35:16 And we'll be going down to the London office as well to meet the team down there, and and we're very excited about this acquisition. And in terms of how this can really continue to grow the top line of our business for years to come. So thank you very much for dialing in, and have a great day. That's great. Andrew and Matt, thank you once again for updating investors this afternoon. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you will now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback? On behalf of management team of NICHOLS PLC, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good afternoon to you all.