Phibro Animal Health Corporation has announced its financial results for its first quarter, which ended September 30, 2019.
Highlights for the September 2019 quarter (compared to the September 2018 quarter):
- Net sales of $190 million, a decrease of $10 million, or 5%
- Net income of $3 million, a decrease of $14 million, or 85%
- Diluted EPS of $0.06, a decrease of $0.34, or 85%
- Adjusted EBITDA of $20 million, a decrease of $10 million, or 35%
- Adjusted diluted EPS of $0.19, a decrease of $0.20, or 51%
Commentary
“Our core animal health sales were in line with our expectations, and, outside of the negative overlaps with China and the exited U.S. vaccine distribution business, roughly equal with last year,” said Jack Bendheim, Phibro’s Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. “As we forecast in our financial guidance, our sales in China in the quarter were negligible, as African Swine Fever reduced demand for our MFAs.”
“We anticipate sales and profitability will accelerate over the balance of the fiscal year, and we have seen a number of encouraging signs across our business. Notably, as the quarter progressed we saw a strengthening of demand for our nutritional specialty products in the U.S. dairy sector, with the backdrop of improvement in U.S. and global milk pricing. This positions us well for our early 2020 launch of a next-generation OmniGen nutritional specialty product for the dairy industry, where we anticipate a return to growth. Initial orders have been strong for our Provia Prime direct-fed microbial product for poultry, and the first of what we believe to be many animal health products to be developed and manufactured by our recently acquired Osprey Biotechnics business.”
“We also saw progress on other major initiatives that are expected to benefit us in the years to come. On the pet side, while still in test marketing, we are seeing strong vet interest and customer testimonials for our Rejensa canine joint health product. With regard to our three announced initiatives relating to vaccines, over the last couple of months several major U.S. poultry integrators have trialed our new pHi-Tech vaccine injection device and we are thrilled with its performance and are very positive on the value it brings to our customers. We are also encouraged by the incremental progress we made in the development of a vaccine against African Swine Fever, although it is still far too early to know if we will be successful. The build-out of our new vaccine production facility in Ireland continues on plan. In total, we remain convinced our P&L investments in strategic growth initiatives are establishing the foundation for the next phase of the Company’s growth.”
Quarterly Results
Net sales
Net sales of $189.7 million for the three months ended September 30, 2019, decreased $10.4 million, or 5%, as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2018. Animal Health and Mineral Nutrition declined $9.3 million and $2.2 million, respectively. Performance Products grew $1.1 million.
Animal Health
Net sales of $121.9 million for the three months ended September 30, 2019, declined $9.3 million, or 7%. Net sales of MFAs and other declined $12.0 million, or 14%, primarily due to reduced demand related to the effect of African Swine Fever in China. Net sales of MFAs and other also declined in other international regions due to customer order patterns. Net sales of nutritional specialty products grew $3.5 million, or 13%, due to volume growth in poultry and dairy products. The recent Osprey acquisition accounted for approximately one-half of the nutritional specialty sales growth. Net sales of vaccines declined $0.8 million, or 5%. The loss of a domestic distribution arrangement in October 2018 offset volume growth in most regions. Net sales of vaccines would have increased approximately 5%, excluding the loss of the distribution arrangement.
Mineral Nutrition
Net sales of $52.6 million for the three months ended September 30, 2019, decreased $2.2 million, or 4%. Lower average selling prices, correlated with the movement of underlying raw material costs, offset increased volumes.
Performance Products
Net sales of $15.2 million for the three months ended September 30, 2019, increased $1.1 million, or 8%, driven by increased volumes of personal care ingredients, partially offset by lower volume of copper-based products.
Gross profit
Gross profit of $57.7 million for the three months ended September 30, 2019, decreased $8.1 million, or 12%, as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2018. Gross profit decreased to 30.4% of net sales for the three months ended September 30, 2019, as compared to 32.9% for the three months ended September 30, 2018. The three months ended September 30, 2019, included $0.3 million of acquisition-related cost of goods sold.
Animal Health gross profit decreased $8.5 million due to volume declines and unfavorable product mix in MFAs and other and vaccines, partially offset by volume growth in nutritional specialty products. Mineral Nutrition gross profit increased $0.9 million, as favorable raw material costs and product mix offset the decline in average selling prices. Performance Products gross profit decreased $0.2 million, as increased unit volumes were more than offset by unfavorable manufacturing costs.
Selling, general and administrative expenses
Selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A) of $47.5 million for the three months ended September 30, 2019, increased $4.6 million, or 11%, as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2018. SG&A for the three months ended September 30, 2019, included $0.4 million of restructuring costs, $0.6 million of stock-based compensation and $0.5 million of acquisition-related transaction costs. SG&A for the three months ended September 30, 2018, included $0.6 million of stock-based compensation. Excluding the effects of these costs, SG&A increased $3.7 million, or 9%.
Animal Health SG&A increased $3.1 million, including increased investments in product development and the effect of the Osprey acquisition. Mineral Nutrition SG&A was comparable to the prior year and Performance Products decreased $0.2 million. Corporate expenses increased $0.8 million due to increased costs of strategic initiatives and public company costs. The restructuring costs, stock-based compensation and acquisition-related costs resulted in a net $0.9 million increase to SG&A.
Interest expense, net
Interest expense, net of $3.4 million for the three months ended September 30, 2019, increased $0.6 million, or 21%, as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2018. The increase in interest expense was primarily driven by the increase in outstanding borrowings on the Revolver. Interest income from short-term investments was comparable to the prior year.
Foreign currency (gains) losses, net
Foreign currency (gains) losses, net for the three months ended September 30, 2019, amounted to net losses of $3.2 million, as compared to $2.6 million in net gains for the three months ended September 30, 2018. Foreign currency gains and losses primarily arose from intercompany balances and the effects of a currency devaluation in Argentina.
Provision for income taxes
The provision for income taxes was $1.1 million and $6.4 million for the three months ended September 30, 2019 and 2018, respectively. The effective income tax rate was 29.6% and 28.1% for the three months ended September 30, 2019 and 2018, respectively. The provision for income taxes during the three months ended September 30, 2018, included a benefit from the exercise of employee stock options of $0.2 million. The effective income tax rate, without the benefit of the employee stock option exercises, would have been 28.8% for the three months ended September 30, 2018.
Net income
Net income of $2.5 million for the three months ended September 30, 2019, decreased $13.8 million, as compared to net income of $16.3 million for the three months ended September 30, 2018. The decrease was primarily due to a $12.7 million decline in operating income coupled with unfavorable foreign currency movements of $5.9 million and increased interest expense of $0.5 million, partially offset by lower income tax expense of $5.3 million. The decline in operating income was driven by an $8.1 million reduction in gross profit, on reduced volumes and unfavorable product mix, and increased SG&A costs of $4.6 million as we continue to invest in product development and strategic growth initiatives.
Adjusted EBITDA
Adjusted EBITDA of $19.7 million for the three months ended September 30, 2019, decreased $10.4 million, or 35%, as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2018. Animal Health Adjusted EBITDA decreased $10.7 million due to reduced sales volumes and the related gross profit decline, coupled with increased SG&A costs for product development and strategic growth initiatives. Mineral Nutrition Adjusted EBITDA increased $0.9 million, driven by increased gross profit. Performance Products Adjusted EBITDA increased $0.1 million. Corporate expenses increased $0.8 million due to increased costs of strategic initiatives and public company costs.
Adjusted provision for income taxes
The adjusted effective income tax rate for the three months ended September 30, 2019 and 2018, was 28.0%.
Adjusted diluted EPS
Adjusted diluted EPS was $0.19 for the quarter, a decrease of $0.20, as compared to $0.39 in the prior year. The decline was driven by lower gross profit, increased SG&A expense, primarily for product development and strategic growth initiatives, and increased interest expense, net, partially offset by lower income tax expense.
Balance Sheet and Cash Flows
- 3.7x leverage ratio at September 30, 2019
- $396 million total debt
- $108 million Adjusted EBITDA
- $79 million cash and short-term investments on hand at September 30, 2019
- $66 million use of cash before financing for the September 2019 quarter, including $55 million for the acquisition of Osprey Biotechnics.
Financial Guidance
We reaffirm our financial guidance for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2020, as included in our August 27, 2019, press release, including our full-year expectations for net sales, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income and adjusted net income per share.
