Travel retail burdens the Consumer dynamic

Beiersdorf’s growth continued in the third quarter despite the headwinds in the luxury segment coming from China. While La Prairie suffered from lower travel retail, Derma and Eucerin clocked double-digit growth rates. tesa continued to see organic growth backed by good demand from auto and in the Consumer business. The sales statement was a beat versus our expectations.

A fairly sunny quarter

Beiersdorf reported a strong set of figures as some well-known Consumer brands benefited from the early hot weather in the Northern Hemisphere and the ability to serve customers demand. This was compounded by the re-listing at some retailers, especially in Germany. On the back of the better-than-expected figures, the management lifted its FY top-line guidance although the profitability guidance remained unchanged. Following the call our conclusion was that this implies some conservatism as the

Still some conservatism in the increased guidance

After Beiersdorf’s strong start to the year, the higher FY sales guidance seems to have baked in some conservatism as the Q2 is likely to also be a strong quarter. The firm seems to have sloughed off some habits like old clothes. Innovation and digitalization are two sides of the same coin. The so-called brand equity has become strong at all four Consumer main brands, which should stabilise the future revenue streams.

A new dawn?

Today’s Beiersdorf looks different to prior to the pandemic. The last management change seems to have given the company a positive impetus. This is also the case for shareholder returns, with the CEO seemingly working hard to make better use of the significant cash pile. Any change on this front could be a trigger for the Beiersdorf story, in our view, although Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Profitability remains a concern

Beiersdorf found it difficult to totally allay analysts’ concerns regarding profitability and potential recessionary developments in the coming quarters. However, the management tried the tackle this point by lifting the guidance against a backdrop of strong growth across all the brands. The positive point, in our view, is that profitability could be ‘managed’ as the company is managing to make some positive investments. The reported figures were above our estimates.

Rather positive tone, despite all the uncertainties

Beiersdorf delivered another strong quarter, reporting a moderate acceleration in organic growth momentum in Consumer. The Blue Elephant trumpeted on to attack, whereas China backed La Prairie pushed the gas pedal. The Chinese restrictions were also part of the explanation for tesa’s still good but subdued performance.

Stronger targets

The Beiersdorf management made a big show of presenting the company and their belief in how the new Consumer growth and profitability targets will be reached. Interestingly, investors did not seem to see the blue sky scenario as a given. There was also some disbelieve about the success of recently acquired companies as well as about future ones. The management thus had to answer many critical questions, which it did underwhelmingly in our view.

China will be key for the 2022 targets

The pandemic is far from over and developments in China will have a material impact on Beiersdorf’s performance. To make it a perfect storm, the situation on the raw material side also remains challenging, and not only in terms of prices. The up date situation has slightly watered down the strong Q1 start with management none too enthusiastic for the remainder of the year. We see Q2 developments potentially triggering some guidance revision.

A difficult to protect margin

The margin guidance looks odd at first sight, as it may be a challenge in the current business environment, which might become even worse against the background of the Ukraine war. Beiersdorf has been quite successful in passing on higher input costs, but we believe that pricing power will become more and more limited and internal cost cutting will also see its limits. We were beaten at the revenue line by +2.5% and on EBIT level by +5.0%.

A prestigious skin care acquisition

Beiersdorf has returned to the not well-paved M&A path with a small and expensive acquisition. The US-based business might help the company to speed up its CARE ambitions, but it does not need any toe-holds in these regions. Chantecaille’s philosophy might be helpful to target a new customer group, but there are limited cross-fertilisation opportunities. However, it looks different when it comes to sustainability. Here Chantecaille makes a difference, which might be beneficial for La Prairie.

At a slower pace

Today it was made crystal clear that Beiersdorf is a marketing machine with a skin care affiliate. The sluggish Q3 performance was covered by presenting 9M figures in the trading statement. Some additional Q3 figures were provided in the presentation, of which those representing growth rates of core product groups could not be correlated to other information provided. Beiersdorf’s figures came in weaker than anticipated and the potential future development was not well explained.

La Prairie is flying

Basically, the Q2 growth was against quite a weak basis, but a good continuation of the already paved recovery. La Prairie especially saw strong demand, despite some travel restrictions still. Digitalisation seems also to be taking off, supporting Beiersdorf’s luxury brand, which was solely sustained by offline retail. tesa made a strong and lasting contribution due to its positioning in electronics and electrics. Our quite moderate expectations were beaten.

All of a sudden…

… we have to change our view on Beiersdorf. Until yesterday evening, we had the impression things were going well, but the unexpected dismissal of the CARE+ initiator, Mr De Loecker, has forced us to re-think our position despite the indication that the new CEO will follow the same path. Like all other CEOs, we believe, Mr Vincent Warnery will put his own mark on the position, but this might be difficult given the current time frame. Preliminary figures had been released earlier this month.

Back to pre-crisis levels ...

… thanks to smaller tesa. As a quite close competitor in this area already flagged (Adhesives Technologies – Henkel), adhesives in general had a strong start to the year but, due to tesa’s stronger focus on automotive and electronics, the direct comparison differs greatly. The second message was the re-bounce at the group level continued sequentially, and Consumer sending some vital signs was the third message. Nevertheless, the absolute figures fit into our broad picture as FX headwinds knock

Fuelling CARE

The higher investments under the umbrella of the already expensive CARE programme have to seen and valued against the back of the current CEO’s predecessor and his targets. This meaningful investment needs to be better explained. Having already pre-released some adjusted figures, the full set of figures brought profitability much closer to our expectations.

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