Polygiene Group: Darkest before dawn? - ABG

Freshness is facing severe headwinds...
...and now Protection was also affected
Q4'22 profitability measures mitigate somewhat


Q1: Net sales -38% y-o-y (Freshness -50%, Protection -28%)

Polygiene had already preannounced its headline numbers ahead of the Q1 report. The final numbers deviated somewhat, with sales 4% below ABGSCe while EBIT was SEK -2.8m (3.8m) versus the preannounced 'negative EBIT' and ABGSCe at SEK -3m. In terms of business areas, Freshness sales were down 50% y-o-y without any orders from distribution at all (was SEK 4.1m last year) as Polygiene's customers are trying to reduce high inventory levels. In previous quarters the weakness in Freshness has been offset by resilience from Protection, but this was not the case in Q1 as Protection sales were down 28% y-o-y as some ScentMaster customers turned to other providers. The gross margin was strong as a consequence of no sales to distributors, and together with the cost savings programme launched last quarter it mitigated the lower sales somewhat. Although EBIT was negative, the threshold for break-even is at least lowered after the initiatives.

Länk till analysen i sin helhet: https://cr.abgsc.com/foretag/polygiene/Equity-research/2023/5/polygiene-group---darkest-before-dawn/