Eurofins Delivered Very Strong Revenues, Margin and Cash Flow in FY 2020, Ahead of Its Objectives, Thanks to a Fast-Paced Response to COVID-19 and the Resilience of Its Core Businesses

LUXEMBOURG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regulatory News:

Eurofins Scientific (Paris:ERF):

• Total revenues grew 19.2% from EUR 4,563m to EUR 5,439m for the full financial year 2020 (FY 2020), slightly above the Group’s recently upgraded EUR 5,400m revenue objective for FY 2020 and 8.8% higher than the EUR 5,000m objective set in October 2018 ¹⁶, and already upgraded from the original EUR 4,000m objective set in October 2015.
• Organic growth¹⁰ was strong at 19.3% in FY 2020 with 5.1% in H1 2020, 32.7% in H2 2020and a record 42.4% in Q4 2020.
• Results demonstrate the resilience of the Group’s core business (excluding COVID-19 clinical testing and reagents revenues), with positive organic growth in FY 2020 and organic growth returning to 5% in Q4 2020 despite continued lockdowns in many countries.
• The Group has risen to the challenges of COVID-19, quickly developing a very broad range of products and services critical to the management of COVID-19. It set up, at pace, significant scale testing capacity and remained at the forefront of both scientific and product innovation. The Group supported the development of vaccines by most leading providers. It also innovated to produce new critical tests and testing formats for the individual and the workplace and recently the Novatype RT-PCR for fast variant identification.
• The Group estimates that COVID-19 testing and reagents delivered in excess of EUR 800m revenues in FY 2020. While they required some additional Net capex and inventory building, these activities were accretive to EBITDA³ margins and cash flow.
• The Group continued to execute on its strategy to reinforce its position as the global leader in “Testing for Life” and entered the final stage of its significant 2015-2020 investment programme to create a network of large state-of-the-art laboratories enabling scale effects, with the most innovative equipment and fully digital with advanced IT solutions.
• Adjusted¹ EBITDA increased by 52% year-on-year to EUR 1,413m in FY 2020 from EUR 931m in FY 2019, representing a 26.0% adjusted EBITDA margin (+560bps year-on-year) exceeding the Group’s latest EUR 1,300m adjusted EBITDA objective set in December 2020 and the EUR 1,000m adjusted EBITDA objective first set in October 2018 and restated to EUR 1,100m in March 2020 to reflect the impact of IFRS16¹⁷.
• Adjusted basic earnings per share⁷ (EPS) increased by 107% to EUR 3.63 in FY 2020 compared to EUR 1.75 in FY 2019, largely driven by the increase in profitability and lower tax compared to last year.
• Net Operating Cash Flow⁸ significantly increased in FY2020, up 81% to EUR 1,224m in FY2020 vs EUR 678m in FY 2019. Net working capital stood at 4.5% of Group’s revenues in FY 2020 vs 5.3% in FY2019 (-80bps year-on-year).
• Free Cash Flow to the Firm⁹ was EUR 873m, a significant increase of 143.5% compared to EUR 359m in FY 2019 and well above our most recent objective of EUR 700m set in December 2020 and the original EUR 500m objective first set in March 2020¹⁸, restated to EUR 600m in October 2020 to reflect IFRS 16 reclassification.
• Year-end net debt¹⁴ decreased to EUR 2,242m from EUR 3,245m in FY 2019 thanks to the strong cash flow generation and a successful equity issuance (EUR 535m total gross proceeds) in May 2020. As a result, the leverage ratio (net debt divided by proforma adjusted EBITDA¹⁹) decreased to 1.6x at the end of December 2020, from 2.5x at the end of June 2020 and 3.2x at the end of December 2019 returning below 2.0x, 2 years ahead of the 2022 target.
• Eurofins closed 26 acquisitions during the year 2020, representing full-year equivalent proforma revenues of EUR 103m in FY 2020 and a total investment of EUR 177m, slightly above the EUR 171m investment in FY 2019 and still considerably lower than 2017 and 2018, reflecting the Group’s reduced focus on M&A.
• Eurofins intends to propose, at its upcoming Annual General Meeting (AGM), to distribute a dividend of EUR 0.68 per share, corresponding to 25% of FY 2020 basic reported EPS attributable to equity holders.
• In FY 2020, the Group continued to embed best practices in business operations and make further progress on all three dimensions of ESG, including disclosure, notably with the introduction of specific ESG targets focused on gender diversity, safety, environment and compliance, applicable for all Business units and more senior leaders from 2021 onwards, the appointment of a fourth independent director with over 40 years of experience in audit and accounting to the Board of Directors in 2020 and the proposal to bring the Board of Directors to eight memberscomprised of four women and five independent directors at the April 2021 AGM.
• Outlook: following a very strong set of 2020 results, Eurofins is confirming its 2021 financial objectives, updating its objectives for 2022 and setting new objectives for 2023, all at average 2020 currency exchange rates, as follows:
  • The COVID-19 pandemic evolution and its impact over the coming months and years remains very much uncertain, especially considering the unknown efficacy of vaccines on new Variants of Concern, leading to a wide range of potential financial outcomes.
  • Consequently, keeping our previous revenues objective for FY2021 of EUR 5.45bn first set on 4 March 2020, before the pandemic significantly hit Europe and North America, appears the best estimate that can be made for now. This objective was initially made at 2019 average exchange rates and assumed EUR 200m from M&Aconsolidated at mid-year in 2020 (revised down to EUR 150m on 22 October 2020), while there was actually a negative FX effect of EUR 60m in 2020 and only EUR 103m of full year revenues from M&A in 2020. These objectives also assume EUR 150m revenues from M&A in 2021 consolidated at mid-year.
  • The Group also maintains its FY2021 objectives of EUR 1.25bn adjusted EBITDA and EUR 700m Free Cash Flow to the Firm. This includes an objective of EUR 350m for Net capex and EUR 30m for SDI at the EBITDA level.
  • 2021 results could well be materially higher than these objectives should COVID-19 testing continue at current levels through 2021.
  • The objectives outlined below for 2022 and 2023 are set excluding any revenues from COVID-19 testing and reagents and any M&A beyond 31/12/2020 (i.e. organic core business ex. COVID-19 objectives). They also assume a full return to normal of the economies and markets to a pre pandemic situation by 01/01/2022.
  • In 2020, the Group generated over EUR 800m of revenues from COVID-19 testing and reagents. It remains very difficult to estimate the lost growth in 2020 due to the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns, social distancing & travel restrictions on our clients and our activities. Nevertheless, given the strong performance of our core business in Q1 and Q4 of 2020, we estimate this impact to be of ca. EUR 250m in 2020, implying a net positive COVID-19 impact of about EUR 550m on FY2020 revenues. If the pandemic is fully resolved by the end of 2021, we believe that the EUR 250m lost growth on our core business in 2020 could be caught up in 2022 (in addition to the 5% organic growth of that year), as those missing sales are mainly due to the reduction of testing for activities impacted at our clients (restaurants, events and travel industry, clinical trials, etc.) and environment testing that requires on site sampling. For 2022 and 2023, we believe that setting a 5% annual organic growth objective for our core business (excluding COVID-19 testing and reagents revenues) is an achievable target.
  • Based on those objectives and hypotheses Eurofins organic ex. COVID-19 revenues should therefore reach EUR 5.45bn in 2022. This would lead to ex. COVID-19 objectives of EUR 1.30bn adjusted EBITDA and EUR 750m Free Cash Flow to the Firm.
  • For 2023, based on 5% organic growth, the organic ex. COVID-19 revenues objective is set at EUR 5.725bn, and thanks to expected continued progress on profitability and cash flow generation, Eurofins sets objectives of EUR 1.375bn adjusted EBITDA and EUR 800m Free Cash Flow to the Firm.
  • Should the above Free Cash Flow objectives be achieved throughout 2021-2023, without any M&A spend in the period, the leverage (net debt to adjusted EBITDA), should fall below 1.0x by the end of 2023.

These organic objectives reflect both the significant opportunities available to the Group as well as the poor visibility of future COVID-19 contributions. Should vaccination programs not achieve sufficient population immunity in many countries by this summer or Variants of Concern significantly reduce Vaccine effectiveness, a level of COVID-19 testing and reagents revenues could well continue in 2022 and beyond as well as some market disruptions. At this time, Eurofins continues to carry out significant volumes of COVID-19 testing and anticipate this activity to continue at some level at least during 2021.

In addition to these organic objectives, whilst M&A is not currently a priority, Eurofins considers a likely scenario that it may add EUR 150m proforma revenues from acquisitions in 2021 and EUR 200m in each of 2022 and 2023. Including these M&A activities, the Group revenues would reach EUR 5.70bn in 2022 and EUR 6.175bn in 2023 if it achieves its organic objectives.

Comments from the CEO, Dr. Gilles Martin:

“I am humbled by the outstanding way Eurofins teams responded to the challenges of 2020, rapidly developing and delivering an unmatched set of solutions to fight the pandemic, demonstrating the resilience of our core business, and growing revenues, margins and cash flow significantly. The Group has also used the year to further invest in its infrastructure, especially IT, to be stronger in future years and offer superior services to clients. Eurofins is now in a very strong financial position, which offers optionality and the ability to invest in high growth markets, such as in Asia.

For 2021, the impact of further economic disruptions and the contribution from COVID-19 testing and reagents services on our Group remains very hard to estimate, especially considering the rapid spread of variants of concern. Scenarios range from return to normal in the spring of 2021 to continued disruptions and some need for testing continuing into 2023. Looking beyond the pandemic, the Group is very excited by its broader prospects driven by return to growth in global economies, continued growth in our core markets, rapidly rising levels of investment in global BioPharma, and the many opportunities from new technologies coming from recent advances in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. The speed of reaction and innovative strength shown by our entrepreneurial units to develop an unparalleled range of solutions to fight COVID-19 will no doubt enable our Group to capture significant opportunities in other areas in the future.”

The Full Year Report 2020 can be found on Eurofins’ website at the following location: https://www.eurofins.com/investors/reports-and-presentations/

Conference Call

Eurofins will hold a conference call with analysts and investors today at 15:00 CET to discuss the results and the performance of Eurofins, as well as its outlook, and will be followed by a questions and answers (Q&A) session.

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Business Review

The following figures are extracts from the Consolidated Financial Statements and should be read in conjunction with the Consolidated Financial Statements and Notes for the year ended 31 December 2020.

Table 1: Full Year 2020 Results Summary

Revenues

Revenues increased 38.6% year-on-year to EUR 1,703m in Q4 2020 from EUR 1,228m in Q4 2019. For the full financial year 2020, revenues grew 19.2% from EUR 4,563m to EUR 5,439m, exceeding the most recent revenue objective of EUR 5,300m set in December 2020 and 8.8% above the original objective of EUR 5,000m first set in October 2018. Organic growth was strong at 19.3% in FY 2020 with 5.1% in H1 2020, 32.7% in H2 2020 and a record 42.4% in Q4 2020. The strong trading performance was driven by both the core business (excluding COVID-19 clinical reagents and testing revenues) and COVID-19 related activities which demonstrated the very strong agility of the Group to develop new activities at pace and the benefit of its broad-based activities (genomics, technologies, clinical diagnostics IVD products, routine and specialty clinical testing). The core business showed very strong resilience despite the impact of lockdowns in many geographies, delivering a ca. 5% organic growth rate in Q4 2020.

Table 2: Organic Growth Calculation and Revenue Reconciliation

Table 3: Breakdown of Revenue by Operating Segment

In Europe, Eurofins’ largest market representing 57.8% of Group revenues (54.8% in FY2019), revenues increased 25.8% to EUR 3,146m compared to EUR 2,501m in FY 2019. The region delivered double-digit revenue growth primarily driven by the Group’s ramp-up of COVID-19 activities. Thirty-seven laboratories across Europe were created or repurposed to offer capacity and fast turnaround times for PCR testing and more than 10 million PCR tests were performed. A large part of the COVID-19 activities of these laboratories has been focused on supporting health authorities and patients directly. The Group continues to develop additional solutions and deploy additional services to support authorities including in identifying new variants early, through further sampling points and increasing sequencing activity in several countries. Eurofins recently launched its GSD NovaPrime® SARS-CoV-2 PCR kit which is validated and CE-marked for gargling and saliva sampling methods. Such methods are preferred for testing children and vulnerable groups and could be used to help reopen schools or support them to remain open. They also lend themselves very well to mass testing. Eurofins also recently launched GSD NovaPrime® SARS-CoV-2 Direct RT-PCR kit, a new extraction-free RT-PCR method validated and CE-marked which allows for extremely fast (one hour) onsite testing without compromising the high accuracy of PCR testing. The Group has also been supporting companies, the travel industry, sports events, municipalities, regional and national testing operations.

After a robust start in 2020, the Food and Feed testing activities in Europe felt the impact of the lockdowns, especially in Q2 2020, before returning to more normal growth levels in the second half of the year. Activities involving physical contact with the customer such as audit and sensory, environment sampling or clinical trials continue to be challenged. Environment testing also had a strong start in Europe in 2020 with positive growth in Q1 2020, with particularly strong performance in the DACH, Benelux and Nordics regions, on the back of good quality and service delivery, as well as innovation. In Q2 2020, the business was severely impacted by COVID-19 restrictions, in France, Spain, Austria, the UK and Ireland where strict lockdown measures put many of our client activities on hold. It has been progressively catching up since May with the business back to positive organic growth in Q4 2020 despite some activities still being impacted by the COVID-19 related restrictive measures in some countries (e.g. testing related to the construction sector), resulting in overall flat organic growth for this area of activity in Europe in FY 2020.

In North America, Eurofins’ second largest market which accounts for 34.7% of Group sales (36.8% in FY 2019), revenues increased 12.5% to EUR 1,887m in FY 2020. Revenues in North America were positively impacted by COVID-19 related activities in the Clinical, BioPharma, and Genomic segments. The U.S. Clinical business was well positioned to respond to COVID-19 testing demand, and extensive capacity was developed at our twenty CLIA-certified testing laboratories geographically dispersed across the U.S.. In BioPharma services, growth continued to be strong thanks to new offerings and increased customer outsourcing trends, as well as the Group’s support of numerous COVID-19 related therapeutics and vaccines. This was partly offset by delays and cancellations of early phase clinical trials, particularly early on in the pandemic, which primarily impacted the CDMO and Central Laboratory businesses. Strong growth was also achieved in Genomics as the business directly contributed to the development and manufacturing of diagnostics and therapeutics for COVID-19. Agroscience saw weaker study activity, largely attributable to cancellations and delays in new awards due to COVID-19 related customer disruptions.

Food testing also performed strongly in the U.S. in 2020, benefiting from the strong positive effects of its nationwide network of microbiology laboratories and the continued consolidation and integration of the assets of the former Covance Food Solutions businesses which drove increasing sales and margin expansion. Additionally, one of the effects of the pandemic was also to strengthen demand for supplements, vitamins, and pet foods, which further supported growth in the region. Finally, the integration of Covance Food Solutions, acquired in the second half of 2018, is largely completed with the opening, six weeks ahead of schedule, of the large new Food Chemistry laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin. This state-of-the-art facility is expected to drive new innovations and efficiencies for our customers benefit beginning in 2021 and become the Centre of Excellence for much of the Group’s U.S. specialty food chemistry departments, serving the nutritional supplements market and other large food industry clients. In Environment Testing, revenues were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to varying degrees depending on national/state government policies and protocols. In Canada, where government policy incentivised the retention of staff, Environmental field activity was maintained thereby supporting a strong flow of samples into our laboratories which, as a result, managed to generate positive year-on-year revenue growth. In the U.S., after a very strong start in Q1 2020, the Environment Testing business was impacted by state-by-state shelter-in-place orders in Q2 2020, which affected field-sampling activities. Sample flow partly recovered from May onwards.

In FY2020 in the Rest of the World, Eurofins generated 7.5% of revenues (vs 8.4% in FY2019) or EUR 407m compared to EUR 385m in FY 2019, an increase of 5.6% compared to prior year with varying performance across both countries and areas of activity, as the COVID-19 impact on sales was largely driven by the specific national government policies and protocols applicable locally. Asia and the Middle East performed well overall, with the regions delivering high double-digit organic growth in Q4 2020 and low double digit organic growth in FY 2020, driven in particular by strong performance of the laboratories focusing on Biopharma Product Testing, Genomics services and SAFER@WORK Initiatives as Eurofins continued to partner with governments, pharmaceutical companies and other corporates to help control the pandemic. On the other hand, Environment Testing, Food and Feed Testing and Consumer Product Testing businesses were particularly affected by COVID-19 lockdowns. India performed strongly supported by a sharp surge of demand in both Genomics and Pharma services with the production of probes and primers for diagnostics use and for research laboratories developing vaccines and therapeutics against COVID-19. The Consumer Product Testing business developed capabilities in-house to initiate testing of sanitisers, masks and coveralls. In Japan, Genomics benefited from demand for primers and probes to detect SARS-CoV-2 and Biopharma Testing diversified its service portfolio to focus on innovations and activities for new modalities. During the year 2020, the Group made a number of strategically significant acquisitions to further strengthen its positioning in Asia. In Japan in particular, through the acquisition of Taiyo Techno Research in November 2020, the Group became market leader in asbestos testing and, overall, Environment Testing in Japan whilst through the acquisition of GeneTech Inc. in August 2020 it became the market leader in Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT). In Taiwan, the Group became market leader in Environment Testing with the acquisition of the SunDream Group.

In the Pacific region (Australia/New Zealand) solid growth was reported in spite of COVID-19 lockdowns. The BioPharma Testing, Environment Testing, and NZ Food & Water Business Lines reported strong top line growth. BioPharma growth was supported by increased demand for biocide and disinfectant product testing. The BioPharma Testing Chemical Analysis business acquired in 2019 was relocated to the 5,200 m² full service state-of-the-art laboratory campus in Melbourne as scheduled. The Australian Environment Testing business continued its trend of organic market share growth, supplemented by the acquisition of Perth based ARL and a tuck in Mold Testing business in Newcastle.

Performance in Latin America was mixed as the region was particularly hard hit by COVID-19. The Agroscience business, on the back of completing construction of a new full service GLP in Laboratory in Brazil and further enhancement of field services reported very strong top line. The Clinical business saw both a COVID-19 upswing and a downturn in traditional clinical testing and imaging to finish in a positive position. The consolidated Brazil and Chile Food & Feed businesses experienced both COVID-19 impacts and civil unrest (Chile), to finish the year in a near neutral top line position.

Investor Relations
Eurofins Scientific SE
Phone: +32 2 766 1620
E-mail: ir@eurofins.com