Half Year 2024 Lonza Group AG Earnings Call Transcript
Key Points
- Lonza Group Ltd (LZAGF) reported sales growth of 1.8% in H1 2024, reaching CHF3.1 billion.
- The company achieved a CORE EBITDA of CHF893 million, representing a margin of 29.2%.
- Strong free cash flow of CHF296 million was reported for the first half.
- Healthy number of new contract signings in the CDMO business, particularly in biologics and cell and gene technologies.
- The acquisition of the Genentech site in Vacaville is expected to double the company's global mammalian network and increase its presence in the US market.
- Sales and profit were negatively impacted by currency exchange rates due to the Swiss franc depreciating.
- The CHI division faced challenges due to weaker than expected market demand for hard empty pharma capsules.
- Margins decreased by 0.8 percentage points in H1 2024 compared to H1 2023, partly due to the termination of COVID-related mRNA business.
- The Cell & Gene division declined by 6.6% versus the prior year period, despite showing underlying growth.
- The Capsules & Health Ingredients division experienced continued destocking in pharma and increased competition in the nutraceutical business, impacting margins.
Good morning and good afternoon and a warm welcome actually to our H1 results presentation. It's actually great to be here with you today. As we begin, I would first like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Wolfgang Wienand, as many of you will know, I joined Lonza as CEO at the beginning of this month, a joint venture from Siegfried, where I was CEO for the last five and a half years. Before that at Siegfried, I held the roles of Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Scientific Officer. Prior to joining Siegfried, I spent time in a series of leadership roles at Evonik Industries, most of the time also in the CDMO space.
For the last two decades, my career has helped me to gain a deep knowledge of the CDMO space and to build a broad network in the pharmaceutical industry. I'm very much looking forward to using all of this in order to together with my team, bring long-term to the next level on this extraordinary journey. While today is only day 19 in my life at Lonza, it is still important for me to engage
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