DVO 217.50 p at 11:53 GMT ABOUT PRODUCTS INVESTORS SUSTAINABILITY CAREERS CONTACT MY DEVRO BUSINESS REVIEW INVESTORS Investment Case Annual Report 2020 Chairman's Statement Business Review Business Model and Business Process Download Centre Results, Reports & Presentations Regulatory News Share Price Calendar Shareholder Centre Share Fraud Warning UK Subsidiary S172 Statements 2020 was a challenging but overall a positive year for Devro. The COVID-19 pandemic and our management of it quickly became our priority, which continued throughout the year and into 2021. We were also successful in leveraging recent investments in our structure, processes and competencies to make good progress on both our strategic and financial priorities. The pandemic impacted all aspects of our lives however the Company performed well and demonstrated its robustness and flexibility in the most challenging of conditions. I am proud that we delivered on all of our COVID-19 related priorities, as well as making significant progress with both our trading performance and strategic priorities. This is testament to our people, and I would again like to put on the record my gratitude for all their selfless hard work and commitment. COVID-19 The initial impact of the pandemic was felt during Q1 2020 in our Chinese business and manufacturing site, and we took our best practice learnings and rolled these out across the Group as necessary as the virus spread. We immediately established three clear priorities ensuring the health and safety of our colleagues and communities; continuing to contribute in a positive way to the food supply chain and maintaining a robust financial position. We responded to the pandemic swiftly and effectively, introducing precautionary health and safety measures which, as a minimum, were based on government guidelines but in many cases applied more stringent measures. These measures were maintained throughout the year and served us well. As a principal, we aimed to be ‘ahead of the curve’ in the introduction of precautionary measures and ‘behind the curve’ in terms of their relaxation. This approach helped us to maintain our operational performance throughout the year ensuring a good service to our customers and fulfilling our role in the food supply chain. Whilst we were successful in maintaining the continuity of our operations, this was not without challenges. In the second quarter of 2020, we faced issues securing hide supplies, a key raw material, but our close relationship with key suppliers allowed us to navigate this potential problem. We also had to manage periods where many colleagues had to self-isolate, and our teams have shown great flexibility to manage through this successfully. In the second half of the year our sites set up ‘track and trace’ processes which have been very effective in reducing the spread of the virus. In some of our markets sales were impacted by COVID-19. We saw an uptick in retail driven end customer volumes (e.g. supermarkets) which contrasted to those volumes into the food service industry (e.g. hotels, educational facilities, sporting events) that were severely adversely affected. We estimate that the net impact of this, based on our geographical exposure, particularly in some important mature markets, was of circa 2% on edible casing volumes in 2020. Adjusting for this impact we would have delivered Group volume growth within our targeted long-term range of 2-4%. Business Performance Despite the COVID-19 challenges, which we estimate had a net 2% adverse impact on our edible collagen (‘EC’) volumes, total EC volumes grew 1% in the year, driven by strong growth in emerging markets (+13%) and offset by a decline in mature markets (-5%) mainly due to the COVID-19 impact and distributor de-stocking in Continental Europe. Overall Group revenue was marginally down (-1%) but underlying operating profit was up 4% driven by strong margins resulting from significant supply chain savings. Underlying basic earnings per share increased by 9% to 16.5 pence (2019: 15.2 pence) further supported by lower finance costs. Despite higher exceptional items, related to the Bellshill closure, cash generation was also strong and net debt ended the year at £110 million, an improvement of almost £15 million in the year and the covenant ratio improved to 1.8 times net debt to EBITDA. The delayed final 2019 dividend was paid in October 2020 and the 2020 interim dividend was paid in January 2021. Emerging Markets Devro’s growth ambition is based on delivering growth in emerging markets of between 6–10% per annum. In H2 2019 we saw an acceleration of growth in emerging markets and this momentum continued throughout 2020. Emerging markets growth was 13% with all sales areas contributing, except for the Middle East and Africa region, where sales were adversely impacted by COVID-19. Throughout the year we saw exceptional growth in Latin America (+76%), driven by new customer gains, as well as good growth in South East Asia (+14%) and Russia and East (+16%). China sales grew moderately at +3% partly impacted by COVID-19 but also due to a strong comparator in H2 2019. Emerging markets represented 28% of the Group revenue, a 300 bps increase year on year. Mature Markets Devro has strong market positions in mature markets. We continue to see growth opportunities in these markets mainly through gut conversion and the snacking category with an overall expectation, on average, of growth between 0-2% per annum. In 2020 we experienced two specific challenges, namely food service declines due to COVID-19 lockdowns across several important markets and the anticipated distributor partner de-stocking in H1 2020 in Continental Europe. Overall edible casing volumes in mature markets were down 5%, but with an improvement seen in the trend during H2 2020 (-6% H1 and -3% H2). Edible casing volumes grew strongly in North America (+9%) and were in positive territory in Australia & NZ (+2%) and Japan (+1%), but this was offset by lower volumes in Continental Europe (-16%), where sales were impacted by distributor de-stocking and a more general collagen casings market weakness in the UK and Ireland (-9%). In both of these areas volumes were also impacted by COVID-19 related declines in foodservice. Strategic Progress Despite the challenges presented by COVID-19 we made very good progress on our strategic priorities in the year. After the introduction of the 3Cs strategy in 2018, considerable progress has been made to further strengthen the foundation of the business with, amongst others, the implementation of our global operating model and supporting processes like Integrated Business Planning and introduction of the sales cycle. The focus in 2020 shifted from building and designing those to using them to drive our growth agenda. WIN WITH THE WINNING CUSTOMERS FOCUS ON THE CORE PROFITABILITY DRIVERS STRENGTHENING COMPETENCIES Outlook The progress we have made in all areas of our 3Cs strategy in 2020 provides a strong foundation for further strategic improvements in 2021. Encouragingly, the year has started positively but many of the COVID-19 related challenges experienced in 2020 remain providing a level of caution. Despite this we expect to make further progress in 2021 driven by our sales pipeline actions, solid underlying demand and the ongoing benefits of operational improvements including the Bellshill site closure. We would also expect another year of good free cash generation. Devro is well positioned for the future. Rutger Helbing Chief Executive Officer ©Devro 2021CONTACTACCESSIBILITYDEVRO'S TERMSPRIVACY NOTICESCOOKIESGENDER PAY GAPMODERN SLAVERY STATEMENTSSITEMAPBy emperor COOKIE POLICY Devro's website uses cookies. By continuing to browse you are agreeing to our use of cookies Cookies