Catalent, Inc. (NYSE:CTLT) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Sean Dodge: Okay.

Alessandro Maselli: I — that being said, I just want to make one other point, right, which is, as we said many times, the fact that we are — as we should, I — mentioning explicitly and transformative one specific customer, it doesn’t mean that, the relation we did with that customer is only related to one program, and in fact, I am happy to share that the relationship with that specific customer is across several different programs. Some of that closer to full approval, some of them a little bit earlier in the pipeline, but we are pretty pleased about that pipeline.

Sean Dodge: Okay. That’s good color there. And then on Bloomington and the challenges you have had there, can you talk about the changes you have made in terms of personnel or oversight at that facility that give you confidence and maybe give clients confidence that Bloomington has turned the corner and you are on a path to restoring the kind of the consistency and operational excellence there?

Alessandro Maselli: Sure. Look, first of all, I just want to give a shout to the Bloomington team, because it’s always coming to the news as of late for some of these challenges, but this is the one facility that has played an incredible role during the pandemic serving the United States and the world with an incredible effort of producing billions of vaccine doses, which have saved millions of lives. And I just want this not to be lost from our memories, because it’s easy to move on from this. So the Bloomington team is a team that has accomplished an historical mission, which will never be taken away from them. That being said, clearly, the work has changed now and the work is a little bit different, and as such, you need the different skills and talent.

And since the beginning of the year, as you said, we have made several changes, both in our — in the site leadership where we have a new general manager there, as well as in several leadership positions at the site and above the site, including our quality function. And we are very pleased with the progresses and sustainable progress that this team is driving, looking at not only at cost reductions, but also driving the customer excellence and services, because at the end of the day, in the long-term, what really matters is to make sure that we deliver on our customer’s expectations and we continue to serve patients. So changes have happened, have been progressed over the last three months, four months, I would say, and we have the confidence that we have now in place the leadership for this new phase of the site, which is more launching new products and therapies as opposed to do one-only product in a pandemic setup.

Sean Dodge: Okay. That’s very helpful. Thanks again.

Operator: Thank you. With our next question comes from John Sourbeer from UBS. John, your line is now open.

John Sourbeer: Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just maybe starting off here clarification. I guess just given the strategic review, I didn’t hear the confirmation of that $6.5 billion of revenue capacity that was talked about in the fiscal 3Q update, are you confirming that number still?

Alessandro Maselli: So, look, when you think about where we want to put the sweet spot of utilization of this company and where we are going to get the most of our operating leverage and we believe that the range of utilization you want to achieve in this business between 70% and 80% of utilization across the Board of your assets. You translate in what that utilization in our current footprint can translate, it is $6.5 billion. So, of course, you noticed, this is predicated and keep being in the right therapeutic categories, having the right pipeline and winning the right amount of business, all of which we are working very actively in. So the potential of our network is that one and I guarantee you we are going to do everything that we possibly can to continue to fill our facilities and to get to that level of utilization which generates healthy levels of cash flows.

John Sourbeer: Thanks. And just a follow-up here on the Brussels facility. I appreciate the color in the prepared remarks on the improvements there. Just any additional details you can provide on timelines and improvements and how you expect to get to maybe more of a normal productivity level there? Thank you.

Alessandro Maselli: Well, look, we have seen a very good progress from that facility. So we are pleased with we are — what we are already seeing. I believe that some of the lines for some very critical product have recorded record output in the last few months. So pretty pleased with what we are doing there and I believe that Brussels is on the right trajectory, and as we go through the first part of the year, which is a little bit slower also because of preplanned vacations and shutdowns at these facilities and we look into the second half of the year, we are going to continue to see progress and we are going to continue to see Brussels returning to ARPU level first and then margin as a consequence. We need to remind ourselves that this facility, we have all the demand we want, because we are still catching up some of the demand of coming from the experience and we expect in the second half of the year, this facility to really come back where it needs to be.

John Sourbeer: Thanks for taking the questions.

Operator: Thank you. With our next question comes from Justin Bowers from Deutsche Bank. Justin, your line is now open.

Justin Bowers: Hi. Good morning, everyone. In the prepared remarks, you mentioned about returning to historical margin levels in the Biologics segment and also about returning to 3x target leverage level. Can you provide us a framework on order of magnitude and perhaps duration on reaching those milestones?

Alessandro Maselli: Well, sure. Look, at the moment, where we stand today, there is a significant amount of revenues that we are recording in our Biologics segment, which are translating in very little EBITDA levels and this is not the function of having the different market, different product mix or different product, is a function of the things that we have discussed in terms of underutilization of productivity improvement. So there is a significant opportunity for us to continue to work on these programs and revenues and returning those revenues and contributing to the bottomline. Our layer, which is very sensitive to the bottomline. So as we work through fiscal 2024 and we enter fiscal 2025, as we shared with the normalized margins, we have a line of sight to EBITDA returning to what we expect it to be, and as such, that leverage will take care a little bit of itself.

I also believe that Matti will be absolutely focused on our $2 billion of working capital with all the initiatives that he has highlighted and looking at the progress is that he has already accomplished in the last few weeks since he’s joined, I am very confident that there would be a significant change in that area of our business, driving short-term cash flow. But also repositioning the company going forward as we continue to grow the topline for less need of capital to be infused into the company to operate. So it is a pretty simple playbook, grow the EBITDA, you use working capital and improve cash flow.

Justin Bowers: Okay. So just to clarify then, do we — should we think of normalized margins in terms of the pre-pandemic margins in the Biologics segments? And then my other quick follow-up is, just on the C19 revenue outlook, does that include other respiratory program revenue for that large customer as well?

Alessandro Maselli: So, first of all, I believe that, the way I would respond to the first part of your question, there is nothing that is not in our control or that would prevent us to get back to the historical margins level in Biologics, nothing. The product mix is the same, the pricing is the same, equipments are the same and it’s a pretty healthy space to be in. So we will get there, it’s a matter of work and time. The second part of your question, we will over time try to carve out the other respiratory vaccine work from the pure COVID work, right? It’s more appropriate, because we believe that, these are less pandemic — it’s less pandemic related to EBITDA and so the simple answer to your question is no.

Justin Bowers: Got it. Thank you, Alessandro.

Operator: Thank you. With our next question comes from Derik De Bruin from Bank of America. Derik, your line is now open.