SGS SA (SGSOF) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

2025-02-11 10:45:00 ET

SGS SA (SGSOF)

Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call

February 11, 2025, 4:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Ariel Bauer - Head, Investor Relations, Communications and Sustainability

Geraldine Picaud - Chief Executive Officer

Marta Vlatchkova - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Annelies Vermeulen - Morgan Stanley

Will Kirkness - Bernstein

Himanshu Agarwal - Bank of America

Sylvia Barker - JPMorgan

Rory McKenzie - UBS

Neil Tyler - Redburn Atlantic

James Rose - Barclays

Remo Rosenau - Helvetische Bank

Tom Burlton - BNP Paribas Exane

Arthur Truslove - Citi

Arnaud Palliez - CIC

Suhasini Varanasi - Goldman Sachs

Presentation

Geraldine Picaud

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to our Analyst Conference on the Full Year Results of 2024. I’m very excited to speak first about the highlights and give more color on the business trends and the performance by end market. Then Marta will give you more insights on the financial performance.

So, in 2024, SGS delivered excellent results and achieved key steps of Strategy 27 at the same time. Sales and profitability reached the top of our guidance and the cash generation has been a record high at CHF748 million. We see this great momentum continuing in 2025 and I will come back to it in detail later, but we expect the organic growth and the cash generation to remain strong and the profitability to continue to progress.

So, as just said, we have made solid progress on the three pillars of Strategy 27. First, on growth, you know that we have signed 14 highly synergistic bolt-on acquisitions since January 2024. They reinforced our portfolio, they bring complementary expertise and fresh talents to the group.

I’m also especially happy with the launch of IMPACT NOW and the incremental sales of CHF100 million that we recorded in sustainability. Digital Trust is becoming more than ever an increasingly powerful driver for SGS, which demand continue to grow in AI and digitalization among our clients.

Our other two pillars are also well on track. Our efficiency program has already significantly improved our margin this year with a full effect to be reached at the end of 2025 and we have also reduced our leverage to reinforce our firepower....

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