Trajan Group Holdings Limited (TRJ) Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is John Eales, and I'm the Chair of Trajan Group Holdings Limited. I'll begin today by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today and pay my respects to their Elders past and present. I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who have joined us today. It is my pleasure to welcome you to the 2026 Annual General Meeting of Trajan Group Holdings Limited. It is now 10:00 a.m. Australian Eastern Daylight Time. As we have a quorum, I declare the meeting open. Today's meeting is being held virtually via the Computershare meeting platform where attendees can watch a live webcast of the meeting and shareholders and proxies can ask questions and submit votes online. For those participants joining online and who may be unfamiliar with some of the functions of Computershare's platform, such as asking questions and how to vote, we will display instructions on the screen shortly. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. I would now like to introduce my fellow directors: Stephen Tomisich, Founder, CEO and Managing Director; Robert Lyon, Executive Director and General Counsel; Tiffiny Lewin, Non-Executive Director; and Dr. Rohit Khanna, Non-Executive Director. Also in attendance today, we have Simon Billingham, Interim CFO and Joint Company Secretary. The company's auditor, RSM Australia, is represented here by Mathavan Parameswaran, whom I also have pleasure of welcoming today. The auditor will be available to answer questions on the conduct of the audit and the audit report for the year ended 30 June 2026. Representatives from Computershare, our share registry provider, are also in attendance. I will start today's meeting by walking you through some procedural guidelines for voting and question submission. After that, I will provide an overview of Trajan's highlights and outlook. I'll then pass the floor to Trajan's Founder, CEO and Managing Director, Stephen Tomisich, for an update before we turn to the formal business of the meeting. The Notice of Meeting was made available to shareholders on September 28, 2026. I propose that the Notice of Meeting and explanatory memorandum be taken as read. Proxies received prior to the meeting will be shown on the screen for each resolution dealt with today. For those shareholders who have not submitted a proxy for today's resolutions, once I have declared the poll open, you will be given the opportunity to vote on all resolutions. As stated in the Notice of Meeting, as Chairman, I intend to vote those proxies left to the discretion of the Chairman in favor of all resolutions. Resolutions 1 and 4 -- through 1 and 4 through 6 are subject to voting exclusions as detailed in the Notice of Meeting. These exclusions will be considered when the poll is conducted. Finally, I note that shareholders were afforded the opportunity to submit written questions to the auditor, and I advise that the auditor has received no questions in writing prior to the meeting. Only shareholders, validly appointed proxies and corporate representatives are entitled to ask questions. To submit a written question, you may do so at any time during the meeting via the speech bubble icon on your screen. Type your question in the chat box on the right of the screen and then select send. Confirmation that your message has been received will appear above. Please note that while you can submit written questions from now on, I will not address them until the relevant time in the meeting. While time constraints may prevent us from answering all questions, we'll do our best to address all your questions during the meeting. Please also note that your questions may be moderated or, if we receive multiple questions on one topic, amalgamated together. For those shareholders who wish to ask a question verbally, please follow the instructions shown below the broadcast window on the online platform. If you are asking a verbal question, please state your full name before asking your question. Please limit your questions to only 1 to 2 questions at a time and then rejoin the queue to allow others to ask questions. To provide you with sufficient time to vote, I now declare voting open on all items of business. Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business, and Computershare will act as the independent returning officer. For those eligible to vote, as the poll is open, a voting icon is available on your screen. Selecting this icon will bring up a list of resolutions and present you with voting options. You are free to submit your votes at any time. To cast your vote, simply select one of the options. There is no need to hit submit, as the vote is automatically recorded. You will receive a vote confirmation notification on your screen. You can change your vote up until the time I declare voting closed. So now I'll begin my address. Ladies and gentlemen, fellow shareholders, thank you for joining us today. It is a privilege to welcome you to Trajan's Annual General Meeting. FY '26 was a challenging year for global businesses, including Trajan. In the first quarter, we encountered the initial impact of U.S. tariffs. And whilst our decision to rapidly invest in in-region, for-region capability was warranted, it added implementation costs. Additional pressure was felt as we experienced significant softness in our capital equipment business. In the second quarter, the trajectory shifted with business gaining momentum and realizing more cost benefits from Project Neptune. From February, the business was confronted with a step change in foreign exchange rates, which had a direct impact on the reported financial results. On a constant currency basis, however, the business largely executed to plan in H2, carrying solid momentum into FY '27. For the full year, revenue was $161.4 million and normalized EBITDA was $13.2 million, both down on the prior year with the FX impact in H2 suppressing revenue by $5 million and normalized EBITDA by $2.4 million. For me, what matters when reflecting on FY '26 is how well the business responded to adversity. From the second quarter onward, performance improved. Despite the currency headwind, the second half was stronger than the first with improved margins and a more efficient cost base. Headcount was reduced from approximately 645 full-time employees in September to fewer than 600 as FY '27 commenced. Trajan is a business with real capability. It is diversified across products, customers, geographies and end markets. Our Components and Consumables segment, which remains the core of the group, was stable throughout the year and continues to provide a strong foundation. Disruptive technologies progressed further, particularly in microsampling. Capital Equipment faced more difficult market conditions, but have finished the year with a stronger order book and improving margins. That balance matters. It gives Trajan resilience. It means we are not relying on one product, one market or one region to carry the business. Trajan also has a genuine competitive advantage in its multisite organization. Our footprint across Australia, the U.S., Europe and Asia gives us flexibility, customer proximity and supply chain resilience that matter all the more in uncertain markets. It supports our in-region, for-region model and strengthens our ability to respond as conditions change. We also continued to strengthen the business operationally. Through Project Neptune and other initiatives, management has been building a simpler, more efficient and more scalable organization. That included reducing overheads, rationalizing parts of our footprint, advancing our multisite manufacturing model and completing an important phase of the global ERP rollout. And throughout the year, we continued to execute against our strategic plan, growing globally, moving further up the value chain, improving margins and using our footprint to manage risk and support long-term growth. What has not changed is Trajan's purpose. Science that benefits people remains the test we apply to everything we do. Our products help customers improve the quality and reliability of analysis across clinical, pharmaceutical, food and environmental applications. That gives the business both relevance and direction. The Board understands that shareholders expect more than long-term potential. They expect discipline, performance and clear communication, and they rightly want to see the underlying quality of the business better reflected over time. Like you, we have been disappointed by the share price, but our response is to stay focused on the fundamentals, building a better business, improving returns and making sure the market has a clear understanding of the value being created. As we move into FY '27, there are encouraging signs both internally and from the market. The improvement throughout the second half of FY '26, the work done on margins and costs, the strength of our multisite operating model and the breadth of the portfolio give us a sound base for the year ahead. That does not mean we should get ahead of ourselves. Conditions remain mixed in some areas and execution will continue to matter. But the fundamentals of the business are sound and Trajan is in good shape to keep moving forward. At the conclusion of this address, our CEO, Mr. Stephen Tomisich, will provide a business update and speak to the priorities ahead. Before I finish, I would like to thank Stephen, Simon, the executive team, our people around the world and my fellow directors for their work through what was a demanding year. And to our shareholders, thank you for your continued support. You place your trust in us to build lasting value. FY '26 was a testing year, but Trajan remains a resilient business with strong capabilities, a clear purpose, a competitive operating model and a solid foundation. We remain focused on doing the work well, executing our strategy, improving performance and building value over the long term. Thank you. I would now like to hand over to the company's Founder, CEO and Managing Director, Stephen Tomisich, who will provide an update on some of Trajan's achievements.

Thank you, John, and thank you, everyone, for attending our 2026 AGM this morning. On the first slide, the next one, please. The dashboard covers nicely the full results for fiscal '26 that John touched on in his opening address. And you can see on the left-hand side, the results in terms of group revenue and EBITDA, both down on the prior year. To John's point that he made earlier, some of the key factors impacting on those results was, first of all, the impact of the introduction of the tariffs in the U.S. in the first quarter. We found ourselves in that first quarter having to deal with the expense of those tariff introductions, but without any compensating income. We made the right fundamental decision for the business at that point in time as well to put in place in-region for-region capability, building more capability in our Penang, Malaysia facility to handle the retaliatory tariffs being introduced by China against our U.S.-made product and equally expanding some of our capacity in our Austin facility for our U.S. customers. The impact of the change in exchange rates can also be highlighted in the chart here at the bottom of the slide. It might not seem like a lot, but what we found happened in a stepwise fashion was around January or February, both the U.S. dollar and the euro weakened against the Australian dollar, or if you like, as according to this chart, the Australian dollar strengthened against both of those. What that means for Trajan, though, is that our revenue in Australian dollar terms is depressed because 85% of our worldwide revenue is derived in U.S. dollars or euros. A couple of things happen inside the business to help us mitigate that risk. First of all, we take out foreign exchange hedging well into the future. And at this point in time, we are covered out until the end of fiscal -- or calendar '27 in terms of the Australian dollar exposure to the U.S. dollar. While that doesn't directly impact the P&L, it protects our cash position when we repatriate U.S. dollars to handle our Australian dollar-based cost centers here. The overall impact of that exchange rate change was about $5 million in the second half, and it flowed through to have about a $2.4 million impact on the EBITDA. Even with all of those factors going against us, we still saw the EBITDA performance in the second half, up by about 62% over the first half as we executed some of the Neptune program designed to start to reduce costs and expand margins right across the business. The other thing I'll mention on this page is around the net debt position. It did increase as well at the end of fiscal '26. And importantly, the reason for that, in part, was that we brought forward purchases and other activities in our German facility at the end of the year as we implemented our ERP system into that operation. We acquired the business in Germany back in November 2021. And up until May last year, it still ran on an independent IT system. That has caused us to have some limitations in really understanding the daily operations and the metrics happening inside that business, except on a monthly basis. But now with the rollout of that ERP, we have global see-through capability right across the Trajan Group. So again, it was a measure that had a negative impact on the full year result scoreboard. But fundamentally, as John mentioned, focusing on those fundamentals, it was the right thing to do for the business. The next slide, please. As we moved into fiscal '27, we felt that it was quite important to provide investors with an update as to what happened in the first quarter. So very quickly on October 8 this year, I gave a public seminar on the ShareWise platform to provide some reassurance that our quarter -- first quarter now in fiscal '27 had continued that momentum that we experienced in the second half of fiscal '26. And according to the management accounts at the time, we delivered around $3.5 million in EBITDA. The way I look at that now is that we have 4 quarters of the business trajectory as it is today. In other words, dropping out the first quarter of fiscal '26, including the first quarter of fiscal '27 and the 12-month EBITDA total quickly moves from $13.2 million to $16.2 million. Net revenue on a fixed exchange rate basis was up by about 3.5% or 3.8%. And the Components and Consumables business has shown a very healthy return to its longer-term trajectory, heading around that 5% to 5.5% type rate. Disruptive technologies, and as John mentioned, the microsampling in particular, has continued to grow at an accelerated rate. But meanwhile, Capital Equipment is still relatively flat. Now within the Capital Equipment group, we can see some small growth in both our food and our pharma business, but it's a smaller section of that business that's involved in gas detection that was significantly down in that first quarter. And as expected, we were able to drive a reduction in net debt just in that first quarter of $1.6 million. So a good repair of the balance sheet quite quickly into the new year as things started to normalize. So on to the next slide, please. The operational improvement is continuing to improve. Neptune isn't a program that just starts and stops. It's an ongoing activity as we continue to drive efficiencies across the Trajan Group. Remember that Trajan is a business that was put together by consolidating 12 acquisitions that we've made over the last 15 years. And as we're bringing those different businesses together, we're continuing to drive rationalization, productivity gains and efficiencies through our global network. When we look at our first quarter, we can start to see some of the benefits of that really flowing through, deploying expenses down, margin expansion, even scrap rates coming down because part of Project Neptune is the rollout of more complete production automation processes. And as we remove the human factor in some of those production lines, we remove variation in some of the underlying causes of scrap. So overall, we can see that the foundation of the business now is strengthening. And as we continue to grow the top line, we would expect to continue to see our overall performance improve. If we can go to the next slide. Just touching a bit on the segments. One of the slides that I show here, again, repeats this pattern of a monthly resolution of the annual revenues, what we call a moving annual total. And we produced these charts right across our consumables business that allows us to track not just what's happening inside of Trajan, but what's happening right across the industry. And this chart goes way back to the middle of 2023. Some of you on the line have probably heard me speak before about the stocking and destocking cycle that the whole industry went through. And if you look at this chart, you can see very clearly where that bottomed out in mid-2024 and since then a return to growth. I really like including here the trajectory of July, August and September because that very straight nice line that you see at the end of the chart here is the consistent growth that we have seen across the first quarter month by month over the prior year. So in our Components and Consumables business, when you see this sort of pattern, not just in totality, but across multiple product lines, across multiple jurisdictions and customer sets, it gives you confidence in the market trajectory as well as our maintenance and expansion of our market share. So that's a nice healthy underlying curve to have in the business. On to the next slide, please, to speak about our Capital Equipment. We still remain somewhat cautious about the outlook for Capital Equipment. It is more exposed to some of these macroeconomic factors. We have a business in capital equipment that's right at the high end. In other words, it's a very specialized suite of products that we have. They are significant investments each of them. And our major customers, mostly in the food industry and the global pharma industry grow through funding cycles, approval cycles in order to invest in our platforms. The pipeline still looks strong. And indeed, when we look at our plans for this financial year, I'm very pleased with the product road map that we have for launching new platforms, particularly in the pharma sector. One that we've just previewed, and I can show here on this slide is the next generation of what we call our XPR Carousel. This platform is used in drug discovery, particularly in areas like oncology, and it can run 24/7 unattended to accelerate the discovery process through the automated mixing and formulating of powder substances as scientists explore and look for therapeutics. And we have already received verbally 5 orders totaling in around about $1 million ahead of the launch of this platform. We listened very closely to voice of customer, what did they need in additional capacity. So this system has a factor of 5 uplift in capacity and what did they need in terms of the user interface. And so we've worked very clearly around how to streamline and simplify the user interface, making it even more productive tool for the scientists in a pharmaceutical lab. On to the next slide. Finally, I wanted to share some of the more recent success stories about the Trajan business. John mentioned in his opening address about our purpose. And our purpose remains delivering science that makes a difference in the world. Every month, every manager who runs part of Trajan's business reports to the team on a 2-page template, which is a snapshot. And on Page 2 of that snapshot is what impact have you delivered recently from your product lines gaining traction in the market. And this selection of 6 examples here is just from our August meeting. On the top left, an example is shared from Dundee's Drug Discovery Unit or the University of Dundee, where our HDX system has been used in the development of targeted treatments related to the parasitic infection caused by malaria. So we're enabling these more targeted therapies to be accelerated in their development. If we look on the right-hand side, this is an example of where our microsampling technology, which is known as VAMS, was used in a trial in Italy with 105 people participating, monitoring their antiseizure medication for epilepsy. And the outcome of that is that it demonstrated a very strong correlation to the results that would have been achieved if those patients would have had to have turned up to a clinic to have had a venous blood draw. In other words, our microsampling tools enabled these patients to take an analytically credible, a volumetrically accurate sample at home in a very -- as they would use in their language, a very easy and well-tolerated way and be able to have their treatment monitored very carefully. On food contamination, this language here was used by one of our partners in Europe, talking about Trajan's expertise in an area called MOSH MOAH. MOSH MOAH is all about mineral oil contamination in the food chain. And Trajan is one of the leaders in the world in this technology that allows the quantification of these toxic substances in food. And our expertise allows these operations around the world to regularly perform these measurements and ensure that the food content is free of these toxic substances that are introduced in all different areas of the production activity related to the food chain. And perhaps one more that I would share that's a little bit different, and that is that some of the microscope slide technology that we've partnered with a partner in Japan has allowed us to deliver slides that are used in breast cancer diagnostics in Australia that provide the pathologist with a clearer and a higher quality image of a breast biopsy tissue than what they had experienced previously. What that means is that more often, they are able to make the right diagnosis the first time and less often is there a need for a patient to have a repeat biopsy taken. And so again, that's a great example of where we've partnered in the industry to bring that leading technology to Australia. And now quietly in the background there, we are one of the leading suppliers of some of these consumables, some of these tools that are used to have a direct impact on human health. And I could go on and read through the others here. But the key message is that we continue to remain focused on these highly valuable solutions that allow scientists to deliver meaningful impact to society across the 4 sectors that we focus on: pharma, clinical, food and environmental. And across our industry, we are highly valued by our partners and our customers. And to John's point in his opening address, we remain very confident by remaining focused on this strategy, delivering high-value outcomes to our customers that the valuation of the company itself will be recognized in time for the role that we play. And on to the last slide, please. So as we look into fiscal '27, I'm pleased to share with you our current projections. So we're projecting a net revenue in the order of $162 million to $166 million. Now at spot rates, that represents a modest growth aspiration of around 2%. At a fixed rate basis, it's around a 5% growth trajectory that we're providing here as guidance. From an nEBITDA point of view, we're providing a range here of $16 million to $17.5 million. The midrange of that would see about a 27% uplift on last year. In other words, a continuation of the momentum that we've seen ever since Q2 of fiscal '26. And we share that guidance today, having had a good look at the business at our pipeline, the trajectories that I shared with you on the consumables business, the exciting progress that's being made in the microsampling and disruptive technologies and with some confidence we head towards achieving that goal in this financial year. So on to the final slide, which I think wraps up my part of the presentation. So thank you, everyone, for being part of the meeting today. And just to close, I'd like to thank the Trajan team worldwide. We have an incredible bunch of dedicated people right around the world, 600 of them in Asia, in the U.S., in Europe, where I am right now, all of them very much focused on delivering on Trajan's vision that's making a difference in the world. And finally, thank you to the directors of Trajan for the support and their belief in the business today, which I also greatly appreciate. Back to you, John.

Thanks very much, Stephen. And I particularly enjoy that impact slide. And as a Board and as a business, it makes a difference when we can connect Trajan's work with meaningful outcomes for people all around the world. On to the business of the meeting. There are 7 items of business for the AGM today as set out in the Notice of Meeting. 6 of these are to be voted on. The first item of business is to receive and consider the annual financial report, together with the directors' and auditor's reports for the year ended 30 June 2026. As previously mentioned, we have our auditor present if you wish to direct any questions pertaining to the audit to him. Are there any questions or comments in relation to the directors' and auditor's reports?

Chair, there are no questions on this item of business.

Thank you, Marie. There being no questions, we now move to the items of business for which a vote is required. As previously stated, voting on all resolutions today will be conducted by a poll, and you can submit your vote at any time during the meeting. Details of the proxy votes will be displayed on the screen as each resolution is considered. Resolution 1 relates to the adoption of the 2026 remuneration report. The voting in respect of the proxies received prior to the meeting is displayed on the screen. Are there any questions or comments on Resolution 1?

John, there are no questions on this item of business.

Thank you, Marie. As there are no questions or comments, I now put the resolution to a vote. [Voting]

As the next item of business relates to myself, I will hand over to Tiffiny Lewin, Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee, who will chair this resolution.

Thank you, John. Resolution 2 relates to the reelection of John Eales as the Director. The explanatory memorandum in the Notice of Meeting contains particulars of John's skills and experience, which I will not repeat here. Voting in respect to the proxies received prior to the meeting is displayed on the screen now, which is Slide 21, Resolution 2. Are there any questions, Marie, or comments on Resolution 2?

Tiffiny, there are no questions on this item of business.

Thanks, Marie, and back to you, John.

Thanks, Tiffiny. Resolution 3 relates to the reelection of Tiffiny Lewin as a director. The explanatory memorandum in the Notice of Meeting contains particulars of Tiffiny's skills and experience, which I will not repeat here. Voting in respect to the proxies received prior to the meeting is displayed on the screen now. Are there any questions or comments on Resolution 3?

John, no, there are no questions on this item of business.

Thank you, Marie. As there are no questions or comments, I now put the resolution to a vote. [Voting]