Earnings Labs

Origin Agritech Limited (SEED)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, May 5, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings and welcome to Origin Agritech’s Second Quarter of Fiscal 2015 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow with the following presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. Joining me today on the call are Dr. Gengchen Han, the company’s Chairman and CEO; and Dr. Zheng Chen, the company’s CFO. Before we get started, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-Looking statements are statements that are not exactly historical facts such as based upon the beliefs and expectations of management and are subject to risk and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ from the forward-looking statements. Risks on these holdings Origin's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, information set forth herein should be read in light of such risks. Origin assumes no obligation to update information content in this conference call. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Dr. James Chen for prepared remarks.

James Chen

Analyst

Thank you, Laura. Good morning, and for those in China, good evening. Before I start, please note that the press release for the second quarter of fiscal 2015 results has been issued earlier this morning. In today’s prepared remarks, I would first like to discuss the recent actions from the Chinese government toward the GMO technology development and our biotechnology progresses. Then I will go over to financial results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2015. First of all, we are excited to note that the Chinese central government is now taking much more effort to post the research and commercialization of GMO corn seed. Back in February, in the No. 1 Central Document of 2015, the Chinese government stated clearly that more effort will be putting to GMO research. And more importantly for the first time the Chinese central government stated that it will start to educate the general public about GMO technologies. We think this is a clear statement that the Chinese government is preparing for the public acceptance of GMO technologies in China. With the central government’s No.1 document, we’ve noticed some visible actions from the Chinese government including positive messages toward the GMO technologies in the government controlled public media. Last week, the Ministry of Agriculture posted on its website a revised Bio-Safety approval process for public comments. We think this is clearly a positive spec for GMO commercialization. At the GMO Bio-Safety approval is the major spec toward the GMO commercialization. And after several years of no major action, the government is now working on the key document governing the GMO commercialization process. The government’s confirmed attitude and actions have further strengthened in the research and commercialization of GMO corn seeds. Our glyphosate tolerance GMO trade is now under the review process for Bio-Safety…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Peter Butler of Glen Hill Investments.

Peter Butler

Analyst

Good morning, good morning or…

James Chen

Analyst

Good morning, Peter.

Peter Butler

Analyst

I guess good evening to you everybody. Okay, I have a couple of questions please. Whether your expectations for volume and price this year, do you sound more optimistic and do you expect the trends in volume and price to accelerate next year and I think it’s very important for you to start showing some good volume gains here. What do you see?

James Chen

Analyst

Yes, Peter thank you for the question. As I mentioned earlier, the market conditioning in this year so far was very competitive, but our volume for our key product has really increased year-over-year. And more importantly, we have a couple of new products and we think is very promising product as even sold out. So, we do feel that with the supply demand getting much more balanced going through the – going into the 2016 selling season which we definitely should see more volume increase going forward.

Peter Butler

Analyst

Well, could you sort of quantify it please, what would be a good best case, worse case for your volume and price next year?

James Chen

Analyst

Yes – to quantify these numbers like as you know that we don’t usually give guidance ahead of time. But we don’t feel comfortable that volume growth should go into the next year. And more importantly, the corn business which is you know either was very competitive last year and in this year. We have been doing fairly well. Last year, we have seen some volume growth. This year has not been closed yet. We still expect there the possibility of nice – some volume growth, but definitely to next season we will see – we’re expecting to see a meaningful volume growth going forward.

Peter Butler

Analyst

Okay. You mentioned your debt before, thus looking at your internal projections on free cash flow in the next three years, does the total of your free cash flow come close to your total debt so that we could look forward to eliminating debt may be in the next three years?

James Chen

Analyst

Yeah, definitely, we think we’ll be – with free cash flow comes in especially with the inventory adjustment that we will see – probably even less than three years where we’ll have cash flow comes in more than the current debt situation. And this happens in the company’s history because this business – cash flow is still very strong. And the last year we’re basically because of the inventory build up and then market conditions. So going forward for the next several quarters, as I stated earlier, we do think we should see at least RMB100 million to RMB300 million of cash coming from the working capital adjustment.

Peter Butler

Analyst

And finally, do you guys have some internal guesses on when the government might start the final approval process, which you’d say it’s something like maybe one out of ten chance this year, four out of ten chance next year and eight out of ten in 2017. What do you guys…

James Chen

Analyst

Yes, Peter, thank you for the question. I know this is very good question. And straight forward answer is it’s so difficult for us to give what government’s decision, but we do see some positive trends as more and more positive information we can see. And as I point out at this time that we have both No.1 Document talking about it and also the Ministry of Agriculture has also did something last week that I’ll see very promising going forward. So how faster they will – like your question, like if I can get – the – how much chance they can approve it and in which year. Sorry and honestly, I don’t have those answers, but we do see positive trends.

Peter Butler

Analyst

Okay. You know several – more than a couple of years ago, I met Dr. Han in New York City and I’ve been following your company subsequently. I’m wondering if Dr. Han is going to – maybe revisit Wall Street in the next year with maybe you could even talk about how the Chinese government in fact has started to approve GMOs. Are we going to have Dr. Han’s spotting in New York this year?

James Chen

Analyst

Let me ask Dr. Han to answer this question.

Gengchen Han

Analyst

Yes, Peter, hello, good morning. I’d to see actually in summer time, I have spent quiet a few times in the [indiscernible] this time June and July.

Peter Butler

Analyst

June, July.

Gengchen Han

Analyst

Yes.

Peter Butler

Analyst

Okay.

Gengchen Han

Analyst

So we’ll be…

Peter Butler

Analyst

And I assume that you’re going to come with a pretty bullish picture?

Gengchen Han

Analyst

We – well, let me share something that you know what do we have during the last few years and we also share assumption with you know [indiscernible] for the future. You know in last few years, we have – in terms of restructure, get technology ready and then we’ve got some business move forward. And then in coming [indiscernible] more options to work on it, more opportunity to work on it.

Peter Butler

Analyst

Well, you put in a way the work on the restructuring and repositioning and I hope it’s time to start harvesting all the work that you put into it.

Gengchen Han

Analyst

I think so, I think so, yes. You can see in last two years, our market condition is very tough as Zheng has mentioned that and the completions are very strong and the most of the major seed company in China, we have a very good balance, but we still clearly – our growth [indiscernible] summing-up. Late – some kind of growth in terms of product – our core business is like corn seeds. As Zheng mentioned this year, since the whole market is delayed and the farmers had at [indiscernible] later, but it looks well we’re still on the target. And we’re still accurate, at this moment I was still hitting the seeds out to the farmers. And usually, we – we’ll finish that much on later as well. So for this year – for the next year we’re looking for meaningful significant of growth.

Peter Butler

Analyst

Well when you come to New York, I hope we can upgrade from just drinking a couple beers together to maybe getting into the Dom Perignon champagne.

Gengchen Han

Analyst

Yes, I look forward to that.

Peter Butler

Analyst

Okay, thanks for your help today.

Gengchen Han

Analyst

Thank you, Peter.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. This concludes today’s teleconference. You may now disconnect your lines. We thank you for your participation and we wish everyone a great day.