Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 9, 2024 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Lisa Miles – Investor Relations
Franco Stevanato – Executive Chairman
Marco Dal Lago – Chief Financial Officer
Franco Moro – Chief Executive Officer

Conference Call Participants

Michael Ryskin – Bank of America
Paul Knight – KeyBanc
Patrick Donnelly – Citi
Sam Martin – William Blair
Tucker Remmers – Jefferies
Curtis Moiles – BNP Paribas Exane

Lisa Miles

Good morning, and thanks for joining us. With me today is Franco Stevanato, Executive Chairman; Franco Moro, CEO; and Marco Dal Lago, CFO. You can find a presentation to accompany today’s results on the Investor Relations page of our website, which can be found under the Financial Results tab.

As a reminder, some statements being made today will be forward-looking in nature and are only predictions. Actual events and results may differ materially as a result of risks we face, including those discussed in Item 3D entitled Risk Factors in the company’s most recent annual report on Form 20-F, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 7, 2024. Please take a moment to read our Safe Harbor statements included in the front of the presentation and also in today’s press release. The company does not assume any obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances, except as required by law.

Today’s presentation may contain non-GAAP financial information. Management uses this information in its internal analyses of results, and believes this information may be informative to investors in gauging the quality of our financial performance, identifying trends in our results, and providing meaningful period-to-period comparisons. For a reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures, please see the company’s most recent earnings press release.

And with that, I will now hand the call to Franco Stevanato for opening remarks.

Franco Stevanato

Thank you, Lisa, and thanks for joining us. Today, we will review our first quarter performance, address our guidance change, and provide an update on our markets and the dynamics we are seeing today. While first quarter results did not meet our expectations, the fundamentals of our business have not changed, and the demand landscape remains robust. We are tackling two challenges today, and our number one priority is execution.

First, the impact from the industry-wide temporary destocking was more pronounced than previously expected, especially in the more accretive EZ-fill vials. Customers are still working down excess inventories that were stockpiled during the pandemic. This has resulted in a temporary softening in demand for both bulk and ready-to-use vials. But, we believe once the market rebounds that vials will return to normalized market growth rates.