Sanford Limited/Announcement
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Annual Meeting CEO’s Address

AGM14 December 2018SANConsumer Staples

Fiona is happy to do this slide

SteffanStewart
1992-2018

Solid business performance
despite adverse climatic conditions

* Excluding third party partner catches, EBIT is $.57/kg to $0.63/kg up 6 cents

** Including Havelock insurance settlement of $6.8m net of repair cost

5.6%

EBIT GWT kg

+0.02c/kg

54c*

CATCH/HARVEST VOLUME

118k GWT

REVENUE

$515M

7.7%

ADJUSTED EBIT

$64.7M

1.5%

Up from 6.6%

RETURN ON AVERAGE

TOTAL EQUITY

7.3 %

NPAT

$42.3M**

12.9%

ANNUAL DIVIDEND

23CPS

Stable

EPS

45c

+5c

2%

Aquaculture GWT

Salmon

Mussels

Wild Catch GWT

Deepwater

Inshore

Fishing partners

Revenue per PW kg

9.2% fresh sales (from 8.3%)

Hoki product cascade

Salmon price achievement

Ling swim bladders

2%

9%

5%

14

%

4%

8%

15

%

‹3›

down from 32.3%
Operating Cash Flow

$72.6m

16%

NET DEBT

$152.4M

TOTAL EQUITY

$582M

EBITDA*

$84.4M

DEBT / EBITDA

1.81x

GEARING

26.6%

Strong cash flow and balance sheet

44%

2%

1%

$-

$50,000

$100,000

FY16FY17FY18

NZD $’000

OPERATING CASH FLOW

FY17 2.25x

*EBITDA: Earnings before interest, taxation, non trading currency exchange gain/(loss), depreciation, amortisation, restructuring, adjusting items,

impairment and gain (loss) on sale of investments, intangible and long term assets

‹4›

FY18 Headwinds
Marine heatwave impacted salmon growth and mortality

rates –led to suspended sales for 10 weeks

Algal bloom impacted mussel harvests and yields in

Marlborough

Extended shutdown of Havelock plant for earthquake repairs

Lower hoki catch volumes

leading to voluntary shelving of West Coast hoki catch

entitlement in 2018/19 season

Inshore fleet impacted by poor weather conditions and

reduced fleet size, mitigated by engaging private fishing

partners

‹5›

6
Albert Sanford bought his first boat in 1864

Established the company in 1881

Listed on the NZX in 1924

‹6›

We satisfy customers globally
‹7›

22

deep water

& inshore

vessels

61

independent

sharefishers

8

processing,

incl. joint

operations

Diversified revenue, operations and customer base
‹8›

SANFORD’S <IR> JOURNEY
Building Trust through Transparency

Investment in brand development
-Big Glory Bay, Sanford Blue and Sanford Black

Focus on end customer, replacing third party distributors

“Focus on Fresh“ -9.2% of Sales are now fresh, up from 8.3%

Acquired Auckland based home-delivery E-platform Fresh Catch

Auckland Fish Market Development in Wynyard Quarter

2018 STRATEGY IN ACTION –PROGRESS AND DELIVERY ON KEY FOCUS AREAS

BRANDING

‹10›

Developed Sea to Me nutraceuticals range
Marine collagen nano-fibre for skin care products

Selective spat breeding at SPAT

NZ

Further rollout of PSH across our deep water fleet

2018 STRATEGY IN ACTION –PROGRESS AND DELIVERY ON KEY FOCUS AREAS

INNOVATION

‹13›

14
REDUCING THE

DEPENDENCE ON VOLUME

Adding value

Salmon –infrastructure investment, volume growth
Havelock facility upgraded for earthquake strengthening

Hoki product cascade improvements moving from fillet frozen in

blocks to individually frozen fillet

San Granit reaching expected levels of operational capability

Vessel improvement programme underway

2018 STRATEGY IN ACTION –PROGRESS AND DELIVERY ON KEY FOCUS AREAS

OPERATIONAL

EXCELLENCE

‹15›

$120m investment over 2 years
Channel

Development

$3M

Brand

Development

$10M

Product & Technology

Innovation

$10M

Operational

Excellence

$55M

Organisational

Capability

$4M

SanCore

$15M

Social License

Development

$4M

FOUNDATIONAL

TRANSFORMATIONAL

ASPIRATIONAL

F19F21

Huge success with “Keeping it Fresh”, “San Ignite”, and “San Activate”
development programmes. ‘Highly commended employer’ by Tertiary Education

Commission Skills Highway for our “Keeping it Fresh” programme

Structure supporting strategy –cross functional teams to drive strategy

execution

Engagement score static

2018 STRATEGY IN ACTION –PROGRESS AND DELIVERY ON KEY FOCUS AREAS

ORGANISATION

CAPABIILTY

‹17›

Health & Safety
‹18›

Continuous

reduction in

injury

numbers

from 2016-

2018

Our 2019 safety strategy will

Drive a formal safety management system

Adopt a risk based approach

Provide confidence, clarity and certainty to our

people and stakeholders

Deliver strategic initiatives to reduce the risk of

harm

Our goal is to be the safest seafood company in the world

THINK SAFE, BE SAFE, HOME SAFE

C L I M A T E C H A N G E
© COLMAR BRUNTON BETTER FUTURES REPORT 2017 EDITION

Strategy in Action +6m
Value +6m

Climate -11m

Key Drivers of YOY ADJUSTED EBIT change

$ m

Value strategy driving adjusted EBIT improvement

‹21›

P L A S T I C W A S T E
18

˃Studies estimate that the world’s oceans

will contain more plastics than fish by

2050

˃Estimates are that at least 2/3 of the

world’s fish stocks suffer from plastic

ingestion, and 90% of seabirds ingest

plastic daily

Sanford mobilising positive action
‹23›

Identify, quantify, set impact reduction targets

Internal and external engagement -personal pledge

Reducing plastic packaging

Developing operational alternatives to plastic

Engaging in strategic partnership

WHAT’S COMING FOR SANFORD IN 2019
‹24›

---

14 December 2018

Sanford Limited 2018 Annual Meeting

Mr Volker Kuntzsch

Chief Executive Officer’s Address




(Slide 1)

Ladies and Gentleman,

Thank you for the opportunity to address you, both in person and per webcast, to report

back on the financial year, ended 30 September 2018, my fifth year as CEO overlooking an

incredibly diverse, but interesting and rewarding, journey towards a very ambitious vision. I

will delve into a little more detail on some of the points raised by our Chairman, but also

reflect on the road ahead.


(Slide 2 Steffan Stewart)

The year has been somewhat of an emotional rollercoaster. The very tragic death of 26-year

old Steffan Stewart, following an accident onboard the San Granit on 14 November, shocked

all of us. Such a tragedy is difficult to fathom and words don’t do the sorrow that Steffan’s

family experiences from this loss any justice. Our thoughts are with them. I have to thank the

Deepwater Team, our Human Resources Team and my Executive Team for stepping up in an

unprecedented manner during this sad time to support Steffan’s family and his crew mates

on the vessel, who have all lost a friendly, happy and helpful member of their family.


This tragic accident, which is currently under investigation by relevant authorities, followed a

year that was marked by a reduction in serious harm injuries and highlights that the strong

focus on Health & Safety needs to continue at all levels. We will share the learnings from this

incident across the company and within our industry.


(Slide 3 Solid business performance)

We announced our result in November, describing it as solid considering the headwinds we

experienced. While not in line with our ambitious expectations for the year, we managed to

deliver a slight improvement in profitability compared to prior year. Although volumes were

down 5.6% compared to the previous year, revenue increased by almost 8%, bringing our

revenue across the $500m milestone. This is due to improved pricing and our strategy

gaining traction. This is great news as it highlights our growing independence from catch

volume and the potential of value creation from our strategic focus areas.

(Slide 4 – Strong cash flow and balance sheet)


As the chairman has already highlighted in his speech, the year was marked by strong

improvement in cash flow and we were able to reduce our debt to achieve a much improved

gearing and an improved debt/EBITDA ratio.



(Slide 5 FY18 Headwinds)

Both our wildcatch and our aquaculture volumes were subject to climatic impacts, primarily

warmer ocean temperatures and algal blooms. Our salmon turned lethargic during summer

and stopped feeding, necessitating delivery interruptions to our customers for over two

months. Our mussels in the Marlborough Sounds couldn’t be harvested for almost two

months as they were hit by an algal bloom. However, mortalities across salmon and mussels

were low and we expect improved performance across these species in the current year.


We underwent repairs in the Havelock plant following the Kaikoura earthquake in November

2016, which effectively extended the mussel closure by another three weeks.


We believe that the high water temperatures also had consequences on the availability of

hoki during this last spawning season. The large hoki quota owners subsequently decided to

act precautionary to shelve 20,000 tonnes of New Zealand’s annual catch entitlement for the

2019 fishing year. We will revisit this measure at the end of the fishing year in order to

determine further action in this regard. We at Sanford believe we can compensate for this

reduction by addressing our product portfolio appropriately and I will discuss that in more

detail later in the presentation.


In addition to the warmer water temperatures, we were also impacted by adverse weather

conditions that limited our inshore fishing days when we had to keep them sheltered in port.

The suboptimal efficiency of some of our inshore fishing vessels was to a large extent

overcome by attracting private fishermen to deliver catch exclusively to Sanford.


(Slide 6 – Albert Sanford photo)

In order to provide more detail on why we are where we are and where to from here, I

would like to take you back in time to the beginnings of Sanford almost one and a half

centuries ago. Albert Sanford fished the Hauraki Gulf and sold his product through Sanford-

owned fish markets in the Auckland region. Over the decades we have invested more into

our fishing operations, added aquaculture operations to our company, while limiting our

interaction with customers to a few factory-based fish shops around the country and a small

sales department interacting predominantly with wholesalers overseas. That resulted in a

very supply driven business model and focus on commodity production.


(Slide 7 – We satisfy customers globally)

Over the last five years we have increasingly realigned our supplies to customer driven

preferences. This slide highlights the emerging importance of the domestic market, which

previously purchased only approximately 5% of our volume. The current share of over 40%

does include volume that is subsequently exported by our customers, but the general supply

trend is certainly towards more local consumption. A major driving force behind this is our

focus on fresh fish and customer channel strategy, which I will come back to.



(Slide 8 – Diversified revenue)

Nevertheless, the diversity of our business remains impressive across our species and

customer portfolios. Greenshell mussels are today the biggest single species in our

operations. Our dependency on the US has shrunk considerably. Sanford’s diversity does

provide its challenges, but also many opportunities that help mitigate both business and

environmental variability, particularly the effects of climate change over the long term.


(Slide 9 – Sanford’s IR journey)

Detailed information regarding our results and progress against the six outcomes that form

part of our business excellence framework are transparently shared in our integrated report,

of which you may have already received a copy. We are very proud of this report, having

been the first company in the seafood industry globally to publish such a report. We have

won several international awards and are often used as an exemplar by business leaders and

educators both here in New Zealand and around the world.


The report highlights how far we have come from being a true commodity trader to focusing

on adding value to our precious marine resources.


(Slide 10 – 2018 Strategy in action - Branding)

Since Sanford had great expertise in fishing and fish farming and was generally effective at

harvesting and processing, our immediate attention was primarily on the customer end of

the supply chain over the last few years. The introduction of stronger brand development

and a channel strategy taking us closer to the high-end foodservice sector and closer to

consumers created the opportunity to improve gross margins significantly. The ‘focus on

fresh’ enabled the execution of this approach to a large extent and helped lift average sales

prices for our product.


We have recently acquired the home delivery service ‘Fresh Catch’ and are now bringing our

seafood directly to consumers in the Auckland region. The Auckland Fish Market has also

undergone major renovations with the aim of introducing New Zealand’s impressive

diversity in seafood to Kiwis and tourists alike. The Fish Market opens on Monday, 17

December 2018, and boasts 10 eateries and the Sanford & Sons Fishmonger, which reflects

the passion our people have developed over the last 138 years in the business.


(Slide 11 – BGB brand)

The Big Glory Bay brand, which we introduced last year, emphasising our premium quality

salmon product and its pristine provenance, achieves a significantly higher margin than our

regular king salmon. It is targeted at high-end restaurants, domestically and in a small

number of countries overseas, but quantities are currently small, making up less than 5% of

total supply volume. Efforts in ensuring consistency in quality and supply will increase this

share markedly over years to come.



(Slide 12 – Branding wildcatch)

Branding in wildcatch is aimed at introducing a premium segment into our otherwise still

largely commoditised deepwater operations. Species like high-end orange roughy, scampi

and toothfish are the first off the rank under the Sanford Black brand.


(Slide 13 – Strategy in action - Innovation)

Innovation supported our drive to create more value with every kilogram of fish we catch or

harvest from our farms. The acquisition of Enzaq, the mussel powder manufacturer in

Blenheim, a year ago was very successful and delivered profit as per our expectations. We

doubled the number of dryers from one to two during the course of the year and are

planning to add another two dryers over the next 10 months. Demand for our Greenshell

mussel powder is strong and with the recent launch of our nutraceutical brand ‘Sea to Me’

we introduced further product diversification into our mussel portfolio. The products are

available online, directly to consumers.


Our relationship with Plant & Food Research and Revolution Fibres, which culminated in the

utilisation of hoki skin collagen for the manufacture of face masks that completely dissolve

into the human skin, has enabled us to find advanced opportunity for value addition to our

wild caught marine resources.


The two primary growth partnership projects we are involved with, Spatnz and Precision

Seafood Harvesting, continue to deliver innovative advantage to our business. The ability to

selectively breed mussels for improved performance in terms of quality and processing

ability turns out to also be an effective ocean acidification risk mitigation. Ocean acidification

limits the potential of shellfish to develop and harden their shell, leading to their inability to

survive. Having the mussels’ first stage in life happen on land, ensures proper shell

development – and thus future survival – before they enter the ocean.


With respect to Precision Seafood Harvesting, PSH, the development of an innovative fishing

method, we are well into the last year of this project between the Ministry of Primary

Industries and 3 fishing companies, incl. Sanford, and the net is increasingly being used on

our vessels. We are very satisfied with the quality of fish captured through this fishing

method and are hoping that outstanding issues around the deployment of PSH in the

inshore fishery will be sorted out between the involved parties within the next few months.


(Slide 14 – Strategy in action - Branding)

The focus on branding and the development of our sales channel strategy towards

consumers and the high end foodservice sector have the objective of commanding a higher

sales price by highlighting the goodness of our seafood and its origin and reducing the supply

chain as much as feasible. Our innovation strategy takes us beyond food to enable further

value extraction. These strategic thrusts complement each other, especially where

innovation works with traditional waste products. Both branding and innovation also tend to



reduce our dependency on volume, thereby acting as mitigating factors in this relatively

unpredictable environment we work in.


(Slide 15 – Operational Excellence)

Operationally, our focus throughout the year ranged from rejuvenating and repairing assets,

especially on our salmon farm and in our Havelock mussel processing plant, to improving

product cascades, which create more value, and increasing operational efficiencies on

vessels and in plants.


The very recent announcement of the sale of our three purse seine vessels, with pelagic

quota and processing equipment in Tauranga, aligns with our strategic direction to prioritise

opportunities that lead to increased value. In Tauranga’s case, this means providing more

room for fresh fish production while concentrating pelagic operations with an experienced

processor, Pelco, who specialise on these species, to create much needed economies of

scale. The decision to sell some of our pelagic fishing quota was made on the basis of most

of these species, like jack mackerel, being ubiquitous, making the development of a unique

selling point for our mackerel very difficult, especially in the low value markets that these

fish are generally consumed in. Innovation may provide greater opportunity for pelagic

species over time, in which case the remaining 15,000 t in our portfolio and purchases of raw

material would be good options for further utilisation.


(Slide 16 – $120 investment over 2 years)

Product branding, the further development of our sales channel strategy and innovation will

remain areas of strategic focus. We will continue to grow our fresh fish business and shorten

the supply chain to consumers. We are investigating the opportunity for other marine

extracts and are planning a further doubling of our dryer capacity for Greenshell mussel

powder production. Approximately half of our investments over the next two years will be

dedicated to ensuring operational efficiency through asset rejuvenation. This includes

replacements of vessels in the scampi and inshore fleet, spending $20m on vessel surveys,

improving the assets in our salmon and mussel farming divisions and updating processing

plants. SanCore is a business transformation project that encompasses investments into a

new core information system and business intelligence upgrade to improve visibility across

all operations and enhance the way we operate.


The board has, in principle, approved up to $120m for an investment plan that covers these

actions over the next two years.


(Slide 17 – Strategy in action – organisational capability)

We continued building our organisational capability throughout 2018. On the one hand we

invested further into skills needed to develop, for example, our sales, marketing and

innovation activity, on the other we supported personal training and development across

the company through a variety of programmes including communication and leadership.

These were received really well and turned many from a reserved bystander into a proud



contributor and presenter of novel ideas and improvements for our company and their own

lives.


While the investment we are making into people is helping in developing skills, it has not yet

translated into improved engagement scores, which have remained relatively static over the

last two years. We believe this to be a function of the amount of change our company is

undergoing, a generally tough environment from a labour supply market perspective and

strong expectations raised through discussions around minimum wage levels in New

Zealand.


(Slide 18 – Health & Safety)

The awareness of health and safety amongst our employees rated highest across all criteria

in our engagement survey. We have seen a continuous reduction in total injuries over the

last few years and a halving in the number of serious harm incidents from 10 to 5 between

2017 and 2018, but incidents over the last couple of months indicate that our efforts need to

continue in full rigour across all our operations. With the recent appointment of Susan

D’Ath-Weston as our General Manager overseeing Health, Safety and Wellbeing, we are

increasing the level of expertise in this area further - with the goal of developing into the

safest seafood company in the world.


Our initiatives around this important topic of health and safety have also included one of our

strategic partners, whom we have been engaged with for the last three years. The

collaboration with Paralympics NZ culminated in a remarkable video, which I am excited to

share with you, as it puts a very special angle on the subject.


(Video, Slide 19)

To close off, I would like to spend a few minutes on subjects that are of increasing

importance to our business.


(Slide 20 – Climate Change)

Climate change has been referred to on numerous occasions during the chairman’s and my

presentation as having had an impact on this year’s result. As we are dependent on natural

marine resources any changes in the oceans will naturally impact on their abundance and

wellbeing.


(Slide 21 – Value strategy drive adjusted EBIT improvement)

The headwinds we experienced in 2018 proved the point that our strategy serves as

effective risk mitigation. As a purely commodity driven business the year would have been

difficult for us, as we would not have been able to compensate for the $11m negative

impact we have experienced as a result of climate related challenges. Although a large share

– approximately 80% - of our volume can still be categorised as commodity, the other 20%

make it possible already now to generate greater value, even under tough conditions. We

expect greater volatility in nature in years to come, but we feel that our strategy gives us the



necessary resilience to combat those headwinds. The increasing independence from large

catch volumes will make it possible to deliver great results, especially as our product

portfolio evolves further beyond food, with our nutraceuticals and other products that are

currently under development.


We will incur further limited increases in overhead cost as we continue building expertise in

innovation, operational excellence and the customer facing end of our supply chain, but

these will be aimed at generating greater value that will outweigh these investments.


(Slide 22 – Plastic waste)

Another subject of increasing importance to our business is plastic pollution and its impact

on the oceans. A rather sombre study forecasts that the oceans will contain more plastic

than fish by 2050 and it is a well-known fact that most seabirds accidentally prey on pieces

of plastic, often leading to their death.


(Slide 23 – Sanford mobilising positive action)

While we await the outcome of studies concerning the effect of plastic on fish and human

health, we have initiated a number of activities that are targeted at significantly reducing the

use of plastics at Sanford. Our teams around the country are often seen cleaning beaches,

usually in partnership with organisations like Sustainable Coastlines. This topic will require

greater attention on a political level to address the fact that 90% of all plastic in the oceans

stems from 10 rivers around the globe and action should naturally be targeted at those areas

with priority.


(Slide 24 – What’s coming for Sanford in 2019)

This past year has been another busy one for all of us. It took a lot of hard work to take us

where we are now, but we now have a lot to look forward to. The amount of change we’ve

gone through is considerable. However, the journey from a predominantly extraction

focused business to one that appreciates our marine resources for the value that they can

deliver as New Zealand’s beautiful seafood and now a further evolution towards capturing

the health benefits these resources hold, is incredibly exciting. We continue to be surprised

by the sheer volume of opportunity our business has to offer as we delve deeper into the

detail.


Progress is a never-ending journey and we know the nature of today’s challenges,

environmentally, ethically and politically, cannot be solved by yester-year’s approach. We

have been working to build relationships and collaborations across our industry, across

sectors and across Government to ensure the necessary focus, agility and collaboration are

in place to embrace these ever-changing demands on our business.


We are hopeful that 2019 will bring to life the actions necessary to support New Zealand in

taking a leadership role in managing our huge marine environment in a way that provides

appropriate financial and economic returns, while at the same time paying the correct



amount of attention to social and environmental prerogatives. We will do our bit, and lead

where necessary, to demonstrate industry accountability through the likes of the Hauraki

Gulf spatial plan and cameras on board fishing vessels.


The holidays ahead will hopefully offer many of us the chance to take a well-deserved break

and prepare for another good challenge ahead. There is a lot to do, but for now I would like

to thank my Sanford team for all their untiring input over the last 12 months. I appreciate

your passion, care and integrity when it comes to turning our business into one that can be

the best seafood company in the world. Thank you all!


I also thank the Board for their support and their contribution to this powerful strategy we

have developed together. A special Thank You to Bruce Goodfellow, who has been a

thoughtful contributor to many discussions around the board table.


(Slide 25 – Sanford video)

Finally, I would like to share our people’s passion for Sanford through a short video.


(Slide 26 – end slide)

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