Specialist
Former Head at Syngenta Crop Protection AG
Agenda
- Market demand update on bed and balcony (B&B), cut flower royalties and impacts of decreased seed crops
- Update on Phyto events, Begonia and Poinsettia, including impacts on reputation and utilisation
- Staffing cost increases across supply chain
- De Eeuwige Lente acquisition – Kalanchoe and filling portfolio gaps
Questions
1.
What are your views on Dümmen’s ability to increase prices across the portfolio?
2.
How much of the total volume in a year is typically new product launches?
3.
How have you observed volumes changing for the 2018 and 2019 seasons in the bedding and balcony business?
4.
What do you think the blended rate of 1.5% for the seed and vegetative means for the vegetative market specifically?
5.
What might push a consumer to go from the seed to vegetative?
6.
Would lower consumer confidence not push customers away from having these larger vegetative, more developed plants into seeds?
7.
How would you say the cut flower volume has changed between the 2018 and the 2019 seasons?
8.
Does cut flower volume directly correlate to the royalties Dümmen gets from cut flowers?
9.
What macro headwinds or risks, other than consumer confidence, would you identify for this business?
10.
You mentioned Syngenta gaining 2% market share and that you expect 1% of that to come from Dümmen. When the vegetative market is growing at 3%, can it not capture that growth through vegetative growth?
11.
How much market share loss in the US do you think the phyto event and the acquisition of the distribution has caused Dümmen?
12.
What would you expect the volume of begonia to be relative to Dümmen’s total volume?
13.
What does a customer typically do after it gets delivered potentially contaminated cuttings? Do they run a new tender process or do they just throw it away and wait for three weeks?
14.
Do you think customers would typically churn on this event of diseased cuttings, and if so, what proportion would you expect to churn?
15.
What are the real risks with these phyto events? If the customer can’t move, would they put pressure on pricing?
16.
How significant is the Xanthomonas event compared to previous ones? There have been significant investments in R&D for this specific phyto cause. Why has it invested so much R&D yet not managed to prevent this case from happening?
17.
What growth do Dümmen and its peers typically gain from onboarding new clients?
18.
What do you think was the rationale behind Dümmen’s acquisition of McHutchison and Vaughan’s in terms of operations, and why, after three seasons, do you think it is not performing as well in the US distribution as it could be?
19.
How much of Dümmen’s US sales is done through the McHutchison distribution channel?
20.
How would you say the garden centres view the phyto events?
21.
What proportion of Dümmen’s sales would you say go to the garden centres that can switch over relatively easily?
22.
What proportion of the total cost base for Dümmen would you say is accounted for by staff?
23.
How would that 50% total staff cost break down over LATAM, Africa, Europe and the US?
24.
What is the typical salary for staff in this business in LATAM, Africa, Europe and the US?
25.
What blended rate of staff cost increase would you expect?
26.
What are the other significant buckets in the cost base after staff cost?
27.
What increases are you observing in the remaining buckets aside from staffing? Are there any significant line items that are growing at a high rate?
28.
What are your thoughts on the De Eeuwige Lente kalanchoe and calla acquisition, and how do you expect it to fill the portfolio gaps that Dümmen has?
29.
What impacts do you expect the acquisition to have on utilisation for Dümmen through the seasons, and could you expect any significant decrease in OPEX as a result?
30.
Could you outline the recent key management changes and share your views on the new management’s direction for the business?
31.
How do you think Dümmen differentiates its offering, and where do you think its R&D focus might be?
