Corbion, cette biotech cotée qui a doublé de valeur en 3 ans…

Hello, welcome to this new episode of 'Ça vaut le coup' on Boursorama, the show that gives meaning to your savings. Today we're talking about cleantech with the CEO of Corbion, listed on Euronext Amsterdam. Hello Olivier Rigaud, thank you for being with us. You are the innovative producer of natural food ingredients, biopolymers and bioplastics. Explain what it's all about. Corbion is a company over 80 years old, specialized in biotechnology, among other things fermentation, to produce natural ingredients. So the basis is to replace synthetic products, i.e. products derived from fossil materials, with completely natural alternative derivatives. And all this to move towards industries both food and non-food like bioplastics or the fermentation of micro-algae for animal nutrition. So this is what makes your solutions virtuous for the planet and for our daily lives, because we find them in our food and other areas. For example, in food, in all meat products, we replace synthetic substitutes with natural ones. This can be lactic acid derivatives, vinegar derivatives, completely natural, to reduce waste but also improve food safety, to avoid contamination with salmonella, listeria and other pathogenic bacteria. Beyond meat, for example, everything that is anti-mold for bread is now also natural, allowing our bread to stay fresh longer, to avoid waste. We also find this in sectors like beverages, confectionery, all food products, always with the idea of replacing synthetic products with natural alternatives, with the goal of truly reducing waste and spoilage. Because what we're fighting against: for example, in meat, today 20% of the meat produced worldwide is thrown away. If you translate that into cows that are simply raised and slaughtered, we're talking about 75 million cows in the world that are raised just to be wasted.

Can we talk about food preservatives when we talk about your solutions? Are those natural food preservatives?

Beyond food, so what are the applications in which we find your natural products? Not for the home or other?

What is a bioplastic, and in what way is it, or is it not, more performant than traditional plastics?

What makes your new raw materials 100% renewable? Today, everything we use is renewable. I was talking about cane sugar or beet sugar, wheat or corn. Depending on the region of the world, we produce and use local raw materials to avoid transporting them thousands of kilometers. So it's a 100% circular economy: every year we start again with a harvest and redo the fermentation product. So it's a big advantage in terms of carbon footprint of our society and the products we manufacture.

You created a joint venture with TotalEnergies, Olivier Rigaud, for the construction of a plant, the first bioplastics plant, a 200 million euro investment. Explain a little.

You published your results on Friday. You have been in office for 18 months. Are the results meeting expectations? What is your assessment when we see the stock price has almost doubled over three years?

Well, we will of course follow this beautiful story very closely. Thank you for being with us, Olivier Rigaud, the President of Corbion. Thank you and see you soon.

Now, here is Béryl Bellino Tas who joins us. Hello Béryl.

Hello Béryl Bouvier, Deputy Director of European Equities at OFI AM. The results we just saw announced by Corbion, is this the kind of thing that confirms your position on this stock, since you have it in your portfolio?

Yes, indeed, like the large food ingredient manufacturers, Corbion also showed growth that demonstrates good health. So more than 10% organic growth in its core businesses. This tends to confirm our conviction.

Yes, but what's interesting is that with Corbion we are looking at a company that delivers significant profitability. EBITDA grew 14% with margin levels of 17%. It is true that in the current context of rising raw material costs and normalization of overheads, Corbion will hire 10% more employees to support growth. That probably explains the management's cautious guidance in terms of market development. But if we take a medium-term view, we are rather confident. In any case, the group consistently delivers margins above 15%. After that, it's an investment story with large capex, so it's not a dividend story. We're not here for dividends. The correction is exactly the capacities. And as Mr. Rigaud said, the bioplastics market is very small today compared to polystyrene, so we have a huge market ahead of us.

So the reasons that led you to enter the stock a year or two ago? I don't know. Is it recent? So all your choices are confirmed by these results?

Yes, yes, I think because the way we see it, we are in front of a stock that plays on megatrends. Yes, we saw it in food, on preservation and production, but also it favors an ecosystem that will be more virtuous from an ecological point of view, with once again a positive impact. Because the objective is to find portfolio investments that are profitable, sources of growth, and good for the planet. That's it, we have ticked all the boxes with this stock. In cash we tick a lot of boxes because we have integrated into our positive economy theme, under the aspect of preservation of natural resources but also health. We have a share of revenue aligned at 61% with the so-called Sustainable Development Goals. So we are looking at a company that is committed with a real mission, a voluntary intention to generate a positive impact, and also responsible because we are still on a mid-cap of less than three billion market cap that has put in place a CSR policy with ecological commitments and an SBTi roadmap. So we really tick a lot of boxes on a stock where it is obvious that there are very powerful sources and vectors of growth. So it's worth having it.

So yes, for the long term, yes. That's exactly it in this show 'Ça vaut le coup'. Thank you, Béryl. Thank you and see you next week on Boursorama.