Mirait One Corp

F:5FO

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q2

[Nakayama Toshiki, executive]

Thank you very much for your time today despite your busy schedule. Today, I would like to go over our recent results as per the slides. As of July 1, we are now a new company, a new group called MIRAIT ONE. So we have changed our format and design a little. As I've just mentioned, I will explain in 2 parts: the first part on the financial results and the second part on the progress of MIRAIT ONE Group Vision 2030.

First, on the financial results. Now on orders received, due to the addition of Seibu Construction to our P&L from this fiscal year, orders for the Environmental & Social Innovation business, this portion, the bar in red, increased. On the other hand, the ICT Solutions business that is also included in this red portion, and this part in blue. The communication foundation domain, that is the NTT business and Multi-Carrier business decreased, resulting in an overall decrease of 3.7% or JPY 9.2 billion year-on-year to JPY 240.4 billion.

Since the second half of last fiscal year due to the impact of investment restraints by some telecommunications carriers as well as semiconductor shortages and supply chain disruptions, the pace of orders received slow down. This trend continued into the current fiscal year, partly due to the situation in Ukraine, but the pace of orders is gradually recovering.

As a result, in the first half of the fiscal year, the breakdown between telecommunications and nontelecommunications business was, as you see on the slide, was roughly split 50-50. Also the MIRAIT domain or the future domains, which we have defined as areas to strengthen and intend to concentrate our management resources accounted for 31%. That is more than 30% of the total.

Next is net sales. As was seen with orders received, Environmental & Social Innovation business in which Seibu Construction joined increased, but ICT Solutions and NTT business decreased, resulting in a year-on-year decrease of 4.6% or JPY 9.8 billion to JPY 202 billion.

The MIRAIT future domain accounts for 29% of total net sales, and the target of 30% is in sight. I will explain a little more in detail. From this time, I will change the order of my explanation and start with the nontelecommunications business. First is the Environmental & Social Innovation business in the enterprise/environmental and social foundation domain. The segment increased year-on-year from the previous fiscal year by JPY 19 billion to JPY 41.3 billion and was the only 1 of the 4 business segments to post an increase in revenue.

As Seibu Construction is contributing to our results from this fiscal year, it was their civil engineering, construction and renovation work, which drove performance in this area. Next is the ICT Solution business. The sales of goods, which handles telecommunications equipment declined significantly due to inventory adjustments by some carriers. Also, the land-related construction work was affected by the reactionary fall from the Olympic, Paralympic and other events in the previous fiscal year as well as delays in construction due to the late delivery of some equipment, resulting in our year-on-year decline of JPY 12.8 billion to JPY 53.2 billion.

On the other hand, global and software, which comprise the future domain saw steady growth in net sales. Next is the communication foundation domain. First, about our NTT business. Starting this fiscal year, we will move the NTT DOCOMO related business from the multi-carrier business and book them under the NTT business. Now due to the impact of restrained investment from the telecommunication carriers, the mobile business decline. That is one thing. Also, there was a decline in the fixed line business as we saw the work to build advanced wireless networks in Hokkaido, Tohoku and the Chugoku region, mostly completed by last fiscal year. With that, both mobile and fixed line business decreased JPY 14.9 billion year-on-year to JPY 80.6 billion.

We recognize that capital investment in telecommunication carriers infrastructure is on a downward trend in the medium to long term and also expect that the kind of investment will continue to shift to that of service type or what we call content based or solution-based. The company will further accelerate its efforts to improve productivity and reform our business structure by making our engineers multiskilled and also reforming our value chain.

Finally, the last of the 4 business segments, the Multi-Carrier business. From this fiscal year, the Australian business has been moved from the Multi-Carrier business to the ICT Solutions business, while the construction of reception measures for 700 megahertz TV broadcasting has been moved from the ICT Solutions business to the Multi-Carrier business. So there were some businesses that were moved around.

Now although there are differences among the different carriers, the 5G maintenance work for which orders were strong in the previous fiscal year was generally completed smoothly, which resulted in the overall increase in sales. On the other hand, due to the decline in the 700 megahertz TV broadcasting related business, which I just referred to, impacted the total amount of the Multi-Carrier business, which resulted in a slight decrease of JPY 1 billion from the previous fiscal year to JPY 26.8 billion.

As for operating income, we got off to a tough start as you see in the brackets with a loss of JPY 1.1 billion in the first quarter. In the second quarter, the company returned to the [ black ] with a profit of JPY 2 billion. But compared to the previous year, operating income decreased significantly from JPY 11 billion to JPY 0.9 billion or JPY 900 million, a very difficult result for the first half of the year.

I will explain the details on the next page. The factors behind the large decrease in profit are shown in the waterfall chart. Starting from the bar on the left, the first factor was that the gross profit of enterprise/environmental and social foundation domain fell by JPY 2 billion as well as the gross profit for the communication foundation domain by JPY 4.3 billion. A total decrease of JPY 6.4 billion in profit. In addition to that, there was an increase of JPY 3.8 billion in SG&A expenses. Those 3 factors were behind the significant decrease in operating income.

Now this decrease in gross profit was mainly due to a significant change in the sales mix this quarter. Specifically, the good sales business which handles telecommunications equipment declined significantly. In addition, a reactionary fall from what was the kind of special demand last fiscal year, such as the work to build advanced wireless network and impact from investment restraining behavior from the mobile carriers affected the mobile business. And so what we saw was that businesses with relatively high profit margins declined.

On the other hand, the Environmental & Social Innovation business grew with the addition of Seibu Construction in the first half of the fiscal year. But as the gross profit margin of the Environmental & Social Innovation business is and has been relatively lower than our other businesses, this resulted in an overall decrease in profit. Also, the majority of the increase in SG&A expenses was due to the addition of Seibu construction, including the amortization of goodwill. Additionally, there were other onetime expenses such as branding costs due to the company name change in July and integration-related costs, such as integration and changes in our core systems. We will explain specifically how we will recover these expenses in the pages after the next.

Finally, on net income. In line with the large decrease in operating income, here, too, there was a significant decrease of JPY 7.8 billion from the previous year to JPY 400 million. We have been continuing to sell our cross shareholdings. And while we booked a gain of JPY 1 billion on selling them, this had a negligible impact on net income due to tax effects and decreases in dividends received. So I have explained the results for the first half of the fiscal year, but the forecast for the full year remains unchanged from the figures presented at the beginning of the fiscal year.

Now let me explain our outlook and efforts to achieve the full year forecast. This fiscal year, with the merger of the 3 companies and the establishment of the new group in July, we spent the first quarter preparing for this. In the second quarter, with the start of the new company, a lot of our effort was diverted to working on the new group management structure. It is my major regret that many of our employees and our offices time, including mine as well, was taken up by the inward focus work for the integration of the companies.

Although we have seen performance improve in the second quarter from the loss-making first quarter, the 6 months performance remains challenging. So from the second half of the year, as the new group structure will be in full swing and while I'm not sure whether to use a horse racing analogy is appropriate, we have grouped at the second corner after falling behind the first corner, and now are making a full-scale turnaround and pushing towards the goal, the finish line at the third and fourth corners. This is the situation we see ourselves in now.

I will explain a little more specifically on this slide. As for the outlook for sales in the second half of the year, in the enterprises/environmental, social foundation domain, we expect an increase in construction completions in the environmental social businesses, such as renewable energy, electricity and lighting as well as construction of large orders in the ICT business, which should drive the increase in sales.

In the communication foundation domain, we expect an increase in sales in the second half of the year due to adjustments in our utilization towards the busy season at the end of the fiscal year as well as efficient business operations, and overall, we believe that in the second half of the year, we will be able to recover from the sales decline we had in the first half of the year. As for the outlook for operating income in the second half of the year, as you can see on the bottom half of this slide, in addition to an increase in profits due to an increase in construction completion, we plan to recover profits by improving operational efficiency and cost improvements brought about by the integration of the 3 companies and new group collaboration and by cutting overhead costs without exceptions and reducing SG&A expenses.

To achieve this big goal in the second half of the year is a huge challenge. But as the first year of the integration of the 3 companies and the establishment of the new group, the entire group will work together to reverse the trend from the second half of this fiscal year. At the same time, we will also thoroughly monitor the performance on a monthly basis and through that, achieve the full year performance targets set at the beginning of the fiscal year.

Next, on shareholder returns. In May, we announced a new medium-term management plan. There, we revised our previous policy and announced that through stable dividend growth and flexible share buybacks, we will set the total payout ratio at the 50% level. For the current fiscal year, we have already announced a forecast to increase the annual dividend per share by JPY 5 to JPY 60. Also, we have already repurchased JPY 2 billion of shares. In the second half of the fiscal year, we will purchase an additional JPY 2 billion of shares to further return profits to shareholders. We will continue to monitor performance trends and consider ways to return to shareholders in line with the new policy.

Now on the second half of my presentation, it will be on the progress of the MIRAIT ONE Group Vision 2030 announced in May. In our Group Vision 2030 in order to shift our business structure from one that is centered on telecommunications construction to non-telecommunications construction, we announced our new growth strategy with the keyword change. Currently, we are promoting business transformation based on the 5 changes shown on this slide.

First, regarding people-centric management, that is change one. I wish to report the start of the MIRAIT College. The idea is to change the business through changes in the people that work. MIRAIT College was opened at the same time as the new company's inauguration in July as a driving force for business structure reform through reskilling.

As of October, employees of about 50 of MIRAIT ONE group companies and 20 partner companies are also already participating in this project and the number of registered users or students, as we call them, reached 13,000. Also, the digital campus offers e-learning courses of approximately 160 and continues to increase. We have also started to utilize the community function amongst those studying. In the digital campus or e-learning courses, what is highly popular is the faculty of technical skills, which aim to improve technical skills, and I feel it has been a formidable success for employee self-motivated learning attitude.

Moving forward, we will enhance the real in-person campus to improve practical skills and expand courses in the area of management skills and ESG to respond to the learning attitude of our employees. Next, acceleration of business growth, that has changed too. The Group Vision 2030 clearly redefines area for growth as the MIRAIT or future domain, and we have decided to accelerate growth by mobilizing the resources of the MIRAIT ONE group. Specifically, number one, to support urban and regional community creation and enterprise DX and GX. For example, we have received an order for a project to construct an aquarium, which is expected to be the center of liveliness or bustle of the city in the Downtown Sapporo Odori area. This is just 1 example, and we will continue to work on various community creation and disaster prevention projects.

Number two, the green power business. These are projects in which we develop the power source, generate electricity and provide them to customers. We have already started construction of 4 solar power plants in Japan. We will continue to vigorously acquire land and construct solar power plants throughout Japan. Number three, the software business. In July, we combined resources within our group and launched a strategic software development subsidiary, MIRAIT ONE Systems. The business is growing steadily.

And number four, the global business. LanTroVision is quickly recovering performance in Singapore, which was one of the first countries to normalize from the COVID disaster. Also in the Philippines, at a tower sharing company, jointly invested with Sojitz Corporation, we have started construction of telecommunication towers. On change 3, top class profitability, we will briefly reflect on the integration that took place in July.

The new company, which was launched in July, centered on MIRAIT ONE, which consists of 3 in-house companies. The solution company and the 2 carrier companies, East and West. And then the companies that you see here in green and orange, which are mainly responsible for the future domains that would be Seibu Construction, MIRAIT ONE Systems and the Global LanTroVision, those 3 companies.

And then comes the companies that would be the core of the area or regional business that would be TTK, SOLCOM, and Shikokutsuken. The group is comprised by these 7 main companies. And with that, the group's consolidated management is being promoted. Regarding location, each company of MIRAIT ONE has shifted from a centralized location at the Toyosu Head Office in Tokyo to decentralize offices for each company to reduce rent through effective use of its own buildings, et cetera, and to improve management efficiency and speedy decision-making.

As the management integration took place in July, the new company name and brand logo were updated and aggressive promotional activities were conducted during July and August. We expect that this will be effective in cultivating new customers. Next, I would like to briefly discuss about the financial effects of the integration of the 3 companies. The amount of the financial effects for this full year fiscal year 2022 is expected to be approximately JPY 600 million in real terms.

By consolidating overhead in common departments, we expect we could slim down headcount by approximately 200 employees and only by shifting them to profit-earning departments, et cetera, would we see economic benefits. We expect the final effect to be about JPY 4 billion, which will be realized across a number of years.

Next, I will explain the synergies from the business integration with Seibu Construction. New business synergies are steadily being generated through business collaboration with the management integration with Seibu Construction. First, the 2 companies are proceeding with reciprocal orders. In the first half of the fiscal year, MIRAIT ONE Corporation as prime contractor placed an order for JPY 1.65 billion with Seibu Construction and vice versa with Seibu Construction as prime contractor placing a JPY 540 million order with MIRAIT ONE Corporation. By bringing in-house businesses that had been previously been outsourced, the group was able to retain approximately JPY 110 million in profits.

We will continue to promote such reciprocal orders so that they take route. Furthermore, with respect to the original purpose of the integration, which was to expand orders through collaboration between the 2 companies by leveraging their strengths, that is Seibu Constructions in construction and civil engineering and the MIRAIT ONE Corporations in telecommunications and electricity, we received orders of JPY 200 million in the first half of the fiscal year. While this amount is still small, they include projects for waterworks-related work and those for cellphone and detectability measures.

We will further expand under the concept of smart general contractor cooperative orders by leveraging the strength of both companies and will also expand our business domain by also capturing the trend of The Digital Garden City Nation concept promoted by the Japanese government.

Next is change 4 on management based on data insights. This may sound rather complicated, but let me explain. Management based on data insights aims to gain knowledge and insight through scientific analysis of data, facts and information and to reform business and management by utilizing them, and that can be viewed as DX business transformation using digital technology.

In June of this year, we were selected as one of the DX featured company 2022 among the DX names list established by METI, the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Information Technology Promotion Agency. As we were already selected as a DX certified company last year, we see ourselves having moved up 1 level. We are proud that our DX efforts have been highly evaluated, and we will continue to strive for digital transformation, DX on the offensive that is sales; and on the defensive, that will be construction and common functions; and the development of DX Human Resources.

On this last slide, I would like to talk about having a strong foundation for ESG management. That is change 5. Since July, we have been formulating various nonfinancial policies and declarations related to ESG, which were announced in May at the time of the announcement of the new midterm management plan and have been announced on our website amongst other places.

In terms of the environment, we have established and announced our policy on disposal of industrial waste and green procurement guidelines. We have also formulated and announced our basic policy of human rights, health management declaration, charter on safety and compliance as well as action plans for female participation in the workplace. On smart work/life declaration and the diversity and inclusion declaration, both are under consideration after conducting a questionnaire survey and interviews with all employees. This is to ensure that the declarations will be built from the perspective of our employees. And so while that is taking some time, we plan to announce them in December.

Regarding nonfinancial indicators other than those shown on this slide, we will continue to enhance and actively disclose them in the integrated report and on our website.

With that, I conclude my presentation for today. Thank you very much for your attention.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]