Enento Group Oyj

OMXH:ENENTO

Earnings Call Analysis

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Arto Paukku, executive]

Good afternoon, and welcome to Enento's Q1 Earnings Webcast. My name is Arto Paukku. Today, I am joined by our CEO, Jeanette Jager; and our CFO, Elina Strahlman. Jeanette will start by providing an overview of our first quarter results, highlighting key achievements and updates from our business areas. Elina will then share insights from the financial perspective. Following their presentations, we will open up the floor for your questions. Feel free to submit your questions at any time using the webcast tool.But without further ado, I'll now hand it over to Jeanette to lead us through our Q1 highlights. Jeanette?

[Jeanette Jager, executive]

Thank you very much, Arto, and good afternoon to all of you, and welcome to this results briefing from my part. Let's firstly shortly review the Q1 key developments, both in terms of numbers, but also what we have accomplished as a company. After that, I will be presenting the usual business area update with highlights.So taking a more closely look into the key figures in Q1, as anticipated in our 2023 financial statement release, the macroeconomic environment has remained challenging, particularly in Sweden, and has shown clear signs of weakening in Finland as well. The strikes in Finland have had a broad effect on the overall economy activity in the society and therefore, impacted the demand for our services.In Sweden, the demand for consumer credit information services remains sluggish. While in Finland, the demand was significantly -- sorry about that, weaker compared to the previous year. Additionally, the first quarter included 1 less business day compared to 2023. On the positive side, net sales in Norway and Denmark continued to grow.In the first quarter, our organic net sales were EUR 37.3 million, representing a decrease of 5.2% at comparable exchange rates. Our adjusted EBITDA reached EUR 12.4 million, decreasing by 15.2% at comparable exchange rates, while resulted in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 33.3%. Furthermore, our free cash flow is expected to remain strong, enabling us to continue investing in our growth areas and return capital to our shareholders.During the first quarter of 2024, we successfully continued to concentrate on sustaining our profitability level. This was achieved despite lower volumes and declining net sales, thanks to advancements in our efficiency program and the implementation of cost-saving measures. We continue to make significant progress with our efficiency program and have decided to increase the efficiency target from EUR 8 million to EUR 10 million by the end of '24. The program has already achieved almost 74% of its updated target on a run rate basis by the end of the first quarter.Our customer-first approach and regular engagement with our customers is key to remaining and maintaining our strong market position. I am very proud to say that our customers are giving us great recognition for the service we provide. The NPS score from our strategic and large customers remained high at 51, which is well above industry peers, reflecting the trust and value we have built with our customers.In our continuous efforts to enhance the relevance of Enento Group's financial reporting, we have decided to revise the calculation logic of our share of net sales from new services' KPI, now in line with the industry standard. The revised calculation now extends to cover services launch within the past 36 months compared to the previous 24 months. We progressed with our growth strategy execution in several areas, including further developing our compliance offering as well as preparing for launching the new open banking service for the Swedish market.We can be very content with the share of new services figure being 14%. Biggest contributors in the improvement are still the positive daily credit register in Sweden and the renewed certificate offering in Finland. But there are other new strategic services delivering good results in both business areas as the new real estate information service as an example.In the financial statements earnings call, we announced our plan to extend our efficiency program from the prior EUR 8 million target to the EUR 10 million by the end of 2024. The decision for the new EUR 10 million target has now been made and the actions are proceeding according to plans. The extended program has advanced as planned and achieved almost 74% of its target on a run rate basis by the end of Q1 2024, equally roughly EUR 7.4 million.To recap the main drivers, the further FTE efficiencies realized through voluntary redundancies and through the transition of application service and the streamlining of our IT infrastructure, so that we have one Nordic IT environment with one vendor. We are starting the implementation phase in the area of streamlining our IT infrastructure in Sweden in Q2 and advancing further in the other operating countries later on. We are doing that together with our partner, TCS.In direct to consumer business, we are moving into a partner sales model, which will decrease the customer acquisition cost and the progress has been positive during Q1. We are also proceeding with a plan to move into smaller facilities in Finland.Then let's review the highlights from our business areas, and I'll start with the business insight, which continued positively in Finland, Norway and Denmark. Norway and Denmark net sales growth being very strong. In Sweden, the challenges in the macroeconomic environment are impacting the demand for our services as customers are being more cost conscious.Business Insights organic net sales were EUR 22.2 million and grew 1.8% at comparable foreign exchange rates. We continue to see net sales growth, especially in the real estate information services in Finland and Sweden and premium services targeted to SMEs across in all countries. We have introduced several new services in real estate service, which are driving the growth, even if real estate transactions are on a very low level in both Sweden and Finland. And our Nordic compliance offering development and expansion continues.The transition of the service offering towards a recurring revenue model is expected to provide stability in terms of revenue development and product development push continues now in all the markets. And during the first quarter, we have launched an improved offering also out in Sweden.The ESG data plays a important role in driving the transformation towards a sustainable society. This applies to lending and procurement process as well as ESG is one of our strategic growth areas. Now let me give an example of Business Insights Service, which is combining real estate data and ESG data to support our customers in property valuation as well as credit and portfolio management processes in Sweden.Damages to properties and buildings caused by climate change, such as heavy wind and rain, flooding and fires, implicate the financial risks that must be managed both at the portfolio level and in day-to-day processes. Our high-quality data and services help companies in making sustainable decisions for resource management, lending and investment, and in assessing ESG and compliance risks with the help of a digitalized service.The property climate risk report service in Sweden is Enento Group's unique proprietary service, which automates mortgage and property information processes to make decisions easier. It supports financial institutions, banks and other companies measure financial risks related to damages to properties and buildings caused by climate change.The service is combining the up-to-date property and owner information from Swedish authorities, company and group information and the climate risk class on the property and building developed by Enento. The report that are offered save a lot of time and money for real estate stakeholders, whether owners, buyers, sellers, advisers, banks, accountants and ESG consultants who would otherwise have to analyze each property manually or with on-site inspection to assess climate risks. Currently, several banks are using the service, of which one is a top 5 bank in Sweden. And in 2024, we will enhance our ESG services and introduce new features to better support our real estate customers. Our efforts will focus on providing essential insights into climate risk management for property holdings.So over to Consumer Insight. Consumer Insight business area faced lower demand for credit information services in both Sweden and Finland. In Sweden, the consumer credit information sector is declining due to reduced lending volumes, broker usage, fraud and market exits. Finland faces downturn, but without the market consolidation, largely due to lenders pausing operation and re-evaluating business models. Both countries are experiencing reduced transaction volumes influenced by consumer caution amidst high inflation, rising interest rates and increasing bankruptcies. The lenders are also re-evaluating the operations as a result of declining profitability and implementing cost efficiency measures that impact demand for our services and transaction volumes.Then regarding the highlights from Q1, to mention a few. A significant achievement for Consumer Insight is the adoption of our credit information services for the Finnish positive credit register, started 1st of April this year. Our Finnish services are now integrated with the new governmental register data. Many of our customers have opted to rely on our expertise to retrieve the data and enhance it with our analytics and decisioning services. We have not lost any customers because of the register starting its operations and the impact is rather the opposite. In Sweden, we have started discussions with potential customers to promote our new PSD2 offering for open banking data. With the service offering, we have already attracted high interest and the promising sales pipeline.The adoption of the daily updated credit register continues with the old legacy registered scheduled to be closed down during Q2. And consumer marketing information services in both countries witnessed growth as new customers were onboarded. But let's now take a closer look at how Enento services give value in relation to the Finnish positive credit register. The register opened on April 1st and integrating our credit information and services with it represents a significant achievement for the Consumer Insight business area.Many of our customers have chosen to rely on our expertise to retrieve data and enhance it with our analytics and decision-making services. We play a clear role in delivering enriched data and adding our intelligence. Customers can connect to the positive credit register via an API or GUI. We manage the data flows, maintain the integrations and provide responses through API, [ PDFi ] or with a recommended decision. Of course, companies and customers also have the direct option to use the positive credit registers themselves. However, by doing so, they miss out on the flexibility and ease of workflow that our services provide. For example, our service includes a decision service with affordability calculation and relevant off-the-shelf policy rules. We also collect data in a compliant manner for future analytics and for modeling.Then moving on from the Q1 to our priorities going forward. We are currently navigating a challenging and unpredictable period, especially in the consumer credit information market. 2024 is highly dependent on general development in GDP growth, consumer credit demand and consumer confidence. Additionally, variations in our sales mix may impact profitability. Given these conditions, we are holding off on providing specific financial guidance for the year. We are focusing on areas where we can make a significant impact through our own actions, specifically by driving growth from new initiatives and maintaining tight cost control.Our growth strategy includes generating new business from innovative services and increased market penetration. We are making progress in launching new services in strategic growth areas such as ESG compliance and master data, open banking and fraud prevention. Having previously identified key areas for market penetration, we are now actively executing on these plans. Cost control is being achieved through a continuous focus on efficiency with advancements in IT consolidation and vendor management. This is crucial for maintaining our profitability despite the fluctuating macroeconomic environment and market volatility. Despite the current unfavorable macroeconomic conditions, the measures we have implemented in executing our strategy, give us confidence in our ability to generate value supported by improving macroeconomic factors.And by that, I would like to welcome our CFO, Elina to also bring us forward and deep dive more into the numbers.

[Elina Stråhlman, executive]

Thank you, Jeanette. So let's focus on the financial outcome of Q1 and go through the numbers in a bit more detail. Our net sales reached EUR 37.3 million, and unfortunately, due to continuing heavy pressure in consumer credit volumes declined by 5.2% at comparable FX rates, excluding the discontinuance of the Tambur business.The negative development in Swedish consumer credit information business continued and now following the challenging macroeconomic situation, volumes also started declining in consumer credit business in Finland. The stable development in the business information services, including strong growth in real estate new services and good demand for premium services was not enough to offset the volume decline in consumer credit side.Adjusted EBITDA that declined as well following the revenue development and resulted at EUR 12.4 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin ended at 33.3%. And as said, this negative development can be fully explained by the revenue decline and weakening sales mix. In Q1, we continue to keep the costs in very good control, and costs were actually decreasing. But obviously, we were not then able to offset or mitigate this heavy decline in volumes with cost access.There is a limited amount of variable costs in the Swedish consumer credit business, which means that the volume decline, revenue decline and directly impacts the profitability. Adjusted EBIT development, that was in line with the adjusted EBITDA development. And then on the financial position side, net debt to adjusted EBITDA remained on good level at 2.4x.Continuing then with some details on the revenue development. And starting from the Business Insights there, the development of the business area returned to slight growth in Q1, and revenue increased by 1.8% compared to last year. And this is with comparable FX rates and excluding the discontinuance of the Tambur business.Finnish business continued on a stable track and was supported by strong demand for new services and the real estate business. This nevertheless that the transaction volumes remained in Finland on a low level. And also the business was supported by good demand for SME premium services. In enterprise business, we saw solid development, but the volumes were clearly impacted by the 1 less working day and timing of Easter as well as the strikes that took place in Finland.In Sweden, the business area was likewise supported by good demand for real estate, new services. Jeanette talked about the climate risk service that we have introduced and that has gained good traction in the market. Also, the business information services for SMEs continued to perform well. Where we saw biggest struggles was the premium business and display sales that were clearly impacted by the macroeconomic environment.In Norway, as also mentioned, the business continued to perform well likewise and was specifically strong in Premium segment where we have introduced new services. Then in the Consumer Insight, there the negative development, as said, continued and the revenue declined by 14%. In Sweden, the volume decline continued in the levels that we saw already in Q4. Following the low lending transaction volumes, decreased usage of broker segment as well as then market consolidations and exits.In Finland, the volume also turned now into decline, largely due to low lending volumes, but also due to lenders pausing operations or re-evaluating their business models. But what is important to note and understand is that, that markets are different between Finland and Sweden. And in Finland, we see bigger impact coming from volumes, and it's not a similar trend in terms of broker segment [indiscernible] consolidations than what we are seeing on the Swedish side.On the Consumer Insight then, the smaller business lines, those performed well, and we saw good growth in consumer marketing business, thanks to successful sales efforts. But obviously, those are small business lines. So good performance there is not then enough to offset the heavy decline in the consumer credit business.Moving forward with the adjusted EBITDA development. So as said, adjusted EBITDA landed at EUR 12.4 million in the first quarter. And despite the fact that we kept costs under good control and even decreasing the declining consumer credit volumes and weaker sales mix turn to adjusted EBITDA into sharper decline. As already mentioned, we have limited amount of variable costs connected to the Swedish consumer credit business, which means that the decrease in volumes and revenues then pretty much directly hits the profitability.Looking at the EBITDA development in more detail. The negative sales mix impact can be seen in the materials and services, meaning our data acquisition costs that increased despite the hefty revenue decline. This is due to the good demand and development in real estate and consumer marketing businesses in Finland that come with variable data acquisition costs as well as, as mentioned, the fact that in Swedish consumer credit business, the amount of variable data acquisition costs is very limited. As a result of this weaker sales mix, gross margin declined by 1.5 percentage points.Personnel costs, those on the other hand, decreased by EUR 300,000, mainly following the savings and efficiency actions that we took last year in Q1. And this positive impact then was partially offset by the salary inflation. The savings actions are also visible in decreasing other operating expenses that declined by EUR 200,000. And behind this decline, we have a mix of permanent and temporary cost decreases, but also negative impacts from contractual cost inflation and some OpEx projects that we have then successfully offset with efficiency and savings actions. And then finally, production for all news that remained on prior year level and the currency impacts have now stabilized, while also the kronas have -- krona levels have somewhat stabilized from prior year.Free cash flow resulted at EUR 6.9 million and declined following the profitability development but also largely due to the change in working capital. The change in working capital was impacted by the timing of accounts receivable payments. And this is basically due to the fact that last day of March happened to be during the weekend, meaning that the payments -- the payments were largely postponed to April. Both cash conversion and adjusted cash conversion remained above 60% level.And then finally, financial position continues to be strong. We have some EUR 80 million of cash at our hands on top of unused credit lines. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA was at 2.4, clearly below our set maximum level of 3. Gross investments, those were somewhat lower than prior year, but that is mainly due to the fact that in last year's Q1, we had some hardware investments that took place there.Good. Thank you on my behalf. We have now time for some questions. Arto, please.

[Arto Paukku, executive]

Yes. Thank you, Elina. Thank you, Jeanette. And let's start with the questions we have from the studio. So Roni.

[Roni Peuranheimo, analyst]

Roni Peuranheimo from Inderes. Regarding the positive credit register, earlier you commented that you expect flat development in this area. So can you elaborate a little bit more on how have you seen that -- have you seen it affecting your demand in the beginning of April?

[Jeanette Jager, executive]

Yes. Well, I think it's a little bit early to say anything about how it will affect our demand forward. As we shared now, what we have developed is a service for our customers where they can integrate their data from the positive credit register together with our services. So in that sense, I think we have built a solid foundation actually for our customers. And as mentioned, we have also actually attracted new customers to this. But now and forward, now we need also to see on top of the integration and the top, of course, that as a service on its own, how will it affect then the data as such from the earlier service. But all in all, we expect a flattish development.

[Roni Peuranheimo, analyst]

So that still holds true, like in revenue-wise [ faster ] development.

[Jeanette Jager, executive]

Yes.

[Roni Peuranheimo, analyst]

You mentioned that the strikes did have some effect in Q1. Are you able to comment anyhow how big that effect was?

[Jeanette Jager, executive]

Yes, it's really difficult to evaluate how much was due to strikes, but we could clearly see in March volumes decline in some customer volumes that we know that were clearly impacted by the strikes. Very difficult to say what was the exact impact, but we saw some.

[Roni Peuranheimo, analyst]

Then one about outlook, H2 is getting closer, and you have mentioned that you see some optimism towards that. So what are the main drivers for that optimism at this point given that the interest rate expectations, interest rate costs are pretty low.

[Jeanette Jager, executive]

Yes, of course. I mean we do see some signs and all of us take part of via media and of course, other forums that we can foresee that there will be interest rates, which will be lowered at some point. Then I would say that it depends on when and how much that will affect, of course, the H2. In addition to that, I would also say that the consumers and how the consumers react to this. Do the consumer feel confident or more confident about the future? That also, of course, has an effect. So in that way, we still, at this point, need to conclude on what we have said earlier, we see positive signs. But at this point, there are positive signs remains to see how they realize.

[Roni Peuranheimo, analyst]

All right. No further questions from me.

[Arto Paukku, executive]

And then we have a few questions online. So let's start to go through these. Maybe the first one for Jeanette. So do you see risks with the Business Insight going further, I assume, down this year? Or is it most of the uncertainty linked to the consumer side in respect to the fact that we don't issue any guidance at this point?

[Jeanette Jager, executive]

And I would say that that we are not issuing any guidance at this point is still due to that. There is -- it is difficult to see how this will affect us forward without knowing when we can see the light in the tunnel connected to the earlier question we just had here, and again, also connected to Consumer Insight. So in that sense, I would say that the question is more or less answering itself in the way that we are more concerned on the consumer credit and how the environment macroeconomic in general and also the consolidation, as I call it in Sweden, is affecting us rather actually than the Business Insight, which we, of course, have different -- we have different business lines within the Business Insight. So even though you see that the macro is still affecting the, for example, the advertising leg of us, we do see that we're also doing better on the premium. So it's not either or, but all in all, business we still feel that it is continuing on.

[Arto Paukku, executive]

Yes. Good. And maybe a follow-up on this. You have probably sort of answered it already. So what would it -- or what would need to happen in order for us to give a guidance this year?

[Jeanette Jager, executive]

Yes. When it comes to the guidance, we would like to give a guidance when we also -- which guidance we can keep. We want to see how the dim outlook, as I have commented on earlier, is developing now during Q2 and when we can see the signs of also a better foresight. So in that sense, I think we need to see how Q2 plays out. I think we need to see where the indication of a better future comes into play now before summer or after summer and also not only whether the interest rates come in place, but also how is the market reacting to those. Is the confidence, consumers and business-wise, are they coming up then? Yes, then we can probably conclude and that would give us a better pace for a future outlook. But we want to feel confident when we also conclude for the market.

[Arto Paukku, executive]

Right. Very good. And then let's continue with the credit register theme a bit. So do we see it as a possibility that the tax authorities in Finland would also cover the negative register, meaning the payment remarks? And what would that mean to us?

[Jeanette Jager, executive]

Okay. Now Elina, [ have now to ] please jump into this, but it has not been on the table as such. And what it would mean then needs to be -- that needs to be analyzed.

[Arto Paukku, executive]

Yes. Good.

[Elina Stråhlman, executive]

At the moment, we don't see this kind of development, and it's not according to the laws set currently that would cover the negative payment remarks. So no such development foreseen at the moment.

[Arto Paukku, executive]

Yes.

[Jeanette Jager, executive]

And it could be good for those who follow us to understand that, that is the general. Also, when it comes to the law that you combine -- you don't combine it, you go either or. So that would mean a change of legislation, if you would happen here in Finland, and we also have similar setup for the Swedish legislative. You don't combine it.

[Arto Paukku, executive]

Yes, exactly. Very good. And then, Jeanette, you can breathe for or take it easy for a while, and we continue with some financial questions to Elina. So net financial expenses, so those declined materially from the Q4 level. So what's the reason behind that?

[Elina Stråhlman, executive]

Well, the main reason behind are currency exchange rate differences related mainly to the cash accounts that we have in various currencies. So the interest costs as such are -- have stayed on the same level, I think, in Q4, but what then varies is other currency rate differences arising from the cash that we have in balance sheet in different currencies.

[Arto Paukku, executive]

Yes. Very good. And how do you see the sort of the next following quarters in terms of financial expenses.

[Elina Stråhlman, executive]

Well, in terms of financial expenses, we have the EUR 150 million term loan, of which 1/3 roughly is in Swedish krona and rest in euros. And the interest rates are checked or adjusted for the Swedish krona denominated part at the end of March and at the end of September. So obviously, now the STIBOR came a bit down a bit down. So there will be slight impact of that, but Euribor obviously is what it has been now and will be checked next time then in -- at the end of September.

[Arto Paukku, executive]

Right. Good. And then regarding the depreciation level. So now we saw a little bit higher at EUR 3 million level in Q1 that has been typically very stable. So is this the new run rate going forward?

[Elina Stråhlman, executive]

Well, of course, we continue to invest in service development, roughly at the same level than what we saw last year and when we take new services into use those, of course, always impact the depreciation levels. And then we can assume that the run rate is close to where we are at the moment, but of course, always the new service implementations impact the depreciations. And also if we have some legacy services dropping from the base. So there are always differences between for us in that sense.

[Arto Paukku, executive]

And the PPAs?

[Elina Stråhlman, executive]

Yes. And overvalue depreciations, there we have a slight decrease from second half -- second half onwards. So that will impact the run rate level then for the second half.

[Arto Paukku, executive]

Right. Okay. Very good. Then let's jump back to Jeanette then. Do you still consider the 5% to 10% average annual growth target for the strategy period of '24-'26 as realistic now given the macro headwinds that we are facing.

[Jeanette Jager, executive]

Yes. Well, I think that is a fair question. And of course, now we have started our strategic long-term financial plan period with a kind of, I would say, a challenging start. So in that sense, I think that we need to look into that and analyze that. And now as we go along with Q2, how will this develop? So I think we will have to come back on it based on macro.

[Arto Paukku, executive]

Right. Good. Then regarding cost savings and the extended target to EUR 10 million. So how much of this is considered as structural savings versus then the sort of the variable element? So these all permanent?

[Jeanette Jager, executive]

These are all permanent, permanent efficiencies. So we don't include any temporary variations in costs into this program.

[Arto Paukku, executive]

Yes. Good, clear. And then perhaps the last question, have we now still witnessed the same pace with the Consumer Insights revenue decline that we have seen before? Or is the decline rate moderating against the comparables we had in Q2 last year? We have stated earlier that minus 20% level is what we have seen.

[Jeanette Jager, executive]

Yes. And minus 20% is sort of a run rate level. But of course, then in Q2, we already last year started seeing volume decline. So that will, of course, impact the comparisons and even more so than when we go to Q3 and then obviously, Q4 was already on that minus 20% run rate level. So yes, you, of course, need to take into account where we were at the comparison period.

[Arto Paukku, executive]

Yes. Very good. I'm out of questions. So it's time to say thank you, and see you in July.

[Jeanette Jager, executive]

Yes. Thank you for all the questions.

[Arto Paukku, executive]

Thank you. Bye-bye.

[Elina Stråhlman, executive]

Bye.