Atea ASA

OSE:ATEA

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q3

[Steinar Sonsteby, Chief Executive Officer]

Welcome. Welcome to the Q3 presentation of the Atea Group. Before I go to the numbers, when I listen to what some people say or read what they say, I get the impression that corona is a gift for Atea. So let me say, it is nothing good about corona, not for us, not for our customers and definitely not for all our friends around the world who have had problems from corona.The market is challenging, and we cannot wait for everything to come back to normal. So to the numbers. As I said, it has been somewhat of a challenging environment. We see signs and anticipate that this will change to the positive in 2021.In this quarter, revenue came in at NOK 8.2 billion. EBIT had an impressive NOK 215 million, a growth of almost 20%. And this -- in this quarter, Denmark returned to profit, which I can say how happy I am for the Danish team. The cash position is strong. And on base of all of this and the results in 2019, the Board has decided to pay a dividend of NOK 5 per share.But as always, I'll leave it to Robert to give you all the good news.

[Robert Giori, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Steinar. I'd like to start by reviewing our income statement for Q3, with a focus on the key factors that have driven our strong profit growth this quarter. Atea's revenue in the third quarter was NOK 8.2 billion, up 4.6% from last year.Atea earns about 75% to 80% of its revenue in foreign currencies, so the decline in the value of the Norwegian kroner during the past year positively impacted revenue growth by 7.3%. Atea's revenue was driven by strong growth in sales of software, which increased by 16% from last year.Gross margin was 22.6%, up from 22.4% last year as Atea earned a higher profit margin on sales of both hardware and software. With higher revenue and improved gross margin, Atea's gross profit was NOK 1.8 billion, up 5.3% from last year.Total operating expense grew by 3.7% from last year. Adjusting for currency movements, operating expenses were lower than last year, as cost efficiency programs were implemented across the group.During the third quarter, the average number of full-time employees at Atea fell by a 114 or 1.5% from last year. The cost efficiency programs are taking place in areas of Atea's business, which are seen as having low growth potential or in areas which can be reorganized to operate more efficiently. By the end of 2020, the group aims to have over 3% fewer employees than at the start of the year.In addition to fewer employees, Atea also had lower selling and administrative expenses compared to last year, as many meetings and seminars took place through digital communications at significantly lower cost.Based on higher revenue, improved gross margin, fewer employees and tight control of operating expense, Atea's EBIT increased by 18.6% to NOK 215 million.We'll now take a closer look at revenue and profit development across the countries in which we operate. Atea had higher EBIT in almost all countries during the third quarter and strong efficiency gains from its group functions. In Norway, EBIT grew by 7.3% from last year to NOK 83 million. EBIT growth was based on higher sales of software and lower operating expenses compared with last year.In Sweden, EBIT fell by 23.2% to SEK 100 million. The EBIT decline was due to lower demand for hardware and on-site consulting services in a challenging market environment.In Denmark, Atea returned to profitability in the third quarter, marking a step forward in the company's turnaround. EBIT improved from an operating loss of DKK 15 million last year to a profit of DKK 2 million in Q3 2020. The improvement was driven by higher sales of software and consulting services and a reduction in operating costs from last year.In Finland, EBIT grew by 53.9% to a record high EUR 2.0 million. EBIT growth was driven primarily by strong growth in hardware sales, which were up 11.5% from last year.In the Baltics, EBIT grew by 45.3% to EUR 0.8 million. EBIT growth was based on higher sales of contracted services and an improved margin on product sales.Atea Group functions, which include shared services and group costs, reported strong efficiency gains in Q3 2020. EBIT was a net operating cost of NOK 4.2 million compared with a net operating cost of NOK 15.3 million last year.Most of the improved result came from the new Atea logistics center in Växjö, Sweden. With solid performance across nearly all countries and a return to profitability in Atea Denmark, EBIT increased by NOK 34 million from last year.Now a word on our cash flow and balance sheet. Atea's cash earnings in Q3 2020 were an inflow of NOK 336 million compared with an inflow of NOK 330 million last year. The increase was driven by higher operating profit compared with last year. Working capital movements, excluding the sale of receivable, had a negative impact of a NOK 199 million in Q3 2020, compared with a negative impact of NOK 381 million last year. Net working capital was at a very low level throughout Q3, as Atea had a rapid cash collection cycle and low overdue receivables throughout the quarter.In addition, many of Atea's vendors offered extended payment terms to Atea and other large resellers to provide short-term support during the COVID-19 pandemic. These payment terms were extended without cost, but were scheduled to return to normal during the next 3 to 6 months.Adjusting for working capital movements, but before the sale of receivables, Atea's cash flow from operations was an inflow of NOK 138 million compared with an outflow of NOK 51 million last year.Atea's entered a securitization agreement on selected accounts receivable with its primary bank as part of its overall financing structure. The securitization agreement allows Atea to accelerate its cash conversion by selling accounts receivable throughout the year. This form of financing is highly flexible and low cost for Atea due to the credit quality of its customer base. Since Atea had low financing requirements in the third quarter, Atea used the securitization agreement less in Q3 2020 than it did last year. As a result Atea sold a lower volume of accounts receivable at the end of Q3 to finance its operations than it had at the start of the quarter. The reduction and the volume of sold receivables during the quarter had a negative impact on Atea's reported cash flow from operations of NOK 145 milllion.After the impact of changes in the volume of sold receivables, cash flow from operations in Q3 2020 was an outflow of NOK 7 million. This compares to an outflow of NOK 434 million last year.Moving on to our debt balance. Atea had a positive cash position of NOK 299 million at the end of Q3 as defined by Atea's loan covenants. This corresponds to a net debt/EBITDA ratio of negative 0.2. Atea's loan covenants require the company to maintain a net debt/EBITDA balance of less than 2.5, which would mean that the maximum net debt balance allowed by Atea's loan covenants was NOK 3.5 billion at the end of Q3. Atea's net debt balance was, therefore, NOK 3.8 billion less than the maximum balance allowed by its loan covenants at the end of Q3. The company has significant additional debt capacity before its debt covenants would be reached.That concludes the presentation of the third quarter financial results. I'll hand the podium back over to Steinar to discuss today's dividend announcement and other developments in the business.

[Steinar Sonsteby, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Robert. Let me first take you back to review very briefly our strategy and how we look at that a little bit more than midway into the year. First of all, let me say that in the heart and soul of the Atea strategy and culture, is that, first and foremost, we are focused on the customer and the customer needs. We are not steering or driving the mix in one certain direction.So far this year, about 50% of our revenue comes from hardware. And of course then, 50% from software and services. Out of the 50% of hardware, server and storage is a little less than 15%.In the other part of our strategy, our go-to-market, is that our customers can buy from us in any way they want. Customers are not similar and especially not private and public. You can buy from us as a reseller, meaning you buy the parts, you can buy from us as an integrator, meaning that you're buying the solution or you can buy from us as a service provider, meaning you're buying the solution as a service. And if you buy it as a service, it doesn't matter to me if it's mine, my data center, your data center or any other, for instance, public cloud vendor's data center.Almost every single customer that buys something from us that sits in the public cloud has a multi-cloud or hybrid cloud strategy. This is complex and it plays right into our role as a reseller, integrator and service provider.And then we look at the market in 3 individual areas: information management, meaning everything around the data, specifically, security and analytics, meaning how we drive value out of your data. And then the digital workplace, meaning everything you use every day to do your job, connect to the network and collaborate with people around you. And of course, the hybrid platform. I told you all about that.And then secondly, operations, how do we think operationally. First of all, everything is about creating and adding the knowledge that we need to fulfill our strategy. But secondly, for years, our focus has been on operations in the way of driving out productivity to be more efficient, both in administration, but also in the physical work we do with the customers.There is no joke that this is a huge potential for us going forward. And in reaching our new targets of EBIT or new level of EBIT, this is the main area of focus. We've been working on this for years. And that's why EBIT has outgrown revenue more or less every year since I took over more than 6 years ago.Is it going fast enough? Not at all. So there is still a huge potential in front of us. But because it's not going fast enough, I am so pleased and happy that I today can announce that I have appointed Carl-Johan Hultenheim, previous CEO of our Swedish organization for 9 years as my COO. This is a new position, and it's a position that are meant to strengthen the top management of Atea and to help us drive faster our strategy and our efficiency gain.I have worked with Carl, who is called among friends, for more than 10 years. And I'm really looking forward to have someone to battle around strategy with. As Carl will leave the Swedish organization or at least the post as CEO 1st of January next year, Linus Wallin will take over his position. Linus has worked with us for more than 10 years. He has had different positions in sales and sales management. And over the last 3 years as regional manager for 40% of the Swedish business, meaning Stockholm.This is not a sign that I will back down, and the country manager will still report to me, and I'll drive them harder than ever.So to dividend. Of course, we are not blind to the fact that there has been discussions about this among our friends. The Board, based on a strong year-to-date and a strong '19, have decided to pay out NOK 5 per share in dividend in November. This is approximately 100% of the earnings per share in '19.Additionally, the Board have decided that the policy going forward will be to pay approximately 70% to 100% of the net profit after tax. So we're not paying more than the net profit, not in 2020 and not in the years to come.To summarize, Q3, again, EBIT grows faster than revenue, in fact, more than 3x faster. We have a strong cash flow and cash position. And even with NOK 5 in November, I had NOK 3.3 billion available to invest in the company as of today. We're very happy with our position and the platform we have built.With that, we'll go to questions.So, so far, no questions. And of course, I couldn't brag to say that we have pulled a full room here in Oslo. Both, the snow has arrived and of course, corona is still here.We'll give it another 30 seconds before we close. And of course, both Robert and I will be available the rest of the day and the rest of the week and the rest of our life. So there's not too late to have questions. Okay. Thank you, and thank you to the people in the room. Thank you.