Crayon Group Holding ASA

OSE:CRAYN

Earnings Call Analysis

Strong Q2 Performance and Upgraded Outlook

Crayon reported a robust 13% increase in gross profit in Q2, driven by resilient demand for software and cloud services. EBITDA improved significantly, rising NOK 98 million from the previous year. The company's working capital also reached a record low of minus NOK 1.4 billion. On the back of this strong performance, Crayon upgraded its full-year outlook with expectations for margins to be between -5% and -12.5%. Key growth areas included AI services, which expanded by 26%. The company won significant awards and recognition, including Microsoft LSP Partner of the Year, bolstering confidence in its strategic direction.

Solid Growth Trajectory Amidst Market Challenges

In the second quarter of 2024, Crayon showcased its resilience with a robust 13% growth in gross profit, despite operating in a slow market. The ongoing demand for IT services, particularly as clients modernize their infrastructure, continues to drive this growth. Adjusted EBITDA saw an increase of NOK 61 million, achieving a margin of 24%, which is an improvement from 23% in the same quarter last year.

Record Improvement in Working Capital

Crayon reported a remarkable working capital performance of minus NOK 1.4 billion – a record level for the company. This substantial improvement follows systematic efforts in managing working capital, leading to an upgrade in the outlook for 2024 from minus 2.5% to a range of minus 5% to minus 12.5%.

Strategic Focus on Growth and Profitability

The company has outlined three main objectives: to capitalize on growth opportunities, enhance consulting profitability, and sustain improvements in working capital. Crayon's initiatives are beginning to yield results, leading to an 18% gross profit growth specifically driven by consulting services in the Nordic region.

Success in Key Business Segments – AI and Cloud

Crayon's fastest-growing area is artificial intelligence, with a staggering 26% growth attributed to increased customer interest in AI and data services. The company’s focus on software and cloud sectors remains strong, especially in the Nordics, APAC, and MEA regions, where it secured accolades such as Microsoft LSP Partner of the Year and EMEA Adobe Reseller of the Year.

Resilience in Channel Performance

While Crayon's direct business experienced solid growth of 22% and 19% in the Nordics and Europe respectively, channel performance faced challenges with an 18% decline in Europe. However, the wider context reflects a strong overall performance with adjusted EBITDA margins improving from 51% to 64% in specific segments.

Prominent Recognition and Demand for Cybersecurity

As cybersecurity threats escalate, Crayon is witnessing increased demand for its cybersecurity solutions, signaling its pivotal role in clients' IT strategies. This has been reinforced by their successful consulting implementations, positioning them as a trusted partner in crucial markets.

Optimistic Outlook and Strategic Investments

The company is optimistic about the second half of 2024, traditionally a strong period for software and cloud licensing. With strategic investments planned in sales and technical resources, Crayon aims to meet its growth targets despite the anticipated seasonal slowdown in Q3.

Closing Remarks on Financial Health

Crayon's financial position appears robust, with a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio ending at 0.7x and a cash position remaining strong at NOK 1.4 billion. The business has embarked on efficient cost management and liquidity improvements, setting the stage for sustainable growth.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q2

[Kjell Hansen, executive]

Good morning and welcome to Crayon's second quarter results presentation. My name is Kjell Arne Hansen and I'm the Head of Investor Relations. With me today, presenting the key developments and financial results for the quarter, we have our CEO, Melissa Mulholland; and our CFO, Brede Huser. As usual, after the presentation, there will be a Q&A session. For those of you who are following the live event, you can submit your questions via the platform. A recording of the webcast will be available on our IR pages after the live event has ended. And with that, I hand it over to Melissa.

[Melissa Mulholland, executive]

Thank you for joining our Q2 presentation. I am very pleased to present a strong set of results for the quarter. Starting with gross profit, we delivered a solid 13% growth in an overall slow market. We continue to see strong demand for our services as customers modernize and expand their IT infrastructure. Secondly, as we have communicated, we have put a lot of focus on improving profitability, and I'm happy to see this materializing. Our reported EBITDA grew NOK 98 million compared to Q2 last year, while our adjusted EBITDA grew NOK 61 million, reflecting a margin of 24%, an improvement from 23% in the comparable quarter last year.

Lastly, working capital performance was at a record setting of minus NOK 1.4 billion. As a result of the performance, we are upgrading our outlook for the full year, and Brede will go through the details later in the presentation. In Q4 of 2023, I committed to 3 objectives to you as shareholders. The first is to capitalize on significant growth opportunities and I'm pleased to share we have delivered 13% gross profit growth in Q2 of '24.

Second, was to improve consulting profitability. And as a result, we have delivered 11% in adjusted EBITDA in Q2. Third, we are committed to improving working capital. I am extremely pleased to report that our efforts have demonstrated a sustainable improvement, having improved our working capital for the third consecutive quarter. In looking at the market, Crayon is uniquely positioned to grow, based on a resiliency of customer demand in software and cloud as well as the stickiness provided by value-added services.

When looking at the business performance, we clearly see that the market continued the trend from Q1 '24 with both gross profit and EBITDA margin improvement. Software and Cloud remains solid with strong growth in both the Nordics, APAC and MEA. We continue to see growth across our software suppliers and were awarded the Microsoft LSP Partner of the Year, now called Scale Solutions. We were also awarded EMEA Adobe Reseller of the Year. The Adobe recognition is driven by our efforts to expand software providers to our channel partners through our procurement platform, Cloud-iQ.

Additionally, we see the customer interest continuing to gain with adoption of generative AI productivity platforms with Amazon Q and Microsoft CoPilot. Turning to services, we delivered 18% gross profit growth driven by the Nordics in Europe. From a business area perspective, our fastest-growing business is AI with 26% growth and accelerated demand from customers on AI and data services.

We delivered strong improvement in consulting profitability as part of our EBITDA recovery from a sluggish Q4 '23. Building on the importance of providing value-added services to our customers, we have consolidated our Norwegian consulting companies, comprised of Inmeta and Puzzlepart, to increase the potential to upsell and cross-sell services and build upon the global Crayon brand.

With the sophistication of hackers and the risk of data security, we have seen increased demand from our customers relating to cybersecurity solutions. Cyber attacks are becoming more and more frequent and more sophisticated with deepfakes in AI technology. Microsoft and other vendors are increasingly integrating cybersecurity solutions into their ecosystems and customers' needs and budgets for expertise to help advise and secure their IT estate, is increasing. Data & AI is a fast-growing segment as customers are seeing the opportunity to create efficiencies in their business with large language models.

Our global team is a highly technical team, obtaining the highest certifications for Microsoft and vendor specialization, establishing success for the company. Looking more into the detailed drivers behind the growth in our business, our direct business continues to be strong, mainly driven by performance in the Nordics and Europe with 22% and 19% growth. Profitability improved from 53% to 56% quarter-over-quarter. Performance in the channel business was negatively impacted by a negative 18% growth in Europe, mainly due to exceptionally high comparable as growth in the same quarter last year was 90%.

In addition, the new agreement with Broadcom, who acquired VMware, had some temporary negative impacts due to known invoice issues with Broadcom. However, we also saw a strong margin improvement from 51% to 64%. Software & Cloud economics delivered a very strong quarter with 23% growth and 95% adjusted EBITDA. Performance was particularly strong in Europe with 55% growth. I'm also very pleased to see a strong improvement in consulting profitability.

As previously communicated, we took firm action in the beginning of the year to adjust capacity to market conditions. 15% growth is a solid improvement in somewhat of a challenging market. Consulting in the Nordics, which represents 58% of our total GP in the business, grew 7%. Turning to the markets. The Nordics remained strong. Gross profit grew 13% and adjusted EBITDA increased from 29% to 31%. Europe continued its strong performance with 26% growth and 25% adjusted EBITDA margin. APAC and MEA delivered a strong improvement, increasing the margin from 13% to 19%, driven in particular by an improved performance in channel. Also, in the U.S., profit development was positive, with an increase from 6% to 7% as we have focused our efforts to improve profitability.

As a reminder, we remain focused on driving profit expansion and scale through our international markets. And I'm happy to see that the profitability development was solid across all markets. As stated previously, we continue the relevant Philippines government procurement entities to resolve this payment. COA's audit findings continue to be undisputed and there are no questions around the fact that all services have been supplied. As such, we continue to follow up on this receivable and continue to expect a full settlement in due course. We will continue to keep the market informed over any significant developments.

On the back of these results, I want to take an opportunity to highlight how we have competed and shared some insight into the market characteristics around Crayon's capabilities that represent a strong value proposition for customers. We are uniquely positioned across 3 core customer value streams. Starting with software and cloud economics, which represents 13% of our GP, this is a highly fragmented competitive space with local players and a few global competitors. This is the cornerstone of the business in how Crayon first came to market in 2002 and continues to be critical to how we acquire and retain customers.

We have been recognized, in 2023 and previously, for being a leader in visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for SAM Managed Services. The software and cloud licensing business represents 54% of our GP today and is a fast-growing global market. There are a few global competitors as the barriers to entry are high. This is an area of business that we continue to see high growth and opportunity. And I would also say, scale.

Lastly, our consulting business represents 28% of our GP. It is key to our service-led business model. And certainly, advising customers has been a key value proposition that Crayon has had since the beginning of the company. We see the stickiness of cloud technology and cloud services specifically in consulting to be important as a key driver for customer retention. With the shared capabilities and global presence, Crayon adds significant value for both vendors and customers. We often say we sit on the customer side of the table. And our go-to-market has significant benefits for vendors to be able to scale through Crayon.

We have a 20-plus year track record with Microsoft, which has opened the doors for AWS, Google Cloud and other software vendors, such as VMware and Broadcom to build upon our customer base and scale. We have delivered ISO certifications, 9001, 27001, 14001, proving our competency and capability and compliance. We are a single point of contact for the vendors, creating economies of scale. We're able to transact globally with our Cloud IQ procurement platform, enabling customers and partners to acquire software for their business needs.

Simultaneously for the customers and partners, we are the single point of contact for the plethora of vendors available in the market. We provide ROI on licensing procurement that is suitable for their needs with best-in-class cloud capability. The real reason, I think, at the end of the day, that customers come and continue to be with Crayon is our trust, our trust-led model to be a trusted adviser to guide, support and enable that customer across their software and cloud needs.

It is a great privilege to announce that we have won the LSP Partner of the Year Award for 2024, now called Scale Solutions. This is a prestigious award recognizing the global capability of our business, led by our services approach, deep technical competency, licensing capability and the partnership with Microsoft. The runners up of this award were [ Insight ] and Softchoice and we are honored to be recognized amongst our peers.

Turning to a customer win, highlighting our cybersecurity capabilities within Crayon, Enefit AS is a publicly -- public limited energy company in Estonia, which is comprised of 5,000 employees delivering power generation and energy in Estonia, Finland and the Baltics. They were challenged with legacy solutions, creating security vulnerabilities and were subject to critical requirements that required a partner that was able to align to their needs.

Crayon designed and advised a security implementation across critical advanced workloads, leveraging M365 E5 capabilities. We conducted training to ensure Enefit was prepared to implement further given their existing security knowledge. As an outcome, we delivered a Microsoft security solution preventing cyber threats and improved operational efficiency, enhanced protection.

Two years ago, we invested in building up a cybersecurity practice in partnership with Microsoft, given the increasing vulnerabilities and threats we see in the market. This is a great example of the capabilities we now have in Crayon.

Now with that, I'm going to transition to the financial section of our Q2 presentation. So over to you, Brede.

[Brede Huser, executive]

Thank you, Melissa. I look forward to taking all of you through the financial section of our Q2 presentation. We are very happy to see that working capital remains strong also in Q2. We have now delivered a consistently improved working capital performance over the last 3 quarters. As you may remember, after our Q3 results last year, I said we needed all hands on deck, in order to improve the performance. The positive response from our organization has been critical to drive the process improvement necessary to strengthen and manage working capital. The improvement comes from focused efforts to manage working capital across the global organization.

Over the last year, we implemented multiple initiatives, including training local finance teams on how to effectively manage working capital as well as increasing the understanding among local management of the importance of net working capital. It's not just about the collection process. We have increased focus on all steps in order -- in the order and invoicing cycle. As a result of the focused efforts across the global organization, the Q2 working capital ended at minus NOK 1.4 billion, a significant improvement compared to Q2 last year, an all-time high for Crayon. Average LTM net working capital as a percentage of gross profit ended at minus 11%.

As a result of the strong performance year-to-date, we have upgraded our outlook from minus 2.5% to minus 10% to minus 5% to minus 12.5%. The upgraded outlook implies that Q3 will follow normal seasonality and be weaker than the last 3 quarters. I'm very pleased to see that our joint efforts have resulted in a sustainable long-term improvement on working capital. Gross sales ended at NOK 18 billion for the quarter. As a reminder, this is the number that is driving our AR and what leads to significant swings in our net working capital.

Operating expense includes NOK 9 million provision relating to the time value of the outstanding receivable in the Philippines as regulated under IFRS 9. The provision is not a reflection of any increased risk of nonpayment. This provision will be reversed when we collect the receivable. The amount is still undisputed and we expect to receive the full amount.

EBITDA adjustments include share-based payments of NOK 16 million and NOK 3 million in M&A-related costs. Interest cost for the quarter was NOK 66 million, down from NOK 68 million in Q2 last year and down from NOK 71 million in Q1 this year. The reduction is mainly driven by lower costs from the new bond loan, offsetting this is a slightly higher interest expense on the RCF and supplier financing due to higher utilization of these funding sources throughout the quarter.

In April, we closed the refinancing of our new bonds. The new bond -- new bond loan amounts to NOK 1.2 billion. This is a reduction of NOK 600 million compared to the previous bond loan. It has a 4-year tenure and an interest of 3 months NIBOR plus NOK 275 million. In relation to the financing or the refinancing, we have booked NOK 34 million in related costs under other financial items. Net income ended at a positive NOK 134 million, an increase of NOK 66 million from last year.

In the balance sheet, I would like to highlight the following line items: other current receivables include unbilled gross sales of NOK 1.7 billion, mainly related to 1 month accrual of consumption-based sales. Also, as a reminder, this is sales for a period where we have a claim but not yet invoiced the client as invoice is based on the actual consumption. To be clear, this is a gross number and needs to be compared with the gross sales of NOK 18 billion. Factoring amounted to NOK 124 million in Q2, down from NOK 247 million in Q1. In Q2, factoring only relates to customers in India. As I said last quarter, we do not aim to increase the use of factoring beyond what we have done historically, but we will utilize it more in local markets such as India, rather in the Nordics as we see increased operational benefits from doing so. Supplier financing was NOK 239 million. This is a local financing solution for Crayon Middle East and new [indiscernible] towards Microsoft invoices. As a reminder, this financing solution does not impact our reported net working capital.

Lastly, both the RCF and the overdraft were undrawn at quarter end. Cash flow from operations ended at NOK 599 million, a strong improvement from NOK 158 million in 2023. The increase is mainly driven by changes in net working capital as well as improved operating profit. At quarter end, we had a strong cash position of NOK 1.4 billion, approximately the same level as last year despite repaying the bond with NOK 600 million. Our liquidity reserve has increased with NOK 1 billion and is now totaling NOK 3.2 billion included undrawn credit facilities.

Net debt-to-EBITDA ratio ended at 0.7x. As mentioned previously, we closed a bond refinancing in April. And in July, we signed a new RCF of NOK 1.5 billion with a 3-year tenure and a 2-year extension option. We now have a robust long-term financing in place and a very strong financial position.

I'm also very pleased with adding both Citibank and ING on the RCF together with Danske bank. Adding 2 global banks is an important support to our international expansion. LTM gross profit growth ended at 20%, in line with our outlook for 2024. On an LTM basis, adjusted EBITDA margin ended at 16.4%. To reach the goal of 18% to 20% margin for the year, we still assume consulting reaching a normalized margin towards the end of the year. And finally, average net working capital last 4 quarters as a share of gross profit ended at minus 11%. As already explained, as a result of the strong performance year-to-date, we are, therefore, raising our outlook to minus 5% to minus 12.5%.

I will now hand it back to Melissa for her closing statements.

[Melissa Mulholland, executive]

Going into 2024, we set out some very clear priorities and I'm happy to see that we are now delivering on our objective and promises to the market. When we entered the second half of the year, our priorities remain. To deliver the growth ambitions for the company while increasing profitability and net working capital, we remain focused on 3 priorities: first, Crayon is and will remain a growth-focused company. Due to the efforts to improve consulting profitability, we had to align our resources to the market demand, but are now focusing our attention to accelerating growth. we see significant growth opportunities, and we'll continue to strategically invest in both sales and technical resources to capture growth across the markets.

Second, profitability. The actions we have taken in H1 is now yielding results. Further margin improvement is a clear priority, and we -- as we continue to scale the international business as well as drive further improvement in consulting. Third, continuing to demonstrate a sustainable working capital improvement and strong cash generation. Thank you for joining our Q2 presentation. We will now transition to Q&A.

[Kjell Hansen, executive]

Thank you, Melissa. So we will go straight into the Q&A. And as a first question, which we have received from multiple analysts, can you explain the drivers behind the H2 growth to take you to the guided outlook of 18% to 20%?

[Melissa Mulholland, executive]

Great question. H2 is the strongest half for Crayon, especially regarding software and cloud licensing in Q4. We have started to ramp up on consulting and service capabilities and based on improved utilization, we see positive signs towards customer demand. We, therefore, continue to remain optimistic in reaching our guiding range.

[Kjell Hansen, executive]

Thank you. Next question is from Christoffer Bjørnsen at DNB. We understand Microsoft is discontinuing some of its incentives for gold partners as of January 2025. How big will this impact be, for Crayon? .

[Melissa Mulholland, executive]

The incentive pool remains unchanged for Microsoft. Microsoft makes adjustments to its programs based on its product focus and we have historically always been successful in adapting to changes, based on our global partnership as well as our service capabilities. .

[Kjell Hansen, executive]

Moving down into the -- down in the P&L. And there's a question from several of the analysts of whether or not the interest level in Q2 could indicate that we had had a higher utilization on our RCF during the quarter?

[Brede Huser, executive]

We have a small increase related to higher utilization on the RCF compared to Q1, but compared to last year, we have a significant reduction. But one thing you should be aware of is that we actively use our multicurrency cash flow to hedge our FX exposure on the balance sheet. If you look at our P&L last year, you could see significant costs related to FX exposure this year that has been significantly reduced. But again, the cost of utilizing the cash flow is increased interest costs and different currency accounts in our cash flow.

[Kjell Hansen, executive]

Next question is also along the same lines. There is a question from Martin Jungfleisch. Net working capital was largely driven by payables, is this primarily driven by cutoff days or have you reworked or stretch payment terms with your vendors?

[Brede Huser, executive]

Payment terms with our vendors are unchanged. DPO is down from Q4 '23 and at the same level as Q1 '24 compared to Q2 '23, it's increased with 3 days, if you exclude the extended vendor payments. As we have explained earlier, we have strict compliance terms with Microsoft, which is a majority of our accounts payable and we have few possibilities to impact that. However, over the last year, we have been better in taking advantage of the flexibility we do have and we are certainly not paying Microsoft or other vendors ahead of due date and we're in the organization.

And naturally, as part of working capital management, we also focus on deal management on the individual deals in order to optimize the underlying payment terms we have with the different vendors.

[Kjell Hansen, executive]

And there is a question on the business performance in Europe from Martin Jungfleisch in BNP. Software reselling in Europe was very strong, can you call out the specific regions or countries that outperformed?

[Melissa Mulholland, executive]

In Europe, we have been ramping up sales head count throughout 2024, given the opportunity we see to gain market share. Specifically, we have seen strong licensing performance in markets like France, Germany and Switzerland where we have accelerated head count. We will continue to increase and ramp up sales resources throughout H2 to also prepare us for 2025.

[Kjell Hansen, executive]

Then there are also multiple questions on our free cash flow and the plans we see in the future to either reduce down debt level or if we see any M&A activity or any increased M&A activity in the horizon.

Melissa, maybe you want to start .

[Melissa Mulholland, executive]

We have been focused on net working capital improvement as we have said to the market. Of course, there's always M&A opportunities in the markets that we pursue. But at this time, we have no further comments to make in regards to any M&A.

[Kjell Hansen, executive]

Thank you. Then there's another question from Christoffer Bjørnsen at DNB. Where are you booking the interest expense on the NOK 450 million extended payment terms from a vendor?

[Brede Huser, executive]

That's booked under interest costs, but you also -- the way this works is that we receive extended payment terms for a specific set of invoices and then we pay those invoices. And then we call it, if we want to draw up again on another set of invoices. So it's not a constant NOK 450 million credit, it varies through, call it, through the quarter.

[Kjell Hansen, executive]

Then another question from Martin in BNP. Can you provide some details on CoPilot? Can you comment on user growth quarter-on-quarter?

[Melissa Mulholland, executive]

Great question. As we continue to see strong demand from -- for CoPilot from our customers, especially in regards to helping them drive adoption. As we all know, adoption has been, I think, an aspect that Microsoft is concretely focused on and this has been a skill set that we've really fine-tuned within Crayon. We continue to be one of the leading global partners for Microsoft in regards to CoPilot and we see that demand continue to pick up. Specifically regarding use cases, the areas that we see most successful are those companies that have a very concrete plan around how they want to implement this.

And this is a process that we do as part of our advisory capability tied in with our consulting skills to make sure that this is defined well upfront because the most important thing to mention around CoPilot is actually using it. So we've shared prior examples and use cases and earnings in the past. But one example is a legal company based out of Singapore, who used CoPilot and continues to do so to help their lawyers, of over 1,000 employees, be able to actually take on administrative tasks, so help them be more efficient with their time.

So we continue to see this, I think, as a demand driver in the market. Also, I would say, generative AI, not just specific to CoPilot, but also such as products like AWS, Amazon Q.

[Kjell Hansen, executive]

There is also a question from Øystein Lodgaard in ABG. You said you are seeing improved customer demand for consulting and services, but you also recently performed layoffs due to lower utilization rates. What has changed?

[Melissa Mulholland, executive]

Great question. As a reminder, the impact of the head count was done at the first part of the year. So that, certainly, as we've now seen pickup, I think specifically in the Nordics regarding public sector but also private sector. And as I've stated previously, we also expected a ramp-up of CoPilot, and those CoPilot engagements are very much tied in with our consulting capabilities. So we are still, I would say, conservative around GP growth relative to consulting, but the ramp-up is clearly taking effect. So we will continue to manage this thoughtfully across the company.

[Kjell Hansen, executive]

There is also a question from [indiscernible], can you explain the improvement in cost of goods sold when sales increase?

[Brede Huser, executive]

Basically, it's less use of subcontractors, which is booked as cost of goods sold and more use of [indiscernible].

[Kjell Hansen, executive]

Thank you. And with that, I think we have covered all the questions that has been entered into the chat. We are, as always, available on [e-mail]. And of course, feel free to reach out to us if you have any follow-ups. And with that, I will hand it over to you, Melissa, for a closing statement. .

[Melissa Mulholland, executive]

Thank you so much for attending our Q2 earnings today. As a reminder, we continue to stay focused on our commitments in driving growth, accelerating profitability improvements as well as continued development on net working capital. Looking forward to seeing you in Q3.