Elmera Group ASA

OSE:ELMRA

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Rolf Barmen, executive]

Good morning, and welcome to our first quarter presentation. My name is Rolf Barmen, Head of Elmera Group. Our CFO, Henning Nordgulen, is with me today and will go through the financials. After he has finished his section, I will come back and give you some words on our focus areas in the coming quarters. We will end the presentation with a Q&A session. So please send in your questions during the presentation.

But first of all, I'm very satisfied with the quarter where all of our reporting segments delivered strong results, and Henning will give you more details on the financials in his part of the presentation. I will particularly highlight our executions on the group's cost program, we delivered stable adjusted OpEx from last quarter and compared to the first quarter 2023, they decreased by NOK 16 million.

The development was in line with our guidance, and I'm proud of all the hard work that lies behind this achievement. Before going into the segments, I also want to mention that dividend of NOK 2.3 per share for 2023 was distributed earlier this week. Our dividend policy is unchanged, and we continue to distribute a significant share of the underlying cash generation to our shareholders.

As for the Consumer segment, volumes sold increased year-over-year. The elspot price in the quarter were lower than in the first quarter last year. And even though March this year was significantly warmer than last year, colder weather in January and February, led to an increase in electricity consumption.

The number of deliveries in the segment has stabilized and is on a positive trend. Taking into consideration the recent price increases across all of our brands, this proves our brand's robustness and market position, further underpinned by a positive trend in customer satisfaction, particularly for the Fjordkraft brand, but also very satisfying to observe that Gudbrandsdal Energi still is among top 2 players within the electricity retailer sector in the yearly [ MKB ] Customer Satisfaction Survey.

The product mix transition is developing as planned. The share of variable contracts now is reduced to less than 6% of the contracts in the segment. Over to the Business segment, where stability is the key word. Volumes sold, number of deliveries and profitability were all stable year-over-year.

Our position in this segment is both well established and strong and through increased core product margins, we have succeeded in mitigating negative effects from lower elspot prices which typically reduce credit compensation. Through our product management activities, the segment's robustness has increased, and the segment is well positioned for the future.

Within the group's New Growth initiatives, the number of mobile subscribers increased in the quarter. The network migration was primarily financially motivated, and we are reaping the benefits from the new setup now as the contribution from the mobile business has increased significantly in line with our guidance.

The repositioning of the Nordic segment continues with growth in both net revenue and adjusted operating profit in the quarter. The legacy fixed price contracts now only represents a minor share of the portfolio and the trend in last 12 months EBIT adjusted is very positive, which Henning will come back to you in his part.

Operationally, the process of migrating the Swedish and the Finnish operations into the Elmera IT platform has commenced through standardizing our operations across all brands and markets, we will further capitalize on benefit of scale, technological solutions and of course, of competence in the group.

So that's all for me now. Henning will go through the financials. The floor is yours, Henning.

[Henning Nordgulen, executive]

Thank you, Rolf, and good morning, everyone. The first quarter is typically a high contributing quarter given the seasonality in consumption, and this quarter was no exception. The temperature in our markets was on average lower than in the first quarter of last year, further boosting consumption in this quarter.

Net revenue for the group ended at NOK 550 million compared to NOK 534 million in the first quarter of 2023. EBIT adjusted was NOK 230 million, up from NOK 198 million year-on-year. In fact, this was the second best first quarter EBIT in the group's history.

The increase year-on-year was driven by improvements in the Consumer, Nordic and NGI segments. Operating expenses, as Rolf explained, were NOK 320 million, down from NOK 336 million in the first quarter of 2023. This confirms the guidance of a flat nominal cost level in 2024 compared to 2023.

To achieve this, we will have to absorb inflation, which remains over 4% in Norway and annual salary settlement increase, which is naturally expected around 5%. The cash spend on external sales commission was stable year-on-year despite an increase quarter-on-quarter, the trend of an annualized spending level of around NOK 140 million is maintained.

The net working capital was reduced by NOK 163 million year-on-year. The free cash flow in the quarter was strong, and I will revert to this later in the presentation. Then on the market development, as you can see from the chart to the left, we experienced lower prices in Q1 compared to the previous quarter. To the right, you can see the monthly supply changes in Norway. The development is relatively stable and reflects the moderate prices and the continued power support schemes for consumers.

Then over to the Consumer segment. In the Consumer segment, our work to mitigate the effect from increased financing costs and changes in product mix continues. The number of deliveries were stable from last quarter and on a positive trend. The positive LTM trend in volumes sold continued, partly due to the lower than last year temperatures in the first quarter.

We also attribute increased volume per delivery to less energy saving, continuation of the power support scheme and lower elspot prices. Net revenue decreased 4% year-on-year, primarily due to the reduction in the variable contract portfolio, which came down to below 6% of total deliveries of quarter end.

Operating expenses were down NOK 19 million year-on-year in the segment, contributing to an increase in EBIT adjusted from NOK 100 million to NOK 108 million year-on-year. The volume in the Business segment was stable year-on-year, but increased by 6% on an LTM basis compared to the first quarter of 2023. Core margins in the segment increased and this mitigated the effects of reduced credit compensation resulting from lower average elspot prices compared to Q1 2023.

Operating expenses were stable year-on-year. Net revenue and EBIT adjusted were also stable year-on-year at NOK 174 million and NOK 96 million, respectively. In the Nordic segment, the number of deliveries reduced both year-on-year and Q-on-Q as a portfolio of the remaining legacy fixed price contracts with volume and profile risk was phased out.

Net revenue adjusted increased significantly year-on-year as a result of the revised product strategy. We also had a tailwind from a favorable market in the Nordic segment in the first quarter. Overall, the segment is developing as planned. We are very pleased to see this confirmed by an increase in EBIT adjusted from NOK 6 million in the first quarter of 2023 to NOK 15 million in this quarter.

The LTM trend in EBIT adjusted documents the turnaround in the segment, and we are now in a very good position for developing the segment further in the years to come. Within the New Growth initiatives, we still have a temporary reduction in volumes sold in the alliance concept. We expect new partners to come on and the volume trend to stabilize.

Growth in both net revenue adjusted and EBIT adjusted year-on-year was driven by a reduced cost of goods sold in mobile after the network migration to Telia last summer. The annualized improvement of around NOK 30 million is in line with pre-migration guidance, and we have returned to growth in the number of mobile subscribers.

The net working capital at quarter end was in line with seasonal levels and down from Q1 of 2023 due to decrease in elspot prices. As you remember from our Q4 filing, the net working capital was unusually low at year-end due to power purchase timing effects and would otherwise have been around the NOK 700 million level.

On the right-hand side, net interest-bearing debt increased accordingly by NOK 754 million due to the working capital build up Q-on-Q. This was offset by strong cash generation in the quarter. EBITDA adjusted was NOK 295 million. CapEx was stable at NOK 15 million. Payments obtained, new contracts came in at NOK 40 million. This resulted in the cash EBIT adjusted in the quarter of NOK 240 million, which is the strongest in the group's history.

Then over to a new slide. And this is a new disclosure to increase transparency and make it easier to estimate the development in net financing costs. So starting from the bottom of the chart, this shows that with a stabilizing market interest rate level, the interest expenses related to long-term debt and revolving credit facility are quite stable from quarter-to-quarter.

Interest expense sales relates to the power purchase from Statkraft, and correlates with volumes sold and elspot prices. This occurs with a slight delay as the power purchase is settled in arrears. The average credit days for customers are between 45 and 50 days calculated from the 15th day in the previous month, which for this purpose is the delivery month.

We use available cash and the overdraft facility to optimize finance cost. This means that the other net finance item will fluctuate from quarter-to-quarter, given seasonality and elspot price levels. Other net finance primarily consist of interest expenses from the overdraft facility, interest income from overdue payments, interest income from cash deposits and costs related to guarantees.

We hope you will find this disclosure helpful. And to summarize, we are very satisfied with the financial performance across both segments in the first quarter and a strong start to 2024. I'll then give the floor back to you, Rolf.

[Rolf Barmen, executive]

Thank you very much, Henning. Good results. As I said initially, we are very happy with the performance this quarter. The improvements stemming from all of our reporting segments. When it comes to our key activities for the upcoming quarters, we will present an updated version of our key development initiatives and an outlook for the next couple of years on our upcoming Capital Markets Day in about 1 month's time.

So I'll keep this section short and encourage you all to follow us on our CMD. That said, the primary principle in this illustration shown on the slide are valid. We expect to continuously leverage from our cross-border management of the Business segment, which so far has proven to be a great success.

The introduction of our smartphone application to the Finnish B2C market, enabling our customers to monitor their consumption and cost of electricity has been a huge success, and we look forward to developing this part of our business further, first, by launching the app in the Swedish B2C market later this month.

As for the Consumer segment in Norway, we continue our journey towards strengthening value proposition and increased transparency or new concepts related to our loyalty program and the marketplace are exciting, and we continue to strengthen the Fjordkraft ecosystem by allowing customers to earn loyalty points and use them on the marketplace.

As mentioned, I'm very proud of our efforts in reducing annualized run rate OpEx by NOK 100 million compared to year-end 2022. For the next 2 years, we target as Henning stated, stable nominal cost level in line with 2023. That is we will continue to increase our efficiency in order to neutralize inflation and increasing wages.

One of the measures to obtain this increased efficiency is that we, during the next 12 to 14 months will migrate both Gudbrandsdal Energi and Nordic Green Energy on to the Elmera IT platform, around 250,000 customers, which obviously brings scale advantage to the group. The time line for migrating is Gudbrandsdal Energi third quarter this year, and GE Sweden first quarter and GE Finland second quarter next year.

Our opportunistic approach to M&A is still valid, and we will pursue high-quality assets, though only if the pricing is attractive and the acquisition is sufficiently accretive. After the migration to the Telia network, our mobile business is positioned for growth, both financially and in terms of market share.

Lastly, we see asset development opportunities within the group's subsidiaries and associated companies. We are intrigued about the development and growth opportunities ahead and look forward to give you more information around these companies on our Capital Market Day.

And on this note, I wish you welcome to our Capital Market Day, which will take place on the 5th of June at Hotel Continental in Oslo. As you can see from the agenda on the slide, we will give you a strategic update and updated financial outlook, status from all our business lines and segments and provide you with insight about our power trading function. We hope to see you there. So Henning, let's start the Q&A session. Do you have any incoming questions for us?

[Henning Nordgulen, executive]

I do. Just give me a second to switch to the correct technical frame here. Okay. So we have some questions. The first question is, why was the sales expense so much higher year-on-year despite significantly lower elspot prices and only 1% increase in volume?

And there are 3 components to this question. First of all, we did have a increasing interest rate level. We had by extending the Statkraft agreement we had some uptick in the margin. The supply credit is based on LIBOR plus spread structure.

And also, we had a principal change between Q4 2022 and Q1 2023, which had an impact on the cost actually reducing the cost between the quarter. So the comparison quarter here is, if the question is year-on-year, i.e., Q1 '23 versus '24, Q1 '23 was for principal reason a bit lower than from Q2 onwards.

Okay. Next question. Can you share some light on the customer development within the Consumer segment? And what are you seeing in the market? Rolf?

[Rolf Barmen, executive]

Yes, we see a lower churn rate and lower switching frequence actually, but it is very positive to see that the trend is playing on our side, we can see that, for instance, the Fjordkraft brand has turned around and shows a growth during the quarter. So that is very good.

[Henning Nordgulen, executive]

Maybe a follow-up question to this, Rolf. Churn has been very low in the Consumer segment. Have you seen any changes? How would you characterize the competitive environment?

[Rolf Barmen, executive]

It is, as I said, lower competition. We can see that from the switching rate, although we have seen somewhat more intensive competition lately, but it is a much lower frequency than it was before. So I think that we can see that the lower elspot prices will reduce the switching rates. And this is also what we observe in the market.

[Henning Nordgulen, executive]

Let's stay a bit with the Consumer segment. Question here is, are your price hikes within the Consumer segment now fully reflected in Q1? Or will this have additional positive effect in Q2? When was it effective from?

[Rolf Barmen, executive]

You can take that.

[Henning Nordgulen, executive]

It is largely reflected in Q1. There are some changes in 1 or brands that will have some additional effects going into Q4 -- sorry, Q2, not significantly though.

How do you view the competitive landscape? I think we responded to that. Are there any interesting M&A deals on the horizon?

[Rolf Barmen, executive]

We do comment on that question, of course. But we stick to our plan. We see that prices still are a bit too high, but we also see that the assessment of portfolios is on a level that we are closer to really assess prospects now than we were before. So hopefully, we can see something in the next 12 to 15 months.

[Henning Nordgulen, executive]

So a follow-up here on the [indiscernible] cost on Slide 12. You showed interest cost. We understand you pay in LIBOR plus 1 75 basis points on your revolving credit facility, which is correct. But what is the interest cost on sales? And has there been any changes to this cost in the period you illustrate and the spread in the sales agreement, which is a supply credit is also LIBOR based, as I said, plus the spread. It's undisclosed and we find that to be competitive sensitive information, but there is a slight increase in the spread year-on-year. .

What was the contribution for the cost program in this quarter? Okay. What was the contribution from the cost program in this quarter? So we successfully made the target of NOK 100 million annualized reduction in the fourth quarter. So that effect is the basis also going into this quarter.

When you compare year-on-year, obviously, there have been cost increases during the last year both in terms of inflation and salary increases, which we are all familiar with. So we have absorbed this and we have the continued effect of the cost program, which is also the basis for committing to a nominal cost level stable in 2024 compared to 2023. So [ NOK 1.219 million ] last year. On that level also in the coming year, which as I said earlier, means that we will also have to absorb through efficiency gains, both inflation of now currently between say, in 4% range and annual salary increases.

Okay. There are several consumer surveys showing a bit of mixed signals about the strength/customer satisfaction with your brand. Are these sort of important for you? And if so, what should we focus on?

[Rolf Barmen, executive]

Obviously, we were very exciting about the [ MKB ] survey that was announced yesterday. Very happy to see that Fjordkraft was one or a very few electricity retailers that increased their score. And as I said, we are very satisfied with the fact that Gudbrandsdal Energi is still is among top 2 when it comes to customer satisfaction in this survey.

So obviously, we look to this kind of service. We follow our internal customer satisfaction service every month. So it is important for us to continuously monitor these kind of service across all our brands and also across the countries that we operate in.

[Henning Nordgulen, executive]

And as far as I can see that covers the questions we have received.

[Rolf Barmen, executive]

Thank you very much. Looking forward to meeting you on our Capital Markets Day on the 5th of June at Hotel Continental in Oslo at 9:00 in the morning. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.