Multiconsult ASA

OSE:MULTI

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q1

[Grethe Bergly, Chief Executive Officer]

Welcome to this presentation of the quarterly results for Q1 2020 for Multiconsult. My name is Grethe Bergly, I am the CEO of Multiconsult. I will take you through the highlights and some of the overview of today's results. I will then hand you over to our CFO, Hans-Jørgen Wibstad, who will give you the details on the numbers, and I will finish off by giving you a status of our next level program and the outlook. We are proud to announce a strong first quarter with significant improvements. The revenue has grown 5.2%, and we are delivering an EBIT of NOK 117.5 million, meaning a margin of 11.8%. We are pleased to announce that nextLEVEL is on track, and we are already seeing significant cost reductions. There has been a strong order intake, and this means that we go out of Q1 with an all-time high order backlog. We are also very pleased to see that we keep our position as the #1 preferred employer amongst engineering students in Norway and we are rated #3 overall. We have also started the strategy process for Multiconsult for the next 10 years. It is important for us to prepare for the next period and to ensure that we, in the turnaround that we are in at the moment, make the right decisions to create the foundation we need for success in the future. These days COVID-19 does affect everybody. This also holds for us. I am pleased to see the strong organizational commitment that we have seen throughout the organization since the closedown in Norway on the 12th of March, which has resulted in our ability to deliver to our clients as planned previous to the closedown. But there are no doubts that there are increased uncertainty for our business due to the impact of the COVID-19. But we, in the executive management team, are keeping close track so that we ensure that we take the measures required to maintain our financial position. Some of the major project wins in the period. This is Kristian Augusts gate. It's an office building, and it's a rehab project where the ambition of our client, Höegh Eiendom, is to reuse at least 50% of the materials, and we are honored to work with a client that has such good and clear ambitions with respect to sustainability. The other project that we're starting is the detailed engineering of the Hammerfest Hospital. Here, we're working with Consto and Multiconsult LINK and will consult other consultant engineers. Also, another important project in this period is Fylkeskommune Fv. 350. This is, again, in line with what we think will be the future within infrastructure and transportation. When it is finished, it will be the longest bus lane dedicated to buses only in Europe. And we have worked with the client here for a number of years, and we are pleased to have been given the trust also for this phase. The other project is Fredrikstad Campus. This is a high school and a sports arena. It's an architect competition that we won. And as we are present, both with our architects and engineers in Fredrikstad, it is, of course, of major importance for us that we are able to win such high-profile projects where we are present. Looking at the order intake, we see that there has been an 11.4% increase compared to Q1 2019, and there are also some very good prospects in the pipeline looking into the next 12 months. However, there are uncertainties with respect to the pipeline and not least what projects will come in the near future. When we look at the key order intake, we regard this as a good balance between the major business areas that we work in. And as you can see, there are good infrastructure projects. There's an interesting additional sale on energy, this is a hydro power plant and also within buildings. And the second from the bottom Västerås Hospital is the biggest sale in LINK in this quarter. The good sales also results in a good order backlog, and we are very pleased to see that there has been an increase in the backlog through this quarter. We now stand at an all-time high backlog at NOK 3 billion, and there are, however, some variations, both with respect to the time horizon but also with respect to how this order backlog is distributed between our business areas and our various geographical positions. I would like to remind you all that we do not include call-offs from frame agreements until the call-offs are actually taken. And at the moment, there are 4 major frame agreements that we expect will give us new call-offs in the next 12 months. Looking at the organization and people, there is a small growth in employees. And this is in line with the strategy and our focus on making sure we have a solid financial position prior to growth. The students, the award as the most attractive employee (sic) [ employer ], is, of course, a major happening, and it's a contribution to all people working in Multiconsult. As you can see, we are #1 in the industry and we keep a third position by all engineering students. We have also, in the period, employed a Chief Digital Officer, Herman Smith and this is to show our dedication and increased effort into development with respect to digitalization in the company. COVID-19. We have, in the period that we leave behind, had our first focus on ensuring the safety of our people. And as far as we know, we have so far not had anybody working for us who has been infected at work. We have also been able to keep up a high productivity even when we have about 90% of employees in Norway working from home in a period. And this ability to produce has been possible because we have a high level of digitalization in the company. It is, however, prudent to remind you all that there will be an increased uncertainty due to the impact of COVID-19. And as per the mid of May, we have a total of 115 employees, which represent 3.8% of the total workforce, on temporary leave. It was also decided on the General Assembly in April that there will be no dividend this year. And at the start of the pandemic, the executive management team reduced its salary by 20% for a period of 3 months. And with this, I leave you over to Hans-Jørgen Wibstad, our CFO.

[Hans-Jørgen Wibstad]

Okay. Thank you, Grethe. I will go through the financial results for the first quarter 2020. Starting with revenues, which is up year-on-year 5.2% to NOK 993.6 million, a good increase. The EBIT is at NOK 117.5 million, equal to a margin of 11.8%, which is up also significantly compared with the full year 2019. The main driver behind the significantly improved EBIT is the billing rate which is up, but also, in particular, the operating expenses which we now see come down as a result -- partially as a result of the nextLEVEL program, which, as also said earlier, is on track. So we have established a ratio that we call the operating -- other operating expense ratio, which is a ratio that we follow very closely, which is down from 18.7% to 15.3%. That is taking all the expenses and disregarding the IFRS way of treating rental costs. So that is an important KPI for us and a key driver for the improvement program -- for the improvements in EBIT. The order backlog, as Grethe mentioned, is up to NOK 1.3 billion, which is above last -- the same quarter last year. And also in comparing with net revenues, it's significantly above that in that comparison, which leaves us with the order backlog at the end of the quarter at approximately NOK 3.1 billion, which is a record high and an increase from both end of the first quarter 2019, but also from the end of 2019 at the end of last year. The billing ratio is still not exactly where we want it to be. It's at 69.4%, which is lower than the first quarter 2019, but slightly higher than the average for the full 2019. I'll come back to that and discuss that a little bit later in my presentation. In terms of the number of employees, we are flat. We're basically a little bit down from the end of last year, but -- and also a little bit up from the end of first quarter 2019, reflecting the efforts we're making in terms of improving the billing ratio and the effectiveness of the organization with focus on profitability. And that is a key KPI for us as well. We also made a bridge between comparing first quarter this year to the first quarter last year. There are some adjustments. There is a calendar effect -- positive calendar effect this year of NOK 13.4 million. And also in 2019, there was a restructuring charge of NOK 10 million when comparing those 2 quarterly results. But in any event, the improvement in this quarter comparing this quarter with the average performance in 2019, it is a significant improvement. Here, we can see in more detail how our revenues and EBIT fluctuates between the quarters. That is partially driven by the calendar effect, holidays and such things. But it's also driven by the underlying performance, of course. This quarter, we were -- we had the benefit of 1 additional business day comparing with the same quarter last year. And normally, the first quarter, unless the Easter hit -- kicks in, in the first quarter is normally a good quarter, but the trend is unquestionably positive in terms of delivering a quarterly result of NOK 117 million, which is the highest quarterly result in -- since the company was stocklisted in 2015. In terms of billing ratio, on the upper right-hand side, the billing ratio is up from fourth and third quarter of 2019 when it was at a very low level, but still below our target level. But it is improving, and it's something we still have work to do to improve further a few notches. And I've addressed the number of employees, which has flattened significantly since we saw the growth in -- during 2018. This is the EBIT bridge. I'll not spend a lot of time on that, just showing how the billing rates impacted our EBIT, improved our -- had a positive impact on our EBIT this quarter. Also operating expenses contributing significantly. We had the effect of the calendar, which -- the 1 additional day that I mentioned and also just generally increased capacity. And then we have the billing ratio that I also addressed, which is going in the opposite direction. And then some other cost elements, which is driven by the ordinary operations, including ordinary salary increases from our employees, giving this bridge between first quarter of '19 to this quarter. Going into the segments, I'd like to explain just how we have changed a little bit our segments this year. We have changed everything except the LINK. Region Oslo was -- previously region larger Oslo included an area called Østfold, Buskerud, Vestfold and Telemark, which is now in the Region Norway, which has now become the largest region. Energy has been separated out, in line with our internal organization. Energy was previously partially in Norway and partially in Oslo, so now it's singled out, and it's -- you can see the figure. International is Iterio and -- in Sweden and Poland, our operations in Poland and LINK is, as before, our architectural business. So we've already -- also -- we have also restated the figures from 2019, both to make the numbers comparable. But also, we have -- in last year, we had a big not allocated expense. That was on top of the region's results, and that has now been allocated according to the new principles from 2020 where there is a very small amount left as nonallocated, giving it more true, we believe, underlying results in the regions. We've also made a small change to how we treat the write-ups and write-downs. We will not report them separately as this is part of our ordinary operations, but we will disclose in the event that these are extraordinarily high in the quarter or extraordinarily low in the quarter, where we've previously guided that this will be normally in the 1% to 2% range, which we believe is quite similar to the industry standard. And also our peers typically do not either report this as a separate item unless there are special things that is driving in a very significant way. So that was the changeover of principles for this year comparing with 2019. Going to the regions. Region Oslo had a fantastic quarter, with strong growth of 6.5% to NOK 329.6 million, EBIT of NOK 57.7 million, EBIT margin of 17.5%. And with a strong improvement also from Q1 2019 and also in particular comparing with full year 2019, which was at 4.9%. The order intake was good, a little bit lower than the first quarter 2019, but seasonally, it's a good level, and it's relatively comparable with the revenue level. So a good and solid order intake. The billing ratio is very good and has improved 2.1% to 72.9%. So they're leading in our regions in terms of billing ratio, and we also see a correlation between the EBIT margin and the billing ratio there. And with the number of employees, despite a reduction -- sorry, an increase in operating revenue, we're seeing that the number of employees is dropping, which is something we think is in the right direction. Norway, it's the largest region for us now within the organization, having operating revenues of NOK 391 million, up 3.8%, which is a good growth; and an EBIT of NOK 42.9 million, equal to an 11% EBIT margin, slightly better than the first quarter last year and significantly better than the full year 2019 result. Order intake was very impressive in this region, NOK 561 million, which is way above last quarter, but also much above the operating revenue in the period. So very strong sales in the region, giving a better order backlog than we've seen for a long, long time. The billing ratio in this region is not where we want it to be for the long term. It has dropped to 66.6%, which is down 1.4% compared with the same quarter last year and also down for the full year 2019. So this is something we're working on as a part of the next level to improve this ratio, which is normally lower than it is in Oslo, but still at a level where we are -- we don't think it is where it should be. A slight increase in number of employees. Energy, our new and exciting segment. It's not something new for us, but it's a new exciting segment because it is so important for us as we move forward with the green shift and all the products and solutions that they are offering to the clients. Operating revenue is up 7.5% to NOK 69.5 million; EBIT NOK 3.5 million; and a margin of 5%, which is better than first quarter 2019 and also better than the full year 2019. And we're seeing improvements, and there are a lot of focus and good work done in the energy section. Order intake, NOK 88.7 million, which is lower than the first quarter, but comparing with the revenues, it's -- the ratio is above 1, so it's a good order intake and -- leaving a good order backlog of NOK 263.8 million. The billing ratio, however, in this segment is far from where we want it to be. Now the segment can be characterized by quite different performance in billing ratio between the units. There is a particular unit based in the U.K., which has been struggling with their billing ratio, and that is what is driving the billing ratio down -- other parts of the -- and also the results down. Other parts of the Energy region is doing very well and have billing ratio above 70%. So overall, they are improving and doing a good performance in the first quarter. Having some challenges in the U.K., but we are hopeful and believe that, that operations will improve as we move through 2020. LINK arkitektur, also quite a good performance, 4.5% EBIT margin. Revenues flattish with the first quarter last year. EBIT NOK 6.7 million, quite a bit below the level of first quarter 2019, but that was an exceptionally good quarter for the unit. Again, quite a mixed result or a mixed bag, where Norway is doing very solid performance while the market and the conditions in Denmark and Sweden are more challenging where they are both delivering negative results, both in Denmark and Sweden, and that is something we're hoping and expecting to improve as we move forward. Billing ratio is below last year, but still at a reasonable level. International, doing exceptionally well, we think, for the quarter, with a growth of 18.2%. Both Multiconsult Poland and Iterio in Sweden is doing a very, very solid performance in the first quarter. The EBIT is at NOK 6.5 million, margin 10.6%, which is at a satisfactory level and better than the full year last year, a little bit below first quarter 2019. But the growth is very, very impressive with an order intake of NOK 164.5 million, a very strong performance by both units, but in particular, Poland has had a strong order back -- intake during the sales -- during the quarter, leaving an order backlog at the end of the quarter which is quite solid and up 37% during the last 12 months. The billing ratio is where it's similar to last year and above where we were for the full year 2019. And we're seeing -- with the growth in operating revenues, more driven by Poland than by Iterio, we're seeing an increase in number of employees, meaning that the number of employees in the non-Norwegian -- in the Norwegian operations is down during the quarter. All right. So when we now look at the business areas, we're seeing a reasonably stable situation, with Building & Properties representing 42% of revenues, Transportation 26% of revenues, pretty stable from previous -- from last year. Water & Environment growing nicely, representing 10% of revenues and 10% growth. Renewable Energy, a little bit down. Industry is up 23.9%. And also Cities & Society and Oil & Gas doing well in terms of growth. But of course, the main drivers for our business is Building & Properties, Transportation, Water & Environment and Renewable Energy, with Building & Properties representing nearly 70% of revenues. All right. So I'll finish off now with the financial position. We've had a good cash flow during the quarter. We have good cash flow from operations. We have seasonal buildup of working capital during the first quarter. Normal fluctuations and better than first quarter last year. We have reduced our investments, so that's limited to NOK 10 million in the quarter, also neutral from the refinancing that took place, leaving us with this solid cash balance at the end of the quarter at NOK 63 million, plus we have undrawn loan facilities of NOK 348 million. So we have a solid financial position going out of the quarter and into maybe perhaps more turbulent times ahead of us with COVID, at least more uncertainty. And also, along with that, we have -- during the quarter, we negotiated and closed our new loan facility, giving us improved margins, better covenants. And also, we have replaced repayment loan with an RCF -- sorry, a term loan with a revolving credit facility, which overall gives us more flexibility and lower cost than we had before this refinancing took place. So that is giving us a robust financial structure by the end of Q1 2020. So that was my part, Grethe.

[Grethe Bergly, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Hans-Jørgen. I will now take you through the details on our cost program called nextLEVEL. And as we have reported also in the highlights, we are on track. We have, by the end of the quarter, committed NOK 95 million, meaning that if we did nothing else by the end of the year effect would be NOK 95 million. But we are committed to the NOK 150 million. And here, you can see also how we have lifted up from the figure that we reported in Q4. There are 2 main areas of nextLEVEL. One is the cost-out and the other one is operations. And on the cost-out side, we have now committed to NOK 69 million. And they are distributed, as you can see, between office and IT, travel and professional services and other. And on the other, as you can see, we have already fulfilled the ambitions that we had initially in the nextLEVEL. On operations, we were careful last quarter to report a high figure. We are now much more confident that the changes we have seen are there to stay. On the organizational adjustment, it does mean that we have taken out some position. We have made a much more efficient organization in several areas of our operations. And operational efficiency, this is to do with lifting some of the billing ratios by getting some of our managers out into billable work, but also by increasing the billing ratio on individual levels. And reduced impairment, we are seeing now that the efforts that we have made last year on much more focus on our projects is giving results. On the way forward, there is a continued focus. And I must say that I am very proud and impressed by the commitment that I see in the organization to achieve the ambitions that we have set in nextLEVEL. We are also now gradually changing our focus to the structural changes that we need for this to be a permanent change, which, for instance, establishing guidelines for facilities management, we're looking at how we instruct and how we travel and not least, how we centralize and improve on procurement. What we do see is there are higher potential than we saw initially in the NOK 150 million target. But to get the benefit of this, we also see that there will be some higher restructuring cost. And it may raise the level to -- in the area of NOK 60 million to NOK 70 million. The commitment of the NOK 150 million stands and the target of 8% EBIT in the short run and long-term target of 10% stands. Then taking on outlook, we like to summarize by saying that nextLEVEL is on track. We go out of the first quarter with a record high backlog, which is a good foundation for the time ahead. There are good potential projects in the pipeline over the next month. And we also see that the overall market outlook is good in most business areas. But there are uncertainties in certain sectors, in particular, within the Building & Properties and this will affect both the Norwegian engineering part and the arkitektur business. And of course, the COVID-19 situation has increased significantly the uncertainty that we are facing. And we know that we will be affected by it. We just don't know what to -- to what extent and over which period it will affect us, but we can expect a softening of the market in our part of the business. Finally, just to remind you of our financial calendar, we will have the Q2 results in -- on the 26th of August and Q3 results on the 4th of November. And with that, we have finished the presentation, and we're now opening up for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] As there are no questions on the conference call, I will hand it back to the speakers.

[Grethe Bergly, Chief Executive Officer]

Okay. We just close this session then. Thank you.

[Hans-Jørgen Wibstad]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. This now concludes this conference call, and you may now all disconnect your lines. Have a nice day.