Multiconsult ASA

OSE:MULTI

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q1

[Grethe Bergly, executive]

Good morning, and welcome to this presentation of the financial results for Multiconsult first quarter of 2023. My name is Grethe Bergly, I am the CEO. And I also have with me today our CFO, Ove Haupberg, who will take you through some of the more details with respect to the figures.

It has been a very good quarter for Multiconsult. Here, you can see the KPIs that are the main drivers for our business. We have a revenue of NOK 1.3 billion, an increase of 15.1%. We have an EBITA of NOK 213 million (sic) [ NOK 216.3 million ]. We maintain a high level when it comes to billing ratio, and we have a record high order intake of NOK 2.6 billion. This figure is, of course, a result of the largest sale that we've ever made in Multiconsult in respect to one of the main hospitals in Oslo, but it is still a good sale in the quarter.

It is the best quarter ever for Multiconsult. It's an all-time high both with respect to EBIT, EBITA margin, order intake and order backlog. With a solid growth of 15.1% in the quarter, we continue to deliver expertise and sustainable solution to clients and we see an increased demand for our services. It's a solid performance with focus on our core business in Multiconsult, and we are very pleased to see the improved financial position in LINK Arkitektur. And Ove will give you some more insight to what is behind this result. So it's fair to say that we are on track to deliver on the strategic ambitions that we launched in the autumn of 2021.

Going more in detail into the market and sales. We have made 2 large sales on hospitals in Oslo, new Rikshospitalet and Aker sykehus. We have made a very -- exciting for engineers anyway, sales on the E39, which is a huge crossing, a magnificent bridge. And I encourage you all to go in and look at it because it is the dream for any engineer, I think. And also, we've got a new hydropower in -- a hydropower plant in Tanzania, Malagarasi. In addition, we've had good sales in some of the larger ongoing projects that we have told you about previously.

It is a strong and diversified backlog, both with respect to geographical spread but also with respect to larger and smaller projects and the 4 business areas. So we leave this quarter with a very strong backlog. There is a small heads up when it comes to the Scandinavian market for architecture as it remains to cooldown. But we -- on the other hand, we also see that there are clients who start the early planning of these kind of projects.

Looking at people and organization. We are 3,425 employees, which is an increase of 5.5%. As of from this quarter, we will also start to report on full-time equivalents, and we are 3,230 FTEs at the end of this quarter, which is an increase of 4.7%. We are pleased to welcome Agathe Schjetlein as our new Chief Sustainability Officer, and she will take up her position in August. And 135 employees have taken up their positions during this quarter.

When it comes to the organization, I have just now completed a visit to all our locations and all management teams in the whole group, talking about and introducing our leadership principles. We have started a leader program in Norway, and by the end of the summer, 120 leaders will have been taken through this program. We've also done a large refurbishment of the headquarter in Oslo and are now able to take in 100 more employees in the premises that we have.

When it comes to excellence, this is our benchmark towards the rest of the world, and to win prizes is an important part of remaining in that #1 position that Multiconsult wants to have. And we won a prize called Damkrona for this hydropower development. And it's the combination of increasing the capacity during rehabilitation and, at the same time, ensuring that the fish that goes up and down this river is given good conditions. LINK has won an important competition in the transformation of a district in Drammen. This is an important part of delivering on the strategy, and we are very pleased that LINK has been given this opportunity. And last, but not least, one of our regions, Fredrikstad, was awarded the Company of the Year in their own region.

We have, as some of you may have noticed, announced that we are investing in a new drilling vessel. We unfortunately lost a drilling vessel last year during the winter storm. And this is a position that Multiconsult has when it comes to small-scale drilling ships for nearshore operations. This boat is slightly larger than the one we had previously. It can do more advanced operations and also go somewhat on deeper water. And we see a growing market here both with respect to aquaculture and also as wind offshore operations will take -- will increase.

And with that, I hand you over to Ove.

[Ove Haupberg, executive]

Thank you, Grethe, and good morning to you all. My name is Ove Haupberg. I'm the CFO in Multiconsult. And I will start with the financial highlights for this first quarter.

You can see a solid revenue growth. We end at NOK 1,310 billion for the quarter. That is an increase of 15.1% from the same quarter last year. The organic growth is 12.1%. On top of that, you have the effects of 1 more working day, 1.6%; and the M&A activity performed at the end of last year with the purchase of Roar Jørgensen, gives another 1.4% in growth.

The drivers behind this, you can see in the graphs underneath. We have more employees, 177 more than the same quarter last year. That constitutes 144 FTEs. And we also have higher billing rates. The billing ratios are still at a high level, weakened by 0.4 percentage points from 71.4% to 71%. The billing ratios for the segments Norway and Oslo has increased, but we see some reduction in LINK Denmark and Multiconsult Polska, and that is due to some delayed project start-ups.

EBITA, all-time high, NOK 216.3 million, an increase of 27.8% from last year or NOK 47.1 million. And the margin increased by 1.6 percentage points to 16.5%. And on top of that, we have this record high order intake, NOK 2,573 billion for the quarter, 75.4% higher than last year. And as Grethe reminded us, the hospital contracts is a major part of the increase of NOK 1,070 billion. But we end the quarter at the best level on the order backlog in Multiconsult history, NOK 4,654 billion.

Other OpEx ratio improved by 0.8 percentage points from last year, 14.4% compared to 15.2%. There are some cost effects of office rents, electricity and IT. You can also see that in the graph, NOK 15 million. But the ratio has improved due to the revenue growth. At the last of this page, the reported profit, NOK 158.1 million, a growth from last year of 30%.

Then some highlights going quarter-by-quarter. We see the first quarter in orange. And then starting top left on the net operating revenues, you can see the growth then from first quarter last year to this quarter of this 15.1%. The growth comes from a good billing ratio, 0.4 weaker than last year but still at a high level of 71%; higher number of employees that you see down right, 5.5%, or as we have seen, 4.7% growth in FTEs. And that gives then, in combination with the improved billing rates, EBITA growth from the 14.9% to 16.5% year-by-year. You also see here that we are dependent on the number of working days to create these results, and this has been a good quarter with barely no vacation days. But also, this is the 13th consecutive quarter with steady good results from Multiconsult after the turnaround done in 2019.

Then we will go on the different segments. And just to remind you that we in Q4 last year changed the segment Energy, incorporated that in the regions Oslo and Norway and also then reworked the historical numbers. But to the left, Region Oslo. We have a high growth in net operating revenue, 10.7% or close to NOK 50 million and a solid EBITA margin of 19.1%. Also here, the growth is driven by the billing ratio, 73.2%. We have also better billing rates and increased number of employees. And the EBITA margin is at the same level as last year, if we correct for a onetime bonus in the 2022 numbers from our project, and then the higher employee tax that is from this year that reduced the margin at 0.5%. So we delivered an increase in EBITA on NOK 3.6 million to NOK 98.1 million. And the larger projects is also part of this region.

Going then to right, to Region Norway. A solid growth in net revenue also from this district, 18.3%, and the margins also here are very solid, 16.7%. The billing ratios, 2.2 percentage point growth from last year, also higher billing rates and increased number of personnel. In this region, we see the effects of the M&A activity done at the end of last year. So Roar Jørgensen is part of Region Norway.

Then LINK Arkitektur, 13.4% growth in EBITA and we see here -- in the margin, and that is an increase of 10.2 percentage points from last year. And we see significant improvements both from Sweden and Norway. As Grethe pointed out, a somewhat more demanding market. But in Sweden, we are helped with the 2 hospital contracts, that is Västerås and Växjö. And we see the continuous effects of the change in organization structure and improved operations that was implemented by the new management last year.

Also in Norway, a positive increase in the revenue, and we see better project margins. You also see the first effects of the improvement program that we launched by end of last year, and that is focusing on all aspects of the profit and loss. We still see some challenging part on Norway, and that has caused some few temporary layoffs in first quarter. LINK Denmark, still a weak performance. Here, we see some delays in both public and private projects, and that caused a lower billing ratio than last year.

And then to the right, International. Also a solid growth in net operating revenue, 14.6%. This comes from mainly Iterio. And we also see that the currency effects is just NOK 1 million in this segment. In Multiconsult Polska, has been some delays in project startup from November last year to March this year and also higher bidding activity, and that caused some effects on both the results and billing ratio and also the margin in this segment.

Then the last from me, the financial position. We started the period, that you can see to the left, NOK 115 million in cash. We have created from the operation NOK 252 million in cash this quarter. We see seasonal effects in working capital, negative NOK 278 million, but I have to say that still are focusing on the working capital. Some investments and also some few other effects, among them currency, but we end still with NOK 6 million in cash by end of the quarter. And also to the right, that the net debt is NOK 137 million, better than last year, only NOK 2 million by end of the quarter. We also have, from this quarter an appendix that is showing you the free cash flow over time, and you will see then that the first quarter this year has improved from the first quarter last year.

And by that, I hand it back to you, Grethe.

[Grethe Bergly, executive]

Thank you, Ove. Looking at the revenue in our business areas. As you can see, there's a good growth in all our business areas. It's a good diversity in the split between the business areas, and we are very pleased to see the increase in Energy & Industry, which is in line with what we have previously communicated, that this is an area where we see significant growth also going forward. This is a good split for us in the way we are set up both with respect to geography but also with respect to competence.

This time, we will do a bit of a deep dive into the business area of Energy & Industry and give you more insight into the international part of the business in relation to Energy & Industry. Multiconsult has a footprint of projects all over the world, mainly in connection with renewable energy but also some with respect to oil and gas. We have worked on almost all continents, but this time we will concentrate on the business that we do in Africa. And here, we have concentrated our business around East Africa, and the orange parts here show where we have a permanent presence.

We also own a company -- we own 49% of a company in the Tanzania, and this is a cooperation that has been ongoing since the 1970s. And Norplan Tanzania serve as our local partner in a lot of the projects that we execute in this region. Electrification is a -- this project is a good example of how we work. This project looks at 9 regions, how we can do electrification also in rural areas with installation of hybrid systems. And we will through this project give electricity to more than 1,500 people in rural areas of Tanzania.

Hydropower is by far the largest revenue when it comes to work in Africa so far. But we are seeing that also solar and wind is taking a larger part of our revenue. This is a new hydropower project in Malagarasi in Tanzania, and we operate as the owner's engineer in this project. That means we help the project developer make the tender documents, help them award the contract and then assist in following up through the construction and development of these kind of projects.

The GET FiT programs that we do in Mozambique, Zambia and Uganda is a slightly different nature. Here, we are actually advisors to the government on how they can create documents and tender to get international [indiscernible] and help the country develop [ renewables ]. And we are -- we believe that [indiscernible] to other [indiscernible].

Chishimba is a hydropower station [indiscernible]. Two scopes here: one is to rehabilitate the existing plant but also to expand to increase the capacity; at the same time, also look at transmission so that we can distribute the power that's generated from this hydropower station. Again, Multiconsult work as owner's engineer.

Here, we see a project with floating solar. And this is another area that we are seeing a lot more interest of. It's combining the water [ magazines ] so that you can combine solar and water to ensure that you have a much more leveled and continuous power supply. Solar, of course, in this part of the world, it can also actually assist in preventing [ reparation ] so that the water level remains steady. The guy in the dark blue T-shirt here, he's doing his PhD on this area, and again an expertise area that we believe is going to have more interest going forward.

Looking at some of the projects we do outside Africa. We would like to mention Empire Wind. This is a huge wind power plant just outside New York where we again act as owner's engineer. We are also now involved with a huge solar park in Pakistan, and we are also involved in a hydropower plant in Georgia.

Finishing up with the outlook. It is our view that the overall market for our services remains generally good across all 4 business areas. We see that the opportunities in the pipeline is still at a high level. We have a strong and diversified portfolio and a very solid order backlog. There are some uncertainty in parts of the market for business area Buildings & Properties, then mainly related to housing and real estate. But on the other hand, we see that the energy transition efficiency that we need to do also in all the buildings, circular economy and the green shift are the key drivers in the market, and we are well positioned to take our part of this market.

And with that, I finish my presentation. Just a reminder that next time we meet is in August, where we present our second quarter. And our IR responsible will now -- we open up for questions, first of all, and then we will repeat the questions that came during the Norwegian session. So are there any questions?

[Unknown Executive]

Yes. From Hans-Erik Jacobsen at Nordea. LINK Arkitektur is delivering a good quarter with a margin of 13.4%. At what margin level can we expect going forward for this business?

[Grethe Bergly, executive]

Yes. We are very careful in saying anything about our architecture business. At the moment, it is still fragile. It's in a phase of turnaround. And at the same time, there are a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace. But in the long term, we expect the architecture business to deliver on par with the engineering business. And we know that there are architecture businesses who do that.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you. Bengt Jonassen, ABG Sundal Collier. Question about the drilling vessel. Regarding the drilling vessel and the geo work done on -- in this business, what is the growth potential?

[Grethe Bergly, executive]

Well, we have -- we used to have 3 boats and we have now 1 less. So we are just really going back to the capacity that we know was already a demand for. But we also believe with aquaculture, with offshore wind, also with large infrastructures that's being done in Norway, we will -- we expect this market to stay at a high level. And we are in a very, very strong position here. We don't really see a lot of competitors. So it's important for us to get this boat back on the water.

[Unknown Executive]

Bengt Jonassen again. Second question was regarding working capital. Working capital in the quarter was underperforming. Can you give some flavor on the change that was made in the quarter?

[Ove Haupberg, executive]

Yes. Well, the working capital this quarter is better than the same quarter last year, as we see in the appendix. But we have a lower work in progress than last year and a somewhat higher outstanding on the customers. And the change is due to that we have focus on invoicing and the cutoff during Easter. So there is no higher risk as we see it in the balance sheet by end of this quarter.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you. Third and last question from Bengt Jonassen. That was regarding the billing rate. The billing rate increased year-on-year. Was that purely index related? And what is the potential to further increase this?

[Ove Haupberg, executive]

Well, we have a number of different contracts and the long-term contracts are based on indexes. And some of them are indexed by the start of the year and some will be indexed later this year, whereas others are indexed as we make them basically. Well, they are based on the cost that we see in the business and there is competition in the market. So in general, we have no reason or no obligation to increase the prices.

[Unknown Executive]

Okay. [indiscernible] at [ Arctic ]. What is the organic revenue split? Can you give some flavor on that?

[Ove Haupberg, executive]

Yes. We have shown that on the financial highlights, so we see that in the graphs underneath. And you can see that the billing rates, and that is part of other revenue effects, is the strongest organic growth factor, but also the number of employees. But you see the EBITA effect there in that page.

[Unknown Executive]

Yes. Thank you. That's all the questions from us.

[Grethe Bergly, executive]

Okay. Then we just finish off this session here, and wish you all a nice day. Thank you.

[Ove Haupberg, executive]

Thank you.