Multiconsult ASA

OSE:MULTI

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q2

[Grethe Bergly, Chief Executive Officer]

Good morning. My name is Grethe Bergly, and I'm the CEO of Multiconsult. And together with our CFO, Hans-Jørgen Wibstad, we will now give you a presentation of the second quarter and the first half of 2020 for Multiconsult. Looking at highlights, we come in after the first half year with a solid revenue growth. We have an increase of 7.4% compared to the same period last year. This gives us an EBIT of NOK 102.5 million for the quarter and almost NOK 220 million for year-to-date. Coming in at an EBIT margin of 11.3%, which is a significant improvement from the same period last year. This shows us that we are continuing our improvement. And we can also see that another important KPI related to billing ratio has also gone up, and we are for the quarter at a billing ratio of 73.8%. At the same time, we have successfully continued the improvement related to cost level, and we come in at the quarter of 200 -- sorry, we come in with a cost level of NOK 218 million for the first half year, and this is a reduction of almost 13% compared to the first half year 2019.The reductions are primarily related to improvements from nextLEVEL. But we have also had some positive effect from the COVID-19 situation, primarily related to reduced costs for office facilities and a significant reduction in travel cost. We have also seen a solid order intake of almost NOK 1 billion for the first half year, and -- sorry, for the first half year, yes. And we are now at a position of a NOK 3 billion order backlog. So far, Multiconsult have seen a modest impact from the COVID-19 situation. But we are still uncertain about how this will affect us in the future. And we would like to welcome you to our Capital Markets Day on the 4th of November, where we will give you an update on our development from the Capital Markets Day last year and give you an indication of how we see our company going forward. The results that we create are created by our very competent people. And we would like to show you some examples now of the projects that have actually been completed and handed over to the client in the period. The picture you see here is the main library in Oslo. Multiconsult has been involved in this project for over 10 years. We've had all the major engineering disciplines, and it was opened in July this year. And over the years, it will receive more than 2 million visitors every year. The next 2 projects shows how we have a position also in providing solutions related to green solutions and environmental impact. The Tvedestrand High School is the most environmentally friendly school in Norway. And over the time, it will actually produce energy. And it's LINK architects who have had this project. The other one is a road project. It's a private public cooperation project, the first one in 10 years in Norway. We have here for the contractor, Skanska, and with our partner, Aas-Jakobsen, designed a road that has an impact that will give a 25% reduction on climate emissions. And it's the first road in Norway to receive the level excellent within the environmental certification Ceequal. And the road was opened 2 months prior to the planned date. Of new projects, we would like to highlight Granåsen. It's a sports stadium that's going to be developed. And on this one, we also have all the engineering disciplines. Jaren Station is a railway station. We have executed early phase projects on this one. And we are proud to be given the trust from our client, Bane NOR, to continue developing the railway system in Norway. In addition, we would like to mention 2 projects that we have been awarded after the 30th of June. The first one is a new hospital to be built in Oslo as part of a larger development plan for the University of Oslo's hospitals. It's 140 square meter building that we, together with LINK formal architects Bølgeblikk and Erichsen & Horgen are just starting these days. It shows our commitment. It shows that our position within hospitals is a continuous success. We have also won a new contract for the new water supply of Oslo. This is the third contract within this development that we are being awarded, and we are grateful again to our clients who give us renewed trust to continue on this very important infrastructure project for Oslo. Looking at order intake, there's been an increase of 14.9%. Looking back to the previous -- same quarter last year. We are at a level of almost NOK 1 billion. We have also been awarded a large number of significant projects in the period. And we also see that we have a good pipeline for the next 12-month period. Here are some of the major projects that we've been awarded. In addition to the ones we showed earlier, it's a hospital in the north of Norway. And it's also very -- we are pleased to see that our development within rail in Poland continues with this latest award. Looking at the backlog, it's again an increase of almost 10% from quarter 2 2019. There is some variation with respect to how this is going to be executed and also the distribution between the various business areas. I would like to remind you all that frame agreements, we do not take into our order backlog until we've actually had a call-off. And the list that you see shows some of the larger ones that we expect to get call-offs from in the next half year. Short about the organization and our people at the end of the -- this half year, we are 2,931 employees. As you can see from the graph at the bottom of the page, this is a slight reduction from the same quarter in 2019 and this is in line with the nextLEVEL plan. We've also had in Norway a successful summer program. We've had 53 students. And the biggest achievement is that we have managed to maintain our productivity despite having almost 90% of our employees working from home in some of the periods. And I would like to take this opportunity to send my thanks and share with you all how impressed I am with our workforce for the efforts they have shown in this very demanding times. We have also through our commitment to the construction industry, one of our EVPs, Kristin Olsson Augestad, has now entered into the steering committee for the Construction City initiative. Finally, before I give the word over to Hans-Jørgen, it is required to give some comments on the COVID-19 situation. We have taken prudent responsibility to secure all our people, our business and our customers. And we see now that we have come through this period, having handled it well. We have managed to maintain almost an unchanged capacity due to a high level of digitalization amongst our employees, but also our support system on the IT. We are now gradually returning employees who's been on temporary leave. At the same time, we maintain a close follow-up of the whole organization. And we continue the mobilization of our 19 -- COVID-9 (sic) [ COVID-19 ] response team. And our effort and focus on HSE means that, so far, none of our employees have been infected by COVID-19 at work. And with this, I give you over to Hans-Jørgen.

[Hans-Jørgen Wibstad]

Okay. Good morning. My name is Hans-Jørgen Wibstad. I'm the CFO of Multiconsult. I would like to go through with you this morning our financial highlights for the second quarter as well as for the first half 2020. And it's a good day to do that. It's -- I'm -- we are quite happy with the figures. Net operating revenues are up 9.8% to NOK 951 million. And with an EBIT of NOK 102.5 million, giving an EBIT margin of 10.8%, which is up from minus 1.8% in the same quarter last year. It is worth just noting that there are a couple of things impacting the figures. One is the calendar effect of NOK 14.9 million when comparing with the same quarter last year as well as one-off charges in the second quarter 2019 of about NOK 20 million. Disregarding that, no doubt, it's a strong figure for the group. We're also seeing that operating expenses are coming down quite significantly on our key KPI ratio, which is other operating expenses compared with net operating revenues. Which is down from 19% last year, in the same period last year to 15.8% this quarter. It is worth noting that there are a few -- it's -- the figures is not only impacted by the -- our nextLEVEL improvement program, but there is, as Grethe mentioned, some impact from the COVID by way of lower traveling expenses, some lower expenses relating to our offices, et cetera, et cetera. The net profit then for the period is NOK 65.9 million versus a negative NOK 21.8 million in the same quarter last year. And one of the key drivers for this improvement is our billing ratio that Grethe mentioned, which is up to 73.8% from 71.3%. And it's the ratio, which really was not so good in the first quarter, where we had just below 70%. And we're seeing that -- and very, very happy to see that coming up. And it's one of the key things that we have been focusing on through our nextLEVEL improvement program. So on the lower right hand, one can see the bridge from the second quarter 2019 to second quarter 2020, seeing the billing ratio, giving a significant impact of NOK 30 million. Billing rate is also up very good. We have the calendar effect, which is seasonal. And we also see an -- we see the improvement in operating expenses as well as other impact. So that is the bridge. Going over to the second -- sort of the first half figures. We're seeing that net operating revenues are up 7.4% to NOK 1.945 billion, an increase of, as I said, 7.4%. EBIT is a very, very solid NOK 219.9 million, equal to a margin of 11.3% which is up from NOK 76.5 million in the first half of 2019. There are -- when comparing the figures, just worth mentioning that there are a couple of adjustments that can be made, which is the calendar effect, which is NOK 28.3 million. And we had total one-off extraordinary costs of about NOK 30 million. Disregarding that is -- the improvement is significant, and the result on its own is a very solid 11.3%. Driving that is, of course, the billing ratio, as I mentioned earlier, but also a lower operating expense ratio, which is down to 15.6% from 18.2%. And we're also, of course, impacted by nextLEVEL and COVID. However, it is worth mentioning that also in the first quarter, we had a similar ratio. Where in the first quarter, we had a very small impact from COVID or maybe no impact from COVID. So naturally, both factors are driving the reduced operating expenses, but the nextLEVEL is certainly a key driver for that. Net profit then for the first half is NOK 150 million versus NOK 37.1 million in the first half last year, billing ratio, I already mentioned. And it's also important to highlight that this quarter, for the first time for many, many quarters, we are net debt free and -- driven by very strong cash flow, and I will address that later in the presentation. So looking at the figures in more kind of quarter-by-quarter, we're seeing the second quarter on revenue is up 9.8% comparing with the same quarter last year, a little bit down from the first quarter, but taking into account the calendar effect, which is significant between the second -- first quarter and second quarter, where the number of working days in the second quarter is 8 lower than the first quarter. It is an improvement also from the first quarter. So that's an important adjustment to make. And also, the EBIT is a little bit down from the first quarter, which was very strong, but again, impacted by lower number of working days with the Easter hitting us in the second quarter, and in Norway, we have the May, with -- that has a lot of days off, a lot of holidays. So a strong quarter, a strong first half for the group. Looking at some key KPIs, the billing ratio, we're seeing that in historic graph there on the upper right-hand corner, coming up to the 74% level nearly in the second quarter, up from the first quarter. So very happy with that, as both Grethe and I have mentioned earlier. And we're seeing number of employees coming down, both comparing with the second quarter 2019 but also compared with the first quarter, which is in line with our nextLEVEL improvement program, where the efficiency of the organization has a lot of focus, and we're happy with that development, and it's going in the right direction, although in the longer term, we hope that the number of employees will increase as our business grows.So moving over to the segments with the new setup from 2020, opening up with a very good picture from the Finansparken, Stavanger, which fits well with my part of the organization, which is a wooden building that has received -- it's one of the larger wooden buildings in Europe and also an award-winning building where Multiconsult has proudly been involved. Starting with Region Oslo, a very, very strong first half with net revenues growing 13.6% to NOK 631.5 million. The EBIT coming in very strong at 91 -- NOK 99.1 million, equivalent to a margin of 15.6% (sic) [ 15.7% ] of course, the first half 2019 there was impacted by the one-off cost of NOK 20 million. So that's worth noting. But improvement in any case is very, very significant, and the performance of Region Oslo has been throughout very strong, driven by lower cost and also by a significantly higher billing ratio to 74.5% for the first half and in the second quarter, the billing ratio was even higher for Region Oslo. The number of employees is down, in line with our efficiency program. And also improvement program, and also the order back -- order intake is at a satisfactory level, although slightly lower than first half of 2019, but that varies a little bit between quarters. So we're not too worried about that, even though we are closely following that number. With Region Norway, which is now the largest region in our business, largest area. We're seeing operating revenues also growing nicely to NOK 758 million, up 3.3%. EBIT NOK 81.2 million, giving a healthy EBIT margin of 10.8 -- 10.7%. Order intake in this quarter is -- sorry, first half is very, very strong, NOK 911 million, which is significantly above the operating revenue, giving a book bill ratio of way above 1, and a healthy order backlog. Billing ratio is still below the 70% on average. But for the third -- second quarter, the billing ratio is way significantly above 70%. So it's certainly going in the right direction after a quite slow start and poor billing ratio figure for the first quarter. Number of employees is at a stable level. Moving over to energy, which is our -- one of the areas where we are focusing a lot of our efforts where we see great opportunities as we move forward. Net operating revenue is NOK 134.9 million, slightly up from 2019. EBIT is just above 0. The Norwegian operation is doing very well. However, it's right now the activity in our U.K. operations, which is linked to the energy sector is still lagging behind, although we are hoping and believing that, that will pick up as we have been awarded some very important contracts in -- during this summer. EBIT margin, as I said, 1.7%. And order intake at a pretty good level. And order backlog also historically at a good level. Billing ratio, 61.9%, poor in U.K., which is a driving factor for that. Solid in Norway. And we're moving very hard to improve that business overall. And it's an important area for us where we see very, very interesting opportunities as we move forward. LINK arkitektur is our next region that we -- I would like to talk about, which consists of the Norwegian operations, which is the biggest one. And then we have offices in Sweden and Denmark, where we're seeing revenues up 3.3% to NOK 303 million. EBIT is NOK 17.6 million, slightly down and an EBIT margin of 5.8%. Now the Norwegian operations is doing very well, but we're still, as we have been for a few quarters, struggling in Sweden and Denmark. And they're going through a very solid turnaround process there to improve profitability. So we're confident on that. But the -- it is impacting with negative figures in both Sweden and Denmark. It is impacting the overall financial performance of LINK -- of the LINK group. Order intake is good, NOK 403.4 million. Book-to-bill way above 1, which is very, very strong, and giving a good order backlog. Billing ratio at a normal level, 74.2%, good. It's been higher. It's been in that area for some time. And we're seeing a number of employees going slightly down, partially due to restructurings taking place in the Nordic countries. Moving finally to international, which is a segment consisting of Iterio in Sweden and Multiconsult Polska. They're doing very, very good. We had a very strong performance both of those companies in the first half. Revenues for them combined, is up 23.0% to NOK 126.8 million. The EBIT is strong, NOK 14.8 million, equal to a margin of 11.7%, stronger than last year and at a solid level. The main driver for the growth is Poland, which is growing very, very strongly and also good growth in Iterio and the margins levels in both Iterio and Polska is strong with particularly very good performance from Iterio on the margin side, whereas Polska is in line with our expectations. But there they have a growth situation. So taking in -- that into account, it is a very, very strong performance by Polska as well. Order intake, NOK 264.3 million. Book-to-bill, then above 2, which is very, very impressive, with a growing order backlog. Billing ratio at 79%. And of course, number of employees with such growth is up 8.2% to 303, which can be compared with a growth on revenues for 23%. So it's a good ratio there as well. Moving over to our -- to the business areas. A few words on that as well. We're seeing all our key business areas growing. Buildings and properties, transportation, being the 2 biggest ones as well as water and environment. We're seeing a moderate reduction in our activity level on renewable energy, but this is an area where we are investing a lot of money and effort and believe that this is something for the future. So we're not too worried about that, but that will fluctuate with time, of course, which is quite natural. Finally, from my side, on the financial position. As I mentioned earlier, strong cash flow from operations in the first half. We're also seeing, despite increase in revenues, we have improved our working capital position with NOK 26.4 million, and we're very happy with that. We've also stopped our investments pretty much. They are down to NOK 13.9 million. So we're very restricted -- restrictive on that, although we have the possibility to invest in necessary -- do the necessary investments. We're taking down our debt level through the quarter by repaying our RCF by NOK 100 million. And -- nearly NOK 100 million, sorry. And that gives us at the end of the quarter, a cash position of NOK 237.4 million and also a position of being a net debt-free company with a positive net interest-bearing debt or negative net interest-bearing debt of NOK 156.2 million versus we in the previous quarters have been in a net interest-bearing debt position. So a solid position to be in and a good foundation for our activities as we move forward. Thank you.

[Grethe Bergly, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Hans-Jørgen. I will now give you some more insight into development on our improvement program nextLEVEL. As you can see from the graph on the right, we are continuing to lift the levels. And by mid-August, we have committed NOK 110 million. And this graph shows you a bit more of the details. Looking at cost outs, we have only made modest commitments that we take and report on for this quarter. This is mainly related to the fact that we have mentioned a few times that we want to make sure that the effects that we see on costs related to office and costs related to travel, what it will actually be on when we come to a more normal operating level. When it comes to operations, it has been lifted from NOK 26 million last quarter to NOK 39 million. And it has been improvements on all the 3 main areas of organizational adjustment efficiency and also reduced impairment. Activities that has been executed here is looking at the number of leaders. We have looked at how support staff, and we have also worked -- as you can see, the effect of our billing ratio on the efficiency. At the same time, we also feel that we are getting better control our -- over our project portfolio, and we see an improvement also on the impairments related to this. The way forward on the nextLEVEL, we see that other operating expenditures have been reduced due to travel and office expenditure. And we will, in the next quarter, have experienced what we can expect to be the normal operating level. At the same time, I am sure all over the world, we are seeing a new way of working, and we will presumably also see how our new use of our office spaces and our travel guidelines will change. We maintain the level of restructuring costs at NOK 60 million to NOK 70 million. So we are well on our way to our nextLEVEL goal of NOK 150 million. We maintain our EBIT goal of 8% in the initial phase and a long-term goal of 10%. Then finally, we are on a positive development on the ongoing turnaround process. We have seen a tremendous commitment from all levels of the organization, and they are the ones to be thanked for the results that we are actually now seeing. The nextLEVEL program is on track. We go out of this quarter with a solid backlog. And in addition to that, we've had some major projects also awarded in the period after the 30th of June. We see a market that is -- overall, is good, and also a strong tender pipeline in most business areas. Finally, we see that so far, we've had a modest negative impact due to the COVID-19 situation. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our clients and their commitment to keeping the projects going. There is some uncertainty still connected to the situation that the COVID-19 will give in the future. And we would also like to mention that we see some uncertainties in the sector of buildings and properties, including architecture. With this, I would like to thank you all for listening in. We welcome you back on the 4th of November where we will present our third quarter and also give you a capital market update. And on this file, you can also see the dates for the forthcoming quarter reports. Thank you.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen...

[Hans-Jørgen Wibstad]

Operator? Operator? I think we could wait a little bit and see if there are any questions coming in, but it looks like now this was quite clear. Great. Announce it again.

[Operator]

Okay, thank you. Well, thank you very much for listening in and wish you all a great day.