Multiconsult ASA

OSE:MULTI

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q4

[Grethe Bergly, Chief Executive Officer]

Good morning. I'm pleased to welcome you to the presentation of the fourth quarter and the full year 2020 for Multiconsult. My name is Grethe Bergly. I'm the CEO. And together with me today, I also have our CFO, Hans-Jorgen Wibstad, who will also go into some more details on the figures. Looking at the fiscal year 2020, we delivered strong on all the important KPIs for Multiconsult. We have a net operating revenue of NOK 3.7 billion, which is an increase of 6.6% from 2019, and this is a purely organic growth. We have an EBIT of NOK 371 million, which represents an increase of 249% from the previous year. And we are, of course, very pleased with this improvement that we are seeing. Our billing ratio is at 70.9%, up 1.7 points. Operating expenses come in just over NOK 3 billion. And also here, we have seen an improvement in a way of decrease of 2.4%. Our earnings per share is NOK 9.25, up from -- an increase of 61.2% from 2019 and a very significant value creation for us as a company and also for our owners. We see that our share value at the moment is NOK 145. All this is created by the project that we deliver on. And the picture that you see on the right-hand side is from Gaustad Hospital, which was a significant win in 2020. And we also have the E6, this is a road project, again, an important area for us and an area that we are still seeing significant growth in. Fornebubanen is the tram development in Oslo. For the first time in 20 years, we are building -- doing some large developments on this. Ocean Space Center and construction in Tronheim as a part of the Norwegian government's initiative to position Norway as one of the great nations when it comes to the ocean. And we also saw a new trust from a very significant client start net in the frame agreement from them. We also did quite a lot of work on Deichman, which is the Oslo library. It was opened and completed in 2020. And Campus Ås, a project that have followed us for almost 10 years, still minor work going on, but this is probably the last time that we show this in our presentation. Looking at the quarter, we ended at an EBIT of NOK 83 million, which represents a margin of 8.6%, up from 1.0% last year. We have improved our billing ratio to 71%. And we leave 2020 with an all-time high order backlog of NOK 3.3 billion. The fiscal year, net operating revenue up to NOK 3.7 billion, and EBIT of NOK 371 million, which represents a margin of 10.1%. And as you all know, we've had quite a few restructuring costs, so our underlying operations would actually come out at a margin of 11%. And I am pleased to see this enormous improvement in our margins. Other operating expenditure at just over NOK 400 million,and a reduction again of 16.6%, of course, a very important figure for us and showing that we are succeeding in our cost reduction improvement program. Other highlights for the year is that we have a significant improvement on operations and completion of the nextLEVEL program. We have had solid sales throughout the whole year and leave it with an all-time high order backlog. We have achieved the goals that we set in the GO strategy and not least represented by a strengthening position on health and infrastructure. All of this is, of course, a result of extreme high commitment from all our employees. 2020 will probably be a historic year, and what we together have managed to deliver is no less than impressive, so a great thanks from me to all the people who work for us. We have also had a very good cooperation with our clients. They have been very active in making sure that projects are running and also making sure that projects are being put to the market. Looking forward, we have a stable outlook in all the major business areas, but there are, of course, still some uncertainty with the ongoing pandemic. And looking at the overall result for the year, the Board's recommendation is an output of NOK 8 per share. Multiconsult is well positioned to have solutions when it comes to sustainability and here represented by some of the major areas that we worked with in 2020. Renewables, energy, here, you see a picture of a combination of solar and water, this is a solution that we do expect will take place in several areas of the world. And we are -- we have PhD who follow some of the front of the development when it comes to these solutions. We are also positioned when it comes to offshore wind. Circular economy is part of the solutions that we need to be able to meet the Paris Agreement goals of reducing climate output and here represented by a school where there's been a significant reuse of materials. And Multiconsult has also taken active part in establishing networks for reuse in 2 major cities, Oslo and Trondheim. We are also well positioned when it comes to carbon capture solutions, here exemplified by Northern Lights and the skills that our people have from the oil and gas industry is here being applied to make sure that Norway can be positioned for further development on carbon capture. Also, our own operations matter. And here, you can see a hybrid drilling rig. This is probably the first in the world. We know it's the first one in Norway. And it shows our commitment to being in front of developing new solutions also when it comes to the pollution that we do through our operations. Digitalization, we did quite a lot in 2020. We have recently entered into an agreement with Autodesk. We know that what we need to do in digitalization we cannot do on our own, so this partnership agreement with Autodesk is important for further development of Multiconsult. In the same way, we see when it comes to smart cities, smart societies, smart health technology, we have now entered into an agreement with Telia, and we are well positioned to provide clients with digital solutions that will help them in the future of also making more sustainable solutions. We have in 2020 also worked on designing our own innovation process. We have positioned our people to help developing new ideas because a company that will live for a long time also need to innovate. And we are now preparing for the innovation part of the company that we can strengthen because we have a much more solid financial position. And one of the projects that we are just starting is looking at how can we use all the geo data that we have to actually develop a business case and use big data. Looking at the order intake, we have an increase of 7% from the Q4 2019. We've had some significant contracts awarded this year. One is the frame agreement for Statnett. We also have a rehabilitation job for the city hall in Stavanger, where we work, Multiconsult and LINK together. And we've also have a significant contract on a power plant in Latvia. We also see a solid pipeline looking ahead. And the key order intakes, as you can see, we've had a good spread within the business areas that we operate in. We've had one for Fornebubanen, which is a city tube that's being developed, the hospital in Oslo, a new hospital being built, water supply for Oslo and the hydroelectric power plant in Latvia. We also see a very significant increase in our order backlog, 12% from the same quarter last year. It's the highest ever in the -- since we went -- enter the -- since we were listed on the stock market. We do, however, see that there is some variation when it comes to the spreading of this both within the time scale but also between the various business areas. I would also like to remind you that we do not include the volume of frame agreements until we have call-offs. So the actual order backlog is slightly higher than we report here. And as you can see, it's the business areas of buildings and infrastructure that are by far the largest business areas. Looking at organization and people, we are 2,925 employees at the end of the year. It's a slight reduction of number of people, and this is in line with the consolidation strategy that we've had for 2020, and we are now ready for growth. We have had an enormous commitment and contribution from all our employees in the turnaround process. And we know that it has been a tough year for our people, but we are pleased to see the results that we actually create together. We also -- in the fourth quarter, we paid out NOK 25 million bonus to all employees. And the picture you see is Stovnertårnet, is positioned just on the outskirt of Oslo. And it won a prize for the most inclusive innovation project for -- within landscape architecture. And we are very proud to be part of this project. And also in line with developing ourselves and our people, we have Vladimir, who defended his PhD on a very, very relevant topic when it comes to retention and detention of storm water in cold climates. And we have, of course, been affected by COVID-19. Our main goal has been to make sure that our people are safe. We see that the high level of digitalization has secured solid activity through the whole year. And we are also now, because of the duration of the pandemic, made sure that we are supporting all our people who, to a large extent, are working from home, digital training, digital office, making sure that people are looked after and keep close contact with each other. We have also introduced an hour free of meetings to make sure people get up, take a break because we've seen that's been a challenge for some of our people. And we are now planning for the future way of working, which the COVID-19 has given us some new ideas of what is possible. And with that, I hand this over to Hans-Jorgen.

[Hans-Jørgen Wibstad]

Thank you, Grethe, and good morning. My name is Hans-Jorgen Wibstad. I'm the CFO of Multiconsult. And I will go through the numbers for fourth quarter as well as the preliminary results for 2020 in some more detail. For the fourth quarter, starting with that, the net operating revenues were up with a healthy 6.9% to NOK 967 million. And the EBIT, as Grethe mentioned, is up to a healthy NOK 83 million, equal to an 8.6% margin, which is a huge increase from the poor results in the same quarter last year, where we delivered NOK 8.7 million, equal to 1.0% margin. The improvement is driven by both improvements on the revenue side but also in particular on the operating expense side, which is part of the nextLEVEL improvement program that we have been doing now for just more than 1 year. Operating expenses are significantly down, 17.5% to NOK 104.4 million. The OpEx ratio that we call it, which is the other operating expenses as a percentage of net operating revenues, is down from 18.3% to 15.1%, a good reflection of the improvement in the -- in our cost structure driven both by the nextLEVEL improvement program but also by some impact from reduced travel and other expenses related to COVID. The billing ratio impacting, of course, the revenue side is up. A very important KPI for us, it's up to 71%, 2.9 percentage point up. And the numbers is also impacted -- the operating expenses is also impacted by the extraordinary bonus to employees of NOK 25 million, very well deserved, but it is -- was taken in the fourth quarter. The order intake, we're happy to report that the order intake for the quarter was at a very good NOK 1.4 billion, above last year and also way above book-to-bill ratio of 1. And we're ending the quarter with NOK 3.3 billion of order backlog, as Grethe mentioned. One of the key things to take a look at here is that the number of employees is down. That is not normally a way we would like to see. But in the circumstances where we have to undertake this huge turnaround, it was important for us to make sure that everyone was busy, that we were not employing more people than we needed. So this is something that was a part of the nextLEVEL. And it's also reflected in the fact that the operating revenues are up, the billing ratio is also up, while the number of employees is down. For the full year 2020, we see the same 6.6% increase in revenue, all organic growth. We did not make any acquisitions in 2020. The EBIT is at a healthy 10.1% margin, NOK 371 million, which is a huge improvement, 3.5x the EBIT for 2019. If we take out this one-off restructuring costs related to nextLEVEL of NOK 30 million which we took in the hit which we took in the third quarter, you can say that the underlying margin is 400 -- EBIT is NOK 401 million, equal to an EBIT margin of 11%. Again, we see the same picture here with operating expenses significantly down, with the ratio down from 18.7% to 15.6%, driven by nextLEVEL improvement cost cut as well as some impact of the COVID. Improved billing ratio average for the year, 70.9%. And then looking at the bottom line, the profit for the year after tax is NOK 249.2 million as compared with NOK 31.5 million in 2019, a very, very huge increase, reflecting also earnings per share up from NOK 1.30 to NOK 9.25 per share for 2020. What we -- what this also has meant is that this improvement in operations has translated into our balance sheet by way of coming out of the quarter and the year with a strong balance sheet and the fact that we're net debt-free, and I'll come back to that a little bit later in the presentation. So this is a bit of a summary quarter-by-quarter. We see on the revenue side quarterly variations due to things like vacation and holidays. But we see a good solid increase, 6.9% quarter-by-quarter between fourth quarter '19 and fourth quarter '20. We also very clearly see here that the company has been through a very challenging period in '18 and '19 and also a little bit before then, where we've now delivered fourth consecutive strong quarters. Very happy with that overall performance and be able to report that today. On the billing ratio side, on the right side of the screen, going in the right direction, up year-on-year. And also average for the year is significantly up, impacting our result quite substantially. And as I mentioned earlier, number of employees down by 2.3%, something which is -- which has been a part of the nextLEVEL program for us. I will now move into the different segments. We have 5 different segments. Starting with Region Oslo, which is literally Oslo area. Revenues, NOK 1.175 billion, up 7.8%, very healthy growth; EBIT margin, very solid growth from NOK 53 million to NOK 186 million. There is an extraordinary item of about NOK 20 million in the '19 figure, so the increase is a little bit lower than it looks on the front page here. But it doesn't impact -- it's a very, very significant increase, including also the one-off cost in 2019. EBIT margin, 15.8%; order intake, solid, almost NOK 1.6 billion; order backlog increasing from last year, NOK 1.25 billion; and billing ratio, an impressive 73.4%, up 3.4 percentage points. And number of employees down in this area by 5.9% to 769. Now over to the next region, which is the largest region in terms of revenues, Region Norway, which is everything except Oslo area in Norway, all the way from north to south to east. And revenues, healthy, 4.9% increase to NOK 1 billion -- NOK 1.44 billion -- or NOK 1.45 billion; the EBIT, a very, very impressive improvement from NOK 56.6 million -- NOK 56.5 million to NOK 184 million. And in this figure, there is no kind of exceptional items, so it's comparing apples with apples. EBIT margin, 12.7%, up from 4.1%; order intake, at a solid level; order backlog, also stable; and billing ratio impacting our revenues and our results quite significantly, up 2 percentage points to almost 70%; and number of employees also down. Then to our exciting but smaller units called Energy, where the revenues is about flat from -- to NOK 248.8 million. EBIT is improving but still at a low level. The performance of the Norwegian unit is good and is improving for 2020. However, we are -- we have a unit in the U.K. which is -- which has had a difficult market situation, dealing a lot in the international markets including Africa. We're also impacted by COVID, which has had low activity level and also is running at a loss and also impacting the billing ratio, which is as low as 61.3%. But it is an area which has improved a lot. We have very good hopes for it for the future. It's well positioned for the market that we see ahead of us and an exciting area. LINK, which is our architectures business and very, very good performance also from them for the year. Overall, good increase in operating revenues. EBIT significantly improved, however, the margin is a little bit lower than we would like it to see. That is not because of Norway, because in Norway, the Norwegian business, which is the largest business, has had a very solid year; while the smaller units in Denmark in particular but also Sweden has been struggling a little bit. But we're seeing turnaround also there happening, so we are hopeful for better performance for the Swedish and the Danish operations as we move into 2021. Order intake, a good level; and the order backlog also growing from last year. Then finally to our international units and our friends there in Sweden and Poland has had a strong year, both of these units in Iterio and Multiconsult Polska, respectively. A very solid increase in revenues, 17.2% increase in revenues. Good profitability despite -- not despite the growth but because of the growth also, doing a good level of operations, 10.2% margin; and also the order intake at an impressive NOK 474 million, up from NOK 369 million. And also comparing that with the net operating revenues is a book-to-bill ratio of nearly 2, so it's a very strong sales in this region and a good, healthy, profitable growth. Very happy with that. And of course, with such a big growth, naturally, a higher number of employees coming into these 2 well-performing units. So looking at our business areas. We see it's a pretty good picture. We have a balanced and good portfolio with various exposures. Building and properties being the biggest one, a 4% increase year-on-year; transportation, next -- second biggest, 30% of revenues, representing an increase of 5% for the year; water and environment, 11%. We see a small decrease in the renewable energy. Now that is more sensitive because it's a small unit, and they're more sensitive to single larger contracts, but we -- as I mentioned earlier, we're hopeful that the Energy business and believe that the Energy business is well positioned for the future but a seasonal down there or periodic down there of 15%. And the other units are also doing quite well. So a good portfolio, and we're happy to see that there is generally growth across the major business areas. Finalizing with a few words on our financial position. We see that, as I said, our good performance translates into solid cash flows. We're seeing that our net interest-bearing debt has increased or improved by NOK 384.9 million over a 12-month period, going from a net debt position of NOK 92 million to a net cash position of NOK 293 million. So that's a good kind of proof that our strong performance translates into our bank balances, which provides for a good solidity as we move forward. We're also very happy to see that not only is the cash generated from operations positive, but we're also seeing that despite an increase in the revenues, we're seeing that the working capital position has also improved. And that is a good and important KPI for us. And in addition, on top of that is a low level of investments in 2020. That is something we have wanted. It's part of the nextLEVEL program. We've been a little bit careful on our investments. We believe that will increase somewhat as we move forward. It's -- NOK 28 million is not sustainable as we want to grow to make investments for the future. But given the year we've been through, it's been a good sign that the nextLEVEL program has also worked. So we're coming out of the quarter with a strong balance sheet. And on top of the cash position, we also have undrawn cash balances in our bank facilities of NOK 520 million which are all undrawn at this point in time, which brings me to the last point, which is a little bit on -- discussion on the dividend proposal from the Board. On the basis of the strong financial results, the strong balance sheet that I just discussed, where we are a debt-free company, and also a sound financial flexibility which this good results has provided us, the Board is proposing a 4x increase in dividends compared with 2019, going from NOK 2 in 2019 to a proposal of NOK 8 for 2020. That is also pursuant to our dividend policy, which is where we have an ambition to pay a dividend of at least 50% of the net profit for the year. And the Board also shall take into consideration the future outlook, capital expenditure, capital needs for the business, both organic and nonorganic growth, and also taking into account the balance sheet position of the company and to ensure also that we have adequate financial flexibility as we move into the following year. Thank you.

[Grethe Bergly, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Hans-Jorgen. I will then take you through the status of the nextLEVEL program. And as you can see, we are now ahead of the NOK 150 million that we set as our target when we announced this in the autumn of 2019. And we have now implemented or are on the verge of implementing activities that will give an effect of NOK 163 million on our spread on our bottom line. I would like to remind you all that we will not necessarily see this in 2021 as some of these are more long-term activities, but it will eventually hit us normally, I expect to see it in -- within 2022. We have had 2 main areas, and that's cost out and operations. As you can see here, that we have made changes also improvements since the last report on the cost out, but it's in the operations area that we are now reporting significant changes from the last quarter. And this is mainly because we have been quite prudent on reporting effect to make sure that they were actually lasting effect. This goes both to the cut of costs in the various business areas to see that we've actually managed to increase the utilization and not least that we are seeing that the efficiency in our project was one that was sustainable. Looking forward, we are in a strong position with our clients. We've seen a positive development in the ongoing turnaround process, and we are ahead of schedule when it comes to the nextLEVEL program. We leave 2020 with an all-time high order backlog. And the overall market outlook and tender pipe is good and strong in most business areas, but we still have to remind ourselves on some uncertainty with regards to the ongoing pandemic. And we are also well positioned towards sustainable and digital solutions that we look forward to assisting our clients with. And with that, we finish off. This is our financial calendar. We look forward to seeing you then on the 17th of February to give you the results of the first quarter 2021, and we are now open for questions.

[Mirza Koristovic, Head of Investor Relations & Finance]

Yes, there -- actually, we give it a couple of seconds. I haven't got any questions yet. No. I don't think there will be any questions.

[Grethe Bergly, Chief Executive Officer]

No. Okay. Then we say thank you, everybody, and have a nice day.