Norbit ASA

OSE:NORBT

Earnings Call Transcript 2019-Q4

[Per Jorgen Weisethaunet, Group Chief Executive Officer]

Welcome to Norbit's Q4 and Full Year '19 Presentation. My name is Per Jorgen Weisethaunet. I will present today together with our CFO, Stian Lønvik. Today is a special day for Norbit. The 14th of February 1995, Norbit was established, exactly 25 years ago today. It's been a long and interesting journey. Still, it feels like we've been preparing ourself for something bigger. We have a company culture inspired by explorers, setting out to reach ambitious, demanding goals. Those doing the best preparation with lots of training and planning reach their goals. Our vision is to be regarded as world class, enabling people to explore more. Norbit is the global provider of tailored technology to carefully selected niches. We utilize market domain knowledge to invent technology, products and solution that makes the life easier for our clients. Based on in-house R&D capacity and world-class robotized manufacturing, we have realized a range of tailored technology into some carefully selected niches. This has given us a diversified and robust business model with sharp, focused business units. We will give you some updates from each segment. So this fourth quarter for 2019 has been another strong quarter for Norbit. We have delivered revenues of NOK 187 million. This represents a 46% growth year-on-year for the same quarter the previous year with a EBITDA of NOK 40 million, representing a margin of 22%. For the full year of 2019, we have revenues of NOK 668 million, representing a 52% growth compared to 2018. What's very satisfying is that all segments contribute considerably to the growth. EBITDA ended on NOK 150 million, which is exactly a doubling compared to 2018. I'm also happy to announce that our prominent Board of Directors has proposed a dividend of NOK 0.6 per share. Coming into the segments, Norbit Oceans. So the core offering in Norbit Ocean is still based on our own proprietary sonar solutions. We have further strengthened the market organization in Oceans. We have added very experienced, commercially minded colleagues, bringing complementary domain knowledge. As previously announced, we have a strategy to broaden our product offering in this segment. So the Oceans segment has an all-time high quarterly revenue. The revenues for the quarter was NOK 81 million with a EBITDA of 24%. For the full year, which is also all-time high as all years has been for this segment continuous growth, so the full revenues are NOK 249 million, representing a 31% growth year-over-year. EBITDA margin ended on 26%. We have recently announced a successful result of our strategy of broadening the product offering. We've been awarded a contract, a major energy company, which I will tell you a little bit more about. So this is a solution for surveillance and environmental monitoring. It's -- we've been awarded a contract for a system for vessel traffic monitoring and early warning asset protection to a company in a region where we not been present on such solutions before. Going to the ITS segment. In ITS, as previously explained, this has been a year with some introduction of a completely new product line where we have some short-range communication solutions for secure enforcement of certain application related to trucks, one of those being remote enforcement, wireless reading of tachographs in trucks and others being enforcement units related to satellite-based tolling. It's also a very strong quarter for ITS in Q4. So we have delivered NOK 47 million in revenues with a very strong EBITDA margin of 43%. For the full year, it's NOK 186 million in the segment with a 45% EBITDA margin. So in the third segment, Product Innovation & Realization, this is where we do some contract manufacturing to external clients. We are delivering some R&D services. And it's a range of products accumulated with our own IP sold to long-term selected industrial clients. So 2019 has also been a good year for this segment in both for the Q4 and for the full year. So the total revenues for 2019 is NOK 260 million, representing a satisfying growth. And we have a EBITDA margin of 9%. Then I'll leave the stage for our CFO, Stian, to guide you through our group financials.

[Stian Lønvik]

Thank you, Per Jorgen. So going into the P&L, we had a very strong fourth quarter. We had revenues of NOK 186.5 million, representing a 46% growth from year-over-year. And as you see in the graph, quarterly fluctuations are normal. We have that for the 8 previous quarters. You can see the fluctuations in revenues, and we can also expect that going forward into 2020. We had an EBITDA in the fourth quarter of NOK 40.2 million. For the full year of 2019, we had revenues of NOK 668 million, representing a 52% growth compared to 2018. And as Per Jorgen said, all segments have contributed to this growth. Full year EBITDA was NOK 149.7 million, and we had an EBIT of NOK 103 million. We have a tax expense of NOK 18.2 million. But due to losses carry forward from previous acquisitions, none tax is payable. So this has no cash effect for Norbit in 2020. We had an earning per share of NOK 1.45. So into the balance sheet, on the asset side, we have intangible assets: R&D of NOK 135.3 million. This is an increase of NOK 6.7 million in the quarter and NOK 31 million during '19 as a full year. We have inventories of NOK 167.8 million, and that's up NOK 3.6 million the last quarter and for the full year, NOK 44.9 million. We had said that before that we have been increasing the stock level during 2019 because of the electronic component situation in the world. But as you see also, in Q4, this growth or this inventory level is not growing as before during -- in 2019. We had trade receivables of NOK 149.9 million, and this is increased due to higher activity and revenues in the quarter. Year-end, we had bank deposits of NOK 21.7 million, and this is an increase of NOK 15.9 million in Q4. So going into equity and liabilities, borrowings are reduced in 2019, as commented also in Q3. Net interest-bearing debt is 0. We had -- we have an undrawn facility short-term of NOK 130 million, and we have a long-term undrawn facility of NOK 150 million. Trade receivable has also gone a little bit up during Q4, and this is due to higher activity and it ended on NOK 89.2 million. We have a very strong equity ratio in Norbit. It's almost 74%. Equity is NOK 443.6 million at year-end. And then into the cash flow. We had a very, very strong fourth quarter. We had an operational cash flow of NOK 49.1 million, and we had a net decrease in working capital of NOK 5.9 million. We have, of course, been spending some money also this quarter on R&D, especially. And R&D investments was NOK 13.3 million. And we had a property, plant and equipment cash outflow of NOK 10.2 million. Five of those millions were related to the factory expansion in Røros. We had financing activities of minus NOK 9.7 million. For full year, we have an operational cash flow of NOK 41.2 million and a net increase in working capital of NOK 90.1 million, which is due to the higher activity level and also the inventories going up as previously explained. Our investing activities was NOK 81.9 million, although R&D investment is NOK 59 million for the full year. Cash flow from financing activities was NOK 53.3 million, and this is, of course, explained by the capital increase and also the repayment of debt. Yes. So then Per Jorgen will tell you a little bit about the outlook.

[Per Jorgen Weisethaunet, Group Chief Executive Officer]

Yes. Coming to the outlook. So we maintain our long-term financial targets. We see a large untapped potential for technology in the Oceans segment, especially including also opportunities for expanding into new submarkets. A significant part of our R&D investments are allocated to broadening the product offering in Oceans. Looking into 2020. We expect R&D investment to be approximately 8% to 10% of revenues. Quarterly revenues are expected to fluctuate. And segment margins are expected to vary based on product mix. We see that we, in our ITS segment, has a very strong position as supplier of our tailored technology. This is both to automotive and satellite-based tolling clients. We expect somewhat lower visibility in orders from automotive in the short term. This is due to the expected decline in demand for heavy trucks for 2020. We see very positively on the long-term outlook for satellite-based tolling. This is underpinned by intensified interest for road pricing and distance-based taxation. And as announced, our Board of Directors proposed a dividend of NOK 0.6 per share. We think with our diversified and robust business model, we are very well positioned for future growth. Thank you.