Tomra Systems ASA

OSE:TOM

Earnings Call Transcript 2017-Q4

[Stefan Ranstrand, Chief Executive Officer and President]

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome to the fourth quarter 2017 results announcement of the Tomra Group. My name is Stefan Ranstrand. With me today I have Espen Gundersen, Head of Finance; and we have Elisabet Sandnes, Head of IR.And I start talking about the year, we had a growth in the year of 12% that come from a reduction in revenues in Collection of 5%. It comes from a growth in Sorting Solutions amounting to 9%, and it comes from the adding of Compac, which was acquired February 1. Compac is a company, which we acquired to extend the portfolio in food sorting. We'll talk a little bit more about that later.Looking at the results, fairly eventful on the -- eventless on the gross margin and operating expenses, no major changes there, and we landed an earnings EBITA of NOK 1,068,000,000. Cash flow was solid with slightly over NOK 1 billion.If you look at the year as such, we can summarize it fairly shortly I think. We had some main events. For Collection Solutions, we are in the midst or towards the end of a replacement cycle in Germany that affected the results negatively in the quarter and the year. In Tomra Sorting Solutions, we saw growth in all businesses and -- all business streams. As I said before, we added Compac to the portfolio in the year. And as of December 1, we also went live with our Container Deposit solution system in New South Wales, in Australia. We will talk a little bit more about that in the presentation as well.And if I may talk a little bit about the bigger picture. Tomra is a company which is focusing on sensor-based solutions for optimal resource productivity. We see some major trends in the global economy affecting our business. I would like to point at events like smart city development, digital economy growth that has effect in a positive way. It open up -- opens up many opportunities for us in the market.We are strong in the food sector -- food security and the rising demand for food driven by consumers, accelerating in emerging markets is important -- is a driver, and the whole waste sector -- we talk about circular economy, the ability to reuse material in a economical way, where we see increased environmental concerns around the globe, especially maybe presently driven by the marine littering or plastic oceans, that is really a concern where we are talking about that it might come to a situation where we have equal amount of plastic as we have fish in the oceans. That drives for, how can you reduce littering, and obviously our technologies are very efficient in that regard.We also see increased regulations driving demand for our solutions and we also see growth in packaging waste, very much driven by digital economy especially e-commerce which is then a beneficial or a factor when we look into how the business develops.I go over to talking about the quarter. In the quarter, we saw a revenue growth of 16% in all. Organically, we experienced a reduction in Collection Solutions again building on the same logic as I talked about before in Germany, it went down 6%. We saw an increase in Sorting Solutions organically at 12%. On top of that, we have added Compac and we have recorded minor first revenues from the activity in New South Wales in Australia.Pleasantly is also that we have an order intake growth in Sorting Solutions of 11%, so that's robust. And we have an order backlog which is year-on-year up 24% and ending at NOK 872 million. So that's a sound backlog we have the year.With that, I will actually hand over to Espen to talk a bit about some more numbers.

[Espen Gundersen]

Thank you. A quick look at currencies. As you know, U.S. dollars and euros is the 2 most important currencies for Tomra. And looking at the euro, it has strengthened quarter-over-quarter 6%, and that's positive measuring our self in Norwegian crown. The U.S. dollar is somewhat down but the net effect is still positive. So we have some tailwind on currencies in this quarter.As you also see on the right hand column in the quarter, where we report adjusted figures. For the year, as you see the full year figures, U.S. dollars and euros, both has been rather stable compared to last year. So there's really no material currency effects on group level for the full year.Top line in the quarter was up 16%, it's mainly about inorganic growth coming from Compac, 2% without Compac. Little brother, Sorting Solution, has this quarter become the big brother and is the first time with more than NOK 1 billion in revenues. And that's, of course, fun for us to see even though for the year just still slightly smaller than Collection, it's 52%, 48% is kind of the percentages for the 2 units. And this is going to be interesting to see, of course, where they will be going forward. Margins are stable, slightly up, OpEx is again significantly up but then again it's explained by Compac acquisition and the ramp-up cost in New South Wales.We indicated last quarter that we will use around AUD 10 million in ramp-up costs and they ended up to be NOK 57 million, which is very close to AUD 10 million. So -- and EBITA at NOK 301 million, it's a 15% margin.Looking at cash flow, balance sheet, we have also this year and this quarter a strong cash flow, particularly at the end of the year. December is a very strong cash flow month ending the year at NOK 1,023,000,000 in cash flow from operations. So round figures NOK 1 billion generated in cash from operations. We have invested NOK 900 million, which is about Compac, New South Wales and then a little more than NOK 300 million of recurring CapEx investments on top of that. And then we have paid out a dividend of a little more than NOK 300 million.So we have used more than we have gained because of the investment and the dividend, and consequently the interest bearing debt on the EBITA has increased from 0.3% to 0.5% during 2017. Still a very strong balance sheet, 55% equity, strong cash position, good cash generation, predictable cash generation. As we see historically, we more or less mirror every year going backwards. And of course, Tomra has a significant dividend capacity.Currently, we are we are delivering in according to our dividend policy, which says 40% to 60% of the EPS should be paid out, and the board has decided to suggest a dividend of NOK 2.35 for this year, which is 12% up from last year and is 57% of earnings per share. It's, as I said, possible to pay out more, no doubt about that. At the same time we see projects in pipeline that might materialize, which also will need financing and consequently we hope we could offer our investors a better return by keeping some of this capacity going forward.So all in, a strong balance sheet. I also mentioned that the working capital, defined as inventory plus receivable minus non-interest bearing debt, has improved during 2017 as it did during 2016, also explaining some of the strong cash flow generated in the period. Leaving the stage for Stefan and Sorting Solutions -- sorry Collection Solutions.

[Stefan Ranstrand, Chief Executive Officer and President]

Collection Solutions, yes. Thank you, Espen. So when I start talking about the Collection Solutions, we are, as you all hopefully know, a clear #1 in this sector. We have in about 30 markets machines installed. We invented this business and our biggest market is Germany. And Germany plays a role here because in 2006 they introduced a deposit legislation in the market. And we are in the midst of a replacement cycle, which we actually indicate on this graph here. Those machines installed around 2006 are -- many of them are now being replaced. And we experienced that this replacement would start 2015, '14 slightly, and go until roughly 2018. That has been our estimate so far.And we have landed fairly well. We made an indication of the band in which should the replacement be, between 2,007 [sic] [ 2,700 ] to 3,700 machines per year. It happened to be very high in this range, the outcome for the first 2 years for '15 and '16. And consequently, there is a limited amount to be replaced. We will see a slower demand in '17 and most likely also in '18. And this is exactly what we have experienced.So if I look at the facts, in 2015 we experienced a growth of 40% in the quarter in Central Europe, and '16 stayed up -- slightly down, but stayed up on a high level, and now in '17, we saw a slight reduction of the demand there. So that really explains the development on top line on Collection Solutions.Apart from that, we are performing well in all markets. Northern Europe we had the replacement as you know in Sweden. That has ended but other markets have actually been able to compensate for the downfall here. So Northern Europe is performing well. We see a slight growth in North America, 4%. Nothing substantial, but still it's a growth there. And we have added in Asia Pacific the New South Wales, which came on alive on December 1, 2017. We got award -- on the tender award around mid-July and then we had to prepare for this ramp-up.And we are still in a ramp-up phase. Espen will talk a little bit more about it, but I just learned yesterday that we have until now from December 1 until today, until yesterday, collected 100 million objects, which is the objective of this, introduction of a tender deposit system was to reduce littering. And the 100 million objects is, I think, a clear sign that the system is working.We get positive feedback from the consumers, the users. The system is functioning well, but we get complaints that it's not everywhere and of course this is a result of a ramp-up. It's a quite vast geographical area, the state of New South Wales, and we still have to do a job there to complete the installation. Espen will talk more about that.But all-in-all, I think we should be proud about what the team has done. It's been a major effort for us. We have had a lot of people from all over the group going down to help us build up. It's a location far away from home. It's a new system in many dimensions technically when it comes to the hardware, but also the software there are many new aspects there. And then you -- other things that we did not know before about getting approval to install and new partnerships, et cetera. So if I look into this complete picture, it's quite a complex project and I'm very proud of what the team has done. And the system is running. Now it's just to complete it. We are confident this will be a good success.We are also looking at some new markets. We anticipate that Queensland in Australia will introduce a deposit legislation. And for that, we are actually in a tender process, so that is so advanced. And we view Scotland also coming on board later. There are some other markets which we are observing but these are 2 concrete markets we dare to talk about. We believe that we can see some real results in the future.With that, I will hand over to Espen to go through the New South Wales details and also the financials.

[Espen Gundersen]

Most of you probably remember this history. There was a tender process in New South Wales and in July 2017 Tomra together with Cleanaway was awarded the contract for operating the system in New South Wales. Cleanaway is the biggest waste management company in Australia and we have together formed a joint venture which is rather slim in respect that we have outsourced most of the activities. Tomra is operating their infrastructure of automated collection points and Cleanaway is doing the pickup, the processing and the marketing of the material, meaning the bottles and can going through the system.And as of the commencement date, meaning the start-up date, 1st of December, we have installed 60 automated collecting points and 220 manual points, in total 280 points or sites. And we are in a ramp-up period. Fourth quarter, we mentioned NOK 57 million expensed in this project and we will continue ramping up.Today we are around 120 automated sites installed and when finished, there will be somewhat above 500 sites operational and more than half of this will be automated meaning mainly using RVMs. The standard center, going back to the previous slide, is what you see in the behind here with a kiosk standing outside typical parking lots with 4 centers or 4 machines in each center. So if you say that it will be a little more than 500 centers, more than half being automated with 4 machines in each, you can multiply and see it will be around 1,000, maybe slightly above, reverse vending machines installed in Australia when this is fully rolled out.The volume is increasing every day going to our infrastructure. That's because more and more centers being opened, more and more awareness is being built in the market. Our revenue is directly linked to the volumes being processed and collected. So as we add centers and get more volumes, revenues and profitability will increase also.And how -- where we will end up is today still uncertain. As we don't know the split between manual and automated sites, we don't know the exact return rate. Even in the deposit system, not all bottles is coming back. And you also have seasonalities affect here when it comes to summer which is now in Australia, you drink more than during the winter. And this is elements that influence the totality. Also the cannibalisms, when you know how high volumes in few centers, adding new centers will also take away some of the volumes from the existing centers.So it's going to be interesting to see where we end up because the end here will be very depending upon what we managed to make out of this at the end. We will give you updates as we go, but the start has been according to plan and we are happy both for the technical solution and the volumes in general.Looking at the figures, as Stefan mentioned, we have been down on top line. It's all about Central Eastern Europe meaning Germany which has lower volumes. Nordic, which now has been named Northern Europe, it's comprised, and also Scotland for instance and the Baltics, has been up even though we have the Swedish rates last year which you might remember. So but even though Sweden is down, the other Nordic countries has more than offset that at least for the quarter. U.S. is, as usual, rather stable, 4% up in local currencies. And rest of the world is now more and more Australia, better revenues in the quarter is still less than NOK 10 million stemming from Australia. Margin, slightly up, cost under control when we include the NOK 57 million of operating expenses coming from Australia.Now Sorting Solutions.

[Stefan Ranstrand, Chief Executive Officer and President]

Yes, we can maybe not very much longer say last but not least because you said we're almost the same size now. So we will see how that ends up. But what I can talk about Sorting Solutions, we are active in 3 sectors. It's in food, our biggest sector, it's in recycling, and it's in mining. And in general, we are using sorters with advanced sensor technology, artificial intelligence, a lot of data being collected and worked on and we are a clear #1 in the world in all sectors.We see good momentum across all businesses. We have -- we contribute to securing quality, we contribute to improving productivity, and in many cases even enabling a business at all. They are, for instance, in recycling area plastics you could not sort manually, you cannot see the difference, but our sensors will be able to see the difference. So it's high-tech in that regard.And with growth volumes in both food growth waste volumes, we see demand continue to pick up. In consequence, orders grow in the quarter with 11%. We have a robust order backlog of NOK 872 million. We see a slight gross margin erosion in the period and that is predominantly to be accounted for the addition of Compac, which had in the period a lower gross margin. And we see an earnings growth ending at NOK 182 million.A few words to Compac. We added it, as I said, before February 1, 2017. It is a logical portfolio extension into lane sorting, which we did not have before, we had bulk sorting only. It was a turnaround case and I'm very pleased with the execution of the team this year. They met our target, so it's so to say on track. It's about sorting fresh fruit. We see strong growth in this sector, so demand is there. And all-in-all we are pleased with that.We have a big part of our sales in North America and in U.S. dollars, so the currency plays a role here. So that is just to be aware of that when you look into that piece.With that, I'll go over and talk a little bit deeper about the different streams. So if you look into the financials, you will later see that Compac is predominantly contributing to more sales in North America and Oceania. That's where they have had the main business. They have a little bit in South America too and quite limited in Europe. That is, of course, an opportunity for us to extend that because we have a strong base in the geography.The demand for food in general is driven by the requirement for quality. So in order to deliver a continuous good quality in line with the brand, our sorters can guarantee that. We can with the sorters secure a continuous quality, we can sort away those products that do not meet the quality standards. It also contributes dramatically to increasing their productivity, both in terms of speed, how quick you can process food from a orchard or a farm into distribution of the system and also into having less labor doing the sort manually, which they can actually not do consistently good but that comes back more to the quality aspect.In addition to that, we see a globalization of food supply remembering that people today expect to buy fresh produce like blueberries, strawberries, tomatoes all year round. In order to do that, if you live on the Northern Hemisphere, you need to source from the Southern Hemisphere when we have the season -- off-season for the north as an example. So this globalization also requires more sorting, you have to sort at the orchard so you don't ship damaged or overripe fruit or food products across the oceans. So these are drivers.We experience growth in both bulk sorting, which is our traditional, and in lane sorting. And we also experience growth experience growth in all geographies.Tomra in food is #1 in the world. We have an estimated market share in bulk and in lane with about 25%. And we are the only company in the food universe that covers all these sectors.The recycling has also experienced strong growth for the time being. It's driven by regulations, so far instance packaging waste initiative of European Union, we have National Sword in China where China has decided to import -- have a ban on import of waste, meaning that now countries who did export their waste to China before have to treat it at home, and with that we see an increase in demand. But in general, also the growing waste volumes is critical here.And in this area, we are a clear #1. We have a market share north of 50% in the recycling sector and also from a technology, from a thought leadership, from a market reach, there is no one really to match us in today's world. It's an exciting sector.We also have mining. It's a smaller business. It has good momentum; it's smaller, so it doesn't make big impact on the group results. We have experienced great successes especially in the gemstone sector, diamonds. I think if you look back until 2015 when we launched our new technology for sorting diamonds, the majority of all big diamonds have been recovered through Tomra technology. Prior to that, most of these big stones were actually damaged in the process, but we have been able to transform that into a positive way.With that, I will actually hand over to Espen to talk some numbers.

[Espen Gundersen]

Yes, top line came in better than the indicated last quarter. Good commercial ratio in fourth quarter and first time a little above NOK 1 billion as mentioned. 41% growth on top line. But still taking out Compac, it's 12%.Looking at the geographies, it's North America and Oceania, meaning New Zealand, Australia is standing out and that's, of course, the most 2 important markets for Compac and that's where you see there's a most significant growth.Margins is slightly down, but for the year the decrease is higher and that has to do with Compac. But during 2017, we have seen Compac performance improving and it's not a [ dilutory really ] anymore and the same it was historically. So it's part of the continuous improvement we have seen from Compac is now coming through also in the consolidated figures.This is the last time you will see Compac figures explicitly in the presentation as we now have had 4 quarters with Compac and it's kind of being part of the history. And there's no inorganic effect going forward, maybe except for January 2018 as we acquired the company 1st of February with the accounting effects in 2017.But we have, as I said, all-time high revenues, but also actually all-time high order intake even though mainly in line with the 2 last quarter which both has also been strong. So despite high revenue, high order intake has also made the backlog healthier and we are ending 2017 with a significantly better backlog than we did last year.Conversion ratio is estimated to be 70%, meaning revenues in first quarter 2018 is assumed to be around 70% of the backlog. This is not a guiding, it will never be a guiding, but it's just for those of you that try to model this on a quarterly basis. It's our best guess from where we will end up on revenue side.Outlook, Germany in Collection will always influence the figures and as Stefan mentioned we have had 2 good years in '15 and '16, still an okay year in '17 but in the low part of the band and '18 will probably also be in the low part of the band. Since we started high, we also will be low in the 2 years '17 and '18.New South Wales, we are in a ramp-up period. When we reach full momentum and at what time, it's too early to say. But all in, we expect that revenues in New South Wales be -- very round figures -- NOK 50 million in first quarter and minus NOK 10 million on EBITA line. We hope to reach profitability by fourth quarter in 2018 in New South Wales.On Sorting, as I said, there is a strong order backlog and that also is a good start for 2018. And the order situation overall is good in all 3 business units.Currency, which Stefan also touched upon, we have so far in first quarter a strong euro. It's 6%, 7% up compared to last year measured in Norwegian crown. That's good for Tomra. We have a weak U.S. dollar, which is 6%, 7% down compared to last year. So it's still offsetting to some extent each other, but the net, in Collection, a positive effect.But going to Sorting, remember Sorting has a significant euro and to some extent New Zealand dollar cost base and significant U.S. dollar revenues. So looking at the U.S. dollar euro cross is actually in 13%, 14% down compared to last quarter. So that is a negative for Sorting. So it might be that you will see this in the margins on Sorting if this currency regime is maintained going forward.I guess that concludes the presentation and we open up for questions from the audience and on the net.

[Elisabet Sandnes]

Thank you, Espen. We have some questions from the web, but we will take that at the end and we will open up for questions from the audience first.

[Mikkel Nyholt]

Mikkel Nyholt, Carnegie. Is it possible to elaborate a bit on the growth you see in Collection in North America? This market continues to surprise me every quarter being so strong that it is.

[Stefan Ranstrand, Chief Executive Officer and President]

In the period, we have had good machine sales. But also remember we have quite a big business in material handling or material recovery we call it, where we also collect and sort the beverage containers. There is no major changes in the landscape, meaning that there has been no new changes in legislation. So it's the base business that is just continuing to grow here. We have expanded our collection system in North America when it comes to what we call redemption center and that also contributes on the material recovery side. But there are no spectacular explanations for it. It is -- we are polling our market share in the market and yes, no further explanations than that.

[Unknown Analyst]

[ Ekland Ternoss ] [indiscernible] On New South Wales, you had ramp up costs of around NOK 57 million in the quarter. In your guidance for Q1, does that include in all costs in those minus NOK 10 million in EBITA or do you expect additional ramp-up costs as you continue to ramp up in New South Wales?

[Espen Gundersen]

That includes the ramp up costs. And remember the way it works that as we add additional infrastructure, we also add additional costs here. So today, the machines and the centers we have are highly utilized. So the breakeven point for revenue is actually increasing as we add infrastructure also. But the way we kind of indicate this is including the ramp-up costs that's relevant for the quarter all in. A few more figures on Australia, we have, as of end fourth quarter, invested around AUD 25 million in New South Wales. That's mainly fixed assets. All in, we expect to be closer to AUD 50 million invested, but the increase throughout 2018 will mainly be more on the working capital side. So it might be that you will see the cash flow from operations being negative influenced by -- as we increase activity in Australia.

[Elisabet Sandnes]

We have some questions from the web. The first one is from [ Thomas Raeford ]. It is now very likely according to media that England will introduce a bottle sorting solution similar to what we have in Norway. What will this say for Tomra and how many machines are we then talking about for the U.K. markets?

[Stefan Ranstrand, Chief Executive Officer and President]

Would you like -- I think you are good at it.

[Espen Gundersen]

It's -- first it's important to say that yes England is looking at this together with some other countries. It's part of what Stefan started to talk about also, about the plastic in the ocean, that there is some momentum around deposit systems now which is positive for Tomra of course. But then historically most of the deposit initiatives that has evolved and almost got into loss at some stage has been for some reason not really materialized. New governments come in place, new agendas and there are still companies and stakeholders out there that's working against that don't like deposit systems. Also be a little cautious to be too excited also about all those opportunities that you might read about in media. But that said, there is absolutely a lot of discussions ongoing around. And England is one of those, they are looking at what Scotland is doing and it's not completely unlikely that we also will see a deposit system in England materializing someday. How many machines is the usual questions and it's completely depending upon what kind of system they want to introduce. It's about what type of material do they want to take, all bottles, only small big bottles what plastic, glass and so on. And it's about the system as such. Historically we have like in Germany like in Scandinavian countries, a system where we produce and sell machines to the retailers because retailer has an obligation to take back empty bottles. This is one model that serves us well. We have seen the 2 large markets opening up, namely Lithuania and New South Wales being lease markets where we have taken a larger responsibility owning the collection infrastructures. This increased the risks, this increased the expenses. And -- but it also is a model where we have big opportunities, so significant opportunities because you can really run economy of scale in larger areas with infrastructure owned and operated by us. And whether they will go for the one solution and the other solution is, of course, influencing very much upon what type of machines they need, how many machines and so on. Just view some figures, in Germany today there is, I guess, 84 million citizens and they have today installed, round figures, 40,000 reverse vending machines. 30,000 of those machines has a Tomra logo. I just mentioned New South Wales, this was kind of a different model. New South Wales has 7.8 million citizens and I mentioned that we will run this with round figures 1,000 RVMs. And then you can do the math and you can see that England with 55 million citizens you can build a system with 10,000 machines and you can build a system with 25,000 machines. But that's both in scenarios where there has been established deposit on all type of packaging, which is relevant both on Germany and New South Wales, but that's kind of some reference point. And we don't know whether it will be depositing and we don't know eventually what type of deposit system there will be, we don't know what kind of material, and what kind of return systems that they want. So there's many uncertainties, but just giving you some reference points that you can say play with if you want to model or understand what potential the different markets might represent.

[Elisabet Sandnes]

Thank you. There's the second question from [ Thomas Raeford ]. Can you comment on the global positive trend attention with implementing reverse vending systems through -- to reduce plastic on land and in the ocean?

[Stefan Ranstrand, Chief Executive Officer and President]

I can talk a little bit about that. So again, the marine littering is a real concern. Most of the plastic you will find in the ocean actually is coming from land. Some studies point at about 80% -- 70% to 80% of the plastic you find in the ocean is probably wasted on the shore side, not being ships thrown overboard. So it's a land-based problem. And then very often if -- and most of what you find the plastic is actually either beverage containers or plastic bags, some film also. Now very often people consume a bottle or a plastic object, throw it away into the nature and that will then with the help of wind, rain go into the floods and go out into the oceans. That is the effect here what is happening. With a collection system in place, we see that we have return rates of the beverage containers ranging from 85% to 99%, so very efficient. If you have no content deposit system in place, you will have a typical return rate into the waste stream of 40% to 50%, tops 50%. I mean really that's really world class. So that is in essence how you can compare and advocate for the introduction of a deposit system. It really contributes to reducing. So how can you make less plastic in the ocean? You can either reduce the inflow of new plastics or you can take out. We don't have technology to take out. There are probably many ways to work around that, but we can contribute to reducing the inflow and we can contribute to making sure that what is being recycled or returned is also being used in an optimal way and here we strive for, of course, driving in a closed loop. So that a food packaging becomes a new food packaging and not being down cycle. I hope that answers the questions or did I misunderstand it.

[Elisabet Sandnes]

Thank you, Stefan. There's a last question from the web from Eivind Sars Veddeng with DNB. Can you quantify the currency sensitivity from a 10% stronger euro versus the dollar?

[Espen Gundersen]

I think I will need to answer that on group level. If you look at Slide 4 in the package, you see the currencies both on revenues and expense side. So we are more vulnerable for dollar fluctuation than euro fluctuations, but the totality is that 10% change in all other currencies towards Norwegian crown will have a 10% impact on bottom line, the way it's calculated now, and the dollar is more important than the euros. So it make it a little complicated because it's probably questioning about Sorting effects and the Sorting isolated will have a negative effect, but then converting these figures back to Norwegian crown you get the help of those stronger euros also, which offsets some of that effect. But it's partly in the matrix you find on the bottom on Page 4.

[Elisabet Sandnes]

Thank you. Last question from the audience.

[Unknown Analyst]

[ Tove Bardon ], a private investor. Can you please elaborate a little bit more about the business model in New South Wales because I don't understand it completely? At the movement you have a lot of costs and you say you will be profitable at the end of the year, but I don't really understand the business model going forward, it's interesting.

[Stefan Ranstrand, Chief Executive Officer and President]

Let us -- we have examples of this kind of business before. Traditional as Espen said, Tomra has been selling machines to a retailer, they pay up front as we invest and then we normally have a service contract where we serve the machine and we're getting revenues from the service as well. In markets, we have it in North America since quite a long time, in the Northeast, we have it in Lithuania, and we now have it in Australia, we have what we call a throughput lease market. In this market, we actually, own and operate the machines and we get a handling fee, you can say, per object going through the machine. That is the way it's calculated. In some cases, we have a little bit more value-added services to that, so like in North America we also transport plastic or the recycle this back to a processing facility. We also sort it, so that it can go into a rear recycling. That part in the case of New South Wales is handled by our joint venture partner Cleanaway. So they collect material from the sites, they bring it to a processing facility, sort it so it can then be going into recycling and that's then another company doing that. So there are always different scenarios, there are -- the steps are, however, they are collecting the material and with that also you have all the data transaction of paying out the deposit to the consumer and making the clearance of all this data, then you have the compaction which we do, we do certain type of sorting. Bring it to -- transport it to a processing facility, where it's then prepared for recycling and then bring it to recycling. That's the normal chain. It just happens to be that in some markets we take on a bigger scope, not selling the machine and servicing, but also operating it. And we have evaluated that and it has a different cases, we have to invest more. We also have to have a bigger organization because we have a bigger scope, but we also have a different revenue stream and recurring revenues are certainly higher over time with that model. So there are pros and cons for both and we have learned to operate with both models. I hope that explains.

[Elisabet Sandnes]

There seems to be no further questions. And I'll hand it back to you to complete.

[Stefan Ranstrand, Chief Executive Officer and President]

Well, we would like to thank you very much for coming here, despite the cold weather, and listening to our results. We are pleased with the year. We have gone into New South Wales, which was a new milestone. If you think back on Collection Solutions, we don't have so many of these events historically. We had Germany 2006, then we had a water bottle in New York and Connecticut around 2000 what was that...

[Espen Gundersen]

'11.

[Stefan Ranstrand, Chief Executive Officer and President]

'11, yes. Then we had Lithuania coming on board and now we had New South Wales and we have a couple of more markets. So we seen that -- see that as something very positive. We also see the overall trend in Collection is in favor of this technology. So we don't see that this is a cash cow. This is a nice business that has the potential to continue to develop. We have added Compac to the portfolio making us a leader in the -- or extending our leadership in the food sorting sector. It is a sector which is showing good growth. Long term, we would need to produce about 70% more food to satisfy the global needs and you need sorters to minimize waste, to improve quality, and improve productivity, and support a global supply chain. I think we are rightly positioned here and we are excited about the future. And we continue to invest a lot in technologies, not only on the hardware, the sensors, artificial intelligence, but also on the connectivity and data side. So this is a smack in the middle of what we call digital economy. Recycling is very interesting, new drivers coming on board, and general driven by an increased packaging waste. Think of e-commerce, how much additional packaging waste you achieve through effects like people are buying online instead of in-store and see what that has with it for the future. We are quite excited about that. And we contribute to making sure that big diamonds are not being destroyed. That's also quite nice, not maybe lifesaving, but really nice for that industry and for the consumers. So thank you so much for listening in. And yes, we are pleased all-in-all with what we have experienced. Thank you.