Addtech AB

STO:ADDT B

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Niklas Stenberg, MD, President, CEO & Director]

Good morning, and welcome, everyone, to this quarterly report presentation. With me, Niklas Stenberg; and Malin Enarson, CFO. Due to technical issues from our supplier, we were not able to do a live presentation. So instead, we do a recorded presentation. I'm sorry about that. It's a great pleasure to conclude another strong quarter for Addtech. Our solid positions in strategically selected growth areas continues to deliver good organic growth in all business areas. The customer demand remains strong in all key segments. So the increase is really across the board. Net sales up 24%, of which 13% is organic. And Q3 last year was still a bit hampered by COVID but we had tougher comps this third quarter than previous in the year. Our entrepreneurs out in the companies continue to cope with the strained supply chains in a very satisfying way. I really want to stress out that I'm impressed and thankful for all their great efforts. It's a tough situation to deal with. But thanks to their commitments, we have been able to deliver to our customers in accordance -- basically in accordance with our commitments. And impressed EBITDA increased by 51% year-on-year, strong earnings growth in all business areas. Our cash flow continues to be affected by receivables and inventory buildup to fulfill the strong customer demand and the longer lead times. So it's quite natural situation for us, but we continue to improve our [ R/RK ] or profitable working capital to a record high level. A few more comments on sales. As I've said, the challenges with strained supply chain remains, but hard work from companies and good executions on project deliveries, primarily in Industrial Solutions and Process Technology and also acquisitions performing well has given the strong growth. And overall market situation have been favorable in the key segments and geographies. The only segment still having low activity is the marine sector. And geographically, I would say, U.K. had the weakest growth situation. What stands out in the quarter is that the positive trend regarding input components to different manufacturing industries like mechanical, medical, special vehicles remains. So a good willingness in investing here. And for sure, project sales to forestry and sawmill industry being very strong, primarily affecting Industrial Solutions business area. Our order situation was also very good and stable along the quarter, and we continue to build order backlog. It's quite natural that we build a longer order backlog when we have long lead times. And when I say that we think demand will abate somewhat when the supply chains are normalizing, we don't really talk about the underlying customer demand that we believe will continue to be good, but it will be a situation where in the normalization period where it can be stabilization on demand. EBITDA, as I said, very strong, good mix between acquisitions and organic growth. So again, main reason is the broad market situation, but we also have a positive effect from -- still having quite low cost levels. And keeping a good track on the price inflation so we've been able to protect the gross margins. On this picture, you see our 5 business areas and very satisfying to see that all business areas contribute to the strong results. High sales growth, solid EBITDA compared to last year and the increased margins in all of the business areas. As you can see, strongest growth both in numbers and percentage come from Industrial Solutions. A few words on each of the business areas. Automation, main segment for automation is medical, a good development even though there was some positive COVID effects last year. And the other main markets for automation, also very good development. Especially, I would like to mention we have a number of bigger units in Central Europe, and they had a very good development. Electrification, also good momentum in the key segments: Electronics, Energy division, special vehicles. Demand from customized battery solutions remains strong. Margin a bit weak this quarter, but considering the one-offs of SEK 3 million, we would have approximately 11%. And also Electrification is usually more affected by December effect, especially on the gross margin than the other business areas. Energy had a good development considering quite tough comps from last year. Market situation for infrastructure products to the grids improved further, especially in Sweden. So we had fuel activities on new projects coming in, which is very positive. Also building installation was a strong market for Energy. Industrial Solutions, customer demand within forest industry continues to improve. The will to invest in sawmill industry is historically high, and we have a number of companies operating here. But also the second large segment for the area is ergonomic products and hydraulic solutions for special vehicles, and that also continued to improve. A very strong EBITDA margin due to strong project execution giving a high operating leverage. And finally, Process Technology. And this is the business area exposed to marine sector where we have this turbulent development in scrubber business a couple of years in back. And it's very satisfying to see that Process Technology have done an excellent rebound from the scrubber business, both organic and good contributions from acquisitions. And again, a good outcome in project-related sales in the quarter. Shortly, summarizing the accumulated figures on the 3 first quarters. An organic growth of 12% and increased EBITDA of 40%. And on EBITDA, I want to point out that we have good contributions from acquisitions, but it's primarily the good organic performance. And this proves that we are doing a very good job working with operational excellence and take opportunities on the market. So 3 companies acquired during the quarter, which adds up to 12 companies acquired so far this financial year, adding almost SEK 900 million. I would have expected 1 or 2 more closed deals, but we are in line with our targets and the year is not finished yet. We worked very strategic long term and carefully with our acquisitions. And as long as we have a good inflow of new prospects and as we have right now a good amount of ongoing process in different stages, it's really business as usual for us. And the pipeline looks very good, both in Nordics and on selected markets outside of the Nordics. So all of our business areas and unit managers are having an active M&A agenda and still the majority of the deals we do have been generated through our own networks. And we prefer to do deals like this since we are very mindful of the cultural matching of the companies we acquired. Malin, some words on the financial side?

[Malin Enarson, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes. Thank you. The development in sales in the quarter as well as in the period has come from a good demand situation in mainly all of our important market segments as you have heard Niklas talk about now. With professionally protected gross margins and continuously low cost, we achieved a very satisfying profit that once again significantly exceeded the increasing sales. .As you can see, the rolling 12 margin is still increasing, even though we saw a sequential decline in Q3. Good leverage, as Niklas said, from the organic growth, together with contributions from good margin acquisitions, still delivered good margins for the quarter, but the boost from previous year's efficiency measures hit the roof in Q2 as expected. Our costs remained low and even though now we see an organic growth of employees again, our costs are still not back to the pre-pandemic levels. In our prognosis, we have expectation of rising costs going forward due to increasing marketing activities throughout the organization. So margins should stabilize on a somewhat lower level than we see for the period accumulated, even though we expect margins to be good for the year as a whole. We're glad to see that our [ R/RK ] keeps climbing to new record levels, 66%, as you heard, Niklas mention. This is mainly due to high profit and margins. Our working capital is bound to raise for the moment, both due to increased volumes that means more capital tied up in accounts receivable but also due to the fact that we need to allow inventory levels to rise due to component shortages and long lead times. Our cash flow in the quarter was boosted by higher profit, but hampered from the relative change in working capital despite our company's great effort in achieving good [ R/RK ] level. We would, of course, have preferred to see the cash flow increase due to the higher profit. But the fact that good growth gives us a bit of a restrain on working capital is a well-known fact as I mentioned, and together with the fact that we had a very good boost from change in working capital last year gives us tough comparisons this quarter. Looking at our key KPIs, like equity ratio, leverage and gearing, we see that they are at satisfactory level. The trend line of our gearing is in perfect line with expectations with the highest level always during the second quarter, then back to normal in the third quarter. Our credit facilities have comforting headroom and are sufficient for our ambitions going forward. And we believe that the balance sheet could also stand for more with remaining good key ratios.

[Niklas Stenberg, MD, President, CEO & Director]

Thank you, Malin. This is the first quarter we will report according to our new sharpened organization that were in place from 1st of October last year. And it's very satisfying to see that the new organization setup has really fallen out in a great way. So I must say that we have done a tremendous job to form new groups and to really capture the fantastic growth potential that we see out of the drivers in the different business areas. We have also done a seamless generation shift on some key positions. All of these positions have been taken by internal candidates with long experience from driving entrepreneurial business. And for us, this is an important success factor. So I feel very positive of the energy coming from these new groups. And to summarize, Again, a very strong quarter with good organic growth in all business areas. Very strong EBITDA growth, over 50% year-on-year, increased margins in all of the business areas. And if we look ahead, we have the fourth quarter now. We have a strong order backlog and still a high level of demand. And some stabilization once the lead times normalize. We don't see any clear signs on normalization yet. So we assume that it will be at least the first half of 2020, we will have to continue to struggle with that situation. That's a very positive view, and it feels great to be part of Addtech this day. Thank you very much.