Afry AB

STO:AFRY

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q3

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

So dear all, welcome to this presentation of the third quarter report for ÅF Pöyry, or AFRY. My name is Jonas Gustavsson. And I'm very pleased that you have taken the time to participate. As always, I will do a part of the presentation; and our CFO, Juuso Pajunen, will present the financial slides. And he is actually sitting in Helsinki during the presentation. So let's see and cross our fingers that the technology works, but we hope so. So again, very much welcome to this presentation.So let's start with the first slide, the summary slide. And as we have seen it, we have delivered a solid result in a recovering market. And I think that's one of the takeaway is that, of course, on the third quarter, we have had 2 months that has been kind of summer months, July, August. But what we saw in September was a clear pickup across all our segments basically.Our net sales ended up just about SEK 4 billion, which was lower than last year. If you take away the currency impact which was significant during the quarter, we ended up at 7.6%, lower than last year. But if you then compare to the quarter 2, it was still a sequential improvement. Our EBITA up SEK 288 million, equal to 7.2% on the EBITA margin. And I would say in the current market environment, we are pleased with being able to deliver a solid and stable margin. Of course, we want more, but I will say that it's been a stable quarter. And of course, this is due to all the mitigation activities we have done to meet effects from the COVID-19 but also, as we said, we had the currency impact in the quarter.In the market across, and we'll talk more about that, we could see a stabilization by end of the quarter. And again, we have also been able to strengthen the balance sheet, and Juuso is going talk more about that, giving us now the opportunity not only to focus a lot on organic growth, but also to start to look for some interesting acquisitions down the road. So we have been pleased that over the year, we have been able to strengthen the balance sheet and getting us in good shape for leaning forward even more now and looking for growth from an acquisition point of view.The currency, and again, Juuso will talk about that, it affected us in the quarter, and the top line effect was some SEK 160 million roughly negatively and also on the EBITA, it had a roughly SEK 15 million impact on our profit in the quarter. So the currency clearly had a more negative effect this quarter than the quarter -- the previous quarter. But again, then I will say, still, it's a solid result in a market where we can see recovery.Moving over to effects from COVID-19 because clearly, as we saw it in the second quarter, also the third quarter has been impacted from the COVID-19. So we have continued basically to work remote, work with digital platforms to keep our employees safe and healthy, and also to being able to deliver to our clients in working from -- remote, and that had worked as good in the third quarter as in the second quarter.We have some 1,900 employees on different kind of short-term work allowance during the end of the second quarter moving into the third. But what we have seen is that by end of the third quarter, we have been down to some 800, of course, now with ambitions to be basically down to 0 by end of November. So we see a steady ramping down on using these short-term work allowances across all segments.The efficiency program that we started by end of last year, the SEK 120 million, continues to develop and deliver according to plan. But on top of that, we are doing, of course, a lot of short-term mitigations. And the total effect in the third quarter was SEK 490 million, which is a mix of short and -- short-term savings and permanent savings. Again, Juuso will talk more about that. And the state subsidies was to the amount of SEK 62 million then supporting the fact that we had from 1,900 down to 800 employees on different kind of short-term work allowances in the quarter, so even the second quarter -- third quarter then has been really affected from the COVID-19 with a lot of cost mitigation activities.If we look at the market, as we said, it's been affected, but overall, there is a stabilization, what we feel, across all segments. We can see -- we have talked about that, the need for sustainable solutions and also more and more demand for using digitalization across all our segments. So obviously, this is something we have talked about, and we will start to invest and look even deeper into.Starting with Infrastructure, in general, a healthy underlying demand. However, what we have seen in the quarter, especially on the real estate side, on the private commercial side that actually affects both our building business area, but also architecture and design as well as product management. We have seen a weak quarter. However, we feel that is bottoming out also in that segment. So by end of the third quarter, we could see signs of recovery also in that segment.If we move over, transportation, which is rail and road, we have seen a stable demand also throughout the third quarter. But clearly, we have been affected then, especially from the commercial real estate in the third quarter on the infrastructure.On Industrial & Digital solutions, we have continued to felt (sic) [ feel ] effect, especially from the automotive and related supply chain. From the automotive segment, we felt that it bottomed out during the second quarter, and we have seen a slight, slight, slight recovery from lower levels in the third quarter. So if you want to put automotive and the commercial real estate, we felt automotive more bottomed out in the second quarter, while commercial real estate, we could feel that it's bottomed out in the third quarter. So segments are a bit different in the sequence, but that's how we have felt. We have seen a really continued strong demand in Food & Life Science that is becoming one of the more interesting segments where we will also continue to look for more investments.Process Industries, stable demand and continued to perform well, and we can see that all the discussions about more sustainable packaging solutions, using forest fiber to replace plastic is driving investments. So that's been performing well. And in Energy, even though we are driving our own repositioning in Energy, we have seen now that there is a healthy and strong demand, especially on the renewable side, and we will invest more in that side, too, and they continue to deliver according to plan.And Management Consulting -- sorry, Management Consulting have also been strong, especially on the energy side, we see a continued need for strategic management consulting, especially on the energy transition and that is something that we are investing more in. So all over, obviously affected in the third quarter, but there are some really interesting bright spots and feeling is that it bottomed out, and we saw a recovery by end of the quarter from the market point of view. So across all our core segments, there is a stable demand. And we continue to see a slow shift then towards those segments where we really would like to invest more in, of course, infra as such, even though we could feel the commercial real estate in the quarter, infra is something that we will obviously look even more into it to get back to growth and to invest more in.Food & Life Science, another very interesting segment, the clean part of Energy and also, of course, the whole Bio Industry are segments where we will proportionally invest more in moving forward because we are seeing a stable and underlying demand also driven from need of sustainable solutions.We have, during the quarter, a stable order backlog. If you look on the local currency, then the order backlog is stable, and we continue to take in a lot of interesting and good projects. This is just some examples. We have taken some interesting products. So Metsä in Finland, we have a very interesting digital twin solution for Alfa Laval in Sweden, which is really something that we are looking into, how can we drive the digital part even more.We have some interesting offshore wind in Vietnam. Nuclear decommissioning is a big topic for us, and this was a project to Norway. The West Link in Sweden, another big project. And then we are also developing digital software for Waggeryd in Sweden. So a mixture, but if you zoom out and look on the project, our order backlog remains stable.So with that said, I will now leave it to Juuso sitting in Helsinki to talk a bit about the numbers. So Juuso, are you there?

[Juuso Pajunen, Chief Financial Officer]

I'm here. Thank you, Jonas. Happy to be in Helsinki, a bit rainy and cloudy, but I think Stockholm is the same given the climate time of the year.

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

Okay. Juuso. So net sales.

[Juuso Pajunen, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you. So let's talk about a bit on the net sales development. So as Jonas stated, we have -- the total growth is negative. If we exclude the FX, it's still minus 7.6% and the adjusted underlying organic growth is minus 7.8%. So if we think about and slice and dice a bit how these numbers are coming together, first of all, the FX impact is basically the single biggest impact in our total growth figure. It's roughly about SEK 160 million, and it is coming mainly from 3 of our major currencies, we have euro based, we have Norwegian Krone based, and then Brazilian Real has had a major impact due to very big swings in the Real, it's more than 20% down compared to previous year.We have then the continued impact from COVID, especially in automotive, and then we have in the real estate segment a bit. But if we now think about these points and we see how the real -- how the net sales is coming, we have the automotive impact, then we have the real -- commercial real estate impact, but actually bigger than the real estate is the repositioning of Energy. We have chosen to reduce part of our portfolio. And we see then that in the relative margin. So that part is coming from our own actions. And then despite all of these ones, it is very good to remember and note that material part of our portfolio is actually growing, delivering solid double-digit results and generating more revenues and also winning in the hiring side.So we are having offerings in Food & Pharma, most corners of processed industries, management consulting. Also, for example, nuclear and energy, we are going steadily and quite aggressively actually forward.At the same time, if you look a bit future, which the order backlog is a good indicator, it remains stable at local currencies. Obviously, also the order stock takes an impact from the FX volatility. But if we look compared to our kind of operational production capacity, it is stable, it is good compared to the start of the year or previous year Q3.So looking forward, we have many growth buckets. We have many solid buckets, but we have also automotive. It's not a surprise, it's not a new thing, like Jonas said, it is sequentially improving. It has been bottoming out in second quarter. We have the real estate, especially commercial part of the real estate, that explains pretty much whole organic development...

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

Juuso, we seem to have a technical problem, surprisingly enough.

[Operator]

Yes. Apparently, we don't hear -- in Teams, they don't hear Juuso. So we have to look into that.

[Juuso Pajunen, Chief Financial Officer]

Okay.

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

They don't hear you, Juuso. So what's your proposal then in this, which is a surprise since Juuso, I hear him loud and clear?

[Juuso Pajunen, Chief Financial Officer]

Got to be asking them to go to our stream on YouTube? Take the voice from YouTube and then basically the screen from Teams.

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

Okay. My sound is working on Teams. I guess you -- on Teams, you hear me, but you don't hear our CFO from Helsinki. Well, I guess, believing that a reasonably simple thing like Teams would work.So what's the proposal, guys, in this? So we are checking that. Just give us a couple of minutes to see if we can get Juuso to work also on Teams.

[Juuso Pajunen, Chief Financial Officer]

But they are not getting myself or I don't know if it's to break a horse then somewhere else.

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

Okay. So could we get somebody to say, Juuso, could you try to talk now to see probably if it works with Teams now? So could you continue to...

[Juuso Pajunen, Chief Financial Officer]

I'm talking now. Can you hear me?

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

Okay. Now it works, Juuso. So maybe you could just quickly repeat what you said Juuso in a super-summary from the sales.

[Juuso Pajunen, Chief Financial Officer]

Okay. So super-summary, we know that we have issues in automotive. I mean, we feel and we see from data that it has bottomed out in second quarter. We have had emerging issues during Q2 in the real estate, especially the commercial part. But at the same time, government data suggests that it is bottoming out in Q3. Then we have own choices, it says energy repositioning, which then you can see the impact on top line, but a very favorable impact on the bottom line. And finally, from those negative parts, we have actually material part, bigger part of the portfolio is growing. We are talking about Process Industries, Management Consulting, Food & Pharma, Water and Environment and so on. So we have many reasons to be really happy on where we are going, but a couple of these negative parts of the portfolio are a bit overshadowing that one. But looking forward, order backlog in local currencies at a stable level, which is already a positive indication of the future.Then we will go over to EBITA part.

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

Yes, then we go over from sales to the EBITA part, and I agree with you. So if you look there, many bright spots. But obviously, we have some work to do in some areas. Then moving over to the EBITA part, so then we can take the next slide.

[Juuso Pajunen, Chief Financial Officer]

So pretty natural from revenues to expenses. So we have continued our efforts to protect our profitability. We have been taking down expenses further. And what we can now see if we take a view from Q2 to Q3, these are now including the FX impact. So once the revenue has gone significantly down, also, the expenses have gone down. So SEK 160 million roughly revenue down, SEK 145 million expenses down from the FX component perspective and EBITA, in fact, roughly SEK 15 million. But what is important things here is that we actually see from our action perspective that the proportion of the indirect expense savings is increasing compared to second quarter. And that is also pretty natural when you take actions in personnel expenses, IT, facility, traveling and so on that you accelerate as you go. So the lead time from action to impact is always a bit longer than in the revenue part, where the correlation is pretty much one-to-one when the direct project expenses are reducing.So I'm happy and also proud how we have been able to mitigate probably the worst GDP drop since Second World War, especially if we are talking of our core markets. But from that said, let's go to the EBITA development. And we are having an adjusted EBITA margin of 7.2%. That is 0.4 percentage points down compared to previous year, which is a sequential improvement from second quarter. We delivered EUR 288 million of adjusted EBITA.So it is fair to say that especially if you look around the world and see what is happening, we are delivering stable margins despite the revenue decline. Then if we take, first, a bit of the negatives, we have the automotive impact, obviously, in there. And that one -- you will see the divisional results on the Industry & Digital solutions. We have the FX impact, it's roughly SEK 15 million. That is especially coming from Process Industries, Energy and Management Consulting, which have more foreign currency part of the portfolio compared to other operations.At the same time, we have a solid development within in Infrastructure. The margin remains stable, if part losing on the top line; Process Industries, a bit down in margin levels, mainly due to normal volatility in the -- normal seasonality, I would say, in third quarter and a bit of COVID impact; Energy and Management Consulting, Energy, very favorable margin development and also Management Consulting, especially if you put it into the context of not having material contribution from the transaction related business during third quarter.So all in all, I would say that it is a stable, solid good performance with many highlights also in the portfolio, Process Industries, Food & Pharma, Water and Environment, Transportation, Management Consulting and so on. So I am fairly happy, given the circumstances on the margin development and how we have been able to mitigate the loss in volumes.So then if we go a bit further into EBITA bridge, we can see here in absolute terms, how we are being impacted from SEK 345 million, 7.6% from previous year to SEK 288 million and 7.2% current year. Infrastructure, so basically, mainly coming from the real estate segments, SEK 10 million down. As said, we have a solid performance from Transportation, Water and Environment segments, especially. But the commercial part of the real estate is taking this a bit in the wrong direction. Industry and Digital solutions, we have the automotive part. Process industries actually material part of that SEK 11 million decline is coming from the FX rates. We have very solid performance in most of our key buckets, especially Latin America and the Nordics.We have Energy absolute value, stable, relative margin improvement. This is coming from the Energy repositioning. I am happy to see how it has been going. But at the same time, we have taken the last repositioning related items affecting comparability within the division. And we are now good to say that we are accelerating forward in the future.Management Consulting, solid performance. There is the normal volatility within that one, but 12% profit, especially in a vacation-driven quarter is a really solid performance. And group common a bit of volatility in there, but then we are driving SEK 288 million, 7.2% in the EBITA.If we then review the divisional part growth and profitability on the following slide, we can basically see that our growth components, we have the Infrastructure. If we slice and dice this a bit, the real estate part of the Infrastructure is explaining pretty much the whole negative part of it. So we can say that other parts of the portfolio are more or less stable, some parts even improving.Industry & Digital Solutions, the automotive, as said, has been, based on our view, bottoming out in second quarter. Now in Q3, we are seeing improvement from the very low levels. We even see that there are some openings within the automotive that are now having scarcity of resources in the market. This is related to especially the software part of the automotive development.Process Industries, solid organic growth going forward, strong performance, Nordics, Latin America, being hit basically with Brazilian Real, especially. And that also explains part of the relative profitability going from 9.5% to 8.4%, part is normal seasonality in Q3, but part is also that when you have a very strong offering in Latin America and the FX rate goes 20% plus down, the relative range of that overperforming unit declines a bit in the portfolio. So you see it also in the relative margin level.Then going Energy, heavily down, we need to remember that the Energy part is coming from the repositioning, which is our choice, EPC project, which creates, due to our way of working in there, volatility. We do it only on our own terms and conditions. We don't want to take whatever EPC. So we see a decline in the revenue side. But at the same time, the margin is going 160 basis points up. It was exactly what we targeted with the repositioning. Management Consulting, solid growth, solid profitability and in the context of not having success fees or material contribution from success fees, I would say that this is a good performance.So from the divisional part, let's go to net debt and the balance sheet. This is the other part, which basically, we are happy to see that we are now at the adjusted net debt-to-EBITA 2 levels. This is excluding IFRS 16 and then including the Pöyry for rolling 12 months. That's more on the comparable periods than anything and excluding items affecting comparability. So we are, from a balance sheet perspective, in a very good position to go forward, to take moves, especially in the M&A markets. We have SEK 4.3 billion, almost SEK 4.4 billion of available liquid assets and unutilized credit lines.So with this type of a balance sheet, we are geared for growth going forward. But of course, we want to also address the organic growth part of the portfolio. So solid performance from operating cash perspective. Third quarter is always difficult from cash flow. And we have been able to remain stable on the leverage ratios.So really good, really happy to look forward on what moves we're going to make. With these words, handing back over to you, Jonas.

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

Thank you so much, Juuso, well presented, I would say. And then I will just try to wrap up then. And I would say we are now some 7 months into an environment that is affected from the pandemic. And when I see how we have performed over the last 6, 7 months, I would say that I'm proud of the fact that we have improved the balance sheet, which has been, of course, moving into a crisis, something that you always need to keep as a very high priority. We have been able to continue to deliver to our clients. Yes, we have had our pockets that has been affected, Automotive, Private Real Estate, like airport build out has been one segment that we have seen affected from COVID-19. At the same time, we see some very interesting pockets being stable and even growing, and being able to deliver a stable margin I am pleased with.Of course, we would like to have better growth. And of course, that is something that we will address moving forward, having a platform now that we have taken out a lot of costs. So of course, now our focus moving forward is, first of all, to operate in the current environment, dealing with the pandemic, be flexible, but go for growth. But we early out outlined these 3 quarters, just looking on quarter 2 when the pandemic really was hitting us, and of course, that was a lot of actions. We took out the SEK 500 million. We used, of course, the governmental program. We had a big hit in Automotive. We saw some segments like Automotive bottoming out in the second quarter.And at the same time, we also started in the end of the second quarter to look on the strategy ahead for AFRY, keeping 2 thoughts in the head at the same time, both acting on the current environment, but where are we taking the company. So that started up. Now the third quarter came in. And as we said, stable result, margins stable. Of course, we would have liked to have a better top line, but also given the currency effect, it is still stable. We have taken also in the third quarter a lot of measures. We are using short-term work allowance that we need now, and we are now getting our employees back on assignments, meaning that we will not use those to a large extent moving into the fourth quarter then, at least from end of November. We have seen a stabilization by end of the quarter clearly across all segments.And I would say the last point, we have an organization that's stepped now is set to meet the market demand. That means, of course, that with a significant drop in Automotive, we had to take measures in readjusting. And that has also partly driven our repositioning. We are doing it annually. We are doing it in Automotive. And of course, now our Infra team is working a lot to get the right structure for setting up our Infra business for future growth.So moving into quarter 4. First of all, we need to continue to operate with perseverance in the ongoing pandemic. Obviously, nobody really knows how it will play out with the disease, with the COVID-19. But we have now a structure with working-from-home, working-from-distance, using digital tools where we can operate. So now we will continue to make sure that our employees and the structure works -- because we believe that we need to get prepared to work partly from home, part in the office in the next coming time.There is still an uncertainty in the market, but we can see that there is a strong underlying demand in those core segments where we also want to invest. And based on now, the more and more efficient structure that we are getting in place, we have to remember that it was 2019 when we were joining forces with Pöyry and started a big integration. And of course, we worked a lot to take cost synergies in 2019, and we'll continue into 2020, also to deal with the pandemic. I feel and we feel that we start to get a lean structure is in place. And of course, now it's all about getting into growth mode.And those growth pockets, where we have seen a good development, we will invest more in. And then coming to the point that we have a balance sheet that would also enable us to go into acquisitions exactly on those pockets where we believe there will be a long-term growth and also where we can see this underlying demand for sustainable solutions. And that's exactly the last point, then that very strategically we will use our balance sheet to look for complementary acquisitions supporting our growth journey.So that's where I would like to end. And by this, then open up for any questions that me and Juuso will answer. So Ebba, you will moderate the Q&As.

[Ebba Vassallo, Head of Investor Relations]

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Erik Paulsson at Nordea.

[Erik Paulsson, Analyst]

Yes. It's Erik Paulsson at Nordea. I had a question here regarding the price development in contracts during the quarter. How has that been? And what do you expect for the following quarter now in Q4?

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

Thank you so much. Juuso, would you like to take that? Pricings have been an extensive discussion in our team, too, pricing. You're maybe muted, Juuso, or we don't hear you.

[Juuso Pajunen, Chief Financial Officer]

No, Jonas. Can you now hear me? So basically, thank you, Erik, for the question. I will first reiterate what I've been saying during the earlier quarterly reports on the pricing. We don't have a single market where we can talk about single pricing. So there is not kind of a pricing component for everything that would be equal. We have booming strong markets where we have a strong pricing power. We can talk about Process Industries, Food & Pharma, et cetera. And there, basically, we see continued normal, solid development.Then if we take such areas like the commercial real estate, where we have seen decline in demand and maybe even a bit of increase in supply then to the public side of the commercial or public side of the real estate, then you can see that the price pressure is there. So we have a mixed bag. Then if you take the relative pricing in total from the whole portfolio level, the biggest impact in the price per hour that we are gaining is coming from the FX. But excluding that, we are, on a portfolio level, on a very minor number now. It is reflecting tougher competition especially in the markets where we see that the demand has been going down significantly due to the pandemic.

[Erik Paulsson, Analyst]

All right. So is it possible to break down the organic growth component into volume and price in this quarter?

[Juuso Pajunen, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes, that is a good question. The bigger part is volume and minor part is the pricing. So -- but as said, this is then something that we have a mixed bag. So taking it from the portfolio perspective, it is, let's say, not that value-adding calculation.

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

I would also add to that. I also agree on that, that the major part is volume and, of course, FX rate impacts the top line during the quarter.

[Ebba Vassallo, Head of Investor Relations]

Okay. Our next question comes from Johan Dahl at Danske Bank.

[Johan Dahl, Analyst]

I hope you can hear me there. Can you just talk -- can you talk a little bit about order intake and the order book? How it has developed in absolute numbers compared to last year and sequentially? Just -- weak top line here, obviously, but just trying to distinguish what is the problems in delivery and what is really a market demand problem? So I'll very much appreciate some comments on that, please.

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

Yes. I can start, and then Juuso to complement. I will say, in general, or as we said, Johan, our order backlog, if you look on the big CapEx projects in Process Industries and Energy, and I will say also on the Infrastructure, and even in Industry & Digital, for example, on the Food & Life Science, are remaining stable, and we have been able to get some very interesting orders during the quarter. So I think the weaker top line, as we also knew that we would have because, of course, the dip in quarter 2 driven from automotive and some others like we had some architecture work to hotel change or the airport projects, we have -- we knew they would carry into the third quarter.Yes, on the Commercial Real Estate, which is more shorter assignments, also we could see a weak and probably also affected from the fact that we had 2 summer months, so July, August. I think we and also some of our clients used the vacation a bit more.But if you zoom out, Juuso, on the different segments on the order backlog, it remains stable. What would you say, Juuso, when we look down each of the core segments?

[Juuso Pajunen, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes. So first on the kind request to get absolute numbers as we don't disclose them in our quarterly report and, obviously, I can't disclose them during this call either. But what I can say is that, first of all, if we take the first comparison point, which is Q4 2019, we are actually slightly above on that one when we adjust for currencies. We are slightly below if we don't adjust for currencies. Then if we take Q3 2019, we are very, very much round it to same number but slightly below.And then perhaps part of the view how you would like to see the order stock is the portfolio level. Then if we take a bit more segment view, we can basically say that we are stable in Infra, we are slightly down in Process Industries when adjusting for currencies, Energy is slightly down, and then actually, Industry & Digital Solutions are going up. And that is also, to a certain extent, natural when you see that we are gearing from the professional services, which is very much of the short order stock type of work into the projects, which is then a longer order stock type.So all in all, those combined, we are seeing stable development in the orders stock, slightly above Q4 2019 and slightly below Q3 2019. That is, given where the world is, quite a good achievement, I would say. I think that we have been positioning ourselves well in the market. And at the same time, we see that the order pipeline, the prospect pipeline remains also stable. But like we commented in the report, we see delays in decision-making, this is not maybe an optimal time to go, especially on the CapEx decisions. And this type of postponement we've seen earlier. And basically, what we see is that the decisions are being made and the markets are stabilizing like we are also putting it in our header of the report.

[Johan Dahl, Analyst]

Much appreciate. Thank you. Just a follow up also. I think you talked, Jonas, about repositioning in 3 divisions, Energy, Infra and Industrial. When do you think that deliberate actions from ÅF Pöyry to sort of reposition the portfolio will stop being a headwind to growth? That's 1 question. Can you set a point in time where you sort of have completed this?And then also, can I also ask you, you had 800 people on furlough ending the quarter. You talked about redundancies of 250 something. Is it your view now that this will be sort of that will -- there is enough work here for -- after November to actually maintain this sort of employee base?

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

Thank you, Johan. Well, first, on the repositioning, it's a good question. And obviously, I would say, that we started well ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic is delivering according to plan. And now let's see how the pandemic might have affected that segment. But I can tell you, we see also a lot of interesting demands on the clean part of Energy. So I think when will that start to be? We have a plan. And based on the market, we believe that we will start to get back on growth on that. And then I would say that if you are -- if you look on work since 2017, we have talked about the constant repositioning from more professional service into more and more project and value delivery. Now due to COVID-19, it took a hit in automotive quarter 2, pretty hard one, as we have talked about, because they had this operation and they have rethought their R&D portfolio, that we have taken in now. So when we see also in quarter 3, it's much lower volume, of course, compared to a year ago. And that we are bringing in now, and Robert and the team are adjusting to that.Now in Infra, clearly, we saw there, commercial real estate part affected. And of course, now we are looking how do we deal with that. What are the areas we believe is just a hiccup? And where do we believe also here that we should continue to invest? Obviously, we have had some big airport build out and there have been some hotel things. So I can't say it, Johan. But clearly, what I like now, what we are doing is that we are taking this crisis to really take the actions, some of them we thought before, to kind of, "Okay, let's make it now and then get the portfolio and a structure that's geared up for growth." So I mean, it depends a lot on how the market will develop. But obviously, 2021 will be a key year for us then to get back to growth in those segments.And at the same time now, of course, the pockets where we have seen a stabilization, like we talked about for the Life Science, we talked about the clean part of Energy, we have talked about the Bio Industry, we have talked about Transportation and the part of Infra where we have seen stable, we want to invest more in. So I think it's both to get those repositioning segments back to growth after taking the hit and overinvest even more in the segments where we have seen a stable development. So that's -- and you had a second question, Johan, maybe I forgot that. What was that actually?

[Johan Dahl, Analyst]

Yes. Do you see a need here as furlough regime expires? I think, in your main market, November here, I mean, 800 on furlough. And you've only take -- you've taken out 250 something. Is there -- you can identify a need here to do something more. I don't know whether we're correct in identifying that? What do you think?

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

No, but that's in our plans now, that with the 800 in this short-term leave, then we need to understand that they are different. We have employees that only have 20% short-term work. So there's -- so what we are saying is that from now and by basically end of November, we should be back to only a handful. So we believe that with growth in Food & Life science and Transportation, et cetera, and we believe that we have seen a bottoming out on some other segments that we will be able to bring those employees back to assignments that we will be basically not needing these governmental support by end of November. That's our plan, and that's what we still believe in. And I will say that the stability and signs of recovery that we saw by end of the third quarter, of course, have given us strong indications that, that will be possible. So that's our plan and that we are sticking to, for sure.

[Ebba Vassallo, Head of Investor Relations]

Okay. Our next question comes from Erik Elander at Handelsbanken.

[Erik Elander, Research Analyst]

Actually, it's 2 questions. So first of all, it's kind of related to Johan's question on Infrastructure. And I mean, you mentioned that you have a problem in the real estate market, but it does not seem to be a billing ratio problem since the margin hasn't changed year-over-year in that segment rather it seems to be a recruitment problem since the number of employees has gone down both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year. Is that correctly understood, first of all? And also what is going on there? Why, if so, people are leaving this segment for you?

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

Well, thank you, Erik, for the question. I think first of all, when we talk about real estate, we are including not only the building business area in AFRY, we also include project management as well as part of the architecture and design work that we are doing for that segment. So it's not only one business area when we look on the client segment. Second, of course, we have also in this segment due to a bit weak and used short-term work allowance in that segment, so we have had people working into the real estate being affected then or using the short-term work allowance as a consequence. And obviously, you said less employees and why are people leaving? Well, I think the fact is that in some areas like transportation, we have seen the market picking up, but in these private driven or commercial, as we said, airport build out, et cetera, we have seen a weakened demand. We are shrinking 7.6% organically, but the margin is 7.2%. And in a quarter where we had a vacation, also historically the margin is not that bad then compared to last year, it's 0.4% unit below.So we are able, with short-term work allowance, with cost mitigations, to mitigate. Our challenge has been that in some of these segments, like we have presented, that the demand in the third quarter for our service offering has been weaker. And when you slice commercial -- the commercial real estate, again, it is a real estate, it's a segment that is fairly big for us and impacting more than one business area.So clearly, now, we are working a lot how to get back to a solid growth because that -- going back a couple of years, that's been driving a big part of the AFRY Infra growth. If you look on Norway, where we have a big project management company called Advansia, they were leading the guard more rebuild. That's a project organization geared up a lot both to public buildings but also to commercial, that has been affected. We have seen it a bit in Switzerland. We have seen it in the Nordics.So when you slice that segment across AFRY, in the third quarter, taking into account we had 2 vacation months, that was weaker also than we thought. Now part of the compensation on the margin has been to cost mitigate, not hiring as much as we have done and using the short-term work allowance. And this we need to get out of moving into the fourth quarter.

[Juuso Pajunen, Chief Financial Officer]

Juuso here. Maybe I will complement quickly. So basically, of course, the number of FTEs are going down. But then if you actually take a step forward from that one, I think what has happened, actually, if you take headcount, we are not going down in a similar manner because in the portfolio what happens is that step number one, you use all of the old flexi time balances. So you put your -- you make over time earlier and then you save a part of that one to be used when maybe you have time to use it.Then you use all of your vacation balances and old vacation balances and only after that one, you go to the short-term work allowances. And these type of actions are now visible in the FTE numbers. So maybe earlier, you got an average of 1.03x, 1.04x kind of the hourly output from employees, now we are closer to getting maybe on 0.98x or 0.99x. And this is then something that is, from our perspective, really flexible because then we are quite quick to adjust our capacity.So then not all of this one is related to short-term work allowance, but normal, strong and good resource and workload management, that is part of our business logic. So just to kind of highlight that we are not losing in the recruitment front, we are not losing in the people side of the part, we have these type of pressure balance, if you like to call them, that in these type of market situations are then releasing a bit of this over steam that maybe has been boiling in the whatever catalog, boiler, you want to call it.So that's the logic of cost. So I wouldn't draw conclusions on losing on the people side with the numbers you see.

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

True. Thanks, Juuso.

[Erik Elander, Research Analyst]

Because actually, like if I just want to summarize this question is that you state that the market is good in Infrastructure, but the growth is actually declining from quarter-to-quarter, like it was minus 6% this quarter and was minus 1% or 2% last quarter. So that's like kind of the thing that I want to really understand here?

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

But you're right, Erik. And if you take Infrastructure, as a general topic, we all know it's a huge segment, it includes a lot. And we have seen that if you look on Water, Environment, Rail, Road, I would say part of public buildings, the digitalization, it is remaining strong. And we also believe that the demand for sustainable solutions will continue to be stable. We all know, Erik, that due to green recovery that is talked about in Europe and also in the Nordics, we'll remain stable. However, we have not been able to get growth especially when then you look into the commercial building or real estate. And that clearly affected us in the third quarter.So you're absolutely right, we are not happy with our top line development. But at the same time, Infra, as a segment, we see what everybody else see, it remains stable and a promising segment. And of course, now it's up to us then to gear our portfolio even more towards those segments, where we see this underlying demand. I think that's the background, Erik, that we state that Infra, as an overall segment, remained stable, even though we had a hit then in the third quarter in one of the slices that affected us a bit more. I think that's the background why we say as we do.

[Erik Elander, Research Analyst]

Yes, that's very clear. And then just a short question also because believe it or not, we are kind of close to the next year now. And I think you have a target of 10% margin and also growth around like 5%-ish organically. I mean it's obviously impossible to tell whether it's going to be true or not. But I mean, how are you guys within the management discussing next year in terms of growth and also margins?

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

That's a good question. I agree with you, it's remarkable how quick next year looks like it's coming. But I would say this year, we know we are taking a hit on the top line. I mean nobody was taking into account that the pandemic would come and that we would have a big hit in automotive and all of that. So we are eating a top line hit this year clearly, and we are adjusting accordingly. You said it yourself, Erik, our margin remains reasonably stable, meaning that we are taking activities into that.2021 will be all about getting back to growth. We believe that the segments where we have taken a hit in the second and third quarter have bottomed out; commercial real estate, Automotive, others, they have bottomed out, and we are adjusting. But on the other hand, we have some really promising segment, the Bio Industry. We believe in the clean part of Energy, we believe in Food & Life science, we believe in big part of the Infra. How can we grow more organically, but also through acquisitions? So our battle plan is, of course, even in the -- get back to growth, but we know that we need to eat this decline that we have taken in some segments.But then 2021, if you ask how the discussion is how can we increase growth more in the segments that has already started up to pick up, but also how can we now get back on track on those segments where we have taken a hit.At the same time, I guess, we all need to be humble working in a world that is affected from the pandemic, and we don't really know how that will play out. We are absolutely -- I am absolutely confident that on the operational point of view, we have a cost structure and a flexibility that we can also meet 2021 independently because it's one thing that we work hard with is to get our lean structure in place. And that, I think, we have shown now on keeping the margin stable. But of course, Erik, we are spending a lot of work now on getting back to growth as a company.

[Ebba Vassallo, Head of Investor Relations]

Okay. Our next question comes from Dan Johansson at SEB.

[Dan Johansson, Equity Research Analyst]

Just a quick follow-up from my side to Johan's earlier questions on the 270 permanent reductions. Did you take costs for that also in this quarter? And will benefits come later? How should we think about it? And I guess all these reductions are related to automotive or...

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

Yes. I think the majority of the reductions we have taken on fixed employees is driven from Automotive, but it is also some pockets all over where we have adjusted according to what we believe will be the new normal going back to track. And the cost has been taken in the quarter as we go. Juuso, any comment from your side on that?

[Juuso Pajunen, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes. And actually, Dan, if I take the items affecting comparability, the quarter 3 items affecting comparability are all coming from Energy and related to repositioning. Material part of the costs that are related to permanent layoffs in Automotive have been taken on in Q2. We have a minor delta in Q3, but it is in a manner not worth mentioning in the total number.So pretty much the costs have been taken, and we see that going forward, then, obviously, when you have less people who are not having a stronger flow, then you don't have the personnel part of the expenses going forward. So that's, in a way, the benefit if you are looking forward.

[Ebba Vassallo, Head of Investor Relations]

Okay. As there are number of questions, I hand over to Jonas for some closing remarks. Go ahead, Jonas.

[Jonas Gustavsson, President & CEO]

Well, then I would just like to thank all of you for listening in to this, and I am happy that we could pull it through with, bear in mind that we did it through Teams and YouTube. Sorry for the small problem we had with not hearing Juuso, but I think we managed it then.Again, it's been a quarter where we had to face effect from the pandemic. I think we have met it in the best possible way, for sure. We would have a better top line, especially, but we are working a lot on that. And I feel confident that we will step-by-step improve also the top line getting back to growth.So I would like to thank you all for listening in and I would like to remind you for -- sorry, I missed that, to sign up for our Capital Markets Day, which we have invited to on November 24, starting at 1:00 to 3:30, and it's an online event, obviously. There will be a press release sent out, I think, next week. So I hope you can all be there, and then we can dig in even more how we are planning to take AFRY to the next level, obviously, looking on areas like sustainability, digitalization, how we use our lean platform, how we are planning to improve and invest more in growing segments, like infrastructure, the whole Bio Industry, the clean part of Energy and Food & Life Science.So I think we have an extremely exciting future ahead of us where we will do everything we can to take AFRY to the next level. So again, thank you so much for listening in, and I wish you all a great day and a fantastic weekend. Thank you so much.