Awardit AB publ

STO:AWRD

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q1

[Erik Grohman, executive]

Hey, everyone. Welcome. And I'm sorry about the trouble with the previous link. I'm glad you could all join. We'll wait a couple of minutes to ensure everyone that wants to join. All right. So hello, everyone. Again, I apologize for the technical difficulties that we've had this morning. And I'm glad that you could all join half an hour later.

So, good to see you all, and thanks for joining the call. And I promise you that for the next call, we will look at a different technical setup and solution for this, for sure, to make sure that we can have the calls in a well-organized way. This call will be recorded. [Operator Instructions]. So again, welcome to the Awardit Interim Report for First Quarter of 2023. My name is Erik Grohman. I'm the CEO of Awardit, and I joined the business in March 2022. So I've been with the business for a bit more than a year.

And Awardit is the market leader in loyalty and gift card solutions in the Nordics and with an increasingly strong portfolio in the DACH region in German speaking markets in Europe. We are a one-stop shop that cater for all our clients' needs within gift cards and loyalty solutions. We work with everything from strategies and concepts to support our clients' businesses to design and implementing programs across loyalty and gift card solutions.

We supply our partners with platforms that are proprietary to us. And on a SaaS basis that are pretty much ready to use and very easy to implement on our customers' side. We work with partnerships. We work with different kind of shop solutions and customer support and logistics. So a one-stop shop for loyalty and gift card customers.

The business was founded in 1999. We went public in December 2017. And since then, we have made 11 acquisitions. Today, we are 250 employees, and our main office locations are in Stockholm, where the headquarters is based. We have a office in Gothenburg, Copenhagen, Hamburg and Wels. And today, I mean, we are the largest company in our segment, which is loyalty incentive and gift card solutions in the Nordics, and we are increasing our position in DACH, and I will speak a bit more to that later on as well.

But our vision is to create this position across Europe and be the leader in our industry on the European markets. And our mission, we are really passionate about helping our customers improving their customers' satisfaction, retention and sales. And as I mentioned, we have platforms that are proprietary that cover all parts of the loyalty incentive and gift card solution program value chains.

And today, we have more than 250 loyalty programs in the Nordics and also an increasing wide reach in DACH. We have talked over time that we grow organically while also being able to scale our platforms and increase profitability over time and also adding in a successful way acquisitions to our business. And we look at our business in 2 main business areas, which is loyalty and gift cards.

And just look at the time line of our acquisitions, where we went public in December 2017, we have made 11 acquisitions. And the latest 2 ones were in the DACH region. So with Prämie Direkt, we established our first foothold in Germany in December 2021. And we then followed up with an acquisition in February this year of Connex based in Wels Austria. That is a perfect complement to Prämie Direkt and creates a very strong position for us in DACH.

And if you look at our history, we have had organic growth throughout the years, basically. And then we have added acquisitions to the mix as we went public. So up until 2017, we grew organically. And from 2018, we have also added acquisitions. In 2020, we had a bit of a setback due to the pandemic and some products taking a hit in the market. But 2021, we were back to high growth. We completed 3 acquisitions in 2021. And in 2022, we saw a growth of 63% and also a continued organic growth of 21%.

The revenue last year, 2022 was SEK 862 million. And we're also growing our earnings and the EBITDA over time. In 2022, our EBITDA was SEK 111 million, and that's a 19% growth compared to the year before, '21. In '21, we also received a COVID support of SEK 9 million. So if we adjust for that, our EBITDA growth in '22 was 32%.

And we see that -- we gain synergies of scale on our platforms from joining the businesses together and from adding new customers continuously onto our platforms. And this means that we can increase our gross margins and our EBITDA margins over time on our existing platforms. And in 2022, we also saw that, of course, as we acquire new businesses and join them to the mix in our portfolio, we also dilute margins through sometimes acquiring, of course, a bit of lower margin businesses.

So that we also saw in 2022. But 2022 was our strongest year ever. We reported revenues of SEK 862 million and rolling 12 months, we have SEK 917 million of revenues. And as I mentioned before, SEK 111 million in EBITDA. And what we've seen and what we continue to see is that the core business Awardit continues to grow year-over-year, and that's the business that has been growing for many years. And if you look at on the right-hand side here, what we call Awardit core business, which is then excluding acquisitions of Inspiration Company, MBXP, Prämie Direkt and Connex, we have seen a very solid growth throughout 2022, but we also continue to see this growth in 2023.

And in '23, we also, of course, now add Connex to the mix. And Connex contributed SEK 29 million of revenues to the quarter. And that's for February and March. And if you look at the Awardit new businesses, the new acquisitions, they had a growth of 7% in the quarter compared to last year. So the main chunk of the growth that is organic to us comes from the old core business still.

And if we look at pro forma for last year, including our latest acquisition of Connex, we see that the estimated revenues when we acquired Connex was SEK 15.6 million -- EUR 15.6 million, sorry. And the actual revenue was EUR 17.8 million, so far better than expected. Also, the EBIT came in on the high side where we expected EUR 1.4 million, and the business came in at EUR 1.7 million.

So very strong performance by Connex last year and exceeding our expectations and exceeding the calculations that the purchase price was based on. And including Connex, the net revenue for 2022 for the group was SEK 1.051 billion. So SEK 1,051 million, and we had an EBITDA of SEK 130 million. So this means that we also have actually achieved our short-term target of becoming a SEK 1 billion business in terms of revenue and turnover.

And when you look at Connex and the contribution to the group, you see that Connex contributes positively to our gross margin percentage. And we know that Connex operates with a high gross margin on its products. And in Q1, that was almost 70%. So of course, over time, we will see an effect of the gross margin at Connex increasing the group gross margin. At the same time, there is a high -- rather high personnel cost at Connex compared to the rest of the business.

So we will see the percentage of personnel costs as a percentage of revenue coming up gradually over time as Connex becomes part of the portfolio. And in last year, as a pro forma, personnel costs, including Connex, were at 15.6% of revenues. So -- and of course, the personnel cost of Connex is there because it's needed to maintain the product portfolio and to drive the sales but also to build the products that are sold, especially on the gift card and voucher side.

So it's almost like the gross margin is so strong, but then, of course, it's affected by lots of -- people needed to work to ensure the product quality and the sales. So also to mention that Connex brought cash and cash-like items into the group, worth of SEK 137 million, and that's higher than the estimate where we estimated SEK 121 million to be brought into Awardit.

So all in all, I mean, we are very, very pleased with the performance in 2022 of Connex and also very pleased with the acquisition, of course, and the way it has turned out so far. And then if we look at the first quarter of 2023, we reported SEK 221.9 million in revenues. And of this, Connex contributed SEK 29 million. So on the total level, we have a 33% growth of revenues. Of this, we see a 15% growth in organic business and the rest, of course, then coming from Connex.

And the main growth drivers in the organic business is still the development, the strong development of our primarily B2B loyalty programs in the Nordics. We have also seen a very strong sales of Zupergift, where we have had a 100% increase compared to last year in face value sales, and that's because we have tried new campaigns and activated the product in different channels that have been really successful.

So strong sales push for Zupergift and that takes down our gross margin percentage somewhat as Zupergift comes in at a somewhat lower margin. We also see a strong specific growth in SGDS, which was migrated -- it's a loyalty program, large clients migrated to the Awardit platform in Q1 last year, so showing very strong comparable numbers now in Q1 this year. And this will even out in Q2.

And on the EBITDA side, we have a SEK 11.5 million EBITDA, adjusted for acquisition costs of SEK 4.4 million that is in connection to the acquisition of Connex. So comparing that to last year's EBITDA of SEK 5.7 million, we have 102% growth in EBITDA. If we look at the reported EBITDA, which is then including the acquisition costs of Connex, we report SEK 7.1 million in EBITDA versus the SEK 5.7 billion last year, which is a 25% EBITDA growth.

And in this, we also have a contribution from Connex in the quarter from February 1 and onwards of SEK 3.7 million. We also have a positive contribution from Zupergift breakage. However, Zupergift breakage is now included in net revenues and not other revenues as has been the case before. So we have changed that reporting standard as of this quarter.

And looking at our business areas, we will start reporting. And I think if you have read the report, you can see that we have divided now the business in a clearer into loyalty and gift cards. And to explain that, in gift cards, we have the retained 24 business, we have the MBXP business. And in Connex, we have Connex marketing as to a business. And Connex is divided in 2 basically, which is Connex marketing that contains the gift cards business and Connex loyalty, that is the loyalty business of Connex.

So basically, everything in the group that is not Retain 24, MBXP or Connex marketing is in loyalty here. So looking at it in this way, we see that the loyalty business area had a growth of 25% in Q1 compared to last year, and the organic growth was 17% and the rest coming then from Connex, adding approximately SEK 10.6 million in the quarter to loyalty revenues.

And as I mentioned, we had a strong development of existing long-term customers. We had also the full quarter effect from SGDS helping organic growth. And also on the slow side, I can mention that the German market situation is still challenging. So we are not growing at the speed that we wish in Germany. On the positive side, we see things are actually moving in the right direction, and we see a stronger end to the quarter and the stronger start to the second quarter for the German business and Prämie Direkt more specifically.

On the gift card side, Connex added SEK 18.5 million to the quarter, which makes the revenue growth in total, 63%. However, our organic growth on gift cards is somewhat slower and comes in at around 9% for the quarter. And here, we see organic growth from adding new customers continuously on our SaaS platforms and processing platforms. However, we see a bit of a slower growth than we expected on our Nordic experience gift cards. And there, we also see higher redemption rates taking down margins in the gift card business.

And that's more specifically on the Nordic experience gift cards sold and processed by MBXP. If we look at the gross margin, we see that it continues to strengthen over time. In Q1, the gross margin was 23% compared to just below 28% last year. And as I mentioned, this is partly an effect of Connex joining the group at a gross margin of just under 17%. So that takes the gross margin up. On comparable gross margin, we are down by around 1 percentage point compared to last year, and that's due to product and channel mix and seasonality and also an unusually high redemption rate in experienced gift cards in MBXP that takes down the margin in that business and in that part of the business for us.

If we look at the profit and loss for the quarter. I have mentioned some of these numbers before. We can say that commodities are on the rise. And that's, of course, due to higher turnover in our programs, so higher cost of goods. It's also due to a mix of products and also partly due to the mix of through what programs and channels the products are sold.

So we have a bit of a dilution effect from a customer that is growing compared to last year as it joined us last year on the tech platform for Awardit. So a bit of a dilution effect on the gross margin, which is shown in the commodities increase. Also, other external expenses are increasing in the quarter compared to last year. That's driven by the addition of Connex, while comparable expenses decrease.

I can also mention again that Zupergift is no longer included in other operating income, but is now on net revenues and contributed SEK 0.9 million of net revenues from breakage in Q1 this year. And as I mentioned before, personnel costs increased in the quarter, it's 16.7% of revenues compared to 13.5% last year. The main driver between -- behind that is adding Connex to the mix and also a bit of a central organization that we have strengthened in order to secure our capability to build growth in the future.

So compared to last year's Q1, we have added a couple of new roles centrally in the organization. And looking at the cash flow, we have a positive cash flow for the quarter of SEK 67.4 million. And here, we have a positive contribution from Connex. However, negative cash flow in comparable businesses. And the main reason for this is that in the quarter, I mean we pay out more cash than we receive in terms of receivables from our clients. And the main reason for this is seasonality and timing in terms of invoicing.

We also have repaid our loans that MBXP. So we have now all external loans in our Nordea credit facility. So those loans have been paid within the first quarter this year. We have also utilized SEK 80 million of our credit facility from Nordea adding to the -- to this -- to the positive cash flow for the quarter. And our cash conversion rolling 12 months continue to be strong. It's 66%, last year, full year, it was 71%.

And summarizing where we are. We see a continued strong organic growth of the existing business and that, of course, lays the foundation for higher revenues and improved results in this quarter, but also beyond that, of course. And we had a strong start now to 2023, 15% organic growth in Q1, and we see this continues in the same direction for the second quarter as well.

Also, the acquisition of Connex, again, it provides a very strong position for us in DACH. It's a perfect fit with Prämie Direkt, and we are working a lot to combine the strengths of these businesses to offer a full service solution to customers in the DACH region and beyond, and we see a great potential to continue to grow organically with these 2 businesses, but also through further value-adding acquisitions.

And we see a lot of potential acquisitions in the region that would be perfect combinations, again, with Prämie Direkt and Connex. In the group, we're also working a lot with procurement savings, different kind of projects to achieve cross-selling opportunities and other business-oriented synergies, in Q1, we finalized the integration of The Inspiration Company customers to Awardit tech platform.

So that now makes us more efficient in how we operate platforms and resources. And we also have more time, of course, to develop our one Awardit tech platform to the benefit of our clients. We also see a continued potential to launch Zupergift in additional variants and in new markets. And we have a launch planned for Q2 in the DACH region through the Connex sales channels. So that will happen in end of May, beginning of June.

We also see a steady flow of new customers. We keep adding customers to both our gift card and loyalty platforms. And we have a strong pipeline of new prospective clients and very interesting discussions. So the future for us looks bright in terms of being able to attract new clients to our solutions. Also, we have identified a number of additional potential value-creating acquisitions.

And we have a cash position at the end of Q1 of SEK 324 million, which provides buying power for us. So we see a high potential in finding and executing additional acquisitions. We have proposed to reintroduce dividends in accordance with the ambitions communicated in spring 2020, where dividends were put on hold for a while, but should now be coming back.

And our vision is to become the leader on the European market, and we believe we are on our way. So exciting times ahead. And that's that for me.

[Erik Grohman, executive]

And with that, I will open up for questions. [Operator Instructions] So the first one that I can see at least is from Alex. How do you work with implementing various AI tools into your day-to-day business? That's the first one. And then noting that you have beefed up your number of FTEs. I would like to get some color on how this is anticipated to look going forward, especially in the light of other tech companies reducing their headcount and reducing OpEx without experiencing notable effects on operations.

So I can start with the last question on the number of FTEs. So I mean, we have been at the point where we have seen a need to add central resources to be able to continue to grow and to continue making acquisitions and add value to the group. So it's a few central resources that have joined. I am one of those. We have a new group CTO covering the group's IT solutions and a group HR officer. So those are the main additions in terms of cost.

And then the rest is mainly due to acquisitions and adding acquired businesses to the mix. So with that said, we are also working on finding ways of working as efficiently we can together across the businesses. As of now, the main focus has been to realize business synergies and to grow the businesses.

But of course, we will look at how we can be as efficient as possible moving forward as well with the current staffing. So -- and I don't see that we will continue to expand the central costs really that will now stay at this level and then work closely with the businesses, of course, to develop the businesses and working together with them and making sure that we achieve business synergies across the businesses.

And then the other question around implementing various AI tools into your day-to-day business. Well, I mean, we are looking at AI, of course, as an interesting development and look at how that can apply to our business as well. I don't have anything to communicate around specific projects, but we're looking at how to potentially improve efficiency in the future, how to integrate AI into different processes, et cetera, but it's a bit of early days for us, but we have a dedicated team as well within business development, looking at this as one opportunity moving forward. I hope this gives you some color on that.

And next is from Simon. Hi, Erik, what do you expect will be the main growth drivers coming quarters? Issued value in Zupergift was up 100% year-on-year. This is a consequence of easy comparable numbers for just overall strong underlying growth. I'll start with these 2. So the main growth drivers in the coming quarters will be continued organic growth, and we see that our large client programs continue to grow in a very positive way.

So I foresee that we will continue to grow. We will continue to add customers, especially on our gift card platforms. And we will see growth also from Connex coming into the mix and finding good opportunities together with Prämie Direkt in combining the strengths of these 2 businesses. So I think there are, as always, a number of drivers that we can rely on to take us to growth also moving forward.

And I think I touched on most of those in the call, of course. And then to Zupergift, I would not say that the comparable numbers were that easy, but we've seen a really strong growth and really strong growth in the campaigns and the kind of activities that we had run. So I would say, comparables a bit on the low side, but also very successful campaigns that we are also now evaluating, of course, and see how we can tweak and use also moving forward.

Are you counting on making any OpEx savings in Connex or Prämie? So we don't have any OpEx savings programs in Connex or Prämie to communicate as of now.

Will you be able to use the entire cash balance for investments or is part of the cash related to Connex locked in due to operating liabilities? I mean, I would say part of it is locked in, but most of the balance should be -- and I don't have an exact figure here, but a majority is not locked in due to liabilities.

And again, I mean, we are focusing a lot now on working closely together with Prämie and Connex to find business opportunity, to find ways of working together, to combine the offers in the DACH markets. We are integrating the Prämie Direkt assortment into the Connex loyalty shock programs.

And we believe this is a great opportunity for us, of course, and we create really a one-stop shop in the DACH speaking markets. And moving forward, of course, we will optimize these market opportunities in the region, and we will work efficiently together with these 2 companies. Just to give some color on your question on OpEx there.

Question from Carlos, do you expect to continue with the 100% growth for Zupergift? And you lost 2% EBITDA margin in '22 versus 21% in Q3, Q4, do you think that the EBIT margin will stabilize in the next quarters compared to '22?

So first, the Zupergift growth, I mean we are now evaluating the campaigns that we have run and the growth that we have seen. And I don't expect that we will be able to continue to have this kind of growth over the course of the year, partly because we have some other channels also playing in that makes comparables more difficult in the year. I hope we will be able to continue to grow, of course, with Zupergift at the high rate and also to be successful, of course, in the launch in DACH of Zupergift now, and I see a great potential in there as well.

So hopefully, continued strong growth for Zupergift sure. And on the EBITDA margin in '22 versus '21, I would say that I see that it will stabilize partly. Part of the EBITDA margin decrease in the first quarter was due to seasonality in MBXP business, and that is stabilizing, and that's typically stabilizing, I mean, after quarter 1. And we had a big sales in Q4, which means high redemptions in Q1. And from there, we will see the margin stabilizing. Then of course, the dilution effect of other parts of the business will continue to be there as we continue to grow.

And again, if we grow heavily with Zupergift, that we also have a somewhat diluted effect on the margin. But all in all, I see that we will more or less stabilize and we will also, of course, work hard to increase margins on a program by program sort of product-by-product basis and across the different businesses that we have. That's always our aim, of course.

And then from Herma, could you give some color on gross net churn levels? So I'm not sure there, if you mean in our programs on the loyalty side. But typically, our churn levels are very low, and our clients remain with us for a very long time and continue to grow continuously over time. So churn levels in our programs are very close to 0.

So -- and I don't have a figure for that, but it's very, very low, for sure. Yes. I don't have anything else. Can you see something that I missed, Cecilia or no? Any other questions there? Or I hope I gave you decent answers. So if you have any last questions, please put it in the chat. If not, I mean you're always more than welcome to contact me, through e-mail or phone. Happy to answer any kind of questions, of course.

And again, thanks for joining the call and really sorry about the delay and the technical issues early in the call. And I promised that we will find a better solution for the next quarterly call. All right. So thank you all, and have a good day, and hope to see you soon. Bye-bye.