BYGGFAKTA GROUP Nordic HoldCo AB

STO:BFG

Earnings Call Analysis

Solid Growth and Acquisitions Boost Performance

The company reported a significant boost in net sales with organic ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) exceeding SEK 2.1 billion, marking a robust growth trajectory by expanding 8.1%. Adjusted EBITDA surged by 20% year over year, reaching SEK 241 million, underlying a strong financial performance. A notable strategic development during Q3 was the acquisition of U.S.-based Construction Monitor, in line with their expansion strategy. The company also displayed strong organic growth in net sales, up 5.6%, and announced a management reshuffle, with current CFO Johnny departing at the end of January. The company's organic subscription base continues to enhance, indicated by increased customer retention, now approaching 86%. This customer satisfaction and operational efficiency have contributed to the improvement of EBITDA margin to 37.3%, and reduced net debt to EBITDA ratio from 3.7x to 3.4x, pointing to a capable deleveraging capacity.

Net Sales and ARR on the Rise

The company has experienced significant growth in net sales and now boasts an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) exceeding SEK 2.1 billion, a strong indicator of the company's sustained revenue stream and future earning potential. Organic ARR growth is at a robust rate of 8.1%, reflecting the company's success in growing its subscription base and deepening customer commitment as evidenced by the increasing Net Revenue Retention (NRR).

Operational Strength and Expansion Strategies

Operationally, the company's subscription services are in high demand, and this momentum is translating into a solid EBITDA, reaching SEK 241 million, marking a remarkable 20% growth from the previous year. This financial strength is propelling operational cash flow, helping the company to de-leverage rapidly. Furthermore, strategic initiatives, including the recent U.S. acquisition of Construction Monitor with its strong ARR base, are already underway, promising to bolster the company's position in project leads and cross-selling opportunities.

Regional Performance: Ups and Downs

The company is seeing differing regional growth rates, with Norway and Finland performing exceptionally well at double-digit ARR growth levels. Sweden and Denmark are also improving, demonstrating upticks in both subscription and sales. Conversely, reported organic net sales growth has been softer due to slower direct add-on businesses in these areas. Despite these variances in sales performance, EBITDA remains robust across the regions, especially in the UK, where reported sales and organic ARR growth have both hit approximately 10%, enhancing margins and EBITDA.

Financial Health and Prospects

A solid quarter for EBITDA delivery was observed with a margin increase to 37.3%, up from the previous year. The cash flow for the quarter has also been strong, leading to a decrease in the net debt to EBITDA ratio from 3.7x to 3.4x. An interesting note is that while there have been fluctuations due to foreign exchange rates, the overall positive impact from such fluctuations is visible in the robust organic growth and the company's aggressive deleveraging strategy, which ensures it remains on a sound financial footing moving forward.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Dario Aganovic, executive]

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to this Third Quarter Earnings Presentation for a Byggfakta Group. My name is Dario Aganovic, and I'm Chief Executive of Byggfakta Group. Today, I'm joined by Johnny Engman, CFO of Byggfakta Group.The agenda for today is we're going to start with the usual company overview. It is a bit updated compared to the previous times and then we're going to highlights of the quarter, financial update and finalize as usual with the Q&A.So Byggfakta Group is at the heart of the construction industry and at the heart of the construction industry there is a construction project. Everything around us that is built is built through different projects and every project starts with an idea that some property owner, or investor, or anybody who wants to build something has. Then that idea moves into a design phase then into specification where it gets more technical. Then the construction phase commences and then it finalizes in operation of the building or piece of infrastructure.Throughout a project a number of commercial transactions are conducted, because you know property owner when they start they can do not really do anything by themselves. They need to engage the consultant, they need to engage architects, they need to engage a general contractor and throughout this process deals are made.People are doing commercial transactions and there are lots of different stakeholders that are doing these commercial transactions. For each commercial transaction data is created and in each commercial transaction data is used to inform the transaction. Throughout the project the data is built, commercial construction data is built and the more data is there the more insights can be generated for different stakeholders that have some interest in a construction project, and that want to participate and hopefully make a profit out of a construction project.These stakeholders as outlined here is everything from property owners, authorities, regulators, architects, designers, engineers, consultants, manufacturers, and of course construction companies. So this process is in order to get this data flow true and to get right commercial data that will then be transferred into commercial insights. For each of these stakeholders you utilize different types of applications and this is what Byggfakta does.We build a unique set of data and deliver this data through our proprietary applications to the stakeholders on the subscription basis. We have applications in several different areas. It is project information that is an application that is used by anybody who wants to sell something to a construction project and in project information the application is linked to our database that is then built on the collection of information that we do through scraping and through manual research. We build information about any construction project out there and that information is about the project itself, about the value of the project and about the different stakeholders, starting from a property owner throughout everybody that is involved in the construction project, detailed information that can be used by anybody who wants to approach a construction project and sell something to that project.We continuously update project information through research and for every update of every project, we always ask a question, what more is cooking and then property owner, typically a construction company, will tell us, yes, by the way we are also looking at another project, okay, tell us more about that project and then a new project is created in the database and through this network effect, the base of project that we are following is increasing.Project information is at the heart of what we do. Specification is another application area. In specification, here we have software applications that are utilized by architects and technical consultants, when they are specifying the construction projects or what is to be built following a specific set of regulatory requirements and practices that are specific on different markets. So we are building up this content in the data about how to build a specification and the architects are using our content, using our application to build their specifications.Product information is the third area here. It is -- in its simplest form a product database or product catalog where different manufacturers put in their products and there is data about products like marketing collaterals, technical specifications, and beam objects, anything related to products and when we talk about products we are talking about building materials. It's like doors, like flooring, windows, locks and anything that is to be put in a building.These products are put in the product catalog by building material suppliers and architects are then using this information, pulling it into their specifications, pulling it into their CAD drawings and through our integration between specification and product information applications, we get these seamless effect and support in specifying right building materials in right context. Product information customers for us are typically marketing organizations within major building material suppliers.E-tendering is our fourth area and e-tendering is exactly as it sounds. It's basically e-commerce platform where you make deals and it can be in the simplest form a tender notification service, and then going in complexity up to tools that are supporting complex public tenders.And then the fifth area is, the market analysis where we utilize both the unique data that we are collecting and the macro data information that we are buying from other sources, combining it together, conducting advanced statistical analysis and provide market analysis, bespoke market analysis reports for our customers. And all of these, on all 5 application areas here, we are doing this on a subscription basis as a software-as-a-service application.So where are we now? We have built this company since 1936 basically. Since 2019, we embarked on internationalization journey, expanded our footprint beyond the Nordic focus that we had up until 2019. And right now, we are holding a leading position in all the markets where we operate. We are #1 in our European markets. We have a presence in 12 markets. We also have the same position in Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand and a very strong position in the United States and Canada.In the United States, we are holding #3 position there, because they are since before 2 very large and strong competitors. However, we are growing very strongly in the U.S., both organically and through acquisitions as you probably have noticed. We have done one yesterday. I will tell you more about that soon.So where are we right now? In our databases, we have about 1.3 million active projects. Each of these projects is a marketplace. Each of these projects is a place where our customers are doing business and doing hopefully successful business. And each of these projects is done, as I explained earlier, generating another project through our research efforts.So there is a huge base here to support a network effect of growth. We have our 5 areas. We have an annual recurring revenue that has a couple of quarters ago passed SEK 2 billion. And we are serving 50,000 customers around the world. We have a well diversified customer base, 26 countries worldwide, and we have 2,000 employees within the company today, out of which about 1/3 is in research, 1/3 in sales and 1/3 in tech and support.Our development of the company is following a strategic framework with the 4 strategic pillars that we talked about in our Capital Markets Day that we had a few weeks ago, which I hope that many of you have attended either physically or online. The 4 cornerstones of Byggfakta Group Strategy are in each of these corners, so there's a number of initiatives, number of concrete projects that we are running to drive positive change within the company.Secret Molecule is the first one. It is about linking our applications and create data loops that will enable us the creation of unique insights and cross-selling and up-selling in each of our application areas. Expand to Reinforce is a second cornerstone, which is guiding our efforts to grow both organically and through acquisitions, which is -- our strategic focus is on expanding where we already are strong, on the markets where we are already strong, like, for instance, expanding in the U.S. and strengthening our position there and strengthening our molecule there.#3 here is the Forever Promise. It is about how do we strengthen our position with our customers and make sure that we can give to our customers a promise that we will be forever relevant to them. It is a bold promise to make and it obliges us in several different areas. We have identified 2 areas that we actively work with to deliver on the Forever Promise. It is product portfolio management, where we are strengthening with both the organization and the processes in the product management, and the second area is in customer success, where we are strengthening our customer success processes in order to increase our net retention.And then the fourth cornerstone here is one global network. It is about how do we utilize the fact that we are now a global organization with fantastic assets around the globe, access to a web of competences like development competences, Southeast Asia, or research competence, sales hubs, and so on and so forth. So this is our strategy, and within this strategy we have a number of different initiatives that are running.So our development up until now and forward has been and will be, in our belief, very strong. The revenue split that we have today is between project information, specification, product info, e-tendering and insight, as you can see it here. Project information being the largest of our areas. Each area is growing and the mix looks in a way we want to have it.The revenue by geography is, as you can see here, we have moved from a full Nordic focus in 2019, now Nordics being 1/3 of our turnover. So the mix here is rapidly shifting. And through organic growth and acquisitions, we have managed to continuously grow our EBITDA and to continuously our ARR. Our ARR is continuously growing. You're going to see it, that our KPIs for organic ARR growth are really strong here between second quarter and third quarter. In the Swedish crowns, you see that development here is flat, which is basically based on the closing FX rate. FX this particular quarter was a little bit against us, but organically the growth has continued.So for this quarter, what happened? So first of all, on the financial side, we have seen that our net sales has increased significantly and that our ARR is over SEK 2.1 billion now with a very strong growth. We have adjusted EBITDA of SEK 241 million, which is a very, very strong growth compared to the last year with 20%. And most importantly, organic ARR growth for us continues to grow here. Now, we are at 8.1% in the organic ARR growth and we are very happy with our development.On the operational side, we see that the demand for our subscription services remains very strong. The NRR continues to increase, which is a testimony to our customers' strong commitment to our services. And we continue to deliver a strong EBITDA and this EBITDA is trickling down to strong operational cash flow, which is helping us to rapidly de-leverage.The strategic initiatives that we have presented during our capital markets, they are already under implementation. They've been under implementation since early this year. And as we informed earlier, we have some changes in the management team. Most notably, Johnny will be leaving us end of January next year, and then we are recruiting a new CFO, so that process is in progress.So this is what is happening during Q3. And after the closure of Q3 yesterday, we announced an acquisition in the U.S., acquisition of Construction Monitor, which is a subscription lead service that's covering the U.S. We are very happy that we have done this acquisition. It has a huge complementary power to what we already have and it is very much in line with our strategic pillar, expand to reinforce.Construction Monitor has 40 employees and is based out in Utah, a strong subscriber base, a strong ARR base, making money and it's focusing on the project leads late stages, complementing what we already have in the U.S. very well. So it gives us a very strong coverage throughout the whole project phase from idea to operation. And it's also opening very good cross-selling possibilities specifically to Quest and BidOcean customers. And Quest and BidOcean are 2 acquisitions that we have done during the second half of last year.And the Construction Monitor is to be integrated in Byggfakta Group's existing organization in the United States. So welcome Construction Monitor. So this is the update from my side.Now, moving to Johnny.

[Johnny Engman, executive]

Good. Let's dig into the financial performance then of the third quarter. As Dario already said, we are growing our reported net sales. We are up almost 18% versus the same quarter last year. So we're hitting SEK 645 million in the quarter. And the organic development of net sales is up to 5.6%. We are closing the gap between the ARR growth organically and the reported net sales growth.We have seen a somewhat better performance of the direct revenue in some of the markets, which I will touch on. So we are meeting easier comps, but we also see a bit of rebound in certain markets of the direct business, meaning that we are catching up on organic reported sales.And our ARR has been growing with 8.1% organically on an LTM basis. So we are accelerating the organic development of the subscription base in this quarter. We have seen that trend in the second quarter, and it continues well into the third quarter. So we feel that the demand for the subscription services are strong across all geographies, and the retention also keeps increasing, showing, as Dario said, that our customers like our products, and they're renewing at a better rate compared to a year ago. So we're up to a like-for-like of almost 86% now on retention.The note on the absolute ARR level in Swedish krona, which has been impacted by the closing FX rate, because we treat ARR as a balance sheet item. So we apply the closing currency rates to that, and the currency has weakened a little bit in the end of the quarter. So the positive impact from FX has reduced on the ARR base. That's why it looks that, but the organic numbers are, of course, adjusted for any FX impact.We have a very strong quarter on EBITDA delivery. We are actually increasing margin now for the first time versus last year. We are up to 37.3% margin for the quarter, which is 0.7% up versus previous year as the third quarter. So we have a 20% absolute growth in EBITDA coming in at a solid SEK 241 million for the quarter.And a few items affecting comparability, we have, of course, had some costs for the acquisitions and integrations of those we have done. Cash flow for the quarter was also good, coming in operationally at SEK 160 million, meaning we can delever. So we have our net debt to EBITDA ratio on a reported basis has gone from 3.7x at the end of Q2 down to 3.4x at the end of Q3.Again, we didn't do any acquisitions during the quarter. Construction Monitor was done yesterday, but it shows how quickly we can delever the company when we use the cash flow to delever and EBITDA grows.The ARR, as I've said, organically grew with 8.1%. So it accelerated the growth rate during the third quarter versus previous quarters this year. And you see the new sales bar here in the chart being for SEK 408 million. So it keeps increasing. We have a good new sales momentum across the geographies, and that's driving the ARR growth organically on top of a reduced churn, which you have seen on the retention side.If we look then at that retention, it keeps the -- I always look at the lower part of the slide, which is like-for-like. It's a pro forma reporting for the acquisitions we have done. And as you can see, we are continuously strengthening the retention level on a like-for-like basis. We're now up to almost 86%. A year ago, we were at 85.3%. And we have 2 markets sticking out with U.K. and our healthcare business with a net retention above 90% and being very strong.And if we break it down then to do our reporting segments, starting off with our historic core, the Nordic being 32% of our total group revenue. And we see we are picking up growth rates organically on the ARR side in the Nordic region. We're now up to 6.5% organic ARR growth, mainly driven by continued good performance in Norway and Finland, which are cruising at that good double-digit levels. We are also improving in Sweden and Denmark, which is coming up versus the previous quarter. So, we've seen increased momentum on the subscription and new sales in all 4 markets in the region.We're still seeing a slightly weaker reported organic net sales growth. As we have talked about previous quarters, there is a bit of softness on the direct add-on businesses where we have in this region. And it's the biggest direct portion in this segment, which is still not fully up to speed versus the previous year.We have also downsized some construction media operations, we have had in Norway and Finland during the quarter, which hits the organic net sales reported number, which we deemed non-core. And as you know, media has been a focus to decrease over time.EBITDA is still solid in the region, coming in at 40% in the third quarter. We are a bit helped by vacation period in the quarter, which helps the margin versus other quarters, but still it's about 40% in the quarter, which is a good delivery. We're not fully seeing that the margin uptick in the Nordic region yet. As you know, we have invested in upsizing the sales force and then some support functions, which are starting to show on the increased ARR momentum, but it's not fully filtering through to reported net sales andEBITDA margin yet. You will see it's filtering through very nicely in other segments, but this one is still on the move upwards.If we turn to the U.K. market, it is a very strong quarter for the U.K. operations coming in at 10% reported sales organically and 10.5% organic ARR growth. So, they are delivering now about the 10% mark on both reported sales and ARR growth organically, which is then resulting in a strong EBITDA and a strong margin. The margin is moving up with 2 percentage points versus the third quarter last year, and now hitting 85 -- 45.6% for the quarter. And this is really showing that once we have done investments, we talked about investing in increased sales force in Glenigan, for example, 1.5 years ago, and now that is filtering through to organic development of both net sales, ARR and resulting in a strengthened margin as we don't need to increase the investment level so much anymore.And if we turn to the other segments, then the continental Europe is also continuing to grow. Here, we expected a bit of a slowdown in ARR growth momentum. We're down to 7.9%. We had a very strong second half of last year, especially in the Portuguese-Spanish business of Vortal, where we did good upsell campaigns and pricing campaigns. We are doing some of that this year, but not as much as last year. So -- but the ARR growth is still cruising at 8% for the segment, while net sales is a bit lower than that. We were seeing a bit of softness in the direct business in this region as well.Margin is good, coming in at a solid 34% for the quarter, up with 2 percentage points versus a year ago. So, we're delivering SEK 40 million of absolute EBITDA in the segment.APAC and U.S. is delivering a good quarter. As you can see here, we actually have a net sales reported, which is above the ARR growth, coming in at 7.7%. So we have -- here, we have seen a pickup in the direct business across Australia, New Zealand and Asia, which it's good to see that we can see the rebound in some of the markets of the direct business coming through. And ARR growth is accelerating to 6.5%. We have seen a very continuous upward trend on the organic ARR in this segment. We see good new sales levels in Australia, New Zealand and continues to do very well in the U.S.It's also impacting margin positively. The margin comes in at 24% for the segment, up from 17.6% a year ago. And so, we can see that once we have taken the investments in the sales force and costs to grow and the growth is coming through, the margin also picks up nicely across our big segments.And then our last, smallest segment, and our -- which we are now renamed to only healthcare, because what we have done during this year is divestment of our niche media operations in Sweden primarily. So, we have in Q2 divested our fishing, hunting magazines and an e-commerce business together with that. And now in the third quarter, we have further divested some of our other magazines, other magazines, factory magazines, farming magazines and so forth. So, this segment now only consists of the healthcare sales lead business and the other healthcare related assets.Continues to trade strongly. We have an ARR growth in the segment, which keeps on being about 10%. It comes in at 12% for the quarter. And we would see the margin pick up. As you can see, the margin now comes up to 28% almost for the quarter. It is, of course, a result of comparing to a quarter last year with the media operations, which carries a lower margin. But you will see the margin strengthen in this segment when the media operations are now divested.Cash flow for the quarter. Working capital normally becomes a little bit less negative in the third quarter. We have the vacation period with a sales month missing. So, therefore, the negative working capital has become less negative. So, impacting negatively on the cash flow for the quarter. We have the strongest cash flow in Q4 and Q1 and slightly weaker in Q2 and the weakest quarter is normally Q3.We are continuing to invest in our software assets at the same level. You can see the red part of the CapEx bar being stable across the quarters. And the blue tangible investments, we have now finalized the building of the new office in Ljusdal, which is a building owned by the company. So, we have invested almost SEK 70 million in that building, which is now completed. So, you would see the blue part of the CapEx bar decreasing to approximately SEK 10 million per year, because we're not really spending any tangible CapEx apart from that construction project we have done in Ljusdal.If we turn to net debt EBITDA, you can see the deleveraging in the third quarter from 3.7x from Q2 down to 3.4x. It's a good cash flow quarter, even though it's slightly weaker than other quarters. And the EBITDA on an LTM basis picked up very nicely versus a year ago. We have SEK 40 million positive on EBITDA, and that, of course, impacts net debt adjusted EBITDA.And this is not the pro forma number again. If we perform in all the EBITDA from the acquired units, the leverage goes down a little bit from the 3.4x level, which is the reported. We haven't done much of exceptional or exceptional spend in the quarter. We have bought some shares for our LTIP program, and that has, of course, depleted a little bit of cash in the third quarter, but no acquisitions during the quarter as such.We always end off with our financial targets. We have repeated them at the Capital Markets Day. We stand firmly behind our targets. And as you can see, we are picking up the growth speed in this quarter, closing in on the growth target. Some of the markets are delivering already above the growth targets, U.K. in particular. Margin is also picking up nicely in the quarter. We are not at 40%, but we are aiming there medium-term. And we can see the effect now from the investments we have taken in some of the markets that the margin is starting to filter through very nicely in some of the segments, and then still more to come in some which haven't really seen the full effect yet.And capital structure, we target 3.0x. Again, we will still continue doing acquisitions when we find them. And we believe it's a strategic component of this company to continuously grow when we find targets, which fits our strategy, as Dario explained earlier. So, we will continue to look for targets. I mean, if we find them, we will not focus on deleveraging, but rather strengthening our position by acquisitions.

[Dario Aganovic, executive]

Thank you. Very well. Thank you very much, Johnny. So, this concludes the presentation part. So, now we are opening for Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Charles Brennan from Jefferies.

[Charles Brennan, analyst]

I'm actually just going to start, if that's okay, on the EBITDA performance. It's a very strong performance for the quarter. Can you just break down the growth in the period across the different components of how much came through from organic growth? How much came through from M&A? And maybe how much is related to FX moves during the quarter? Just so we can understand what's a sustainable performance going forward?

[Johnny Engman, executive]

Well, the SEK 241 million, of course, includes all the acquired companies, because they are fully reported in the quarter. And we have disclosed the EBITDA level of the companies we have bought. It's not so big. It's the 3 companies in the U.S. and 4CastGroup as well in Norway. So, it helps versus a year ago. But it's mostly the organic development.When you see the organic net sales coming through, we are not increasing the cost base at the same speed as we generate revenue. We have taken investments earlier, and that decreased margin in previous quarters. When we have taken the investments, they're starting to sell. We sell subscriptions. But now when you see the subscriptions coming in and being reported as organic growth, it helps the EBITDA and EBITDA margin in the different segments, in particular in the U.K., and you also see the pickup in Australia. So, most of it is actually organic. We still get a little bit of help from FX on the EBITDA versus a year ago, but that is decreasing over time.

[Charles Brennan, analyst]

And there's lots of numbers this morning. I haven't yet seen the EBITDA contribution in the quarter from the acquisitions. Do you mind just highlighting it for us?

[Johnny Engman, executive]

From the -- so it's roughly SEK 10 million from the acquisitions versus the Q3 last year.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Viktor Hogberg from Danske Bank.

[Viktor Högberg, analyst]

Yes. So, on the ARR, it was flat, not organically, but flat on a group level in Q3 over Q2. Some of that on FX, but the Nordic ARR was flat as well. Could you help us understand the drivers for that? Is it FX as well?And also on sales in APAC was down in Q3 versus Q2, given the high share of recurring revenue. What was the driver for that? I have some follow-ups after that.

[Johnny Engman, executive]

Well, the ARR in the Nordic region is also impacted by FX. Finland reports in euros and Denmark reports in Danish krona, which is pegged to the euro. So, you also have an FX component in the Nordic region, and the NOK is also impacting a little bit. That's mainly the euro impact from Denmark and Finland. That's also seen in the closing FX rates for the region.I didn't really get your second question, that new sales is down in the APAC region.

[Viktor Högberg, analyst]

Yes, no. That's it. APAC, U.S., started to, yes.

[Johnny Engman, executive]

Yes, no, there is -- well, between the quarters, the U.S., some of the businesses we bought has a slower end of the year. It is a construction activity, especially in the northern parts of the U.S. You're entering the winter season, so it's less tenders from the municipalities. And therefore, the Quest business, which we acquired, has a slower second half of the year versus Q1 and Q2. It's more projects starting and being tendered for in the early parts of the year. So, that has an impact. It's also a bit of phasing on events in Asia between the quarters.

[Viktor Högberg, analyst]

Okay. So, not a slowdown, more than natural.

[Johnny Engman, executive]

No, you see the organic reported numbers on reported sales, which is up with over 7% versus a year ago. So, the organic speed is increasing in the total region, and ARR is also increasing in organic growth.

[Viktor Högberg, analyst]

Okay. On the investment that you announced a month ago on the CMD, is that part of OpEx at all now in Q3? I guess not. What was the expected ramp-up here now in the near-term, next couple of quarters?

[Johnny Engman, executive]

As you said, we were planning to spend the SEK 30 million behind the strategic program, and that has started during the year. So, of course, it's being spent also in the third quarter parts of that, but it's ramping up gradually as we increase speed on implementation of the strategic initiatives. But it is included investments already in the quarter, so it has decreased the EBITDA in the quarter as well.

[Viktor Högberg, analyst]

Okay. And on a net basis, do you expect to add SEK 30 million because you said on the CMD that might not be a net effect of SEK 30 million in added OpEx?

[Johnny Engman, executive]

No. Well, it is added OpEx, because -- but that also has a positive effect, because we're not spending money not to generate additional revenue or additional savings. So, you would also see a positive impact from that spend increase either in increased revenue performance or sales performance or cost reductions after a while. But normally, we need to spend first and then you realize investments. So, there is a time lag between when we take the costs and when we see the benefits.

[Viktor Högberg, analyst]

Okay. 2 final questions. Construction Monitor, you required yesterday, what's the historical growth rate been in that asset? Is it in line with the group targets above, below?

[Johnny Engman, executive]

Well, it's been COVID in the U.S., so it's a little bit hard also to look at growth rates. They saw a very strong pickup after COVID. So, there was a really strong growth last year, but it has been cruising at a quicker growth rate than some of the other acquisitions we have seen. So, the organic development prior to acquisition of Construction Monitor is stronger than we normally see when we acquire companies.

[Viktor Högberg, analyst]

Okay. And also, final one. Could you say anything to the start of the fourth quarter with October-November trading? Anything at all will be helpful.

[Johnny Engman, executive]

We wouldn't like to comment on the fourth quarter, but on the third quarter, we have said we have seen a strong performance on new sales during the quarter, and it has been continuously improving also during the quarter. So, we believe the momentum is there in the market. And when we see a good conversion of new clients, we see a pickup of new sales during the quarter. So, we believe the trading environment is quite good for us.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Joachim Gunell.

[Joachim Gunell, analyst]

So, just some follow-ups from my side. So, cash flows were very strong here in the quarter. I know that it's not seasonally the best quarter for you, but would it be fair to assume here traditional seasonality going forward? And also, on that note, this is a business model that should actually -- I mean, you should release working capital as you grow, but despite that, we saw not working capital build up in '21, '22, partly also now in 2023. So, are we seeing a step away from this traditional dynamics in any sense? Or should we expect this to release working capital as you grow go forward?

[Johnny Engman, executive]

No, we don't see any trend shift in the way our business is performed. So, when we continue to grow the subscription base, we will get prepayment from the client. So, the deferred revenue will grow. And therefore, as we continue organic growth, we should see a positive impact from that on the cash flow as the working capital should become more and more negative as the company grows.

[Joachim Gunell, analyst]

And is it fair to just assume the traditional seasonality here with entering Q4 that that should, of course, then be a slightly improved cash flow quarter as opposed to what we already saw here in terms of improvement in Q3?

[Johnny Engman, executive]

Yes. Our client base is still the same, right, or more or less the same. So, you would have a slightly bigger portion of clients renewing at the calendar year end, either December, January, and therefore, we get the better cash flow in the fourth and the first quarter. And that is similar to previous years. There hasn't been any shift in that customer base or behavior from our clients.

[Joachim Gunell, analyst]

Great. And on the like for like NRR momentum, you highlighted, Jonny, that we are of course seeing improvements both year-over-year and sequentially here, especially if we look back prior to ICO. What initiatives would you say are really bearing fruit here?

[Johnny Engman, executive]

It is our continuous work on customer success or how we onboard new clients and how we work with existing clients, making sure they use the data and the software on a continuous basis. So, it is the grind from our customer service teams coming through and also the rollout from the program because there is a big factor model for customer retention, which we're rolling out to the newly acquired units. And that is showing effect quarter-on-quarter. That's why we are increasing. But with the Forever Promise, we aim to increase the retention level even further, right? We want to increase the improvement level of retention, implementing the Forever Promise part of the strategy.

[Dario Aganovic, executive]

We have, as I mentioned here, in our Forever Promise pillar, there are 2 components. It's product management and the customer success. And the customer success, it's a number of initiatives under our customer success program that we are rolling out in all our territories, which will improve further our retention rates.

[Joachim Gunell, analyst]

Okay. And with the Construction Monitor acquisition, so we will see a step-up here in the net debt-to-EBITDA. So, can you just talk a bit about if this pace of interest expenses is the best proxy going forward as well, or are there any material shifts to anticipate here, Johnny?

[Johnny Engman, executive]

Well, we pay what we normally pay for when we acquire companies. And given that it's around SEK 20 million, you can estimate the cash flow for the fourth quarter. It should be in line with the cash we generate in the quarters. I wouldn't expect net debt-to-EBITDA ratio to increase in the fourth quarter just because of this acquisition, as we would generate a cash flow similar to what we paid.On the interest level, we are, as we commented on one of the slides, is that we see a positive interest margin impact from having a leverage below 3.5 turns. So, that would positively impact interest costs a little bit. We have hedges which expire at the end of the quarter, which will then increase interest costs a bit going into the fourth quarter, and next year. So, on the margin, the interest costs should go up a little bit versus Q3, because the hedge had a bigger benefit than the interest margin effect.

[Joachim Gunell, analyst]

Great. Just a final one then. I think we've touched upon this subject before, but when it relates to impairments, et cetera, can you just remind us here again, we currently, I mean, Goodwill is tracking up 110% to the value of your equity. So, to what extent is usually a risk for impairments of Goodwill as we enter Q4?

[Johnny Engman, executive]

Well, we review impairment every quarter and then the value of our, carrying value of our cash generating units. And if we would see any reason to adjust the balance sheet in any of the cash generating units, we would, of course, do so. But the company continues to perform strongly. And as you can see, the U.K. segment, which has the biggest carrying value, is the strongest performer in the group. So, therefore, we haven't deemed any need to adjust the balance sheet in these quarters.

[Operator]

Please state your name and company.

[Nick Dempsey, analyst]

Yes. This is Nick Dempsey from Barclays. So, just 2 questions, please. First of all, we've seen Australia and New Zealand clearly improving here in terms of new sales momentum. Can you just give a bit more color on what's going on there? Because it was clearly weaker software at the start of the year you were flagging. So, is this because your work on sales force or the other good things that you're doing is bearing fruit, or are you seeing some underlying market changes that is driving the improvement there?Second question. So, we've got a consensus adjusted EBITDA margin for the full year, about 33%. We've seen a nice beat in Q3. We know that you get a seasonal benefit in Q3. So, should we be thinking about the fact that we just didn't model the seasonal benefit, right? And therefore, just that flows through, or are we now on a better track in general? So, we should be thinking of Q4 margins being better?

[Dario Aganovic, executive]

I think the Australia question here, our Australian performance has been on a weaker side last year, very much due to the effects of COVID. As you know, Australia was one of the most closed countries during COVID period, given that they are very dependent on immigration. It had a severe impact on the labor market. You had a movement in the labor market, but no inflow of the workforce, which has contributed to us not being able to replenish losses of staff.So, we ended up with having quite a few vacancies, in the sales force. And since we are operating on a transactional sales model, the number of sales heads correlates directly to the sales figures. So, since we didn't have a capacity, we haven't been performing as we should last year. We have done a huge effort to in building up sales force, and we have done also an effort in improving our operational processes around sales, increasing efficiency in each of the steps throughout the sales funnel, from lead identification to qualification, demo and closing, through training, coaching, follow through in sales management. So, we see both increased capacity and increased pipeline efficiency that has led to a stronger sales performance.Then, the Australian market as such, the construction market itself is a bit stronger than in Europe, but we do not really see correlation between construction market strength and our sales performance. We do not have that particular link, even in the markets where construction activities are going down, we continue to grow there.So, I would say that the stronger performance in Australia is mainly attributed to us getting back to capacity in our sales force and improving our operational processes.

[Johnny Engman, executive]

And you also see a bit of pickup in retention level in Australia and New Zealand, which was weaker during 2022 as well, because we had some vacancies on the customer service side, also impacting retention levels during last year. But it is a strong pickup during this year, the first quarters and continues into the third quarter. We staffed up during the fall of last year, and now we are starting to see the impact of the full stopping in Australia and New Zealand, in particular.On your second question, Nick, of course, we had the vacation effect last year as well. So, when you compare the margin of the third quarter this year to last year, you could see the improvement in margin versus Q3 a year ago from 36.6% to 37.3%. So, we have an improved margin across the group versus a year ago. So, it is the first time this year when we beat last year's margin, which is good. And of course, if we continue performance, we would expect to see a more solid margin going forward as well.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time. So, I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

[Dario Aganovic, executive]

Well, thank you very much, all of you for your questions. And see you in 3 months. Bye.

[Johnny Engman, executive]

Bye.