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Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Bravida Q4 2017 Report. Today, I am pleased to present CEO, Mattias Johansson; CFO, Nils-Johan Andersson. [indiscernible]Speaker, please begin.
Okay, thank you and good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 10th report as a listed company, and also actually the best -- to the presentation of the best year ever in the Bravida history. We had high growth, good margin, strong cash flow and earnings per share is up 26%. So I can't be anything more than satisfied today. I also want to take the opportunity to thank -- say thank you to all our employees out in Bravida that have contributed to this development and also will continue to contribute to the development of the Bravida for the coming years as well. Today, as usual, myself will present the report together with Nils-Johan.So turn to Slide 3. And I think it's important to one more time explain what Bravida is in some way. You know that we are represented in more than 150 locations, we have more than 50,000 customers and top 5 customers only represent 15% of sales. And you know that these customers are the big construction companies and also [ exist ] of many, many relations and are not one single customer as well. 90% is recurring customers and our exposure to new built residential in Stockholm and Oslo are extremely low. It's very limited, and it's about -- around 1% of our sales. And if we look at the earnings, it's even lower as well.Our end-markets are many. Net sales by order size is also very many small and average size contract, as you know -- actually, the contracts above SEK 50 million has gone down a bit, which is okay and good for us as well. This takes us to our business model and the risk profile in there. We have a low risk in the business model, diversified end-markets, low customer concentration, and small average contract size.On the next slide, I want to take you through the highlights for the fourth quarter. Net sales grew 15% to SEK 4.9 billion, organic growth is 6% and M&A is 10%. We have growth in all countries and installation grew 7%, and good to see a major growth at Service, which is 25% in the quarter; it takes us to 50% of total sales, which is a good mix for us.Order backlog is at very high level, over SEK 10 billion, up 19%. We have a good -- continued good order intake at 7% and we have a really strong intake in Denmark, Finland and Norway. EBIT is up to SEK 389 million and the margin at 7.9%. As you know, Oras is still on the first year in the group and they dilute the margin in the quarter with 0.6%. So the underlying EBIT margin improved to 8.5%, which is on a very high level. Improved margin in Sweden as well as the underlying margin in Norway, which is important, really strong performance in our 2 biggest markets.When we come to the cash flow, it's also good to see that that has improved as well, up to SEK 650 million in the fourth quarter and the cash conversion at 106%. Negative working capital at 5.5% negative. Net debt at SEK 1.8 billion takes us to 1.7x adjusted EBITDA on LTM basis. And we also have a dividend proposal at SEK 1.55 per share and that is an increase with 24%.Our M&A story continues. We have completed 1 acquisition in Denmark in the fourth quarter. The integration of Oras is going according to plan and we also have done 3 acquisitions in January as well. So the first quarter in 2018 has started in a good way as well. We have a strong pipeline and we'll continue to develop the business with more M&A, of course.On Slide 5, you see the present market trends. And I'm now not going into very specific details, but the demand in the market is still strong. If you read the comments from the big construction companies, which are our biggest customers, they have published or said that the demand from their side is strong as well. They have improved order backlog. So that shows us that the demand for our services will be strong the coming quarters as well. So we're really looking forward to 2018.And as you see on this slide, the confidence indicators are at high levels or are improving in all countries where we are in actually. In Norway, we have a construction and installation activity, which is up 8% year-on-year. Market drivers are public investments. We have a decrease in residential construction. But as I said earlier, this -- exposure we have to this market is small. In Sweden, we have growth drivers from public investments in buildings and infrastructure, as well as residential buildings, because we see the demand for residential as quite strong if we look in Sweden, except for center of Stockholm.Denmark, strong markets as well. Construction confidence indicators still somewhat below average, but we see a really strong demand from public investments, regarding healthcare, education and so on. In Finland, the market is improving and we have a strong growth in all -- not in all, but in building and construction, I would say.Turning to the next slide, on Slide 6. You can see the sales development, and it's up 15% in the quarter, as I said earlier, and year-on-year we have improved the sales from SEK 14.7 billion up to over SEK 17 billion, plus 17%. And the margin is up, if we exclude Oras, to 8.5%, which is a really strong performance. On year-on-year basis, we are flat margin-wise, but I think that's a strong evidence of how we manage growth versus price and margin. Earnings per share is up 26%. We have an improvement in Sweden and Norway regarding the margin and reported EBIT is up 10% in the quarter, to SEK 389 million. And I think it's worth to mention, I think Nils-Johan is going to mention that later on as well, last quarter, we have some tough comparison figures, because we had a positive one-off of SEK 25 million as a refund of pension money. So if you compare to that one-off, we are still improving the result with this much, and I think that's really strong, of course.Slide 7 and the order momentum. Order backlog is up 19% year-on-year. In the quarter, we have mainly many small and mid-sized projects that we had won in Q4, and this will vary between the quarters. We are already up in the Q1 in '18 -- January was plus 16% in order intake. So the level we are at regarding the order backlog is something that we feel very comfortable about.The next Slide [ 8 ] shows order backlog compared to our LTM sales. At first I want to underline that we have a strong development in our Service sales. As I mentioned earlier, our Service sales grew with 25% in the quarter. And that is shown by the red line, a positive development since the start of '16, as you can see in this slide. And Service is, of course, very important for us. The blue line shows the order backlog. And our order backlog is on very high level and we are confident and relaxed on lower level than this as well. But again, it's about manage sales versus margin, and we are confident that the order backlog is well above what we actually need. So this will support the organic growth the coming quarters as well. If you compare the LTM sales, the green line, with order backlog, that is the blue line, you can see the gap and this gap will support growth coming quarters in a good way.Now over to Nils-Johan, and he will take you through the financials.
Thank you, Mattias. And let's look a little bit deeper into the figures and starting with sales. We continue with a good organic growth in the fourth quarter, 6%. This figure was in line with full year. If you look for acquisition, contributed with 10% to the top line. Of course, Oras was the biggest contributor to this growth. Currency effect, we had a small negative effect, explained by a weak Norwegian krone; this ending up in the total sales increase about 15%.Looking for the -- to the key highlights, we also see that the financial net continued to improve. This quarter, we came down to SEK 15 million compared to SEK 18 million a year ago, and this is explained by both lower interest rates and lower debt. And if you look for the earning per share, we are on -- for 2017 up with 22%, and in the quarter we are up with 26%. And this, of course, is a high figure compared to EBITDA and explained by lower financial net and improve debt -- improved tax situation.So we look for next slide and start to look into our markets. We continued to have a strong development in Sweden. Sales this quarter is up with 11%. This is mainly coming from organic growth. And EBIT margin is up from already a high 8.2% last year to 8.7% this year. And as Mattias mentioned, we had a positive one-off in the fourth quarter 2016 when one of the pension funds -- we have a refund from one of the pension funds for SEK 25 million. So we are really pleased to see that we can deliver SEK 239 million in the fourth quarter in Sweden.Looking for the order intake and order backlog, we see that the order intake was down minus 8%, but the order backlog was up 9%. And we also said, as Mattias mentioned, that we had -- if you look into January, we continued to see a good growth in the order intake and on group level is up 16%. And the order backlog is back on the same level, record level, we had a couple of months ago.If we continue with Norway, we see -- we continue to have a strong sales growth in Norway. Of course, this is mainly driven by the Oras acquisition. This quarter we reported a growth for 24%. If you look for the EBIT margin, you see it came down from last year, we have 8.9%, we reported this quarter 7.1%. But, of course, if we exclude for the dilution from the Oras, the underlying is 9.7%, which is a new record level for Norway.Looking to the order intake, we see that the order intake is up with 15%, and the order backlog is up with 67%. And of course, the big increase explained by Oras. But also, if we exclude Oras, the order backlog is up -- will be more than 20%.And just to take you through the Oras, and please remember that this is a turnaround case. We have communicated earlier that there will be a dilution during '17, but from now Oras is in our operating organization in Norway. They are using our RFP system and purchasing system. And we expect that we should see synergies, both from the cost and purchasing side and also in the organization and this has been confirmed during 2017. And all the cost related to integrate the company into Bravida is taken in the profit -- in the Q4 results. And of course, we have realized some of the synergies in '17, but of course the larger part of the synergies will be realized in 2018.Going to Denmark, we see a stable development in Denmark in Q4. Sales is up with 14%. It is a split between organic growth and acquisition. You see also stable margins in Denmark. The profit is up from SEK 44 million to SEK 49 million. And the full year EBIT margin is up from 5.0% to 5.1%. And we continue to see a good order intake development and the order backlog is also higher compared to a year ago in Denmark.Finally, Finland, on next slide. We continue to take steps in the right direction in Finland and build our platform. Sales this quarter is up with 15% and we see a stable margin and also a small increase in the profit from SEK 7 million to SEK 8 million. Of course, we are also really pleased to see that Marko Holopainen, the previous CFO for the Consti Group, will join us in end of March and take up the responsibility for further development in Finland.Looking for next slide, and yes, few words about the acquisitions. As I said earlier, acquisition contributed with 10% to the growth. And of course, the most important acquisition was Oras in Norway, and by doing this acquisition we became the market leader. And when we took over the business, it was loss-making, and as you have heard that we now -- for '17, we reported a breakeven result for Oras. So the turnaround has started. And we expect that this development will continue in '18, that we expect that we can report a positive result for Oras in 2018.If you look for the current discussions we have, we feel that we continue to have a strong pipeline and the multiple is on the same level or even lower what you -- we have seen during in '14, '15, or '16 and I think this is confirmed, as we have announced 3 acquisitions in January; 1 in Sweden, 1 in Denmark and 1 in Finland, adding roughly SEK 230 million to the top line.If you look for next slide, yes, to see the earning per share. To the left, you see a steady growth of earning per share, adding up in -- over SEK 4 -- SEK 4.06 for rolling 12 months, or for the Q4. And to the right, you -- here we have adjusted for Oras and Finland, let's call it 2 projects or 2 activities that will contribute to the profit -- to the increased profit in 2018 and '19. And as you see, we have -- since the IPO, we have taken the EBIT margin from 6.3% to close to 6.8%. So we are coming closer to the financial target.Cash flow and net debt, on next slide. We had an excellent cash flow in the last quarter and we have taken down the net debt to SEK 1.862 billion and the net debt-to-EBITDA on 1.7x. If you look into the bottom of the page and look into the operating cash flow, we generated over SEK 1 billion -- SEK 1.038 billion in operating cash flow in '17. And this is more than double compared to '16 -- '16 was a low figure for sure, but the cash flow we generated -- we are really pleased to see the cash flow we generated in '17. And this also took us to a cash conversion that again is above 100%. We reported 106% for the full year '17 in the cash conversion.We proposed a dividend SEK 1.55, increase for 24%. We paid out SEK 1 in '16, SEK 1.75 -- SEK 1.25 in '17, and we proposed to the Annual Meeting, SEK 1.55. So in the average, we have seen an increase for 24%, 25% since with did the IPO.Looking for the financial targets and how we performed compared to them. We are committed to grow the sales with 10% -- to over 10%. As you know, the figure was 17% for last year. And this is -- the organic growth, it's 5%. We had an organic growth for 6% in '17. And M&A, 5% to 7%. We had a growth from 10% from M&A. We should take the margin over 7%. And as you saw in the slide, we have increased it from 6.3% to now to something between 6.7%, 6.8%. And if we adjust for Oras and Finland and -- the improvement continue. Cash conversion [ above ] 100% -- we have 106% and we would like to pay out 50% of net profit. We increased the -- the proposal is to increase with 24% and it's 38% of net profit.If you look into the balance sheet, the [ target leverage ratio ] should be around 2.5x. We came down to low 1.7x. That, of course, gave us ammunition and we are [ ready for ] M&A and we are prepared for further acquisition and also for development of the company.So next slide, Mattias?
Thank you very much. As the headline says, on Slide 18, a strong quarter to end our best ever year. Again, sales increased 15%. Organic growth is 6%. Installation order backlog is up 19% and continued good business momentum for Service will support the growth -- the organic growth the coming quarters. And, as Nils-Johan mentioned, the margin is something we are very pleased to present. Underlying EBIT margin improved to 8.5% in Q4 and is unchanged for 2017 at 6.5%. And we have strong margins in both Norway and Sweden, which is our biggest markets. And I think this is something -- this is an evidence that our model and our culture is strong enough to deliver margin in our industry, and I think this is something that -- I know that this something that both Finland and Denmark are looking at, and we have a strong platform in those countries for the coming years as well.M&A execution is on track with a healthy pipeline. We added SEK 1,370 million in sales during 2017. Strong cash flow in Q4 has strengthened the balance sheet. Net debt is at 1.7x the EBITDA -- adjusted EBITDA. And cash conversion above 100%, 106%, is strong evidence that we have a strong performance in the business, healthy projects, customers who can pay the bills, et cetera, et cetera. And looking forward, we also can see stable good market that will continue for a while, at least as long as we can see.So thank you for listening. This has been a good start on this Friday and we have been waiting a while to be able to present this strong report. So now we can open up for some questions.
[Operators Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Sylvia Barker from Deutsche Bank.
I want to ask three questions, please. Firstly, if we look at your growth within installation and service, would you be able to perhaps provide a little bit of color on what that looks like organically? And secondly, on the balance sheet, obviously, you have delevered and it seems that you can do a lot more M&A. Are you perhaps accelerating the rate at which you think you can close acquisitions? And [ later ] if we can look on Slide 20 -- this is the final question, which regions would you be focusing on now? Where do you think that you can build further, given the targets that you can see in the market and where do you think you can generate the most value?
Sylvia, thank you for the question. I can start with the organic growth in service and installation. Of course, we are really pleased to see that we have an excellent growth in the service, 25% up in the quarter, and we have, as you know, an initiative in place. We have worked with this more than -- something between 1 and 2 years now. So we hope and we expect that the growth will come in. If we look for the figures, I think we are -- we have the -- acquisition is close to 10% of the 25%. So we have a good underlying organic growth in the service businesses. Normally, Q4 is the strongest growth quarter where we see -- for service. So we, in the quarter and before the year, we normally send the last invoices and we finalized a couple of contracts. But if you look for the development for the service growth, you can see this -- all divisions and all countries increased the service business and even if you go deeper and look into the regions, you can see we have 35 regions today, more than 30 regions increased the service business. So it's not one explanation. It's -- I think the work we have done in the last [ year has started ] to pay off. Of course, this is an extremely high figure, but we are really pleased to see that the growth is starting up now.
And regarding the regions where we want to, as I understood it, grow the business further on, I think we see this market still as a very fragmented market. And I think we have the same recipe, both from the organic growth perspective as well as the M&A perspective. We want to focus to get a complete offer with all the segments in the places where we are represented. We also be -- want to be #1 or at least #2 in the local market. We are the market leader on overall in the Nordics, but it's most important to be a market leader in the local markets and this is where we focus to strengthen our position. We also have some white spots in some cities or areas where we think we can win a market. And we also see that the creation of [ division National ] last spring has increased our focus on what we earlier called our special segment. And this has actually given our -- we have given ourselves the potential to develop those segments in a much, much better way, in a faster way. So this is what we will continue to do. We are not planning to go outside the Nordics for the near future. We still think this is fragmented enough to continue develop Bravida within the markets we are in today.
Can I just ask follow-ups on these? So firstly on the organic growth, can you just give us the installation as well? And obviously we can see that the last 12 months installation sales in December were lower than in November. So if you can just talk a little bit around that organic development, that will be very helpful. And then on the acquisitions, maybe if you can just talk about specific regions or white spaces that will be very helpful?
We are -- as we see that we -- of course, the organic growth varies from one month to another depending on -- at least on the -- you can see it on the installation sales, where we -- if we have a couple of larger projects or not. So it's not really any big differences compared to the Q3 or Q2 and we have in Norway finalized one big hospital in Tromso. We are starting up now a large hospital outside Oslo. So we saw a slightly weak organic growth in Norway in the quarter. But otherwise, there is -- on the installation side, it could -- varies from one quarter to another.
And I think just underlining what Nils-Johan says, we still think that we have a strong growth in the installation business, but it will vary from one quarter to another. And if you look back at last year, we had 12% in Q1, 0 in Q2, then we've had 6% organic in Q3 and Q4, if I remember correctly. And then you had the Easter effect between the Q1 and Q2. So the most important thing is the longer, I would say, forecast regarding this and we still have a strong order backlog that will support growth in the future. And acquisition, we will continue to do so, yes.
Our next question comes from the line of Stefan Andersson from SEB.
Just some quick short-term questions. Finland first, it's been -- the margin there is, of course, volatile, given the small -- the size of the operation, and of course, the growth you have there. If you look at the margin development that we have had, are you seeing that you are on a level where the margins are stabilizing on the current level, or on a positive level or will we still see some ups and downs going forward? That's one part of the question. And the second part is, you made, for Finland, rather bigger acquisition. Will that dilute or support margin as we go into 2018? I don't really know the margin, only the revenue stream from that business.
First of all, I want to say that we think that Finland today is stronger than it was a year ago and we are taking the steps we want to see, we improve the business. But, as you mentioned, Stefan, that it is a quite small business so far and it will probably be 2 steps ahead and 1 back, because of the dynamics, both in the market and from one quarter to another. But we are stronger today than we were 9 months ago, so to say. We are still slightly too small to have the critical mass that will support the margin improvement in a better way, of course. Regarding the last acquisition, first, it took us a little bit closer to critical mass and it's important for us in strategic important markets. They also have a business that is a bit closer to the end customers that we have at the moment in the rest of Finland today and they will support the margin ongoing. They have a higher margin than we have on average in Finland.
When it comes to Oras, you mentioned it's been breakeven throughout the year. Could you say anything about the quarter? Are you on profitability in the fourth quarter or has it been -- I mean, are you seeing a progress, an improvement gradually or has it been flat at breakeven the whole year?
If I start, first of all, we have focused a lot since summer to educate personnel. We have educated more than 700 employees in Oras. We have done it by our own personnel. We've held close to 200 different courses and training sessions. And, of course, that will do something with the focus and where you spend your time. But said that, I think that it is the same with Finland. We are moving in the right direction. We take out cost to reach the synergies. The synergies haven't been seen or visible yet in the P&L, but it will be helping and supporting us in '18. And I think, as Nils-Johan mentioned that we have taken approximately slightly above SEK 10 million in cost. It's hard to estimate and calculate exactly, but more than SEK 10 million in cost for those trainings and integration work so far. So Oras is definitely moving there in the right direction. And if you look at the order intake for -- there's one example where we actually take down the order intake because how we want Oras to behave in some way. They are focusing more on margin than volume and before they had focused a little bit more on volume. We have said that we will take down the volume in Oras, and that means of course that the order backlog in Oras will go down for a while and that is actually impacting our figures as well. But that's close to our strategy and no major negative surprises. If I should say in what direction Oras is today compared to last time we spoke, I think it's -- we are more confident that this is the right thing to do for Bravida.
Yes, I think you summarized in a good way and I've said earlier that, of course, we expect that we will take -- it will be a profitable business next year -- or this year, 2018, supported by that we are able now to fully take the advantage of the synergies. But also they are now following our, what we call, Bravida way. They are now fully integrated in the organization. So now we are looking forward to the '18 and we're -- we hopefully see -- we'll continue to see a good development in the profitability in Oras.
Maybe last but not least, I think it's -- the personnel we have left in Oras is very motivated and are very competent as well working within Bravida where we focus on their core business and that's a difference from before from their side. So a lot of competent people that are motivated and that's always a good place to start.
Okay. The final question is on, the financial markets are over-surprised that the Easter comes every year. So this year, it's a little bit earlier. So should we be a little bit cautious on the Q1 due to the fact that that might hurt for you in Norway and Sweden?
Actually, I haven't been looking at the calendar, but I think it's quite easy in our business, because it's about working days, in some way. And I actually don't know where it is, but where the holidays are, it will impact the sales, of course, and it's impacting more in Norway than in the other countries, and I think that's something you can think of.
Our next question comes from the line of Predrag Savinovic from Nordea.
A few ones from me as well. The margin in Sweden is very strong here, even in spite of the positive one-off you had last year. Maybe if you can just elaborate a bit on this performance, is it due improved pricing, is it some kind of scale benefits, just to get a feel for it, and maybe also Norway which records the record high margin pretty much?
Yes, I think that's a good performance. We have been successful in choosing, if you could call it choosing, or maybe avoiding bad projects with high risks or where we haven't been able to price the risks, margin over volume. As we always say, we try to avoid projects where we think we can see a risk and we can't price the risk. Then, of course, we have the initiatives about the productivity, improving our purchasing and also the service initiatives. All these initiatives drives the margin and service drives the sales as well. But a good performance in project, good project management, productivity within the projects has been improved and delivering in all regions and it's fun to see that we actually have a couple of regions that delivers above 8% EBITDA margin. We have more branches that delivers above 10% EBITDA margin than we had last year. And I think this is -- it seems like many try to copy what we do in Bravida, but I think this is combination about culture, people and the will to improve, and we have seen people that actually of some reason have left Bravida to try to do the same in an external place and it's not that easy. It's a combination about knowledge, competence, resources, personnel and the strong culture we have. So I think both Sweden and Norway have done a good job in that perspective in '17.
And then maybe if you can comment on the order intake for the Swedish market, which is down a bit year-over-year and what drives this development?
As we said, the order intake is down 8% in -- if you look for the same period last year, and we -- it varies from one quarter to another, in one market to another. And we are -- there were no large orders in Q4 this year. And as we said earlier, if we have included -- if we look into -- if we have cut the calendar in a different way, we have reported much higher figures. We said January we are up with over 16% on group level, and of course, Sweden is part of that. And the order backlog is again up on record level, in line what we were a couple of months ago. So this you will see -- then you have seen it that it will -- varies from one quarter to another in the market. So there is nothing that we are concerned about.
And one final from me. What are your thoughts on cost inflation for personnel going forward? How's that been trending? Are there any lags in this that we should expect some kind of wage increase close to your --
First of all, we are quite good in pass on these cost increases, and in most of the countries we are in, the people are part of the union. So the cost increase will be the same for everyone more or less. So we don't see that it's -- if we compare 6 months [ 8 or ] 9 months ago, I think the situation is not tougher today compared to -- so I think we should be able to handle this, in some cases with some delays, but we should be able to handle this.
[Operator Instructions] There seems to be a follow-up question from Sylvia Barker from Deutsche Bank.
Just 2 very quick follow-ups. Just quickly on the order backlog for the group, could you just let's know kind of how that's developed in January quarter -- sorry, the order backlog. So it was obviously down 3% quarter-on-quarter. If you can just let's know whether January is actually above December?
Yes, as I've said, if we look at the development in January -- in the end of January, we are back on the level -- on the record level we were a couple of months ago.
Sorry, I must have missed that. And then secondly just on the tax rate, where do you see that going forward?
Sorry, tax rate or --
Tax rate, yes, sorry.
We're -- I think we saw a decrease in Norway, but it should be around the 21%, 22% for the group.
We appear to have no further question at this time, I'll hand the conference back to you.
Okay. Thank you very much. Let's hope for a green day on the stock exchange. And once again, thank you for listening. And thank you to all Bravidians, all the Bravida employees to have made this possible, and I also know that you are in line with the thoughts about that we can do this even better next year. So thank you very much and good luck, and have a nice day everyone. Thanks.
Thank you.