Clavister Holding AB

STO:CLAV

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q1

[Jenny Ramkrans, executive]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our live Interim Report Q1 2022 live presentation. Today, I have with me John Vestberg, our CEO; and from remote, our CFO, David Nordstrom. We will start the session by -- with a presentation of the Q1 report and the conclusions from that. [Operator Instructions] Should we get started, John?

[John Vestberg, executive]

Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Jenny. And again, welcome, everyone. Starting off with an executive summary of the first quarter of 2022. So following the tragic invasion in Ukraine and certainly also following the very likeliness that Sweden and Finland now are to join NATO, there is a new security order that has been established in Europe. And this new security order definitely drives demand, especially in our defense vertical. I'll get back to that in a short while.

For the quarter, we saw a quite nominal order intake, growth of 2.5%, arrived at SEK 37 million. In the perspective, Q1 in the comparison quarter last year, had a number of quite large one-off deals, whereas in this quarter, the order intake was driven by a wide range of deals from a wide range of businesses. One of the key metrics we are following, as you know, since a while back is our recurring revenue, especially given that we are transforming into a subscription-based business model overall in the company. So for the quarter, our recurring revenues grew with a more solid 15% and they now represent 68% of the total net sales in the first quarter.

As I mentioned, the sales was driven by a very wide mix of deals similar to our previous quarter, Q4 last year, which also had the same characteristics. And this is, in my opinion, a good thing, obviously, because it reflects an underlying business that is more steady and more even and not always dominated by single large deals. The 2 solution areas that provided for the largest set of deals were the Next-Generation Firewall solution and our Identity and Access Management solution areas.

If we look at our gross margins, we arrived at 82% versus 86% same quarter last year. The lower gross margin is stemming from 2 primary reasons. First of all, the global component shortage in the world that is the consequence first of the COVID-19 pandemic and obviously now being affected a bit of the war situation as well. That has a hopefully temporary cost increase of the hardware components that we source for our appliance products. The second reason is a natural and planned consequence of the new business model, and I'll get back to this in a while as well. We launched a cost optimization program. This is something David will give you a more detailed insight to a bit later in the presentation. But as a summary, those cost optimizations are progressing according to the plan with that out. And finally, but potentially most important for this quarter is a substantially improved cash position in the quarter, and this is also something that David will come back to and make a deep dive into.

If we move ahead from the executive summary and look at the war in Ukraine and the impact or the potential impact on Clavister. This is such an important topic. So we decided to have a session or a section of this presentation devoted to that. As everyone is truly aware of, the war happens not only on ground and in the air, but also in cyber. Everyone is aware that Russia is mounting multiple severe and frequent cyber attacks on not only Ukraine but also on the Western world in general.

A few weeks back, this was announced by the Biden administration encouraging all the public agencies, all the private companies in U.S. and in the West to be on high alert, knowing that there is an inflow of really severe and potentially severe cyber attacks. Now as a consequence of this, a good consequence and this is probably something that Putin didn't see coming, there is now Europe that is coming together.

And we see the relevance of European cyber security becoming more and more important and more relevant than ever. There is a historic increase of defense budgets happening right now in Europe. A few examples that you should know. Germany, Sweden, for instance, doubling its defense budgets, trying to arrive at 2% of GDP. Spanish government increasing the budgets dramatically and so forth. This is unheard of in history. It poses some challenges, however, for the defense sector and the defense industry.

From the defense budget allocations until we are able to see defense material being actively used and actively implemented, there is quite a significant lead time. Reason being, of course, the specifics of the defense vertical or the defense industry with dire requirements, with extreme testing, endurance and life cycle activities that needs to happen to secure the quality and so forth, plus just the fact that most of the material is typically customized for each customer. So lead times are dramatic. So even now when there are more budgets allocated, we can't see the benefits of it on a global level until much later. This is an area where actually Clavister now has an advantage following the investments we did in the defense vertical over the past years.

We have now a ready-made solution, our CyberArmour solution, which is not custom built for any specific customer. It adheres to standards, NATO standards, NATO requirements and so forth. And it's readily available now. It's an off-the-shelf product, so to say. That means that the potential customers have now an ability to spend defense budget allocations on much needed cybersecurity products without having to go through the full lengthy lead time process that would basically put investments back several years.

So all in all, we see quite an interesting opportunity arising here. We see that not only in the active already won deals we have, for instance, with BAE and others, but also looking at our funnel and the pipeline, which is now building up quite heavily, specifically in this area.

It's important to just again, remind that the platform we have or the solution we have -- because the CyberArmour solution is applicable to any defense platform. So far, it's been mainly used in land-based vehicles such as the Combat Vehicle 90 you see on the center picture, but there is nothing that prevents the same solution in any other defense platform. It's more or less the same requirements, and it's a standardized solution. So this is an important update on how the war in Ukraine affects our business opportunities.

From a more sort of code of conduct/compliance point of view, we have had very limited exposure to Russia in the past. We have been working with 1 sub-supplier. For natural reasons, we have canceled or terminated that cooperation immediately when the war started. And we have seen partners, large partners with operations in Russia, where we have blocked specific orders when we have been aware that the products might fall into the hands of Russian customers or Russian entities. But apart from that, our exposure to Russia is limited.

I would like to take a few words as well to just reiterate on the new business model. This is a bit of a repetition, but it's an important one still. Our new business model that we introduced in Q4 last year represents the largest license or business model shift that Clavister has ever done. It has a lot of positive connotations and a lot of positive effects, but it also has short-term implications on the negative side. And I think it's important that we keep on explaining this because it's important to understand our metrics. To start off with, the new business model was introduced basically to bring a modern subscription economy, term-based licensing or software as a service or there are many names for the same type of business model, but basically bringing subscription economy to quite a classic product business. A product business that historically was dominated by fairly large CapEx investments and not necessarily a steady flow of subscription income after the fact.

So in essence, we are lowering the investment barrier for new customers. And to put some perspective on that, to put some numbers on that, a product or a solution from Clavister, let's say, with EUR 100,000 of CapEx investment, has dramatically been reduced to lower than EUR 10,000 for the same investment. However, the total contract value has actually increased. And the majority of the revenue, the majority of the income has instead been shifted out to a recurring component, which is granted for us rather than optional. That's a super, super big and important shift. This also brings much better incentives for our channel partners. Instead of them having to rely as we did on customers opting in for new extended periods of support contracts for us, they can now rely on a steady income flow as well. So this means better committed partners, more top line brought to our partners as well and an ability for us to start differentiating margins as well as we have more software revenues and more gross margins to shift from.

If we look at the positive impacts from a more financial point of view, the first one is just the fact that maintaining customers and maintaining customer retention as in our previous business model required us to use fairly expensive sales personnel to drive renewal sales and to encourage customers to come back to us and renew their contracts. In the new business model, this is an automated process. It's an opt-out process rather than an opt-in process, which means that we can steer our sales headcount and our sales personnel to chase and to win new businesses rather than to protect all business. That's an important shift.

Following that is, of course, with an opt-out rather than an opt-in, a necessity to have a contract with Clavister to continue using the product. In the previous model, even if you -- as a customer stopped paying for your contract, you were still entitled to continue using the product. It was a perpetual license model. In the new model, the day you stop paying for the contract you cease to have the rights to use the product. And that, of course, triggers much, much higher stickiness, much longer customer contracts, and as a consequence, reduced churn rates. So basically limiting or lowering the amount of customers who leave us for different reasons.

I already mentioned that the recurring element becomes bigger because of this. And that is the reason why we are so keen on tracking our recurring revenue metric because that is the key metric on understanding that our business is moving towards this new situation. As the customers will very likely stay with us a longer time, we already know that customers stay with our products for a quite a long time today, but they are not paying for the full amount of that time. Now they will be doing that for the longer period of time. So our analysis shows that the lifetime value of the software component in the contract is expected to increase with over 40%, 4-0 percent. So that's a very substantial increase of contract value.

There are some disadvantages to this as well. When you do a transformation from perpetual to term-based or subscription-based, there is always an impact on net sales recognition in the short term. And this is just a natural accounting consequence. So that's why, again, we are keen to both provide the recurring revenue metric at the same time providing the net sales metric, but then keeping in mind that net sales is always pushed down because revenues are shifted out to longer-term software contract components that are being recognized over time.

The initial phase of new customer contracts include in -- at least in our Next-Gen Firewall Solution area includes a hardware component. And as we are selling the hardware component to a very low threshold, a very low margin, where we're basically lowering the investment barrier, and we are moving as much as possible over to the software and the recurring side of the contract. That essentially means that the initial delivery is followed by a low gross margin. On the other hand, the software component part that follows and that spans over many years, has a very, very high gross margin, on the other hand, which more than anything compensates for that lower gross margin in the beginning. So that is one of the reasons why in this quarter, we saw 82% instead of 86%, because of that initial burden on gross margin that comes from hardware shipments being the first initial part of a contract.

Some key events in the period, starting with public sector, where our Identity and Access Management solution is particularly strong, especially in Sweden. And we saw very strong demand on the solution in Q1. Several new public -- several public agencies and several Swedish municipalities that we have the opportunity to welcome as new customers in the period. Also interesting to see is that we have now started to see also increased interest on the same solution from abroad. So new users still within the public sector from both Finland, Norway and Germany. So still within our focus geographical markets with Nordics and DACH region. But up until this point or up until last quarter, the wide base of installed customers for our IAM solution has been in Sweden. Now it's interesting to see that we start getting increased traction as well on -- from abroad customers.

Within the service provider customer segment, we continue delivering licenses and services with the 5G security solution. One key deal worth mentioning from this quarter was a large -- very large Northern European mobile operator. They have decided to virtualize their full mobile core network, and that is a huge undertaking. It's -- well, I wouldn't call it really a pilot in the world, but they are among the frontiers who have this kind of ambitious virtualization agenda. For us, the initial order that we signed in Q1 is worth approximately SEK 4 million.

In the quarter as well, we introduced or launched a new Clavister next generation firewall model, the Clavister NetWall 300. This product sits in the lower range of our product portfolio. It closes a well-known gap that we've seen for a time. Given the situation with the components and everything, it has been a little bit of a challenge in the last period to get this product up to speed, but it was now launched in Q1. And shipments in quantities and in larger volumes start now in the second quarter. So this product allows us to stay competitive from a price point of view, but also as the portfolio is now more complete, it allows us to respond to more complex tenders where we are expected to ship both large products as well as smaller products. So an important new product release. So with that, I'm handing over the word to David.

[David Nordstrom, executive]

Thank you, John. Just checking. Can you hear me?

[Jenny Ramkrans, executive]

Yes. Perfectly.

[David Nordstrom, executive]

Perfect. So I'm joining from -- joining in from remote since I'm recovering from stomach flu and my colleague, for some reason, doesn't want to sit in the same conference as me. So looking at some key points for the quarters -- for the quarter, order intake grew with 2.5%. We would call this, well, stabilized growth. We deliver on the targets we set out for Q1. So this is in line with what we expected for the quarter. It's driven by underlying business, as John said, it's not supported by a selected few large orders. On the contrary, we see order intake coming in from several sectors, many small to midsized deals are building up our order intake in the quarter. And this is, again, in line with the ambition to stabilize growth from a certain level where we then start to increase order intake, where we are less dependent on single large deals making the quarter. So I think this is good.

Of course, we want to increase the growth rate, and that is something we're working on, but it's in line with our target for the quarter. Looking at net sales, there is -- I mean, due to all that's happening in the world at this stage, we see a deterioration of the SEK versus our important currencies, mainly the euro, and that gives us net sales support. So if we remove that and the FX effect, net sales growth is 1.6%. If we exclude FX, it's 6.5%.

Recurring revenues, again, in line with the ambition, is growing with 15%, which we -- it represents a good number for us. And this is something that we're working on to keep growing. And as part of total sales, it is also capturing a bigger share, but that can, of course, be volatile quarter-to-quarter depending on sales mix in the quarter. I think the most important metric to track is that -- is the growth rate of the recurring revenues in absolute numbers.

Other revenues. We saw volatility there as a consequence of COVID. For some quarters now, it's been normalizing on a normal level. So I think we could just conclude that.

Looking at COGS, quite a big increase for us. This is, as John said, mainly due to the impact we see, first, from COVID and then due to the war where we see quite high cost increases of some components. And this is -- it takes quite a lot of time and energy for us to keep -- to be on top of that situation. I believe we are. It was a strategic investment we did despite the cost saves that we're running to hire a supply chain manager with long background in sourcing electronic components, and that has been proven to be a very good investment as we have been more able to source the quantities that we need at a cost level that is accepted given the circumstances. But so I would say we see impact on COGS. We also see some impact on top line as we can deliver, but we deliver with some delays from time to time that, it takes time to get components in. And we see also some cost increases due to this as we need to fly in our appliances to a higher degree than normally. Normally, we ship by boat from our production sites, but we are relying more on airfreight due to the troublesome lead times. That has a negative cost impact.

Then we have also the impact of the transition to new business model as we are launching new products as a consequence or in conjunction with the new business model and a new product typically is a bit more expensive as it replaces an old one that's been running for years, and that has an impact on COGS as well.

Looking at gross profit, still increases. Gross margins maintained above our target, but we will -- we expect to see the gross margins to be under pressure during 2022 as a consequence of the component shortage situation.

Looking at OpEx, they are declining. Obviously, some increase, of course, here quarter-to-quarter. If we compare, but looking from the trend, I would say that we are starting to see some effects of the cost optimization program. The P&L effect and the cash flow effect are lagging. But if we look at our tracker of cost saves, we see that we deliver on our targets for the quarter, and we will see costs coming down as we have concluded the redundancy process that we set out for in early Q1. It has been concluded. A number of employees have left Clavister and the bulk of our costs are related to staff. So we've been doing several reorganizations in order to make the organization more flat, more efficient and to -- and by doing so, running the operations with fewer staff. Everyone hasn't left by the end of the quarter or they have left, but we're still obliged to pay salary during a certain period. So we will see a gradual effect on costs and cash flows during the second quarter and also the third quarter as the -- as people are leaving and our obligation to pay salaries will cease.

Financial impact, this is very much in line with what we have been seeing for quite a long time. The cash impact from financial items is less than SEK 1 million. And the remaining amount is noncash, relates to cost for warrants to EIB and long-term lenders -- to long-term interest to lenders.

So we can move on to talk a bit about our -- some balance sheet and cash flow metrics. So some increase in CapEx investments. We have seen that during the most part of 2021, we see this increase following up into 2022. It is very much driven by investments in SASE, our CyberArmour solution. And then we acquired Umeå Technologies and the AI ML engine developed there that we have been keep -- kept developing that and integrating it with our CyberArmour solution, and these are the main explanations to the increase in CapEx. And then, of course, amortizations are increasing as a consequence of increased CapEx investment. So that's what we see there.

Cash flows from operating activities are increasing a bit. We want to see a bigger decrease in our cash burn and hence, of course, our ambition to grow the business. And then the running cost optimizations that will keep impacting cash flows. We will see more as we move through the year. We have cash flows from operating activities, when we also include balance sheet effects, increased with -- to SEK 46.6 million. The main driver there is the positive impact of SEK 50.2 million due to Swedish government COVID-19 support to business where the government allow a company to apply for deferral of tax payments of salary taxes and social charges. And this is something that we have used before and repaid during 2021. Now we are using this possibility again for 9 periods, and this needs to be repaid during Q1 2023 with the possibility to extend that to 2024, and that is something that we are investigating to see what we can do there.

And I saw a question coming in, in the chats, so I can answer that right away. And the question is, do we need to repay that? And the answer is yes, it needs to be repaid, and it needs to be repaid in 2023 or 2024. And that is something to be -- we will come back to that. We see a reduction of FTEs from 137 to 132. And the explanation here is the cost optimization program. Not everyone has left by the end of the quarter, so we will see a continuous decrease in Q2 as well.

Some update and also repetition about the cost optimizations. We will -- we launched this in the end of the fourth quarter to accelerate the journey to profitability and positive cash flows to reduce financing risk. Of course, the most important metric to reach positive cash flow is growth, but you can never underestimate the importance of cost. And so the aim is to reduce cash OpEx with 20% from the 2021 exit run rate level. And how do we do that? Well, the first phase has been reductions of FTEs, primarily within administrative and managerial roles where we have restructured large parts of the organization to unlock a cost-saving potential. That has gone well. We are done with that phase. We are working with attrition and not replacing all natural attrition that we have, looking at contracts, office spaces and so forth and a wide array of initiatives, and we are progressing according to our ambition here. And we are doing this without jeopardizing our go-to-market engine.

I think we can see that also in the numbers that we have been from a growth perspective, producing according to our plan. We have added some sales headcount here during or end Q1, early Q2 to invest in driving more growth, but financing that by doing larger cost saves in other parts of the organization. We expect the positive impact to start to be visible from Q1. We see that and we will see bigger effect as we move through the years, and there is a lagging effect on cash flow as we are required to pay salaries as part of the redundancy process, but that will cease as we move through the year. And then the program will run until Q3, and we expect the full cost savings to be realized during the fourth quarter.

Some update also on the material post closing events. As we have been disclosing, we have updated our agreement with the European Investment Bank, EIB. We have a loan agreement with the bank of EUR 20 million since 2017. As per the original schedule, the full amount of EUR 20 million were due to be repaid during '23 and '24. And we have amended that repayment schedule to an amortizing repayment plan and instead spanning the years, '23 to '26, to repay as the original plan, we were required to repay EUR 15 million during 2023. That was -- that is a challenge for us. So this negotiation has been around then since July 2021 with the bank to reach another agreement where we ease cash flow burdens during 2023.

And I'm glad that we agreed to that with the bank, meaning that the repayment in '23 reduced to SEK 0.5 million (sic) [ EUR 0.5 million ]. So a very significant reduction. So then the bulk of repayments will be made during 24 to 26. Instead, looking at the loan, it is -- it continues to be unsecured. It was that before, and it's still unsecured. And we've also been negotiating of the covenants, and we agreed with the bank to fully remove the covenants. So I think that's also an important step that the repayment plan has changed. The loan continues to be unsecured, and there are no covenants for this loan any longer. So outlook. Over to you, John.

[John Vestberg, executive]

Thank you, David. We maintain the same outlook that we presented in the previous quarter. So looking at net sales growth, we expect a moderate growth, and this is again following the impact from the transition to the new business model where, again, the recognized net sales will be lower but the overall total contract value gets higher and the recurring portion gets higher.

When we see that this transition or the effect of the transition starts normalizing, then net sales growth will then increase. Of course, it will be supported by a combination of new sales and the existing contracts that will fuel net sales in multiple periods. So basically, building an installed base of contracts that continuously and incrementally fuels the net sales. That is basically the ambition here. So with that, we don't see any reason why we would not be able to see net sales CAGR growth between the year 2023 to 2025 of 20%.

As David mentioned, we expect to see effects from the cost optimization program, resulting in both a significantly lower run rate OpEx, cash OpEx and that we see positive impact on cash flow and consequently on EBITDA already in 2022, with the majority of the impact being seen from Q3 and onwards.

So with that, handing over back to Jenny and the Q&A session.

[Jenny Ramkrans, executive]

Yes. Well done. We will move into the Q&A section. [Operator Instructions] Let's get started. John, what are you most proud about in this Q1?

[John Vestberg, executive]

I think what I'm actually most proud of is that we as a business, we as a company and as a team, have been able to maintain focus on the business execution, especially in a time where there's a lot of unrest and uncertainties, obviously, in the world, a lot of questions, a lot of uncertainties. And at the same time, we have been driving this quite thorough cost optimization program, which as everyone can understand and appreciate, it also creates unrest in an organization. So those two coinciding factors have been a bit challenging, but I'm proud that we have been able to ride that tide and maintain the focus.

[Jenny Ramkrans, executive]

Can you speak about the situation that's going on? Have you noticed an increased interest for your products as a consequence of the situation in Ukraine? And have you seen any increased interest in your defense solutions? And lastly, will we see an increased top line growth during this -- due to this?

[John Vestberg, executive]

Absolutely. So I think starting with sort of the overall interest, it's no secret that cybersecurity is now even -- it was high up on the agenda for decision-makers already before the war, but now it's increasing even more. And again, especially within the both public sector and of course, within defense, public sector from the rationale being that if there are cyber attacks from threat actors such as Russia or other malicious states, the attacks are typically on critical infrastructure, on public agencies or other areas of the community where the effects are massive. So it's not surprising that we see an increased interest from public sector. And yes, in defense solution, as I mentioned before, given the fact that we have a ready-made solution, it's an off-the-shelf product now. And we can deploy this in different platforms.

We have now, since a while back, we have 1 full-time person who's just scouting the defense market and his plate is full already. So we need to look at ways of improving our execution ability or basically increasing our bandwidth just to cope with the interest. Keep in mind, however, our defense is long lead time still, even though the product is ready. It's not a 1-month sale, just to be clear. Whether we see increased top line growth due to this, well, I mean, that's the goal. That's why we're doing this.

[Jenny Ramkrans, executive]

Has Clavister been impacted by the challenges in regards to the current global component shortage? David, do you have an answer for that?

[David Nordstrom, executive]

Yes. And I think we answered that in the presentation, yes, there is impact on COGS. There is impact from I would say, an increased workload to manage the situation because it adds some uncertainty that we need to be on top of. And it increased freight cost and it also can impact deliveries to customers. We don't see a major impact, but there can be delays. I would say that, that is under control, but it requires work. That's my assessment of that situation. Manage, but there is impact, yes.

[Jenny Ramkrans, executive]

Moving towards OpEx questions. The expected OpEx for 2022 and 2023, what is it and what is the rolling 12 right now?

[David Nordstrom, executive]

So we don't disclose OpEx figures for the -- an expectation for the full year. We haven't disclosed that in the report. But looking at the rolling cash impact OpEx, we are delivering in line with the cost reduction target. It is SEK 164 million. That's expressed in the report. That is what we aim to reach. And my assessment is from what we've seen so far on the activities that we're running, we will reach that. That's our firm belief. OpEx for the year will come in a bit above that level as [Technical Difficulty]. The year is more quickly impacted than the...

[Jenny Ramkrans, executive]

David, can you repeat that sentence again? Because we lost you.

[David Nordstrom, executive]

Okay. So the -- we expect the P&L figure for 2022 to come in a bit above the rolling cash impact OpEx as there is a bigger lag in P&L OpEx. So it will be a bit higher what we communicated for the target for the cost optimization program. Did you hear that?

[Jenny Ramkrans, executive]

Yes. Perfect. What are you ...

[David Nordstrom, executive]

Anything to add, John, on that topic?

[John Vestberg, executive]

No, I think you captured that well.

[Jenny Ramkrans, executive]

David, what are your thoughts regarding the cash position seen over time?

[David Nordstrom, executive]

Sorry, your -- can you repeat that again?

[Jenny Ramkrans, executive]

What are your thoughts regarding your cash position seen over time?

[David Nordstrom, executive]

Yes. Okay. So we have -- of course, that is something that we are very focused on. We have -- I'm very happy to see that we have concluded new terms with our 2 lenders. The biggest, of course, is EIB, where we have secured a new amortization profile, reducing our cash burden for 2023 significantly. I mean we talked about EUR 14.5 million that we would have to repay next year that we don't have to repay next year. That's important. Norrlandsfonden, we had SEK 10 million due to be repaid in May this year. It will be replaced with a new convertible loan that runs until 2027. I think that's important as well. So to make sure that we have the support of our lenders, we have that. So I think that's important.

We have secured cash by using the government support for deferral on tax payments, meaning that we have a strong cash position for this year. Then of course, it is the question of will it need to be repaid during 2023? Or will we be allowed to have an individual amortization plan that runs until 2024? That is something that requires an individual assessment and decision from the tax authorities during -- due to regulations, we're not allowed to apply for that yet. So that's one unknown, I would say, at this stage.

But at the same time, we have several tools in the toolbox where we can find means of financing. We're working with that. So I would say that the challenges have been significantly reduced due to the actions that we're running. We have a longer runway, and we have several initiatives that we're working with, parties that we're meeting with to secure financing in a good way for the company and a good way for shareholders. And I think recent events demonstrates that we have a capability to work with major stakeholders to find financing.

Adding one thing, of course, we are reducing our cash burn. We see that in the report. The aim is to really reduce that further to take the company in a position where we ultimately are cash flow positive and then, of course, have significantly better means of financing our operations and repaying debt. So that's where we are.

[Jenny Ramkrans, executive]

John, what is your reflection regarding your key metrics in Q1 from a growth perspective?

[John Vestberg, executive]

Yes. So I think that the metrics are quite expected, I would say. A recurring revenue growth of 15%, that's in line with the expectation. We expected the net sales number or net sales growth number to be small or nominal, about 7% approximately, it's maybe not nominal, but at least single digit. We expect it to be pushed down because of the changes in business model and everything. And same goes with gross margin being burdened by this transition. From the underlying business point of view, again, looking at the fact that the business and the orders are driven by a mix of different businesses, that's, I think, a stronghold and a strong position. So all in all, I think the mix of metrics is quite expected.

[Jenny Ramkrans, executive]

David, is there something you would like to highlight for the Q1?

[David Nordstrom, executive]

I think I kind of copy John there. I think we delivered on our targets for top line. We delivered order intake growth. We delivered net sales growth. And in the same time, we are -- we have kicked off and concluded quite many activities with the aim to reduce cost. That has gone according to plan or actually a bit ahead of plan.

And I want to add one thing. It's not stated in the report, but I think it's an important evidence. We have for a long time been tracking our employer -- employment engagement, and we saw that, that has now reached an all-time high. So even though we've been running quite harsh changes in order to reduce our cost base, it has also been run with the ambition to make the company better: better in reaching our goals, more lean, but also better for the employees where we have a more flat structure and more focus on the right things. And I think we do that. And I think the employees seems to agree with that as they are -- happiness has increased. And I think that's also important that we are not -- it's not damaging to overhaul structures. It's a good thing. And I think that's more clear for everyone. So I think that's something I'm very proud for.

[Jenny Ramkrans, executive]

And with that, we're actually out of questions, so I would actually like to conclude this Q&A. But first, I would like to thank David and John for participating. I would also like to thank all the participants for all the questions and for participation. And remind that on Tuesday we have the AGM coming up. So all the shareholders, you're welcome.

[John Vestberg, executive]

Thank you very much.

[Jenny Ramkrans, executive]

Thank you.

[David Nordstrom, executive]

Thank you.