NCAB Group AB (publ)

STO:NCAB

Earnings Call Analysis

NCAB Group Reports Strong Margins Amid Sales Decline

Despite weakening markets, NCAB Group delivered robust financials in Q3 2023, with net sales down 14% to SEK 1.05 billion, corresponding to a 27% organic decline. Order intake fell by 9%, a 15% drop in organic terms. EBITA came in at SEK 176 million, only a 4% decrease, sustaining an operational EBITA margin of 15.4%, marginally lower than 15.7% from last year. Gross margin impressively climbed to 36.2% from 32.2%, reflecting a strong pricing strategy and cost measures counterbalancing the sales volume dip. Operating cash flow also improved, hitting SEK 260 million compared to SEK 212.2 million in 2022. Operational highlights include a strategic acquisition in Spain and the launch of a startup in Portugal, showcasing continued expansion efforts.

Overcoming Market Weakness with Strong Financial Discipline

Despite challenges in the global market, including decreased net sales and order intake due to declining prices and hesitant demand, NCAB's disciplined financial approach has enabled the company to maintain strength and stability. This quarter observed a continuing trend of market softness, however, there were pecularities worth noting, such as signs of a stabilizing order intake, particularly with increased activity in China. Attention to cost improvements in key areas like purchasing and logistics has been vital in compensating for lower sales volumes. The financial focus is evident in the strong EBITA results and impressive cash flow, showcasing the company's resilience and shrewd management amidst challenging times.

Strategic Market Positioning and Growth Initiatives

NCAB's strategic focus has paid dividends, especially in high-performing segments like Automotive, EV charging, Aerospace, and Defense. The company's commitment to delivering value, rather than competing on price alone, speaks to its dedication to quality and customer service. This strategy has fostered a reputation as a leading global supplier of printed circuit boards, serving diverse industries. NCAB's recent expansion in the promising Iberian market with an acquisition and a new subsidiary in Portugal underlines their progressive growth strategy and pursuit of market leadership.

Impressive Financials Amidst Revenue Decline

NCAB has reported a 14% decline in net sales to SEK 1.05 billion, which equates to a 27% organic decrease. The order intake saw a 9% decline, or 15% in organic terms, mirroring levels from the prior quarter. Yet the company still generated a solid EBITA of SEK 176 million, down only 4% from the previous year. When excluding certain one-time considerations related to the Phase 3 acquisition, the operational EBITA margin still impressively stands at 15.4%, showcasing the company's operational efficiency. Correspondingly, the gross margin has markedly improved, soaring to 36.2%, which favorably compares to 32.2% seen in the previous year. Such impressive financial health is reflective of the company's adept navigation through a tough economic environment.

A Swift Evolution and Commitment to Innovation

NCAB has evolved significantly since its inception in 1993, showcasing remarkable growth particularly following its IPO in 2018. The company has consistently introduced new acquisitions, expanding its market reach and employing strategies that integrate closely with both the customers and the supply chain. The last decade has seen an average annual revenue growth of 21%, with post-IPO years surging to around 25%. This growth narrative emphasizes NCAB's agile response to market conditions, strategic expansion, and a forward-thinking approach to their integrated PCB production model.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Operator]

Welcome to the NCAB Q3 presentation for 2023. [Operator Instructions]

Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Peter Kruk; CFO Anders Forsen; and Head of Investor Relations, Gunilla Ohman. Please go ahead.

[Peter Kruk, executive]

Good morning, and welcome, everyone. So as stated, Peter, myself and Anders will be presenting here as we start.

So we are closing quarter 3 with yet another quarter with a weak market, but strong financials. Overall, we can see generally weak markets in all of our regions, and this is a combination where both net sales and order intake are decreasing and it's driven by lower prices in the market as well as inventory normalization and of course, also a hesitant demand. We can, however, see that the order intake is stabilizing and there is signs of more activity, notably in China.

We also have segments like Automotive, EV charging markets and Aerospace and Defense. These are all segments which continue to perform quite well. We have generated strong financials and is driven largely by higher gross margins, which support a strong EBITA. We've been able to do a lot of improvements in purchasing and logistic costs to help offset the lower sales volumes. M&A activities continue to develop promisingly and we concluded one acquisition in Spain in the quarter, and we also launched a new startup in Portugal. And on top of the strong EBITA result, we have also had a continuously strong cash flow with further improvements on working capital, adding to the EBITA performance.

Looking a little bit closer at the figures. We can see that our net sales decreased by 14% to SEK 1.05 billion, and this corresponds to an organic decline of 27% in Swedish kroner. Order intake decreased by 9%, which is also a decline in organic growth by around 15%. But again, as we said, it's about the same level as we had in Q2, whereas normally, Q3 is a weaker quarter than Q2 in terms of orders due to vacation periods in Europe.

EBITA amounted to SEK 176 million, which is a decrease by 4%. Here, we had a contribution of SEK 21 million from lower additional consideration regarding the Phase 3 acquisition. But even without that, a strong financial performance of SEK 155 million, which corresponds to a strong operational EBITA margin of 15.4% compared to 15.7% last year. And if we were to add back the Phase 3 consideration, the EBITA margin is as high as 17.5%. And gross margin, as stated continued at a very high level of 36.2% compared to 32.2% prior year. And a very strong operating cash flow of SEK 260 million versus SEK 210 million (sic) [ SEK 212.2 million ] in the 2022.

We had an interesting new acquisition in the quarter. The Iberian peninsula is quite an interesting market, which are growing importance. And we have a business there since many years, but we now made a further acquisition where we added a company called Electronic Advanced Circuits. This will add some SEK 19 million to our current SEK 75 million in turnover. And on top of that, we've also started up a subsidiary in Portugal, where we have two specialist recruited who have very long experience within the PCB industry, so a flying start in that market.

Overall, some background about us as a company. We are a company focused 100% on printed circuit boards, and our focus is on demanding customers, which we supply on-time delivery with zero defects and produced sustainably at the lowest total cost. We are a company selling on value and not on price that we are really at the cheapest, but we offer lower cost and better competitiveness for our customers. Our aim is to be the #1 PCB producer wherever we are and we are already the globally leading supplier of printed circuit boards.

We -- important to remember is that we don't have any in-house manufacturing, so we work with partners and partner factories. So we have some main 31 factories, which represent maybe 90% of our overall turnover. And even if we don't have in-house manufacturing out of our more than 600 specialists, we have around 120 working only with factory management developing a factory base and the performance of that for the future. And then we serve the market through local presence in local companies.

The products we do, the printed circuit board is what you see to the far left on this slide. Everything that has an intelligence or has electronics has a PCB as its foundation. Our customers would generally mount the semiconductors and other microprocessor components to create a PCBA. And that then becomes the intelligent node in any form of electronic product. And also important to remember that every product we supply is customer and product unique. So there are no standard PCBs, but everything is customized.

Our model is based on what we call integrated PCB production. So we are much more than a traditional trader buying and selling. We have a very strong active presence with the customers. Our local companies have all the functionality to be able to support customers with technical matters, quality matters as well as commercial and logistics topics. And then we also have a strong presence with our factories through our factory management organization, and we tie this whole network together so that in the eyes of our customers, we are the manufacturer of the PCB and we take full responsibility for the whole supply chain, which is greater reassurance and drive productivity and efficiency for our customers.

Over the years, we have developed a business where we serve a lot of different niche applications, ranging everything from aerospace to telecom, railway, medical, defense, industrial applications.

While our focus in addition to looking at demanding customers, we have chosen to look at customers in what we define as high mix, low volume segment, which means that we stay away from high-volume applications like mobile phones or personal computers. And instead, we're focusing typically more on industrial applications. These are applications where generally, the overall product value is much higher -- is quite high. The printed circuit board is maybe only 1% or 2% of the bill of material. The demand, however, on technical performance and quality are very high in these often globally leading companies in their niches.

Whilst they are globally leading companies, their volume in printed circuit boards is not very high. And therefore, they also struggle to have enough competence internally, but also to get access to the best factories for our printed circuit boards, and we can then help them both with optimizing their designs of the printed circuit boards, securing the best factory to produce for them and give them very competitive commercial terms, while still being in a niche where there's less price pressure and gives us an opportunity to get paid for the value we provide.

[Anders Forsén, executive]

Thank you, Peter. So just a quick look back in the history. The NCAB Group was founded in 1993. So we have account 30 years in the market right now. And we started in Sweden and started in the Nordic market to set up offices in Denmark, Finland, Norway, et cetera. Then we -- from 2000, we went out a little bit into the European market. In 2007, we got new owners through R12 Kapital fund. And after that, we also started to grow even more into European market.

We made some acquisitions in 2012 in U.S.A. and 2014 as well. And then we made the IPO 2018. And the last 5 years since the IPO, we have been adding on a lot of more acquisitions. As we see, this is a very beneficial way to grow in the company, getting new customers and getting new good employees. As you can see, in the last 10 years, we have had an average 21% growth of revenue and since the IPO of about 25% per year.

And going back to the third quarter. As Peter said, we had a revenue just about SEK 1 billion, which was 14% below last year. And measuring USD, it was 16% below last year. We are measuring USD because a lot of the PCBs are priced or sold in U.S. dollar. Still, even that we had a decline in the revenue, we had a healthy profit level. Of course, here, we have about SEK 21 million as this released non-earn-out payment. And if you reduce to that, it ends up 15.4%.

Gross margin has continued to improve. I mean a big part of the situation we see on the decline in top line is due to price erosion. And the reason is that after the pandemic, a lot of PCB factories in mainly China increased the capacity a lot. And then the downturn in the market. So we have many, many factories with extremely high loan utilization, which means that they are running for business -- sustainable business and adjusting prices downwards. We have, on that -- they are very successful in negotiating even better prices with the factories than what we do to customers. So even if we sell to a lower price, we can see that our gross margin is going up. So last 12 months, we are up to 35%.

And if we then go back to the quarter. As you can see, we were a bit behind last year, but that was also the record revenue we had forever in NCAB. We can also see that I mean, freight cost was an important component last year. We had very high freight costs during '22, and they are down dramatically right now. So that is also something that has an impact on our revenue side. As I said before, order intake has decreased compared to last year. But however, we see a trend that we are flat versus second quarter this year. And as Peter said before, normally, we have a much lower order intake during the summer period. So you could say that this is hopefully some kind of flattening out. And even if we don't see a big trend upwards, at least it's flattened out.

And also, I think if we compare the global PCB market, we can see that the market is down some 20%, which is in line with 2009, actually. So there have been a dramatic shift in the total global PCB market.

So despite the impact on the top line, we are very proud of the results we are producing for the quarter, so SEK 176 million. And if we adjust for this nonpaid or released earn-out payments, we are back to 15.4%, which is close to last year. And I think we have been handling the prices very, very well, as I said before, by increasing our gross margin. So that means even if we have a drop in revenue, gross profit is only down 3%.

And then we also continue to invest in our IT platform, which also added some extra costs during this quarter. But in total, we see a lot of advantages from scale and also our previous acquisitions are performing better and better. Then we are also working a lot with our cash flow and working with the working capital. I mean, we had to build up a lot of inventory during the pandemic, but that is shrinking dramatically right now. So we can see a good trend, how we can use the inventory smarter way. We see shorter lead times. We don't need to buffer stocks and so anymore. So we continue to run with a very strong cash flow.

[Peter Kruk, executive]

Moving over to the segments. And if we start with the Nordic segment. Here, just first one explanation. We moved some business from Nordics to Europe at the end of 2022, which is accounting why we show a gray bar at the top there. If we look at the adjusted order intake, we can still see that there is a decrease in the order intake of around 20% in Swedish kroner and 21% in U.S. dollars. We also saw net sales decreased to SEK 200 million, where adjusted net sales decreasing by 18% in Swedish kroner and 20% in U.S. dollars.

Within the Nordic markets, we can see that Norway is faring slightly better with contribution from EV charging and also Aerospace Defense. EBITA with a drop in top line decreased to SEK 38 million. But again, EBITA margin improved to 19.1% over 18.1% in the prior year.

If you look on the European segment, which actually then has benefited from the transfer from Nordics. The adjusted net sales also showed a decrease by 20% in Swedish kroner and here 22% in U.S. dollars. The order intake was decreasing by 13% in adjusted comparable units and 14% in U.S. dollars and reached SEK 506 million. Here, actually, in the European segment, we can see that our businesses to Automotive is bucking the trend a bit and doing positive development. EBITA increased in the quarter compared to prior year to SEK 85.7 million, over SEK 78 million, and corresponds to a margin of 15.1% versus 13.2% in 2022.

If we look at the North American segment. Here, the order intake amounted to SEK 176 million, which is basically the same level as last year. The adjusted order intake, when we take out the acquisition of Phase 3, show a decrease in order intake by 27% in Swedish kroner and 28% in U.S. dollars. Also on the net sales, we saw a decrease by 6% and adjusted net sales for comparable units decreased by 30% in Swedish kroner and 32% in U.S. dollars. And we continue to see weak performance of the U.S. contract manufacturers or EMS companies, which has a special effect on the U.S. market, where we have a high degree of sales to this sector of the market. EBITA decreased to SEK 25.6 million over SEK 34 million, but still a very healthy margin of EBITA of 13.7% versus 17.1% in the prior year.

Looking then finally at the East segment. The marketing conditions in China remain muted, but that we are starting to see some positive signs of increasing activity. Our order intake in the quarter, yet was down to SEK 48 million versus SEK 53 million last year. Our net sales is down 21% to SEK 52 million, but decreased 22% in U.S. dollars. Our EBITA also has decreased to SEK 10.9 million, but it's an increasing EBITA margin to 21.1% versus 20.5% in last year.

[Anders Forsén, executive]

And going into our M&A pipeline. We are happy to announce that Peter said that we made a small acquisition in Spain. But we still have about 51 companies in our pipeline for acquisitions. And if we estimate the revenue of these 51 companies about close to SEK 4 billion. And we are, of course, in many contexts, made discussions. So the pipeline seems really promising. Of course, it takes always different time to close the transactions. I think it has been a little bit discrepancy in review of valuation between us and the sellers, but it seems to be more and more in line right now, I would say. So we are hopeful.

Then looking at our other financial side. We have -- I think we have a very strong return on equity. We still have a very healthy net debt. It's [ 0.9 ] of EBITDA, still a strong solid solvency. And as Peter -- said before, net working capital has come down a lot, mainly due to reduced inventory. And now we have net working capital in relation to last 12 months sales of 5.3%. And of course, this creates a lot of flexibility for us, and we can really handle the business in a good way. This also means that if you take in consolidation of the cash we have and also the frame agreement for loans, we have close to SEK 1 billion in liquidity that we can use for further expansion. So I think we are in a very healthy position with a strong balance sheet and strong cash.

Yes, Peter?

[Peter Kruk, executive]

I mean then take a step back and looking at the overall market, the global printed circuit board market is around -- is a little bit more was in 2022, more than USD 80 billion. And the high mix of volume share of the global market is around USD 25 billion. And you can see in the graph to the right here, the breakdown of that global market and our shares in the respective markets. And you can see here also that we have great opportunities to grow in all regions of the world. Globally, our market share in the high mix, low volume market is only around 2%, while still being the global leader. So there is an extremely fragmented market where we have opportunities to grow both organically and through acquisitions.

And our strategy going forward is to continue to grow. We will remain focused on printed circuit boards. We have no intention to stray out into other types of products, but we will be keeping focus on delivering high-value printed circuit boards with an asset-light model where we use outside partners for manufacturing.

We are continuing to invest in sales activities to increase our market shares and deepen the customer relationships, whereby we will increase the share of wallet with one customer, but also move up in higher technologies and also deepen our relationship and also the value we provide and eventually also the margins with those customers.

We will continue to look for geographical expansion. There are parts of the world where we still have sort of relatively weak positions and -- or no position at all at this point. So we'll be looking to do that. And that could be -- here, at M&A can be an important part to accelerate that process, entering new markets.

And then finally, it is a very fragmented market with a lot of smaller regional players in the market, and we see this as an opportunity to drive the consolidation in the market. And with that, also gain further scale of economy, as we are seeing already today, both in terms of better efficiency and cost, but also in terms of being able to develop better tools and ways of working to further improve the service to our customers.

And with that, we are seeing this -- the financial targets we have set for 2026, and that is that we will take our net sales to SEK 8 billion and deliver an EBITA of at least SEK 1 billion. We aim to remain with a net debt less than 2x EBITDA. And we are a cash-generative business. So whilst we will sort of use cash for funding our expansion, we still expect that we will be able to make a dividend. And our estimation is that, that will be around 50% of net profit.

And with that, we end the presentation.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Johan Skoglund from DNB Markets.

[Johan Skoglund, analyst]

This is Johan from DNB here, and I have a few questions. So you mentioned orders have flattened out quarter-over-quarter. Just to clarify, is this observation just for Q2 and Q3? Or have you seen some form of this trend continuing into October or early November?

[Peter Kruk, executive]

I mean we're still early in the second quarter, but I think the -- I mean, we have seen a trend from Q2 into Q3 and the trend throughout Q3 was stable. So we are not seeing a change to that trend and that gives us some comfort that we are bottoming out.

[Johan Skoglund, analyst]

Okay. And is this an effect of both number of orders and prices being stable?

[Peter Kruk, executive]

I'd say maybe it's a mix. I think overall, we have seen -- I mean we saw in this first half of the year that prices were coming to a very low point and we do not expect a lot of further price decreases. However, I guess we have also seen that the RMB has moved quite a bit since the spring, which has actually enabled further price decreases in quarter 3. So I think that still plays into the numbers that there have been further price decreases in the market.

[Johan Skoglund, analyst]

Okay. And book-to-bill now improved quarter-over-quarter to 92%. When do you think we could see it back to 100%?

[Anders Forsén, executive]

It's, of course, tricky to say, but we are getting closer and closer and in some way you could say that we have always had a trend that one quarter's order intake normally becomes the next quarter's revenue. And that means that we -- if we're flattening out, we will probably be very close to be on the par with book-to-bill, I would say.

[Johan Skoglund, analyst]

Okay. And then going into your earnout adjustment for Phase 3, I believe, I understand the earn-out is based on gross profit. But could you please add some more color here on the development?

[Anders Forsén, executive]

This is, of course, a typical way when we have different views on the future abrupt from seller to buyer. So in this case, in Phase 3, we used an earn-out and that was based on the gross profit development for 2024 versus 2023. And I mean, it is -- we are paying about USD 3.5 per U.S. dollar in gross profit. So it changes rather quickly. And that means that we have seen a slightly lower revenue from the company than the seller store and what we also maybe thought in April, so that is the reason why we now see that we'll probably not pay everything. We believe we pay a small part of the earn-out. So since we have that information right now, we sort that we should release that money.

[Peter Kruk, executive]

Anders, I guess you mentioned with us '22.

[Anders Forsén, executive]

Exactly. Sorry. No, '23, exactly. Of course, sorry.

[Johan Skoglund, analyst]

Okay. And is there anything more you can share on the M&A pipeline and appetite in near term? I mean you mentioned 51 targets on a shortlist, but I guess that might be somewhat of a challenge to us just in the near term.

[Anders Forsén, executive]

Of course, we are not in discussion with 51 companies. But I think we have at least 8 to 9 companies that we are in [indiscernible] in different states we contact with. I mean, there is a nice stream of revenue that we are talking to. But then, of course, all this process can take different long time. But we think that feels a little bit easier now than maybe half a year ago because I think you -- the market is stabilized and that makes it easy to discuss the valuation somewhat.

[Johan Skoglund, analyst]

Okay. Good. And then just finally, on the recent acquisition in Spain and the initiative in Portugal. When do you expect this push to materialize in the numbers? Are we looking at several quarters or several years before you see some material impact?

[Anders Forsén, executive]

Of course, we will directly see the same kind of revenue stream that they had and will be added on to our revenue stream, of course, from -- the expected closing date is in mid-November. And then we hope that we can continue to grow the business together.

In Portugal, we know that it's probably interesting market, and we have found two very good people that have been before struggling by themselves. But together with our network and together with our factory management team in Asia and so on and working together with the Spanish team, where we see good potential to really grow the Portugal market because it is -- it's not superstore, it can be super big, but it's anyway an interesting market. So I guess we hope to see some organic growth.

[Peter Kruk, executive]

I think we have had a very positive trend in our Spanish operation over the last couple of years. And I think that's something we can then accelerate with these two acquisitions and the start-up in Portugal.

[Johan Skoglund, analyst]

Good. And those were all the questions for me. So I'd like to wish you good luck with the Q4.

[Peter Kruk, executive]

Thank you. We have one question from online as well regarding the price development during quarter 3. And if we have any comments on further development.

I think overall, I think we commented briefly in our presentation, generally, I think the pricing was stabilizing out in the first half of this year. I think a lot of the factories have been running at very sort of low pricing in order to keep their factories running. We have had some help or they have had some help from the currency development during quarter 3, which I think has enabled prices to drop a little bit further in U.S. dollar terms. We don't really see fundamental that prices will continue to decline. In fact, we're actually starting to see some of the fundamental commodities like copper foil starting to grow in pricing. So we are at this time not looking at further price decreases in the market.

[Operator]

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

[Gunilla Öhman, executive]

So thank you very much, and we just would like to remind you of our next quarterly report, fourth quarter report, which is due on 15th of February. And thank you very much for listening in today. Thank you.

[Peter Kruk, executive]

Thanks a lot.

[Anders Forsén, executive]

Thank you.