Qleanair AB

STO:QAIR

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Sebastian Lindstrom, executive]

My name is Sebastian Lindstrom, I'm the CEO of QleanAir, soon coming up to my first anniversary as CEO of the company. And joining me today in today's call is Henrik Resmark, our CFO, with over 10 years' experience in the company. Henrik and I will go through the presentation and then open up for a Q&A session towards the end.

So starting off with the numbers for Q3. In short, we're continuing our growth track, but from Q2, but we deviate on profits for the quarter. Sales were SEK 124 million in the quarter, which means a growth of a little more than 11% over last year. This means that we meet our longer-term targets for the first 9 months of the month (sic) [ year ] of 10% organic growth in constant currency. And really exciting is that on a rolling 12-month basis, we are now at SEK 500 million for the first time ever.

Moving to the recurring revenues. The way they develop is a great testament to our model. Growth in recurring revenue even surpassed our revenue growth, and we are on a 12-month rolling basis approaching a record level of SEK 300 million. The gross margin in the quarter is, of course, a disappointment, but it can be narrowed down to a significant overrun on a couple of projects in the clean room side in the U.S. And as you can imagine, we're fully on this.

And just to be absolutely clear, air cleaners and cabin solutions that represent 90% of our business have stable or higher margins in the quarter. And it is this deviation in gross margin on the clean room side that has driven down our EBIT in the quarter. Important to note is that on a year-to-date basis, we're still living up of our target of 15% EBIT margin on an adjusted basis. And very much thanks to the reductions we made in overhead early in the year and the leverage of the increased volume, of course.

At the end of the quarter, we were 104 people on board versus 119 same time last year. And it is this cost control that we exercise within QleanAir that limits the blow of 6% on gross margin level to only a few percent on EBIT level. Our operating cash flow was very strong, well improved over last year, will be covered a little more in depth by Henrik under the financial section. Our EPS or earnings per share is in line with last year. And on an accumulated basis, we're at the level of SEK 2.55.

Order intake was a little weaker in the quarter, but the main difference is within the clean room business. And as I have alluded to in earlier calls, the winning of a signing of these contracts can easily swing between the quarters. Otherwise, if we look at the other product categories, it's very stable order intake.

A really big and exciting thing for us as a company is in the past quarter is that the entry of Swedia Capital as a major shareholder in QleanAir. Now holding a share of 26.5% in the company. Staffan Persson take very long term in their approach and the timing of their entry is perfect as we are about to launch our strategic direction for the next 3 to 5 years. Priveq has been a good main shareholders to date, but they have been destined to sell at some point of time and given the basic nature of the focus of their own business.

On the initiative of Swedia Capital, we will have an extraordinary shareholders meeting on the 14th of this month to address the constellation of our Board, our future Board. The proposal is for 3 new board members, Fredrik Persson representing Swedia Capital, Jan-Olof Backman, who comes with a very solid understanding of service business through its background from core service management. And Dan Pitulia, a multicultural serial entrepreneur that in the time period from 2012 to 2018, led QleanAir through a very expansive phase. He also spearheaded the expansion into additional product categories like clean room and air cleaners and thereby understand the nature of our business in depth. Then also holds -- then also have important shareholding through next of kin in QleanAir.

So looking a little bit from a regional perspective, we split our business into 3 main regions: APAC, EMEA and Americas, and it is a clear strength of our business that the 3 single most important countries in our mix are all within the top 4 ranking economies in the world: Japan, Germany and the U.S. Starting on the APAC side. Revenues in Japan were pretty much in line with last year. We're in the second half meeting the pandemic months of 2020 and therefore, had a little lower stock of renewals in our base.

However, the strong entry of the team into air cleaners over the last 2, 3 years, managed to almost compensate for this delayed pandemic effect to a large extent in Q3. Air cleaners grew at 173% in Japan in the quarter. In EMEA, we're clearly seeing the effect of our actions in follow-up, in reorganization, and we have now shown a steady growth for 2 consecutive quarters. America delivers an expected -- as expected a strong quarter in revenue. We added more -- 2 more people on the sales side back in Q2 and are looking to add a third salesperson in the coming quarter to broaden our coverage and meet the demand of the market. We did have some major installations in the quarter where we ran over on product and installation costs, I will come to that under cost control a little later.

In order to better bring to life what we do as a company, I'd like to bring up some customer cases. And this time around, I choose a case from APAC and one from Americas. To start off with an example from the food industry in Japan, we've entered into a partnership with the domestic fruit and vegetable distribution and processing company, where we have installed a total of 9 units, including the FS 70 air cleaner from us.

The solution is there both to protect people and products from mold in dust. Overall, the food production and distribution is developing as a strong segment for our air cleaners. It's not so easy to press release these opportunities as the brand seldom want to talk about these challenges in public, but I can clearly see that our bespoke product, FS 70 food grade has been very well received in this segment.

Finally, over to the Americas, I want to talk again about UNC Health, where our partnership goes well beyond delivering clean rooms to their health system. Now we can offer the UNC expertise in pharmacy operation and management to hospitals across the nation in conjunction with our clean room sales. At QleanAir, we always look at the product in its context. The clean room itself is only one piece of the puzzle. Having the right pharmacy operation standards and management is equally important. With our new form partnership with UNC, we can offer a more holistic view on the clean room and thereby differentiate and add more value in our offer. To my knowledge, we're the only clean room company with this kind of trusted adviser relationship with the major health systems.

So from the exciting excursion of our -- to our clients to -- back to the day-to-day running of our company. I mean, we are sticking to our short-term plan of stepping up in relation to 3 prioritized areas to get back on track, customer focus, sales efficiency and cost control.

So let's see how we're moving on these 3 topics. We can -- on the customer focus side, we continue to invest near the customer, adding the salespeople in Q3 in the U.S., as an example. We've also moved forward in our strategy process. We've identified a number of interesting application areas for our products that are adjacent to where we have our strength already today and thereby strengthening our overall offer. These are -- these areas are currently going through exploration with our business development team.

On the sales efficiency side, I think we have shown that we have through our more focused approach in sales management managed to switch EMEA into growth. We still struggle with decisions taking longer and our remedy to that is to put more focus on an increasing touch with clients and building funnels through more meetings with prospective clients. We have during the quarter 4 new partnerships, both in Nordics and in Germany on the telemarketing side, including AI solutions to make this happen.

Last but not least, the cost control. The cost adjustments that we implemented in Q1 have helped us keep our year-to-date EBIT in check despite the challenges in the quarter on the projects in the U.S., when we saw the challenges in the U.S., we immediately launched comprehensive projects targeted specifically at our COGS and installation costs. We will be addressing all the 3 aspects of the business for the months going forward. Volume, price and cost.

Summing up and also giving a little feeling of where we're at in our plan. We deliver great value to our clients. I've said it before. We just need to get in a higher gear. We're on the journey, right? And I would like to start introducing how we look at the toolbox along this journey, the QleanAir business wheel. Our first 9 months have really been focused on the operational improvements. For us, that is the inside of the wheel or the picture to the left.

We're not there yet. I think the missing project control in the U.S. in the quarter is a good example of that. But in parallel, we have started to lay the foundation for our strategic journey. You can think of that journey as spikes on the wheel to the left.

Step by step, we will intensify this work on the longer path forward through our strategic plan. Our workshops with our teams and clients have shown that there are further application areas to be explored that could be very interesting for us in the future. And the -- what you see on the right is really a methodical way that we run our strategic process. And I've talked about in earlier calls that we had over 100 people involved from customers and sales and service people in these workshops. And we are now coming to concluding this. We will come back in future calls on what we have learned and how we see that path forward. Overall, I've said it before, we have solid products. We have a circularity built into our business model, and we have a team that wants to win.

With that, I hand it over to Henrik to take you through the financial update.

[Henrik Resmark, executive]

Thanks, Sebastian. QleanAir, we are present in 3 geographies with 3 different product areas. In QleanAir Group, Japan is a strong contributor to sales and order intake. Cabin solution is a success in the Tokyo area. And now we are also gaining traction within air cleaners through focused sales work. We have a strong growth within air cleaners in Japan, growing by 173% in the quarter.

Europe is also a strong cabin solutions market for QleanAir Group, contributing with sales and profitability. And air cleaners in Europe is growing according to plan. It's plus 16% in the quarter. And we continue to see a clear growth potential in the QleanAir U.S. and the positive signs during 2023, we shall continue to build upon. The order intake in the U.S. was relatively low in the third quarter. The order intake in the U.S. is more volatile quarters to quarters as the orders are not always on a weekly basis, and there can be sometime between the orders, as the order values are relatively higher. Looking at the different product categories, cabin solutions was down by 1%, air cleaners up by 30% and clean rooms up by 75%.

Looking at the net sales third quarter. We have a growth of 11% in the third quarter and currency adjusted growth was 9%. Japan is down by 2% in the quarter. We still see growth opportunities for Japan going forward. Europe was up by 6%, and we continue to see positive signs from the focus on sales efficiency and sales follow-up. U.S. was up by 152% and we continue to see high growth from our U.S. subsidiary.

The recurring revenues grew by 13% in the third quarter and is on an increasing trend. As the recurring revenues are approximately 60% of the total revenues, the recurring revenues are a strong growth contributor. And this is important, the rental model is appreciated by our customers.

Gross margin was lower in the quarter due to clean rooms in the U.S., and this was due to a couple of low-margin projects in the U.S. through higher costs for material and installation for those projects. To be clear, our cabin solutions business is delivering high and stable gross margins and air cleaners is also delivering gross margins at increasing and expected levels.

The EBIT margin is hurt by the decline in gross margin and was down to 13.5%. Accumulated the EBIT margin is 15% adjusted. Our clear focus full year 2023 is to reach our financial targets, a growth of approximately 10% and EBIT margins in the range of 15% to 20%. And again, 90% of our business, the cabin solutions and the air cleaners are delivering high gross margins.

This slide illustrates the relation between the book values of units in Clean Air balance sheet and the revenues stemming from such units, including the service, we call them the recurring revenues. The recurring revenues increased to SEK 76 million in the quarter. And the recurring revenues are a solid base of revenues that to a larger extent or predictable into the future. Now there are SEK 299 million on a rolling 12 months basis. They are up by 10% on 12 months.

The book value is relatively low, the SEK 52 million compared to the recurring revenues, and this is, of course, a contributor to our gross margins. And to further break these recurring revenues down per unit on an average, the revenue is SEK 56,000 with a book value of SEK 10,000. So the high profitability on renting out these units over time. There's a very high profitability on renting out these units over time.

And we also increased the product sale in the third quarter to SEK 21 million versus SEK 13 million last year. That is one driver behind the growth in the third quarter, and the sale to finance company decreased. It is now primarily in Japan that we sell to finance companies. Quarter-by-quarter, we continue to increase the installed base. We see a growth in air cleaners in both Europe and Japan, and cabin solutions in Japan. And the cabin solutions in Europe is a very solid market for us.

Then a slide on the balance sheet and the cash flow. We improved the cash flow in the third quarter, up to SEK 18 million versus SEK 11 million last year. The working capital can vary quarter-by-quarter and accumulated, we are also up SEK 48 million versus SEK 20 million last year. QleanAir is delivering strong cash flows. In combination with that, we continue to amortize according to plan every quarter. And also the net debt-to-equity ratio improved.

Having said this, I hand over to Sebastian again for a summary.

[Sebastian Lindstrom, executive]

So thank you, Henrik. And to close off the session in front of the Q&A, what we do at QleanAir is really important. We dedicate our work to improve the health of people, the quality of product and the performance of processes. And we do so throughout our 3 product categories, cabin solutions, air cleaners and clean rooms. And looking at the amount of clean air that is delivered through our solutions out there, we estimate that we clean more than 7 billion cubic meters of indoor air per month by end of October 2023, a 16% increase over last year. And this matters. Air pollution is a key challenge for human health. People die prematurely from exposure to polluted air, and we spend an important part of our lives in indoor environments, and indoor air quality can often be more polluted than outdoor area.

And with that, I would like to open up for questions.

[Operator]

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

[Sebastian Lindstrom, executive]

So no questions, well. So if there are no more questions, I'd like to thank all of you for your participation and interest in our company, QleanAir, and I wish you a great continuation of the day. Thank you.