Sweco AB (publ)

STO:SWEC B

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Marcela Sylvander, executive]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this presentation of Sweco's Q3 Report. My name is Marcela Sylvander, I'm the Chief Communication Officer here at Sweco. And with me today, I have Sweco's President and CEO, Asa Bergman; and CFO, Olof Stålnacke. They will take us through the results of this third quarter. And after that, we will open up for questions. So please, Asa.

[Åsa Bergman, executive]

Welcome, everyone, to Sweco's Q3 presentation. Before we move into the quarter, let me give you a short recap of Sweco. Sweco is Europe's leading architecture and engineering consultancy with 18,500 expert and a turnover of SEK 23.5 billion. We have 8 geographical business areas in Europe and with business in more than 70 countries across the world. Now let me present the Q3 results. I am happy to say that we delivered strong organic growth of almost 9% in the quarter, the highest level in almost a decade. It is driven by transitional trends in society with sustainability and digitalization being the main drivers. Acquired growth amounted to 2% and currency effects were 3%. Net sales increased to SEK 5.4 billion with an EBITA of SEK 382 million and an EBIT margin of 7.1%. All business areas reported positive organic growth and 6 out of 8 business areas almost delivered EBITA improvement.

However, the result was impacted by lower earnings in Finland and Sweden. We have actions in place to improve efficiency and increase the billing ratio in these 2 business areas to ensure improved profitability. I will give you more details later in this presentation. We have a strong financial position and low net debt, which allows us to continue to act on opportunities in the market. We made 2 acquisitions during this quarter with RK-TEC in Belgium being the largest one. Among the projects won in the third quarter, I would like to highlight Sweco as the engineering partner in Belgium's transformation of the gas grid that will enable future transport of hydrogen. The need to enable fossil-free energy sources has never been stronger, driven by -- both by the long-term trends and the current situation in Europe.

It's also seen when we move along to the market situation where we know that the demand for Sweco services remained good in the third quarter, driven by the accelerating sustainable transformation across our segments and business areas. Essentially, all business areas experienced good demand in the infrastructure, water, environment, energy and industry segments. We saw a slowdown in parts of the building and Real Estate segment with negative impact mainly in architecture. We continue to strengthen our order book, especially in the infrastructure Industry and Energy segments, and we also saw strong development for our digital services.

I would especially like to highlight Sweco's key role on the European market in the ongoing energy transition that is the result of the repower EU plan and other initiatives. In the third quarter, we started a range of energy projects that showcases our deep and broad experience. One example is the expanded assignment from the Danish Energy Agency to establish the world's first energy island located in North Sea. More than 200 vehicle experts from 6 different countries will be involved in the assignment over the next 9 years.

Now let us take a closer look at the third quarter. Our organic growth was 9%, which is the highest quarterly organic growth for Sweco in a decade. And I'm really pleased that we have positive organic growth in all our business areas. As you can see, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and U.K. delivered double-digit organic growth. We had a solid level in Sweden and in Germany, Central Europe. They continue to improve. The development was supported by higher average fees, higher revenue from sub-consultants and increased FTE growth. Lower billing ratio had a negative impact during this quarter.

Let us now move over to the results. EBITA amounted to SEK 382 million with an EBITA margin of 7.1%, and higher average fees and FTE growth contributed positively, while higher operating expenditures compared to the levels during the pandemic and lower billing ratio was -- had a negative impact. In total, 6 out of 8 business areas had EBITA improvements. EBITA for the group decreased 6% in the quarter to a margin of 7.1%. I'm satisfied with EBITA improvements in many business areas, but I'm not satisfied with the margin levels in Sweden and Finland. And therefore, targeted actions are being taken to improve billing ratio and cost efficiency.

First of all, we are taking targeted actions in underperforming units in Finland and Sweden, units that are impacted by slower market segments. Then we have initiated actions that go across the group to target efficiency more broadly. We accelerate general cost control and cost savings across the organization to mitigate some of both the post-pandemic catch-up as well as inflation. We believe that the internal activities and especially training has been important for us in Q1 and Q3, but these activities will now be reduced going forward. Getting back to good FTE growth has resulted in larger inflows of employees, more employees than we ever have had, but we need to really ensure that the lead times for getting new consultants into client projects are reduced. A more long-term action that is ongoing is the review and potential renegotiation of our office news to adapt to new ways of working, but also to reduce cost.

With that said, I'm pleased that we, during Q3, continued to execute on our acquisition agenda. During this year, we have acquired 7 companies, the latest in Q3 being RK-TEC in Belgium, engineering - a Belgium engineering company with more than 60 experts mainly active within the pharmaceutical and industrial sectors. The acquisition strengthens Sweco's offering in the pharma and other important industry segments in the Belgian market. Going forward, we have a pipeline of interesting acquisition targets, and we will continue to look for companies with service offering that strategically complement us on the local markets.

Before I hand over to Olof to walk you through the numbers, I would shortly also like to address that we, during the quarter, established Twinfinity as a wholly owned subsidiary of Sweco AB. Sustainability and digitalization are megatrends that drives the demand for cyclical services. The base of our digitalization strategy is to be close to our clients and to understand their needs today and in the future. This means that digital innovation always is based on the clients' needs and is developed in client projects. The development and upscaling of Twinfinity is a direct result of that strategy. Twinfinity is Sweco's platform that connects a digital 3D model of a building together with business operational and climate data. To move Twinfinity into an own company, which was effectuated on October 1, we make it possible to future develop the product and accelerate sales. Important to say is also that product-related consultancy service will continue to be managed through Sweco's ordinary consulting operations.

And with that said, I will now let Olof walk you through the numbers. Please, Olof.

[Olof Stålnacke, executive]

Thank you, Asa, and good morning, everyone. Starting with the long-term organic growth trend. As Asa already said, we see -- we continue the trend since Q4 2021 with increasing organic growth and 9% is the highest quarterly growth we've seen in the last decade. Looking then at net sales. With this growth, net sales in the quarter is SEK 5.4 billion, taking LTM net sales to SEK 23.5 billion. We see a small negative calendar effect from 1 less hour. We see positive impact from M&A of 2% from FX of 3%, which brings total growth to 15%.

And looking at EBITA development. EBITA in the quarter is SEK 382 million. LTM EBITA, thereby stable at SEK 2.1 billion. EBITA is down SEK 27 million or 6%. And again, the small negative impact from the calendar. Looking then at the business at the EBITA bridge by business area. The positive is, of course, as Asa said, the EBITA increases in 6 out of our 8 BAs. The negative is the decreases we see in Sweden and Finland. Both BAs see the impact of higher operating expenses and also from lower billing ratio. Denmark has shown a long-term positive trend and now has the biggest EBITA contribution in the quarter and an all-time-high EBITA margin of 13.2%.

And U.K. continues to perform very well in a challenging market. Belgium maintains good momentum. Norway and the Netherlands grow EBITA and maintain margins. And Germany and Central Europe finally continue to show steady improvement. On the positive side, we continue to increase fees significantly and are back to a good FTE growth. On the negative side, we see impact from lower billing ratio in some BAs and also a catch-up on the operating expenses. Finally, on the numbers, our financial position, which remains strong. We have net debt just north of SEK 2.2 billion, slightly up versus last year. The stronger year-to-date operating cash flow is outweighed by larger outflows for dividends and for acquisitions. Leverage is at 0.9 below last year and less than half of our target maximum. We have available liquid assets of SEK 3.5 billion at the end of the quarter.

And with that, back to you, Asa, to conclude.

[Åsa Bergman, executive]

Thank you, Olof. Let us now conclude the third quarter. As previously said, it was a quarter with strong organic growth. All business areas delivered organic growth and 6 out of 8 business areas reported improved EBITA. Essentially, all business areas experienced healthy demand for Sweco services. In the third quarter, we had a stable inflow of new orders, and we continue to strengthen our order book. We have a strong financial position that enable us to act on opportunities in the market.

Going forward, we will continue to focus on working closely together with our clients and be the partner of choice. The transition towards fossil-free energy creates opportunities for us, and we have won many new interesting projects in the quarter. And as always, our focus going forward is on long-term profitable growth based on combination of organic and acquired growth. We continue to actively look for interesting acquisition targets, while we at the same time build on a positive momentum in recruitment and fee development. We are now also executing targeted actions in Sweden and Finland to improve billing ratio and cost efficiency, and we are taking actions to improve profitability and mitigate inflation.

As a final word, I would like to say that I believe that the demand for our expertise will continue to grow as we need to accelerate the sustainable transition to in society. We have seen proof of this in the quarter, and we will continue to win new exciting projects as a result of that.

And with that, let us open up for questions. Thank you.

[Marcela Sylvander, executive]

Thank you, Asa and Olof. And we will do precisely that. We will open up for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Johan Dahl with Danske Bank.

[Johan Dahl, analyst]

Just starting also on the billing ratio. I think when you took office a few years back, we used to see a billing ratio in the third quarter, which was approximately 2 percentage points higher than what you produced in this quarter. I'm just seeing since you come from the Swedish business are, what your -- what are your main takes as to the reasons behind this development? We talked about a lot about pandemic, et cetera. But in a long-term perspective, how do you view this development?

[Åsa Bergman, executive]

I mean in this quarter, there has been more than ever new colleagues started, as I said, meaning that the onboarding is pushing the billing ratio in Sweden in this quarter and also the activities linked to training and post-pandemic needs in the organization. So those 2 things. The longer trend has -- is -- one reason to that is that we have seen after pandemic also an increase of turnover. And that is also pushing the efficiency a bit in the Swedish organization. So it's very much now to mitigate this or make sure that we can increase the billing ratio, both in Sweden and Finland and get back to the levels that we would like to see. So it has to do with -- make sure that we focus on our clients' projects and less on internal activities and that we make sure that we are faster to onboard new colleagues into the order book that we actually have. Anything to add, Olof?

[Olof Stålnacke, executive]

No, I think that covers the reasons for this. Yes.

[Johan Dahl, analyst]

Just this has been an issue -- a recurring issue that we've talked about efficiency on these calls. And if you try to isolate what's new now compared to the previous quarters when you talked about addressing this issue. Clearly, you're somewhat more specific in terms of talking about cost savings and lease savings, et cetera. Can you say what's different this time? And also, can you put some numbers to what you can achieve on costs going forward due to these initiatives?

[Åsa Bergman, executive]

If I'm going to talk about what is new linked to the billing ratio is the number of new colleagues started after summer period in the Swedish organization, especially and also the level of training and internal activities in this quarter compared with the last ones and also the quarter 2022.

[Olof Stålnacke, executive]

And I think to -- we are not putting out a number in terms of the savings or the billing ratio improvement. We expect to see gradual improvement, but also -- as you also understand, some of these actions will have a longer-term effect, for example, what we're talking about with the offices, but we expect to see a gradual improvement going forward on both billing ratio and on profitability.

[Operator]

The next question is from Dan Johansson with SEB.

[Dan Johansson, analyst]

Two questions from me or maybe 3, if I may. First, I have some 9% organic growth, which obviously is quite strong here. How much of that is volume and how much is price? Could you define that list?

[Olof Stålnacke, executive]

Well, I think a majority, I would say, that is price. And then obviously, we continue to have a good FTE growth. So a majority of that organic growth is price in the quarter, which, of course, is really positive. And I think it's also safe to say that we are ahead of the curve when it comes to the salary inflation with pricing. We need to continue to work on that, but we are relatively positive about the price development.

[Dan Johansson, analyst]

Okay. And perhaps organic growth in Finland, which looked quite weak compared to the other segment, what's explained that deviation compared to what you have in the other segments? Is it market-related? Or is there certain projects that are a bit slower perhaps?

[Åsa Bergman, executive]

What we experienced in Finland, to add on what's the reasons in Sweden because also in Finland, we had lots of colleagues started, but especially we had also trainings and internal activities in this quarter in Finland. But it's also so that we are meeting a little bit slower market in Finland, and there was also some larger projects that has quite a long lead time to get started. And that affects the quarter.

[Olof Stålnacke, executive]

Yes. And I think to add to that, I think that goes for a lot of indices right now is that the Finnish market with its closeness and it ties to Russia is a bit more impacted than some other markets right now.

[Dan Johansson, analyst]

Okay. I understand. Perhaps finally, on the balance sheet, that strengthen further in Q3, I guess, it's going to strengthen even more into Q4 given the seasonality cash flow. How do you view the acquisition pipeline currently? And what's your expectations in terms of M&A here for the coming 6 to 12 months?

[Åsa Bergman, executive]

I mean we work with this intense in all our business areas. We have an M&A pipeline in all our business areas to make sure that we find the right companies and that we get the opportunities. So yes, that is how it looks like. So I'm quite positive.

[Operator]

The next question is from Raymond Ke with Nordea.

[Raymond Ke, analyst]

Also a couple of questions from me. Firstly, could you elaborate a bit on the targeted actions in Sweden and Finland?

[Åsa Bergman, executive]

Yes, we can. First of all, we are targeted -- we have targeted actions in place linked to those units that are underperforming. And then we are making sure that we are getting back to efficiency when it has to do with making sure that our new colleagues is quicker into the client projects. And we are also -- have looked into what internal activities and training that has been in the quarters to make sure that we reduce those going forward. And then we are also in a more long-term perspective, looking into all our office leases and linked to the hybrid way of working, but also to lower down cost.

And then we are accelerating cost controls, and that is more general to meet inflation. And it will take some time. So as we said, it will have a gradual improvement in those business areas. But I think it's important to say and link it back to that we have a strong order book, and we are winning projects in a stable way. So it's more about how we execute that order book, some longer lead times when it comes to start-up of projects, but the order book is stable.

[Raymond Ke, analyst]

Okay. Perfect. And could you give some more color on the industries your recruitment efforts have been focused in terms of submarket, I mean?

[Åsa Bergman, executive]

Once again?

[Olof Stålnacke, executive]

Which industries our recruitment have been focused on customer segments?

[Åsa Bergman, executive]

Okay. So we are -- I mean, we're focusing on recruitment in all our segments because for us, it's about making sure that we have the right competence in all segments. So we -- there is a lack of resources in the energy sector, for example, but we can also see that we need in all our segments as we are growing and the demands for our services is growing. So we are looking for specialists in both the infrastructure segment, energy specific industries, water environment and the building in urban areas. And then of course, we see more needs in those segments that grows more, of course.

But to really be able to execute on the order stock we have, we need resources in all segments. And it's also so that as the personnel turnover is up at the levels that we had pre pandemic, we need to continuously recruit new colleagues. So it is important for us to have this strong brand and position ourselves as the most attractive employer in our industry. And we have seen that we are capable of recruiting the volumes we need to achieve this FTE growth. But it pushes a bit on the billing ratio, of course.

[Raymond Ke, analyst]

Got it. And just one final question, if I may. Have you in the quarter, perhaps noticed any shift in your customers' willingness to accept price hikes? Or maybe if there are any differences across industries?

[Olof Stålnacke, executive]

I would say, in general, if anything, as I talked about on the earlier question, our price increases are higher in this quarter than in previous quarters. So we don't yet see that effect. But it continues to be an important area for us. We need to continue to raise prices. But so far, the impact is rather going in the other direction.

[Operator]

The next question is from Fredrik Lithell with Handelsbanken.

[Fredrik Lithell, analyst]

If I could just come back to the last comment about the price increases, and you also commented earlier on you continue to increase fees. So should we expect that your ongoing adjusting your price plans in the coming quarters as well, which will support the organic growth furthermore? And then on M&A, if you could describe a little bit how you see valuations on unlisted targets have adjusted to what we have experienced in the stock market, if that has happened at all or that it's a problem holding back your ability to execute acquisitions at the moment would be interesting to hear.

[Olof Stålnacke, executive]

On pricing, as I said, we -- our definite ambition a really important focus for us is to continue to increase prices because as everyone knows, salary inflation will continue into next year. So we need to stay ahead of the curve as we have been saying. So we definitely have an ambition to continue to do that and believe we have been relatively successful so far. I don't know if you want to comment on the M&A.

[Åsa Bergman, executive]

Yes. I mean, we are in a situation where we experienced the valuations in the multiples has come down a little bit. But still, we are in a situation where many of the seller side is still on historical valuation levels. But we have -- the most dialogues we have is usually relation based, meaning that we have dialogues, and we talk a lot about the market and valuation. So if it takes a little bit more time maybe in this environment, but we have ongoing dialogues in all our countries.

[Fredrik Lithell, analyst]

Okay. And if I have one follow-up here. I think also you said that in Q3, you had more than ever onboarding of new colleagues, which is, I understand, a difficulty to get out in projects immediately. It's going to be the same situation. I mean you have a very strong order backlog. So if it's so that you will have the continuous need in Q4 and maybe Q1 to really have a much higher level of recruitment than early because you need to fit people into all these big projects that you're ramping up [indiscernible].

[Åsa Bergman, executive]

I have to say that after the pandemic, because what we did was that we took down the recruitment pace heavily. We were more specific in what we were looking for during the pandemic. And then really to get going when it comes to recruitment and FTE growth took some time. And those of you who were there, remember us talking about the -- getting back to FTE growth and onboarding takes some time. But now we have been able to recruit at the pace that we would like to see. So -- and it's normally so when you work with recruitment, you see more new colleagues onboarded in -- after the summer period. And also -- so I don't see that we will we need to increase this further.

What we need to work with is to really, really make sure that we work with lots of activities to lower down the turnover. So I'm satisfied with the pace that we have right now and what we succeed with when it comes to recruitment, but we should focus more on getting the turnover down. Even if we benchmark Sweco against competitors in all our different countries as we -- and we are on par, it's still something that is costly and pushes the billing ratio.

[Operator]

The next question is from Johan Sundén with Carnegie.

[Johan Sundén, analyst]

We touched upon a few of my topics. But just to get back to the initiatives you highlighted on Slide 8 and timing of the various initiatives, where -- when should we expect those to give effective numbers? And specifically on the office lease topic, will this be enough to hold the office leasing cost given the adjustment that should be seen on pricing on lease by the end of this year. It's been talked about CPI links in those contracts as well.

[Olof Stålnacke, executive]

Again, as I said before, we don't want to put up any exact numbers. We expect to see gradual improvement starting now in Q4. And obviously, some of the actions we have there will take effect and are already taking effect. Some, as you say, for example, the office leases is one that takes longer time. At the same time, now it's also a good time to renegotiate office leases given the market. So -- and I agree with you on the impact of the coming index clauses. And as Asa said before, part of this is to mitigate that. But it's still too early to tell where we will -- how much of that we'll be able to mitigate.

[Johan Sundén, analyst]

And one follow-up as well on the fee versus wedge development. Over the last few quarters, we have seen that you have had spread from higher fees compared to wedge increases has been so good that it basically compensated for a lot of headwinds. Are you seeing that, that tailwind that you had from that factor is getting slower or lower because of your meeting tougher comparisons on the pricing side?

[Olof Stålnacke, executive]

No, we are not seeing that. The cost increases we see are in non-salary and salary-related costs, need to get the words right here. So these are other operating expenses, there are increases. We continue to have a positive fee salary development.

[Operator]

The last question is from Johan Dahl with Danske Bank.

[Johan Dahl, analyst]

Just a few clarifications. When you talk about higher prices having a positive effect on earnings, as you described the bridge, how it develops year-over-year, what do you put into that statement? It's a net of something, I guess, just to clarify.

[Olof Stålnacke, executive]

No. Very important for us is, as I said, the fee-salary ratio. So that's something we follow very closely. I'm not saying that we have increased it significantly, but at least we have maintained the right price increases.

[Johan Dahl, analyst]

I guess it's a salary that when you say that prices have a positive impact on -- when looking through the numbers here, are we right in assuming that there's a margin dilution here from using more sub-consultants just comparing your FTE growth with your reported organic growth.

[Olof Stålnacke, executive]

There may be a small margin dilution for using sub-consultants then again, that fluctuates between quarters. And I think it also shows a bit where we are right now with really strong demand in some segments. And as we say in the report, a bit weaker in others, meaning that we use sub-consultants a little bit more in some segments. And we also -- I mean, you sub-consultants all the time because we don't have all the niche competencies in-house. But there might be -- there is a small impact from that, yes.

[Johan Dahl, analyst]

But that's -- this is nothing that as an indication of difficulties to recruit in your view or is it just a temporary impact, you say?

[Olof Stålnacke, executive]

I would say it fluctuates between quarters. So it's not something permanent.

[Johan Dahl, analyst]

Okay. And just a final one on M&A. I mean, you talked a lot about this, clearly a lot of potential in the balance sheet. Just looking to the 9 months numbers, you have a cash outflow of SEK 450 million or something, and you talked about the full year impact from acquired companies of SEK 15 million, I think, on EBITA. Can you just put that into context to understand that cash outflow versus the contribution to earnings?

[Olof Stålnacke, executive]

Well, in terms of -- and a bit difficult to comment exactly on those numbers. But in terms of multiples, we are roughly where we have been historically, I would say. So no big change there. And I have to get back to you exactly on the numbers because I don't have that top of head, unfortunately.

[Operator]

There are no more questions registered from the call at this time.

[Marcela Sylvander, executive]

So thank you, everyone, for joining us today. There are no more questions. And with that, we want to again thank you and wish you all a nice day.

[Olof Stålnacke, executive]

Thank you.