NRC Group ASA

Hello, and welcome to the NRC Group second quarter and first half 2021 results question and answer session. Throughout the call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and after a short summary, there will be a question and answer session. I will now hand the conference over to Lena Ingebrigtsen, Head of Communications in NRC Group. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. By now, you have received a copy of the earnings release and investor supplement for the company's second quarter and half-year results. If you have not, copies are available on our website, nrcgroup.com. The speakers we have on today's call are Henning Olsson, Chief Executive Officer, and Doug Gladby, Chief Finance Officer. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Henning Olsson. Please go ahead, Henning.

Thank you, Leanne. I'll start with a short summary of the announced results from this morning. During the quarter, we made good progress with our main priorities, improving profitability and winning the right projects at the right price. In quarter two, the activity level is picking up and we report a revenue of 1.5 billion. Adjusted for currency, the growth rate was minus 3%. We delivered an EBITDA of 47 million, significantly better than last year, and we see that the improvement work put down for the past two years is starting to yield results. Improved results are driven by a very strong performance in Finland. We see continued strong performance in rail construction, and we see improved results in the maintenance business. In Sweden, we deliver results at the same level as last year. The volumes are low due to tough market conditions. We continue to work with our improvement initiatives, but we also need to see better market conditions before we can return to our targeted margin level. The results in Norway are weaker than the same period last year due to low activity in civil and weak margins in our recycling and demolition business. This is a consequence of the low order intake last year in Seville and the ongoing turnaround process in the demolition and recycling units. However, we made good progress during the first half of 2021 in both areas. Although the results are not at the level we want in Norway this quarter, I'm confident that they're moving in the right direction as we continue to build the foundation for improved results and future growth in Norway. We had a very strong order intake of 2.2 billion in quarter two, with a book to bill of 1.5 in the quarter. We also won the material supply contract for the Finnish Transport Agency with an estimated value of 2 billion, which is not a part of the reported order intake and order book. So in the quarter, we actually secured orders for more than 4 billion. I'm confident that we are moving in the right direction with a strong order intake, a solid tender pipeline, and many interesting projects coming up. We are on track to return to profitable growth. As a part of the quarterly presentation, we also published our sustainability targets and an estimate of how our business will align with the EU taxonomy. Now we will open up for questions.