Lassila & Tikanoja Oyj

Hello everyone and welcome to Latsela & Tikanoja's third quarter result webcast. The webcast is hosted by Elletti's CEO Eero Hautaniemi and CFO Joni Sorsanen. There's an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the broadcast. But without further ado, Eero, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Inka. And welcome also on my behalf to this earnings release for the first nine months of 2024. First few highlights. Overall solid performance in the circular economy businesses despite quite challenging market environment. All business lines in facility services Finland improved over last year and the turnaround program is progressing well. Also, our sustainability work is yielding results, and I'll get to the details a little later in the presentation. But let's start with the net sales. As you can see in our circular economy businesses, we managed to actually grow a little bit our sales thanks to good sales performance in the industrial services. Whereas in the facility services businesses, especially in Sweden, the sales declined quite significantly. In adjusted operating profit, despite the municipalization, the adjusted operating profit in environmental services was quite good in the third quarter, and in industrial services actually very strong. especially when we remember that we had already a pretty good second quarter in industrial services. In facility services, the operating profit doubled from previous year, but We do have our challenges still in Facility Services Sweden. Overall, our adjusted operating profit increased by one million compared to the previous year. Let's dive into the business segments and start with environmental services. As I said in the beginning, the business environment was challenging and the demand for recycling and waste management services was affected by this demanding economic situation. Especially the municipalization continued to challenge us, but we managed to offset the impact of the municipalization by good performance amongst the B2B customers and producer responsibility organizations. And also, I'd like to highlight that our efficiency measures in environmental services that we started in the beginning of this year, or actually at the end of last year, have progressed quite well. And as you can see, the number of our personnel has come down by some 80 people year on year. In October, we announced acquisition of Steena Recycling's recycled pallet business in Finland. Obviously, this is still subject to the competition authority approval. which has just started. So once we have more news on that, we will obviously inform about the result of the competition authority handling process. But the logic is quite clear. We want to grow the recycling business and this would be a nice addition to our recycled pallet business that we have had now for about 10 years. In industrial services, demand for hazardous waste services continued strong, and it has been strong the whole year, 2024. But I'm especially happy about the success in process cleaning. The annual maintenance breaks were carried out as planned and resourcing was successful. In environmental construction, we have seen a clear decline in the land masses that we have received this year to our landfills. And that is due to the very, very low number of new construction projects in Finland. We do not foresee that the situation would improve in the coming months. Quite the contrary, we think that the construction industry will be very slow, especially when it comes to the households for the next six to 12 months. In facility services, Finland, net sales grew in all business lines year on year sorry, not net sales, but adjusted operating profit grew in all business lines year on year. And especially I'm happy of the performance of our cleaning business. We have implemented maybe 18 months ago a new way of managing the hours and that more precise management of hours is really yielding results. And also the demand for our new services that is data-driven cleaning and smart services, the demand has increased significantly and we are actually quite optimistic that going forward we will gain new customers with these new services that we have introduced. In property maintenance, we have seen now that we have ended a number of unprofitable customers, that the performance of our regional units has also improved and we have much fewer loss-making units left. With the measures that we have in place right now, we expect to see the property maintenance also to continue to improve its performance going forward. And as you can see from the number of personnel, it has come down quite significantly and that is the result of our active actions to end unprofitable customers and increase the efficiency. In Sweden, unfortunately, the story is slightly different. The performance has not turned around as I expected to see already in the third quarter. The demand for additional sales has been a big disappointment. for us and also the profitability of some of the public sector contracts has continued to be very poor also in the third quarter. We have done quite a few measures and the number of personnel has come down by 120, but obviously that is not enough. And we will expedite our efforts to make sure that the turnaround actually happens. As you know, we made certain changes in the management for facility services overall. And Antti Nitunpö, who is heading our facility services in Finland, is now in charge of the facility services in Sweden as well. And we will share best practices from Finland and expect to see similar results going forward in Sweden that we have now seen in facility services Finland. Our sustainability has developed very well and it is not by accident, but we have systematically when buying new trucks and vehicles focused on more sustainable vehicles and by now We are probably one of the largest users of biodiesel in Finland. And as a result of these active measures, we can see that our CO2 carbon footprint has come down significantly from the previous year. Also, I'm very pleased with our work safety development. Our TRIFFY has come down to 19, which is a significant reduction in work accidents, and that is a result of systematic work that we have done for years now, and especially we have been successful this year in facility services Finland. Also, our sick leaves have come down to 4.7%. And I'd like to highlight also that in facility services, Finland, and especially in cleaning, our personal turnover has continued to come down, which has helped us to increase the efficiency and probably helps us also in the work safety. But with this, I'd like to hand over to Joni to go through some of the highlights of the financials.

Thank you Eero and good morning everybody. I would like to start this section by outlining the key financial highlights for the third quarter. Firstly, we can see gradually improving cash flow after week. First quarter, And secondly, we can see our financial position strengthening compared to September last year, as well as compared to previous quarter. Then in earnings per share and return on capital employed, we see decrease. But on the other hand, both of these indicators are affected by non-recurring items in the period. Looking at net working capital at the end of September, we were at minus 30 million euros compared to minus 28 million euros a year earlier, which is a 1.2 million improvement year on year, regardless of the decrease in net sales. Also in this graph, we can see a clear quarterly pattern, which is also evident in financial year 24. And if we look at the development for the first nine months, we can see that the net working capital has changed by 18 million euros this year compared to 9 million euros in 2023. However, it's good to note that this net working capital includes also impact from Capex related trade payables. So if you look at the cash flow impact of net working capital, we are more or less on the same level as previous year, roughly at minus 12 million for both 2024 and 2023. In capital expenditure, we can see a clear decrease year on year. So capital expenditure for January-September amounted to approximately 30 million euros compared to 46 in 2023, which is a decrease of 16.3 million. And virtually the whole decrease comes from our environmental services division, where we have less investments in heavy vehicles this year compared to the previous year. Then looking at net cash flow, as already mentioned, we can see an improving trend in cash flow this year after weak first quarter. So operating cash flow for January, September amounted to 44.1 million euros compared to 58.5 in 2023, affected by the weak first quarter. Then cash flow after investments for January, September was 12.2 million euros compared to 28.1. And also good to note here that in 2023, we had quite significant tax refunds, which supported operating cash flow, which makes the comparison then difficult for this year. Then financial position strengthening, as already mentioned, gearing amounted to 77% at the end of September compared to 78% in September 23, and also equity ratio close to 37% versus 36% a year earlier. Liquid funds amounted to 30.4 million, at the end of September compared to 25.6 in the comparison period. And net interest-bearing debt, 178.8 million compared to 174.9 million, which is an increase of approximately 4 million euros, but virtually on the same level as in the comparison period. There is no change in the maturity structure of our long-term loans. So basically we have this bank loan of 40 million maturing in 2026 and then bond of 75 million maturing in 2028. If we look at the weighted average effective interest rate, we see a slight decrease, which is in line with the development of market interest rates And also compared to the second quarter, we see a slight decrease. Now we have the interest rate for our loans, 3.8 compared to 4% in comparison period and also 4% at the end of second quarter. Then looking at return on capital employed, which totaled 9% at the end of September on a rolling 12-month basis compared to 11.7 at the end of September 23. And we can see that this comes from both decrease in operating profitability, which is affected by one of items, as well as decrease in capital efficiency, which on the other hand is affected by decrease in net sales. Also good to note that we have divisions that have been able to improve return on capital employed. But however, this weakened result in Facility Services Sweden is obviously diluting the total return for the whole group. And then finally, looking at earnings per share, as already noted, below previous years, level at 51 cent compared to 65 cents in previous period affected by one of items, but also increase in net finance costs year on year. An operating cash flow after investments per share also following the same logic as already presented in connection with the cash flow, so we see an increasing trend after week, first quarter. And then I will hand over again to Eero. Eero will continue with the guidance.

Thanks, Joni. Our outlook for 2024 is unchanged. So the net sales in 2024 are estimated to be at the same level as in the previous year. And the adjusted operating profit is estimated to be at the same level or better compared to the previous year. Thank you very much. And now we are ready for your questions.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Niko Ruakangas from SEB. Please go ahead.

Hello, this is Nikko Ruongas from STB. Thank you for the presentation. I have a couple of questions. Starting with the industrial services, where your performance was strong and in line with last year, despite phasing of some projects already in Q2. So was there something that surprised you in demand? And is that something that will continue or was Q3 specifically?

Uh, Well, it didn't surprise us in terms of the demand, but I'd say that we were more successful in our staffing of the projects and the projects management was very successful this year. Perhaps last year we were not quite as successful in the management of the

big maintenance breaks overall the demand was as expected all right I understand then on facility services Finland where you also had very strong performance so how long do you think that this kind of similar improvement trends can continue

Yeah well we have given the outlook for the full year but in general I'd say that in cleaning our performance is very good already but in property maintenance we have still quite a bit room for improvement. So hopefully we will see a continuing improving trend in facility services Finland.

Yes, thanks. Then turning to Sweden and facility services Sweden where your earnings continue downwards and you postpone the expectation of the turnaround. So you have been expecting to finalize the strategy review by the end of this year of the facility services businesses. So as the turnaround in Sweden was now postponed, so do you still see the estimate of the strategy review timeline to be finalized this year still realistically?

Yes. So we expect to finalize our strategic review by the end of this year. But as you pointed out, the turnaround in Sweden is taking actually quite a bit longer than we expected. And the problems are very deep rooted. And as I said, we will and have already put more focus and more resources, especially from Finland, to turn around the business in Sweden. And I think, and actually I'm confident that we can do it, but as I said, the turnaround is taking longer than we expected. And especially the demand for additional sales has been a big disappointment for us in the third quarter.

Okay, but does that affect your strategic review, the surprises in performance?

Well, everything that happens in facility services, Finland or Sweden, obviously affects the strategic review. So not specifically.

Yeah, yeah, I understand. Then one last from me. When do you expect the elevated ERP costs to start to decline and how big of an impact they currently have?

I don't have an exact number, the impact is big. What will happen once we have, according to our plans, implemented the new systems in environmental services and in industrial services, by next summer, obviously we will have then much less resources working on the implementation and training and support. At the same time, as the systems are new, the depreciations will go up and the license costs will be higher, but also our efficiency should increase. So in the second half of next year, I'm expecting to see gradually the impact of the implementation of these new ERP systems.

All right. I understand that helps. That's all from me. Thank you.

There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

There is one question online. Inga, go ahead.

So there's a question. Can you elaborate a bit more the strategic quarter in facility services Finland? Have you been able to, for example, increase customer prices and perhaps improve personnel utilization rate in addition to the factors that you already mentioned? Was there something unique in this quarter or do you see the strengthened profitability as a sustainable improvement?

Yeah, well, In general, we have been doing this turnaround in facility services in Finland now for three years or so. As we communicated last year, we actively ended certain customer contracts where the profitability was low. And also at the same time, as I already explained, we have focused very much in managing the hours and improving the quality of our services. But we have also introduced new services. One of those services is data-driven cleaning, which means that we put sensors in, let's say that we clean an office building, we put sensors in every room and we can see what is the utilization of that space. And we can then focus our cleaning to places where there is a lot of utilization and where there is less utilization. And that way our customers benefit from that and we gain more efficiency for our cleaning. That is just one example of what we have done. So we have done a number of things. There's been several projects to improve the profitability and there are sort of no single things that would explain the improved performance. And yes, I believe that this improved performance is sustainable. No more questions. So thank you very much and have a very good weekend. Bye bye.