Bouvet ASA

Yes, then I would like to welcome you to the presentation of our first quarter results for 2026. My name is Per-Gunnar Tronsli, and I have with me Steffen Garder, and we follow the standard routine. I will tell you about the store and what we have been doing, and then Steffen will tell you a little more about the numbers. So we do the standard procedure again. We have people here in Sørkedalsveien, and we have all of you who are on stream. So we run the presentation, and then we take the questions at the end, so everyone gets it. So that. The first quarter of 2026 for BOV was a good quarter. We win contracts, we get more employees, and we deliver a good salary. On agreements won, we mention the report, what we have done at Kystverket, what we have done at AKBP, what we have done at in Nye Veier and in Stavanger municipality. I will tell you a little more about what we do with all of them. We are growing with the number of employees. Since the last quarter, the same period last year, we grew with 44. I will come back to that and tell you a little more about what and where they are recruited. And then we have the numbers. We deliver a turnover of 1 billion and 37 million, which is somewhat down from the same period last year, which was 1 billion and 74 million. And then we deliver a turnover of 127 million kroner, which gives an EBIT margin of 12.3. We are... both happy and proud of, and I would like to say, there are not many from BOV here in the room, but I would like to say thank you to everyone who has been here early and late to deliver the results. It has been a good job. Thank you very much. Considering the number of employees, we end the quarter with 2,391 employees. As I said, that's up 44 from the same period last year. and 24 from the previous quarter, Q4 2025. The background for this is quite similar to what I talked about last quarter. We have low turnover, and we always adjust this recruitment activity in relation to the opportunities we see. And then we have seen that we have had In order to see any possibilities, we have geared up the recruitment in some areas. What this is, is the recruitment of experienced and mainly technically-oriented competence. We have also been very clear about the fact that we are a company, in these times there are many who talk about it being the time of the seniors, and that is probably also true. But we are also a company that also focuses on recruiting young and new graduates. That will come later this year, but this recruitment is about experience, especially with a technical background. We are very happy with that, so 2,391. We look forward to the round of 2,004 and even more in the future. A little about our sectors and what has happened there. Oil and gas renewable, some increase. This is about increased activity on customers such as Ake BP, which I will tell you about a little later, and our energy. And then there is some reduced activity on Equinor, but collectively some increased activity. Then we have public. And in public, there is also public business and defense. And there we also see some increase that is pleasant. What we see an increase in is the number of customers we have talked about earlier. The tax state, which was a new number we won a few quarters ago. We have seen a significant increase there. And the national review, which we have also shared here. In addition to that, we have increased activity in Solna municipality outside Stockholm. and Kystverket, which I will talk about a little later, and not least NATO within the Defence Force. So, nice development. The sector we have a downturn in is energy supply, and that is caused by that downturn. It is a bit similar, but mainly it is a downturn in the state network. As many of you may know, Statnet has chosen several parallel frame rate providers. So what we see here is the result of some of the transitions that have been made with the transfer of orders between suppliers, and then we have some decline in energy supply with Statnet. Then we have the increase in services. Correctly enough, a relatively small sector, but with important and interesting customers. We have seen increased activity there. Customers such as Innovation Norway, Norske Kirke, and a customer I have talked about quite a few times here in these earlier presentations, and that is KS Digital, and what KS Digital does is build services for the municipality of Norway. and offshore Norway. So, good development for most of us, some decline in energy supply, which has given some growth to the service units and the rest. Then we have some key words about customer collaboration. We are very proud and happy, and I have talked about this many times, that we have high activity among the most important customers. It has given us a lot, and it gives us a lot. It makes us work on good domain content, we have close relationships, we do a lot for important customers. What we see this quarter, we see some decline between the 10 largest and the 20 largest. It gives a little room to deliver to others, and I come back to that. We have a lot of new customers that we work with, so that's fine. Then we have the distribution between public and private. Here we see that we are increasing. What I mentioned about the turnover, it is somewhat down, but in reality quite flat. So the redistribution we see between private and public ownership is actually linked to what I talked about with power supply. That is what makes the impact on the decline in public ownership and the increase in private ownership. And then we have this with new customers. And there we have a lot of customers that we have seen revenue on that we did not have revenue on in the same period last year, i.e. the first quarter of 2025. And that is businesses such as Asker municipality, Bærum municipality, customers in the sector forestry and forestry, Nordtømmer and Vikenskog. And not least an exciting customer that we work with in the Vestland region, called BIR. We work with renovation services for nearly half a million people in 10 municipalities around Bergen. So that's a little bit about the customer collection. And then I would like to talk a little bit about the four customers that we raised in the report, and that I mentioned initially, and what we do with them. The first thing I want to talk about is Kystverket. At Kystverket this quarter we have won new framework agreements. There are two framework agreements. One is for national services. Kystverket has a business that is spread out in Norway, so this is about services across all those businesses on a national basis. And then there is a framework agreement related to the location Haugesund. It is a full range, basically everything we do. It is about system development, UX, service design, project management, architecture and data science. So the whole range, really. And we have been so lucky that we have been able to work with Kystverket since 2013. In earlier presentations, I have talked about Barents Watch, what solutions we have worked with for surveillance and information services for all of our northern maritime areas. We have been working with this since 2013. And then we have worked with the administration and further development of what is called SafeSeaNet. And SafeSeaNet is a national reporting portal for travel along the coast plus access to ports in Norway. The Coast Guard is an important player in the total defence. important social tasks, and we are very happy that we have renewed our trust and will continue to work with them for many years to come. So that is one agreement that we have in the quarter. I have previously described that a short year ago we informed that we had received a large agreement with AKBP. Under that agreement there is also appeal and own competition. And this quarter, we have won two new agreements with AKBP. And these agreements are linked to the construction of Yggdrasil. And this is the largest ongoing on Norwegian soil for the time being. Yggdrasil is quite exciting, because it is being built with low and unmanned platforms, and these will be removed from the control room on land in Stavanger. That requires digitization, so the two agreements we have received here now, one is about sensor data, out on the installations, that is, out on the platforms, collection of that. And it's about monitoring industrial applications out there, industrial systems, leaks, overheating, and so on and so forth. So a lot of alarms that are collected. And the other agreement is about It's about what happens in the control room. It's about making visible and accessible that information operators who are sitting in the control room in Stavanger. So it's basically about better solutions for operators and better decision support. This is exciting for us. It's exciting for Ake Beppe, of course, and it's exciting for us to be part of it. This is and will be one of the most digitized fields at Norsk Sokkel. It is also very exciting for us to be part of, because it strengthens us in what we call industrial IT. It is the very industrial, the very physical operation of platforms and installations. So that is something we are very happy about. And this is the customer I mentioned in the oil and gas sector, where we have definitely seen increased activity after the incoming agreements that were won. So that's good. New ways. There we have a new customer. There we have also submitted a new agreement. Nye Veier is a state-owned share company. It is about planning and development, operation and maintenance of defined routes in Norway. This is an approach from the government's side to be able to build out concrete routes faster. That is their mission, and we are part of an agreement that is about building a data platform. For Nye Veier, this is about building a data platform with safe solutions and the use of various technologies, including artificial intelligence and data science, to analyze and treat the data. So for new roads, the Data Platform is an important building block in delivering even better road services to us as a society. So that is... This is the one for us. This is a company that has a headquarters in Kristiansand. So this is an activity that we see in our region Sør in Kristiansand, and the Arndal company in the main office. And the last customer I would like to mention is Stavanger municipality, and we are very happy that we have received renewed trust from Stavanger municipality. Stavanger Municipality is leading. It has received many awards in the municipality of Norway for using technology to build even better social services. We have been fortunate to work with Stavanger Municipality since 2019, where we have built and managed what Stavanger Municipality calls its data lake. The data lake in Stavanger Municipality collects a lot of data from different professional systems, and they use it to Analyse, predict and build new social services. Specifically, one example is how Stavanger municipality has been leading in predicting patient flow towards the medical guards in Stavanger. What is this about? It is about how to better adapt services, capacity and crew to the pressure expected from the medical guards. For Stavanger municipality, this is perhaps one of the most important measures in becoming even more data-driven, using good data and good analysis to build even better services for everyone living in the region. These are the four agreements that I wanted to raise. It is also impossible to hold a quarterly presentation these days without telling a little about what we do with artificial intelligence and how artificial intelligence affects our business and our customers. We are a company that has our business with very important social actors in Norway and Sweden, and our customers. they deliver completely critical and socially critical services to all of us. For this reason, it is important that we, in all our work when we talk about new technology, approach this with a great focus on security and data quality. and take care of sensitive data. And of course, these are some challenges when we start talking about artificial intelligence. So in the little sketch we have described this in, it is actually the foundation. And it is the foundation for what we do internally and what we do externally with our customers. So you can say that our mission at Bove is to introduce and use artificial intelligence in a way that is safe and meets all requirements for quality and data security, both internally and externally. It meets us in mainly three dimensions. One is internal. How is this, how is artificial intelligence? We use artificial intelligence in Bove to make our own operations more effective, to change us, to develop us, and to transform us. For us, there are many different motives when we talk about efficiency and transformation. For us, it is not about becoming fewer to deliver the same services, but we will become more efficient and even better at managing our structure capital. It is our structure capital that creates our competitive advantage for our customers. And that is what we use. Our structure capital is a type of consultant profiles, CVs, descriptions of projects we have been involved in, our methods, work methodology, and so on. we use today artificial intelligence to improve. And then there is what is really where we think we can create competitive advantage for BOV, through the use of artificial intelligence, and that is in our deliveries. I can say that in a large extent we use artificial intelligence in our deliveries today. So it should be said that there is a stretch in the team of some customers is very promising, others are more repetitive, but that depends on what kind of data and what situation and challenges they are in. But in a large extent we use artificial intelligence in our deliveries. What is fundamental in our business today is an enormous focus on competence development, building a lot of competence around the use of these tools and the use of artificial intelligence in our deliveries. And then How we create competition and fortune is about how we take that competence into our work and delivery models. How we incorporate it into our methodologies and ways of delivering. And make our consultants ready and good at working with AI in the deliveries. And then it has to go into the methodologies and work routines and tools that we have with us. And then, in the end, it creates possibilities. And these are possibilities we are in dialogue with our customers about today already. And that is the third triangle, which is about new possibilities and business models. There is no doubt that artificial intelligence makes us more effective. It makes us take on a few other tasks. One example that we are in some dialogues about is legacy systems that are with our customers, how we can both improve, expand them and possibly also replace them. by the fact that our custom development is more efficient and competitive. These are the possibilities we are looking for today, and then other ways of delivering it will also come in, commercially, but that is probably a little further ahead. So exciting development, many possibilities for us, And it has created an enormous energy in the business around competence development, and take this into the way we deliver. So that was what I was going to say. And then Steffen will talk about our numbers.

Yes, thank you. Good morning everyone. Then I will talk a little about the numbers for the first quarter of 2026. There we have them. And here you can see that in the quarter, Bovee had operating revenues of 1 billion and 37 million kroner. That was a decline of 3.5 percent points, or 3.5 percent compared to the same quarter last year. EBIT was 127 million, with an EBIT margin of 12.3 percent, down from 14.4 percent the year before. If we take a closer look at the Bro-analysis, it becomes clear what explains the development in EBIT. The biggest negative driver is the lower rate of invoicing, which is down 1.8 percentage points compared to the same period last year. This reduces EBIT by at least 25 million kroner. This development is considered to be periodic and market-oriented, and is not to be seen as a structural change in response to BoVS services. The variation is concentrated in single areas and closely followed in the line. The number of working days was the same as in the first quarter of last year, but the Easter fell at the beginning of April, but the quarter was still affected by an increase in the number of holidays in the early part of the Easter, i.e. at the end of March. This affected the EBIT negatively, with about 12 million kroner. On the positive side, there is a price increase of 2.1%, which in isolation strengthens the result by 20 million. Price development must be seen in connection with a more competitive market, where we consciously balance price, volume and use, and evaluate today's level as compatible with good profitability over time. Finally, an increase in the average number of employees with 1.3 percent contributed marginally to the result. The result after the tax in the quarter was 97 million, and the result on the stock ended at 93 euros. If we look a little closer at the turnover, the decline in both absolute and relative figures is mostly due to the use of subconsultants. Under-consulent use is reduced by 21.7% to 68 million, and now accounts for 6.6% of the turnover in the quarter, against 8.1% in the same quarter last year. This is a clear measure to secure margins, and at the same time prioritize deliveries with own employees. 100-year income from own employees amounted to 955 million kroner per quarter, down 1.8 percent from the same period last year. Total costs are collected under control, with a decrease of 1 percent. This is mainly due to reduced use of subcontractors, which gives a reduced cost of goods of 23.4 percent. The staff cost has increased by 1.1%, but it is still stable in total, despite a profit growth of 4% in recent years. Among other things because the result-based well-being is lower. Let's move on and look at the cash flow. As you can see, the cash flow from sales in the first quarter was negative, with 49 million kroner. This is mainly driven by seasonal variations in working capital, and is in line with what we normally see in the first quarter. If we look at the last 12 months, we have a cash flow from sales of 333 million kroner, which has gone in line with the results in the period. The Bro-analysis shows that the quarter started with a bank cut of 672 million kroner. The very operation generated 114 million kroner in positive cash flow, and IFRS 16 contributed another 18 million kroner. The change in working capital is mainly due to short-term challenges that increased by 132 million kroner per quarter. This is seasonal and in line with what we normally see. We do not consider the increase in customer challenges as an increased risk. The customer portfolio consists mainly of large, solid and public businesses, and corporations have not had losses in challenges in the first quarter. In addition, the working capital is negatively affected by changes from 2026, when tax cuts were imposed. Now the tax state is paid monthly, in relation to income tax, compared to earlier per term. This change is isolated, so the working capital is negatively affected by a total of 60 million kroner. We also see that the cash flow from financing activities was negative with 50 million kroner, tied to the purchase of own shares in connection with Kosærnet's share program for land use. In addition, the IFRS 16 effect on leasing obligations was negative with 23 million kroner. In total, we ended the quarter with a cash flow of 551 million kroner. Finally, a few short words about the balance. Bovee still has a very solid financial position, which is just over half a billion kroner in disposable liquid funds. We have no interest rate at all, and we have unused a credit frame of 100 million kroner. The allocation of capital remains a priority for an attractive and predictable exchange policy, while maintaining high financial flexibility. That was it, P. Gunnar. I'll put the floor back to you. Thank you.

Then I will just share some thoughts about the time we are in and what we have in front of us. We have written a little about this in the report. But I can take the first one. Everyone who looks around the market knows that there are many who know that there are a little tougher times. And we notice that. The theme is tougher competition. We can see that in some of the numbers as well. So there is no doubt that in some competitions we can see the price pressure. And then there are many things about the leg. The fact that there are many things about the leg does not bother us. Then it is probably not possible to read our report in another way than that we are talking about what has happened throughout the quarter, that is, within the quarter, And there is no doubt that it was a slower start in January, and then there has been a positive development. And one of the things that we point out in the report is that there is an increasing degree of demand and activity and visible needs in the market. That has been a positive development in the quarter. As we also have reason to believe, we will see quite high activity in the market in relation to questions, especially in the public sector. And we are well placed there, so we are happy about that. Then I mentioned what is happening in technological development, AI and so on. We are living in an incredibly exciting time, so if there is something that has activated the competencies we live in, then it is really the time we are living in now. But it's about learning, competence development, but very specific to what I was actually talking about, which is about taking this into account in the way we deliver, and work methodology and tooling that we have with us in the customer. So that's an exciting topic. and learning time. Customers, very concerned, and that has something to do with the economic situation for many of our customers, extremely concerned about value. And that is something that is reflected in all of our deliveries actually, that the customer is very concerned about the value created. And that is, we think, a pretty healthy and good development. And finally, access to competence. This is connected to the first point I want to make, that there are tougher times out there. The way we notice it, yes, we notice it, increasing competition in the supply chain, but we also notice it when it comes to access to good people. And one of the results, you saw what we could talk about, increased number of employees. So it is a positive side of a market that for many is a little tougher. And in times like these, good times are good to live in. We have to work for turnover, we have to work for our profitability, and we have to work hard to deliver well and recruit well. And we have planned to continue with that. So we have a pretty determined, optimistic view of the time we think we have ahead of us. So that's what I was going to say, and with Steffen's words, that sums up our quarter summary. If anyone has any questions, we can take them here. And then we have with us, I'll just say that, we have with us, now that I see that you are going to ask questions, I just have to say that I have with me myself, and then I have with Steffen, and then we have Lisbeth here, so I hope we can answer all the questions then.

Øystein Lodgaard, ABG. We can start with a question about KI. Have you noticed any changes from your customers in what they expect from you after this with KI? For example, more efficient projects. Does that put pressure on the price and the number of hours you expect to use the project?

We commented a little on that. In relation to KI, if we connect it to our numbers, we do not see any correlation. What should say that the customers expect other things from us is correct, but it is also not a nuanced picture. Some customers will say that they want to reduce something on the hours. Some will say that. Most of them say that they want more for the same, so that we can develop more for the same. So that's not a uniform picture, but we don't see, and Steffen commented on it, structurally in relation to our services, what Steffen used, and we don't see that. It changes a lot of the way we deliver in the teams and team composition and how you work. So there is a big agenda for change. But related to what you are interested in and when you think about the numbers, we don't see it.

We've heard others talk about maybe expecting a change in the price models for projects. That you might not only price things for hours, but the value delivered. Is that something you're looking at at all?

We see... A lot of people are talking about that. We don't see that yet. We think there is potential there, and we talk to customers about new things we can work with, and then discuss in an orderly manner whether we are open to discussing other ways of commercial packaging. When that is to be said, it is a rather complex matter. And many of our customers, we use the state standard, contracts and so on, and to get that type of commercial models in that type of contract is a small development path. So when I talk about this, I will say that we are leaning forward in this. We are not revealing it, but we have not seen this development materialize yet. But we are very focused on the new opportunities this gives us to replace legacy applications and so on. So that opens up some opportunities for us.

On the contracts you are talking about in the quarter, there are some renewals, but maybe with some changes in scope. Can you say a little about where, are there things that will replace existing projects that are going out, or are there things that will drive growth for you further?

That's growth, if you can take two of them. As I talked about initially, we have had an agreement with the Coast Guard for a long time. Now it is renewed and extended. So that's activity in the future. Then you have Ake BP, where, as I said a short year ago, we announced that we had a large framework agreement. So this is call-offs within that, and competition within that framework of a framework agreement.

So that's new things for us.

And Stavanger Municipality, as I mentioned, those examples there, that's also new things, i.e. promotion and continued activity on things we have worked with for several years.

Do you have the employees you need to deliver on these projects, or do you have to hire a few more in the coming quarters?

The reason we have grown with Netto 44 since the same period last year is a consideration of how we have managed to strengthen ourselves. As I said, we are strengthening ourselves mainly on the technical side, and we are strengthening ourselves now with experience. And then we always come to develop ourselves with a balance with newly educated, less experienced and experienced. But that will come later this year.

Thank you.

That was a lot, you took all of it. Anyone have any more questions? No, if not, we thank you for us, and we welcome you to the second quarter, right after the holidays. Thank you for coming, and thank you for listening. See you again soon.