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Afry Ab
7/18/2023
So, dear all, a warm welcome to this Q2 presentation from AFRI. My name is Jonas Gustafsson, the CEO of AFRI, and I will be part of the presentation, and joining me will, of course, Bo Sandström Du, our CFO. So again, welcome to this presentation. So starting up now with a summary of the quarter. And as the headline is saying, we had strong organic growth in a quite mixed market. Net sales ended up at 6.8 billion. And we continue to see strong demand in the energy and industrial segments. But what we saw also in the quarter, we saw for us a clear slowdown in the real estate segment. And of course, the real estate segment have been a segment with uncertainty. But for A3, we saw a clear slowdown in the quarter. Total growth of 15% and also strong adjusted organic growth of 10.8%. The order stock continue to be on a high level and Bo will talk a bit more about that. So in general, good and strong order stock. But the result then was clearly impacted by lower utilization and also the negative calendar effect. And the infrastructure division, which really took the slowdown in the real estate, we saw the biggest impact on utilization. So we delivered 421 million in EBITDA equal to 6.1% in EBITDA margin. And for sure, this was below our own expectation in the quarter. We'll get back to that later on. But when you look on our divisions, I also want to highlight that process industry, energy and management consulting, these three divisions all delivered solid and even good results in the quarter. We did one acquisition in the quarter, KSH. This is a Canadian based company with an annual sales of 180 million, adding up to our process industry division and strengthening our position in North America. And we will now be able to combine South America and North America in our process industry division. And we're really happy that we could close that acquisition. Just a few words about the first six months. From number wise, we ended up on sales on 13.7 billion, total growth of 18% and 13% adjusted organic growth. For sure, the first six months for us have been strong when it comes to the top line. EBITDA on 1.1 billion and EBITDA margin on 8%. We had a really good, strong first quarter, but of course, second quarter have been more challenging for us, both with the calendar effect, but also utilization. I was into the market and I think in general we continue to see solid demand and clearly the industrial segment is driving that. So we see a continued strong and underlying demand in most industrial segments, energy of course being strong. and sectors like metal mining and the energy transformation and also electrification. So I would also like to highlight that the automotive sector has also been strong and solid throughout the quarter for AFRI. So the industrial segment, including energy, is strong. One part of the industrial segment, pulp and paper, we of course follow and see that there is an increased uncertainty to CapEx investment moving forward. Quarter two was strong for us, but of course there is an increased uncertainty. That was also highlighted for many clients when it comes to the CapEx investment moving forward. On infrastructure, we at A3, we saw a clear slowdown on the real estate segment that was impacting our utilization. Finland was the one where we were fighting the most, but also in Sweden, we ended up with having also to take action in reducing number of employees to mitigate the slowdown in the real estate segment. However, on the public transport infrastructure, it remains quite stable for us. So we have been battling mostly into the real estate segment in the quarter. Looking on divisions, as I was into, infrastructure continued to grow, but for sure the 4% in EBITDA morning was a disappointment for us. The big challenge we had was that the reduction in the real estate was We had to take action on that. So we reduced number of employees, took some one of costs to do that to mitigate capacity to demand. And end of the day, this affected the margin on infrastructure. So this is one area that we will need to continue to work on, of course. Process industry highlighting as the superstar in the portfolio, as you see, being able to grow close to 21% adjusted organic growth with a strong margin quarter. So I think the development of process industry throughout the quarters and the years is really strong and we have a very, very strong position and we are really happy with that performance and the order books looks very solid. AFREX is another area where we had a disappointing quarter. Just 1.6% adjusted organic growth. And even though we have done the restructuring, taken out the software products, we had a quarter with low EBITDA margin. and reason for this was that we in the quarter lost a couple of important contracts or assignments for us and that ended up that we have people not utilized and this really affected a4x in the in the quarter so here we need to continue to work to bring a4x to the level that we expect them to be industry and the solution solid growth And if you are just for the calendar effect, I would also say that the margin is solid. We would expect more, but it's a solid quarter from industry and digital solution. And I also want to highlight that automotive segment was also rather strong in the quarter. Energy. bit lower on growth but also here the margin is solid in the quarter and finally management consulting as they have been over the quarters strong on top line also solid margin so our challenge and you have seen that is of course infrastructure being a big part of A3 but also A4X are two divisions that we need to continue and implement actions to bring them to levels where we want to be and With infrastructure, we also now have a headwind affecting us on the real estate market. Just three assignments I want to highlight. To Fortum, we had an engineering assignment for hydrogen study, super interesting. To Stena Recycling, it's a recycling plant for electrical car batteries. And finally, to Swedish Transport Administration, we are getting the assignment for project management for Södertörn Crosslink. Three good projects for AFRI, adding up to a good and solid order book. With that, I'm leaving it to Bo, our CFO to take you through the numbers.
Thank you, Jonas. So I will cover the main financials for Q2 and I will start as usual with sales. Total net sales in the quarter was 6.9 billion, some 900 million higher than last year and on a rolling 12-month perspective we are now surpassing 25 billion. We report 15% total growth and 11% adjusted organic growth. Sequentially a somewhat lower growth level but still at a very high level. Growth was driven by high demand across most of our segments, supported by price increases, again, just north of 5%, so similar level as in the last quarter. We see a continuous strong development of the order stock, which is now at 21 billion, some 14% higher than last year, which is the same as it was in Q1. EBITDA came in at 421 million, 7% lower than last year. The EBITDA margin ended at 6.1%, a decline from 7.6% in the corresponding quarter last year. The decline in utilization and the negative calendar effect, which was estimated at 0.9 percentage points, more than explains the difference to last year. We see a continued strong recruitment pace in general, but with attrition coming down somewhat and pockets of quickly changing market conditions, we didn't manage to strike the balance on utilization this quarter, whereas the level of sub-consultants in the quarter was stable. Some costs for early termination of office-based leases is reported as items affecting comparability as we continue to optimize our cost base. There are, for the group, no material project one-offs affecting the quarter. Looking then at development by division, we see positive adjusted organic growth in all divisions, although sequentially growth is coming down somewhat, with process industries being the main or the clear exception to that. Margin development, however, was clearly mixed in the quarter. Process industries, energy and management consulting all delivered strong results for process industries, even a clear improvement and yet another quarter with double digit growth and EBITDA margin simultaneously. Industrial and Digital Solutions has a stable development adjusted for calendar effects, continued strong pricing compensated for increased salary costs and somewhat lower utilization in the division. The infrastructure margin was down 3.6 percentage points compared to last year. Half of it related to lower utilization and the other half related to calendar and redundancy costs in the quarter. The vast majority of the non-calendar effects was related to the real estate segment in the division. A3X margin was significantly pressured by low utilization and the effects thereof eliminated the positive effects from the restructuring of the project portfolio in Q4 last year. Some words on operating cash flow, financial net debt and available liquidity. So cash flow from operating activities was clearly stronger than last year. And in the quarter, we maintained working capital at a stable level despite the strong growth. Financial net debt increased directly on the back of dividend payout and the acquisition of KSH in the quarter. And available liquidity remained very strong, currently at 4.1 billion. Before looking at our financial targets, we want to stay a bit at our working capital development. This shows AFRI's net working capital ratio to net sales over the last five years, and the quarter two ratio is highlighted in the graph. In a consistent moderate growth environment, this KPI is rather stable year over year, although seasonality effects can be seen throughout the year, depending quarter. However, when OF acquired Poirier in 2019, this normalized level was shifted downwards, given that a substantial large project business with different cash flow mechanics was integrated, and then it became AFRI from 2019 and onwards. From this level, the ratio tend to contract in negative growth settings, the pandemic being the prime example, while it expands in strong organic growth settings, which we have been in the last number of quarters. In Q2, we see a slight improvement in this ratio sequentially, following four quarters with really strong growth. Finally, an update on the financial targets on a rolling 12 perspective. Growth remains rolling 12 on 19%, well above the 10% target. On the EBITDA margin, as calendar effects year to date is now close to zero compared to last year, EBITDA margin is back slightly above full year 2022. Improving the margin is our key focus area for this and upcoming years. And finally, the increase of net debt due to dividend acquisition payout increased our leverage to 2.6 times, marginally above our financial target. But being our weakest quarter in terms of leverage ratio due to dividends, we still expect good headroom to the target level at end of year, providing some room for further acquisitions. And with that, I'll leave back to you, Jonas.
So then just quickly wrapping up before I'm also inviting Bo and we will be open for questions. Of course, focus going forward, as you have seen in our portfolio and divisions, it's a mix. So in one hand, we will continue to leverage from the strong position we have and good demand on the industrial energy segment. So for four of our divisions, the market, the order stocks are good, so continue to push. On the other hand, of course, we have now two divisions where we need to take more actions and we also need to mitigate the short-term effects that we have done in the quarter and Bo said it. that we have taken actions in the quarter. We were not fully able to balance it, that it also affected utilization. The real estate slowed down. So that's absolutely something that we will be very close now to the market and see where the real estate market continues for AFRI. At the end of the day, we continue to work on the infrastructure plan that we also presented earlier this year, where the clear ambition and target and plan is to improve the underlying profitability for infrastructure. It's just that now we also need to battle for a short-term effect from the real estate market. So that's our absolute clear priority moving forward. And with that, inviting Bo again, and we will open up for questions that might be.
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