Multiconsult Asa Unsp/Adr

And welcome to this presentation of the results for Multiconsult for the first quarter 2024. My name is Grete Bergli. I'm the CEO. And with me today is also our CFO, Ove Haupberg, who will take you through some of the more details with respect to the figures later on. These are the KPIs that are the main drivers for the multi-consult business. And as you can see, there's good growth both on revenue and in particular the billing ratio. The result is that this is improved performance compared to the first quarter, 2023. We have increased the revenue. in particular driven by 10% organic growth. There's a good result overall in the whole group, and we see that there's been high activity in the quarter, which has also then resulted in a significant improvement of the billing ratio. We see that in the period there's been a stable demand for our services and we've had both a good sale and we continue to increase our order backlog. looking more detailed into the market and sales. We have had sales in the period that are very well distributed amongst the four business areas that we operate in, and they are to a large extent confirming the trends that we have talked about in the last quarters. We see that there are now projects related to water treatment. We see that there are onshore projects facilities for salmon farming. We've had a good project within housing and service center. And in Denmark, we've won a very significant project within pharma life science. And this is a good example of how the skills and the references that we have in hospitals are transferable to other industries. We have also won a hospital project in Sweden, confirming to a large degree the strong position that we have within hospitals. At the same time, there's also been additions to some of the larger ongoing projects that we have talked about previously. The result of this is that the sales has gone marginally down from the first quarter 2023. But I'd like to remind you all that we had a record high sales on two large hospital projects in the first quarter last year. So the underlying sales is on par for the two comparable quarters. And as you can see, we continue to build our order backlog. There's been two events that's worth mentioning in this quarter. The presentation of the national transportation plan for Norway has been put forward and we see that we are well positioned for the projects that are given priority today. And in addition to the traditional projects, we see that the authorities now are putting emphasis on climate robustness, making climate robust solutions and also looking at infrastructure as part of that. the increased risk that we see on the geopolitical picture in the world. There's also been a conclusion on the European Performance and Building Directive. This will have a direct impact on how property owners will have to develop and improve the properties that they have in their portfolio. And we expect that this will give quite a lot of work for us, but over a timescale of five to ten years. Looking at people and organization, we are now 3,772 employees. And as we explained in the third quarter last year, all new employees will be given a number of shares in the company. And in this quarter, we have issued 2,720 shares. We have a new director in the region vest in Norway. He is replacing the director that was there, who is now part of the executive management team. We also donated 100,000 kroners to... Engineers Without Borders, in the work that they do to ensure drinking water to the civilization in Gaza. And we are seeing that the integration of the two companies that we bought in Sweden are now well on the way with the integration with Ethereum. When it comes to excellence, we are pleased that our Polish daughter was awarded the Technical Advisor of the Year Prize. We see that Link Architecture is listed amongst the top 100 architects offices in the world, ranked as number 44. And the Isfjord Radio at Svalbard was awarded the Solar Energy Award for 2023. And this is a significant award in that it's the first to show how we can use renewable energy in the Arctic and develop methods for off-grid societies. Also, Stortorvet 7 was awarded the building of the year for 2023. And with that, I hand you over to Ove.

Thank you, Greta, and good morning. We will have a close look at the numbers for first quarter 2024. And we start with net operating revenue for the quarter ends at 1,367,000,000. That is an increase of 4.3% from the same quarter last year. The organic growth in this number are 9.8%. And on top of that, we have the M&A activity, 3.2%. The majority stems from the purchase of Arlab last summer, but also some from Helm that came into the group from December last year. The calendar effect is negative by 8.7%. We have six fewer working days this quarter compared to the same quarter last year. The difference is the Easter, and our calculated effect is 113.7 million kroner. The main driver behind the growth are a higher number of employees, 349, that is 320 full-time equivalents. We see this in the graph underneath as increased capacity. And then we have the improvements with billing ratio, also mentioned by Greta, in all four segments. And the billing ratio for the quarter is 733.5. That is an improvement on 2.5 percentage point from last year. So following the trend from Q4-23, we have full focus on productive time throughout the group. EBITDA ends at 136.8 million. That is a decrease on 36.8 or 79.5 million since last year. But the margin is still 10%. And underlying EBITDA adjusted for the calendar effect is 250.5 million. This is shown in the alternative performance measures in the report. And that gives gives an underlying margin on 16.9. That is an improvement from last year on 0.5 percentage points. The order intake, it's very strong, 1,847,000,000, and also a solid order backlog, 9.3% above the same level last year. So we are well positioned for the future. Financial highlights. And this is the results then over time. And you see the results between the quarters in line with the number of available working days. First quarter is in orange. And starting top left, we see the growth in net revenue, 4.3%. But we also see that the rolling 12 in blue still have a positive trend. And the same with the billing ratio top right. Improvement from last year, 2.5 percentage point. And you also see that the rolling 12 has no shift upwards on that. And also the number of employees increased by 10.2%. And then down left gives us the result for the quarter of 10%. And the good underlying performance on top of that as commented. Then the results per segment. And we remind you that the architect segment was introduced from Q2 last year, includes both Link and rLab. And all numbers are first quarter compared to the same quarter last year. starting then to the left with Oslo. The underlying performance in this segment was strong and better than last year. The drivers is the growth in number of employees, and on top of that, increase in billing rates and improved billing ratio. As you see, the reported net operating revenue was 4.8 million lower than last year, a decrease of 0.9%, and the EBITDA was 35.2 million lower than last year. But the key driver for this reduction is the negative calendar effect of 48 million due to the difference of Easter. Moving then to the right to Norway, region Norway. The net operating revenue increased by 2.3 million from last year, an increase of 0.4%. The EBITDA, 66.5, was 26.6 million lower than at 23%. but the calendar effect is negative by 51.8 million. That means that underlying performance in this segment is significantly stronger than last year. We have a solid growth in the capacity, and we have improved billing ratio, and on top of that, also improved billing rates. Then we move to the right again, to architecture. The growth in net operating revenue on 24.1 million, or 14.2%, is mainly caused by the incorporation of R-Lab in these numbers. The calendar effect is negative by 15.5 million, and that is explaining the majority of the deviation from last year. So some few comments per company, starting with Link Norway. We remind you that the underlying performance has strengthened caused by the improvement program that we launched at the end of 2022 that is focusing on all aspects of the P&L. But the calendar effect and the challenging market in some parts of the country and in some business areas has put pressures on the results. And the market situation has unfortunately also caused some temporary layoffs. Link Sweden, underlying performance has improved from a good level last year in all parts of the country, with the exception of the more challenging Stockholm market. Link Denmark also faced with improved performance compared to last year, and the turnaround process led by the new CEO and her new management team has caused an uplift in the billing ratio, the billing rates, and also savings and other costs. The last company in architecture, Arlab, faced a more demanding market, causing reduced net operating revenues. Arlab is focusing more on the early phase market, whereas Link is more exposed to the public sector. And to compensate for a sales loss, there has been, unfortunately, a number of temporary layoffs in the company, and Arlab is delivering negative results for the quarter. In total, we see a reduction in number of employees of three compared to Q4 last year, and we have 30 temporary layoffs. The last segment, international, net operating revenue increased by 31%, up to 96 million, and the currency effect is positive by 6.5 in this. The main driver for improvement is high activity in Multiconsult Polska and also the integration of Helm in Ethereum. The calendar effect is negative by 6.4 in this segment. EBITDA has improved in mytokonsult Polska, but integration costs of the Helm companies are putting pressure on the results from ITERO this quarter. And also to remind you that in the balance sheet, we have introduced the effects of VRessurs that was bought first quarter this year, also in the number of employees and in the order backlog. Okay, that was the results and then some finance, financial position, starting to the left on cash flow. So we ended 2023 with a cash situation positive and 278. And we have created a positive cash flow from the business, from the operation, 152 in this quarter. We have a seasonal change in working capital, that is mainly work in process, but also payment of public taxes, VAT, but an improvement in accounts receivable in this. Cash flow from investments, that is half from VR research, but also from the new investments. drilling vessel that we will have delivery on this summer. And we also have a repayment of long-term debt that we see in the financing situation. So including IFRS 16FX, we end the quarter with a positive cash flow of 71%. And also to the right, you see that we still have a strong financial position and that the gearing ratio is low, 0.87. So we also still have a solid position for the future financially. The last from me, the free cash flow. In the dark blue, we see the cash flow of operating activities. That is negative by 28.4. That is mainly the operating profit corrected for the change in working capital. And also the cash flow used in investments activity negative by 37. And that is in the light blue line. This is excluding acquisitions. And from the last 12 months, we have a positive free cash flow on to 94. So that was the last from me. Hand it back to you, Greta.

Thank you, Ove. Looking at the market structure, this shows the revenue split on the business areas that we operate in. As you can see, it is an overall increase of 6%. The distribution between the four business areas is, as always, very stable. But you can see there's a slight decrease compared to last quarter when it comes to building and properties. And this is an effect of us transferring some of our people. into projects within both primarily in energy and industry and market and environment. And it's an example of also of the robustness of the business model that we can move people into the areas where we see stronger growth. This time we would like to give you a little bit more insight into the market trends when it comes to transformation and urban development. This is an area where we see a large growth potential. It's a tendency that we see in all the major cities, but also in smaller urban areas where we see that the complexity of developing these areas are increasing And we see that the interdisciplinary services that we can supply with architects and engineers has a huge value to the clients who want to take on these tasks. We need to in the future to create cities where people thrive and where it is made easy to make good climate friendly choices. We need to develop cities where we are restoring nature and balance with the natural systems. And last but not least, we must reduce greenhouse gases emission for the existing and future environment. And to do this, you require new skills and you require that we put together the projects in a different way from the traditional when the architect goes in and do their plan. This is an example of how our lab is involved at the moment with strategic plans for several large areas in Oslo. And it's a requirement that we are able here to see the big picture and scale up on the interdisciplinary cooperation that these areas require. It is no longer enough