Multiconsult Asa Unsp/Adr

and welcome to this presentation of the results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2022 for Multikonsult. My name is Grete Bergli and with me today I also have our CFO, Ove Hautberg. Before we look at the results, just a brief reminder of who we are. We are a Norwegian consulting and architectural company with a history spanning back over 100 years. We are primarily based in Norway, but we have offices in Sweden, Denmark, Poland and the UK. We operate in four business areas, building and property, mobility and infrastructure, energy and industry and water and environment. We have four segments. Regions Oslo, which is where the headquarter is in the capital of Norway and two associated offices at Lillehammer. and Lillestrøm. Region Norway, which are the rest of the offices from north to south in Norway. Good morning and welcome to this presentation of the results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2022 for Multikonsult. My name is Grete Bergli and with me today I also have our CFO, Ove Hautberg. Before we look at the results, just a brief reminder of who we are. We are a Norwegian consulting and architectural company with a history spanning back over 100 years. We are primarily based in Norway, but we have offices in Sweden, Denmark, Poland, and the UK. We operate in four business areas, building and property, mobility and infrastructure, energy and industry, and water and environment. We have four segments, regions Oslo, which is where the headquarter is in the capital of Norway, and two associated offices at Lillehammer, and Lillestrøm. Region Norway, which are the rest of the offices from north to south in Norway. Segment architecture with our four architect subsidiaries. And then international, that contains our Swedish engineering subsidiary, Interio, and Multikonsult Polska. We execute 15,000 projects on an annual basis for more than 5,500 clients. We have a project footprint in 45 countries and we are just short of 3,900 employees. In recent years, we have delivered profitable growth based on a robust business model with a diversified portfolio and a strong professional environment that assist our clients with their challenges across all business areas and geographies. Looking at the figures, we see that we have delivered a stable operational performance this quarter. The performance was influenced by high activity with a billing ratio of 72.5%, an increase compared to 2023. Net operating revenue grew by 6% to 1.4 billion and the organic growth was 4.8%. The results for the fourth quarter was positively impacted by a higher billing ratio and a higher average billing rates, offset by increased employee benefit expenses and other operating expenses. As we have continuously improved our project execution and risk management throughout the years, the estimates for 2024 were consistent with expectations, but this gave a large effect in the fourth quarter, and Ove will give you some more insight into this when he goes through his part of the presentation. It is pertinent to draw the attention to the fact that year over year we have improved our results and we continue our positive development maintaining profitable growth of 10 percent. In this period we've had the effect of a put option that has affected the financial income and the board of directors proposes a dividend of 10 kroners per share. Looking at market and sales, we've had a very strong sale in this fourth quarter, the highest ever actually for a fourth quarter with 1.8 billion and an order backlog then of 4.9 billion. We have landed a number of sales and frame agreements in this quarter. And just a reminder that we do not include frame agreements in our order backlog until a call off has been made. This means we maintain our solid backlog leaving 2024. and there has also been some major sales at the beginning of 2025. We have continued increased demands related to the defence industry. Looking at the organization, we had a growth of 4.6% year over year. And as you can see, there is a larger gap between FTEs and number of employees. This has a background partly in higher CICLIB, in parental leave and also some layoffs. Sick leave is a challenge in all the Nordic countries and we have started initiatives to see how we can increase the number of people who actually come to work on a daily basis. We continued the practice of handing out 40 shares to all new employees and this quarter we handed out 6,320 shares. We also executed our share program for all employees with a high degree of participation.

and 85% of employees in Multiconsult are now holding shares in the company. And last, it's very gratifying to see

that Aarhus University It was awesome.

Honored with the Audience Award in the category of Hospital Building of the Year in the Arkello Awards. And with this, I hand you over to Ove.

Thank you, Greta. Then we have a closer look at the numbers for Q4 2024 and also the full year. And we will start with Q4. Net operating revenue in this quarter ends at 1,443,000,000. That is an increase of 6% from last year. The organic growth, 4.8%, and on top of that, we can add the M&A activity, 1.7%. And that is Helm from end of Q4 2023, and the company Vearesurs from Q1 2024, and the two companies SitePartner and Petteri og Rasmussen from Q3 2024. The calendar effect is a negative by 0.5% in the quarter or 7.1 million. It's the same number of working days, but it's difference between the months. The main drivers behind this growth are high number of employees, 174 or 116 FTEs. That is seen in this graph as increased capacity. We have increased bidding rates that is part of other revenue effects and also an improved billing ratio and the billing ratio for the quarter 72.5 that is an improvement of 0.7 percentage points from last year. Net operating revenue is also affected by consistently improved project control. That has led to more evenly distribution of net project write-offs between the quarters in 2024, but resulting in lower project write-offs in the fourth quarter this year compared to the fourth quarter in 2023. And we will look more closely at its effect on the next page. EBITDA in Q4 amounted to 98 million, that is a decrease from last year of 17.2%, and the margin is 6.8 compared to 8.7 last year. This is impacted by increased employee benefit expenses and other operating expenses, and that's also shown in this graph in the right. Order intake in the quarter, positive, at 1.798 billion. And the order backlog is solid at 4.851 billion. The reported profit for the period, 89.7 million. That is a decrease from last year by 23.2 million. And in this is the reversal of an earn-out provision recognized on these two purchases, Helm and Vieressusch. And that is positive on net finance on 21.4 million. And then a new graph on improved project control. And as commented on the previous page, net operating revenue is affected by consistently improved project control.

And this is led to more

or even the distribution of net product write-offs between the quarters in 2024, but resulting in lower product write-offs in the fourth quarter this year compared to the fourth quarter in 2023, and that is illustrated in this graph.

And to look a bit behind this,

Because on an annual basis, we set a provision level per quarter on a write-downs estimated basis.

historical performance. And this estimate

is verified by our external auditors and this is the avoid high fluctuation that we have seen before in right tops and right downs between the quarters. The performance improved significantly from 22 to 23 and resulting in hindsight two high provisions in the first three quarters in 23 and a high reversal effect in the fourth quarter. This is shown in the black line in the graph. But in 2024, the performance level was in line with 2023, causing reduced fluctuations between the quarters and reduced reversal effect in Q4, but a lower effect on net income. Then I'll look at the full year for 2024. Our net operating revenue ends at 5,384,000,000, an increase of 12.1% from last year.

10%, and M&A activity, as commented on Q4, 2.8%.