White Pearl Tech Grp B

Hello, everyone. There are still seven more minutes until we start, but I have admitted you into the Google meeting. Please set your microphones on mute, and I will get back to you one minute past two.

Thank you. you Thank you.

So, ladies and gentlemen, the time is one minute past and I'm very respectful of your time. Can I please ask those who have not their microphones muted to do so? Maybe someone who isn't muted can just give me a thumbs up or shout out that I'm heard at the moment. Yes, Peter, you can hear me great. My name is Peter Egemur and I have the privilege to serve as vice president investor relations for White Pearl Technology Group. And we call this meeting today following this morning's publication of our six month report. We will do two short presentations and after that we will open up for your questions. In the meantime, you can write the questions in the meeting chat and we will address them after our CEO and our founder has held their presentations. I should mention that we are recording this and we don't require you to give away any personal details unless you put a question up. Then we would like to hear your name and your organization. Just checking, so if I don't have to let anyone more in. And with that, I will start by giving the floor to Mr. Marco Marangoni, who is our CEO of the group. And I will just do like this. Okay, thank you. And hope that we are, that you all can see yeah we can but maybe yeah yeah wait a second a second yeah now it's better there we are right okay perfect super marco please go ahead okay thank you thank you for joining this uh this meeting i think it's a really nice opportunity to

to share with all of you the results, because I think we consider it really important to this kind of events as soon as we are doing our announcements, especially for the reports, the quarterly reports. A short screenshot. related to the situation in terms of organization of WIPER today. So we are really proud to say that today we have definitely a more extended presence in more countries. And basically we are today present in all the continents and the main regions. around 800 persons working actively for our organization and 20 countries where we have a presence but we probably we are working also in closely countries and 32 subsidiaries so this is a in a in a nutshell what we are today after two years of listings We can move to the next slide, please. okay so probably you already downloaded the report we had the first six months i guess i think a really huge huge result in this first six months and what is absolutely stunning is uh the how we increased the revenue and the main indicators 76 percent of revenue increased in six months is definitely not usual in in in our sector so a bit 85 percent uh earning per shares 94 so this is also i think a really really nice result and the most important is also how we improved our cash in terms of cash flow in operations is pretty much visible how much we improved. So today we have a stronger cash flow and we are absolutely able to move in a different way. Of course, it's a journey, it's an evolution, but we were and we are always sure about what we are doing. This is the result of our planning, basically. No need to say that the star is this quarter. This quarter we had a stunning 130% year over year in comparison with the Q2 of the last year. Of course, we are following the same trend, talking about the EBITDA. And no need to say how improved, increased the earnings per share. So no need, in my opinion, these numbers are pretty much clear and there is no need to make specific comments on the results. We are really happy, really happy. I think it's also important to say how we care in terms to provide more and more and more information about our journey, evolution, about our improvements, And this is something that we will do quarter by quarter. We will improve this communication with our shareholders and investors. And this is a clear example of what we are doing, but we will better, better and better. So you can see this slide, for instance, present this information in the report. how we are changing and improving our strategy. We are going into the more, we are selling and improving our presence in the digital and emerging technologies. Thanks to our acquisitions, we are and and of course our current service we are also increasing what is the segment related to the people solutions so bpos and services related that is an integration with uh with our current projects in big cast with big customers and and the last one last line is related to the smart technologies where we have today also a presence. Thank you. I think it's important for every person, every shareholder investor understand that we issued the plan until 2028 and in 2024, we overachieved the plan and we will do the same for this year because we are in track. So we consider that we are absolutely in the right direction. We are doing and complying with the expectation, internal expectation of the management of the board. And of course, with our commitment with our shareholders. So this is just to let you know that we are absolutely on track and we will do the same also. I can... I am absolutely sure about that because we have all the signs. We will do the same for the next few years. So I think this is my humble snapshot. Of course, together with my colleagues, I will be available to answer every question from your side. Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much, Marco. And if you have any questions to Marco or the things that he presented, preferably you write them in the meeting chat while I leave the floor over to Mr. Ebrahim Laher, who is the founder of White Pearl Technology Group and currently serves as a strategic advisor to the company. Ebrahim, please go ahead.

yeah thank you peter thanks uh thanks everybody um yeah so i think it's uh basically my honor to talk a bit about the strategic outlook of our organization as well as where white bull's going into the future okay next slide please peter So fundamentally, we've got three clusters of business offerings in the group, the traditional IT services and solutions, which has been the area which has served as greatest over the last couple of years. However, over the last three to four years, as we've been investing in two additional areas when we started white pearl our view was to understand that the world of it and business was changing uh fundamentally whereby digital transformation was more becoming the norms by which all organizations now carry out their business this is why we've had very specific kind of growth areas within within white ball and i mean hence we've been growing the digital transformation business over the last couple of years The third part of our business, a very exciting part of our business, is the smart infrastructure area, simply the Internet of Things. It's basically connecting infrastructure globally around being able to utilize the latest technologies. And I think this is an area which we'll see grow more into the future of Whiteboard. Thanks, Peter. Next slide. in terms of strategic focuses there's basically five areas where i mean we are focused and have been focused since inception one is providing leading a leading edge technology and digital solutions to our customers these customers generally tend to be large customers We obviously have a tremendous geographic spread in our company where we started originally focusing primarily on emerging markets and hence things like cross-sells, upsells, as well as then the various acquisition and startups we do are based upon this. driving recurring revenue through our own ip through our own solutions i think as marco put up you can see significant growth in the areas of i mean digital some of our own ip our own solutions which is fundamentally driving the way our our margins in the business are improving Number four, we want to enhance investor value through, as Marco said, significant transparency, as well as scalability and integration. We understand sometimes our business comes across as pretty complicated. It's not complicated. And I guess our business through these discussions with you, through the various communications we put out into the press and the interviews we do, is to make it more clear to the investment community and to our shareholders in terms of what Whiteboard does. And lastly, to utilize the vehicle of the listing to facilitate both our organic and our inorganic growth. And as you can see from H1, the company has been significantly successful in terms of driving that, which ultimately should then continue driving shareholder value. That's simply what we focused on as a company. Thanks, Peter. To again touch upon this slide, as you can see, growth continues to happen in our business. What I want to pick upon is digital and emerging technologies. This is where our AI solutions, some of our big data solutions are coming more and more to the front. Fundamentally, this trend is what's driving our increased margins as well, our increased profitability, if not significant revenue growth as well. So the traditional businesses of system integration and many services are not decreasing. I think that's the point to make. They're not decreasing. They are still growing. They're still increasing. It's just the other areas are significantly growing. And I think that's what we're seeing. People Solutions BPO has grown in the last six months, and that primarily has been driven by the Swedish business Luminary, which we acquired during Q1. I think that has driven some of that growth, even though there is growth in other regions on there as well. uh smart infrastructure is an area that i would expect to grow and grow aggressively over the next while i think a lot of acquisitive discussions and i mean action is basically looking at that area given that primarily our geography is emerging markets there's significant value in terms of bringing those technologies both to emerging markets as well as then to developed economies thanks peter uh in terms of strategic activities over the last while as well as in the last month i think we've had some significant wins throughout the world i think our acquisition of top four uh digital marketing is a very very exciting uh acquisition not only does it have over 200 000 customers that i mean have subscription contracts with the business, but I think also gives us significant solutions to take into the Nordics, into the US, into Canada, into some of our existing geographies. So certainly the whole concept of cross-sell upsell. I think it's really a super, super exciting business. We've recently concluded exclusive distribution rights for Paracent, which is a document management solution in the Middle East. Very excitingly, we've just concluded the exclusive partnership or distributorship for cybersecurity software. It's mine for Africa. We really see these technologies driving significant growth for us into the future as we basically move forward. Yeah, Peter. Future strategic initiatives for us. I think there's a lot of projects underway in the group. I think we'll be announcing that over the next while as they basically come to fruition. I think the improved cash position allows us to focus on our acquisition targets significantly without affecting the existing operations within the business. And I think, yeah, I mean, as a rule, we publish all the acquisitions and partnerships, no matter how big or small. I want to say that sometimes it comes across that, I mean, some of our acquisitions are small. I think you need to understand that we are filling a solution stack. We are filling significant opportunities we're seeing in existing customers or in regions. And hence, sometimes we may choose to make very, very small acquisitions. but i think without a doubt each one of them are strategic in nature and i think drive specific growth for us um peter yeah i mean as you can see we are very very much on track in terms of the of the growth as as marco was saying i think the last quarter saw more growth coming out a luminary acquisition. So I think it's probably like 75, 25 in terms of the growth that we've seen in the last quarter, 75 inorganic because of luminary, 25% organic, which is still significant given the base. And I think we see trends like that continuing into the future. Thank you, Peter. Okay, I want to end just with two, I guess, discussions, two clarification points. I think we've had a lot of questions around the AYIMA acquisition. And I mean, we've tried to address it through various things. Our view on it is that we were basically misrepresented on significant parts of that acquisition. However, we dealt with it. We dealt with it very clearly, very categorically, both financially and from a governance perspective. Since then, we've significantly improved our governance compliance as well as due diligence processes, and hence acquisitions that I mean we see coming through significantly show that. The second topic is basically around, I guess, my my information which is basically being in the press i mean i'm obviously aware and cognizant of the fact that there was concern regarding my the legal dispute with my previous employer what i can disclose is that i was involved in a civil dispute with them this matter has now since been settled completely it was a civil dispute and it's been completely settled i can also confirm that the settlement was on the basis of no admission of any liability on either party's side it's very important A term of the settlement was a strict confidentiality clause, which binds me from basically disclosing any further aspects. In fact, I may have gone too far by disclosing this, but I think that's a different matter. What I can tell you is that my legal team is currently engaged with my previous employer's legal team in an effort to perhaps relax those strenuous terms of the confidentiality so I can continue giving the market and our investors significant confidence to say that all of those matters are in the past, they're gone. And I mean, we are basically here to drive White Bull together with the management and the business into the future. Thank you, Peter. That's it from my side.

Thank you very much, Ebrahim, and thank you, Marco. We will now open up to your questions, and I will take at least one in the meeting chat at the moment. But without dwelling too much on ancient history, there has been one question coming in to me that is rather interesting. Have the Ajima thing changed our weight of doing due diligence what have we learned and i pass that back to ibrahim

Yeah, I mean, like I said, Peter, absolutely, it's changed the way we do due diligence on our acquisitions. I think we've got significant checklist that we now follow. I mean, that we always did follow, but I think significantly more. We're also asking for more detailed information from the acquisitions that I mean, we are engaging with. And I mean, we Our view is to protect our shareholders. That's what we're doing. So I'm saying the process of us acquiring businesses is becoming a little bit more difficult for the acquired party. And that's because now we have to protect. And I think we've learned from the AYMA example. Absolutely, Peter, for sure.

Thank you very much.

Sorry, sorry, Peter. I will let you add something important. yes marco please depending depending of the uh the entity of the business we are acquiring we are also engaging with 30 party entities that they are they are they are actively working in the process of the division so so the last few acquisition we also engaged with the big party consulting companies. They are neutral and they are analyzing in a natural way the quality of the business we are acquiring. So there is a double check also.

Thank you very much. I will continue with a few questions that I have received prior to this meeting by email and it's on the theme of acquisitions. One of our shareholders has asked us, what has been the average multiple white pearl spent on previous acquisitions on an EV over EBITDA basis? What is the limit management will spend? I don't know if it's Ibrahim or maybe it's Vikas Gupta who wants to answer that question.

I can answer this question. Hi, everyone. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Brian and Marco. I think there's no fixed formula for an acquisition. I mean, sometimes it depends what are we trying to chase in the acquisitions. Sometimes when we acquire, let's take an example of Aima. i think the the revenue to revenue to value was uh point uh 0.3 you know 0.2 so i mean this only gives you and i mean there from an abita perspective it was probably about three to four abita you know from from a revenue to to to abita So it's a value to EBITDA. But that's just one example. Depending on what profitability the target company is offering, what market uh is being offered to us but the product suit is being added to our portfolio it can vary you know i mean it can can definitely vary from but but we always try and make it less than our valuation so that our shareholders can gain more from the transaction So if my, as an example, if my EBITDA multiple is, as an example, I don't know, six, let's take an example, then I would definitely not go above six. I mean, I would definitely stay below six so that when the integration happens, when the consolidation happens, the White Pulse shareholders gain more value from the transaction than the than the uh acquired party i hope this answer the question and sorry and one more point i wanted to add to to the due diligence process uh i mean uh i'd like to quote the recent example of uh of tougher uh acquisition i mean the i mean two two senior executives spent one week trying to understand the business, trying to understand the market, trying to understand what synergies could be placed. We spent one more than a week in Indonesia trying to understand the dynamics. So I think to answer one of the aspects of the question that the DD process has actually become much more stringent from our side also, and also it's become more difficult for the acquired party. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Vikas. And then I have two questions that I want to pass on to Chetan Ottam, our group CFO. And Chetan, you are on the call. I heard you before.

Yes, I am.

So the first of the two questions is how much of the Q2 growth was organic and how much was from acquisitions? Can you give us at least a rough estimate of that?

Okay, thanks, Peter. So in terms of the growth in Q2, it was about an 80-20 in terms of organic and through an acquisition. 80% was through the acquisition that we had done, and we had a full period of reporting on the results, and 20% was organic growth.

Okay, so 20% organic growth and 80% contributed by acquisitions, where I think the luminary is the lion part of that, right? And the second question is, if we can give a... Gross margin breakdown for each revenue segment. I don't think we can answer exactly, but can you give a can you give a rough estimates regarding the six business segments where the gross margin are high and where they are maybe a little bit lower?

So on the On BPO and on the people solutions, the margins are generally lower. It constitutes high revenue to the group. It allows us to penetrate certain strategic lines. And the strategic line through the acquisition of Luminary was Handelsbank. In Sweden, it's a well-known bank in the territory, in the region. A well-established luminary has been servicing that business for many years. So those tend to be on the slightly lower side of the GP. The licensing and sales where we've got our own solutions out there, the GPs tend to be a bit higher. And yeah, so I think those are the two extreme ends of the spectrum in terms of where we see low margins to where we tend to see higher margins.

Thank you very much. And the next... Sorry.

You go. Sorry, Peter.

And the next question will also bounce back to you. I'm now starting to take the questions in the meeting chat from top downwards. And the question is from Stian Linde. Since you operate in many countries, how do you decide where revenue is reported? Is it based on where the work is done or where the client is?

So it's based on the subsidiary that's contracting with the client, because in order to do work, it's quite a formal process in terms of contractual agreements between us as a service provider and the client. So it's purely based on which entity is contracting and revenue is then recognized through that subsidiary.

okay i hope that answered the question uh next question is one that unfortunately is impossible for us as a company to to answer i hear a lot of talk about fair value etc was around 800 million sec when the market cap was around 250 million sec following this report where would you consider the farewell value to be now It is not up to the company to have any opinion on valuation. That's your job to see if we have a fair valuation or if you consider the valuation to be attractive or unattractive. I must stop there. Answering the question more precisely than that would open up a host of a big bunch of liabilities left and right. Again, Stian Linde asks, several of the companies within the group appear to have minimal or no online presence. Could you elaborate on how these entities fit into White Pearl's current strategic and operational model and where there is an international rationale between maintaining such low external visibility? Basically, the question is why don't all our subsidiaries in all countries have excellent websites? Which one of my colleagues want to comment on that?

I don't know if Stephen is in the call, could answer or I can do that.

I'm sorry, I don't Stephen is on.

Okay.

You are.

I'm here. So it's a good question. I think if one has to look at perhaps our top um uh or at least our largest uh subsidiaries in the group so uh omni teltec as an example uh ecc in egypt obviously our own white pearl um uh then there's others like erpst in in in ethiopia um so uh brontobite in india as an example top four so a lot of these uh are perhaps uh the the sort of jewels in the crown as it were although as abram said all of our acquisitions are strategic and are obviously important from that perspective but all of those have um uh fairly uh significant web presence um and i think certainly with the acquisition of top four one of the things we are looking to do is to expand uh utilize uh the uh very excellent work that top four do around seo optimization et cetera et cetera and obviously to to reinforce and to to grow our our web presence on the back of that there are certain of our companies that have perhaps less than stellar web presence. That's certainly something we are looking to improve. And I think that question was obviously pointed to the answer to a degree, which basically says that those entities that perhaps aren't at least more internally focused, and provide services to the group or are perhaps not as key when it comes to reporting profitability and revenue. Those perhaps we haven't spent as much time getting those websites back up to where they need to be. But certainly we are going through an exercise at the moment where we are revamping a lot of our websites. We are combining some of them. I think, you know, being a large entity like ourselves and having a number of obviously subsidiaries, it becomes a little bit more difficult, you know, to maintain a holistic and sustainable perhaps more of a standardized web presence, but we are certainly looking to work on that. I see my colleague, Michael, is on the call as well. Michael is the CEO of Top4. And I think, Michael, perhaps if you could just bounce me on the back of that. As I said, we are obviously looking to utilize your significant experience in this space to rebuild and revamp some of those subsidiaries.

Yeah, mate. I mean, I've been in this job 25 years, guys, so I understand the digital website. It's a little bit like a painter not being able to paint his own house, if you look at it that way. So a lot of the IT companies didn't really focus on the web. They focused more on customer acquisition, looking after the customers. Whereas now, in today's technology, I think as we're moving forward, the website is really the first point of contact that that customer more gets. So I think part of our strategic move now is making sure that all of the group websites are aligned and up to date. And as we move forward with content strategies, et cetera, making sure that everybody, investors and staff alike, are sharing knowledge between the group and also a consistent look and feel and making sure that potential investors or current investors know who we are and what we do. as a group, but I think that's probably, but I think you can have answered most of that question really at the end of the day, it's work in production and, you know, we've just been taking on as a group, you know, and now my task now is to make sure we start working on each of those. And we had that discussion this afternoon actually with Nazeem as well. So yeah, it's in progress. Maybe see the next quarter, I think.

Great, we will improve. Thank you for reminding us. I should have mentioned that Stephen Thorne is our Senior Vice President for AI, data science and blockchain. Vikas Gupta, who you heard previously, is now our COO and previously been very much involved in investment and acquisitions. And Michael Doyle is a newcomer in the group and he's the managing director of top four marketing. So, going further down the list, Jörgen Dahlén has written, can you give examples of projects in the expanding areas like people solutions and digital technology? I mean, I guess, Ibrahim can comment on that with the acquisitions of Belay and so on.

Sure, yeah. I mean, look, I think examples of areas, people, solutions, Handelsbanken is, I mean, definitely one that we have in Sweden. And I mean, the point I wanted to make on the previous point on Stian's question is that one of the companies with the worst websites is actually Luminary, which I mean, we're currently working on. And I mean, Luminary is a significant business, as I mean, those of you from Sweden will know. So yeah, I think we've got some projects throughout Africa as well. Ethiopian rail in the people solutions area. I think digital technology is where the big stuff is happening around AI, big data. We're doing some interesting business transformation work for Egypt Air in Egypt. Another example is the work that we're doing at the city of Johannesburg in the area of fraud management in South Africa. uh and i think these are examples of i mean where in where we basically seeing significant areas like this because are there any other customers that i mean you think we can basically add into the discussion

There are a lot of them. I mean, alone in India, I mean, there is Infosys, there is Yash Technology, there is Punjab Electricity. In Philippines, we did a project, I mean, just finished Aboitus. You know, that's the electricity producer in Philippines. In Saudi, we are doing for MIS. In Oman, we did it for Ministry of Happiness and Satisfaction. So a couple of them, but most of them were in system integration and digital. I mean, for Infosys, we do a lot of work for BPO and manpower solution, though. In Dubai, we are doing for FEWA. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. The list is long, right?

Okay, thank you very much. I hope that answered your question, Jörgen. And I'm going further to Johan Strid, who writes, congratulations to a fantastic Q2. Thank you very much. Is there any company in the portfolio that overperforms? And I guess the answer is most of them, but I pass this to Marco, if there is some of the companies in the group that has been especially successful in the recent times.

Well, it's my opinion, yeah, but we have different companies. doing and having a really good performance. In my opinion, we are always analyzing the performance of the region or the global. I consider it unfair to talk about the performance of one company We are more, if we take the results in terms of the regions, we have a 40%, around 40% in Africa continent, 24 in Europe. So there are different entities performing in an excellent way. They are contributing in the same way, I would like to say, because they are pretty much focused in achieving their own results. I don't want to give a special award to one company when I would like to talk a matter about the region. Because this is something that I think in this organization, every person, every company is contributing in the same way to do the best to achieve our results. so i do i i don't like it to see that there is one and actually there is not one there are different companies they are doing they are having an excellent performance and then um peter i would like to answer to the last two questions and i can see in the list here in the in the messages so uh

Let me just reiterate what's been written. It's a participant named Solisay that are asking, are you seeing continued strong demand in Q2 so far or any early signals of slowdown in certain markets? That is actually asking for guidance, which we should refrain from more than we have communicated publicly to the entire investment community. So the guidance that you have been given is this one, that we see our trajectory going forward. I think maybe, Ibrahim, you have a comment here.

I'm sorry, Peter, I wasn't answering you. I was answering these two questions. Okay. So the point is, first of all, we are absolutely on track. And this is what we shared before. But the other, the second point, really important point is based for the markets where we are working. These markets are growing and growing more than the classical markets, Europe, North America. So we have all the opportunities and by the way, What we are doing today is not working for the present. This result that we had and we are having today is the result of the work we did in the past. We are really working for the future. So this is the reason because I'm really, really sure that this year we will close achieving the target that we planned. But also, it's connected with the last question, so Peter, if you could please read the last question, because there is a strong connection between these two questions.

Yeah, final question I have on the list now, and then we probably say thank you, is that what message would you give to shareholders following this report, especially those looking for long-term value creation? And again, the answer is on the same slide and we have repeated over and over again for most of this year that our financial goal is to reach a revenue of 827 million SEK by 2028 with an EBITDA margin over 17. That is the continued reiterated message. Please go ahead, Marko.

So what I would like to say is that we are working on building a pipe, but not for only the next few months. We are working for building and we are building a pipe for the next few years. We are creating opportunities and extending our portfolio and starting a strategy in terms of cross-selling, and upselling with new solutions and services so what we will expect is really to comply with this vision we will do that because we are sure about what we have today we have a clear uh sign and in terms internal sign in terms of uh uh potential and uh and and then And also we are working in special markets where we can see a growth for the next few years. So in a nutshell, we are absolutely sure that our shareholders will be happy. And by the way, we are also the main shareholders altogether because the management is also the first one who believes in this journey and in the performance for the next few years. The message is that we are really happy to say that we will have a really nice journey in the next few years. I cannot say more because of course it could be a problem, but we are really optimistic that it's a really nice opportunity.

Caution is also always the method and under-promise and over-deliver is a strategy. Ebrahim, do you have any final closing comments?

No, I think, I mean, we just want to thank our investors for, I mean, continued interest in the company. And I mean, for your interest in, I mean, what we're doing. And I mean, hopefully we hope to continue sharing relevant information with you as we go forward. I think that's the message here.

Thank you very much. I thank Abraham and Marco and all the other of my colleagues for providing information. I thank everyone who's joined this call. We are always welcoming feedback. both on content and both on this format for the meeting. Does it work to have it as simple as that, a simple Google Meet, or do we need to do other things a little bit more complicated? So please keep in touch. The email address is ir.whiteballtech.com and you also find my phone number in all our press releases. with that i bid you farewell for this time and hope that you will have a lovely wednesday afternoon thank you very much thank you thank you thank you thanks everyone cheers guys thank you bye thank you bye thank you