B3 Consulting Group AB (publ)

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Thank you so much and a warm welcome to a presentation of BT Consulting Group's first quarter of 2026. My name is Rina Lundqvist and I work with IT and Communications here at BT. I will soon hand over to Daniel Julin, who is the CEO, and André Karlsson, who is the CEO. A little later in the broadcast you will also get to meet Peter Svenonius, who will tell you about BT's work with AI agents. And as always, we will have a Q&A session at the end, where you are welcome to ask questions, either via the form or via mail to ir.bt.se. And shortly after this presentation, we will also publish a subtitled version on our website. So, with that said, I'll hand it over to you, Daniel.

Thank you so much, Katarina. Before we dive into the details, I was going to say a few words about Helheten and our latest acquisition. It is a rather weak quarter, despite the fact that a large part of the business is actually doing very well. Several subsidiaries have full investment, but we also have other companies that weigh the result. And the companies that are expended towards AI are doing very well. But what stands out on the downside is the companies that are linked to the acquisition of Webstep. Webstep acquired in 2024 and is now divided into B3 Beyond, B3 Link and B3 Engage. If we hadn't had the Webstep acquisition, then we would have only had a drop of 0.8%, so 80% of the drop comes from Webstep. We have lost 70% of the revenue, two thirds of the number of employees. Many key people have left, but we have also made a lot of voluntary deductions. In total, since we bought it, EBIT has accumulated up to about 15 million SEK and we have a purchase difference of 38 million SEK. So it has cost us over 50 million SEK to carry out this acquisition. And why has this happened? Well, I would say that we have probably underestimated the challenge of taking on a company that is struggling and integrating it into the business. Integration has been poorly carried out and was not provided with enough resources. In addition, there has been a bit of bad luck. It has been a tough market. You have lost key people who then have taken other employees with them. And we have a lot to learn from this, I would say, failure. If we look at any other of the acquisitions we have made, Poland is more of a success story. De har en lång historik av lönsam tillväxt. Man fick ett hack i kurvan föregående år när man tappade två större kunder. Trots det så har man behållit lönsamheten och nu försvinner de två kunderna ifrån jämförelseavtalen från Q2, vilket ser att vi kommer att ha tillväxt i Polen framöver. So Poland is in the second ring, more of a success. Haberstad, which we acquired in 2025, is actually neither a success nor the opposite. You have a very nice growth, but you have to fight a little with the cost and you have to work with the cost side to reach a target level that we expect. So a little both rice and rose on the acquisition side. Then we move on to the quarterly report. As I have already mentioned, we then lost 5.8% in the quarter, which would only have been 0.8% without Webstep. A fairly large spread between subsidiaries. Many are doing really well, especially those who are exposed to AI, but also some who are struggling. We have a certain retail customer who is getting very much, we have a large project in the public sector that makes a few We are doing an EBIT at 9.8 million, or 3.2%. It is strengthened by the fact that we have worked a lot with the costs, but weakened by the fact that we have costs due to the change of the head of the company, where I and Martin went in parallel during the period for transfer. Revenue after tax goes up to 1.8 million. Det ger en vinst per aktie på 12 öre. Tittar vi på de olika marknaderna vi befinner oss på, då ser vi i Sverige, då är det väldigt stor variation i efterfrågan mellan dotterbolagen. Det är en ganska avvaktande marknad inom vissa segment, mycket beroende på Irankrisen eller Irankriget, där många projekt står och väger, blir de av, blir de inte av. Vi har andra delar av marknaden där bolag ställer om mot AI. Vi har tecknat en hel del nya ramavtal, kommit in på nya kunder, men jobbar också mycket med att hålla in kostnaderna i Sverige. Polen, vi har ett tapp i kvartalet, men behåller en god lönsamhet och framöver har vi, som sagt, bättre och lättare jämförelsesiffror. På marknaden i Polen, då är det en starkare marknad, högre efterfrågan, men också en högre konkurrens. In Norway, even the market is doing pretty well, but we need to work with the costs to achieve better profitability. Last but not least, we are also assigned to the most attractive employer for women in tech, which of course will be a big advantage in recruiting in the future. André, would you like to help us through some numbers? Yes, thank you very much.

We jump directly into Poland, and as Daniel mentioned, we see a negative growth under Q1 of 15%. What we should keep in mind is that there is a clear improvement from the previous quarter, where we were at 24% negative growth. Nedgången förklaras framförallt då av de här två större kundkontrakten som vi tappade Q2 förra året, och det innebär ju då, som Daniel nämnde, att detta är det sista kvartalet vi ser den fulla effekten av de här kundkontrakten. In the future, we see a strong momentum in the segment, several larger businesses are winning. Despite this, we keep up the turnover rate and deliver a stable margin of 10.5%. In Norway, we continue to grow. We showed an increase of almost 39%, but with a negative result. The growth is largely due to an increased number of sub-consultants. At the same time, we have had a lower degree of deductions on our own consultants, which then presses our margins. The segment has high overhead costs, but we will make adjustments to bring the business back. At the same time, we will continue to invest in sales and growth. The Swedish segment shows continued negative growth of 12%. This is mainly due to late start-ups on several of our customer projects. They started later than normal in January. A larger customer has at the same time reduced their consulting purchases and a larger public project has been launched. That, together with the projects that have been launched, is the biggest drivers behind this turnover, and accounts for about 7%. The remaining 5% is related to the Webstep acquisition, as Daniel mentioned. It affects the comparison, especially Q1, but we will see an impact all the way into 2026, even if it is declining during the year. So despite this situation, despite the low turnover, we have kept our margin. We are even stronger than expected, and that is thanks to the cost adjustments we made last year with Fit for Growth. At the same time, several companies showed a strong debiting rate. We had five subsidiaries that went out of the quarter with full investment, so that's super cool. Normally, after this picture, we usually show our subsidiaries a bubble diagram. We will not do that now in Q1 and forward, and that is because we have made several major changes in clustering companies, and we see that it loses value in the comparison numbers, so therefore you will not see these bubble diagrams forward.

Daniel. Thank you, André. Let's take a look at the turnover compared to Q1 2025. The turnover was 324 million. What has contributed positively is above all the acquisition of Haberstad. We have a small effect of currency rates and a small price increase. On the negative side, it is that we have fewer employees and fewer consultants. There is a big shift here, both recruitment and dismissal. And if we only look at Q1 versus Q4, we are in principle plus minus zero in terms of net recruitment. That is, we have recruited as many as we have left. We have a drop in under-consultants and a somewhat lower rate of exposure. Speaking of exposure, in Sweden it decreases with 0.7 percent units and in total 1.1 percent units. In total, it is mainly an effect from Norway that is a pro forma effect. We have a slightly lower rate of employment in Sweden during the Q1 and that is partly due to the fact that we started late in the semester. We have a large project within the public sector that has been set up and a larger retail customer that has dropped sharply. But we also have a lot of positive news. We have continued our work by signing new framework agreements and have received a framework agreement with the employment association during the period. Två stycken större telekomoperatörer. Vi har förlängt med Sandvik och Very Short. Vi har nya uppdrag på SAAB, ABB, Socialstyrelsen bland annat. Och vi fortsätter även att gå starkt inom bank och finans. Vårt påska datorbolag har vunnit affärer i både Schweiz och Finland. Så det finns gott hopp om framtiden. As I mentioned, the parts of B-TRIM that are supposed to be exposed to AI are doing very well right now. And Sweden is pretty much behind, especially countries like the US and China. But now we see that the market in Sweden is also starting to speed up. We have figures from Radar that say that 76% of the requested CIOs say that they will invest in agents during the current year. We have figures from Future Market Insights that say that the global market for AI consulting services will grow from 11 billion dollars to 91 billion dollars in 2035. This is an increase of 26% per year. The areas where we see that we will play a role and where there is a big demand are partly the cloud and the AI platform. It is about adapting and Anpassa plattformar och mållösningar och bygga arkitektur som är redo för AI. Data och AI security, det vill säga att förbereda data för AIs inlärning och inte minst säkerställa att säkerhet och lagar och regler efterdes. Applied AI and automation, det vill säga att dels kartlägga processer och arbetssätt och sedan då bygga själva agenterna som automatiserar flödena. AI Operation and MLOPS, that is to say to run these and maintain and manage agents over time. And last but not least, and in many cases the most important thing, to drive implementation and transformation work, that is to say to work a lot with change management and make organizations ready to work with AI. With us today we have Petrus Fenonius, He is the CEO of Business Transformation, one of the top companies that are very well positioned within AI. Welcome, Daniel.

Thank you so much, Daniel. My name is Peter Svenonius, CEO of Business Transformation, as I said. And what Daniel showed was a little overview of what the market looks like, the figures we get from the top. I'm going to share with you what we hear. On the floor, based on the customer dialogues we have all the time and the customer meetings we have. If last year it was a lot about generative AI and even then Swedish companies and organizations were after, the big word this year has been agents. Agents within AI and how you can use agents in your various business processes. Under Q1, we have now talked to a number of different customers, we have a number of different customer projects and customer dialogues going on, and we had a crescendo here in mid-April, where we had two full events together with Microsoft at our offices in Stockholm and Gothenburg. And it is very clear that this question of agents exists on many of our customers' radars and agendas. And what I would like to highlight three things I could have talked with some of the clients during the first quarter. The first was within the vehicle concern where they said that they had not come that far with agents and the main reason was that they lacked a framework to actually keep track of these different agents when they rolled them out in their different core processes within research and development. Another, a CIO for a large trade union, who said that help when the business runs out to the city and shops a lot of AI tools. That's not good because we need to keep track of our data, so help us move this into our Microsoft environment that we already trust and we also get connections to other systems and a control model that we can have over time. We talked to an economy manager where you would roll out an agent function, but had not thought about the license issue. And it is also a question that we see that we need to advise customers that there are different models, both at Microsoft and others, how to actually buy these AI tools that are required to get the effect. In this case, you saw that if you bought regular licenses for all users, you would have a cost of about 1 million SEK per month. And it went instead to solve by paying for how much you use these tools. There are many questions here that you need to think about. B3 ligger väl rustade till. Vi var tidigt på den här frågan om generativ AI. Vi gjorde hundra stycken AI-relaterade projekt förra året och det har då fortsatt i år såklart. Vi har kunder inom egentligen alla sektorer, offentlig sektor, privat sektor och vi ser också att AI handlar inte om teknik. Det är precis som Daniel var inne på så handlar det om egentligen att kunna understand where AI can be useful in a business process, and then implement it and get employees and bosses to change the way they work. In some cases, when you hand over a part of the work to AI and agents. And of course, you need to be aware of the security of your data. You need to be aware that costs don't go away. And here I would say that we are well to, we have agents in production with several customers and of course also with ourselves. If you look at what Daniel was talking about, that it affects several parts of our business model and our delivery model. We help customers to identify where the benefit is and to scope that question. We help customers to build it first and put it in a safe environment. So that you actually dare to release an agent in a core process. And then, of course, when you want to have more agents, tens, hundreds or thousands of agents in your business, then you need to have a safe and secure architecture. And you need to have a framework with governance to keep track of what the agents do, how they are used, what operating costs you have linked to this. And a question that we have used here when we have talked to customers is just that if you release an agent, who is in charge of it? You can imagine that an agent is like a new colleague in the organization and then someone needs to be in charge of it. And the consistent answer from the customers we have talked to is that it is probably not IT that should be in charge of all agents, but rather the process owners who need to see the agents as a type of colleague that they need Take responsibility and follow up and make sure that the agents do what they should and develop them over time. We have chosen Microsoft as a platform. Many customers have already chosen to be safe with it. It means that you get built-in support, you can build further on what you have. And what you should also remember is that Microsoft offers several different platforms to build the simplest agents that users may meet in their 365, a little more advanced agents in certain business flows and the most advanced ones that are built in Microsoft's Azure AI Foundry. And as I said, we have done this ourselves. In addition to talking to customers and helping customers, we have also built agents ourselves. Last year, we built a matching service that is fully operational, where we set aside time for our bosses and shorten the time for the next task for our consultants. During this quarter, we have built three agents where we let our employees talk to a head agent, and then it can connect to specialist agents within HR, within economy and economic support, and purchase. And these are some examples of processes that we have identified, and we see that in customer operations, there are probably, in all departments, all functions, there are processes that are suitable for implementing agents that either agerar autonomt eller kanske till en början avlastar människor och bidrar med beslutsunderlag och det här är någonting som vi ser växer väldigt starkt av. An important lesson here that we have from EGEN when we have done this ourselves and together with customers is that you absolutely have to be aware of technology, you have to be aware of your data, you have to do it in a secure infrastructure, but you also have to be good at change management and to be able to change the way you work. And we are well suited to be able to help customers with all this. It's about identifying where the first case is, to create the conditions for that, and to get an agent in motion. What happens then is that you get concrete results quickly. There are often low-hanging fruits where you can spare a lot of time or improve the experience for an internal or external customer. And of course, increase the quality when you use agents in the right way. And that frees up time for people in the first place in the organization to do more valuable tasks. Then when you scale, you need to have a safe architecture. You need to think about how these different agents should cooperate and how employees and external users should come to these agents. And of course, how do we keep an eye on the agents? Do we have a governance in place that allows us to keep an eye on how the agents are used, how they interact, that they make the right type of decisions? And of course, you need to keep an eye on the operating costs. We are doing well here, thanks to the fact that we have invested so much time and knowledge in the past years to try to understand how AI affects us and our customers. And we see now that it is starting to give effect on the market with the dialogues we have right now with customers. To tie up the bag, the agent market is still new. I would say that we are doing well. We continue to build on the investments we have already made. And we do it ourselves, on ourselves. Which means that we get a very good experience that we can bring out to customers and advise. We can help them to set up and we can help them to keep an eye on their agents over time. That was the short I was going to tell you about agents. A super exciting area that we see growing right now. Back to you Daniel. Thank you Peter.

Very good. Now I will try to summarize what I have said in total during the presentation here. As I said, it is a fairly weak quarter that is plagued by uncertainty on the market. But if you exclude Webstep, the stage is actually limited to 0.8%. Vi har många av våra dotterbolag som går bra, i synnerhet de som är exponerade mot AI och kanske framför allt AI inom tidiga skeden att jobba med data engineering och data städning av data och säkerhet. Det finns också ett antal bolag som kämpar en del. Vi behöver därför fokusera fortsatt på kostnadskontroll och vi rekryterar, men vi väljer att rekrytera i de områden där vi ser en tydlig efterfrågan. In Poland, we are losing revenue but have good margins. We believe in growth from Q2. Norway has a very strong growth but a weak profitability, where we need to work with costs. The AI market is growing and becoming more and more important. As B3, we have the opportunity to offer services along the entire value chain and are well positioned. Therefore, we believe that we have a 2026 ahead of us that we meet with caution. Last but not least, we continue to win awards for us as employers. This, together with a very high NPS, makes us believe that we are also an attractive employer that will be able to recruit the talents that there is a lack of in the future. And with that, I think we have come up with questions.

Yes, we have to thank you all who have sent in questions to us at iratbt.se. And of course, you can continue with that during the day. And then the first question is related to what you were talking about, that we have lost turnover and we have lost a number of employees. What can you say about the current recruitment pace and when do we expect to return to organic growth in the Swedish market?

It's a difficult question given the environment. Men rekryteringen i kvartsakvartalet är ju i princip plus minus noll. Vi har anställt lika många som har lämnat. Och vi har väl en hopp om att året som är hedret kommer att gå plus.

Och marknaden är osäker med nya utmaningar. Hur exponerat är B3 för ett fortsatt försämrat geopolitiskt läge? Har bolaget många långsiktiga uppdrag eller får det effekt direkt? Can you say something about that?

I would say that the majority of our customers are found in relatively non-cyclical industries with a lower level of industry dependence. We have a large exposure to banking, finance, insurance, even to the public sector, where many of the consultants are in longer jobs. At the same time, we are of course dependent on the total access and demand for IT competence, so we have a clear dependence on the industry level.

Then there was a question about Norway, maybe connected to you, Andrea. There you can see a strong growth considering the turnover, but weak margins. What is it that drives these weak margins? Is it structural or is it something random?

As I mentioned on the segment slide for Norway, we have above all a good growth thanks to sub-consultants, but at the same time a low debiting rate for our own consultants. In combination with a high overhead cost, it contributes to very weak marginals, especially the negative ones now under Q1. It is not a structural problem. We see clear actions to take. We will initiate a cost program now in the short term. We will continue to invest in selling and debiting, i.e. selling and getting rid of these unsupported consultants. So in the future, we will definitely see an increased margin when they have had an effect.

Then there was a question about AI agents. How do you think that the consulting market will be affected by AI agents?

I think that the consulting market, just like all industries and sectors, will be greatly affected by AI and of course also by agents. Det kommer påverka vad vi människor lägger vår tid på och hur vi faktiskt ser på värde och här tänker jag att det konsultbolag som är väl rustade och förberedda och förstår det här och kan hjälpa kunder men också applicerar AI i sin egen leverans, den kommer komma ut som vinnare och jag tror att vi ligger väldigt bra till det här.

Webstep, you talk a lot about it from the beginning. It has loaded the results after the acquisition. How does this affect the view of the future acquisition? Is the M&A acquisition still part of our growth strategy?

I would say that it is not above our strategic agenda, both from a strategic point of view and also from our perspective. But of course, if the right opportunity arises, then it is definitely not the end. But then the acquisition will be financed with the help of stocks rather than with cash.

One more little economic question then, so I have one for you André. How does the work look like to adapt the cost costume in a situation where the market is declining? Where do you stop and where do you choose to invest?

We have with us now our cost savings program Fit for Growth, which has a huge effect in the P&L to come forward. But, of course, if we see that the markets would continue to be tough, with weak reputations and downward consultations, we need to do more. This is something we are working on successively. As soon as the market changes, we need to adapt the costumes after the revenues. What we are working on is structural O&H, but we are also looking at efficiency in the form of which processes we can make more efficient with AI. Hur kan vi frigöra tid för våra ledare att fokusera på sälj? Vi investerar mer ut mot sälj till marknaden. Vi säkerställer att ledarkapaciteten är så optimal den kan vara. Samtidigt kör vi ett stort fokus på AI generellt i bolaget. Så det investerar vi väldigt mycket i nu.

B3 rankas högst som arbetsgivare. and also lift it as a strength. How can you see that it specifically contributes to recruitment and consultancy growth in the future?

We are often part of industry events. We are partners with Women in Tech. It is also a culture where a lot happens in the company. There is a lot of activity, there is a lot of education, there is a lot of training. And this helps us to both attract talents, but perhaps above all to maintain the talents we have in our company.

Then there was a question related to banking and finance, which for quite a long time has been the strongest segment of BTC. Can you tell us something?

What is it that drives that strength? Well, it's probably just that we have a very long experience in the industry. We have two subsidiaries that have been active for more than 20 years in the banking, insurance and finance industry. They have deep business and business understanding. They have also a very good understanding of what the entire B3 can offer. So they can use the entire B3 range of consultants applied to the needs of that particular industry. And that's probably the explanation for the success, I think.

Well, that's good. Then I think we should cover the questions that have come in. And if you have more questions, then you are warmly welcome to ask them to us at ira.bd.se. With that, it's time to wrap up. Tell them to you, Daniel.

Yes, then we just want to thank everyone who showed up and listened to us and look forward to the Q2 presentation in July.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright, good job. Did you hear me? How many did you find? Forty-five. I can check now. Yes, they are forty-six. This is a few minutes before I update the number. Yes.

Thank you.

Good work, all the best.