CombinedX AB (publ)

Varmt välkomna till Combinex kvartalsrapport. Jag heter Lars Engström och kommer vara teknisk hjälp under själva webinaret. Ställ gärna era frågor i knappen frågor och svar eller questions and answers, Q&A-knappen. Där kan ni ställa era frågor eller live efter att Jörgen är klar. Då är det bara att räcka upp handen. Med det sagt... så tappar vi Jörgen av någon anledning, men det hoppas jag att vi löser alldeles strax med att han kommer in. Jag får be dig Björn att ringa till Jörgen så att han kommer på webinaret. Någonting tekniskt måste ha hänt tyvärr. Men oroa sig inte så fort att Jörgen kommer in så kommer han att köra kvartalsrapporten. Ni kommer inte synas och höras i bild men däremot kan ni höras i samband med att ni räcker upp handen efter Jörgens presentation som sagt. Med det sagt så hoppas jag att Jörgen kommer alldeles strax in.

Jörgen's network is broken and he's trying to connect via the phone, so it'll take another half a minute. He's doing it now. Then I see that Jörgen is in, so I'll back you up.

That was really good. Let's see. Welcome, Jörgen. Ser ni den helt enkelt? Om du känner dig redo eller om du vill lägga upp powerpoint-presentationen först.

Yes. Så, nu ska vi se. Nu ser ni den presentationen va? Och mig. Och nu har jag en fungerande uppkoppling också. Jag sitter i en gillestuga här på Gotland. Så att jag hade problem med uppkopplingen. Men nu är vi här och jag hälsar alla välkomna till våran... presentation of the second quarter. We released our report at 8.30 this morning, and for those of you who are following that, you saw that we show a strong growth, but an under-recognized profitability in the second quarter. We have a turnover of 250 million, which gives a 30% growth, an organic growth of 2%. If we adjust the calendar here, it is an organic growth of 1%. Men det justerade ebetsresultatet landar bara på cirka 14 miljoner, vilket ger en rörelsemarginal justerad på 5,6 procent. Och det är ju långt ifrån våra finansiella mål om 10 procent, och också långt ifrån där vi var för ett år sedan. Så att vi är förstås inte nöjda med det. Och i mitt ledord så ger jag fyra stycken anledningar, förklaringar till att vi är i den här lönsamhetssituationen. And if I try to summarize it in a couple of pictures, we have first and foremost, it's about the investment. And then, first of all, in the system development part, and it affects our company Aspire. And on the other hand, a generally lower investment in several of our companies that we see have connected to the conjecture. Some of you may have seen this picture earlier. It is RedEye that has summarized how the organic growth from the Nordic listed IT consulting companies has developed in recent years. And as you can see since the top in 2024, Q4, there was strong organic growth in the market. So we have in Q1 2024 then gone successfully down to a negative organic growth. Konjunkturförändringen har också nu drabbat oss, framförallt i Espain. Den här bilden visade jag för er som deltog på RedEyes konsultdag den 12 juni. Då berättade jag just att systemutvecklingsmarknaden är särskilt tuff för oss. Den är de här rött ljus. And in Q2, Aspire has also shown red numbers, which means that we have had a loss in Aspire, which we of course do not like. In Q2, our companies will deliver healthy results. We have not done that in Aspire. What we have done is that we have adopted a cost-saving program in SBAJER to get to the bottom of this. The cost-saving program includes all parts of the cost structure, including staff. I showed RedEye today a yellow light within the market part that we call customer journeys, where we have our companies Appsfront and IronTech. Even there we see a lower investment than previous years. Within our ERP companies and infrastructure-safe net houses, we perceive that the market is ultimately green, normal. Men vi är inte på topp. Vi har även i flera av dessa bolag något lägre beläggningsgrad än vad vi hade för ett år sedan. Dock fortfarande på okej nivåer. Det här sammantaget gör att den totala bilden för oss har blivit lägre beläggning, lägre lönsamhet. When it comes to the conjuncture, we think that the red light and the yellow light will change during the year. We hope so. There are such signals. But I think it's a little too early to test that. Then we talk about Q4 2024 as some kind of turning point. What I also describe in my introduction is that we have, as you have followed us, made a larger acquisition of MTCS earlier this year. As you know, MTCS will come in with lower margins than our other companies. It has a certain performance effect. It changes what we are well aware of and it does not change the strategic fit that is very strong here with Alvinite. But beyond that, we are working on the integration of the company. We are working on the integration of the company. We are working on the integration of the company. We are working on the integration of the company. We are working on the integration of the company. We are working on the integration of the company. Så det har också haft en påverkan under det här kvartalet. Dock inte lika stor som beläggningsfrågan, den är förstås den avgörande. I mitt vd-ord så nämner jag också att vi har haft hantera, att även när vi har stått tillbaka, även när man är i services, slitit med konsekvenser av en cyberattack som har skett tidigare och riktat mot detta av bolagets kunder. And we now understand that we, our assessment is that both the restoration work is essentially completed and that the direct economic damage for Elven Eyed Community Services is, as we assess, taken. But it is still the case that there is a final regulation left, ready to be done with the customer. So if it is so that we, against the assumption that it would be essentially unprofitable for us, we will return to that in particular. Men som sagt, vår bedömning är att vi nu med det här återinställningsarbetet under det första halvåret har klart av konsekvenserna av den här olika cyberattacken riktat mot en av bolagets kunder. Here are the usual results, our usual graphs. We can see that the result development looks like this. We have an LTM result of 73.9, which gives an LTM margin of 88.8%. We have adjustments in the period of 0.6 million, and this belongs to the acquisition. Here we see how the costs have developed in relation to the net investment. In Q2 2024, we see that when the inflation goes down, then the personnel costs increase relatively as part of the income, as well as the direct costs and the external costs. So that's what explains the deterioration, but the big explanation is lower incomes. Here we see it over a longer period of time and there is not much to comment on. Here we see income per FTE. LTM has increased by 3.2%. The staff costs have increased more. Once again, an explanation. We go out with Q2 with 595 employees, which is a significant increase in the number of employees, and this is primarily due to the acquisition of LTCS and Y. Kassaflödet har varit bra under kvartalet, så vi går ur det andra kvartalet med en stark kassa på 94 miljoner. Vi gick in i kvartalet med 80 miljoner i kassa. Sen hade vi från löpande verksamheten 22 miljoner. Investeringsverksamheten landade på ett netto på minus 1,2 miljoner. Då har vi haft ganska stora rörelser. Dels har vi då haft en utdelning om 36,36 miljoner. Vi har amorterat Liseå lån på 18 miljoner, men då har vi också tagit in nyemissioner, täcktes optioner på 25 miljoner och tagit nya lån på 22 miljoner. Here you can see the cash flow of the net debt over time. We have a net debt set in Q2. We have taken care of IFRS with 0.4 times EBITDA. Do we have anything to look forward to during this quarter? Yes, we have. We have taken two good deals, besides the deck deal that I described in the CEO speech that we have done in Aspire. Then we see that we have taken two good deals in the Elven, respectively, MTCs. We started with MTCs and earlier during the spring we made a pre-sale for Spendlups. who now have landed in that they have been given the task to really do this upgrade, and it's a pretty big deal that will go on for a longer time today. Likewise, Elvinite has been given the task to now do a pre-study for Snellman, regarding the same lift from the earlier version of M3, Info M3, to this cloud solution called CloudSuite. And this task that Elveneit has got is especially strategically exciting as it is the first large Finnish customer where Elveneit earlier this year has established personnel also in Helsingfors. So it's a bit of a breakthrough for Elveneit on the Finnish market. And something that we have planned for a long time and are very clear about that we have now come through. We are also very happy that we have plus 190 new option owners among our employees. During Q2, we carried out an option program for all employees with the opportunity to sign options. It is a market-valued option program without discounts or subsidies. And about a third of our employees chose to sign this program. So we thought it was great fun and very good for the culture in the company. It's great if as many employees as possible are shareholders. Med det så tänker jag att min presentation är klar och att det finns tid för frågor. Jag ska också avsluta med att säga att vi gör ett svagt kvartal i Q2. Vi har en låg lönsamhet, den är vi inte nöjda med. Den förändrar dock inte vår syn på vår resa. Vi ska bli Nordens ledande grupp av specialistbolag inom digitalisering. Vi håller på att bygga leading brands i våra bolag. Nästa mil står på en miljard i omsättning. Den hoppas vi nå senast 2025. Vi är på väg mot vår vision. Det här svaga kvartalet förändrar inte den bilden. Med det lämnar jag tid för frågor.

Då har vi Fredrik Nilsson som vill ställa en fråga. Varsågod, Fredrik.

Tack så mycket för det. Hej. Hi Fredrik. You have been doing well so far through the downfall of the economy. At the same time, the companies that were previously hit hard are starting to move in the right direction, even if it may not be very clear. Are you a bit more late in the cycle or have you simply recruited a bit too much, given that you still have some organic growth in the quarter?

Good question. Yes, you can speculate. We are not particularly exposed to the Stockholm market, which is quite early in the change of the economy. Many of our industry colleagues had problems in Stockholm. with the P-invested tech companies and so on, who previously had problems with this conjecture phase. We have not been exposed to that. It may happen that we managed a little especially well in that way, that we let go of the blow that some of our colleagues took, and that the conjecture may have looked a little further out in the country where we are a lot in between Sweden. Det är väl en möjlig förklaring till att vi ser en lite genomgående lägre beläggning. Jag kan inte ge någon data på det, men det är väl inte en orimlig gissning. Above all, when we look at the results, it is still the case that we are in the system development market, so we have the big problem. And in our company in Spain, where we show red numbers, we are not particularly worried in general, so to speak, for the investment. But that's where we've had big problems with red numbers.

Okay, and if we continue on the same topic with system development, then employees, I should say, in less than 11 people compared to Q1, is it mainly within Aspire that that happens, or is there something else there?

Det stämmer att vi har tagit ner antalet anställda i Aspire men det har inte riktigt synts än så det är nog en blandning. De kostnadsbespråkningsprogram som vi genomfört i Aspire kommer inte att slå igenom än för en psykiatrisk kurs idag.

Okay. And again, the same theme there, the word CEO, I get the feeling that you think that system development in general is not as attractive as in the other niches. So can you remind us a little bit about how Aspire is niched and how the company works to stand out?

Yes, we have for a long time tried a niche that we call IoT. The IoT niche has one activity, and that is that the mission tends to be too short. So we have not really been able to carry the company with that niche. That tip has not been enough to carry the company's expansion. So that's the short answer. We need to keep IoT as part of our offer, but we can't carry the company. We need to complete the company with more clear offers, preferably linked to a software platform. And there is Microsoft Azure close. Microsoft Azure is a large platform, so even there it is important to find where our peak is in that. But we often see that our companies have a strong connection to a new platform, and we have not really had that in Aspire. But we are working on that now with our development.

Okay, and the last question from me here. There are quite a lot of costs for subconsulting or hardware in the quarter. Is there anything special or is it that the acquisition has a different mix and that's what explains the increase?

Yes, the acquisition has a slightly different mix. We have relatively a lot of hardware revenues in Y that have come in. There is, you have a long-term collaboration with skogsindustrin uppe i Sundsvall, där man också är hårdvaruleverantör. Man hjälper till med dimensionering av timmer, och där levererar man hårdvarulösningar. Okay, that was all from me. Thank you. Thank you.

Då ska vi se. Är det någon annan som har någon fråga så räcker upp handen så jag ser. Men det har kommit en fråga i frågor och svar. Det nämns i rapporten att det finns tecken på att den generella efterfrågan kommer att öka. Kan du utveckla vilka tecken det är?

Yes, if you go back to these traffic lights, we have a yellow lamp, a yellow light in what we call customer journeys. That market is perhaps the one that is closest to the conjecture of driving sales and income. Investments in that. There we see signs that we have a pretty good pipe before the fall. Both in Appsfront and Ninetech. So that's primarily what I'm thinking about when I say that. Apart from the macro signals that exist in the market. Men vi tycker att det här gula ljuset i Appsfront Online Tech, det hoppas jag och tror att vi ska kunna slå om till grönt i slutet på det här året.

Där har jag inga mer frågor i question and answer och inga uppräckta händer så passa på.

Då får jag tacka er som har lyssnat på det här och önskar er en fortsatt fin sommardag.