Ework Group AB (publ)

new clients, as well as increased and renewed confidence with existing clients. And by being close to our clients' business and needs, we are moving towards a stronger position for eWork as a talent solutions partner. We see good opportunities for further strengthening our operating margin, as well as market conditions. And once they normalize and business volumes increase, we will see a good development for eWork. This quarter, we are happy to announce multiple wins, re-wins and new business agreements with clients. Among them, two Norwegian clients and one Danish. First out, Norsk Tipping. And this is an agreement where e-work will ensure that Norsk Tipping has access to highly skilled consultants across critical areas of expertise. And through our collaboration, Ewok will support Norsk Tipping's ongoing efforts to deliver attractive and responsible gaming services under strict public control in line with its social mission. Second one, Miljödirektoratet Norge. We also signed a new framework agreement for the Norwegian Miljödirektorat to provide IT consulting services. And under this agreement, Ewok will be responsible for sourcing and delivering a broad range of IT competencies in line with the agency's growing digital ambitions. And finally, Danske Spill. This is a new framework agreement that we won in Denmark. And through this agreement, we will support Danske Spill's strategic workforce planning by ensuring access to the right competence at the right time. This is a managed service provider solution that includes full service support for recruitment and management of contingent talent. The platform that is used to support the delivery adds further value by streamlining the entire process from talent request and onboarding to time reporting and offboarding. This gives Danske Spill full visibility and control over its talent pipeline. So three new framework agreements that we are really, really proud and happy to deliver on. So let us deep dive into our industry segments and the development of them in the second quarter. E-books saw good development in the second quarter in banking, finance and insurance, as well as tech. We also saw some positive indications from the telecom industry compared to previous year. Public sector remained restrained and the segment continued to decline this quarter compared to last year. Finally, looking into the automotive industry, where we have all seen and experienced uncertainties due to the development in tariffs and geopolitics. E-work is well prepared for these market fluctuations, thanks to a broad base of clients within this segment. And this diversification provides a certain stability and helps us mitigate uncertainties effectively. Switching over to our markets, we saw in Denmark a positive development during the quarter, largely due to diversified client portfolio. Larger volumes, a higher hit rate and lower costs impacted our results. Efficiency programs of customers and some contract terminations contributed to lower order intake in the quarter. Net sales increased, however, slightly, while earnings improved, mainly due to a number of more profitable customers in life science and banking and finance. A focus on efficiency and price discipline were other contributing factors to the improved performance in Denmark. In Finland, we see a positive trend in prolongation and extension of agreements within consulting, bank and finance. And manufacturing also impacted the order intake positively. In Sweden, order intake decreased during the second quarter compared to the same period last year. The uncertainty regarding tariffs, challenges in supply chains and continued cost focus affected this development. On a more positive side, new orders in the retail, energy and tech sectors were generally unchanged compared to the second quarter last year. There were also examples of customers in the automotive and manufacturing industries, as well as banking and finance, showing good and positive developments. As said, in Sweden, we also opened up a new office in Luleå during the quarter. Strengthening our position in the northern parts of Sweden is an important step for us as the industrial investments there are creating a growing demand for talent and skills. In Norway, we signed several new agreements of significant size during the quarter. Government agencies that phased out consultants in 2024 and 2025 or changed the way they cooperate and source from external parties are the main reasons for the decline in volumes. Finally, we are establishing new operations in Belgium and have hired a local sales representative who will be leading our business development activities from August and onwards. We see good opportunities for growth of new clients, but also at existing clients. And we leverage a global operating model to support our expansion and further scaling. So, Johanna, over to financials.

Yes, thank you, Karin. And then starting with looking at the financial overview of the second quarter, we start at the top of the P&L. For Q2, we reported a net sales of 3.6 billion SEK, and that is 13% lower than last quarter, where we reported a net sales of 4.2 billion SEK. And of these 13%, approximately 5% is related to the planned phase-out of non-profitable client contracts. And approximately 2% is related to the one less workday or so-called calendar effects in Q2. This is the last quarter that we expect to see the effect of the phase-out that we have reported of before. But the main explanation for the drop is, although related to lower number of consultants on assignment, which is significant. an effect of the slower market that we have reported of in the last couple of quarters. We do not unfortunately see any clear signs of recovery in the market. Sweden and Norway is in particular struggling, as mentioned by Karin. Also mentioned by Karin, we are continuing to be proactive in sales and we are winning new frame agreements also in this market setting, which is really important. If we continue down in the P&L, our gross margin continues to be strong, 4.1% versus last year where we had a margin of 3.8%. This is driven mainly by our add-on services. That has had a good development and we see more potential in this area. We can see a high demand for security services and we expect that to continue. We also have a positive trend in margins in new deals, and we have also reported that in previous quarters, and we see it continuing. But the effect of this will take time, as we also mentioned before. We continue to have a steady focus on our long-term strategic goals to increase our profitability by higher business margins and scalability. EBIT during the second quarter was 45 million versus last year of 52. EBIT is negatively impacted by the lower revenue. That is the main explanation. We have looked into cost reductions, for instance, travel and recruitment freeze short term. But we are also looking into potential savings mid and long term in parallel. We have also the long-term strategic initiatives running that aim to increase efficiency and scalability with, for instance, AI. The financial net was positively impacted by currency effects. As we have reported last quarter, Ewok has ongoing activities that aim to reduce the currency exposure in the business. What is positive is that the Polish business that has been financed by the group has improved their working capital and also reduced their dependency on financing from the group. We have also mentioned before that the EPS growth target of 30% that we have will be challenging given the current market setting. Looking at the order intake, the order intake for the second quarter was 4.1 billion SEK, which is lower than last year, 4.9 billion SEK. And it was impacted by a decrease in all markets, part from Denmark and Finland, where we can see a positive trend. This, although, is not enough to mitigate the drop. We have seen consultancy freezes at some of our larger clients, as mentioned before by Karin. And we do see that the automotive industry is a bit more challenging. And we have exposure in the automotive industry and expect some negative impact from this during the year. And what is positive is that we see this steady trend in better margins in the new agreements that we sign. Looking at net sales, just like in previous quarter, phase-out is impacting the top line negatively. This is, as mentioned, the last quarter we will see this effect. So from Q3, we expect a like-for-like analysis in this area. Our focus remains on profitable growth, meaning that we will not sign frame agreements that does not meet our profitability requirements going forward. In this area, also Sweden and Norway, is the main explanation for the drop. The markets remain challenging. And what's good is that we have a business that can easily be ramped up in case we see a market recovery. What's also positive is that we do not see a significant drop in hourly rates. They remain steady. Looking at the EBIT, of course, this is negatively impacted from the lower volumes and one less workday. That is the main explanation for the decrease in EBIT. We have somewhat higher cost that is relating to IT, given the go-live of the internal platform that we implemented in the first quarter. We have done some significant cost reductions in the past in our work, but we are looking into actions on short and mid-long term that can give effect and adapt to the current market settings. We have also our KPI that we have reported in the previous quarters. eWork has a different business model and we cannot fully use some of the traditional KPIs that are used in consultancy businesses. And we will continue to report our gross profit development over time as this is a part of our strategy. In this presentation, you can see the trend in our gross profit development per quarter. In the second quarter, we had a gross profit over EBIT that was 30% versus last year, 33%. And the effects on the focus on profitability will be gradually seen in our P&L. And this transition will take time, as mentioned before.

I will hand over back to Karin. Thank you. To sum up. Yes, to do a summary. Well, as said, we do see a mixed momentum in our different markets and geographies with strong growth in Denmark and Poland, but continued restrained markets in Sweden and Norway. At the same time, we continue to generate more profitable growth and we are seeing a positive trend in our gross margin as a result. We see at the same time, in order to further increase profitability and need to get the higher volumes and a broader client base. We also see a growing demand for flexible workforce management, which plays to our strengths. Internally, the implementation of our new digital platform is nearly done. It's a key step in improving our efficiency. And looking ahead, this platform will also enable further scalability and the adoption of AI solutions. In short, eWork continues to execute on our long-term strategy, and we are working towards our long-term goals. Now we will be opening up the floor for questions from the viewers. And we will, as usual, start with the phone questions.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Simon Granath from ABG. Please go ahead.

Hi, Karin and Johanna, and good afternoon. So I had initially a question where I was wondering if you could dive a little bit deeper into recent customer interactions around different end markets. It sounds like automotive is the main negative delta here, or is it more broad-based than that? And also, are there any other segments than telecom that seems to be improving?

Thank you. Thank you, Simon, and good, of course, and very relevant questions. As I said, the automotive sector is, of course, impacted by global uncertainties, but also by strategies and technology transformations, and not the least, the big electrification that is taking place. So there are several different drivers and aspects to the development of the automotive segment. So it's not a consistent picture over the range of clients that we have in automotive. We have automotive clients who are fully focused and driving development without any signs of a freeze. And on the other hand, as said, we do have clients that are freezing the use of consultants or the further intake of new consultants. So it's a mixed picture even within automotive. And that's why it's so important to be very close to each individual client and understand their specific needs. Outside of automotive, as said, we saw a positive development continued so in banking, as an example, also in life science. And we saw some positive signs also in telecom. Tech continues to be challenging for us because it's challenging for our clients in the tech segments. And this is mainly about consulting companies operating in tech. So truly a mixed picture where, again, we need to be really, really close to the individual needs of each client.

Thank you for a very colorful answer. It helps. And on pricing in light of the current weak market, I must say, you are open to the fact that you are focusing on better margins in new contracts. But in terms of competition, however, are you seeing any competitors becoming more aggressive? aggressive currently?

Yeah, definitely. With clients where we are one of many providing consultants, we definitely see that there is more fierce competition, more players sort of fighting to find the best consultants to match the client's needs. So, yes, definitely so. We, however, do not see an impact from that on our hourly rates. So our hourly rates continue to be steady or even increasing. And that is mainly related to the fact that we have, during recent time, We have relatively many consultants on assignment that are in the senior range, meaning senior levels and experts that are not exposed to these kind of competition activities that means an impact on the hourly rates. So we do not see that, but we definitely see and experience the more fierce competition. On the other hand, with the framework agreements and clients where we are delivering a managed solution, where we act as an MSP, as it is called, it's a different situation. There we are sort of on top and managing the sourcing and the spend on behalf of the client. And we do not experience the same sort of fierce competition. It's a different sort of way of working for us there. So, again, different client needs, but also different settings and agreements call for different types of activities also on our end.

Thank you. Certainly supportive to have that many senior consultants now versus historically, of course. And then I'd like to move on on costs. How do you see them progressing going forward? You did make some comments around it and they have been at a low level for some time now. But as you point out, you are taking further measures today. So in Q4 or into 2026, would you then potentially do more measures?

Yes, of course, and that it would be the natural thing to do. We are right now looking into short-term initiatives to reduce costs further. We have done a lot on the cost side, and this is, as I mentioned last quarter, the baseline, basically, for us. We don't expect an increase in cost, and we should remain in these levels. But if the market does not pick up, of course, we will need to look into more cost reductions.

And to build on that, as we said, we have been working during the last year and this year to get our new digital platform implemented and with this new platform and the opportunity for us to adapt and adopt more AI usage, we will also see a good opportunity to increase efficiency that ensures that any steps and measures that we take on the cost side are being brought into the business on a long-term basis so that we are not just looking at short-term activities on the cost side, but ideally activities that will also bring positive effects in the long term.

Very interesting. Looking forward to read more about that. And as a final question for me, I'm curious to hear about what trends you're seeing when it comes to nearshoring. We hear about some companies increasingly looking for employees to be at the offices, but at the same time, there is also a strong demand from employees to work remotely. So what are you currently seeing in your market areas now, a couple of years after the pandemic?

Yeah. So also interesting question indeed. And a lot can be said about that. But we see an increasing demand for nearshoring. And by that we mean consultants and talent who work from low cost countries where clients get access to qualified and skilled experts at lower hourly rates. So we see an increasing demand for that, and that is partly the reason why we continue to grow in Poland and Slovakia. But we also see, again, an increasing interest for offshoring, as we mentioned, in order to reduce and decrease costs. So that's one important trend. The other one about remote versus in-office work, we clearly see that more companies and organizations want to have their employees back in offices, and that also goes for consultants. So that's a trend in that direction. But having said that, of course, there is an opportunity for many of our consultants to work on a remote basis, at least on part-time. And we see that that continues to be very attractive among consultants, the opportunity for them to spend and work some time remotely.

Very good. Thanks for letting me on and I wish you all a very nice summer. Thank you.

Thank you. Likewise, Simon.

There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Perfect. I think we've got some questions that we've gotten beforehand. We can do perhaps one or two of these as well. What would you say the challenges have been with the implementation of the IT platform and what is the expected effect of this?

It's quite a big and comprehensive activity that we are doing. We have established a new data model, a new enterprise architecture, and on top of that, a new system, including ERP system. And that platform includes a number of different systems, and they are all fully integrated in order for us to be and also continue to. develop client portals and supplier portals that we use in interacting with clients and consultants and partners. So it's an important activity, an important step towards a future where we clearly see that AI and automation will play a bigger role. So from that point of view, it's very important and it will bring benefits to clients, partners, professionals and ourselves. But of course, this is a big thing. It's a big operation and it impacts basically all parts of what we do. And in implementing such a big system, a new platform, of course, there are challenges. We've seen some of them during the first and second quarter this year, and they have partly to do with data quality. Data quality needs to be at a certain level for an automated, integrated digital landscape to be able to function. And here we have encountered this. some challenges and they have unfortunately led to that in some cases consultants had challenges in time reporting and that develops unfortunately further into billing and payments. That is now being sorted and we are working hard now during the summer as you also know Johanna to be able to resolve any remaining issues and tickets that we are working on.

Good, thank you. I think we can do one more question. Do you see any signs of improvement in the market overall?

As I said, we do see here and there some new trends that are interesting to follow. We have seen during some time now a good development in life science, but during the last quarter for us also a better development in telecom as an example. So that's an interesting trend to follow, as well as, of course, retail, which for us was one of the first segments to decrease and start declining back in 2023. So some signs here and there. But on the other hand, we have global uncertainties, as we mentioned, impacting other clients. So it's not a consistent picture. And that's something that we will continue and see probably. Good. Thank you. I think we will sum it up there. Sum it up there. Thank you. Thank you, Johanna. Thank you, all of you, for listening. And if you have any follow-up questions, we are, of course, always happy to help you with them. So don't hesitate to reach out to any of us. And I think it's now time to wish everybody a nice and hopefully relaxing summer and see you soon again.