ABG Sundal Collier Holding ASA (ABG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning all, and a warm welcome to ABG Sundal Collier's results presentation. Before we kick off this morning, I would like to introduce my-co presenter, Peter Straume, our Head of our Norwegian operation. And as always, we're also joined by our CFO, Geir Olsen. Okay. We finished the year on a high, delivering our best quarter ever. Revenues ended up at close to NOK 900 million, which was up by 77% year-on-year against a rather strong finish in 2019 as well. On a full year basis, this resulted in total revenues of just north of NOK 1.9 billion, up 43% year-on-year, far better than anyone could have predicted a little less than a year ago at the outbreak of COVID-19. Our business model works with leverage as designed, EPS up by 77% on a full year basis and 114% quarter -- on a year-over-year basis. That also puts us in a position where we can distribute a decent amount of cash to our shareholders, and I'll come back to that in a bit. So what has contributed to this stellar performance? Well, of course, the market has been supportive to our business, and the Nordic ECM market has been on fire in 2020 and still is. But it's also very clear, we have been able to gain ground compared to peers. We are the #1 adviser in Nordic IPOs, not only in Norway, where we have further strengthened our long-standing #1 position. And our position in ECM and the TMT space in Norway, especially combined with the fact that we have taken a leadership position on the very vibrant Euronext Growth market in Oslo has been a real kicker for the very strong set of results in Q4. No doubt. At the same time, we have also been able to successfully capitalize on investments made in our Swedish franchise. We have gained market shares, especially in ECM transactions, resulting in ABG being the #1 adviser in IPOs in Sweden as well for the first time. We have also gone truly digital in 2020, including conducting roadshows in conjunction with IPOs, et cetera. That has increased our productivity and enabled us to do more transactions than ever. The increased productivity from going digital is not something I expect to fade once we are back to normal. But the flip side of going all digital is the lack of human and real-life interaction, not least at the office, presenting new challenges to our staff. But I must say I'm impressed by how the team has handled all this. In fact, looking back at 2020, I would say that the single most important contributing factor behind our success in the full year and the quarter is the fantastic people in our firm, not only making deals happen, but doing that under very challenging circumstances. So let's flip slide and look at the numbers in more detail. Well, I've already touched upon revenues and our business model working as designed, with an operating margin at a very healthy 43% versus a rather healthy 34% Q4 last year, resulting in earnings per share on a fully diluted basis, ending up at NOK 0.45, which is up by 114% once again year-on-year. Next slide, please. Well, looking at full year numbers, we can -- we ended up at NOK 1.9 billion, as already mentioned, and the operating margin at 33%, with a fully diluted EPS of NOK 0.78. And the proposed dividend of NOK 0.83 per share for the second half, adding to the NOK 0.17 already distributed for the interim dividend for the first half of 2020, renders in a total cash distribution of NOK 1 per share. That is slightly more than EPS for the full year, which is partly a consequence of us now having clarity on the regulatory requirements that has been under review and will be imposed by Q3 this year. Post dividend, we are still very healthy, capitalized with 1.6x the current requirement and more than 2x the new requirement that will be imposed later on this year. We are running a very asset-light business. And while we will make sure that we have sufficient capital and a sufficient buffer which will be evaluated on a yearly basis, we will continue to distribute excess cash. We will also revert to yearly dividends going forward. Next slide, please. Obviously, we have delivered the sets of results with some assistance from strong markets. On the back of very supportive central banks providing liquidity in a way never seen before, interest rates have stayed low and risk upside has stayed high. Volatility has almost, but not fully, reverted back to the pre-COVID-19 levels seen early in Q1 last year. But the lower volatility in H2 has obviously been very supportive of capital market activity and well as a consequence of lower volatility, companies in better shape than ever having trimmed their cost base with prospects of future earnings growth better than anyone could have expected 6 months ago. Equities markets are back on former highs and we see few signs of risk appetite fading. Next slide, please. Well, as already mentioned, the name of the game 2020 has been equity capital markets activity, with volumes being strongly up year-on-year, as you can see on the left-hand side of the slide. In the Nordics, Norway has been especially strong and sector-wise, tech -- TMT and the green sectors, so to speak, activity has been very high and still is. And in a way, you could say the market is doing what it's supposed to do. Capital is indeed available for companies with strong business models and companies with focus on sustainability. And we play an important role in facilitating all this. Debt capital market primary activity has been more muted, with a slower recovery than in equity capital markets, but with clearly improved momentum in Q4, and we see further strengthening in the cards. This is also the case for M&A volumes that were below last year, and it's clear that M&A has been more negatively affected by COVID-19 than equity capital markets, with a few projects put on hold or converted to ECM projects through IPOs instead. With that, I will leave the word over to Peter Straume, that will talk about more about our performance. Over to you, Peter.

Thank you, Jonas. 2020 was an amazing year, as you have alluded to. And I'm pleased to see that ABG is actually the European champion when it comes to listings, as we can see down to the right. Markets are booming, but the Nordics are taking a key role in Europe. And down to the left, you see that 50% of the IPO is done in the -- are done in the Nordics. And as we have touched upon, ABG is Nordic, Norwegian, Swedish champion when it comes to a number of listings. And also up to the right, you see that we are #1 adviser on large transactions, where we actually have advised on the 5 largest transactions the last 12 months. So all in all, fantastic 2020. We then can move to the next slide. On corporate financing, we passed the NOK 1 billion threshold last year, with obviously the ECM driving the growth. And Q4 finished off with close to NOK 600 million, and we see that the speed out of the quarter last year is continuing into this year, with the recently completed EUR 450 million Aker Horizons raised, for instance. It's all started when we last year completed the first digital IPO with Pexip. And that sort of showed the way for what was possible in sort of the COVID digital IPO world. Then in Q4, we did the LINK Mobility, the largest Nordic software transaction. We have done several transactions with the amazing Kahoot! story. And then Meltwater was opening up of global software companies tapping into Nordics. And hopefully, we'll see more of that moving forward. In Sweden, we have done several transaction like Nordnet, Nordic Paper and Thunderful, which has all lifted our market position significantly. If you can move to the next page, please. M&A advisory (sic) [ M&A and advisory ] is actually doing well in Q4 after a slow start of the year due to the COVID situation and Q4 ended up from last year. I would like to comment on Mercell. So that is an important M&A transaction where we assisted in a large acquisition out of another company. And that was only possible because the company actually was listed on Euronext Growth. And that's what shows the importance of getting access to the capital markets, which we have done -- helped the Mercell getting access to and then been able to do M&A of the same size as themselves. And last night, we actually did another raise for Mercell, but now are buying another company in the Netherlands. The sale of Geomatikk and the Arcus merger adds to a great number of transactions. We also have been advising on several public acquisitions like the still ongoing [ entra ], by the way, that responses was acquired and [ Frontcom ]. And these are examples of our many long-term relationships where we then -- [ when Frontcom come to show ] actually are advising the target company and helping them in the best possible way. So by that, I think I'll leave the word back to you, Jonas.

Thank you, Peter. And let's continue with the next slide highlighting the performance in our brokerage and research operations. And looking at these numbers, I must say, at least yours truly is impressed. I mean research and -- brokerage and research revenues has continued to increase, even though the volatility that spurred a lot of trading activities in the spring last year has reverted more or less back to normal. We kept a very high level of service to our clients, also through the turbulence and already strong relationships became stronger. In all fairness, it is rather difficult to exactly track market shares in brokerage since there are so many dimensions, but we strongly believe we have improved our position and gained ground here as well. Our sales and research team is working harder than ever, and it's paying off, as highlighted by full year revenues being up by 25% to just north of NOK 500 million. That is far better than what we expected in all honestly, just a couple of years ago in the new post-MiFID II world. Next slide, please. Okay. Looking at costs, we are running a tight ship and keeping control of what we can control. Underlying fixed costs rather stable, but we see an increase in reported operating costs, mainly driven by variable compensations as a consequence of higher revenues and profitability. And that is a cost increase we like to see. And also the weaker Norwegian krone, obviously, has had a negative impact on our reported costs since a lot of costs are denominated in NOK, Norwegian krone. So all in all, this resulted in total costs, up by 28%. But as you can see, non-compensation costs relatively stable and mostly up as a consequence of the weakened Norwegian krone. And I would expect underlying costs base to be relatively stable in the near term, save for any effects from currencies and, of course, for new hires, driving further revenue growth. And on that note, new hires, we have recently added new talent, and the actual number, as we speak, is 300 rather than the full year average of 285. We're adding, especially, as you can see, in investment banking, and that trend has continued, where we still see a lot of untapped potential. But selectively, we're also adding elsewhere in the system as well. Next slide, please. Balance sheet. As already alluded to, we are running an operation that is asset-light, with limited or almost no inherit risks. Thus no surprises to be expected and very limited proprietary trading. We are well capitalized at 1.6x the current regulatory requirement and once again, more than 2x the new requirement, post the proposed dividend of NOK 0.83, of course. We have a very liquid balance sheet with no -- basically no long-term interest-bearing debt. And once again, extremely limited financial risk taking. So with that, next slide, please. Let me sort of summarize what I think are the key takeaway from the quarter and 2020. Well, I mean, 2020 has no doubt been a very special year, and we delivered the only what I thought was possible, finishing the year on a high, with our best quarter ever, while keeping costs under control. The ECM market in 2020 was on fire, and we took our fair share more. But we see that DCM and as Peter alluded to, M&A activity is picking up in Q4, and we expect that to continue in 2021. We are the #1 Nordic IPO adviser. We have strengthened our long-standing #1 position in Norway and reaching the top in Sweden as well for the first time. Having what I consider to be the best team in the industry on board, that steps up when required, and through our agile approach, we have earned the trust of existing and a whole bunch of new clients. Lesson learned from 2020 is that the future is very hard to predict. Let's be humble for that fact. Having said that, I still see our pipeline building well in spite of us executing deals on a daily basis. And the pipeline is stronger than, frankly, ever. We're also entering the year with a stronger organization than ever, having added new talent. So we are in good shape and in a very good position to continue to deliver growth near term. And with that, I think I'll open up for Q&A.

And we have already received one question. It reads, you just presented a record strong result. But is this income level sustainable? And how will you prioritize between continued growth and profitability going forward?

Okay. Well, I just talked about the lesson learned in 2020 being that the future is rather difficult to predict. But having said that, based on what I actually can see in our order book, the pipeline of deals, it's difficult for me to be anything than optimistic near term. The market can, of course, experience setbacks, and we would not be immune to that. But I also see a lot of untapped potential from more product areas than ECM that is not firing on all cylinders. So yes, I strongly believe that we are at a new level for ABG in terms of revenues and profitability. The second question, growth versus profitability. Well, I guess, the beauty of our business model is that there is no -- there is no contradiction between growth and profitability. On the contrary, we, first and foremost, need to add new talent and new dealmakers to grow. And the marginal cost for doing that is rather limited, docking dealmakers to our existing infrastructure. So we are in a very lucky position where we don't have to choose between profitability and growth, profitability comes with growth.