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

Good morning all, and welcome to ABG Sundal Collier Results Presentation. Before we kick off, I would like to introduce my co-presenter, Peter Straume, our CEO and Managing Partner for our Norwegian operations. And as always, we are also joined by Geir Olsen, our CFO. I'd also like to mention that you may ask questions during or after the presentation using the teams chat function. Okay. It is a great pleasure, obviously, to present the strongest ever second quarter in our history. Our top line doubled to NOK 809 million, and that was versus what was a rather decent second quarter last year, in fact. For the first half year, our revenues exceeded NOK 1.5 billion, which is up by 130% and that renders in NOK 2.8 billion over the last 4 quarters. Our business model is working as designed, with good or even great operational leverage as illustrated by our EPS being up by a factor of 4 to NOK 0.80 versus NOK 0.19 for H1 '21 over same period last year. We are thus keeping control of our costs, as illustrated by noncompensation costs even somewhat down year-on-year. But may be and more importantly, it is what is behind the numbers -- headline numbers that I find most interesting and pleasing. The revenue base has become clearly more diversified, as of late, with the improvement in Sweden in Q1 continued strong into Q2 with the biggest quarter ever reported in our Swedish operations. This is exactly in line with our strategy to outgrow the Swedish market by investing in our core business, especially within investment banking, where we have grown our staff by 75% over the last couple of years, and we continue to hire. Also, Denmark reported a stellar second quarter with H1 revenues already ahead of full year revenues last year, and Norway continued to deliver top-notch as we have being spoiled with over time. So from a geographical point of view, we are firing on all cylinders, but from a product point of view, we still see ample room for improvement, not least within M&A that have recovered, but not to recent highs. Digging further behind the headline numbers, it is very clear to us our broad and comprehensive product offering as well as geographical presence is paying off. It enables a truly holistic view on our clients and their needs. And we have increased the number of customers buying more than 1 product from us. You could say a more fancy expression would be that we are harvesting on our cross-selling initiatives. Talking about clients, we have almost doubled the number of paying clients over the last couple of years in our Investment Banking division, of which some already have become recurring clients, not least within equity capital markets and debt capital markets. We think this is an indication that our broad pan-Nordic capital market offering is highly appreciated and that we have built a stronger and less cyclical business model. So with that, let's flip slide and look at the numbers in a bit more detail. We have already touched upon the revenues at NOK 1.5 billion over the first half, 2.8 LTM, respectively, but what is equally important for me, as a shareholder, not least, is our cost discipline, and in fact, our noncompensation costs, as mentioned previously, are down year-over-year. That resulted in this very healthy operating leverage with operating margin up from 23% to 38% in the first half of the year, and as mentioned, earnings increasing by a factor of 4x. And looking at the last 4 quarters, we are now at NOK 1.38 per diluted -- in diluted terms per share in earnings. Next slide, please. Yes. Obviously, we have delivered this set of results with help from strong and not least receptive capital markets. Inflation fares in the beginning of the quarter faded and so did volatility with Equity Markets continuing to new highs. The flip side that became more apparent at the very end of the quarter was the capital markets, especially the IPO market became almost too busy with some signs of investor fatigue. The good news is that we are entering the holiday season and if history repeats itself, we expect the window to be wide open again after summer, say, for any unforeseen big setbacks in the markets, obviously. Next slide, please. Yes. Given what's just mentioned on the previous slide, strong friendly Capital Markets. It's no surprise to us to conclude that we have seen a very strong improvement in markets overall in our Products segment, especially within Capital Markets, Equity Capital Markets and Debt Capital Markets. As measured by volumes raised in the Nordic capital markets, it has -- we have more than doubled or even tripled in terms of volumes raised the first half versus the same period last year. And as we have talked about the last couple of quarters, with early signs of M&A activity improving, we have seen it happening in the first half of this year as well, even though it's not to the same extent as in capital markets. The devil is, as always, in the details, and we still see some room for more improvement in our most relevant M&A mid-market, which makes me think our M&A glass is half full rather than half empty. Next slide, please. One thing that thankfully really has increased in importance when it comes to investing is ESG and especially the green transition as of late. I mean this has been an important topic for ABG and the society as a whole, obviously, for quite some time. And we are very glad to see that the pace of transition, not least the green transition has accelerated as of late. From this point of view, I'm very proud to be able to state that ABG Sundal Collier is leading the green transition in our line of business in the Nordics by having arranged and advised on the 3 largest renewable IPOs in some of the largest renewable IPOs in the Nordics ever to date. OX2, the largest ever renewable IPO in Sweden; Aker Horizons, the second largest in Norway; and likewise, in Denmark, Green Hydrogen, the second largest Danish green IPO ever. All in all, we have raised some NOK 15 billion in capital to companies focused on the green transition in H1 solely. With that, I would like to leave the word over to Peter Straume, who will talk more about our performance in our investment banking operations. Over to you, Peter.

Thank you, Jonas. It's been a really strong team effort across all markets, resulting in more than NOK 1 billion in revenues from corporate financing in the first half this year. ECM has been the largest with more than 30 transactions in the quarter, but also very strong delivery from debt capital markets with 14 deals. All in all, more than NOK 50 billion has been raised through our network this quarter. That's a good spread between sectors, geography and products, as you can see on the right-hand side. We then could move to the next slide. As Jonas alluded to, generally in the market, we also see that there's a strong improvement on the M&A part compared to last year and last quarter. It's a good mix of various M&A transactions. Our pipeline is building nicely up with both acquisitions and more traditional sales process. And we also see that the increased M&A activity among our clients will spur further corporate financing for many of these companies going forward. So with that, I'll leave the word back to Jonas.

Okay. Thank you, Peter. So let's continue to next slide, Brokerage and Research. It's clear that we have continued the strong performance into Q2 with plus-teens percentage gains in revenue growth. And that is despite facing rather tough comps year-on-year. And especially our Swedish brokerage operations contributes to the growth year-on-year, and that is important since Sweden is, if not the biggest, one of the biggest seconder markets in the Nordics and Northern Europe. So I think it is very clear, our entire hard-working brokerage team and highly rated research team across all geographies are contributing to our improved standing amongst clients, and that is paying off, as highlighted by the revenue increase to just south of NOK 300 million in the first half. Let's continue to next slide, please. Yes. Costs. We are, as always, running a tight ship and trying our best to control what we really can control, and that is obviously costs. Not everything is within our control, such as general trends, inflation, et cetera. Therefore, I think it's very impressive to see our noncompensation costs being down year-on-year. Of course, that is helped by reduced travel, but we keep in mind that H1 last year was not very sort of intense from a travel and representation perspective either. So I think this highlights that we are not losing our head in strong markets becoming sloppy on costs. On the contrary, we are keeping at least the same focus as always on keeping costs under control. The cost increase we see that is by design, that is driven by 2 factors and that is revenue. As a consequence of increased revenues, we are seeing the compensation cost to employees increasing as a purely a consequence of that. And also in line with our strategy, as already alluded to, we are increasing staff in investment banking, and that goes for not only Stockholm, but Oslo as well where we have increased staff by quite a lot over the last 6 to 12 months. So -- and we can also on that note conclude that we are now well above 300 people employed with ABG, which is some 10% increase over same period last year. So with that let's continue with the next slide, and the key -- what I think at least, what we think would be the key takeaways here. Number one, it's clear to us that our diversified pan-Scandinavian business with a very comprehensive product portfolio enabling us to take a holistic view on our clients are paying off through a significant and broad-based lift in revenues. Markets are very supportive, and Equity Capital Markets continued to be the strongest driver of revenues, but with more contribution from DCM, especially from our Norwegian DCM operations and M&A. And the latter, both DCM and the special M&A, we expect the improvement to continue over time. Our ambition is to further develop and grow our business. And consequently, we have, during the second quarter, acquired the remaining 50% of the shares in Vika Project Finance, previously held by partners in Vika. We expect this to be accretive and look forward to further develop Vika together with the team. Finally, regarding the outlook. Needless to say, we -- I mean, short term, we are affected by any unforeseen volatility in markets. But what we do know is that we are entering the final half of the year with a very solid pipeline, especially within ECM and DCM and M&A building up. This, in combination with secondary markets remaining strong and our belief that we will see increased contribution from M&A for the coming 12 to 18 months, makes us very optimistic about our near-term business prospects. So with that, I would like to leave the floor open for any questions.

We have received 1 question so far. It reads, you say that you have built a less cyclical business model, can you elaborate on that, please?

Sure. I mean, first of all, let's be humble. I mean, our fact -- the fact is that our industry, of course, is cyclical and that we benefit from strong Capital Markets and vice versa. But relative to our industry and our own history, we strongly believe we are in a better position than ever and that we have built a more resilient model due to a number of factors. One, our revenue base, as mentioned, is more diversified than ever, both in terms of geographies and sectors. Our debt offering is growing. And by definition, our clients in that space is, to some extent, a recurring client base. We have also conducted more large IPOs in senior positions than ever, also outside Norway. And that tends to lead to recurring businesses from those clients. We have also been able to improve our own leverage on our comprehensive product platform by selling more than 1 product from that platform to our clients. To some extent, becoming more of a one-stop shop. Different products have slightly different cycles, and that also provides less volatility, we think. Any further questions?

No, there doesn't seem to be any more questions at this point.

Crystal clear. Okay. For any follow-ups, you will find the contact details on our corporate website, and please feel free to reach out either directly to me or Peter or anyone in the team if you have questions. Thank you so much for tuning in this morning.