Aqualis ASA (ABL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everybody, and welcome. My name is Reuben Segal; and I'm joined this morning by our CFO, Stuart Jackson. And today, we're going to take you through our Q1 results for 2025. As usual, we draw your attention to the disclaimer, and please feel free to read this in your own time. For people joining us online, please note, you can also add your questions within the chat room, and we will answer those questions at the end of the webinar. So let's go into the figures. First of all, I'm happy to report revenues of about $81.7 million for the quarter. These revenues are up on our same period of 2024, but slightly down over Q4 2024. A lot of the growth predominantly comes through the recent acquisitions of both Ross Offshore here in Norway and also through Proper Marine across in Brazil. So this adds a lot of the revenues. We've had a little decline in revenues across ABL and, obviously, parts of OWC with the renewables sector. But overall, on year-on-year, we see a growth in our top line revenues. In terms of the adjusted EBIT and margin, we ended the quarter with $3.1 million, very similar actually to Q4 where we also ended the quarter at $3.1 million. In terms of the pro forma, this compares to 4.5% during the previous year Q1. So a solid performance, but saying that there were still some issues going on within the oil and gas industry and particularly the renewables industry, which affected both OWC and ABL during the quarter, and we'll get into that a little bit later on. In terms of the margin, this also came down, not necessarily because of performance, but because of the acquisition of Ross Offshore, which is a traditionally lower-margin business than the likes of, say, ABL. So overall, we finished at $3.1 million. In addition to that, though, I'm very happy to report Longitude continued with a very solid performance, and Stuart will give you more details of this in the coming slides. In terms of net cash, we ended the quarter at $3.5 million. This is down from $4.8 million, but this is actually because of the acquisition of Proper Marine, which closed during the quarter. And of course, we had to pay for that. So overall, there was an improvement in our cash. But of course, with the payments for Ross Offshore -- for Proper Marine, this brought us down to $3.5 million. And finally, we intend to announce a dividend of NOK 0.45. This is an increase of 12.5% year-on-year -- or last payment, I should say. And this is subject to the AGM taking place in a few weeks' time. So that's a very, very quick summary. Stuart will give you some more details, and I'll come back later on with more details on how we see the market going forward.

Thank you, Reuben. So in terms of this moving forward -- it's not moving forward. The keyboard is not moving forward either. Okay, let me go through the presentation. Maybe you can have a look at that. Let me go through the presentation, which is available online, and I'll walk you through the traditional slides that we have. This is a snapshot we have in terms of the overall performance of the business through Q1. Just for comparison purposes, we do the comparison here in terms of Q1 2024 on a pro forma basis. So we've made the adjustments in relation to the Ross Offshore acquisition in AGR and the Proper Marine acquisition in Longitude. In terms of the split of the different revenues across the business, I guess the major change would be really around Longitude with the Proper acquisition. So that's increasing the percentage we have in Longitude, but still the smaller part of our business overall. From a margin perspective, a bit of a mix. You see both AGR and Longitude are showing improved margins compared to the same position last year on a pro forma basis. But ABL and OWC are showing a reduction in terms of margin compared to the same period of last year. Although I would note, as you will see in the next slide, that we're seeing an increase relative to where we were in Q4 of 2024. In overall terms, those businesses generating about 10.8% in terms of EBIT. And after our corporate costs, we end up with 3.8% for the quarter. And I'll remind you that's relative to our guidance, which sits at 6.5% through the cycle. So what we're seeing is a reflection of where we are in terms of renewables market and also in relation to a slight downturn in terms of the oil and gas side. In terms of the more detail attached to those numbers, from a revenue perspective, obviously, we've talked about the acquisition of Ross and Proper Marine. I think the other thing to highlight would be if you look at the AGR revenue, a step down in terms of the performance relative to Q4 of 2024, which is predominantly driven by lower pass-through costs attached to the vessel we have in the AGR business. From an ABL perspective, as said, we had a downturn a bit in relation to that business, and that's predominantly around the weaker performance of the Americas region. From an EBIT perspective, going to the margin, ABL is sitting at 16.7% margin through the quarter. As I mentioned, we have had weaker performance associated with the Americas, but we're seeing an uptick relative to where we were at Q4 at 15.5%. And OWC, you'll see an improving margin as we go through the quarters. So this is just reflecting the benefits of the actions we've taken in terms of reducing business lines and reducing headcount in that business, reflecting what's going on within the market. And Longitude, as Reuben mentioned, strong performance in the quarter at 29%. This includes $0.3 million in relation to the Proper Marine acquisition. In terms of the abbreviated financial statements, firstly, income statement. As we mentioned, 19% increase in terms of the revenue, a higher increase in relation to operating costs because we're consolidating Ross Offshore, which is a structurally lower-margin business. We generated $1.8 million in terms of EBIT at the end of the quarter. We have adjustments to EBIT. Traditionally, our PPA intangibles is adjusted. We've had the acquisitions going through. So we've adjusted for the cost of the acquisitions, but also the employment-related acquisition costs in terms of the consideration. And finally, the $0.4 million, the top of this is the restructuring and integration costs. So this is the reduced business lines in the OWC business and the reduction of headcount within that business. In terms of cash flow, cash flow after adjusting for the noncash items, we have cash flow from operations at $2.8 million. In terms of investing activities, as Reuben mentioned, the largest element would be Proper in terms of the acquisition. So continuing our basis of using cash and liquid resources rather than issuing shares for acquisitions. So we've had $2.1 million go out in terms of the Proper acquisition during the quarter. We drew down on the RCF during the quarter of $3 million, taking us up to $17.7 million. And that gives us a net cash flow at the end of the period of $1.9 million, which, after adjusting for FX, gives us a cash balance at the end of the quarter of $21.2 million. In relation to the balance sheet, after our $21.2 million of cash, $17.7 million to the increase in terms of the RCF gives us a net cash position of $3.5 million compared to $4.8 million at the end of the Q4 of 2024. Our working capital ratio sits at 43% at the end of the quarter, so slightly up on where we've been more recently. We would expect that ratio to fluctuate around about 40% as we go forward. And then finally, in relation to the dividend, as Reuben mentioned, we will be proposing to the AGM on 28th of May a dividend of NOK 0.45 per share. This will be a repayment of paid-in capital. And in terms of dollar terms compared to the first half of 2024, this represents a 12.5% increase in dividend. And that just reflects our confidence in terms of generating cash in the business going forward to be able to increase the dividend at this stage. With that, I'll pass back to Reuben for the operations and the outlook.

Thank you, Stuart. So during the quarter, we continue to see some growth, but we continue to see some turmoil across parts of the oil and gas industry, which we'll talk about in a few moments, but also in the renewables. But saying that, we continue to see growth in ABL and we continue to see the growth in the EBIT across OWC. And it's the third quarter on the trough now where we're starting to see this recovery in our operation. The reason for that is also not only the way the market is, but also our own performance. We had to take a lot of change within OWC, we've talked about it over the last 12 months, and continue to make that change to adjust to the market. If you look at the headcount in OWC, we continue to reduce some of the headcounts while continuing to increase the revenues and also to continue delivery, but with a few less headcount. This makes us obviously a more robust business. AGR headcount has increased, obviously, with Ross Offshore. But with some changes in the boat and some of the few bits and pieces we decided to do here in Norway, there's a slight reduction in that headcount. But of course, a lot of that headcount is using freelancers. ABL continues to be strong. Of course, we have a lot of countries to deal with, and that headcount continues to increase, but our freelancer mix has decreased slightly. And if you look at the net effect with bringing Ross Offshore on board, Ross Offshore is all freelancer. So the net effect of using the freelancers as a percentage of headcount has come down more than what you see here because of the implementation of Ross Offshore. So we continue to make these adjustments, particularly in OWC, but continue to push where we can in the oil and gas space and continue to take control where we see some more turbulence in, say, the renewables space across here in Europe. We've also consolidated Hidromod -- sorry, not Hidromod, Hidromod and also Proper Marine in that headcount as well, which is why you see some increase across ABL and also in Longitude. But going on to how we see the market, the numbers don't always tell the story. It tells you how things have been going. During the quarter, we saw throughout the quarter an improvement in the way we see things, but there's a lot of turmoil out there. This is a typical example. We've been showing this graph now for the last few quarters. And every time we show it, it seems to show more to the right. But the reality is it is still increasing. The globe and the countries around the globe still say what they plan to do, but it is moving to the right. We see that in our win rate. Our win rate is actually quite strong, but we win and it shifts to the right. But you see a lot of activity across Asia Pacific. Right now in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, there's a lot of movement and a lot of offshore wind being developed. But at the same time, across here in Europe, you're seeing some new shoots and new buds coming through. But what you don't see is the activity yet until these projects kick off. But what we did say earlier on is that we will continue to try to move away from just being pure play in offshore wind. We've gone more into solar. We've gone more into hydro. We've gone more to onshore wind. And what this has meant is that over the last few quarters, since 2023, which was a strong year for us in offshore wind, we've now taken our percentage of offshore wind from 11 up to -- sorry, onshore facility and other non-related offshore wind from 11% to 19%. So that diversification will continue. It allows us to ride out these humps and bumps and troughs and make us a more robust business in the renewable space. But it's not only the renewables that is feeling this turmoil. Oil and gas is also feeling the turmoil between geopolitical situation, oil price, a lot of things going on outside, which has a knock-on effect to us. But actually, activity is good for us, whatever that activity may be. You've seen a decrease in the rigs under contract, but actually a rig not under contract needs to move. So there's activity for ABL Group. So this doesn't always tell the true story. But it is turmoil. We have rigs going into Saudi, coming out of Saudi, go to Thailand, go to Brazil. It is very, very -- a lot of turmoil going on at the moment. But we're still able to maintain our business and actually, within ABL, improve the overall revenues within ABL. But if you look at the E&P spending as well, this is all E&P spending. We are more focused on the offshore. And again, you're seeing turmoil. You see in Pemex, the situations in Mexico. And at the same time, you see what's going on in Saudi Arabia. But then you see the very strong growth down in Brazil and also the very strong growth in China. So what we are seeing is a lot of turmoil, east to west, north to south, which we have to be able to navigate through. But I have to say, with the structure that we have, with the organization that we have, with the reach that we have, we're able to do that. And as you see, during the quarter, we've had improvement throughout that quarter. So just to summarize, Q1 looked flat. In terms of our EBIT margin, it looked flat. In terms of revenue, it looked relatively flat, even though it was an increase year-on-year with the introduction of both Hidromod and Proper Marine and Ross Offshore in the equation. But saying that there was some reduction in the revenue with the boat pass-through being a little bit less during the winter months. But overall, we have to manage through this cycle. The EBIT of $3.1 million was flat as compared to Q4, but there was an improvement as we went through the quarter. The market outlook is still very turmoil. There's a lot of turmoil out there. Oil and gas space has got a lot of turmoil. The renewables space, has it bottomed out? Are we starting to see the shoots coming back through? But we still need to keep control of the business, continue to make those adjustments, continue to change our headcount, move people around and all the other activities that we can do, diversification into onshore and other related renewable activities. And that way, we ride that turmoil. And I have to say, as we've gone through the quarter, we've been able to see some positive results. We continue to maintain our position on cash. We continue to keep control of our cash. And as a consequence and through our own operations, we are going to declare through the AGM, subject to the AGM approval, our dividend of NOK 0.45. And as Stuart said, that shows the confidence that we have in our ability to continue to improve our operations and to take cash out of our operations. So I think that's a positive sign. And finally, as always, we continue to consolidate. We continue to look for opportunities to grow this organization. During any period of turmoil, there are always opportunities. And we do see those opportunities. Last year -- over the last 12 months, we have acquired 4 companies, and they're all being integrated and being successful. But we continue to look for more opportunity. We continue to look to see if there's other businesses out there that can be complementary to ABL Group in all parts of the group, whether or not be renewables or oil and gas or resourcing, and we want to continue to grow the organization. So on that point, we will stop. And if anyone has any questions either online or in the room, we're happy to take your questions.

I think we can start with a question online. You increased dividend and are active in M&A while operating income is decreasing. Is this prudent? Or are you that confident results will improve going forward even though there is increased uncertainty in many of the markets you operate in?

I think the fact that we've done it suggests and tells you that we are confident in our own business. We wanted to use our own cash to buy companies. We have the RCF facility behind us. So we do have that. But saying that, we are confident on our own ability to take cash out of our renewables space, out of the oil and gas space, our resourcing business. We want to continue that growth story. We're making changes. At the end of the day, if you see our EBIT in OWC, in particular, this is the third quarter of improvement, even in ABL from Q4 to Q1. And Q1 always gets hit by the usual Chinese New Year, and we have the back at the beginning of Easter that came through. We had the Eid vacations. A lot of holidays come through in Q1, but we still saw an improvement in our business, and we saw it as we went through the quarter. So the simple answer is we are confident in our ability to perform. We're confident in our ability to get more out of the industry that we are in. And as a consequence, we feel that it's the right decision to increase our dividend based on the operations that we have and the actions that we're taking. So we're confident we can do that even in this turmoil period. So yes.

Do we have some questions from the audience?

Your most recent acquisitions, they've been mostly oil and gas related. Do you see any kind of interesting M&A opportunities within renewables given the kind of market turmoil?

I mean there are oil and gas. Hidromod was actually not oil and gas. Hidromod was a new space for us. It was more about water management and water flow, and it's a little step out, which I think is good, continue to look for new opportunities. You say it's oil and gas, but actually Ross, 25% or more of Ross business is actually renewables. And they're resourcing into the renewables space, not only into the oil and gas space. So the opportunities are there. I have to say I've not seen personally a lot of renewable offshore wind companies coming to the market, but they are there. We've just not necessarily been actively looking at some of them. But there's a lot of interesting opportunity out there, not only in oil and gas.

And kind of over the past few months, we've seen the oil price decline by $10 a barrel, and we've also seen some E&Ps reduce their CapEx guidance for '25. Have you seen kind of any clear changes of behavior from your oil and gas clients?

This is -- where I am right now in Norway, it has to be one of the strangest places in the North Sea. You have the U.K. that has said we're going to go full-blown renewables and we're going to stop oil and gas. And you have Norway across the water that says, I think we'll give up in the renewable space, and we'll do oil and gas; in the same sea divided by an invisible line. And I think that's what the situation that we're in across the globe. You see that Brazil spending is superb, absolutely superb, very, very strong. You see China also very, very strong in what they're doing, and parts of Asia very strong. You're seeing a bit of weakness across Europe. It's a lot of change going on all over the place. So -- but actually, change brings opportunity. And what we're seeing -- I mean it hasn't affected -- our bidding is as strong as ever before. Our backlog is strong. Our pipeline is strong. So we've not seen that calming. However, it is there, and we need to be aware of it. We cannot be reckless. So I think we just need to monitor it, keep carefully what we have. Projects we're working on today happened 3 years ago. So what is happening today may affect us in 3 years' time. I think that's the point we need to keep an eye on so that we control what's going to happen in the future, not what's necessarily happening today. When you see the rig activity going on today, that's today's business. And whether or not you move a rig into Saudi or you move it out of Saudi, it's moving. But the spending that you're talking about, the E&P spending, that could happen in 3 years' time from today. But you have to just keep an eye on it and monitor it.

We have a couple of new questions online. In which segments do you see M&A opportunities?

I think in all segments. I mean, if you take -- so we class the segments of our 4 businesses: Longitude, ABL, OWC and AGR. There are M&A opportunities in all 4. I mean we have seen resourcing opportunities. We've seen oil and gas consulting opportunities. We're seeing digital opportunities. We're seeing consulting opportunities. We're seeing it in oil and gas. We're seeing it in renewables. We're seeing it in water management; actually, in all. What this has done is forced some of the smaller companies to consolidate. As an organization based in 45 countries, we're able to manage and ride some of this. Some of the smaller companies cannot do that. So you're seeing opportunities across all segments. I have personally seen less in the renewables space, but it's not to say they're not there. And the question is for us to find the right opportunity that makes sense to join ABL Group. Just because there's opportunities, it doesn't mean we should be reckless. We have a very, very good track record of acquiring companies, integrating companies and getting the best out of them. Proper Marine, just now excellent results in Q1. And we have Techconsult coming online on the 1st of April and so on. So opportunities are there, but don't be reckless with an opportunity. Some people are out there because there's problems. We don't want a problem.

On a pro forma basis, revenue and EBIT is down since last year. Will that trend continue in your flattish market outlook scenario?

So some of our revenues are affected by this boat. This is a really chunky business. The boat is on hire, it's not on hire. So it does affect that, and we talked about trying to show you the figures with and without the boat. I don't know where we've got to with that. So the boat is definitely a part of it. Our revenues, of course, came down in renewables space over the last 12 months. I think you've seen a steadying of the ship in that renewables space. But at the same time, ABL revenues came down as well. I'm actually -- it's nice to get more revenue. It's actually more nice to get more EBIT. It's nice to make more profit. So I think getting more revenues is great, getting more profit is better. And I think rather than us saying that whether or not the revenues will go up and down, we can win some very good jobs and revenues go up. The boat goes off hire and the revenues go down. For us, we've got to do is control our cost, control our headcount and get our EBIT up. That's the trick. We have got to get that EBIT back up. So the revenues are okay. They may go up and down over the quarters, hopefully up. But more importantly, we have to get that EBIT up. And that's more under our control because that's around cost.

And one last question here. Has the pricing of M&A targets come down due to all the uncertainties?

I would have to say yes. I mean, if you remember renewables a few years ago, what was it, multiples of 20, some ridiculous numbers. So they're definitely coming. You can see them coming down. But even in the oil and gas space, they're still coming down, too. Our own multiple is down. So you are seeing that. But like I said, it's just because as a company with a lower multiple, you shouldn't be reckless to buy it. So I think the multiples are down. I think the ability to buy a company at a lower price is there for us. But at the same time, just because it's cheap, it doesn't make it good. So yes, they are down, but it doesn't mean we should go off and buy them all because they're down. I think that's the point I want to make. We want to be careful to buy the right company that fits ABL Group, allows us to continue our growth, allows us to continue expansion in the 4 segments we are or maybe even add a new segment to the business. You never know if the right opportunity comes along. But just because the multiples are down, don't be reckless with M&A. We have a good track record, and we should stay there.

I think we have covered the questions online. Do we have some more from the audience?

So your margin now is kind of well below your mid-cycle guidance. Can you talk a bit about how -- what steps you can take to bring your margin up to that mid-cycle guidance?

Yes. So if you take each -- I mean I think each are performing quite okay. If you compared to before, they're an improvement. Longitude is lumpy, but you've seen a couple of very good quarters now from Longitude. So it's about OWC and ABL. OWC for the last 12 months has added nothing to our bottom line. If you look at the last 3 quarters, you are seeing an improvement. If I look at Q1, there is an improvement even through the quarter. So we need OWC to start adding EBIT to our bottom line. You cannot keep running at 0. So it has to add EBIT. ABL has had this turbulent period. And now there is more control coming. There are parts of ABL running absolutely superb in some parts, but there are some parts that have been struggling. U.S. is one. So we can get some of that control back under control. And some of that is the headcount, which is why you're seeing this reduction in the headcount across OWC. The revenues are not necessarily changed, but the EBIT has changed as we get that headcount under control. In ABL, we're trying to just now use more freelancer mix because if you can increase the freelancer mix and reduce your permanent headcount, you can control it better. So there are things to do. It's a bit like they call it turning a boat. You start that turn, it takes a long time to turn the boat. So you are seeing some of that happening now, you just don't see it in the number. The number doesn't always tell the story. It just shows you $3.1 million, but it doesn't tell the full story. But a lot of work has gone on behind it. And the fact that OWC is now the third quarter of improvement in what is still a rocky period is a good sign for us. And that is under the management's control. And it's for me and the management of ABL Group to get that cost under control to get our margin back up, and that is happening day by day. No more questions? No? Okay, then we'll leave it at that. Thank you very much, everyone, and we'll see you all again for Q2. Thank you.