Ascom Holding AG (ASCN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is your conference call operator. Welcome to the median analyst conference call and webcast of Ascom about the half year results 2023. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions in this conference call. As a reminder, to ask questions, you will have to dial in by phone, dial-in instructions for the Q&A will follow before the Q&A starts. The Ascom CEO, Nicolas Van den Abeele; and the Ascom CFO, Dominik Maurer will answer your questions. The conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Daniel Lack, Company Secretary of the Ascom Group.

Good morning also from my side. We will now start with our presentation for the H1 media conference of Ascom. Just one remark to the Q&A in order to avoid misunderstandings. You may ask either your questions via conference call as explained now by the operator, and then you can ask them directly or as an alternative, you may ask questions in written in the chat room of the webcast. I already got 2 questions down on the right, and we will then read them and answer these questions as well. Thank you for your understanding. And with this, we'll now hand over to our CEO, Nicolas Van den Abeele.

Very good morning to all of you as well. Let me start with giving you a brief update on the headline figures of ‘23 first half. I will then pass on the floor of the presentation to Dominik Maurer, our CFO. And I will come back in the second part of the presentation with a strategy update and also the guidance. So looking at the first half results, we made good progress on our financials. And as you see here on this slide, we achieved a net revenue growth of around 10% versus last year on constant currencies, which is a nice and a good step-up versus 2022, which was around 7% growth. Secondly, also in terms of orders, order intake sequentially versus second half of last year, a solid growth of around 10%, while a mild growth versus the first half of last year. The good information there is that we have a healthy order backlog with nice growth as well, which confirms our growth for the second half of the year. Thirdly, on EBITDA, a good and solid progression versus last year. You will recall we had a profit of CHF 1.7 million, adjusted CHF 6.9 million, while we posted for the first half of this year, 7.5% EBITDA or CHF 11.2 million. So a good progression on EBITDA, thanks to the growth, but also thanks to the cost efforts that we've made in Ascom. And last but not least, a solid and healthy cash flow generation. So I would say good progress on the financials, in line with our plan, our guidance. But today, Ascom is also a much more solid and healthy company than it was 1 or 2 years ago. Now if I go into a little bit more details into the headline figures, you can see on this slide, the revenue growth which was around 10.3% in constant currency, 4.5% in actual currency, bringing us to CHF 150 million revenue in the first half of this year. In terms of incoming orders, as I mentioned, 10% growth sequentially versus second half of last year, mild growth, slightly positive at constant currency versus the first half of last year. The good point to mention is the healthy book-to-bill ratio, which is positive and which is at 1.14, which means we built also backlog in the first half of this year. Good progression on EBITDA, as mentioned, with a year-on-year increase of CHF 9.5 million versus the bottom line figure, CHF 1.7 million. or almost CHF 4 million versus the adjusted figure. The good point to mention there as well is the solid progress in terms of gross margin, which also grew by 480 basis points versus last year, bringing us at 47.5%. And last but not least, a healthy cash flow generation, which we have been working on quite diligently in the first half of this year. Now if you look at our strategy, and I'm, in the meantime, 1.5 year on board with Ascom next to the progress on the financials. We're also making good progress on our strategic plan. And I must say that the different efforts that we're working on are starting to bear fruit. The first one, definitely, in terms of growth acceleration, which we mentioned, which is a key focus of the company to continue growing double digit. The second one, which is in terms of our strategy execution, evolving and transforming Ascom to become much more a solutions and also a software company. The third one is on operational excellence, where we are working on, let's say, reducing or lowering our breakeven point and working our cost and efficiency, and last but not least, sustainability, which is very high on our agenda. Now we're making good progress on this. the different efforts and the different projects are bearing fruit. But I will come back to each of these strategic pillars in the second part of the presentation after we have presented our financials. So I'll come back to each of these later on today. Now if we have a brief look at some of the nice wins and references that we had in the first half of 2023, and I name and list here a number of projects, but there's 2 important things I wanted to mention. One is our Ascom Healthcare platform, which we launched late 2022, is starting to gain traction. We see a good and positive momentum building in the market in each of our regions globally with some nice project wins but also a good and healthy funnel, which is building. So most of the projects wins you can see here are actually related to the full Ascom Healthcare platform, which is, in most of the case is actually a bundle of our different solutions, a bundle of nurse core with software or software with mobility, as you can see on this slide. The second point I wanted to mention on this slide is also that we see good progress in the U.S. in the numbers that we will share with you in a minute. The U.S. grew in the first half, its revenues by above 10%, which is a good step forward as well. But I think more importantly, some of the key wins tell more. And we won a few nice projects with large 8 IDNs, integrated delivery networks in U.S. and we're making step-by-step good progress there in gaining a better position in the North American market. So a couple of the references. As I mentioned, some nice new wins with large IDNs in the U.S., also with the Coast Guard. We're making good progress with Department of Defense and VA, which is the Veterans Association. Some nice order wins as well, and I will only mention 2 or 3 of them. One is in Germany with SP. You probably all know SP, which is a very large service and ICT company, and we have actually won a large project with them of around CHF 4 million to CHF 5 million. In the health care domain to jointly strengthen our position, respectively, also in the health care domain specifically here in Germany. The second one in France, where we won a major software project with the Ascom Healthcare platform, primarily Digistat, where we also deploy that in more than 10 hospitals in France in this year and next year. And then last but not least, in Sweden, the last opportunity on the list, which is a project on, CHF 6 million to CHF 7 million, so quite sizable in size with a very large hospital of 600 beds where we will upgrade and replace the existing current nurse call platform. So in a nutshell number of nice references. Again, 2 major points: One, the Ascom Healthcare Platform is gaining momentum. Secondly, good progress as well in the U.S. So with this, I will hand over the floor to Dominik to give us an update on the financials.

Thanks, Nicolas. A warm welcome from my side, too. Happy to be able to present this in front of you here from the webcast in bar. Let's now have a look on our key figures. Incoming orders with a decrease of 4% in actual rates, but 0.7% increase at constant currency when comparing it to the same period in 2022. When comparing H1 2023 to H2 2022, we grew 9.8% in actual rates and 11.6% at constant currency, which shows we are maintaining a strong momentum of higher growth. In addition, I would like to highlight, as mentioned by Nicolas, the book-to-bill ratio of 1.14, which we had in IO against net revenue. With this IO, we have once again a record order backlog of CHF 289.8 million, which has also driven a net backlog increase of CHF 21.3 million in 2023, which means a 7.6% increase on the H1 2020 to net backlog figures. Net revenue growth of 4% in actual rates and at constant currency, 10.3%, which means CHF 14.8 million more. Coming out of projects, products and services across all segments with the contribution from Acute Care plus 9.3%, enterprise plus 18.3%. Long-Term Care grew 10.5%. We have a solid EBITDA of CHF 11.2 million with 7.5% EBITDA margin in actual rates. At constant currency, EBITDA margin is 8%, which further illustrates our improved delivery of projects, products and services are seen in the higher gross margin, whilst maintaining good control of our functional costs. EBITDA in total increased by CHF 9.5 million compared to the reported numbers of last year. Free cash flow, an increase of CHF 19.3 million due to a higher profit. We had CHF 7.4 million more profit and an improved working capital where we have CHF 10.6 million more. The improved working capital comes from less trade receivables plus CHF 7.4 million increase in customer prepayments and other short-term liabilities, plus 9.6%, which was offset by an increase in inventory and minus CHF 6.4 million. In addition, we had less income tax benefits of CHF 1.8 million. Now finally, on the CapEx, just a slightly increase by CHF 0.6 million to now a CapEx of CHF 6.1 million. Let's have a look on incoming orders. Incoming orders increased by 0.7% at constant currency and minus 4% in actual rates when comparing H1 2023 versus H1 2022. As already said, we have maintained a very strong momentum with the IO and compared to H2 2022. The growth is 13.8% at constant currency and almost 10% in actual rates. Major Europe markets with a growth of 4% at constant currency, led by DACH, and Netherlands with growth of 22.5% and 11.3%, respectively. These positive growth rates were offset by a decrease in France, Spain and Nordics, which are both experiencing a slower ramp up as new orders shift to the latter half of 2023. A solid growth of 6.7% in U.S. and Canada as we continue to double down on our software growth. Growth was offset by both rest of the world and OEM with the latter experiencing a shifting in orders to H2. Rest of the World decrease, mainly driven by Belgium and Central Europe. For both markets, we won some very significant opportunities in 2022 that were not repeated in 2023 as those opportunities are not annual. Lower projects, products and services coming from the lower IO in France, Nordics and OEM. However, we expect to perform better in H2 due to shifting of some orders to H2. In addition, the announced price increase last year had a positive effect in IO 2022 as partners have placed some additional orders to balance it. Furthermore, we had an impact of slow approval of EU funds to local government impacting release of orders confirmed as already won. All these positive points result in an order backlog, which I will show you on the next page. Net backlog, new orders minus revenue increased by absolute of CHF 21.3 million in actual rates. Our backlog continues to increase, and we are running at 14% CAGR, and we grew 3.7% in actual rates and 7.8% at constant currency compared to H1 2022. Looking at our maintenance and support, the growth here was 16.9% in action rates and 20.3% at constant currencies. The growth was driven by a combination of software and hardware maintenance contracts. Now looking on Projects, Products & Services, a decrease of 5.5% in action rates and a small decrease of 0.9% at constant currencies. Slow orders from France and Spain, Nordics and OEM, as already said, impacting this area of the backlog. However, we expect to reverse that trend in H2 following the timing of orders, as already mentioned on the previous slide. Like in last year's half year press conference, 40% of the backlog will be converted in H2. Of course, we will increase the backlog in the future as we will work. In the meantime, to continue to win new orders and win new long-lasting service contracts to increase our backlog and to get stability for the future. Now let's look on our revenue growth. As already mentioned, we delivered a double-digit revenue growth of 10.3% at constant currency. Compared to H1 2022, revenue increased from CHF 143.8 million to CHF 158.6 million. A CHF 14.8 million growth, which means a 10.3% increase. However, Adverse FX variance of CHF 8.4 million with an effect of minus 5.8%, brought the reported growth in actual rates to CHF 6.4 million, which is a growth rate of 4.5%. Just to highlight to all of you, we have over 50% of our revenue based on euro and 30% based on dollar. Our Swiss volume is below 8%, but we report our numbers in Swiss franc. I will now present and explain the main drivers for the positive increase in local currency on the following revenue slides. The positive net revenue development of 10.3% at constant currency was driven by project products and services, which grew by 13.3% at constant currency, largely driven by markets such as U.S.A. and Canada and Middle East. A bounce back from the component shortage resulting in operations running at near normal course and speed. So we are back to normal. Maintenance and support growth of 3.3% at constant currency. Here, recurring software sales, our SMA part of the business with a growth of 33%, mainly driven by the U.S. market. Software maintenance now accounts for 20% of all maintenance and support revenues versus 16% in H1 2022. Now let's have a look on the regions, and let's see where the 10.3% growth on constant currency came from. I'm still not happy with the performance of the Netherlands. We still have a negative growth at constant currency of minus 0.9% as we still have customer readiness challenges resulting in project delays. On the other hand, U.S. and Canada, a strong growth of 10.4% at constant currency, which is almost 4x of the growth we had last year with 2.5% in H1. Underpinned by a very strong software sales and availability of nurse call devices, which allowed the completion of projects. Rest of the world, a strong growth of 16.8%. All markets, except Asia and Finland experienced some level of growth with EMEA carrying the largest chair. Comparing it to last year with 12.7% growth at constant currency, we were able to grow over 4% more in our Rest of the World markets. Though continues with an excellent performance with a growth of 27% compared to last year's 7% at constant currency in H1, underpinned here by mobility projects across the enterprise segment and long-term care projects. Nordics flat with prior year despite significant project closure delays. France and Spain, a growth of 27% compared to last year's result of 6% growth we had on the same time, and it's bouncing back after the component shortage here. OEM, slow ramp-up and normalization of Avaya's Chapter 11 situation is influencing the number here. U.K. a bounce back and normalization post component shortage, happy to see that we are back on a high-growth path with 20.3%. Now on the P&L, I would like to highlight some of the points. Starting with gross profit. We are back to a normalized level of profitability, as already mentioned by Nicolas of 47.5%, which is 4.8 points better than 2022. So a very good improvement. With the gross profit, we were able to offset the spot by costs with higher prices. Spot by costs were CHF 3.5 million and which is CHF 2 million less than 2022. But be aware, too, we had in the market some special prices following the spot buys which we will, of course, take back to the normal prices in the future, too. Total functional cost, marketing and sales, R&D and G&A is 43.3% of revenue compared to 44.8% in H1 2022. That is a 1.5 point decrease despite the increase in energy costs we had. This further highlights our management and diligence how and where we invest. Now looking at a little bit more details, marketing and sales. We invest in these functions to continue our focus and growth in the clinical space to maintain our momentum of IO and revenue growth in this area. Research and development costs fall as we focus on further optimization of processes to deliver a greater output, resulting in less rework and but fixing. General and administration costs increased due to higher utility costs, as already mentioned. Our group tax rate is around 28%. The tax rate was influenced by the country split where the profits have been recognized and tax losses in countries where the losses have not been fully activated. Nevertheless, a really, really good net profit and an improvement from minus CHF 2.3 million to now plus CHF 5.1 million. As said during the last press conference, we were not satisfied with our operating cash flow and with our net working capital. We focus to manage our cash flow and the result is really, really positive. Operating cash improved by CHF 19.9 million against H1 2022. As stated earlier, the improvement is driven by the high profit, improved working capital and the less income tax benefits. As already mentioned, too, CapEx remains at a similar level to 2022, which resulted in a better free cash flow of CHF 19.3 million. Dividends of CHF 7.2 million at the same level than last year. In addition, we have done the repayment of the CHF 10 million borrowings and are now again debt-free. The other part was the foreign currency translation difference to CHF 0.3 million. Finally, let's have a short look on our balance sheet and the main points here. Cash and cash equivalent lower by CHF 5.4 million, but net cash, cash minus borrowings improved by CHF 4.6 million. As already mentioned, borrowings fully repaid, resulting in no debt. Net working capital, same level as H1 2022, despite the higher revenue and higher inventory needed as supply is no longer working with just-in-time production. We had an increase in total assets, mainly driven by the increase in inventories [ and bit ] related to project delays. A small decline in equity ratio, but still at a strong level of 35.7%. To make a short summary out of the numbers, we had a strong development in IO followed once again with a record order backlog. A strong growth in revenue with 10.3% at constant currency, and therefore, with a solid EBITDA of CHF 11.2 million with 7.5% EBITDA margin in actual rates. All this together with our focus on working capital, resulting in a free cash flow increase of CHF 1.3 million. Thanks to all of you. And I would like to hand over back to Nicolas, who will show you our strategic growth pillars now and go in details, as he already mentioned at the beginning.

Thank you, Dominik. And so indeed, I would like to give you also a summary of the broader picture, the broader strategy that we're working on. And as Dominik outlined, I think we look back to a good progress in the first half of 2023. But obviously, there's much more behind that, that we're working on today. And that also will deliver the growth that we are committing and heavily working on for second half of this year and for 2024. So you will probably recall the 4 strategic pillars that we also announced during our March full year media conference, which is based on the growth acceleration, which is based on the strategy execution on operational excellence and on stepping up our sustainability efforts. So let me go and give you a brief update on each of these individually. First of all, in terms of growth acceleration and as Dominik outlined, we made good progress in further growing our top line and bring it from 7% last year to 10.3% at constant currency now in the first half of this year. And that's really the ambition to have that growth mindset, but deliver in each one of our regions on a solid double-digit growth today and also going forward. And we made good progress in most of our regions. We're not yet fully satisfied, as Dominik said, in some of our regions, some is linked to timing. But the good thing is that a few regions had very solid growth as was the case in Dar in France and in U.K. But also, we are pleased with the progress that we're making in the U.S., which is a confirmation of, let's say, the right part in terms of our strategy that we are working on. So U.S. also delivered more than 10% top line growth. Now next to the growth itself, we worked strongly on improving further our commercial strategy, our segmentation, our pricing, our value propositions in order to increase the relevance of success, the impact with our customers. But we also selectively invested more in sales and marketing in order to sustain the growth trajectory that we're also working on. So with some pockets of investments there in certain markets, in particular in the U.S. and a few other markets as well where we see growth and where we want to capture that, hence, adjusting our sales structure. Last but not least, our digital journey. We're also, as a company, we can make further progress, and we've worked on launching new web shops in order to make the digital journey smoother, easier, but also better for our customers. So that's in terms of the growth acceleration. The second pillar is on our strategy execution, and we launched at the end of last year, in October, November, our new Ascom Healthcare platform, which is a fully integrated platform, combining the different solutions that we have, software, mobility, nurse call. And we also see good and positive momentum building there with our customers. So our ambition is to become the enabling software platform in a hospital, which is a real-time clinical platform of action to which everything and everyone connects. That's our ambition, and we're working hard to make progress on that step by step. Now as I mentioned, the Ascom Healthcare platform, which is a real-time platform of action, real-time communication and collaboration platform for Healthcare, but also for enterprise. We do solve critical needs of our customers in terms of digitalization of their workflows of their work to make it easier and smoother in terms of providing better outcomes, be it for the caregiver as well as for the patient and increase the efficiency overall. So a good momentum building there in all of our markets, I would say. And especially if we look at the leading indicators, which is the funnel development, I think we're making the right steps to increase our impact in the market and also eventually order and revenue success going forward. Now there's one important point I would like to highlight here, which is a new addition, a new launch as part of the Ascom Healthcare platform, new launch, which is scheduled for August, a bit later this month. which is the new medical-grade smartphone, which is called the Mico4 that we will be launching now, which is a fully new smartphone with a lot of new features in terms of mission-critical applications for caregivers and hospitals with new scanning capabilities, emergency features, but also the latest amount of sensors and operating platform. So more to come from that in the weeks and months to come, we do expect already a quite positive uptake also in the second half of the year and especially in Q4 in terms of revenue. Now it is a new smartphone, as you can see with the visuals on this slide, with an upgraded scanning device in order to more smoothly and easily administer medications to our patients, registered the patients and the patient data whenever a nurse is doing its round with a panic button for safety of the caregivers, whenever that might be the case, but also with remote voice activation, fully integrated in the workflows of our Ascom Healthcare Platform. Now let me give you some more insights in a few of the customer wins, which I highlighted at the very beginning of the presentation today, one in the U.S., one in Germany, one in Finland on the next 3 slides. This is a very nice project win with a large IDN, integrated delivery network, in the U.S. comprising around 100 hospitals. It's a 2.5 million project win where we deliver a new nurse call system, also a new Ascom Healthcare Platform and basically provide also the capability of providing remote nurse assistance, what we call the virtual nurse. As there is a significant nurse shortage in the U.S., this solution helps to support basically the nurse while doing rounding in the hospital in the different wards to have also specialist nurse assistance remotely through a centralized virtual nurse. And it's a very nice application that we have developed which we have successfully won in this particular hospital chain in the U.S., but there's more extensions that we expect also in the near future. Now the second reference is a large project that we won in the health care domain in Germany with SPIE being a very large services and ICT company. It is a CHF 4.5 million project that we won for the next few years. In the health care domain, comprising the full solutions that we have, part of the Ascom Healthcare suit, and we will strengthen our forces, combine our forces together with SPIE to gain more traction as well in the German market, as you have seen in the very positive numbers, both in terms of orders but also in sales in the DACH region in the first half. Third reference in a different region, which is in Finland, a very nice project that we won as well where we replaced one of our major competitors. It's a nice project combining the nurse call, but also the software with Digistat, where we basically do medical device integration, collect all the patient data, run this as a separate platform and then integrated also seamlessly into the electronic medical report system, the EMRs of that particular hospital. It's an important win between CHF 2 million to CHF 3 million. It is in one of the major university hospital networks in Finland providing care to a region of close to million or 700,000 people. So a few reference wins to give you a glimpse of the positive momentum and the impact that we have on the market, and these are very nice customer wins we wanted to share. Moving to the third pillar of our strategy plan, which is linked to operational excellence. We've mentioned in our full year media conference at the beginning of the year that we launched a shape up program, which is a cost reduction program, an efficiency improvement program, and we are well on track on executing on that plan, which has a positive net contribution already in 2023, with a full run rate benefit as of 2024. So we are well on track there. We have implemented in the first half of the year the most of the cost actions that we envisioned, which will start bearing fruit also in the second half of this year. It is a product plan in terms of cost and efficiency improvement, the broader plan in the sense that it comprises a lot of more things this year, but also in the years to come to improve further the efficiency of Ascom in terms of platforms and platforms convergence in terms of better sales and sales enablement in terms of making our support better and more efficient in terms of more remote monitoring and access in terms of also streamlining further our internal processes. So this is a continuous effort, but with a big program in 2023, which is on track in terms of implementation. Last but not least, sustainability. We have stepped up our efforts in sustainability in '22 and in '23, making sure we have the right plans in place to reduce our impact carbon footprint impact as a company, but foremost and secondly, also making sure that we become even more an employer and partner of choice of our employees and of our customers. So a lot of things going on there. It is the right thing to do, but we have also stepped up our effort here. Now this brings me back to the broader transformation journey that we outlined in March, which comprises 3 chapters of our transformation journey, shape, expand and exceed shape, meaning building the right foundation, strengthening the foundations, focus to perform as a company, increasing our competitive capability, improving our cost while expanding, meaning accelerating our growth. And I think today, we are delivering well on Chapter 1 and delivering or starting to deliver on Chapter 2, which is expanding our growth. This is a journey for the next couple of years. We will come back to that as well at the close of the year in our full year's conference. With this, I would like to conclude the next few slides with our guidance where we are reconfirming our full year guidance for 2023, which consists of a revenue growth of around 10% and an EBITDA margin of around 11%. I think based on the numbers that we presented, based on where we are mid-tier, we are confident on reconfirming that we are well on track on delivering our power plan for the second half of the year and also deliver our growth as well as our EBITDA accretion. We also reconfirm today our midterm guidance, as you will recall, meter guidance, which is revenue growth of double digit over the next couple of years and also an annual improvement of our EBITDA margin of around 100 basis points. So we do reconfirm that, obviously, for '23, but also for the years to come. Now as a conclusion, I'm 1.5 years with Ascom today, and I am quite pleased with the progress that we have made over the first half of this year in bringing Ascom where we are and stepping up and improving our financials, but also laying the foundations for our strategic transformation and success for the future. So we are in a market which is resilient, which shows growth. We have a clear strategy out which is that we envision to become the leading and enabling platform, clinical platform for hospitals and for enterprise. And we have a clear growth strategy out there. So with this, I believe that we are making good progress on our strategic transformation. We are today a much more solid and healthy and resilient company than we were, and we obviously committed to bringing the next chapter of growth and results of Ascom in the quarters and months to come. With this, I would like to conclude the presentation and give the floor back to Daniel for the Q&A.

With this, ladies and gentlemen, we come to the Q&A session. We will start first with the questions we got via the chat room. I have here a couple of them. And then afterwards, you will have the opportunity to ask questions also via the conference call. First, a bundle of questions with regard to supply chain. There is a question from [indiscernible]. Can you give me an update concerning the situation with the supply chains? In what extent have you been able to work off your rather large order backlog? Maybe this is for Dominik.

Yes. And I think we combine the other supply question.

Then the second one from [ Lukas ], can you give more detail on spot price purchases due to supply chain problems? Why is this still the case, sorry, even if lower versus '22? And the third one from Joern Iffert from UBS, what is the benefit in Swiss francs when chip costs are fully normalizing in H2 '23 and '24 versus H1 '23.

So looking on spot by and the spot by on supply chain package, we've done with bort chips, which we built in are and still are building in, in our products. So we still have chips to be built in. That's the reason spot-buy will continue in the second half. The amount, as I said, in the first half, we had around 3.5 million spot wise. The amount in the second half will be substantially lower. Looking on the market and the things we've bought and if nothing is going to change, it's going to be substantially lower than what we had in the H1 compared to H2, what is going to happen. Looking on spot buys and what is the benefit and what is happening on the prices, as mentioned, we have lifted the prices following spot buys. And these prices, we have taken down. So there will not be a positive effect out due to the fact that spot buys are going fall away due to the fact that we will reduce the pricing on these special items where we have substantial spot buys in as we need to adjust the market price on that on these things, too. As I already said on the last year's full year media conference following the same story, there is an effect, but the effect is balanced out with price increases and following the cost we had. So I think I now answered all the 3 questions, if there's still something to be answered, please once again put it in the chat or ask it then directly.

Okay. Thank you, Dominik. Then about the general macroeconomics from [indiscernible]. Maybe this is for Nicolas. How strong do you experience the global economic slowdown everybody is talking about? Is your business also affected and in what extent?

So the answer is actually no. If we look at the orders in the first half, it is actually a strong sequential growth versus second half of last year. While a mild growth versus the first half, as Dominik actually explained in the first half of last year, we had a couple of very strong or big projects which came in the Nordics, but also in Belgium, which are not repeat orders. So there is a timing impact on certain projects in the first half of last year. So the answer is no. The second part of the answer is, if I look at some of our leading indicators, which is funnel and project development, that remains actually very strong across the different market segments in which we are, so we do not see there any slowdown for the time being. The third one is another explanation where we still have room to grow in each of our markets, meaning that our market share today is good, but there's potential to go further. So irrespective of the macro environment, I mean, we need to gain more market share in each of the regions in which we are present. Thank you.

Then more specific question to the first half year from Joern Iffert from UBS. Did you see a slowdown in order and sales trends end of H1 '23 versus beginning of the year?

No. We also did not see a slowdown there. And again, we look at the projects that we win, but also internally, we look at more leading indicators, which give a glimpse of, let's say, the order intake for the next 6 to 12 months. And also there, we don't see today really important signs of a slowdown with maybe one slight exception in OEM, where you've seen that over the first half of the year, we were down in OEM versus previous year, which is primarily linked to one of our partners, which is Avaya, which had some, let's say, turmoil due to recapitalization that they did at the end of last year. So the answer is no. We don't see today any strong sign of a slowdown. On the other hand, as I mentioned in my previous answer, there's still room to grow in each of our markets and regions.

Then we have another question for our CFO from Mr. [indiscernible] net working capital, what percentage of sales level do you target long term?

I'm not talking about long-term net working capital percentages. What is clear for me, just to highlight that out, the net working capital, looking on receivables, I'm still not satisfied on the receivables part, and we are working on that part to reduce our outstanding volumes there. Looking on inventory. Inventory, as mentioned, I believe, is going even more in the direction that it will go up due to the fact that you need to have things on stock that you're not catch the way everybody was catch during the supply shortage and COVID. So there the volume or the level is going to be higher than we have seen it in the past as you need to be prepared. And therefore, if you then balance it out with these things, it's going to be a positive effect and a negative effect. But in total, we are still looking forward to reduce our net working capital.

Thank you. Then another question from Joern Iffert from UBS to the restructuring program. What are the expected total restructuring costs for H1 '23 and full year '23? And what are the net savings incrementally benefiting from ‘24?

So 2 parts of the question. The first one, we do expect the ‘23 net positive savings, meaning net of restructuring costs, so it will already be contributed slightly to our results of 2023. We do not disclose the restructuring costs as I mean, things are also still going on. So that's the first part of the answer. The second part of the answer for 2024, we mentioned in the full year media conference in March, the quantum, the total amount of projected savings which is around CHF 10 million on a full written rate basis versus baseline 2021. So that's what we are working on. There's quite a number of actions underlying that in terms of reduction of headcount or streamlining, but also in further improvement of efficiency and processes. So it's not all headcount related. But that's basically the plan that we are working on. Obviously, we are in an inflationary environment, so we need to take that into consideration as well. But I think with the cost efforts that we have started to work on already last year, it puts us in a good position to contain our cost and to improve efficiency there as well. Now this is part of our guidance, our '23 guidance, but also our guidance going forward. So I just want to be clear on that as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Then we have another question from Mr. [ Beck ] regarding delayed projects. You mentioned subsidies not flowing fast enough, holding back projects, can you describe what projects and what countries depend on subsidies and how long can the delay be?

So there's 2 things. One is projects in general, and you can always have, for whatever reason, a shift in a certain project. And I mean, we see it in several regions, but we also saw that in previous years. So it's not unusual, but it hampered a bit the growth expectations in certain regions like the Netherlands, which Dominik mentioned in the presentation. So there were some timing issues there, which is unfortunate. I mean we would have loved to have booked more revenue even in the first half, but this will come second half. The second part on your question on subsidies. If you refer to the European Recovery and Resilience Fund, there's no delay, I would say there. I mean these projects are today going on and that's projects and budgets allocated for the next 3 years, I mean this year and the next 2 years in many European countries. But it depends on the local translation into specific plans, infrastructure, hospital care and then which type of care delivery projects. We've won a number of projects there in France, for example, in Italy as well, while there's still a timing there with the funds being officially granted and then the contract officially coming into place. So that's also the normal course of action. There's quite a number of projects in the pipeline there. I mean I referred to Italy, but the same in Spain and the same in some other European countries.

Thank you. This was all from the chat room. I hand over now to the operator. The operator will open the floor for additional questions via the conference call in case there are any. Please, operator, take over.

[Operator Instructions] We already have a first question coming from Walter Bamert, Zurcher Kantonalbank.

I have 2 questions, if I may. The first one is regarding the seasonality in margins. Typically, I think EBITDA margin in the second half is higher by 5 to 10 percentage points. And all the things you mentioned now indicate that we are rather at the higher end this year. So the excellence program, the BIC introduction, the delays in projects, better mix with more maintenance business and the OEM catching up in the second half. So is there any headwinds to margins in the second half? And the second one is regarding the order backlog, which you show on Slide 12. There, we see a lot of maintenance growing while this the project business is declining in the backlog. What does this mean for margins? Should we assume that due to the backlog mix, you will have drastically higher margins in the future?

Thank you, Walter, for the question. Let me take them one by one. So yes, there is a seasonality in our revenue and also P&L basically with second half of the year always being stronger than the first half. I will not make any statement on the percentage point increase. But if you look at last year, second half of last year, we were between 14% and 15% EBITDA on the second half. So our EBITDA profile is always much stronger in the second half than it is in the first half, and it will also be like this year. So there's no particular headwind, we are a bit cautious in the sense that, obviously, the macroeconomic environment is what it is. We've seen in the past and also last year that sudden things can happen. But I can tell you that we are quite confident on delivering our second half results, meaning the growth, both in top line, but also in EBITDA and meaning reconfirming basically our guidance, and we're well on track on delivering upon that. The second point with respect to the order backlog, we look at our order backlog, but we also look very actively at our leading indicators, which is basically funnel and funnel development. So I think there, unless there are some big changes happening in the macro environment, but we see a positive momentum. In terms of the mix, first of all, the orders, I think, if you compare it with first half of last year, there were some very large projects that we booked in the first half in certain countries like the Nordics, like also Belgium, which are non-repeat orders, which distorted a little bit the image of the first half of last year. There were also given the price increases that significant price increases that we introduced over the first half of last year, there was also an anticipation that we estimate in the orders of certain of our customers and partners prior to the price increase, basically. That's another thing that happens. Hence, the mild growth versus in orders this year versus the first half of this year, but a good growth versus the second half of this year. Now if you look at the mix, we don't think that this will, if we look at revenue going forward, change drastically the revenue mix between the maintenance or the project business going forward. So I think we have a good and healthy mix there. But Dominik, you might maybe comment more on that.

Yes, taking the backlog and in addition, the question you had. First of all, service and maintenance is foreseen to grow, to grow more due to the fact that we are looking forward to have long-lasting service contracts. So the countries are working on it that it's not just early renovated. We are looking forward to have longer running contracts on the support part to be able to have stability in the future, as mentioned in my explanations. And now to the second question of if there is going to be a margin effect, no, because we do not calculate service contracts different than other things we are doing. Therefore, it's neither going to be a positive nor a negative impact. It's part of the overall deal when we are doing deals and when we are looking on it. And as I said, we have some large one-off projects if you have a large project and then the contract of 5 years of that, this has an influence of IO. And there, it's coming into the backlog, and that's part of the IO explanation we explained with some special effects or bigger deals which we have won compared to H1 last year.

There are actually no further questions in queue. [Operator Instructions] Mr. Bamert?

So in the absence of other questions, I keep going until you stop me. So can you give us some color of how the OEM business is expected to develop in the second half and in the coming years? Is Avaya catching up and will lead to a decent year-end business there? Or is that on a lower basis now forever?

So the OEM business is an important component revenue wise for us, obviously. Now as you all know, Avaya actually went through a Chapter 11 procedure, but with a solid recapitalization. There has been late last year and first half this year, some turbulence there on their business, we see them picking up slightly again. On the other hand, the OEM business for us remains strong because irrespective of Avaya, we have several other partners that we are working with as well, some of which I can unfortunately not disclose. But we see that the market behind these partners actually remains solid, meaning we pick up the volume either through Avaya or through some of the other partners that we're working well as well. So on a full year basis, my expectation is that OEM will be probably slightly down versus what we had in previous years. And that's due to the effect of what we've seen with Avaya, but we do expect this to normalize again going forward.

And then regarding the U.S. business. Last year, it was mainly a nurse call activity. And this year, you mentioned that the driver was Acute Care. Is that in line with your strategy? Does that indicate there is a weakness in nurse calls? Or how is the mix there developing? And how would you have the mix like to change?

Yes. So it's a good question. So in the U.S., we're making actually progress on both, meaning the nurse core business, but also the software business and actually primarily the software business as we invested significantly in that mid last year by changing our business model in the U.S., which was primarily a partner-driven model for nurse call to next to that, a direct touch model for software. So it's a direct touch model where we have built a quite sizable team of key account managers and, let's say, medical sales consultants, which are developing that business. Now it takes a little bit of time before you generate a solid funnel before that funnel is converted into orders and then eventually revenue. And that's actually what we are starting to see right now in U.S. that we are building good traction, but starting to also see the first results in terms of revenue from that investment. So it's a combination of the 2, building a stronger presence again in nurse call, but especially ramping up our software business there, which is starting to give fruit.

No further questions, sir. Please go ahead.

In this case, I think I would like to conclude here the half year media conference of Ascom. Thank you very much for participating even during vacation season and looking forward to meeting you soon. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Thank you, and have a good day.