Bechtle AG (BC8.DE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to our analyst conference on Bechtle AG's second quarter and first half of 2024. Thank you very much for your interest. We already communicated the most important key figures on business development in our ad hoc announcement on the 18th of July. And very few of you will probably remember that our last forecast reduction was actually 15 years ago. In 2009, we had to abandon our ambitious targets due to the financial crisis. And in 2024 too, it is only a challenging macroeconomic environment that has forced us to take this step. Against this background, we will today, despite the unchanged poor visibility, not only look back on Q2 but also shed some light on what we believe will characterize the second half of 2024 and the medium-term prospects for Bechtle. As usual, the content of the following presentation is divided into 4 main parts. We'll start with the most important economic figures of the second quarter and first half of the current financial year, 2024; followed by share price development; and some important strategic events beyond the figures as it were, which we're going to shed some light on. And at the end of my presentation, we'll then take a look at the most important assumptions, expectations and targets for economic development in the current financial year, but first, to the business development. To put things into perspective, let me make the following observations first. I would like to reiterate once again that we are not satisfied with our 2024 performance, so far; and the half year results do not meet our own expectations. However, the fact that this is only the second time in my 17 years at Bechtle that we have revised our forecast downwards also shows how exceptional the current circumstances are. Above all, it is extraordinary that we have almost completely lacked demand stimulus from the SMB sector, especially towards the end of the quarter. This situation was exacerbated by the fact that public sector clients in Germany have not yet reached their typical level of seasonal demand in existing framework agreements as a result of [ our debates ] in Germany. In addition, we were still running against very high year-on-year figures in Q2, perhaps more of a technical argument. These truly exceptional multiple challenges have left their mark on our results for the second quarter; above all, our top line. Business volume growth continued to lose momentum in Q2. With an increase of 0.9%, we have just made it into positive territory. In organic terms, this represents a slight decline of 1.6%. While the outlook was still good at the beginning of Q2, the all-important end of the quarter came as a particular disappointment. The announcement of elections in France at the beginning of June also led to a certain paralysis in IT investments in what is a very important core market for us. In Germany too, the economic sentiment deteriorated noticeably in June. Both the business climate index and GDP growth showed very weak values. Our second quarter thus reflected the current mood and macroeconomic situation in Europe. Against this backdrop, it is of little consolation that parts of our business are still performing comparatively well, such as our software business. As expected, our revenue lies below the business volume, and of course, you are more than familiar with the reason why. In accordance with IFRS 15, we are only allowed to report our software revenue in the amount of the margin. However, our software business continues to outperform our hardware business, which is not at all surprising given the reluctance to invest in the traditional client environment. This is why looking at revenue in isolation still distorts the picture. In the first half of the year, the gap between revenue and business volume trends was as much as 450 basis points; or 320 basis points in Q2. In organic terms, by the way, revenue declined by 4.8% in the second quarter, so ladies and gentlemen, it remains a curiosity of accounting that the part of the business that is closely linked to promising IT development is exactly the one that must be taken out of the equation, for the most part, when it comes to revenue growth. Let's now take a look at the development of our business at the level of segments and regions. In normal times, the strength of our business model is its great diversification in terms of service portfolio, customer groups and regional coverage of the main European markets. And this is why we're generally able to compensate for weaknesses in some areas with strengths in others. We're thus less dependent on individual sectors, regions or customer groups. The fact that the performance is relatively weak across all business segments can therefore be considered as further indications that we're talking about very fundamental challenges that are largely due to the macroeconomic environment in general. Incidentally, the slightly better trend for our international companies is largely driven by acquisitions. In organic terms, the regions are in fact rather similar. This brings us to our earnings performance and a closer look at EBIT. In Q2, EBIT was under considerable pressure, and you can see that in the chart. And there were 3 main reasons for that: one, our fixed costs and personnel costs in particular which are higher as a result of inflation. In order to compensate for these costs, we would have to report a minimum level of growth. However, as mentioned, we did not manage to do this in Q2. Top line growth is also extremely important when we look at vendor bonuses. That is our back-end margin. Many of these funds are still volume-driven. Last year, we had seen very strong growth in the first half of the year and had therefore achieved some of our targets by the end of Q2 already. This was not the case in 2024. And thirdly, as announced in our first quarter report, we're seeing a decline in other operating income. In previous quarters, higher growth in operating -- other operating income had helped us alleviate the cost pressure. Now to conclude the numbers section, let's take a look at something very positive, namely our cash flow. Cash flow from operating activities totaled EUR 141 trillion in the first half of the year. This is more than EUR 75 million higher than and thus more than double the amount of the previous year. In our long-term comparison, by June 30, we have just thus reached an all-time high. Even if it is true that the weak growth naturally relieves capital lockup, this development proves that lasting success -- or the lasting success of our working capital management activities which we established and expanded consistently over the last few years. Ladies and gentlemen, let us now come to our workforce. As of the 30th of June 2024, Bechtle had 15,306 employees. And that's 5.5% or 801 people more than in the same quarter of the previous year. Acquisitions brought 565 new colleagues onboard, accounting for around 70% of the total increase. In purely organic terms, head count grew by 1.6% only. If we compare the figures with the status of the 31st of March 2024, the increase was only 0.4%. In organic terms, we even saw a slight decline of 0.4% over this period. As I pointed out repeatedly, this development is the result of very deliberate entrepreneurial decisions. In times like ours, we're taking a measured approach to expanding our workforce and are instead focusing on increasing the efficiency of our internal business processes through digitalization and the use of AI. And with that, let us now turn to the performance of our share price. For a long time, it looked as if the current economic challenges would not affect the capital market. Just think of the highs reached by many indices over the past weeks and months. However, now more and more companies are being affected, publishing profit warnings or disappointing investors' expectations. This has led to a high level of nervousness and also to high volatility at stock exchanges. And we've seen this, this week too with a rapid drop in prices at the beginning of the week and a recovery in the following days even though that the prior highs have not been reached yet. And the Bechtle share too was not able to escape this trend. At the beginning of the year, the price of our share initially rose. And as of February, a sideways movement began. From April onwards, our share price fell again and then gradually dropped to its current level of around EUR 40. Overall, we lost around 10% of our market capitalization in the reporting year, although this means that we are still within the range of the MDAX. However, this development is naturally not satisfactory. Despite this, however, we consistently pursue our proven, transparent and reliable communication with the capital market, especially in turbulent times, so in view of the business development in the first half of the year and the outlook for the second half, there was no way around the ad hoc announcement on July 18. We also attribute the fact that the reaction was rather muted. Well, it's something we link to our open style of communication. As usual, let's now move on to what we consider to be the nonfinancial special events in the second quarter of 2024. With hindsight, we can assign these reports to 3 areas of activities, namely our international [ focus ]; our positioning in the field of artificial intelligence; and our sales successes, above all in connection with public sector customers. Let's start with an announcement that [ noticeably ] improves our market position in Italy. At the end of June, we acquired Magnetic Media Network in Italy. Founded in 1989, the IT solution provider with nearly 100 employees achieved revenues of just under EUR 70 million in the 2022, '23 fiscal year. With this acquisition, Bechtle is significantly strengthening its position in the Italian market. Bechtle direct Italy and media network serve large enterprise, SME and public sector customers alike. One important aspect of this acquisition is that, with MMN, Bechtle integrates another Apple authorized enterprise reseller. Bechtle already holds this partner status in Germany, which allows Bechtle to offer holistic and specialist solutions for enterprise customers based on the full range of iOS and Mac technologies. It Italy, by the way, MMN represents the first and currently 1 of just 2 IT companies granted this important status. Irrespective of the special aspects of this acquisition, we will continue to pursue our acquisition strategy in Europe. That is something I'd like to underpin right now. And the next announcement concerns our positioning in the field of artificial intelligence. Bechtle has been awarded a contract by the State of Baden-Württemberg to deliver data analytics and artificial intelligence services for its e-government projects. The ability to harvest, validate, analyze and interpret data from a variety of sources, paired with AI capabilities, are intended to help drive forward the ongoing digital transformation of public services and the government administration as a whole. The framework agreement has a volume of up to EUR 6 million. Admittedly, this is a rather modest figure. However, this success is not about the sheer volume but about the content. With various e-government initiatives, the state is focused on streamlining internal administrative processes, enhancing communications across administrative levels, modernizing registries and aligning with federal standards. And it's important, far beyond the State of Baden-Württemberg, for Bechtle to position itself visibly here. And this, of course, has been proven by this award. Let's stay with the public sector for a moment. Bechtle has once again been awarded the framework agreement for project management and independent IT consultation to drive digitization across the State of Lower Saxony. The agreement has a 2-year term plus the option to extend it twice each time for an additional year. Under this agreement, Bechtle will be providing a wide range of services from strategy consulting and program and project management, to providing assistance for related RFPs, along with architecture services for the configuration and expansion for secure, future-proof IT infrastructures. In addition to the state's administration, local authorities in Lower Saxony will also be able to benefit from the framework agreement. The last announcement also refers to a sales success with the public sector, one of the most impressive developments in the public sector, I would like to add at this point explicitly. The procurement office of Germany's Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community has concluded a framework agreement with Bechtle for the supply of up to 300,000 Apple devices across the entire federal administration. This means all federal agencies can source iPhones and iPads exclusively from Bechtle. The framework agreement also includes the supply of accessories and the provision of services related to the use of mobile devices. The contract is worth up to EUR 770 million and has been concluded until the end of 2027. This is the largest framework agreement that Bechtle has ever won in its history. Let's move on to the outlook, ladies and gentlemen. Well, against the record values over the past years, the outlook of Bechtle's development in the 2024 financial year has been clouded over, probably no surprise for most of you given the current economic situation. On the contrary, I'm happy to take up here what we were asked in part by analysts and investors after our ad hoc announcement: Is Bechtle perhaps still too optimistic? Well, yes, ladies and gentlemen. Despite the current tense situation, we are still optimistic that the situation will improve in the second half of the year step by step. However, we are well aware that our last forecast also implies an upturn and growth in the second half of the year. Despite lower visibility, our new forecast is, of course, based on estimates and assumptions that we consider realistic. So how exactly do we see the situation in the remaining 5 months? Well, in macroeconomic terms, we should not expect any significant positive impetus. However, the trends in the IT industry are still valid. We do not see a structural crisis in IT but a cyclical one. Regardless of the overall economic context, there are many growth areas that we at Bechtle can address in the context of the ongoing digital transformation and the increased use of AI. And beyond that, there are also the well-known special drivers in our sector: firstly, the end of support for Windows 10, which will push the replacement cycle sooner or later. Second, when it comes to cybersecurity, demand will continue to rise as a result of the NIS2 Directive. And with more than 500 experts, we are very well positioned in this field. And we also expect our business with public sector customers to provide more momentum in the future than we saw in the first half of the year. Would all this happen in the second half of this year? Well, probably not, but we are indeed hoping for first positive signs. So much, ladies and gentlemen, for our performance in the first half of the year and the outlook for the rest of financial year 2024. Thank you very much for your attention. And we are now happy to take your questions. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]