C-Rad AB (publ) (CRADB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Audio Gap] [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Cecilia de Leeuw; and CFO, Linda Frölén. Please go ahead.

Welcome to our Q3 presentation. We had a challenging quarter, but let me kick off by zooming out a bit. Let me briefly take you through C-RAD's long-term strategy and our progress for Q3. C-RAD is active in the field of radiation therapy, and approximately half of all cancer patients have radiation therapy as part of their treatment. And we continue to invest in our world-leading products. C-RAD is in a very strong position with all of our -- with our whole portfolio of interfacing all major Linac proton and CT vendors. This is our most extensive interoperability portfolio effort. C-RAD already today has a global reach, but we are constantly looking into market expansions, and we do this step by step. Growing our global presence is strengthening C-RAD's resilience. And in the third quarter, we continue to see the result of our enhanced focus in the less mature Southeast Asian markets. We are ramping up our investment in Latin America where we had a successful training in connection with ASTRO, the MedTech show ASTRO for the Latin American distributors. And why is that important? C-RAD sees an untapped potential in many markets, which we want to capture at the right time. This quarter, we had several U.S. retrofit wins on Varian LINACs. And it's important to us for 2 reasons: number one, addressing the Linacs that do not yet have surface-guided radiation therapy or SGRT and number two, strengthening our position in the U.S. market. And finally, C-RAD has a good financial stability. And for this quarter, we have displayed a solid profitability despite the headwinds in the EMEA region, while we, at the same time, are investing for growth. So let's take a look at our Q3 numbers. We ended the third quarter with an order intake of SEK 100 million a decline of 40% or 38% in constant currencies from an unusually strong Q3 '23. And clearly, this is below our expectations. The weak performance in EMEA could not be compensated by the strong performance in APAC nor Americas in the quarter. While we had 8 quarters with very strong revenue growth, we are in the third quarter, down 10% from the same quarter last year or 7% in constant currencies with a revenue of SEK 100 million. This is mainly driven by lower order intake and the timing of our backlog conversion. To be noted, however, is that this is our fifth consecutive quarter with over SEK 100 million in revenue. And as I just mentioned, we continue to build market resilience, preparing our sales readiness for selected emerging markets. The sales cycles in our business is long. So we must prepare ourselves well ahead of time. And despite the headwinds, we have a solid EBIT margin of 17%. The order backlog of SEK 735 million is on the same level as third quarter last year. So let's look into the regional performance in the quarter. As I already mentioned, EMEA had another challenging quarter. Order intake decreased 77% to SEK 23 million. It is a very tough comparison. And you might recall that we received 3 unusually large orders in Q3 last year. The main factor is the macroeconomic slowdown in Germany, and a continued slower decision-making. And this is, in fact, also true for service contract extensions. In EMEA, there have been less larger tenders for the first 3 quarters of the year. Middle East, an emerging market for us, is moving slower and decision-makings are taking longer than initially expected, impacted by the geopolitical situation. Revenue decreased 41% to SEK 32 million, affected by a lower order intake and a slower backlog conversion. Without the doubt, however, there is untapped potential in the advanced markets. There are also regional highlights with good performance in Central Eastern Europe also for this quarter. But as I already said, this is below our expectation. So what are we doing? We have increased our market activity with targeted sales campaigns, attending local trade shows, increasing marketing and increasing our activities towards the retrofit markets. In addition, we are proactively reaching out to existing customers to ensure that we are on top of their clinical training needs and staying close to our customers is beneficial to us as they are important references for new business opportunities. For Americas, we had good progress in the quarter. Order intake was up to 10% to SEK 28 million and revenue was declining 10% to SEK 23 million. Our long-term focus to strengthen our position in the U.S. market by increasing our focus on Varian installed base is starting to pay off. We have some good wins on Varian LINACs in the quarter. And Latin America is on the rise. Latin America is a market where the number of LINACs per million is only 2 versus the WHO recommendation of 4 Linacs per million inhabitants. And putting this into perspective, the number for the U.S. is 12. An indication of this potential is that after the closing of the quarter, we received a SEK 10 million order in Mexico. And lastly, the APAC region continued to perform well in the quarter. Order intake was up 11% to SEK 48 million and revenue increased 43% to SEK 45 million. And there is large unmet demand in Southeast Asia, and we see, in fact, more and more tenders, including SGRT from the start. Australia continues to invest in SGRT and our position in this advanced market is very strong. Japan is also contributing to the strong performance in the quarter. And last year, we got the first service contracts in China and had additional contracts this quarter. And with that, over to you, Linda, for a closer look at the financials.

Thank you, Cecilia. So regarding the Q3 financials, I will take you through some of the main events that have shaped our Q3 financials with main focus on gross margin, OpEx levels, EBIT margin and cash flow. Gross profit for the quarter was SEK 72.7 million compared to SEK 72 million a year ago. This corresponds to a margin of 73% versus 65% last year. The margin in the third quarter was positively affected by mix effects from a larger proportion than normal of proton orders that were delivered and settled during Q3, but were also affected by settlements regarding proton orders delivered during Q2. Looking at our main operating expenses. You see at the left-hand side of the chart that they are slightly increased year-on-year from SEK 51.7 million last year, to SEK 53.7 million in this quarter. The increase is mainly due to higher consultancy costs within central functions, which are partly offset due to lower bonus expenses connected to the lower order intake and revenue. At the right-hand side of the chart, we see that quarter-on-quarter OpEx is down from SEK 68 million in Q2 to SEK 53.7 million in this quarter. The decrease is related to lower personnel and consultancy costs due to summer holidays, but also lower bonus expenses. EBIT for the third quarter was SEK 17.4 million compared to SEK 18.9 million a year ago, and looking back a few quarters, we see improved earnings and a healthy EBIT margin paving way for investments for growth in the future. Cash at quarter end stood at SEK 118.7 million compared to SEK 142 million at the beginning of the quarter. The main driver behind the decrease in cash flow from working capital, which was negatively affected during the quarter was mainly due to increased receivables regarding delivered proton orders, which are settled only after completed final acceptance tests. And also note that C-RAD is a company with a strong balance sheet with no long-term debt. And with that, I will hand over back to Cecilia for a summary.

Thank you, Linda. And before moving into Q&A, let me summarize. With our leading portfolio, we are 100% committed to continue our fight against cancer. It has been a challenging quarter with macroeconomic headwinds and the good progress in APAC or Americas could this quarter not compensate for the slowdown in EMEA. It is still early days, and we see untapped potential, both in advanced and emerging markets. And the growing installed base of our products out there is an opportunity for future service contracts. We continuously improve our global reach and are working hard to ensure that our really strong offering is known to all clinics out there. And finally, our profitability and balance sheet is strong, which gives us the opportunity to both innovate in our product and expand into new markets. And with that, operator, we are now ready for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Christian Lee from Pareto Securities.

I was thinking about the gross margin, which has been at very high levels in 2 last quarters due to delivery of proton orders. How should we think about the gross margin in Q4? Do you have any orders left to deliver in the fourth quarter?

Christian, we do have proton orders in our order backlog. The timing of when they will be delivered is nothing that we have any information about right now. Typically, the gross margin -- the underlying gross margin will be around 73 -- sorry, 63% to 65%. But it will be boosted in the quarters where we have proton deliveries. Whether or not they will happen in Q4, it's too early to say.

Okay. And I was also thinking about your working capital, which has been tied up due to the delivered proton orders. When do you expect the acceptance test to be completed? And could -- would it be possible to disclose the amount that has been tied up?

The timing of the final acceptance test is different from customers to customers. So that is a bit difficult to say. And the amount that is tied up in this quarter, the working capital effect in this quarter is more or less fully explained by the proton orders. So without giving an exact number, that is how you should see it.

Okay. So could you give us some kind of indication if you expect the tied up working capital to be freed up in the fourth quarter already? Or should it -- should we expect that to happen in next year?

Regarding the proton orders, I cannot say that, but one of my main focuses as new CFO is, of course, to manage the balance sheet. .

The next question comes from [ Michael Jacobson ] from [indiscernible]

I have a question here. In the middle of September, you gave a private presentation at an Investor Day where upon your stock price crashed. It now seems likely that you gave those investors asymmetrical information so they could front run your other investors in selling first. Do you understand how inappropriate that would be?

So the information on the Pareto conference was nothing new. It was known information and whatever was picked up by the reporter and how that represented that needs to stand for him.

But you do understand that the optics of this is terrible for you?

As I said, the information was nothing new, and how this was picked up was -- or how this was presented or displayed in the heading by the reporter has to stand for him.

Yes. I mean I don't know what was said on that private meeting because it was a private presentation, but this is devastating for investor confidence. I just wanted you to know that.

[ Michael ], did you have more questions?

No. That was it for me.

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Thank you all for attending our Q3 presentation, and we are making a real difference to cancer patients around the world, and our fight against cancer continues. Thank you all very much.