Elmera Group ASA (ELMRA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome everyone to Elmera Group's Q1 Results Presentation. My name is Morten Opdal, Investor Relations at the company. Today's speakers will be CEO, Rolf Barmen; and CFO, Birte Strander, and we will conduct a Q&A session at the end of the presentation. We encourage you to submit your questions during the presentation as there is some delay on the broadcast. Please welcome the first speaker, Rolf Barmen.

Thank you, Morten. And again, welcome to the first quarterly presentation of Elmera Group. As described on our Capital Markets Day, the Board of Directors suggested for the AGM to change the name of Fjordkraft Holding to Elmera Group. As you can see from this slide, Slide #2, the group is a diversified business, consisting of significantly more than the electricity supplier Fjordkraft AS, and we expect the development of the various business units and brands in the portfolio to continue under the group's new name going forward. Slide 3, please. Group net revenue and EBIT adjusted are in line with trading update we announced in April, respectively, NOK 484 million, NOK 160 million. Also in line with trading update, the Business segment performed all-time high with an EBIT adjusted contribution of NOK 100 million. The group volume decreased by 20% year-on-year, mainly due to warmer weather, which has negatively affected all units operating in Norway. The customer outflow is decreasing, and we can confirm that the trend we announced on the Capital Market Day with a significant lower outflow in March compared to January and February also applies for April. The Board decided yesterday to initiate the share buyback program. The program will start today and is described in mandatory communication to the Stock Exchange. Finally, worth mentioning, a dividend of NOK 3.5 per share for 2021 is to be paid to eligible shareholders today. So far, the market development in first quarter is characterized by extremely high prices and dry and warm weather. The price level in Norway is currently determined by oil, in particular, the gas prices, in turn, affected by the war in Ukraine. Volatility still remains at a high level, affecting peak and offpeak prices. Volumes, as stated before, affected negatively by warmer weather than normal. Slide 5, please. The delivery figures were also announced in our trading updates. Number of electricity deliveries in the consumer segment decreased by 29,000 deliveries in quarter due to intense competition and termination of the price match service. As mentioned in our highlights section, we confirm that the outflow is [ retarding ] also in April. Volumes sold was 2.6 terawatt hours, a decrease of 29% from the first quarter 2021, primarily driven by mild weather and high elspot prices. The Business and the Nordic segment show a nice growth in deliveries. And as you can see on the lower chart, the volume is also down year-on-year in the Business segment caused by the temperatures. Slide 6, please. As I said before, Alliance volume is affected by the weather when it comes to volumes sold, but we have a stable number of Extended Alliance than there is in the quarter. Further, the current price sentiment we experienced -- due to the current price sentiment, we experienced strong customer demand for solar panel solutions and EV charging, which I will come back to in a few slides regarding upcoming operational activities. The number of mobile subscribers is down 6,000 this quarter, mainly due to loss of electricity customers. The MVNO platform migration is postponed to September and is vital not only to profitability, but also to maintain competitive value propositions. Slide 7. Some words on regulatory issues, and in particular, the proposals from the government, which now are being discussed. All of our brands in Norway are certified by Trygg Strømhandel, and Trygg Strømhandel already requires many of the suggested improvements. The requirements in the proposals not already being covered by Trygg Strømhandel are requirements that will level the playing field with regards to customer rights. Complying with these requirements will, from our perspective, enhance our value propositions. Our main message is that we are prepared, we support the proposals, and we certainly support the subsidizing protocol as a medium-term solution to ease the situation for households. In our discussions with politicians and authorities, we furthermore focus on our important role in the value chain with the following key messages. Number one, we operate our part in the value chain with billions of data transactions every year in the most efficient way, and we operate in the best functioning market in Europe. Number two, we innovate continuously to provide customers both in Consumer segments and as well as in the Business segment with energy optimizing solutions. We claim to be the player. We actually stopped the rollout of smart meters because we experienced that the hard board vital for communication with the smart meter was not fitted for its purpose. Thanks to our initiative, the malfunction was bought to order. So now all players in the marketplace can communicate with the smart meter as intended. Another example of our innovation is our application for monitoring consumption being available for several hundred thousand customers. This quarter, also available for customers of our Alliance partners. Number three, our customer service handles more than 1 million inquiries per year with industry-leading advice and no frills. And finally, number four, we offer products and services to all segments to both risk lovers and consumers in need for risk mitigating products to make sure that customers are offered suitable services to best prices available. So our role in the value chain is vital. We also spent time to discuss the fact that there seems to be a high deviation between political promises to post lower prices, and with experts and bureaucrats see possible to conduct. Left wing parties have used the opportunities to demand a higher degree of governmental involvement. This has created turmoil in the market. Experts and interest groups speaks well of implemented -- of the implemented power subsidizing protocol and how it enables redistribution over the government's super profit without any disturbance of the free markets. Our take is, as stated above, that the subsidizing protocol in place is the best medium-term solution for the households today. Okay, moving on to Slide 8. We have a lot of exciting ongoing and upcoming activities this quarter, and I want to share some of the most important with you. Firstly, we have launched a market campaign regarding smart charging of electrical vehicles. This will enable all customers, regardless of contract type, to access smart charging services. In fact, this means that also customers on fixed price contracts will have a discount when charging at night. Secondly, we further developed the product portfolio in the Consumer segment, especially when it comes to hedging products which will be also highly effective even when the governmental subsidizing protocol is in place. We also increased telemarketing efforts in the Business segment across the Norwegian brand. We have had a great success in growing the B2B segment in the Fjordkraft brand, and we are confident that we can replicate this also in our other brands. We are also implementing product management cross-border, and we are continuing our M&A prospecting, particularly in Sweden. In the new growth initiative, we rolled out our smart phone application to all our Alliance partners, which will further strengthen the value proposition both for the Extended Alliance concept, but also for our Alliance partners. Finally, we are happy to announce that we are increasing the capacity of the EV charging and solar panel sales teams due to strong customer demand, both from the Consumer segment as well as from the Business segment in this current high-price sentiments. So that's all for me for now. Birte, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Rolf. I will start with Page 11 and some comments on our net revenue and EBIT adjusted performance this quarter. On the group level, the net revenue was NOK 484 million. That is a reduction of 5% from last year. The Business segment is significantly positive and a contributor to the development, while the net revenue in the Consumer segment is down NOK 47 million year-on-year. The consumption volume in all of our reporting segments are significantly down year-on-year, and the decline in volume is around 20% and is mainly driven by mild temperatures. The EBIT adjusted level of NOK 160 million for the group is in line with the trading update we presented in April. It's down 25% year-on-year and it's driven by the development in both the Consumer and the Nordic segments. Last 12 months, EBIT adjusted margin is 32%, and that is down 5 percentage points from Q1 '21. Moving to Page 12 and some elaborating comments on the reporting segments, starting with the Consumer segment. The net revenue in the Consumer segment was NOK 265 million. That is a reduction of 15% year-on-year. The main driver is a 29% year-on-year decrease in volume and 22 percentage points of the decrease is driven by lower average consumption. The mild temperatures in the quarter is a significant driver, but also high output prices drives consumption volumes down through higher customer awareness. EBIT adjusted in the Consumer segment is NOK 65 million. And in the orange line, you can see the last 12 months EBIT adjusted margin, which now is 29%, and that is down 5 percentage points from Q1 last year. The business segment has an all-time high financial performance this quarter and is driven by very strong product margins. The net revenue level of NOK 161 million is up 17% year-on-year despite a volume reduction of 17% that is driven by the mild weather we had this quarter. EBIT adjusted in the Business segment is NOK 100 million, and that is up 11% year-on-year, and the LTM EBIT adjusted margin is 59%, up 1 percentage point from Q1 '21. Page 13 and also some comments on the Nordic and New Growth Initiatives segments. The net revenue in the Nordic segment was NOK 32 million. That is a reduction of 20% year-on-year, and it is driven by higher-than-normal peak-of-peak differences, both in Sweden and in Finland. But the segment is not affected of any under-hedging effects in this quarter. The quarter has been mild in all of the Nordic countries. EBIT adjusted in the segment is minus NOK 1 million. The New Growth Initiative segment has a net revenue of NOK 26 million. That's a year-on-year increase of 37%, driven by growth in number of mobile subscribers. The net revenue in the Alliance segment is stable year-on-year despite the decrease in volume of 16%. EBIT adjusted is minus NOK 3 million, and that is an improvement of NOK 4 million year-on-year. Moving to Page 14 and also some comments on the balance sheet. We had a net working capital of minus NOK 538 million. That is lower than normal as part of the February power purchase was paid for in April. And also please note that Q1 '21 numbers were inflated by Easter holiday at quarter end. The significant decrease in net working capital is the main driver for the development in our improved net cash position ending the quarter with net cash of NOK 117 million. We also have a very strong cash EBIT performance this quarter, in line with our EBIT adjusted level. My last page, Page 15, is our organic financial targets for 2022 to 2023, presented on the Capital Markets Day, the 6th of April. We have made no adjustments to our outlook and are confident in our group targets going forward. Now we will proceed with a Q&A session facilitated by Morten.

Okay. There are still no questions submitted. So I think we will wrap it up then. And thank you all for your attention, and we wish you all a nice day. Bye-bye.