Eltel AB (publ) (ELTEL.ST) Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to this presentation of Eltel's Third Quarter Results. My name is Alexandra Karnlund. I am the Communications Director at Eltel. The results will be presented by our President and CEO, Hakan Dahlstrom; and our CFO, Tarja Leikas. After their presentations, we will open up for your questions. Throughout the presentation, you can submit questions either via the website or dial in via the phone conference and press pound key 5. With that, let's move to the next slide as I hand over the word to you, Hakan.

Thank you, Alexandra. Really good quarter. And first of all, maybe a good morning also from my side. Great to have you here. Yes, third quarter delivering according to our expectation on our strategic moves that we have taken and I will elaborate more on those in the end of this presentation today. But I would like also here in the beginning to say that we are delivering on the improved profitability, especially in Finland, but also in Norway and great to see Norway coming up on the right side of the 0. Broadening the customer base, we are doing that in all market, but especially of course in the new business areas. The new and adjacent market, here we see especially great development in Solar, but also Data Center is coming as a rapid growth area and I will elaborate a bit more on that in the end of today's presentation. But as you most likely have seen, we do have strong development in Eltel Finland where their growth engine is in Power. The quarter have had quite high sales activity to be at this time of the year. Q3 is normally not so strong when it comes to contracts. But during this third quarter, we have been able to have EUR 176 million in new contract value to be compared with EUR 136 million from last year. So a step up there. And what is also important to see here is that almost 24% of this TCV is actually from the new business areas. So important move taken there. We have some important large contract that we have during the quarter announced and I will just touch base on them here with first, the DayOne Data Center contract. Important for us of course. And together with that, we see also a new contract with Caruna. In the press release of this, it has a value of EUR 81 million and this is including the option years. We normally don't do that, but in this case it was sort of since we align all of this type of communication with our customers. Normally, we talk only about the committed time period and in this case, that would be roughly EUR 32 million for the first 4 years and that is the portion of this that we also have included in the TCV that we report here. So the EUR 81 million is not included. It is EUR 32 million that are this part of the EUR 176 million in the TCV. Also an important frame agreement with E.ON. We had 1 in the second quarter for you who remember that, but this is another one. Important step for the Power part of the Swedish business. Really great to see how Power in Sweden is stepping up quarter-by-quarter. And not least, I would like to highlight also the great work that our colleagues have done during the autumn here to restore critical infrastructure in all Nordic countries, but maybe especially in Norway this time since the storm Amy hit so bad the grid in Norway. So a lot of our colleagues there have been out, many during difficult circumstances, to restore this for the society so critical infrastructure. So really proud of all our colleagues to do this service and maintenance work. If we continue to look a bit more on the financials, I will say that the net sales is mixed during the quarter. We have somewhat growth in Sweden, very stable if we say so; Finland, Denmark, Germany and then a decline in Norway that it's double digit and we are not able to compensate fully for that. So we are down 1% organically meaning also local currency is 1.6% down. But overall, good growth, a lot of activity in Power and Communication. We see more and more initiative in public infra and here this is most visible for us in the Swedish market. Overall, Communication is more stable, I would say, in the Swedish market and a bit more decline in the other markets. So a mixed bag as you hear on the net sales. Profitability-wise, this is the ninth consecutive quarter when we improved adjusted EBIT and I'm of course happy for that and that we can keep this. This is extremely important for us that we every quarter are beating our own track record. So in absolute terms, still some way to go, absolutely. But I would claim that this quarter, the figure shows that our strategy is working and the implementation of the strategy is done in a good way. So a solid quarter. And by that, over to you, Tarja.

Thank you. And I'm pleased to present Eltel's results for the third quarter and for the period January-September. And I would say that we are proud to present this historic -- you didn't say historic, but I used the word historic because first time in a decade we have reached this level of profitability. In regards to net sales, Sweden continues to deliver growth. Finland and Denmark, Germany remain close to last year's levels despite a slow turn in Communication volumes. And in Norway, we see positive signs from the new customer wins. From CFO's perspective, it is particularly encouraging to see how our organization has remained committed to improving the profitability and that is in all of our markets. Our third quarter adjusted EBITA reached EUR 9.1 million, the highest quarterly result in a decade. This is a milestone, which reflects not only our strong performance in this quarter, but also the consistent progress we made throughout the year. The improvement is visible in all of our segments and it underscores the strength of our operations. We have been executing our current strategy now since the beginning of '23. The latest 9 quarters, we have delivered year-on-year adjusted EBITA improvement. At this point, we are delighted to report improvement and positive adjusted EBITA in all of our segments like I said. Compared to previous year's latest 12 months adjusted EBITA, we are close to EUR 11 million improvement. And then the segment results where we have Finland. Finland accounts now for 48% of our group operations. Here we delivered stable year-over-year performance. But beneath the stability, however, we saw a shift in dynamics. While Communication volumes softened, our Power experienced strong growth. Adjusted EBITA improved significantly up to 20% reaching now EUR 8.8 million. The result is driven by our continued focus on operational efficiency and cost discipline. This quarter, Finland is not only our largest, but also the most profitable segment. And then to Sweden, which represents 1/4 of our operations. Sweden had a solid quarter with net sales growing by 3%. This is a strong result especially given the high comparison base from last year's major project completions. The growth reflects the expansion of our customer base in public infra and telecommunications. Profitability, adjusted EBITA margin declined from last year's 4.2% to 1.8% and this largely due to the absence of last year's exceptional project closings. These projects delivered above average margins. Then Denmark, Germany, which together accounting for 14% of our operations. Here we saw net sales remaining flat again due to lower Communication volumes. However, Power continued to grow. Denmark, Germany has consistently contributed to the profitability. This quarter was more demanding and the profitability declined from last year's 4.9% to 3.9%. Nevertheless, January-September profitability improved notably. And then to Norway, which is contributing 12% to group operations. Here we see net sales declining by 12%. The growing revenues from the new customer wins are not yet enough to mitigate the declining volumes from traditional telecommunications. But we see clear signs of improvement and turnaround efforts gaining results. Notably, Norway delivered a positive adjusted EBITA for the first time in 2 years. This is a direct result of our focus on operational excellence and in strict cost control. While challenges remain, the development in customer acquisition and margin recovery are really encouraging. And then interestingly, the balance sheet. Our balance sheet reflects the refinancing we completed in June and, as a result, net debt now stands at EUR 172 million compared to last year's EUR 145 million. Leverage remains at 3.5x, which is consistent with last year. Here it is important to note that the refinancing reclassified the hybrid bond from equity to debt. On a comparable basis, leverage would have been 3x. We continue to see strong seasonal pattern in our operations and the third quarter typically consumes working capital. Net working capital remained firmly negative, now negative EUR 31 million compared to negative EUR 33.5 million last year. Our personnel count is now down more than 500. This is demonstrating our ongoing efforts to optimize our operations. And then it's time to remind us of the financial targets, which we keep unchanged. Group adjusted EBITA margin 5%, growth between 2% and 4%, leverage between 1.5x and 2.5x and then a dividend payout subject to leverage target. And as Hakan promised, he will now share the latest with the strategy execution.

Thank you, Tarja. Yes, let me first remind you of our strategy. Improved efficiency and profitability of the current business is of course the first and most important cornerstone in our strategy. But equally important is that we get a more robust business meaning that we need to broaden our customer base out from the classic telecom operations, out from the classic power and we do that and I will let you see a little bit more about that in next slide. What we have talked about as new and adjacent market such as renewable energy, Data Center and others are very important for us to have more even result during the different quarters during the year and we see part of that already now I would claim. So on the first bullet here, elaborate a little bit about that. We see the gross profit improved to almost EUR 28 million. And here of course it's great to see the adjusted EBITA, as Tarja just mentioned, reaching above EUR 9 million. And with the scope as we have in the company today, we have not been at that level before. Then of course we are almost 25 years old and had a completely different scope for 15, 10 years ago. But during the last 10 years, this is a new level for us and we are really happy to be there. Of course this doesn't mean that we have reached a point where we should be or where we are happy to be, but I would claim that we are taking important steps quarter-by-quarter. This is done by what we talk about as operational excellence and this is the daily discipline. The daily routine to improve the way we are planning our work, how we use the resources, how we manage our fleet and how we work together with our subcontractors. This is the core of our business to improve profit. And this, I would say, that we have a structured way of doing in all our country. Each segment have their own program, their own way of looking at this and we learn between units and between countries in a structured process to continuously improve this operational excellence. There is also of course a commercial side of this as we talk about as commercial excellence where we also improve the way how we can invoice our customers, how we could get paid and of course also price is an important component. And this is things that we have a broad commitment in the whole organization to continuously look at and have high up on the agenda. But to come to also a better situation and more stable business over longer time, we also need to broaden our customer base and we have talked about this for some time. And when we look at the net sales for this year, we can see that 15% of net sales comes from what we have identified and categorized as new customers. And for us, the definition is that when we launched this new strategy in January 2023, did we have revenue from this organization or not? And if we didn't have revenue at that time, but we have today, then we say that this is a new customer. In this new and adjacent market, we see the most rapid growth today within the area of Solar and here almost half of everything we do in new business today is connected to the Solar PV business. But what is happening as we speak is a rapid increase of the activity in the area of Data Center. And I will take the opportunity here in a second to elaborate a little bit more of that. But Data Center is just now our fastest-growing area especially in Finland. And when you look at the third quarter here, I would say that Finland is doing great during this third quarter. Yes, of course Norway is catching up, but from a low level. But when we look at all of these 3; how to improve the profitability, how to broaden the customer base and how to grow in this new and adjacent market; I would say that in the third quarter here Finland shows that they are in the lead here. And internally, of course we compete a bit internally, compare and here Finland has to be #1 in the third quarter. So really well done. On the right side, you can see and I have talked about this many times now, but to show you the development in new and adjacent business. The pipeline is a bit more than 50%, yes, signed contract. I think it's great to see that we are able to convert the pipeline into contract 24% in the quarter. And also net sales in the third quarter, 14% and here, as I say, Finland as a forerunner here have even then a larger portion than 14%. So compared to a year ago, we can see that the TCV -- the portion of the TCV is more than twice as much and the net sales have increased from 3% to 14% where we have almost flat top line. Yes, it was down 1%. But the 14% of net sales here in new business is to me a good and important milestone that we actually are able to convert this pipeline into contract and from contract to great business. Great business I say. With that, I mean that we have higher margin in this part of our business than what we have in the classic business and that was one of the most important reason that we from the beginning in the strategy said that let's address this new and adjacent market. We can grow and we could have better margin. So then I would like to open up a little bit about what I call now our fastest-growing area, the Data Center. And the good thing with the Data Center is that here we see a perfect match for the competence within Eltel. The Data Center needs our competence from the Power business, it needs our competence and skills people from the Communication business and they need both of them. And here we have a possibility to be a very important partner of choice for the Data Center owners or those who are building this type of Data Centers. And I would just like to give you a few specific example how we do this. And I would like to highlight that the 1 part that we can do in this is that we can be a bridge between an international player or a local player and the DSO where how to actually design the power part of this so that it fits that local DSO and it fits also the data center. And here is an example where we have a contract with Winthrop Technologies. They are one of Microsoft's contractor for 2 Finnish data center. And here we are helping them construction the site with Power and here due to that, we have a long experience and great knowledge about how the DSO in this area meaning Caruna, how they want to have the power solution. We have been able to help Winthrop find a solution and a more efficient power solution than what was originally planned for this project. So great contribution, great project and this is something we are doing just now. Another case is the XTX case. Here we had also the possibility to be the bridge between an international player and a local circumstances in the grid and also here there was a possibility to also include the Communication part. But great example how we, as a local player, can help international players to find the way to do a Data Center in the Nordic. The third example is a local player so it is Hyperco, a Finnish digital structure company, and this is a turnkey delivery of a 110-kilowatt substation, but also the cabling meaning the grid connection from the data center to the Fingrid substation. So this is a contract and a commitment with a value of EUR 16 million and we are working on this since the summer this year. And we have a project that will deliver this during next year. So quite short lead time to be a power project, but a good example of a Data Center Power solution for the local players. A few examples from Sweden and Norway where we work for hyperscalers on the service and installation agreement. This is a maintenance agreement, a frame agreement. But also in Norway where we have a similar contract, but we don't have the Power competence in Norway in the same way as we have in Finland. So here we are more on the Communications side. But in this example from Norway, we are able to do the so-called structured cabling and meaning that we help the Data Center to have the connectivity, but also a reliable fiber connection. The latest example in this area is the contract we just signed with DayOne. So this is a contract on the Power side with a value of EUR 38 million and it's a turnkey delivery meaning that we take responsibility from design, planning, establishment and then service. So a great example of how we can help international data center constructors to come to the Nordic. With that, it would conclude our presentation and I would hand over to you, Alexandra.

Thank you, Hakan. Thank you, Tarja. Let's then open up for questions. Let's start then with the phone conference.

The next question comes from Adrian Gilani from ABG Sundal Collier.

Just a first question on the positive margin development. It looks to have been largely driven by the gross margin and you mentioned several factors behind this, including efficiency improvements, mix shifting to new areas and some changes in the invoicing terms. Can you sort of expand on which of these has been the biggest driver of the margins so far?

Market-wise, it's Finland and Norway. But if you mean sort of what within our sort of operational excellence, I will claim that it's about increasing the utilization of our resources. So we optimize and adapt the organization when it comes to the amount of resources and how we plan the resources for the order book as we have at hand. And this is, as you understand, always a lot of changes here. Some contract is ending, we win some new and this is an ongoing work that we try to be very, very prudent with. So as we speak, we are adjusting the organization to optimize utilization, be better in the planning and I would say that is what has driven the gross profit for us.

I would actually add the kind of learning from the peers. We are quite prudently driving the learning organization from Finland to Norway, Norway to Denmark and so forth.

Yes. It's an important part. It's also a little bit harder to see the visibility in the numbers. But I think we can see on our internal KPI like utilization, cost of fleet, the amount of time we spend on planning and so we can see that this is helping us.

Understood. And if we look forward instead from where you are currently on sort of a rolling 12-month basis on the margin until your 5% target, is that doable with the current organizational size or will you have to sort of size up again when the market improves? What's the journey to 5% from here?

I would say that the business mix is changing for us. You see that in the new and adjacent business, we have less people involved. So we have, what I would say, a lighter organization and so it's not so that the 500 people that we are less today than a year ago, it's not all about efficiency. It's also about the change in the business mix. And I predict that we will see further increase of the portion of new and adjacent business. That means that that part of the business have less people involved, higher portion of material and that will have an impact on the gross margin. So even though we are now coming into an area where the gross profit might not increase as fast as we have seen in the past, the bottom line will most likely do that due to that the new and adjacent business have much less need of overhead. So in the full P&L, we see that this is giving us a better profit. But it will be sort of a continuous fine-tuning when we see that the shift in business mix and it will, as I say I see it, it will continue.

Okay. That's very helpful. And then on the new business areas, you mentioned the high growth rates in Data Center. Can you give some absolute numbers or percent of sales number on how big of a part that is today for you?

I can say that the Solar business is today roughly half of what we say is new business and the Data Center is 1/4 give and take.

Okay. And then specifically at the segment level, can you give us a status update on Norway specifically? I mean it's good to see them profitable again. But are there more sort of structural changes to make in Norway and more cost cutting or from here, is it mainly working with commercial terms and mix effects and things like that?

Yes. I would say that we are having the restructuring behind us. That was done in the second quarter. We of course always have to work with performance management, but that's something else. Now it's about sales and expanding into new customer and adjacent business. So it's more about the commercial side than on the cost side or operational excellence side. So we have a very high attention in Norway on all different type of possibility in the market.

Yes. Okay. Okay. And then a final one more on the financials. You saw or have seen quite a bit of working capital buildup so far this year and net debt coming up. Should we expect a larger release and net debt instead coming down into Q4?

I didn't quite catch. I was explaining the refinancing impact to the net debt. But were you after something else there, Adrian?

I mean even accounting for the hybrid bond repurchase, you still have seen I mean cash flow hasn't improved along with the earnings due to working capital building up. And I was wondering if this is going to reverse in Q4?

I would say that the net working capital generation, that is due to the business mix that we are having. That is related to that. We have quite large ongoing projects that are consuming working capital, but I don't see anything exceptional there. So our progress and good net working capital management continues. I don't see changes there.

Okay. So just a quick follow-up. Am I to understand that the new business areas given that they are more project-based also tie up a bit more working capital.

I think that's a timing question. Many of those have also advanced payment. So it's a little bit if we have many new, then this can be very good for us meaning a lot of advance payment. And then if we are in the end of the project, if you have many projects that soon will end, it would sort of tie up capital.

But if I just give some light in there that when we are reviewing the tenders, we don't give any excuses to new business. So the requirement for the cash flow is the same for the new. So like Hakan mentioned, then it's about the timing.

Is that what we have on the phone conference? Yes. All right. Let's turn to our web question and there are quite a few so I'll try to be brief. Okay. First one comes from Christoffer Jennel at Inderes. Looking at the committed and total order book at the end of Q3, are you satisfied with its current composition across countries, business areas, customer segments as you head into 2026?

Yes. The order book is somewhat larger than a year ago not significant, but somewhat. And I'm happy to see that the portion that is hard order book is somewhat larger. The soft order book is somewhat larger than a year ago. The mix I think that is according to our strategy. So I'm happy for that. Then in absolute term, I'm never happy when the top line is down. So of course it's important for us to be able to win contracts so we also can push the top line upwards. It's not okay with a decline on top line.

And do you feel that the existing backlog and frame agreements provide a good platform for continued margin improvement?

Yes, we believe so.

Good. Sweet and short. And what are the main -- also from Inderes. What are the main reasons for the lower margins in Denmark and Germany and in Sweden during the quarter? Is it timing related due to shift in business mix or anything structural?

If we start with Sweden. A year ago, we had a very successful project endings in some smart grid projects. I think we actually on this call talked about that we expected those to be up to the end of the year or maybe even into Easter and we were able to finalize those much earlier last year and that boosted the bottom line of the Swedish operation. Of course also contributed to top line. The good thing with Sweden today is to see that all parts of Sweden is contributing and the communication part of Sweden is having growth and they do much better on profitability. So I think that's the easy part. In Denmark, Germany, we have a few contract that has ended recently that had a very strong and good margin that we have benefit for quite some time and now those are over and replaced with new contracts that are less profitable for us. We have to work with those to optimize the way we are delivering and it takes us some time to get up to the same efficiency as we had in the old contract. There's also 1 large contract where we have a ramp-up, I think we could say ramp-up issues, that goes slower than we expected and it takes a bit of time.

I would add that the same ramp-up applies to Sweden. We have some contracts that we are ramping up, which are not yet generating the way the top line. So in Sweden, it is also a timing issue.

Okay. Tarja, we already touched upon this, but the net debt to EBITDA increased further during the quarter and it's again above your target range. Could you outline your plan and timeline for bringing leverage back within target?

Yes. I would say we don't give the forward-looking statements, but the work continues.

Okay. Cash flow. Operating cash flow was quite soft this quarter despite the seasonal pattern and when considering the stronger profitability, year-to-date cash flow and free cash flow are still below last year. Could you elaborate on the main drivers behind the higher working capital tie-up? Is this primarily project phasing, customer payment timing or something else? Are you seeing any delays?

Yes. It is like a project phasing so it is the key component there.

Okay. Yes. We did talk about Norway, but let's have this question still from Christoffer. Norway delivered positive margins in Q3. Congratulations. How confident are you that this profitability can be sustained in the coming quarters given that the volumes in the traditional Communication business remain soft?

We are quite confident that we are out of the woods, but of course we are not on a level where we are happy. The work also in Norway continue, yes. But I think we have what it takes and we have now been able to move the attention and focus from restructuring and cost side now to be more to the front meaning address the market, be more active on the sales. So I'm really happy for all the activities that the Norwegian management team and the whole team in Norway have done. And now it's time to sort of focus on the sales and make sure that we have the contract that we need to grow the business also in Norway.

Yes. I would add that Norway thumbs up, I'm really proud of the team there. They are working well.

Markku Moilanen from Nordea has a question. Starts by saying congratulations on reaching record high profitability. However, going forward, how will you ensure that you continue on the same path? How you with the higher -- keeping the profitability high?

Yes, yes. I mean this is what we talk about as structured improvement of the profitability with the 2- dimension, operational excellence and commercial excellence. And this is, as I see it, something that we have now done for some time in a structured and good way, but there is more to be done. We are not done. This is something we always will have to pay attention to. But of course we know what we should do and we are on it. We will continue on this.

I'm saying that we are happy of the development, but we are not stopping.

Good. Then Christoffer threw in a last minute question here. Net financial expenses increased to EUR 4.8 million from minus EUR 3.7 million last year. Were there any one-off items this quarter?

In the financing? Refinancing, most of it actually materialized in the third quarter.

The cost of doing that process.

All right. All right. And so the follow-up question was is this level a good run rate to use going forward given the new capital structure and interest environment?

I would say it's too early to say. This is something that it's so fresh that I don't have the proper analytical answer to that. But the third quarter, obviously the financing expenses are way more higher than they would normally be.

Yes. All right. And that was the final question. So we will conclude the call. The full report as well as a recording of this webcast will be available on our website shortly. We will present our quarter 4 report on February 13 and hopefully, you will join us then as well. Feel free to reach out to us in the meantime if you have any further questions. Thank you, Hakan and Tarja. And thank you all for participating in today's call.