Energy One Limited (EOL.AX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the Energy One Limited Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] And also, we are about to record the meeting. [Operator Instructions] Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the Energy One Limited Financial Results Presentation for the Financial Year ending 30th of June 2023. My name is Shaun Ankers. I'm the group CEO. I'm joined by Guy Steel, Group CFO; and our Chairman, Andrew Bonwick is in the meeting as well. We've got a few slides to go through here. We're going to -- essentially going to have 3 parts to the meeting. One is we'll go through the financials. Two, we'll touch on the cyber incident that we've been made announcements over the last week or so. And lastly, we'll talk about the offer that's been made for the company. And so you'll have opportunities to ask questions along the way, but also if you've got several questions, maybe you can keep until the end, please, anyway. Thank you very much. Guy, could I have the first slide, please? So that's just obviously just a quick news and highlights for the company. As we talk about frequently in the past, the world is evolving towards a net 0 future carbon transition. And we intend to be the leading and most capable supplier of solutions to the wholesale energy market. And we've made great strides towards that, and we continue to maintain that as our vision. So we will do the financial slides in a minute, but obviously, just very quickly, recurring revenue is up 32% on the year past. ARR, annualized recurring revenue up 19%. I'd like to point out that, that's all-organic growth to $44 million, and underlying EBITDA, of course, is up 28%. We managed to pay down a considerable portion of debt during the year, and we will talk about that as well, signed several new contracts that we have announced, and that's showing up in the ARR, as you could see. We talked, released news about Shell earlier on, which is part of our ambition to be able to service global clients. And of course, Shell was a good indicator of our capability towards that. We have talked before, and I put it in the fore about an opportunity we have in Europe with a significant -- significantly sized opportunity. And that's not signed yet, but we're expecting to continue negotiations in the next weeks and months. The cyber attack, we all know about, is being managed. We're pleased to say we've seen no evidence that customer systems being affected, and we're continuing to monitor that. And of course, it's part of an ongoing investment in cybersecurity that manifested by ISO27001 project. And last year, as you know, attracted a nonbinding offer from a potential buyer, and we will talk about that in the presentation as well. Next slide, please, Guy. I'm going to hand over to Guy just take us through this slide. You're on mute.

Of course. Thanks, Shaun. I'll move through this -- once I get off mute, that is I'll move through this slide fairly quickly. So revenue obviously up close to 40% now. This is the first full year we've had the two acquisitions in terms of CQ Energy and Egssis, and they contributed just over $9 million of incremental revenue if you look at them being the first full year in the group. From a recurring revenue perspective, which is obviously measured it from June to June, and is a key measure of the stability of the earnings underpinning the growth. That was also likewise up 33% year-on-year -- annual recurring revenue -- sorry, annual recurring revenue is June to June and that's up 19%. So obviously, we had the acquired entities in June 2022. So that's effectively organic revenue in the -- whilst we're in the group went like-for-like [Audio Gap] sorry, I'm not sure how that happened. Just on the annual recurring revenue up 19%, as I stated, FX was worth about 3% of that, as people will know the exchange rates in particular, while the euro and GBP changed from June 2022 into June 2023, quite reasonably assisted, nonetheless, certainly 16% underlying increase, significant EBITDA likewise up 28%. And we should note that's a normalized or underlying EBITDA number, but it does include the Global Operations costs, so to speak. And you will note, we've talked to the Global Operations investment of $1.6 million, $1.3 million in OpEx, $300,000 CapEx below, and just noting that profit before tax would have been up 22% last year if the globalization investment had not have occurred. What people will also note is capitalization has increased year-on-year, but predominantly because of the acquisition of Egssis. However, as a percentage of revenue has decreased in line with CQ then predominantly services revenue and not capitalizing software. So I think at that point, Shaun, I might hand it back to you.

Thanks, Guy. Next slide then, please. Well, we have to do this one together. So obviously, this one just talks about the profit bridge is a bit more elaboration. Obviously, in a year where there's an acquired business EBITDA. And we've got some D&A attached to acquisitions, finance costs and the like. And of course, the Global Operations that Guy talked about. We can come back to that one in a detailed slide. It's more for the information. Thanks, Guy. Please goa head.

Yes, I was just going to say, Shaun just adding to that. These slides purely need to give people a feel for the costs that have shaped particularly the profit and loss number compared to 2022. Because obviously, quite a few moving pieces when you look at the acquisition D&A, obviously, a noncash item, the finance costs and the Global Operations investment.

Next slide, please, Guy. Do you want to just touch on this one as well, a bit more detail again?

Yes. So when you look at our results, we have normalized at a number of items. So acquisition costs relate to the acquisition of Egssis and also the STG proposal and the process that led to that proposal, the one-off acquisition value -- valuation fees we had at the half one results. So on an existing number. And then the -- within Europe, the restructuring of -- and Shaun can talk to that once I've run through the rest of the slide, but predominantly, the exiting of the French founders. We've noted the Global Operations number, and you can see the build of the cost in the second half of the year as the projects more mobilized. We have stated in our financial numbers as well that we expect that cost to be up, to be increased in the 2024 year compared to 2023. So I think at that point, I'm not sure Shaun whether you want to comment on any of the other items in there?

Well, obviously, as everyone knows, founders of our French business left during the year. So obviously, there was a restructuring attached there. That's not expected to be something that happens every year. So we just called that out as a normalization. Next slide, please, Guy.

From a balance sheet management perspective, we certainly had some feedback around the debt that's been at 2022, the debt that was in the business. And I think probably the point we really want to note on this slide is obviously the capital raise during the year, which was to strengthen the balance sheet. And that's seen -- obviously, the payment of the deferred consideration relating to the acquired businesses. So that's fully extinguished. And then a pay down -- a $4 million pay down of net debt. And by that, we mean debt less cash.

Okay. Next slide. So I might take that. Obviously, one of the things we've pointed out has been the revenue growth. This is just a slide we put up each time to sort of demonstrate that this is a pattern revenue growth, is a pattern connected to the company. There's a couple of other things that last year, we noted the project revenue was down, customers are sitting on the sidelines. We're obviously seeing a recovery in that. We include some CQ broker and advisory revenue in there as well because that's one-off, but projects are up, and the customers appear to be coming back to the market as we expect and anticipated that they would. Organic revenue -- ARR growth was 19%, 16% FX adjusted. That's all we talked about that. As I mentioned, we have signed some contracts recently since we last reported and a strong pipeline of projects, including the significant one. So what I mean by that is larger than typical. It's a prospect. Again, no guarantee of signature, but a prestigious client in the European environment that we hope to sign and calling it out because it is larger than what I would call a typically large customer and would have a good impact on our both -- our -- obviously, our revenue, but also on our credentials. And at the moment, this year, recurring revenue is 88% of total, which, of course, is a healthy ration of the revenue and then something pursuing recurring revenue is something that we do and have done for years. And so we continue to grow that. And that, of course, is the orange part of this graph. Any questions on this one before I move on? No? Okay. So EBITDA growth, obviously, improving again, we do, and we recognize that in the last few years, it's been difficult sometimes to understand.

Sorry, we have a question from Claude. Do you want to go ahead, Claude?

Look, I just on that point of the large contracted potentially prestigious contract. Just looking, I guess, the heuristics of it at past ASX companies that have signed a large prestigious contracting in a new jurisdiction. I mean, wouldn't you generally say that, that would be a bad time to consider selling shares in a company just before a potentially game-changing contract?

Well, if I may ask you to, can you table that question, please, Claude, until we come to their appropriate slide? I don't want to get on a sort of, a bit of a detoured from get done.

No, no. That's fine.

Thanks.

Yes.

So over the years, of course, we have made some -- had some one-offs as I understand it can be difficult sometimes to diagnose that, although we have tried to make it very clear what the normalizations were, but they usually involve acquisition costs. This is the first year we haven't had an acquisition during the year. So we've got some tail-end acquisition costs related to the prior year. And of course, as Guy pointed out, some of the acquisition costs were related this matter that Claude just talked about. And so -- but underlying EBITDA has been growing and EBITDA margin has been healthy as well. Although, again, in the last year, affected by globalization project, which we need to do to make the company sort of a more globally capable and attractive company for all customers. We're not meaning to normalize that, but it's just really just pointing out that whereas we recognize that the earnings are down, then we can explain why they're down. EBITDA margin, if we [ exclude ] it investment in globalization would be up at 30%. Thanks, Guy. Next slide, please. And the same thing is true about our earnings per share. So the company is profitable. It has been profitable for many years, and we've managed to grow earnings over that period. And of course, some decent sized investments in the recent time. We do expect that by FY '25, that globalization investment will go or revert to more of an OpEx type story rather than CapEx story. And that sort of -- to say FY '25 is another 18 months or so. Next slide, please. This is our SaaS metric slide just showing that the customers are sticky and continue to grow. As you can see, we're sort of up on all of these metrics, churn to return to what it was the prior year. As a percentage of revenue, and we put the calculation there for anyone is interested, net revenue retention of 107%, and LTV to CAC is up as well, and gross margins are 64%. Next slide, please. So I'm going to sort of -- about to summarize here. So project revenues, as I said, we're starting to see them return after a bit of upheaval and a couple of trading periods that we were waiting for it to come back. We've had some good organic revenue growth, especially in the second half of the year. We obviously managed to reduce our debt. I know obviously, that's an issue to be debated when there was a balance sheet side in here. The pipeline is interest is good, and we continue to see people coming to the trade shows and so on and anyone following on social media would have seen us at the trade shows, and they're all good. We've got a good opportunity globally. We think we're in a great shape to be one of the players globally going forward. And I was saying that we're not offering guidance this time largely because there's a few things that are moving around. And I have stressed that at this time, this contract that we talked about a minute ago, if it's going to be signed, will be signed in the first half. So we would like to just make sure we get a good handle on what that looks like before we consider reverting to a guidance situation. Next slide. So that's the financials. Is there any questions on the financials before I move to the cyber incident, please? Okay. Thanks. So yes, this is pretty much as we've released to the market. Obviously, it's unfortunate to say the least. The modern world, these things happening to a lot of people now. And unfortunately, we're not immune. We split to the facts of it, we confirm that our first activity was noticed on the 11th of August, and then we noticed it on the 18th of August, immediately went into overdrive to amend. We noticed that the -- we've done a considerable amount of investigations with our partners, CyberCX, who are a prestigious firm in this area and with whom we had a pre-existing arrangement which allow agreements. So that meant that when this happened, we had them on ready to go, so to speak, which they're able to react quickly, which is very comforting for us. And they've been able to guide us through it both forensically and in other matters. And of course, we've got very good legal counsel as well. Attacks on the corporate systems from what we can tell, there's no evidence of malicious activity on other systems on customer systems. Yes, some personal and corporate information has been compromised and analysis to what has been taken is underway, and we will be notifying the affected parties. The cyber incident is contained in such that the cyber attack is prevented now for further access to the system or network. So we need to finish our investigations and then move to remediations and the like, and we continue with our investigations, and we will update as we go.

So Claude, you had another question? Can someone read that out for me?

Yes, I'll read it out for you, Shaun. Look, I guess the two-part question, appreciating the ongoing disclosure. Just around the 11th of August date, how long does Energy One security logs go back? Is it a matter of there has been, for example, a fishing e-mail identified on the 11th of August, so you know it happened on the 11th of August. Or is it simply a matter that the 11th of August is the first confirms time, but it may have also been before then?

That is the first confirmed time, but I'm not sufficiently technical enough to be able to answer your questions. And also, the investigations are ongoing, Claude. So I apologize that I can't [indiscernible]. Let's just get through the -- that our experts get to the end and then there'll be more information forthcoming. Anyone else? Thank you very much.

Okay. Now I'll move to the next slide, which Guy, please, if you don't mind. So obviously, this is the question that Claude was talking about, and I'm sure there'll be some conversation about that. I'd like to take this as a panel with myself and the Chairman and the CFO, but just -- this just stipulates the facts on the PowerPoint here. I won't read them for you. Suffice to say that the company has received an offer from STG. It's a nonbinding indicative offer. It was after they had spent time looking at the firm and getting to know it a bit better. And so obviously, we -- the Board has granted a period of exclusivity. And there's going to be a fair amount of water to flow under the bridge before we get anywhere further on. But without that, without me talking too much about it, I'm sure there's some questions. And Claude, do you want to -- if you don't mind just reiterating your question?

Yes, sure. I'll rephrase it, given that we've got a panel to discuss it. I guess my main question or what I was really heading towards is there's obviously a disagreement between myself and some of the Board, who are of the view that they would support this offer, whereas I'm of the view that it would definitely go against my process to ever Shell shares in the company right when it was on the cusp of -- we're less than $200 million company with honest competent management trading on less than 4x ARR, like there's literally nothing else like that on the ASX. Most companies don't even get there in terms of management quality, we've got that. We've got business quality and it's a super low price. And we're about to potentially start getting those first bigger contracts, which are crucial because then they act as a proof to other big customers potentially. So my question for the panel is how are you thinking about -- how is your attitude towards those of us who do respectfully disagree with your view? And what -- I guess, what could -- it's a difficult situation because -- what is -- I should say that there's, like, say, 25% of the shareholder base or 30%, and which is possible based on the people I've talked to, who are opposed this deal. How do you see -- how do you manage your duty to those 30% who would be against the deal versus your obviously, your honestly held view that this represents something that you're interested in?

Well, Claude you for your question and the respectful way that it's been phrased, and yes, I do support your judgment that Shaun and Guy and the team have delivered a really good result. The Board has to look at a wide variety of factors as to what's in the best interest of all shareholders. And so some of the things that have weighed on that have been us watching a number of potential contracts come through, including the one that Shaun has referred to a couple of times. And it's pleasing to see that level of interest in the company projects recover from a fairly soft period of activity 12 months ago. We also have to keep in mind that the company's price softened horribly between early '22 and about a month ago when we had a period in which there was more sellers than buyers. And for quite a period of that time, the company's value was around $3. And the $5.85 is nearly twice that. And also, there are many things that can affect the future of the company, we think that the $5.85 offer, absent other offers values the company fairly and we would propose to recommend that shareholders accept that. Bear in mind as well that the next month or so a couple of months will provide independent experts. And we think of someone very, very credible to give shareholders a lot of comfort and other information that shareholders would need to make a vote on the scheme implementation booklet. So there is more water to flow under the bridge, Claude.

Thanks, Andrew for that answer. But just regarding the independent expert, are we able to get some reassurance that the Board will instruct that independent expert to consider extremely pertinent factors such as the fact that throughout 2022, there was a huge bear market in both tech stocks and small cap stocks, which is a double whammy for Energy One. And on top of that, the lows were experienced in June, which is typically when extremely clueless shareholders undertake tax loss selling. So I don't -- will they be -- I'm just concerned that too much weight would be given to the short-term share price situation that happened in June this year, which was already bouncing back strongly prior to this announcement of the takeover, which obviously, no problem with the Board exercising their honest judgment to try and do the right thing. Of course, if you do get a much higher offer to the current share price, I can totally understand why that would be something you would consider and nothing against the fact that we have a different view. But I guess my concern is that I believe there may be too much anchoring going on to this tax losses like we have a confluence of 3 factors, none of which reflects poorly on the quality of the Energy One business, none of which reflects poorly on the quality of Energy One management. The entirety of the reason that the share price is so low is attributable to a bear market in microcap stocks, a bear market in tech companies and tax loss selling that takes place by more on in June. And this is a problematic. I just really think that it would be a real pity, and I would not support any independent valuation that gave any reasonable way to low liquidity trading that occurred in June -- in June of this year. I do not believe it is any way reflective of the business quality, which has been developed by all of you, Vaughan Busby included, who took this company from a very different [ beast ] to something that Shaun has now led to arguably one of the highest quality small cap software companies on the entire ASX. If you look at pure holistics and the history of Energy One, I just am concerned that there would be -- I would not want wait to be put on the share price in a small period of time just prevailing prior to this offer when, in fact, if you focus that independent Energy report, you want that independent expert to be looking at what does Energy One have in common with Altium in 2013? What does Energy One have in common with Pro Medicus in 2013? What does Energy One have in common with WiseTech in 2015? If you look at the similarities between a company that has high recurring revenue, it's almost impossible to find honest competent aligned boards. As we know, you all own shares. And Shaun is immensely long serving. I don't think it matters that the share price went from $6 to $3, when if you take a longer-term view, the share price went from $0.20 to $2, that's what I see when I look at a $3 share price, I see a 10 bag, that's a 10 bagger. And so I just want to make sure that, I'm all for an independent expert report, but I just think incenting it would be, I believe, morally incorrect to have an independent expert directs their research towards the short-term share price when what matters and what they must direct their research to is, in fact, the extremely rare trades our company possesses, which is to do with high recurring revenue, business opportunity, tailwinds, renewable. You guys are the only software company on the ASX that benefits from renewable energy tailwinds. There is no other. Now there are other companies that benefit from renewable energy, but they don't possess that high recurring revenue situation we have. Now I appreciate that Mr. Ferrier may no longer wish -- I can understand a, probably see the $5.85 take...

I'm not going to talk about any individuals on the board.

That I apologize I withdraw that -- but if you take my point about the independent experts report I think it needs to look beyond the share price and look at the business itself and if you can you assure us that it will?

Yes, Claude, for sure. So firstly, my e-mail address is on the announcement, and I'll provide the names of these companies, and I'll provide directly to the independent valuer, anything that anybody mails me that they wish to have come to the attention of the independent value, right? Secondly, we have in mind, although we haven't approached anybody yet for legal reasons, to provide a very, very high-quality independent expert. And the good ones rely on the independent half as much as they do on the expert half, Claude. And thirdly, in my time in the market, which is not as long as some others, but I was an equity analyst in the early 1990s. Independent expert reports have independently come to the view that a price is not in the best interest of all shareholders, and the Board would absolutely breathe the independent to be independent. And if that conclusion came out, then that would change the Board's recommendation. We don't think that will happen. But if it did, that would change the Board's recommendation. So...

That answers my question.

And thank you for your comments about the quality of management too, Claude. I think Shaun and his team have done a fantastic job.

It's undeniable.

I remember $0.10. So this is -- they've done very well.

I wish I remembered $0.10.

I think sure it will. I saw another question there about what information STG had? As noted on the slide here, we engaged a Rothschild some time ago to manage a process for us to provide a robust set of information for companies to have a look at the value of your company, that provided with a variety of past and future-looking information. At summary level, basically, that would be necessary for them to come to a view of the company. Some of that will be used to provide to the independent expert. Some of it has become announceable in the last couple of months. Certainly, we don't have a good understanding of the quantum of revenues that might appear from -- that might be earned from this independent -- this new customer, but a lot of that will flow through into the independent expert.

Just going through the questions. There was a question on pipeline. Yes, that was part of the information provided. I can answer that. Probably, I think question that's definitely for Andrew or you, Shaun. Is does STG bring anything else to the table that otherwise can't get from being on the ASX?

Maybe I'll take that one, Andrew. Obviously, speaking now, I'm answering this question as someone who's an executive in the business, which is a slightly distinct answer from a board stack response. So we have ambitions to be a global leader and access to capital and so on to help us expand and grow and it is obviously key -- a key factor in any ambition for the firm and including things like access to networks and geographies that ordinarily you might not get access to. So the company, obviously, in the current environment, does have a constraint on raising capital and if we wanted to make an acquisition or something of that nature, yes, we can raise it, but it's obviously not as easy as one would like it to be. So clearly, one of the things that STG are able to do because they like any other firm of their type, they have access to this capital. And so that's obviously our main consideration that you'd all be familiar with, again, with the networks. And if you look through STG portfolio. They obviously have companies that may have symbiotic relationship -- relations with us and so on and so forth. So I think speaking as a businessperson access to the ability to grow the business is obviously is quite a consideration. And we feel like we've been talking about this for a while now, this first mover advantage that if we fail to capitalize on it. Then, of course, someone else might do that. So that's always in the back of the mind as well. And just again, answering that as a businessperson.

Very good. Next question, I think, is probably one for you, Andrew. And I think the information is contained largely in our announcement as well, were the Board unanimous on the price offered by STG, if not, why not? Is there anything you can add on this?

The Board recommended the provision of exclusivity to STG for the 3 weeks. I would note that, that's a fairly short period because STG done a bit of due diligence to this period, but it's a short exclusivity period, 2 weeks hard, 1 week soft. And Vaughan in his -- as he's completely entitled to has said that he doesn't support the offer at this price.

If there's no follow-up questions that the next one is, Shaun, once described the German contractors catching. One, I presume that's 1 [indiscernible] on a flywheel that suggests some understanding of Quantum. Can Shaun give some reference points, number of users, amount of data points that might help us frame the size?

Did I say that Herald? I don't understand that. Obviously, a significant account that needs to be called out, right. We've tried to [indiscernible] with respect, we're in negotiations with the customer and its commercial and confidence and those things that are happening within privileged information for them. So it's not really my place to disclose that. We're trying to give an indication that it is material and hopefully, that's enough for now. But this type of information, as Andrew said, will also go to the value add. So we will be able to sort of draw and draw out that kind of information as time goes by. And with the following wind, we should -- we hope to have them signed before -- in the first half, so we'll have to wait and see.

Andrew Tan's ask a question, really ARR 43.9, does this figure include the two large accounts, one in recent months in the 4 to 5 medium accounts? One, good question, Andrew. And actually, I have to take it on notice because some of the customers have project revenue that precedes the -- obviously, the implemented ARR. So happy to comment on that one.

Yes. Let me -- I can add some -- so Andrew, it's possible that a lot of it is in there, but it's a qualitative comment to the pipeline as we often try and give rather than accounting response. So if you wish, I can get the detail for you, but essentially, when I wrote that it was more for a narrative point of view than anything else.

Shaun, it's Dean here. I just had a follow-up question to that ARR it was disclosed, I think, in the trading update that the June ARR was 12x, the bill June revenue. So there was no...

Yes, that's correct.

Yes.

Yes, that's how its calculated.

Yes, that's on a calculation basis.

Would that not imply then that these 2 large contracts and 4 to 5 medium, which rather presumably in project phase or yet to start, then they would not be included in that ARR number?

Correct.

Yes. Okay.

Sorry, [ Dean ], that was meant to be a narrative like I didn't go back and reconcile whether they've gone into ARR, but Guy can do that for you.

Yes. I mean I would estimate that they're mainly in the ARR at June.

What I've said it is in recent times, I think it was the last -- since the last time we reported. So that means something like 6 months. So some of them will be in and some of them might -- if we signed them last week might be in, so.

Okay. Okay. Could I ask another question. I just wanted to drill down on a comment you made in your annual letter just about investing for growth will obviously come at the expense of short-term performance. So I just wanted to get some more color on that. Because the other comment is that there'll be a slight increase to the global spend. And because when I look at -- I suppose the starting point for recurring revenue is $5 million higher, the backlog of project work is higher. There is a weight of gross profit that will come through in response to that. So do we see operating leverage come in response to that dynamic?

Well, a company like this focuses on operating leverage as time goes by, does it not? So that's the truism. And the bigger you get, the better the leverage if you're doing it properly. But that comment again, was to just draw out. We've had comments in the past opinions put forth on the Internet at profits down. And is it just some million attempt to point out that they're down substantively because of investment as opposed to anything else.

Yes, yes. Because I guess I just wanted to understand the context of where will these EBITDA margins get to? And will we see what appears to be relatively significant operating leverage would come through because on a comparative basis, your global spend will be quite similar. And then if we're looking at, as I said, the 5 mill start point, could be an additional $8 million plus in gross profit. So where would other expenses come to -- come from that will sort of supposed to slow that down?

Well, obviously, as the company gets bigger, it requires more overhead as well as anything else. But of course, that's just a planning exercise. For instance, we're obviously beefing up our senior executive ranks and this sort of stuff that when you make the transition from a small business to a medium to large business, you need a lot more -- you need small horsepower. So that's in the overheads. Obviously, the gross margins, as you can see, have remained stable over the last few periods of time. The underlying gross margins for some aspects of the business like a high-margin part like SaaS, pure SaaS is very high, and that eventually flows through given the revenue to overall profitability. I can't be much more precise than that in terms of forecast because we're not in the forecasting business and haven't been ever, but we do ask people just to look at the track record of the firm and see what we've done in the past.

Yes.

I don't believe there's any other questions in the chat at the moment. Has anyone else got further questions. I think at that point, Shaun at...

One more. Hang on Andrew has got a question.

Andrew Tan's question is, does the large German potential customer have existing operations in Australia?

No.

No.

Thank you, everyone, for attending. It's a fantastic turnout. Thank you very much. It's good to see so much interest in our little firm. And thank you once again for your support over a number of years, and we look forward to continuing to grow the business. So regardless of what else happens.

Thank you all. Thanks for attending.

Thank you.