Green Landscaping Group AB (publ) (GREEN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. Welcome to the Green Landscaping Group Q2 2022 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Johan Nordstrom, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you and welcome, everyone, to this telephone conference. As mentioned, my name is Johan Nordstrom, and together with me here today is our CFO, Carl-Fredrik Meijer. So let's begin. Page 2, please. And as can be seen, we continued to deliver very strong performance despite that we have inflation and we have had some logistical challenges. And to us, this really proves that we have a very robust business model and we have a well-suited strategy. So in terms of numbers, we can see that the sales grew by 44% to SEK 1.1 billion in the quarter, and we also had an organic growth of roughly 5%. I will come back to that one a little bit later on. EBITA came in at SEK 92 million, and that is an improvement of 41%. So I'm kind of happy to see that we have leveled out, so to say, to some extent, on an 8% margin. And given the, I would say, the environment we have had in the quarter, I'm kind of happy with that number. EBITA for the last 12 months is 8.1%, and that is pretty much according to expectations. Earnings per share came in at SEK 0.8 per share, somewhat weak, I would say, but that is something that will remediated during the remainder of the year. And cash flow was also a bit low in the period. And of course, we have to check what's going on there. And in terms of accounts receivable, the majority has been settled after the reporting period. So that is of limited concern to us. In terms of leverage, we are at 2.4, and that's pretty much according to plan given that we were active in the acquisitions and we are making money. So being at 2.4 is pretty much according to plan. And we have made one -- one group -- one company had joined the group in the quarter, and that is Aktiv Veidrift in Norway. And I would mention a bit more about that company later on. Looking to the right on the picture here, you can see that for the last 12 months that our sales is now up to SEK 3.7 billion. So it's a quite -- we're getting a quite big company. EBITA are at a healthy SEK 305 million. And that means, as I mentioned, we had a profit margin or EBITA margin of 8.1%. And one number that also sticks out a bit in this report is order backlog that has grown to, I would say, a very healthy SEK 6.6 billion. So just to sum up the number here, we're kind of happy with the performance. We have had our challenges, but I believe that the CEOs out there in our subsidiaries have done an excellent work on keeping track on the profitability and also in terms of the revenue. So all in all, I'm happy with that one. So next page, please. Just taking a step back and looking upon the journey we are on. And here, we have the 3-year development. And again, as you can seen, we have a very strong development where we are growing by roughly 30% in terms of sales. And also in EBITA, we are on a very strong performance that follows the revenue increase. So all in all, when we look upon where we are, I'm kind of happy with where we are. And we are, I would say, on a fantastic journey from the financial perspective but also in terms of the companies that are coming into the group. Next slide, please. When we talk about the group, the majority or the mainstay of the group comes from acquisitions, that is new companies coming in. And as we've mentioned numerous times, being in this industry, we are in -- adding companies with long customer relationships to the group is, from a strategic perspective, very healthy. It's a big market out there. And growing organically is kind of easy. You just have to lower the bidding price, and you're being awarded for it. As a group, we have been focusing on the profit margins and increasing the profit margins in the weaker companies within the group. And also, we have claimed that growing in line with the market, that is something that we are looking for. So having an organic growth of roughly 4%, could go up to 7%. But in that neighborhood, that is what we consider being a very healthy growth -- organic growth number. So both numbers, that we are growing by 5% organically and then we're adding another 30% to 40% on new companies coming in, that is a healthy strategy for us. So we kind of like what we see here, that we still have an organic growth and we are growing quickly, thanks to new companies coming in. Next slide, please. Talking about great companies, the latest addition to the group is Aktiv Veidrift, and they are located in Drammen Norway. That is southwest of Oslo. And our opinion is really that they have, I would say, very skilled employees. They are having the same type of government contracts that we already have. And they really excel in project management. And they are also far gone in implementing, I would say, electrified equipment like electrified excavators and so forth. So they are well positioned on what's going on into the future. They are good, as I mentioned, in project management, and they really have a good structure internally. So we do welcome them to the group, and we believe them being a strong addition to the whole group and also in the activities we have in Norway. Next slide, please.

Okay. So as usual, we show some examples of the type of projects that we deliver to our customers. These the are not the largest ones that we will show today, and they're more typical for these type of companies and represent the work that we deliver. These two are also delivered to public customers. So the first one is Hadeland Maskindrift in Norway, a road maintenance company. And this is a project worth NOK 15 million per year. It's a 3-year contract. And it has to do with all types of works on and surrounding the roads. So we do road reinforcement, trenching and bus platforms, traffic lanes and similar type of work. And it's worth to mention that we do hundreds if not thousands of these type of contracts or projects per year. Next slide, please. The next project is from Sweden, west of Sweden, for Markbygg Anläggning. And this is -- for the customer, it's [indiscernible]. And this has to do with the groundwork in connection with the new state-of-the-art boiler center in Swedish [indiscernible]. And we will do the water sewage work and then the landscaping work on the ground. And this is worth SEK 25 million. So this is a quite a large project. Next slide, please. As we -- as Johan mentioned before, our order backlog has increased quite a lot to SEK 6.7 billion. It is at all-time high. And we do have quite full order books for the remainder of this year. Next slide, please. Income statement and balance sheet. So we had a growth of 44% in total revenue. And this -- we also see that we had an operating profit of SEK 69 million, which is up 47%. Earnings before tax, SEK 62 million versus SEK 38 million last year, which is SEK 63 million. And then we had tax of SEK 19 million versus SEK 2 million last year. So the profit for -- the net profit for the period is SEK 43 million versus SEK 36 million last year. And with a growth of 44%, you can't expect every item number to move exactly in -- at the same pace. And so not 44% higher. We can see that the balance sheet, for example, SEK 3.6 billion, is up 32% from the total assets from last year. But all in all, we're happy with the development, and -- yes. Next slide, please. Performance per segment. So we had continued growth and stable margin in most of the segments. If we look at South, we had a robust increase in sales, EBITA margin in fact of above 9%. Region Mid, a little bit lower margin. This is one company that's been hit somewhat by the higher inflation and the logistics issues that Johan mentioned. Apart from that, the development is good. Region Stockholm. This is -- of course, we're quite happy to see that the margin continues to improve in Region Stockholm by nearly 4% in this quarter. Region North, very stable, continued to deliver increased revenue, increased margins. Norway, enormous growth in the quarter; margin, somewhat lower. When we look at this, we see that the existing companies that we had last year, they had increased their profitability. So the decline in margin here for the segment as a whole of 12.4% versus 16% is due to the mix effect of adding new companies which have slightly lower margin on average. And then Finland, which is completely new this quarter compared to last quarter last year. And we see that the margin is at roughly 8%. So if we look at the margin in total on an LTM basis, we see that we have South at 8%; we have Region North at 10%; Norway, 14%; Finland at 8%; and then we have Mid and Stockholm which are at 4%. And this, of course, we continues to make improvements in those regions to improve the margin. Next slide, please. Financial position. Cash flow was SEK 15 million versus SEK 104 million. We had a very strong cash flow in the quarter last year. Now we have increased the working capital somewhat. And we have looked at its -- accounts receivable increased, but we have followed up and they have been settled since the end of the quarter. Leverage is at 2.4, like Johan mentioned, which is a good number given that we have acquired 9 companies since last quarter. Next slide, please. And over to you, Johan.

Perfect. Yes, to sum it up here, so as can be seen, we are clearly meeting or exceeding our targets but have yet to initiate a dividend program. So in terms of growth, we said we are supposed to be growing by 10%. We're growing by 40%, 8% EBITA margin, and -- or 8.1%. And in terms of leverage, we have a goal of 2.5. We are at 2.4. So on those three goals, we are clearly meeting or exceeding the expectations there. And in terms of dividends, the 40% dividend, we have yet to start with a dividend program. So we are using the funds to grow the business at this point of time, and we'll probably want to come back on the dividend policy later on. But this is where we are. And all in all, to summarize here, I believe that the first half year with inflation and logistic challenges really proves the business model and also that our CEOs and all the employees out there are doing a very nice job in making sure that we have happy customers, that we are getting paid for the work we are doing, we are keeping our profit margins, we are compensating for the inflation. So all in all, I'm happy with the performance. It was a strong half -- first half year. And by that, I think we open up for questions. So back to you, Richard.

[Operator Instructions] We have no questions at this point of time. Sir Johan?

Okay. Then we wrap up it here that -- thank you, everyone, for listening in. As I mentioned, we are kind of happy with the performance of the company and its very strong growth. So thank you all for listening in and have a good day. Thank you.

Thank you.