Investor AB (publ) (INVEA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the Investor AB Interim Management Statement 20 -- January to September 2020. [Operator Instructions] Today, I'm pleased to present CEO, Johan Forssell; and CFO, Helena Saxon. Please go ahead with your meeting.

Okay. Warmly welcome everybody to this presentation of our Q3 results. I will start, and after that, I will, as always, hand over to Helena Saxon. If we start on Page #2, the current state, I think we all know that we have seen a gradual improvement in many industries during the last 6 months. We had a very sharp downturn in April and then starting mid-May or so, we have seen a gradual improvement. However, we also know that there is a big difference between different sectors. I mean there are areas like aerospace and oil and gas and hotels that are extremely weak. On the other hand, we have seen segments like cars and trucks and elective surgeries that have been improving. And then we have seen other areas like certain parts of health care, telecom, et cetera, that have been solid through the crisis. But overall, we have seen an improvement during the last 6 months. But we should, of course, know that the pandemic is still out there, and it's accelerating in a couple of regions. For example, now we see it in France, U.K., Spain, Germany, and there are new restrictions being put in place. The restrictions so far though are much milder than we saw in April. In April, we basically saw big shutdowns. Now it's more that you can't walk out on the streets in Paris between 9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. You need to wear more masks in certain areas, so milder restrictions. But let's see how this will play out. This is, for sure, an uncertainty. We also have geopolitical risks, not the least between China and the U.S. And short term, we also have the U.S. presidential election that can add further uncertainty. So I think we have seen during the year, big turbulence, markets going down sharply and then going up sharply. We have seen tough demands on many companies related to the real economy in the beginning of the pandemic, and then we have seen a gradual improvement. I think we should be prepared for continued volatility, and that we are. And I must say that the management teams in our companies, I think, have done an excellent job in handling these turbulent times, not only because of the sharp and rapid adjustments but also the fact that I know that the companies are, at the same time, continuing to invest in important areas for the future. As always, it is equally important to decide what cost not to cut as the ones that you need to cut in a tough time. Moving then to the highlights of the quarter on Slide #3. We had a total shareholder return of 19% compared to the stock market up 13%. Our net asset value grew by 9%. And in this quarter, Patricia Industries was the big driver with 18%, even though all 3 business areas were up. Starting then with listed companies. A few highlights. Ericsson and Atlas Copco have announced strategic acquisition. Ericsson strengthens its enterprise segment through the acquisition of Cradlepoint. And Atlas Copco, after previously doing the acquisition of ISRA VISION, have now put a bid on Perceptron in the U.S. to further develop the smart factory automation business. I think both these are 2 exciting investments from Ericsson and Atlas Copco. On the people side, Håkan Agnevall has been appointed the new CEO of Wärtsilä, and will start, at the latest, in April 2021. He has a strong background from ABB. He has also worked in Bombardier. But since 2013, he has been heading the Volvo Buses. And of course, in that role, he has been very close to the situation. And when it comes to moving from fossil fuel to electric and alternative fuels, and he has also done a good turnaround in that business. So we are very glad and excited about Håkan joining the company. Moving then over to Patricia Industries, and I'm now on Slide #7. You can see that the spread between the companies in terms of organic growth is still there. But you can see that the overall performance is really good with an organic growth of 5% for the subsidiaries and an adjusted profit growth of 7% compared to the third quarter last year. If we then move to the next page, I think the strong performance among the subsidiaries is one of the key highlights in this quarter. The other highlight is our announcement of the acquisition of Advanced Instruments, our new subsidiary. This company is the clear leader in providing osmolality testing. And for you that have not looked into the detail, that is basically a measurement of dissolved particles in a fluid. It could be, for example, to diagnose medical conditions or assess product quality in a variety of settings. They are the #1 in this area, and the key customer groups are clinical bioprocessing and food and bev markets. They have a very strong track record with organic growth of more than 10% historically. And they have a high profitability, good cash flow and a significant part of the business is consumables. So we think this is a company that really fits the criteria that we look for, and we look forward to develop this company in the future. And I should also mention that one thing that I like with this company is that this company has products that are really critical for the customers, but still the product cost for the customer is very small. And that's normally a good starting point if you want to create value. If you move to the next page, you can see that it's a sizable investment. The enterprise value is USD 780 million. We will put in about USD 620 million in equity. And the remaining part will be debt and also investment from the management team and the Board, and the transaction is expected to close during the fourth quarter. So let me then go over to Slide #10, the companies that we have previously guided to be resilient. And I think we can say that the performance was really strong in Q3 for these companies. Starting at the bottom, Three Scandinavia, organic sales was minus 1%, some margin expansion. So the profit was up 1% compared to last year. Sarnova had a strong development, being up 5% and a margin expansion from 10% to 13%. And then finally, Mölnlycke, that, of course, is a highlight, growing 29% organically in the quarter and kept the margins at the previous year's level despite a negative mix with lower sales of Wound Care compared to Surgical. And I will come back and say a little bit more on these companies later on. Turning down to the companies where we did expect continued challenges in the third quarter, Piab, Permobil, Laborie and BraunAbility. And here, you can say, yes, revenues were, in fact, down by double digits in the quarter, but I'm impressed by our management teams and how quickly they have adapted. Despite the significant revenue and loss in Permobil and BraunAbility, they actually were able to keep the margins compared to last year. And while being down year-over-year, the margins in Piab and Laborie stayed at healthy level. And in Laborie, we saw a significant margin expansion compared to the second quarter sequentially. Moving then over to Mölnlycke. Mölnlycke, as I mentioned, had a strong organic growth of 29%. If we exclude the PPE contracts within Surgical, the underlying growth organically for the whole group was 6% in the quarter, with Wound Care growing at 5% and the underlying growth in Surgical was 8% organic growth. We believe that the PPE contracts are expected to have significant sales also in the fourth quarter and into 2021, but to a lesser extent than we saw in the third quarter. And as I mentioned before, I think the profitability was at a very good level considering the different mix in sales. Moving then to Permobil. The organic growth was minus 13% in constant currency. COVID-19 restrictions continued to impact the company's ability to meet the customers, and that affected sales. U.S. and Europe declined, but we continue to see a good development in APAC, which is mainly driven by Australia. At the end of the quarter, we did see improved quotes. But of course, the uncertainty is high whether that will continue or not, but we did see some improvement when it comes to the quotes, which normally is a leading indicator for orders at the end of the quarter. As mentioned before, despite the significant sales drop, you can see that the EBIT -- the profit margin was very good and in line with last year. And they have also made digital launches of new generation of M3 and M5 Corpus powered wheelchairs in the U.S. With that, moving over to Laborie. The organic growth was minus 13%, and that is due to a significant decline in elective urology and gastro. We did see a gradual improvement, but it was still negative year-over-year in the latter part of the quarter. As you know, in the beginning of the year, we acquired Clinical Innovations, so that part is not part of the organic growth, but that maternal and child health business grow somewhat in the quarter organically compared to the third quarter last year. The profit margin was down year-over-year, but we saw a significant sequential improvement And that is for 2 reasons: first, good cost management in the company; and secondly, a good performance of the maternal and child health business. And this company also has announced one add-on acquisition and one cooperation during the quarter. Moving then to Sarnova, a strong development with organic growth of 5%. For this business, we saw a very strong development of the Emergency Preparedness business while the Acute part was negatively impacted by COVID-19. And we saw a good margin expansion underlying, as you can see. Sarnova has announced the acquisition of Digitech and the EMS business of R1. They will -- by doing -- combining this, this will create a leading provider of revenue cycle management for the emergency medical service professionals. You can think about handling all the complicated invoicing, et cetera, for ambulances and so forth. And this is, of course, a very attractive opportunity because these are customers that Sarnova knows from their normal business. So this is an extension in a new adjacency with a customer overlap. And this company will have about USD 90 million, and it's profitability will be higher than Sarnova's historical levels, and Sarnova will own more than 60% and consolidate the financial statements. Moving then over to Piab. Organic sales was down 10% during the quarter. Here, we saw that America and Europe was down but we saw good growth in APAC, and that was driven by a very strong development in China. For Piab, we saw a strong book-to-bill in September. And also here, of course, I will not give any forecast to what extent it is sustainable, but I can just say that the order intake was strong in September. And the profitability was down year-over-year due to the organic sales drop, but still stayed at healthy levels. BraunAbility, organic growth was down 22%. And in this quarter, the downturn was mainly driven by the consumer segment, while commercial and lifts were more stable. And the profit margin was actually in line with last year as the company has been very quick to adapt on the OpEx side. Moving then to Three. As I said, a very stable development with service revenue down 1% and profit up 1%. But of course, behind this, there is a lot of great job in the company. With that, moving over to EQT, that is about SEK 50 billion for us or close to 10%. It was a stable development in the quarter, up 3%. The EQT AB, the share price was up 4% in the quarter and the value change of our EQT funds were up 3%. But here, once again, would like to highlight that this value change is as of June 30, so we are doing this with a 1-quarter lag. And in this quarter, we had a positive cash flow of about SEK 300 million. So going forward, we are -- I think we are really well positioned to capture opportunities in these turbulent times. This has really been a turbulent year with a sharp downturn, both from an economic point of view and of course, the stock market in the beginning and then a sharp recovery. But it's also creating a lot of opportunities. First of all, we are seeing that digitalization, automation, are really accelerating because we are learning how to work, and we need to work in different ways. And as you know, we have many companies here that can benefit these trends like Ericsson, Piab, ABB, robotics and so forth. And I also believe that sustainability is a huge opportunity if you can outperform competition because that's all -- what it's all about. Productivity improvements I talked about before. Due to COVID-19, we have learned to work in smarter ways. And it's not the fact that we will go back to how we did it before. Some parts might migrate back, but a lot of things we should, of course, learn, keep the productivity improvements also moving forward. And then finally, on the investment side. As I said, this year has been turbulent. We really went into this year with a strong balance sheet. We have the leverage of 2.8% when we entered this year. And that we have been able to use, both by being active in the stock market, acquiring shares in ABB, Ericsson and Electrolux Professional in the beginning of the year. And now lately with the expansion, for example, with Advanced Instruments. And I think that also going forward, with the strong balance sheet we have, with the leverage that is at the lower end of our range, we will use -- we will try to use the turbulence also going forward and we are ready to act, should opportunities arise. And then on 23, I am glad to show this picture. It shows that we have, irregardless of the period, actually met our return requirement of 8% to 9% and also then the stock market. And we will, for sure, do whatever we can to continue to do that in the future. And with that, I hand over to Helena.

Thank you, Johan. And if we flip over to Page 25, we can see the 10-year development of our net asset value. And as you see on the right-hand side of the graph that we ended the quarter at an adjusted net asset value of SEK 537 billion and the reported net asset value reached SEK 458 billion. Looking at the next slide, we can see the listed companies and the total contribution to net asset value from this part of the portfolio was SEK 24 billion in the quarter, and the listed company TSR -- combined TSR in the quarter was 7% compared to 13%. But looking at the year-to-date numbers, we can see the TSR was 10% compared to 8%. The portfolios amounted now to SEK 375 billion at the end of the quarter. And the performance in the portfolio was mixed, even though it was positive from almost all of them and the strongest performers in the quarter were Electrolux and Husqvarna, who also proposed reinstated dividends. Looking at the next page, Patricia Industries development in the quarter, the total return was 18%; excluding cash, it was 16% -- including cash, it was 16% in the quarter. And this strong performance was driven by multiple expansion and earnings and cash flow, which also contributed or impacted positively. Looking at the sequential development on Page 28. We can see that Patricia Industries total net asset value, including the cash position, was SEK 128.9 billion at the beginning of the quarter but ended the quarter at SEK 149.3 billion, a very strong performance. And here, you can see the main contributors of course, Mölnlycke contributing strongly, but also Sarnova, Piab, Permobil and Three and Vectura had positive impact in the quarter while Laborie and BraunAbility had a tougher development. Looking at the next page, Page 21, the major drivers in the quarter. First, Mölnlycke's contribution of SEK 18.3 billion was driven by higher multiples earnings and cash flow. Sarnova's impact of SEK 1.8 billion in the quarter was driven by higher multiples; earnings and cash flow impacted positively; while currency impacted negatively. Piab contributed with SEK 1 billion in the quarter due to higher multiples, but lower earnings had a negative impact. Permobil, SEK 0.7 billion in the quarter, was driven by higher multiples and cash flow, while earnings impacted negatively. Braun, which had a tougher quarter, as I said, had a development of minus SEK 1 billion in the quarter, and this was due to lower earnings and multiple contraction. My last slide shows the financial position of Investor AB at the end of the quarter. And Johan also mentioned that we have a strong balance sheet with a leverage of 4.7%. Our net debt position was SEK 22.7 billion, and we have gross cash of SEK 14.4 billion. The average maturity of our debt portfolio is still over 10 years and our strong ratings with Standard & Poor's and Moody's remain the same. This was my last slide. I will hand over to Viveka, who can start the Q&A session.

Then I think we will -- we just have to hand over to our facilitator, and then we will start the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Joachim Gunell from DNB Markets.

So with regards to the business momentum, your experience in the health care tilted holdings such as Mölnlycke and Sarnova, could you elaborate a bit further just on the, say, longevity into 2021 from the new PPE contracts in Mölnlycke and if this negative mix could be further offset by cost reductions?

Okay. When it comes to Mölnlycke and Sarnova, I can only say what I know, and that is that the development is going well in both companies. And we expect these companies to continue to deliver good going forward. When it comes to the PPE contract, we have, of course, some visibility when it comes to the fourth quarter, and we also believe that we will have sales of this into 2021. To what extent and how long this will continue, there are a lot of uncertainties, not the least the pandemic, how that will be spreading and also how we will learn to live after the pandemic. So I think it's far too early to give any comments on that. We try to give the guidance we can. We expect to have a significant impact in the fourth quarter, but not as large as in the third quarter, and we expect to see some also in 2021. When it comes to the mix, I think that the companies are doing a very good job in adjusting the cost base. Then, of course, we all know that there are a number of costs that are lower now. That goes for all companies around the world because we are traveling less and so forth. But that's what I tried to say in my comments earlier, that it is highly important, of course, for the companies now to really try to keep as much productivity improvements as possible also after the pandemic. So our key focus right now is for both of these companies to really focus on developing the business long term, bringing forward new products, doing acquisitions like Sarnova. Mölnlycke is working hard on innovation, trying to expand in new geographical areas, which is developing well for especially Mölnlycke right now. And trying to capture all these opportunities, while, of course, being close to the market. Should something happen, we'd normally talk about agility as if it goes down. But I'm impressed in Mölnlycke's case on the agility on the way up because agility goes both ways. So that's the best guidance I can give you.

And a follow-up on this, I mean you alluded to -- I mean, as an active owner, I guess your portfolio holdings now have rethought there, say, just-in-time and optimization strategies, owing to what we have seen now in the past months. So can you provide any, say, color on your view on the trade-off between the robustness and resilience across the portfolio?

Are you thinking about the supply chains?

Yes.

Yes. I think it's too early to see how this will play out, to be honest. All companies are, of course, watching it closely. Some are taking some actions. But given the fact that we have 20-plus companies in different industries with different situations, it will be impossible to give a firm comment. But I can say that it's high on the agenda for all companies. But it's also early to say because changing supply chains is not something that you do very quickly. It's a long process to make sure you have the right suppliers, for example. So it's too early to tell how this will play out.

All right. Then just a final one for me. So as there are some speculations about potential consolidation in the Swedish telecom services market that, that could become a 3-player market. Can you just say what your views are of the, say, rationality of a consolidation in Sweden and Denmark? And I think -- I mean Three will have to -- or Three Scandinavia will have to invest quite heavily to keep up on 5G coverage? Or is it possible for Three to actually have a partnership on the network side instead of, say, pursuing consolidation?

Thank you. As you know, we never comment on speculation. Having said that, we have said before, since quite a number of years back, that of course, if you can find the right consolidation in this industry, there is potential for real synergies. The challenges, historically, has been that it takes 2 to tango. And secondly, the competition authorities. That has been the case. But I will not speculate more than that.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Derek Laliberte from ABG.

Yes. I was wondering on Mölnlycke, if you could expand a bit on this fantastic boost provided by PPE sales? Which products are this specifically? Is it a broad range? And where are you selling this? Sort of what markets are these new contracts relating to?

Okay. Thank you. I mean, the PPE contracts, what kind of products are we talking about? We are talking about masks, protection clothes and headwears, basically. That's what we're talking about. And they are also sort of all key regions, basically.

Okay. Okay. And then just a hypothetical question here on the dividend. I mean, if you were to decide on another dividend here before year-end, would that dividend be for 2019 or for 2020, the way you see it?

We have said that -- we have given actually a dividend already, and we have said that we will, based on the overall development and dividends in our companies and a number of factors, come back if we deem that we should have an extra EDM. And we have no more information than the previous communication in that matter.

Thank you. There appears to be no further questions. So I'll hand back to the speakers for any other remarks.

Okay. And we -- on behalf of Investor, we thank you so much for this Q3 call. And I also would like to remind you that on November 13, we will host a Capital Markets Day in the afternoon. So we'll come back then. And thank you for today.

This now concludes our conference call. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect your lines.