Itera ASA (ITERA) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the interim report for the fourth quarter for Itera. We have a very standard agenda. I will start with the highlights of the quarter and deep dive into the business review section, and then Bent Hammer, Chief Financial Officer, will take us through the financial review. And we also have some comments about the outlook. And the last but not least, also, there is a possibility for post some questions in the chat. So we will also look into that at the end of this session. This time, we only have 40 minutes. So we need to be very sharp on the timeframe. So if you would like to have even more time to discuss, we are also available after the meeting for more specific discussions. Okay. Let me start with the highlights for the fourth quarter. First of all, as you know, this market in IT is also having -- have been quite soft the last, I will say, 2 years. But I think we are quite navigating the softer market in a quite resilient way. The volatility, of course, persists, not at least also in the business environment. But our new regional structure has strengthened the resilience. And today, in this fourth quarter, we have managed to deliver NOK 54 million in operational cash flow. So that's, of course, extremely important. Also would like to put highlights on our Cloud & Application Services, CAS we call it. As you know, we have made a lot of investment over several years, and now we really see that, that pay off. So we had 17% growth in AI and cloud in this quarter. And for the full year, it was 19%. So that's very important in terms of a new growth engine of Itera. And the last but not least, we have also talked about the operational improvement program. Of course, this effect will be quite visible in our economics going forward. So we are expecting 1.5 to 2 percentage points margin uplift in the next coming months. So these are the highlights for the quarter. Let me also look at the figures in brief. We delivered in the fourth quarter NOK 213 million compared to the same quarter last year, NOK 212 million. That's 1% growth. If we also look at the currency effects, it was actually 2% growth for this quarter. And for the full year, it's actually about minus 1% for the full year. That's almost flat if you look at the currency effect. So more or less, a flat year in 2025 in a quite soft market. If you look at the EBIT margin for this quarter, it was 1.8% compared to 3.5% the same quarter last year. And for the full year, we delivered 4.3% EBIT margin. Then if we look at the operational cash flow, we delivered NOK 54 million in this quarter. But for the rolling 12 months, it was NOK 63 million. And also if you look at the number of employees, it was 695 at the end of this quarter compared to 725 end of 2024. So we're adjusting also the cost base, of course, Itera, and also managed to deliver profitability for this quarter. And we also will deep dive even more to explain more what is behind that. That is something Bent Hammer will bring more into clarity later in this presentation. Okay. Let me go into the market review and have some comments about that. As you know, all these kind of geopolitical tensions that you see -- you all remember the wars, and Trump, et cetera, is making a very challenge for a lot of the macroeconomic conditions going forward. So that might also have some delay on the investment decision and also reduce the project visibility. So that's something we have seen for a long time. But if you look at our industry, the resilience in digital spending is actually that the digital and IT investment remain quite robust because it is driven by AI, cloud data and cybersecurity. It has really become an essential infrastructure of the companies, and also this investment in IT is extremely well established also going forward. And we see -- as you know, the big trend about AI is all over the place. So they increase -- our customer increase their budget for AI-driven transformation in workflow, platforms and decision-making processes. That is what we see. We also have noted maybe this last year, I will say, this kind of onshoring, nearshoring, offshore, whatever you call it, shoring, has also been impacted, especially in the Nordics. Because of the market softness, some of the customers started to insourcing. But that is something we have also seen in the past. It is some kind of going back and forth. But we also see that the customer, because of the uncertainty in the market, is also focusing even more on cost pressure. So that is also something that we see that will also drive renewed interest for these kind of delivery models going forward. Okay. So that's a short introduction of the highlights. Let me also deep dive into the business review before we go into the financial part of this presentation. As you know, Itera is a company based in the Nordics with Nordic roots, but we have also quite strong European presence. We are a team of vibrant business advisors, designers and technologists, and we have a very close focus on the customer. As you see, we have 14 offices in Europe, 8 countries. And we have also been 18 years in Ukraine. And that's quite amazing because 4 of these 18 years has been in the war situation. So what is really happening in Europe now? As you see, because of the tension versus U.S. and also the threat towards Europe in terms of Russia, is actually that all kind of innovation we learn from Ukraine is also coming a competitive advantage when you look also into Europe. So if we look for Itera's 2 main offerings, as you know, we are talking about Digitalization services. That is one part of the business. But we have also established what we call responsible business, where we have our specialized -- our focused program Enter Ukraine with Itera. So I will go through both these sections and update you what's really happening. Let me start with the highlights for the Digitalization services. I will start to focus on the sector development. As you see, we have, of course, focus on financial services, that's banking and insurance. That has been some kind of drop, as you see, because we have a flat revenue. If you look at energy, industry, it's more or less flat, public and organization, more or less flat. And others, you see there is an uplift of 4%, 5%. And in this sector, obviously, we also have a defense as part of it. So we see there is also some shift. For some of the sectors it's really increasing, others sectors it's more or less flat. But I think in general, the market is quite well established in terms of the spending, and depending what you are talking about, what kind of services we see. What is important for Itera is, of course, we are delivering a full range of services from -- as business advisors, as designers and also technologists. So we both provide with advisors, but we also work very hands-on and deliver real outcomes. So in terms of defining the strategy, IT, technology, understanding the technology complexity, architecture, using -- looking at the needs and also the customer experience, and not at least also working with the economist and also the cost effectiveness of the solution. So we have a full range of services. So we manage to look both on the strategy and the device part of Itera, but also how we execute and capture the real outcomes of the solution we provide. What is important in this situation is actually also our IT landscape is undergoing a fundamental shift. AI is now a key driver as you all see. And I know there's a lot of discussion out there about AI importance for the industry. I will comment also on that. But what we see is actually the industry is shifting from a cloud-driven environment to AI transforming every layer of cloud computing and also accelerating the business outcome by using AI and also technology itself. So that is a key driver we see all over the place. And you all know it how you use ChatGPT or whatever. And it is really coming -- much more going also into our space. But what is extremely interesting in this perspective is actually that this Cloud & Application Services at Itera, we call it CAS, has really become a very strategic investment opportunity that we have done for multiyear that now is really driving the growth. As I mentioned, 17% revenue growth when Itera in total provided quite a flat quarter. But of course, in this space, we are growing quite significantly according to the market needs, I will say, and 19% for the full year. And that is because we are leveraging automation and AI to actually deliver and increase the customer value. And it also have a strong customer impact because we can help our customers to leapfrog the digital maturity and also unlock new opportunities, where AI is something that is coming all over the place in the business model. And for Itera, not at least, that's also a very strategic role because this will also increase what we already are quite interesting in all over the place, is actually how we can establish more recurring revenues. So managed services is an extremely important part of it for Itera as an enabler, but not -- so we will not only focus on the cost play, but actually also the value that we provide, and also, for Itera, more recurring revenue. Okay. Let's have a talk about AI. We don't see in Itera as a threat. We see it as a big opportunity. And I know there's a lot of discussion in the financial -- in the investment environment that this will be a new hype, whatever. Yes, it's a lot of hype, but there's also a tremendous shift also because what we see is this digital agents that you see on the right side, for each developer, it also have a fantastic opportunity to deliver even more coding, even more analysis, even more faster, more value for the customer through the whole life cycle of the application. So that is something we have seen happening every time there is a new technology. That's a part how we adapt into this opportunity. So we do see this as a big opportunity and not a threat. And I will come back more to that in a minute. We also -- and you also talk about the business model. Of course, the business model is changing. We talked about managed services. And somebody is saying we don't want to deliver ours going forward. Of course, we will do that. We have been talking about value-driven business model for a long time. Of course, it will be a part of the mix of services we provide. But it won't go from -- to 100% in this direction. It will always be a mix. And that is something we always see. We are adapting to the new business model coming in, because also if you look at the other party, it's actually that they also -- the customer also will have control of the business model itself. So sometimes the time-based model is very good and other places some other opportunities will be more like a managed services or software-as-a-service or some kind of -- other kind of business model. So we already see a trend on this in our portfolio project that we are also adapting into this new business model. And what is important is actually the winners are the companies that train the people in AI and also embed these AI capabilities into business offerings. It's not only about technology. It's also about changing the processes, changing the business model, changing everything, a part of it. And if you don't change, you will be a loser, of course. That is of course. You know in this meeting, we can transcribe everything from this meeting and you can go back and you can really look at what I'm saying today instead of sitting 40 minutes and try to identify what I was saying. That's a technology we already use. And if you are not using, you are out of the market. So this is just an example to see how we actually develop, how the society develop, and also this is also important in terms of looking into the AI opportunity. And I just also make one focus on -- because this is also what you talked about. Let's say that you don't need juniors. That is just to look at 2 examples on this. If you look at on the vertical axis, you have task complexity, on the horizontal, you have the experience of worker. Of course, the senior guys can do even more complex technology, complex task, I will call it, because they don't need to have all the juniors to make the presentation, do this analysis, whatever, but that is something the agents can do for you. So from a senior perspective, this is also a big opportunity, so they can do even more with these digital agents I talked about. But if you look at the other way around, the junior opportunity, is also extremely high because they can also adapt to the -- gain experience from what the senior guys has been. If you are 50 years old, this junior can really acquire the same experience in much shorter time frame. So the junior is also a big opportunity because they will also adapt into this new environment. So both for the senior opportunity is a big opportunity and for the junior is also a big opportunity as long as you adapt into this new environment and see how you can actually use these agents and how you can actually expand your experience in quite fast time. So everyone, both the senior and junior, need to adapt into this one. And that is something I will -- I believe it will -- we already see that it is changing the allocation of the people skill set going forward. So going back to what I'm saying, this is a big opportunity. We see the senior is increasing capabilities in Itera and we also see that the junior is really increasing the competency quite fast because they are quite fast in adapting into this new environment. Okay. Let me go into the other topic I talked about in the beginning before I finish up for my business review. I just want to say that we have a lot of customers that -- and also people asking Itera, what's really happening? As you see, it's extremely aggressive Russia that is trying to destroy the country and also demotivate the citizen themselves by attacking every day more or less. We have 2 offices in Lviv and Kyiv. I'm so proud of how they are adapting to any kind of situation. So they are super motivated to stay together to deliver the services as we have done in the past since the invasion. We have Starlink installed at homes or power generator, whatever what is needed. We reallocated -- our people in Ukraine are reallocated. If you are living on the left bank of the Dnipro River, of course, that is more hit by and the electricity is hitting more there than on the other parts. So they also rotate and make sure that also they can go to our office, where we have full operational, and they can also bring the family. So these people in Ukraine is really adapting to any kind of situation, and they are super motivated to provide the services as it was before the invasion. And what I will also say that these people in Ukraine, I think, in terms of the skill set, in terms of adapting into using AI, using data, whatever, to understand what's really happening and the speed they have, I don't see that in any kind of country around the world. So this is also -- they are extremely skilled in digitalization and I think they are one of the best in the world in order to understand what is really happening, what about -- protecting the critical infrastructure. They have a lot of innovation power in this country. And that's why I think it's so extremely interesting to have our brave Ukrainian people as part of Itera. And also what is quite interesting -- also, we talked about Enter Ukraine in this quarter, the fourth quarter. We managed also to provide 40 megawatts of power generation capacity for Bergen Engines. We are facilitating and driving this, working day and night 7 days a week to make sure that totally we have provided 200 megawatts from Bergen Engines. Let's say, it's about 1.5 million people, more or less, that have provided -- getting electricity because of these kind of deliverables. So that's also a part of what we have innovated into Ukraine to see how we can develop new businesses going in this -- through this Enter Ukraine program. And also what we also are looking at and also taking a larger position into -- we won't talk about every kind of cases as we talked last time, but we are also taking position in defense. These are 2 examples, Rift Dynamics, which is a local player. Both are 2 local players, I would say, in the Nordics and who have a global perspective. One in the drone space and the other one is in the drone field. But the other one is also TKartor, which is also providing geospatial data management software that can also be used in the airspace. So these are very interesting technology that are both used for protecting infrastructure, but also looking into opportunity to protect against the Russian aggression, both in Ukraine but also around in Europe. So these are also something that's happening because we didn't have a position in defense before the invasion, but now we are really moving into this sector with very high pace. Okay. Let me finish up before I leave the floor to Bent. The order intake, as I said in the last quarter, we are focusing on the share of new customer. In this quarter, it was 12%. I think that's a quite an interesting number. That's new revenue from customer won over the past 12 months. So if I look to other players, they are talking about 4%, 5% in this space compared to our figures at 12%. That's quite important because that also provide bigger customers for also taking growth position going forward when also the market is actually more normalized. So these are -- as you see on this slide, you see some of the logos that we have closed this quarter. And also if you look at the remaining, that is 88% is from the revenue which is coming from existing clients. That's also important to have a very strong base of existing clients. And also the visibility. As you see the top 30 customer, it is 73%, is down from 79%. Of course, that's also -- I think it's more sustainable because we have also increasing the number of new clients. So that's a consequence of that also. But I think that's also important to say that we also have a quite sustainable customer base because -- consisting of existing long-term clients, but also new ones coming into the company. And the last slide before I hand over -- I think I'm just on time -- we have 695 people at the end of this quarter compared to 725. As you see the nearshore ratio, the share that is in Central and Eastern Europe is 49%. It's more or less what we have talked about, half of the capacity in Central and Eastern Europe. And as you see on the graph on the bottom, you see that the number of FTEs in Itera has been adjusted. If you're going back to 2022, 2023, we were increasing. We have this organic growth. But I really believe that when the market is more normalized, we are really ready to speed up again in terms of growing organically, in this case, from 14 locations that have both local customer and what we call shared customer from other locations. So I think also we have much stronger foundation to actually really grow faster and also sustainable when the market is more like normalized for IT services. So I think I'll stop there and hand over to you, Bent Hammer. So please.

Good morning, everybody. Yes. So we delivered some positive revenue growth in the quarter despite having reduced capacity somewhat. And that's because of a very solid growth in our Cloud & Application Services, which grew 17% in the quarter and also 19% for the year as a whole. So we saw -- also saw operationally that utilization improved, though somewhat mixed. So it was less favorable in terms of margins as the Nordics grew well, but we had some softer utilization in the Central and Eastern Europe part of the business. And we also saw continued rate pressure in the market, which has been suppressed for the last couple of years, as Arne mentioned as well. In the quarter, we also invested a couple of million NOKs in developing the sales pipeline and strengthening our newly established regional office in Rogaland in Norway. And this will bear fruits into 2026 as we see a very positive development there, and there's prospects of landing some good contracts there in the short term. We also saw some costs included in Q4 related to the business improvement program that we're running, and we expect that to deliver 1.5% to 2% margin improvement, as Arne also mentioned, during 2026 -- actually, starting already in Q1 and I think more or less a full effect in Q2. So all in all, that left us with NOK 213.4 million in revenues and an EBIT margin of 1.8%. I will show you now the development that we've seen in the last couple of years. So from the top right-hand graph, you can see that we've largely been able to maintain the top line, which is good in the market we've been in. But we've seen that the EBIT margin has dropped quite a bit. We do, however, see that we have multiple paths of both returning to growth, but also expanding the margin again. First of all, although utilization improved quite a bit overall, we still have a bit to go to reach our target level there. So that will be very -- well, that will impact profitability quite a bit when we get that normalized again. We see that the customers are looking at some outsourcing opportunities that we are well positioned to take. We see the steady increase in the revenue from cloud migration and modernization, which is driven by AI and security concerns. And we also see that the expansion in Sweden and the Rogaland region is gaining traction as well as in some of our incumbent markets. Last but not least, we have a very strong portfolio now of this Enter Ukraine with Itera types of business advisory services and with associated success fees, which could be a strong driver of profitability, not at least. Looking at the breakdown on revenue type, we see that the revenue per employee is up by 2% in this quarter, driven by better utilization and also some more recurring services. Revenue from our own consultants were also up by 2% to NOK 177 million, whereas subscription services was more or less the same at NOK 20 million. Third-party decreased by 32%, small figures, so NOK 6 million in the quarter, and 19% increase to NOK 11 million for other revenue. Cash flow, probably one of the more interesting things in our current report. However, it should come as no surprise that Q4 is a quarter where we generate a lot of cash from operations. As you can see from the history here, the Q4 is always the best quarter in that sense. So we delivered NOK 54.4 million in Q4 and NOK 63 million for the full year as a whole. Investing activities slightly higher in this quarter to last quarter as we invested in some -- both the AI-related IP as well in a community-based portfolio -- or portal for donations in Ukraine. Financing activities is mostly driven by our dividend payouts as well as some leasing obligations. Yes. Going back to cash, we see that we have a history of a very strong conversion of our EBITDA to cash. This quarter -- or the last 12 months -- these are the running last 12 months graph. We delivered 91.8% for the past 12 months. And that would have actually been above 100% if it weren't for some customer receivables in Iceland that were late and which we expect to collect in this quarter. So very strong conversion, and that gives us the opportunity to pay back to our shareholders. Again, in the quarter we just completed, we paid out a supplementary dividend of NOK 0.10 per share, as we've been accustomed to do. So for the year as a whole, we delivered NOK 0.3 per share. The Board yesterday suggested that they will propose to the Annual General Meeting in May to distribute a ordinary dividend of NOK 0.20 per share and also ask for an authorization to pay a supplementary dividend later in the year. The share price has been quite suppressed in the last couple of years. It ended at NOK 8.58 per share, which is more or less unchanged from the year before if you include the dividend payments that we've distributed during 2025. We hold about 472,000 owned shares valued at NOK 4.1 million at year-end. And the Board yesterday also authorized for us to have a share repurchase program in the next few weeks or so. So we will load up on some more shares and also have an employee share purchase program in March. Right. So looking ahead, as we and our peers have reported, the market has been soft in the last 2, 3 years. We see signs of improvement there now. So we hope that we will gain traction during 2026. We at least, after our changes internally, see more customer activity, more meetings, more interest from customers, especially related to the AI area, of course, I should say. Having been in a sort of a slow market locally and then focusing on trying to get our onshore people out on assignments, I think we have neglected a bit the distributed delivery, and that's something that we have now refocused on. So we expect also to have more traction on the deliveries from Central and Eastern European parts of our organization. As mentioned, we have largely implemented already the measures to reduce cost and improve utilization of our people by consolidating some roles and making more people available for billable work. And we expect that to then yield 1.5% to 2% margin improvement in isolation. I mentioned the Enter Ukraine with Itera program. This continues to expand, and we have now a large and very exciting portfolio of companies and opportunities in that space. And that could create some really high-value revenue streams for us in the next couple of years. Focus is still on getting back to growth but doing so in a profitable way -- in a more profitable way than we have shown in the last few quarters. And again, we strive to generate as much as possible of cash out of these operations. So that's it. I don't know if there are any questions posted online. That we have a few minutes to adjust...

We've answered everyone's questions already.

All right. Good.

So -- but for all viewers out there, if anything comes to mind. I know that both of you are happy to hear from them. And the contact details are available on our website.

Yes.

Okay. That's good. I see we are straight on time. So when are we going to...

We will report Q1 on May 9 -- 8, sorry. And our annual report will come out on April 28.

Yes. So I think we close with that and saying, okay, happy to see you if you have any kind of questions. So we are ready to meet you as soon as possible. Okay? Bye-bye. Thank you.

Bye-bye.