Netcompany Group A/S (NETC.CO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
October 31, 2025
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
André Rogaczewski
ExecutivesYes. A very warm welcome to all of you. First of all, thank you for taking the -- this Friday afternoon off. I know you're busy people. And can you actually hear me? Is it -- okay. Yes. We will reward you with a very exciting agenda. We'll be going through the strategy of Netcompany, the business model, and we will end up with our CFO doing some of the numbers, specifically on the synergy effects of the recent acquisition but also going through the long-term targets. Now hope this comes out as a more of a dialogue. So what we will do for each of the presentations, we will leave some time for you to ask questions. You can ask directly. There will be a few -- 2 breaks, so you can -- that's -- we will be taking care of your time, and you should just sit down and relax and enjoy this. I think I have a problem with my microphone. Otherwise, I just rip it off and I talk loudly because I usually do that. Okay. So we will go through the -- yes? Okay. We'll go through the entire agenda in a high pace but still focusing on the basic facts. We will start up setting. As you know, the world is right now governed by -- I say influenced by 2 major forces. One is the geopolitical situation we are in right now. What is happening around us, especially on this continent, the times we are living in and how we fit into that world. And to introduce us to that, we have Ulrik Vestergaard. And then I will add up with the other important force, which is technology. The development in technology, the whole evolution of technology is immense, and it's never been going faster than now. And after those 2 introductionary parts of the agenda, well, I'll be going through the overall strategy. We will dive into the different business areas and in particular, the platforms and the technologies that we will be issuing into the market over the years to come. So first of all, warm welcome to all of you and Ulrik Vestergaard. Please, Ulrik.
Ulrik Knudsen
ExecutivesThank you so much, Andre, for those words of welcome. And let me also add a very, very warm welcome to Netcompany to first Capital Market Day, but it's good that exams, they last throughout a career. It's a pleasure for me to open the proceedings with talking about nexus between geopolitics, digital transformation, digital sovereignty, if you like, and to be honest, the future of both Europe and Netcompany. This is not really working very well, is it? I think it's no surprise, no secret to anyone that geopolitical turmoil entails both a lot of uncertainty and also a lot of opportunity. That's not new. What's new is the extreme pace of geopolitical upheaval. I have not, in my diplomatic career, seen anything like it. But the other thing that's new is the unique combination of uncertainty, risk and opportunity that this means to Netcompany. I'll dive into that a little bit more. But we have, as a company, been pursuing digital responsible transformation for a while now, and I think that as our continent, our European continent becomes not only more alone but also more unified, this quest will hold a lot of promise for digital sovereignty, digital progress and digital security. And I think that process, that quest is an absolutely existential part of Europe's answer to all these geopolitical upheaval. Let me try to dive into it a little bit more. I don't want to go through these slides one by one, but I think there are 3 starting points that are extremely important to be clear eyed about when we talk about geopolitics from the outset. One is that the world order that we have all become used to and that we've benefited so incredibly much from over the last 8 years, that world order, it is not coming back. Second starting proposition is that West has sort of a cohesive framework of shared pursuit, of values and interest among what used to be the western countries, gone. It may have a revival later on, but it will never be the same deep [ alliance ]. Donald Trump has ruined that. And thirdly, there hangs a big question mark over globalization. I don't think globalization will die, but it's certainly not a hyper-globalization area that we're looking into. How did we get there? I think there are 2 reasons. One is a number of tectonic trends, 5 to be more precise, have shifted, power, technologically, militarily, economically for a couple of decades. So some of this has been in the making for a while. Secondly, of course, then Trump has accelerated all of that. The 5 tectonic trends, I'll be very brief, is: one, that we've seen a dismantling of the institutional global order. I'm talking about the crisis of the UN and all its subsidiary bodies, including the Security Council, UNESCO, UNICEF and so on, the climate negotiations but also the World Bank, the IMF and the WHO. They are not functioning the way they were supposed to, and it's not going to get easier from here given that the fragmentation will continue. That's number one. Number two is that open markets is no longer plan A. It's been so for almost 80 years, but it's not the case any longer. I think Trump will be able to kill [ them ] as we've come to know it. I don't think, however, he will kill globalization on the idea of free trade, but that's also bad enough. Thirdly, the increasing helplessness of states tackling climate change. I don't think, and I regret to say it as a former diplomat, that help for the global climate will come from diplomats conducting COP 37 or 47 or 57 or 167. I think it'll have to come from you, investors. It'll have to come from public-private partnerships, targeted investment, targeted research. But that leads me to the 2 maybe most important tectonic trends. And the fourth one, I normally end with it, but maybe it's the right time to put it on the table now because it's kind of a conclusion. We are moving from relative order to relative disorder in the world. We are, in fact, moving towards something that you could call a transactional anarchy, anarchy because rules and norms and standards don't apply any longer. They're not respected. If you don't believe me, go to an airport near you tonight. Look up in the sky, and you'll either see Northern Light or drones, 2 new phenomena on the Danish sky. So the first part of it is the transactional part, which is not as new as we think in the West. The global South has been transactional for a while. They have refused to choose between the democracies of the West and autocracies of the East. What's new is that the global leader and our best friend for decades, the U.S., has chosen also to become transactional, not caring about ideology, not caring about alliances, not caring about friendship. And perhaps Europe is the biggest potential loser in this because we're the closest friend of the U.S. But the U.S. has now [ attacked us, events ] in Munich. It's attacked us on our economy, the Turnberry trade agreement. It's attacked us on security and for us in Denmark [indiscernible] in territories. So Europe is more alone than ever before but maybe also for that reason, more united than ever before. We look to the East. We see destruction. We look to the South. We see destruction. We look to the West. We see, to be honest, utter madness. And we look to the North, and we see a threat against our territory, at least if we are Danish. This is the transactional anarchy that we as countries but also as businesses have to navigate. What is interesting for Netcompany and all of this is that, of course, this is a downside. This is a risk to every business, but the unique thing about Netcompany is that since we're not active in the U.S. and not active outside Europe, we are less exposed to these risks than many other -- I would say, most other tech companies. So we are absolutely more reliant on a well-functioning European market than getting global stability, although, of course, I'm never going to say that's a positive thing. We are, in that sense, shielded from many of the first and worst waves of this new disorder. That leads me to the fifth trend and maybe not totally surprisingly, for me, the most important one is the digital transformation. And I did actually also say this before I joined Netcompany. Why is that the most important trend of the 5? First of all, it is contributing to a total reconstruction of our societies as we know it. We at Netcompany are proud to be a responsible agent for change, construction of societies. But that is one reason. The second reason is that if the engine of globalization is turned off or at least decelerated for the global economy as well as [indiscernible]. There's only one other place you can turn to if you're looking for prosperity, productivity, if you're looking for increased competitiveness. If you don't have, at least, a division of labor, division of [indiscernible] productivity from technology and [indiscernible]. That's the second reason why it's the most important one. And the third reason is that now that we are in this transactional anarchy, this quest for world dominance [indiscernible] a little bit [ currently ] and unvoluntarily have entered as Europe, but we have to realize that's the race we're in. That could, in principle, be decided or played out, this quest, in 3 different arenas. It comes out in an ideological arena, but that's not going to happen. Xi, Trump, Putin don't care about ideology one bit. It's none of their concern. Secondly, it could be played out in the military arena. I actually don't think that is -- there is a lot of doom and gloom in me, but I don't believe we're headed for a third world war. I don't think neither Xi nor Trump have global military proactive ambitions. And I'll pause here for a second or 2 because that's maybe the most optimistic thing I'm going to say until I turn to Netcompany products and platforms in 2 minutes. So there's only one arena left really for this quest for world dominance to be played out in, and that is the technological. That is the digital arena, the arena in which we are playing. You don't have to take my word for it or Netcompany's word for it. You can just ask Xi, Trump and Putin themselves. And if you don't believe what they say, [ as ] sometimes you're not to, you can look at what they're doing. For the last decade or so, 90% of global investments in AI has stemmed from China and the U.S. Europe is sharing the rest of that, the last 10%, with the rest of the world. That is not good enough for Europe, and for us, that's also a problem. AI is at the heart of everything we do at Netcompany. So we're ready for that transition, but the question is whether Europe is ready for it. This analysis leaves, I think, Europe and Netcompany as a tech player in Europe with 4, if not, existential then certainly essential reasons for now truly embracing the digital transformation. And I mean truly embracing it. One is the eternal search for better, safer, cheaper products, and platforms is something Netcompany is contributing to every day. It's something all businesses are striving for. That's extremely important in a well-functioning market economy. The second one is the macroeconomic level. You could call it the draggy level. If we mean business in Europe, talking about -- and we do talk a lot about it, competitiveness, productivity, prosperity and all of that, we cannot -- and drag is worse. We cannot afford to miss another digital revolution. We cannot press the snooze button for another decade for the fourth time in a row. We need to embrace it now. This is also why we at Netcompany have stepped up in terms of trying to influence and engage with policymakers in Denmark, at the European Union and also at the OECD in new positions that we have entered to see if we can influence some of these decisions for the good of Europe. And then there are 2 new reasons from '25. One is geopolitics. If Europe needs to be a geopolitical actor, and that's what we hear all the time, there is no sustaining that in the long run if you're not at the economic and digital forefront. You cannot be a geopolitical superpower if you don't have the economic and technological prowess to underpin it. And then the fourth one, very important, I think, to Europeans as democracies are stumbling around the world, very important to us at Netcompany as well, values. Europe could well now be the last defenders of democracy, human rights, freedom, rule of law in the world, supported maybe by a few medium powers, but it's not only those values. It's also sector-specific values like trust, like transparency, like predictability, responsibility. These are values that will not embed a future, thoroughly digitize society if Europe is not at the forefront of technological development, and we at Netcompany are hoping to be part of that facilitation for Europe. I'm coming to the end. A few comments just to finish this off. This means, in a sense for us at Netcompany, that we have what I would call an epic geopolitical opportunity here. As I said, we've been working on responsible digital transformation for a while, but we also are extremely well aligned to picking up this momentum for European digital sovereignty. You could say that everything we do at Netcompany, in a sense, is about delivering European digital sovereignty to Europeans. And the very European scope of our ambition, of our offerings, our products and platforms is also pretty well suited to a world where Europeans want to pursue digital sovereignty but a little bit more worry about what's going on outside Europe. You hear about VERA and defense and resilience later, but I want to mention here that this means that, for us, sovereignty is not only digital. We are also ready to step up and see if we can help with this sovereignty agenda in a wider sense. Last slide. The future is uncertain. Don't let anyone tell you anything else. I cannot remember in my working life that the future has ever been more uncertain than it is right now. But I also see a near certain European potential for Netcompany to unlock. I think Europe has a chance now to embrace digital transformation. I think Netcompany is well situated to help empower digital, empower change that's digitally in its -- digitally anchored in its origins. And I also think that what we need politically from hereon is actually a European action. I think some of what I've talked about today, the fact that security, prosperity and values are fundamentally at stake for us here today as Europeans but also as business people, investors, what this really means is that this political attention has to be turned into action. We have a lot of talent and research at very high quality in Europe, but we're not very good at turning it into innovation. And we're not good at turning the innovation into commercial opportunities, and we're certainly not good at turning those commercial opportunities into something that's scalable. The same journey for Netcompany is a little bit more positive. We also have talent and research. I think we are good at turning it into innovation. We've proven so. We've also proven that we can find commercial opportunities, but we also need help to scale. And that's where we need more European action very, very quickly. We have tangible answers at Netcompany. We have European solutions built by Europeans, run on European data, responsible to European citizens. What we need now is European action. So I think to conclude, our best hope for the future is digital sovereignty, European union action and to some extent, also success for Netcompany. And I'll leave it to my colleagues to elaborate on that hope and those solutions. Thank you.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesThank you so much, Ulrik, for setting the scene. We'll now have a couple of minutes for Q&As. Please wait with your answer till you have been handed over a mic. We will start with Wei.
Yiwei Zhou
AnalystsI'm Yiwei from SEB. And I actually have 2 questions here and firstly, when you talk about digital solvency. And how does it reflect in the tendering process? Have you seen sort of firm requirements? And could you elaborate a bit here? And I'll do next question later.
Ulrik Knudsen
ExecutivesFor us at Netcompany, Andre has said many times, digital sovereignty is not digital protectionism. I think that's pretty important. We cannot afford in Europe not to have open innovation ecosystems. We cannot afford to shield ourselves from technological advances of the U.S. and China and others. But it's also quite clear, I think, to all Europeans now that there are certain sectors, there are certain areas where we cannot be -- continue to be overly dependent on a U.S. that's attacking us on prosperity, on values and on security, at least some days. So for us, digital sovereignty is about letting us compete in a fully integrated European market. That's not the case now, more than protectionism really. But we probably also make sure that at the European level, and I'm maybe getting closer to [ answer ], a bit less naive about aid, about procurement rules and that we don't put ourselves at a further disadvantage on top of the fact that we don't have a home market that is as well functioning as big as they have in U.S. and China.
Yiwei Zhou
AnalystsOkay. And you already mentioned a little bit. So you mentioned the sectors and what other sectors is the sort of highly regulated sectors, which are more sort of favor the European vendors over the international sort of software company or IT service companies.
Ulrik Knudsen
ExecutivesWell, I think there's no one size fits all answer here. We operate in many countries in Europe. We operate both with private, public clients. And in some of these sectors, there's a lot of degree of openness and a fairly well-functioning European single market, and in other sectors, there is, to be honest, a defunct European internal market. So I think you'll probably have to dive into each sector to answer that question.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesThank you very much, Ulrik. I think we will end the number of questions here and then get ready for our next presenter. It is Andre, our CEO and Co-Founder, who will present our strategy and the next steps for Netcompany to become a modern pan-European tech company. And I'm not sure you need much more of an introduction, Andre.
André Rogaczewski
ExecutivesThank you so much. And I think Ulrik's points about where we are right now and geopolitically fits very well into where we also are as a company and actually, the question from a way about how serious is this and how much sovereign IT do we need in Europe. Well, one thing is certain. Looking into what we are -- what Netcompany is doing. We are delivering some of the most complex and critical, society-critical solutions not only in Denmark, where we started, but all over Europe. It's all regulatory, and it's what you would call largely historical critical systems. Whether it's within tax, customs, logistics, transportation, it's all regulatory. Whether it's airports or social benefits, these are systems that are not easy to modernize. They are not easy to give to someone else. They have to be either by governments or the companies that run them. That's essential. So when we are working with [indiscernible] even more [indiscernible] vertical types of IT. I'm going to take this thing off very soon, I think. Secondly, we need -- we are in a hurry at the moment, right? I mean, which can just let it be and think this will drift over. It's been a long strategy for many governments and for regulatory companies to sit it out a bit and think, well, we still got this old system. And I know it's 40 years old or 35, 40 years old. I'll do my period, right? I'll do 3 or 4, 5 more years. I add something on top of it and fine. it will -- it's not my problem anymore. And it's actually working, even though it's very old fashioned. What's happening at the moment technologically is that's not an approach that is acceptable. We'll find -- well, take it off because I don't need this thing. Let me take...
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesYou're going to need this for stream.
André Rogaczewski
ExecutivesI don't know.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesFor stream.
André Rogaczewski
ExecutivesFor stream? Oh, okay. Of course, yes. It's a hybrid event. It's true. Okay. This is better. So velocity is key here. We need to get this thing done in a hurry, and we need to show success. And success can only be shown one way, and that is by using a reference, actually showing how it can be done in other places, reusability. And that's the third very important thing here, as a lot of companies in our situation actually think about selling hours, man days, just invoicing and then showing profitability that is acceptable in their industry. By reusing, we can scale, intelligently reusing. It's difficult when you come with a background of delivering large complex solutions because most engineers, people that work for companies like ours, they think they're artists. They think they are very creative. They build systems uniquely. We will not build systems uniquely anymore. We will build them based on construction and parts that are reusable. And then we'll put a touch upon these systems that make them unique and of course, live up to regulation, which is almost the case in any system that we build. And finally, the sovereign part and Ulrik said it, it has to be a European vendor delivering on European technology, having applications running on European data because that's the way it is for tax and customs systems. That's the way it is for an airport, and that's the way it is for social benefits or whatever we're dealing with in our company. And we're actually extremely proud of being one of the few companies in Europe taking that responsibility, lifting it and saying, well, it's actually possible. And if we do that, I'm telling you, it would be better than the rest of the world because if you look at China and the U.S., they don't have the same ability to create these systems. And at the end of the day, this is all about competitiveness. In a transactional world, it's about being competitive, and right now, the reason why we are not competitive is because we're not digitized enough on our regulatory parts. And we might have tariffs but 60% of what we're doing are internal calls. It's administration, bureaucracy, and most of it can be lifted by the solutions that we deliver, and that's why we're so important. Enough about that. Let's go into products and platforms and technology and what we are going to sell, right?
Frederikke Linde
Executives[indiscernible]
André Rogaczewski
ExecutivesI had it here. I have it here. Just give me anything, and I'll lose it. You know that. There we go. So we invented this not in 2001 when we started the company, because we started early on just building, being better at building than most others by hiring talented people, making them work. After unique technology, it worked up well, right? We grew organically, being a bit better than the rest. We did a lot of bespoke IT solutions, and we decided to go into regulatory, huge systems implementations. Then about here, we started to define a set of components, and we called it, remember, like offtake framework. I think we had 2,000 components. And if you think it's difficult to sell the message about platforms and products while trying to sell 2,000 components to people, that's really, really difficult. But that is the secret behind what we're doing. Everything is built up by these components, and the difference is now that we've assembled them into platforms and products. And with the products and platforms, and I'll go through the strategy of that in a minute, we are now ready to scale and scale in a way that relies on the reusability of the solution more than the company behind it. It is a very big distinction because if you want to go and scale in Europe and you go to another country and you talk about Netcompany, yes, they like us. They find us a great company from Denmark reputation-wise, whatever, but they don't really know us. What they want is the solution, the platform and the reusability. This is how we are both selling and delivering at the moment. So in previous days, and this goes specifically for large society-critical systems, most of it has been programming. It has been custom built. It has been constructed specifically for that government of that particular large enterprise because these are critical systems that live up to regulation. And regulation always differs from country to country, from geography to geography, from company to company. What we're doing now is everything is based on platforms. And on top of the platforms, we are launching products called vertical dimensions of that platform. The platform is technical. The vertical is functional or business. And on the very top of that, we had the customer-specific parts. Now I was actually excited for, I guess, how many platforms do you need. And I think I said in the newspaper 4 years ago, you only need 3, and I gave you 3 names. And then I added AI on across those 3. And I still think it's absolutely true, and then you need some products on top of that. Let's have a look at it. These are examples of the strategy. So you all know about the Smarter Airport, the whole journey where we created the PULSE platform. And as you can see, the product on top of that is AIRHART, and then you have the customer-specific configurations, whether it's Copenhagen Airport or Munich Airport. AMPLIO, which is with -- I call it the boring platform. People working on AMPLIO, "Don't say that, Andre." But it is really a case management administration -- administrative platform. Technically, what it does, you can create any type of entity, and you can route it around, and you can route it around efficiently. And on top of that, you can put any vertical. And as you know, we launched the Life and Pension vertical just recently. We are working on AMPLIO in many geographies, in many countries in Europe at the moment, and it's a very solid foundation for many of our administrative systems. We will hear much more about it in a walk-through. And the last one is AMI. It's all about communication. It's all about GDPR-compliant communication in a safe environment. And on top of that, we have a vertical, the one that most things know, like as Digital Post, Mit.dk or e-Boks running on that infrastructure. These are -- this is orchestration. This is real-time orchestration. This is process. This is communication. With those 3 buckets of components, there's not a single IT system you cannot build. That's, I mean, at least 99%. I mean if you want to go to the moon again, I don't know, I'm sure you probably -- you could use some of it. And then finally, as a very important part of the platform strategy, we've launched EASLEY AI to go across these. EASLEY is depicted here in the middle. It filters and remembers what any type of LLM receives or replies, right? So if you build a solution on one of these platforms in any type of vertical, you can access EASLEY, and EASLEY will access an LLM. And very soon -- and this is one of the things that, I think if, you read tech press and you're very interested in, well, the whole investment in AI, I just heard recently that next 12 months in the U.S., investments into AI will reach over USD 500 billion. That's a lot of money put into that. So the LLMs, that's a war fought out between very large companies, global companies. We will see versions of that in Europe as well. What we've done with EASLEY is that we've made ourselves independent, and we can change the LLM. So the solution is not dependent on the LLM. And in that sense, we can also live up to the sovereignty demands that we need to do. So the strategy is to accelerate growth, and that's done by reusing the platforms, and that is a very different strategy from building everything from pure IT services capabilities. And remember that the platforms, the products and the customer-specific parts for each and every one of those stacks, you have a unique solution still for the customer. It will live up to regulatory demands. It is looking very unique to that customer. However, if you look into the components of this, there's a lot of reuse. It's not like in the old days, where you came with an ERP system because it's still -- I know we're talking to an investor community, and you don't have technical backgrounds. You have financial backgrounds. And you still remember the days where financial services were automated by SAP or whatever. And the word standard package or standard software comes from that. But remember, that was a static type of standardization. Either you like it or you don't, and if you change it, it's going to be difficult for you to upgrade. And you had to have a fit that was close to 80% or 90% in order to buy a very expensive standardization package, right? Here, we can build a unique solution for companies and governments that live up to regulatory requirements but still have at least 50%, 60% reuse, maybe even more. And we can decide that from customer to customer, from institution to institution, from government to government. That's the weapon we need. And it's in the application space that Europe will prevail. It's not in infrastructure. That one is gone, right? I mean, I'm not saying we will not be building cloud environments. I'm not saying we will not have super AI computers we will, and those investments will come. But it's in the application space where we will be competitive again. I don't think -- you look at super magnificent companies in the U.S. Are they that magnificent? I mean half of them made social media, for God's sake. This is magnificent. This is engineering at its very high points sold at a reasonable price and scaling in one of -- some of the most complex areas of society. That's -- I'm not saying we are genius, but it's really well thought out. I really love it. And now we will have a walk-through of each of these platforms. I think you'll enjoy it a lot. Remember that, I think, we have a couple of people on stage who normally are very involved in building our platforms, so be gentle, because they are not used to be standing in front of so many people, important people. I think I will end it there. And hopefully, it will emerge. The strategy, we'll go through each and every presentation we have of the platforms. Yes. Any questions? Yes.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesNo, you need the mic. Here you go again.
Unknown Attendee
AttendeesA couple of questions. Firstly, just on the products and platforms stuff. Does this lead to any change medium term? And I guess this has been happening for a few years. But in terms of how you think about the labor model, intensity of hiring, how you price contracts, particularly for the private sector, do those elements change? And then really just double-clicking back on the digital sovereignty topics that you've talked about and that Ulrik talked about. Can we double click on if it's a real driver? I know we'd like it to be a real driver, but it's -- Europe's being, I think, challenged with some of these very large-scale projects in the past, whether it's payments initiatives or other things. Certainly, when we look at the infrastructure layer in Europe, what, 85% is still the big hyperscalers. You put up the LLMs on the slide and many -- much of the innovation is the U.S. companies. When we're running devices, the operating systems are U.S. companies. If we look at the European alternatives on the infrastructure side, they're actually significantly underperforming on growth rates right now. So how confident can we be that a tipping point is coming? When might that come in your mind?
André Rogaczewski
ExecutivesYes, 2 great -- really, really great questions. To answer very quickly on the first one, obviously, when you start reusing as much as we are and using the platforms, is it a goal in itself to have more and more employees? No, it's not. The goal is to scale as fast as possible and create as many solutions as possible. Having said that, I have to -- observing how it works out in real life, when we sell one of the platforms and products, we find out very, very quickly that we need some people, experts to help clients building up their solutions, and really funny enough, a lot of young people, younger talents really love the idea about reuse and love that they don't have to do the boring work, so to see -- so to speak. So it's been quite surprising to see that you actually need people just doing different things than before. So instead of programming, they are more integrating and definitely talking more to the customer about their needs. So that's a shift happening there. And it scales much faster. Secondly, I don't -- tipping point, really good question. Now I don't know. No one knows. Are we going to prevail with this? Are we going to be absolutely sovereign? I think Ulrik answered really, really well. It might be a hybrid, right, probably when it comes to government systems and regulated system. Remember that we will have our own software, and we will have our own sovereignty. That's for sure. We'll not give that away. And that's the market we are in. That's very, very important to remember. Secondly, I think, shown the way for this, these platforms can be installed and run in any type of environment. They are containerized. They are thought like that. I mean, again, this is what I like about it. So if you -- for instance, in Norway, they don't think sovereignty is that important as in Denmark. In the Netherlands, they think it's very important. In the U.K., you all know the U.K., right? We are friends with the U.S., but we're also friends with Europe, and let's see how bad this will -- I mean -- so -- but it can be run on any large cloud environment, whether -- but it can also run on-premise, and that's very important. So the customer has the choice, and we've designed it that way from the beginning. So you have to embrace these scenarios. And I think it's going to be a hybrid scenario. And I think that some of the global tech providers will also adhere to European standards. It's just a question of time before they come up with something that can be seen as sovereign and in that case, which will also be good for Europe because we need their technologies in conjunction with our own. We can also run on their infrastructure. So we're prepared for that. Great question, by the way.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesPerfect. We won't have time for any more questions, but you will be available afterwards for networking down in the reception. So please don't -- we have questions back and don't be gentle with this one. And now for our first platform presentation, we will have Thomas Rysgaard. Thomas is partner at Netcompany and has more than 10 years of experience from KOMBIT. Today, Thomas will present the AMI platform. Please go ahead.
Thomas Rysgaard Christiansen
ExecutivesThank you very much, and welcome to Netcompany. So building on Andre's introduction to our strategy. Going to look at some of these platforms and what we're doing around those. So I'm going to start by giving you a little bit of an introduction to AMI connect and we'll start off with a quick video as an introduction. [Presentation]
Thomas Rysgaard Christiansen
ExecutivesWow, that was shorter than I remembered. So let's talk about AMI. So AMI is our connect or communication platform, if you will. It's unique in that it really is a key infrastructure across a nation or a large organization. So this is being used in Denmark for Digital Post. I'll return to that. But it is thought as the glue that glues together all these different services and also becomes the connection between the enterprise, the government and the citizen and the customer. So when we look at this platform as an enabler, it is really something that is driving a lot of digital processes across the ecosystem. Now if we talk about AMI as a platform, it's easier to talk about it as a case. So in Denmark, AMI, it is in the bottom of Digital Post. So all communication between the government and the citizen, and the government and the organizations, companies goes through this platform. From a number standpoint, over 5 million citizens are in this ecosystem. Over 400,000 organizations are in this ecosystem, and more than 15,000 systems are integrated into this system as a sender and receiver systems. It tells you a little bit about the scale of this ecosystem. When we talk about how do we really do enhance communication, so we're sending both communication in letter form. We're also seeing data. We are also building service journeys. Am I missing sound here again? Or is it me? Maybe we'll switch to the other mic here in a second. So when we talk about how we are changing the way you are communicating around government organizations, we're talking about now not sending just flat letters. We're sending data carrying letters with Metadata. Who is it from? Who is it to? How is it going to be routed? Who's supposed to answer. We're also putting in actions into our letters, into streams. Maybe you need to provide data back to finish a flow. So we're doing a lot with data in this. So the old world where you connected system to system is becoming less relevant. We're actually using an infrastructure to basically accomplish a lot of that. In Denmark, Digital Post is one of the most critical infrastructures we have, is one of the most critical infrastructures we have connecting citizens with government and citizens and companies with the government. The other thing that is, with the AMI platform, very exciting is the fact that it becomes an enabler for some of the new technologies that are coming around Europe. So the EU Identity Wallet that's come will be enabled by a form. So if you are sending certificates between government and citizens, you can use this infrastructure as a secure infrastructure, GDPR compliant to deliver these. You can also build service flows, which means if I'm applying for a loan, I can basically have a secure flow where I put in documents along the way that are certified from my wallet. So this is actually one of the things, when we are traveling around Europe right now, is a big discussion how do we do this securely, and AMI is one of the answers. So Andre mentioned, we are combining these platforms with AI. So some of the POCs we are running now, when we look at the next level of this platform, is how are we going to communicate with the data in the platform in the future. And some of the pilots we're running, we're using AI agents, chatbots, so you -- or a company can have your personal chatbot, and you can chat with your data. You can ask questions. When was I supposed to be at the hospital? Was I supposed to bring anything -- any documentation? When is my next appointment? Was I supposed to be bringing some other data or components to this meeting? You can ask your data. You can also -- to calculate my last 3 paychecks. Please tell me how much I made and how much tax I paid. So we're seeing a shift in how we interact with data, not just taking up documents, reading them, understanding them, maybe even doing an action. We're seeing that you're actually communicating with your data and you're asking your data for answers. And you will also be able to do application flows and things like that just through a chatbot. This is the next level. And this -- when we look around Europe and we look at what are they looking for, many of the European countries are looking at these type of applications. Going to jump over the regular communication channel where you send a message, you receive a message. Let's get more interactive. When we look at the market, what are we doing right now with the AMI platform? So obviously, the Danish platform has been up running since 2022. It's implemented across the entire nation, both in the public and the private sector. We signed a contract here in August in Scotland for national implementation of AMI, and we are starting the first use cases in December and January. And how can we do that? And we can do that because we are reusing and we're accelerating. If you were to build this from the bottom, it will probably take us 2 or 3 years to deliver this. Now we can do it in 6 to 8 months. This is important when you have an election in May, that you can actually go out and show how these things can be delivered much faster and with features that typically would take a long time to deliver. We're also working with the English government with GDS, and we have done a POC for them, been very well received. So they are now doing a tender here Q1 for national implementation of -- based on the AMI platform. And we are now in dialogue with the state of Bavaria, and with the federal government in Germany who are also looking at how can we use this as an accelerator to both implement the wallet, but also to up the service deliveries and communication with citizens across Germany. So these are very exciting projects that are going on. When we look across the rest of our core market, if you will, there is not one entry in that market that's not discussing this type of application. I think the Swedes will come out with something within the next 12 to 18 months. Finland is planning their tenders. If we look to United Kingdom, we are already in there, and we are doing scaling based on national implementations. In Germany, we are in dialogue with both the federal and the states. In Germany, you will have a setup where the states will have likely their own infrastructure that will connect to the federal infrastructure. So we will see more versions of an AMI platform there. The Benelux thing talking about how the wallet and delivery channels can be optimized using something like this, and they have some very rudimentary communication channels today that this will surpass by many layers. And then in Greece and Malta, same thing. The wallet is driving this. And let's remember, the wallet is going to be implemented in all 27 member states by '26 and then fully implemented by '30. So there will be a lot of drivers that will help in this dialogue as we continue into the European market. I think that was it for me from a timing standpoint, and then there is time for Q&A.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesWell, apparently, that was very well presented, Thomas.
Thomas Rysgaard Christiansen
ExecutivesIt was very clear.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesIt seems like we don't have any questions. Well, I think we should just get going on with our next presenter then. Thank you very much, Thomas. And our next platform presenter is Mads Riisom. Mads is manager at Netcompany and has been a part of net company for almost 10 years. Today, Mads will give you a presentation of our AMPLIO platform. Please go ahead, Mads.
Mads Steinbakken Riisom
ExecutivesThank you. And for the AMPLIO platform, we will also be starting with a small video. [Presentation]
Mads Steinbakken Riisom
ExecutivesPerfect. AMPLIO, the value proposition of AMPLIO is basically that, just as Ulrik said, we are looking into a very, very big upheaval in Europe kind of around sovereignty and how we're going to do things. And AMPLIO is kind of helping push the sovereignty agenda because everybody has previously looked into Salesforce, Dynamics CRM and other established products in the market or how they do case management, process handling and everything. Now everybody is now changing the focus a little bit more towards something from Europe. Can we do something within Europe directly? Do we actually have to go to the U.S.? And AMPLIO is kind of the answer to this. It has been used broadly in Denmark already for many years. And as Andre said, I'm 1 of the guys who have been around actually building this 10 years ago when we started it, and it's paying out a huge amount of money in Denmark already. It is a truly well-established platform with a really big footprint at, for instance, ATP and KOMBIT. I'll get back into that later. Another really big thing about AMPLIO is that it's designed to coexist with existing parts of infrastructure. In this environment we're in today, most companies, most governments already have a lot of well-established products, platforms, IT systems. They are very old, and you do not just replace them from day to day. It's something that will have to take a while. It's an iterative process. And AMPLIO is really good at going in and slowly strangle out small piece at a time, allowing a slow and more secure transition instead of having to go for that big bang approach that was very common years ago. Another thing with AMPLIO is that we use it like a technical template. So it's kind of a platform we stand on, and then we build these verticals on top. We will talk about Life and Pension later and also about AMPLIO Estate. When we are talking AMPLIO as well in this very governed area with a lot of regulations and rules, it's really important to be aware that with all of these people and with all of these huge changes, we also need modifications on the run. In Denmark, we have seen the COVID hits, and we have seen how we have done inflation, health and stuff like that. We have to be very, very quick and easily adapt our solutions to handle these crises within a government. But at the same time, we don't want to be stuck with these increased maintenance costs forever. And our platforms are built in a way so that you can add components, you can add value, you can use these things, and then you can remove them again. And that is something that we have seen a lot of positive feedback from our customers about because they have been usually just seeing a constantly upgoing trend of maintenance, but now they will actually see a bit more of up and down because you can remove the things as legislation changes. I couldn't help myself. I had to bring a bit of a technical slide, and I've apologized already but AMPLIO is built on our foundation and then we have AMPLIO core. In the AMPLIO core, we have a lot of old parts from the good old govtech framework. We took the most important parts. We put those into a core. And after we have done that, we started doing a lot of things at ATP and KOMBIT and other companies, and then we moved on and started making these verticals. I've brought 3 of those verticals here. It's AMPLIO Estate, AMPLIO Life and Pension, and then there's AMPLIO Government. AMPLIO is widely used in government also because of the sovereignty aspect of actually utilizing a European platform for something that is [ societally ] critical. Yes. And then on top of these verticals, you will do this customer implementation. By having the verticals and having these different levels of implementation, we actually allow ourselves to be extremely fast in the market while maintaining this option or opportunity to tailor it to the individual customer. When we are talking with a lot of our customers, all of them believe there are Snowflakes, even though they are within the same domain in the same industry, and being able to just make those minor adjustments are really, really important. We see the same within large countries like the U.K., where there's slight different interpretations on legislation, and that can lead so that you will have a slight change in how you implement things in the system. And therefore, it's really important that you push that up and you leave that into being a configuration aspect, so you don't have to rebuild the foundation part of the solution every single time. The current market presence, I've already talked about it a little bit, but we are at ATP. We have family benefits. We have housing benefits. We have state pension. We are doing huge payments in the Danish welfare sector. Another thing that is really important for them when we are talking about the market potential is that they are able to keep taking on more work because the systems are automating more and more things. They're becoming more and more efficient, which also talks into the issue we are seeing in a lot of countries, for instance, Germany, where they are struggling to find enough people to handle all of these regulatory administration systems. It's hard to employ enough people. It's how to find the right people because it's not really, as Andre put it, the most sexy place to work or the most sexy thing to do. So therefore, it's really important that we can push this with automation, and we can do that using AI. AI is key to ensure that we can keep maintaining this lead. We can reduce the amount of people we need to do the same amount of work. We are also very focused around KOMBIT, where we are talking a lot about multitenancy being a big thing, allowing many different users or companies or groups, and KOMBIT it's all the municipalities, to ensure that they are GDPR compliant by storing data separately, storing data in a way so that it is easy to move around. I think a lot of you have heard about the issues we had with vulnerable children a while back, where moving from one municipality to another would lose the track of the data. By using these systems, it is now possible to do that automatically. We reduce the risk. We make it more fluent, but we ensure that we keep all the GDPR. What we are seeing in some older systems is that they are really struggling. It's very manual. It's very hard to ensure that GDPR compliance is being over held, but here, these platforms and these products comes [ out of the box ]. Other areas where we see is a big win we had in the Netherlands earlier this year with IND when they're doing the digital pack from Europe. It's the new pack on how you do immigrant registration at the border, and that is something that we have built a system for based on the AMPLIO platform. That actually allows us to take this, make slight modifications and then move it to another country. And we are in dialogue with other countries if they would be interested in this as well, so the potential is huge. We also have Sweden, where we have a really interesting one. It's a very small solution out there. But what is really interesting about this and the talk about sovereignty is that, that system is something they're fully maintaining themselves, meaning we're not forcing them to continue collaborating with us. If they find other needs, they can do it themselves or in-house it. So for them, it has been key for their strategy that they are able to go to market, buy a platform, buy a product, get a delivery, get success and then take it in-house and then continue delivery on it themselves. And then we tender again and again and again in the next aspects. And then, of course, we have the 2 products that I mentioned. We have AMPLIO Life and Pension, and we have AMPLIO Estate. AMPLIO Life and Pension is something we have built for industry, with the industry to ensure that there is a product out there. It is built on the Festina Finance core, meaning that we are actually able to take our AMPLIO platform and reuse all the great user experience, usability, GDPR compliance and things like that and how you handle customer interactions with processes and tasks while still reusing what is already existing in the Festina Finance core. In other areas, we are putting it on top of SAP to ensure that some of those old subsystems can be maintained, do what they're really good at, at the core, but you can still actually use them in a modern society and in a modern world with a modern user interface, quick response times and stuff like that. So it really allows this hybrid and not just a pure either/or approach. So what is the market potential? I want to say it's unlimited. I think even though it's not the most sexy platform, it's definitely a platform with a lot of potential, I don't think we can disagree that all public sector in all of Europe will definitely need to become more efficient as time goes by, and the same goes within the private sector, where we, for instance, have AMPLIO Estate, which is something that we have just launched with a lot of collaborators. And it is -- the potential is enormous. It does end-to-end processes for everything within the estate. And then the estate is not just about rental apartments. It can be anything. It is built in a way so that is very generic and can just as well be used to rent out a desk or rent out a book or whatever you want to rent out. And that is one of the strengths, is that we can keep it at the level we want to keep it at. I think that is really cool about these products we have built on AMPLIO, is that they are built for AI first. It's not that we're trying to adapt what is already there, old legacy or anything and then at AI on top. AMPLIO is directly engrained into the products, meaning every process has been designed for an AI to go and support the human being, reduce the amount of time it takes to do something. It could, for instance, be that if you are doing casework on a pension case, you want to check if somebody is eligible for some sort of payout. Then the AI would go in and check, do you have all the right documents, do you have all the right data points. And if no, it could reach out and ask for them automatically without actually needing a human being to go ahead and spend time on finding out what is needed, what is not needed, how do we need it and how do we connect it. So the potential is huge. The same is said about AMPLIO Life and Pension. Here, we are -- sorry, AMPLIO Life and Pension. And here, we are also building it for AI first, same approach, same thought process around that AI should be a core part of how we are doing things to ensure that we work more efficiently. But for AMPLIO Life and Pension, it is also really important to say that it does weigh more than that. It does not just help you make things easier. It actually goes in and becomes a bit of a digital colleague of yours who will give you sparring and we'll give you feedback on why did you put this in because according to the data, this should maybe have looked something like that according to what has been done previously. So all of a sudden, it's not just you can prompt something that we see in a lot of solution, and you can ask a question or there is a chatbot. We have all of that as well, of course, but it's just so much more than when you build it for AI first, you just unlock a lot more potential than what you're seeing in a lot of other areas. I think certainly that was my time from now. So we'll move to the Q&A.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesIf we have any Q&As, I can see we have one here for Mads.
Unknown Attendee
AttendeesJust one question. How much work does it take from you guys to develop and maintain the AMPLIO platform? And secondly, how fast, how quickly can you develop a vertical within the main platform?
Mads Steinbakken Riisom
ExecutivesSo the platform is built. So how long it will take? It is already there. So you could say that, that is very short. But for how long does it take to build a new vertical? That very much depends on the complexity of the vertical and the domain. So it can differ a lot. So there's no clear answer to that.
Unknown Attendee
AttendeesOkay. But to exemplify AMPLIO Life and Pension and AMPLIO Estate, what was sort of the development time?
Mads Steinbakken Riisom
ExecutivesSo the development time there was very much based around also the speed of how quickly could [indiscernible] vertical help us make these clarifications, right, is made for industry for industry, meaning we needed these operators to be able to pitch in and give us the right information to be able to build this. So the technical time is not actually what is the limiter here for how quickly can we do something. It is more around how quickly can we get the necessary clarifications to do the right thing. So I think it's a little bit difficult to say how long do they actually take to implement directly.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesQuestion for Wei first, and then I'll come over to you, Claus.
Yiwei Zhou
AnalystsCan you elaborate a bit on how you can incorporate AMPLIO to the Netcompany Banking Service? And what are the sort of the synergy here?
Mads Steinbakken Riisom
ExecutivesThere are many ways to use AMPLIO in Netcompany banking. The approach could be there are many different approaches, and we're talking about how should it be done. But with banking, there are a lot of core systems already existing and then utilizing AMPLIO and utilizing these components to really accelerate to reach what you need and then accelerate on how could you actually do it because what AMPLIO is really good at is the processing, making sure that what states are everything in, where should the data go, how do you report on it, how do you audit it on -- how do you audit on it, how do you make the automated reporting, how do you do all of these things that are necessary to do a compliant system. All of that can be taken out of AMPLIO, but it is also really important to keep focusing on what is actually there already so that we utilize the strongest piece of the existing core. So -- but a lot is the short answer.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesClaus?
Claus Almer
AnalystsThis is Claus Almer from Nordea. AMPLIO has been on the market for quite a while, and I guess it's been a journey to tell the Danish public clients what are the advantages of using this platform. So maybe you can tell about, when you're approaching a new project, so to speak, do they buy into the platform, so it's easier, cheaper maybe to buy that solution. Is it a speed to the market? Or is it actually just the outcome that they're buying into?
Mads Steinbakken Riisom
ExecutivesDepends on market to market, honestly. But if we take an example from Germany where we are...
Claus Almer
AnalystsMainly Denmark, then come to outside Denmark afterwards.
Mads Steinbakken Riisom
ExecutivesCool. So mainly in Denmark. So in Denmark right now because we have all of these components, they will mean a lot of integrations. It will mean a lot of processes. It will mean a lot of infrastructure is already implemented within AMPLIO. So that could be Digital Post and something like that. So for that, the time to market and the reduced cost is really, really important, but at the same time, it's a lot of reduced risk. You don't have to rebuild. You take things that already work. They are in production. They are battle tested. They have worked for the last 5, 10 years, and they will continue to work. And another big aspect of that in the Danish market is also that you are able to collaborate with other customers. So within the public sector, especially, we see a lot where KOMBIT and ATP can work together, say, new Digital Post. They can build the component share, and then they can do the individual customizations on top of that to do a reduced cost of getting access to some of the shared infrastructure.
Claus Almer
AnalystsAnd is that reflected in the tender material so you will likely get some benefits of less risk for instance? Or is it actually you are square with competitors?
Mads Steinbakken Riisom
ExecutivesThat differs from tender to tender, of course, how they want to score it, so it's really hard to say how exactly it is because that's very tender specific. But you will see in some tenders that there's a lot of focus on reduced risk and on price.
Claus Almer
AnalystsOn average, so do you see a benefit? And is there any view -- sorry.
Mads Steinbakken Riisom
ExecutivesWe definitely see a benefit on using the platforms for the tenders, and that is also why we are more or less always tendering on the platform.
Claus Almer
AnalystsAnd what about outside Denmark?
Mads Steinbakken Riisom
ExecutivesYes. So...
Claus Almer
AnalystsDo we see any competitors that can do the same as you can when you go outside?
Mads Steinbakken Riisom
ExecutivesWe definitely see competitors who do some of the same things what we can do. But we have a very -- quite a different approach on how you should do platforms. We don't just have a product where you say you get this box and whatever that is in this box, you got to use. You got to use all of it. And it's not really a good fit. Then, we're back to what Andre said earlier, that 10%, 20% of it, then you're going to have some very expensive customizations on top. And what you then often find is that when you have customized them too heavily, they become a little bit brittle. They become very hard to maintain. There's a lot of risk of them actually breaking every time there is a small update. Whereas with AMPLIO, for instance, we see that you have the core components underneath, but then you build on top of it. You don't -- you're not forced into taking anything, and you're also able to take the things out that don't need anymore. So you get both benefits of putting what you need, keeping the maintenance flow from the beginning and then remove things as you don't need them and add new things as legislation changes.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesI'm not sure if that answered all of your questions, Claus, but Mads will be available afterwards as well.
Claus Almer
Analysts[indiscernible]
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesPerfect. We have another question here before we...
Unknown Attendee
AttendeesCan you hear me?
Mads Steinbakken Riisom
ExecutivesYes.
Unknown Attendee
AttendeesYes, I had a question. Basically, he asked and you answered it because my question was how do you differ versus competitors, and you basically answered that. But how come that no competitor do what do you do then?
Mads Steinbakken Riisom
ExecutivesSo I think it also depends on the competitors, right? But I think one of the things that really puts us apart, of course, is being a European company, meaning we have a European focus. Another thing is that we have not just sat down 1 day and decided we are going to build a product. And then we put 10 people into a room and said, "Build a cool product, and then we'll see you in 2 years." We really have this focus on built by industry for industry, meaning that it's the people in the room who knows what they actually need for, then able to build it. And yes, we sat down and we made some technical components. But again, it's something that grew out of ATP, out of UDK, out of private sector projects. It's something that grew organically and is then being reused because we sat down and found that I need this component. And then instead of building it again, it's like, to be competitive, it would be a lot easier to just take the old component and then change the 40% that's different for this new customer and then reuse it again and again. And when you have done that 3 or 4 times, as a developer, you become lazy. And then you're like maybe we should commercialize this a little bit different and make it a little bit easier to move these components around. And then you go from that 40% down to levels maybe 10% or 20% on top, depending on the specific component. And why competitors don't do it? I think that very much depend -- I can't really say what they're doing behind the scenes, right? So I think it's very hard for me to say why they don't do it. For me, it seems obvious. But at the same time, the cost of changing that from what you already have, if that is a one size fits all, then the cost would be enormous to change it into something like AMPLIO that is built component-based from the beginning.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesPerfect. Thank you so much for your presentation, Mads, and for all of your good answers. We will now have a break, and we will start again 20 minutes past 1. [Break]
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesWelcome back, everyone. And I guess we have Andre seated as well. It's only Claus and Thomas, we are missing, the remaining part of the executive management team. So everything is as it should be. Well, we will now have Daniel Ezban on the scene to present our platform PULSE. Daniel is principal and Global Aviation lead at Netcompany. Today, Daniel will give you some more insights on both the PULSE platform and our co-owned product AIRHART. Please go ahead, Daniel.
Daniel Ezban
ExecutivesThank you very much. Thank you very much, Frederikke. Hi, I'm Daniel. Good to see all of you. Welcome back from the break. So I will be presenting the PULSE platform and what we are doing on that. So let's just get on with it. I've got a small clip made by our good colleagues, [indiscernible] as well. So let's have a look. [Presentation]
Daniel Ezban
ExecutivesThere you go. That's PULSE. And what is PULSE? PULSE is our platform that turns complexity into insights and insights into action. PULSE does one thing or multiple things very, very well. It connects fragmented IT systems. It gathers data from multiple different sources, tie them together in one single source of truth, makes that single source of truth available for teams, so they start acting on data rather than on gut feeling. PULSE is about delivering operational control at scale, about orchestrating data across functions, across the ecosystem, so clients can see what is happening and understand why and act with precision on exactly that. PULSE is very much the difference between reacting and making things right at the right time. PULSE has a shared core, and this is a message you've heard a few times today, and I will give my spin on it here. So PULSE has a shared core, a common foundation that we use across multiple different sectors from airports to logistics to energy. When we talk airports, we call it AIRHART. And when we are operating in other industries, we call it PULSE. And it's a very important point that here, we are not just building bespoke industry solutions. We are building on an evolving platform where each project and each things we do on the platform strengthens and accelerates the whole. That is unique. And that resonates extremely well when we talk with clients out in the market who are just really used to having very flexible industry-specific solutions. They always ask me, why do we have to wait for the right amount of investment and innovation in these siloed solutions? The answer is here by sharing and recycling elements, that's the way you add investments into the platform and the products. It's a model that spreads cost, reduces risk and ensures that PULSE is built to last, not just for 5 years, but for decades. And that is important when we are talking about transforming and changing your operational backbone. That is what people are after in airports and in other big infrastructure companies. All right. So let's move on and see our current market presence, how that looks. If we start out by talking about airports and what we're doing on AIRHART, this is by far our most mature market and where what we have is resonating really, really well. It has been validated that what we are coming with is definitely best-in-class in terms of the operational platforms. Monthly, I'm getting addressed by some of the major airports worldwide, who calls me and try to understand what is it you're doing? Why are you completely redefining things? Why you're calling things different things? And these conversation just sparks a lot of interest in terms of our approach to this market. Both Copenhagen Airports and Munich are deep and long-term strategic partners for us. We are very deep in those partnerships, and they have both adopted AIRHART as the operational backbone where we are replacing legacy infrastructure and providing real-time orchestration capabilities for the airports. And one thing that I'm truly proud of when -- that I return it to a lot of time is the way that Munich has adopted the platform. That is nothing short of impressive. We are actually running 5 or 6 parallel implementation projects on the platform on very different business areas, and we have scaled from 0 to 80 FTEs on only 8 months. That really proves how Munich Airport have brought into this as a strategic capability for the airport. When I'm with the Munich management team, they're Bavarian, they like their cars. So we always like to compare the platform to Mercedes-AMG, and they are really driving their Mercedes-AMG as they should on the German Autobahn with a lot of speed and a lot of ambition, and I'm very proud of that. So finally, I'm also very happy to announce that we have signed a third partnership agreement with a major European hub. We could even call it a mega hub. But unfortunately, I'm not at liberty to share the name of the client nor the details of the contract at this point. But I can say as much, it is something that we have worked on for a very, very long time. Reaching these milestones have added further credibility to our offering in this area. And it signals that the snowball effect is really imminent, and we are just about getting there. On the next slide, I will get to how we are releasing that potential in the airport space. So if we look at the transportation and logistics in more general terms, moving away from airports. The sector is scaling fast. It's driven by a low level of digitization and a lot of appetite on the readiness for digital ecosystems. So we are doing great things with the DP World Group, P&O Ferries, Unifeeder, et cetera. And we're still expanding the collaboration and the use of the platform with [ PULSE ] who are creating more and more transparency on their supply chain. If we look at a more emerging market for PULSE, then we're looking into energy and utilities. We have had wins there as well, and we have a market here with a huge promise, especially with projects as what we're doing in Athens on the wastewater company, EYDAP, doing great things with Vestas for the moment. And we have transformed the whole energy grid in Greenland with Nukissiorfiit. So this is where PULSE is today. It has proven itself in very complex, mission-critical operations across all our markets. So now we just need to look ahead what is in front of us. Going back to airports. In airports, we have a best-in-class product, no doubt about that. We have a best-in-class reference, more of them. They are in place now. So we are at the tipping point. We are ready to scale globally in our airport business. Two things needs to be in place for us to achieve that and release the potential. First, we need to expand our product portfolio so we can also target midsized and smaller airports because that is a significantly unserved market by AIRHART, especially on our home market in Europe. And on the other hand, we are also actively engaging with system integrators to handle implementations at a global scale, opening up for opportunities in the Americas, in the middle and in the Far East. So this is extremely important and interesting point in this venture of the smarter airports. This is how we will go from a European excellence to a global reach. One thing through the strategic partnerships with SIs to scale and to have a diversified product portfolio that we can scale as well. And those 2 things are also what we will be applying for our growth in our home market in Europe when we are talking PULSE in the other industries. So we will be entering a new phase, and that is what Andre laid out that where we will be shifting for a very service-heavy approach to a way more PULSE as a licensing powerhouse or a licensing generator, and we see a significant growth potential in Europe. So we will base -- we will address this potential on the basis of what we -- where we already have projects, for example, in Munich with Munich Airport as the base for growth -- driving growth in Germany and by adopting this partner-led strategy in new markets in Europe where we don't have presence as of now. So all in all, the future for PULSE is bright. We have some very, very interesting years ahead of us, and we will definitely be keeping you updated on what will be happening. And I am sure that you have a lot of questions for me. That's why I kept it nice and short. So please go ahead.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsOne, first question is Heathrow Airport. I'm just kidding. Just -- I was just wondering why was Norway not marked with the AIRHART sign on Slide 26, I think it was.
Daniel Ezban
ExecutivesYes. Norway, what we're doing in Avinor with AIRHART is still on the level of a POC level. So what I marked in that slide on 26 are fully big projects that have been fully implemented, that's why. But we are running a POC with Avinor in Norway, yes, that will finish in about a month.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsGreat. And then now you have, what is it, 4 major contracts within the segment, including the one you cannot announce the customer. Just thinking, do you have enough people to continue to land flagship contracts within this segment? Or is it like sort of the limits to have 4 big countries right now?
Daniel Ezban
ExecutivesNo, not at all. We do have the people. We do have the skills. We are benefiting from what we are doing in terms of scaling with the platform. What we have here is still the same core as we do in PULSE. So the whole PULSE team is also delivering into what we are doing in airports. And we are also, in parallel ramping up on the people side because we know that we are at this point now. But that is nothing we see as a risk in terms of scaling the people side.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsJust a quick one. Could you just remind us on how you think the projects that are in motion, Smart Airports right now is not -- as far I remember, is not generating profitability in the associate line, you can see in that company. So when does that start to turn into something that can be meaningful to the group?
Daniel Ezban
ExecutivesYes. We see that point is imminent. As I just mentioned in my presentation, with the latest win, we will see a small snowball effect happening, and we are really -- and I can also see that the concepts that we are bringing into the airport market with the orchestrated operations, it's something that is really catching on. And the dialogues that we have and the requests that I'm getting from the outside are shifting, whereas they have been very focused on specific solutions, do your solution do this? Does it do that? It has become much more discussion on, how do we tie everything together? How do we get this holistic view of how our airport operates? So that is very much what we have delivered that shift in aspect. And that's also where we shape the tenders that are out there by having these many conversations because they need to tender for something that wasn't in the market before for them to get the full benefits out of what we have in AIRHART. And shaping and educating the market is what we have been doing over the last years, I would say. And we are really at a stage where we see a breakthrough in that regard.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsComing back to the AIRHART. So I guess some of the potential clients out there are waiting to see it really functioning, which it does in Copenhagen. So do you see this to be the major milestone? Now you're ready for the next couple of years maybe to add 5 new customers?
Daniel Ezban
ExecutivesThey can just line up. I will be happy to serve them with contracts they can sign. No problem in that. But we are definitely at a point where we see we have good traction and getting very, very good signals from the market. But we also have learned and you can see that the sales cycles are extremely long. And there are long tender processes. Hopefully, not as long as the one that we are just finishing now, but it is a market with very long sales cycles. But that is also what ties into what I talked about diversifying our product portfolio, where we can have products that are way more standardized that will address smaller airports with more, I would say, narrower need than they do in Copenhagen and Munich.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsAnd when are you ready to give some more details on this major hub when...
Daniel Ezban
ExecutivesYou'll be the first to know.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsFor sure?
Daniel Ezban
ExecutivesMaybe a second.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesPerfect. Thank you. Sorry about that. Well, I think that was it. Thank you so much, Daniel.
Daniel Ezban
ExecutivesYes, you're welcome.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesVery interesting. And next up is Charlotte. Charlotte has a background in defense. She's a former General in the armed forces. And for 5 years, she served in the office of the Secretary General at NATO headquarters. Charlotte joined Netcompany back in February, and she's here to tell you more about one of our recent launched products, VERA. Please go ahead, Charlotte.
Charlotte Ployart Wetche
ExecutivesThank you very much. Yes, I have been working with -- and I can definitely shout out loud enough if it doesn't work this one. I've been working with Defense & Resilience for more than 30 years. And I have seen, especially during times of crisis, I have seen how traditional authorities often struggle with the loss of control, especially when the crisis across domains and sectors. When I was leading the Danish military part of the evacuation from Kabul, Afghanistan back in 2021, we really struggled with sharing data across my domain, the defense domain, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the police and so on. We saw similar challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic where authorities struggle to get an overview of everything from supply lines to which parts of societies could be reopened and when. So in the current geopolitical environment with hybrid threats and attacks hitting our societies, which are based on the principles of sector responsibility and the Western rule of law, we struggle with the loss of control. So the response to these hybrid campaigns and challenges is information superiority that allows us to react in real time, and that is why we built VERA, which hopefully comes up on the screen. [Presentation]
Charlotte Ployart Wetche
ExecutivesSo VERA is a real-time data orchestration vertical that integrates numerous existing systems from the public and private sectors. Just like Daniel mentioned before, when we talked about PULSE, then VERA is based on the PULSE platform, the real-time data platform. So this system gives you AI-enabled awareness. It predicts and it suggests a response. An example on how VERA can create awareness, predict and suggest a response could be if we look at the Baltic Sea area. The system can create a precise overview of, for instance, ships from the so-called shadow fleet using data from AIS, the Automatic Identification System, coastal radars, subsea cables, most of them owned by private industries, satellites, naval ships. And if we are then also linking to EU sanction lists, exclusive economic zones and international law at sea, VERA's AI-enabled technology can predict the criticality and suggest possible ways to respond in an unambiguous way. And in due time before a dark ship passes through national waters. So VERA can mitigate the coordination challenges that I've seen so many times between different sectors and authorities. And then by that, enabling the cognitive superiority, that's a difficult word, that authorities and organizations are looking for at the moment, especially so within the organization of NATO, but also in the European Union. If we then look at the market potential and with the example I just gave you in -- at the top of your mind, across European markets, I would say the opportunities are vast. NATO has decided to spend 5% of GDP on defense, out of which 3.5% are hardcore defense, what I used to like and talk about, fighter aircraft, tanks, missiles and all that stuff, but then 1.5% of GDP on resilience. And that's where VERAcan play a huge role. I've listed some of the opportunities up here on this slide and I would like to dive into a few of them. I think like Ulrik mentioned to start with the current -- given the current geopolitical tectonic trends, we -- they are basically creating a lot of epic opportunities, I think was the word, epic opportunities for Netcompany. Throughout Europe, there is a growing demand for digital, national and European sovereign solutions. And that's what we can help with through VERA based on the PULSE platform. So within the public sector, emergency preparedness, climate-related events such as flooding quite often happens across regions and districts and involve several authorities and private companies. We can look at the European markets. the Baltic Sea and the North Sea regions to take -- to mention a few, where we have a lot of energy suppliers that are both vulnerable and threatened and where both private and public sectors are playing a role. So VERA can create the real-time overview of critical infrastructure that can play a crucial role, allowing our societies to orchestrate and react in time. If we turn to the international organizations, I've already mentioned NATO. But if we look at the European Union, then cross-national resilience platform initiatives, for instance, Frontex, the European Union operation that is guarding our borders, could be quite a relevant place to start negotiations on VERA because units and capabilities from across Europe participate in this operation. And they basically turn up with boats or with planes in the Mediterranean area. And there is not a digital overview of which components are actually present at any given time. All the other data sources that we can pull into the system of VERA based on PULSE again, are not -- there is not that overview. It's on pen and paper or over a radio, as it is today. So there is a huge potential there as well. And then, of course, the private sector, defense and security industry suppliers are absolutely giving us -- there are opportunities there in that industry as well, especially you could say, those who have -- who is playing a role in the critical infrastructure market, VERA could play a role there as well. So I would say that there are definitely a lot of opportunities, epic opportunities across Europe when we focus on this new market vertical where we combine, again, the components that we have built in Netcompany over the years. We are very much focused on VERA, on the real-time orchestration platform at the moment. But within Defense & Resilience vertical, of course, we also keep a keen eye on AMPLIO, especially that is also relevant for the nation's defense sectors and resilient sectors. So that was what I had. And please ask me questions, not technical ones, then I will look at Daniel right away. But any other questions would be fine. If you have any, if you dare to ask me any questions.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsJust a quick question here. Could you please talk about competition, if you are aware of any platform systems already being adopted by some European countries or any potential sort of alternatives out there?
Charlotte Ployart Wetche
ExecutivesYes. I think going -- again, going back to the beginning of this session where Ulrik presented, many of the European capitals are looking at alternatives right now to U.S. tech giants. So I find it hard to see any obvious competitors on the European market. But of course, from the U.S., there are a few. We all know that, for instance, Palantir, they are very much into defense. So defense is also probably a bit more of a red ocean right now than the resilience part where we -- again, where we integrate data from both public, private sector, military and civilian domains. So there are competitors out there. Palantir is really good at what they're doing. When we talk about intelligence and targeting. So how does NATO planes operate together, how do they get a common picture? Palantir is really good at that, but there is a lot left for a company like Netcompany to engage with.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsJust a quick follow-up. Atos, the French player realized they have built something for the French military. And do you know if they have a product already? Or is sort of just a system they built there for the French Army?
Charlotte Ployart Wetche
ExecutivesTo the best of my knowledge, it's a system they use in the French Army. And it's still, as I understand it, relatively limited. But I can't say much more about it. I know about the system. I know it's being used in parts of the Danish -- sorry, the French, of course, Army. But basically, there is no system in Europe right now that you could compare with VERA. I wouldn't say there is. Yes.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsI mean there's a lot of talks about the European drone wall. We need to protect the border and underwater and over water and everything. But Palantir has one solution maybe. But is this kind of a winner takes it all market? Or how can you complement -- I mean, what can you do to sort of complement other suppliers?
Charlotte Ployart Wetche
ExecutivesYes. If you -- talking about the drone wall, that's still out in the open how that's going to be configured. But I would -- we have a lot of cooperation with industries, the defense industry in particular. About a year ago, I think it was Netcompany actually launched a national alliance with Danish companies, drone detectors and radars and so on, where all the data was put on the PULSE platform, which is now we have turned into VERA. So there's definitely a potential there, and we are working a lot with finding companies that we can partner up with because, of course, we need the sensors out there. We need the sources to come into VERA. And in particular, on the drone wall, we are in close dialogue with a number of both Danish but also European actors.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsA question. When Netcompany has developed products in the past like AIRHART or estate, it's been done together with clients in this case, is it a desktop work? Or is it also done with authorities?
Charlotte Ployart Wetche
ExecutivesIt's done with authorities, but with less participation than -- I'm not too sure how AIRHART was developed. I think it was in very close cooperation with Copenhagen Airport, of course, to start with. But it is looking at the Danish. If we look at Denmark, there is a lot of pressure on various authorities. So they can't put that many hours into developing it, but we are in very close dialogue with several authorities, not only from Denmark, but also from European capitals. So it differs a bit, I would say, from one country to another, how much manpower is being put into the -- to developing and configuring because the basis is there, the foundation is there.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsI have one question actually. It's into 2 questions. Daniel was talking about the Mercedes-AMG, and he didn't really say whether it was electronic or a diesel one. So we'll find out whether you need to refuel a lot. What kind of car are you driving? That's one.
Charlotte Ployart Wetche
ExecutivesAudi.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsAnd the other question is the order that we're not quite sure is a certain U.K. airport has taken a lot of time. When do you expect to actually see order announcements on VERA?
Charlotte Ployart Wetche
ExecutivesThat's a very good question. I can say that we have the first contract, but I cannot say what it's about. So yes, it's a super difficult question because right now, we can't say more. We're not allowed to say anymore. But I know there is -- I know for sure, there is a huge potential. And again, we are in close dialogue but it takes time. If you go to a Ministry of Defense somewhere in Europe, those things take time. So -- but we are also about to -- there was a question about Oslo and what is called [indiscernible] We are kind of on the same line with a number of POCs where we use VERA in the military and resilience domains. So -- but we can't really -- that's at the POC level right now with one contract, limited scope, but still.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesOkay. Nice one. I think that was it for Charlotte. Thank you so much.
Charlotte Ployart Wetche
ExecutivesYou're welcome.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesThe next presenter is Thomas Monefeldt, partner at Netcompany and with more than 7 years of experience from the Danish Ministry of Tax. He's one of our experts within this area. And Thomas will give you a presentation on both our product, ERMIS and SOLON TAX.
Thomas Monefeldt
AttendeesYes. Thank you, Frederikke. Yes, I have the pleasure of presenting 2, and we will also here start with a video, and that's a video combining the 2. So let's listen carefully. [Presentation]
Thomas Monefeldt
ExecutivesTax and customs is one of the areas where we have taken our platforms and put into actually a product that is very specific into markets, and it's within taxation authorities and it's within customs authorities. So within this domain, we are talking about what we call custom product or commercial off-the-shelf product that is very much targeting the actual business operations within these domain. So when we have our ERMIS product, that is a product that goes in and handle all the cooperations of customs authorities. So when we see like Ulrik did in his introduction today that a lot of things is happening within Europe on the border due to the geoeconomic situation, ERMIS is our answer for the customs authorities and the other authorities at the border on how to handle this and do it into operations. So ERMIS is covering everything related to declarations on import, export and transit, but also other areas of the border, for example, tariffs that is very popular at the moment. And it's handling end-to-end operations at the border for the customs authorities. We are aligning the product to be 100% compliance with the legislation. So whenever EU is changing anything, we are complying with these legislations and build it into the product, so it comes out to all our clients at the same time. At the same time, we are also working to make sure that we are handling all other global standards and customs still even though the world is fragmented, is still very much regulated on a global level. So our product is both covering the standards of WCO, but also the standards of EU. So we basically have 2 data models within the product and can shift between them, which, for example, makes us a very compelling argument for selling into countries like Norway or U.K. that is on the edge of EU and want to comply with both international standards and EU standards. In 2021, the acquisition of Intrasoft, one of the main reasons behind that acquisition was the tax and customs domain. And through that acquisition, we have got a lot of knowledge and a lot of the work that was done in Intrasoft in the past has been used to actually create the ERMIS product and is now what we are leveraging on. And we have also gathered a lot of people coming into the organization that has very deep domain knowledge. So we are in customs, the most knowledgeable organizations in Europe within this space and the one that's having the most expert and is using that both with our work with EU as a client, but also with the member states. Besides working with the EU on customs and the member states, we're also in ERMIS working to do what we call supply chain integration. So we're working on integrating what is happening at the border to make it easier for the traders to go in and out of the country by using AI for enabling the way that organizations is integrating towards the customs authorities and also using AI on the internal side of the customs authorities to make process optimization for the customs agents at the border. Then we also, as part of ERMIS, using it for the risk and compliance part. So everything that is happening at the border related to risk and compliance with goods coming in and out of EU, we're using ERMIS for detecting and using the data that is running through the system for actually building machine learning models and AI models to detect what containers should they take out for control activities. On the other hand, we have SOLON. SOLON is a newer product that has been launched a couple of years ago that's also building on the knowledge from Intrasoft and the experience that we got from there, combined with the experience we have got by working with the Danish -- it was Danish tax where I was a happy client before joining Netcompany. And SOLON is also like ERMIS, end-to-end product that is trying to combine everything that is happening in the core process of taxation. So we are focusing on taking all the areas that is complex and then putting it into the product. So we are covering end-to-end processes of the whole taxation. So that could be within personal taxation, within VAT, within business taxation and then have end-to-end processes covered in ERMIS and also making ERMIS compliant to what OECD is calling Tax 3.0, which is kind of the Northern Star for tax authorities that they are moving in, in actually being digital and being part of the ecosystem. So we are enabling tax authorities to be, like you know from the Danish context where data is coming from banks, from insurance companies, from unions into the tax authorization, making tax easy. So for the taxpayer, you don't have to do that much that the tax authorities is actually calculating everything on behalf of the taxpayers. Are you still awake? Tax and customs can be boring, but I hope that I still got your interest here. On the tax side, when we're going around Europe and we are talking to tax authorities all across Europe and also outside Europe, there is one big issue, and that is the legacy situation that Andre addressed in the beginning. And in taxation, similar, a lot of you coming from banks. So you know this legacy situation and a lot of tax authorities was digitalized in the same way and at the same time that major banks. So the legacy challenge that you really see in that market is very much the same as you will see in the financial sector. And therefore, when we are going out and looking at big transformation program, they do not see a need for an end-to-end solution that cover everything at once, but want to do it stepwise. So the way that we have built SOLON tax is to take a separate model or separate business processes and then make it easy to take a step-wise migration. And that's also the approach that the tax authorities where we have sold SOLON has been using and do this migration stepwise and using the [componentized] structure of ERMIS similar to what Mads was telling you about with AMPLIO earlier and make it easy and more -- less riskful to go into these big transformations. If we look at our footprint, if you look at the customs part of things, we are what we call the market leader. We have 11 contracts across Europe on ERMIS handling import, export and transit in various countries and has, over the last years, won around 80% of the tenders where we are participating in most contracts in this space is tender out in large EU tenders. So it's quite easy to figure out how well are we doing up against this market. And if you see, we are both working in countries where we have local offices, but we're also working in other countries. And in these countries, we're working together with local system integrators and have the ability to scale by also using other companies locally to actually implement the product itself. If you look at SOLON, it is newer. We got the first contract last year, as you probably are aware of, and it is now having 3 countries, where we have sold SOLON. So that's Sweden, Lithuania and Greece and is working on this implementation and we'll have our first go-live later next year in Lithuania. Then we are seeing in the market of tax authorities, a shift towards more and more cost product. So we see around 1 to 2 tenders coming out in this market a year and it's also expected that for the coming years. And with the track record of SOLON, we have won the 3 out of the 4 tenders where we have participated with SOLON. So we have found a very good market traction for this product within Europe. If you look at the market potential for SOLON and ERMIS. We should start with ERMIS. One thing that has been a main driver for ERMIS has been the European custom code that was decided by EU in 2013. That has harmonized the way all customs authorities is working. That is continuing in the coming years, and there's still a lot of potential in helping countries that is lacking to comply with this legislation and helping them building on top of its both countries where we already have contracts, but also countries where we don't have contract yet. Besides that, there's coming in a lot of new legislations in EU within the custom space. We have areas like CBAM where we have won a contract within EU and is running the system or is implementing the system that is going live later in the year to comply with the CBAM legislation when that is going to be effective 1st of January next year. And similar legislations we see on the pipeline in EU coming, and that will be something where we see big market potential, both on member state level, but also within EU. And then we have put up here a new area which we're looking into, which is trade facilitation. All the knowledge and the processes that we are having for customs authorities is also relevant for traders and logistics companies so that we have the ability to go in and help them running their businesses with the insight and knowledge we have from the customs authorities. If you look at the SOLON part, SOLON is a market where we have this 1 to 2 tenders a year coming out. It's an area where there is a shift towards cuts, but there's also a shift for making smaller pieces of SOLON combined with our system integrator capabilities. So for example, in the U.K., we have started the journey with HMRC with a DALAS contract on doing bespoke development and is working on that. So we see a combination in many countries where we both have the product, but also have the actual ability to help with the strategy that the local authorities are using out the knowledge from building our own product into the SI work. Yes, I think that was basically that. I think the last note is that we have now -- because we are so secure in the way that the product strategy and the coverage of the product in terms of the business, we are also investigating with some pilots to go outside Europe with SOLON. And we are right now in active bidding outside Europe with -- where we are partnering up with one of the major what you call consultancy companies and is bidding with that. And that's a kind of a test with some procurement that is actually live right now, where we're seeing. Can we scale ERMIS and SOLON? By going outside Europe in a model where we are the one that comes with the product and comes with the domain knowledge and then working together with a local implementer that can then do the integration work around this space. Yes. I think that was it, and then there's time for questions.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsOne question. Last time at the Capital Markets Day in 2023, you had a slide showing market penetration for the ERMIS solution. I think at that time, you have penetrated 7 or 8 countries. Today, you have 11 countries. First question, are you happy with that development, given that it's only you and [ED] that has a solution for this industry?
Thomas Monefeldt
ExecutivesYes, I think so. I think being able to win 80% of the tenders that has gone out is quite well and it is a lot above what you will see in other similar markets. So we are happy about that. And then on the side of that, we also have increased our work at the clients that we are working at to be able to do system integration work around the product. So we have been very satisfied with the growth we have seen within this space. And then we have used the knowledge from the member states to actually got a lot of work within EU. And we only see with the new EU customs reform that is coming in 2038 that the work in EU is growing, and we are right now the biggest supplier in EU for tax, the tax and customs authorities. So we also see a very big potential in being close to EU and getting more work there.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsAnd what is the risk that the deadlines for UCC custom code will be postponed again?
Thomas Monefeldt
ExecutivesThe risk for us in terms of market share?
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsYes, exactly for the upcoming tenders.
Thomas Monefeldt
ExecutivesI think the UCC deadlines, the last one is, I think, in '27. So -- and then they will probably be a little postponed as it looks right now. We don't see that as a big risk because if they are postponed, it will just give countries more time to actually take on a larger development and get rid of the legacy systems that many countries, for example, the big countries like France, Italy, Germany is having. So we only see that as a positive thing if the deadlines are getting delayed a little bit.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsYes. [indiscernible] here. Just one quick question. Could you please talk about the potential with your existing customers? If I remember correctly, one, the Danish Ministry -- tax Ministry put the system up for tendering. It was split to like 3 parts and expanding to import, export. Do you see the same pattern here in the international markets?
Thomas Monefeldt
ExecutivesYes, we do. So many of the countries that we have here, the contract right now is only covering transit, which is the smallest part of the customs work. So in major markets like the U.K., like Holland, we see a potential in going into other areas. And we also are in close conversations, and we see that the strategy in many countries is following is taking smaller steps. So for example, within export, it could be the AES legislation. That's a new thing within EU. So they're taking these steps. And when they are taking these steps, they are not using their old legacy system, but they are then using the legislation to apply for funding and then we have the opportunity to get in there. So definitely a big opportunity to expand within the current clients.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesThank you so much, Thomas. And -- and before we get to the break, I'll just give the word to Andre, who will give you a little speech for a couple of minutes.
André Rogaczewski
ExecutivesI want to summarize a little bit on the last 2 sessions here because now we're going to -- after the break, we're going to go into Netcompany Banking Services, which is a new adventure as well. But I hope that it was very clear and visible how the platform strategy is everywhere in what we do and how we're reusing everything and that we are working with very specific domains where deep knowledge is extremely important. And one thing I would add to the overall presentation here is that don't forget that there's a lot of investments going into AI at the moment, and everyone is talking about AI like the whole new thing, and we see what's happening in the U.S. and in China. The ticket to go into the AI space and fulfill the full potential is being inside these domains and having AI built into it. So when you think AI and you think ChatGPT and you're using it every AI, certainly you do. Think about it differently. Think about the way Mads talked about it. It's really important. It can do a lot of stuff for you when you're inside these domains, working with it every day. And it can actually -- that's where you take the potential of 30% and 40% of the workload there is today. It's not outside. So -- and I think I don't know, but with the huge investments going into AI infrastructure at this moment, that can be utilized from within the systems and using AI. I mean even I sometimes think so much money going into AI at the moment. It's historical. It's really what is spent during 1 year is more than we've seen for 10 years in the Internet era. But that infrastructure can be reused through our solutions. Just an important point to make. Okay. Break and then come to banking services. [Break]
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesThen we are ready to get going. It is now time for a presentation of Netcompany Banking Services. And by my side, I have Torben Finnemann. Torben was CEO at SDC for 12 years before joining Netcompany Banking Services as CEO.
Torben Finnemann
ExecutivesOnly CEO for almost 3 years.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesA part of SDC for 12 years.
Torben Finnemann
ExecutivesYes.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesBut on 1st of July, you joined Netcompany Banking Services as CEO, and Torben will start giving you a short explanation of SDC and the services they delivered in the past. And afterwards, Thomas Cordth, partner with more than 25 years of experience at Netcompany and now Head of Business Development at NBS or that was what I read on LinkedIn at least, will present the vision and next steps for NBS. So please go ahead, Torben.
Torben Finnemann
ExecutivesThank you very much, and thanks for the opportunity to share insights, but also a high-level understanding of the former SDC. And also, hopefully, through this, give you an understanding of the starting point of Netcompany banking services. I think maybe the best way to give an understanding is to start by explaining a few historical turning points of SDC. Clearly, the first one is founded in 1963. Key purpose at that time was scalability like it, of course, also is today, but economies of scale for basic operations. Since then, the purpose have shifted very much towards the customer journey as a whole. That is the end customer and a great banking experience for the end customer, but also, of course, for the efficiency within the banks themselves. Another turning point is the entry of the Nordic markets. In 2004, SDC entered the Norwegian market with the first customers, followed by entering the Swedish market in 2007 and eventually also the Faroe Islands market at 2010. And today, SDC operates 51 -- or SDC operated 51 banks across the Nordic with the majority in Denmark and Norway. I think it's also very important to stress that in the recent years, SDC has successfully done a level shift on the main platform. This is a modernizing of the core banking platform. This is a cross-country core banking platform. Also, we launched a new mobile bank, a netbank, and Nordic mobile net bank for the Nordics. And we have built an adviser platform, I would say, a market-leading adviser platform also for the Nordics. The next natural step for SDC would have been, and for NBS is, to focus even more on the customer journey, making the customer journey a fully automated customer journey, preferably AI-powered, making it faster, making it more efficient, making it more personalized and making a great banking experience into this. This could seem like an ambitious goal, a target. I think given the competencies that SDC brings to this with the sector insights and the sector knowledge, combined with the new tech insight and skills and the AI-powered tools, some of the tools we have gone through today, makes a strong combination and enable us to actually make a fully automated customer journey. So today, SDC is a modern-based core banking fully service provider across the Nordic. In fact, we are the only full-service core banking provider in the Nordics. That is a unique position. the position is consolidated by the fact that we have full integrations to the sector in 4 countries. We have full integration to partners. We have full compliance to legal and law in 4 countries. So basically, we have a Nordic market, which is open for the company banking services. And we have a full opportunity to pursue scalability cross country, not limited, but in one country. Looking at the numbers, we have about 2 million end customers, typically the ones using the mobile bank, of course. We have about 6 million customer accounts. There's about 2,000 bank personnel or advisers sitting in the banks, facilitating various advisory cases. And I think the advisory case is a key element in here. The more than 1 million advisory cases we do a year is the core of our focus. Also, it's a core of our focus because this is where you generate the revenue for the banks. This is where you do the credit loans, where you do the selling of investment products and pension products. And essentially also what I mentioned before, this is where you facilitate the full customer journey and where you have a high degree of customer interaction. So naturally, this is a focus going forward. I already stated that we are a full service provider. But I would like to state it again, this is full service for all aspects, addressing the end users, addressing the bank personnel in the banks, addressing the daily operation, addressing the security for a bank, which is also a major task and addressing all the compliance, the law, the regulation, which is just increasingly as time goes by. So we are a trusted and key partner for our banks. I think we also are their largest share of wallet. And you could say we are their license to operate because we're such a huge part of our customers. Therefore, also the services spans on a great span starting with the basic services that we deliver. And these are Software-as-a-Services, this is core bank. This is payment and cards, of course. This is daily operation, and this is compliance, law sector compliance, of course, also. And then at the other end, we also have supportive services, just like migration support, implementation support in utilizing the systems and even purchasing community using the scalabilities, of course. The services we deliver is based on recurrent revenue, main part, yearly maintenance license for the basic services, also transaction-based and usage-based recurrent revenue, of course. And then we have commercial enhancement projects that we do together with the customers, of course. A key part in our services is also the flexibility we provide to our customers. So we have an open platform, a platform which enables a fit for all shapes and sizes of banks as you see up here on the screen, we may have some of our customers -- most of our customers utilized the full Software-as-a-Service platform. So that's all our solutions. But other customers to an increasing degree, utilize parts of our platform. They may use the core banking system and have their own mobile bank. And that flexibility, of course, enable us to go towards a much larger customer base and also, of course, makes it important that we are also a strong partner in the integration to third-party vendors on their own applications. So it's an important part for the flexibility. Also, we are a facilitator. We facilitate governance. We facilitate bringing our customers together, looking at common solutions. And we do that to ensure that we can make scalability on this solution, reduces, of course, the average cost to the benefit of all. Finally, and I think very relevant, we are trusted and best-in-class migration partner. When I speak about migration, I refer to consolidation of existing customers, and I refer to onboarding of new customers. This is a key capability considering the consolidations in the sector. When you do a decision to switch from one platform to another or to merge, it is a daring decision for any director in a bank because of the complexity. We have proven capabilities in this. We can do that. And we believe we are going to do that quite frequently when we are going to onboard, of course, new customers, where this is going to be also a key capability. But I think addressing the markets, Thomas Cordth will go further...
Thomas Cordth
ExecutivesThe foundation we already have. Let's talk about the future, what our goals and aspirations are. So where do I move forward with this? Yes, here we go. So in essence, we want to be the most business-focused banking IT service provider in the market. So our starting point and offspring is definitely what we want to be for our customers and customers in a broader sense, all kinds of stakeholders. So beginning with the customers, we want to provide the next-generation self-service, give frictionless answers on inquiries, both on a daily term on banking transactions, but also in important life moments. And it's not only digital, we think here, we'll also make sure that we do the best transaction with the customers when we have them in the banks. For the advisers, it's very important to get a 360-degree overview. AMPLIO, we just spoke about is a real good candidate for giving that overview, integrating across all the tools they're using today. We can see and that counts for most banks, that jump between applications, copy content and have a lot of busy work that doesn't really help and it's not really productive. So this is something we'll focus on. Coordinated in a financial overview and always give the customer or the adviser the next best action, so you keep having focus on the essence and how you can create more business. So this is definitely one of the things we're looking into. Another thing is, and I'll come back to the enablers for that is definitely the business automation. There are still a lot of manual tasks, especially in the production layer when you have sold a product and go into production, there's still a lot of manual tasks that we can automate also by using AI. And finally, going to the banks, what you should really notice here is that we have done the investment in moving from the mainframe to newer technologies. That's the hard part. So this will definitely give us a lot of opportunities to close these gaps really fast with the platforms we have just shown you today. And again, data is all about data. So giving real data, real-time data insights in the banking sector, you have a lot of batch processing, you move things overnight. We want to provide more real-time data where it's possible, so you can do things instantly, giving the best advice instantly, automate the processes around KYC and ML instantly. So this is what we are going to work intensively with. So what are the enablers? What is making this possible? Yes, it's probably not a surprise that AI is what we're looking into. We already have a catalog of AI agents we want to build. Some of them focus towards the end customers and some of them focus towards the advisers. So we're already delivering on some of those. And this is where we want to show quick improvements compared to what you have today. And it's not only at the customer touch points, it's also when you're doing KYC and ML. We do want to do that instantly. Business automation, we already have a lot of tools doing business automation. AMPLIO is a tool for providing business automation and giving a coherent overview. So we already have a lot of tools to start from here. Real-time data insights, we look very much into, as I said before, how we can provide data real time, so you can take actions instantly. But it's not only that, it's also collecting the data so we could do a lot more within compliance, security and fraud prevention. It's all about data. All banks -- bank products are digital products. and we can collect a lot more data than we do today. So real-time data is also what will enable that we can do even more on the AI side and also even more on the business optimization. So here, we're building the foundation for the future. And we have so much to build from Netcompany. We are building some of the largest real-time data platforms out there. Daniel told about the data orchestration things we are doing in PULSE. So this is really a stronghold for us. This is something we know really much about. So we look very much into how we can provide that information going forward to that. And then speed of innovation, having done the hard part, modernizing the core, imagine how fast we can close gaps and conquer new features and opportunities by deploying the platforms you have seen today. We have so many good assets we can deploy in the banking area as well, giving us a leap and closing really fast in some of the opportunities we are seeing out there. Going to market opportunities. Of course, we believe we can get a larger share of wallet at our customers with all the backup we have from that company, with all the tools and platforms we have out there, we have so much more to offer now than we have had in the past. Also bringing things in from other domain. As you have heard today, this is something we do quite often, taking things from one sector and bringing it into another sector. And we're already doing a lot in pension and insurance that we can bring into here, especially in the AI area. Another important part is that we will provide the market with core independent solutions. Today, you need to have the core in SDC. But we need to capture new markets, we cannot rely on customers always picking our core platform. So we'll come with products to the markets where we can actually build on other cores and provide instant capabilities that the customers don't have today. I see a big opportunity. This is important. Torben, you alluded to it. We still have a lot of market to capture in the Nordics. So that's where we start. But of course, over time, we want to expand in other markets as well. But for now, it's Nordic, Denmark and the Nordics we are focusing on. Back to the migration experience you just talked about, we can actually drag on not only the migration experience you have, we have done so many migrations at Netcompany. So when we get new customers, we can make risk-free migrations. We have the tools for it. We recently launched FENIKS AI, which is a legacy modernization platform, so we can do this transformation. And remember, this is heart surgeries. Every time you do a modernization or if you actually want to leave your banking core and switch to a new one, migration will always be a concern. But we are really, really strong in that. We have done it both in SDC, and we have so many tools to bring to the market from Netcompany. So the entry barrier to our platform will be a lot lower than usually. Yes. And then last but not least, Netcompany Banking Services is now part of a larger group, the Netcompany Group. We already have a lot of engagement in our Netcompany Financial Services Group, working with pension companies, working with insurance companies. They are already active in other countries. So that will give us a foothold to go into new markets. We're already there. We are known for delivering on financial services. So of course, that will be a stepping stone to capture new market. And again, I'm very much focused on delivering new things very fast to the market, really proving that we come with a new idea of how banking should be done. We are a commercial operator. We are used to be in a competitive situation. We're used to getting a lot out of almost nothing sometimes. So we know how to deliver these solutions. So I really think that will bring us in a good situation. In Denmark, at least, it's very locked this market. It's typically owners that runs the banking central. But now we have a commercial player that can really change the market dynamics. So I will not go into these platforms. You have seen a lot of the platforms today. I think, Matthew got one question where AMPLIO is relevant. That was not a fair question because you have not been involved in banking services. But we're already looking into, as I said before, how we can create that 360-degree overview, combining advisory sales and fulfillment of these products. So AMPLIO is a way to integrate and get the overview and provide the action for the adviser. And this is something that will be a game changer. The last thing I might mention here is, we own a part of Festina Finance. Netcompany Banking Service is already using their adviser products. So that is also a starting point for us to work closely together with Festina Finance on providing things that can also help the banking market and where we in some sort of control and can do that together because we have mixed platform. And the last thing is we're also doing a lot in banking in Greece and Cyprus. We have a lot of the larger banks in that area as well. And we also have assets from there where we're, of course, looking into how we can share that and basically stand on each other experiences and capabilities. So I think that's it for what we're going to look into the future. Any questions? I guess there will be many here because that's the new kid in town.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsI guess a question going back to where SDC is today. I'm curious to hear a bit more about the upsell potential of existing customers. So what's the -- how much more is a customer who's on, say, the full SDC SaaS platform worth than the customer who is just using one solution? And I guess related to that, how many customers are on the full SaaS solution and how many are just on a more fragmented number?
Torben Finnemann
ExecutivesI think I can answer that. In terms of upscales, there's different perspectives for a larger share of volume of wallet, as I said before. We have some of our customers, of course, they are cross sector, large customers. So there are opportunities to do cross-selling on other sectors to the same customers. There are multiple business cases to do for, as I said, for revenue generation for our current customers. So there are lots of selling potentials with the existing customers in this aspect also, of course. Most of them today is using the majority part of our Software-as-a Services. Some of our larger customers, for instance, we have Skandia in Sweden is only using the core banking platform, and then they have their own mobile and net bank, and we have done a full integration to this. So we see some of our customers only utilizing parts of our platform. But that's not the majority. The majority is using the full service as it is. But we do get a lot of requests also on partial parts.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesOf time here. So please reach out to Thomas and Torben afterwards if you have any further questions. because I'll now give the words to our CFO, Thomas Johansen, who will go through the numbers with you and the synergies first of Netcompany Banking Services. Thank you.
Thomas Johansen
ExecutivesAll right. Only me between cold glass of wine. So I'll see if I can be swift. So a few words on the synergies within Netcompany Banking Services. As of July 1, '25, we completed the acquisition of SDC. We are thrilled about the transaction. We believe that it will add significant value to the Netcompany Group and to our shareholders. But equally important, it will offer tremendous value to the sellers of SDC, namely the banks that are now customers of Netcompany Banking Services. Transaction was structured as a merger, whereby SDC was merged into a new company, namely Netcompany Banking Services. As a consequence of structuring the transaction as a taxable merger rather than purchase of shares, the acquisition is meaning that the net assets to Netcompany will be eligible for tax depreciation. That means that the full purchase price of DKK 1 billion will be tax deductible on a tax depreciation perspective, saving DKK 220 million of taxes for Netcompany. Another consequence of the merger is that SDC per the shareholders' agreement that was in place, received a payment of DKK 65 million for the shares of holding in SDC in JN Data because they had to leave the company, JN Data when they were no longer owning part of it. Now the fact that Netcompany Banking Services is no longer a shareholder in JN Data is undramatic, and it will pose no change in the relationship initially. JN Data is obliged by law to continue to deliver the current services for the next 24 months. And if there is no new solution in place after that period of time, JN Data is still obliged by law to continue to deliver these services. Now SDC used to report under Danish GAAP, whereas Netcompany Banking Services will report under IFRS. Under Danish GAAP, leases are accounted for as expenses and are hence included in administration costs, whereas in IFRS, leases are capitalized as right-to-use assets and amortized over the term of the lease. Reporting under Danish GAAP, SDC have historically capitalized and amortized the own developed software. Now under IFRS, that capitalization would require a clear relation between the capitalized development cost, the future cash flow related here to and a clearly identified delivery obligation. Such a strict relation does not exist under the IFRS interpretation and hence, capitalization is not allowed, even though a significant amount of IP has been developed and still exists. Hence, the value of the own developed software is substantially reduced during the purchase price allocation from around DKK 750 million to DKK 33 million. The value of the developed software is instead allocated to customer relationships and goodwill. And Netcompany Banking Services will consequently discontinue the previous method of capitalizing and amortizing approximately DKK 200 million of costs annually. As has been said a few times, the main reason for the shareholders of SDC to enter into the transaction with Netcompany was to accelerate innovation, reduce time to market for new solution and at the same time, also reduce their own running cost. To deliver on that promise, Netcompany has initiated a comprehensive transformation project of Netcompany Banking Services, introducing Netcompany methodologies of working, sharing existing platforms, of which you've heard a lot today, to accelerate innovation for Netcompany Banking customers and to eliminate duplicate roles post-merger. In addition, Netcompany Bank Services will leave its current headquarter in Ballerup and work out of Netcompany corporate headquarter actually right here in Strandgade in Copenhagen as of January 2026, so in 2 months. That move, we believe, will ensure a fast and swift integration of sharing knowledge and support the integration of Netcompany Banking Services further into Netcompany Group. During the next 3 years, Netcompany expects to gradually realize cost synergies that by 2028 are expected to be between DKK 300 million and DKK 350 million compared to the cost base in SDC of 2024. The expected phasing of the realization of the annual cost synergies are 35% to be realized in 2026 next year, 65% to be realized in 2027 and then the full realization of cost synergies to be realized by 2028 and onwards. Assuming the midpoint of the cost synergies range of DKK 300 million to DKK 350 million in 2028, the transaction will add roughly DKK 6.8 in earnings per share compared to the 2024 base, which is equivalent to an increase in earnings per share of more than 70%. The total special items year-to-date is DKK 351 million, including DKK 35 million related to advisory in connection with the transaction, termination of contracts, including the lease of SDC's old headquarter in Ballerup, which is another DKK 130 million. And then finally, other restructuring costs, including cost for redundancies of around DKK 185 million. So all in all, that is the synergies to be realized in SDC, the reason for why we think this is a fantastic transaction, both on a business perspective, but also on a financial metric perspective. And I'll leave it with that and then open the question -- open the floor for questions.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsI guess when we think about the deals you've done, Intrasoft was less of an integration than Netcompany Banking Service will be. Do you think Netcompany Banking Service is ready for that cultural change that you're going to have to drive through that business, both from a delivery perspective and the cost base effect over the coming years? And you haven't mentioned too much about the top line growth you hope to achieve with Netcompany Banking services, do you think you can accelerate that growth rate sustainably while you've changed the cost base quite significantly?
Thomas Johansen
ExecutivesYes. So a lot of questions in that one question. Thanks, George. In terms of the difference between Netcompany Banking Service or SDC and Intrasoft, then you're absolutely right that initially, we decided to not integrate Intrasoft into Netcompany Group back in 2021. The reason for that at that point in time was that Intrasoft was a big operation, 3,500 employees or 3,200 at that point in time, and Netcompany was 3,700. So basically, we did an analysis showing that the integration risk if we were to put Intrasoft on Netcompany group systems in 6 to 12 months was simply too big. Now subsequently, we have integrated Intrasoft into the Netcompany methodology, the Netcompany systems as of January this year and further integration is ongoing. So I would actually say that the integration of SDC and Intrasoft will end the same place. The only difference is the speed with which it's done. Now at this point in time, before we acquired SDC, we were a group of 8,500 employees, having done a number of acquisitions and also subsequent integrations. So we feel much more comfortable that we can do the integration with SDC on a faster scale than what we've seen historically. Adding to that, the vast majority of employees in SDC is in Denmark and the part that's not sitting in Denmark is sitting in Poland and Warsaw, where we also have an office. So the 2 integration office or the 2 integration tasks are by nature, very different. We feel comfortable that we will manage to integrate SDC and the talent that exists in SDC greatly into Netcompany Group to the benefit of both parties. Then in terms of top line growth, we don't have any specific long-term aspiration for SDC Netcompany Bank Services at this point in time. We are just now getting on the same platform. We'll do the integration of Netcompany Bank Service, as said, by 1st of January. And then, of course, we will start to see what we can do of new offerings like Thomas Cordth was mentioning. We do expect that to generate additional activity with Netcompany Bank Service customers, and we'll look at how we can then scale that further. But as of now, we're looking at the transaction to be yielding significant cost synergies. And then if and when it will add top line synergies, we'll get back to that.
Claus Almer
AnalystsClaus Almer from Nordea. Thomas, can you just say a little bit more about the cost synergies? What is actually driving or what's behind this DKK 300 million, DKK 350 million -- is it both fewer FTEs, lower salary? Is it moving out of Ballerup, of course?
Thomas Johansen
ExecutivesThere's a combination of all of the above. And then you're going to ask me, well, how much is in each bucket, right? So I'm going to kill the energy in the room on that and say that I'm not going to be commenting on that in great detail. But what we can say is that when you do a merger, then clearly and put things together, certain roles exist in double manner, right, which is mainly within the administration. Now it's fair to assume that a lot of those roles once integrated, will vanish and be done in one unified way. So there's some reductions in the administrative part of the group. It's also fair to assume that given the fact that the ability to work with technology work on existing platforms already exist throughout Netcompany Group, that learning and that methodology will be pushed into Netcompany Banking Services, which inherently will generate significant efficiency gains in Netcompany Banking Services, basically meaning that we can do more with the same people or we can do the same with less people. So that also means that there will be some redundancies going forward. But we will make those calls as we go. The most important thing is to observe that we have a group of 51 banks that have entrusted Netcompany to handle all of their operations that have entrusted Netcompany to deliver on the promise to deliver new and modern banking services to accelerate their offerings through an increased use of AI. So of course, we will also focus on that. And then there are other external factors in terms of cost for advisory within Netcompany banking service that will be discontinued. Sure rent in Ballerup will go away. So it's a combination of those things.
Yiwei Zhou
AnalystsYou talked about integration makes sense in Denmark and also in Poland. But I also realized there's around 27% of revenue in 2024 came from the Nordic markets, Sweden and Norway. And what are the synergy there? Could you maybe elaborate a bit?
Thomas Johansen
ExecutivesSo the markets in SDC, Sweden and Norway are, to a large extent, served out of Copenhagen Ballerup historically. think the presence in Norway was -- and it is in Trondheim, which is a small representation office, 5 people. So there's not a lot of synergies to realize there because there's no presence. So Norway and Sweden have been served out of the office in Ballerup.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsAnd can you elaborate a bit the revenue stream in the Nordic markets, are they more like licensing income paid for the SaaS platform? Or is it a people business?
Thomas Johansen
ExecutivesNo, the way the licensing -- sorry, the way the revenue stream is structured is not as a license. Historically, a number of different applications has been built in SDC, more than 300, and they are all pulled together in a solution to run the bank or the bank's different operations. And that is being invoiced on an ongoing basis. It's not based on licensing. That's also why we cannot sustain the DKK 750 million as value of intangibles. It is based as a recurring fee for maintenance of the operation.
Unknown Executive
ExecutivesYes. I also have the next one.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesPlease. All fueled up. please go ahead.
Thomas Johansen
ExecutivesI'm still Thomas. And thanks for the question. We can, of course, take further discussions afterwards. Talking a little bit about long-term targets. Now the demand for IT services in Europe, we believe, continues to be large and growing. And using market data, the addressable market for large-scale IT digitalization projects, so that is the Netcompany is estimated to be well over DKK 1,000 billion. So that's DKK 1 trillion in Europe annually. In addition, my colleagues today have demonstrated that Netcompany are now ready to also tap into the market for software licenses with the various products and platforms that we have developed and commercialized over the last couple of years or 3, 4 years. So consequently, we add another DKK 300 billion of addressable market in Europe annually for software sales for Netcompany to tap into. Now that leads us to conclude that Netcompany should be growing organic revenue through any business cycle between 5% and 10%. And based on our offerings and our products and platform enabled with AI, we conclude that Netcompany should also be realizing a margin of more than 20% through any business cycle, too. For the group, including Netcompany Banking Services, we expect total annual capitalization of costs related to the development of own software. So that would be the products that we've been through today, not necessarily the ones that are in Netcompany Banking service that we said we will not capitalize on, but continued development on ERMIS and SOLON and the other platforms. We continue that level to be in line with our historical level of capitalization, which is around DKK 100 million to DKK 130 million annually. Taking this and the timing of the realizing of synergies in Netcompany Banking Services into perspective, we expect to reach an adjusted EBITDA margin of above 20% for the group by 2029. Since 2016, we have made 6 acquisitions that have been supportive of building the group as it looks today. The acquisitions in Norway, in the U.K. and the Netherlands are what we would label as "acquisitional hirings." In other words, acquiring a company to get access to the employees. The reality, irrespective of what Andre and I have been tough in the market with. Reality is that it's turned out that such acquisitions are inherently more difficult to make successful. Hence, we changed our approach in 2021 with the acquisition of Intrasoft to be focused on only acquiring companies that would add "scalable IP." Now Thomas Monefeldt has in his presentation, shown the value of ERMIS and SOLON to the group and those products we got through the acquisition of Intrasoft. The opportunity in both estate and Life and Pension based on the AMPLIO solution that Mads Riisom was talking about, together with Life and Pension Core that Festina Finance have developed offers great market potential too. And lastly, Torben Finnemann and Thomas Cordth have spoken to the scalable opportunities with SDC into Netcompany Banking services, reusing SDC IP with Netcompany platforms, including AI capabilities. In addition, also tapping into the other product developed by Festina Finance, which is the adviser platform. That was already an integral part of the system landscape in SDC and in other banking platforms, too, before the acquisition of SDC. And hence, looking forward, we will only be making acquisitions that offer scalable IP. So finally, I just want to reiterate our capital allocation principles. Now we continue to be opportunistic when it comes to M&A, meaning that we will act if the relevant M&A opportunity presents itself. When making an acquisition, we expect the acquisition to be EPS accretive in less than 2 years with a payback of 5 years. In special cases, we can accept a payback period of 7 years. And finally, we target to make acquisitions where value of the target is not higher than the value of the company. Going forward, we will dynamically redistribute free cash flow using both share buybacks and dividends. Our long-term target for leverage is below 1. And irrespectively of those targets, we will still complete the DKK 2 billion share buyback program that was initiated in 2023 to be completed by 2026. Now that was all I had. I don't think anybody has any question on the long-term targets. Yes, or maybe you. Any questions, please? But that's okay. thank you, Wei. Thank you for saving me.
Yiwei Zhou
AnalystsI'll be the one to ask a question. Thomas, last time you provided a bridge on when you gave the 2026 EBITDA margin target. Could you also elaborate a bit here, how do you reach the 20%? It is still quite far from -- if you're looking at the current level?
Thomas Johansen
ExecutivesYes. So -- we'll not be providing a bridge. So if you're hoping for that, I'll have to disappoint you. But what will take us to the 20% margin by 2029, there's a couple of things. So first of all, clearly, the realization of synergies in Netcommunity Banking Services will add to the margin. That's clear. Second of all, and maybe tapping back into our recently released Q3, we do expect margins to continue to come up in the markets we are in. And we saw margin increase in Denmark in Q3. We saw margin pick up in the U.K., stable markets in the Netherlands and then too low margin in Norway. So no surprise when I say there's going to be a combination of increasing margins in those countries. And then clearly, that will be facilitated by continuing to sell large-scale digitalization projects with a product or platform attached to it. The product and platform will enable better and faster implementation. It will enable reusability, which means that the cost will be lower, which eventually will make our profits go up. Now another important message maybe is that towards the 2029 target of the 20%, we've not made any wild assumptions that 10% of revenue or 20% of revenue should be driven by licenses. So we believe there is a large and untapped license potential for Netcompany to tap into, but that is not what's going to drive the 20% margin by 2029.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsI'll try another one then. end up having a recession and you grow 5% and not 10%, could you still achieve the 20% EBITDA margin?
Thomas Johansen
ExecutivesYes.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesThe shortest answer you've ever given, Thomas. So thank you very much.
Thomas Johansen
ExecutivesThank you.
Frederikke Linde
ExecutivesAnd with that, we are actually done for today. I want to -- just before we open the doors and leave the room, I want to say thank you to all of the presenters that has been on this stage today. I want to thank all of the internal colleagues that has helped out to get this up and running. But of course, also thank you to all of the investors and analysts that has decided to participate both here at our headquarter in Copenhagen, but also those who have followed online. So please go down and have an hour of networking with the presenters, our country managing partners, both from Denmark, [ Jens ] and [ Richard ] here as well. So if you have any follow-up questions, please go ahead. And thank you very much.
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