Netel Holding AB (publ) (NETEL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Netel Q1 Report 2025. [Operator Instruction] Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to our presentation of our Q1 results. My name is Jeanette Reuterskiöld and I'm President and CEO of Netel. With me today, I have Fredrik Helenius, our CFO. We see a financial development in line with our own expectation and normal seasonal variation for this first quarter. We show that we continue to deliver on our strategy to grow with new and existing customers and in new geographies. We increased our sales organically by 2.7% in the quarter and had sales of SEK 694 million. We have an adjusted EBITDA of SEK 20 million with a margin of 2.9% compared to 2.8% last year. Our growing order backlog reflects both on our position and the strong underlying markets. In the beginning of the year, we had strong tender season as many of our customers need to start the product in spring time and before summer in order to be able to be done before winter. We continue to see many relevant requests from new and existing customers. Our main markets are in Sweden and Norway, which together account for approximately 93% of our sales. And our growth markets in the U.K. and Germany together account for 7% of our sales. Infraservices decreased sales in the quarter by 11.3%, but compares to an unusually strong first quarter last year. We continue to see strong price competition in our market segments as players who normally target the housing market are looking for new customers and business. This has led to lower margins, but our business is growing with both new and existing customers while expanding our geographical presence. We have already taken measures last year to optimize costs and resources and continue to develop the business for further profitable growth. In Power, we grew 23.8% in the quarter as a result of our strong development in Norway, where we have gained new significant customers and broaden our geographical presence. The framework agreement with Glitre Nett Sør means that we are building a new organization in Mandal in Agder, south of Norway. The framework agreement has a term of potentially 4 years and lays the foundation for our investment in Agder. In Telecom, we decreased our sales by 3.8%, and the quarter was largely affected by a high proportion of projects that were started up for future deliveries during this year, not least within the new expanded framework agreements with, among others, Tele2 in Sweden and Telenor in Norway. Profitability improved despite the high proportion of project starts. We see that the margin raising measures that we took last year in Norway will continue to have an effect during the year. All figures in this presentation are reported excluding our operations in Finland, which are reported separately as an asset held for sale according to our previous communication. Fredrik will later on go through the numbers in more detail. With our recently announced agreements, we have demonstrated our ability to deliver on our strategy of growing with existing and new customers. For example, Sigtuna Municipality for our division in Infraservices. We have also expanded our geographical presence, both in Norway and in Sweden with Glitre Nett and Tele2, and have thereby strengthened our position in stable long-term market segments. The first months of the year are affected by starting up projects for future deliveries. The first quarter for us is, therefore, normally the weakest of the year in terms of sales, profitability and cash flow. The financial development in the quarter is thus in line with normal seasonal variations. In January this year, we announced our intention to sell the Finnish operations. The sales process is proceeding according to plan, and the goal is to complete the sale this year. By divesting the Finnish operation, we free up resources that can focus on our main markets in Sweden and Norway, as well as the growth markets we have in Germany and the U.K. Our new digital tools and systems are now implemented and the fine-tuning of them has begun, which will continue throughout the year. We see their potential and expect positive margin effects gradually during the year. Netel is not directly exposed to trade duties, but of course, we are closely following developments regarding trade tariffs and assess today that Netel will not be affected directly. We are currently protected by index clauses in our customer agreements and in many of our projects, customers are responsible for the purchase and delivery of materials. Netel also has no operations in or sales to the United States. Our services in critical infrastructure has a high priority for all the markets we operate in. Our business is a project-driven in its nature. We have, over time, different type of projects, and most of our business is weather-dependent, which leads to annual variations in outcome as well as the growing share of recurring service contracts, and of course, the market situation. Based on this, we have revised our financial targets to better reflect what we currently expect to deliver financially in the coming years. We now expect annual organic growth of 3% to 5% and an annual adjusted EBITDA margin of 5% to 7%. The target for the capital structure remains unchanged and means that the net debt, excluding lease liabilities in relation to adjusted EBITDA rolling 12 months shall be less than 2.5. Last year, we grew organically with about 3% and we delivered a margin of 5.2%, but we were above our capital structure target. Under 2024, we had a one-off effect of earn-outs for around SEK 125 million, and we do not have any earn-outs to be paid going forward. We believe that with our new strong order backlog and all the activities for improved margin and cash flow, we will be able to deliver on these new financial targets. Our new financial targets are set to be seen as yearly achievements aligned with our strategy for profitable growth and enabling a more transparent view of our expectations for the business. We still expect step-by-step margin improvement going forward. Now before handing over to Fredrik for more detailed comments on the financial performance, I will give more details on some of the agreements we have recently signed. We are very pleased with the trust placed by Sigtuna Vatten & Renhållning, a company owned by Sigtuna Municipality that we have signed a new framework agreement. The agreement includes, among other things, the expansion and modernization of water and sewage network in Sigtuna. Sigtuna is located in the northern part of Stockholm County and has undertaken several initiatives in the water and sewage sector to improve and modernize infrastructure, including the expansion of the water and sewage network. It is a 3-year agreement with an option for 2 years expansion. Sigtuna Municipality is yet another new customer and a new geographic area for us. And in Power, we have our power company in Norway, Nett-Tjenester, where we have signed 2 key agreements with Glitre Nett in Norway. Glitre Nett owns and maintains the electricity grid in Agder, Buskerud and Hadeland, which are placed in Southern Norway and has about 320,000 customers. The first contract is a framework agreement, which includes planning, ground and construction work as well as high-voltage installations. As a result of the agreement, we established a new organization in Mandal, South of Norway. The framework agreement has a potential during of 4 years and lays the foundation for our expansion in Agder. We also signed an agreement with Glitre Nett to expand the transformer station in Spikkestad, southwest of Oslo. This agreement has a value of approximately SEK 50 million. As part of the project, we will plan and execute ground and construction work as well as high-voltage installations. And in Telecom, we have Tele2, who is one of Sweden's leading telecommunications operators, delivering broadband and communication services to millions of households and businesses. We have signed a new 2-year framework, which is more comprehensive than our previous contract. This new agreement covers both a larger geographical area and more services. As part of the agreement, we are responsible for the installation, service and maintenance of Tele2's broadband in Sweden. We are responsible for installation from Skane to Uppland. And in terms of service and maintenance, the assignment covers the counties of Stockholm, Uppland, Västmanland, Södermanland and Östergötland. The agreement runs for 2 years with the possibility of extension of an annual basis. Through this renewed collaboration, we have strengthened our long-term relationship with Tele2 and consolidated our position as a leading player in the construction and maintenance of broadband networks. So, now it's time to hand over to you, Fredrik, with a more detailed presentation of our financial performance.

Perfect. Thank you, Jeanette, and good morning, everyone. Looking at the financial performance in the first quarter, we, of course, first and foremost, note the evident seasonality where we generate slightly lower volumes and as a consequence, both lower margins and lower cash flows. The start of the year implies time to start new projects and, in our case, this time, new clients or regions. Still, we managed to utilize on the increased order backlog, reaching a growth of 2.7%, a growth mostly driven by Power in Norway and Telecom in Germany, where we continue to see positive contributions from new projects. We delivered sales of SEK 694 million in the quarter compared to SEK 676 million last year, with a few interesting new contracts in combination with updated views on our existing contracts, we grew the order backlog from year-end and remain above SEK 4 billion here in quarter 1. We continuously work with new interesting projects and search for new interesting tenders. And with the existing order backlog, we estimate that we have around SEK 2 billion for the remaining 9 months of '25. Looking at the profitability in the quarter, this graph on the slide clearly shows our seasonality pattern where Q1 is the weakest quarter of the year. As said, we tend to generate lower volumes as we use a lot of time in the beginning of the year to start new projects and work with lower volume activities as we focus on the preparations in the project to get ready to ramp up production during the coming seasons. The adjusted EBITDA, however, increased to SEK 20 million or 2.9% with a few adjustments for restructurings and the process of divesting our Finnish operations. And Telecom contributed with a positive margin here in Q1. We still expect to improve our position and profitability over time, yet Q1 is a low volume quarter where we have limited possibilities to perform within the higher profitability range. Again, we note a slight improvement compared to previous first quarters, and we continue to evaluate the effects from, for instance, the better and more efficient solutions within Telecom, our new organizational structure and new contracts throughout the entire year. The lower volumes in the first quarter implied a slightly negative earnings per share of SEK 0.08. Turning to the cash flow. We note that the cash flow in the first quarter is improved from last year, yet still negative with minus SEK 29 million. Finland was more or less neutral in the quarter and the cash flow from excluding discontinued operations was -- from the discontinued operations was minus SEK 1 million. We are focusing a lot on seasonality today, but it is a very important characteristic for our business as we need our capital when ramping up new projects and need to reach certain achievements before we are entitled to invoice or ultimately, generating cash flows. The quarter benefited from the timing of inflows from invoices sent in December, and we believe the outcome to be in line with expectations for the start of the year. Yet as seen historically, we expect to improve our cash flows throughout the year as we finalize production and are able to benefit from the cash release towards the end of the project life cycle. In addition, and as Jeanette mentioned, we paid roughly SEK 125 million in earn-outs during '24, payments that were scheduled for '24 and obviously, we do not expect the same cash out here in '25. We closed the quarter with around 10% net working capital in relation to sales, which we believe is within expected levels for our business and our first quarter. And it's just a slight increase from year-end as we start new projects and engage in activities in new areas and start new partnerships with interesting customers. We have, as we have said before, achieved improvements within our projects and certainly increased the cash flow awareness across the group, But this will continue to be on our focus, and we will still have room for additional improvements and thus strive for our potential going forward. Effectively, with the seasonality and the working capital need, we remain above our capital structure target on net leverage being around 3.0x in comparison to the target of 2.5. But we continue to have a solid liquidity. And with the yearly cash flow cycle, we do expect to improve the position towards the later part of the year. We have proven our ability to generate healthy cash flows in the past. And with the limited outflows here in '25, meaning the new earn-outs, our focus remains on improving our net debt position and decrease the leverage ratio towards our financial target here in the end of '25. As previously announced, we decided to initiate the process of divesting our Finnish operations with the goal of closing during '25. We are working swiftly with the process according to plan together with our set of chosen advisers. The business performance in Finland is in line with expectations and once again, very much about the start of the year and seasonality in Q1. Ramping up production and the relatively lower volumes impacted the margin also in Finland, but we have a good position, and we are working closely with the management to further develop the business in Finland alongside the ongoing divestment process. The business in Finland generated sales of SEK 34 million with a slightly negative margin. If we turn and have a look at the divisions and looking at the performance across these 3 divisions in the first quarter, Infraservices firstly delivered sales of SEK 144 million and decreased 11% against a good Q1 last year where we saw additional projects running over the year-end. Vice versa this year, we saw fewer projects continuing since last year and focused on the start for new projects. Profitability-wise, Infraservices delivered a result in line with Q1 expectations or an EBITDA of SEK 4 million or 2.6%. In addition to the seasonal pattern, we still noticed a relatively higher competition within our markets and expect that to remain during '25 before we start to see improved possibilities as the housing market provides additional alternatives. We believe that we have a good position and that we see good opportunities for Infraservices as well as we do for our other divisions, and we continue to evaluate our new orders and tenders in order to contribute to the group's improved financial performance. Within Power, we note a growth of 23.8%, driven by Norway as we increased production towards new clients in new areas. Power generated SEK 252 million in sales compared to SEK 204 million last year, and Norway continued to contribute with both our power service contracts as well as from projects. Sweden was roughly on par with last year, and the division delivered a decreased profitability with SEK 7 million in EBITDA with a 2.8% margin. The margin is partially impacted by costs in relation to our expansion into new regions and with new clients, and also due to the project mix and phase with fewer substation projects running at the same speed as we did last year, and those projects have historically been providing margins in the high range. As said before, Power remains as a very interesting market. We have had 2 profitable years for the divisions with good performances and we continuously evaluate tenders and market possibilities, trying to utilize on this momentum that we see in the underlying market for power. Lastly, we have Telecom, where we delivered just below SEK 300 million in sales in the quarter with a single-digit negative growth of approximately 4%. As we noted, the start for many new projects, for instance, with Telenor in Norway and with Tele2 in Sweden. With the multiyear framework agreements that we have, we have a good position in our order backlog, and we look forward to evaluate progress as we get up to full speed in our production. Our growth markets in Germany and U.K. combined came in a few millions below last year, but we continue to work for new interesting volumes and the value of tenders in addition to those already published. The EBITDA for the division was SEK 2 million or 0.8% in the quarter. It is low, yet positive and improved. We were not satisfied with the margin for '24. However, as we go on and increase the production now during the year, we continue to improve our new tools for efficiency within bigger service contracts we have in Norway. We'll repeat our expectations for the stepwise improvement going forward. Telecom is our biggest division with about 40% of sales, and we aim to leverage on our order backlog and new contracts in order to increase the profitability. And with that, for Telecom. I believe that I can hand back over to you, Jeanette, for a few concluding comments.

Well, thank you, Fredrik, for this presentation. I will finalize today's presentation with some concluding remarks on our growth strategy and how we can build a stronger Netel going forward. Netel celebrates 25 years this year. We started our operations in Telecom and have, over the years, developed our business in Power and Infraservices. Through both acquisitions and the ability to grow organically, we have managed to develop our business over the years. Underlying this, we have strong megatrends of electrification, digitalization and modernization of water and sewage system as driving market forces for our business. We have successfully delivered on our strategy and continue to strengthen our position in our markets. Every day, I receive proof of the strength Netel has in all our competent and motivated employees. We have a sharp team with a common clear goal to make Netel even stronger. This means that I'm confident in our ability to deliver on our financial targets and grow with profitability. And with that, we open up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Question comes from Karl-Johan Bonnevier from DNB Markets.

A couple of questions, if I may. First, looking at the outlook you described for this year, it sounds like you are seeing quite a broad-based growth base anyway, and maybe with a little less in infra and slightly more in Power and Telecom. Is that how you want to also perceive your view at the market at the moment?

Yes. That's correct, Karl-Johan. We see high growth for power during this year and both in Telecom due to both the contracts that we won last year, the end of last year, of course, even the new ones this year. We expect to see some growth even in Infraservices, but as we have said for some quarters now that we see the same market situation in '25 as we did '24 due to the competition for Infraservices. But we see a strong development for Power and Telecom.

And do I understand your comments, Fredrik, right, on the order backlog that if it's about SEK 2 billion to be delivered out of the order backlog that this looks very healthy. You have now started to have maybe slightly longer duration of the order backlog than you have had historically?

Well, first, I think that we have had several interesting multiyear framework agreements in the past as well. We do so now. And yes, you are correct. We stated in our last call that we had roughly half of the order backlog for '25. We basically repeat that comment now being a bit more precise saying that we have roughly SEK 2 billion in the backlog for the remaining 9 months of '25.

And when you -- I think the updated financial targets, they make clear sense to me. So, no question there really. But how do you see them being broken down by your business verticals and geographies? So, I guess there's quite a big mix difference between the different business areas. And could you really push these kind of targets also in the Telecom area? Is that logical? Or is it going to be, say, a mix making you end up on these kind of financial targets?

Well, it is a mix for us as a company as a whole, as the financial target is communicated now. And as you can see in the numbers, of course, we have a journey to do with our division Telecom in order to be more profitable and increase our margin there. But in the end, we see and we are aiming -- all the activities we are doing is that all the divisions should deliver on our financial targets further on.

Also, for Telecom, it would be logical to talk about 5% to 7% margins. And I guess also there, it's very much a mix thing for you if it's a lot of fiber rollout and you historically have obviously been up there.

Yes. I would say we -- it's a longer journey for us to reach -- for the Telecom division than the other divisions. But we will see a step-by-step improvement for that division further on as well.

And finally, looking at Finland, would you expect any -- what kind of financial consequences would you expect of, say, disposing of that? Is there any, say, more things needed to be cleaned out of your balance sheet on the finalization of the transaction? Or if it comes to a closure instead, would it be, say, large costs related to it?

No. As we said in the fourth quarter, we believe that we have made our assumption and updated estimates on our Finnish operations in order to have a relevant target to put out in the market. And our focus now is on the process. We will provide updates when we do have a good progress in that process, meaning a closing of the transaction. What we said before and what we still can sort of comment on is that we try to be quite cautious in our financial estimates on the process and believe that we have an interesting position now for the rest of the process of succeeding with the completion of the closing of that investment.

And it looks like you have already stabilized the operation to be fair. So, I guess it's more an interesting asset for somebody to look at than it might have been historically.

That's correct.

Thank you very much and all the best out there.

[Operator Instructions] No more questions at this time. So, I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Thank you, everyone, for listening in, and we look forward to see you all for our presentation of quarter 2 results in July 11, and wish you a good day.

Thank you, everyone. Bye-bye.