NFON AG (NFN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you. Good morning. A warm welcome to NFON AG's Full Year 2023 Earnings Calls. As Sarah has just mentioned, I'm Friederike Thyssen, VP, Investor Relations and Sustainability at NFON. Joining me today -- on today's call to discuss our results is Patrik, our CEO and CFO at NFON. We hope you had the opportunity to review our Annual Report we issued earlier this morning. The documents and the following investor relations or investors presentations are available on our website. Let me quickly outline the agenda for today's call. Firstly, Patrik will start with the business update of the last couple of months, then he will take you through our financial results before presenting our business outlook for the full year 2024. This will take us approximately 15 to 20 minutes, and we will then take your questions. And having said that, I'd like to hand over to Patrik.

Thank you very much, Friederike. A warm welcome from me as well to the earnings call for financial year 2023 of NFON AG. As communicated, we have been working intensively in 2023 to transform NFON to become the most reliable, innovative and [ agent ] partner in the integrated business communication industry. This will be the fundamental base to enter a new prospect. The 3 main areas of operational excellence are first, optimize our IT landscape to streamline processes, and reduce costs and increase efficiency. Second, integrate the DTS acquisition into NFON AG to fully benefit from synergies by reducing costs, reducing complexity and enhancing sales. Third, optimize the operating model of sales and marketing, product management and development to ensure stronger top line growth and faster returns on every investment in those areas. I'm very pleased with the progress in all areas. The task now is to continue working on operational excellence at NFON in the transformation year of 2024 to lay the foundation to a stronger top line development from 2025 onwards. On the next page, you can see in detail the different fields of action. First, organization. With the restructuring of our management level and the appointment of Andreas Wesselmann to the key position of CTO on 1st January 2024, we have reached an important milestone. Andreas' experience will help us to realize our vision of NFON as an innovative pioneer integrated cloud business communication in the European market. In addition, we have optimized our organizational structure and revised our processes and IT landscape to increase our agility and efficiency and continue to offer best-in-class solutions. Second, business processes, NFON plans to merge Deutsche Telefon Standard GmbH into NFON AG in the financial year 2024. The merger is intended to realize further synergies between the 2 companies. We assume that the legal merger process can be completed in the second half of 2024. There will be one NFON product portfolio with the best out of 2 worlds. In 2023, we began revising our product strategy, and we will continue this initiative in 2024. This means modernizing the technology basis of our products, defining and establishing transparent processes and corresponding responsibilities, enabling our customers to use our solutions more reliably. From a technology perspective, the focus is on the standardization and scalability of our platform and infrastructure services. In addition, we will continue to deliver on new product capabilities and put a dedicated focus on how to best leverage AI capabilities to drive innovation. Go-to-market is also a key potential for NFON. Doing business with NFON should be easy and reliable. In 2024, we will focus on centering our business strategy stronger around our customers and dealer partners. Third, internal systems. The ongoing optimization of our Business Support System, BSS, is a key topic for NFON in 2024. Contributing to our operational efficiency targets, we continuously improve the contractual relationship management with customers, suppliers, partners as well as the invoicing process for our products and services. Furthermore, we continue to review our internal IT landscape to provide efficient and customer-led services with clear emphasis. We have a clear target picture in mind, all further investments will be in line with this target. Let's turn to the full year 2023 results. In an overview, our results for financial year 2023 are as follows. Recurring revenue growth is 4.8% compared to financial year 2022. We continue to have an increased high share of recurring revenue of 93.7% and our adjusted EBITDA improved significantly to EUR 8.4 million, thus we over fulfilled our guidance, which was at EUR 7.8 million to EUR 8.3 million. On the next slide, you can see our continuously growing share of recurring revenue of 4.8%, both by acquisition of new customers and by increasing penetration of existing customers. Total revenue growth of 1.9% compared with financial year 2022 due to decrease of nonrecurring revenues is mainly at par here. On the next slide, you can see our improved gross margin of 84.3% due to successfully growing share of higher margin sales. In the financial year 2023, the cost of materials fell significantly compared to the previous year to EUR 13 million, previous year EUR 14.4 million. This development is primary due to lower hardware sales in 2023 because of which the cost of materials ratio fell to 15.8% compared to the previous year. Previous year was at 17.8%. On Slide 11, you can see the impact of reduced personnel expenses in line with our strategic focus to grow the business more efficiently and profit. Compared to the previous year, the average number of employees fell by 13.9% to 453 in the reporting year. Previous year was at 526. This development was due to the reorganization that began in the third quarter of 2023 as part of the focus on [ order ] sales market. As a result, personnel expenses decreased to EUR 34.9 million, previous year was at EUR 37.4 million. The reorganization of top management led to additional expenses of EUR 1.1 million. Adjusted for a one-off effect personnel expenses fell on year-on-year to EUR 33.7 million [ maybe ] this year EUR 36.4 million. This corresponds to an adjusted personnel expense ratio of 40.9% previous year at 45%. On the next slide, you can see our significantly improved profitability development, an increase in sales, higher gross profit and cost reduction in the area of personnel expenses and other operating expenses resulted in an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 6.8 million an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 8.4 million in 2023, which was clearly positive and a strong improvement compared to previous years. Coming to our next slide, we are happy to mention that after significant improvements in 2023, we performed first time since listing a positive free cash flow. Let's turn now to the outlook for this year and beyond. In 2024, we are focusing on an API first approach, strengthened our leading voice-centric product portfolio and enhancing it to become omnichannel ready. Besides this, we are starting to build up AI competence center. Additionally, we are building up an ESG governance at NFON. With the mentioned operational excellence measures, we are preparing NFON's platform for the next projects. All those activities making us confident to return to stronger top line growth rates from 2025 onwards. For the current financial year, we continue to transform our business while increasing significantly the profitability. All those initiatives will lead to a stronger growth from 2025 onwards. We therefore expect in 2024, growth in recurring sales in the mid- to upper single-digit percentage range, with recurring sales over 90% of total sales. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between EUR 10 million and EUR 12 million. Our journeys through the year 2024 to 2025 has been set. In 2023, NFON embarked to a transformative journey focused on operational excellence. This strategic shift was pivotal, making a turning point. The past financial year marked just the beginning of a transformation at NFON, in which we took decisive steps forward to a sustainable, successful future. As part of this journey, investments are being driven to refine our processes, streamline operations and enhance efficiency across the company. The aim is to lay a robust foundation that will support our future aspirations and sustainable profitable growth. All defined initiatives will help us to increase efficiency and enable stronger top line growth. As already mentioned, all initiatives will also be carried out in 2024. In 2024, we will continue to increase profitability at a stronger rate than revenue while transforming and preparing the business for stronger top line [ project ] development pipeline. With the best people on board, the strong and loyal customer base and the solution with the greatest stability in the market, I'm convinced with this transformation will be successful for our customers in [ states ]. As part of our commitment to execution, measures are in place to ensure the seamless implementation of these initiatives. We will keep you informed of our progress, for example, at our Capital Market Day, which we expect to hold in the third quarter of this year. I'm now very happy to move to your questions. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you very much for your presentation, Patrik. [Operator Instructions] And we received the first visual hand by Knut Woller.

Patrik, just trying to get a feeling for the growth trajectory. You said that growth momentum should be stronger from 2025 on. Can you give us some more granularity how we should think about phase growth ramping up in the course of 2024. Is it already fair to assume that we should see some growth acceleration in H2 '24? Or will that be only due to 2025 to show you some progress? And can you give us an idea, given the margin levels achieved and also looking at your adjusted EBITDA guidance for 2024. What kind of EBITDA margins we should expect midterm. And 2 quick ones then on M&A with free cash flow turning positive in 2024 and also keeping in mind that profitability should improve this year. Is it fair to assume that M&A is getting higher on your agenda, again, which could help you to accelerate growth? And the quick one on DTS. Can you quantify the synergies expected from DTS? And when you say the integration should be completed in H2, will the synergies be fully realized in 2024? Or will there be a spillover to 2025?

So first of all, thank you very much, Knut, for the questions. The first one about growth, I wouldn't expect too much as we already said already this year in H2. What we are doing now, the traditional UCaaS market is in line with our recovery revenue growth now. What NFON and what we are doing, obviously, we are searching for growth areas like the contact center world and like other worlds, and this is also the magic world of AI searching for opportunities to grow the business in 2025 much stronger. This is why I'm very, very confident with our strategy besides the transformation that you will definitely see a growth range, which is higher than the one at the moment, but it's definitely to mention again that in the traditional UCaaS voice-centric market, we are in line with the market. EBITDA guidance, I would say, as I already announced, I think in one of the last calls and definitely in the different conferences. If the business is really well transformed, if we are in operational excellence, I would say, which shows also high efficiency. The business is initiatively able to grow double digit in revenues and needs to give also an EBITDA range of 18% between 20% of EBITDA. So this is something we are heading to. I can't give you the quarter we are fulfilling that already. And you also know my magic formula the business needs to be capable to grow revenue, to grow EBITDA stronger than revenue and revenue must be stronger than the market growth. So this is something we are heading to, and I'm confident you also see some nice and positive impact already in 2025 and onwards. And absolutely, as you know, my background, and as you know my I belief, when it comes to your third question around M&A, I'm definitely -- and we are definitely already scanning the markets around M&A capabilities. And this is something we really can improve also time to market. And sometimes, you don't manage to develop own stuff, with own resources. And that takes you too long in such a fast market we are in. And this is why I can -- it's already on my agenda and our agenda, and we are already taking a look. Obviously, we need to also [ raise ] our financial perspective and what we can afford and definitely, but this is on the agenda. The DTS H2, let me phrase it like this, why it didn't happen in the past and the acquisition was taking place in 2020 because -- and this is also giving you an idea that there is still some room for improvement in the EBITDA margin we are currently running. Once you need to integrate this DTS into NFON you need to have some investments in doing so. So that means those investments we don't have next year and definitely also, I can't give you a figure about process efficiency. I can't give you a figure about technology scalability once we have it included. But definitely, you will see an output in those efficiency by not having the integrations. And this is something I'm also looking forward and I'm positive for the EBITDA development already. There is some movement of improvement. And then for other things we are running also the BSS and all other things, I would call them also like kind of one-off investments we are having this year in restructuring and transforming the business, and that gives you an idea of improvement for the next couple of years.

Just a quick follow-up, Patrik. So thanks for the color first to start with. And secondly, this kind of integration costs, can you give us an idea here around which ballpark we are talking about? And will that be adjusted in your adjusted EBITDA guidance?

It is adjusted and it's around EUR 1.5 million.

We will now move over to [ Philip Sanofi ] for your questions.

Congrats for the first nice year. Maybe first question on the ARPU. You've now shown said the ARPU year-over-year, now going forward, considering price increases and up selling of premium products. What is your expectation here? Where do you see your ARPU going forward also in the midterm?

Yes. Thank you very much for the question, Philip. The ARPU this year will be only covered with a slight increase. We saw it stable compared to last year as well with EUR 9.72. Why that? We have definitely and that is a normal, let's say, development in the market. We have a decreasing part of the voice part, the airtime. And we have the counter impact which is positive out of the indexation and the pricing. We are doing this year as well. That means we're having a slight increase. But with the voice-centric UCaaS solution, we won't be able to increase obviously significantly. This is why with things like Contact Center Hub with areas and other areas, we definitely go to a development further into the ARPU world and increasing them to double digit even more, where you see already Contact Center, and you see also ARPU if possible starting from EUR 30. And this is something we would want to dive in deeper. This is what I meant with already strategic ideas of how move forward in 2025. But I can't give you a detailed figure right now. But obviously, we'll keep you on track when it comes to the ARPU development. But this year, it remains stable, slight increase is forecasted. But then the next years, we definitely need to manage to increase that one.

Then maybe a follow-up on your investment plan. Previously talking about the DTS integration, you mentioned ballpark there. You're also mentioning also in the presentation in the report, BSS optimization, AI investments. CapEx has been a bit lower this year compared to last year. What is the total magnitude you can expect here in this year and also going forward?

As I already said, take it the -- the company, we would be in a normal not having those transformational challenges we are having in the business, then the business should be able to generate 18% to 20% of margin. And that is something we are heading to. And the difference you see already we were almost close to 10% of margin. So we have room for improvement here. We also have room for improvement when it comes to people efficiency. This is why we did also the reorganization [ of colleagues ] in the company, but I wouldn't shout out now a figure for all those capacities. For me, it's much clearer when I shut out, let's say, a margin, which gives us the opportunity 18% to 20%. If that makes sense for you.

And maybe a last quick one on the churn. You mentioned in the report that you lost one more significant customer accounting for roughly 1.5% of seats.

Yes.

Apart from that was churn at a normal level. I reckon you always had this 0.5% per month. How was that last year?

Yes, it was same, it remained stable, 0.5% per month, that has been 6% for the year and remained stable in 2023. Obviously, in such a moment, we also established churn management, which is extremely important to keep the guidance for this year because we are at the moment, we -- it's fair to say that we are not delivering too many innovations at the moment. We really focus on the technological transformation and scalability of your platform. And this is why this is a very important internal topic for us. We expect to be in the same range, and there's nothing at the moment to report where I would say there's an extraordinary churn in the pipeline. So it remains stable in 2023, and we try our best that we remain stable here as well.

So let's now move over with the questions from Stephane Beyazian.

Yes. I've got 2 if that's possible. I mean the first one is, I'm just wondering on the innovation and for instance to take the example of AI. To what extent you think you have internally the resources to continue to innovate and be relevant in the market with products. An ingredient for that to develop a lot of products internally. But don't you think that you may need to rely more on third-party product. I'm thinking of what Gamma is doing, for instance, with Cisco, obviously, there is a trade-off in terms of margins, but I was curious to what you think on this one? And the second question is about the German market. I mean, clearly, the German market, you look at the letters, [ clear ] well numbers that you put in that in your report this morning, clearly, the German market in terms of penetration remains a laggard. Can you -- what are the sort of constraints that make the market so slow compared to other European countries? And when do you think that we should have that take off? I mean I guess it's hard to guess, but when the market could be picking up for UCaaS services. Things I heard, for instance, is that a lot of partners that you may have in Germany are really focused on hardware because they prefer in the near term cash from the sale of hardware than really selling solutions, these are things I've heard. I was curious to what is your feeling about that?

Yes. Thank you very much for the question, Stephane. The first one is obviously a highly interesting one. It's about how to build our AI capabilities. And we know to do it really when I bought it as a CFO, a reallocation of our P&L -- and that means really try to steer the investments into future growth opportunities. This is why we do it out with other means. That means we really need to make sure that we steer product management development people into the right direction. This is why I also mentioned together with Andreas, we are building up an AI competence already. Obviously you are right, this AI completely -- it's a big magic word. We need to define first what does that need internally and externally in delivering product. This is why we also will announce at one stage that we also increased external capabilities when it comes to AI content. We don't have this in the company. We are already very confident to bring this on board, and we build something up. But the big message for you is also we want to do this with the patient internal reallocation of our personnel cost towards the right direction. Second one is also – is it [ 1B ], is the third-party products. And that was also mentioned shortly in my presentation that was a big decision for NFON as well. As you know, there was always the idea also to invest, for example, into own chat and video solutions in our world. And we said in this whole video and chat discussion, obviously, for us, as a smaller player, it doesn't bring any value of future investment when you see the potential to grow together with the best-in-class video and chat solution is, for example, MST. So this is why we definitely say no to further investments into video and chat. We want to make our API first strategy to embed into this ecosystem. This is what we need to do in order to benefit purely from this and we want to build own capabilities to make ourselves on omnichannel ready. So this is already working in this year, and that is, I think, a big and clear decision we made and also steering into the right direction. When it comes to the German market, as I'm also a German, I can be quite self critical on Germans and the digitalization rate in all industries. We saw my last industry, the construction industry is the same. The Germans are always behind. And that is also something to do with the infrastructure, with the whole environment and also with the sentiment at the moment how to invest into things. And you know that the German market is in all rankings, a little bit behind. And almost in all rankings, we are last positioned when it comes to growth of GDP, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm quite confident for NFON because here, it clearly is the advantage that we have that strong position of around 660,000 seats. So we are clearly well known. And everybody from outside, like, for example, Gamma or others want to do really the entry into the German market. We are already here. That means how we tackle this is we want to go really into with my colleagues [indiscernible] who is the CRO of the company. And here, we really want to take also the opportunity to really go into the sales efficiency. I also mentioned it in my presentation that also go to market is a key improvement for NFON to reactivate over more than 3,000 partners to really go into a different, let's say, sales efficiency measurement. Also internally here is big room for improvement. So we want to really benefit from our unique position starting point, 660,000 seats in the German market, which is great, but we can do more and helping Germany to come out of this, let's say, poor transformation rate when it comes to really now seats. And this is why I'm really confident about the market, and this is what we focused on. Hopefully, it gave you a little bit of ideas to your question.

And it seems that there need to be a little bit of education of SMEs in the German market. Is there any major factor or event that could happen to also help you along. I'm just thinking about in the U.K., for instance, the fact that BT is shutting down the PSTN network in 2025. But as far as I remember, I think that your telecom has already pretty much moved to whole IP already in Germany. So I'm not too sure that this could be a factor to help you. But is there anything that comes to your mind that will also help to accelerate things?

Yes. It's exactly the same thing. There is also a big factor shutting down the whole -- the [indiscernible] also here in Germany. We do have we have -- but I see like you said, the SME part, in average, we have a seat sizes 17 so that means we are really focusing on those 1 to 99 seats. And here, we really could help those people to really digitalize and also take benefit of digitalization with our solution. And it's the same like in U.K., what you mentioned from a regulation perspective, this is the same happening in Germany. But also in my experience, I need to be fair that what's seen in other industry, regulation is only one part. There will be always a kind of delay and can be made in [indiscernible] why you delay. We want to really make it really purpose-driven, benefit driven to our customers. And this is why I am confident when the economy is also going to the right direction. And I expect also a more positive growth in Germany for the next year or for this year already turning around, then I also see that the investments are going back in this market.

So let's now move over to the questions from [ Miro Sutak ].

Thanks for the explanations given right now in this slide, I would like to ask an additional question. You reduced your marketing spend significantly from basically you halved it to EUR 4 million. And you also did a great job on the cost on the employee cost and so on personnel expenses. Basically, you managed the company to become profitable, right? That was the main goal. I think this has to be seen in the light with no longer negative interest rates, the entire industry trying to improve the margin, basically all the growth cases. Now how should I think about NFON? I see Gamma, I see the others, I see there will be a lot of investments necessary to just stay basically competitive going forward. You mentioned AI, all the stuff comes with costs, APIs, development costs like that. On the other hand side, you want to stay profitable or probably focus not to give away the lower cost level now going forward? How should I, as an equity investor think about NFON? Is it basically a company which is going to focus on the cash flow? And you mentioned positive free cash flow in your presentation for the first time. Or is this just to make sure that at the moment, you are basically safe? And from this new level, you want to focus on growth again. And we should also take into account that probably on a margin level, NFON will stay a low-margin company but with higher growth. What is your focus now?

Yes. Absolutely. I could talk for hours to that next question. Thank you very much, but try to do it short. I'm convinced in tech that you can't really separate the top line with the EBITDA growth. This is why I always leave those companies in tech with the following formula. As I already mentioned, EBITDA growth needs to be bigger than the revenue growth, and revenue growth needs to be bigger than market growth. If you are performing on this, that means you are winning market shares and you do it even more efficient and even more profitable than last year. This also leads to an extremely good cash flow perspective because to be fair, this free cash flow is also depending on your operational cash flow, mainly, and this is why we also took the first advantage last year. And this is why Andreas and myself, we are the management team. We are committed to this formula every year. That said, in history, NFON was a clear, I call it the West Coast American start-up story, where you try to increase your revenues, but you didn't care too much about the profitability. I think this stage is over, as we all know, because you saw from 2019 onwards, you saw shrinking revenue growth rates. And this is what we need to turn around again. So once I got a question on the AGM, my first AGM last year, the same question you have, Patrik, you are now focusing on profitability. No, I need to really focus on both. We need to grow the business. Otherwise, you are almost done in the market because this is too high competitive. So you need to deliver both. You need to really deliver top line growth, which is stronger than market growth, and you need to do it more efficiently than last year. If we're going to manage that one well and we are committed and we have ideas, I'm very confident about NFON. Also the M&A part will help us in the unorganic once we can afford. And I think you need to question. I do believe that we even can accelerate stronger. So this is the idea, and this is what we are heading to, but the commercial idea is definitely this. And all things like cash flow, we will also establish a better cash flow rate [indiscernible] secure but you will see improvement because the operational cash flow, which is depending on your business results, this will also grow. And all those -- and then you can basically afford more M&A as at present. So in this certain, I want to go in. I'm already confident and happy to see last year, we already fulfilled the first cycle, and that means EBITDA growth was clearly stronger than revenue growth, but I was not happy with the revenue growth to make this clear. Revenue growth last year, also too low. This is why I said at the beginning of this year, we're delivering again EBITDA growth is bigger than revenue growth. Revenue growth this year is okay-ish. But next year, it needs to be delivered both parts. This is my vision. And then every year, and we want to report on this, and we are committed to report this every year. Was that clear to you, Miro?

Yes. That was very clear, actually. I have another question, if I may, not related to this topic. We follow Gamma a bit. And they really have a wide spot in Germany. They want to focus there. There are, I think, 6x larger than you or 5x larger. Wouldn't it -- I mean given the challenges that you have from outside your peers, wouldn't it make sense to partner up or to collaborate or to share the technical burden and to join forces?

Yes. So first of all, I know that Gamma -- and I'm also in contact with all majors within our industry because I think it is always good to talk. And I, as an Executive Board Member, I am anyway open for everything when it makes commercial sense for NFON. And also here, but at the moment, I'm really focusing of best transform NFON first before doing too many things. And I know that Gamma and other players as well, but Gamma especially wants to enter the German market because it's the most attractive in Europe. And I also do see there is a certain market entry barrier with all the ISO certifications and the [ 5 ] stuff we have in place. And that really gives us a good market position that what I meant. But partnerships are sometimes really difficult to get the benefit out. I call them sometimes a nice marketing gap, but there's no really commercial background behind that. So I want to be cautious and not charting out a marketing gap. But I'm committed to also go into partnerships, but not for the moment. I would say the next 6 to 8 months, we really need to focus on transformation. Then I will be open to partnerships as well. As again said if there is commercial benefit for NFON. And if not, I'm honest, I would prefer also own M&A because you definitely we have then the benefit on NFON side. And this is how I think about it. But I agree with you about the perspective, it would be interesting to really play together with the market leader in Germany. But so far, there's no idea.

Okay. And the last question from my side, and then I go back to the queue, if I may. Your leasing liabilities, they also doubled from EUR 4 million to EUR 8 million. Could you please comment on your strategy there? Because this is basically like a noncash CapEx, right, burdening, you don't see it in the cash flow statement, but you have EUR 4 million of additional debt -- financial debt on your balance sheet. Can you please comment on this -- on the strategy behind this? What is...

yeas, there is no real strategy there is only, let's say, an impact because we started in November 2023. It has something to do with IAS 16, I think with the capabilities -- I am looking to my financial expert. And it has something do with the new office in Munich. We just moved the office to Munich, but there won't be bigger strategies behind that one, but that was the impact.

Thank you for the question. So by now, there are no further virtual hands open. So at this point, a quick reminder. If there are still open topics you would like to discuss, just raise up your virtual hand. So let's wait a couple of seconds, maybe there's some hand that shows up. Otherwise, we will come to the end of our call, but let's wait a couple of seconds. So okay, it seems everything is discussed. So therefore, we come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you, everyone, for joining. And you've shown interest in NFON, so should further questions arise at a later time please feel free to contact Friederike from Investor Relations. And a big thank you to you, Patrik, to the deep dive into the results and the outlook and for taking all the questions and answering them. So from my side, I wish you all a lovely remaining day and hand over again to Patrik for some final remarks.

Yes. Thank you very much for organizing. Thank you very much for participating for the interesting questions. I think we are also very happy to see so many people in the call that makes us also proud because they are more interested in NFON. And that's cool. We are committed to drive as we announced, and we keep you updated, I think, mid of May for the Q1 results. And we are confident for the future of NFON. Thank you very much for your interest, and have a good day. Thank you.