Nyab AB (publ) (NYAB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everybody. Welcome to NYAB's result presentation for the financial year 2023. My name is Marko Peltonen, and I am the Director of Investor Relations at NYAB. We have published our financial statement release today, and now we are going through significant events and financial information for '23, as well as the highlights of the fourth quarter of the year. Giving the presentation, we have our CEO, Johan Larsson; and CFO, Aky Valiaho. [Operator Instructions] And now Johan will start with the highlights of the year.

Thank you, Marko. So we can summon a positive development despite a tough macroeconomic environment. To put it all in figures, we accomplished a revenue growth of 16.6% in constant currencies. The reported growth was 10.7%. Revenue ended up at just about EUR 280 million. Our EBIT margin remained at a healthy level. We had an exceptionally good free cash flow amounting to just about EUR 22 million, and we leave the year with a record high order backlog at the end of the year. Our revenue distribute itself, as here shown. Infrastructure, 43% of our revenue, energy, 34%; industrial, 22%. And as we have estimated and communicated we have the highest growth in energy. When it comes to the revenue split in regions and customers, we have 2/3 of our revenue volume in Sweden and 1/3 in Finland, and we see an increase of private sector clients. We are very happy to have a strong and solid clients, both in public and private sector. So operational and financial highlights. We further increased our very high revenue per employee. So for 2023, it amounted to EUR 696,000. Our order book growth quarter-on-quarter amounted to exceeding 60%. Of course, a very high number, only possible due to the slowness in the market that occurred during Q2 and Q3. So that's an exceptional figure. Net cash position looks very good. Negative net debt, non-existing. We increased our profit distribution according with this proposal. It amounts to double -- close to double in comparison to last year. And LPIF, 1.91, very good. It's even 0 in Finland if we look at it country-wise, and in Sweden, it amounted to 2.5. Total headcount, full-time employees over the full year amounted to 403 people. Worth mentioning about our high revenue per employee is, of course, that this is one of the things that enables our business model and our high performance. And the reason why we can develop our revenue yearly, which has been the case for a decade. Some of the new projects in 2023, we can jump right into energy, where we landed 2 of NYAB's biggest contracts ever. The single largest contract ever was our order line with Svenska kraftnat, that is a collaborative contract. That is one of many contracts in which we participate and enables the green transition. We also have the contract with Skarta Energy regarding the construction of 102.5 megawatt solar farm in Utajarvi. Within the industrials, we have the project for Talga, who is establishing a new battery anode refinery in Lulea, where we do ground and infrastructure work. And in infrastructure, we, among many other things, won a contract for Swedavia, widening the taxi runways. We also signed a significant frame agreement with Stockholm Vatten and Avfall that is perennial for many years. And we also started our fourth consecutive project with the Swedish Transport Administration. We have also, during 2024, announced a fifth contract within ERTMS. So our favorable position -- a lot of that comes from the mega-trends that drives the underlying market and the demand. The mega-trends are green transition, deglobalization and urbanization. When it comes to green transition and you see coming investments, there is a possibility, of course, that not all of these investments will materialize, but we can anyhow state that it's a growing market, and we all see the main factor changing energy from fossil to green energy that drives the market. And on the other hand, when it comes to public infrastructure investments, you can be more certain about those levels, of course, due to who the clients are and the one who leaves the estimates of this. But my best guess is that the growth of these investments are even higher than the public figures. And the deglobalization, of course, promotes a lot of local investments in conjunction with the mining industry and so on to secure supply chains and so on.

Yes. Thank you, Johan, and good afternoon on my behalf also. CFO here. So, then a bit more detailed review on the Q4. We had a stable performance with improving underlying profitability despite the witnessed tough market and weather conditions during the latter part of the year. We managed to accrue a bit in local currency. We recorded revenue of approximately EUR 88 million for Q4, with the EBIT margin of 7.5%. We had, during Q4, very good order intake, mainly, of course, due to Aurora line and Utajarvi deals that were signed during that quarter. And that all led to all-time high year-end backlog of EUR 295 million. Highlights for the quarter 4 was a very, very strong free cash flow, which amounted almost EUR 17 million. So as said, in constant currencies, we reported 1.3% growth, but the reported growth was minus 2.1% during Q4. Better conditions affected the revenue recognition during the quarter. We had relatively stable geographical split between Finland and Sweden for the quarter 4, but it's good to notice that for the full year, the proportional share of Finland revenue increased year-over-year in these terms. Also, the proportion of private sector clients has increased quite substantially during the whole year, and namely, that is due to the increased amount in energy and industrial projects. We had solid profitability for the Q4. In the comparison period, we benefited from Skarta Energy sales gain that amounted approximately EUR 14.7 million. So taking that into account, our underlying margin improvement was approximately 2.5 percentage points. Good to also notice that during the Q4, we made a year-end impairment to BPA intangible assets that amounted approximately EUR 500,000. Main driver behind this profitability improvement was solid project execution during the quarter. So our order backlog grew 23% year-over-year and 61% quarter-on-quarter. Stabilization of the macroeconomic environment, though the end of the year, resulted in a significant order intake during the Q4. In addition, we benefited from slipping of the volumes at the latter part of the year in order. Order backlog that is expected to materialize in the following year, i.e., 2024 was approximately EUR 198 million. So comparing that to situation last year, it has improved by approximately 11%. So free cash flow growth during the quarter was almost 77% and full year free cash flow growth was 6x. So very good cash flow generation for the year. As said, we ended the year in net cash position and our equity ratio was at a very robust level of 73%. Main driver behind the Q4 strong cash flow was excellent performance in working capital management. So we freed up approximately EUR 9 million from working capital during the Q4. Full year cash flow was benefited, of course, from the Mikkeli settlement that occurred in Q2. Our return on capital employed was 6.6%. Of course, in addition to challenging market conditions we had during the year, there was a drag on the performance also from the high amount of capital employed in these reported figures. And then back to Johan.

Thank you, Aku. So our performance during 2023 in relation to our long-term financial targets. We have a target of an annual revenue growth that exceeds 10%. As earlier mentioned, in constant currencies, we achieved a growth of 16.6% and in reported and a reported growth of 10.7%. So in the NYAB measures, quite a modest growth, but due to market conditions and so on, we should be quite happy with our performance. When it comes to EBIT margin, that exceeds 7.5%, we fall a bit short and last year's macroeconomic headwinds is only being a bit too hard to overcome at this call when it comes to the margin. That comes from the end of the year. We had an early winter. And as you know, NYAB has a very strong presence in the northern parts of Finland and Sweden, so our seasonality is stronger and higher. And when winter arrives a couple of months earlier than usually, it slows down production and so on. So together with the slowness in the market during Q2 and Q3, that picked up during Q4 and with the weakness of the Swedish kroner. We can still be quite happy that we achieved 5.4% in those conditions. Net debt, very low non-existing. So the net debt is negative. We don't need to be this safe. We like to be safe, but also related to uncertainties in the market until the very last month of the year. We didn't fulfill any M&As and so on that could have affected our net debt position during 2023. So there we are. And when it comes to dividend, of course, a company with a business model like this and with the CapEx below 1% of revenue, we have on normal years a great free cash flow and we'll be able to have quite high dividends. And for this year, due to our great free cash flow, we heavily exceed our long-term financial target on dividend. So to sum it up, we accomplished great progress during 2023, both in our core business and the support functions. And in the context of the macroeconomic headwinds, we must be happy with our performance. We had a strong revenue growth. We maintained healthy margins, although we wish for and aim for higher margins, and the free cash flow improvement was significant and satisfying. We have spent a lot of time and effort on the preparations for the listing on NASDAQ First North Premier Growth Market in Sweden, and it commences according to plan. And when we leave the year behind us, we do it with a high year-end order backlog. And we must state that we are in a very favorable position. We are exposed to growing sectors, and we are in a very strong financial position and our financial guidance for 2024 are expected to increase from 2023.

Thank you, Johan, and thank you, Aku. We have so far not received any questions on the chat box. We will publish our annual report that includes the entire financial statements on the 18th of March. And for now, I will now thank everybody for participating. And see you next time.

Thank you.

Thanks.