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

Hello, everyone, and welcome to NYAB's results presentation. NYAB has released its interim report for Q3 this morning. And giving the presentation, we have the Group CEO Johan Larsson; and CFO, Aku Valiaho. My name is Marko Peltonen, and I am the Director of Investor Relations at NYAB. [Operator Instructions]. And now to get started, I hand over to Johan, who will start with NYAB's cumulative financials and business highlights for Q3.

Thank you, Marko, and welcome, everybody. Yes, we are summoning quite a good third quarter with continuous improvements all over. We have a revenue for the quarter of EUR 93.6 million, which gives us a year-to-date of EUR 228.8 million. That's a growth of 18.8% over year. In the quarter, we have an EBIT of EUR 8.9 million, which gives us EUR 13.1 million year-to-date. Quite a strong growth in EBIT, 52.6% year-over-year. Our EBIT margin in the quarter amounts to 9.5%, which gives us a 5.7% margin year-to-date, steady improvement also there. And notable here is naturally our seasonality where we have 2 quarters of high season, Q3 and Q4. So we are hoping for continuous improvements throughout the year. We have a free cash flow amounting to EUR 4.2 million, nothing unordinary. We have a tie-up in cash flow during Q2 and Q3 and releases in Q4 and Q1. And we are happy to have a record high order backlog of EUR 381.9 million. That's an increase of 108.4% year-over-year. More than happy with the figure of the backlog of what it's composed of. We have remained steady and targeting the right projects for us. Same thing, different name, rolling 12. Rolling 12, we have a revenue of EUR 316.7 million. That's a growth of close to 13%. EBIT of 12, just shy of EUR 20 million. Also there, we have a quite good growth, 29.7% from Q4 '23. We have an EBIT margin of 6.2% that has steadily been improving over the quarters throughout this year. And we have a free cash flow rolling 12 of EUR 21 million, a bit weaker than the previous year, but nothing extraordinary. And as stated, a record high order backlog. Selection of new projects won during Q3. We have won a lot of projects of different sorts and sizes. Here, we highlight projects within energy. And for Vattenfall Eldistribution, we are very happy to have gotten their trust to construct new power headlines between Hedenlunda and Oxelösund, a contract amounting to approximately EUR 80 million. And a real significant contract for us. We have always tried to have a steady amount of frame agreements and such that are perennial over the year, important part of our business model, and it allows us to be flexible. We have won a framework agreement for local network projects in Northern Norland you can view it as from Lumel up to the 3 Kingdom heap, Riksgransen. We have the agreement there. That's 3 years with additional 4 years in option. Notable here is that the guaranteed volume amounts to SEK 195 million, and the roof volume of that contract is SEK 1.120 billion. A lot of potential there. And Vindlänken Elnät, that's the construction of overhead lines to connect the Lycksele-klustret of wind farms to the regional grid. Contract value approximately EUR 14 million. And as stated before, there is a high demand in our addressable markets. And Sweden has a growing demand. We also see that through a bigger pipeline than ever, also contracts that we have won after the quarter and so on. And in Norrbotten, it's really high numbers. And in Finnish construction industry, when we exclude housing, which we don't address whatsoever, we have a decline in market. So there is some slowness in the Finnish market, but still decent levels from a historical point of view, it's quite okay. And with this, I hand over to Aku.

Yes. Thank you, Johan. And then time for a bit more detailed financial review for the Q3 and year-to-date. So on the revenue front, on Q3, our growth was 6.2%. For the first time in NYAB's public company history, we experienced some tailwind from strengthening of Swedish krona that contributed approximately 2% to the revenue growth. Energy projects continue to be the main source for the revenue growth. Then our work to increase the order book maturity is now showing also results on balancing the revenue seasonality within our business. Revenue from Sweden grew by approximately 13%, while in Finland, we recorded minus 7% in the revenue growth. Year-to-date, Sweden grew by 34%, while Finland was decreasing by 10%. For the Q3, Sweden now represented approximately 72% of total revenue. The share of the public sector revenue has continued to increase, and it is now almost at the level of 60%. And the main reason behind this is the increase in the relative share of the power network projects. For the rolling 12 months, Swedish share of revenue was 73% and public sector revenue, 58%. As said, we had a strong EBIT margin for the Q3, 9.5%, which represents 2 percentage points increase against the last year. The improvement was mainly derived from the project mix as well as more subdued inflation compared to last year. Net profit year-to-date was up by approximately EUR 2 million and was EUR 7.5 million in total. This all despite the fact that for the ongoing period against last year, we experienced a EUR 1.5 million increase in the finance expenses from the parent company's redomiciliation and listing transfer. And in addition, last year, the net profit was benefited by EUR 3.6 million from the Mikkeli dispute settlement. So overall, a positive development on the EBIT and net profit front as well. As stated, order backlog grew very heavily. So we over doubled the order backlog year-over-year, and the growth was driven by strong order intake from Sweden, while the slowness in Finland still continued. Market outlook continues to be pretty much the same as was communicated already at the end of Q2, where it is estimated that Sweden will continue its stable growth trajectory and Finland is experiencing more modest development. And then finally, a few words about our cash flow and financial position. So negative free cash flow for the Q3, which in total was approximately minus EUR 8.3 million derived mainly from the typical seasonal variation in working capital changes. Free cash flow year-to-date has remained robust and shows actually underlying improvement compared to last year when adjusting for nonrecurring items. And here, I'm referring to Mikkeli cash flow impact that was EUR 9.2 million last year. We ended up in a small net debt position at the end of Q3. So the net debt was EUR 1.5 million. But basically, the balance sheet has remained robust and strong, even during this high activity season during the Q3. Return on capital employed was now 9.1% and equity ratio almost 74%. And now I hand over back to Johan.

Thank you very much, Aku. Our long-term financial targets measured against our targets; we continue to improve over the quarters. So we now have an annual revenue growth rolling 12 of 12.2%. We have an EBIT margin of 6.2%, and we have a negative net debt. And when it comes to our dividend level, we clearly overperformed in comparison with our long-term financial target this spring. So that's pretty much it. And with this, we can summon up a bit. We have a great progress with increased volumes, and we have an EBIT margin of 9.5% for the quarter. And I would say that we're not close to a super performance. It's quite a good, quite decent performance. There are room for improvements still. Our order backlog improved a lot. We are very happy with that going forward, supports our growth. And we have also further intensified work within power network construction, which we have quite clearly told the market for some time. That's where we have our biggest growth. We really see that we can contribute with value to our clients there. And the market environment overall shows a positive trend in Sweden. Notable still is that for the quarter, we have a bigger backlog in Finland than we had the comparison period. So we are performing quite well in Finland, but still there are slowness in the market and Finnish economy overall are quite down. And performance year-to-date is a good indicator on our ability to continue delivering profitable growth. We're looking very much forward to execute and deliver from our record high backlog in the fourth quarter, which is roughly half of our total high season. And that's all from us.

Thank you, Johan and Aku. Now we have received some questions. First question, your revenue growth was quite moderate in Q3 compared to the sizable increase in your order backlog during the year. Were there any timing issues related to revenue development?

Yes. Good question. And naturally, it was timing issues. Our underlying growth and ongoing growth for year-to-date is 18.8%. In the quarter, we have a weaker growth than our underlying and ongoing growth, I would say. There are always timing issues. And since Q3 is the quarter where you have summer vacations and holidays, to some extent, our clients decides when there are stopped or started projects and so on. And this year, it's been a bit more noticeable than a common year. But as in almost all businesses, one quarter is too short of a time period and time frame to measure, I would say. But that's the answer.

Then you mentioned in the report that the profitability improvement was mainly derived from the development of the project mix. Can you give a little bit more color how the project mix differed from the comparison period?

Yes. Well, naturally, since we are on a decade-long growth journey and since we have reached quite a size as a company, we have worked very hard on lowering seasonality. And we have like adjusted quite good for seasonality, and that helps the year-to-date progress. And for the quarter, I would say that you also have to take into consideration that 2023 as a whole was quite a difficult year where many companies struggled due to macroeconomic circumstances, also early winter and so on. So the improvement aren’t surprising in any way. And as I stated a bit earlier, there are room for further improvement.

Then it is noted that in the report, you mentioned that some challenges regarding larger investments within the ongoing green transition have taken place as the focus has shifted more to lowering risks and on financial viability. At the same time, you said that this can be regarded as a healthy development trend and do you see this to have a positive effect on NYAB's addressable markets. Could you elaborate what you mean by this?

Yes. Nothing new really. When a market, whatever market it is, IT bubble or whatever, when a market gets overheated and too hot, it's not preferable from a long-term perspective. And I guess in some cases, can say that, that's been the case with what people call the green bubble. And naturally, there have always been good projects, needed projects, society needs to invest within this area. And long term, I think it's quite good that we focus a bit more on financial sustainability together with environmental sustainability when it comes to these kinds of projects.

Then there is a question. Have you seen any improvements regarding renewable energies outlook from your perspective, especially in Finland?

I would say that in the Finnish market, this has also been partly state subsidized and a very hot market. And those markets are quite slow at the moment, especially wind. And I can't say that within wind, I can't really see a close by improvement of the market circumstances in that area. But with solar, there are some activities and investments are being done. And those are investments with a very long-time frame. That sort of wraps the situation up, I would say.

Then a question on the cash flow. It is noted that there is seasonality in the working capital, but the outflow appears relatively large compared to the past, which appears to be driven by the contract assets and contract liabilities. Is there anything abnormal here in the quarter?

I could give a CEO answer to that. But since we have the CFO on the line, I think it's preferable if Aku answer that, please.

Yes. So nothing abnormal here, more or less in line what we expected with the volumes we have had for the Q3. So no abnormal movements in the cash flow for the Q3.

Then question, what are NYAB's competitive edges and how these are developing in the company?

Advantages are quite many, I would say. And the advantages in some cases are quite slim in comparison with others. But overall, it's our business model, I would say, where we have very low fixed cost, low CapEx. This makes us very flexible, and we don't have to win contracts and dilute our own margin and so on. We view things long term and with our very scalable business model, we have quite a high growth with quite good, stable and steady margins going forward. And this, of course, is possible since our addressable market in Finland and Sweden are roughly of the size of SEK 600 billion annually. So the people are our competitive advantage, I would say, with that business model.

Thank you. Now it looks like we have gone through all questions we have received. So we thank everybody for participating and see you next time.