Sats ASA (SATS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi. And welcome to this investor and analyst Q&A after we presented our Q1 2023 results earlier this morning. We'll just give people half a minute. Yes, we should start. Welcome again to this investor and analyst Q&A after we presented our Q1 results this morning. This is mainly Q&A, but we'll just go through the key highlights from the presentation, as an introduction, so go ahead, Sondre...

Yes. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining this call. As we said in the presentation earlier this morning, we will not go through the presentation, as you commented on, Stine, in detail. I just thought we could summarize the key messages, to start with, while we're letting everyone in. And as we have presented this morning, we have seen a significant step-up in the financial performance this quarter compared to previous quarters. This is a result of solid member growth over time. And we have delivered strong member growth throughout the fall, in Q3 and Q4. That has continued into Q1. And when you combine this growing member base with also the fact that we now have increased prices both for existing and new members, on the level with inflation, resulting in a 6% yield increase quarter-over-quarter and 12% year-over-year yield increase; and then in addition, cost discipline in operation and the profitability program that we launched in Q4 starting to yield effect also, among others, on overhead cost, the combination of this is what is driving the result, but the key driver and the main driver for the development is really the member development over time that we see continue long term on a positive trajectory. So this is not any result of any short-term actions, so to say. It's based on the development over time and is fully in line with what and the trajectory we communicated on the Capital Markets Day in October 2022. And then of course, with the company having a vision of making people healthier and happier, we are also very happy to see that the visit development is so strong with nearly 13 million visits in the quarter, which is record high and which is really showing that our members are more active than before and are really appreciating our product. So that's the key messages. And we'll open for Q&A.

You can either just raise your hand digitally or just unmute and ask a question. [ I think there's ] -- Petter?

So first of all, congratulations with strong numbers and a robust membership growth. 2 questions from me. Relatively low maintenance CapEx in the quarter: I think it was around 1% versus the 5% guidance that you gave at the Capital Markets Day. Any particular reason for this? And what should we think about for 2023? That was the first question. We can start on that.

Yes. As you say, it's moderate CapEx in the quarter. And it's really related to the activity level that we have in the first quarter. We avoid doing large upgrade projects during -- in January and February, so it's more normal maintenance that's part of the numbers for the quarter. So we plan -- bigger upgrades is planned for more in low season, and that, we will see in the numbers throughout the year as well.

Perfect. Then on the cost inflation. And the rent increase that you probably have seen now, that was fully effected in the Q1 numbers. That's my understanding. What about the salary inflation that -- is that going to hit the numbers harder in Q2? Or is that also basically incorporated in the Q1 numbers?

Yes, you are correct. So the inflation on leases, that's fully incorporated in the first quarter. When it comes to salary adjustments, that happens gradually throughout the year, but the main part, you will see in the third and the fourth quarter when we do the salary adjustments in Norway and Sweden. So that is not yet included in the Q1 figures.

Petter -- Joachim Huse?

Yes. And congrats with the very strong quarter. So I just had a question regarding the cost savings. Could you please remind us what sort of levels of cost savings you are looking at for the full year 2023?

We haven't disclosed any absolute number. What you see in the quarter is that we have taken down overhead costs according to the downsizing that we made in the fourth quarter of last year, but so going forward into the year, we will gradually see more impact of the cost cuts that we have done. But what we are aiming for is primarily on -- in overheads, to get overhead in terms of percentage of revenues, back to the level that we had in 2019 at around 10.5%, so we are on our way but still some more to go to get to that level.

Okay. And if I could just add one more question, in terms of sort of the member base. It seems like markets have normalized a bit, so if we consider sort of the regular member decline from the end of first quarter to the end of the fourth quarter, should we think of that sort of under a normalized market environment more like in line with 2019 levels? Or what's your thoughts about that?

Yes, I think what you see now that's at -- is that we have sort of returned to more normal seasonality in terms of member development. So in Q2, normally we have lower sales. And with stable churn, that unfortunately means that the member development will be negative in the second quarter, as it always is in the second quarter. So that is what you can expect this year as well. We are now sort of more back to a normalized situation.

Any other questions?

I mean, if there are no other questions, I could just add one more. Could you elaborate a bit more on your FX exposure? You mentioned it briefly in the presentation, but I mean sort of you -- I'm guessing you have like revenues in SEK, Danish krone and euros in the different countries but also costs in local currency, but as you mentioned, you saw a really negative FX effect this quarter, so could you just elaborate a bit on what drove that negative FX effect?

It's mainly related to our credit facility, the bank loans that we have in different currencies, which has a negative impact in the quarter; as well as our liquidity reserves, which we also have in different currencies, with negative cash balance in some currencies in our [ cash pool ] that's causing that negative one-off translation effect. So it's the weakening of the Norwegian kroner is causing it.

Good. Any other questions before we round off? No. If you have any questions during the day, please stay in contact with me. And then we'll say thank you.

Thank you. Have a good day.

[indiscernible]. Bye.