SoftwareOne Holding AG (SWON) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q3 trading update conference call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker today, Anna Engvall. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Good morning, and thank you to everyone for joining SoftwareONE's Q3 2022 Trading Update. My name is Anna Engvall, Head of Investor Relations at SoftwareONE. And joining me today are Dieter Schlosser, our CEO; and Rodolfo Savitzky, CFO. Before handing over to Dieter, let me draw your attention to the usual disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements and non-IFRS measures on Slide 2. With that, I will hand over to Dieter.

Good morning. I'm pleased to welcome everyone to our Q3 trading update. We had a strong third quarter with our integrated model of software, cloud and services, continuing to deliver across our markets. Gross profit for the group was up 17% in constant currencies to CHF 216 million. Both business lines contributed with double-digit growth, the Software & Cloud posting a particularly strong quarter. This performance is a clear indication that we are well positioned and are meeting the needs of our customers as they prioritize digital transformation despite an increasingly challenging macroeconomic environment. Adjusted EBITDA was CHF 45 million, implying a margin of 20.8% or 2.7 percentage points higher than last year. This is a solid level of profitability considering the usual seasonality. The improvement was driven by continued cost discipline and gross profit growth. Our clear focus is on profitable growth with adjusted EBITDA up 30%, growing significantly faster than our top line. Based on our 9 months performance and robust outlook, we are on track to meeting our targets for the full year, which are mid-teens gross profit growth and an adjusted EBITDA margin above 25%. Finally, I'm pleased to announce that we will launch a share buyback program of up to CHF 70 million. This is fully in line with our growth strategy and balanced capital allocation framework presented at the H1 results in August. Our growth opportunity remains strong and investing in the business will continue to be our first priority. However, we see scope for further enhancing shareholder value by returning additional funds. Rodolfo will take you through the details of the buyback program later on. Moving on to our regional performance. All 4 regions contributed to our strong gross profit growth. NORAM and LatAm continue to deliver double-digit growth on the back of good results in Microsoft. EMEA also delivered a strong performance led by services, including the contribution from the acquisition of Predica. APAC dipped slightly below double digits in Q3 at 9% compared to a strong quarter last year. On a 9-month basis, growth in APAC was 14.3%. And in general, we see a strong demand environment in this region. So as you can see, the good momentum that we have seen from the beginning of the year has continued. Fundamentally, our customers continue to invest in cloud-based solutions to manage complexity and increase the flexibility, authority, and security of the businesses, giving us confidence in our ability to leverage a structurally growing market over the midterm. However, we also note that some customers, particularly in the public sector are taking a more considered approach to their investments. They are more focused on moving to the cloud in a cost-optimized way, a journey we are also well placed to support. As a reminder, public sector accounts for approximately 15% of our gross profit. Diving into the performance of each of our business lines. Solutions & Services delivered just over 25% gross profit growth. This is down compared to earlier periods when the business was scaling out rapidly and is more indicative of the level of growth that we expect to see going forward, which is 20% to 30%. In general, the performance was broad-based across service lines, across customers and geographies which is an excellent sign that we are fully addressing our customers' needs through our broad portfolio. xSimples, our pay-as-you-go offering for SME customers, grew 45% in the quarter based on 365Simple and AzureSimple combined. Still at a very strong level, the growth rate has stabilized compared to previous quarters when the pace of transition from multiyear agreements to subscriptions was higher. Cloud Services saw a very strong growth, in particular, Azure up over 100% due to accelerating demand from our customers with similarly impressive performances across our other hyperscaler practices, AWS and Google. I would also like to highlight the high double-digit growth in Application Services and SAP Services, driven by customer demand for cloudified applications and the impending deadline of SAP migrations to the cloud. In terms of profitability and, again, keeping in mind the impact of seasonality, Solutions & Services' adjusted EBITDA margin was at 2.1% in Q3, up from negative territory last year, driven by operating leverage. Now turning to Software & Cloud. Gross profit grew 11% to CHF 119 million. This extends the robust momentum that we saw in H1, driven by strong results across the hyperscalers, including Microsoft and our ISV portfolio. Total Microsoft billings reached 3.4 billion, growing at 11% year-on-year. Momentum across enterprises and SMEs was positive with lower growth in public sector, as mentioned earlier. We also continue to see strong momentum in our expanding ISV portfolio as we grow market share with key vendors, particularly in areas such as cybersecurity and virtualization. As for margin, you see that Software & Cloud was at a very impressive level of over 48% adjusted EBITDA margin in Q3, an improvement compared to last year. This is a testament to the scale and to the high level of efficiency that we have reached in this business. Lastly, I would like to give you a few examples of key customer wins and how we helped our customers in practice. Highlighting 3 examples, I will first mention a sizable public sector win in Europe, where we will be delivering training services on Microsoft user and admin topics to help their employees work and collaborate more effectively. We are also supporting a large U.S. consumer goods company with IT asset management diagnostics and advisory services to optimize their software costs. And thirdly, we are working with an Asian tech startup for the provisioning of Relic, DevOps and Security Software to help them get visibility on the performance of their entire stack. These examples are a great reflection of the diversity inherent in our business. Our broad portfolio, our global footprint and wide end market exposure, which should serve us well in the current environment. With that, I would like to hand over to Rodolfo to take you through our financial performance in Q3.

Thank you, Dieter. A warm welcome from my side as well. As Dieter already mentioned, we have delivered another quarter of strong results with 17% gross profit growth on a constant currency basis. Keeping in mind that Q3 is a lower margin quarter due to seasonality, the adjusted EBITDA margin was solid at 20.8%. This is well above last year's level and reflects both growth momentum and cost control measures in place since early this year. As you can see on the slide, growth in adjusted operating expenses came down to 14% in constant currency. Adjusted operating expenses have now remained at around CHF 170 million for 4 quarters in a row. As a result of the strong Swiss franc, ForEx headwinds had a significant impact of just over 5.5 percentage points on our revenue and gross profit growth. However, given our natural hedge with similar exposures on OpEx, the ForEx impact on adjusted EBITDA was again minimal. You will recall that in H1, we increased the level of transparency by disclosing the business line P&L down to adjusted EBITDA. We also introduced a new alternative performance measure for contribution margin, which equals revenue, less external and internal delivery cost. As I explained, contribution margin is a more appropriate measure than gross profit, particularly for our Solutions & Services business line, which now represents to close to half of our total revenue. Given the strong growth and strict cost control, we continue to see a positive impact from operating leverage, leading to improved EBITDA margin in both of our business lines. In Solutions & Services, the contribution margin was CHF 43 million or 37% of revenue, comparing favorably to peers and up by 2.6 percentage points versus prior year. SG&A grew at a materially lower rate than the top line, translated into an adjusted EBITDA margin of 2.1%, in line with our expectations given seasonality. With high revenue growth and a strong contribution margin, EBITDA margin will continue to increase over the coming quarters and reach our target of around 15% of revenue by 2025. In Software & Cloud, we also see a positive impact from operating leverage with the contribution margin growing ahead of revenue and EBITDA growing faster than contribution margin. EBITDA margin remains strong at 48% and importantly, at the level we see has been both healthy and sustainable. Moving on to the next slide. As already mentioned at H1 results, we are launching a wide-ranging efficiency program to maximize the impact of key functions to ensure a best-in-class cost structure. We saw the savings being reinvested in innovation and growth. This program aims to improve our commercial model, optimize our operation delivery and rightsize key support functions, such as finance and HR. Since August, we have made significant progress across all three areas. Regarding our sales force. We're increasing its productivity by ensuring the optimal mix of business development executives and account managers and by reducing and right-shoring non-customer-facing roles. We are leveraging our next-generation sales program to improve governance, incentives and tools to maximize return on our sales investments. In our Solutions & Services delivery network, we have undertaken an exercise to drive an optimal shoring mix and an efficient organizational structure in terms of layers and spans of controls. The transition to a more streamlined operating model is already underway. And finally, we will be improving productivity metrics across our support functions by both transferring transactional activities to our shared service centers and leveraging functional centers of excellence at global or regional levels. With these measures, we aim to reduce fragmentation of resources across country organizations. In terms of time line, we will have the full project blueprint, including productivity targets ready for disclosure together with our full year results in March 2023. Given the strength of our business model and healthy balance sheet, combined with our focus on optimizing shareholder return, we have today announced our intention to launch a share buyback program of up to CHF 70 million. The program will start in early Q1 2023 and will be executed on a second trading line on the Swiss Exchange. Our intention is to propose a capital reduction and subsequent cancellation of the bought back shares at future AGMs. A few further details on the program will be available on our website prior to launch. I also want to provide a brief update on working capital. Given its relatively high level at the end of June 2022, we have taken specific measures to reduce it. The year-on-year increase in net working capital position at the end of quarter 3 has narrowed to approximately CHF 40 million compared to CHF 200 million at the end of June. While we will continue to optimize payment terms with vendors and customers, we expect to be above last year's December position as we seek to achieve a normalized or more sustainable level of working capital over time. Moving on to our guidance. It's important to keep in mind that as always, December is a critical month for the year and will determine where we land within our guidance range. Given our year-to-date performance and robust outlook, I reiterate our guidance for the year and for the midterm. We expect to deliver mid-teens growth in 2022, an adjusted EBITDA margin above 25% and a dividend payout ratio of 30% to 50% of our adjusted profit for the year. Finally, let me remind you that from 2023 onwards, we will start guiding for growth based on revenue, and EBITDA margin will be calculated as a percentage of revenue and not gross profit. We will, of course, continue to provide visibility between all the new metrics to ensure full apples-to-apples comparison. Let me now hand over to Dieter for his closing remarks.

Thank you, Rodolfo. As we reach the end of our presentation, there are three messages that we would like you to take away today. Firstly, our Q3 results confirm that we are on track to meet our 2022 guidance of mid-teens growth and an EBITDA margin of above 25%. Secondly, we remain fully committed to our growth strategy, supported by our operational efficiencies to deliver profitable growth. This drives continued cash generation and further returns to our shareholders. And thirdly, we have taken important steps this year in terms of increasing the level of transparency in our financial disclosure, and this will continue to be a priority in 2023. Thank you, and we will take now your questions.

[Operator Instructions] We are now taking the next question. The next question from Michael Briest from UBS.

Congratulations on the good Q3. There's a couple for me. Just could you give more color around the cost and efficiency targets that you report on Slide 12? Just some scope of how much magnitude we could expect for exceptionals and the planned savings? And then in terms of the macro environment, Dieter, I mean, obviously, good growth in Q3. You called out public sector. I know in the past, SME has been an area of weakness. But is there any more color you can give on the linearity, October trading, which sort of maybe informs your outlook for next year as much as for Q4? And then Rodolfo, just on the cash flow, can you just sort of clarify what you said about working capital? Will it be up by less than CHF 40 million year-on-year at year-end? Was that what you were saying, but that should then be a more sustainable level? I didn't quite understand that.

Yes. Thanks and hi Michael, for the comments. Yes, from -- starting with the operational excellence, as you have shared, as Rodolfo shared, we will give you the full outlook on that with the full year's results in the 2nd of March 2023. But Rodolfo, if you give a bit more color on this right now, and then also to the cash flow, I will then answer the macroeconomic question.

Yes, very good. So in terms of the savings, we can disclose today as we did in the first half, that the minimum level of savings we see is in the mid-single-digit percentage of our cost base, and we will provide more specific targets as we -- as Dieter said, with the full year results. So at this point, we cannot elaborate more on that. Of course, like you mentioned also, would there be any restructuring provision. And again, as with any optimization program, there will be the need for some restructuring costs, and we will provide details on that as well early next year with the full year numbers. Then on the cash flow, the numbers I quoted during the presentation, the higher working capital position of CHF 40 million in September compared to the CHF 200 million higher position in June, of course, it's emphasizing that we have increased control on our net working capital, and we're reducing it compared to prior year. However, I also mentioned in the H1 call that the level in December 2021 was, let's say, extraordinarily low compared to the usual average level of net working capital. So what this means is, as we approach December, we will be at a higher position than we had in December 2021, but I expect that the delta would not be too different from the position last December. But again, we are seeking to move into a more sustainable level of working capital, and that will translate into a higher position towards the end of the year compared to December 2021.

On the macroeconomic demand environment, Michael, you have seen now for the last 9 months, we had a very solid demand environment, and we have outlined that we see one factor, which is the public sector being more considered in the approach of adopting new technologies. Going forward and for the rest of the year, which is a couple of weeks ahead of us, you do know that from a seasonality point of view, December is a very strong month for us, right? And that basically will drive also where within our guidance, we will land. If I look back, Michael, you remember 2020, we had no flush-out of the budget for the years and of customers. 2021, last year, we had a flush-out of the budgets, the IT budget, which is a normal common scenario in the technology and in the industry at the years and usually IT organizations spending the remaining amount of the IT budgets. So provide this is coming, then we don't see any impact on the demand. But as I said, in the last 2 years, we have seen 1 year of this and 1 year result, and so 2020 was obviously the COVID year. In terms of 2023, from our point, the TAM and the SAM, the service of addressable market remains -- remained absolutely strong and relevant for us. I think we are super positioned with our portfolio and somehow it hits the nail on the head because every single pain point the customer has, we are addressing with our portfolio, whether it's now cost optimization with spin-offs or whether it's moving to the cloud, whether it's modernizing and moving into the cloud or whether it's deadlines like we see on the SAP into the cloud. So from that angle, we are very well positioned on Software & Cloud. We believe with our engine and with our geo coverage, we are very well positioned. Structurally also and from a geopolitical environment, I think our local coverage with global best practices is kind of best-in-class. So we are positive on that angle, but looking ahead, I think we are doing this and in March when we do the full year's presentation for 2022 and give you the guidance for 2023.

Understood. I mean any observation on Microsoft's expected deceleration in Azure and elsewhere? I mean does that not affect you?

Yes. You always have to look with a different eye on to the Microsoft numbers, because it combines of 3.5 clouds, and it also combines of commerce, end customer commerce, et cetera, et cetera. So if you break it down, the growth on everything, which is cloud, and particular Azure is still very solid. And I think if you look also the demand from the customers where they really need to accelerate cloud migrations, I don't think there is a slowdown on the consumption side. So I'm positive on this. Of course, the overall revenue from them reflects many, many areas where we are not participating, and that's also where we are choosy to participate in the ones where we can also have profitable growth behind it.

The next question from [ Toby Holk ] from JPMorgan.

A couple from my side. Just firstly, just on the macro. So when we look across the board, we're seeing signs of softening across the broader ecosystem. The sales cycle is lengthening, deals requiring extra approval, and so on. And I know you've called out public sector specifically here as an area of weakness. But outside of that, are you seeing any other signs of slowing linked to the macro? And then perhaps, again, just coming back on the working capital side of the business, you talked obviously about continuing to optimize payment terms with vendors. Can you just give us a sense as to what gives you the confidence you can continue to improve things here in an environment where customers are presumably going to be holding on to cash a lot more?

Yes. Thanks, and welcome to the team. From -- again, from a macro point of view, you know what, a side of the customer segment, which I mentioned earlier, yes, here and there, you see delays in terms of decision making. That's absolutely right. But if you are in a segment where you either keep the lights on or you make the lights bright, there's not much discretionary budgets where the customer can actually cancel without shutting down considerable functionalities in the businesses. So it's -- at the moment, we don't see a cancellation. We see here and there some delays and what you said also is true, sale cycles are expanding a bit. But it's delays, it's not cancellation at the moment. And from a cash flow, you want to answer that?

Yes. Look, if you look at the recent trends, let's say, over, let's say, several quarters back, we continue to have net working capital under tight control. When we look at the theoretical terms that we have with our customers and vendors, they are well balanced. We are very diligent when it comes to credit rating of our different customers. So we do not see at this point in time, any problem with collections. We believe we can continue to manage our DSOs at an average of over 60 as we have shown before. And then when it comes to payment terms with vendors, again, we do not see any fundamental change in vendor payment terms, and we believe we can continue to optimize those terms as we have done in the past. So I don't see any issues continuing with very, very effective management of the net working capital.

The next question is from Andreas Müller from ZKB.

One is -- the first one is actually on the growth momentum in Solutions & Services, which was a tick below the guidance for the year. What was the impact there of external growth? Or -- and are there any specific reasons also why it went down from, say, 36% to 25%? The next question is on earn-outs. Are they going to stay at that level, given also that some, on the acquisition front, it was somewhat quiet recently. And then my third question is on the buyback program. Was that the result actually of this lower acquisition activity? And also going forward, is that pointing to that? Or is it just a result of the good operating performance?

Andreas, thanks for the questions. On Solutions & Services, you rightly pointed out that we are slightly down to 25.3% in Q3. You might have seen also in the presentation, you see a de-acceleration on the xSimples bundles, which is a transition from our 3 years commit to subscription base to pay-as-you-go. We are reaching the tail end over there. And as you might recall, our focus was always to go towards our own book of business because we are the incumbent over there, and we wanted to make sure that we are placing ourselves in there and are not opening the door to the competitive landscape. So it was very much focused on converting existing book of business to pay-as-you-go. And now since we are reaching the tail end of that, there's a more realistic growth of 45%, which you see in constant currencies, in 50%, which has also an impact on the overall growth. Going forward, that, of course, allows us again room because now we -- in the next 6 months or so, we can pivot further to go deeper into the converted existing book of business on one side, but also start to hunting the net new business in that area, which will be, of course, the strategic attention on it. Also if you see the scale which we have in the meanwhile reach, right, we're talking about 0.5 billion business on Solution & Services, basically, we reached the quality to Software & Cloud by years and from the run rate. This allows us also to be more selective and not to use any door opener or any entry into the customer side regardless whether we are -- that's a long-term strategic point for us or not. So we become more choosy on that. We focus more on retained professional services. We focus more on is the -- and came really possible with the managed service. So you will see that going forward, our growth on Solutions & Services will be rather in the range of 20% to 30% to have really profitable -- sustainable profitable growth in this area. On earn-outs, you mentioned it, it's quiet. It's not quiet on the pipeline, but it's all quiet on the conversion of the pipeline of M&A targets. The multipliers are slowly coming down, and we are waiting eagerly that they become in a realistic range. So you should see in 2023 a different uptake on that. I'll let Rodolfo add more information on this as well as on the on the buyback, which is still our capital allocation framework.

Yes. So let me step back for a moment on the capital allocation. Again, Dieter reiterated that in his comments, and I did the same. Our priority remains #1 to support our growth momentum to support our bolt-on strategy, M&A strategy in Solutions & Services and, of course, to optimize also the returns to our shareholders through our dividend and when possible, to, say, like in this particular case, a share buyback. Now to your question, Andreas, it's not that we are slowing down on the bolt-on M&As going forward. We will assess whenever, as Dieter said, find the right targets at the right prices. We will continue to leverage those as we want to continue to give capabilities with Solutions & Services. And the buyback is more a reflection of, as I mentioned, a strong balance sheet and opportunity to provide high TSR to our current shareholders. And then the earn-outs, as Dieter said, we will continue to have combinations of upfronts and retention and earn-out payments to the owners of companies we acquire. And so we will continue to see that in the future.

The next question is from Knut Woller from Baader Bank.

Just three questions. First, looking at the efficiency program. I understand that you will provide some more details with the release of the Q4 results. However, looking at three pillars of the efficiency program, can you give us an idea from a qualitative perspective, which pillar is expected to be the major contributor to the efficiency gains expected going forward? And to which extent should we see a net positive impact looking at rising inflation and the efficiencies? Do you expect a net tailwind? Or will it be overall neutral effect looking at the inflation? Then secondly, on the margin of Solutions & Services, if I understood you correctly, you said you're targeting 15% over the coming quarters and years, apart from the scaling, or drilling a bit further down into the scaling effect. Can you give us here some more color on the expected margin drivers? And lastly, on the operating momentum, did you see any material changes so far in the final quarter of the year? I understand December is the most important month of the quarter. However, did you see any noticeable changes in October, November from what you have observed in the third quarter?

Yes, thanks, and very good points and also on the three pillars of the operational excellence, I'll let Rodolfo answer that in a minute. Let me take the margin discussion on Solution & Services. So to reiterate, right, we target by 2025, a margin of 15%. And you have seen how we are trending at this year from a positive momentum. It's scale. You're absolutely right. It's scale, but that's not the only way. One pillar which Rodolfo will mention is also our delivery model. That's the middle pillar of the operational excellence, and that's where we optimize quite heavily. So it's not only the right capability in the right place or at the right price point, but also behind the delivery capabilities what we can further automate and make sure that we separate GP growth from OpEx growth. So that's the second piece, which is the delivery model. And the third piece is in the meanwhile, we have a different standing with our customers, where the proof point of, are we able to deliver Solutions & Services has been given, right? In the beginning, we had to take any door open, which I mentioned earlier, because we were known for value-added reselling, right? And why should anyone from the customer give us the crown jewels on the services side, if we haven't given the proof point. So we started off with a lot of professional services, a lot of proof-of-concept just to get the foot in the bar and then expand from there. There, we have reached a level of maturity and also reputation in the market where we can go into the higher-margin business on an ongoing basis. This goes also in line with learning to sell on value and output and outcome for the customer and the impact and not selling against price, which you do in the beginning as well. So you see also a higher margin outcome, because of the way restructuring sales again something, which Rodolfo did say on operational excellence. In terms of operating momentum, so I was thinking earlier when Michael asked a similar question, and also from JPMorgan question, if I look at the metrics, which would give me an indication, right? So it's -- there are three, four metrics, which are element of it. First one is pipeline growth; the second one would be the conversion of the pipeline, the conversion ratio, but also the cycle time of it; the third one would be what is the average deal size which we are seeing; and the fourth one would be do we have a growing backlog or do we have a diminishing of that backlog. So at the moment, we don't have any indication which points us in a different direction over there. And that's why we are saying that the variable is basically the years and this December on this and nothing else. Now handing over to Rodolfo on operational excellence.

Yes. So back to operational excellence and expected savings and what are the different buckets of savings. So when you look at our P&L, particularly the ones by business line and the different cost elements. Of course, from a price of the cost line, delivery is the biggest one. And then, of course, when you look at the rest of the OpEx, you can imagine that the sales and marketing represents a bigger proportion than functions like HR and finance. Now at this stage, I would say for the different buckets, of course, there will be ranges of savings, but we continue to see, at this stage, a minimum of mid-single digit for the three buckets. Now there's a very important point to keep in mind. We continue to see increased operating leverage, meaning our costs are growing less than revenue. You have seen that in quarter 3. Now when we think about going forward, we reiterated our guidance of mid-teens growth, right? And that means, of course, our cost structure also has to grow to support the revenue momentum. But with this efficiency program, we will be able to significantly grow OpEx even less so than revenue. That's something to keep in mind. So to your comment, yes, we have factored in inflation for next year. It's normal. We also have inflation in the revenue. So there's an offsetting element there. We also need a certain level of growth, but the growth will be much slower, also some growth on expenses, but it will be much slower given these efficiency measures that we will put in place. And of course, as you can imagine, they will not happen on in quarter 1, right? There, we will get the low-hanging fruit and the program will need to be implemented over the next, call it, 18 to 24 months.

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at the moment.

All right. I think then we can close the session. We have later on a detailed analyst call as well. I'm looking forward to speaking to you at that time. Thanks for your attention. Thanks for participating. Thank you very much.

This conclude the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.