Solutions 30 SE (S30) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the Solutions 30 2023 Full Year Revenue Presentation. Please note, this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand you over to your host, Mr. Gianbeppi Fortis, CEO, to begin today's conference. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Pascal. Good evening to all. Thank you for being with us for this presentation of our Q4 and full year 2023 revenues. This conference will be held in English, and the transcript will be available on our website. For this presentation, I'm with Amaury Boilot, Group Secretary General; and Jonathan Crauwels, our Group CFO. First, let me remind you who we are. In 20 years, we grew from 0 to more than EUR 1 billion of revenues, and we had revenue growth every single year without exception for 20 years. To grow to this size, we only raised EUR 1.5 million back in 2005, then we managed our cash carefully and financed our growth with our own cash flow. We believe that we can continue to do so in the future. We operate a network of 15,000 technicians across Europe who install digital equipment and provide assistance to people using these digital equipment. We are visiting about 80,000 houses per day, and we have visited over 65 million houses since our creation, which make us one of the biggest players in our industry. The company today is well diversified in terms of geographies. And we operate in three main regions: France, which is our main country, representing about 1/3 of revenues. Benelux representing another 1/3 and being even ahead of France in the last quarter of '23. And then the last 1/3 is represented by other geographies, some of them growing very fast. As I told you, we had very strong growth in the past, but what's important is that we see ahead of us for many years to come, very large growth opportunities in profitable markets related to the digital transformation of our lives and to the transition of our countries towards green energies. Now I hand over to Amaury for the overview of our Q4 revenues.

Thank you, Gianbeppi and good evening to all of you. I will now share with you an overview of our Q4 revenue in 2023. So I'm on Slide 6. In Q4 2023, we reached a new historical high for a quarter at EUR 285.7 million, it represents a 15.3% growth compared to Q4 2022 and a 14.6% organic growth. This is a very positive trend, I remind you that growth is key in our business. It allows us to reach critical size and improve our margin. Looking to the full year 2023, our sales reached EUR 1,055 million, in line with our target to be above EUR 1 billion, and this represents a growth of 16.7% on a year-on-year basis. In this growth, the impact of changes in scope is very limited, representing only 0.4% or EUR 3.6 million related to the acquisition of ELEC ENR in France. This company is specialized in renewable energies, which is one of our strategic targeted area of growth. Finally, organic growth amounts to 16.3%, which is a very good level in line with the release of the last quarter. Looking now to the split of our revenue by geography and by segment. This growth is mainly driven by Benelux, which revenue increased by 71.9% both on a reported and organic basis. Benelux represents now around 1/3 of our sales, just slightly below France and is even ahead of France over the last quarter. Other countries developed the revenue by 5.2%, this growth is notably driven by Poland, which revenue increased by 47% and to a lesser extent, by the revenue in U.K. going up by 8%. By segment now, our revenue in the connectivity segment is up by 19.1% and remains by far the first activity of the group representing around 78% of the total sales. Energy is up by 20.6% and confirms its strong dynamics and its strong potential as a strategic growth driver for the group. Technology, which is a more mature market is slightly down at 2.9%. As already mentioned, this growth is not detrimental to our profitability. And thanks to the ongoing action plans that we have all across the group, we confirm that the improvement -- that our margins will improve over the second half of 2023. Now I hand over to Jonathan, who will present in more details the dynamics of our activities per business and per region.

Thank you, Amaury, and good evening to all of you. I'm on Slide 10. In France, revenue reached EUR 106.3 million in Q4, almost flat. And down 2.9% organically. Connectivity went down 5%. As announced, the traditional back-to-school peak was concentrated in September and October, favoring the third quarter but slightly penalizing the fourth quarter. Energy was up 49% or 31% organically, excluding the impact of the acquisition of ELEC ENR, this very favorable growth is driven by the rising activity in solar installation, an attractive new market -- new growth market for the group. Technology, being a mature market, went down by 16% due to the reduced IT spending by some major French customers. Over the full year, France revenue reached EUR 404.1 million, down 5.1% or 6% organically. As explained during our webinar last December, France is implementing its action plan to return to sustainable profitable growth. This involves developing the versatility of technicians across the group's various activities, industrializing and optimizing processes and IT tools, and reducing central costs and overheads. Moving to Slide 11. Benelux became in the fourth quarter, the first region of the group, with sales amounting to EUR 112 million, up 60%, both on a reported and on an organic basis. Growth was driven by the fast ramp-up of new contracts signed in 2021 and 2022 for the rollout of fiber network and fiber connections. Connectivity, which represents 81% of the total sales in the Benelux was in that respect, up with 70% in Q4. Energy was up with 29% driven by the continued rollout of smart meters in Flanders, while activities linked to the energy transition, particularly in electric mobility, renewable energies and smart grids are expanding. Technology remained dynamic with a 21% growth. During the fourth quarter, EBITDA margin confirmed its improvement following the negative impact linked to the very strong ramp-up during the first half. Over the full year, sales in Benelux reached EUR 381.3 million, up with 71.9%. In other countries, and I'm on Slide 12, Q4 reached EUR 67.7 million, slightly down by 4.2% compared to Q4 2022. Situation is very contrasted between the countries. Poland and U.K. remained very well oriented. In Poland, for instance, sales rose with 28.2%. The group is consolidating its position in this territory and gaining market share. In the United Kingdom, Solutions 30 posted a sales growth of 16.7%. The refocusing of fiber activity is beginning to show positive results thanks to the growing contribution of contracts signed in this market. In Germany, revenues were up with 6% in Q4. The quarter was marked by the signing of major contracts following several months of commercial efforts. It will strengthen Solutions 30's position in the fiber sector in Germany. This is of considerable strategic importance in this potential -- in this high potential market. After the Benelux, Germany is the group's new growth driver. Finally, Italy and Iberia were down owing the decision to refocus on profitability. In Italy, sales were down with 31% in Q4. We decided to slow down the pace of the fiber rollout activities until the situation returns to normal. We are awaiting to find a more efficient way of operating, in agreement with the various partners. In Iberia, sales were down 15%. We are continuing to refocus on our most profitable activities with an emphasis on the high potential energy markets. This concludes my part, and I would like to give the word back to Gianbeppi.

Thank you, Jonathan. I'm on Slide 14. For 2023, we confirm the continued improvement of our EBITDA throughout the year and an improvement to our working capital and, therefore, of the year-end financial position. In 2024, we will continue to grow while keeping a strong focus on margins. For the midterm, we confirm our objective to reach EUR 2.5 billion of revenues. And as explained, our priority is to focus on profitable growth and operational execution. To sustain our growth, our financial policy is based on the utilization of our own cash and non-dilutive financing, thanks to recurring working capital being financed by factoring, increases in organic activity being financed by the group cash, acquisitions being financed by long-term debt. This slide gives you a comprehensive view of our growth opportunities across our three business lines: Connectivity, energy and technology, and across our seven geographies. I will not comment in detail all boxes but give you some key highlights. The most attractive boxes are the green ones, where we expect significant growth in the midterm with a well-known business model. What's important is that we have green boxes in all segments. Fiber and mobile business is in connectivity, electrical vehicle chargers, solar panels and power grid in energy and different businesses in technology. We also have green boxes in all countries, and this is why we are confident to reach critical size in each country in the midterm. As already mentioned, fiber is currently a key driver of double-digit growth in the Benelux and is now starting in Germany. In France, we see our main growth drivers, the charging stations for electrical vehicles, solar panels and smart grids. While in Poland and the U.K., fiber and mobile are expected to be growth drivers in the midterm. But you also see attractive yellow boxes where we expect to develop new business lines in the midterm, such as copper exit in France or Italy; smart grids in Germany, Poland or U.K.; and IoT in most of our geographies. So as you can see, even if some of our markets are mature and represented by blue boxes, we have more green and yellow than blue boxes, and this is why we expect profitable growth for many years to come. Based on our experience over the last few years, this slide is presenting some of the key factors driving our margins. We already presented in detail those factors during the webinar hosted last December. I will not elaborate on it. But clearly, what we want to show is that focusing on margins is an important part of the work done in '23 that will continue in '24. We are not looking for growth at any price, and we will -- we have put in place strict control processes and monitoring at all levels, including being selective in the choice of projects, continue to recruit and train technicians with our proven methodology, focus on reaching critical size in all key geographies, keep standardizing our operational processes and leverage on our offshore locations as much as possible, expand the functionalities of our IT platform and focus on monitoring operational KPIs and keeping costs under control. To conclude, this slide gives the key messages that comfort our vision for the future. They are based on concrete actions taken by our company and based on our experience, our organization and our processes. They make us confident that we will be able to continue to create profitable growth for many years to come. And now with Jonathan and Amaury, we are ready to answer your questions.

Let's start, please, by taking the question from the web. The floor is yours.

Okay. So we have a first question. You confirm improvement of EBITDA 2023 in second half? Can you give more colors. Amaury, you may want to take this one?

Yes. Well, as we announced previously, we have been able over the second half of 2023 to improve our EBITDA margin on all our geographical segments. So in France, we have continued our efforts in order to improve our organization, streamline our processes, industrialize our operations, and this will help us to improve again our margins in the second half after a strong improvement in the first half. In the Benelux, we have also -- we are still growing very strongly, but now that we're becoming more familiar with the operational processes related to fiber deployment in this country, we managed to better digest the start-up costs related to this activity, and we get back to a high level of margins in this area. And in the other countries, we have also stopped the activities that were less profitable. We are focused on the more profitable businesses and have started new businesses, especially in the energy sector, which are more profitable and support the improvement of our margins in these countries as well.

Thank you, Amaury. There is a second question that is related to this first one. What are your measures to improve the EBITDA-to-cash conversion in '24? Maybe you can take it, Amaury.

Yes. Well, we are already -- and I will give you more flavor on this, this year in April when we will release our full financials for the year. But you will notice that we have -- over the second half of 2023, we have all the management team has made a great effort in order to keep the working capital under control while developing the business very, very strongly. And for that, we have notably relied on our factoring program that we have progressively deployed in all the countries and on all our new contracts. And this helps us to convert this profitability into cash. And this is absolutely necessary in order to continue to grow. So the answer is we mostly rely on our factoring program.

Thank you, Amaury. Another question. Is it possible to have an idea of the order book from the fiber contracts you have just signed in Germany? And do you feel capable of properly managing the margins on this contract during the ramp-up phase? I can take this one. In Germany at the moment, it's eat all you can, basically. The more people you have, the more you can do. So the limitation is not so much on the size of the contracts. The limitation is really on our capability to deliver. But to be more concrete, what we are expecting for next year in Germany is double-digit growth above the group average. So you will see strong double-digit growth, organic, in Germany next year. And concerning the question on margins, the big advantage of Germany over other geographies is that prices are pretty high. They're high because the environment is more complex. So taking fiber to a house in Germany is more complicated than in other European countries, but also because there is a strong demand of technical skills. So if you have the people, the clients are willing to pay the price. So we are expecting a positive impact on our margins in Germany even though the ramp-up would be double digit. Next question. Do you think you can stabilize the revenue in France? Do you still see a growth potential in France and where? Amaury, this is for you.

Yes, our focus in France is clearly on the energy sector, where we see the highest potential for the coming years. So we are already well organized in order to save all the opportunities in the energy sector. We have announced significant contracts during the second half of 2023, and we are confident that we will continue to develop significantly the revenue on this business line. We have also made an acquisition at the beginning of the second half in order to reinforce our capability and our local presence in the north of the country. So we are progressively covering the whole country. And yes, for sure, this segment will be more dynamic in the coming years. And should allow to stabilize the revenue in the future.