Talenom Oyj (TNOM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello. You are welcome to follow up Talenom Financial Statement Release '23. My name is Otto-Pekka Huhtala. I'm as a CEO, and here is my colleague, Matti Eilonen.

Hello.

Today, our content is show the review last period. And after that, I will tell some great things from our strategy progress. And after that, Matti will open more about figures and future guidance, thank you. Follow up our press release. Okay. Topic from last year was that growth was strong but profitability targets were missed. Thanks to profitability and strategic measures, expectation for '24 are positive. Our growth continues strong. It was 19%, and we achieved EUR 122 million revenue. Investments related to internationalization depressed profitability margin a little bit in whole year and it little bit recovered just Q4. Matti will open more about figures and how it has gone in each countries. Some words of the European accounting firm market. The whole size is roughly EUR 100 billion. And in Finland, it's for EUR 1 billion; in Sweden, about double size. And in Spain, roughly EUR 10 billion; in Italy, maybe not about EUR 12 billion. And one big mega trend, which is boosting this business is digitalization, and it comes from that side that we are facing all the lines more regular things, which are like boosting, like inverse directive. It means that it will be mandatory way send and receive invoices between B2B and B2 customers, consumers, and it means that most of small and medium enterprises have to add up some software that take and handle these key invoices. And this will boost demand of the whole accounting services. The other big thing is the labor shortage. Together with increasing regulation forces us to seek more effective practices. It's only possible to handle all works what we are -- what we will have in accounting business that they can make the process, we have to be more streamline processes and digitalization. Without digitalization, we can't do our job in home markets because we don't have enough labor to do the things. That's why we are so focusing for the whole EU because we have a good track record of digitally sales transformation from Finland, and I will open that later more. Here is our one-pager of our vision and whole strategic competitive advantage, our vision calls unbeatable accounting and banking services for small and medium enterprises. We are now in Finland, Sweden, Spain, and Italy. We have like Blue Ocean strategy, which means that we can handle the whole value chain from the customer to customer. And it means that because we have like our own software units, which are developing software to our clients and also for us, for our accountant. This means that we can offer very easy-to-use digital tools for our clients. And it helps us to automate our internal processes and we have developed our own software to make bookkeeping. And these 2 things give us these possibilities that we can save time, and we use the save time for our clients. And it means that we have more time with the clients than competitors have, and it boost our growth. And these 3 things, what we have developed is routines automated accounting and care services. We have developed this like 20 years, and that's why we have so high profit rate in our core business. This transformation from traditional accounting business to digital accounting business just took 15 years from EUR 1 million to EUR 15 million. We improved our processes, and after that also, we created our own software. And here, you can see our revenue and EBIT margin, how it has improved after the launch. We launched our own bookkeeping software 2015. And the impact is that our profit margin like tripled after that in next years. So this is what we are now going to duplicate in new market. And we are now -- just now in like this figure in Sweden in year 15. We are now just implementing our software there. And we estimate that this kind of figures would be near future also in Sweden, and we are waiting higher profit margin there. Internationalization, progressing as planned. Last year, our revenue base was that roughly 70% came from Finland, and 20% from Sweden, and 7% from other countries. And you can see that this kind of improvement will continue later, when Matti open more about figures. And this is our plan because we are so big in Finland, so we need more bigger markets that we can continue our fast growth. Some words of strategic progress last year. We accelerated our digital sales channel. We put all countries under one brand, Talenom brand, and we renewed our websites and improved our digital sales channel. It's easier to purchase our services today than 1 year ago. And we are now getting first good feedback of these actions. Okay. The second one is distribution of banking services. We started distributing Talenom accounts in Finland. And why this is so important for us? So this helps us to get new customers, and I mean that they are buying at the same then also bookkeeping services. So this is like helping us to get new businesses and small businesses. And that's why this is important for us. Third one is the software implementation in Sweden. In Sweden, the rollout of our own platform got off to a good start, and we started selling our own platform in new customer acquisitions. Our goal for year '24 is that we try to achieve 50% of all customer we try to roll out it into Talenom own software. Why we are doing this big, big projects is that we are waiting that when we are implementing our software, we are implementing at the same time our good processes, and it will helps our accountant life and also client's life and it means that accountants could save about 75% of user time for financial routines from accountant perspective. So we can save the time and we can share this benefits with accountants and clients, and it will boost customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and also higher profit margin. Strategy focus areas for '24 is improving efficiency. This means that we don't do so many acquisitions in previous years. And we are harmonizing our businesses in Spain, and also in Sweden, and also in Finland, as we see later, we turned back high profitable level last year, and we will continue this improving efficiency also in Finland. But the big part comes from -- also from the new countries like Spain and Sweden. Second one is platform rollout in Sweden. This is the big, big investment for us, and we want to win this game. And the third one, organic growth. We are just hiring new Head of Sales in Spain and in Sweden. So we are like building our sales force in Spain and in Sweden that we could continue faster organic growth in Spain and Sweden in future. These are our focus areas for '24. This is shortly my presentation, and Matti will tell some words from finances. Thank you.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to follow Financial Year 2023 from my behalf also. My name is Matti Eilonen, and I'm CFO of Talenom. Let's start with the net sales figures. We ended up to EUR 122 million in year 2023, and it was 19% of growth. So basically in 4 to 5 years, we were able to double our revenue during that time. 1/3 came from the organic growth and 2/3 came from the acquisitions. Overall, the economic development in the Nordics has been so that it has negatively reflected in our organic growth. That led to the situation that our growth was a little bit slower during the Q4, and it ended up 13% of growth. We started this year 2023 with the high expectation of growth and high ambition of growth. But due to the economic situation, the growth got smaller than we anticipated. So we launched profitability improvement measures in the entire group, focusing more in Finland. And as we can see on the figures on the right-hand side that the EBITDA was smaller during the H1, the first half of the year and the second half of the year, the EBITDA has gone better. For example, in Q4, it was EUR 300,000 better, and the Q4 remained flat. But the structure behind is that Finland improved the profitability a lot. And due to Swedish software project, it dragged down the profitability on Q4. Anyway, these improvements give a good view or a good basis for the 2023 profitability. And we still have really good growing possibilities according to our strategy. And the profitability measured by EBIT. EBIT went down from approximately EUR 15 million to EUR 11 million, and the profitability was depressed by front-loaded investment at the beginning of the year and also wage inflation and system platform, which we bought in Spain 2022, and also the cost of the acquisitions. EBIT also went down a little bit on the Q4 from EUR 2.2 million to EUR 1.6 million. But as told before, Finland improved the profitability a lot as we see later on when we have the country's specific numbers. And Sweden dragged down the profitability because we want to make sure that we have their own software in use there. And the country-specific numbers. Finland business was strong and steady. The growth was 9%, ending up to a little bit less than EUR 90 million, and it was all organic growth. The general economic slowdown led to the situation that our net sales per customer was a little bit smaller and the volume-based invoicing was also smaller. So that slowed down our growth even that new customer acquisition sales remained on a good level in Finland. So the last quarter was 6% of growth. The EBITDA development in Finland was really strong. We ended up a little bit less than EUR 32 million. So overall, it was EUR 2 million growth in EBITDA, and EUR 1.5 million came on the last quarter. So the EBITDA in the last quarter was 25% better than a year before. Also, the relative profitability increased significantly due to these profitability measures, which we took place in Finland. And the figures in Sweden, the growth was 32% during the whole year and 3% on the last quarter, and this came mainly from the acquisitions. The same kind of phenomenon as in Finland, the economy slowed down, and that reflected on our net sales as well and especially in Sweden, where we have more volume-based invoicing. So the impact was even a little bit higher in Sweden. Also, the weak Swedish krona had a negative impact on net sales growth in euros. If we measure this with the comparable exchange rate, the growth would have been in Sweden for whole year, 42% approximately; and on the last quarter about 8%. Then the EBITDA development in Sweden, the EBITDA went down during the whole year and especially on the last quarter. The profitability was weakened by the effect of general economic slowdown. And also that we want to ensure the implementation of our own software. And that, at the moment, requires personnel. So we are prioritizing this platform implementation even that it's pressing down our profitability. We believe that the future profitability gain will be much bigger than the short term would have been if we started to press down the profitability improvements like we did in Finland, in Sweden. Our goal, as Otto told, is to migrate at least 50% of our recurrent reporting customers to our own system during 2024. I would also like to point out that there were non-recurring items during the whole year about EUR 600,000. In Spain and Italy, these figures are, mostly in Spain, because Italy is still quite a small portion of this whole figures. Growth was 400%. And on the last quarter, about 300%. And this growth came mainly from the acquisitions. And the EBITDA development in other countries, of course, when we were growing fast and we were front-loading our investments and to the supporting functions and so on. So we are still on negative measured by EBITDA. But if you look at this relative profitability development, we can see that it's developing well. And because we have bought more volume around the business, latest were around when the year changes, we made 3 deals around there. So the volume is bigger. So we are expecting with the good processes that this improvement of profitability will continue during 2024. Then a little bit about our investments and depreciation level. Investments to the new customer contracts, it's amounted pretty much the same as a year before, a little bit over EUR 3 million. And investments to software was raising from EUR 12 million to EUR 14.5 million. And the reason behind this is that Spanish local user interface, software investments, and of course, Sweden, our own platform in there, and also the architectural renewal. So these 3 topics are the cause of why the investments went up a little bit. We are aiming so that the investments to software will remain relative growth slower than the net sales is growing. And the acquisition investments were about EUR 19 million. And last year, it was EUR 24.5 million. Depreciation will still continue to raise in 2022 (sic) [ 2024 ] because we basically doubled our investments during 2019 and '20. And so that's why the depreciation level is growing. But the relative share of the revenue of depreciation, that we estimate to decline during 2024. And the dividend proposal, earnings per share, it was EUR 0.07 as the last year, it was EUR 0.27. Board is proposing that the dividend will be EUR 0.19. And last year, it was EUR 0.18. Our midterm guidance is to pay a growing dividend, and we want to follow that guidance. Paying dividend will not have an effect on our ambition of growth. And the outlook and the guidance for 2024. We are expecting to have net sales between EUR 130 million and EUR 140 million. This is lower than the midterm guidance is, and that is basically because we want to focus more on the organic growth and also due the economic situation, and also that we want to focus more on the profitability. EBITDA is expected to be between EUR 34 million and EUR 40 million, and operating profit between EUR 14 million and EUR 17 million. Thank you from my behalf, and now it's time for questions.

Yes, if we look at markets in Sweden and Spain. If we look at the new customer acquisition, how would you compare the new customer acquisition in Spain and Sweden? Are there differences, similarities?

Yes. After that, when we have got the leads, new possibilities to get the new clients after that when we are in the meeting with our sales reps and customers, after that, the process will be the same. But how to get the new leads and the lead channels, though there is differences between the countries. And maybe the biggest differentiation is that, in Spain, we are getting more digital way in Sweden, mostly from the preferences from our personnel. And in Finland, we have very good booking team also, which is booking cold calls. And this is mainly the biggest differentiations.

Do you have both in Sweden and Spain, local sales organizations?

Yes, we have. We have, in Sweden, we have roughly 10 people and in Spain, 3, 4. So we are just in the beginning in Spain. And now we are hiring -- just in hiring process. We are hiring Head of Sales in Sweden and also in Spain. So we are going to invest for our sales force and because it looks like that we can make the deals. So it makes sense to invest for sales force and also investigate for lead channels.

If we look at the profitability target for financial year 2024, what would you list as the main risks for that?

Matti, do you want to take that?

Of course, the economic situation is one factor. We don't really know where it's going. Is there going to be a lot of growth on the second half of the year or is it still continuing the slowdown? So I would say that, that would be probably the biggest risk if we still continue having this recession in Nordics, possibly expanding to other countries as well. And of course, even that we know what we are doing in Sweden, the software implementation, it's a really big project and all sorts of things could happen there. So that might be one risk also. Maybe I don't know if Otto wants to add more risks.

Of course, there is risk everywhere, but maybe the biggest risk was here.

One question about the software implementation in Sweden, could you rationalize or give some kind of background on the initial decision to invest in your own software in Sweden?

Yes. Good questions. It's like 5 years ago, when we acquired first company in Sweden. I was there, and I was seeking the possibilities like in the business. And I got big flash back from 10 years back that all what we have done in Finland, we should do all things again. And it means that we should like improve the processes. And after that, we should like modify or improve software, which could like give the capabilities for good process. And it was so big step what we should do there. And without own software, it's also very difficult, because if we use only robots to automate it is not enough. So based for this experience, what we had done in Finland and the situation, what was in Sweden, we made the decision that, okay. We want to implement our software also in Sweden if we want to achieve same level of EBITDA margin than we have in Finland. So we have [ to build tools ]. And after that, we made the decision, okay, if we want to implement our software, we should be the bigger there. And we started our acquisition journey there. Maybe the short little story behind Sweden.

Yes. Thanks for a comprehensive answer. No further questions here.

Okay. There's Emil Immonen in line. Could you activate him and turn your mute... Okay. Now we can hear you, maybe Emil.

Emil Immonen from Carnegie. I just have a couple of questions. You said your guidance includes some new acquisitions still. Are you planning on doing any acquisitions in Italy this year?

Of course, we are really small in Italy and some strategical acquisitions might be taking place in Italy as well. Our goal is to grow the personnel between 50 and 100 persons there. So we probably need to make some acquisitions there.

Okay. And then you mentioned that you are now focusing more on organic growth. Why did you believe you could do more acquisitions previously and grow faster than you now expected to do?

Yes, this is good question. Why do growth only? We are organic or only we are acquisitions. We think about that this organic growth is like the real growth, and it's the best measure that how good our service or product is. And now we have big and good enough foundation in Spain and also in Sweden. So we are going to harmonize our businesses there and make the capabilities to grow organically faster. And our ambition is that organic growth rate should be over 20%, and we do only strategic acquisition, what is needed, like in some cities where we want to go or some new country like in Italy, we are just now. So we want to be there a little bigger. So, maybe this is shortly.

Okay. Then your net debt has been increasing in the last years. Do you expect that to continue in 2024? And what kind of leeway do you have in terms of covenants?

We have calculated that we have enough buffers on the covenants, and this shouldn't be a problem, and we could continue this growth at the moment.

Okay. And then you mentioned in the Finish conference call that you use Fortnox and will continue using Fortnox in the future as well. Can you elaborate?

Yes. This is good questions. And in Finland, we use also Netvisor for the biggest clients and the clients, which have like so special features that it doesn't make the sense to develop those kind of features to our own platform. So our platform has developed for companies from like 0 to EUR 10 million revenue. And we have also the bigger clients. And in some special industry, they have some special features. So we don't want to do all of those features. That's why we are using in Finland also Netvisor. And in Sweden, biggest clients, they have many integrations with Fortnox and their own ERP systems. So we will continue for next year and our organic growth -- our sales force to getting new clients will focus only for near future for selling Talenom concept, which includes Talenom software. And in long term, I think that more than 80% will be in our systems. But still, we want to keep this commercial software in place that we can -- when our clients is growing, and we don't have enough features, so we can move them to commercial software. And we can like continue and get the longer life cycle per clients that way.

Okay. So if I understand correctly, if a customer has Fortnox, you allow them to continue using that, but new customers you want to have on your own software?

Yes. So, there is not anymore questions. So thank you for everybody, and have a nice day. Bye-bye.

Thank you. Bye-bye.