W5 Solutions AB (publ) (EY7.F) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

President and CEO, Evelina Hedskog, who will share an overview of the market landscape, recent business developments and key events during the quarter as well as a brief introduction of W5 Solutions. Also joined by CFO, Cecilia Driving, who will take us through the financial performance during the second quarter and the first half of the year. After the presentations are complete, we will end up with a Q&A session. So please feel free to submit your questions during the presentations, and we will answer them one by one. With that, I'll hand over the word to you.

And welcome, everyone, to this presentation. I will kick off by giving you a brief introduction to W5 as a company, who we are and what we do. And after that, we will dig into the Q2 report. So W5, our vision is to become the leading global provider of sustainable defense technology. Our mission, what we do every day is to deliver cutting-edge solutions to empower own and allied forces -- cutting-edge solutions for own and allied forces. That's what we do. And we do this through our operations, which is divided into 3 different business areas: Integration, Training and Power. Our headquarter is based in Stockholm, and we have operation sites from Älmhult in the South, in Sweden up to Piteå in the North and also in Kongsberg in Norway and Nurmijärvi in Finland. Our organization today consists of around 175 full-time employees. And looking at our customer base, it's a mix between defense agencies and also other defense industry companies as customers. Last year, we communicated the long-term financial goals that you see here. And by the end of 2027, we aim to have a turnover of SEK 1 billion and a profitability of 10%. And the strategy to reach these targets is to have a well-balanced organic growth of about 20% per year, but also work with acquisitions in order to reach these targets. So having a bit of a closer look into the 3 business areas. Together, they comprise 7 product areas. And if we start by looking at business area Integration, where we have Gunilla Stomberg as Head of Business area. We have 2 product areas there. The first one is systems integration, where we do exactly that, systems integration, but also design and manufacture bespoke harnesses and intercom solutions. Second product area within Integration is shelters. And here, we do the design and manufacturing of highly sophisticated container modules for different military purposes. It can be anything from a command post to a field hospital. Next business area, headed by Toralf Johannessen is business area Training, also with 2 product areas. And in this case, it's also 2 customer segments. So here, we have live fire training products and solutions for defense and security as well as for sports and hunting. And the product portfolio ranges from both the equipment that you would need on a shooting range all the way to more tactical training targets out in the field. And it's a mix between hardware products, but also software to both store information about shooting performance and do the analysis of the data. And the third business area headed by Joachim Hammersland is Power. And within Power, we have 3 product areas. Starting with batteries and chargers. We come from a history of designing and producing battery chargers for the military customer, and we have now recently last year moved into also battery manufacturing. The second product area closely related to that is gensets, where we do tailorized solutions, both for generic power supply for military units, but also power supply to specific systems such as radars. And the third product area within Power is simulation that we will talk a little bit more about later. But within simulation, we are specialized in hardware simulators. Okay. So with that little recap of who we are and what we do, we're moving into the quarter 2 report. And I just want to start by giving a brief overview of the situation on the market at the moment. And there are a number of, I would say, macro factors that are affecting us right now. Starting with NATO. So you probably all know that at the NATO Summit in the Hague in June, there was a 5% spending target accepted by the member nations and 3.5% of that will be directly dedicated to spending on defense material. Looking at the EU perspective, we have the ambition from EU that 50% of the spending within the member states should be on technology developed and produced within the member states. So of course, that's also something that is positive for us. And if we look at the Swedish perspective, in June, the Swedish government issued a defense industry strategy that basically handles the discussion around how we should have the best possible defense industry in Sweden to support the Swedish Armed Forces. And the one thing that I want to highlight from that strategy is that it has a good focus on the small and medium enterprises, and our role in building the Swedish defense capability. So looking at the macro perspective, there are a lot of long-term policies now in place that will support our market and make sure that we have a growing customer base going forward. So from a business perspective, from W5's perspective, this is all positive. Okay. I think the happiest message that we have in this quarterly report is, of course, the order intake, and it's a real order boom. We're up 211% from the same quarter last year. And I would like to just give you a quick overview of the biggest contracts that we have won and tell you a little bit more in detail about them. Starting off with our live fire training contract for the Finnish defense forces. I mentioned this the last quarter report as well because we signed the contract early April, but just to give you a bit more detail, it's a contract for SEK 25 million. So sort of the size of the contract is not huge, but it is of strategic value. And the solution that we are delivering here is a trailer-based live fire training system. And why is this strategically important to us then? Well, to start with, we won this in competitive procurement. And today, we have the Swedish home market as our absolutely the main customer for live fire training, and winning a competitive procurement in Finland also shows us that we have a very, very good product portfolio and price-wise, we are competitive. So it's also a strategic market entry, of course, to Finland. We hope that this is just the first contract and that there is much business to follow. And through this contract, we are also developing this new product concept based on existing products, but making it a mobile trailer-based solution. Next contract or contracts I would like to highlight is a bundle of orders from the Swedish Defense Materiel Administration also for live fire training. And within these contracts that together amounts to SEK 68 million, we are basically providing the entire range of products that we have for live fire training, defense and security. It is all to be delivered within this year, which it's a fantastic challenge that we are happy to take on. And of course, very, very important for us, given the business situation that we're in. We need to grow our top line, and this is the perfect opportunity to do so. It is based on proven and reliable solutions. There's no development included in these contracts. It is off the shelf basically, so it needs to be produced and delivered. And these contracts really reinforce the position that we have here in Sweden as the supplier of live fire training to the Swedish Armed Forces. Moving on to simulation. So we were also very happy to announce an order from a U.K. customer during this quarter. It is a loader drill trainer system for a U.K. vehicle, starting deliveries or development this year, and the project will be ongoing until 2028. We have talked a lot about moving into the export market to a larger extent. And I think this market entry for simulation in the U.K. is a very important part of that. As always, with simulation, these contracts are difficult to win. It takes a long time to win them. But once you have them and once you have delivered your products, it is also a long sort of life -- the lifetime of this system is long, and there are an aftermarket to be addressed. So it's a long-term commitment. And it's based on a proven and reliable solution that we have delivered before. However, now we are modifying it for this specific U.K. vehicle. And lastly, the simulator order that we also received from KNDS Germany. This is a different kind of simulator. This is a tactical CV90 simulator. And even though the customer is German, the end user of this system will be the Swedish Armed Forces, and the same delivery span between '25 and '28 as the U.K. project as well. Strategic importance for this. Well, the tier 1 relationship that we have with KNDS is very important to us, and there is more business to be won there. At the same time, through this project, we are strengthening the Swedish National Defense. And just as with the U.K. simulator contract, it is a long-term commitment, and we see an important aftermarket for these projects. So that was a little bit of a deep dive into different big projects that we have won this quarter, and we are really excited about delivering on these new contracts. So before handing over to Cecilia, I would just like to give you some information also about something that happened outside the period, very closely outside the period. July 1, we conducted a directed share issue and raising almost SEK 104 million through that. It was done to a premium of SEK 1 added on to the average closing price in June. And through this share issue, we are welcoming new investors, Salenia AB into the W5 family. And then, of course, you wonder what will we do with this cash injection? Well, as you can understand from listening to the projects that we are now starting up, we are in need of working capital and have some flexibility with that. So I would say that's the number one reason, but we are also intensifying our M&A discussions, and we need to have all the cash pool to be ready for when we find the right target. So M&A strategy in combination with the working capital with the big new projects that we have is the rationale behind this share issue. So with that, I hand over to Cecilia to take you through the numbers.

Thank you, Evelina. Now let's turn our focus to the financials for the second quarter. Net sales have increased by 14% compared to last year, while the EBIT margin remains negative, but we expect it to improve as the top line continues to grow over the year. As you already heard, order intake has been fantastic during the quarter. It was 3x higher than last year. And the order book now stands at nearly SEK 600 million, representing a growth of 170% year-over-year. If we're looking into how that order book is composed, here, we have more than half of that order book for delivery during 2025. And then 1/3 for next year and 1/6 for 2027 and forward. And demand has remained strong this quarter as reflected in the order intake figures Evelina presented. The book-to-bill ratio is well above 3, which is a healthy sign for a growing company, and we should typically be above 1. And moving into net sales and EBIT per quarter. Here, you see the seasonal variation. This year, net sales in the second quarter outperformed the first quarter. But if you look back to the second half last year, you can see that the third quarter was weak and the fourth quarter is very, very strong. And we expect to see the same pattern this year since we have the summer holiday period during the third quarter. Increased sales will, in turn, drive higher EBIT towards the end of the year, as you can see. And let us look into the business areas and how they have performed during the second quarter. Integration have had sales of SEK 38 million and a positive EBIT and have an order book of SEK 161 million going forward. And for Training, we have SEK 48 million in net sales and a positive EBIT and a order book of SEK 132 million. For Power, we have a little bit less in sales, SEK 25 million and weak EBIT or even negative EBIT, but a very strong order book. So going forward, this will be much better when the sales grows. Let's move into the year-to-date figures. The net sales is SEK 196 million. And if we're looking into the different business areas, you can say that a little bit more than 1/3 of the net sales is in Integration and Training and a little bit less than 1/3 in Power. And here, you also have the EBIT margin and integration is well above our target of 10% EBIT. Training is positive and Power is on the year-to-date numbers negative as well. But when we see the sales grow in Power, we will see that the EBIT margin will grow as well. And order intake is very nice for this year, SEK 467 million. And here, you have 20% of that in Integration and 36% in Training and 43% in Power. Of the almost SEK 600 million in order book, half of it is in Power. And the rest of it is in Integration and Training. And with that, I'll hand back to you, Evelina.

Thank you, Cecilia. Just to summarize what we have presented here. We have a very positive market outlook in the long term -- both the short term and the long term, but a lot of policy decisions taken during this year that will support our market growth. As Cecilia just showed you, we have a very strong order intake. And of course, that will support top line growth going forward. Within this order intake, we have now also been able to demonstrate multiple export contracts. And again, moving out on the export market to a larger extent is one of our strategic goals. So I'm very happy to see that happening now. We are struggling with profitability challenges. And I guess it's part of the ramp up happening right now and for sure, we need to address this and monitor it closely. But again, with the order intake that we have and the possibility to grow top line, I am confident that we would be able to show better figures going forward. So that actually means that, I mean, for the end of the year, we should be able to really benefit from the order backlog that we have now and deliver on our promises. So it's a very exciting autumn that we have ahead of us.

Thank you for your presentations. Well, that leads us to the Q&A.

And looking in the chat, I would say that we have a lot of questions to go through. So let's dive into them directly. So the first question, when comparing the performance across the business areas, what are the factors driving the significant differences in results.

No. I think, of course, it's partly the product mix and the ongoing projects. But for sure, in Power, we see that we need to really get the top line up in order to cover the cost side, that's for sure. But of course, just looking at quarter separately is difficult in this very intense growth phase that we're in now. So I mean, it will differ a little bit between the business areas over time. But I think in the longer perspective, they will have more or less the same both size and possibility to be profitable.

Next question. Looking at your M&A agenda, what is the status? And has anything new happened recently?

Well, we are working intensely with M&A, as I referred to in the beginning of my presentation. To reach the financial targets that we have set for ourselves, we need to acquire companies. And the work was really ramping up, I think, before the summer, and we are now excited to continue that work year after vacations. So it's ongoing and we hope to see some success eventually.

Sounds exciting.

It is, yes.

Next question in the chat. It's about book-to-bill. So it says, given where our book-to-bill ratio is right now, are you thinking about raising your targets?

Not really for the book-to-bill, but we already have the financial target of a turnover of SEK 1 billion for 2027. And said that, we need to grow. And we expect to have around 20% growth in organic and also with some acquisitions as well. So we should, over time, have a book-to-bill around 1.2. And now it is 3. We can't expect to see that every quarter. But still it's healthy for us because we are growing, and you can see that in the stronger demand.

Thank you, Cecilia. Moving on. Well, we have several questions to go through. Order intake has really picked up this quarter. What is the rationale behind this? Is it a result of orders clustering in Q2? Or do you see a broader increase in demand? And what are your expectations for future order intake? So it's three questions in one.

I can start by referring to the larger contracts that we discussed here. And if we talk about the simulator contracts, these are contracts that we've been chasing for, well, years in plural. So the fact that they're both happening in same quarters is more or less by chance. But it shows that you really need to have that endurance to win contracts sometimes. At the same time, the live fire training contract for the Swedish Armed Forces, which is a very big contract for us, but its delivery is this year. That was something that only surfaced on the agenda, I would say, end of first quarter and that we worked really hard to close before summer. And yes, it's going to be delivered this year. So two very different types of contracts, different delivery time lines, but it shows that it won't be one or the other. There will always be a mix of different types of business that you need to chase. And on top of that, of course, all the small and medium-sized contracts that we also need to win in order to continue to grow our backlog.

Yes, I think that sums it up very well. Moving on. Looking ahead, do you expect future -- it's kind of the same here, but looking ahead, do you expect future order intake to be driven primarily by larger orders or by a higher volume of smaller ones. Pretty much like I said.