Wirtek A/S ($WIRTEK)

Welcome to today's event where we have the pleasure to present Wirtek. As you can see here on the front page, annual report released and of course, the outlook for '26 is, of course, of a natural interest in a normal '25 outlook, but also a little bit look back on how '25 did develop. To help us through today's presentation and answer questions in the end of the presentation, we have CEO and Founder, Michael Aaen; and CFO, Mads Greiffenberg. As always, there's a box down below where you can ask questions, do it in Danish, do it, and I will try and translate the best to the best of my ability, but we will conduct this presentation in English. But for now, I will hand the call over to you, Mads.

Thank you, Michael. My name is Mads Greiffenberg, and I'm the CFO of Wirtek. I joined during '25, so I've been part of this exciting year in Wirtek. So please let me walk you through our full year '25 results, how we tracked against guidance and what we're guiding for in '26. So next slide, Michael. '25 was a challenging year for Wirtek. Revenue came in at DKK 64.3 million, a decrease of 10% over '24. The result reflects the completion of a large client engagement going into '25 and a soft market environment where clients delayed investment decisions. EBITDA for the full year was DKK 1.7 million with EBITDA margin of 2.6%. Both revenue and EBITDA were within our '25 guidance. But more importantly, the trend throughout the year tells an encouraging EBITDA story. Quarter-by-quarter, every single period showed EBITDA improvement over the one before from a negative Q1 to positive in Q2, improving in Q3 and a very strong Q4 to finish up '25. That is not an accident. It's the result of deliberate cost restructuring, better utilization and a sharper commercial focus with new clients coming in during the second half of the year. We kept a solid equity ratio at 44%. Earnings per share came in at minus DKK 0.21. And while these numbers are not one we are proud of in isolation, they do tell a story of a company that chose to invest through a difficult year, and we delivered on what we promised. And next slide, please. So Q1 was painful with an EBITDA of minus DKK 1.1 million. A major Danish customer relation ended and the market wasn't moving. We acted fast though. We restructured costs. We tightened our utilization and we refocused commercially. Q2 showed a plus of DKK 0.3 million, indicating first sign of improvement, followed by Q3 with plus DKK 0.7 million. And finally, a strong Q4 with DKK 1.8 million in EBITDA and a very strong margin of around 11%. So three consecutive quarters of improvement, ending our strongest performance of the year as we promised in Q3. That sequential progress is what gives us the confidence to guide '26 the way we are. As you can see, our full year '25 number shows that U.S. is our largest market at 35%; Denmark at 30%; Netherlands, 21%; Portugal, 10%; and the rest of EU at 4%. The diversification matters. We're not dependent on any single market. And as a side note, we do not have any single client dependencies either with all our accounts -- all our clients accounts were less than 15% of group revenue. Next slide, please, Michael. So as told before, revenue came in at DKK 64.3 million versus the DKK 71.9 million in '24. Services faced market headwinds. And while we invested significantly in our solutions business, the investment that weighted up short-term profitability but are essential to what we're going to do strategically. EBITDA at DKK 1.7 million, down from DKK 5.2 million, a margin at 2.6% versus 7.3% last year and the pretax result at minus DKK 1.5 million versus DKK 2.7 million in '24, driven by higher amortization of the acquisition in '24 and the restructured costs that we absorbed in the first half of the year. As mentioned before, our equity ratio is at 44%, and I'm happy that our operating cash flow is positive at DKK 1.3 million. So we are still generating cash from our operations. Next slide, please. So our guidance for '25 was DKK 64 million to DKK 69 million and revenue DKK 1 million to DKK 5 million (sic) [ DKK 64 million to DKK 69 million of revenue and DKK 1 million to DKK 5 million of EBITDA. ] We delivered DKK 64.3 million and DKK 1.7 million, both within range. In a different -- in a year this difficult, delivering on what we promised matters to us, and we did that. Q4 '25 in isolation delivered EBITDA of approximately DKK 1.8 million and revenue of approximately DKK 16.7 million. That's an EBITDA margin of around 11%, and that's a number I want you to focus on from our '25. Our full year '24 margin was 7.3%, and our exit rate from '25 was 11%. So that's a demonstrated result. The cost structure works, the utilization is there, and that's what we build upon in '26. Next slide, please, Michael. So our guidance revenue for '26 is DKK 65 million to DKK 70 million. That's growth between 1% and 9%. And our EBITDA guidance is DKK 3 million to 6 million, up 76% to 253% versus '25. The wide range reflects an honest, cautious market environment, and we're not trying to overpromise here. And please, let me draw a bridge between our Q4 and our '26 guidance. In Q4, we ran at roughly DKK 16.7 million quarterly revenue. Annualized, that's around DKK 67 million, right in the middle of our '26 range. Our '26 EBITDA guidance is DKK 3 million to DKK 6 million, implies a full year margin of between 4.5% and 9%. So again, that's below our Q4 exit rate, deliberately because we're continuing to invest in AI and solutions, and we're assuming a cautious first half of the year. So the '26 guidance is a measured conservative application on what we already proved in Q4. '25 was a year we fought through, but we made some good investments. We rebuilt the cost structure, and we end on our strongest quarter by far. So for me, Q4 is the proof point and '26 is where we build upon this. So thank you for now. And over to you, Michael Aaen.

Thank you, Mads. So I'll start out by summarizing key strategic milestones during 2025. There were actually quite a few of those. So it was a year characterized by repositioning the business, strengthening our market footprint and laying the foundation for scalable growth in solutions alongside a more resilient services business. At the beginning of the year, we formally established a dedicated solutions division. This marked an important structural step in Wirtek's transition from being purely a services business towards a dual growth model combining services with scalable platform-based solutions. So during the first quarter of '25, the United States became Wirtek's single largest market, accounting for 33% of total revenue in Q1, sorry. A development reflects both the strength of long-standing client relationships and our growing relevance in international technology engagements. As we reported in our Q1 report published in May last year, the energy vertical has grown to represent nearly half of total group revenue. So this confirms that our long-term focus on energy technology and digitalization of critical infrastructure is translating into tangible commercial traction. The structural demand drivers in this sector remain strong and continue to support our positioning as a specialized technology partner in the renewable energy transition. In June, we strengthened our executive leadership team with the appointment of our new Chief Financial Officer, Mads Greiffenberg, who has joined me here today at this presentation. This was an important step in enhancing financial governance, supporting strategic execution and ensuring disciplined capital allocation during a period of transformation and targeted investments. In July, we secured a significant home automation order in the U.S. market that reinforces our role in connecting devices ecosystems and demonstrates continued demand for our engineering and integration capabilities. At the same time, we deepened our technology positioning through participation in the European MAST research initiative. Now this initiative allows us to contribute to as well as benefit from research into intelligent sustainability optimization of energy systems, further strengthening our long-term innovation capabilities. During August, we received another U.S. order related to the modernization of an operational health care platform. Now our continued growth in the U.S. market led us to further expand the U.S. market share to a total of 35% of group revenue for the full year of 2025. Now this particular order actually illustrates the continued relevance of our [ software ] engineering capabilities beyond the energy domain, and it highlights our ability to support mission-critical digital information projects. In September, we entered into a partnership with Mota-Engil ATIV in Portugal, focused on smart energy community solutions. So this collaboration expands our presence in Southern Europe. In November, we announced our new corporate strategy. The strategy is anchored in five execution tracks aimed at reinforcing a profitable services foundation with accelerating the commercial scaling of solutions based on the Wirtek IoT suite. Now the objective is to build a more predictable, resilient and scalable business model capable of supporting renewed growth from 2026 and onwards. Also in November last year, we entered into a partnership with VIVAVIS. It was related to protocol testing and certification within the energy infrastructure. Now this strengthens our credibility in regulated and technically-demanding environment and supports our ambition to make security and compliance a differentiating commercial capability of Wirtek. Overall, the milestones in 2025 reflects a year of strategic execution rather than short-term optimization. We focused on strengthening market positioning, investing in future growth engines and building the organizational capabilities required to scale solutions while reinventing the services business. These actions, they form the foundation for improved financial performance and a clearer growth trajectory going forward. At our Q3 presentation last year, I did a deep dive into our new strategy. And today, I will address in more detail how we are embracing artificial intelligence as part of our strategy implementation. Next slide, please. So this slide outlines how we are approaching AI strategically at Wirtek. For us, AI is not a trend or a technology experiment. It actually represents a structural shift in how software is built, delivered and monetized. During last year, we made a deliberate decision to address this shift proactively and to position Wirtek to benefit from the productivity gains and new value creation opportunities that AI enables. One of the first concrete steps we took was to establish a senior cross-functional AI team. This team operates across both services and solutions and is responsible for translating AI from concept into practical execution. Their work focuses on evaluating tooling, supporting development teams in adopting AI-assisted workflows and identifying where AI can create measurable improvements in delivery quality as well as in speed. Already during last year, we've seen tangible effects in faster prototyping cycles, more streamlined internal processes and early examples of AI-assisted delivery in client engagements. So strategically, this is about strengthening productivity and protecting competitiveness in a market where AI is redefining cost structures and expectations around delivery speed as well. A second strategic focus area is embedding AI capabilities directly into solutions -- our solutions portfolio. The Wirtek IoT suite is a natural starting point for us. Here, we will be developing AI-driven features that enhance analytics, predictive maintenance and automation capabilities for customers operating connected infrastructure and energy assets. To support this development, we modernized the technical foundation of our IoT platform during the second half of last year. This included migrating to a modern cloud infrastructure and more scalable system architecture. And the purpose is quite clear. If AI is to become a commercial differentiator and support recurring revenue growth, it must be built on a reliable and secure technical platform capable of scaling over time. The third pillar of our AI strategy is governance and responsible adoption. From the outset, we've treated AI as an area requiring clear internal policies and Board-level oversight. We are developing a structured AI usage policy covering how AI tools are applied in client engagements, product development and internal operations. And this includes strict focus on data handling, human accountability for AI-assisted output and compliance with emerging regulatory frameworks such as the EU AI Act. Our ambition is not only to comply with the regulation, but actually to try to turn governance into a commercial strength for us. Overall, our approach to AI is pragmatic and long-term oriented. We are investing in internal capability, product integration and governance frameworks to ensure that AI becomes a driver of margin improvement and scalability as well as differentiation. So this is a multiyear journey. The objective is not simply to perform existing tasks faster, but to reshape how we deliver value to clients and how we build a more resilient and scalable business model. By acting early and deliberately, we believe Wirtek can emerge from the industry transition as a stronger and more competitive company. Next slide, please. Now this final slide summarizes how we see the year ahead and what investors should expect from Wirtek operationally and financially. Our most important priority for 2026 is to return to profitable growth. We are guiding for an EBITDA in the range of DKK 3 million to DKK 6 million. This represents a significant improvement compared to 2025, and it reflects the structural cost adjustments and operational discipline implemented during the past year. Importantly, the leaner cost base we established in '25 is already embedded as we enter into the new year. The margin level achieved in the final quarter of 2025 demonstrated the earnings potential of the business once utilization stabilizes and revenue begins to recover. A second key focus for 2026 is the early commercialization scaling of our solutions activities. We will continue to commercialize the Wirtek IoT suite with particular emphasis on energy and industrial use cases where we see the strongest market traction and strategic fit. As these offerings mature, we expect the first tangible buildup of recurring revenue -- subscription revenue. Over time, this will gradually reduce reliance on pure billable engineering hours, and it will support a more predictable and scalable revenue profile. And while we are confident in our direction, our expectations for top line growth remains measured. We are guiding for revenue in the range of DKK 65 million to DKK 70 million, reflecting a gradual stabilization in demand within the services business rather than an immediate market rebound. At the same time, we will continue to invest in two structural priorities: first, in further adoption of AI to improve productivity and competitiveness; and second, in the commercial development of the solutions portfolio to strengthen our long-term margin potential and growth profile. So in summary, '25 was a demanding year operationally and financially. However, we believe the actions taken during the year have strengthened the company's strategic position and financial resilience. We ended the year with improving operational momentum and our focus in '26 is to build on that foundation with disciplined execution, selective investment and a clear ambition to move Wirtek back on to a sustainable growth trajectory. So this concludes my presentation. So back to you, Michael.

Perfect. Let's run through some questions. And Michael, I think we lost your camera. Your voice was totally fine, but you can try and switch it on and off, and then I will start to...

Let me try -- sorry about that.

No, no, no, sorry. The voice is the most important, but I guess it's not an AI world where we can suddenly disappear. So -- yes.

I'm back.

Perfect. Let's start with the first question actually. Are you already seeing some pressure from this -- from the AI on your consulting business, your service business? Or is it something you expect to come and are preparing for that? So some elaborations on the AI and maybe your service business and whether it's pressure now or pressure coming?

It is here, right? Everybody is talking about AI. Everybody expects to get big productivity gains from AI. And of course, that is going to happen, no doubt about it. We just want to have it done in the right way and making sure that governance follows actual usage so that it's done in a good way. But it's there, and we are dealing with it.

So you're dealing with it. So it's already there. And so it's not something you're preparing for and your strategy is you're already dealing with it because when I talk to some other IT services consultants and so on, they speak a little bit about this, maybe moving more to value-based pricing because now your hourly wage, it took 10 hours before, now you can do it in 2. Shouldn't you be allowed to charge for 4 hours because you actually do your internal training of your consultants and so on. So any thoughts about -- is this changing landscape you're trying to get into with this strategy change?

So AI can help a lot on productivity, but you also have to be really careful how you implement it. There are many, many areas where things can go haywire if you don't do it the right way. And that's where we want to be really, really careful. And I'll also say that the AI readiness of clients is very, very different. Some are far in front and others, they have not even started really considering it yet. It kind of -- it can also be industry-related, how ready you are to take on new technologies. And I would say it like this, yes, you can easily -- if you need to do a prototype, especially in prototyping, you can do prototyping quite fast. But going from prototype to actual product ready to market, there's quite a distance there. And it has to be managed very, very carefully if you also want to have a product that is very maintainable in the future as well.

So what you mean is people -- it's more architects now than maybe software development. Is that correctly understood? Is that shift -- if you don't understand the architecture, you can go -- the code can go -- can look good, but actually, it can go horribly wrong when you send it into the real world. Is that kind of the shift that is happening?

Exactly. You can try to automate a lot in there. You could, in principle, have a development setup where no people are involved. I would not recommend something for that, that would go live with clients or in critical infrastructure, anything like that because you often see AI actually have a brain tumor or something like this, and it does things totally unpredictable, right? So I'd say you have to do it carefully, but you will see that when you do it, you will need people helping with the help of AI, gain a pretty good productivity. But having this man -- the person included in the process there, we see as quite important as well.

And then there's a little bit about the data security and the EU versus U.S. data. I know maybe you're not so [ hit ] about it because you also actually have a U.S. market, which is kind of a little bit unusual for the IT consultancies. Can you already see a little bit about that by your customers that that's something they are demanding, EU versus U.S. data? And the security part of this, I guess, will increase with more and more increased AI usage.

Well, of course, there is -- the majority of the work we're doing in the energy sector is in EU. We are very much focused on the renewable energy area. And that is not so popular in the U.S. right now, as you can probably hear from -- and of course, that is a very regulated business. Critical infrastructure is often involved there. So there, you actually have to be really, really careful how you are dealing with AI in this kind of environment. So if you're getting close to the actual infrastructure there, there will be quite a big reluctance just to take on AI into that kind of environment because it's really, really what you say. They are not changing technologies very fast in these kind of areas there.

Terrific. And you mentioned...

It can be very...

Sorry. Just...

No. So I'm not sure we -- at least not from my chair, I don't see that big of differences between clients in U.S. and EU at the moment. I see it more in industries because it depends on what kind of data you're also dealing with, right? Because if you're looking at the EU AI Act, like there your information related, for instance, to people becomes quite important when you had -- if you have AI dealing directly with this and you don't want AI to make a lot of important decisions based on person data, right? You have to be really, really careful here.

And then let's close the AI chapter by [indiscernible] how much faster are your developers today because of AI compared with a couple of years ago? Can you already say something about the size of the benefits you can have on your cost side or something like that? So a little bit of thoughts about the efficiency gains you can already see or might want to see by your developers and a little bit about whether we are already seeing some of that in your much better -- you can say, much better earnings that you have shown sequentially through the year?

It's not really reflected in the earnings from last year in the business yet. It is us working towards where we are going to repackage the way we deliver our services to the clients. And of course, there AI is going to have a big impact at the bottom line for sure in how we can provide that kind of service to the client where we kind of share the profitability of the productivity gains with the clients because if you're just doing an hourly-based business, then all the benefits of AI go directly to the client, right? So we are repackaging the way we are delivering services so that we can have -- we can share that benefit with the clients. And that is still -- it is -- we have a few clients that are quite far ahead in the road towards AI, but most clients, it's very early stage still.

That's also what I hear around. Perfect. Let's jump a little bit into the '25 results. Revenue came in at the low end of guidance. Which specific customers or segment disappointed the most? And I know you landed within your guidance range, but in a little bit lower end. Was there anything that disappointed you from the start of the year to the end of the year? Where were you most disappointed or surprised by a negative development?

Well, we -- of course, we had a hard start of the year because one of our long-term client relations came to an end. So that was kind of how we entered into the new year. So we were behind the previous year already from the outset. So we had to build up the revenue base again during the year, as you could see, as we get -- especially during the second half of the year, we start building up a lot of incoming new orders during that year. But again, it was a big loss of business we had to replace during the year. And it was a little slower than we had hoped for, to be honest, right. So that's why we ended up in the lower part of the revenue guidance.

So no specific industry or something like that disappointed you. It was really the catch-up on this disappointing client from the year start, which you have elaborated on both your Q1 and Q2. That is the main culprit, you might say, for this. Is that correctly understood?

Well, if we look at the revenue generated last year compared to the revenue generated in 2024, the loss of revenue from that client we lost in January is significantly higher than the gap between the revenue last year and the revenue in 2024. So if it was not for that client loss, then we would have been at a totally different place revenue-wise last year.

And then to follow up a little bit about it. As you said, you're actually exposed pretty much to energy. I think energy is the hottest subject out there in the world right now. I know you are not directly an energy producer. But I guess if we get higher structural energy prices, the savings of this energy and your IoT and this system, I guess, is built on saving energy. Is it too early to see something already, conversation increasing, your own expectations on maybe if the world forms and we get structurally higher energy prices, how that might actually affect your business?

Well, for sure, if what happens down in the Hormuz Strait continues in the longer run, that will have a pretty d*** negative effect on energy prices, no doubt about it. And you know when you have something that lasts for a long time with very, very high increased prices, that often turns into a structural change where companies, people are starting to invest in solutions that are not dependent on, for instance, oil and gas. So -- and this is not bad for our focus area for sure. And some of our solutions we're working on in our Solutions division go in and actually help reduce energy usage. And that's a good thing when part of the energy grid actually generates energy based on gas turbines, right?

Yes, yes, yes. And I know it's very early, but at least to share your thoughts about the world developing right now and how you -- how that would affect your business. What share of the total revenue do you expect the solutions division to account for in 2026? I don't know whether you guide specifically on the areas or you want to indicate that or is that going too far besides what you have already published in your guidance?

So we have not described this in our guidance. We are guiding for the group revenue for the company as a whole. But again, this takes time. It's a new area of business for us. And as I said last year, we are investing in building up solutions both this year and next year. It's going to be an investment for us building that up. So last year, solutions was accounting for 4% of total revenue, right? And it is in a smaller size. It takes time to build that up. But the good thing about these kind of solutions is that part of that revenue generated, there is going to be annual recurring revenue. So that will be regenerating year-over-year, right? And at some time, hopefully, we can start talking about annual recurring revenue as well. But it will take some time.

And then you had an active M&A strategy, small bolt-on, you have actually always shown that you have a very short payback time when you do these bolt-ons. Do you still have an active M&A strategy? Or are you more focused on actually building up these solutions and thereby organically investing instead of M&A? So a little bit of thoughts about this area on the M&A side.

Now I didn't talk much about the strategic tracks today because I did that in November last year when we presented the Q3 report. But the last strategic track of those five actually also is M&A with strategic mergers and acquisitions as well. So that is part of our growth moving forward is also going out and identifying strategic acquisitions.

I think that was the last question, Michael and Mads. Thank you for taking us through your results and answering questions, and thank you for the audience listening in. Everybody, have a nice day.

Thank you.

Yes. Same to you.