Strongpoint ASA

OSE:STRO

Earnings Call Transcript

[Jacob Tveraabak, executive]

Good morning, and welcome to this Q1 presentation by StrongPoint. My name is Jacob Tveraabak. I'm joined by Marius Drefvelin, our CFO. I will take you through the Q1 results. I'll start off with the highlights in this quarter. We had a flat revenue development of minus 3% to NOK 347 million. The decline is explained by last year's rollout of electronic shelf label tag replacement that we did in Norway. Beyond that, the quality of our revenue increased. We're seeing a 17% growth in rolling 12-month recurring revenue.

This stems from the growth of license revenue, license fees that we get from our own solutions, own proprietary solutions and third-party solutions. The growth this quarter was explained by Sainsbury's order picking solution that we get rolling out by increased self-checkout solutions into the Baltics and by other third-party solutions. EBITDA for the quarter improved by NOK 16 million to plus NOK 10 million this quarter. That gives us an EBITDA margin of 2.9%, improved yet not at the levels that we're aspiring to, but it's a step in the right direction.

Operating cash flow was NOK 8 million. In the quarter, we had a breakthrough with AutoStore in the U.K., the first AutoStore for one of the leading fragrance shops in the U.K. We also started a new proof of concept for Vensafe. This is the third Vensafe proof of concept we're running in the U.K. And lastly, we have initiated 2 proof of concepts for artificial intelligence solutions to reduce theft in self-checkouts. We're doing that in Norway. We're doing that in Sweden, and we also formalized the partnership with the supplier this quarter.

Now for those of you that are less familiar with StrongPoint, allow me to give a very brief review of or presentation of what StrongPoint is all about. So StrongPoint, we are a retail technology company that focuses on delivering the best of solutions to grocery retailers in Europe predominantly. We had last year a revenue of about NOK 1.3 billion. About 1/3 of that is recurring revenue. And we're delivering this revenue by providing a combination of own software, third-party software and also product hardware for customers.

We have 500 people across the 9 geographies we operate, and we're doing -- or we're operating in these 9 countries to help our retail customers achieve improved operations in the store and to enhance the shopping experience for our grocery retail customers and consumers. So that's what we are, serving European grocery retailers predominantly. Those are the stable, resilient and less tariff prone or tariff affected customers that we are serving, I think, it's important to say in today's context.

So what does StrongPoint do. What are the problems that we solve with our solutions for grocery retailers. Well, there are 5 key problems that we solve. Number one is e-grocery fulfillment, ensuring that the grocery retailers are able to pick, pack and deliver e-grocery orders in the most effective manner.

Secondly, we're supporting grocery retailers to reduce theft and shrinkage, which is in these times and have been for some time, a growing concern of grocery retailers. Thirdly, we have a set of solutions to make the store operations more efficient. And fourthly, we also have pricing promotion solutions, most notably electronic shelf labels that we provide to customers to both make price changes more effective, to make the promotions more effective and to help grocers achieve more revenue from retail media, which is growing in demand. Lastly, we have cash management handling solutions. Cash is a very prominent part of the way that retail operations is driven in southern parts of Europe today. But let's not forget, we also, even in the Nordic countries, have with just 2%, 3%, 4% cash usage, a very big volume of cash that needs to be handled in the most effective manner, and StrongPoint does exactly that.

Now these are the 5 groups of problems grocers face that StrongPoint support with. So how do we support our customers? Well, we don't only sell products or solutions. We do that. But in addition, we make sure that the installation is done appropriately to get the most value out of the solutions. We also do the service of those solutions whenever a hardware is not working appropriately. And lastly, we're staying in very close contact and achieving that customer intimacy with our support offering.

And going through the entire value and life cycle of products like this enables StrongPoint not only to have recurring revenue, but also repeat revenue in the markets that we operate. We like to separate between the traditional StrongPoint markets, the Nordics and Baltics, but also the new and very large and exciting markets, U.K. and Ireland and Spain.

Looking at customer success this quarter, I want to highlight 3 things. Firstly is the AutoStore win into the U.K. Following a very successful implementation of 3-temperature zone AutoStore in Norway, we've now also moved into the U.K., although "only ambient" solution, but it's a breakthrough for StrongPoint. We're also now starting to sell AutoStore's new solution set, which is called Pio. It is a smaller and more standardized solution that we have anticipations regarding to provide more revenue and profits for StrongPoint and customers going forward.

We're running now the third proof of concept of Vensafe in the U.K. In this quarter, we have just started with Morrisons, one of the leading grocery chains in the U.K., following the ongoing proof of concepts with both Sainsbury's and Asda. All of these proof of concepts are slightly different in nature. In the case of Morrisons, I really like the fact that we have a customer and a customer team that we're working very closely with that also challenges us as StrongPoint, even when offering a traditional or legacy product like Vensafe.

What do I mean when I say that? Well, I mean, in the case of Morrisons, we are introducing select screens in the aisle. And we're providing dispensers, so the Vensafe dispensers after checkout with a big retail media screen and platform. That allows the retailer to gain revenue from Retail Media, which we haven't done in the past. Those are the kind of customer projects that I really love.

So we have great expectations for what these proof of concepts and the Vensafe product in general can provide for of value to customers in the U.K. Lastly, in terms of customer success this quarter, we have 2 ongoing proof of concepts for an artificial intelligence solution to prevent theft in self-checkouts. We're doing this with a supplier called S-A-I or SAI that has been working on this solution and applying this solution in the U.K. market. And early indications are very good in Norway and Sweden, where we're running these pilots or proof of concepts, and we have high expectations for what those also could yield in the quarters and years going forward.

We formalized the agreement with SAI also this quarter. Now not strictly for this quarter, but nevertheless, I wanted to round off by the 2 major projects that we are working on. One is the Sainsbury project, the rollout of our order picking solution. So the order picking solution win with Sainsbury's was announced a year ago in Q1 last year. We spent the year both implementing a number of changes that has been needed for Sainsbury's, and we've started rolling out the solution.

There's been added requirements from Sainsbury's that we've had to take into the road map that we have. That is probably going to impact the rollout that we have for Sainsbury's, where we have earlier expected the rollout for the 300 -- close to 300 stores to be completed by September this year. We probably or will be needing to move into next year as the months of October, November, December are freeze months for any grocery retailer in the U.K. really.

That doesn't have much or any financial implications for us at StrongPoint, and the project is still moving very nicely forward. Secondly, we have CashGuard Connect. The CashGuard Connect is a proprietary cash management solution that we have been running in pilots in stores or in-store with Mercadona. The project and product is developing very nicely now going forward. We are planning for additional pilot stores, and we're also seeking with the customer a more firm long-term financial commitment, and that will be priority now in Q2.

We're also excited to see that the solution is not only of interest to Mercadona, but also to other grocers, both in Spain, in the U.K. and elsewhere, where we have started to present this groundbreaking cash management solution.

And with that, I'd like to hand over to Marius to take us through or take you through the Q1 financials. Marius?

[Marius Drefvelin, executive]

Thank you, Jacob. I will now go through the key financials for the first quarter this year. Starting off with revenue. The Q1 revenue this year was NOK 347 million, a reduction of 3% compared to last year. First of all, we had solid growth in the Baltics, driven by large self-checkout deliveries. In addition, the U.K. had a 16% growth, which included our first ESL and AutoStore installation revenues.

Sweden also contributed positively with 28% growth. These increases, however, were offset by a decrease in Norway as we had large ESL rollouts in the first half of last year. Moving on to recurring revenue, 12 months rolling. This increased by 17% compared to Q1 last year. This growth is fueled exclusively by a 68% increase in license revenue, mainly from our order picking on the back of the Sainsbury's contract that started Q2 last year and self-checkout solutions.

If we move on to the EBITDA, this improved from minus NOK 6 million Q1 last year to a positive NOK 10 million in Q1 this year. This is due to a recovery of the international segment, mainly in the Baltics, but also improvements in Spain. The profitability in the Nordics remained flat versus last year despite the large revenue decrease in Norway due to previously completed cost reductions. These were the main P&L items.

So what about the cash flow movement so far this year? We started the year with NOK 82 million in cash and ended the first quarter with NOK 85 million, so fairly flat development. This includes a positive contribution from the operating result of NOK 10 million and an increase in interest-bearing debt of NOK 20 million. We spent NOK 11 million on CapEx relating to development of the CashGuard Connect project in Spain and our own POS solution in the Baltics.

Now let's move further into the key components of the working capital development. Inventory reduced by NOK 34 million this quarter. The main reductions came from self-checkout deliveries in the Baltics, grocery lockers in Sweden and shop fitting equipment in the U.K. And this reduction was offset by increases in accruals and other short-term liabilities, mainly project-related deferred income.

Now let's look at the development in net interest-bearing debt. During the first quarter, the net interest-bearing debt increased by NOK 12 million to NOK 72 million. This was mainly to fund the development CapEx in Spain and the Baltics, as already mentioned, and leasing payments, including rent. Disposable funds were NOK 85 million, down from NOK 102 million at the end of last year.

And finally, the equity ratio remained stable at 46% at the end of the quarter compared to our covenant of 30%. So to conclude, I will hand it back to Jacob for some final remarks.

[Jacob Tveraabak, executive]

Thank you, Marius. Just wanted to conclude with a short outlook. So outlook in the short term. We remain cautiously optimistic to achieve what we have set out for this year of achieving between NOK 1.5 billion and NOK 1.8 billion revenue with a 4% to 6% EBITDA. I say cautiously because we are doing quite a lot to both a transition into the new electronic shelf label partnership we had with Vusion and also to conclude in a good fashion with the partnership that we've had with Pricer for many, many years.

If we look longer term, there are positive trends. We have interest in our solutions and we continue to be trusted by our customers. There are 3 points I want to single out for this background. Number one is that in the Nordics and in the Baltics, our traditional markets, we do have a good profitability. And what we're doing now and going forward is to ensure that we get a further development, new solutions and improved relations with the customers that we can have. Secondly, we have to reap the benefits from the investments that we're doing in what for us is new markets.

That is, of course, the U.K. and Irish market and Spain. We have been and are in investment mode in these markets still, but I have great expectations for what those markets can give us in the years to come. And lastly, we have, in my view, at least the world's most efficient order picking solution. We've seen that with the dozens of customers we have across Europe and beyond. And we've seen that with the win of Sainsbury's. This is the kind of solution that I believe have global potential.

So the global potential that we have with our e-commerce SaaS solution is very significant and will be part of the growth that we at StrongPoint will hopefully then encounter for the many years to come.

And with that, I'd like to round off and welcome you to a Q&A session that we have on audio a little bit later today. Thank you so much.