Prevas AB
STO:PREV B
Earnings Call Analysis
Summary
Q3-2023
In Q3, Prevas achieved a 10% increase in turnover with a modestly lower EBITA due to one less working day, effectively maintaining underlying profitability. Accumulated figures for the year reveal 16% total growth, with over 50% organic growth and an all-time high delivery. Three acquisitions in 2023 contributed to this growth. The company maintains robust operations, with successful framework agreements such as with Vattenfall in the energy sector, and expanded strategic operations with Hexagon. Despite a more dynamic market with increased competition, particularly in junior competencies, Prevas continues to see high demand in its core expertise areas and is well-positioned thanks to its agile, decentralized organization, strong relationships with key customers like Saab, Ericsson, and ABB, and a focus on core customer product development. Margin maintenance is prioritized over growth, with ambitions to continue being perceived as a premium consultancy in both performance and reputation.
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Hello, everybody, and welcome to the presentation of Prevas Q3 results. I am Magnus Welen, the CEO of Prevas. And with me, I have Helena Burstrom. Say hello, Helena.
Hello.
Who is the CFO of Prevas. And today, the agenda looks like this. We will have a brief introduction of Prevas. We will review our financial performance for the quarter. We will look into the market, have a brief discussion about that, a little bit about the way forward for Prevas. And we will finalize this session with a Q&A session so that you all have the possibilities to ask questions.
Okay. We start. A brief about Prevas. We are an engineering consultancy company. We are founded in 1985. So we've been around in a long time. We are close to 900 employees in Denmark, in Norway and in Sweden. And our main market -- our strongest position is in Sweden, where we have the majority of our business today.
What do we do? We work with sustainable product and production development for the Nordic market, but we are also working on a global basis with specific niche offerings. Prevas is a highly profitable company compared to our peers. We have performed continuous growth over time, which we are very proud of.
We have also a successful track record of acquisitions. I will review a little bit more about that later on in the presentation. And we are well positioned in the market especially important in this very dynamic market that we see today. We also have a strong balance sheet, a low debt and a high cash flow.
So that was a little bit about Prevas. Then we'll move on to the financial performance. So looking into the quarter, we can see that we managed to grow profitably in this very dynamic market that we see today. Our turnover increased with 10% compared to last year. Our EBITA was slightly lower than last year, but this quarter was 1 working day less than last year, and the effect for Prevas for 1 working day on EBITA level is approximately SEK 5 million.
So considering that effect, we managed to grow the underlying EBITA result, and we also maintained the EBITA margin, which is really on par with the EBITA margin compensating for the fact that we have 1 less working day. So all in all, it was a strong quarter for Prevas.
Looking into the operational cash flow, we can see that we more than doubled the operational cash flow for this quarter, which Helena will review a little bit more in detail further on in the presentation. So all in all, I would say, we performed a strong quarter in this dynamic market.
Looking into the accumulated figures for Prevas for this year. We can see that we have a total growth of 16%. 50% -- more than 50% of that is organic growth. So we managed to both grow organically and through acquisitions during this year.
We can also see that we grow our EBITA and maintained a healthy EBITA margin. And also in this case, of course, if you compare and compensate for the fact that we have 1 less working day, you can see that we maintain our EBITA margin for the year compared to last year. And also, you can see that we have a strong cash flow accumulated. And we are very proud to see that we are delivering all-time high this year so far.
Then we zoom out a little bit. This was the quarter. It was [indiscernible]. And -- but of course, we are in this for the long term. And looking into Prevas, you can see here 2 graphs showing the growth of Prevas the turnover growth on 1 side, where you can see that we have managed to grow quite stable since 2021.
The big peak was the acquisition of Evotech, but even after the major acquisition of Evotech, we have managed to maintain a continuous growth on the top line. But it's also important that we see that the growth in top line also come down to the EBITA level, which you can see in the other graph, where you can see the fantastic development that Prevas has performed since 2017, where we now are on a EBITA level rolling 12 months of 12%, which is in line with our financial goal.
So all in all, we perform -- we reached our financial goals in terms of growth and in terms of margin accumulated this year and also over time, as you can see in this graph. And another question, of course, is all right, but what's happening on the earnings per share? So I hand over to Helena who will show you a little bit about how we perform in terms of earnings per share, which, of course, is very, very important from a shareholder point of view.
Thank you, Magnus. Yes, the long-term stable and profitable growth shown in the previous slide is also reflected in earnings per share. In the graph, you can see the development from 2018 until the end of September 2023 for each year, accumulated amount Q1 to Q3 and full year.
Some cash flow highlights. As you can see, we have, like last quarter, increased cash flow from operating activities to SEK 50 million compared to SEK 23 million Q3 2022. This is mainly driven by a reduction of operating receivables, specifically accounts receivables. We work continuously to improve our working capital, and we are also humbled and grateful to have very good customers paying timely.
Cash amounted to SEK 102 million at the end of Q3 2023 compared to SEK 80 million in Q3 2022 and SEK 83 million in financial year 2022. If we look into Prevas financial position, we can see that Prevas is well below the financial target of maximum 2x EBITDA. Net debt in relation to EBITDA is still negative.
The equity ratio is strong and amounts to 60.8% in Q3, and our 2022 equity ratio amounted to 56.9%. To summarize what I said in the previous slides, we have a strong operational cash flow, low net debt and a strong balance sheet. In all, a great financial platform moving forward.
And with those words, I hand over to you again, Magnus, for some business update and review of acquisitions.
Thank you very much, Helena, for that. It's -- as you are mentioning, we have a great financial platform, which is fantastic.
All right. Looking into what we have done from a business point of view, we should all remember that this is about what we actually do and the customer value we created within the company.
During this quarter, we signed a framework agreement with Vattenfall and that is important for us because we want to grow -- continue to grow in the energy area, and Vattenfall is, of course, one of the major players in that area. So it's a good sign that Vattenfall has chosen Prevas to continue to be a partner with Vattenfall over time.
We have also expanded our strategic operation with Hexagon. We worked with Hexagon within the enterprise asset management area, which we are growing. And that is particularly interesting because this is a business within Enterprise Asset Management, where we work with a slightly different business models where we have recurring revenue. We work as an integrator and as a partner with Hexagon in this area, creating really nice value for our customers. So that is an interesting strategic opportunity we have within Prevas, one of many, to be honest.
During this year, we have grown in defense. We have grown in cybersecurity. In cybersecurity, we have established a team in Denmark with experts that's supporting customers in this area. And here, we see that the demand is growing. And to be honest, it's a bit sad that it's growing and it's also sad that we grow in defense due to the underlying reasons, of course. But we are there as a company to support the society in these areas.
We have also grown in the energy business over time during this year. And then, of course, we have several important orders. I can't mention all for you. One interesting order is within Enterprise Asset Management that we have a rather big order for a public transportation provider where we will help them over time. And this business is also -- is many years. It's a rather big order for us, but it also consists of recurring revenue.
We have got further orders from the defense industry, in this case, advanced test systems for defense applications. And in this case, we actually do this from our offices, and we're not working at the customers. And it's also interesting because we work between our different regions, combining the different strength within Prevas in order to supply to the defense industry, these advanced test systems. So we are really proud that we can work together in Prevas to solve very, very advanced problems for our customers.
And looking into acquisitions. We put the strategic growth through acquisition. Of course, we always work with our organic growth. It's really important for us. The base for us is to grow organically, but we're also working strategically with acquisitions. And during 2023, we have made 3 acquisitions. One is DVel, a company based in Lund in Sweden with 25 employees, working with advanced test and measurement systems. It's a highly advanced team, very well-educated experts. And 1 example is to show that it's approximately 50% of the team is PhD level. So it's a fantastic team that came into Prevas with DVel.
We have also acquired a Unibap Industry. It's a small team, 4 people, but really, really good in vision system for industrial application based on AI and machine learning. So it's a super team, we get from the Unibap Industry there.
And then we have SDS MedteQ that was communicated earlier this year. It's experts within regulatory and life science, a fantastic team as well coming into Prevas.
So -- and now if we zoom out a little bit, we can see that we have made 9 acquisitions since 2021. And what we see is that we managed to welcome the teams into Prevas in a good manner, which means that we see increased growth, increased profitability. And we also see that we cooperate within Prevas in order to utilize the different strengths and get even more challenging assignments for our engineers. And together, we have more fun. Because it's important to be -- to welcome the teams in where we do these acquisitions.
We work a lot with the integration and creating the Prevas culture in the company. And another thing I would like to emphasize in this area is that we have a strong balance sheet. And of course, it's an enabler of future acquisitions. And looking into the market, we can see that it opened up opportunities for acquisitions when the market is more unstable.
And going forward, what do we see? And how is our view upon the market? Looking into the market, we see an even more dynamic market now than when we had this presentation in July. We still have the high demands in sectors where Prevas was strong, like the energy area, like electrification, like defense, all of those areas, there we see continued high demand, but we also see reduced demands from some of the Prevas customers and in some of our regions that we see that the competition is increasing, especially on regular consultancy assignments, we see that the competition is increasing.
It's different in different areas, in different domains. But generally speaking, we see that competition is increasing. Particularly, I would say that we see a reduced demand for more junior competencies in the marketplace.
And looking into Prevas, our core is not the more junior competencies, but we are more of an expert consultancy company more -- working more medium or more senior consultants and we also work with more advanced and complex assignments. And there, we see that the demand is still high.
And also, actually, it's difficult -- continuously difficult to recruit experts in the market, which, of course, is in a manner of speaking, is good for Prevas and our positioning. So globally speaking, we continue to view the market as normal, but more dynamic now than it was a quarter ago.
And looking into Prevas in this very dynamic market, how are we positioned? Yes, I believe we are well positioned. We have a strong position in the growth areas. We have a low customer dependency. Our 5 largest customers, Saab, Ericsson, ABB, Atlas Copco and Sandvik, they consists of less than 25% of our total turnover as we have a fantastic range of customers that we work with in all aspects.
And we have long-term customer relationships. If you look into the customers -- our 5 largest customers, we have been working with them not all from 1985, but it's close to that. So it's like 30 years of relations that have been built with our customers over time, which is, I believe, is a strong platform for moving forward.
Another advantage for Prevas is our decentralized agile organization where the decisions are taken close to the market, close to the people and we move fast as an organization and that is a good thing about Prevas.
And then another important thing is that we provide value in the core of the customer operations. We work with their products and the product development. This is the core of our customers. So we are important for our customers. So all in all, I believe we are well positioned for this very dynamic market.
And with that, I would like to summarize this presentation. So as a summary, we have, during the quarter, continued our profitable growth. Considering the effect of the working day, we maintain our margins in this growth, which I believe is strong in this dynamic market. We continue with the successful spearhead acquisitions during this quarter. We are well positioned in this dynamic market. But we also work very, very active in Prevas. I put it like active adaptation to market needs.
We need to transfer, we need to change, we need to be close to the customers, we need to adapt our recruitment and balance our recruitment to the needs where we see them. So we need to be extremely flexible in a situation like this. And here, we see the strength of Prevas organization with the decentralization where we have the responsibilities very, very close to the market and the changes.
And we also work actively with cost control in this situation because it's important for us to maintain our margin. So we do not focus on growth as our priority #1, we -- our priority #1 is to maintain our margins for the time coming.
All in all, we continue to execute on our long-term endeavors to be perceived as premium. And perceived as premium is for from our customers, is for our employees, is for the society we need to be perceived as premium, but also, of course, from all of you, our important investors and owners.
So with this, this was the final slide for this presentation. I like the picture. I think it's my mental vision of Prevas this rocket, actually. So we look forward for the future. And with this, I would like to move into the Q&A area, and I look forward to many interesting questions.
[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Stefan Knutsson from ABG.
I have a couple of questions from my side. You described the market as normal, but have you seen any shift from the summer months going into the autumn?
I would say that it's even more dynamic. The changes are happening quicker, I would say. But there are also some of our customers that are more reluctant. They are not reducing their demands, but they are not starting up projects in the same rate as before, but they are not reducing.
Looking -- if you look into the first part of the -- maybe the first quarter and the year before that, we see growth in these customers. Now they are on a stable level. That's, I would say, is a kind of a change.
Perfect. And I also noticed that you reduced your staff just marginally in the quarter. Is that more of a seasonal variation or are you more strategically thinking of being a bit more defensive in this market environment?
I would put it like this. We are recruiting in the areas where we see growth and where we see demand. We are not recruiting -- if you look into a year ago, we were recruiting in areas where we have the feeling, okay, we see future demands, but we are more reluctant in that now compared to a year ago.
So we are still recruiting, but we are also adapting to the actual needs in order to balance it. We talk about balancing our recruitment. And as you have seen that we have not grown in the number of employees for this quarter. I foresee that we will not grow in the same rate in terms of employees for the quarter to come based on the market situation.
Perfect. Very clear. And then also, you mentioned that you have seen some more competition for ongoing business within the consultancy space. How do you deem the possibility to maintain price hikes in that kind of market?
I believe that we have the possibility to maintain our margins, if I put it like that. And it also, once again, is very different in different areas because if you look into the energy area, we see good possibilities to work with pricing. In some areas, it's, of course, tougher where we see that the demand is lower.
So it's a mixed view upon that. But I'm positive that we will maintain our margins in that perspective. And of course, that implicates that we foresee that we can adjust our pricing generally speaking, but not to improve our margins as we actually have been doing for a while. So it's tougher in that sense as well.
Yes. Perfect. And last question from my side is, you communicated the framework agreement with Vattenfall yesterday. Can you say anything about the size of that agreement?
The potential is huge within Vattenfall. I don't remember how many billions of SEK that Vattenfall is acquiring consultancy services for over these years that this agreement is. So for us, it will not be having a huge implication because in the global picture, we were growing on energy, but I don't foresee a major, so to say, effect on Prevas as a total based on this agreement. But we will grow on Vattenfall, that's for sure, but it will be -- it will not be a huge effect on Prevas as a total.
Okay. Perfect. But I deem that as your collaboration with Vattenfall will increase with this agreement?
Yes, definitely. Of course, it will. So it's opened up the customers for us for the future. But to be honest, we are not a strong platform in Vattenfall today. So it's more or less that we will start from a low level and we will increase, thanks to this framework agreement.
[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions.
We have some questions. How has your staff turnover changed in 2023 compared to 2022?
Our staff turnover is lower 2023 compared to 2022.
Can you give some insight into your acquisition pipeline?
Yes. But I can't. Of course, we continue to work with acquisitions, and we always have a pipeline or companies that we are talking with, that we have meetings and we explore opportunities. So we have a pipeline of possible acquisitions, but we are picky in terms of who are these companies and how do they fit into Prevas and we need to have excellent match between it.
So it's more important for us that the acquisitions coming into Prevas are the right ones than that we grow a lot in terms of volume due to acquisitions. I don't know if that answers the question, but we continue with acquisitions, we have a pipeline and we are picky that is, so to say, the conclusion.
More about the acquisition. Are they more smaller ones, larger ones? Are there more companies approaching you because you are now a more well-known acquirers?
I do not have that kind of experience still in those roles. So actually, I do not know, but we have companies coming to us now. So I assume that it's like that, we get more companies contacting Prevas in order to look if we can find a good match, yes.
And also, the question is it's small companies or large companies? We are agnostic in that sense. We're looking into possibilities for smaller but also for larger acquisitions as well. As I was mentioning, we have a strong balance sheet. So we have the opportunities. And in a market like this, we see and we also hope that will open up even more possibilities in the acquisitions area, so we can utilize our strong balance sheet in this in order to grow long term and build a better Prevas.
[indiscernible] valuation versus peers?
I would put it like this. My role is to build a fantastic company to be able to grow and to grow our top line, of course, to grow our EBITA, to grow our earnings per share and continue the fantastic journey that Prevas has been starting and to foresee that we continue in this direction that we are going.
So I can't comment, actually, even though I think about it, of course. But I can't comment on the stock valuation as such in relationship with our peers. But -- so my role is to make Prevas into an even more fantastic company. And that overall, over time, I'm convinced will show also in the valuation of Prevas. So an interesting question. Thank you for that one.
[indiscernible].
I would say that it's quite equal. We're working mainly in Scandinavia. So that's where I have my market knowledge, so to say. But I would say that it's quite the same in many aspects, actually in Sweden and in Denmark and in Norway. It's that dynamic and different, actually. So from my point of view, I think it's rather the same. It's not like Denmark is booming and Sweden is going down. I would put it like it's more or less the same dynamic market in the different regions.
No more questions. Okay. So thank you for listening to this presentation. And I look forward to meet you all in -- for the next presentation. Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Thank you, everyone.