Good morning, everybody. Thank you for dialing in to this Q1 trading update call from Fugro. I'm Catrien van Buttingha, Investor Relations here with Mark Heine, CEO, and Barbara Geelen, CFO. We have a short presentation. It's a trading update, and we know that everybody has a very busy day ahead of them. That will take about 10 minutes. Thereafter, there'll be room for your questions. Mark, I'd like to turn over to you, please.
Yes, good morning, everyone. Welcome to this call around the first quarter trading results of Fugro. They clearly represent a further step up in our performance. We are also delivering on an ongoing significant demand from our clients, and that's particularly in the offshore wind farm developments. Site characterization solutions are in high demand there. We see a ever more ambitious energy transition roadmaps in numerous countries, but also renewed interest in the traditional energy sources, specifically gas, as we have mentioned a number of times before, to support the energy security. Obviously, we are pleased with the strong margin expansion and with the positive cash flow improvement, or the cash flow improvement and the positive cash flow.
In general, we could say seasonally low first quarter, where we normally see in the winter, dropping our activities. This time, we see a little bit higher activities as well. We're pleased with the improvement on the margins to 5.4%, and in particular that it's a contribution from all the regions and businesses. Our robust backlog also provides a support for our outlook towards the midterm margins and in order to remain successful in capturing the market opportunities and realizing, as we call that, controlled growth. We also continue to invest specifically in project execution, which is something that is high on our priority list, because we continuously focus on this, but also our people and the asset base.
Next slide, please. This is a slide that you have probably seen before. It indicates again on the right side the market developments in the particular key markets for Fugro, offshore winds, but also the traditional energy market there, construction support services or more the construction market, the infrastructure market, and then water-related market. All these markets are growing. In the first quarter, we can say that we have seen, particularly in the energy market, growth, which we also communicated in the past. We're not releasing specific results on the split in revenues quarter by quarter anymore because there are some fluctuations, and we'll do that twice a year, every half year. Around mid-year, we'll come out with these specific numbers again.
In general, we could say that all these markets are growing and the demand for Geo-data will be increasing moving forward. Next slide, please. Yeah, something completely different. We thought it was also important to mention this because you all picked up the news last weekend, where there was a lot of activity in the on the side of press in many countries around the world because Fugro really contributed to the find of the Montevideo Maru, something that we have done in combination with the Silentworld Foundation. You see the team there in the bottom right there.
That is run by John Mullen, a businessman, but also, somebody that really over the last couple of years focused on solving some of these long-lasting mysteries, finding vessels. A couple of years ago, we together found also a submarine in the Australian area. This time, we were out there to support with our technology the search for the Montevideo Maru, which was, I think, quite an achievement in 4-kilometer water depth. It indicates, once again, the expertise that Fugro has in this area where we can really make a difference.
It's not, it's not a core activity obviously for us, but it's certainly nice that we have been able to contribute to to this. Next slide, please. I think it's also important to emphasize once again that we continue to focus on our asset lighter strategy with uncrewed surface vessels. Here you see specifically the Blue Essence in its first, yeah. We recently received, I should say, the approval from the U.K. Maritime and Coastguard Agency to fully operate remotely 60 nautical miles from a fixed platform. We can also deploy electrical ROV, remotely operated vehicle.
We have done a first project there, where in the offshore wind environment, you see on the left side there of the picture, that we fully independently operated a survey in the offshore wind environment in the North Sea. We were doing that already for quite some time in Australia, Asia Pacific, and there we see that we also renewed recently the contract with Woodside, where we operate 1 USV, and we have just brought in the 2nd USV into Australia also to serve the market more broadly.
The Blue Essence, which is shown here on the picture, 12 meter USV, forms part of Fugro's wider strategy towards the uncrewed operations for greater agility, safety, and also sustainability. The enormous reduction of CO2 emissions by 95% compared to conventional ROV vessels. They can be out there for two weeks independently, operated remotely out of a control center. Quite exciting roadmap that we have there, ambitious roadmap, really supporting the net zero 2035 ambition for Scope 1 and Scope 2. With that, I would like to hand over to Barbara for some background information on the first quarter trading. Over to you.
Thanks, Mark. Mark has already spoken about the significant growth in revenue and backlog, I will get back on the cash flow slide cash flow when presenting the later slides. For now, let's have a look at the expansion in our margins. Due to better pricing and operational performance, the growth in our revenue translated to higher EBITA, EBITDA margins from 7.4%-12.6%. Our EBIT margin improved to 5.4%, which was negative in the year before. It clearly shows that we're making good progress towards our midterm target margin of 8%-12%. Let's look at the next slide.
In the graph on the top, you can see that the revenue increased in both marine and land, and in all the four regions. The growth was particularly strong, as you can see, in marine. It was 35%, this was mostly driven by the site characterization business line. As Mark already pointed out, we see ever more ambitious energy transition roadmaps in numerous countries across the globe. Also we see an increasing interest in the traditional energy sources, as explained by Mark as well, to support the energy security. If we look at land, revenue in land increased by 12.1%, this was supported by nearshore activities for offshore wind and LNG developments. On the bottom half of the slide, you can see the development of the EBIT.
Fugro's margin improved significantly, as I just mentioned, to 5.4%. Again, this was supported by all regions and business lines. This was, as I said, higher pricing combination with better operational performance, especially again, in the Marine Site Characterization. If we look at vessel utilization, the vessel utilization in Q1 was 68% versus 61% for the comparable period last year. In our Land business, we report a continuation of the performance improvement, and it's at a slightly smaller level as the Marine, but it continues on the improvement path as per the previous quarters. Let's have a look at the operating cash flow on Slide eight. Our operating cash flow before changes in working capital increased by EUR 29 million in Q1 due to higher profitability.
You can see it's an increase from EUR 13 million to EUR 42 million. Changes in working capital, you see EUR 25 million, can be fully explained by the high top line growth. Still it is clear that in the up markets where we're in, working capital management requires additional attention. This is high on my agenda, and we constantly strive to get as little possible capital locked up in working capital. This has a constant focus. As a percentage of 12 months revenue, working capital was 13.2%, slightly up from 12.9% at year-end. The days of revenue outstanding, the DRO, declined to 83 days from 85 at year-end 2022. Year to date capital expenditure, as you can see, was EUR 14 million. This is lower than last year, which it was then at that point EUR 20 million.
However, we do still expect to come in at the guidance of CapEx. We've given the estimate of EUR 200 million-EUR 225 million for the full year. Other operating cash flow includes EUR 10 million. This is the proceeds from the divestment of our remaining non-core interest in Global Marine Group. Overall, this results in a Free Cash Flow of EUR 60 million compared to minus EUR 7 million last year. All in all, a good performance. Now back to Mark for some final comments about the outlook for the remainder of the year.
Thank you, Barbara. Last slide on the outlook. We expect, as mentioned before, ongoing growth in infrastructure, water, and the energy markets in particular, obviously the renewable offshore winds, and that will be resulting in strong revenue growth and margin expansion towards the midterm EBIT margin of 8%-12%. What we also have mentioned here is specifically a positive Free Cash Flow. We will continue to actively manage the impacts of the uncertain macroeconomic and geopolitical environment, but also, and that is important to realize, the supply chain pressures that are still ongoing and will also impact the business moving forward. We will do everything to keep that best under control and to prepare for that well in advance.
Having said that, it's not gone. As earlier indicated, CapEx is estimated at EUR 200 million-EUR 225 million, including the acquisition of the two earlier announced geotechnical vessel purchases. Also the investment of the uncrewed vessel strategy, as I just spoke about, and the net zero roadmap. With that, I would like to conclude this short presentation and hand over to questions.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question at this time, please press star or asterisk key followed by the digit one on your telephone. Please ensure that the mute function on your telephone is switched off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. If you find that your question has already been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. Again, please press star one to ask a question. We will pause for just a moment to allow everyone to signal. Again, please press star one to ask a question. Thank you. We will now take our first question from Luuk van Beek at Bank Degroof Petercam. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Congratulations on a very strong quarter. Obviously, that brings also the question, how to handle the further growth. Could you comment on the labor market and your ability to attract sufficient new staff to carry out all the projects in your backlog? The second thing is on the uncrewed vessels. Can you discuss the room to expand that to a wider range of services? I know that geotech is not possible, but can you, for example, build bigger ones that can do more activities, and discuss how you are comparing to peers in this regard?
Yes. Good morning, Luke. Thank you for the questions. Yes. First question around people and being able to attract enough expertise, so to say. That is obviously a challenge, and a lot of companies deal with that in this growing environment. There is... I just learned in the European discussions, the North Sea Summit, two days ago, that we need a quarter million people additional for this industry to develop. 250,000 people, which is enormous. That is because we obviously start up a whole new industry next to the traditional industries on the energy side. That will be a challenge. We are looking at that very carefully.
We're also looking at our training capacity, to further professionalize and ramp up the capabilities to train more people, to coach them, to make sure that we have the right expertise. At the same time, I mentioned before, controlled growth is important. We need to make sure that we don't take on more than we can chew. We're very focused on that as well. We want to ramp up where required, but in a controlled manner. We are able to find people, to attract them to Fugro.
I think a lot of people that join us, specifically join us because they like the culture and the values that we have implemented over the last couple of years, but also specifically the purpose of the company to create a safe and livable world. We are an attractive employer in that sense, and we will continue to do more to even become also more attractive in the future. Having said that, it will be a challenge, and we will have to focus on that with various programs to ensure that we can actually grow enough on the people side and the expertise side as well. Your next question on uncrewed vessels.
Specifically right now, we have been focusing on replacing large assets on the inspection and monitoring side in the offshore environment where we do pipeline inspections and other inspections, subsea inspections, that normally is done with large ROV vessels. We believe that replacing that with smaller assets, as I just shown to you, the Blue Essence, is capable of doing some of that work or quite a bit of that work with significantly less emissions and a smaller footprint of CO2. Also cost, more cost effective. Now, we want to further expand our capabilities, specifically on the geophysical side. For that, there are...
Yeah, you asked a question around the competition. There are quite a few companies out there that have very small uncrewed service vessels like 6-meter type of vessels that can do near shore geophysical work. We're not necessarily focusing on that market. We want to be able to replace some of the larger geophysical assets. We're at the moment in the process of building an 18-meter a vessel that can actually handle geophysical kit, and that can actually do quite a bit of work on that side.
We are therefore expanding into geophysical and hydrography work with towed sensors as well, and potentially we need to go and ramp up for even a little bit larger size uncrewed as well, that could be around 20-25 meter. That is what we are currently also looking at. Over time, we believe that we will expand further on this on this roadmap in acquiring more uncrewed surface vessels to replace some of the larger assets that we have out there.
Okay. That's clear. Thank you. Thank you once again. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one. Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question from Thijs Berkelder at ABN AMRO. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, all. Congratulations. Great results. Question on your guidance. What could prevent you from already reaching your midterm margin targets this year? That's the prime question.
Good morning, Thijs. Thank you for the question and the congrats, obviously. There are a number of things that could prevent that, but I emphasized a couple of things there in what I said. In principle, markets are good, prices are improving, so in that sense, good conditions. We still need to execute the work. You know also from the past that this forms challenges, making sure that everything is available at the right time, that the project needs to start, that you don't have enough, that you don't have too much standby periods in between, that you plan that most efficiently.
Obviously, we're trying to do as best as we can, prevent all these things from happening. Yeah, during mobilizations, during project executions, you can have problems. This is what could form a hurdle in the execution there and therefore it could take a bit longer. It also has to do with that, and we spoke about that before, that not all the markets, all the regions I should say, not markets, but regions, are actually moving up in activity at the same time. You always have a little bit the fluctuation between the various regions.
If you have just an asset on the wrong side of the world where you need actually more capacity on the other side of the world, it's not so easy to move it around. Even though we try to plan this as best as we can, this is a continuous effort to do that as best as we can, but it's not, it's not always possible to solve it immediately overnight.
it looks-
Yeah.
It looks as if the U.S. or the Americas now are clearly back into the profit game. Is that correct conclusion?
Yes. I think the conclusion is correct that all the regions are contributing now. What I have said before, many times, in 2021, there was only one region performing. In 22, all the regions were contributing, but Marine Site Characterization was not working very well in three out of the four regions. In 23, we should be able to have all the regions contributing and also all the business lines contributing. In that sense, yes, it's the case. Are we already where we need to be on the Marine Site Characterization side? No. It is improving. Backlog is good. It's strongest in that field, and we have been open about that.
That's where the area of growth is, primarily, but it doesn't mean that all the regions are at the right level of performance yet, and, but, certainly we're moving in the right direction.
Great. Thanks.
Thank you. As a final reminder, please press star one to ask a question. Thank you. At this moment, there are no further questions. I would like to hand over to... Oh, there is one. It just came up. Thank you. We'll take our question from Andre Mulder at Kepler. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Yeah, just a few questions here remaining. Maybe I should start with your remark. It's still a pity that you do not produce operating results for Q1. Just qualitative statements will be helped if you also would mention some numbers on the operational performance of Marine and Land. Secondly, if I look at the industry drivers, has there been any change there? You provide this the growth number for parts like offshore wind, but those are the numbers from 22. Has there been any change in those drivers?
Yeah. Andre, good morning. Okay. These numbers are changing all the time, so, it is going up and down. Especially also with the world changing so rapidly, and now we see obviously, some economic situations in some industries affecting also these numbers again, especially you see that, if we run the numbers again on the infrastructure market, for instance, or certainly also on the energy side. I was, as I mentioned before, two days ago, also at the North Sea Summit in Belgium. You see the ambition increasing in the offshore wind environment quite drastically from multiple countries.
I believe that the ambition is absolutely sky high for many countries around the world. I question if it's also feasible to execute on all that ambition. There needs to be a lot that needs to happen. I think the industry also issued some a declaration to the governments there that they need to actually get their act together in a different way to make sure that we can also contribute to make those ambitions a reality. That is just an example on what's happening in Europe, but obviously, the rest of the world is not sitting still and not doing anything.
The U.S. is also moving full steam ahead, and then Asia Pacific is following very closely thereafter. You do see changes in the wind development market. I do expect adjustments there in these graphs. I also expect in the traditional energy market also again, adjustments. We get the feedback, and you have probably also seen the announcements of other companies, SLB and basically Hughes and so on. They are quite bullish on the traditional energy side. And we as well see that this is also coming back and that there are opportunities for Fugro also to play a role there.
You also mentioned infrastructure. What, what has happened there? Do you feel that's positive or negative?
No. What you see in general, and it depends a lot where you look at obviously in very close to home in the Netherlands, we have still the problem of nitrogen affecting a lot of developments and building projects. In general, you have probably also picked up that you saw that the backlog on the land side, which is infrastructure, is all land related, is going down. Now that is primarily related as written down in the press release to portfolio rationalization in the LSC business. That's a combination of, yeah, for instance, closing down on Russia. We sold off a small part in France.
There are a number of things that we have done last year that also means a reduction in in activity there, which is in general, I think improvement of the business overall because that's why we take these steps and obviously Russia a different situation. Also, we have taken some decisions around the Land Asset Integrity business. All in all, that is more portfolio decisions for ourselves. In the long term, I think that is good for the overall performance of Fugro, but that has an effect on on on on the outlook and also specifically on the backlog for Land. In general, infrastructure is a market that will still be growing.
I want to see also updates there because obviously with the general economic downturn that you now see more and more coming to the news, we might see a change there also in the infrastructure market. I don't know. I haven't seen that yet.
Okay, thanks. Two remaining questions on the vessels. Firstly, when do you see these new vessels hitting the water, so to say?
Luckily these vessels are already in the water because somebody else is using them, so they operate, because that would be otherwise a concern. If you have new vessels, there's always teething issues. They are in the water. We will get them in the second half of the year. Then, we will probably temporarily use them for, not the end goal, because we need modifications to these vessels, which will mean dry docks, and putting a moon pool in these vessels, for instance, to start with. Also we need to have the drill rig, prepared and fabricated, which has some lead time. We obviously, have ordered all the long lead items, but that takes time in this current environment.
These vessels are more for geotechnical work in 2024 than in this year. That doesn't mean if we get them, we have multiple ideas what we can do with them in the meantime, if they're not in dry dock.
Okay. The last question on these uncrewed vessels. Can you give us any indication what a vessel of, let's say, 20 meters would cost? How many of your, let's say, ROV led vessels could be replaced with these uncrewed vessels?
Yeah. Andre, I get that question quite often, and I actually will not release those numbers in specific very much so because I think it's a combination of the development and the requirements that you have in combination with a vessel like that. There's a lot of years of investment in remotely operating these vessels as well. There's a certain cost to it. Then the steel itself, yeah, I think you can get some ballpark figures, what it means to build a meter vessel.
That's not different for these things, but it's more the technology that goes in there. The expertise that is required for the firmware, software and remote operations, that is driving the cost for these assets. Are we producing more of these assets? Obviously, you'll spread it over more vessels. But they are significantly smaller, therefore, also, significantly cheaper to build. But building vessels, by the way, nowadays is becoming a very expensive hobby. You need to be careful. If you want to build large vessels right now, you need to bring a big bag of money. That is also a situation that we see developing.
So no specific numbers, there. You had a second question on that, Andre, related to that.
Yeah. How many of your current ROV-led vessels could be replaced?
No, we don't have a lot of ROV vessels, in on our books. We have one vessel in Brazil and one permanent vessel in Europe and one in Australia. We have another lease asset in Europe. Four, you could say, on this side, of one is a long-term lease or longer term lease. We expect that we can probably replace some of that.
Having said that, we have reduced over the last couple of years quite a bit, the vessel activity, as you know, in the last couple of years on the bigger assets, because we didn't want to play in the repair and maintenance markets where the cranes required. In the future, we'll focus specifically on getting a larger market share on the inspection and monitoring, specifically, work that can be done with the smaller assets. It's not about necessarily replacing all these four in the short term. I think, maybe two of the four could be replaced, moving forward.
These are also deployed to Brazil and Australia in markets where it will take some time before clients are also adjusted to operating only with smaller assets. We do believe that these larger assets in some activities are still required as well.
Okay. Last small question. You mentioned the possible problems with new built vessels. How is the chartering activity developing? Are you still able to fill in the charters that you want?
Yeah, for the time being, we can find the charters. It depends a little bit in which region of the world. I think there are some differences there. On the geophysical side, it is a little bit more easy than the larger assets. I think if you're less critical in the type of asset that you want to use for the short term, then it's possible. If you really want to find the good assets that will serve us for a longer term, it's more difficult. The market becomes absolutely more tight.
We have spoken about that also around the full year result presentation that also vessel owners obviously are very careful in in contracts for longer term because they see that they potentially can raise the prices again next year. They don't want to commit to a 3-year contract. They rather do it on the spot market right now. That becomes a bit more expensive. Luckily, we had already secured quite a bit of additional capacity over the last couple of months, half year. In that sense, we're ramping up already with the two additional ones that we bought. We have our hands full in expanding so to say.
As we mentioned before,t we want to look at controlled growth rather than, yeah, shooting with hail to this market.
Okay, thanks.
Okay.
Thank you. I would like to hand over to Catrien for any closing remarks. Go ahead, Catrien. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you all so much for participating. If you would have any additional questions or comments, please let me know. For now, thank you all and have a good day. Bye.