Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the ISS trading update for Q3 2021. For the 1st part of this call, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, please press five star on your telephone keypad. This call is being recorded. Today, I'm pleased to present Jacob Aarup-Andersen and Kasper Fangel. Speakers, please begin.
ISS conference call for the Q3 2021 trading update. Please take notice to the forward-looking statements in the appendix, and I'll hand over to Jacob. Slide number three.
Thank you, Michael. Let's get started. Good morning, everyone. Let me start out with the executive summary. In the Q3, we continued to build on our new operating model. We are deep into the implementation phase, and that means that the blueprints and group concepts are slowly but surely coming to life in every single country. This builds stringency, quality, and alignment across the group, and it is starting to show the first early benefits. On the activity side, we're seeing customers gradually returning to the office. We expect a continued measured pace of return in the coming period. COVID-19 infection levels remain high across most geographies, and that creates a sense of caution in many countries. That being said, the direction is clear.
People are gradually coming back, and customers are re-emphasizing the importance of the office as the cultural epicenter of the company. We're therefore increasingly confident of the continued relevance of the office and hence the return to the office as soon as short-term uncertainty clears. This has, by the way, been evidenced by recent experience from the countries that have opened up first. I'm pleased that our turnaround work and strict focus on the underperforming areas are paying off. The financial performance in each of the hotspots are improving. This is creating a fundamentally healthier and stronger group. COVID-19 restructuring is also delivering solid results even at the current reduced volumes. It makes our current margin recovery, to a large extent, independent of the market activities and of the timing of a broader return to office.
As a result, we can now upgrade our financial outlook on both margin and cash flow. For the latter, this is the Q2 in a row. These parameters are the most important at this point in the turnaround, creating the foundation to build a solid and healthy core that we can grow from in the long term sustainable way. Kasper will be providing the details on the outlook later. Let's turn to slide five for an update on strategy. Our OneISS strategy can be split into our work on the operating model, our short-term financial recovery, and our divestment program. The strengthened operating model is our platform for long-term performance. At this stage, a lot of hard, dedicated work goes into the heavy implementation phase. We're executing on the organizational blueprints, the upgraded group competencies, and the new IT setup.
It's an important time where our strategy really comes to life, but where the main benefits are still to come. As highlighted in December 2020, we expect the build-out of the operating model to last all of 2021 and 2022, but of course, with initial benefits starting to come through during the period. In Q3, we have finalized the new IT organization, and our new Chief Digital and Technology Officer has outlined the high-level guardrails for our new IT strategy. In the Q3, we also rolled out our new daily office cleaning productivity tools, which I will come back to. Let's turn to the next slide for details on our divestment program. We are streamlining and simplifying our business through our divestment program. We continue to have strong execution momentum with important divestments signed since the first half results.
In the Q3, we completed the sale of two countries and signed two single service business units. For the largest business unit, completion is subject to certain conditions and therefore by nature still uncertain. With this, the aggregated net proceeds from the program now amount to around DKK 1.4 billion. As such, we are at 70% of the total target of DKK 2 billion for 2021 and 2022. Please go to the next slide. On my final slide on the strategy review, I want to highlight our new productivity tool, which is now rolled out and tested in six countries and on selected contracts. We've known for a while that there is a significant difference in cleaning efficiencies around the world. This implies significant potential in getting all countries to best-in-class levels. That's what One ISS is all about. 80% of cleaning costs are labor-related.
We're now becoming much more data-based when estimating cost. Based on the key variables such as number of staircases, windows, building material, et cetera, we can provide a firmer estimate of the cost of cleaning. I see three significant opportunities in the tool. Firstly, profitability can be increased by improving cost and contracts. If we can move the profitability up by just 1% in daily office cleaning contracts, then it will have a measurable effect on our group results. The second part is long-term growth. If we become the most efficient cleaning company across all of the world, we will naturally gain market share and improve retention. Thirdly, it's about risk mitigation. When we have more solid and comprehensive data behind all cost estimates, we will reduce risks in our forecast and commercial bidding.
With those comments on strategy, let me go to the business review from slide nine. We continue to be satisfied with our commercial development. Since the first half results, we did not win new deals above the DKK 100 million mark, but we won several deals just below. These wins include a large social media company in the US, a leading manufacturer of household products in North America, as well as a contract with the Uppsala region in Sweden. Our win rate and retention rate in 2021 is fully in line with the historic trends where we over years have gained consistent market share. I also want to mention that we won the right deals during 2021. As announced at our Q2 re-reporting, we won Equinor and Philip Morris.
These are strategically our preferred type of revenue in the right segment, the right type of customer, and with a true partnership mindset. Both wins will have a full effect from 2022, and hence we are still to see the benefits of this. On retention, we see good progress with DKK 1 billion revenue signed since we last met. We renewed a large international technology company in the US, a global industry and manufacturing company, and we extended and expanded an airport in Australia. We currently have more than usual focus on extensions, and many of our 2022 maturities are in the process with good development. We're at the same time seeing a solid pipeline on new business building. Please turn to the next slide for a few comments on our transaction in Turkey. During Q3, we announced a reshaping of our Turkish business.
We have acquired a highly attractive asset and divested a part of ISS Turkey. This is setting us up for strong financial performance without increasing exposure to Turkey, nor impacting our leverage, which you know we've been very firm on. We have now manifested our leadership position in healthcare in Turkey, and we're already seeing how it's yielding opportunities in this prioritized segment. As a consequence, we have a very encouraging pipeline for more hospital deals, and I feel confident that we'll be announcing more positive developments based on this strengthened position. On the next slide, we are continuously getting insights into current return to office trends. Since the summer, there is a clear trend that customers are opening their offices and allowing a larger share of employees to the office.
There is, however, a difference between number of employees allowed in the office and the number of employees actually coming to the office. Employees are more gradually returning. In the dialogue with our customers, they are focused on the workplace as a critical source of innovation, productivity, and sense of cultural belonging. The long-term trend is clear, a return to office for more and more employees. This concludes my business review. I'll now hand over to Kasper for the financials.
Thank you, Jacob, and good morning, everyone. I hope you are well. I would like to start out with some comments on revenue on slide 13. The nature of the early effects of the reopening are in line with expectations. Portfolio revenue is up, more than offsetting a decline in above-base revenue quarter-over-quarter. The organic growth in the Q3 was 2.6%, and revenue amounted to DKK 17.5 billion. Growth improved through the quarter as some markets opened up, such as UK in September, but you still have a large customer that have delayed a broader return to office until 2022. It is worth noticing that the project and above-base revenue is only around DKK 200 million higher than pre-COVID levels in Q3 2019.
As markets reopen, the level of above-base revenue may come down, but it will clearly be offset by higher portfolio revenue, which you also saw in this quarter. Please move to the next slide for comments on the regions. The 1st highlight of this slide is that we have delivered positive organic growth in all regions. The 2nd important highlight is that the absolute revenue increased in all four regions in Q3 compared to Q2. The development in growth rates is impacted by a volatile comparison base. Finally, I also want to highlight the accelerating growth in Americas. We have strong momentum in our key account portfolio, and the transition of our large manufacturing customer is supporting growth. Generally, the 2020 comparison makes it difficult to draw any hard conclusions.
It's therefore helpful to look at the current revenue compared to 2019 on the next slide. In this early reopening phase, the recovery potential of the business is key. It's not a surprise that we see diverse impacts on the business on both service lines and industries. In total, organic growth is -6.4% compared to Q3 2019. This corresponds to the index in the lower right corner of 94. From a service line perspective, the largest upside is within food, and the big-ticket items for food are US and UK, mainly within the office-based segment. From an industry perspective, we have capitalized well on COVID-19 opportunities within the specialized segments. We've generated underlying growth. This segment is also where we see solid demand for deep cleaning and disinfection, both in schools and in hospitals.
There is significant recovery potential in the other industries. I will now move away from revenue and provide some directional comments on the margin development. As this is a trading update, we will not disclose the Q3 margin, but it should be clear from the development of this slide that our profitability continues to improve, and the run rate margin has improved each quarter of 2021. In the UK, the results of our efforts continue to progress well, and our largest market is now again operating at positive operating margin. The low-hanging fruits from internal streamlining has been taken, and we are now entering into a new phase focused on contract optimization and commercial success. In France, our restructuring is progressing according to plan, and cost savings are coming through. This is supporting our run rate margin.
Reduced volumes continue to be a challenge, and the turnaround is a gradual movement. We've outlined a strong plan for future growth, covering both customers impacted by COVID-19 and new sales. Deutsche Telekom is on track, and we have a comprehensive plan in place to get it to break even. The COVID-19 restructuring under the fourth bucket on the slide is clearly having a positive impact on the results and also the reason why this Harvey ball has moved significantly. One example is the US Food business performance, which I really have to say is impressive considering the suppressed volumes. As you can see in the lower right corner, we have now completed more than 50% of the turnaround journey. However, the speed of the progress could naturally become slower as we get closer to our above 4% turnaround target by the end of 2022.
Please go to slide 18 for comments on the financial outlook. As Jacob has already mentioned, we are upgrading our financial outlook. Organic growth guidance is confirmed and still expected to be positive. The overall drivers of the growth have not changed. We expect continued portfolio revenue increase, while above base by nature is more uncertain. Q4 is normally the largest quarter of above-base revenue, but in this special COVID-19 year, the seasonality may be different. The operating margin is upgraded from above 2% to around 2.5%. The upgrade is a result of the performance of the underperforming entities, as reviewed on the previous slide. Please move to the next slide for comments on upgraded free cash flow. The free cash flow outlook is upgraded from above DKK 1 billion to around DKK 1.5 billion. The upgrade mainly reflects the improved operating margin.
The 50 basis points on the margin is yielding up to DKK 250 million in free cash flow after the tax is paid. The rest is driven by working capital. We assess the working capital inflow to be partly driven by structural initiatives and partly driven by timing effects as we now expect lower outflow in H2. Our factoring expectations are completely unchanged, and the level at the end of this year is going to be very close to what we had last year. That is all from me, and I will now hand back to Jacob for some final remarks.
Thank you, Kasper, and let's have the last slide. In a volatile environment, it is critical to focus on what we can control. That's why we have a clear plan outlined, and that's why we're executing forcefully on it. Our focus on the hotspots is working. I'm satisfied about the progress and how that's setting us up for long-term sustainable performance. With that said, we also acknowledge that the current margin level is far below our potential, and we still have a lot of hard work in front of us to deliver that for you. I want to give a heartfelt thanks to all employees for their daily efforts and contribution to ISS. I also want to thank them for the continued support to our customers. The pride and passion of our people makes us stand out. With that, I would like to open up the Q&A session.
The 1st question comes from the line of Bilal Aziz from UBS. Please go ahead. The line will now be unmuted.
Good morning, guys. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Three for me, please. Firstly, just on, I guess, the pipeline and the growth outlook going further than this year. I mean, you clearly spoke about trying to target the right level of growth, and the right level of contracts to balance between risk, management. How does that impact your midterm aspirations now, as we look further out? That's the 1st question. 2nd question, Kasper, you touched on the Q4 organic growth. How should we think about that with the exit rate within the Q3 within the Q4 phasing, please? Lastly, just on the margin, there's clearly aspects which you are now delivering ahead of expectations. Which ones in particular are delivering ahead of plan, and how does that change your thinking for your guidance of 2022 with an exit rate of 4%? Thank you.
Thank you, Bilal. Why don't I start with the pipeline and growth outlook and then let Kasper talk about the two other questions. If you look at commercial, we won several new deals since the first half results, as I mentioned just before. They're all close, but not above our disclosure threshold. You can say we actually feel quite good around the ongoing commercial momentum. In addition, as you know, we've renewed contracts worth around DKK 1 billion since the first half results. As per the OneISS strategy, we are quite stringent in terms of prioritizing customers that we want to work with. We've extended highly attractive contracts during the year.
Barclays, our second-largest customer, a significant social media company in the US, and a large Danish manufacturing company. You know, we also won some significant new deals over the last couple of quarters. At the same time, we invest significantly in commercial structure and capabilities, and I, when I look out at the pipeline that we're building right now and the interactions we're having globally, I have to say that it's firming up for a very nice pipeline, when we look 12-18 months out. That's, I guess, the focus of your question is that the, that's the more midterm outlook for growth. If I look at the commercial side of things, I think we are cautiously optimistic that we have turned a corner over the last couple of quarters in terms of our commercial momentum.
There's a lot of focus in the short term around renewals, of course, but it's very nice to see that the pipeline is building globally. It's a pipeline of the right business in the right segments, which is very important for me. In terms of talking about what that means for growth in 2022, I think you would appreciate, Bilal, that true to form we're not guiding on 2022 organic growth as such. These building blocks of a good commercial momentum and the timing around postponed back to office effects in a number of geographies, especially around food in the US, means that we of course expect to see a good growth in 2022, but I'm not gonna be specific around how we see that. No doubt that what we're looking into right now in terms of commercial activity underlines that optimism for the midterm.
Thank you, Jacob, and good morning, Bilal. Let me try to give some additional color on Q4 growth. I mean, first of all, overall, we are still in a COVID-19 recovery phase. We have seen increased base revenue in Q3 versus the 1st Q2 this year. We expect that to continue in Q4. I think one important data point obviously is the actual organic growth in Q3, the 2.6%, because on the face of it looks like we are supported by a 2% easier comparison base in Q4.
Please remember, and this is super important, that assumes the normal seasonality in a non-COVID-19 year, where above-base revenue typically spikes in Q4 against previous quarters, and that we do not expect to see this year. In summary, we expect higher nominal revenue in Q4 compared to Q3, but the organic growth percentage is not expected to be massively higher in Q4 compared to Q3. Of course, it is important, as I know you're all aware of, that we are still operating in the middle of a pandemic, and of course the uncertainties are very high.
In terms of your question on margin and what is going better, we are following the plan on our margin recovery, and things are coming through nicely. It's fair to say that the speed of execution is faster in the UK compared to what we initially expected. I think there are three things that are worth highlighting here. The first thing is that the transparency has improved and is still improving in the UK, which is obviously leading to some strong efficiencies coming through. The other thing is that the restructuring initiatives that we have taken in the UK is also coming through faster than expected, and we are adjusting the cost platform.
The 3rd thing that I will mention that makes us confident about the UK is that the changes that has been done locally to the country management teams seems to work out very well, and the enthusiasm is building in the UK Bridging that to your question around 2022, then it's clear in the first half, we reported an EBIT margin of 1.5%. In order for us to get to 2.5%, then we'll have to deliver 3.5% in the second half of the year. We expect the exit run rate out of this year to be slightly above 3%, adjusted for seasonality. Of course, it is about getting from 3% to the above 4% in 2022, but we are well on track.
Brilliant, guys. That was very clear. Just a quick follow-up. Jacob, you previously said Beth was retention. How is the confidence on some of your large contracts for 20... Thank you.
Thanks, Bilal. The line was bad maybe just on our side, but I think you asked around retention in 2022 and those deals. When you look at the chart around 2022, we have around 8% of renewals in that, and that's a little bit higher than usual. There's a top three customer in there. If you take that out, then it's the usual around 5% retention we're looking at. All of the big names in that portfolio, we are at this stage in very advanced talks with, as you would expect.
These facility management contracts at these levels, at these sizes and complexity do not get agreed with two weeks' notice at the end of the year. We are in very good and constructive conversations with our clients around this. I can only say that we have a good confidence level around how we conclude these conversations. I'm not seeing any specific red flags that I feel a need to raise. Good and constructive dialogues that are progressing according to the plans that we laid out in the beginning of the year. Confident, but of course, with the caveat that until the ink is dry, nothing is certain.
Thank you very much, guys. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Michael Vitfell-Rasmussen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. The line will now be unmuted.
Thank you very much, and congrats from my side as well, guys. On catering, what was the organic growth in the Q3, please? If you could add just a few more comments on any kind of regional variances here, including also on your large US catering client. Do they still expect to staff up offices in the first of January? That's my first question. Secondly, on the DKK 550 million extension you won with the US tech client, when will that start up? Within which service areas did you win, and what do you think drove that win? My final question is if you could just discuss any issues on labor shortage and/or wage inflation, please. Thank you.
Thank you, Michael. Let me start on the regional variances around food in US, especially around US Kasper can comment around growth rates in a second. Regional variances, there's absolutely no doubt when we look at the US that you know, our US is our biggest food business, followed by UK and then a couple of the very large European businesses, where US is the big swing factor. That's also right for you to zoom in on that. What we're seeing is that there are a number of the larger clients on the West Coast have delayed return to office until January, as you also point out. We are seeing, you see, a gradual return to office when we look broadly across the base.
That's also why you're seeing the 8% growth across North America in Q3. There is a number of the large tech clients on the West Coast that have decided to fully open up in the beginning of January. That is still the message we're getting. When you look at the US, there's no doubt that if you haven't opened up moving into Thanksgiving, it's starting to be impractical to mobilize the entire organization there with the few weeks before Christmas. That's why they're doing it. We have good indications around that that that's sticking.
That also means that's the reason why when we talk about growth and food in the US, that we're saying that we do see further recovery in Q4, but some of the big contracts, it's only Q1. You asked specifically around an extension in the US on the technology side, when that starts up. That name is already up and running, so it's simply an extension of the existing contract. It is a client that is not fully back in the office, so we are not getting the full benefits of the size of the contract right now, and therefore, it is one of the contracts that we expect to pick up, especially from January in terms of volumes.
You asked about what type of business it is. It is mainly food, this contract entails. Let me just, why don't I finish also on the labor shortage, and then Kasper can come in on the growth in catering. On the labor side, there's no doubts that what we're seeing globally is that there is more pressure around the labor situation, and the tightness is especially prevalent in the US Also because you can say that most other markets we do see quite a high level of unionization of labor, which also means the wage agreements are relatively locked in. The US, we're seeing both a tightening in terms of availability of labor, but also wage inflation.
As you know, most of our contracts will pass through the cost itself, and therefore the main concern we have is around availability of people. Here the team is working incredibly hard, especially in the US where it's tightest and where we're working on a number of avenues that goes beyond what we would usually do around dealing with recruitment difficulties. One of the biggest and most important initiatives for us and drivers for us is the fact that we've started utilizing AI as a primary tool in our recruitment efforts in the US, which is bringing a different type of efficiency and opening up different types of labor pools with a different type of speed. Beyond that, we have a number of other initiatives, especially in the US around that.
We do also have to resort to, in some specific geographies, sign-on bonuses and retention bonuses, which is part of the game. Overall, I have to say that the message is the same as it was in the first half, which is that we do not see the labor market tightness and the increased wage inflation across the board. We're not seeing that impact our expectations on our profitability levels. We are managing to pass it on and to find further efficiencies in the few areas where we do not have a good pass on mechanism. With those comments, I'll hand over to Kasper on the food side.
Yeah. Thank you very much, and good morning, Michael. You are indeed right. The significant asset in terms of the recovery on food is of course, the US The growth that we've seen in Q3 is above 5% on that one. Still, and that's important, the index is only 69 against the 2019 levels. Just to give a little bit of color on the impact, and the magnitude of that, improving that index to 80 will give us additional approximately DKK 2.5 billion on recovery on top line. Obviously it is the big swing factor here is the food as a service line. That is what is super important in the recovery, as Jacob mentioned.
Thank you so much, Kasper. The 5%, was that 5% for US catering or overall catering growth?
That was 5% for US catering.
Okay. Do you have the global number by any chance?
Yeah, we do. I do not. It's not far from that because the main portion is Americas, but I do not want to be exact and specific on that one, Michael. I'm sure you'll understand that.
Okay. That's fine. Thank you very much, guys.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Magnus Jensen from SEB. Please go ahead, your line will now be unmuted.
Thank you, and good morning, and congratulations on the good results. 1st, a follow-up on Michael's question on difficulty in hiring. You say it has no impact on your margins, but can you give sort of a ballpark indication how much it has impacted your top line for the quarter? Secondly, on deep cleaning and disinfection, which has clearly been a driver over the last many quarters, how does that perform this quarter? In relation to that as well, how do you look at above-base work for 2022? Should we see that as a big headwind or do you expect to continue to, yeah, to keep some of this also going into next year? That's my question. Thank you.
Thank you. Magnus, let me talk about hiring and then Kasper can talk deep cleaning, disinfection, and above base 2022. On the hiring, in terms of how that impacted our growth profile in Q3, that is an immaterial number. It does not have an impact that stands out as such. Yes, it has a very slight positive impact, but it's nothing of materiality. When we look at going into 2022 also, because that could be your follow-on question, again, we expect it to have a slightly positive effect, but it's not material in the sense that it's gonna be a big driver of our growth next year.
Do remember that a number of our contracts are on with fixed wage inflations that is driven by unionized contracts and we have savings slide paths on those contracts that are also fixed, et cetera. It is not a one for one effect impact on our entire top line. It will have a slight positive impact next year in terms of the top line growth, but it's not gonna be a key driver for our revenue. Maybe you, Kasper, on the deep cleaning and disinfection.
Yeah. Thank you, and good morning, Magnus. It is in Q3. It still continues to at a high level, the disinfection and above base, and I think that's underpinned what we're showing in the slide where we're comparing the index against 2019 level. You will see we have 114% on specialized, and the underlying driver on that is indeed disinfection and hygiene. Still a very high level. It is uncertain how it is going to pan out exactly going forward. That is the discussions that we're having with the customers as we speak. What we see is that it is a continuing trend that janitorial and cleaning service is high on the agenda.
It's not just a procurement exercise, it's something that has moved into the exec management team and something that they have an opinion about, and we don't expect that will disappear and go away. We expect that the importantness of that as a service is going to stick. Exactly whether it's going to move into base or continue as above base, that is too early to conclude on that.
That's very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Laurits Kjærgaard from ABG. Please go ahead. The line will now be unmuted.
Thank you, Jacob and Kasper, and congratulations on your results. 1st of all, two questions to Jacob on the statements that you have made. One of them was your closing remark where you said current margin level is far below the potential. The 1st question is what is the potential? Then you've also mentioned previously that reducing churn rate will be a clear tool to mitigate higher wage inflation. Could you comment on churn rate, please, going into Q3 and going into next year? Thank you.
Thank you, Laurits. Thanks for also listening to my speech. I'm really impressed by that. I thought I had lost you towards the end. It's a long speech. No, just kidding. Listen, it's very fair for you to point out my statement because I firmly believe and that view is shared very firmly by the entire management team that, of course, we are pleased to sit here today and upgrade our margin guidance to 2.5%, but we also have to say that's not where we wanna be. We made a very clear statement that we want to exit 2022 at a run rate margin above 4%.
We've also made it clear that that's a turnaround target, and that we will be coming back as we get closer to having delivered that turnaround. We'll come back and talk about what we believe the long-term potential of the business is. Because we have also made it clear that we do not think that that number is 4%, but we believe it is higher than 4%. I will not on this call give you the new long-term targets. That will be a conversation we'll be having as we progress through the turnaround. I can guarantee you that you're sitting here with a ambitious management team that is pleased but will be working incredibly hard to continue the progress.
On the 2nd part, in terms of reducing churn rate. We have not specifically reduced churn rate in Q3. That would be too big of a statement. There's a lot of work going on right now in terms of our cultural journey and in terms of the people and culture initiatives that we are rolling out across the globe. Part of that is in terms of our leadership development, but the other part is you say more hardcore around the systems that we deploy. One of the key aspects of that is our people at ISS infrastructure that we are rolling out right now in our key countries.
That people at ISS infrastructure is digital infrastructure that will help us link up our workforce management in a much more seamless and real-time way, and will give us ability to have many more measuring points and an ability to be able to react much faster when we see signs that drive churn. I do believe that the plan we've laid out for the coming years in terms of our people and culture agenda, both from a technology perspective and from a leadership perspective, will drive churn down. Sitting here in a very volatile labor market in Q3 and stating that we are seeing permanent effects of that, I think that would be arrogant of me.
I do see initial signs that we are on the right path in terms of the initiatives we're doing. I think you need to give us a couple of quarters before we start seeing that play out in our churn rates as such.
That's very clear. Maybe one macro question in terms of, let's say, underlying orders, because I appreciate the comments on the three large orders that you've won below DKK 100 million during Q3, and also the three extensions. I guess no larger wins in Q3 so far. Could you comment a little bit on the underlying development of orders across regions? Because it seems to me that penetration of outsourcing is finally increasing, which has been sort of quite slow for the past 10 years actually. Can you comment if outsourcing is increasing now? Is that what you're seeing in the markets, or what are you seeing?
Yeah, no, I think that's a great observation there, Laurits. When I look at the global markets, there's no doubt that we are seeing a trend of increased outsourcing. It's in the countries that are finding their feet earliest in terms of the pandemic. We are seeing a trend that a number of companies are reflecting on their experience during the pandemic and are accelerating a move towards outsourcing. We see that US is a good example where we're seeing an increasing pipeline in terms of first-time outsourcing opportunities. But we're also seeing it in continental Europe, more skewed towards countries where we've opened up faster. I do think that the pipeline opportunities are fundamentally increasing, which is your question.
As you know, there's a big lumpiness around especially larger contracts. You look at our last quarter where we had two larger contract announcements in Equinor and PMI, and the timing is for these big negotiations. They run nine, 12, 18 months, and therefore there is an element of lumpiness around it. That's also why it was important for us to flag a number of deals just below the threshold because we do continue to win small and mid-sized deals across the globe on a monthly basis. The big elephants are obviously great signs also for you from an external perspective in terms of momentum, but a large part of our momentum is of course driven by the small and mid-sized business as well.
You mentioned a large social media contract in US, Uppsala contract, and what was the third one that you mentioned below the threshold in Q3?
Let me just have a look. It was a manufacturing company in the US It was a private
Okay. Super. Thank you very much.
Household products company.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press five star on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from line of Klaus Kehl from Nykredit. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Yes. Good morning. Klaus Kehl from Nykredit. A question again related to the food business. You mentioned that you were quite pleased with the performance here in the quarter, despite revenue still being quite negatively impacted. How come that you are pleased with the performance? Is that due to the fact that your new cost plus contracts are starting to work? That's my first question. Secondly, could you remind me the margin in the food business, isn't that above group level? My 3rd question would be around your discontinued businesses. Could you give us any input on what kind of profit you are seeing for them here in 2021 or potentially in the second half or, yeah, any input on that line? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Klaus. Why don't I do the food business then, and Kasper, if you do the discontinued business question, that'd be great. Just on the food business. The reason why we are pleased with the US food business, I'm of course completely in your camp that revenues are not where we want them to be. But the reason why we still express being pleased is the fact that, one, we are seeing growth return. 2nd, we are winning food business in the US I mentioned some of the contracts that Laurits was just asking around. That's food contracts in the US We're winning new business in food. On the margin side, we're not talking margins in this trading statement, as you know.
As we stated in August, we are seeing a very strong margin recovery in food in the US as we move to, as you also said, Klaus, the cost plus models that are working out very well, that change to cost plus model. We're seeing good margins in the US food business, and we're seeing new wins in the US food business. What we would like to see, of course, in the coming quarters, and as I said, that's more skewed to Q1 than it is to Q4. That is, some of the big office-based food contracts really starting to come back in terms of office opening.
On the margin side, we've never been very specific around margins on different service lines for the simple reason that most of our offerings is integrated facility services, which means that the true margin for us lies in the mix. It is correct that if you look at pure food players that they can have a slightly higher margin than pure cleaning players in the market. For us, given the synergies between the different offerings, it's a little bit less clear. But food is not dragging margins down, if I can put it like that. On discontinued business, Kasper.
Yeah. Good morning, Claus. I can be quick on that one. The discontinued business, the margins are neutral, broadly the same as we see in the continued business. Of course, it's a mixed bag, so we have some assets that are margin accretive and some that are margin dilutive, but consolidated, it's broadly the same level as in the continued business.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Rahul Totla from HSBC. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Hello. Thank you. I have three questions. 1st, in terms of could you just elaborate your comments in terms of your benchmarking and, basically you said that, you're doing some benchmarking and data analytics tool, which is helping increase pricing. Maybe say some more comments on some delta or what you're seeing on the ground there. That would be helpful. My 2nd question is around margin guidance. I mean, from memory, I mean, your non-core portfolio comes at higher margins, is expected to go down in Q4, and you're still increasing your margin guidance. Just want to understand, how the margin is developing across the core portfolio, basically in terms of sequential improvements.
Finally, in terms of the working capital and free cash flow guidance, I think I suspect the large part of the weak free cash flow is due to changes in working capital timing and underlying working capital. Some comments around, you know, kind of working capital. Are you seeing in the business. Thank you.
Thank you, Rahul. Why don't I start on the benchmarking tool and then Kasper talk margins and cash flow. Thanks for the question. I think the daily office cleaning benchmarking tool that you've seen in the presentation, that's part of the new developments around our operations performance structure, which is one of the key structures that we developed as part of OneISS. It is bringing the accountability of owning business outcomes and P&L together with the former classic operational excellence functions that you see in many other companies. Sorry, many other companies. We wanted to take excellence to another level in terms of driving true P&L and ownership and accountability out of that unit. Of course, we've had tools in ISS.
We are the world's largest cleaning company, and we have plenty of existing tools. What we've done here is that we've taken it to another level in terms of making it significantly more data-driven. That is also, of course, a sign of the times in terms of the IT and technology infrastructure we have around our FMS systems and other core systems, which means we today, compared to in the past, can drive much more data-driven insights into the different sites, and we can bring that into global databases. Our global team of cleaning experts can then drive best practice development and data-driven solutions around specific sites. I'll give you an example. When we did the initial testing around six countries, we saw significant variations in terms of cleaning efficiency.
Obviously, we're not oblivious to the fact that there are significant differences between different countries. There are some countries where the same type of site would require two FTEs in one country and 20 FTEs in another country. I'm giving you the extreme there, of course. It's not like we will be able to improve our productivity by a factor of ten across all of our sites. The point is that there is a decent amount of low-hanging fruit across a number of geographies. Once we apply best practice for the specific type of site, the specific type of circumstances, down to the specific layout of the specific rooms, we can drive a significant amount of efficiency improvements. That has always been our bread and butter.
You can say what we're doing right now is we're taking it from strong operators who know how to drive it. We're combining that knowledge of the strong operator with a data-driven approach, which gives us different insights and gives us different vantage points and ways to attack it. We don't expect this to overnight increase our margins massively, but we expect it to be part of the journey we're on right now in terms of driving a structural margin improvement in the coming years as we deploy OneISS. This is a classic example of how we utilize the global footprint and the data-driven approach. Over to you, Kasper, on the margin guidance.
Yeah. Thanks for that. Good morning, Rahul. I mean, ever since we started the journey, we have seen gradual improvement on the underlying margin, and we expect to continue to see that. The fact that we are increasing the guidance today for the full year is obviously a sign of confidence that we have good visibility, and we are comfortable that the things are coming through. The big-ticket items that we still need to improve on but we have seen a notable and significant improvement already is obviously the hotspots. So that's one key area.
It's also the COVID-19 restructuring where we have very good traction, but there's still a bit more to come on that across countries with cost bases being adjusted and obviously profit increasing consequently. In terms of your free cash flow, I mean, I wanna be very clear on that and take the first half announcement as a starting point where we had an outlook of above DKK 1 billion. The change of approximately half a billion DKK to DKK 500 million that we are communicating today is basically two things. It's one that the increased margin to 2.5% is going to yield another approximately DKK 250 million additional cash after tax.
The other part is improved working capital at the end of the year, which we expect to be around DKK 250 million-DKK 300 million. Combined, that gives you the approximately DKK 500 million. I wanna be very clear on the working capital improvements. That is sustainable working capital improvements that we are comfortable will stick, and it's absolutely not fueled by any deviations in factoring or anything. We've not changed our guidance on factoring, and we still expect factoring, like I mentioned and have mentioned several times, to be broadly at the same level at the end of this year, compared to last year. There's no news in that regard.
Maybe just one comment from my side, Raul. The line was not great, but if I heard you right, I think you said margin's expected to go down in Q4. Just to be clear, that will not happen. I think the previous comment from Kasper around starting run rate of 3% plus was a run rate comment, obviously adjusting for the seasonality in Q4. We do not see margins falling from here.
Absolutely right.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I'll hand the word back to the speakers.
Thank you very much. Thanks for great questions as always. Our enthusiastic and highly competent IR team are eagerly awaiting further conversations, so please reach out to them. Looking forward to seeing many of you in the coming days, and then wish you a great day. Thank you very much.