Hello, welcome to the Netcompany investor call. Throughout the call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and afterwards, there will be a question- and- answer session. Today, I'm pleased to present André Rogaczewski.
Good day, and welcome to this presentation of Netcompany's acquisition of Intrasoft, which is a natural continuation to the company announcement that we sent out Tuesday around noon at the same matter. My name is André Rogaczewski, and I'm the CEO and co-founder of Netcompany, and I'm joined today by our CFO, Thomas Johansen, and by Alexandros Manos, which is the CEO of Intrasoft. The topic of today's presentation is our acquisition of Luxembourg-based Intrasoft, an acquisition we're excited about and that we will tell you more about on this call. I will present the strategic rationale for the acquisition and elaborate on the large potential we see for digitalization in Europe in the coming decade. Alex will then give a presentation of Intrasoft, what markets they serve, and how they are organized.
He will also discuss the platforms that Intrasoft have, which have made them a leading provider to particularly the EU, and also within the tax and customs areas in Europe in a broader perspective. Alex will also present one of Intrasoft's key markets, Greece, and the large potential for growth that Greece represents. Finally, Thomas will discuss the financial aspects of the acquisition and how we will organize and go to market in the new Netcompany Group. Before we get going, there are some important disclosures that I need you to read through, so could we please have slide number three? I will pause for 30 seconds here and let you all have a read-through of these important disclosures. With that, can we please go to slide number four, please? When founding Netcompany more than 21 years ago, we initially focused on building a strong business in Denmark.
In 2016, we redefined our vision to become a Northern European leader and identified five countries outside of Denmark that we wanted to build a Netcompany presence in: Finland, Sweden, Norway, U.K., and the Netherlands. As of today, we are present in the latter three of those countries. We have grown to more than 3,500 employees, and we are making our inroads into the Swedish market also. We are facing an unprecedented exciting time in Europe, where all societies are now accelerating and understanding the value of digitalization. By digitizing Europe responsibly, we fundamentally change societies, businesses, and the way we live our lives for the better. More and more investments will be made into digitalization in each of the member states within the EU, and in addition, the EU will fund and support a significant and substantial investment program over the coming 5-10 years.
We see this as a great time to take the next natural step for Netcompany and raise our ambition to become the European market leader within digitalization and expand our impact. Before I discuss the rationale for acquiring Intrasoft and creating a major contender to the IT throne in Europe, I want to set the scene for the market potential in Europe for the coming decade. Can we go to the next slide, please? The core addressable market for the 12 countries shown here is more than DKK 450 billion in 2021. For the remaining markets within the EU, the core addressable market is DKK 90 billion, so a total market of more than DKK 540 billion per year.
In addition, on top of this already vast and almost incomprehensibly large market opportunity, the EU has recently announced its Recovery and Resilience Facility of more than DKK 5,300 billion for the coming five years, of which 20% will be earmarked to digitalization initiatives in the member states. Our assessment of the current market dynamics is that there is a clear opportunity now and the coming two to three years to establish Netcompany as the company that will be driving much of that digitalization throughout all of Europe. To do so, we need a broader presence within the EU and presence in more member states, just as we need additional platforms to accelerate our growth on the full European market. Which leads me to the next slide, our rationale for acquiring Intrasoft. Can we have the next slide, please?
By acquiring Intrasoft, we believe that we are creating a credible and trustworthy company that can target all of Europe and the EU in addition. We will be in the leading position within the EU based on Intrasoft's strong presence in a number of the large EU directorates. At the same time, we establish a presence in a number of new countries within the EU, most notably Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, and of course, Greece. In addition, we add stronger presence into a number of countries where we in Netcompany are already present and where Intrasoft also have operations. All this to be delivered into both the EU and the public institutions in the individual countries utilizing our GovTech Framework that will be significantly improved with this acquisition.
Another attraction with Intrasoft is their strong presence within the telco, banking, and utility verticals. Intrasoft's recent parent company, Intracom, was originally founded out of telco, Intrasoft has over the last decade established a banking platform and is currently known as a local market leader within utility solutions, too. Summing up, by acquiring Intrasoft, we become better positioned and strengthened to play a vital role in helping European governments, businesses, and institutions in their efforts to take the full advantage of digitization. Intrasoft now becoming a part of Netcompany means that we together have more innovative platforms, more competencies, and a wider presence throughout Europe. I am confident that we will play a prominent role in creating and shaping the necessary digital transition that Europe will have to go through in the coming decade. Can we have the next slide, please?
Before I hand over to Alex to tell you more about Intrasoft, let me just spend a few more minutes on elaborating on the attractiveness we see in the acquisition and why the combination with Netcompany makes a lot of strategic sense. Intrasoft is currently known as a top-three IT service provider in terms of size and reach within the EU. This position comes from a history of more than 20 years of relationship within the EU and a large number of projects delivered. In addition, the backlog with EU institutions is large and increasing as a testimony to Intrasoft's quality deliveries and valuable relationships within the EU. The relation into the EU is a strategic important access point to Netcompany and the combined group.
The combination of Netcompany's GovTech Framework and Intrasoft's strong platforms within customs, tax, and social security will create a unique position for the group to pursue further growth within the EU. We believe the timing is right for us to make this acquisition now, as it significantly increases our combined reach into the EU and also allows us to tender for the projects to be funded under the RRF, as previously mentioned. The platforms, both in the public sector and equally important in the private sector, will combine with Netcompany's own platforms, not only generate a leading platform in the public sector, but will also generate strong foundations with platforms within telco, banking, airports, and more verticals to follow in the private segment.
The platform in the private segment brought to the group from the acquisition will accelerate the current work of completing the Netcompany platform framework for private sector, along the lines of the current successful offering for the public sector, which we have called the GovTech Framework. The competencies brought together with this acquisition and the geographical reach of the combined group place us in a favorable position, both from the geographical perspective and from the capability and platforms perspectives, to expand our presence to all of Europe, including the DACH region. I will now pass it over to Alex Manos, the CEO of Intrasoft, to give an introduction to the company he's currently leading and that he will continue to lead. If we turn to the next slide, please. The word is yours, Alex, please.
Thank you, Andr é , and a good morning to all from me as well. Intrasoft was established over 25 years ago in Luxembourg in order to address what we expected then would be a strong demand for IT services by the EU institutions. Since then, the company has been growing year-over-year, expanding its range of IT offerings from custom software development for some of the most mission-critical systems at the heart of Europe, such as customs and taxation, to offering managed IT services to the tens of thousands of EU Commission and Parliament employees, information communication services, expert consulting, among others. The key to success was, and still is, high-quality software and services achieved through adherence to the most effective and advanced methodologies, attraction of the best talent, and the continuous willingness to evolve and innovate.
At the same time, the company led the first wave of digitalization of the Greek public administration, undertaking some of the most complex and forward-looking projects in key ministries. In the enterprise sector, our focus was initially telco, but has evolved into utilities and banking, too. The company has since expanded and is now present in 13 countries, offering its products and solutions for the public and enterprise sectors around the world, with its main focus in Europe. In 2020, we reached approximately EUR 200 million in revenue, with EUR 18 million in EBITDA, and as recently as June 30, our order backlog reached EUR 900 million. Can we have the next slide, please? Today, we are focused in three market segments and organized in three business units across all geographies. The European institutions, public sector, and the enterprise sector.
The heart of our European Institutions business is in Luxembourg and Brussels, from where we serve the Commission, the Parliament, and a continuously growing number of agencies around Europe, like the European Union Intellectual Property Office, the European Medicines Agency, and the European Chemicals Agency, among many others. We have a large and strong employee base in Greece that complements our Benelux-based development force for the EU Institutions, putting the latest technologies to work for large trans-governmental and geographically dispersed systems. We have recently also been growing our information communications business significantly, where we support the Commission and the agencies to promote their programs and work to the European citizens through digital and other means. In the public sector, we are proud to say that we are the main partner of the Greek administration for IT systems.
We have implemented the key systems for the Ministries of Finance, including customs and taxation, Ministry of Labor, the social security system, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Justice, the government clouds, the e-procurement system, among many others. At the same time, we have undertaken similar large-scale projects in the south of Europe too. In recent years, we have begun to export the combined know-how and subject matter expertise that we have acquired over the years through delivering large-scale systems in key public sector areas, such as customs or taxation, in a set of offerings and platforms. Based on these platforms, we can bring best practices to governments around Europe and the region, customizing them only to the extent needed locally and greatly accelerating their digital transformation and enhancement of the services they offer to their public.
Together with Netcompany, we are already implementing such projects in Denmark related to customs, while similar opportunities are materializing in other countries as well. In enterprise solutions, we have experienced rapid growth in the past five, six years, focusing mostly in the banking, telco, and utilities areas. We offer the development of large solutions that enable our customers' businesses, our banking product, and a suite of solutions around it, as well as system integration services and analytics. In many cases, we combine products and know-how from different areas to develop large-scale novel solutions. One recent example of what this actually means is with our core banking software, with solutions for onboarding, acquiring, billing, and so forth, that has been used to build a complete e-wallet solution for a major telco that wants to enter the payments arena. Can we have the next slide, please?
Our current main product portfolio includes ERMIS, our platform for customs, encompassing over 20 years of know-how from Taxud and multiple customers around Europe, including the Netherlands, U.K., and Greece, among others. ICARUS, our platform for revenue collection and taxpayer compliance, encompassing our experience from systems deployed in, among others, Denmark, Greece, and a number of non-European countries. PERSEUS, a configurable and functionally complete Social Security product designed to fully automate the business processes within a Social Security organization. INTRASOFT Compliance, a risk management platform that can combine rules-based knowledge and predictive analytic models with the experience and expertise of key personnel. This product has been sold either standalone or as part of a revenue management, customs, or Social Security system to over 35 customers worldwide.
Last but not least, PROFITS, our mature core banking platform that has been continuously evolving over the past 20 years, offering the security, quality, resilience, and scalability required from the biggest traditional bank to the smallest new EMI. Can we go to the next slide, please? As André said, I will talk to our home market, Greece, which I will do now. Right now is a great period for Greece, as it is becoming a part of the big digitalization wave that is gaining momentum in Europe. Greece was the second member state within the EU to submit its Digital Transformation Bible to the European Commission, a well-thought-out and documented blueprint for the complete overhaul of the public administration IT systems.
The approved program, funded fully by the EU, is EUR 2.77 billion, and it has started unfolding and is expected to reach its full size within the coming three to five years. As the leading provider and trusted partner of the Greek administration for IT, Intrasoft is well-placed to undertake a large part of this digital transformation effort, having already been part of the consultation and planning phases. Intrasoft's market position and product portfolio, when combined with Netcompany's GovTech platform and experience in leading the modernization of the most advanced country in IT worldwide, Denmark, is expected to act as a catalyst for the rapid and successful digital transformation of the Greek public administration.
I personally am a strong believer in the incredible value that is created from the combination of these two companies and look forward to achieving the ambition for Europe that André set out at the beginning of this presentation. This concludes my presentation of Intrasoft, and I will hand over the word to Netcompany CFO, Thomas Johansen.
Thank you for that, Alex. If we move to the next slide, please, slide number 12. Thanks. The acquisition of Intrasoft will be structured primarily as a cash transaction with a small proportion of the purchase price to be paid in the means of Netcompany shares. The cash element of the transaction, before adjusting for net debt, is EUR 217 million or DKK 1.62 billion. The share element is EUR 18 million or DKK 134 million. A total enterprise value of EUR 235 million or DKK 1.75 billion on a net debt-free basis. The cash element of the transaction has been secured with a combination of existing credit lines and an acquisition bridge loan of DKK 1.2 billion, and our leverage will be well within the current covenant. The Netcompany shares to be delivered will be taken from the pool of treasury shares.
Before the transaction, the company owns around 950,000 treasury shares, and the treasury shares to be delivered in connection with the transaction is around 200,000 shares, depending naturally on the share price at completion. The impact from the acquisition on Netcompany's financial performance is dependent on the timing of the closing of the transaction. We will naturally comment on the financial impact on the 2021 financial performance once the transaction is completed. Intrasoft will continue to operate its current business as a standalone unit within the Netcompany Group of companies. That also implies that the aspirations that were communicated for the Netcompany Group before this acquisition remains unchanged. Can we have the next slide, please? Based on 2020 numbers for the two groups, the joint financial profile of the new Netcompany Group is shown here.
Revenue would be DKK 4.3 billion, and this is still 2020 numbers, with adjusted EBITDA of DKK 944 million and adjusted EBITA of DKK 844 million. The group would employ more than 6,000 employees and be present in a number of European countries as well as some countries outside of Europe. Revenue from Denmark would be roughly half of the group's total revenue, with Belgium and Luxembourg, which is mainly EU-related, to constitute 18% of revenue and Greece to constitute around 11% of revenue. Roughly 2/3 of the group's revenue would be public sector, including the EU, and the remaining part of the revenue would be private sector. Can we have the next slide, please?
Taking a closer look at the contribution to the financial profile of Netcompany that this acquisition has, we note that Intrasoft adds more than 50% to the group's revenue, with almost doubling the FTE count, which is increased by 2,820 or 87%. Again, this is based on 2020 numbers. These two financial metrics also indicates that Intrasoft has a different financial profile than Netcompany. Looking at margins, Intrasoft add DKK 134 million in EBITDA and brings total EBITDA to DKK 944 million. In the current Netcompany financial reporting, we have not been reporting on EBITDA levels since we have had no capitalized R&D cost for own developed software. Intrasoft, on the other hand, have capitalized software related to their own developed software solutions and platforms following the criterias set out in IFRS 15.
When looking at adjusted EBITA, Intrasoft adds another 13%, bringing the 2020 adjusted EBITA to DKK 844 million on a pro forma basis. We will continue to report on both the "old Netcompany" and the combined Netcompany group for a period of time to allow for continued transparency of the financial performance of the "old part of Netcompany" and the new Netcompany group. Can we move to the next slide, please? As already mentioned a couple of times during this presentation, our ambition is for the current Intrasoft business to continue as is on a standalone basis and to deliver new and joint projects together based on Netcompany methodology. A company with the size of Intrasoft already has its own procedures, its own methods, and career plans that will not be easily integrated into the Netcompany methodology.
Hence, Intrasoft needs to be able to create value on current offerings on a standalone basis. Going forward, we believe that the acquisition will add new and exciting projects within both the EU and across member countries in Europe. On a day-to-day basis, Alex will remain the CEO of the Intrasoft group, and André will clearly remain Group CEO of Netcompany. Can we go to the next slide, please? To sum it all up, we firmly believe that the acquisition of Intrasoft will generate a strong and leading player within digitalization of Europe. We believe we can gain significant market share based on our combined offerings and domain knowledge. We believe that we will be playing a leading role in the digitalization of Europe in the coming decade, both in the public and in the private area. With that, we have concluded our presentation.
If we move to the next slide, we will open up the call for questions.
Thank you. If you do wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing zero two to cancel. Our first question comes from the line of George Webb from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Morning, André, Thomas, and also to Alex, and congratulations on announcing this deal.
I have a few different questions, please. Firstly, on the financials. Just on the financial profile of Intrasoft, looking back at its history, it has been a little bit inconsistent in terms of growth year to year, and profitability has also tended to be a bit lower considering the part of the market they are focusing on. I guess a few questions around the financial side. What proportion of Intrasoft's revenue would you consider to be digital? What, in your view, is driving the relatively low level of gross margin profitability considering the work they are involved in? On a forward-looking basis, what is the financial framework around growth and margins you expect from Intrasoft? Secondly, can you just discuss a little bit about how you see the cultural fit of Intrasoft within the broader group?
Lastly, you mentioned that Intrasoft will continue to operate on a relatively standalone basis. On the Netcompany side, what's the reasoning for that standalone strategy over a deeper integration? Thank you.
Thanks, George. I'll kick out with the initial question you asked on the financial profile. Overall, Intrasoft and what kind of revenue Intrasoft has generated being digital. On a broad scale, Intrasoft is generating digital solutions, and revenue is what we would label as in the digital segment. The profile of Intrasoft, for various reasons, is different that of Netcompany. There's a different profile in terms of staffing, where the proportion of independent contractors, especially within the EU, is higher than what we historically see. There are some tax reasons for that, which is a normal way of working within the EU. Apart from that, the performance of Intrasoft has been stable over the last four or five years. It's been steadily growing, and it's been adding significant amount of backlog into the order backlog, particularly within the EU institutions.
That backlog represents a fair amount of sticky business to be executed on going forward. I think on the cultural fit, I'll leave that to André.
Sure. Well, when it comes to cultural fit, what is great about it is that we are both technology companies, and we have a lot of really great engineers and technology people there which share technology vision. Having that said, there's also a reason why we do this on a standalone basis, and that's because Intrasoft is actually a quite large company with great platforms that they have been building for many years. What we will focus on is the window of opportunity there is in Europe to gain market share and deliver new projects together as the one we see us delivering actually in Denmark, for instance.
We will go out together with platforms both from Intrasoft and Netcompany and build new systems together, and hence, we will of course, get closer in those projects and use the Netcompany methodology on those engagements, and slowly but surely integrate that way. We will not spend a lot of time on internal matters trying to push in culture from Netcompany to the large Greek development parts, because that's basically not our focus at the moment. Our focus is to go out and take market share. I think the platforms we're going to build on, that Alex mentioned, are actually very well fit to do that. That's how we're going to go around it. I hope that answers your question.
That's very helpful. Actually, just one follow-up one, maybe for Thomas on your side. You mentioned non-core assets potential to be disposed of. What sort of magnitude is that? Is that a small piece of the pie, or anything more big?
That is, George, a small piece of the pie. As you look, and I'll loop Alex in also, as you look at the Intrasoft business, there are areas which is not core Europe. That's some of the things that we will look at in the future. That's not something that has been carved out or decided or whatever. That's something we'll look at together with Alex and the management team in Intrasoft. I also wanted to give Alex just a few words on the cultural fit and the experiences that Alex has with Intrasoft and working together with Netcompany.
Thanks, Thomas. I think the way we work together is really one of the main drivers of this decision here. We've known each other for about four years now. We have been deploying large-scale projects, tens if not hundreds of people involved. We have found a very nice match where we, in the projects that we cooperated, we brought our own product. The project team is led by Netcompany. We add expertise where needed. I'm beyond comfortable with the culture. It's been great. We've worked with many partners around Europe and around the world. Sometimes the communication is better, sometimes it's worse. With Netcompany, it's just been steadily good. We have managed to work through difficult situations with the customer. We have managed to run our projects efficiently.
My teams that have been working with Netcompany have always had real appreciation, which is really difficult when you are talking about developers and engineers, right? Usually everybody thinks they are better than the other. With Netcompany, I think we found a natural partner, and I am very comfortable about moving out to Europe and winning new customers and delivering together.
That's very helpful. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Claus Almer from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Yeah, I have two questions. I will do it one by one. The first is about the future delivery model. How will you actually structure this? As Intrasoft will be operated as a standalone business, will Netcompany transfer existing employees to Intrasoft? A part of this question is also, is there structural reason why Intrasoft's lower revenue per employee compared to Netcompany? That'll be the first question.
Well, when it comes to the future delivery model, we will not transfer employees into the Intrasoft. What will happen is, as Alex also described, we will deliver projects together, which we already have been done. It has been done for three to four years. We will staff them accordingly, depending on which platforms we will use and how we will do that on a particular new customer. In regards to your second question.
On the structural part of revenue per employee, just like within Netcompany Group, Claus, we also have a little bit of a different revenue per employee from one unit to the other. It's true that revenue per employee in the Intrasoft group is lower than what it is in Netcompany. To a certain extent, it has to do with how existing businesses and existing projects are being delivered, which will be for joint new projects in another model. One thing is the past, and then the future will, for joint models, look different.
Okay, maybe a follow-up on this. One of the strengths of Netcompany has been a smooth delivery of the orders that has been won over the last number of years. How has Intrasoft done in the past? Have we seen a same smooth delivery? How do you make sure that this fast-growing backlog do not involve any larger risk of larger losses?
As was discussed during the presentation, a very big part of this backlog comes from framework agreements with the European institutions. That is business that the company has been running for the past 25 years. We are within the top three companies, one of the most experienced ones, and I'm happy and proud to say that we have never failed a project there. These projects are framework contracts. They run for a number of years, up to five years, six years. They employ very big teams, which for us, they're teams that come from all different places. Part of it can be in Brussels, part of it in Luxembourg, part of it in Greece, part of it in Romania. We just staff the teams appropriately in order to be able to deliver the project.
The quality standards that you need to meet in order to be a supplier in the European institutions are extremely high. The process is very meticulous. The difficulty and the customer is a knowledgeable customer, a demanding customer, and he is also serving a number of member states, right? The pressure has always been there to be able to deliver on time, to deliver on quality, and to deliver on price. That is the experience that we have managed to transfuse to our entire organization, be it in the public administration or in the enterprise sector. This is the type and this is the way we deliver our projects. Actually, this is the brand that we managed to build, that we are solid. We will deliver. Yeah.
That sounds pretty reassuring. It has been a fantastic journey in your backlog, at least. Can you provide a bit of color to the timing of the backlog? Should we expect revenue to progress in the same speed as your backlog? That'll be my final question.
Yeah. On the backlog and on the future outlook, Claus, you'll not be surprised that our comment to that is that we will not really comment on that now since we're not guiding for what the impact on the transaction is going to be on Netcompany now in 2021 as of yet, but also not in 2022 and onwards. However, though, a good part of the backlog is within the coming one to three, four years. A part of the backlog is on a more longer term, which is five, six, seven years, like Alex also alluded to. Also, as Alex mentioned, the backlog on Intrasoft at the beginning of the year, close to EUR 700 million, has grown to EUR 900 million as of 30th of June.
Clearly, when we have been discussing with Intrasoft and part of the work that we have done in our due diligence has been related to verifying the quality of the backlog. As Alex said, the backlog in the EU is more on a framework agreement perspective. Naturally, that spurred some interest on us because clearly in Denmark, a framework agreement is not a guaranteed revenue. However, the EU works differently, and like it or not, but the EU works on a more cash budget perspective. Whatever is in a given directorate as a budget, they will spend. If they don't spend it, they will lose it, and then they will have a lower budget the year after.
What we have done to feel comfortable that the backlog is truly a backlog that we can substantiate, is that we've went all the way back to 2012 and then done detailed analysis on how much of backlog in a given year have subsequently been realized into revenue. That analysis shows from 2012 till 2020, a realization of between 98% and 105% between different customers. Backlog is really backlog, and it's both short, medium, but also long-term, without going into more detail on that, and I'm sure you can appreciate that.
That is just perfect. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from the line of Frederic Boulan from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question, too, if I may. First of all, around the synergy approach, is the opportunity primarily around revenue upsell, and trying to leverage the relationship that Intrasoft has with you, and try to apply the GovTech model there? Or is there also an angle around the cost and the fact that some of the Intrasoft very large employee base will also be used to solve some of the freelance issues that Netcompany legacy business have been facing? Secondly, if you could come back on this point on margin differential. You mentioned contractor use being a driver of that. Should we assume this is a structural feature that will stay with you ?
Can you explain why if contractors are more expensive, leading to a lower margin, why was it not reflected in the absolute revenue profitability that you extract on those contracts? Any color there would be very useful. Thank you.
When it comes to the synergies, first and foremost, I think one has to realize that going into a market like the European market, that goes for any country, actually also Denmark, where we've been for 21 years, it is extremely important to be relevant. Coming with components, something that is prefabricated or pre-tested, something that can be shown or demoed. Platforms are becoming the thing. Whereas before it was all about very standardized software products, platforms and ways in to start being productive fast is the key. Also we see countries sharing experiences in a way we've never seen before. We have both private companies, but also governments sharing experiences and platforms. Actually, I'd say almost half of the wins Netcompany has experienced over the last one, two years has been based on this platform approach.
Acquiring Intrasoft and bringing in those things that we were missing in the GovTech Framework. Together, we really comprise almost every aspect of a modern government, and we also comprise a lot of private verticals. We will work on those sales synergies first, and then we will deliver, as we already started to do before this acquisition, we will deliver project by project, customer by customer, more and more deliveries within the same way we've been delivering Netcompany projects throughout the 21 years. Will that yield satisfactory customers, and also will that yield employees who know the Netcompany methodology and how we do things together as we're already doing on some projects? Yes. It will be driven by customer by customer, country by country sales. It will be the customer's engagements that will drive this.
Slowly but surely, we will merge more and more into the same culture. That will take time because we will do it customer by customer, and it is the sales synergy and the platforms that will drive that. I think the window of opportunity to do that is perfect at the moment. When it comes to this margin structural thing.
Yeah. There's a question on the margin, which was also a little bit on the question that George had earlier. We cannot comment too deeply on what our expectations is and what our guidance is for how this transaction will impact the business going forward. Clearly, when you look at the numbers, and if you just do it on a face value, it will have a dilutive impact on margins. However, it will have a accretive impact on reported revenue. I think it's important also to remember that in the IT services business in general, the operate or the margin, as shown in the market, is typically around 10%-15%. In that aspect, we're not overly concerned with the performance of Intrasoft. Actually, on the contrary. We are on Netcompany, especially Netcompany Denmark, standing out on a fairly unique position there.
Remember that when we compare margins. Like André said, this is not really a transaction which is driven by cost synergies or whatever. This is a transaction which is driven by generating the leading player in Europe, which means that the pie that we're going to be taking and the share we're going to be taking is going to be significantly increased, which will lead to also a potential good impact on our earnings. We'll leave it there on that, and it's not possible for us to comment too much more on the margins. Apologies for that.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Poul Jessen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. I have two questions. First of all, Alex, maybe I have missed it, but I was just wondering, if I look at history for several years, Intrasoft has not been growing on the reported group top line. Can you comment something about has there been a mix shift below the group line or why has there not been growth towards 2019 and then suddenly it takes off? Has there been a change in the way you work or company focus or whatever? Thank you.
Yeah. I'll start here and Alex can chip in. Just like with our business, there are some lumpiness in terms of when big contracts are won and when they are ramped up and ramped down. Some big contracts have had a significant impact on revenues in one year and then being delivered, and there's a little bit of a relative slower growth in another year. That is also what's been the case in Intrasoft. I think the more important thing is to look at what the pipeline in and what the backlog looks at, Poul. Sure, there's been some fluctuations, and we can also find some time in the Netcompany story where there's been some fluctuation, and that is also what has happened in Intrasoft.
Alex can give a little more clout to it without going into specific details on the last five years, but just the overall seasonality or what you've seen, Alex.
If I may comment. If I may comment, if you look at the backlog, there's been no growth from 2014 to 2019, and then it takes off. If you take revenue, of course it's lumpy, but revenue has more or less been flattish. If I compare to you have had lumpiness, but you've had growth, steady growth, strong growth for many years. Here it's been flattish. How is the business actually structured? That's then to you, Alex.
You are saying that the backlog has been flat from 2014 to I'm not sure where you're getting this. If I can comment, if I can build on what Thomas was saying before. Of course, the EU market, which is a big part of our revenue, is a market where every five or seven years you have big contracts being reissued. Being able to win one of these very big contracts changes your profile significantly. Okay. Our focus has been to make sure we always maintain the big contracts we had and continuously strive to win new ones. I am going to say one detail, and I don't know if Thomas is going to shoot me for this, but as a matter of fact, our revenue has been growing year-over-year.
There is a time, I think, in 2018, where a certain amount of through revenue for partners stopped being recognized, and that was about DKK 13 million. If you adjust for that one way or the other, we have been demonstrating steady revenue growth year-over-year. Not the amazing 20% my friends have been achieving, but a significant amount for our business.
Just to be certain, if I look at the Intracom report and take the segment for Intrasoft International, those numbers given there, are that not numbers that we can actually use? Because then growth has been -6, -2, -1, and then suddenly it's growing in 2019 and 2020 quite well.
I'm not sure what you're looking at. Sorry.
The revenue numbers that you can use, Poul, is the one that we have added in the appendix, and they are audited for Intrasoft, and we can issue you audited reports if you doubt that. The revenue that's there is EUR 169 growing to EUR 178, growing to EUR 197.3. Those are the numbers.
Okay. My second question is on your slide 15 with the joint efforts. Of course, you have two operations here. One is Netcompany and the other one is Intrasoft. You talk about joint efforts. How should we think about if you win a contract for X or Y in the future? Should we see that as being Intrasoft, and then assuming Intrasoft margins, or will it be done by a Netcompany mindset and thereby on a Netcompany profitability? How should we look at that looking forward?
Well, our aim is to win projects exactly as we are doing at the moment together and drive that more and more through Netcompany methodologies. Now, it will not happen overnight. There will, of course, also be things that Intrasoft is delivering now and will be prolonged the way they deliver it now with the people they have involved there now. Our focus will be on winning large-scale mission-critical systems, and that we will deliver together as we see it already happening. That will be done with Netcompany management, done by the Netcompany methodology, and hence also the results we normally see in a Netcompany project. It will be a transition because we will not go in and take over and all the entire Intrasoft engagements right now and start putting in Netcompany management on those.
We will continue those the way they work because they're actually delivering high quality on many of these projects, and especially in the EU institutions, a continuous long flow of deliveries. We will concentrate on winning new stuff, and deliver that together in the way that we've seen Netcompany deliver for the last 21 years. Hope that answers your question?
A good example of that, Poul, is the example that Alex also mentioned in his presentation. The project we currently do together within Customs in Denmark, that is a joint project. That is reported currently in our books in the public sector. It is yielding satisfactory margins. That is the approach we will have, and that is what we mean with joint. It's also just important for us to say that Intrasoft is a company which has a bigger size. Therefore, like André is alluding to, this is not just something which will happen overnight.
That's why it's important that current business will continue as is. That does mean that we will not, of course, talk to each other and help each other, because of course we will. The underlying assumption is that it will continue as is, then we'll see what we can do to help each other. Then all new projects, exciting projects in EU, in public sector, and private sector for that matter, will be joint efforts. I hope that answers the question.
Yeah, partly. We can take that later on. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Yiw ei Zhou from SEB. Please go ahead.
Hi, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my question. I have three here. Firstly, maybe could you talk a little bit about the labor market in Greece and then Benelux? We see Intrasoft has used a high level of subcontractors. Is it fair to assume there is a larger labor shortage in these markets?
Do you want to ask all questions or you want to go one by one?
I'll go one by one. Sorry.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The large number of freelancers is actually in Belgium and Luxembourg. It is not in the Greek market. In the Greek market, there is a strong demand, as with most IT markets in Europe or the planet, but there is still a good supply.
Okay. Then how about the Benelux market?
The Benelux market?
Yeah. Do you find a challenge in labor shortage here?
If I had to compare in Belgium, I think we're doing pretty well in finding people. In Luxembourg, it may be a little bit tougher. Really talking about the conditions, given the COVID situation of the last year and a half, I think that will need to sort of settle down and to see how the governments will treat it because as you know, in Luxembourg and Belgium, a lot of people drive in from other countries. The supply-demand thing needs to settle down a bit over the coming months, years, if everything goes well COVID-wise, and then we'll be able to really have a picture. Right now, any resources we need to find, we find. I'm not saying they're sitting outside our door, but we find them.
Great. Very clear. My second question here, maybe to André. You mentioned to address the large potential with the European Commission, you need to have more presence in more markets. Is it fair to assume this acquisition would be only the beginning? And do you see need to acquire more companies or have a foothold in more markets here?
It's fair to say that as we also said in 2020 at our Capital Markets Day, we have the strategy of either growing organically, which we are continuously, of course, do in many of our markets. We can now buy a small company and try and change it to a Netcompany, which we spent some time on, as you know, both in Norway and Netherlands and U.K. The final leg in our strategy was presented at Capital Markets Day 2020 was to acquire companies that can give us platforms and use those platforms, just like we do with the airport platform that we invested in 1 and a half year ago. Use the platform itself to go into a vertical or a customer and do a sell and do a project and a maintenance and operational phase with that customer.
This is definitely something that is filling out more and more of our sales strategies across our markets. We see that happening more and more. When we approach customers, we'd almost always come with some sort of platform or something that is there. I think that will continue that development. When looking into potential growth in the future, we'll definitely also look into that third leg of our strategy, acquiring more platform companies. Yes.
Okay, great. Thanks. Third, my last question here is on a competitive landscape. Maybe you could add a bit on the, you mentioned you are a top three company. Could you maybe add a bit of color here? Especially with the European.
You're asking about the competitors mainly within the EU?
The institutions.
Yeah, exactly.
EU institutions is a very interesting market, given its size. You would expect to see most IT names that you know in that market. It is also a quite healthy market. It is over EUR 1 billion per year that is spent in IT. We have consistently managed to be within the top three. Is your question who are the other two, or? The other two, they alternate. Atos is quite strong there. NTT Everis has been gaining significant ground in the past few years, while some others that used to be much bigger are shrinking or exiting, like Unisys from the U.S. If you ask me today who the biggest ones are, I would say Atos, and then it is us, and maybe Everis, NTT Everis.
Perfect. Very clear. Thanks. I'll jump back to the queue.
The next question comes from the line of Balajee Tirupati from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Balajee, this is Thomas. We cannot hear your question, Balajee.
Sorry. I was saying that in terms of Intrasoft's own midterm financial ambitions, the parent company, Intracom, has stated in its annual report an expectation of mid to long-term revenue growth rate of 6%-8% and EBITDA margin of 8%-10%. Will that be a fair number to work with? The next one.
Sure. We don't have any meaningful comments on the guidance for the future, Balajee. The transaction is not completed as of yet. We expect it to complete in Q4. Once complete, we will update our impact or the impact on the 2021 books, and then we will also, at one point in time, look at what we expect from 2022 and onwards. The short to medium-term guidance, I'm not going to comment on at this point in time.
Sure. In terms of, again, the business acquisition of Intrasoft, margins are on the lower side. Would it be fair to assume that there'll be some effort going into ramping up the margin? Should we be and try to consolidate your footprint as well? We're thinking about material structuring exercises in the app space.
Yeah. Like André started saying in the call, what we really find appealing and attractive of this acquisition is not so much driven by cost synergies. It's more driven by the potential of the reach that we will get into Europe. The transaction and the synergies are going to be top line. Of course, when we do projects together, those projects that we do together will have a better financial performance. That is not the main attractiveness of this transaction. It will come as we grow. Right now, we just get a phenomenal opportunity to have much more access towards EU institutions, towards member states within the EU, and also to private institutions throughout Europe by utilizing the reach that Intrasoft comes with, the frameworks and the solutions, and then combining them with Netcompany capabilities and frameworks.
Very clear. Thank you.
We have just one final question from Gianmarco Conti from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, André and Thomas and Alex. Thank you for taking my questions. I only have a few here, quite short ones. One is just around the contractors. I recall roughly the average number previously from Netcompany was on a normalized period of roughly 40. I was wondering how much higher will that go now that you have also Intrasoft into consideration as sort of a normalized level. The second question is around the GovTech Framework. You mentioned previously would be significantly improved with this acquisition. Could you perhaps share a little bit color on how? Is there some sort of integration with their own platform that is quite similar to yours? Just a final question around pricing differentials. Is there much of a pricing differential with Netcompany and Intrasoft with regards to public contract tenders?
Could that also be a slight cause of the low margins on top of course, the higher number of freelancers? Thank you.
When it comes to level of contractors, as you know, in some of our countries, for instance, in the U.K., we've spent some time getting the level of contractors down. Now, when it comes to the level of contractors for Intrasoft delivering, and Alex, you can actually allude to this if you want, but we need them at the moment delivering those things. Selling new engagements where we deliver by the Netcompany methodology, we will not use a lot of contractors. Of course, existing contracts where we use contractors at the moment, we will continue that and those customers. When it comes to the GovTech Framework, there's no doubt that many of the solutions that Alex went through in the presentations are actually a very good complement to our GovTech Framework itself.
Of course, you need to look especially into Tax and Customs, where I think the product suite is very well developed and adheres to European standards, and we are using it. They are using it already in various countries, and we will be using it together. Finally, when it comes to pricing differentials, I have to say, depending on which customers you approach and which projects, there is a market for this, and there is one price, basically, and that's the competitive price. In some countries, prices are a bit higher. In some countries, they're a bit lower. When it comes to the EU in general, there is a certain price for types of systems, and these systems are quite complex. Depending on the geography, of course, some prices can go up.
In Norway, it's more expensive to build IT systems than it is in Poland or in Czechia or wherever. Many of these systems are very complex in nature. They're extremely important for both countries and governments, and so they are large engagements by default. I think that's as close I can get to it.
Fair enough. Thank you.
As there are no further audio questions, I will hand it back to the speakers for closing remarks.
Well, thank you, gentlemen, and hope you have a nice day and a nice weekend.
This concludes our conference call. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect your lines.