Welcome to Netcompany Group A/S interim report for the first nine months of 2022. 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 the CEO, André Rogaczewski, and CFO, Thomas Johansen. Please begin your meeting.
Good day, and welcome to this presentation of Netcompany's results for the third quarter of 2022. 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. Before we get going, there are some important disclosures that I need you to read through, so could we have slide number two, please? I'll pause here for 30 seconds and let you all have a read-through of these important disclosures. Number three, please. The topic of today's presentation is our performance in the third quarter of 2022. I will walk you through the business highlights for the third quarter, and I will also go through our revenue visibility and our financial guidance for 2022.
In addition, I will give an update on employee-related topics and the development we see in these. Once I'm done, Thomas will go through the numbers in greater details before we open the call for questions. Can we have the next slide, please? Q3 has been a busy quarter for us in Netcompany. We've continued to deliver projects to existing customers, and we have signed a number of new contracts, of which I will mention a few here. We have made an agreement with a global pharmaceutical company to develop a supply chain solution with a number of interesting perspectives, not only in relation to the given company but also on a more general basis as the solution will be based on a reusable platform.
In Denmark, we've won a contract with the company operating all parts of the value chain, including the payment processing for the public transportation undertaking by individual persons. The objective is to develop a new and more future-proof solution in line with a solution known from example in the UK, where travels are paid in real time with a credit or debit card. In addition to the two contracts in the private segment, we've also won contracts in the public segment in Denmark. The contracts are with the Danish Medicines Agency and the Danish Tax Agency, and both contracts are renewal of existing contracts, supporting our strong foundation of long contract relations in Denmark. In the Netherlands, we've won a contract with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management to renew and maintain a large part of their large and complex digital critical infrastructure over the next seven years.
Clearly an indication to us that we are progressing in the right direction in the Netherlands. Further, we have continued to strengthen our presence with existing customers in both the public and private sector in the rest of Netcompany Core. Can we have the next slide, please? In Netcompany-Intrasoft, we have continued the strong momentum from the first half of 2022 and signed a number of new names in Q3. The projects are shown here and cover both projects won in Greece and in the EU. The common denominator of these projects is that they are all enhancing the level of digitization within different parts of the public administration. In addition, we continue to see increased interest for the solutions and platforms that Netcompany-Intrasoft has developed, both within tax and customs, but also within the area of social security, telco, and banking.
Can we have the next slide, please? As of Q3 2022, our group consists of more than 7,000 employees. Netcompany Core accounts for 3,952 employees, and Netcompany-Intrasoft accounts for 3,088 employees. We've added new employees in all of our markets, apart from the Netherlands, where we are in the middle of a major turnaround. Our expectation going forward is to continue to add employees in all markets, including the Netherlands. In the first half of 2022, we observed higher level of sickness in the Danish and Norwegian part of the company. While there was no clear indication as to the reason for this, we noted that we would expect the level of sickness to decline during Q3, which is also what happened.
In both Denmark and Norway, sickness levels declined and are close to the historic sickness levels observed, which naturally is an important development as it supports our analysis that the increased level of sickness was not related to the general working environment in Netcompany but related to externally given factors. In addition, we concluded our annual employee satisfaction survey in Netcompany Core during the month of September. The results hereof further support that our employees continue to be very satisfied with working in Netcompany, and the overall score actually increased by 2% compared to 2021. A third very important metric for Netcompany related to the employees is our churn ratios. When looking at the 12 months rolling churn rates, we are seeing these to be increasing, which has been the case for the last couple of quarters.
The reason for this is, as previously discussed, that the 12 months rolling number. Actually also includes periods of the high activity in the labor market post-COVID-19. More than an indicator of an inability to retain talented employees. Therefore, it is also important to take the last three months rolling churn rates into consideration when analyzing whether churn is trending where we want it to trend. In looking at the last three months rolling churn, we note that churn indeed is coming down to levels in line with pre-COVID. For Denmark, the churn rate is down to 16.8%, and for Norway, we also note a big drop from 35% 12 months rolling to 21.2% based on the last three months. We see the same patterns in Netcompany-Intrasoft.
The only entity where we have increasing churn rates is in the Netherlands, which is a natural and deliberate consequence of the ongoing turnaround of that organization. Hence, the overall conclusion on churn is that we are trending down towards normal levels exactly as we have been expecting. Can we have the next slide, please? Performance in the different countries in Netcompany Core were strong in all entities compared to Q3 2021. In addition, margin improvement was strong compared to the recent Q2 2022 results, as expected and supporting our full year targets. Revenue growth in Denmark was 14.4%, supported by strong demand in the public segment and continued demand in the private segment. Our pipeline in Denmark remains solid, and new cases are added on a continuous basis.
In Norway, revenue growth was 19.5% and more in line with expectations for that market. As highlighted in connection with the Q2 reporting, the project adjustments made in the second quarter were of non-recurring character. Margin was negative, driven by the high intake of new employees in Norway in Q3, which impacted utilization negative. Performance in the U.K. was strong, and revenue growth was 34.1%, despite the loss of a full working day in connection with the public holiday introduced in connection with the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. We continue to build our presence in the U.K. market and our relationship with customers like the HMRC, NHS, Ministry of Defence, DCC, and others are laying a strong foundation for our ambitious growth targets in the U.K.
Finally, in the Netherlands, we realized revenue growth of more than 50%, driven by continued improvement in the projects made in the Dutch operation. Margin improved significantly as Adjusted EBITDA was improved from -DKK 7 million in Q3 2021 to a small loss of DKK 800,000 in the recent quarter. Can we have the next slide, please? Performance in Netcompany-Intrasoft was in line with expectations, with growth of 6.5% compared to Q3 2021 pro forma. The work of building joint project teams are progressing well, and we are continuing to bid for projects under the EU Union Customs Code and see progressions of these projects too, specifically in the U.K. and in Norway. Can we have the next slide, please?
As of the beginning of October, our total revenue visibility for the full year of 2022 is almost DKK 5.3 billion compared to DKK 3.3 billion at the same time last year, which is an increase of 62% in line with Q2 also. Naturally, as a good part of the increase comes with the inclusion of Netcompany-Intrasoft and of the total increase in revenue visibility of more than 62%, roughly 49 percentage points is attributable to the Netcompany-Intrasoft part. This also means that the revenue visibility for the Netcompany Core increased with 13 percentage points compared to the same period last year. Can we have the next slide, please?
Based on a strong financial performance in Q3, our current visibility for revenue for the remainder of the year and taking all currently known project decisions into account, we maintain our original guidance for both top line and margin, but narrow the expectations to top line growth to be between 50% and 52% for the group altogether. For the individual guided metrics for Netcompany Core and Netcompany-Intrasoft, there will be some overs and unders. However, the group altogether, we expect top line and margins to be within original ranges as already mentioned. With that, I will give the word to Thomas to take you through the financials in greater detail. Thomas, please go ahead.
Thank you for that, André. Like already mentioned, I am CFO in Netcompany, and I will go more in details with the financial performance for Q3 2022. If we move past the blank slide 11 and go straight into slide 12, please. Revenue grew 68.9% in the quarter, of which 18% was organic. The result was driven by continued strong demand for Netcompany services in both Netcompany Core and Netcompany-Intrasoft. Adjusted EBITDA of DKK 308.9 million was an improvement of close to 40% compared to Q3 2021. As expected, Q3 showed strong performance on a combination of high utilization, continued intake of FTEs compared to last year, and strong salary and cost management. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 22.9% compared to 27.7% for Q3 2022.
The lower margin is fully explained by the inclusion of Netcompany-Intrasoft in the numbers. Netcompany Core on a standalone basis yielded to 28.8% in Adjusted EBITDA margin in Q3 2022, higher than the same period last year, where the margin on a comparable basis was the previously mentioned 27.7%. If we move on to take a closer look at revenue growth in the different markets, we get the picture as shown on the next slide. Can we have the next slide, please? Revenue growth for Q3 was 68.9%, negatively impacted from currencies by 0.2 percentage point, leaving growth in constant currencies at 68.7% against Q3 2021.
50.7 percentage points of the growth was non-organic, related to our acquisition of Intrasoft in 2021, and the remaining 18% was organic, related to Netcompany Core, measured in constant currencies. Revenue growth in Denmark of 14.4% was driven by strong growth in the public segment that grew 16.2% and continued growth in the private segment that grew 12%. The temporary level of sickness in Denmark, as observed to be higher in the first half of 2022, and in particular in Q2, was much closer to normal levels in Q3 2022. Norway grew revenue by 19.6% in the quarter compared to Q3 2021.
As highlighted in connection with the Q2 report, the adjustment made to the three fixed-fee projects that were problematic was sufficient to cover for the adjustment needed overall, and hence Q3 on a top-line perspective were not impacted by these projects anymore. In Norway, the growth was driven by the private sector that grew 29.2%, whereas the public sector grew 13.5%. In the U.K., revenue grew 34%, supported by our relationship with the NHS and HMRC and the Ministry of Defence. In total, the public sector segment grew by 122% in Q3 2022, underlining the strong demand for Netcompany services in the U.K.
In the Netherlands, revenue increased by 50.3%, driven by a combination of a Q3 2021 that was a fairly easy comparable, but also better project execution in the project portfolio of the Dutch organization. In Netcompany-Intrasoft, revenue grew to DKK 404.6 million compared to DKK 380 million in pro forma for Q3 2021, meaning that Netcompany-Intrasoft grew organically by 6.5% in the quarter. Both the EU and the private segment grew around 10%, whereas the public segment grew at a slower pace as some projects that were expected to start in Q3 2022 were pushed into Q4 2022. Can we have the next slide, please? Gross profit margin was 6.4 percentage point lower than for Q3 2021 and ended at 35.5%.
The dilutive impact on margins from the inclusion of Intrasoft was 6.7 percentage point, which more than explains the lower gross profit margin for the group. Margins in Denmark increased by 1.7%, driven by a more normalized utilization and strong project performance in both public and private sector projects. In Norway, gross margin was reduced from 22.9% to 16.2%. The lower gross margin was mainly a result of the large intake of new starters during Q3 that totaled more than 70 new employees, an increase in the workforce of more than 25%. This high intake in a relatively short period of time impacted utilization in Norway negatively. In the U.K., gross margin was slightly reduced as a direct consequence of the public holiday in relation to the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in September.
Project deliverables continue at good quality and follows the performance seen in previous quarters. Margin in the Netherlands was improved from 0.4% in Q3 2021 to 21.4% in Q3 2022, mostly as a result of a relatively weak quarter realized back in Q3 2021, but also supported by stronger and better project management that continued to contribute positive to margin buildup in the Dutch operation. Gross profit margin in Intrasoft was 19.4%, which was in line with our expectations and a result of strong delivery on projects across the portfolio of projects within the European part of the Netcompany-Intrasoft Group and more joint projects with Netcompany Core. Can we have the next slide, please?
Adjusted EBITDA margin for Q3 2022 for the operating entities decreased by 5.1 percentage point in the quarter to 23.9%, fully explained by the inclusion of Netcompany-Intrasoft, which diluted margins by 5.9 percentage point, also meaning that margin in Netcompany Core increased by 0.8 percentage point to 29.8% compared to 29% in Q3 2021. In Denmark, margin improved 1.1 percentage point, driven by stronger gross profit margins as a consequence of the project deliveries already mentioned. EBITDA margin in Norway was lower as the onboarding of significant numbers of employees, housing costs, and severance costs impacted both gross margin and administrative cost negatively. However, on a sequential basis, EBITDA margin in Norway improved from -31% in Q2 2022 to much less negative margin of 2.4% in Q3 2022.
In the U.K., the margin improvement from 14.3% in Q3 2021 to 17.3% in Q3 2022 was driven by continued high utilization and better scaling of fixed administrative costs. Performance in Netcompany-Intrasoft was in line with expectation and was 10.2% compared to 10% in Q3 2021 performance. Can we move to the next slide, please? Free cash flow was positive with DKK 221.5 million in Q3 2022 compared to DKK 182.9 million in Q3 2021, and thereby this recent quarter generated the highest ever free cash flow for the group. The high free cash flow was a result of strong earnings and tight working capital management throughout the group.
Net working capital in Netcompany Core was reduced as combined work in progress and receivables only grew by 1.7% compared to 18% organic revenue growth for Netcompany Core. In general, collection of receivables was improved, and days sales outstanding on group level fell from 77 days in Q2 2022 to 72 days in Q3 2022. Free cash flow is being used to repay debt, and in Q3, DKK 200 million of the bank debt was repaid. The bank debt is just shy of DKK 2 billion at the end of Q3 2022, and it is maturing in 2025, at which time it can be prolonged 2x one year. Current leverage is 2.1x compared to 2.4x at the end of the previous quarter, and we expect to deleverage further during Q4 of this year.
With that, I've concluded the detailed financial walkthrough, and we now open up the call for questions. If we move to the Q&A slide, please, and open the call for questions. Thank you.
Thank you. If you 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. There will be a brief pause while questions are being re-registered. Question from George Webb from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Morning, André and Thomas, and congratulations on the strong quarter. Three questions from my side. Firstly, on the Denmark growth acceleration back to double digits looked to be driven by the public sector. Is that sustainable as you look forward to the next few quarters? I'm also interested, given recent Danish election events, how you think they'll be if there will be an impact in Q4, basically, and is that assumed in your guidance? Secondly, on CapEx in the quarter, a bit more intangible capitalization. Are there any changes in policies there, or is that just timing? Thirdly, as you start to look into next year with the still overall uncertain macro outlook, what's the approach you're taking around managing the pace of hiring from here, and your visibility that bit further out? Thank you.
Thank you so much, George. I think I'll do the first and the third question, and then I leave the second one to you, Thomas. Looking at the Danish growth and specifically the public sector, I think it's just a result of us being very dedicated and having existing customers where we have a lot of continuous work. Many of the contracts that we are holding are future-proof long-term contracts, where work comes in and drops in gradually. A good example is, for instance, also the work we're doing right now in connection with the energy crisis, where we will be administering the loans for the Danes related to their electricity bills, as things just arise continuously.
When it comes to the effect of the election, we had elections, as you know, two days ago. Right now, for 2022, we do not believe that will affect us a lot because most of the work we're doing now is visible for the year. We expect government to be settled within 2022 for practical matters. You never know this, but we don't have Belgian traditions in this country. When it comes to next year and visibility, I have to say, well, there's a lot of geopolitical uncertainty out there. There's, well, who knows what the future is gonna bring.
However, we don't see any changes in the need for digitization, both when it comes to public and private sector. Of course, we're dealing with more uncertain times, and I'm really happy to see that what we are having in our portfolios is really business-critical and society-critical systems. I think we are a bit more on the safer side because we're dealing with systems that are really needed in all times. Of course, we can't really guide for next year before we get a bit closer.
On the question on CapEx, you're right, George, that there is a little higher capitalization in this quarter, which is due to some work required to complete various versions of software and solutions that is needed for us to be able to monetize and commercialize on those pieces of software. In your question, you asked whether that was mainly a timing event. To that, the answer is yes, that is mainly a timing event.
Okay. Thank you, and good luck with you all.
Thank you. Next question from Claus Almer from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Also a few questions from my side. The first goes to the whole pipeline, both within the private and public sector. Do you see new projects coming to the market, or is mainly the key task to, you know, win whatever that is in the tender at the moment? That will be the first question.
Well, we actually see a steady inflow of new projects coming into our pipeline. That's a good sign. When it comes to the public pipeline, specifically in Denmark, that is on more of a standstill while we're waiting for governments, of course. There are plans for digitizing Denmark over the next two or three years even further. I think we will see that, as we've seen over the last two, three years to just the same type of development. Private pipelines are interesting as well, growing.
However, the conversion rates and investment into digitization, of course, we all need to follow that in detail because that has also a lot to do with how times are evolving and the financial climate overall. Seen from this chair right now, we don't see any signs of digitization budgets going down at the moment. Not at all. We see a lot of digitization happening also as a consequence of crisis. Yes, are we turning our focus towards different types of systems? For sure, where we will rationalize and put in more emphasis on creating savings within our customer space. We don't see a lack in interest of spending in digitization at the moment. That's the general answer to that.
Okay. That sounds great. My second question goes to the U.K. and maybe a little bit more color to the very, you know, solid growth you had in Q3. Is this growth driven by entering new areas within your clients or is more about expanding the relationship you already have with these clients, or maybe even you are adding new important clients? That'll be my second question.
The short answer to that, it's both. You're right. Many of the clients are from the existing client base. We've also added some new, but maybe more importantly, we see a move towards even more business-critical solutions within our clients. We are basing our solutions on references and platforms that we've been doing mainly in Denmark. We are being chosen as a trusted both advisor, but also trusted vendor of more and more business-critical solutions. I think the best example is our engagement within the Tax and Customs offices both in the U.K. but also other places. We've been seen as a trusted advisor in.
With a lot of domain knowledge within a very specific and complex areas that are critical for our customers.
Does that also mean in the U.K. that you are starting to win larger projects?
Yes. Gradually, that is definitely the case. Projects or part of programs. Exactly, yes.
Okay. Thanks. That was all for me.
Thank you. Next question from Aditya Buddhavarapu from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi, André and Thomas. Thanks for taking my question. Just a couple from me. Firstly, given what you've said on churn normalizing across different markets, do you think that maybe you need to hire less? And also, think about the demand environment, do you see maybe a need for hiring to slow down a bit in the near term? Second question, with utilization levels improving in Norway, as the new people who've come in are onboarded to projects, should we expect a return to positive margins in that market in Q4? And then finally, on the working capital, you talked about the quite tight management of that in Q3. Is that something which you see as more sustainable on a full year basis as well?
Yeah. Let me do the first two questions. I think, you know, we've been doing this for 21 years, and we've had churn levels that are typically between 16%, 21%, 22% overall. We need to have churn levels that are in that area because we also need new people coming in. I think we're going back to what seems to be a very natural setup. We've had COVID as an unnatural churn deflection, if you can say so. We had very low churn during COVID, then we had a pickup after COVID. We see that in many other companies as well.
Coming back to normal levels means that we will hire just as we used to hire, where 80% of the hiring is new people coming in, joining the academy and being a productive part of our business. That would just go back to normal. Of course, we will monitor it carefully. If churn goes even further down, we will of course also hire less. Of course. When it comes to the Norwegians, yes, we've hired 70 newcomers just after the summer, which is a thing we have to do. This is where we have the opportunity to get new people on board. That's a very particular characteristic with the Norwegian market.
Now gradually, when we get these people out of the academy into projects and into productive work, of course, that will be also reflected in the numbers. When it comes to the working capital question, I think I'll leave that to you, Thomas.
Yeah. Thanks, André. We are being very tight on our working capital management, as we've said all along the year. Now we can also start to see it in the actual numbers. We'll continue to be as tight during Q4 and also next year. That also means that we expect to be able to also have a positive impact from that on our cash flow and free cash flow generation during Q4 without going more into detail as to what that number then entails. Yes, we will continue to be focusing on working cap management, especially in Netcompany-Intrasoft, and that will have a positive impact.
Okay. Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question from Poul Jessen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you for taking my questions. I have two. One is on the growth in FTEs. You have accelerating in the U.K. to now 35%, Norway also acceleration. My question is that indication of where, what you expect when we look into the coming quarters or next year that you will maintain the current growth rates in the U.K. and accelerate Norway?
Well, Poul, thank you for that question and, as you know, we can't really guide into next year or anything. We can say in general that the strategy has been to come in, win larger and larger projects and do more and more critical work for our customers based on not only domain knowledge and references, but also based on our platforms and components and also the software we acquired when acquiring Intrasoft. I'm happy to say that is the case for the wins that we are seeing both in U.K. and Norway, and also when looking into the pipeline, we are working very focused on that happening.
Without guiding or trying to predict the future, that is what we will try to do in order to create even more growth.
If you look at the Danish in the recent years, you grew 20%-25% on FTEs, and now you're down at 14%. It's not about the future, but is it possible for you to manage the cost pyramid at a growth rate where you come down maybe to the low teens?
Well, yes. I mean, that's the beauty of the model. You just need to sharpen it up. It's just like a pyramid growing. Depending on the growth rates, you will add more in the bottom, and you will sharpen the size. The pyramid will. Well, it's not easy, but you need to trim it continuously to the growth rate. That's what we've been doing throughout the last 20 years. This is exactly what we're known to do. We've had years with less growth. We've had years with a lot of growth. We don't want many years in sequence with too much growth. Of course, we don't want too many years with no growth.
Having a two-digit growth in the Danish pyramid makes it possible for us to trim it the way we want to in order to get the margins and the competencies that we need.
Thank you. My last question is about the pipeline. We have spoken earlier about progress in Smarter Airports, but also the customs tenders. Could you give an update here? Are there projects which has been decided where you were losing out, or are they still progressing, as planned?
The short answer is we are in the game for both customs and airports, and we haven't seen any losses in those areas.
Okay. Thank you.
The pipeline, and the pipeline built on that, Poul, is progressing well. We are going the right way, both in customs and in airports.
Okay. Do I have any idea when decisions are gonna be made on these items? Is it far away, or is it Q4, Q1 or what are we talking about?
Hard to predict, huh? Sometime during next year for sure. Whether it's gonna be Q1, Q2 is difficult to say. At least for some time during the first part of next year.
Okay. Thank you.
One can say when it comes to the customs part, European countries have to decide, and there might be some prolongments or delays, also from the European Union side. Overall, most countries have to adhere to the standards at least within 2024-2025. Depending on, you know, when they decide to move faster to get to that target, we will be very relevant in all those cases.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question from Gianmarco Conti from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Morning, André and Thomas, and congrats on the strong quarter. I have three on my side. The first one is could you perhaps share some more color on the RRF deal slippage this quarter? Is this expected to close in Q4, and how large is this going to be? Secondly, a quick follow-up on Norway. Should we expect the new hires here to be ready to bill for Q4 and thus utilization rates to be up next quarter? Finally, could you also share some color on the decline in private business in the U.K.? Are there fewer opportunities for the company to compete in, or is it simply too competitive to win here? And are you still using senior Danish resources? Thank you.
RRF was difficult to predict. One can say that when we're looking into Greece and the RRF expenditure there, we are very much in the game on some really interesting tenders and activities as we see some postponements and delays, but no cancellations. That's good news. When it comes to the new hires in Norway, I think I kind of answered that before as well. We will of course, when hiring 70 new people over late summer here, we will put them into chargeable work as soon as possible, and that will happen during Q4 and Q1.
The decline in the U.K. when it comes to the private business has to be seen more as a result of us having that very good success and breakthrough in the public sector. We always prioritize and when we prioritize what to focus on and put our energy into, we always use one very important metric, and that is the larger and more complex the project is, the more long-term it is, we tend to go for that. That's not a reflection of us not focusing on the private market. We will also look into private markets, and of course, when we have something coming in with those characteristics, we will also address that.
Okay. Just on the RRF, how large is this deal going to be? Can you quantify this?
It's gonna be big, Gianmarco. We cannot comment on it. We're not allowed to, but it is big.
Fair.
You know, giving you a number, but it is fairly sizable.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question from Yiwei from SEB. Sir, please go ahead.
Hi, André and Thomas. Thank you for taking my question. I also have two questions here. Firstly, maybe could you comment a bit on the tender pipeline for the Danish public sector? How much visibility do you have for 2023? And any large one like the SU system. I'll do one question at a time.
I can comment on the tender pipeline for 2022, and as I said before, we're comfortable. We get a good visibility for the remainder of this year. When it comes to 2023, I'll be my general comment is that, we don't see any large differences in the way we look at the pipeline now than we did, than we've been doing over the many years. When it comes to your particular question around the the SU system, I can't really comment on who's gonna end up winning that one. It's still not been signed by customer.
Okay. Fair enough. My second question here is on the SG&A cost for the quarter. It's much lower than the last quarter. Is it a seasonality or any timing effect here? Could you also confirm there is no one-off saving here in the quarter?
I'll answer that Yiwei. There are no one-offs per se. Part of the total remuneration throughout the group is variable and is performance related. That means that some of it is of course in conjunction with what the overall performance is. There's some variability in that. Apart from that, we are on a tight control of what we spend in terms of the monetary spending. Some of the, for instance, housing cost, rent and the likes, that is by definition choppy in nature because we cannot basically take on new premises in the same sequence as we take on new employees.
Typically we hire space ahead of we get employees. For instance, in the U.K., we've managed to grow significantly in the FTE space, but still in the same offices, by utilizing the offices more effectively. There are some bits and bytes in there that has reduced SG&A. For Q4, it's a fair assumption that they'll be around the same level. Could be a little bit up, depending on number of FTE driven costs, but it's a fair assumption they'll be around the same level-ish.
Okay. Can I just follow up here? In terms of remuneration, when would you pay out into the Q4?
I don't understand the question. There's a lot of background noise, so, can you repeat the question?
Sorry. Yeah. Just follow up here for Q4. Could you confirm the remuneration or variable remuneration will be paid out in Q4?
I cannot confirm the quarterly payment of our salaries, if that's the question. There is a variable part that is well described within our remuneration report. That's being paid out. Some is being paid out depending on who it is to during the year, and some is being paid out subsequently. That varies from whoever it is Yiwei.
Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. Also a question on R&D capitalization from my side. Now you increase your R&D capitalization by around DKK 18 million in this quarter compared to quarter two, and around DKK 21 million compared to quarter one. My question is here, if you haven't capitalized more in the quarter, would you then still be able to meet your full year group EBITDA margin guidance of above 20%? Because now I can see I have to at least change the wording to not significantly above 20%. That'll be my first question.
The answer is yes. The reason why it's yes is that the cost that we capitalize is generated by our staff, which is if they're not developing on internal software, which is then being used for later sale, then they would be on clients doing billable work. It's actually better for us to have them on billable work because the margins there are higher than the impact of the capitalization. That of course is under the assumption that we are fully utilized, which we are. The short answer to that is that yes, we would also be in a position to meet our guidance without the capitalization.
You could actually argue that we will probably do a little better, because then, those costs would be generating revenue at a higher margin.
Great. Thank you. Clear. Coming back to quarter four guidance, could you give some indication about the expected level from the capitalization in this quarter?
In line with or a little less. We've accelerated some capitalization in Q3 due to completion of work required for some solutions/software to be commercially ready for distribution.
Okay. Clear. On Intrasoft, can you just remind us, quarter four is the seasonally strongest quarter of Intrasoft, right?
Yeah, that is correct. That will also be the case this year. This year, be mindful that two months of the quarter will be part of the organic revenue growth, right? We will report the full Intrasoft also, but November and December will be organic revenue growth. Of course, we also owned Intrasoft in November, December last year.
Yeah. Sure, sure. There's more on the seasonality part of it. My last question on the public sector, because I guess it's not a secret that you lost some large projects to some competitors in Denmark. I guess, is it fair to assume that your win ratio in Denmark has been below the historical + 65% in the third quarter?
No. I mean, the things that we are targeting, we have a win ratios which is in line with previous years.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We have no more questions by phone. Maybe a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Have a great day.
Thank you.