Welcome, and thank you for joining Per Aarsleff Holding Q3 conference call. With me today I have Group CEO, Jesper Kristian Jacobsen, and Group CFO, Mogens Vedel Hestbæk. After the presentation, we will continue to the Q&A session where all the speakers will be available for questions. Today's Q&A session will be conducted by phone. For questions, please dial the listed phone numbers and enter the provided conference code. The call details will also be disclosed on the final Q&A slide. The conference call will be recorded and published on aarsleff.com. The call is scheduled to last 45 minutes. Please be aware the presentation contains forward-looking statements subject to uncertainties. Over to you, Jesper.
Thank you, and welcome to all of you for this Q3 presentation. Starting with the overall figures. Turnover of DKK 18.9 billion. As you can see, roughly 37% turnover outside Denmark, corresponding to around DKK 7 billion. First nine months with a turnover as expected and satisfactory EBIT landing on 842, 4.5%. Absolute figure is a little bit higher than last year, and percentage-wise slightly lower. Construction segment. The picture is from ArtiCon, the Faroe Island. ArtiCon is building a huge dry dock on the Faroe Islands. Construction segment turnover of roughly DKK 8.9 billion. EBIT result of DKK 384. A revenue growth of roughly 16%, where the group growth is roughly 14%, but construction 16%. We do, as said earlier this year, we do see high activity level within the construction market, especially civil engineering infrastructure projects. Femern is one of them where we have high activity.
Lynetteholm projects, we do have a project on the Funen Island also, which is on a high activity level. Generally busy and high activity level also with the district heating project in Greater Copenhagen. We do still see increasing investments in projects related to critical infrastructure, growing focus on investment in defense, and also you could say infrastructure in general. So still a lot of investments out there, still a lot of opportunities. As we announced, we was awarded a confidential critical infrastructure project just before the summer vacation, with a value of more than DKK 1 billion. Many opportunities out there. Also within residential renovation of buildings, especially in Greater Copenhagen, we also do see a high activity level and many market opportunities.
Our three major ongoing building projects Mindet and Mejlbymarken in Aarhus and Terminal 3 in Copenhagen are all three progressing as planned. The North Atlantic market, especially Greenland and Iceland, also high activity to a lesser extent on the Faroe Islands. But generally, the North Atlantic market have also good market conditions. CG Jensen and Adserballe & Knudsen , the latest acquisition within construction is included in the figures now with effect of early June. The picture you can see on the left-hand side is a strengthening of a breakwater in Hanstholm, a breakwater that we built back in 2018 to 2020. Now, due to bigger water depths, deeper water depths, a part of the breakwater needs to be strengthened, and that is done by stones, granite stones, and so-called Cubipods. That's the concrete elements you can see in the lower part of the picture.
They are casted on our factory in Aarsleff BIZ in Świnoujście in Poland. Technical solutions. The picture is from one of our district heating projects in Greater Copenhagen. Revenue or turnover of roughly DKK 3 billion and EBIT result of DKK 167, corresponding to 5.4%. Growth of roughly 7% compared to the same period last year. Also, we do here see high activity level within district heating. Many of the projects are done together with the construction segments, green transition energy, and also some of our projects for the public sector, pharmaceutical sector. We do see high activity level, although that we do expect, especially for the pharmaceutical sector, pharmaceutical industry, a more normalized activity level going forward. Yeah. As said, also in the construction segment, good market conditions, many tender opportunities out there.
Still within those three areas, green transition, energy, and infrastructure projects, we do see many tenders out there. Rail. The picture is from some track works, between Høje Taastrup and Roskilde, close to Copenhagen. Revenue turnover of DKK 1.6 billion, growth of roughly 9% compared to the same period last year. EBIT result, DKK 54 million, 3.4%, roughly at the same level as last year. Again, as we have said on earlier conference call this year, the activity level and the earnings are mostly driven by the activities in Denmark, where we are busy with the electrification projects, the light rail project in Copenhagen, and also our four to five contracts in Aarhus Central Railway Station. There we are busy and have high activity. The market conditions in Denmark are still pretty good, going forward. Actually, also both in Norway, Sweden.
But there we are more careful, cautious about how much we take in, as we have spoken about. We have been through a so-called turnaround, both in Norway and Sweden over the last years, and we want to be sure that we do not take too much orders in that we cannot organize properly. The picture you can see is from a relatively huge contract that we have recently been awarded, the central station in Copenhagen to be renovated, a contract that has been awarded to both Railway and Bilfinger Berger. Still, relatively good market conditions, especially in Denmark and also Norway and Sweden. Ground Engineering, the only segment out of five that is not performing as planned. Four out of five segments are actually performing as planned or better.
But Ground Engineering, as we have spoken about earlier this year, where we have had most uncertainty, is still expecting difficult market conditions in more countries. The utilization of our precast pile factories is still on a relatively low level. Poland, Sweden, and U.K. is performing on a satisfactory level, and we are having a turnover revenue of DKK 3 billion, a growth of roughly 16% compared to the same period last year. Segment results, DKK 40 million, 1.3%, not on a satisfactory level, but as you can see, better than last year. As said, a growth of roughly 16%. But the demand for especially the precast piles is still on a low level in more countries, meaning, as I said before, low capacity utilization, especially in the factories. The market conditions out there are pretty good.
There's a huge pipeline of interesting projects, more projects that are interesting for both the construction segment and Ground Engineering. We are still a bit cautious. As we have said on earlier conference call, we have seen postponement of projects, also cancellation of some projects. We are a bit cautious whether those projects lying in front of us in the pipeline also will realize postponements. But the pipeline is good. It's good Ground Engineering projects out there. Südkai, huge key renovation project in Hamburg, that we have worked on together with HOCHTIEF for the last one to two years, has now been awarded and going into phase two, where we are starting the execution on the projects. The picture is from Aarhus geotechnical investigations on the future Marselisborg tunnel. That will be sent out in sender within, I expect, one to two years.
A 1.8 km tunnel that will have the effect of improving the traffic to Aarhus Harbor, especially for the trucks. Pipe Technologies, starting with the picture, is from training of some of our new Canadian colleagues in Aarhus, colleagues from the company LiquiForce that we acquired earlier this year, where we have had several people in Denmark to start training of our equipment. Revenue, roughly DKK 2.3 billion . EBIT result of 197, 8.6%. So, still on a high level, both activities and also the earnings. A growth of roughly 19%. In the opposite to Ground Engineering that has difficult market conditions in more countries, Pipe Technologies are seeing, realizing, expecting good market conditions in basically all the countries that we are active in.
A strong activity level in all significant markets. As I said earlier this year, we acquired a part of LiquiForce, a Canadian company, and the works of getting people trained and getting equipment to Canada is progressing according to our plans. The picture is of Copenhagen. A housing building in Copenhagen, built back in the early 1930s, where we are renovating all the interior pipes in the building. Order backlog, order intake. Starting with order backlog. All-time high on DDK 28.1 billion .
As you can see on the graphs, strong in almost all segments, and the order intake is close to DKK 21 billion for the first nine months. If we look at Q3 alone, more than DKK 8 billion in order intake, so strong order intake and strong order backlog and basically also in most of the five segments. Then to guidance for this year. Unchanged compared to what we have communicated earlier. Revenue growth, 12%-15%, and an EBIT margin between 5% and 5.3%. That was a run-through of the figures. Then we can go over to question and answers.
Thank you. We will now start the Q&A session. If you wish to ask a question, please press five star on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing 5 star again. There will be a brief pause while questions are being registered. The first question will be from Anders Preetzmann from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Thank you very much. Hello, Jesper and Mogens. Thank you for taking my questions. I have a few. If we start with the implied Q4 results here on the guidance. Of course, relatively wide margin range for the Ground Engineering segment, and I would suspect with only one month left of Q4 here, I would assume that you have pretty good visibility. Can you maybe just put some words on what would need to happen for you to end in either side of the margin range here for Ground Engineering?
As we have said earlier, and I think that is still the case, out of the five segments, Ground Engineering, you would say, is a segment where we, through the year, have indicated the biggest uncertainty, and I think we can still say that that is still the case. We are more certain about the other four segments. That is why we maintain a pretty, I think you said wide range in EBIT.
You can say, Anders, we need a very good utilization based on our factories, and there are still things that can come in and that can postpone, depending on the exact timing of the projects. Then there are some projects we are executing where it depends on how well we do it, that can either bring us to the lower end or the higher end.
Yeah.
We have some larger projects that are ongoing. It is basically project execution and utilization of factories that will have an effect on whether it is the bottom or the upper.
Yeah.
But we need some good. The upper is more difficult than lower, let us say it like that.
Yeah. I think we can say it like that. Yeah.
Okay. Yes, that is also what I would expect. Okay, perfect. If I may move on to a question on M&A. Maybe if you can put some words on the integration process of the recent acquisition of CG Jensen and Adserballe & Knudsen. Are they operating as expected? Maybe some words on that.
The implementation plan that we have set out together with CG Jensen and Adserballe & Knudsen are progressing as planned. I think it's not very different from what we see in Aarsleff, that there are many market opportunities out there, in some areas more than in other areas, and that's the same that CG Jensen and Adserballe & Knudsen is seeing, and is basically, as we spoke about earlier on this call, that renovation of buildings, transformation of buildings, there we do see a lot of opportunities out there, good market conditions, maybe better than in other areas. Both CG Jensen and Adserballe & Knudsen and also Hansen & Knudsen are active in that market, so that's very positive.
I would say on the other hand, they have an exposure to construction of new buildings, and that's where we have a weak market, still see a weak market.
Yeah.
Exposure to some good market segments and also exposure to some less, when we see weaker activity.
It's not very different to what we see in Aarsleff.
No.
Okay. You mentioned specifically in the report that your working capital is going up due to the acquisition here. Where should we expect that to end for the full year? Is this a new run rate for the group with CG Jensen implemented?
You can say we see it as not a permanent situation. They have, I think it's quite publicly known, that they have some projects where they have some disputes with their clients that are at the moment driving their working capital quite significantly up. When those disagreements have been solved, then we expect CG Jensen to come down to the group level. We also have signed some significant contracts here in June, July, where there's some very significant down payment. So of course, that will drive down working capital quite considerably in the fourth quarter. So up here due to CG Jensen. That will not be solved within the next month or two. That probably will take longer. That's our expectation. But working capital will go down in the fourth quarter due to these large contracts where we have some nice down payments.
Okay. That's it. Thank you, Mogens. A question on Technical Solutions. You mentioned that market opportunities here are generally returning to a more normalized level. Looking at the order intake of recent quarters in Technical Solutions, as you see it right now, would it not be reasonable to expect that you next year will post negative revenue growth year-over-year in Technical Solution? Or are there some significant orders here that you would be able to recuperate in the coming quarters to also drive growth for next year?
What I tried to say was that within the pharmaceutical industry, we do expect a more normalized level that we have seen in the last four to five years, especially for one of the players in the pharmaceutical industry. But there are opportunities out there, and as we also can see in the other segments, that the order intake differs from quarter- to- quarter. It's correct that in the third quarter, the order intake has not been too high in Technical Solutions, and whether that will continue, I don't think you could say that for sure now.
But of course, we have two large hospital projects-
Yeah.
...and they are getting closer and closer to being finalized, so we will have less revenue on those two specific contracts next year than this year.
Yeah.
Also, as Jesper said, the pharmaceutical sector is that we have some large ongoing projects that are getting closer as well to being finalized. So we need new projects to come in to-
Yeah.
...and whether we'll succeed, we'll see. But of course, there are opportunities, as we mentioned, within especially defense-
Yeah.
...that could--
Could pick up. Could pick up, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay. Thank you very much. That was all from me.
Thanks, Anders. The next question will be from the line of Kristian Tornøe from SEB. Please go ahead. You are now audio unmuted.
Thank you. A couple of questions from my side as well. Just on the acquisitions, I note you write that you have not finalized the purchase price allocations yet. Any idea of when that will be done? And obviously, since you are guiding on EBIT, could that potentially impact your guidance? I know it is a technicality, but still.
No, Kristian. It will be finalized here in the fourth quarter. Basically, our auditors has not signed off yet, so that is why we are saying it is still ongoing. We have included what we think is the right thing in our third-quarter report. But before the auditor has signed off, this is a significant investment, so we just need to put that out there. And of course, we are integrating them now. If something pops up, of course that could also affect it, but I do not expect anything material to change, so I will be surprised if there is an effect to the EBIT in our guidance.
I sense. Great. Then just on ground engineering, again, so obviously downgraded the margins twice. But still, I sense some optimism in the outlook when you describe ground engineering. So maybe help us understand what needs to happen for the performance in that segment to turn around.
I think the pipeline we have, I do not think Jesper and I have ever seen-
No.
...a pipeline like that. And when we-
It is extremely big.
...discuss with ground engineer management, we are saying you need to choose because you cannot follow all those leads. So the pipeline's there, so it's a question about when will it materialize. Then there's the issue, as we said, if there's not any precast concrete piles in them, of course, that's an issue.
But the opportunity is there. It's, as Mogens said, the pipeline is really huge, as we have never seen, a repetition of what Mogens said. We have never seen, for the last many, many years, such a pipeline of interesting infrastructure projects where there is a lot of ground engineering works in. So it's a question of when will they be signed and when will execution start.
Kristian, in Denmark and in Poland, we are very good at getting our precast piles included in infrastructure projects. In Sweden, we are working on that, and there is a huge project on Øresund Link that sooner or later, execution will start. We hear that it is getting more and more delays. Everybody expects quite a large number of precast piles in that project, and that will help our Swedish entity with the factories. Germany is more the onshore wind farms that is drawing large precast concrete piles, and that is an increasing market. We can see that.
We are also trying to push more of our concrete piles into infrastructure bridges, but that is not. Germany is very conservative. In U.K., we are quite successful in pushing our piles for all the data centers. That is really helping the U.K. business at the moment. We still wait for this, that it really kicks off.
It is a catch-up effect that we are missing.
Basically, fourth quarter looks good here, but we have seen that before. We have a good fourth quarter, and then suddenly first quarter is weak again. We would like to see more than one quarter before we say now we are past this weak market in terms of the countries.
Understood. That makes sense. Just the last one from my side, obviously, the implied guidance on margin for Q4 points to a fairly strong margin. Maybe if you can just elaborate on your comfort on why the last quarter should be so strong.
Yeah. There you say that is when we compile the figures, that was the prognosis is saying we have a number of contracts that are coming to an end, and some of them are going better than expected. That is a part of the explanation that there will be an improvement of the result of more than one project.
Yeah. Especially it is in the construction segment.
Yeah.
There are also some in the rail and some in-
Yeah.
...that where turn solution is part, and there is also some ground engineering part. It is really-
Yeah, some have been taken in EBIT-wise-
Yeah.
...carefully, and yeah, they are all progressing and going better as planned.
Understood. Excellent. That was all for me. Thank you.
Thanks, Kristian. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press five star on your telephone keypad. The next question will be from the line of Sebastian Grave from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Hi, Jesper and Mogens. Thank you for taking my questions. I have a few, maybe starting on the construction segment. I know they acquired a steep step up in profitability here from last quarter. I know this is also a strong seasonal quarter. However, as I recall, you have previously hinted that you see some tailwind from project timings here in the H2. To what extent has project timings helped the quarter here, and to what extent should we expect similar in Q4 and beyond?
There are some effect of project timing. We have started to be more positive on the final result on some of our projects, and that is increasing in our Q4. We are getting closer to finalizing-
Okay. That is.
...some of these projects here in Q4.
Okay.
We start slowly to pile up the margin when we get close to finalization.
Okay. Will you finalize these big projects in Q4? Will there also be some spillover into Q1 next year?
There are some spillover.
Yeah. Some spillover-
Yeah.
...into next year, yeah.
It is.
Not a lot. Not a lot. No.
Okay, so mainly Q4. Okay, that's clear. Circling back to, similar as my colleague, circling back to the ground engineering segment. Not performing as planned, and it feels like it's been a recurring topic for some while. You say pipeline is good. Order intake also looks solid, and revenue recognition is also solidly in the quarter. When should we expect you guys to come back to anything close to the historical profitability in the ground engineering segment? You have this medium-term target, I recall that it is 6.5%. Is that not next year, but the year after, or how should we think of your ability to achieve that target given what you're looking into now?
The good thing is ground engineering is it can very quickly come back if we get more activity on the precast pile factories. As we said, the pipeline is good. We clearly expect improvement next year. I think it will probably be too early to reach the 6.5%. It's not impossible if suddenly the market come with a lot of precast piles, but as we see it right now, it will probably more be two to three years out, before we start hitting where we should be.
But next year seems to be much better than this year.
There are positive signs. Denmark looks good. Germany looks like improving. U.K. looks okay. Poland looks okay. In Sweden, there are also positive signs, although they're weaker. Norway is a bit more mixed, let's say it like that, but particularly positive signs also in Norway. If all that starts to materialize, then we clearly expect a better result next year, and then let's see in two years' time or three years' time. But the good thing is it can come very quickly due to the good margin when we have full activity on the pile factories.
It--
That is true.
It is one of the segments, both pipe technologies and ground engineering is, you could say, the two out of five segments where we normally have short visibility. So that is why we say that it can quickly shift.
Then, Sebastian, we have not really talked much about it, but to be fair also to ground engineering, the price on diesel is not helping us. In ground engineering, we have really large machines that consumes a lot of--
It basically affects the whole group.
The whole group, especially in ground engineering and in pipe technology. Basically, we are absorbing that in the figures we are guiding.
Okay. That is fair. On that note, maybe could you talk around what you are currently seeing in terms of the impact on profitability from higher diesel prices? Previously, as I recall, it was mainly in the pipe tech, but as you say, also a bit in ground engineering. Maybe if you could talk broadly around what kind of effects you are seeing and how we should expect that to pan out in the coming quarters.
The good thing in pipe tech is a good market, and that gives us more power to raise our prices. As we said, it is really mainly in Denmark we have frame contracts. There are a few, some in Sweden and Norway, but it is really in Denmark. Here, we will get it through the indexation. That will take some time. But in some of our main market, Germany, it is short-term contracts, so within three months, we can increase our prices. Of course, we have done that already, and that will start, God help the results, late this quarter maybe, and then next quarter.
Ground engineering is a bit the same as short-term contracts. Of course, maybe we have not been, I think Q3, looking in hindsight, we have probably been affected because it is short-term contracts, some of them. But of course, we can use the new diesel oil price in our pricing. Then in the construction segment, it is indexation. So it takes some time before it goes through an indexation, but we also have some risk allocation in those that can absorb some of it.
To be honest, all five segments do have machines that use diesel. So it affects all five segments.
Yeah. Okay.
But--
No, that's very clear.
It's being absorbed in the figures that we have guided.
I think the past has shown that we are able to pass it on, maybe not in the short term, but in medium-term, we are able to get it passed on to our clients
Yeah. So if diesel prices, knock on wood, stay roughly the same as they are now, you should, all else being equal, see some prior tailwind in terms of profitability next year when we compare to this year?
Then some segments more than others.
Yeah.
Something like that.
But in principle, yes.
Yes.
Okay. Yeah. No, that's very clear. My just last question. Can you just confirm if I heard correctly, Mogens, that you are to receive some quite hefty down payments here in the fourth quarter, so fourth quarter is shaping up to be a very strong cash flow quarter. Is that correct?
Yeah. I think it's. That's correct.
Yeah.
So everything else being equal, we will get an unusual amount of advance payments in the fourth quarter. If we can keep the rest at the same level, it will-
Improve.
...improve quite significantly.
That is correct.
Sounds good. Thank you for taking my questions.
Thank you.
Thanks, Sebastian. We have a follow-up from Anders Preetzmann from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Yes. Thank you very much again. I just have a question on the Northern Atlantic. Maybe if you can put some words on what you are currently seeing in Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. My impression is also that the activity has been pretty strong here, so what capacity are you looking into? Yeah, an update would be appreciated.
Let us start with the most positive. In Iceland, we really see a strong market. There is a lot of interesting opportunities, and we have also been winning quite a lot this year. So it is a very strong market, and some very especially fish farms, land-based fish farms. We see infrastructure projects. Hydro plants, we won one, and there is a big one coming out. So really sweet for Per Aarsleff, which is so really like the Icelandic market at the moment, and we have also see good execution up there. So positive on Iceland. Greenland, we secured quite a few large projects a year to 2 years ago. There is not a lot of money at the moment in the municipalities or the government up there, so they would need some more funding from Denmark if they have to kick off some projects.
We see now the defense projects are coming out, and it is the Danish defense that have projects in their pipeline. It is U.S. defense up at the Pituffik Space Base that have projects in the pipeline coming out. It is always a question about timing when it comes to defense. It is always difficult about the timing, but we can see we are in a very, very strong position for these defense projects that are in the pipeline up in Greenland. Faroe Islands, bit more mixed picture. Infrastructure, we do not see much at the moment. There is a huge demand for housing, and when those projects will kick off, that is a question. But we see housing-related projects will come out here. We also see defense projects both in Faroe Island and in Iceland. There is a harbor in Iceland. There is a radar system-
Radar system.
...in Faroe Islands, so it will. But Iceland will be the main driver here in the coming years, defense in Greenland, and then housing in Faroe Islands.
All right. Thank you very much. Very insightful. Just a follow-up on that, and maybe I remember wrong here, but would you still be able to So it sounds like Iceland is a good market right now in the Northern Atlantic, and you have a strategy of sort of bringing your staff from, say, the Faroe Islands. They would be able to work on Iceland as well? Would you be able to transfer them over there or?
Yeah. They would be very interested in that, so that's a backup plan. I don't see a capacity issue in Iceland at the moment. Of course, it could change. We are also bringing in Danish capabilities, and we are using our facility down in Poland for things, so we have things for that. For example, BIZ Sp. z o.o. is now supporting on the big hospital project we signed this year up there. Then there's a bridge project where we bring in Danish people to
There's more tools we can bring into play.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Basically, Anders, of course, we shift our people around to where we see the best market opportunities, where can we get the best price and the best conditions.
I thought so. All right. Thank you very much. That was all for me.
Thanks, Anders. This now concludes the Q&A. I will hand it back to Jesper for closing remarks.
Thank you. Thank you for listening, and thank you for the interest in our company. Thanks for good questions. I hope you will have a continuous good day. Thank you for now from Mogens and I. Thank you.