Welcome to this webcast presentation of Etteplan's Q3 results for 2022. My name is Juha Näkki. I'm the President and CEO, and at the end of the session here, we will have a Q&A, and there you will also be able to ask questions from myself and also from our CFO, Helena Kukkonen. If we look at the contents of the presentation today, we'll first start with the highlights of the quarter, look a little bit on the operating environment, financial development more in detail, and then a little bit also on the service areas, how they did in Q3. To end the presentation, we'll look at how we did against our targets and where we are.
If I start with the highlights of the quarter, the best part of the quarter was the operative performance. We still had a quite good, solid market condition, and we were able to execute very well on our project. The operative performance was strong. Our revenue growth continued to be on a high level, exceeding 20% again. Our profitability was strong for a third quarter, at least on the operative side, and also our cash flow was strong. Of course the important offer that was made for Semcon did not go through, so that had a little bit of a negative effect on our figures.
We did have non-recurring costs related to the transaction, which burdened the result a little bit. Also the fair value of the currency hedge that we made related to the project had a negative impact on the financing items and therefore took the earnings per share to a negative, which was of course disappointing. If we move forward to the operating environment. Operating environment remained good despite everything that is going on, despite the war in Ukraine and despite the geopolitical uncertainty, still the underlying demand was quite good. Our customers have been doing relatively well. There are new orders received, and there are certain industries that are still continuing to invest.
We see a lot of investment in the sort of energy efficiency, also the green transition and defense industries are investing heavily. Process industries are doing relatively well as well. Mining sector seems to be doing quite well. There are quite a lot of positives, also continuing in the market. Of course, certain industries are affected by the war, by the inflation, by the rising costs and perhaps the willingness to invest in certain customer industries is lower than it used to be. For that reason, the sort of demand situation is fluctuating between the customers and between different customer segments.
Perhaps the customer industries which are directly related to consumers and consumer consumption are the ones that are hit the first in this crisis. In those areas, we see a slightly weaker position. If we look at the demand in different markets, so in Europe, all the markets were relatively the same. There were no specific differences between the countries. Pretty good demand situation still continued in all the countries. If you look at China, so in China, the demand situation has become slightly weaker. The COVID still impacting a little bit due to the measures that have been taken by China and also the geopolitical tension and for that reason the market seems to be slightly weaker at the moment.
Slightly weaker demand in China. Our demand is really driven by the sort of development of the whole services industry. We don't see any major issues in China currently either. If we look a little bit on the numbers. Growth was strong, over 20%, and organic growth was equally strong, 11.2% in the absolute terms. Engineering Solutions was growing 13%, Software and Embedded 21%, and technical documentation by 39%. Solid development in all the service areas in terms of revenue. In the operating profit, we improved on all the areas on the whole group level 24%. Clear improvement from last year when we had a slightly weaker Q3.
On the service areas, Engineering Solutions 42%, Software and Embedded Solutions 33%, and Technical Communication Solutions 11% improvement. Really solid performance in all the three areas. If we look a little bit on the revenue and personnel split. Engineering Solutions was 52% of the revenue, Software and Embedded Solutions 28%, Technical Communication Solutions 20% of the revenues. By area, Finland was 52% of the revenue, Scandinavia 25%, and Central Europe 19%, China remaining at 4% of the revenues. Personnel by service by area, sorry. Fairly similar figures to what we've seen in the earlier quarters.
No specific changes in the customer segments still. General machinery and automotive and transportation clearly growing, also chemical industry growing, while others staying on a relatively similar level or, in relative terms, slightly dropping. If we look at the financial guidance, we have now specified our financial guidance for the full year within the range that we gave before. Now we expect the revenue to be EUR 345 million-EUR 360 million. Whereas previously, we had EUR 340 million-EUR 370 million. We expect the operating profit EBIT to be between EUR 28 million and EUR 31 million, where previously was EUR 28 million-EUR 32 million.
We basically see that for the last quarter, of course, the range can be narrowed down a little bit as we are having a more clearer view on how the situation is developing. Also, well, we have all the actions that we have put in place have materialized or we know better what is going to happen. For that reason, we are specifying within the range, but no dramatic change here either. The market outlook remains relatively the same. Energy, of course, having maybe a higher impact right now. Energy efficiency seems to be an area where everyone is concentrating their efforts. Quite a lot of things happening in that area.
Otherwise, we still see the effects of the war. We still see a little bit of COVID impacts, especially in China. Now, maybe slightly more sick leaves again, but no major impact from COVID. On the demand side, as said before, energy efficiency, defense industry, also maybe changes in the production chains as companies start to be moving production and production chains closer to the end markets, maybe back to Europe, etc . This is creating a little bit more demand. Overall, we don't see any major changes in the market and we expect, for the rest of the year, demand situation to be fairly good for the whole 2022.
Of course, the uncertainty is there, and it's difficult to estimate what will happen in the future with all the geopolitical tension and the war going on. It's really hard to say what will happen after this final quarter of the year. For the 2022 year, we expect it to be fairly solid. If we then go more to the financial development in detail. In Q3, the overall numbers were pretty good. Revenue development, over 20% growth, outside Finland, 33.7% growth, so very good. Operating profit, EBITA growing by 24.3%, operating profit EBIT by 25.4%, etc. Very good development in terms of numbers.
If we look at revenue development, more so, demand situation remained good and we were able to improve quite a bit from previous year. Growth was at comparable exchange rates, 21% for the quarter. Organic growth was also strong at 12% in comparable exchange rates. The full year growth numbers are relatively the same, really good. Key accounts and acquisitions supported the growth and key account growth was 8.8% in Q3. EBITDA development was good. The EBITDA was at EUR 7.1 million, growing by 24.3% for the quarter.
Still it was burdened by EUR 0.7 million of non-recurring costs, which were mainly related to the Semcon bid that we made during the quarter. There were also some other impacts, some organizational restructuring, some small impact from there. Also there was a positive revaluation of a earnout in our business, which had a small positive impact. Overall, a quite heavy burden, EUR 0.7 million, mainly related to the transaction costs of the Semcon bid. If we look at EBIT then, 25.4% improvement, so EUR 5.8 million for the quarter. The amortizations related to acquisitions were growing compared to last year as well. They were at EUR 1.3 million for the quarter and EUR 4 million for the full year so far.
We look at then earnings per share. Here, of course, we had a significant impact from the currency hedge related to the Semcon deal. This actually dropped the earnings per share to -0.03 EUR for the quarter. This was a clear impact from the deal. This is, of course, an evaluation so far and the final outcome of this will be determined in Q4. We will know exactly what the amount will be. Still, this was a heavy impact on our earnings per share for the quarter. We are now slightly behind last year at 0.43 EUR for the full year so far.
Cash flow for the quarter was strong, EUR 4.1 million of operating cash flow compared to last year's EUR 0.2 million. Very strong cash flow. This was a result of good operating performance in the quarter and also a strong performance in the summertime. This was the reason. Personnel at 4,001 employees. We hit more than 4,000 employees during the summertime. Also the number of employees outside Finland has been growing, so 1,988 employees outside Finland in the group, which is developing into the right direction, into the direction we have wanted it to be.
Headcount growth was 10.4%, but now looking at the future quarters. Now due to the fact that the market situation is uncertain, we have slowed down our recruitment efforts a little bit to be able to adjust our capacity to the potential market changes that there may be. With this, we of course want to protect our high operating profit and our profitability and wish to retain that on a high level despite the market uncertainty and any fluctuations in demand that there may be. If we then go more into the service areas a little bit. In Engineering Solutions, we had a very strong development, also excellent profitability.
Our revenue growth was at 13.4% for the quarter, and the EBITA percentage was at 10.3%, which is excellent for a third quarter. This was due to excellent performance overall in the unit and high operational efficiency in the whole business. In Software and Embedded Solutions, we had a slightly weaker Q2, and we took measures to improve the profitability and they have now worked. Our profitability was now at 9.9%. Still, we have some issues in the operational efficiency. It could have been better. Still, we have been able to improve the situation quite significantly. Also in the quarter, we were fairly successful in our projects.
This had a positive impact on the profitability. Also, revenue growth was strong at 21.4% of the revenues. In technical documentation, we had high growth of 38.8%. That was very good. Overall, the business situation was pretty okay. We did have certain issues in our business in Germany, and especially with the Cognitas acquisition. Where our operating efficiency has not been as strong as we have hoped. Also, we still suffer from certain customer agreements where the profitability or let's say, pricing is rather low. This is something that we are currently working on. We have also taken corrective measures to improve the situation in Germany.
We expect this to have a positive impact going forward. If we look a little bit on how we did against our targets. On revenue, we are currently with the rolling 12 months. We are at EUR 344 million, and of course, against the EUR 500 million target. We still have quite a way to go, but we are working on it and are confident that we will be able to reach the target. Revenue outside Finland, we are closing in on our 50% target, so currently at 48%. In the Managed Services share of revenue, slight development to 66% in this quarter.
In operating profit, we are now slightly down on our 10% target for the year, 9.3%, but expect to improve on that in the final quarter. At this time, I would like to welcome questions from the audience. Thank you very much.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Juha Kinnunen from Inderes. Please go ahead.
Hello, gentlemen and ladies, of course. This is Juha from Inderes. Hopefully, you can hear me all right.
Can hear well.
Great. First of all, could you kind of quantify the financial cost coming from Swedish krona in the fourth quarter? If you would assume that the exchange rate would be the same, how much further cost there would be?
Well, of course, this is an evaluation that was made on the basically end of September numbers and on the exchange rate. That was round about 10.90. With those levels there would be no further. If it goes down, there would be some further. If it improves, then there would be a positive impact. The currency is really hard to predict. The overall impact from the currency and also the financial arrangements that we made was round about EUR 6 million. That's relatively the amount.
Is the whole position still open? You haven't closed it or?
We have closed a bit, but a significant portion of it is open. We will see how things develop and then we will do it in a quarter, close it.
All right. Excellent. Another question. I'm just wondering, how large is the energy efficiency trend for you? Because of course, it concerns a very wide area and not necessarily only those that are really energy intensive. So are you seeing new design work coming from sectors that are very wide or is it concentrated on some certain sectors?
Well, I think that initially in the beginning, of course, it started with the products that are directly related to energy consumption and then the sort of energy creation and so on. I think that this is a wider trend right now and any product that is, you know, using electricity. There are companies looking for savings measures and taking action to improve on this aspect. It starts with the sort of directly energy related companies that are working with that. I think it's a wider trend that will go throughout the industry. It may have a quite good positive impact on the demand.
All right. So far you have seen only the kind of directly linked to energy sector.
Yeah. I would say the companies that are directly working with the sort of electrical components, electrical motors, etc , those companies currently are having with their portfolio of a more efficient products, they are having quite good business at the moment. We see that. We do see that this will also the situation will lead to a situation where many companies will start to have new investments in the area to be more energy efficient and to be able to by doing that, be more cost competitive in the future. That's what we expect to see and to some extent have already seen.
All right. Excellent. About recruiting, you are slowing down at least, somewhat. Could you comment on what business areas or sectors does it concern?
Well, I would say that right now we see that the industries that are directly having an impact from consumer behavior and consumer consumption, those are the ones where we see that the sort of investment levels or investment or willingness to take new investments is slowing down, which is of course understandable. It's very clear that consumers are spending their money on electricity and food and all the other things that are costing more today. They might not be spending as much money on different kind of products or buying different kinds of things.
I think these industries where you have a direct impact from the change in the consumer behavior, those are the ones where we see sort of slow down more rapidly than in others. Of course, there are exceptions. For example, car industry or transportation industry, there is still the underlying trend of electrification. That those kinds of investments which are related to energy efficiency or green transition, those will still continue. That's how we see it at the moment, at least.
All right. Fair enough. Final question, it's a little bit wider one. Hopefully you will understand what I'm getting at. Some people are expecting that there will be a strong investment cycle despite the economic downturn. This is, I guess based on the idea that Europe has been underinvesting for a long time and it could change now when we have to think about energy security and things like that, a lot more. Does it make sense to you this general idea that there could be strong investments in the industrial scale despite the economic downturn and higher interest rates?
I do think that there will be investment also going forward. There are these areas which now currently we are seeing energy green transition, these kinds of investments where maybe investments have been lagging a bit. Now there's a clear need to develop and for that reason there will be investments in these areas. Also of course the defense industries, it's very clear that all countries in Europe are investing more into or the budgets for defense are growing and for that reason there are investments quite considerably. Then there are these kind of production chain or production line changes. You know, sourcing from China, sourcing from Asia might not be considered as sort of important as before.
Maybe more production is brought back to Europe and closer to the end markets and also all the sort of supply that was coming from Russia, which was mainly raw materials. Anyways, that needs to be replaced. These kind of things will drive the investments forward. There will be quite good demand in certain areas. We also see that some of our customer industries are doing exceptionally well due to the fact that there are quite high prices and this allows them to invest in their future as well. There are drivers that would motivate a sort of positive development in the investment cycle as well.
For that reason, I tend to agree to some extent on these comments and look forward to seeing that materialize next year as well. There will be certain industries as well where investment levels will go down and these are changes that we just then need to manage and cope with, but overall we think that it will not be that bad going forward either.
All right. Thank you very much. That's all from me.
Thanks.
Please state your name and company. Please go ahead.
Hi, this is Pasi from Nordea. Yeah, I hear you that you said that the demand is actually very good and the outlook fairly solid for this year. In the same time you're actually scaling down personnel increases and so regarding the issue already raised here on that is related downturn. How do you see it? Is it still a realistic assumption that you are going to post a positive sales growth even in the case we are going to see kind of a weakening industrial activity in Europe and probably even kind of a weaker order books and consumption coming from the kind of end consumers. Maybe another point regarding almost the same issue is China.
I guess the consensus here is now that the business environment in China is getting harder than it has been before. How do you see the development in China in light of the recent news coming out from the country and would it be possible that you are still able to kind of keep your strength in China regardless of the weakness in the region and especially in the construction sector in the country? Thanks.
Okay. If I start with the sort of overall development. Yes, there will be. It's uncertain. The situation, how it will develop, is uncertain and what kind of impacts from the sort of lower consumption by the consumers, etc , what kind of impacts for our customers that will have, it's uncertain. For that reason, we have slowed down our recruitment a little bit. We don't want to end up in a situation where we are going full throttle with the recruitment and then there is a twist and turn in the market. We prefer to be a little bit cautious in the recruitment and then retain high profitability and high operative efficiency at all times.
That's the reason why we have slowed down slightly. It doesn't mean we have stopped. We are still continuing to recruit. We are still trying to grow, but we have slowed down from the high pace that we had earlier. About the demand, it is possible that, despite the sort of economic potential downturn, there will be investments done. We are quite confident that in certain areas there will be investments done. If we are able to really work with the right kind of customers and work with the right projects and win in those areas, I do believe that the demand situation for us could be quite okay. Of course it's very, very difficult to predict at the moment.
It's hard to see where it will go, and that's why we are a bit cautious. But we also do see opportunities in the market, and we are doing our very best to capture these opportunities. There are industries that are still investing and will continue to invest also next year, and we are trying to tap into that. If we then go a little bit to China. Yes, it is slightly more difficult in China. The geopolitical situation is not right now helping our business.
On the other hand, our sort of underlying demand development in China is not necessarily related to just the market demand, how the market is developing, but it's also related to the sort of development of the whole services sector and the sort of culture of buying services. This we see developing in China towards the direction where Western countries have been for a long period of time. Companies are starting to use more partners and start to outsource certain things to partners also in engineering and perhaps in other areas. This is driving the development for our industry in China.
We see that even if the situation overall in the market is going to be a little bit more difficult, we still see that there are possibilities to grow in the Chinese market.
Great. Thanks. I hear you. If I may actually just to kind of follow up regarding the investment cycles. Before that, to confirm, you are actually preferring margin and profitability over the sales growth. Another just to follow up was regarding this investment cycle. Quite many analysts and investors have actually thought that Etteplan is a late cyclical company, where the demand drop is coming a bit later than we probably even see the kind of consumer confidence of the ordinary industrial cycle going forward. Is this assumption still valid, and do you agree that Etteplan is late cyclical company? Thanks.
Well, if I comment on the profitability, of course we would like to grow, but at the same time we still want to retain high profitability. We don't want to. With this uncertainty, we feel it's more comfortable for us and better to actually slow down a bit on growth and retain high profitability because of the uncertainty. That's the first thing. I might tend to agree that Etteplan could be a slightly late cyclical company in the normal cycles, but of course, this is a highly irregular cycle that we are seeing. It's not the normal market downturn due to normal market reasons. This is something completely different, driven by the war in Ukraine.
For that reason, it also drives different kinds of investment, different kinds of changes in the sort of energy supply or supply lines in general. For that reason, I'm not really sure that the general assumptions that Etteplan is a late cyclical company or any other company is late or early cycle will apply in this situation because it's completely different from the reasons that we have I mean, previously seen cycles come and go. In this case, it may be very different to what it has been before.
Great. Thanks. That's fully understood. That was all from my side.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Okay. If we look at the overall situation, naturally during Q3, we made the bid for Semcon, and it not going through was a disappointment for us, and it had certain financial impact for us. Operatively, we did very well. We had a strong quarter, and now we have already moved forward in looking at new opportunities and new ways to grow our business and improve our margins further. We are going strongly ahead, of course, in an uncertain environment, but we still see opportunities and are confident that, with strong strategy implementation, with strong efforts, we will be able to meet our targets, which at the moment seem on the revenue side, quite hefty.
We're working on it, and we're confident that we will get there. If you have any further questions at any point, feel free to contact us at any time, myself or our CFO, Helena Kukkonen, or our SVP for Marketing and Communications, Outi Torniainen. Feel free, and we are here for you. Thank you very much for watching.