Good afternoon, and welcome to Revenio Group Q3 earnings call. My name is Jouni Toijala, and I'm the Group CEO of Revenio, and with me here today, we also have our CFO, Robin Pulkkinen. Agenda for today, as always, let's go through the highlights of the quarter, financial and shareholder update. Then,
Robin is going to reiterate the guidance, then let's be sure that we'll leave plenty of room for the questions. So let's start with the net sales. So net sales down 8.9%, up to EUR 22 million. EBIT, EUR 6 million, down 21.4%. And I think here it's good to remember that if we go back to 2022 Q3, so we had a significant one-off order from the microperimeters.
So if we would normalize that one out, so this quarter would be a growth quarter for us. And even though the operating profit was low, so if you look the profit margin, so that was in a good level, 27.4, and if you look Adjusted EBIT, so that's roughly 28%.
Coming back to the highlights of the quarter, so not too much change on the overall economic environment. But if you look the kind of a positives for us on this quarter, so fundus imaging device growth, so that was in good level, so we were growing on the fundus imaging side.
Tonometers were flat, and if you look the whole first nine months, so we have been able to grow faster on the tonometer side, and then we have been able to grow faster also on the fundus imaging side. Then, really good progress on the iCare ILLUME side.
So we have been able to expand the business in Central and Eastern Europe, and then many new geographies are also underway. Then, last time we discussed shortly, and still one thing to iterate, that if we look for Q3, so Q3, we haven't delivered any longer order backlog. So all products which we delivered during the Q3, they supplied already, of course, for Q2, so we have been delivering just new orders and not older backlog.
Then what comes to the expectations related to economic environment, so our view is that it's going to remain challenging, and we are going to reiterate exactly the same guidance, so Robin is going to cover that one. Then, like we said, in the Q2 earnings release, so we see that the market normalization is going to take roughly 6-9 months. So no change on that one either. I'll hand over to Robin now. So Robin is going to go in more detail the financials through.
Thank you. So like Jouni, Jouni said, it's been a challenging couple of quarters for us. Looking from a sales point of view, when taking into account that we don't have the microperimeter in the portfolio, if you kind of take out that from the comparables, the Q3 was actually better from a sales point of view than Q2. In Q2, we had also a decline in sales, but the comparables didn't really have much of the perimeter sales in the Q2 in the 2022.
So this, this quarter and the next quarter, Q4, we are gonna have a tough comparable, but then still, there's been a change for the better, compared to Q2, now in Q3, when it comes to the sales in tonometry and imaging.
Like Jouni said, we reiterated the guidance, so kind of we're quite confident how the year will play out. Gross margin came down a little bit. Last year, we did have some big national account deals, which means that we didn't pay sales commission for all the revenue in the comparables.
Also, the FX was quite favorable last year, and now we are kind of getting a bit more headwinds this year. We did incur some more of those non-recurring costs from one-time projects in Q3. So in Q2, we had EUR 0.8 million, and now in Q3, EUR 200,000 or EUR 0.2 million.
And if you look at the adjusted operating profit, EUR 6.2 million, 28.1% of sales, which is a pretty good level, for the quarter and for the sale level we have. I'll maybe go a bit more through the others in the next slide. So basically here on the left, you can see the seasonal trend for the sales.
You can also see clearly here that the Q2 and Q3 are below the kind of trend what we've seen in the past and also below the expectation. The last quarter of the year typically has been historically the best quarter for us. We're now year to date, 1.3% growth compared to last year, FX adjusted. So the guidance saying that we're-...
between one and five means that in order to keep that, we need to grow faster than the Q4 last year, which was EUR 28.3 million, now in Q4 this year. So if we reach that, we're confident that we're on the right path. It means that also the profitability on the right side will be going up in the last quarter and kind of the business is very scalable.
So kind of whenever the top line goes up, also the bottom line follows. The profitability was a little bit better now in the third quarter than it was in the first two quarters of the year. Cash flow, not much surprises here. The decline from last year is mostly due to the lower result for the quarter.
Just as a reminder, which we went through also in the last earnings call, that the Q2 cash flow was significantly impacted by our Italian subsidiary income tax payments, which increased and also were partially related to the year earlier payments that were followed up in the second quarter. Looking at the bars here, you can also kind of see clear seasonality.
The last quarter typically has been a very good quarter for us from cash generation point of view. At the end of the quarter, we have EUR 19.3 million in the bank. It's up from EUR 17.9 million, EUR 9 million. During the quarter, we also did make a down payment for our...
our kind of a quarterly down payment for our bank loans for more than EUR 1 million, and also a minority investment, which I actually forgot to mention there earlier. So during the review period, we did make, minority investment, and there is a commitment to acquire the remaining shares of, if certain criteria are met, and the final acquisition would then take place latest in Q3 next year.
There's a contingent liability, so a liability to buy the shares, which is not shown on the balance sheet, and the maximum amount we would be paying is EUR 8.1 million. But that's the maximum, it's not necessarily exactly that. The equity ratio, it's the best level it's been since the acquisition of CenterVue. So prior to that, our balance sheet looked very different.
The equity ratio was even above 80% at some points, but now, since 2019, it's never been as good as it's now. And then the net gearing is now back to negative after it went up from in the last quarter due to the dividend payments. So during the quarter, our interest-bearing debt went down more than EUR 1 million, and the cash went up more than EUR 1 million.
So as a net of those, the interest, the cash in bank is now higher than the interest-bearing debt, putting the net gearing back to negative. Shareholders, so there's been some changes here. Demant has been buying more shares since the last earnings release.
They were close to the 16%, so they've increased their ownership. Finnish ownership also up now, so it was roughly 3% lower in the end of Q2. Denmark is slightly up. Sweden and United States, States are basically pretty much the same than it was before.
And then there's a couple of French investors who have sold some shares. So, Groupama Asset Management, for example, was number five in the last quarter, and now Ilmarinen has taken their position as the fifth largest owner of Revenio Group. The guidance just to read it through again.
Revenio Group's exchange rate adjusted net sales growth is estimated to be between 1% and 5% compared to the previous year, and profitability, excluding non-recurring items, is estimated to remain at a good level. There. Then I think we go to Q&A.
Thank you, Robin. I think we are ready for questions, please.
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 Niko Ruokangas from SEB. Please go ahead.
Hello, this is, Niko Ruokangas from SEB. I have a couple of questions. So, so first of all, guidance, so that indicates a very big quarter-on-quarter sales growth, even compared to your history. So, so could you open what makes you confident on, on reaching this guidance, given that you said that the market remains quite weak still?
There's kind of similar to what we saw when we originally gave the guidance. The sales forecast has rather gone up than down. So kind of there hasn't been really any surprises on the kind of sales planning side. There are some nice, good deals in the pipeline, and kind of all the signs so far seem like we're on the way to meet the guidance.
So there's kind of maybe even more confident now than it was during July, when we gave the new guidance, or was it beginning of or end of June? But still, kind of no changes there. Rather more positive than negative.
Okay, okay. But, so was this Q3 sales quite in line what you thought when you gave the guidance or?
Yeah. Yeah.
... Okay, okay, thanks. Then you talked about this microperimeter deal last year, which was around EUR 5 million, as you indicated in Q2 call. Could you remind us how was this EUR 5 million divided between Q3 and Q4 last year?
It's roughly 50/50.
Okay. Thanks. Then about your costs. So, your operating expenses were clearly below earlier quarters level and that of comparable quarter. So, could you open your cost development? So were the lower cost temporary, or will this lower OpEx level continue also going forward?
So we've been more conscious on spending, so we've asked also the employees to be more conscious on spending and travel. The one big item there is on the salary side, mostly where the bigger variance comes from.
We're being more careful with hiring. There's only a very few critical hires we've done this year, and also the kind of the bonus accrual level. So all our employees have a bonus program, and in the historical years, those have been paying out really well. Now the accrual levels at least are significantly lower what we've had before, and that's one of the main drivers of the cost, cost being lower.
So looking at next year, hoping and trusting that we will meet our kind of internal targets, and also the market expectation, most likely the bonus payments will then be higher.
All right. All right. Understand. Understand. And then a last one from me. So, how much these price increases contribute to your sales in Q3, and when and how big price increases have you made this year?
It's between 2% and 6%, I think, roughly 2%-6% increases we've done, not necessarily all the products in every country. So it's, I don't really have an exact number how much that impact is, but it's the impact is less than what it was last year, probably.
Yeah, because last year we did the price increases, so that it was across all products, across all geographies, but now we did the pricing increase differently this year.
All right. All right. Thanks. That's all from me.
Hey, thank you, Niko. Any other questions?
The next question comes from Daniel Lepistö from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, it's Dani el Lepistö from Danske Bank. I've also a couple of questions. So, just for clarification, can you discuss the sort of, imaging devices and tonometers in a bit more detail? So did you see volume growth on the imaging side? And, I guess also the same question for tonometers. Did you see volume decline despite this, flat growth, thinking a lot about this price, increases you just discussed?
So, we saw a good growth on the fundus imaging side, and the tonometers were flat, and we saw good demand on the probe side. So that's a good and clear indication that people are using the tonometers as well.
But we still want to reiterate, so it's unfortunate, of course, that we don't have microperimeters, but on the tonometer side, flat currency-adjusted terms, and then if looking really the fundus imaging side, so we saw a really good growth on that one, also on Q3.
Okay, but did you see any sort of volume growth on the imaging side, or was it more just these higher prices contributing to the growth?
That's actually a good, good point. So we saw good growth on fundus imaging, also on the unit level.
All right. Thanks. And about the minority investment you discussed briefly, so can you clarify a bit what, what did you... What or what are you planning to acquire? So did you acquire some new technology or what, what's the nature of this-
This is under-
- investment?
... NDA, unfortunately, and we cannot comment anything more than what we've said here until next summer or when the acquisition takes place.
Okay. So this is something that, you will be disclosing a bit on the, maybe next year? Yeah.
Yeah. We'll have to see then, I think latest in the 2024 annual report, you will see the org structure. But it's not- we don't consider it a strategic investment in a way that, if that was the case, we would have published it already earlier.
So it's a minority investment into another company, which now will have a one-year tracking period to see how they perform against the targets we have, and the criteria we will have set for them for closing the transaction.
Okay, thanks for that clarification. I guess my final question is about ILLUME. You discussed some new trials that are underway with the product. Can you discuss a bit about these trials and maybe walk us through about the sort of a timeline for this product going to the broader market?
... Yep, so, so we have had, roughly now, a bit more than a year, the product out, so meaning the DRSp lus, connected to the ILLUME cloud, then different AI players, plugged in into the ILLUME. And we have been running, if we go back to Q3 last year, Q4, so we started to get the first deals, during the Q4.
So we have been getting now during this year and the first three quarters, new, new deals, so plenty of new deals, which are actually using the overall system. Plus, we have been adding a new set of trials across different geographies, plus, of course, the overall sales pipeline for the further trials, so that has been increasing.
So that's of course a good sign, and hoping really that in some stage, of course, it starts to move the needle. But so far, the progress is pretty good, and feedback is excellent, because it's so easy to use.
Okay, my final question about the sort of AI and the DRSplus, are there any expectations on when you could maybe enter the United States with the value proposition?
The work is actually ongoing. It has been ongoing. I would say even, I mean, even kind of a way more than a year. So, and perhaps I reiterate and kind of recap the strategy what we have there, so then it perhaps becomes more clearer.
So we have a two-way strategy here. So the first one is that we want to guarantee the hardware sales with the different AI options. So, and that in practice means that whether it's EIDON family or whether it's the DRSplus, so we try to guarantee that we have necessary approvals existing, if somebody wants to buy our hardware, and add then the software AI component part of it.
And then we have a second part of the strategy, which includes the DRSp lus, it includes the ILLUME, plus then the AI, and then we sell this whole solution, and that enables us, in addition to the hardware revenue, to get the recurring revenue from the ILLUME platform and referrals, plus then also the revenue share from AI.
And the first part, we have been pushing already long, long time ahead. And the second one, i.e., the whole package for the USA, DRSp lus, plus ILLUME, plus AI, so that's under the works. Hopefully, that clarified a bit. But really to recap, so there's a two, two-way strategy for us, which we have been advancing for a long time already.
Yes. Yes. Thanks. Okay, that's all me. Thank you.
Hey, thanks, Daniel. Any other questions?
The next question comes from Pia Rosqvist-Heinsalmi, from Carnegie Investment Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jouni. Hi, Robin. It's Pia here. I've got a few questions. If I start with the guidance for this year and for Q4. So does your guidance include any larger deals?
Not kind of... We always have larger deals in every quarter, like, to some extent, but I guess really it's more business as usual. I don't think there's any very large deals we're expected to close to meet the guidance. There's a number of things we need to get closed. We still haven't sold much, so like we've discussed many times, so our backlog is quite short.
We only have a couple of weeks of backlog, so December is still pretty much unsold, and November to a large extent as well. So kind of there's a lot of stuff in the pipeline, which we need to close, not necessarily depending on one single large deal.
Usually how the market-
All right
... is playing out during the Q4, is that if you go as an example for APAC, so there's 18 different trade shows still coming. If you go for the USA, that's between 10-15, and so forth. So usually, historically, the Q4 is extremely active, of course, related to sales, but also related to different trade shows. So that's really good always.
Thank you. Then I must come back to this one-time project cost, which you now have incurred twice. Does this relate to the M&A or the acquisition, which you referred to earlier in the call, or where you can't give any additional details, or is this related to something completely else, something else?
We haven't really disclosed that, but earlier, when we acquired CenterVue or Oculo, the M&A-related costs were treated as one-time costs. So maybe it gives an idea that any costs related to this one would fall under that, but there could be other things as well.
... Right. Okay, then if we look at iCare ILLUME, can you already, you know, give some kind of indication of the level of sales, for example, for this product year to date?
We don't give the breakdowns of the different product families, and this applies for ILLUME. I think if you look now, now the CMD, so, so, the plan is to open up in more detail now how we see the future and how we see the different segments.
So, so, let's wait for that one. But the plan also in the future, at least at this stage, is that we are not going to specify, even on the competitive reasons, the different product family revenues. So, so right, Robin, so that's the plan. And so we follow up the old habits on that one, unfortunately.
Right. Then, with regards to the renewed micro perimeter, when in 2024 should we expect you to launch the renewed version?
As of current plan, we are positioning that one to the second half of 2024, and that, of course, subject to the R&D roadmap prioritization, and other business opportunities that might popped up. But, we haven't changed any plans as of today, so... And that was the latest what we said, so that's the plan, and the project is on time.
Okay, and yeah, and, do you need to, you know, gain CE approval for the product before you can start selling it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, plus the FDA.
For clinical-
Yeah
... Yeah, for research, no, but if you want to-
Yeah.
For the research, you can go without the approval, but for the kind of a normal day-to-day clinical use, and we have been, of course, selling quite a lot these devices to the research side. Good addition, Robin.
All right. And then, to continue on one of the earlier questions, so, with regards to the DRSp lus product combined with AI, to be able to launch that in the US, you need to do a clinical trial. Have you started a clinical trial for the combination already?
So here I would refer into these two tracks that I mentioned. So the first one is to guarantee that the DRSplus works with an AI player. So we have had the tracks ongoing for that one for longer time. Then what comes to the track number two, which is the DRSplus, plus the ILLUME, plus the AI, so that's a one package that we are currently preparing for clinical studies. So that's the latest. So I think it's good to look this on the two different buckets.
Yes. All right, so but, you are preparing to start the clinical trial?
For the bucket, B. For the bucket-
Yeah
... we have been having the kind of a work ongoing for a long, long, long time already.
All right. Thank you. And then maybe, finally, when you say that you expect the market normalization from the second half of next year and onwards, so does this imply that you expect your sales to decline year on year in 2024, in the first half?
No, Q1 is still... I think the Q1 was pretty good this year. I think from a comparable point of view, it's probably more challenging than the Q2 and Q3. But I think in general the kind of the economic situation and the kind of the...
All the wars going on, there's a lot of uncertainties. Of course, the interest levels seem to be a challenge for many customers also at the moment. So hopefully, seems like the European Central Bank is potentially stopping their increasing their interest rates now. So that is something we're following pretty carefully. But of course, there's a lot of uncertainties.
Our view is that the need for our devices and the number of patients getting eye diseases and needing treatment is not going down, rather it's going up. So the kind of need for the devices and investments is not going anywhere, and it can't be stopped forever.
I would say that we are going to give more insights to the next year guidance during the CMD. I think it should be noticed that it's going to be the full year guidance, but that's for sure that we are coming back to this one in four weeks' time.
All right. Thanks. Then finally, I mean, your share price has declined by more than 50% year to date. Has your company been approached by any potential bidders or buyers for your business?
Nothing, nothing so far, has come up. We're pretty confident that-
All right
... hopefully, we'll turn around during next year, so.
... and these valuation levels also coming down, are they reflected in your M&A discussions? So do you see lower valuation levels in the market?
The unlisted companies seem to follow a lot slower than the listed companies, so it is tricky. There may be more room to negotiate now, but the kind of the unlisted company valuations to come down in their owner's mind is something that is not happening in line with the stock exchange, so unfortunately.
Mm. All right. Thank you. That's all for me.
Thanks, Pia. Thank you. Any other questions?
The next question comes from Niko Ruokangas from SEB. Please go ahead.
This is Niko Ruokangas from SEB again. I have one additional question. So, you talked about the fundus imaging and tonometer year-on-year sales development. But if we look at quarter-on-quarter development, so Q3 over Q2, so could you describe development in tonometers and fundus imaging separately, given that the headline sales were quite flat between these two quarters?
I don't have the full quarterly data in front of me now, but basically, looking at how Q2 went, there wasn't much, much pandemic deals in Q2 2022. There was a decline in the sales this year, Q2. So the kind of imaging and tonometry business was doing worse year-on-year than it was doing in Q3.
But we don't really track internally even, the quarter-to-quarter sales change that much. It's more, more year-on-year, what we follow, and year-to-date. So I don't really have a full answer how it went compared to Q2.
All right. All right. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Niko, for additional question.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Marko Graßmann from Alpha Star Capital. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. I have two questions. The first on the competitive situation. Have you seen any impact from Reichert entering the market with rebound technology in tonometer? And I think, Robin, in your last call, you mentioned that in fundus imaging, other players are quite aggressive with price decreases.
So do you see this also continuing in Q3 and for the rest of the year? And then maybe the second question on the iCare HOME. Can you report any progress of this device, also thinking about compensation schemes being applied to this one? Thank you.
Hey, good. If I may take the first one. So regarding to Reichert, the status is following: so, they have been in the vet for longer time, so more than two years, so no impact there too much. I think they have some challenges related to usability.
Then on the human side, they have the CE mark, so they have been starting to sell in the CE mark-based countries. Based on our understanding, it hasn't had an impact to us, at least not yet. We are vigilantly, of course, following up on the market. Then they don't yet have the FDA approval, so they supposed to have it already roughly two years ago. For some reason, they haven't get it done yet.
Now the latest rumors are that perhaps it's, it's coming end of this year. So they are not present on the human side in the USA. So that's perhaps related to Reichert. Then secondly, the fundus imaging related question about the pricing.
So we have been seeing more aggressive prices every now and then across the different geographies. But we haven't gone into that one. I think that's visible in our margins and profitability level. And even if we haven't gone that one, so the current view remains the same, which is that the products on the imaging side are competitive.
And then we know that one, because we have been able to grow the imaging business throughout the first nine months really well, and then also during the Q3 really well. So. And that's both in currency-adjusted numbers, plus absolute reported numbers, plus in units. And do you wanna, Robin, pick up the home related question?
Yeah, we don't really give exact numbers on the home sales, but kind of maybe we can tell it's been one of the fastest growing product groups for us and the percentage-wise, the growth for the quarter and year to date is very strong.
It's stronger than on the imaging side. Hopefully, that-
Okay. Thank you.
Hopefully, that clarified. Thank you.
Yes.
Any other questions?
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you for your time. Thank you for all the questions, and I'm sure perhaps if some questions arise, so please ping me and Robin, and we are happy to come back with the answers. Thank you for the call. Have a really good autumn, and see you next time in the CMD, so about four or five weeks to go. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Thank you.