Welcome to Solwers Financial Statements Release 2024 webcast. My name is Jasmine Jussila. I'm the Head of Group Communications, and we are here today with Solwers CEO Stefan Nyström.
Hello.
CFO Teemu Kraus.
Hello.
Today we will briefly go through what Solwers, what kind of company Solwers is today, and then Stefan will continue with the 2024 highlights, market situation, interesting projects, and then Teemu will continue with the financial review and dividends. Stefan continues with the outlook for the ongoing year 2025 and the midterm targets. In the end, you will have, or we will have some time to discuss your questions, so feel free to write your questions in the webcast chat. Let's kick off. What Solwers is, we are a group of consultancy companies that offer architectural design, technical, and other consulting, as well as project management services locally close to clients. We operate in two countries, Finland and Sweden. We have 29 subsidiaries across those countries and over 700 experts. In 2024, our revenue reached EUR 78 million, and the EBITDA margin was 7.0%.
Our strategy is based on growth through acquisitions and organically, the attractiveness of our companies for diverse experts and continuous development of expertise. Stefan, can you tell more about what makes Solwers special?
Yeah, thank you. Yes, the Solwers concept is unique, and it's actually a combination of the advantages of a small company and a big company. As you can see, we have a light integration, which means that the subsidiaries continue on their own brand and identity, and we don't change the organization or processes in the administration. They will mainly remain as they are. This light integration means for us that we can actually grow profitably. We have done that actually the last seven years, on average 25% per year. It's also a kind of, for the employee satisfaction, it's a benefit because nobody likes integration. We think that the light integration means that we are actually focusing on the common business, not other things.
Collaboration, we have actually our common management teams where we are focusing, one in Finland, one in Sweden, where we are focusing on actually marketing and sales, common offering, common projects. That is the biggest advantage we can use each other's client contacts, and we can offer much broader than the companies could do before alone. It is a growth platform. The platform gives actually support to the subsidiaries, first through these common projects, marketing and sales, and things like that. Also, all kinds of support and references, and we can together offer much broader than before. I would say that together we are stronger than separately. That is the thinking of our concept shortly. I already told about the growth. You can see in the middle the IPO. From there on, we have grown 25.3% on average every year.
If we take it from the beginning, when Solwers was founded in 2017, we have had about the same growth from the beginning. We started from 16, we are now on EUR 78 million. We have, from June 2024, two companies analyzing our figures, Inderes, which has been from the beginning or since our IPO, and now from June, Nordea as well. If we go to the business and the highlights of last year, we continue with our acquisitions. We actually made six, of which three were kind of bolt-on acquisitions into existing subsidiaries, and three were from Sweden and three were from Finland. The biggest one was the one to the left, WiseGate, which is actually two companies. It is like WiseGate Consulting and Demab. They are very much into the energy engineering and working towards the industry.
Another interesting one is Siren Arkkitehdit from Finland, which is the oldest architectural company in Finland. They have very convincing references, and they are now together with Davidsson and Tarkela. The last one was Spectra, which is actually in South Sweden, working very much towards public projects, both. Actually, they are also working with projects for the Swedish defense. We have been working a lot with this transfer to Main List. We are ready to go. It is, of course, the board who decides when is the right timing and when we are going. We have made a lot of preparation for this. We also have invested a lot in future growth, so we are ready to go. We also have expanded to a third country, Poland.
So far, we actually have our first Solwers Poland company established, and we have some M&As actually on the table, but no decisions or deals have so far been made. We think that Poland is an interesting market and that, first of all, it's big. It's 40 million people living there. Mainly, our target is to actually work locally, which we are doing in all countries. Of course, we see a potential to cooperate also with Finland, Sweden, and then also if there one day will be more engineering opportunities in Ukraine. Here are some bullets about last year. We grew 19%, and the revenue was EUR 78.3 million. I think that our business, our operating business was okay in a challenging market. Of course, we are not happy with it, but we think it was okay.
We then have a lot of other things that were actually impacting our result more. We have a lot of increase in collaboration between the subsidiaries. We are all the time doing more and more together, which is actually the thinking behind this concept. In some places, we have layoffs or temporary layoffs, and in some places, we have a need for recruitment. During the end of last year, the order backlog has improved, and we can say that the billing rate, even if it has a little bit come down compared to 2023, is still on a good level. We can see that the profit was impacted mainly by increase in following costs. We had group costs that were actually increased by EUR 1.2 million compared to 2023.
That is, of course, the investment into the future and also the preparation for the transfer to the Main List. That is one of the costs, and we see that we are now, as I said earlier, ready to go. We had some write-downs of receivables. We know that the construction market is tough today. There are more write-downs, not very much more, but we can see that there is a little bit of growth there. We had a repayment of a government subsidiary support in one subsidiary. It is in Sweden, called FoU, and we have reclaimed that. Anyway, it impacts now our result negatively. If we can get our reclaim accepted, then it will have an impact in a different direction. A little bit about our presence. We are in 28 locations. I think we are considered as a local player.
We have our clients close to our offices, and every office has actually their own client register, so that's for us very good. If you think about our clients, we have about half in the private sector, and then we have the other half in public, of which about half is infra projects, and the other half is hospitals, schools, etc. Our biggest clients are very good clients, I would say, Trafikverket, Väylävirasto, this Laakso Hospital, and then HUS Kiinteistöt, also hospital, and then this KPO Kiinteistöt, which is in Vaasa, where we have had a big project. We don't have very much very big projects. Our workload is mainly consisting of small projects. We have had last year more than 5,500 active projects, of which 70% are below EUR 10,000.
A lot of small projects, which are actually mainly of demand running price work, and that is, of course, some kind of safety for us. It is very often when we have hard times, it is the big projects that are canceled or stopped. We have more than 250 frameworks with different clients in both Finland and Sweden. We are doing more than half of the projects as running projects. Here are some interesting projects: railway line, 90 km renovation by Finnmap Infra. We have this hospital project that I already mentioned in Helsinki. It is very big. It will end in 2030. We have there involved also our architects, but also Kalliot ekniikka and Geo Union. We have this Sokos Hotel in Vaasa I already mentioned. It is interesting. We have there many of our subsidiaries involved.
We have Polyplan, Kontria, Zenner, Kalliot ekniikka. The last one is actually a project in its pre-engineering phase. It's an effluent treatment plant in South Sweden, Malmö region, and we are now involved in this pre-engineering. Of course, we hope that we one day will be able also to take part of the detail engineering when it's so far. Now I will give the word to Teemu, and he will tell about our numbers. Please.
Thank you.
Let's start from the financial agreement. Solwers expanded the financial agreement with the company's principal bank in December 2024. In the agreement, the company's current loans were refinanced with the new EUR 24.2 million loan maturing in February 2029. The company agreed on a new EUR 10 million credit facility, which will be drawn for acquisition use if needed.
In accordance with the terms of the financial agreement, the acquisition limit can be increased later by EUR 5 million. Our key performance indicators. On the first row, you can see the half-year numbers, and on the second part, the full-year figures. Revenue in January-December, revenue growth was EUR 12.3 million, and respectively 18.6%. Revenue growth was driven by acquisitions. The impact of currency fluctuation was slightly positive. Revenue growth accelerated compared to 2024, where revenue growth settled to 5.1%. In H2, revenue growth was 17% compared to 2024 H2. The profit and loss and some highlights there. In January-December, variable own production cost increased by EUR 1.2 million, mainly due to new subsidiaries, which have material purchases compared to 2024, where we did not have such instances.
Subcontracting cost increased by EUR 1.9 million and by 29%, and it was mainly affected by the new companies that rely relatively more on subcontracting. In January-December, personnel cost increased by EUR 8.7 million and 20.8%. Simultaneously, the average number of employees increased by 16% and was mainly coming from Sweden, where the salary level is higher than in Finland. Personnel cost growth in H2 by 21.2%. Other operating expenses. Between January and December, other operating expenses increased by EUR 3.3 million and 35.9%. Increase was generated by new subsidiaries, listing preparation cost, increase in IT costs, and also other costs which include negative impact on M&A-related considerations, as the other positive end is in other operative income. This leads us to January-December EBIT, which was EUR 2.7 million and 3.5%. In 2024, the EBIT was 7.3%. Our second year-half EBIT in 2024 was 2%.
Adding back depreciation of intangible assets and depreciation related to right-of-use assets on premises, we arrived to Solwers EBITDA. January-December EBITDA was EUR 5.5 million and 7%. July-December EBITDA was 5.9% and was affected by one-off nature of impacts. Solwers midterm target is 12%, and actions to get back on track have been started. Headcount increased from 635 employees in the end of 2023 to 724 in the end of 2024. Increase in the number of employees is acquisition-related, and the increase is focused in Sweden, as already mentioned. Balance sheet assets. In 2024, Solwers had seven acquisitions in terms of legal entities. The affection of these acquisitions increased goodwill by EUR 4.9 million, and goodwill was at the end of the period EUR 46.9 million. Cash. Solwers has extended cash pool and improved cash management processes.
This has facilitated acquisitions to be funded on a cash basis instead of acquisition loan. Cash and cash equivalents are still strong to maintain acquisition strategy, and we can use external funding more flexibly. Solwers has redeemed non-controlling interest in few subsidiaries, and thus non-controlling interest fell from EUR 546,000 in the end of 2024 to EUR 181,000 in the end of 2024. There's a shift from mergers and acquisitions-related contingent considerations, liabilities from non-current liabilities to current liabilities, as some few liabilities fall due in H1 2025. The financing of these liabilities is secured. Solwers' January-December net cash flow from operating activities was EUR 4.3 million, where the change in current investments and non-interest-bearing receivables was EUR 1 million. Net paid income taxes amount to EUR 0.8 million compared to last year, EUR 0.5 million, and cash flow from net interest paid was EUR 1.2 million compared to last year, EUR 0.9 million.
The cash balance at the end of the year was EUR 11.6 million, as already stated. It's still on a pretty high level. Dividends. The board proposes to the annual general meeting that Solwers follows its dividend policy and practices previous years and pays 20% of financial year's profit as dividend, meaning dividend of EUR 0.024 per share and corresponding to total EUR 244,000. Okay, thank you. I will pass the speech back to Stefan.
Thanks, Teemu. Okay, outlook for this year. I think that there are signs of recovery. We can see that our own order stock has increased. We can see that we are actually the first one when investments start to grow. We could see in SKOL's barometer for the future that new orders have increased since last quarter. Quite a lot, actually.
That is also the same as our order stock telling, but we cannot see it yet in the figures. The price competition is still hard. It is both in Finland and Sweden. There are many companies competing on fewer projects. It means that also in small projects, there is quite hard competition. The good thing is that we have a lot of frame agreements where these prices already are decided in advance. In Finland, we see that there are positive signs, and we also have seen that there are more inquiries coming in. Actually, during the end of last year, we could see that there were improvements in many of the Finnish companies. In Sweden, the business is quite divided. We have this North Sweden where there is still a lack of resources.
When we have in other areas, there might be tougher competition. There are also different kinds of services there where actually there is not so hard competition. For example, management consulting and things like that. We have a shortage of skilled personnel at the same times when we are actually in some places laying off. It is really hard to find the experts. In some places, we do not have enough work. This is the situation we have today. Still, the megatrends, green transition, urbanization, are actually driving our business and will also in the future. There is one new one, and that is of course the defense equipment industry and also all kinds of construction related to defense in both Finland and Sweden. Energy, green energy, all these kinds of projects are actually giving work for us so that it is good.
Our own outlook is still, its market outlook is there's a lot of uncertainty. We know that there is a lot happening in the world, and also Finland and Sweden are affected. As we know that our business is depending on investments, we know that immediately when the recovery happens, which is actually estimated to happen during the second half of this year, we will see an improvement. Of course, we hope that, let's say, the forecast is from the economic experts are correct. Anyway, our focus area for 2025 is continuous growth through acquisition. Now we have three countries where we are active, and then organic growth wherever it's possible. As I said, we have in some companies we have possible to grow, in some we have to actually reduce capacity. Of course, in all.
Increase profitability, and then cost cutting in all our subsidiaries, and also especially in the group. The midterm financial targets, we have not changed. They are the same, 20% growth. We were very close to that this year. We could not reach the EBITDA level of 12, but the equity ratio we also have achieved. It is only the EBITDA we need to now work hard on this year. Thank you. That was actually what I was going to tell about 2024, and now I give back the word to Jasmine.
Thank you, Stefan. We have many great questions here. Before that, before we go there, let's go through the financial calendar. What happened in 2024? We introduced Q1 and Q3 business reviews, which will continue this year. The planned date for annual general meeting is 15th of April.
Okay, let's go to the questions.
Ian Sijoittaj is asking, Stefan, you commented lack of skilled workforce. Why do you not train personnel yourself to match the demand and skill requirements?
Partly we are doing that, but of course, if you need really experts and for a project or something assignment, then you don't have time to do it. It takes a lot of time. We do it, of course, when we are taking in new people and they are trained all the way. In this business, you need a lot of also experts and who take actually lead in the projects. We are doing it, but we cannot fix everything fast enough.
Another question from the same person. How much do customers require quality systems in place to accept Solwers as a service provider?
We have so far not had a problem with this, but we have quality systems in place in most of the subsidiaries. This has not been an issue for us. Now we are also actually taking this NIS2 requirements into use in the group, which will be enforced sometime probably this year.
Is it just a regular way for Solwers to take deals in small projects only, or would Solwers like to have bigger projects also?
Yes, of course, together we can offer bigger projects, but when we have 29 companies, they are actually present in certain regions. For us, these local clients are very important for us. We think that we are one of few that can actually serve them on a local level. For us, they are very important, but of course, together we are offering also bigger projects.
There is a similar question here. In what share of projects can you cross-sell other services under the Solwers umbrella, and what kind of potential is there to expand these opportunities in the future?
There is actually a lot of potential, and we are actually using that more and more. The project I showed, you could see that there was a lot of Solwers companies involved. I think that that is the basic of our concept, that we do things together. All these small companies, they have their own clients, and before they have only been selling their own disciplines, but now we can sell to the same clients also other disciplines from other subsidiaries. I think it's very important, and it's actually one cornerstone of our concept.
As Solwers has over 5,000 different projects annually, how do you handle the management following of the thousands of projects?
I would say that most of these projects are small, and they are on a running base. It is nothing exceptional with that. I would say that usually, if you have problems with some projects, it is usually the big ones where you have, because the managing of the project and all these things are much more challenging than in small projects.
One more question regarding more of the operations. What is your opinion on building of data centers? Is the market in data centers building too hot to handle and too risky?
We are actually involved in one data center project in the excavation work there. There are, let's say, global companies that are specialized in this data center engineering. It is a difficult market to step into.
We are doing, for example, for this project, we are doing things that are actually around the engineering, let's say, construction and rock excavation and things like that. There we are active. We also have partners from Europe who we can help if they get assignments in Finland, because they always need also local partners. It is a growing and big business.
Okay, then maybe for Teemu, can you comment on the split between Finland and Sweden in 2024? Sales split revenue.
Roughly, the sales split is 52 compared to 48 in favor of Finland.
Okay. How have recent acquisitions developed? Any negative or positive surprises?
I think that when we have so many companies, there are always small surprises, but I would say that not any major we haven't seen.
Of course, the market situation has impacted all companies somehow, but we also have companies where actually, for some reason, they have improved their profitability. We need to remember one thing that when we are buying companies, the purchasing price is depending also on the performance of the company for, for example, three years. Let's say that if there are more challenges, we probably pay less for the company. I think this goes a little bit hand in hand.
Okay. A question regarding Northern Sweden. What is the sentiment in Northern Sweden among your companies or customers?
What do you mean by sentiment?
How is Northern Sweden developing?
I would say that except for Northvolt, which is a company that is a little bit different from the normal Swedish industry companies, I would say that they are going forward.
If you think about those who are, I think the biggest project for the time being in North Sweden is actually the SSAB project, which continues. We have, of course, LKAB with big investment program. I would say that there are a lot of projects in North Sweden, and there is really also a big competition about resources because all these projects also need project management resources. That is where we have a lack of actually resources in some companies. Maybe that was some kind of answer.
Yes. What are your observations on the Polish market? Have you found possible M&A targets that fit your criteria? You mentioned that we have some.
Yes, we have, but of course, I cannot tell more about that until papers are signed. We are negotiating with at least one company, and we are also looking for more.
There is a question about the dispute with Kreate. When do we expect this to be resolved?
It's difficult to say. We have not been in the driver's seat in this claim, and we are preparing a contact claim. I don't want to comment on that anymore. We will try to solve it as soon as possible and in the best possible way. We have been the engineering partner in this project, and the project has been actually led by Kreate.
Okay, more financial questions. Can you clarify all of the non-recurring cost items on the result? What was the driver of the other operating income, which was EUR 2.3 million on H2?
On other operating income, the driver is the other part of the contingent liabilities change related to mergers and acquisitions as it splits on the two parts.
How much of the M&A-related liabilities are you expecting to pay in H1 2025?
H1 is something around EUR 6 million.
Can you describe the growth in administrative costs that you said were EUR 1.2 million? To what extent are these non-recurring and will end? Maybe Stefan.
Yeah, I think that most of them are one-off costs and related to future growth and also to transfer to the main list. Of course, the target is to go back to 2023 figures, but maybe we cannot achieve that. I would say that we have to at least reduce it by more than half. Of course, we do not need these services anymore. They have been more or less external service providers that have done work for us.
For Teemu, how does the order backlog compare to the situation in the beginning of 2024?
In the beginning of 2024, since then the order backlog was pretty stable until the first half, end of the first half, but ever since it has been growing stably.
Let's take maybe one more question. Okay, there's maybe two. Why does Solwers report EBITDA and adjusts the actual renting costs away? I think it doesn't tell about your profitability.
That's a tricky question. I do not have the details of the background of this solution, but we will probably consider whether we make some changes in the future. We understand that it differs from the market practice.
Just a comment that we have been reporting this since we went in the same way, and if we change it, then we need to, of course, tell the market that we are going to change. We have not yet made that decision.
The final question that we will have today is what kind of cost cutting are you implementing? Layoffs or personnel reductions?
Layoff and personnel reductions are quite, as I see it, they are the same, but we are laying off people or we are laying off them temporarily where there is a need. Of course, we are also looking through all kinds of costs in all subsidiaries and also especially in the group, because we had, as I said before, we had a huge increase in cost in 2024. We want to get it down, and our aim is, of course, to have an as slim group as possible. There are many tools, of course. Other things are improving billing rate, improving price. In some cases, we want to increase also FTEs. We have people.
We have a range of things, but they are a little bit different in different subsidiaries. We are going through them all.
Thank you. I think we more or less have answered all the remaining questions. Thank you, everyone, and wishing you a nice day.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Bye.
Bye.