Good morning, and welcome to Tietoevry's third quarter earnings webcast. My name is Tommi Järvenpää, the head of Tietoevry's Investor Relations. With me here today are also our President and CEO, Kimmo Alkio, and CFO, Tomi Hyryläinen, who will next go through the highlights and results of the third quarter. Kimmo, please go ahead.
Thank you very much, and a good morning, warm welcome to everybody to our third quarter results announcement. I'd like to begin with the full summary of Q3, highlight being somewhat of a mixed performance in a softer market, us delivering growth of 2% based on the solid performance in our software businesses. Software businesses continue to demonstrate nice strength, even in the midst of the type of an economic cycle we are within. We are seeing weaker demand in Tietoevry Create and Tech Services, as we had predicted. Profitability of 13%, despite the softer market environment and continued high inflation, and very good to have seen in the third quarter, improved profitability in Tietoevry Industry. You could look at the totality of performance in Tietoevry Industry, and then specifically profit improvement for Tech Services.
We'd also like to confirm that, as we announced, in end of July, the MentorMate acquisition, it has been closed in the third quarter. Business performance and integration is progressing as planned, and I'll provide further details a bit later on. Also, we'd like to confirm that the strategic reviews of both Tietoevry Banking and Tietoevry Tech Services are on track with our earlier announced schedules. Given the macroeconomic and geopolitical environment, we'd like to highlight some of the implications, and implications being, the impact on demand visibility. The economic slowdown, primarily impacting the smaller consulting engagements and the type of time and material volumes in our managed services. I believe we are seeing similar phenomenon as we would be seeing Industry-wide.
Also, we would like to highlight that, given the prolonged war in Ukraine, this has started to tangibly impact our revenue generation in our Ukrainian business. That's naturally very unfortunate. It is very unfortunate for the people of Ukraine, and we absolutely continue our commitments to do everything possible that a company can do, supporting the safety and well-being of our colleagues and their families. Furthermore, we also confirm the inflationary era, and this naturally continues to require high-degree attention company-wide on continued optimization and increases in pricing, and very determined efficiency drive across the company to be driving further resilience. I would also like to confirm the core of our strategic direction and the core of shareholder value creation, as we are repositioning and continue to reposition Tietoevry as a leading software and digital engineering company.
Very practically, we have our specialized businesses that kicked into effect in the early part of 2022, driving the specialization, the competitiveness, and performance improvement. Second factor, we continue to gain benefits and expect to be gaining further benefits from customers' investments, especially mid- and long-term investments into the cloud and data-centric world, and with us having very specific set of software assets that fit very well into the customers' investment agendas. And also, the notion around strategic reviews, these are some of the factors in place where we expect to accelerate the execution and repositioning of the company. And I'd like to now provide a bit of an update, both from a standpoint of what we are doing in terms of taking advantage of cloud data and especially cloud and data-centric markets, and update on strategic reviews.
In terms of the MentorMate acquisition, I'd like to confirm the whole logic of the acquisition and parts of the new updates that we are providing in this report. First of all, very important that this acquisition enables our Create business in taking the next steps forward in becoming a leading digital engineering player globally. This significantly expands our customer base and growth potential in the U.S. market. The type of capabilities around design, data, cloud, and AI are spot on in terms of our belief in how the market will develop and customer investment into these categories. And we're also gaining further talent pool in the locations of Bulgaria and Paraguay, and fitting extremely well to the global delivery model of our Create business. And to confirm the revenue growth and profitability, accretive to our Create business.
A bit of a recent update, furthermore, integration fully on schedule, all the activities completed as planned in the third quarter. We have also experienced first revenue synergies during the past three month timeframe. Performance overall well on track, despite the fact or factor that there's also degrees of softness in the U.S. technology service and consulting market. Also to confirm in the report, we have the purchase price and valuation, enterprise value of EUR 162 million. This represents 10.6x multiple of the last 12 month EBITA, including full synergies, and 14.4 on standalone basis. We fully expect the synergy realization to take place within the first 24 month timeframe. We are currently very satisfied.
Things are ticking exactly according to our internal integration plan, and activities taking place of expanding the addressable market reach in the U.S. Next, into our strategic reviews. As earlier mentioned, both are on track with the earlier announced schedules, and as every quarter, we'd like to provide a few updates on the progress we are making. In the case of banking, in the banking business, we are making progress in building the management team, CFO and CIO selections have been conducted, and the team is, as expected, finalizing the strategy and establishing the readiness for the end-to-end operations as an independent company. And I want to confirm, that we had mentioned earlier, we expect the strategic review decisions during early part of 2024, followed by implementation, and with the aim of, to be listed as an independent company.
Then in terms of progress with Tech Services, in the past three months, operational simplification and performance uplift has been ongoing and actually progressing steadily. Furthermore, we have begun the engagement with potential buyers according to the original intent of Tech Services strategic review, and to confirm the preparations, aiming at the potential sale or listing as a spin-off, as announced, in July of 2022, and we are on track towards the original 12-18 months timeline. I'd like to also offer a couple of perspectives on, on important and, and cool customer wins in the past quarter in, in our respective business categories. In digital engineering, in our Create business, very solid progress in actually driving the digitalization agenda for clients such as Heinzel Group and Flytoget, Flytoget actually in, in Norway.
The common factor being the cloud, cloud-native data and data centricity, taking greater advantage of real-time information through data management, data integration, data platforms towards also machine learning and artificial intelligence, as is the intent with more or less all Tietoevry Create customers. Software and platform side, nice examples in the third quarter, our banking credit solutions, selected by the Savings Bank of Finland, that was announced in the third quarter. Furthermore, in our care business, one of the regions in the country of Finland joining the partnership model for the Lifecare system development, software development, and actually the functional roadmap development to very practical releases to be serving the wellbeing counties in the future, adding to the productivity of the hospital staff, doctors and nurses.
Wonderful to have more hospital districts and counties joining this common development initiative, where we already have had a number of counties present for the past roughly one and a half year timeframe. Furthermore, Handelsbanken Norway modernizing its wealth platform with our banking solutions. Managed service and transformation, good cases around the full modernization of infrastructure and application environments covered in DigiFinland, Haugen Group, and Cargotec as an example. Cargotec example, the system integration and management type of SIAM services in place. So these are some of the customer cases. Next, I'd like to move into the actual performance information. First, summarizing the group numbers. Already mentioned the, from a totality standpoint, the P&L growth of 2%, adjusted EBITDA at 13%, and furthermore, cash flow from operations being minus EUR 2 million.
This is significantly impacted by the changes in working capital, and Tomi will further elaborate on this topic. Also the order backlog of -1%, reflecting the both the seasonality and the market dynamics. I'd like to also offer the sub-data point that the backlog invoicable in the fourth quarter, up by 3%. Then into each one of our businesses, Tietoevry Create, a decline of 4%. Very important to highlight that the underlying growth of + 1%, the delta impacted by the fewer working days, that impacts by 2 percentage points, and 3 percentage points difference from the Ukrainian currency devaluation that took place in the third quarter of last year.
Growth, to be fair, is impacted by the lower demand for smaller customer engagements, and very specifically, as highlighted earlier, the impact of the war in Ukraine. This is impacting our Create business. The pipeline for larger engagement remains healthy, and as mentioned, first revenue synergy is taking place with MentorMate in the U.S. In this environment, we have somewhat lower utilization rates that do impact profitability. We see the opportunities on hand, and believe we have the staff available to actually take advantage of the market whenever the market rebound happens. Tietoevry Banking continued strong growth in the third quarter. There was actually healthy growth in all six businesses within banking. Profitability has been negatively impacted by the continued increase in technology cost and increased cost resulting from the legal separation and these factors impacting profitability.
We have shared these exactly the same way also in prior quarters. Performance improvement measures, including technology cost optimization, and actually broader efficiency improvement activities across all functions within banking, does support profitability and important to conduct in this higher inflationary era. Furthermore, then we go into our care business. Again, we have good performance in care, as we had expected, somewhat slower growth, this time 3%. The growth driven in the third quarter, in the welfare and data and analytics part, while the traditional strength of the healthcare side temporarily impacted, as fully anticipated by the health and social care reform in Finland, and as anticipated, slowness in further investment decision-making.
Profitability continues to be driven by the scalability of the software businesses and the degrees of modernization in technology stack and the ways of working within the R&D teams of the care division. Then into Tietoevry Industry, healthy progress in both growth and profitability, well in alignment with our internal expectations. Organic growth of 6%, driven by the pulp paper division and the Public 360, as well as the data platform side. Profitability naturally being supported by the strength of the scalable parts of the industry software portfolio, so profitability bouncing solidly upwards to 17.7% level. Furthermore, couple of weeks ago, we had appointed new Managing Director for Industry, Carsten Henke, with a significant background in Tietoevry, leading the pulp, paper, and fiber business.
A very high degree of modernization in the software architecture, scalability of software, as well as the international expansion. And I'd like to confirm that the background to the appointment, now Ari Järvelä, whom has been leading both care and industry, is able to dedicate his capacity to the care business, and we have a dedicated leader now with Carsten for the industry side. Furthermore, in Tietoevry Tech Services, solid profitability has been driven by the efficiency measures we have talked about in prior quarters as well. Let me first comment on the growth side of -4% within the business mix, which continues to evolve towards the more scalable services, this time cloud platform and security at 12% growth, traditional infrastructure at - 9%. In the second quarter, we were - 11%.
Currently, we anticipate to see further progress of this decline stabilizing during the fourth quarter, thus developing in a bit favorable direction. User experience services at - 4%. That tends to be lower margin business for us. Profitability in this business also being impacted by higher salary and technology costs, and very importantly, has been the predictability and solid execution of our cost efficiency program, quite broad within the Tech Services business, and as anticipated, became visible in the third quarter, and the full impact shall be visible fourth quarter onwards. With this background on the business performance, I'd like to hand over to Tomi.
Thank you, Kimmo, and good morning. Despite the softer market, as has been discussed, we delivered healthy underlying growth of 4% and similar profitability as prior year when we adjust for the fewer working days, as discussed, and the Ukrainian currency devaluation in Q3 of prior year. FX headwind continued to be high in Q3, having negative minus EUR 55 million impact to reported revenue. Our order backlog declined in Q3, which was driven by normal seasonality and somewhat slower market environment, as discussed. Organically, order backlog was down by 1% compared to prior year. However, as mentioned, stronger by 3 percentage point for the backlog realizable in 2023. In Q3, our one time items were at expected levels, so we keep our full-year one-time items estimate unchanged.
As the MentorMate acquisition was closed in July, we have performed preliminary purchase price allocation, which resulted in EUR 138 million of goodwill and EUR 23 million of identified intangible assets. The acquisition naturally also impacted our Q3 Free Cash Flow and net debt EBITDA levels, which I'll address in the next slide. So our operative cash flow was negative EUR 2 million. Primary driver for this was the increase in net working capital of EUR 97 million. Approximately 50% of this increase in working capital came from accounts receivable as the quarter ended on a weekend. This has roughly EUR 50 million impact for this quarter. Our AR levels, I can confirm we're back to normal levels already during the following week, so that was recovered immediately.
The rest of the increase was due to normal seasonal decrease in vacation accruals and lower AP levels, which was primarily due to lower external purchases during Q3 or towards the end of Q3. Our underlying cash generation foundation remains unchanged. With this negative operating cash flow, also our Free Cash Flow was negative by EUR 192 million, of which MentorMate acquisition impact was EUR 159 million. With this, our reported net debt/EBITDA was 2.1 at the end of Q3. If adjusted for the acquisition impact, net debt/EBITDA would be at 2.0. As you recall, our leverage target is between one and two, so we are currently slightly above our target level. However, we expect to be within the target level in the early part of 2024. Next, attrition.
So our attrition continues to decline, with end of Q3 rolling attrition being at 10.8%, and the quarterly attrition stabilizing at around 10%. Our net headcount was increased slightly during Q3, impacted mainly by the acquisition of MentorMate and the capacity reductions in Tietoevry Tech Services due to efficiency measures. We keep our salary inflation estimate at 5%, as communicated already in Q2. Next, I'll summarize the performance drivers for Q4. On growth drivers, we expect the weaker economic environment to continue, with customers initiating cost-saving actions and postponing investments, and this is impacting primarily Create and Tech Services businesses, as discussed. Banking growth will be impacted by high comparable of prior year, with approximately -4% impact and expectation of modest end-of-year license sales compared to prior year.
Tietoevry Care growth will continue to be impacted by the healthcare reform in Finland, consistent with Q3. At Tietoevry Industry, we expect healthy growth levels to continue. On profit drivers, inflation will continue at high levels, including technology cost inflation, which impacts primarily Banking and Tech Services. In Tech Services, the efficiency measures continue to support our Q4 profitability. Consistent with Q2 and Q3, Tietoevry Banking is impacted by increased cost level as a result of legal separation, profit impact being -1.5%. FX headwind, we expect to continue with negative EUR 44 million, and working day impact being -0.3%. Then to Q4 profitability outlook per business. Two of the businesses, namely Create and Banking, we expect to be below prior year level. Two of the businesses, Care and Tech Services, we expect to be at the level of prior year.
Tietoevry Industry, we expect to be above prior year profit levels. Back to you, Kimmo.
Thank you, Tomi. Thank you. Few considerations furthermore on our way forward. Important to confirm that we actively drive our strategic agenda, expanding the scalable software and digital engineering businesses in the core of value creation and strategic differentiation, and also. And naturally, to confirm the importance and high attention on the strategic reviews of Tietoevry Banking and Tech Services, and also to confirm in the current era and environment of macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty, very important to continue our focus on operational and financial resilience across the company. And we do believe we shall be one of the more resilient companies, given the type of business mix we have, and able to surf through the current type of a macro environment. This would conclude our considerations, and we likely move to Q&A.
Thank you, Kimmo and Tomi. We are now ready for the questions.
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 Daniel Djurberg from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator, and good morning, Kimmo, Tomi, and Tomi. I've been disconnected three times, so you might have answered this already or discussed it already. Sorry for that. Yeah, starting off a little bit on the attrition rate coming down, I guess there is large differences within the group. Can you comment a bit on the Nordic side of things? And if it's a big problem that it's getting too low, and if you need to, you know, address this to work on the demographic. Thank you.
Yes. So actually this 10% ish is quite healthy. I'm not overly concerned it would be too low levels at this point in time. Naturally, there's some variation in geographies, Nordics typically being lower in attrition side, and then our delivery centers offshore, we tend to see higher. But currently, there's not that big of a difference, to be honest, so. But not overly concerned. It's at the healthy levels currently.
Okay, that's good. And also a little bit on the salary inflation. You talk about 5% this year and entering 2024. In your view, should we look for a little bit less in Sweden, perhaps 3.5 or something? And just any comments on the cost entering 2024 would be great.
That's actually a really difficult question. Because when we look at sort of the current macroeconomics and the geopolitics that will play a role when we then enter into next year and how the world sort of looks like. Really difficult.
Yeah.
Question. So, so for now, I would sort of keep this 5% and then see how the world develops.
Perfect. Is it possible to give any extra granularity on the near-term guidance for Q4? You discussed as well, and you also spoke about the cash flow that I obviously also had a question on, but I think you answered it. But on the. For example, the Create and Banking, we saw a decline, obviously, in Q3 year-over-year of roughly 220 and 110 basis points, respectively, from this headwind of fewer days, etc, and also legal costs and so on in banking. Should we expect a similar, you know, decline, i.e., 100, 200 basis points, or is it increasing the, the, in Q4? It's my question, really.
So thank you, Daniel. That's of course a big consideration. So we'll try to, of course, provide a sharp view as we externally usually do. So, very likely, the performance drivers that Tomi summarized give a actually good foundation.
Yeah
And if I start a bit high level, I play back with the granularity that is possible today. So overall, I think we'd like to confirm the kind of overarching view and the background, background to our updated guidance, naturally based on the assumption of a slower while stable market also then towards the end of the year. And of course, there's been quite a bit of volatility in the market that I would anticipate everybody has seen. So these are the background factors. Then if we think a bit, naturally, every business has its very unique type of dynamics. I'll try to briefly comment the ones you were most curious of on the Create side. So Create has more of a pockets of success.
We have reflected upon, on that a bit, a bit in the earlier quarters as well. Typically, larger engagements of high strategic value, they are the core of investments for clients. They tend not to be that impacted, in the case of volatility, while the smaller ones can be or, or they tend to be smaller engagements. So this gives a bit of a balanced view and, of course, exactly how the quarter will play out. But it's clearly a more challenging environment for Create than, as an example, one year ago in Q4, like everybody recognizes.
Yeah.
Then I'll comment on Ukraine. It is very specifically impacting the Create business. So that's a.
Yeah.
T hat's naturally a new development we have now shared that became more tangible, unfortunately, in the third quarter. And then banking side, maybe some consideration, there were quite high comparables, in the fourth quarter from last year.
Yeah.
Many of our businesses, we tend to have less end-of-year license sales, banking would be one of them, than we traditionally would have had. The more businesses move to a SaaSified or platform world, the less you have peaks on licenses. I don't know, Tomi, if you want to add anything else. Those would be my reflections based on. Otherwise, Daniel, we could spend 15 minutes on each business.
Okay, are we back, Daniel? We heard we were cut off from this end. Daniel, can you hear us?
I can hear you.
Yes.
Loud and clear.
Okay. So I understand we were politely cut at the very end of the commentary. I was just saying that.
Yes, correct.
Tomi, have anything else to add, or Daniel, please offer any other reflections you'd like us to further offer?
Did you ask me or Tomi?
No, well, first I asked Tomi, but also Tomi said here he said, "Shuki has nothing to add." So if you'd like any other perspectives.
No, perfect. No. Okay, okay, thank you so much. No, I, I think I should get back in the queue now. Thank you so much for your good answers.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Mark Hyatt from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, Kimmo and Tomi, and thanks for taking my questions. I've got three, if that's okay. Firstly, could you just talk a little bit about your expectations in terms of a path of demand recovery in Create? Is this like 1-2 more quarters of subdued activity, or is this something that you think could be more persistent? And to that, how is this impacting your hiring plans in Create specifically? And then maybe just turning to industry, obviously, very strong growth there, 6% this quarter. What areas are you seeing strength in, in that business, and can you talk to the level of resilience that you're seeing in the business despite the uncertain macro? And then finally, just one on margins.
You know, margin was 13% this quarter, and that kind of implies a decent step up in Q4 in order to hit the bottom end of the FY 2023 margin guidance. As you look into the fourth quarter, what gives you confidence on the achievability of the full year margin guidance? Thanks very much.
Okay, thank you. So let us begin indeed, and we shall follow your sequence there. So in the case of Create, I'd like to begin by my opinion of the industry-wide phenomenon. So Create as a type of business tends to follow the economic cycles kind of faster than in terms of degrees of volatility. So that would be a generic comment. If a company is based purely on short-cycle project, you tend to be mostly hit. I see this as quite a balanced view if I offer a multi-quarter perspective. Given that, we are in the midst of a shift towards larger engagements, I think there's ability to be more competitive and greater strategic value, scale more, and utilize our global delivery network.
We have a healthy degree of large clients. We need to do a lot more. We have a tremendous opportunity. I now put it in a bit of a larger frame over a 1-2 year, couple of year timeframe in the U.S. market. So it's the largest market. We have very interesting differentiation in a couple of sub-industries in the U.S. through MentorMate. So these are some of the factors. And we are naturally not blind of the implications that potential further volatility may have, especially in the countries where we are more prone towards smaller customers and small engagements, and these are naturally the recovery actions we have continuously underway.
Then about the hiring plan, I'd like to offer a very consistent view as we offered three months ago as part of Q2 report. We are highly mindful of the type of a delta in utilization and how long do we accept a few percentage points lower utilization. We shall only keep it if we believe that there's good pipeline, good engagement, opportunity to win deals, opportunity to activate staff to new projects. With that's a background why we are clearly more conservative on the hiring plan and playing a very kind of tactical game short term, also considering of the demand uplift and/or and the relation correlation to utilization and profitability and natural revenue generation. That's a background, or that's business-as-usual, weekly basis, short-cycle optimization.
And if I look back to the big-picture view on Create, the whole world of cloud-native data around towards machine learning, AI, GenAI, over the next couple of years, I think we'll see tremendous opportunities. Then if I go next into the industry, the industry, so as I commented earlier, Q4 very consistently with our internal plans, how it played out in the third quarter. We have couple of the businesses inside industry. We have the data platforms that is predominantly the type of a B2B integration. B2B integration tends to be a modern term for the traditional. It's a modern version of old EDI transactions between enterprises and within the public sector for billing and invoicing. That's a strength.
Paper, pulp, and fiber, we are very strong, especially as the fiber market is picking up. We have very competitive MES software solutions, manufacturing execution systems, that tends to be fully integrated into the core ERP. Sounds like we are back. So Mark, we were maybe getting cut off. Maybe there's some issue with the data cables. We've seen some geopolitical risk in the environment. So, Mark, do you still hear me, or do you now hear me?
Yeah, I can hear you.
Okay.
I can hear you loud and clear now.
Indeed. So I was commenting on the industry side, the paper, pulp, and fiber has another strength in there. Third one would be around the public sector document management. We call it the Public 360. These are some of the fast ones that are already, I would call them, relatively scalable in a positive velocity towards real scale. And naturally, with the recent leadership appointment, we anticipate in the next era, I would call it, in the next roughly one year cycle, to consider further portfolio decisions that I think we have, we have interesting hidden value in the industry. We need to rethink exactly the most optimal portfolio of scalable software businesses. A bit mid and long-term commentary would be here. Then in terms of the margins, thank you for that point as well.
Couple of the underlying factors from an efficiency standpoint being the biggest one, the very systemic execution of the cost savings programs in Tech Services, and that is has been progressing positively, predictively, within a very tight operational kind of management attention. And the second factor I would like to highlight is the banking side, given and I hope you feel this is very consistent with our prior commentary in the past quarters. Both the impact of inflation on, on employee cost, of total cost base, and on the technology cost side, a lot of attention needs to go into cost level optimization in banking.
And I would add as a third component, given the macro level uncertainty, we have firmed up efficiency improvement actions across all businesses several months ago, independent of the healthiness of the business point being even if the margins are high, this is something that everybody needs to currently do to build the resilience for the next months and quarters to come. So Mark, those would be, I think, the first comments.
Great. Great answers. Thanks very much, Kimmo.
The next question comes from Sami Sarkamies from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Okay. Hi, I have three questions. We'll take these one by one. Starting from the full year guidance, we have already talked about Q4 outlook, but could you perhaps elaborate on the key risk factors? I mean, if you look at the growth, you're guiding for 4% for the full year. We are at that level after the first three quarters, but did only have 2% growth in the third quarter. And then on margins, you are now behind last year, but did have a quite material drop in the third quarter. And I think last year, Q4 margins were quite strong.
Thank you, Sami. Maybe I'll begin from a growth standpoint. I would like to highlight three factors, as you are asking about specifically risks. One part that we have highlighted earlier today, that the demand visibility, how it is actually progressing in the industry at large. That is naturally a factor, and we have come also. We believe that and are anticipating and have anticipated for several months, that the market will be slower, and we expect it to be somewhat stabilizing during the fourth quarter and not further eroding. That is naturally a factor. If I may, that's right, we will likely agree any company needs to be super mindful when the, well, environment has been this volatile.
Then if I may, and I'll try to be specific on your very fair question there, that naturally, we have paid a lot of attention for the revenue generation and predictability in the Create business and Tech Services sides, given that we have been missing the beat in terms of where our own expectations have been. Now, naturally, the reasons being for, let's say, the bit lower growth performance that we have touched upon in the earlier discussions. So very specifically, Create, it's the Ukrainian side. We have small business exposure, actually, in one country in the Nordics that we are working super actively on. So the more these mitigation activities continue, the more we naturally eliminate possible risk factors.
And Tech Services, similarly, I touched on this very briefly in my first summary as part of the presentation of the development in the traditional infrastructure side. That would be one of the factors in the, in the equation. And you'll. You shall remember the commentary that we did now, -9%. We were -11% in Q2. We see tangible progress towards, somewhat better results in that decline towards end of year. So some of these would be some of the factors in it. And then indeed, and as I, I did comment the margins already.
I'm not hearing you anymore.
Pardon us, there's been some technical issues, so maybe we, if we can on.
Yeah. I'm back now.
Yes, thank you. And then Sami.
So.
If I comment within the margins, maybe I would repeat the same points I commented to Mark on the margin side. Maybe Tomi wants to add a bit on the margin.
Yeah. Sami, it's likely good to recall, as I mentioned in my set, that we are actually delivering now in Q3 equal or actually even a bit better underlying profit compared to prior year, just as a starting point into Q4.
Okay. Let's move on to banking. I think after Q2, you did highlight tailwinds from price increases in the second half the year. These are no longer sort of mentioned, so what has changed there?
So in terms of the banking, specifically on price increases, to be fair, as in all our businesses, but as, of course, comment specifically banking, the price increase have been worked on for several quarters. There is naturally a dependency here. My comment would be the same as in the Q2 discussion, depending on when customer agreements are concluded with the higher prices, and it is naturally not a one-way decision. So, so degree of, of, how would I call it? Uncertainty on exactly when agreements get to the closure on, on pricing increases. And, that's why we are not commenting any more specifically until we have more information.
Okay. Then finally, related to capital allocation and MentorMate acquisition, we're providing additional color today. You paid 14.5x EBITA multiple for this consulting company. Your own stock is trading at 8.5x multiple, including also software businesses. Why don't you just buy your own stock instead? And then secondly, can you elaborate on the synergies, where they come from as these companies operating outside your current territories?
Yeah, thank you for the question, Sami. Of course, it's the wrong starting point to compare now MentorMate to overall Tietoevry multiple. So MentorMate multiple is well within the SOTP ranges of this type of business as Create is. So that should be the starting point to look at that. And now the reference to 14x multiple, of course, that's an LTM 12 month. Of course, we're sort of buying a company which is a high growth. So one should always, when looking at these multiples, look at what period of time one sort of compares. So of course, sort of high growth eats up the multiple quite fast. And as we were confirming today, the MentorMate is performing according to our business plan, despite the U.S. market softness, as commented.
Now, the synergies are both cost and revenue synergies, and as commented, this will be realizable within the 24 month timeframe, naturally, sort of indicating the lower risk level of the synergies embedded into the business case. And some of the factors as to on those revenue synergy side, so we have seen cases where there is actually healthy demand from the from the MentorMate side, and lack of capacity or certain skill levels, where we actually have already now have had the access to our global delivery network. So those are some of the really practical things on how we are able to actually win a bit more business, even short term. But of course, it will take a bit of time to get the full scale of the larger market penetration in the U.S.
That's naturally something we are working on very, very actively.
Okay, thank you for clarifications.
The next question comes from Felix Henriksson from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Hi, Kimmo and Tomi. Thanks for taking my question. I have three. I can also go one by one. Starting off the Create as sort of your more short cycle business, can you comment on the demand trend that you saw throughout Q3? Was there any sort of developments across the months there? I know we're talking about summer months, but still, and is the sort of outlook in terms of your customer spend getting worse or better, or is it stable? Thanks.
Okay, thank you, Felix. That's a very good question, and I'll, I'll now try to pick a right level of detail for external commentary. So if we think about the demand side, first of all, we throughout the quarter, and any of these months where we may have had somewhat declining revenue forecast, and here I talk more than two or three months, it tends to be a bit of a two-folded view, part of the business doing well, and then having some pockets of softness. And if I little bit open up that where we would have seen in the current dyna. Felix, we are back. Can you hear me?
I can hear you now.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right. So then I was talking a little bit on this two-fold view, so larger engagements, many things are actually progressing. So where we have paid a lot of attention, and maybe I mention one more time, Ukraine, but it's a very tangible one, that what is the impact of war, customers' confidence on how to use resource in Ukraine, and or how quickly can we shift that capacity to our other delivery centers? So that's one factor that has created softness. Second factor, actually, where demand has been, and I don't go into details now of which country, in a country, the type of a softness at the low end or smaller engagements, and especially in the earlier part of the third quarter, that softness was quite visible. Is it possible that.
Mark that the type of softness has stabilized? Absolutely. I've gone myself into quite a bit of visits with the respective management teams, but time will tell, of course, that how resilient can we be. And again, I conclude with my point on the positive part of the business solid in Create and somewhere the softness has been. And as you asked, I talked about the softness side, where what are we working on? Naturally, to fix that one, and then the total picture will be fine. And so that naturally in the Create side, then in terms of the outlook, these are the factors where we are strengthening the parts that are doing really well.
The good things happening, predictability in, I would say, a healthy part of Create is progressing and making sure that the pockets of softness do not get softer, rather we hopefully see rigidity in the months to come.
Okay, that's clear. Then the second one relates to your software businesses. So can you just sort of walk through what you've done with pricing in, in your software businesses? And, and can you confirm that there is still sort of tailwind left from price adjustments in your software businesses, particularly in banking, throughout your license base?
Thank you. So, as always, it's a bit dangerous to aggregate multiple businesses, so let's begin by the banking side. So indeed, all the price increases, I would confirm, have not kicked into effect. Some of the negotiations are quite complicated. So that will continue clearly and is absolutely on the agenda. Then if we think about the care side, I would offer openly, it's a more complicated agenda. One part of it, how much we want to increase the prices. Anything with public sector, the contracts tend to be highly in. You use the indexation, and also given the type of competitiveness in the market and the need to reduce cost or investment levels in some of the countries due to social reform.
So, the price increases is not naturally just something that we dictate. We are very mindful that making sure that we optimize the price increases, whether we think about the software itself, whether we think about the integration services or professional services very actively. But I would not like to oversimplify because it is always a multi-factored equation. And then when we think about the industry side, we have done also very systematic there for many, many quarters, and in some of the businesses, we've done quite bold, big increases in the recent era, in the last couple of quarters. So many of these will continue to carry forward a bit if I look back to the entire view and your curiosity on software as a whole.
So yes, the price increases will continue to support us when we go into 2024.
Within your banking suite and how exposed to these types of trends, your, your business within banking?
So Felix, we just got back online now about 15 seconds ago. Can you please repeat? And hopefully, you heard my commentary on the software businesses.
Yeah, absolutely. I heard the previous commentary, and my final question was related to banking and the fact that there was a pretty severe profit warning by a certain payment software vendor in Europe earlier this week, citing reduced discretionary spending by online software. So I just wanted to get a reminder of how exposed to payments are you in your banking suite, and how exposed to these types of potential headwinds your business is.
So banking is one of the businesses I think I would comment that we are not tremendously exposed on the payment side. Payment has been one of the businesses with somewhat healthy international expansion in the back of it. We have a, I would call it, a quite well-qualified, properly prudent view of the short-term era and expectations on the payment side. I think it's a longer-term wonderful opportunity we have, and I would leave the commentary there. I think we should be quite prudent on our expectations for the current era. Some of these businesses actually do have really high comparables within banking for the fourth quarter.
Okay. Thank you. That's all from my side.
The next question comes from Harry Read from Redburn Atlantic. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, guys. Just three for me, maybe one at a time again. There's been a lot of commentary about Ukraine and weakness. Just trying to understand, obviously, the Ukraine war's been going on for around 18 months now. I would have expected that you'd be kind of lapping some weaker comps on pushback spend, given the uncertainty in the Ukraine war. So, just trying to understand why that weakness is coming into the year-on-year growth rate in Q3, given it started a long time ago?
Yeah, thank you for that question. So, so then the very practically, the, it has to do with customer decision-making on how projects are continued or not continued. So there's been a perception of a higher risk level by certain customers of ending the project, projects with us, and we have not immediately been able to turn this into or utilizing our other delivery centers that we have outside of Ukraine. So it has to do with customers perspective, perception on risk level.
Okay, that's very clear. Thank you. And then, the second one on Tech Services. I think, I think in some investor relations material, you quoted the peers on, being 8x-13x EBITDA. Now we've got some kind of solid financials for the Tech Services business. Do you think that that multiple is still achievable on the spin-off?
Well, we will likely don't want to comment this at this point in time, these multiples and what will happen in the future and the valuations, unfortunately.
Okay, sure. And then the final question, just on the kind of logistics of the Tech Services data. The way I understand it is that the customized software developed through the industry verticals is hosted on the IaaS platform that you have, and you are looking to spin. How does that work in terms of client data? Have you had discussions with them in terms of will the data be transferred onto another hyperscaler platform, or will it go with the new owner of the Tech Services platform? Just trying to understand where that data goes to, and if you've talked to clients about how that works.
Okay. So if we think about the whole, I'd like to clarify how the whole process went when we shifted from an integrated IT services company to specialized businesses, as I'm sure, hopefully everybody recalls, that happened in January of 2022. So practically during the year 2022, we did the internal contracts between the units for what type of, I would call it subcontracting, is being done. So, there are, relationships, internal contracts between many of the businesses, and whenever the service is most competitive to use an internal, quote-unquote, partner, then it's the right thing to do.
So, then the contracts are in place, and naturally, your example of a software business utilizing the private cloud capacity run by the Tech Services, it's up to the software business in question to consider what makes the software business most competitive. It's quite a natural inclination to continue that relationship, just like you would have with any other cloud provider. So currently, we don't see any drama in that process.
Brilliant. Very clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from Matti Riikonen, from Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Hi, it's Matti Riikonen. I have four questions. I'll take them one by one. First, regarding price increases, I would like to continue the earlier discussion. In the beginning of the year, you said that raising prices will be difficult or it will be delayed due to long contracts. But how is the status today? How have you been able to hike prices so far this year? And with the softening market outlook, do you still think that you will be able to raise prices in net new contracts and renewed contracts going into 2024? I know that you have already commented something on software parts, but how are the other parts doing, and how is the kind of price increase situation developing there?
Yeah. So thank you, Matti. So I'll try to promptly try to be as clear as possible because this needs to be addressed per business. Any aggregation becomes a bit theoretical. So.
Can you hear me?
Okay, Matti, we are just back now. So.
Okay.
All right. So then let us first take Create. So Create started to implement the price increases very rigidly. I believe we talked about that at least a year ago. Now, of course, the market dynamics have clearly changed. So what have you done on the price books? The price competitiveness required now, given the overcapacity in the industry, equation is much more complicated than how we would run it. I think that, that, that is likely really clear. Now, of course, however, the price points will be absolutely actively on the table for the next months and quarters to come. I currently expect myself it'll be on the table for the next one to two years, seeing how the whole bounce back happens, and that, that has to be. So that.
So a lot is being done. In some parts of Create, one is able to run higher prices, depending a bit which region in the world, exactly what skill level you have, high-level data scientist capabilities on AI, price points. You have the demand for those skills and resources, and the availability is scarce, so you can price better, but then you do some very basic Java development than you do in the markets which were impacted by the economic slowdown, there's enormous price competitiveness. So I don't want to oversimplify that. It'll be active on the agenda. Everything possible that can be done short-term, I'd say, is being done.
Software businesses, there's a bit of a longer lead time, like we had a dialogue in the prior quarters, and there, the ability to drive price increases tends to continue to be more favorable on the software side. And then if I comment Tech Services, Tech Services, one part is that how we want to increase prices, especially for time and material work. Then when we think about price points for capacity, and there, only thing one can and should comment is that it's given that in capacity, price erosion will continue, given how the price points in public cloud are and will be developing. So you notice, Matti, if I gave you a really simple answer, I think that would not be fair. It's rather. It's really granular per business.
Right. Okay. Then, two questions about banking. Could you discuss the segment performance within banking? Which areas were contributing and are contributing to growth and margins, and which areas are more stable and perhaps negative? So that, I mean, there's quite a many segments in the banking business, and, any idea or any clarification of how they're actually doing internally, that would be.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Matti. So, to be fair, I have the numbers in my mind. We just don't open them up externally, but let me try to comment to the degree possible. So here we did comment that the revenue side, third quarter, actually, this time we were strong in all six businesses. Because quite often in a portfolio, you have ups and downs. That's typical. Q3 was solid. Then I had a comment that I know I've said it twice already, that Q4 has high comparables in many of the businesses in banking. And then if I talk a bit on the profit side, majority of the businesses are running healthy profitability. If I even think about third quarter, and we have.
I use the word some here a bit on purpose, a bit abstractively, where we have clearly higher operating cost and delivery cost and/or capacity cost than our mid- and long-term plan calls for. So we have ample degree of cost optimization necessary that we have hopefully reflected upon quite openly in past quarters as well.
Right. And then the follow-up: Do you plan to give more segment information of banking before the separation happens in early 2024? I mean, currently, the business is like a black box to outsiders and rather difficult to value. So do you have plans to give more information so that it could be externally valued as well?
So naturally, these decisions and to what extent we will open up as part of the process will be decided then towards the end of the strategic review conclusions.
All right. Then finally, this is my last question. Regarding the MentorMate acquisition, you implied that it is growing according to plan, and hence, the high multiples that you paid for are warranted. But actually, we, from the outside, we don't know anything about the plan. So could you somehow in the big picture, tell us what are these plans for growth and margin improvement so that we could compare the performance of MentorMate with other listed or with listed companies in the market?
Yeah. Of course, I fully understand the question. Of course, as we have said, MentorMate will be fully integrated into Create. We will never be reporting MentorMate as a company or as a unit, and never will be discussing that. That's a North American business and European business as part of Create. But to sort of address the, of course, the comment.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we are back. Okay. Not exactly sure where I was cut off, but, we were talking about the growth, so, so I, I promised to give you a flavor. So we are well within the double-digit growth numbers in MentorMate, in our plan and in the actual numbers, and the profitability, as comment, is, is accretive to Create.
Already at this point in time.
All right. It's something double-digit territory that we are talking about?
Absolutely.
Which is something from 10%-99%, but, yeah.
Yes, it is doing well.
Okay, that, that was all from me. One suggestion, if I may: you might use another service provider for these calls in the future because this is pretty annoying and also makes this call much longer because it breaks all the time.
Yes, Matti, short comment.
I.
Very unfortunate. This is the first time we have it. I wonder, we don't currently have information what, what is happening. Fully agree, it's very unfortunate.
All right. Fair enough. Thank you.
The next question comes from Funny Sree from FURY. Please go ahead. Funny Sree FURY, your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead.
All right. Thank you. I think that was all the questions we had this time. I will now hand over back to Kimmo for final remarks.
Okay. Thank, thank you very much, and everybody, thank you for joining. So another exciting quarter behind us, strategically good progress. We are surfing through the macroeconomic environment quite swiftly, building further resilience into the company. And thank you for joining today, and very unfortunate we had these technical issues. Even with the technical issues, I hope we all managed absolutely fine, and thank you very much for the questions and comments. Look forward to talking to you later on. Thank you.