I would like to welcome all of you to this webcast presentation from AFRY. We will present the first quarter report. My name is Jonas Gustavsson, CEO. I have Juuso Pajunen, who's actually here in Stockholm.
Yeah. Hello. Nice to meet you all.
We will take you through a few slides initially, and then of course having time for questions that you might have. I will start then to frame a bit on the quarter. You have seen the numbers, but just to give you a summary from our side, and I guess there will be questions about the demand. When we look at where we are positioned in the main, but also even from the industrial side, we see a solid demand, and of course we see a lot of transformation on the industrial side, new segments evolving. There are segments, of course, with all the investment that will be done. I think the industrial transformation is really interesting, and we are well-positioned, and here we see a solid demand.
I would say also that the Infrastructure has been a solid demand in the quarter. We delivered 13.4% total growth, ending up at SEK 5.7 billion, roughly, which is just a note from a company perspective, the highest we have had. This was equal to 3.3% adjusted organic growth after the calendar effects. Clearly, we would have liked to have more, but from a total top-line perspective, it's been a solid quarter. If you look on the result then, I would say starting four divisions, and we will look on that, reported actually a year-on-year higher EBITDA. The EBITDA amounted to 8.3% the margin and that was SEK 472 million, last year 8.6%.
I would say that the quarter from a performance was a step in the right direction. We are not yet on the level that we expect from ourselves, and we have now a plan where the cost program is one plan, but we are also working in other areas. I would say quarter one has been a step in the right direction for AFRY, but not yet on the level that we expect them. Coming back to the operational part, we have launched that cost program that we also presented during the fourth quarter presentation. We have now taken SEK 100 million, and we are executing on that plan.
I would say that we saw some small effects from that in the first quarter, but the large effect from the cost program will actually gradually come during the second quarter, and we have said that the full run rate of that will come in the second part of the year. We have one slide on that. We have also launched AFRY X, a new division. We really believe in our that we can be a Nordic leader in digitalization. We have a strong service business that we will grow and strengthen. We have this evolving software business to complement. AFRY X is now operating as a new division. It's been some work to set it up, but here we will push, push, push both organically, but also looking for acquisitions.
Again, I also want to say, one step in the right direction operationally, but not yet on the level that we expect from ourself. A few things on the market. I mean, needless to say, there's a lot of uncertainty also on the market. I mean, we have the war in Ukraine, that actually started during the quarter. We have supply chain disruptions. We have inflation. We have interest rates. We have cost increases. For sure, there's a lot of uncertainties. At the same time, we see that there is an underlying strong demand for this transformation where the industrial segments actually are leading. When you look on the segments, again, then, strong demand on the industrial side and also solid demand on the infrastructure side. Of course, we get a lot of questions related to salary inflation.
How do you see the future? We need to gain from opportunities we see, and we will. We have done that. I think we will see that order stock for AFRY is now stronger than ever. At the same time, of course, we keep a good eye on the macro, what is happening because for sure, there are some worrying signs, but we don't really know how it will play out. It's a complex world, but we have seen then throughout the first quarter that the underlying demand is strong. Competition for employees is getting higher. We need to look on attrition. But again, summarizing the first quarter with all the worries we have on the macro, there is an underlying demand, but we keep a good track on where it might go then.
Of course, we have brought in a lot of new projects in the quarter. These are three of them, and the first one is where we will be part of building up the Norrbotnia Line. It's an interesting rail project. OKG in Oskarshamn are actually using the AFRY Real Digital Twin, so that goes directly into AFRY X. It's a really cool product. And then in Boliden, we are the main engineering partner for the expansion of the zinc smelter in Norway. These are three projects that also kind of mirror projects that we are becoming more ambitious moving forward to bring into AFRY. Just looking on the divisions, if you start with Infrastructure, that has been on the agenda for quite some time.
I would say that, the quarter one was one step in the right direction for Infrastructure. I know that the team have a plan where we are working in many areas, and we have communicated that. The margin ended up at 8.2%. Last year, it was 7.7%. We have seen improvements in the business. The new organization and operational focus we have start to yield some effects. At the same time, we would love to have a stronger organic growth. Sick leave was an issue for us, and we just look on the numbers. We had a high level of sick leave in the beginning of the quarter. It really improved throughout the quarter, of course, and we closed March in a very strong note. That affected us and also Infrastructure.
If you look on industrial divisions, I would say all of them gains from a strong market. If you look on Industrial & Digital, strong growth and improving margin. For example, the demand for software engineering service is really improving. And here we are focusing a lot. Process Industries, it dropped a little on the margin, mainly driven from the fact that we had to use more sub-consultants just to handle the volume. They grow strong, and I would say the margin is on a high level. Energy, last year we had a big nuclear project, so that's the negative growth. The EBITDA margin we keep on a high level. Of course now the underlying demand for energy business we believe will increase, and we will push to get on growth.
AFRY X, a new division, and of course, we are looking at that from two perspectives. The cash business that actually generated 10.9% margin. And then we have the investments that we are doing in driving that software-driven business up. There are two parts of the AFRY X. Finally, the Management Consulting strong. I want to say that again, not yet from a group where we want to be, but for sure quarter one was a step in the right direction, and we have now a plan that we will execute on. With that, I will leave it to you, Juuso, to take us through a bit on the financial slides, Juuso.
Thank you, Jonas. Basically, if we start talking about the revenue development, Jonas quite well covered it on the divisional part. We have reported a handsome 13.4% total growth, of which then organic growth was 4.5%, and the adjusted organic growth was 3.3%. The adjusted organic growth was hampered by the sickness leaves during the quarter that have been following geographically, the pandemic development and has been impacting especially the Nordics. If we then think about the overall growth and where we are improving, it's definitely the industrial offering where we have seen solid growth figures throughout our both geographies and segments. Infrastructure and AFRY X have been reporting lower organic growth. Both of them have been impacted by the sickness leaves, and to certain degree also the industrial offerings.
The heavier weight has been in the Infrastructure and AFRY X that have a higher proportion of the revenue within the Nordic countries. Energy Division is showing a negative growth due to a large nuclear project being in a heavy execution phase previous year. What is then good to note is that we have a strong order stock. It continues to be strengthened, and despite the macro environment and the uncertainties in there, we have a good base to jump forward, and that is within the order stock. If we then talk about the EBITDA development, 8.3% as a margin compared to 8.6% p revious year is not within our ambitions. As Jonas said, it is a step to right direction. We have operationally been able to improve our margins, especially in Infrastructure and Industrial & Digital Solutions.
We have the double-digit margins of the Process Industries, Energy and Management Consulting, and the service business in the AFRY X. We have a solid margin-delivering engine that was now hitting a speed bump within the sickness leave, which are impacting approximately SEK 60 million during the quarter. The other part that is very good to note in this one is that we have within the quarter sequential solid improvements. The sickness leaves were impacting especially January, and then little by little going down in February, and then March being already strong throughout the offering. We have been seeing the development in the right direction, and that applies also to the operational performance. The quarter ended up with a solid note.
If we go forward on looking a bit on the absolute numbers, as stated, basically we have Infrastructure and Industrial & Digital Solutions delivering strong improvements, SEK 32 million in the Infrastructure, SEK 40 million in the Industrial & Digital Solutions, now excluding the operations carved out to AFRY X. What we see in the Process Industries, Energy and Management Consulting are delivering solid margins within the operational environment, double-digit margins. But on absolute levels, they are dancing around the zero improvement due to the margin actually being slightly weaker than previous year. If we look into the AFRY X and then on the common costs, we have the AFRY X includes the development and ramp-up of the software offering, and that one hampers down both the absolute and relative numbers.
The underlying IT service business is doing well, growing, delivering 10.9% margins. In the common costs, we have the ERP project, as we have stated, it is ongoing, and it is having an expense component still during this quarter. The empty premises is a topic that we are continuously working on, and that is continuously on a higher level compared to previous years. This is operationally an important topic for us because we have truly learned during the COVID that we can utilize our premises in a better manner, and we are committed to take that one into new ways of working, which then obviously means cost efficiency in the future. We have finally an impact from IFRS 16- leases.
If you flip through the report and you go into the notes of it, you find that it is something like SEK 5 million compared to previous year. That basically the interest rate environment and some prolongations of lease agreements and so on have brought as an expense onto the EBITDA. With these ones we end up from the 530s range to 572 during the quarter. If we look on the net debt development, we continue to have a strong liquidity. Basically, we had a solid normal quarter one operational cash flow. It seems to be ticking like a clock between the quarters delivering cash home on a modest scale during the first quarters, and then in the Q4 always a strong cash avalanche, as I like to call it internally.
With that one we have been able to reduce the net debt, but then with the acquisitions that we have taken during the quarter or closed during the quarter, we are now at SEK 4.2 billion or 2.2 net debt to EBITDA even adjusted for the items affecting comparability. We continue to have a strong liquidity. We continue to have a solid balance sheet position to go through the M&A markets and invest if we see lucrative opportunities. Finally, we have the cost program that is developing according to plan. We have currently achieved SEK 56 million of run rate savings during the quarter. These are back heavy, meaning that they don't have a material impact within the Q1 numbers, but some impact.
We are reconfirming that by end of the second half, by end of the second quarter, end of first half, we will reach the targeted SEK 100 million savings. At the same time, we have taken the restructuring provision at full SEK 100 million during the quarter, and that one will be then obviously consumed as we go forward, to the future quarters. All in all, I would say that this is a part I'm happy with. We have been executing within our ambitions. We have been able to kick this one off, and we are progressing within the plan. With these words then handing back to. Oh, excuse me, we have the taxonomy.
Basically, as we all know, sustainability is an ever-growing topic, and the EU taxonomy has been published last year, and now we have the first take on how it looks like on our end. We are talking about the taxonomy eligible turnover, which is 48%, and that is basically generated from buildings, road, and rail infra, electricity generation, water, and wastewater, and then the low carbon technologies for transport. 48% is taxonomy eligible, and this is materially on the turnover. The CapEx part is basically very minor because we ourselves don't do that much of a CapEx. At the same time, it is good to note that this is now the eligibility, and this will be followed up then in the next year on the alignment part.
This is the first step on this one, but I'm quite happy to see that we are roughly half eligible already at the starting point. Now with these words, I'll hand over to Jonas.
Yeah. Thank you, Juuso. I will move quickly into the summary slide that I thought was there. I mean, moving forward on a summary, our number one priority is of course to execute on the plan. We have the improvement plan, which includes the cost saving program. As Juuso said, we are progressing according to plan. After the 2020 and 2021, it's all about getting our operational platform, focusing a lot on infra up on the level where we should be. Not yet there, but we are progressing. The other one is of course to drive organic growth and attract and retain employees. I said it before, it will not. It's not easier to hire. There are more companies out for the best competence, but also retain employees. To drive organic growth.
The third one, we continue to have an interesting M&A agenda that we are of course pushing. Then we launched AFRY X. It is an investment for us, but we truly believe that digitalization will be a key moving forward. We are getting our operational platform together with AFRY X and looking on the software and service business. These are, I would say, the four priorities on the highest level for me and for us then. Just to end on that, we are fully aware that quarter one one step in the right direction, not yet on the level that we expect. We have more work to do. With that, I will open up for any questions that we might have from the audience.
Please use the function to raise your hand if you have any questions. Okay. We start with a question from Johan Dahl at Danske Bank. Please go ahead and unmute yourself. Johan, if you can unmute yourself.
Terribly sorry. Can you hear me better now? I just got a few short questions. Can you hear me? No.
Okay, we have some technical problem for just a few seconds, so we come back to you, Johan. Okay, you can go ahead, Johan, again. We try.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we hear you, Johan.
Oh, that's great. Sorry about that trouble. I'm terribly sorry.
No.
I'll be quick. Firstly, on this sort of this calendar effect. I mean, you're reporting according to a new sort of how you account for wage costs. What was the positive calendar impact in your view on a very sort of gross perspective, sort of not including this COVID impact, but just looking from that perspective?
Basically, if you look at the calendar impact, it is roughly 1.2 percentage points positive, so you can translate that one into the ballpark of SEK 70 million.
That leads me to the second question. If we just take away the contribution from acquisitions and the calendar impact, it seems that earnings is down some 10% year-over-year. Is that, you know, how you view it as well? Just, you know, what's the sense of urgency there from your perspective? You seem to describe a market that is fairly strong, and, you know, you got all these drivers to approach your margin target. Just some perspectives on that would be great.
Yeah. No, I think, urgency, Johan. We are running a cost out program, and we have an improvement plan that we are executing on. It's been a discussion that we have had with you for a couple of quarters that we are not really happy yet with the margin we have. We have not yet seen the big impact of this cost program because it's a lot of, you know, labor cost. I would say the urgency is high. At the same time, we can't shy from the fact that order books are stronger than ever, and many divisions show like high results. I would say it's from a total. I fully agree with you, Johan. There is a sense of urgency. At the same time, we still see that there is an underlying demand for our services.
Of course, like in Process Industries, we have used more sub-consultants just to be able to deliver. It's a mixed picture. We need to improve from a cost perspective and drive margins up. At the same time, you are pointing out that the market is, including all the ifs and buts, continuing to be solid.
At the same time, I comment that I can't relate to 10% operational decline excluding the M&As and all of that. When we do have a decline caused by the COVID sickness leave, which is very clear when we take the sickness leave rates and compare to that one, either previous year, which was clearly below the norms or the three-year averages. That one is explaining the performance gap we are having if you adjust for the calendar impact.
Okay. That leads me on to the second question. It's regarding capital allocation, because I mean, obviously, looking at your statements for last year, it just seems that if you acquired companies for valuation multiples, you know, pretty much at the level where you're at yourselves. It just seems that this growth agenda at some stage should have an impact on the discussion in board and management on, you know, whether to repurchase shares or continue to buy companies. How do you think about that?
Yeah, I think part of that question, as you say, is a board question, so I will maybe not comment on that. What we are doing, and which is in our responsibility, is to push and find good acquisitions that supports the journey of AFRY. Of course, we are in a big transition, Johan, where our offering is also moving from maybe more traditional towards these new future verticals. If you talk about offshore wind, that's one. I think, it's a matter of priorities, as you say. Our priority is to find and hunt good acquisitions that would be part of transforming AFRY to where we want to be.
You provided some valuation multiples for the recent fairly big Finnish acquisitions. Was that in line with what you had last year, pretty much on the valuation multiple perspective?
Well, if you go through our Q4 release note, you have a quite a good transparency on where the purchase price has somewhat been, and that one is clearly below our own valuation, but at the same time higher than the valuations we saw like 2-3 years ago.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you.
Okay, we take questions from Dan Johansson at SEB. Please go ahead.
Hi, Dan.
Hi, Jonas, and hi, Juuso. Hope you can hear me.
Yeah.
That's great. A few quick questions from my side as well. First one on your statement in the report of a sequential improvement throughout the quarter, and that you ended on a strong note. Is that due to you getting price increases through, less impact from the sick leave or better market? Can you elaborate a bit on that statement, please?
Yeah. I would not say. With all the things happening on the market, that we can really see that the market have evolved throughout the quarter. It started on a good note, but what we see for sure, and that's quite simple, we had less sickness leave at the end of the quarter, while we started up actually, at least in Sweden and in the North. We have many countries and areas that were still affected very much from the COVID and different kind of quarantine rules. That was the most evident thing. I would say that we are step by step, I would say, improving our operational platform. If you talk about the infra for a while, that we talked about a lot last year, we know that we were not happy on the level that we operated.
Now we have changed the organization. The way we are working, there is an improvement program in place, and I think all of that have helped us in improving throughout the quarter. At the same time, of course, 24th of February, the war in Ukraine started with all the ripple effects that that might have on inflation. I would say the clearest thing we have seen in the quarter has been that the sickness leave have gone down, and we are step-by-step improving our operational performance. I would say the market in general, the demand for all these new solutions is still as strong in the beginning as it was in the end.
Perfect. Thank you for the clarification. Also a question on the AFRY X investment. You took SEK 25 million here during this quarter, cost of sales and development, et cetera. How do you think about investments now for the coming quarter this year? Do you expect them to remain at a similar level, or do you expect them to gradually increase from this one?
Well, I think I would say that you could plan around this level moving forward. I mean, we have in our portfolio today a few very promising solutions that we are pushing to the market, if it's the Real Digital Twin or if it's the Smart Forestry solution and some others. We have now put teams together that we can scale it to a level that we have not done before. It is an investment. We believe in it. At the same time, talking about M&As, if it's one area that we are really looking into M&As, that would be also transformative. It's on the digital side. We are not planning to build that investment level up. I think you can lean on the fact that it will remain on roughly the same level.
Great. Thank you. The final one from, as you mentioned, Infrastructure seems to take a small step in the right direction here, even if you have higher ambitions. Did the acquisition of Vahanen help you somewhat, or is it sort of in line with the profitability of the business segment?
If I take that one. Basically, Vahanen is a clear improvement in our whole offering in Finland, and the integration journey has started really well. I think that there's clear both operational and backend synergies that we see within the Finnish operations, and we are super happy to have these 500 Vahanen people in there. They have started the journey with us both from integration perspective, but with the operational perspective with a positive note. That is, of course, supporting if you look into numbers also there.
Perfect. Thank you so much. That was all from me for now. Thank you.
Okay. We have a question from Raymond Ke at Nordea. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. Four questions from me, please. Could you hear me?
Yes, we hear you.
Great. First one, it would be interesting to know how you perceive your customers' demand and perhaps if you observed any paused projects yet?
Sorry.
Paused projects.
Okay. I would say that the customer demand, as we said, in general, quite good. Of course, I think what this may be from the client side on the big projects, the worrying is that you see this cost increases in a project, and it goes pretty fast. I think the maneuvering space for many of these large CapEx project is probably more complicated. At the same time, I would say that surprisingly many projects moves on. I think they are driven, again, we feel like we're repeating the same thing. They are driven from long-term investments in a future system meeting the long-term climate, fossil fuel structure.
If it's electrification in automotive, if it's batteries, or if it is in the new backend systems moving into windmills, whatever it can be, those projects we feel they proceed because there's a long-term plan. At the same time, I will say there will be hiccups due to this extreme inflation that we can have locally. I don't know, Juuso, if you want to add anything on that.
No, I think that describes it very, very well.
Secondly, if you look into Process Industries, for example, you wrote that the component disruptions and inflationary pressures are impacting clients' investment decisions on bigger CapEx projects. Do you just mean in general, or is this something you've observed being paused already?
No, I would say that since many of those projects that we are working in Process Industries, they are really big, and they are big CapEx investments. Here you could see that some of these projects have been impacted. It's not yet really material because we really have a good order backlog, and the backlog have been strengthened. For sure, we note when we have dialogues with our clients that of course they are getting concerned that you see these cost increases evolving.
Great. Thanks. Third, Energy division, you wrote that you're expecting to see, or starting to see impact from nuclear related to Russia. Should we interpret this as confirmed orders? If so, should we expect them to start in 2022?
Yeah. Basically, if we look the nuclear environment and the Russia reference, it is good to note, for example, Rosatom, who is a big player in the nuclear market in Europe, both within the Hungarian atomic projects and the Finnish atomic projects. I wouldn't put this one as a positive note on new projects starting at the moment.
All right. Final questions from me regarding salary inflation. Do you expect there to be a gap in rising salaries and when price increases start to kick in, meaning that there will be expected margin dip in Q2?
Yeah. Coming back to the original plan and a question about when do we see margin improvement. We have a plan to operationally improve, and we see that we can push through price increases even now. So that is already happening. And then, of course, we are keeping a super good eye on salary inflation. But our overall ambition and our awareness that we need to find ways to net out the salary inflation and improve our front end because we have a clear ambition and plan to improve the margin. We know that for the last couple of years, we have been 2020 reacting to SEK 2 billion volume out that we reacted to, and 2021 had been good from an industrial division climb. But at the same time, we have been lagging a bit in infra.
I would say it's not a one system. We are pushing for price increases as much as we can as we speak, and we are keeping a good eye on the salary inflation, and our belief is that we will be able to improve the margin. I don't know, Juuso, if you-
No, I think that is exactly the point. What we are actively doing is that through every offering, we are evaluating the pricing and pushing the prices up. At the same time, we see a positive response from the clients who understand this.
Yeah
This problematic, so.
All right.
This program.
Yeah. Thank you. That's all from me.
I would maybe the last one is then if as a company, of course, more we move into real value-based selling and even products, the salary is big part of it, but then the margin will be more a question about what value to deliver to our clients. As we can package our service more, that will not be one to one with the salary inflation. For sure, for AFRY as a company, salary is a huge, the biggest cost bucket, so we need to keep a good eye on that.
Okay. Thank you, Raymond. We have, I think we have a follow-up question from Johan Dahl. Please go ahead if that's the case.
Yes. I hope you can hear me better this time. Just a question on staff retention. I just glanced through the annual report, and tell me if I'm wrong, but I think you had some 20% staff turnover in Sweden last year. Please, just how do you interpret that number in the sort of a longer cyclical context also given COVID, et cetera? The other question is: What are you doing looking forward to sort of address that? What are you tweaking in your strategy to reduce that number?
Yeah. I would say, Johan, that in many parts of our business, the salary attrition has been high ever since I started five years back. If you look at the business related to IT or software, it has been high. In our business, we are good at attracting new ones. But of course, we have seen now after the COVID moving into 2021 and that we see, if anything, that the push for increase in attrition is there across all segments. People leave to clients, and they leave to competitors, and we are equally hiring from clients and competitors. Our ambition is to be. You talk about strategy, Johan.
We know that we need to be able to build a culture and leadership style and bring in products that attracts the best people, that AFRY should have a portfolio of products, assignments, and a culture where people want to work and stay. That's the foundation in our strategy, Johan. If anything right now with a really strong market where, as I say, many clients are now looking for the same competence as we hire. You know, the simple example is that five years back, automotive had the competence of doing new crankshaft in Gothenburg. Now, the automotive, like Volvo's, want to hire 700 software engineers in Stockholm. For sure, the fight for competition is increasing. There is not one single silver bullet for that. We need to have career models, assignments, international projects, inclusion, diversity, brand, compensation level, leadership.
All of that will form a company that retains people, Johan. You're right. In this industry where competence and organic growth have a clear line to hiring more people, that will be an increasing challenge for a company like AFRY.
All right. Thanks.
I don't think we have any more questions. Jonas, go ahead.
Yeah. No, I would like to thank you for taking the time. Again, we think the report as such is one step towards the level we want. It's not where we still have ambition to be. Yes, we see that there is an underlying demand for all this transformative. At the same time, we are fully aware that the macro is getting, if anything, more complex. We will do our utmost, and I sometimes get the question, "How ambitious are you?" We really are ambitious, and we also know, and we have a clear plan, and to improve the margin that has been a topic. At the same time, drive growth. With that said, thank you all for taking the time to listen, and see you soon, hopefully also in real life. Thank you.