Welcome to the Addnode Group Q3 presentation. During the questions and answer session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Johan Andersson; and CFO, Kristina Mackintosh. Please go ahead.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to our report presentation for our third quarter, twenty twenty-four. I'm CEO of Addnode Group, Johan Andersson, and with me, I have our CFO, Kristina Elfström Mackintosh, as well. So we'll be presenting and doing a Q&A after that as well. So looking at the agenda for today, we'll walk you through Q3 twenty twenty-four. We'll finish up with what we believe to be our investment case. Then we'll do a Q&A, and you will also find in the presentation an appendix with some further information around the Addnode Group. So looking at Q3, we said it is a quarter with underlying organic growth and robust earnings improvement. The third quarter was strong. It had underlying organic growth. Currency-adjusted organic growth net sales was 3%, and our gross profit increased by 9%.
Although the economic situation was characterized by uncertainty, our strong position in segments with structural underlying growth has provided good prospects for upselling to existing customers. This was the first quarter that was significantly impacted by the transition to the new transaction model for Symetri sales of Autodesk software in the division Design Management. Like for like, our estimate is that the group's currency-adjusted organic growth would have amounted to approximately 16%, assuming that all Autodesk sales had been under the old transaction model. Looking at our profit, EBITDA improved by 52% to 200 million, and earnings per share increased by 181% to SEK 0.73. The big change compared to Q3 last year is that Design Management has more than doubled its EBITDA due to organic growth and effective cost control.
The Product Lifecycle Management division delivered a stable performance in a challenging market. The process management division had organic growth and improved EBITDA margins. We have completed six acquisitions so far in 2024, and I continue to see many opportunities for further acquisitions. As part of our relationship-based process, we are working actively to fill our pipeline with attractive acquisition candidates. Rolling twelve months, our EBITDA is now above SEK 800 million. Earnings per share is now up to SEK 2.83 , rolling twelve months, compared to SEK 2.09 for 2023. Looking at Q3, I'm proud of our employees' ability to land new customers, conduct acquisitions, develop the business, and deliver robust earnings improvement in the current market. With that as an introduction to Q3, I would like to hand over to our CFO, Kristina.
Thank you very much, Johan, and I'm gonna take you through a little bit about the breakdown of the net sales, so we have two graphs looking at the net sales from two different perspective, and starting from the graph to the left, we are presenting a breakdown on net sales by geography, and we can see here that Sweden has now reclaimed the position as the largest geography at 27% of net sales, and our international expansion into the U.S. market, which you may know, that we acquired the Symetri U.S. and Team D3 in Design Division, that now amounts to approximately 24%, and the revenue from U.K. is then the next, the third largest, which amounts to 21%, and we see Germany at 11%.
We also have about 17% coming from other countries outside these four identified, then going to the pie chart to the right, we can see that recurring revenue, which is continue to form a stable part of our business. It's now up to 74%, and then we can also see that the recurring revenue also consists of both third-party sales and also revenue from our own solutions. And service revenue, the second large portion, accounts for 23%, and that is a growth of 3% compared to last year's Q3. And services consist of both services relating to our software offering and customer-specific solutions. And then we have licenses at 2%, and we're talking about the license number going down in favor for recurring revenue going forward.
And then I would hand over back to Johan to go through the divisions details.
Thank you, Kristina. Before we do that, looking at Addnode, what do we do? Everything we do is about digitalization for a better society. This is why we exist and what we want to achieve in everything we do. We believe digitalization is the only way to provide decision basis for our future. We are confident in the capacity of humanity to do good and make sustainable decisions if the tools are right. I would like to introduce you to three examples of how we are working with our customers to develop digital solutions for efficient resource use and a more sustainable society. So looking at the slide, the first example to the left is how Symetri has helped its customer, Sasaki, with the rehabilitation of the University Lakes in Louisiana, USA.
The second example in the middle is about how Technia has supported its customer, Glaston, to improve its efficiency and to become more sustainable as a glass manufacturer. The third example show how Sokigo has enabled the city of Stockholm to ensure compliance with EU requirements on sustainable waste management and traceability of hazardous waste. You can read more about this in the appendix, but you will also find it on our website, and you will find our interim report, so please take the opportunity to read up and see more what we are doing and helping our customers with, so looking at the three divisions, we organize in three divisions: Design Management, Product Lifecycle Management, and Process Management.
Looking at the financial, you can see that if you look at gross profit in the middle, you will see that Design Management is roughly 53% of our businesses, and PLM and Process Management is roughly 25% each of our business, looking at the gross profit level. So if you look specifically at Q3 and Design Management, net sales increased by 5%, and adjusted for currency effect, organic growth was 7%. We are aware that last year's comparative figures were impacted by weak sales in the U.S., but still, we believe it's a strong performance by the division. This was the first quarter that was significantly impacted by the transition from a VAR model to an Agent model for Symetri sales of Autodesk software. I will come back later on the impact on that.
EBITDA increased to SEK 180 million, and the EBITDA margin also increased to 10.6%, and gross profit increased with 15%, and as we were able to hold on to the cost level, that had a good impact on the EBITDA level, so organic growth and effective cost control meant that the division's EBITDA more than doubled. Looking at the market, Symetri experienced stable demand and strong sales during the quarter. In both Europe and the U.S., the product mix had a higher share of three-year Autodesk agreements compared with the year-earlier period. Sales in the U.K. were strong to both the construction and the manufacturing industries, and Team D3 in the U.S. have contributed good to the earnings in the quarter.
The new transaction model that have been discussed in the last year and was implemented in U.S. in June 10 and in Europe, September 16. Commission-based net sales under the new Agent model were limited in Europe during the third quarter but had a more significant impact in the U.S., where the Agent model, as I said, was introduced in June 2024. Our estimate is that the division's net sales would have increased by approximately 25% if the previous VAR model had still applied in the third quarter, saying like for like, the growth would have been 25%. And if we adjusted for currency effects, it would have been 27%. We believe and experience that the transition to the new transaction model has highlighted the value of Symetri services and own complementary product as a competitive advantage when customers select their Autodesk partner.
So all in all, a strong quarter from Design Management. Looking at PLM, Product Lifecycle Management, net sales decreased by 3%, and organic growth was -5% if we adjust for currency. But we were able to have a good cost control, so EBITDA was SEK 649 million, and EBITDA margin was still 8.3%. Looking at the market, we can see that demand for PLM systems and related services were stable in the Nordic countries, where customer segments are more diversified, spanning from manufacturing, defense, life sciences, to be compared with the rest of Europe, where automotive is stronger. Sales were a little bit weaker in the U.K. and Germany, mainly due to a decline in license sales to the automotive industry.
The trend that we can see of customers increasingly preferring to rent licenses on a fixed-term basis rather than purchasing licenses with perpetual right of use continued as before, meaning that customers are going more from the old license model to a rental model, so that also has a smoothing and effect on the growth in net sales. The economic situation and interest rates have affected customers' decision-making processes concerning new and larger systems, leading to more to postponements rather than losing out the market. So we believe it's more of a postponement of investments. However, if you look at the division's good and well-established relationship with its customer base, there are frequently opportunities for recurring sales and expansion of current assignments. So if you look at Process Management, had a net sales increase of 3% and 2% if we adjust for currency.
We have a small operation in Norway as well in this business, even though the main business is in Sweden. We're able to increase EBITDA to SEK 58 million , and also the EBITDA margin to 20.1%. The division's good and well-established relationship with a large public sector customer base has made it possible for us to do recurring sales and expansion of current assignments, even though it has been a little bit tougher market with less tenders than last year, preferably to state agencies. But looking at municipalities, we can see that we have won several tenders during the quarter, and we still believe that the divisions business are well positioned in public sector, owing to their attractive individual solutions, in-depth experience, and good references.
So in all, a good quarter for Process, delivering growth and increased profitability and taking some good business in the markets. So with that introduction to what we have achieved in our business divisions, I would like to hand over to our CFO.
Thank you, Johan, and I'm gonna start taking you through the cash flow, and I'm gonna do it this way, that I'm gonna do it by line items and start with first the Q3, and then I'm gonna go to year to date, September. So if we start with the cash flow from operating activities, those of you that have followed us for some time and read the report thoroughly, you can see that Q3 is normally the weakest quarter during the year. And you can also see here that we have a negative cash flow from operating activities, but however, better than last year of SEK 6 million. And the improvement comes from the operating profit of SEK 67 million, and offset by the changes in working capital by 56.
If we look at the same line going to the year to date, September, you can see that we have a very good cash flow from operating activities of SEK 426 million. That is an increase of SEK 169 million compared to the year before. And the main changes comes from the operating profit. That was SEK 145 million increase from the year before, and offset by changes of working capital, also positive by SEK 74 million. So strong cash flow from operation year to date, September. Going down the table, we are looking at the cash flow from investing activities, and that amounts to SEK -167. And apart from the acquisitions that we have made in the quarter, we have talked about the Addoceo and Prime Aerostructures.
We also had considerations to sellers for acquisitions made previous years in that line. Moving on to the year to date, cash flow from investment activities, SEK -373 million. That includes all the acquisitions that we have made so far to this quarter, and we had acquisitions in the previous quarters as well. Also, investment in own products and solutions, also included there, and we believe that that's important for Addnode to continue growing and make our products valuable for the future, and we also had investments in tangible assets and other shares in that number. Looking at the financing activities, you can see a small number, SEK 25 million, which is relating to leasing, mainly, that was cash flow.
Then we're gonna go to look at the balance sheet, and I would just like to highlight a few areas in the consolidated balance sheet. Please notice that this is the operational balance sheet and not the balance sheet you can read from the report. We continue to operate supported by a resilient balance sheet, which is important foundation for a continuous growth. The changes in the balance sheet is mainly related to the acquisitions we've done so far. We also have a translation difference in goodwill that you can see on the first line there. Our business model allows us to operate with a negative net working capital, and we do so as well in the Q3, of - 478 million SEK.
The item provision taxes another debt includes future earnouts for companies acquired, and we have 485 million SEK, which is the majority, over 85%, are related to the U.S. acquisitions. You can also see that net debt now is SEK 1.1 billion , and it was impacted by the acquisitions and the dividend payment and net repayment of loans offsets by strong cash flow from operations. Also going down a little bit further down, we have a total facility of SEK 2.6 billion , and of that, about SEK 1.1 billion is still unutilized as of September thirty. Right. Then finally, we're gonna look at some of the numbers for the five years perspective.
And you can see that the net sales has a solid increase from 2020 of 3.8 billion SEK to the rolling twelve months of SEK 8.4 billion in this report. And EBITDA also has grown from SEK 0.4 billion , 2020 SEK to 0.8 billion now in 2024. Also sound return on equity, you can see from just over 11% to over 17% now in this quarter, and a solid increase of EPS from SEK 1.22- SEK 8.3. And you can see also that the growth is supported by strong balance sheet with a leverage of currently 1.1x. Also, business model with prepayments provide a good level of cash flow per share. And then I would like to hand over back to Johan.
Thank you, K ristina. Before we go into Q&A, I would like to take the opportunity to tell a little bit more about Addnode Group. We are all about digitalization for a better society. We would like to help our customers provide, doing better with the digital tools, tools that we provide. Thanks to good cash generation and strong financial position, we love that we can continue to execute our acquisition strategy with a healthy risk appetite. Looking at the economic climate, it's uncertain, and customer remain cautious on major investment in new products. However, our strong position in segments with structural underlying growth provide good prospect for upselling to existing customers and expanding assignments.
With a diversified business in terms of geography and customers, a continued focus on improvements and a business model with a high share of recurring revenue, I believe we have good prospects for continued profitable and sustainable growth. So with that, we would like to open up for Q&A.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Erik Larsson from SEB. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good morning to you. I have a few questions. I'll take them one by one. So first off, you mentioned that you think Symetri's competitive advantage will become more apparent here after the transaction model change, and I, I guess it's still very early days, but have you seen any early signs of this in the U.S. so far?
Like you said, it's early, and we can see all the signs. But what we basically mean is that looking at some of our competitors, we have invested in own software that complements the Autodesk software and enriches the investment that the customers are making, and also supported by a strong service offering that makes the software even easier to use. And if you haven't invested in that, with the new agent model, the price is fixed, so you can't really be the one who are being competitive with the price. You need to be competitive with the services and the software that you provide in a higher degree. So we have seen signs of that, but it's early to just say that it's, we still believe it's gonna more increase as we go forward, a competitive advantage.
And also matter of size, as we are one of the biggest partners in the world. It means that we are able to invest, and we are here for the long run. So we think those are things that's gonna work for us going forward.
All right, thank you for that. And then, you made an estimate on the underlying organic growth and design which is much appreciated. Can you just share how you went about doing this? I understand you have limited transparency in general from Autodesk here. And how certain are you that you're in the, you know, at the ballpark correct level?
Yeah, I will take that question. And what we've done, we have access to, when we import the customer orders into Autodesk system, we have access to the Autodesk system, and we have pulled all the information from there, and then we have adjusted that for contracts that are not falling through in this quarter, but rather in the future quarters. So, it's an estimate. We've done all the checks and backtracking that we can, and we feel quite confident that this is the number.
Okay, sounds good. Then I have another question for design. I note that your OpEx level is down by about SEK 20 million or so from Q2. And I was just curious, is this only attributable to vacation effects or maybe a bit stronger effect? I'm just curious if we can extrapolate anything onto Q4 here, or rather look back at Q2, maybe, as a reference.
Yeah, we can see that in. We have, of course, the consulting effect when we have a vacation, so that has definitely an impact, and we're not providing any further information in that respect for Q4. I hope you appreciate that.
Yeah, yeah, that, it's fair enough, and just a final from me. I just wanna hear if there are any changes in terms of the M&A outlook? You've been fairly active this year, but you haven't made any larger acquisitions. I'm just wondering if you do you think the weak macro here in the last few months affects things in any way?
I think, like we stated in the interim report, we have a lot of conversations ongoing, and we believe that we have a good pipe. But we also have, like I said, a process where we discuss a lot with, and it's related to more a relation-based process. It means that we have a lot of discussions ongoing, and these are bilateral processes, and we can't really control when we are able to sort of finalize the deals. So I can't make any promises for the year. I can say that we have a good pipe, and when we can execute that, that's the big question mark. But I truly believe that we have a good pipe for acquisitions going forward.
Will it happen end of this year, or will it happen next year that we're able to execute some of them? But still, I think we have a fairly good pipeline for the business plan that we would like to execute over the coming years.
Okay, thank you for the color. I'll go back in the queue.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Fredrik Nilsson from Redeye. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning.
Good morning.
With the Design Management, you mentioned that SWG and Tribia had a somewhat weaker quarter compared to last year. Is that driven by a weaker market primarily, or is there anything else going on?
I think it's a little bit weaker than last year, but it's not sort of a big one. It's a little bit on the market side with regards to our facility management system. We can see that we have a lot of public customers there. Like we described in the process division, we can see that the tenders are a little bit less this year, but we can see that those are coming back. Then, to make it simple, it makes us we need to keep the personnel and the staff during that period because we see that things are coming back.
And that means that we will have a little bit of a hit on the sort of profit side this quarter, but it's a sort of a short-term effect, so to speak. And of course, we have a little bit weaker in the construction, because we have a software solution there for construction as well. We don't see the high growth in the Nordic construction market, but we're still able to do a sound profit out of that. There's more of a short-term effect, which I would describe as a short term effect.
Okay, I see, and over to Symetri and the U.S. market. As far as I understand, the share of three-year licenses were quite high in this quarter as well, despite U.S. now moving on to the new transaction model. I mean, why is that, do you think?
I think you have to separate it at, looking at the, this has been done in section. Like, U.S. started selling from the new model in Q3, and we see the result of that here in the Q3. Europe started selling now end of this quarter, and you will see the effect of that in Q2. So we have the effect of the three ideas that were sold from U.S., we'll have in our P&L now in Q3, and we also can see the effect of that in Europe, so it's more of a delayed effect from that. So there are no sort of big changes in the U.S. with regards to the portion of the big effect, with the three ideas, you could see rather in Europe.
And that's probably a little bit of a push because this is the sort of the last chance for our customers to sign up according to the old model. And there are people out there who values security, knowing what you get. And the good thing for us, if the customers are willing, in this time of market, and are willing to invest in a three-year contract for the software, one way of putting is that it also show that this is an important software for the business. And so I think there are two sides to looking at that.
Okay, thanks. So over to PLM, the decline in licenses compared to the same quarter last year is quite brutal, yet you managed to retain a quite solid margin. Could you elaborate a bit on that?
I think it's due to good cost efficiency. Last year, we saw that the market was slowing down, and I think we said that we were, to be honest, situation we had, we had too many people in the organization with regards to what we were able to sell to our customers. We did the restructuring program last year, and the management team has been really good at executing that. So that means that we now are entering sort of this slower phase with regards to sales, with a better cost control and efficiency. And we can see that that enable us to still provide a healthy profit in the business.
Okay, great. And regarding the recurring revenue in PLM, the growth is quite strong. I mean, should we assume that the churn within automotive is flat basically, or do you see an increase there?
We haven't seen any churns yet on the business. What we can see is that it's tougher to sell new products, new sales. Normally, when you start off with these big products, when you are basically helping our customers to build a digital twin of their production and R&D, then you usually have license sales in the beginning. As we are not, like I said, those type of products has been postponed, and we also have the movement from going from license to more recurring revenue with regards to rather renting it. So those two effects are having, like I said, a brutal effect on licenses, both less project, but also a transition from license to rental.
Okay, I.
But we still. But we haven't seen any churn on recurring revenue from automotive, so they have not been sort of canceling any of their recurring revenue. When they renew, they can't cancel during the contract period, but when they renew, normally yearly, they can choose how many seats they would like to renew. But we haven't seen any big churn in that.
Interesting. So last question from me. What can you do to increase the exposure beyond automotive in the U.K. and Germany? You mentioned life science, defense, for example, as relatively solid sectors in the Nordics.
We can do a lot, and we're doing that. The team is doing a really well job. There are some unfortunate macro things. It's a disturbing world. People tend to invest a lot more in defense materials, and the same type of system being used for R&D in automotive with regards to digital tools are also being used by the defense industry. So we are expanding that business to our customers here in the Nordic. I think we mentioned that in the interim report as well. We are doing more with the life science, more of the, I would say, the medical equipment part of life science, because they have the same issues with traceability, efficient design processes, and et cetera, and we are helping them with the same type of digital tools.
And then, even though the EVs are also an expansion for our. So there are several opportunities to do that.
Okay, that's all for me. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Daniel Thorsson from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, thank you very much. I have a question on Design Management. I guess the 27% adjusted organic growth that you mentioned in design is a result of the transaction model changes due to both a reseller final reselling boost and also more three-year licenses. So I'm a bit more interested in the underlying demand profile on a like-for-like basis, and also some comments on how you expect Q4 to play out in terms of sales and gross profit growth year- over- year would be helpful.
Yeah, like I said, there are several factors driving the like-for-like organic growth of 25% in the design division, because I believe that was your question.
Yeah.
We can see that, yes, we don't have 25% underlying organic growth, so that means that we have a push from the three-year deals, meaning that it's... And then, like you said, we also believe that there is a push right now from customers wanting to make sure that they lock in the old transaction model before we go over to that, so we definitely have that. Is it half and half? We, to be honest, we can't really measure and separate that, but we, we would like to, like I said, point out that we don't have an expectancy of the market to grow by 25%.
If you look at some market sort of estimates going forward, they are probably looking at, is this a market in this type of world that probably growing by, like, 5% to 10% organic growth over year? That's probably more of an expectation. And with regards to Q4, unfortunately, we don't give any prognoses, but we can't see any changes compared to what we have seen in Q3 with regards to what we're seeing. The tough one, if you look at underlying growth and reported growth in net sales, is two different things in Q4. Because what we will see is that net sales will go down, as we will have the full impact of the new transaction model from Europe as well in Q4. So Q1 next year, we'll have that.
So if you look at net sales, it will go down, but it doesn't mean that we have underlying organic growth. That's the reason why we ask you to look at gross profit. So.
Yeah, no, I.
First one to give you a flavor on, and the second one, I'm not able to give you a distinct answer on.
Yeah, no problem. And will you give this adjusted organic growth figure also in Q4 in the future, you think? Or will you talk about organic growth in gross profit instead, or when will you change that type of communication?
We'll see. We'll definitely give you at least the same information that we gave you in Q3.
Okay, clear, clear enough. And then follow up a question on Team D3 here in Q3, EBITDA, that was up year- over- year. Is it because they did close to zero last year, or is it because you have been able to improve their margins closer to the Design Management segment margins, or are you still, you know, halfway up to that level, or where are you in that earnings growth space?
I think, like you said, last year, Q3 was Team D3's first quarter as part of Addnode Group, and they were very close to zero in profit there. Because, like we said, that it was their first quarter. Management heavily engaged in the transaction, basically selling the company to us rather than doing the selling, and we said that they will catch up on that, and now they have done that, so it means that they are back on the level where they're expected, and they're doing better than when they sort of became part of Symetri a year ago, but there are still more to do with regards to margin-wise, going forward.
Okay, so still some room to improve that margin?
Yes.
Good. And then a question on process management. You mentioned here in the call that there are less tenders during the last year, while I guess there are quite a lot of suppliers struggling a bit on the consulting side. Is that causing some price pressure on new tenders that could cause closer to 0% organic growth or even negative organic growth for the segment in 2025?
We haven't seen that so far, but it's, of course, normally what happened is that consultancy companies who struggle, they tend to do. In better times, they tend to go to the public sector, and in tough times, they see that there are still tenders in the public sector and then try to move on to that. But then you have to recognize that looking at our business is a software business and where we are selling products to our customers, and our consultancy is more delivering and maintaining of that. So that means that we will not have the same effect. Of course, we will have sort of an overall effect from the IT market. We are not free from that, but I think more important for us for the next year is probably what the KPIs will be for the maintenance agreements.
Yeah. Okay, I see. That's, that's clear. And then the final question on PLM here. Does the strong margin in PLM here in Q3, despite the negative organic growth, mean that 2025 or perhaps 2026 could result in a margin above the historical levels of 10%, if this level of cost is sufficient to capture growth? That would be a margin level, which you have not exceeded since 2014.
Like I said, I think we're in a much better position right now with regards to cost efficiency. That means that, but if we are going to improve the margin, we need growth. And then we come to the question of, will there be growth in twenty twenty-five? We'll see about that in the market, because, like you said, we have a strong position in Germany and U.K. with regards to the automotive industry. And there are some, it's tough to make a judgment on that, on how the market will be. What we are doing is that making sure that we can earn money in all markets. So.
Yeah, and if we see-
There are room. We don't have to hire.
Yeah
One to one, so to speak.
I see. I see. And this cost level is enough. If you see growth in 2025, the cost level in PLM is pretty much okay.
It's okay for some growth, but if we want to grow, like organic growth, we want to go for a 10% organic growth in the business. Of course, there will be some hiring.
Yeah, that's clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Daniel Djurberg, from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator, and good morning. Yeah, most questions asked just recently. I was wondering a little bit on the underlying growth again, then in design. You mentioned that you had some 27% effects adjusted, while I guess less than 25, 24 effects included. But can you just explain why it's so much higher than the gross profit growth of 15%?
Sorry, Daniel. Can you please repeat the question?
Yeah. I can try. Yeah. We saw a 50% gross profit growth, I believe, in design. And you mentioned that the underlying gross profit growth in the top line was 27%, effects adjusted. So I guess, or twenty-seven, you said, and I guess effects adjusted, a bit less. The question is, why they deviate so much, 15 versus the other number?
15% versus 27%? Okay, let's see.
You mentioned 27%, but that is.
Yeah
Adjusted for effects. 50% is included, effects, but still it's a quite big difference. And you mentioned before that you calculated 27% from directly from... You had more knowledge on that. But, again, the deviation is on the gross profit growth versus the expected 27% would be interesting if you understand my question?
I think, if I understand it correctly, that we are only providing the information on the net sales, what that would have been if we had the old transaction model, so that is the 27%.
Yes. And but the, I guess you have said before that it should be more or less equal, no big changes on the gross profit level. The changes are, yeah, that. So, the question is why the gross profit growth of 15% is so much lower than the 27%? Again, FX should be adjusted for here in the 27%.
That has to do with the mix of the different. Because if you look at the gross profit, that is, we have not adjusted. We need to adjust the gross profit as well. If you look at the margin or, but that's probably not your question.
Okay. I think it was, but we can take it offline later.
I think I understand your question. Yeah, no worries. But I think there are different mixes in that, so we have to do the calculation on that as well, and we chose one matrix to present that to you. So I think that's part of the question.
Yeah. Yeah, and again, obviously, you mentioned that you had good support in the design with the three-year agreement and advanced buying, and it's hard to say exactly how much comes from each, but if you look at the funnel or the pipeline, can you say anything quantified on that? Is it still supportive for, you know, 10% net sales or net gross profit growth ambition that you do have? Or is it, like, empty on the back of this advanced buying the three-year agreements, i.e., hitting hard on Q4 and early 2025, growth?
No, I don't think we're empty with regards to Q4 and going forward. There are still deals out there to be made with regards to new sales. So we have not sort of emptied the things to make the Q3.
So is it possible to give any, you know, any quantified numbers on how much larger this or how much of the revenue in design that came from three-year and the advanced buying? Just to help us out a little bit on how to think on the growth prospect for Q4 and first half of 2025.
We haven't given any numbers out on that, but I think one of the previous questions, I tried to help out with that one and said, if you look at the... We don't believe that we have the underlying sort of organic growth. If we look at gross profit on 15%, that's probably boosted by the three-year deals. So if you look at what the sort of market estimations on this, if you look at some market things, they are telling us that this type of market should be able to grow 5%-10% over the year, coming years.
So that probably give you, gives you some guidance on what can be expected. I'm not saying that we are in that process. I'm saying that the, the guys who are trying to estimate the markets seem to tend to look at organic growth, probably around 5%-10% on that, and we are now at 15%, and I don't think that we will be able to deliver organic growth of 15%, and historically we haven't done that. So that's clearly we have an effect of the three years and a boost of.
Yeah
People trying to lock in.
Yeah, yeah, it's supported. Thank you. That's what's all I had, actually.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Mikael Laséen from Carnegie Investment Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Couple of questions from me as well. I was wondering if you saw any disruptions, timing of revenue recognition, price adjustments that are temporary, or differences in the payment from customers or from Autodesk, that you saw in Q3 that was temporary or unusual, and how we think about this going into Q4, when we also have Europe for the design segment, that is.
If starting with regards to payment, basically, if you look all across the group, we can't see any of the sort of big changes with regards to delays or anything or, like that. It's more like business to business, if you look at the group level. And with regards to the changes of, with the new transaction model, we can see that, it seems to be going fairly, sort of, fairly well or smooth, or I don't know exact word. We are able to do the transition with regards to systems, how to make that happen, probably a bit better than expected. And then we have the things that we're moving from one model to new model, but we don't have any sort of one-time effects here. I can't really see the ooking at the.
Yeah
See, but if I'm missing something here.
You will see. Yeah, no, that's right. And you will see that the effect is that you will have a decrease in the balance sheet in total, as we are now getting the net commission instead of the gross. So that will be going forward, obviously going forward.
Okay, what is the main reason for the weak, or for the negative working capital figure in this quarter?
It's mainly relating to the working capital that you see, and the majority part of that is coming from Design division, and you can see also that in the past, well, there were prepaid three-year contracts where we received the payment in advance. The payments back to Autodesk and such are coming from the two and the three years, rolling in the two, three years. So that the smaller part.
And just to add that, that's sort of the change compared to last year.
Yes.
If you look at the overall picture for Addnode Group over the year, you will find that Q3 is the weakest with regards to cash flow, and that has to do that we do get a lot of prepayments from our customers in the first quarter, with things also being the maintenance agreements in the process division and also in the PLM division. And those are sort of things that we're gonna live through. So that means that Q3 is doesn't have the payments for the maintenance agreement because it has already been paid in Q1. So that means that Q3, with our business model and looking at the payment pattern from customers, it should be the weakest over the year.
Yeah.
Okay. So you had some changes in the prepayments, driven by this transaction model change or?
No, but.
In the quarter, a temporary one.
From, yes, and yes and no. And the reason why is it doesn't have to do with the change in the transaction model, it has to do with the change with the three-year contracts that were announced a year ago. Because historically, the customers has paid three years in advance for the three-year contracts. When they sign the contract, they pay three years upfront. A year ago, that changed so that they signed up contractually for three years, but they pay installments year on year, every year, three installments during that contract period. That change started a year ago, and we can see the effect of that now. So it's a change from Autodesk business, but it's not related to the transaction model.
It's related to the change of the payments and pre-orders that were announced a year ago, and now we can see the effect of that. So that is, if you would call a one-time effect, that, that's true. And then we'll going forward as we roll that on, if it will take two years or three years, then we will be back on a sort of a level, because It's like when you start selling a SaaS model rather than a license model, then you have, then you have like a U-turn in the cash flow from, from that part. So that's, that, in that sense, we have a, a one-off effect.
Okay. Yeah, a complex stuff. Okay.
Yeah.
Next one is on this multi-year contract mix that most of us have asked about.
Yeah.
Is it possible to give any indication about the magnitude of this in any way?
We haven't given any exact figures because that's more for competition reasons with regards to our customers. Not customers, our competitors for [Formway]. But like I said early on, we can see that we have a impact from that. We are selling more three-year deals in fact. So we want to sort of put out there that we don't have an organic growth of 15%. It's probably, if the guidance like indicated, we're probably on a single-digit organic growth rather than the two-digit organic growth that we are in this quarter, if we are trying to guess. But these are guesstimates from us in the organizations. It's quite complex, as I said, to derive the exact figure on that, well, if you try to separate that.
But we have organic growth, but it's boosted by the three-year deals that we're selling more. We do believe that we are in a process, that we're moving to a bigger mix of three-year deals as a total. So we expect that to continue as we move forward. So it's a change in the pattern, but we also expect that we can carry that on, going forward.
Okay. But if you listen to Autodesk they suggest that the share of annual contracts or multi-year contracts will decline, if I understand them correctly, and they will focus on that in emerging markets where you have uncertain payment terms and strength in their distribution partners. But you say that you can maintain this level?
We believe so, and by the end of the day, it's probably the customers probably have some say in that as well.
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. All right, the final one is on Europe. You mentioned in the report that you are dependent on the automotive industry. Could you provide some more insights into how much of sales and gross profits for the PLM segment that comes from the automotive sector?
No, we don't have any sales. But if you look at the figures presented today, and you're an analyst, you could see that 14% of our business is related to Germany. And if you are active in Germany, you are, in one way or another, dependent on the automotive industry. So that gives you a figure on how much of our businesses are dependent on Germany and indirectly on the automotive industry.
Yeah. Oh, okay. And is there anything that we should remember here going into Q4 for the PLM segment in terms of the contract renewals, timing of those, and the current market condition? I'm thinking about retention and loyalty e specially maybe in the automotive industry.
We know, like I said, I think I answered a question earlier on cash flow, saying that most of the renewals of the maintenance agreement or part of that is being done in Q1. Looking at Q4, historically, we have been more dependent on license sales. How is-- Because what happened, it tends to be the big customers within our industries, they tend to buy new licenses rather in Q4 than the rest of the year. So and that goes back to auto. We will be dependent on automotive industries still investing in their R&D in Q4 compared to last year. So again, probably more to look at that if we are able to generate new sales from the R&D departments at our customers. And historically, they have.
So it's not so much of a renewal, it's more of an opportunity. Are we able to generate new sales predominantly on existing customers in Q4?
Okay, got it. And I guess, I mean, the R&D side is probably the last thing that they cut back on.
Yes.
Super common, I guess.
Yeah, that's our experience as well. That goes back to one of the questions regarding churn a bit early on. We don't see any big churns from that, because like I said, by the end of the day, they're smart management, they know that they're gonna live on new products and when things turn around. So you don't want to cut off your R&D department, and we are predominantly at the R&D department rather than the production, supporting them.
Yes. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
We just wanna thank you for taking the time to listen in to our report presentation and all the questions that we hopefully were able to answer to some satisfaction. So thank you.
Thank you.