Addnode Group AB (publ) (STO:ANOD.B)
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Earnings Call: Q4 2022

Feb 3, 2023

Operator

Welcome to the Addnode Group Q4 presentation. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answer session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing star five on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Johan Andersson, and CFO, Lotta Jarleryd. Please go ahead.

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

Hello, welcome to the presentation of Addnode Group's year-end report for 2022. I'm Johan Andersson, the CEO, and with me I also have Lotta Jarleryd, our CFO. The agenda for today is Addnode Group in brief. We will dive into our Q4 report. We'll address sustainability, sum up our investment case and, of course, answer questions. You will also see an appendix in the presentation with our acquisitions late this year and our shareholder structure and the share performers for 2022. Addnode Group, we provide digital solutions for a sustainable future. Looking at 2022, it's been a year of organic growth, acquisitions and sharply improved earnings per share. I'm very proud of our employees' efforts in a year when Addnode Group increased net sales by 53% to SEK 6 billion+.

Organic growth has been driven by good demand for our digital solution from our customers, architects, technical consultants, manufacturers, construction and facility management and the public sector. We have secured new accounts, we have strengthened our offerings and continued to focus on product development. We also completed acquisitions that complement our existing business, simultaneously with establishing the USA as a new domestic market for Addnode Group through our acquisition of Microdesk. The combination of our high growth with improved efficiency meant that for the full year 2022, EBITDA increased to SEK 728 million, while our earnings per share increased by 72% to SEK 2.86. Looking at our strategy up to, it's Addnode Group celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year in 2023. We've been a profitable growth company ever since we started.

In January 2023 showed our growth strategy created value when Addnode Group moved up to Nasdaq Large Cap segment. Looking at the slide, you can see our growth in net sales separated on organic and acquired growth. 2021, net sales was SEK 4 billion. Organic growth was 17% and acquired growth was 36%, adding up to a total sales of SEK 6.2 billion. We made five acquisitions during the year. This slide show our growth for the last six years, both separated on organic and acquisitions leading up to where we are today. We have increased in earnings per share by an average of 20% annually over the last 10 years and by 25% annually over the last five years.

This growth has been possible due to all our skilled and committed employees, innovation, strong offerings for our customers in sectors with underlying growth, cost efficiency and complementary acquisitions. A strong financial position with low debt equity ratio give us the freedom to continue to execute our growth strategy by continuing to build on our current strength and continuing to develop. Going into Q4 2022, we can see that the growth strategy is creating value. Our high growth and positive earnings trend continued in the fourth quarter, and yet again, we reported our highest sales and EBITDA for a single quarter. Compared to the corresponding period of previous year, Addnode Group's net sales increased by 60%, which 13% was currency-adjusted organic growth. The EBITDA rose to SEK 200 million and earnings per shares was up 28% to SEK 0.77.

Looking at our divisions, PLM & Process delivered a stable high level. The year-on-year earnings was sourced from Design Management division, with more than double net sales growing EBITDA by 88%. The explanation for Design Management gains, strong organic growth by Symetri in the U.K. and a positive progress of our U.S. acquisition, Microdesk. Overall in the fourth quarter, demand was good in all our main markets. However, we are attentive to have an uncertain business environment and cost inflation may impact us going forward. With that, I would like to hand over to our CFO, Lotta Jarleryd.

Lotta Jarleryd
CFO, Addnode Group

Thank you, Johan. I would like to start with sharing a few more details on net sales. In the first graph, we have about net sales for the fourth quarter over the last five years. As you can see, the current quarter was very strong. Total growth was 60% compared to the same quarter previous year. It is also evident from the graph that the current revenue was the revenue category that increased the most with about SEK 500 million. That increase derived from both acquisitions and organic growth. The main contributor was Design Management, and by that predominantly meaning Symetri and Microdesk that accounted for more than 80% of the increase.

The most important driver was multi-year deals following strong demand, especially in the UK and US markets. As a comment to the graph in the center, I would like to stress that it's certainly important to have such a high share of recurring revenue, 68% in the fourth quarter, as a stable foundation in our business model. We have a strong cash flow generation thanks to a high share of advance payments at the beginning of the year. Service revenue is admittedly not included in our definition of recurring revenue, but many customers return to us again and again for our service offering. In the third graph, we have set out a breakdown of net sales by geography. After the last couple of years' acquisitions in the U..K and in the U.S. And the consecutive organic growth, we are now a group with a significant international presence.

In the fourth quarter, 42% of our net sales were generated in these two important markets. In the same quarter previous year, the share was 22. Back to you, Johan.

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

Thank you, Lotta. As mentioned earlier, as you know, we are three divisions. We thought it makes sense to walk you through the three divisions in the fourth quarter. Looking at Design Management, net sales increased to SEK 1 billion. It's a milestone going for the first time in one quarter, and it represented a growth of 113%. Organic growth, currency adjusted, was 22% in the quarter. Symetri's new operation in the USA, Microdesk, continued to outperform expectations due to positive demand in the AEC segment. The organic growth was mainly from Symetri's U.K. operation. Demand in the Nordics remained positive from the AEC segment and manufacturing. Volume and margins on new business sales and three-year agreements renewals progressed well.

Tribia, providing collaborative portals for construction civil engineering, and SWG providing digital solutions for facility management made also good progress in the quarter. In total, EBITDA was up by 88% to SEK 111 million. The EBITDA margin was slightly lower compared to last year, mainly because of a changed revenue mix with a higher revenue share from third-party solutions as a result of Symetri and Microdesk's growth in the quarter. We also would like to inform that Symetri's and Microdesk's partner, Autodesk, has announced its intention to alter invoicing and payment terms for contracts lasting over more than one year. That means that payments both from our customers and to Autodesk will happen annually, even if the customers sign a three-year agreement.

Up until today, they have paid upfront for the full three-year period, now it will be billed annually instead, even though it's signed for a three-year from a contractual perspective. This will have an initial effect on the cash flow, as currently, revenue and cost for the entire contract value will continue to be recognized immediately when the contract commences, so no material changes in that. This change that we are describing is scheduled to come into effect at the end of March 2023. It's something that's an upcoming event. All in all, a very good quarter from Design Management. We also made an acquisition after the end of Q4 of a company called Fast2 Affärssystem AB . Of the spelling, you can see it's a Swedish company.

They are offering a proprietary ERP system used by nine of the 13 largest public housing corporations in Sweden. Fast2 will integrate with SWG, making it even stronger in the digitalization and lifecycle management of real estate, primarily for the public sector. In the division, we also have Tribia, another company that delivers soft solutions for project management in construction and civil engineer projects. The acquisition of Fast2 means that SW and Tribia will consolidate their offering of proprietary digital solution for the real estate and construction markets in the Nordics and U.K. Together, they will have a combined net sales of approximately SEK 500 million. Meaning that with Fast2 and Tribia and SWG, we are having a net sales in the division of Design Management of almost SEK 500 million of own proprietary system aiming for the facility management and the construction market.

With that, we'd like to move on to Product Lifecycle Management. As you can see, net sales increased to SEK 455 million in the fourth quarter. It's a growth of 29%. Organic growth, currency adjusted, was 6%. Demand on the German market progressed somewhat more positively than market data indicated earlier. Sales performance in the U.K. remained good, and demand on the Nordic market was stable. What we can see is that customers are still increasingly demanding time-finite leasing of licenses instead of the previous license purchases with perpetual rights to use. This means that the divisions continues to build a stronger base of recurring revenues. At present, the acquisitions of 2022 in the divisions have lower profitability than divisions' other operations in the quarter. Integration of work on increasing profitability is ongoing.

EBITDA for the quarter amounted to SEK 44 million, and the EBITDA margin was somewhat lower than last year. Looking at the third division, Process Management, we can see that continued organic growth, we have a still a focus on expansion. Net sales increased to SEK 335 million. It's a growth of 13%. Organic growth was 8%, in line with recent quarters. The organic growth is a result of the division's close and well-established relationships with a large base of public sector customers and a strong offering of attractive digital solutions. The division's companies added a new number of employees in autumn to strengthen its development resources. The sites in Norway acquired in June 2022 progress as planned. Looking at the EBITDA, it was SEK 60 million, and the EBITDA margin was 79%.

With that, I would like to hand over to our CFO, Lotta Jarleryd, who will walk you through the cash flow, I guess. Yep.

Lotta Jarleryd
CFO, Addnode Group

Thank you, Johan. That's correct. I would like to continue with an overview of the cash flow. The operating cash flow for the fourth quarter amounted to SEK 261 million, which was in line with the same quarter previous year. Following the strong development of the operating results deriving from organic growth and acquisitions, we generated SEK 714 million in operating cash flow during the financial year 2022. That was SEK 277 million or over 60% more than previous year. Cash conversion rate was about 90%, and that is operating cash flow to EBITDA, adjusted for the property sale in the first quarter. Investing activities in the fourth quarter amounted to SEK 45 million, and that was primarily related to investment in development of proprietary software.

For the 12-month period ending December 31st, cash flow from investing activities was SEK 490 million. About SEK 420 million related to the five acquisitions we made this year, as well as two considerations to sellers for acquisitions made previous years, AI, mainly earner payments. Other investing activities mainly refer to development of proprietary software. The financing activities in the fourth quarter predominantly refer to repayment of the credit facility. In the beginning of the financial year, 2022, we financed the acquisitions of Microdesk and DESYS with loans under the revolving credit facility, about SEK 300 million in total. We have, however, repaid about half of that amount, paid during the year following good operational cash generation.

Dividend to shareholders of SEK 100 million as well as repurchase of own shares totaling SEK 23 million were also part of the financing activities. These were together with the remaining three acquisitions financed through readily available cash funds. Please also note that the board of directors has proposed a dividend of SEK 1 per share to the AGM 2023. This means an increase from previous year by SEK 0.25 and corresponds to a total dividend of SEK 133 million to be paid out to the shareholders in May 2023. Please also remember that we made a four-one share split in May 2022, and in the following interim reports, we have recalculated all share-based key ratios including dividend per share. I would like to continue with a few comments on the consolidated balance sheet.

You have probably heard me saying this before, but we continue to operate supported by a resilient balance sheet, which gives us a favorable position to continue to grow organically and through acquisitions. Changes in the balance sheet during 2022 predominantly derive from the five acquisitions we have successfully executed during the year. Following the customary purchase price allocation exercises, goodwill and other intangible assets have increased by about SEK 800 million in total. Due to the strong cash flow during the year, the cash position increased by almost SEK 200 million -S EK 600 million as per December 31st. Together with unutilized portion of the revolving credit facility, we had about SEK 1.3 billion in available funds by the end of December. The credit facility balance was SEK 0.9 billion by the end of the year, and the amount was reported under non-current liabilities.

The net debt has increased by SEK 95 million during 2022. The ratio net debt to EBITDA was, however, on the lower side at year-end, about 0.7 x. Finally, I would like to comment from the repurchase of own shares. In June 2022, the board of directors, supported by an authorization from the AGM 2022, decided to repurchase 230,000 Class B shares. The main purpose was to enable delivery of shares associated with one of the group's tools in certain terms. The repurchases were executed during the summer. As per December 31st, Addnode Group holds 1,030,000 own Class B shares in total. Back to you, Johan.

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

Thank you, Lotta. Just like to take a few seconds to address our sustainability agenda. Still the same agenda, still the one that we're pushing, and it's five items. We would like to give you an example of number one, digital solutions that contribute to sustainable development. The rest is, of course, that we care for our people and the planet and the way we work with our partners and suppliers. We need to have a long-term financial strength to be able to do all the good things that we like to do. Of course, we need a governance model to make it happen. Let's have a focus on number one.

There are some examples in the interim report. I would also like to highlight them here and also make sure that you know that they are case descriptions are available on our website. Looking at the case, you can see example one to the left is from the Design Management division. It says, "Symetri supporting BAMB core in developing digital solutions that demonstrate the energy and C-CO2 impact benefit for making buildings more sustainable with biogenic fibers like bamboo." It's a very practical example of what you can do, both in practicality and with digital solutions. Example two in the middle is from our division Product Lifecycle Management. It's Technia who has delivered a 3DEXPERIENCE platform as a cloud solution to the company Kite Rise to be used when developing a high-performance energy storage systems.

Looking at example three to the right is from our Process Management division, and it's the company Sokigo who has delivered solutions, TopoCAD and CSM, to the environmental service group, Ragn-Sells. The systems enables faster, more efficient design of their recycling plants. As I've mentioned, you will find a full version of these cases at the Addnode Group website. Looking at Addnode Group as an investment, it's the same slide as previous. It's the same one that we're using, but I just want to highlight what we are trying to achieve. Looking at the Addnode Group, there are a few things that I'll look at. Looking at the Addnode Group, we provide digital solutions to our customers. Our growth is supported by underlying trends like digitalization, urbanization, automation, and sustainability. Our customers' need for digital solutions is there, and we don't believe it will disappear.

Addnode Group is continuously creating value by supporting our organic growth with acquisition of enterprises that complement our current businesses. We have skilled and committed employees. We make strong offerings to our customers and have a high share of recurring revenue that Lotta mentioned earlier. 70% of our net sales is from recurring revenue, meaning that the customer pay up front for the right to use the software or digital solution that we provide. Our customer concentration is low. We have a geographical diversification, and we have a strong financial position with low net debt that Lotta described. We are demonstrating that Addnode Group has a solid platform for organic and acquisition-led growth in good and tougher times. From the inception of Addnode Group in 2003, we have up until 2022 doubled our net sales every fifth year.

Demand is good, we are attempting to have an uncertain business environment may impact us going forward. With that, we would like to open up for any questions.

Operator

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 Fredrik Nilsson from Redeye. Please go ahead.

Fredrik Nilsson
Equity Research Analyst, Redeye

Hello. I want to start with the margins in PLM. I mean, it's a healthy level, it's still not as strong as we have seen in recent quarters. You mention some new companies joining the numbers, I believe most of that was present earlier in this year as well. Could you tell us a bit what's the difference compared to the really strong levels seen in recent quarters?

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

Yes. I think there are. Basically what I mentioned is that we have a change in the customer going from. Historically, we have had a very strong license sales in Q4 in the PLM division. Over the last year, we have both from a customer's sort of wanting it and also having a shift from a license model to a more recurring-based one, meaning that the customers are leasing their system. That means that we would have a more even earnings during the year. That's one thing that has sort of changed the mix over the different quarters. You can see the previous quarters have been quite strong. That's one result. Then, as we mentioned, is that we, if you look at the comparable quarters, you can see one effect we have from the acquisitions.

Then, another is the execution. We could have been able to execute a bit better in the quarters. I think it's three things that we are making sort of the margins a bit lower than last year. A mix in the business model going from more from a perpetual to a more of a recurring-based model, meaning that it will have an even more even over the quarters, then the acquisitions have less than the margin that we have today. That was something we were working on. I'm not worried about that. Then, of course, we could have executed better. I think that's the reason behind it.

Fredrik Nilsson
Equity Research Analyst, Redeye

Okay. I see. Oh, sorry. Oh, maybe it was just my echo. Sorry. Yeah, also, like, I want to ask kind of the same question regarding process. I mean, you mentioned that you have hired some new personnel. I believe that is maybe one explanation, but is there anything else? I mean, you grow the sales by 13%, but the profit is basically flat. Is there anything else there?

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

I think it's. We have been growing, and the last year we have seen that we are able to grow the business, and we have moved from a low, low digit organic growth to a more of a higher organic growth. Looking at comparing, I guess, if you would compare 2022 with 2021, you can see that we have doubled sort of the organic growth rate. That means that when you go through that transition and you sort of get used to that and you add more people, there will be certain quarters with what you would call it a little bit dip in the margin. We have also moved from a 15% margin in this division to a 20%.

That means that there will be sort of a some lower quarters on the margin, when we sort of find the right balance in that. I'm not that worried about the thing that it's not a downwards trend, it's more that we have a good growth, and it will be some quarters might have a lower. I think it's just that reason. We are learning to grow, and we make, we hire new people, and we're able to do that. We'll do that. We are long term, so that will have effect on single quarters.

Fredrik Nilsson
Equity Research Analyst, Redeye

Okay. Seems reasonable. Also you mentioned that you believe there's a catch-up effect in Symetri in the U.S. and U.K. due to the pandemic. I mean, why do you believe there's a catch-up effect affecting those numbers? What reasons do you have to believe in that?

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

I think if we start with the U.S., you can see that I don't think that we, me contributing based in Stockholm, European, we didn't really sort of see how closed down business was in the U.S. during the pandemic and the COVID situation. What happened is that when you're starting to open up different urban areas, you start to invest again, you start new development, you need to do more designs. That is the sort of the catch-up effect in the business, that the people are more forward-looking again, they were able to invest. You will hire an architect, you need a technical consultant. That's the sort of the catch-up effect there. Also looking at the UK market, where we have the organic growth as we report.

Microdesk is not reported as organic. If you look at organic growth, you will find it mostly in the U.K. I think the business there was a little bit hampered by the Brexit, the COVID and all together, and now we can see that they are back on track. That meant that 2021 was not a good year, and 2022 was a good and even strong year, and then you will have the catch-up effect in our numbers.

Fredrik Nilsson
Equity Research Analyst, Redeye

Okay. One last question from me. Could you tell us about your view of the market condition? It seems like it's rather solid in basically all markets, even in Germany, if I understand you correct. Could you tell us a bit more about that?

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

Yes. I agree with that, is that we seem to have a solid market for the offering that we are providing both to construction, facility management, and also to the public sector and the manufacturer and the OEMs. There is a market out there for us. Like you said, there's enough market for us to make it a solid business. We are all we're talking about what will happen depending on the interest rate and the inflation and the war. Today it seems that everybody is reading into the Fed's last decision that the interest rates will go down, and that will have an effect, but that's for others to discuss. I think for us, we have enough market to make a solid business. I think that's how we look at it.

Fredrik Nilsson
Equity Research Analyst, Redeye

Okay, thanks a lot. That's all from me.

Operator

The next question comes from Daniel Djurberg from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.

Daniel Djurberg
Senior Equity Analyst, Handelsbanken

Thank you, operator, and good morning, Johan and Lotta. A question on starting on this Fast2 ERP business and then consolidated into Design Management into the SolidWorks global together with Tribia. You mentioned this will be roughly SEK 500 million business, and I was wondering if you can give any view on the underlying market growth here and the profitability on a pro forma level, and also if you look into make this your fourth division going forward.

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

Yes. If we start out with the sort of the profitability, I think that's easy to discuss. Looking at SW and Tribia, who are the sort of the existing business, that they are contributing to the... They are slightly above the margins in Design Management as they should, as they're only ERP. That's to be expected from them. Fast2 that we have acquired will add in the beginning roughly like SEK 80 million plus in net sales. Their financial performance is lower as of now, but we expect that we can lift that being part of the group and with some synergies that we have. Given time, it will come up to what we are achieving today. There's a potential in that.

I think what we can expect from this type of setting is probably closer to what we're doing in Process Management rather than making as well. We are seeing that this could be a growth area. Will it be another division? Let's see. There are very good synergies with existing business in Symetri, as they are working with similar customer groups and similar needs. For this entity to grow, we don't have to break it out to a new division as of now. Who knows going forward? I'm happy to have the problem of that if they continue to grow.

Daniel Djurberg
Senior Equity Analyst, Handelsbanken

Nice. May I ask you on Design Management, obviously fantastic strong second half of 2022, also triggered by Autodesk re-due to the contracts, I guess the discounts that trigger a lot of your three-year contracts in advance. Was this seen also in Q4 and, i.e. is it both Q3 and Q4 2023 that meets very tough comps? Are there any other reasons really than, you know, locking in the price now to take a three-year contract for a customer rather than take a one-year contract since you pay annually to the Autodesk? Can you-?

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

I understand the question. I don't think the question is fair because looking at what you can see, if you took a look at Symetri, the sort of the existing business when we entered 2022 as a group, their sort of ratio of three-year contracts for the full year is not different than 2021. That means that the growth is from that business is coming from making more business in total. We have Microdesk. In the U.S. you have that's more of a three-year deals in that. Yes, it's not changing the ratio. I'm talking about the ratio. That means that we are also selling one year and three years. I'm not saying that we are not expanding three years. It's just the ratio of the total sales.

Daniel Djurberg
Senior Equity Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay.

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

Yes, there is a portion, and that could be different between quarters. If you look at the total year, I would say that the main driver has been that we are doing more business with the customers.

Daniel Djurberg
Senior Equity Analyst, Handelsbanken

Yeah. I guess we should be a little bit aware of this at least when putting our numbers for on the growth for Design Management on Q3.

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

Yeah.

Daniel Djurberg
Senior Equity Analyst, Handelsbanken

Yeah.

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

I think it probably is that we are very proud of the good year that we have, that it's also been a very good year from a sort of a growth perspective.

Daniel Djurberg
Senior Equity Analyst, Handelsbanken

Yeah.

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

We are not expecting that we will be able to run this business with a 20% organic growth moving forward. You're fair with that in the question that you should be aware of that.

Daniel Djurberg
Senior Equity Analyst, Handelsbanken

Yeah, perfect. May I finally ask a little bit on the PLM, two sides of it perhaps? Germany did better than feared. Should we expect, you know, this to to be stable also entering in 23, or or it was more of a delay in the issues that might hit the fan? Also on these DESYS , you talk about working on profitability and so on. Can you give any more colors on on the work you do there to to to catch up and to to margin levels on average?

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

I think if we start with the top question that's important, that's that I really can't answer is the market conditions in Germany in 2023. As of now, we can see that because it's very much dependent on what will happen in the macro environment, I'm not controlling that. We are prepared for handling whatever sort of scenario that will happen. As of now, we can see that the customers are buying from us, and they are willing to invest. Most of the customers are related to R&D in any form, meaning that the ones who are making designs of both machines, cars, ships, and et cetera. As long those end customers are willing to invest in new products and development, then we will have a customer. Long term, I can see that the need is there.

How that will be affected by short term things, tough question. Then there was another question about how are we sort of making sure that we can continue to improve margins in PLM. It's, basic things, making sure that they have the right organization in place, the right kind of people, and the right offering. There's no magic. It's just a matter of continuing to execute it.

Daniel Djurberg
Senior Equity Analyst, Handelsbanken

Perfect. I'll go back to the queue and go back here in Q1.

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Erik Larsson from SEB. Please go ahead.

Erik Larsson
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

Thank you. good morning to you. I have a follow-up question on the margins in PLM. You gave some good color, but I'm just curious, you know, on the strong guidance from Dassault into next year that we saw yesterday, do you think that you will be able to leverage that and maybe be more forward-leading, sort of execute better and improve on the margins?

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

I mean, we are a strong partner to Dassault, and we are sort of a valor in the Nordic market and in the German market, and we also are in the UK market, and then we have some offering in the U.S. The main market for us is in Northern Europe. We will certainly have our sort of share of that growth because I think we do have that position. Then it's a matter of how efficient we can be in the execution of that growth, and that's up to us. And we have shown that we are on that path. Of course, if we see growth in the market and we are able to capture on that, we should be able to see that in our profitability as well.

Erik Larsson
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

On general price hikes, what are you seeing, you know, looking into 2023, both from your software partners but also in Process Management, how will you be able to compensate wage inflation coming up here?

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

I think we have been quite okay with that. Looking at the most of the in the public sector, meaning both what we do in Design Management, but also for our facility management offering, primarily in Sweden, we have a lot of, for example, state agencies, local hospitals, et cetera, that use our system. Those are index. That means that whatever cost inflation that is endured by that will be reflected in the prices as well. Looking at what we are primarily at, what we do, for example, with our Symetri offering, with Autodesk and the Dassault offering, those are every time you sort of renew and do it annually, there's a price discussion, and so far it's meant that price has gone up.

So I think we can always do more, but we are able to raise prices. Does that mean that we are able to do it 3, 4, 5, 6%? It depends on each contract, and it depends on each sort of customer groups.

Erik Larsson
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

Okay, great. Just a final question from me. Looking at the strong performance in Symetri and Microdesk, throughout the year and thinking about 2023, where we have, certainly more uncertainty. How forward-leaning are you here? You know, are you expecting to grow your headcount in these businesses, you know, hire salespeople and so forth, or are you more cautious, would you say?

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

I think the good thing with this business is that there is scalability in this business. Means that for every sort of growth in that space, you don't have to hire. For a consultancy business to generate more, you need to hire more people unless it's impossible to invoice more. In this business, you can always sell a little bit more. That means that we can be a little bit cautious on hiring people and still being able to sell. It's not sort of a trade-off situation here. We see a good market, does that mean that we will increase with 15% on total employees? It doesn't have to be that. No, I'm just saying that we can still grow without hiring more people.

Erik Larsson
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

Mm-hmm.

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

It means that we can be cautious and at the same time grow. It's not a very easy question to answer on that side.

Erik Larsson
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

Fair enough. Okay. Thank you, guys.

Operator

The next question comes from Daniel Thorsson from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.

Daniel Thorsson
Equity Research Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier

Thank you. Lots of questions already replied here, that's very good. Thank you. I just have one. Where do you think we will see slower growth and market growth first in 2023? We have talked about Germany here, end of 2022. That did not happen. Where do you see any red flags or any orange flags and risks going into 2023?

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

I see risks everywhere. Every morning when I wake up, I see risks. If you ask me where I see risk, it's everywhere, and that's just part of doing business, and that's also possibility. The risk is also somewhere. No, but to be honest, of course, there is. We try to sort of maneuver in the way in the business where we are today. It means that some people are saying that there will be a soft landing now going up in the end of the year. Others say that, okay, if you look at specific. We have some businesses that are focused on pure construction, you know, the construction side. That's a very small portion of our business.

Of course, we don't expect to get much business from business development on in construction in the spring of 2023, but it's already there. That's nothing new. If you mean risk is that we will not be able to deliver 10% organic growth, that's a risk. If we are able to sort of have a more modest organic growth, then the risk here is lower. The thing with Addnode Group is that we are a diversified group also from a customer perspective. I think the largest, the 10 largest customer altogether generates low, single portion of the total Addnode Group. We are in several markets, but in each several portion, I wake up every day and see a risk and think of what we can do.

If we sum it up to a totality, there are no sort of big, big risks for us. You're not getting a very good answer, but that could also be an answer.

Daniel Thorsson
Equity Research Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier

Yeah. Thanks for elaborating. absolutely. Just to follow up a little bit here on M&A opportunities in 2023. I mean, now you have a really large market share in both, Dassault and the Autodesk reselling businesses. Do you find any regions that you would like to expand into, or should we expect acquisitions, in the current markets that you operate in? Or how should we think about what type of targets you look for perhaps?

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

You're correct that we have strong market positions being a part of a based business. We still, for example, in the US market, we have almost no. We have a very small Dassault business. We have entered with Microdesk, but we are still not the dominant player in the US market, so there's more things to do there. We have a strong position in the U.K. and the Nordics. But there are other regions. I don't think we are limited in our growth with regards to those type of businesses. We discussed a little bit today in facility management, the acquisition of Fast2 . We are there a Swedish, Norwegian, and a UK player. Still more to do. It's very fragmented local markets. We are in the Process Management division. We are looking at the public sector.

I mean, the public sector software for local municipalities and state agencies, we are predominant in Sweden. We have expanded to Norway with the acquisition of DEVISE, but it means that we're still a local regional player. Like I said, Lotta mentioned that our net debt is SEK 450, something like that, and we are still in credit line. I think we are in a position to do more acquisitions in 2023.

Daniel Thorsson
Equity Research Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Operator

There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Johan Andersson
President and CEO, Addnode Group

Thank you for taking the time to listen to Lotta and me presenting the Q4 report.

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