Good morning, and welcome to our presentation of B3 Consulting Group's second quarter, 2023. My name is Katarina Lundqvist, and I work with Investor Relations at B3. I will soon hand over to Sverre Bjerkeli, who is the acting CEO of B3 Consulting Group. Later in this program, we will also meet Peter Lager, who is the CEO of B3 HealthTech, one of B3's newest company. At the end of the program, we will open up for questions. Please, if you have any questions, you are welcome to send them to ir@b3.se, or you can also click on the envelope next to this window. Welcome, Mr. Sverre Bjerkeli.
Thanks a lot, Kattis. Thanks a lot. It's good to see everybody. This will be a very boring walkthrough if you don't pop lots of questions. I really hope you have a lot of questions to us. I or we will try to respond to all of them, even the difficult ones. My name is Sverre, I'm the acting Chief Executive. As many of you have noticed, you have seen that we have changed a couple of position in the top management lately. My message to you relative to those kind of changes is that we will not lose momentum when changing from one set of top management to another one.
The reason why I can say that is because André has been chief of our controller team lately. He has business background from Cybercom and Knowit, so he knows the business, and he knows B3. I have been chairman of the board for the last two years. I've been pretty actively involved, and I do have a reasonably good background from the IT industry in order to fill in in my role. My message to you and to the market is that we will not lose momentum, and hopefully, you will have that feeling after this presentation today as well. I have three main messages to you today. I come back to those three messages. One is relative to quarter two and the first half-year, and relative to the financial figures.
Quarter two and first half-year is the second-best quarter/half-year in our history. It's not up to our standards. Okay. It's second-best. It is not really up to our standards. The second message is that the market is more challenging. In my opinion, we will grow stronger in such an environment. Any good company should do. When you are meeting some resistance in the market, you should use that opportunity to get through it and come out on the other side as a stronger and better company, more fit, higher efficiency, even higher quality. My third message is relative to how we meet that more challenging market and get through stronger. That's a story about accelerating and braking at the same time.
We will accelerate in certain areas, and we will brake, meaning reduce cost in other areas at the same time. Three messages today, second best quarter and half -]ear, but not according to our standards. Secondly, market is challenging. We will get through stronger. The third part of this is how we will maneuver in the kind of setting we have at the moment. If I go to the financial figures, you can see that we are growing 3.4% in the quarter, and we have an EBIT size 7.4% in quarter two. If you, at the same time, have a look at our growth rate in the first half- year, that is 7.6%, and you can see that our EBIT margin is 10.1%.
You have a green ring around the kind of four figures I mentioned at the moment. There are two additional informations which I feel is relevant and important when looking at quarter two and the first half-year figures. One is relative to the utilization rate, which is weaker than in the last quarter. The second one is a statement on the right side of this slide, where we are updating you on the fact that the headquarter cost is on an increasing trend. How will we meet utilization rate challenges, and how will we address the fact that the headquarter costs are increasing in that area? First, to have a look at the utilization area.
You can see here that the cost of a reduced utilization is SEK 21 million, which is significant more than what you saw in Q1. Utilization rate is going down, and it is also a fact that utilization rate at the end of this period is on a lower level than when entering this quarter. The kind of honest feedback to you is that utilization, as we speak, is at a lower level than average utilization in Q2, and I will shortly come back to how we will address that type of situation.
If we have a look at the underlying realities in B3, including our company in Poland, which is not fully consolidated as we speak, but will be during the next two years, not later than 2025, you see a better story. Obviously, Poland is important to us, and what you can see here is that B3 Poland is growing with more than 45% in this quarter, and the EBIT margin is close to twice the size of the EBIT margin in Sweden. Poland is growing very fast and is very profitable. Although the market, also in Poland, is slightly worse than what it was six to twelve months ago in Poland.
If you have a look at the accumulated first half- year figures, including Poland, you can see a growth rate sized 10.7 and an EBIT margin, sized 10.5. We could argue that the underlying EBIT is even higher, since we have had a great party celebrating over 20 years anniversary at a place called Berns in Stockholm, where we had more than 600 people present. The cost of that one was close to SEK 3.5 million, which again, means that the underlying reality on the EBIT side is closer to 11 than 10.5. My first message to the market today is that we, in the first half- year, do have a second best half- year in history, with 10% growth and 10%-11% EBIT margin.
Slightly worse in accounting figures, that is the underlying reality. It's not according to the standards. What do I mean by that statement? Our ambition is linked to our vision statement. We do have an ambition to be number one in the Swedish consultancy market, I guess that seen from a result point of view, for the first time in history, we were up and tasting on that number one position, was actually last year, 2022. Although we are happy with the fact that we are delivering around 10% underlying growth in the first half- year and 10%-11% EBIT, it's not good enough according to our ambition to be number one in the market. Okay, let's continue. What has happened through this quarter two?
We have had a lot of new assignments from different sectors in the market, including three of the biggest banks in Sweden, which have required and asked for more support from our side. We can see an increased demand from some of the Swedish regions, like Dalarna and Stockholm, for instance. We have a new framework agreement with Nordic Leisure Travel Group, indicating big brands like Vingresor, Spies and Tjäreborg. We are happy with the fact that you have picked us, and we will do whatever we can do in order to deliver according to your expectations, customer of ours.
Other important event in quarter two is that students have pinpointed B3 as the second best employer, according to a survey in the market. That is following up a large number of awards that we have been given the last 12-18 months. We have started a new cybersecurity company. I will be back to that shortly. We have strengthened our relation to other partners out there in the market. We have had a party, the cost. We won't repeat it next year, but we will throw an even bigger party years from now, is at least my expectation when we celebrate our 25th anniversary then. What about the market? This is the second message to the market.
It is weaker, compared with six to twelve months ago, but the mega trend is on our side. There is an increasing underlying interest in what we deliver to the market, and new initiatives are taken all the time, whether in the security area or in AI or in different sectors, and we will shortly be back and talk about some of these areas. My question to the market and to ourselves is: Why shouldn't B3 do well in such a market? It's not that bad. It is possible to maneuver in this market, it's possible to earn money, and it's possible to grow. That's kind of what we are paid to do, and hopefully, we'll see that we are capable of accelerating and braking at the same time.
If you can manage to do that, both brake, cut cost, and accelerate at the same time, we will end up stronger, when market turns back to be somewhat better again. Our response to this weaker market, what we see at the moment, is first to remind ourselves that we are of the opinion that we have a strong position. We have a resistant business model. We have 29 daughter companies, with their own culture, with their own segments and niches and competences, and we have a pretty large amount of variable pay. I think it's fair to say that our model is well-suited for a bit more challenging market. The way we are addressing this more challenging market is accelerating and braking at the same time.
When it comes to new cost initiatives, we will be back and talk to you after the quarter three report. If you, if you wind back two years, some of you are aware of the fact that we introduced a cost program two years ago called Cost 1-2-3. After quarter two, two years ago, we gave a presentation to the market about exactly what our ambition was, when it would be delivered, and we updated you, the market, every quarter after that Cost 1-2-3 initiatives. I think it's fair to say that the most important element of these initiatives two years ago, is linked to reduced number of managers out there in the daughter company structure. We had too many chiefs versus Indians, and that was changed during a period of three to four quarters, and that kind of situation is still there.
Our daughter companies out there, they are pretty fit. They have a high level of efficiency, and they deliver good. Also, in quarter one and quarter two, 2023. However, another area of our cost structure is relative to headquarters, and it's a fact that we have invested a lot of money in order to prepare B3 for future. Now it's time to stop that kind of investment activities, to stop spending more money on some of these functions, and to take out efficiency gains and reduce costs going forward. We will be back with more complete information about that kind of brake activities, cost reduction activities, in the quarter three presentation.
I'll be okay then back to the accelerate point on the slide you see here, the number one, but also first just say that obviously we are trying as hard as we can as we speak, to put our good consultants in front of clients, to focus on short-term sales also, and to optimize utilization among our consultancies out there. There are three ways to meet a weaker market, our response to it: we accelerate and brake, we do efficiency improvements and cost reduction, and we are going out there in the market, trying even harder in order to sell out the good consultants we have available for different segments in the market. Cybersecurity is one example of how to accelerate. This is our latest startup initiative. Emil is a senior person in the Swedish society when it comes to cybersecurity.
He will be up and running, collecting his new team, starting not later than October 1st. Obviously, an area of interest, a growing area, and we would like to take a strong position with a new startup entity within the cybersecurity area. We will also, in quarter three, be back with more information to the market about other startup initiatives. When I have started out as an active chief executive in the company, we do have Anette Billing, the previous chief executive, still working and available for B3, the next 12 months to go. Her new kind of focus area and assignment is relative to new startup activities. What you should expect from us is more startup activities, the coming quarters and years.
More concrete information about these kind of initiatives will be given then, in the quarter three presentation. Other area of acceleration where the demand is picking up is obviously within the AI area, relative to data-driven working methods. We do have two specialist companies focusing on these areas. One is B3 Indes, mostly located around the Gothenburg area. Secondly, we have B3 Business Transformation, the biggest daughter company in Sweden, in B3 Sweden. We have a lot of capabilities in those two companies, and I am absolutely sure that AI and data-driven working development is on an increasing trend, and we will take a part of that growing market.
When people are asking me or us, where we think that AI will kind of wipe up out our consultancies, we are smiling and saying, "No, not at all." What the market need is management consulting in order to advise them to find a road towards the future. Secondly, the market need help to design, implement, run, and maintain the necessary data, which is available for a company. Thirdly, our clients and the market need advice on how to utilize that kind of available data in order to build your brand stronger, sell more, reduce cost, or do a combination of these kind of initiatives with help, for instance, from the AI sector. Lots of growing opportunities, and the two companies here are growing very much the last 18 months with good profits along.
The third sector of interest to share a few words on with you today is the Swedish health sector. I will leave the word to you, Peter, only saying that as a Norwegian, I find it interesting to see that Sweden, as a country, do have an ambition to be number one in e-health. I guess, Peter, you will support Sweden to reach that ambition.
Yes.
Feel free to share your competence and your ideas, Peter.
Thank you. Well, to start off, I will give you some background about the Swedish healthcare market as such, where we are right now, the trends, and where is B3 positioned at the moment, then how it is to be a startup company in B3 as well. As you said, my name is Peter Lager. I'm the CEO of B3 HealthTech company. Sweden have been, well, as a front runner in healthcare for many years, but we're falling behind. In 2017, the government and local authorities and regions came up with a new vision to be on top again.
They say, the vision says, I quote, "In 2025, Sweden will be the best in the world at using the opportunities offered by digitalization and e-Health to make it easier for people to achieve good and equal health and welfare." That, end quote. That is a pretty bold statement to say, the least. Personally, I think it might be difficult to reach that goal since a lot of other countries are ahead of us. There's been a lot of other things going around since 2017 as well. The pandemic hit us hard, and it hits the authorities to prevent spreading the disease and such things. Innovations from private sector drove some of the things forward a lot.
There was a lot of good things coming out from the online doctors pushing the public sector forward, and also innovations from private companies such as tests on mobile device testers and test stations around in Sweden, where we helped out companies with a lot of consultants as well. That together forced some of the digitalization forward. I think overall, it stopped down some of the big projects from the national level. If we look on a national level as well, they are starting now to implement things as the online doctors were doing a couple of years ago. For instance, they are implementing online services on 1177.
Internationally, they are now working with something called European Health Data Space, which is a very interesting collaboration between 27 countries in Europe, sharing health data to be able to do better analysis and to do research and such. That will create a lot of possibilities for companies as B3 in, for instance, roles as health informatics and integration services. The main thing that is going on in Sweden right now, and it's probably why we will not succeed in being number one in the world, in e-health, is that there are ongoing projects in 12 of the regions in Sweden right now, which takes up a lot of focus from the organizations, and it's implementing new patient systems for electronic health records, as in Swedish called journal system.
In Skåne, they started the project in 2016 in Västra Götalandsregionen a couple of years later. These projects are massive. They run for like five, six, seven years on, and have budgets from SEK 2 billion onwards up to even more. Those two in Skåne and Västra Götalandsregionen, they were won by Oracle with their Cerner project, their product called Millennium. We have nine regions in Sweden who are going for Cambio and their system called COSMIC, and they will roll out their system during the next year. That's a SEK 2.7 billion project.
On top of that, Stockholm is now going out for a big procurement, and they are actually going back to the same solution as they were talking about 20 years ago. They're gonna build it on a big repository in the bottom, and then build it like Lego blocks with procurements of best-of-brand systems. It's gonna take a lot of time and a lot of consultant to make these things happen. That will create a lot of possibilities for the consultant companies, such as B3, for instance. If we talk about trends, you mentioned earlier, sorry, about AI and machine learning. We already seen, done some of that for, in example, Sahlgrenska in Gothenburg area. Basically, I see imagings are already there.
You can do a lot of interesting things in imaging, but it's going on and rapidly increasing with innovative solutions within AI. In all these things that happens around here in Sweden, creates a lot of possibilities for B3's company. We have two specialized companies that I will talk about in the next slide. We actually deliver consultancies from almost 20 of the companies in the organization last year to the market. We have two specialized companies in B3, and the first company was founded in 2005, and that's B3 Healthcare Consulting, and it's led by Annette Mårdbrink. The consultants there are coming with a background from the healthcare sector and industry, so they're very specialized within the operations in healthcare.
The main focus and main roles in their consultant work are project management, change management, and business development. The company today has 33 employees. Interesting to see is that the revenue is SEK 46.5 million last year. Growth was 30% from the last year. They work mainly with regions in Sweden, the Västra Götalandsregionen, with the big project for implementing their EPR system. They also work a lot with the SUSSA, the Cambio implementation, the 9 regions, both on the regional side, but also on the central side of SUSSA. They also have opportunities that they work with in Region Stockholm and in Skåne.
The other company is run by me. It was established in May last year, two years ago. The idea with that company is that we could offer everything in big teams delivery to specialists. We have product managers, we have a business analyst, we have health informatics, probably the strongest team of health informatics in Sweden. Integration, we have architects, we have development, and skills and test. The last two years, we grew from nothing to 38 employees, and we're growing with the senior people and trying to find the right skills and to cover the needs of our clients. The revenue for 2022 was SEK 36 million , with a growth of 178% from the year before.
We have a slightly different mix of clients compared to healthcare consulting, which is more on the private sector, CGM, InfoSolutions, etc. We also work on the regions in Stockholm, Dalarna, Skåne, and on a national level as well. We see ourself as complementing the company. Healthcare consulting comes from the healthcare sector working towards the IT, whilst the HealthT ech comes from a technical point of view and meets healthcare. We make a strong combination together. Finally, some words about HealthTe ch as a company, I would start with, how is it to be a startup company within Beijer organization? I think it's all about how you collaborate and how you get support, and from that perspective, it was very much.
It was so easy to come into that family or getting all the support function in place, so we could focus initially on what was important for us. That was to work with recruitments, work with customers, and to get that part in place and have the support from the organization. We have an idea to work with technology and digitalization to improve and simplify the healthcare. Always been a driven power between what we do, and since we have a lot of things in common since way back, Patrick and Christina and I, who founded the company in May 2021. We've been working together for, Patrick and I, for 20 years, and Christina and I for 12 years.
We know exactly how to work together, and that team spirit that we have is made it easy for us to get things in place. I think with good leadership, you get good people on board and good clients to work with us. With that network we have inside the organization, the support we get, and the good network outside, with the clients and customers we worked with for the last 20 years, that gives us a strong drive to make this happen and to build this company together with our very, very skilled consultants. That, together with the culture and the values of B3 as an organization as such, makes this such a great place to make a startup company. B y that, I thank you for your time.
Thanks a lot, Peter. Thanks a lot for your interesting walkthrough and the reason why to pick health sector, and to you, Peter, to go through your story here today is, one, this sector, health, is incredibly interesting. It's growing, and it's an area of interest to accelerate more. Secondly, Peter and his company, B3 HealthTech, is a very good example of a successful startup company, very quickly moving to 20, 30, 40, hopefully, Peter, 50 people, not in the in the long distance, but in the near future. You have delivered not only volume, but also profitability along the way.
As you in the market is aware of, the startup part of the company is, and has been an important part of the success story behind the growth story of B3, the last 5, 10, 15 years. I can't see any reason why that story should not continue. We accelerate more with startups as we speak, not reducing resources spent on that area. Thanks a lot, Peter. My summary before going over to the question you have posed to us is that, yes, the market is a bit more challenging. We will get through stronger. How will we get through stronger? We will accelerate. We have named three examples of that in this presentation. Break, meaning reducing cost at the same time.
We will be back in the quarter three presentation, updating you more on the cost initiatives, we will take. Just to repeat the first statement, opening statement of this presentation, quarter two and the first half- year was second best in history. If you are looking at the first half- year, we are growing organically more than 10%. We have an EBIT higher than 10%, underlying even slightly stronger, 11, if you include the kind of profitability out from Poland. There are rather few companies out there in the Swedish consultancy market, delivering better than 10 organically and 10 on the EBIT side.
Your question as an investor is: How do I price such a company? Do I price it on average, compared with peers, lower or higher? I think that you have guessed my position on that since I am also the biggest owner in B3, through my family company, as many of you are aware of. Thanks a lot for your attention, and then I hope there are many difficult questions to respond to Kattis.
We have received several questions, so thank you for that. The first question that is related to the market situation. In May, you say that the market was normal, but that you expect a continued solid performance, a few weeks later, you released a profit warning. Did the market weaken significantly during the end of the quarter, or what happened?
I guess, you're referring to the fact that when we gave a presentation on the quarter one result, we said that the market has gone from good or very good to normal. Now the situation is different. The response to the, to that question is yes, during quarter two, the market has performed poorer, and it is poorer at the end of the quarter than in the beginning of the quarter. That I've been through it in this presentation, our utilization rate in June is on a lower level compared with average. Exactly when the market turns again, we don't really know. We can't see that it has turned, but what we are doing is to do whatever we can do with our utilization rate and with cost reduction initiatives, and we will be back and update you more on that after our quarter three presentation.
Given B3's strong financial position and the low share price, are you considering any share repurchase program?
The question is whether we consider buyback situations, and I think it's fair to say that obviously the answer is yes. Why wouldn't we consider it? We did some buyback situations in quarter four last year. You could argue that the price per share is a lot lower today compared with that time. Also, taking into consideration the kind of market developments since last time. Yes, it will be considered, and if you have any news about it, we will be back to market as always, obviously.
Given the weak market, are you still confident that B3 will reach our financial goals, financial targets in 2025?
The kind of targets we gave to the market in October last year on the capital market day was that we should reach SEK 1.7 billion in premium. That is including Poland, because what we said to the market at that time is that during that period of time, Poland will be consolidated fully into the figures. If you are looking at the accumulated Swedish and Polish figures at the end of 2022, if you add 10% growth in the first half- year, and if you draw that line up until the end of 2025, you will see that there is not a long distance between that line and SEK 1.7.
What we also said, you know, last October, is that most of that growth will be organic, but not everything. My, my feedback on the volume side, relative to that kind of target, is that the target do exist, and I feel we are on track to deliver according to that target, even though the turnaround in the market has appeared kind of earlier than everybody could expect at that time. When it comes to the profitability target, we are obviously today, somewhat behind that target. We said 12% EBIT, on average, during those kind of three years. That's the fact that we are behind on that kind of target.
We will do whatever we can do in order to turn the the margin up again no matter how the market development will be. Hopefully, there will be some support from the market in due time before 2025 in order to reach that target. My summary, we are on target on the volume side. We are somewhat behind target on the EBIT side at the moment.
Okay, recently, B3 announced a new, startup within cybersecurity. Is this company a joint venture with B3 or fully owned by B3?
It's a joint venture. Normally, when we do new startups, we have close to a 50/50 ownership with Peter Lager that you just heard talk about B3 HealthTech. This is what we could call a normal startup joint venture with Emil in this situation.
You also talked about the big party for celebrating B3 20 years. Did the party also result in lost working capacity?
Okay, should we explain quarter two figures by people, either one, spending the full Friday in party or the full Monday with a hangover? I guess that the answer is no. Most of the people celebrating that party, they arrived on Saturday, and the hangover was on the until Sunday, I guess so. Thank you for the question, but basically, no, we didn't lose too many hours. Very, very few, actually, relative to that great party. I do understand it was a great party, which is important.
One question about, when several in management are quitting, is it a troubled and uncertain situation at B3 now, when several in management are quitting?
Many management are quitting. It's not really correct, is it? The fact is that there are changes on chief executive and CFO levels. We will not lose momentum relative to that kind of situation. André is up and running. He is capable of adding value from day one. Actually, day one is today, and today he is in Dublin, hopefully drinking Guinness together with his friends. We will not lose momentum.
The most important thing relative to that question is that we have 25+ daughter companies, and we have a significant stability among management in these companies. That's where all employees in B3 is placed and work on a daily basis together with their colleagues and clients. We have a huge stability on daughter company level. It may look like we have some turbulence, but I would argue that that is pretty limited, and it does not represent any problem. It does not.
Okay, we have also received two questions for you, Peter, regarding the health area.
Okay.
The first question is about AI, and how can AI improve the healthcare?
It has every possibility to improve healthcare. Definitely, there are a lot of things going around already, and as I mentioned, we did already something in Sahlgrenska in Gothenburg. I see a lot of things in imaging, of course, but I think the possibilities are unlimited.
Okay, thank you. The other question was, we are in or on the way to a recession, how will it affect health and healthcare?
I think it might affect on the private sector somewhat, some projects being slower or stopped. If you look at the public sector, as I mentioned, the 12 regions are doing the rollout of new electronic patient record systems. They cannot stop them. The business must be going on out there. They must be able to treat the patients and such. For instance, in Västra Götalandsregionen, they started the project with a budget of SEK 2.1 billion. They increased it to SEK 5.5 billion just to be able to roll out the system. It takes time. These massive projects taking a lot of time. There will be some efforts to pressure prices, of course, but, I think they need the skill that is provided from the strong companies such as B3.
Thank you. We have also received some questions regarding the utilization rates. What are you doing to increase the utilization rates?
Okay, obviously, in a situation where the utilization rate is dropping rather much, we need to get our best consultants out in the market, together with management and sales people, in order to sell, and sell. At the same time, we have to kind of try to do the smaller elements in order to improve the utilization rate. I think it's pretty important that we are not losing the sight of new recruitments. I would like many of the dot companies to continue recruiting. There is a market for those people, and it's possible to place them in the market. Obviously, everybody out in the market, sell our capabilities and then try to find the small improvement elements in the consultancy team we have around in Sweden. It's doable to improve, no matter how the market is acting.
Would you say the situation is the same in Poland, the similar dynamics in Sweden and Poland on market uncertainty and utilization?
It's a bit more difficult for me to answer to that. We are not that close. I ask, obviously, Rafael and Martin Nilsson in Poland, and their feedback to me is that it is a slightly more difficult market in Poland, but it's still good, and they are growing like 50% with an EBIT, which is a lot higher than B3 Sweden. Their capabilities on maneuvering in the market is pretty unique, at least very, very good. Yes, we may see some slowdown in the growth rate, but still, we have a very significant growth in Poland, and we expect that to continue going forward.
Very interesting market, they haven't really explored the nearshoring opportunities, basically, not at all. 18% of the business in Poland is nearshoring. Close to zero is with B3 clients in Sweden. The kind of nearshoring activities Poland are doing at the moment, which is 18% of their first half- year volume, is sold by themselves to basically to Norway, Sweden, Finland, and a couple of other countries outside of Scandinavia as well. There are lots of opportunities in Poland.
Thank you for your question. Here is the one question about AI, and how can AI improve efficiency within B3 own organization?
I don't know. It's a relevant question, and obviously, I have to go back and think through and see how we can use that kind of interesting developments in internally. I honestly don't know, but it's a good question, and I ask you, Casper and Christian and Fredrik and others, you know more than me about it. You, you figure out, and you come back with the, with the right answers, and then I will share it with the market.
Are there any more startups coming?
We don't have any close to be signed at the moment. It is an area of acceleration, so we are happy to announce that B3 Secure is signed and will be up and running during quarter four. We have put Anette Billing in full time, working together with business management in order to do more startup activities. The previous target of B3 has been to deliver one to two startups a year. Obviously, that is up for discussion at the moment, and my expectation is that you will see an increased ambition in that area. We will discuss that in the normal strategy meeting in a board in September seventh. We will have that kind of dialogue, and my expectation at the moment is that we will increase our start-up ambitions in that area.
That's kind of my expectation. A more concrete feedback on that one, whether we will stay on one to two per year, which is a part of the build-up, up to SEK 1.7 billion in 2025. I guess we will start up more, but our plans are not finalized. I'll be back on it. There are several activities already in second half of August. The work is going on. We will update you more when we meet after quarter three.
Mm-hmm. One question related to public sector. The public sector split is down. What is your take on public sector IT investments moving forward?
What? Repeat the initial part.
It is about that B3's position within public sector is a little bit lower now, and what is your take on public sector moving forward?
I don't think there is an answer to that question. Doesn't really exist. There are many, many answers. You heard Peter talk about one part of public sector, namely the health sector, and there are many, many other sectors. I can't understand that the demand from that sector will go down. In my opinion, the mega trend is driving Sweden and Scandinavia and the rest of the world into more digitalization.
Obviously, it must be an increased demand from the public sector going forward, obviously. Whether there are smaller changes within different quarters, yes, it could, but it must be a growing market, and I think it is. Many, many sectors, and I agree that we could have a stronger position. There are competitors who are a lot bigger than us in that area, so it's an area for us to discuss more when it comes to see whether we can accelerate more within some of the public sector areas.
Mm-hmm. One last questions: Are there any plans for any acquisitions?
Acquisition or merger and acquisition? I wouldn't say there are any plans. Like I said, a year ago, we had to kind of let the new management learn to understand the company. Now, it has been changes in the management, but my statement earlier in this presentation is that we will not lose momentum, and we will not lose momentum, neither on M&A situation. I think we are closer to M&A today than last October. We are more prepared, and obviously, in a weaker market, prices are lower, and we have a strong balance sheet. Why shouldn't we look more into it?
You, we probably see B3 acting reactively, like we have done for the last 3, 4 quarters, like I said to the market last October, to a more balanced position, and then gradually, you will probably see us be a bit more proactive in that area. There will be M&As in the future. We are closer to it than last October, but no plans for the very near future.
Okay, I think we have covered most of the questions, and we will also get back to you by email during the day. Of course, you are welcome to send any additional questions to ir@b3.se. It's time to wrap up this presentation, and do you like to add something, Sverre, before we?
Not really, not really. Wish you a nice summer to all employees in B3 and to you out there in the market. If you have more questions, feel free to reach out. The ramp period is over. We are available for you. Just after the summer, if you would like to speak more with me or us, just reach out and we'll certainly respond to you. Thanks a lot for being patient and listening to our presentation. Have a nice summer, everybody.
Thank you. Bye.