Earnings Call: Q1 2021

Apr 27, 2021

Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to this Q1 2021 presentation for Invito. My name is Henrik Jallmazsson. I am the President and CEO. And with me, I have Peter Weline, CFO and Deputy CEO. Next page please, Page 2. We're going to spend the coming 25 to 30 minutes going through a short introduction to Envido, Some Q1 highlights and a look into the Q1 performance. Short update on M and A status and a few words on the acquisition of MV Center that we announced just after quarter 1 ended. A few words on our initial thinking around EU taxonomy alignment, a look into the market outlook and our short term priorities. Peter will then go through details of the financials, And I will wrap up with a summary, after which there will be plenty of time for questions. Next page, please, Page 3. So just a short introduction to Invito for those of you who are new to us. We're the leading window group in Europe, a clear market leader in the Nordic region with a strong in the U. K. And Ireland. Net sales in 2020 of SEK6.7 billion with an operating EBITA margin of 10.9 percent, And we have roughly 4,300 employees spread across the geographies that you see marked in dark blue on the right hand side of this chart. And as you can see, we have production facilities in a number of locations in Northern Europe, and we market and sell all the fantastic brands that you can see on the bottom part of the slide. Next page, please, Page 4. So very briefly, highlights on quarter 1. Well, first of all, I'm really happy to say that we posted the all time high Q1 operating EBITDA, driven by both the strong growth as well as continued good cost control. We saw the 8th consecutive quarter with strength in margins and the Q4 in a row with organic growth as well as a continued strong order intake and closing the quarter with a strong order backlog. We saw continued nice growth in e commerce, growing organically 34%. And we also saw continued margin recovery in Business Area North and further strength in margins in Business Area South. And as I said previously, we closed the acquisition of MV Center in April, which is an important step towards materializing our growth GE Independent. Next page, please, Page 5. Very briefly then summarizing the numbers of quarter 1. We obviously see it as a strong start to 2021. Sales grew organically 18 percent to SEK1.644 billion, with operating EBITA then strengthening considerably from SEK 48,000,000 last year to SEK 121,000,000, which means that the operating EBITA margin grew by 4 percentage points to 7.3%. Order intake was good, plus 15%, which then means that the order backlog at the end of the quarter increased 43% versus same time last year to SEK 1,471,000,000. And with continued good cash flows, our net debt versus EBITDA, excluding IFRS 16 came in at NOK 0.9, which is considerably down then from NOK 2.3 at the same time last year. Next page, please, Page 6. Looking at first at Business Area South. As you can see and might remember From previously, as you can see in the ring chart on the right hand side, Business Area South has a considerable exposure to the consumer market, which with robust consumer market here in the Q1 was also visible with a really strong start to the year for Business Area South. E commerce grew, as I mentioned, 34% organically. Order intake grew organically 39%, which means that the order backlog at the end of the is 64% up versus same time last year. We saw continued strong sales and results development in the larger Danish units. And despite some shutdowns earlier in the quarter, we saw continued good development in the UK and Poland. Ireland, however, with a Level 5 plus shutdown, closing down all nonessential construction activity was negatively impacted in the quarter with less sales as a consequence. But overall reported sales grew 19% or organically 25% to SEK 717,000,000 And the operating EBITA margin then increased by 3.6 percentage points from 11% to 14.6%. And a strong order backlog at the end of the quarter, up 69% versus same time last year. Next page please, Page 7. Looking at Business Area North. And as we can see on the ring chart here on the right hand side, we have some more industry exposure, but with relatively robust consumer markets and a somewhat continued recovery on the industry side. Really pleasing to see that we saw profit improvements in all the business units in Business Area North in the quarter. As I mentioned, consumer market stable overall and some continuing signs of stabilizing industry markets. We saw particularly strong profit development in the Finnish units, very pleasingly. However, we have seen some continued operational disturbances from high sick leave due to COVID-nineteen, which has impacted us particularly in Sweden. Reported sales up 11% organically up 13% to SEK 887,000,000, which means that the operating EBITA margin increased by 3.1 percentage points to 2.9% and the order backlog at the end of the quarter up 25% versus same time last year. Next page, please, Page 8. Just a few words on COVID-nineteen and Status in the business, as I mentioned, it has challenged our production efficiency due to periodically high cyclicality, particularly in Sweden. I also mentioned the shutdown of all non essential construction activity in Ireland, which obviously impacted our sales quite considerably in that geography in the quarter. At the same time, we've had a likely continued positive demand impact, particularly in e commerce with more people staying at home and doing renovations. But as before, the long term effects due to COVID-nineteen still remain hard to predict, but we stay very close to the situation, and we remain prepared to take action if and when we need to. Next page, please, Page 9. Looking then at M and A. We have gradually increased our M and A activity level over the second half of twenty twenty and going into 2021. As before, it is relatively easier to make progress in smaller transactions and in existing geographies, given that we have local management and the overall view of the market. But it's still a bit more challenging to carry out larger processes and particularly in new geographies given the restrictions, particularly around travel and meetings, which holds back our ability to meet and interact with potential targets. Next page, please, Page 10. However, as many of you have seen, we closed the acquisition of MV Center, just after the quarter closed. MV Center or Metallitie Valimaki Oi as they trade, specialize in aluminum and steel doors, windows and glass facades, runs its operation from Nokia in Finland with 45 employees, achieved sales just over SEK 100,000,000 in 2020. It's a good business with a strong position in a growing segment, and we see synergies, particularly in terms of a wider sales coverage as well as with sourcing efficiencies. The acquisition has been financed with available cash and will have a marginally positive impact on our earnings per share and the purchase price is in line with regular multiples. Gimitec, we acquire a business with a skilled management. I'm really Happy that the existing management stay on as minority owners for a period of at least 3 years, which will vouch for the long term success of this business. Next page, please, Page 11. I also wanted to take the opportunity to mention a few words on our progress on our KPIs in 2020. I'm really happy that we made progress on 7 out of 8 KPIs. The only one where we didn't fully reach progress was sick leave, obviously considerably impacted by COVID-nineteen. I'm particularly happy To note that the good work we're doing in terms of reducing our carbon footprint paid off, decreasing our CO2 per 1,000 wings by 7.1%, but also that we took a good step in the right direction in terms of being a very safe place to work with lost time accidents improving by 16.4 during the year. Next page, please, Page 12. A few words then on the EU taxonomy alignment. As many of you know, the European Commission has presented the delegated act for taxonomies environmental objectives 12 with an update here only last week. The energy requirements for windows, stated as U value, was then revised from 0.7 to 1.0, whereas doors remain at 1.2%. And we estimate that roughly 45% of our sales of windows and doors in 2020 meet the requirements. And given all the activities we have around continuous energy improvements in our products as well as continuously increasing requirements with regards building standards, we expect this to increase further in 2021. And more details on this will follow in due course, obviously. Next page, please, Page 13. If we look into the market outlook, we entered quarter 2 with a very strong order backlog versus last year. We also see continued healthy demand in the consumer market in the short term and a somewhat more stable development in the industrial markets. On top of that, there is some recovery potential in the UK and Ireland following the COVID shutdowns that we've had. On the other hand, we do see raw material inflation coming through in several of our input materials, which could have a negative short term impact on margins as we push prices through to end consumers and customers. However, we believe that our size as well as our market positions gives us an advantage both in terms of securing raw material supply, but also in price negotiations with suppliers. And as before, the medium term outlook is somewhat more uncertain as the exact impact of societies reopening again is a bit hard to predict. Next page, please, Page 14. If we look then at our short term Priorities, they do remain largely the same. We want to continue to manage our way through COVID-nineteen and the remaining parts of that, while obviously continuing to build for growth. So we want to make sure that we continue to keep our employees as safe and healthy as possible. And although we are now getting closer and closer to a full vaccination program rollout, we don't want to lose the patients with all the good activities we've taken to protect our employees. We want to continue to strengthen our in our key geographies in this quite dynamic market. We obviously have continued, as I mentioned, ongoing screening of and dialogue with select acquisition targets. We're going to continue our investments in for e commerce growth, and we will continue with very proactive cost management in the face of changing demand, also remaining prepared if and when we'll see demand fluctuations, which will require us to take action. Next page, please, Page 15. And with that, I'm going to hand over to Peter, who's going to take you through a bit more of the details of the numbers. Thank you so much, Henrik. And then I'll ask you to go to Page number 16, please, Page number 16. On this page, we can see the income statement for Q1. To the left, we can see Q1 2021, then Q1 2020. And then to the right, we can see the rolling 12 months or latest 12 months. Invito had a record strong order backlog end of December or beginning of this year, And that meant that the quarter sales was improved for compared to last year. Sales was plus 40%. Organically, it means that we changed for the currency impact. Sales was +18% compared to last year. The gross margin was improved in the quarter from 21.9% to 23.5%, thanks to improved efficiency, higher capacity utilization and a better mix in the quarter. Q1 is our lowest season and lowest quarter, and we have lower capacity utilizations compared to the other quarters. With the free capacity, which we had in Q1 this year, we were able to increase sales and improve our capacity utilization, which have a large impact on the results development due to the lower season in Q1. At the same time, overhead costs were slightly below last year. So with the high organic sales, improved gross margin, lower cost resulted to an improvement in beta operating beta and operating beta margin in the quarter. Envido has now succeeded to improve the margin 8 quarters in a row. We have also, in Q1, received government subsidies related to COVID-nineteen. In total, SEK 3,000,000. They have all been booked at reduced costs in the quarter. In Ireland, we have received subsidies related to furlough because of close down. And in Sweden, we have received subsidies related to sick leave compensations. So an operating EBITDA of SEK121,000,000 and a margin of SEK7 SEK300,000 is the highest result margin ever for Envido in Q1. EBITDA was on the same level as operating EBITDA for the quarter. Thanks to improved margin in the quarter, the rolling 12 months margin has been improved and is now up to 11.4% and operating beta of SEK801 1,000,000, just above SEK800 1,000,000 in operating beta within 12 months. In the quarter, Envido has a positive currency impact. The financial net was in the quarter positive by SEK 11,000,000. Last year, we had a financial net of minus SEK 43,000,000. This year, some positive currency impact, and last year, quite large negative currency impact impacting the income statement. A total net impact of SEK 54,000,000 compared to last year, where the interest costs were reduced by SEK 4,000,000 and the other comes from currency impacts. So thanks to improved operating results, positive currency impact, lower interest rate costs, the profit after tax and the earnings per share was improved substantially in the quarter compared to last year. Earnings per share was increased from TEA over last year to 1.71 this year. And around 12 months, we are above TEGSUNO. We are on 10.25. If we then turn Page, we go to Page 17, fleets. On this page, we can see sales and the order intake for 2019, twenty 'twenty to 'twenty one. To the left, you can see the sales development. And to the right, we can see the order intake development. Sales was plus 14%. If we then adjusted for the currencies, the sales was plus 18% in the quarter. North had an organic sales growth of 13% in the quarter, and South had an organic sales growth of 25%, where e commerce had a growth of 34% in the quarter. In total, for entire group, consumer sales has a higher growth compared to an industry sales, which is positive for the margins. The order intake was plus 15% in the quarter. North had order intake growth of 12% and South had order intake growth of 21% with continued strong development within e commerce. If we then turn Page, we go to the Page 18, please. This page is showing the order backlog in SEK 1,000,000 end of each quarter from q1 2016 up until Q1 this year 2021. Envido started this year with a record or high order backlog. And in Q1, the order intake grew by 15% and sales grew by 14%. DASTA backlog continued to grow this quarter and was 10 of the quarter, 43% compared to last year, equal to SEK 1,471,000,000 backlog, an increase by SEK 440,000,000 compared to the backlog last year. This is a record backlog for Envido. The higher backlog End of March will have a positive sales impact in the near future. The backlog of North was 25% compared to last year and increased by 25%. And the backlog of SAAS was plus 69% compared to last year. If we then turn Page, we go to Page 19, please. This page is showing Operating in beta and operating in beta margin for Q1 for 2019, 2020 and 2021. In the margin has been improved in the quarter from 3.3% last year to 7.3% this year. In 2018, the margin was 3.1%. The margin of 7.3% is the highest margin ever for Envido for Q1. Historically, the margin has been between 3% 5%, except for 2017 when it was on 6.1%. So this year, with an improvement of 7.3 percent is a record for Envito. High organic sales, Improved gross margins due to improved efficiency, higher capacity utilizations and positive segment mix And somewhat lower costs have together improved the margin in the quarter, and we reached a result of SEK 121,000,000 compared to SEK 48,000,000 last year and SEK 45,000,000 in 2019. If you then turn Page, we go to Page Number 20, this page is showing net debt versus operating EBITDA. The blue staples is the net debt in SEK 1,000,000. The gray staples above the blue staples, That is the IFRS 16 impact on the net debt. The golden line is the net debt versus EBITDA, excluding IFRS 16, and the red line is the net debt versus EBITDA, including IFRS 16. In the quarter, the net debt has increased, Excluding IFRS 16 from SEK 740,000,000 in December last year to SEK 868,000,000 end of March. It's quite normal with Envido to have a higher net debt in Q1 due to the seasonality of the business. The IFRS 16 debt was end of March SEK 366,000,000. And the net debt versus EBITDA, excluding IFRS 16, has been improved compared to last year. Last year, it was 2.3, and now end of March, it was 0.9, same level as in December 2020. The improved operating result in the quarter has compensated the higher net debt in the quarter And thereby, the net debt versus EBITDA, excluding IFRS 16, is in the same level as in Q4 2020. Including IFRS 16, the net debt was SEK 1,234,000,000 end of March, And the net debt plus EBITDA, including IFRS 16, was 1.2% compared to 2.5% 1 year ago. Next page, please, Page 21. So a brief summary from my side. We've seen in the quarter overall robust consumer activity with continued strong e commerce performance. We posted the 8th consecutive quarter of strength in margins and the 4th quarter in a row with organic growth. We, as I mentioned earlier, estimate Currently, that's 45% of our 2020 sales of windows and doors are taxonomy aligned, and we expect that to increase in 2021. We closed the acquisition here in April of MV Center, strengthening our position and our growth potential in Finland. And We entered the high season with a record strong order backlog and in a short term stable consumer market. But the mid- to long term consequences due of COVID-nineteen and societies opening up is hard to predict. Next page, please, Page 22. So with that, we open up for questions. Operator, please. Thank you. The first question comes from the line of Adela Dhanian from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Yes. Good morning. Let me first start by congratulating you on a very strong quarter. And I do have a couple of questions. Firstly, related to the inflationary pressures expected in 2021, if you could please Elaborate a bit on that, maybe in terms of timing, when should we expect margins to take the largest hit? And how fast have you historically been able to push on prices to customers? Yes. Thank you very much, Adela. Henrik here. And I think the to answer your question, we've seen material inflation coming through here, let's say, particularly in the second half, I would say, of the first quarter. And we're obviously and particularly on wood, partially on aluminum and to some extent on glass. We're taking action across the board in all our businesses to increase prices to customers. I think we've demonstrated historically that we are we've been good at actually passing price increases on. But as you alluded to, there will be a lag. So there could be some short term impact, most likely than in quarter 2 on the margin as the price increases take effect throughout the customer landscape. Got it. Okay. And then on the acquisition of MV Center and your M and A strategy going forward, you previously said that it's Pretty challenging to make any larger acquisitions in new geographies because of COVID and the travel and meeting restrictions. So is it safe to assume at least in the near future, the next year or 2 that you will announce similar announcements to the acquisition in Finland? Or do you expect because of your market position that you will be able to announce Something maybe larger and in a new geography anytime soon? Yes. I think it's really hard actually to predict exactly. I think it's we have some interesting dialogues, which could materialize in the near to medium term. But and it depends a little bit where you draw the line in terms of a larger acquisition. But in the near term and I wouldn't extend that to as much as 2 years, by the way, but in the near term, it will likely be more of the magnitude of MV Cent or somewhat bigger. And to make something radically significant or something transformative would take a bit more, but not necessarily 2 years in that case. Obviously, all depending on the development of the market and the other acquisitions that might be small to medium sized, but still be very interesting for us in how they develop. All right. And then finally on e commerce, we've seen continued momentum within that segment in this quarter. And I've asked this Question in previous quarters as well. How should we think about that segment going forward once Society reopens, what are your expectations for a more normalized growth rate? Yes, I think I mean, overall, it's a I think we should recognize that there's a macro move from traditional brick and mortar to online. And that will actually continue, is our view, irrespective of the impact. Now then obviously, e commerce has a 100% consumer market exposure and particularly on the small work side, and that market has been particularly strong during the COVID pandemic. But we still think that There is considerable growth potential going forward in that segment. Is that going to be of the magnitude of the 30% to 40% that we've seen in the past quarters? Maybe not fully to that extent, but we still see some considerable growth potential even with societies opening up and the imminent pandemic effect sort of toning out. Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Kenneth Tull from Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Yes. Thank you. So one question I have is, if I was a bit surprised also by the strong order intake you had in the Q1 and the strength of the order book at the end of the quarter. Do you think that there was any sort of extraordinary things that explained The strong order book at the end of the quarter, I'm thinking maybe there was sort of an early start of the selling season or something like that? Or do you see the business trend and the water intake trend being reflective of the very high order book at the end of Q1. Yes. Thanks, Kent. I mean, we don't really see anything extraordinary timing wise that has impacted that. We have had a it's spread all across the group in basically all segments. And we have seen continued good consumer activity with the exception then of Ireland, which has been a bit strange in the quarter. But in all the other quarters sorry, in all the other geographies in the quarter, we have seen a robust development. And we think that I mean, we actually don't have the data yet, so we can't say with certainty. But we think also the actions we've taken and the segment position we have has also allowed us to take some market share in the quarter on the order side. But the short answer to your question is No, nothing unnormal or unusual in terms of timing as such. It pretty much reflects the activity level that we've seen to the court. Great. And also then, when you have such a strong order intake, does that mean that you run into to capacity problems in the South? Or are you able to deliver? I mean, what about your delivery times? Are they longer than normal? And have you started to be sort of lose orders due to those channel issues? I think I mean, there is one difference as we go into the high season here because obviously, in quarter 1, we do have some spare capacity So yes, that's normally low season, so growth is a bit easier. Now coming into quarter 2, there is opportunity to grow versus what we saw last year, obviously, particularly that we had some COVID impacts in the supply chain, not the least during the Q2 last year, but maybe not of the same magnitude that we saw in that we saw in Q1. But I think it's we're fairly well positioned at the moment. We have been able to increase capacities a bit, and we feel that Although the order backlog that we have is longer than what we normally see because it is I mean, we do have slightly longer lead times than we normally have, but we still feel we have a We're fully confident that we can deliver to this according to customers' expectations if operations like that, but with a slightly longer lead time than normal due to the size of the order backlog. Are you taking any decisions to increase the production capacity in business areas out to I mean maybe growth will stay for a while. Yes, we have made both short term decisions in terms of of increasing shifts and capacities, but actually also conscious investments. So basically CapEx, both in 1 or 2 of the larger Danish units as well as in e commerce. So from our perspective, relatively considerable CapEx to continue to increase capacity. So We're taking choices, let's say, both short term actions as well as some more longer term. Okay. Are those For the major CapEx, will it sort of increase the CapEx as share of sales for the near future? Or is it more Yes, smaller add ons. It's maybe you could say in between. We normally say around 3%. We did spend a bit less in 2020 due to COVID, so we have some catching up to do on that. So maybe we're more closer to the 3.5% rather than the 3 sense, but it's not going to be no massive moves. It's still in sort of the normalized type of brackets. Okay. It all sounds very good. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much. Thank The next question comes from the line of Victor Hansen from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Thank you, operator, and hello, Henrik and Peter. It's Victor Hansen from Nordea here. A few questions for me, and I'll take them 1 by 1. So regarding the strong order backlog, could you tell us about the Split between consumer and industry and how much of the current backlog you expect to deliver in 2021, please? Well, we expect to deliver basically all of that order backlog in 2021 or at least the vast majority of it, 95 ish percent maybe. We don't expect, however, to deliver it all in quarter 2 because obviously on the industry side, there are some projects with relatively long order lead times, not driven particularly by us and our capacities, but more driven by customer construction lead times. So it's relatively I mean, we expect that to go out a bit. When it comes to the split between industry and consumer, it's I don't have that number off the top of my head, but it's roughly in line with split that we've seen. Maybe I think consumer is up around 40% and industry slightly more than that. So maybe a slight skew to industry. And I think part of that explanation is actually that we pushed a considerable amount the industry orders in Ireland ahead of us in the quarter due to the construction activity shutdown. But it's roughly the same growth on both. Okay. Great. So and you mentioned pent up demand in the U. K, and I noticed sales decreased 66% year over year there. And could you try to quantify this potential recovery demand? And what have you seen since the country reopened about 2 weeks ago? So we've gradually seen actually a recovery. There was a bit of a scare earlier in the early on in the quarter, and that was I mean, quite it was in January, early when they went into another wave of shutdowns. That has actually gradually released, and we've seen the activity gradually coming back in the quarter. And towards the back end of the quarter, we did see some opportunity for basically a rebound in the market. But it all depends obviously on the vaccination scheme fully taking effect in the UK and then being able to get out there and do all the installations that are expected from customers. Okay. And the final one for me. Could you explain what's driving the strong sales development in other In Note 4, I noticed that it's twice the total amount in 2020 this quarter. I'll hand it to Peter. We have a half when it comes to other, we have higher salesmen in we have Two companies reporting on the other is Allerkeying and Arkania. They are painting aluminum. And they are painting aluminum to the Invito as as external customers. And they have a higher growth due to the higher increase in sales in Q1 on the internal customers, but they have also improved sales on external customers in the quarter. Thank you very much. That's all from me. Thank you very much. Thank you. We have no further questions. So I will pass back for any closing comments. Okay. Well, thank you very much, everybody. And then we will close