Earnings Call: Q1 2021

May 5, 2021

Thank you very much. Welcome, everyone, to this earnings conference to Kano Group, where we are going to present the outcome of Q1 of 2021. Next slide, please. I'm Glynne Breinhull, President and CEO of the company. With me, as it was said, I have our CFO, Doran Brinklausen and our IR specialist there at Berg Gwen. Doran and I will present the outcome of the Q1 using a few slides, and then we'll open up for questions. With that said, let's get started with the presentation of Q1. So let's turn the page and go to next slide. We are pleased with the outcome of the Q1 as we performed well, having a solid organic growth based on good online as well as offline sales. Early in the year, we closed the acquisition of Diep Kunstkar, and we are pleased to see that the company is delivering according to plan. The Q1 of the year is typically our strongest quarter with a larger portion of offline sales. This year, we are content with our offline sales, which were above market trends. Net sales grew by 10%. Organic growth was 5%, margin on a high level of 40.7 and leverage below our target of not more than 3x also after the acquisition of DIP. Next slide, please. In Denmark, we are back on track with an organic growth of 3% and adjusted EBITA margin of 42.6% in Q1. We have continued being active in the market, and our updated platform was launched in the end of February. We have now onboarded more than 17 1,000 users, and we are pleased with the user feedback we have had, showing that the new platform is an appreciated initiative. We will continue adding more features to the platform and have the Aerohort platform living for a period of time as a service. Along with the other products we launched in 2020, we believe we have formed a good basis for growth in the coming years. We also plan to launch additional new products in Denmark in 2021, including an offering from municipalities similar to our offering in Sweden. Turning the page. Following the acquisition of Diepkonskrad, We have formed a new segment Sweden Norway. This business segment has had a good start of the year. The organic growth Of 7% was driven by good online sales and upselling to existing customers as well as sales of new products to existing and new customers. We see good development in our offering for municipalities and the public sector. The strong market trend in the EHS vertical is still valid, and we are happy that we are active within this area. In the Q1, we typically have a high number of offline sales as universities are starting new courses and companies are sending employees in legal training courses. We are content to see that our offline sales were better than the market trend in the Q1. The Q1 is when we published the new addition of the classical law book, Sverreich's law. This year, the book was again well received as lawyers continue to use it as an important work tool. Turning the page. ESG and our mindset long term value in a responsible manner. ESG has for many years been a part of Kano's DNA. We are following UN goals 5, 8 and 16 with being a diverse company, supporting knowledge in society and contributing to raise legal standards in the society. With among other things, 29 nationalities employed and equally divided in genders both among employees and management, we are a diverse company. We were highly ranked in the order right place in 2020 and worked to secure a high ranking also in 2021. As a software as a service company, we have a limited environmental impact, but we are stimulating local initiatives in all local management teams and also on group level. I will now hand over to Dor, who will tell us more about our financial performance in the Q1. Next slide, please. Thank you, Fleming. I will now present and discuss the financial outcome. So let's start with an overview, which is Slide 8. The Q1 is typically our strongest quarter of the year, both on top line and on margins. The top line growth was 10% compared to the same quarter last year. Net sales were SEK234 1,000,000. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 8% to SEK95 million with a high and stable adjusted EBITDA margin of 40.7%. Next slide, please. Looking more closely at our sales growth. Organic growth was 5%, while currency effects had a negative Impact of approximately 3%. Acquired growth from Typconstep and Lex Nordic contributed with 8%. The online business continued its steady growth, while offline sales were on a high level, declining less than the general market trend. Both segments contributed to the increased sales. Next slide please. In the Q1, adjusted EBITDA increased to close to 8%, and adjusted EBITA margin was at a high level of 40.7%, which is a decline of close to 1 percentage point. The decline is due to the acquisition of TIP KONSTET, which has diluted the group margin with approximately 1 percentage point as announced earlier. An adjusted EBITDA of SEK95 1,000,000 and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 40.6% is a strong result. We are content with the high margin, which is a result of higher net sales and efficiency gains. Next slide, please. On Slide 11, you see the net sales development with 2 different views, and you see that the long term trend And our sales continued also in the Q1 of 2021. First, to the left, you see that the online business increases its share of Our group sales by 3 percentage points to 75%. The higher share subscription in our sales that you can see from the graph to the right, Here the increase was also 3 percentage points from 80% in Q1 2020 to 83% in Q1 2021. Next slide, please. Here, we have one of our 2 segments. We are pleased to see that we are growing Organically, again in Denmark, in Q1, organic growth was 3%. However, net sales decreased by 2% due to currency effects. Organic growth was driven by strong online sales, where our new products have been appreciated by our customers with us being able to increase upselling to existing customers as well as attract new customers. The COVID-nineteen pandemic still has an impact on the SME market demand, which is reducing the growth in Denmark. In Denmark, adjusted EBITDA declined by 2% And adjusted EBITA margin was flat at a very high level of 42.6%. The decline was due to FX effects having a negative impact of 5% on net sales, thereby also impacting our adjusted EBITDA. On to the next slide, which is the Swedish and Norwegian segment. Following the acquisition of Diepkonskets, We have created the segment Sweden Norway. The performance on these markets was solid. Net sales increased by 24%, Organic growth was 7%. Acquired growth accounted for 17%, while currency effect had a negative impact of 1%. The organic growth comes from good online sales based on upselling to existing customers and sales to new customers. We could also see great progress in our other verticals, T and A Workflow Tools, Legal Practice Management and EHS. Adjusted EBITDA in the segment increased by 18% compared to last year, while the adjusted EBITDA margin declined by 1 point Turning the page. Here we have our cash flow slide. As expected for the Q1, adjusted operating cash flow was strong. The invoicing season is normally Q4 and Q1. We have strengthened our processes, and we therefore have a seasonality effect as the great Majority of subscription was renewed and paid in December. Combining Q1, Q1 cash sorry, combining Q4 and Q1 cash flows, We have a higher cash conversion rate this season, and we are proud to have improved it from the previous invoicing season. Our leverage was 2.8x at the end of the period, which is below our target of not more than 3x. As for our balance sheet, we have now paid the NOK 219 1,000,000 for the acquisition of Dib Kunstgep in Q1 and still have a solid cash and bank. And now, for the last time, handing over to Fleming again, who will present our last slides. Thank you, Thor. Please switch to the next slide. I just want to conclude this presentation by presenting a summary of the highlights during the Q1. We have had a good start to the year with solid growth and high margin. We have launched our updated platform in Denmark and are planning to launch new products in 2021. We are happy about the development in Sweden Norway segment with strong sales both from our core legal services and our closely related verticals. Next slide, please. Karnal Group has a strong basis to grow from the coming years. As you all know, I will be happy to hand over the baton to Pontus Bordesen, who will assign as the new President and CEO on the 8th May and take the company into its next phase. And by this, I'll end our presentation, and we are now ready to take questions. So I'll hand over to the conference again to our host. Thank Our first question comes from the line of Daniel Oven from Nordea. Congratulations on a really good quarter here. First question I would like to ask is on Sweden, where you had a really strong development growing organically by 7% year over year. Perhaps you can elaborate a little bit more in details of the drivers of all this very strong growth in Sweden? That's my first question. We can see that the reason for this Good growth is a combination of our strong online engine, which we also have seen in the last years, but also that This time, the off line hasn't declined as much as in earlier quarters. And that is, of course, due to the fact that The COVID-nineteen now is more comparable quarter over quarter, but also we see a little The effect coming from people now actually taking decision on offline, so that is why we believe that we have Had a better offline season in this quarter compared to a normal market trend and our expectations overall. So I think that is the overall combination of why we have as such a good growth in the Q1. Okay. Then going over then to the offline Sales. Because I read in the report here also that you mentioned that overall, it was now flattish year over year. But if I remember correct, You previously talked about having a negative impact for this year also by around 1 to 2 percentage points on sales. So I'm just Wondering how should we think about this now going forward? Could this perhaps even be a rather positive impact now due to easy comps So going forward? Or how do you see the negative impact here from for the rest of the year from COVID? Overall, I think we are sticking to our market assumption, market views as we also did earlier, which means that we believe there is a decline in offline of 2.4% in the overall in Denmark Sweden market. And it's correct that there has been a good coming up in Q1. And we actually believe that it's too early to take any, you could say, conclusion out of that. And therefore, we still stick to what we actually earlier have announced of our financial target based on the market trends of a online growth of 4% and an offline decline of 2.4%. Okay. Then just a final question here on the Norwegian business. And I wonder if you could give any indication of what the growth Rate was in the Northern business and then also Norwegian business. And then also, I calculate here backwards a bit, and I come to an adjusted EBITA margin of around 25% year over year 25%. So maybe you can give any indication if this is in the range? And also, Perhaps you can mention how the margin was developing in deep cost gap versus last year. I think you could say that we actually have seen that the Company is working according to expectation also outlined when we acquired the company and also when we closed the deal. And we are in a segment with a growth where it's above, you could say, traditional Kano growth, But we are not opening up, you could say, the books for what is the split between Denmark and Norway in the segment and sticking to reporting on the 2 segments, Denmark and Sweden Norway as a whole and thereby, all in all, living up to our financial targets and also with the dilution effect this year coming from the acquisition of Deepconscape on our EBITDA margins growth. Our next question comes from the line of Piotr Savinovich from Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Thank you very much, operator. Good morning all and thanks for taking my questions. I'll follow-up a bit on what Daniel asked about. So I'm curious about the growth. And I think you mentioned In the report, you have gained some new customers. These have driven higher online sales. Could you share more comments on Type of customers, how much they contribute with? And I'm also wondering if these accounts will support growth also in the coming quarters. And the second question on the same topic. You also mentioned growth from upselling and cross selling. So what kind of cross selling are we talking about here. First of all, you can say that the overall perspective on when we grow in online. This is based on a subscription where this is actually a 12 month period. And you could say this actually form the outline of what we gain and therefore also what you could use to see how future will look like. When we have looked into where we actually get a good momentum in the growth from, That is an environmental health and safety vertical. We have seen good momentum in munis palaces, And we have also seen that we have been able to grow good in the public sector in general for that kind. And then we have also with some of the launches we made in Denmark last year, online library and others Have seen that it has been taken in as very appreciated and thereby also leading to good order intake. When it comes To new customers, I think you will see them more both in, you could say, core legal services, it can be In corporate, you will see it, as I said, in municipal since where we are gaining good momentum, and we also see a good growth in new customer acquisition coming from Environmental Health and Safety. All right. Thank you. No, that's very clear. And just I guess another follow-up To my second question there on the cross selling, what kind of potential do you see For this discontinuing going forward, you mentioned quite a number of examples there, Fleming. So it sounds you're quite optimistic on this This trend also for the coming quarters here? We as a company have, of course, sales and where we are trying to promote the both acquired companies, products into existing companies and vice versa. And this is actually an ongoing job, but also where we are not using that to actually either give a different outlook on our performance. And therefore, as to normally get, we actually still stick to and very content around our financial targets. But you can say that In general, when it comes to legal practice management, for instance, is, of course, one element where customers see the relevance of getting that from Kano. And there are other elements where you actually see both home developed solutions. You see some of the companies we acquired into, which was also a part of the plan of getting them onboarded. And thereby, it's a combination of those elements of where you also will get the cross selling effect coming from. All right. And I guess in the overall market, it seems you are outgrowing it. But could you mention if you're seeing any changes In overall terms there, so saying that your main customer base is growing, I don't know, say, they are employing more, So the employer base is growing for Uxapko. Has that triggered anything or is it simply due to better execution from your team? I think it's a combination of both good execution, but also that some of the products we launched years back are actually trying to be seen as getting good momentum into the market. And this is also a philosophy if you look into the growth perspective of Kana where we're saying that we will ongoing develop our existing business, supporting it by more features and content. We will be looking into adjacent verticals in order to actually grab all areas of the market and also seeing into how we can use geographical expansion as also an engine for future. And that is actually, you could say, the same patent, but it's good that we also see that we are taking some payoffs now from some of the loans we did actually a couple of years back, for instance, in municipalities in Sweden. All right. Super. Thank you very much. And good luck also, Flemming, with your future endeavors here. Thank you very much. Thank you. And as we have no more questions registered over the phone, I hand back to our speakers. Thank you very much for listening and also for your questions. Kano Group will report our Q2 report on August 26, and we hope to hear from you then, if not earlier. Thank you very much, and have a good day.