Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to today's Loomis AB Q1 2020 report conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. At which time if you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone and wait for an automated message stating your line is open. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Patrik Andersson, President and Chief Executive Officer of the company. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the first quarter presentation from Loomis AB. I'm Patrik Andersson, and today I have Kristian Ackeby, CFO, and also Anders Haker, Chief Investor Relations Officer, with me here on the call. I will give a short update or a short overview, and then I open up for questions. Let's start the presentation and turn to the next page, which is called the Corona pandemic. Just some short comments on the Corona pandemic situation now and how we have handled it. First of all, as many other companies, the well-being of our employees is on the top of our agenda, and we've taken a number of measures to safeguard our employees. We have disinfected the branches. We have handed out masks. We have worked on social distancing and also a lot of information to our employees.
I would also like to say that in these difficult times, the Loomis AB employees have done a fantastic job in maintaining the high quality despite the very challenging situation. I really personally would like to thank all the Loomis AB employees for their hard work and dedication. Thirdly, there has been a lot of false rumors circulating in media, but also in social media, about that cash is spreading the virus. These rumors have been denied by many medical experts also including European Central Bank, the WHO, the Swedish National Bank, and so on and so forth. I just want to like also to mention that cash in circulation, both in Eurozone and in U.S. never been as high as it is right now. Just give you some numbers.
Cash in circulation in Eurozone reached historic peak in March to EUR 19 billion, and that's the highest since 2008. In the U.S., that's the same situation. We have cash in circulation has grown by $81 billion to $1.88 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve. This is also the highest level since 2008 and 2009. We see that every day in our work that the central banks are really pushing and making sure that the cash cycle is working. Also connected to the next point that we have a very important role in a situation like this to see that the cash ecosystem is working. We have actually a part of the infrastructure of a society, I would say. It's also for us a good possibility to take advantage of the situation we're having and really see that all customers are getting served.
We are here to come out stronger after the crisis than we went in. That's our view. All Loomis AB branches are working but not all on full capacity, but all are up and running. We also see that the negative effects on Loomis AB in the first quarter were rather limited, but we expect, of course, as many others to have a bit more challenging situation, especially in April. We see increased volumes within food retailing, which is of course following the general pattern in society. We also see that coming from ATM withdrawals and ATM services. We have decided to postpone the capital expenditure as much as we can, but we are not stopping any capital expenditure that is building our future and long-term growth.
We have worked a lot on reduction of the variable costs, and we have a very good track record of doing that in integrating business, but also in a fast and effective way cut costs. That is in our DNA and also in what we call the Loomis AB model. We have also decided, or the board has decided to postpone the dividend which was at SEK 11 a share. The plan is to have extra AGM later this year to take a decision. We have also a new credit facility of SEK 1.2 billion signed to really strengthen the balance sheet even further. In short, we are well prepared operationally and financially to meet this challenge as we have seen. I move to the next slide, which is highlights. These are the highlights of the quarter.
I'll come back to some of these later in the presentation. As I mentioned, we have decided to stop the dividend for later. We have also announced the acquisition of Nokas Cash Handling Sweden in January, and Automatia, which is an ATM company in Finland in February, and we're waiting for approval from the local authorities on that. That's expected later 2020. Regrowth was 2% in a quarter, and we have, of course, the acquisition in France that we did when we bought the Prosegur operations in France. We did that in July 2019, which is of course affecting the numbers. We had a good momentum, a good speed, I would say, into the pandemic. Organic growth rate in total was 0% in the quarter versus 2% last year. As I mentioned, there are some areas within food retailing ATM which is growing.
We also see that Europe delivered a very good positive revenue growth in the first two months. Of course, the impact in March was there and pulled down the organic growth. U.S., very positively impacted by the SafePoint growth, which is continuing. I'll come back to that. Operating margin 11%. Of course, a higher impact in Europe, as I mentioned in the quarter. Still, margin is kept on a high level, and we have also then strong results overall from the U.S. operation. Last but not least, on cash flow, we had a very strong cash flow in the quarter, and that is due to the fact that we had a positive working capital movement. That's the main reason, but there are also some other movements. Overall, a strong cash flow in the quarter.
Let's turn to the next page and just have a short view on how the margin developed in the historical perspective. This is actually the second best Q1 ever when it comes to operating margin since the IPO, which I think is showing strength in a very special time. Let's turn to the next page, which is then Segment Europe. As I mentioned, we are then working, of course, on the acquisition within France. In effect, France is now a two-player market, as I mentioned before. We have, of course, had to make a short stop when it comes to integration process to realize the synergies of the Prosegur acquisition, but we will pick that up as soon as possible and we're very sure that we will reach the targets from that acquisition. Organic growth, -2% in the quarter.
As I mentioned before, end of March, we saw an effect in Europe. Until then, a very good momentum. We have identified many growth opportunities in many countries as banks are now outsourcing even more. Central banks are looking for new opportunities. There are customers that's not been taken care of, et cetera. We don't save the last Euro for the bottom line, rather also invest for the future. We also see a remarkable upswing when it comes to precious metals business in France. That's the CPoR business, that's lifting also the result of CPoR. That's mainly based on then the precious metal business. Operating margin 9.7%, as I mentioned, negatively affected in the end of March.
Also the French business that we acquired, we should keep in mind, is also having a diluting effect on the margin for now, but that will, of course, change. I would say Europe shows a strength in difficult times. I'm very happy with the European result in these times. We move to next slide, which is U.S. U.S. had organic growth 2%, and we see that approximately 12% revenue growth for the SafePoint business. We continue to have a very strong momentum and pipeline for the SafePoint business. Now SafePoint services account for as much as 17% of the total US revenues, which is of course having an impact on the margin, as you will see later on. CMS, Cash Management Services, 34% of total revenue, also increasing its share.
I'm really happy to say that high-quality service have maintained during this period of time, and we see an inflow of new customers as we have kept everything open, and we're really focused on servicing our customers. We really would like to take this opportunity to grow with existing and new customers. Operating margin on an all-time high level in Q1 despite these challenges. A growing margin with 1.1% really shows strength. Of course, SafePoint is having an impact on the margin, but also that we continue to focus on customers that are willing to pay for the quality and the service we are providing. We will not have any diluting contracts in the portfolio. We are serving the customers in a good way, and of course, we want to get paid for that.
We have a very strong efficiency program going on constantly, but that we, of course, scale up when it comes to situations like this. I would say the Loomis model is working very well in a situation like this. A very strong result in Q1 in the U.S. Very good from the US team. Let's turn to the next page, which is then the statement of income. There is not very much to say. I've mentioned many of these points before. In summary, we have kept growing and kept a good margin, a high margin in also a quarter which is highly affected by the coronavirus. Let's turn to the next page and then go to the Q&A. I say, operator, we now open up for questions, please.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad and wait for the automated message advising your line is open. Please state your first and last name before you ask your question. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. Thank you. We will now take our first question. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yes. Hi, it's Daniel from ABG. Just make sure if you hear me.
Yeah, we can hear you.
Excellent. Okay. My first question relates to SafePoint. Can you comment anything on net installations in Q1 so far? Also give, I guess it is a physical sales model here where you actually meet your clients. How do you think of the rest of 2020? Can you give some kind of highlights or guidance on that in the U.S.?
First question is we had a net new installation of about 1,000 SafePoint in the quarter. In total, we have now 32,000 SafePoints installed. The base is 32,000 and 1,000 in the quarter. I didn't really hear your second question. Can you repeat that, please?
Yeah. What about the rest of the year? I guess it is a quite intensive physical sales model where you meet your clients to sell new. How should we think about net installations for the coming three quarters?
It's very difficult to say. As you say, we have a good pipeline, of course, and so we have signed and closed contracts, and we're working to install that base, and that will continue as much as we can. Of course, we're trying to negotiate with customers in different ways than we did before. Of course, I expect to have some impact on that in the next couple of months. We're trying to keep the speed up as much as we can.
Okay, good. The second question. Given the minus 25% decline in April and somewhat higher in Europe, are you close to be loss-making in Europe in April?
We're a bit careful now on giving numbers on the EBITDA because now we're working so much with cost-cutting exercises and so on. It's very difficult to give you a clear, a good answer on the bottom line. I would pass on that one and just focus on the 25%.
Okay, fair enough. A final one on the industry. Have you historically seen any pent-up demand? Is that actually something that happens in the industry when you have a kind of a lockdown or a slower growth rate, that you see a higher demand when you come out of that?
That's a good question. I think that we very much follow the general consumption in a country, in a society. When consumption goes down, we go down. Maybe not as much as people think, when it goes up, we follow. I have a hard time to say anything that it should ramp up. I don't know. What we can see, at least, is a lot of activities from the central banks in all countries to really safeguard the cash cycle. There is a lot of activities going on, which is sort of giving us a bit of a cushion when, of course, the general spending goes down a bit.
Okay, thanks for that. I stop there for now.
Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi, it's Peter Testa from One Investments. A couple of questions, please. I was just interested in trying to understand your opportunities to variabilize your cost base. We have all the various labor programs from governments at this point in time, and I was wondering if you had any thoughts as to what, say, proportion of your labor costs you could move in line with revenue? How much of your cost base, whether labor or you can use government programs to move in the line of revenue and also your truck network base cost base that you can move in line with revenue?
I'll leave that to Kristian to try to answer.
Good. Thank you very much for the question there. Looking into our cost and the personal cost that you refer to, it's approximately 55% of our total cost base, the salaries we do pay. The movement you will see in short term will differ a lot from country to country. Some countries, it's much faster to make the changes when volumes goes down, like for example, in U.S. In some other areas, like for example, in certain countries in Europe, it takes longer time to reduce the workforce. At the same time, you can get subsidies. What we work with is, of course, to get subsidies where it takes longer time to get workforce reduced and take out the cost. I will not be able, and will not give you a number about how variable we see it.
What you probably should expect is it goes faster in U.S. In Europe, it will partly be mitigated by subsidies, but you will have a timing impact in Europe compared with U.S.
Okay. On the labor side, do you think that you will, within a balance of weeks, be able to use the subsidy to achieve the variable level that will be similar to the U.S. in that regard, in terms of your labor?
I will not make a specific comment on that one. I cannot do that.
Okay. I didn't know whether it was timing or magnitude, that was my question. Okay.
Oh.
The question is also on the truck fleet, the extent to which you have your variable fleet costs that you can move at this time also. What proportion of your costs were, in addition to labor, variable fleet costs?
Yeah. The fleet cost in total is approximately 8.5% in relation to revenue. It's of course, partly related to depreciation or leasing costs, depend on how they are financed.
Yeah.
Really, the sort of 100% variable cost is the fuel, and the fuel is approximately one-fourth, one-fifth of the total vehicle cost. That you can have in your estimation.
Right. Okay. Are there other steps you can take to manage your cost base outside of labor, are you looking at for example, closing some centers at the time or other factors? Is the labor flexibility your primary tool?
It's a lot of actions ongoing in each and every country, and it can be, for example, like you are touching, it's people-related, it's vehicle-related. On vehicle it can be, for example, that we put them, vehicle not being used, put them on hold, so to say, so we can reduce insurance cost, we can reduce fuel cost, but also some of the fixed cost when we put them sort of on hold. It's a lot of different activities. Looking into what can we do on rent, of course, we will ask our landlords what can be done on the rent side and so on. A lot of cost action activities ongoing.
Right. On the other side, as you come out of this period of shutdown, have you had any conversations with your customers about their restart plans? There's some large retail chains have talked about reopening not all of their stores, like accelerating some store closures. Can you give any sense of how you've got a comment from your customers on the other side and restart and how much, how quickly or how the magnitude you think they will restart?
That depends a bit on country to country, but it's very much following how the country is tackling the situation. I can say that we are constant contact with our retail customer, and as soon as possible, they would like to open. They cannot be closed for a long time. As soon as the countries open up, the retailers are there to open up as soon as possible, as soon as they are allowed, and then we are there to support them. I think that it's all focused on getting open as soon as possible it's allowed.
Okay. Last question, please. If you look at how your revenue line depends upon number of stops versus volume of cash, can you give any sense in terms of how your revenue line splits between, say, those two categories and whether there's a big difference between Europe and the U.S.?
We cannot give you a number on that. You're right. One thing is that for many customers, we have a fixed base price, and that's not changed during this crisis. That's also the cushion. Of course, then the variable pricing goes down, of course. I cannot give you a number which is relevant right now. Sorry about that.
Okay. Thank you very much for the answers.
Thank you.
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Good morning, Johan Dahl at Danske Bank here. Just had a question. As society recovers here, hopefully after April and forward, is there anything in the contractual terms with your customers that would delay a recovery in your business volumes, i.e., certain cancellations, et cetera, here in March, April, which will take time to recover? Is there any such thing we should be aware of?
No. You should not. As I said before, as soon as they open up, we are there to serve them. There's no delay or anything stopping a recovery, no.
Could you say something, Patrik, regarding SafePoint sales in April?
As I said, it's a good momentum. We have always a backlog on installations. That we're trying to keep the installations going, as much as possible. I think it's on a decent level, I would say, and continuing. After that, after April, we don't really know, but so far so good.
What are you seeing in terms of being through the trough here? Would you argue that some of your competitors did yesterday that April was a trough, or can you share anything with us there?
No. Just to be clear on.
I would say that in the end of March, we saw a sharp decline. At first, as I mentioned, in Europe, and then after that, also in the U.S. It stayed on that sharp decline. It's not a curve that is going down, it goes very sharp down, and then you hit the floor, and that's been staying on that level during April. That's the shape of the curve, if you like. Hopefully, as societies are opening up, we should then also be able to recover from that.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Good morning. Dan Johansson at SEB. Two questions from me. First one on working capital. Are you being a bit more flexible now with payment terms, as in some of your customers could be suffering quite severely in this situation? Second question, you're alluding a bit that you're advancing your position in certain markets. Could you say a few words on the potential of market share gains? Will you perhaps prioritize a bit more of organic growth compared to M&A in the medium term? Thanks.
I start with the two last questions, and then I hand over to Kristian. I think that M&A, of course, we are working M&A, but there is a standstill when it comes to M&A. I think that first of all, it's very difficult to meet and talk about these sensitive things, but also, what kind of valuation should you use in a time like this? Is it pre-Corona, post-Corona? What is happening? I think that a bit of a standstill, even though it's not a total standstill when it comes to M&A, I think that would gain momentum quite quickly again. Of course, if you have a financial strength, that also gives you opportunities when it comes to M&A, that some of our colleagues or competitors will have issues, and of course, maybe want to sell, opening up other possibilities.
I think that what we said also when it comes to organic growth, what we said from the beginning of this crisis is that we should not jeopardize the quality of the service or the interaction with the customer. We need to be there for our customers. We see that many customers have appreciated that, and also that some other customers want to join us, and there are many examples of that. That is very important for us, that we take the chance to grow our market shares. Of course, it's early days still, but that at least is the aim. There are a lot of opportunities, I would say, to do that, yes.
Looking into the working capital and accounts receivable specifically, we're looking into Q1. We have first to say with the cash flow, we have a positive timing in accounts receivable in Q1, which was partly a backlog, you could say, from Q4, where we had the negative timing of some delays in payments. We look into the end of March, we have a stable DSO, so that is well in line with prior, and we do not see a significant or an increase in bad debt as of now, and that are the most important parts for us now to follow. If we would change payment terms or not, that is totally individual and nothing that we will do from here.
That's a country-to-country decision when it comes to the payment terms. I think, to be honest, that in some of our countries, we have been a bit flexible when it comes to payments with some of our customers, but that's very much on a case-by-case basis.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yes. Hi, it's Mikael at Carnegie in Stockholm. Just one clarification. Most of my questions were answered, but one clarification on SafePoint, the growth you are reporting, is that growth number organic or is it in Swedish Kronor?
The SafePoint growth is organic.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
We will take our next question. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yes. Thanks. Daniel from ABG again. I got also a couple of my questions already answered. I have a final one. Have you received any governmental grants so far in any countries?
Yes. In some countries we have. I cannot give you detailed pictures, but in some countries we have, yes. We have been very fast on using those possibilities, but that's been open up. Yes.
Have they affected the Q1 profitability to any extent, or/and do you expect that to affect margins in Q2 to any extent at all?
No significant impact in Q1. I think that will have an impact on Q2 to some extent, yes.
Okay. Thank you.
This is clarified. I mean, a big portion is to support on the salary side.
Thanks.
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Hi, it's Peter Testa again. Just to go back to my question on variable versus pickups, would it be fair to assume that CIT is roughly related to number of stops, that the SafePoint is obviously a fee business, and that CMS has got the variable component to volume of cash?
I think we'll let Anders talk. You're an expert on these things. Do you want to answer that one, please?
Sure. It's correct, as you say, that the CIT business is mainly dependent on the number of stops we do, and the CMS business is primarily a function of how many bags we count. It doesn't necessarily mean that if we make less stops, that we count less bags. You would probably see a more immediate impact when it comes to volume from the CIT side than on the CMS side. In the long perspective, they're all tied together. If we make more stops, in the long term, we will have more cash to count for the CMS business. It works both ways.
Right. As you pick back up, please.
The short answer to your question would be that you probably see a more quicker impact on the CIT business than on the CMS business in these type of circumstances.
Right. On the way back up, as stores reopen, they may not have all the shoppers. You'd see a rapid pickup in the CIT business, and the CMS business would pick up as the volume of, say, sales through QSR or stores picked up. Is that fair?
Yes.
Fine.
Confirmed.
Okay. Thank you. The other question, you mentioned a number of times market share opportunities, customers talking to you about service and so on. Can you give any sort of comment or context, and banks outsourcing? Is it maybe how the pipeline has changed, either in terms of retail customers or in terms of bank outsourcing?
I didn't hear you very well. The first one is, I think that some of our customers may be not really happy with the situation they're having with someone else, and then they are reaching out to us. That's quite an opportunity, I would say, in many of the countries. That's number one. Number two is that what I'm trying to say also in the beginning is this situation opens up some other opportunities, like banks trying to outsource more of their services, like the ATM services, or central banks are trying to find ways to outsource some of their cash services. These opportunities that is opening up now in these circumstances. It's not only about gaining market share, gaining contracts from other customers, also new opportunities opening up. These are the two possibilities. Then I missed the second question. I think it was about SafePoint.
Well, it was just a general, whether you could talk about this as a qualified pipeline at this stage and maybe also, yeah, the SafePoint with retail customers, et cetera. Just trying to understand in this period where it's obviously more challenging to execute sales, whether you sound like you're actually getting a sales pipeline. I'm trying to understand if you would call this qualified pipeline or initial discussions.
I think that, of course, if you cannot meet and negotiate contracts with customers when it comes to SafePoint, that is, of course, it's hindering. Also, customers now have other things to think about than installing SafePoint. Of course, I think in the short term, that will have some kind of impact. That's naive to think anything like that. Having said that, we have a very strong pipeline when it comes to SafePoint opportunities.
Right. The conversations with banks and central bank on cash services, banks and ATM, are those turning into pipeline type conversations or are they sort of initial exploratory?
No, no. I think some of these have happened. I cannot quantify that, but some of these opportunities turn into reality. There are a lot of discussions going on at the same time about these things. Yes. That's the pipeline. Yes.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. We will take our next question. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hello, everyone. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Great. Are you developing anything similar to, we heard the Brink's Complete that they mentioned? Are you looking at any similar solution to that?
I haven't all the details about the Brink's solution, but we are constantly working on innovating our SafePoint offering, and also in terms of how we can finance that and find the best solution for the finance of our customers. I don't know exactly what it is, but I can assure you that we are doing a lot of work when it comes to the SafePoint offering, both on the technology platform, but also on the financial services around that. That's high on the agenda, I can say.
Okay, great. It's Thomas Graf here from Handelsbanken. Can I say just one question? I came in late to the call. I don't know if you mentioned, but are you seeing any sort of behavioral worries with the Corona situation that the people are worried for cash and so on? I know you stated that experts and WHO says that you shouldn't say, but any behavioral changes, have you noticed that? Thanks.
We haven't seen that in general, any behavioral changes. As I said in the beginning, I think that what we very much follow the development of the society. The economy goes down, we go down with it, of course. Nothing specific when it comes to people are afraid. There's been some campaigns around not using cash and so on, but that has not, as we have seen, any impact on our business so far, at least.
Okay. Thanks for that.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yeah. Hi again, it's Mikael at Carnegie. Again, just to follow up on the question regarding CIT and the impact now short-term and medium-term from COVID-19. If the customer closes down, let's say H&M closes down a store. Obviously, there's no need for a pickup as the store is closed, but you still have a contract with that customer. First question is, has that contract been honored or are you still getting paid regardless of the stores being closed since there's a contract? That's one question. Second question is if then a store is closed as it opens up now in some countries in the next couple of days, we have Germany, we have Denmark, I think on Monday and so on, when shops will be opened up. Have you sort of changed in discussions with these customers?
Have you reduced the number of stops initially because the customers are foreseeing a lower activity in the stores, so no need for maybe two pickups per week, maybe just one or so? Yeah, that's my questions.
I think we leave that to Anders again. He's an expert on these models. I think that, Anders, if you like, can you please answer?
Yeah, sure. The effect we saw in April is, of course, that there are fewer stops and fewer bags to count on the CMS side. Each individual contract with each customer needs to be discussed on an individual basis. In general, if the shop closes down, there is no pickup. The price that we discuss and agree with each customer is at the end based on expected volumes. The more services you get, the lower the price you pay. If those volumes change over time, then we need to discuss pricing with the customers. It's an individual discussion, but there is a time lag, of course, that we get quickly affected in these type of situations when the customers demand their services. There is also a quick recovery when the economies go back to a more normal situation.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the fee per stop is very, very small for a store, for instance. The amount that the store can save from reducing the number of stops from two to one a week, for instance, is extremely small in the whole sense.
Yeah. Therefore, I don't think that it's not the top priority for our customers to cut down on the number of CIT stops, because there are so many other items in the cost structure of our customers that are more important than our services.
Okay. Thank you.
Of course, in the long run, our customers need to look at their total cost structure. Therefore, we are affected as well.
Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time. Please continue.
All right. I heard there is no more question. I thank you very much for joining the conference call, and as I say to my employees, take care out there. Be careful. Thank you very much.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.