Sinch AB (publ) (STO:SINCH)
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Earnings Call: Q2 2022

Jul 21, 2022

Thomas Heath
Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Sinch

Good day, everyone. Welcome to the Q2 2022 conference call with Sinch AB. My name is Thomas Heath. I'm Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations. With me today to present recent developments are Erik Fröberg, our Chairman, Johan Hedberg, our Interim CEO, and Roshan Saldanha, our CFO. With those opening remarks, may I ask the operator to switch to slide two and hand the word over to our Chairman, Erik.

Erik Fröberg
Chairman, Sinch AB

Thank you, Thomas, and good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Erik Fröberg, board member in Sinch since 2011 and Chairman of the Board since 2015. I also represent Neqst, the largest shareholder in Sinch. The reason that I'm here is that the board yesterday announced that we will initiate a search for a new CEO. In the past few years, Sinch has grown rapidly, both organically and through acquisitions. Sinch has established itself as a global leader in cloud communication and customer engagement. We've followed a well-defined strategy. We've acquired eight companies in the last two years, in 2020 and 2021. Through these acquisitions, we've strategically repositioned the company, and we're very confident with the strategic and market position the company has today. Despite our strong strategic and market position, Sinch is today facing some challenges, both external and internal.

External challenges are related to changes in the macroeconomic environment, high inflation, increased interest rates, higher cost of capital, the current geopolitical situation. This all leads to changes in investor behavior, where investors focus more on profitability, cash flow, and to avoid risk. This is something we believe we can cope well with since we've been profitable since day one, since the establishment of Sinch. As regards to internal challenges, they're mainly related to slowdown in growth, profit growth in the messaging segment in the last three quarters, combined with continued increase in operating costs. This has resulted in lower profitability. The board of directors assessment is that after a period of large acquisitions, we are entering a new phase where we need an increased and stricter focus on profitability and cash flow.

We will also focus on consolidating the acquisitions, integrating platforms, and extracting synergies. In discussions with Oscar Werner, we have come to conclusion that we need a new CEO for this new phase and have therefore announced that we will immediately start the search of a new CEO. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Oscar Werner, who's led the company through four years characterized by strong growth and many acquisitions. Johan Hedberg will take over immediately as interim CEO. Johan is one of six founders of Sinch. Johan was also the CEO of the company between 2010 and 2018. Johan knows the company extremely well.

Several board members know him since his period as a CEO, and the board is confident that Johan will be able to take the right steps to improve financial performance, profitability, and cash flow, and also to implement the cost-cutting program that we've announced today. Johan will be interim CEO until we have found a new permanent CEO and a new permanent CEO is in place. With these initial words, I will turn over to Johan Hedberg, our new CEO.

Johan Hedberg
Interim CEO, Sinch AB

Thank you, Erik Fröberg. My name is Johan Hedberg. I'm one of the co-founders of Sinch back in 2008. I was the CEO from 2010 to 2018. Since 2018, been working with our M&A strategy and execution of that strategy. I spent a long time with the business and know the market well. The marketplace is there. We have 150,000 customers, including eight out of the 10 of the world's leading and demanding tech companies. This is resulting in 19,000 customer engagements every second year round. We have grown rapidly, and now is the time to extract revenue and cost synergies. Priorities are in the following order. One, cost control in messaging and central functions. Two, profitability and cash flow. Three, growth.

We need to prove economies of scale, improve operational efficiency, and work to extract cost synergies from acquisitions within the messaging segment and central functions. The marketplace is attractive and will also drive initiatives to enable growth. Sell more services, cross-sell into our combined installed base. Optimize the different go-to-market strategies to win customers at lower cost. Focus product development close to the customer where we can get rapid return on investment. I'm looking forward to dive in. I wish to thank Erik and the board for the trust. With that, I'm handing over to Roshan to present the quarterly report.

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Thank you, Johan, and thank you, Erik.

Good day to everyone joining this call and webcast. This is Roshan Saldanha, Group Chief Financial Officer for Sinch. I'm going to walk through the results for the second quarter of 2022 on behalf of the Sinch team. Operator, could you please turn to page four. Sinch is a global leader in cloud communications and mobile customer engagement. We had SEK 22.3 billion of net sales during the last twelve months and over SEK 2 billion in adjusted EBITDA in the same period. In addition, we generated nearly SEK 518 million in free cash flow to equity during the first half of 2022. We are operating in a global multi-billion dollar market, have over 150,000 customers, and have been profitable since our foundation in 2008. Operator, could you please turn to page five.

Sinch's two financial targets, one of them is to grow adjusted EBITDA per share more than 20% per year, measured on a rolling 12-month basis. The other one is to keep leverage as measured, net debt over adjusted EBITDA, under 3.5x. Our strategy has been to combine organic and acquired growth. As you see on this page, we now see 49% growth in the second quarter on a rolling 12-month basis following the closing of major transactions in late 2021. This metric is, of course, affected from the timing of share issues and consolidation of acquired companies. Let's turn to page six. Here we present some highlights from the second quarter. Number one, I think, is strong cash flow.

We have net sales on a total basis growing 80%, gross profit 123%, and adjusted EBITDA at 77%. The quarter is affected by a reassessment of reserves or accrued traffic costs, which affect gross profit, EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA in the messaging segment by SEK 162 million. We reported adjusted EBITDA of SEK 503 million and cash flow from operations at an improved level of SEK 668 million. The last 12-month performance net sales were at SEK 25.6 billion with a gross profit at SEK 8 billion. We have a stable and growing business in the voice, email, and SMB segments. The voice segment has a gross margin of 46% and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 21% for the quarter.

The email business has a gross margin of 73% and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 37% for the quarter, which is affected by the migration of hosting providers in the email segment. The SMB business then has a 61% gross margin and a 28% adjusted EBITDA margin. We're operating the business as per the new operating model which was released in February or announced in February of 2022, where each of the five business units have full P&L responsibility. I'll come back a little bit later to how this reflects in the various segments. Thirdly, we are announcing today a cost reduction program in the quarterly report, focused on the messaging segment and group functions.

This cost reduction program is driven by the lower growth in gross profit that we have seen during the last nine months and margin pressure. In addition, we have a price adjustment to a large customer impacting the current quarter. Looking forward, we are seeing macroeconomic uncertainty in various markets that we operate in. We are targeting gross savings of 10% in the messaging segment and central functions through this program, which corresponds to about SEK 300 million an annual basis, and we expect that the program will have full effect from Q3 2023, but that we will have incremental increased savings during the quarters until then as well. Operator, please turn to page.

To the next page seven, which shows a bridge of gross profit from last quarter 2021, from the last year, Q2 2021 at SEK 869 million to the reported gross profit this quarter of SEK 1,937 million. As you can see, foreign currency movements affect this gross profit this quarter on a big 10% or SEK 83 million. In addition, we have a growth of 138% coming from acquisitions with Inteliquent, or the business related to Inteliquent being the largest contributor at SEK 652 million, MessageMedia at SEK 277 million, and Pathwire at SEK 260 million. Finally, MessengerPeople, which is the other M&A, at SEK 13 million.

In the organic, including the changed reassessment of cost of goods sold, grew with minus or reduced by 25%. The largest part of this being, of course, the reassessment of SEK 162 million, but in addition to that, we had an organic decline of 55%, which is approximately four percentage points. If you look at the pro forma base as though the acquisitions would have been part of the business from for the entire part of 2021, then the pro forma organic gross profit growth was at 0% or flat. In addition, when we look into the messaging segment further in detail, we see that price negotiation with one of our largest customers in messaging hampers gross profit growth by 9% on an organic basis.

We see, however, continued growth in email and SMB. In addition now, due to the overall growth of the group, we see also that our customer concentration reduces where the largest customer now is 5% of group gross profit, with the top 10 customers accounting for 20% of gross profit. Operator, please move to the next page on OpEx development. Here you see the adjusted OpEx, which is the OpEx between a gross profit and adjusted EBITDA. We reported an adjusted EBITDA OpEx of SEK 1,434 million for the quarter, of which SEK 791 million came from the organic business and SEK 643 million from acquisitions that were done after Q2 2021.

You see that there is a significant increase in year-on-year organic OpEx going from SEK 586 million to SEK 791 million this year. The largest part of the OpEx that we have in this company relates to personnel, both employees as well as staff augmentation. The personnel related OpEx is stable in the second quarter versus Q1. The cost reduction program, of course, is targeting primarily the messaging and group functions, which is then the bar that is shown in green of SEK 791 million for the quarter. Let's move on to the next page, which is then showing the new operating model. Here we have the five business units that the company is organized in, enterprise messaging, applications, voice, developer and email, and SMB.

You also see the different gross profit profiles, gross margin profiles, and adjusted EBITDA margins on this page. The focus in 2022 for enterprise and messaging is of course on the cost reduction program, achieving economies of scale and efficiency, as well as recovering gross profit growth and increasing cross-sales of other products to large enterprise customers. In the application segment, also there is a focus on cost efficiency, but in addition to that, product unification and international expansion. In the voice business unit, which is equal to the voice segment, the focus is of course on cross-sales of voice and messaging, as well as international voice expansion. The business is hampered currently by the 8YY reform that reduces revenues and gross profit for voice.

On email, we have a continued focus on profitable growth, as well as on cross-sales of email to Sinch enterprise customers and cross-sales of SMS, both to Pathwire enterprise customers as well as to the developer community that Pathwire engages. Finally coming to SMB, we can see continued growth in the United States through new customer acquisition, as well as we have in the quarter completed an integration of SMS backend to the Sinch global platform and extended omnichannel capabilities leveraging Sinch Conversation API. To give some other highlights from the business, from these various business units, I would like to maybe point to the fact that in the messaging segment, we have now launched the MessengerPeople product for chat-based customer service through next generation messaging in Brazil.

In the voice segment, we also announced on the 9 th of June that the company had become a Microsoft Teams Operator Connect partner, which means that the company solutions can be used to connect outbound calls from Microsoft Teams. In the email segment, we were encouraged by the fact that we signed the largest contract to date in that business, which was closed during the quarter in the form of a multi-year agreement with a new customer in the public sector. In the SMB business unit and segment, we have one of the largest mobile operators in Australia now offering Sinch's SMB platform under its own brand.

In addition to these five business units, we of course have the central functions, which are reported under the other segment. The cost for the central functions during this quarter amounted to SEK 103 million, consisting mainly of employee expenses in finance, HR, IT, and other staff functions, as well as office facility costs. Operator, could you please go to page 11, please, where I will start to walk through the financials. As you see on this page, we have reported gross profit of SEK 1,937 million, which is affected by the reassessment of reserves for accrued traffic costs that I mentioned earlier of SEK 162 million.

We had an EBITDA of SEK 528 million for the quarter versus SEK 152 million for the same quarter last year. The EBITDA is higher than adjusted EBITDA this quarter due to currency effects. Depreciation and amortization was SEK 577 million, which includes of course non-cash amortization related to acquired entities. We have reported an adjusted EBIT then, which excludes the depreciation and amortization effects as well as the one-off effects in EBITDA amounting to SEK 390 million for the quarter. Moving to page 11, we bridge cash flow before changes in working capital to adjusted EBITDA.

We would like to highlight in this quarter that the cash flow before changes in working capital is affected by realized currency effects on financial items, which then is reflected in the line other items and impacts the second quarter by SEK 248 million negatively. Operator, please move to page 13, where you see the full cash flow, and then continuing on from the cash flow before changes in working capital. We had a recovery in working capital development in the second quarter compared to the negative development in the first quarter and therefore see an improved change in working capital of SEK 579 million. On a rolling 12-month basis, the change in working capital is affected by about SEK 500 million addition of working capital within acquired businesses.

This is a strong pro forma financial profile with a diversified earnings pool coming from many, many different customers and many different products and business segments. The net debt decreased by SEK 326 million during the quarter. We understand also that from the discussions that we've had and the reports that are being shared online, that there is some questions around the receivables, and we would like to take this opportunity to clarify those questions, and therefore we have added a few pages around receivables and revenue recognition. Firstly, I want to say that no revenue is recognized at sale. It is recognized when the performance obligations are completed. We are on page 14 now.

When you look at the balance sheet, we have the item unbilled accounts receivable, billed accounts receivable, and accrued revenue. The unbilled accounts receivable are of course not yet been invoiced to the customer, but where we have an unconditional right to payment. These are recorded as revenues when the performance obligation is completed, and typically, they are invoiced to customers within a few days after the period end. As at 30th of June 2022, we had SEK 1.8 billion of the unbilled accounts receivable. Billed accounts receivable are also then where we have an unconditional right to payment. Again, they are recorded as revenues when a performance obligation is completed, and they have, you know, been invoiced as per the same schedule that we have for unbilled, but they have been invoiced before the reporting period.

We had, as at thirtieth of June 2022, SEK 2.8 billion in billed accounts receivables. Then finally, we have contract assets as accrued revenue or accrued income from customers. The difference then from accounts receivable is that there we don't have an unconditional right to payment. However, they are recorded as revenues as and when the performance obligation is completed. And again, the invoicing would follow a normal typical schedule as well for these revenues, depending on the customer contract and the completion of the performance obligation. We have SEK 91 million as at thirtieth of June 2022 in accrued revenue or accrued income from customer contracts. In addition, of course, we have expected credit losses reserved as of thirtieth of June 2022 of SEK 169 million.

Even the accrued revenue figure shown above is shown net of an impairment reserve. Operator, let's move to page 15, where we show the full breakdown of current assets from the quarterly report. As you can see, in this breakdown, our accounts receivable and accrued revenue when taken together has grown with 1% compared to Q1 from SEK 4,579 million to SEK 4,614 million. It's important to consider here that our business is mostly in the U.S., and we have a large number of U.S. dollar-denominated customer receivables. The U.S. dollar when comparing the closing exchange rates from Q1 to Q2 of this year moved with more than 10%.

Therefore, on a like-for-like basis, the U.S. dollar denominated portion would have increased by 10%. The movements in other major currencies like euro and pound are not as significant. They are in the 2% or 3% range, but the U.S. Dollar movement was quite significant. On a like-for-like basis, a 1% absolute growth actually means a decline, a slight decline on an underlying basis. Then again, moving on to page 16, as we did in the first quarter, we would like to show you the development of days sales outstanding and days payables outstanding.

Again, on day sales outstanding, we have a more or less flat development versus Q1, despite the fact that revenues have increased by 1% compared to the first quarter and more than 18% compared to last year on a like-for-like basis. On DPO, of course, we have to remember that there is a limited DPO change compared to Q4, but a larger change compared to Q1 here. Finally, a couple of closing slides. Moving on to slide 17, just reminding you about the rising gross profit for Sinch, where on a pro forma basis we would have had SEK 7.7 billion in gross profit in 2021.

On a reported basis, most of that gross profit of course came from messaging, and a smaller portion from voice. On a pro forma basis, we had a much more diverse pool of earnings, with 46% coming from messaging and 32% from voice, 11% from email and 11% from SMB. Moving on to page 18, I would like to again reiterate our financial targets, which is adjusted EBITDA per share to grow more than 20% per year and net debt remain under 3.5 times adjusted EBITDA over time. Adjusted EBITDA per share grew 49% in the second quarter, measured on a rolling 12-month basis and pro forma net debt over EBITDA or over adjusted EBITDA.

Our leverage measure was at 3.3x, excluding IFRS 16 related leases, which is still below our target. With that, I would like to hand over to Erik if you have any closing remarks before we open up for Q&A. Erik?

Erik Fröberg
Chairman, Sinch AB

Thank you, Roshan. Okay, just some final remarks here. The result in Q2 is similar to the result in Q1, with the exception of an increased reserves for COGS related to 2021. We have significantly better operating cash flow in Q2 than in Q1. We will continue to execute along the strategy that we have established. However, we will move into a new phase in the history of the company. We have announced a cost reduction program. We have also appointed a new interim CEO, and we have initiated search for a new permanent CEO. Our focus going forward will be on, and in this order, cost control, in particular in messaging and central functions, two profitability and cash flow, and three, growth. I say this again in that priority. Those were my final remarks, and I now hand over to Thomas.

Thomas Heath
Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Sinch

Thank you, Erik. Operator, may we have the first question, please?

Operator

Thank you. That's from the line of Priyadarshan Sabnavis of Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Priyadarshan Sabnavis
Analyst, Carnegie

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, Roshan, Johan, Erik, and Thomas. My first question is on cash flow, which was quite strong in this quarter. Erik, in the chairman of the board letter, you explicitly state this was a big improvement. That being said, you also say there's further potential. Maybe actually this is a question to Roshan, whatever you prefer. On cash flow for the remainder of the year, do you think there will be more working cap build up? Should it be neutral? Further releases? What can you say on this topic? Because in the past quarters it has been lumpy, so intuitively you could expect that Q3 could be less encouraging. If you could be as specific as you can be on cash flows for Q3 and Q4, that would be very helpful. Thank you.

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Yeah. I can try to answer that one, Priyadarshan. Roshan here. I think as I usually say, I mean, the business happens every day, but working capital is measured at only four times, four points in time in the year. It's of course, very difficult, you know, to give an exact prediction, you know. As we have quite large customers, I mean, the payment of one invoice, you know, a couple of days later, can affect reported working capital. All else equals and, disregarding those kind of one-off impacts, I mean, we have had a working capital build up, during the last 12 months, you know, partly also led by, prepayments for traffic costs, that were made during Q3 of 2021.

These are this is a working capital buildup that we absolutely expected to and expect to release during 2022 on a continuing basis. You know, I think we have seen good progress here in the second quarter, but you know, we're not completely satisfied yet, and we see more potential to further improve that. I think the you know, the long-term goal for us, of course, is to have a low working capital level and operate at a low working capital level across the group. That's what we will aim for.

Priyadarshan Sabnavis
Analyst, Carnegie

That's very clear. Thank you. Just a question on the gross margin and specifically on the customer contract where you mentioned there's been price adjustments, and there's been a drag on the gross profit growth from this renegotiation. I take it this is likely your largest customer, and by the sound of it's quite large. I'm wondering, has this been a flat out reduction, or have you gotten anything back? Asking this in terms of have they committed to buying voice products or email products or anything like that or, in addition to you providing this, price reduction?

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

I can invite Thomas in on that one. Thomas, do you wanna make a start?

Thomas Heath
Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Sinch

Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Roshan. Yeah. As Roshan mentioned, we have some very large customers who we've worked with and serviced throughout the years. We very much look for a partnership model where we thrive when our customers thrive. We've had a long period of growth, including with this particular customer, and we're very happy with that long-term relationship. We found ourselves in a situation where the customer had grown to a size that some price adjustment, you know, is warranted, given what the marketplace looks like. We choose to take the long-term view here to ensure that we can have continued positive growth with this and other customers. I think Roshan touched on this earlier.

If you look at the full group, our largest customer is now around 5% of gross profit, and the top 10 customers account for 20% of gross profit in the second quarter. This is a change versus, you know, versus before, where our earnings pool has been diversified. Going back specifically to your question, you can see that it's quite a clear effect on revenues, and it's a 100% incremental margin, of course, on that shortfall. We believe we can come back to growth with this customer, but of course, this is something that will weigh on us, you know, over the coming years and coming four quarters.

Looking at profitability, you know, we think we are at a level which reflects the size and which is competitive. In that sense, you know, this is a good starting point for the future, and it's a very healthy relationship with a broadened product engagement. Hopefully that gave some color, Priyadarshan Sabnavis.

Priyadarshan Sabnavis
Analyst, Carnegie

Yeah, no, that's clear. Just finally on the final part of the question, will that customer, do you think, or do you have any expectations of them buying from your other products in your portfolio, having done this renegotiation?

Thomas Heath
Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Sinch

Well, that's certainly our ambition. We have a world-leading portfolio of products for both messaging, voice, and email. Of course, we'll take every opportunity, including this one, to increase the scope of our business with every particular customer, increase stickiness and add more value ultimately. That's something we hope we can get back to more in the future.

Priyadarshan Sabnavis
Analyst, Carnegie

Super. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Stefan Gauffin of DNB. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Stefan Gauffin
Senior Equity Analyst, DNB

Yes. I would like to start with this price discount. You mentioned price discounts to large customers in Q1 2021. Was this customer part of that price discount? I mean, is it likely that we see other customers coming back here? Also, just to get the flavor, was the full impact from this price reduction visible this quarter, or will the full impact be visible first in the coming quarters? I'll start with that.

Thomas Heath
Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Sinch

Thank you, Stefan.

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

I mean.

Thomas Heath
Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Sinch

Yeah. I'll follow up there. The impact is to the start of this quarter, so you are seeing the full impact of this price change from the beginning of this quarter. We have talked about price adjustments towards one of our largest customers over the previous quarters. It's the same customer where we have made point adjustments to particular products, regions, and so forth. We came to the common conclusion that it's better to take a holistic view, secure a long-term partnership, and find a working way of cooperation that both parties are comfortable with, and that's what we've secured now. This is an incremental change to some extent, but it's fully reflected in the quarter.

In terms of other customers, we have a larger scale than most of our competitors. We don't necessarily like to win on price, but we rarely lose on price, if that's what it comes down to. For large customers, price is an important part of a buying decision, and that's gonna be increasingly the case, in this new, macro economic environment that we're entering. Price is often, of course, a part. However, on the messaging side, there isn't, you know, to my knowledge, anything similar in terms of large customers where we're in this situation where this type of adjustment would need to be warranted.

Of course, hard to say what the future holds, but again, our largest customer is around 5% of gross profit, and we think this is relatively isolated.

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

I think that just to complement Thomas, before you maybe, you know, I think it's important just to call out again that, you know, as we said, our largest customer now is 5% of the business. You know, the potential for that, and we're not seeing a general trend. I mean, the potential for an individual price negotiation to have an impact as large as we see now is not, you know, large. I think your other part of the question, Stefan, was on the full impact. Yes.

I mean, you know, I think we have seen the full impact in Q2, but I think it's important to remember, of course, that, you know, volumes with individual customers and to individual destinations can vary from period to period and quarter- to- quarter. You know, it's difficult to kind of, you know, exactly extrapolate. Yes, we have a full impact, you know, from the negotiation in Q2. I think just following up, I mean, you know, as Thomas said, I mean, we have a broad discussion with our largest customers, and we definitely see a potential to kind of broaden our the products that we're selling to our largest customers.

Already in Q1, I think you saw an example where we had reported that one of our largest customers had bought, you know, an email. A small transaction, a small deal, but you know, had bought emails from the Pathwire product portfolio. Back to you, Stefan.

Stefan Gauffin
Senior Equity Analyst, DNB

Yes. A little bit on the acquired entities. We did see the EBITDA margin coming down in Inteliquent compared to previous quarter. I'm just wondering why this is happening. Are you increasing the workforce within Inteliquent, or why do we see this situation?

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Yeah, I mean, I think there's again, you know, this is more to do, you know, I think the challenges, you know, when it comes to 8YY, we have talked about, of course, and you know, that reform kicked in in July of 2021, and there is a next step down in July of 2022. In Q2 obviously, you know, we continue to see the 8YY impact. In addition to that, I think the kind of decline in margin is more related to phasing, you know, rather than any specific business impacts that are affecting margin in Q2.

Stefan Gauffin
Senior Equity Analyst, DNB

Well, actually, you mentioned that the 8YY reform reduced the gross profit growth with 9% in Q2, and that was the same in Q1. Now there's a new step down, but can you comment a little bit on what we should expect in terms of impact on the gross profit growth?

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Thomas, do you wanna take that one?

Thomas Heath
Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Sinch

Yeah. Sorry, if you just help reiterate which segment were you referring to?

Stefan Gauffin
Senior Equity Analyst, DNB

No, this is the voice, and you mentioned that the 8YY reform reduced gross profit growth with 9% year-over-year in Q2, and that was the same as in Q1. Now there's a new step change, but you're also facing easier comps. Just to understand the headwind in the second half.

Thomas Heath
Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Sinch

Sure. The headwind will ease somewhat versus today, which means that the you know all else equal the revenue and gross profit growth should improve in the second half of the year compared to what it was in the first half of the year. I think looking at Q2 a little softer than Q1 so bear that in mind. Incrementally the 8YY headwind is easing in the second half of the year.

Stefan Gauffin
Senior Equity Analyst, DNB

Just finally on the Pathwire, you had a migration to a new cloud email platform. When will that be done? When can we see a return to higher gross margin?

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

That work is ongoing and progressing well, but it's quite complicated. It's a full shift of infrastructure trust structure provider. It will be completed during the second half of the year. You should, you know, hopefully start to see some benefit in the last quarter. That should from this level lead to some margin recovery in email.

Stefan Gauffin
Senior Equity Analyst, DNB

That's perfect. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Andreas Joelsson of Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Andreas Joelsson
Analyst, Danske Bank

Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for the presentation. I have very much respect for that the outlook is uncertain given the macro scenarios. I guess you have done some scenarios of where things could end up, and just curious, when you look at a quite bad scenario, what kind of tools do you have to still deliver gross profit growth from an organic point of view, and an organic adjusted EBITDA growth, for maybe when we look into 2023?

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Yeah, you know, I think. Thanks, Andreas. I think this is a good question. Obviously, I mean, we don't share any forecasts going forward, but I think it's a question that we can kind of reason around a little bit, right? When we are looking at the market today, and if you break this down into the different segments, I mean, you know, essentially we see good continued growth in SMB in the U.S. market and still growth in the home markets of Australia and New Zealand, but not as strong as in the U.S. market.

Now, remember also that a large part of the SMB, you know, kind of customer base is of course more of a long tail nature. There are customers that are buying online, and therefore our customer concentration is not that strong and you know we have the diversification in that customer base. You know, the growth is really coming from a broad base of customers. On the same is partially true also for email. I mean, you know, where we are taking cost actions by migrating hosting provider.

Right now we have a slightly depressed gross margin due to having duplicate costs for hosting providers, which should then release, as Thomas said, you know, later on this year. We will see the impacts of that hopefully during 2023 if the kind of technical project is completed during this year. When looking at voice, I mean, you know, I think, here, I mean, the potential for us is more kind of expanding the voice, you know, customer portfolio to enterprise customers from the more traditional customer base that Inteliquent has enjoyed.

Which by the way, is performing quite strongly as well, you know, when looking at it, excluding the 8YY reform impact. I think there's quite a large potential to kind of cross-sell voice to our messaging and email enterprise customer base. Then on the messaging side, you know, which has been the concern of course from a gross profit growth perspective during the last three quarters. I think it's important to remember that, you know, as we've said before that our growth has been fairly concentrated, you know, which we have been talking about, even though in our base we have a number of our customers, but the growth came from a fewer number of customers.

Now we're of course seeing that, you know, as the business from these customers has grown and scaled, I mean, we're seeing effects from pricing negotiations. And also we have, you know, continued impacts which started during last year from kind of the situation in LatAm where there is of course a macroeconomic factor. It's also our own development, our own business development that contributes to it. Now, looking at the rest of the business within messaging segment, you know, I think we have some positive sides as well. I think when we talked about India, for example, the last two quarters, we have talked about the impact of additional costs from operators for distributed ledger technology.

You know, we see here in Q2 a slight recovery on the Indian business and good growth. We also see that, you know, other segments of our customer base, you know, are growing well, and I think, you know, that's what we will continue to focus on, you know, under the leadership of Johan, to kind of make sure that we focus on the right opportunities that deliver growth in the short term, so to say. Johan, anything that you'd like to add? Okay. Andreas, I think that was it.

Andreas Joelsson
Analyst, Danske Bank

Okay. Just one final from me. Is there any debt that is to be refinanced or repaid or any additional acquisition purchase prices that will be paid within the next year or so?

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

You know, again, I don't think there are any material additional purchase prices that are outstanding, you know, firstly, and then on the debt side, we of course have the obligation, which has a incurrence test at a leverage level of 3.25. Now, there are slight differences between how that is measured and, you know, the reported net debt is measured, but that incurrence test is only triggered if we take up new debt, so it's not triggered otherwise. I mean, at this moment we're still under our thresholds, so to say, but of course, going forward, you know, super important to keep our focus on profitability and cash flow.

Again, as I said earlier in my comments, I mean, we have about 40% of the debt is U.S. dollar denominated and, you know, the fact that the U.S. dollar has moved quite strongly from Q1 to Q2 is of course increasing our net debt as well. That has some net debt impact during the second quarter.

Andreas Joelsson
Analyst, Danske Bank

Perfect. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Daniel Thorsson of ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Daniel Thorsson
Equity Research Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier

Yes, thank you very much. I think it relates a little bit to Andreas's first question here. Just to understand how the new strategy, or at least the prioritization that Erik presented in the beginning, will affect the business in practice. What type of growth opportunities will you prioritize less as you change the priority set out now? Are there any regions like Brazil that you mentioned as a tough market that you may, you know, reduce your efforts in or any type of businesses, like big price sensitive tenders? Anything you will change practically for us to understand where you're moving from here?

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Thomas?

Thomas Heath
Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Sinch

Thank you for that question. I think a few different things and Johan will, of course, and we will come back with more in upcoming quarters. Of course, one aspect is just generally to focus in areas where the payoff is relatively immediate, you know, all things equal, you know, to increase focus on a bit more mature products while still protecting investment in other areas. So that's a balance at any point in time. Of course, competition is facing similar or even harsher priorities, which also affects the situation. When it comes to Brazil, it's a quite specific situation, where we have a detrimental development that we need to address.

Part of this is of course related to the overall market and part of this has to do with our execution. Of course, as we touched upon earlier, it's uncertain. The overall message would be that you know we need to safeguard our financial performance to continue to deliver profitable growth you know regardless of the macroeconomic outcome.

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Yeah. I think just to give you one very concrete example, right? I mean, you know, I think as I've said, we've said in previous calls that, you know, we've acquired Pathwire, who are of course, you know, besides the fact that they have a strong email product portfolio, they're also very strong on the developer go-to-market. This is something that Sinch has not invested in before. Now taking a mature product like SMS to the developer go-to-market has tremendous advantages. That is a product investment that we would, for example, weigh against investments in RCS or in conversational messaging and look at balancing those, you know.

I think that is just one such example of questions that we would need to evaluate further.

Daniel Thorsson
Equity Research Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier

Yeah. Okay, I see. That's helpful. Well, it will be interesting to hear in coming quarters then to see what you decide to prioritize here. My second question is on another topic. I mean, you said very clearly on here in the beginning that you feel confident with the business composition you have and post acquisitions made in 2020. I still have a question on potential divestments here. Have you discussed internally to divest any of the recent acquisitions that you have found out that synergies are limited, integration is difficult, just creating a more complex business? I mean, given that your own valuation and the share is down so much in a year, that could ironically create value and also address some key issues that the depressed valuation reflects today.

I mean, take Pathwire, Inteliquent, MessageMedia, for example, which you acquired for more than SEK 10 billion less than a year ago. Divesting one of those for half of the value, just theoretically, would reduce your net debt by 50% to 75% and also be at a higher multiple than you are trading at as well, which would then create value for shareholders and also take away the depressed multiple you have on your share as well. Is that something that you at least have discussed internally at all, or is that totally way out of this world?

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think it's a good question. Obviously, we're evaluating all our businesses constantly. You know, we're looking at it, the question. When we have and if we have any conclusions, you know, we will let the market know. There's nothing to say at this point in time. Maybe Erik wants to add something on this question.

Erik Fröberg
Chairman, Sinch AB

Well, I can make a short comment on this, and the simple answer is no.

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

We have not considered or addressed this at all in the board. We are always involved when we come to these type of discussions. We think that the acquisitions we've done are all very good. They're in line with our strategy. We also think today that, and I agree with you, that our share price is depressed. We do think that over time we will recover. We think that the strategic position is very good that we have today with the acquisitions that we've done.

Daniel Thorsson
Equity Research Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier

Fair enough. Thanks for that.

Thomas Heath
Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Sinch

Okay. Can we have the next question please? I think we need to speed up a bit, otherwise we will lose time. Please, restrict your number of questions.

Operator

Okay. That question comes from the line of Daniel Johansson of Handelsbanken Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Daniel Johansson
Equity Analyst, Handelsbanken Capital Markets

Thank you, operator. Hi, Roshan, Erik, and Thomas. I was wondering a little bit on the cost-saving program, the SEK 300 million. If you can comment on the cost deployment and also the cash flow impact, how it will be impacting coming quarters. How much will be in 2022 and 2023, for example? Thank you.

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Yeah, I think I'll keep the answer short, Daniel. I mean, you know, I think we're in an early phase of analysis and we don't have at this point in time any information to share on kind of the cost to deploy the program as well as, you know, kind of the phasing of savings. I think what we've said is we'll reach the full impact in Q3 2023. We'll keep that at that level for now.

Daniel Johansson
Equity Analyst, Handelsbanken Capital Markets

Perfect. Another question, if I may, would be on the integration cost. Part of this, cost reduction might be, I guess, within integration and cost being SEK 250 million last twelve months, and they're still high at SEK 66 million in Q2. Obviously we understand it's been higher on back of a lot of larger acquisitions here in 2021. How much, what would be a decent run rate, do you think, in the company going forward, if it's possible to comment?

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Yeah. I mean, the majority of these integration costs are related to the messaging segment and to migrate platforms within the messaging segment, which is going to be a key driver of savings, you know, going forward as well. We expect the majority of these migrations to be completed, you know, by the end of this year, early next year. In that timeframe, we expect these costs to go down. We're not providing specific forecasts on the level of those costs.

Daniel Johansson
Equity Analyst, Handelsbanken Capital Markets

Perfect. This is also with regards to SAP or the SDI interconnect.

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

SDI, Wavy, and PW migrations are significant drivers of the integration cost, yes.

Daniel Johansson
Equity Analyst, Handelsbanken Capital Markets

Would you say that you're on plan with these in terms of timing and so forth, or any issues in this integration?

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Yeah.

Daniel Johansson
Equity Analyst, Handelsbanken Capital Markets

Perfect.

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

I mean, technical projects are always challenging. You know, I think our plan has been and is remains to be to complete this deal by the end of the year. You know, let's hope we can keep that.

Daniel Johansson
Equity Analyst, Handelsbanken Capital Markets

Sounds good. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of, Pontus Wachtmeister of Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Pontus Wachtmeister
Equity Research Analyst, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB

Hi. Sorry, I'm at an airport, so it's a bit noisy. I just wanted to have. It's very interesting to see the split now between the SMB and the larger clients in terms of growth margin. I'm wondering, do you have a good grip on. You know, I'm sure that the large clients give what we in Sweden call technically.

which is, you know, they contribute to a portion of the general cost of the business. Do you have a grip on? Because generally what I feel is that large clients also demand a lot of attention. Do you think that your margin in the large customer segment is sufficient to cover its part of the BPA, so that is actually net profitable in the P&L rather than just, you know, pulling a bigger cost base? That's my question, actually.

Thomas Heath
Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Sinch

I can start off with that one, Pontus. I think we have very clear profit objectives for each one of our business units and every one of our segments. Just to repeat that, we have a very clear focus on profitability, and it's not the case that one part of the business is gonna subsidize the other. As you rightly point out, we try to clarify the segment reporting and show you the business in the way we run it, which is also of course how it should be done. I think from, as you allude to, it's pretty clear that we're seeing quite a different development across the group.

The focus for us now is to fix the problem where problems need fixing and to continue to run the business well where the business is already performing well. Hopefully that will show in the numbers as well.

Pontus Wachtmeister
Equity Research Analyst, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB

Okay, thanks.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Andreas Markou of Berenberg. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Andreas Markou
Analyst, Berenberg

Yes. Hi, everyone. Thanks for the presentation and for taking my questions. I have three. I'll pose them quickly.

The first one is basically a repeat of the question I asked last time. Are you thinking of having an independent audit review, or is that completely out of the question? That's the first one, and then I'll pose the other two.

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Yeah, I can take that one. No, we're not thinking of any independent audit review.

Andreas Markou
Analyst, Berenberg

On the interest rate on your debt, can you just confirm what is the annualized rate and that the underlying interest rate has not actually changed, aside from the change in STIBOR?

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

I can confirm that's the case from Q1, yes. I mean, we did some refinancing, which we announced to the market and, you know, obviously, that's the basis for our financing now. Yes.

Andreas Markou
Analyst, Berenberg

Okay. Your annualized interest rate is how much, more or less?

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

I think, you know, I don't have the number off the top of my head, but it's, you know, I think on an effective basis, it's slightly north of 2.1% to 2.2%. It's in that range.

Andreas Markou
Analyst, Berenberg

Okay, great. The final from me is on your accrued revenue for the quarter. Why has it declined so much compared to history? Is it because underlying growth has actually slowed down, or is it because of cash collection?

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

No, I think it's you know, it's primarily due to percentage of completion levels you know, being reached. You know, accrued revenue, of course, is revenue that we have recognized, but where there is not an unconditional right to payment. Then, depending on you know, when milestones as per customer contracts are completed you know, those accrued revenues will become yeah, in most cases, typically billed receivables, right, before they're paid. You know, and since this concerns a smaller portion of our business, I mean, the majority of these revenues come from a smaller portion of the business, it can be a bit lumpy from quarter- to- quarter.

Andreas Markou
Analyst, Berenberg

Okay. Thank you very much. That's all from me.

Operator

Thank you. We currently have one further person in the queue. That's Deepshikha Agarwal of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Deepshikha Agarwal
VP, Goldman Sachs

Thanks for taking my question. I have three. I'll just try and keep it short. First one is, please can you comment on the phasing of the organic gross profit growth for the remainder of the year? Would it still like, could it still be negative in the second half? What does the path look like for the acceleration of the same in the year 2023? Will it still be back-ended loaded? That would be my first question, and then I'll follow up with the next ones.

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Thank you for the question. We do not issue guidance. Sorry, there's a bit of an echo here. I'll pause and try again. Thank you. Sorry.

Deepshikha Agarwal
VP, Goldman Sachs

Even then, the-

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

The room-

Deepshikha Agarwal
VP, Goldman Sachs

Hello? Yeah. I have a follow-up on that large customer. I just want to understand, like, you know, there was an impact in this quarter. How should we think about, like, it was asked, but then should we extrapolate the same impact for the next coming quarters, or it will vary from quarter- to- quarter going forward?

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Thank you. I'll try again now.

Thomas Heath
Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Sinch

If you're talking about the impact from price change to one of our largest customers, you're seeing the full impact in Q2, and you will continue to see that ahead, then of course offset by any underlying continued growth. In terms of phasing for the rest of the year, which I think was your first question, we don't issue guidance. We reiterate our target of 20% growth in adjusted EBITDA per share.

Deepshikha Agarwal
VP, Goldman Sachs

Just the last one. Leverage adjusted for leases is up to 3.3 times versus 3.1 times in the previous quarter. Like, does your covenant calculate EBITDA including or excluding rent expenses? And at what level is your first maintenance covenant?

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Right. Again, you know, I think obviously the main driver of the leverage increase, you know, we've taken down net debt, but it's, you know, it's the EBITDA development, of course, that's the main driver. You know, it's got to do with also the fact that due to the reassessment of reserves, we've had a hit on it, on EBITDA during this quarter. When it comes to the question, you know, again, we've not disclosed our specific covenants previously, and we don't intend to do that. I mean, that's, you know, that's in our contract.

Suffice it to say that our goal is to keep leverage, you know, below our target level of 3.5, and that's also one of the reasons why we are bringing in a cost reduction program to make sure that we increase profitability and manage cash flow.

Deepshikha Agarwal
VP, Goldman Sachs

Okay. I think those were my questions. Thanks. Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you. As we have no further questions in the queue at this time, I'll hand the floor back to our speakers.

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Thomas, you wanna close?

Thomas Heath
Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Sinch

Thank you very much, everyone, for participating in this conference call. Any follow-up questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to investor relations through the IR's email address. Thank you very much for the attention. Looking forward to meet again in the future.

Roshan Saldanha
CFO, Sinch AB

Thank you.

Thomas Heath
Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Investor Relations, Sinch

Thank you.

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