Today, Danish Risk Intelligence published a report for the third quarter of 2022, and with me here on the line today to talk a little bit about the report, I have, once again, Hans Tino Hansen. Good day, Hans.
Good day, and thank you very much for being here today.
It's lovely to have you here. I think we're gonna start this off. For the quarter, sales noted an increase compared to last year's third quarter, and landing on DKK 4.6 million. EBITDA negative DKK 1.9 million, which can be compared to 2021's Q3 of negative DKK 0.2 million. Tell us a little bit about the quarter, Hans. Are you satisfied with the results?
Overall, I'm not satisfied. I am very satisfied with the high growth in our core business, so the Risk Intelligence System, where we had the 23% increase in ARR on the quarter and 21% year to date compared to last year. That is very satisfactory, and it is also something that will obviously carry on into 2023 and 2024, and so on. We had an increase in the negative EBITDA, which is a result of a growth that was lower than anticipated, especially because we had decrease in our Advisory Services and then higher costs. We have increased costs of about 20% in the quarter. For the year to date, it's mainly initiatives that were planned.
Initiatives in sales and marketing, and in our operations, in our intelligence analysis, our production.
Mm.
It's also costs basically being an impact from the outside. Higher wage costs and similar and so on.
Mm.
That's something that everyone experiences, companies and individuals alike.
Not satisfied with the growth, but satisfied in terms of the core business. You launched a 2025 strategy during the quarter, and we've talked a little bit about this. Could you update the people who hasn't seen that interview on what the baseline of this strategy is, and how has the work been going underway?
Yeah. We have five key elements in the strategy, and the first one is a refocusing on maritime strategy, which has been our core business for a long time. The land-based business with LandRisk Logistics is going to be working as an independent business area, which means that it will only have financing when there are client projects. Also, because the LandRisk Logistics projects are more solution sales, meaning that it'll need development and so on and so forth.
Mm.
The third one is cooperation with strong commercial partners, both increasing our market horizontally, that means going into new markets, but also increasing vertically, reaching more sales with our existing client base and potential clients in the existing markets. If you ask about how it's going, then we are working on implementing the strategy, and we have signed the first partnership contract we did with MedAire, International SOS. That will open a new market, so that's a horizontal expansion with access to the luxury yacht market, the super yachts and the mega yachts. We are aiming for an average growth of 30% to and including 2025.
That will be composed by increasing sales to our existing clients and new clients, obviously, and then the strong commercial partnerships as well as some price increases over time. Our new platform that we're going to launch, which will also give the opportunity to sell more and to increase price. Finally, the fifth and one of the important ones, if the others were not important, is that we are going to have a positive net result starting from the full year of 2023.
Interesting.
And onwards
Interesting that you managed to sign your first partner, and I wish to congratulate you on that. For my next question, we'll go back a little bit to the numbers and cover your key figures. ARR, annual recurring revenue, went from DKK 15.5 million in Q2 this year to DKK 16.3 million now here in Q3. Net retention rate, 122%. Is this in line with your expectations?
Yes. It's actually on the net retention rate, it's actually a bit higher. This is just a testimony to our long-lasting client relationships and the satisfaction with our product. Because if there wasn't high satisfactory rate with the products, then we could have as good relations as we want to, then they wouldn't buy more. They are increasing the licenses. It is important to remember that the net retention rate is after the 1.6 churn rate, which is obviously low, meaning that the same group of clients last yEAr, they bought 122% compared to what they had last year.
Mm.
That's satisfactory.
Mm-hmm. Good to hear. Let's talk about something that might be a little bit unsatisfactory. The Advisory Services that you mentioned now, last time we spoke, you mentioned that this was down due to seasonal effects, and now you mentioned that it hasn't been going as you imagined it. In the report, you did note, however, that it's picking up in Q4. Tell us more.
Yeah, we had a decrease of 38%, compared to same quarter last year. We are seeing a quite significant increase basically from September and onwards on Advisory Services. We may not recoup what was kind of lost on Advisory Services for the whole year. If you remember, both in Q1 and Q2, we had lower Advisory Services than before in 2021. Now it's picking up in Q4. If we can recoup the lost ground, I don't know, but at least it's going quite well on that side.
For the future, obviously, the recurring revenue is more important, but obviously for the report, for the financial report to pay the bills, then, the Advisory Services are just as important, for our daily business.
Do you have a comment on why it is that, Advisory Services is picking up now and not sooner?
Yeah. It's related to a number of matters, mainly to the geopolitical situation and the threats against energy infrastructure, critical infrastructure, renewable security, energy security, and a few other matters.
We'll keep our focus now to the topic of the geopolitical situation because last time we spoke in Q2 of about the report, that is, well, the situation has escalated. The Nord Stream pipes 1 and 2 has been put out of order, and a missile landed just yesterday on the Polish side of the Ukrainian border. I thought you could tell us a little bit about the situation now that since last we spoke in Q2, and how it now affects Risk Intelligence.
Yeah. The geopolitical situation always impacts on Risk Intelligence because the more risk you can say, the more we have to do. Especially in areas when it comes to critical infrastructure and energy infrastructure, that's some of our main areas. We've also now been involved in renewable energy security, and that's been impacting on basically all our business areas. So that's a positive effect. Obviously when it comes to recurring revenue, it's also a long, medium to long term effect. However, the impact in the financial markets with inflation and supply chain challenges have a negative impact.
Maybe we can say that, in the short term, it's a neutral to negative net result, but in the medium to long term, it's a positive result. We have impact that goes both ways.
Long term, what do you expect that timeline to be?
The thing is that when these things happen, like the Nord Stream attacks, the war in Ukraine obviously, but especially the Nord Stream attacks and also the drone overflights of Danish and Norwegian gas and oil infrastructure, that has a long-term impact where the awareness and the understanding of security risk stays. It doesn't disappear next quarter. It's something that's going to stay and impact risk awareness for a long time. This means it also impacts our work both on Advisory Services, but especially also on the reports and on the Risk Intelligence System work. We are doing a lot more in Northern Europe than we've ever done before because of the war and because of the Nord Stream attacks.
No doubt an interesting time for you.
Yes, certainly so. We don't have a single dull moment.
Hans Tino Hansen, that was all my questions. I thank you very much for your time, and wish both you and Risk Intelligence continued luck in the future.
Thank you very much, and it was good to be with you today.