Hello and welcome to this presentation of Q3 results for ECIT. Presenting today is our CEO, Peter Lauring, and our CFO, Mads Skovgaard. The word is yours, Peter. Thank you, Iselin. Welcome to all who's looking into this presentation. We're just waiting for the next slide to come up. I have it. I actually have the slide here. We continue from here. The agenda, first, highlights from the financial performance in the Q3 in 2022. Financial performance for the divisions. Acquisitions done up to date, 2022. Other, which covers that we have made a change in management structure. Financial review, and then we will end with a question and answer session should there be any questions, which, by the way, is welcome. First, a little about ECIT. ECIT is founded in 2013 based on two strategic ideas. One is to combine accounting and IT. Second is to do acquisitions in a way where we actually can keep the entrepreneurs on board in the company that becomes part of ECIT, in order for them to be part of building ECIT going forward. For that reason, we have 250 partners, we call it. It's actually minority shareholders in our subsidiaries and shareholders in ECIT as well. ECIT is a people business with more than 2,300 employees across 10 countries, and we aim to become the strategic partner for our customers based on our fundament in accounting and IT combined. We have three divisions, one Finance and Accounting, which do accounting and payroll for our customers, and one IT Division doing managed services and digitalization services for their customer portfolio. Gradually those customer portfolios are overlapping. On top of that, we have a software application division who mainly produces software production or accounting production software for our accounting division, and gradually also tools for our IT Division. Financial performance year-to-date 2022 and Q3. We come out of Q3 with a revenue of NOK 672 million. We have delivered an EBITDA of NOK 99 million, 14.7% margin compared to 14.4% same quarter last year. Total revenue growth around 21% in the quarter, whereof 11 and a half% is organic. Quite high organic in this quarter actually. Year-to-date, we have a revenue of NOK 2.1 billion with a EBITDA of NOK 283 million, 13.4% margin compared to 13% last year. A small margin increase, which we consider to be quite important. Total revenue growth for the year to date is 22%, whereof 9.3% is organic. If we look at the financial performance in a three-year perspective, we have delivered a revenue of NOK 1.3 billion in 2020, increasing to NOK 1.7 in 2021 and NOK 2.1 in 2022. On the cash flow side, it's from NOK 109 million in 2020, increasing to NOK 174 million in 2022. EBITDA earnings margin from 12.9% in 2020 to 13.4% in 2022. NOK 168 million corresponding, increasing to NOK 283 million in 2022. Earnings per share coming from NOK 0.06 in 2020 to NOK 0.10 in 2021 and this year-to-date quarter, Q3 2022 is NOK 0.13. A reasonable development in the earnings per share and actually in all our key figures looking three years back. Looking into our divisions, we have an F&A division who have delivered a revenue of NOK 1.1 billion year to date with an EBITDA of NOK 185 million, 15.4% margin. Oh, sorry, 16.3% margin versus 16.7% last year. A slight decrease in margin mainly coming from that we have done some large mergers in the previous quarters. It takes time to absorb in our organization and also affects what is happening internally in the company until the mergers and the following consolidation process is absorbed in the organization. Improved organic growth, meaning better compared both in the quarter and year to date compared to last year. In the F&A division, we have started an internal education program which are to spread to the rest of ECIT. We see that as a fundament to become and stay attractive towards our employees going forward. To us or to ECIT, it's quite a large thing that we have started this education program that will affect us positively going forward. The IT Division came out with a revenue close to NOK 1 billion and EBITDA of NOK 112 million. 11.7% margin compared to 10.8% last year, so some margin improvement here. Total revenue growth 22%. Actually very good organic growth, and the growth is affected by that we, by the end of September, have delivered a few extra large orders compared to the normal business. That's of course wonderful because that's affect our organic growth. Also, the IT Division is affected by mergers and the following consolidation processes that takes time to be absorbed in the organization. The tech software division is coming out of Q3. Year-to-date 2022 has delivered a revenue of NOK 160 million and EBITDA close to zero, which is normal and expected, but a revenue growth of 70%. Especially the high growth is coming from consulting services delivered in addition to our software, setting it up, adapting it for the customer's need. The base software revenue has increased with a close to 19% looking year-over-year from Q3 2021 to Q3 2022. In that direction, I will mention two systems that we really have high expectations to and where we actually can see the growth is increasing organically. Intect, our Danish payroll system, who actually in October delivered 2 or 10, actually it was sharp payroll, payslips to Swedish customers. It's starting up, starting to be able to be used in Sweden next to the 600,000 payslips yearly we are producing in Denmark. Besides that, we have ECIT Digital, our invoice handling system, who has grown on the invoice per month handling from 35,000 in September 2021 to 125,000 in September 2022. Quite a good organic growth in actually both those two systems. Acquisitions. Year to date, we have made nine acquisitions. The larger volume is actually in the accounting division, but we have also acquired an ERP system, Catacloud, an HR system, Verismo, which will support our software division quite a lot going forward. NOK 260 million combined in revenue and NOK 40 million combined in EBITDA. We have kept our target to reach NOK 350 million acquired revenue throughout 2022 because we still think it's possible to make or we have enough close targets, so we expect to actually be able to deliver on target also on the acquisition in 2022. Other, we have changed the management structure in ECIT. We have simply appointed a new managing director to be head of each division. Mikkel Walde in the IT Division. He's actually sitting right over there behind me. Klaus Jensen in the F&A Division, and Halvor Aspaas in the Tech Division. I see that as a super support to enable to build ECIT going forward, that we get a clearer and stronger management structure. All three is coming from inside ECIT with a long experience as part of them being able to take this position. With that, Mads, over to you. Thank you very much, Peter. Some comments to the financials for the quarter and first nine months of the year. Starting with our top line for Q3, we came out with a total revenue growth of more than 20%, whereas our organic growth was almost 12% compared to 7.9% last year. Our IT and Tech Division were the main contributors to the organic growth, whereas the F&A business is improving the positive organic growth and also is ahead of last year. Looking at our year-to-date figures, almost 22% in total growth and organic growth of almost 10%, which means that we are well above our financial targets. Perhaps, a bit better than we anticipated since a lot of focus have been and are being allocated towards our four large mergers completed during 2022, as Peter also mentioned. We are pleased with the EBITDA results and margins being ahead of last year. As mentioned, it does actually take some time to integrate and consolidate such large part of the business and also to absorb it into the organization. The impact of cost inflation has so far been limited. However, effects are to be expected, and consequently, mitigating actions are high on our agenda to enable to defend our margins going forward. Our financial expenses came out higher than last year, which can be explained by a combination of increased interest rates in the market, but also more debt compared to last year. On the finance income side, we have two divestments during the year, the associated company, Cloud Connection, and the F&A company, ECIT Invent, representing a gain of approximately NOK 25 million, which has been adjusted to the profit of the period numbers. Moving to our cash flow and net working capital development. Our cash flow from operational activities came out at NOK 241 million versus NOK 186 million last year. The increase is mainly explained by our improved EBITDA, but also change in our net working capital. Last quarter, net working capital was high due to timing in our invoicing and subsequently in this quarter, in Q3, the net working capital has been catching up, which we also expected. Looking at our year-to-date figures, net working capital is now back to normal performance. When looking at our free cash flow, we came out at NOK 174 million compared to NOK 151, and our 2021 figures has been adjusted for COVID-19 for comparison reasons. Cash flow from investing activity represent NOK 223 million, of which NOK 161 is investments in our new subsidiaries. Compared to the cash we have generated for our operations, we actually matched that cash investing outflow at our year-to-date figures. Our net debt and leverage ratio. To start with, IFRS 16 leasing debt has a significant impact to our interest-bearing liabilities, and we exclude that from our net debt. We are at around NOK 40 million year to date. And if we include the IFRS 16 impact, our net debt is, uh, is NOK 231 million, compared to NOK 125 million, uh, last year. Our leverage ratio is approximately zero point six times EBITDA and still way below our ratio limit of two point times, uh, EBITDA. We are also in, uh, good shape when it comes to, uh, our, uh, financial headroom. We have, uh, plus NOK 450 million in, uh, in our undrawn balance from our revolving facility. So, um, yeah, quite good in that area also. Our share buyback program, uh, ended announced back in, in August, has ended, uh, yesterday, and in total, uh, NOK 1.2 million shares were bought back at an average price of NOK 6.64, uh, during the program. A new share buyback program has announced today, where the intention is to buy back shares representing NOK 4 million. With that, back to you, Peter. Thank you, Mads. I would just say net debt at NOK 40 million in our company is not too much actually. As well that we generate cash from operations actually is enough to cover our investments. I'm quite pleased with that, I have to say. Me too. If you look at our evaluation of this quarter and year-to-date results, we actually think that we are on plan, delivering as what we had scheduled internally. We have good organic growth, all divisions ahead of last year, and all divisions have positive growth. We have a slight margin improvement, which always should be seen in the light of that we do acquisitions. As well, it's quite affected, will be this quarter, the last 3, 2 previous quarters and probably next quarter as well, affected by mergers and consolidations. We think a slight improvement is actually okay. Earnings per share improved 60% due to increase in earnings and 40% due to increase in ownership share. We have implemented a new management structure which will enforce us going forward. On the M&A side, we have what we will call a normal, however high activity level, and the quality of companies in our pipeline is actually improving. I think it's actually a quarter that we dare to present to other viewers on and to our investors. With that, over to you, Iselin. Thank you, Peter and Mads, for that quality presentation. We have received some questions. I will be reading them one by one, and then you will be able to answer. Your organic revenue growth is high in Q3 and well above your financial target of 5.5%. What are your expectations going forward, Peter? Well, we are very pleased that we had a high growth, 11.5% in Q3, 9.3% all over the three quarters. We work continuously to actually improve. That's part of these consolidation merger processes to improve our organic growth, and we think we will be able to meet the financial target on 5.5%, a little plus maybe, for as long as we can see standing from here. Thank you, Peter. May I have the next one? Mm-hmm. We have another one here. Given the number of acquisitions completed so far in the year, is it still the ambition to meet the NOK 350 million target of annualized revenue, Peter? Absolutely. Of course, you can never really time when you do an acquisition and make sure it lands in December or in January. Let me say, if we have not met the target by the end of December, we will meet it before the 25th of January, is my guess. Yes, we will reach the target this year as well, is our expectation. I'm surprised you didn't mention the ketchup effect, Peter. Ah. I'm starting to miss it. The ketchup effect you will see when we are coming out to do our presentation of Q4. You will see that we have done 2/3 of the acquisitions in Q4. It will be like ketchup. Looking forward. I promise you. Looking forward to it. May I have the next one? All right. As you become larger, it's natural that you will start looking at larger M&A opportunities. Can you shed some light on how the strategy has developed recently, and what kind of acquisitions are you looking to do going forward? Acquiring technology, acquiring competence, acquiring geography, acquiring customer bases is what we are always looking into. However, we can see that we are looking more and more into a bit larger company with a bit better earnings, a bit better organization behind. Those kind of companies is, of course, more expensive than where we are coming from historically. It's coming gradually. It's in a gradual improvement that we meet as we go forward. We think we will simply just acquire gradually better and better companies as we progress. Thank you very much, Peter. We like new companies coming on board, Mads, don't we? We love it, actually. Yes, we do. All right. May I have the next one? Okay. We have another M&A question, actually. In the nature of being an M&A compounder, margins are obviously affected when you do acquisitions and, of course, large mergers. Can you say something about the underlying margins and how they have developed recently? It's clearly that the base business that's been with us for many years perform very well actually compared to many of the new businesses we are acquiring. Uh, normally when we do an acquisition, it was a low of a low-margin company, it takes around between one to three years to get the margin in place. But through those consolidation processes we are doing, takes time. We can also see that that builds the margin gradually as we're going forward. Thank you, Peter. May I have the next one? All right. This is one of your favorite subjects, I think, sometimes, Mads. How much has cost inflation impacted the financials of ECIT, and what is expected going forward? Thank you, Iselin Paulsen. Well, so far, our financials have not been impacted by cost inflation, at least a little limited impact to our financials. No doubt, going forward we expect that the cost will increase, and that's why also we have this on our agenda to mitigate and make sure that we can defend our margins going forward. I think I can add, being an outsourcing company, we are constantly under pressure in our margin. Meaning, we are very good at make more efficient processes, change systems, so actually support a better production. We are also in the nature, we're in a business where to us it's natural to mitigate pressure on the margin, which is what a high inflation actually is. We think we cannot fly, but we think we are able to handle it going forward. Also, I know that you're both into the resilience that we show considering the business. In tough times. Yeah People still need accounting and IT. Of course, one should not be cocky around it, but it's something that all our customers will need always, so to speak. Whether the sun is shining or it's snowing or raining, you still need your accountant, you will still need your IT support. With that. Well said, Peter. I have another question, actually. We haven't managed to get it on screen yet. What is the future expectations to pay out larger dividends as the operational cash flow eventually becomes larger than needed for acquisitions? I think we will keep the dividend level around where we have been. It's not something that's been discussed in the board yet. We have initiated a small share buyback program, which actually increased the amount spent on paying back to the investors. I think we have the key point. I'm not really sure that in my time we will be in a position where we are not able to spend the cash flow from operations to do new acquisitions. I think our heart is in building the business, and eventually will be a dividend share, but there's pretty much geography, companies to conquer, so to speak, before we think we have done what we should do in the building phase. Okay. Thank you. A reasonable, a clever level on dividends for as long as we can see. Okay. Thank you for that. I think that was the last one we had on the screen. If you have asked a question and not received an answer, please just remind us on the investor@ecit.com. Thank you, Peter and Mads. It's up to you to finish the webcast. We are done for now. Yeah. I get it. I think both Mads and I will thank you. Thank you very much. For the ones who showed us the attention to listen to this presentation. Thank you for today. See you next quarter.
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