Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Cary Group webcast and teleconference Q4 2021. For the first part of this call, all participants will be in listen-only mode. Afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. Today, I am pleased to present CEO Anders Jensen and CFO Joakim Rasiwala. Dear speakers, please go ahead. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Cary Group's fourth quarter results presentation. My name is Helene Gustafsson, Head of Investor Relations at Cary Group. With me today is our CEO, Anders Jensen, and CFO, Joakim Rasiwala, who will present the results for the fourth quarter. There will be a Q&A session after the presentation. With that said, I hand over the word to Anders to present the results. Okay, thank you, Helene. The agenda for today's presentation is a short company overview of Q4 and 2021 performance, followed by an update on the recent acquisitions and a final financial update. Let's turn to slide number three. Just to give you a short summary of who we are and what we do, our main offer is vehicle glass repair, replacement, and recalibration with leading positions through Europe. We also have leading positions in bus and coach glass repair and replacements. We are market leaders in the Nordic within smart repair and collision repair. Let's turn to slide four. We are a problem solver for the insurance companies. 77% of all the jobs are covered by insurance, and we operate in a non-cyclical market. The market is driven by miles driven rather than new car sales. We have a strong track record of organic growth, and we are targeting strategic acquisitions in a fragmented market. We have a history of high margins with opportunities to extract operational scale benefits when consolidating acquired companies. We want to be and can say, I believe we are leading in our industry when it comes to have effect from climate impact and having a digitalized customer journey. Let's turn into slide number five. We are going from being a Nordic market leader to now being present in Europe. Let's turn into slide six. From 2022, we have presence in nine countries due to our strong European expansion. Turning into slide eight. When we summarize 2021, we see several positive highlights and development in the business. In total, sales increased by 30% and 53% in the fourth quarter. Organic growth for the group increased by 6% for 2021 and 8% in the fourth quarter. We are very proud to be able to show good organic growth, sales despite the impact of COVID-19. During the year, we continued to take major steps in our acquisition strategy. Based on our already strong position in our market, we want to continue to grow with ambition to become one of the market leaders in Europe. We announced 19 acquisitions in 2021 and made an important market entry into Spain, Germany, and Portugal. We have also made important add-on acquisitions in the Nordics. We see opportunities to extract scale benefits, synergies, and to increase operational efficiency with the acquired businesses to improve profitability. To summarize some of our strategic milestones this year, let's turn to eight. We, Cary Group was listed in Nasdaq Stockholm in September, providing us with the capital needed for further expansion. We are also happy to say that we are now climate neutral, developing our sustainable offering even further. Let's turn to slide number nine. We will talk a little bit about the sales development. Our strong sales in the fourth quarter was driven by M&A growth and the acquired businesses in the Nordics and by the acquired Spanish businesses, Ralarsa. The strong development of organic growth was driven by Sweden. Sales in Norway and in the U.K. was, however, negatively affected by pandemic-related lockdowns. Sales in the U.K. was also impacted by an IT intrusion we had in the beginning of the fourth quarter. Turning to slide 10. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 75% in the fourth quarter to SEK 36 million. The Adjusted EBITDA margin amounted to 6.7% and was positively impacted by the increased sales, both acquired and organic, while lower sales levels in the quarter in the U.K. and Norway impacted profitability negatively. We continue to make investments in central functions necessary for our European expansion, which also affected the margin. We expect to see a margin leverage on the central cost going forward. We are now focusing on increasing profitability through economies of scale, but also taking specific measures where required. As an example, we are starting up an operational efficiency program in the U.K. Turning to slide number 11 and leaving the word to Joakim, who will present the results of the two business segments. Thank you, Anders. Starting on slide 11 and with our business segment Nordics. In the Nordic region, we increased net sales by 46% in the quarter to SEK 310 million. We had organic growth of 15% in the quarter. We saw organic growth in all countries, but specifically good underlying demand in our Swedish business. As Anders mentioned, in Norway, we again had negative effect on demand due to COVID-19 related restrictions and new lockdowns introduced in December. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 60% in the quarter, and mainly as a result of the strong sales increase in the quarter. Gross margin was slightly lower on a year-on-year basis, but the increased volumes achieved helped achieve better efficiency in operations. Our Adjusted EBITDA margin increased to 14.7%, and again, an effect mainly of the increased sales. In January, we also announced a new contract with the Norwegian insurance company, Fremtind, who selected Cary Group's Norwegian Glass business as one of its strategic partners. This is a three-year agreement that means that Fremtind will transfer repair volumes to Cary Bilglass in Norway as one of its two partners going forward. Moving to slide number 12, looking at the business segment, Rest of Europe. In region Rest of Europe, sales increased by 64% in the quarter, and this was mainly driven by the acquisition of Ralarsa in Spain, the acquisition that closed on the first of August last year. The Spanish business has had a good start in Cary Group and developed well during the quarter. In the region as a whole, organic growth was flat, and COVID-19 related restrictions in the U.K. held back demand, and also to some extent, our ability to deliver on demand due to capacity in the workshops. Adjusted EBITDA in the region amounted to SEK 12 million, and the Adjusted EBITDA margin increased to 5.4%, and this increase is mainly the result of the addition of Ralarsa into the region. As we discussed in our previous quarterly call, we did have an IT intrusion in the U.K., and we have successfully dealt with that, and management in the U.K. has managed to quickly get the U.K. IT system back on track. The total cost for the IT intrusion, we estimate at SEK 15 million. In the results for the fourth quarter, we have adjusted for that amount. We anticipate an insurance compensation, and we have booked SEK 12 million in sales in the quarter, and we have adjusted for the remaining SEK 3.5 million Adjusted EBITDA. With that, we move on to slide number 13. Yes, thank you, Joakim. I think we will actually move over to slide 14. We're talking about our sustainability journey. We have talked a lot about this. We talked a lot about it during the IPO and we're proud now to say that we are now climate neutral. We aim to lead the way within the industry with regards to climate impact and digitalization. The key tools for us is to achieve this, is to have a digitalized customer journey, the proximity to the customers, increasing the repair rates, and having an electrified courtesy car fleet, and of course, recycling of repaired glass. This year we have repaired over 40,000 windscreens, which saved 1,800 tons of CO2. We have 56 electric courtesy cars in Nordics, which is 18% of our total car fleet in Sweden and Norway. We are also happy to announce that we from 2021 are climate neutral. Let's turn to slide 15. We decided to compensate for all our emissions and can therefore call ourselves climate neutral. Being climate neutral means that we, through climate compensation projects, capture and bind the same amount of CO2 that we produce. That the sum of the emissions is zero. We compensate for all emissions in Scope 1, 2, and 3, which means that we take responsibility for emissions from our own windscreen repair and replacement service, but also compensate for the emissions that our suppliers generate. Turning to slide 17, there will be a presentation of our acquisition strategy and the three most recent acquisitions. We can go over to 17. First, a short summary of Cary Group's acquisition strategy. We carry out three different type of acquisitions. We either we do a platform acquisition, which means that we're expanding into a new geographical market, or we do add-on acquisitions, where we acquire businesses in an existing market, or we do mom and pop acquisitions, where we actually acquire individual workshops. All acquisitions help to improve our footprint and to reach additional scale, and thereby uplift in growth and profitability. Turning to slide 18. We acquired a company called Zentrale Autoglas in Germany, which we did in December. That is a platform acquisition. The company is active in bus glass repair and replacement, but also perform glass repairs on motor homes. Bus glass is a sector we know well since we are already active and leading in the sector in Sweden. Zentrale Autoglas is market leader in a market which is rather fragmented, which means that we see further opportunities of add-ons. Zentrale has its own wholesale business, which with external sales throughout the western part of Europe, which means that there are opportunities of synergies in terms of purchasing. The company has workshops at 25 different places in Germany, but also in Austria and Luxembourg. Turning to 19. We talk a little bit about ExpressGlass in Portugal. In December, we acquired ExpressGlass in Portugal, another platform acquisition. ExpressGlass has some similarities to our acquired companies in Alianza in Spain, such as an own wholesale business and high insurance penetration with strong relationships with top insurance providers. They have a workshop-heavy network with over 90 workshops in Portugal, a strong relationship to top insurance companies and a strong position with the fleet companies and car rental providers. The acquisitions means that we get a strengthened position in the Iberian part of Europe. Turning to slide 20. We are also very happy to announce the acquisition of MPS Bilskade in Norway. The add-on acquisition represent an expansion in the Norwegian market for existing customers and strengthen the Cary Group's market position in Norway. MPS has a strong brand in Norway and is active in smart and major vehicle damage repair. The company has good relationships with insurance companies and other customers with nationwide coverage in Norway. The acquisition is a good complement to the acquisition of Quick Car Fix in Norway, which operates within smart repair and car care. Handing the word over to Joakim and turn to slide number 22. Thank you, Anders. Looking at Cary Group's financial position at the end of Q4, the leverage ratio as net debt to Adjusted EBITDA was 2.5 x, so in line with our financial leverage target. Net debt at the end of the quarter was SEK 1,222 million. In terms of credit facilities, as you recall, we entered into a new credit agreement in connection with the IPO that had a framework of SEK 2,050 million. We have now just at the beginning of this year extended that credit facility by an additional SEK 1,050 million. Very happy with that. The extension is virtually at the same terms as for the existing facility. This provides Cary with a strong financial capacity to continue on our acquisition strategy going forward. Equity at the end of the quarter amounted to just over SEK 1.5 billion, and cash was SEK 146 million. Moving on to slide number 23, look at our operating cash flow. Cash flow in the quarter was SEK -33 million. Cash flow is seasonally low in the fourth quarter. In addition, in the fourth quarter last year, we also had some IPO-related payments that added to cash outflow in the quarter. Cash flow for the whole year was SEK 175 million, and we expect to return to a normalized cash flow pattern from this quarter and onwards. All the IPO costs were paid by the end of last quarter. Cash conversion continued to be strong, 94% on an LTM basis, and 97.9% for the quarter, with continued low CapEx as one contributing factor. Turning to slide 24, just a summary of the acquisitions that we completed in 2021. In total, 15 acquisitions were completed. As Anders discussed in the previous slides, we also announced an additional four acquisitions that we will or have completed at the beginning of this quarter. In total, the acquisitions that we did complete last year added over SEK 500 million to sales. Adding on the acquisitions that were announced at the end of last year, we have added around SEK 1 billion to sales from acquisitions. On slide 25, a summary of our financial targets that you have seen previously, of course. We have a target of 15% total growth, where at least half of that organic, and we were able to deliver a strong growth last year of 30%. We have an Adjusted EBITDA margin target of 20% in the medium term. We have a net debt to Adjusted EBITDA target leverage of 2.5x, and we have a dividend policy of at least 20% of net income. Regarding dividends, in light of the company's high acquisition rate, the board has decided to propose no dividends for last year. With that, I will. Yes, you have a summary of the financial highlights or financial terms on slide 26. The key highlights, I guess on that slide is our strong growth last year, 30% total growth, and 53% growth in the quarter, and also an improved margin up to 6.7% in the quarter. With that, I will hand back to Anders. Right. Looking at slide 28, we are looking at the year we reached strong growth, both acquired and organic, and that is despite COVID-19. We continue our expansion journey with important and strategic acquisitions in Spain, Germany, Portugal, and in the Nordics. We believe that the demand for our services and the opportunity for growth is good as society opens up and restrictions due to COVID gradually disappear. For 2022, we are focusing on increasing profitability as we integrate our acquisitions to extract operational scale benefits and synergies. We are also looking at cost specific measurements in countries with lower profitability. With that said, I would like to open up for questions. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now start our Q&A session. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Thank you for holding until we have our first question. Our first question comes from Herman Eriksson, Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning. Just first of all, regarding the margins in the rest of Europe, they look quite weak now when you have consolidated the last acquisition. I was just wondering, are the margins in your U.K. business down year-over-year? And are you also starting to see an improvement in the U.K.? Hi, Herman. In the fourth quarter, the margins in the U.K. business were affected negatively by the COVID-19 situation. We had a sales reduction towards the end of the quarter, which also impacted our margin. As we mentioned, we are now working to launch an operational efficiency project. We have just started that actually for the U.K. This is a planned exercise and exactly the same kind of margin improvement project that we've done in the Swedish business a few years ago with very positive outcomes. As part of our strategy, as you know, to continue to acquire new companies and add new markets, we will then work to gradually lift and improve on the margins of those markets. That is a project that we are now starting for the U.K. Now that we see that we are coming out of the COVID restrictions, we also expect an improvement both in net sales and with an effect on the margin there. Yeah, we do expect an improvement in the market margin going forward and specifically with the operational efficiency projects that we have now launched for the U.K. Okay. Perfect. Just during the quarter, you've now done some more large acquisitions with margin below the group average. I was just wondering, do you still feel comfortable with your target of reaching a 20% EBITA margin in the medium term? Yes, definitely. I mean, we have communicated that we will reach it in three to five years, and we did 14% this year. That was a year that was highly affected in two big markets, Norway and the U.K. We definitely see that we will make this in that time, definitely. Okay, great. I can add something. Yeah. I can add to that, also Herman, that it is, as I mentioned, part of our strategy to both improve on our existing businesses, which we are working to do, and also to add new acquisitions, both platform acquisitions and add-ons. With the recent acquisitions coming in slightly below group average, we will initially have a lower margin. They also, each one of the acquisitions also provide further opportunity for synergies. The more countries and businesses that we add, the higher the synergy potential across the group. We look very positively on that going forward. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Olof Cederholm, ABG. Please go ahead. Hello everyone. It's Olof with ABG. A couple of questions from my side. First, if we could just start talking a little bit about the organic growth pattern during the year. Last year was of course volatile in terms of restrictions, etc., and how should we think about sort of current trading now and also compare to the first half of last year in particular? Yes. Hi, Olof. Yeah, it is as you're referring to it a bit difficult to look at growth year-over-year with the COVID quarters that we have behind us. In very general terms, and as we mentioned before, the seasonal pattern of the group is that the second quarter is the strongest, followed by the third quarter and then the first quarter. The Q4 is seasonally the weakest quarter, and the first quarter is the next weakest. That is our seasonal pattern. Current trading, I mean, we have started the year in a decent way. We did have some effect of the COVID restrictions into January also in Norway and the U.K. As we mentioned, we now see that the countries' governments are rolling back these restrictions and we definitely hope and believe that will bring demand back on a normal level. That's the situation. A follow-up on that, do you still see sort of capacity constraints on your side due to COVID, or has everybody sort of had it now and are returning to work? Yeah. That is, I mean, we have had some capacity issues actually. We delivered a quite strong quarter in Sweden, but in Sweden, we have had actually some closures of workshops due to the fact that we had illness within the staff. So we haven't been able to staff up all our workshops. But I would say that is back now. Everyone is back working again. Just as you say, most people have had it now, so we are able now to go on full strength with all the workshops open again. Excellent. One more question from me then I'll return to the queue. On the group cost, we're now at sort of SEK 22 million as a sort of a new level. Should we expect further increases from this? Or is this sort of the new quarterly level that we should think about for 2022? Yeah, we did see an increase in the fourth quarter, which we also flagged at the end of the Q3. These costs, I mean, they're related, of course, both to the platform that we built ahead of the IPO, but also some investments in group functions for the continued expansion of the group. I mean, looking at the group, we grew by 53% this quarter, and we have now added three new companies at the beginning of Q1, going from four countries to nine during last year. That is the sort of rationale for building these corporate functions and expanding them. We believe that they will also contribute a lot to tying the group together and enabling us to extract synergies going forward. Yeah, your question, our ambition and we anticipate that we will not grow or increase group costs from this level going forward, but rather, definitely work on expanding top line and thereby also achieving leverage of this platform now going forward. Excellent. I'll squeeze in another cost question before I return. I mean, you're compensating for your emission footprint now. What are the costs for that and where do you report them in your statement? The cost is a low single-digit number of Swedish million. On the quarter? On an annual basis. On an annual basis. Okay. We report them under other operating expenses. This is a number that could potentially increase with the group's growth, but it is definitely also something that we're working hard on to reduce emissions, and the goal would then be to compensate less. That is something that we are focusing on now to reduce our own emissions and also working with suppliers in the value chain. Excellent. Thank you. I'll return to the queue. Thanks. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Our next question is from Dan Johansson, SEB. Please go ahead. Thank you so much, and good morning, Anders and Joakim. Two more questions from me. First one, perhaps a bit on costs. Have you experienced some impact from higher freight costs and increased gas prices now in Q4? How do you see the development into 2022, and also your ability to manage it with your contracts and also through additional price increases? Thank you. We see a little bit increase on it. But as we said before, we have in our contracts that we are able to pass those costs on to the customer. But it can sometimes it is all about timing. In some cases it might take a month, two or three before we can move them on. I wouldn't say that Q4 is very affected by it, but there's a slight little effect on it, but very small numbers. What we see. That goes for our main markets, I would say. Perfect. Thank you for the clarification. Perhaps a bit more specific question was on Norway. It seems like it's been a bit slower in the past quarter. What are your plans for the Norwegian market ahead, and how does the acquisition of MPS play into that strategy? Thank you. Well, the MPS acquisition gives us a better footprint, which gives a proximity to the customers and make us able to increase the level of jobs that we have with insurance companies. As you know, we have won a lot of tenders recently in Norway and we need the proximity to be able to get full leverage on those contracts. We are doing a lot of changes now since we bought the MPS and we will have to get back to you a little bit later on exactly what we do. We are making some efficiencies within Norway. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you very much. I think I'll jump back into the line. Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Olof Cederholm, ABG. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi again. I just wanted to talk a little bit about the Alianza, and how that's performing in the quarter. Is it according to your expectations? How is the profitability that is sort of stack up to your initial view that it would have a margin roughly in line with the group? Yes. As you know, traveling hasn't been the easiest lately, so we haven't really been able to integrate them fully and not the way we wanted. They are a very stable company that we bought, a really good company, which means that they are developing just exactly as we wanted to, and they are performing good. With that said, we haven't really done the full integration and synergies yet that we want to do and that we always do when we acquire companies. As restrictions now are eased, we are able to travel again and we will do more there. They are working very, very well standalone, and it's a solid business and developing very good and have started off the year good as well. Excellent. I guess that all of us also for the established business, the fourth quarter is the weakest of the year. The seasonal swings are not as significant in Spain, but still the seasonally lowest quarter of the year. As Anders said, I mean, really good start for the business, great team, and we see really good potential for continuing to develop the business there. Excellent. Lastly, from my side on the M&A outlook, you've done a huge amount of deals in a short period of time. How should we think? You mentioned you expect to do more during 2022, but how should we think about timing here? Do you have the financial and the management capacity to actually do things already in the first half of the year outside of, you know, mom-and-pop acquisitions? Or should we have some patience and look for a busier second half of the year? We have the capacity. We stocked up the company quite well, and we put good functions in place, so we definitely have the capacity to do acquisitions. We also have the funds needed. Yes, we will continue. I mean, we will continue just as we said when we launched our financial targets. We will grow by 15% every year and half of that would be organic. Now we grew a little bit more last year, a lot more actually. I mean, we will continue to grow in the same manner, we say. Excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you for your answers. Thanks. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Will Kirkness, Jefferies. Please go ahead. Thanks very much. I just had a follow-up on the M&A piece. Well, I just wanted you to talk about the availability of deals. I think, you know, some of the platforms you've gone in with are number three, I think, in terms of market share. I just wondered why you weren't able to convert the number one, and whether, you know, how these conversations are progressing when you're looking at entering new countries. Secondly, I just wonder if you could talk a bit about the multiples for these platform deals. I think these recent ones came in at perhaps slightly higher than the average given the size of them. Thanks. Yeah. Will, if we take Germany, for example, they are number one. They are the market leader. When it comes to Portugal, yes, that was number three. We see a great potential to grow that. Of course, we aim for a better position than number three in all our markets. But yeah. I mean, if we want to be present in Portugal, which we want, and I mean, there are some really strong players there, so everyone's not up for grabs, let's say. When it comes to multiples, I would say that we always pay around 5x-7x as we have communicated, but we can go even higher than that if we make platform acquisitions, which we have done in the past and we have done now. Platforms are often a little bit bigger, a little bit higher number. I would say that add-on acquisitions a little bit lower than that. I can add to that, Will, that what Anders was talking about is, you know, pre-synergized multiples and all of these three recent acquisitions. They're really strong companies with strong positions in each of their markets. We see potential for synergies both in terms of growing top line across the group, but also in terms of purchasing. In Norway specifically, there's obviously an opportunity to pool resources and central resources and get leverage that way. We see good potential in developing these businesses from a margin perspective across synergies. Okay, thanks. Just if I can follow up, I'm sorry if you already mentioned this. My phone cut out earlier. Obviously you've done a lot of deals recently. Should we just expect a period of consolidation now, or is the sort of near-term conversion opportunity still quite good? Well, Anders I think answered that before. Our acquisition strategy is exactly the same as we communicated ahead of the IPO. We have a 15% growth target, at least half of that organic, but we also see a lot of potential for acquisitions. That goes across our three categories that we define the platforms, i.e., new countries or new verticals. It is add-ons, which is the sort of larger or complementary businesses in existing countries, and it's the mom-and-pop acquisitions. We see potential across all three categories and we expect to continue to convert on that. Of course, it is a bit difficult to say exactly when negotiations or discussions mature. Yeah, we will continue the same way we have done previously. Okay, thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a final reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on the telephone keypad. There are no further questions at this time. Dear speakers, back to you. Thank you everyone for dialing in, and thank you for your questions. If you have any follow-up questions, please don't hesitate to contact anyone of us. Thank you very much. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes this presentation. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect.
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