Hello, and welcome to the Knowit audiocast with teleconference Q3 2021. For the first part of this call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. Today, I'm pleased to present Per Wallentin, CEO, and Marie Björklund, CFO. Please go ahead. Thank you, nice to at least soon hear you all. For those who already know us, you know that our vision at Knowit is clear. We strive for a sustainable and human society through digitalization and innovation, and that was the first slide that comes right now. The next slide, please. This is our first quarter in the new structure, including the Cybercom business. It's been a quarter with quite a lot of activity, integration work, new opportunities, and we can also see that the level in general is picking up after the pandemic. Against that background, I'm proud that we have delivered net sales of almost SEK 1.2 billion and a stable EBITDA of SEK 105 million. We saw a high activity across the group with a strong demand and positive net recruitment for the quarter, which is very satisfying. During the quarter we also continued our growth by adding our management consultancy part with the part from Capacent, strengthening our business area Insight mainly in Sweden and Finland. We do that also in Insight in addition to the organic growth that we have in general and in Insight. Next slide, please. Of course, the quarter has been characterized by an intense integration work connected to Cybercom and Knowit. I'm actually really strengthened this quarter in my belief that there is a really good, excellent strategic fit combining Knowit and Cybercom. I think that we see promising results connected to that already. Of course, there are some overlaps in our offers. The business areas are addressing different parts of our client's organization. The big new thing is that our new Connectivity area is strengthening Knowit's offering R&D, heavy industries like tech. We are together able to take on more large and more complex assignments. We are, of course, only in an early phase of exploring the new opportunities that we have together connected to new customers and new, more complex assignments. We already see that we have signed and started new projects together, Knowit and Cybercom, already this quarter, and that's very promising. We can take the next slide, please. If we go into the recruitment and the net recruitment, those of you that have followed us know that we have had a stop in the net recruitment during the pandemic, which is very natural. We started to pick up that activity in both Knowit and Cybercom just before the merger. I think that it's very promising to see that rise in activity that we conducted in Q2 give result now in Q3 with a net recruitment of almost 60 people. Of course, we also see that there is an increased personal turnover in the industry overall, especially if you compare to last Q3 or the situation in the pandemic. That's completely natural. I think that situation will continue in Q4 and Q1. It's of course something that we have to work with. It's also opening up new possibilities connected to that there are more people out on the market to attract and talk to recruit. All in all, I'm very happy with that net recruitment. You who have followed us for some time know that Q3 is probably the most important quarter connected to net recruitment. It's always a little bit slower in both Q2 and Q4. Often it's a little bit higher in Q1. Really glad. The combination of post-pandemic and the combination of the integration work is not affecting the net recruitment. We can take the next slide, please. If we go into our solutions area, our biggest business area, we are reporting almost SEK 700 million for the quarter. We continue to grow with an especially strong development in Norway and Sweden, our largest markets. The business area is, of course, growing significantly with plus 500 people through the acquisition of Cybercom, which has broadened our offering, especially in Finland, where we were less than 100 people in the area before. Now we are a lot more. During the quarter, we also opened up an office, a startup in Helsingborg in the south of Sweden to meet the increasing demand in that region, which is really satisfying. I also have to mention that solutions connected to connectivity is the part of Knowit which has the heaviest workload connected to the integration of Cybercom, of course, with those 500 people. We can take the next slide, Experience. Experience reported the sales of SEK 271 million in the quarter. Around 30 people have been added from Cybercom, mainly up in Sundsvall. The integration of Creuna that we acquired in November 2020 has worked out well. We have seen clear synergy gains, increased sales, and we feel that the integration is now over, and we're going to the next phase connected to net recruitment. We also see that in Experience, that they have a very strong net recruitment for the quarter. We can take the next slide, please. Our new business area, Connectivity, reported SEK 186 million in the quarter. This area that strengthened our offers connected to R&D-heavy industries like tech, telco, and automotive is a very interesting strategic fit with the rest of Knowit. I feel that a lot of the new business models and a lot of the new interesting assignments connected to develop new things in the society, more and more comes from the R&D part of those industries. It's really satisfying that we have that on board to take a bigger role connected to the digitalization in the society. In Knowit Connectivity, of course, there's been a lot of activities connected to integration of Knowit Cybercom which is, of course, affecting the result a bit. We see a positive sale with new assignments, both existing old Cybercom clients, but also, which is very satisfying, new assignments together Knowit and Cybercom connected to new business opportunities. We can take the next slide, please. Our management consultancy Insight, our smallest business area. Those who have followed us know that we had some struggle, or the most struggle, with the results in Insight during the pandemic. We have now a couple of quarters talked about a recovery from that situation, and I'm really pleased to see that the Q3 is in line with that recovery, and we are really happy with the result in Insight. We report on net sales of SEK 86 million for the quarter. We see that we have an increased profitability. We also have around 50 consultants coming in from Cybercom, mainly completing our offers within sustainability and security. I also have to mention the acquisition of Capacent. That will strengthen our offer in Sweden and Finland. That will, of course, be consolidated first in Q4. That was a little bit about our business areas. Now we go into the figures a little bit more in detail. For that, I will hand over to Marie, our CFO. We can take the next slide, please. Thank you, Per. Talking about Knowit Group as a whole, we delivered sales of approximately SEK 1.2 billion compared to SEK 660 million reported for the same quarter in 2020. Of course, I'm stating the obvious here. The sales increase was impacted by the acquisition of Cybercom. I want to highlight that we also see a growth in existing businesses, and our adjusted EBITA increased to SEK 105.4 million for the quarter, which also means an increase of 80%. The adjustment we're making to the EBITA since the second quarter is related to acquisition and integration costs and amounts to SEK 11 million in the third quarter. As I get a lot of questions this year about the allowances from the government, I want to add that we received SEK 7 million last year in the third quarter, and this year, nothing. All in all, our adjusted EBITA margin was 8.8%, which is flat from last year. Next slide, please. Looking at the EBITA development, we're proud to present yet another quarter with good development. I remind you, this is during an intense time of integration work of Cybercom. As I mentioned before, the adjusted EBITA amounted to SEK 105.3 million in the third quarter. Including this quarter, our adjusted EBITA for the latest 12 months is at SEK 450 million, as you can see in this slide. Next slide, please. Cash flow from operation was improved to SEK 66.5 million, mainly due to a stronger result and lower working capital investments. Cash flow from investing in financing activities was impacted by the financing of the acquisition of Cybercom, and this is mainly due to the payment of the cash part of the consideration, and also by us taking up a loan to finance the acquisition. This resulted in a negative cash flow of SEK 308 million for the quarter. In total, we have a net debt amounting to around SEK 160 million end of September. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio, which we are following, is around 0.4, and this is well within our financial targets. To sum up the quarter, we have a solid financial position and a very strong balance sheet enabling us to take care of the possibilities that lie ahead of us. With that, I hand over to you again, Per. Next slide, please. Thank you, Marie. To summarize before we have our questions, we are of course delighted to present another solid quarter with high activities in all areas. During the intense work that we are having the group connected to the integration, we have been able to focus on the business as well, both connected to net recruitment and connected to new projects and new customers. Looking ahead, we see a good sign of stable demand in the market. I think that when we come out of the integration together with Cybercom, we will be very well positioned for continued profitable growth, both organically and by acquisitions. I see a lot of opportunities in both organic growth and acquisitions coming the next years. With that, I think it's time to hand over for questions. I suppose that we do like we have done before that, if there is some questions live on the webcast, you are free to take them first, and then we take the webcast questions that have been mailed in. And if you do wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad now. We have an audio question from the line of Daniel Thorsson from ABG. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi, Per and Marie. I start off with a question on net recruitment during Q3. What's the trend during Q3? Did September ended on a strong note, or how was it during Q3? What's your expectations going into Q4 and 2022? Do you foresee an increased turnover from the strong market we currently are in? Have you also seen some effects from Cybercom people leaving after the acquisition, or is that yet to come? The trend is more connected to the structure in Q3 where we have July and August, which is mainly holiday months. A lot of the recruitment or the startup connected because you have to bear in mind that the recruitment were conducted in Q2. A lot of the activities connected to those 60 people who were conducted before summer. It wouldn't be possible to get them in Q3. They mainly start after summer, end of August and beginning of September. That's the rationality connected to that, those 60 people. We see that already in Q3 that we have a higher personal turnover than what the case last year. As I mentioned, both actually in the Q1 report and Q2 report, we foresaw that this would happen in the market when the market comes back from the pandemic. People have got stuck not changing jobs now for almost 1.5 years or sometimes even longer. Within the whole market, we will have a higher personal turnover. I think that will continue in Q4 and Q1, and maybe it will slow down a little bit in Q2. As we are on top of a lot of recruitment activities right now, I think that we will be able to handle that. You will also have to bear in mind that there is always a slower phase of recruitment in Q4 than in Q3, connected to the season variation. I hope that is an answer of your question. Absolutely. That's good. A question to Cybercom. How many people have left Cybercom since your acquisition before summer? I guess in the figure that you showed us, the plus 57 net recruitment, that is not including the loss of Cybercom people, I guess. It's included that. Okay. That's a net. It's also included the ones that you have lost from Cybercom. Yes. Okay. Yes. Excellent. I feel that the people at Cybercom are working really hard to get good integration. They are happy to be on board, and we have a really good situation connected to the cultural discussions and getting together. I'm actually less worried about that today than what I was when we met connected to the Q2 figures, because now we are in the middle of that integration, and we are working strongly together. Okay. Interesting. That sounds very promising then. A final two questions from me then. The margin in Experience was quite weak in Q3. You absolutely elaborated on that and explained it. Should we expect the margin to be under pressure in Q4 as well due to the same reasons, or should we expect a quick recovery to normal levels? I think that we will continue to have a high pace of net recruitment in Q4 as well. It was really strong focus on net recruitment in Q3. We will see, but I think that the normalized level of Knowit Experience is not the level that we have had in Q3, to be clear. True. Okay. That's good. The real final question on M&A opportunities ahead. Should we expect the strategy to yield large acquisitions like every second or third year, or more of a constant flow of two to three acquisitions a year? What's the management capabilities to conduct them in M&A at a higher pace? I think that we'll start with the last question first. The capabilities is much higher now, and I think that it will be higher after the integration of Cybercom. Of course, right now we are heavy loaded with work connected to that integration, but after that, we have learned a lot, and we will be able to have more people in place in those roles connected, for example, to acquisitions and handling them into the Knowit system. I think that now we are building up a capacity to take on assignments. I wouldn't like to answer that question because we need to look at acquisitions from two ways, both connected to what we think is the strategic fit into Knowit. That we have the right people, the right culture, of course, and that they bring something to the table connected to competence or new market areas. We have the opportunistic side connected to the opportunities out in the market. I would like to be able to take on both large and a little bit smaller acquisitions, depending on the possibilities that occur in the market. I personally don't know. We will see. Excellent. That's fine. Thank you very much. Just as a final reminder, if you do wish to ask a question, please press 01 on your telephone keypad now. Our next question comes from the line of Erik Elander from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead. Good morning or good lunch or whatever you say. I was just wondering, I read through your report, and you said that the market is expected to grow by 6% or 5.8% in 2022. First of all, given that you have a large personnel turnover within the industry, how much is recruitment and how much is price of that, would you say? I don't know. I think that we will have an inflation in the market connected to salaries and prices. Maybe half. We will see. That's a market guess, not a Knowit guess. Yeah. Also related to that, given that you are around 4,000 employees now, then you have 50-something recruitments in this quarter, it means that if you will grow by the market next year, it will mean around 50 people every quarter. Now you had 57 in this quarter, but this is still an important quarter in terms of recruitment. What is your goal within your organization in terms of growing organically next year? Is it possible to recruit 50 people every quarter to grow by around 5%, then you have some inflation as well of 3%, so meaning like 8%? What would you discuss in terms of organic growth for next year? I won't disclose that today. We will, of course, have a strong focus on being able to work with our organic growth. I don't predict the level. Lastly, from my side, I think this report was very impressive in terms of how quickly you integrated Cybercom and also got positive results from it, in addition to that, combining it with good recruitment as well. The market situation looks really good for you. What would you say is the biggest issue or main risk from your side, as you would say right now? I think that the main focus for us to really do well is to complete the integration of Cybercom in a good way. I think that we are still in the middle of that integration, that's the main focus that we have the quarters to come. Okay. Thank you so much, and have a good Friday. Thank you. As there are no further audio questions, I'll hand it back to the speakers. We do actually have a few questions from the webcast, but they cover mainly the same subject as in the audiocast. One is from a webcast viewer, Marius Heyerdahl from Norway, but it's also more on the comments on the M&A. Would you like to say something else there, Per, or our plans forward? Yes. I think that I may answer that connected to the last question with Daniel. To be clear, we try to grow both organically and by acquisitions the years to come, but we will be very clear in being able to do that sustainable so that we take on the right acquisitions and take one step at a time. There are possibilities connected to that we now have a financial situation which is really good. We have the clear support from new and strong owners. We have a platform culturally and structurally within Knowit that makes it possible to take on acquisitions. There is also consolidation going on in the business, and it's not only consolidation connected to that it's something that's a trend. It's also connected to the customer structures, because many of those assignments that we take on now are actually much larger than what they were just two, three, four years ago. We will need to continue to grow to serve our customers in the best way for the future. That's important to say as well. I think that there are quite a lot of factors that drives towards the same conclusion that we will take on acquisitions in the years to come. Yes. Thank you. Ramil from SEB also, I think you have elaborated on that as well, connected to the wage inflations that we see in the market and our ability to push that further onto customers, and maybe can you say something about billing rates? Yeah. If we start with billing rates, I think that everyone can understand that they are back post-pandemic now. It was a tough situation, for example, last year in Insight, and we see that it's back on track. If we look at the wage inflation and the price inflation, I think that we will have both because there is a lack of highly skilled people in the business. I also think that we have good discussions with our employees connected to that. It's really important that they get well paid and that they get a payment connected to what's fair in the business. We see that our customers are really, of course, they want to have the right price, but they are also very eager to get the right people and the right project. It's possible for us to take discussion connected to prices with the customers. I think that the years to come, we will have to handle both year after year. Yes. That was actually the last question from the webcast as well. All right. We close down this call and say thanks to all of you that listened and participated, and have a good Friday. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Bye. [crosstalk] This concludes our conference call. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect your lines.
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