Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Knowit Interim Report Q2 2025 conference call. I am Mattilde, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Per Wallentin, CEO. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, and warm welcome to this presentation of our report for our second quarter. My name is Per Wallentin, and with me, I also have our CFO, Marie Björklund. First, I would like to take you through some operational highlights during this quarter. The positive utilization trend continues in Solutions, and for the second quarter in a row, we also have a positive utilization development in Experience. We are pleased to have announced two acquisitions this quarter. They will support our growth in two important areas: fintech and defense. Right now, I am at slide number three. The development continues to differ between countries. Norway is fairly solid, and we see improvement in Sweden. Finland and Denmark are smaller markets, but we still have larger challenges due to weak demand, and we need to further optimize our organization. The competition is still intense, and we have challenges balancing prices against salaries. Long-term, the ability to improve utilization rates has higher potential than the possible negative impact from our negative yield. Of course, that's the situation right now. We remain cautious in recruitment activities, but we continue to recruit in areas of growth. We now also see that we are ready to step up recruitment activities in areas where the demand will improve in the future. Next slide, please. We are very pleased that we have announced two strategic acquisitions this quarter for the first time since 2002. Milso is a consultancy specialized in defense, in the defense area, with deep experience from working with clients such as FMV, Swedish Defence Materiel Administration, etc. Together with Milso, we look forward to develop our position in this highly interesting and growing sector even further. We also announced the acquisition of Incycle, a provider of fintech solutions through its cloud-based platform for the insurance sector. I really think that these deals make us better and better positioned in two areas of growth in the future. You can take the next slide, please. We will now take a look at our business areas more in detail. Solutions, our largest business area, accounting for more than 50% of our total revenue, reported net sales of SEK 803 million for the quarter. EBITDA margin was 6.8%, slightly below last year, but above when we adjust for FX and calendar effects. We are happy to see that utilization continues to improve, a key factor, of course, for further growth and increased margins. The geographical difference remains. Norway is more stable, and we now see slow but steady market improvements in Sweden. We face large challenges in Denmark and Finland. In total, at Solutions, we have made a deliberate choice not to lower prices in order to drive volume in a tougher market. We can take the next slide, please. Our digital agency Experience reported net sales of SEK 267 million in the quarter, with an EBITDA margin of 2.4%. We have seen a continued positive trend in utilization for the second quarter in a row, but still, the utilization is too low. Competition is very tough, and we face price pressure in almost all of our areas in Experience. The demand for data and analytics is rising, allowing us to take some more strategic roles and move up in the value chain. That's good. Our focus on sales remains high, and we are growing our order book with several new assignments. We can take the next slide, please. Business area Connectivity reported sales of around SEK 200 million for the quarter. EBITDA margin was 6.7%. When adjusted for FX and calendar effects, the margin is in line with last year. We still face challenges from the downturn in the telco sector. Several new assignments in the second quarter provide energy and confidence, also in the telco sector, actually. We expect to move back into growth mode during the fall and have worked hard to optimize our organization. We can take the next slide, please. Moving into our management consultancy, Insight reported sales of around SEK 230 million for the quarter. EBITDA margin was close to 4%. The profitability was impacted by continued work with restructuring and optimization. The market uncertainty remains, and we have experienced clients postponing investment decisions until after the summer. The demand for services in the defense sector remains strong, and we look forward to collaborating with our new colleagues at Milso. Together, we have really great opportunities to win new interesting assignments. The demand for ERP system implementations remains good, and that's the business that we have in Norway. We can take the next slide, please. Now I would like to turn it over to you, Marie, and elaborate a little bit about financials more in detail. Next slide, please. Over to you, Marie. Thank you, Per. We can take the next slide again. Back to the group as a whole, we delivered sales of approximately SEK 1.5 billion, a decrease of 11.3%. Adjusted for currency effect, the decrease was 8.3%. There is a substantial negative calendar effect with eight hours less in the quarter, and we are also in this quarter less employees than previous year. The average number of FTEs during the quarter is down by 7% in line with a decrease in sales when adjusting for calendar and currency. The adjusted EBITDA amounted to SEK 54 million, and the adjustment in this quarter is concerning acquisition-related costs, SEK 2.9 million. The EBITDA decreased compared to the same quarter last year, mainly for two reasons: the weak calendar in the quarter and challenges in prices. Adjusted for currency, we do increase our prices against last year. However, not enough to cover salary increases, even though we have managed salary revisions in an efficient way during the spring. This leads to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 3.6% in the quarter. Last year, it was 5.6%. Here we have a decrease. We see that the market is still challenging. It's fragmented, and competition is tough, but we do have areas where the demand is good, as Per mentioned earlier: defense, cybersecurity, data and analytics, for example. Solutions is improving utilization since one year now, and Experience utilization is trending upwards for the second quarter in a row. All in all, the utilization is slowly getting better for the whole group, but it is in a too slow way, and we are, of course, not satisfied with that. There is a great potential here for us, where our normal utilization is on a substantially better level. Despite price pressures, we believe that our main challenge and also opportunity for growth and improved margins is our utilization. We have the right competencies, and we have done a hard focused work on our cost structure, and we continue to seek improvements. Next slide, please. This slide shows the development over time and also on a rolling 12-month basis. Our adjusted EBITDA for the latest 12 months is at SEK 323 million and revenues at SEK 6.1 billion at an EBITDA margin of 5.3%. Next slide, please. This is an overview of our net debt development. We have SEK 400 million in used credit facilities, and Knowit has a total credit facility granted of SEK 1,050,000. Future considerations amount to SEK 40 million, and the increase in this quarter is due to the revaluation of a Norwegian startup performing well, and the agreement with the minority shareholders has been extended, and the expected payout upon exit is now higher. Other liabilities, mainly leasing debts, amount to SEK 448 million, and this totals a net debt of SEK 647 million. Divided with our EBITDA on a rolling 12-month basis of SEK 492 million, we are now at a leverage of 1.3%. This means that we have a stable balance sheet and a good financial position. It also means that we are well within our financial targets, which is set not to exceed 2. Next slide, please. We have a solid platform and a strong position as a digitalization partner in the Nordic region. Having a broad footprint is a strength, especially in tougher times, as it is important to ensure our stability. The share from the public sector is stable compared to last year, which is a positive sign, as the share in this sector has decreased during our earlier quarters. The retail sector is also stable this quarter, and our second largest segment, as well as industry, which is also in line. The negative development in the telecom sector primarily relates to one significant client, decreasing its shares significantly during the past year and not yet compensated by other assignments. For the first time this quarter, we report defense separately, an area that has shown good growth in the past year, good profitability, and it's a segment where we have a great focus. With that, I hand over to you again, Per. Next slide, please. Thank you, Marie. To summarize, we managed to deliver continued positive utilization trend in Solutions and Experience. Activity levels are high, and we have actually secured several new assignments this quarter. During the quarter, we completed two strategic acquisitions in areas central for our further growth. The Nordic market continued to show a mixed picture. Some regions remain cautious, but the Swedish market is improving. That's a little bit of new information, I think. This gives us reason for optimism, even though uncertainty in the broader environment still affects decision-making, as we talked about, for example, in Insight, with decisions postponed until after summer. It remains a challenge to align price development with rising salary costs. We continue to recruit in the selected growth areas where we see long-term potential. At the same time, we are positioning ourselves to accelerate growth and recruitment in areas when the market turns. We are, of course, not satisfied with the result in this quarter, but we remain confident that our strong position and long-term relevance are in place. With that, we are now open for questions. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press * and one on the telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from the line of Daniel Dwasik from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, operator, and Marie. Daniel Dwasik from Handelsbanken here. I have a question on starting off with Experience. Obviously, a number of days' workable hours are a drag. Do you have any non-recurring items for rightsizing or anything in Experience that I've missed? Given eight reports today or something? Yes, we do have some restructuring costs, but we don't disclose those anymore as they are lower than previous years. I would say mainly affecting Experience is the weak calendar in the quarter, and it's also challenges with prices that they've had during the quarter. Okay. If you look at the outlook for the second half, should we expect more of these smaller rightsizing events and that these prices will, I guess, continue into the second half as well? We should be cautious on margin recovery short term, except for the number of days, of course. Of course, we have our... Per, you can take it. I think that we have to say that the rightsizing work that we have done in Q2 is lower than last year in Q2, and it's also lower than Q1. As you can understand, we're not back to growth mode everywhere yet, but we are actually less and less rightsizing every quarter. Hopefully, it will turn here in a day. In Insight, may I ask you on the... It's your management consultancy business, and the margin fell back to 3.8%. Obviously, it's tough with pricing and days, etc. Your number of employees is down like nine year over year. Is this a deliberate decision, M&A, that I missed that boost or keep the... you know, at this level? Why do you choose not to adjust more? Sorry, I'm not following you completely, Daniel. Tell me if I'm answering the wrong question here. In Insight, we have a quite shattered picture with some areas with really good growth: the ERP business in Norway, the defense business, and our secure business. They are growing, we are recruiting, and we are more people in those areas. In the other areas of Insight, more traditional management consultancy, we are less people. That's the mix. In those areas where we are growing, we also perform really good margins in Insight. Daniel, it has been a deliberate decision to do it this way. It's also like we've rightsized for consultants being completely on the bench. Some of the challenges in Insight have been that there have been some delays in projects and so on, and then the consultants will eventually get an assignment. That is much more difficult to handle. Yes, it has been a deliberate decision. It's also, like Per says, we have some areas which are going great. We're recruiting in those areas: cybersecurity, for instance, and ERP implementations, and of course, defense. On those green-shopped areas, is it possible to at least keep the pricing level, or do you see a mass crowding of other competitors coming in there as well that makes it a drag on pricing, or is it stable? Still, we are able to keep our prices in those areas, for example, in the defense area, because the entry barriers are quite high there. We need to get people educated to go into that area. Of course, they need all their certificates, etc., etc. They are still keeping up the prices. The prices in areas with high competition are, of course, more tough to keep up. Perfect. Just a last question for me. Do you see any... We obviously have this generative AI, these pros and cons, and perhaps opportunities and risks as well. If you look at your different business segments, can you talk a little bit more on this topic, given that I guess some customers would like to have more for the same or for less, or some, etc.? Is it from a business segment perspective, how to think about it? I think there are quite a lot of possibilities for us. There are quite a lot of possibilities for our customers as well. For example, Experience is quite interesting because we have already seen that the UX part of the Experience area to create more low-end coding connected to graphics and user experience, it's almost all in AI now. It's almost shifted already. We are quite a lot less people there the last two years, so that shift has already begun. What we, as I talked about before, have seen in Experience is that the demand for data and analytic competence is rising. It's actually allowing us to take on more strategic roles and move up in the value chain. There is a shift where we get higher up in the value chain due to AI in quite a lot of the areas. That is something that I think will continue the next five, six, seven years, something like that. I think that's good for us, but it demands change, of course. Thank you, and good luck here in the second half, and have a great summer. Thank you. Thank you so much. You too. The next question comes from the line of Remi Kurja from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Thank you, operator. Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. Maybe just first off, perhaps a clarification on the topic of the normalization of utilization rates. Do you feel like it is a fair assumption that the organization will be rather sort of flattish moving forward, and a normalization of the utilization rates will be on the back of a market recovery? I think that we are quite far from a normal utilization right now. There is a lot of potential to be done. One part of that, of course, needs a little bit better market because what we are facing right now in this market is quite a lot of starts and stops and waiting between assignments. That's hard to address when you have a tougher market. I think that we have proven now, proven since almost a year in Solutions, that we take one step at a time in utilization rates, even if the market is still quite tough. We have been able to do that in Experience as well. I think that the utilization rates will continue up one step at a time, quite slow, if the market continues to be tough. If the market gets better, I think that we will have a little bit of a bigger step in utilization rates. Yes, just to add to that, we believe that it is our actions and having the right competencies now and all the work that we've done during the past two years that improved the utilization. There's a potential for several% units to improve it. Okay. That's very clear. I'm sensing that more and more players in your field are talking about price pressure, at the very least, sort of not being able to mitigate salary inflation through price hikes. When should we expect, and considering that you have a similar size wage increase next year in April, when should we expect yield levels to normalize, if ever? When do you think that price hikes will be able to mitigate the impact from said wage increases? Will you be able to do that already this year on the basis of this year's salary increase, or will we see 2026 compound on top of the increase there, and then you will need to catch up with price hikes for a longer period of time? Of course, we don't know. I think we have to bear in mind that we were able to increase the yield for quite a few years before 2024, 2025. In the beginning of 2024, we had a much better yield than we had in 2021, 2022, for example. That it goes down a little bit right now in the middle or even in the end of a recession is quite normal. I think maybe it will continue down a little bit and then flatten out and maybe go up a little bit when the market comes back. I don't think that that's the... It is still, we can't cope with higher... The The yield is getting worse, but we are still increasing prices 2024 to 2025. I think that the main problem for us right now still is the utilization rates. We have been quite, as we talked about in Solutions as well, we've been quite cautious in... It's a deliberate choice not to lower prices in order to drive volume in a tough market because that's going to be a problem in the end of a recession. We try to be quite cautious about that. I think it will continue down a little bit, end of 2025, maybe beginning of 2026. When the market starts to stabilize or even increase, I think that the yield will go back up a little bit again. That's very clear. If you compare current yield levels to the years you were referring to, 2020 and 2021, where are we in terms of yield levels now compared to those years? I'm sorry, we don't give details on the prices and the yield. Obviously, do you want to add? Let's talk about the market and not about Knowit then, because I think that the yield levels in the market, of course, it's a little bit lower than 2020, 2021, 2022, but not that much lower. Of course, it's lower than 2023, 2024 because it was an improvement during those years. Okay, that's very clear. Finally, on the topic of acquisitions, you announced two in two days, but prior to that, no acquisitions since 2022. At times, as an external observer of Knowit, it's almost, it's a bit stochastic in a sense because there have been quite long periods of time that you haven't done any acquisitions, and then you do several in a very short period of time. I'm just trying to understand the rationale behind doing acquisitions. I can see why you want to add defense exposure and whatnot, just trying to understand how you view the balance sheet capital allocation in this part of the cycle. I think we have a quite strong balance sheet. Maybe you can elaborate a little bit about that later, Marie. When we saw the downturn in mid 2023 in the market, as you know, we did need to work a lot with layoffs 2023, 2024, and still some now in the beginning of 2025. When you work quite a lot with that tool, it's not possible culturally to take on acquisitions. We see that that is flatting out, and we see that there are growth areas, for example, fintech and defense. In those areas, it is culturally possible for us to take on acquisitions right now. That's the cultural part of it. Of course, it's very important right now that these acquisitions, they are quite small, and they are in areas where we really see further growth, extremely important. About the balance sheets, Marie. As I mentioned earlier, we have a leverage of 1.3%, so it's low. We have the capacity to do acquisitions. As Per mentioned, they are quite small, so they will absolutely not burden our balance sheet. There were two good opportunities for us to find two companies that we really like. They fit right with our strategy. It was a good opportunity. Also, with it small, we can come back to looking at acquisition, which we have done during this period as well, but we haven't closed anyone. Okay. That's very clear. Thank you both. I hope you get some time to refuel the batteries. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You too. We now have a question from the line of Raymond Keefe from Nordea. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning, Per. A couple of questions from me. Starting with something you said earlier, Per, you talked about needing more efforts to improve efficiency in Denmark and Finland. If we can start with Denmark, do you refer mainly to restructuring, or are there other things about, say, how you work there that you see opportunities to improve upon? Okay. Starting with Denmark, there, of course, it's a quite small part of Knowit. We have to bear that in mind. We have two business areas in Denmark. It's Solutions and Experience. Starting with Solutions, as you know, we did an investment now in the quarter as well in Denmark, making it possible for us to work a little bit more with internal structuring of the Solutions area. We have been in part of the market with a little bit too low prices and the wrong customer mix. We had some problems with some Oracle projects, etc. We have already initiated a restructuring of Solutions in Denmark. That's what we are talking about. Of course, the market is quite tough in Denmark as well. It's very shattered with good demand in some areas and quite tough in some other areas. Now we're talking about our internal life. There is a restructuring going on in Solutions in Denmark. In Experience, as you know, we did focus quite a lot the last years on high-end competence in Experience in Denmark. In that area, we have actually faced a much tougher market. Now, I think we are on the bottom and we see some lights, but it's been a tough market. Also in Experience, we have restructured our own setting with fewer subsidiaries and a new manager for Experience in Denmark the last year. We have done quite a lot to create a structure in Denmark that we think will be suitable for the future. Going into Finland, I think that we have overperformed compared to the market because the market the last one and a half, two years has been quite tough. Now we face some challenges in some customers with a tough market. I think that we do handle that quite al right. Got it. That was really helpful for us to understand a bit what's going on there. A question on Incycle that you announced as an acquisition. They have some software sales. In general, that's not part of your core portfolio to do SaaS sales. Is this something that you see expanding? Is this something that you want to drive further ahead, more SaaS sales, recurring revenue? Software as a service is nothing that we would like to be very big at. What we try to find is platforms or products where we see a mixed demand for the code and consultancy around that code. We have that in quite a lot of areas, our defense area, data unit. We have that in quite a lot of, I think it's five or six subsidiaries within it already. That makes 50/50 software, 50 consultancy is the right mix for us. Incycle is more of a company with quite a lot of consultancy as well. We are good at scaling consultancy connected with software. We are not good at scaling software as a service. That's very clear. Maybe one final one. You're reducing the consultant headcount here Q1 to Q2, but with Q3 already started, you know, big recruitment quarter. Do you expect to net recruit here for this to change, maybe not throughout the whole or all segments, or maybe just some? Any flavor on that? I don't think that we are back in a growth mode yet. We have been in a mode where we are less people year over year for almost two years now. Now I think that we are starting to flatten out. There is a lot less layoffs this Q2 than it was Q2 2024. I predict that we will be more flattish for a while and not shrinking. That's the most focus for us for a while until the market gets back on track. No, I understand that. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you very much for answering my questions, Per and Marie. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Daniel Thorsén from ABG. Please go ahead. Yes, thank you very much. I missed parts of the Q&A here due to another call, so I apologize if the question was already taken. First one, seasonal here going into Q3, EBITDA is usually somewhat lower than Q2, given the use of July and August, obviously. Is that reasonable to expect also this year, or is there anything else we are missing which may change that picture this year as Q2 was already quite weak with negative calendar, for example? The seasonal effects in 2025 are the same as every year. Nothing else. Versus Q2, there shouldn't be any changes, or? No, but it is true that the second quarter has a weak calendar. When you look at Q3, it is more or less in line with last year, so you don't have that negative effect then. Yeah, no really bad development should be there. I see. A normal seasonality with Q3 EBITDA a bit lower than Q2 is reasonable to expect, I guess. Yes. Okay, that's clear. Secondly, on prices here, you're talking about positive price development year over year for the whole group, up in some areas, down in some. I'm not that worried about price increases today because some of them are results of previous contracts maybe signed a half a year ago or so. Given the large layoffs we are seeing in the whole sector and negative net recruitment at the moment with large guidance cuts from several peers as late as this week, and this morning we got more than 1,000 consultants less in assignment in Ework, for example, is it possible to avoid an acceleration in the price pressure ahead? I think that we are in the middle of a price pressure right now. Of course, if you look at the picture, the average 2024 and average 2025, I understand your point. What we are looking at, of course, is the prices that we are assigning right now in our contracts. We are able to hold up prices in some areas, for example, in Norway, the defense area, etc., as we've been talking about. We see some price pressure in some other areas. We are quite cautious in not going too far in that, moving to other areas. I think that we will see a price pressure in the market. I agree about that in the end of this year as well. We'll see what happens in 2026. You have to bear in mind that we've had increased prices for quite a few years before and increased yield as well. We have to work with it and we have to live with it. The most important for us is to increase utilization. N o, I totally agree. I guess my thesis is that we will see further price pressure during the fall rather than what we see today. Let's see. It depends on how Q3 develops here, obviously. Sure. A final question here on the two M&A deals that you did. I heard there were some questions about them and I heard the responses as well. Given the attractiveness of these two end markets, fintech and defense, why were they up for sale at all? Why did you win these two deals? I guess the appetite for these assets would be quite good in an all-else-equal very muted M&A market for consultancy firms. It's because the people in those companies really wanted to be part of the Knowit ecosystem, and they like to work with us. That's the easiest answer. It's always a match both ways, of course, when you do an acquisition. This was a good match. Okay. Should we expect more smaller acquisitions during the second half of the year? We don't predict that. We will see. There are possibilities, but we are quite slow in our M&A agenda still. It depends on possibilities, good price, the perfect match, the right area where we face organic growth ourselves, etc., etc. I think that if we, I understand that you think that we are going down a little bit more in prices, etc., in the second half. I think that we have a quite flattish feeling rather than going down right now. In the end of a recession, I think that there will be quite a lot of opportunities. We want to be part of that. I see. The final question on the full year margin here, adjusted EBITDA margin. You are down the first half of the year, obviously, versus last year. Do you think that you have possibilities enough to work internally so that you could close to match the full year margin of 2024, or will that be tough? I think it's hard for us to predict that. We can't really predict that, but we will obviously try. That's clear. Thank you very much. Have a nice summer. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question from the phone. I would now like to turn the conference back over to the webcast for written questions. Yes, thank you. We have a few questions from the webcast in written form as well. The first one is coming from Kasper Wagner Christensen at IT Watch. Perhaps we already touched upon this, but he'd like to know what specific challenges we're facing in Denmark. Yeah, I think that we did talk about that. There are a little bit different challenges in Solutions, as we mentioned, where we have made a divestment and are now able to form a structure where we think that we are suited for the market, and a little bit differently in Experience with a really tough end market. Thank you. We have a few questions from Thomas Kiesel. The first question is, do you see organic net recruitment going forward in Sweden and in Finland? Thank you. Also, if we're able to give you utilization rates like B3 Consulting. Would you like to take that, Marie? Yes, I can take that. On a total level, I would say that we will recruit this fall, but we expect the net recruitment in the third quarter to be more or less plus minus zero from where we are now. Maybe we will have a slightly positive net recruitment later on this year in the fourth quarter. On the different countries, I would say that the market in Finland has been challenging. Knowit in Finland has really performed strong compared to the market. Unfortunately, now these quarters, we've seen a little turn down in the trend. I think that we will be cautious in Finland. In Sweden, probably we will have a little positive net recruitment during the fall. The question about the utilization rate, yes, we are discussing that internally. It's nothing that we probably will disclose in the third quarter, but we will for sure consider it. We know that there are open questions about our utilization. Great. We have some more questions from Thomas, the next one being if we can comment on the market outlook in public sector versus private sector. I think that what we all have seen right now is that the private sector, especially the industry, did have a good demand quite long. Now, 2025, we are seeing that that is going down. That's quite a small part of Knowit, as you all know. Already in the beginning of 2023, mid 2023, we saw that the public sector did decrease quite a lot, and we've seen that for almost two years. We now see some early signs of at least not continued decrease, maybe some increase, especially in Norway. I think that right now we see a shift, and that's very important for us because we have, as you see, 36% public sector and much less industry sector. Good. One last question, is the business of tailored solutions behind us? The business of tailored solutions behind us, it is with the entrance of cloud for quite a few years ago, it was much easier to make tailor-made solutions because you could put them somewhere. Now, when lower and lower costs for coding, I think that we will see more and more tailor-made solutions in the future. The mix of platforms or standard solutions and tailor-made, I think that's just because it's lower priced than before, it's easier to do. There are a lot of things in public sector, in private sector that are not digitalized in the way that it should be. Almost all of the digitalization in both private and public sector are very standardized. It's not personalized at all. The future is rather connected to personalization, as I see it. You need to create much more complex structures of platforms. Great. That was the last question from the webcast. Thank you so much. Thank you very much for listening in. I hope for some really sunny summer. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.