Q3 & 2023 report

In the past few months, several geopolitical and economic incidents have led to increased instability in the world economy. The higher interest rates are making their mark on inflation, which has declined again in most of the countries where Trifork is present. In Q3, we continued investing more in business and market development, as flagged in previous quarters. I am happy to see that these investments are starting to bear fruit as we have maintained sales momentum despite the slower market situation in the private sector. It has become more difficult to get new engagements signed with our existing customers, so we have directed more sales efforts towards new customers. We have never had more business proposals outstanding than we do currently. The result is that the ratio of new customer engagements has increased more than the sales to existing customers. That said, we continue to stay close to our existing customers through ongoing dialogues about new innovative solutions that could bring them additional business value in the future.

Organic growth was 11.9% in our core Danish market, and once again, the highest growth came from the private sector By continuing gaining new customers, we can create a foundation for strong organic growth when the business environment improves again. In Q3, revenue was EURm 48.0 corresponding to 10.6% growth. Organic growth was 7.7% and if we adjust for non-core sales of hardware and third-party licenses, organic growth was 8.2%. This was at the lower end of our expectations. When we look at the first nine months of 2023, growth was 13.2% compared to the same period in 2022. The organic growth in Q3 was primarily driven by our Cloud Operations and Smart Enterprise business areas. We once again saw the highest growth rates in Switzerland and in the US. Especially in the US, we have worked on branding Trifork through conferences and by having more people on the ground visiting potential customers to analyze, prepare, and present new proposals based on a ride-along approach where Trifork engages in the customers internal end-to-end processes. The US market represents a big growth opportunity for us, and we are considering even more investments in market development in Q4. In our public business, we announced a new engagement with NordFoU (a joint project between the Nordic Road Directorates), where we are developing an AI-driven solution which protects biodiversity by detecting invasive plant species in the roadsides in Denmark, Sweden and Iceland. In general, the number of relevant tenders from the Danish public sector has been on the low side so far in 2023, so we have been focusing more energy on approaching private customers.

The success in winning new customer engagements in Q3 did cost more than in the past. At the same time, the vast majority of the new business development investments have not yet turned into meaningful revenue. For these reasons, as expected and flagged in previous quarters, our profit margins declined in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA in the Trifork segment was EURm 7.0 in Q3. Overall, the results correspond to a margin of 14.5% compared to 17.9% in Q3 2022. Adjusted EBITDA in the Build sub-segment was EURm 6.6 (18.5%) and in the Run sub-segment EURm 2.6 (23.2%). These margins were satisfactory and as expected when taking into account the aforementioned increased sales efforts, which reduce our utilization rates. In the beginning of the year, we expected growth in the Inspire segment and set up our organization to accommodate that. As we also communicated in Q2, the effects from changes in the economic environment means that companies are cutting costs in relation to training and marketing, and therefore we will also change our strategy in respect to planning, building and executing future conferences. However, this cannot be done within one quarter. Q3 is traditionally a low activity quarter for conferences, and hence, we incurred an EBITDA loss of EURm -0.8 in Inspire. That said, this included the cost of US branding activities. One part of our M&A agenda is buying non-controlling interests in our existing subsidiaries.

These acquisitions add value to our shareholders immediately through increasing the attributable net income. They are also low-risk investments since we know these companies very well from the inside as existing majority owners. In Q3, we managed to complete our announced 01 Interim Report Q3 & 9M/2023 4 Letter of the CEO acquisition of an additional 20.0% ownership of Nine A/S in Denmark, which has taken the Trifork ownership to 90.0%. Key employees still own the remaining 10.0%. Everyone is very motivated to continue the positive development of Nine A/S as an integrated part of the Trifork Group. We continue to stand financially strong in our pursuit of both organic and inorganic growth opportunities After the quarter closed, we were able to announce the acquisition of the Danish company Chapter 5, which will extend our deliveries within the Fintech business area. This acquisition will not affect the Q3 financial results as it is consolidated from October 2023. We are very excited to welcome the great team from Chapter 5 to the Trifork Group. We have a great match both culturally and in terms of technical capabilities and share the same DNA in the way we approach and interact with customers. Further, we are still negotiating the final transaction structure for the buy-out of the remaining NCIs in Erlang Solutions Ltd, where we currently own 87%. At the end of September 2023, our net interest-bearing debt was EURm 15.9, equal to an adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio of 0.5x. In addition, we held 232,497 treasury shares with a market value of EURm 3.7 (not included in the calculation of net interest-bearing debt). In Trifork Labs, we did one follow-up investment in Arkyn Studios, an existing Labs company which we co-founded. We did not make any fair value adjustments based on new investment rounds. We recorded a positive adjustment of EURm 0.3 as unrealized gains due to exchange rate changes in our investment currencies.

We also received EURm 0.2 in dividends. After the quarter closed, we announced an investment in Bluespace Ventures AG with 14% ownership. We consider this a strategic investment into the Swiss market and are looking forward to continuing our work with some of the largest insurance companies and healthcare providers in Switzerland through the Compassana platform, which is open to all players in the Swiss healthcare market. For some time, we have worked on finding the right new location to support our growth in Copenhagen, Denmark. In August, we finally moved into our new headquarter “Porten” in Nordhavn. The building will house more than 20 different business units and a couple of our startup companies that in this way can get even closer to Trifork. We are also fitting the building with our Smart Building technologies. The building can accommodate at least 50% growth in the number of our employees based around Copenhagen. To sum up the third quarter and first nine months of 2023, I am satisfied to see that growth is in alignment with our guidance. We are doing the best we can to navigate a difficult geopolitical and economic environment. However, based on our current visibility, we maintain the current revenue guidance for 2023 of EURm 207-212. We also maintain the adjusted EBITDA guidance of EURm 34.5-36.5 in the Trifork segment and Trifork Group EBIT of EURm 20.5-22.5. Our mid-term ambitions remain unchanged: Annual average revenue growth of 15-25% over a three-year period, with organic revenue growth of 10-15% on average per year and with the ambition of slightly increasing margins.

Read the full annual report here