Reach Subsea ASA (REACH) Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, and welcome to this presentation of the fourth quarter and full year 2022 results for Reach Subsea ASA. The reported numbers were released earlier this morning, so some of you may already have seen that the last year was very good, both in terms of revenue growth and results. And we will share more details with you in this presentation, and hopefully, also manage to give you a good picture on how we plan to build our company and grow our business further. I am Jostein Alendal, the CEO of the company; and with me is CFO, Birgitte Wendelbo Johansen, and she will go through the good numbers soon. I will first do my best to give you a brief overlook of our company. And just a practical info, if you have any questions, please submit them in writing through the webcast player during and after the presentation. And we will, as usual, answer as best as we can in the end. In 2022, we reached our earlier goal of NOK 1 billion of revenue. That is worth a short celebration. But let me, no doubt, this is just a milestone on our journey. We continue to reach even higher. There is a saying that the first billion is the hardest; well, time will tell. But it is no secret that the market for our services is definitely there for the coming years. So this is looking good. I will come back to the future later, but first, let's have a look at the highlights for the fourth quarter of last year. So let's move to Slide #3. Fourth quarter was very strong and the year as a whole with record high activity in revenue, which grew 84%, and operating profit increased by 170% compared year-by-year. The measures we have taken in the last couple of years, together with our good market, means that we are now established at a completely new level in terms of both income and profitability. Order backlog is increasing. Well, NOK 740 million in backlog is close to 7x higher than the same quarter last year, which is a clear -- clearly shows that the market outlook is very strong and improving, both in short and long term and the visibility, of course, improving accordingly. These numbers are a confirmation that we are delivering on our strategy. The decision to build up vessel capacity for 2022 was highly successful. And we had, during the winter, also expanded and prepared our core fleet for the years to come. I will come back to our fleet for this year and forward in a bit. We have continued our excellent operational performance and project execution also in the fourth quarter. And as always, safety at sea is extremely important for us. And again, I'm happy to report 0 incidents during also this hectic quarter, all read again to all our people offshore and onshore. Also, our newly acquired companies, Octio and iSurvey, are performing great and working really well with the rest of the Reach family. They are now a fully integrated part of Reach Subsea. Increased integrated projects during the year and especially in a hectic fourth quarter gives me comfort that we will maintain our high level of quality in our services and also operations into the future. Not least, profitable growth and financial discipline is our mantra, including returning a portion of earnings to our shareholders as dividends. We deliver on integration of the new companies, and we now have a complete offering, which leads me to Slide #4 for a few words about our company and what we do. We are now a well-established medium-sized company in the offshore industry, and we offer a wide spectrum of subsea services, which is a winning formula when it comes to utilization and profit. I won't go into much details about our services, but we do say that any and all offshore and subsea asset owners are our clients. And we have a strong foothold in the oil and gas sector, which is now on a tremendous rise in the activity worldwide. And in addition, offshore wind, offshore cables and other emerging sectors are on the rise at the same time. We are working for most of the international energy companies around the world. And we provide services through the whole life cycle of any of the offshore or subsea assets, meaning from mapping and documentation before installation through the long period of inspection, maintenance and repair to the end with decommissioning and removal. Data-related products is rapidly becoming a larger part of our revenue base, including surveying and inspection technology, data management and data analytics and final reporting. So regardless of type of offshore assets and oil platform offshore wind farm, subsea template or pipeline or power cable, they will all require the same service services in various forms. And not at least, our expertise also lays in the planning of complete and complex offshore operations. So pretty simply, we cover a whole subsea value chain. We have a good balance between equipment, people, vessels and new technology, which gives a solid foundation for further expansion of our client base. Offshore operations are dependent on vessels, manned and unmanned, and are naturally an important part of our services and also the most costly asset in our toolbox, which leads me to Slide #5 for an oversight of our capacities on the vessel side the coming years. This slide is maybe the most interesting these days. It shows our vessel strategy and capacities going forward. As you can see on the right-hand side of this slide, we have built historically strong order book, almost 7x larger than just 1 year ago. And in parallel, where we have built order book, we have also succeeded in putting in place a strong core fleet with a very attractive cost picture. The market financial vessels has changed. The coin is -- has flipped, so to speak from previous years with oversupply and low rates to a really tightening market. And times are back with higher pricing going forward. Control of our cost is, of course, important, but also availability in fact -- is, in fact, crucial in such times. You can see on the top left which vessels we operated from in 2022 and in turn gave us to record high revenues. And at the lower end is the fleet going forward illustrated. We also add in project-based vessels on shorter jobs on time to time, but only Olympic sales is shown here. That said, it is important for us to balance our core vessel fleet for the coming years, not only adjusted to the market, but also to our growth ambitions. So in a combination with our upcoming unmanned concept, Reach Remote, which is shown here with the first 2 units, and further options for the future series of units. Optimal balance between cost, strategic flexibility and risk is the key, and the purchase of Edda Sun shows another strategic shift we have made. Direct ownership of our vessel is new for us, but this was the right vessel at the right time at the right price, which leads me to Slide #6. I won't go into details here, especially not technical, that could take the whole presentation. Just say that these 3 recent vessel announcements are evidence that we are executing on our new fleet strategy: firstly, our core fleet with long-term access to key assets; and secondly, cost-efficient arrangements. Implied rates for all these 3 vessels are highly competitive versus offer market rates for similar vessels. Edda Sun is especially built for our type of operations and it's a perfect fit into our company. And she will be mobilized with one of our high-speed survey ROVs. Same goes for Go Electra and Olympic Triton, a really good match for our type of operations. But let's move over to geography on Slide 7. I said that it is good for business to have a wide spectrum of services and a wide client base, same goes for presence in many geographical markets. We have already years been operating in many regions, and our tender activity is global and extremely high at the moment, stretching from Australia to Brazil, but also we have big opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico and also in the Mediterranean. Australia became, in fact, a new market for us during the summer of 2022 when we signed a contract for a long job for Octio on the West Coast there. We also now on the way to Brazil with Havila Subsea on the large contract we announced last year. This is in cooperation with our strategic partner and established player there. So these are examples on how we will work going forward, leverage on our technology, experience, partners and our customer network. Then there are 2 views on why we want to expand. One is the high demand for our traditional services that we currently experience, but also Reach Remote will be a key for continued international expansion for Reach in the future. The robotic maritime industry in the future will be global and so shall we. Reach Remote will be an extremely attractive platform on the global scene. And we expect to be among the top leaders in maritime robotics together with our partners, Kongsberg and Massterly, which leads me to Slide #8. For any new viewers, here is the favorite topic, the marine robotics. This will be a game changer, not only for the subsea industry, but also for ocean surveillance. There is no doubt the future is unmanned also at sea. To put it simply, the unmanned vessels transport the subsea equipment out on site and act as a power bank, data center and the communication module; same as the manned vessels, in fact, due today. The market for combined marine and subsea robotics will be endless as collection of data and information will be more affordable for a wider range of clients. Reach Remote is also a great fit with our expanded service offering. The platform will be very well suited to enable seabed surveys and mapping as well as geophysical monitoring with ocean floor notes. Time to market is very short. If the Reach Remote USVs had been available today, around half of our work could have been done with these unmanned USVs. So we expect an accelerating excitement around the world as we offer this to our clients. And again, benefits are obvious, the OpEx and CapEx goes down. The emission footprint is dramatically lower and personnel safety, of course, risk eliminated with no personnel on board. The steel homes are now under construction, and we look forward to commence the assembly phase with all the Kongsberg technology. And our -- such equipment and systems to be installed. So exciting times ahead for us technology people. What are aspects of the project such as work towards clients and regulators continues with full force and progressing well. But money matters and best part is in this market environment with higher and higher cost of manned vessels, Reach Remote business case with these savings is looking better and better. So with this optimistic note, let's move over to financial discipline. So please let me hand over the word to Birgitte, who will give you all the details about our solid numbers.

Thanks, Jostein, and good morning, everyone. Just a reminder before we start, should you have any questions to our presentation, you can submit them on the webcast while we speak. On the first financial slide, we're trying to present another strong quarterly result for the fourth quarter of 2022 as well as for the full year. EBIT was NOK 35 million compared to NOK 26 million last year, on a turnover of NOK 327 million. And the main drivers for the increased turnover are high utilization, improved pricing environment and addition of the new businesses, iSurvey and Octio. Pretax profit ended at NOK 19 million for the fourth quarter compared to NOK 10 million underlying for the fourth quarter of 2021. Please note that the Octio Group figures are fully consolidated into our accounts since the start of this year, while the iSurvey transaction was closed towards the end of the first quarter, meaning that our P&L includes both acquisitions as from the second quarter of 2022. And for the same period last year, iSurvey and Octio are not part of our figures. The balance sheet, as per quarter end is fully consolidated, showing Reach, Octio and iSurvey altogether. Our peak season was characterized by high activity and high demand for all of our services with a strong utilization of all our assets, both ROVs and vessels, as well as fully utilization of our personnel. So let's look into the details and what lies behind the figures on the next slide. Reach aims to have a very investor-friendly and capital-efficient operating model, and our key figures for 2022 is a proof point of that. With a 31% return on capital employed, we generate very strong returns. And our balance sheet is solid with 61% equity ratio, providing a strong basis for growth. And we finally were announcing today a dividend of NOK 0.18 per share, which is in line with our policy and the dividend last year. So this represents a dividend yield close to 4%. So let's dig into some of the details and what lies behind these figures on my next slide. As mentioned, Reach had a positive development in utilization and profit margins the last couple of years, which is illustrated in these graphs. There is a typical dip in Q1, which can be seen clearly on the graph to the right, with an improvement in Q2 and Q3. And this year, fourth quarter was also quite good. We do not adjust or accrue our vessel cost according to activity as we, according to IFRS 16, use linear depreciation on our vessel commitment. And this has a reinforced effect in the quarters with lower activity as our budgets have utilization adjusted rates based on the expected seasonal activity. For the full year of 2022, revenue was all-time high for Reach, almost NOK 1.2 billion compared to almost NOK 700 million last year. EBIT ended at NOK 105 million, well above last year's NOK 80 million. Pretax profit is somewhat influenced by increased interest expense compared to last year and ended at NOK 98 million and NOK 73 million last year. Please bear in mind that the 2021 EBIT and pretax profit included a NOK 13 million gain from recognition of badwill. So let's move over to the next slide. Looking at the year-on-year development from the fourth quarter last year compared to the same period this year, revenue grew by 84%, and the main drivers are a high number of project days sold, pricing and the addition of iSurvey and Octio. So underlying EBIT grew even more at 170% with the key drivers being project margins and utilization. And this also illustrates the improved market conditions and the increased demand from our clients. The next slide, please. Looking at the year-on-year numbers for the full year of 2021 compared to 2022, revenue grew by 73% to almost NOK 1 billion, as mentioned. And the main drivers are the organic growth of 37% we had the last year, a higher number of projects days sold and higher pricing. So the positive contribution from our newly acquired entities, iSurvey and Octio, is also a result of strong performance and also the start of the forming integrated projects within the Reach Subsea Group. We reached a new milestone in 2022 when our EBIT exceeded NOK 100 million despite a substandard first quarter. And the growth in adjusted EBIT was 60% and then pretax profit was 64%. And not also here that the growth rates indicated are on a like-for-like basis, so not taking into the consideration the badwill gain of NOK 13 million. On our next slide, you can see that Reach has had a sustainable growth, balancing cash and working capital and debt with a robust equity level. And at the same time, we have delivered to our shareholders by paying a dividend according to our policy. And as many of you know from previous presentations, our growth plans are still quite substantial, especially with the USV project, the Reach Remote. We have a cash and working capital position of about NOK 262 million and limited existing financial debt remaining investment for the Reach Remote is about NOK 280 million with the debt financing covering NOK 200 million, meaning we are well positioned for our coming investments in the next year. So we will take into -- we'll take delivery of the vessel Edda Sun in March this year, and we have received a term sheet from SR Bank for the financing. And in addition to that, we're negotiating an agreement with a strategic vessel co-owner. Next slide, please. This slide illustrates how our activity has grown based on ROV and vessel days, which are the 2 elements contributing the most to our turnover. I remember that the vessel commitment is the most expensive tool in our toolbox and, hence, our utmost priority when it comes to utilization. In addition to sole ROV and vessel days as well as the utilization, the revenue and profits strongly depends on the complexity of the projects and also the seasonality. In addition, we now have the contributions from iSurvey and Octio, which are not reflected in these figures. So our peak season, having our main market of operations in Europe and the North Sea, is typically the second and third quarter, followed by a fourth quarter that might somewhat be a joker depending on the weather and the demand level from our clients. The first number is known to be harsh, which is why we always try to seek other markets such as the Mediterranean, Trinidad, Brazil, et cetera. And as you can see above, our vessel and ROV utilization has been really strong in the peak season this year, which continued also into the fourth quarter. And in 2022, we saw the double number of man hours compared to the year before. Looking at the next slide on ESG reporting, sustainability reporting. Reach has reported on sustainability goals since 2019, and you can find all the reports on our page. Our ESG reporting is a combination of focus on environment, being a responsible employer and doing business in a responsible way all over the world. And then the full report on our pages, you can read more about how our report complies with the United Nations Sustainability Goals and also the GRI standard. We have kept most of the KPIs relatively unchanged, some adoptions to our business and various expectations. But our KPIs should be quite easy to follow and measure, and we're prepared for taxation and audit. So it's great to see that most of our sustainability KPIs have been achieved for 2022. Unfortunately, we had 1 work-related injury in the second quarter, an infection resulting in absence. So it is, however, good to see that our colleague is now healthy, back at work and that our operation and HR team has received a positive feedback on how this incident was handled, together with the [indiscernible] Church in Rio de Janeiro. And during 2022, the oil and gas market improved strongly, which contributed to not achieving the KPI on 50% renewable share in our project days. Safety is always our utmost priority, and we're proud to have very strong positive [ ADCQ ] statistics. And then I hand the word back to you, Jostein, for a summary.

Thank you, Birgitte. Let me wrap up with the last Slide #19. As a backdrop, Reach Subsea has, over the last years, built a strong reputation and solid operational track record as a preferred supplier of subsea services. And in 2021 and 2022, we took additional steps in expanding both our product range and reinforcing our long-term vessel capacity. Combined with great execution from our team in a strong market, this led to our record-breaking 2022. Now we are set to continue the strong development. Our order backlog is record high at NOK 740 million, which is more than 60% of our revenue back in 2022 as a whole. The market is very strong, both in oil and gas and renewables, and we expect this to continue for years. We seek to be in the forefront when it comes to technology and Reach Remote will be another growth driver for us, leading the way into more efficient and climate-friendly future. And even though we have delivered on our M&A ambitions for the last 12 months, we continue to look at acquisitions and opportunities and also cooperation partners in other geographical areas. That will add value to our business. Well, adding not only expertise for our current operations, but for sure, for our robotic future. And finally, let me stress our financial strength with low debt and strong cash flow, at the same time, all our growth plans will be disciplined and shareholder-friendly with profitable growth as our mantra. I'm looking very much forward to the coming quarters and years. And 2022 was great, but we will continue to grow and develop the company also in the years to come, but now in a rising market and that will be exciting. Birgitte, let's wrap up the presentation and hope -- and I hope we gave you a good picture of our business and plans. So let's move over to answering your questions. Please continue to submit questions in the webcast player, if you have one. We will be back to answer in a few seconds.

Okay. Over to the questions. We have received a few questions. The first one is a question, "How is the integration of iSurvey on to Reach spreads gone so far? And what is the effect on EBIT from iSurvey? Jostein, maybe you want to say something about the integration?"