Presentation: First Half Year 2021 Results

Watch the live presentation and read the following Q&A with CEO, Peter Lauring, in this blog.

Q&A from the presentation

Since the listing process has demanded thorough management attention in H1'21 does this imply that you have not run at full speed in H1'21 vs. what you could have? I guess that this has mostly impacted M&A efforts.

Yes it has affected the M&A processes. However, we came out fairly, we think.

The organic growth momentum in IT was strong year over year, can we expect more of the same in H2'21?

From what we can see – it is all a COVID-19 related thing. If restrictions gradually ease as we expect activity will go up in society which will affect our organic growth positively. Especially in the F&A division we expect the organic growth to pick up. We are already seeing signs of it, but we would like to elaborate on this in three months - I am positive.

Do you expect the organic growth in F&A to pick up vs. the level seen in H1'21? Naturally this was affected by Covid.

Yes.

The tax rate of 23% in H1 2021 – is that the normal level to expect going forward?

If you look at it long term, we will be around 22%, 23% or 24%, but this is simply a technical matter. We are able to handle it in a way, so we will be fairly tax efficient in the group as a total. Especially as we get more and more consolidated within the group.

Is there any guidance on dividend policy?

We have had discussions on the topic. We are a growth company which means that I would personally rather invest in a company compared to invest in dividend, but we expect to keep up the level of ordinary dividend we had last year. Maybe with a little increase just to follow the development we have had in the rest of ECIT.

Could you remind us how ECIT's results are impacted by seasonality?

It is a bit of a mixed picture across the group because we have companies with high activity in the early spring and up until summer and other companies where activity picks up during the autumn. This makes it a bit difficult to give a straight answer of seasonality when we are as mixed a group as we are. We normally expect a reasonable Q4 – time will tell.

The minority part of the nok17m net profits look big for Q2 isolated. Can you specify majority and minority in the quarter isolated?

Our financial income is not divided by minority shareholders. Financial income is also the currency affected change in our value positions. Therefore, if you compare with the same period last year – H1 2020 – you will see how the currency effects go the other way around. We have measures which will make sure that from 2022 the EBITDA level that affects the holding company will improve quite significantly as we are changing the internal structure of our management fee with effect from January 2022.

Has the acquisition of minority shares in subsidiaries been delayed vs the Q3 period indicated before?

The figures we have shown are agreements made prior to the summer holidays but effectuated in July mainly and we will go through the rest come autumn and a few in the spring of 2022. Therefore, we are satisfied and on track within this area.

How does the M&A pipeline look for H2 2021?

The figures I get from our M&A department are ever increasing. As ECIT has more and more known the M&A targets - and thereby pipeline – are increasing. So, the answer here would be increasing activity.

If your questions was not answered

Any questions not answered in the above may be addressed to Chief Operating Officer Christine Lundberg Larsen, christine.larsen@ecit.com, +47 452 11 552