Recording of webcast presenting the Q1 2022 results

Watch webcast here! 

A live Q and A was also held during the webcast, and here is the summary of the questions asked and the answers given.

How does the M&A activity of ECIT look going forward? 

Peter Lauring: We are working with more companies in the acquisition activity area than ever before. One thing in it is that I am talking to a number of companies, and there is also activity going on in quite many areas of ECIT, so I must say that we expect the M&A activities to be in line with our expectations going forward, and we are not short of interesting acquisition targets.

Has the Ukraine/Russia conflict affected the business in any way? 

Mads Skovgaard: Financially our Q1 numbers were not affected by this tragic war in Ukraine. However since we have offices and employees close to the conflict, we are monitoring this very closely, in terms of if things are being escalated or if things are getting worse. So we are keeping an eye on this.

Peter Lauring: As well I can comment that we have just contributed to support Ukrainian refugees, two organizations, with a not insignificant, or reasonable amount. So we actually think it’s also a little bit, we have to do a little bit, where we can do things.

Considering the growth rate in Q1 vs last year, do you have any status on the global supply chain challenges and how it is expected to impact the rest of 2022? 

Peter Lauring: I actually think that the delay we are seeing in these deliveries where we can’t get the items that are parts of projects, that the delay three -six months and however long it is, will probably continue out 2022, if you can predict anything around this. It will probably take a while, but that affects us and it affects all other companies operating in the same areas as us, so I think at some point the delay will be normal and we will be able to deliver again. I don’t really think it will affect us seriously, as it is in an area where we are expecting a high demand for our services, and most of it we are actually solutions and services, and we are able to deliver most of it.

The two recent acquisitions, XACCT and Catacloud. How will they strengthen ECITs position going forward?

Peter Lauring: We think that regarding XACCT that will actually strengthen our F&A capacity towards medium to semi-large customers, as well as it will strengthen our X-ledger and Microsoft capacity. Super interesting and actually growth areas going forward. On the Catacloud side, it’s actually strengthening our product suite- our offerings- towards SME customers, and it’s a piece of software solution we have been looking for for quite some years. We are very happy that we were able to acquire something that fits right in to what the needs are with our customers.

Given the challenges you mentioned with sick-leave and postponed IT-deliveries, the organic growth was quite good and significantly better than Q4 last year. Can you give a comment on the shift from Q4, and what should we expect in organic growth over the coming quarters.

Peter Lauring: I think we can meet our targets for the coming quarters on an overall basis, and we have actually experienced quite a strong demand especially on our tech solutions, the software we are delivering, and the IT services and support area, so I expect and hope that we are able to deliver a reasonable growth in these areas going forward. And gradually the F&A demand will pick up as well. But there we are more affected by the internal consolidation measures we are doing.

What ARR level within your tech division would result in a positive EBITDA-margin

Peter Lauring: That was a good question. I think it’s not an answer you just can give, because we are constantly are investing in our different business areas, compared to what we think is the need. However, I will say in three or four of the products we are starting to see a positive EBITDA-development. Give us a year, one and a half year ahead, I think EBITDA will materialize.