Tecnotree (Helsinki:TEM1V) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 You, Thomas. Good morning, Let's straight away jump into the performance in the h one of the current year. Here we go. Let's start with some of the nonfinancial items, the key deals, what we did in the first half of the year. I'm happy to present that on the key deals. We did two BSS deals in LatAm, two MVNX deals in Africa, three

0:30 DevOps across MTN, and DevOps with a tier one customer in Middle East. And also on the go lives, Eight go lives we did in this half year across North America, Africa, and Middle East. They're basically the key value add modules and upgrades. And also the industry recognition from the Gartner. We We had had done recognition in four hype cycles, autonomous operations in the communications industry, emerging technologies in the communication industry, telco cloud services, and enterprise communication services. And what are the achievements we did in the first half of the year? We delivered 452 features in this half year.

1:18 We also had the BSS tag growth in LatAm. NVNX tag and cloud BSS, we had a consistent growth. AI operational efficiencies in effect across the different business units. AI embedded features in all the products with strong market driven road map. Also won the Asian Telecom Awards 2026 for the AI initiative of the year, digital initiative of the year. And also the fast 100, we got the CX Catalyst, the FastMode award in this half of year.

1:56 Now let's get into the top level financials for this half year. The key metrics are the free cash flow. We achieved almost similar number as of last year, two point point one million in the first six months of each year. Even though the numbers look almost similar, I want to draw the attention to the first quarter of this current year where we could achieve only €200,000 as a a positive free cash flow. The war had just then begun, and we had lot of difficulties in the q one, which is continuing still on the cash collection front mainly due to the situation geopolitical situation in The Middle East.

2:42 On the revenue, we did a seven and a half percent increase over the last year in real currency at 36.8 compared to 34.2 in the last year. Again, in a constant currency, if the currencies had not changed compared to the last year in values, we would have still done a better at 10% at 37,600,000 compared to 34.2 in 2025. The EBIT, we had a fantastic growth at 38.1% to 13,200,000 against 9.6 in the last year. Net Net income, which is after directing all our expenses, we did pretty well at 73.5% growth at 4.5 compared to 2.6 in the previous year.

3:37 Further key metrics, the CapEx to sales. CapEx is basically the development investment what we do on our stack current year for first half of the year, the percentage of that to our revenue stood at 12.8%, down from 13.9 in the last year. The ARR, the recurring revenue, in the first half of the year, we clocked 15,400,000 against 14,200,000 in the last year, about 8.4% growth in the ARR. The DSO days still at a high at one forty three, better than last year at one seventy five. The order backlog, which is a combination of the new orders and the revenues, what we generate in a particular period, At the end of the current half year, it stood at 106,300,000, which is higher than the last year at 105,700,000.

4:38 This demonstrates that while we got some of the larger deals last year, we are able to get the new orders as well to commensurate with our revenues at each point of time. Now also want to draw the attention on the performance at each half of the year in the last four years. The revenues, as we can see, has been the highest in the first half of the year over the last four years. EBIT has also been pretty high at 13.2 compared to any of the previous four half years. The financial expenses, which we'll discuss a little bit later as well, was high at 7.6. And taxes, we had to accrue for about 1,200,000.

5:27 This gave me a net income of 4.5 compared to 2.6 in the last and 3.7 in '24, but slightly lower than what we achieved in h one of twenty three. The cash collection continues to be a little bit worrying for us. We still collected 27,000,000 in the first half of the year, lower than last year's 30.8. The war situation, which began in February of this year, continues to still be an ongoing event. We do have substantial business interest in the war zone, the Middle East countries. We are still facing difficulties in collection from those countries.

6:14 The order received has been 36.1, which is reasonably a high number compared to '24 25 '24 23. And the '25 was an exceptional year at 74,000,000. We got three to four large orders in the first half of last year. The order backlog, as we discussed earlier, continues to be at a very high number at four 106.3 in consistent with the last year's as well. The earning per share is at point two one compared to point one five in the last year and point two two and point zero two in 2023. And in 2023, the numbers had to be recalibrated because of the reverse split of the shares.

7:01 The highlights are the EBIT margin at 36%, which is compared to the 28% what we achieved last year. The revenue increased 7.5%. In constant currency, the revenue grew at 10%. The free cash flow continues to be at 2.1 similar to what we did last year. Now let's only concentrate on the particular quarter, the last quarter of this year, the q two. Their revenues, again, has been the highest in the last four years at 19,900,000, and EBIT is also very high compared to earlier years same similar quarter at 8,600,000.

7:47 The financial items took a hit in the current year at current quarter at 5.7. The taxes at €600,000. The net income is at 2.4 compared to one in the last year. Cash collection, as we mentioned earlier, continues to be stable, but not compared to the last couple of years, again, given the situation in where we have the businesses. The order received is at 20.6. Again, substantially higher than what we did in '24 and similar to what we did in '23, but, again, '25 had been an exceptional year. Order backlog, already discussed, and the EPS is also a derived number.

8:34 The highlights of this particular quarter was our EBIT margins. EBIT margin has been pretty high at 43.2 compared to 29.2 in the previous year. The revenues increased by fourteen point nine percent nineteen point nine, and the free cash flow, which I spoke earlier, was at 1,900,000 compared to 1.1 in the same quarter last year. Now as we saw, one of the major contribution for our increase in cost is an impairment loss of 5,200,000. I want to draw a little bit more attention to this particular impairment. We recognized an impairment loss of 5,200,000 in the q two of current year on two specific trade receivables.

9:27 The majority of this amount relates to a customer in Australasia, and the other one is a customer in Middle East. On the Australasian receivable, I want to call out that we had signed a contract with a customer couple of of years back and had completed the delivery and had the receivables too. However, due to the forex crisis in that particular country, it has been outstanding for a very long time. The old contract is now being restructured into a new contract, and this new contract is backed by the Australian sovereign government. In order to allow for the same, the condition was we had to write off the old receivables, and that is how we had to write take a complete impairment of the receivable from that particular country.

10:18 The second one was in The Middle East due to the global slowdown in Middle East due to the current geopolitical situation. We had delivered a product to a particular customer in that region. And due to this situation, we are not able to collect from them, and we assessed that we may not be able to collect that, and we need to take an impairment loss on that. The impairments rarely reflects the prudent and the conservative accounting practices which we follow. However, I want to call out that this does not reflect or affect the company's other customer relationships or any other ongoing programs. Again, I'll take a little bit deeper into these numbers.

11:09 Now let's look in h one on the revenue highlights. The h one revenue highlights, we had 36,800,000. We have already spoken about it. 37,600,000 in constant currency, a growth of 10%. How did this happen? Mainly, this is a delivery led quarter driven by ongoing large transformations for which we received contracts sometime back. If you look at the h one twenty five versus the h two revenue by type, you can see that last year, you had higher license revenue, and this year, we have higher delivery revenue. And the ARR also, there is a slight increase. As we all know, the revenue cycles in Tecnotree is the first delivery license, then it gets into delivery, and then then it moves into an ARR model.

12:05 And the the last transformation, what we got the orders last year, we had the licenses revenue out of them in the last year revenue. And as all of them move into a delivery mode, we will move more into a delivery revenue over the period of time. And, again, if we look at the revenue in different region, it's almost stable. The Europe and Americas continues to be around 9,000,000, and EMEA and APAC was slightly higher at 28,000,000 compared to 25 in the last year. Now let's look at the order backlog. How is it geographically spread? The Europe and Americas, because we started delivering there, has seen a slight reduction in the order backlog, but still I have 23,000,000 to be delivered in Europe and Americas.

12:58 May and APAC, last year, we had 78,600,000 worth of orders to be delivered, and now it is at 83,300,000.

13:09 And now we'll spend a little bit time on the EBIT highlights. As you can see, the h one EBIT at 13,200,000, it's an increase of some 38.1% year on year. The EBIT margin is 36% compared to 28% last year. What are the drivers for the increase in the EBIT? One, operational discipline and platform scalability, full period effect of the rightsizing and the cost efficiency programs that we undertook in 2024 and '25, increased automation of internal functions and maintenance through the company's AI operational capabilities.

13:55 Personal cost declined year on year despite headcount increase driven by lower cost of delivery and AI augmented roles. If you look at the evolution of EBIT in 2026, the EBIT in first half of the year is 13.2 compared to 9.6 in the last year. The margin we called out is 36% compared to 28% in the last year. The other parameter we very closely monitor is the investment in the development cost compared to the revenue. As you can see, in 2022, it was about 11%. We increased it to 14% and then to 18% in 2024. That is when a lot of investment was made into our product, and that resulted in getting large transformation projects in 2025.

14:48 We continue to make investment in our product. And we are at almost a consistent level at 13% in h one off current year.

15:01 One of the things that we very closely monitor and worry some a little bit is on our AR. As you can see, the AR has slightly gone up from last year from 32.5, which was in December, to 34.5 in the June end. Now in December, nearly one third of my receivable was not due. That means means less than thirty days. That bucket has moved now to mainly into ninety to two seventy days, which was 3%. Now it has gone up to 21%. About one year, still continues to be very high at 31% last December and 36% now. This again reflects some of the challenges what we are facing in collection in certain regions, especially due to the geopolitical issues and the war situation in certain countries.

16:03 However, the DSO trend, as we collect more, is going to improve, and it's always been a cyclical in Tecnotree. As you can see, we had two hundred and ten days in q one of twenty twenty three, came down to one forty six in q three of twenty twenty q four of twenty twenty five, went up again q one twenty twenty six where we had lesser collection and now has come down again to one forty three. This is something where we monitor very closely. Now I also want to give a small update on the currency risks. H1 twenty twenty six, we had favorable FX movements supporting the profitability.

16:50 The exchange rate difference in the financial items, first half, was 1.5 against negative 4,000,000 in the last year and 500,000 in the second quarter, driven by strengthening of USD and slight weakening of INR against euro. In h one, we reduced our frontier currency exposure to 4%, a six percentage point reduction from the previous year. Strategic focus on tier one accounts and growth in mature and dollar denominated markets continue as a part of our strategy. I also have a table how the USD to euro trends has moved in the h one. While last year, the dollar weakened by more than 13% against euro.

17:40 And what we are seeing in the current year is it's almost stabilizing even though there's a slight variation, but it is not as abnormal as it was last year. And percentage of revenue in volatile currencies, h one last year, we had 10%. As I mentioned, we are reducing our exposure to the frontier markets, and now it has come down to 4% in this current half year.

18:09 Let's go to the balance sheet. The balance sheet, minor growth in the intangible assets. This is my own developed products. The trade receivables has gone up slightly. Other receivable are holding on to the similar level what we had in December 2025. Same way, the cash and cash equivalent continues to be at a stable level of about 20,000,000. As all of us know, we had issued convertible debentures, which was at 23,100,000 by end of December. And in January, when there was a public tender offer, as per the terms of the convertible debentures, the debentures were converted into equity.

18:55 Except for five notes, the entire CCDs got converted into equity. The other noncurrent liabilities, which is a large amount, represents the retirement and other statutory accruals for our employees across the region. The trade payables continues to be slightly higher compared to December 2025. The increase in the cash is driven by the free cash flow, reduction in interest bearing liabilities through loan repayments and lease liability repayments.

19:34 Now the 2026 guidance. The board continuously assesses the guidance what we are given, and the board has currently given this guidance. The revenue in constant currency to grow between low to mid single digit percentage growth, and this is in constant currency. On a free cash flow, the guidance is above €5,000,000 in the year. The assumption for free cash flow is the based on the company's current market outlook and exchange rate assumption, especially last year, the US dollar devaluation against euro. Their assumption is that remains stable. I have one point on the one major event that happened in the first half of the year. As we all know on twenty seventh January 26, we announced that Resilience Investment Holdings acting on behalf of a consortium comprising of Helios, Fitzroy, and Padmaravichanda had made a voluntary recommended public all cash tender offer for all the issued and outstanding shares and certain other equity securities of the company.

20:49 On July 20, the final results of the public tender offer for the shares and equity shares of the company was announced. As the minimum acceptance condition has not been fulfilled, the offeror did not complete the tender offer. And for any more information on this public tender offer, there is a dedicated web page. The information can be found there. What are the key takeaway in h one of the current year? Stable growth while delivering on promise on operating efficiencies, delivery led quarter driven by ongoing large transformations in MIA powered by AI embedded BSS stack. And the board has guidance maintained while keeping a close watch on the geopolitical challenges.

21:40 As I called out, the challenges are still on. The Middle East continues to be a challenge for us. The war that which started in February is still ongoing. There are some of the challenges which face both for our business and the cash collection. We are keeping a close watch on that and the guidance the board has maintained what we had issued earlier. So these are my presentation from the finance side. And And back to you, Thomas.

22:14 Thank you, Indraj, for that presentation. And I have in the q and a box below, You guys have sent some questions. The first question that has been sent, I can answer as the moderator of this session. So someone has wanted to know what is the situation with the Canadian offer. And what I can say is that any development that requires disclosure under the rules of the exchange would be announced as a stock exchange release, given fair equal to all, and will not be discussed or given on any information on in this call. The second question that we have is you've answered it in your slide, but I'll, for the investor, also ask it. So he asked why the 5,200,000 impairment and why now?

23:07 Sure. Thank you, As we explained in this slide, this results are this is basically due to two customers, one in the Australasia region, another one is in the Middle East Region. The Australasia customer, was located in a country which had a huge local foreign exchange constraints. Now, that country is being supported by Australian government. We are going to get into a new contract. And one of the conditions for that contract is we had to forego the earlier receivable, and that is the reason as a prudent one, we wrote off the earlier receivable from that customer. The other one was in Middle East because of the regional issues over there. We are not able to collect that, and we assessed the recoverability of each customer very closely.

24:00 And as a conservative and prudent met measure, we wrote that as well. Thank you. The tender offer lapsed in July, so of last month. What does this mean for shareholders and the strategy going forward? Okay. From a company side, we know that the offer did not complete because, the offeror, they did not meet the minimum acceptance condition. From for the company, nothing changes operationally. We continue executing the strategy, and we we continue to execute to ensure that we meet the 2026 guidance, what has already been presented to the shareholders. Your guidance remain unchanged despite a strong h one. Isn't that conservative?

24:54 Yes. As you know that from finance, we want to be very conservative and prudent. As you know that in h one, we benefited with a favorable foreign exchange and some delivery timings. And given the Middle East background caution, strategically decided to expand earlier in Middle East region, which is a dollar denominated market. But given the current war situation, which started in February, which we thought could be a very short one, has been dragging on for so long, we do do not not know the how the h two is going to develop given the uncertain geopolitical situation. The board has been keeping a close watch on the situation.

25:41 And based on the assessment, the board has decided to keep the current guidance. If that's something changes in future, we'll definitely come back to the shareholders. Your EBIT margin jumped to 36 from 28%. How much of that is structural versus one off foreign exchange?

26:04 I would like to say it's it's not just a one off Forex. It's there are a lot of structural things which we have been doing in the last couple of years, which is, in a way, bearing fruit now. There's a huge operational discipline and platform scalability. We showed how much we did the investment in development of the products. Full period effect of rightsizing and cost efficiency programs, which we carried out in 2024 and 2025 is bearing fruits. And the most important, in my view, is the increased automation of internal functions and maintenance through a company's AI operational capabilities. That is also evident if you see.

26:50 My head count has gone up in this half year, but the personal cost have declined year on year despite the headcount increase, mainly driven by lower cost delivery and AI augmented roles. Okay. Let me just see if I got this question correct. Revenue grew 7.5%, but free cash flow was flat at 2,100,000. Why isn't the profit converting to cash?

27:22 Good question. Yeah. Financial items cost rose to 7.6. We talked about the some of the write offs, what we did. And the receivables in The Middle East collection was very slow, especially in the first half of the year. Conversion normalizes as those balances come in, which underpins our above 5,000,000 full year guidance. Just to reiterate, in q one, we just had 200,000 free free cash cash flow, which means that we did 1,900,000 in the q two of the current year. And we have maintained a full year cash guided free cash flow guidance of 5,000,000, which we are confident of achieving.

28:08 Okay. I'll just wait a little bit and see if there's any questions coming on. We still have a minute left booked for this webinar. Okay. And as we don't have any further questions, I'd like to end the webinar. Thank you so much, mister Vivekananda, for being here with us today. And wait until we have something new to then release the market, hopefully. And if not, we'll see everybody at q three in end of October.

28:56 Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone, for supporting the company. Have a great day. Thank you. Bye bye.