Etteplan Interim Report October-December 2022 published: Profitable growth in a changing market

Etteplan News release February 17, 2023

Etteplan's Interim Report October-December 2022 has been published. You can find the report and the related presentation materials at https://www.etteplan.com/investors/reports-presentations

Etteplan’s President and CEO Juha Näkki presented the Company’s result for 2022 in a confer-ence call and a live webcast, held in English language, on February 17, 2023.
A recording of the webcast can be found through this link: https://etteplan.videosync.fi/financial-statement-release-2022

President and CEO Juha Näkki:

“The expectation was that 2022 would be a slightly more normal year after the COVID-19, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting geopolitical tensions changed the situation dramatically. The outbreak of the war was followed by inflation, an energy crisis, interest rate hikes and other changes that affected everyone’s life and caused changes in the market situation.

The first quarter of the year began with a good demand situation, and the outbreak of the war in February had only a small impact on demand. However, in the second quarter, changes in the demand situation began to appear and uncertainty increased. Our customers in different industries reacted to the changed situation in different ways. In certain industries, product development investments were slowed to start, while investments related to the defense industry and the green transition increased, for example. More differences in demand between industries and customers began to occur but, generally, demand remained at a fairly good level throughout the year.

In spite of the uncertainty and the changes in the market situation, we succeeded in growing our business significantly and our net sales exceeded the milestone of EUR 350 million. Our growth was also profitable, and we almost achieved our target level of profitability. We continued to execute our acquisition strategy by making four acquisitions, which helped to accelerate growth, but our organic growth was also strong. The public offer that we made in the third quarter for Semcon AB’s shares did not lead to an acquisition, and the non-recurring costs related to the offer had a negative effect on our operating profit and earnings per share in the second half of the year. We slowed down our recruitment in the second quarter due to the uncertain market situation, which affected our growth. Sickness-related absences also increased significantly during the year as people moved more freely after the years of the COVID-19. Sickness-related absences were very high in the final quarter of the year particularly in China due to the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions, but the levels were also high in Europe. This had a negative effect on our growth and the development of our profitability.

We achieved good results in all of our service areas during the year. The Engineering Solutions service area’s development was positive throughout the year and its operational performance was very strong. The profitability of the Software and Embedded Solutions service area fell slightly in the second quarter as the slowdown of product development investments and fluctuations in demand weakened our operational efficiency. However, we improved towards the end of the year and, in the final quarter, the profitability of the service area was again at a good level. In the Technical Documentation Solutions service area, our business otherwise developed positively, but the Cognitas acquisition we carried out in Germany at the beginning of the year did not meet our expectations and weakened the profitability of the service area throughout the year. We have taken corrective measures and the integration of Cognitas into Etteplan is progressing well. We expect the measures to have a positive impact on Cognitas’ business and the profitability of the service area to return to a good level in 2023. 

On the whole, we performed well in 2022 considering the circumstances, and I want to thank all of our employees for their excellent work. We were able to respond effectively to market changes, which puts us in an excellent position as we enter 2023. Forecasting market conditions and demand is still difficult as the war continues, and uncertainty is high, but the general market sentiment has recently turned to a more positive direction. We also see a lot of opportunities in the current market, which is why we expect our growth to continue and our profitability to develop favorably also in 2023.”

Additional information:
Juha Näkki, President and CEO, tel. +358 10 307 2077
Outi Torniainen, SVP, Marketing and Communications, tel. +358 10 307 3302