SCTBY - Securitas AB (publ) (SCTBF) Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript
2025-05-10 08:38:52 ET
Securitas AB (publ) (SCTBF)
Q1 2025 Earnings Conference Call
May 8, 2025, 3:30 am ET
Company Participants
Magnus Ahlqvist - CEO
Andreas Lindback - CFO
Conference Call Participants
Raymond Ke - Nordea
Annelies Vermeulen - Morgan Stanley
Neil Tyler - Redburn Atlantic
Stefan Knutsson - ABG
Viktor Lindeberg - Carnegie
Nicole Manion - UBS
Sylvia Barker - JPMorgan
Johan Eliason - Kepler Cheuvreux
Karl Green - RBC Capital Markets
Presentation
Magnus Ahlqvist
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our First Quarter Results Presentation that Andreas and I are doing from our headquarter in Stockholm today. We're off to a good start to the year. So let us go straight to some of the highlights of the first quarter.
We delivered 3% organic growth in the quarter, and the operating margin improved 40 basis points to 6.4%. All business segments supported, and we have realized improvements in operating margin in the security services and technology and solutions business lines.
On the negative side, Paragon and Pinkerton hampered the results, and I will comment on those units later in the presentation.
By looking at results growth, the EPS growth was 16% in the first quarter. Operating cash flow was 1%, and the balance sheet remains strong. Commenting a little bit on the business optimization program that we announced last quarter, that is running according to plan, and we expect to achieve savings of SEK200 million by the end of this year.
And also wanted to comment a little bit in terms of the world around us since we have witnessed quite a lot of turbulence in the global trade landscape in the last couple of months. And I just wanted to emphasize here that we are a services business with local delivery, and from this perspective, we have limited exposure to the trade-related changes. And there has been no significant impact to the Q1 results, but we are closely monitoring any potential negative impact to our business to be able to take actions, if necessary.
And we also continue to assess the different parts of the business to ensure full alignment with the strategy and a good profitability profile going forward. And to this end, it's really positive that we have completed the divestment of the aviation business in France. But as part of the strategic assessments, we're also considering the options related to the Securitas Critical Infrastructure Services business in the U.S., and I expect that we will conclude this assessment during this year. And I would also share some more details regarding SCIS later in the presentation.
But all in all, we are off to a good start of the year. So with that, let us then look at the business lines. And the real sales growth in technology and solutions was 5% in the quarter, and the growth rate is below our target, but with the STANLEY integration now behind us, we have a very strong offering and can now put full focus on client engagement and commercial developments....
Securitas AB (publ) (SCTBF) Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript