Solteq - Bumps on the road

Solteq’s Q3 was weaker than expected due to two project postponements. Uncertainty has increased but Solteq is still well on its way toward solid growth and profitability.

Two project postponements drove weaker Q3 figures
Solteq’s Q3 results took an unfortunate turn from the solid development trend so far during 2021. Net sales grew slower than expected by 12.2% y/y to EUR 14.9m (Evli EUR 16.4m). The adj. operating profit declined slightly to EUR 1.2m (Evli EUR 2.0m). Solteq Digital grew 4.3% to EUR 9.5m (Evli EUR 10.4m) and the adj. EBIT improved slightly to EUR 0.9m (Evli EUR 1.1m) while Solteq Software grew 29.7% to EUR 5.4m (Evli EUR 6.0m) and the adj. EBIT declined slightly to EUR 0.3m (Evli EUR 1.0m). The Q3 results were mainly impacted by the postponement of two larger customer deliveries in the retail-segment due to the prevailing component shortage situation and to some extent by an increase in subcontracting costs due to a lack of specialists in the IT-sector.

Larger part of Q3 concerns look to be temporary
At least on paper the challenges faced in Q3 appear to be of temporary nature. The postponements should have a clearly smaller impact on Q4. The prevailing demand uncertainty due to the pandemic, the component shortage and lack of industry specialists, however, are a concern, but to our understanding no new postponements are seen right now. The share of subcontracting is relatively low but has been increasing and future growth could come at the cost of margins and vice versa. Potential cost increases may in the future ultimately end up being absorbed by the customer. We have made some minor downward tweaks to our Q4 estimates but no larger changes to our coming year estimates.

BUY with a target price of EUR 6.8 (8.0)
We see good potential for Solteq returning back on its H1 track but with our minor estimates and higher uncertainty we lower our target price to EUR 6.8, with our BUY-rating intact. Our TP values Solteq on a slight premium to IT-services peers on 2021e P/E and on par with peers on 2022e P/E.

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