FlexQube Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Results

FOURTH QUARTER 2021

• Order intake increased by 159.1 percent to 52.3 MSEK (20.2). Adjusted for foreign exchange rate effects between the comparison periods, orders received increased by 155.3 percent.
• Net sales increased by 98.6 percent to 47,4 MSEK (23.9). Adjusted for foreign exchange rate effects between the comparison periods, net sales increased by 96.0 percent.
• Operating profit before depreciation (EBITDA) amounted to -2.8 MSEK (-3.1) or -1.5 MSEK excluding inventory adjustments not related to the quarter and operating profit before financial items (EBIT) amounted to -3.9 MSEK (-4.3).
• Profit before tax amounted to -4.0 MSEK (-4.4).
• Earnings per share amounted to -0.5 SEK (-0.6)
• Cash flow amounted to 20.3 MSEK (2.6), of which -25.9 MSEK (-5.0) from operating activities, -0.3 MSEK (0.1) from investment activities and 46.5 MSEK (7.4) from financing activities.
• Cash and cash equivalents amounted to 34.9 MSEK (13.4) at the end of the period.
• One of the world's three largest car manufacturers has placed an order for FlexQube's new autonomous logistics robot system, called eQart Navigator. The order value amounts to 1.4 MSEK and consists of two eQart Navigator units and a few motorized platforms.
  FlexQube and Oda Norway AS, which is a leading company in the grocery trade of food online, have entered into partnerships and signed framework agreements regarding the delivery of material handling equipment to both Odas's existing and future facilities.
• Norwegian Oda has placed two orders for material handling equipment. The first to two new facilities to Germany, worth about 12 MSEK. And the second for a new facility in Norway, worth about 7.6 MSEK. Both will be delivered in the first half of 2022.
  At an extraordinary general meeting held on December 20, the Board of Directors' resolution on a directed new share issue of 800,000 shares was approved with deviation from the shareholders' preferential rights at a subscription price of SEK 70 per share. The share capital increases by 80,000 SEK, to a total of 823,333 SEK, and the number of shares and votes increases by 800,000 from 7,433,333 shares and votes to 8,233,333. For existing shareholders, the dilution amounts to a total of 9.7 percent of the number of shares and votes in the Company based on the number of shares and votes after completion of the directed issue.

THE PERIOD 1 JANUARY – 31 DECEMBER 2021

• Order intake increased by 98.2 percent to 155.3 MSEK (78.4). Adjusted for foreign exchange rate effects between the comparative periods, orders received increased by 109.6 percent.
• Net sales increased by 37.1 percent to 112.6 MSEK (82.2). Adjusted for foreign exchange effects between the comparison periods, net sales increased by 43.0 percent.
• Operating profit before depreciation (EBITDA) amounted to -17.4 MSEK (-15.3) and operating profit before financial items (EBIT) amounted to -22.0 MSEK (-20.0).
• Profit before tax amounted to -22.5 MSEK (-20.1).
• Earnings per share amounted to -2.7 SEK (-2.7).
• Cash flow amounted to 21.5 MSEK (-4.6), of which -24.9 MSEK (-11.4) from operating activities, -2.8 MSEK (-3.0) from investment activities and 49.2 MSEK (9.8) from financing activities.

EVENTS AFTER THE END OF QUARTER

• FlexQube strengthens the organization with a VP of Sales in Europe to adapt the organization to the company's rapid growth.
• Additional patent applications regarding the eQart Navigator concept have been filed.
• In June we will be taking our eQart Navigator to Automate in Detroit, USA. Automate is one of the largest trade shows in automation in North America and is another step towards our transition to a become a recognized robotics company.

Link to the report for the fourth quarter 2021: https://www.flexqubegroup.com/secure-file.php?file=01b5fcfd163af9998a67674e2776eb1b.pdf

The entire quarterly report is also attached to this press release.

CEO LETTER

OUR MOST SUCCESSFUL YEAR TO DATE, NEW RECORD IN BOTH SALES AND ORDER INTAKE FOR THE QUARTER AND YEAR

Order intake in the fourth quarter reaches a record high of 52 MSEK, which means that order intake for the full year 2021 increased by almost 100% compared to 2020 to 155 MSEK. Order intake in the quarter increased by 161% compared to the fourth quarter of 2020. To get some perspective, the order intake only in Q4 2021 is greater than the total order intake during the last nine-month period, Q2-Q4 2020. Order intake in the second half of 2021 is 50% higher than in the first half of the year and that says something about the trend the company has and how attractive our offer is now that the pandemic is starting to ease for our customers.

Sales in the fourth quarter landed at a new high, 47.4 MSEK, which is a substantial increase compared to our best quarter to date (26.5 MSEK in Q2 2021), and compared to the same period last year, this is an increase of approximately 98%. In the full year, we reach 112.2 MSEK, which is an increase of 37% compared to 2020 .

Sales growth has primarily been driven by the strong order intake during the second and third quarters where we have now delivered large orders to a global car manufacturer* and Oda but have also continued to receive large orders from these two companies during December. In December, we were able to announce our first large framework agreement with Oda. Shortly thereafter, we also received sharp orders for three sites with delivery during the first half of 2022. In total, order intake in Europe increases by over 200%.

Given the strong order intake in the fourth quarter, we are bringing a record order book of more than 50 MSEK into 2022, which will give us a stable sales base during the first half of the year.

During the fourth quarter, we performed a directed share issue with the help of Carnegie, where the company received 56 MSEK before issue costs. The interest from investors was great, which gave us a clear confirmation that we are on the right track. Both existing and new owners participated in the issue. The issue allows us to be even more forward-leaning in our continued growth journey and become an even more recognized and global robotics company.

SALES & PROFIT

Sales and earnings during the quarter continued to be affected by Covid-19 in both our own operations and at our subcontractors.  Although the situation improved compared to the third quarter, delivery disruptions and absences amongst staff for both us and subcontractors resulted in increased costs and delayed deliveries. EBITDA lands at SEK -2.8 million, but with the exception of an inventory write-down, we have an adjusted EBITDA of SEK -1.5 million. Our cost development is still in line with the planning we have for growth going forward, where we need to be forward-leaning and invest in our organization to be able to execute successfully on our long-term strategy.

It has been a very challenging situation within Operations to handle the increased volume, especially in Europe where sales increased four times compared to the fourth quarter of 2020. This has contributed to increased costs within Operations, which has had a negative impact on the margin. Even in North America, suppliers have had difficulty delivering at the pace we wanted and global disruptions in supply chains, particularly maritime transport from Europe and Asia, have contributed to delays and that we have transported more goods by air than normal.

Cash flow in Q4 is largely affected by our increased sales, where accounts receivables increased with deliveries towards the end of the quarter. Given the great challenges that have existed in the supply chains around the world, inventory optimization and material management has become secondary and there has been focus on getting things in first and foremost rather than optimally in relation to the delivery of the projects. That is, we can not deliver until we have received 100% of the material needed for an order, but up to 90% may have arrived at our warehouse earlier in the quarter and thus affected cash flow negatively. We have also reduced our factoring due to our improved liquidity situation after the new share issue, which has a negative effect on cash flow in the quarter, but is more of a non-recurring effect. We work actively with cash flow and given the strong sales during the fourth quarter, we have the ambition to reach a positive cash flow during the first quarter.

As I wrote in the report for the third quarter, our quotation volumes were 50% higher than the average last year and this also had an impact on order intake. There is a clear correlation between the quotation volume in a quarter and the order intake in the quarter thereafter. It is a KPI we are following closely, and the development continues to look very positive for us at the beginning of 2022.

Our modular cart concept is combined with the Liftrunner products and the demand is showing a positive trend in North America for this type of transport system in internal logistics. Increased demand for Liftrunner has an automatic positive impact on the demand for our other products.

FLEXQUBE’S ROBOTIZED EQART®

In 2021, we have also sold more eQart Line than ever before and the goals for 2022 are high. We have reorganized the sales organization to get even more focus on jointly achieving successful sales of eQarts. In mid-2022, we will launch a major upgrade of our product eQart Line as it gets a brand new control computer with a more powerful processor, better camera and completely new possibilities for integration with other systems such as roller tables and other equipment with sensors. The speed will go from 0.6 m/s to 1.0 m/s and improved performance that increases efficiency.

During the quarter, we continued to deliver robots in the project with Amazon in the US. The project has been ongoing successfully, and discussions are currently underway on the next steps together with Amazon..

There are still long lead times for electronic components, which may mean that lead times from order to sale for our robotic segment can be longer than normal in 2022.

DEVELOPMENT

Now that I summarize 2021, which is by far our most successful, there are three milestones in particular during the year:

The first is the important and groundbreaking order from Amazon for the development of robots. Our team has made a heroic effort during the year with the delivery in this project. Amazon has enormous demands on the product and the project in general and so far, the work has been successful. Amazon has been very impressed by our rapid development and discussions are currently underway about the continued cooperation together with Amazon.

The second is our biggest milestone yet for our concept, when we won the procurement of logistics carts for the factory in Berlin of a global car manufacturer*. To date, we have received orders worth more than 17 MSEK for the Berlin factory and we have during the fourth quarter started deliveries on a slightly larger scale to their factory in Austin and Fremont in the US. For the latter two factories, we have delivered the products unassembled in order to be assembled on site. This both increases our net margin and at the same time reduces transport costs, also it allows the customer to get the products faster. This is an offer we will develop further in 2022.

The third is our first and largest framework agreement to date with Norwegian food supplier Oda. The framework agreement, which we estimated to be worth at least 40 MSEK over four years, was signed at the end of November. In December, we received three major orders from Oda of close to 20 MSEK. It is reasonable to assume that the actual framework agreement volume will exceed the previously communicated volume of 40 MSEK. We are not just a supplier in this context, but a partner that becomes an important part of the entire logistics system for the customer.

Daniel Wrennfors took up the role of VP Sales Europe in January this year and Daniel comes most recently from a sales manager role at Toyota Material Handling Europe. Daniel is a very important addition to our continued expansion in Europe and has a long experience from working with global dealer networks and sales of extensive automation projects.

At the end of March, it is finally time for a major material handling fair again when Modex in Atlanta, USA takes place. In previous years (before the pandemic), this fair has been by far the most important channel for us to expose ourselves to new and existing customers in North America. Most of our major sales successes in the US have been initiated at this fair and we believe that this year's fair will have a high attendance as restrictions and the pandemic subside. At the fair, we will for the first time show off our new robot, eQart Navigator, which is a self-driving robot that we have filed several patents for in the past year. It builds on our modular platform technology but also opens up through its technology for broader applications in material handling. More information about the robot will be provided in connection with the fair.

We will also be attending Mexico's largest material handling fair in Monterrey this February, Germany's largest logistics fair LogiMat in June and America's largest automation trade fair, Automate, in Detroit in June. We look forward to a very intense spring on the market front.

During the year, FlexQube has three main goals to focus on. First is to work towards becoming a recognized robotics company. Working with Amazon and other well-known stakeholders for our eQart concept is in line with this goal. The second is to accelerate sales (through a more focused work towards key customers, organizing the sales team for eQart sales and increasing the share of distributor and integrator sales) and the third is to scale up our Operations and thus our delivery capacity. The last is an extremely important area where we have seen that our Operation has limited our growth in the short term and where we need to invest time and resources in creating greater scalability. It is important both to increase the number of suppliers but also to work on a concept that even more facilitates on-site assembly at the customer.

After a very successful year, we are now taking on 2022 with high ambitions, strong confidence in our staff and our product portfolio's ability to deliver good results. Every day we take a step closer to our vision that every factory and warehouse in the world will move materials with the help of FlexQube.

Anders Fogelberg

CEO FlexQube AB (publ)

About FlexQube

FlexQube is a technology company headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden with subsidiaries in USA, Mexico, Germany and England. FlexQube offers solutions for cart-based material handling using a patented modular concept. FlexQube develops and designs customized solutions for both robotic and mechanical cart logistics. Through the own developed and unique automation concept FlexQube can offer robust and self-driving robotic carts. FlexQube has more than 1000 customers in 37 countries with primary markets being North America and Europe.

FlexQube’s customers can be found within the manufacturing industry, distribution- and warehousing. We represent some of the most successful companies in the world with a significant share being represented on the Fortune 500 list. These companies exist within automotive, electric vehicle manufacturing, online retail, heavy-duty trucks, industrial automation and retail logistics.

For more information, contact:  
CEO, Anders Fogelberg
anders.fogelberg@flexqube.com
+46 702 86 06 74

CFO, Heidi Bader
heidi.bader@flexqube.com
+46 708 24 71 46

The share (FLEXQ) is traded on Nasdaq First North. FNCA Sweden AB, telephone +46 8-528 00 399, is the Company's Certified Adviser. Read more at www.flexqube.com

This information is insider information that FlexQube AB (publ) is obliged to disclose in accordance with EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was provided by the above contact persons for publication on February 15, 2022, at. 08:00 CET.

* Corrected: 2023-12-06