Sales have held up well for Avensia during COVID-19

Headcount growth is likely to decelerate ahead

Market demand continues to improve

Avensia’s CFO, Anders Wehtje, presented at our seminar
This afternoon, we hosted a presentation with Avensia’s CFO Anders Wehtje at our ABGSC Investor Day seminar. In addition to an educational discussion of what Avensia is today, Mr. Wehtje also gave insight into recent market trends, COVID-19 effects, and the strategy going forward.

Much focus has lately been on net recruitments
Although COVID-19 has had a negative effect on Avensia’s demand in 2020, Avensia’s sales have held up well in 2020 (+6% y-o-y growth for Q1-Q3’20). This is because 1) its personnel was already used to work from remote, meaning that its delivery/efficiency has been solid; 2) a high share of sales stems from already existing customers, which, given its long-term relationship with these customers, has provided Avensia with recurring revenue component; and 3) it has decided to keep its net recruitment rate at high levels during 2020, as the market’s supply of talented personnel has been good amid the pandemic. On the latter, Mr. Wehtje emphasised that Avensia has benefited from the fact that it has enhanced its employer brand in recent years, which we argue partly stems from its strong set of reputable reference customers (e.g. Lyko, NK, Ahlsell). However, in the last 4-6 weeks, Avensia says that it has once again been more challenging to recruit. We believe that this is because many of its competitors (as noted in the Q3 reports) have recently been more positive on their net recruitment outlooks.

Improved long-term outlook
Avensia sees strong opportunities ahead. The pandemic has emphasised the fact that retailers need to digitalise themselves, which is a demand that Avensia addressees. Furthermore, on the back of Amazon recently entering the Swedish market, Avensia is now helping many of its customers with consultancy services for how to adapt to this. Finally, Mr. W
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