White Pearl Technology Group AB

White Pearl Technology Group AB

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Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptAugust 24, 2026

Stephen Thorne

Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you to everyone for joining this afternoon.

Welcome to the White Pearl Technology Group investor briefing. This is for our H1 results.

I just want to admit a guest, if that's okay. There we go.

Fantastic. I'm just going to pull up the presentation.

Fantastic. As mentioned, today is the H1 investor briefing.

My name is Stephen Thorne, I'll be the host for today. We'll start with the White Pearl results.

Ebrahim and Vikas will take us through the results, then we'll have the presentation, and then we'll have questions, then we'll go on to Mattias to give us the same from an Ayxia perspective, and then questions after that. That's the format of today's presentation.

With that being said, Ebrahim, could we perhaps start with yourself?

Ebrahim Laher

Great. Thank you.

Thank you everybody for for joining us, and yeah, we appreciate your presence. What I'm going to briefly do, and Vikas will will join me in that, is discuss a little bit about the strategy, but then also start talking about the the results and then specific elements of the results.

From our perspective, like we've said over the last couple of months, WPTG is now an AI-first technology platform. We've been We've been building various elements in the group over the last while, culminating in the acquisition of Ayxia, but not only Ayxia.

I think that there's been a lot that's been built over the last while, and and I mean we're starting to see that coming through in our results. We're seeing our margins improve as we as we drive this AI-first world into the future.

A bit about White Pearl today, we are a profitable, listed technology group. I think looking at the markets we're listed in, we remain one of the few profitable companies.

We've been profitable for many years now, and I think we're very we're very proud of that. Our focus is digital transformation and IT services, and and I mean we do a whole lot of other things related to that as well.

What we're seeing is our recurring revenue and our IP sales revenue is increasing. The platform layer is, really where the strategic shift has been happening over the last 6 months, where we've now migrating migrated to an AI-first platform view, and really the institutionalization and governance in the group as a whole has improved significantly as we scale the company.

I think there's also been a huge focus on productization of of the solutions that we have, as well as then moving the business model from normal revenue, project revenue, towards recurring revenue. What does the future state look for White Pearl?

It's very much a AI-first technology platform, as we've said, where now we have the focus on infrastructure, on our own operating system in AI, IQ, which is done through the Ayxia acquisition, and then the various applications that we've been building in White Pearl and in Ayxia and some of our other group companies, which are now already at the industrial level and being and being sold. I think the world of IT is currently going through a very interesting dynamic in that large companies, small companies like ourselves as well, us are trying to foresee what the world of IT sales and services looks like in the future.

I think this, what we're presenting to you, is our view. The The The The ultimate model may not be exactly the same because AI is changing so rapidly, but we think this will be profitable for our investors, our shareholders, as well as then allowing us to be able to sell these solutions properly to the client.

Inherent to what we're building is what we calling the WPTG AI factory. This is our offering, our interpretation of how we think AI will be consumed at an industrial, at an enterprise level.

The customers that we've traditionally worked with, which is basically large enterprise customers, will consume AI. Just very quickly, the 6 components of that is strategy and advisory, helping the customer understand what they require from an AI perspective, the data foundation layer, the AI infrastructure layer, like I was saying, which comprises the operating system, like IQ, as well as then the MLOps in terms of running these solutions in the system.

On top of that, you would have applications which allow you to now carry out core business functions using AI, okay? Now, if you have to look at this, ultimately, as White Pearl, we are now ready.

We have all of these blocks in place. We're already selling it productively in many of our customers.

I think this is the AI-first transformation which is happening. Does that affect what we currently doing or historically have done in the business?

Absolutely. It's the way we sell it, okay?

White Pearl is not a roll-up. Ultimately, it's a platform company, and you can see why, because each of our components work together.

We'll see, Mattias will talk today about the plans of expansion in Ayxia and some of our AI businesses globally as well. Thank you, Steve.

With that as a background to the to the company, a strategy, a little bit around the performance in H1. We very proud of the of the H1 performance.

I know the markets maybe not reacted specifically in a way, but we'll we'll discuss that. In terms of some of the comments, and I think between Vikas and myself today, we'll give you some context around some of the balance sheet items as well that have been presented.

We believe, like I said, that the performance is strong, and I mean specifically revenue is up 30.6%, it's so it's sitting now over 300 million SEK for the half year. EBITDA is up 44.5% at 53.6 million, and then net profit is a very healthy 47.8%.

I think 3 probably items we want to touch upon in this presentation is the trade receivables and cash conversion, secondly, the intangibles and the platform investment, which I know we've seen some questions around as well, we've received some questions, and then lastly, around liquidity, payables, and then some of the acquisition effects. I want to say up front that this has been a very intense half year in terms of investment.

A lot of the feedback we've received in the past is to say White Pearl needs to be more Swedish, more Swedish. Our calculations are now that, White Pearl's revenue on an annualized basis is more than 50% coming out of Europe, and specifically Sweden and the Nordics.

We very, very happy and we very, very proud about that. Go to the next slide, please, Steve.

Maybe I'll start with looking at the trade receivables, as well as then just looking at that. Now, when we have to look at the number, we see that our trade and other receivables, 146.4 million, which is about 48% of the H1 revenue, okay?

When we look back at the last 2 years, you'll see that last year, it was around 44%, and the previous year, it was 62.3%. I think generally, businesses in Sweden as well as then globally and White Pearl itself normally has a bit of a slower June collection period, and then it picks up through the years culmi- through the year, culminating into December.

Whereas the number has increased, the second thing I want to add is that 24 million of new receivables came in from the Swedish entities that were acquired during H1, okay? We don't see any any risk with those receivables, but if you have to take that 24 million out, you'll see that it compares very favorably with the with the numbers from last year.

Whereas, yes, receivables have increased, and I mean it's something which we work on all the time, it's very, very important for us to track the DSO as well, we believe on a year-to-year basis that, DSO has improved, and and I mean what we seeing now is the normal annual variation in terms of of of collections. Okay.

Next slide. Vikas, you can talk about this one.

Vikas Gupta

Thank you, Ebrahim. Like Ebrahim was explaining the trade receivable part, We are not a retail business, the revenue comes from large customers, government entities, and they are milestone-based revenues.

These revenues basically get approved, quality assured, and then basically paid by the client. 47.8% of EBITDA that we sorry, 47.8% of net income that we achieved this year, but it has been consumed into working capital, the trade receivable gap from the year-end 2025 to that yet June is this: almost 67% is in trade receivable, 8.2% 8.2 million is other receivables, and about inventory and work in progress is about 16.3.

I'd like to explain what is trade receivable and other receivable just for the sake of clarity. Trade receivables is a portion of the revenue that has been invoiced and due for collection, and that is where we count our DSOs.

Other receivables is the amount that we have finished, it's been approved, but not yet invoiced from a timing perspective. Inventory and work in progress, inventory is basically some of the material in that lies in inventory from our infrastructure segment, and work in progress is basically the amount that we have finished at the customer, but not invoiced, okay?

That is basically just a costing part of it. We've been conservative in our approach in terms of revenue recognition, and a lot of work is still under development that is not even invoiced, that is not even recognized in the revenue.

That is that. Like Ebrahim was saying, the collections are time-dependent.

I think I was analyzing the receivables, I think we have collected already, Ebrahim, about 30-odd percent of the receivables between 1st July till 18th of August. Over 30% has been collected already, and majority part of it will be collected over the next couple of weeks.

This is a cyclical thing that happens every year. H1 is second quarter specifically is difficult because of holidays, because of midyear movements in the businesses.

Yeah. Next slide, please, Stephen.

Ebrahim Laher

Around the intangibles, right? Some questions around around what we doing with intangibles, and I think we want to state up front that, our our accounting of it is, very, very conservative, right?

Yes, in terms of goodwill, which has come through through the acquisitions we've done, like we said, it's been a it's been an unnaturally highly investment quarter, investment half with regards to new acquisitions, and hence that has happened. With regards to capitalized, there was an additional 29.5 million that's been capitalized, which we'll explain now in the in the in the next slide, resulting in the total of 177.

I think that what this reflects is really our platform-building strategy, okay? We've invested in new companies, we've brought a lot of new AI as well as Swedish businesses on board, and I think also we've been investing in our platform through our own IP and our own solutions, which already are getting to the point at which they are they are productive.

Majority of the capitalization, I think all of it, Vikas, if I'm not wrong, is due to Utileon and Nexus, two of our products,

Vikas Gupta

which I mean we'll

Ebrahim Laher

we'll basically explain in the next slide. Go to next slide, please, Steve.

A bit about the products that we have, right? I think the two specific products that we focused on the last call it year in terms of building is Utileon and Nexus.

Now, Utileon is a product that we've developed for municipalities specifically around credit management, as well as elements in terms of collections with regards to meter management, meter readings, etc., customer interaction. Really, ultimately, what it does is that it's a it's a very smart piece of software which, allows utilities and municipalities to basically recover outstanding moneys owed owed for for services.

I think the status as at 30 June is that the product is now built, it is now ready to be go-live. We are in very detailed and and and I mean late discussions around selling it to a number of municipalities in Africa.

We are awaiting client awards with regards to that, and I mean we believe that we should be able to announce something, touch wood, in the next 30 days. I think Utileon is an amazing ability to grow into a municipal space AI application.

We're moving towards a world of best-in-breed. The days of SAP, etc., being able to dominate, Oracle being able to dominate the space is now, I believe, past.

It's best-in-breed products that have been built bottom-up on an AI platform like we've done with Utileon is the way to go. Definitely, I I would expect that in the next quarter that it would be productive, we will start seeing some amortization costs coming through on this product, as well as then hopefully new versions of the product start appearing into the future.

Nexus is, for us, our proprietary AI platform. We've got a family of products in there, from CRM to legal, to compliance, to learning management, university, delivery, project management, etc.

It's really our our version of ERP built on an on an AI platform. Certain elements, certain modules of the product are still in build, but I mean there are certain modules that are ready and are also being deployed, and I mean we're expecting some of that to be deployed in in in in Q3 as well.

We believe that these products will add significant revenue, margin, quality of earnings, as well as then an improvement in our EBITDA levels to the group. We are in already very late-stage selling of these products, but these products will then continue being developed into the future.

From a pure balance sheet perspective, I do expect that amortization costs will start coming through in Q3, but I do expect that to be accounted by additional revenue, as well as then all the other elements of that which will basically come in. I think we very, very proud about what we've achieved, what we continue to achieve.

If there's any investors that, would like to see a demo of these products or, get to understand more about these products, we are we are available, and please, you can basically write through to [email protected], and I mean we'll be in touch with you with regards to that. That's on the on the on the platforms and the AI and the capitalization.

Next slide, please, Steve. For us, AI is already earning, right?

Separately from the capitalized platforms, we're already making money in AI, hence our EBITDA margins have already improved in the group, and and and I mean we expect to see more. We've got some really exciting suites of products.

We've bought some other products as well, like Serve IT, which will now undergo an an an an an AI re-development to be able to then fit into a future client roadmap, not just within the Nordics and Europe, but across the world as well. This is how we basically do our software development.

I think what you're getting in White Pearl is that you're getting now a software development and a and a software company over and above the the services work we do, the digital transformation work we do, as well as then the the AI work that, we currently doing across across the group. Next slide, please, Steve.

I think it's yours, Vikas.

Vikas Gupta

Right. Look, I think we already touched upon this.

Cash equivalents stood at 47.2. Now, I explained about trade receivables and other receivables, that was a slide that we touched upon.

Other financial liabilities of 92.8% is largely split between three categories: one is the loan from Fenia, which is almost about 50 million, there's a 37 million, and there's other loans from banking and other financial institutions that are basically covering the remaining part of it. I think the biggest takeaway from this slide is that the equity has grown and is continuing to grow substantially because of the margin profile, because of the profits that we've been generating year on year.

Now, what this shows to the shareholders is that all the acquisitions that have happened, the integration work, the cross-sell work, it's all accretive in nature. If you look at the even payables and deferred purchase consideration, they've also gone up in value.

This shows that this is all cyclical, as we collect, we pay, and we try and manage the treasury in a way that basically suits our business mandate rather than what goes into payments, etc. From our perspective, I think the business is well-capitalized.

Now we've started receiving monthly dividends from all the subsidiaries. We are focusing upon repatriation now that treasury must sit centrally with the parent company, and there's been a lot of integration work that has gone into finance, accounting, realigning the thoughts of the leaders in the business with the group view, and we take it up from there.

The largest objective is basically to align and create the platform that we've been telling that this is a platform, it's not a culmination of separate businesses. We try and bring different minds, different capabilities together and convert it into something bigger and something more robust.

This is what I think The numbers are talking, basically. I think I should talk less, let the numbers talk more.

Ebrahim Laher

Look, yeah, I think one of the questions I think I received over the weekend was, I think from an investment analyst asking, it looks like White Pearl is dependent on external funding to do acquisitions because we're using shares. I think what needs to be understood by I think all of us is that White Pearl hasn't raised a lot of money from the outside, okay?

A lot of it has been generated internal. Yes, we've got a Fenia loan, and I think there's the founder loan that Vikas was saying, but ultimately this entire group and this entire business has been built with that together then with what's been retained profits, and the profits we've been generating, okay?

I don't know what the value of this platform is, but I can tell you it's not the market cap, right? Just in terms of the sum of the parts.

More than that, we also growing organically. I think Vikas showed the fact that working progress is being consumed by accounts receivable, etc.

On the one hand, we are growing with our own cash organically, and on the other side, we have to then be in the situation where, unfortunately, we have to use shares, etc., because it's really for us a chicken and egg thing: do we wait until the share price goes up in the future or do we then now take the opportunity of becoming an AI company, whatever? Our approach has been to partner with these businesses that are coming on board, like Ayxia, like Serve IT, like Bravissimo, etc., make them part of the White Pearl family and us to collectively grow together.

I think I just want to make it clear that ultimately, like everything in business, it's about managing risk and it's about managing the situation with regards to what presents itself, and it's about making these sorts of decisions around growing the platform. Next slide, please, Steve.

That's it. I don't know if there's any questions from anybody.

I don't know, Stephen.

Stephen Thorne

Let me just see if there's anyone's put any questions in the chat. There we go.

Our good friend Sergey, thank you. "Good afternoon.

Can you provide some kind of guidance on future annual spending on investment in intangibles or capitalized development? Investment amount is a crucial parameter for determining company value, and we have very little visibility of it going forward."

Ebrahim Laher

Look, yeah, I think that we knew that there was going to be once-off investment in the platform to be able to get to a point where it starts becoming usable and being able to be deployed at customers, okay? I would suspect as a guideline, Sergey, that potentially the two would even out in terms of what would be spent on maintaining or developing new versions of the platform, as opposed to then what's being amortized.

I personally, Vikas, I don't expect a net spend on the intangibles going forward, rather I see it remaining flat for a period of time, and then coming down as the platform becomes more and more mature.

Vikas Gupta

Correct. Look, you're right.

There may be some development, Ebrahim, we all understand clients keep demanding, market keep demanding new versions of the platform, there will be some developments that we continue to happen in terms of improving the product from point A to point B, so that might continue as and when the market demands. From a strategic perspective, you're right, we don't expect any big spending unless there is a compelling case for us to level up the offerings, basically.

Ebrahim Laher

Absolutely. We don't see capitalization being used to increase profits and paper profits, not at all, it's not going to happen.

Stephen Thorne

Great. Then the next question: "Higher valuation or market cap equals acquisition power, but the market cap is being diminished with share dilution at a low valuation.

Would it not be better to focus now on integration of the current acquisitions, organic growth, improvement to cash flow, for example reduction of DSO, and wait with further acquisitions until the cash and acquisition power is there? I know you touched upon this a bit just now, but would like to understand the risk assessment here better.

Why not wait a bit now after this heavy half year of acquisitions?"

Ebrahim Laher

Absolutely spot-on, right? That's exactly our strategy, okay?

We had to do the Ayxia deal because there was an opportunity to do the Ayxia deal, and Ayxia completes what we have in place, okay? Our stated strategy now is to integrate deeply, is to basically get, like you say, our cash balances up, get the share price up, etc.

I think for this phase of investment, we are absolutely, I would say, done, unless some amazing opportunity again comes along, which we don't see at this point. I think you've, Mr.

Investor, basically summarized our strategy spot-on. It's now going to be about integrating, it's going to be about unlocking value with Ayxia, all the various amazing acquisitions that we've done, all the products we have, it's about going deeper.

Already our operations teams are doing that, and, yeah, after this heavy half year of acquisitions and investments, it's now about integration. I think spot-on.

Stephen Thorne

Fantastic. Thank you.

Then a follow-on from Sergey's first question, which was with regards to the guidance on intangibles or capitalized development, Sergey asks: "Thank you. Can you provide breakdown between organic and inorganic EBITDA growth in H1 '26?"

Vikas Gupta

Yeah. Look, if I compare H1 2025 and H1 2026, I would say almost 85% of EBITDA has come from organic means and about 15% has come from I would say less than 15% has come from acquisitions, because most of the acquisitions were integrated during second quarter, the impact of acquisitions on EBITDA and on revenue is very minimalist.

So 85% of the EBITDA is from organic mode.

Stephen Thorne

Fantastic. Thanks, Vikas.

I don't see any more questions in the chat. Oh, sorry.

Thanks, Sergey. Sergey says: "Thanks, but in terms of growth year-on-year?"

Vikas Gupta

Okay. Just one sec.

Sorry, I had to check. From organic perspective, we would say almost 24 to 25%, or in fact, sorry, Yeah, about 25% comes from organic means.

Stephen Thorne

Okay. "Thanks, that's helpful," says Sergey, thank you for that.

Are there any other questions for Ebrahim or Vikas at this point? Fantastic.

Oh, Jörgen's got his hand up. Jörgen, please go ahead.

I'm just like to ask Ebrahim if you are going to visit Sweden at some point in the future.

Ebrahim Laher

Yes. I come regularly.

I think my next visit is planned for mid to end of September, yeah, we'll definitely Is

there an opportunity for to have a meeting face-to-face to ask It will be very very nice to be able to talk to you directly.

Ebrahim Laher

Absolutely, Jörgen. Stephen, let's just keep Jörgen's email address and that, and we'll drop you a mail, and you can come through to our office if you're Stockholm-based, and we can meet you then.

No problem.

A regular regular meeting information meeting would also be useful, inviting all the all the all the share owners in in in Sweden if it's in Stockholm.

Ebrahim Laher

Yes, sounds great, wonderful.

Stephen Thorne

Thank you. Thanks, Jörgen.

I'll keep note of your email address and we'll let but I think it's not a bad idea, Ebrahim, doesn't have to be, but once or twice a year, maybe have a little get-together.

Ebrahim Laher

We had a couple of it already, I think last year we had two meetings in Sweden, and, yeah, definitely, it's absolutely wonderful. We're also available to meet anywhere in the world via video, whatever.

It's wonderful for us to talk to our investors, it's great.

Stephen Thorne

Thank you. Thanks, Jörgen, much appreciate that.

I don't see any more hands. There will still potentially be some time towards the end maybe after Mattias if there's a burning question that wasn't answered, but with that, I'd like to hand over to Mattias.

There we go.

Mattias Bergkvist

Thank you, Stephen. I would just take the opportunity to speak about where actually we have both feet on the starting line right now in White Pearl.

After this quite long exciting period, it's going to be really awesome to dig in and start to work together with the guys and the teams in White Pearl. What we see is the low-hanging fruit for our perspective is that starting to see the synergies between the platform of global customers that already in White Pearl, and we see what we can do with that, and also see what we can do with the other companies in the White Pearl family, to speak.

One of the action we want to take right now, and that already started, is that we're going to grow Ayxia to Johannesburg, and that's already started, and we're also looking at Dubai and Singapore for that we can offer in Ayxia. What we see in a global perspective that all that changes we have around AI and digital innovation in almost every industries that we can put some knowledge and offer our solutions that now going to be available for the whole global market, to speak.

I think that's a huge opportunity for both Ayxia and the whole White Pearl organization, to speak. We are eager to start to work together and develop and increase our common solutions and businesses, yeah.

Do you have any questions from any shareholders in Ayxia perspective?

Stephen Thorne

Thanks, Mattias. I think, yeah, as

Mattias Bergkvist

you said,

Stephen Thorne

very exciting and also very encouraging, I think, for those Ayxia shareholders that hopefully know they made the right decision, well, we certainly do, so that's great. With that all being said

Ebrahim Laher

Stephen, I'd like to maybe address another question that I've basically received via email, I think from one of our shareholders, and I think really raising the question around the fact that the share price is obviously being quite disappointing given the extent of which the results, and I think some of the other activities have shown. Potentially, what are some of the options that the group would look at going forward in terms of ensuring that shareholders receive appropriate value?

I think, for me, the first principle is that we're very, very committed to the people that have put their funds, their money into White Pearl, and trust in the company. I think we're extremely committed to all of you and very thankful and humbled by it, okay?

Absolutely, given what we've done with regards to corporate governance in terms of the new auditors, etc., we know that we need to get more institutional or more professional investors into the group. Fundamentally, at the moment, the White Pearl share, we've got over 8,000 shareholders, but I think most of it seems to be retail kind of investors.

Some of the plans that we would obviously be looking at, considering, would be potentially uplisting the company on bourses in Sweden, potentially looking at maybe a dual listing in other geographies that could bring in more interest in the company, more interest in the share, and just being able to, I think, create a better profile for the business, right? For the current investors.

I think corporate governance enhancement is a process which is ongoing. A lot of work is being done both in Sweden and globally to ensure that and to drive that, and that's also continuing.

I think I just want to bring forward the point to shareholders and to the investment community that we take the concerns addressed by some of you. Obviously, the share price doesn't dictate how we run the company all the time and what we do on a day-to-day basis, but being able to return the right value to our shareholders for the company is absolutely there.

I think today I was having a discussion that at the current levels the company's almost trading at extremely low P/E values, whatever. We have to continue delivering to our customers and then ultimately the results, but I think just to maybe make the point, Stephen, that there are other avenues, and I think other discussions which will also be explored accordingly.

Absolutely.

Stephen Thorne

Absolutely. Fantastic.

Thanks, Ebrahim. Not to drag it out, in the light of there being no further questions, I'd like to thank our speakers, Ebrahim, Vikas, Mattias, for giving your perspective.

It's highly appreciated. Then again, just lastly to all of you on the call, we appreciate your involvement, we appreciate your support.

We've got a number of frequent flyers, to speak, on these calls, and it's always nice to see familiar faces and names. Thank you again for your support in our organization.

As Ebrahim mentioned earlier, if you'd like to reach out, if you'd like a demonstration of any of our products, please reach out at [email protected], and we will be in touch with regards to further events, discussions, etc. Again, thank you, everybody.

Thank you for your time, and we will see you next quarter. Thank you.

Vikas Gupta

Thank you.

Ebrahim Laher

Thank you.