Wulff-yhtiöt Oyj - (Workplace products, staffing services, accounting firms, etc.)

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Wulff is growing in relation to the largest companies, and that’s good. Works might explain part of the decline, assuming it’s not yet among the largest players. This is based on the assumption that Q3 had a turnover of ~300M according to the report (annualized turnover ~1150M), and Works’ annual turnover is likely ~10-11 million. At this level, Works would account for 3-4% of the Q3 20-largest players’ annual turnover. If the list is updated annually, it’s likely that Works would move into the top 20. With an even distribution, each company’s share of annual turnover would be 5%, which is not realistic.

New initiatives mentioned include Wulff Doctors and Works’ internationalization to Romania (LinkedIn). At the same time, the Wulff consulting team seems to be growing, so there are many seeds for growth. The top line will swell, but hopefully, costs won’t run wild.

Can temporary staffing be done better than others? In my opinion, Wulff hasn’t invented anything new and revolutionary. I don’t know, but I think this business is largely based on good networks (key people) and trendiness/branding. By messing up, you can lose one and eventually both.

I’m cautious about Wulff Doctors. The leader has a track record of growth, but operations have since shrunk after leaving Eezy, and management has changed. Are doctors interested in being on the lists of these companies, which mostly mediate basic workers… I don’t know, but I doubt it.

Finally, Works has decided to start internationalizing to Romania. The concept is to operate locally and also provide labor to Finland. Honestly, I can’t get excited about this. I would have preferred to see domination in the domestic market, where I have significantly more faith.

In short, there are currently many organic revenue growth drivers (Works in Finland, Works abroad, Doctors, Consulting, market recovery), perhaps a bit too many. What kind of organic growth forecasts does Inderes have for the employment services segment? The upcoming revenue forecasts are quite moderate, or is it expected that other areas will significantly weaken their performance in the future?

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Is there a link to this? I haven’t come across this myself, nor did I find anything about it with a quick glance at Works’ LinkedIn profile.

Good write-up from you anyway :+1:

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This is what I was referring to. It would be interesting to know why it was decided to go specifically to Romania and what kind of growth has been projected for international operations. Or is the goal to get cheap labor to Finland, when there is a shortage of workers.

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Noho’s majority owner Timo Laine has been increasing his holdings in Wulff over recent months. While browsing Wulff Works’ job advertisements, I found ads for Hook in Kuopio and Piste in Ruka, which suggests that Noho may have shifted to favoring Wulff Works for staffing. There were also ads for waiters/dishwashers in Pirkanmaa that could be for Noho’s locations, but the specific restaurants were not named.

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Wulff is once again expanding its operations in workplace services by launching Wulff Pro, which focuses on employment services:

Unsurprisingly, the people involved are once again former Eezy employees.

In December, NoHo’s main owner Laine increased his Wulff ownership again. Additions were also made to the nominee registers.

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https://forum.inderes.com/t/eezy-sijoituskohteena-ent-vmp/105/551?u=karhu_hylje

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Wulff making accounting firm acquisitions again:

Profitability is also looking solid:

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One of the sellers, Jari Tahila, was actually already Wulff’s 13th largest shareholder. It also sounds like the sellers are retiring, so there is no risk of them setting up a competing accounting firm at a later stage.

Wulff’s courage to expand its operations in this economic cycle is great, and hopefully it will be rewarded when the upturn arrives once again.

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Here are Arttu’s comments on how Wulff has been shopping in the Turku region. :slight_smile:

Wulff announced on Friday that it has acquired Yrittäjäin Tilitieto Oy as part of its growing accounting services business. Through the acquisition, the company strengthens its position in the Turku region, where it will have a total of three accounting firms following the transaction. This guarantees the company synergies through, among other things, resource allocation. With the acquisition, 8 employees will transfer to Wulff and, according to our understanding, the former owners will also continue in the company’s service, ensuring continuity of operations.

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Wulff is initiating change negotiations in its Products for the Workplace business in Finland as part of its strategic renewal. The aim of the personnel restructuring is to increase operational efficiency and enable better impact and service capability in customer encounters. The organizational restructuring supports Wulff’s sustainable growth and the Group’s goal to double its net sales by 2030.

As part of the renewal, Wulff is initiating change negotiations covering 34 people. The reduction requirement is a maximum of 9 people. The company estimates that the measures will have a positive impact on the result of approximately EUR 0.6 million annually.

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This does suggest that development in the Products segment likely hasn’t been very strong toward the end of the year. It’s a shame if there is weakness in this area, because in the Products segment, minority interests do not take as large a share of the result as they do in the strongly growing Services segment (Works, etc.).

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For the strategy period ending in 2030, revenue is projected at €80m, meaning growth is likely based largely on market tailwinds (baseline assumption) and no significant growth is otherwise expected.

Of course, sales could fall short, and they could end up on the path of redundancy negotiations. In any case, I would be surprised if human resources were increased in this segment. Reductions will become relevant at the latest when workplace products become supplementary services and new customer acquisition happens primarily through other segments.

Elsewhere, Works continues to spread its tentacles and is establishing a new company, JYP Wulff Works (52% stake held by Works). Quite an innovative name; what’s next?

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Atte has published a new company report on Wulff following the change negotiations and acquisitions. :slight_smile:

Wulff announced that it is starting change negotiations in its Products for the Workplace segment. Due to the cost savings brought by the change negotiations and recent acquisitions/expansions, we have raised our earnings forecasts. We are also prepared to temporarily accept slightly elevated multiples for the stock given the strengthened earnings growth outlook. Driven by the attractive expected return, we reiterate our Accumulate recommendation and raise the target price to EUR 4.5 (previously 3.5).

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Staffing services are said to be a people-driven business, and Wulff is clearly trusting this strategy again based on this new launch. Athletes and others with wide networks have been recruited across Finland. At the same time, they have also recruited those old Eezy employees with their personal connections.

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https://forum.inderes.com/t/eezy-sijoituskohteena-ent-vmp/105/555?u=karhu_hylje

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Continuing on the same path, and the recruitments are scaling up. World champion and former Leijonat (Lions) captain Lasse Kukkonen to accelerate growth in the Oulu region:

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