Addtech Stock

Welcome to the Addtech Q1 2026 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Niklas Stenberg; and CFO, Malin Enarson. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and most welcome to everyone to Addtech's first quarter report presentation. Today's setup is that we will use approximately 15 minutes to summarize and give our comments on the results and then open up for questions. As usual, just a brief summary for any newcomers, a quick run-through of the key fundamentals of Addtech. We are a group of 150-plus independent and strictly decentralized companies operating in 20 countries with a clear business-to-business offering. We operate in 6 business areas, all with clear strategies and a value proposition centered around niche products and solutions, primarily to manufacturing and infrastructure sectors. We have our successful dual growth engine approach, focused to develop and grow the business organically together with our local entrepreneurs and then complement and strengthen our strategy strategic niches with acquiring leading niche companies with a strong offering and fund our acquisitions primarily by own cash flow. That's how the model works.

Size-wise, we have now a turnover rolling 12 of around SEK 23 billion and run the operations with an EBITDA margin at around 16% and employ slightly less than 5,000 employees throughout the organization and a small and efficient central team. There, you have Addtech in a brief summary.

With that said, let's head on to the quarterly highlights. All in all, we can summarize a good start of the new fiscal year despite the geopolitical uncertainties, the market situation improved for the group with high customer activity and a very solid order intake, broad-based, I would say. Total net sales increased by 6% during the quarter, organically in line with last year and no effect from FX this quarter. Our EBITA increased with 11%, and we improved our margin compared to last year to a high level of 16.6%. We strengthened our cash flow and closed 2 acquisitions during the quarter.

A bit more on net sales. The overall business situation was good, as I said. We grew top line 6%, which means it was from acquisition, but solid contributions primarily from business areas, Automation, Electrification and Safety. Segment-wise, if we summarize all business areas, the main drivers in the quarter were electronics with products and solutions for electrifying equipment. Special vehicles had a good quarter, primarily towards mining and defense markets. Solid contributions also from medical and also transport sector where railway and marine were the main contributors.

Also, the Niche segment, traffic safety also this quarter contributed in a good way with a continued positive development. All in all, high customer activity. As I said, the broad-based order intake, positive book-to-bill. During the quarter, in part of the business, we see a tendency for customers to place some framework orders to hedge against uncertainty and feared price increases and delays going forward due to the uncertainties that we have around us. I will come back with more details about market development in each business area very shortly.

EBITA then increased with 11%. Also here, solid contributions from Automation, Electrification and Safety. We continue to improve our gross margins across the board. So all business areas increased gross margins, it's very satisfying. And we report an improved EBITA-margin, as I said, 16.6%. The positive development is primarily due to continued improvements in the product mix and solid contributions from acquisitions, but also positive effect from active pricing initiatives and of course, also earlier communicated restructuring measures in a handful of companies, primarily in Automation and Safety, where we now see good effects.

We strengthened our cash flow and profit of working capital remained at high level. A few words on each business area then. From the top, starting with Automation, as you can see in the slide, the business situation clearly improved in the first quarter, a broad-based increase in sales and a good leverage on both earnings and margins. And the market situation strengthened. We have now had 5 quarters in a row with a sequential improvement in order intake, and that is a strong indication for us. The underlying demand for product solutions for defense industry remained very strong. Also order intake in mechanical industry, medical and process had a positive development.

Within medical, it's primarily OEMs supplying diagnostic and analytical equipment. And within segment Process, it's the food processing OEMs that are the main drivers. So a solid recovery in Automation that we've been waiting for and clear positive effects on earnings and margins.

Moving on to Electrification. Also a very strong quarter where market situation was strong, a very good order intake here. Net sales increased with 27%, driven by solid business momentum in basically all main segments. Mechanical industry and defense, the only exceptions, the latter defense industry must due to very tough comps. Here, we have projects that are not linear. It will -- can come one or another quarter.

It's also great to see that our battery group continues to develop positively with good contributions to many of our customer segments. Strong contributions from acquisitions, primarily RAMME in Germany, which are focusing on the Marine segment. In summary, a very strong quarter for Electrification, broad-based growth, solid contributions from the acquired company, as I said, an EBITA growth of 43% with a high margin of 16.2%. And in the margin, I would say that it's partly boosted by very strong performance from acquisitions with a slight positive seasonal effect in this quarter.

Energy experienced a very positive market development in the first quarter. The electrical transmission business recovered in a very good way with high order intake after a period with fewer project rollouts and a lower order intake earlier quarters. High demand also in distribution and transport, while power generation was stable. Sales were down in the quarter as expected due to very tough comps, but with an improved product mix, our margins increased to 19.5%.

Forward-looking, we have a very strong backlog and good business momentum, indicating a strong year, but tilted towards the second half of the financial year, as we indicated already in the Q4 report. But again, the projects are now coming in just as we had expected. The overall market situation within Industry was good in the quarter, but with variations. Solid demand in mechanical industry, electronics, subsea and waste management, but companies exposed to forestry and sawmill industry order intake remained weak. We have been repeating this now for a number of quarters. Customer activity is there and a couple of orders were won during the quarter, but we don't see any general trend shift here.

Also, special vehicles met a somewhat weaker market situation where demand being negatively affected by geopolitical uncertainty and higher oil price that we had during the quarter. Total net sales decreased with 3%. Again, this is primarily due to the sawmill volumes. And these effects will, of course, remain until this market situation improves.

Moving on to business area Process, where the overarching market situation was, I would say, stable in the quarter. Demand was good in Marine segment, solid order intake related to regulatory demands and shift to more green fuels. Also, energy and special vehicles had a positive development, stable in mechanical industry, weak in medical technology towards tough comps and also forestry and process industry was on the weaker side. And here, we again see that activities are good. There are a lot of discussions on projects, but customers are still holding off on investment decisions and projects are also continuing to being a bit postponed.

All in all, a rather challenging start for Process with 2% increase in sales, but this is entirely driven by contributions from acquisitions. Earnings and margins were down to the lower business volumes, but adjusted for revaluations of consideration, we actually saw a slight improvement on the margins also for Process in this quarter.

Last but not least, Safety, which had a very positive development in the quarter, a good business development and solid order intake. The market remained strong within traffic safety and the energy, electronics and engineering manufacturing industry experienced a positive trend in the quarter.

Regarding data centers, we saw a bit flattening out on high levels within Safety during the quarter. And here, we see a little shift towards more local product procurement in data centers. And this will seemingly give potential for several companies in the group moving forward. No clear signs, however, I would say, in the construction sector, it's an important sector for Safety. So the companies exposed to building installation continue to meet overall weak demand. But overall, sales increased by 10%, approximately half coming from acquisitions. Positive effect on earnings and margins, also fueled by both product mix that was improved and the previously implemented cost measures in a couple of companies that we've been talking about earlier last year.

Well, to sum up this picture, I would say, a very solid quarter, positive market situation, high customer activity on group level. Variations still between different segments, customers and geographies. And it is clear that the geopolitical uncertainty still adds to the kind of hesitant approach in investing among customers in a number of segments.

With that said, I give the word to you, Malin, for a few more details.

Thank you, Niklas. You have mentioned a lot of important matters already. I will dig down in some of them. As you heard, our EBITA grew and the profit margin improved compared to last year. The EBITA-margin increased by 1 percentage points adjusted for revaluations of earn-outs, and we had yet another quarter with a record high margin.

We had good contributions from acquisitions, but the development was also attributable to an improved product mix, good pricing power and the fact that restructuring measures taken in businesses with persistently lower market conditions are starting to have a clear impact now. We can see that the trend line of total cost in relation to sales still has a good development.

Regarding other operating incomes and expenses, revaluations of earn-outs were more or less in line with last year, while currency effect from revaluation of balance sheet items had substantially less negative effect on other income and expenses than last year.

Our cash flow from operating activities strengthened compared to the same quarter last year by stronger margins and efficient working capital. Cash conversion was stable at a satisfactory level. Inventory levels increased somewhat during the quarter due to acquisitions and the usual summer buffering, but also due to price increases and supply chain disruptions. All in all, inventory levels are still at healthy levels in relation to sales and order backlog and profitable working capital remained at 81% sequentially.

Our financial position remained very strong during the quarter, and our gearing and leverage decreased compared to last year, even though our net debt has increased. We have a very satisfactory headroom in our financing structure, which strengthened further during the quarter through the raising of new debt. While we do not have any specific debt targets, we believe our strong balance sheet provides significant capacity to fund future acquisitions and organic growth investments.

And with that said, I hand over back to you, Niklas, for more information about acquisitions, I believe.

Yes. Thank you, Malin. And as you can see in the picture, we have had a strong first 6 months of this calendar year. So a lot of very good companies coming into the group. We completed 2 more acquisitions during the quarter, 2 Dutch companies, 1 Staka Holding, supplying customized outdoor enclosures and Nious Engineering, selling patented system solutions for road and rail construction machinery. So we are proud to welcome them both to the group. Together, they add about SEK 250 million in turnover with accretive margins.

Given our increased footprint internationally, as you can see in the picture, it's a lot of acquisitions outside of the Nordics. We can really see that we have a growing awareness of Addtech in a lot of new markets, and we continue to fill our pipeline with high-performing companies that are well spread across both niches and geographies and business areas.

So this, combined with the strong balance sheet, as Malin just went through, this gives us a lot of firepower, and I really expect to keep a high acquisition pace going forward. So the acquisition market looks very promising, I would say.

And to wrap up this, a very good start to the fiscal year, high customer activities quite across the board. And we can see that despite, again, the geopolitical uncertainty and the very tough comps in Energy & Industry, we grew top line and we especially grew earnings with 11% and even better on earnings per share and strengthened the cash flow and balance sheet remains very strong. So given our agility and strong positions in attractive niches, we have a positive view of the continuance of this financial year, tilted towards the second half, as we have been indicating before.

So with that said, over to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Opeyemi Otaniyi from Goldman Sachs.

Two questions from my end. Maybe just one on margin and then one on Industry. I suppose margins have been quite strong for a few years and quarters now, but particularly strong in the last few quarters. So could you just give us some thoughts on how you see this level in coming quarters and any sort of thoughts on what's driving margins higher?

Yes. It's like you said, we have had a good -- really good development on margins. Of course, they can vary a bit quarter-over-quarter. If we look at the group as such, I mean, we see that the kind of rolling 12 margin is relevant with a continuous ambition to gradually increase the margin. Then it can vary a bit, of course, between the different business areas. Automation is coming from a lower level. And as we've been indicating in early quarters, we have foreseen that Automation should come back on the level they are now.

While on the other hand, we can see that, for instance, Industry, having the kind of tough comps on sawmill industry will most likely as it looks right now, rather maybe decrease a little bit. But it's -- all in all, we think it's the rolling 12 margin is relevant going forward. Again, with, as always, an ambition to increase the margins. And then as I also indicated, in Electrification, a very strong margin this quarter, which is partly boosted not very significantly, but a little bit due to a very strong performance from acquisitions this quarter and especially RAMME in Germany has a little seasonality effect with a strong Q1 and a bit weaker Q2 due to that they closed down production and so forth for a couple of weeks. But all in all, we think, yes, we are satisfied with the margin levels.

Great. And just one more on Industry. I think you've sort of telegraphed that sort of headwind in forestry has existed for a few quarters now. Is there anything new in terms of special vehicles or other end markets there?

Sorry, on special vehicles?

Yes, within Industry, just the other end markets may be driving sort of weaker organic growth near term? Is it just forestry or sort of special workers and other stuff as well within Industry?

No. I mean, in general, I would say we see a positive development on most niche segments in Industry. The sawmill headwind is, of course, the big issue for Industry. This quarter, we saw a little bit weaker order intake from some segments in special vehicles, and that is due to disruptions in supply chain and also higher oil price that has given a little bit of a hesitation. But we still see special vehicles having a good market situation. So I would say also electronic production, mechanical industry, we have a good development there. So I would say it really runs down to the sawmill market.

The next question comes from Max Bacco from SEB.

The first question also relating to the Industry segment, basically a follow-up. As you mentioned yourself, the margin down 1.3 percentage points here in the quarter or 1.4% adjusting for earn-outs revaluations. Is that fair magnitude to assume also going ahead, all else equal? Or is it anything else to it?

Yes. So there might be -- again, it's always very difficult to guide here because it depends on many different variables. But we said going into this year that as long as the sawmill market is hampered, this will have an effect on the margins. I think there is probably, as of now, rather maybe some additional slight negative potential on the margin in the coming quarters. I would not expect any dramatic change. But from this level, it's maybe a little bit more there.

Okay. Understood. And then on the same topic, which also addressed during the presentation, Automation and Safety segments both saw very nice profitability improvements here in the quarter, which was something we discussed last quarter as well and still quite stable on a sequential basis, the margin then compared with Q4. Would you say that these levels are reasonable to expect going ahead? Or is there any seasonality in these 2 segments that should be considered?

No, I would not say any specific seasonality. As you can see from early years, we see some effect, of course, from the summer period. But apart from that, on the margin side, I would say that Automation is on the right track, meaning that Automation should have a slight better margin than rolling 12. While in Safety, I would say rolling 12 is probably a relevant number also going ahead.

Okay. Very clear. And then the final one, just to clarify it. I mean you highlight here in the quarter a well-filled order book, positive book-to-bill and also that the market situation has strengthened during the quarter. And then, of course, we have the specific dynamics in each respective segment. But to me, it sounds like that you at least expect organic sales growth to gradually improve in the coming quarters versus the basically 0% that we have seen during the last 2 quarters. Is that a correct interpretation?

Yes. I mean only looking at our order intake in the quarter and the order book, again, considering tilted towards the second half, but we -- and of course, the -- all uncertainties that might have different effects. But our expectation is that organic growth should gradually improve, but again, tilted towards the second half.

The next question comes from Karl Bokvist from ABG Sundal Collier.

First, on Automation here, we've talked about it. But just when thinking about the margins now and you've been talking about the cost savings initiatives, et cetera. From this step, if we think about the 14% level, is there more that can be realized from your own initiatives? Or is it now from this level more about getting a bit of organic growth back and that you get leverage on volumes and so on to which in turn could drive profitability?

Yes. Yes, I would say that as of now, it's more relating to top line growth and that, that will generate incremental margins -- potential incremental margin improvements. So the cost initiatives, again, as of now, I would say, are already in the numbers.

All right. And then just on Industry here as even when we take the earn-out revaluations into account, it's at 20%. And despite the fact that sawmill volumes are low, and I acknowledge your commentary earlier about that it could have a slight negative impact. But just the other parts here, do you think that kind of there is more to come in other areas of Industry that could support or raise margins? Or is it more about -- to your point earlier about kind of rolling 12 with a slight negative impact from sawmills, that's how we should think about it?

Yes. I mean it's always in a group like Addtech and also in the Industry, there are a number of companies that should have -- that should increase their margins. But if you look at Industry as a whole, I would say that my comment before is it's not that I really see at this point that we have any other segments or markets that would kind of balance up that effect from sawmill. So rather a slight decrease until sawmill market comes back.

Final question is on just looking into your second quarter now ahead and primarily on Energy & Industry. And correct me if I'm wrong here. But when just looking at the organic growth that these businesses saw last year, it seems like both had quite good quarters. So would it be just fair to assume or take that into account when assessing the year-over-year development for those 2 divisions now for your current second quarter?

Yes. I think it's quite clear if you look on the second quarter last year and my comments now where Industry had a very strong effect from some sawmill projects in the second quarter last year and primarily from that side. And also Energy having a strong quarter. And as I said, really strong product inflow now in Energy, but that is more -- those projects are more, I would say, tilted towards the third and fourth quarters. So I think your assumption is probably correct.

Great. And then the follow-up would be because then from Q3, it looks like those kind of comparables, for lack of better words, are better in that sense, right? That it's primarily Q2 where you still have this challenge year-over-year. And then from Q2, things look more normalized.

I mean from Q3, yes, that's -- yes.

The next question comes from Gustav Berneblad from Nordea.

It's Gustav here from Nordea. I thought maybe just to build here. Just to build on Karl's here a question on Energy. It sounds like you are incrementally more positive here in terms of orders where you phrased it very strong. Can you just elaborate a bit more on this? And maybe just recap to the previous discussion we had here in Q4 where you sort of highlighted permitting constraints and a bit of a bottleneck and so forth.

Yes. So what we have always said here is that we will not see a linear development. Even if the underlying demand is very, very strong on the markets where we are, it will be variations quarter-by-quarter. So the fact that we had a little slower project inflow due to all of these restraints that we usually talk about in the last maybe 1, 2 quarters, we now see a very strong comeback, so to say. But I think we have to look at this market in a more longer perspective and just realize that it could be variations on a quarterly basis. And it's -- and this permit situation, I would say, is still there. It can still be delays due to appeals and all of these things. But again, the kind of outlook at this point looks -- yes, very promising. Was that...

That's very clear. No, no, that was good. Just a follow-up on that because it feels like you commented on, as you say, a decent market still. And despite that -- I mean, you still comment on volumes picking up first in Q3 and Q4. Is it sort of -- should we assume that it's longer lead times on these projects as well and that we should expect it to be more tilted towards 2027, the orders you take here in Q1 or...

No. I think my point is that as it looks as of now, and we elaborate on the order book, we should see effects from this in the third and fourth quarter.

Perfect. And then just is it possible to comment anything specific on -- a specific number on the book-to-bill here in the quarter?

Yes. As you know, we don't report figures like concrete on order intake. But it's -- if I say, it's clearly above 1. And also maybe I could add, it's a sequential improvement -- a slight sequential improvement on book-to-bill.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Johan Lönnqvist Sundén from DNB Carnegie.

I actually just have one follow-up question to the all good questions that already had been asked. It's on the Safety segment and the comment on the data center exposure, where you mentioned that you're seeing a trend for more kind of local procurements and it could create big opportunities for more Addtech companies. Can you please elaborate a little bit what that really means? How many companies can be involved? And how can that kind of segment or that exposure change for you in the coming year or so?

Yes. I mean, -- we have had looking back primarily a couple of companies in the U.K. with a very, very strong situation on data centers. What we have seen, as I said, it has flattened out a little bit on that side, and that is because we can see a shift towards procurement being more on a general European basis for a few players towards more local procurement. So what we can see now, and it's very difficult -- even if I wanted to, I couldn't say an exact kind of potential here, but it's quite clear that I would say it's a number of companies that are indicating that they are in discussions on projects, and it's basically on all -- in all Nordic markets. So that's kind of the shift I talk about. If it flattens out a bit on the more kind of bigger procurement project is now more tilted over to local procurement. So we see a positive potential here, but it's -- I couldn't elaborate on any figures here.

If I may have a follow-up there. When you say more companies, are you still only referring to companies within the Safety segment? Or are there...

No, it's actually...

Many companies in other segments that those...

Yes, yes, it's actually also in, I would say, both Energy, Electrification. So it's actually a bit broad-based here.

Interesting. And another question as well on a different topic is the project postponement that we talked about a bit. You say that they still persist. Any kind of change throughout the second quarter of indication of changed behavior on that sense?

No, not really. It's still kind of the same thing. I've been talking about this kind of confidence in investments. And I think the kind of ongoing disturbance that we see over and over in -- not in our kind of for Addtech company, but more the geopolitical situation. And this is, I would say, particularly affecting more -- very high energy consuming production like chemical industry and so forth. Here, we can see that there is a lot of projects. We have a good order book and a lot of discussions, but we still see these hesitations. So I would say no real change here.

And what about lead times, say, if the client would decide to go ahead tomorrow, would it be possible for you to deliver or will be normal for you to deliver for that client during the fall? Or is it something for first half '27?

No. I would say that a number of these projects have been planned for quite a long time. So we could most likely start to deliver quite instantly, I mean, during the fall. It, of course, depends on the different projects. But to a quite large extent, we could start supplying during fall.

There are no more phone questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions or closing comments.

So thank you all for good questions. We can conclude that we don't have any written questions either. So with that said, we wish you all a great week and eventually a good summer. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

[Audio Gap] the Addtech Q4 2025 report presentation. For the first part of the presentation participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Niklas Stenberg; and CFO, Malin Enarson. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and most welcome, everyone, to Addtech's year-end report presentation. The setup is as usual, Malin and I will use approximately 0.5 hour to summarize and give our comment on the results and then open up for questions.

Before we head on to the highlights of the report, just a very quick run through of the key fundamentals of Addtech. We are a group of more than 115 dependent and strictly decentralized companies in 20 countries with a clear business-to-business offering. With our new strengthened organization since the autumn, we operate now in 6 business areas, all with clear strategies and a value proposition centered around niche products and solutions primarily to manufacturing and infrastructure sectors.

We have what we call a dual growth ending approach. Our focus is to develop and grow the existing business organically together with our entrepreneurs and then complement and strengthen our strategic niches with acquiring leading companies with a strong offering, and we fund our acquisitions primarily by own cash flow.

Size-wise, we have now a turnover for the full year of almost SEK 23 billion. We run the operations with an EBITDA margin at around 16% and deploy around 4,600 employees throughout the organization with a small and efficient central team.

So with that said, some quarterly highlights. Despite the increased geopolitical tension, as we all know, we have around us, we ended the year on a good note. Market situation was in general positive with high customer activity and a solid order intake.

Net sales increased by 2% during the quarter. And organically, we were in line with last year. The positive EBITDA growth trend continued and with a very strong margin. More details about that later on. cash flow remained at high levels, and we closed in total 6 acquisitions during the quarter, followed by 2 more after closing.

Net sales development. The overall business situation, as I said, was good, grew top line 2%. Solid contributions primarily from business areas, Automation, Electrification and Process in the quarter. The FX headwinds continued with the total negative effect in the quarter of 4%.

Looking at segment drivers in the quarter, Process -- different process segments, Transport, primarily in railway and Marine and also special vehicles, excluding Construction and forestry machinery were strong drivers and also products and solutions to Electrify equipment in different end market segments. And this growth partly offset weaker sales in the quarter within electrical transmission as well as sawmills.

All in all, a solid quarter sales-wise, not least given the FX headwinds that I mentioned. Overall, customer activity was high in the quarter, good order intake and a positive book-to-bill. The intake was broad-based but with a tilt towards the longer end of the book. I will come back with more details about this shortly.

[ EBITA ] increased in the quarter with a very solid 15%, where almost half was organic. It's very satisfying to see double-digit growth in 5 out of 6 business areas, with Energy being the exception, primarily due to fewer transmission project rollouts and also very tough comps from last year.

We continue to improve gross margins across the board, which is very satisfying. And in Q4, we reported a record high EBITDA margin of 17.3%, which is, however, somewhat bolstered by positive effect from revaluation of purchase considerations, as you can read in the report. But also when adjusting these, we end up at 16.4%, which means that we continue the very positive trend.

And this is primarily driven by improved product mix and also acquisitions, but also positive effects from earlier communicated restructuring measures in a handful of companies where we now see good effects. I mentioned also the operative cash flow and the long-term financial target [ R2R 2K ] continues to improve to very good levels, which Malin will come back to later.

Heading on to a few comments about each of the 6 business areas development in the quarter. From the top, starting Automation. As you can see in the slide, the business situation clearly improved in the quarter with a broad-based increase in sales with good leverage on both earnings and margins.

Also, the market situation remained favorable, now with 4 quarters in a row with a positive order trend. The demand for products and solutions within defense and process industry, primarily food processing OEM was strong. Also, the order intake from OEM supply and engineering was good and medical stable at an aggregated level with customers supplying diagnostic and analytical equipment were on the positive side.

Moving on to Electrification, where market situation was very strong with good demand in basically all key segments. Net sales increased 12%, where energy, medical and special vehicles being the key drivers. And all these 3 segments was also fueled by continued positive development within our [ battery ] group that have had a really strong year, I would say. -- also solid contributions from newly acquired companies.

So in summary, a very strong quarter for Electrification, broad-based growth and the favorable product mix, leveraging the results. So EBITDA up 31% and a high margin of 16.7.

Q4 was on the weak side for business area Energy, as I mentioned in the beginning, Negative effect from a lower order intake in previous quarters and very tough comps related to electrical transmission pushed down sales 7%, as you can see. However, margins remained at high levels, mainly due to an improved product mix and continuous very good cost control.

And this temporary shift in order intake and project rollouts in the transmission business is, as we have said many times, due to permit process appeals and capacity restraints on the customer side. and this is part of the business. We have to look at this more on a long-term. And the underlying market situation here is very good, significant investment needs for renovation and expansion of the grids. We have a strong backlog of quotations more than we have had ever before. So this indicates a strong year also ahead, however, tilted towards the second half.

Other key segments for Energy, such as niche products for electrical power distribution, power generation, transport sector had a stable market situation where wind and hydropower and also railways sticking out positively. The overall market situation within industry remained positive with increased demand in all segments, special vehicles, data telecom and marine, the will to invest within formal industry remained weak, even though we had a couple of project wins in the quarter. But generally, it's still a weak market. And we also saw, in this quarter, somewhat softening from high levels within subsea.

Total net sales decreased 3%, and this is primarily relating to the lower sawmill volumes, effects that we will also see when going into the new fiscal year until that market situation improves. EBIT and margin levels increased from already high levels due to strong product mix and margins in finalized projects during the quarter. And this was strong even when excluding the effects from revaluations of purchase considerations.

As you can see in the report, it's quite a lot in the industry here. And this is primarily relating to 1 acquisition that we made in 2023 that has strongly underperformed since we acquired the company. We make a lot of acquisitions, as you know, and sometimes you can really bump into something where we have underestimated and misjudged, especially the people.

We also talk -- always talk about it's the culture in the end and the people. And here, we did a mistake that for sure. We have taken a new grip on the company now with new leadership and a new strategic focus. Moving on to business area process, where the overarching market situation was stable in the quarter.

Despite the current uncertainty within the shipping industry, we saw a positive project order intake within Marine. Also special vehicles showed continued strength. Engineering and Medical were stable, while Energy and Process were on the weak side, all in all. In general, customer activity is good across the board, but there is still a hesitation and the continued tendency among customers to postpone investment decisions Possibly, this is also fueled by the increased geopolitical tension.

The business situation for Process was favorable with double digit sales growth, where marine and product deliveries in process industry were the main drivers. Also, we see an improved product and project mix in the quarter that pushed the margins to new record levels, partly boosted by positive revaluations, but even taking that out, is really good margins.

Last but not least, Safety. The demand situation for companies exposed to building an installation remained weak in Q4. We've been waiting now, I would say, for a couple of years for this market to to come back, and we still see that it's a weak market. Medical and Engineering were also on the weak side, but we saw a positive continued trend within defense that we start to see some good markets also for Safety and the bounce back from data centers after a period of more hesitant demand.

Also, traffic safety remained at very good levels. And adjusted for FX, net sales were stable and with positive effects from product mix and previous cost-cutting initiatives profitability margins increased in a satisfying way in the quarter.

So to sum up then, clear variations in the market situations, both between companies and segments and geographies as well. but we continue to experience a hesitation to invest among customers, while we see good growth in other segments and areas. So we concluded a solid quarter with a positive market situation and a high customer activity all in all.

With that said, I'll give the word to you, Malin, for some more details on the quarter.

Thank you, Niklas. As you heard, our EBITDA grew and the profit margin improved compared to last year's fourth quarter to a record high level. We delivered strongly despite the market conditions remaining volatile. There are always variations within and between our business areas and they perform with varying strengths from year-to-year. But for the group as a whole, this is the fifth year in a row where we have had a positive development trend of our rolling [ 12 ] EBITDA margin.

We are very proud of this outcome, and we see the current rolling [ 12 ] margin as sustainable and of course, as always, with the ambition to increase.

We had a quite significant effect from revaluation of earnouts in this quarter. And as Niklas mentioned, it was primarily due to 1 underperforming company in business area Industry, where the earn-out was reversed.

Adjusting both years from total revaluation of earnouts, we had an increase in EBITDA margin of 1.5 percentage points and still a record high margin in the quarter. The increase was broad-based and all business areas increased both our gross margin as well as their profit margin during the quarter.

For the full year, we had an increase in EBITDA margin of 1 percentage point, thanks to active work to increase the value add in our value proposition, good pricing power and strategically improving our product mix. and not least, good contribution from acquired companies as well as good leverage from organic sales.

The impact of revaluations of earn-outs on the development of the operating margin is insignificant for the year. Of course, a firm group of overhead costs is also contributing to the outcome and the restructuring measures taken during the year in businesses with persistent to lower market conditions are starting to have a clear impact now. We can see that the trend line of total cost in relation to sales has a good development.

Regarding other operating income and expenses, we had a somewhat less negative currency effects in the fourth quarter regarding revaluation of balance sheet items, while it was in line with last year for the full year.

Our cash flow was solid during the quarter and in line with the same quarter last year. Rolling 12, our cash flow from operating activities strengthened from already high levels to almost SEK 3 billion compared to SEK 2.7 billion last year.

The change in working capital was relatively weaker compared to the same quarter last year, mainly due to changes in accounts receivable, which are affected by the timing of sales and invoicing during the quarter.

Inventory levels continued to decrease organically, even though not to the same extent as during last year. The inventory value remains at satisfactory levels in relation to the order backlog as well as in relation to sales. And all in all, our long-term target, profitable working capital continued to improve and reached 81% in the quarter.

Our gearing and leverage are stable at low levels, and our financial position remains very strong. Compared to Q3, we saw a slight increase in leverage due to high acquisition pace, which, in fact, we see as a positive development for the time being.

Our financing structure was strengthened through the refinancing of existing credit agreements during the quarter. And in combination with our strong balance sheet, this gives us plenty of room to continue our growth strategy. and continue to invest in attractive companies, which I think you will talk more about now, Niklas. Over to you.

Thank you, Malin. First, some full year highlights. When summarizing the year, we can once again conclude a solid year. It's been a year with clear variations every quarter. very strong development, all in all, within Energy, special vehicles and defense, while formal business and building installation have struggled with more hampered markets. And also, as I've said during the quarter, the CapEx-related investment decisions, we've seen hesitations, especially, I would say, the second half of the year.

Despite the partly challenging market, the negative currency effects, the overarching activity for the company has been stable at the high level, and we continue to deliver growth on all lines. a 2% organic, all in all, of course, lower than our long-term financial targets. But again, taking into account the market conditions, we are satisfied with that and solid contributions from 4 out of 6 business areas.

EBITDA 12% in the year improved profitability, 16% margin. As Malin said, we are very satisfied with that, of course, and EPS growth of 14%. And again, satisfying to see how well our focus on product mix and active pricing gets the volumes into the results. And as we mentioned, we have improved the gross margins in all 6 business areas, not only through acquisitions but also organically.

The cash flow, Marlin mentioned, we strengthened and also kept our return on capital, stable at high levels. During the fiscal year, we acquired 9 companies, all well-run high performers that complement and strengthen our strategic initiatives. We also had a good start the new year with 2 acquisitions. I will come back to that.

So summarizing a successful year, where the modest robustness and resilience, again, is proven. On back on our strong positions in supported by structural growth trends, we delivered solid sales and good order intake. The Board proposes a dividend of SEK 3.60 per share, good increase from last year.

I would also like to take the opportunity to say just a few words about the accomplishment in each business area also looking at the full year.

So starting with Automation then, as we said many times, here, we deliver a lot of OEM-related components and solutions, where mechanical process, medical and defense are the main segments. And worth mentioning when you look at this picture is that defense is reported under other segments and stand for around 15% of total Automation.

It's been a challenging year for Automation, characterized by both customer hesitations but also a lot of restructuring measures and cost-cutting initiatives in a number of companies, so high activities there. Order intake has quarter-by-quarter, improved and in the later part now, especially in Q4, we see this in the positive sales trend that we have been waiting for.

So with the increased customer activity, active pricing and the effect from these actions, I would say, Automation has a good momentum entering into the new fiscal year. 2 acquisitions made in Automation, a Dutch company, BCK [ Holland and Kramvis ] strengthen our conveyor offering in a very good way with a strong value proposition under own brands. Cubro is an Austrian leading manufacturer of products and solutions for monitoring security and analysis of data networks. So we're very proud to welcome them both to the group, both having accretive margins and strong profitability.

[ Business Air ] Electification has primarily a broad value proposition to support customers in most key segments in their electrification transition. All in all, I would say, a solid year for Electrification with high activity across the board. Total net sales increased by 5% with a good mix of organic growth and contributions from acquisitions.

We can also conclude and improved profitability and a very good margin increase during the year, not least fueled by the continued positive trend for the battery group and also contributions from acquisitions.

Three companies acquired during the fiscal year, 2 German and 1 based in U.K., all 3 are well-run companies that strengthen and complement the Electrification strategies in a very good way. The larger acquisition of German company, [ Ram ], was completed in the fourth quarter, and [ Rami ] is a leading manufacturer of electric motors and generators for maritime electrification and has an annual turnover of approximately EUR 38 million with strong margins and profitability and has started the first couple of months in a very good way in [ Ante ].

And yesterday afternoon, we completed another acquisition in Electrification, the Dutch company, [ Nios ], a supplier of patented system solutions for road and rail construction machinery. A warm welcome also to you to the team.

Energy, in summary, a record high year for Energy, very high sales growth in the beginning of the fiscal year, partly offset by tough comps and a somewhat weaker customer activity in the transmission business, affecting sales, the fourth quarter here. But all in all, sales up 5% from very already high levels is important to mention. And basically, all growth here was organic. And the underlying demand remains very good, as I've been talking about.

We also have strong positions in other attractive niches. Energy has a lot of different positions here. such as niche products for power distribution towards industrials, railways, renewable power, et cetera; with a solid growth potential going forward. No acquisition in Energy completed during the year, but we have a good pipeline as a good potential for future acquisitions within this area. EBITDA growth of 28% and margin on a very solid 19.2% rolling 12.

Industry, a good year despite the very challenging comps that we talked about in the beginning of the year in the [ sawmill ] business. And the weak order intake was in sawmill was clearly offset by a positive trend within both special vehicles, mechanical industry, but also in subsea segment, delivering very strong growth over the year. So we have a very solid 11% sales growth and EBITDA up 15%. And as we can see that we also increased the EBITDA margin from really high levels.

In January, Axion, the German company, supplying camera and sensor system for vehicles, primarily within public transports; were welcome to the group.

Process. A key driver for this business area is the increased requirements to reduce the industry's environmental impact with key customers within process industry, energy sector and marine. On overarching level, it's been a stable year with high activity and solid growth numbers, but we clear variations.

The first 6 months, the market situation was in general favorable with good order intake, especially companies supplying customers within marine and oil and gas segments. During the second half, we saw a positive sales trend while the market shifted to a more hesitant approach for CapEx-related investments. The activity in the market was relatively good with many ongoing dialogues, but decision-making among customers remain cautious.

The project has been postponed. We have not seen basically any cancellations. We talk about the postponement. But the order book for Process is well filled going into the new year.

An active year on acquisitions for Process with 3 new companies acquired, our second Canadian company, [ Novatek ], a leading supplier of analytical instrumentation for gases and liquids. We have known the company for many years. Also a Norwegian company, [ Puran Vivo ], supplying solutions for handling harmful and odorous gases; and [ CAP ] closed in February is a Dutch company supplying heat exchange solutions. All 3 companies fit very well into our strategies within proceeds -- Process with good performance so far and increase the margins.

Finally, our most recent business area established Safety. All in all, a stable year with positive sales and earnings growth despite the heavy exposure to the hampered segment building installation. As you can see in the picture, more than 1/3 of the sales is related to building and installation.

Profitability measures in a number of companies and more solid development in other customer segments, such as traffic safety, defense and data centers have mitigated in a good way with improved profitability and gross margins.

The first acquisition for Safety, we did now after closing in the beginning of April with the Dutch company [indiscernible] a company that designs and manufacture customized outdoor installation enclosures. We have an active M&A agenda now in the business area, where we have a as we have been explaining a fairly broad definition of safety. So a lot of good potential here.

Moving on to acquisitions. As I said, 9 acquisitions completed during the fiscal year with a strong end. We have acquired according to plan for the full year, adding SEK 1.6 billion in turnover, following our strategy also to acquire niche companies with own products and also accretive margins.

Also in line with our strategy, our activities in select markets outside Nordics are accelerating with an increased deal inflow, partly driven by us now being more present in our strategic geographical markets such as U.K., [ DACH ], Benelux and Italy. And as you can read by the flags in the table, all acquired companies, except for [indiscernible], are headquartered outside Nordics.

We see plenty of possibilities in our strategic initiatives, and we expect to continue a mix of Nordic and European companies also going forward. with normal size and a few larger companies as well. And on the back of the strong balance sheet, the well-filled pipeline with high-performing companies and also more boots on the ground now with strength in organization, we expect to keep a high acquisition pace also going forward.

Before wrapping up, I would like to once again establish that our diversification, both in terms of segments, geographies and customers is a key success factor for us. especially in more uncertain times. And we can again conclude that the distribution between the segments remains quite stable with only minor changes in the picture here year-on-year.

We have seen from a [indiscernible] point of view, of course, variations, but more, I would say, relating to the different niche segments than kind of a macro perspective on the geographies. But all in all, the business situation was stable in Norway, weaker in Sweden and Finland and strong in Denmark.

And if we look outside the Nordics, our main markets, Germany and U.K., the business situation was very strong and favorable also in most other markets outside Nordics. European market, all in all, now accounts for around 40%, and we continue year-by-year to increase [ press ] outside the Nordics.

Also worth mentioning closing the year is, of course, our corporate culture because besides being highly diversified and strong position in the niches, our unique corporate culture based on entrepreneurship and own responsibility and also, of course, the network centered around sharing best practice and using our Addtech tools and benchmarking, et cetera, is really key for our long-term success.

So with flexible and adaptable companies with clear mandates to take operative decisions close to the companies give us the ability to handle challenges and capture opportunities is I something that we have seen the last 25 years since we were listed separately. Also, this is key to attract entrepreneurs who see Addtech as an attractive home when considering the future of the company.

And of course, this is the best proof of what I've just said. For more than 2 decades, we have exceeded our target of increasing our EBITDA by more than 15%, as you can see an EBITDA growth of 20% on average. Also worth mentioning is that we have achieved this without any capital injections. It's been organically financed by our own capital, supported by traditional bank facilities.

And the key is to combine strong, stable organic growth with excellence in capital allocation in our decentralized acquisition process. Our business model is scalable and I see a very good potential for us to continue this successful journey also ahead.

Now summarizing I'm pleased with our performance during the fiscal year, not least given the fact that the global situation remains uncertain. With the high activity and solid order intake, we ended the year strongly, and we can summarize and increased profitability and margins at record-high levels. And also, we have acquired according to plan and with a good pipeline.

We entered the new fiscal year with, as I've been saying, high customer activity and with a strong order book, that is somewhat tilted towards the longer book.

Global situation is, as we all know, uncertain, and it's unclear how this will impact the market conditions going forward. But our companies are generally optimistic and see opportunities, and we have a strong belief in our ability to continue creating long-term value creation.

With that said, let's open up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from [indiscernible] from GS.

Maybe 2 questions to me and then 1 housekeeping one, maybe more for Allan. But just the first 1 on growth and just in energy. Do you mind just talking to sort of visibility to sort of order conversion and especially in H2. I appreciate you mentioned sort of higher quotation activity, but sort of any comments just guiding us to what you've seen in that market would be helpful.

Yes. As I've been saying, I mean, we have had now a couple of really, really strong years. And the underlying demand is very good. When we talk about quotations, we can see that on all markets where we are present, that we have very high quotation backlog. The order intake here on projects has been a little bit slower. We had a little bit uptick in Q3.

In the Q4, we had a couple of projects that were postponed due to what I've been saying, I mean, it's a lot of challenges when you have the permit processes, et cetera. So that has been postponed.

What we see now going forward, we faced tough comps, especially in the Q1. But all in all, when we are when we -- what we see during the year that we enter into now that we see -- we will have a growth also on the transmission side, but it will be tilted more towards the second half. So that is what we can see in looking at both the order book and the quotations.

Super. That's very helpful. And maybe the second question just on margins sort of the has been quite strong in the quarter, but just through the year, I know there are several things driving that. But do you mind just giving us a sense of like when sort of thinking of margins for 2027, 2028, the buckets that you saw driving margin in 2026? Which of those are likely to sort of be trying -- effectively driving margins in future years?

Yes. I mean, Again, as we've been mentioning, we've seen strong growth development on basically all sites here, and that is broad-based. There are -- as always, I mean, we have a big portfolio of companies, and we have everything in the book. We've been talking about automation for quite some time. That automation should come back to a better level, which we see now in the quarter when we get the effects from sales.

The year that have ended now, of course, there are something boosting the margins a little bit. I mean, look at Energy. In Q3, we had a boost on the margin there. But all in all, we have a strong role in 12.

So I mean looking into the coming year, as Malin mentioned, we see the rolling 12 as sustainable also going forward. And we always have -- as you mentioned, we've been growing the margin for many, many years. And that is still our ambition. But of course, it will vary a bit between the business areas.

But it's a matter of product mix. It's a matter of buying the right companies, adding to the margins. It's about working a lot with pricing initiatives, taking the right projects, not going for volumes, but going for the projects that really generate good margins. So it's a mix of all of these factors.

Okay. That's very helpful. And maybe just a housekeeping one, sort of revaluation was a bit higher this quarter and the year. Just wondering how we should think of that going forward. Was that just due to -- what was driving it higher? And how should we think of that going forward?

Yes. I think I was quite clear. I mean we always have revaluations on -- and it can go both ways, as you know, in the different quarters. And now it was primarily driven by one company in -- a U.K.-based company that we bought a few years back. And so that is what is picking out this quarter.

The next question comes from Max Bacco from [ Seb ].

Niklas. So perhaps starting on a group level, very nice profitability improvement here in the quarter, and you pointed to both strength and product mix, acquisitions, but also a positive effect then from previous restructuring measures. But looking at the report, it seems like the acquisitions, at least on a full year basis, were quite neutral in terms of profitability.

So is it possible to quantify how much each component contributed with, if you have any thoughts on that? How much mix, acquisitions and then, of course, the restructuring measures?

I think it's a bit tricky to answer that in detail. I would say that when it comes to the acquisitions, they have contributed with -- well, I think organic -- and I think maybe also you mentioned that, that organically and through the acquisitions, it's more or less half and half. And then, of course, from the upside of these restructuring measures, we can see that it has affected maybe mainly in Automation and then also, of course, Safety. Yes. I think you mentioned it as well.

So exactly how much is each component, very hard to say.

Understood. And I respect for that, of course...

Yes. A reminder on -- when you look at the margins in the acquisitions, as you can see them in the report, it's important to remember that, that is the EBIT, the profit margin that you see there. So you have to maybe consider the depreciations and such to make sure to get the margins right on the overall acquisitions.

Yes. Understood. And then the strength and product mix that you point to, would you say that, that is mainly driven by customer behavior? Or is it more due to internal efforts from your side?

Yes, I would say both -- I mean, it's both relating to partly due to segments. I mean, we have good development in a couple of segments with generally higher margins. But I would say that it's primarily due to our internal work. I mean we have a number of companies where we are constantly talking about the fact that we are driven by earnings growth and not volumes.

So there are a number of companies where we have strategically decided to quit some business that have had the hampered effect, of course, on the top line, but has increased the margins. So I would say that these kind of activities that we -- a typical [indiscernible] classical way of looking at the business, focusing on where we really earn the money. So nothing new, but we have seen this year, maybe a bit more effect of that.

Okay. Understood. And yes, it sounds very familiar. And then turning to the Industry segment and as you mentioned and as Slide 4 before, continued weakness in the sawmill exposure. But despite that, very satisfying profitability. What's your thinking on profitability going ahead, given that the sawmill weakness seems to continue in the coming quarters as well, at least?

Yes, I mean, of course, we are taking actions in some of the companies that are focusing on the sawmill market since it is a slower market. So we are doing some activities to protect our margins.

Maybe we will do even more there. I mean we -- again, as I've said many times, during the year, we have really strong quotation backlog here. And there are a few projects coming out. But of course, we are waiting for it to really come back. So we do, of course, actions to protect the margins. But of course, going ahead, we have had good margins in the sawmill product. We saw that in this in this quarter as well, the products we finalized strong margins.

So looking ahead, until this market comes back, of course, it will be difficult for [ Industry ] to keep up this really high level of margins. We don't see any drastic changes here. We will be able to protect the margin in a good way anyway because we have good development, both from acquisitions but also in other higher-profit areas, So some effect on the margins have until that market comes back, but no dramatic changes.

Okay. Understood. And then the final question. I mean it seems like that those markets that are [ currently ] is struggling a bit more is more of a CapEx nature at least, that's the exposure you have towards those customers.

Is it possible on a group level to quantify -- I guess, a bit trickier once again. But how much of Addtech's total sales is linked to CapEx decisions among customers?

Yes. I mean that's really difficult. It's something that doesn't really measure that. And it's difficult to say because also, I mean, where do you draw the line? We have a lot of product-related business. So actually, it's not possible to say.

I mean it's primarily, I would say, the process business area where we have the highest exposure on that. And so in Process, it's a quite large part of that business that are affected by that. So I think that's -- yes, it's difficult to give any clear figures

The next question comes from Karl Bokvist from ABG Sundal Collier.

My first one was more of a clarification. Niklas, regarding something you said at the beginning regarding backlog or orders. Was that just referring to the Energy division or for Addtech as a group?

It's actually something we can see in more business areas than -- it is in Energy, but it's also in in some of the other business areas. So looking at the order backlog in the short period, so the coming quarter is more kind of stable. But we have -- we see more tilted backlog in, let's say, yes, 3 to 6 to 9 months.

So it's a bit more longer projects, and that is in -- yes, in a number of areas. It's both in defense, it's in telecom, it's in energy sector. So it's a little bit broad-based.

Understood. And then just when looking at where you disclose the figures, at least [ forest ] and Process sales are up 12% year-over-year. And I understand comments regarding the sawmill business, and that's not something it's not anything new, we've heard it before.

But I was just curious if you think that is it the process part of the forest in process that is driving the growth here? Or are there other areas in what you define as forest related that maybe could help in compensating for the sawmill project activity?

No, it is -- I mean, all in all, if we look at the year, the kind of forest side of -- forest and process has declined the year and primarily due to sawmill business. But generally, that has declined. So the growth comes from the process industry side. And also here, we have quite a lot of acquisition effects in those figures as well.

All right. And my final one is just think we've talked about this before, but now we've seen a couple of quarters where operating margins are up and the gross margins are up even more than that. I know that we have talked about the kind of -- there can be differences in which line item you allocate the cost too.

But is there anything else in terms of how we should think about the future expansion or if it will come from gross margins or if it's going to be from OpEx efficiency or a combination of the two?

A combination of the two, I would say. I mean, of course, it's very important with increasing the gross margins and to continue actively working with pricing. But then again, OpEx efficiency is, of course, also very important, especially in some of the companies. But -- so I would say a mix of the two, definitely. Yes, .

The next question comes from Zeno England Richie from Handelsbanken.

Also starting with just a clarification from me on the order intake, you said on Energy. When you say second half of the year, you mean the fiscal year, right, and not the calendar year?

Yes, exactly.

Clear. And then a question on the margin. As you say now and said before that the good starting point is the rolling 12. But when we're looking at Automation and Safety you've got then what looks like a successful restructuring measures through.

So I'm just thinking about the margin that we're seeing now in these two segments, would you say that they are what they are now more representative of what the current underlying structure is, given the demand? Or were either of them seeing maybe a bit more positive things in the quarter?

Yes. I mean if you look at Automation, of course, the rolling 12 margin is too low. For sure, I think it's 11.5 or something like that rolling 12. So that's, of course, too low. So rather look a little bit of where we are at this point rather than looking at the rolling 12.

In Safety, yes, maybe somewhere in between, if I put it that way. It was really a very strong margin in Q4 in rolling 12, maybe a bit on the lower side. So on both of these business areas, we've seen the sequential improvement, thanks to the restructuring measures.

The next question comes from Johan Lanciundian from DNB Carnegie.

First question from my side is going back to the gross margin development. And you have talked about it throughout the call, just another clarification. We saw similar patterns with boosted margins due to high gross margin in the Energy segment in Q3. Then you said that it may be a little bit ice into a specific quarter.

How much of the kind of strength in this quarter should we be there to extrapolate going forward, with this also another kind of isolated effect in Q4?

I don't think we have any sort of one-off effects in Q4 as we saw, especially in Energy, as you mentioned in Q3. I would say that even looking at the gross margins, we are believing they should be sustainable going forward as well, actually, even though -- yes, I mean, of course, always better to look at the full year than look at a single quarter. But the improvement over time is sustainable, I would say.

That's very clear. And just thinking about the kind of turbulence you've seen on the political scene throughout the spring and potential or accelerating inflation coming through the value chain, have you witnessed any kind of preordering activity? Have you seen -- start to do some kind of early price hikes to kind of offset the potential raw material inflation coming through your kind of own value chain towards the summer and the fall?

Yes. I mean, of course, these effects as we talk about, increased prices on raw materials, aluminum, plastic, et cetera. These are things that will, of course, affect our value chain as well.

Talking about preordering, I mean we have a couple of companies in the group that have mentioned that, that they might have seen some effect of that. But all in all, we don't see that in the quarter that we were in now that, that has had any significant effect on the group as a whole.

And when it comes about pricing, as always, we have everything in the group. We have a number of companies that have taken efforts that maybe have given them a little bit boost now being very proactive. On the other side, we have some of our companies that are -- have had some price increase, but are stuck in fixed prices that they are not able to change their prices until, for instance, first of July.

So we have, again, everything in the book. So our conclusion is that seen as a total, we don't see that we have had any significant effect.

And looking forward the next 2, 3 quarters, any bias to the positive or negative side on these elements regarding preordering or kind of inflation versus [ try ] tax?

You mean if we foresee and the negative effects of that?

Yes or if you see that as a potential positive effect that the preordering element -- inventory levels are more client is low and they are building up inventory that could boost your demand, et cetera?

I would say it's it's so unclear right now what will happen. I mean if -- whatever decisions that are made in the White House, et cetera, I mean, of course, that is affecting day by day. It's it's difficult to say.

I mean we have the year against the ground here, of course. And we follow what happens on raw material prices, et cetera, and all of our companies are taking active measures. But it's very difficult to say now what effect it will have.

I think some of our companies will absolutely have increased order intake from customers wanting to make sure that they will have products going forward. But I think for the time being, it's not significant for -- on group level at all, even though it's there.

Makes sense. Then one question on Energy and one on Process. Starting with Energy. You mentioned the kind of quotation profile for the next fiscal year and talk about maybe a back-end loaded year. How kind of -- how big shifts should we anticipate during the year is the kind of exit rate from your fiscal Q4 represents the number for what to expect in starting next fiscal year and then it's gradually kind of accelerating? Or should you be back at, say, flattish organic growth in the Energy segment already in Q1?

No, I think what I've been saying now during the call is that, I mean, we have had a lower order intake for some time here. And again, I always point out, we have to see this market from a longer perspective. But at this point, we see a lower order intake for the shorter term, and we have really tough comps in Q1 on the transmission side. That's -- I think that I'll stop there.

I appreciate that comment. And on Process, just a more kind of color on your comment regarding the greater hesitation among your clients. will -- do you think it will be possible to grow organically in H1 in the upcoming fiscal year, given what you see in your client dialogues?

I would say, again, it's really difficult to say because we have such a broad-based mix here. I mean, we have -- again, we have part of process is relating to this, and we can see we have a strong order book of projects that has been postponed going into the new year. We saw in the beginning of the fourth quarter, we had a little feeling that it opened up a little bit. I think I mentioned that also in the Q3 report presentation. But then it -- we have the feeling that the customers took a step back again. So it could be so we could have a good uptick here. But it's really, really difficult to say.

Also, what happens with the other part of process, the underlying business would that be able to mitigate if this hesitation continues. So yes, it's difficult to say actually.

But if you put the question this way, we are end of May now 2 months into your have the hesitation remained in April and May? Or has the opening up element that you saw in beginning of Q4 come now in April, May?

No, I would say no significant change.

That's clear. Just a final question on Energy, if I may. We're seeing a lot -- I acknowledge your comment on bottlenecks, et cetera. But we're seeing most players in the kind of transmission values in talking of very strong demand. And we are not seeing that for you. should we -- were there some element of market share losses that is tracking in here?

No. We don't see that at all, actually. That's not what we talk about here. And I think maybe I'm not sure which companies you refer to when you say that other companies don't see the bottlenecks, but strong demand. Maybe it's relating to where you are in the project, what kind of products you deliver in the project.

I mean we are quite early in the project and what we talk about here is the transmission, so quite big projects, high medium voltage projects. And so maybe that is part of the explanation. I mean when we talk about building installation, we can see on the other or at the same time, some positive signals from some other players on the building installation sector, we are a bit later in those projects.

So if we don't see any positive development yet in our order intake, that might be because we are a bit later on. So maybe that's part of the explanation. But it's not that we lose market share.

And geographically, if the kind of bottleneck situation widespread in various geographies as you are present in quite a few markets in Europe? Or is it one single market that is worse than any other?

It differs from market to market, but it's mostly clear in Sweden.

The next question comes from [ Victor Force ] from SB1 Market.

Thank you for taking my questions. Just 2 for me, please. So on the book-to-bill at the group level in Q3, I think you said that out of 6 segments had a positive book-to-bill. And I think you said plus that it was well above 1. Just wondering if you could give us some more commentary on the sort of breadth you're seeing here in Q4.

Yes. Yes, is still broad-based, I would say, if you look over the different business areas. -- and it's also again clearly above 1 in -- but again, as I mentioned, it's a bit more tilted on the longer order book. So in a number of the business areas, we have some project order intake that is rather filtered to the end of the year. But it's all in all, it is broad-based towards -- or over the business areas.

Makes sense. And just a follow-up on that. Are the longer projects sort of are they what you say. I mean do you see longer lead times in the shorter project as well throughout the group? Or are the longer project just longer projects and have always been, if you understand what I mean?

I'm not sure I heard your whole question. But when we talk -- we don't see any kind of changes in the behavior or in the kind of I mean if it's longer, if your question if it relates to longer lead times in the value chain and things like that, I mean there are a number of components and products like some electrical components, for instance, with a little bit longer lead times. But all in all, looking at Asias a group, it's nothing that affects kind of the shorter business. This is what we talk about here, it is projects that merely have longer lead times. It's about delivering further on. So it's more relating to the type of projects. yes, if that answers your question.

Yes, it did. And then just a final question on a follow-up on mix. So on the segments that benefited from the positive mix here in this quarter, do you see I'm...

I'm sorry, I don't know if you have a bad line, but it's very difficult to hear. try like this instead. Is it better now? So do you hear me now? No, it's still very vague.. Let's see. A follow-up on the mix. So on the segments that benefited from the positive mix in this quarter. I'm really sorry, but right now, we can't hear you at all.

Maybe it's your ear phone or if it's on our side. I don't know.

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments. .

Yes. Okay. So we lost you there in the end. You can call us up after the meeting and ask your questions, Ian. We don't have any written questions. Do we No. So with that said, thank you very much for listening in, and have a good day. .

Thank you. .

Welcome to the Addtech Q3 2025 report presentation. [Operator Instructions]

Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Niklas Stenberg; and CFO, Malin Enarson. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and most welcome to Addtech's third quarter report presentation. We will use approximately 20 minutes to summarize and give our comments on the results and then followed by a Q&A session.

Before we dig into that, a very quick summary of the key fundamentals of Addtech. We are a group of plus 115 independent and strictly decentralized companies in 20 countries with a clear business-to-business offering. We operate now in 6 business areas, all with clear strategies and value proposition centered around niche products and solutions primarily to manufacturing and infrastructure sectors.

Since this is the first quarter according to the new organization, I will come back with a few comments to that a bit later. We have dual growth engine. Our focus is to develop and grow our businesses organically, together with our entrepreneurs running the daily operations and then complement the strategic initiatives with acquiring leading niche companies with a strong offering, and we fund our growth by own cash flow. Size-wise, we have a turnover of approximately SEK 22 billion and run the operations with an EBITDA margin around 15% with a small and efficient central team.

Now over to the quarter and some highlights. We sum up another solid quarter with high demand, good earnings growth and a high acquisition pace. We increased our net sales by 1%, of which 1% was organic and a negative currency effect of 3%. And bear in mind that even if the market situation has partly improved during the year, it is partly dampened the kind of general business cycle. We report a solid EBITDA growth of 9% with an improved margin of 15.6% compared to 14.4% in the same quarter last year. So a very strong margin.

Our cash flow also strengthened from high levels, and we signed 4 acquisitions during the quarter. And last night, yesterday, we signed another agreement and this one to acquire a company in Germany, a quite large company for us, approximately EUR 38 million in turnover and strengthening our position within Electrification. I will come back to that a bit later.

Finally, as I said, we would also talk a bit about the new organizational structure. A bit more on net sales in the quarter, as I said, 1% organic. We saw a continued variation in the business situation between the customer segments, and primarily, this quarter, the segment Energy and Special Vehicles were on the positive side, while Medical, Sawmill and Defence, especially due to tough comps, but that had a weaker development in the quarter.

Sales-wise, the business area, Electrification, Industry and Process were the main drivers compared to last year, while we saw a slight decrease in Energy and Safety, and that is due to, primarily, I would say, tough comps and also negative currency effects. Automation also had a sales drop year-over-year in the quarter. But here, I would say we see a positive sales trend starting to materialize with a solid improvement in the business situation sequentially.

During the quarter, we also saw a recovery in demand for grid infrastructure products compared to the somewhat lower product, we had less project dip in the second quarter, as we talked about at that time. So all in all, a solid business situation, I would say, overall customer activity was high, a good order intake broad-based and a positive book-to-bill. We still see hesitations on larger investment decisions primarily affecting our business area process. Some more details on the business areas shortly.

Looking at earnings. EBITDA increased for the Group, as I said, with solid 9% where more than half was organic. And also this quarter, energy contributed strongly with 20-plus growth on EBITDA. And same with industry that continue to deliver double-digit growth as well as solid contributions from both Electrification and Safety.

Our EBITDA margin increased, as I said, to 15.6%, and that is very satisfactory, of course. And what we see is that -- we also continue to increase our gross margin steadily in all business areas in the quarter, and this is primarily driven by an improved product mix, but also good performance in active pricing. The long-term financial target profitable working capital continues to improve, 78% in the quarter, clearly up compared to last -- same quarter last year of 74%.

So a few words then on the new organization. So before we head over to comment on the business development in these segments, we'll walk you quickly through the changes that we did, just as a quick reminder. First of all, important to say that this is a very undramatic change, something we do from time to time. And we do this with some interval to balance up the business area size and to make sure that we have the best setup for vitalizing future growth.

To boil it down, it's primarily 2 major changes that we have implemented. First, we have streamlined business area, Energy, to focus primarily on the electrical transmission and distribution. So the potential related to the expansion and renovation of national and regional grids on the markets where we are present, but also a strategy to leverage on the growth linked to the increased demand for power supply to the demanding industry, and data halls and hospitals and other segments.

Secondly, we have on the basis on the former business unit energy products, complemented with some companies primarily from Electrification, we formed a new business area, Safety. And we have a fairly broad approach to Safety as a concept. Taking our starting point in the idea, and aim to capture potential from stricter legal requirements, the more complex threat landscape, and also an increasingly automated digitalized world from a safety -- running a safe business. In total, we have today around 20 companies in Safety with products and solutions that prevent risks and create safety, security and continuous operations. And we see good growth potential here, both organic and through acquisitions.

Finally, we have moved a number of companies within electrical production from electrification to industry. So we will -- you will learn more along the way around this. But to conclude, we have scaled up the business organization and as always, we recruit internally. So we have added some more skilled Addtech employees with increased responsibilities.

So then some brief comments on the development for every business area. Starting with Automation. As you can see, the partly challenging market situation remains, but we are moving step by step in the right direction. We still have a way to go before we have automation to kind of normalized volumes where we want it to be, but we are going in the right direction here.

The positive trend in order intake continued in this quarter. And of course, satisfying to see also an improvement when it comes to sales sequentially. Automation increased gross margin in the quarter, and we also saw that the cost-saving initiatives are starting to take effect. If we adjust for a one-off cost of SEK 6 million, the EBITDA margin increased somewhat year-on-year despite the lower sales volume. So that is proving that we are getting out the effects.

So all in all, a solid quarter development, good demand and key segments, Mechanical and Defence were the main drivers, while Medical and Process have more of a flattish or negative development.

Electrification, we saw, in the third quarter, that the market situation was very strong. We saw good demand and solid order intake in all key segments such as electronics, energy, special vehicles and medical industry. The underlying business was stable, but a slightly weaker product mix and increased input costs in a couple of companies hampered earnings growth and profitability in the quarter.

Moving on to energy. Adjusted for the negative currency effects, the total sales were flat despite very tough comps in the quarter. And the strong earnings and margin trend continued, primarily driven by an improved product mix and leverage on organic growth. And important to note that this -- the margin in this quarter is very strong and should not be extrapolated going forward. We should rather look at the rolling 12 margin I would say, for energy, going forward.

As I mentioned in the beginning, we saw a recovery in demand for the grids compared to the temporary decline in project orders in the second quarter. And apart from that, in energy, the demand within renewable energy, railway and niche product for power distribution was favorable, but data telecom, which primarily fiber for energy, was still weak.

Business area industry delivered yet another very good quarter. Market situation was overall strong with a continued good demand within subsea. We had also strong order intake in electrical production, so companies coming from electrification into industry. And also not the least, special vehicles with a continued positive momentum.

Sawmill industry remained weak in this quarter, while the company is supplying customers within waste management, mechanical industry and electronics had stable demand. So all in all, for industry, a strong market on aggregated level with good order intake and increased margins, driven by an improved product mix and solid contributions from acquisitions.

Moving on to Process, where total sales grew by a very satisfying 8% but with a weaker product mix in combination -- in combination, as we write in the report, with too high costs in a few producing companies, we saw negative effects on margins in the quarter. So we are working on some company-specific initiatives, but with a bit cautious approach here.

It's a matter of balance to protect profitability short term and at the same time, be ready when sentiment in product deliveries improves. So it's the product mix, I would say, in the quarter that have a negative effect on the margins. But the market situation was primarily favorable here with the segments, energy, special vehicles, while mechanical and forest and Process was stable. Marine sector had a bit weaker development this quarter, primarily due to tough comps.

Last but not least, then our new business area, Safety. Despite sales drop year-on-year, we saw an improvement in profitability due to a better product mix but also a clear positive effect from some earlier initiated cost-cutting initiatives in a few companies. The market situation for Safety, I would say, was okay, but with large variations between segments. We saw -- it was tough comps here, both in demand and sales from, I would say, especially data halls, but also in the segment, medical.

Market situation with the building installation, which is the largest segment for Safety remained challenging, but with some glimmers of hope for improvement in 2026. And this means that when the market -- the construction markets start to bounce back, it will have a material impact on sales within Safety. The key driver in the quarter for Safety was traffic safety, while electronics and energy were more flat.

So to sum up, the market situation in the quarter, the variations in the market situation is still there, both between companies and segments. We still see the hesitation in investing in larger products in a number of segments. Despite this, we can conclude a solid quarter and especially good order intake that is fairly broad-based. So we are optimistic about the future and are well prepared to support our customers in our 15 niches.

And before I hand over to Malin to dig a bit deeper on the results, some short comments about the period. So when summarizing the 3 quarters, we have already concluded that despite the partly challenging markets, we have continued to grow steadily. And despite headwinds from currency, total net sales are up 5%, of which 2% organic. So organic growth in every quarter. And overarching customer activity and order intake has been good throughout the period.

And I would say this is, as I usually say, the utmost proof of the strength of the Addtech model of running a large portfolio that we can have this outcome even in a bit dampened market. So all in all, we have, throughout the period, good at getting the volumes into the result, EBITDA up 10%, with very strong margins of 15.6% compared to 14.9%. And cash conversion remains strong.

I'm sure you will elaborate on that more now, Malin.

I will, absolutely. Thank you, Niklas. We have now heard you describe the business and market situation. So let me give a quick summary of key financials and also give you some additional information. Sales increased 1% during the quarter and 5% in the period, a good EBITDA increase of 9% in the quarter and 10% during the period with an increased margin. I will elaborate on the margins further on.

Net financial items have come down during the quarter as well as during the year, which is primarily due to a lower reference rate. This decrease is offset by a natural increase in current tax driven by profit increase and a higher effective tax rate due to more business in countries with higher tax rates. All in all, earnings per share is steadily increasing and amount to SEK 5.70 so far this year, which is an increase of 13%, and a very good growth of 16% in the quarter.

Our operating cash flow was strong during the quarter and increased by 22%. Profitable working capital increased to 78%, and our leverage was historically low at 1.2%. I will come back to all of this later on. Our consistently strong return on capital employed of 22% over a long period, demonstrates our efficient use of capital. This reflects our disciplined approach to profitable growth and capital allocation, ensuring continued high returns for our shareholders.

As Niklas commented, our EBITDA grew and the profit margin improved compared to last year. Adjusting both years from revaluations of earn-outs and one-offs, we get an increase of 1 percentage point. The one-off effects that affected the quarter were primarily due to a shutdown of an unprofitable production site in one of our companies within automation. The relocation of several companies between our business areas that occurred in connection with our reorganization into 6 business areas resulted in a reallocation of management fees that impacted Electrification negatively and Safety positively in the quarter.

This, of course, has no effect on group level. And if we look at the accumulated figures, these are correct also on business area level. As we always point out, when considering a long-term sustainable margin, you should always start with the rolling 12 as a base. The margin improvement over time is broad-based and is in general, thanks to active work to increase the value add in our value proposition, good pricing power, and to strategically improve our product mix and not least, good contribution from acquired companies as well as good leverage from organic growth.

Of course, the firm grip of overhead costs is also contributing to the outcome, and we can see that the trend line of total costs in relation to sales still has a good development. During the quarter, our measures in businesses where we see persistently lower market conditions continued as always. Regarding other operating income and expenses, we had a positive effect on profit from revaluations of earn-outs of about SEK 13 million in the quarter compared to SEK 3 million last year.

Other items, including currency effects from revaluation of balance sheet items had a significantly less positive effect this year compared to the third quarter of last year when the Swedish krona was weaker. Our cash flow from operating activities was strong during the quarter, strengthened by higher earnings and positive working capital development. Cash conversion developed slightly positively since the cash flow strengthened relatively more than profit increase.

Total working capital and inventory continued to decrease organically, and our long-term target profitable working capital continued to improve and reached 78% in the quarter. The inventory value remains at satisfactory levels in relation to the order backlog and sales and decreased somewhat during the quarter. Our financial position strengthened further during the quarter, and our gearing and leverage reduced from already low levels, thanks to good cash flow and that net debt was lower than last year. Our strong balance sheet gives us plenty of room to maneuver according to our growth strategy and invest in attractive acquisitions, which I believe, you will talk more about right now, Niklas, right?

Yes, exactly. And as expected, we have paced up acquisitions during the quarter. So 4 companies in the attractive niche side during the -- signed during the quarter, and all 4 of them were completed in the beginning of January. And we have also started the new quarter strongly with another acquisition signed, as I said yesterday, and the German company, RAMME. It's a leading manufacturer of electric motors primarily for maritime electrification, so a well-managed niche player with a strong offering under its own brand in an area with structural underlying growth. So I'm very proud to welcome them to the Addtech Group.

In total, this means that we have added 8 new companies to the group during the fiscal year, adding almost SEK 1.5 billion in revenue with accretive margins and welcoming close to 400 new employees to the group.

Looking ahead, we have a positive view of the acquisition market. There are plenty of opportunities in our niches. Our pipeline is well filled, and we continue to grow it with high-performing companies in all business areas and on our different niches.

So bottom line, giving our strong finances, as Malin just pointed out and the well-filled pipeline, we expect to continue to acquire in a good pace also continuing in 2026.

So to summarize, solid quarter, continued strong demand, high pace of acquisitions and good earnings growth. Overarching market situation was favorable even though variations between the segments remain. And of course, there are still uncertainties on some of the markets. But order intake was good and a positive book-to-bill in the quarter. And the cash flow strengthened, and we expect to keep up the high acquisitions also going forward.

With that said, let's open up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Zino Engdalen Ricciuti from Handelsbanken.

Good day, and thanks for the presentation and taking our questions. Starting off in Energy, as you said, today and also in the last quarter that there were some temporary lower demand. Now that you have seen that come in, how do you look on the possibility to convert when it comes to -- is it this quarter or the upcoming one?

Yes. Yes, so as -- I'm sure I said last quarter, it's usually -- I mean, we convert -- it differs in the different projects. But usually, it is a couple of quarters before we convert order into sales here. So I mean the fourth quarter here will likely be a little bit affected by the lower demand during the second quarter, even though -- yes, we can see that it's now running on a good level, but it might have some effect on the coming quarter, but it looks good when we will then enter into the coming year.

Very clear. And to the margin side, you said that a good starting point is the rolling 12 months, but I would also like to hear about how much is pricing and how much is mix in the energy segment?

I mean it is both, but I would say it's primarily a mix effect. And the strong -- very strong margin this quarter is thanks to good -- very strong deliveries in a couple of companies giving a very high leverage on that day. So it's primarily a mix, but there are also a number of companies that we've been working on, on increasing price. So it's a mix.

And how efficient would you say that the segment is, of course, they've increased the margins significantly, but it doesn't look like the demand in the longer term, so to say, is fading away. How do you view the long-term potential in the margin for energy?

Yes. I mean, as you know, we have had a very strong development for quite some time now in Energy. You should remember, it's not so long time ago, we had around 13%, 14% margin in this segment. So I would say again, a starting point in the rolling 12 margin and we believe that the margin going forward is probably more on the kind of stable level.

Very, very good. And just very lastly from me, you said that the good demand was broad based and a positive book-to-bill on a group level? Was it positive in all the segments? .

You mean on all the business areas?

Yes, exactly. On the book-to-bill -- on the book-to-bill level.

It was positive in 5 out of 6 business areas. .

The next question comes from Op Otaniyi from Goldman.

Maybe just starting off with margins. Do you mind just breaking out sort of what drove higher margin sort of strong performance in Energy. So like how much of that was operating leverage? How much of that was mix? And how much of that was pricing and sort of again helping us think through what sort of future margins might be as a result of what is sort of sticky from those 3 buckets maybe?

Yes. It's actually quite difficult to give a very clear view there. I understand what you are after, of course, here. But I mean it's a number of companies contributing here. I mean we are increasing the gross margin quite a lot here in the quarter, and that is partly pricing, but it's also partly due to good leverage on producing companies. So yes, I don't know, yes, it's difficult to give actually a clear picture. I don't know if you...

I think that the flow that we see here is -- I mean, it's mainly a product mix. And also, I mean, in combination with very good leverage on certain projects. So I would say that the mix is the vast majority of this increase. And also, of course, the leverage of this mix. So the [indiscernible] effect, absolutely, as you said, it's there, but it's rather the mix of projects going out.

Yes, exactly. And that we will also see going forward. It will vary because of the kind of projects and the size of the project and the kind of timing effect of that. So it will most likely vary a little bit also going ahead. .

That's very helpful and very clear. Maybe just on Safety, given it's the first quarter you're reporting it separately. So 3 questions there. Do you mind just helping us understand and I appreciate you kind of went through this in a bit of detail earlier, sort of near-term growth and then sort of the long term, what sort of normalized long-term growth there? And then how you're thinking of M&A opportunities within the space?

Yes. I mean, every time we do a reorganization and put a new kind of handling to a business area. We always start with the approach that every business area should have the opportunity to double the earnings in 5 years because that is what our overarching KPI is. So when we formed Safety, of course, we looked into the existing companies, seeing do we see enough drivers here to generate steady organic growth over time, and also on the acquisition pace.

So I mean, the easy answer to your question is that we have a strategy and we have a pipeline of acquisitions that makes us as confident as we can that we have an opportunity to double the earnings here in 5 years and also having good margins. So we are now -- of course, also it takes some time. We have formed a new team. They are working very much now on continuing working on the pipeline that we have started already, before we formed the safety area. So -- and of course, as I said in the beginning, we have a broad perspective on Safety. And we -- yes, we see quite good opportunities here in the sector.

Okay. And maybe just lastly on M&A in general. You sort of talked of the larger electrification-related deal. Do you mind -- I know you don't like -- you might not like talking about specific deals, but do you mind giving any details there just because it seems larger than a normal Addtech deal? And sort of is that general run rate from here where sort of individual transactions are bigger and then sort of number of deals might be higher than previous years?

Well, I'm not sure I understood your question on the first -- I mean, if you have some questions on the acquisition we made last -- yesterday, I mean, as you said, it is a little bit bigger than a normal kind of size acquisition for us. It happens every once in a while that we make a little bit bigger acquisition. And that is always running down to is the company fitting into our strategy? Do they have a setup and an efficient business model? And also that the culture-wise fits, then it's not a problem for us to buy a little bit bigger company.

And we believe that RAMME is fitting very, very well into the Electrification strategy, and we see a lot of good opportunities to collaborate also with other companies that we already have here. Looking at the pace going forward, I mean, again, pretty much the same answer I said on Safety. I mean, we have our growth strategy where half of the growth should come from -- on earnings should come from M&A. And that is the plan going forward. Of course, we have right now a very strong balance sheet and good pipeline.

So -- but it's like I always say, it's -- acquisitions -- in our way of looking at acquisitions, it's not linear, sometimes it's a bit higher pace, sometimes a bit lower. But I mean, our plan is always to deliver according to our growth strategy. So that's the plan also going ahead. It might be that we have a little bit higher pace, but it's -- yes, we cannot really say that.

No, that's very helpful and clear.

The next question comes from Carl Ragnerstam from Nordea.

It's Carl here from Nordea. A couple of questions from my side as well. In automation, I mean it's good to see that margins are improving despite the sluggish volumes. Did we, in the quarter, see the full effect of the restructuring measures? Or is it more to come? And also, secondly, would you say that it is only volumes left to sort of elevate the margins from roughly the current level?

Yes. Carl, we don't see the full effect yet of the measures we have taken. I believe going into the next year, it's more likely that we see the full effect of that. And margin improvements from now, I mean, as Malin mentioned, we did one restructuring measure also this quarter in automation. You should never say that we are -- we are never -- exactly this is still work that is ongoing. But basically, I would say we have done quite a lot of things now in automation. Now it is the volume that will primarily drive margins going forward.

Okay. That is very clear. And in Electrification, you mentioned that some companies were impacted by input costs. Will they ease as of Q4? Or how does that mechanism work?

Yes. That's difficult to say, actually. I mean, one, of course, there's a lot of things happening on some materials in the world. I mean one of the companies I mentioned is dependent on the silver price, and we all know what has happened there during last year with like 200% increase. So it's actually very difficult to say at this point what will happen. But of course, we are as always, taking actions in the companies affected by higher input costs.

It's also a number of other companies where some input has increased due to high demand from AI, et cetera, driving up prices. But I mean, we are constantly working to find solutions. And that's the strength -- one of the big strengths we have, I mean, our agile company is finding ways around. But it's hard to say if it has improved in the fourth quarter.

Did you expect a worsening situation as of Q4 or improving, if we take that direction in the short term, at least? Could you say anything about that, given the volatility in the pricing, I guess?

Yes, I would say that -- I mean for the specific company that Niklas mentioned, I think that they will have challenges. I mean, we all, as you say, know what's happening with the silver price. But then if that will come through on business area level or our group level, it's very hard to say. But I mean the specific company will absolutely have challenges short-term due to silver prices. I think that we can at least -- but probably will not be essential on even business area level.

I agree.

Okay. That's very clear. And the final one is on the industry, clearly impressive margins. You've offset the sawmill softness excellently, I think. And if you look into your backlogs and the order intake as of now, how do you think that dynamic could play out over the coming 6 months?

Do you mean on margin or...

On margin, sorry because, you're seeing a quite good margin, right, despite sawmill is having a tough time. You talk about subsea, for instance, and other segments helping out, vehicles, special vehicles. Do you think they'll continue to be supportive to the margins here and despite sort of sawmill's being a tad weak?

I mean looking at the development this year and that, as you said, we've been able to very strongly offset the decrease in sawmill market. I mean we still also, in this quarter, had a little positive effect on sawmill. We will have that also a little bit in the fourth quarter. We have the strong development in special vehicles. We see that continuing ahead. A good contribution from acquisitions will also continue as it looks at the moment. But of course, looking into the coming fiscal year, we have to see that the sawmill market is coming back.

Otherwise, it will be difficult as it looks right now to keep the margins on this high level. It was -- we had exactly the same discussion a year ago, if you remember.

Yes, I do.

At that time, we said that, well, we believe that we can offset by other things that we have clearly done, and that's, again, the big strength of Addtech that we can find other pockets of growth to offset. But I mean, we would really like to see the sawmill market coming back. And we have a lot of projects in pipeline. It's not that it's not -- it's a lot of activities and discussions with customers in different markets. It's just a hesitation to kind of pull the trigger.

The next question comes from Karl Bokvist from ABG Sundal Collier.

Yes. The first one, just there on pricing. Has it coincided with any kind of large number of new product initiatives or more of both bottom-up but perhaps top-down communication to more actively counter cost and tariffs, et cetera?

Sorry, what did you -- the start of your question again. .

Yes, was it more related to that perhaps a couple of companies in the group all launched new products, and therefore, you had the ability to also charge higher pricing on them? That was the first part.

Yes. I mean we are running, as you know, a big group of companies, and it's really a mix. Some companies that are moving into new products with other kind of -- with other margins, and other companies just working very efficiently on increasing and working with the pricing strategy.

We have , during this year, worked a little bit more intensively with price strategies in the number of companies, and that is absolutely giving effect. But how much that initiative is contributing and how much it's really relating to increase of own products, giving higher margins, I can't tell that actually. But yes, so it's a bit of everything.

Okay. And also, we talked a lot about energy and we've also talked about automation. But in general now, when you think about -- yes, there might be some mix here and there. But for the divisions overall, which ones would you say are above or below trend in terms of margins when we look ahead?

Yes, I think it's obvious that automation margin is clearly below where it should be. Process, also this quarter, clearly below where they should be. Electrification, I would say a little bit the same in this quarter where -- and as I mentioned, it was some specific things pushing down the margin there. Safety, I would say, it's a strong margin, but should be around this level, I would say. Energy and industry, again, more looking at rolling 12. So looking ahead, maybe they are, this quarter, a little bit on the higher side. .

Very clear. And then the commentary you made on book-to-bill. Was this being above 1 that is -- was this valid both rolling 12 and/or also for just this quarter? .

Definitely in the quarter, quite well above 1 here. Rolling 12, yes. I mean it's also...

Rather the quarter.

Yes.

All in all, also on year-to-date. .

Yes. But -- yes, exactly. So year-to-date also improved, but it has sequentially improved. I would say the book-to-bill has sequentially improved during the year. .

All right. That's clear.

The next question comes from Johan L�nnqvist Sund�n from DNB Carnegie.

A lot of good questions has already been asked, but a couple of follow-ups from my side. First, on RAMME, we talked a lot about the acquisition, but can you give some margin guidance where the units are operating at, currently?

Yes. I mean it's a strong margin in this company. So I mean, it's -- let's say, around 20%.

Excellent. And then you highlighted in the Process segment, there's some elevated cost levels. Possible to give some more color on what niche that is having those type of problems? What you will do? And how long it will last?

Yes, that's a good question. I mean as I've said, this is really a balance. As we have said a number of quarters now, I mean, we have a good pipeline. We have a good order stock here. There is a hesitation from -- for customers here to kind of pull the trigger on investments. And which means that what we see in this quarter is a product mix.

First of all, a couple of companies with a bit lower aftermarket service with high margin. That is one effect in this quarter, and that will most likely change ahead. But then we have a number of companies with a lot of -- producing companies. And if they are not delivering out, of course, the cost level in those companies are too high, so to say.

So this is -- we have initiatives in a number of companies. But how much that will affect and the timing of it, it's difficult to say at this point because we also feel that when the kind of sentiment improves, we have a good position here. So it's a balance of protecting margins and being in the right position.

Yes. And also as you asked if it was segment specific. I wouldn't say that it's segment specific. It's rather company depending on sort of larger investments from customers. So the production units, they are sort of stopped for the order backlog and what they expect. So that's the question that you described, when should we act or not?

Okay. So no kind of indication what kind of end market we should look at to see pickup?

No, not really. .

And just a final question from my side -- sorry, Niklas.

Yes, I can just add. I would say I would not expect any drama here when we talk. We are always working on improving and working on improving and securing profitability. I wouldn't say that we foresee at this point any dramatic changes here. It's more working with some specific companies.

And just another question on the automation business you talked about that you closed down production unit with low profitability. What geography were that production unit present? Was it in the Nordics or in DACH or...

In Finland. Yes, we have 1 company with 2 production units and when analyzing that deeply, we realized that it makes much more sense to close down one part and focus on the other one where we have much higher profitability.

Excellent. I think I'm happy there. Getting back in line.

There are no more phone questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions or closing comments.

Can you read out? What's the question?

If you mind expanding on the weakness in Sweden?

Okay. Yes. So we have one written question here. Can you expand on the weakness in Sweden? I mean, as we usually point out, it's difficult to put kind of a macro perspective on Addtech in any geography because it's running down to individual performance in some companies. I mean this quarter, sales was lower in Sweden than year-on-year comparisons. But I mean to highlight something, I mean, mechanical industry is still a bit hesitant when it comes to projects. And this can vary. I mean it was quite dampered also last year, but then we got the number of projects in at that point. Apart from that, I would say, it's more company specific.

And then there's another question.

This is regarding the margins in process. And you commented on that when Johan asked basically.

Yes, I think I have already answered that question. So there's no further questions there. So I guess, with that said, thank you very much for listening in and good questions. Have a good day.

Thank you.

Welcome to the Addtech Q2 2025 Report Presentation. [Operator Instructions]

Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Niklas Stenberg; and CFO, Malin Enarson. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and most welcome, everyone, to the Addtech Second Quarter Report Presentation. The setup is as usual that Malin and I will use approximately 20 minutes to summarize and give our comments on the results, followed by a Q&A session.

Before we dig into the results, just a very quick summary of the key fundamentals of Addtech. We are a group of 150 independent and strictly decentralized companies operating in 20 countries with a clear business-to-business offering. Since 1st of October, we operate in 6 business areas, all with clear strategies and a value proposition centered around niche products and solutions, primarily to the manufacturing and infrastructure sectors. I will come back to more details about the reorganization later in my presentation.

Our focus is to develop and grow the business organically together with our entrepreneurs, and then complement and strengthen our strategic niches with acquisitions, funded primarily by own cash flow. Size-wise, we have a turnover of over SEK 22 billion and run the operations with an EBITA margin above 15% and employ around 4,500 throughout the organization with a small and efficient central team.

Let's head on to the highlights of the second quarter then. We summarize a solid second quarter with continued high overarching customer activity and a good demand situation, supporting continued profitable growth. We increased our net sales by 6%, of which 4% was organic. And as we write in the report, approximately half of the organic growth is related to very strong project outcomes within Industrial Solutions.

We report an EBITA growth of 11%, the same as in the first quarter, with a high margin of 15.5%, compared to 14.9% in the same quarter last year. So we continue our positive long-term trend to increase our margin, which is very satisfying. Our cash flow increased in a very good way during the quarter, and we completed one acquisition. And as I said, from 1st of October, we have a new strengthened organization.

More on net sales development in the second quarter. A good mix of organic and acquired growth. The solid sales growth of group level continued and Industrial Solutions, as you can see, sticks out as a key driver, primarily, as I said, related to very strong project outcomes within primarily sawmill industry, but also good growth in special vehicles and other segments like subsea and marine. The previously very strong trend within electrical transmission flattened out as expected during the quarter in business area Energy and delivered flat sales development towards tough comps in the transmission side. But this was clearly offset by solid sales growth within other segments such as traffic safety, wind and data halls, supporting good development for Energy as a total.

And the challenging business situation within Automation continued with tough comps for defense in the quarter and somewhat weaker development within mechanical, but this was partly offset by a positive development in medical. That's an important segment for automation.

To sum up, sales development in the quarter, overall activity remained high with a solid broad-based order intake, a positive book-to-bill in the quarter, which is an improvement relating to previous quarters. We grew order intake organically in four of our five business areas. And I will come back to market development in each segment shortly.

But first, some highlights on the EBITA development. As I mentioned, we increased for the group by 11%, of which about half is organic and half acquired. Also this quarter, Energy contributed strongly with almost 20% growth, but also Industrial Solutions and Electrification had double-digit growth numbers.

Our EBITA margin increased, as I said, to 15.5%, and we continue to increase our gross margins, good product mix, but also good performance on strategic pricing in a number of companies. Our long-term financial target profitable working capital was unchanged sequentially at 77%, but clearly up compared to the same quarter last year, of 71% (sic) [72%]. And Malin will elaborate more on the P&L in a minute.

So moving to some brief comments on the quarterly development within each business area. Automation, as we know, has had a quite long period of challenging market situation. Important to remember that Automation is the business area with the most -- that is mostly affected by the hesitant general industry segment. But I would say that Automation is step-by-step moving in the right direction. The market situation was overall favorable within business area during the second quarter for Automation, continued solid order intake that has sequentially improved over a couple of quarters now.

Segment defense, which stands for about 15%, 20% of the turnover continued to be strong. And we also saw a more positive market situation in medical, while mechanical and process industry continued to be flattish on the more subdued level.

So despite a somewhat more positive outlook for Automation, the lower sales volume in the quarter, primarily in mechanical and defense on tough comps, was partly offset by the positive development in medical. And this, in combination with one-off costs of approximately SEK 10 million, related to restructuring, hampered the result and margins also in this quarter. During the later part of the fiscal year, we, however, expect to see positive effects from both a slightly more positive market situation and the measures that we have taken.

Electrification delivered a solid second quarter with stable sales and a good market situation for defense, energy, electronics and mechanical segments. Company supply and special vehicle customer had, in general, a stable quarter development, while the medical segment was somewhat weaker towards tough comps. The operating margin improved in the quarter, primarily due to an improved product mix.

Over to Energy, and despite tough comps, the strong sales growth continued in the quarter, this quarter, primarily driven by subsegments, traffic safety, wind power, data halls. In line with expectations, and that we also talked about after first quarter, the demand on infrastructure products for national and regional grids weakened in the quarter, especially on the Swedish market, and this is due to bottlenecks on the customer side. This should, however, be seen as a temporary dip. We expect projects to increase again in the beginning of next quarter already, and the long-term potential remains unchanged. Building installation remains subdued, while medical, wind and data kept up at good levels if we look at market situation.

Business area Industrial Solutions delivered, as I said, a very strong quarter, sales growth close to 30%, close to same quarter last year. And this was driven by the strong project deliveries and product revenue settlements, primarily in the sawmill business. We also saw a slight uptick in demand from low levels in the sawmill business during the quarter, but important to note that the underlying market situation remained weak in this segment. So the outcome this quarter should not be extrapolated.

Sales situation in sawmill will be weaker second half of the year, and that's why we are clear on that. The positive trend for OEM customers in the special vehicles segment continued in the quarter, and we also saw -- as we also saw in the previous quarter.

Finally, Process Technology delivered another stable quarter. Total sales volumes were marginally up, still negative effects from postponed product deliveries, but this was offset by solid contributions from acquisitions. In general, the market situation was favorable with strong demand for companies supplying the process industry, especially oil and gas, mining and energy segment. Also, marine and special vehicles had a good demand situation, while medical, mechanical and forestry were stable. So it's kind of a mixed situation here.

To sum up, clear variations in market situation between both company segments and geographies remained. But with a broad diversified exposure, the overall market situation was good and very few trend changes, I would say, during the quarter. Expect the predicted temporary project dip within Electrical Transmission and the positive trend with special vehicles.

Okay. So go over to a brief summary of the first half. We can conclude two very solid quarters given the general weaker climate that we believe that we are in and also constant rapid changes in the global environment.

Over the whole period, the overarching activity and order intake has been good, which is again a clear proof of the strength of our diversified and decentralized business model and with a large portfolio of entrepreneurial companies. So all in all, solid sales growth in the period, partly offset by the strong SEK, and we have, throughout the period, been good at getting the volumes into the results.

Over the period, EBITA up 11% and strong margins, 15.6% compared to 15.1% in the same quarter last year. Also, cash conversion remained strong, and we strengthened our EPS year-on-year.

And you will elaborate a bit more here, Malin.

Yes. I will repeat some of this, I think, also.

It's worth repeating.

Yes. Thank you, Niklas. And we heard you describe the business and market situation. So let me do a quick summary of key financials and also give some additional information. Sales increased 6% during the quarter and 7% in the period. A good EBITA increase of 11%, both in the quarter and year-to-date with an increased margin. I will elaborate further on this later on.

Net financial items have come down during the quarter as well as during the year, which is primarily due to a lower reference rate. This decrease is offset by a natural increase in current tax driven by profit increase and a higher effective tax rate due to more business in countries with higher tax rates. All in all, earnings per share is steadily increasing and amount to SEK 3.80 so far this year, which is an increase of 13%.

Our operating cash flow was very strong during the quarter and increased by 45%. Profitable working capital increased to 77%, and our leverage was still low at 1.5. I will come back to all of this later on.

Our consistently strong return on capital employed of 22% over a long period demonstrates our efficient use of capital. This reflects our disciplined approach to profitable growth and capital allocation, ensuring continued high returns for our shareholders.

As Niklas commented, our EBITA grew, and the profit margin continued to improve. The improvement over time regarding the margin is broad-based and is in general, thanks to active work to increase the value add in our value proposition, good pricing power and to strategically improve our product mix, and not least, good contributions from acquired companies as well as good leverage from organic growth.

Of course, a firm grip of overhead costs is also contributing to the outcome, and we can see that the trend line of total cost still has a good development and our overhead costs in relation to sales are stable. During the quarter, our measures in businesses where we see persistently lower market conditions continued, as always. And especially in business area Automation, this had an effect on costs in the quarter of approximately SEK 10 million, related to layoffs and other cost cuts.

Regarding other operating income and expenses, we had a positive effect on profits from revaluations of earn-outs of about SEK 4 million compared to a negative effect of SEK 6 million last year. Other items, including currency effects from revaluation of balance sheet items, was essentially in line with last year.

Group items are higher in the quarter as well as year-to-date, both from an increased cost base, but it is mainly due to the fact that the final allocation of the management fee has not yet been made this year.

Our cash flow from operating activities was strong during the quarter, strengthened by higher earnings and positive working capital development. Cash conversion remained stable since profit increased relatively more than the cash flow. Total working capital and inventory continued to decrease organically, and our long-term target profitable working capital remained stable at high levels sequentially and reached 77% in the quarter. The inventory value remains at satisfactory levels in relation to the order backlog and sales and decreased somewhat during the quarter.

Our financial position remained very strong, and our gearing and leverage was kept on low levels despite the payout of dividend during the quarter, thanks to good cash flow and that net debt was in line with last year. Our strong balance sheet gives us plenty of room to maneuver according to our growth strategy and invest in attractive acquisitions, which I believe that you're about to talk about now, Niklas.

Yes. So in total, we have acquired three companies so far this year and have added approximately SEK 0.5 billion in revenue with good margins.

During the second quarter, we completed one acquisition, a German company, Innovatek, developing customized cooling systems for industrial applications. The acquisition pace varies as always, throughout the year, and this is related to timing in the pipeline and ongoing projects.

We have a positive view of the acquisition market. Malin mentioned our strong balance sheet and cash flow. And there are plenty of opportunities in our niches, and our pipeline is well filled and continue to grow. So we also have a number of projects ongoing in different phases. So bottom line is, giving this background, we expect to acquire according to our growth strategy for the full year.

As I mentioned and that we announced late September, we have a new strengthened organization from 1st of October, now comprising 6 business areas and 15 business units. Fundamentally, this is very undramatic and something we usually do now and then. We have now had very strong growth for a long period. So the timing was, we believe, very good. So we do this to scale up and vitalize the business organization, to capture future growth even better.

So I will briefly walk you through the key elements of the reorganization. Firstly, we have streamlined business area Energy to focus primarily on electrical transmission distribution, to capture the very high demand for materials for power lines and substations in connection with the expansion and renovation of the grids where we see a long-term underlying growth on many markets. We have also clarified another niche strategy in this business area linked to increasing demand for power supply for electricity demanding industries.

Secondly, we have made some company rearrangement within business area Electrification, now with an even clearer focus on electrification of equipment in three areas: power, mobility and batteries.

And finally, with the basis of the former business unit, Energy products, complemented with some companies from Electrification, we have formed a new business area called Safety. And we have a fairly broad scope centered around safety and aim to capture the potential from stricter legal requirements and the more complex threat landscape and increasingly digitalized world. So we see interesting underlying growth within these areas.

We have today a number of companies with products and solutions that work with preventing risks and creating safety and security for people, industries and society broadly. So we see good potential here going forward, both organically and through acquisitions.

And one important part with a reorganization like this that should not be underestimated is that we add new Addtech people with new responsibilities. So we now have two new business area managers for Energy and Safety, that are members of my management team, both with long history and experience within Addtech and their respective niches. So I'm very happy about this.

To conclude, this is a scale-up of the business organization that gives us a solid foundation to even better capture future growth opportunities, both in existing niche, but also to continue to explore new attractive niches. From third quarter, we will report according to this new organization, and we expect pro forma figures to be published no later than early January.

To summarize, all in all, I'm very pleased with the second quarter. Overall high customer activity, and the favorable business climate in a number of areas continue to give us good growth. Even though we still see some hesitation in certain segments, especially for larger projects and investment, but we continue to have a positive order intake in the quarter.

Our balance sheet is strong, and with a well-filled pipeline, we expect to acquire according to plan for the full fiscal year. Short-term outlook, as we write in the report, is good. And with our new strengthened organization, we are well equipped to capture future growth also going forward.

With that said, let's open up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Zino Engdalen Ricciuti from Handelsbanken.

You've already answered several of mine, but I would like to ask on Industrial Solutions. You highlighted in the report the order deliveries or project deliveries in subsea, but now said that sawmill is the major contributor. Can we get a sense of how important the subsea deliveries were for this quarter?

Zino, well, I mean -- we have had a period with good development in the subsea sector. Why we highlight that, I mean, the very strong growth in Industrial Solutions should not be extrapolated going forward. So I mean, it was very strong performance from subsea and primarily the sawmill part. So I would say the absolute majority of these project deliveries is within the sawmill business. So it's not the subsea segment. It's primarily the sawmill.

Yes. And just to hear about the incremental margin, given that when we -- it doesn't really stick out given that the project deliveries were that high. Can you comment on, yes, the incremental margin on the deliveries, let's say?

Yes. I mean that's, of course, an important question. But I would rather say that the margins on those project deliveries are rather lower than adding to the margin. So it's not an incremental margin increase on those sales.

Very clear. I would like to ask also on a bit more, I would say, long-term questions with how you scale and then new Safety business area. Given your decentralized structure, how does a new business area actually help you with growing aside, of course, from lifting people up in the organization?

I mean, I would say this is really part of our culture that with the kind of -- call it, small-scale focus that -- I mean, when we put certain niches in a position, and we recruit and lift up really talented people that knows these areas in a good way, we get to better focus on that. So it's really about driving growth both organically and through more focused acquisition work.

So it's really running down to responsibilities and having the right people on the right positions. This is what has been driving our growth for basically all the time since we were listed. And the times we have done this restructuring, this has usually vitalized the organization.

Yes. Understood. And a follow-up to that is -- we'll probably have this structure then for a couple of years now. But is this how we should expect Addtech to scale, by adding more business areas? And how long do you think you can do that?

Yes. I mean this is a usual question and what we are -- my view on this is that we have a very scalable organization. And I have said now for a couple of years that it's probably in the foreseeable future, we will add another business area to scale up. And this is what we do now. And the way I see it, we can continue to work with this structure for many, many years to come. So as I see it right now, it's likely that we sometime in the future will do the same again. But right now, I think we have a very good setup for the coming years here.

The next question comes from Carl Ragnerstam from Nordea.

It's Carl from Nordea. A couple of questions from my side as well. Firstly, on Energy. I mean, you saw -- we saw the deceleration of organic growth. Obviously, as you said, taking the high-level perspective, demand obviously looks great. You mentioned that you'll see a recovery in early next quarter. Is it possible to give any quantification or more flavor if it's a minor positive sort of sequential recovery you see? Or is it that it will be back at the teens organic growth again? And also on top on that note, do you see it being able to offset the more maybe sluggish forestry market short term?

Carl, what was your second -- I didn't get the second part. You talked -- said something on sawmill.

Yes, sure. No, no. But if it's the recovery you see in Energy, if you think it's enough to offset the sort of potentially more sluggish forestry market now after the big deliveries of the backlog?

Yes. Okay. So to start off with the situation on the grids. Again, important to remember that the underlying investment plans are very, very strong. The other markets we are operating in here are having good development. The tough comps here is primarily on the Swedish market. But when we talk with our customers here, that is not focusing on a specific quarter, they see this as kind of a normal business. So this is a very temporary product dip. So as far as we see and when we look on the projects that are on the table and on discussions, we believe that, as I said, it will come back beginning of '26.

We are having tough comps here, as you know, in Energy in the coming quarters. It will hopefully be partly offset by other things that are growing now. But to talk about when will we have organic growth on transmission side the coming quarters, that's really difficult to say because it depends on development on the other markets and also how quick these projects will come up.

And whether this will offset the tough sawmill market? It's really difficult to give a clear answer on that. Again, we have 150 companies operating in many, many different markets. The growth will come from one way or another. So to link Energy transmission and sawmill to each other is to make it a bit too narrow, I would say. So it's difficult to give a clear answer there.

Fair enough. But you said that you see -- you expect improvements already next quarter. Is it something you see in deliveries as of now then? Or is it more in discussions with the customers who said that they will -- I mean, projects will start?

I mean we have a good order stock in -- on this side that we will continue to deliver. But when we talk about an uptick in the beginning of next year, it's primarily on the demand side. So it's a temporary project dip. We have a good order stock we're delivering out on. But yes, that's the situation.

Okay. Very clear. And I would like to continue a bit on the order intake side. You seemed satisfied. You saw a positive book-to-bill. Could you give some flavor on which four segments you see a positive order intake development where -- if it's possible to quantify sort of what magnitude you see? I know it's -- I mean, you have some book and bill as well, meaning that not everything is projects, right? But some flavor would be good.

Yes. I mean I mentioned four out of five. I mean it's in the Energy segment, and relating to this temporary project, that's where we see a slight lower order intake. All other business areas are having good growth on order intake. And that is quite broad-based. It's -- of course, there are a couple of areas with very strong growth like defense. We also talked about special vehicles from a bit lower level, but we see a strong increase there. But I think the most important part is to mention, it's a quite broad-based positive development.

Okay. Very clear. And the final one from my side is on Automation. Surprisingly strong margin, I think, at least versus my expectations. So is the margin sort of improvement sequentially, is it driven by the full effect of the cost savings? And also on that note, will it come more from the already announced ones? But of course, on top of the SEK 10 million you took now, if you get the point, meaning that during this quarter, was it the full effect of the previous ones and then we should add the SEK 10 million on top of it from Q3 and onwards?

Yes. I mean, as you say, if you take out the SEK 10 million, it's a good margin improvement in especially sequentially in Automation. And this is a combination of the product mix we have worked with taking away some low-margin business. So that's on one side. And then we start to see positive effects from all the cost-cutting measures we have done there.

Whether there are still more to come? I mean, we decided to put this SEK 10 million on clear in the report to kind of highlight that this was an exceptional quarter on that side. I wouldn't say we will not continue to do some cost cutting in some companies. But I would say, in general, that we have now done most of it and with a positive book-to-bill and with the new kind of cost structure, we -- as I said, we believe that especially starting from the fourth quarter, we will see an improvement here.

The next question comes from Karl Bokvist from ABG Sundal Collier.

A question on M&A here and your ambition to do acquisitions in line with your strategy. If we think perhaps about contribution to profits instead, I believe that last year, you delivered upon the target. And right now, it's a bit below. So just to understand it, first question is really, are you -- with that comment, are you referring to kind of your growth strategy or a number of acquisitions in mind?

Yes. Karl, I mean we always focus on the growth strategy. We don't focus on a number of companies, actually. Because it depends on the size of the companies and of course, the margins in the companies we acquire. We always focus on profit growth. So when I say that we expect us to do according to our financial targets, it relates to profit growth.

What was that...

That's clear. Absolutely. Absolutely. So -- and then my second one, you mentioned data hall growth, and this might be just a bit more specific. When it comes to numbers and when you disclose data and telecom, for example, it seems like that kind of area of sales is still down year-over-year, albeit against tougher comparables. So it's just to understand, one, if the data hall demand is within that category of sales? And two, does that mean -- is it more about tough comps? Or is it that other things within data and telecom are developing slower and thereby offsetting the strong demand in that area?

Yes. I would say -- the answer is kind of yes on all you said. I mean it's in data and telecom, but it's depending on that it's rather weak in a couple of other areas within data telecom. So that's the reason behind it. So we still have a good development on the data halls.

Okay. Understood. And then the final one is, just when it comes to defense activity, which you say is high, should we assume that those defense-related areas and companies, that they will be moved to Safety? Or is it still that, for example, Automation will maintain this kind of high exposure to defense?

Yes. I mean, again, we will -- when we get the set of numbers for the new organization, of course, we will talk about this more in detail. But I mean, as I see it, we have defense exposure in -- actually in every business area, but primarily in Automation and Electrification. And I would say that this new organization will not change on that side. But again, I mean, within Safety, we will have exposure to defense as well. But -- yes, so the reorganization will not change the fact that Automation and Electrification has quite a lot of defense exposure.

The next question comes from Johan Lönnqvist Sundén from DNB Carnegie.

First, maybe a quick follow-up and just a clarification on a question from Carl earlier on the transmission grid side. When you say that you expect demand to pick up beginning of '26, do you refer to sales that hit your P&L? Or do you refer to orders intake?

Yes, more order intake. This is an ongoing -- I mean, again, the activity with our customers are very high on an ongoing basis. So it's a little bit of a moving target. And usually, they have maybe 1, 2 quarters from order intake to sales in our book. But again, as I said before, it's very difficult to say here at this time when demand will get into sales. And we have a good order stock to deliver from as well.

Okay. But best guess from now is Q4 during this fiscal year for you?

Yes, especially on demand side.

Yes. Great. Then I have -- we've discussed a lot of trends here already, but I think we should just take it -- would also be interested to hear a little bit on your Electrification side. I think from my perspective, the revenue growth was a little bit light, and margins was probably a little bit light as well, given that margins was down a bit last year as well in your Q2. Give some color what you see, what's happening, what is the driving forces and what you expect going forward given the favorable order intake?

Yes. See, I mean for Electrification, it's a really mixed bag. We have a number of companies performing very well and a number of companies that are kind of struggling. And like one side that was quite strong last year that is slower now is on electrical production. So -- but we have strong -- and also tough comps on part of the medical. But going forward, I would say that we will see a more positive development on that side. So I mean, all in all, a positive book-to-bill in Electrification that is giving us comfort now. As of now, a flattish development.

And margins, as you say, it was a bit down in Q2 last year, but I think the margin in this quarter, to be a second quarter for Electrification, is a good margin, and that is relating to the product mix and a very good increase on the gross margin. So yes, I think we have a good outlook here.

And any comment on the kind of vehicle side on the Electrification area, the battery side, for example? We're waiting for a pickup for quite some time. Any indication there?

Yes. I mean, as you say, I mean, it's been -- the last couple of years and all things happening around us has slowed down what we initially expected on that delivery. It's still a bit slower. A little bit improvement here, I would say, during this period and where especially one of our customers have gone into serial production. So it is a gradual improvement, but still on a slower pace than expected. So as for now, we are expecting this to pick up in a better way during '26.

Perfect. And my final question, it's on margins in acquired entities. I think when you look through the kind of comments you have on your M&A activity, it seems like margins have been a little bit lower than we maybe were used to a couple of years ago. Is there anything specific to pinpoint that companies are underperforming that you acquired? Or is it just a pure mix effect of the -- and the timing that the companies as of now have lower margins than they had maybe 1, 2 years ago?

I'm not sure I would agree on that, that it's a lower margin. I mean if I look on the margins on the acquired, the acquired effects in this period is on a very good level. And if you look on the companies we have acquired, most of them are performing according to plan. A couple are performing better, but then we have a couple of companies underperforming as of now. So -- but all in all, I would say that we are pretty much on track.

I mean the companies we acquire now should add to our average margin. That's how it is. But then, of course, it can be some variations over a quarter or 2 quarters depending on -- we have -- a couple of companies we acquired that is more project related where it can really, really differ. So one company we acquired last year has underperformed, but very strong demand in the last couple of quarters. So that will pick up during the remainder of this year. So it's more relating to individual companies.

I understand. I think we covered most other important aspects.

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions or closing comments.

So since there are no written questions, we are wrapping up. And thanks for listening in and good questions, and have a good day.

Thank you. Bye.