Beijer Ref Stock

Welcome to the Beijer Ref Q3 presentation for 2026. [Operator Instructions]

Now I will hand the conference over to the acting CEO and President and CFO, Joel Davidsson. Please go ahead.

All right. Good morning and welcome, everyone. It's Joel here. Today, I will be alone running through the presentation. I will start with presenting our Q3. Then, as usual, we will finish off with some Q&A at the end of the presentation. As you will see, I have updated the presentation format a bit. No drama, and I hope you like it. If not, you're just going to live with it because we're going to stick to this now for a while.

But let's go starting with a summary of the quarter. As I'm sure you have already seen, we delivered an overall very strong quarter. We report sales growth of 20%, 8% organic growth, an acceleration from the already good underlying growth in Q2. We delivered an EBITA growth of 19% and a record margin of 11.9% if you adjust for the acquisition expenses. Our EPS grew by 19% in the quarter, and we delivered a record operating cash flow of almost SEK 2.2 billion.

On top of this, we have had a very active M&A quarter, signed 4 acquisitions with a combined annual sales level of around SEK 3 billion. But I will come back to the acquisitions as we talk around the divisions.

Looking into sales at a high level. Total sales growth, as I said, 20%, composed by 8% organic growth, 9% acquisition growth and then 2% FX tailwind. The acceleration in organic growth was primarily driven by strong growth in our EMEA business, coupled with continued good execution in our OEM business.

Demand was positively impacted by good weather patterns in Europe, together with accelerated demand levels for HVAC in Europe, which fueled the growth on top of the, what I would call already strong underlying growth we reported in Q2.

In the quarter, we also saw an uptick in the organic growth in the U.S., I would say, in line with expectations. As you know, we had a bit of a messy quarter in the U.S. in Q2 and the 3% organic growth here in Q3 was more in line with what we saw at the end of Q2 when the price turbulence was settled. So as expected, no major changes to the U.S. market.

Product side, starting with the OEM business, which continues to develop very well, 19% organic growth, overall high market activity, good execution of our order books, continue to see an active market in Europe. I would say, although activity in APAC was slower in the quarter, we continue to see a good project pipeline across that region.

With respect to the OEM business, we closed the acquisition of Refra here in the beginning of October. This will be a very nice complement to our existing OEM businesses as it will both strengthen and broaden our product assortment in natural refrigerants. So this is something we are very excited about here going forward.

On the HVAC side, segment grew by 10% organically in the quarter, primarily, as I said, driven by Europe and the normalization in the U.S. As mentioned, we saw good trends already in Q1 and Q2, but group figures were hampered by the extreme comps in Eastern Europe first half, which is now behind us.

We saw strong performance on the majority of the European markets throughout the quarter, obviously, positively impacted by the strong summer that is expected to continue to drive HVAC penetration going forward. On the commercial industrial refrigeration side, stable growth, 4%, so also a solid quarter on that side.

Moving over to group level profitability. As mentioned in the beginning, underlying margin of 11.9% in Q3 with 22% EBITA growth adjusted for SEK 30 million of acquisition expenses here in the quarter. I would say, overall, solid margin, really happy about the operational performance in the quarter and the work that has been done in our network in Europe, shifting products around, which is also reflected here in our operational cash flow, which I will come back to later.

Moving over to the divisions, starting with EMEA, very strong performance across the platform. In Q3, we saw an acceleration in organic growth. Majority of the markets developed well with larger markets in Central and South Europe being particularly strong, I would say. Worth noting here is that the exceptional comps in Eastern Europe, as we have talked about in Q2, is significantly here in Q3 and through the improved demand levels in the quarter, the region had some positive growth in Q3.

Hot summer, I'm sure we'll come back to this, but was obviously a tailwind in the quarter. It is, however, I think, worth mentioning that July last year was also a hot month and a big difference versus last year is really that volumes continued throughout the quarter. And as all of you know, HVAC penetration levels is low in Europe and summers like this is potentially a catalyst for gradual acceleration of penetration in Europe, which could support a positive outlook here. There is a lot of investments needed in cooling in Europe.

On our OEM business, continue to develop very well. We have strong order books, good market momentum in our key platforms at Fenagy and Frigo. As already mentioned, we did sign Refra, which closed here in October. This will be a strong complement under the OEM umbrella with its proprietary technology for indirect cooling using natural refrigerants and with an expertise in hydrocarbon-based solutions.

So on the margin side, EMEA delivered a record Q3 EBITA, 12.3%. Stellar execution on utilizing the network, making sure we have products available on all markets to serve our customer needs. So very, very good.

Acquisitions signed 2 in the quarter, Refra, which I've already talked about; and then FG Europe as well, which is a Greek HVAC distribution business with presence across the Balkans, U.K. and Turkey. Just to clarify here, this acquisition is not closed yet as it is subject to the standard approval process by competition authorities. But all in all, a very solid quarter in EMEA.

Move on to APAC. APAC had in comparison to Europe, a slightly more challenging quarter with flat organic growth, but still with good development on the margin side, continued expansion. So very solid development in the quarter with limited growth. Worth reminding here is maybe that Q3 is still a low season in APAC.

In Asia, we continue to see positive development, continued investment into the cold chain and the transition towards natural refrigerants, which will continue to support our business over time. Activity on the Australian market was weaker on the OEM side after 2 very strong quarters, but it is project business. It is a bit lumpy and the pipeline still looks very promising here.

On the HVAC side, we met tough comps from last year, but still a relatively stable demand in the quarter. On the strategic initiative side, in APAC, we launched our private label offering in Australia and New Zealand during the quarter, and we also finally closed the Refspecs acquisition in New Zealand. We also did a smaller asset deal of an HVAC accessory business in Australia.

All in all, a small quarter for the region in Q3, continued solid development on the margin side. Also very excited here to have our private label in the market now when we enter the high season. So let's see where that will take us.

Moving over to North America. It has been and continue to be an active M&A market where we continue to drive consolidation and building out our platform successfully. In the quarter, the division sales grew by quite massive 30% compared to a year ago, mainly driven by M&A. Following the relatively messy Q2 we talked about, our North American business grew by 3% organically in Q3, more in line with what we saw coming out of the price turbulence at the end of Q2. As expected, I don't think we saw any big trend shifts in the U.S. in the quarter, but we continue to operate very well in a stable aftermarket repair place.

We continue to focus on the strategic initiatives like our private label rollout, which is going very well. Our organic branch opening strategy, which is short term weighing a bit on margin, but both of these will continue to support growth here going forward as we wait for the replace market to catch up back to trend.

On the margin side, EBITA was stable at 13.4%, in line with Q2. In the quarter, we continue to execute on the M&A pipeline. We closed, I'm sure you have seen, the first acquisition in the Canadian market, which is an important milestone for further expansion in that region.

So all in all, when you summarize and put everything together, a very strong quarter, 20% sales growth and EBITA growth 19%, 22% when you adjust for acquisition costs. Net financials in the quarter continued to be stable despite acquisition activities, of course, some support from good cash flow generation. Tax in the quarter, 24%, slightly up versus last year on country mix. But all in all, good all the way through, and we post an EPS in the quarter of SEK 1.71 per share, representing an EPS growth of 19%.

Moving over to cash flow, which is another highlight in the quarter. Total operating cash flow in the quarter, almost SEK 2.2 billion, which is the highest operating cash flow ever generated by Beijer Ref in a single quarter. Here, really pleased that our continued efforts to drive our capital efficiency continues to pay off. And for those of you who remember our Q2 call, I said we lacked a bit of cash flow in Q2 on the AR side in the quarter due to sales pattern that I expected to come back here in Q3, which it did. So all in all, a very good development and rolling 12-month operating cash flow is now at SEK 4.6 billion.

Leverage side, I would say, despite acquisition activities in the quarter, our leverage ratio came down 0.2 turns here sequentially in the quarter to 2.0. Balance sheet is still in very good shape to continue to execute on our deal pipeline. From here, I expect another strong cash flow quarter in Q4 as we, as always, collect the accounts receivable from the high season in Europe and we'll continue to drive down inventory.

Summarizing Q3, another record quarter. Overall growth 20%, accelerated organic growth of 8% above the already strong growth in Q2 with continued good trading throughout the quarter. Very strong demand in EMEA on the back of the summer and what we believe is an uptick in underlying HVAC demand. As already said, HVAC penetration in EMEA is low. And although not changing overnight, there is a lot of investments required across Europe. So that feels pretty good on our side.

OEM business continues to develop well, very strong order books and high activity levels. On the U.S., no major shift in the market, but strategic initiatives running very well. Private labels continue to grow at a good pace. We will continue to expand our product portfolio and build out our branch network.

EBITA margins developed well, 11.9% adjusted for acquisition cost, which is the highest margin ever in the Q3. Cash flow, very strong. All initiatives on capital efficiency is running well, resulting in a strong balance sheet. Q4, as I said, is in front of us, which is another seasonally strong cash flow quarter.

And then we have the acquisition, good execution on very strategic deals in the quarter. As I said, we did sign and close Enertrak early August, expanding footprint into Canada. We signed the acquisition of Refra, strengthening the OEM portfolio. That acquisition closed here in early October. Then we also signed an agreement to acquire FG Europe, which I talked about. This transaction is not closed yet. And finally, we also did a smaller asset deal, HVAC accessory business in Australia, and we finally closed on the acquisition of Refspecs New Zealand.

So all in all, a very active quarter, very strong quarter. So really pleased with that. And with that, my presentation is concluded, and I will open up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Adela Dashian from Jefferies.

Congratulations on a strong quarter. On the EMEA development, obviously, the hot summer here was a tailwind, as you say. I guess as we now move into the low season, on the one hand, I'm sure a lot of people are thinking about the investments needed for next summer, especially inventory levels have been depleted and so on. But on the other hand, it is the low season, and you are sort of like a daily trading company. So how sustainable is the sort of growth levels going into Q4 and also Q1 before the high season picks up again next year?

Yes. Thanks for the question, Adela. I think a little bit difficult to give a scientific answer to that question. But obviously, the hot summer helps. I mean, system breaks and all that we normally talk around. And clearly, part of the growth was short-term weather related. But what I tried to allude to a bit during my presentation is that we saw really good growth in EMEA, HVAC throughout the quarter. And I don't think a month like September is directly impacted by heat in that month.

So I believe there is a fair amount of growth coming from an uptick in sentiment around HVAC penetration-driven growth. And as you said, maybe a bit anecdotal, but I think there's a lot of people and businesses out there that have really suffered in Central Europe this summer and maybe have started thinking about getting tooling in place for next summer.

So -- and I don't think it's completely outrageous to guess that summers like this will be more common as time go by. And yes, we are entering a low season, but it was also low season last year. So that's sort of the numbers we will compare against. So I think we still have a positive outlook on Europe.

That's very clear. Maybe if I may, just another tailwind that is potentially emerging. I mean there's already a lot of buzz about energy prices, and you did really benefit from the energy crisis post-pandemic. Could that potentially also drive incremental growth in Q4?

Yes. I think we have spoken about this before. I think, yes, if you look back at 2022, it was very positive. I think energy price levels was still quite significantly different back then. And I guess there is 2 sides of this argument. I guess one side is that it will affect the consumer on the affordability side. But of course, I think the electrification trends is strong. So I think the jury is a little bit out on that, but I'm still cautiously optimistic, I would say.

Great. Moving on to North America. This was a quite nice recovery in the third quarter against a still muted market. So is this now here to stay? Are you already seeing an inflection point? Or yes, how are you reasoning around North America and demand?

Yes. I would put it like this. I think as we tried to communicate in Q2, which obviously was a somewhat of a weak performance on our side, we had a lot of troubles in Q2 as we did speak substantially about. I mean, the season started late, and then we had price turbulence and so on. So I think what we saw already in Q2 is that the market -- underlying market is relatively stable where we are playing. And I think that is what we are seeing here in Q3. No major changes in any direction, I would say, more a reflection of where we stand.

So I think there is no reason to be pessimistic on the U.S. market. But I don't think there will be a major uptick short term either in terms of replacement demand given where we have interest rates and so on in the quarter. But as I said, we continue to drive our initiatives on private label, building out our branch network. So it's -- I think we feel pretty good about the U.S. as well. And then if you look a little bit longer, I think despite sort of the interest rate environment, I think there is some optimism in the market on deferred replacement demand picking up at some point here.

All right. And then lastly, on margins, specifically North America, what sort of drag should we anticipate with the recent acquisition in Canada on the margin levels?

No, it's a good profitability in that business. So shouldn't pose any drag from that. So that shouldn't be anything to worry about on that side.

The next question comes from Albin Nordmark from SB1 Markets.

Nice to see a great report. Maybe if we start with, I think you commented on this one, but mentioned also that September usually isn't affected by the heat wave. But if you can comment on the monthly shape through in July, August and September? And what was the September exit rate organically in EMEA?

Yes. So I don't want to give that specific. But I mean, in Europe, I think I've talked about this before as well. I mean it is, in general, from educational purposes, I guess, starting from January to July, it's a gradual increase in sales all the way through. And then you have a quite big drop in August from holiday periods and so on in Southern Europe. So on the total sort of volume side, August and September is clearly below July type of month clearly. But we had a similar type of growth profile throughout the quarter here in Europe.

That's clear. And also if you can comment on the price volume mix in EMEA.

Yes. So it's relatively limited on price still. So absolute majority of the increase here in the quarter is volume-driven growth.

All right. And then on the U.S. first private rollout, what's the plan there in Canada through Enertrak? And also if there's any comment on the regulatory landscape in Canada versus the U.S. And then also if you maybe can mention something about quantifying the new branch drag in millions and comment on how many branches you opened in Q3?

Yes. So let's see if I can try to remember and cover everything. But obviously, Canadian acquisition, very interesting for us, new country, new platform, new territories to explore. I think worth knowing here and understanding is that the Canadian market is in comparison to the U.S. really a ductless market, so more similar to the European HVAC market. So obviously, private label is part of the plan here, which is -- we have the full product platform already in Europe. So really, really good opportunities on that side.

And then if we talk about the U.S., I'm not going to give exact numbers, but I would say you should probably think around sort of the investments we do in branches. We have done 3 so far this year with a good pipeline here for Q4 and onwards. And we also invest in our private label. I mean, we build out a distribution platform, and we do put up investment, of course, in both product and purchasing organization and so forth. So I would say, yes, a couple of points, 0.2, 0.3 weighing on the margin here in Q3.

The next question comes from Michele Baldelli from BNP Paribas.

I have several questions. The first one relates to the AC in Europe. Can you remind us how much of your business can be linked more to the fixed versus portable air con and how much of it, therefore, is related to replacement versus new and spare parts of the market?

The second question relates to the change in refrigerant. So basically, it shifted from R32 to R290 in Europe on heat pumps. What's your view on it? Can you sell in 2027 the stocks of R32 that you will have at the end of the year and how you're planning the transition?

And lastly, the last question is about if you see any good brands probably adding to your supplier list in the HVAC business into 2027.

All right. I have to remind me again here if I lose something. But the first question, I think, is very simple. We are very, very, very limited on the portable side. So it's not a segment we operate in really. It's a negligible exposure on that side. With propane on the heat pump side, I mean, as you know, heat pumps is on the air-to-water side for us. It's very relatively limited exposure. But yes, we will obviously offer the propane type of solution as well here going forward, but we will also run with our current inventory on the R32.

So -- and I think the last question on brands. I think we have a very stable and good brand portfolio within Beijer Ref. So not strategically looking to add brands right now.

Okay. And just a last one, if I may. On the margin erosion in North America, can we -- just to the acquisitions done?

Sorry, you broke up a little bit. I didn't hear. Can you please repeat?

No. It just on margin erosion in North America. Can we attribute this margin year-on-year just to acquisitions?

No, I wouldn't say so. I think margins in the U.S. depends on how long you have followed us. But I mean, if you look back at our margin in the U.S. between Q2 and Q3, it tends to move around a bit. Sometimes Q2 is higher, sometimes Q3 is higher and it depends a little bit on how volumes and working days fall between the quarters. And if you compare against last year, specifically, I think there are a couple of explanations really. The bigger one is clearly connected to volumes. Last year, we grew above 6% in Q3 in the U.S.

And then on top of that, what I said before, we do prioritize in this type of environment to invest in growth for the long term. So we obviously have some extra costs connected to our strategic initiatives on the branch rollout and building out our private label with some cost and investments connected to that. So that will be the main thing.

But all in all, I think we continue to feel very good about the U.S. Our part of the market continues to feel stable. And we do have a lot of faith in these strategic initiatives, as I said, although weighing a bit of margin on short term, but that will support the organic growth going forward here, waiting for a stronger replace market. But as I also mentioned, I think there is some reason for being optimistic on deferred replacement demand picking up at some point here in hopefully somewhat nearer future than interest rates coming down.

The next question comes from Rajesh Patki from Barclays.

A couple of questions from me. I think the first one was you did mention that organic growth was driven by volumes largely. Can you help us on what the price contribution was? And is that consistent across regions?

Yes. It is relatively consistent actually, but for different reasons, I would say, going really into the details. But if you look at EMEA, I would estimate price impact to be maybe around 2% in the quarter. I think we see similar price mix tailwind in the U.S. But I think the market in general in U.S. have seen a little bit of a trade down in terms of pricing on the products -- not the pricing, but the price of the products. So although maybe underlying price increases are higher in the U.S., I would say the average sales price is probably around the 2 to 3 percentage point mark.

And in APAC, as you know, we're just entering the high season here. I haven't seen any price increases for a while. But I think we will come in here in the same magnitude going into Q4 when the high season is starting.

Very clear. And can I ask about the M&A pipeline, specifically in North America? Are you seeing change in availability or valuations right now?

No. I mean, we have worked on our M&A pipeline for a long time. As we have communicated, we do tend to favor, of course, doing proprietary deals. Pipeline looks good. And of course, as always, it can be -- now we have had a very strong quarter here converting M&A, but I think it looks very good going forward as well. So no material changes to what we do or any updates on the market.

Got it. And lastly, could I be cheeky and ask if the double-digit growth in Europe has continued in October?

I would -- I think we saw, as I said, good growth throughout the quarter. My view is, I mean, it is very early days still here in Q4, but I think trading has started well in October as well.

The next question comes from Carl Deijenberg from DNB Carnegie.

I just had 2 questions. First of all is on French market. I mean back in the day, that used to be a very significant market for you, I guess, I appreciate that the exposure has been reduced over time given M&A and so forth. But what's happening there over the last couple of weeks and bond rates going through the roofs and so forth? Are you seeing any impact from that already now? Or is that just too early days?

Yes. I think it's a good question, but I think it is a little bit too early days on it. I'm not obviously super close to all the markets. I haven't heard any specific complaints from the organization in France. But obviously, I follow the news just as you do. But -- let's see what happens, but I think it's too early to have a firm view on that.

Sure. And then secondly, I also wanted to ask, I guess that goes for both France and the U.K., but there's been a couple of hacker attacks on certain refrigeration equipment over the last couple of weeks and months, I guess. So could you talk -- is that an opportunity for you? I think the brand that has been impacted is something that you don't sell for? Could you talk anything a little bit about that?

I obviously have those news as well. No direct impact on Beijer Ref in any shape or form that I'm aware of. I'm not sure I would like to classify it as an opportunity, but we monitor the situation clearly, but I'm not super close to it.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Adela Dashian from Jefferies.

Just following up on APAC commentary here, given the lower project volumes. Could you just remind us what developments were looking like last year in Q4 because organic growth declined. So did you have similar developments back then as well?

To be honest, I don't have the Q4 numbers here in front of me right now. But I think the market in the APAC region, as I said here, we have had relatively good growth last year, primarily on the HVAC side. It is a market which is similar to -- partly similar, I would say, to the U.S. and Australia is running on relatively high interest rates. So I think the development is stable for us in the quarter and now going into the high season. So I still think there is some optimism there, but it's a little bit challenged on the housing side of the Australian market.

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

All right. Thank you, everyone. Thanks for good questions, and enjoy the rest of the day. And yes, that's it for me. Thank you very much. Have a great day. Bye.

Welcome to the Beijer Ref Q2 presentation for 2026. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Christopher Norbye; and CFO, Joel Davidsson. Please go ahead.

Welcome, everyone. Christopher and Joel here on a beautiful summer day. Looking forward to present the results. And then as usual, we'll finish off with some Q&A at the end of the presentation. So starting a little bit of summary of the quarter. Of course, we like the heading of another record quarter. And as you know, when we put all of our business together, Q2 driven by EMEA is the strongest quarter of the year.

So we had a 6% growth of sales, about 1% organic of that 6%, the rest acquisitions. And also, as we stated a little bit before, we're now coming to the end of very strong comps from Eastern Europe, driven by some inventory issues in Eastern Europe last year. So as we move forward now to Q3 and Q4, that will be fading off. And that's also why we stated, if we adjust for East Europe, the underlying organic growth was around 5%. So we see some good trends in -- especially in EMEA.

APAC continues to be positive, and there's no major changes in the U.S. market. We also notified, of course, this quarter, no FX. So it's nice to be more of a clean result in the business. Solid margin, again, I would say, in all regions across the board. So we're happy and continuing to work with our margins and develop value in the different regions despite reporting just 1% organic growth.

Cash flow continues to be positive. Joel will speak more of that, but now we move into a very strong cash flow generation in the next couple of quarters as we flush out our accounts receivable for the year. We also closed AM Distributors in Q2, a very nice asset in Florida, a new state for us, focused on parts and supply with good margins and extremely good growth profile. And we do see quite some opportunities to grow organically in Florida as we expand their business.

So all in all, I would say another solid quarter, but with picking up underlying trends, especially in EMEA, and we'll come back to that in the next slides. So looking at the group, as I noted, we will continue and accelerate growth in our OEM business, driven by EMEA, but also very good activities around in APAC, in Southeast Asia. We see more and more trends moving over to natural refrigerants and a lot of activities there.

And EMEA, we see an accelerated transition into the natural refrigerants. And part of that is that January 1 quota levels in the EU is going to be up another 50%. And also, you see a lot of trends on the natural refrigerants on the heating side through our Fenagy platform.

So record backlogs, good growth in the OEM side, and we see that continue as we move through the rest of the year. HVAC, negatively affected by Eastern Europe, otherwise positive, and we also see trends now in Europe of picking up demand in countries like France, Netherlands, U.K. and other markets. So pretty positive on the HVAC development as we move through the year. Refrigeration stable, 3%. So solid quarter on the industrial and commercial refrigeration side.

Moving over a little bit to EMEA, as we talked about, we would say a good underlying organic growth in the platform. We see good activities across the board. As I said, Nordics positive; Central Europe, positive; Southern Europe, positive. And we see that trend moving in with good backlogs on the HVAC side as we move into the second half of the year.

So positive on EMEA as Eastern Europe is fading away here in Q3, we will have a good development as we move through the year, both driven by the HVAC side, but also on the OEM side, as we mentioned before. And also, I would say, a good backlog. And as we stated here on the slide, both our 2 key platforms in OEM, Fenagy and SCM Frigo having record order intake and record backlogs to move through the year.

So we see a lot of activities on the OEM segment and also, of course, a very strong quarter for them on the sales side. Margins, at good levels. We still are producing at record levels for Beijer Ref here in Q2. So we continue to be happy with the margin side in EMEA. So all in all, a very solid quarter in EMEA. And as I stated before, it looks positive as we move into the rest of the year in the EMEA division for us. So very happy about that.

We move into APAC. APAC continues to deliver a solid development, continue to be driven by Australia and rest of Asia. Also active in the OEM segment, that's very happy. A lot of these regions don't have regulation, but still looking at transitioning to natural refrigerants. So they continue to do a very good job in those areas. And we continue to invest quite a lot of building up sales training centers around Southeast Asia.

We have more activities in a lot of countries. South Korea is mentioned there, China, Thailand, India. So quite a lot of activities here that we believe long term will also start driving more growth in this region as step-by-step they start moving into more of OEM type solution for us. Margin solid.

All in all, Q2 is a smaller quarter. It's more a winter quarter out in Australia and New Zealand. So of course, their season starts ramping up at the end of Q3 moving into Q4. So another good solid development in our APAC region for the quarter.

Moving into the U.S., minus 3% organic. It was kind of a messy quarter in the U.S. to be very frank. It started off with some bad weather and rain in April, so the season got started late. Then we also had some announcement in May on pricing and different type of customs from Mexico, where a lot of equipment is manufactured for the OEM.

So we first had sharp price increases, then the announcement were pulled back and then price decreases and et cetera. So for us, as a distributor, it was a very messy May to align with these, and our exclusive OEM went first with price increases, then realigned it. So looking at a more clean June and July was pretty good and nice growth in there. So we're keeping track of that.

We believe the pricing issues are behind us. But a little bit of a messy quarter to start off April and May, but strong June and a good development in July. Margin is solid. If you adjust for dilution, continue to develop good margins.

Nice acquisition in AM Distribution, and we do continue to have a nice pipeline, expecting to close a nice deal here in the next couple of weeks as well. That's very strategic for the U.S. So all in all, quite positive. As I mentioned before, we don't see any big trends in the market shifting. We're still waiting for higher activity in the housing market.

But in the meantime, we continue to develop well and stable in the U.S. in the aftermarket replacement and repair. I think worth mentioning what's going extremely well in the U.S. is our private label expansion now moved into almost 90 over 130 branches. We're going to continue to expand the portfolio, and we'll continue to grow at double -- high, high double-digit levels on this, and we expect this to continue.

So it's a very nice added part of our portfolio in the U.S. And also, as we move into this acquisition, a big driver to expand their sales and margin through this platform. So we continue to expand in the U.S., and we expect this to continue. If you summarize the quarter, sales growth of 6%, organic 1%, EBITDA of 5%, EPS changed 5%. So an okay quarter, but a little bit more positive as we move into the rest of the year, especially in our EMEA platform that we expect to see pretty good growth, and that should also accelerate our numbers in this type of slide as we move into the rest of the year and next year.

With that, I'll hand over to Joel.

All right. Thank you, Christopher. Good morning, everyone. As always, straight into our EBIT, which is up 5% compared to last year. As mentioned, the FX translation effect that has been substantial now for a number of quarters have now almost finally faded fully. And on a currency-neutral basis, our Q2 EBIT is up 6%.

Financial net continues to develop well on the back of our new financing structure. We report a financial net here in the quarter of SEK 122 million, which is SEK 5 million below last year despite the higher net debt position. We did have some favorable FX effects in the financial net compared to last year. But adjusted for that, we are basically on par with last year. Tax line, SEK 285 million, effective tax rate of 25%, in line with last year. And so all in all, net profit of SEK 834 million, 5% higher than last year.

So moving over to EPS, SEK 1.63 in the quarter, increase of 5%. Year-to-date, we are at 3%. But as you remember from Q1, we had some relatively tough FX headwind. And on a currency-neutral basis, our EPS is up 5%. So cash flow, as you know, Q2 is also a quarter where we continue to build working capital. We did, however, deliver an operational cash flow in Q2 of almost SEK 300 million.

Yes, cash flow in Q2 was lower compared to last year, but it was driven almost exclusively by a more back-ended buildup of accounts receivable this year compared to Q2 last year, where trading faded a little bit differently in the individual months in the quarter.

Next slide here, as you see, continue to deliver positive cash flow in our seasonally weaker first half of the year. And now we are entering the more cash-generative quarters where we have a rolling 12 months operating cash flow of SEK 4 billion here so far.

Leverage, net debt increased by approximately SEK 1 billion here in the quarter on the back of M&A activity and distribution to shareholders. Our leverage ratio here sits at 2.16, which is 0.3 turns above Q1 and also above Q2 last year. And as I said, we are now entering the seasonally much stronger cash flow generating quarters, and we are in a very good position to continue to execute on our M&A pipeline.

So with that, I'll hand back over to Christopher. Chris, can't hear you.

So summarizing Q2, another record quarter. As I said before, Q2 is our strongest quarter, driven by the EMEA summer season. Good underlying organic growth if we adjust or look at EMEA and a lot of regions, especially in Europe, looks good. OEM, strong development.

Solid EBITDA in that only the second time over 12%. Of course, it was Q2 last year, but then there were some currency effects. So underlying margin and what we see looks good. Cash flow, as Joel said, will accelerate quite a lot here in Q3 and Q4. So also that, it looks positive as we move into the rest of the year. And then you have the acquisition that we really like down in Florida, and we have more of those hopefully coming in here actually in the next couple of weeks. So it looks good.

And then if you look at the long term, I think just updated here is, of course, the backlogs in the OEM and the development there. I see a lot of activities in there and looks positive here as not only for the rest of this year, but also for 2027 and moving forward. And hopefully, we start seeing this acceleration in transition as by 2030 in the EU, you cannot use the synthetic refrigerants and moving over to these type of equipment that we focus on.

And also in general, in EMEA, backlogs in HVAC looks good. I mean, you follow the news, been quite hot all over the place and a lot of requirements on moving into HVAC. As you're probably aware, today, in Europe, I think penetration is less than 17%, 18%. Just a reference point in the U.S., penetration is 80%. So it's 2 different market also, and this is, of course, not going to change in the short term. So it looks good.

The U.S. platform, I think a little bit of a messy quarter running through April and May, especially on the pricing side, as we talked about, looks to be in control now and find the right alignment with our OEMs. Private label continued to grow at a high pace and will continue to expand in our portfolio. And then if you look at the rest of the position, balance sheet, cash flow and pipeline looks good. So a little bit more positive this quarter as we move into the rest of the year and '27 as we finally, at least in EMEA, see some good traction and improvement of the business.

So with that, our presentation is concluded, and then we open up for any questions on the call out there.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Adela Dashian from Jefferies.

A couple from me. Firstly, you mentioned here that you started to see accelerating momentum towards the end of the quarter and into July. And you did, Christopher mention heat waves just now on your ending commentary.

Can we dive a little bit deeper into that? Are you actually seeing that heat waves across Europe is impacting your demand positively? And if that's the case, I guess, what sort of trends should we expect for Q3 because you are meeting tougher comps on reported numbers in Q3 than you did in Q2?

Yes. Thanks for that. And as you know, and talking about weather always makes you a little bit uncomfortable because it's probably one of the hardest things to predict and understand and see.

But sitting here in EMEA in countries like France, I mean, if you try and get HVAC now, I mean, your installers are probably telling you have to wait quite some time. So what we see in key markets, Central Europe, U.K. and France, where it has been extremely hot for a long time and penetration in those countries are not at the levels.

If you have heat waves in Spain or Greece and other countries, it's less -- it's more a replacement market. But in these markets, you also get penetration in that sense. So in these segments, it's -- we're realigning inventory setups and moving inventory in here and supporting because there is a lot of demand out there. So I think we're moving towards higher comps. You're absolutely right. But if you look at EMEA with this trend and also on the OEM side, we still feel pretty positive around a good EMEA expansion here over the future.

So with those 2 points, it looks promising. Also remembering, we're sitting in July. It's 1 month moving into that. But June was pretty solid. July started. Eastern Europe is fading away during the quarter. So all in all, what we look seeing at right now looks good in that part of the world.

And on Cool4U, can you remind us if the contribution was as significant in Q3 last year as it was in Q2?

Yes, it wasn't massive, and that is one of the main components. And if you look at Cool4U last year, we reported that sales growth in M&A as it was in organic. So it has a major impact on the organic growth in EMEA in Q2 and then it faded off.

And for details, the reason why Cool4U was up so much last year because it was an inventory issue in their key market, Hungary, where they have a huge market share. So they had to replenish the whole inventory and that drove up their sales. It wasn't sales out. It was more sales into their distributors. So it was a little bit of a special situation there.

So when we look at these things, the underlying development in most of our regions is really good. And as you see on EMEA, it was solid in Q2 if you exclude this. So yes, Cool4U is one of the main reasons for it, more a one-off situation last year, and that's normalizing now as we move into Q3 and Q4.

Great. And then you were talking about the refrigerant upgrades in Europe as well. Should this result in any sort of price tailwinds as you enter H2?

No. I think on what we're seeing in that is, of course, the acceleration on the OEM side, driving that you need to replace your equipment. On the refrigerants per se, we had seen one, and I think some of the analysts picked that up, U.K. has made a significant price increase on refrigerant because they're starting to follow more the EU phase out, and they haven't been doing that for many years.

So that's positive for us, but it's not big enough for Beijer Ref to be -- make any significant difference. In the rest of Europe, right now, refrigerants are stable. There's no significant price changes. We are curious how the market will start moving at the second half of the year as January 1, the quota levels for refrigerants in EU will be cut by another 50%. But right now, we're seeing more stable prices on the refrigerants. So no major impact on our margins.

Okay. And then lastly, if I may, on North America. It has been somewhat of a disappointment over the past 3 quarters. Granted, it's been moving factors impacting the organic growth development. But how confident are you in the recovery now already by the third quarter?

No, I think it depends on your expectations, and we would challenge the word disappointed. I think right now, as we see the U.S. market, for that to start on the distribution side, you had some alignment on product changes on R-410A being phased out in your SEER. So OEM and distribution wasn't in line for the last 18 months.

I think it's in line now. And then on the market that we see in active on the aftermarket replacement and repair, we see the market as pretty stable, and we haven't seen any change really in the market from Q1 and Q2, and we don't expect to see it really in Q3 or Q4.

But in the meantime, we don't see any deterioration, but I don't see any major improvements. And I think we need to start looking at housing sales and other trigger to start picking up in the U.S. to start seeing that tailwind. But of course, what we've seen in the market is that you start building up a pretty nice pent-up demand on the housing side, but also as you're repairing equipment, you need to replacement.

And you have indication that you start getting to an age of the equipment that a replacement cycle mathematical should start picking up here in the second half in 2027. But I think to balance that, you need also the consumer to get some more investment into it with in rates, the housing sales, how it's connected until you start seeing a nice tailwind in the U.S.

So I don't have any signals today where we look that that's shifting or changing. But in the meantime, I don't see -- I have no signals either that the market is going backwards either.

The next question comes from Viktor Trollsten from Danske.

Perhaps firstly, if I could push a little bit on -- there's a bit of moving parts here in Q2. And if you could just elaborate a bit more on the phasing of comps in EMEA, you obviously sound quite optimistic for growth in the coming quarters.

But I guess in Q4 this year, comps in Cool4U will be completely gone, if I don't read this commentary wrong. But how will it look now in Q3 more specifically? I mean you had a 7% headwind now in Q2. Is it half? Is it -- and perhaps just another perspective on that.

You mentioned 8% underlying organic growth in EMEA. How does that help us for Q3 given how comps develop? I mean will does that include 5% organic growth or whatever in Q3? If you could just help us a little bit with the quantification.

Do you want an exact number?

Do you have the decimal tools to play with?

Yes, yes. Let me open my AI tool, and I'll get it to you. No, but I understand what you're asking for. And of course, there's mathematical ways to calculate on our side, depending on comps and et cetera, and then you have the market and trends and everything else.

I'll leave the details to you all on how it fades out. But I think if you try and just be short term, Viktor, I mean, Q4, just to take that was kind of a weak comp quarter. So I'm not too worried about or that while Q3 was still okay in most regions, I think we had a 5% organic growth. So it's more of overcoming that as Q2 last year was plus 2%, so Q3 was a good quarter for us.

But I think you can look at the Eastern Europe fading away at least 50% as we move into Q3 and completely gone in Q4, so based on that, underlying looks good. You have the OEM sales. Now we had a really strong OEM in Q2, right, plus 25%. So if you look at those components, it just will move more from the Beijer Ref, the underlying or the adjusted for Eastern Europe.

We think these are the activity levels we see right now. But in the same token, let's not get carried away and start pushing out very high numbers. So let's see. But we do believe based on those adjustment in the OEM side and the activities in EMEA that they will accelerate as we move into the rest of the year and into next year based on what we see right now.

That's brilliant. That's brilliant. Very helpful. And perhaps just a follow-up on that because from my perspective, 8% underlying organic growth in Europe in Q2, very solid. We discussed a bit heat waves and weather difficult to forecast also. But the question being, do you feel like that 8% includes a lot of heat waves in Europe? Or is that more of a Q3 topic, I don't know, end June, July soon? Just to understand if that 8% is boosted a lot from that?

Yes. Of course, it is. Because if you look at our Q3 and as we speak about EMEA, the 2 big months are June and July, right? As you move into August, you pretty much have 2 weeks of business and all of a sudden Europe shuts down for 2, 3 weeks and et cetera.

So I mean, you have parts of the heat wave in June and then it triggers off in July. So yes, of course, part of that 8% is the very high growth in OEM, right, if it's 25% growth and then you add June strong and July at a good level. And then the numbers for us as a seasonality fades off in August, September. So I think you can look at it half in Q2 and half in Q3 type of thing. And then, of course, the OEM will continue and grow double digit and balance that. So I think with those points, that's how we're looking at the market right now.

Fair enough. And then if I just may, just a final on North America, just to understand a little bit because there's a lot of moving parts there also, but it sounds like messy April, May, a bit better in June, July.

Could you just help us what is okay June and July? We're talking -- you discussed flat market. Is that volumes? And if you could help us with what is the cadence on volumes and on top of that price, of course, because you discussed price quite a lot in North America. Is that a positive factor now into Q3? And just if you could help us with some sort of cadence for North America?

Yes. And I think it's looking a little bit on -- if you try and I will help you with exact numbers, you look at 2025 and 2026, and we don't see the markets have changed a lot on the sentiment, right? It's still repair, it's replacement. Housing sales continues to be weak. New construction is weak.

But of course, if you live in the southern parts of the U.S., you have to repair or replace your HVAC equipment. So it continues to be, I would say, on a sales level, a flattish level. And then if you take volume, you probably have 3%, 4% price mixed into that. So I would have seen volume being down 5% or a little bit more depending on that.

And I do -- of course, sometimes this will catch up. But I think to catch it up, you need some trigger points where this volume is going to start picking up organically on volume. So I don't see that trend changing right now.

I think you need some changes in the housing and et cetera, to move. But of course, in the meantime, you can only repair this equipment so many times. They are aging and replacement cycle coming in. So I'm more looking at more of the same in 2026 as 2025.

And then you might have a quarter that's up or a little bit down depending on some project or some weather patterns or anything else that affects the business short term. And I'm expecting that similar in Q3 and in Q4, you move a little bit more into heating and then let's see how 2027 plays out.

But of course, for every quarter in the U.S. with these type of development, you continue to build out a pent-up demand because the difference here is, of course, you have 80% is installed HVAC in the U.S. and the equipment is aging, and it's getting hotter. So you're wearing it down. So I think long term, we feel extremely good about the U.S. And then short term, we continue to invest in branches, in private label acquisitions.

It's a very good time to buy companies, we believe. So we're active on those sets. So our sentiment, I usually say every quarter is a quarter closer to the market improving. But right now, I'm more use the word stable.

The next question comes from Anders Akerblom from Nordea.

Just a few questions from my end. I mean, firstly, I wanted to ask a bit about OEM. Obviously, very strong sort of numbers here on organic growth. And I mean, you say that both SCM Frigo and Fenagy enter Q3 with record order books. Could you give a bit more color on sort of the, I guess, the backlog duration and if you see any production capacity constraints going forward?

Yes. It's 2 different colors, right? If you look at a company like Fenagy, their backlog is built on longer lead times and projects. There's no standard products in their portfolio. So Fenagy backlog will be somewhere between 6, 12 and 18 months and then you deliver accordingly. So the fantastic part of Fenagy, I mean, we have a backlog now well into 2027 with nice growth and a lot of activities out there.

While SCM Frigo should have a lead time of 10 to 12 weeks, what happens when the order intake of activities is higher than we expected, lead times get pushed out and you shouldn't have more than 10 or 12 weeks in this industry to be competitive because our customers doesn't have the same view as if you do a project with Fenagy might be planned to be executed 6 to 12 months later.

So it's 2 different stories. Capacity, yes, we are ramping up in SMC (sic) [ SCM ]. It's more putting on a second shift and these type of things, but we've been working on that for the last 6 months as we've seen the order book accelerating. So I think the question, should I assume 25% growth every quarter going forward? No. But should I assume that...

Yes, that's what I was getting at.

No, no. And I think this was a lot of finishing projects on Fenagy, but double digits, I feel pretty comfortable to say, yes, it will be double digit as we see for quite some time now in the backlog we have in the OEM side.

Okay. Makes a lot of sense. And I also wanted to ask a bit about the U.S., not maybe talking so much about the sort of organic prospects as that's been covered quite well, it sounds like. But you mentioned expecting a strategic deal in the next coming weeks, if I didn't sort of hear you wrong there. I mean, without disclosing specifics, could you characterize anything about sort of the size geography or product segment of this?

I can give you one. It's HVAC.

That's not what I was looking for. But all right. I don't want to say anything more.

I can give you. But the reason I specific is that we're just about to wrap it up, but we will in the next couple of weeks. I mean I can give you, it's bigger than AM. It's in HVAC. It's a strategic area for us, and we've been working quite some time together with this target.

So we really look forward to get it over the fence. And of course, in the U.S., when we do signing, it's signing and closing at the same time because you don't have any competition authorities. But we also have a fantastic opportunity in Europe. We're looking at expanding the OEM side with new capabilities. That's also on the way in.

So we're yes, we're positive on that side as well. And we don't -- we are lumpy when we do acquisition, right? It doesn't come 5 a quarter. So we've been working on these for quite some time. They're fairly strategic for us, and we look forward to getting them into the platform here by, hopefully, the next couple of weeks, to be honest.

Exciting. And finally, I just wanted to ask sort of a high-level question. But I mean, elephant in the room, obviously, MSAB is set to become the -- or is the sort of largest shareholder by voting rights. I mean, does this change sort of in any way the strategic direction of you guys or sort of alter the pace or nature of sort of capital allocation decisions going forward? Anything there that you want to share?

I guess it's the good elephant in the room. Usually when you're an elephant.

Yes.

It is a bad thing. But no, no, I think...

I didn't mean it as a bad thing.

I know. I know. No, it's very good for us. And I got the question earlier this morning that everybody has been aware over the last 3, 6 months that EQT was on the way out, which was -- you always want to have clarity in this situation.

But I usually answer that we had a fantastic journey together with EQT. It was more to transition the last ownership of A shares that was important, I think for Beijer Ref for management, for our shareholders and investors out there. And I think we got a fantastic solution with one of the best owners we could ever wish for long-term strategic involved owner with good capabilities.

But short term and long term, I think a little bit as the press release, they support strategy. They like the M&A. They like the consolidation, they like the industry. So I think we're fairly aligned on the plan going forward as well. So I don't expect any major changes than what we continue to do and continue to grow the business.

The next question comes from Carl Deijenberg from Carnegie.

So I just had one more topic that I wanted to follow up on, which we are obviously following very closely, the private label expansion in the U.S. I mean you talked about it in the beginning, it seems to be progressing really well here.

And I just wanted to hear, could you talk a little bit more broadly when you expect this to be wide in most of your branches? And maybe also secondly, given that you have a different main distribution partner externally in the U.S. relative to your European operations, do they have any views on this, the expansion you're doing on the private label side? Or is that fine?

Yes. So I mean I'll combine or I'll start with you. When we talk private label in the U.S. under our brand Sinclair, it's under what we call the transactional part of the business, which in the U.S., it changes for territory and branches or in most. But transactional, we would call about 30% of your HVAC portfolio. And that's a second tier for the OEMs. So if we are exclusive, say, with Rheem, that would be related to our premium brand and dealers and portfolio we work together to expand.

On the transactional part, always historically, you can buy anything you want. You could be -- Rheem has 5 second-tier brand carriers; 10, you have Allied, you have a plethora of things, and there's no exclusivity. So we've never been loyal to Rheem on the private label. We used to buy it from somebody else and et cetera.

So the whole strategy was built to -- and was to build to exchange that transactional with a much better product, in our view, a stronger brand and a stronger margin with Sinclair and build up that brand. And today, we launched it at, I think, 80 to 90 branches by the end of the year, it will be fully integrated. And next year, we will only do a transactional with Sinclair.

And we're also expanding the portfolio into ductless and some other areas from ducted. So it's nothing -- I mean, it's 2 different strategies. We'll continue and expand together with Rheem and that part of the business, but now we have a fantastic portfolio. I mean it also opens up. We can go into more project business.

We're going into new construction. We can go into different areas on the commercial side with this portfolio and still make good margins. So -- but we can't do it too fast because it's also building capabilities, setting up the inventory. I mean when you do private label, you do your own logistics, you set up.

So there's a lot of steps to build, and that's why not a lot of companies can do this. And of course, as we do acquisitions, we can integrate this portfolio into it. So we're excited. We're expanding. We're building the organization, and it's growing a lot. And because it's also a great product priced at a good place. So for us, it's more within this 30% of our business that we think we can transact 100% with our Sinclair product as we go through the next 3 to 5 years.

Interesting. I wanted to ask also, I mean, Rheem has obviously been quite active in Europe over the last couple of quarters with the consolidation of Atlantic and so forth. And I know we talked about this last quarter as well, but that was quite early days back then.

And I just wanted to hear, is that opening up any incremental opportunities for you in Europe? I guess, historically, you haven't done much with Rheem in the European markets, right?

No, it does. I mean, our agreements together with Rheem is global agreements. So we always have that part of the business as we work with the global management team, that is the U.S. team, both Fujitsu and Atlantic will roll in under that management team. So Fujitsu, of course, have good distribution across Europe, Atlantic, of course, a little bit related to Fujitsu as well, more on the heat pump side.

They also have water heaters in Australia. We have a good platform. So yes, it's part of the strategy, and it's also Fujitsu in the U.S. that's part of the strategy as well. So these are the strategic meetings we do talk and also have incentive to drive because more we do together with them, the better our overall portfolio becomes and also on the pricing side.

So it is part of it, but it is still early days, and it's still more plans on how we could help each other in different territories, but no significant impact at least as of yet. But it is a good partner for us, and we are happy when they're expanding because we do have a very strong relationship in the U.S.

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

My first question is on the measures that you previously announced targeting improved profitability and also on the back-end side of things in Europe. How is that program progressing? And has there been any changes to the scope in terms of financial impact?

I'll leave that to you, Joel.

All right. The restructuring program is progressing according to plan. Obviously, as mentioned during the call, very high activities on some of the markets here evolved, which is a good problem. But overall, everything is no changes to estimates and so on, so in line with plan.

All right. And then on the -- you did talk about a little bit earlier. But in North America, on the branch initiatives, that kind of dilutive effect on margins. Can you kind of say a rough time line on how you think about this dilutive effect?

Like is it something that as you continuously expand your branches, it will have -- every branch will have this dilutive impact for 6 to 12 months? Or how are you thinking about it compared to the well now announced in efficiency measures in North America and the ability to perhaps extract synergies from previous acquisitions and so on?

Yes. So I mean, obviously, if you look at the quarter here, you have -- I mean, on the acquisition side, it's fairly straightforward. And I guess on the branches, I mean, there is always differences in how quickly you ramp up and so on. But I think the assumption of around 12 months dilution from a branch opening is, on average, relatively correct.

The next question comes from Rajesh Patki from Barclays.

I have got 4 questions, hopefully, quick ones. First one is for Joel. Maybe you could add some color on the buildup of accounts receivable that you reported at the end of second quarter. Was it related to a specific product or region? And do you expect it to normalize during the second half?

Yes. It's a bit of a combination, of course. I mean, U.S., we talked about, I mean we had a turbulent start to the quarter in April and May, which obviously tilted more sales to June. And then you have equal, but for different reasons in Europe, where you have sort of a hotter weather coming in June to a larger extent.

So it's just a question of growth profile within the quarter, which pushed accounts receivable higher at the ending balance compared to how it came together last year. So obviously, accounts receivable will be paid back here in the next quarter. So nothing to worry about.

Very clear. The second one is around M&A activity. I see there is a change in wording on the slide from good to very good. Should we read that as indicative of an acceleration in the second half?

I'm glad you picked that up. I think it was me who did it last night. No, I was just relating to that -- we were actually hoping to have a couple of really nice strategic ones, I spoke to sign here before the report.

So it's more -- it's imminent in the next couple of weeks. So we will have -- I talked about it for quite some time. So it's just that some dragged out for different reasons. But now we're putting -- crossing the T's, getting financing ready, et cetera. So yes, I feel comfortable to use the word very good. So it's more short term, you'll have some nice acquisitions falling into the Beijer Ref. So yes.

Great. The third one is on price increases. Do you see any scope for midyear increases driven by rising inflation?

I would to explain it because we talked about this before, right? So you had some of those areas in the U.S., as we said, a messy April, May on price increase and price increase and et cetera. So I don't expect any more price expansion in the U.S., but you never know, right?

But right now, I think that should be settled. EMEA, of course, when you have high development expectation here in HVAC, there's also always opportunities for us to work with price. What happens when you have -- we have countries where we're almost not accepting any new external customers. We're just working with the one that's our strategic customers and then you could have prices if a new customer comes on board, they will be on a different price level in these areas.

But in general, I think pricing in Europe is more related to anything from 1% to 2%. What we have seen now to finish off that is that on the HVAC side in Australia, New Zealand, which is our main markets, we do expect price increases as we roll into end of Q3 of 3% to 4% on the HVAC equipment. That's what we're seeing from the OEMs. So in general, we've been positive on APAC hasn't been price increase for a couple of years. U.S., you probably know the story and pretty stable in EMEA as what we see right now.

Got it. Very clear. And last one for you, Chris. We've had some shareholders asking about what EQT's exit means for your individual alignment with Beijer Ref. I hope there is no reason to see any change there.

Sorry, I missed the last part of the question.

Just hope to see there is no change with your individual alignment with Beijer Ref with EQT's exit.

No, no. I think we have those things part of the journey, and we always had an ambition to keep those things separate for the long-term benefit of Beijer Ref as well.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Gustaf Schwerin from Handelsbanken.

Sorry to come back to Viktor's question on the pace there in U.S. for June, July. I think my line broke up a bit. So I'm not sure if I got it correctly. Did you say that sales was flattish in June with, let's say, a 3%, 4% price contribution?

No. No, I'm not that clear on an individual month. What -- I said nothing around flattish. I think I addressed the full quarter, and we said that we finally had a nice trajectory in June and July was positive from a sales perspective. But what I did say when we talked about prices in general and the U.S. market, what we see as a pricing effect on the HVAC side is the 3% to 4% in general, but that's nothing new and it hasn't changed.

And the noise we had in May was that there were 2 announcements on tariffs going up and then tariffs going down for Mexico, which is a big platform of manufacturing for some of the OEMs. And Rheem, who's our main partner, has the majority of their. So they went up with prices. Some of the other OEMs did not, and then they went down.

And it was a messy May for us on the pricing and customer, and I'm sure we lost some sales short term because of pricing issues from our OEM, and that's settled now, and we feel like we're in line with the market as we move into June and July. So that's a little bit what I -- how I explained the situation in the U.S.

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

Yes. Thank you for all the questions. I was debating with Joel if everybody has gone holiday or will have questions for us. But I appreciate the discussion. And of course, as always, if there's any specific questions, we're still around. And we wish you, hopefully, some summer holiday when it comes. And we, as you know, like that it's hot. And yes, that's all for me. Thank you very much, and we'll talk soon.

Thank you very much.

Welcome to the Beijer Ref Q1 presentation for 2026. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Christopher Norbye; and CFO, Joel Davidsson. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome, and thanks for calling in. Christopher over here together with Joel. So we'll go over some slides and explain a little bit how we look at the first quarter of the year. And then, of course, we'll have some Q&A to wrap it up. So maybe we'll get started right away.

So if you summarize this quarter, I would say stable is a very good word. As you all know, Q4 and Q1 for us are a somewhat smaller quarter as we're just now starting ramping up for the summer season in most of our key countries around Europe and the U.S.

But in general, we had a stable development in most of our markets across the world. Our organic growth for the quarter was flat. We had some effects of weather, if you remember, in the U.S. closing down branches 3, 4 days in January. We had some extreme comps in some acquired companies, et cetera. So underlying positive growth in Q1.

Acquisition added 3%. We had a fairly steep headwind on the currency in Q1 that hopefully will improve here as we roll over to Q2. On the margins, good development across all regions, margins up in the U.S., margins up in APAC and then flattish, a little bit down in EMEA. We'll come into that in there. But in total, numbers in line with last year.

Cash flow continues to be positive. We continue to work very active with our cash flow position. We are building inventory here in Q1, and we'll continue to do it here in the beginning of Q2 to ramp up for the summer season, of course. But in general, very good control of the cash flow. We had one acquisition closing in Q1, and we'll come back and address a little bit on the pipeline that's coming up here in Q2 and the rest of the year.

And also worth calling out our green OEM, SCM Frigo and Fenagy had a -- continues to have very, very strong order intake and have record backlogs moving into Q2 for the rest of the year. So very positive on the OEM side -- on the green OEM side of the business.

Moving on to the next slide, the highlights in the different segments as related to our green OEM continues to do very well and order books are increasing. So we're positive as we ramp that business up for the rest of the year. And especially worth mentioning is that Fenagy had a record order intake quarter here with over SEK 300 million of orders in different segments. It's very encouraging and a lot of activities.

We also mentioned here the first time in a couple of years, good preseason for HVAC in France. It's a big market for us. in there. And then the rest of it, if you look at the segment, fairly stable. Commercial refrigeration, 1%, OEM up 5%, but with good order book. And HVAC, if you adjust a little bit for the U.S., would also be slightly positive for the first quarter. So in general, a good start, stable start to the year.

If you then move in a little bit to EMEA, I have touched on some of these points. Just trying to break it down a little bit. I would say, positive growth in most of our regions. Worth calling out, as we said, is U.K. And then as I mentioned, that a nice start on the preseason for HVAC in France for the first time in a couple of years.

We do have some headwind on comps in acquired companies and Eastern Europe that was extremely strong in the beginning of the year last year. So all in all, a fairly stable quarter and also a smaller quarter for us in Q1 as we're starting now to ramp up for the season. Green OEM continued to be strong, as we said. Reported margin, a little bit diluted by acquisition, and then we had some currency effect last year. But in general, a stable quarter on the margin as well.

Then moving into APAC. APAC continues to develop well, plus 3% organic side compared to a good quarter start to the year. They just phasing out their high season, moving in a little bit more to -- not winter, but the summer season is over. So they had a good summer season across the board. And especially worth calling out here, it's very good development in the largest market in APAC, in Australia that continue to take market share and develop in a very good direction.

Also good activities on the OEM side and a lot of activity in Southeast Asia on that with good order line and pipeline from our businesses across the globe. A lot of activities, investment from our side on OEM. And refrigeration in Southeast Asia is also proving to be the right strategy.

If you look at the margin and development they had over the last couple of years, we're extremely proud of the team over there that has done an amazing job on improving margin in the underlying business, but also moving into segments and parts and supply in a larger way to drive a positive product mix.

So a little bit hoping or working with the same type of model we have in the U.S. on the HVAC side, more adapted solution, more parts and supplies, so very positive for them and how they're working with the margin side. So a good quarter in APAC based on a lot of good quarters lately in that region.

Then you move over to North America, an active quarter. As we said, I think, on the last quarterly call, we had quite some extreme weather. And being a branch-based business as we are when you close down all our branches, it's tough to do any sales. So after a tough January with 3 or 4 days closing of our branches, we had a positive development in February and positive in March.

So all in all, a continued good execution from our U.S. team, not only on the sales side, but also on the margin side. You can see also a very strong margin development in the U.S., driven by a lot of strategic initiatives that we are driving and continue to drive despite dilution from the acquisitions that we did at the end of the last year.

Continue to open branches, just opened one, the first new branch in Alabama, I think, in 20 years. So I'm excited for that branch, and we'll continue to do that for the rest of the year. And also a nice start to 2 acquisitions that we did close in end of last year. And we do see -- continue to see that there's no big change, in our view, on the markets in the U.S. As you all know, we are heavy on repair, and that continues to be active. So also looking forward for that market to start strengthening.

But right now, it's a stable market for us with good margins. We continue to invest in branches. We invest in our private label initiatives. And we also continue to have a very strong pipeline on acquisitions in the U.S. that we're pretty sure is going to start executing here in the near term. So all in all, I would say, a very solid quarter in North America.

Then a little bit on the financial. I won't spend too much time on this. We went over the quarter here, you see the trends here. Of course, currency is a big headwind right now, but that's probably going to ease up a little bit as we move forward and then a stable organic growth on the total reported level.

Same on the margin, I would say, a solid Q1. And as you see, if you look at that, Q2, Q3, of course, much bigger quarters for us. So I think we're in a good position, good inventory position, good cash flow, stable margins across the globe to continue to have a nice development here as we move into Q2 and Q3 for us.

So all in all, I think this is my last slide, Joel. I think I said this time a couple of times. But I think we'll summarize it as a stable quarter to start off the year, and we all -- we look forward to ramping up here for the season and moving into Q2 and Q3 as Beijer Ref. So with that, Joel will take over.

All right. Thank you, Christopher. Good morning, everyone. Covered most here. But as always, looking at -- starting at EBIT, excluding items affecting comparability of SEK 746 million in the quarter, which is down 4% compared to last year. We are, as I said, significantly impacted by FX. And on a currency-neutral basis, our Q1 EBIT is up 3%.

Our net financials continues to develop very well. We have had strong cash flow generation for a number of quarters now. And net financials come in at SEK 109 million here, which is slightly more than SEK 20 million below last year, driven by a combination of lower rates and FX movements. So on a comparable basis, interest costs are roughly SEK 10 million lower in the quarter compared to last year.

Tax side, relatively uneventful, SEK 156 million in the quarter, effective tax rate of 25%, in line with last year. So all in all, we report a net profit, which is also in line with last year. And if you adjust for FX, we are up 5%.

So moving over to EPS. Clearly, in the quarter, SEK 0.94, same level as last year. But then again, the FX headwind. So adjusting for that, you have a net profit or EPS, which is up 5%.

A little bit on the cash flow. As you know, Q1 is a seasonally weaker cash flow quarter due to buildup of working capital, as Christopher mentioned before, ahead of the primary selling season. We did, however, continue to deliver a solid operational cash flow in Q1 of SEK 385 million.

And the positive cash flow trend continues, which is also here visible on the next slide, where we have now 11 consecutive quarters of stable and good cash flow. Obviously, we are in the middle of our journey on improving our capital efficiency. So looking forward to continue to deliver strong cash flow here.

Just moving over to leverage. Leverage ratio in the quarter moved up slightly sequentially to 1.9, same level in all material aspects as last year, which means that we continue to have a strong balance sheet. And that together with our cash flow generation abilities, we feel have a very strong pipeline and ability to execute.

With that, I hand back over to Christopher.

All right. So just to wrap up a little bit the comments on Q1, stable across the board on sales, I would say, good margins starting off the year. As you all said, solid cash flow despite building inventory for the season and then a small acquisition closed out in the year and then, of course, mentioning also record books in our order books in our OEM business. We will look forward for the rest of the year.

I think, in the long term, things looks good for us. A lot of activities in our segment on the sustainability, electrification regulation continues to be positive and active in our regions, good balance sheet for future expansion of our business.

And also, as we said, for good acquisition pipeline, we'll have an active here first half of the year, and we'll continue to have an active, I would say, second half of the year on the acquisition side as well. So I would say a solid start to the year and also now looking forward to going into more active season for our company and for us.

I think with that, we'll wrap up the first part of the call, and then we're open for any questions for -- from people on the call.

[Operator Instructions] the next question comes from Adela Dashian from Jefferies.

A few questions from me. First, if we start with the organic growth trends, you mentioned that there was some weather-related closures in North America and also tough comps in parts of Europe. On North America specifically, would it be fair to assume that had you not had these closures that organic growth would be somewhere in the 2 to 3 percentage range instead? And also similarly, in Europe, how should we expect the underlying organic growth as you exit Q1 and once these effects roll off the tough comps?

Yes. So in the U.S., I would say, underlying probably slightly better than your comment. In Europe, I would say we are -- had a very strong, as you know, also in Q2 in our M&A acquired companies. So similar comps, I would say, in Q2 in Europe from that aspect. But obviously, it's an important part of the year with Q2 in the other markets in Europe where we are, as I said, saw a good preseason in France, for example.

Yes. I think to summarize, slightly better if you do mathematically the closure. So U.S., we're trending more positive than that in February and March. So still early days, of course. And then EMEA, I would say, all in all, will be positive with those type of adjustments.

So we try and package this together, I would say that Q1 underlying was probably up 1% to 2%, but that's the case. And the main reason here is, I think it's the U.S. that did have underlying positive trend in Q1.

Great. And then on the OEM visibility here, you mentioned that you have a record order book going into the second quarter. What's the phasing of those deliveries?

Yes. I would say when you say record books, I think in -- there's two parts of the business, you have the daily running or business in what we call the SCM Frigo with cooling systems, while [ Fenagy ] is much, much longer lead times.

But I would rather summarize the -- my answer in this way. Based on how the order book looks and how it's developing right now, this activity and sales will be ramping up percentage growth as we run through Q2, Q3 and Q4. So it will start flushing out some of those order books in a positive way here for the rest of the year. And of course, Fenagy will most likely have a good order book based on this rolling into 2027 as well.

And then lastly, I know your answer to this is going to be that you don't have a direct impact. But the change to Section 232, what has the partnerships that you have with the suppliers, what do they [ sell ] will be the implication of that, if any?

We don't see any changes from our partners or anything in the market. So as we see, the market continues to move on as it had independent of this. So we have no information that anything has changed because of this.

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

The first one is also on North America. We started to see some signs from the industry, both on shipments and among distributors here in the end of Q1 that things started to improve. The first one is really if you agree with the market data that we're now seeing. And the second point is really about kind of if we get improving activity in the market, how you think about the mix in the business currently and that relates to the margin profile?

Yes. I think on the first one, and I think we talked a little bit about this in Q4 as well when we had slightly negative organic in the U.S. And for us, it was more related to very strong comps and then orders versus daily trading business. But I think what we said all along in our model in the U.S. being very active on parts and supply, repair, replacement as a segment.

I wouldn't say that Q1 has shifted any of our expectation or view on the market. I think we saw the market pretty stable in Q4. Last year, we saw the market pretty stable here in Q1. We did have strong development as we roll into February and March, but that's also related to the weather issues we had in January. So I would say we continue to have a more stable outlook in the U.S., and I would expect us to continue to take market share and do better in our model than probably most competitors.

So I think it's -- it wouldn't be, I think, saying that something has shifted very a lot in March. I think not really. I think it was a good March. But in general, we're still seeing the U.S. as a stable market, and let's see how it plays out here. I think now you're rolling into Q2, it's a lot related to weather and heat waves and starting to ramp up in the season. So no major changes, either negative or positive for us. We continue to develop stable.

And then looking at your margin, yes, we do have a lot of initiatives on improving margin in the business, driving product mix, adding spare parts in our acquisitions, driving private label and improving the business. So I think a very solid development on the margin, as you said, some driven by product mix, more repair than project, as we said also in Q4.

I think it more shows the strength of the -- at least we think about our business model in the U.S., and we're opening, as I said, a new branch here end of Q1, and we have a couple more coming here in Q2, Q3. So we expect the market in the U.S. continue to be pretty good for us.

The next question comes from Carl Deijenberg from DNB Carnegie.

So a couple of ones from my side. First of all, if you could remind us a little bit of your heat pump exposure in the European business. I remember back in the previous energy crisis, you -- I guess you had a little bit of benefit of having such exposure. So could you just -- brief words what percentage that is of the mix? And do you see any shift here in Europe now, given what we're seeing in the Middle East on the gas and oil price and so forth?

Yes. I think we always said around our heat pump exposure is somewhere between 5% and 10% of our HVAC sales in EMEA. So of course, not a significant part, but not a completely non part as well. I think it's too early to say, to be very, very honest. And I don't really agree with the comments that you will see an effect short term on what's happening on that side. But I think it reminds Europe and our people legislation here how vulnerable we are with the energy system we have with gas and other type of solutions.

So I would say right now, you haven't had a big effect of it. But our heat pump sales as of the last quarter continued to grow and expand after you had the dip here for a couple of years. So we had a solid quarter for the heat pump here in Q1. And of course, for us, heat pump is a lot of Q4, Q1, and now we ramp up more into the cooling side.

But also remembering that a lot of parts of the world do use air-to-air both for heating and cooling. So you can always debate if it's a cooling or heating solution. But our air-to-water and that type of product that we more allude to when it comes to heat pump has had a nice development in the last couple of quarters anyway.

Good. I wanted to ask also a little bit the comments you gave on -- or maybe starting in another way. I mean, I wanted to ask on pricing in Europe as well. I guess, maybe pricing in the U.S. is a different topic now with Section 232 and so forth. But given how copper prices and so forth have moved, I guess we've heard more and more from the OEMs that price hikes have started to come back. So is that something you're seeing in Europe as well that price adjustments are coming back?

And second question to that as well, the comments you gave around the prebuy activity in France and in the U.K. in Q1, could there be any risk that there are any pre-buys on that on anticipation of higher prices on -- given what we're seeing externally? Or is this just a regular pattern you're seeing?

Yes. That was a long question, but I'll try and answer it in a good way. I will go a little bit across. And of course, you had price increases on material, right? And if you look at a lot of our components, you use copper, you use steel, aluminum and that type of things into both refrigeration products and HVAC products.

So as I said, I think in Q4, you see on the HVAC side, a price increase coming through here in end of Q1, beginning of Q2 on the HVAC in the U.S. And that's moving along and being executed. So I would say, in HVAC, you saw probably 4% to 5% price increase being executed across the board in the U.S.

If you take EMEA and your comment around there, I would say there haven't been any big price increases in EMEA yet. So the presales and et cetera, has nothing to do with prices, and we're following very closely. What we're hearing and seeing in the market is that we also believe as you move into the second half of Q2 and the rest of the year, prices will start coming up on the HVAC equipment in EMEA as well. That's what we're hearing.

But for now, it's been fairly, fairly modest despite the increases in copper and other materials. So nothing right now, but most indication shows that the second half of the year, you start seeing this flowing through in EMEA as well, which I think will be positive for us.

And maybe just finally on that, are you -- with regards to Europe and lagging on prices and so forth, are you surprised that this hasn't happened earlier because I guess the prices we're talking about or external materials have been elevated for quite some time? Or is it just inventory still having been flushed out and so forth?

Inventory, I mean, left to be flushed out. I think it's just our OEMs also looking for how the market develops and the strength in the market. So -- and usually, when you come into the HVAC, price increases usually doesn't come until end of April and May anyway. That's the cycle when you start looking into the prices as you ramp up to the season.

So I'm not super surprised, but we're keeping a close eye on it. And we also see some opportunities, even if the OEM doesn't go that we have opportunities to raise prices in the market as we moving into the second half, as I alluded to very good activities in some markets and -- which is positive for us. So let's see.

The next question comes from Gustaf Schwerin from Handelsbanken.

Two questions. Firstly, a follow-up on the U.S. OEM pricing in that 4% to 5% range. Can you give us any kind of sense to sales in your own organic growth for, well, Q2, Q3?

Yes. I think if you look at that, it probably touches around 40% to 45% of our business on the HVAC. So you'll get maybe a tailwind of a couple of percent on the total mix in the U.S. on that price increase as we move out to Q2 and Q3.

Okay. Great. Yes. Secondly, on the topic of acquisitions, what are your thoughts on Home Depot going into HVAC now? I mean do you think this changes the playing field for you in terms of competition, multiples or anything really? And are you hearing anything about them looking to work with other OEMs as well?

No. I mean it's early days, right? And you can view it in different ways. So our guys are not too concerned about it. These are not the type of assets that we are looking at. We have a platform in the U.S. So it doesn't affect, in our view, our business in any way. And the add-on acquisition in the area that we want to expand or grow has very little to do with this.

So I think for us, it's more a wait and see, but -- at least right now. And then also the business model we have that much more focus on parts and supply and replacement versus how we see the acquisition they did, that's much more on the applied and commercial side. It doesn't -- right now, we don't see any changes in our industry.

The next question comes from [ Bhavin Thaker ] from Bloomberg Intelligence.

I just have one about the projects that you have won in the Europe for data center. I think this is the second kind of announcement you're making in this particular area. Do you think -- or do you foresee any further wins in this area going forward?

Yes. I think it's same as I said before when we captured the first one. It's the same type of solution with a heat pump running on isobutane when you connect data centers and district heating, which we think is a fantastic solution for many reasons. So we do have a strong cooling pipeline activity in that segment. But it's not only that type of solution. It's also industries that do create a lot of heat where you can use our solution in a very, very efficient way.

But in the same token, when I say those things, and as I said last year, I'm not here to drive that expectation. But of course, the more we do in this segment, the more we have our solutions out there, more reference and interesting cases we are discussing.

So I think long term, let's see how it works out. But for now, I think we should be positive on the short-term trends in this. And then if we see a vast activity increase around these type of areas, and then we will communicate it. But for now, I think it's step by step in the type of segments.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Karl Bokvist from ABG Sundal Collier.

A follow-up on the cash flow here. Back in Q3 and Q4, you had, using your own definitions, higher cash flow year-over-year, and you talked about the strategic initiatives kicking in and showing a clear benefit here. This is a quarter where cash flow is down year-over-year.

So I'm just curious if you think it's more about temporary effects, considering that Q1 last year was also a seasonal buildup quarter. And like just -- I think I know we talked about this before, but what more you can do here structurally to lower working capital and especially inventories?

Yes. So yes, you're right. I would say the difference here is small. It's a smaller timing effect in the cash flow compared to last year. So underlying, we are satisfied with the cash flow generation in Q1.

You're right in the sense that we are obviously still having a lot of opportunities on the cash flow and the inventory efficiencies, which are -- as I have said a couple of times before, we did correct our inventory levels partly last year, going back to more normal levels. From here, the ambition is clearly to drive structural change going forward, and we are in the middle of that journey, but it is something that will continue for quite some quarters and also years to structurally improve the business setup.

The next question comes from Michele Baldelli from BNP Paribas. There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Thanks, everyone, for the good questions and listening in. And of course, if anything more you come up with, we can help clarifying. You know where to reach us. So thank you very much for this morning.

Thank you.

Welcome to the Beijer Ref Q4 presentation for 2025. [Operator Instructions]

Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Christopher Norbye; and CFO, Joel Davidsson. Please go ahead.

Welcome, everyone. Christopher and Joel here. Looking forward to present the full year and Q4, and of course, some questions. So, I guess, we'll get straight into the numbers. Thanks.

So, I just wanted to start a little bit talking about the year as well, and then we'll dig into the quarter. But all in all, we're very happy with the year. We're highlighting here on the slide a fantastic cash flow, which we surely will come back to, but we see the improvements coming through here during the year on the things we worked on for quite some time. So, it's very satisfactory. And of course, on the cash flow, it puts us in a very good position to continue on the M&A activity, and we'll come back to that as well.

Also very happy about the margin, very good margins throughout the year despite limited growth in the business. We continue to see progress in all the initiatives we're doing on the margin side. And also in a solid year, 3% organic growth. And of course, we expect that when the markets improve a little bit to come back at a higher level, which puts us in a very good position, I would say.

It also then the record margin, 10.7%, so solid margin develop for the year. We also have SEK 4.4 billion of cash flow, which I think is 110%, 111% cash conversion. So very good, which puts us in a strong balance sheet with a net debt of 1.7x, including all the acquisitions here that we announced in Q4. So I think it looks very good. And then we have finally, the dividend proposal of a growth of 7% or SEK 1.50. So, all in all, I mean, we continue to grow. The model continues to develop, and we see a solid 2025 behind us and look forward also to move into 2026.

So, then looking into a little bit on Q4, and I think it's the same story as we had all year along on the business. Remember, and also Q4 is our smallest quarter of the year, and we turn into more heating and other products. It's not a massive quarter for us. But the way we see the quarter, stable across the board. We do have quite some high comps in U.S. and APAC, U.S. growing 11% in Q4 last year in APAC, 10%. And I think in the U.S., especially a lot of residential project that we saw in Q4 last year that we didn't see this year, but some other good development in the U.S. that we will talk about. And then also, we lose a trading day in the quarter in most of our big regions, which does have a negative effect on our business. And we'll come back. I think Q1, it's going to be the same amount of trading days. So that's, of course, better than minus 1%. And then we almost had 7% organic growth in Q4 last year. So, all in all, when we look at the Q4, it came in at a stable level, similar to how we've been trading during the year on the sales side.

We do have, as I said before, nice development acquisition, four in Q4, two more announced and then a very good pipeline moving in here to 2026 and a nice rollover. So very positive on that side. Joel talked a little bit on the restructuring program.

Also, EBITA came in very good underlying margin, 9.5%, so a solid quarter. We did have SEK 25 million of acquisition costs of the acquisition we announced and what we're working on. So a very active quarter on that side, but underlying solid performance across the group and very good in especially the U.S. and APAC, and we'll come back to that.

The cash flow, I have highlighted, I think it's worth highlighting again because we're very nice to see the flush through and an important part of our growth journey going forward, and we talked about the acquisition. So, all in all, we're happy with the development in Q4 as well.

If you go in a little bit more on the product groups, I think nothing revolutionary there, fairly stable across the board. And we did see, as we said, starting to see an uptick on the OEM side, especially driven by our green OEM, which makes us, of course, happy because that's a segment we to grow. Strong development in our SCM Frigo refrigeration side and also a nice growth in Fenagy and also a good pipeline going forward. So, also a better position, I would say, in going into 2026 and '25. So very satisfying on that. HVAC, of course, more affected in the quarter of the trading days and especially also in the commercial industrial refrigeration. So, I think, the highlight here is stable underlying business for the year and quarter and also a nice uptick starting to show in the OEM segment.

If we then move in a little bit to the segments, starting with EMEA. A lot of things happening in the quarter. But if you start on the year, 3% organic growth versus zero the year before, so slight improvement, and again, in a stable market. Of course, EMEA spans across so many regions from Southeast, West, North, down in Africa. So we have some ups and downs. But in general, a stable year, solid on the margin, good acquisition growth, good pipeline also on the acquisition going into '26. I think worth mentioning here also the good OEM in SCM Frigo and Fenagy that we talked about. We, of course, have some nice project going in Q4 and orders in there. And then we are, I guess, you all pretty much done from the strategic consolidation according to plan. So, moving nicely. Also integrating Airwave, nice acquisition for us in the Baltics that we're going to continue to leverage in our strategy around HVAC. So, all in all, also a stable quarter on the margin side, the year, a little bit improvement compared to the previous year and also highlighting the very good development on the green OEM side.

If you move into APAC, of course, on the margin side, one of our stars for quite some time now, and it's very satisfying to see the margin development driven by our strategic initiatives. You can see in the quarter -- for the year, the margins are up in a nice way, continue to drive. I know ever remember, but we started three, four years ago saying we want to go over the 10% for the year in APAC, and it has step-by-step gone in that direction. And you can see now 10.6% in 2025. So I would say better than we expected and faster. So done a fantastic job in that region. Also, a strong Q4 last year, plus 10%. So we lost the trading day and came in flat. So I would say it's still a good development in the APAC region. And also, of course, Q4 is one of the key quarters as you have summer in Australia and New Zealand. So a lot of good activity in that region.

We do have a little bit still challenging on the OEM side. We see nice project in South Korea and the Asian market is very promising because it's not driven by regulation, it's driven by interest to switching over to this type of solution, which also means we're building up a training center now in South Korea to further leverage on that. And we see quoting activity in Australia and New Zealand picking up. It will be interesting to follow this during 2026.

Also, of course, did some acquisitions there, strategic, and we also announced an acquisition in New Zealand that's going through the competition authorities as we speak.

Then moving over to North America. Also here, we start with a full year a nice year. I think the organic growth of 3%, it is very solid in an uncertain market in the U.S. So extremely happy how they delivered and executed during the year. Also starting to see the improvements here on the strategic side on the work we're doing on the margin side despite having diluting M&A and branch openings in there and also signing and closing two acquisitions in Q4 with a continued very good pipeline going into '26. So it looks very, very promising on that side.

We do have -- if you look in Q4, minus 4%, but it's also compared to 11% growth in Q4 last year. So still a solid underlying growth, and I'm sure we'll talk about it, but a lot of project -- residential projects in Q4 last year that we didn't see this year. But on the other side, stable replacement and good activity on the repair side, which is part of explaining the very nice margin development in Q4 as we make more money, but less sales dollars. So the repair side for us -- and of course, it's creating pent-up demand in the market. So also will be nice when that start moving forward on the replacement and also the project business. So, all in all, a very solid quarter, and we continue to expand our branches and have a plan to further expand that in 2026. Private label continue to expand, and it's also a key point as we move these into our new acquisitions going forward. So, I would say, all in all, a very good year in an uncertain market in the U.S. and a solid Q4 with good potentials as we move here in 2026.

Here's a lot of numbers over the quarters. I think it's just worth highlighting is as we move into 2026, we'll start seeing a nice tailwinds from the acquisitions. So we expect this to pick up as we move into '26 as well a nice rollover plus a good pipeline here in the beginning of '26.

Then on the margin side, you can see here a similar margin as the last quarter. But if you look at adjusting for the M&A, it's a nice pickup despite 1 minus in organic and driven by the development we said in APAC and North America. So we are -- I think it's a very solid Q4. And of course, on the full -- on the last couple of years, you can see the development on the margin side.

So, wrapping that up before I hand over to Joel. You can see the total sales growth adjusted for the currency, 2% in Q4, organic minus 1% EBITA plus 3% and 4% on the EPS. But I think if you look at the full year, it's a very solid year, I would say, 9% growth, organic 3%, 11% EBITA growth and 15% EPS growth. So, putting all that together, we're happy with the year and look forward as we transition into 2026. Joel?

All right. Thank you, Christopher, and good morning, everyone. As always, I will jump into our reported EBITA this time excluding items affecting comparability, which is amounted to SEK 758 million, which reportedly is down 6% compared to last year. However, it is very important to keep in mind here that our EBITA, excluding items affecting comparability is impacted by SEK 25 million of acquisition costs following, as Christopher said, a high acquisition pace here in Q4. In addition, as you know, we faced a pretty significant FX headwind in Q4 of 8%. So if you look at this on a currency-neutral basis and also adjusting for the M&A costs, our underlying Q4 EBITA is actually growing by 6% here in the quarter with an underlying margin of 9.5%.

Our financial net continues to develop very well. I mean it's another benefit of our strong cash flow generation and financial net came in at SEK 106 million, which is SEK 24 million below last year. And if you exclude currency effects and so on, I would say that the underlying interest costs remain around SEK 35 million lower in the quarter compared to last year. Tax expenses, excluding items affecting comparability of SEK 151 million, which is an effective tax rate of 25%, slightly below last year.

All in all, Q4 reported net profit, excluding items affecting comparability of SEK 445 million, down 3% versus last year. But then again, adjusting for the FX translation headwind, the net profit is up 4%.

Moving over to our EPS. EPS in the quarter of SEK 0.87 reported down 2% compared to last year. But as already mentioned, on a currency-neutral basis, it's an increase of 4%. And for the full year, reported plus 10%, which is a good number despite the tough currency headwind. And if you adjust for that, our EPS grew by 15% during 2025.

Moving over to cash flow. We continue to develop a very strong cash flow in Q4, SEK 1.7 billion. Cash flow this year is around SEK 400 million higher than last year, and absolutely majority of that is driven by lower working capital tied up as a result of our inventory and capital efficiency programs across the group. And for the full year, we print a record of SEK 4.4 billion, which is driven by the same development in inventory and capital efficiency in general.

So, over to the next slide. I don't have that many more comments on this slide, I would say. I think it's a great visualization of the path we are on in terms of cash generation and capital efficiency. So a very nice development here for the last couple of years.

Moving over to leverage. Thanks to the strong cash flow, of course, our net debt measured against EBITA, excluding leasing and pension is stable in the quarter despite the high M&A activity, and we end the year at 1.7x, which is leaving us with a very strong balance sheet to continue to execute on our fantastic M&A pipeline.

So, with that, I hand over back to Christopher.

All right. Let's try and summarize this. Nothing new on this slide. I think it's somewhere in '25 with a stable growth, 9% with acquisition, a good EBITA development, 11% growth and also a record margin for us despite not being strong markets out there. So, I think, that's also a sentiment to what we're doing. Cash flow gives us a nice, nice firepower as well moving into '26. And you can hear we're fairly, I guess, very positive on how we're going to use this money in '26 to continue to improve the business model, goes hand-in-hand with the balance sheet. I think also if you look at that EPS growth in the year, very solid and even if you -- and if you adjust for the currency plus 15%, which I think is a nice development for the year. Seven new acquisitions integrated into the business and also set a good rollover moving into '26.

So, then summarizing Q4. I think we went through all of this, to be honest, I'll move more into a little bit how we see the general market out there and some updates. We are pretty much -- we are done with our A2L transition in the portfolio in the U.S. That's business as usual now in there. We also believe that our -- or we see that our platform continues to develop in the U.S., both on opening new branches, launching private label, building the acquisition platform and capabilities is around there. So we're very happy with the trend there and of course, also some uncertainty in the market, as you can see, if you follow the OEMs and other things, but I think we performed extremely well in these times. And of course, as the market picks up again, it'll be very strong development from our side. We talked about the pipeline in there that also looks very good in the U.S. and also in EMEA for 2026.

I think one caveat I had, I just want to share here, and I'm sure we'll get it on the Q&A is I don't know how closely you follow some of us follow business. But knowing in the U.S. what we have around 120 branches. It continues to grow. But we were completely shut down for two days with this winter storm running through snow and ice down in Alabama and Tennessee as well. So, we lost two full days of business, and we also continue to have branches shut down because of power outages in business and also you have a lot of things to clean up. So, we expect in January, we might lose three to four days of sales because of this. Hopefully, we'll see a pickup as we move into the rest of the quarter. But right now, at least you should think about three to four hour shutdown because of that. And I'm sure I get more questions, I can develop it.

So, with that, we would like to open up for Q&A. Thank you for listening in on the presentation.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Adela Dashian from Jefferies.

Would it be possible to specify in greater detail what all these moving items actually contributed in terms of the organic growth or the organic decline, like if we start with the trading day and then maybe also the lower volumes from the projects in the U.S. and so on, weather potentially also if that's possible, just to get a view on what the magnitude is and how much of it could be phased into the coming quarters?

So, two questions. One is around Q4 and the second one is just around what I told you about the U.S. for Q1.

Correct.

All right.

So that we can compare Q4 versus Q1 effect and so on.

Yes. So, I mean, the trading day is relatively straightforward. I mean, one day in the quarter and Q4 is fewer trading days than the normal quarter. So that is roughly 2%, I would say. And then in the U.S., I mean, as Christopher alluded to, we are -- underlying business is not so different in Q3 compared to Q4. It is a tough market and the comps is primarily driven by a difference in residential project sales. But you also have, of course, in the general business in this type of environment, a higher degree of exposure towards the repair as opposed to the replacement, which is also affecting revenue dollars, of course.

I think I would look at it this way is that, of course, the trading days is straight up a mathematical effect on the business. So, it's fairly easy. Well, if we have more projects or less projects in the quarter, that's business, right? It's not -- it's part of the business how it runs. So I think the only one worth calling out there is that what we saw the underlying market in the U.S. where we continue to have a strong development on repair, which you can see in the market and fairly stable around the day-to-day replacement market in the U.S. So I think in general, it's not any big what we want to portray if it's worth it, is that the market continues to be at the levels we saw in the year in general. And then in Q4, also remembering both Q4 and Q1 are smaller quarters for us. So it's hard to make big conclusions on it.

So, in general, our view is it's a stable underlying market and then we have some projects in the U.S. that didn't come in and the development in repair that also drove the good margin development. So, I mean, it's a nice balance to have in your portfolio because we have so much on aftermarket spare parts in the U.S. versus equipment. So it builds in our view, a stable development in still tougher times right now, reading into OEMs and also other comments in that. So that would be on the Q4 and the Q1. Joel tell me three, four trading days. I would be in the U.S. about -- for the quarter.

So we have roughly a 6%, 7% impact in the U.S. potentially on that.

If you do it straight up, let's see if we get a pickup, and I guess that's about 2% on the full Q1, depending on how we see February, March developing. And we're just highlighting that out. It's hard for us to control that type of situation in the U.S.

I see. And that's very good color. I appreciate that. But I guess it would be fair to say then that maybe you were caught a bit by surprise over the development because if I remember correctly, the comments coming out of Q3 were a bit more robust on the remaining months of the year.

Do you speak in general or on the U.S.?

Just market conditions in the U.S. in general.

Okay. No, I don't see so. We see the trading also more details per branch and the repair and all that. So maybe you could say, did I expect more projects coming through in Q4? Maybe, maybe not. Those things move around quite a lot. It's nothing that we have in our daily business reviews. you get more and it falls in, especially in smaller quarters.

So, no, I think we expected this -- or I mean, I would say, if you look at everything else you hear about the U.S. market, we continue to do, in my view, better than anything else I see there. So, I guess, I'm still positive in how we're executing in the U.S. in the market. So, I think, a stable market development right now is a pretty good place to be. And of course, adding on the mix with repair, that's not bad if you look at the margin development in the U.S. as well.

And just two more, if I may. Sorry if I missed, but did you specify how much you have left in terms of the refrigerant transition because you were nearing 10% at the end of the third quarter. So is that now completed?

Yes.

And then lastly, on your comment here on the margins. I mean, you have been a bit active on the M&A pipeline lately. So should we expect some sort of dilutive effect now coming through in 2026?

Yes. And I think if you -- I would say maybe we can take that offline with Joel, and we'll come back and be more clear what is or if you want to take it right now.

Yes. I mean it is relatively similar. I mean the acquisitions we have been pursuing is relatively typical of what we see in the market where we have a few percentage points lower margin in that type of business. So it's relatively short-term simple mathematics as well on the share of acquisitions at a few points lower margin. So absolutely some dilutionary effects of that going into next year gradually -- disappearing on realization of synergies. And of course, we are working on improving the underlying margin in the core business, of course, as always.

The next question comes from Carl Ragnerstam from Nordea.

It's Carl here from Nordea. A couple of questions from my side as well. Starting on the working capital side, you released over SEK 1 billion, as you also mentioned. Is it possible to sort of give a split by market on that, where it came from?

Yes. It is -- I mean, we are working on this capital efficiency, of course, globally. We are, as we have mentioned, at a little bit different maturity levels across the business. And it is a gradual improvement, but I think it's fair to say that EMEA is behind the largest improvement here. We are operating on a slightly more efficient level in general in the APAC region, obviously working there as well.

And then in the U.S., also improvements, but a lot of things going on there. So, it's a little bit -- the good opportunities ahead is also coming from moving further on the efficiency in the U.S. So a little bit more than what EMEA represent of sales comes from the working capital improvement in Europe.

Okay. That's very clear. So then it's fair to assume that the majority of the working capital release is driven by your new -- I mean, initiatives and incentives with the capital charges. And how much do you think is more to come from those initiatives if you look into '26?

Yes, it's a good point. Yes, it is absolutely the majority of the improvement in working capital is related to inventory efficiency. We are far -- I mean, come away on the journey. We are approaching or more or less on levels pre-pandemic levels, but I would say overall, this is a long-term focus area for Beijer Ref. And I think we should see improvements for a number of years to come in terms of capital efficiency.

I think what we've said before, right, Carl, is the ambition over the years now to generate, let's call it, at least 100% cash conversion as we improve the inventory situation and structurally do it. And of course, we 111% for this year, you get some more low-hanging fruit and you structure need to work with it. But I think at least our ambition is to continue over the years to be at 100% and let's see if we can do more than that, but at least have that as a guideline.

That's very clear. And I think on -- I mean, we have seen rally in many of the raw material inputs, both to the AC units, but also, I mean, related to your component distribution, such as the copper and they used to be. I mean, quite a big earnings driver for you historically when it moved. I mean with the quite steep rallies we've seen in those materials, how do you see that impacting your business in '26? I mean it could be a tailwind, of course, it could be a headwind depending on how you manage it.

Yes. So, for us, I would describe it this way, and it's early days, right, in January, they are process and structure on -- because mostly what I would be looking at is we, of course, if you take copper, for example, we also trade copper and sell it. I mean that prices always move with information you have on the stock, but it's not a major driver in our business.

But of course, copper and these things is components into HVAC and in refrigeration products that you alluded to. So the clearest example we have of announcements and if you follow the OEM is that there will another price increase coming in the U.S. market of anywhere from 5% to 7%, 8% rolling into -- in the end of Q1. That's the signals we're getting on that side of the fence.

In Europe, we're right now seeing normal price increases on the refrigeration side. There's still very little information on HVAC. And HVAC in Europe, I'm not giving you more details or you already know this is more a price increase discussion around mid-April before the season in that sense.

And then if you fly over in being Australia and New Zealand is the middle of the high season, we haven't seen any big price change there yet from the OEMs, but the market is pretty active. So, all in all, if those type of translates into the market in a way with increased prices from OEM, it's a good thing for Beijer Ref.

Amazing. And the final one, if I may, is on OEM. We saw a slight sequential acceleration in the organic growth. It would be great to hear more what you see in -- I mean, more specifically in the green part of your business because you still have the tough comps, right, in the rest. So when those comps are easing, what kind of growth are we looking at in the underlying operation then?

Sky is the limit, Carl.

But what you see in orders and...

Sorry. No, I get your question. And I think what we've been saying is this OEM segment today is the 50%, 55% is the green, which is related to Fenagy and SCM Frigo mainly. And if you look at Fenagy, right, it's a European platform, and they continue to grow double digits last year, and we expect that to continue throughout this year with a nice pipeline and orders moving into Germany and other places. SCM Frigo, as you know, the other Carl and other component delivery into us has a strong backlog and also grew double digits in '25. Both those companies have a better backlog in '26 than they had in '25. And then it's also seeing that the comps in the rest of the OEM start easing up.

So, I think, at least, our view is that we'll have a better OEM growth in '26 and the green will continue to grow good double-digit number. And we can clarify a little bit as we move in. I think the only area where we still haven't seen that progress on the green OEM related to SCM Frigo is a business in Australia and New Zealand that's been very muted over the last two, three years, more flattish type of development. We do see quoting activities picking up quite nicely in those markets, but it's too early to say when quoting moves into orders. So, in general, we're more positive on the side here in '26 than we were in '25. So we expect it to continue to improve.

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

First one on the number of branches. I believe you said 120 in U.S., but it would be interesting about the total number.

Yes. I don't know, maybe because I had to put KRS and Dennis Supply in. So I mean, offline, I can give you exact numbers. We have the data, but 121.

All right. Fair enough. We'll discuss it later. But then on the refrigeration side, just looking at it from a multiyear perspective, we have regulation supporting the transition there on the F-gas and many stores needs to replace these types of equipment. And yet just organically, it's been a couple of years now with lower growth. So just out of curiosity, how you view the replacement cycle that we have been potentially waiting for because of regulatory changes.

Yes. No, I think it's fair. I mean it's two ways of looking at. When we talk that's driven on the system side, it's more an SCM Frigo discussion. The solution they're selling based on the CO2, which is growing 10% plus.

And as I said, backlog. I think if you go back on the SCM Frigo, two years and after the pandemic, most food retail was very slow. They pushed out a lot of CapEx, which then affected. Now we have very other good segments, SCM Frigo. So they were doing better, I would say, than most of the competition. So you started to see the pickup in SCM Frigo order book and orders coming into Q1 2025. And after that, it's just been accelerating. So, also '26 looks very good here to have a strong growth in SCM Frigo.

If you then take out where we report the commercial refrigeration, that's been more the 1% to 3% growth. That -- I don't see that accelerating to 5%, 10%. But you do have also technology in there that we're waiting on this technology shift to start giving a tailwind in that segment. But I think in general, we separate those two. And the main driver for this regulation will fall into the OEM SCM Frigo segment.

The next question comes from Carl Deijenberg from DNB Carnegie.

A couple of questions from my side. First of all, I wanted to come back a little bit to the U.S. And if we could talk a little bit about the private brands rollout. We talked about this in Q3. You seem very happy with the sort of initial shipments. Yes. So, just a general update there. How many branches are you with there? And maybe if you could allude a little bit on your expectations here into the new year?

Yes, it's still evolution versus revolution. Just had a Board meeting yesterday, and we went over it. It's still early days, but the indication we're getting in this rollout is that now we put our -- we did a couple of orders in for the '26 on the ducted. We're also launching the ductless in 2026 on that product portfolio. Also high expectations on that. But if you know the market was 85% is ducted, 15% is ductless.

So, I would say that -- and it's continued to trade very well in December. I mean we're in the winter season now, right? So it's building up the capabilities for 2026 and for the summer season. But also now when we made the acquisitions of KRS and Dennis Supply, we're going to launch these products into their portfolio as well and preparing for that. We have some other pipelines in the acquisition pipeline. We're going to try and get cleared up for the season and do the same thing.

So, I would say, in general, and of course, it's also -- we can attack the transactional part of the market, a segment that we're not very strong in our platform. It's a nice margin. Of course, it also is part of our margin evolution here in Q4, but it's more when we roll out to the summer season.

I won't go into the dollars and cents right now. It's still building up these capabilities. But I would say maybe in '25, we had it active in 30 branches. And of course, now we're rolling it out to 70, 80 branches for this year plus the acquisitions we made. So pretty high expectation on that segment, but too early to say it's going to drive the business in '26. But it's a nice tailwind, and we have high expectations for.

Very well. Then I wanted to ask also further on the U.S. I mean the acquisition pipeline, you seem to be quite happy here entering the year. And I'm just curious a little bit on the mix here. I mean you've done a couple of acquisitions in Refrigeration. You talked a little bit about the at least initial sort of margin dilution from that. But yes, curious to hear on sort of the pipeline and maybe the mix you're sort of looking at here going forward, HVAC relative refrigeration.

Targets. It comes a little bit as the reason when we say, just to take a step back, we're positive. We talked about this, I think, in Q3. And of course, we can track LOIs. And usually then we know that we're going to close and timing is different, especially on you buy family-owned companies, things takes time to explain put together, but we like these companies. For us, these are the jewels that we want to go after. And these are all built by personal relationships and that we like a lot as well. It may take a little bit longer, but we think it's the right strategy.

And then, of course, we talked a lot. And if you look at the U.S., our refrigeration part of the business is a smaller part, but it's growing very nicely and it's because we can roll it out in more and more branches. And as we KRS and Dennis our strong refrigeration platform, then we had young supply and now we're expanding that into other ones. We built relationship now stronger, and we're launching with Bitzer in the U.S. We're working with Danfoss, Copeland. So it's going to continue to be a strong strategy for us using this platform to organically grow. And it looks very good, and we are investing in it. And if you don't turn to your question on acquisitions, it changes, right? But most of the companies, if you look for an acquisition platform, et cetera, is majority of HVAC because it's such a much bigger part of the business.

So that will go in cycles. We're looking at both journeys. And of course, as we build more capabilities in refrigeration, we get more relationship and contacts because those companies know the other companies in refrigeration, et cetera. So it will move in both directions. But majority sales, if I just take a view in '26 will be HVAC expansion in the U.S.

Very clear. Finally, I just wanted to hear you out also, and this is obviously very early days. But on the OEM side, we've obviously seen quite significant consolidation with Paloma Rheem acquiring Atlantic in France. And again, of course, that haven't been completed yet, but that's an important partner for you in the U.S. And I just wanted to hear sort of -- would you see opportunities with them now going into Europe with a quite strong platform in France? Or yes, any thoughts around that given your current relationships with them?

Yes. No, because it is very strong. It's our strongest partner in the U.S. Our relationship is really, really good. It's not only the Paloma, right, it's the Fujitsu that they also are closing out where they have a portfolio for the U.S. And of course, you have this. So we do speak. We have agreement -- our agreement with Rheem is global. We built it in that way together. So it's too, as you said, early, but these are the levels we're always talking to them. Also we have a strong platform in Australia looking at their water heating business that fits in. So, for us, this is good news.

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

Yes. So thanks for a good discussion. Thanks for listening in. I'm sure we'll keep in touch. And yes, we'll move forward now. So, thank you very much, and have a good rest of the day.

Thank you.

Welcome to the Beijer Ref Q3 presentation for 2025. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Christopher Norbye; and CFO, Joel Davidsson. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone, Christopher and Joel here. So we'll, as usual, take you through some slides, and then we'll get into some Q&A. So maybe if we move to the first slide so you can see it.

So summarizing Q3 a little bit on the high level. A very solid quarter in all segments and areas, I would say. As you can see, we had a good organic growth of 5%, acquisition growth of 3% and then a negative currency around 6%. But all in all, we'll come back to the segments and the geographies growing and also putting up very good numbers.

On the profit side, we have another record margin here in Q3, 11.7%. So we would say a very good development in all regions to support that margin. Cash flow continues to be strong, which is also now moving into the season where we realign inventory. But also, as we said before, we are working more proactively to set a better structure on the inventory side. So we expect this to continue, and of course, that relates to a very good position on the balance sheet that Joel will come back to.

Very nice EPS growth of 11% despite 6% currency. So a very solid financial quarter in a still not very strong market, but I would say we continue to take market share, improve the business model and the global business model we have continues to improve.

Also worth mentioning, we made an acquisition there some days back, buying the leading HVAC distributor in the Baltics. So a very nice business, a good market position, good potentials to continue develop together with us. So that will fit very nicely into the portfolio for us.

And then also coming to the next slide, a little bit also doing a consolidation program over the next couple of quarters. And if you turn to the next slide, you'll see some more details on it. It's more related to driving a more efficient structure, mostly in our European setup as doing acquisition for many years, we also have a lot of overlapping structures. So we are consolidating warehouses and some back offices to make a more efficient setup.

And also during the years that we've invested in more automated warehousing, which means that we can move in more products, more inventory efficiency, and we're doing that in different areas in Europe and closing down old, more inefficient buildings.

So all in all, this will further accelerate the availability of products for customers, faster service levels around in these markets and also wider product offering as we put this together. Of course, there is positive savings of doing that. But the main reason for the program is more related to improve our business model as we've grown a lot over the last years.

The financials of it is that we'll take a one-off here in Q4, SEK 150 million, and we expect about SEK 100 million of savings as we go through next year. And the cash effect is about SEK 50 million of this. So it's for us a very good project to improve the business model for our customers, but also nice savings, of course, when we do it.

So moving on to the next slide, focus a little bit on the group. As I said before, solid organic growth in the quarter led by segment HVAC of 6%, and we could see that being nice in Europe, EMEA, in the U.S. and also APAC continue to be driven by Australia. Of course, this is our second biggest quarter of the year.

Q2, Q3 are our main quarters. So I would say if you put together this season for Beijer Ref, it's been a solid Q2, Q3. So we see a nice result of the work we've been doing to drive growth in our big quarters only. We also see a nice effect on the SCM Frigo and Fenagy, our green OEM growing -- continue to grow double digits, and also continue to build a nice backlog in the business.

Also worth mentioning, got our first orders for Fenagy in Germany that has a potential to become a huge market for us over the next 5 years. We also have another CO2 project in the U.S. as we continue to have our technology being tested on CO2-based cooling racks in the U.S. and also continue to have success in that model.

And then we also had a nice stable growth on the Refrigeration side of 4%. So all in all, putting this together, I think the best word to describe it is a solid quarter, as I said before.

Then moving into more of the division to give you a little bit more flavor. In EMEA, I would say also on the growth side, stable and good, driven here also by the HVAC side, but also the OEM side ramping up their sales driven here by Fenagy and SCM Frigo that continue to do well. So it's good for us. And the green side has continued to grow at double-digit pace, and we expect that to continue.

Margins stable, in line with last year, but very good margins, 12% in Q3. And of course, also Airwave will be consolidated into the EMEA organization in the Nordics and the Baltics, and we look forward to driving and supporting that asset as we clear the competition authorities during this year some time. So I think a positive quarter in EMEA. We have some signs of markets improving a little bit, and it'd be interesting to follow this as we move into 2026.

Then moving on to APAC. Continues with nice growth, more stable quarter. Our main markets in APAC, of course, is more interesting as we move into Q4 and Q1 as that's the summer season for us. We clearly continue to take market share in this region, again, driven a lot by our largest market in Australia.

On the OEM side, we've seen a limited growth over the last couple of quarters, but we also see some tendency of more quoting, better backlog. So we expect also in Q4 to start seeing some more growth in the OEM segment.

We continue to do very well on developing the margin. Again, another record quarter on the margin side all across the areas in the APAC. We are very proud of them moving over to running the business on an annualized over the 10% as we stated a couple of years ago, and we're moving in that direction for us.

Then worth mentioning also, we opened a new decanting facility in New Zealand, which means that we're going to be taking care of all the refrigerants as we do in Australia. We invested in this quite a lot, and we just opened it towards the end of the quarter. So it'd be interesting to follow that journey as we move into 2026. So also a solid quarter in our APAC division.

Then moving over to North America. A lot of things happening there, as you probably are aware of, if you follow the U.S. market. But worth calling out, of course, is that we are at the end of the transitioning into the new products based on a more A2L refrigerant. We are about 90% complete as we go out of Q3 and we'll be completely transitioned here during Q4.

I would say we're doing very well in the U.S., posting an organic growth of 6%, posting record margins. So we can see the platform we are developing in the U.S. is, of course, working well. We are taking market share. We're opening new branches. We're launching our private label in the markets. We're adding commercial refrigeration. As you can see, that grew 12%, so in a flattish market. And I also expect on the volume side that the HVAC market is probably down.

But also alluding to, as we stated for 2, 3 years as we entered the U.S. with this asset that it is a very good asset focused on aftermarket service replacement. So of course, they are more repair in the market when it's a little bit tougher but that's part of our business model in the U.S. And of course, we can see the results of that in a quarter like this, both on the sales side and the margin side.

So very satisfied with the U.S. Q3, a very good quarter. And also worth calling out good pipeline on acquisition side. We expect to close some acquisitions there in Q4. So you'll be aware of that hopefully soon. So for us in the U.S., it continues to develop very well.

Then just a summary on the sales. You can see the 5% organic growth, so a good rolling 12 organic growth, in I would expect not a very strong market across the world. I think also worth mentioning as we play in 45 countries across the world, we have a very good model to cover ups and downs in different regions. And of course, you can see that in our numbers. So we continue to push forward on the sales side.

And then also finally, on the margin side from my side, a good quarter building on a very solid Q2. So these are, as you can see, our two main quarters and very well executed in a more flattish market. So I think it just proves the business model works, the platform is there, and we'll continue to build on that as we move into 2026.

With that, I'll hand over to Joel.

All right. Thank you very much, Christopher, and good morning, everyone. As always, I jump straight into our EBIT of SEK 1,079 million, which is up 4% compared to last year and again, despite quite significant FX headwinds here in the quarter.

Our financial net continues to develop well, stable sequentially and SEK 25 million below Q3 of last year. On a comparable basis, now interest costs are roughly SEK 35 million lower in the quarter compared to last year.

On the tax side, the tax expense in the quarter was SEK 214 million, which is representing an effective tax rate of 23%, slightly lower than last year. All in all, I would say, thanks to improved operating results, lower interest rates and improved tax position, we delivered a net profit in Q3 of SEK 736 million, which is an increase of 11%.

Moving over to the EPS. So EPS in the quarter of SEK 1.44 per share, which then again up 11% compared to last year, despite the 6% currency headwind that's been mentioned. EPS for the first 9 months amounts to SEK 3.94, which is an increase of 13%, despite 4% of currency headwind.

Moving over to the cash flow. As Christopher mentioned, very strong cash flow in Q3, SEK 1.6 billion, which is roughly SEK 300 million above last year. Main driver of that, as you see, is lower working capital tied up compared to last year, which is an effect of lower inventory and the result of the work we are doing in that part of the business. So in comparison to last year, cash flow from inventory is roughly SEK 500 million better.

On the next slide here, you see that we continue to develop strong cash flow over time. And the year-to-date cash flow is SEK 2.7 billion, which is roughly an increase of SEK 0.5 billion compared to last year.

Of course, moving over to leverage, thanks to our strong cash flow, we continue to improve our credit metrics. And net debt measured excluding pension and leasing has improved and is now down from 1.9 to 1.6 sequentially and 0.4x lower than a year ago. So this leaves us with a very strong balance sheet to execute on the M&A pipeline going forward.

And with that, I hand back over to Christopher for a summary.

Yes. We covered Q3. I think it's a very straightforward, strong quarter with solid growth, good profitability and also good cash generation that we're seeing. So record margins, record cash flow. So I think it's a very good base to continue to build on and improving the business model, of course.

If you look more going forward on trends, it continues to be a strong underlying market trends on driving the cooling side, OEM on natural refrigerants, being present in more than 45 countries around the world, we can see the leverage of that. We're also coming into the end of the transition in U.S. on refrigerants.

And also, we can see the platform in the U.S. showing good -- driving good development in the U.S. market, both on the day-to-day business, new branches, private label, commercial ref that we can see, of course, in our growth and margin numbers in the U.S.

And also, as you all ended up, pipeline looks good across the globe, which we look forward to both in Q4 and 2026 will be an active year on the acquisition side with some very good opportunities for us. And of course, the balance sheet plays in and we also expect in Q4 a good cash flow to support our business and activities into '26.

So with that, we are ready for Q&A and see if we can help you clarify anything that's not clear in this fantastic quarter.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Gustaf Schwerin from Handelsbanken.

Yes, I have two. Firstly, starting in North America and the organic print you're showing here. Can you maybe help us a bit on the price contribution versus Q2? And I think related to that, maybe some early thoughts into next year? You mentioned it. We also heard from one of the U.S. OEMs the other day that Q3 has clearly seen more repairs versus replacement. Are you in any way worried about the growth trajectory into next year or maybe some pent-up demand here and more replacement? That's the first one.

Yes. I would say the pricing effect in Q3 is in the numbers more close to 4% to 5%. I can't remember what the Q2 number was, but I'm sure you have it written up, it was 2% to 3% or around 2% plus. So that's, of course, as we transition into today to A2L side and remembering the equipment is around 40% of our business in the U.S. and then 60% is parts and supply.

I think if you follow the U.S. market, we're in a pretty good position with our business model to handle also a market that today, of course, it's different as you're an OEM because we need to destock the different -- as we transition into A2L but also on the distribution side, with a solid result in a challenging market, but I think it more proves the initiatives and model we have that will continue to drive and improve.

So of course, there is a pent-up demand coming. Is it coming in 2026 depend on interest rates, renovation, housing sales. But all those KPIs have been very weak the last 2 to 3 years and despite that, I would say, our model is very solid on both sides of the fence.

Of course, as the market improves, it will be a nice tailwind for us. But in the meantime, we'll continue to focus on building out the platform, driving our initiatives, acquisition and look forward to that tailwind. But I would say that this model, of course, also proves the strength of being focused on the aftermarket service replacement in the U.S.

Right. Then just secondly, can you maybe share some thoughts on what kind of cash conversion we should be expecting for the full year as, I mean, working capital release last year looked a bit hampered by the inventory build?

Yes. It's -- I mean, what you saw in Q3 here, I think we had some buildup also last year on that which was similar. We had a similar buildup for the transition in the U.S. in Q3 and Q4. So from that perspective, that we're not going to do this year. So I think that's the guidance that I can give.

The next question comes from Adela Dashian from Jefferies.

Two questions for me. Firstly, on this decision to initiate on the strategic consolidation program. I mean, I'm fully understanding of the fact that you have completed a lot of acquisitions in the past 5 years. But at the same time, this year has been a bit more muted.

So I guess I'm just trying to understand timing wise, why already now in Q4, especially if -- I mean you mentioned here during the call that you do think that the pipeline is building and that there will be additional deals announced in the fourth quarter.

Yes. No, maybe to answer it in this way, we've been looking at these type of setups for many years. And also part of the triggers to do this is that we've been investing in these regions on automating warehousing and structures, which means that we are freeing up space and capacity to drive this type of consolidation, also investing in new warehousing and upgrading it.

So for us, this has been more of when we're going to move over. So it's been discussed and strategically been part of our plans for quite some time. But when you go into mode of do it, our assumption or our strategy is that we'll do it over a 6-month period, as we said, and then we're going to restructure and consolidate some of the back office.

We're also moving more product into the platform instead of keeping it separate, so we can service our customers better and also the digitalization on access to inventory, service levels, et cetera, this type of program will improve those things.

So it's like I said on the call, the side effect that we are saving money, which is great, but the main reason for doing this is to create a better, efficient platform to service our customers. It's more a synergy that we're ready now to execute on in the business.

Okay. That makes sense. And then maybe if I can follow up on the question around North America and volume versus price breakdown. I mean, many of the OEMs have pretty weak outlook for H2 and potentially also going into 2026, but the 6% organic growth is quite outstanding relative to that.

I mean, I would assume that your large exposure to the renovation market or aftermarket is really driving this. But in terms of big volumes, aren't you, to some extent, also dependent on larger -- maybe not larger projects, but just overall, a better momentum in the U.S. market? I can see your profitability being positively impacted by this sort of trend but -- or the current development that we expect. What's your view more long term to really get those volumes back on track?

Yes, I think it becomes tricky, and I know you know this relate to the OEMs. If you go back to Q2, Q3 last year, their volumes were probably up 20%, 30% because we, as a distributor, had to carry both the new launch of the products and also build up on the old one to manage this.

So I'm not -- I'm a little bit surprised that they were expecting a different trajectory than this because we, of course, are more servicing the end demand in the business, and we will continue and destock through Q4 and Q1 next year, and then we're going to start building a normal pattern and start ordering our products in end of Q1 for the summer season.

So I think it's very hard to relate to the OEMs when it comes to the volume side in the business. But I mean, my point is more related to that. As the market improves, of course, that's going to be a nice tailwind for our business. But in the meantime, it's more that when you look at Beijer Ref and Heritage in the U.S. it's an underlying very stable platform in these type of times as well.

So we do expect to do better. And it would be very nice when also the housing market and renovation market picks up mostly related to interest rates because it hasn't really been strong for 2, 3 years. So it's the underlying platform, I said, that produces stable numbers in this type of environment, which is very encouraging, but also something we saw as we entered this market and acquired this platform.

And then on top of that, it's driving initiatives that we can. I mean we have opened 5, 6, 7 branches over the last 12 months, we have launched refrigeration in different areas. So I think you maybe should see it as we continue to develop this stable platform in tougher times, but of course, as the tailwind starts improving, hopefully, next year, it will be a very nice development.

But we're not there yet, as you said. But I think that the OEMs for us, it's hard to relate to right now because we're in a completely different phase because of the transition into A2L.

I guess to your point then, can we see the organic growth development in Q3 as being somewhat still held back by the market conditions? Or do you feel like this was the optimal level?

No, no. I mean, Q3 is a tough market in the U.S. for sure. It was -- it's not a booming market. So I think, as you said, I don't -- it's also -- we're moving in out Q4 and Q1 that it's more heating, it's more low season for us and not very big quarters. But as the U.S. market housing sales starts improving, that will also drive renovation, which is a huge segment for us.

So I think if you take our numbers in the U.S., of that 6%, 4%, 5% is price, right? So for us, it's still good times ahead when the markets start turning on the housing sales because that hasn't been -- I mean it's been at all-time lows for like 2, 3 years.

So no, we expect to do better because, of course, having these type of numbers, we're taking market share for sure. We're opening branches. We're adding products. So we are, of course, driving some of the growth on our own without having the market support of it right now.

The next question comes from Carl Ragnerstam from Nordea.

It's Carl here from Nordea. A couple of questions from my side as well. Firstly, obviously, we are exiting a high season in Europe and U.S. So maybe a good time to focus a bit on what is happening in Australia and APAC. We're entering I think summer in a month here in Australia, for instance, one of your biggest market. So what is your view on those markets when we are entering high season? And what is the dynamic there right now, you think?

Yes, I agree. We're just about the cusp between when the summer starts is September/to mid-October -- end of September, mid-October. So we're just in the beginning of it. But the way you would look at APAC being the main markets, Australia and New Zealand, moving into summertime, and then you have Southeast Asia that's a little bit smaller and more focused on refrigeration. .

But I think we see the same trends as we did before. Both markets are pretty flattish in general, and we continue to take market share. So there's no big change yet in those markets. I would say New Zealand is a little bit weaker than Australia. But interest rates are starting to come down, there are green leaves or whatever out there.

But I would say it continues to be a stable development in -- positive in Australia and stable in New Zealand and Southeast Asia. So no big changes, but continue to be good markets and we continue to drive the margins and invest in the portfolio in these regions. So we feel pretty good about the APAC region.

Okay. That's very clear. And in Europe, we saw a growth of 18%, if I remember correctly, in HVAC, I guess weather effect is one of several factors, I guess. Historically, we could -- I think we've seen a spillover effect after such a period. Do you see anything of that entering Q4 of the HVAC Europe sales? Or is it back to a more sort of sluggish market again?

No, I think it's -- yes, you had some early heat waves, that's always good in July, but I don't think August, September were anything special. So if you catch up the quarter, I think it was slightly positive on the weather, but nothing extraordinary. So it's -- I would say, it's more a stable business.

And in EMEA is more about the regions. We're in 20-plus countries and you have Eastern Europe, you have Nordic, you have Southern, you have Central Europe. And I think in general, the market that's been not as strong over the last couple of years has been Southern Europe, which is a big market for us, France in particular.

So we see a little bit better development in the South, but it's still early days to see that. But as we said now, now it's more moving into replacement. We're also doing some more heat pumps as we're moving into Q4 and Q1. So -- but in general, no big shifts, I would say, in EMEA at this moment.

Okay. Very clear. And the quick final is on the pricing component you discussed around, I mean, what you said, mid-single-digit, 4%, 5% in the U.S. in the quarter. Do you expect a slight uptick as you'll sell more of the A2L products into Q4? Or is it roughly 4%, 5% we expect going forward as well, I mean, Q4, Q1?

Yes, that's roughly what we would expect as we move into Q4 and Q1.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Carl Deijenberg from DNB Carnegie.

So a lot of focus on the U.S. I just had one follow-up here, and that is on the margin. I mean, yes, we talked a little bit about the acquisitions you've done, Young Supply and so forth being a little bit margin dilutive for the region as a whole. And now I guess we're seeing further margin expansion here in Q3 again.

And obviously, you also have a lot of ongoing organic initiatives, which I guess carry some incremental OpEx as well. So could you talk a little bit about the plus 14% margin here? And is there any impact from the A2L transitioning? I thought that was only on price relative costs being fairly neutral, but is it a positive on the margin there as well?

Yes, I think it's a fair question. And my easy answer is that we are very good. So we are now doing better in the margin. But if I take the view on it is a good margin in Q3, and we're happy about it. But it's also part of the initiatives we have ongoing. As you said, opening branches are dilutive, adding investments in private label and commercial is.

So we are investing quite a bit, as you said, on the OpEx side. But we also -- as I said before, when we build this platform, we do put synergies in place to drive margin on the gross margin side on purchasing side. So -- and also some more efficiency in the business and higher margin on private label and other initiatives.

So I would say it's early days, right? It's one quarter we can see here. But for sure, the underlying improvement in margin is coming through in these initiatives. So -- but let's continue that drive as we move into Q4 and next year.

And maybe worth mentioning is that we do expect when we do this acquisition to be dilutive, as we said, with Young and other ones. But we also expect, as we go through the 12, 24 months, is that we will improve the margins, and we can see that as we went through Q3.

Very clear. I just wanted to follow up also. I mean, I appreciate the color on Europe and you didn't seem too along there. But I just wanted to ask a little bit geographical differences in Europe and maybe if you could talk a little bit about France. I guess that's obviously a key market for you with Toshiba and so forth.

And I guess, consumer signals with the government crisis and so forth has not been super positive since the summer. So yes, could you share -- I mean, the developments you're reporting here in Q3 is obviously very stable from an EMEA perspective, but is there clear differences in between as well to be aware of?

No, not really. I mean we expect it to be -- continue to be stable. We don't see any changes. And even countries like France, we find ways to grow in our business model. So there's no signal on it. I think we're more bullish long term.

Now as interest rates are coming down, we see some -- a little bit more investments across. So we do expect markets to improve. But the question is, when? Is it 2026 or not? But it's more of also saying in the meantime, we expect continued growth and also do well as we did in Q3 in muted market.

So I don't see any short-term changes to that. But of course, long term, if you move into '26, et cetera, let's see where the market goes on those segments, but there are positive signals, but I think it's too early to call it out in that sense.

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

Most of the questions have been asked. But regarding this back office and warehouse efficiency program, you talked about savings in terms of P&L. Could we expect anything in terms of inventory efficiency as well here? And if possible, how one should think about it in perhaps average inventory levels, how they looked like before the pandemic and where you expect them to get back to?

Yes. So I would say the answer is a little bit same as we have communicated. I mean, as you all know, we have been on elevated levels for quite some time coming out of COVID with supply chain crisis and so on. So we have reduced inventory -- part of the excess inventory, so to speak, that we have carried for a number of years.

And next phase is clearly to be more efficient in what we do to get back to historical levels to start with. And these initiatives here, consolidating the platform and warehouse structure and so on is part of that plan. So it's an ingredient of many actions.

So still the long-term or medium-term plan is to continue to be more efficient in inventory gradually. I don't expect it to be a significant change here in short term. So it's more of a medium-term strategy to improve on different aspects and parts of our business.

Understood. And my second question is on EMEA and the fact that you have a strong market position in this region. So if I just reflect on some press releases you've sent out on acquisitions, they have been on a couple of occasions subject to anticompetitive approval and those kinds of due diligence processes by regulators.

What are your kind of -- how do you think about the M&A landscape in EMEA going forward? And how we should think about lead times when you close the deal to or announce deal to it being closed due to these regulatory processes that they have to go through now?

Yes. It's not -- I will answer in this way, Karl. Like we said before in certain areas on the refrigeration side, I would expect us -- we're not focusing on acquisition as we said before. But on the HVAC side, it's still a long runway for us, and I don't see any issues with competition authorities.

But in specific cases, I would allude to, for example, now when we do the Baltics, one of the countries, I think, Estonia, you have to do competition authorities if your sales is over EUR 5 million, has nothing really to do with competition. It's just the threshold. So it takes 30 days, and it's going to be done.

So a lot of these are more academic processes. You'll have the same in actually in Australia and other, and it's more an academic than a structure. I think the only process we've been on HVAC where we're had a longer process, if you remember, we did Cool4U in Hungary, and that was more because the company we bought had a very good market share in the country. So we had to clarify that. But in general, I would expect on the HVAC side, if there is a process, it's probably 30 days.

Maybe I mean if you could -- I think it'd be good if EU could align this instead of every country having different rules, but maybe you can't fix that either.

Yes. It seems like more of a longer-term issue here.

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

Yes. So thank you for listening. Thank you for good questions. And of course, if there's anything else we can do to clarify your questions, we're available to do that. But thank you for your time, And yes, hope you have a good weekend when it comes.

Thank you very much.