Good morning, everyone, welcome to the Q call from FLS. My name is Toni Laaksonen, and I will be presenting today with our CFO, Roland M. Andersen. We start from the Q1 highlights. First going to the market and commercial highlights. On the service and PCV side, we saw very strong development with our organic growth. In both business lines, the order intake was growing with double-digit numbers. With services, we captured 19% organic growth compared to last year, and with PCV, 16%. Very strong development, which reflects that the market activity remains high at the brownfield sites. With the products, we saw different development. There the market is more like subdued and we didn't capture growth.
The order intake was declining compared to last year, but still, the underlying market activity remains positive. When going to the revenue figures, our revenue declined organically by 7%, and that was driven by the timing and order mix based on the recent quarters. On the profitability side, we saw positive development compared to Q1 2025. Our EBITA margin percentage increased, and it was 15.2% in Q1. It was in line with our financial forecasts for this year. With the cash flow, we saw satisfactory development. The cash flow improved compared to last year, so good year-on-year development, and that was a positive sign for this year. A few strategic and corporate highlights from Q1 and one highlight after the quarter.
The sale of the former corporate headquarter was completed, and we received the cash from the deal, and that was one major milestone for us. We had certain changes with our executive leadership team as we are gearing towards the new strategy and the new period in the company's development. One positive milestone, which is then reflecting the products, activities, and the underlying market is that we received one repeat order from South Asia for one iron ore beneficiation project, and we were awarded this in May 2026. Good development over there and reflects that there are certain underlying activities within the products market as well.
A couple of updates on the ongoing investigation which we have with the potential non-compliance case related to sanctions. As announced previously, we have identified a potential sanctions-related compliance matter, and this is part of an ongoing internal investigation, and it's related to the pre-contract tender materials which we have submitted to a limited number of projects in Kazakhstan. The case is only related to the tender materials. We have not signed any agreements. We have not delivered any equipment or services to these customers. These customer cases are not part of our sales funnel, financial forecasts, and neither are estimates for this year. They will not impact on our guidance and that there are no material impacts on any of our businesses.
We have informed the U.S. and Danish authorities on the issue, and the process is ongoing, and the initial information has been shared as we want to be transparent and co-compliant with the case. Later on, we will do then the final filing of the case. Due to this, we continue reviewing and strengthening our compliance programs and risk management processes globally, and we want to ensure that we prevent similar actions happening again in the future. With our key sustainability targets, we were seeing mixed results in Q1, so certain positive development with our suppliers and scope three emissions.
On the other hand, as one negative highlight, I must say that on the safety side we saw a declining development, and this is definitely something that we wouldn't like to see with our figures. Safety will be a key focus area for us in the coming quarters, and we will strengthen our safety practices, processes, and policies when moving forward. All in all, the market conditions are pretty much unchanged compared to last year in Q1. As mentioned, we saw positive development with our service and PCV business lines in line with the market development in Q4. In Q4, we were seeing uptick with our orders, the same in Q3, and that this positive momentum with the brownfield sites is continuing.
Most of the miners are investing in their brownfield operations, which is then visible with our service and PCV business lines. On the other hand, with the products, the market was relatively soft still in Q1, no major changes over there. As the commodity prices are at the high level, especially copper and gold, it means that the miners are assessing investment activities even to the greenfield sites. Therefore, the underlying demand might pick up in the end of this year or early next year. That was also visible now when we booked that one order in May with the iron ore project. Moving on to the business lines. Starting from the services, as mentioned, order intake wise, very strong development.
The organic growth was extremely strong in Q1, but then on the revenue side, the development was negative, and it was primarily driven by the timing of the orders. Most of the orders we received in the back end of the quarter, and of course then we couldn't revenue recognize them in Q1, which was impacting on our revenue. On the other hand, there were certain mix-related things, also which were impacting on the bookings on the revenue side. All in all, we see that the positive development with our order intake is then reflected to the revenue in the coming quarters. We don't see any major issues here.
When it comes to the profitability, the profitability was lower with our service business line compared to the previous quarters. That was mainly driven by the low revenue figure. With normal revenue level, we would have had clearly higher profitability. That was impacting on us. Of course, certain mix-related things impacted the Q1 revenue and margin level, as well the input cost inflation, which we were seeing. All in all, the normal level which we have had for the service business line, which is 19%-20% EBITA, we expect that to continue in the coming quarters. This was not a big surprise to us that what was the profitability level. This was in line with our budgeted figures.
On the product side, the Q1 was low as described previously. Order intake wise, we were down, and as well as with the revenue. Revenue, of course, is something that we can estimate pretty accurately based on last year's like order intake. The bookings continued in line with our expectations. From the order intake point of view, we saw this uptick already in May with that one booking. We believe that the underlying demand is such that especially with the copper and gold projects, we should see some positive development in the back end of this year. With the product margin, we saw positive movement. We were at the zero level practically with the products business line.
One big impact was that certain project closeouts were happening, and therefore, we were capable of releasing some provisions related to these projects, and that created positive momentum. We have been also doing cost initiatives to take the cost level down so that it's in line with the current revenue level and that's helping us then from the profitability point of view. We can be happy with this development with our margin on the product side. With PCV, the strong development continued. Like I said, significant order intake growth. We were definitely gaining some market share with our pumps, cyclones, and valves when comparing to the peers. With revenue, the development was stable.
Also with this business line, the bookings were done in maturity during the back end of the quarter. We expect that the following quarters will be a bit better than from the revenue point of view, we should see solid performance from the business line. On the margin side, PCV was again very strong, so continued the same level with the profitability. We were really happy about this. No issues over here. Positive movement, we expect that the similar trend to continue in the end of this year and in the next quarter.
Okay. Thank you for that, Toni. The financial performance overview here for Q1, an order intake of DKK 3.9 billion, a revenue a little less than DKK 3.3 billion. A healthy gross profit and obviously a very large item here, other operating net income, which is predominantly the sale of our former head office in Valby in Copenhagen. Running through the P&L, that of course, leaves us with a relatively high profit for the period of DKK 985 million. The gross margin for the quarter remains healthy.
This is predominantly the mix in a period where the product business haven't picked up in revenue yet, service business line and our PCV business is 80% or plus of our revenue stream, healthy gross margin. An absolute number lower than last year, predominantly driven by the nominal revenue level. Our SG&A costs continue to decline slowly but surely, so lower Q-on- Q, but also lower than the same quarter last year. That is a significant result from our simplification exercise and also the change to our new corporate model that now starts to sit more steady in the numbers. The adjusted EBITDA margin is improving to 15.2% compared to the same quarter last year on adjusted basis.
The nominal number here, of course, impacted by the sale of the Valby office. Net working capital is driven up this quarter predominantly by inventory. Inventories from the relatively high order intake in both service business line and the pumps business. There's a bit of commodity inflation in that as well. The fact that the orders were back-end loaded in the Q1 means that now sits in inventories and will be delivered over the remaining part of the year. All this leads to a solid cash flow for the quarter. Traditionally, a relatively low cash flow quarter. Cleaned for the Valby sale, a cash flow from operating activities of DKK 103 million.
This means that our leverage should continue to be low, 0.6x. That leaves us ample room to do the M&A that we want to do as we move forward. Our financial guidance for 2026 is maintained, that means an organic revenue growth of -1% to +4% for the company. An adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.5%-16.5%, we are on track to deliver on that. The revenue bridge, a bit more flavor underlying how to get to -1% to +4%. Service business line unchanged, expected to deliver 2%-5% organic growth. The product business line in revenue terms, -5% to -15% of organic growth.
The pump business PCV will deliver 4%-7% organic growth for the full year. If we then apply the Forex rates from the 11th of May for the remainder of the year, by coincidence, our organic growth will equal our reported growth for the full year 2026. The EBITDA margin bridge here, not so much here. The adjusting items for our PCM and ERP implementation is about 1 percentage point. Other operating income here is the sale of our Valby office that makes up the difference between the adjusted EBITDA margin and the full year forecasted EBITDA margin. We are ready to invite all of you to Capital Markets Day.
It will be on the 17th of November, and we have decided to welcome you all to our new headquarter offices in Copenhagen, where we think we can host most of you guys. We are looking very much forward to that event, and that will be again on the 17th of November, 2026. With that, I think we can move to Q&A.
The first question we have comes from Chetan Sinha of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Toni and Roland. Thank you for taking my questions. I have three, please, but I'll take them one by one. The first one is just on the service margin. You know, you previously spoke about this 19%-20% range, so I guess the 16.6% margin was a bit surprising. Just wanted a bit more color on what drove that big shift in mix. Was it some kind of legacy issue or more consumables? Just trying to understand the swing in margin outside the range and the confidence you have to return back to that range in subsequent quarters. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks for the question. A very valid one. Actually, the service margin was almost completely in line with our budget for this year and with our forecasted model. The revenue side was, of course, taking the margin down, and then there were certain, like, bigger cases in the mix which we had booked last year, and we knew that they will impact on the margin. It was already taken into account when we did the financial planning for the year. Therefore, this was in the model, and we see that the EBITDA margin, which we have been promising to the markets, which is 19%-20%, will remain as the target.
Okay, thank you. My second question is just on the product margin. Here you've talked about kind of reversal provisions which supported the margin outside of the cost initiatives that you've taken. What would the margin have been excluding this impact, please? Maybe another way to phrase it, maybe what's the break-even rate now? Is it close to the DKK 3 billion rate or DKK 4 billion? Thank you.
Yeah. The releases, they are not that much, DKK 25 million, maybe DKK 30 million. It positively impacts the margin by 5 percentage points or so. Was there a second part of the question, Julia?
Yeah, I just wanted to ask, you know, what the break-even rate is?
Yes.
DKK 3 billion or DKK 4 billion?
Yeah. The break-even rate, that we're planning for coming out of this year will be a level of DKK 2.8 billion-DKK 3 billion.
Okay, very clear. My final question was just on service orders. I believe that some of the consumable products that you sell have a bit of tungsten in it. I was just gonna ask if there's any pull-forward demand that you saw in the service orders numbers in the quarter.
Yeah. You are right there. We have tungsten in our service deliveries. Of course, the price impact was evident. We are pricing our products and services accordingly when there are cost changes with the supplies. That we did take into account, and there was some impact from the tungsten market that our customers wanted to maybe order a bit more in advance in Q1, and which impacted positively on our order intake. The impact was not major.
Very clear. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question we have comes from Edward Hussey of UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just a couple from me. First of all, as you alluded to, obviously a very strong book-to-bill in PCV and service. Do you mind just running through the phasing of deliveries through the year? I mean, should we expect a sharp revenue pickup in Q2, or should it be a bit more towards the back end of the year?
Yeah. Thank you for that, Ed. I think you need to expect that it will pick up slowly throughout the year, and it'll be back-end loaded just like last year. It'll pick up in Q2, come over Q3 and Q4, expectedly the high quarter, once again.
Thank you. Then maybe just touching on networking capital in the build-up there. Do you mind just kind of fleshing out exactly where the net working capital has been building up?
That's predominantly on the inventories. The inventories have been building up, and they will also run off slowly throughout the remainder of the year as we deliver the orders and the year will be back-end loaded. It's been building up from predominantly from the orders in the service business line and in the pump business line. There's an element of commodity inflation. There's an element of pricing from tungsten in that number, and it will run off slowly over the course of the year.
Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question we have comes from Christian Hinderaker of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Morning, Tony. Morning, Roland. Thanks for the time. You mentioned in the report that you've seen some clear market share gains in PCV. I wonder whether you can add some color there in terms of whether there's any specific regional skew in those share gains, or indeed across the three product areas, P, C, and V, whether there's any notable difference. Any color here would be most appreciated.
Right. Okay. Very good. On the PCV side, of course, we are following closely what type of numbers our peers are reporting. Based on the reports, what we have seen from their side, our estimates say that at the global level and overall, we have been taking market share. It's evident when looking at our order intake figures. We don't have any specific geographical areas where we see better or worse, like, development. It's overall throughout the product categories and throughout the countries where we operate.
Just how do we think about your pricing in this segment as well? Interested in the trends on pricing for PCV.
From the pricing point of view, what we can say is that, when you look into the margins, the margins have been solid, quarter by quarter, so no negative development there. We are not using the price as the main argument to win business for us.
Understood. Thank you. Then maybe finally, just on margins, apologies, Toni, 'cause I know this was the first question, but I didn't quite follow the answer. You're saying that service margins were in line with budget. Am I understand you said revenue weakness brought that down. Are you saying that effectively gross margins on the revenues delivered were in line with your expectations? That it was the, shall we say, revenue timing that was the issue? Is there also something in terms of the service mix as we think about the basket of consumables, modernizations and things to flag as well? I just didn't quite understand that.
Both gross margin and EBITDA were in line with our expectations. We were expecting a bit slower quarter with services in Q1 and based on the bookings. Some of the bookings, for instance, which we did in Q4 were in the end of December, and we know that we will be delivering them then in Q2, Q3. This was then in our model what we developed for this year. The revenue at the top line was pretty much according to our expectations, and we knew that it will impact on our margin. Then it was visible now in the numbers. Even though Q1 was slower, as expected, the whole year has been developed so that we are reaching that 19%-20% level.
Despite of this Q1, we should be in a solid place to deliver the results in the end of this year. Of course, we knew the margin profile of the deliveries for Q1, and this was also in line with our expectations. No big surprises there. We knew that this is the level we would be seeing.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, if you would like to ask a question today, please press star and then one now. The next question we have comes from Tore Fangmann of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon, thank you for taking my question. Two questions here from my side. First is a follow-up on the PCV where you're taking market share. Could you let us know if you're taking market share, you think from like smaller players, third party local players? Is it something where you are also taking business away from the large players such as Weir and to lesser concern Metso? Thank you.
How we see the market is that we have been taking market share across the board, so that there are no specific companies from where we have been gaining market share. Our estimate is so that it's across the board throughout the companies. Otherwise, we wouldn't see this strong development with PCV quarter by quarter.
Okay. Just to clarify, so that you go into the mine and you're like replacing the Weir equipment, for example. It's just like rather you're just growing faster than your peers.
Yes, correct. That's one way for us to grow that we are selling to the brownfield sites and replacing the competitors' pumps or valves or cyclones. That's one significant way for us to gain market share.
Understood. Thank you. Secondly, on the one follow-up on the reversals in the product segment. I mean, it seems like you're performing better than you would have initially expected here. Could we see more of these reversals come through in the coming quarters, or is this really one-off in Q1?
Yeah. These reversals, it's not a reversal for the reversal, right? We will close out the projects when they're ready to close out. This was part of the plan. We're just calling it out because we've been talking about us getting the business line back in black on a run rate basis. We just wanna call out that's not the case for this quarter. There may be a few others of this nature, and then we'll call it out. Fact remains that we expect only by Q4 to have it back in black numbers on a run rate basis.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question we have comes from Lars Topholm of DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. A couple of questions here. first on, your, what you say, somewhat muted comments on market activity, which comes on the back of a book-to-bill of 1.2 in both service and PCV, and that just surprises me a little bit. Is this just your normal conservatism or have you in fact seen any indications of slowdown maybe in April, maybe as a function of what goes on in the Middle East? That would be my first question.
Yeah. Starting from the Middle East. For us, the market in the Middle East is not a significant one. That does not have any major impact on us. With both service business line and-
No, I understand, sir. I was more thinking maybe it inflicts decision-making among your customers.
No, no, not really. With service business line and PCV, we are mainly selling to the brownfield existing mine sites, and all those sites are heavily like utilized, and that they're running their operations in a full speed, and they're continuously like investing to improve their operational efficiency. This uptick we are definitely seeing with our service business line and PCV, and also the fact that we have been taking maybe some market share on the PCV side from the competition. With the products business line, the Q1 was still slow, but we expect that the activity level would improve in the back end of this year and early next year based on the engineering activities, what we are seeing on the customer side.
Well, still when I read your comments to the demand outlook in service, it seems it's still, you're still talking about hesitation from customers.
That's related to the products market.
Yeah.
With the service side.
I think you used the phrase muted in services.
With the services and PCV, we say that the market continues to be stable or active, so with the products-
Okay.
We see some softness.
That was fair enough then it's just me. Then I, related to what goes on in the Middle East, do you in your supply chains, see any beginning bottlenecks, any red flags? Maybe also do you begin to see some input cost pressures you will have to deal with?
No major red flags and issues with the supply chain as such. We haven't seen any delays because of the Middle East situation. Of course, the oil price is a bit higher than it used to be, so that might impact on the logistics costs to some extent, but it's not a major cost item for us.
Okay. Then I have another question, and I know of course this happened on somebody else's watch, but if you look at FLSmidth, you have done very impressive right-sizing over the years. Now we have an issue with order backlog in products in Q3 and also a sanction issue. Is there any risk that right-sizing has been taken too fast or maybe you're wrong-sized, that your overhead functions are not sufficient to what we say, to deal with the magnitude of your activities?
No. We are not seeing anything like this. Quite opposite, I would say that, for instance, the possible sanctions related case was identified by our own compliance. It just also proved the fact that if something is happening, our system and processes work efficiently, and we can track down the issues. On that side, no issues. Then on the other hand, we have been keeping up with our delivery schedule, so we don't have anything major ongoing with our supply chain so that we would see any red flags over there. We have been keeping up with the targeted delivery timeline. In that sense, the organization should be at the right level at the very moment.
That is very clear. One final question from me, that's more if you can give any news, update on your M&A pipeline. I think after Q4 you indicated that you had some active discussions which might lead to something before the end of the year. I just wonder if that has changed or is it the same?
Yeah. We continue developing the M&A pipeline. What's then happening is that at the moment we are preparing our new strategy. Of course, the M&A cases will be then linked to the strategy. Of course, we would like to then introduce already some wins during this year, especially when we start launching the new long-term plan. We have a couple of active cases ongoing. Hopefully further news coming on them in the later part of this year.
Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you very, very much for taking my questions.
Thank you, sir. The next question we have comes from Vladimir Sergievskiy of Barclays PLC. Please go ahead.
Chairman, good morning. Thank you very much for taking the time. Two questions. First one on service. I know you are saying service margin was in line with your expectations, but I think it was certainly below market expectations. My question is, what we as a market have underestimated? Have we underestimated the volatility of this business line from quarter to quarter, and going forward there will be quarters with big swings in margins up and down in service? There was something very exceptional about this quarter, and we should hope for a more consistent performance from now onwards?
Thank you for that, Vladimir Sergievskiy. The predominant factor why the margin was down is because the revenue level was low. Q1 is a seasonally low quarter, and this in particular. In combination with a few bigger orders, a little bit of inflation and so on, the margin was slightly suppressed. Going forward, you can count on the service business line being 19%-20% margin business. There'll be slight swings, not big swings around that, and we'll steer the that business through with that margin number.
That's great.
Yeah. This quarter it was a matter of leverage.
Understood. That's helpful. If I can ask about market share gains in pumps, that's obviously a more positive topic over here. Do you see or have any your proprietary data that confirms market share gains? Or you're just comparing your growth to public disclosure of competitors, including Weir Group to make this conclusion? What are you doing differently to your competitors to win in this market? Is your ambition to continue gaining share from here?
Yeah. How we see the situation is that we are tracking continuously our install base when we are winning these deals. Based on that data, we see that we should have been gaining market share. As mentioned, most of the Pumps, Cyclones & Valves are sold to the brownfield sites. The existing operations, the existing mines, they make the decisions mostly based on performance. We are usually selling based on the performance metrics, and that's then definitely impacting on the decision-making and not like the price level as discussed previously during the call. We are winning based on our technical performance. Of course, when we gain more install base, that then impacts positively on the aftermarket or on the PCV side.
Thank you very much. Can I just clarify this last point? Do you believe or do you think that indeed, FLS now has superior technical offering in pumps compared to some major competitors?
Yes. Of course, like said, we have the performance benefit clearly when selling to the brownfield sites, and we have been winning based on that. Clearly there are certain technical advantages which the customers appreciate because we have been gaining so many orders.
Super. Thank you very much. That is very clear.
Thank you, sal. The next question we have comes from David Farrell of Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks very much for taking my question. I've only got one that could contradict one of the previous questions. I actually thought you sounded more positive in terms of the evolution of order intake going forward. I wondered to what degree that is triggered by the levels of order intake we're seeing from the upstream competitors. I think I'm right in saying historically and typically you'd expect a six-nine month lag between the likes of Epiroc and Sandvik securing orders and then that flowing through downstream. Is that fair? If that theory is correct, in reality, what's driving that? Is that more ore is gonna get produced, which then needs to be, you know, crushed and ground, et cetera, or what are the exact dynamics? Thanks.
Yeah. You, you are right there that the upstream players are seeing the order intake uptick first. Of course, it's easier to invest in the mobile equipment than in the processing plants and gain the efficiencies from there. Because with the processing plants, it takes more time to configurate the new setup and then also implement the greenfield operations. We are seeing now that the upstream players receiving more orders, which then indicates positive momentum, but it can be more than one year before we see the impact on our side. Clearly the market is picking up already with the upstream players, and we have recognized that.
The engineering activity on our side is gaining momentum, which indicates that in the back end of this year or early next year, we should also see positive movement with our products business line.
Okay. That's very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. Just a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one now. We have a follow-up question from Christian Hinderaker of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thanks, gentlemen, for fitting in my follow-up. I just want to come back on the shipment phasing issues in the revenue lines, and wonder specifically if there was any impact from delayed deliveries, as a function of the events in the Middle East or perhaps a separate point, there's been a number of specific mine site issues, Indonesia, Boliden, I think as well has had some challenges. Yeah, any specific site issues would be helpful to understand.
No, no specific site issues as such from our perspective. The Middle East has not impacted on our deliveries as such. As mentioned previously in the call, the Middle East market is not a big one for us. On the other hand, we don't have any suppliers, any significant suppliers in that territory. Most of our deliveries are then coming from other countries to our main markets. No significant issues there. With the mine sites, there are certain mines which are like down for it, such as Grasberg, but then during these shutdowns, they are also ordering services, which is then visible on our side with our service business.
Very interesting. Thank you.
Thank you. The final question we have comes from Klaus Kehl of Nykredit. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Klaus Kehl from Nykredit. Rola nd, a question related to your cash flow. Could you update us on your, yeah, thoughts about the cash flow from operations and investments, et cetera? That would be my first question.
Normally we guide you a bit on where we think CFFO is going. The thinking is that the CFFO for the year will be DKK 1 billion. That was a short answer but-
What-
Go ahead, Klaus.
Yeah. What about your CapEx level?
CapEx, our CapEx level is all around 3% of our revenue.
Okay. Then in this, in this regard, you have announced that you most likely would start a share buyback here in Q2. Do you see financial room for both making a share buyback and at the same time perhaps carrying out M&A in the second half of the year?
Yeah, we do. We think we can do both. There's no change in our stance on that.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions on the conference. I will now hand back to management for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for joining the call today. Great questions. We welcome you to then join the Capital Markets Day in November. Please save the date and join the event. The invites will follow. Thank you.