Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the NKT Q1 Report 2024 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Claes Westerlind, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning to everybody. Good to have you here with us today. Going to the first slide, and before we get into the presentation today, I just want to draw your attention to this, explaining that both the presentation from myself and Line, together with this presentation, will contain forward-looking statements. My name is Claes Westerlind. I will have the privilege to present to you today. Next to myself, I also have my esteemed CFO, Line Fandrup, who will also be giving an overview over the numbers. Coming into the summarizing the Q1 of this year, we recognize that we have a good quarter behind us. We had a strong organic revenue growth of 27% compared to the same comparison quarter last year. This was driven primarily by solutions and also, in general, by satisfactory execution.
The high-voltage order backlog, we also had the pleasure to recognize a new all-time high, EUR 11.5 billion. This was after a major award from the German customer Amprion of EUR 1.2 billion for onshore both DC and also AC cables. We generated an operational EBITDA of EUR 75 million, which was a margin improvement from 13.5% last year to 14.1% in the Q1. On the back of this and also the market outlook, we have decided also to invest further across the business, more specifically in solutions and applications. This is to grow, and to be able to support the green transition even to a bigger extent than what we do today. And I will come back to explain a little bit more around these investments later on in the presentation.
Before we go deeper into the cables part, and the common question that we get these days, "Do you have an update on NKT Photonics?" So it's really fantastic to be able to say now we really have a big update. But first, reflecting a little bit about the history here, it was decided in 2022 to divest the photonics business, and then also an agreement was entered into between NKT Photonics and Hamamatsu to process this divestment. The required regulatory approvals were attained across a number of countries, including Germany, United Kingdom, and the United States. But as you may all recollect, in May last year, we received denial from the Danish Business Authority, which under the Danish Investment Screening Act decided to rule against the intention of concluding this divestment. In July last year, the purchaser, Hamamatsu, refiled this application.
Within the month of May this year, the DBA ruled for this and gave and granted the authorization to conclude this transaction. So right now, we are in the closing process of this transaction, and it's expected to close in full during the Q2 of this year. And we don't have a lot more information around photonics that we are able to share in relation to this process now, but we will for sure come back once the closing has been completed, including also information on the financials of the same. So on that note, if we go into some business highlights from my side, I talked about the growth, double-digit growth, both on revenue and EBITDA, which was driven primarily by solutions.
And in the solutions business, the growth, and I will come back to this, was 50%, so a very strong growth confirming the trajectory that we are on and have been on, for the last couple of quarters. It's also so that the execution of our commercial projects were satisfactory, contributing to a very decent quarter in the beginning of this year. The applications business line continued to benefit from a positive environment in the grid segment, especially impacting the medium voltage part of the applications business, but also partly the low voltage part, making us ending up with an operational EBITDA at a satisfactory level of 10.5%. And last but not least, service and accessories increased revenues, and also absolute EBITDA, which is attributable, the major part of it, to offshore repair activity that was executing during the Q1.
From a relative perspective, though, this repair was executed at an unusually low margin, which is also visible in the overall numbers. Going into a little bit more zooming on each business line, starting with solutions, revenue and operational EBITDA, as we said, continued to grow with also bringing online more capacity, which was done in Q4 last year and becoming slowly fully operational. We made progress on several of our projects, which are in various stages, and these include Baltic Power, BorWin5 , the Champlain project, Dogger Bank, Draugen, Hornsea 3, and also the corridor projects Südlink and SüdOstLink in Germany. Overall, the investment program, which was launched last year in Karlskrona, progressed in accordance with plan. I will come back to the new investment that we have now launched in Cologne further on.
leaving the overall revenue numbers for the business lines at EUR 321 million, 50% organic growth as stated, and with a very decent EBITDA of EUR 52 million. Continuing on the solutions path, reflecting on the market activities during the Q1, when we look at and this is usually what we call in our addressable market, meaning that what we are targeting, we assess that the market activity equates to around EUR 9 billion or even a little bit above EUR 9 billion for the Q1. The majority of this has been DC technology, and also the majority of the EUR 9 billion constitutes of projects which were where the slots were reserved last year but which have now been confirmed were converted into firm orders. We were happy to be awarded two high-voltage onshore power cable projects from Amprion, a German TSO, covering both AC technology and also DC.
We have said before that we assess that the market reaching from 2024 to 2030 will, in average, be in excess of EUR 10 billion per year. We have also said that this can fluctuate both up and down, depending on the award of individual frames or projects. I think it is fair to say that there is a reasonable chance for the market this year to exceed EUR 10 billion, considered that we have already exceeded EUR 9 billion in the Q1. Looking then how the order intake during Q1 has impacted our backlog composition, we cannot help by showing you the leftmost graph, which, again confirms the development from 2020 up until now 2024 with a very satisfactory growth of the backlog, leaving it at the end of the Q1 at EUR 11.5 billion of firmly booked orders.
But over and beyond that, also the TenneT frame agreement projects and SSE frame agreement projects stand out as firm commitments, and combined, they have a value of more than EUR 2.5 billion. The high-voltage order backlog by customers has also been further tilted towards European TSOs, which now constitutes more than 80% of the backlog, with other types of customers being less than 20%. Also the tilt from an application perspective has been even a little bit further towards interconnectors, versus how it was in the closing of the last quarter. If we move into the applications business line, we had a strong Q1 in applications. Revenue, though, decreased in comparison to Q1 2023, but still in accordance with our expectations, satisfactory. This is driven especially by stable volumes and positive developments in the power distribution grid segment.
The revenue and also operational EBITDA, though, was negatively impacted by the construction exposed segment, not primarily on volumes but more on prices, which were continued to be depressed and even more challenged than same quarter last year. Even with that said, though, the continuous drive that we have around efficiencies and also the power distribution segment, as just said, led to an operational EBITDA margin in the double-digit territory, 10.5% to be more specific, which should be compared to same quarter last year of 11%. The business line exited the quarter with EUR 153 million of revenue, organic negative growth, as said, and operational EBITDA of EUR 16 million. Coming into the service and accessories business line, the revenue grew quite substantial. This was due to increased offshore repair activity within the service business of this business line.
It was, partly offset by slightly lower revenues, in the accessories business. Overall, it led to an improvement in our operational EBITDA in absolute terms of EUR 2 million compared to the same quarter last year. But as I said before, also the offshore repair activity, is relating to a legacy service agreement, which has been and is being executed with an unusually low profit margin. Furthermore, also the profitability was slightly impacted by an increased cost base, which is also reflections of the fact that we are growing. So in the same pace, as an example, as solutions is growing, we need to bring people on board. So is also, for example, service with the amount of jointers that we need. The business line completed the quarter with a revenue of EUR 74 million, heavy organic growth, again attributable to the repair activities, with an operational EBITDA of EUR 6 million.
And last but not least, before I hand the word over to Line, I just want to reflect on the history of the investment decisions that we have taken in, so to say, recent time, starting in May last year, where we, on the back of significant order intake and also anticipation of a good power transmission market going forward, launched a major investment of EUR 1 billion focusing on a greenfield factory in a brownfield environment in Karlskrona and also the construction of a new cable lay vessel. These assets, as we said then, and it still applies, are expected to become gradually operational from 2027. The investment itself also triggered us to update our medium-term ambitions, which were done at the time aiming for the years of 2025 and 2028, respectively, taking firm stances on organic growth, operational EBITDA, and also RoCE.
And we want to confirm today that the fundamentals for these ambitions in relation to, to the investment and also the market in general, they, they remain intact. And we do expect that solutions will continue to be a main, main driver for, for growth in the coming years. In March 2024, we saw just two months ago now, we announced another investment in the high-voltage segment, this time not in Karlskrona but in Cologne. And this is to put in place additional capacity at the existing factory. By coincidence, this is also expected to become gradually operational from 2027. And we want to also confirm, as we have done in the written communication, that this is supportive of our medium-term financial ambitions, including the RoCE being above 20%. The investment will be funded with existing capital structure.
In April, so last month, we were also happy to announce a growth investment in the applications business line. We have reflected for a period about the positive sentiment in the power distribution grid segment and how then NKT can benefit further from this segment and also support our customers more intensively. This culminated in the investment decision of EUR 100 million in additional production capacity across three factories: our Velke plant in Czech Republic, our Falun plant in Sweden, and last but not least, also feels extra good being a Danish company in Asnæs in Denmark. These assets will increase our capabilities and capacities within the applications medium-voltage segment, and they are expected to be gradually operational from 2025 and 2026. Also this investment is, we want to confirm is supportive of our medium-term financial ambitions, again, including the RoCE of above 20%.
Just like the solutions investment that I just described will also be funded within existing capital structure. And also to preempt the question around our medium-term financial ambitions, this is not something which we are updating following each investment decision. But what we wanted to do today is to confirm that these investments are supportive of these ambitions, and of course, that ambitions themselves is something we will reflect upon going forward now in the next couple of quarters as well. So with those words, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to hand the word over to Line.
Thank you, Claes. So turning the page to the income statement here, let me let you take us through. I think for the main highlights, Claes has already mentioned that we had a solid 27% organic growth from primarily solutions but also high growth in service and accessories.
So this follows more years of strong growth over the last couple of years. We also increased our operational EBITDA with the 0.6 percentage point up from Q1 2023. When we turn to below EBITDA, more or less depreciation and amortization were at the same level as last year. In the financial items, you'll spot the EUR 8 million positive, which is comprised of an interest financial income from our interest and our cash position as well as again related to currencies. Turning to taxes, there's been a new tax legislation in Germany that means that we can capitalize a higher amount of our tax loss carried forward. This means, in percentage-wise, that our effective tax rate is at a relatively low level around 21% here in Q1 2024. So all in all, net result from continuing operations is up EUR 18 million compared to last year.
If you look at our FTEs also, you see, also pointing back to Claes's comment on, related, upmanning to make sure that we can, actually, produce in the expansions to come and be ready, that we are increasing the FTE base. If we then turn the page to the cash flow, we have a negative free cash flow in the quarter driven by the ongoing investments. But if we run through the lines here, we see a positive cash flow contribution from operating activities, primarily driven by our earnings contribution. And then the changes in the working capital did offset part of earnings contributions. So the negative development in the working capital was due to milestone payments and solutions. And then we're also coming out of a, let's say, a low season in applications over the winter where we had lower accounts receivable.
Now we're seeing the let's say, the normal pickup on that business line also getting us to a different level in the working capital. Our investments in solutions continue to step up. So you see EUR 64 million here on CapEx. That's more than a doubling of similar levels in 2023. And on the back of this, the totality is -EUR 16 million on free cash flow development in Q1 2024. Then going into the balance sheet highlights here, a slight increase in working capital and leverage ratio, which is, of course, connected. So our RoCE improved further in Q1 2024. We're now at 22%, up from last year when we closed 2023 at 20%. And the main contributor to this is the EBITDA. This more than offset the increase in capital employed.
After the cash flow development in Q1 2024, our net interest-bearing debt increased a bit from the end of 2023. But we still have a very robust financial foundation, which is also very needed for the investments we will be carrying out over the next couple of years. The value of the issued guarantees at Q1 was EUR 1.9 billion, more or less on par with end 2023. But we expect to step up further until it's ahead of us. So then turning to the outlook for the year, we had a satisfactory start to 2024, and we firmly maintain our financial outlook for the rest of 2024. It is revenues of EUR 2.21 billion to EUR 2.36 billion and an operational EBITDA of EUR 285 million to EUR 335 million.
Please do pay attention to the assumptions behind this, that we should have satisfactory execution and development of high-voltage investment and projects without major disruptions, that we continue to see stable market conditions in applications and stable development in general in the global economy, and that we will have limited disruptions from the supply chain and access to required labor materials and services, and that we'll have a stable development in foreign currency and metal prices. Just turning to before Q&A here to the key messages of Q1, repeating Claes's intro, organic growth of 27% is definitely something we are satisfied with, and we were executing well on our order backlog in solutions. We took in another, actually two projects, from Amprion in Q1, leading us to a new record level of our order backlog of EUR 11.5 billion.
We stepped up our operational EBITDA margin even further to a 14.1% compared to last year, and closing out in absolute terms of EUR 75 million. And we continue to invest in, in NKT and announced in Q1, further investments in Cologne but also for the medium voltage, and the grid in general, within our Swedish and, and Czech, factories. With that, we will turn over to Q&A.
Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. We will now take our first question. Please stand by. The first question comes from the line of Christian Tønnesen from SEB. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. Yes, thank you.
I have three questions, and I'll do them one by one. So firstly, on the margin in applications, if we compare to Q4, the margin went from 7.1 to 10.5 on almost the same revenue. So can you maybe just elaborate a bit further on why you're seeing this very substantial uplift in margin and not least whether it's the 7 or the 10.5 we should expect going forward?
Hello, Christian. Thank you for the question. I can start, and then Line can also fill in a little bit further. I think we have to also recognize, of course, a little bit of difference between the quarters. But to your point that the revenues are similar, allow me to reflect on the margins.
As we said, a big part of the positive sentiment is attributable to the grid-related segment, both on volumes, but also on pricing. The negative sentiment comes not so much from volumes in terms of tons for the construction-related part but especially from the pricing, driving down volumes on revenues but also profitability on that. It is a combination of both, which is leading to the 10.6% margin. What can we expect going forward? Historically, we have said that the high single-digit profitability area of in terms of EBITDA for applications would be worthy. I think we would need to have a couple of more good quarters under our belt to revise that statement. From my perspective, I remain with that high single-digit margins in applications is satisfactory. Will there not be any.
No, I think that's more than covered. I think the seasonality pattern is important here also. Yeah.
Does that answer your question?
Yes, partly. So maybe just to understand it, I mean, is there anything to seasonality which would indicate that the margin should come down in the coming quarters then?
It's always when we stand at the start of the year, and then now we put the first winter quarter behind us. Let's see, Q4. I think depending on the construction sentiment and our building wire segment in Q4, this could turn out very different. So I think not to speculate about how at that given point. But I think if you look at historic numbers, you would at least see a Q2 and a Q3 being stronger quarters for the application business.
And I think my comment around seasonality also, Christian, was more to that it's not always easy to compare quarter over quarter in the applications business because of seasonality. If you take an example of installation conditions for medium voltage cables, they are typically not fantastic, knowing how easy it is to dig in your own yard in December, whereas building wire installations is not necessarily obstructed by a winter period, just to take one example. So that was more the comment I came from.
Okay. That makes sense. Then my second question is to this repair job you booked in Q1 and your comment on usually low margin on a legacy contract. So one, this contract, how long does it run? And how many other bad legacy contracts do you have?
a fully understandable question. I can only give limited insight, I'm afraid. Typically, we don't comment on specific contracts and the terms of them. All contracts have their, you know, their positive sides and their negative sides. Obviously, we try to make every contract as optimal as possible. So it's difficult to say what is good and what is bad, but I would just say that we don't have many of these contracts. This is an odd bird in the portfolio without commenting further on the timeline of the contract and for how long it's run. But the repair as such, our expectation is that this will be finalized in Q2, so the individual repair.
Okay. Understood. And then my last question here.
So in the beginning, you said you probably can't say much more about the photonics details. And then obviously, I acknowledge that. So more a general comment around your capital structure because all things equal, you should get around EUR 200 million in cash once that deal closes. So you've also highlighted now three investments, which essentially means that all your high-voltage and medium voltage factories you are currently upgrading. So how should we think about your capital structure here? Have you already used part of the proceeds to these investments, or would it make sense to be overcapitalized for a while, or would it even make sense to start paying back some money to shareholders?
Yeah. It's a good question, Christian, understood.
So how we look at the capital structure the next three years is a period where we're going to execute on a significant investment program from the company, so around DKK 1 billion and then the DKK 100 million in Alingsås and DKK 100 million in Cologne. What we see is that we want to be. I wouldn't call it overcapitalized necessarily because we actually do know where the liquidity that we have available would be used for very, very detailed here. So for the short term here, let's get to the next three, four years, get to a different kind of company with NKT at a different earning level, and then return and talk potential dividends. For now, we really need to execute on this and grab the market opportunity.
Understood. That was very clear. Thank you. That was all from me.
Thank you. You will now take our next question. Please stand by. The next question comes from the line of Lars Topholm from Carnegie Investment Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yeah, also a couple of questions for me. First one goes to the level of third-party revenue in [audio distortion] Solutions in Q1 and maybe also what magnitude of third-party revenue you include in your full-year revenue guidance.
Yeah, it's a good question, Lars. I think you were asking it also on the back of when we discussed our guidance and the full-year results a couple of months ago. I'm afraid that we cannot go into too much specific with respect to how much external revenue we have or we will have in the coming quarters.
But I can only reiterate what we discussed a couple of months ago, which is the fact that we do have projects for the moment, and Champlain is one example, with an unusually high amount of external revenue driven both by installation works that will be carried out during this year and partly next year, but also external cable subcontracting from Southwire. And this is and also will continue to give us an unusually high amount of external revenue, will also fade out during 2025 and 2026. But with respect to percentages and portion, I'm afraid, Lars, that I cannot give more clarity than that looking at Line.
No, I think that is the answer we would give here. Yes.
That's completely fair. Then going back to what Christian asked about, the service and accessories legacy contracts.
So, you announced 3 contracts had been won. You announced that back in November 2020. And I understand it's one of these that are causing this issue. Can you confirm that these are 5-year contracts? So this legacy contract would expire in 2026. And can you also confirm without saying which of the 3 customers it is that the other two contracts you announced at that time have better terms than this one that's causing you problems?
I can confirm that this is one of a kind when it comes to terms. That I can confirm. I can also confirm that generically, service-level agreements typically are between 3-5 years. But I will refrain from going into specific contracts, Lars.
But I think I gave you the clarity which I think you're looking for and then also which I can give.
That is good. But then continuing on that track, can you say what the EBITDA impact from that bad contract was? Or in other words, what would the margin for the division have been if you strip out the revenue and the EBITDA contribution from that contract?
I will also allow Line to reflect a little bit. But I can say it's not a loss-making contract, but it's not worthy from a repair contract perspective.
Yeah. I think the best part for you is actually to go and at any time, Lars, to look at what we had in the quarters where we have had repair jobs, how the profitability turns out for the business line. That should give you the best indication, I would say.
And maybe when trying to answer this on good and bad contracts, there is also different compositions of a repair depending on what the nature of the repair is. Typically, and we have discussed in these forums in the past, when you have high value add, meaning you utilize your own resources quite a bit, typically, that is connected to a better profitability in general now. And obviously, there can be circumstances around the repair which makes it necessary to a bigger extent than what is expected from the typical repair to use external sources or suppliers.
Could be vessels and could be other types of operations which also could drive the profitability down. So, it's not only a good or bad contract. It can also be the composition of the repair itself. And I think here, we have a combination of two unfortunate circumstances. It's not the perfect contract by any means. And it's also a little bit of a special repair from a subcontract perspective.
Okay. And then that's good. Then a final question from me is more, Line, on your comments regarding the tax law change in Germany. What is guidance for the full-year tax rate, and what is guidance for the tax rate looking into next year based on this adjustment of the possibility to carry forward tax losses?
Well, I think, in general, and that was also the closing of 2023 around an effective tax rate of 22%. I think you should calculate with, I think even now, you see it more evident because it's a Q1, but we also had some adjustments in Q3 related to some of these carried forward tax losses. So I would stick with 22%, effective.
That's excellent. Thank you very much, guys, for taking my questions.
Thank you, Lars.
Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please stand by. And the next question comes from the line of Lucas Ferhani from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hello. Thank you. I have three questions as well. Maybe we take them one by one. So the first one is on application and especially when it comes to low-voltage construction.
When you compare kind of Q4 to Q1, are you still seeing kind of pricing pressure on a sequential basis and also volume pressure on a sequential basis, or it's only a year-on-year trend? Thank you.
Thank you for the question, Lucas. In general, the pressure is more on prices than on volume. So it's a quite simple answer to the question.
And even if you compare to Q4, the sort of kind of pricing pressure even versus the last quarter and not just year-on-year?
Yes.
Okay. Thank you. The second one is just on medium voltage. I guess you're running around full capacity at the moment or close to that, and you're doing kind of EUR 600 million plus in standard revenues.
Do you have roughly an idea of the impact, of that capacity investment, you know, once it's fully done and maybe how much in 2025, how much in 2026 you could see in terms of volume growth that is added from this investment?
It's an understandable question, Lucas. And I tried to allude to it a little bit during the slide there on the investments. We are not able to give you more precise numbers of exactly what neither the revenue will be from it nor the EBITDA impact nor the phasing of it more than what I said. It will be supportive of our medium-term ambitions, and you will see a gradual impact from 2025 to 2026.
And I think, Lucas, just to add to what Claes is saying, it's not that we don't have numbers, of course, in NKT and these things.
It's a matter of also protecting, let's say, in terms of competition, some of the knowledge around factories and then pricing and then volumes here.
No, perfect. I absolutely understand. And the last part was on CapEx. We're already seeing, you know, the CapEx start to inflect. Do you have a better view where you end up on CapEx for the full year 2024? And do you have an idea already of how it will shape up in 2025, 2026, which one should be kind of the peak year, before we start to see maybe a decline more towards, let's say, the maintenance levels?
Yeah. I think we spoke about our EUR 1 billion investment program being bell-shaped from when we launched it back in 2023. And this is still the case. You should expect that 2024, 2025, and 2026 are really significant investment years.
And I think, if we do it a little bit simplistic, you take the EUR 1 billion investment program, you take the 2 announced investments here from Q1, and then you take a baseload of maintenance and technology investments of around EUR 100 million. And then you add it up. You look over the 3 consecutive years. That's including 2024 here. And then I would say that we are, of course, for the best for the good business opportunity of closing out faster, fast-forwarding as much as we can here, the first years. So I think that should give you an indication of how to model it.
But it'd be roughly kind of similarly spread between those 3 years? That way to look at it?
I think there's a lot of things that's happening. If we're talking about the expansion in Karlsruhe, it's about permits. It's about a lot of things, right? So when I say we want to fast-forward it, it's really how fast can we execute? So if or so let's say the wishful thinking and how we plan to execute is more heavy on the first years to get faster to the conclusion of these investment programs, that's how I would model it.
Okay. Got it. Thank you.
You're welcome. Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please stand by. The next question comes from the line of Casper Blom from Danske Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yeah. Thanks a lot. A couple of questions from my side also. And the first one actually goes to your 2028 ambitions. You're targeting or have previously targeted an EBITDA of at least EUR 550 million. And now you've done two additional announcements of investment, EUR 100 million each. And you also say that you expect to do these 20% return on those. So when should we expect that you will then adjust your 2028 ambitions?
That's a super question. And we truly understand this. I don't have an answer that it's just around the corner and to stay. But let's say this is something, of course, we're working on, and there's more pieces going into the puzzle. But we don't want to do new medium-term ambitions also not every year, right? So I think we'll come back as soon as we have clarity on that.
Okay. But I suppose it's fair enough to assume that there must be an upside to the EUR 550 million given the 20% returns on those two investments?
I guess above 550 is an upside in itself.
Good reminder to always do an open-ended guidance.
Then the second question, you've talked a little bit about this before, but within the applications business and the more than 10% margin that you report here in this quarter, my understanding is that it's a bit of a mix between a favorable medium-voltage market and also internal measures and restrictions done over the last couple of years. Would you say that the medium-voltage business as it is right now is set up correctly? Of course, you would want to have your investment going into it as well. But have you otherwise sort of done the setup as you would like to do? Or are there more structural changes to be done within that segment?
It's a super question, Casper. I think we have come a long way. So the last couple of years, as you're well aware, has comprised both efficiency, a lot of efficiency work, also footprint changes. So I think the large pieces of that puzzle are in the right place now. But I'm also not ignorant enough to say that we are done. I don't think we can ever consider ourselves to be done. We always seek for opportunities and ways to optimize even further. And whether that will involve any larger footprint changes, I'll have to leave unsaid.
But I think at least the larger parts, we feel that we have done well, which has also put us in a position now together with the fact that the market looks good where we now want to invest further in machine lines to boost the capacity further.
Okay. Fair, fair enough. Then, then my last question goes to the, to the service business. Of course, a, a big step up in, in revenue. And I also note that, that you comment that the that there's been made some investments into that division, to, how could you say, live up to future growth, for example, in manpower.
These EUR 75 million of revenue here in the quarter, is that a new level that we should start expecting every quarter, obviously understanding that it can be volatile depending on service repair jobs, but EUR 74 million it was. But is this sort of a newfound level for the service business?
I would say if you look at the number EUR 73 million, then no, because it's sharply driven by the repair itself. For the underlying business now, not disclosing the exact size of the repair, it is a level which is sustainable, but it's also something that we expect to actually need to grow further.
We are investment-phased in especially the accessories business line to be able to increase the capacity of the amount of joints that we are delivering, as one example, in support of the general market but especially the solutions product business. I think these are investments we have communicated in the past, I think, to a level of EUR 14 million in Alingsås in Sweden, covering machines, testing facilities, office facilities, all in support of the growth journey that is being done there. But I wouldn't use Q1 total revenues as a proxy because that's not the good proxy considering the revenue we just discussed.
Okay. If I just may follow up, if one looks a few years ahead when we expect a major pickup in the Solutions revenue on the back of the investments in Karlskrona, would you then also expect a similar pickup in the Accessories business?
I don't think we are not guiding per business lines looking some years ahead. So I would be careful to draw that conclusion. And I'm not in a position to really guide you on it. What I can say is also that the Accessories business largely also depend on the composition of the Solutions business, meaning how much HV cables do we have and how much LV cables do we have also in the Solutions business.
So if you consider the heavy investment that we are carrying out in Karlskrona, now the EUR 1 billion investment, this will drive negligible growth in the accessories business considering long-length production of tens and tens of kilometers of cables. While for LAN cable investments, you would have to have a joint every 1 kilometer or every 2 kilometers. So there you drive volume, whereas with C cables, you don't.
Okay. That's a good explanation. Thanks a lot, Claes.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, you will need to press now 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. As there are no further questions, I would like to hand back to Claes Westerlind, CEO, for closing remarks. Thank you. Thanks to everybody who called in. Thanks for good questions.
We look forward to also hopefully meeting, if not all of you, then at least most of you in the coming days. It was a good quarter that we have behind us. We are proud to start the year in a good way, with growth, with decent profitability, with a strong market, and also further investments in support of the NKT case. So with that, me and Line, we thank you for your attention and look forward to meeting you soon.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.