Good morning from me, too. We're moderating today's call. My name is Maxi Goodman from Nourys. We'll start with a management presentation at the beginning and then move into the Q&A session. If you'd like to ask a question, please click the Raise Hand icon, or you can submit your question in the Q&A box. After the presentation, I'll explain the procedure real quick again. With that, let's begin. Mr. Hjorth, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Maxi.
Yeah, maybe. Please.
Yeah. Let me introduce myself. Good morning, everybody. My name is Martin Elovsson, and I'm currently one of the Board Members in Astor Group, and I've been in the Astor Group board since May 2025, and from next week, I will take over the position as CEO of Astor Group, since Mattias has decided to leave. I have a previous experience in several executive positions. I've been working within the Volvo Group or more specific in the Volvo Construction Equipment. I've been the CEO for a company called VEÅ AB, which is a subsidiary of NIBE Group. I currently hold the position as CEO for a company called ScaffSense that I will be leaving tomorrow since I will start next week within Astor Group.
In parallel to that, I have been participating in some boards in different companies, one of them is Kebni, who is also a defense company that I have been involved for the last three years. My background, education is I have a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Chalmers in Sweden, also an MBA from the School of Business, Economics and Law in Gothenburg. As you can see here, I also a very happy shareholder in Astor and I think, me as a leader, I think it's important to have some skin in the game. This is my current holdings and we will see what happens going forward here. Again, good morning and looking forward to interact with you the upcoming sessions.
Thank you, Martin. We will start with short brief intro to Astor Group and then dive into the Q1 numbers, and we will look into the acquisition of Nordic Shield Group, and then have a look into 2026 and beyond with coming up to the Q&A session. Let's start with Astor Group in brief. In Astor Group, we believe in and are ready to fight for a world where freedom and safety are a shared reality for all. We believe that every person, every family, and every community deserves to live without fear. The pace of conflict has accelerated. It's hybrid, it's multi-domain, it's unannounced. Tactical shifts are in days, not decades, and the old defense playbook no longer works.
To make matters even more complicated, there's a war shift taking place, a paradigm shift where the pace of change outruns prediction, with tactical, technological, and strategic shifts unfold in days or weeks, not decades. Old defense playbooks were built for a world where threats evolved slowly, where strategies could be planned years ahead, and where peace was the assumed reality. That world is gone. Modern wars will be unannounced, hybrid, multi-domain, surprising, and constantly switching. That is why we at Astor Group, we see a need for a Europe made resilient through readiness, unity, and industrial strength. We believe this demands the building of a defense and security ecosystem that thrives in uncertainty. An ecosystem engineered to evolve, respond, and adapt through every shift in the paradigm.
It's time for new approaches to defense modernization, it's time for new types of defense and security entities to be put in place that are far more in tune with the war shift. Astor Group is such an entity. We can go as far as say that we're force-built for the war shift. We aspire to become Europe's most united defense-first ecosystem, engineered for change. Our mission is clear: to strengthen European readiness and resilience by uniting and empowering specialized civilian security and defense companies in a uniquely capable, unified, and adaptable ecosystem. Our mission is to unite a rising force of thinkers, innovators, and producers because our society's readiness and resilience depend not on just those who fight, but those who build. You can think of us as gathering a rising force of small giants, each with a set of superpowers.
United, they form an alliance that delivers an outsized impact. United, they are ready to collaborate, co-develop, deploy solutions that meet the evolving needs of defense and security. From advanced composites and micro metal components to ammunition, electronic warfare system, and flash X-ray technology, we have many and growing competencies within the group. We enable impact across a wide set of domains, across the spectrum of civil, security, and defense context. When the situation demands it, we can combine these distinct strengths to form a resilient, adaptive force ready to meet Europe's most complex security and defense challenges. Looking at Astor in brief, we are well-positioned for growth. We are growing fast. All figures you see are last 12 months.
Now, with the announced acquisition of the remaining shares in Nordic Shield Group, we actually see our sales are almost doubling up. Going from SEK 400 million- SEK 700 million, SEK last 12 months to SEK 704 million in top line. EBITDA is also strengthening about SEK 116 million. Order book is growing to SEK 707 million. Number of employees increasing a little to 271 persons within the group. You do the calculations, you can come up with that actually we are very, if we say, efficient in delivering SEK 2.6 million per full-time employee. During the first quarter of 2026, NSG, Nordic Shield Group, actually reported a net sales of SEK 104 million. It's a strong acquisition, actually. We'll come back to that one.
Number of locations and number of countries are remained unchanged with the announced acquisition of Nordic Shield Group, because Nordic Shield Group has been part of Astor Protect since last summer. We are still at 12 production sites, still in four countries. Looking at the numbers from the quarter one report. The net sales increased 74% year-over-year, and we see growth in both Astor Industry and Astor Protect segments. It delivers still a continued high profitability, and actually cash flow from operating activities increased, showing a true profitability and signals a thriving core business. I mean, this is really good numbers. We see This is, this actually the most important thing, I think. If the key takeaway is we are growing with true profitability.
Two years ago, we were at SEK 222 million in top line when we closed the books for 2024. Now we have a revenue of SEK 244 million for our first quarter, which meaning we now make the same money in, we have the same sales and net sales on top line for one quarter as we had for the full year, which I believe is very strong. If you do the calculation and growth, you see we come up with 190%, that's also a strong number. Very, very proud of the report and very proud of the team delivering these numbers. It's a strong team effort within Astor Group. Looking at the segments, our sales was distributed according to table as you could see it.
You can see that Astor Industry performs really well, boosting a margin of 26%. Are still in the shadow of Astor Protect that really delivers a good quarter. Astor Industry segment was more efficient, increasing revenue per employee. The Astor Protect segment's growing fast, Nordic Shield Group addition will now make Astor Protect our biggest segment. The Tech segment's performance was impacted by weaker research spending in the U.S., affecting Scandiflash. Note also that Airsafe has been excluded from the segment since Q2 2025, Oscilion typically has a soft first quarter. We made a short cut out for Oscilion EW for you to see that actually first quarter has been soft way back. What's happening across the group?
Yeah, we could see the sales commercial activity remains high, and we have actually added a number of sales people. Now, with the Nordic Shield Group, our order book has grown to SEK 707 million. We have a broad customer base, and we have a recurring business flow rather than larger individual orders building up this order book. As I said, several senior sales people joined the group, and we are strengthening the business development activities as well. We have increased market activities with exhibitions throughout the group. Oscilion jamming system has the counter-UAS system has been broadened, and now we are looking at the counter-UAS system solution, including both the pilot tracker and the drone tracker as well to the jamming system.
Scandiflash is now agent for INFINITION's operator solutions, Scandiflash has also developed a prototype based on flash X-ray technology that opened up the new market for Scandiflash as for studies of structure changes at performance critical points in battery cycling tests. That could be of interest going forward. We were exhibiting at several events taking place both high level and, yeah, specialized military events. Two examples to mention, Chief of Swedish Army visit our headquarter, Defence Minister Pål Jonson visit our booth at the Defence Expo event. That's all from me. Over to you, Martin.
Thank you, Mattias. First of all, I would like to express myself as a Board Member to you, Mattias, and to the complete team. We as the board think you have done a great, I shouldn't say great, a fantastic job during Q1 and delivered very well. We're very proud about that, and we are very pleased with you as the CEO for the last two years, and we wish you all the best going forward.
Thank you.
Thank you very much and good job. Really important to say, I think. Number two for me is to say welcome. Welcome to the NSG team, Cesium, NEZ, and NSG. We're really looking forward to cooperate with you and have you on board. We're very glad for that, and let's do this thing together going forward in good cooperation. We are very pleased with that. Again, very welcome. Now, going back to the rationale behind the acquisition of NSG. As you know, this is a known asset to us. We have had two colleagues in the board. We have been owning the company for two years, and we have been following very closely.
We're very confident with the acquisition, and we feel high confidence, and we expect Peter and the team to do this good in line with our commitments. We also see NSG as a high-quality asset. We see the proven margins, and they also have a large order book. It's over SEK 400 million. To us, this is a quality earnings. This is not a turnaround case. The purpose of Astor here is actually to support and challenge Peter and the team to continue developing according to plan and taking this forward. This will be a good cooperation. I'm also very proud about the deal team here at Astor Group. I think the deal is very capital efficient in its structured way and setup.
I'm also very pleased to see that we have a long-term relationship with the sellers, so we will do this together and do this jointly, which I see as very positive. Taking a more holistic perspective into this segment of our business now, you see the structural tailwinds are there, both from a defense perspective but also from a civil infrastructure perspective. The first wave will be within defense, the second wave will be within the civil infrastructure investments. This is across the NATO countries, this is in the Nordics as well. This is a long-term, long-term investment for us.
This is also emphasized or confirmed by the new laws, by the Swedish civil protection legislation that also underpins this segment in focus here with the NSG solutions, as you can see to the pictures here on the screens. As Mattias already has mentioned, this is a good fit for Astor Protect, so no additional investments required to include it. It more or less an easy handover here. Again, maybe the most important thing with acquisition, this is a good step for Astor Group on our journey towards SEK 2.5 billion in revenue for 2028. This is the acquisition in brief.
We will come back to a deep dive in NSG after the confirmation from ISP that the deal is closed, and then we will invite to a new session where we can actually discuss NSG together with the team at NSG more in detail going forward. Just some high-level KPIs also today. As you know, we have been an owner for NSG since 2025. We have done several purchases during the time, and the total amount for the company ends up to SEK 695 million, including full earn-out in this deal. Just for your understanding, the earn-out terms is if we reach an EBITDA for 2027 of SEK 150 million, the maximum earn-out will be SEK 147 million.
And this will be distributed with 30% in shares and 70% in cash going forward. I think if we go to the next line here, Astor's enterprise value divided by EBITDA looking forward is a multiple of 4.6, and I think this really, again, emphasized the potential and the power of Astor. The companies wants to join us. We think we have got a good deal, but also people wants to be in our portfolio, and that is really positive on a way going forward. This is a good business, good deal, and a good forward-looking statements here.
Just for information, the deal also includes two fully owned properties, one production site in Katrineholm for Cesium, and also a co-located data center in Visby on Gotland is included in this. We will come back with more details on the properties in the next deep dive after the ISP decision. This is NSG in brief, and we're very positive and very pleased to have concluded this deal. My expectations, looking on 2026 and beyond, first of all, I would like to say it's business as usual. I think we have a strategy that is proven in use for the last years. We see that we actually have a true profitable growth, and this is really important. This will not be changed. We will continue on that path.
More in details, just to point it up and bullet it up for you to understand, we will continue our M&A activities. Active, really active, but selective. It needs to have a capability fit. It needs to have the capital efficiency of the companies that we are looking for to reach our targets 2020. We also need to have some kind of seller alignment and cultural values that we share together. I really think that NSG is a good example of all these boxes we tick in here. Full focus going forward on M&As. Active but selective, really important. We also focus on the operational efficiency, and this is mainly related to our Industry segment. We need to safeguard and expand our margins by adding more customer value per order. What does that mean?
To me, in the business situation of today, our customers have a lot of work ingoing, and they are not able to handle all work on a decent time to fulfill the time to market. If we can be there close to the customer, help them with more activities in the product design phase, we will make it easier for our customers, and we can also be closer in cooperation with our customers and also gain some additional margins by that. This will be one of the focus area going forward for the Industry segment. Mattias communicated earlier today that we have invested in the sales force, and this is really positive to me. Now my expectations on the sales force is actually to convert our project pipeline into real wins that we can deliver and execute on revenue.
This is really one of my high expectation now to get leverage out of the investment we have in the sales. Really good and full support for myself. We have the CapEx and capability. Looking at the European defense market, there is a structural demand, and it's growing, and we need to be there. We need to be prepared. We need to invest in our companies both from a CapEx and a capacity perspective to be able to follow our customers out in Europe. This is also really important going forward. Finally, the reason for us to exist. We have a group platform proven in use with good profitability over the growth. We need to continue to take leverage of the cooperation within the portfolio. We see synergies between Ammunity and Scandiflash.
We see synergies between Ammunity and NSG, et cetera, et cetera. We need to take leverage and to really get the impact through this unity we have in the portfolio. This is the short-term expectations for me. We will come back and follow- up on this going forward during the year. Looking ahead, and to conclude this a little bit, strategy remains intact. Target remains intact. SEK 2.5 billion, better than 15% in EBITDA margin. That's intact, and we are very confident in that. We need to understand the business climate and the business situation between the different business areas. Some of the business area do supply every month and have a very proactive calculation of order output.
We have other companies within the portfolio that have more of project sales, where we have stochastic sales that we not can plan in a quarter or two. We will live with some kind of fluctuations between the quarters in the sales pipeline. Maybe the best fundament going forward also that the defense market in Europe continue to expand. We feel ourself well-positioned to join this expansion with the attractive niche segments we are playing in, and we will follow our customers in this expansion. Reflecting back on the order book again, including ESG here, we see that the order book is approximately SEK 800 million going forward from today. Conclude this a little bit. My perception of Astor is, we are just in the beginning of our journey.
We aim to be a significant player long-term in the European defense industry. Again, this is just the beginning of this journey. We are well-invested, and we are ready to take on more production to support our customers and the European defense target going forward the upcoming 10 years. We are active, we are seeking new footprints and new markets to be a better partner with our customers. We truly believe that we build something great and something that is sustainable and lasting. Again, the Astor journey has just begun, and we foresee good progress and being a significant player in the European defense industry here going forward. Yep.
Thank you, Mr. Hjorth. Thank you, Mr. Elovsson, for your presentation. We will now open the Q&A session. As a quick reminder, you can ask your question by clicking the raise hand icon. Once I grant you permission to speak, you'll be able to ask your question live. Alternatively, you may submit your question in the Q&A box, and I'll read it out on your behalf. We can proceed with the first question. We actually don't have any yet. There is one question from Jack Ottendal. You can now ask your question live.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Thank you for the presentation. I'm very excited to be shareholder in Astor Group. Can you tell us something more about the Eclipse and the counter-UAS segment? What's happening there? We're waiting for it.
Yeah. I can take that one.
Yeah.
Thank you thank you for the question. We are waiting too. As you can see, we've been both been part of exhibition. I mean, we are out actually quite active and marketing it in both both internal visible events where you actually could attend and also more closed situations actually. You see the Swedish Army is actually here looking at it. Our CEO, Fredrik Bergman, also was interviewed by the Swedish state television, SVT, during and about our work in Ukraine. We are still in the testing phase, I would say, and quite active, I would say, in preparations for I mean, we have matured the system.
We know that it actually performs well for its task, but we are still waiting for the big order. Exhibition upcoming, I would mention the AOC Europe, Association of Old Crows now taking place in Helsinki mid-May, where Oscilion will be in place. Also, what you mentioned regarding your question is that the system is now about to be more integrated into a networking system where it could be tasked by a C2 node. Oscilion also has looked and have broadened the solution, now in go for both the pilot tracker and the drone tracker, which is also needed, I mean, because the threat is evolving. But we are also looking into a vehicle-mounted drone jammer.
There are still, there are a lot of activities actually happening, but we're still waiting for the, for the big order. I hope that answers the question.
Thank you. Can I ask another question, please?
Sure.
The Astor IV, is it, do you see it as a risk that the product will be obsolete before any orders come?
That risk is of course always in all projects, regarding, say, technology. Yeah, that could of course happen, but you have also to acknowledge that the sales cycle for EW equipment is very long. Even if some part would be obsolete, there are, say, the main functions are still there. I would not rule it out that this could still be a success. You have to be patient and lead times are very long in this sector.
Thank you very much. I'm very confident with the base you're building, and I'm just hoping that the tech will be the cherry on top eventually. Thank you very much.
Yeah. Thank you, Jack.
Thank you.
We go to our next question from Simon Keller.
Good morning. Firstly, thank you, Mattias, and best of luck on what lies ahead, and welcome, Martin. Sorry I had missed some parts of the Q&A session so far, so I hope my questions are not repetitive. Two from me. Firstly, on Nordic Shield Group, which did particularly well during Q1, can we consider the Q1 run rate sustainable in the coming quarters? That's my first question, and the second one is on the order intake situation. What's your take here? Is it like, are you satisfied with it? I mean order book still looks strong, yet book-to-bill is rather soft. Is there anything, for example, a bigger order upcoming that's worth to highlight and to provide like some comfort in the strong growth that you have planned ahead?
Yeah. I could try to answer it. I mean, looking at Nordic Shield Group, it was strong quarter one, of course. You have to acknowledge that was part of Nordic Shield Group is Cesium, which also has a strong end of their financial year, which ends end of April.
Yeah.
Actually, it's I would say that quarter one is a good quarter for Nordic Shield Group, while it be a soft quarter normally for Astor Group. Those combined actually is a good perfect mix. Those together are strong. Regarding, say guiding for the future and what you could say if you could calculate multiplying by four and getting the top line for the year, we are not guiding. We have the numbers we are talking about and what we are, say, stating to the market is those SEK 2.5 billion in 2028 with 15% EBITDA margin.
The environment that NSG is in is very active.
Absolutely. Yeah.
It's both in Sweden, in the Nordics, in the Baltics, and in Poland and so on. We are very positive going ahead.
Yeah. Macro is there.
Yeah.
Underlying sentiment is there. Yeah, it's still defense and things might take more time than actually, than we want as business leaders.
I think it's also important to point out that I hope everybody see NSG as a long-term-
Exactly
investment.
Yeah.
The initial wave, we call it the defense wave, will come and, you know, with the sales cycles, and terms for placing orders, but that will be one wave, and then we will have the civil infrastructure wave going forward in beyond 2030. This is a long-term, long-term investment, and we see a long-term growth because a lot of countries is underutilized in this area.
Absolutely. Just looking at the Baltic region, actually, there are no shelters, no protection infrastructure for civilian people. Like we have in Finland and Sweden, I mean, where we have built shelters actually. Just in the Baltic region, it's a huge demand for protection of civilian society. That was part of the answer, I guess, Simon.
Yes, definitely. I understood that you don't want to guide on Nordic Shield Group. If I'd say I'd assume, multiplying by four is okay, would you feel confident or comfortable with this? Would you say that's a bit too ambitious?
I believe that the future.
Yeah
to increase
Yeah
even further.
We are positive, of course, but we do not guide in this area. We see high activity. We have very, how to say? We are market leader from a product perspective, so we are very attractive in this business, and we are very positive in our forecast internally, but we keep them to ourselves going forward.
Well understood. Thank you.
Okay. I think we can move to the questions in the Q&A box. The first one is: how confident are you in your goals ahead for 2028?
The 2028 goal? I mean, looking at the numbers, I mean, you could I think this one is something to look at. I mean, 119% since 2024. Now last 12 months actually with Nordic Shield Group, we have SEK 704 million in the books. Adding our increased sales team, more market activities, plus the underlying sentiments and the macro, I feel quite confident that we'll reach it. Otherwise we, I mean, there are other companies that are not growing with profitability as we do. All the KPIs actually are right for us to group. It's a stable foundation and there won't, I don't see any risk that we'll miss it, that target.
I think it's-
I think-
I think it's important, as Mattias said, to point out we grow through profitable growth.
Yeah.
That's really important. We have two growth engines. One is the internal, the organic growth, and one is the M&A activities. I think we are, we are on top on both at the moment and we following our forecast going forward. Let's come back in a year and see that we continue to follow our forecast and build our confidence even further. As we have stated today, we truly believe that this is reachable for us.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay. Thank you. The next question: do we expect more acquisitions to be necessary in order to achieve the goals in 2028? Or is this recent purchase of NSG sufficient to only grow organically?
I've stated it earlier, I mean, you did the calculation actually when we set this target of SEK 2.5 billion. A lot of people actually knows, thinking that this would be a big problem for us, because growing to having that organic growth combined with the M&A growth actually, which we now show the market that we are capable of, means I mean, I think this is important.
Yeah. Yeah.
This is-
This is one. To me, this is 1 key message.
Yeah
from me as well. The M&A activities will continue.
Yeah
For sure, we need to be very active and very selective because we need to continue our journey on profitable growth.
Yeah.
This is really important also to continue to grow.
Yeah.
This is, the message. We are selective, finding the right companies for our portfolio that have decent margins and that will also enable us to continue to grow.
Exactly. Yeah, the answer is yes.
Yeah.
We have to add more companies, but we are selective which ones.
Okay. Thank you. Another question. He ask about more information about Ammunity and the investment and production capacity.
Yes. As we took an investment, before Christmas actually, in ramping up the production in Ammunity, the actual ramp up, that go to full speed would be 6x , but actually with that has take some time actually to get that. The machines, the project is running. Machines are ordered, and deliveries of new machinery is expected, after summer, this year. I will not go into details of, yeah, for several reasons.
We'll actually see that this makes us You know, it's laying the foundation to be able to produce with both high quality and also higher volumes. This is attractive. U.S. is exporting 600 million rounds per year to Europe, and U.S. is being dragged into conflicts outside Europe. If that, if we have a shortage already, that shortage will even be increased if U.S. is dropping their export to Europe. I think Ammunity and that strategy we laid out actually creating us to protect and that business area which we now see is growing the fastest with the Astor Group. That I think that tells us that the strategy is right.
The investment we have done in Ammunity, that, is also very clear from my side.
Yeah. You can also see the contribution.
Yeah. Already.
Yeah.
Okay. There's a question to Martin. How does the future looking plans for M&A look ahead? Are we slowing down, or are you planning to have a period of consolidation looking forward?
Thank you for the question. As I said, we have a pipeline, and we are very active, but selective. I don't I shouldn't say I don't see a time for consolidation, but I think we need to. This is a fast-moving business, and there is a lot of competitors out there. We really need to visualize that we are agile and that we are fast, taking the right decision in speed. In parallel to that, continue to develop our organic portfolio or our internal portfolio. We will continue with the strategy we have today, full focus going forward.
Okay. There seems to be the last question is regarding Astor Protect. How big contribution of sales in Q1 was from Ammunity, if there is any possibility to comment this?
We normally don't comment, each company. We comment only on the segment. Sorry, I will not dive into the details.
Okay. There is another question from Jack Ottendal.
Hello again. Are you on Ammunity, are you looking at doing any product development or wanna trying to go into expand their products? They have a quite narrow product line, I think.
Yeah, we are on small caliber ammunition, and, I mean, that niche is actually a good start. Of course, business development is active. I will not delve into details. I think we'll have to come back to that one. At the moment, it's full focus on the current sales of the niche we are very in actually. It's a good start. We are only Swedish-owned ammunition company at the moment.
Thank you very much.
Well, thank you. It doesn't seem like there are any further questions at the moment. I think we can conclude this call. Mr. Hjorth, Mr. Elovsson, would you like to share any closing remarks?
Yeah, I could do say something and wish thank you for attending the presentation and best of luck, Martin, for the future. I'm very confident that this will be, I mean, I will follow up Astor Group even though I'm leaving, but I'm still a shareholder. Looking forward to see what's next around the corner.
Thank you, Mattias. Again, we're very pleased with your performance, your delivery. Thank you again and good luck. My final words today would be, Astor is just the beginning of our journey to be a European player in the defense market. We will move forward.
Thank you for attending.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, and have a nice day.
Thank you. The same.
Thank you.