Good morning to you all, and welcome to Aspo's Capital Markets Day, 2024. My name is Mikko Heikkilä from Aspo Group, and I will be hosting, together with my colleagues, this event today. Before we begin, I'd like to give you some words on practicalities. And now I actually noticed that we don't have the slide changer, so maybe that's something that I could also get. Perfect. Thank you very much. So before we begin, a couple of words on practicalities and the agenda. We will start the event with presentations by Rolf Jansson, our Group CEO, and Erkka Repo, our Group CFO. And after these two presentations, you here today with us, and also all viewers online, you will have the opportunity to post questions to both Rolf and Erkka before we then move on to the segment presentations.
The segment presentations will start with ESL, Mikki Koskinen, who will give an overview of ESL Shipping, Mikko Pasanen from Telko, and Miska Kuusela of Leipurin. And in between each of these segment presentations, there will be a separate Q&A opportunity as well for all segments. And then, in the end, we will wrap things up by Rolf Jansson again, coming to the stage, giving his closing remarks, marks, and wrapping up the session, and then there will be another joint Q&A session. So we have quite a few opportunities to post questions to both Aspo Group and to our segments as well. And then after that, before you leave this event, I hope that everyone here today present also has the opportunity to stay. We have Leipurin team here, especially with fresh pizza.
We have ESL Shipping's new ship in the harbor here, where you will be also having the opportunity to visit. And, of course, we have a goody bag for you as well to take home. So please make sure that you get the full Aspo experience before you leave. But without further ado, I'd like to ask on stage Rolf Jansson. Let's start the event. Welcome.
Thank you very much.
There you go.
Welcome also on my behalf to the Capital Markets Day of Aspo. I will basically, in my presentation, cover six topics: the strategy of Aspo, the financial ambitions of Aspo, sustainability commitment, vision for our portfolio, our new leadership model, and, last but not least, a revised dividend policy. You're very familiar to Aspo, but maybe starting with taking one step back. So Aspo is an active owner, developing its businesses long-term and in a sustainable manner. If we look at the businesses, each business aim to be a market leader and a forerunner in sustainability. If we then look at Aspo share price, and particularly fall 2021, then the share price was around 12 EUR.
In spring 2022, the share price basically collapsed due to the Russian attack on Ukraine. And what you see here is that it hasn't really recovered since. It's more or less followed the market index since the collapse. How is then Aspo creating value? Our starting point is to maximize the value of our current business portfolio, and that means that for each business, we have a kind of full profit potential program focusing on growth, focusing on profitability improvement. And what is then Aspo's role? That is to allocate resources to the different businesses, depending on the performance. Growth is an extremely important element of Aspo's DNA. Via growth, we will focus on continuously growing earnings, but at the same time, we will grow in segments which support our good profitability.
In addition, we think that growth is a lever to make sure that we're resilient also in economic downturn. So basically, if profitability margin would slightly decline during a downturn, we invest in growth, and then the absolute profitability still will grow. Acquisitions, an important element of Aspo in addition to organic growth. We are long-term owners, and the only reason for us to divest the company is underperformance, or then we find that there's a better owner for the business than Aspo. We are also flexible to different structural opportunities, and we have proven that over the past year or so. We have, for example, pooling financing when it comes to ESL Shipping, and we also have co-ownership that we introduced in ESL Shipping during this year.
If we then look what has happened since, we're basically over the past 2.5 years, I think we have given evidence of kind of solid strategy execution. We invested in the green transition, particularly by ESL. We've done a lot of acquisitions in Norway, Poland, the Baltic countries, France, Benelux, and now, latest, we also signed the acquisition of Swed Handling in Sweden. Then we also focused our portfolio. So we sold, for example, when it comes to Leipurin, we've sold the machine equipment business. But I also want to add, we have been able to significantly improve the financial performance of Leipurin. What then happened with our strategy when Russia attacked Ukraine? I would say that the strategic direction did not change at all.
The only thing it did was that we exited Russia as such. If you then look at the financial performance over the past and start with net sales, basically, we have a growth of some 6% per annum, and that has been really driven by Leipurin, in particular, and Telko. Looking at profitability in 2021 and 2022, on an Aspo level, we were very close to the target level, and then last year, profitability was weakened by the softer mar-market conditions of particularly ESL. No surprises, if you then look at return on equity, a similar trend. So basically, return on equity, 2021 and 2022, on a level of 20%-30%, and then a drop to approximately 12% last year. Again, of course, due to financial performance.
Going forward, and then looking at our financial targets, we will revise them a bit. First, we will shift from EBIT to EBITDA. And the reason is that if you look at the past, there's basically no big difference. But considering the kind of compounding strategy, particularly of Telko, there will be an increasing part of amortization, and we don't want to build up unnecessary goodwill in the balance sheet, and hence, we will focus on EBITDA going forward. Net sales growth, we will revise the target, saying that we will aim for a minimum of 5%-10% net sales growth for each year. Basically, 5% organic growth, and on top of that, at least then some growth from the acquisitions. Return on equity, 20% target unchanged, and then we will replace our gearing target.
Instead, we will follow net debt to EBIT, EBITDA, target of less than three, and that is really to kind of actively manage our financing capacity. How will we then reach these targets? I think we have extremely clear strategies for each of the businesses. Starting with ESL, investments in the green transition, basically, the Nordic industrials are investing a lot in environmentally friendly production. This gives tremendous opportunity for ESL, doubling the market over the next 10 years. ESL will invest in this opportunity, new technologies, even in fossil-free vessels going forward. And in addition, ESL will do its utmost to improve its performance, operational excellence, investments in business intelligence, and commercial capabilities.
Telko is aiming to take a leading position in specialty products in Europe, and will do that by acquisitions on top of organic growth, and also focus a lot on performance improvement opportunities, supply chain, commercial activities, et cetera. Leipurin, again, will aim to be a market leader in Northern Europe for distributing ingredients, both to the food industry as well as to the bakeries. With an improving profitability, and that goes two ways, so investing in growth in segments which have a high gross margin, and then also developing capabilities, sourcing, supply chain, and commercial. This is how we will reach the targets. New today as well is our financial ambition. So we are aiming to create a EUR 1 billion business, basically doubling, approximately doubling the revenue from last year.
As already said, EBITDA of 8%. If you look at this, how it's divided then by the businesses, you can see that actually a lot of steps have been taken already. So starting with ESL, what you see here as the current performance, basically, we invested in 12 green coasters that will gradually, over the next two years, build up in revenue and net sales and in profitability. Telko actually the same. We have this year acquired Swed Handling, that closing to be expected during Q3, and we have already acquired Optimal and Greenfluid. So if you look at the run rate of these two acquisitions, it's basically EUR 70 million.
Then if you add the organic opportunities, considering how Telko is positioned, it should generate organic growth of some 4%-5%. And then finally, Leipurin, we will add Kebelco to Leipurin when the Swed Handling acquisition is closed. That will add EUR 10 million of net sales. And in addition, also, Leipurin has approximately, let's say, 3%+ organic growth per year. This actually means that if you take all of these together, you're basically halfway to the EUR 1 billion. And what else needs to happen? ESL needs to invest in fossil-free Green Handy. That will add net sales of some EUR 60 million-EUR 70 million. And then Leipurin, together with Telko, need to do acquisitions which, during this period until 2028, would represent approximately EUR 200 million of sales.
So I think this slide is very strong evidence of the fact that the current performance of Aspo, if you look at the Q1 performance or twelve-month rolling, it does not really reflect the kind of run rate potential we have in the company. Then looking at the businesses, there's a lot of similarities actually between Leipurin and Telko, but there are also a lot of major differences in the business logics if you compare, particularly ESL with Telko and Leipurin. How they are positioned in the value chain? What are the opportunities for organic growth? What are the kind of logic for acquisitions, required CapEx investments, time span of the business, and also kind of funding opportunities, to name some examples.
So if you, for example, look at the vessel here, the Green Coaster, it has a lifespan of maybe approximately 25 years, and then you look at the inventory of Telko and Leipurin, and we talk about weeks or a couple of months. CapEx investments, really heavy into ESL, but very limited into Telko and, and Leipurin, if you disregard acquisitions. Then from sustainability perspective, first of all, Aspo and its businesses will commit to the science-based targets by end of the year. As said, sustainability is an important part of our strategy.
But then if you go a bit deeper into this and look at the kind of sustainability agendas of the companies, and maybe particularly from an environmental perspective, ESL is very much focused on the emissions of the vessel that it operates, so basically Scope 1 to Scope 2 emissions. And then if you look at Leipurin and Telko, it's not much use to only reduce the emissions of the kind of own operations. Instead, Telko and Leipurin takes a grasp of the whole value chain downstream, upstream, from production until to the customer. So basically saying that Scope 3 emissions is really what is critical. There are naturally some differences also when it comes to social sustainability and governance, but I would say particularly these around environment are significant.
Based on this, we today launch a vision for the business portfolio of Aspo. So our vision is to form two different companies, and as said here, before Aspo turns 100 years, meaning 2029. And that would mean Aspo Infra and ESL Shipping would be part of Aspo Infra. There we have a business with a very heavy balance sheet, tremendous CapEx investments, and stable and good profitability. And then on the other hand, we have Aspo Compounder, which is where Telko and Leipurin is part of. It's a very growth-focused company, very light balance sheet, and a very resilient business model with very high returns.
Traditionally, Aspo has invested primarily in ESL Shipping and going forward, and that you already seen over the past couple of months, we will also invest significantly into the Aspo Compounder business. Then, what are the kind of building blocks of this transformation? The starting point is basically shareholder value. We haven't determined the approach how to do this. We have everything on the table, basically, as examples, demerger, IPO, sale of a business, minority, majority, full sale.... And, when it comes to timing of this vision, it will be dependent on the CapEx investments when they are done, and the financial performance of the businesses, and in addition, also, business environment conditions. And ultimately, our target is to create very clear and transparent, business profile, investment profiles to the market.
One colleague of mine said that, basically, if you look at Aspo, the average doesn't tell you a lot because there are so, big differences between ESL Shipping and other businesses. So we, we want to form kind of proposition to the market, which is extremely clear and extremely transparent. We think it's, important to communicate this upfront, because, then the steps that we will be taking over the next years will be logical to the market. We also think that the business models and the strategies will kind of further diverge over, over time, and, and hence, this is also kind of rational for, for the whole, transformation.
What is also important is that we will keep our eyes on the ball, basically making sure throughout this transformation that we are implementing the strategies of the businesses, pursuing growth and profitability. That, that is really key, and it's basically Aspo Group who will then lead the transformation. This is the team who will run this transformation. We will very much focus on business reviews and line organization, and the steering will take place by the Aspo board. And ESL will continue to be governed also via its board, because we have a minority owners on board. Last but not least, we will update our dividend policy. So, so far, Aspo's dividend policy has been to... The goal is to annually increase the amount of dividends.
We will put a bit more flavor to that, so the prerequisite of increasing dividends are, of course, increasing profitability. And we now say that we will pay up to 50% of net profit as dividends, and we will also make the assessment of strategic investment priorities to be able to pursue our strategy. This was basically in approximately 20 minutes summary of the key messages of the Capital Markets Day. So strategy, extremely clear strategies of each of the businesses. Financial ambition to basically double the company's sales over the next couple of years. Sustainability, we will commit to Science Based Targets by end of this year. We have a vision for the portfolio of forming two separate companies, Aspo Infra and Aspo Compounder.
We have a leadership model which will very much focus on the full profit potential of each business, and then Aspo Group will run this transformation, and we have a dividend policy which will support this strategy. I propose that we go into our CFO’s, Erkka Repo’s presentation, and then we have basically some, is it 10 minutes for questions, at least?
Thank you, Rolf. So, we have an ambition of having EUR 1 billion of sales and 8% EBITDA by 2028. I will go through examples that how do we reach that profitability, and what does it require from us in terms of CapEx, and how the funding of the CapEx is going to take place. If you look at our profitability last year, we were in 5.1. Our ambition requires a 3% increase in our profitability. In growth, we have a scale benefit from the organic growth.
We know that from the M&A activities, there are significant synergies that we can gain from those. And on the investment into ESL, then two new vessels will bring significant efficiencies compared with what we have today. On the commercial excellence, it's all about managing our sales margin on the pricing actions, sourcing actions, managing our product mix, managing our customer segments, and differentiating our offer on customer segments. And I believe that these first two ones, the growth and the commercial excellence, they are the biggest levers for our profitability improvement.
And on the commercial excellence, if you read our quarter one release, we already had there several examples, especially on Leipurin and Telko on these activities. And then when seeing, for example, Leipurin and profit improvement lately, against the headwind in the market at the moment, that demonstrates the, especially on the commercial excellence activities, that we have been doing this successfully. On operational excellence, it's about the supply chain efficiency, our process development, automation, and also how do we operate our vessels efficiently? How do we optimize the use of the vessels? So we have lots of potential also on the operational excellence.
Then on the OpEx side, we will, of course, turn every stone to improve the profitability, but I believe that the first three ones are... There we have a much bigger lever than on the OpEx. Then two examples on the growth side, that what kind of magnitude you can put there on the profitability development. Here, Green Coasters. We are investing in 12 Green Coasters together with the pool investment. For Aspo, it's EUR 70 million for six vessels.
We are expecting that once these 12 vessels are fully commercial, we will see a EUR 15 million EBITDA improvement in our result. And that is expected fully to be visible in our profitability only in 2027, when all the vessels are fully in commercial operations. And you can expect to see then a gradual implementation of that throughout the years. And with the vessel investments, it's also important to understand that we have, during the construction phase, also significant amounts tied in to assets under construction. And so those are assets that don't yet earn us any return, but they are tied on the construction project.
And then, of course, then fully turning profits when the vessels are in use. So very important profit lever for us going forward. Then how should then understand on the profitability on Telko with the M&A activities that we are doing? We reported a comparable EBIT of EUR 2.2 million on the first quarter this year. If you look at what was our underlying profitability before M&A activities, it's EUR 3.1 million. And that figure we are expected to improve with the performance improvement activities going forward. Then we did have M&A costs of EUR 700 thousand in the first quarter.
That was on a high level, with the high activity that we had ongoing. Going forward, we are expecting to continue M&A activities, but maybe more closer to the levels that you saw last year on average, which was EUR 1 million for the whole year. So that is maybe more representative on the longer term, on the level of the costs that are associated with the M&A process costs. Then always when we do make a closing of the transaction, we revalue the inventories to the fair value or the sales, the expected sales value of the inventory.
Which means that, then when we, after the closing, when we start the operations, we are reversing that in the first couple of months when we are selling the inventory. That basically means that during the first two months of the operations, we don't make any earnings, but the earnings are only visible after the reversal of the inventory fair valuation. So it takes typically on the second quarter after the closing, when the profits are visible in our results. Then, on the Optimal, Greenfluid and Swed Handling, obviously, the standalone profitability is significant, significant improvement to our results.
On the longer term, you can expect that we are bringing synergies from these M&A activities. So all together with these, you can kind of estimate that what is then the Telko profitability after the M&A activities have been closed? And then, of course, it means that it's a significant difference where we are today after this Swed Handling has been closed. Then our CapEx we are expecting to use CapEx in the magnitude of EUR 350 million-EUR 400 million by 2028. Our needs for maintenance CapEx are very small.
So, primarily, the CapEx is going for new vessels and M&A activities. Our estimate is that it's around about 50/50 going to this. We do have a high threshold for every investment that we are making. Our return target for return on equity is 20%, and that is also a threshold for our investments. Our capital allocation is always based on maximizing the returns. So where can we get the biggest, highest value for the money? A big part today of this CapEx plans, they are uncommitted.
So the commitments we have made are the green vessels investment that is ongoing, and the Swed Handling investment that is expected to close on the third quarter this year. Then, if you're looking at our dividend policy and also from the point of view that what has been the shareholder return. If you look at the last 10 years of the shareholder return, 85% of the shareholder return has been based on dividends. With the revised dividend policy, more of the cash generated will be allocated to growth investments, both M&A and investment into the vessels.
And then we are expecting that that should then move more value creation of the company, where the, where the, you'd be expecting to gain the returns. We do have a hybrid bond for EUR 30 million at the moment. On the long term, we do not see that as an instrument for us, but for the moment, we do have that, but not on the long term. While we are growing and investing, we want to all the time maintain a strong balance sheet.
Our balance sheet has been strengthened a lot lately, and especially this year with the minority investment into ESL. But we want to maintain the strong balance sheet throughout these investments. We are looking now at our leverage target from the net debt to comparable EBITDA to keep it below three. But also from the equity ratio point of view, we want to maintain also a strong equity ratio at the same time.
If looking at the funding of our investments, we are expecting that about two-thirds of the investments, the EUR 350 million-EUR 400 million investments, are to be funded by operative cash flow. So that links back to where I started with the high profitability and improving profitability. That's a cornerstone of our strategy on getting the profitability up and then funding our investments. Improved profitability also give us debt capacity without sacrificing our balance sheet strength.
And we are also kind of having possibilities for our portfolio development and examples like selling the Supramax vessels or selling of Kauko or the minority investment into ESL. So we are, like Rolf said, we are up to kind of many different alternatives, and then they are also part of the kind of funding our growth investments. And at the same time we want to have growing dividend, but with the growth of the performance not sacrificing our kind of growth agenda. And as a last topic, we are changing our key performance metric from operating profit to EBITDA.
That is to better reflect the ongoing profitability of the compounder business logic. When we are making acquisitions, we are basically paying for inventory, and the rest is intangibles, either goodwill or intangible assets that we are amortizing then. These amortizations we want to, of course, allocate as much as possible to intangible assets, depreciate them properly, so that our balance sheet don't get inflated. Therefore, the EBITDA without the amortizations better reflect the underlying profitability of the compounding business. We are updating our or changing our guidance to for the new metric, EBITDA, and adjusting then the guidance accordingly.
And so our new guidance for the year 2024 is that our comparable EBITDA is expected to exceed EUR 32 million this year. Thank you. And now we are up for the Q&A.
Thank you, Rolf. Thank you, Erkka-
Yeah.
For, may I say, very insightful and exciting presentations. Now is the time for our first Q&A, and I suggest we have already had some activity online, so I will start with a couple of questions from there, and then open the floor for further questions. So first, from Nordea, Markku Moilanen, asking about the EUR 350-400 million of investments during 2024-2028, which are sort of potentially planned. So the question is: "Is your plan to finance these investments with cash flow and with possible divestments, or are you also considering of utilizing additional debt funding?
So primarily with the operations debt financing, based on, as we have described it, and so that gives us leverage potential. And then, of course, any of the portfolio development that is also part of the funding.
Perfect. Thank you. And Rolf, regarding the timeline, you presented quite big changes and possible divestments or IPOs with relation to Aspo Infra and Aspo Compounders. So the question that, sort of timeline-wise, when can we expect to see some kind of next step and hear more about what's happening and going forwards?
We will naturally keep the market updated on any key milestones. We don't have set timetables, so as said before, we want to be transparent and want to communicate this kind of portfolio vision up front. We want to figure out the best way of doing it and the best timing for it in order to create value.
Thank you. Please, any questions? Let's make sure you get the microphone. If you could, when you start, present who you are, and then ask your questions. Thank you.
Great. Thanks for the presentation. This is Pasi from Nordea. I have two questions to start with. The first one is regarding the reporting. So are you going to change your reporting to be in line with these new two entities, Infra and Compounder? And then could you please elaborate a little bit about your liability side? So when looking at your instruments you are using, are you going to have a off-balance sheet debt, and how that's visible on your numbers? So is this net debt EBITDA figure actually fully comparable metrics for you? Thanks.
Okay. For the reporting, we are going to continue reporting with the three business segments, ESL, Telko and Leipurin. And we will also kind of continue reporting the EBIT, and then as a new measure, the EBITDA, which is our new key measure. So you will get both. And we will kind of report the comparable figures from last year and in 2022 still during the second quarter before we are releasing then the second quarter kind of result with the new KPIs.
And then, on the balance sheet, our net debt includes the lease liabilities. So, from that point of view, it's that should the total liabilities of the company compared to the kind of the reported comparable EBITDA.
Great, thanks. So we are going to have also the figures for Leipurin and Telko segments going forward?
Yes.
Separately.
Yes.
Yeah, great. Thanks.
Thank you. Any further questions in the room here? I have a couple of questions online still. One question is related to financing of M&A. Ari is asking whether there is a need for equity financing, considering a large M&A agenda.
At the moment, we saw that our financing is primarily on the cash flow, then on the portfolio development, and then potentially the debt, with the... While maintaining our strong balance sheet. So on the equity, we communicated on our Swed Handling, there is potentially an equity component on the acquisition. So up to from zero to 9 million, depending on Aspo's board decision on how to whether to use it or not.
So I don't rule out that similar could be used in the future, but it's not a primary source of our funding.
Thank you. Maybe related to this as well, a question related to dividends. A question whether there is a possibility to keep the dividend at zero, considering the high returns on equity?
The communicated dividend policy, that's up to 50% of net profit, and that will then be very dependent on the strategic investment opportunities that we have, and naturally is also dependent on the profitability development. So that's then to judge based on this new dividend policy.
Thank you. Any more questions? If not, I think it's time to move on, on the agenda. And thank you, Rolf, thank you, Erkka, for insightful presentations. And Mikki Koskinen, ESL Shipping Managing Director, welcome.
Thank you very much. And good morning to all of you on my behalf as well. It's a real pleasure to be here today, telling you about the developments at the shipping scene as well, because we are really now seeing the opportunities of lifetime with the green industrial developments here in the Nordics. Fantastic development to be expected. We actually are creating the infrastructure for the green transition industries here in Scandinavia. And how we do it? Basically, we are currently the leading dry bulk shipping company within the northern Baltic Sea market, in both segments we operate today. Fresh news is that actually yesterday afternoon we concluded the sale of the first of the Supramaxes, and the Arcadia was delivered to new owners yesterday, and now the cash is safely in bank from that transaction as well.
So we are following the strategic path, very efficiently at the moment, as we have informed, to the market. ESL has a really strong track record, of value-creative growth during the last 10 years. I will tell you briefly about that a bit later on, but we have grown in size 2.5 times during the last 10 years, and our aim is to, to continue on that track, maintaining at the same time the high profitability we historically have had. Our strategy is based on the growth in the green transition industries. We are defending our strong position by, rebuilding our fleet to match the requirements of the fossil-free industries in the future. And at the same time, we are developing our customer portfolio to be even more resilient and more flexible, more versatile.
Really, this tremendous investment boom in Scandinavia is now driving the development of our company. For us, it's equal whether this investment takes place in Sweden or in Finland. We operate in both countries. Both countries are the home turf of ESL Shipping, and we also have a significant operation based in Sweden via the subsidiary, AtoB@C Shipping. The new vessel, Electra Mar, is a visible showcase today of the developments we are doing also on the Swedish market. As Rolf stated earlier, our ambition is to grow in size, to become a EUR 300 million revenue company by 2028, maintaining the same target level of profitability as we have had until now. We are today operating two different vessel classes and segments.
The coaster vessels are typically vessels with a carrying capacity of a bit less than 6,000 tons, between 4,000-6,000 tons. Vessels are typically 90-100 meters in length, and later today, you all will have the possibility of visiting one of these fantastic vessels. All our vessels are of the highest ice class. They are either 1A or 1A Super, and these are the requirements in order to serve the industries along the northern part of Bay of Bothnia. There will always be ice. As long as we live, there will be ice, and this past winter was really a strong one when it comes to ice formation, and we had more severe ice conditions than we have had during the last 20 years of time.
So the ice is not melting, it's not disappearing. But here in Helsinki, it, the ice may be only in the glass of some nice drink, but up in the north, ice is every year, six months a year requirement of the trade. We are operating both segments, typically in the same geographical area. We are serving the Scandinavian industries with raw materials, and we are taking their finished products to the market. So basically, we're operating on the European continental shelf, with all the vessels. We own all the Handysize vessels ourselves. They are tailored for the trade. They are all geared. It means they have cranes on board, for independent cargo handling, which is really one of the specialties ESL Shipping is offering. We have high profitability niche markets, such as, loading and discharging vessels at the sea.
Then on the coaster vessel segment, we currently are time chartering the majority part of our capacity, and the profitability of that business has fluctuated most due to the increases or decreases in the time charter hires of the vessels. So our aim in the future is to have more owned vessels also in that segment, and this is why we started the transformative investment program into 12 of these new coaster vessels. If we look at the commodities we carry nowadays, we've gone through a significant change during the last 10-15 years of time, because we used to be a coal-carrying company. We carried 5 million-6 million tons of steam coal to the power plants in southern Finland. That represented 50% of the portfolio we carried.
Today, the share of energy coal is approximately 5% of the tons and of the turnover, and it's declining even further. Our businesses are more or less equal in size, both businesses, approximately EUR 100 million in turnover, and both businesses are highly contracted businesses. So we are operating approximately 80% of our capacity on long-term contract with leading blue chip industrials in Scandinavia. We have happy customers, we have long-term customers, and we have been serving these companies for decades. The longest contracts, I think, today, have been running for more than 40 years already. We have a client base that is extremely satisfied also when they give us rating on the sustainability compared to our competition. And 60% of our clients, they see that we are doing better than our competition when it comes to environmental agenda and green transition.
And at the same time, when we are gearing up for the new requirements, we're also planning really big time for the future, and we have spent quite a lot of time and intelligent resources in developing new vessels to be completely fossil-free. As Rolf explained, our business model is different from the other businesses of the Aspo Group, because the timespan of the business is a quarter, but it's a longer quarter than normally. We have a quarter of 25 years in the business. We are very capital intensive, that is not to be denied, but at the same time, we have great opportunity to leverage the vessels we have on debt.
We have really solid cash flow, and we have shown that we have a solid cash flow over the business cycles, so the bankability of our projects is, is really good. We are able to produce high margins, but at the same time, because of the heavy CapEx investment needed, the return on, on capital employed is only medium, but at the same time, the return on equity can be really high. During the last years, we have concentrated a lot of effort in, in making a big transformative change in the way how we finance our business. And one of the first steps we did, two years ago in 2022, when we were able to launch an investor pool for the coaster vessels.
So of these 12 ships, 6 will be financed by AtoB@C Shipping and Aspo Group, and 6 others will be financed by external investors. So we have already sort of enabled lower leverage for the group, but at the same time, building a big fleet of really efficient vessels. And then, of course, the latest big change is that we have been able to strengthen our capability to invest via the minority investment into ESL Shipping. And this really gives us the tools for the future success and future investments.
What has happened at the same time during the last 10 years is that we have made a transformation from a cold carrier with very few clients, into market-leading environmental shipping company with clear ESG strategy, and with a much wider portfolio of clients and commodities to transport. So we have significantly better resilience in the business now than what we used to have, let's say, 10 years ago. And one of the big changes really was in 2018, when we acquired AtoB@C Shipping, we were able to, to grow from EUR 80 million revenue company to EUR 200 million during this few years' time. Now, what is happening on the demand side? What is the green transition all about? What are these investments that are taking place in Scandinavia?
Well, the great thing really is that the majority of it is taking place on our home turf, along the northern part of Bay of Bothnia, which is always limited by the ice six months in a year. So this is really the home market of ESL. We are strong in ice. We delivered every single ton our customers required, also during last winter, in very heavy ice conditions, where even icebreaker service was halted from time to time. We will see investments, already announced investments, investments where the building process is already ongoing. We will see big increased capacity in the green steel production, as an example. And a plant with approximately 2.5 million tons of production capacity, will require significantly more transportation than this 2.5 million tons.
So we will see significant growth, and that's why we expect, we foresee, that the relevant market to ESL will double during the next 10 years of time. But there's development also in other industries. We've seen significant capacity increases in forest industry, in pulp production, at sawmills. We have many new sawmills operating now in Finland, and when the market turns into better, we expect higher volumes to be shipped also from them. And in addition, the green transition needs a lot of clean electricity, and we are expecting the wind energy market to double during the next 10 years. And from 2030 onwards, also, wind farms will be built at sea, and this will increase the transport demand also during the construction stage significantly.
At the same time, when the market size is actually doubling, we are forecasting a reduction in shipping capacity in this market. We've done a statistical analysis on the tonnage that has been trading actively in the Bay of Bothnia. We have done statistical analysis on the world fleet with ice class. What will happen is that the capacity of the fleet will be decreasing by approximately 10%-20% during the next five years. At the same time, the known investments for new tonnage are very limited. Fantastic opportunity to grow and provide good returns on the investment. A third pillar of the growth story we have is the more strict environmental regulation that is affecting also our clients, but it's also affecting us as a shipping company.
We have entered the era of the emissions trading, and from next year onwards, we will also have a regulatory environment, where we must reduce the sort of greenhouse gas content of the fuel we are using in shipping. Wärtsilä, as an example, has estimated that all these regulated measures together will make marine fuel to be two times more expensive by 2030. It means that shipping companies that are investing into energy efficiency will be the winners in the market. Based on the increase in the transport demand, based on the shipping investment we will be doing in the best possible technology available, and combined with the sourcing of new fossil-free energy or low-emission energy, our intention is to be the leading environmental shipping company on the Scandinavian market. We have a multi-fuel strategy.
We already invested in LNG fuel vessels. We can start using liquid biogas anytime. We have very energy efficient, hybrid coaster vessels coming now every three months, and we are continuing to operate together with companies like Neste, to use their renewable fuels fleet-wide. And at the same time, we are designing completely fossil-free Handysize vessels.... So what will happen is that this investment into these type of ships we are showing to you today, and the new Green fossil-free Handys we are planning, we will be able to transport a much broader variety of commodities, not only bulk, but more versatile or expensive materials, products in a large scale. We can build a wider, more enhanced customer portfolio using our highly energy efficient, even fossil-free vessels. And all these things together, they will enable us to have stronger contractual risk sharing with the clients.
Based on these measures we have taken and will take, we were able to commit into science-based targets already at the turn of the year as a first company in the Aspo Group. This means that we shall be net zero in our emissions by year 2040. As sort of a midterm target, our ambition is to reduce our CO2 emissions by 50% already in 2030. A short summary of the activities we intend to do. Our ambition is to grow into a EUR 300 million company with a solid profitability, and we are doing it with the help of doubling market and investment into very low emission vessels.
Vessels that are multi-fuel capable, they are able to operate on hydrogen, they revert, in methanol, they will have the versatility required by the customers, and they will be very energy efficient, just like the vessel you will be seeing today. Investment are needed, but we believe that we have a solid story, and we will earn nice returns during the years to come as well. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mikki, for a great presentation. Now again, an opportunity to pose questions to Mikki and ESL Shipping. I suggest this time around, we start here in the room and maybe here next to Pasi.
Yes. Hi, it's Jonas from Evli. You say that you're going to invest maybe more than EUR 150 million in these new Green Handysize vessels, and my understanding is that a new built Handysize vessel is maybe EUR 30 million per vessel, or is it even more for these kinds of hybrid vessels?
We will come back to all the details at a later stage when we are more advanced in the discussions, and you will be among the first to know.
Okay. But if I just roughly try to arrive at some kind of figure that maybe you will invest in, say, 4-5 new Handysize vessels, and each handy has, like, a 25K of DWT, so that would be more than 100,000 DWTs added to your current capacity. I mean, currently you have, like, 300,000 DWTs after the Supramax sales, so that would be like an increase in capacity of less than 50%, while or-
At the same time, we need to bear in mind that, some older vessels will also leave the fleet, during this time period until 2028. So the estimates of the increased turnover and the, and the estimated investment, as, as Erkka has stated as well, they are, they are quite accurate, and they are reflecting sort of the size of the company we aim to have in, in 2028.
Yeah, sure. But I guess what I'm getting at is that you say you see your market is going to double, but your capacity expansion will still be quite limited compared to that. I mean, but if you say that your market is double, you're maybe adding, I don't know, 50% to your capacity. So, I guess my question is why aren't you maybe adding more if it's... Or are there, like, is it a question of or do you plan to maybe pool some of these new Handysize vessels as well?
I think the vessel pooling concept as such has proven to be quite a good one, and we see no reason why not to utilize that also in the future. That would then be sort of perhaps additional capacity to be available for the company's development. But that will be sort of the next stage, and what we have informed today is basically the plan and the ambition the Aspo Group has and Aspo Infra has for the future. But of course, we keep all the doors open, and as long as we have happy investors in the current pooling concept, I don't see any reason why we should not succeed with the bigger vessels as well later on.
That's good. And maybe another question. I think there was an earlier slide, I think it was maybe Erkka's slide, that there was the fifteen million euro EBIT-EBITDA that you see for all these twelve Green Coasters. And I mean, it, and the total cost of these Green Coasters is one hundred and forty million, and that divided by fifteen million, that's like nine point four or so. So can you say anything on this similar measure for these Handysize vessels? It may be somewhat similar.
To go back a little bit, we are investing EUR 70 million in the six own Green Coasters, and then we have additionally the investor-financed vessels that are taken into the same pool. Our income at ESL is consisting from the income and earnings from the own vessels, plus the earnings and commissions we will be earning from the pool vessels. So it's not that straightforward. You cannot sort of draw a conclusion directly that this and this money is coming from this and this source. But we have six owned vessels, and the combined income from the vessel earnings and the pool earnings is this estimated EUR 15 million EBITDA when all the vessels are in operation.
Okay, sure. Thanks. That's all.
Thank you. Any further questions? Pasi.
Great, thanks. This is Pasi from Nordea. Just to clarify, so what is the figure, I mean, on the top-line effect coming from the divestment of Supramax vessels? So, maybe if I just...
All, all numbers shown today, they are excluding the Supramax vessels.
You mean... Well, what would be the pro forma effect coming from this Supramax vessels? So what was the earnings or sales effect when they were active?
I think what we estimated or what we informed today was a turnover of EUR 178 million for last year. And the full turnover for the company in 2023 was, if I remember correctly, EUR 189 million.
Two more questions from my side. Did I hear right that you are actually not using natural gas or LNG currently, even though you have those vessels able to kind of use?
Of course we are. Of course.
Okay.
But I was referring to the use of liquid biogas instead of li-
Okay
... liquefied natural gas.
Lastly, what was the reason, actually, you ordered these new hybrid vessels with the fossil engines? So why you didn't actually buy 12 fossil-free vessels at the first place?
That is a good question. I think it takes many years to plan a series of vessels. Basically, you have a lead time of five to six years from the time you start the design until the vessel is delivered. Currently, based on the most recent technological developments, fossil-free technology is available for the bigger vessels, but it is still not today available for vessels of this size at the commercially viable terms. And this type of a vessel, if equipped, with the technology we plan to have, for the fossil-free vessels, on this size of a vessel it would be too expensive.
So we have done everything possible to electrify the vessel, to make it as fuel-efficient as possible, and of course, we have the possibility of using renewable fuels on this vessel as well, even if the majority of the power is produced by biodiesel engine.
So, well, maybe a last one follow-up regarding this new vessel. So what's the, a length or a time in terms of hours you can actually drive that vessel with your battery?
The most important factor in electrifying the vessel is sort of the holistic possibility of peak shaving in the energy consumption. We are as well making the vessel very safe because it's virtually impossible to cause a blackout into the vessel which has a battery system on board. We can dimension many of the equipment on board to be smaller because we have the redundancy available, and we can lower the total energy consumption of the vessel by electrifying it and by using the battery in a similar manner how the batteries are used in a hybrid car. So it's actually lowering the total energy consumption of that unit.
Then more precisely to your question, the vessel is capable of transiting at the speed of, let's say, 7 knots, with only utilizing electricity from the battery and without using any engines on board. And it can use this form or this mode of operation for approximately 3 hours.
Great, thanks. That was all.
Thank you. Good. Before we move over to the next session, big thank you, Mikki, for a good presentation. We would like to take, let's say, about a 10-minute break, so you have the opportunity to fill your coffee cups, both at home and here in the studio today, and let's reconvene at 10:50 finish time, so that's precisely in 8 minutes from now. All right. Welcome back to Aspo's Capital Markets Day 2024. I hope you have had the opportunity to fill your coffee cups. Next, we'll continue with presentations from Telko and Leipurin. Starting off now is Mikko Pasanen from Telko. Please.
All right. Hello, and, let's deep dive in the world of compounding and distribution. So during the next 50 minutes, I will run you through, what has happened during the last three years, and especially what will happen during the next three years. Might be that I will have to skip couple of topics, but, let's see where we go. So today, Telko has three main, business areas. We are distributing plastics, chemicals, and lubricants. As of today, prior to, Swed Handling closing, plastics, is and will remain actually after the closing of, Swed Handling, our biggest, business, representing roughly, half of our, revenue today. As of today, chemicals and lubricants are more or less about the same size, but obviously, after the, closing of the Swed Handling deal, that situation will change quite significantly.
In all of these three businesses, we have the same role in value chain. We are the bridge between, suppliers, or principals as we call them, and thousands and thousands of customers throughout, Northern Europe and in Asia. So one could say that, on the other hand, we are the extension of, sales activity of our suppliers, but on the other hand, we are very much also helping our customers to source, correct material in an efficient way. So our value, as of today, we have mainly three drivers where we can see that we are generating value to our partners at both end of, value chain.
Traditionally, distributors have been quite good at improving the productivity by making sure that the level of capital tied in the operation is low, products are reliable, they enter the right moment, and so on, and that remains to be important. But as Telko is more and more focused on specialty products, more and more of our additional value is actually on the operational excellence, how we are able to help our customers to change their product generation or improve their productions. And lately, more and more sustainability requirements are entering into picture, not just as, like, a mandatory must-have, but since there is a demand from the market, that has a clear value component in it.
So we are helping our customers, and also our suppliers, suppliers, to choose the right products, for right purposes also when it comes to sustainability attributes. Telko has a great place, in the world of business, so there are many estimates that, exactly the spot where Telko is, is actually quite good one. All in all, it is estimated that in Europe, but throughout the world as well, chemicals will grow faster than the GDP. And inside of the chemicals, specialties will grow faster than bulk products. Then also, there is, like, a strengthening trend that the role of distributors will grow, during coming years. Actually, we see an evidence already of that, so that is like a shift, in the channel sales channels from going direct, and moving to distributors.
And because of that, co-producers are handing some of the business more and more to distributors. They want to mitigate that risk by having more than just one huge distributor, and that provides opportunities for small and medium-sized distributors, as we are. And it is therefore estimated that these companies will grow faster than the giants. And then it's good to have a focus also in distribution, so therefore it is estimated that focused companies will grow faster than companies who are, like, having all possible products and just wide wide portfolio without clear focus. So if you look at where our business is good at and where we are focusing inside that, so obviously Telko is a growth company.
We will grow both organically, and as I hope you have noticed also inorganically, and we try to keep on doing that. It is important in this business model that we have chosen, that we are able to unify existing, but also those companies that we acquire, unify processes inside of them so that we can get the benefits, scale benefits and efficiency by having more lean way of doing and not duplicating, for example, logistics in a certain country where we acquire a company. If we then look what are the cornerstones of our business model, besides the obvious factor of growth, I would highlight the importance of capital employed, or actually, the fact that it's relatively low.
So, since the majority of our capital is tied in working capital, adjusting it is relatively easy and fast. This also allows us to make sure that the return on the capital that we have tied in the business can be maintained high and we can adapt to various market situations relatively well. Obviously, the growth enables us more and more utilize the efficiencies of scale, and that way we see that our OpEx obviously will grow as we grow, but the growth rate of costs should be significantly lower than the growth rate of revenue and margin. In ESG world, I would highlight three things.
One is that it's important that in our own operations, we are exemplary and in a way forerunner and in 'cause that is like a question of credibility. So if we, our own operations are not in line, it's difficult to sell value based on sustainability attributes. The second one, perhaps, is more on the S and G side of ESG, since we are working in and operating in heavily regulated business. So there as well, there are some mandatory requirements, but more and more often because of the increased requirements on the reporting and compliance, there is also value attribute also in the offering there.
And then the third one, of course, is that where the biggest environmental impact is, is the tier three, so the products that we are actually selling. There, we can help a lot and impact a lot on the decisions that are being made in value chain by our customers, but also by our suppliers. Three years ago, I showed you a picture as a part of our CMD presentation. Today, I can happily say that we did what we said that we will do. So, our strategy has remained the same, and we have carried out those actions what we said that we will do, and we are currently very much in the expansion phase of this three-step ladder that we showed you in 2001.
Obviously, the war in Ukraine and our exit from Russia impacted somewhat our progress, took like for a year quite a lot of management focus away. But all in all, the underlying strategy has remained the same. And as a part of this, we have during last three years on top of exiting Russia started to do this first wave of acquisitions. But I would say that still more important is the part of the work that has perhaps not been so visible to you guys. And that is that below the surface we have made a lot of changes at Telko to enable our future growth and make sure that Telko is capable of taking in multiple new companies and new businesses each year.
Three years ago, I showed you a picture as a part of our CMD presentation. Today, I can happily say that we did what we said that we will do. So, our strategy has remained the same, and we have carried out those actions what we said that we will do, and we are currently very much in the expansion phase of this three-step ladder that we showed you in 2001. Obviously, the war in Ukraine and our exit from Russia impacted somewhat our progress, took like for a year quite a lot of management focus away. But all in all, the underlying strategy has remained the same. As a part of this, we have during last three years on top of exiting Russia started to do this first wave of acquisitions.
But I would say that still, more important is the part of the work that has perhaps not been so visible to you guys. And that is that, below the surface, we have made a lot of changes at Telko to enable our future growth and make sure that Telko is capable of taking in multiple new companies and new businesses each year. So we have entered this kind of a map today. During last three years, these acquisitions have strengthened our position in Baltics, in Poland, in Sweden, and in Norway. And I would say that, when we are thinking about our strategy and going forward, Poland is a good example of the approach that we would like to utilize.
We have been there for years, with our plastics business, and then two years back, we acquired Eltrex for our chemicals business. And now, this year, we have started our industrial lubricants operations, kind of on a greenfield basis, heavily relying on the existing operations there and existing platform. So that enables us to grow in the markets easier and more cost-efficiently, once we have established our business there. Which, of course, then, brings us to our latest acquisition in Western Europe, France, and Benelux, where we acquired Optimal few months ago. And, more I know we have studied now the company, more happy I am about what we actually bought.
So, exactly the kind of business what we want to have, and great team of people there. Industrial lubricants is one of our most profitable businesses and a very capital-light business. And by this acquisition, we almost doubled our industrial lubricants business. And if you take lubricants as a whole, including the automotive part, then the growth was roughly 35%. So significant move for lubricants business alone. But for Telko, this then enables the next steps of our strategy execution also in these regions. And then, of course, just few weeks back, we announced even more significant and bigger acquisition that Telko will acquire Swed Handling in Sweden. We expect the closing to happen somewhere during Q3 depending on the authorities 'cause this requires approvals.
Swed Handling is one of the three big chemical distributors in Sweden. The two other ones are international giants. So this repositions our Telko completely different way in the Swedish market, obviously for chemicals. But here, the same logic applies as well. So we can utilize the know-how of Swed Handling for the benefit of other businesses as well. And they have excellent business models that we can utilize then in other countries in going forward.... So yeah, it's like frustrating to wait still a few more months, but I'm confident that this will be a great case. So many opportunities that we have recognized there. And obviously, the journey will continue.
After these acquisitions, we are also so we will be in the ballpark of EUR 280 million, kind of, on a pro forma basis or whatever you call it, and our profitability will approach EUR 20 million threshold. Not quite, but going to the right direction. So this means that actually, after this acquisition, Telko will be bigger than ever, even before exit from Russia. And we think that we are capable, going forward, to take in several new companies each year. Perhaps one or two bigger ones, and then three two, three, four smaller one, kind of add-ons, as we call them. Currently, the market sentiment is such that it provides great opportunities for M&A activity. There are a couple of drivers.
First is that this, as I demonstrated, is a good business, and some others have noticed that, that as well. So, private equity is quite heavily coming in. Consolidation is happening. So there are drivers, but there are also factors on the sales side. And one of the big factors is actually regulation and all kind of a reporting that is going forward. In the world, you have, like, 20,000 chemical distributors, many of them family-owned companies, relatively small ones. So for those, the current requirements are quite heavy burden, and there is not necessarily next generation that much willing to take over. And the valuation is also on a reasonable level. If you look at our business, it's... We can see that there are fluctuations on the profitability.
We are a lot happy that, at current cycle bottom, our profitability is higher than we were at, the low, or about the same level as the low. The low of this, cycle is about the same as the high of the previous cycle. And, we will continue to grow that, axis around which this, circle goes so that we will meet, 8% in, coming years. There are multiple ways, partly because of the mix, partly because of the acquisitions, and then big part of, of that coming from, improving, the operations. So, by the end of 2028, we should have a machine, in Telko, which produces revenue beyond, EUR 500 million. And, with the 8%, you can see that, EBITDA should be more than, EUR 40 million.
Even taking into account our M&A considerations, Telko's own free cash flow should be clearly positive and produce healthy capital employed, original capital employed, and so that our business portfolio would be more or less so that plastics and chemicals is representing 40% and then around 20% in lubricants. Thank you.
Thank you, Mikko. Great presentation. Questions for Mikko Pasanen? I have one question here online related to your M&A strategy. You have now done quite a lot of M&A in different geographies, and also you have said that you have the potential to do new geographies, and you also do add-ons to existing markets. Can you elaborate a bit on that? How do you see sort of going forwards? What's the mix between add-ons and new geographies?
So in new markets, if we are to enter, and yes, I suppose that, if we are looking to increase our sales by some EUR 200 million, that would include couple of new geographies, somewhere along the way. But when we are entering new markets, the size of the new business would be, should be sufficient, that it would run on its own, even if the family who is owning is leaving. So we call those platforms. So, but once we have established in the country, we are ready to take in even smaller companies, 'cause there we have the main function, logistics, back office, and so forth, in place, and we can accommodate a smaller, family-owned businesses even.
And why I'm addressing family-owned businesses, actually, I think all except one of the companies that we have acquired so far have been previously family-owned. There is a clear trend. Main focus, I think, for the add-ons, obviously, is existing markets, to strengthen the position here.
Thank you.
Yeah, hi, it's Jonas from Evli. Azelis, IMCD, and Brenntag, they... I think they have each been acquiring around EUR 400 million of revenue each year. And for Brenntag, that's only maybe a couple of percent because it's a big business, but for Azelis and IMCD, that's maybe, like, 10%. You have, in the past years, you have done maybe a couple of percent at points, but this year you have already announced 30%, and I think that's maybe... It's not... I wouldn't expect you to able to do 30% every year, but, could you maybe try to set this into some-- How do you see your long term? I mean, what would be like a sort of a sustainable rate that you can, comfortably integrate with your existing business? Is it like 5%-10%?
Also, like, what do you think? How do you see your organic growth profile? Is it 5% or, maybe that's, that's like the market growth rate, something like that. Do you aim organically much above 5% with some measures?
Let's begin with the organic growth first. So, there are a couple of factors, and we kind of try to understand what is the underlying growth, 'cause you have the prices going, fluctuating up and down, and that on it. So, we see that over the cycle, we are aiming to grow 4%-5% on a kind of a fixed prices basis. So when the prices will be increasing, we will exceed that one, and when the prices are coming down, of course, that will have a negative impact on the, because of prices on... But all in all, based on our position and studies that others have made, we believe that, 4%-5% is very much realistic on a long-term basis.
Then when it comes to amount of acquisitions, so one important aspect since the last CMD was that we totally renewed our organization, so that if we acquire business in certain part of the business, it doesn't disturb, in a way, other ones. So, that's why we are running plastics, chemicals, lubricants, like independently, and even inside of them, we have, for example, in plastics, volume plastics and engineering plastics. So which enables us to acquire. We already have, like, when we acquire a company, now we know where their future home will be, and, we can, in a way, isolate that so that other businesses will continue.
The good thing about this low pace of acquisitions, and it has been partly intentional, is that we have, like, studied our integration process and improved it, so that we know how it goes. And I think that we have now quite good process how to take in new companies. I think it was mentioned that it would require roughly EUR 150 million to reach this. So there you can, if you split it to four years, so that gives you a ballpark number, how much we will grow. And yeah, what would it be then? More than 10% anyway, the percentage.
All right, thanks.
Basically, one or two, perhaps one bigger one or two bigger ones per year, I think that's maximum, and then several smaller ones.
All right, thanks. And what can you tell us about these two latest acquisitions, principal relationships, and products? How familiar are you with those from your other markets?
Optimal, Greenfluid are Castrol houses, as we are in Finland. So, I think that in Europe, we are currently now their biggest distributor in industrial lubricants. We are one of the biggest, overall biggest, distributors of industrial lubricants in Europe. So, and our track record in our existing markets has been extremely good. So I suppose, and I know that they are quite happy. With Swed Handling, there are two elements. There you have suppliers that are important, but also the business model. And the business model that they are having, we know 'cause we have similar one, smaller, but similar in Rauma, where we have tank terminals, and we are doing pretty much the same operations, but in Finland and to certain degree, smaller scale. And then the distributors we know.
So all in all, we understand majority of the business, but always when you acquire businesses, there are customers that are different, and that's why it's important that we first secure the existing business, understand in a way the DNA of it properly before we start, like, changing, especially with these big ones.
All right. Maybe a last question. This lubricants business, you acquired 12% EBIT margin. That's already quite high. How does that compare to your existing lubricants margins? And, and also, Swed Handling, also 9% EBIT margin, I think that's already quite high. So what kinds of synergy potential do you see there?
As I mentioned, industrial lubricants is one of our best businesses already, was before. We have not opened each individual business, but we knew what we would be getting, and so no surprises there. And potential in France, Benelux, there we don't have any other businesses, so there is more like a potential what we can build there on top in the future. Whereas with Swed Handling, obviously, we are still competitors with them. There is. We cannot go into numbers yet since it has not been closed, so there are certain things that we do not know and cannot plan yet. But obviously, we see a lot of opportunities since we are operating in the same markets.
We see that we can cross-sell a lot in Sweden. And then currently, we, for example, have two logistics systems then overlapping, which then would, at least should, bring some synergy potential there. So there are many, many small elements where the synergy flows are coming.
Right. Thanks.
...Thank you. Good! Next, thank you, Mikko, for the good presentation and Q&A. Next up, Miska, the floor is yours.
Thank you. All right, last but not least, Leipurin. I will talk about Leipurin markets, our current operating model, and our strategy and our progress. Leipurin operates in the food market at large, namely as a supplier to the food industry. Leipurin's core in this business has been, and still is, in the bakery segment, which we estimate to be about EUR 0.5 billion market in the geography where we currently operate. Here, the market meaning estimate of the ingredient purchases of the bakery market in total. Beyond the bakeries, there is all the other food industry, all the other segments, which we estimate to be about 20 times bigger than the bakery segment alone.
We are already active in this segment and see major growth potential in this area, both organically and through M&A. The food market overall is quite stable and very resilient, and the changes are driven mostly by consumer economics and the fluctuating prices of the basic agricultural commodities, from which all food is, of course, made. While the food market is very resilient, very stable, there is a major transition going on towards plant-based alternatives and non-animal-based alternatives. Our offering at Leipurin is about 90% plant-based already today.
And as a wholesaler, without much locked in own production and a large supplier base, we are quite agile to operate also on this fairly fast-moving scene in the plant-based and non-animal-based alternatives. And on the sustainability side, also in the food industry, this scene is changing now quite fast due to the increasing regulation. Our customers are increasingly needing more information, more sustainability-related information about the ingredients that they buy, because that's the only way for them to improve their own sustainability.
We see this kind of data about the products, about their environmental footprint and the transparency about the upstream supply chain to become first as competitive advantage for us, and later, probably more like a license to operate in the industry. Quick look into how Leipurin looks today. We are a leading business-to-business ingredient supplier to the food industry at large. Very strong in the bakery segment in the countries where we operate, about 160 employees, about EUR 140 million sales in total, and last year, comparable operating profit, EUR 4.2 million. So our position in the value chain is a wholesaler, an in-ingredients wholesaler, connecting a very broad base of suppliers and products to our local customer needs.
To be successful in this, of course, we have to be relevant, important, and a rational choice to our customers and to our suppliers alike. For our suppliers, we provide a direct sales access to the Northern, our Nordic geography. For the customer, we provide the large supplier base, very large product portfolio as a one-stop shop from a local supplier with local services, with secure product availability, reliable deliveries, and so on. The characteristics of our business model compared to Telko and ESL, our logic is to connect and bridge our principals, our suppliers, products to our local customer needs. Very resilient and stable market, growing organically, expecting to grow over 3% annually.
Also inorganic growth, buy and build, and through that, also shifting our business focus and the product portfolio focus towards higher margin, high-value-add products. Capital employed, basically, it's our working capital, so low CapEx needs, quick rotation of inventory, financing available, as needed based on our improving profitability. Low to medium margins on an average, depending on the segments, but then again, high return on capital and liquid. We are in the middle of a successful turnaround, starting about 2021, 2022. Recently, we have changed our operating model from the previous matrix to a more country-based operating model with country-based P&L responsibilities, and this seems to work much better than the previous model. I think we have better now recognized that our business is actually quite local.
The customer needs, the eating habits, consumer preferences are quite country-specific, and also our customer base is different in various countries. So this has taken us forward quite a bit. We have focused a lot upon processes, on capability development, operative performance that is already showing in our profitability. And we have also made some selective changes to our product portfolio and also the customer portfolio to turn it better. And we are doing M&A to shift the geographical focus from the previous east to west, recently in Sweden. A look into our strategy.
Our vision is to become the leading partner for R&D and ingredient supply for the food industry in Northern Europe, and how we're doing that, I said our current core is in the bakeries, in the bakery segment. We are going to strengthen our position in that, in that further. For growth, we are looking to build a broader North European coverage, meaning new countries, growing in the non-bakeries customers, meaning the other food industry beyond the bakeries, where we are already moving ahead at the moment. And on the sustainability side, we are able to enable the customers' sustainability journey, by the offering that we have and the information that we give about the products.
With all this, we are aiming for our ambition is to go over the EUR 200 million sales level at an operating profit of 5%. About the bakery. In the bakery, Leipurin has operated for more than 100 years already, built a very strong position in this particular segment. Very trusted, very well-known brand in our customer and supplier base. One worthy notion about this, that our model, working with the bakeries and also with the other food industries, is not to be a trader, but to have a lot of competencies in-house for product development and R&D.
We work closely with our customers to develop the actual final food products that are sold to the consumers, and we have quite a lot of capabilities in that. And I said, we want to expand our geographic coverage and market footprint further. We are actively looking for organic and inorganic growth opportunities throughout the area of Northern Europe. We already done this in big scale, in the Leipurin context, with Kobia, which was a major acquisition for Leipurin, more than compensating all the revenue loss from the East exit. And our most recent acquisition, Kebelco, also from Sweden. Kebelco is also an ingredients supplier to the food industry in Sweden. Growing nicely, very profitable, focusing on areas of dairy, confectionery, and nutrition.
And this, their supplier base and product base and customer base is very complementary to what Leipurin is currently doing in the same area. And also, this also enables our shift towards the, let's say, more value-added specialty ingredients compared to commodities. And we really see big opportunities for leveraging Kebelco's supplier base, the product base, the competence base, across all Leipurin countries. So we see this as a scalable business within the Leipurin platform. Then growth beyond bakeries. I said we have, in recent years, developed capabilities to serve also the other food industry. We have acquired Kebelco, that is a direct hit in this area.
I said, this is a way bigger market and than the bakery alone, and we are making good progress with that already. About 15% of our revenue already comes from that area, and it will grow. Then on the sustainability side, we are also committing to the Science Based Targets initiative. Based on our analysis so far, our own Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and footprint is fairly low, but we will further improve in reducing our food waste, improving the recyclability of the packaging materials, and the impact of our transportations. Health and safety are a good level. We will keep it that way.
A noteworthy thing is that both our employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction has improved from, let's say, modest to great in the last couple of years. And of course, also food safety. I mean, in the past decades, food safety has really been the core of sustainability in food in general, and that's—of course, that's still maybe the most important thing, that food is safe. And we have all the systems and audited systems and processes in place for that. We will further shape our product offering also towards these novel ingredients and applications in the plant-based transition. And we will support our customers in their sustainability journey when they are creating the actual final food products for consumers.
We are in the process of building a lot more data about the products, about the transparency, about the product's footprint, to help our customers with making smart choices. But as a summary, Leipurin is on track to reach the 5% profitability level, which is our target, and we are geared for growth. Thank you.
Thank you, Miska. Good presentation. Do we have questions to Miska here in the room? We have online a question related to the latest acquisition, Kebelco. What are the main synergy sources related to Kebelco or the food industry in general for the Leipurin Group?
Well, starting from the overall synergies from the food industry, I think what we are already doing with about 15% of our revenue coming from the other food industry is that our operating model and the business model is very directly applicable to also the other food industry segments. Of course, we need to build more expertise, more capabilities in that area, because we are really experts in baking, in sweet baking and bread baking from the history, and we now need to increase our own capabilities to the same level on those food industry segments where we choose to operate. And basically, Kebelco is a direct hit in these efforts.
That will give us about EUR 10 million more revenue on very specialized ingredients in Sweden, and we can leverage it also in the other Leipurin countries.
Thank you. There we have one question.
Jonas from Evli. If I can put the Leipurin to some perspective compared to Telko, I mean, I think in Telko's business, the market opportunity is such that the very largest customers, which are like maybe 15%, they represent like, I don't know, 80% of the market, and hence the principals are maybe better off serving themselves. But the remaining 85%, they represent, of customers, represent only 20% of revenue. And hence, this long tail of customers is the market that special distributors, they can add value for principals by addressing this long tail of customers. So is Leipurin, how much different in this respect from Telko? How does it look like from this perspective? Is there like a... Can you maybe talk about this dynamic?
Well, the way we look at the bakery market is that we split it to so-called industrial bakeries and the artisanal bakeries. Artisanal bakeries being the small and mid-sized ones, and of course, the number there is higher, and the big industrial ones being the market leaders in the bakery industry. We are able to serve both quite equally. Of course, for the smaller ones, we are often more like a one-stop shop to almost all of the ingredients that they buy. And of course, for bigger ones, like Vaasan Fazer, of course, they have 10,000 articles that they are buying, and they are not buying everything from us.
But we are able to serve both quite, quite in the same way. Currently in the bakery, about 40% come from the big industrial bakeries and about 60% from the mid and small ones.
Right. And maybe you already touched upon this food market. Bakery market is maybe like 30% CAGR, and the food market, I don't know, 5%-6% market growth and a lot more stable. I guess pricing is a lot more stable within these active food ingredients.
Active... More, say it again?
Stable pricing levels when it comes to these active food ingredients.
Well, pricing wise, our prices are driven, they are driven by consumer economics, what is trendy at a given time, and then mostly by the fluctuating commodity prices, agricultural commodity prices. Those are the biggest drivers.
Maybe can you tell us something about your existing Finnish food industry business that we saw that this Kebelco has 7%-9% EBIT margins? How does that roughly reflect on the Finnish business? Are there, like, somewhat similar or-
Roughly the same, yes. And the other food industry beyond bakery is, the share of that is the biggest in Finland at the moment. Say the question again.
Yeah, I mean, how does it compare to the Finnish food industry? I mean, if Kebelco does 7%-9% EBIT margins, which is rather high compared to Leipurin as a whole, so how does it look like from your Finnish perspective? I mean, the Finnish food industry business is still relatively small.
It is, profitability-wise, it's similar to our own, our other business. Of course, in Finland, now that we have started this heavily couple of years ago, to enter the market, we have to go in with, let's say, some basic products to kind of open the doors. Whereas Kebelco has been in the business for a long time and is working more already with the specialty, high value adding ingredients. But of course, what we want to do in the food industry is shift our focus towards the specialty ingredients. And in the food industry, we can do that. In bakery, we are, and we kind of have to be, an overall supplier of everything. One, from wheat flour to the finest confectionary decorations, because of our market position.
I mean, we cannot exclude much. But in the 20 times bigger food industry, we can be more selective and pick the segments where we actually want to play, and probably not play with the most basic commodities.
Thanks.
Thank you, Miska.
Thank you.
Good. So we have now heard presentations, both from Aspo Group and all segments, and now it is time for Rolf Jansson to come back to stage and wrap up the session, and then there will be another Q&A opportunity after that.
I will just make a summary of what we talked about today, and thank you very much to everyone presenting. My take is that we have extremely clear strategies of all the businesses. If I look at ESL, basically market doubling over the next 10 years, and at the same time, capacity reduced by approximately 20% over the next years. A great market to be in doing the green investments. If I look at Telko, a very fragmented market, great compounding opportunity in a scalable business model. And Leipurin, how I look at it, is great track record of profitability improvement, and in addition, investments in the right small segments where there are good gross margins. Our financial ambition is to create the EUR 1 billion company.
We are going for the 8% EBITDA, and basically what I presented was that we're, if you include the organic growth, we're basically halfway there to the 2028 targets. Sustainability, listening to the presentations here today, I would say that sustainability is extremely integrated in the strategies of all the businesses, and today we say that we will commit by year-end to the science-based targets. And that goes for Aspo and all of its businesses. We presented a portfolio vision, saying that we will form two companies out of Aspo: Aspo Infra and Aspo Compounder. The way we will do it and the timing is still to be determined, but we're very much focusing on creating an investment profile that is very clear and transparent to the market. And basically, value is the driver for this transformation.
The leadership model, basically, the businesses will focus on delivering the full potential of the company's growth as well as profitability, and Aspo Group will lead the transformation. Finally, dividend policy. We said today that we will pay up to 50% of net profit as dividend and always consider kind of strategic opportunity, strategic investment opportunities while doing that. I think this was kind of the summary of our key messages today, and now I presume, Mikko, that we have some time left for possible questions.
Yes, exactly. Thank you, Rolf. So now is your opportunity still to ask further questions before we then go over to lunch, and let's remember also then to introduce the lunch, but I suggest we do that after the Q&A. So let's start with the questions. I see one hand raised here. Pasi, go ahead.
Thanks. This is Pasi from Nordea. By looking at your target, EUR 1 billion on 2028, so is it the run rate at the end of that year or to the kind of target for the full year? And the second one is related to this value creation team. So do you have any hurdle rate how you actually measure the value creation? So are you going to sell businesses or kind of segments or kind of operations for EV, EBIT, let's say 12, or trying to acquire businesses for EV, EBIT 6 or 7s, or even 8? So what's the hurdle rate when looking at the value creation on buying and selling operations? Thanks.
The ambition of EUR 1 billion, that's calculated to be the net sales 2028, and that goes also for the profitability target of 8%, EBITDA. If we then look at kind of sale and particularly acquisitions, it's a very complex question. So the acquisitions that we do, I think, in the past, we've been kind of in the multiple play of, let's say, 6x-8x EBIT. That's where we've been. But it very much depend what type of business, what is the size of the business, profitability of the business, and specifically also the kind of position of the business, in the market. So for example, Swed Handling, extremely strong position in the Swedish market, and then there's a kind of implication on the multiple.
Selling our businesses, it's too early to comment, and of course, it very much depends on the performance, the business as such. And as said, the portfolio vision, it's not necessarily sale. It can be a de-merger, IPO, et cetera. All the tools are on the table.
Jonas from Evli. One other question related to Kebelco and the nutritional ingredients market. It seems to me that you probably might have placed Kebelco under Telko as well. I mean, at least some of Telko's peers are also present in the nutritional ingredients business. So I guess my question is, might you still consider also expanding Telko within... Might you enter Telko for the nutritional ingredients market through some other acquisition in the future?
I think a very good and well-founded question. So first, looking at Swed Handling as a total, I think Aspo was the best possible buyer for this company because there are great synergies between Telko and Swed Handling and great synergies between Leipurin and Kebelco. Actually think, both gentlemen here answered those questions, so Swed Handling, supply chain synergies, cross sales, Kebelco, extremely interesting opportunities to basically sell colors, flavors to the existing customer base. I think Telko has touched upon also the kind of the nutrition market, which is also relevant for the kind of big peers of Telko. However, these are then kind of great volumes of certain products, whereas, I think Leipurin, as Miska explained, it's also about being a kind of full one-stop shop for the artisan bakeries.
And then I come back to the fact that, the synergies by introducing Kebelco to Leipurin, I think they are tremendous compared to if we would have added this business to Telko.
Thanks.
Do we have any further questions? If not, then I suggest that this is where we say thank you to our online viewers. So this is Aspo's Capital Markets Day 2024, and we will continue here with lunch served by our fabulous team from Leipurin. Maybe Rolf, Miska, if you'd like to introduce what we are having here.
Sure. As Leipurin is in the taste and deliciousness business, we have a pleasure to offer you lunch today. We will have artisan pizza created by our Finnish bakery and food development specialists, Uro, Kimmo, and Taria. Uro and Kimmo are here. Please, please come on stage.
Maybe please tell us more.
Hello, hello.
Hello.
My name is Kimmo Virtanen. I'm a bakery advisor in Leipurin, so I'm not really pizza chef, but it is really interesting to offer today this pizza buffet, and of course, pizza based on dough, and pizza dough is really complicated recipe. I know all about rye breads, oat bread, also bread. I have seen the growth of oat, of course, Danish pastries, puff pastries, all kind of bakery products. But pizza base, even in gluten-free base nowadays, is really in good shape, I mean, quality. And it's all about good, excellent raw materials. Wheat flour, it's totally different than Finnish wheat flour. Tipo 00 from Italy. Several types of these flours, it's not usual in Finland.
So we have all, in our bakery business, growth using only one wheat flour. So you can't really make good pizzas with so, so I started Saturday morning-