Good afternoon from Helsinki. Can you hear us?
We can hear you.
Okay, thanks for confirming. Yeah, we were a bit concerned. Nobody answered, but thanks. Let's give it a few more minutes. People are joining. On a historic day, so first day of trading with new name and trading code. Hiab.
It's not the rest of April Fools' joke.
The weather is, at least here in Helsinki, really nice and sunny. It is 2:00 P.M. here in Helsinki, 12:00 in London, and 1:00 P.M. in Stockholm. Welcome to Hiab's first ever pre- silent call today, 1st of April. We continue with the same format as we had with Cargotec. First there will be a short introduction from our CFO, Mikko Puolakka. Then we will start with the Q&A session. With that, over to you, Mikko.
Thank you, Aki, and good afternoon also from my side. A couple of top topics, so the usual disclaimer. Yeah, quite many events happening in the first quarter. As of today, like Aki mentioned already earlier, the company is now called Hiab as of today. The trading code is simply Hiab, so easy to remember. Last Cargotec's annual general meeting was held last week's Wednesday. Scott Phillips, who has been the Hiab Business Area President since 2018, is now, as of today, the Hiab Group CEO. We also published the 2024 quarterly segment information for Equipment and Services. That was published on 28th of March, 2025, and I will come back to that a bit later. Last but not least, MacGregor separation has been progressing also according to our plans. We are then heading towards the closing in the next few months.
What we have said earlier, that we plan to close latest 1st of July, still holds. Of course, the sooner all the conditions are clear, the sooner we can then close. Few words about Hiab. Hiab is the leader in the on-road load handling solutions. We have very, very strong brands, very long customer relationships, and a very broad service coverage with over 3,000 locations worldwide. The markets we are chosen to operate in, in those markets we are number one, number two position. Really attractive market sizes. The markets offer to us good growth opportunities from Hiab's perspective. If we calculate the equipment market together, it is roughly EUR 4.5 billion. If we think that Hiab's 2024 equipment revenue was roughly EUR 1.2 billion, that would make roughly 30% equipment market share.
Before we go into the segment financials, let me illustrate a bit Hiab's transition from the business area to a standalone company from a profitability point of view. In 2024, Hiab delivered as a business area EUR 245 million, or 14.9% comparable operating profit. In Hiab's 2024 business area results, there were roughly EUR 10 million Hiab business area central costs, which are not allocated to Hiab's divisions. This is illustrated in this picture with the orange bar. In the future, these costs will be part of the standalone Hiab Group costs, and they will also in the future not be allocated to the Equipment and Services reporting segments. Now, when we have dismantled the Cargotec Group, EUR 28 million of the 2024 group costs are related to Hiab. This is approximately 1.7% units in comparable operating profit margin.
As a reference, in 2023, this cost was roughly EUR 33 million. We have done already in 2024 some optimization for that cost. When we look at continuing operations 2024 profitability, basically the third bar from the left, the business area Hiab results and with the standalone costs, the profitability would be 13.2% for 2024. As of the third quarter 2025, interim reporting, Hiab will be reporting equipment and services. For those reporting segments, we will report order intake, sales, and operating profit. The equipment 2024 comparable operating profit was 13.1%, and services was 21.5% for the full year. In addition to these two reporting segments, there will be the Hiab group costs also reported separately. These group costs consist of the previously mentioned Hiab business area overheads, so that is EUR 10 million for 2024.
Those Cargotec group costs, which continue then later with Hiab. All in all, EUR 38 million for 2024. If we look a bit more in detail, the equipment segment performance, equipment order intake has been fairly flat since quarter four 2022. Here you can see basically the 2024 on quarterly basis. Order book has been coming down as we have been consuming still, especially in the first half of 2024, the exceptionally high kind of COVID order book orders where the lead times have been exceptionally long. As you can see from the picture since quarter two, the order book has been relatively stable. The equipment segment's profitability has been around 15% with the past quarter's sales levels. Quarter four was impacted by the EUR 15 million non-recurring costs related to the EUR 20 million cost savings program.
Because part of these non-recurring costs are related to our Italian assembly operations streamlining, and we expect that these one-off costs will yield then benefits in the second half of this year in form of better profitability for that Italian operations. When looking at services, services revenue grew 2% in 2024. Quarter four revenues were up by 4%. Profitability has been fairly stable throughout the quarters, as you can see around 22%. Service profitability may fluctuate during the quarters or in between the quarters due to the mix, for example, what kind of spare parts revenues and versus installation services we happen to have in a specific quarter. As you can see, profitability has been fairly stable. When thinking the long-term targets, we specified the standalone Hiab long-term profitability target in connection with the quarter four 2024 results announcement.
As a business area, earlier we said that Hiab aims at 18% comparable operating profit by 2028. Now, as a standalone company, basically that target is converted to 16%, reflecting that roughly 1.7-2% standalone costs as a difference. Growth, return on capital employed, and sustainability targets have remained unchanged from that what we communicated in May 2024 in our capital markets day. Below these numbers, you can see also the performance against these long-term targets. Rolling 10 years growth has been 7% in sales. The last 12 months profitability to 13.2% as a standalone company. The return on capital employed last 12 months have been 30.5%. As we announced also in connection of quarter four 2024 reporting, we are doing production optimization in Italy.
As mentioned, the major part of our quarter four last year, one-off costs were related to this Italian production optimization. As also mentioned, thanks to these actions, we expect improvements in that business profitability in the second half of this year. We are investing in renewing our factory in Ireland, where we produce the truck-mounted forklifts. We are also renewing our customer service center for the U.K. operations. This is basically an installation workshop where various Hiab equipment is installed on the truck chassis. Due to these two investments, we anticipate to have roughly EUR 25 million CapEx spending this year. The AGM approved the board's dividend proposal on 26th of March. The ordinary dividend is EUR 1.20 per B share. That is payable this week on 4th of April.
The AGM approved the additional dividend, which is EUR 1.57 per B share, total EUR 100 million. This is basically subject to MacGregor closing. Thereafter, the board is expected to make a decision on this at the end of September. This would be then payable, like I said, subject to MacGregor closing in the early fourth quarter in October. We have announced already earlier the Hiab leadership team. Like I said, Scott Phillips as CEO, I continue from Cargotec to Hiab as CFO. Most of the rest of the Hiab leadership team has been actually already serving a good time in Hiab's leadership, Hiab business area leadership already in the past. They know the business well and the customer base very well. Hiab has over 4,000 employees, and we operate in multiple countries.
The headcount is also fairly equally distributed with our revenues as well. Last but not least, the outlook for 2025. For the continuing operations, comparable operating profit, we expect that we deliver more than 12% comparable operating profit. Basically, the continuing operations is more or less the same as Hiab as a standalone.
Thank you, Mikko. Now it's time to move on to the Q&A session. Please use the raise the hand function, and I will hand out turns to you. I will also take questions from the telephone lines. Do we see any hands up? Okay, we have the first one from Antti Kansanen, please go ahead.
Thanks, guys, and thanks for the information on kind of the modeling perspective. I wanted to ask a couple of details before going into the Q1, kind of the trading update.
If we look at kind of seasonality in your business, because we only have the comparison figures for one year and there's been a little bit of a change on the backlog rotation, is there any seasonality on the equipment deliveries? If we look at backlog, what do you have end of the quarter? Does it make a difference whether it's Q1, Q2, Q3, how much you tend to deliver out of it?
I would say that it's still very much similar to Hiab's historical totals. Quarter three typically is a bit lower, even in order intake, but also in sales due to the fact that our majority of our business is in the northern hemisphere. That's typically the holiday season when the customers are not necessarily taking that much deliveries.
Okay, and the second question is on if you now have more or you will get more of these military defense kind of agreements, which are of a longer time and are more like a frame agreement based, will that be included on your backlog? I mean, should we assume that it's structurally a bit higher and a longer lead time backlog if the share of military and defense grows?
That's correct. However, even in the past, when we have had multi-year military or defense logistics deals, we have not necessarily booked the whole, let's say, frame agreement in the order book that has been booked in. Customers have typically placed orders for one or two years deliveries, and then we have been booking those orders then accordingly, even though the frame agreement might be for five years.
That was the case, for example, in this, if I remember correctly, EUR 180 million Rheinmetall-MAN deal what we got back in 2022. What we in addition tend to see nowadays is that customers, let's say, want to have the deliveries perhaps even faster, and the defense customers are breaking down those longer deals into smaller pieces. I would not say, I would say that the defense business should not grow, should not significantly kind of change the structure of our order book.
Okay, makes sense. The last one from me is just the update on the demand conditions that you've seen during the first quarter. I mean, I guess Europe, U.S. separately has the tariff uncertainties, and I guess uncertainty over the U.S. growth. Has this impacted on your business in any meaningful way so far?
Yeah, like we said already in early February when we announced our quarter four and full year results of 2024. The quarter has progressed very much according to our expectations. Slightly better environment in Europe, and in the U.S., the tariff uncertainty is causing customers to delay some decisions. Overall, I would say that the order intake in quarter one has progressed pretty much according to our expectations, what we thought in the beginning of the quarter.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Antti. The next question is to Jussi. Mikko, please go ahead.
Hi, this is Jussi from OP. Can you hear me? Yeah, yes. Yeah, just a clarification on the MacGregor sale price. Do you have any sort of an estimate on what is the final enterprise value for the sale when it is concluded?
Yeah, we anticipate that the cash flow impact from MacGregor would be roughly EUR 220 million. The enterprise value what we announced then in mid-November was EUR 480 million. As the buyer is wanting to treat basically the advance payments as not as net working capital item, but as interest-bearing debt, basically debt type of item that is reducing basically then the cash what we are getting from the divestment. Okay, the reason why I'm asking is that I'm looking at the wording on your Q4 reports, and I'd like to know what are the moving parts still left. EUR 220 million is sort of the best estimate at the moment. Maybe a follow-up question here. Since MacGregor had around EUR 116 million of net cash, if I'm correct, will that go to Cargotec or the buyer?
Basically, we have already separated pretty much at the end of the year the MacGregor-related cash. What you can see in our balance sheet, what you can see in our balance sheet at the end of the year, that represents pretty well the cash what's remaining in Cargotec and the rest will go then with MacGregor.
Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.
Meanwhile, we are waiting for more hands to be raised. I'll now ask if there are any questions from the telephone lines. Cannot hear anything from the telephone. Antti, please go ahead with your follow-up.
Yeah, sure. It was more on the full year margin guidance and kind of the earnings outlook. If you could remind me, I mean, at least in Q4, you had a little bit of these, let's say, one-time related items which were included on the adjusted EBIT as well.
Just a clarification on was there similar items in another quarters? If we overall think about kind of the earnings building blocks for this year, aside from volumes, what are kind of the headwinds and tailwinds for the margins?
Yeah, I mean, last year we had in quarter four, and the previous year also we had in quarter four, this one-off items. It does not mean that we will have every quarter four this one-off items these two years. Last two years, one-off items are mainly related to the declining order book. I mean, at highest, our order book has been roughly EUR 1.2 billion, and we are now around where we were at the end of last year. We were around EUR 600 million.
The order book has been coming down, and then according to that, we have been reducing our cost base, which has caused this one-off costs in two years in a row. Otherwise, I would say that first of all, if I take our order book, that covers roughly four to five months of sales. We would need to collect orders in quarter two, quarter three, and even in early quarter four, what we will then recognize as a revenue still this year. What comes to pricing, that's fairly stable compared to 2024. We are aiming at material cost savings. Like last year, we did the material cost savings. We continue in that area in order to protect our sales margins.
On the fixed cost side, I do not foresee any major changes other than what we have done now in Italy, in our operations, the restructuring end of last year, early this year, which will, as said earlier, contribute then into the second half cost base. How much is that, the Italy contribution on a full year basis? We have said that we are aiming at EUR 20 million cost savings. It is not only Italy. Part of that is coming from other parts of the company, cost avoidance, stopping certain activities. I would say the Italy contribution is a bit less than half of that EUR 20 million.
Okay.
On a full year basis.
Okay, okay.
On another topic, you are now still kind of in the progress of the MacGregor divestment, but if we think about the Hiab acquisitions, and let's think about your capabilities to take in acquisitions and your IT systems and so forth and so forth, when are you ready to start to kind of this bolt-on acquisition strategy for Hiab from organizational point of view, not necessarily from balance sheet point of view, but just to have the capabilities to integrate?
I would say that almost immediately we could start. Of course, if we would now conclude a transaction, there would be still a couple of months to close the deal. From that point of view, I say that basically we could basically almost immediately sign a contract if we find a suitable candidate.
There is, of course, a good number of potential candidates, but we also want to do a proper work in the assessment and then due diligence as well, and then also see that the business case is as solid as possible. I would say that from an organizational IT point of view, we should not have major constraints at the moment. We are still doing the MacGregor IT separation, but that is already in the kind of last mile at the moment.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you, Antti. The next question from Johan Eliasson, please go ahead, Johan.
Hello, Mikko and Aki. Just a question on the net working capital tie-up going forward. I mean, we do not have a long history of tracking Hiab separately and MacGregor and also Kalmar historically had a lot of prepayments which brought down your sort of net working capital tie-up.
How should we think about it in Hiab? I mean, if we look at Hiab's cash conversion, the last 10 years, Hiab's cash conversion has been on average roughly a bit over 100%. Operative cash flow versus the comparable operating profit. Even when we are growing the business, it is a bit more difficult to maintain this kind of 100% cash conversion, but it is hovering around this 100%. You do not have any targets for net working capital to sales ratio or so for the current business setup? Yes, internally we have, but not externally communicated. I was just curious about the trailing seven months, 10-year 7% growth, sorry, that you now sort of set as the growth targets as well going forward.
If you sort of adjust for the, I guess, fairly high price compensation during the pandemic, where would you say that growth number would be? Would it shave one or two percentage points off this 7% or what are we talking about?
At least I have not done that kind of calculation, but yeah, difficult to say. It will definitely somewhat impact the growth rate, but if you look even before pandemic, we have been delivering that kind of growth rates.
Okay, you think it's, obviously you think it's a doable number as you have it for the coming years as well.
Yeah, I mean, one key element in this growth has been that we are continuously looking possibilities how and where our solutions can be used. Let's say the imagination is the only kind of limit where we basically try to apply our solutions.
Looking continuously at new end markets, and that has been helping us tremendously to grow faster than the kind of underlying GDP.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you, Johan. Do we have any further questions? Panu Laitinmäki, please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. When do you expect the MacGregor divestment to be closed? It should be Q2, but is it quite soon or closer to July?
Maybe by 1st of July.
Okay, so no further guidance on that?
No. Of course, we close it as soon as we can. Like I said, from the IT separation point of view, we are progressing well, and we are just waiting for the final confirmations from some jurisdictions, competition authorities. Those are the main kind of tick-the-box items.
All right, thanks.
Thank you, Panu. Do we have any more questions? Mikkel Døbler , please go ahead. Thanks.
Yeah, just very briefly coming back to the demand question there previously. I just wondered if you can talk a bit about the end market.
I'm sorry if you talked about this in the very beginning because I joined a bit late, but just wondering if you could say some words about the various end market segments that you serve and what you see there in terms of demand trends right now.
Yeah, overall, if we look at the first geographical market, like we said already in February, Europe has been performing, I would say, perhaps better than last year. While the U.S., due to the tariffs, customers are more considerate with their investment decisions. It does not mean that the customers are not making orders or placing orders, but they typically have taken a bit longer time than what we have seen in 2024.
This is something we have anticipated also in the beginning of the quarter. What I said earlier is that our quarter one has progressed very much according to our expectations, what we thought in the beginning of the quarter. If we think, for example, the end market, the demand for defense logistics, RFQs in that area has been on a good level. We know the reason as the European governments are increasing budgets in this area. Customers, even in some cases, are looking for commercial solutions because they see that those commercial solutions are robust enough for their purposes in the defense sector. We start to see some light at the end of the tunnel also in the construction market here in Europe. Basically, areas like waste and recycling have been stable.
We have not seen any major hiccups in that area. Yeah, those are the last mile and logistics has been actually performing also well in Europe.
Okay, that's clear. Thank you.
Thank you. Next follow-up for Johan, please go ahead.
Yeah, just so now when you mentioned tariffs and stuff like that, can you just remind us the sort of export volumes for Hiab into the US from Europe or elsewhere? I mean, it also relates to potential weakening of the US dollar, obviously.
Yeah, roughly 60% of our US revenues are assembled in the US. Major part is assembled in the US, but then of course we get components all over the place. We get components from the US, we get components also from outside the US.
What comes to tariffs, we are looking at different kind of scenarios at the moment, looking also at alternative suppliers in countries which might not be affected by tariffs. Also from the pricing side, we are then prepared to take actions, for example, in terms of surcharges to adjust the prices in case our type of products would be impacted by the tariffs. I would like to also highlight that most of our competitors are in a very similar situation as we. Most of the competitors are importing also products, even in bigger quantities than we to the U.S. market. I think there is Maxon, which is a U.S. competitor in the tail lift business. They have some U.S. presence, but they have also a Mexican supply chain. I would say that everybody is pretty much impacted by tariffs if those then come.
Your transaction exposure, dollar-euro? How did it look like in 2024 for Hiab specifically?
I mean, the transactions of the cash flows, we hedge 100%. The translation, i.e., the US results when they are converted or consolidated in EUR. Last year, we had roughly 1% unit impact coming from the currency impact if we compare US dollar constant rate versus the actual rate.
That is pure translation, but unhedged transaction effect would have been?
Yeah, I said basically we hedge 100% of the net exposure, so we should not have from the transaction exposure the kind of operating profit impact.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Johan. If we do not have any further questions, let us move to the next slide of the presentation. I would like to invite you to join our site visit, which will be hosted on September 18th in Poland, Stargard.
This trip will be hosted together with Kalmar as they are operating an assembly site on the facility next door, and there is a fence between. Still, we thought that there are some synergies. More information to be published later, but please pencil in today in your calendars. With that, thank you for your attention, and see you in a couple of weeks' time when we publish our results, the last day of this month. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.