Good afternoon, everybody, welcome to the Cargotec conference call. We've had some exciting news today. Cargotec announced the appointment of Casimir Lindholm as the new President and CEO of Cargotec as of April 1st. My name is Carina Geber-Teir, with me in the studio, I have Casimir Lindholm. On the line, we have our Chair of the Board, Jaakko Eskola. I will first hand over to our chair, Mr. Eskola, then we will continue with a short note from Casimir Lindholm. After Casimir's note, we will have a Q&A session. Right now, over to Jaakko Eskola.
Thank you, Carina, and good afternoon, everybody, and very sunny regards from London. As Carina said, Cargotec's board of directors has appointed Casimir Lindholm as Cargotec's new President and CEO as of April 2023, until which date Cargotec's current President and CEO, Mika Vehviläinen, will hold his positions. Before moving to Casimir, I would first like to use this moment and thank Mika Vehviläinen, our current CEO, President and CEO, for all the years he has been with Cargotec and really thank him for his leadership and outstanding contribution to our business during all these quite interesting and challenging years. To Casimir.
Casimir Lindholm has held CEO positions both in Eltel and Lemminkäinen and many board memberships, bringing experience and wealth of doing business to Cargotec. Casimir Lindholm has been a member of the Cargotec board of directors since 2021, and due to his appointment, he will no longer be available for re-election in Cargotec's AGM on 23rd March, 2023. As I already said, Casimir has an experience on leading listed companies in Finland, and he has a proven track record on reshaping businesses.
The board feels, of course, that his membership in Cargotec's board of directors is an advantage providing knowledge and understanding of Cargotec's business and a strategic direction. The work to develop the company to its full potential continues. The board of directors is confident that under Casimir's leadership, Cargotec will continue to drive value for our shareholders and customers. I will hand back to Carina or directly to Casimir. Please.
Thank you, Jaakko. Yes, my name is Casimir Lindholm. I'm 51 years old. As our chairman pointed out, I've been working for the last 10 years in stock-listed companies, Lemminkäinen Finnish stock-listed company and Eltel Swedish stock-listed company. Board memberships in companies like Varma, Uponor, YIT, and now for the last two years, Cargotec. I've been, as a board member in Cargotec, been part of a strategy process. From a board perspective, strategy perspective, I think I know the company fairly well. I fully believe in the strategy regarding seeking for profitable growth and also solving our customers' sustainability challenges. Cargotec has three different businesses, very strong brands in Hiab, Kalmar and MacGregor, all in a bit different positions and in different stages regarding their development.
All in all, good plans for all the three of them. And for business plan 2023 and onwards, I firmly believe in those plans. Regarding what comes to leadership style, been living in Sweden for 12 years during my professional career, and I think that has had an well shaped me as a manager, I think so. Between being a classical Finnish CEO and a classical Swedish one in theory, maybe I'm somewhere there in the middle. I believe in empowerment. I believe in making decisions as close to the market, customer and production as possible.
That journey that Cargotec started last year regarding bringing more power to the businesses and more decision-making to the businesses, that journey will continue. That's a short introduction regarding who I am and why I strongly feel for Cargotec and of course, very honored to be given this position at this interesting time in Cargotec's development.
Thank you, Casimir, and thank you, Jaakko. I think it's time to open up the lines and ask for any questions that we have.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Tomi Railo from DNB. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jaakko and Casimir. It's Tomi from DNB. I think, firstly, this question goes to Jaakko. If you could tell me a little bit about the process. It seemed like a quite rapid, quick sort of process. Did you consider or names more like outside company? Maybe Casimir, have you been asked, or did you show your willingness for the position? That's maybe the first question?
Thank you, Tomi. of course, this has been a very normal process as you have in listed companies. The board, of course, values, and looks at the management every year and all the time. In this case, we used, and we were supported by, outside external, headhunter also. Casimir was well-known to the board, so that was probably one reason why it was, or looks like a fast decision. The board knows Casimir very well and, but at the same time, we had the normal amount of external, internal, candidates.
Yeah. Well, thank you. To Casimir, just briefly, maybe what are the experiences, you can bring, and also not to bring from your years in Eltel and Lemminkäinen?
First of all, it's a different situation here compared to Lemminkäinen and Eltel, they were both turnaround cases, so that's different. I would say, all in all, during my career, especially the last 10 years as stock listed CEO, I've been through many different situations and developments, both on the M&A side, both on the growth side, but also in turnaround situations. There's a lot of different situation, a lot of different experience that I will bring to Cargotec. Of course, also the board assignments during the years have given perspective, a lot of strategy work that is also important for this role.
On what, maybe on not what to bring is probably, I mean, during the years I have seen situation where we basically maybe move too fast. I mean, speed is of essence, but control is also very important in whatever you do as a company. I've maybe seen situations where things have been moving too fast, and then afterwards, you have to sort things out, so to speak.
Thank you, and, congratulations.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Johan Eliason from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, this is Johan Eliason at Kepler Cheuvreux in Stockholm. I was just curious, you touched upon it a little bit, Casimir here, on your M&A experience. Obviously, this is a big part of the strategy forward for Cargotec, not only trying to divest the division and fetching a good price, but obviously also there's more M&A to come on the remaining core business as well. Could you sort of elaborate on maybe some significant experience you've had on both divesting or acquiring businesses and any indication that you have handled the pricing of such transactions in a good manner? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. Yes. I mean, firstly, like we have announced previously regarding MacGregor, it is an asset that we're looking for strategic alternatives for it. At the moment we're focusing on turning things around especially in the offshore business. That is the main task for MacGregor, come back to a potential moment for divesting MacGregor and seek, of course, the best possible deal doing so. Regarding M&As, well both Lemminkäinen and Eltel are a result of many M&As, both companies been buying smaller and bigger assets over the years. I've seen those processes both before and during and after.
There's a lot of learnings to be taking from those. In a more bigger context, of course, the merger between YIT and Lemminkäinen was and maybe at least from a short perspective, is one of the bigger transactions that have happened in Finland. The whole process of that, both from a strategic perspective, but also from an M&A perspective and a consolidation perspective, was of magnitude.
Excellent. Very good luck with your new job.
Thank you.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you, Jaakko, and thank you, Casimir. Warmly welcome to Cargotec. We'll rejoin for our quarterly call in April. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.