Good morning, and welcome to Kemira's Q4 and full year 2025 earnings conference. My name is Kiira Fröberg, and I'm the Head of Investor Relations at Kemira. Here with me today, I have our President and CEO, Antti Salminen, and our CFO, Petri Castrén. This will be actually Petri's last and 50th earnings webcast as Kemira's CFO. Before we start the actual presentation, I would like to remind you that our presentation today includes forward-looking statements. Next, Antti will cover our full year 2025 and Q4 highlights, after which, he will discuss Kemira's group level performance. After that, Petri will talk about business unit performance and cover financials in a bit more detail. And then in the end, before the Q&A, Antti will discuss Kemira's strategic focus areas in 2026 and also talk about our financial outlook for the year. But now, Antti, the stage is yours.
Please go ahead. Thank you.
Thank you, Kiira. Good morning on my behalf as well. Great pleasure to present Kemira's 25 results, as well as, of course, in a bit more detail, the Q4 results. The year was challenging for us. Markets were soft and uncertain, which is visible in the numbers. So really challenging market environment, which then resulted in a clear revenue decline for the full year as well as for the Q4. But I'm very proud of the organization. We managed to maintain our profitability in a very healthy level, Operative EBITDA being over 19% for the full year, which I think is a, is a really good achievement under these market conditions. It enabled us to continue to invest into our strategy execution, so building the future growth for the company.
Basically, in water business, we announced earlier in the year the acquisition of Water Engineering in North America, which is a really good platform investment into fast-growing water services market in North America. We also invested or started an investment project in Helsingborg, Sweden, for building activated carbon reactivation capacity, which is part of our strategy to step into the fast-growing micropollutant removal market. And, we have now been working for more than six months with the Cambridge, U.K.-based AI material science company, CuspAI, to significantly accelerate and basically change the way innovation is done on this area. And also that work is focusing on this fast-growing micropollutants area. So soft markets, but good profitability performance, which enables us to continue to invest into our growth initiatives.
Also, our customers have been very committed, and I have to thank all the customers for the long-term partnership and commitment. We had an all-time high Net Promoter Score, which I think tells about our capability to be dependable and trustworthy also in the volatile, uncertain market environments. And our employees continued to stay very engaged, which again, is the platform on which we can build the strategy execution going forward. So despite of the challenging environment, putting a lot of stress and pressure on the organization, the organizational changes that we've been going through, the organization is committed and engaged. We also made good progress on our sustainability targets. This is in the heart and core of what we do and our strategy.
So we increased our score in the CDP, both in Water Security and Climate Change, reaching the A-minus level, which has been our target. We increased our score in EcoVadis rating, and we continued to reduce the CO2 emissions exactly according to our SBTi commitments. Again, really solid improvement there. And on February twentieth, when we will publish our sustainability statement, we will publish the new positive water impact target, which will be then guiding our way forward in terms of water stewardship. Then, if we look at the Q4 in a bit more detail, so as mentioned already, the markets were soft, and this market softening and uncertainty actually accelerated towards the end of the year.
As a result, the Q4 revenues were 8% below the previous year, and the revenues declined in all the three business units. Operative EBITDA margin, however, solid at over 18% and actually increasing in Packaging and Hygiene Solutions, where basically we have continued the self-help program to improve the underlying profitability of the business, and results are visible there. The strategy execution continued, as I already mentioned, and actually accelerated during the Q4, so the Water Engineering acquisition happened in Q4, and then we were working during Q4 on the first bolt-on acquisition on this platform, AquaBlue, a company which we then finalized the acquisition in early January.
So this is first in the row of several such bolt-ons that we are planning to build on the platform of Water Engineering, and we have a really healthy pipeline, which we are working on. So basically, kind of executing a programmatic acquisition-driven growth in the water business there. And then the latest announcement just a couple of days ago, announcing the acquisition of Sidra Wasserchemie in Germany. And this is then strengthening our position in the most profitable and resilient part of the business, i.e., the coagulant business in Europe. So basically building on the core, strengthening the Water Solutions business core part, and strengthening our position in Western and Central Europe.
So market softness accelerated in Q4, but we accelerated also our actions to continue to invest in the future growth of the company. Revenue, as you see, basically, again, just the numbers kind of proving the acceleration of the softening of the market towards the end of the year. And it's good to remember here that there's also quite significant FX impact in these numbers, and Petri will soon elaborate a bit more on that. And then, looking at the profitability, healthy over 18% profitability, as I mentioned, in the Q4. Q4 typically is the weakest quarter for us. There's the underlying seasonality of the businesses. You see it in the previous years as well.
So under these conditions, I'm happy with happy about the ability of company to maintain this level of profitability, and especially happy to see that our self-help actions in the Packaging and Hygiene Solutions are bearing fruit, and we have been improving the profitability of that business. There's quite some items affecting the comparability into Q4, totaling more than EUR 30 million, mostly coming from the restructuring and streamlining costs. So working actively to basically balance the softer top line and keep the profitability on a healthy level. And those costs are there, and again, Petri will soon elaborate a bit more on those. And it also included then the transaction cost of the Water Engineering transaction.
As a result of these all these, the full year 2025 earnings per share totaled 1.18 EUR. If we then look at finally the financial long-term targets that we have set, so clearly we are below the organic growth target, driven by the soft demand from the markets, but we are within our target range, both in terms of Operative EBITDA and return on capital employed. Of course, the capital employed going closer to the target threshold. There you see clearly the impact of the acquisition of the Water Engineering, which is then basically increasing the capital employed there. With this, I will pass it on to Petri, who will elaborate a bit more on the financials for the very last time for Kemira.
Since, let's assume that,
Yes.
M y voice is, my voice is audible. So as Antti said, we made good progress in our strategy execution during the year and also during the first quarter. The other headline, I think from this report, of course, is that the market has been weak, but we have been able to defend and protect our, our profitability quite well. I'll go directly to the variance analysis next. Headline revenue decline 8%. Really three components that Antti already mentioned. It's the, all negative now. Volumes were declining, negative FX impact. Mostly, it's the weakening of the U.S. dollar, which is everybody knows about it, and everybody has paid attention to it.
But yes, it has been impacting us quite severely and also a little bit on our product pricing as well, about 1% on average for the quarter. Of course, these are the same components that impact profitability. In addition, there was a little bit of higher variable costs impacting primarily our Fiber Essentials, and I will come back to that when I talk about the business unit comments. Fixed cost savings that Antti already alluded to regarding Packaging and Hygiene Solutions, where we really have had headcount reductions.
But obviously, there have been fixed cost saving actions throughout the company that we have been doing to really protect the profitability during the quarter and for the year. Full-year story, same components again. Of course, there you have the addition that there is still the tail on in the comparison period of the oil and gas business. So, if you eliminate that part, the comparable decline 5%, and again, biggest contributors being the volume development and the U.S. dollar weakening. Then if we look at the big year in totality. And we look at sort of the various components.
Obviously, it's clear that the volume decline is more impactful during the second half of the year, so there was an acceleration in the business decline, and again, I will come back to those during the business comments. Sales prices actually have been relatively stable over the year, but in the first part of the year, the year-on-year comparison was quite negative. But if you look at the one-year comparison, meaning Q4 2025 to Q4 2024, it's 1% decline. So overall, we are in a pretty stable pricing environment. It's really a volume issue that we are dealing with. And of course, this slide actually tells the same story. Prices and variable costs have significantly stabilized during the last four or five quarters.
So you'll see that there's a fairly flat line when we had this huge peak during the COVID and supply chain problem years. Energy costs were sky high in 2021, 2022, but we are sort of putting that period of time into history, and we are now in a much more stable environment. Our crystal ball, as far as we can see, doesn't really indicate much of changes to this. I mentioned this comment after Q3, but I do it again. So it's really a volume game now for us. Volume increase is the key to driving up our profitability now, and for us, that is largely market dependent and it applies to all of our business units.
We have capacity available in most of our plants, so any additional volume we can process without really adding any fixed costs to our structure. This means that if and hopefully when the markets improve, the operating leverage will help us with the bottom line. Having said that, you'll see that in the assumptions, we are not yet foreseeing really a market recovery at this time. Antti mentioned the items affecting comparability. We are taking action because of the lower volumes. So, we're taking action on our manufacturing assets. We're ramping down our production entirely in our Teesport U.K. site, resulting in an asset write-down, restructuring and closing provisions.
We're also making an efficiency and automation investment in our Botlek site, resulting in a reduction of manual work and there are related restructuring costs related to that as well. Unfortunately, we had to take a EUR 12 million environmental provision for a site that had been closed long time ago, many years ago, more than a decade ago, in Finland, where we actually disagree with the authorities of how the land remediation should be done. The land has been remediated and the polluted land, impacted soil has been taken away, but there is a difference of opinion how that soil should be treated.
We'll probably continue that dispute for a while, but we have now taken the provision for that for the worst-case scenario, let's put it this way. All in all, these restructuring, streamlining, and transaction costs add up to EUR 32 million within EBITDA and EUR 43 million, EUR 43.8 million within EBIT. And of course, the impact of that is driving EPS down for the quarter to just EUR 0.07 per share, and for the year, EUR 1.18, below previous years of EUR 1.61. Next, I'll go to the business unit commentary as I promised, and I'll start with the Water Solutions. So first of all, let's start with the reminder of the basics. So in Water Solutions, we do have seasonality.
So our particular municipal customers do treat less wastewater during the winter months and need... And they require less of our chemicals so that creates the seasonality that is within our Water Solutions business. Having said that, revenue was weak, particularly it was weaker in the industrial side. The revenue was down 9%. That's quite a significant decline, but more than half of that is attributable to our contracting volumes that we receive from our oil and gas business acquirer, and their customer has had an operational issue, so it's not a loss of customer, it's a loss of—it's not a loss of business, but a operational issue that has dragged on longer than anybody expected.
There was also some general weakness on the industrial side. Industrial production in general has been weak in particular in Europe, and there are many processes where there are some wastewaters created that impact us in the industrial side. Urban water service in Europe was very stable. It is a very resilient business. There was a 4% organic decline in North America, and of course, in euro terms, clearly bigger in our numbers. So, lower volumes impact the overall profitability so that the Operative EBITDA declined by 7%. Still, operative margin at 18.5% for the business unit, slightly below the level of that last year. Next, comments on PHS, Packaging and Hygiene Solutions.
Challenging market continued. Year-on-year, the market was clearly softer, and volumes impacted. Organic revenue declined 6%. Profitability has been protected by the measures that we have taken. We also have received and gained some new customer wins, so that has been helpful, but the underlying market has been really, really soft. But the important point is that the market now seems to have bottomed out. It has not gotten any worse since Q3, if not any better either. We saw, in fact, very little volume or very little price changes from Q3 to Q4. Profitability in Q4 slightly lower than in Q3, mainly due to product mix type of issues. I think I commented that the product mix in Q3 was favorable.
Now it was less favorable than in Q4. Q4 was less favorable than in Q3. We're not done with the profitability improvement action, so we are just implementing the new operating model as of beginning of this year. And we will be seeing benefits of that in the coming quarters as that is being implemented. Regarding regions, fair to say that APAC continues to be the biggest challenge. We see a particularly weak market in China with weak demand and with the local oversupply situation leading to much depressed prices and volumes. Regarding Fiber Essentials, environment has been weak for pulp chemicals, particularly here in the Nordics, which is a key market to us.
Also, market prices for base chemicals have remained low. For example, caustic soda is relatively important for us. For Fiber Essentials, there we have seen variable cost increases, raw material cost increases in the second half of the year. And it's really isolated to sulfur products, but the increase has been quite significant. And that's the sort of the one area where there is significant inflationary pressures. And it's enough that it's visible in the Fiber Essentials margins to some extent in the second half of the year. So again, looking at the full year, the volume decline, it's really in the second half of the year.
You see that the quarterly revenues have fallen to EUR 132 million-EUR 134 million range, whereas before that, we were clearly in the 145, 150-ish per quarter run rate. And as the drop through impact is quite significant, these are good gross margin products, but high fixed cost operating plans. So the volume, any volume increase would have an obviously positive impact to our profitability, should and if and when that hopefully happens. All right, moving to balance sheet. Now, during 2025, our net debt level has increased due to the acquisition of Water Engineering, and of course, the share buy program that we had on the second half of the year.
Then in the smaller addition is that, we actually inaugurated our new R&D facility in Espoo, here in Finland, with a 15-year lease, so that's added to our lease liabilities, and reported as a part of, part of, debt obligations. ROCE, that Antti was already talking about, return on capital employed, has come down to 16.5%, due to this Water Engineering acquisitions. But of course, it's, it's also heavily impacted by the reported EBIT or Operative EBIT that we have, and, and those two components clearly impacting there. Cash flow from operations, EUR 127 million during the quarter and EUR 373 million for the year. Maybe a comment on the cash flow components. So, on net working capital, increased from previous year.
We perhaps were not quite successful in reducing our inventory levels with the reduced volumes as the business was experiencing. So obviously, payables, trade payables are coming down, but if inventory levels remain roughly at the same level, it does reflect as an increase in net working capital. Therefore, inventory levels will now need to be and are in the focus for us going into 2026. There is some opportunity to tighten the inventory rotation. CapEx fell just about where we expected and how we guided, slightly below EUR 200 million in 2025, and now we estimate it and for 2026, it will increase slightly.
We have some growth investments ongoing, and then we are doing these modernization investments. I mentioned the Botlek, but we have a few others as ongoing as well. Dividend, we have a strong track record of increasing our dividend, and now we are proposing increasing our dividend to EUR 0.76 to our annual general meeting. This increase is consistent with our dividend policy of paying a competitive dividend, as well as increasing the dividend over time. And in recent years, the dividend has been paid in two installments, and we'll continue that practice. In addition to increasing our dividend, we're continuing to return capital to our shareholders through share buyback program. The purpose is to continue to optimize our capital structure.
We have received almost universally positive feedback for the program that we initiated last year, and we feel that it's important that we continue to serve the interests of our diverse shareholder base. However, this is not limiting our desire or our ability to continue to execute our growth strategy. And again, it's evidenced by the two acquisitions that we have already done or announced, and well, the first one is already completed, but the second one that we announced yesterday will continue to invest into organic growth opportunities when they are, as well as in organic growth or growth opportunities. And again, this acquisition of Sidra Wasserchemie for EUR 75 million approximately is a proof point of that.
I will turn next to Antti, but before I do, I reflect a little. So this, as Kiira said, it is my 50th, and it's my last quarterly announcement. As announced, I will leave my position as Kemira CFO at the end of March, so March 31st, 31st will be my last day of work. Looking back, I'm really proud at what Kemira has been and what Kemira has become during those 12 and a half years. Kemira is much stronger, much better company, and I believe that Kemira has a really bright future. In this forum with you, our analysts and investors, there's one group of Kemira employees that I want to thank, and it's the IR officers I had the privilege of working with during the years.
So when I joined, started working with Tero Huovinen, then continued to work with Olli Turunen, then up to quite recently with Mikko, Mikko Pohjala, and now most recently with Kiira Fröberg. Kemira's IR team has always been top-notch, and it’s been my intention only to recruit the best that I can find in the market, and I've been successful with that, and we've been able to maintain a top-notch IR practice for Kemira. I'm really proud of that. Besides, the team has always been fun to work with, so thank you, all. With that, now I'll turn to Antti Salminen.
Thank you, Petri. Yes, so then I'll finally say a couple of words about the strategy execution a bit more. Petri already quite nicely talked about the kind of the latest announced investment and how we are really committed to grow the company via both organic and inorganic investments. I'll elaborate a bit more on that, but just to remind everybody that these three cornerstones are the focus areas of the strategy. So expanding the water business, there's so plenty of evidence of that, and we continue to work on that. Then building our presence as the leading provider of renewable chemistry in our target markets and even more widely.
So, clearly, we have been recognized as one of the leaders in the world on this area, and we continue to work on that. We have a lot of good progress on innovation projects, both in-house and with external partners on that domain, and solutions that have been proven not only in lab but in extensive customer trials. So, I'm expecting quite a lot of positive things to come that for the future growth in coming years. And then thirdly, investing kind of into these new adjacent...
High growth market areas, tapping the or unlocking the potential growth potential from those, and areas where we have clear right to win, which are part of kind of our domain, but where we have been historically out of and NVS, New Ventures and Services unit, has been actively working on these, and there's a lot of good stuff in the pipeline there as well for the future growth. Then looking at a bit on a timeline, basically, the time since 2022 when we have been executing the growth strategy, which we then sharpened two years ago a bit more. But basically we've been constantly investing into the focus growth areas stated in the strategy.
It started from the acquisition of the SimAnalytics, which basically has strengthened our position in the digital services area for the water business, so being present on and, and growing our position in there. Then continued with organic investments into coagulant capacity, so that's the core, the resilient core of our water business, so we continuously invest in there. And Petri, as Petri said, then we have capacity. We are able to benefit from the market recovery when it happens without adding fixed costs, as we have been building the capacity for that. Then entering into the micropollutant removal area, so small first acquisition in the U.K., and then continuing with organic investments for that area, so clear commitment to grow in that area as well.
And then, lately, the entry into the fast-growing industrial water services market in North America via Water Engineering, and as I already mentioned, that's a platform acquisition. So we have a really healthy pipeline of small and a bit bigger bolt-on acquisitions. And first example already happened in the first week of January, so progressing very well on that area. And then the last announcement two days ago regarding Sidra. So again, strengthening the core, increasing our position, improving our position in the water business, and basically on the path to grow the significance of water business in our portfolio.
So a lot of things have happened, and our aim is to further accelerate that execution of strategy, so working on these growth initiatives, which is enabled by our strong financials and strong profitability despite the weak market. So I think this is exactly the time when the markets are soft, when basically we need to continue to believe in our strategy and invest in these growth activities to make us able to capitalize on the growth when the markets get healthier. So this is clearly essential for us, and we continue to be committed to that. So the three business units have clearly separate different roles in the strategy execution. As mentioned already, Water Solutions being the growth engine, we will continue to invest both organically and inorganically to growth in Water Solutions.
Short-term Packaging and Hygiene Solutions, the profitability improvement is the key target, but then also the packaging board markets which we serve are now in basically historical low point, and the world will need packaging material, so that business unit has growth potential when the market ultimately recover. And then Fiber Essentials, clearly a profitable cash flow generation unit, enabling us to invest into growth in other areas. So to close this with our outlook for 2026, amid the uncertainty and fuzziness of all the possible crystal balls, our. We expect the revenue to be between EUR 2.6 billion and EUR 3 billion, and the EBITDA, Operative EBITDA between EUR 470 million and EUR 570 million.
So clearly, kind of, you see from here as well that it's very difficult to predict the markets, but this is our outlook to the year. It assumes this continuation of global economic uncertainty and the softer volumes, and basically, especially the impact being heavy on pulp and paper, but also pulp and paper markets, but also on the industrial water markets. We assume stable raw material environment, as Petri already alluded to, so basically no big swings from there. Thus, this is the outlook that we give for this ongoing year. So with this, thank you very much, and finally, once more, big thanks to Petri.
He's been instrumental in this growth journey and making the company the good company it is today, completely different compared to 12 years ago, as he mentioned already. But I have to personally thank Petri for the past 2 years, because he's been the kind of a brick wall that I could always lean on as a new CEO and giving me the confidence that, you know, no matter if I miss some details here or there, he will always be there to support me and correct me. So very big thanks, Petri, for these past 2 years. Then with this, we move on to Q&A. All right.
Okay. Thank you, Antti, and thank you also, Petri. And now we are then ready for the questions, so I think we could start from the line. So operator, please go ahead, and we will, of course, also take questions through the chat, so-
T hose will be coming also.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Andrés Castaños -Mollor from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hello, Petri. First of all, best of wishes for the future, and also congratulations on to the company and to you on all the bold actions on the finance side, M&A, buybacks, dividend increase, the full lot. So well done there. My question would be, first one on M&A, please. Can you please put some numbers to the U.S. pipeline, the water pipeline there? How much money can you possibly deploy there in the next year ahead? Also, I'll love a comment on the Germany deal that you announced yesterday. Seems like a rare opportunity. Do you think this could be replicated, similar deals like this one?
Well, I'll start, and then I'll let Petri comment on the kind of, especially the how much we can allocate to this. But, as I mentioned, the pipeline is very healthy, and we've already mentioned that these kind of small bolt-ons, like the AquaBlue, is a very good example of the roughly a size of a single deal. So they are in the range of 10, 10 million annual revenue type of hovering a bit lower, a bit higher, typically. And I've also mentioned earlier that we have a solid pipeline, and the aim is to execute several of those every year going forward. So that's basically giving you the basic, the idea.
And then there are a couple of bit bigger ones also in the pipeline, which then would change the pattern, but basically, it's a solid programmatic growth ambition that we have there. And then, regarding the Sidra type, so we've already all the time we've said that we actively look at the base business coagulant market and look for opportunities. There are not too many, but each and every one we will act on. You already saw the Thatcher in North America earlier, and then we have now the Sidra, which is, I think, really good strengthening of our Central European business. So, so we will—we are actively monitoring the market. We know all the players there, and when something is suitable, becomes available, we will promptly act on that.
Yeah. I don't know if I have much to add, but the AquaBlue type companies, there are probably couple hundreds or few hundreds in North America. And theoretically, almost everyone, not everyone, but so it's the beginning of the pipeline. Then as the pipeline is progressed, but I have seen long lists that have 20, 30 names in it. Currently, short list is obviously shorter. It needs to be shorter, but like Antti said, these type of deals, it's really where we have the strong natural platform executing the EUR 10 million, EUR 20 million type revenue companies. And there are multiple those cases. And of course, from the finances point of view, balance sheet point of view, we have no restrictions on executing on that one.
So that certainly continues on, continues. Obviously, if we are looking at the Water Engineering type, which was well over EUR 100 million type of investment, then those would be looked at little differently. That has progressed in a different way in our M&A process.
Thank you. A second question, if I may please, on margins trajectory in the water business. You mentioned some seasonality, and I wonder, is that it? Should we see a rebound in Q1 versus Q4 on margins? And also, can you comment on the margins of the acquired companies in the - that you have acquired so far? Are they accretive to the current water business margins? Thank you.
Well, I can start-
Go ahead.
W ith the seasonality and.
Yeah.
A nd then again, pass on to you. So, basically, the water business has this natural seasonality, which, because a big part of the water business is, especially on the urban municipal side, is weather dependent. And but there are also other things, and I will talk a little bit more about them. But basically, typically, the summer months are the strongest, or the summer quarters are the strongest quarters, and then the winter quarters are always a bit weaker, and especially Q4 being typically, historically, and especially in North America, the weakest one. So it's partly weather dependent.
There's less water in the systems, but especially, the kind of entering into this water industrial water services business, there's also the industrial patterns, because a lot of that business is in cooling towers, for instance, and when you have cold months, you have less need for cooling in industrial applications. Also, there's a lot of business in the services part, business which has to do with the... There's, you know, there's a lot of pools in the U.S., so basically, again, pools are not used in wintertime and so forth. So it will only strengthen the seasonality, I think, in the water business, this entry into the services area.
So Andres, if your question was really regarding the pipeline of these services companies, they actually vary quite a bit. They vary from the low teens to 40% EBITDA margin in the business, and it often depends on how much product and possibly equipment sales they have in it, or whether it's pure services where the margins tend to be higher. So I don't think I can give you a universal answer on the types of margins that you see. But philosophically, we don't want to dilute our profitability with this acquisition.
So even if the coming in margin is lower than ours, there needs to be synergies that get to our sort of at least average group margins.
Makes sense. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Let's take the next question, please.
The next question comes from Tomi Railo from DNB Markets. Please go ahead.
Hello, it's Tomi from DNB Markets. I hope you can hear me.
Yes, we can.
And, thank you, also, but from my side, it's been absolutely a pleasure to a short one. Couple of things. Firstly, just to make sure-
Now we can't really hear you, Tomi. Could you please repeat your question?
Can you hear me now better?
Yes, we can hear you now. We heard the thank you part, but then when you started to ask your question, we lost you.
Okay, maybe that's a signal. But the question is simply, was there something still extraordinary in the water clean you booked kind of in the clean EBITDA you mentioned some of the items, but or was it just a very clean clean number, what you reported?
I would say that it's clean. And now, of course, during the Q4, you always tend to look at your inventories, and you tend to get some invoices from your customer as suppliers that hadn't been accrued for small amounts. So in we have a fondness of talking about thirteenth month. It's not thirteenth month, but there is typically some new expenses that come in in December time frame. We usually plan for that or we plan for that, but that there's a little bit of unknown. So, but I would call that, put that in the level of noise, particularly for Water Solutions.
Okay. Thank you. And the second question on the outlook, I'm just trying to make sense. You mentioned that kind of the softness accelerated in the fourth quarter from the third quarter. But then when I'm reading your kind of outlook commentary, it doesn't really sound that the market has changed for worse. Actually, you also mentioned yourself that it's stable. So kind of, is the market now stable, what you believe? Or is there still some further weakening?
Let me correct first—correct me first, and then I think it's more appropriate that Antti talks about the outlook. I probably may have miscommunicated a bit poorly. What I meant to say that the volume decline was higher in the second half versus the first half. And this was clearly driven in Nordics by the pulp mill not closures, but
Downtime.
Downtime, thank you for the word. As well as the contracting volume decline in industrial. And then perhaps there was some more industrial decline in water service in second half. But if you sort of... I recognize the accelerate is probably the wrong word. So it was not accelerating. So third quarter to fourth quarter, there was no acceleration. So let me correct that if I communicated that poorly, but then I let Antti talk about the outlook.
Yeah, yeah, and as I said, when I introduced the outlook, so basically, if anything, the visibility is really poor. So commenting to this or that direction, whether we see kind of a improvement or declining, it is the visibility is really poor. But as Petri mentioned, I think many indicators from the market show that this we believe that this is kind of the bottom level. We haven't seen any significant further weakening, but we haven't seen really any kind of a bright signs for at least the first half of the year either.
There I would again, as we discussed earlier, so Tomi, I would recommend to look at, you know, what our big key customers have stated about market, because of course, they see it first, and we get hit in kind of upper in the value chain of those phenomena. So basically, you can read that, and that's the kind of crystal ball we have.
Of course. Thank you. Just to follow up, if you could give kind of price and volume assumptions into 2026, what you are saying. I hear you that kind of it's a volume game, but would you assume that pricing is down or stable in this environment? Or what's the price and volume assumption?
Yeah.
And maybe if there's something-
I already offered my-
I already offered my view of the crystal ball, and it's pretty stable, and it has been stable for the last four or five quarters, and we don't see changes to that. And that applies both the pricing-
Thank you.
E nvironment and the variable cost environment.
Thank you. Let's now take the next question from the line, please.
The next question comes from Joni Sandvall from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the presentation. Couple of questions from my side. In PHS, you mentioned the continued improvement, what you have started now with the new operating model kicking in from 2026. So, if I remember correctly, you maybe have mentioned, you know, around 15% EBITDA margin target by end of 2026. Is still valid with the current market environment?
Market environment, of course, plays a role there, but that's the ambition level that we have been talking about. So I mean, if you look at from the group perspective, that's the expectation. Now, whether the market support reaching that exactly during the, you know, last quarter of 2026 or later in 2027, that depends, but that's the ambition level that we have set for it.
Okay, okay. That's clear. Then maybe, maybe question on the, on the, you know, energy prices have been spiking, both in the Nordics and, and in Europe. Are you seeing any, any support for yourself, through the pricing now, now in, in H1?
Well, the weather forecast, I was looking for, it to be, snowy for the weekend, but then I heard that the weather forecast changed. It's not getting more snow. I'm looking for the cross-country skiing next weekend. Honestly, you, we-- let's not get excited about, too excited about a one month of cold weather in Finland and in Europe. So, I think we have to look at the bigger picture and longer period of time. It is true that, in the Fiber Essentials, typically our customers do benefit. Also our customers benefit of high energy because they do produce energy, electricity while their pulp mills are operating.
So, that's sort of an ongoing market commentary that I can say. But really regarding a crystal ball for the weather for the remainder of the year, don't know, don't have that.
Okay, okay, that's clear. Then maybe on the Fiber Essentials also question on... 'Cause sales were declining now in Q4, so could you give any indication how large part of this was driven by, you know, lower utilization rates, ratios of the Nordic pulp mills in Q4? Which is, you know, it's not typical that those are curtailed during Q4.
It's not typical, but they were.
Yes.
So, Latin America, there's no change. There's obviously some currency impacts year -on -year from North America. But honestly, I would... I don't have the data now, the breakdown in my head, but it's mostly Europe, it's mostly Nordic.
It is, it is really mostly Europe. So basically... As Petri said, Latin America, there was no change quarter-on-quarter in terms of our delivery volumes. In North America, we actually improved a bit in quarter four, if anything. So, so it's, it's really coming predominantly from the Nordics.
Okay. Okay, thanks. And then maybe lastly, quickly on for Petri about the, you know, your supplementary pension fund returns expectations for 2026.
Well, we are expecting to receive another EUR 10 million of return from excess capital because the fund is roughly EUR 100 million overfunded. So we are unwinding the overfunding slowly and gradually. Obviously continue to invest smartly, and I trust my successors will continue to do that. So, the pension fund is in good shape, so no issue there. So I, so-
Okay.
Thank you, Joni.
Thanks.
We now have a few minutes time to take some questions from the chat, and I think that we could start with the Fiber Essentials team. So, the question is: Do you expect volume recovery in Fiber Essentials in early 2026, given that pulpwood prices in the Nordic area are clearly down, supporting profitability of pulp mills in the region?
Well, yeah, I mean, again, I would refer back to what our customers in that business have announced and said. But clearly, I mean, as Petri already mentioned, it's favorable for the Nordic pulp mills to run as full as possible in the cold winter months, as they produce electricity as well. So basically, typically, the first quarter is volume-wise a strong one, and then, of course, the kind of decreased wood prices should be supporting the business of our customers also going further into the year. So of course, we dearly and truly hope that the volumes are improving as a result of this phenomena. But it's really-
Too early to say.
U p to our customers.
Yeah. Then another question which is related to the Water Solutions business, and I think that we covered the seasonality part yet, but, this is related now to the, measures, or, or the, the kind of like, items affecting comparability. That's how I read this. So could you come back on the measures to increase production capacity in the water division? And why these measures make sense despite the lower volumes and lackluster demand in water? So maybe kind of like, why these sites and, and-
So let me. I'll cover this, the two IAC.
Mm-hmm.
I tems affecting comparability. So Teesport, U.K., has been a site with low capacity utilization for quite some time. Let's be honest about that one... and we have reviewed, and now what we have made a decision that it's sort of now falling below the threshold, and we are moving the production from some particular defoamers from that site to another site in Europe. So we are closing that site entirely, so we are obviously reducing fixed costs significantly with the closure of that site. So I think that's fairly, fairly obvious. Then in Botlek, Netherlands, it's a-- we're not closing a site, we're actually investing into a site, but it's a site with relatively high fixed cost because, I mean, it's Netherlands. It...
The salaries are relatively high there, and we are doing an automation investment. So what has been a fairly manual process, we are automating, and in the process, we are eliminating manual work. And it's fairly significant or big enough number of employees that it actually makes a difference. And so it's a. I'm not sure if we're investing into capacity addition. I think it's a, we call it improvement and automation investment. So it's not capacity constraint, that particular site. It's really an efficiency improvement with a quite decent payback period.
Exactly. And then if I continue on the... If you look at the kind of, couple of years timeline and the coagulant investments that we have been doing into Water Solutions, so we have been there. I mean, the growth, the population in Europe is not growing, the per capita water consumption is not growing, but the regulation is getting tighter. So basically, we have been doing this investment or initiating them when we see the regulation on certain part of Europe changing. It's not same, even if the EU regulation is the same, but the application in jurisdictions is different. So that's why we have twice expanded the coagulant capacity in U.K. The first one we sold immediately to practically full utilization, that's why we did the second capacity expansion.
Same goes for the Iberia, the Tarragona site, so there are certain factors in the regulation and the market that drive the demand. And we do kind of very targeted, relatively small, add-on capacity investments on existing site to capitalize on those pockets of market that we see the growth potentially.
Thank you. Let's now take one last question from the chat, and it's about the Packaging and Hygiene Solutions profitability program or profitability improvement program. So, can you comment on the progress? How much more work is there to be done, and when are you expecting the full impact to kick in?
Well, I'll start, and then if there's something that Petri wants to add, but basically, I mean, it has progressed in phases. So what we did last year is that we basically found the kind of so-called low-hanging fruit in terms of cost, both in the business unit itself and then on the operation side that are supporting it, and those we kind of had implemented. So the run rate should be kind of built into this year's numbers. We similarly found some kind of new add-on top line, which basically was realized. Those contracts were negotiated and closed last year. So basically, again, as the customers change suppliers, we should see the revenues in this year's numbers.
But then the next phase of that is the new operating model, which we have implemented, where we basically changed also the structure and basically how we serve the customers, giving better service for our key customers, the key accounts, and then streamlining the service levels for the kind of tail end. That work, the implementation is ongoing as we speak, so that happens during the Q1, and then the results will be, would be visible later in the year. And then, the business unit management has in pipeline the next round as well, because this is a kind of continuous process of when we kind of put something into shape, then we realize that there's, there are other things that can be further improved.
We will continuously work on that, but gradually during the year, those benefits will be visible.
Mm.
And some of them in 2027 only also, so this is a long process.
Yes. Thank you. Unfortunately, we are running out of time, so we will start to conclude the conference, and if there are any other questions, you know where to find the investor relations, so please be in touch. And we have a pretty full roadshow agenda coming in now after the earnings, so we will start with Petri next week in Geneva. So there are still plenty of opportunities to meet also Petri. And Antti and myself, we will be back here in our results studio in connection with our Q1 report, which will be published on April 24. And we, of course, hope that Petri will be cheering for us, maybe from the golf course or I don't know.
Well.
Thank you, all. Have a great day.
Thank you.
Thank you.