Very good morning, everyone. Warmly welcome to follow the webcast presentation of Relais Group for Q1 2025. My name is Arni Ekholm. I'm the Group CEO, and together with me, I have today even a special guest. More about that later. Thomas Ekström, Group CFO.
Good morning.
We'll present the financial numbers, and to add some color to the presentation, we decided to take Mr. Jan Popov with us today. Good morning.
Good morning.
He is going to take you through the repair and maintenance business and talk about the exciting acquisitions that we have made in that business. The theme for Q1 is "Ready for the Next Level." What I mean with that one is that we have come to a new level as a company. The major acquisitions that we have announced in April will make Relais, and will get Relais into a totally new level. Q1, I think you should not be fooled by the optics. It was not as strong as the exceptionally strong Q1 2024. However, this quarter is the fourth best quarter we have ever had on our journey in the stock market, and the second best Q1 profit-wise we have ever had. That tells a lot about the strength of the quarter.
More importantly as well, we will talk a lot about the acquisitions today, what kind of acquisitions we have made and why. I think when we announced these major acquisitions, it was a very busy week in the global media with tariffs and everything whatnot was going on there. I think these two acquisition cases deserve a little bit more time today, and hence we have booked that time and also have Jan here to talk about Team Werkstedt and the repair maintenance business. As per usual, I will walk you through the main events of Q1. Thomas will deep dive on the numbers and explain the developments. There are a few events after the review period, most importantly acquisitions. We have this focus on repair and maintenance business, as Jan is going to present. One slide on Outlook 2025.
How does the 2025 look like? And then as a summary, Relais Group as an investment. And then as usual, we always have the questions and answers in the end. You can submit the questions for those of you who are following this live. If I remember correctly, there is an ask a question button that you can submit or submit a question. You will find that. And then Heikki here will collate the questions at the end. Good. This has been a marvelous journey. I mean, if Relais Group was founded in 2010, and here we have history from 2013. On the right-hand side, you can see an illustrative combined 2024, where we have combined the 2024 results with the recently announced acquisitions.
With those acquisitions realizing and being closed as planned, we will have reached a turnover bar of about EUR 400 million and are getting close to the EUR 50 million target that we have set for ourselves. This is a huge leap, and in, let's say, less than 10 years, we have really, really grown faster than many other companies in the Finnish stock market. We have made over 20 acquisitions during the last five years, making Relais Group into a true European platform for future growth. This is a fantastic story, and we will tell you more about how we plan to make this story continue. This is a truly Nordic company, and now even a European company, which is really, I'm really glad for this development.
Also, when it comes to the acquisitions, what we are talking about later, I want to express my special thanks to the acquisition team and all the people who have contributed in making these things possible during Q1 and then announced later after the quarter ended. You have seen this chart before, and for those of you who have seen it, I mean, you can stop listening for a while and get a cup of coffee if you want. I think there are people also following this presentation who do not know Relais Group as a company. What do we do? We are a competent compounder focused on the vehicle aftermarket. The vehicle aftermarket is where you can really make profit in this vehicle business. I mean, you do not, in all honesty, make a lot of money by selling vehicles or manufacturing them.
We all know that, although it's of course an important business. The value creation potential is the biggest in the aftermarket. Whatever you do with a vehicle, you serve it, you maintain, you repair, you equip it with better lights or electrical equipment. That's our focus area. That's where we are good at, and this is our focus. The market, and this is now only focusing on the Nordic market, let alone the European market. Only the Nordic and Baltic markets, 20 million vehicles, stable, growing market is growing all the time. The value of spare parts and components is driving value because they are getting more complex and hence also more, let's say, valuable and expensive by unit.
Electrification offers new exciting possibilities for us, and we are prepared for that part as well, although it is not advancing as quickly as sometimes you can read from the media. E-commerce is increasing, and the last mile deliveries are getting more frequent and need a lot of service and equipment. The digital disruption offers new opportunities to talk with the customers and find new distribution channels with that. We estimate the market is only in Nordics, about EUR 20 billion. There is loads still to, a lot still to gain from that market. How does the group look like today? It consists basically of two major parts, technical wholesale and products, and then commercial vehicle repair and maintenance. The commercial vehicle repair and maintenance is roughly 35% of net sales after Q1, and the rest, technical wholesale and products, is then 65%.
The technical wholesale and products can be divided into two subgroups, spare parts for heavy commercial vehicles and passenger cars in Finland and Sweden, and then lighting and equipment for all types of vehicles, predominantly commercial vehicles, which is 38%. We also have quite a number of own brands. As you can see from the map, it is part of our culture that when we acquire companies, it is not one size fits all. I mean, you do not see a Relais name on the roof of basically the companies. Where it makes sense, we always keep the name and the culture and the identity of the company because that is the face to the customers. We also are not shying away from putting together some companies. We have done that in Sweden with Söderstång & Dalar.
In Denmark, we have combined three companies into one, but still the face is the same as it has been, or Ahlqvist in Finland or Skeppsbrons in Sweden. It is not a mantra for us that we have to find one name for everybody. How do we intend to grow? I mean, Relais is a growth company. We intend to grow also in the future. You can consider this as a kind of pyramid where the bottom is the organic growth. On the organic growth, our target has all the time been to grow faster than the market, above market growth, by utilizing synergies and the focus that we have and the large network that we have, taking a larger part of the value chain, quite simply.
We are smart when it comes to pricing, and pricing is everything when it comes to wholesale and even on the repair and maintenance. You need to be following what's going on in the market. There's a lot of intelligence needed and systems that you can take support from having the exactly right price, not to miss the deals, and also to have a healthy gross profit. Diversifying customer base. We still have pockets in the market that we are not reaching out to yet. We are looking at expanding product and service offerings. That's still one way to grow in a classical way. New vehicle types. There are still vehicle types that are growing, and we are not yet strong there. I mean, you take the whole defense sector. It's projected to grow vastly in the future, and I think we can do still more on that sector.
The next level in the pyramid is the way you do things, operational excellence. It's the small things. I think Jan will also, in his presentation, talk about why are the small, even the details that look very small, why are they important for the running of an efficient business and profitable business. We strive to continuously enhance the operation. I know it sounds like a cliché, but we really do that. We measure, we have KPIs, we measure between the companies, we benchmark the companies, have league tables where we can see who is doing on what level, encourage the companies to learn from each other. Procurement is also very crucial. Once you start to be a company of our size, you really get clout and power for the purchases, and people will listen to you in a totally different way when it comes to suppliers.
Working capital optimization, Thomas will touch on that. As a wholesaler, that we still are in one third of our business, you could say, it's really important to keep an eye on the working capital, not to tie too much. I mean, it's a function between service level and tying capital. You need to be smart the way you tie capital into the business. Then bolt-ons in existing business areas. We are a platform that consists basically of three platforms. Each of the three platforms that we have, whether it be then the spare parts or repair maintenance or lighting equipment, are producing self-leads and bolt-on acquisition cases. That's the beauty of this construction that we have created. We can look at the geographical expansion. We have done that recently to the Netherlands and Belgium. We might be looking at critical competence.
Let's say there's some kind of software-related, vehicle-related companies that we feel that we need to own. We can be looking at that type of stuff. New products and services that we don't currently have without giving more details, but there are still pockets in the market that we are looking at that we are not currently operating in. New vehicle types tying into the organic growth, but also buying ourselves into the defense sector, just giving that as an example, or whatever agricultural sector that we are not yet very strong in. Then comes to the top of the pyramid, that start to be transformative deals, new business areas within the vehicle aftermarket, or then transformational M&A in existing business areas where the Team Werkstedt, I think, is on the verge of being a transformational M&A.
We have loads of different opportunities to still grow, whether it be organically or by acquisition. We are already on the European scale, a really, really, let's say, important consolidator in this business and a scalable platform with strong growth potential. Relais is a growth company. I think it's very important for everybody to kind of understand that and see the projection for the future. We intend to grow also in the future. Right. Looking at Q1, ready for the next level. I mean, it was a balanced quarter according to the expectations. I think the, I don't want to overplay the weather factor here, but it does play a role, especially for Finland and Baltic markets, having that type of products that are, let's say, related demand-wise to the extreme cold weather. It's not enough.
It's one day it's - 20 or another day it's - 5. When it starts to be weeks and weeks of cold weather, as it was last year, you sell a lot of batteries and chargers and boosters. That gives you the kind of a cherry topping on the cake, if you will. Now it was very warm weather in this quarter one, so it actually hit Finland and Baltics, not so much Sweden. The gross profit rose simultaneously because of the business mix. I mean, repair maintenance business, the weight of that business grew, and Thomas will show some more exact numbers on that one. As a result of this product mix change, the boost that we did not get, the EBITDA declined with 5%.
Still, bear in mind that this was the second biggest and second most profitable quarter one that we have ever had in the history of the company. I do not want to dwell too much on the numbers because Thomas will recap them later. Let's say stable net sales performance versus last year's exceptionally high quarter, comparable EBITDA 9.2, so hence the -5%. Earnings per share grew very much, and Thomas will explain the exchange rate effects on that because exchange rate has a big effect on these KPIs. The ROSI, the return on capital employed, 21, which is in line with what you would expect from a compounder, and return on equity was 19.1. Getting to a very high level, of course, then partly relating to the currency rate effect. I just give a few, add a little bit more color on the business areas.
What happened in quarter one is that I think the big picture is that the Scandinavian units were generally in line with last year. I think it comes partly from the market factors and partly from product mix factors that the Swedish companies are not that dependent on the cold weather cherry topping, as I was explaining. On a good level. I would also like to point out that the Finnish and Baltic units were still on a high level, even if they were negatively affected versus the exceptionally high quarter one that we had last year. Do not take this as a kind of, it was not that negative, but it was mathematically negatively affected. One, let's say, thing that we were very glad for is the recently acquired workshop equipment business in Norway that really had a strong start of the year.
The local car dealers have invested quite a lot in rebuilding their workshops, and hence that is a big amount of projects going on there, and also partly to the defense sector, which are repairing their workshops. Right. I mean, as I explained in the beginning, Finnish and Baltic wholesale companies have a higher share of product groups that are, let's say, sensitive to the demand changes due to the weather. Lighting, again, a strong and positive quarter, especially for Ströms, where the export-driven success still continued, 4% increase of net sales. Especially, I'm glad that the online business, although it's fairly small, was a positive contributor in quarter one. It's not the highest peak season of online business during the year, but that was very positive to see. Greetings to Rovaniemi and Sweden for the teams.
Also, the OptiBeam brand that we have in StarTrax for the lights was doing fine, but I think Ströms was the driver of the growth this time. Repair maintenance, Jan will tell more about the strategy, but I just want to recap that this was one of the, let's say, the strong performers in quarter one, where the growth came predominantly from the acquired businesses. We acquired Ahlqvist in Finland last year and also Team Werkstad in Sweden, not to be mixed with Team Werkstedt, although they belong to the same group, but this is in Swedish Team Werkstad. Strong contribution to the sales and the customer demand remain at previous levels in both countries in the big picture, I would say. Although I think we took some market shares as well as a result.
I'm happy for the acquisitions we made last year with Ahlqvist and Team Werkstad, and they have fully met the expectations, which we had when we bought them, although there's still synergy potential and growth for both of the companies. I still want to welcome the teams warmly to join Relais, although, okay, it was already announced last year, but you are still the newcomers, I would say, in the group, but really strong performance, so thank you for that. Yeah, sales by segment. I think the one offtake from this is that the Scandinavian segment in quarter one grew already to almost 60% of the total business. This is also a huge change, looking back 10 years in the history of the company. From a, let's say, purely Finnish company into a truly Nordic company. This is an evolution.
Business area I already mentioned in the beginning that the weight of the commercial vehicle repair maintenance business grew to 35%. Lastly, the product groups, not really huge changes apart from the fact that spare parts had a small decline and the repair and maintenance went up to 35%. Fairly even distribution of the businesses. A few words about the financing as a compounding company. Of course, financing is crucial and important to us. We announced on the 28th of March signing of a new EUR 140 million long-term financing agreement with our main bank, with a maturity of three years, with two one-year extension options.
The financing package consists of a EUR 110 million multicurrency term loan, a revolving credit facility of EUR 10 million, and then an uncommitted term loan facility of EUR 20 million, which is then to be used for acquisition purposes, that EUR 20 million. The revolving credit is then for general corporate purposes. We have a really, really good cooperation with our main bank and get a lot of strong support from them, including also the additional bridge loan that we were granted to finance the Team Werkstedt deal. This kind of deep partnership with the financer is always very valuable and gives us good potential to grow also for the future. A few words about sustainability. You might be aware of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, ESRS, and we are, of course, following that directive and the standards and also the Finnish Accounting Act.
We published our sustainability report in connection with a report of the board of directors in March. During the first quarter of this year, we have continued planning our development measures relating to the sustainability and more, let's say, on a concretic level. What do these efforts include? Among other things, the roadmap for climate targets. We expect to be completing that during the first half of the year or beginning of the second half of the year. I will pass the word over to Thomas to talk you through the financial part. Please, Thomas.
Thank you, Arni. Yes, we will go through the customary package. I will not so much dig into the net sales and EBITDA development. Arni pretty much elaborated on that.
Perhaps a bit more into detail on the EBITDA development that the EBITDA decreased slightly in both businesses, more in technical wholesale than in the repair and maintenance. As usual, we always comment on the impact of converting the Swedish krona business and that impact to the Euro Group EBITDA. There was, as the last quarter, there was no impact on that, on the profitability. Purely kind of business development related EBITDA this time. We go to gross profit and gross margin. As Arni indicated, it has improved a lot, and it basically comes from the increased weight of the repair and maintenance business through the acquisitions and also through the more sustainable sales development in Q1 compared to the technical wholesale and products business. It is also very important to note that the gross margins also increased separately in both businesses.
It is not only the mix, it is also the development in the individual businesses. I would say really, and you see the chart here also, that is really consistent long-term development, both on the gross profit and gross margin level. Operating expenses, if you say that the gross profit improved through the sales mix and the business mix, then also this one here, you see that the OPEX increases also due to the acquisitions in the repair and maintenance, which has a lot of mechanics and is kind of personnel expense heavy business. That is pretty much also here a business mix impact that increased, but of course also cost inflation impacts, but very much in control, this KPI also.
working capital, this time, if you compare to the last quarter in 2024, as Arni said, we had a really cold winter, and now the business had prepared for a normal winter. A mild winter came in, which meant that we have had a bit higher inventories at the end of Q1 than perhaps expected, but they were at the same level as at the end of the year. This is also seen in the inventory turnover measure that we see that inventory turnover declined a bit compared to the previous quarters. Then again, net working capital turnover improved. All in all here, a fairly reasonable development, but the mild winter caused the inventory levels to be higher than expected. This will, of course, even out during the coming months and quarters. Cash flow, no big impacts here. Profitability impacted quite squarely.
No big differences from the EBITDA, but then again, the improved and increased inventories impacted change in net working capital, so that there was a negative cash flow from net working capital of about EUR 8 million compared to EUR 6 million in Q1 in 2024. Cash flow from net financials, there was a net impact of negative EUR 3 million, which is about the same level as last year. Here we should note that due to the new financing package, we paid off the accumulated interest in Q1 as opposed to usually paying the interest in Q2 in June. We also had somewhat less tax payments due to kind of different accrual and payment structures in taxes. On a whole, kind of even level, net financials was quite at the same level as last year.
Cash conversion came down pretty much, also having to do with the lower cash flow, free cash flow against EBITDA. Here is the cash flow summary. I will not go so much more into this. Perhaps the last box here on the right, we see that cash flow from financing activities was EUR 18 million. This comes, of course, from that we paid off the old term loan facility at the end of March. We raised the new term loans, which were about EUR 17 million higher than the paid-off old. These proceeds will then be used for kind of paying the Macro Group acquisition when that is closed. We also took a EUR 4 million drawdown on the revolving credit facility for short-term intra-year cash flow needs. Interest-bearing net debt.
Here we see what I just explained, that the total loans for financial institutions increased to EUR 113 million compared to EUR 95 million last year. Lease liabilities were quite at the same level, a bit of an increase due to the acquisitions of Team Werkstad and Ahlqvist, but otherwise flat development there. The gross debt increased to EUR 176 million, about EUR 20 million up from last year, as said. The cash and liquidity was higher at almost EUR 30 million. We considered about EUR 5-10 million should be the normal level that we keep in cash reserves. The rest was for financing the Macro Group acquisition. Net financials in the income statement. Here we see that the net financial items as a whole was a lot lower than in the previous comparison quarter in 2024.
As Arni said, we had a lot of net FX gain in this quarter compared to a EUR 1.1 million FX loss in the comparable quarter in 2024. This has to do with that we have a SEK loan position, that we have a SEK loan to our bank, external loans, but also the parent company has internal SEK receivables to subsidiaries. These always then fluctuate based on the difference between the beginning and end value of the euro to SEK. This time, the krona strengthened a lot at the end of the quarter, which brought a bigger positive impact on net financial items. This kind of FX gain had approximately, it impacted the EPS also, improving it by approximately EUR 0.14. I will not reiterate these other than we see that the equity ratio was stable and a bit improved.
Of course, also total equity improved, but here in Q2, the dividend payment will go out here, so that will come down a bit in the second quarter. Total assets increased through the acquisitions and also through the higher net working capital. Yeah, and gearing was on a significantly lower level than last year. The returns, as Arni mentioned, the return on capital employed and return on equity improved a lot, but the same goes for perhaps one of the key metrics we have, that means return on net working capital. That was about 9 percentage points higher than last year. Here it is key to remember that the calculation EBITA here is the last 12 months EBITA, so this is always a long-term annualized metric. Yes, and the long-term financial target, of course, as Arni said, is EUR 50 million, and Arni elaborated more on that previously.
Yes, do you want to, Arni, take care of that one?
Yeah, thanks so much. Events after the review period, mostly focusing on acquisitions. I mean, we are a competence-based compounder, and we know this business, and we always want to have a strong pipeline of promising companies to acquire. The type of companies, I've said it before, what kind of companies are we looking at? Companies that have a stable financial track record. We are not actively looking for distressed companies or turnaround cases. There might be cases that have had a recent turnaround, but then we need to get certainty that is on a stable, sustainable level. We want to have well-managed businesses with a highly committed team. It's really important. We need to see a solid future profit growth for these companies when they join a Relais family.
I mean, we want to see growth. Some companies have a steeper growth projection, some companies have a more stable, depending on what type of business they are coming from. We did two major deals, we announced two major deals in April, Macro Group in Belgium and Benelux. I will talk more about that. Then Team Werkstedt and Lastvangs Delar in Norway, where Jan is going to walk you through the details. Acquisition pipeline metrics, these are the ones that have followed this presentation. You have seen this before. Technically, over 500 companies monitored that we are analyzing in the Nordic and Baltic markets and now also lifting the look all across Europe. That boils down to having roughly 10 dialogue-20 dialogues at any given time with different companies or owners or entrepreneurs. Of course, they do not all lead to deals, as you have seen.
I mean, we historically have completed an average of three to four acquisitions per year, but you need to have the pipeline, otherwise, I mean, if the percentage is historically, let's say, on that level, you need to have your nets outside there to get the fish. We are very picky. We want the best companies, and hence it's more quality than quantity. I presume that moving forward and the machine gets more power, so to say, to look at the smaller add-on acquisitions. When the platform gets bigger, you get automatically more incoming and you get more contacts. These three to four acquisitions per year is more like the medium and big-sized acquisitions. It's not a kind of a limitation for us to stay there. Okay, the Macro deal, what was Macro all about?
I mean, it's a kind of new name for most of the people watching the presentation. With the acquisition of Macro Group, we took a major step into Europe, into Central Europe, Benelux, and Germany, looking at the truck accessories market. The truck accessories is a market that I think many people do not even think that it exists. If you look at the picture, I mean, you can equip and you can personalize the truck not only with light, you have sunscreens, you have horns, you have all types of equipment that the truck owner or the truck driver needs and wants to have because, I mean, that's his or her working place. Who would not like the working place to be nice and good-looking? That's an amazing type of business that we get a good hold now with Macro Group.
A well-established company has a good market position in Benelux and Germany. A fantastic team led by Glenn Gils, who has founded the company. Profitable, good track record. They have their own brand called NetKing, which has a big potential in Europe and also in the Scandinavian and Nordic markets. This is a long-term customer and partner of Strands. We know them well and we can support them also in the future. Actually, three companies, the Macro Group, Macro Industrial, Truck Accessories, and Essent Truck Styling in Belgium. And then CTC, Car Truck Care Netherland in Netherlands. So it's actually three companies covering the Benelux and German markets. What are the key benefits of the acquisition? Why did we buy? Why did we take this partnership with?
Because I really strongly consider this as a partnership, because you have to remember that Glenn is staying with a 30% share as a shareholder still in Macro Group, and he's really burning for the future growth and cooperation with us. This will enable accelerated growth in the truck accessories market across Europe for Relais Group. It's kind of a, in a way, a new opening for us. I mean, we feel that together, these two companies, Strands and Macro, are better positioned to grow in the new market segments. I mean, there's a lot of knowledge that the people have and the teams. They can get into new market segments, look at different geographies in Europe, and then stronger together. NetKing, it's still, I would call it a start. It's a good start.
A lot of nice truck accessories, a strong brand, a lot of potential for the future growth. We can utilize our own distribution networks, our own companies as well to sell NetKing in the Nordics or to introduce new products under the NetKing brand. We have had a strong lighting brand. Now we also have a strong truck accessory brand. Another point is that Strands is unique and so is Relais, and a lot of other Relais Group companies when it comes to sourcing. The sourcing network that we have for the lighting and accessory production is great. I think Macro, who has not had so much organizational resources to focus on this one, will gain a lot by working together as part of the Relais Group. I would ask Jan to tell more about the repair and maintenance business. Go ahead, Jan.
Thank you, Arni. Just to shed some more light on our repair and maintenance business. First of all, it's good to bear in mind that in the beginning of 2021, we didn't have any workshops. Now, upon closing of the Team Werkstedt deal, we will have grown from 0 to 61 workshops, which offers unmatched coverage in the Nordics. We are already the biggest operator of independent commercial vehicle workshop in the Nordics, and acquiring Team Werkstedt will only strengthen our position. We are not stopping here. There are still lots of interesting and potential acquisition targets in the Nordics. Briefly to recap the signing of the Team Werkstedt deal, which we announced a few weeks ago. It consists of, and by the way, it was already the second strategic acquisition we announced this year.
Team Werkstedt consists of the commercial vehicle repair and maintenance chain, Team Werkstedt, and heavy spare part specialist wholesaler, Lastvangs Delar LVD. Team Werkstedt, which is the workshop business, it operates a nationwide multi-brand workshop chain, which offers maintenance and repair services to trucks, trailers, and buses. It has 21 own workshops and three franchise workshops across Norway. Whereas LVD distributes spare parts and accessories for the heavy vehicle sector, specifically for trucks, buses, and trailers in Norway. Last year, in 2024, the consolidated revenue of Team Werkstedt was approximately NOK 834 million. We are extremely excited about the strategic opportunity what this deal will present us. Shortly about the key benefits of this acquisition. As already said, this will grow our network in the Nordics, in Finland, Norway, and Sweden to 61 workshops, which enables unique value proposition to our customers.
The acquisition unlocks material synergy potential of up to an estimated NOK 30 million annually over the coming years. Naturally, it will take some time to materialize the synergies. We expect these synergies primarily to come from sharing of best practices and resulting operational efficiencies in the workshop business, shared purchases, and internal sourcing. We have had great results across the group in these areas. We are, of course, excited to replicate these successes also then in Norway. In a similar way, Raskonen is a platform in Finland. STS is a platform in Sweden. Team Werkstedt will serve as a Norwegian platform for our further acquisitions in the workshop sector. Through the acquisition of Lastvangs Delar, Relais, we get a bigger share of the entire commercial vehicle value chain, and we get a new channel to distribute our own products in Norway.
Our task or job in the repair and maintenance business is to maximize our customer success through uptime. Uptime is absolutely critical in the commercial vehicle sector, where every single minute of downtime results in loss of revenue to our customers. These are a few core strengths that have been and are the key drivers for our continued profitable growth. The first one being comprehensive fleet coverage. We provide end-to-end services to all types of commercial vehicles, whether it is a truck, bus, trailer, superstructure, which is built on top of the truck chassis, or LCV, regardless of the make, age, or model. Our workshops serve as a single point of contact to all the repair and maintenance needs of our customers. As said, with soon to be 61 workshops across the Nordics, we will ensure that our services are always close to our customers.
What is really important is the fact that we know how to operate workshops and how to run workshops. We have a proven framework for workshop excellence. In the very center or in the very core of our framework and our workshop process is customer and customer satisfaction. As said, we understand how crucial uptime is. We understand their need for rapid response and rapid repair times. We have a comprehensive toolbox for turning good workshops into excellent workshops. This is crucial. This knowledge is crucial when we are acquiring new companies and we know how we can make them better, even better ones, and how we can serve the customers even better after the acquisition. As in any service-based business, success lies in the details. Even the smallest process improvements contribute to enhancing efficiency and customer loyalty.
On flexibility and agility, all our repair and maintenance companies have a lean organization, and that enables us to enable a fast response to customer needs, new opportunities, and market changes. It also enables us quite fast to develop new services that are still part of our core business in repair and maintenance and create added value to our customers. These have been the main key drivers why we have been able to take market share and have been able to continue profitable growth even in rather challenging economic environments. I think it is good to remind that what is repair and maintenance role in Relais Group? Repair and maintenance or workshops are one of the group's three pillars of strength, the other two being brands and wholesale. First of all, repair and maintenance is fairly defensive and resilient.
Repair and maintenance, it provides a stable revenue stream even in challenging economic times since repair and maintenance is essential regardless of the market conditions. I think this is something we have been able to prove during the recent years. Repair and maintenance provides or generates strong cash flow through quick turnaround times, ensuring high cash conversion. When we combine that one to capitalize the business model that we have, that supports Relais' profitable growth. Of course, on the last note, workshops act as distributors for Relais Group, brand, and wholesale companies. Thank you. Back to you, Arni.
Thank you, Jan. Thank you. That's a very good presentation. I think we might have not been too good at explaining why we are focusing on the workshop business. I think Jan described this in a very good way.
I hope all of you listening kind of got the picture of why this is a good business. I mean, as Jan said, we really know this business. We cannot show you all the trade secrets, of course, but we have a good recipe of running good workshops and a kind of a methodology of when we take over companies that we can really count on the synergies that we have analyzed. I would say that Relais Group is a good home for any workshop or, let's say, wanting to join our forces. This is a safe and good home. I also, again, want to wish Team Werkstedt and Lastvangs Delar people warmly welcome to join when we then finally can close the deals on that one. The management team, we did some changes also during quarter one.
I think it deserves some focus as well. What we have done is that we assigned specific responsibility areas to three people, three musketeers, as I call Johan, Juan, and Jan. Half jokingly, Johan is running Strands Group and is now also heading the development of the whole lighting and product business and looking at the brand development as well across the group. It is already bearing fruit with increased cooperation between the Finnish and Swedish units on lighting. Johan is also supporting on the private label production or the house label production we have for other product groups. Juan, a long-standing managing director of Scandinavia with a very, very solid background from wholesale and spare parts, is now looking at the development of the whole technical wholesale business that we have in the Nordics and already there. A good amount of cross-fertilization going on with the companies.
Jan, who you just met here, is heading the development of the commercial vehicle repair and maintenance business area. Why we did this was to get more focus on developing these business lines and the three thrusts of growth that we have in the company. We are also participating in the local board so that Johan, Juan, and Jan are kind of across the geographies getting exposure to these companies. I have high expectations for this and also to speed up the decision-making process. At the same time, Johan, Juan, and Jan are actively participating in the acquisition cases. It is not only our eminent acquisition team who is doing it, this is now the additional acquisition team. This is really going to be good. Here you see the whole management team.
I make my best to get also some gender balance on this one, but currently an all-male management team headed by me. Johan and Thomas, you have seen the CFO. Juan and Jan I just presented, and Sebastian is running the M&A and business development. Yuri joined last year in summer to develop our compliance, legal, and HR, let's say, parts and has done a fantastic job. I am really happy for this young team. Outlook 2025, how does the rest of the year look like? As Thomas already reiterated, we have an official long-term target, although now it is no more a really long-term target. This was set a few years back in time. We are aiming to reach, we aim to reach a run rate performer EBITDA, comparable EBITDA of EUR 50 million by the end of this year. What does this mean?
What is run rate? What is performer? This means that combined with all the acquisitions we have done or will do this year, put them together at a full year effect, that's the EUR 50 million target. As you have seen, with closing the Matro Group, Team Werkstedt, Lastvangs Delar deals, we will have added approximately EUR 9 million more EBITDA upon closing of these deals, coming to a platform of over 1,600 professionals in nine countries and net sales of about EUR 400 million. This is really transformative steps we are about to take this year. Again, looking at the full year effect of these and potentially other acquisitions. We are kind of on the way to do what we have promised. That has always been very important for us, what we promise we keep. We are not stopping here.
We are looking all the time at different interesting acquisition cases and aim to produce even more deals. The platform is already, I won't say it's self-sufficient or self-feeding, but it's really, we can see the effects that there's a certain bandwagon effect when we are on the progress that people want to join forces with us. We have super professional teams working very hard to boost our organic growth, the base of the pillar, and to also realize the untapped synergy potential. That's the part of the functional excellence that the teams are working, not only to sell more, but also to sell in a smarter way and really find the synergy potentials that we have between the companies. We are ready for the next level of growth. Finally, summing up before I can let you loose on the questions, Relais as an investment.
Again, I've shown this before. There are not new items here, but I just want to, let's say, emphasize and re-emphasize the uniqueness of Relais as a platform, as a Nordic company. You don't see other companies so focused on the vehicle aftermarket. There are other compounders, yes, especially in Sweden, but we are unique. We are a competent compounder with a clear focus on the vehicle aftermarket. It gives us a unique competitive advantage. We have proven a track record of successful M&A in a highly fragmented industry with significant acquisition opportunities still left to explore. The markets are growing, and especially now when we're also looking at Europe, large, resilient, as Jan was also pointing out, the fact that why is the repair maintenance so beautiful? And also generally the aftermarket is the resilience and the defensive nature of the markets.
We are already now proving the scalability of the platforms. We are getting more add-on cases all the time. We know the way we do the business. Hence, when you know what you're doing, the possibility that you can really synergize and get a higher profitability than otherwise is, of course, always higher. We have a track record of consistent, strong, and profitable organic revenue growth as well on top of the acquisition growth and a high cash-generative business model that feeds, again, our possibility to make additional acquisitions. We also are a very, let's say, overhead-lean company, a decentralized model. We want to emphasize and enhance the entrepreneurial culture and values. This is, we really burn for this business, a lot of passion and entrepreneurship everywhere I look in this company. For that, I'm super glad.
Finally, I already promised to quit, but this is the last page. If you look at the total shareholder value creation, Relais Group has been an extremely good investment from day one. If you had invested EUR 1 in this company when we were introduced in the stock market, that euro would have now grown to EUR 2.21 with a total shareholder return, including the dividends, outperforming the OMX Helsinki 25 index with 2.7 times. Bear also in mind that we have returned EUR 35 million to shareholders, to you shareholders, in dividends and share repurchases since the IPO. This solid foundation that we have built is a good base to continue to grow either organically or by acquisition opportunities. Now, finally, the questions and answers. I can welcome Thomas and Jan to join in case we have questions that are also directed to you.
Heikki, I hope you have a lot of questions.
Yes, indeed. There's quite a few questions. You have time after 11 also?
Oh yeah, yes. If the studio is free, we are here.
Definitely. Tony wants to know, has Relais prepared for the possibility that warm winters will become more frequent, which would naturally reduce the demand for a certain type of products?
Thank you, Tony, for the question. As I pointed out, the weather is important, but it's not that important. It's more like the, as I, I don't know if cherry topping is the right word, but it's like the additional nice good benefit that we can get when it's really cold. It's not that super, super on a full year level. Things will even out. I mean, even if we were preparing to sell a lot of batteries, it was a warm winter.
Now we can sell the batteries also in the summer. So it's not really, yes, we are prepared and it's not rocking the boat too much.
Good. Seppo wants to know, could you outline the impact of the Swedish krona on the results and how investors should take this into account going forward?
Yeah, I think Thomas can answer that, but just as a layman's answer, you have to differ between the profit and loss and then the balance sheet related factors. But with this, I bridge over to you, Thomas.
Yes, and as Arni said, I mean, looking at the EBIT level, there of course is the average change in the krona impact through that we convert the krona business profitability to euros. That's the one impact. But then the second impact that impacts net financial items is that we have secondary loans to our bank.
We also have a holding company in Sweden to which the ultimate parent company has lent funds in krona. As this internal loan receivable is higher than the external loan to the bank, we always at this stage have different impacts of the krona when you convert the krona loans and loan receivables to euro. You have a difference in those. This impacts net financial items. In the future, gradually this kind of different levels of external SEK loan and internal SEK receivable, we will try to pay down the internal SEK receivable in the future, gradually making them match, which will then eliminate this impact on net financial items and of course on the EPS.
Would it be fair to say that when we are looking at balance sheet related KPIs, then it is comparing with, let's say, the end of the year currency rate versus the end of the quarter currency rate where there was a big reinforcement of Swedish krona? When you compare quarter one versus quarter one on the profit and loss, Swedish krona was even steeper.
Yeah, yeah.
Complicated answer. I hope it was enough. If not, please recap that.
Seppo continues, how do you view the financing situation for acquisitions now following the recent purchases?
Good question. We still have gunpowder left, as we just explained on the financing. I think, of course, we have the bridge loan for the Team Werksted at the moment, and which we have also announced will be repaid with equity or equity-like financing.
I think transformative deals would trigger some type of need for equity enhancement. For this year, I feel that we still have good possibility to do acquisitions with the financing package that we have currently.
Good. Tony has one more question. Could Relais also expand its commercial vehicle repair and maintenance business into Central Europe now that the door to that market has been opened?
Definitely. I mean, it's probably nothing that we are really actively pushing, but we are looking at the possibilities of adjacent markets as well. I wouldn't, this is my view on it, I wouldn't be too exotic there, but I mean, let's look at the adjacent markets like Northern Germany or Poland. Definitely, we would be interested in looking at them. We still have white spaces in the Nordics as well.
But it's not a no, if I say it in that way.
Good. Petri Gostovski, Inderes. We've seen from other companies that the Baltics are doing worse than Finland, which is then at least somewhat weaker than, for example, Sweden. Is this your assessment about the markets geographically?
I'm not sure. I followed if the question was whether the Baltics are specifically weaker than Finland or Finland and Baltics combined. But I choose to answer the Baltics. I mean, Baltics is a very small business for us currently. It's about EUR 7 million turnover, mostly coming from lighting and equipment. So when we are commenting Finland and Baltics, it's just a segment called Finland and Baltics, but the driver is Finland. So whatever happens in Finland is the big thing.
For quarter one, isolated, since Finland has the Finnish company StarTrax, the wholesale business, now I'm talking about the wholesale business in Finland, is predominantly, they are good in electrical equipment and spare parts. That's where we took a hit. I mean, Baltics is very small for us. It does not rock the boat to any direction. Although the team is doing a fantastic job, so do not get me wrong, but it is still a very small business for us.
Petri continues, can you describe where do you see the synergy potential in Ahlqvist and Team Werkstad businesses and what concrete actions have you taken to bank these synergies?
I think we have a fantastic guy to answer that question here. Jan, please go ahead.
Sure. We acquired Ahlqvist since expanding into trailer business was really strategically important for us.
We have already been able to achieve great synergies in Finland with Raskonen and the expertise of Ahlqvist. Of course, I think what I told and what Arni also touched upon is that the continuous benchmarking we are doing between the companies, and we have had excellent results in repair and maintenance and also in the group across benchmarking and how even the smallest improvements have a huge impact on operational efficiency. I think this benchmarking is an extremely important factor in OEM with Team Werkstad. How we can utilize the best practices, and we know how to run workshops. As I said, we are excited to replicate these successes and experiences in Norway.
Super. Petri continues, is the cost of the bridge loan on a similar level as your other financing facilities?
In the big picture, yes.
Of course, there's a time effect on that. Let's say on an average time span that you would look at the bridge loan, yes, there's no major deviation to any direction.
Good. One more from Petri. I recall that the cold Q1 in 2024 also impacted the growth in Q2 2024. Can you confirm this and do you see the market demand growing in the short term?
Thank you, Petri. You have a good memory. This has been the case, especially in Finland, where we have noticed that when the wholesalers' customers have had a good start for the year, it kind of continues somewhat to April. Same can be seen, not necessarily the cold weather, but the effects of the repair needs for certain types of vehicles pop up only after the winter.
I mean, when you change tires and you have to do brake jobs for the companies or for the vehicles. I can confirm to a certain level that this has been the fact, although we are not really seeing that effect negatively at the moment. I mean, it is more like it has had a positive effect. So the demand has normalized, I would say, if I am looking at the markets after the quarter one. There has been a correlation, yes, especially for Finland in the past.
Good. Then Joni Sandvall from Nordea. Have you seen any changes in the market dynamics since Q4 report and how you expect market demand to develop during the rest of the year?
Thank you, Joni. In the big picture, not really too much.
There would be small items here and there, but let's say in the big picture, not a huge change on the market environment, no. Again, the crystal ball department, really hard to say. There are some signs of the infrastructure building getting picked up again and logistic businesses getting more wind in the sails. I'm not too pessimistic at all about the macro environment, but who knows? I mean, who knows? Our projection and our baseline thinking is that it's a normal business year.
Good. Joni continues. How do you expect your sourcing costs from Far East to develop in 2025? Have you been able to gain scale synergies in sourcing?
To a certain extent, I think that I have to be very cautious. Now again, there's a lot of everything with the tariff negotiations and oil prices, but the freight cost has not increased.
I think some of our producers in Asia have had extra capacity because of the lack of exports to the U.S. I think that gives us a certain more clout to work with our partners there. I cannot give any specific, let's say, number, but let's say the sourcing cost has not increased. Whether it is going to go down, I cannot project at the moment.
Good. Joni continues. You are expecting acquisitions to close during June, i.e., leverage is set to increase in Q2. Ahead of refinancing of the bridge loan, how much financing room do you have for further acquisitions?
I think it can be read from the announcements that we have made. I mean, there is this EUR 20 million uncommitted facility in the financing package. And then, of course, there is cash flow.
I would also like to point out that our playbook has all the time been to use our own share as one means of payment and also deferred payment like vendor loans and stuff. I think due to the weakness of the Finnish stock market and also maybe in the Nordics as well, we have not managed to use the share as much as we had liked to do. We are wanting to use more shares in the future. Do not look only at the cash or the facilities. Think also about the possibility to do majority deals like we did in Macro. Our dream scenario would be to find a strong entrepreneur who wants to join forces with us and take a lot of shares to align the interest. It is not only the money.
Having a 100% cash deal, yeah, we have done them now, but it's not like the ideal structure that we have. We have more than the eye can meet.
Good. Last one from Joni. Do you see possibilities for organic expansion of network within workshops or view acquisitions as the more potential way forward?
The acquisitions are certainly in a way a safer and a quicker way. Having said that, we are also doing a certain amount of, let's say, relocating in one city to another side of the city, like in Sweden, which is then a greenfield operation in a way. It's not too much expanding. I think, Jani, you have more details.
But I think in the Swedish market, we have a couple of cases where we are building a new workshop, but it's not like a, it's more like replacing an old one in the city. It is more probable that we will grow through add-on acquisitions than just greenfield. We are not excluding greenfields, but sometimes it's easier to find an acquisition target. You can shout if I'm... Fully echo you, yeah.
Super. The last one, last question comes from Petri. Can you give some examples of the best practices you are looking to take to Team Werksted business from your other repair and maintenance businesses?
Yeah, let's see how open Jan wants to be today with our playbook. But maybe you can give some headlines of what type of things we would have.
Yeah, sure.
Probably I wouldn't want to be too open here, but it really boils down to very small details starting from that I said, what kind of services we can provide to our customers that are still part of our core. Just to give a few examples that we are able now to manufacture tops for trailers. We are able to provide our customer with tire sales, and we have started to refurbish engines, which is more cost-effective and in most cases also a quicker way to get a new engine for our customers. In this business, the devil is really in the details. When there are lots of things that you do in a better way, that results in that you are able to provide better services to your customers and also you are able to enhance your profitability. That's in a way a win-win situation.
I think if I might add, we should not think that Team Werksted is, in a way, they're not doing a good job. That is not the case with benchmarking. It is more like how to make from good to great. I mean, even Raskonen has stuff that they have learned from STS and vice versa. It is not like, okay, there is a problem child that we need to fix with a long list of things. It is more to make sure that we have a systematic, methodological approach to fixing things. If you have the discipline in there, then you will get the results when you start to measure.
That is work you are never done with, that is continuous improvement and continuous work of course.
Absolutely, yeah.
We actually do have one more question coming from Mika Karppinen. How do you see possible tariffs impacting on your lighting businesses?
At the moment, not at all. I think it's more a question of what's going on between the U.S. and China. I don't think, well, I'm not in a position to start thinking about what's going on with a possible trade war. I wouldn't know. There is no vision that there would be anything between the EU and China. That would be the only thing affecting us. It could affect from that perspective that if the trade between China and the U.S. gets hampered, then probably we get more capacity from our suppliers. That could be a positive effect. Currently, I'm not weighing in any negative effect of the tariffs.
Excellent.
That's the last one. Yeah, thank you very much. And thanks for bearing with us almost one hour or even more than one hour. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you.