Good morning, everyone. Warmly welcome to follow the webcast presentation for Relais Group's Half-year Financial Report, live from Helsinki, Finland. My name is Arni Ekholm. As most of you know, I'm the Group CEO, and I have the pleasure, together with Thomas Ekström, our Group CFO, to walk you through the first half-year results and the quarter two results today. A solid performance all in all. I'm not only referring to the quarter, also for the first half-year, and even the strategic period that is about to end this year. Today, we will go through the short details of the quarter, although in my review, I'm taking more a perspective from a strategy point of view. What have we achieved during this strategy period, and what are the, let's say, the basis for the coming period? It was a very stable quarter.
Hence, there's not too much need to go through the commercial details, but maybe on the balance sheet side, there are some movements which Thomas will explain more in detail in his financial review. I want to save some time for him, and then, of course, to have a lot of questions at the end. Then a short summary of the events after the review period, and then a summary of the presentation. What is Relais Group as an investment? I really love this slide. I mean, it tells the growth story of Relais Group, founded in 2010, having a very modest turnover, just presence in Finland, EUR 24 million turnover, and then gradually growing organically, and then more actively starting the, let's say, the strategy based on buy-and-build and compounding when we were introduced in the stock market in 2019, when the IPO was carried through.
You can really see the acceleration of the growth pace after 2019. I joined the company 10 years ago, or more or less bang on, in mid-September 2015. The company has grown since, turnover-wise, the track at the moment, run rate, over EUR 400 million turnover, approaching the EUR 50 million strategic target on the comparable EBITDA. We have bought well over 20 companies during the last six years. We are really delivering what we have promised to you as shareholders. I'm really proud of my teams, and I want to also here thank everybody who have been part of this journey and will continue being part of this journey, and also welcome the new members in the family.
As you can see, there's a lot of flags, mostly Nordic flags, but also some new members from the Benelux countries, which I'm really happy that we have been able to open this bridgehead in Europe. All in all, a very convincing growth story, profitable at all times. I'm really super happy for this development, and again, really proud of you, my team members. How does the group look like today? I mean, it's an evolving story. As you will see from Thomas's presentation as well, this is in a way a kind of breaking point where we have made a lot of strategic acquisitions, which are not yet reflected in the profit and loss statement, but are reflected in the balance sheet. Similarly, the newly acquired companies are not yet fully reflected in this percentage split of sales.
That will change towards a more, let's say, weight on the commercial vehicle side. Based on the first half-year numbers, you can see that the heavy commercial vehicle repair maintenance business is approaching 40%, and the rest is 60%. The 60% can be divided into two. Those of you who have seen these presentations before will have noticed that there's quite a lot of new logotypes that have appeared on the spare parts side. You can see Lastvangsdaler in Norway, a really well-established specialist wholesaler for heavy commercial vehicles joining. Welcome, team LVD. On lighting and equipment, the bridgehead that I mentioned in the Benelux and German markets and Central European markets, Matro, having actually three companies in the Benelux countries. Again, welcome for the Matro Group people as well. AutoMateriell and Nordic Lift, we already acquired a year ago. In a way, newcomers still.
I want to still maybe extend my welcome to them as well, and the Team Verksted people, of course, in Norway and Sweden. That was a big strategic move we made. A lot of good companies are joining, which bodes well for the future of this company. Commercial vehicle repair and maintenance, we have companies with different concepts and different logos. Of course, we are looking at synergies from that perspective as well. Not only functional synergies, but maybe even marketing type of and identity type of synergies, but more of that later. All in all, 60/40, that's maybe a good thing to remember. Also, how the 60 is split between spare parts and lighting and equipment, each having a different type of market. I also think that this is a good way to de-risk the company. It's fairly diversified.
As I've said, as we are focusing on the aftermarket, it's a more defensive market, and more of that later. Just to summarize, what did the acquisition of Team Verksted in Norway actually mean? It means that now we have gone in five years from zero to 61 workshops. The two workshops that we have announced having acquired in Finland, Eastern Finland, will make that grow to 63 workshops. According to our estimate and the data that is publicly available about the number of fully owned workshops, we consider us to be the biggest operator of independent commercial vehicle workshops in the Nordics. We have a very, very strategic coverage, and we are not stopping there. If you think about our acquisition strategy, on the previous slide, maybe I just jump back there. You can see the technical wholesale and products, and then the commercial vehicle repair and maintenance.
From an acquisition point of view, you could say that on the technical wholesale and products, we are a selective acquirer. We are trying to find the exactly right puzzle pieces that will complete the picture. On the commercial vehicle repair and maintenance, we are equally as picky, but it's more like a roll-up case. We can still roll up and find new workshops in the Nordic countries to make the company grow. There is still a lot of runway for the company to grow. A short look at the quarter two and first half-year. A solid performance, all in all, as I said, is continuing. Not only the quarter, but the first half-year. There was a tough comparison. Of course, in quarter one was very strong back into 2024, and also the quarter two was strong.
With that in the back of our heads, I have to say that I'm really, again, proud of the teams and the performance they have done together. As I mentioned briefly, we are predominantly focused on commercial vehicle aftermarket. By nature, it is more defensive and less sensitive to cyclical movements in the economy than many other vehicle and mobility-related businesses. Why is that? If you think about commercial vehicles, that's usually the main source of income for the owner of the vehicle or the fleet. They need to be running, even during weaker economic times. There is a lot of transport going on. Construction is picking up. Critical repair and maintenance, you just can't postpone it too far. I mean, otherwise, you stop making money with your vehicle.
It's a difference between commercial vehicles and the passenger car, where people can choose maybe to ignore the warning light on the instrument panel, but here you can't. You have to fix them. On top of the defensive nature of the business and the market, we can also do targeted and successful acquisitions, as we have done. We can accelerate the growth of the company over a business cycle. There's a good amount of workshops that we are talking with owners at the moment, and a good pipeline also on that side. We are not stopping here. A short look at the numbers: +12% growth. Thomas will comment more in detail later, and you can find all the details in our published report, mostly coming from the acquisitions. Comparable EBITDA grew with 3% on a quarterly basis.
We are tracking a little bit behind on the first half-year because of the heavy quarter one comparison. What happened with the EPS? Mostly relating to financing cost and actually mostly to currency rate changes, which do not have a big cash flow effect from that perspective. Thomas will dig deeper into those. If you look at the first half-year, we are tracking +5% on the earnings per share, which is very good. ROCI, 12.7% return on capital employed, which is an important metric for a compounder. Of course, we aim higher. Constantly, we are focusing on getting this number higher, but it's good. Return on equity, 12.3%. I mentioned the strategic acquisitions we have made. If you think about the strategic period that is actually ending now at the end of this year, I think us as a competent compounder, we are sector-focused, and it's very important for us.
We would not be a compounder if we don't manage to buy companies. To manage to buy the companies, you have to have a good pipeline at all times. Hence, we are contacting a lot of companies and owners. You need to have a good pipeline of companies. Otherwise, the strategy doesn't work. Perhaps more important than that, you can collect data, and you can have a theoretical pipeline, but you really need to keep these people warm and the discussions alive. You need to be able to execute. I think we have a very good process. We have increased resources on our acquisition teams, and also the operational teams are in charge of producing targets to the pipeline and also negotiating with the support of the central team.
I think we have managed to find companies who have a strong strategic fit and good value creation potential for the group. The execution, the power to execute, is really crucial for a compounder. We are determined. We are disciplined. What do I mean with disciplined efforts? It means that we aim to be very precise in the valuation of the companies. That is very important from, let's say, the earnings logic of the company and value creation point of view for the return on capital employed. We are allocating capital. That's our job. We are trying to find targets that fit strategically well into the company, are in good shape, and can add something to the party. We should never overpay. We should pay the market price.
That is the secret sauce, I would say, to find the right balance of the price where the seller is happy and we are happy. What other strategic acquisitions we have made in a disciplined and determined way? I mentioned the Matro Group. Why is that important? I mean, it gives direct access to the European truck accessories business, which is growing. I mean, we have just scratched the surface. It also gives us a distribution channel for our existing products. A huge strategic leap on the commercial vehicle and repair and maintenance business, Team Verksted in Norway, and the wholesale company, Lastvangsdaler, really increased our footprint in the Norwegian business. We already have, Thomas needs to help me out here, but we have, let's say, hundreds of people employed already, I think approaching 400 in Norway. A remarkable part of our business is coming from Norway.
I'm really happy to have also lived a couple of years in Norway and worked there. I'm really happy to have that part. It's only Denmark missing from our map at the moment. Further on the commercial vehicle repair and maintenance business, we made a deal with Wetteri Group to buy a couple of strategically located authorized workshops in Eastern Finland. We are expecting to be able to close that deal during the third quarter of this year. I'm really happy to have new members joining the team, increasing our coverage both from a brand point of view for the vehicles and also geographically. All in all, if you think about our EUR 50 million target, these will add, looking at their historical numbers, about EUR 11 million to the EBITDA of the group on an annual level.
The EUR 50 million target, originally, if we rewind a bit, when we were introduced in the stock market, our first target was to double the turnover from EUR 120 million -EUR 240 million in five years. We managed to do it in a couple of years. We changed the target into a turnover target of EUR 500 million by the end of 2026. We felt that it's more accurate maybe to give a profit target. Hence, we changed it to EUR 50 million by the end of 2026. We changed it a couple of years ago to EUR 50 million by the end of 2025. I bet many of you in the audience maybe thought that you're crazy. It's way too ambitious, and you're not going to be able to make it. Here we are. You have to think that the acquisition pace, when you do bigger acquisitions, you can't predict them always.
They come when they mature. With Team Verksted the owner of the group, we started the negotiations three years ago. You can't really plan that. We had a solid belief that we have a good pipeline. Our ability to execute is strong. Looking at the track record and looking at the pace now, the run rate, this is fully reachable, with, of course, some organic growth required for the back half of the year. What about the next strategy period? As I mentioned, the current strategy period ends by the end of this year. There will be a new five-year plan. We are actually next month already starting to review the objectives and targets and strategy. We'll make a solid plan for the next strategy period, which starts January 2026. Now is not yet the time to communicate anything about the targets.
We will do it in due course once we have gone through the strategy process because it goes hand in hand with setting the targets. More to come later. How does the outlook for the rest of the year look like? I mentioned that the markets were fairly soft or even weak in, I think, April, May, especially, where there was a lot of uncertainty in the market. June started to pick up. Now, I think July is already quite encouraging. I usually avoid talking about macro indicators, but basically, Finland has been the market that's been suffering the most from the economic environment. That's actually quite puzzling because many of the macro indicators are very positive. People have money, but it's not the bank accounts, and the inflation is low. We have some positive signals that we are getting from our customers.
The wheels are rolling, but let's see how it pans out. It doesn't seem to get darker than it has been. As I mentioned, bear in mind, commercial vehicles are not as discretionary as passenger cars. They need to be up and running. We have a large geographical coverage, both with our workshops and with our wholesale operations. We can really support our customers when their fleets are back in business and running efficiently on the back half of the year. We have also seen some positive signs for the demand for spare parts and equipment, both in the Nordic and the European markets. Now we have, as I said, the direct access to Central European customers, which gives us a much wider area to sell our products to.
With that in mind, we feel that we have all the possibilities to successfully pursue the strategic objectives also during the second half of this year. With these words, not yet going to Thomas, so bear with me one minute. I just want to recap what we did announce during the first half-year. Firstly, I decided to use the option to retire next year, which we have announced. Having said that, of course, I will support the company as long as it takes in the transition period. You do not need to be worried. We will find a new good CEO, and I will support, and then move on to more advisory and board type of positions later in my career. What I wanted to take here, not talk about myself, but more to recap that we did make some changes on the allocation of responsibilities.
Johan, who is in charge of Strands, is now in charge of the development of what we call the products and brands business. He is driving the work he has done on Strands, which is remarkable. We, of course, see that he has all the possibilities to do the same with other brands in the company. He will be in charge of the Matro Group and possibly other business areas or businesses in the branding in the future. Thomas continues as CFO. Juan, who is solid as a rock, has done a super job in the wholesale and is Mr. Wholesale and Spare Parts. He is having more focus on the technical wholesale in the future and also having responsibility across geographies. This is all across geographies. He is heavily involved in the Finnish spare part business at the moment as well.
Jan, who has really made a terrific job on the development of the repair workshops with the Workshop Excellence program and really made a huge lift for Raskone, is now doing the same for the rest of the commercial vehicle repair maintenance companies. He's in charge of developing that business. Sebastian successfully made a lot of M&A this year. Thanks for that, Sebastian. He's continuing on that role. Juri has also really, really shaped up our processes, and the governance and compliance part has done a good job also on the HR side. We have a good roster. Not to forget anybody, there are other people in the management team as well who are supporting us. This is really one point I still want to make.
Johan, Juan, and Jan are also in charge to demand the pipeline, to feed the pipeline, and also to negotiate with the acquisition targets with the support of Sebastian and myself and Thomas. Finally, Thomas, the stage is yours.
Thank you, Arni. Good morning, everyone.
You can take this one.
Yeah. Yeah, this works. All right. As already is evident, the quarter was pretty much flavored by kind of acquisition-based growth impacting both that sales and EBITDA. Other than that, we then had also stable development in sales in technical wholesale and products and had a bit kind of lower sales in repair and maintenance. In that sense, all in all, organically, quite a stable quarter that sales-wise and big support from acquisitions. EBITDA, as Arni said, was really stable, added by and supported by acquired companies, both acquired in 2024 and also acquired now in June 2025. In addition to that, we are always facing the issue of that we have a lot of non-euro denominated companies. We have a lot of exposure in Swedish krona and now also in the Norwegian krona. In this quarter, we had a EUR 200,000 support translation-wise from the currencies.
In the big picture, it was quite a stable quarter. Also, the stableness shows in gross profit and gross margin. We have, of course, added on gross profit due to the acquisitions. When you take out the acquisitions, the organic development in gross margin was fairly stable, all in all. Now when we add more and more weight from the repair and maintenance business due to the acquisitions, that has a higher gross margin, which also then gradually will improve the group's average gross margin. That will kind of swim in during the coming year. Expenses, the same thing here. The increase was driven by acquisitions. Otherwise, OpEx as relation to sales was stable, excluding acquisitions. No surprises here either. We go a bit outside the income statement, looking at the networking capital. Here, of course, we had big increasing impacts from the numerous acquired companies.
On the networking capital level, we added about EUR 14 million from predominantly Norway due to Team Verksted acquisition. Also, as we know from the first quarter, we had a slower spare parts sales in Q1. That has still impacted the Q2 inventory levels, keeping the overall networking capital at a higher level than last year. Also one component, not to forget, we don't have at the moment, we don't have any dividend payable that we had at the end of last quarter. As last year, the board, the AGM decided also on the second tranche of the dividend for the fall. Now that is subject to a separate decision. We don't have that payable now included in the payables. Even turnover-wise, that's where turnover-wise, a bit slower development here also. Of course, also mathematically impacted by the acquisitions as we added the full asset load on these measures.
The impact of that sales was only one month. Going into cash flow and cash conversion, here we also see that EBITDA, of course, was stable. No impact for the cash flow from that. The development in working capital, as it was negative, impacted negatively on the overall cash flow from operations. One thing to highlight here that also impacted the cash flow is the change in net financial items. As mentioned, the FX differences were caused by our krona-denominated external loans and the internal krona-denominated higher receivables. When the krona fluctuates, we always have an impact on that on the P&L. Now also, as we paid off a big chunk of the krona loans in Q1 and refinanced that with the new SEK loan, that caused the exchange rate to realize as a loss in the first half. That came from Q1.
Basically, we have a lot of these other impacts than only sales and profitability. Here, the big picture of the cash flow statement, you see that the investing activities on a net level was about EUR 22 million due to the acquired companies. We raised a bit more through the financing activities that we had. The difference here also, we used the remaining funds that you see here for the acquisition and the payment of the Matro Group in July. Hence the difference between net financing raised and investing activities cash flow out. A bit more digging into the changes in the financing agreements. As we mentioned in the Q1 report, we refinanced all existing term loans and renewed our financing agreement at the end of March. We also, to finance the Team Verksted acquisition, implemented a bridge loan.
We signed it in April, but the facilities were used in June to acquire Team Verksted . To add on to this, we see that here are the funds flows that you see that we, as I said, we raised EUR 110 million divided in about EUR 35 million in krona loans and then EUR 76 million in euro loans. We used that then to pay off the old second euro-denominated loans, adding about EUR 18 million then to firepower for future acquisitions. That was then used for the Matro acquisition in July. We have here also details on the bridge loan. You can also find more on this in the interim report. To highlight also that related to the Team Verksted acquisition, we also paid off NOK 190 million existing loans. That was part of the transaction.
We paid about EUR 20 million for the shares, and then an additional EUR 16.5 million we paid off existing loans. More on this, of course, also in the interim report. Here you see the end picture. This graph basically tells how big a jump and change this has been now, these latest acquisitions to the group's funding position. We see that we have added about EUR 40 million in lease liabilities, now coming mostly from repair and maintenance workshops. Here we have really a lot of locations on key strategic places. That's really a big change here. Of course, the added interest-bearing loans that you see on the blue line here.
Can I, Thomas?
Yes, sure.
Yeah, just wanting to highlight for people who are not familiar with IFRS, how it handles the lease agreements. The blue part here are the lease liabilities. Of course, since we have over 60 locations, it will have jumped, and it has jumped up. Also bear in mind, this is an asset, and hence it is, of course, handled as that in the IFRS. We are dependent on having strategic locations with long lead lease periods to be able to serve our customers. We consider this as a strategic asset. Of course, the optics according to IFRS is, I mean, you can see the big jump, but it's strategic as well. Bear that in mind.
Exactly so, yes. That was basically a bit more of a deep dive into the kind of the funding part. You also see here that at the end of Q2, we had approximately EUR 20 million in cash. Of course, about EUR 15 million-EUR 16 million of that was then used for Matro in the beginning of July. Additionally, we have uncommitted facilities of EUR 20 million. All in all, we have about EUR 44 million in liquid funds and unused credit facilities. We then go back to the P&L and the net financial items. As we all know, overall reference interest rates have come down for a longer time. That has, of course, then reduced also our interest expenses on loans. On the other hand, now that we have added new businesses and new leases, we have again increased interest expenses on lease liabilities. These have been fairly kind of predictable.
We have the FX change impact. I explained that before. Now there are two components in basically the first half of the year. We have the normal fluctuation of the krona and the imbalance between external SEK loans and internal SEK receivables. The second one was, as I mentioned, we paid off the old SEK loans. We had realized EUR 1 million extra impact. That is now a one-time impact, not coming. In that sense, we had overall net financial expenses in Q2 of -EUR 4.4 million against - EUR 1.7 million last year. These came predominantly and all from the change in these FX impacts. Important to keep in mind. When you look at the cumulative level, it was quite flat, but a lot of movement within the components. Balance sheet items overall. Here we see the big jump in total assets, EUR 100 million increase there.
Of course, then also a bit less increase in interest-bearing net debt. Gearing also impacted and equity ratio. Also, what is key to look at, these types of a bit kind of more longer-term targets and measures, our return on net working capital came down a bit. That was pretty much impacted again by adding net working capital from the acquired companies all at once. In the turnover component and in the return component, we added only one month of, for example, Norway, Team Verksted . This will gradually then be more comparable as we go forward. Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, thanks, Thomas.
Thank you. Yes, that's it.
Yeah, then over to just a short summary of the events after the review period. We did also do a smaller acquisition, which I didn't mention in connection with a strategic acquisition. Autodelar Sweden AB, a very well-established local distributor of spare parts and equipment. Also, warmly welcome Autodelar people to Relais. The Matro Group finalization of the 70% shares. Also, the announced acquisition of two heavy commercial vehicle workshops from Wetteri Auto, which we announced after the review period. Soon coming to an end in this presentation, Relais Group as an investment. What are the main characteristics of Relais as an investment target? As I have explained, we are a competent compounder. We know this business. We have a lot of contacts. We know what's there in the market to acquire. We have a clear focus on the commercial vehicle aftermarket. It's a choice.
It's a strategic choice we have done. I guess we'll see more and more of that focus being realized due to a stack of reasons, not only the defensiveness of that market. I think we have proven our ability to make successful M&A in a highly fragmented industry with significant acquisition opportunities. It's as well a fragmented market. There's still a lot of runway, as I said. When it comes to brands and products, we are not only looking at Nordics. We are also looking at other geographic areas. The markets are growing. The number of vehicles is growing at all times. It's like there is really no end to the potential on the market. This is exactly the right choice to focus on. The business areas, the platforms, they are scalable. We will get the economy of scale. As I said, we know this business. There's competence.
There's knowledge about the business. We can do sharing of best practices. It's not only empty words. We can prove that. We have the recipe to run excellent vehicle workshops and wholesale business. There's a strong growth potential in each of these. Also, the branding companies will have a very bright future. We have been able to produce a constant and consistent strong growth, also organically. Of course, over a business cycle, it may vary. It has a cash-generating effect. We have a good cash generation historically and continue to do so over time. The way we do business is decentralized. We give a lot of power to the operational units, to the companies. This is really important for us to have this entrepreneurial culture and values in the company. Again, this is not empty words.
We require a lot, but we give a lot of power to the companies that are part of Relais Group. OK, Relais as an investment. This is based on yesterday's closing share price. Had you invested EUR 1 , this is illustrative, of course, when the company was introduced in the stock market, the total shareholder return since IPO is 154%. Also, bear in mind, we are beating the Helsinki OMX index with almost 3x . Looking at the amount of money that we have given to you, dear shareholders, is about EUR 35 million since the IPO. It's not an insignificant amount of money. We still have a lot of runway, as I said. There's still potential to grow. We haven't seen yet the full potential for the future.
Now, with these words, I think Heikki will help us with collating the questions from which I hope from the audience are tough and many.
Yes, they are. There's quite a many, and I believe we have plenty of time to go through all of them.
Yeah, we are here for you.
Good. Timo has four questions. I'll take them one by one. How does your cash flow look after the recent acquisitions? Do you still have some dividends to distribute if the board says so?
I think Thomas can, of course, talk more about the cash flow. Of course, that's a kind of measure that we follow with each company on a regular basis and forecast. Whether or not the dividend is a discussion and a decision by the board, that will be communicated later. I don't know if you want to comment the cash flow.
Yeah, but overall, I mean, we have usually the good seasons for the lighting sales in the fall. We also have add-on inventories and working capital after the summer to prepare for the season in the fall. In that sense, that will kind of have a positive impact as to the last years. Adding on that, when we add now new repair and maintenance businesses, they are fairly working capital neutral or negative. That should also be taken into account.
What are your thoughts around the net debt/EBITDA?
Of course, from the optical point of view, it looks high at the moment. There is no going around it because there's this, as I said, a kind of discontinuity or breaking point when firstly, you buy a lot of companies, you borrow money, and then you have it all on the balance sheet, but the results are not there yet. Give us a few months, and you will see how the result evolves. As we have said, we intend to refinance the existing bridge loan. Bridge, by definition, is always a bridge from something to something. As we have said, we aim to fully or partially replace that with equity or equity-like financing. More of that later when the decisions have been made.
Are you going to raise your return on equity percentage to closer to 20%?
That's certainly my hope that we will get there. When we are going to get there, it's impossible to say. I have used the benchmark of, let's say, the established Swedish compounders having historically, I mean, you can't really compare because they have a history of tens of years or even 100 years. We certainly have that as an internal kind of performance bar. It would be great to get to 20%, but I can't say when it's going to happen.
The last question from Kimmo: Are we going to see capital markets day in the last part of 2025?
Remains to be seen. Thank you, Kimmo, for your questions.
Jonny Sandvall from Nordea, you mentioned cautious positive signals in the demand for H2. Can you give any more color on these, and is there differences between markets?
Yeah, I think I can add color. It's getting from bits and pieces when I'm talking with my people in the countries of how the business is going, the projects that we are winning, how the customers are reacting, and how they are looking at the rest of the year. It's really a combination of small signals from here and there. It might be customers who are moving, giving their fleet to us to serve service. It might be that we are taking market share, but also the kind of buzz that's going on in the market. I mean, how many questions do we get and how many pre-orders? I wouldn't call it, it's not a bonanza or boom, but I mean, we are getting these cautious signals that are positive.
Inventories are elevated following the warm winter. How much additional costs are you incurring from warehousing? When could we expect more normalized inventory levels, and is there a risk of obsolete inventories?
I don't really think there is a real cost from a cost or expense point of view, whether we have EUR 90 million or EUR 80 million in the stock. It's still mostly the same amount of persons we have in the stock and the same square meters we have. Of course, we are binding more capital. As Thomas pointed out, we have about EUR 10 million additional inventory coming with these acquisitions. We still do not yet see the EBITDA or net sales of that. I expect the inventory levels to go down, as Thomas also related to the high season of lighting. We have taken some deliveries earlier this year for the lighting, which is not yet fully reflected in the June numbers. We had some logistic challenges last year with deliveries, and I think we even missed out on some sales in Finland. Now we have the goods.
I'm expecting the inventory level to come down and also the working capital. We are increasingly focusing on that one. I don't see a big question with the obsolescence. These types of products are very seldom becoming obsolete. We follow the depreciation policy that we have. No surprises are expected there, as we see it at the moment.
Good. Petri Gostovski in the rest: Do you see any risk of the competition authorities stopping your acquisition from Wetteri?
No.
Are you able to comment on more detail when on Q3 you expect to close this deal and see the workshops in your numbers?
Yeah, it's hard to really say. There are still some small formalities open. I should certainly hope that at least at the latest November we can consolidate. It's still a bit open. The earlier, the earlier, of course.
OK, going back to Jan: You have completed or are about to complete multiple acquisitions this year. Could you give any indication of synergy potential of these acquisitions?
Yeah, I think we were fairly and really candid and open regarding the synergy potential of Team Verksted where we analyzed and identified a synergy potential of about NOK 30 million. Regarding the synergy potential of Matro , I think it's more like how much NetKing owned brands can we sell in the Nordic markets and how much of our new, let's say, newly branded or owned branded products can we push through the Matro channel in Europe. That's really hard to quantify at the moment. It should be, all in all, these synergies with Team Verksted we are talking about a few million euro on an annual basis. It's hard to yet say exactly when it starts to kick in. We are pushing with the Workshop Excellence program a lot to realize these synergies. They are not insignificant.
Given pickup in M&A base, when you have to hire more group personnel to handle the expanded operations?
I don't think at the moment we have, let's say, two dedicated people, Sebastian and Pontus, on the central team. All the business heads are also involved. Also, the local finance managers are involved. I don't know, within the next 12 years, maybe one headcount, but not more than that.
Going back to Petri Gostovski: Given your geographical footprint in the repair and maintenance business, where do you see most room for add-on acquisition? Do you see benefits from adding more workshops in Finland, given the current footprint?
I think in each of the Nordic countries. Now, if you look at the map, we have nothing in Denmark. That's obvious, of course, that would be the kind of a, if we find a suitable, if we, let's say, if we can advance there, we will advance in a strategic manner. There are still a handful of workshops in Finland that would be nicely fitting. There would be, let's say, between 10 to 20 in Sweden and between 10 to 20 in Norway that are profitable, good location-wise fitting to us. There's still ample potential to acquire.
Good. Pierre Roosquist Heinsalmi from DNB Carnegie: Can you comment on the margin impact of the acquired businesses you've done this year, dilutive or neutral?
I think, as Thomas showed, the nominal gross profit percentage has gone up quite much, actually. That's coming from the additional weight of the repair and maintenance businesses. If you would neutralize that effect, and as Thomas showed, it's more or less bang on the same on the wholesale business. We have been able to defend our gross profits on the wholesale business, which you have to remember that the inflation was fairly high. It has a long tail when it's swimming in, so to speak, into the purchase prices and the stock values. You need to be able to adjust the prices accordingly. It's not, I wouldn't call it diluted. I would say that the nominal gross profit has grown. You have to understand the dynamics of how the workshop business works, where we sell man hours, actually. The operating cost is actually variable in that perspective. Yes.
Thank you, Pierre, for the question.
Petri continues: Where are you with building the sales pipelines to Central Europe, given the Matro acquisition?
We have a solid and good plan for the next five years of what to do with the Matro channel, so to speak. More of that when we have, let's say, something to communicate. The plan is good, and we are executing on that plan. It's being led by Johan, who has an excellent track record in commercializing Strands and building a strong brand of it. It's not only the sales pipeline. It's also an acquisition pipeline that is under construction at the moment in Central Europe.
Going to NetKing brand: When is the NetKing available in the Nordics?
We will announce it when it's getting there. It's not there yet. Things will happen. By the way, actually, on that point, I think we decided to name the holding company NetKing Europe. If you start to see the name NetKing Europe, that's the holding company having Matro and the two other companies. We decided we just love that name. More of that to come.
What kind of expectations do you have for the ramp-up NetKing brand sales?
Quite high, but still realistic. I mean, this is the type of business that you need to earn the trust of the customers and the end users. Ambitious. I think it has a very big potential. We also need to be cautious not to proliferate the use of a brand too much into too distant product categories. We take it step by step. I mean, this is a long play. I mean, this is not a quarterly play.
Good. A private investor would like to ask: Could you remind us what are the main in-house sales synergies the group does with its brands? For example, what are the most common brands/products the group's workshops buy from the group's product sellers?
Excellent question. Thank you, Mr. or Mrs. Private investor. I would say amount-wise, let's say net sales-wise, the biggest internal cross-sales synergy has come from buying the Swedish wholesale businesses and then selling the Startax-created lighting brands, which now are OptiBeam, called OptiBeam. There were other brands before, but now it's called OptiBeam, on top of other equipment that we are selling across the geography. We would not be able to sell as much had we not acquired these distribution and wholesale companies. Looking from a workshop point of view, they source and buy spare parts, let's say in Sweden, STS and Schepsbrunns, buy spare parts from our wholesale business, HTD. Not to mention any brands, but they would be commonly known brands that we stock and wholesale, but also some of the lighting and equipment products like Strands, we also deliver to the workshops.
In Finland, our wholesale business does not have that broad heavy spare part assortment in stock. Raskonen still acquires and, sorry, purchases quite a lot of equipment and, to a certain extent, let's say batteries and some spare parts from Startax. It goes hand in hand. The broader the range we have, the more potential we have for cross-sales. We also have to have a look on the working capital. Just simply adding product lines to the shelf is not an option because we call this technical wholesale. You need to give guidance to your customers. You can't just, OK, let's order a container full of spare parts and see how it goes. You need to train the personnel as well. Those would be the biggest, I would say, lighting equipment. There's a huge potential on the spare parts side.
Now we have Team Verksted , Lastvangsdaler, Hoteday in Sweden, really a powerhouse where we can insource much more spare parts than we do at the moment. A lot of potential still.
Good. Ville wants to know: Are the products that increased inventory levels earlier in the year still sellable? How do you see the inventory levels normalizing in this regard?
Thank you, Ville, for the question. They are absolutely fully sellable. The history shows that whenever we have had a higher stock, most usually it is kind of equipment having a long lead time. If you think about spare parts that we source from Europe, it's very seldom we would have a big stock of them because we can source more frequently. It was only when there was a lack of components back in 2022 when we had to stockpile. You would have starter batteries left from the winter because the winter was not cold and the hot summer started quite late. I mean, surprise for maybe many listeners, but you sell a lot of batteries in the summer as well. If it's hot, they sell. If it's cold, they sell. I don't see a problem. Of course, it needs efforts to get the inventory levels down.
Again, if it's a very cold winter, it's going to be a boom in the stock. They will normalize, according to my estimates, by the end of the year.
Good. Temu has a couple of questions, more on the synergies. How do you generally view the scale of synergies from newly acquired operations?
When we do the initial analysis of the target companies, we, of course, let's say on the back of the envelope, make some assumptions on the synergy potential. They are usually at that stage fairly theoretical because we haven't been able to open the lid of the box. During the DD process, we do a very thorough analysis of the material that we have. Usually, in the management meetings that we have with a target company, we already, by discussing and making questions, can analyze and get more and more close. I think Team Verksted and Lastvangsdaler is an excellent example of the quality of the analysis that we have been able to do together to really pinpoint. It's very detailed. The devil is in the details. It's a result of many different streams which produce this. It's hard to give any general number.
I mean, do we expect 2% profit synergy or not? I hate to repeat myself, but it's often not an insignificant amount of synergy that you can get. In some cases, it's less. They don't even need to be synergies. In most cases, there are synergies. I also want to point out, it's very seldom we see synergy benefits on the purely OpEx or operational expenses side. I mean, there are, yes. Most of the companies we buy are fairly light in administration. It is not about buying businesses where you then reduce tens of people from overlapping administrative layers. That might exist as well. Sorry for a lengthy answer. I hope Temu got some hold of it at least.
Temu has another question. Unfortunately, I think this is missing the latter part of the question. Let's see if we can get the idea.
I guess the rest.
When the repair shop market is saturated within the current market area, is it time to expand the market area or?
Yeah, I mean, of course, we can't. If we think a market is saturated, that we are happy with the market and with the amount of repair shops, then we don't start making greenfields. There needs to be a demand. I'm not saying no to adjacent markets. Could maybe be, as I said, Denmark is an open space for us at the moment. We're definitely zooming in there. Maybe Northern Germany. Baltics is another type of market at the moment. Why not Poland? We have been looking at Poland. The issue maybe with Poland and maybe other markets is usually the service business is very closely tied to the sales of vehicles. We are not really super keen on selling vehicles. We would like to keep it a separate business all in all.
Not knowing exactly the end of the question, but we don't say no to looking at other geographies. We would definitely not try to invent the need for new workshops in a market that's saturated.
Good. That's all for the questions now.
Excellent. Thank you again. Thank you everybody for making good questions. Wishing you a very good continuation of the summer.
Thank you.
Thank you.