Very good morning, everyone, and greetings from sunny Helsinki. Warmly welcome to follow the presentation of Relais Group half year, first half year, financial results for this year. My name is Arni Ekholm. I'm the CEO of the company, and together with me is our CFO, Thomas Ekström.
Good morning.
Together, we will walk you through the today's agenda and presentation. Let's have a look at the agenda and the contents of the presentation for today. Some of you who have joined this webcast before will recognize a few of the slides, but I still think it's worthwhile to recap our strategy and how we look at the vehicle aftermarket opportunity for us for value creation. Firstly, I will go through Relais as a company in brief, then a few pages about sustainability. We will have a crack on the vehicle aftermarket. Why is it important for us? What is the potential for us and for the shareholders to create value?
Then more details regarding the Quarter 2 business, and then Thomas will go and make a deep dive on the financials for the second quarter and first half year. Then at the end, a summary, Relais as an investment. The last point is questions and answers. On your screen, for those of you who are following this live, there's a button, Ask a Question, so you can submit the questions at any time during the presentation, and we will then entertain them at the end of the presentation. Then Heikki here will read the questions, and we will answer them. Please be active and make a lot of questions. That's, that's why we are here today. What is Relais Group all about?
A few highlights before going in further details. We reached a very good result for Quarter 2. The net sales grew with 9%, and taking into consideration the heavily deteriorated Swedish krona versus euro, the growth would have been +15% in constant exchange rates. The EBITDA for the second quarter was EUR 4.8 million, which is a growth of 42%. Again, taking into consideration the exchange rate effect, it would have been +50%. All in all, a very healthy development for the first quarter. If we look at the first half year as a whole, the sales grew, net sales grew with 10%, and that would have been 15 with the constant exchange rates.
EBITDA reached EUR 12.3 million, which is a growth of 35%, and again, with constant exchange rates, 42%. Very positive result for the first half year. What is Relais all about? We are a consolidator, and we call ourselves a smart compounder. What do we mean with a smart compounder? Is that we have the sector focus on aftermarket. We know the market, which gives us an unique benefit from a competitive point of view. We know the companies, we know the business. We do a lot of acquisitions, it gives us an advantage that we know most of the companies and entrepreneurs in this sector.
We also not only compound capital, but we also compound knowledge and competence. That, again, increases our chances to compete successfully in this sector, the better we know the business, of course. We do not buy companies to sell them as a design. We are a growth platform. We support the companies, we acquire and develop them. We have good track record as well on the development of the recently and previously bought companies when they joined the group. Our target market is the vehicle life cycle from cradle to grave. Only one part, which is the... I will explain more in detail when we get there. We consider it as a total market. We focus on the aftermarket. Why is that?
It is because we see the biggest potential for earnings growth in the aftermarket, as opposed to import and resale of new vehicles or demolition of vehicles. Aftermarket is also fairly defensive and has the least cyclicality within the vehicle aftermarket, so it gives a kind of a steady potential for growth also in the future. How do we create shareholder value and strong earnings growth? It is based on our strategy, which is threefold. It's three reinforcing themes, so each theme reinforces each other. It's based on acquisitions, synergies between the companies, and then operational excellence. On the next page, we go slightly deeper in this.
The growth by acquisitions is of course, in the heart of our strategy, meaning that we consolidate the market, we have identified a lot of interesting targets, and we have a good track record of smart acquisitions. Hence, the major part of the growth is projected to come and has come from the acquisitions. Operational excellence, the devil is in the details, also in the wholesale business. The better we can run the business, the better earnings we can have. It's to give an example, putting the purchase volumes together, will give us a benefit of getting better prices from the suppliers.
Then also on the system side, we can get more data from the companies and, and to steer them and to help them better by, by utilizing joint system platforms. That gives us a good platform also for the future profit enhancement. Organic growth, we should not forget that. That's a big part when we develop the companies, we give them better possibilities to grow their business locally in the, in the markets where they operate. The synergies will quite often support the acceleration of the organic growth. We can do cross sales with, with our own brands in, in different countries and, and so forth. This is a kind of threefold strategy that has proven to, to, to, to work.
The value creation model, more in detail, I've gone this through before, I know, but I think this is very important. When we think about acquisitions and the buy and build strategy, it's, it's the building is very important, and, and hence we spend a lot of time in finding the right companies. We are not a, a, a, a platform that buys distressed companies, and then spends a lot of time in, in, in fixing the problems. I mean, we want to find healthy companies having a good potential for growth and where we can analyze the further potential also for the long term, either as a standalone company or synergize between existing companies. And here, the, the target, let's say, the knowledge of, of the market comes into to, to, to the play.
We know a lot of this market, so we, we already are ahead of many other compounders when we know the companies, what we talk about, and have even a personal contact with many, many interesting companies and their owners. The next step, building great businesses. There we also have a track record of, of what we have been able to do with the companies that we have bought. We work together, we share knowledge, we support the companies, a lot of synergies that we can still benefit, and then we increase the focus locally on execution and strategy. This has to also be understood that we give a lot of freedom for the local companies to implement the strategy, but we participate very actively from the management team in running of these companies. It's a kind of a.
We, we work together to, to achieve our goals. The, the smart compounding, as I mentioned, sector focus. We also compound competence, which then accumulates, and, and we know the business better and can develop the companies better. Since we have a sector focus, that opens possibilities for add-on acquisitions, which is important. We have also good examples of add-on acquisitions, let's say, on the repair and maintenance side, or, or on the other, other businesses we have, and that is there to accelerate also the organic growth for the, for the future. It's a self-feeding strategy.
Looking shortly on the rearview mirror, what the, let's say, the journey has consisted of, I'm not going into details, but if we go way back to 10 years, 10 years back, the group turnover was EUR 32 million, after that, it's been a huge development, also organically, but most of all, by acquisition. We have created a remarkable and, let's say, significant player and operator in this, this field of business in the Nordic markets. I will go, let's say, shortly into the latest acquisitions we have done this year a bit later. This is what the group looks like now.
Fairly, let's say, 20 legal units we have in, in the, in the group, split between two major business areas, technical wholesale and products, and then commercial vehicle repair and maintenance chains, where we operate Raskone, STS, and Skeppsbrons in Finland and Sweden. We have the various wholesale businesses with a strong focus on commercial vehicles. This is also an important message to convey that, let's say, the passenger car business for us is roughly maybe 15% of, of the turnover of the company. This is very much focused on commercial vehicles. We also look, of course, on the business opportunities on the, on the passenger car sector.
Now I'm also very happy to have been able to add the, the two dots in Norway, one in Trondheim and one in, in Drammen, for AutoMateriell and Nordic Lift. A few words about the latest acquisition. Firstly, I want to very warmly welcome the, the professional team of 50 people joining us, as of 1st of August. You are very, very much welcome to join us, and we will do our utmost to, to help you grow also in the future. This is an exciting new business area for us, and it has a, let's say, various different product groups, where AutoMateriell and Nordic Lift has a very strong position in, in Norway. Everything from vehicle lifts, lifts to testing equipment, workshop tools. Why is this business interesting for us?
We see that there's a big potential in the future in the transformation of the current workshop infrastructure to be EV ready, and that is including everything like details from having heavier lifts, because the EV normal passenger car vehicle can weigh up to 500 kilos more, so you need more sturdy lifts in the workshops. Instead of 2.5-ton lift, you need a 3-ton lift, just to give an example. There's a need for conversion, also for battery lifts and testing and calibration. As we all know, Norway is in the forefront of electrification, and AutoMateriell has a good record of working with the most prominent EV brands in Norway and converting the workshops into EV ready or building new workshops together with the car importer.
This is a very exciting business for us, and we see also potential for add-on acquisitions in other, other Nordic countries. We will, we will spend enough time to, to also help this company grow and, and see what add-on possibilities we have in the, the other Nordic markets. Sustainability, as I have explained before, sustainability for us is everyday work, practical and meaningful everyday actions, meaning that we take good care of our employees, customers, business partners, and the environment. This is a step-by-step process focusing on, on six different areas mentioned here. We are starting to increase more and more ESG-related criteria for our suppliers, and, and that is advancing very well.
On the spare parts, there's a refund and recycling system for many spare parts, so the parts get a new life after refurbishing and remanufacturing, which is, from a sustainability point of view, very important. Overall, from a sustainability point of view, taking care of your vehicle and servicing it is a very positive, positive deed. Regarding the changing mobility landscape, we have increased our spare part offering, focusing on electric and hybrid electric vehicles. It's growing by the day, and that product range is already very interesting. Also the EV vehicles require service and spare parts. Coming to the heavy commercial vehicles, both Raskone and STS are already now servicing electrical commercial vehicles.
There's not a lot yet, but that transformation is, is coming, and we are ready for it, and see it as a very interesting opportunity for the- for the future. As a, as a milestone, we published our first sustainability review on June 29th, and that's available on our website if you, if you want to have a, have a look. An interesting example of the electrification of the commercial vehicles is that we started a cooperation with Volta Trucks, who is in the forefront of electrification of commercial vehicles. Volta has chosen STS, our group company, as a certified service partner in Sweden, and the service partner is a very, let's say, elementary part of the truck as a service offering that Volta is offering for their- for their customers.
We are excited about this cooperation and look forward to where this leads also in the other Nordic markets, potentially. Good. The vehicle aftermarket. Very short recap. I've shown this before. We are considering the whole aftermarket, all types of vehicles. This is our target market, and the sector marked with red color here is our target for both operations and acquisitions for the future. It just depicts the possibilities we have for further acquisitions. There are a lot of interesting companies in this sector. The sector is large, it's fragmented. We have estimated the value of the market to be roughly EUR 20 billion. It's even more if we take the OE market, the vehicle importer market, in there.
It's fragmented, meaning that there are a lot of companies in different sectors where we can focus, which is then from an acquisition strategy point of view, interesting. It gives us opportunities for further consolidation, and then to utilize the synergies and, and the benefits of the size that, that will bring. What is happening on the technology side? I mean, there's a lot happening in the vehicle aftermarket part as well, coming from the electrification. Maybe as opposed to many people think, the value of the aftermarket is not going down because of the electrification, rather the opposite, because of the component prices, have increased and are relatively more expensive, for, for the electrical vehicle. That will increase the value of the category, even if the service interval is, is short on the passenger cars.
Still, there's a lot of spare parts going into electrical vehicles, and as I said, sensors and cameras, and so forth. There will be an interesting recycling business regarding the batteries and powertrain conversion. There is a chance to convert existing ICE technology vehicles into EV, hydrogen or gas. That opens interesting possibilities for us. New business models, fleets, private leasing, ownership, working together with the leasing companies is also an opportunity. Technological trend changings on, on, let's say, advanced driver-assistance systems, connected car, autonomous driving, will drive the need for sensors and cameras and calibration, again, increasing the value of the market.
We are looking very broadly on the powertrain development for the commercial vehicles because it's not automatically going to be electrical solutions only, because there's also biofuel and synthetic fuels. Anyhow, this will require investments and competence for the workshops in the future, which will drive consolidation, which then again opens acquisition possibilities for us. A few words about the market as such. As I said, it's fragmented, it's stable, and fairly defensive as well, about 19 million vehicles. This is a market from an investor point of view that is steady and has steadily grown all along the last decades, and we project that to grow also in the future on a sustainable level.
What has happened during the last couple of years, the, let's say, lower and delayed deliveries of the new vehicles, has driven the need for repair and maintenance for existing vehicles. This is specifically visible on the commercial vehicle part, and that's supporting our maintain- maintenance and repair business, and partly spare parts as, as well.... Then there's a lot of, let's say, e-commerce related last mile deliveries, and that will also drive the need for, for power ma- management products, lighting, and, and, repair and maintenance for the commercial vehicles. As I shortly mentioned before, there are possibilities for product range extension on, on the spare parts and accessories, which are very exciting, created by this electrification trend.
Another interesting area is the two-wheel sector, personal and urban mobility that we, we are looking at as well, how it will develop in the future. Good. Let's go to the business review, looking at the quarter two and partly also the first half-year. The Q2 can be described as continued strong and profitable growth. Let's say the positive trend that started in quarter one continued in quarter two. Net sales grew by 15% in constant exchange rates, and EBITDA with 50%. It's a, it's a very strong and healthy growth. The main drivers behind the growth, the EBITDA growth specifically, were the commercial vehicle and repair and maintenance business together with the acquisition.
I mean, the wholesale business, I will comment as well, did a good job as well, but the main, let's say, thrust for the growth came from, from these two factors. Looking at the, the, the business areas, technical wholesale and products, the growth was prominent in the Scandinavian region, 10% with the constant exchange rates, partly coming from the price increases, that have happened in the, in the market. This is without the acquired growth in, in Denmark. This is the purely organic growth of, of, of 10%. The Swedish krona, as I mentioned in the beginning, is, is hitting us fairly hard in, in, in the Scandinavian or, or the Swedish market. Then again, the, the very let's say, profitable S-E-T A/S company acquisition that we made helped to, to offset.
The, the, the weak Swedish krona not only affects our result when we do, let's say, translate from krona to euro, it also has an effect locally in the purchase prices, that the, the purchase prices from suppliers have increased, but then also the effect of the, of the currency hits the, the gross profit, when the average price of the products in the, in the warehouse is updated, so to speak. This creates a need to further the price increases. Finland and Baltics, from a net sales point of view, largely in line with, with last year, but the, the profitability took a, took a hit, also mostly owing to the online business, where generally the profit is only generated on the second half of the year.
The costs are there on the first half, but the, the revenue comes on the second half. There we have done some, some changes and structural improvements and, and look forward to a recovery during the second, second half year. It is also worthwhile to mention that the wholesale competition landscape in Finland is very harsh with, with many actors and also import from, from lower priced markets coming to the, to, to the Finnish market. On the positive side, the lighting product group continued to grow, especially the, the export of of Strands, which is a very successful brand we have in our portfolio.
As a maybe a curiosity or curiosa, now I can mention that we have also now opened the Australian market with a local major distributor, which is a new new era for the Strands growth. Looking at the repair and maintenance business for the quarter two, continued to perform very strongly. There's a robust customer demand in both in Finland and Sweden. We have also done a fair amount of efficiency measures in the workshop chains. We see a trend where more and more customers are coming to the independent sector, i.e., us, to have a more competitively priced service for their vehicles. We have been able to increase the capacity utilization. We have hired more mechanics. That was a problem last year.
It's, it's on a very healthy level, and the gross profit has also developed positively. On the operating cost side, it can be mentioned that the, the inflation has increased the, the heating and, and the facility costs of the, of the workshops that-- but that's offset by the good top line and, and gross profit development. That was a, a growth of 15%, with an organic growth of, of 11%. The, the acquired growth comes from the Skeppsbrons acquisition, full year effect this year. Then looking at the 4 product groups: spare parts, lighting, equipment, and repair and maintenance. You can see the, the growth, spare parts having a modest growth, and this is in reported exchange rates, so, in constant exchange rates, it would have been higher.
The lighting growth was healthy. Equipment is a mixture of different type of equipment, mostly electrical equipment, which is also a very interesting and product group, having a myriad of different SKUs used for the vehicles and installations. The repair and maintenance is here, the same numbers as I showed for the business area. It is reported also as a product group. It's good growth in all the product groups. Finally, the segments. We have two geographical segments, Finland and Baltics, and then Scandinavia.
Not a huge change in the split between the regions, but already after quarter one, Scandinavia became the biggest or the bigger of the two segments, and that is even reinforced for the first half year, where Scandinavia has grown relatively faster than the Finnish and Baltic business. Before letting Thomas have a crack on the financials, a few words about how do we consider the full year? As you know, we don't give a guidance, a financial guidance or numeric guidance for the full year. However, it can be said that we feel that we have a good possibility to continue implementing our strategy also during the second half of the year. We have the products, we have the people, everything is ready. We are looking forward to the lighting season.
That is, the for those who have followed the company over the years, know that the second half year is, is crucial for, for the profit generation because there, there are a few factors affecting the market. Firstly, the lighting season, which is important for the group, and also the winter conditions have a role in the demand for spare parts and repair and maintenance, starting from October on. The lighting season starts in August, September, the pre-sales, and then let's say the biggest months are usually September, October, November for the lighting. Inventory situation is good. We have the ability to serve the customers according to their needs. The fuzziness into the rest of the year and maybe the dark clouds are more macroeconomy related.
Inflation is still on a high level, interest rates are high, and this affects the purchase power of both the consumers and the customers and resellers as well. I do not want to paint an overly dark picture, but this is. These are factors that are not in the circle of influence that we can affect. It's more external factors that will then play into this equation and. We are ready to implement our strategy, so hence, that is a positive thing. Thomas, please take over the scene.
Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Arni. I try to focus more on some details that Arni has not brought up so far in the presentation. Here you see the quarterly net sales and EBITDA development. As Arni said, the profitability has developed really well in both Q1 and Q2. We see from the charts here that the kind of cyclicality of our business means that these are the quietest two quarters of the year, and during the remaining half year, especially the product groups, lighting and equipment, they kick in as the key season for their will start. That's what I want to bring up in this regard.
We're looking at the EBITDA development at the quarter level and also at the kind of cumulative level, is that the increase in EBITDA was approximately EUR 2 million, EUR 2.5 million. The reasons mentioned by Arni before, and this is key to remember when we then look at the net financials. As the business EBITDA improved, and we had kind of a... The, the interest rates increased, which meant that we had a kind of increased net interest expenses of, of, of 1.3% increase or, you know, EUR 2.5 million for the first half of the year. There's an increase there, and also we had the impact of, of converting foreign currency-denominated loans.
There was a FX net loss in the first half of EUR 1.5 million, which was, was at the same level as last year. The EUR 2 million improvement in, in EBITDA, then when you go down to the, to the net profit and EPS levels, they were kind of burdened by, by the, the items in net financials. Here we can see the, the net profit and EPS development pretty much on, on the level of last year. Also, of course, as, as profitability has increased in, in, in some legal entities, also the kind of accrued taxes have increased. Net financials and taxes have impacted the, the kind of the net profit level and the EPS level.
On the other hand, we have had, as Arni has told, told before, we had really kind of big measures going on in improving net working capital and operative efficiency improvement measures. As in Q1, also in Q2, you can see a significant kind of reduction in net working capital from the levels of EUR 68 million down now at the end of June into EUR 56 million. There's really kind of been a lot of work in especially the spare parts wholesale business regarding inventories. Also, we will look at the other items of net working capital. We are able to increase payables also. Bear in mind that in payables, we have now also included the other half of the dividends to be paid out in the second half. That also.
increases the, the, the payables here about EUR 3 million. It's really good development in, in net working capital. Of course, then we have, when we look at the cash flow from operations and also cash conversion, we see that, of course, the improvement in EBITDA during the first half complemented with the improvement measures in net working capital, then we have really kind of healthy and strong improvement in, in cash flow from operations. It was almost EUR 18 million in the second half compared to EUR 5 million in the comparison period last year. Also the cash conversion numbers, we had, 79% in the first half of 2023, and 21% in, in, in the first half of 2022. So really good work and, and, and, and good improvement in this regard also.
Here, as a complement to what I just said, also kind of cash flow from investing activities that we had in the spring. In March, we purchased the shares in Adita, or in Finland, and then we also paid an additional purchase price of 25 million Swedish krona in May for the Strands Group shares that we bought some year back. We had some basic machinery equipment investment of 1 million Swedish krona. That was the kind of investment activities. Cash flow for financing activities, there we paid off a lot of liabilities. We re- prepaid lease liabilities a bit more than last year, 6.2 million Swedish krona.
We continued to pay off non-current loans, also EUR 3.5 million, and dividends the first half now in the first half of the year, and then that's why there's a difference compared to last year. No, no kind of raising of new liabilities as we had last year, EUR 16 million, stemming from acquisitions done back then. Balance sheet key items: The total balance sheet remained pretty much the same, despite new additions due to acquisitions. Total equity also approximately at the same level, a bit lower. Net debt came down at the end of the period by EUR 20 million... EUR 15 million. Really good, healthy development there due to the improved cash flow, both from operating cash flow and from net working capital.
net gearing also on a lower level, equity ratio flat, and also we managed to increase the kind of cash assets from the corresponding period last year due to the reasons mentioned earlier. All in all, robust numbers and steady development. Also, when looking at the balance sheet, highlighting the interest-bearing net debt, we see that the reduction in gross debt, lease liability is approximately at the same level as last year, a bit increase. All in all, about EUR 5 million reduction in gross debt. Due to then the increase in cash, we had a net debt of EUR 144 million against EUR 156 million last year. Excluding lease liabilities, the net debt was now EUR 85 million against EUR 101 million.
There below, on the, on the right-hand side, also, you see how much we have undrawn revolving credit facilities, a bit more than last year. Also we have the undrawn, uncommitted facility, EUR 16 million, and there we kind of had some changes to the financing package in the spring. That's why the undrawn facility has come down. All in all, we have cash and unused facilities at the end of the period, EUR 35 million against EUR 37 million last year. All in all, steady development, but good development. Here we have, as communicated before, past to end the financial section, our long-term financial target. We aim at reaching a pro forma EBITDA of EUR 50 million by the end of 2025.
Thank you, Thomas. Before going into the questions, just a summary slide of Relais from an investor point of view, shareholder point of view.
Mm.
We are an active, sector-focused consolidator, smart compounder. There's a good track record of successful acquisitions we have done during the last years. As Thomas also pointed out, solid cash flow and profitability continued. The market has defensive characteristics, is growing every year. Then we have a very interesting, growing lighting business with own brands, and also efficient and decentralized operating model. We do not gather a lot of overhead cost in the headquarters, so this is run very, very much on focusing on the local companies and the cooperation between them. Good. Questions and answers. I hope we have received some questions, and then Heikki will read them aloud, and we do our best to answer.
Yes, we have quite a few questions, and please keep asking. I'm pretty sure we have time to take all of them. Teppo is asking, and I'm gonna translate this into English, so let's hope that the question stays the same: "What kind of chances or opportunities you see to grow your business in Europe, and do you have problems in Nordic countries to find and acquire companies?
If I answer the last question or the second question first, I do not consider us having problems in finding interesting acquisition targets. Of course, we are, in that respect, picky, as I explained that we want to have healthy companies in order not to have to spend a lot of time in fixing issues. We see a lot of potential still in the Nordic markets. We are looking also what's happening around the Nordic countries. There's a very dynamic market called Poland. There's also Germany. That there might be a proximity enough for us to be looking at those markets as well, but the focus is very clearly in the Nordic markets. We keep our eyes open, of course, for the other opportunities as well.
When it comes to product companies, pure product companies, it doesn't really matter exactly where that kind of company is because there is not expected to be too much synergies from the proximity as we have with the wholesale businesses. It's more a question of, of having the, the, the eyes open on, on what's going on.
Petri Gostavski is asking, and there's, quite a few questions, so I'll ask one at a time.
Thanks.
I know it's a tough question on a group level, but can you give some estimate on what level is the price increases that are boosting organic growth?
Thank you, Petri, for the, for the question. It varies. I would say this, this is not based on, on a very thorough analysis, but we have carried out several price increases through the year. Anything between 4%-6%, in effect, could be the result of the, of the price increases.
Can you give some more color on where do you stand currently regarding the cost and capital efficiency program you started last year?
Yes, I think the color is seen in the numbers that Thomas just showed, what comes to the cash generation and cash conversion, and then also how much capital do we bind in the inventory. The results are very visible there. I think, yeah, we can always do better, but I would not expect any more such a dramatic change in the inventory levels that we have experienced, because the reason for the largely grown inventory level were the supply issues that most suppliers had a couple of years ago, which then accumulated and had a long-term effect on our inventory. I still think there's a chance to improve specifically the inventory situation somewhat, but we cannot endanger our service ability towards the customers.
There are, there are several different things going on. We have a business intelligence project in the company, which is hard to give a, let's say, a monetary effect on. It's more like the quality of the information we, we get from the companies will help us making better decisions for the future. This is something that is not immediately seen in the numbers, but we invest quite much actually on these kind of projects that are there to increase the efficiency from a data, data perspective as well.
Do you see more room to improve in terms of capital efficiency and net working capital?
I, I think I partly answered that already in, in my, my previous answer. Yes, there is still room, but I do not consider the room to be as dramatic as it has been. I don't know, Thomas, if you want to comment on the capital efficiency, but from, from the, let's say, net working capital point of view, there's always a chance to improve by, by trying to get longer payment terms from the suppliers and try to make the customers pay in a shorter, shorter period.
Yeah.
That's, of course, always possible.
When looking in kind of in euros, we also have strongly growing businesses, which means that then there's... The acquisitions will also increase, which then, of course, will... They need more inventory for that and so forth.
Mm.
In, in Euro denominated, we'll have, in that sense, higher inventories in some businesses.
Yeah.
Then we have kind of new measures, and other businesses reduce.
Yeah.
It's kind of a balancing act-
Yeah
... in these two, and then also we are somehow committing some kind of-
Yeah
... trade financing instruments also-
Exactly
... impacting networking.
So maybe as a summary, I mean, there, there is room, but I do not consider the room to be, I mean, the potential to be as big as, as we have been able to demonstrate last year, this year.
You brought up the dark clouds in the sky in the outlook. We have seen the economy weaken lately, should we interpret this so that you are seeing some impact from the economy in your demand for the second half of this year?
Why I mentioned that is, that I think that for the repair and maintenance business, any effect on the economy will not be as hard as it probably can be on discretionary products. A majority of our business is not coming from discretionary products. I mean, it's more like you have to fix the, the vehicle, and that is supporting the, the, the maintenance repair business and partly the, the spare part business. The dark clouds affecting the rest of the year come and affect that part of the business, from the lighting season that is driven by the consumer demand. Because we have a twofold structure in the lighting business, a majority is going to professional users. It's working lights, alarm lights, and, and so on and so forth.
You also have a seasonal business for auxiliary lights, which is also, to a large extent, driven by the consumer demand. There, I think the effect and the fuzziness of, of being able to, to see the rest of the year in a very precise way comes from the consumer demand that is partially affecting the lighting business.
That was all from Petri. We move on to Mika Karppinen. What was the organic sales growth rate in Q2?
That was... Yeah, that's a good question. I think it was roughly 10%. It's actually in my comments. I don't have it here in the presentation, but it was roughly, roughly there on the, on the big whole.
Moving on, Emilia Oikarinen is asking: What is the main reason for entrepreneurs to sell their life's work to to Relais?
I think what we have seen is most cases, if we think about the private owner and entrepreneur of the company, they have come in the life cycle of the company to a level where they feel that it's hard to take the next step to grow the company. I mean, it would require investments or maybe there is not somebody to take over the next generation. In those situations, usually the dialogue starts and the entrepreneur sees a benefit of joining a bigger company. Maybe selling the majority of all the shares and in ideal cases, also staying on board and having the security of handing over the, let's say, the baby they have created into safe hands. Relais is a good owner.
We do not buy companies to, to slaughter them or to sell them. There's a, a kind of safe feeling for the entrepreneurs that we will take good care of the, of the company, and we have also evidence on that, that one. That is usually the, the reason why they choose to talk with us. Safe, good owner.
Another question from Emily. How do you perform decentralized operating model in practice? Does the business units have to have full autonomy to make decisions at the business unit level?
It's a two-way street. There is a lot of autonomy, but the way we work is that all of us in the, in the group management team, which consists of, of less than 10 people, we participate in the local boards of the, of the companies, and that is a very, let's say, operational board. We call them business review meetings. We have, with all the companies, maybe apart from the totally smallest ones, we have anywhere between 6-8, and with some even every month, business review meetings, where myself or then other colleagues from the board, or, or from the group management team are participating to make sure that the commonly agreed targets are met, the strategies are, are implemented. There's a lot of local freedom how to get there, but we have our...
Let's say we have visibility to the companies. We work together. I think it's also important for the group companies to feel that we operate together, and most of our colleagues in the management team are also managing directors of their specific companies. So it's a mixture of autonomy. I wouldn't say it's total autonomy because there is, if you will, a kind of control function also baked into the setup, but it's more like working together type of approach. Hence, we do not have. I mean, we have only four people on the headquarters, and everybody in the management team runs also their own business.
That's all for the questions.
Thank you very much, Heikki, and thanks, everybody, for being active and following the presentation, and I wish everybody a very nice autumn. Thank you.
Thank you.