Good afternoon, and welcome to Robit's second quarter and half year report analyst and press conference. My name is Arto Halonen. I'm the CEO of the company, and I'm here with Ville Peltonen, our CFO. First, please note the disclaimer on the forward-looking statements. In the second quarter of the year, we saw sequential improvement to the first quarter of the year, but we fell behind our targets. Orders received declined by 14.2%, reaching EUR 22.8 million. Net sales improved from quarter one by 11.4%, but decreased by 21.4% to a very strong comparison quarter. The decline in constant currency was 17.6%. During the quarter, we saw weaker demand in the construction segment, especially in Asia and Europe markets.
In the mining, mining segment, the market demand remained stable, but we were not able to compensate the loss of the sales from the Russian market. Our comparable EBITDA reached 6% of net sales and was 1.5%. There, the comparison quarter was very strong from last year. We are progressing with our cost savings program, where we are targeting EUR 5 million cost savings to the 2022 baseline, out of which 2%-3% we target to have impact and materialize during this year. In this program, we are focusing on fixed cost savings, savings from the sourcing actions, as well as the footprint on, on the factory and supply side.
As a part of these actions, when it comes to the factory footprint, we have decided to close manufacturing in our Perth, Australia manufacturing unit and move the production from that factory to other Robit supply hubs in the world. We estimate that this closure is finalized end of quarter three, beginning of quarter one. Also, our cash flow from operating activities improved, reaching EUR 3.4 million, and it was driven by the reduction in the net working capital, where we continue to implement actions on that front to continue on the similar path. If you look the first half numbers, the net sales decreased by 19.2%, in constant currency, 16.8%. We saw a decline in all of the businesses.
In Top Hammer Geotechnical, decline from the East area, was, was the main driver. In Top Hammer, also the decline as a result of the lower market activity in Asia impacted the top line. In Down the Hole, the decline was more driven by Americas and Australia. The comparable EBITDA from first half reached 3.3%. The profitability was impacted, especially by the low utilization rate in our Down the Hole production, hence also the kind of the decision on the footprint. Also, we still saw increase in the raw material costs, which we were partially able to compensate with the price increases, and also we had currency headwinds during the first half of the year, as well as on the second quarter.
On the ESG side, many of our KPIs and targets moved to right direction, especially pleased on the systematic work that has been done to improve the safety, health, and safety in Robit, and we saw positive, positive development on that front. EMEA continues to be our largest region. The development within the EMEA area was mixed. We saw some positive development, especially on the Northern Europe, due to winning some new customers earlier this year. On the other hand, we had a, we had a bigger reorganization in the Southern Africa organization, and that impacted the business development activities in that, that region during the quarter.
Now we have a very, very good and strong team in place there, and we are, we are geared up for continuing to deliver growth from the region. Americas, net sales dropped by 20.5% during the first half of the year. The development of, let's say, the new sales opportunities, progressed slower than anticipated. Also, there are some. With some larger key customers, we saw lower consumption of, of our products due to, for example, strike, or, or then, kind of operational related issues, and that impacted our sales in the, in the region. As well as that some of the, let's say, larger distributors in, in that area still, still were reducing their inventory levels during the, during the first half of the year, impacting then also our net sales.
In Asia, the sales declined by 27%, and as mentioned already, the market activity in that area was lower. Asia region for us is more heavily focused on construction segment compared to our other market areas, and that had a bigger impact in that area. In Australasia, the development was relatively flat. Top Hammer continued to develop well in the Australasia region, but in the Down the Hole segment, we didn't perform as well. We progressed with systematic actions on the ESG front. We, in the safety side, continue to implement stronger safety culture into the organization.
We continue to shift the focus of the safety work to more proactive, proactive work rather than reactive work, and we saw some improvement on the LTIF. Obviously, still, the rate is too high, and the work continues on that front, but already now some positive development. Also, in this, training hours on the consultative sales, one of our key KPIs and, let's say, enabler of, future growth as well, and, let's say, sustainable use of our products on that front, we, we recorded good number of training hours. The CO2 emission intensity is 10% or 11% below our baseline of 2020, still the result is not as good as it was in the, in the comparison period or first half of 2022.
Although our emissions reduced in absolute terms, in relative terms, they, they increased compared to the first half of 2022. I'll hand over to Ville for more details on financials.
Thank you, Arto. Just to recap the key financials, the net sales declined in the second quarter by 21.4% from the strong comparison period and declined by 17.6% in constant currency, so we got some negative impact from currencies as well. The adjusted EBITDA declined to 6%, and also there's the negative impact from currencies. In the second quarter, it was like somewhere around EUR 0.4 million. EBIT percentage in the second quarter declined to 0.2%, and the result for the period was -EUR 0.7 million. We continued the positive development in the net working capital due to our Fit for Service program that we are running, and the net working capital totaled at EUR 43.2 million.
A significant decrease from, from the comparison period, but still not at the level that we are aiming at. Inventories decreased to 42.8%, receivables to EUR 21.3 million, sorry, and payables decreased to EUR 20.1 million. Net working capital percentage of the sales from the last 12 months was 43%, declined 3% from, from the comparison period. The positive development in the net working capital resulted in, in a positive development of the operating cash flow, and the cash flow before changes in net working capital was EUR 1 million, and the operating net cash flow at EUR 3.4 million. Cash flow from investing activities was EUR 0.1 million, and from financing activities, -EUR 0.2 million.
The net increase in the second quarter was EUR 3.2 million. The increase left us with EUR 8.6 million in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the second quarter, and our total interest-bearing loans and utilized credit limits were EUR 35.2 million and continued to decrease from the comparison period. This includes EUR 6.2 million from the IFRS 16 lease liabilities. Capital structure, net debt continued also to decrease and was at EUR 26.5 million, and the 12-month trailing net debt EBITDA ratio was at 5.1. Equity ratio remained solid at 45%. Our loans from financial institutions at the end of the first half of the year totaled at EUR 29 million. We extended our financing agreement at the end of May to a new 3-year period.
Our loan amortization schedule is 1.5 biannually, payments at December at, at the end of, end of June next year. Now we have the interest rate swap that took effect at the end of June and ends at the end of 2026, end of June 2026, and that leaves us with the average interest rate of 4.3%. Back to you, Arto.
Thank you, Ville. Focus for second half of the year, we continue to strengthen our distributor network in the high market potential areas. Focus will be, for example, in, in some of the African countries, as well as in North America, where we are identifying and introducing new distributors. Also, strong ramp-up support for recently appointed distributors. During the quarter, we, for example, announced our cooperation with a Brazilian company called Sotreq, that will be representing, representing Robit in a, let's say, very high market potential area. We are very excited about that cooperation and, and we'll work, work in close cooperation with them. Also, we'll put high focus naturally on scaling up and, and further increasing our sales activity in all regions. Net working capital, cash management, that's second focus areas.
We continued implementation of Fit for Service program, we have very specific target setting, very specific actions, especially for inventory reduction for the second half of the year to bring the net working capital to the levels that we target. We continue to implement the cost-saving programs, where we are targeting this EUR 5 million saving from the 2022 baseline. One key action in that saving programs will be winding down the manufacturing in Perth, Australia during the second half of the year. Our financial targets, long-term financial targets remain intact: 15% annual growth and comparable EBITDA 13%. In June, we updated our guidance for the year, we expect our net sales to be between EUR 90 million- EUR 100 million and comparable EBITDA between EUR 3 million- EUR 6 million.
Thank you. Now we are ready for some questions. Erk, please.
No microphone.
Käytetään yleismikkiä täältä. Kuuluuko?
All right, yes, it's Erkki from Inderes. A couple questions from me. First, regarding this savings program of this EUR 5 million total, how much of that will be EBIT impacting?
You could say that, majority, vast majority of that is, is EBIT impacting.
60%, 70%?
No, more, more, more, more. Over 90%.
Over 90?
Yes.
Okay, great. This EUR 5 million should be visible fully in 2025?
Well, we are targeting to complete the actions on that by the end of this year, and, let's say you should see majority of that during 2024.
Okay, regarding this program, how much of that, if any, was visible already in this, first half of this year?
Well, we saw some improvement from that already first half of the year. We estimated the impact for this year to be EUR 2 million-3 million. It, it was, let's say, a smaller, smaller part of that estimated impact that we saw now first half of the year. It will be more, more realizing in the second half of the year.
Regarding your guidance, it seems that you aim at second half sales of between EUR 44.5 million-EUR 54 million. That's okay, but then the EBITDA margin would be pretty broad scale from 3%-8%. What is there in your profitability that you still can't foresee more accurately?
Yeah, obviously, you know, well, there's always uncertainties, and as, as you know, we work with, for example, very short backlog. Backlog is, is kind of non-existent. We don't necessarily have that business at hand that we, we are going to, let's say, deliver during the second, second half of the year. Still, during the last quarter, we, we saw kind of the realized raw material cost for us increasing, and the trend starts to turn down as based on today's facts that we have, have at hand, but it's still, it's, the impact will come gradually from that aspect. There's, there's always some uncertainties, especially given that we are- we are very... We're working with very short backlog periods.
Before I let others make the questions, which could you describe in, in the first half or second quarter sales, what were the price and volume impacts in the sales decline? I mean, what is how much different is your pricing vis-à-vis the situation a year ago?
If you look at quarter two to quarter two impact, there is positive impact from the pricing, but it is not a kind of a major impact from the price side because Maybe you recall that we did very early kind of pricing actions last year, second quarter of last year, and we actually saw a quite good impact already in the comparison period. There is positive from pricing, but we are not talking about any more kind of in, in big percentages.
Is it, say, mid-single digit or in that ballpark?
Yeah, that, that ballpark, you could say, yeah.
Okay. Great. Thanks.
Yeah, maybe I can continue. Arto Vasanen, SEB. Just a question on the wind down in Australia. First of all, could you give any more color on what are your plans there regarding the assets that you have in place? What are the balance sheet values of those assets, and what are your kind of forward plans for those, and what kind of type of a balance sheet impacts would we expect to see?
Yeah. Let's say the balance sheet values from Australia are relatively low if you compare to our total balance sheet, given that the machinery is not old, but it's not new either. The kind of the impacts on the balance sheet are. We are talking about less than EUR 1 million. Then, most of the assets we are going to then divest. I think as we continue to still manufacture there during the third quarter, the divestments will likely take place then only in quarter four. We expect to also that to result some positive cash for the company.
Some of the assets we might use in the other factories, but that will be smaller part of the, let's say, the total machinery we have in Australia.
And the goodwill that you have from, from the Australia business as well?
That, that has no, no impact on, on this.
The goodwill was amortized in 2018.
Okay.
Yeah.
Second question is on the, on the cash flow and, and the working capital going into the second half. I mean, we broadly know what your EBITDA is going to be, but how should we think about then the cash generation or will the positive trend continue, or are you now kind of flattening out or?
Well, as mentioned, I think. Well, fact is that today, you know, we have more inventory than, than we want or what we need to kind of in optimal situation, run the business. Definitely our target is to free cash during the second half of the year, especially from the inventory. In the other net working capital items, I think we'll see smaller impacts, but we have a potential to, let's say, generate cash from the inventory reduction.
Okay. Then kind of the downgrade on this year's EBITDA, what, what type of impact does it have on your cost of debt or covenants or things like that?
Well, we had a waiver agreed for our, our covenant, with our financing bank, and, and obviously, it's, it's a thing that needs to be closely managed and, and monitored. But as of now, let's say the impact that it has was reflected in the, let's say, average interest rate that Ville, Ville mentioned.
Then on the growth side, if you look at the business that goes to mining industry, let's exclude Russia from that kind of impact, what did you see kind of on growth terms on the first half? Did you see some of your clients de-stocking inventory? Did you grow in the mining business? How did it-
... Yeah, we, we had some kind of individual key customers that are, you know, in our scales, very relevant. We saw lower consumption from some key customers, and, you know, there is seasonality. There might be, you know, destocking happening. There's different reasons between the customers. But if you think broadly, mining sector, the market demand is not a kind of a constraint for us. Obviously, our market share is, is relatively low, so definitely we have room to grow a lot in that segment. But now, first half of the year, with some of our large customers, we saw decline either through the excess inventory that our distributor might have had or even the end customer, and in some cases, lower consumption of some of our key customers.
At the same time, we need to be kind of fair that we didn't have enough new customers that we would have won, let's say, end of last year, to compensate for that kind of fluctuations. That's kind of the number one focus obviously for now, is to get the sales funnel conversion version happening and building that future growth.
If you go back 1 year, and again, let's exclude Russia from that, would you say that your customer base in mining is today wider? When we see this kind of an impact ending and the market...
Yeah
returns to growth, then?
If you look kind of big picture, one year back, we, we have won some customers, maybe we've lost some customers. The net impact in is pretty much plus, minus, you know, then we talk about some, some smaller, smaller changes. Definitely kind of where we aim to be is, is heavily on the plus side, and, and now first half of the year, we were not there. Then given the economic development, some customer-specific development, therefore, we saw a decline in the sales.
Okay. Then on the construction side, is it fair to assume that it's still trending down? Are you still kind of working on a project that, that have been already initiated? I guess kind of the new business is, is the top one right now.
Yeah, I think typically the projects we work, they, they kind of they... With exception of some very large ones, they, they are not necessarily lasting that long. We, we need to kind of to turn the project funnel all the time. There are projects, some of them gets delayed, the decision-making, and there are less projects, and that obviously impacts also in that, that the competitive situation in some of these projects is, is tougher than it was, let's say, one year ago or one and a half years ago, as the total market is today smaller. I, I would say kind of that it is definitely lower than when we look one year back, and we'll see how long that last in that, that segment.
Okay, the final one for me, just a clarification. You have the EUR 5 million cost savings that you're targeting, and on top of that, the impact from Australia wind- down, or is it included?
Included.
Included. Okay.
Included.
Thank you.
Yes, it's from Inderes again. Could you provide us with ballpark figures? How much of that was minus 21% sales decline? How much of that was linked to construction, and how much to, to mining?
Yeah, we, we don't kind of report or on the segment basis, but it was kind of just a ballpark, I think, in percentage terms. Mining is a slightly larger business for us. In percentage term, in those segments, it was bigger in the construction segment, but we, we saw kind of also decline in the mining. That was more related this, let's say, destocking customer-specific issues, rather than, rather than necessarily the market demand as such.
Coming back to your construction customers, did you lose any meaningful customers on, on the construction side, or it was just a matter of their volume declining per se?
Yeah, you have in the construction side, you know, if you think a quarry, it's more continuous business. It's maybe more, more related to mining as such. There, in that segment, it's more related just to the production volumes. Then other part of the construction business is project-related, and that then relates that, okay, there were less projects available in the market. I think we, we got our share of the projects, but the overall market was just lower. Any other? Yeah, go ahead.
Yeah, yeah. Still one linked to this current factory closed down. Is there a risk that you will lose local customers there due to this closure?
Well, that's our number one focus is, is to ensure smooth transition and, and that we delivery capability stays at all time. Part of that is that we are going to temporarily increase inventory levels for the products in question before the close down. That's one way, way of managing it. We are also kind of well advanced in setting up the new supply, so that's a risk that is being managed.
You have heard or seen no indication by your local customers that, "Okay, we are not anymore friends with you as you are exiting Australia?
No.
Okay.
No. Any other questions? All right. If not, we'll thank you for your time, and we will be reporting then our Q3 results in October 24th. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.