Welcome to Scanfil Pasi Hiedanpää General Meeting. First, we will have the Chairman of the Board's report. It will be held in Finnish, and then the CEO's report will be held in English. There is a Q&A session, and there is also a chat box window in your laptop or on the screen, so you can type in questions in there. We will have all the questions at the end of the presentation. Thank you. [Foreign language] Kiitos, ja nyt annan puheenvuoron hallituksen puheenjohtajalle. Harri, ole hyvä.
[Foreign language] Kiitos. Arvoisat sijoittajat ja osakkeenomistajat. Olen Harri Takanen, Scanfil Oy:n hallituksen puheenjohtaja. Ennen vuotta 2024 koskevaa toimitusjohtajan katsausta haluaisin kertoa muutaman sanan Scanfilin historiasta. Lisäksi lyhyesti myös Scanfilin strategian peruselementeistä ja taloudellisista tavoitteista. Ensi vuonna alkaa 50-vuotisjuhlavuotemme. Scanfilin matkasta kirjoitetaan parhaillaan kirjaa. Kirjan kirjoittaa kirjailija ja filosofian tohtori Anitra Gomulainen. Tämän hankkeen innoittamana haluan lyhyesti kertoa joistakin yhtiömme historian keskeisistä vaiheista. Isäni, Jorma Takanen, perusti Scanfilin vuonna 1976 pienelle paikkakunnalle Sieviin, jossa hän on syntynyt ja kasvanut. Lähipiiristä hän sai tukea hankkeeseen, ja hänen veljensä sekä muut lähisukulaisensa tulivat mukaan sijoittajiksi, mikä mahdollisti uuden liiketoiminnan aloittamisen. Jo varhaisessa vaiheessa Jorma tunnisti elektroniikkateollisuuden erittäin lupaavaksi alaksi Scanfilille ja ennusti sille nopeaa kasvua. Aivan alkutaipaleella yritys keskittyi ohutlevyosien valmistukseen suomalaiselle elektroniikkateollisuudelle. Pian Scanfil laajensi toimintaansa kalustettujen piirilevyjen kokoonpanoon. Scanfilissa nämä olivat eri toimintoja, niitä kutsuttiin mekaniikaksi ja elektroniikaksi. Vuosien mittaan liiketoiminta kasvoi tasaisesti.
[Foreign language] Merkittävä käännekohta saavutettiin vuonna 1991, kun Scanfil avasi uuden tehtaan Ouluun. Tämä käynnisti nopean laajentumisen ajan. Tehdas sijaitsi lähellä Oulun Nokiaa, ja Nokiasta tulikin yhtiölle tärkeä asiakas. Anteeksi, minulla unohtui vaihtaa tuo vuosilukukalvo tuolla. Tuolla näkyy nuo milestonet kalvolla, mutta palataan tähän historian kertomukseen. Kymmenessä vuodessa, vuodesta 1991 vuoteen 2001, Scanfilin liikevaihto kasvoi viidestä miljoonasta EUR 220 miljoonaan. Tällä vuosikymmenellä tapahtui myös useita yritysostoja, ja tehdasverkosto laajeni. Yksi kasvuajuri oli tuotannon ulkoistaminen, ja monet Scanfilin hankkimat tehtaat olivatkin alun perin asiakkaiden omia tehtaita. Vuoteen 2001 mennessä oli selvää, että Scanfilin täytyi laajentaa tuotantoa Suomen ulkopuolelle palvellakseen kansainvälisiä asiakkaita. Scanfil osti tehtaita Unkarista, Virosta ja Kiinasta. Laajentuminen tapahtui nimenomaan hankkimalla jo olemassa olevia tuotantolaitoksia, ei rakentamalla. Tällä tavalla tuotannon ylösajoon ja asiakkuuksien hankintaan ei mennyt aikaa, ja toiminta oli tehokasta heti alusta alkaen. Noina vuosina tietoliikennetuotteiden osuus liikevaihdostamme oli erittäin merkittävä. Tästä johtuen Scanfilissa tunnistettiin tarve monipuolistaa asiakasrakennetta.
[Foreign language] Strategian toteuttamista nopeutti vuonna 2012 tehty PartnerTechin osto. Ruotsalainen PartnerTech oli samankokoinen kuin Scanfil, ja sen asiakaskunta täydensi Scanfilin harvempiin asiakkaisiin keskittynyttä asiakasrakennetta. Lisäksi PartnerTechin tuotantolaitokset Ruotsissa, Puolassa ja Yhdysvalloissa täydensivät olemassa olevaa tehdasverkkoa erittäin hyvin. Nykyisen Scanfilin perustusta luotiin yhdistymisessä PartnerTechin kanssa. Matkan varrella olemme oppineet paljon. Tunnemme toimialamme perinpohjaisesti. Kun katson tulevaisuuteen, niin Scanfililla on kaikki edellytykset menestyä: vakaa taloudellinen asema, vahvat asiakkuudet sekä lahjakkaat ja sitoutuneet työntekijät. Korostan, että menestyksemme ei ole vain Jorman vision ja sinnikkyyden ansiota, vaan kaikkien lukuisten henkilöiden, jotka ovat olleet mukana rakentamassa Scanfilin menestystarinaa. Olemme erittäin kiitollisia heille kaikille, jotka ovat olleet mukana tässä matkassa. Seuraavana mennään tähän strategiakalvoon. Tässä strategiakalvossa on kuvattu Scanfilin strategian peruselementtejä. Kaiken perustana on kulttuuri ja ihmiset. Strategiaa mahdollistavien tekijöiden avulla varmistetaan tehokkuus ja mahdollistetaan kasvu. Kasvun ajurit: keskitytään oikeisiin liiketoimintasegmentteihin, laajennetaan kapasiteettia maantieteellisesti asiakastarpeen mukaan, asiakaslähtöinen palvelutarjonta, hyvin valikoidut yritysostot, jotka täydentävät edellä kerrottuja kasvun ajureita.
[Foreign language] Tehokkuuden parantaminen. Dream Factory -konsepti tuotantoprosessien kehittämiseksi, tuottavuuden jatkuvan parantamisen konsepti, toimitusketjujen hallinta on keskeisessä roolissa. Sitten pitkän tähtäimen taloudelliset tavoitteet. Liikevaihdon kasvu 10% vuodessa. Liiketulos 7.8%. Nettovelkaantuminen tai velkaantumisaste. Nettovelka jaettuna EBITDA alle 1.5. Ja osinkotavoite yksi kolmasosa osakekohtaisesta tuloksesta. Seuraavana toimitusjohtajan katsaus koskien vuotta 2024.
[Foreign language] Kiitos, Harri. Eli siirrytään seuraavaksi toimitusjohtajan katsaukseen, joka tulee siis tallenteena eiliseltä ja pidetään englanniksi. Next, we will move to CEO's review. It will be a recording from yesterday, and the language is English. So, Christoph Sut, please.
Looking now for an update on 2024. As you know, we during 2024 did an update on our vision, mission, and values. As our vision remained globally the same, and we want to be a supply chain partner for our customers and the preferred supply chain partner for our customers, we have in the same times reworked and fine-tuned our value. As the previous year, we believe in being customer-focused and being close to our customers. We believe in working together and building the best product for our customers together with them and performing, performing for our companies, performing for our customers, performing towards the external environment. During 2024, we have also updated and brought the fourth value, which is empowerment.
We believe that to be able to get all those things together, it's very important that people, wherever they are in our organization, can take decisions as close as possible to the business and take responsibility for their actions and the impact of their activities. That's something that we have started to roll out and work towards during 2024. In the same time, we updated our strategy, and our strategy is now defined around two major pillars. One that is growth, that is built out of segment focus, geographical expansion, building offering, and then complementing our network with acquisition of new companies. The second element that is very traditional in our industry is efficiency. I mean, we are in manufacturing; we need to be efficient in everything we do.
It is both from supply chain excellence, building productivity in all activities we have within the company, and then looking forward to the future and building capabilities through our Dream Factory program. All those elements are supported by our strategic enablers that also need to be top-notch, from sustainability to IT and cybersecurity to risk management to how we work on our financing. Finally, all that is made possible because of our people. We are in the service business, we are in the service industry, and culture and people from that perspective matter a lot to us. During 2024, we had a couple of very key events, starting in February with bringing live our new value of empowerment, following up with a presentation to Capital Markets there of an updated version of the strategy that actually immediately after was rolled out.
First impact being the creation of customer groups dedicating sales resources to the area where we believe we have opportunities to grow long-term for the company. That was implemented in April. As I mentioned before, people are important in our business. We are in the service business, and we felt from that conclusion that it was important to have staff people within the company and part of the management team.
Yes, great. Seven minutes video left and then you interview the show.
We also adjusted our management team and adjusted our organization. We have now original segments that are operated by individual leaders. That was presented during last year, fully operational when we started the new year. Finally, as part of the strategy, I mentioned the importance of M&A that materialized last year by the acquisition of SRX Global, giving us a footprint in Asia outside of China, both in Malaysia and in Australia. A few activities that were significant during 2024. As mentioned before, we have identified three customer segments that we believe will drive long-term growth and sustainability for our companies. One is medtech and life science. That is today our smallest segment, but very promising. Energy and cleantech that is answering the need of a more sustainable world.
From that perspective, our strong customer portfolio and strong competence we have built across the company during the years will help us to continue to develop that one. Industrial, that is our traditional segment. It remains the biggest segment today, being almost half of the revenue of the company. Those segments we are keeping the focus on to move our product portfolio forward and focus within our organization on where we want to go. We also organize ourselves around four regions, and the four regions have different profiles and different sizes, but are aiming at scaling and growing and giving us the management power to become a bigger company in the future.
America, being our smallest region, where I am currently acting as Head of America, that has been growing significantly and where we have added capability on electronics and has shown a strong momentum across the year. Central Europe region, which is today the biggest region and was our biggest region in 2024, is led by Markku Kosunen, and that region is hosting quite a significant amount of our energy cleantech customers that are driving growth and the future of Scanfil. The Northern Europe region that is also historical for Scanfil and remains very sizable run today by Steve Creutz, and that is a significant part of our history, but still also part of our future and our capabilities.
Last but not least, our EPAC region led by Christian Kvist that has been actually growing during the year since started only with China and is now including three sites, one new in Malaysia and another one in Australia, is gaining momentum and size and becoming also significant a bit to par with Northern Europe and Central Europe. Management team, as I mentioned, evolved. We welcomed four new members in the management team: Annette, that is now our Chief People Officer, that joined us during the second part of last year. Finally, Steve Creutz and Christian Kirsten that had in the past, Steve was running our Åtvidaberg operation, now he's running Northern Europe, and Christian was running Suzhou and now is leading the APAC region. Finally, Markku Kosunen was responsible for supply chain previously and now is running our Central European region.
A few changes in management team, bringing diversity of experience and background to the company. When we look at the development, 2024 was for our industry a year of adjustment. I mean, we had the 2022-2023 special happening driven by shortage of material, recovery of the COVID time, that where during that period a lot of inventory was built. During 2024, a lot of our customers did adjust their level of inventory, which had a negative impact on our revenue. Therefore, our focus during 2024, as the growth was a little bit on pause because of that phenomenon, was to focus on efficiency. Therefore, during 2024, we focused on streamlining our manufacturing tools, making sure that we adjust our cost to the new size of the company, but also improve our processes for the future.
I was very pleased by the deliverable because we managed to deliver a margin level of 6.8% that was in par with the performance of the year before that was early quarter year in many ways. That was, from that perspective, positive development and a good way to use the situation. We also continue to invest in our capabilities and in our facilities, as also we were investing in our future through M&A and buying SRX Global. The fourth quarter of this year came just with us at the beginning of the fourth quarter. We managed to continue a positive development despite the challenging market situation in both investing in our facility, but also bringing in new competence and new opportunities for the future of Scanfil through M&A.
Based on that and that performance, we have been suggesting a dividend still growing to EUR 0.24 for 2024 as an outcome of 2024. In the same times, we are continuing to work on our ESG development, and 2024 in many ways was a special year. We have now a sustainability report that is fully part of us, a significant amount of actions that goes from limiting our impact on the environment with CO2 emission targets that have continued to decrease during the year to building up equality and gender equality and diversity in our organization, where we had some good success moving from 20% of female management to 27%. Still a way to go to our target and to an equal development of our company, but going into the right direction. With that, I would like to thank you and open for Q&A.
[Foreign language] Kiitos, Christoph. Thank you, Christoph. [Foreign language] Eli nyt siirrytään englanninkieliseen Q&A-osioon. Thank you, and now we are moving to English Q&A session. Please use the chat box window and ask questions via chat. We will address all the questions in here, and all the questions will be answered in English. Thank you. Now we can start the Q&A. The first question is, you changed your EBIT guidance to EBITDA. Are you also going to change your long-term EBIT target, 7-8% EBIT to EBITDA? Christoph, can you hear me?
At this point in time, we have multiple digital challenges in the long-term guidance, and that's something that we would love to address in the upcoming years. We believe that innovative ways for people to look at the. We are continuing the execution journey to give you the right continuity on our operational performance. From that perspective, we think it was a very useful indicator that there is a very stable layout and you will improve on the performance of the company. We believe it's something very positive for everyone to have that vision on our company and it goes hand in hand with what we have done in building the digital segment and now in the much better flavor on how the company is performing, where we are in terms of time, where we have more challenges.
I think that's something that we like to strengthen as a company.
Okay. Thank you, Christoph. Going forward with the M&A agenda, Scanfil has grown historically through acquisitions. Can you elaborate about your process around M&A?
Yeah. In the M&A agenda, in 2024, we are seeing quite a lot of changes on the capabilities and that we are now looking at that to look at the potential targets. The companies are actually at the right concept that seems to be fully getting the right things to do on them, both for our development and for our development. That aspect is a segment. I think the second segment we are working on is to define how we meet mentioned in the initial and that in that, I think there is a very good tool to understand and to make sure that we have what we want to do and what we need on Scanfil and what's the change that we have got depending on the targets that we are working on.
Okay, thank you. Studio, can you also check the line? There is a claim that Christoph's speech does not actually hear through. Can you check that one, please? Going back to the growth agenda and the Scanfil way, can you elaborate on Scanfil way's empowerment? Why do you see it as an important value and what does it mean?
I think that we did a small or maybe a big adjustment to our value by including empowerment at the beginning of last year. And for us, I mean, we have been growing significantly as a company and that we think that we continue to grow. Therefore, it's very important to us that people have capabilities to take decisions as opposed to people to do the business and have capabilities to impact their activities. What we are doing is we are trying to make sure that the outcome and the goals are clear and the way we determine what we are aiming for is clear to everyone. It would be easy to all managers in the company to move things forward in their field.
Okay, thank you. There seems not to be more questions actually coming in, so let's take a short break if somebody would like to ask something. A couple of words in Finnish, [Foreign language] eli voitte kysyä myös suomeksi kysymyksiä. Käännän ne Christophille ja käännän myös vastaukset sitten tarpeen mukaan. Odotetaan vielä pieni hetki. Jos ei tule lisää kysymyksiä, if there are no further questions, so we will actually start a short break after this, and then we will move to the official annual general meeting, and it will start at noon Finnish time, and it will be held in Finnish language. All the people who are actually joined online now but have not enrolled today at AGM will be actually transferred out of the meeting. If you are a shareholder and you have enrolled for the meeting, so you can stay online. [Foreign language] Eli sama vielä suomeksi.
Jos olet osakkeenomistaja ja olet ilmoittautunut kokoukseen, voit jäädä langoille odottamaan kello 12 alkavaa kokousta. Muut ihmiset tullaan siirtämään pois kokouksesta. Thank you from my part, and thank you, Christoph. Thank you, Harri.