Welcome to this presentation. My name is Christian Bekken, and I am the CEO of BEWI. With me today, as always, I have our CFO, Marie Danielsson, who will take you through the financial. Our presentation includes some forward-looking statements. I would like to point your attention to our disclaimer. Let's talk about the highlights for the quarter. Some of the markets we have operate in are currently very challenging. As you all know, the activity in the building and construction industry has dropped significantly across Europe. The activity has declined in most markets we operate in, but there are large variations. Some countries like Spain, Portugal, and the U.K. are still doing very well. This has, however, resulted in a volume drop of 20%-50% for the different units within the RAW segment and the Insulation and Construction segment.
We experience that customers are very cautious, which reduces visibility. No one wants to commit to large orders, both since customers have low visibility towards their customers and prices are very volatile. For the Packaging segment, the situation is quite different. There is a stable demand for food packaging. In the first half of this year, slaughter volumes were lower than last year, meaning we sold less fish boxes than last year. This means that more fish will be slaughtered the second half of this year, and we will sell, obviously, more fish boxes. For other types of food packaging, demand remains solid, which also gives us higher predictability. The market for EPP components is growing. This includes demand for components to HVAC systems and for automotive components as well.
The volume sold for automotive components are up by 30% from first half year, last year, which is something we have seen coming for a while, which is why we have positioned ourselves in these markets. Given the market condition, we are very pleased to deliver such solid results. Our overall EBITDA margin is almost 11% in very rough markets. Both, both our downstream units delivered improved margins from Q1, and this is partly due to lower RAW material prices. For the Insulation segment, where there has been a dramatic decrease in volume, this has been possible because of the continuous effort we are doing to reduce capacity and cost and implementation of better price management and extracting synergies.
We are especially pleased to see how the organization has managed to turn negative result in the Nordic Insulation business in Q4 to a healthy and positive contribution this quarter, despite the considerable loss of volumes. Diversification and integration remains a key competitive advantage to BEWI. When construction activity and slaughter volumes decline, demand for fiber-based packaging, HVAC system, and automotive components increase. When RAW material prices decrease, margin shift from upstream to downstream segments. Last year, we acquired seven companies with an annual turnover of EUR 600 million. The majority of this was related to Insulation solutions, as we remain quite bullish about the opportunities for this segment in the long run. Therefore, despite the drop in volumes, the Insulation and Construction segment accounts for an increasing share of the group sales. This is also seen in our exposure to the end markets.
Of course, the large exposure to the building and construction industry is tough to handle right now, but it's still the right place to be, since insulation is the most efficient way to improve energy efficiency in buildings and therefore also the best way to reduce CO2 emissions. Looking at the geographic diversification, Norway, Germany, and the Netherlands are the largest markets. Fish boxes and traded products to seafood industry are the most important products in Norway. In Germany and the Netherlands, insulation solutions are more important. Following the acquisition of Jablite and Jackon last year, the U.K. has now grown to 8% of the group's total sales, same as Sweden, actually. Let's take a closer look at the financial result for the quarter. Net sales grew from EUR 277 to 290 million, an increase of 5%.
The lower volume and prices resulted in a negative organic growth of EUR 76 million. Jackon contributes with close to EUR 80 million, while other acquired companies add on EUR 21 million. Currency effect and divestments had a negative effect on almost EUR 12 million. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter came in at EUR 32 million, down from EUR 40 million for the second quarter last year, but as I said, a very solid result in such challenging markets. Again, the decline mainly comes from lower volumes and reduced gap for RAW.
Jackon contributes with more than EUR 7 million to the growth in EBITDA, coming from all segment at the previous Jackon, proving how well the integration work is going and how well the BEWI model works for also this organization. A few comments on the integration work. In October last year, we could finally complete our acquisition of Jackon.
We and the integration work has been really good. We have established an improved organizational structure with dedicated management teams for each division to focus on operational excellence, production optimization, cross-selling, and other strategic growth opportunities. By the end of the second quarter, we have extracted synergies of EUR 15 million on an annual basis, in line with what we communicated last quarter, and we are on track to realize synergies of more than EUR 30 million by next year. As a part of the synergies, we are continuously working to adjust capacity and cost to the current market conditions. We have already talked about how pleased we are with the results for the Nordic Insulation business so far. Although we are on track with that work, the work is still ongoing, both in the Nordic market and other regions as well.
One example is that we have temporarily shut down the Insulation facility in Norrköping. We plan to convert this facility into be a Circular facility. It's always a fine balance to adjust capacity and cost to adapt to the current market, and at the same time, maintain a position and positioning ourselves to long-term growth. Besides the integration of Jackon, we have integrated other companies we have acquired as well, like Jablite in the U.K. and BalPol in Lithuania. Now, both called BEWI, of course, but this picture is from construction site in Lithuania, where sandwich panels of PIR are used as roof insulation. This is a good example on how we have expanded our product offering throughout Europe. Let's take a few specific example on what we do to position ourselves for growth, in addition to acquiring and integrating companies, of course.
In BEWI, we have many ongoing growth initiatives throughout the company. One of the benefits of our new organizational structure is that we have dedicated management teams for each segment, who also follow up the organic growth initiatives. Within the RAW segment, we are investing in a new extruder at our facility in Etne. The extruder will increase our capacity by more than 30,000 tons of gray and recycled material, this is a very important investment. It enables increased use of recycled materials in our own production, and it provides us with high value added grades with better insulation values. The extruder will be up and running by the end of this year. In addition to the RAW extruder, we also invest in increased extrusion capacity for Circular products as well.
In Insulation, we work to increase the portion of value-added sales throughout more system sales, as I was mentioning from the PIR element. We are currently investing in a new production line for construction board at the facility in Olen in Belgium, which will more than double the capacity. This is a typical product which is not that impacted by the decline in new build, as it is used for renovation of bathrooms as well. Also, it's a very popular product in the U.K. market, which is less impacted than other markets as of now. Then the Packaging and Components segment, where we want to strengthen our offering to paper packaging, as well as increase our capacity for EPP components to meet the increased demand for HVAC and automotive components.
I will not go into detail on each product, but of course, we look forward to soon start production of the new packaging facility at Jøsnøya. The facility will be a hub for different types of packaging solutions, but to start with, it will produce fish boxes under the contract with Lerøy and Mowi. To sum up the first part of the presentation, we are delivering on our key priorities. We are adjusting our capacity and cost to the current market conditions. This has improved and will continue to improve profitability. The adjustments are also important to position ourselves for long-term growth. This work is on track and ongoing. We are on track with integration of acquired companies. We have extracted EUR 15 million by Q2 this year, and we will extract EUR 30 million by next year.
We have organic growth initiatives progressing as planned, positioning ourselves for the organic growth. We steadily increase our collection of materials for recycling, as well as our own consumption of recycled material. This is important in many aspects. Firstly, we intend to deliver on our target to collect 60,000 tons of EPS recycled by the end of 2026. Secondly, we want to lead the industry's way towards circular economy. Thirdly, we want to reduce our CO2 footprint and also help our customers to reduce their footprint. Finally, we believe in the financial opportunities in the future market for recycled materials. As I've promised before, we will sell industrial real estate portfolio. We have already sold the minority of the portfolio, but we intend to sell the remaining properties quite soon. With that, I leave the word over to you, Marie.
Thank you, Christian. We start with looking into segment RAW. The softer market within the building and construction industry is of course, impacting segment RAW directly, since that is an end market corresponding to more than half of that segment's sales. Sales organically has decreased close to 50%, that is a mix between volume and price. EPS sales prices are approximately 35% lower compared to last year. With the contribution from Jackon, sales ended at EUR 85.5 million. EBITDA decreases from EUR 16.4 million- 6.3 million. If you might recall from one of the previous slides, you could see that the group organically have a drop in EBITDA of EUR 17 million compared to last year. More than EUR 12 million of this is coming from segment RAW.
This is the segment where we have the major drop, in, in the quarter. In an analysis of the EBITDA, it is important to understand also where we are coming from and what we are comparing to. Last year, this quarter, the market sentiment was still very strong, and consequently, we were basically sold out, and we could keep the sales prices high. Now, it's exactly the opposite. We have a much more soft market. The volume has dropped, and the RAW material price trend is downward and downward going. That's why it's hard to keep the prices up. Lower contribution is also important to understand per sold ton, impacts to a higher extent the EBITDA compared to the lost contribution from the lower volumes. We move on to Insulation.
In Insulation, sales has increased 46% compared to last year. That is all driven by acquisition. As Christian mentioned, the picture and the market within Insulation is very mixed. We assess that the volumes has decreased approximately between 20%-50% in our major markets. This excludes then Spain and the U.K., where the markets are more stable. In Q1, we noticed the biggest drop in the Nordics. Into the second quarter, the Nordics has remained stable, on a low level. Still, we experience some positive seasonality impacts. In the second quarter, it is Germany and the Netherlands, the Benelux area, which has quickly accelerated downwards. If we look then organically, again, volumes are down 20%-50%. Consequently, this impacts the EBITDA.
However, we took quick actions to adapt capacity and also the cost structures in the Nordics. We have a very good price management. We are favoring from decreasing RAW material prices, and that means it's not said in this page, but you can do the maths, that organically, we improved the margin from 13.1% last year to 14.6% in this second quarter. If you're not talking percentage, but in EUR, the drop now in EUR is actually coming from the Benelux areas and also our joint ventures that operate in Germany and France, so in the middle of Europe. In relation to the acquisitions, Jackon is the biggest contributor, and in addition to that, we have Spain, we have U.K., and the Baltics.
Jackon's main markets are the Nordics and Germany, and they do contribute positively, but not as much as you can see, and that's lowered the margins for the segments as total. The Nordic region is now fully integrated into BEWI and performs fair, I would say, considering the big volume drop, and that is due to the measures taken. However, the contribution from the German operation, and that is close to half of Jackon's operation, have a very limited contribution at this time. Spain and the U.K., as mentioned, they operate in much more solid markets and performs well. Even if then the Baltics is included in this picture, the EBITDA on the other acquired entities ends at 13%.
To conclude and to take with you, EBITDA margin is improving from 6.6% in Q1 up to 10.1%, and we are extremely proud that we have been able to balance and manage such volume decrease and still improve the EBITDA and deliver a rather solid margin. Then we go to Packaging and Components, which is much more stable. Sales improves 8%. It's up from 92.4 to 99.7 million EUR. Growth is coming from the acquisitions, but, if you look at organically, it's rather the sales prices than the volumes that impacts the development organically. Automotive develops well, and we have growth. Same goes with HVAC, as Christian mentioned. Then we have some lower volumes in our food segment, so to say, goes trading and the fish boxes.
The acquisitions we have in this segment is mainly exposed to food industry. It's paper packaging solutions, and we have fish box production. The acquisitions are delivering very well. It's on expectation, you can see that they have a very healthy margin with 19%. In a totality, we increase EBITDA from EUR 12.1 up to 14.8, and that is growth both from acquisitions and the contributions from organic growth. We go into Circular, which you are well aware of, that this segment collects used EPS and also some other materials for further conversions to recycled RAW materials. We do have negative growth in this segment that is due to lower sales prices, that is not compensated by the acquisitions.
Last year, we took a big step forward on the collection side, and we also invested in additional recycling capacity, and that we do continue to. As a consequence of this, we have been able to increase our internal sales, essentially, if you compare to last year, when it was pretty much close to zero. Financially, yes, it's a weaker quarter compared to last year, but as for RAW, Circular have a tougher market in a declining RAW material price trend, and priority for us now is to continue to focusing on collection and increased usage of recycled materials in our downstream segment. If we then quickly look into our consolidated P&L, I would like just to highlight a few things. Cost base is up, and that is driven by the acquisitions. Personnel cost in relation to numbers of employees is rather stable.
We divide our depreciation and amortization between our operation, what is IFRS-driven and fair value-adjusted. What is operational is the depreciation that you should see in relation to our CapEx need. IFRS depreciations has obviously increased due to the divestments on the real estates. Financial items is also increasing, coming from increasing interest rates, but also that we do have a much higher debt due to recent acquisitions. Our financing consists of basically three sources. We have the bond, we have an RCF, and then we divest real estates, and you find all the details around this in our Q1 report. We look at the cash flow in the quarter, it came in at EUR 26 million. It's pretty much in line with last year, and that is even if we had some negative working capital.
These EUR 26 million have we used for EUR 16 million for CapEx. We have spent EUR 7.3 million of this for our normal maintenance CapEx. That is in line with our guided range. On top of that, we have all these investment programs that will give us organic growth and new capacity then. Those are the projects that Christian has mentioned earlier. All this means something to the capital structure. Net debt ended at EUR 558 million. That is pretty much in line with the net debt at year-end. As you can see, the net debt, excluding IFRS, has decreased, and that is coming from the divested real estates.
You also find that there is a shift between current liabilities to non-current liabilities. That is due to the fact that we, in the first half years, has settled debt that came with acquisition of Jackon into the BEWI debt structure. We have an unused revolver credit facility of EUR 26 million. As Christian mentioned, we intend to divest the remaining part of the real estate portfolio within short time. That will strengthening our balance sheet further. Currently, leverage and return on capital employed is moving the wrong direction. It's important then, again, to remember that we did close some major transactions in the fourth quarter in 2022. That needs to be seen in the size of BEWI. It's impacted our balance sheet up front.
Given that the companies were acquired at a higher multiple than our leverage, of course, you do get a shift upwards. We have a market development that is challenging, and it will take some additional time for us to get in balance between the cash flow generated from the acquisitions in combination with the full potential on the profit and loss. We are confident that we will remain, or can deliver on these targets, so the targets remain.
With that, I leave it over to you, Christian.
Thank you, Marie. Let's look at the outlook. We experience very low visibility related to volume forecast and prices. Customers are cautious, and RAW material prices are volatile. Both the supply and demand side are constantly moving. styrene and EPS prices have increased since June, and we have managed to maintain a solid gap. The activity in the building and construction industry is expected to remain low and could even further decline in the second half, impacting volume for RAW and Insulation, of course. The outlook for the Packaging and Components segment remains solid, but in these markets, things change fast, and a lot has happened since we presented our Q1 result. Even if we perform well in these markets, we do not believe that we will reach an EBITDA of EUR 167 million this year, as we said we expected in the Q1 presentation.
The explanation of this, of course, is the activity in the building and construction market. It, it has declined sharper than we anticipated the last couple of months. The EBITDA for this quarter was in line with our expectation. However, lower volumes were compensated by stronger margins. So far this year, we have an EBITDA of EUR 60 million, and given the outlook we have today, we expect the EBITDA to be stronger for the second half than the first half of this year. To summarize, BEWI is a diversified industrial group, well positioned to accelerate growth across markets. We deliver solid result despite challenging markets. Our integrated and diversified business model remains a key competitive advantage.
We have a proven track record to adjust price, prices, capacity, cost to the current market, and we have, for many years, shown that we have succeeded in integrating acquired companies and realized significant synergies. We are on track with strategic growth project, focusing on sustainability and circularity, positioning for megatrends, such as Insulation, HVAC, components for electrical vehicles. We intend to continue to strive to be the best managed company in our industry. With that, I'll leave the floor open for questions. We are an industry company. We are considering all our options at all time, both strategically and in other aspects. Of course, we are considering things, but I cannot go into specific details in this presentation on that.
Okay, then, another question, which is also related to the real real estate portfolio. Could we expect... This is from Eva Larsen. It's posted in Norwegian, so I'll translate. Could we expect that the cash flow for the second half of the year decrease the leverage ratio, even if you don't succeed in divesting the real estate for EUR 50 million?
Difficult to answer, depend on the market, but yes, you could expect that, yeah.
Any follow-up comments, Marie?
No, it's, of course, in a decreasing market, we have, we have, storage, which is, in those times, higher than, normally. The styrene and RAW material price, has the last month gone up. Industrial advantage is to empty those storage, at, which is procured at lower prices in the market where the pricing is higher, mainly driven by that.
I think, I mean, take with you that, I mean, it's a huge focus for us to decrease the leverage, of course, because we want to have a strong balance sheet. As Christian mentioned, we are working on everything that we can when it comes to working capital, for example, but we are in an active process with the real estates. That's highest up then on the agenda for now.
There's another question for the real estates. You repeat the intention to divest the remaining real estates. Do you have any... could you comment on the price expectations given the increased rates or interest rates and the tough real estate market right now?
Yeah, sorry again to disappoint, not to answer direct on that question, but as we are in negotiating with multiple parties, so it will be impossible for me to go into detail on to answer that question at this time. As I said in the presentation, we expect it to happen soon.
Okay, we have a question related to the cost side. I guess this goes for Marie. Your personal costs are has increased quite a lot, year-over-year. Why is that? Is this a development we can expect also going forward?
Yeah, in EUR, it's increases. I would say that if we take it as a percentage of number of employees, there is a slightly upgoing trend, but everyone is asking for compensation for inflation, and the labor, of course, and our employees should have a fair salary, so we are forced to increase salaries. That has been between 5%-10% in our different jurisdictions. Don't expect it to increase more than it takes from the market, and we are working on. Unfortunately, we have let people go because we are reducing capacity.
Yeah, we can add, I guess, also, that, that we are, more employees from the acquisitions since last year.
Yeah
if that's a comparable number?
In general, the last months we have, of course, sadly, as Marie said, reduced staff. That is, effect of the market and the cost adjustments we are doing, as well as the synergies between the companies we are buying.
Another question from Eva Larsen. "You talk about the increased profitability, and you are focusing on increased EBITDA. The net profit hasn't increased since 2020. When can we expect that the net profit also increases?
It will go hand in hand with the EBITDA, and unfortunately we are on a declining trend right now then. Also, with all the acquisitions, we have increasing amortizations in relation to our fair value adjustment, so you need to adjust for that. Yeah, the only answer is, basically, we need to, for sure, get... The market needs to improve, we need to further, take out the synergies, and that is the key.
Then we have a question, or we have two questions from Herman Dahl in Nordea. He is asking, "What segments do you expect will drive the increase in EBITDA in the second half of the year compared to the first half of the year?
Yeah, we see a stable outlook on the Insulation and Construction part as we see it now, and of course, as I commented in the presentation as well, both the components and the packaging will be better in second half. Driven by a packaging part of the business, but we will see stable outlook for the Insulation in the totality. There is also some short-term aspects where the, as I said, the styrene prices increased from June until now, and in the short-term perspective, that will have a positive effect on the results, due to the simple fact that we have storage, and we will sell in a different market with adjusted prices.
The second question, also from Herman Dahl, is that, "Within the automotive components, is it volume, related to number of cars, or is it increased use of EPS/XPS, driving the increased demand?
It is both. The newer models have more EPP inside of them, and also the production has slightly increased since basically COVID and the lack of semiconductors, so it is actually both. It's I cannot say exactly, but around 50/50.
Okay, so, we have no more questions right now, so I think we will conclude the Q&A sessions, and thank you for listening in.
Thank you.
Thank you.
See you next time.