Hello everyone, and welcome to Elmera Group's Capital Markets Day in 2024. My name is Morten Opdal, Head of Investor Relations at Elmera Group, and before we begin the presentations, I will give you a brief introduction to today's agenda and the presenters. First off, our CEO, Rolf Barmen, will give you an update on the state of the union before we move on to a section on each of our three core segments, starting off with the consumer segment, followed by the business segment, and then the Nordic segment before we have a short 10-minute break. After that, we will move on to a section on the group's power trading activities before our Group CFO will present our financial outlook.
Finally, we will wrap it up with a Q&A session, and for those of you following the event online, we encourage you to submit your questions during the presentation as there is some delay on the broadcast. We expect that the event will run for about two hours' time, and with that short introduction, I'd like to leave the floor to the Group CEO, Rolf Barmen, for his state of the union presentation. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Morten. Good morning, everyone. It is a great pleasure to welcome you all here and also out in cyberspace. Two years since our last Capital Markets Day, and it is really a great pleasure to see how we have been able to develop the group's business area since then. The group now consists of four electricity retailers and a number of fully-owned subsidiaries and a couple of joint ventures, all supporting the group's purpose to create the most attractive electricity retailers in the Nordics. During the past two years, we have worked hard on developing our core business, our electricity retail companies, both in the consumer and in the business segment.
The business models across the brands are now significantly more robust than before, as we have succeeded in taking off risk connected to fixed-price products in Sweden and Finland and to variable contracts here in Norway. The way product management resources across the group have changed our value propositions to be fit for a more volatile export price environment has been really impressive, and so has the sales management ability to execute on sales of new products and services accordingly. I'd also like to honor the group's retailers for their successful work on their respective brand positioning, which is acknowledged in service both in Norway and abroad. There is no doubt that volatile prices have set focus on electricity retailers in a way never before seen in Norway, the last two years. So we have put a lot of efforts into work on compliance and transparency.
Working on compliance and transparency embeds good cooperation between regulators, politicians, consumer authorities, our business units, our legal staff, and our team working on regulatory and political issues. I think that it is important that you all know that for more than 10 years, we have been a front runner when it comes to addressing regulatory issues, and the last couple of years, we have also been a front runner when it comes to discussing proactively solutions for the retail market with the politicians and the consumer authorities in Norway and in the E.U. On the back of this, we have introduced technology both to the consumer segment and to the business segment and enables customers to monitor and prepare for what we call lowest price energy consumption, and this obviously enhances the retailers' value propositions.
There is no doubt that the role of the retailers and the retailers' position as owners of the customer relationship has strengthened during the past two years. In addition to serving the market with necessary functions like estimate consumption volume, do all the power purchasing, including financing of the daily power purchases, offer price hedging, do all the rating and billing stuff, collect payment, and maintain daily customer dialogue and communication, the retailers now also have the role of accelerating what we call the green shift by offering appropriate tech solutions. From a compliance perspective, we have improved transparency when it comes to invoicing, and we have also conducted sales procedures that not only comply with new legislation, but also exceed these requirements.
All these efforts play important roles to support that Fjordkraft has maintained the position as the largest player in Norway and also proves Norway's positive trend with regard to the brand's reputation, while Gudbrandsdal Energi upholds their long-term position as a retailer with the most satisfied customers in Norway. Not to forget that Nordic Green Energy has taken giant leaps when it comes to both customer satisfaction and brand recognition. On that note, Nordic Green Energy is, as you know, the group's brand in Sweden and Finland. Going further, we will continue serving the consumer segment under this brand, but we are now about to introduce Fjordkraft as a pan-Nordic brand in the business market, which then will be introduced to Finland and Sweden in addition to Norway. This is following the success with the cross-border product management that we have experienced the last couple of years.
I have great expectations for the further growth in all our countries going forward, but particularly in Sweden and Finland, where we, besides introducing Fjordkraft as the B2B brand, both strengthen our sales resources, our sales capacity by increasing our number of sales representatives and also by improving our support systems by migrating all the employees and all the customers to the Elmera IT platform the coming year. You will learn more about the business units and their business models when Magnar, Roger, and Per arrive on the stage after me. Our statement, the group's purpose, so to say, is to create the most attractive electricity retailers in the Nordics, and this purpose has followed us for many years now. Before we went abroad, it was in Norway, but now it is Nordic, and we launched this purpose back in 2019.
Along this, we have put in place several measures to support this mission, also when it comes to establishing new companies and new business units in the group. It all started when we established Fjordkraft Mobil to improve the Fjordkraft brand's attractiveness, reducing churn. We did not only succeed in reducing churn, but we also showed that we were able to establish a profitable mobile service provider, and the transaction with Telia proved the value of the asset in terms of market capitalization. Later on, we established Metzum as a joint venture with Rieber & Søn in Bergen, Metzum now being the largest supplier of cloud-based billing and rating software system to electricity retailers in Norway, with an annual recurring revenue of approximately NOK 50 million, and with a pipeline of new customers outside the Elmera Group the next 12 months that is really promising.
AllRate is now among, if not the largest supplier of billing and rating services to electricity retailers in Norway, and we have continuously developed our alliance concept, Kraftalliansen, comprising 27 small and medium-sized electricity retailers, mainly parts of municipality-owned vertically integrated energy companies. The services now include power purchase management, app services, and other related services. In total, the retailers in Kraftalliansen serve around 200,000 customers, and the power management in terms of consumption, production, and licensing power comprises around 4 TWh a year. Together, these two business units, AllRate and Kraftalliansen, cover a highly interesting market consisting of small and medium-sized vertically integrated energy companies that are in demand of services related to power management, billing, and rating services both within the retail part of the value chain and the grid part of the value chain, particularly then when it comes to billing and rating.
Furthermore, we have established Steady Payments, which is a company serving Fjordkraft with payment solutions that offer customers to level out their electricity bill in even amounts throughout the year. The number of customers on this service is minute for the time being around 11,000, but we expect this to grow the coming quarters, and we also expect this company to serve other retailers than Fjordkraft going forward. SunPool is a new company in our portfolio, a joint venture with Solcellespesialisten, Norway's number one when it comes to sale and installation of solar panels. We want to be prepared for meeting an increasing demand for local solar production when the government puts adequate subsidies in place, and we are pretty sure they will do so.
We will continue to develop all of these companies to further enhance our ability to deliver on the group's purpose, creating the most attractive electricity retailers in the Nordics, but we also look upon these companies in an asset management perspective as we did with Fjordkraft Mobil. The energy transformation from fossil to renewable has been a game changer when it comes to volatility of the export prices, and we have prepared for a while to take advantage of this volatility when it comes to power purchase management, particularly the way we estimate consumption day ahead and how we handle real-time consumption data during the same day. We are now laying the table for being able to leverage from being number one when it comes to power purchasing in Norway with more than 21 TWh a year and a management in the physical markets.
The way we do this is to enter a new supply agreement with Statkraft as from the May 1st, 2025, which really allows us to be balancing responsible ourselves and to a significantly larger extent than now to be able to optimize our power purchasing price in the physical marketplace without being more risk-exposed. To serve this purpose, we established a fully owned subsidiary, Elmera Energy, with around 25 highly skilled and experienced people. This implies that we will be a direct player on Nord Pool in addition to having bilateral purchasing agreements with Statkraft and other producers. Solfrid Fluge Andersen will come back to this matter in her presentation. Aggregating the largest consumption volume in Norway puts us also in a pole position when it comes to being able to steer power consumption, particularly when it comes to smart charging, which is now fully operational.
We have developed technologies also to manage consumption in terms of optimizing the grid rent, and we certainly believe that we can, in the next 12 months, see multiple kinds of value propositions, particularly in the consumer segment, that reflect the need of balancing consumption to grid capacity. Speaking of technology, our IT department is crucial to the group's success both commercially, operationally, and with respect to future-proof cost efficiency. In total, we have, in fact, more than 75 full-time employees working on technology in the company to continuously improve our digital solutions and to comfort our daily business. To sum up my part of the presentation, all of our retailers have done a tremendous job when it comes to adapting the product portfolio to a more volatile environment, both commercially and financially. They are now well prepared for further growth.
Sweden and Finland have, in particular, succeeded in making the business profitable through the cross-border management in the business segment, and to further capitalize on this, we will launch Fjordkraft as the pan-Nordic brand addressing the business in both Sweden, Finland, and Norway. We have exported our application to the consumer segment in Finland and Sweden. By this, we have increased customer satisfaction significantly, and we have started the migration process for employees and customers to the Elmera IT platform, finalized within 12 months. All of our service companies have developed well. They serve our group's purpose and are set for further growth. The energy transformation implies volatility, and as the largest purchaser of electricity in Norway, we are in pole position to leverage from this when it comes to power trading in the physical marketplace.
We have therefore established Elmera Energy to serve as our power management unit, serving all of our retailers with power purchase services. As the largest aggregator of consumer in Norway, we are in pole position to steer consumption and, by that, optimize grid rent for the consumers and secure capacity for the grid owners. Smart charging is fully operational, and new services are being launched continuously. Complexity increases. The focus on IT systems and digital competence has been prevailing in the group for the last 10 years, resulting in the fact that we now have a very robust IT structure both in terms of systems and human resources. By this, we are well prepared for further growth both in Norway, Sweden, and Finland the next couple of years.
So now, it is a pleasure for me to invite Magnar, Roger, and Per to give you more insight into our most important business units before Solfrid will introduce you to how we will operate in the power market going forward. After this short break that Morten mentioned, Henning will give you our financial perspectives. I think Solfrid will come after the break. Yes, she will. So Solfrid and Henning will come after the break, and I will come back on the stage and give you a sum-up. Among others, I will talk a little bit about our key investment highlights, and then Morten will conduct the Q&A session. Thank you for now, and warm welcome to Magnar.
Yes. Good morning. I'll give you an insight in how we now are developing our core business to take an even stronger position in the consumer market, and I'll give you a short update on Fjordkraft Mobil. The strong position with a market share of 24% gives us a position to take lead. Fjordkraft is the largest player in Norwegian consumer markets, and it's supported by a strong national fighting brand, Gudbrandsdal Energi, and the regional brand TrøndelagKraft. So some highlights to start with: Fjordkraft, the largest and most well-known electricity retail brand, award-winning customer service in all consumer brands. Fjordkraft app rated third in Europe, and we have a broad product range with value-added services and a leading loyalty program.
The fighting brand Gudbrandsdal Energi upholds a long-term position as the retailer with the most satisfied customers in Norway, and all the consumer brands are certified Trygg Strømhandel by DNB. To go on, Gudbrandsdal Energi is the most awarded electricity retailer in Norway, having won the EPSI rating five times and the Norsk Kundebarometer 11 times, including 2023, and that's based on customer satisfaction. In Fjordkraft, we are voted Norway's best in customer service and best in test in the energy category. Some key elements that have supported the growth: we continuously adapt our leading distribution power throughout the shifting environments. We have streamlined our electricity products and reduced market risk in core products, thus lower margin volatility. We have reduced the number of products that simplifies the customer decision-making and increases sales.
We have a strong focus on value propositions and services that are more uncorrelated with electricity consumption and involve robustness in net revenue. A continuous investment in improved app services puts us in a great position to develop and launch more attractive products and services as the customer demands evolve. The industry reputation is still very dependent on the price level. Gudbrandsdal Energi have held a top score position over years, and with the changes we have made in Fjordkraft over the last few years, we have seen that we are changing our reputation faster than the industry. Improving customer satisfaction is a key element in our strategy for future growth and profitability. With a quarterly customer satisfaction day involving all business all across the group, we have managed to set focus on the customer pains that matter the most.
The results you can see on the slide here. Fjordkraft's Encore Bare score has significantly higher positive change from 2022 to 2024 than the industry. During 2023, we have also launched a wide range of new app services that have increased customer engagements and satisfaction, and we have an exciting roadmap going forward. We also are proud of the fact that we have award-winning customer services in all brands. So churn, market churn, how is that an advantage for our brands? The monthly supply changes in Norway are at a historically low level the last year, but our brands have reduced churn significantly more than the market from 2018 until 2023. Low churn is, of course, an advantage for Fjordkraft, with the leading market position as the most recognized brand in the business.
In the Fjordkraft brand, we have also placed a greater focus on cash points and will continue to work towards the most appealing customer loyalty program in the industry. Of course, a lower churn in combination with improved digital sales leads to lower sales commission cash band. Cost leadership. That's a key element to extended profitability. Some of the actions that have been taken, we have removed services that consumers did not find relevant in the Fjordkraft loyalty program to save costs, and the successful cost program keeps us fit. An example is Fjordkraft customer service that has been a significant cost, been through a significant cost reduction program and left 2023 with 26% fewer FTEs than the start of the year. This is supported by reduced complexity, improved digital communication, and better self-service solutions. At the same time, we have maintained the customer satisfaction towards our service centers.
We have also reduced traditional sales channels in favor of new and more cost-efficient sale channels. And of course, if we are focusing on the streamlining of the operation, we have or will introduce generative AI in the customer service, and that's planned to go live in 2024. And there are more areas to follow to increase operational efficiency and to support sales and communication. And we will optimize the digital sale processes so we can also have an even higher conversion rate. So that will, of course, put us in a position to lower the sales commission. Digital leadership. We are prepared for future customer expectations. Our digital focus pays off. We see a significant improvement in our app ratings.
The GDE or the Gudbrandsdal Energi app has been a pioneer in developing new services over the last few years, and analysis shows that active users reduce their consumption with 5 percentage points more than non-users. As I told you, the Fjordkraft app, and we are quite proud of that, was in May rated third in Europe. We really try to develop the digital services that make a difference and empower our customers to energy smartness. We change and develop our solution in tight cooperation with our customers. We do a lot of testing. That's what we call a win-win situation. In all brands, we are helping the customers to use electricity smarter and more cost-efficient way. For example, through Strømsmart or Strømsmart+, launched in May last month in Fjordkraft and will be launched in Trøndelag Kraft after summer.
The services represent a key element on focusing on reducing the total costs of the monthly invoice instead of the marginal markup per kWh . So that's what we call a win-win situation. We encourage the customers to save money and that enables us to increase robustness in net revenue. I also brought some examples that you can see for those of you that are not yet customers. At the left, you can see the new personal analysis where you can compare to similar households in your area, and you can compare the average price based on your consumption pattern. And you can also monitor the grid rent costs to avoid the next threshold price level. And this is just the beginning. Going forward, we will continue to expand and improve our personal users' interface and consumption analysis. Then a brief insight on the business Fjordkraft Mobil.
In the daily business, that is a natural part of Fjordkraft consumer, but it's reported in new growth initiatives. Fjordkraft Mobil has shown a significant improvement in the financial results. We operated as a small organization with only three FTEs and with sales, marketing, and customer service fully and successfully integrated in Fjordkraft consumer. And migration of the consumer base, as Rolf said, from Telenor to Telia Network in 2023 has given us a significant improvement in the financial results. And we are definitely ready now for further growth. We see a positive growth in the customer base and a large potential for further growth. And we can already see that we have a higher satisfaction among customers that combines both mobile and electricity supply.
So to sum it up, the consumer part of this, we have a proven track record for consumer growth and value creation through complex market environments. We are Norway's leading player in the consumer segment with three strong and diverse brands. We have a robust portfolio with low market risk and an unparalleled menu of value-added services. We have a successful execution of the cost program, and that will ensure us the competitiveness and improve our profitability going forward. And the digital solutions we are definitely proud of, and that empowers us to make smarter, to help the customers to make smarter energy choices and enhancing customer satisfaction and definitely driving revenue growth. So that was my update. I'm looking forward to continuing this positive development together with my colleagues in Bergen and in the other locations. So Roger, you next.
Good morning, everyone. My name is Roger. I'm head of business, and I've been responsible for developing the business segment in Elmera Group for several years. As presented earlier, business is organized in a matrix. Results from B2B in Norway are reported in the business segment. B2B in Nordic Green Energy is reported in the Nordic segment. During my presentation, I will give you a closer look at the business segment, a status on B2B Nordic, and how we will continue to expand our activities in B2B in the three Nordic countries. First, a brief look at the business segment. Elmera has a strong position in B2B, and our Norwegian brand holds about 22% market share. We handle more than 48,000 business customers and 127,000 deliveries. Fjordkraft has a leading brand position with 92% awareness, and we are measured to offer the most attractive product range in the business segment.
The business customers have higher consumption and more complex products than B2C customers, including risk management services, reporting services, and GOOs. Our portfolio is highly diversified, and more than 70% of our customers purchase several services from us. Therefore, we have a higher net revenue per delivery compared to the consumer segment. The segment has developed positively for several years, both in number of deliveries and profitability. Growth made possible by focusing on sales capacity. With our brands, we operate the entire business segment nationally, and dedicated sales resources are targeting specific segments of the market, including Soho, SMEs, large customers, and public entities. We are targeting specific segments of the market with a wide range of products designed to meet their needs. We have sales offices at several locations in Norway, and we combine telemarketing, digital meetings, and meetings at customer sites.
Our brand position and product range, combined with our large distribution, are our biggest competitive advantage. Going forward, we will continue to grow our distribution power, and we will make our product range even more attractive. The last two years have been challenging due to historically high spot prices in the winter 2022, followed by a falling market during 2023. Stable results during the last years show that our business model is robust, and we have succeeded in increasing our core margin to mitigate effects from lower spot prices. Counterparty risk has increased during this period, and our strong focus on credit management has been important to minimize loss on receivables. The construction industry has dramatically reduced its activities. We mitigate the loss of deliveries in this part of the market and maintain our position until the market picks up again.
We are satisfied that we have maintained our market share during challenging market conditions, where adjustment of terms and conditions, renegotiations, and termination of customers with declining credit score have been necessary. In 2023, we did some organizational and operational changes in line with the group's cost program. A market with high prices and volatility demands a flexible operating model in customer service. To handle a high number of incoming calls to customer service, we implemented a new operating model with an external partner handling the first line. This gives the customers a fast response, and it gives us flexibility to operate periods with a high number of customer calls and maintain our service level at a lower cost. We have adopted robotization to handle written inquiries. This has reduced workload related to written inquiries with about 35% in customer service.
We experienced that the purchase process has changed after COVID-19. Medium and large customers in a larger degree handle the purchase process through telephone and online meetings. We have reorganized the sales organization and strengthened sales through telemarketing and digital meetings. This provides a more efficient sales process and reduces acquisition costs in sales. The Nordic expansion opens a market potential three times the size of the Norwegian B2B market. Cost leadership will be important to succeed, and we now focus on optimizing the B2B activities in Norway. Several years with customer growth puts us in a good position to renegotiate unprofitable agreements and to reduce complexity related to non-standardized customer requirements. In order to build a profitable and scalable Nordic expansion, we will standardize our services and avoid tailor-made solutions suitable for a small number of customers.
We are optimizing our B2B activities in Norway and preparing Nordic expansion and net revenue growth. High prices and increasing volatility increase the business customers' needs related to predictable power costs and solutions helping them optimize their energy usage. In B2B, we offer services that allow customers to take control over their energy costs, energy consumption, and to utilize new energy solutions. The most important tools for business customers to take control over their electricity costs is to take advantage of our risk-mitigating services. More than 78% of our volume is delivered with risk management services. We have the opportunity to combine several tools to meet every customer's need to handle the risk associated with purchasing electricity. Tools that moderate price fluctuations and help customers manage their cost budgets are the most common choices.
To small and medium-sized customers, we offer several standardized products designed to meet the customer's different needs. Large customers and public entities are offered tailored solutions designed to meet their unique needs. Fjordkraft has very low market risk associated with risk management products because the customers fully own their positions. Customers that have electricity plans that include risk management show higher satisfaction and loyalty. Focusing on such products is important to increase both customer satisfaction and our profitability. In the Fjordkraft brand, we also have offered our online customer portal, Min Bedrift, for several years. With Min Bedrift, the customer gets reports on consumption, comparison of consumption with temperature, cost reports, price forecast, and risk management reports. During 2024, we will increase penetration on live data monitoring, including relevant alarms and notifications. This allows business customers to plan their activities and to reduce costs both from grid and electricity.
We also will launch solar monitoring in the end of 2024. In the next slide, I will talk more about how we are going to enable a multi-sided platform with relevant services that helps the business customers to reduce costs, reduce consumption, and to utilize new energy solutions. Electrification opens new business opportunities for Elmera Group. With a large customer base within the group and more than 50,000 subscriptions in Min Bedrift, we believe we are well positioned to take the next step within digital services. The electrification related to the green shift increases the customer's need to use new energy solutions and to optimize their usage. We observe many new actors in the market with services related to solar, storage, heat pumps, flexibility, steering, charging, climate reporting, and many, many more. We believe we are an attractive partner for many of these companies.
They often have well-developed solutions but lack the setup to operate an initial number of customers, sales capacity, and customer base. We have their distribution power. We have the Elmera IT platform, and we have a large customer base. We increase our investments related to our digital services, and we will attract partners which offer energy-related services to our digital ecosystem and cost-efficiently expand our product range and profitability. Solutions that reduce and optimize our customers' consumption put us on the customer's side, and we experience improved loyalty from those of our customers who take advantage of our energy consulting and energy efficiency services. A digital ecosystem gathering several services will make it easy for the customers to manage their energy consumption, and these services strengthen both our profitability and our business model robustness.
Later, Per will tell you about how we have transformed the Nordic portfolio and reduced risk by implementing products in the B2B market, Nordic B2B market, with the same risk profile as our products in the Norwegian business segment. Activities within B2B in Elmera Group are organized in a matrix. This gives us cost synergies across brands and countries within product management, IT, and marketing. In the H1 of 2025, we are migrating all Nordic customers to the Elmera IT platform. This gives us the opportunity to target Nordic business customers with the same brand, and we are launching the Fjordkraft brand in the Swedish and Finnish B2B market. We will launch a common Nordic product portfolio and our digital services in all three countries. We have a great opportunity to expand our activities in the Nordic business market based on the Nordic customer base and our Nordic organization.
Based on the Norwegian business model, we will expand our activities in the Nordics and focus on our competitive advantages, brand awareness, strong distribution, and product management. We will build brand awareness with one brand and one voice in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. We will create strong distribution power and serve Nordic business customers the same attractive product range, products that enable cost control, control on consumption, and an ecosystem that brings together new energy solutions. The Nordic expansion opens a market potential three times the size of the Norwegian business market, and we believe in growth in the Nordic business market. To summarize my presentation, we are operating a proven, robust business model in the B2B market. The Nordic expansion opens a market three times the size of the Norwegian business market, and we will continue to grow our sales capacity in all markets.
We are strengthening our digital services, and we will continue to expand our product range. In 2025, we are unifying our activities in the B2B market within one brand, one Nordic product range, and all customers handled by the Elmera IT platform. We are well positioned to further growth in the B2B market. Thank you for your attention, and please welcome Per.
Thank you, Roger. Yeah, my name is Per Heiberg-Andersen, and I'm heading up the Nordic segment. Yes, today I'll start by giving you a quick overview of the Nordic segment. Then I'll have to quickly recap the market turmoil that we had in 2021 and 2022. That's necessary to explain all the changes that we've done to the segment strategy and to the Nordic Green Energy over the last couple of years.
I'll explain the organic growth model that we have now, say a few words on M&A before I give you a sum up. Okay, the Nordic segment consists of Swedish Nordic Green AB, which was acquired by the Elmera Group in the Q4 of 2020. It's a Swedish-Finnish retailer with offices in Stockholm and Vaasa, Finland. It's a Nordic Green, it's a challenger and a fighting brand, and it's positioned as a retailer of renewable and eco-friendly energy, and that's relevant because of the different energy mix that we have in Sweden and Finland, as you might know. Operations is consolidated in the Vaasa office, and as you heard, Nordic Green Energy has been the brand now to serve both the consumer and the B2B segment in both countries for a while now, and it will continue to do so for the B2C segment in Sweden and Finland.
And as Roger just told you, coming spring, we will launch the Fjordkraft brand in Sweden and Finland. Looking forward to that. As some of you probably remember, we had some serious turmoil in the Q4 of 2021 and in the H2 of 2022. We had a combination of a dip in nuclear capacity, weak hydrology, increasing gas prices that gave us, of course, the very high electricity spot prices that we saw in the Q4 in 2021. And then this was further fueled by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, leading to the extreme volatility that we saw in the H2 of 2022. And the high price levels exposed Finnish and Swedish retailers with fixed price portfolios to unprecedented volume risk, and the high volatility with a high peak-off-peak spread led to the unforeseen profile costs.
So in these quarters, all electricity retailers in Finland and Sweden experienced huge losses from their fixed price portfolios, especially in Finland where fixed price was the all-dominant product offered to the market by all retailers. Yeah, and in the bottom graphs to the left, you see the last 10 years with the spot price development. To the right, you see the peak-off-peak spread. And for many, many years, it was relatively low price, relatively calm markets. The fixed price product seemed like a sensible business, a good profitable business. And then the turmoil came, caught the retailers by surprise, and exposed the big risk in these products. So what did we do? Already in January 2022, we decided to stop all new sales of fixed price products in Nordic Green in both countries.
That was the start of a two-year transition from fixed price-based business to spot price-based business. We had a new CEO coming in in the Q4 of 2022 and have had additional adjustment to the organization and strengthening of the management. We are very, very pleased with the management that we now have to say that. Then, as Roger told you, we have started the implementation of the B2B matrix. We have a very good cooperation around that, as well as we've launched the Elmera Group app, both in Finland and in Sweden for the B2C segment. Finland early last year, Sweden just now recently.
We have been a lot more during the last year. We've been a lot more proactive in the PR and communications, as well as we have had a transition to more digital and internal marketing sales channels for the B2C, bringing the cost of sales down, aligning it to the new business model. The results you can see on the bottom here, the share of fixed price in Nordic Green starting 2022, we had 75%. It's been now for a while below 20%, which we think is an acceptable risk exposure. At the same time, in the same period from the start of 2022, we have grown the spot-based business by well, more than 100%.
Although there's been a reduction in the number of customers due to turning out the broker portfolio and the fixed price portfolios, we have in the same period increased the net revenue with more than 100% illustrated by the graph to the right. So then I just dwell a little bit about the positive brand development. There's been a lot of positive coverage on Nordic Green, both in Finland and Sweden. In Finland, it's about two themes. One theme is the launching of the Elmera Group App, which gives the insight and control of your energy consumption opportunity for smart charging, the spot forecast, etc. We see a lot of coverage. I think it's fair to say that we are the tech leader in Finland. And the second theme has been the trend towards spot-based business.
We were the first one doing this change, but now many, many follow. This is a significant trend, and it's received a lot of coverage. Of course, we are one of the main drivers behind this trend. Then, yeah, in Finland, I think the industry and ourselves were caught by a big surprise when we landed the number three position in the APSI rating last fall. Of course, we are very, very happy with that. Also in Sweden, we've had good coverage here, more on the B2B segment. Also very happy with that development. So what happens now? We have a clear positive brand development. We have a comparative advantage in products, technology offerings, and customer interface. We will migrate onto the Elmera Group platform coming spring, giving us new product offerings as well as improved efficiency, which is also very important.
We have strengthened the organization and streamlined it to meet new requirements. The essence of our strategy right now is to ride on the EV growth trend, which is quite visible now in both these countries. On the second trend, the trend towards spot-based products, there's a big shift going. For both, we are, of course, perfectly positioned. We'll keep the environmental heritage that we have had for many, many years now, which is also important. We'll continue the transition to a more pull-based strategy for B2C with PR and digital communication and marketing. Already, 95% of new sales in the B2C market in Nordic Green is on these internal and digital channels, bringing the cost of sales way down.
And then for B2B, as Roger told you, we will strengthen the sales capacity, develop the matrix further, and launch Fjordkraft brand in the coming spring. That will be great. And then we'll launch new pan-Nordic Elmera Group products and functionalities as they come along. Okay, a few words on M&A. We did have some processes going, of course, but these were terminated due to the turmoil and during the turmoil. And as we explained, we've been refocusing on launching the app in both countries, preparing for the platform migration, and so forth. And yeah, there's been just a few transactions in these two countries, not a whole lot of movement. Both markets are almost as fragmented now as they were two years ago. So now Elmera Group is again interested in acquisition opportunities. And of course, the key is now the synergy realization and scaling on the new platform.
So to sum up, so we had a very positive turnaround of Nordic Green Energy and regained profitability. And we're positioned for the new market dynamic. The Elmera Group app is launched in both countries successfully, and we're building the B2B matrix. And we'll launch the Fjordkraft app coming spring. And also, we will consolidate on the Elmera Group platform, giving new services and improved efficiency. So going forward, profitable organic growth will be a proof of concept, but still, M&A initiatives will be restarted. Thank you. Yeah, and then there will be a 10-minute break. Thank you.
Hello, my name is Solfrid, and I'm head of power trading and energy supply in Elmera Group.
It has been some exciting years in my end of our business, and today I would like to share some thoughts and reflections about the changes we are facing, both in the market and also in the way we operate. As Rolf said, we are preparing to take advantage of being the largest purchaser of electricity in the physical market in Norway. We find the effects on the markets are rising from increased volatility and interest in opportunity for us to take advantage of without increasing the group's risk exposure. I will come back to that later, but first, what is power trading in Elmera Group? The key objectives for the group's power trading function are to reduce cost of goods sold and to support the business units with products and services that enhance our retailer's value proposition to the end users.
Optimizing power trading within both physical and financial markets is done by a sound sourcing strategy in the different energy markets. The power trading department in Elmera Group offers individual and portfolio risk management to our customer portfolio, and we have some highly qualified members of the group function that gives both customers and business units market insight, and it is also the foundation for selling risk mitigating strategies. Okay, moving on to market risk in the group, we can report a considerable decline in the market risk last 12 months, especially due to stopping sales and phase-out of variable products in Norway and fixed price products in Nordics, as Per mentioned. I would like to walk you through the different types of market risk the group are exposed to. First, price risk, defined as the possible differences in purchase price and selling price.
This risk is present in both variable contracts, which now represents a small part of our volume. Profile risk, which also Per mentioned, is defined as the risk of consumption profile being different than the hedging profile. This risk is present in both fixed price contracts in the Nordics and in variable contracts in Norway. Volume risk is the risk of final consumption being different than the hedged volume and is present in fixed price contracts in the Nordics. Risk management products in sale in the group today follow a back-to-back strategy and represent no market risk. In general, our approach is to minimize the market risk associated with our products. Just to be clear, we do not enter into any trading positions on our own books. Okay, let's turn to production.
The Nordic production forecast for the next 25 years is shown to the left on this slide. So, let's start at the bottom, where the regulated production capacity, hydropower and nuclear, is shown by blue, dark blue, and green areas. This production works as a baseload production in the Nordic energy system. Above the green area, you can see how wind, both onshore and offshore, and solar represent an increase in production, all delivering unregulated power into the energy system. And no surprise in the fact that this production is the growth going forward in production. So, turning to the right on the slide shows the Nordic consumption and production, and as you can see, the new production capacity is expected to be absorbed by increasing consumption, leaving a slight increase in net export going forward.
We have put some challenging years price-wise behind us, and I'm now expecting a more normalized price range. In this graph, you can see different analysis expectations with an average illustrated with the green dots going forward. As you probably know from financial analysis, variation tends to be an outcome of differences in both models and in input. In this case, especially forecast on how the continental price will be and timing of new energy production, and actually also how much increase in consumption we actually will have results in relative differences. Nevertheless, the price level seems to head towards a normalized and stable level. We do expect volatility to remain high due to increasing unregulated production. We believe that risk management services will still be highly relevant to our customers, as Roger mentioned in his presentation.
As a response to this unregulated element in the production mix, the balancing mechanism in the energy system is going through a major transformation as we speak. I would like to use some of my time to give you a short introduction to the changes the industry is going through at the moment. Balancing the system more frequently and efficiently is the main purpose for the changes in the Nordic balancing model. Reducing the timeframe for trade from hourly to 15 minutes is ongoing and will be finalized start of 2025. Introducing three new auctions in the intraday market will stimulate the participants to balance more continuously. This change is happening next week, actually. Finally, there are new capacity and reserve markets opening up in order to increase sufficient volume to balance supply and demand.
Elmera Group only participates in day-ahead market under the agreement we currently have with Statkraft, but we certainly do recognize the opportunity the changes give us within balancing and also value proposition to our customers. So, therefore, the partner model in trade is in transition. Last capital market day in 2022, we showed you our setup for partner model, how we do our trading. In this setup, Statkraft has been a partner for many years, delivering services within both physical and financial trading. Elmera Group is currently not a client of either Nord Pool or NASDAQ, so we are doing nearly all our trade through Statkraft. As of May 1st, 2025, we will insource core activities related to group's power function. We have entered into a new bilateral agreement with Statkraft just recently, running from May 1st, 2025.
This agreement includes the possibility to do financial trading still and some physical volumes, but no services. So, we believe that we can utilize our position as being the largest purchaser in Norway by having multiple bilateral agreements, being a client at Nord Pool, but also when it comes to the role as balancing responsible, we can optimize our sourcing and power trading strategy. To serve the group's need for power management, we have established Elmera Energy, as Rolf mentioned, and Elmera Energy will be the new partner for the group's trading function. The new sourcing model and setup for trading activity does represent an opportunity to reduce cost of goods sold because by balancing more frequent, we will reduce balancing costs and trading with several parties will capitalize on bid-ask spreads. I would like to elaborate these opportunities on the next two slides.
As mentioned, we only operate in the day-ahead market today, and we are passively affected by the balancing market. So, before noon today, we will place volume in the day-ahead auction, asking for volume. We forecast to sell tomorrow, June 6th . So, if it, for example, gets colder, we are likely in the need to purchase more volume, and if it gets milder, we need to sell off volume. So, today, our balancing volume transactions are only done passively in the balancing market. And mind you, in the balancing market, the price formation is different than in a day-ahead market. The price formation from the day-ahead market functions as a reference price and is our well-known spot price. The customer actually will be charged. But when the purchase price of balancing volume may differ from our selling price, an extra cost or income may occur.
In the last years, Elmera Group has experienced increased net balancing cost as the price has become more volatile and different from the spot price. Our net cost has over the last years been in a range of NOK 50 million - NOK 55 million per year for Norway alone. So, when entering into new markets in the intraday, we expect that we will be able to balance in a more frequent and efficient, cost-efficient way. Now turning to financial and green products of the power trading. Over the last years, the liquidity in the financial marketplace has dropped due to less trading activity. And even though there is more trade now than a year ago, the activity is still low. And as a result of low liquidity and still uncertain market, there can be quite a spread at NASDAQ. This is shown on the left.
As you can see, the spread on some products is quite substantial. NASDAQ functions as a price formation with reference price. We believe that we can optimize purchase price when trading with several parties and several markets. To the right, you can see the lack of price formation. This is on a product called EPAD, Electricity Price Area Differentials. It has become a popular product as we have experienced more area differentials. As you can see, there is not a well-functioning marketplace and hence no price reference. Almost all transactions are being traded bilaterally and with no objective reference price. Comparing price is more crucial than before and requires more than one agreement. Trying to sum up, as mentioned, we are in the middle of major changes both in the market and in the way we operate.
And the green shift from fossil to renewable power production brings volatility into the energy market that we have only seen the beginning of. Despite increased volatility, the market risk in the group has declined due to stopping sales and phase-out of products. As of May 1st, 2025, we will insource the power trading function as the market changes open up new possibilities for us being the largest purchaser of power in the Norwegian market. And we do this to leverage from our size, especially in Norway. And we find the opportunities ahead of us quite thrilling, to be honest. We strongly believe that both trading with several parties manage the balancing market in a more active way and being able to trade in the spread in the financial markets will give us the possibility to optimize purchase price and cost of goods sold. Thank you. Welcome, Henning.
Thank you, Solfrid, and good morning to you all. In this section, I will connect the strategic background from Rolf and the ambitions and actions from the business units and power trading into a financial context. I will go through key drivers and developments in our P&L, and I will introduce our financial targets for 2024 and 2025. Let's start with a recap of our historical track record. Sorry. The company was established in 2001. Growth and profitability picked up with new executive management and new strategy from 2013. The company was listed in 2018, and the strong growth continued, showing in the trend here to the left on this slide. We achieved this with a focused strategy and execution based on the three pillars on the right-hand side and concrete supporting action areas.
The 6 you can see here are the ones we've been following for the last year plus. The development was also boosted by 2 acquisitions in 2020. During 2021 and into 2022, we started to see a shift in consumer product mix from higher margin variable products to lower margin spot-based products. We also saw the signs of risk in the acquired Nordic portfolio, which materialized with a loss related to volume and profile risk in Q4 of 2021. Results in 2022 were actually quite robust in the first three quarters, but as you may remember, we had a challenging Q4. We had migration and hedging effects in the Norwegian consumer portfolio and losses in the legacy fixed price portfolio in the Nordic segment. From then on, we believe that we have handled the challenges well.
We have turned around, adapted, reduced risks, and strengthened our business model in all material aspects, which you heard from my colleague during their presentation today. We ended 2023 with an EBIT adjusted of NOK 513 million and NOK 230 million in the Q1 of 2024, which is the second best EBIT adjusted in any quarter in our history. We also had the strongest cash generation in any quarter in our history in the Q1 of this year. So, we are back on track for growth and for growing profitably. Let me also recap some key financial metrics and remind about Elmera Group's business model. We handle significant volumes of Norway's electricity, electrical energy consumption, and so far a small part of the volume in Sweden and Finland. With over 21 TWh flowing contractually to our customers, to our systems, we certainly have a potential for optimization.
We have no capital tied up in production assets or logistics. We have no risk related to production or transmission, no stock that can devalue. We are a high cash conversion business, and this gives us a strong dividend capacity. As you can see, all segments had a positive contribution in 2023, and the trend has continued into 2024, as you have also seen from our Q1 reports. Also, in 2024, the consumer and business segments stand for most of the group's delivered volume, net revenue, and EBIT, but we are convinced that there are opportunities for expanding in the Nordic segment, as well as mobile, power trading, and new products and services to come in the future. So, let's walk through the P&L and start by looking at the top line. Going forward, we are targeting organic net revenue growth in all of the four segments.
The underlying market growth in Norway is about 2%, and we are the market leaders both in the B2C and B2B markets. In the Norwegian B2C markets, we aim to take at least our share of market growth. In the Norwegian B2B market, we aim to take some market share above the underlying market growth, and we target growth in all the B2B subsegments. In Sweden and Finland, we find the growth opportunity very attractive, and as you've heard today, we are now ready to address a market which is threefold that of our home market in Norway. The turnaround in Nordic is complete. Management is in place, also a new CFO, I might add, and we will be on the same IT platform during the H1 of 2025, as you have heard.
We are therefore targeting to take market share in both the B2C and B2B market in the Nordic segment from 2025, and we also believe this can be achieved with attractive margins. The fact that we will take over the handling of a significant volume will also give opportunities to optimize, as you heard from Solveig's presentation, and thereby also support margin development across all of our customer segments. That covers the top line. What about cost? Well, firstly, we are very pleased with the execution of a NOK 100 million cost savings program. This was largely completed in 2023, but the effects and principles implemented have carried on into 2024. As you know, we have targeted stable nominal cost development in 2024 and 2025 as compared to 2023. Specifically, this means a nominal OPEX adjusted level of about NOK 1.2 billion.
This is a relatively ambitious target, but achievable, but we have to fight inflation of around 4% in Norway, wage increases around 5% in Norway, and the key action to mitigate these increases is really to continue our well-established cost control measures and see continuous improvement going forward. Based on prognosis from the Central Bank, Statistics Norway, and many analyst houses, we expect that inflation in Norway will follow the trend of our trading partners and start reducing towards the Central Bank's target of 2%. In Sweden and Finland, inflation is already significantly below Norway, tracking towards a level of 1%-2%. In recent years, we have invested relatively heavily in front-end user systems, and you've seen how successful these initiatives have been in the presentations earlier today, both in the B2C and B2P markets. Now, the time has come to also focus more on efficiency and scalability.
And we firmly believe that ongoing processes and actions that we are undertaking to consolidate systems, reducing complexity, go fully cloud-based, insource developers, and so forth, will make our IT platform one of the most effective and scalable in the Nordics. This means that both organic growth and future M&A will become increasingly profitable. Having said this, it is cost relative to income that we are considering most important. That is, if we identify organic growth opportunities or accretive M&A cases, we will allow nominal cost growth in order to expand our business and increase revenues. To elaborate a bit on OPEX and more than we normally do in our quarterly releases, we do adjust certain cost items from EBIT in our quarterly reports, and in recent years, these figures have been both quite significant and they have fluctuated.
Starting from the bottom in the chart, M&A depreciation stems from acquired customer portfolios, which are depreciated over the expected lifetime. The amortization peaked at NOK 189 million in 2021, will come down to around NOK 110 million in this year. In 2026, if we don't make any new acquisitions, that is, this will drop to only NOK 30 million. That is, from around NOK 1.3 to NOK 0.2 per share after tax, so quite significant development. Net derivative effects have also been quite significant, but with more balanced portfolios, reduced risk. This indicates that the net effect will be closer to zero over time going forward. Estimate deviations occur as a proportion of the final settlement of sales and distribution of electricity is made after we finalize our quarterly financial statements.
Improved estimation models have contributed to realizing only minor deviations in the last two years as compared to over NOK 50 million in 2021, and they will become even more robust when we have all volume on one platform next year. Finally, many of you know that we have a significant tax loss carried forward from the acquisition of Nordic Green Energy in 2020. Profitability growth in the Nordic segment is consequently very attractive. In our Q1 presentation, we gave new disclosure on the breakdown of interest expense components, primarily term loan, overdraft, the start cost supply agreement, and guarantees. Now, referring back to the previous section on power trading, the change in the start cost supply agreement gives us very interesting opportunities for improving net revenue, but at the same time, the supply credit limit will be reduced in the new start cost agreement from May 2025.
We will still have a significant credit relative to Statkraft supply of physical and financial volume, but it will be necessary to increase our own credit and guarantee lines provided by banks. This will primarily not be required in the daily course of business and in summer months, but now we need to have backup facilities in high price scenarios, especially in winter months. Over time, we also expect to become less dependent on Nord Pool and Statkraft by way of new bilateral sourcing agreements, which would also include supplier credit lines. The refinancing process has run in parallel with the negotiations with Statkraft, and we are on track to secure commitment from a bank syndicate so that we can update the market on our long-term financing in our Q2 report in August.
The changes in financing will have some balance sheet effect and some P&L effects, which we'll, of course, disclose in due course. But particularly in winter quarters, there will be a certain shift from interest-bearing supply credit reported in net working capital to interest-bearing debt. However, importantly, this will not change the underlying leverage. Financing spreads have widened somewhat since we entered into our current financing arrangement in 2020. Without giving our friends in the banks any free negotiation points, we do expect a moderate increase in financing costs. However, we believe that this will be mitigated by the improvement in net revenue, partaking in our responsibility for power trading. With the latest outlook from the Central Bank, the key policy rate and consequently the market interest rates are expected to decrease. Analysts vary in their opinion.
Some believe that we'll see 2 cuts this year and 4 cuts next year. That would certainly be of great value to us. Price forecasts indicate an Elspot price level of around EUR 50 per MWh , with some analysts predicting EUR 60-EUR 70 in 2026-2027. The moderate price levels will also contribute to stabilizing into expenses in the years to come. Then finally, our financial targets for 2024 and 2025. We stopped guiding in Q4 2022 as we considered market conditions too unpredictable to be able to make relevant guiding to the market. We now consider the basis for sharing financial targets to have reestablished, and we plan to release targets on an annual basis going forward.
Our financial targets are the following: to achieve net revenue growth in all segments in 2024 and 2025, to maintain a stable nominal operating expense in line with 2023 for 2024-2025, that is around NOK 1.2 billion, and consequently to deliver EBIT adjusted in the area of NOK 550-NOK 600 million for 2024 and 2025, and with a positive trend throughout the period. We maintain our current dividend payout ratio of 80%. We also aim to maintain leverage around the current levels. And that concludes this section, and I give the word back to Rolf.
Thank you very much, Henning. And thank you very much to the management, to the member of the management that has presented today in great presentations. I also want to say thank you to all the other members of our group management that surely have contributed. It is Jeanne Tjomsland.
She is here today with us and ready for questions afterwards for those who are present here. She is head of communication and HR. It is Kari Marvik, not present here today, our CIO, head of IT. It is Solfrid Fluge Andersen. We have two Solfrids in our group management. That is very difficult to understand. So we name Solfrid here as Fluge. And she is Solfrid. The other Solfrid is heading up Kraftalliansen and AllRate. And not to forget, present today also is Arnstein Flaskerud, head of our strategy process, head of M&A, sustainability, regulatory issues, and a lot more stuff. So you can, yes, he is here, later for questions. So thank you all. It's been a great process for us to prepare this session. And I really enjoyed listening to you guys. It was very nice.
Usually, it's only me and Henning and Morten that's in the spotlight. I know it's great to see you as well. I think all these presentations sum up to our key investment highlights. And I would like to run through those for you. It shouldn't be any doubt that we operate in a really attractive Nordic electricity retail market with stable demand profile and definitely growth opportunities from the increased electrification. Of course, we are motivated to reduce our consumption of electricity, but there are so many other parts of our daily life that require us electricity. So in sum, this will definitely increase the total consumption. And we support this, of course, as a society with focusing on new production methods. These are volatile, and we surely believe that we can leverage from the volatility as Fluge introduced you to.
We have a comprehensive product offering, a parallel offering, I would say, including risk mitigating products and other value-added services. There's never been any participant in this market that over years has offered so many value-added services as Fjordkraft has. So we are really familiar with adding up services to our consumers. We are also the largest player in Norway, particularly, and that's a good position to be in when we export things to Sweden and Finland, obviously. We have a leading IT platform. As I said, we have been focusing on our IT platform for more than 10 years now. We have a robust structure, both when it comes to systems and when it comes to human resources. And of course, taking this out in the Nordic segment will be beneficial for the entire group.
When it comes to power purchasing, I think Solfrid disclosed what we are going to do quite well. We have a significant potential when it comes to optimized COGS, particularly taking the role in the balancing market. We surely believe, and everyone else also believes, that volatility will be the prevailing trend in the electricity market. So we do believe that we can benefit from that. The Pan Nordic IT platform will be a good basis for further growth, also when it comes to our M&A activity in Sweden and Finland from next year. Norway are truly set up for bolt-on acquisitions. So it is up to Ernst & Young and Pareto to find the good subjects, the good prospects, I would say, at the right price, of course.
Our last but not least key investment highlight is, of course, that there's no doubt that we have an attractive financial profile with high cash conversion, and our capital expenditures are limited. We have a very nice dividend capacity. I think that is all for me. Now I leave the floor to Morten to conduct the Q&A session. I believe you also have some question from the audience in the cyberspace. Is that correct?
That is correct, Rolf. If we can get all of the management up in front of the screen, and then I can begin with a couple of questions from the online viewers before we move on to the physical participants. All right, the first question may be to you, Rolf. It's from Johan Corneliusen. It goes like this: Some of your competitors have very low margins.
Do you expect bankruptcies and consolidation in the industry? If yes, will you capitalize with M&A or via passive diffusion of customers?
That's a tricky one. We have to look into the portfolio over there. Obviously, as you probably saw, Volte has been in the game now. The electricity retail and the business market that was set up by Eviny and Hafslund. And that was not very interesting to us due to the fact that the customers weren't profitable, actually. So it's impossible to give a clear answer on that, actually.
Okay, the next one is on capital structure. How do you assess the desirability of the different ways of capital distribution, namely dividends, share buybacks, M&A, repaying debt, or investing in the business?
That's also a very good question and not an easy one to wrap up with a few sentences.
Our dividend policy stands, so we intend to continue to distribute 80% of our dividends. We have, in the last few years, actually gone a bit above the 80%, as we have also had an M&A transaction with selling part of our mobile business, which has flown back to our owners. We certainly think that we can increase shareholder value by investing in the business. Hopefully, we should be able to build attractive returns that will become evident also in the share price, in addition to our dividends giving a total shareholder return, which is attractive. We have no plans for further buybacks. We did have quite significant buybacks. We are sitting on treasury shares, which we use for incentive structures, etc. So, of course, I wouldn't rule this out. We have the authority from the annual general meeting to have flexibility in all sorts of capital actions.
Debt structure, well, first of all, we need to establish the future debt structure, which we are very confident in. Of course, as we see how this can play out with more bilateral sourcing, that might give us an opportunity to tune our capital structure in the future, but not in the first, say, 12 months, I would say.
Thank you. I think we will move over to the attendees here physically today. So if any of you have any questions, please raise your hand and I'll pass you the microphone.
Thank you, Morten. Petter from ABG, a couple of questions from me, starting with the consumer to Magnar, probably. You talk about growth. It seems like it's driven by volume. But if you look at a couple of last years, the number of customers has been fairly stable, around 670,000.
Are you able to turn this trend and that we can see a small growth in the number of customers within the consumer segment?
Yes, I think so. I think we can see that, but we are in a position where we are looking into the profitable growth. And when we see the churn that we have, we see that those who are leaving us are actually those who are price hunters. And with the value position that we have today, I think we will have more the customers that come in will more appreciate the services that we have. And we can see also now how they appreciate the new services. And we have more, could you say, ambassadors out there. So I really believe that the new services will give us a healthy growth going forward.
Perfect. Thank you.
And then on the Nordic segment, any reason why you need to have a head office in Vaasa, is it, and Stockholm, and not move all the operations to Bergen and scaling your platform even further? Thank you.
Historically, this is a separate operation, of course. And we have taken out a lot of synergies, moving all operations to the Vaasa office. The products will have their own variants of the Elmera Group, of course. And there are different legislations in both these two markets when it comes to customer villkor. Terms and conditions. Yeah, terms and conditions, etc. And of course, you have the language. So I don't see in the near future that we will not have operations in Vaasa, although I can disclose that it has been coming down in FTEs over the last 13 months.
So we are taking that down, and we are streamlining, and we do synergies across these two countries. And we do synergies now with Norway, especially in the B2B part, where we have a common product management. And also, we have more and more cooperation in the product development in B2C as well. And we have the common app. So I think you can expect us to see and follow and take out more synergies in the years to come. But in the short term, it's beneficial. And I think for still many years, we'll have an operation in Vaasa, perhaps more coordinated with what we have in Norway, but we will have an operation in Vaasa. Yeah.
Thank you. One more from me, if I may. And that goes to the change in the sourcing model. Does this increase the risk of the overall profile for the company?
That's the first question. And the second, is this initiated by you, or was it that Statkraft wanted to exit the agreement? Thank you.
I can take the first. The second one I can take. Me and Fluge has for several years, three years, four years, we have looked into the potential when it comes to the sourcing model. And when volatility now seemed to be the prevailing trend going forward, we need to leverage more from our purchasing volume. So I would say that we initiated a process where we wanted to have some more of all the goodies that are in the purchasing process. And then we have to let go on some other things, and that's among others financing. So I think that will sum up the answer. And we are still good friends with Statkraft. They have been tremendous to us for many years.
They were for a long time our main owner. We were consolidated in the Statkraft company for many years until we were listed. So I think now it is the time that we are more on our own feet and do these kinds of things. This is core business. We want to do this ourselves, as we did with BKK when we took over all the IT systems from them three or four years ago. So I think this is a very natural development of our business. So that was the answer to your second question. And then you can reflect a little bit on the risk.
Definitely. First, I will say no. But yes, we recognize the risk, but no, because first of all, the date is May 1st . It's not a random date.
It's an agreement that we do transform the partners on a date that is good for us. It's low level. We're going into the summer. And secondly, we are closer to the customer. We have much more data on the customer. So we are in a position to do much better forecasting. So we will start forecasting models much earlier than May 1st . So we will sort of run a parallel prognosis because the risk is the prognosis, to be honest. How well do we actually do the bid for tomorrow or the ask, both in production and consumption? So no, but we recognize the risk. And the most important thing for us is to run parallel, establish a good prognosis model, and utilize the closeness to the customer data.
And when it comes to risk from balancing markets to intraday market, there will be increased liquidity in the intraday market, but it sort of shifts from the balancing market to the intraday. So the setup today is sort of, I would say, is the most expensive for us because we do passive balancing. So being able to balance more actively must be sort of an upside. Yes. Does it answer your question?
Yeah, thank you.
Yes.
Well, Morten, Østgård, DNB Markets. Continuing on this new sourcing platform, I think I captured 25 FTEs somewhere in the presentation. Is that the setup of the team that will make up this division?
Yes.
Yes. And these people, are they only internally recruited, or what is the cost associated with setting up this platform, and what will the runway cost on this platform be?
Yes, we are paying Statkraft, of course, for the services today. We will continue with the same cost. So it's all been sort of budgeted for, and we are now 14, 50, almost, I think 50 now. So we are sort of ramping up as we go along during the year now, both from internally, but also from other like Eviny, we have two new FTEs from.
And the cost associated with the balancing, was that NOK 50 million-NOK 55 million? So that can be reduced, but it's not going to be zero, right? It's going to be some 20-25 or something, right?
It's quite difficult to say, but some years ago, we were very dissatisfied if it exceeded NOK 7 million.
Yeah. Then just to understand the magnitude of this. So you have today's significant purchase of Statkraft.
Is that going down to zero, or how should we think about this? What's the level of your ambition here?
Yes. It's a little bit difficult because we have signed an agreement that it's a commercial agreement, and we are not allowed to disclose the details around it. But it is a framework that sort of relates the physical agreement and the financial agreement. So it's sort of, yes, it's an opportunity that comes along with financial trade at some degree.
And then going back to your cost level, which you're going flat for two years, it's obviously high underlying inflation. It looks like, listening to the presentation, there is significant initiatives both on product development and also commercialization of these initiatives. Isn't it very ambitious to be able to keep costs flat in that development?
When you look at your overall cost level and benchmark that compared to your competitors, where do you see yourselves?
It is ambitious to guide or set a target of a flat normal cost level, maybe particularly 2024, since inflation and wage increases will still be relatively high in Norway. Of course, signs are it's tapering off and going in the right direction. Of course, we base ourselves on consensus estimates when we take inflation expectations into our modeling. But yes, it is correct that we will need to keep up with all the initiatives that we have been working on. When it comes to product and service development, it's in our cost base. It's not necessarily something we outsource. We don't go out and buy huge external consultancy projects.
When it comes to IT, our game here has actually been to insource, as all business probably do today, insource very expensive consultants. So that's ongoing with the IT department. So I wouldn't say that those are particularly cost-driving. Keep in mind that we have had quite substantial investments. Although CapEx has come down from historical levels, which was probably more in the NOK 70 million- NOK 80 million range to now about NOK 50 million quite level. So then I'm not talking CapEx, but investments in capability systems, etc. So no, I wouldn't say that those cost drivers are particularly worrying. There will be a phase with some duplication cost, which we have looked carefully into and we set the target, but because we are building up some organization, we are taking down some external costs primarily from next year.
So our conclusion is that this is ambitious, but it's feasible.
We have established very tight controls over cost, and then of course we have to deliver each quarter on that promise.
And on that cost level and with the scalable platform, how much growth can your model handle?
When we have migrated all customers, our main supplier, Metzum, which also is our 40% owner in, it's completely cloud-based, so it's extremely scalable. Obviously, scalability may or may not come with the cost. We think obviously that we can have huge efficiencies of scale by consolidating all customers. And it's actually, to your first question, it's not easy to make fair comparisons. We are an incumbent. We had a wide product range. We are a full-service company, both for the consumer and the business markets. We are pan-Nordic, so you could argue that we have complexity, which a small challenge here wouldn't have.
What we still think, and actually simplicity is one of our core values, so decomplicating our business is a core. We have already, as Magnar said, reduced the number of products or variations that we have. We think we can still work on that when we consolidate for this pan-Nordic. So opportunity is that we can decomplicate and work more on scalability. So yes, we think definitely that we will be able to show that we are more scalable in 3, 6, 9, 12 months.
Thank you, Gard Aarvik, Pareto Securities. Sticking on the sourcing note, you mentioned, Henning, that we will see some increase in working capital and hence in net debt. So through this, should we not expect any large positive cash impacts from this new sourcing agreement?
Well, the underlying leverage will be consistent.
We have just moved from balance sheet line A to B, from net working capital to net debt. One could also argue that pure working capital financing is very close to working capital. The Statkraft supplier agreement that we have today is interest-carrying, but defined as working capital. We will change part of that with external bank financing. Particularly, that will be evident in winter months with higher volumes. But it's essentially part of our cycle. So from that perspective, that change will be cash neutral.
Okay, thank you. And some questions on the business side. So you mentioned that some 70% buy more than one service from you. Do you see the growth going forward more on the number of deliveries side, or is there more potential on the upsell side?
Of course, you're coming from a period where the high spot prices meant higher revenues in some of the products where you have larger gains or markups when the prices are high now at a much lower level. So how do you fight that, and how do you see growth developing in those types of products?
Well, since the last Capital Markets Day, we have had a positive growth in selling risk-mitigating services. I believe the volatility in the market will continue to make those products attractive. I really believe these products will be attractive in Sweden and Finland. And I believe in the digital solutions, we have great potential both in Norway and in the Nordics. So I'm quite confident.
So yeah, I mean, so it will be a deliveries and volume game then and not necessarily that much around new type of products or upsell within your existing portfolio?
Both, I think. In Norway, upsales through the digital ecosystem, adding new partners and new services. And first, launch our electricity products in Sweden and Finland H1 next year. And also the digital ecosystem. But probably we need different partners in Sweden and Finland than in Norway. So the ecosystem will really be important to succeed with in Norway in the first term.
And then the last question from me on the Metzum and AllRate. You've touched upon previously that you've also delivered these models or at least looked at delivering these models to other markets as well.
So could you maybe say something about that inclusion in the NOK 50 million- NOK 55 million ARR level that you have and what other markets and growth opportunities you have from that?
Included in the NOK 50 million annual recurring revenues in Metzum is also a smaller portion from customers outside Elmera Group, of course. Metzum has gained contracts with Lyse, with Wattn, and other retailers, large groups of retailers. So they are now coming in for the next year. So I definitely think that you will see that the annual recurring revenue in Metzum will increase quite substantially 12 months from now. That is outside the Elmera Group. When it comes to AllRate, AllRate also sells products within broadband, billing and rating, broadband structures, and some other segments.
So I think the growth in AllRate will consist of being on their front foot when it comes to grid companies and also upsell to the retailers, the electricity retailers, their sister companies in the vertically owned energy companies owned by the municipalities. So it is more possibilities for upsell also in the AllRate ecosystem. But the most important now for us when it comes to AllRate is that we have had this pilot with a grid company and we have now set the fixed agreement put in place from the September 1st . So that is very exciting for us.
Yeah, thank you. Just a short follow-up question on the sourcing to you, Henning. I understand the reclassification on the balance sheet going from working capital to then into long-term debt. But on the P&L side, the Statkraft interest cost has already been included in the net finance, right?
Because you did that reclassification a couple of years ago.
That's correct.
Okay. And then the net effect on this new agreement is that you expect slightly higher net revenue and slightly higher net finance cost. But net effect here, is that going to be neutral or slightly positive for you guys?
It's a very good question and a difficult one. I think it depends on the time frame. So the new setup starts from the May 1st , and then we are ramping up for that date, and we will be ready to capitalize on those opportunities. Obviously, those will have to be worked in and come over time from. And we also won't have particularly high financing cost in the summer of 2025 on the other side. But definitely, with financing, it's as simple as that.
We are refinancing in the market with X higher financing spreads than we had both in our own financing agreements and with the Statkraft agreement. So that will have some effect. I think what we can say today, Rolf, is that we think they will be mitigated. So exactly at what level, at what point, it's difficult to say. The potential going forward, as also interest rates drop, I think is very positive. If you take, let's say, if you take a two, three-year horizon on this, I dare say it should be a positive contribution.
Perfect.
Okay. Any other questions? We'll stay on here. The managed group management will stay on here. So if you would like to have some one-to-one, you can have it afterwards.
Okay. So that concludes today's event. We'd like to thank you all for your attention and wish you all a nice day. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.