Hi, everyone. My name is Daniel Haugland. I am an Analyst here at ABGSC, and I will be moderating this call with StrongPoint, which is a very exciting Norwegian retail technology firm, now also going into the U.K. with its latest acquisition. I guess Jacob will be talking more about that shortly. It is my pleasure to welcome Jacob, the CEO of the company, Jacob Tveraabak. I will just give the word to you. It will be around 15 minutes- 20 minutes of presentation, and then we will do a Q&A at the end. Jacob, the floor is yours.
Thank you so much, and welcome, everybody, to this short presentation of StrongPoint. Just go to the next page. We will talk very briefly about what is StrongPoint. You are right, we are Norway based, or I say Nordic based, because our presence in Sweden is also quite strong. Efficiency obsessed, which stems out of the fact of being a Nordic-based company with high labor cost in general, which spurs a lot of very interesting technologies for retailers and grocery retailers in particular in the rest of Europe and North America in particular. We provide both in-store solutions and also e-commerce logistics solutions that I will talk a bit about.
The unique thing about StrongPoint is that we both own software and hardware and also integrate that with some of the world-leading partners like Pricer and AutoStore to provide an end-to-end solution for customers, whether that is in-store solutions or e-commerce solutions. In the countries we are present, we are doing not only the pre-sales and sales, but also installation, service, support, which enables us to get a very good grip of helping customers with what really matters for them. On the next page, the mandatory map to show where we are. We are now in eight geographies, actually. Norway, Sweden, the three Baltic countries and Spain, and now lastly, with the acquisition of Air Link Group, we are also in the U.K. and in Ireland. We are not a new company. We have actually been around for 35 years and are now listed at the Oslo Stock Exchange.
We have about now or in excess of 450 employees with the last acquisition, and our solution is pretty much in all countries across Europe and also in North America. If we go to the next page, we will talk about what we at StrongPoint have called the double opportunity. E-commerce category killers like you would know out of the Nordics with Europris, Normal, and also hard discounters are challenging the traditional grocery retailers on two fronts. On the one hand side, the move of volume or sales from the traditional stores, either online or to these category killers and hard discounters, is putting a pressure on the grocery retailers' margin. Taking away the sales with pretty much a big part of the cost base being fixed, puts a margin squeeze on these companies.
We believe that one of the absolute important ways to withstand that margin pressure is in the introduction of technology solutions. The other major opportunity is within e-commerce. E-commerce in itself is both driving the changes in store, but it is also a source of opportunity for StrongPoint. We have now the full range of e-commerce solutions from an e-commerce logistics solutions, from the fulfillment solutions, whether that is manually or automated picked to the full range of last-mile solutions. Whether you are a grocery retailer about to start the e-commerce journey or in the midst of the journey or actually rather mature, we have the solution for you. That is the double opportunity for StrongPoint.
On the next page, in today's environment with higher inflation, with fuel costs going up, with electricity rates going up, at the same time as we have lifted or trying to get into a normalized role after COVID-19, you could argue that, well, what are really safe havens in today's environment? We would argue that regardless of what happens in the turmoil, you still need food and vegetables and food and drinks. Whereas we are all keen to go out to restaurants and to canteens, the grocery store, whether that is in the store or e-commerce, will continue to live on very strongly going forward, and that is exactly the market that StrongPoint is serving. On the next page, just very superficially, the range of solutions that StrongPoint has in its portfolio.
In in-store solutions, we have best-in-class self-checkout solutions, with image recognition that makes our solution stand out from the traditional self-checkout solutions you will find in Norway and Sweden today. We are getting that into the market also in the home countries. Electronic shelf labels from Pricer. We have been a longstanding partner for many years. We have our traditional Vensafe solution, our CashGuard solution, but also more cutting-edge technology such as the humanoid grocery robot or humanoid robot from Halodi Robotics , able to perform tasks in-store to withstand the pressure on the margins that we see there with higher labor costs. On the right-hand side, you will see an illustration of the e-commerce logistics solutions I mentioned, whether that is in-store picking, dark store picking or automated picking, or whether that is the last-mile solutions with home deliveries, Grocery Lockers, stationary or mobile or drive-through solutions.
We have a full range of solutions to offer to our customers. If you go to the next page. The T-shaped strategy, we have called it, meaning we are dedicated to go deep in some core markets. Again, with the U.K. and Ireland, we are now into eight markets. When we go deep into markets, we define that as not "only selling a solution," but doing the full range from installation service support in those markets. That enables us to not only serve customers well, but also grab a very nice portion of the full value created in the selling of a solution or product. In addition to that, we do have some proprietary solutions that we believe are right for the world market. Most notably is the e-commerce order fulfillment platform that we have, and that you in Sweden would have seen a lot of.
Whether it is the order picking that you do not really see, but experience when you see the order picking being fulfilled in stores, or whether that is the last mile solutions with, for instance, our Click & Collect Lockers. We have defined a number of these solutions to be taken also outside the countries we are going deep in. Next page, please. StrongPoint some two years ago, just prior to the COVID-19, we set forth a very ambitious financial ambition and a strategy to follow. That was to grow our business to NOK 2.5 billion in 2025 and get to an EBITDA margin of 13%-15%. When we launched this, we had a turnover of about NOK 1 billion and an EBITDA margin just south of 9%.
Since then, and going into the next page, we have divested a number of non-core assets, most notably cash security and labels production. That used to be on top of the NOK 1 billion. But since then, we have grown the business and laid out a plan to grow to NOK 2.5 billion in such a manner where obviously e-commerce logistics in itself is very important. M&A, I will talk more about both these two topics in a second. Also improving the way that we serve the in-store efficiency market. If you now go to the next page and we will look at how have we tracked on the path to this now, because what we showed on the previous page was an implied CAGR of 26%. We are now at a CAGR of 22%.
When you strip out the non-core assets that we sold and got a very decent price for, we have invested those or part of those funds into, amongst others, the Air Link Group acquisition that we did. So with pro forma last year numbers, we are then looking at 22% growth on top, which then includes a very strong organic growth. Next page, please. For us, going forward, it is important to emphasize that both what we do in e-commerce and what we do with in-store efficiency solutions is going to be important. In 2021, e-commerce was a mere 11% of the total turnover. As you could see from the earlier slide, you will see that a major part of the growth will be coming from e-commerce. We believe the solutions we have really are world-class and are ripe for the international market. We just started to scratch that.
We last year announced the partnership agreement with Glovo, one of the leading delivery platforms in Europe. For those of you that have been following the market, Delivery Hero, the giant in Europe and internationally, announced the acquisition of Glovo. So we are very proud to see that world-class platforms, the tech platforms like Glovo, are selecting the StrongPoint solutions also in e-commerce. We are starting to see also the grocery retailers seeing exactly that. Next page, please. For those of you that are, I would say still skeptical in which direction e-commerce is going, and you could argue with the pandemic now easing or being removed in most parts of the world, you would expect to see a dip in e-commerce penetration. That might be true. But that blip is really a blip.
I think history has shown over many, many cycles that regardless of what kind of retail sector you are talking about, the penetration will continue to grow over cycles. Grocery still is, overall in the markets we are looking at a single-digit penetration. So there is lots of potential still in the grocery retail market in e-commerce. On the next page, you will see what we are expecting over the next five years to be the addressable market for some of our solutions. We are looking at the picking solution growth, which is the in-store picking at the decent CAGRs, but where we are expecting to take a much, much larger market share.
On the right-hand side, you obviously have the micro-fulfillment centers or the automated picking, which you are expecting to see a massive growth in, where we are very proud to be a distributor of AutoStore and actually the world's first grocery-specific distributor of the AutoStore solution. In the middle here, we have our Click & Collect Lockers again that you, in Sweden, would have come to get accustomed to. We are expecting a very massive growth also in that area, in particular in new markets where traditionally home deliveries have been strong. So we are expecting massive growth in e-commerce going forward, and we will take a massive part in that. Next page, please. To sum up priorities for StrongPoint going forward, number one is to execute on the in-store strategy that we have.
We believe that in order to succeed in grocery and retail in general going forward, you need to ride the tide of the turmoil that is happening. As an example, I know my good friend Magnus Larsson at Pricer were talking about how the turmoil is actually creating a market for ESLs that we have grown accustomed to in Norway and Sweden, and we are dedicated to take those solutions and other solutions that are proprietary outside the Nordics. We are truly dedicated to leverage on the e-commerce logistics market that is out there. Again, despite the blip that is happening in this quarter, maybe for many grocery retailers, we are expecting a continued massive growth there. At StrongPoint, we will continue the momentum that we have in M&A. With that note, I think we should go to the next page.
Just a few words about the acquisition we announced that we have signed the SPA on last Friday, ALS or Air Link Group. Air Link Group has been a family-owned business with more than 20 years in the U.K. and Irish markets, performing installation, service, construction and engineering for some of the finest grocery retailers in the U.K. They already have experience with temperature control lockers, self-checkout and vending solutions. When you have this kind of platform to work out of, we believe obviously that we can create a lots and lots of value on top of the good foundation ALS already has with bringing our solutions to the market. Our e-commerce solutions portfolio, our Vensafe solution, our self-checkout solution, and also some of the third-party solutions that we believe is right for the U.K. market.
I am very optimistic and positive about both the U.K. and Irish market going forward. To round off before questions, on the next page, what are we expecting in today's situation with lots of turmoil? First of all, if there are any, I would not say safe harbors, but if there is one market to be positive about, it is the resilient market of grocery retail that StrongPoint is very, very focused and oriented towards. Yes, we are seeing a pressure on supply chains as well, and those that have been following StrongPoint would have seen that at least for the past three quarters. We have also announced what kind of growth we would have had unless or if we had not been impacted by the component shortages. However, that aside, we have experienced a very strong growth. That just proves there is even more demand in the market.
Lastly, for any particular new listeners to StrongPoint, you should know that we are investing heavily in the future. What is particular for a company like StrongPoint as a retail technology company is that you will not find a lot of our investments in the balance sheets. We are expensing all the investments that we are doing directly. There is no hidden balance posts expecting huge growth as we still are expecting, but we are being very conservative, expensing all the R&D investments that we are doing. With that, thank you. I am open for any questions there might be.
Thank you, Jacob. I think I can start out, you touched a bit upon the challenge retailers are facing with regards both to in-store being pressured from e-com and now during COVID-19, e-com has seen a very good boost, at least in some geographies. I was thinking, could you maybe give a bit more flavor on how grocers are talking to you now about e-com? Are they approaching it more in a wait and see approach, or is it rather like they think this change is coming now anyway, and will continue to invest?
I think, first of all retailers or grocery retailers see e-commerce growth. All e-commerce or all grocery retailers see that there is no way that you could be a grocery retailer in the future without any kind of e-commerce offering. That might not be so evident if you are sitting in Norway, where the e-commerce penetration is still very low. But everybody knows that e-commerce is going to be an important part of the public or consumer and customer offering going forward. I think first of all, it depends very much on the market. But that said, we all know that the grocery market is a market in which changes happens over time.
We have very promising discussions across the geographies that we are serving to serve the different markets, whether that is very mature markets like the U.K. or less mature markets like the Nordics or Finland for that matter.
Obviously this will be an important growth driver when you look at the bridge you present from 2021 to 2025, that the e-com logistics will be an important driver there. Is that tilted to some specific countries in your mind going towards 2025? Or do you also think it's more of a broad game going towards that?
In general, it's hard to find geographies in which e-commerce is not expected to grow through the cycles, first of all. That said, of course, there are certain markets that we would like to be more present in than others, just because they're more ripe for the solutions. That said, I think we should dare to be somewhat bullish and proud here, because our e-commerce solution first and foremost stems out of the acquisition that StrongPoint did some four and a half years ago of a company called CUB. What we realized then is that the solutions that Swedish grocery retailers have been benefiting from really are world-class. We've invested significant amounts of funds making the solution both scalable and cloud-based, and that is the solution that we're now bringing out to grocery retailers.
Just earlier today, I was in a customer call with one of the premier grocery retailers in Europe. StrongPoint was not very known to them, and not least our solution. But the picking efficiency we are able to display is absolutely something that's casting shades all across Europe. So we have high expectations for e-commerce. That's correct.
Great. We can just touch a bit upon this U.K. acquisition of Air Link Group now. This already seems like a quite decent business. You look at the 10% margins, especially given that it's more of an installation business, at least to my understanding. Could you talk a little bit about how you will work now to develop that market further through ALS, for example, selling StrongPoint solutions into their prime U.K. customers, et cetera?
Yes. Well, first of all, I have to just underline what you just said. We're adding NOK 240 million with a 10% EBITDA to the business. Now that it's out there, our purchase price is GBP 9.5 million. You do the math. We believe it's a very decently paid price in the eyes of StrongPoint shareholders. That said, this is a fantastic platform for us to bring the solutions that we have in. We have to recognize that in order to work with the Tescos of the world, Poundland, Sainsbury's, these kinds of customer relations is not something you build over weeks or months. ALS spent 20 years building these relations. That said, we also know that if you look at the U.K. market, that is alongside France, this is the most highest penetrated European market in e-commerce. Highly inefficient in many manners.
This is where the StrongPoint solutions come in, whether that is on the picking side or on the last mile side, including with the lockers. The U.K. is also the, what you call it, the capital of the self-checkout. They've yet to experience the home-produced proprietary built self-checkout solution, both hardware and software, that we have out, and is a market leader out in the Baltics. We're expecting that to be of a high importance in the U.K. market. So we have, again, very high expectations about what we can build on top of the ALS platform. Right now in the short term, the boring priority, so to speak, is to maintain the amazing business that has been built. We are very careful about any kind of acquisition leading to questions on turmoil in the target organization.
We feel confident that we have motivated, incentivized the correct people at ALS and are keen to make sure we have a very solid base before introducing new solutions. But it's a very promising acquisition we have done, we believe in the U.K. and Ireland.
Great. I see we have reached our hard cut on time now. I just want to say thank you to Jacob and to StrongPoint for presenting. As you all know StrongPoint, we have a commission research coverage of StrongPoint. You can find our latest research on our website. You can obviously also find both webcasts and presentation material at StrongPoint website. With that, thank you, Jacob. Have a good day.