Dear all, a warm welcome to this quarter three presentation from AFRY. My name is Jonas Gustavsson, CEO of AFRY, and I will, as always, start off with some summarizing slide, and then it will be followed by Bo Sandström, our CFO, who will take you through the financials, and then we will have a Q&A. So let's start off with the summarizing slide. As we have in the headline, for us, it's been a quarter with strong growth, but also a challenging quarter. Sales came in at SEK 6 billion, and we see the market is mixed. We have sectors doing very well and strong, like energy sector, and then we have some more volatility and mixed in other segments. I will get back to that on the next slide. Growth was strong in the quarter, and we have a solid order stock.
However, we can now see that sequentially, both the order stock growth and sales growth are a bit lower, and again, Bo will show you some graphs on that. The result was lower than we hoped for, and of course, this is not a level that we want to be or we expect us to be. And the result was impacted by, first of all, we have a negative calendar effect, and we have seen some volatility in the segment. I mean, we knew that the real estate segment was weak, but what we noted in the quarter was increased volatility in some industrial sectors, and that impacted the utilization that also then impacted the result.
However, in three of our divisions, Process Industries, Energy, and Management Consulting, which are our international global divisions that are in the middle of the green transition, they continue to deliver solid growth and also very good results. We had weak performance in Infrastructure, in Industrial & Digital Solutions, and AFRY X. I'll get back to that because you have also seen that we today then published some information that we are expanding the improvement program related to Infrastructure. We have, in the quarter, changed two of our divisional heads, and I'm very happy and pleased about that, and I'll get back to that also. And as I said, then we have also extended the improvement program in Infrastructure, and we have also, in the quarter, restructured AFRY X. So that's the summarizing slide, and just moving over to the market then.
Starting with the industrial sector, and this is where we see some more mixed between segments. So in general, there is a solid underlying demand driven from the whole green transition. So when you look on some of the Process I ndustries-related segments continue to be strong, even though, as we said before, some of the bigger CapEx projects, for example, in pulp and paper segment, we have some delays in the decision. And what we noted in some of the segments, also in the more Swedish-related industrial business, we saw project or smaller assignments that was postponed that also impacted utilization in the quarter. So that was maybe a change from quarter three, that we saw this a bit more mixed, in the industrial segment. On the other hand, we see segments like the automotive or defense continue to be very solid.
Energy, I will just say that it continued to be very strong, of course, driven from all the investment into the energy segment. And in the Infrastructure, the real estate segment continued to... continues to be very weak for us, and we are quite exposed to that in Sweden and Finland. So quite a big portion of the real estate program that we're expanding is also to adjust even more on the capacity side. However, public's investment in infrastructure, railroad, continue to be on a stable level, so a bit more mixed on the market. Looking at divisions, again, Bo will get a bit more into detail, but you could easily see here that we have three divisions continuing to deliver solid and good result and good growth. Process Industries, Energy, and Management Consulting, together, roughly a bit more than 40% of AFRY.
All these three divisions are, you know, really global divisions, and they are in the middle of the green transition, continue even in the calendar weak quarter, to deliver good margin and solid growth. Then Infrastructure, for sure, that's one area that we are not pleased or happy, of course, and we have seen that for a longer time. So now we are expanding the program in Infrastructure, and we have a new division head, Robert Larsson, who is now driving that in a very good way, and we are expanding it. I'll get back to that. AFRY X, well, we took a decision in the third quarter to actually dismantle the division, and those business units in AFRY X have now been integrated in other divisions.
And by doing that, we have also taken some 45 full-time employees down, and further activities will be done during the fourth quarter. So what was maybe a bit frustrating was that Industrial & Digital Solutions, they had this effect where some of the smaller assignments in the quarter were postponed, and that led to a bit lower utilization in the quarter, affecting the result of Industrial & Digital Solutions. There's a lot of activities to bring that back, so a lot of good plans under the new division head, Martin Öhman. But that's the summary. Three divisions doing very well, and we have three divisions then not doing as good, and here we have plans to work on that. Well, we are bringing in good projects, so for... These are three examples. So we have a tram project in Tammerfors in Finland.
As one, we have wind power project in the Baltics, and we are also in a future mill in Metsä Tissue in Mariestad in Sweden. Of course, as Bo will say, the order stock remains stable and solid, and we are bringing in a lot of new good projects into AFRY. Just highlighting what we already have communicated, that we have two new divisional heads. I'm very pleased that Robert Larsson, who has been with us for some 5 years, with a long experience in ABB before he joined us, and he has done a lot of good things in the Industrial & Digital Solutions, has now taken over Infrastructure with a very clear mandate to execute and drive the improvement program.
You know, we are pleased that the program is now expanded, and this is both to handle capacity, but also to improve profitability. Martin Öhman is now taking over, has taken over Industrial & Digital Solutions. He has also a very, very good background and been with us for a few years. So both these two divisional heads have joined new positions, and again, very pleased to have them in their new roles. Finally, before I give it to Bo, just a summary of the improvement program that we delivered in the quarter. We have then extended the improvement program in Infrastructure, and we have restructured AFRY.
So in Infrastructure, we are now a lot of actions, of course, but we are now adjusting full-time positions with some 300, where 150 in the fourth quarter, and then another 150 planned for the beginning of 2024. These are partly to adjust capacity due to the weaker market, and partly also to do structural improvement to improve profitability. The estimated restructuring cost for the first leg of that in quarter four will be SEK 50 million, and we are on top of that in the program. Two very important things: strengthening, improving our commercial management and resource planning.
Basically ensuring that the volume projects that we are bringing into AFRY have the profitability level, we are steering the structure around that in a new way, and Robert and the team is working heavily with that, including, of course, that we have a good balance on the resource planning. We have intensified our portfolio review across Infrastructure at AFRY. At AFRY X, we have decided in the quarter to dismantle the divisions. Those business units that were in AFRY X have now been integrated in Norway, Finland, and Sweden. When we did that, we did some restructuring, taking out some 45 employees, full-time employees, to reduce cost and increase efficiency. That was SEK 16 million in the third quarter.
Further activities will be done in the fourth quarter to tune that business, bringing it up to profitability that it should be. So we are pleased on, on, on expanding this program, and again, Robert is taking on that with high pace in the Infrastructure division. With that, I will invite Bo Sandström, our CFO, to take you through the financial numbers. Give it to you, Bo.
Thank you, Jonas. So, I will cover the main financials for Q3. Q3 is, as you are aware, is our seasonally weakest quarter, and also the quarter with the lowest volumes, in a sense, due to vacations. Looking at sales for the quarter, it was, as Jonas said, it was SEK 6.1 billion, SEK 750 million higher than last year, corresponding then to a total growth of approximately 14%. On a rolling 12-month perspective, we have now surpassed SEK 26.5 billion. With the 14% total growth, we report 9% adjusted organic growth in the quarter. Growth was driven by high demand across most of our segments, supported by price increases in the quarter of approximately 5.5%.
We see growth of 8% on the order stock in the quarter, which remains high at SEK 20 billion. In terms of growth over the last number of quarters, looking then at adjusted organic growth, growth remains at a high level in the quarter, as you could see, at 9%. But sequentially, adjusted organic growth is now clearly fading from the peak levels that we saw in the beginning of the year, Q1 being the most imminent quarter. And it's actually now below 10% for the first time since beginning of 2022. Order stock growth year-over-year increased 8%, whereof approximately half relate to FX effects.
Sequentially, sequential trends show a similar pattern, as you can see on the net sales development, where order s tock growth was 14%, last two quarters, and then, as I said, 8% this quarter. EBITDA came in at SEK 326 million, which is 15% lower than last year. EBITDA margin ended at 5.4%, in a decline from 7.3% in the corresponding quarter last year. The decline in utilization and the negative calendar effect, which is estimated at one percentage point, again, more than explains the difference to last year... Despite the more cautious approach to recruitment, with attrition still coming down and pockets of quickly changing market conditions, most imminent in some industrial segments in the quarter, utilization was again affected and overall lower than last year.
On EBITDA, rolling 12- months, we remain above SEK 2 billion, and the negative movement last two quarters is mainly related to calendar effects. Year -to -date and compared to previous years, we maintain a clear upward trend from the SEK 1.7 billion level in 2021. We report one negative project one-off, in the quarter of close to SEK 20 million, Swedish, which is affecting year-over-year comparisons in the Infrastructure division. Finally, this was the last quarter, reporting AFRY X as a division, and cost for that restructuring was reported as IAC in the quarter. Effect of the restructuring can be expected immediately, in the receiving divisions, and we estimate payback of the restructuring in approximately two quarters.
Looking at development by division, we still see positive adjusted organic growth in all divisions, although sequentially, as for AFRY in total, sequentially, it's also coming down in all divisions. Only the management consulting division now remain above 10% in adjusted organic growth for the quarter. Margin development, as Jonas said, very mixed in the quarter. Process Industries, Energy, and Management Consulting continue to deliver strong results. Noteworthy, both Energy and Process Industries managed to increase their respective EBITDA margin, despite a negative calendar effect in the quarter. Industrial & Digital Solutions was the division most clearly impacted by lower utilization for parts of the business in the quarter, and that, in combination with the calendar effect, accounts for the margin dilution, compared to last year.
Infrastructure margin was down 3.2 percentage points compared to last year, still affected by the weak real estate market. Additionally, as said before, besides the calendar effect, we have a negative one-off item related to a finalized project affecting the quarter. AFRY X margin was, as in Q2, significantly pressured by low utilization. So, some words on operating cash flow, financial net debt, and available liquidity. Cash flow from operating activities was again stronger than last year. In the quarter, we did increase working capital, but in line with growth. Financial net debt decreased somewhat sequentially, and available liquidity remains strong, currently at SEK 3.8 billion. Finally then, an update on financial targets, on a rolling 12-month perspective.
Growth is at the end of Q3 at 18%, marginally starting to come down, but well above the 10% target. EBITDA margin rolling twelve is affected by the negative calendar effect in the quarter and is now at 7.6%. The margin adjusted for calendar effects year to date is estimated at 7.9%, in line with full year of 2022. Improving the margin remains our key focus area for this and upcoming years. Finally, leverage increased marginally in the quarter sequentially to 2.7x , despite the lower net debt. Calendar effect on the EBITDA is then the driver to the sequential increase. Typically, net of any acquisitions, Q4 is historically a strong cash flow quarter, and we expect to deleverage until end of the year.
With that, I leave back to you, Jonas.
Thank you, Bo. And, I will just make one summary slide before Bo is back for the Q&A. So okay, looking ahead now, you could box our priorities into three areas. For sure, to now execute and drive the whole, extended improvement program in Infrastructure is one of our priorities. We have been working with Infrastructure, as you know, for quite some time, but I will say now with the new leadership, with Robert, and the extended program, and the activities we are building up, we are spending a lot of time in doing that. So that's one. Second one is, of course, to continue to take the opportunities we have in those parts of the business that is doing well.
As Bo said, and I also said before, three of our divisions are doing very well, Energy, Process I ndustries, and Infrastructure. And we have also pockets in, in the industrial part in Sweden that we see good demand, like automotive and defense, and we will of course, grab all the opportunities we have there. But the third one, I would say, is also for the whole company is to, you know, continue to build up further resilience and flexibility, because what we have noted is that the market in sub-pocket, sub-segment could be, and has been, a bit more, more volatile. So for us to be a bit ahead of that, to be able to adjust, is key for us moving forward.
Because in general, we believe there is strong underlying demand driven from the green transition in some segment, but we also expect some segments, like real estate, continue to be weaker, and we need quickly to adjust to that. So these are the three areas of priorities in general for us moving forward. So with that said, I will invite Bo back here, and we can open up for Q&As.
Yeah, and first, I just need to say sorry that some of you missed the first part of the presentation. We had some issue with a link somewhere, but you can, of course... We recorded the presentation, and you can look at it at the website later on. We take the first question from Johan Sundén at Carnegie. Please, go ahead.
Thank you. Thank you for taking my question. I think we should start off on the Infrastructure segment, given the news today with the upcoming restructuring initiatives, and just to have your thoughts and how you compare these kind of initiatives with your initial plans. You had this slide on the capital markets in March this year, where you guided that margin should trend upward towards 9%-11% 2024-2025. Is this how much of a help can this be for bridging that margin gap compared to where we are today?
Thank you, Johan. Yeah. Well, first of all, I think when we had the meeting in March, for sure, we have seen some of the, like, real estate segment being much weaker. So I would say you, you are right that what we are doing now is a real strong add-on to a lot of activities already ongoing. But clearly, we have seen then that what we have in the plan so far has not been strong enough, so we are gearing up. So what we are saying now is that what we are doing now, then, with the first 150 in the quarter, is partly to address the weaker market, Sweden, Finland, real estate, and partly it is to do structural improvement, cost improvement to support the margin.
So, and then on top of that, as we said, we have implementing different process on, on commercial steering, and as Bo also talked about, how we are balancing hiring, basically capacity, and we continue to do the portfolio review. So I think the plan for us to improve the margin and to reach 9%-11% for infra remains. So I don't think we have not changed that, per se. And if I remember correctly, we said within three years when we had the Capital Markets Day. So that remains, Johan, but I would say what we are doing now is partly to get that better balance in the capacity, but also to execute on the program to improve the margins.
Has there been any kind of phasing of your view of how quickly the margin corridor can be reached, or is it still the kind of, set out time frame at the moment?
Yeah. Yeah, I think the time frame remains, but what we have said internally for us, it's so important that we start to break the trend. I mean, you know it, we know it, that if you look back a few quarters, we're not happy with the general Infrastructure margin development. In fact, it's been a declining trend. So for us, it is so important that we now break the trend and start to trade in the other direction. And then I think the target to go to 9%-11% remains for I nfrastructure, and I still think that when we look on end 2025, something like that, we should be on that corridor.
But of course, now we also need to adjust to the fact that for us, at least, in the real estate segment, it's been weaker, and we need to adjust to that. But for us right now, coming quarter, it is so important to have a trend shift on the margin development.
Looking at utilization, now Q... Y ear- to- date is at, say, 73.5%. Full year 2022 was at 74.7%. How much of an help on the utilization can this initiative be?
No, I mean, a lot of the activities that we do in I nfrastructure is related to utilization. And we do believe that turning that negative trend that you relate to, in that sense, that will be key for us to achieve the margin improvement that we strive for, in that sense. So, not putting the full improvement plan on the utilization level, but it's still a vital part, you know, in achieving that. So, that is, in that sense, indirectly, that is something that we really try to close the gap and then turn the trend also on the utilization side.
Will it be... From your perspective, is it likely or unlikely that you will be back at the—say, 2022 levels in 2024, 2025 on utilization?
At least that's our ambition. And then, of course, we have an external market that we don't really know where it will go. But for sure, Johan, as Bo said, we know that utilization is so essential for us and as a consultant, as a company. So there's a lot of focus in all divisions really to work on utilization, not the least now for Infrastructure, but also if you look on the Industrial & D igital S olutions, we also saw utilization drop in the third quarter. So our ambition is clearly that we need to improve utilization. That's why we also need to find a way to have a better balance by recruiting attrition and the demand side. But it's clearly for us that utilization has been weak in some areas, and that's where we need to improve moving forward.
Okay, thanks for those answers. Questions also on the Process I ndustries area. We saw order intake, order backlog being down quite a bit quarter-over-quarter. How should we read that development? Should we be scared that the kind of utilization in that segment takes a clear step down during 2024, given the order situation currently?
No, I think it should not be scared, but for sure, we have also highlighted that when you look on the pulp and paper segment, as one, we all know that there has been a lot of, you know, where, where some of our clients have highlighted that CapEx project might be postponed or delayed a bit. So that we are, we are looking at carefully. We still have a lot of projects ongoing, but then we have to remember, in Process I ndustries, we are into batteries, we are into hydrogen, we are into a lot of other areas, mining and metals, to make sure that we are broadening our exposure. So that is ongoing.
So I don't think we should be scared, but for us, we are now growing in other segments than, for example, pulp and paper. But we have seen that there are some more discussions related to delaying CapEx projects. So now quarter three, we will always have order intake a bit more with the timing effect between the quarters. So we are not scared, but we are very, very close to our clients to adjust also here.
How tough is it to move around resources in the various kind of pockets of that segment?
Yeah, I think there is, there is of course, specialist into pulp and paper that you, that you have in that segment. But then in process technology, there is also opportunities to move competence between like piping or an, and the specialist. We have opportunity. I think the division under Nicholas is doing it very well because we are also working in a global business here. For many of the projects, we are using offices from São Paulo, from Finland, from Sweden together, and then you can balance and mix between not only segments, but also between geographies in a different way than we have in other segments. They are doing it in a very, very good way, and that way of working is improving quarter by quarter.
So we have different way to mitigate if one segment goes down, by leveraging between different offices in a way that we do not have to the same extent in some other areas.
Great. That's clear. And just one final follow-up to Bo on the kind of Infra segment in the quarter. There was some problem with the link. So I think I didn't catch that. Did you say there was some SEK 20 million in kind of one-off in the Infra segment this quarter that did not was adjusted for?
Yes, we had a project one-off in the Infrastructure division, close to SEK 20 million.
Was there any kind of restructuring initiatives in the Infrastructure baked into the reported EBITDA as well, or was it just the...?
No, no, no, no, no material effects in quarter three.
Perfect. Very clear. Thanks. I get back in line.
Thank you.
Okay, so we take the next question from Fredrik Lithell at Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Thank you for taking my questions as well. I'm gonna keep myself to two questions. You discussed a little bit during the call on small assignments that have been a bit softer in some specific pockets within industry, for example. Do you feel that these are sort of early indicators for that the large type of projects are pushed or delayed or something like that as well? So is this just an indicator on that the market will turn tougher? So that's the first one, and then secondly, you had some earn-out considerations in the quarter. Do you have more of those kind of earn-out structures in earlier acquisitions that might create the need to pay out more cash and thereby hold back your possibilities to gear down? Just a detail. Thank you.
Right. I will take the first one. Well, you are right that in the industrial area, and here we talk more about Sweden, where Industrial & Digital Solutions are more exposed. We saw that in, I would say, the more generic manufacturing industries, where we do a lot of different assignments. We saw assignments in the quarter being postponed and delayed. Smaller projects and different assignments that affected utilization. So there were a bit more volatility in the industrial segments. At the same time, some of our verticals, like automotive, driven from the electrification or defense industry, mentioning, too, they continued to be rock solid in the quarter. So of course, we don't really know where it will go.
We will be very close, and those business unit who had that drop, they are getting very close now, because it came for them in a way that we were not able to adjust it quick enough. Are these early, early signals? I don't know, and I don't really believe it. But for sure, we will be very close to those where we saw that drop to understand and adjust moving forward. But again, I want to highlight then that I think the automotive industry for us continued to be very solid. And of course, we are very much exposed in the whole electrification, new automotive or platforms. And here we see a continued solid demand to our clients. So a long answer on the first one.
And on the earn out side, I mean, we continuously have those considerations going forward, but you should not expect any material in the upcoming quarters in that sense that will affect cash flow.
That's very clear. Thank you.
Thank you.
We take the next question from Stefan Knutsson at ABG. Please go ahead.
Stefan, don't forget to unmute yourself if you have a question.
Sorry, sorry about that. Yeah, hello.
Hello
Everyone. Just a question on the Infrastructure business and the order situation there. I think you mentioned last quarter that you sort of increased the threshold for profitability from that point. Just, I mean, I guess you have to work through the current order book before we see any improvements in the mix there. Is that correct?
That's correct. I mean, we have an order stock in I nfra, which is mixed profitability level. Then, of course, within Infrastructure, even though we do some of this larger project, we have a lot big volume of smaller project or assignments. And I think what Robert and the team is doing now is to tweaking and ensuring that in the decentralized structure we are working, that we also have good control of the order intake on smaller assignments to make sure that we have the profitability level. But you are correct, that order stock that we have, we need to work through, but we are now ensuring a lot that we have a different commercial view. I would say, improved commercial view on the order intake from now on moving forward.
Perfect. Very clear. And then also on the restructuring that you do in the Infrastructure business, do you have a rough guide on the utilization rate of the people that you let go? Just to get an understanding of what kind of potential it will have any for the group.
We don't have a number. I mean, Robert now, and the whole team in Infrastructure, looking, as we said, on the Swedish and Finnish real estate market, where we have seen that over the last quarters, the market have gone down, and we started to adjust during spring, but clearly not enough. So I think it's a mixture of, you know, employees not having assignments at all, all the way to employees that have, you know, half time, you know, filling the half of the time with assignments. So of course, now we are with the 150 that we have now communicated, we believe that we will take the first step to be in balance.
And then we have, with all the activities we are planning, also pruning the portfolio improvement activities, we are seeing a potential 150 additional in the beginning of next year, where we, of course, have more tools to adjust than this first 150. So I don't have a number of utilization, but clearly, this should, will be driving utilization in those, two countries, Sweden and, Finland.
Okay. Thank you very much. That was all for me.
Thank you.
We take the next question from Raymond at Nordea. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. A few from me. First one, a more general question about sub-consultants. Do you see your current level of deployment of sub-consultants as a barrier in any way to your path towards a sort of margin, your long-term margin goal?
Yeah, I think we have a model, and I think we're not unique in that, that we use sub-consultant, expert consultant, and sometimes we are even teaming up with the medium-sized or other companies to take on bigger assignments. I think you are onto something, and that is, if anything, and that goes into the commercial steering in I nfrastructure, for example, then that we fully steer and drive the sub-consultant to support our margin development. So, in the total, you know, improvement plan in Infrastructure, that is one area that we are looking at. Then we are using sub-consultant also in other divisions at AFRY. But since Infra has been on two low margins, that is one area where Robert Larsson now and the team are looking deeply into.
And here we think, I mean, Robert has been in Industrial & Digital Solutions. They use sub-consultants. They have done it in a very structured, good way. So a lot of learning from that, Robert is bringing in to now address or improve that process in I nfrastructure. But you are correct, that's one part of our business model.
And-
And I f I just amend a bit to it, because I share Jonas' view. I look at it more as an opportunity than a barrier.
Yes.
you know, back to Stefan's question on the, on the backlog, you know, that's where it could be a barrier, where we have, you know, backlog assignments with subcontractors, attached to that. That, that's the only barrier as I can see it.
All right. And, then a question on sort of your hybrid way of working. Do you feel that it's hindering building cultures? And, is this something that you are sticking to? Or... Yeah, elaborate on that, if you can.
Yeah. Good question. I would say that we are evaluating the hybrid work model as we go. We know that by, you know, to be in the office or meeting each other, it's important to build culture. Now, we also believe that the hybrid work model that we have done basically since the pandemic, beginning of 2020, is not per se bad. We don't see big operational or utilization drop due to the hybrid work model, but I think it's a constant, I would say, optimization of the model to find the perfect balance by leveraging from hybrid work model and building culture. So I don't think we will change it dramatically, but we will for sure fine-tune it a lot moving forward.
We are taking a lot of inspiration from other companies, and of course, there's a lot of opinions if it's bad or not bad. But I think for AFRY, as per se, it works. Then it's also we need to remember that we are operating, and we have offices in 40 countries, and it is very different also from the kind of country culture, how you should think about it. But we are tweaking it, optimizing it moving forward, because you are onto something. Building culture, you need to meet each other, for sure.
All right. Thanks so much, guys.
Thank you.
I'll get back in line.
We take the next question from Johan Dahl at Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yep. Thank you. Good morning. Just a question on this improvement program. I mean, you talk about strengthening commercial and operational governance. Can you be a bit more tangible there in terms of actions, what that actually means in the coming 12-month period? Also, this portfolio revision that you sort of talk about, you know, have you identified sort of issues here in the portfolio? What should we read into that statement in the press release?
Yeah, thank you. I think when it comes to commercial governance, I would say that, and we talk about the Infrastructure specifically, we have, we have, I would say, good control of the larger projects in general, with thresholds and how we are viewing and understanding the margin from each of these projects. But we also know that in I nfrastructure, depend a bit in Sweden and Finland, for example, it's a very decentralized model, and I think it's more about improving and ensuring that all these thresholds we have of bringing in small assignment, mid-size assignments, are targeting the right profitability level. So there's a lot of detail into that, that we are working on. Some of them are purely process-oriented, but some of them are more operational, how we are steering the whole Infrastructure division.
So I know that Robert and the team are looking at it. We are using best practice from other divisions to implement it in the Infrastructure, and we are targeting those units where we have had, I would say, the biggest profitability gaps. So I don't want to go into more specifics into that now, but it is for sure one big lever, because for sure, we have the cost base, and we have utilization, which is really important. But on the other hand, we also need to make sure that we are not bringing in projects that from beginning have too low margin when we are doing. And that's where we have seen a need to improve that process. That was the first. You had one more, Johan?
Portfolio review.
Yeah.
This portfolio revision, what would that sort of...
Yeah. And I can say, when you start a portfolio revision, you probably should read into the fact that we are not super happy everywhere. And as you know, we have since 10, 15 years at AFRY, when we started to invest into infrastructure, specifically in Sweden, very much organically driven. But when you go outside Sweden also, we have basically acquired companies, leading to having different positions in different countries. So to simplify it, I mean, we are basically looking on our position, competitors, market, pricing, performance, across the whole Infrastructure division, and assessing where are we strong and where, where can we make a turnaround, where is it the utilization, and where do we potentially have a positional problem, where we, for example, are not strong enough to bring in the sizable projects, et cetera, et cetera.
We are doing it across the whole Infrastructure portfolio. We started it up during spring, but we have accelerated now with Robert, and that's a part of the program, and that will lead to further tweaking, portfolio pruning or prunings moving forward. That's a part of the bridge, bringing us up to the margin that we expect from the infra division.
All right. Just a final one on... I saw FTEs declined slightly sequentially on a group level. Still, you know, growth, organic growth is good. Orders seem to be coming in. To what extent is that... And you also, I think you also said attrition was coming down. To what extent is this sort of a desirable sequence of events for you guys, or is this an issue for you that in case you're unable to recruit?
No, I wouldn't say that at all, actually. I mean, you know, attrition coming down is generically a positive thing, and we don't experience. I mean, recruitment as such, you know, has always been difficult in our line of business, and it remains so. But we still believe that we can recruit in a good way. But of course, as we have discussed over the last few quarters, you know, balancing growth with profitability development, you know, also going into a more volatile market, then we are determined to be a bit more cautious on the FTE side than we were in the last couple of years, I would say.
And you should see that more as a kind of natural sequential effect rather than a long-term shift, as such.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We have a follow-up question from Raymond. Please go ahead.
Yes, just one more question that I came up with. So related to, for example, understanding what projects are not profitable and keeping small and medium-sized projects at a profitable level. I recall a year ago, there was still quite a lot of talk about the ERP system rollout and how this was supposed to help in this regard, to have a better overview and compare projects. Could you just remind us a bit where you are on that front, and how these two are connected at the current state of things?
Yeah, and, I'll take that.
Mm.
Yeah, I mean, we have practically we don't have any news, particularly on the ERP side. You know, that that implementation and that ambition is still ongoing, and it will continue for a number of years. But you're in that sense you know correct in most ways that with a non-unified ERP landscape, it's always extremely much more difficult for us to control and to steer in a unified way.
The entire ambition in that sense, with the ERP journey that we embarked on a number of years back, is to create, you know, good foundation for us moving forward, allowing us to better steer and have a more transparency, you know, in the different parts of the business.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We also have a follow-up question from Fredrik Lithell. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Maybe two or one on housekeeping. Should we expect more IAC charges in 2024 on the second phase of the infra sort of redundancies? You have 150 in Q3, and then 150 later on. Is there more IAC to expect? That's the first one. The second is coming back to Johan's discussion on the backlog that is at standstill quarter-over-quarter, 4% growth, if we exclude FX, more or less, year-over-year. Is that in line with what you sort of expected ahead of the quarter? It was the first one, and is it enormous seasonality? I mean, Q3 is a small quarter, and there is a lot of vacations, so should we see this as a seasonality behavior? Thank you.
Thank you.
I can just start with the second one. In a sense, I would. Growth in all aspects, in that sense, it is following an expected trend, in that sense, I would say. And on the first one,
On the Infrastructure in the first part.
Yeah.
The IAC charge.
I mean, yeah. I mean, you know, of course, of course, you know, we're communicating our expectation, you know, on, on, on reductions also in, in first half of the year. I wouldn't say that there will not be any IAC effects. But it's not, it's not entirely sure that they, they are, you know, similar in size and, and, you know, for, for next year. So it's a bit, you know, kinda in between. We will be able to, you know, coming into those quarters, we will be able to be, you know, quite a bit more precise on how they will actually be executed. But I wouldn't disregard it for sure.
Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Yeah, we don't have any more questions, so.
Okay. Thank you from our side. Thank you for taking part of this webcast, and looking forward to see you soon again. Have a nice Friday, and a nice weekend. Thank you.
Thank you.