Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Alligo Interim Report Q1 2026 conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After speaker's presentation, there will be a question answer session. To ask a question during the session, please press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. You may also submit your questions on the webcast at any time by typing them in the question box and click Submit. Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker, Mr. Clein Ullenvik, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Rose. Welcome to Alligo Q1 Report 2026. This is my 51st quarterly report and my last. Presenters are as always, Irene Wisenborn Bellander, our brilliant CFO and Deputy CEO, and myself, Clein Ullenvik, CEO. As always, we keep the presentation fairly short. You can read most of it on your own. We have, as you know, some specific topics. This time it's actually three specific topics, welding, overall logistics expansion, and tools Finland. This is Alligo. We are getting closer, slowly to SEK 10 million turnover. Sweden being the largest country, 2,400, a little shy of 2,500 employees and 240 stores approximately. We have a little less than 20% of owned branches, 18 now. As we acquire companies, that figure is being diluted a little bit, so then you have to start picking up again.
It's 18% as it is today, but in the quarter, all countries increased their share of brands. The integrated business is, we normally say it's 80%, but it's actually 79% this quarter, and that part of our business is fully integrated. ERP, logistics, finance, HR, everything is fully integrated. We make acquisitions in that part, but then you are always fully integrated. We have our other part, which is the non-integrated group of companies, which today amounts to 21% of our sales. It's Product Media, 17, 18 companies. Welding, which now are up to 8% after last week's two acquisitions. Our wonderful Batterilagret and some other companies where we normally highlight HTP being a big and very profitable part of those. Highlighting Q1, our macroeconomics, it's hard for anybody to get away from all this flow of information that's happening. We are not affected directly.
We can see price increases, but we are very limited affected. Of course, it could affect the market situation if interest rates, rates are increased or the trust for the future is getting down, so the consumption goes down, then of course we will be affected as well. We as a team are unfortunately in one sense, or luckily in another sense, well trained in the maneuvering in tough conditions. We've built this entire group, Alligo, in extremely tough environment, starting our journey with COVID and then freight disasters and super inflation and currency turbulence. We are, unfortunately in a way, very used to navigating uncertain and tough environment. Delivery capacity is good and stable. All central warehouses and all those flows are working nicely. So, Q1 in brief, revenue 5.6% up. It should have been 7.5% if the NOK and the euro hasn't affected us negatively.
What is especially good is that the organic growth is 4.9%. I would have hoped it would have been 5.0%. It is actually 4.92%, so we're 0.03 of a percent from rounding it to five. But it is what it is. Cash flow, it's a weak quarter normally. We had -SEK 38 million last year. We have +SEK 209 million this year. Adjusted EBITDA up 53% from SEK 74 million- SEK 113 million. A good jump. The adjusted EBITDA margin goes from 3.3%- 4.8% and the gross margin is stable. Highlights. We have been pushing for sales like forever and we continue to push for sales and as long as there is a market to fight for, we will fight in that market. I think we can, in parts of our organization, see already now that gives results for sure.
We are very good at managing price, and that's also good to know if there will be price increases following this Middle East turmoil. We increase the share of all brands in all three countries. Sustainability, I think we mentioned it already last time, but we are awarded Platinum by EcoVadis. Puts us in the top 1% of all the companies, 50,000 companies, I think, around the world. That's very good for us when we tender to larger customers or to the defense sector and so forth. Operationally, the new bank agreement refinancing is in place. Sales assortment, we are developing continuously. Capital efficiency, you can see in the cash flow, is well underway. Yesterday, we decided to actually buy the neighbor plot in Örebro and to start building there.
So, update. Welding, just to show on a map that they are becoming quite a few of them now, eight. Two of them in Finland and the rest in Sweden. We are very proud of this group. There are more to be acquired, but we already have a good foothold in Sweden relating to welding. SEK 450 million and plus 100 employees. It's good also when we more and more going forward, we'll be able to even through those businesses offer things we have. We have the small service solution, we have workplace equipment, we have other things that the welding customers could need. We will boost also those companies with offers we have. Also, ReCare, of course, could be offered to the welding company's customers in that sense. Logistics expansion in Örebro could feel why do you talk about that, but it's more important than it feels.
central warehouse in Örebro, we have a road on two sides of our building. There were two free plots on either of the remaining two sites originally. Some years back, we bought one of them when we did the latest expansion. For the last 12 years, I've been looking at the bigger plot, which our neighbor had had an option to buy for many, many years. It's important for us to buy that to keep all those open for expansion. For anybody else to build something there and lock us up would not be good. We have been having long discussions with Örebro Municipality, and we have come to the conclusion that we can buy that plot, and it's 40,000 sq m, and we will build an extension to our central warehouse.
Because last time we extended our central warehouse, we actually did that after the acquisition of John's. After that, we already included the tools business. We are one extension behind in a way, but it's a limited investment. Super good to have all doors open for the future logistic-wise. Örebro is a Nordic hub. It's not only for Sweden, it's very much of a Nordic hub for us logistically. That's just the picture, how it will be, and it's plenty of space for future expansion. We will need to grow and acquire a lot to fill up the remaining square meters where we could build.
Finland, it's running very nicely, even a little bit ahead of time schedule, actually. 40+ persons have left us. We've closed a couple of shops. We are phasing out two reasonably fair-sized customers, but still we have an organic growth in a quarter of 11.1%. The Finnish team with Håkan at the helm is doing a brilliant job, and they also had a good EBITDA development in the quarter. It looks good and stable in the Finnish business. Financials, Irene.
Yes. Thank you. As Clein mentioned, the Q1 results exceeded last year's and cash flow improved, leading to reduced leverage. Additionally, stabilized demand across all markets and the impact of cold winter weather at the beginning of the year contributed to organic growth. Revenue increased by 5.6% in the quarter, driven by organic growth of 4.9% and growth from acquisitions of 2.5%, contrasted by negative FX effects.
We had organic growth across all countries, and our store sales benefited from the cold and snowy winter weather. EBITDA reached SEK 113 million, representing an improvement of SEK 39 million or plus 53%, and the increase was due to improved results in all three countries and was driven by higher volumes, cost reductions, and contributions from acquired businesses. The gross margin remained stable compared to last year as positive and negative factors offset each other.
For instance, the increase in sales of our own brands and lower purchase cost in U.S. dollars contributed to improving margins. On the other hand, a higher share of sales from the non-integrated business, which has structurally lower gross margin, along with customer mix effects within the integrated business negatively impacted the overall gross margin. This is a busy slide. As you can see, Sweden has the highest share of SMEs and own brands, followed by Norway, while Finland has the lowest. This directly correlates with the profitability in each market. The higher the shares, the greater the profitability. The lower gray boxes show the share of own brands within the integrated business. As shown, this share has increased across all countries, driven by a 15% increase in workwear and PPE sales on group level, which positively impacted the trading gross margin.
Moving on to some highlights of each market's development in Q1. Starting with Sweden, there we had revenues that increased by 10%, driven by both organic and acquired growth. Organic growth is driven by both an increase in store sales, primarily of winter-related products, and growth in direct sales. The increase in direct sales is related to both larger customers in the manufacturing industry and project orders to the defense industry. The improvement in EBITDA is due to higher volumes, cost savings, and contributions from the acquired company. Organic growth in Norway was driven by increased sales of workwear and PPE in stores, while direct sales were flat overall, but declined in the oil and gas segment, which started to slow down in the second half of 2025. EBITDA improved due to high volumes and cost reductions.
When it comes to Finland, sales continue to recover among larger industrial customers, which balances the two larger customer relationships being phased out. As Clein mentioned, the efficiency program in Finland is progressing as planned, and the improved result in the quarter is due to high volumes and cost savings. Operating cash flow improved from last year, driven by higher EBITDA, lower income taxes paid, and lower inventory levels for our own brands following the strong sales of workwear and PPE in the quarter. Even if the capital efficiency project contributed to positive effects in Q1, there is still more work to do. We aim to reduce net working capital as a percentage of sales from the current 28%-24%, which was the level in 2022.
When it comes to investing activities in the quarter, it relates to organic investments, which were lower than last year, and the CapEx to depreciation ratio was 0.7% on a rolling 12-month basis. We didn't finalize any acquisitions during the quarter. However, we completed the acquisition of Attlee Louge in February last year. During Q1, leverage continued to decrease due to the improved EBITDA and cash flow, and the net debt to EBITDA ratio decreased from 2.5% at year-end to 2.2%, which is well within the financial target range.
We refinanced the business during Q1 and increased the sustainability-linked facility by SEK 500 million, bringing it to SEK 3.1 billion. The new facility runs until February 2029 with the option to extend twice for one year each. Available cash and unutilized credit facilities total nearly SEK 2 billion at the end of Q1.
Covenants relate to interest coverage and equity asset ratios, and these are fulfilled at the end of the period, and there is good headroom before reaching the thresholds. In summary, we have a strong financial position, and we will continue to invest in organic growth such as the upcoming central warehouse expansion and of course, continue to acquire well-run businesses. Handing over to you, Clein, for summary and outlook.
Super. Thank you, Irene. Q1 in summary, strong quarter, a little bit of help at the beginning of the quarter from the weather. We have efficiency programs, so we've had that throughout the group as you all know. We had plan B, plan C, plan D, so we have been very cost cautious, and we've been very early on taking necessary grip to adjust our cost base. Now at the latest, we are focusing very much on Finland. We are happy with the organic growth. We are happy with the result development. We are happy with the cash flow, and it's also that it's throughout all the countries. That is what makes us especially happy. It's not one country doing extremely well and others not. An outlook, the million-dollar question, how does it look going forward?
We have proven, I think you can agree on, that we can both grow, but we can also improve profitability also in an uncertain market. We are so fine-tuned and at such a low cost base and have such a strong offer. With our financial position, our customer offer, and what we have done with our legal group, I'm convinced we are in a very good place going forward to whatever market conditions there will be. Very good. Handing back to you, Raff.
Thank you, sir. Thank you. We're now going to proceed with our first question. The question comes from the line of Emanuel Jansson from Danske Bank. Please ask your question.
Good morning, Clein and Irene. Hope you can hear me. Very fun to see that the organic growth trends continues and also of course also strengthening in this quarter. I wonder if you perhaps could elaborate a bit on the market condition between the regions and perhaps also can elaborate a bit on the trend during the quarter between the months. I assume that January was quite strong, as you mentioned, with cold winter weather, et cetera.
Yeah. No, exactly. As we start with the last question, for sure it started strong. If I were to write a script of how I'd like the weather to be, it would have been very much like it was in January. On the other hand. As I've said in many different places, if this would've been a couple of years back, then we would have sold extremely much. In a slower market, the customer tends to buy exactly what they need. If your start battery is out and you're going to buy a new start battery, a couple of years ago, the customer would've bought winter boots, winter jacket, and a diesel warming equipment, but they bought exactly. We could see in January, battery sales were up 55%, hydraulic sales were up, all winter-related gears were up.
We had a good start of the year, of course. The best start in January and a slower start at the end, but still okay. Winter helped us, but not as much as it would have done some years back. Looking region for region, if we start from the east, Finland has tough market conditions as it is. It's also predicted to pick up GDP-wise and construction-wise later than Norway and Sweden. We, as you saw, are growing 11.1% organically despite the fact that we are phasing out two recently large customers. We are doing it good in Finland, growing much more than the market is growing. Norway, we have a lot of initiatives, especially focusing on the construction sector. Construction sector, this year and next year, actually, Norway is predicted to grow quite a lot.
We have a stable position in oil and gas. As we mentioned many times, Marianne just did, the oil and gas sector has been slow a couple of quarters now, but we don't predict it to continue to be slow looking at oil prices and other things, and gas prices. Sweden is stable. Our position is super strong. There's a good spirit in our sales team. I think we can do a lot with what is already there, and it just continues to grow.
Also, Sweden is predicted to have the highest GDP growth this year. As you know, the best thing for us to correlate against it is the GDP development. If the GDP goes up, our sales normally go up. Sweden is from a different KPI perspective, inflation, construction, and GDP is looking good going forward. Hopefully nothing else happens in the world. Those are being revised, but it is looking good going forward.
Thank you very much for that clear answer. Perhaps looking a bit into Q2 then, I assume that this quarter is not as weather dependent as Q1. Do you think it's reasonable to assume that you could keep up this organic growth pace from a sequential point of view or the weather was quite good for you in January? If you understand what I mean in-
I have to promise 5% organic growth in Q2. That I don't want to do, even if I'm not responsible for Q2. I am for the two first months, but not the last month. No, that will be high. We are fully committed to continue this organic growth track and do whatever possible to continue that. To promise 5%, that would be steep.
Yeah.
As you say, it's not as weather dependent, but having said that, of course, we'd like the spring to kick in. We have forestry, agriculture customer segments who are dependent on, of course, that the weather is better. It's absolutely not as you mentioned in the winter side, of course not.
Yes, totally understand. We will not expect 5%, perhaps.
Good.
Looking at Norway and just looking at the integrated business, I have noticed that the share of private label is expanding about 6 percentage points year-over-year. Could you perhaps maybe explain a bit behind that increase?
It feels like we've been struggling a lot, and it feels like it's happening a lot now. Obviously, we need to talk about it several years before things start happening. It feels like it's much more focused on workwear, which has, of course, the highest own brand percentage. It feels like the willingness to grow the own brands are higher in all parts of the organization. Absolutely.
You also see an effect from the.
Winter
Cold winter weather not only in Sweden, you can see that effect in Norway and Finland as well, and that drives the increased share of own brands.
A positive mixed effect.
Yeah.
Perfect. That's very clear. Looking then at the non-integrated business, is it possible to give out the profitability levels that we're seeing there, and are we also seeing organic growth in that business?
We haven't communicated group by group, but we follow the industry indexes for them each, and they are in line or better. We can follow two different industry indexes for the Product Media group. The welding bunch of companies, we can follow indexes, and we can also follow how they do in relation to our integrated businesses welding sales. Americas are being measured against the workwear sales in the integrated businesses. They are developing nicely. We don't have them to bring down the result levels that they, of course, should benefit or should improve the average EBITDA for the group, if I express myself like that.
Perfect. Thank you very much. Looking at the expansion of the warehouse limited investment, I think you mentioned in the presentation.
Yeah.
What should we expect in terms of CapEx the coming years from this investment?
I don't know if we have said if we should communicate it or not, but it can be handled within our normal CapEx.
Yeah.
So it's-
Over two years, actually.
Yeah.
2027 and 2028.
Yeah.
It will be handled under a normal CapEx level.
Yeah. It's not a super expensive project. Already first stage will improve logistics processes, and we have ensured that we have expansion possibilities going forward. That is super important.
Perfect. Thank you. I don't recall if I gave you this question last time, Clein, but looking back at your journey as CEO, what are you most proud of having achieved? Is there anything that has surprised you about the company's resilience or growth along the way?
Not surprised, but again and again and again, you can realize what you can achieve working together. People, it would be one word. If you have a reasonably clear target where you're heading, we pull in the reasonably same direction, what is possible to achieve in extreme tough conditions in a public environment. Doing this, as you know, has been a super challenge, and it would have been without having to present quarterly what we are doing.
I'm almost surprised that it was possible to do considering the environment we did it in. What I'm surprised as your second question was is, and I think you mentioned the word actually, resilience. We have made analysis 2020, 2021, what would happen to this group. You do that, of course, normally if you lose this much on top line. To be able to mitigate a market decline to the extent that we have done, and of course, we have been hit result-wise, but to deliver what we have done under these circumstances with such a newly built group of companies, that is actually surprising. I have to use the word surprising to that part.
I agree on that. Thank you for that, Clein. Thank you overall, Clein. On a final note, congratulations on a strong final quarter, and thank you for having us here in the financial market with Alligo. All the best for the future, and it's been great working with you, Clein.
Oh, thank you, Emanuel. Likewise.
Thank you.
We're now going to proceed with our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Albin Barnevik from ABG Sundal Collier. Please ask your question.
Good morning, Clein and Irene. This is Albin from ABG. Perhaps returning a bit on the previous question regarding the solid organic growth in the quarter. You mentioned that defense project orders have been an important driver behind this. Do you consider this growth to be structural or how do you see us extrapolating this growth forward at this point in time?
Generally, it's a good growth, but let's be clear, we were helped by the weather in the beginning of the quarter. That helped us. On the other hand, we have other things in the future which will help the growth of Alligo, which has to do with the defense sector and so forth. We have good growth opportunities and the different initiatives we are running, ReCare, especially ReCare, is developing nicely. As I said earlier, we cannot promise the coming quarter, at least not promise a 5% organic growth. We are fully dedicated to continue to deliver organic growth for sure.
All right. Thank you. That's clear. Yeah, it was good also to see the positive development in Finland with the ongoing efficiency project seeming to pay dividends here. What are your remaining objectives to do in Finland? Can we expect more store closures, for instance? Also how should we think about the profitability in the segment for the remainder of the year?
No, we constantly look at all our shops, if it's Sweden, Finland, or Norway, but especially in Finland, the segment. The most obvious ones have been closed. There could be a couple that we could co-locate. There could be some acquisitions we have made that's in the same city that we could co-locate. But that's more the daily operational work.
What we're focusing very much in Finland now is on the gross margin side, taking discussions with the customers. If you look at customer satisfaction index is extremely high in Finland, so the customers are dependent on us and they very much enjoy working with us. But we see very bad margins. We see potential to get better paid for what we do in short terms. That's the focus now. From a cost perspective, most is done. The planned shop closures has been done. Now it's managing sales and margins.
All right. Yeah, I understand. Because the efficiency project doesn't seem to affect the organic growth thing as it was really strong in the quarter in Finland. How should we think about that dynamic?
We have a lot of ongoing initiatives. We have been lucky in some cases. We were lucky having a couple of customers who didn't want to pay for the services we delivered, so they are being phased out. That was the unlucky part. The lucky part is that we have customers that are growing today because the Finnish market is not growing by 11%, that's for sure. We are doing a good job. We are getting more and more from a few customers, but also generally. The market is not at all picking up in this pace.
All right. Yeah, I think that was it for me. I wish you the best of luck going forward, Clein.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you.
We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question's come from the line of Karl-Johan Bonnevier from DNB Carnegie. Please ask your question.
Hi. Good to hear. Hi, Clein and Irene, and thank you for taking my question, sir. Just continue on Finland. I think it's an interesting subject. When you looked, you presented a big to-do list here a couple of quarters back, and when you were at a slightly weaker point than you are now, what of those things that were on that to-do list do you feel is now the big contributors and what might still be on that list that is still to come?
We have done the organizational changes. We have planned it many times. We have decided to do it many times in Finland, but for some reasons, never been really, really executed. That has been executed now. That is ticked off. We are looking at store profitability in a totally different way than we've ever done in Finland. That has been ticked off. A couple of shops have been closed, and the other ones we are focusing on developing. Now, as I said, it's very much on the sales side. I'm impressed by the pace and how clear they've been on what to do and to do it in Finland. The execution has been very, very good. Now it's more of operational efficiency, getting price increases through, getting paid for the services we do.
We have a history which just goes decades back where we have probably over-served our customers. Again, looking at the customer survey, we can see that they are super happy with us. Of course they are. They're getting super service and we are not getting paid for it to the extent that we should. Very much on the fine-tuning and continue to do the operational homework.
It sounds more like the same kind of to-do list like you probably have in Sweden all the time and Norway all the time.
Absolutely.
Well, that specialist is excellent.
When you look at your strong winter goods sales here in the start of the quarter, were you able to basically sell out of the inventory you had? You are now going into, say, a full replenishment going into the next season?
No, we have replenishment. That is taking that into full account. We did sell out of some products. We always have a different brand. If one brand is sold out, we can always solve the customer's need. If not with the brand they thought when they went into the shop, we can solve their need with another brand. It was actually diesel heaters and snow-removing equipment sold like crazy a couple of weeks in January.
That was a very long time ago since we saw that happening. I think the Tyresö shop have had some diesel heating equipment over summer, two, three years. Finally, they were sold. Our systems are taking that into account. It's a huge risk, as you said, otherwise, that we buy a lot and then it will be a mild winter next time and then we are overstocked. That, I think, is very limited risk.
When we look at, you mentioned when you talked about the geopolitical situation, do you feel that you get the products home from Asia that you are looking for and so you are having, say, inventory that you need to serve maybe a slightly stronger market going forward?
Absolutely. I said at the board meeting yesterday, last night, if something as terrible as this is happening, then it happened at a good time, where we have all the seasonal products already at home. It's quite a while until we get the next seasonal products on our way. Polyester and plastic-related material, oil-based materials are going up pricewise. We already bought the fabrics for winter gear and partly for spring gear 2027. If something this terrible should happen, it happened at least at a good time. So far we are little affected. If prices were to increase, I think we all can agree on that historically, we've been very successful on pushing that forward. We will do that, of course, this time as well.
Yeah. I guess you then don't really have a lot of things in the inventory where you have the price adjustment kind of need, if you're putting it like that.
No.
It's good if it's fresh goods coming in that respect.
Exactly.
On your comments on then finding further acquisitions in the welding market now getting up to SEK 450 million in revenue, what kind of market share do you think that represents when you're looking at the segment as you define it?
It's a very good question, and we've been looking at that. We actually have external help trying to define that. We actually talk about ourselves as a leader, but God knows we are a big player. We realize that when we do negotiations with the suppliers, then you really understand if we are a force to count on or not. We don't have the actual market share figure. If you take the integrated businesses together with these standalone businesses, we have a very decent share of the welding market, that's for sure.
When you look at the pipeline of potential further transaction, finding more safe white spots being covered in that segment, is there a lot of potential transactions still to do there, or we're now looking at a more mature situation?
We have another consolidation race. Alligo has consolidated that. We bought the second biggest player in Sweden, and then we have handpicked seven other businesses which met our criterias in profitability, ability to grow, and so forth. Of course, there are more to be done. It's not that all complete, but the biggest step is already taken. We have more to do with the group that we have, synergy-wise, focus on more of a common assortment to learn from each other, make use of other offers we have in the group, as I said, the smart service solution, workplace equipment, ReCare, and so forth. That group will develop nicely going forward.
Yeah. On ReCare, can you communicate any customer wins to see that builds and business is starting to gear up?
Absolutely. I get text messages every day. Jenny, who's heading that, she normally texts me when she's won customers. As I've said before, it takes a while before it's visible. You win the customer. They sometimes have a similar solution with somebody else, and that needs to run out first. It has a long time before it really kicks in. I also said, in a number of years, to the management of Alligo, you will be asking questions very much on ReCare, because that will be a significant part of the Alligo story. I'm 100% convinced.
Dare to talk about any sort of backlog in that business or anything like that?
I don't know if we have signed 20 customers now, perhaps? We had 10, 11 earlier. It doesn't sound much, but they need to be pretty big. It's not a five-employee business that wants to have a ReCare solution. You should be 100, 200 plus. Every time she is out presenting, Jenny, she gets just a high hit rate.
Good to hear. Irene, much more of a say, detailed number-crunching question. Looking at the IFRS 16 amortization of these liabilities in the cash flow statement.
Jumping around a lot, SEK 65 million in this quarter. Is that some sort of new level, or is it something particular helping that number in this quarter?
Mm.mm. No, I think that's the level that it should be at going forward. Of course, it varies a little bit, but you can see it as a normal level going forward.
Excellent. That's very good for the cash flow. Thank you very much for all the good answers, Clein, and all the hard work during the year. I'm looking forward to see you in a couple of board positions. All the best out there.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Take care.
Thank you.
There are no further questions on the phone, so I'll hand back to you, Mr. Ullenvik, for the webcast questions. Thank you.
Let's see what we have gotten on written question. Specific driven weather effect. Was that what it was? What does that mean? The weather effects were, as I said earlier, I interpret the question now, not knowing if that was the intention, but we can see the winter-related assortment picked up just as predicted. Starter batteries, hydraulics, and winter boots and all those things.
We got limited other sales effects, as you normally do in a normal market, when the customers come to our shop and buy what they need, they normally buy a lot of other things. We didn't see that. The specific effects were very much exactly their need. Development of customer basket size. We look at the average receipt in the shops. It has been stable. It is also going up a little bit, but we don't measure basket size in that sense. We have much more to do to make all our customers buy more from us.
They could be buying a lot of tools but not much of workwear and vice versa. We have more to do to expand sales with the customers we have to sell other assortments than they usually have had. Do we have any other questions? Let's see if I can read. Oh, my God, that's a small text. Can I zoom this now? How should one view looking forward as the ambition. I can't see it. It's blue text on blue background. It's impossible to read. Is it better there? It was about M&A, I saw.
Yes.
Can you summarize it in five words or?
How should one view Alligo looking forward as the ambition for M&A increasing? Is the goal to dilute the integrated business over time? If so, is it warranted to view and compare each other's serial acquirers?
Exactly. Okay. Over the years, we have been invited to red-eye serial acquirer conferences and meetings. There have been times where we have bought more companies than actually the ones calling themselves compounders. We haven't been looking at ourselves like that, but we have a platform which offers us good opportunities to make acquisitions, both in the integrated channel where you buy something and you integrate it, or in the freestanding businesses where we can add, like last week welding businesses, product media businesses, battery, or other product areas or competencies.
We have a platform, financially resilient. The debt ratio has come down to 2.2% after being actually at 3%, as we said we should not go over, after the acquisition of Batterilager. With our cash generation, it will go down quickly and the headroom and the new bank agreement gives us also good headroom. Financially, there is absolutely no restrictions. The restrictions would be us being prudent in how much we pay for our acquisitions. Acquisitions will for sure be a central part going forward. Okay, Ras, anything more from your side, or should I go for closing remarks?
No further questions on the phone line, sir, so please go ahead with the closing remarks. Thank you.
Lovely. I can end this by saying we had a good start, 2026, and especially happy to see that it's valid in all three countries. Improved share, own brands, profitability, development. All developments are there throughout the business, which is a super good signal. I think we have delivered most of what we have said this quarter and over the years, and we even bought this little plot in Örebro, which it would have been a little bit annoying if we hadn't been able to do that because it is actually important.
We've done our homework with EcoVadis, getting Platinum, so we are rated very high in all these tendering processes. We continue to do acquisitions. I think we are in a very good place for whatever the market conditions will be going forward. All the indicators are pointing toward the direction that should be a better market, but God knows. I normally end these meetings by saying the journey continues. This time I would say the journey continues, but without me. Thank you for listening in. Thank you for all the support over the years and take care.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you.