Hi, welcome all to our Balco Group reporting. First of all, I need to say that I need to apologize if I sometimes need to take a pause because I got a cold during the weekend, so... I hope it will be okay for the presentation; otherwise, I hand over to Michael. We start with some snapshot of Balco Group. Balco Group was founded 1987 and consists of several balcony and facade companies, and actually we made the latest acquisition here in January. It was Riikku Group, who's now also a member of Balco Group. The head office is in Växjö, and the group has, after the acquisition of Riikku, about 700 employees. Balco operates in two main segments: renovation and new build.
The core expertise is to supply glazed balconies and balcony solutions, primarily on the renovation market and to tenant owner associations. However, we also have a broad offering of balcony solutions, including both open and glazed balconies, and also facade renovations. Balco Group is a market leader in the Nordics, with key markets being Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and now also Finland. We also have a strong challenge position in the other Northern European markets. With a constant focus on energy savings, it is important to emphasize that all glazings of a balcony results in energy savings. Simpler glazing provides 5%-10% energy savings, while Balco's patented glazing provides a documented energy saving of 15%-30%. Facade renovations with additional insulation give energy savings up to 10%.
So that was a little bit about Balco Group, and now we go into the highlights for the quarter and also for the start of 2024, actually. Very happy to see that the order intake increased during the fourth quarter to, with 57%, SEK 295 million, versus previous year, 188. As expected, our sales were lower in the quarter, and it ended up at 290 versus 383. But this is, of course, also due to the lower order intake we had for the full year, 977 versus 1,109. I'm also very happy to say that we made a new acquisition here in the start of January.
We acquired the Finnish company, Riikku Group, and this acquisition strengthened our position in the Nordic countries and supports our overall strategy, and I will come back to about this and tell you a little bit more about Riikku. We continue to develop as a turnkey supplier and continue also to work with energy savings. During the past year, with all the challenges we have had, we have noticed that it's becoming more and more important for our customer category to have a turnkey supplier who can help them with all their renovation needs and also with energy savings. And we can see that our concept of becoming a complete turnkey supplier, adding also expertise in energy savings and financing, is delivering results.
We are also very happy to see that our LTIF, Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate, continues to fall from an already low level. Safety is always a priority for us, and especially in our type of business, we can never relax. We must and will always continue to work with it. We are seeing now better market conditions as inflation continues to fall and long-term interest rates have come down. Our customers are starting to talk about investments again. However, they have already received significant cost increases, and we have to continue to work with them on the financing of the project. So we still can see that the process is taking longer time than before the inflation and interest rates started to increase.
We continue to work with our customers to create the right products for them, and, by that, getting also the order intake, of course. We also continue to focus on our costs, and we constantly adapt our organization, to changes in our occupancy. But it's also important to say that we retain the key competence, so we are not damaging the business in the long term, and we are prepared also for even higher order intake ahead. So if we go and have a little bit look on Riikku, as we said, this is the largest acquisition in the history for Balco Group. They have sales of approximately EUR 40 million and about 200 employees. It was established in 2005 and is one of the two main balcony glazing suppliers in Finland.
The Finnish market has actually the highest level of balcony glazing in the world. Balco has a company there since 2015, Balco Oy, but we have not been able to succeed in the market as we have wanted. So we had actually, for quite a long time, had investigations and discussions because we know that we needed to do something about the Finnish market. We needed to have another platform. So therefore, I'm very happy to say that we now finally have been able to get an agreement with Riikku Group, and we have this platform to continue to develop the Finnish business. Riikku Group has a strong position in the new building segment in Finland, but the renovation segment is also growing for them, and we will, of course, continue to develop it.
We see great potential in the renovation market of the Finnish market, which also includes turnkey renovation projects, and there is also potential for Riikku products in other Balco markets. The head office is in Alavus, Finland, and they have sales offices in several Finnish cities, and they have subsidiaries in Finland, Sweden, and Norway. They have a well-invested production facility of 7,500 square meters in Alavus. We are also very pleased to see that the existing management team, with the CEO, Joakim Petersen-Dyggve, will continue to lead the company also here in the future. With this, I hand over to Michael.
Yeah, and I will go through a little bit the financials and start with the quarterly results. As Camilla mentioned, we've seen increased order intake, but the net sales amounted to SEK 290 million, down from SEK 383 million last year. For the full year, we amount the sales was SEK 1,215 million. Our adjusted operating margin, EBITDA margin, amounted to SEK 15 million, compared to thirty-four last year, corresponding to an operating adjusted margin of 5.3%, down from 8.9%. If we look at the full year, the EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA was SEK 90 million, with an adjusted operating margin of 7.4%, down from 8% the year before.
Order intake increased in the quarter by 57%, up to SEK 295 million, compared to SEK 188 million the year before, and for the full year, the order intake was SEK 977 million. Order backlog has decreased to SEK 200 million during the year, down to SEK 1,074 million. The earnings per share was SEK 0.30 in the quarter, and for the full year it was SEK 2.12 . Our operating cash flow was SEK 6 million in the quarter, and for the full year, SEK 4 million.
If we look at the next page, and have a look at the renovation segment, also here we've seen a good increase in order intake, and net sales in the quarter amounted to SEK 242 million, down from SEK 327 million the year before, and it was 83% of the total sales in the quarter. For the full year, it was 90% of the total sales. Order intake in the quarter increased by 95%, up to SEK 269 million, compared to SEK 138 million the year before, and it was 91% of the total order intake in the quarter. Adjusted operating profit, the EBITDA, in the quarter was SEK 12 million, compared to SEK 35 million the year before, with an adjusted operating margin of 4.9%.
Order backlog amounted to SEK 926 million at the end of the year, roughly SEK 200 million less than the year before, and it's 86% of our total order backlog. The next page, we see the new build segment. Here it's still challenging market conditions, especially up in the Nordics. Net sales in the quarter amounted to SEK 48 million, down from SEK 56 million the year before, and it was 17% of the total sales in the quarter. Order intake amounted to SEK 26 million, compared to SEK 50 million the year before. Our adjusted EBITDA profit was SEK 2 million, compared to SEK 3 million the year before, with a margin of 3.4%.
The order backlog is more or less the same as the year before, at SEK 148 million at the end of the year. Going to page eight and have a look at our financial position, we still have a healthy equity ratio and the balance sheet, and are still prepared for additional selective acquisitions. At the end of the quarter, the group's equity amounted to SEK 748 million, an increase from SEK 731 million the year before, and also the equity ratio improved to 69%, compared to 56% the year before. Our net debt, including leasing, divided by EBITDA, was 1.9%, and if we exclude leasing, it was 1.6%.
We have a banking agreement with Danske Bank that is valid to October 2026, with a sustainability link, the revolving credit facility of SEK 510 million, and an overdraft facility of SEK 75 million. So we still have unused money for additional acquisitions. If we have a look now on our financial targets on page nine, we have a group target that Balco should achieve 10% growth per year during a business cycle. Here the result was -9% during the year of 2023, compared to 2022. Profitability, we have a profitability target, but the earnings per share shall grow by 20% per year during business cycle. Here it was -23% in 2023 compared to 2022.
We also have a goal for our capital structure that the net debt divided by EBITDA shouldn't exceed 2.5% more than temporarily. And it's here the goal is set excluding leasing debt, and our result was 1.6%. We have also the dividend policy that Balco should distribute 30%-50% of profit after tax, but also taking in consideration needs for Balco's long-term growth and prevailing market conditions. And the board does not propose the dividend to the annual general meeting in order to finance the recent completed strategic acquisition of Riikku. And sustainability is a prerequisite for our long-term growth. And as Camilla mentioned, we continue to make good progress in reducing our work-related accidents.
The LTIF fell to 1.5% compared to 8.2%, and it's a very good result in the industry that we are working in. Also, our sickness rate improved in 2023 and fell to 3.7% compared to 4.2% the year before. As we mentioned in the quarter three report, we have committed to develop long and short-term targets for emission reduction targets, including net zero targets in line with the Science Based Targets initiative. Back to you, Camilla, with some market updates.
Going back a little bit to the market situation. As we said already in the Q3 report, activity is starting to pick up, and this was even more evident in quarter four, with a stabilizing of interest rates and also a falling inflation. But the process are still taking longer times than before, due to discussion with bank and potential advisors. So we still can see, so to say, that we are, we have a lot of discussion out on the market still. When it comes to the housing association in the Nordics, we have a unique sales model, where we can help and support the associations with these kind of discussions, and this is with the final expertise.
We have seen that we are using this for several kind of discussion. It's giving a good result, and it's also giving a good confidence for the customers to choose Balco as a supplier. We know that there is and will be a great need to renovate on not only balconies, but also the entire surface layer of apartment buildings. About 40% of our total energy consumption is used for heat things, and we have talked about that several times before, but we emphasize this again. We will and we can be a part to turn out this, to carry out these turnkey projects. Also, of course, with the acquisition of Riikku Group, we will become a major player in the Finnish market, and we will further develop it, the Riikku parts renovation segment.
And as we have said before, also, the postponed orders are not going away. They're all still there, and the need for renovation remains. At acquisitions, we made, actually, as we said before, the largest acquisition ever for the Balco Group history. But we, of course, continue to work with acquisitions, since acquisitions are an important part of Balco Group's growth strategy, and we are still looking for European balcony companies or companies with activities that can complement our green transformation product offering. They should be profitable, well-managed companies, and we want to have a business philosophy and culture within the line of Balco Group.
And we can offer them financial stability, we can offer them the collaboration and knowledge-sharing within our group, and we continue to work with the decentralized business model as we have had during the past. Yeah, some concluding remarks. The net sales in the quarter was 290 million SEK, and the adjusted EBITDA margin 5.3%. For the full year, it was just above SEK 1.2 billion and adjusted EBITDA margin of 7.4%. We see a very good development regarding the working accidents from an already low level. And of course, we want to highlight that we have made the acquisition of Riikku Group here in the start of quarter one.
We can also made as a conclusion here, we didn't put it here, but, we can also add on here that U.K. and Ireland continues to develop good. We had—we took, as you know, in quarter three. In quarter three, we took our first order to Ireland, and this market continues to develop good. The lower order intake the past year will affect our turnover and earnings in the coming year, and mainly the first half year. We continue to focus on our cost, but we also want to retain our key competencies so that we are well prepared for new orders ahead. We have several ongoing acquisitions, discussions, and we receive various prospects all the time.
You can see also that acquisition of Riikku Group shows that we follow our strategy to acquire companies which strengthen our market position in already existing markets. As we said before, we can also show interest to strengthen our green transformation offering or to look at balcony companies in new potential markets. Yeah, that was all from us, so some questions. Sorry again.
Thank you for that presentation. And like you said, now we'll open up for the Q&A section here. Either you can type in your question using the form, like, that's located to the right, or if you're calling in, please press star nine to raise your hand. And we'll begin with one question here.
How much EBITDA is the acquisition adding on a pro rata basis?
You mean the Riikku acquisition or what? We haven't communicated that, otherwise to the market, so I don't think we can say. But, we can we have said that our profitability is, lower than the Balco Group, but you can see that they are mainly in the new build segment, so their, profitability is roughly as, Balco Group's in within the new build segment.
Okay, thank you. We'll take the next question from the person calling in. Please go ahead. You have the word. Okay, we'll move on to the next question here instead.
Are you concerned about the net debt, given the weak cash flow from past quarters?
Yeah, that's correct, that we have had, the cash flow has not been very good. And it's depending, but we have a little bit too low order backlog, and that's the reason that we start to work on projects in advance, a little bit in advance. But it's also that we want to be faster on the projects to shorten the time from we get an order until it's finished. So it's partly in our strategy, but it's also due to that we have a little bit too low order backlog for the total capacity that we have in the group for the moment.
Okay, thank you. We'll take the next question here.
Relatively strong order intake. Are there major difference in segments and geography, and do you see any common themes here?
We can see that, but it, it's improved, again, that we are very glad in Sweden, and in the renovation segment in Sweden, that is normally our most profitable part of our business, so it's very positive. And we continue to see strong order intake also in U.K., as Camilla also mentioned, but the U.K. is still developing very well, so it's mostly Sweden and U.K.
Okay, thank you. And, we've got another person calling in, asking for a question. Please go ahead. You have the word.
Right. Thank you. This is Sofia Sörling from Carnegie. Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Yes.
Hello, Sofia.
Oh, great. Hello. Thank you.
Hello.
Yes. So, my first question, just on this order intake in Q4, could you give us the split between organic and acquired orders?
It's more or less all organic because the part that was acquired is an entity that is now totally included in Balco AB. So they are from now on just working as a subcontractor to Balco AB for the assembly part. So it's, I would say, everything organic in the order intake.
Okay. Yes. Thank you. And then, if you could, again, just give some more details on the main reasons for the lower profitability, both in renovation, new- and the new build segment. You mentioned more about, you mentioned about, like, overcapacity. Maybe if you could, also give some details on the current utilization rate and also what utilization rate or necessary volumes you need to more or less meet the steady state, adjusted EBITDA, in your view.
Capacity when it comes to production, I would say that we could almost more at least increase by 50%, perhaps even double production. So we have a really lot of capacity in production. Of course, we don't have that-
Not-
... number of personnel today, but the plants-
Yeah
- are-
Yeah
enough to do that.
Yeah.
Then,
Okay
... we still have also, on, operations side, some overcapacity, but it's not, it's perhaps, yeah, 10%-20%. I don't know exactly-
More or less, yeah.
... but something like that- ... when it comes to personnel. It's one reason why we start early on projects and not really following the normal payment plans, so that we work a little bit ahead of the payment plans we have towards customers.
But what is mainly what you have seen on the... Sorry. I'll try to say what you have seen, so to say, when you talk about profitability, there is also, of course, that when you look at it... when the revenue is coming from other markets than especially Sweden and Norway, you can see that then the margins goes down, and there is a lower margin on these markets.
So as we said, we have had a very good development on the UK market, but the UK market has lower margins as well as- ... the German market. So that is more or less. So when we can see that the order intakes continues to increase, we have seen it has increased quarter four, but it continue to do that, and we can get in more and more orders from renovation market, especially in the Nordic regions. Then- ... also, of course, you will have a better profitability.
All right. Yeah. Okay. And could you say anything about the order trend? Has it accelerated during the later part of the quarter or... And also, if you can say something about, have you seen any cancellation of orders, or is this a net effect of both new orders and cancellation of orders? Or, yeah, if you can say anything about the trends in orders among your customers.
I would not say that it was not, so to say, that you see a big jump, so to say, from one month to another. But, but, as we said already, we noticed already, quarter three, that there was a different, so to say, activities on the market. There were some different signals in the market, and, and that was depending on that. Then people started to believe, that the interest rates, yeah, probably one more increase, they thought, after summer, but maybe not so much more.
And, and then we can see when, when that was actually delivered, the optimism that started after, holiday, season actually continued. So I would say it was a, a little bit, so to say, small steps, and then, of course, it, it takes one month to another. When we are working with projects, you can never estimate, so to say, because it's depending on when you have the voting, et cetera, and get the signatures on the orders. But I would say we have seen a slow improvement for the whole autumn period.
Okay, that's great. And just my final question, in your own words, what do you see as, like, main focus now into 2024 for Balco?
The main focus is, of course, the order intake. That it is important for us to continue and to focus on the order intake because we, we need it. Then, of course, the second one is also, when I say I would not rank them, but order intake is, of course, priority number one. But then we also have the acquisition to develop now- ... the Riikku Group acquisition and, to see the synergies we have there.
We know- ... about renovation market. We can develop them within that segment. They are very, very good in the new building segment. We know there is a challenge right now, maybe in the new building segment in Sweden, but that will come back. So that is, of course, very important for us to continue to work with the acquisitions. And then, the third one is to continue to focus on the costs.
Yeah. All right. Okay. Thank you so much. No further questions.
Okay, and we'll take the next question here, coming in from a viewer.
"Regarding the gross margin, which is at an all-time low, even after adjustments for one-offs, what would it take to get it back to the historical average of 24%? And are there any fundamental reasons why the historic average is not a suitable comparison, for example, changes in mixed space and acquisitions, customer products, or geography, et cetera?
Yeah, it's exactly like that, because the acquisitions we have done lately, if we see all other companies from the old Balco AB, so to speak, has much lower gross margin than, especially Balco AB, Sweden, and Norway, that has absolutely the highest one. They have another kind of structure in their companies, more operations personnel and production personnel, much less sales costs, and administration costs. So, coming back to 24%, I would say, will be very tough, because now we're also adding another company. Riikku also have another cost structure, so also they will, of course, affect the future gross margin. So we ourselves focus more on EBIT margin than gross margin because it's the total, of course, bottom line result that is most important to improve.
Okay, thank you. Let's take the next question here:
"Regarding Riikku, based on the public information, the EBIT margin appears to be at or below 3%, for the last two years, in spite of record high turnover. What has the historic EBIT margin been in Riikku prior to 2022, and what do you reckon to be a normalized margin for the company?
It's been, of course, a little bit up and down, but they have had two tough years before this one, so that's absolutely right. They had a very good year ending on March 2021, so they had financial year from April to March before. And we think that the normalized level is on our level of new build segment.
Thank you.
And could you also talk a bit about the differences between Riikku and Balco, where, customers, new build exposure, cyclical exposure, et cetera? And will the majority of its revenue be booked under the new build segment or separately as a new segment?
It will be booked under the new build. Sorry, it's better now, Michael. Sorry.
We will not have a new segment for Riikku. It will be booked on a new build and renovation, and as it has been historically, they have been roughly 90% in the new build segment. So of course, main part will be in the new build segment. What questions do we have now again?
Can you talk about the differences between Riikku and Balco?
Customers.
Yeah, they mostly, they are very rarely turnkey supplier, but is the main part of the Riikku of Balco. So Riikku normally work towards building and other building companies. So, their main customers is building companies, and not as we are, like, tenant-owned associations and so on. So, it's very few, but there are tenant-owned associations or direct customers, like private landlords and so on. So it's really main part is building companies.
Okay, thank you.
Is the Riikku figures included in the order intake and backlog? And if not, how much does the acquisition impact the backlog?
That was us.
It's not included, of course, because this is December figures, end of December. They were not part of the Balco Group at the end of December. It will be included in the next financial report in Q1.
Thank you.
And can you give some specific figures on the operating margin and profit margin of Riikku?
Yeah, as we mentioned, it's roughly as our new build segment.
Thank you. We'll take the next question here.
You write that you, "We have a continued cost focus to defend our margins and adapt the organization based on changes in occupancy and order intake." Could you elaborate on this?
We have made, we have made reductions in several companies also during quarter four, depending on the workload in the plants. So, we are doing that all the time. Then, as we, I also say that we, we also are very... We, we really want to keep the key competence in the companies, because if you look, for example, from project managers, you look on designers, if you look for a good project manager, you have, so to say, time for educating them more than one year. And as we see that we are believing in our future and believing in coming order intake, we are very, we, we really would like, we are really, so to say, holding on to our project managers.
Thank you. We'll take one final question here:
What is a good gross margin level for Balco Group after all, all the acquisitions?
Uh, what's-
Yeah, as we mentioned, we don't really focus on just gross margin level. Our EBIT margin level should-
Yes
... come back, and, long term, we want our adjusted EBITDA margin to be, two-digit figures-
Yeah
... back again.
Okay. Thank you very much, Camilla and Michael, for presenting and answering all our questions. Also thank you to everyone who followed along for Balco Group's year-end report for 2023. Hope you have a great rest of the day, and until next time, thank you very much, and goodbye.
Hey, thank you, all.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Bye-bye.