Welcome to the Beijer Alma Q4 2024 report presentation. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing #5 on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to the speakers, CEO Henrik Perbeck and CFO Johan Dufvenmark. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our webcast, where we will be presenting the fourth quarter of 2024. I am Henrik Perbeck, and with me I have our CFO, Johan Dufvenmark.
Good morning, everybody.
As it has been announced, this is the last time Johan and I will present in such a call. Next time, Acting CEO Johnny Alvarsson will be here instead of us. So today we will present the overall performance and recent developments of the group. And in addition, of course, we will discuss our reporting segments, our two main subsidiaries. These are Lesjöfors, which is a full-range supplier of standard and customized industrial springs and other wire and flat strip components. Lesjöfors is acting globally, with the majority of sales in Europe and the USA. And it is BeijerTech, our second subsidiary, which acts mainly in the Nordics, within specialized manufacturing, value-adding industrial trading, and automation in profitable niches. BeijerTech is also a platform for acquisitions into new industrial niches for our group. So I have a new system here running. Sorry.
Okay, so today we present what I think is overall a fairly good Q4 report in today's economy and where we managed to grow organically as a group. Industrial economy and the cycle has remained weak in the final quarter of the year. Nevertheless, the group grew organically. Overall, you could say that demand was stable, but it was quite varied across the group's diversified customer base. For example, the group's operations in Asia have continued to improve and delivered good growth. Also, the key Nordic market has weathered a weak economic climate well and also supported in the U.K. and the U.S. markets. Whereas I would say, as usual, Central Europe remains weak, and in particular, of course, Germany. If we're going, yeah, in Lesjöfors, the mixed demand picture is the same, but we do have organic growth in order bookings, which is positive.
The chassis spring business area, which you probably know, has a low- season now late in the year. Still, with that in mind, it ended the quarter in a stronger note and came in nearly on par with quite tough comparable figures from last year in the quarter. In the industrial segment for Lesjöfors, as I said, Asia, but also Nordics contributed with profitable growth. In the U.S., we also have good development in industrial segments, somewhat lower volumes in the medical technology segment. German demand from Lesjöfors customers remains weak, but this, of course, also has an impact on companies in the rest of Central Europe. And we have further savings implemented in units concerned.
In particular, I should point out here that Alcomex, which is one of our Lesjöfors big daughter companies, they operate in the industrial segment in Central Europe in particular, and also, of course, have a strong position in the door- spring market, which is exposed to the continued weak construction industry in a way, indirectly. So that has been challenging for Alcomex in the end of this year. Moving over to BeijerTech, demand overall stable, but also here a little bit varied across the business, but overall good growth in order bookings and also organically. If we look at the different parts of BeijerTech in fluid technology, it was basically thanks to acquisition the growth came from. We have the ABS in Finland and Brissmans Brandredskap here in Sweden as new acquisitions. In industrial products, here is a mixed picture.
Weakest in Finland, followed by Sweden and Denmark, but whereas the Norwegian market stands out positively and with good growth, both organically and also actually through acquisition of Klemco. The new business area, Niche Technologies, grew this quarter organically, and despite tough comps, and is exposed more to non-cyclical markets, of course. So two acquisitions came into the books during the quarter. First, it was Lacroix, which I mentioned already last call, of course. It was closed in the first of October. And also Brissmans Brandredskap came into our group in November into BeijerTech. I will come back to these acquisitions and comment a little bit more later in the presentation. So with this report, I think we conclude 2024 in a good way. As a matter of fact, for the fourth year in a row, we achieved the highest operational result to date.
Moving on a little bit to the financial performance. Looking at, we can see that order bookings increased overall by 10% and 6% organically. Net revenues also grew by 8% in total and 3% organically. That means that the adjusted operating profit came in at SEK 220 million and an operating margin of 12.1% for the group, which is up 1.7 points versus last year. Okay, the comps from last year were not the toughest, but still, I think this is a good improvement in this environment. Now going in a little bit more into the detail to our segments, starting with Lesjöfors. Lesjöfors, our spring manufacturer, is organized into two business areas. These are industry with mainly customized products to a very diversified customer base globally.
The other business area is chassis springs, and these are standardized replacement springs sold to car parts wholesalers, mainly in Europe. So for Lesjöfors, order bookings increased somewhat by 4% and also 4% organically, since we have some negative impact from acquisitions and divestitures, but some positive impact from currency and netting out to zero. In the net revenue, increased by 6%, where 5% was organically up. So in the industrial segment, the largest business area, especially now in Q4, as you can see bottom right, where the chassis spring has a bit of a low season. So the main part is the industrial area. Growth was 8%, and as mentioned, strongest from Asia and Nordics, but also U.K. and parts of the U.S. And whereas Central Europe and Germany was weaker.
As mentioned, yeah, we had an impact there, especially in Alcomex, which is active both in Central Europe and also in the door spring business. Several actions have been taken to restore profitability. Actually, a further note on this is that in the beginning of January, after the quarter, we have also acquired the minority stake in that company in order to further enable other actions. That's on the industrial side. For the chassis springs, I mentioned Q4 is a bit of a low season every year, but nevertheless, finished the end of the quarter well. Some markets, some key markets, such as UK, still soft, but this was compensated by some Eastern European markets, for example. A good mix. For Lesjöfors, operating profit, adjusted operating profit increased to SEK 165 million with an adjusted EBIT margin of 13.7%. Moving over to BeijerTech.
So BeijerTech, since the beginning of this year, last year, 2024, operating in three business areas. Fluid technology and industrial products are both acting within industrial trading and manufacturing, and the third business area we call niche technologies, which includes companies with strong market positions in various industrial niches, such as building automation, waste management, specialized replacement parts, components, and machinery. Typically, these companies have other market drivers than general industrial demand in niche technologies.
So in Q4, order bookings increased by 21% in BeijerTech and 11% organically. So good ending there. Net revenue increased by 10% with a small 2% organically decline. Within the business area, industrial products, demand was overall a bit weaker, and revenues increased thanks to the acquisition that came in, Klemco. Still, it varied a lot. Norway continued strongly, including the new company Klemco, which is acting in Norway.
As mentioned before, Finland is what we see is the softest market, whereas Sweden and Denmark is somewhere in between. Fluid technology grew by 22% thanks to the acquisitions, ABS and also Brissmans in Q4. Niche technologies, we're happy to see that this area could beat its good comps from last year and grew by 5%, which is mainly organic. BeijerTech came in with a good Q4 quarterly result of 68 million SEK with an operating margin around 11%. Now I will hand over to Johan for some more comments on the financials.
Thank you, Henrik. Let's take a look into these financials. As mentioned, the net revenue has increased. It is up 129 million SEK. Acquisitions together with divestments contributed with 56 million SEK. The divestment mentioned was the German company Stumpf, which was sold in December 2023. The organic growth was 48 million, corresponding to almost 3%. Lesjöfors had an organic growth of 5%, and for BeijerTech, it was minus 2%, as Henrik mentioned. The revenue was also affected by currency effect of 24 million SEK. Order bookings increased with 164 million to 1,874. The change was mostly organic, plus 6%, where BeijerTech's organic growth was 11%. The organic growth from Lesjöfors was 4%, and the growth from acquisition was 2%, affected by the divestment last year.
Let's go to the next slide. Here we take a look on the segments and how they contribute to the revenue and operating result. As we saw in the previous slide, net revenue increased with 121 million SEK to 1,823 million SEK. Lesjöfors revenue increased with 73 million SEK, related to good sales in the Nordics, Asia, and parts of Central Europe, but to some extent with easy comparisons.
BeijerTech's revenue increased mainly related to this year's acquisitions. Adjusted operating profit was 220 million SEK in the fourth quarter. Lesjöfors had a large increase in adjusted operating profit related to most areas, with the exception of Alcomex, which was challenged both in the industrial part of Alcomex and as well in the door spring business. In BeijerTech, we saw a good contribution from this year's acquisitions, while the market is more challenging for industrial products. Still, that business area performed relatively well.
Overall, the fourth quarter was strong in most areas, and adjusted operating margin improved both for Lesjöfors and BeijerTech. Now to some of the key financial ratios. Adjusted EBITDA is up 50 million compared to last year, the difference to adjusted EBIT being higher depreciation following a number of acquisitions. The full year EBITDA surpassed 1 billion SEK and landed on 1,002 million SEK.
Cash flow after capital expenditure was positive, SEK 128 million, in line with last year, but with some smaller negative impact from increased working capital. Net debt is higher than last year, which is mainly related to this year's acquisitions. And here we actually have a question from the chat, and it asks us, you know, why is the long-term debt increasing and the short-term debt not increasing as much? And kind of the reason for that is the increased overall net debt rather than a change. But of course, we try to find a good balance between long and short-term debt, and that is something we continue to do as well. The finance net, also in this question actually, the finance net is less negative compared to last year.
It increased, actually is less negative with SEK 22 million, which was related both to lower base interest rates as well as no discounting effect from John Evans' Sons' earnout. The finance net for the full year was SEK 27 million, less negative than last year. And of course, the biggest effect then was in Q4, and as I said, lower base interest rates and less discounting effect from earnouts. And since we are standing here in the end of the year, we also would like to conclude the full year performance of Beijer Alma when it comes to financials. And it has been a year of uncertainty in the world around us and with slow markets, especially in some parts of Europe. Despite this, we have an overall organic growth in the revenue of 3%.
In this slide, we can see that Lesjöfors has grown some in revenue, which was related to organic growth as acquisitions and divestments together were slightly negative in growth. For BeijerTech, growth from acquisitions was 12%, and it makes up most of the increase of SEK 263 million. Overall, it was once again a record year for BeijerTech thanks to successful acquisitions on top of a healthy underlying business, a stable performance from Lesjöfors chassis, Lesjöfors industrial springs in the Nordics, U.S., U.K., and Asia. We saw also a good development for the medical segments in many markets. Adjusted operating result grew by 7%, whereas the margin as well increased to 12.8%, and as well, when the year has come to an end, we usually talk about the dividend.
For the year 2024, the board of Beijer Alma proposes to the annual general meeting a dividend of SEK 395 per share, which corresponds to 33% of the profit. This is in line with their dividend policy and their continued focus on acquisition growth. Thank you, and back to Henrik for a look on acquisitions and some final remarks.
Thank you, Johan. So, before concluding, I would like to highlight a little bit what happens in terms of acquisitions in the quarter. Firstly, as we did discuss already in last call, Lesjöfors acquired Lacroix from 1st of October. It's a French industrial spring manufacturer with high technology specialization. And, during the first quarter, Lacroix has become an active part of our group and takes the role of our platform in France, which is a key European market with a potential for cross-sales of the Lesjöfors group's broad product portfolio. It's a good start. Later in the quarter, we were happy to welcome Brissmans Brandredskap to BeijerTech. It's a company we know since many years as a business partner. And, together with our existing firehose production, the product range within firefighting equipment adds very well to our offering. So, welcome to the team at Brissmans.
With these two latest acquisitions, we continue our strategy to further grow inorganically. And looking at this picture, which I've shown you many times, it's also a chance for me to conclude personally on our achievements during these years. So what we list here is 27 acquisitions bringing in or having brought in around SEK 2.7 billion in turnover for a group with good profitability. And of course, in addition, not seen on the slide, but we have also divested three companies, Habia Cable in 2022, and also two of the German Lesjöfors companies. On the right, you can see a list of logotypes. And of course, for me, each single one of these logotypes represents a talented, hardworking team of good people that I know personally. The companies have a strong product offering on markets where Beijer Alma wants to be present long-term.
These companies have strengthened Beijer Alma significantly, and already they are an important contributor to our organic growth. Some short concluding remarks on the quarter. Once again, healthy organic growth in a weak economy. For Lesjöfors, mixed demand, but overall organic growth in order bookings, with the best growth or most growth coming from Asia and Nordics, supported by UK and US industrial, and lower volumes in Germany and Central Europe. Positively, the chassis springs picked up during the fourth quarter again. For BeijerTech, growth driven by acquisitions in fluid technology and industrial products and organic growth in niche technologies.
Welcome to the Beijer Alma Q4 2024 report presentation. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing #5 on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to the speakers, CEO Henrik Perbeck and CFO Johan Dufvenmark. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our webcast, where we will be presenting the fourth quarter of 2024. I am Henrik Perbeck, and with me I have our CFO, Johan Dufvenmark.
Good morning, everybody.
As it has been announced, this is the last time Johan and I will present in such a call. Next time, Acting CEO Johnny Alvarsson will be here instead of us. So today we will present the overall performance and recent developments of the group. And in addition, of course, we will discuss our reporting segments, our two main subsidiaries. These are Lesjöfors, which is a full-range supplier of standard and customized industrial springs and other wire and flat strip components. Lesjöfors is acting globally, with the majority of sales in Europe and the USA. And it is BeijerTech, our second subsidiary, which acts mainly in the Nordics, within specialized manufacturing, value-adding industrial trading, and automation in profitable niches. BeijerTech is also a platform for acquisitions into new industrial niches for our group. So I have a new system here running. Sorry.
Okay, so today we present what I think is overall a fairly good Q4 report in today's economy and where we managed to grow organically as a group. Industrial economy and the cycle has remained weak in the final quarter of the year. Nevertheless, the group grew organically. Overall, you could say that demand was stable, but it was quite varied across the group's diversified customer base. For example, the group's operations in Asia have continued to improve and delivered good growth. Also, the key Nordic market has weathered a weak economic climate well and also supported in the U.K. and the U.S. markets. Whereas I would say, as usual, Central Europe remains weak, and in particular, of course, Germany. If we're going, yeah, in Lesjöfors, the mixed demand picture is the same, but we do have organic growth in order bookings, which is positive.
The chassis spring business area, which you probably know, has a low season now late in the year. Still, with that in mind, it ended the quarter in a stronger note and came in nearly on par with quite tough comparable figures from last year in the quarter. In the industrial segment for Lesjöfors, as I said, Asia, but also Nordics contributed with profitable growth. In the U.S., we also have good development in industrial segments, somewhat lower volumes in the medical technology segment. German demand from Lesjöfors customers remains weak, but this, of course, also has an impact on companies in the rest of Central Europe. And we have further savings implemented in units concerned.
In particular, I should point out here that Alcomex, which is one of our Lesjöfors big daughter companies, they operate in the industrial segment in Central Europe in particular, and also, of course, have a strong position in the door spring market, which is exposed to the continued weak construction industry in a way, indirectly. So that has been challenging for Alcomex in the end of this year. Moving over to Beijer, demand overall stable, but also here a little bit varied across the business, but overall good growth in order bookings and also organically. If we look at the different parts of Beijer in fluid technology, it was basically thanks to acquisition the growth came from. We have the A.B.S. in Finland and Brissmans Brandredskap here in Sweden as new acquisitions. In industrial products, here is a mixed picture.
Weakest in Finland, followed by Sweden and Denmark, but whereas the Norwegian market stands out positively and with good growth, both organically and also actually through acquisition of Klemco. The new business area, niche technologies, grew this quarter organically, and despite tough comps, and is exposed more to non-cyclical markets, of course. So two acquisitions came into the books during the quarter. First, it was Lacroix, which I mentioned already last call, of course. It was closed in the first of October. And also Brissmans Brandredskap came into our group in November into BeijerTech. I will come back to these acquisitions and comment a little bit more later in the presentation. So with this report, I think we conclude 2024 in a good way. As a matter of fact, for the fourth year in a row, we achieved the highest operational result to date.
Moving on a little bit to the financial performance. Looking at, we can see that order bookings increased overall by 10% and 6% organically. Net revenues also grew by 8% in total and 3% organically. That means that the adjusted operating profit came in at SEK 220 million and an operating margin of 12.1% for the group, which is up 1.7 points versus last year. Okay, the comps from last year were not the toughest, but still, I think this is a good improvement in this environment. Now going in a little bit more into the detail to our segments, starting with Lesjöfors. Lesjöfors, our spring manufacturer, is organized into two business areas. These are industry with mainly customized products to a very diversified customer base globally.
The other business area is chassis springs, and these are standardized replacement springs sold to car parts wholesalers, mainly in Europe. So for Lesjöfors, order bookings increased somewhat by 4% and also 4% organically, since we have some negative impact from acquisitions and divestitures, but some positive impact from currency and netting out to zero. In the net revenue, increased by 6%, where 5% was organically up. So in the industrial segment, the largest business area, especially now in Q4, as you can see bottom right, where the chassis spring has a bit of a low season. So the main part is the industrial area. Growth was 8%, and as mentioned, strongest from Asia and Nordics, but also U.K. and parts of the U.S. And whereas Central Europe and Germany was weaker.
As mentioned, yeah, we had an impact there, especially in Alcomex, which is active both in Central Europe and also in the door spring business. Several actions have been taken to restore profitability. Actually, a further note on this is that in the beginning of January, after the quarter, we have also acquired the minority stake in that company in order to further enable other actions. That's on the industrial side. For the chassis springs, I mentioned Q4 is a bit of a low season every year, but nevertheless, finished the end of the quarter well. Some markets, some key markets, such as UK, still soft, but this was compensated by some Eastern European markets, for example. A good mix. For Lesjöfors, operating profit, adjusted operating profit increased to SEK 165 million with an adjusted EBIT margin of 13.7%. Moving over to BeijerTech.
So BeijerTech, since the beginning of this year, last year, 2024, operating in three business areas. Fluid technology and industrial products are both acting within industrial trading and manufacturing, and the third business area we call niche technologies, which includes companies with strong market positions in various industrial niches, such as building automation, waste management, specialized replacement parts, components, and machinery. Typically, these companies have other market drivers than general industrial demand in niche technologies.
So in Q4, order bookings increased by 21% in BeijerTech and 11% organically. So good ending there. Net revenue increased by 10% with a small 2% organically decline. Within the business area, industrial products, demand was overall a bit weaker, and revenues increased thanks to the acquisition that came in, Klemco. Still, it varied a lot. Norway continued strongly, including the new company Klemco, which is acting in Norway.
As mentioned before, Finland is what we see is the softest market, whereas Sweden and Denmark is somewhere in between. Fluid technology grew by 22% thanks to the acquisitions, ABS and also Brissmans in Q4. Niche technologies, we're happy to see that this area could beat its good comps from last year and grew by 5%, which is mainly organic. BeijerTech came in with a good Q4 quarterly result of 68 million SEK with an operating margin around 11%. Now I will hand over to Johan for some more comments on the financials.
Thank you, Henrik. Let's take a look into these financials. As mentioned, the net revenue has increased. It is up 129 million SEK. Acquisitions together with divestments contributed with 56 million SEK. The divestment mentioned was the German company Stumpf, which was sold in December 2023. The organic growth was 48 million, corresponding to almost 3%. Lesjöfors had an organic growth of 5%, and for BeijerTech, it was minus 2%, as Henrik mentioned. The revenue was also affected by currency effect of 24 million SEK. Order bookings increased with 164 million to 1,874. The change was mostly organic, plus 6%, where BeijerTech's organic growth was 11%. The organic growth from Lesjöfors was 4%, and the growth from acquisition was 2%, affected by the divestment last year.
Let's go to the next slide. Here we take a look on the segments and how they contribute to the revenue and operating result. As we saw in the previous slide, net revenue increased with 121 million SEK to 1,823 million SEK. Lesjöfors revenue increased with 73 million SEK, related to good sales in the Nordics, Asia, and parts of Central Europe, but to some extent with easy comparisons.
BeijerTech's revenue increased mainly related to this year's acquisitions. Adjusted operating profit was 220 million SEK in the fourth quarter. Lesjöfors had a large increase in adjusted operating profit related to most areas, with the exception of Alcomex, which was challenged both in the industrial part of Alcomex and as well in the door spring business. In BeijerTech, we saw a good contribution from this year's acquisitions, while the market is more challenging for industrial products. Still, that business area performed relatively well.
Overall, the fourth quarter was strong in most areas, and adjusted operating margin improved both for Lesjöfors and BeijerTech. Now to some of the key financial ratios. Adjusted EBITDA is up 50 million compared to last year, the difference to adjusted EBIT being higher depreciation following a number of acquisitions. The full year EBITDA surpassed 1 billion SEK and landed on 1,002 million SEK.
Cash flow after capital expenditure was positive, SEK 128 million, in line with last year, but with some smaller negative impact from increased working capital. Net debt is higher than last year, which is mainly related to this year's acquisitions. And here we actually have a question from the chat, and it asks us, you know, why is the long-term debt increasing and the short-term debt not increasing as much? And kind of the reason for that is the increased overall net debt rather than a change. But of course, we try to find a good balance between long and short-term debt, and that is something we continue to do as well. The finance net, also in this question actually, the finance net is less negative compared to last year.
It increased, actually is less negative with SEK 22 million, which was related both to lower base interest rates as well as no discounting effect from John Evans' Sons' earnout. The finance net for the full year was SEK 27 million, less negative than last year. And of course, the biggest effect then was in Q4, and as I said, lower base interest rates and less discounting effect from earnouts. And since we are standing here in the end of the year, we also would like to conclude the full year performance of Beijer Alma when it comes to financials. And it has been a year of uncertainty in the world around us and with slow markets, especially in some parts of Europe. Despite this, we have an overall organic growth in the revenue of 3%.
In this slide, we can see that Lesjöfors has grown some in revenue, which was related to organic growth as acquisitions and divestments together were slightly negative in growth. For BeijerTech, growth from acquisitions was 12%, and it makes up most of the increase of SEK 263 million. Overall, it was once again a record year for BeijerTech thanks to successful acquisitions on top of a healthy underlying business, a stable performance from Lesjöfors chassis, Lesjöfors industrial springs in the Nordics, U.S., U.K., and Asia. We saw also a good development for the medical segments in many markets. Adjusted operating result grew by 7%, whereas the margin as well increased to 12.8%, and as well, when the year has come to an end, we usually talk about the dividend.
For the year 2024, the board of Beijer Alma proposes to the annual general meeting a dividend of SEK 395 per share, which corresponds to 33% of the profit. This is in line with their dividend policy and their continued focus on acquisition growth. Thank you, and back to Henrik for a look on acquisitions and some final remarks.
Thank you, Johan. So, before concluding, I would like to highlight a little bit what happens in terms of acquisitions in the quarter. Firstly, as we did discuss already in last call, Lesjöfors acquired Lacroix from 1st of October. It's a French industrial spring manufacturer with high technology specialization. And, during the first quarter, Lacroix has become an active part of our group and takes the role of our platform in France, which is a key European market with a potential for cross-sales of the Lesjöfors group's broad product portfolio. It's a good start. Later in the quarter, we were happy to welcome Brissmans Brandredskap to BeijerTech. It's a company we know since many years as a business partner. And, together with our existing firehose production, the product range within firefighting equipment adds very well to our offering. So, welcome to the team at Brissmans.
With these two latest acquisitions, we continue our strategy to further grow inorganically. And looking at this picture, which I've shown you many times, it's also a chance for me to conclude personally on our achievements during these years. So what we list here is 27 acquisitions bringing in or having brought in around SEK 2.7 billion in turnover for a group with good profitability. And of course, in addition, not seen on the slide, but we have also divested three companies, Habia Cable in 2022, and also two of the German Lesjöfors companies. On the right, you can see a list of logotypes. And of course, for me, each single one of these logotypes represents a talented, hardworking team of good people that I know personally. The companies have a strong product offering on markets where Beijer Alma wants to be present long-term.
These companies have strengthened Beijer Alma significantly, and already they are an important contributor to our organic growth. Some short concluding remarks on the quarter. Once again, healthy organic growth in a weak economy. For Lesjöfors, mixed demand, but overall organic growth in order bookings, with the best growth or most growth coming from Asia and Nordics, supported by UK and US industrial, and lower volumes in Germany and Central Europe. Positively, the chassis springs picked up during the fourth quarter again. For BeijerTech, growth driven by acquisitions in fluid technology and industrial products and organic growth in niche technologies.
One new acquisition announced, Brissmans Brandredskap. Finally, of course, we also note that we do change management and a new CEO. As of 1st of April, we will have an interim CEO with Johnny Alvarsson. So with that, I thank you for your attention today and over the years. And of course, now we are open for questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Karl Ragnarstam from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Good morning. It's Karl here from Nordea. A couple of questions from my side. Firstly, I think you mentioned that Alcomex continues to face both seemingly challenging end market as well as the US expansion burden, right? So firstly, if we look into core business Europe, how did the underlying margin perform either year-over-year or this quarter? So we could get a sense of what is happening underlying. And also secondly, looking into the US expansion, could you talk a bit about what you achieved so far and what the plan is sort of short, midterm, and also the EBIT bridge and timeframe towards profitability in the US? Thanks.
Morning, Karl. So your question related to Alcomex. And as mentioned, they are in two market segments that have a challenging macro environment, both the Central European industrial demand and the door springs specifically. And as you point out, we mentioned also we have started our business for Alcomex in the US. Still, during this first period, it is not contributing positively to the overall profitability. And the timeframe for that is certainly, as we speak, to move into profitability in that business. It has been faced with some startup challenges, building the stocks and such. But as we, all in all, although we don't break out the exact numbers, Alcomex is not contributing this quarter to the Lesjöfors profitability.
And of course, there are, as mentioned, several actions being taken. And this also on the backdrop that we now have acquired the last minority stake in the company. So we can see, or already we have implemented a closer cooperation and organization with our European management in Lesjöfors. So it's a task ongoing as we speak to restore profitability in a good way. But having said that, they are, of course, in the markets where tougher macro conditions.
And you touched upon it, you bought a minority stake. To what extent did the minority stake hinder you to drive various efficiency measures? Because I guess they also want to have better profitability, right?
Sure, of course. So if we look a little bit generally on the way we are a very decentralized group, first of all, which both from acquisitions, but also in our existing companies, the key structure is the local management and what we can achieve with that. When you do have sort of, as we do in certain companies, minorities that in a way limits certain actions, of course, that are if we look at integrating parts and moving around parts of the business, that would be in general what is hindered.
In many of the, what should we say, in the BeijerTech companies, it's very rarely that there are any of these kind of initiatives on the plate anyway. But as I said now, in this situation where we have a strong or significant operation in Lesjöfors in Europe, we're now turning every stone and to find a good setup for the future together with the Alcomex companies.
Okay, perfect and coming back once again to Alcomex here, I can recall, I mean, the conf call in March last year, or, sorry, I think it was April when we discussed Alcomex being loss-making, then it seemingly turned into profitability and now it's back at losses again. Is it the market getting worse, or is it U.S. being the main driver behind the volatility between the quarters, or is it low season? Just so I get a sense of where we're heading there, because it's seemingly a bit volatile, right?
I think the summary you made in terms of timing is partly the case. We have, during the whole last year, worked with a focus on the core business and improving profitability. At the same time, the volumes in the U.S. business came back, started coming in in the autumn. And as we mentioned last call, there were some startup phasing during the whole autumn up until the end of the year. So that is a combination of that. Having said that, also the markets are certainly not better, for we don't see any pickup in the, for example, in the macro around the door spring business. So it's a combination. And we continue to, or we have, as we stated, launched further initiatives and we'll work hard on this as we speak.
In the U.S., coming back to it, sorry for being into details, but if we look into the U.S., is it a volume issue that you have too low volumes in the production? Is it that you are learning machinery, production machinery? Is it the supply chain? What is sort of the issue in the U.S.?
So basically, we're setting up a business and it's been mainly related to supply chain and keeping the right product range on stock for the local market. So that's mainly what it's related to.
And do you expect it to be resolved here in the coming one or two quarters, or is it more of a year or?
It is our ambition to resolve it. We are working to resolve it as we speak, but certainly with a focus on the next two quarters.
Okay, so Q1 maybe not the full impact, but Q2 then instead, I guess, because we're in mid.
That's a good assumption.
Good assumption as anyone, yes.
Okay, very good. And also you mentioned chassis springs, so a good end of the year. Would you say that it's sell-in or sell-out driven or a combination perhaps?
To be fair, hard to say. It is low season, as you know, and if you look at the numbers, the absolute numbers are not that high in Q4. The main focus for our business, for our operations in Q4, is also getting ready for the high season, which starts now soon. So I just wanted to sort of point out that we've had a trend since Q2 and Q3, we had a trend where we were behind last year's numbers. Now we were more on target this quarter.
And in particular, just to give you a little bit of dynamics, we saw a little bit of improvement in the end. It's still the high season is where the big volumes are. You cannot really say it's a trend into the new quarter as such, but it's a good, it was good news at least. That's what we wanted to bring up. So it's not really sell-in or sell-out at this point. All customers start building up stock now in Q1 and of course then sell a lot in Q2. So we're ready for that.
Okay. Okay, fair enough. And the final one from my side is on BeijerTech here, order intake up, or is it 11% organically? I know it's a lot of, of course, book and bill, meaning that is delivered during the same quarter, but what reads should we draw from the quite strong orders?
I think the first thing you should draw is just that it is always good news with a growing order book. But coming back to, we have seen, I could say a little bit of volatility, but a bit different order book performance in BeijerTech during the last one and a half year, because going back several years, it was basically everything was ordered and sold during the quarter. But now when we have a certain of our new companies, they are more involved in types of business where you actually have a real order book. And this is, I should say, mainly related to niche technologies. So it can mean that it can be projects within building automation, it can be projects or orders for machinery.
It can also be that we have some of our business where we have a very good demand and we are actually in BeijerTech investing, expanding our production in several of our companies, and because they have a good and long order book, maybe too long, so we need to expand the capacity, which is actually good news, so you cannot just automatically map it onto the next quarter as such, but it's good.
Very clear. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mark.
The next question comes from Karl Korsheden from Carnegie Investment Bank. Please go ahead.
Good morning.
Good morning, Henrik and Johan.
Morning.
A couple of questions here from my side. If we circle back a bit here to the extraordinary items taken here in the quarter, you mentioned restructuring costs in Germany, right? Is that fully related to Alcomex? And could you elaborate a bit on, or a bit more on what costs have actually been taken here? Thank you.
Yes. So this extraordinary cost, it's not related to Alcomex. It is in that way, this is a German company within the European organization where we have adopted production costs and then we have had a reduction in employees in that company. Just to be lower cost and adaptation between volumes and the overall production capacity, and that is also fully implemented in the fourth quarter as well.
Okay, so we shouldn't expect any similar items here in the upcoming quarters?
For this part of the European organization, it's all done already.
Got it. And I mean, industrial springs obviously saw quite a strong quarter. Could you perhaps walk a little bit more into what specifically drove this growth? Because I mean, you mentioned that both medical springs have, I guess, also door springs was quite poor, right? So what was the key sort of product segment that contributed in a positive way during the quarter?
Okay, so I tried to explain during the call that if you look at the regional aspect of it, we had certainly in Asia, we saw that our business has improved over several quarters now, which is good and achieving good growth. There is a fair share now these days of medical business in Asia, which is one of our organic growth initiatives in Lesjöfors, which is starting already to pay off and looks for an interesting future. So that was in terms of growth numbers, the leading. Nordic markets, it's not really a product dimension. We're very satisfied with the way they stand up in what we also feel in Nordics is quite a tough organic climate, but the Lesjöfors industrial springs has delivered on that.
But it's a very, very diversified customer base and it's all the big industrials in a way, our customers, and a lot of small companies too. So it's not really a product dimension as such or customer segment dimension. When I commented on the U.S., they're looking at and comparing to a year ago, as I said, we do have several companies that are more in sort of general industrial diversified customers. So it's a broad-based some growth there, decent development, whereas volumes-wise, we are a little bit lower on medical in the U.S. versus a year ago. But that has different, it's not really driven by industrial demand or something like that. It's more related to certain projects and the volumes needed. So yeah, that's one way to describe it.
If you look at the door springs, you asked, we come back a little bit to the Alcomex question, of course, then European markets are challenging. Looking at the top line, however, we of course have now started delivering volumes in the US. So that is actually not a negative organic, it's actually a growth in terms of that. But as we just discussed, the first months and the quarters of that business has not brought the profitability with it, which is related to the startup phase. So yeah, so that's a little bit more flavor to it.
Yeah, thank you. That's very helpful. And if we look at the BeijerTech, so if you could perhaps help me bridge a bit here, the year-over-year margin increase, because I mean, it was down a few percentage points organically. Would you say that the margin increase here is driven by the acquisitions conducted during the year, or is it due to some organic initiatives taken?
It's both. Certainly, we have some good effect from acquisitions. It is not highly accretive, but somewhat. But it's also a mix of the existing business where we have some of the trading segments such as within industrial products. I mentioned Finland and also Sweden, a little bit down on volumes. And whereas the niche technologies, organic growth is of course having some margin accretive effect. So I mean, I don't think that it's a huge shift. I mean, it's a good and healthy development of some basis points, but so we're happy with the margin development.
Yeah. As Henrik said, it's a bit of everything that just the segments is performing well and acquisitions are performing well and also the parts where we have a little bit higher margin are as well performing well. So it's a little bit of everything actually.
Right. Gotcha. And just the last one from my side, looking at the cash flows here, it's still obviously quite strong, but we're down a bit year over year, I guess, due to some more working capital buildup and slightly higher CapEx. Could you elaborate a bit on what is driving this? Is this purely from inventory buildups ahead of the chassis season here, or is there anything in particular you're taking in the quarter?
Yeah, so it's nothing really that stands out. Last year, we did have a reduction in working capital. So of course, that is if you compare year on year. So it could be as well a little bit of mixed effects with new companies we have acquired last year. But overall, it's nothing that we're really worried about. We are, of course, always looking into working capital and trying to be more efficient. But that is not a huge shift per se. CapEx, as you have seen, have increased some, and we are running some projects within BeijerTech to increase organically.
We're very, very happy that we have a very high demand in some of our companies, and we have started to increase capacity in three or four of these companies. It's semi. It's like you increase capacity with maybe 10%-20% in some businesses, so it's not huge numbers, but it's a little bit higher in BeijerTech than usual, but we are quite happy to have this strong demand in the companies.
Gotcha. And do you expect it to normalize at this level, or was this quarter particularly impacted, or how should we look at that?
So, there's only one of these projects that could run for a little bit longer period of time for the full of 2025. But yes, so it will be normalized. And we think just looking at what you know now, that BeijerTech over time will go down a little bit more to normal levels. But once again, should we have more interesting opportunities, then we will, of course, pursue those opportunities as well.
Excellent. Thank you very much. That was all my questions.
Thank you.
Yes, thank you. We also have two questions.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad.
Okay. So we also have two questions from the chat. And one of the first question is we have quite an increase within order intake in both companies. Could this be an effect of tariffs that are talked about in the U.S., that customers, have they bought more goods or put in more orders just to avoid the tariffs?
I think in general, if we look at our business in the U.S., our companies are American companies. It's as simple as that. We're not, in general, trading in our industrial business between the continents or into the U.S. in that sense. What any final effects would be of any final tariffs, we should see this more as American companies and perhaps even they can be somehow benefited. There's one exception, and that is one we have touched upon before. It's related to Alcomex, where we actually do not produce in the U.S. I don't see any sort of immediate effects on what you asked about, certainly nothing in Q4, but we'll follow tightly, of course, what the development will be there, but not something that is shown in the customer behavior.
Thank you, and then we have another question. It's about John Evans. We didn't pay any earnout, and what can you say about John Evans' performance?
So, this—I think we discussed a little bit in our last call—that where we sort of added back the earnout reservation. So, John Evans is overall. I think that is when we acquired the companies, with the company. We made sure that we had a good structure for how we pay for the companies. So, in that sense, it is for us as an acquirer. It's a way to manage risk and not pay too much. Looking at the—and of course also in the upfront valuation and what was disclosed in the press release—there is also growth in sort of the upfront valuation, except for the earnout. So, the company is, in general, over these years has performed well.
I mentioned before when we talked about the different demand and the deliveries in different segments, customer segments. I mentioned the medical in the U.S. is somewhat lower than last year, and that's, of course, mainly John Evans we're talking about here. Not entirely, but mainly, but overall, stable performance in John Evans Group.
Yes, and that was all the questions we have in the chat.
There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
So thank you, everybody, for joining us today. And during these last years in these calls, it's been very, very interesting times, in particular, of course, in the last year, but also during these seven years. It's been not the most stable of times, but very, very intensive. And I think we have a strong group in Beijer Alma going into the future, very resilient and a good base for organic and accretive growth. So thank you, everybody, for joining us, and have a good day.