The Beijer Alma Q1 2025 Report Presentation. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions-and-answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing #5 on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to the speaker. Acting CEO Johnny Alvarsson, please go ahead.
Thank you. Welcome to this webcast for the first quarter in 2025 of Beijer Alma. Myself, I've been in position about less than one month, but I've been with the company on the board for a number of years. The picture you see now on the first page is actually from one of our latest acquisitions, Swemas, and they are their customer base, the infrastructure, especially in Sweden. I guess most of you know who we are. We are listed since many years, and personally, I regard us as a serial acquirer, even though the market may not have anticipated the company in that way. If we look at the figures, the market situation, as everyone knows, is very unstable, and things are happening from day to day. In our case, the first quarter was a good quarter.
If we look at the different regions, the Nordic region in general delivered good growth, a combination of organic and acquired growth. Lesjöfors, that's working a lot with springs, are working worldwide and have a mixed demand, but actually have some organic growth in sales and order bookings. Chassis Springs, which is a separate business within Lesjöfors, was slightly lower than last year, but a little bit higher margin. And Chassis Springs are springs to used cars, so that's actually where you replace the old or the new, the factory-managed springs with replacements. In the industry segment, Asian, Nordics, and U.S. industries contributed to growth.
We have one acquisition we did a few years ago, Alcomex in Holland, and there we have some problems with their market of door springs because they are connected to the construction market, and that is, as everyone knows, on a low level in Europe. We are working on ways to solve the problem, but still we are negatively affected by this situation. Beijer Tech can see an overall stable demand, but it varies with the markets, and Beijer Tech are mainly working in Norway, Sweden, and Finland, and partly in Denmark. We had a very nice organic growth and also, as I mentioned, acquisitions. Lesjöfors only acquired one company in the quarter, and that will be in service from our case from the 1st of April, so it has not affected the first quarter.
It's an interesting investment in India, which is a growing market for the future. The order bookings increased with 9%. Now we should remember that Easter was in last year in the first quarter, and it comes in the second quarter this year. We had an organic increase of 4%, and the net revenue with 8% to almost SEK 2 billion, and the adjusted operating profit was SEK 282 million, and the adjustment was related to the cost of the former MD when he left the company. We had an operating margin that was on the same level as last year. As you can see, Lesjöfors is a major part of Beijer Alma today with 68%.
What we have seen in the past years is that the operating profit margin has been very stable, but as I see it now, we have some opportunities for the future to increase this margin. Lesjöfors, it was also order bookings increased organically as well as in revenue. And industry, who is an area where we have been growing for the last years, increased by 7%. Chassis Springs decreased by 5%, but that is every year is a little bit different depending on how tough the winter are, so that means how much cars are affected by the hard roads and those things. It is a minor change, and the margin was actually a little bit higher for Chassis Springs this first quarter. Beijer Tech, we had also very nice figures of increase of the bookings of 15% and net revenue by 17%.
Here you can really see nice growth for all the three business units we have. Mainly, the main business here for Beijer Tech are customers in the Nordic, but a few of the companies are also exporting worldwide from Beijer Tech. Financials, we had an increase in adjusted operating profit, EBITDA, and the EBITDA margin was 14.4%, same as last quarter last year. Adjusted EBIT margin was slightly higher than last year. Cash flow was more positive than last year. The profit increase, that means also that we had a little bit better profit per share than last year. Net debt increased also a bit depending on acquisitions, but we still have good room for acquisitions in our balance sheet. We are now on a net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 2 times. Earnings per share increased with 6% for the period.
Acquisitions, as we mentioned earlier, we acquired one company in India, but it will be closing or transaction will be the 1st of April. Generally, I think that now we have for Lesjöfors a time of consolidation and in looking for increased profit margin. Beijer Tech, this is UPS Uudenmaan in Finland, it was a small acquisition and will be connected to OPH in Finland we have. They have contributed the first month, and Vemas was acquired in the beginning of March, has had a good contribution during the month to our group. Here you can see the acquisitions we have done over the years since 2018. I think we should see Beijer Tech as a serial acquirer or compounder, some people say. We have today in two business areas.
I should not be surprised if in the future we'll be more business area with more acquisitions and also general more international acquisitions in the Beijer Tech area. I think this is a nice group, and I used once upon a time to be the MD of Indutrade for many years, and I think the group has the potential to have a performance in the future like Indutrade and other serial acquirers. We will always be cautious with what we acquire and look at profitable business and also with the low risk on the demand side. By this short presentation, I will open up for questions and answers. Please go ahead.
To ask a question, please dial #5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial #6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Karl Noren from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello and good morning, Johnny. A couple of questions from my side. Maybe we start overall on a strategic planning here. It sounds a little bit like we should expect maybe more focus on organic growth and organic margin improvements in Lesjöfors, while Beijer Tech can focus on growing both organically and through acquisitions. Is that how we should read it here in the near term?
That's a good conclusion, yes. Of course, if there's interesting cases in Lesjöfors, we should acquire there as well. Basically, that's the trend we are looking at in the nearest future.
Yeah, that's good. You saw Chassis Springs here, I mean, slightly down in the quarter compared to a tough comparison. I'm just wondering a little bit on the margin improvement there you said you had in the quarter. What is really the driver behind that?
No, it's minor and it's probably a mix depending on markets and customers and those things. I don't see it as a trend yet.
Okay. Okay. And overall, the chassis season, so to say, I mean, Q2 is usually quite high season as well. Do you see Q2 similar demand trends as in Q1, or is it too early to say?
It's too early to say.
Good. Then another one on Alcomex , where you stated in the report that you see some effects on the margins in the latter part of the quarter. I mean, should we already expect to see some impacts of better margins in Alcomex in Q2 and then a gradual improvement throughout the year, you think?
Yeah, I think we have some produce going on now, so improved situation, but we still have some cost reductions to do with the company. On our operational level, I think we can expect a positive trend, but we will have some structured changes on the cost level still in the second quarter.
Okay. Will you take that as an adjustment or a one-off, or?
That will probably be a one-off, yes.
Okay. Yeah. Okay. Slightly more to do there. That's clear. Then it's a final one on the Easter impact. I mean, you mentioned that it could have been a little bit positive impact here. Do you have anything more to say regarding that? We're hearing some mixed from different companies regarding the Easter.
There's more working.
I think it was a slightly positive.
Yeah. It's more working days. I mean, normally all over the years, I experienced where Easter can affect a few more working days in March this year compared to last year. How it will end after second quarter, we don't know yet. That's too early.
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's good. That is all for me. Thank you for taking the questions and have a good day.
The next question comes from Carl Korsheden from Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, Johnny. Just a couple of questions from my side here. I noticed that this is the first quarter in quite a while that you did not mention Europe as a region, I guess, underperforming. Does that mean that you are now, I mean, fairly satisfied with the European business if you perhaps exclude Alcomex , just to get a sense of how underlying Europe is developing?
Fairly satisfied. That's a good expression, yes. I think still there are more to do. Yes, we have made some changes in, like in Germany, so we are less depending on the German market now. There are things to do in Europe.
You mentioned also that general, I guess, industrial demand in the U.S. was quite strong in the quarter. Do you think that could in any way be impacted by any sort of pre-buying effect here, or are you feeling that, I mean, demand there is holding up quite well overall?
It's hard. I mean, what we are selling in the U.S. is to 95% produced in the U.S. Where the U.S. market will go, I guess you have to ask a person in the U.S. about, who is the president of the United States. It's impossible to make any forecast for that.
Yeah, I see. It would be very helpful if, I mean, did you see any sort of shift here in the first part here of Q2 or any change in customer behavior, or does it look today quite similar as in Q1?
With the information I have today, it looks similar, yes. I mean, it can be changed from day to day, week to week. I mean, we have a pretty wide customer base, so it's more connected to the general market, I think, for industry in the U.S. and specific companies.
Got it. Just on this fire you mentioned on Lesjöfors, it would be interesting to hear a little bit more on that and if you would expect to see any further negative P&L effects from that in the upcoming quarters or if that sort of has been handled now already.
We have, it's a small unit and it's in Finland, and we have full insurance coverage for it. We have not decided how to do next step here. We are supporting, I think, 60-70% of the products from other companies within the group. We are probably missing a little bit part, but we are discussing what's the next step here. I don't expect any more than marginal effect maybe in the coming quarter.
Understood. Thank you very much. That was all my questions.
The next question comes from Johan Dahl from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, everyone, and good morning, Johnny. Just sort of a strategic sort of question. Did you talk in the report about focusing on margins in Lesjöfors? I just wanted to sort of hear your view and also perhaps the board's view on where you see that potential in Lesjöfors. What do you think, sort of what is the untapped potential in Lesjöfors and the sort of Industrial Springs franchise which you built over the last couple of years? How do you think you can achieve those margin improvements? Is it level of integration or sort of level of cost synergy takeout that you see as potential? Secondly, also if you look on the assets in Lesjöfors today, should we expect also possibly some sort of portfolio review where some assets may not fit that well into sort of a margin improvement profile?
Today, Lesjöfors is a group where 50% of the sales are from brands not named Lesjöfors. We have 19 different brands. Lesjöfors is very much a Nordic brand, but in Europe and the U.S., it's quite different brands. I think we should really look for a more decentralized organization and see that we put pressure on the individual MDs for the different small businesses. There could be some cost cutting also in some areas where the costs have been built up during the last years. Eventually, it could be some spin-off also, but that should be just a minor thing. I think the potential is in improving the existing business. As we talked about earlier, we have Alcomex , so it's still a problem. When we solve that, it will have a good effect on the group level.
We have maybe one or two other companies also that we are working with now.
Gotcha. How big of a delta is Alcomex in your mind?
How much?
No, how much loss-making was it, for example, looking at last year? Do you know?
No, the first quarter was a few million.
Say again? Sorry, I didn't hear.
A few million during the first quarter.
Gotcha. Gotcha. A few million.
A few million. I didn't take two, maybe three, four million or something.
Gotcha. Very clear. Thanks so much.
Reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial #5 on your telephone keypad. More phone questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speaker for any written questions or closing comments.
Okay. So far, I haven't seen any written questions. I guess I can just say final words. My aim is to start a job, as I said earlier, to improve the margin in the group. That goes for both business areas or for both Beijer Tech and for Lesjöfors. I think a reasonable goal for Lesjöfors is to come back to the 20% where they were a few years ago. I can see the activities that are needed to do that. We have it on the map. For Beijer Tech, it will be also a challenge. I think if you compare two similar groups on the stock market, I think we could increase the margin with 3-4% units over some time also in Beijer Tech. By that, I want to say thank you.
I guess we will see each other or hear each other in July next time. Bye-bye.