Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Beijer Ref's very first Capital Markets Day. We are thrilled that so many have decided to join us here today, and we would like to acknowledge the people that have been traveling from far to take part of this very special event. Of course, we would also like to acknowledge the people that are following us online. We have a packed day with a lot of presentations, and after approximately 70-80 minutes, we will have a short break for 15 minutes, after which we will continue. There will be no Q&A after each presentation. Instead, we will have a Q&A at the end of the presentation, at the summary. As some of you already know this, we released a press release this morning regarding new financial targets, which we will talk about today later in the presentations.
Without further ado, it gives me great pleasure to welcome the CEO of Beijer Ref, Christopher Norbye. Welcome.
Thank you. Thanks, Niklas, and I'm sure we'll talk, but thank you for setting everything up. It's been like herding cats to try and get this together. But I think thank you very much all for coming. I think we have a fantastic number of people that's very interested in Beijer Ref, which we, of course, are very happy. I think we almost have 100 people streaming as well today. So our ambition today, except for showing you a lot of PowerPoint slide, one day, maybe we can, you know, in 20 years, not have PowerPoints, but that's how we communicate right now. But also part of this today is to try and educate you on Beijer Ref.
So I'm really happy to have a lot of the management team here talking about our different regions, also talking about our products, and you get a chance to see the rest of the team. I think my presentation today will be the most boring one compared to all the other presentation that you will see today. So we'll drive through this today and we'll have a little bit of a break. And then after the break, we'll have a lot of product presentation from Kim, from Nicola, and I think it'll be a very good mix. And hopefully, by the end of today, you're even more convinced about Beijer Ref or as convinced as we are as a management team.
So starting off, a little bit, you'll see, going through in the presentation, is that pretty much entire Beijer Ref's DNA is driven and related to different type of drivers in the industry, and we'll come back to that. There's a lot of regulation on changing all the products that we have in an industrial, in commercial refrigeration, also on the industrial heating side. You have heat pumps, you have refrigeration components. There's a lot of things that's happening that's driving this business, and we expect to drive it for the next 10, 20 years, so, or 30 years, depending on your, on your timeline. So we feel a little bit how we're building Beijer Ref now, it, it's becoming, you know, in the best position ever.
I know I have the former CEO here, Per and Ulf, and I'm sure maybe they said the same thing, but actually it is in the best position it's ever been. And I have them in my board, so I think we're all in a good position. So Beijer Ref today, rolling twelve months, SEK 30 billion in sales, and we'll keep on growing, and we will keep on having a good pace. We'll come back a little bit on that on our financial targets. Over 6,000 people around the world. We are now in 45 countries, so we really, truly becoming global. And we'll talk a little bit how that affects the business model going forward. We have over 500 branches. I think we're getting close to 600.
It's not easy to keep count, so don't ask the exact number here, but we'll keep growing with our branch network. That's absolutely critical, and I would say very unique in our business model, and of course, we would say impossible to replicate in the world. I think the value we say we have over 200 customers is more related to that we are the partner to most small and mid-sized installers. We work very much in the aftermarket service, maintenance, replacement market, which relates to a very stable and loyal customer base. Then, of course, we will use some numbers today. I think some in the crowd really like numbers as well. I do as well. Somewhere, it's the result of everything you do.
And we had, the last 10 years, 14% CAGR on growth, which I think is a fantastic development. And I think also, looking at Beijer Ref, this is how it's been the last 10, 20, 30 years. It's been a very growth-focused company in a good industry. Also, on the profit side, you know, there's no point of growing if you don't grow profitable. So even faster, we have grown our profits of 23%. And we'll come back on this a little bit later in the presentation. I won't go through everything here. Just wanna tell you a little bit the timeline over the last 5 years of Beijer Ref, starting from 2018, and you'll get pictures of this in all the presentations.
But, you know, making big moves has always been part of Beijer Ref's history as well. And I think in 2008, joining in a big acquisition in Australia really putting us on the map as the market leader. And now Australia is one of the biggest countries we have in the world. Jonas will talk about that. And also in that strategy, consolidating the industry, when we have, you know, a presence a little bit, that we're gonna talk about the U.S., that we just entered, beginning of this year. Also another milestone is the EQT, 2020 principal shareholder. They've been very supportive of our growth journey and will continue to drive that. So we're very happy with the ownership structure we have in Beijer Ref.
And also, I think worth mentioning, in 2020, we started our journey with private label. That's been a big growth driver for us on the HVAC side... We're just in the beginning on the refrigeration side, and then Simon from EMEA will talk a little bit more about that. Market, you've seen also the organic growth, 13% per year, the last five years. And here is also how we work with exclusive brands. We have our private label. We drive market share when we expand these products into our own network and branches around in the world. And we're also now in the U.S. expanding our private label into the U.S. platform. There's a lot of, you know, future potential for us in these segments.
And it's also now how we combine all the knowledge that we do in the U.S. with Australia, that have similar business model, where you have been a little bit further ahead on parts and supply in the U.S. that we can use now in APAC, et c. So it's also a very good business, and we'll talk a little bit also on the heat pump side, electrification on the heating, that affects this business going forward. So moving a little bit away from the business, the history, the trends, then we'll go get more into details and talk a little bit more on some of the, you know, how does Beijer Ref work, and what's our DNA? And I think we, you know, have a very strong business model, that stand the test of time.
I mean, from the beginning, I think it's 1866, we started. But it's a business and people that are very adaptable, and I would say we're very good to work on growing trends, and we'll continue to do that in future. So I'll talk about a couple of things here. Acquisition, of course, a big part of our DNA. Digitalization journey that we're on, that we don't talk a lot about, but I'm saying it's very, very important and will create a lot of value for us. And then I'll just touch sustainability, a little bit. So when we talk about acquisition, I would say Beijer Ref is extremely disciplined.
We work in the HVAC segment and refrigeration segment, and what we really like about our acquisition is that we strengthen our market position, as we do acquisition where we are. That gives us the advantage of being the market leader. We have a better product portfolio than everybody else, we have better pricing than everybody else, we have a better network than everybody else, and we can also implement new products into our acquisitions. So it's a very value-creative business for us, both driving organic growth, driving margin. I would say most of the companies we buy, we work on improving the margin, and we get margin improvement, both on buying things, but we can also add a product portfolio.
We'll talk a little bit across the board how we work with that in the different different regions. So I just wanna, you know, try and explain some themes in our acquisition, where we... You know, on the top left corner, we started and consolidate the ex- HVAC industry in Europe, consolidating the best independent distributors. We, we're now the market leader in Croatia, we're the market leader in Greece, we're the market leader in Czech, we're the market leader in Bulgaria, et cetera, et cetera. And what's common for all this is, of course, we leverage our position with all the suppliers in these industries. Some of these are missing the critical products that we have access to, so we can further drive the business.
We have an e-commerce, we have master data, we have brick tools that we put these company on, and we start working together to expand the business. So I would say it's- we're getting stronger and stronger in the market as we do this, and I think exciting here, too. Simon will talk about that private label strategy came out of the acquisition journey that we did on the HVAC side. Then in Australia, New Zealand, I talked a little bit about it, and Jonas will talk about it, you know, how do you build the market-leading position? And that's just what we've done. We're now the market leader in Ref, we're moving into the HVAC.
We're combining the portfolio, and we're now becoming a solution provider in Australia and New Zealand that will really drive the market over the next five-10 years, and we'll come back to that. Also excited about refrigeration side. We continue now expand, especially also in Southeast Asia, where this market will grow double digits for the next 10-20 years as the cold chain continues to grow in that part of the world. We'll talk a little bit about India. We just entered South Korea with a fantastic opportunity, so we also continue and use that through an acquisition model. And then finally, the U.S. platform acquisition we talked about. Alex will talk a little bit more then. Also made our first add-on acquisition, and we have synergies, and we're building a stronger platform on there.
So here, what we want to show with this slide is that we do still have a good runway. This is our pipeline. We work in a pipeline for the next 10 years. This is how we are. So a lot of these companies we talk to, and we have a timing when we think the best is to acquire, consolidate. Of course, we prioritize, but we have a, you know, a big runway the next 10 years as well, and I think maybe take the notion here. Now we also have North America together in our pipeline, so it's a fantastic opportunity for us over the next 10 years. Then moving on, just touch digitalization a little bit. We're growing this 20%-30% per year. We're up to 12%-13% of e-commerce.
It creates a lot of value for our installers. We see more and more of their business moving into the ordering at night, in the evenings. And also remembering, with our 500-600 branches, if you order something, you can get it the same day. You know, order at 2:00, we can deliver at 4:00 because of the infrastructure we have. So, I mean, we have a unique position where we combine our branches and the e-commerce side. And of course, you also- for us, it creates a lot of efficiency. A lot of the orders are handled at night. They get ordered through the inventory, straight through the inventory system, and we have AutoStore places that package the whole thing. So it drives a lot of efficiency going forward.
So we really believe that this will continue and grow for us and also create an even stronger business model, going forward. Finally, sustainability. We have Science-Based Targets; thousands of companies do. I don't think that's that unique to have that. I think for us, Scope 3 is the most important one, and that's where we talk about the natural refrigerants. I do think for us, it's even more important; the right side of this slide is that more and more of our natural refrigerants that we put out in the market, we take away really bad products for the environment, and we'll come back a little bit of that later on. Then finally, what's a presentation without numbers? I'll wrap this up with a couple slides of numbers.
Here, you can see the development of Beijer Ref over the last 10 years. I think the way we see it is, it's a combination of very good organic growth, together with acquisition, and we also see for every year, we consolidate the industry, our market position gets stronger and stronger. We see also now being a global player, and I think this would, of course, also play into our financial targets, how we see the future to continue this type of growth trend, going forward. On the profit side, I would say if you grow, you need also to make more money. In the end, that's what makes the world go round for us as well. We have been focusing a lot over the last two, three years also, to drive up our margin.
We talked about private label, we talked about profitable organic growth, also working with our acquisition to really drive up the margin through our business model. And we feel very good about the development we had over the last two, three years, and that's also you can see on the financial targets, that's the ambition, going forward. Then final slide, cash flow. I mean, in the end, you need cash, right? That's how we pay for everything, to do it. And the way we see Beijer Ref, also analyzing it a lot since I came in and also, Joel, new CFO, that will be presenting, is it's a pre- and post-pandemic level.
If you try and make sense of this slide, it's Beijer Ref historically is a very cash-generative company, and then during the pandemic, we mainly built a lot of inventory to manage all the disruption. And of course, you can see already here in 2013, we're starting to release the cash. Q4 will be very strong. I think it might even go off the graph here for Q4, and then we'll also in 2024 generate the cash flow to go back to pre-pandemic levels. So it'll be a very strong cash generation over the next 18 months to move back to the historical levels.
I would say also on top of that, just to, you know, our cash conversion going forward, at least for us, it's gonna be at least 80%, in the market. So, we'll, we'll have a very good 18 months and generate, some excess cash flow, that we have used, in the last couple of years. So with that, I am actually finished, and I will hand over to, Simon, who runs our EMEA division, and has the nice title of Where Demand Meets Opportunity.
Thank you, Christopher, for the nice introduction. Hello, everybody. I'm Simon Karlin, and I'm the head of, as you heard, Europe and Africa. I've been working in this great company for more than 20 years, so I've been part of our journey from going from the Nordics up to where we are now. I will make a 20-minute presentation of my region. High-level numbers, I will look there. We are doing about SEK 20 billion in sales per year. Profitability is a bit above 11%. The three segments is 40%, is what we call refrigeration. 50%, about 50% is HVAC, and then the smaller part here, but the fastest growing is our OEM. And just to clarify, our OEM, it's really is production of compressor racks and bigger heat pumps based on natural refrigerant.
Looking at the map, in Europe, we are present in all countries. Luckily, we are not except in... We're not in Russia, not in Ukraine, not in Belarus, and a few countries in the Balkan area. In Africa, we don't cover the full continent. We are very big in South Africa, plus five neighboring countries. What's common for my region here is that we are very strong in this refrigeration wholesale part. We are number one, two, or three in almost every market we are in. As we heard before, this is a very stable business and is backed up by our technical people and our 400 branches we have in our region. The other segment here I will talk about is HVAC. We concentrate only on, well, not only, mainly on four brands.
It's two Japanese A brands, Toshiba, with exclusivity in 11 countries in Europe. We have Mitsubishi Heavy Industries with exclusivity with nine, nine countries. Then we also work, as you heard here from Christopher, with our two private label, with huge growth currently. Then last thing here is the OEM. One factory, heat pump manufacturing, big industrial heat pump in Denmark, Fenagy, and then we have the, the manufacturing in Italy, SCM Frigo, plus one manufacturing unit in South Africa. So historical number, you can see we have had good growth, double growth in, double the, double the sales in the last 5 years, 16%, of which 8% is organic. Luckily for us and for all of us here, we are also having good profit, so we are increasing that almost triple in this period. We had a dip in 2020-...
because of the pandemic, but also here, we can show that we are can make good profit in bad times. So some trends Christopher discussed, and climate change is all affecting us, and we are in a position in Beijer, in our industry, that we can affect that in a positive way. We have the regulation, first of all, in Europe, it's called the F-gas Regulation, which is regulating the F-gases, the greenhouse gases, which are consumed in Europe. The target here is, of course, to get rid of them, and the replacement will be natural refrigerant, mainly. And good for us is that we are very strong in this part of the business. The other thing is the electrification.
We have in Europe, about, I don't know, 70 million gas boilers in residential homes, 50 million oil burners, and the EU has a strong agenda to get rid of it, and the solution will be heat pumps, which we are selling. Good for us. Look at this F-gas phase out. It started in Europe, 2015, and you can see here we are in the middle of that right now. There will be another cut from January 1, so it will be another strong impact on the phase out of the HFCs, so there will be a lot of business in terms of rebuilding, upgrades, new installments. And again, Beijer Ref, we have invested a lot in this segment, so we are ready for this and we are taking part of it right now.
I can also mention, in addition, there is another proposal in EU, which even sharper phase out on the, on the F-gases, which will be a stronger impact on our business. Europe is the leader in the world. We have other countries looking at Europe, more or less following it. Christopher mentioned U.S., we have Australia, New Zealand, U.K., so everything is going towards this trend. Next slide is about supermarkets and stores. How many of those have been translated or transformed to natural refrigerants? In Europe, we think it's about 55,000, and the total market is about 300,000. Good for us here, of the 55,000, we have delivered a nice part of this, and this business is just going on and accelerated now.
As you can see also, we, the rest of the world is following a bit slower, but this is coming everywhere. And Beijer Ref, we have delivered to all continents so far, except U.S. So we are also production, as I mentioned, in South Africa, we can deliver to that part of the world. We have Australia and New Zealand, so we are really taking part of this journey. And we expect to have our first order very soon. Alex, in the U.S., when it's coming?
Soon.
Soon. We are working on it.
So yes, just a few words more. This is only on the stores. Then we have all the other business which will be transformed to this natural refrigerant. It's the cold storages, logistic centers, a lot of production, medical things, cafe, restaurants; all this is in the transition of and on, of changing. And also for us, it's a huge business opportunity because we knew this will come many years ago, so we invested a lot in this technology. We have world-class products and production, R&D. We also have trained our wholesalers, our companies, to be good at this.
The best thing for us is when we sell the compressor rack through our wholesale business, because we have strong consolidated margin, and we also add other products from our partners, like heat exchangers, copper, installation material, and by this, we also create our own aftermarket. We have also invested in our own education training center, Beijer Ref Academies. We have five in Europe, only focusing on natural refrigerant. So here we train our own people, which is important, we need to be in the front. We train our customer, the contractors, we even train our end customer, the supermarkets, we train the consultants we work with, and sometimes even the suppliers. So it's very, very popular, and we have a very strong competitive edge here. Plus, we then have finding this together with our after sales.
We are close to the customer, close to the markets. We have all the spare parts very close to the installations. So this part of the business is growing very fast. That was our refrigeration part. Then we have on the heat pump market, the electrification we spoke about. We have here a very unique opportunity to grow. There is a strong agenda in the EU to phase out the gas boilers, as I mentioned, and Beijer Ref, actually, we are quite small in this segment, so we can only grow double digit, I think, in the next future. We have strong partners with Toshiba, Mitsubishi, our private labels. We have people who can sell, we have customers, so we expect very good development here. Yes, some focus on value creation. I will go through those. M&A, you heard from Christopher a bit.
I will give you some examples. What we look at when we find targets, we try to stay, and we want to stay in our core, which is HVAC and refrigeration, as you heard. We also look if we can grow geographically or we can find new niches in the markets we already are in, and we also look if we could buy some technology we don't own today. The other big thing is on the supplier side. We are a big player in this market, so normally, when we look at the target, we look at the brands they are having. If they have the same brands, we normally always gain some margin here. So this is probably the first synergy we have when we make an acquisition. If they don't have the brand, we can add it.
So it's always a good fit on this one. Then we also look at the target companies, the management style, and so on. Do they share our values? So it's very important for us that they have very dedicated, motivated management, first layer, second layer, so they fit into our culture. Some examples we have of the acquisitions we have made, we spoke about innovative technology. We have our best story, I think, on this, is Fenagy. It was a start-up three years ago, four people. They knew everything about green how to produce a green heat pump and make the development on it. What they missed, I think, they missed some money, probably, so we could finance, but they also missed the supplier, I mean, the access to supplier and the good conditions we could contribute. So that was a very good gain, day one.
Plus, they, we also gave, or we could contribute with good sales channels through our wholesale. So this is a good story. Two other one is our private label. We wanted to have a complement to our A brands, to Toshiba and, Mitsubishi Heavy in the HVAC. So we were looking for the best one we could find, so we found the targeted Sinclair in Czech. We acquired them, and just some weeks after, we also could acquire, Inventor in Greece. And this is giving us a very good complement to our A brands. The last one I would mention is, we also look at synergies on our existing partners. MHI is one of our biggest brands. We are strong in that. So we've targeted two of the companies which are the sole distributors of MHI. It's Condex in Bulgaria, and it's Lumelco in Spain.
Those companies came into our portfolio some years ago, and we could also here gain with better margin, better conditions, share knowledge, share stock, and build up our MHI community in Beijer Ref. These are just examples of acquisitions we have made. You can see also development has been very good. The CAGR is showing 21%, but it's actually higher because we acquired it 2021. Fenagy, we are growing 150, 200% per year now, and-
Okay, thank you. We can start again now.
All right, let's start again. Yes, the private label, I mentioned Sinclair Inventor. We have this Freddox. You can see the products over there. It's products which are not, you know, very complex from a technical point of view, but it's our high runners. We sell them every day in our branches with big volumes, and we see this as a complement, not a cannibalization of our current portfolio. And it's products like different type of line components, HVAC accessories, tools, and things like that. And it's actually our fastest-growing brand right now. So this we will continue to invest in, and we will implement it market by market. It started two, three years ago. So our digital journey. We have here... This is one of the areas where we are centralizing in Beijer.
We have invested in our central PIM system, Product Information Management system, and a central online, central web shop. We are feeding more and more information here, more and more SKUs. I think, Christian, you mentioned we have several hundred thousand of SKUs already in place now, and this is what we centralize, and this is used then by our subsidiaries. So they can use this very good database, the very good online platform, and, and, implement it locally in the local markets to support the local customers. So this is one part of, digitalization.
We also do a lot of work together with our suppliers now, because now when they, with the big one, when they update, change, bring in new products, it's automatically going into our PIM system, and then you can say they do the work for us, but we also present the apartments or a smaller one, two-bedroom thing. So there's actually a better solution, which is which has a lot of benefits, both for the end user and also for Beijer Ref. Because gas is for sure going away. We see this year, we're not in that market, but we follow it, and it's 30% decline this year.
...And that's even before some legislation and regulations come in place to actually ban. Victoria in Australia is the first mover, I think, in the Australian states and New Zealand as well, to actually ban this. So if you make a new dwelling, you can't connect it to the grid or use gas. So all of this will only increase the sort of pace. And I mean, this is very sort of straightforward. It's a replacement business. It happens all the time, and we play in this, but we even more interested to play in the ducted systems. This is something that is growing fast and to replace both splits or multi-splits or different solutions in that area, but also to replace any kind of gas appliances.
This is not a new technology by any means. We actually share a lot with Alex in the U.S., because that's a legacy solution in the U.S., so we try to exchange as much ideas as possible. But the beauty of this, for us, is that you have the same outer unit and a similar inner unit, but then you have a vastly more complicated solution. So you would have a plenum, you would have flexible duct, you would have some fittings or branch takeoffs. You're gonna have grills, diffusers. You're gonna have a zoning system, so you're gonna need controllers and sensors, and this is really a technical solution that we are able to sell.
So it not only brings up the dollar value significantly, but the number of SKUs and the margin on all these individual SKUs is actually a big lift for us. We have been sort of approaching this for a number of years. We started our HVAC journey, as I said, three years ago, and then we acquired a good-sized business, which was based in Brisbane, Queensland, just regionally in one city, more or less. But they were selling mostly the split units, which I mentioned. They sold some parts and accessories, but not in a big way.
To lift our margins and strategically lift them over a long time, we started to acquire more companies in parts and accessories, which was Complete Air Supply at the time, which complemented the range we could offer in Brisbane, Airstream. We did a greenfield opening in Perth, Western Australia, and complemented it by buying these parts and accessories, which is a small business, but something we can scale as well. One year ago, we entered Melbourne in Australia with the AID acquisition, which they were more or less a solution provider already, so they put a lot of pieces in place as well in terms of the supply chain and complementing the range we already had.
A couple of months ago, we bought the assets of a small business in New Zealand, and New Zealand is also similarly interesting for ducted market, and it's on a sustainable viewpoint, even better because they have a fantastic energy mix with mostly hydro in the mix. So that's another growth area, and much of this is only getting started as well. It's very regional, this, or even local, so you need to have a stock local, you need to have capabilities to customize your product. So there are lots of white spots. The biggest market is probably in New South Wales, which is where Sydney is. We are not there yet, but obviously something we're gonna look at in the future. So there's a lot of runway to grow this further.
So let's talk a little bit about refrigeration as well. Some fantastic colleagues on this picture and some good customers as well. This is the Beijer Ref Academy, if you go from the left. So we set up the Beijer Ref Academy with a model on SCM Frigo and European version. We set this up to obviously to educate the market about especially CO2 and natural technologies. We did that to train ourselves, to train our customers, and also, importantly, to train apprentices, to train the trade as well, to sort of appeal to the new generation of installers that it comes natural to do natural refrigerants. What we didn't expect of the Beijer Ref Academy was that how much interest this has been generating across Asia.
We thought we had something in Australia because they are a little bit further advanced, but it's creating a lot of interest. This is a team from, I think, Malaysia and an Indian contingent as well. We trained people from China, from Japan. We have a gang from South Korea, week after next. So we're not, maybe we're not on TripAdvisor, but it's, in the industry, it's a big thing anyway. What we do as well is vertical integration. So compared to our competitors, we have our own factories, we have our own small R&D departments and own factories, where we do light assembly. And this enables us to be a bit more agile than our wholesaler competitors, who more sell a standard solution. We can sell a bespoke or a more customer-friendly solution.
Private label is something Simon touched on as well. It's, it's, we sell Freddox mainly as well, as, as he mentioned, but what we also started to do in terms of the cold chain and refrigeration is, we actually started to introduce Freddox into our own refrigeration equipment, which gives us a much better price point for the part and for the equipment, and it also creates an aftermarket for when that component is gonna be replaced, you would naturally go and buy Freddox again. CO₂ technology, I mean, this is, this is really our, our competitive edge here, and something I will come back on, on, on the latest slide. New markets, right now, a lot of what we sell is actually in Australia and New Zealand, but there's a lot of new markets, for example, South Korea.
You probably remember we bought a company there in earlier this year, a couple of months ago, and South Korea is a interesting market. It's very developed, very moderate ambient temperatures, and it should be perfect for CO2 technology, but no one has sort of gone there, or there's zero penetration. No one has been interested so far, but having a base ourselves, we can... I'm confident we can really sort of turn that market and get an acceptance of CO2 into the market. The real kicker on new markets is gonna be China.
We have done a couple of high-profile jobs in China for CO2, but realistically, we are still waiting on the government to put some regulation in place to make this really kick off, because it's just testing the waters for now, but when that happens, we have our own factory in China already, and they are ready to ramp this up. Food safety, food security is important in any country, but there's a lot of countries where we can improve, reduce food loss, and increase food security. So we have a very large range of products, and I think the perfect combination of we have on the far right there, we have European state-of-the-art, best in the world, perhaps.
Probably the best in the world, Nicola? So we sell a lot of those, but we also sell some of our own products as well. So we developed, in the last year, three different series of evaporators. So we have an industrial evaporator, we have a commercial and a smaller commercial range as well, with an angled evaporator, which didn't make the cut here for the image, but if you need one, you... We also made our own pack unit here in New Zealand, actually. So the thought here, we really try hard here, so what we tried to do with that one was that we build it on the same platform that the customers historically have used for synthetic refrigerants, but we make it same, but with CO₂.
So it's very familiar, and it's sometimes an easier transition for the installer to work with something that he's familiar with and makes him more encouraged to move away from synthetic into natural solutions. On the cold chain, to summarize a little bit, we have our own vertically integrated factories, where we do world-class products. We have a unique range. We have 100 branches, which are packed with very knowledgeable staff and sales engineers. We have an academy, which I already been going on about. We're very close to the customer. We have, like Christopher mentioned, we have 10,000 customers in Australia and New Zealand that come to us regularly, that we have a direct relationship with.
And we have dedicated commissioning teams to make sure that when you make that first try for CO2 and natural refrigerants, you have a good experience for your first couple of jobs. Just a few words on India as well, which really is in that early stages of development. Unfortunately, we don't think India, in the short period, is gonna be ready for CO2 on a big scale. Maybe they can try projects, but CO2 is not gonna be the game changer in India now. But they still need massive investments in their cold chain to... And that's also something the government and the international agencies are sort of promoting and financing as well.
So we, we are there to take part of this, and we've been growing very fast so far. We spent a lot of time putting our building blocks to sort of in place, but in saying that... We, we made an acquisition in India earlier this year, down in Chennai. But before that, 85%-90% of our sales was actually only in Delhi, and that's one city. Then you have another 40 tier one cities, which are virtually untouched. So what we've done, we set up a north, south, east, west, and ready to capitalize on this, but we can expand even more and even faster in India. So in summary, it's looking pretty good for APAC. We have a good track record.
We have a growing footprint and scale, so we can better utilize already existing factories and scale our supplier base as well. We have positive trends. We-- There's always Kigali in the background that supports the overall business case. We feel pretty excited about the ducted air conditioning and heat pumps, where we invested quite a lot in the last one, two years, so looking to scale that as well. We have our unique positioning in the CO2 area, and there's a lot of areas that can be developed further as well, and I talked a little bit specifically about India. Thank you. Here come Alex, new kid on the block.
Yeah. You stole my only joke. All right. Well, thank you, by the way, all of you, for being here. I'm excited to tell you about the North American platform, recently acquired by Beijer Ref. And so I'll do that today by giving you a little bit of information about the company, and then we're gonna move to talking about macro environment, so macroeconomic trends associated with the U.S. And then we'll move on to what's more important to me, and that is the micro environment that we're in. And what that is, is our ability to create value in the company, in the businesses that we acquire and the ones that we already own. And so, just a little bit of information about the company. We're SEK 6.5 billion.
I've had to get a little better at my foreign currency exchange. Nine hundred and fifty million kroner, 2022 EBITDA, over 900 employees, and so we're doing business in 13 states. You'll see as we move along that that's in the central and southern part of the United States, where it's warmer and more humid, which means the drivers for HVAC parts, supplies, and equipment are better. Our organic growth trend over the last 10 years has been 9%, and so we're proud of that because it outperforms the market. You'll find when I talk about our M&A strategy, that's an important component of what we look for in companies to bring on the platform. The distribution of the branches, if you look, we're heavier. It's a little hard to see the branch counts.
You'll see that in a second, on another map, but you can, you can see the counts off to the side. The distribution is we're heavily concentrated in the South and Southeast. We've made a recent acquisition that's expanded our footprint further west. And so, as we continue to think about, how we wanna grow, you, you, you wanna make sure you're buying the right businesses in the right places. And for us, it's focusing on what's nearer to us, as well as what's, what other-- what companies are in areas with stronger macro, macro trends. So if it's hotter, if it's more humid, if population's gonna grow faster, we're gonna prioritize growth in those areas.
Not to exclude anything else, but it definitely is a way to make the most accretive use of capital as we continue to grow the platform. Our business is split mainly, you know, relative to the rest of Beijer Ref. We're mostly HVAC. We have 5% refrigeration, and that refrigeration business is really concentrated in a handful of branches that have been doing refrigeration parts and supplies for a very long time. And so, as the business has grown, it's what we've been able to do is bring on businesses that are more HVAC-focused, and so what that leaves us with is a great opportunity.
I'll talk a little bit more about it, how we leverage being part of Beijer Ref as a way of having the synergies created with the supply chain, as well as opportunities to bring on products that we wouldn't otherwise have. Our business is focused. We are more heavy than the industry in the U.S. on parts and supplies. You typically will hear it's kind of a 70%-30% equipment versus parts and supplies. We're heavier to parts and supplies. And the reason for that is we carry the parts. Even though we carry our primary provider of OEM equipment is Rheem, we carry the parts and supplies to fix every piece of equipment that's sold in the United States.
And so what we want, our value proposition to the customer is, if there's a residential HVAC system or a light commercial HVAC system or refrigeration system in some of the markets, we can have the parts and supplies you need to get it fixed in minutes or hours, not days or weeks. The history of the company, if you go back, the oldest of the companies is Wittichen, it's 109 years old. Obviously, that was before refrigeration or HVAC even existed, and so several, a couple of the companies are older than the industries that we're currently in. They started as logistics companies and just demonstrated great resilience.
As the economics change, as you go through World War II, the businesses transitioned, and as refrigeration became more prevalent in the U.S., and then, and eventually HVAC, there was a focus on being the supply house, where a contractor had somewhere to go to get everything they needed to get on and off the job quickly. And so that's a pretty common thread, and it's one of the things we're looking for as we're doing M&A, is to make sure that we're looking for companies that fit well with the platform as it exists and provide opportunities for synergies to expand products that they don't currently carry. From a management team standpoint, there's a small handful of folks that work in Atlanta, which is where I'm based.
The CHRO and CFO on the screen there, all three of us come from backgrounds in either manufacturing and distribution or distribution. And so you'll see that the names on the screen are some larger public companies. And so the intent there was to make sure that we've got a team put together, a small team, at least at the top of the company, that understands, you know, how to scale a decentralized business. Because there's some aspects of that that can really create a lot of value as you continue to grow. And then below that, you see that the day-to-day running of each of the individual companies is by more folks that have actually been in the business for a very long time.
In fact, two of them, it's the only place they've ever worked. You'll notice Charles Herring on the screen. He celebrated his 50th year with the company on June 1st. Probably the second time I've worked with someone that's worked one place for 50 years, and so he's a wealth of knowledge. And then you've got, kind of on the far other end of the spectrum, you have Tucker, and Tucker is third generation. Tucker's grandfather bought Ed's Supply, and then his, his father ran it. And then at the liquidity event where we bought the company, his father retired, and Tucker has... He's very sharp, and he's done a great job taking that business, and, and integrating another company that we acquired, Coastal Supply.
Peter, in the middle, has a background of running a couple of former companies, as well as working in some consolidation plays, in other industries. So switching gears from information about the company to talking about the macro environment. It's important. I'm not gonna. I'll try not to repeat a lot of what's already been said as it relates to regulation, but I do believe it's an important understanding the backdrop that we're operating in, and that's one where regulation is driving the market to more efficient and more expensive solutions. And part of that regulation is also subsidizing the cost of those solutions, which is important as we think about maintaining demand for residential products. The other we'll talk about is energy efficiency. It's also part being driven by regulation.
Then climate change, as it, you know, what that looks like, how that will affect our platform, we believe, over the next two to three decades. So in the U.S., there's two very important pieces of legislation that impact our business. The first is the Inflation Reduction Act, and one of the main reasons that's important is because there's subsidies for $8.5 billion that have been allocated to electrify the heating and cooling systems, residential systems in the US. So what does it look like? If you think about a system today for the average home is probably $8,000-$10,000. And so if it's one of the more expensive systems, you can get up to $3,000, a little over $3,000 credit back from the government.
So it's basically subsidizing the cost of the equipment by 30%. The reason, primary reason that that matters over the next two to three years is because equipment has gotten more expensive, and so this is one of the ways that the government has offset some of those increasing costs. I've been asked the question occasionally, "Well, if equipment gets more and more expensive, will that drive down demand or will it hurt demand?" And I answer that two ways. One, first, is that there is actually subsidies going on to drive electrification, to stop burning fossil fuels. But the more important one is just, come see me in Atlanta when it's 100 degrees outside, and you tell me what you would rather do than fix your air conditioner.
If it's cold, it gets cold in most of the places in the wintertime, maybe not quite as cold as it's been in Stockholm for the last day or two, but it's definitely hot, and when you're hot, it's miserable. And so when you have the experience of a breakdown in your air conditioning unit, you'll realize you'll cut where you go on vacation, you may not go out to eat, but you're gonna make sure that your air is cool. On the AIM Act, so the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, that's similar to what the same, following the same really guidelines that have been followed in Europe. It's the reduction of harmful gases to use refrigerants that are better for the environment.
And so, that reduction is set to be 85% over a longer period of time, but more importantly, for 2024, there's a 30%... one-third, 33% reduction in the F-gases that'll be available in the United States, and that's doing a couple things. One, it's making refrigerant more expensive. We've seen refrigerant prices go up 30% or 40% over the last four or five months. We expect that to continue. The last time a gas was phased out, to put it in perspective, a 25-pound jug of, of old refrigerant would have cost $40, and that same jug today that's been, that's been banned or cut, the, the usage has been cut significantly, costs about $1,800. And so once, once those gases get phased out, the only reason that they'll be used is to recharge an old system.
And so that drives two things: one, the gas that we sell is more expensive. We make the margin on a more expensive product. That's, that's actually not bad for us. But more importantly, it drives a conversion in the market from older systems to be replaced faster than they otherwise would, with systems with, with refrigerants that are cheaper. And so one other piece of important legislation is that in 2025, starting January 1st, 2025, it will be, it will be against the law to sell a new system, a residential system, that uses the most common gas that we have today, is, which is R410A. And so, the A2L, that, that abbreviation is just a way of designating how flammable something is and how toxic, toxic it is.
And so the regulations have said we have to be more friendly, less toxic, basically. And so those old systems won't be able to be manufactured, nor will they be able to be sold. One other component on the slide here, and this is very new. If you remember the slide that Simon showed earlier, it showed 55,000 CO2 installations in Europe and 1,600 in the United States. And so CO2 adoption is in its infancy in the U.S. It's almost unheard of for a couple of reasons. One is just that those systems are more expensive, and then the other is that it takes a lot of training and technical ability to be able to service a CO2-based system differently than the current refrigerants that are being used.
And so we look at it for the North American platform as a great opportunity. It's gonna take a little time to develop, but what we have with being part of Beijer Ref, we already have the expertise. We've got training academies all over the world, and we anticipate being able to lead in the conversion to CO₂-based systems, which will be much better for the environment as well as long-term create more energy efficiency. In the energy efficiency standards changed last year in the U.S., and so what the map there of the United States, the light blue is where the SEER rating went the efficiency rating stepped up a certain amount, and then in the lower half of the U.S. it stepped up more significantly.
The main reason there's a difference in the color coding there is that similar to what we're gonna experience in 2025, going into 2023, you can't sell a low-efficiency system anymore in the darker blue states. And so we've already experienced what happens when regulation makes it illegal to sell certain products. And what that did last year was drive up pricing about 12%-15%. And then the next piece is the A2L conversion, and that's anticipated to do the exact same thing in going into 2025 and into 2026. And so we'll have a step up in basis cost of 8% residential HVAC systems again.
You know, as it relates to climate change and the more extreme heat, and for that matter, even in cold temperatures at times, the markets that we're in today will continue to grow, but the core markets that we're in and where we're focused on growth faster are actually the areas... I think this is a Washington Post article. We're focused in the areas that are expected to have a larger impact from climate change over the next two to three decades. And so we feel like that positions us well to be able to, one, provide more, you know, more energy-efficient solutions to the market, but also make sure that we're taking care of the customers where their equipment will likely... The replacement cycle, we expect the replacement cycle on equipment to shorten.
So if it used to wear out in eight-10 years, maybe that goes to seven to nine, which is a good backdrop for us, a silver lining in terms of something that's overall we generally hear only negativity about. With those macro and you know the macro things, we don't control any of that. What we can control is how we prepare for those things and how we train and get our teams ready to respond well. The ones that are more important to me and near and dear to my heart are the ones that we do have control over. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about those and walk through each one of these in a little bit more detail.
And there's a few of them that I want to make sure to highlight, that are specifically better opportunities for us because of being a part of Beijer Ref. In fact, there's a few of them that we've been able to get started this year, that we otherwise would-- for sure would not have been able to. There we go. So commercial refrigeration. With everything that's been talked about so far, it's probably intuitively understood that commercial refrigeration is an opportunity for us. It represents 5% of our sales, as I mentioned earlier. It's concentrated to a few branches. And so we've already seen, we have a group of branches in one part of the country that weren't able-- they wanted to add refrigeration, and they weren't able to pick up the premier equipment provider.
So we've not been able to get into the equipment business in that, in those five branches in that part of the country. And so about, I guess it was about three and a half weeks ago, we had a meeting with that supplier, and because of Beijer Ref and the understanding of the supply chain and... It's actually an agreement that Beijer Ref has with a competitor to this company. They decided that they would open us up and then further wanted to have conversations about expanding territories. And so for us, the ability to leverage the supply chain that Beijer Ref has already established across the world gives us an opportunity to grow. It's only 5% of our business today. It is a stable in the U.S.
Refrigeration is stable, just like it is in Europe. It doesn't grow really fast, but when you have a really small share, you can grow, you can grow really fast, even if the macro environment is only growing at 3%-4%. Another area is light commercial HVAC equipment. So if you think about that, it's a system that's kind of like a beefed-up residential system. And so we think of those as, you know, kind of the next size up from what you would use in your home. And it's generally the same customer that's selling, that's servicing and installing those in most of our markets that do residential HVAC. So we've had... This is another product, kind of like refrigeration.
We've got a few branches that do that, you know, have done a good job with that historically. And so we're actually looking for, as we're doing M&A, recently, we acquired a company that's better at commercial HVAC, and we're already getting that team coordinated with the teams in an adjacent geography to help them, you know, not only know it's a little bit more of a technical sale, so there's training that has to go on with that, and it's a different equipment line. And the last, I won't just spend a whole lot more time on that, but it's just the CO2. We look for those opportunities to start out with institutional customers that have government funding.
And as the world moves and as the U.S. moves towards more sustainable and more environmentally friendly heating and cooling solutions, we look for institutional customers, you know, to start that. We've seen that before with other HVAC solutions. And so in addition to that, you know, I've already had... Actually, his picture was up on the screen. One of the guys from APAC has a good relationship with a large customer in the U.S. on commercial refrigeration. And so we're trying to start just at the infancy of starting making those connections. But with our branch network, we believe we can provide the same type of solution to the U.S. that has been done in Europe. Another opportunity that we've had that's specific to being part of Beijer Ref is private label.
You'll notice that it says Sinclair, and it's because it's the brand that Beijer Ref acquired several years ago. That product ducted HVAC on the ground right now. We've started the process of getting the private label brand started as soon as possible, and no different than what they've seen in other parts of the world. What we see there is that we have a better margin, and we have more control over the supply chain. And so, it's actually filled a hole. We had a very specific hole. There was probably a dozen of our markets with a really it's actually a packaged heat pump, dedicated horizontal heat pump, that we were struggling getting product on.
We've been able to pick up that line and then also add on and fill in a hole in the product line. Being able to leverage the experience that Beijer Ref already has has accelerated that, and we look forward to that opportunity. In the recent acquisition, we know there's opportunities there, and we look at that as a synergy that we can bring to the table with product expansion as we continue the M&A strategy. Another opportunity that we have to grow the business organically is greenfielding. I have the picture up on the map, and so... But probably the best way to tell this story is, it's part very analytical.
There's a model, an analytical model that runs in the background that we've done a lot of research on to establish precisely within a radius of a point on the map, what the macroeconomic demand drivers are. So as an example, what's the population in that radius? What are the heating and cooling days in that radius? What are existing home sales? What's the median income? And when you take those factors and you put them together, and then you survey the competitive landscape, you can essentially come up with what's a sustainable share based on our experience when we've greenfielded and owned businesses in the past. And so it's very analytical. And so that's half of the equation.
The other half is to talk to the local market leaders, and to get into the field and understand where they feel like that there's an opportunity. What we found is that by having the analytical approach, it allows us to prioritize where we wanna open facilities first. It's also caused one of, you know, one of our primary partners to commit to co-investing in those greenfield operations. Those are dilutive to your operating margin when you first start them up, because you spend the money as you're building the revenue. But it's a great way to grow business organically for our suppliers, not only for us, but also for our supplier partners. And so we've got good alignment there.
In terms of going through that, we've identified nine markets already, and we're working through the planning process of how to stage that, so that we can line up the people, the property, and the product, and grow business organically. Functionally, if you think about it, like in layman's terms, for me, it makes you faster and easier to do business with. When you're really close to a customer, a contractor who's trying to repair an HVAC system, being closer matters, and having the parts on the shelf is what'll win you the business. Few other things that we've got as strategic improvement levers is pricing, sourcing, and e-commerce or digitalization, as well as continuous improvement, and I think of that as operational excellence.
So, pricing and sourcing, we're working on the platforms for being able to do that. I think the one that I would highlight here is another opportunity that we've taken advantage of, being part of Beijer Ref, is just using the e-commerce platform. So Beijer Ref, as mentioned earlier, has an e-commerce platform, already has the PIM data. And so what we've been able to do is we will roll that out in Q1 in several test markets. And that's it. I will say it's at least a year faster. Christopher normally laughs at that, and he says it's probably two or three. He's probably right. There's a lot of work that goes in just to selecting an e-commerce platform.
So having that just sitting there ready to go out of the box has been an important investment that Beijer Ref has made that's gonna pay off in North America. So I'll round out and finish up by talking about M&A. Our M&A strategy has. It really fits just in line with Beijer Ref's, and that's to be very intentional and be very careful about what we wanna acquire. And so for us, the investment thesis generally has to include several things, one of which is a company that's strong, performs well, that outgrows the market organically. We wanna know that what we're buying is stable and has a good historical trend.
We also wanna know that the leadership is going to, it doesn't necessarily have to be the patriarch, but we want to know that they have leadership that's gonna stay on with the company, and roll over into the business to keep an investment specifically in the North American platform, so that they've got skin in the game, and they're invested in the growth. But it also makes sure that what we acquire, we're able to go in and sit down with the leadership team and show the opportunities, whether it's adding refrigeration like commercial, whether it's greenfielding opportunities. We've got a management team, culturally, that we're aligned with, being decentralized and still executing well on local opportunities to grow organically and increase the operating margin of the business. And so when you put those things together...
Think about the market that we exist in. The US, if you saw the slides Christopher showed earlier, the pie chart, the green section of the pie chart for North America was the smallest as a percentage of the total. That represents about a $20 billion-$30 billion target opportunity. That's not the total market. The total market is significantly bigger than that. Those are targeted opportunities. Those are smaller or regional players. There's over 1,000 companies represented in that population. Most of them are family-owned. And so what we're looking for is a way of really getting to know and build relationships with multigenerational owners. We've done that well. That's where all the acquisitions we've made in the last 18 months, that's exactly where they've come from.
We're intentionally looking to be the acquirer of choice, which is when I'm sitting down in front of a family owner of a business that's maybe third generation, they think of their business like it's their baby, right? It has a soul, and they wanna know, how are you gonna take care of this company? What are you gonna do? And it's a great... It's not just a story to tell, that's just something to say, it's one we live up to, which is we're gonna, we're gonna represent that heritage very well. And what we wanna do is invest for, to grow faster than what you've been doing in the past. And so, in doing that, it also makes us someone that we, we get inbounds.
So we have an active pipeline that we're working on, and constantly, we've got several members of the management team on an M&A committee that work proactively to cultivate those relationships and to work things through the funnel. An example, a perfect example of that is the recent acquisition in Amsco. And so, the founding, really, the founding father of that, his name is Vic Flegler, and his son, John. John was the CEO. He's been running the business for years. They needed, for the family, wanted a liquidity event. John, and actually, the family, rolled over into the business. John's still running the business, and he's the one that's already looking for opportunities to add refrigeration, as well as increase the parts and supplies.
They had a heavier equipment mix, and so we're able to quickly find opportunities to do that. Also, the markets they're in are rich for greenfields, and so we're already working through prioritizing where those opportunities would be. And so, you know, it's not just, you know, as we think about M&A as a growth lever for the business, it's, it's being specific about what we're looking for and who we're looking to partner with in a way that allows us to accelerate growth and increase the operating margin of the things that we buy. So to sum up, you know, just, just to repeat, would just be that from a macroeconomic environment, we've got tailwinds that will, you know, that really will support the business for years.
And so the regulations, the incentives from the government, the conversions to more energy efficiency are driving up, will drive demand for us over the next two decades. And then we've also got great internal capabilities and opportunities to continue to increase our organic growth, as well as make sure we maintain a strong operating margin as we grow. So I think that will wrap us up for at least till the break, and so we'll have a 15-minute break, and then come back and we'll continue. Thank you.
Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I hope you feel energized after your coffee break. I will take this opportunity to introduce myself shortly. My name is Isa Hudd, and I will be moderating the Q&A session later on today. I will also take the opportunity to thank you all for coming, and thank you for all the amazing presentations so far. We'll start again and kick off the afternoon with a sustainability movie, and this is, ladies and gentlemen, the world premiere for it. Enjoy!
Discover Beijer Ref, where we master the art of achieving the perfect sustainable temperature. As a world-leading wholesaler and distributor of refrigeration and HVAC solutions focused on cooling and heating technology, we provide customers all over the world with complete solutions within climate control. Beijer Ref's extensive range of products, from state-of-the-art refrigeration and air conditioning systems to cutting-edge cooling and heating technology and sustainable OEM products based on natural refrigerants, are leading the.
Emissions by using a natural refrigerant... With a very low global warming impact, equal to one. While the actual refrigerant available in the market have a GWP above 1,500. The most important refrigeration suppliers choose Beijer Ref to test their innovations before entering mass production. You can find our products in supermarket, cold storage rooms, logistics centers, wherever sub-zero temperatures are needed. We will continue to look for more efficient CO2 systems using innovations like expanders or ejectors.
Fenagy is a dedicated manufacturer of industrial heat pumps and cooling systems. We work together with the utility sector, decarbonizing the heat production, substituting oil and gas. We're also working together with the industry, combining heat and cooling, reusing all waste heat, and reducing energy consumption in general. All our products are using natural refrigerants, and we customize our solutions for the specific applications, ensuring efficiency, reliability, and long life. Our company is growing more than 100% year-over-year, and typical customer application could be an air source heat pump for district heating for more than 1,000 households, or it could be a combined district cooling, district heating system for a larger city, or it could also be a reversible chiller heat pump for an industrial client. Sustainability comes natural to us, it's part of our DNA.
Beijer Ref is always striving towards minimizing the industry's carbon footprint. Our mission is to be the preferred provider of sustainable and energy-efficient cooling and heating technology. Guided by the principle of a greener future, we're committed to maintaining a stable business model that stands the test of time for the environment, our customers, and employees. Journey that we constantly work towards our vision: sustainable temperature control for all.
So welcome back. I hope you enjoyed this spectacular premiere. I'm Yann Talhouet. I'm the head of Toshiba distribution, yes, for HVAC products in Beijer Ref. I've been 20 years in this industry, and today I will briefly present what we do at Toshiba, and then I will make a deep dive on the heat pump market, okay. It's a very dynamic market segment, and I would like to share more insights with you about that. So first of all, 2011, Beijer Ref acquired distribution rights, exclusive distribution rights for Toshiba HVAC products for 11 countries in Western Europe. Basically, we take care of the products when they go out of the factory.
We import them in Europe, and then we take care of them until the end of life of the product, marketing them, selling them, supplying them to customers, and doing all the aftersales. What do we sell? We are selling heating and cooling systems for buildings, and also systems that produce hot water. We are in thermodynamics, so no boiler, no direct electrical heating, only heat pumps or AC units. We basically sell these products into different shape and forms to adapt to the different buildings. We can sell products for residential buildings, like the splits that you have behind. Air-to-water heat pumps, also for residential. Then we equip shops, small office buildings, bank chains, and we have also larger systems for hotels or large office buildings with more sophisticated control systems and larger systems.
So that's what we do. We produce this; these units are produced in 4 factories. So the mother factory is based in Japan, in Fujiyama, at the footstep of Mount Fuji. This is where it started. Toshiba is a very well-known company for electronics, and you all know about it, but it has a long legacy also on the cooling industry. It started back in the 1930s, and Toshiba has a very high technology, and they make several breakthroughs in the industry, adopting the inverter, for example, or the electronic embedded control system in the unit. So Toshiba has been part also of development of this industry over the past almost 100 years.
Over the decades, the AC has been developing and new factories have been opening up in China or Thailand, and more recently in Europe to address the European market, and especially the air-to-water heat pump development in the European market. Toshiba opened up a new factory in Poland. So those are the factories where we supply the material today. What do we do? So we are in a technical industry, so there is a lot of market intelligence. We talked about regulation. Our industry is becoming more and more heavily regulated, so we need a lot of market intelligence to make sure we deliver to the factories and their R&D teams the right specifications for next products or the generation of products.
On the other hand, we need to give lots of indications to our customers as well, what product to choose and how to install them. For that, we have technical teams as well that support the projects of our customers, and we have a quotation team that provide all the technical specifications so that the projects are done properly. Then we have logistics, commissioning, and after-sales teams to make sure the execution and the follow-up of the units, the systems when installed, is done. And basically, we follow the units until the end of life. We have been growing over the past decade at two-digit per year.
So we have had a nice growth, and this growth has been fueled by, first, the higher penetration of AC in the European market. So we have more and more heat wave, and the AC have been growing over the past years. And that's so the heat pumps. The heat pumps has been expanding over the past years. And I'm going now to make a dive on this market, on the heat pumps, to give you more insight about what are the drivers behind this market and what we expect out of it in the coming years. So first of all, I wanted to show you the market evolution. You see that over the past decade, this market has been growing. This chart gives you two interesting information.
We can break down basically a heat pump in different technologies. So two are majority. One is the air-to-water heat pump, so the units behind our AC units that are doing cooling and heating and are considered as a heat pump. This is our air-to-water heat pump, and also air-to-water heat pump. Air-to-water heat pump are units that are producing hot water to replace boilers, gas or oil boilers that are very common in Europe. These are the majority. There is also ground source heat pump, very popular in Sweden, a bit less popular in the rest of Europe. So it's a more niche segment if you look at this chart covering all Europe.
The second information that this chart delivers as well is the rapid acceleration over the past four years of this, of this market. Two main reasons for that. You probably all heard about the, plans of Europe to decarbonize with an acceleration. So back in the early 20s, basically, Europe has made a, built a plan, a package called Fit for 55. The idea is to accelerate on decarbonization. There are plenty of things in this, in this plan, from green energy, hydrogen, cars, and heat pumps is a significant part of this plan as well. So with the...
Europe has shown the willingness to push on that, and the countries now are executing these plans and putting measures in place, typically via incentives for the existing buildings or bans for new buildings to make sure boilers are being, I mean, boilers are being replaced. Basically, all fossil fuel-based heating systems are being replaced by heat pumps. So this explained the accelerations starting the 2020s, and then there is a second acceleration in 2022 especially, and this is due to the price of energy. Ukraine war. You remember last summer, prices of gas went over the roof, and that has accelerated the penetration rate also of heat pumps in the market.
If we deep dive a bit further on the drivers of this market, you have two charts on the upper part of this slide. The one on the left is showing the ratio between what does it cost in a country to buy a kilowatt of electricity versus a kilowatt of gas. And this is the most natural driver to understand if it's worth for you, as, for example, in your house, to go for a heat pump over a gas boiler. So I would say, naturally, the green countries is very interesting for to go for a heat pump. In the red countries, where still the gas is a bit cheaper than electricity, the payback is a bit longer.
This, this is, this explains basically the penetration rate that you have on the right side. So the countries that have, like Netherlands, for example, that have the best ratio, is on the upper part of this chart with higher penetration rate. So this is a natural way of, for consumers to select, a heat pump or not, you can compare a heat pump with an electrical car. It's two to four times more expensive than a boiler, but then the running costs are much cheaper. So the payback, depending on what you have on this chart, can go from three to four years to seven to eight years payback, depending on how cheap is electricity versus gas. Okay, so that's the natural point of decision, to adopt heat pumps.
So the key game of the government here is to provide subsidies to help jumping the gap of acquisition and compensate for the difference of price versus boilers, or to work on electricity, or taxing the fossil fuels, or playing on the electricity price, and so to try to get this ratio the greenest as they can. So these are key drivers behind this, and governments in Europe are trying to find the right way to go, and we can expect this to become greener and greener over the next years. On the bottom part, I wanted to show you plainly, basically how this, in quantities, how this market is working.
So you see, 2022, 2.7 million heat pumps were sold, including around one million of air-to-air heat pumps. So that's a bit more than 1.5 million heat pumps, air-to-air heat pumps. But more than 6 million euro, more than six million heat boilers were still sold in Europe in 2022. And this is a reservoir of the market expansion for heat pumps. Like for the cars, EU basically is envisioning that by 2030, in the 2030s, the heat, the boiler is basically to extinguish and the heat pumps to take over. And this is where the market is going to go for heat pumps. And so we know that this market is going to multiply at least by three in the coming decade.
Another way of putting that is an estimate that the International Energy Agency have made. So they have taken all the pledges of European countries have been done in the over the past years about CO2 reduction, and they came to a similar conclusion between the beginning of the decade and end of the decade, the heat pump market needs to be multiplied at least by three to meet these pledges. So this is the magnitude of the market development we are calibrating in the coming years for this for this for this market. According to these statistics, the market will jump from 15 million sets, I mean, the install base, to over 45 million sets by the end of the decade.
Another point that was mentioned several times during this day is regulation. So I wanted also to give you a bit more insight about regulation, because our industry is more and more heavily regulated. So there are two families of regulation. On the left, you have regulations that are related to the product themselves. So the EU is pushing the industry to have products with a greener footprint, so that is the F-gas. To have products also that are every time more efficient. So every four, five years, the Ecodesign is pushing the bar upper, so that you have minimum efficiency, you cannot sell products in Europe below a certain efficiency. And this ABC basically guidelines for users are changing.
So what is A triple plus today, in a couple of years is going to be C, B max, and the manufacturers will have to work hard, basically, to get back to the A level. So it's pushing the industry to get every time more efficient units. Another leg is safety, okay? Make sure that the units are safe to be installed in the buildings. On the right side, there are other type of regulations that are related to the buildings. So EU also is pushing buildings to be greener. So new buildings to avoid, as banning, fossil fuels, so to avoid fossil fuels generators in the buildings. And for renovation, trying to find a good compromise.
So there are discussions in some countries to ban renovation, but it's always a bit difficult to be socially acceptable. So these discussions are going on, and as heat pumps are moving on, those bans will come. But today is more managed by incentive, basically. So there are a lot of incentive system virtually in all Europe. In every country, there are incentive system to help basically a homeowner, for example, to decide to replace his boiler. Boiler is breaking, should I put on the boiler or go for heat pump? So those incentives are here to help him make the decision. Those legislations so have an impact. You understood it's helping, naturally, the market to develop, but there are other side impacts of this legislation.
So first is, of course, the manufacturers need to invest a lot in R&D to keep the pace with all these demands from Europe. But there are two other effects. One is that the life cycle of product is shorter because Europe is demanding some technological breakthrough. For example, when refrigeration, some refrigerant are banned, for example, new refrigerant came over, the service of the old machines is stopping shortly, and new machines need to be sold. So it's accelerating the pace basically of renewal of the machines. And second, as well, some refrigerant require more sophisticated machines.
Today, for example, we know that without any inflation, in three, four years, the new units that will come to the market will be at least 20% more expensive than the current ones, just because of the technical, technological evolution that is required for these machines. We have more volume and more value coming out of this legislation, and that will diffuse in the market in the coming years. We talked about two powerful drivers. One is legislation, and the willingness of Europe to go for green heating. The second one is the price of energy that is driving this. I wanted to highlight also two other drivers. One is the electrification. So there's a lot of talks in Europe to electrify more and provide green electricity.
The nice thing about heat pump, if you combine green city with a heat pump, you have a green heating, which is something impossible to do with other kind of heating systems. And the second thing also is the technology efficiency. Any other heating device is limited. Marginally, it cannot improve its energy efficiency, okay? I mean, wood stoves, boilers, electrical heaters cannot improve. While on the heat pumps, every year, new heat pumps come to the market and they marginally improve. Heat exchangers improve, compressors are improved, electronics is improved, refrigerants. So there is room, and in five years, new units will come that will be better than now, and in 10 years, there will be units that will come that will be better than the ones that will be launched in the next five years.
So this is an improving, ever-improving, industry, and that it's, helping basically the, the CO2, reduction agenda. Second, also, is a smart grid. You all heard about smart grid, or production electricity in Europe is becoming and worldwide, more and more viable, solar, wind, and we need to have viable consumption in front to try to keep the balance right. Heat pump is a perfect product for that because it's very easy. For example, in typically in wintertime, seven to eight, everybody is coming back home, cooking, showering, and there is always a big peak of consumption during this period.
Utility companies are always struggling to keep the balance of the system, and it's very easy to give an impulse to the houses, for example, and cut during one hour or half an hour, 10, 20, 25% or 30% of the heating, and to pass the cut. So this is also what where Europe wants to go, to have these smart grid systems and the heat pumps will be key also in helping balancing the grid. So we are quite excited, as you understand, about this market and this segment, and what are we doing as Beijer Ref in this? So we have been, over the years, having brands, integrating Beijer, Beijer Group. And we can we have two set up of brands.
So we have on the left part, brands that are focused on residential and commercial market. And on the right side, you have brands that are on the commercial and industrial market. Nicola and Kim will talk more about SCM Frigo and Fenagy later on. And Beijer of today is positioned with a unique portfolio solution, where we can equip one bedroom studio, I mean, apartment, with a heat pump, up to a full district heating. So providing a full neighborhood with heating. So we have a very stretch and depth and deep breadth of solutions to offer to the market, and that's quite a unique position in the European market. I've been talking a lot about Europe, okay?
Jonas and Alex have been pointing that, but Europe is on the forefront of this regulations, okay, and have been very ambitious in the, in the CO2 agenda. Oceania and U.S., where we're present, are also following and closing quickly the gap, okay? The same opportunities we see in Europe, we see also in these markets. The heating system legacy is a bit different in these countries. So in Europe, we're going to change our boiler, our gas boiler, but by a heat pump, air to heat pump. In U.S., they are going to change a gas furnace by a heat pump, unitary heat pump. It's a bit different, so the machine is different, but the principle is the same.
It's getting rid of a fossil fuel-based heating system and put a heat pump to replace it. So it's just the machine that changes, the principle is the same. And Beijer is sitting on this side. Basically, we sell no heat pumps, no direct electric heating systems. We just sell thermodynamic systems. This is our DNA. This is what we do. So to summarize, we are quite excited about this market. We, Beijer have a footprint already in this market, with a structure of different brands specialized by market area. We keep...
We are going to keep focusing on this on these coming years and going to invest both organically and M&A, to keep capturing the opportunities that this, market segment, I mean, offers, offers to us in the coming decades. So we are pretty excited about it. And, so that's the end of my presentation. I wanted to thank you for your attention, and now I recommend you to put your jackets on, because I'm going to hand over to Nicola, that is going to take you to the chilly world of refrigeration. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Jan. I'm Nicola Pignatelli. I'm the Managing Director of SCM Frigo, and I'm a mechanical engineer, and I have been working for 30 years in refrigeration. Yes, I'm the guy in the picture, which you probably don't recognize. So what we do in SCM Frigo, you have heard this name today in the video and so on. We are since more than 40 years designing and producing equipment for a refrigeration system in commercial and industrial refrigeration. In the last 20 years, we focus very much on natural refrigerants. We are based in a very strategic location. I will tell you why in a few seconds.
On a total area of 35,000 square meters, we have built 15,000 square meters of facilities, where 13,000 square meters are production warehouse. And another 2,000 are for offices and academy. Very soon, we are going to have another building because we are growing fast, which is good, but we need the space. The location, we are in Italy, we are in northeast. The region is called Veneto. Veneto is a region, probably well known, because of Venice, because of the Alps, because of the wine sometimes. But also is very important to know that it's a kind of a district of the cooling. Due to the University of Padova and due to many companies that established their production there, companies in refrigeration and chillers, so in HVAC and refrigeration.
Many of them, bigger, big, very big companies are there. This makes very efficient the supply chain, the logistic, and this is very good because we can be very efficient in all this, and we can be competitive, very much competitive. I'm pleased to tell you something about our journey. It's quite a long journey because SCM Frigo was founded in 1979. What is very interesting is that in 2005, we were already working with the Scandinavian countries. Their attention for the environment at that time was already higher than the other countries, so this has pushed SCM Frigo to start designing and producing CO2 racks, so natural refrigeration. And due to that, we became very important in the retail business.
At that time, they were starting with CO2, so we entered the most ambitious tender in the retail in Europe. In 2011, we became part of this fantastic company, Beijer Ref. In 2014, with the 1,000 racks produced with CO2, we were already leader for production capacity on this kind of technology. The F-gas, we have listened very much this today, but the F-gas gave really a push to the sales, starting from 2015, and the start was in 2016, with the quotas reduction. Then in 2018, we founded our Beijer Academy in Padova, so where we are.
In 2021, we inaugurated our very nice big new facility, and in 2023, now we are going to have another warehouse close to that. So something about our values. I will tell you something about what we think about how we act in sustainability in the next slide. But let me tell you that we have to be very flexible because we export 90% of our production abroad, so we are not a domestic company, which means we have to work with Norway, Sweden, but also with Australia. Which means we have to adapt our system to all solutions, to all the climates, to all the requests of customers in refrigeration.
This makes very important that we have on board, at all levels, very technical competent people, not only in the technical offices, but also on the sales. So this is quite important together with the fact that we have built in these years great reputation in the market, and not only with the customer, but also toward suppliers. So this makes possible that the supplier today, the most important suppliers, choose SCM Frigo to test their latest innovation. This match very much well, very, very well with our aim to be innovation-oriented. So we are really in front in all the newest technology. You probably heard on the video what we think is sustainability in SCM Frigo.
We design manufacture system with natural refrigerant, but in facility that use renewable energy and, limiting all the possible waste. So it should be kind of, entire chain in our production. We also feel this responsibility because the HVAC and our, and refrigeration industry is, responsible for the 4% of the emissions. So we really feel their, this responsibility to produce, produce equipment, that helps the industry to reduce, these, emissions. And just to give you an example, how, how we can, help in that. Today, the traditional refrigerant, they have a very large impact to the greenhouse, the, to the greenhouse, effect. So just one kilogram of the traditional refrigerant have the same effect of 1,500 kilogram of CO2.
That's why we go for natural refrigerant, so to reduce this impact. This is a very practical example that you probably saw also in the Christopher presentation. With the sales of our equipment in 2022, with the number of units we put in the market, we have avoided the emission of 650,000 cars off the street, or let's say, equal to 370,000 homes energy used per year. So it's quite a big effect. Now, something about our growth. SCM Frigo in the last 10 years had a very nice growth with a +18% compound annual growth. But in the future, we think, so we went from a good growth to a great growth.
We think we will arrive to super in the next years because after the F-gas started to push this quotas reduction, we see clearly that the trend will be even more important in next years. So, I tell that because if you see now on the right, we can clearly see how in Europe, the trend of the growth, transcritical installation, this is what we do, is really wonderful. But also you see on the bottom, you see that U.S. is starting, Japan is starting, but also U.S., where the ban will arrive very soon. They already started to do this limitation. On the other side of this slide, you can see what is the trend in the market we are selling to, which is more or less the retail, the cold storages.
There is a lot, huge, revenue expectations in the next year. So we are there in these markets, where the CO2 will be vital as a solution. This is the resolution of... We're not going to read it, but this is the latest resolution of the European Parliament, which push not only in refrigeration, but also in the heating and in the HVAC, more and more to reduce this impact of the traditional F-gases. So there is no other way that producing equipment with natural refrigerants. This is clear today. Okay, how we can face this big growth in the market, and in the future, also a bigger growth? We are going to face that because we have a strong presence in the market today.
Together with Beijer, we are present everywhere, not only Europe, where of course there is a mature market today, very, well, they, they know very well this technology, but also in the future in the US, where Beijer now is a big company. We are already present in South America. We are a large exporter in Australia and New Zealand. So we are almost everywhere, not only with commercial, staff, but also with the technical services. And since 20 years, we are doing that, we are pretty well-known, and, some of the biggest names, there are only few here, biggest name in the retail, but also in the industrial sector of refrigeration, they've chosen our equipment. They have, tried for many years, and they buy regularly our equipment.
Another very important point we touch today with my colleagues here is the training activity. So we have academies. Why we do that? We want we want the customer feel comfortable with this technology, so we want to accompany the customers, not only selling products, but also training him on our products. So we have academies all around the world, and we explain our technology, we explain our products, and the Beijer Ref wholesale network give us direct access to a huge part of the refrigeration installers in the world. This is quite important, this moment. Just as an example, in Padova, where we are in our academy in 2023, we have trained 250 engineers on CO2 products.
And then another very important factor is to have a wide range, because the customer can ask for a very small installation, but they can have a need for a big installation. So we have our condensing unit for petrol stations, small shops. We have a condensing unit for cold rooms, medium, large size. And then we have compressor racks for all the application, from the typical Netto, whatever, ICA convenience stores, up to the medium, big supermarket size or hypermarket. And last but not least, we have industrial products for processing food, logistics, and also pharmaceutical process. This is the latest product we are going to launch in the market. And it's very important to tell that the European strategy is going to phase out fossil fuel heating systems in the future.
This is a clear statement. The new F-gas regulation is pushing out the F-gas as well in the HVAC industry, I told you. So there is a huge market potential also in residential, multifamily residential buildings, hypermarkets, logistics centers. So we are now approaching in SCM Frigo, with the CO2 as a refrigerant, also some heat pumps. So we will launch in 2024 a range of a heat pump. We have designed together with Fenagy, so in cooperation with Fenagy, which is the company in the group with the highest knowledge about heat pumps, we are going to produce in SCM Frigo. And these heat pumps will have innovative technology, reduced carbon footprint, and very much, very high performances, so best-in-class in performances.
So we think now we cover all the 360 degrees of the possibilities of these markets. Looking back, and especially looking ahead, we have a time advantage. I told you we were pioneers in this technology 20 years ago. We have a quite a large presence everywhere together with Beijer Ref. We have academies to train people to use our products. And we are, for the future, looking for this challenge and to this growth, because regulation will continue to push, definitely more and more. We have now a great new facility, and if needed, we will have even a bigger one. We will build another one. We have a strong product development and partners. Supply chain is very, very much in partnership with Beijer Ref.
We can develop faster with tested innovation. Innovations are very important in this sector because we have to look every day for more efficiency. So, and now, just a recap. We drive sustainability in our company, so we are an important part of the green transition for what concern our products. We will face this acceleration of the growth due to trends and market trends and regulations. We are growing faster, and we can grow even more because we have now new facilities that we can use for that. We are well-known after 20 years in CO2 developing.
We have a quite a large product range to support the customer for all applications, and now we are entering also in the smart heat pump business with CO₂. So I think there is everything to say that the future is bright for SCM Frigo and for Beijer Ref. Thank you very much. I give now the speech and the stage to my friend and colleague Kim Christensen.
Thank you very much, Nicola. It's time to take the jackets off because now Nicola explained a lot about refrigeration. I will talk about heat pumps, and I think Jan talked about small heat pumps, residential heat pumps, a little bit about the commercial heat pumps. What I'm going to talk about is the really big stuff. When Jan is heating a house, I'm heating a city. Just to give you an impression of where we are going. So, Nicola, when I have to make a joke with you, I don't understand the business you are in, because it's eventually 15 times smaller than the heating business, and it's in term of energy consumption. If you look at the energy consumption for refrigeration and for heating, it's 15 times higher for heating. So I'm in the big industry, but I'm running a very, very small company.
It's a company in Denmark. It is Fenagy. We are positioned ourselves in the north of Aarhus, just north of Aarhus, second largest city in Denmark, and there we have our production. We are so fortunate because when you do a start-up, you have no money, and you have to find the money, and Pia, thank you very much inviting us on board. You, Beijer Ref actually came on board very soon after we started the company, so we are three years old, and with Beijer Ref on board, it's for the last two years. I mean, Beijer Ref came on board very, very fast in the beginning. And you can ask yourself: What does a start-up company, what do we need? Why could we benefit from Beijer Ref? Of course, money. That's a nice thing.
But when you start, when you have a start-up, and you want to do an OEM, you have to be able to buy components cheap, because it's basically 85% of your cost pie, and if I cannot buy cheap, I'm out of the market immediately. So I thought Beijer Ref is probably buying a lot of components, and they could help me on that point. So purchase is one point. Then I would say expansion, because now we are big in Denmark, we are now, these exactly, these days, going abroad and being part of Beijer Ref Group with a lot of offices everywhere you can imagine, that makes my life extremely much easier. I'm a mechanical engineer.
I have been in working in refrigeration and heat pumps for the last 30 years, but I've basically been working in my own companies for the last 20 years. I'm kind of self-employed, but with Beijer Ref, I do have a boss now in the Beijer Ref organization, and it's a pleasure. Where are we and who are we? This is our factory in Denmark. It is smaller than Nicola's, but we think it's a great factory. It's 3,000 square meters, and we produce these nice large heat pumps. For you to understand what we actually is doing is, you can see there on the truck, there is a rack with the heat pump there, but an average value of one order is EUR 2 billion.
And if you find me a little bit overexcited today, it's because just 2 hours ago, I received the largest order in our life, EUR 5 million. Sorry, not billion. Did I say billion? You should stop me, because then I'm exaggerating. But, you know, when you get one order in one project, EUR 5 million, it's different from when you're a wholesaler. Also, different from what Nicola is doing, actually, because I'm not selling a product, I'm selling a project, and you will see later on my slides that it's a little bit different. But the good news is that we are stepping on the same stepping stones as Nicola. We are using CO₂ as refrigerant, so we're using this very nice natural refrigerant inside our piping, so we are doing sustainable heat pumps. So this is very important to mention, but large capacities.
I think that's enough for that slide. What is the driver? And I think Jan did a very... That's a problem being last in the speech chain here, that a lot of the things I would like to say is already said, but anyway. The driver, if it's a small heat pump or big heat pump, it's the same driver. We want to decarbonize our heating sector. Decarbonizing meaning we are not burning anything in the future. So no fossil fuels like gas and oil, no biomass will be burned, and no waste either like this, because we will buy better clothes, better quality, and we will reuse it. So end of the day, we have a smoke-free society. We not burn anything, and where should the heat come from? We used to burn things to get heat. That is electrification.
We have to electrify with electrical heat pumps. If it's bigger or medium-sized or large ones, all of them have relevance here in this market, but that is where it's going. It's evident. Another driver is that pulls, pushes us a lot with a higher pace than it would normally, is that we have to get rid of Russian gas. So right now, we have to be independent on our energy system, and of course, we do not want to import oil and gas any longer. And that's what we call REPowerEU. That's the strategy there. So there's a lot of tailwinds in our business. And a little bit curiosity here, just lately in the newspaper, because all of you understand that we have to electrify now, hopefully, you do after this afternoon.
But think about it, in The Guardian newspaper, it was actually in many different newspapers, also in Denmark, that Oxford University did a research study and with a conclusion that a heat pump would be twice as efficient as a gas boiler. It's no use, but it's relevant to communicate, of course, so we all understand that agenda. So we are going for electrical heat pumps. And as Jan told you, there are different sizes. There is kind of cannibalization between these sizes because I'm doing big heat pumps for district heating and for big industries. The small residential heat pumps are maybe going into your houses, but it's all a matter of energy density or how close our houses are together.
If we are living with high people density, we would probably go for district heating system, where we have hot water in the pipes between the houses. But if the houses are a little bit more remote, then it will be individual residential heat pumps. So there are space for these, different heat pumps. What we decided to do is that we feel in the mid-range there, that there is still need for... It's a growing market. We have to substitute 18 million gas boilers in that mid-range market from 20 to 300 kilowatt. So Nicola and I said, we will do that CO2 heat pump together, and we will put that into the Beijer market through the Beijer network. It seems obvious, but it takes a little bit of research time to, to do it, but we are soon there.
Going back to the big heat pumps. What are we doing with the big heat pumps? This is very schematic drawn, but of course, all the electricity is coming from renewable. The renewable electricity means it come from wind turbines, it could be from hydro, or it could be solar. Electricity are decarbonized in this perspective. That electricity is drawn into the heat pump, and then we need a heat source for the heat pump. The heat source is where we're taking the heat from. Typically, a low-temperature source. We take that heat. It could be waste heat, it could be cooling, but it could also be a natural source like air or groundwater or seawater, lake water.
We take that low temperature heat source into the heat pump, and then we pump it up to, 70 degrees or 80 degrees, the temperature we need in the heat network. The trick here is that, of course, the heat pump should not operate while the electrical prices are high. So you see the energy storage there. That's for the hot water. So we operate the heat pump when the electricity prices are low, and we stop the heat pump when the electricity prices are high. And we store the hot water in a storage. And eventually, of course, all that hot water goes into the heat network and heat your houses or the industry or whatever needs to be heated. So a little bit about the, the market size here.
The application that we are busy working with right now is district heating, and we think that market in the northern part of Europe is around 400 TWh per year. Imagine the heat pumps we have done until now, it's around 100 MW. It's actually a lot. It corresponds to 25,000 households. It's already there. Fenagy did it. It's operating every day. But it only corresponds to 0.1% of the market that we are looking into. So we are at a very early stage with these industrial heat pumps. Jumping to another application, that is the industry.
If we look at the industry, that is where I put the joke to Nicola, "Why are you in refrigeration?" Because you can see here on this chart, only 4% of the energy used in the industry is going into cooling systems, whereas the 76% is actually going into heat. We have to, I mean, we have to translate that heat into heat pumps. It's a huge task we have in front of us. Unfortunately, right now, some of that heat, if you look at the pie to the right, you can see that a lot of these processes in the industry is at a very high temperature. We cannot do that with heat pump technologies as it is.
The Fenagy technologies, we can go to 100 degrees, so we only have one quarter of that pie, but it still corresponds to 520 TWh per year. So there's a huge potential there, even though we cannot do the whole temperature range. So the market is there, but we also have a very nice green impact, and the impact is coming from, of course, that we use a natural refrigerant. There were no impact from that point of view. And then, of course, there's a huge impact that we mitigate the use of fossil fuels and use renewable energy instead. We did not substitute the right now more than, like, the, if you calculate it, around 100,000 cars, but we are also only three years old, so that's the calculation there you have.
Why is it advantageous for Fenagy to be in Denmark? Denmark is known for being front-runner on district heating, so the piping is already there. It's already in the ground, and today, all the heat in the district heating system in Denmark is actually coming from fossil fuels, oil and gas, or biomass, and that is what we are going to substitute in the coming years. We're in the process of doing that. So the pipes are the same hot water, 80 degrees, but it's just coming from a heat pump instead of a biomass boiler or a gas boiler. That makes it extremely easy for us to move fast and grow in Denmark. We do have other countries in Europe where we also have district heating networks already in the ground.
Sweden is actually a nice area, and we are moving into Sweden right now. Norway have a possibility, and Finland have possibilities, but actually, we think that U.K. only-- Imagine that there are only 3% of the heat used in the U.K. is distributed via district heating grids, but it, they're going to make district heating grids. It's a political decision. So we are following the, I would say, the trends of political decisions there. So a U.K. with a very small red column, as you can see on this chart, but the green dot is where we expect to be in 2050, and is a huge country. So we have our own, with the help of Beijer Ref, of course, have our own office now in U.K., and we are following the first projects in the U.K.
There's a lot of opportunities here, but we are at a very early stage. In Denmark, we are probably at the peak in three years from now. That is where we expect most industrial electrical heat pumps would be installed. There is a further delay for Scandinavia and the Nordics, and maybe in Europe. If you look at heat pumps, electrical heat pumps and district heating systems, it's only going to peak in 12 or 15 years from now. But it give us a chance to be the forerunner and, you know, establish ourself in a very good position in, in Europe.
So the application or the market that we are looking into, as an industrial manufacturer of heat pumps, it is, of course, district heating, as I mentioned, and then we have a sector that I didn't mention so far, but if you can imagine that Power-to-X , this is Power-to-X , it's a hydrogen business. It could also be a biogas business, geothermal, carbon capture. You wouldn't know until I told you, but they need heat pumps. All of these different processes need heat pumps. So it was new to me three years ago, but now it's up for years. We sold our first 10 MW biogas project in Denmark, so there's a huge potential there. And then the two last application groups in the bottom, it's well known from refrigeration. It is the industry, and it's the HVAC.
They are also going to use very big heat pumps in the future. We think our total market in Europe, Europe only, northern part, is around between EUR 4-5 billion yearly. So that's a nice market to be a startup in. I can tell you, I'm pretty happy. So what are we doing? We're doing projects, and to give you a feel of a project, this is a 4 MW heat pump. It is heating 800 houses in a very common Danish city. What do we deliver? We deliver the white heat exchanger. That's the white piece with the black dots. It's the heat exchanger, we call it the energy collector. It collects the energy from air, because there's an air source heat pump.
We connect, collect the energy from air, and inside the building, you, we have two of our bigger racks, 2 MW each. They converge the low-temperature heat to high-temperature heat, and that is either stored in the big vessel there. We do not deliver that vessel. Somebody else is delivering that. All that heat goes directly into the heat network of the city. So you can see it's not a small supermarket system or things like this. It's really big. Another project is more an industrial project, but it's actually linked to district heating, is together with IKEA. It's in Aalborg, in the northern part of Denmark. What IKEA wanted to do is that they have worn-out chillers, but they need to cool during summertime. What we delivered was a combined solution for combined heat and cooling.
So in this example, we are refrigerating IKEA during summertime, and we are heating IKEA during wintertime, but the surplus energy available, we distribute into the district heating network, heating all the houses around IKEA. So you see, you see, this is circular economy. It is utilizing all the waste heat that we have in the system on the heating and cooling side. So it's really nice project. We do projects, but of course, we sell products also. So this is our product range. On the upper row, you see our CO2-based heat pumps. It's a natural refrigerant. At the lower row, you see our new product range on the hydrocarbon. It's also natural refrigerants, but we believe that we need to expand our product portfolio a little bit.
It's still very big heat pumps, but with these two new natural refrigerants. I don't want to go into these curves very much, but if you can imagine that on the X-axis, you have the source temperature, that's where you collect the heat from, and on the Y-axis, you have the heat sink. That is where you're putting the energy into, and depending on the temperatures there, different refrigerants would do the job worse or better. And we thought that the isobutane heat pump, the yellow square there, it's a nice supplement to our CO2 heat pump because it's working at much higher temperatures. And you can see at the lower range, it's a propane that the green area is doing very well at the lower temperature range.
Just to give you a feel that we try to expand our product portfolio so we can. I can see some laughter there. They will be part of the quiz afterwards, these things. But you, but the point is that we are expanding our heat pump range so we can cover all different kind of temperatures. So wrapping it up a little bit, I cannot look in the mirror and cannot look back because it's extremely immature. Large-scale industrial heat pumps in district heating and in the industry, it's new to everyone, so it's very immature. It's not something that is just happening, so there's no mirror to look back in. I have to look in the crystal ball, and then I have to understand, what do I think the market need in the future? So that's what I'm spending a lot of time on.
Also, there will be geographical differences just in Europe, but also when we get out of Europe, definitely there will be new challenges. But I hope what you should grab from my presentation is, we have tailwinds here, like Jan explained. We have political decisions, we have legislation, and we have some subsidiaries helping us to sell our products into the market. It's for good because it helps our planet as well. We make green heat. We are a very fast-growing company, and it gives me some headache, you can imagine, because the factory we moved into this year is already too small. But that's how it is. It's a good challenge, I would say. We are at a very early stage, but we are also in a blue ocean with very limited competition.
Very limited. If I should say on a European base, there will only be three competitors. I wouldn't even consider them as competitors, just to say that we are in a very good position. But it also because it's so early, it's very immature, it needs a lot of innovation, a lot of technical developments. Good that we are in a group, that we have a lot of knowledge together, we can do that. And then, because we're not selling products, but we're selling projects, we are building a lot of services around our products.
You can imagine, 24 hours, seven days a week, surveillance, a lot of data we bring in, digital twin, machine learning on data from our heat pump to improve the performance of the heat pumps, all these services, of course, also spare parts, but we are Beijer Ref, so that's not a big problem with spare parts. But there's a lot of services around our products because our end user, who are they? It's Vattenfall, it's E.ON. It's the big utility companies, and they know what they are paying for, and they want to get it. Otherwise, they will kill me. So we have to build a pretty, I would say, strong platform to make these customers happy, and we are doing that. So I have eight seconds left or something like that.
Footprint, expanding facilities would be a big task for us in the future because there is many people who want our products. Electrification, decarbonization of the heat system, that's a key word. Huge market potential. We are a solution pro-provider rather than a product provider. We work with natural refrigerants, and I must say that for us, I can only see that the future is bright. Thank you very much. So, now to the very boring stuff. I'm an engineer, and Joel is here to present some financial stuff I don't know much about, but
Famously last time as well, so, everything is picked up for success here. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Joel Davidsson, and I'm the CFO of the group, and needless to say, I'm very happy to be here today. In addition to presenting our new financial targets, I will take the opportunity to introduce myself to those of you I have not met before. I joined Beijer Ref here, a month ago. Very exciting time to join the company. Plenty of time to prepare for the Capital Markets Day, obviously. Jokes aside, I mean, you have seen the financial targets. We have an ambition to continue to grow with a very high pace, capitalizing on the strong underlying market fundamentals that the team has presented here today.
And that, in combination with M&A growth, with the ambition to double the size of the company in the next five to seven years. So, who wouldn't want to be part of that? Going back to myself, just briefly, my career before joining Beijer Ref can essentially be split in two halves. I spent the first half of my career in the financial industry, working with M&A and corporate finance advisory in London and Stockholm. And the most recent half, I've had financial leadership roles at Assa Abloy and Alfa Laval, and most recently as CFO of Rosti Group, which is a global contract manufacturing company. But let's move to our financial targets. So as an overarching comment, our financial targets are set to demonstrate our commitment for the next five years.
I will just briefly go over the old and new targets before we jump into each of the new targets and look at the historical performance against that. So on growth, our historic target was to grow more quickly than the market, and the new target, as said, is now to grow by 10%-15% annually.... and our profitability, historically, there has been no external target, and the new target is to achieve an EBITA margin in the range of 10%-12%. Capital efficiency, the target is unchanged essentially, and it is to generate a return on operating capital of at least 12%. It should, however, be noted that we have changed the numerator from EBIT to EBITA to better reflect the operating performance in the business following the U.S. acquisition.
On capital structure, we have historically had a target to have an equity to asset ratio of at least 30%, and that has now been changed to a more commonly used leverage target. The target is that net debt should not exceed EBITA by more than 3x over time. Net debt is then defined excluding the impact of IFRS 16, i.e., leasing and exclusion of pension debt. Dividend policy is the same, and it is to distribute 30% of net profit after tax as dividend to our shareholders. All right, going back to growth, I mean, we have all know that Beijer Ref has grown significantly over many years.
But just looking at the time period from 2013, Beijer Ref has grown from a company of SEK 6.6 billion to sales of more than SEK 30 billion on the LTM basis, corresponding to a CAGR of 14% on an FX neutral basis. We are committed to continue to grow and continue to invest in both organic growth and M&A growth. The target is, as said, to grow 10%-15% annually. Moving over to another very good development in the company, we have been very successful in expanding margins, and margins have expanded from 6.6% in 2013 to 10.7% on an LTM basis.
The ambition is clear, and it is to generate an EBITA margin in the range of 10%-12% going forward, capitalizing both on the underlying strong market fundamentals as well as supply and product synergies as we continue to scale our business, and of course, the growth of private label and OEM. Moving over to return on operating capital. Looking at the last 10 years, Beijer Ref has generated a return on operating capital of 14.7% on average, compared to the target of above 12%. In 2023, we are below the target of 12%, following the transformative platform acquisition that we did in the U.S., which essentially doubled the operating capital employed in the business.
Going forward, however, we are still committed to deliver a return on operating capital above 12% as we continue to drive synergies across our platforms and continue to grow organically. As I mentioned in the beginning, we have changed the capital structure target to a more commonly used leverage target. If we look at the leverage development over the last 10 years, we have averaged 2.1 x EBITA, somewhat north of where we are right now. We feel that we have a strong balance sheet, but more importantly, that we operate with a very good business model, generating enough cash to feel comfortable to have a leverage below 3, and the target is therefore not to exceed net debt to EBITA by 3 times for any longer period of time. Just waited for this all day, so, dividend.
I mean, you can see on the, on the graph here, we have, Beijer Ref has grown dividend over time, and over the last 10 years, we have grown with a CAGR of 10%, and we have distributed somewhat north of 50% of net profit on average. We will continue to aim to grow the nominal dividend, and the target is to distribute at least, 30% of net profit as dividend to our shareholders. So summarizing, obviously, continued focus on growth, we will invest in both organic and M&A growth, and the target is to grow by 10%-15% per year.
We will aim to deliver an EBITA margin in the range of 10%-12% by capitalizing both on the strong underlying market fundamentals, growth of OEM and private label, as well as product and supply chain synergies as we continue to scale our business. We will continue to focus and increase the focus on cash free generation and inventory optimization to support both growth and also to return to operating capital return of above 12%. We will continue to utilize our balance sheet to support our M&A strategy and managing leverage below 3x. And dividend, we will continue to aim to grow our nominal dividend, and the target is to distribute at least 30% of net profit to our shareholders. That was a short update from my side, so I will hand over. Thank you for your attention.
I will hand over for summarizing by Christopher.
Thanks, Joel.
So everyone still awake? This is actually the last slide. So, I think you've done very well. It looks like everybody is still awake. I hope you enjoyed the presentation. I've learned a lot as well during this journey here together with the whole team here. So I'm happy you had a chance to meet them. We'll also have a Q&A, and then we'll have some, I think, drinks for the ones who have a half hour left in their day, and you can get to talk to all of the team as well. So trying to wrap this up, I think it's pretty simple to wrap up because it all goes in the same theme, and I think it's a very connected theme for Beijer Ref.
And you start off with most of these presentations to be very proud of the historical performance. I think the history usually tells you at least quite a lot of things about the future as well in a company. And it's a company that's been growing for many years, and we, of course, expect with our targets to continue that growth journey, even as we're getting bigger and bigger for every year. But we also get stronger and stronger for every year. And coming back to the global platform that we've been building over the last 10 years and accelerated over the last five years. So I think we're very happy with the product. You heard about the APAC, and also Jonas driving the margin here going forward the next years.
You heard about the EMEA, I mean, a fantastic business, turning over SEK 20 billion with an unbelievable market position across the board. You heard about Alex, fantastic plans and, and also having the highest expectation in the group, so we always look forward to, to that. But in general, building a fantastic platform. And also talking to getting a feeling for Nicola and Kim, and also how it fits very well into Beijer Ref, and I think that's, that's the heading here that I, I really believe we have the business model that stands the test of time. So, you know, we think and believe this will continue in the future, and, and I think some of these areas will, of course, grow even faster as we accelerate over the next five years. I think the business model, we haven't changed a lot.
I like to use the expression, we like evolution, not revolution. Do things a little bit better, make sure we're on the right trends, and having the right people in a decentralized model that makes the decision. I mean, you can see it on Kim, of course, you can see it on Nicola, you can see in the rest of the team, they are very close to the business, and they're the one making decisions from a customer point of view, product point of view, sales point of view. And I think the rest of the team, me and, Jonas, and Simon, and Alex of the world, we try and help them. We do everything we can to support their business, and, and that's how the model is built up. We touched quite a lot today on M&A.
We, we tried to educate a little bit more how we think about it. It is a strong part of our business, but, but I would say it's a very value-creating part of our business, and we'll continue to work in that in the future. And also now, adding the U.S., I think we have an enormous platform for the future. And, and also connecting there to Joel, balance sheet is good, cash flow will come in well, so I think we're, we're in a, in a very good position in the future. We try to kind of frame sustainability for us. It's a word that's been used a lot across different organization and places, and, and I think sustainability for us mainly comes in our products. Yes, we have targets internally, but it mainly comes with driving the green transformation, the refrigerant side.
It comes on the electrification side, of course. It comes through regulation. But for us, combining business and also supporting the environmental journey is the perfect fit. And I think that's where Beijer Ref is today. And then I think also trying to clarify a little bit on the financial targets. I think Joel makes it very clear, so it's a very good presentation. This is the way it is. No, but it is clarifying what we see in growth, how we see the margin development going forward. We also see how we're gonna work with our capital, and continue to be very stable on the dividend policy. So I think all in all, this is the wrap up of today's all of the presentations. So thank you very much for listening.
Thank you for coming, both here and in streaming. I think it's been a... We are overwhelmed with the interest of everybody coming here. So I know everybody has a busy day and a busy agenda, so we also appreciate you spending time with us. And maybe I'll have an opportunity to thank the team that's put everything together here. And I think, where's Niklas? I think hopefully you can sleep tonight.
You've done a very good job putting all this together, so we really appreciate it. So thank you very much, and thank you for listening, and I will have a little Q&A, and then we'll wrap things out. Thank you.
Are we ready?
We are ready.
Yeah. Thank you so much on my behalf as well. This is how this is gonna play out. We will start by the questions in the room, and, if you please, if you have a question, please raise your hand and you will be given a microphone, and then we will distribute the word further.
Yep, and I will surely have some questions online as well, so.
Yeah. If you are listening online and have questions, please use the question box below the presentation to write in your questions. We will start in this room.
Oh, wait, wait.
Hi, it's Carl here from Nordea. First, you started off with working capital and cash flow. You said it was supposed to be pretty good in Q4. You mentioned the chart here with the threshold, I guess, on SEK 2.4 billion. Could you elaborate a bit on what's the ambition for Q4? And also, what is the working capital component of the operating cash flow, which I think it was on the slide.
Yeah. So on the first one, I actually think I was more bullish than pretty good. No, I know it's a short-term question, but it's on the agenda, right, for a lot of people. No, it'd be very good. I mean, we know that. We've been saying it, and it's a normal seasonality pattern for us anyway. But of course, now we have an even heavier cash generation as we mainly are flushing out our inventory situation, which I also said we'll continue doing 2024. And of course, we have our plans. We know what we're doing in this area, so that will continue in 2024 as well.
Ambition, I think what I said is that we're moving back, if you go into 2025 and beyond, with our pre-pandemic level, on the balance sheet, especially on the net working capital, and then also an ambition to at least have 80% cash conversion going forward as a stick in the ground, for the business. What was the second question?
No, no, the working capital component of the operating cash, cash flow.
Oh, yeah, it's... I mean, yeah, well, it's the AP, AR, net working capital, and CapEx, and then you have some lease or-
Repeat the question?
Yeah.
No, it was what portion of the, I mean, of the cash flow in Q4 that would be driven by working capital, i.e., what's the working capital release, you think, in.
Oh, yeah, I mean, it's getting, of course, the mainly is coming from inventory and accounts receivable, which is the normal flush-out that we have in Q4 as our main season of the business is Q2, Q3. And of course, the Q4 on the inventory is reducing even more because we're not buying a lot, because we're sitting in an inventory position for next year that's already at a good level.
Okay, very good. And you talked a lot about own products. You mentioned obviously Sinclair, Freddox. Could you give sort of a, a sense of what the portion of these products or what, what's the, I mean, overall, in absolute numbers, what's the sales of these, sub-segments, you could say? And what's the ambition a couple of years ahead? And also, finally, if you have seen, the profitability level increase as you maybe have streamlined the operation or getting more scale.
Yeah. So I like, Carl, when you have four questions in one, because you're really testing my memory as well. So you have to remind me when I forget a couple of them. But in general, if you look at our private label, and as we started this journey in Simon's organization, driving the MEA business, I would say that we are getting close to 20% on the HVAC side with Inventor and Sinclair. And actually, and I think we have mentioned or talked about it in the past, if you go back three to four years, 20% was our long-term ambition. You know, we started from very low levels, so it has exceeded all our expectation. So at this moment, we don't have an ambition. Will it be 30%? Will it be X?
But what we know is that we're gonna continue and grow at a very high pace as we're launching it in more and more countries, also in Europe, and we're supporting it more and more. And of course, the first part of a private label like Sinclair in a lot of markets is building the brand, building the, you know, support function, building the spare parts around it, and that's what we're focusing on as we launch it in new markets. So, I won't give you an answer on, you know, what the percentage of sales, but I would guide you in the way that it will continue and outpace the growth of the rest of the products we have on the HVAC side.
So we'll continue to take market share, if you want to use that, in our product portfolio. And maybe a question on margin. We don't disclose margin in that way, but both these type of brands have a much higher gross margin than the rest of our portfolio. So it is part. I mean, you know, look at our margin transition over the years. You saw Simon now at 11.4% EBITA. I mean, part of this journey is the Freddox or the Sinclair development and also the Inventor around in the country. So we get a very strong margin on that product portfolio. I think the other question around, we have another brand that Simon talked about, Freddox. We have it now also launched in the APAC region.
We're also looking long term, but we usually tell about Freddox. It's a very fast-moving product portfolio growing for us, but it's not big enough that I will tell you it's making a difference on the margin that you see on the screen. But of course, it has all the potential long term as we grow it to also drive the margin and being a margin driver for us long term as well.
Okay, very good. And the final one from my side is, I mean, either to you or Alex, is on the North American business and the regulation coming up here, first January 2025. I mean, it could, of course, be a risk, but it could also be a big opportunity, right? Depending on how you play it. So what is the strategy for North America in order to not sit on obsolete products, right, when first January 2025 hits? And also a bit, if you, Alex, could elaborate on what you think about pricing and also whether you'll increase prices on other spare parts or components as well in conjunction when you raise prices on the equipment itself.
You can turn off the microphone, just so you know.
Okay. So if I start to say something I'm not supposed to. So first, I think it's fair to describe it as an opportunity or risk. That's the way most opportunities present themselves. And for us, you know, the risk there would just be that if you don't see it coming, and you're not building your supply chain and putting the inventory on the shelves that you need, there's a sell-through regulation that we've just experienced, and so we've got experience dealing with this exact type of event. When the SEER efficiency ratings changed from 2022 to 2023, in the map that you saw on the screen, all of the southern states, it's illegal, and we can't sell those products today.
We have, you know, we have kind of internal teams that are managing inventories to make sure that we don't end up with product that we can't sell. But we actually look at it as more of an opportunity. What we see in that is, we saw in 2022, it can be transient, but you can pick up some extra margin along the way, to the extent that you have product and your competitors don't. What was the other question?
No, that, that's fine. Thank you.
Okay.
But maybe, Alex, when I have it up here, just to throw in some questions from the streaming as well, that's relevant for the U.S. I'm just reading them now, and then-
Okay.
I'll test your.
Test you here.
Y our answer. Is American innovation and manufacturing sustainable over a longer period, even if you might get changes in the Congress or White House?
Yes, I believe so. If you think about... I mean, I don't know if how many are here from the U.S., but if you think about what it takes to actually get legislation passed in the United States, it's very difficult with the political environment. But there's consent, there's general alignment to sustainability, and so I think the, you know, I don't know that anyone would project that, that, that regulation would step backwards. It's possible that they could extend maybe the sell-through period on when, on the 2025. That's happened before, but, but not, I don't believe stepping back the legislation.
And then I'll keep testing you. I'm learning here, as well, so you know that. And I'm reading verbally here. It seems like your exposure to Rheem is a significant risk for the business. How do you manage for the potential risk that Rheem falls behind its competition in terms of product development? How big of an impact would that... But what, you know, how would you describe, you know, one of our big partners in the U.S. on Rheem and their product development and capabilities?
So I would say this: I don't actually view... Holistically, I don't view the relationship with Rheem as a, as a.
Mm-hmm.
S upport and fundamentally, a strength of the business. I think it's a fair question to ask if they fall behind on technology. If you know anything about Rheem, they have a their short-term thinking is five years out. They're already investing, you know, planning on investments to continue to not only innovate, but also increase capacity for the newer equipment. So they haven't demonstrated a history of falling behind from a technological standpoint. In fact, if anything, as you think about the SEER changes, they were already implementing some changes to switch over to the new refrigerants in advance faster than most of the other OEMs.
You know, we all learned during COVID that your supply chain is critically important, and for us, a big component of that being domestic manufacturing is important, as if there is disruption in like containers and the things that happen. And what I would say is our leveraging the Sinclair brand and building out capabilities with other lines are ways of mitigating if we have mentioned earlier that we had a gap in a small narrow product portfolio, and that was able to fill that. And at the same time, I would say, I would just add to that, that you know, we're not exclusively looking at our business as being only partnered with Rheem, and so we do have relationship with Carrier.
We have a relationship with another product manufactured by York. And so, we don't think of it as exclusively with Rheem, but I see Rheem as a good partner to our business and really supportive of our long-term profitable growth plans.
I can add to that, when myself and the expert David, sitting in the corner, who runs our M&A, spend a lot of time learning the US, Rheem was actually our favorite OEM, if that's – if I can say that in that. We really liked, you know, the longevity, we liked the structure, we liked the product portfolio, and we also did quite a lot of analysis on there. I have a last question to you.
Okay.
Gentlemen, I would also like to remind you that we have questions in the room.
Yeah. So then, Alex, why are customers so loyal to you?
Yeah, that's a good one.
Yeah, that's a good question.
Yeah.
B ecause we're fast and easy to do business with. I think, you know, for us, it's really that simple. If you know, go to a facility, and you interact with the people at the sales counter, if you interact with a truck driver or warehouse employee or a branch manager, they're gonna be completely focused on: How do I meet that customer's needs in minutes, not hours? And so, by carrying, as an example, carrying the parts to fix every piece of equipment that's manufactured and sold in the U.S., that's a way that we're fast and easy to do business with. And so, I think you can overcomplicate that, but the businesses have, you know, decades of experience.
You sometimes have a grandson working in the business whose father and grandfather worked in the business, and so you do have strong relationships, but those long relationships are predicated on being fast and easy.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. Questions in the room? Microphone is moving.
Then we need to go there.
Hi.
And there. I think they've been.
Hi. So I wanted to ask a follow-up question on the private label question earlier. So most distributors that I know of have their private label margin have private label penetration peaking somewhere between 10%-20%, and they are very cautious to expand it further. So can you help us understand again, a little further, why you don't feel this pushback from your suppliers when selling your private label products?
Yeah, I think it's a question we get a lot, so I think it's good that you ask it. I think on the... Let's leave refrigeration. I mean, it's such a small part right now, and the refrigeration Freddox is more to maybe for us to consolidate, you know, our suppliers C and D and E, because we have hundreds and thousands of suppliers on the on that side. But if you take on the on the HVAC side, I think it's important to mention that when we look at the Sinclair and Inventor product, it's not a competitor to to Toshiba, where Yann sits, so Mitsubishi Heavy. It's a mid-tier product. It's a segment where our A brands don't work in. It's a lower-priced product.
It's usually the installer that comes to the branches that do refrigeration and they do HVAC. So it's more a standard type of product that they've been buying somewhere else. I mean, I'll give you a perfect example. It's like being in the U.S., sitting down with in St. Louis, talking to our team in Benoist. Their biggest customer, just to understand also in the business we're in on HVAC, we with Rheem, is $1 million. That's a big customer for us. I mean, we work in the smaller customer. He buys about $2 million on top of that of another brand that's a mid-tier product.
So us introducing Sinclair in his channel is that then he can move that $2 million to us, but he's still gonna buy the $1 million of Rheem. So it's completely different customer segments, and we also work with some of these bigger suppliers on, you know, if they want to develop mid-tier product, it's a different channel, but most of them, it's a very big differentiation between the product portfolio and the way Toshiba works or Mitsubishi Heavy versus the Sinclair Inventor. It's usually not a discussion. It's competing with other type of similar solution that's out there. It's not really competing with our A suppliers.
And then I would have another question before passing on the mic, and that is on... You know, when you do M&A, there's always the question of, increasing density or, increasing the geographic reach of the business. And after the acquisition in the U.S., I clearly thought, well, after this big chunk, you would be focusing more to increase density, and with the, the acquisition in the U.S., you increased geography.
Yeah.
So, maybe you could just help us, not only with respect to the U.S., but more generally, how you think about this trade-off?
Yeah. So, so we don't see it as a trade-off because we'll do both. We're the company, we will do this and that. So we have plan on increasing our density, as Alex talked to. Those plans, we're working also with our big suppliers, where we have the exclusive area, we'll open branches. We need to find the location, the people, et cetera. That will be ongoing. We have nine location, as I said, in the Heritage platform, that we're gonna be moved to increase density. You also have to remember that, in a lot of the platform in Heritage, you have very good density, already. It's a, it's a very good setup, platform. It's also reason for the success.
I think with the AMSCO and some of the acquisition that we're looking at, we're looking at expanding our geographical reach where we are. So, I mean, we're not really intending to go and buy a company in Nebraska or, I mean, something that's way off for us. So we'll continue and do both, and you will see us doing next year opening branches step by step to improve the density and also in the AMSCO that we just bought. They also have an opportunity to connect the dots together with us and et cetera. So we'll continue in the U.S. to do both in that area. And the rest, of course, as we improve density in the rest of the world, that's not something we communicate to you.
I mean, we open branches, Jonas open branches in Australia and et cetera, but that's something that's part of our daily business. We are a little bit more transparent in the US, as it's a new part of our business, and we talk about it a little bit more. Otherwise, that's an ongoing part of our business and also how we drive organic growth and also take market share.
A little small reminder to everyone, since this is being streamed, would be nice for the listeners and viewers if you stated your name and company before asking the questions.
Hello.
Well, go ahead.
Adela Dashian from Jefferies. We've spoken a lot about the opportunities that you have going forward, but maybe also turning the page to some of the risks or challenges, and especially as it relates to, I mean, there's so many new technologies and products that are entering the market and the need for the installer base to be knowledgeable enough to both educate the end consumers, but also being able to install the products into different types of applications. Do you see this as an opportunity for you to maybe integrate forward in the value chain to facilitate demand? Or, yeah, how do you perceive this?
Yeah. So, I would answer it in, in this way: You're right, that there's, there's a lot of things happening in, in your industry, and, and as we see, that's positive. We also, of course, see that we are in our industries with, with the size, where we are and the breadth of our knowledge, product, supplier knowledge, a little bit like both Nicola and Kim were talking about, you know, most of our biggest supplier wants to test the product with us because we're on the forefront of pushing the technology and all the natural refrigerants, so they actually test the compressors. We push them.
You know, I talked to Kim last night, and he said, "They should pay us," but we're, we're not there yet because we're actually helping them with, with the flaws they have in their product to, to get better. And, and, of course, we also want something for that. So I think in, in the breadth we have on the natural refrigerants, we, we are the leader to drive that technology, and, and, and that's also why, you know, the OEMs wants to work with us in that channel, and then we do the spare parts for them as well. If you look at the, the HVAC side, I would say, you know, the reason we have these fantastic eight partners like Toshiba, Mitsubishi Heavy, they are, they have a, the front end on developing product, changing refrigerants.
So, we are very aware on the product generation plan. I think it was a relevant question on Rheem. We think they are one of the best product developers out there in the U.S., and really, you know, we go over the plans. And of course, when we work with these partners or suppliers, we're also the ear and eyes out in the market, because we do a lot of this aftermarket service, and we get a lot of information from our installers because we manage, you know, 200,000-300,000 customers out there.
So I think my conclusion of the question would be, it's of course getting tougher and tougher to be a small player in this industry to keep up with all this, having the knowledge, having the journey that you need to do now with all the products out. But I think with our size and how we work, we see that change as something positive. But we also see it, of course, because we're, I think so far made the right bets in how we drive and where the market is moving. But I think in general, some of the strong players will get stronger during the next five-10 years.
And of course, as being a wholesaler distributor as well, we can see, you know, if you want to sit down and have dinner with, with Simon, he can probably tell you about 10, 20 large suppliers 10 years ago who did the wrong technology bet, and they're out, or they're really struggling. And the ones who did the right technology bets are doing well. But for us, we're not agnostic, but we, we will choose the ones that are going in the right direction, and the other ones will have a tough time. So I think, for some of the OEMs, they will struggle. But if you look at the...
In my view, on the HVAC, the Japanese, they're very technology-driven, and I would say even our partners for their mid-tier products are very well invested in following this product plan that you have in Europe. Maybe a long answer to your question.
Thanks. And then another one from me. How will you bridge the gap between the long-term growth journey and also the near-term challenges, especially the headwinds that we're seeing from a macro perspective?
Yeah, I think we are pretty. And I think people that follow us also on the quarterly basis, that Carl so nicely started his question on my cash flow in Q4. You know that we've been saying that. I think in general, the way we divide up our business is, as I talked about, the commercial industrial refrigeration, the OEM business, and then the HVAC side. And what we see still now as we talk today, and I said, is continue very stable and good development, refrigeration components. OEM, I think you heard a lot of things there that's also short term will be positive.
Then on the HVAC side, it's more for us, maybe flushing out what Jan described, you know, when the energy prices spiked in Q3, Q4 and Q1 this year, it's more that we were growing 30% organic over those three quarters, that as soon as that are behind us, we still feel a fairly good market or stable market out there. And also remembering, I think we've got a question here on it that I can relate to, is that the majority of our business is replacement aftermarket service. So I think there will be companies out there where it's much tougher in new construction. We see that in the U.S., it's less than 5% of our business, and project-related, and probably will have a gap for some years.
It will affect us less because it's not a core, core segment for us. So I think, you know, it, it's a little bit, as you said, it's balanced in the short term with the long term. We, we still think the short term is okay, then you always have high expectations on there. So but we'll continue to, to drive forward, and as we get those comps behind us, I, I think the main question or discussion point you have is a little bit, so how will the world or how will the world look in 2024, 2025? How will interest rate affect, you know, the economy? And, and will it be soft landing or hard landing? All those, of course, have different scenarios even for us.
Right now, we still see pretty good activity out there, but of course, we don't know how 2024 plays out in the end.
I think the clock is ticking, but we have some hands as well. But I would like to stress the fact that we're still having beverages and a social gathering after this, so please don't leave. Remembering all of you. Yeah, go ahead.
Thanks for the microphone. Douglas Lindahl with DNB Markets. A few questions from my side. Starting on your... Can you hear me? Yeah. On the,
I can turn it off here, you know that, right?
Seems like you're doing it now. On the financial targets and the sales growth target, I think I read an interview today where you said, Christopher, that half would be organic and half would be M&A, roughly, if I got that right. Today we heard a lot, a lot about regulation being obviously beneficial, but seemingly also beneficial for pricing. I picked that up a few times. Is that something you built into your expectations over the next five years? Just to clarify that.
I would say yes and no. A fantastic answer, right? No, I mean, some of the things what we talk about here is a little bit, as we... I think I described it when we went to the U.S., we liked the stable replacement market. We wanted something in the Southeast and all those things. And then we also realized in the journey, all the, these transitional changes that you heard Alex talk about, or you heard Jan talk about. And we like to call it, if it's the right expression, or a little bit icing on the cake, you'll always have some pros in mind, but we don't build it in, in general.
You know, we build in a certain price development that we've seen historically, and these type of changes is, you know, will be—I don't want to say on top of it, then people start changing. You know, I think 10%-15% is a good ambition. But we don't build in these things until we, you know, and then we reacted when we see it. You know, it's still... You know, you hear, you're listening to the U.S., it's 10%, it's 15%, it's 20%. You know, it, it's not built into our models like that. No, it's not.
Okay, thank you. Another topic we've discussed quite a lot today is, obviously, heat pumps. Maybe I missed that, but what, what portion of sales now, these days, is coming from heat pumps? The million-dollar question.
You didn't miss it, and I, I know I promised for a while to say it, so, I think the most relevant numbers for you is on our EMEA business. I think in the US, it's still, you know, early days, and in APAC, it's early, and it's about 10% of our HVAC business in EMEA, that's heat pumps.
Okay, thank you. And, one more, if I may. On this sort of going back to the growth target, then, M&A, obviously, you need to sort of step that up in order... As you grow in size, the either the targets need to get bigger or you need to do more acquisitions. How are you thinking with regards to that?
Yeah, so, I think it's a little bit, you know, on acquisitions, of course, it's one of those things that you usually get an answer. It's from a- You can't really control the timing, right? You know, you get more at a certain time, and you get less. But I think if you look at Beijer Ref the last two, three years, I don't know, David, how many? 24, 25 acquisitions? And it's a mix with small and mid-size. And I would expect that to continue, you know, both in continuing EMEA, continuing in APAC, and then usually in the U.S., they're a little bit more mid-size, a little bit bigger than you have in Europe or in the APAC region.
So, clearly, the way we see it, our pipeline, right now is more a question on priority, than it's a question of, you know, how much growth it will add to our business. But, I mean, the reason we put the target out there, because even as we're now hitting SEK 30 billion, we think it's a feasible target to have also on the acquisition side.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Karl Bokvist from ABG. One question first. I believe when you first started this position, Christopher, you talked about Beijer turning into a double-digit margin company, and now you're there, so hats off. But then on the working capital side, where you want to get it back to 2019 levels or pre-pandemic, what main drivers are there that you can utilize to get it back there? And is it the same kind of drivers in Europe and the US?
Yeah, no, I think it's almost not... Thanks for the margin comment, by the way. No, but I would say on the inventory level, you know, of course, we have been, I think, delivering, at least according to our plan, when we said that most of our inventory during the pandemic was driven by, you know, trying to manage a situation where your supplier has lead times of over a year. So of course, when you build all your safety stock to manage that, I know a lot of discussion with Jan when he wants to order one year ahead, from the factory in Thailand. I was like, "What?" And now all that is back to normal.
So I would see it more that, when you look at the, the, you know, as you transition through 2024, of course, we'll have the same seasonality patterns, but we'll, of course, we'll buy less because we have more on the shelf. And then you'll, you'll continue to have a very strong cash flow in Q3, Q4 to get you back to the pre-pandemic, levels, in percentage of sales. You know, I can't... If it's 27%, 26%, but somewhere in those ranges that we used to run in the past. Then also, you know, a tendency to, to say as the US is a new part of our business and a, and a pretty significant business, we expect, and I know Alex is listening, you know, mathematically, he'll be running at a better pace than the rest of Beijer.
Most of the suppliers stateside, much shorter lead times. So as his business normalizes as well, that will also be in a positive development for Beijer Ref. So I think those two together should bring us, you know, maybe a little bit better percentage ratio than we were before the pandemic.
Can you improve it further beyond that? The second one is just more short term. How far along are we on the inventory normalization?
Yeah, I'll start with the last, and I'll come back to your first question. We see it as the, our inventory norm Q4 in, in 2024. So for us, it's an expectation more at the end of next year, we'll be back to normal level, which give us a strong cash flow generation, 2024. You know, clearly above the 80% type of cash conversion that we talked about. Of course, we can do more. I, I think you said a little bit when we started the journey, we talked about how we're driving growth on the margin side for, for all our businesses. Inventory, we are running pilots, especially together with Simon, on, on different type of structures. It, it's more-- It's less related to carrying-...
Just carrying less, it's more related to, can we work with a different structure when we worked with inventory? So, I'm not standing here and committing anything on that it will change then from 27 to 25, but we have an ambition in looking on it long term as everything is normalized now, and see structurally wise, is there more we can do to make it even more efficient than the past? Because that's of course, also gonna, you know, drive our return on capital. Plus, you know, with interest rate being much higher, the cost of capital is of course higher than it was five years ago. So it's in there, but it's nothing I'm committing to right now.
Maybe at a later stage when we're further along in this pilot project and see if we feel comfortable and having a stronger target in the future.
Any more questions from the room? Yeah, I see one hand raised. Yeah.
Hi, Maxime Frydman from BDL Capital Management. Just a clarification related to the strong cash flow generation on Q4 and on 2024. One of the comments you made was to recover and your free cash flow at pre-pandemic level in 2024. I was just wondering, is it in terms of cash conversion or in absolute terms?
Absolute terms.
As a result, I'm just asking because I was wondering, you will have, based on the target, a higher top line and a higher EBITDA. So what is the reason of lower cash conversion compared in 2024 compared to in 2019? The fact that we have less.
No, but the cash conversion in 2024 will be higher, right?
Okay.
Much higher.
Okay.
Because it's the reason I don't count the with my targets in 2024 is, I mean, you know, I have a number, my CFO refuses for me to tell that number, so I won't. But it will be a stronger cash flow because we're releasing the excess inventory that we had. So I would count mathematically, you can probably do the exercise, give or take, where the cash conversion will be in 2024. It's more when we move into 2025, you know, I think 80% is a fair target to have on business as usual.
Okay.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Anything else? Going once, twice? I don't think we have.
Yeah. I would think all the questions there always, but I would like to. It was a really nice day. I mean, I learned a lot. You also said you learned a lot.
Yeah.
I think, I would say that's a good sign.
I hope so.
Yeah, I really do. I think so. I hope you enjoyed this day, and, Is there anything else you would like to summarize?
Yeah, maybe I think a fun comment and maybe you have it as a question, but we had an article this morning from Dagens Industri.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Yeah, and, and one of the question I got was: "So if you don't reach these targets, do you then get fired?
I actually wanted to ask that one myself, but yeah, go ahead and answer. Yep.
And I can't even remember my funny answer to the question. I mean, I have some board members here. I think I have a lot of votes in this room. And of course, I mean, I thought it was a funny question. And I mean, the reason we put financial targets out there is to clarify a little bit our view of the business going forward. And I think we are, without trying to be humble, the best view from what we think the business will develop going forward. Then we, of course, know that you have cycles in this, you have timing of these things, but I think the main thing was this is what we believe we can generate over the next five years.
Of course, I added in the answer because that's how I am, but of course, our internal targets are even higher. Right, Simon?
Yes.
Yes.
I would say we've covered most of the.
Yeah
Y eah, stuff as well. And your answer is just perfect.
Was it?
Yeah, I would say so. Thank you so much for coming, and there will be beverages and coffee outside.
Thank you.
Thank you.