Hello, and welcome to the Beijer audiocast teleconference for Q4 2021. Throughout the call, all participants will be in listening only mode, and afterwards, there will be a question-and-answer session. Just to remind you, this conference call is being recorded. Today, I am pleased to present CEO, Christopher Norbye, and CFO, Maria Rydén. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone, Christopher Norbye here together with Maria. We'll jump straight into it, so we can start with slide three. No real news here. It's more that we're trending towards the SEK 17 billion based here on a strong Q4. We also added another country to our list here as the latest acquisition. Other than that, we'll continue and trend these numbers on the customer and branches as well. We can move on to the next page.
I think trying to just summarize a little bit, and then I'm sure we'll get into it in Q&A. We believe it was a very good end to the year. We're very happy with how Q4 developed, you know, growing top line north of 25%, which we think is a very good number. I mean, we're proud and good of both numbers, but almost 12% organic growth. Good, you know, double digits plus in both HVAC and OEM, which is our, you know, faster-growing segment. I think despite, we'll come back to that, I'm sure, on the supply chain, especially on the OEM side, that we achieved 15% growth in Q4. I think testament to a fantastic job by the team, with an even stronger backlog, but very good to get to those numbers with the situation as it is.
Also good on the ref component side and a stable development and a good development in all our regions. Still some, I would say more macro challenges in the African region, but I still think it's a good performance what they're doing there. Acquisitions plus 13%. It's been an active year. We'll come back to that. Also, a very good development in our acquisitions in Q4, which is of course fantastic that they continue and deliver and even have a ramp up as we took over them, as we integrate them into our business. In all, the 25% growth in Q4 I think is a very good number.
Moving into the profit growth. Here EBITDA is 25% growth, similar margins as last year. We do have, of course, some challenges on the cost side with finding the right timing of moving price increases, but I think we're in a good phase, and we are passing on market at a rapid pace, which I think also proves there on the margin dilution. I think we'll come back a little bit on the freight side. That has a longer lead time for us on the HVAC side to get it into the market, but the price increases are done, and they're coming through here now in Q1, and then we expect to be through them in Q2. The other price increases, I believe we're in a good position on there.
I also think if you look at the market, that it was more, I would call it maybe the way we interpreted desperate price increases last year. Now at least it's more planned from our suppliers, which is also easy for us to handle, the way it's structured currently. Then also finish off, good order book. We said that in Q3 as well. We will say that now and in Q4, good order book. So, we have a good activity level both in the markets but also based on the orders that's coming in at a stronger rate than the sales.
Full year, adding up the mathematics, + 14% growth, acquisitions 8%, and EBITA growth of almost 30% to pick up margin against, of course, a more challenging 2020. The 10 acquisitions adding up almost SEK 2 billion in sales, with four strong acquisitions in Europe and then in APAC more complementary acquisitions to our existing business model. We're happy with this year as well on the acquisition side.
Maybe just give you a little bit of flavor on the external side. Starting with what's on everybody's report, and I think no difference from Q3, the supply chain. I would say we see no real difference yet, not a negative and not on the positive side. It's continued to chase the parts. We are coping with it. Of course, it drives some costs of shipping things across the globe and flying things around to make sure we can do what we can for our customers. But if we talk to our suppliers, I think they're stabilizing or saying, you know, coming around end of Q2 that the supply chain should improve. But we can manage, as you can see, still growing at 12%, despite this.
Then maybe moving into the freight side. You can see here it took off quite a lot after the summer, and it caught us, especially on an HVAC side where we take a lot of freight in from Asia, both on Toshiba but also on the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. It took some time to renegotiate the contracts with a large customer. Those price increases are in place, so we expect them. They come through in Q1 and in Q2 at this high level. We are covered on that part as well. I think that's also moving in the right direction.
The refrigerants are coming up slightly, but they are now positive. No major effect in Q1 for us with no negative and no positive. It's I think it's only like 7% of our business. But it's positive, the prices are turning upwards, and we see that now also in Q1 to continue.
Finally, we are moving more and more, especially in our Toshiba business on the air-to-water heat pumps. We see a very strong demand here in Europe, driven by, of course, high prices, a lot of old technology, oil and gas boilers. The very good thing is that working through Toshiba, which is our strategic partner, they have now opened a factory in Poland in Q2 just focusing on air-to-water heat pumps. Now we have the product portfolio and also a very good supply chain to support the future growth there. I think that's a little bit summary on the external factors. We go to the next slide six.
On the acquisition, as you know, it's been a busy year for us, moving into some of the bigger ones in Europe from Sinclair and Inventor, acquiring two leading companies with a very strong market position and also a strong brand. We're now also launching the Sinclair brand in eight countries in Europe, as we started last year, and we want to continue this year. A lot of complementary acquisition around our Australian business that's also growing very nicely. Maybe highlighting Fenagy, which was more of a startup and a development company coming to a breakthrough as we acquired a majority there. They had a fantastic development where we expect them to actually triple this year and also moving into sectors that we have not been present in the past. It's a very nice add-on to our business.
Of course, in Q1 we closed the acquisition of Deltron in Croatia, also the market leader there on the distribution of HVAC. Also, I think a good start to this year. We continue to see these trends. I think you heard about them a lot of times. I think worth mentioning is that the phase-out scheme continues. We're also expecting actually new updated directives from EU here in end of April, with expectation they might even accelerate this journey. We also see a much more aggressive view from EU to take care of the systems where you are not following the procedures here in Europe. We can also see that as part of the development going forward.
Environment, we see a lot of drive for type of products from the air-to-water heat pumps, another energy efficient solution also on the HVAC side. The digitalization we talked about will continue to drive. You know, almost 10% of our sales now is coming through e-commerce, and we expect that to continue and develop in a good way. I think we still are positive to the mega trends that supports our business going forward. Next slide.
We kick off with page number nine. As Christopher mentioned, we show nice growth for the quarter and also for the year. We had about 25% in growth and 12% in organic, 13% in acquisitions, and a positive impact from the FX. Last year, we had a slightly negative growth. Nice drop through in EBIT. EBIT increases with 27% and goes from SEK 256 million to SEK 326 million. We have increased net debt, and that is due to the acquisitions and that we also had built some inventory during the fourth quarter to meet the increased demand and the order book. I can also say that last year the net debt of two was very low.
This is a snapshot, and of course, the acquisitions contribute, and then the net debt is expected to go down as long as they contribute with profits. EPS growth is about 39%, thanks to a lower tax rate and some minority interest. We have been able to grow the EPS, and the board also proposes a higher dividend. Christopher will talk about that later. All in all, a very strong fourth quarter for us. Normally, the fourth quarter is a little bit lighter, but this quarter showed something differently, and we can see that also when we compare with other fourth quarters.
Going into the full year, we see that the growth is 20%, so a little bit lower than on the fourth quarter, and that the acquisitions have contributed a lot, 8%, during the year. They will continue, of course, to contribute during 2022 as well. Organic growth for the year was about 14% and a negative FX in the beginning of the year adding up to -1.9%. Nice EBIT growth for the full year, 31%. Last year, we had a negative. Also a nice EPS growth of 35%, SEK 2.58 for the full year.
Going into the sales mix and also the organic growth, you can see for the fourth quarter it was 12%, and it goes for all our product segments. They showed a nice organic growth, and you can also see that the HVAC, they have a lighter quarter in the fourth quarter. But so, the growth for HVAC is higher on the yearly sales. HVAC is about 45% of our business, and OEM 11%, and the rest is the commercial refrigeration.
Looking to the same chart on page 12, you can see that the organic growth is 14%, and you can see also that, for the full year, HVAC grew with 18%, which is as Christopher mentioned, OEM and HVAC are our high digit growers within the group. For the full year, HVAC is now 47%. HVAC is higher in Q2 and Q3. Of course, that could vary between regions as well. We saw that Asia, for example, they have their summer season now, and they have shown a very strong result in the fourth quarter.
On page 13, you can see the fourth quarter and compare it with the last four years, and you can see it's higher, it's a good trend, and also that the gross margin is at a decent level. Of course, we work to increase that over time. On page 14, you can see also the sales and the EBIT, and you have that in the report as well. All our regions are growing apart from Africa, which has not recovered in full from the pandemic. Overall, we have a nice growth in all regions. Of course, South Europe, that includes Inventor, which was a big acquisition for us last year. Eastern Europe with Sinclair has contributed well during the quarter.
Cash flow, as I said, we have normally, I think the pandemic has shown a slightly different seasonality here. Normally, we tie up capital the first half and release it the second. This year, it showed a little bit different. We built up inventory also to meet increased demand and order book. That's why the cash flow from the working capital is negative here. On general terms, our cash flow from operations is of course positive.
Yeah. I think maybe just to clarify that the two areas where we are building as much inventory as possible, especially on the HVAC side and copper. Here we're placing yearly demand as that's securing the capacity in the supply chain for us. I think it's also giving us an advantage for 2022 because we believe there's a risk for other players to run out of stock in this market. We're very comfortable this is an active choice to build up the pipeline for the growing segments we have and securing capacity in the supply chain.
Here on page 16, you can see the net debt, which is about 2.5 at the end of December. Of course, we believe it should go down a bit with the capex and acquisitions. We're continuously, of course, working with the net debt and also on the funding side to manage this. These include all lease liabilities as reported per IFRS. If one are to do a pro forma for Inventor maybe mainly, the net debt would have been about 2.1. Okay. Christopher?
Yeah. Just to wrap it up, as you saw, we're proposing here to increase our dividend by 10%. We believe that we're in a very good position on the future as well. We think it's a good way and continue sharing this with our shareholders and also having a sustainable growth rate over the years going forward. This is our proposal here to our shareholders on the EPS.
Finishing our organic growth. You've seen this, we believe a good year here on ramping up. Of course, the Q2 was extremely strong, and we are also seeing Q4 coming up at the 12% versus a more normal Q4 last year. All in all, a good quarter, and I would say a good year as well in total for the organic growth side. We believe a nice slide on the development of Beijer. We're now touching upon the SEK 17 billion, closing out 2021. Also, you know, a growth rate, including the corona issues around 13% for the last five years and year-to-date of 18%. Of course, this is the journey we have as an ambition to continue going forward, and I think we're in a good position to execute on that as well.
Concluding a little bit the year and the quarter is that the megatrends around we can see that on our OEM side, the exchanging into CO2-based solutions, both in the retail, restaurant, and commercial side continues to be strong. They will do, you know, 15% despite challenges, and we could have grown more. We see that, of course, in the backlog and we believe that we're in a good position here for 2022. Also, the trend here on penetration on HVAC, but also air-to-water heat pumps, that's part of our product portfolio now. We believe also will continue to be good in the future. So, we're positive in the segment that we are present.
Of course, all product groups growing, which is positive, and then double digits in the OEM and HVAC that are our faster-growing segments. Acquisitions then about SEK 1.8 billion, and also, we believe closing Deltron here beginning of the year and consolidate January first. Also continued good discussion with our identified targets here makes us positive for 2022 as well. Order book we touched upon, and of course, also the growing organic and acquisitions that also continue here now to get over and past, we would say some of the cost issues related to supply chain and pricing that we believe here will get better during at least 2022. We'll come back to that. I'm sure there will be some questions on that, but we're positive for the future development here as well. I think that wraps up our presentation, and now we open up for questions and comments.
Thank you. If you do wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing zero two to cancel. There will be a brief pause while questions are being registered. Our first question comes from Carl Ragnerstam with Nordea. Please go ahead.
Good morning, it's Carl Ragnerstam here from Nordea. A couple of questions. Firstly, in terms of the margin uplift in the quarter, could you sort of help us bridge how much that comes from a positive margin mix, perhaps with a nicely growing OEM side? You've done margin accretive M&A and also a bit on the drop-through as well organically. Thanks.
Yeah. I think I won't get into specifics, but I think if I try and break those things down on a general comment, I think on the positive side on the OEM has been more muted because of the supply chain issues in that segment. Also just to explain a little bit what we're doing to manage the situation is that a lot in the OEM and also I've been to a factory and seen all the machines, is that we are installing a lot of these machines with our customers, and then we fly out the missing parts, so we can make sure they're up and running as soon as possible instead of waiting.
On catching up, the price changes from the supply chain has a little bit longer lead time in these areas. I think it's not at the level that it would be in a normal instance, but I think we manage it in a good level to secure the customer. Also, as this comes through and stabilizes, of course, we see a nice upside as that business grows, I would say more towards Q2 and Q3 next year. I wouldn't have it in Q4 as a margin driver but managing very well on the supply chain growing 15% despite all these challenges.
Also, maybe to finish off that, is that we're also flying over parts from Italy to Australia to make sure we can secure the lead times with the customers. We are investing our own money to make sure that we continue to make our customers happy despite the supply chain. We also think this will, you know, even out here coming towards closer to Q2 and going forward.
On acquisitions, I would say that the bigger ones had a good development. If I take a company like Sinclair, just to put how it's already so integrated in our business in the sense that the high growth that they've been having this year is, as we've been launching their products in our different countries and then of course replacing it with other products that we see are less profitable. It's a good mix for us, but it means that the whole model is more integrated now, and especially on the HVAC side as we're using our commercial leverage as a wholesaler in Europe leveraging their product. We're not really going into that. Inventor, of course, we just closed at the end of. We started integrating in October.
Inventor, of course, being an HVAC company, their strong season is Q2, Q3, but there's still a positive Q4 for us. On the organic side, we did touch upon some of the issues around distribution or logistics costs. I'm sure you have a follow-up question in that. I'm not sure if that answers all your questions, or you wanna have some more questions around it.
No, I think it was a good answer. Just on the non-recurring items, is it related to purely M&A or is it what's included?
I would say as referring to myself, the M&A cost right now we're taking as part of our normal day-to-day business. The main component to that is the CEO sign-on bonus that we took in Q4. I hope we don't have to take that again next year. I mean, of course, I wouldn't mind, but that would mean that somebody else is on the helmet.
Yeah
We classify that as a non-recurring item.
Yeah. Okay, perfect. Also, I think you mentioned that you had a strong order backlog or a strong ending to Q4 and that you entered 2020 with a good backlog. Could you perhaps give some flavor on the order intake development during the quarter? I guess it sounds like you had a positive book-to-bill, obviously. Yeah, a bit on that as well as by-
Yeah
by segment, perhaps.
Yeah. I mean, we have a different type of. You know, you see some of these that come from that type of business. Again, if you compare to a lot of focus on the bigger industrial companies like Sandvik and Atlas and how they work a lot with order intake and the book-to-bill. Of course, we have in our ref components business. It's more a daily business, and it runs every day, and you don't build a lot of big backlogs. The way I would describe it is that the businesses where we see a very strong backlog is on the OEM side and HVAC side because you have larger projects, you have larger orders in the pipeline.
There, I would say that pipeline we said was strong in Q3, and it's even stronger now as we're moving out of Q4. You know, the lead times between us being able to deliver product with OEM is of course continuing to go up. We see you know a good. I would say that if you're trying to summarize it, you know, the OEM side, the backlog is up still around 50% compared to last year. And then on HVAC, it's around 20% up, and then we have a daily business on the ref components.
It's we're starting this year with a stronger backlog. Having the caveat maybe on the OEM side, it will take some quarters to deliver that because it also depends on when we get the parts so we can deliver it as well out to the market. It's not just one -to- one where everything will come out in Q1.
Perfect. Very helpful. The final one from my side. I guess in terms of net debt EBITDA, you have 2.5x incl. leases. I guess pro forma, as you said, is 2x or just above 2x. Do you think that you have the financial means to do all the M&A you wish in 2022? Or is your balance sheet something that could hamper your M&A pace, especially partly in the light of, I mean, the increased dividend for the year? Yeah, could you help us on the capital allocation discussion?
I think we can have a more detailed discussion offline how we see it, but the short answer is no, we don't see it hamper our acquisition phase in 2022. We can also describe as we see on the pro forma and as we see at this acquisition, we may start moving into their development profits and sales. When we see on the Q4 and the timing of it and the way our pipeline looks for acquisition, we are comfortable that we're in a position to execute on the ones that we feel are adding value for the company.
Perfect. Thank you.
For our next question, we have Karl-Johan Bonnevier with DNB Markets. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. First, Maria, you mentioned in Q4 that you had this extra impact from taxes and minority affecting the EPS. What happened there, and particularly on the tax rate? Is that something we could expect to be lower going into the future?
No. Actually, it was some incentives in various countries leading to a lower current tax rate in the light of the pandemic. We had 25% as a group tax rate, and I think that is what you can expect moving forward, even though we had 23% this year. You had another question?
Yes. On the minority, it was strangely positive, and the coworker was behind that.
Yes. We have done acquisitions, and we have a put and call option to acquire them 100%. We have accrued for the additional liability in that. In connection with that, you don't record minority share, you only record a full liability.
Excellent. Thank you. Just on the ongoing cost inflation, as you highlighted out the freight costs, logistic costs, and all these things, do you feel that the price increases you're now implementing is covering that going into 2022, so you can say you're caught up with that challenge?
Well, we'd like to answer it in this way. What we're seeing right now, as we go through moving into 2022 is a more structured price discussion with our suppliers. Maybe in 2021 there was more, you know, a lot of suppliers caught off guard and being more desperate in the way they handled it. Of course, we can manage that as well, you saw, as you saw in 2021. Now we have more structured process when we're rolling out the price increases based on longer lead times and in a structured way, which is the normal way we do it. It might be in higher percentage, but that's not the challenge for us. It's more getting the timing right and communication with our customers.
I would say that that's moving on now as expected in going forward. We don't see at this moment a big disruption to that way of working. The only one we're commenting on here is on the freight changes that happened this summer. In effect, especially our HVAC business in Toshiba, where we do a lot of freight from Asia and we have longer contracts with our big wholesalers. I would answer to this, where those price increases to compensate for freight at these high levels they are now are in place.
We expect, I think we guided that we had SEK 25 million in Q4 we didn't compensate for, and we expect 50% of that to be sorted out in Q1. After Q1, we at this moment don't have any other pricing issues as we see it. We are at the, you know, the inflated levels, at least on the freight, that we think one day will turn. We at least have pricing covered then for the foreseeable future in that level as well.
Excellent. One final for me. Looking at the pricing trend for refrigerants for the moment, what do you see driving that for the moment? Is it a normalization going on in the market, or what is happening?
I think it's hard to answer that exactly because you might get five different answers if you ask five different people. What we're seeing is that of course it's been moving slightly upward, and we see that in Q1 as well. It's two things, but how much one of them, I cannot answer. It's also of course the quota is becoming tighter and tighter in the market. It remains to be seen what happens at the end of April as there's gonna be new directives in this area where they want to further accelerate.
There's also been a supply chain shortage in these areas, and that's also driving pricing. I would say, you know, maybe 50/50 of these two components. We see that now also coming through, you know, slightly in Q1. But it doesn't at this moment have a material effect on our business, but it's not leaking either. We see it as a positive sign.
Excellent. Thank you very much for the extra color.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Karl Bokvist with ABG. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. My first one is just one on a little bit of curiosity of what you mentioned there in terms of building inventory and, you know, the potential market share dynamics in your industry. Were you referring to, you know, your ability to deliver compared to other distributors? That's the first one. The second one, do you notice any shift or change in dynamics between customers such as your main partner, Toshiba, i.e. Asian customers, compared to ones with a more local footprint here in Europe in terms of delivery, supply chain impact and so on?
No, I think it's a good question. If you start off with the first one, we haven't because of course, Toshiba is a big part of our HVAC development. I would say we haven't had any major delivery issues with them in that component. They have managed the situation well through their supply chain in Asia. Of course, it's been longer lead time and it's been than normal, but no significant issue for our supply chain in that. Just touching on that, of course, the freight charges, because part of business more or less our responsibility, that's the issue we had to get through when price increases in the market.
What I'm alluding to is that more, I would say, not so much on the distribution side. I think the supply chain has been okay. There's been pockets where we've seen some competitors also on the bigger brands run out of products in especially on the Nordic market. We've been growing market share quite a lot because some of the distributors has not had products. Maybe they don't prioritize smaller markets. We don't work that way because we have one central way of distributing our products around in Europe. There we see a big increase for us in these markets. Also, it's a combination. Most of them still have their supply chain sitting out of Asia on the distribution side.
What we have seen is on the wholesale side, where we're now selling, you know, as I said, we're launching, we're selling the Carrier brand, we're launching the Sinclair and all that. There's a lot of small wholesalers that completely are out of stock in product. That we see as an advantage for us, both now and going forward, if that answers your question.
All right. Understood. Then just, I just saw that unfortunately, you no longer disclose the earnings contribution from acquisitions. I was just a bit curious why you chose to not do that any longer. The follow-up is just if it were possible for you to provide some insights here on the call on the EBITA impact from M&A.
Yeah. I think it's a little bit misleading to make it black and white as we've done in the past. We can come back maybe and clarify more offline the structure there. The bigger acquisition we have are already so integrated in our rest of our business that I would say that, you know, most as we said on the Sinclair and also as we integrate Inventor, a lot of their business is then integrated into a wholesale chain, which is a major growth driver. All of this year, you know, 50%-60% of growth in this one company comes from us replacing, I would say other type of products with our own brand in Sinclair and it's similar with the Inventor.
Now in Australia, this add-on acquisition is completely integrated into our business. It becomes a way of communicating it, but I think maybe we can do a little bit more in detail offline to explain that type of setups.
All right. No, understood. My final one is just on Inventor and the way you report it. It would just be interesting to understand the, you know, the growth rates and the sales contribution within Southern Europe. Is it entirely booked as OEM sales or HVAC? Or how do you choose to include it?
The Inventor is completely HVAC.
All right. Good. Thank you.
Sorry, just to finish off. If you look at the Sinclair, that becomes more, as it's moving quite a lot into the rest of Europe for us. While Inventor right now is booked, we just closed that decision in October. It's in Southern Europe, and it's HVAC.
All right. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Robert Redin with Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, just a follow-up. Those non-recurring costs, SEK 35 million, were they SEK 35 million in isolation or was that including the higher cost of freight? I thought the wording was a bit unclear there.
Yeah. Let me help put color in it. The way we broke it up is the SEK 25 million is the freight charges, and then SEK 10 million is related to one-off where the big components, as I said, is the CEO sign-on that we booked here in Q4. Of course, that'll be part of our annual report as disclosure. The SEK 25 million relates to the freight that we didn't compensate in Q4 and mainly related to Toshiba, where I said now the prices are in place at the high level and renegotiated with our customers and coming through here now in Q1, where we expect, you know, that to be around 50% less. In Q2, we should be good to go on the higher price levels here we're now, you know.
We don't see major risk after Q1 on the freight because we're covered on the high freight charges, that's in place and also covered, you know, until the summer. Then we'll see where that component moves. There's a lot of different stories on that. But I think from a timing point of view, it should be in a good position for us to move through Q1.
All right, perfect. So, SEK 25 million + SEK 10 million . Perfect. You said something about there being an update to the European phase-out scheme, or was it something about compliance and legal import in April? Did I hear right?
Yeah.
What was happening then?
It's coming out at the end of April. An indication. Are they looking over both, you know, the legislation around it, the speed of the phase-out. It's, of course, we have our information and staying close to it, so we will know, and that report should be posted by the end of April. Let's see where it comes out, right now. That's all. There's no report now, but it's supposed to come out at the end of April.
All right. What's driving the idea that, you know, it needs updating?
The intention are to make sure that you have better rules and regulation and compliance where you're using non-quota and illegal HFCs. They want to align to harsher penalties and how you follow up and how you drive. That's the main driver. Then, of course, there are rumors that they want to also maybe speed up the exit of these HFCs. Let's see if that happens or they stick to the plan. I think the main driver is also to make sure they take off and make it harsher to work with non-quota gases.
All right. Compliance, primarily.
Yep.
That sounds good because this illegal import is maybe [crosstalk].
Yeah. I think it's very good.
All right. Final question for me. I mean, the pace of acquisitions, it's picked up really nicely, this year. I mean, there's 10 acquisitions, SEK 1.8 billion of sales. I know you started the year well with this acquisition of Deltron. When you're looking to your M&A pipeline, is it still strong, the pipeline? And is this pace seen in 2021, can you keep it in 2022, 2023, either the 10 acquisitions a year or a sales position at SEK 1.8 billion?
Yeah. I think I would answer this way, well, the way most people answer it. There's still a good pipeline and good discussion. Of course, some further along, some in the middle, and some in the beginning. We are positive on having a good pace this year as well. Then with also the caveat that we don't control the timing, you know. It might be, you know, someone's coming up now, it might move into Q2, Q3, Q4 next year. All in all, we expect it to continue to be at a good pace based on the indication where we sit right now.
All right, perfect. Sounds good. Thank you so much. Those were my questions.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you do wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Viktor Trollsten with Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator. Hi, Christopher and Maria. I hope all is well with you.
Yes. Thank you.
Just a first question on organic growth that was solid in the quarter. Is it possible to break that down? Just sort of how much was price increases and how much was you know volume?
Not in a mathematical structured way, I would say. I think where we see the major price increases is more on the component side with the replacement parts coming through in our wholesale market. While on the HVAC side and OEM side is still more balanced. If you look at our mix, you know, that's about 40% of our business. I think and if you would have to make an estimate to there, you know, 3%-4% I think is a good indication, and higher in some areas and lower in some areas.
On price.
On price.
On price. Okay. Fantastic. Just follow up on the M&A contribution to the EBIT line. I understand the difficulties in getting or sorting that out. Could you just make a comment on the organic drop-through in the quarter? You know, I understand it's complicated, but it seems like it's still significantly lower than the 20%-25% that could be expected from your distribution model. Could you just comment around that?
Yeah, no, I can. I mean, if you adjust for, we said, the freight and the one-offs that's around SEK 35 million to there, I would say the drop through on organic side would be okay. Also, the way we see the business is a little bit on average our strongest drop through is in Q2, Q3, where we have the highest season, especially driven on the HVAC side. It's becoming a bigger part of our business. While in Q4 and Q1, we do have a lower drop through because the activity is lower and the cost base is still similar.
I think adjusting to that, it's the drop through is coming in at our expected level on the organic side as well. Those are the, you know, areas that we need to move away from on the freight side, and we said it's gonna reduce in Q1 and between Q2. Our strongest drop through quarters are by far Q2 and Q3.
What would you say is, you know, a normalized organic drop through for you guys over time? I think we've talked about 20%-25% previously. Just a comment on that.
No, I would say 25% would be at the high pace because we're also investing quite a lot to defend this growth. I would say our ambition is to have a drop-through between 15% and 20%. Of course, my ambition is to move closer to this 20% on the organic side. As we also work with our mix and our product portfolio, I mean, we mentioned before as we're launching into product portfolio in Sinclair and other brands that are also running at higher margins, then we can discuss, you know.
Mm.
Somewhere the future drop through. I would aim to get it, you know, to the 20% drop through.
Okay. No, no, that's very clear. Thank you very much, guys. Have a good one.
Thank you.
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Thank you.