Hello, and welcome to Nimbus Q3 Report for 2022. Throughout the call, all participants will be on listen only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask question. If you have any question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Today, I'm pleased to present CEO Jan-Erik Lindström and CFO Rasmus Alvemyr. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Again, welcome. As we say, healthy sales despite disruption in delivery flows. If we start at page three, the highlights of the third quarter 2022 versus the same quarter 2021. We had the sales increase by 13% up to SEK 402 million. That actually gave us an all-time high on running 12 basis of slightly above SEK 1.7 billion . EBITDA amounted to SEK 45 million, and the margin was, as we say, a good 11.1%.
Not exactly according to our plans, but taking into consideration the ongoing supply chain disturbances, but also our investments in the very interesting market in U.S., but we will come back to that later on in this presentation. The order book slightly above than SEK 1 billion. We have then also launched in the Aquador series, in the brand Aquador, the new series of total three boat models in the range 25-38 ft. That is actually the biggest investment done in Aquador for more than 20 years. This will be very interesting to follow, of course. As we said, continued supply chain disturbances, and here we maybe should point out also because the overall picture is getting better, no doubt.
We still have a lack then on the engine side that make these disturbances then. We notice a softer demand for commodity boats. We can say roughly under SEK 1 million, and that is what we call the budget boats there. What we see is that the customer hesitates. We know that there still is a lot of money there, but taking into consideration the global geopolitical situation in the world, of course, then people hesitate what to do. If we then flip page to page number four. Short reminder, Nimbus Group, founded 1968. We have a long history of international sales. We have our house of brands, and also with our the well-known Scandinavian brands.
If we look at the brands, there are some surveys done of the brand what we call the brand awareness globally, and most of our brands then are highly ranked in these surveys, which of course is good. If we look a little bit on the modern history and maybe focus then on 2022, we can see that in February, we acquired Herholdt Andersen, and that is a part of our initiative to actually focus a little bit more on the Norwegian market and grow the Norwegian market. In June, finally, we can say we had our own establishment in North America, Annapolis, and that was planned to be done for a couple of years ago, actually.
Since the pandemic arrived, we had to put that on hold. Now, finally, we are there. Again then, we also had, now in August, we had the launch of the new Aquador series. That. Maybe I should say that the Aquador series is of course meant to be a global model series of models to be sold in practically the whole world then. That is a difference between this new Aquador and the old ones. Below, you can see then, of course, all our brands. I will not mention them at this time. If we then switch page, also then in a way a reminder of who we are.
You can say that in general, we like to be asset light, and then maybe especially then in the production and operations. On the left side, we can see the footprints. We have eight locations today where we build complete boats. Four is run by our own, and four are actually outsourced. The white ones is the ones that we actually own them. We are growing. Number of employees is growing. To be noted is that most of the growth is actually then in our outsourced units, and that is according to plan then. We have said before that we would, we like to have, somewhere around 50% outsourced, regarding this.
If we look in the middle, we talk a lot about, we like to have as much variable cost as possible, and of course, it's about scaling up and also scaling down. We base it more or less, you can say, on days then, and the thing is that we want as quick as possible then if we need to scale up or if we need to scale down. That is the way we so to say organize ourselves regarding this. If we then look at the right side, of course, we then also work a lot with the production efficiencies, but the special thing here is then that we also work a lot with the modularity, and that you may say that actually still is one of Nimbus Group's characteristics.
So far we haven't seen anyone else that actually is focusing so hard as we do on that. As we say, it all starts at the drawing table. If we switch page, we are talking about the fundamental drivers, how we stand the test of time in our identified drivers. To start with, if we look at the overall wealth is increasing as we say, it is. If we look at the 2021 figures, we now actually is up 2.8 times more money as an average than global average. More money to spend if you compare to year 2000.
This is of course likely to take a hit, taking into consideration the situation in the global economy, but it's still a very big difference. How do we then use this money? Well, we work a lot, as I say, and we are keen to have as high quality as possible regarding our recreational time, and we are also prepared to pay for it. How do we then spend the money? Increased popularity of staycation, this is an old trend, started way before the pandemic, as we have said before, and this is then actually continue. One thing to maybe note this here, which we find interesting, is that if we look at the new boaters that we have in the...
I should say new from the customer point of view, new boat owners. It's actually more than 20% of them is in U.S. then is new boaters. We have actually had about 20% for two years in a row, which is important and of course extremely interesting for us. We have an aging boat fleet, and again if we use the U.S. figures, 45% of the U.S. fleet is actually built before year 2000. U.S. then is the biggest market in the world. It's slightly more than 50% of the world market, so this is of course an important thing.
There is a growing need then to replace the fleet, not only because it's old, it's also because of the technical development, which is the final driver that we will present here today. The technical content is increasing, and it is targeting, among other things, the in-water handling of the boat. For them to make it safe and less stressful for everyone on board. It's also targeting comfort, which is an important thing, refrigerators, air condition, things like that, to make it more pleasant, depending on where in the world you are doing your boat-boating, of course. If we look at the total power boat sales and in numbers, and again, U.S., it's actually decreased between 2020 and 2021 with 5.7%.
If we look at the value of the same market, it increased by 5.3%. Again, even if the boat is getting slightly bigger, absolutely, we tend to, during our boating journey, tend to buy slightly bigger boats, for every time we switch boat, but also, we like to have more technical help, you can say, for to make this journey on the seas more pleasant and safe, of course. If we then switch page and we are then on page seven, continuous growth in order book, and please remember, only planned production orders included. If we look at the third quarter, we had an increase then by 9% compared with last year.
We have a prepayment that amounted to 12%. Last year, we had 11%, so slightly up, and that is of the total order book value, of course. Small thing there, this is a seasonal thing. This is the part of the year that we produce quite a lot of boats. Since we have this prepayment is actually in two parts. First, the customer pays a signing fee, and then closer to the actual start of production, the real prepayment is paid. Meaning that most likely that this share will increase the further we go of this production season then.
We're glad to say then the order book in North America has then increased up to then today $182 million, and that is actually then 100% up from last year. If we then look at the total picture, we are actually then slightly above 17% of the order book is now U.S., and that confirms the position that U.S. has for us as the single biggest market, excluding then our home market for us. That is, of course, something we are very pleased with. Finally then on that page, it is actually so that we still haven't enough capacity to fulfill all the orders that are for example that in U.S.
We are expanding the capacity and we see that we will in the near future reach a level that is sufficient. Still, this is something that we have to live with. With that, I leave the word to Rasmus.
Thank you, Jan-Erik. We flip to page eight. We continue to see a strong sales growth in the Nordics, Europe, and on other markets. Nordics increased by 174%, but still from low levels. Out of this, Herholdt Andersen contributed with SEK 7 million in the quarter. Sweden has decreased by 20% compared with last year and amounted to SEK 171 million. The reason for this is both referring to supply chain-related issues with missing engines, but also a softer demand for smaller boats which with market value up to about SEK 1 million, as Jan-Erik mentioned before. The missing engines has affected our own dealers to a large extent because of the seasonality with many boats intended to be delivered during the summer period.
Also good to have in mind is that the demand in Sweden 2021 was extremely high because of the pandemic as well. Flip to page nine, please. The net sales in the quarter amounted to SEK 402 million compared with SEK 355 million last year, which is an increase by 30%. The organic growth was 10.8%. The LTM sales amounted to 1,684, which is an increase by SEK 48 million from last quarter, corresponding to 3% and plus 16% compared with full year 2021. Sales through own dealers represented 40% of the sales compared with 53% last year. Flip page, please. The EBITDA margin in the quarter amounted to 11.1% compared with 12% last year.
The gross margin increased to 21.1% compared with 20.3% last year because of increased underlying margin improvements, but it was also negatively affected by a lower share of sales of products with our own double margin. Herholdt Andersen has continued to only sell external brands because of that we don't have enough own branded boats to provide them with them due to the capacity shortages that we have. OpEx increased in the quarter and has been affected by investments from establishing the North American organization and also from costs referring to these supply chain disturbances. On LTM basis, the EBITDA amounted to SEK 188 million, representing an EBITDA margin of 11.2%, which is fairly in line with what we have seen in the last quarter's LTM figures. Next slide, please.
The net working capital in the quarter increased to SEK 347 million compared with SEK 160 million in the last quarter. An increased level of net working capital is expected in the third quarter because of the seasonality, where the second quarter normally is the lowest point of the year. In addition to this, we have also seen seasonality affected in terms of supply chain disturbances causing delays that has affected our inventory levels both in transit and trade receivables. The net working capital in relation to LTM sales amounts to 20.6%, which is higher than what we have as a target level. During the quarter, we have therefore increased the focus on net working capital and launched several initiatives to reduce this.
We will of course continue to have a high focus on this also in the fourth quarter. Next slide, please. These are our financial targets that we have communicated earlier. First, we should have an organic growth of +10% over the business cycle, including acquisitions of dealers but not brands. Compared with the full year 2021, the growth rate was +16% as per the third quarter. The EBITDA margin should reach 10% in the medium term, and the actual figure is 11.2%. We should have no senior debts, except for real estate-related debts. As per today, we have no other financial debts except for real estates. Finally, we have a dividend policy to pay out up to 30% of net earnings, taking into account the financial position, cash flow, and growth opportunities of the company.
For 2021, we paid out a dividend of SEK 1.50 per share, corresponding to 22% of the net result. I hand over to Jan-Erik again.
Thank you. Yes, a little bit finally about North American market. We participated in the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show two weeks ago. This was actually then the first time we were there by our own brand, so to say, the Nimbus Group. We have been there before, but then it has been through dealers. What we can say there is that it was a really good boat show for us. We sold several boats. We have a lot of interesting quotations out, and it actually then was a good spirit.
It was a lot of interest around our boats, which then actually tells us that our products are well-suited for the North American market and also for the special demand that these different customers has, depending on where the boating area is in U.S. We with the brand Nimbus that we have started with, we cover more or less all of these different boat districts. We are new to the market, but we can also see still new to market. It's a couple of years now, but we can see that it's a great interest from the public, so to say, to look into our boats and also for the other brands.
Next then for us to introduce in U.S. is then Alukin, but also then again, Aquador with its new shape, with the new models. If we look at the key features then, we have said a couple of them already, but the order book at record level then, $182 million. That's 100% up from last year, and that is then of course, more or less you can say according to plan. It is good to see that it actually works. It is the world's single largest motorboats market. Again, it's slightly above 50%. It has itself, its aging fleet then, which it makes it maybe even more interesting.
It's good to remember that, today's market is well below the record market, 233,000 versus 305,000. It's quite a big gap still. It's also, if you look at the compound annual growth rate, before it has been slightly above 5%, if we look at the U.S . Market, it's forecasted to be slightly below 4.6%. Of course, it's a lot of business deals done every year. We are in, you can say roughly slightly above 2,000 deals per year. Here we are talking about only in U.S., 233,000 deals, so it's a huge market. Again, it's well suited then for Nimbus Group's product portfolio. With that, I leave the word to Gunilla.
This is the ownership, the largest shareholders in Nimbus as of last September. Our main owners are still the same, R12, the Löweneus Family Office, and the Roosgruppen, Håkan Roos, ODIN Fonder, and then a couple of other funds, also Lazard. We have a very stable ownership, and there's been a few changes since the 30 September, but not major. Just reminding you of our Q4 report, it will be on February seventh in next year, 2023. Then we open up for questions.
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. Our first question comes from Victor Hansen at Nordea. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Thank you, hi, Jan-Erik, Rasmus, and Gunilla. A couple of questions from my side. First off here, do you expect your demand in the U.S. to benefit from Hurricane Ian in Florida, which caused quite large damage to the boating population?
Not really. It damaged definitely the boating community and a couple of boats, but it was local. Of course, the picture that we see from this disaster shows it's a tough picture, so to say, but still it's local. The Florida boating itself in total, this is a very small share we're talking about. So far we haven't heard anything that any of our boats will be involved in this. Still, we'll see. We don't see any effect from that. If I understand your question correctly, we don't see any effect from that at all, actually, no.
Okay. Yeah, maybe I'm more positive or more forward leaning than you are, because Brunswick mentioned that there will be a huge replacement need. We'll see. It will be interesting to follow.
Yeah. Yes, okay. I misunderstood a little bit. Because that will be, of course, really interesting because we have the momentum on the market. We seems to be likable, so to say. Of course when the customers want to switch boat because it's the old one is destroyed, that is really interesting. I interpreted your question as if we were affected by the storm, but okay. That is positive. Absolutely.
Okay. Yeah, great clarification then. I'm wondering here on your overall backlog. It was flat quarter-on-quarter in Q3 while it was up about 31% last year sequentially, which to me suggests weaker demand, and I'm wondering if you have any comments here.
Well, we don't really see it in that way because what happened was that in the second quarter, we had about SEK 100 million that we know was pushed to a later time. Actually the comparative figure is a bit boosted in that way. The order intake has been in the third quarter as well. What needs to be kept in mind here is also that since we limit, so to say, the order book in terms of production capacity, and we only confirm orders that we have in accordance with our production plan. There is also, due to the setup we have today, a bit of a limitation of how big the order book actually can be.
We are looking into this right now to see if we can open up for more orders for future, but that's not the case at the moment.
You have to see it as a staircase. We are at a certain step. You can say we have capped our capacity, and we have to open up more capacity to actually then get more orders. Again, remember that we had an overdue backlog in quarter two.
Yeah. Noted. A follow-up here. Could you give some flavor on, do you have any production capacity left for your larger boats in 2023, or is it full?
Of course, we're working with that, and I don't think we can present the plan, so to say, at this point. Of course, we work with it and, for example, which is well-known and communicated is that we are building a new building down in Lugnås in Sweden to increase the capacity, and that is ongoing now. We also do similar things than both in Finland and in Poland. We are increasing the capacity. Also worth to mention, we see a softer demand on the smaller boats. It's not a big thing for us. Roughly, I should say 15% of our revenues are related to the smaller boats.
Now we also switch in some production lines from producing smaller boats to actually bigger boats that will give us a little bit more capacity there. We do a lot of different things. There's a lot of parameters involved, of course, but that is important for us.
Yeah, that's helpful. Two more questions here. The share of own dealers declined quite a lot year-on-year. Where do you think the gross margin would have ended up if your own dealer sales share would have been unchanged year-on-year?
We have not really communicated such figures in detail before, so we don't have the intention either to do so right now. It has an effect since if the ratio goes up, we have a double margin, and it will be almost on such a boat about double margin. We have not communicated in detail how big the margins are. We are a bit careful.
Reluctant, yeah, to do that.
Yeah. Because that's a bit of internal knowledge.
Yeah. Understood. I had to try. My final question here.
Yes.
I'm wondering here, how large a sales effect do you expect from selling own boats to your acquired dealers in 2023? Do you have any in your backlog or?
Can you repeat the question, Victor?
Sure. Yeah. You acquired Marine Store and Herholdt, and I'm wondering how large will the sales effect be from selling to these two dealership networks in 2023? Do you have any in your backlog now orders for your own boats from these two dealership networks?
Mm-hmm. Here we are on an interesting question, because of course, we plan to sell earlier, at an earlier stage, sell our own brands. But since the capacity was full and it was
We're not actually able to deliver enough boats to our own dealers, so to say. We said that, okay, fine, we have to postpone that to at least then one year. This year has now arrived. What we are doing is, and it is slightly complicated, and I will not go into details, but what we're doing is that we start with a couple of our brands, not all of them. We will continue then for next year to also work with the traded boats. We will probably continue forever with traded boats because we need to have a good product portfolio for that certain boating area then. We don't have all solutions in our product portfolio.
We will start with a couple of them. We also have things like Morgan Marine is a Yamaha dealer, and that means that we have to mount Yamaha engines on them. That is also part of this process. It's again a lot of work. It sounds easy just to switch, but it's a lot of work behind it. The number of boats, if we should give you a share, I should say that it will. It's a ramp-up, my guess is, or maybe we should say the plan is 20%-25% of the boats will be by our own brands to begin with, when the season starts in Sweden. Then it will increase.
The picture is similar in Tønsberg. Tønsberg, we have a better position, so to say, because we bought Tønsberg at the beginning of 2022, so they will more or less immediately start this ramp-up there I'm talking about. From low levels then, it's important to know. It is a journey. I hope that was the question you were looking for.
Yeah, yeah. Maybe a small clarification. Or okay, so have you seen an effect in your, a positive effect, then, in your order backlog from this too, yeah, from orders for your own boats through these acquired dealers in 2023? Will this come at a later stage?
It will come at a later stage. You don't see that yet, so to say, because you have to start to show the boats, so to say, and then to introduce them to the customer in that area, and also from a technical point of view, you need to educate, of course, not only the customer, also our own people. It will take a little bit more time than that.
We need to fill up with demo boats, to start with, and this is something that we don't have done yet either. It will take some time.
The same reason that we had a lack of capacity.
Okay, that's helpful.
So, so, uh-
Yeah.
Yep, yep.
Yeah. Okay, understood. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. That's all for me.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Just as a reminder, if you do wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. As there are no more questions at this time, I hand the word back to you, Jan-Erik Lindström, for any closing comments.
Just add that the financial calendar, the quarter four 2022 report will be launched in the seventh of February 2023. With that, thank you for listening in, and goodbye.
Thank you.