Welcome to the Nimbus Q4 presentation. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answer session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing star five on their telephone keypad. I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Jan-Erik Lindström, CFO, Rasmus Alvemyr, and Head of Investor Relations, Gunilla Åhman. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and welcome. My name is Jan-Erik Lindström, and I will start this presentation then. If we then switch to page three. Some highlights of the fourth quarter. We had the sales increase by 25% up to SEK 338 million. Improved EBITDA amounting to SEK 10.3 million compared then to SEK 5.6 last period, same last year then. The EBITDA margin 3.1% compared to 2.1%. The order book at a good level of SEK 930 million. Still some supply chains disturbances, but we like to point out that the situation is improving, and it's a big difference, which is then, of course, good for us and interesting for the future.
We still see a softer demand for lower-end boats. We talked about it in quarter three and that picture remains then. For us, it's a limited effect on the total sales since it's a small part of our core business then. If we switch page, something around the full year then, as we say here, we continue to execute on strategy. For the whole year, we had the sales increase of 20%, up to SEK 1,751 million, actually a new record for us. The organic growth of this was then 18.5%, which is very good and we kind of like that. We will come back to that later on.
The EBITDA amounted up to then 16%, SEK 193 million, compared then to SEK 166 million last year. During the year, we had this acquisition then of Herholdt Andersen in Norway. Important step for us because Norway is an important market for us. It's a big market, and we like then to focus a little bit and improve our presence at that market. It's an important step. If you compare the big numbers, so to say, even more important step then is then that we, during the year, actually then formed a local organization, our own office in Annapolis in North America. A big step for us. We have prepared the product portfolio for expansion.
We will come back to that a little bit later on. We have also then increased during the year, increased the production capacity, and together then with what I said before, the improved situation in the supply chain in quarter four, the picture starts then to look, I think I should say good for the future. If we then switch page. A small reminder, what is Nimbus Group, and this is then Nimbus Group. Founded in 1968. Almost immediately, we started our history of international sales. You can say one year after we were founded, we actually started to sell on the international, or I should say global market. We have our two household brands with our well-known Scandinavian brands.
Actually, if you look at the global brand awareness, that is looked upon every year, we have a very high score for several of our brands inside the group. Short, short notes, 2021 February, of course, listed then on the Nasdaq First North. As I said, 2021 May, acquisition of Marine Store, the biggest network of dealers in Sweden. 2022 February, the acquisition of Herholdt Andersen. In June, same year, the establishment of the North American office. In August then, the launch of the new Aquador series. That is a three-boat series, and it's the biggest thing that we have done in the brand Aquador, for actually almost 20 years. In January this year, also, some interesting things has happened.
We have had a presentation of a couple of boats, especially then, worth mention here then is the Nimbus 465 Coupé. With that, we're actually entering a new segment for Nimbus, which will be very interesting to learn more about and to sell then, of course. It looks really promising, we will come back to that also. A short reminder, the asset-light production platform as we have talked about before. On the left side, you can see where we actually produce today, and then it's complete boats we are talking about. Nine location in total, and five of them is actually then outsourced. That relates then to the picture in the middle, where we talk about the scalable cost base set up.
It is about scaling up and scaling down, but to have as much variable cost as possible. We are talking about these time frames. As you can see here, we talk about three months. If you can add two of them together in three months or in six months time, we can do a lot of difference in scaling up, but also then, of course, scaling down if necessary. It's about that. Production efficiencies, we work a lot with that. It, it all start on the drawing table, as I used to say, and, that is, of course, in this picture here you see a good example of our VTC series, which is a modular series.
Of course then gets easier for the operational part of our company to actually then produce the boats. Important. If we then switch page again, we come to the drivers, we have talked about that before. Basically they are the same. It's the same picture that we see. Of course, if we start from the top, the overall wealth is increasing. Well, yes, we know that lately we have some pressure on that. Still, if in a comparison, we are roughly then at year 2019, everyone has to ask themselves, was it that bad during 2019? Well, actually then we are slightly around 2.5 x more money to spend in our pockets than we had year 2000.
2.5x more to spend. How do we spend this money then? We know for a fact that we spend quite a lot on the recreational things. We work, as I say, we work a lot, we need the recreational time to recharge the batteries, we tend then also to spend them on quality. We had this, as we say here, increased popularity of staycation. That is an old trend. It started well before the pandemic, the pandemic accelerated this. What we see now is that this trend line will then normalize, follow the old trend, so to say. That is our expectation for the future then. If you look at the industry itself, we have the aging boat fleet.
And i usually talk about the Nordic, but we can switch a little bit and talk about the U.S. picture. Actually, 46% of the fleet in U.S., the recreational fleet, is built before 2000, meaning then that it's actually then older than 23 years. That is, of course, a great opportunity for us. If we together, we add then to that aging boat fleet, the technical development, we can say, and I usually say this, that the big difference today compared to before is that the industry itself actually is in charge for the development. We don't heritage from, for example, the automotive industry. What the industry has been aiming for and also aiming at today is then what we call then the easy boating, and it's also the in-water handling.
It should be less stressful, and it should be easier to handle the boats. It's a big difference of course then for on the new launch if you compare that to the older boats. That's important. We also have the environmental issue with the new boats compared to the old boats, because the new boats is of course very much better from that perspective. If we then switch the page again, we're talking about the order development. Here we have some interesting things. In total, the order book has decreased by 18% compared with last year, driven then mainly by lower sales in the low-end boats. We talk mainly about the Nordics. If we then start to look into the order book, what do we see?
We of course immediately see that the order book in North America has increased to SEK 190 million. That is actually 108% increase year-over-year. That is something that of course we are very satisfied with because that is one of our focus initiatives for growth. The order book has also been, or tend to be, very well balanced from a geographical point. It's basically so that we have one-third in the Nordic, including Sweden, 1/3 in Europe, and 1/3 in US, or I should say North America. Which is then of course interesting.
If we look at the order book, in the comparison, we also should remember that the order book in 2021 and the beginning of 2022 was still boosted then by the pandemic effect that we talked about on the last page. What we say then basically is that the long-term favorable growth trend continues. If we then also look into again the order book, how we treat our order book, the prepayment amounted to 16% of the total order book value. Not, please remember that not all confirmed for certain boat models due to capacity constraints. We still have some issues then to reallocate some of the models inside the production sites. And with that, I leave to Rasmus for a while.
Thank you, Jan-Erik. We continue to see a strong sales growth in especially Europe and on other markets. Europe has recovered from the pandemic and increased by 114% to SEK 136 million. Other markets, including North America, increased by 26% to SEK 76 million, which is also very positive and in line with the trend that we have seen in previous quarters. Our investments in the U.S. market during 2022 has not yet had any significant impact on the sales in the fourth quarter, this is expected to happen during 2023 and 2024. In Sweden, sales dropped to SEK 68 million due to weaker demand on mainly used boats and low-end boats. Sales in the fourth quarter was strongly affected during 2025 by, as Jan-Erik mentioned, this positive pandemic effect during that time.
The Nordics increased slightly compared with last year due to the Herholdt Andersen acquisition. Net sales in the fourth quarter amounted to SEK 338 million compared with SEK 271 last year, which is then an increase by 25%. The organic growth was 21.5%, and the difference in between those is in fully currency related. Important to have in mind when looking at the figures is that the Q4 is a weak quarter for us due to seasonality effects, especially in the Nordic countries. For full year 2022, the net sales ended up at SEK 1,751 million, which is an increase by 20% from full year 2021 and by 89% compared with the IPO figures from 2020.
Distribution of sales of through own dealers decreased by 4% compared with last year and ended up at the 26%. The EBITA margin in the quarter is slightly improved and amounted to 3.1% compared with 2.1% last year. The EBITA is traditionally low in Q4 due to this seasonally weak quarter as it is. EBITDA 2022 amounted to SEK 193 million, which is an increase by 16% compared with last year and +206% since the IPO two years ago. The EBITA margin ended up at 11% compared with 11.4% last year. The gross margin decreased slightly to 19.2% compared with 19.4% last year.
The underlying margin has improved, but the gross margin has also been affected by supply chain disturbances and the lower share of own branded products at own dealers affecting the consolidated margin. All in all, the gross margin has therefore decreased somewhat. The OPEX in relation to net sales has increased to 8.8% compared with 8.6 last year. The increase is mostly referring to investments in the North American market and from additional cost referring to those supply chain disturbances that we have mentioned. We come to the working capital. The net working capital increased to SEK 400 million compared with SEK 347 in last quarter. An increased level of net working capital is expected in the fourth quarter because of those seasonality effects that we have with higher stock levels of boats. That is expected.
The net working capital is also affected by temporarily increased stock levels related to the supply chain disturbances that has forced us to increase safety stocks, but also that we have finished boats that are missing engines and therefore cannot be delivered. The level of this safety stock is expected to decrease gradually during 2023. Here we have our financial targets. These have been communicated earlier. We say that we should have an organic growth that exceeds 10% over a business cycle, including acquisitions of dealers, but not brands. In 2022, the organic growth was 18.5, as mentioned before. The EBITA margin should reach 10% in the medium term, and the actual figure is 11.
We should have no senior debts except for real estate related debts, and we should have a check limit. As per today, we have a real estate debt beside the usage of a check limit. We have a dividend policy to pay out up to 30% of net earnings taken into account financial position, cash flow growth opportunities of the company. The board has proposed a dividend of SEK 1.50 per share, which represents 19% of the result. I hand over to Jan-Erik again.
Thank you. We should look in a little bit then to North America and why is we so excited with the development there. To begin with then, we're quite new at that market. We started, just from the history perspective, we started there 2017, and we have had a good progress so far. We then think that the attractive and updated product portfolio will play with us on the markets. We have had several new product launches then during Q1 this year, in Düsseldorf, the biggest boat show in-house that we have in our industry, that will support the expansion. We have strengthened the dealer network during Q1, again, 2023, and actually then added 20 locations and ending up in 39 in total.
We have also strengthened the group presence then, which I have said earlier with a local organization and a headquarter, and then which of course then give us the possibility to have a broader participation than in local events and in relevant boat shows. The order book, as said before, record level, SEK 190 million, actually then 108% increase year-over-year. We are aiming at the world largest motorboat market. It's 47% of the total market. They have their aging fleet, as mentioned before, 46% older than the year 2000. Good to remember when we look at the perspective or the future that the today's market well below the record years.
We still have a significant gap between today and what was the present peak, so to say. We are then the market itself then is well suited for the Nimbus Group products. That we know for a fact because as I said, we have been there since 2017. And with that, I leave the word to Gunilla.
Yes. I just want to share the update of the ownership in Nimbus. Most owners are exactly the same as earlier on. There was some buy from the Roos Group. That increased in November from 10.0% - 10.8%. The rest is remain stable, the same.
And?
I just want to remind that our Q1 report for this year, 2023, is due on May 3rd. By then we open up for questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Gustav Österberg from Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Jan-Erik , Rasmus and Gunilla. Thank you for the update, the sales figures for the different geographies. I was wondering if you could just take a few points on the demand trend in each market. I mean, we're seeing weaker development in Sweden, but obviously, better development in the other geographies. Also maybe comment a little bit on how much the impact that you're seeing in terms of market share gains is affecting the development in North America, i.e., is the overall market stable, increasing or declining or like how much of that increase is your market share gains?
I can start maybe if you want to fill in there, Rasmus, later on. If we look at the Nordics, we already mentioned that during the quarter three, we think that we will see a softer market. We don't see it yet on, you can say on the bigger boats, but it's in line with our forecast, so to say, that could of course happen. It's about the people actually the customer is hesitating, because we know that we maybe are in a recession, but it's not the financial meltdown. The money is there, but people hesitate.
That is so to say a picture of the Nordic countries. If you look at Europe, then it becomes really interesting because we have talked about the pandemic, you can say the positive effect, but that is mainly then for the Nordic countries and some parts of the North American market. Europe actually had then a downturn. It was actually more or less closed on many places, interesting boating districts. What we see now in this figure is 114% plus. It's not only a normalization, but a great part of that is actually a normalization.
For example, now when we were down in Düsseldorf, it was a lot of attention, a lot of interest, and also a lot of leads to follow up for potential sales later on then. The business climate for us in Europe is much stronger than we actually see then in the Nordic countries. Again, then, especially than the smaller boats, the low-end boats as we talk about. North America, you can say that, how we interpret it is that it's more or less is a balanced market. There are no signs really that they go up, but not really that they go down. The important thing for us is that we have a momentum. We have had a momentum earlier on in Europe. We think we still have it.
And of course then when we have launched new products, we expect them to perform well. In North America, we are basically still new on the market, and we know that our products creates a lot of interest. We have talked about that before, that we don't like false starters. Since we were fully loaded in the production with actually then to deliver boats to the Nordic countries and the European countries, very few of the then produced boats actually was delivered then to North America because we didn't want to take on new dealers because we couldn't provide them with boats. That will then create this false start I'm talking about.
Now we are in a better position. We have increased the production capacity, as we have said. Also, of course, we like that the supply chains is getting better. Now we can take on all these dealers that actually has been waiting more or less, you can say, to sell our products. That is of course, very positive for us. If the total market still then gets weaker in the long run in U.S., we still then believe that our performance will outperform the market. Was that.
Thank you very much.
Yeah.
I have a follow-up. I mean, you signed several new dealers in the quarter, in many different geographies. I think it was the U.S., the Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K. Is it still the case that sort of in the medium-term potential from these new signed dealers, the biggest potential is in the U.S., or are the larger dealers signed in the U.K., Australia or New Zealand, for instance?
The best possibility is then, of course, North America, again, because our market share is still quite small in North America. The sites that you mentioned there is important because again, remember what we say that if we should take on a dealer, then it must be in an interesting boating district, and our product should then also suit the market, so to say. Of course, we have changed the product development a little bit during the last year. For example, the new Aquador line, which is actually meant already from the beginning to be a global product, and not as before then when it was very Nordic in the so to say, approach of the product. I don't like maybe then to compare, if you understand what I mean, but the big potential is of course in North America.
I can also add there in terms of, spots, there are more locations that we have, that are new in the U.S. The potential is bigger in that perspective.
Okay. Thank you very much for that clarification. That was all the questions from my end.
Then I have some questions from the web. The first one comes from Christian Sekton Capital, and his question is, the cash flow has been negative for the past two years because of investments and disturbances in the supply chain. Do you expect positive cash flow for 2023?
Yes, we do. We expect the cash flow to be positive since we have had a high pressure now in terms of the stock, referring to the supply chain. Yes.
Security.
Security stock. We expect it to be positive. Absolutely so.
Also worth mention, we have had, as we have said during the call here, we have had a couple of launched new products, and we have had a lot of product development during, especially then maybe last year, 2022.
Also worth to be mentioned there, we have a specific topic right now where we have SEK 40 million tied up in VAT, which we expect to be paid out in the first half of 2023, referring to a broad VAT, we can call it.
Thank you. Then there's another question from Christian Sigersted. Are you considering switching listing platform to enable buybacks regarding your rather low market multiple?
Very interesting question. It is not a question for us maybe then to answer. Sorry for that, but a good question. I think we should pass on that one because that is more an owner's question, maybe.
Yes. There is another person, Jørgen IFE Invest AS, asking, how do you see the margin development in 2023?
Our price strategy, so to say, that is of course then to protect the margin, and that continues. We feel that we have, again, the momentum, we can protect the margins. We see also, of course, the disturbances that we have had actually during two years with the supply chain issues that has made us, as I say, it's not completely true, but we are more or less some of the models we have produced twice because we have a lack of engine and which means that the boat will go out on the yard and then go back again and to fulfill the production. These things we actually then expect, and as we have indicated on the call, it looking much better. This, of course, will strengthen, the margin.
In addition to that, we can also mention that this also gives us the possibility to sell, own branded boats through our own dealers, which we have not been able to do during 2022 because of we have had a shortage of boats. This will also increase the consolidated gross margin.
Thank you. That was all the questions that we had from the web.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah. There are no more questions from the telephones at this time. Hand the conference back to you, Jan- Erik, for any closing comments.
Yes. We don't really have any ones because it's thank you for listening in, and don't forget about the quarter one 2023 report in the 3rd of May. Thank you.