Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Bravida's Q4 report 2022. Today, we are presenting from the Bravida GreenHub in the city center of Stockholm, and it's myself, Mattias Johansson, who will take you through this presentation together with.
Åsa Neving, CFO Bravida
We are, of course, very happy to have you listening into this report, which we think is a quite-
Strong report, actually.
Yeah, definitely.
We are a bit proud, I would say.
Yeah. Proud, but not happy, as we say in Bravida. Welcome to this report, and let's kick it off. The agenda today is, yeah, as we usually do, take you through our position in the Nordics, something about the Q4 numbers, and then we will show you a film about what Bravida Green Hub really is to give you a feeling of the offer, the sustainable offer to our customers.
Then Åsa will take you through the performance of our four countries, and then we'll have a summary and a Q&A in the end of the presentation. Again, welcome to this presentation, Bravida Green Hub in the city center of Stockholm. I'm very happy to have this presentation today.
If you have time, if you are close to one of our hubs, please pop in and discuss with our people, our personnel, so you can learn more and maybe order some great services from Bravida as well. Bravida, we have now, when we are summarizing the 2022 year, we have total sales above SEK 26 billion. We have been growing more than SEK 4 billion in 2022, which is quite fantastic.
We are a partner for all our customers throughout the whole life cycle of the property, of the building. We want to help them design, we want to help them do the installation, as well as do the service and maintaining afterwards.
A partner throughout the life cycle, we are a sustainable partner, we help our customers to improve their own sustainability, as well as we are providing more and more services in a sustainable way. We are offering all the different kinds of disciplines you need in a building. The biggest is electrical, heating and plumbing, and ventilation, but we also have sprinkler, cooling, fire and safety, security, solar panel, EV chargers, you name it.
All the systems you need in a building is something we can offer to all our customers. 13,000 employees, we are 325 branches acting in different local markets. When the demand in the market is changing, it changes differently in all those local markets. That gives us an extremely stability in the business model.
SEK 26 billion in sales, SEK 26.3 billion, 91% recurring customers, 85% of net sales comes from project of a net value below SEK 50 million. This is a fantastic slide, and I want to say thank you to all our great people in Bravida, because we have been able to continue the great development throughout 3 years of pandemic, challenges regarding supply, material, inflation, et cetera.
All the staff functions, all the people who are delivering this great service to the customers have helped us, you as owner, to deliver an increased value every year. We have a CAGR the last 8 years at 9% on the sales level and 10% regarding the earnings. We have a cash conversion on an average on 100% as well in this period.
Fantastic business model, and this is of course depending on many great employees as well as good relations with all our existing customers, but also our increased ability to attract new customers and new employees.
Today, I see Bravida as a very attractive employer, not only in our core business that I mentioned before, but also people who wants to join Bravida because we have a vision regarding building automation, energy management, saving energy, change energy sources to our customers, as well as other segments that we are building up and creating and have been creating the last year. Quite positive situation for the moment. We are the Nordic leader regarding sustainable technical solution, as we say. We want to stay in that position.
I think the Green Hub we are presenting from today is one way of proving that we are leading the industry. Every customers have access to all our different kinds of offerings. Today, we have a great potential in letting more customers buying more segments from us. The truth is actually that 80% of our customers is only buying 1 segment.
Last year, we have seen a clear trend regarding customers who's buying 2 or more segments. They are increasing quite a lot. We have a life cycle perspective for every building. We can improve that even more, of course, but today we are focusing more and more on the life cycle of the customer's building. We are and want to stay as the industry leader in sustainable services. Okay, let's go into the Q4 numbers then.
The market, I think you all are quite interested in what we will say about the market. Here now, we see a growing demand for sustainable and energy-efficient solutions. The trend is clear, and that will be a structural driver going forward in the coming years. On the other hand, we see some declining demand for new build and residentials, which is not a strategic segment for Bravida. It has never been, and it will never be.
There is a low demand for residentials in the industry. We can see a good demand for service and installation, and that is actually really good for the moment. Let's see what happens going forward. We, of course understands that there are some uncertain times, increasing interests, et cetera, which will lead to a lower willingness to invest.
There can be some delays in some of the investments. Overall, a strong solid demand. When we come to the residentials and the housing industry, it is driven by higher cost and a high interest because the underlying demand is still quite high in the Nordics. Let's see what happens. As for now, a really strong demand for our services.
The Q4 highlights. Net sales up 28%, a combination of 16% organic growth. 16%, 16, which is extremely high. Maybe a little bit too high to be able to defend the margin to 100%, because when we have low fixed cost as part of the business model, that also means that we don't have the same leverage when we are growing. On the other hand, that creates a stability if the market goes the other way.
Still, a good performance, 16% organic growth, 9% coming from M&A, which is fantastic, I would say. Order backlog still at impressive close to SEK 17 billion. Margin 8.4%, slightly lower than last year, if we adjust for the insurance money we got back from the system last year. Being able to create this stable margin at close to 8.5% while we are growing 28% is extremely strong, I would say.
Cash conversion, close to 90%. Earnings per share is last year up 10%. Order intake is improving in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. It's going down in Norway. Let's see what the reason behind that is, because I don't think that's very strange, because we are growing 37% in Norway.
We have had a little much, too much to do. We have been more careful about what kind of business we have been trying to win. Down in Norway, meaning in total, down 6% in the group. Cash flow, SEK 1.1 billion, we see 90% decrease regarding the injuries in Bravida, which is of course, extremely good. We are improving that sustainability KPI every year for now.
Really good. Dividend proposal from the board is an increase with 8% to SEK 3 and 25 ore, which is an increase from 3%. Group, another way to slice the numbers is that we are growing in the 1/4 on net sales to close to SEK 8 billion. The order intake is close to SEK 7 billion.
All in all, order backlog is SEK 16.8 billion. In Q4, we can see that the EBITDA is increasing to close to SEK 1.7 billion compared to SEK 1.5 billion last year. Maybe you hear a sound in the background now. That's something that happens when you're on the field and are broadcasting from a site in our business. That's something you have to live with.
That's a truck outside that we are not using because all our suppliers are delivering fossil free as well. Net sales performance in Q4, organic growth close to SEK 1 billion up in the 1/4. M&A, close to SEK 600 million. We have some currency effects as well, adding up to close to SEK 8 billion in the 1/4.
EBITDA, 8.4% compared to the 10.1% last year. In the 10.1%, remember, we got some insurance money back from the system. If we adjust for that one-off, we are 8.4% compared to 8.5%. Extremely stable margin with the inflation we have had in the industry, with the big growth we have had, and also some impacts from the COVID in the beginning of the year.
Extremely strong performance, I would say. In this number as well, we have been taking SEK 26 million in the 1/4 and SEK 76 million in 2022 that we have invested in the business to be able to continue to improve our business going forward. The cost is investment in new system.
It's also investments in new people that hasn't been paid off yet because they are working with new segments that we are looking forward to see. We are forecasting or expecting that some of those initiatives will pay off in the latter part of 2023.
This is another slide that explains this. Of course, driving the business plan forward increases some of the costs, but it's also will in the future enable us to improve the margin and the growth. Regarding the recurring costs, we see a strengthening on the IT platform. It's the platform as such, but it's also making sure that the platform was more secure. IT security is something we're focusing on.
Uh, digital development capabilities increase sustainability focus, not only our internal sustainability focus, but also, uh, improve our way to present our sustainable offer to all our customers. And the taxonomy for many of our customers will be a driver for our industry the coming years as well. Then we have an improved HR support, and of course, that's one of the reason why we have been able to, uh, track these many people.
Uh, hiring a lot of people, supporting the organic growth, and that One of the reason is that we are strengthening the HR support. So together with all the other staff's function, the HR has done an incredibly great job the last, uh, year. Then we have some cost, um, uh, that is, um, uh, more of a one-off, uh, uh, type.
Not one-off type, but it's impacted the cost now, and we don't have the increased sales yet. It's technical facility management, it's automation, energy management, and as I said, those are expected to add positively in the end of 2023.
Order intake and backlog. The backlog is decreasing with SEK 1 billion. I will say that that is not correlated today with the lower demand in the market. It's because we have a really strong order backlog, and the production has been very high. It's up 2% year-over-year. As I said in the beginning of the presentation, the order intake is up in 3 out of 4 countries.
In the last country, Norway, the growth was very high, so I don't see any reasons why we should have been stressed to try to win more business. A solid order backlog, a solid demand in the market, and, yeah, looking forward to the coming months as well. Earnings per share and increased dividend is something we present today.
Proposed SEK 3.25 per share in dividend, and that is an increase with 8.3% compared to last year. As you can see to the right on this slide, we have been able to increase the dividend with 18% on average since we did the IPO in 2015.
Again, 3 years with pandemic, inflation, challenges regarding logistics, et cetera, and still we have been able to improve both earnings, sales, as well as dividend to you as a shareholder. I think that is fantastic. Sustainability. Happy to see that the injuries is going down with 19%.
We are improving in all countries. Norway is well below target, and they are the one everyone else try to compete with. They are the one who is telling the rest of the group what to do, how to do it in many cases, but we definitely have a really strong positive trend in this. Regarding our own CO2 emissions, today, as is, we have 11% of our car fleet is 100% electrical.
This will improve the coming year because 73% of all ordered cars last year were 100% electrical, that means that the 11% will increase every 1/4 going forward when we get those cars delivered. 8% change in CO2 emission from vehicles in relation to net sales, it is -14%. We are growing, we are buying new companies.
'When we are buying new companies, we are also changing the car fleet, in relation to the net sales, we are lowering our emissions. We can see a positive trend, not good enough yet, but we are definitely moving in the way we want to move. Acquisitions in 2022, we did impressing 21 acquisitions, adding SEK 1.6 billion. We still see a strong pipeline.
We still can do acquisitions at attractive multiples. So far in 2023, we have added four acquisitions, which adding SEK 150 million in sales. We still have a strong balance sheet. Our strategy is continued acquisitive, and we create a lot of value for these acquisitions. We also see that we are a buyer that offers synergies, offer systems, offer a structure that not many of the other acquiring companies in the Nordics actually do.
By that, we will now show you a film what Bravida GreenHub actually is, so you can get some more color on what we mean when we say that we're delivering fossil-free services to all our customers. After the film, Åsa Neving, our CFO, will take you through the different segments.
Here is the film.
When society alters expectations, we change our way of thinking. Bravida's concept, GreenHub, offers a fossil-free, full-scale service for our customers.
It's a completely Fossil-Free service. We also demand from our suppliers that they also deliver completely fossil-free. This makes it very Cost-Effective for the customer because we have no parking costs, no congestion tax, and no car taxes.
With fossil fuel-free deliveries, we can help reduce emissions in our cities. 120 completed missions performed by GreenHub saves approximately 0.5 tons of carbon dioxide.
The best thing about working at Bravida GreenHub is that it is sustainable thinking, and it is varied work. We avoid sitting in traffic jams, looking for parking, and we get to move around at the same time.
GreenHub is active in 11 major cities across all 4 of our Nordic countries, giving us the opportunity to attract a whole new market of customers and employees.
Together, we take this to the next level with energy optimization and sustainability.
I hope that you all agree with me that the GreenHub concept is really great, and it's a fantastic opportunity for us to deliver Fossil-Free services in the city centers. Well, I will take you through the performance of our countries, and we will start, as usual, with Sweden, and the great performance that we had there in the 1/4 and during the year.
In Sweden, we grew the top line in the 1/4 with 15% to SEK 3.9 billion. Year, year to date or the full year growth was 10% and adding up to SEK 13 billion in sales. The growth is coming from both installation and sales... from installation and services, but mainly from services, and the organic growth is 7%.
Sweden had, and I can say that the growth is especially strong in the mid-northern part of Sweden. The EBITDA was and the EBITDA margin was very strong during the 1/4. EBITDA was SEK 439 million, and the EBITDA margin was 11.4%, and that is compared to 9.6% last year if you exclude the one-off repayment from the insurance sickness sickness insurance that we got. We had a strong performance in all divisions in Sweden.
The Year-To-Date EBITDA margin was 7.8%, compared to 7.2%, also excluding this repayment from last year. Order intake was +1%, and the order backlog was -2% year on year. We have a very high order backlog at SEK 9 billion to begin with. Moving to Norway.
Norway has been growing a lot this 1/4. Growth was 37%, ending up at SEK 1.6 billion in the 1/4. The Year-Over-Year growth was also on the same level. They were growing in both installation and services, but the growth in installation was really high in the 1/4. Organic growth was 27%, the growth from acquisition was 4%. EBITDA in the 1/4 was SEK 78 million, the EBITDA margin was expected, we had a lower margin as expected at 4.8% compared to 7.8% last year.
This is mainly, it's partly due to the change in sales mix from services to installation, but it's mainly that Norway has been struggling with some projects in a few regions that we had talked about previous 1/4s as well, and they have done some writedowns in these projects.
We hope that they have taken actions and are taking actions, so we hope that Norway will be up on higher margins soon again. The order intake in Norway was -40% in the 1/4, this is explained to really high comparative figures from last year. Last year in the fourth 1/4, Norway had four, six hospitals getting into the order intake, amounting to about SEK 800 million.
Order backlog decreased with -7%, but it is still on a high level of SEK 3.4 billion. We are not that concerned that the order intake is going down a bit. Still a high backlog, and we think that Norway has maybe grown a little bit too fast to be able to keep the margin up. Denmark has been growing even more than Norway.
Growth in the 1/4 was 61%, adding up to SEK 1.9 or SEK 2 billion Swedish. The year to date growth, or the full year growth, was 38%, adding up to SEK 6 billion in the full year. The growth was both in service and installation, but has been very high in installation.
Organic growth was 34%, and the growth from acquisitions was 17%. EBITDA SEK 117 million in the 1/4, and the EBITDA margin improved to 6.8%, actually a little bit more than we expected, from 5.8% last year's fourth 1/4. This is mainly explained by high margin in the installation business. We've had a strong performance in the 1/4 from mainly the region that deals with infrastructure projects.
They do work on the high voltage grid, on the railway, on the for the district heating, and so on. Also a strong performance from the southern part of Jutland maybe, mainly, and Odense. Order intake in Denmark +13%. In local currency, 5%. This order intake comes from installation.
Order backlog strong, plus 16%, ending up at 3.2 in the 1/4. Finland. Finland has been growing this 1/4 with 17% to SEK 581 million. They've also had an organic growth in this 1/4 of 4%, and the growth from acquisition was 6%.
Growth comes from both service and installation, but mainly from services. EBITDA SEK 14 million, and the EBITDA margin declined in the 1/4 to 6.9%, but they had a strong margin last year's fourth 1/4 on 8.6%. It was a bit lower, but if you look at the full year, the margin was 5.3% compared to 5.0% the year before. Finland is still continuing to improving their business, and we're very happy with that.
They had a strong order intake in the 1/4 on +110%, a little bit less, but still 96% in local currency. The order intakes come from installation projects. They have been building their order backlog with 43%, and that was needed in Finland, that was we're very happy with that. That was our countries. Let's look a bit at our finances position.
If you look at the mid-graph, you can see the operating cash flow. As you can see, it's on the same level in the 1/4 as it was last year, and it is on SEK 1.6 billion compared to SEK 1.4 billion if you look at the full year figures. The increase is mainly coming from the higher result that we had this year.
A strong, stable cash flow, and a cash conversion that has increased to 87% from 83. If you look at the right-hand side on this slide, you can see our financing. What we have is that we have a revolving credit facility on SEK 2.5 billion, and this is a sustainable linked RCF, so it's linked to our safety target and the numbers of ordered cars. We have drawn SEK 400 million on that facility now at the end of the year. We also have a commercial paper program of SEK 1.5 billion and EUR 50 million. We have commercial papers for SEK 663 million.
We also have a 3-year term loan that we signed in August 2022, and that is amounting to SEK 500 million. On the left-hand side, you see the financial position at the end of the year. We had a cash balance of SEK 1.3 billion.
We had commercial, we had financing, so the term loan of SEK 500 million, the RCF, we're drawing SEK 400 million on, commercial papers on SEK 663 million, that added up to SEK 1.6 billion. We had a leasing according to IFRS 16 on SEK 1 billion. That ends up to a net debt of SEK 1.3 billion, with the LTM EBITDA of SEK 2.1 billion, we get a net at EBITDA ratio of 0.6.
That is compared to 0.5 last year. Still on a low leverage. I think that brings me to the financial targets. As you know, we have a financial EBITDA margin target of more than 7%. We are on 6.5%. I think we're very proud of that in a year like this with lots of challenges that Mattias talked about. Also we have been able to grow the business with 20%, so exceeded our sales growth target with a big margin. Cash conversion improved this year compared to last year, it's on 87%, not fully 100%. If you look at an average for a couple of years, we are on 100% on the cash conversion.
Net debt, as I just told you, is a lot lower than our target on 0.6. We had a proposal for dividend payout of 3.25 SEK per share, and that will bring us to 52% of the net profit as payout. By that, Mattias, I think I will hand over to you.
Thank you. A stable balance sheet. Is that?
Yes, stable balance sheet. Good performance from all countries, I'd say.
Great. Let's summarize this. As Åsa told you about, we have an increased dividend. Earnings per share is up 10% last year. Sales up 28%, organic 16%. We are growing in all countries. We are growing organically in all countries. Acquisition is continuing to adding to the sales, 9% in 2022.
Slightly lower margin on the EBITDA if we adjust for the positive one-offs last year, but very stable level at 8.4%. Of course, we need to mention all the investments we are doing. If we have been in the old private equity environment, we have probably adjusted for that and present in a higher margin, but we are not. We're taking the cost in the profit and loss, P&L.
I think therefore it's even more impressive to present this stable margin at the same time as we are growing the business as much as we are doing. Dividend proposal SEK 3.25 per share, that is an increase. As I told you earlier, we have increased the dividend on average with 18% every year. Injury. Last but not least, the accidents, injuries is down with 19%, which is, of course, something we are very happy about. Let's open up for some questions. I think there are at least some of you who wants to ask some questions about different things. Please.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Your first question comes from Karl Norén from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, Mattias, congrats on a strong 1/4 here. First question is related to the Swedish business and the strong margin you're seeing there in the fourth 1/4. Could you give any sort of explanation or color on the strong margin other than maybe a good mix with more service contributing to the strong margin in the Swedish business in Q4? Thank you.
Good morning, thank you so much. I would say that it's quite strong performance all over. If we take the south part, maybe slightly weaker than last year. On the other hand, really high level, strong performance.
Stockholm continues to increase in their margin, extremely stable in the north part of Sweden, increasing and improving their margin. Good performance all over, I would say. I don't see the mix adding extremely much positive to the thing. It's just good all over, I would say.
Okay, great. A question on the you know, pricing side. I guess you got some help on the price increases here in Q4. Can you say anything maybe on the price increases going into 2023? Because I guess you should see some positive impact on maybe service sales from CPI clauses, while installation business more on a project by project basis. Any, any kind of comments there would be helpful.
Let's see if we have been handling the price inflation, the increases in material prices, et cetera, quite good so far. We have a lot of respect for this topic still, we are discussing internally a lot of what kind of increases we get, both on the material side as well as on the salaries. My concern is not maybe about how we're handling it internally within Bravida.
My concern is more about the industry as such is handling it because I think there is a common way of thinking in the industry when the demand might go down, the material prices and wages also will go down. This time, I've said it before, I have to take the chance to say it again, this time it can be the opposite.
The demand can be slightly weaker, which we don't see it yet. At the same time, material, the inflation costs for material and wages continue increasing, which is reason why they should buy us because we are stable, we are pricing the risk, but maybe the price pressure can be a bit unstructured in the industry. A lot of respect for the topic.
We are discussing it a lot internally. I don't want to mention how high price increases we get, but I get the market will get definitely above 10% in some and close to 20% regarding some type of materials, which is important that all the competitors actually put in their calculation. Let's see. We have handled it in a very good way so far.
Our plan is to continue to do the same.
Good. Here's the last one on the order intake here in Q4. It decreased 6% year-over-year. I mean, taking into account that we grew over 40% in Q4 last year, I would say this is still quite solid. Can you say anything regarding, like, any signs of weaker demand that are in the order intake as of Q4, or is it still strong demand out there, even in, let's say, like, the residential segment for Q4?
It varies, of course, where, where you are because 350 branches, 350 local markets with different type of demand conditions, et cetera. I would say that a solid, strong demand in all segments, except for the residential so far. That is a small part of our business and not a place we actually want to be in. Yeah.
Yeah. When do you expect us the weaker residential market to, let's be seen in the weaker net sales? Is that expected to be during the second 1/2 of 2023 already, or?
Yeah, I think for some companies already has been visible. If you're exposed to residentials in another way that we are, I think they have already noticed it. When you have that small part as we have, it is a different, have a different impact. On the other hand, the residential project that started last year, they are still in production. I think the one that is stopped now or in Q4, I think that will be noticed after the summer, I guess, for those company.
Yeah. That's clear. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from Carl Ragnerstam from Nordea Equity Research. Please go ahead.
Good morning, it's Carl here from Nordea. A few questions. Firstly, in Norway, could you perhaps give some flavor on what portion of the margin drop would you say is related to the mix effect with the quite strong installation market quite evident in the numbers? Also, if you could quantify sort of the project writedowns in Norway. Are they related also to just one, 2 projects, or is it more Broad-Based? Yeah, we start there.
Yeah. I think, what is depending on what is quite tough to see, but when you are growing close to 40%, you have some project you have planned, and then, some delayed projects from the pandemic is coming on top of that. You need to find more resources. You don't find enough resources and good enough resources.
You have to maybe buy subcontractors to maybe slightly higher prices. You don't have time to do the purchase of material in the same way that you can if you have an yeah, normal growth, that cost you a lot. I think that will also impact the margin.
When it comes to the writedowns, I think you have some examples in 3 different places where you have had an annual sales at, let's say, SEK 80 million, and then last year it went up to SEK 160 million. Of course, that will impact your margin because you don't have resources, capabilities to handle that big sales growth locally in a cost-efficient way. That is also the reason why we want to grow this company in a more stable, structured pace. If you're growing too fast, that means that you are allocating or exposing yourself to high risk. That is what have happened in those branches.
Having a good order backlog and then delayed projects coming on top of that, and then you can't handle and manage all the costs, which cost you too much, which impacts your margin locally. I think that is what happened.
Okay, very good. Would you say that the Q4 margin in Norway was sort of the trough margin and that it should get better from here that now that you've taken some project writedowns, maybe in some slight improvement of the mix as well? Or should we sort of endure a couple of more sort of weak-ish 1/4s here as project tends to, I guess, I mean, linger in for 9 months or so?
I think if we start in the end that both Åsa, myself, and also Tore and the whole Norwegian team think they are more a 7% division than a 5% division. If you start there, I think, you have the answer. We expect Norway to improve the margin because they are better than this.
Norway have probably been the country where the impact from the COVID, the pandemic, the close down will have been the biggest. The effects after the pandemic will with delayed projects coming on top of the existing production, as I mentioned before, that has been quite difficult.
The order intake going down in Q4, like Tore said, he's happy for that because they have more structured choose in the project service business going forward, as well as the type of projects they have been trying to win. They've been more, what do you say, cautious about the next project they're supposed to produce. I think we can expect an improved margin in Norway, yes.
Okay, very good. Also, I mean, a bit curious. In the market section in the report, you write that external assessment, it's a 5% drop in installation market in 2023. I mean, given your backlog, the Bypass Stockholm project starting after the summer, what are your thoughts on sort of your performance versus the market estimates that's out there?
I think it's tough for you, it's tough for us to know what happens. Of course, no one really knows. What we know is that we have a strong order backlog. We have clear visibility, not only on group level. We know the order backlog in all branches.
We know where to act and when to act in the 325 branches. I also think that the decrease of 5%, as you mentioned, is connected to the residentials. We still have an underlying demand for housings, et cetera, in the Nordics. Residential is going down for the moment, but we also see some segments growing. We have been investing in building automation, energy management, et cetera, and those segments are definitely growing.
We see the service side is very stable. We also see quite big investments on the infrastructure side increasing as well. Bravida, the beauty with Bravida is that we are a partner for the small projects, the so-small service tasks, as well as we have a competence and the skill set to be a partner for the big investments like Bypass Stockholm or other interesting industry projects in the north of Sweden, in Denmark, in Norway, Finland, et cetera.
I think resi going down, but on the other hand, there are some other markets that are increasing. We know what to do, we know how to act, we have done it before, but not all the thing is very negative in the market, I would say.
The transformation, what kind of energy sources you want to use, the electrification that you want to use less energy, that is, that means business for Bravida.
The final one from my side is, I mean, typically group wide expenses are positive in a Q4, I guess part due to supplier bonuses or kickbacks or similar. Why is it negative in this Q4?
How do you mean? I think maybe-
Group wide expenses.
Do you compare with the one of positive, one of last year, maybe?
Oh, you mean the, you mean the group segment?
Exactly, yes.
Yeah. That is because we have had some higher costs from the investments that we have done. That is partly then on that level. That's why we report part of it.
Expense, the negative delta then.
Uh.
Okay, very good. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Karl-Johan Bonnevier from DNB Markets. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, Mattias and Åsa, and congratulations to a very strong Q4 and then encouraging development. I need to pick your brains a little more on this order side, though. Looking at the development, have you seen any change in the amount of contracts or orders, proposals that are coming into you that might suggest that this -5 kind of installation market downturn in the year might be coming through, say, towards the end of the year or something like that?
Yeah, in some places we see that the order intake is going down. On the other hand, if you have asked that question a year ago, we have said the same. That is, again, we have a portfolio of different branches, different segments, different markets, but in general, I would say no to that. I don't know if you want to add something also.
No. We don't know. It's as you see. Locally, yes, but in general, we don't see it yet. There are so many segments that are positive right now also.
also we
In general, is that much business to calculate on this year as it was the last year, or it's still improving?
Last year we had a lot of projects paused by the pandemic, and we didn't know when they were supposed to start, et cetera. I would say that the order backlog is strong. It has been strong for many 1/4s. We have some regions, branches that are not actually willing to take in new orders in some places. Of course, we have some that is need some orders before the summer.
We had one region manager said that, "Okay, in the Q1, I have slightly lower activity, but on the other hand, in Q2, I need to hire more resources because then a couple of projects and service contracts starting." I think we are all over the place.
You can't say that the demand is going down and the ordering take is negative all over there in all branches. It's a good demand. In most of the places we have a great demand for our services and in a few branches that we are struggling a bit. Again, that was the same last year and the year before that.
Very clear, very clear. I noticed that you took up the provisions in the balance sheet with about SEK 150 million in Q4, getting up to a level we haven't really seen you being at before. Is that related mainly to Norway, or is it a more cautious look on the order backlog that is coming through in that number?
Oh, it's actually a more cautious take on the large projects that we have that are early in the phase. This has actually been a shift. If you look at the, if you look at the balance sheet and you look at the contracts, what do you call that? contract received, contract. The POC, the net POC.
The liability.
Yeah, that has decreased some. That is actually a shift, to some extent into the provisions that we have actually, for these some larger projects that we have that just because they are large, we are being a bit cautious on that.
Excellent. Thank you. Just good to hear if you have any general comments on what you have been able to achieve in the building automation side and the FM side during this year and how you see the opportunities there going into this year.
Opportunities is big, of course. Building automation, we have said that we want to be the market leader in the Nordics. We are growing that business. I think we, in the end of 2023, we will be close to SEK 1 billion in sales. I think that's quite quick development.
We have good product services, a good or great offering to our customers that also not is only good for the building automation, but also a good for all the other segments, because that gives us the opportunity to monitor the energy consumption and help the customers to take down the energy consumption, which gives us more business in some other areas. Technical facility management, I think we saw a very positive trend in the end of last year.
The selling cycle is quite long. Without saying too much, we definitely added some contracts in the end of last year. Let's see when those turns into sales because it's quite a long cycle to sell those type of projects, and then it's slightly longer phase because before we start the production as well. Let's come back to that next 1/4.
Building automation, positive, very positive, I would say. Technical facility management, okay, leaning on the positive side. Energy management is something that we just have started up with, but the demand for those type of services we know is huge. A lot of people want to work with Bravida in those segments.
I think that is also a way for us to broaden the number of talents going forward, future leaders as well. We are attracting a new type of skill sets in the market for the moment, which is really great, I would say.
Thank you very much. Good luck out there.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. That does conclude our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to your speakers today for closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you all for listening in, thank you for all great questions. I take the chance to mention again that we're not presenting from the same place we usually do. We are presenting at Bravida GreenHub in the city center of Stockholm, a hub to provide all our partners, customers with fossil free services. Yeah, see you next time. Enjoy the day. Happy Valentine's Day, isn't it?
It is.
Yeah.
Thank you.
See you.
Bye-bye.