Good morning everyone, and welcome to Bravida's presentation of the first quarter. As always, together with me, I have
Petra Vranjes here, CFO, and happy to present the first quarter of 2026.
My name is Mattias Johansson, CEO of Bravida. With that, we start. The headline is Solid Sales and Margin Development With Increased Order Backlog. We tell you that we are starting the year with a good momentum. Net sales above SEK 7 billion. Cash conversion improves in the quarter, but still on a low level, 77%. Order intake up 5%. EBITA margin, well above consensus at 4.6% and higher than last year. Net debt, strong balance sheet at 1.1 times EBITDA, and the order backlog increases with 7%. For the first time in a while, we have positive organic growth and stable EBITA margin on top of that. This is very much because of that we are in many different geographies working in different segments with different types of customers.
We are in a diverse market. Sales is up in the quarter with 2%. 3% is acquired growth, and we have 1% organic, and FX is actually impacting the growth with -2%. That means in numbers that organic growth is close to SEK 70 million, M&A contributing with SEK 240 million, and then we have some -SEK 151 million on the currency side. EBITA is growing with 6% to SEK 325 million compared to SEK 292 million last year, I think. In this quarter, we have also taken some restructuring costs in Sweden. Adjusted for that, we have a margin that is close to 5% in the quarter, and LTA non-adjusted is 5.9% margin.
The EBITA margin in each country is stable or improving. Yesterday evening, the board actually decided that we should launch a buyback program as part of optimizing our capital structure. We got the decision on the AGM last week to do this. Yesterday the board decided to start a buyback program. The board intends to evaluate the share buyback programs on an ongoing basis until next AGM in 2027. We start in this quarter with doing the buyback with SEK 100 million. On running basis, the board will evaluate if we will continue or not, depending on what we can use the balance sheet to create as much value to you as possible.
This is one of the tools we have in the toolbox, and that will be used if we think that is smart. Today we have 14 or close to 15,000 shares, you can read this yourself, and 2.5 million Class C shares already. Finally, we launched the buyback program as you, most of you have been waiting for for a while. The acquisition agenda has been very silent in the Q1. I will though say that we have a very active and good pipeline. I think that the pace will increase going forward. We didn't do any acquisitions in the first quarter. As we have said earlier, we have sold one company, that is Abeka
That is because that is not in line with our core business and the core strategy. We think that both Abeka, Bravida, and the new owner can do this in a different and maybe a better way on another solution. You can see in this slide that we have for the last 10, 11 years done a lot of acquisition, that will be an important part of our strategy going forward as well. It seems like the activity in the whole M&A market has eased up and improved a bit the last quarter. Speaking about our business model and the market we are in, the transformation of the society is actually benefiting Bravida's business going forward. Lately, there has been a lot of focus on the energy prices.
That will mean that energy savings in buildings would most likely be more interesting going forward. It has been close to none interest at all in that segment. I think that that will improve from now on. We see a continued growth in the hospital area. New buildings, but also make sure that the operation is working in a good way, so we have redundancy in those systems. Data center is very interesting. As you have heard and seen, we signed a small data center contract with one of the partners that we've been working together with since 2017, and that market is really exciting going forward. That is a market that we have been in since 2009. We have the knowledge, we have the resources, and we have the will to actually be part of that business.
Infrastructure projects is another interesting segment going forward. Reliable security systems. The defense industry, of course, is driving some of the growth in Bravida for now and will continue to do that going forward as well. We have some, quite many actually, exciting industry projects in the Nordics as well. I think this is why we can present an increased order intake and strengthen order backlog today. You see that the order intake is up 5% year-over-year, and the order backlog increased 7% year-over-year. Mainly small and medium-sized orders and not any specific big orders in the quarter, which means that some of them will start quite quick and also be produced in the coming quarters. Very positive support going forward, let's see if that trend can continue.
I still think the organic growth was a bit earlier than expected, it has now some support of growing order intake and order backlog. Let's see what happens in Q2. If the world stays in a bit okay, then I think we can have a better momentum going forward than we have had the last two years before this. On the next slide, we have a selection of different customer assignments that we have won during the quarter. I mentioned the data centers in Sweden. We have a partnership with EcoDataCenter, who has been working together with since almost 10 years now. A customer that most likely will continue to invest.
This contract is about electricity supply for the data center, but we also have the industrial piping in this contract from before as well. In Denmark, we have signed a school where we are delivering all the different disciplines needed in the building. These four cases is somewhat different. We have the data centers where we have the knowledge, we have the resources, competencies, et cetera, to deliver that one. We have Norway. I think if you're interested in sport and football, you have followed Bodø/Glimt, the fantastic football team from north of Norway. They beat Manchester City, they beat Atlético Madrid, they beat also Sporting Lisbon, and they were actually able to reach the quarterfinal in Champions League.
Now we have the big honor to help them building a new arena in Bodø as well. As a football fan, I really like that type of project. Then in Finland, we have another type of order that is more focused on service, where we are going to help Pirkanmaan Osuuskauppa, covering technical building systems in 115 different retail locations in Pirkanmaa region. Sorry for the pronunciation of the name. Four different types of orders that is very significant for Bravida's business and this quarter and many quarters going forward as well. With that, I hand over to you, Petra, and you will tell them something about the financials.
Yes. Thank you, Mattias, and good finish there, I think. Just to recap a bit of what Mattias said about the overall, so we have a 2% growth in sales and 1% is organic growth of that. We have an FX impact of 2% and we have acquisitions of 3% in the totality. As you can see, the EBITA margin is up 6% and have included SEK 325 million in the quarter. Through our countries, we will start with Sweden, as we usually do, and Sweden landed on SEK 3.4 billion in turnover, and that's up 5%. In Sweden, we have a stable organic growth, so it's on zero. It's flat to last year's, which is a positive trend at the moment.
We have a 5% acquisition growth, and the acquisition comes primarily from Contub, which was a very good fit, and has continued grow under Bravida's brand. What we see in Sweden is a solid performance from the north, and we are gradually making a better market in the southern parts of the areas which we have seen earlier have struggled, but now stabilizing. If we look at the split on the sales, you have 54% on installation and 46% on services, and an EBITDA coming in with SEK 152 million in the quarter. We have included the SEK 20 million in restructuring, which is part of a larger program from Sweden. We're still expecting approximately SEK 50 million-SEK 70 million in quarter two and quarter three to come. As I mentioned, that's part of a larger restructuring.
Order intake looking good in the quarter, up 16% year-over-year, gives us a flat year-over-year backlog. If we then continue to our market in Denmark closed on close to SEK 1.8 billion, and with that, they have included 10% organic growth. Overall, Denmark grow 5%, since we have a currency effect impact of -5%. Here, we can see 55% installation and 45% services. On the EBITDA margin, you can see on the graph, Denmark has done a very good recovery and is in the first quarter of 2026 landing on 5% EBITDA, which is then primarily due to the turnaround and the good business execution and intake. On the order intake, this quarter is a bit down. It's 11% negative, year-over-year.
On the backlog side, you can see that Denmark is continuing to build backlog up with SEK 500 million to SEK 4.6 billion approximately. We look at our Norwegian business. In Norway, as you know, we have had a softer market in Norway and a struggle. Norway is doing an excellent job with securing that there is efficient delivery and control on the cost. On the EBITDA side, they are reporting a 5.1% EBITA margin also in the first quarter of 2026, with SEK 1.3 billion of sales or turnover. In Norway, you might remember, we have a bit higher services sales with 62% to the 38% on installation. Order intake still low in the quarter with negative 11% year-over-year.
In Norway, the backlog is slightly increasing and landing on SEK 2.2 billion. The last twelve-month EBITA margin being very stable despite the decline in sales over the last year, so landing on 6.1% for the last twelve months. Our business in Finland landed on SEK 537 million. That is a decline of 2%. In Finland, we have acquisition that is contributing with 11% to the growth and an FX impact on -4%. We are seeing a good order intake in Finland with SEK 945 million booked in the quarter. The backlog is increasing to SEK 1.6 billion, and part of the orders Mattias was talking about.
We have both large and many small orders coming in in Finland. The EBITA margin is landing on 1.3%. In Finland, we do need the growth to pick up in order to pick up the EBITA margin. As you can see, 33% growth in the quarter isolated. Looking at our financial positions, we have a good cash flow in the quarter and a low net debt. On the debt side, we are landing on just below SEK 2.5 billion. That gives us an EBITA, a net debt to EBITA on 1.1. That is before we exclude the leasing. If we then exclude the leasing, we are down on 0.6x on net debt to EBITA ratio. Cash conversion in the quarter was 77%, which was expected.
It's a good cash conversion on the running business. We have a large project which had a big cash inflow where we have the advances and now is building, and we are expecting the full year of 2026 to still be executing on the buildup on Förbifart Stockholm. You will see the cash conversion on that specific project being a bit lower. On the other hand, cash conversion varies, so if we get large contracts with large advances, that will give us a high cash conversion. When we execute, it goes down, so it will vary over time. On the loan facilities, we have a revolving credit facility of SEK 2.5 billion, which is maturing in February 2028.
We have commercial papers on SEK 1.75 billion and EUR 250 million, and a three year term loan on SEK 750 million maturing in August 2028. That's from the cash. Our operating cash inflow was SEK 354 million in the quarter. When it comes to the launched buyback, we are seeing that as one piece in our toolbox, as Mattias was mentioning, where we prioritize M&As. We do dividends. Now we also have the buyback as one part of the toolbox that we will continuously evaluate how to do capital allocation in the best way.
Lastly, I want to mention also that we have a large outstanding receivable in Norway that you know of since before, where we have a court ruling pending, and that one is expected somewhere in June timeframe. We will keep you posted on what is happening if and when we get any ruling coming up in June. Looking at our ESG, Mattias already mentioned the long-term injury frequency rate, which is 5.5, an improvement from 5.6 earlier. Additionally, in the ESG, we are doing the electrification of vehicles, and that one is up from 38%- 46%, as well as the carbon dioxide emission, which is up from 18%- 34%.
With that, I will hand over to Mattias for a recap and taking us on to the outlook.
Thank you, Petra. As one analyst actually wrote this morning, better on all metrics, that actually include the sustainability KPIs as well, which is really, really good, of course. Just to summarize the quarter. Organic growth again for the first time in eight quarters, I think. The last two years, we have been focusing a lot to defend the margin, taking down sales and taking out cost, which we have done in a very good way. I'm really impressed by the organization's way of working and handling that. That means that we now have a margin that is improving with a growing business. Margin at 4.6%. EPS is at 1.17, and that is an uplift from 1.11 last year.
Cash conversion. Petra described it why it's a bit lower. The cash flow itself in the quarter improves compared to last year as well. Very strong balance sheet with a low debt. The injuries is going down and improving as well. Actually really, really good to see that all KPIs is improving or are improving. The outlook, you see a solid net sales, organic growth, margin development combined with increased order intake and an order backlog. That is in a market that we see as a little bit better stabilized but still very diverse. Let's see what happens. We cannot impact the overall market. We can decide what to do in a bit tricky market. We are a bit more positive today than we were last time we met during this kind of presentation.
Good cash flow in the quarter. Low net debt gives us a flexibility to act, and the board has actually done so by starting the buyback program. We have a continued ambition to grow the business, but we will have an eye and focus on margin as well. The transformation of the society is quite positive for a company like Bravida with the knowledge and experience we have in especially the data center area. We have a very good market position that gives us a very solid platform going forward and create long-term value for all of us as shareholders. The financial calendar, the next report will be in July, mid-July, and then you have the third quarter in October.
With that, I think we open up for some questions. And I guess you might have.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue, if you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six again on your telephone keypad.
The next question comes from Oskar Rönnkvist from SEB. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good morning Mattias and Petra. First question, just on the market outlook. I think you sound at least a little bit more upbeat. I think you talked about organic growth starting in, you know, late Q2 as your, you know, initial expectations in the Q4 report. I guess it's fair to assume that we are a little bit ahead of schedule, given the solid Q1 results. Or is it anything that, you know, makes Q1 a little bit temporarily supported? Any comments? Thanks.
I think, as you say, it's a bit earlier than we expected, but it's still 1%. It's not 5%. We have seen a quite strong growth in Denmark recently, now Sweden is picking up a bit. Norway and Finland still struggling. I think if we will have organic growth in Q2 depends on if Denmark can keep up the growth at the same time as Sweden is improving. Let's see. I think it's too early to say that the growth will be very big in Q2.
On the other hand, we have seen that when an oil tanker like Bravida, if that is a word you can use these times, it's when we are entering a growth phase or for that sake, the declining phase, when it comes to the growth, we normally stays there for a while. I think this is most likely a start of a trend, or a phase where we will see organic growth for a while. Yeah, I'm happy that we have had organic growth in Q1 a bit earlier than expected, and we might think that it can be some small organic growth in Q2 as well. I think we stay with the guidance that it will mainly come in the end Q2 and going forward.
Understood. Thanks. Just staying on the market dynamics a little bit, but more on the sort of margin side. Can you talk a little bit about the competition on project margins in Sweden? Has that eased up a little bit? Can we expect, you know, the order backlog to have decent margins? At I think you mentioned also that the order backlog is, you know, quite near term to be executed on.
Yeah. I think if we start with orders we have won, we have no reason to believe that the margins isn't healthy in that, those orders because we have been very, selective, strict in our pricing terms, in terms and condition in the contracts, et cetera. I think the type of contracts we have won is the type where you have a different competition you can say. It's not everyone who can compete those around those projects. That is the first answer of your question. The next one is I think there is a bit improved or easing up pricing pressure in the market, I think that is not fact that I can prove to you. I think that is more based on feelings, discussions, and what I hear. It hasn't absolutely not been worse.
I think there is a small improvement in that perspective as well.
Perfect. Thanks. My final question just on the geopolitical turmoil and any, you know, cost inflation impacts. Is there anything that you see that will eventually, you know, pressure any margins or you know, have you learned from the last time with the cost inflation and are better to sort of mitigate that?
I think there are two things when it comes to this topic. I think, first, the clients, the customers' willingness, the confidence to actually start the investments. That is one part that we can't really do anything about. We have the second part of that is that what can we do internally? We, as one of the few players in this market are big enough and professional enough to have our own procurement team, and they are working intense with secure long-term agreement and terms in the contracts with the suppliers that is protecting us from inflation and cost increases regarding material. We have a structure within Bravida where we're discussing contracts we are signing, how to protect ourself on our client side.
We have one work to the suppliers and one to the customers where we are signing contracts with index clauses, cost-plus project, et cetera, but also train our employees so they understand what the challenges will be. We know that, for example, plastic due to the oil price will go up. We know that the copper, aluminum, et cetera, in cables will increase because of the high demand, because of the electrification, digitalization in society. We have the processes and the structure in place to handle this. I will also say that last time in 2022, I think it was, when we had the high inflation last time, we handled that in a very, very good way. We have a lot of respect for this topic, and we discuss it a lot internally.
Good question and an important area to work with. All the management in Bravida knows this, and I think we will handle this in quite okay way.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
Thanks.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Simon Johnson from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning Mattias and Petra, and also congratulations on a good quarter here. First, it's maybe on a similar theme as Oskar's question on the margin profile here on the new orders. I wonder if you can expand a bit on how the price pressure in the market is developing here, and if that is one of the reasons for the higher order intake now, or if we can expect that the order intake would look even better when we actually see better prices in the market?
Yeah, if we see better prices, I think that means that we have a better market, and that will impact the order intake in a positive way. Absolutely. Again, not sure I understood your question about the margin profile. We think that the overall market, the normal installation and construction market is still a bit pressed. The market where we are winning contracts now is a bit of a new market, another type of market where it's more defense industry that are investing, infrastructure projects, large industry project data centers, et cetera, and the competition looks very different compared to the other markets.
I would say a normal market's quite tough still, but then we on top of that have a new type of market where we have a fantastic position, market position to, and the knowledge to actually benefit from that. I think that is why we see that the order intake goes up at the same time as we think that we have a quite good margin in those projects. Petra, I don't want to know if you want to add something or?
No, I think you are covering it well. I mean, going up the ladder to the larger projects of course gives us the possibility to price differently. We also know that we can execute on those. We are one of the few companies that know how to and have the muscles to do it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, when it comes to the large project, if we look at historically, they have been on average more profitable than the normal type of projects because they're these projects where we have the best project teams, most professional customers, and there are some scale synergies in your purchasing that you can have. For example, you can afford to have a professional purchaser in a big project, which you don't have in a small average contract. This is something we really like.
All right. Thanks for that. Just to clarify, I think when we talked last time, you had not really seen any big improvements in your prices, and you expected it to potentially improve quite significantly after the summer. I just wonder if that's still the case, and if that could lead to sort of a, another boost in the, in the order intake?
Yeah. I think what we know, what is fact actually is that we see that some of the public numbers from some of the peers, they also have good order intake, good order backlogs, and improving margins. I think that shows us that if you have a size that is above the average size in this market, then you have a market that is improving. I think I know when the market comes back, the prices will improve and increase quite rapidly because we already now know that some of the competitors actually have, even if they have a tough market, have the order books full because they have had a different strategy than we have. We have more thought about we have a okay order backlog.
We are not stressed. Let's bring in the business that we think is healthy and have good margins. When the market demand comes back, I think we have some pockets to fill, which is good. That is something I learned since I started in this industry in 1998. You should never be really full in your orders because then you can't take those really good opportunities when someone needs to have something built very quick. I think that the market shows the numbers from competitors shows that the market has improved, at least the market that where we can act. A bit more positive than last time, I would say.
All right. Thanks for that. Then turning to the segments a bit, you talked about recovery in southern Sweden. I wonder if you can elaborate a bit on, like, what specifically you are seeing supporting southern Sweden here in the recovery and if that will continue.
I think it's too early to say that southern part of Sweden has improved a lot. We see some signs that it's improving a bit, you know, this scale is a bit relative. It sometimes you can be positive just because you can't see it's worsening. I don't know if it's have stopped worsening or if it has started to improve. I think the general macroeconomic says that this a bit more positive. I saw a headline this morning that the bankruptcies in the industry has improved. I think there is some quite many different signs of that the market is absolutely stabilizing but also improving a bit, but I can't really give you any hard facts on that. Sorry.
I think we should also remember that we have done quite a lot of work in southern part of Sweden, so sizing down where the market has actually disappeared or decreased quite heavily. With new size and new fit for the market, I think that's also part of it.
Of course, small signs of that market is improving. No big, I would agree with you. No.
No. All right. Small signs, but maybe, you know, fairer to call it a stabilization.
Yeah. On that topic, you can say that we have improved even more on moving our resources. We have some resources from southern part of Sweden to who is helping other colleagues within Bravida, both other places in Sweden but also in Denmark, for example. That also means that we have kept good resources for the future uptick in the market locally in the south part of Sweden. That is an advantage of being structured in the way Bravida is today.
All right. Then on Norway, it remains the weaker spot to you. It sounds like, if I heard you correctly, that the outlook remains a little muted here for Norway. What do you think is needed to get that market back to growth?
Yeah.
It does continue to lag the rest of the group.
It's good and tricky question. I'm not a financial educator, I'm just an engineer. I'm trying to guess a bit now. I think the Norwegian market is very different. You have high inflation. You have a society that is benefiting a lot from different different other kinds of industry like the oil sector, for example. You have a wage increase. I think the new agreement, collective agreement in Norway were 4.5% increased wages and still quite high interest rates in the Norwegian society, which is not really optimal for the construction and installation business in Norway. I think the Norwegian construction market will have some challenges going forward as well.
With that said, there is also quite many investments on the infrastructure side, which we are doing some part in Norway, but also there is big data center and other industry investments going forward as well. Tough market, but there are some openings for a company like Bravida. I think that is probably the market that is most trickiest one going for if you look forward to 15 months or something.
All right. Just a final one on M&A here.
Yeah.
Despite the buybacks, do you still think that you will be at a higher or hope that you will be at a higher M&A pace in the second half of this year?
Yeah. I think that, yes, I think so. I don't know. The discussions we're having internally now is more frequent. We have better cases. It seems like the struggle we've had for a couple of years is that we haven't been able to find good enough targets that we want to acquire. There have been targets out in the market, but now we see that the quality is coming back. We can also see that the company has who has been handling the downturn in market for 24, 30 months have done it in a good way. There is more discussions ongoing, and I think that is what we want to use the balance sheet for in the first phase. That is to do M&A.
You should see maybe the buyback, that we launched yesterday as a combination of deliver some value to the shareholders, but we still think that we can continue to do M&A.
All right. Thank you so much, Mattias and Petra.
Thank you. Thank you, Simon.
Welcome.
The next question comes from Anders Åkerblom from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, I wanted to ask a bit on Denmark, obviously a quite important component of the earnings uplift. Very solid margin for being, you know, sort of a seasonally weaker Q1. How should we think about the rest of the year in that regard?
Yeah, if I start and then Petra have all the facts. No, I think Denmark has done an impressive journey the last year and a half, you can say. Again, back to my knowledge from the industry, in the beginning of the turnaround, you're improving quite rapidly. They have gone from, I think it was 3.5% Q1 last year to 5% now. I don't think you should expect another 150 basis points to the next Q1 because it's, it will take some more time to improve to the next level now. On the other hand, we see that Denmark is doing a lot of good things. They have a stronger team today than they had two years ago. The market is better.
We are doing smarter things, and that all in combination will mean that Denmark will deliver better result, 2026 compared to 2025. I think we have guided that it will be somewhere around 5.5%-6% in 2026, and I think it's after a good Q1. We have no reason to change that, but let's see what they will bring us in Q2. We are positive about the Denmark organization, of course. Petra.
No, absolutely. Definitely. I fully agree with everything you said. Continued improvement, but of course not the same steep curve as we have seen because that was coming from very, very low levels. Definitely agree with you.
Maybe the growth side will come down a bit in Denmark because they have been growing a lot with very impressive margins. I think margins will continue to improve, but maybe the growth will slow down a bit.
I think that will be fair to say because they have had double digits, organic growth for a couple of quarters at least, I guess.
Yeah.
So.
Continuous strong performance.
Yeah.
Just don't expect what you have seen so far this year.
Okay.
The 12 month side.
That's very clear.
Yeah, exactly.
Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. Very clear. Thank you. I wanted to get back a bit to sort of the margin side on group. Sorry for digging into this, but I wanted to ask a bit on I mean, if we remove the prospects of sort of a better general market than perhaps better pricing, if we just look at sort of the mix between the smaller and larger projects, and you discuss sort of perhaps competitive dynamics in that as well with some more demanding projects. If we think about that mix going forward, how should we think that that affects sort of the group profitability? Do you understand my question?
Yes.
Maybe. Yeah. I think, when we're talking about slightly bigger projects, we know there is a different type of risk profile that we are pricing differently. Normally, we think that the large projects have a better margin profile than the normal type of business where the competition is tougher, different. We would say that it will have a positive impact of the group margin going forward. Of course, if you have a bigger project, they are slightly longer as well, which means that we, in the beginning of those projects, we are probably a bit more cautious because we don't want to be too positive. I think if we were winning a couple of large projects, I think that margin impact will come a bit later.
We won't start to take out too much profit in the beginning, even if we have confidence to do that, because that is how we should work in how I reason it is.
as well. At least.
No, I agree. I'm thinking, you know, we do have some 60% of our turnover in a year is smaller projects, so we should not, you know, disregard those, and we want to continue working with that segment as well. It's not one or the other, it's a mix, and we want to be broad and work across many, many pieces and works. Very small projects under SEK 10 million are very frequent in our portfolio, and that we will continue working with. With the larger projects, I agree with Mattias, obviously, there is a bigger risk we have to consider. I think we are good at doing that. It's important that we price the risk. It's important that we take care, mitigate, use the money for mitigation as well, and execute in a good way.
Of course, the large projects don't fit everybody in the market. It is a pocket we want to be big in, and we want to take. What I think that you can help us understand also and with the market guidance is that larger projects also can tend to do a bit of volatility, both on top line and on margins and on cash flow, obviously. It's a good segment. It brings good business. It's profitable, we think, to us.
We hope.
We know. We know the ones we have now are. We definitely need to think about the volatility as well aspect with the larger portion of big projects.
I also want to add, because if we look at the order intake, order backlog improvement in Q1, now we're talking a lot about large projects, but that is mainly small and medium-sized projects. We have two, I think that is SEK 150 million plus. Otherwise, it's mainly small contracts, which is, of course, very positive, because if we are successful in the other market going forward, that will come on top.
Okay. Very, very clear answer. Thank you for that. Lastly, I just wanted to ask, speaking of larger projects, I came to think a bit more about sort of data centers and what you're seeing in that market. How do you view that potential going forward, just in general?
I think it's big. I think that this, I think you all understand that is maybe the biggest change we have seen in the market, and that is a good place to be. I think it's also important to understand if your client understands what we are supposed to do, because working with a professional client is important. It's also important to understand for all our branches, regions who wants to enter this market or competitors as well, because there is a reason why we have a central PMO who has handled those projects for many, many years because they know how to work with these global customers. They also know what resources is needed. In a normal project that, you might need two or three white collars to run the projects.
In a data center, you most likely need 60, 70, 80 white collars, and there is not many who can handle that, and we are one of those. It's a good market. We are participating in that market with a lot of respect, but we have the knowledge. We know what to do. We are choosing our customers carefully because we are not entering into any project if we don't think it's a good project customer, terms to enter into.
Okay. Very good. Thanks for the answers. Have a good day.
Thanks.
Thank you. Thank you. You too.
The next question comes from Johan Lönnqvist Sundén from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions.
Morning.
First one is on the order intake and the kind of dynamic with prepayments. How should we think about? You mentioned, Petra, during the call the dynamics which could be for Stockholm. If you exclude that one and think about the rest of your operations, is it a reasonable assumption to think that if you are starting to grow again, seeing a just a better and better order intake that the prepayment element should come back and be kind of a cash flow tailwind going forward? Is there any bigger other project that can trigger prepayment that can give strong cash flow during 2026?
It's a good question. Of course, there is an element we could, if we win a very large contract, and that is associated with a prepayment or early or some advances. Depending on the size of the advances as well could give a positive cash flow that is very notable. When we're looking at the current quarter, we do have prepayments all the time, so you're absolutely right there. It's not just the large projects that get them. It's also small projects and it's a very common facility in our payment structure.
When we just look at how everything has moved in the quarter, it's pretty much evens out, advances, payments, working, everything kind of with the, you know, receivables and payables and all of that also equals out. The piece that is actually bringing us from SEK 100- SEK 77 or thereabouts is the Bypass Stockholm that we have been talking about, and that one is expected. With that said, we are expecting that to continue during this year. You're absolutely right. Let's say that we would land a big contract in the next quarter, which I don't know that we will, so this is not me telling you that we are.
You never know.
No, you never know. That could, of course, bring a big prepayment. We would, if it's big enough, we will tell you that that is then a extraordinary piece of reporting. At the moment, we don't have any of those extraordinary that is, you know, skewing the numbers in any way.
Yeah, just to be clear, the order intake you have seen last two, three quarters, there's nothing that you're starting up that in the coming, say, two, three quarters that would trigger what you know today?
That is, bringing a huge prepayment, you're thinking? That's what you're asking.
Yeah.
Nothing that I know today, no.
Clear. On the M&A side,
May I just add one thing? One of the, without mentioning the specific project.
Yeah.
I think one of, one of the large projects we have signed is the cost-plus that the risk is very low, and that also means that we get the payment after what we have done the work. I think that is, you can see, okay, poor cash management, but we have that in the price in some way. It also a way to, that's why the competition is a bit different because we with a strong balance sheet can actually participate in those projects as well and do large projects on cost-plus with another type of cash flows. I think that is also important to understand. It doesn't have to mean that we haven't been focusing on the cash.
We have been entered into contract that we think have a good earning profile at the same time as we can get paid for getting the cash a bit later. We can handle it because we have a strong balance sheet.
Perfect. On M&A, you stated, Mattias, that the kind of M&A market has been more active in Q1. Just give some kind of sneak peek to the pipeline. Are it mainly bolt-on transactions that you look into, or are you also looking into maybe bigger platforms, or how should we view your pipeline?
I think we're always looking into both these sectors. The small bolt-ons is more frequent than the platforms acquisition is happening from time to time. It can be many years between those, but we are always looking into both. It's not like going into shop and buy things. You need to have a seller as well. We are working very proactive with those type of acquisitions as well to create relations, be first in the line when it's time, the timing is right, et cetera. The activity has picked up, lot of discussions. Let's see what we can present in Q2. Again, we are not stressed about being able to present a certain number of acquisitions to you guys.
We are doing the things that we think is smart for the coming 10 years for Bravida, try to develop the company, and use the balance sheet in a smart way. When we're doing acquisitions, then we think it's a good acquisitions. If we don't think it's good enough, then we don't do it. Mm-hmm.
No, no kind of skew in the pipeline in certain direction?
No, I think the pipeline is good. Yeah.
Yeah.
Going back to the kind of raw material inflation topic a little bit, you mentioned that you managed the previous inflation uptick in a good way. At the same time, it was also during those periods where you ended up in dispute with certain clients because, yeah, raw material prices and this, had to look into details of the contract was stipulated. How should we view that risk going forward? Have you learned things from the previous period where you ended up in disputes with certain public clients, et cetera? We don't should see that happening again if we have inflation ticking up a bit.
I'm not sure the correlation is correct there. I don't think we have ended up in any disputes with clients because of the inflation. We had one in south part of Sweden, as you know, where we filed to the police. Otherwise, we don't see that correlated at all, actually. What I can say is that we already then was quite good in signing contracts with inflation clauses and purchase material quite early in the phase, and we have improved that even more. Just to give you an example, this Friday, in a couple of days, we have a big information meeting with all our managers within Bravida where this pricing topic is one of the things we will discuss and inform and train them another yet another time.
We are working consequent in a structured way with contract templates, bid meetings. The legal team is involved in the new contracts bids we are submitting, et cetera. We have a structured way of working with this.
Just a final on the disputes. Some update, latest and greatest, what to expect from the kind of mainly the Stavanger Sykehus process?
We know that they have said that.
Some conclusion of this year.
decision will come in beginning of June, or if that's mid-June or not, I don't know.
I mean, it's a public court, so we have an indication of June. Yes, it was in the beginning of June from the beginning, and I think it still stands that we think it's beginning of June, but it's a public court, and we don't know when ruling will come. We will keep you updated as soon as we have the ruling, and that's the one we are expecting to get the ruling soon. The Stavanger Sykehus.
Perfect. I think you recovered my other question, so thanks a lot. I get back in line.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Have a nice day.
There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you so much. 45 minutes of questions, good questions, positive kind of questions.
Yeah, thank you so much for listening in and viewing this presentation. I hope you will get a fantastic day.
Thank you.
Are we ready to say goodbye?
Absolutely. Let's go back to the Q2.
Exactly. see you soon. Bye