Bravida Holding AB (publ) (STO:BRAV)
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May 4, 2026, 5:29 PM CET
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Earnings Call: Q3 2020
Nov 6, 2020
Good morning, and hi, everyone, and welcome to this presentation of BRAVITA's Q3 report. And I think we follow the same procedure as normal. Me and myself and Ursa will take you through the presentation, and then you have the possibility to ask some questions in the end of this session. And to start with, I think it's worth mentioning that I think this is quite a good quarter. If we look at year to date, we have been able to grow the business with 5% and improve the profit with 11% when we have paid taxes, etcetera.
So I think this is due to the circumstances quarter that, yes, you can expect from a company like Pravida. And if we start on Slide 3, as I always do, and I think in these circumstances, I think it's even more important to tell you about the business model and the low risk. And I think this is the reason why we can deliver a very stable sales level and profit, etcetera. We have diversified end market, low customer concentration and small average contract size with a mix of slightly larger projects as well, of course. And I think this is the reason why the growth in our earnings in the quarter year to date is as good as we will present to you later on.
And over time, in this quarter as well in early quarters and the quarters ahead of us, we will hire new resources in some geographies and we will have some other geographies or areas, business units, branches, etcetera, where we need to use layoffs as a tool to adjust our cost base. But I think that's the normal way to handle
local
changes in the local demand, and that's what we will continue to do as well in Pravida. On the next slide, Slide 4, I will take you through the highlights in the quarter. I think it's I'm very happy to be able to present an organic growth in a quarter like this, even if the service business has been impacted in the way it had. The service business is minus 4%, and still we have an organic growth with 1%. M and A contributed 4%, and then we have some negative currency effects at 3%.
All in all, we grew the business with 2% in the quarter. Order momentum and the order backlog is minus 2% year on year, and it's divided in 0 organic effect, M and A 1% and currency minus 3. So if we adjust for the currency, we have actually a positive change compared to last year in the order backlog. The order intake was weak in the quarter compared to last year and minus 20%, and we have some currency impact in that. I will elaborate some later on the order intake and how we'll look at that.
EBITDA increased by 3% to SEK 284,000,000 and the margin is unchanged at 6%. Worth notice is that we decided the Board decided to pay out the dividend. And as an effect of that, we decided also to pay back the support we have got in Sweden for the temporary layoffs. And that have a negative result effect in the quarter of SEK 8,000,000. So if we adjust for that, we actually have an improvement in the margin in the quarter.
And that's, of course, really strong, I think. The EBITA margin is improved in Sweden and Finland. And mainly both in both Sweden and Finland, it's explained by earlier restructuring actions we have taken. And the margin was slightly was lower in Denmark and Norway. Cash flow from operating activities was SEK 10,000,000 compared to SEK 65,000,000 last year, but the cash conversion is still very strong, 167%.
Working capital, minus 6.7% of sales, which is improved compared to last year. And net debt is SEK 1,200,000,000 or 0.7 times EBITDA on LTM basis. We continue to do acquisitions. The activity on the acquisition side has gone up again. We have already said that we have been a bit cautious about the M and A side, but we have done 4 acquisitions in the quarter, and we still see a good pipeline.
Turning to the next slide and some bullets about the impact from COVID-nineteen. We see some delays in project planning and investment decisions from the customers. And then this slide says lower demand, but it should be lower service demand in some geographic areas and price pressures. I think it's slight it's not that the demand has gone down very much. On the service side, for practical reasons, we have some lower demand, of course.
But otherwise, it's more of a price pressure that some, let's say, companies or customers think it's possible to actually buy our services to lower prices. And I think that explains, to some extent, the lower order intake we have had in the quarter because we have a strong order situation and we will not sell our services to low prices. Of course, negative impact in the service business due to temporary low demand and closed sites, but we also see that just a few installation site is closed and not a very big thing in our world today. But again, slightly increased sick leave rates in the end of this quarter. The sick leave has gone up and of course, that will the same in Bravida as in the rest of the society.
But said that, we still see a good order backlog. We had the visibility in order backlog also that makes us in the position to adjust the cost base we're having because we have low fixed cost and the possibility we have to adjust it, of course, will make us give us the possibility to defend the margins coming in the next quarters. And then, of course, uncertain market conditions ahead. But that we will always focus on margin over volume. We will defend the margin even if the volume decreases, and we will try to not sell our services or the projects too cheap because that means that we increase our risk profile, and that's nothing we want to do.
On the next slide, Slide 6, and the group sales and EBITDA development. So far, year on year, we have been growing the business with 5% and improved the margin from 5.4% to 5.6 The sales growth in the quarter was 2%, 4% from M and A, 1% from organic growth and then we had definitely have a total different position in Finland. And we have seen a trend that we are improving our business in Finland and now have a position where we are seen as a more attractive employer and a more attractive supplier. And we are now entering slightly larger project in Finland as well at the same time as we try to improve the service business. Service is still a low part of the Finnish business, but we have seen with the support of the improved trend in Finland, we think that we are now ready to compete in more complex projects and slightly larger service contract as well.
So we think that our position in Finland has improved a lot during 2020. The EBITA margin is unchanged. EBITA is up 3% to SEK 284,000,000 adjusted for the SEK 8,000,000. As I mentioned before, we actually improved the margin and we are actually almost exact on the consensus regarding the EBITDA if we adjust for that cost. I mentioned why we have improved the margin in Finland and Sweden.
And in Finland, we have been working for a couple of years by increasing the quality in throughout the whole organization. And those measures has actually paid off now, and we are improving the Finnish business every quarter now. And in Sweden, we mainly see the improvement coming from Stockholm and the actions we took in the end of last year. The margin in Denmark and Norway are lower. And in Denmark, it gets it explains by some write downs, but also a quite big drop in the service sales.
And in Norway, we have a lot lower service sales as well, which improves the margin in Norway. All in all, sales plus 2% and EBITDA plus 3% in quarter. If we go to the order situation on the next slide, when we look at the if we start at the order backlog, it's minus 2% year on year and actually 3% is currency effect. So if we adjust for the currency, the order backlog compared to last year is improved. When we take the order intake, which is down 20% in the quarter, I will try to explain this.
The order intake is actually divided into 2 parts. One is the order backlog that I just mentioned. We think we have order situation on the order backlog that is high, which gives us a good visibility, and we are not stressed about trying to win new projects just because we have to improve the order backlog because our order situation is good. The other side of the order is the running service sales in the quarter. And that has, of course, gone down a lot in the quarter, and that is, to some effect, impacting the order intake in the quarter as well.
So I think, of course, we are suffering a bit from the pandemic, but I'm not very worried about the order intake because that we have really strong order backlog. And of course, we have some differences in different geographies. I spoke to yes, I've spoken to many branch managers the last weeks. But one example is that one branch manager say that, Matthias, I have a really strong order situation and I think the price is too low for the moment in the market. The demand is definitely there, but the prices are too low.
And even the older situation I have, I won't I don't want to actually participate and try to win these projects on these prices. So I will wait until I can get the right price. Then I spoke to another one in another geography who said, I have struggled for a while to win projects, but I have decided to not try to win to too low prices. But now the last weeks, I have actually seen that the price has gone up again. So it seems like the competitors actually have their order books filled with probably slightly lower prices, we don't know.
But he said that the prices has gone up again. So I think that is very well explaining the strategy we are having and actually the strategy we can have because we have a good order situation. Yes, we have a high order backlog definitely in Sweden and Finland. The order intake decreased by 20%, as you can see, and it's mainly explained by low demand in service and some price pressure in installation business. Otherwise, it's as always, mainly small and medium sized orders we have won.
So all in all, minus 2% in the order backlog, and we still have an order backlog at SEK 14,300,000,000 in our books. Next slide and acquisitions that contribute with 4% in growth in the quarter. We have so far done 15 acquisitions in 2020. And out of those 15, 1 is done in Q in the Q4. Those EUR 15,000,000 is adding or adding EUR 776,000,000 in quite sales 2020.
And actually, we have done 4 acquisitions in the quarter. That's at EUR 129,000,000. We have done acquisitions in all countries, 2 in Norway, 4 in Denmark, 8 in Sweden and 1 in Finland. And we are now ready to continue to do all acquisitions to do acquisitions in all countries. So this is, of course, a very strong value creator in our business model, and this is something we'll continue to do.
And we still see a continued strong pipeline, and acquisitions are still at attractive multiples.
So with
that, we go over to Orsa, and I think we are on Slide 9. So Orsa, please.
Thank you, Matthias. Yes, we are on Slide 9, and we are starting with Sweden. And if you if you look at the starting with the top line, you can say that despite the pandemic, we had a 4 percent growth in total in Sweden, where the organic growth was 1%. And year to date, we had an organic growth of 3% with a total growth of 7%. We also have had an improved EBITA margin, 6.6 versus 6.3.
This is due to, in general, a good performance in all our Swedish geographies. We are, as Mattias said, especially happy that we see a good improvement in our Stockholm division, where we took a lot of actions and some restructurings last year. We had a weaker order intake coming from both SURF and Installation. But we have even if the backlog has decreased during the quarter, we come from a high order backlog of plus 5% year on year. So as Matthias said, we are not too worried about this order intake being a bit lower this quarter.
Moving on to Norway. There we see a sales decrease by 5% in local currency, and organic growth was negative on 6%. And this is very much due to a weak demand in service. Year to date, the total growth decreased to 2%. Looking at the EBITA margin, we had a decrease to 5.7%, and this is also explained by lower service sales.
We can see that the pandemic has affected Norway and Denmark the most when it comes to a lower service demand. Looking at the order intake, we have actually seen a positive trend in Norway for some time. So the order intake, if you look at it in local currency, it increased plus 5%, with an oil backlog decreasing by 7% in Norwegian kroner. But it has been, as I said, positive and we also see that we have some partnering projects in the pipeline in Norway. Moving on to Denmark.
We have had a sales growth of 7%, and this is coming from acquisitions. The organic growth this quarter was negative, minus 2%, And we have a decrease in sales from service. Then like I said, it's also been impacted a lot from the weaker service plan as I said. Year to date, we had a growth of 15% with an organic growth of 1%. The EBITDA margin was a bit lower at 4.8% compared to 5.0%.
And this is, as Mattias said, this is due to we had a couple of smaller downwritings and but very much a lower stage in service. The order intake was minus 28% year on year. This is due to a weak service demand, but also that we had strong comparative figures last year. Order backlog was down 7% year on year. Moving on to Finland, which is sticking out a little bit this quarter.
We had a sales increase by 29%. This is mainly coming from organic growth. We had a 26% growth organically and the year to date increased by 17%. We're also very happy to see that the EBITDA margin improved to 3.8% this quarter from 0.5%. And this is explained by all the actions that we have taken to improve the business and the operations for some time now.
And we can see that we have had a positive trend for the last months quarters and also the EBITDA year to date increased to 2.4%. A weaker order intake, minus 41%, but the order backlog that is positive with 8% year on year. Moving on to Page 13, looking at our financial situation. We still have a very strong financial position. We had as you can see on the left hand side, we had a cash balance of 1.1 dollars We have had terminals, RCF, Commercial Papers, using that of 1,500,000,000 Of leasing financing comes to SEK 882,000,000 and this leads us to a net debt of SEK 1,200,000,000.
We had an LTM EBITDA of SEK 1,700,000,000. This means that the net debt MCM EBITDA ratio is 0.7. So on a low level and very much within our covenants. The operating cash flow in the middle is continuing to be very strong. This is mainly due to a good operation.
We have a solid and very strong working capital. On the right hand side, you can see our financing, and we are drawing on our financing RCS on SEK 1,100,000,000. We also have some commercial papers issued of SEK 260,000,000 and we have this term loan that we signed in April of SEK 500 $1,000,000 just that was just to secure our financing when the market was a bit uncertain there the start of the pandemic. Very strong cash conversion, 167%. And then Slide 14, there we have our financial targets.
And if we look at our sales targets, we have the target to be above 5% in sales growth. If we look at the year to date figures, adjusted for currency, we are on 7%. We have 2% organic growth, 5% acquisition. Then we have a negative currency effect, so the total growth is 5%. The EBITA margin is if you look at the rolling 12, we have a 6.1% EBITA margin.
Unfortunately, we'll probably not reach the 7% this year due to the pandemic, but we are on our way. Okay. Our cash target to Landholm, we have, as I said, is strong. Cash conversion target of more than 100%, and we are on 167 now. And we have a target payout ratio a dividend payout ratio of
more than
50%. And as we have said, we justified it to payout dividend for last year and that was 52% of net profit. And as I said, a very low net debt EBITA ratio of 0.7%, well below our target of less than 2.5%. Billion. All in all, not such
a bad quarter, Matthias.
Thank you, Orsar. No, and if we look at Slide 15, I think this is a slide I'm very happy to present for you. And the one of you who hasn't who haven't followed us for very long time, I think this is worth spending a few seconds looking at. And I think the development we have had in Bavena in the last years, both on the sales side, but also on the profit side, has been very stable and they developed in a very good way. And to the right on this slide, you see the cash conversion as well.
It's extremely high for the moment. And of course, over time, it will be should be around 100%. So we have been extremely good in managing our cash side in many different ways, both improve the invoicing regarding service, payment plans on some projects, etcetera, but also on in many other things. So I think this is a slide I all shows quite often internally, and this is showing how the business model in BRAVITA actually what it does with the numbers as well. And normally when I talk to our management or personnel employees within Bravida, we say that we always work with continuous improvement and this is what happens when you do that.
And you should say that champions is something you have been and can be again. That's nothing you are. And this is something we are we shouldn't be aside, but we should be very proud of what we have achieved. But said that, we think that we can continue to do this for many, many years ahead, of course. So turning to Slide 16 and some short bullets about the business plan that we started to tell you about last report as well.
In short, we will come back to this, but some bullet to give you some information around it is that we will continue to develop our service platform and continue to focus on the service growth. Even if we see that, that has been impacted in a negative way during the pandemic. So even stronger service platform within BRAVIDA combined with a already strong installation platform is, of course, a very good combination and that would strengthen our company in the future as well. And then a digital transformation or both focus on transformation within the company, but also digitalization will, of course, be very important actually been able to adjust actually been able to adjust for some cost already this year, but we have chosen not to do it because we want to have a clear financial presentation as possible. But we will think about how we will present this coming quarters.
It's not a very huge investment, but of course, there will be some investment needed to be able to sustain the position we have in the market today. So try to summarize the quarter on Slide 17. Impacts from COVID-nineteen in Q3 has, of course, impacted the order intake. I think you all see some uncertain market conditions ahead, and we think the same, of course, but we have shown that our business model and BRAVIT as a company is very stable. The sales increased with 2%, a combination of acquired growth and organic growth.
We have some negative impact from currency. Service sales decreased by 4%, meaning that the installation part grew quite a lot. The installation order backlog was minus 2% from a high level and actually 3% was a currency effect, as I mentioned earlier, so plus 1% if you compare adjusting for the currency. And the EBITDA margin is unchanged as we reported, if we should if we would adjust for the provision or for the money we paid back to for the support in Sweden. We received it in Q2 and we took it out from the P and L in Q3, then we have had a margin that is actually improved to 6.1%.
The EBITDA margin was improved in Sweden and Finland. M and A execution is on track, healthy pipeline, 4 acquisition completed in Q3, 50 in total in 2020, where 1 was in Q4. Net debt continued down to 0.7x EBITDA, and it's well below the financial target of 2.5%. And cash conversion is, I would say, extremely strong at 167%. So said that, I think we can open up the Q and A session.
Thank you.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will now begin with the question and answer And the first question comes from the line of Karl Rangstrom from Nordea. Please ask your question. Your line is now open.
Good morning. It's Karl here from Nordea. I have a few questions. First of all, you mentioned the price pressure on certain projects. I wonder if you could give some more granularity on that and whether you see more severe price pressure on certain project sizes or project types or end markets perhaps?
And also, whether you have experienced worse pricing landscape sequentially or if you are referring to a year over year movement in the pricing?
Good morning and thank you for that one. And why I say that it's not very easy because, again, we think the demand is it's okay. It's good. In some areas, it's really good. But there is a pressure on price.
And I think it comes from it's a bit of psychological reason. I think first, we have some peers that are maybe a bit stressed having a slightly or much lower order backlog than we are having, maybe think they have to fill out the orders. I don't know how they are thinking. And maybe they think it's going to be worse and try to fill up the order books. We don't have to do it.
We don't want to do it. So we actually just don't get into that. That's one part. Then I think our customers, if you look at the construction companies, the same psychological effect is actually hitting the customers as well. We see more construction companies in the tendering phases competing for their job, their contracts, and then they try to push some extra pressure on the price to us as a subcontractor.
And again, we don't want to go there. We don't have to go there. So I think that's the reason. So it's not demand driven. I think it's more psychological driven.
So let's see what happens. I have heard, as I said, this is not the same situation in whole Sweden, for example, or in the whole of Norway. It's different geographies, different markets. I have heard that in some areas, we have so many requests for prices that we actually don't are able to handle all of them. And in some other areas, they think we have a strong demand, but the prices are too low.
And in some other areas, as I mentioned, the prices has gone up again because it seems like the market the other actors in the market has actually filled up the order books. So we can start winning projects to a good price level again. So I hope that was an answer to your question.
Okay. That's brilliant. So if I get you right, prices in general is still at you still experienced quite price pressure at the end of the quarter. Is that correct?
Yes. I think if you should say something about the market, I would say that it's slightly more focused from my side on the price pressure than on the demand side. On the other hand, again, we have a strong order situation, so we don't have to go there.
Okay, perfect. And you also mentioned that the margin in Denmark was negatively impacted by lower, I mean, profitability in some projects. Should we expect it to continue going into Q4 as well? Or is it, yes, just a Q3 matter?
No, no, no, no, we don't. And we don't have that history in Denmark either, So we don't. And I think also the mix change in Denmark. Earlier, we have used subcontractors to some installation projects. And when the demand in service has gone down, we have used service resources to produce installation projects.
And of course, that's a really good way to handle our own employees. But you are changing the mix a bit when you're having slightly higher margin on the service compared to installations. So we have preferred to use the service employees on the service side to making a higher profit instead, of course. But that's nothing we expect to continue.
Okay. Perfect. And the final one from my side, if I may. I mean, in your outlook, you are gradually being more cautious. I mean, is it based on sort of a fear of new lockdowns?
Or what you read in the paper? Or is it based on that you actually see sequentially lower quotation levels? Or how should we look at sort of your view of the markets?
No. I think it's more about that. In the Nordics, countries are taking some different measures, but I think they are going the same direction, all of them. Again, it's not demand driven. This is health driven.
And if our customers aren't at work, they are not able to order in the same way they are usually doing. So some of these sales is postponed. Some of the sales will probably not happen, but I think that when we need our customers at work, and I think that's same for us and in all other industries. So it's depending on that the government is trying to get people to stay at home. And I think that's why it's not any other things that things that is the reason behind our more cautious outlook.
It's just about the society, what we are doing.
Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of Stefan Andersen from SEB. Please ask your question. Your line is now open.
Thank you. A few questions from me then. Going back to the demand side and the price pressure, I mean, I get the impression that you think it's you see the slow demand is temporary. You're willing to wait because you think the bond is out there. So is that I mean are you seeing growth in the market for 2021?
Or are you seeing flat? Or are you seeing the market down for 2021?
Impossible to answer, I think. But we think that, again, the demand in the market is okay or good. It's not the tricky part for the moment. The tricky part is that the customers, I guess, are a bit uncertain as well about decisions. People are not meeting in the same way.
They are not signing new deals. I think it's more practical reasons to do that. So let's see. But the demand for our services regarding energy improvements, make sure hospitals, etcetera, is working, infrastructure, make sure you have water in the toilet, lighting at the office or at home. That amount of our service will always be there.
So
Yes. Okay. Let's put me I'll turn the question a little bit, Arash. Going back a few years, we were you know how it is with us and the stock market. We're always scared about something.
So a few years back, we were scared about new builds in resi. And I know you then said we don't have any material Resi exposure at all to the new build. Now I guess that market is a little bit yes, yes, put it in front, it's hot at the moment. But we are concerned about hotels, commercial offices, retail space instead. That's our new scare.
So how would that look if you just look at your installation, rebuild side? What kind of portion of exposure would you have to those areas? Just to understand the risk here.
Yes. Of course, we have had a low exposure to the residential market, as you say. And that's a market that we don't think is the best market, of course. But as you said, the market is the only thing you we can't have any impact on. If we are building more residentials, of course, that is a market for us or at least for our fierce competitors who think that's a good site for them.
We think I think it's personally, it's not as good because the price model is very transparent. There is no aftermarket at all. And there are sometimes very tricky contracts, etcetera. So of course, we will probably see a slightly increase of residential in our orders, but it's not a very high focus. We will rather build logistic halls, continue to support the customers with their sustainability work regarding energy consumption, etcetera.
And also the office, I think you are right that it will not be very high investment in the office areas for the moment. But I think all these spaces will need to change the way you are using them in one way or another, and that means renovation, and that's a much better market for us. And that's something I'm really looking forward to that market is something we want to participate in because that is less transparent price models. You need more know how how to do it, and there is an aftermarket as well. That's more interesting for us.
And that will happen in some way or another. When it happens, that's the timing around it, it's more difficult to say, I would I guess.
Yes. And you're not willing to give any percentage of your sales that are in the space of hotel, retail and office new built?
No, I think it's impossible to do. But again, we have strong rental backlog. We know what to do in the coming 6 to 9 months in many places. So some branches has next year sold out. So again, a good oil situation.
And we hire new resources in some areas. We are taking out resources in some other areas. That is something we will do in 2020. That's something we will do in 2021, and that is something we have done for the last 5 years as well. And that's part of our business model, local responsibility, local sale, adjust cost base depending on the local demand.
So yes.
Okay. And then on the I mean, on sales, the sales drop, if I understood it correctly, sorry, I missed the beginning here. I was on another call. But the sales drop, I think you commented or commented before on being difficulties well, sorry, sales drop. Sorry, just I wouldn't put it that way.
But let's say the lowest the slightly slower sales then is relating to the service side, if I understood correctly, difficulties with Ovid to get into some premises and less usage of that and so on. So that's been a negative for you on the revenue side. I mean, you don't have sales drop, I know that. Looking then on the order intake, are you seeing if we were to say that the order intake had some slowness in this quarter, is that also from the service side that it comes through? Or is that driven by the installation side, you would say?
I think it's a combination. First of all, all when the service sales goes down in a quarter, that one to 1 effect the order intake. That's the fact. And then, of course, when we see the price pressure in the market that I commented to Carl, I think that price pressure and in combination with the strong order backlog we're having And we haven't been willing to take in any project to any prices, meaning, of course, so it is a mix of price pressure, our yes, that we are not stressed to take in new orders. But then, of course, it's always the order intake and order backing will always vary from 1 quarter to another.
And probably soon that come another quarter where we have a slightly larger project coming into the books and then you think the order situation is really strong again. So I think it is a combination. Drop in services and that we haven't been willing or able to win installation project. But we have a strong order book, yes?
And then on my last question on
acquisitions. You have had I think you had more or less an evenly spread on number of companies you acquired during 2020. But volume wise, revenue added has been a little bit slower recently. How do you see that going forward with new restrictions and ability to travel and so on? I know you have the ambition to speed up the acquisition pace, but we're looking at the pipeline, what do you think?
No, but I think you have a point. We said that we didn't want to continue in the same pace when we presented the Q1, I think. So we actually took down the activity in during the summer months. Then we started up again, and we had the dip, definitely much higher pace here in August, September October. So let's see what happens.
I participated in one management presentation the other day on that was on yes, let's say, it was on Teams, I think, or Skype or Zoom that I mentioned them all. And it's not the same. I think to be able to do the right acquisition with the right quality to you also know that we think it's very important about the culture to integrate it, to know the people. Of course, it's better and easier to do acquisitions when we can meet. And up till now, we have been able to meet unless the example I mentioned.
And I think you need to be cautious when you are traveling, how you do that. But we are willing to sit 1 person in a car for example, then you can make sure you have a large room to meet persons, etcetera. So I think we have seen that pace picked up a bit, but let's see what happens there. And I think you have a fair point. If we are not allowed to meet, then of course, we won't.
And that's something we can actually do anything about. So that market and the corona, that's something we need to adjust. But again, we store the backlog. We have adjustable cost base, etcetera, and we have done this for many years. I have done this for 25 soon.
So let's see. I think we will come out from this quite very stable and I think surprisingly good. But let's see.
Perfect. Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Stefan.
Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of KG Bonavilla from DNB Markets. Please ask your question.
I appreciate there's many moving parts, and I hear how you discuss around the thing. But just to get your feel, obviously, Q3 is a strange quarter normally for seasonal patterns. And also, I guess, you had the COVID-nineteen situation on top of it. But when you look at service sales and the way you describe it, how much of it would you say is related to these kind of more strange market issues? And how much is you losing market share in this quarter when you're looking at what's happening in service?
Yes. I think everything is due to the pandemic. So we are not losing market share, definitely not.
It's more a question of timing of projects and your clients being active in the market really than there is something, say, something fundamental going strange in the underlines.
Yes. Because I see that if we look at some of the peers that have reported, we are growing organically. They are losing sales organically, and we are growing. We are improving the margin, I would say, if you allow me adjust for the things we have paid back to the government in Sweden. And I would say that we are better performing so far than some of the others at least.
So we are definitely not losing market shares.
Good to know. Good to know. And also, I remember you mentioned in the Q2 call that you had some delayed tax payments from Q2 making the working capital looking a little better there. Has those gone out now in Q3? Or is there any more timing effects we should have at the back of our mind looking at the cash flow?
Yes. Actually, there is we have still there is SEK 100,000,000 roughly that is postponed to be paid out later than. It should have been paid out, yes, earlier this year. But then we also actually have a payout that we have paid back some of this now in the quarter, which we didn't have last year. That is also it has also a positive effect on the cash flow.
So adjusted for that, yes, the quarter the cash flow in the quarter is better.
Excellent. And just looking at the business plan for 2021, looking at I appreciate you will come back and give us more details. But if you look at the required investment and resources you are looking at, are those of a size that you shouldn't be able to, say, meet your financial targets looking at cash conversion and margins for 2021?
No, no. I think we if we should ask for the numbers for 'ninety 'twenty, we are in 'twenty now. I think we have spent it around some $15,000,000 $20,000,000 this year that is actually used for that. And I think it will be maybe slightly more next year, but we haven't decided exactly the timing on what and when, so to say, yet. But I think slightly more than this year, but I think you see that we have handled the margin and the cost this year quite well.
So I think we can do that next year as well. So it's not a dramatic change, I would say.
Excellent. Thank you very much and stay safe.
And this was our last question. Please continue with your closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you very much. Good discussions. I understand that you have some thoughts about the market, etcetera. And yes, of course, we do as well, but we try to, as normal, as always, stay very close to the branches, the local markets, discuss, do the right actions where we can improve the business and some other measures when that's needed.
But again, that's something we always do in 2021, 2020 and as we have done the last year as well. So good questions, good discussion. And I think Camilo said it very well. Take care, be safe and have a nice day. Thank you.