Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Bufab Q3 2021 Earnings Release call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star and zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, CEO of Bufab, Johan Lindqvist. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good morning everybody, and welcome to the presentation of Bufab's Q3 report. My name is Johan Lindqvist, and I'm the CEO of Bufab. I am in the call together with our CFO, Marcus Söderberg. The presentation we will be going through today can be found on bufab.com in Investor pages. Let's start from page one then. The good demand that we saw during the first half of the year continued in the third quarter. Bufab delivered a high organic growth together with strong earnings, despite the continued very challenging operational situation due to the issues that we have within supply chain. This high demand we see across all the segments. The bullet points, organic growth up 20%, good underlying demand and improved market shares.
We will also see that we have a weak comparison quarter last year, 2020, of course. We have a good order intake, no sign of slowdown yet. We still mix of sales is good, of course. Operationally, very challenging quarter, of course, because we have this strained supply chain and increase of raw materials. On top of that, we have the freight situation from Far East mainly, and also the really high prices for containers. Despite this, we have a strong improvement of EBITDA, +16%, and also net profit with +24%. During the quarter, we have made an acquisition of Component Solutions Group.
But also, just at the beginning of October, we also had two other acquisitions, JENNY | WALTLE in Austria and also Tilka Trading in Sweden. We also announced at the beginning of Q3, Staffan Pehrson will be the new CEO of Bufab, and he will start in February 2022. Let's go on to page two, and then I leave the word to Marcus.
Thank you very much, Johan. As Johan said, we turn to page number two, and we'll talk a bit about the financial highlights for the group. As you can see, the strong demand that we saw during the first half year of 2021 continued into the third quarter as well. Net sales amounted to strong SEK 1.4 billion , meaning a total growth of approximately 21%. The organic growth was also strong, about 20%. But of course, this should be compared to a quite weak comparative quarter, 2020. Still, the strong underlying demand that we saw during the first half year continued into the third quarter. On top of this, we also continued to take market shares.
The gross margin, as you can see, rose to a solid 28.4%. The high gross margin relative to the comparison quarter is mainly attributable to higher volumes, and that we have successfully so far passed on increased cost for raw materials and freight that Johan talked about to our customers. On top of this, there is also a slight positive product mix effect in some of the segments in the quarter. If we look at the operating expenses, as you can see, in comparison to net sales, it increased to 16.9%.
The increased proportion of operating expenses is mainly coming from Segment North, as they remeasured its provision for additional purchase consideration, in connection to the acquisition of HT BENDIX, and that increased cost with SEK 50 million in the quarter. On top of that, in segment other, we recorded SEK 5 million in acquisition costs, in relationship to the acquisition of Component Solutions Group that Johan also mentioned. If we adjust for this, the share of operating expenses amounted to approximately 15.5%, which is a very low figure from a historical perspective. Really nice to see that good cost control that we have seen during the last couple of quarter continues even into the third quarter.
All in all, this summarizes to an operating profit or EBITDA of SEK 464 million, corresponding to a margin of 11.5%. If we adjust for those acquisition related costs, so to say, and the remeasured additional purchase consideration, the operating profit increased to a strong SEK 182 million and operating margin of approximately 12.8%. With that said, we turn to page three. You can see some graph about the quarterly net sales growth and net sales and EBITDA along with 12 months development. As you can see in the left graph, we are recording, as I said earlier, a strong organic growth in the quarter, of course, partly driven by weak comparison quarter, but still strong underlying demand continuing into the third quarter.
It's really nice to see strong organic growth. If we take a look on the right graph, as you can see, steady blue dotted line showing the net sales development rolling in 12 months net sales development. We will continue growing and showing a good track record, so to say. What's even more nice to see is that this big leap upwards in the gray dotted line showing the EBIT rolling 12 months is still continuing in the right direction, so to say. That is of course the result of hard work, of course. The strong result is a combination really of strong growth, good operational leverage, high flexibility on the cost side, given the fact that we are seeing high volumes right now.
On top of that also a successfully implemented cost saving program during 2020 that has shown effect during the last quarters of 2021 as well. If we turn to page number four, I will just quickly go through the segment figures for the group. We start with Segment North. As you can see, Segment North also showed good growth in the quarter, 16% up, approximately 17% came from organic growth. The strong demand in the quarter comes from more or less all the company, but it's especially strong in the Danish operating businesses, you could say, together with higher volumes from the manufacturing companies compared to the comparative quarter of 2020.
As you can see, also strong gross profit development, mainly due to a good work with passing on price increases for raw material prices and passing over to customers, but also due to higher underlying volumes, mainly also here than in the manufacturing units. High costs due to realization of earnouts, approximately SEK 50 million, affecting the quarter in North, as said, connected to HT BENDIX. Exclusive of those the underlying cost development, so to say, is really good, still very good cost control and costs that are on a very low level. On top of this of course the cost in the comparative quarter was extremely or exceptionally low, you can say.
Going forward, the focus in Segment North will be to continue growing and to handling the strained supply chain that Johan talked about as well, that is affecting more or less all of the company throughout the segment. We turn to page five, have a look at Segment West. Also Segment West grow quite much in the quarter, approximately 15% in total, 17% organic. As you can see here, Segment West had a strong development, not only sales wise, but also the order intake in the quarter was very strong as well. However, the gross margin came in at a lower level compared to previous year.
The main reason for that is due to some price pressure, not fully being able to offset high raw material prices and freight costs with price increases to customers and a somewhat unfavorable product mix, so to say. Cost level on the other hand, even though the volumes are quite up, so to say the operating expenses in comparison to net sales remained at a steady and historically quite low level, you have to say. All in all, the EBITDA increased with approximately 4%, corresponding to an operating profit margin of 8.5%. Going forward, of course, the focus in Segment West will be on price adjustment, moving over the increased costs to customers, so to say.
Also here, which is quite obviously handling the strained supply chain and also to continue recruiting to ensure future growth, so to say. We turn to page number six and have a look at Segment East. Even East had a good development in the quarter, growth 18%, all of it organic. On top of that, an order intake that was slightly over net sales. Outlook's good, even here. Gross profit, however, was lower mainly due to price pressure from a couple of larger customer in the segment. Same comment as in the second quarter.
Work is ongoing, of course, and one of the focus areas will be to continue focusing on price increases and move those over to customers, so to say. High cost in the quarter, mainly due to continued investment in future growth. All in all a solid result, EBITDA increased 2% and EBITDA margin ended up on 15.6%. Last segment, Segment UK/North America. Here we can see Segment UK/North America had a really strong development in the quarter. This goes both with the operations for the companies in the North American markets together with the ones in the U.K. market.
Both ABS and Apex, which are two major companies in this segment, had a really strong development and saw a really strong demand in the comparison quarter, so to say. This also had a good effect on the gross margin in terms of higher volumes, but also they have managed in a good way to push increased price increases on raw material and freight over to customers, so to say. A combination of higher volumes and increased prices to customers. As you can see also, good leverage. If you look at the operating expenses in percent of net sales, good leverage, operational leverage, meaning a really strong development of the operating profit in the quarter.
It increased with a very solid 49% or from SEK 42 million to SEK 62 million . The operating profit in the quarter was 16.9%, which is a really strong operating margin. That the Segment UK/North America shows in the quarter. Going forward, also here focus on handling supply chain strain and to take market share and also to continue to recruit to ensure future growth, as well. If we turn to page eight, we'll have a quick look on the cash flow track record together with the development of the net debt to EBITDA.
If we start with cash flow, of course, given the fact that we have been growing quite much organically and also in total growth the last three quarters that you can see, the development of the operational cash flow is not really that strong. However, the underlying EBITDA development is on the other hand very strong. The reason for this is of course that the strong organic growth drives working capital increases. We have seen it in form of increased accounts receivables during the first half of 2021, and during the last couple of quarters, or last two quarters, also through increased inventory levels. Inventory levels were, I need to mention, unusually low at the end of 2020, and in the beginning of 2021.
There is a normalization ongoing, you can say. That normalization was also quite welcome because the high demand that we see. If we take a look on the right graph showing net debt to EBITDA, as you have seen the last couple of quarters, we have been able to push down the multiple of net debt to EBITDA from slightly higher levels of the two acquisitions of HT BENDIX and ABS back in late 2019, and we're now down below the long-term target in terms of multiples, so to say. We were up slightly in the quarter, and that is of course a result of the acquisition of CSG or Component Solutions Group. Strengthened balance sheet over the last couple of quarters.
This of course supports us and gives room for a strong execution also going forward when it comes to our acquisition strategy. With that said, just a quick look on page nine, which shows the group's EBITDA bridge. If you start with the quarterly figure from last year, SEK 142 million in the quarter, currencies had a negative impact of SEK -3 million. Volumes increased EBITDA with approximately SEK 55 million, post price mix and other SEK -12 million, and acquisitions, SEK -18 million. Most of that is, of course, then reevaluated, earn outs or additional considerations. All in all, SEK 164 million.
If you look at the same bridge, but from the perspective how the different segments are contributing to the increased results, you can see that North added SEK 5 million, West added SEK 1 million, East added SEK 1 million, UK/North America very strong contribution, SEK 20 million, and Segment Other had a negative impact of -SEK 5 million. That is of course the acquisition cost that was recorded in the quarter for CSG acquisition. With that said, I think you can turn over to page number 10, and you want to talk a bit about our acquisitions.
Yes. During that quarter three we made the acquisition of Component Solutions Group. A company located in the U.S. in Dayton, Ohio. It's a company that we have been in contact with since 2013. This was a long process that's quite normal, to be honest, if we have that kind of long process when we acquire companies. The turnover is close to SEK 300 million. We see this as a good step for us in the U.S. and will give us a better footprint there, of course, together with ABS that we acquired in 2019. We also, as mentioned, made two acquisitions just after the Q3 in the beginning of October.
It was JENNY | WALTLE , a company in Austria, a turnover of SEK 200 million, and mainly working with components in aluminum. That will be also adding on to us a new product segment that we can definitely increase the business in all other companies in the group. The last one is Tilka Trading, a smaller trading company in Sweden, which looks much like a, let's say, a standard Bufab company, trading C parts to the industry. We think it is really solid company with a good track record, well managed since many years. I think we together with the company, the Bufab Group, can develop that space heavily, I think, in the next coming years.
It's a great contribution to the Bufab Group, I think, all these three. I will also mention that we have a really good pipeline for acquisitions, so we think that we can be able to do more of this in the future. That is also one of our part in our strategy. To page 11, a summary. The third quarter was operationally challenging, but we have a strong sales and also a strong profit. Demand improvement in all segments and increased market share is also really nice to see. We still have these continuous supply chain disruptions and increase in components and freight costs together with this shortage situation regarding containers and electricity and so on.
I think if we look forward a little bit, we see good demands. We have a strong order intake for Q4. That's also, of course, very positive. We will still fight with the raw material increase and shipping costs and so on, and put this cost also to our customers because that's necessary. We will also try really hard to be at that level in the operating margin that we have today. Priorities going forward then. Recruitment starting now after the pandemic, you can say, because we need to get more people into the group to continue the growth and also all other projects that we run. We will continue to find solutions for our customers in supply chain.
We will keep a steady growth margin, as mentioned before. We also see that we need to increase the productivity work, because we see a high cost in the future. We are also sure that we can find a lot of productivity within the organization still. All in all, we're very proud that we, despite the challenging environment, have succeeded in maintaining supply to our customers in a favorable manner. I want to sincerely thank all of our 1,400 solutionists for their incredible focus and flexibility that they have demonstrated during the year. It was a hard year and a hard work, but we made a really good job, I think. I think that was all from us, and I think the operator will take over for questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel that request, please press the hash key. Once again, that's star one if you would like to ask a question. Your first question comes from the line of Walter Piva. Please go ahead, your line is open. Once again, Walter, your line is open.
Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Good. We have very positive response from customer regarding sustainability, Johan, so it would be great to hear about the work we are doing here to follow the long-term plan that we have.
Hello, Walter, and good morning. It's Marcus speaking here. Just to touch upon that, of course, just as you said, sustainability is a highly prioritized area within Bufab, as in many other companies right now. We are working with this long-term. As you might have seen, we signed up to those Science Based Targets initiatives six months back or so. The work with that is highly ongoing. We hope to release some news about that in not too far time from now. Of course, the work with sustainability, as I said, is ongoing. From a Bufab perspective, the main big part areas is of course our supplier services.
That is where we put most of our attention to, and that's where we can make the most difference, so to say. It's a work that is ongoing and it will be reflected more and more in our communication going forward. I'm pretty sure about that.
Maybe I can add also that Carina Lööf, our Sourcing Director, has been appointed as a Sustainability Manager also, responsible for that work in the future. We have also strengthened organization regarding sustainability with more people there, because it's definitely a focus area for us going forward.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Herman Eriksson. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Thank you. Hi, Johan and Marcus. Herman from Danske Bank. I have two questions. Just first, regarding your latest two acquisitions, in the press releases, you're not providing as much information as you have done for your previous acquisitions. I was just wondering, is there any specific reason for this? And also, can you provide any information regarding the margins in these acquired companies and the price you paid for them?
Hello, Herman, and good morning to you as well. That's right. We haven't commented on that in the last two press releases. The main reason for that is the sizes of the company, of course. They are not that big, so to say, so that we felt that we needed to go out with that information, so to say. When it comes to multiples, those latest two acquisitions, it's not so that they stand out in any ways in comparison to other acquisitions that we have made, so to say. In terms of pricing, or such, they are in line with our overall acquisition strategy. That's basically what you can say about that.
You had a second question, which I didn't have time to note down.
Yeah.
I think it was margin. Yeah, it was margin. Yeah, sorry.
Yeah.
Yeah, when it comes to margin, it's basically like that as well. They are somewhat in the mid, you can say, from a Bufab perspective. They do not really stand out in either direction, so to say. It's a standard acquisition from a Bufab perspective, you can say. That also goes with the business for those companies as such. They are very Bufab-like companies who will fit good into the group, so to say. Solid acquisitions in accordance with our growth strategy.
Perfect. Yeah, perfect. Thank you. Just on the UK/North America business, it's continued to be performing very well. Is it still mainly the [RV] segment in North America that is driving the growth or are you seeing from other segments as well?
It's a combination. You can say. We will comment on this also in the report, if I remember correctly. If you look at the North American market for, in the first place, I'm talking about American Bolt & Screw. Of course, it's still that [RV] industry that is still going very strong. And that industry have been strong for approximately a year or so now. As you see the order intake is also strong, so there are good outlooks as well, so to say. On top of that, we have seen very strong development also in the U.K. market, and especially in our older acquisition, Apex, who is more into the stainless C-part business, you can say.
The demand for those kind of items have been higher now, and that is also reflected in the quarter.
Yeah, perfect. Thank you. That's all for me. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a further reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from the line of KJ Bonnevier. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes, good morning. Karl-Johan Bonnevier from DNB Markets. Just a quick one on, given the constraints you see in the supply chain, do you also see clients trying to pre-buy a lot, driving organic growth for you, or do you see that, say, delivery pattern is quite normal for you?
No, I don't think, to be honest, I don't think pre-buying is so easy today because it's a lot of, let's say, headache to get the parts to the customer now. It's the long lead times and yeah, a lot of difficulties you can say. I don't think it's really possible to buy ahead, so to say. I think it's a normal way to handle it from the customer side. I mean, to add on that, it's just long lead time, so they need to be in time with the order, so to say, if you should have any deliveries also even next year, I think. No, we don't see that pattern, I think.
That sounds logical. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Robert Redin. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, hi. Two questions, if I may. I mean, the development was a bit different maybe between the business areas, but as a group, you've passed along the higher procurement cost and freight costs and so on to customers because gross margins were up a bit Q-over-Q and Year-over-Year. But in the outlook there, you say something about this supply chain disruptions and so on that they will remain and put pressure on operating margins in Q4. Is there bigger pressure in Q4, or how should we read that comment?
Hello, Robert. Good morning to you as well. Marcus here. I think that the outlook comment should be seen in the following perspective, that the severe situation that has been ongoing on the market in terms of strained supply chain and freight issues during the last couple of quarters that will continue going forward. So far, Bufab has been successful through very hard work, you have to say, to offset those negative impacts by pushing the costs over to customers. That challenge, so to say, has not ended. It will continue going forward as well. We aim to do exactly the same work that we have done so far, offsetting the negative impact with price increases, so to say.
It's still a challenge, so to say. I think you should see it from that perspective. We are all set doing what we have done, keeping the gross margin steady, but there is a challenge, and we don't really know what will happen going forward.
All right. Would you say the challenge is the same as it has been before?
Yeah. Of course. I would say definitely that the challenge is more or less unchanged compared to, let's say, the second quarter or so.
Okay, perfect. On acquisitions, you've done quite a bit now lately, but you still have the comment there about the good M&A pipeline. I would have imagined that when you've done three acquisitions in a fairly short time period, that the pipeline could be a bit worse than normal. What do you say then? Do you feel that the pipeline is building nonetheless? I guess if acquisitions come after eight years of discussions, I guess it could be the case that the pipeline grows over time.
Yeah, Johan here. I mean, the thing with acquisitions is, of course, with the, how to say it's a long-term work, I think. As I said, this company we acquired in U.S. was my first call with them was 2013, and the other ones was, I think we started 2014 with one of them and 2016 with the other one. It's many years of discussions. Maybe not every day, but anyway. We need to have a good pipeline, and I think we have a strong one. That these three happens in so short time, it's mainly maybe coincidence, but I think we have a really strong pipeline, compared to a year or two back.
Of course, this is the result, you know, as you are already familiar with, Robert, we build many of the acquisition cases based on long-term relations, so to say. Now, given the fact that we are kind of post-COVID, so to say, travels and relation building and things like that are a bit more easy now compared to, let's say, a year ago or so. So from that perspective, it's possible to meet and discuss, negotiate and, you know, build relations. Just to add on top what Johan just said.
Perfect. That sounds positive. Cool. Thanks so much.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you. There are currently no further questions at this time.
Okay. We say thank you here from Värnamo, me, Johan Lindqvist, and also Marcus.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
Have a nice day. Bye.
That does conclude the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.