Hi, everyone, and welcome to this webcast. Today, we will go through the results for the third quarter for Eltel. My name is Elin Otter, and I'm Head of Investor Relations here at Eltel. With me today, I have our President and CEO, Håkan Dahlström, and our CFO, Tarja Leikas. Håkan and Tarja will present the result, and then we will open up for questions. You can submit your questions through the website or call in using the phone line. With that, I'm handing over the word to you, Håkan.
Thank you, Elin. Good morning, and very welcome to this third quarter report. I will, as we normally do in Eltel, we will start with some highlights of the quarter. Here we start with net sales, and as you can see, we reached EUR 230 million of net sales, meaning a total growth just about 3% for the group. What is really good to see is that in local currency, we are doing more than 8% growth in the segment and close to 7% for the full group. Looking who is driving this, we see a very strong growth in Finland, above 20%, an increase from the beginning of the year, and also Denmark, clearly above 20% and on a steady level that Denmark have performed on during the whole 2023.
So as you know, some trouble sometimes in Denmark, 1.5 years ago, two years ago, and as we have said many times now, that Denmark is back, and I think they proved that in a very good way also in this quarter. So both Finland and Denmark, about 20%, and also Sweden is delivering a good growth in local currency. Also, adjusted EBITDA came in on a, I would say, a good level, EUR 5.9 million, better than third quarter last year. And the most positive thing for me is that all unit contributed to this in a good way, meaning that we had, as I see it, very, very long time, no unit that made losses in the third quarter.
The segment came up to 3.5%, and that is, of course, not so brilliant if you look on a long perspective, but with the first half of 2023 in our memory, I think it's good to see that we have come back to the same level as we had a year ago. And I would say that I'm happy for the contribution from all unit, but I also have to say that I expect that all units should be able to do better than what they did this quarter. So this is not so that this is the end game in any way. High Voltage Poland have had quite tough years behind us.
We can't say that that is behind us, but in this third quarter, we reached a black number, and I think that is a very good, positive signal that we are on the right track here. As we mentioned in the second quarter report, we have to take more cost-cutting activities in Norway, and I will come to that in a minute or two. As you know, the strategy where we have our classic business that we in Eltel have done for so many years, we have, in our strategy, added what we call new businesses, and this is very much about solar, it's about EV mobility, it's about wind, and the new green energy areas.
It's great to see the progress in all units, so that's also very satisfying, that we, despite the tough start of this year, we have been able to build for the future also. In many of our customer dialogue, we have been able to see a more determined view of when it come to sustainability, and that it has created much higher quality in those discussions that we have on sustainability with our customers. And I think this is something very good, and for us, will be a possibility, also business-wise, going forward. So a lot of good stuff in this third quarter, and I will then go to the demand in the market that I have talked about many times, and we can see now how we have been able to build the order backlog 30% stronger today than a year ago.
But we also have talked about going forward, we need to have also different commercial terms than what we have had historically. I think that we have come a part of this, and we have achieved a bit of this. We have more to do in our commercial development inside Eltel, and this is all different type of commercial questions, where I see that we have a potential to do one- inch or two- inch better in many areas. It is about pricing. It's about optimizing and managed cash flow, but it's also how to optimize the indexation that is so important in this world of inflation. Yes, 2022, beginning of 2022, we started to have index in all contract, but are they actually following the cost development that we are exposed for? In some cases, not particularly well.
So this is an always ongoing work we have to do on the commercial questions. And in these bars here, we try to show you and predict how the new commercial terms we are implementing, how we expect those to impact the size, the portion of the net sales that we have during 2023. Not so much, but already next year, we believe that over 40% of the net sales that we produce will be produced under these new commercial terms. With that said, I will come back to the cost savings program. We talked about this in the beginning of the year, that we had quite broad cost savings program in Norway and Finland, mainly, and this impacted roughly 150 employees of us, and we have expected the cost savings to come up in a yearly run rate of EUR 10 million.
I would say that we have now, from October, full effect of this program. All activities are down, all the cost is taken, and from October 2023, we have no cost, and the effect is 100%, and I would claim that we have reached a little bit more than we expected. As we said in the second quarter, we have a need to adjust the organization and the cost base even further in Norway. As you see, the net sales from last year to this year have come down significantly in Norway. It's both so that in the local currency, but even worse when you look at in reported currency. So we have now executed a second wave of downsizing in Norway, and this have an impact mainly on our own staff, where this affect 60 full-time employees in Norway.
We have now executed those activities that is connected to this, and I expect that we will carry the cost of this during the fourth quarter, and this comes also with a restructuring cost of EUR 900,000, but also a normal OpEx cost during the fourth quarter. A handful, more or less, of our employees will retire during the first part of next year, and they, we of course, will let them be in the organization and keep them with us until they retire. So the cost of a handful of these 60, there is a few more than 60, but a handful of them, we will carry the cost also into the first quarter of next year.
But otherwise, this will be dealt with during October, and we are done with activity, and the cost will not be with us when we come into the new year. So the previous estimate of EUR 12 million, I will claim that we now, when we look at this, we are above EUR 13 million of this cost savings, and it have affected more than 225 employees, mainly Norway and Finland. It, of course, also other things, and not only staff, it's everything. We're looking at everything, but the bulk of this is the organization and the downsizing of the, of the organization. So I know that there is many of you that is wondering, so what are we doing to, to improve the margin?
On this slide, we try to show you how we have launched initiative after initiative to strengthen the margin within Eltel, and one of these is the commercial terms that I just talked about. We started with that a year ago. Also, the High Voltage operation in Poland have had losses for many years, and we have, with the start for a year ago, re-scoped what we go to market with, what type of business and deals we do in Poland. We see now that this reduction and narrowing of the scope is also reducing the risk, and by that, also a more predictable business going forward. Are we having all the problems that we have had in Poland behind us?
I can't promise that today, but it's satisfying to see that we, after one year in the new, with the new direction, we also have black numbers. Of course, a never-ending story about contract management and try to improve everything like index and pricing and invoicing conditions, and as always, also operational excellence, meaning that we look very carefully on all the spendings we have. All of this initiative, I'm convinced that we see the result of, and now, when, as I view it, we have the organization sized of the demand that we predict for the next year. I'm convinced that we also will see increased benefit from all of these initiatives.
I mentioned new business as a part of the highlight, and for me, this is very important that we, at the same time as we are doing cost cutting and fine-tuning the machine on commercial terms and so that we also have the capability at the same time to build for the future. And I think in these adjacent areas that we have talked about, we see that the electrification and digitalization is happening in a broad perspective, and that the competence and the capacity with Eltel can contribute also in these areas to the green transition that we have in the society. So looking at the total contract value that we have signed during this year, it's 3% of that value that is in these new areas. And is that so impressive, then?
No, it might not be, but it's 3% more than it was for a year ago when we haven't looked at it at all. I also look at the pipeline, and I see that the value of the pipeline we have today is significantly stronger or higher than we have had in the past, and it's really encouraging to see that a third of that value we have in the pipeline is within these new areas of new business and sustainability. So it's not only so that it is new businesses for us, meaning a potential to grow, it's also so that I see a clear, clear result in gross margin also in that type of business. We have a possibility to gain more margin in this than our classic business. With that, I hand over to our CFO, Tarja.
Thank you, Håkan, and nice to be here. Eltelians have made it easy for me to onboard by delivering a good, solid quarter. If I first comment the year-to-date net sales, the pace of the year-on-year growth in all reported measures has increased. In reporting currency, 1.7%, when first half, 1%. In local currency, 6%, when in first half, 5.6%. And in segments, where we mean Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, 8%, when first half it was 7.8%. Isolated third quarter year-on-year growth is 3.1% in reporting currency and organic growth in segments staggering 8.3%. The growth in segments is coming from Finland. That was what Håkan mentioned earlier, Finland, Denmark, and Sweden.
The significant difference between the reporting currency and local currencies is, of course, impacted by the value change of Swedish and Norwegian crowns. In other business, net sales declined by EUR 7 million, the main reason being earlier communicated narrowed scope in Poland and the stop in gas adjustments in Germany. Then comments about the profitability. Late 2022 materialized the decrease in customer investments in Norway and the difficulties we faced in Power Services in Finland left us a difficult start for this year. And throughout this year, Eltelians have moved mountains to recover from the profitability decline, and now, in the end of the third quarter, we see the fruits of this hard work materializing.
Year-to-date, a djusted EBITA is still - EUR 1.1 million, but third quarter adjusted EBITA is EUR 5.9 million, when the comparable previous year was EUR 4.1 million. The tone of in our voices has been, satisfied. This improved profitability gives us confidence. And I would like to move forward to the results of the Finnish operations, which represent 40% of our total net sales. The pace of net sales growth has increased in Finland. First half of the year, the pace was 14.4%, and now, in the end of the third quarter, we have 17.3%. And year-on-year growth, isolated third quarter, we report 22.2% growth. And the growth drivers here are fiber market and power transmission.
On the profitability side, following the heavy first half of 2023, the third quarter profitability in Finland has been more satisfactory, bringing Euro-wise about the same amount as previous year, percentage-wise, being 1.2% behind. The earlier communicated unfavorable power services contracts have taken their toll, leaving us significantly below last year's adjusted EBITA accumulation. And then, our second largest entity is Sweden. Sweden, Sweden represent 23% of Eltel Group net sales, and again, here, when we report Sweden, we need to be reminded ourselves of the exceptional changes there have been in the Swedish, the exchange rate of, in general, in Sweden, particularly. Swedish crown has weakened by 9.4% compared to previous year. Net sales year-on-year growth in Sweden is now 3.4% in reporting currency, and in local currency, 12.7%.
This now reported quarter marks the eight consecutive year-on-year growth quarter in Sweden. Third quarter, the pace of the growth in local currency slowed down to 5.5% from the first half's 16.1%. The growth in Sweden continues to be driven by smart grids and supported by the communication. On the profitability side, third quarter in Sweden was the fifth consecutive quarter with positive black figures. Year-to-date , Sweden has now delivered EUR 1.6 million positive adjusted EBITA. The previous year comparable result was - EUR 2.2 million. The profitability improvement in Sweden continued being driven by operational improvement measures and One Eltel program benefits. Then I move on to Norway. Norwegian operation represents 16% of Eltel Group net sales.
As I mentioned in Sweden, also in Norway, the actuals are heavily impacted by the decreased value of the Norwegian krone. The value of the krone has decreased with 9.6% in Norway. Our year-on-year net sales decline is 27.3% in the reporting currency, and the driver here is the earlier communicated fourth quarter decline in the key customer investment levels. This dramatic change is clearly visible in the table on the upper and right-hand side. As you can notice, the quarterly net sales since the last quarter of last year have remained approximately on the same level. The third quarter net sales were EUR 31.6 million, when the comparable net sales of previous year were EUR 44.3 million.
Our year-over-year, year-to-date adjusted EBITA is - EUR 1.7 million. The negative result is a consequence of the overcapacity and the inefficiency following the dramatic drop in the customer investment levels late previous year. Therefore, on top of the first quarter restructuring program, in the now reported third quarter, we are taking additional efficiency measures, including reducing the workforce further with additional 60 persons. Then I move on to Denmark. Denmark represents 11% of Eltel Group net sales, and Denmark is the belle of the ball in year 2023. Our net sales continue increasing very strongly. Year-over-year, year-to-date, we are on 21.5% growth, and isolated third quarter, slightly higher, 21.7% growth. And the growth is coming from the higher volumes from existing customers. The profitability improvement is equally strong in Denmark.
EUR 3.6 million year-to-date, an isolated third quarter, EUR 1 million, leading us to healthy 5.2% adjusted EBITA. In Denmark, multiple factors contribute the profitability, volume increases, operational excellence, and price increases. Then last of our business entities, other business, which includes High Voltage Poland, Smart Grids Germany, Power Transmission International, and Lithuanian operations. Year-to-date, net sales of other business is EUR 66.8 million. The year-on-year decrease is EUR 7 million, and third quarter year-on-year decline in net sales was EUR 800,000. This development has been partially intentional since in Poland, we have chosen to narrow our scope, and in Germany, smart grids our growth then was moderate due to gas adjustment stop.
On the lower right-hand side, we have the adjusted EBITA table, and here we see very aptly, the curve is forming a smile shape, which is well representative of our delightment of the development in this area. Third quarter, we have reached black numbers in other business. We have had favorable project closings in Poland and good progress in large projects. And with these words, it's time for me to move on to the last slide of my presentation, which is about the balance sheet. And here we report three items: leverage, net debt, and working capital. Our net debt has continued to decline. A year ago, we were on a level of EUR 166.1, and now we are on the level of EUR 133.4.
The interest bearing debt includes loans and the leasing liabilities, and total decline in loans year-on-year is EUR 44.5 million. Third quarter, we chose to utilize the availability of tax deferral in Sweden. This is COVID-related, COVID-19-related corporate benefit, and it was available until the third quarter. This gives us the benefit from less costly capital, and the amount of this deferral is EUR 28.3 million. On the left-hand side, you can notice the negative development on our leverage in the past quarters, second, first and second quarter. The development there reflects the first half's issues we had with the profitability. And on the third quarter, our profitability and net working capital are on better level, and the leverage is down to 5.4. And net working capital, that is a key item in our financial management.
We pay strong attention to cash flow optimization, and in the end of the third quarter, net working capital was - EUR 15.5 million, compared to previous year's EUR 26.3 million. The earlier mentioned tax deferral share in this is this EUR 28.3 million I earlier mentioned. With these positive words, I thank you for your attention and hand over to Håkan.
Mm-hmm. Thank you, Tarja. So, by that, I would like to come back to our financial target that we would like to confirm, and we'll stick to them until we have reached them. So the demand is increasing. That's really nice to see. We are able to win more contract and also gain a new customer. By that, we're broadening the customer base, very important for us. We find new opportunity in adjacent market, very important. So all of these four targets are here still, and we will stick to them. And, we have said before that we will reach them by the end of 2025, and I'm quite optimistic, so as a person, so we keep them. I think this quarter was one important step to be followed by many to reach this higher profitability.
Our strategy to do that is illustrated on this slide here. The base of all profitability is, of course, to have improved efficiency and working on the commercial question in parallel with the production. So this is one important cornerstone here, cornerstone here. But also, as I just mentioned, we have a need to broaden the customer base to be not so exposed for customers success in their business. So this is something that is high up on our agenda, and I think we do great progress in this. We also have a need to grow in this new and adjacent market, as in the renewable energy and public infrastructure, and we can see when we make the analysis of our order book and our pipeline, we see that we are in a good way here.
We are not done in any way, but we have taken very important steps, and I would say that the situation, when we look on the future of Eltel today, is very different than from a year ago. Also mentioned on the highlights that the integrated sustainability in everything we do is coming up higher and higher on the agenda. And when we look on the net sales that we have and the customer base we have today, it is 70% of the customer that are—so 70% of the net sales and the customer that are representing those 70%, they are committed to science-based t arget indicators for sustainability. And there is, of course, we is a part of the Scope 3 for them.
So we expect that the, I would say, more qualified and embedded discussions that we have had lately with customers around sustainability is most likely only the beginning here. And also this develop our concept, meaning that what is it actually that we will do when it come to scoping business model, but also the commercial terms that we are prepared to accept? So that this is a development that have started, and we are gaining some benefit from that now. But as I indicated on one of the slides, the impact during 2023 is not so big. We expect it to be a larger portion of the net sales that will be impacted by this during 2024. Roughly 44% is the estimate. And we see that all of this is the right things, and we get confirmation on that.
Then, we also are having discussions how we can contribute better to our customer by taking a broader role in the value chain, and here we have sort of good initiatives on, but no major breakthrough yet to report. But all of these six parts in our strategy, I would claim, is the foundation for reaching this higher margin that we are committed to. With that, I would say that we conclude the presentation and go to Q&A.
Thanks, Håkan. Thanks, Tarja.
Thank you.
Thank you.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial *5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial *5 again on your telephone keypad.
So, as I said in the beginning of the presentation, you can pose questions through the website, but I know that we have received at least one caller on the web or through the phone line, so let's start with that.
The next question comes from Adrian Gilani from ABG. Please go ahead.
Okay, perfect. Can you hear me okay?
Hi, Adrian. Yes, we hear you.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, hi. Hello. I guess, first of all, I'll congratulate you on the strong numbers, and then, yeah, as usual, a few questions from me. First of all, on the higher pricing that you mentioned, helping margins, can you just give us a split on how much of the organic growth was due to the higher prices and how much was volume growth?
Okay. Yeah, it has to be an estimate, and my judgment is that two-thirds or a little bit more than two-thirds of the growth is coming from volume and something, a third or less, maybe a quarter of it is due to pricing and new pricing strategy, but volume is the large part.
Okay, that's very helpful. And then, it's good to see the effects of the cost savings programs on earnings. And you mentioned this wave two, specifically in Norway. So I guess, can you, first of all, tell us how much we should expect costs in Norway to come down from here? And then also in the other geographies, are you at the max run rate on the savings now, or are those going to come down further as well?
Okay, the cost saving program that we executed on during the first quarter has full effect from October, and that will be in a yearly run rate, a little bit more than EUR 10 million. What we do now, and that is Norway specific, will have a yearly effect of EUR 2.3 million, and that will be, a small part of that will not be with us in the first quarter, but a very big portion of that, 90% or something like that, will be with us from the new year. So let's, yeah, from January and forward, we will have that.
But during the fourth quarter of this year, we will carry that cost, with the exception of the EUR 900,000 that we already have booked now for as a restructuring cost.
Okay, that's clear. Just to follow up on the first round of savings.
Yeah.
You mentioned EUR 10 million run rate from October. So Q4 full run rate, but how much of that was realized in Q3 already, so I can understand the difference?
I would say that the very big portion are already with us in the later part of Q3. We had like half effect in the end of Q2, and then step-by-step during third quarter, but most likely we had full effect of this during September. It was very little.
Mm.
Very few that we were carrying the cost for during September.
Mm-hmm. Mm, okay. And then on Finland specifically.
Mm.
Even though margins did come up quite a bit, compared to earlier this year, you still mentioned that you have these unfavorable power agreements. Can you give us some indication of how much those are still impacting the margin? And also perhaps remind us of the timeline for when those can be renegotiated or gotten rid of entirely.
I don't have a date for you saying that we will be out of those challenges. We have two contracts in Power Services, Finland, that are very difficult for us, meaning that they are unprofitable. That's something that is very high up on our agenda. I don't have a solution to it yet. We are mitigating, and we have this more or less very tight follow-up on this, but it is a difficult situation, otherwise we would have solved it by now. We have been here since, as you know, Q4 last year. Now that is the difficult part. I will say that it is great performance, particularly in telecommunication segment, of the Finnish operation that is compensating.
Mm.
For the problem we have in power services. And, as I said before, I expect everyone to do even better going forward. So it's not so that we have settled on this level, but I don't have a date for you.
Yeah, no, I understand that. It's helpful nonetheless to get some nuance. A final one from my end. On the concluding remarks regarding how you're going to get to the 5% margin targets. You talked about, you know, improving commercial terms, but does that mean concretely that you're not taking any contracts that are below the 5% margin line from today onwards, or what does that mean, sort of, in practice?
I don't know where you got the 5% from, but we have, of course, case-by-case discussions about what can be a reasonable market price and what can be a competitive price. There is always an act of balance, as you understand, how much can we ask for and what is the probability to win. We need to be in the game also. You know, there is no such black and white limit, but we are following and have sort of per area, per product area, per country, per market, clearly what we need to achieve within a quarter, within a month. But then the specific case, that can be different. So it depends. We have to make sure that we have high utilization of the resources and nice, good pricing.
So it's an act of balance, but there is no sort of no-go level somewhere. This is, p ricing is something we discuss a lot in the management team.
I understand, and maybe I misspoke. I meant the 5% in regards to your margin target.
Mm-hmm.
So does that mean individual contracts that you sign can still be below 5% if they sort of help to increase CapEx?
Yeah.
Or utilization rates and things like that?
Yeah, preferable not. Of course.
Yeah
We have the ambition to have higher.
Mm-hmm.
And then also so that we have a structural cost as a group. So if we're gonna deliver 5%, each country unit in average have to deliver at least 6%, because I'm also a cost. So yeah. So of course, now we are step-by-step designing the path towards those target.
Okay. In that case, yeah, that was all for me, so thank you for taking my questions.
Thank you, Adrian.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to Elin for any questions from the web.
Thank you, and we have received some questions on the web already. And the first ones comes from Aapeli Pursimo from Inderes Equity Research, so I will read it and it's a few. Due to cost inflation and rising interest rates, investments in renewable energy have paused, especially in wind power.
Mm.
At least in Finland.
Mm.
In turn, the outlook for solar power might look a little better due to the early stage of the market, even though it's still not immune to macroeconomic factors. But has the general slowdown in renewable energy investments affected, or do you expect it to affect, your business? And from your point of view, have there been any signs that the market would be picking up again?
Mm-hmm. If we start with the wind, we see the same, that we had many interesting discussions, and we had actually two really good business opportunity. We more or less had a virtual handshake to do them, but as you mentioned, this interest rate and the situation, and also a cost of material for a wind park, has increased significantly. So those are paused, and I would claim that we already have got the effect on that on us by.
Mm
Sort of investing in those two cases and even more cases, and that will not lead to any business. That's just a fact today. I believe it will take some time until we will see the interest in wind energy production will pick up again. I think people will actually wait until they understand better where the interest rate will go and what's happening on material prices, and it has been a few surprises in the wind industry, like service and maintenance cost also. So more interest today in the PV solar side, and both rooftop, smaller installation, but also the utility scale of installation, and this later part is our main focus. If we talk about the Finnish market, as I understand here, it is very much about utility scale solar parks.
We are, this month, starting the groundwork on our first solar park of utility scale. It's a park of 10 MW, and we are getting important experience and references from that park. But we are having a lot of good and very interesting discussions around solar in utility scale, particularly in the Finnish market.
On the other hand, even though investments in renewable energy have temporarily slowed down, it's expected growth supports the investment needs related to power lines and grids to ensure sufficient transmission capacity. This naturally also supports your demand outlook in power, but do you, h ave you noticed changes in the competitive situation, such as new players coming to the market, et cetera, due to a good market growth outlook?
In the large project, in High Voltage, the really large overhead line and substations, we see normally international players also coming to the Finnish market, absolutely. And that's, I don't think that is a change. I think that's how it has been, and that is how it is, so I think that's normal business for us.
Mm. During the quarter, you signed a deal in e-Mobility with Kempower until 2025.
Mm.
The nominal value of the deal wasn't that high, and you will issue separate purchase orders annually. But could you elaborate a little more what kind of potential you see there?
Yeah. Sort of together with Kempower, and then, in some cases, also provider of energy storage, BESS solution, we believe that we can create solution for heavy trucks or similar, need of EV, in the EV mobility space. The number that are mentioned here is sort of a first estimate from us and Kempower, the value of the equipment from Kempower can be in those initiatives that we are discussing. But I don't have any guidance for how big this can be. I see that we are doing EV mobility cases in all our markets, and it is an increased interest here. We most likely will see charging solution together with energy storage, to be able to manage the load in the grid. But how fast this will pick up, that I don't really have.
We have an aggregated view on the whole area as such, like new businesses, but I, I don't have a breakdown to EV today and Kempower.
Okay, thank you. And next, we have questions from Markku Moilanen at Nordea, and the first one is similar to the one that Adrian answered or asked. Regarding group sales growth, can you give a split between price and volume impact?
I would say that the volume is the largest factor here when we see the growth, and price is the smaller one, and I think it is two-third on volume and one-third o n price.
The group adjusted EBITA segments was only EUR 0.2 million higher compared to last year, despite the cost savings initiatives.
Mm.
How much of the cost savings are visible in the numbers, and what kind of development should we expect in the following quarters?
I think I would like to sort of see this on a timeline. The Q3 last year, we didn't really have the type of cost problem that we had in the fourth quarter. So for in Q3 2022, a few of our largest customers changed their view on what they should invest. And by that, the flow of work orders to us was more or less reduced. Yeah, it was reduced significantly during the fourth quarter, and on that lower level, we then have seen the first half of this year. And we are still on that lower level, but on a stable level during the third quarter this.
So the cost comes, the sort of the cost that we have taken out, comes from this overcapacity in the and the inefficiency that was created by a lower demand within fiber, particularly in Norway. I don't really, h ow was it on the end of that question, but?
No, what kind of development should we expect in the following quarters?
No, I would say that we are having an organization that have a size and a capability in line with what the forecast and the discussions that we have had, and we try to have them as frequently as possible with our customers, and we get forecasting. So we have forecasting for a big portion of next year, and as long as those forecasts are coming through in real purchase orders, we have now the right size of the organization. We have a bit of cost during the fourth quarter for the extra cost in Norway during the fourth quarter, but the rest, I would say, is in balance.
Okay. In Finland, you continue to experience unfavorable agreements in Power Services.
Mm.
How long do they continue to compress the earnings?
Yeah, that's sort of not really possible for me to come up with a prediction on at what date we have solved this. This is something we are constantly working on, and we try to find different ways to mitigate this, but I don't have a final date. We are doing progress. Yes, it becomes less and less problematic, but it is still a problem for us, and it will be so for the coming quarters also. I don't see that this is not solved in this quarter, and we will have this in the fourth quarter. We will also have it in the beginning of next year. That's my view today, but we, of course, are not sort of accepting the situation.
We are working very determined to change it, but I don't have any full solution on this yet, no.
Good. I believe we have reached the final question. If we exclude the commercial paper program as access to the market is not always certain, Eltel's liquidity situation is rather tight at the moment, as the available liquidity reserves do not fully cover the short-term maturities. Do you have a backup plan in place, or how would you comment on the liquidity situation?
I would comment that our liquidity situation is normal, and we are following our strategy. So I think, of course, our focus is in our net working capital, but I would describe that as a normal situation. Mm?
Okay. Well, then there are no further questions, so that concludes the call of today. We present our year-end results on February 14th, Valentine's Day, so I think you will remember that.
Mm.
In the meantime, thank you for participating in today's call.
Thank you.
Thank you.