Thank you all for joining us today. I'm Niklas Willstrand, Head of Communications at Fagerhult Group. It's my pleasure to welcome you to our Q2 2026 results presentation. On the call today, we have our President and CEO, Bodil Sonesson, along with our CFO, Oscar Wallstén. Bodil will begin with a brief overview of our second quarter results, followed by a presentation of the strategic priorities announced as part of our recently published strategic review. Oscar will then provide a deeper dive into the group's financial performance. To close, Bodil will summarize the key points before we open the floor for your questions.
We will start questions from the conference call participants. Then take questions from the webcast. You can ask questions by pressing pound key and five, or in the chat window on your screen. I will then read them out for Bodil and Oscar. Please note that today's session is being recorded and will be available on our website later today.
With that, I will hand over to you, Bodil. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Niklas. Welcome and good morning to everybody joining us today. I will start with the word stabilization today. We noted a stabilization in order intake noted already in April, continued through most of the quarter, with order intake increasing to SEK 2.68 billion in the second quarter. Sales also increased during the period. Profitability, although improved from Q1, remains below our expectations. While activity levels improve, customers in several markets continue to postpone investment decision. I wouldn't say that the general market conditions have fundamentally changed. In early July, we presented the priorities that will strengthen the group's performance and improve profitability. The first step and the first focus is to restore margins through cost reductions, efficiency improvements, and a stronger focus on Europe. We also see significant opportunities to improve performance through closer collaboration across brands, markets, and function.
At the same time, we will continue to invest in innovation and in growth segments where we see the greatest long-term potential, and smart lighting is part of that. Several of these priorities is already reflected in our day-to-day operations. During the quarter, we continued to see strong activity in energy-efficient lighting and modernization projects. Fagerhult secured several projects linked to the transition from conventional LED lighting solution, as well as important projects within healthcare, including the new emergency hospital in Västerås that's being built, and Scandinavia's largest orthopedic center. Another example of how we're strengthening the group's overall position is Trato TLV, which is our French group company, which has now been part of the group for exactly one year. The company has developed in line with expectations, and the integration has progressed well.
Synergies have been realized why the first projects in new markets together have been secured. We continue to explore opportunities to further develop and working on possibilities together with Trato TLV in their international presence in collaboration with other group brands. We also saw positive development in several growth segments driven by long-term investment trends. Capelon, when we look into public investment, secured new municipalities reflecting the growing demand for smart lighting solutions, while Designplan , our British brand, achieved the highest order backlog in its history. At the same time, Veko secured a project for an Opel factory in Germany and continued to expand its pipeline within the European data segment, where they have a very suitable product portfolio. That was a short summary, and if we then look into the numbers, we start with the Q2 numbers.
As I said, our order intake reached SEK 2.68 billion during the quarter, which was up 8.6% compared to last year. Including for acquisitions and currency effect, the order intake was down with 0.5%. We see it as positive that while order intake exceeded SEK 2 billion, which is always a milestone for us, it was not any single mega-deal that made the difference, but rather many mid-sized deal, which we see as a positive indicator of the activity level. Net sales increased by 6.8% to SEK 1.978 billion, supported by acquisitions completed last year and favorable currency effects. Adjusted for acquisitions and currency movements, sales declined by 1.4%. The group's EBITA before IAC was SEK 113 million, which was a decrease of 16.9% with an EBITA margin before IAC of 5.7%. We are still not satisfied with that level, of course.
We are working hard to get back towards our target, but as I said initially, still a stabilization compared to Q1. Earnings per share before IAC was SEK 0.08. We ended also positively the quarter with an order backlog of SEK 1.916 billion, which was up both from a year ago and from the first quarter. We are moving forward with the implementation of our strategic priorities. Before we get there, let's look also at the half year numbers in brief. If we look at the year to date numbers, they reported an order intake of SEK 4.37 billion, a decrease of 2.3% or 8.1% adjusted for currency effects and acquisitions. Net sales amounted to SEK 3.795 billion, an increase of 0.2%. When again, when we adjust for currency effects and acquisitions, a decrease of 5.2%.
EBITA, before items affecting comparability, amounted to SEK 158 million, and the EBITA margin for the half year was 4.2% compared to 7.9% in the corresponding period last year. We have an earnings per share of minus SEK 0.09 for the half year. Leave the numbers for the moment and let us go to the strategic review and priorities for future profitable growth. As you already know, we communicated the outcome of our strategic review in July, where we sent out a press release. Our vision remains unchanged, which is a world enhanced by light. The review confirmed the need to sharpen our focus and strengthen the group's performance. We are focusing on three key areas to improve our profits, grow our market share, and build a foundation for lasting success.
Our first, and we have three main priority buckets, and our first priority is to restore stability and resilience across the group, and that's where we started. Selected initiatives, including a cost saving program, which is throughout the organization, combined with selected consolidation activities, are expected to deliver an improvement of SEK 220 million, which was what we communicated in the press release. These effects will be realized gradually over the next 6-12 months, and we are already working on a lot of these activities related to the scope of the saving. They haven't yet had any impact on the Q2. The better result in Q2 compared to Q1 was to refer to the increased sales. These activities will have an impact as we continue the year. We will inform the market when we have executed on the activities.
The guiding star for us that we're working towards is a stronger focus in Europe, a laser focus, and a clear Premium market positioning that will support the ambition of building a more resilient and a more competitive group. The second priority is to improve performance through stronger execution and increased collaboration across the group. This starts with clear responsibilities, greater accountability, and a more effective way of working. We, of course, will continue to have empowerment close to the customers in a decentralized organization, which is in line with our way of working. Responsibility for customers, sales, product development, production, operational excellence, and ultimately P&L performance remains close to the brands and business areas. At the group level, we will strengthen governance around strategy execution, finance, HR, and IT, including both cybersecurity and AI.
By sharing all the expertise we having in the group, we will be leveraging the strength of our different businesses, and we will collaborate where it makes sense. In this way, we can operate much more effectively and better support our customers. Two concrete examples are that we have started to work much closer in an IT forum with a sponsor from the group and then leverage all the competence we have in the organization. We've also started a project to leverage our current footprint in Germany, where we have three German brands, local brands, and five additional brands in the group being present on the market, but with very limited cooperation today. In addition to this, we have put an ambitious target for the next three-year period based on high efficiencies, selected focus areas, and better cooperation.
The third priority is to continue investing in innovation and attractive growth segments. Close customer relationships and the ability to develop solutions that meet changing customer needs remain a very important strength of the group. Demand for smart lighting solution continues to grow, where we had a very good first half year, while several other markets are supported by long-term investment trends. Including defense, public infrastructure, data centers, and also retail. During the quarter, we saw positive development in a number of these segments, reflecting the opportunities created by the underlying trends we all see on the market. Several of these markets are expected to remain attractive over the coming years, providing a solid foundation for future growth.
We all know that the landscape in the construction industry has fundamentally changed the last few years, therefore it is important for us to be very agile in finding growth opportunities. It is important to defend the Premium market, where customers understand the benefits of good lighting quality, and for us, in many cases, bespoke solutions. If we try to summarize this and to conclude, our first priority to remember is to improve profitability and strengthen the foundations of the business. That is where we start. As mentioned, we already have quite a few selected initiatives that are expected to deliver an earnings improvement of approximately SEK 220 million over the next 6- 12 months. Nothing of this, as I said, is included in the Q2.
At the same time, these initiatives will help to create a more resilient and cost-conscious group by further strengthening our presence in Europe and supporting the long-term development of the business. While our vision remains unchanged, as you can see it here, a world enhanced by light, the focus is on positioning the group for sustainable long-term growth. Continued innovation and increased exposure to new growth segments, combined with an ambition to become top three player in selected European markets with a strong focus on some markets, will support future growth opportunities and long-term value creation. We believe we need to be laser-focused for the period to come. As I said, restoring profitability comes first, then in the next step, looking into accelerating growth once the profitability is achieved.
Our ambition remains clear, a 10% EBITA margin, then in the second step, a growth of 6%, which is then primarily driven by organic growth. We will not have an M&A focus in the forthcoming period. We also have a focus on net working capital with a goal of free cash flow of 6%, which for us primarily means a focus on reducing inventory. That was a quick summary of our three main pillars in our strategy and how we are going to go from a vision to value creation.
With that, I will hand over to our CFO, Oscar Wallstén, to give you a much more detailed update on the financials.
Excellent. Thank you, Bodil. Good morning and welcome everyone to this call. This has been a stronger quarter compared to the weak start of the year. Order intake has developed in a positive way, the business areas Collection and Infrastructure are the main drivers behind the positive development. Both business areas grew organically in order intake in the quarter. For the group as a total, the gross margin is still a challenge as both production costs are higher than last year, as the sales mix is also unfavorable. Still, we see an improved EBITA margin in Professional thanks to Trato TLV, but for the group as a total, a weaker margin compared to last year, which is explained by weaker performance in our largest business areas, Collection and Premium. During the quarter, the group reported SEK 19.8 million as other operating income that relates to the Trato TLV earn-out liability.
Now, when the outcome for the first vesting period has been determined, the liability could be reduced and hence an income has been reported for the group. While organic order intake declined by 0.5% compared to last year, total reported order intake increased by 8.6%. In the quarter, the order intake is negatively impacted by FX. The stronger Swedish krona is affecting our Euro business in a negative way also this quarter. On the other hand, the order intake is impacted positively by acquisitions. By this time last year, our brand company, Trato TLV, was not yet incorporated in our numbers. However, since the acquisition has now been part of the group for a full year, this will be the last quarter in which Trato TLV is mentioned as an explanatory item compared to the previous year.
Sales decreased organically by 1.4% in the quarter, where FX had a negative impact by SEK 19 million, where acquisitions improved the numbers by SEK 171 million, totaling to a net impact of SEK 152 million. The second quarter's EBITA margin landed on 5.7%, a decline by 1% compared to last year. The margin drop is mainly related to lower business volumes in our two largest business areas, Collection and Premium. The decline in sales in these business areas has negative impact on our profitability. In the quarter, we had a negative operating cash flow of SEK -9 million compared to SEK +162 million last year. We saw a weakening in working capital also in this quarter. I will come back to more cash flow insights later in the presentation. Year-to-date order intake is slightly lower than last year.
We see a decrease of 2.3% and an organic decrease of 8.2% year to date. The explanation lies in the weak first quarter. Q1 last year was a tough comparison period with a couple of large projects. Sales, on the other hand, are higher than last year's year to date, an increase by 0.2%, yet with an organic decrease of 5.2%. The EBITA margin is 4.2%, which is lower than last year's 7.9%. The lower gross margin compared to last year is the main explanation. Cash flow year to date is SEK -169 million, which can be compared to SEK +188 million last year. More about cash flow later. Sales development. The rolling 12-month net sales shows an increase in this quarter. We're back at the same level as Q4 last year after the dip in the first quarter. Looking at margin development.
Also, the margin improved again in the second quarter as a consequence of recovery in sales. The rolling 12 development is, however, still impacted by the weak Q1, and hence a decline in the line chart. Moving over to the business area, starting with Collection. In Collection, the second quarter order intake of SEK 894 million entail an organic increase of 2%. The improvement in order intake is coming from both iGuzzini and VF. Net sales in the quarter amounted to SEK 886 million, corresponding to an organic increase of 1%. The EBITA before IAC was SEK 76 million, which is lower than last year's SEK 95 million for the second quarter. The EBITA margin is consequently lower as well, 8.6% compared to 10.7% last year.
The demand on Collection's home market has been weak during the quarter. Despite that, iGuzzini and LED Linear have succeeded in delivering growth in sales, which compensates for the development in the other brand companies. Premium delivered an order intake for the quarter of SEK 608 million, entailing an organic decline of 4.4%. Net sales for the quarter total SEK 601 million, and EBITA landed on SEK 60 million. As you can see in the chart, both numbers result in a decline compared to last year. The EBITA margin was 10%, which represents a weakening compared to the second quarter last year when it was 14.5%. Just like business area Collection, Premium encountered a weak market, especially in the new construction sector, and generally fewer larger projects than normal.
Moving over to Professional. Business area Professional's order intake for the quarter increased to SEK 378 million, mainly thanks to the acquisition of Trato TLV. Net sales for the quarter totaled SEK 366 million with an organic growth of 10%. Organic sales growth remained strong in the second quarter and was mainly driven by a strong quarter in the U.K. Compared with the corresponding period of the previous year, in France, the retail sector also continued to perform well, driven both by existing customers and by new business opportunities where we are registering increased demand for retrofit solutions. In addition to the organic growth in net sales, Professional also gets a positive impact of SEK 164 million in net sales from Trato TLV. EBITA before IAC amounted to SEK 8 million, which in turn resulted in an EBITA margin of 2.2%.
The lower EBITA margin in the business area is primarily related to brand companies Eagle and Arlight. Trato TLV has now been a part of the Fagerhult Group for one year. The company has delivered in line with expectations, and the integration has progressed well. As mentioned earlier, this is the last quarter we will refer to Trato TLV as an explanatory item compared to last year. Looking at Infrastructure. Infrastructure's order intake for the quarter totaled SEK 170 million, corresponding to an organic increase of 16%. This was a result from Designplan securing a significant U.K. prison project in the quarter and setting a new all-time high for the company's order backlog. Veko also showed signs of recovery in the form of a project for an Opel plant in Germany, as Bodil mentioned before, and a growing project pipeline in the European data center segment.
The net sales for the quarter total SEK 164 million, representing an organic increase of 2.4%. The EBITA margin is, however, still negative and landed on -2.2% for the quarter. The profitability of Infrastructure is still suffering from low gross margin and fixed costs that remain at a high level. The unfavorable development of Evaluz is unfortunately weakening the business area as a whole. Looking at the cash flow, the operating cash flow in the quarter was negative at SEK -9 million, compared with a positive SEK +162 million in the same period last year. The large difference in operating cash flow compared to last year is mainly explained by adjustments for non-cash items, which amounted to as much as SEK 121 million last year. In addition to that, we saw a weakening in working capital also this quarter.
Working capital has developed in an unfavorable way. It is the customer receivables that have increased during the quarter and hence affected the cash flow in the wrong direction. As the increase in customer receivables is a consequence of higher sales, we don't see a risk in this particular development. Net debt. The recent investment in Trato TLV and Capelon has increased our net debt to a current level, which is higher than before. In the second quarter, our net debt to EBITDA ratio has increased again because of the development in profitability and weak cash flow. Earnings per share. Earnings per share before IAC landed on SEK 0.08 per share for the quarter.
Thank you for your attention, and now back to Bodil.
Thank you, Oscar, for the financial numbers. I'll make a short summary before we move over to questions, I will use the same word as I used initially, and that is we see a stabilization. I think that is what characterizing the quarter. The stabilization in order intake that we saw starting in April continued through most of the quarter, although many customers still remained cautious with investment decisions, so they take a little bit longer than normal. Although, we haven't seen when we look at the general market conditions that they have changed substantially, we see still that we have markets and segments where we have strong activities. Also we see still the activity remains strong in energy-efficient lighting where we see lead conversion projects and several, as I've mentioned before, new attractive growth segments.
At the same time, we have taken important steps to strengthen the group. With the first focus, as I said, on profitability and improving profitability, also increasing efficiency and strengthening our competitive position. We have selected initiatives including a general cost-saving program for the group and other selected initiatives in terms of consolidation that are expected to contribute to approximately SEK 220 million in earnings improvements over the next 6- 12 months. While there is still work to do, we are building on the strengths of the group. A stronger European focus, increased collaboration across brands and markets, continued innovation, and greater exposure to attractive growth segments such as defense, public infrastructure, and data centers will provide a solid foundation for a long-term profitable growth. We also believe that both outdoor and indoor smart solution will be part of our future growth drivers.
With that, I will hand over to Niklas for questions and answers.
Thank you, Bodil and Oscar, of course, and thank you for presentation. We will now start with the Q&A session, and we will start with questions from the participants on the conference call. I will leave it over to the operator to take your questions.
Thank you, Niklas. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press pound key five on your telephone keypad. The first question is from Lara Mohtadi from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead, Lara.
Hi. Just a couple of questions from me. First one on the strategic review. How should we think about the phasing of these SEK 220 million? How much of it lands in 2026 versus 2027? A follow-up on the same theme, what restructuring costs should we expect alongside it?
Yeah, I can take that. Thank you, Lara. I would divide it into two buckets. One bucket that is general cost savings, OpEx, if you like, and that will be SEK 100 million. The ambition we have, the plan we are executing according to, is to take that out during the second half of this year, which would result in a run rate reduction compared to 2025-2027 of SEK 100 million less in spend. The remaining SEK 120 million is strategic activities that is going to have a positive impact on bottom line, and we're aiming to get those done in Q4, but it might spill over to Q1, depending on the market conditions. If that helps.
Yes. Also on the restructuring costs.
The restructuring cost will be quite high. We're probably going to see a restructuring cost around SEK 350 million-SEK 400 million, which will end up as a one-time cost in IAC.
Okay, great. Very clear. Thank you. Just on the gross margin, you had a decline in the quarter. You talked a little bit about production costs and mix. Can you maybe help us understand how much is production cost and how much is mix?
I would say it's 80%-85% is related to mix, and very much related to the large projects that we had last year. It's 15%-20% of it is related to actually increased of the prices that goes into the manufacturing process then.
Okay. Thank you. You also mentioned that orders have stabilized throughout most of the quarter. What are you sort of seeing in July?
I don't know. Bodil, is that something?
I think it's a bit too early to say, Lara. If you look into what we were saying, we saw, as I mentioned, and I think we said it already in the earnings call that we had in beginning of May, that April was good, and we saw that continuing. You always have normal changes. You have May with a lot of holidays, I think we saw a very strong June as well, in general. If I look into the longer indicators, we don't see a fundamental difference as where it goes. I would say what we've seen in Q2, it seems to continue. It's always, even though I said it's positive we didn't have a mega project, I think that's something we should listen to. You always have some weeks which are better than others when you have projects.
I think we have the benefit of having both Southern European and Northern European businesses. The summer tends to equal out from vacation periods.
Okay. Thank you. That was very clear. That was all from my end. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Lara.
The next question is from Oscar Rönnkvist from SEB. Please go ahead, Oscar .
Thank you, and good morning. My first question would also be sort of on the outlook. I think the tonality was quite unchanged, but still accelerated through the quarter and saw a pretty sharp increase from the Q1. Just to have any question on how to read the outlook comments, given the positive momentum, which I interpret at least. Also, if you have seen any impact from the EU Building Directive Performance or Performance Directive that was implemented recently. Thanks.
I would say, I think I've said it before, is that it's always positive when we have order intake above SEK 2 billion. That's, for us, a benchmark. I think you should look into that. We don't give a forecast or an outlook for the future, but that is one indicator. What I also said is you can look at the order backlog, which is better. I think it was 6.3% compared to Q1 and 5.4% compared to Q2 last year. When you look into the landscape we have, there's nothing that has fundamentally changed in the building market since last time. I think what we see is that we see the change. We see that the segments I was highlighting, whether it's data centers, public spending. When we speak about public spending, we see healthcare. I see a lot of healthcare activity around Europe.
Also we see on the retail side, we see positive activity. I think the trends that we've been seeing for a while, they're getting stronger. And I also said that we have the products for those segments. We have more work to do on working on the market side, and that's what we're currently doing. We're building our pipeline on the data center side of things, for example, and we're doing the same in the defense markets. A different landscape compared to if you go back two years, and I think that is getting more and more obvious that that's the way it is. We need to be agile.
The question about European Performance of Buildings Directive, it's a good one. Saying we see a big difference, but some of these public investments that we are seeing, I think some of that is maybe also driven by the European Performance of Buildings Directive. I would estimate so.
All right. Thank you. Also, I think you touched upon in the CEO letter, I think you touched upon competition from low-cost actors, or maybe not competition. If you just could expand that a little bit. Is it increased competition from low-priced actors, or is it more that the underlying demand is more shifted towards low-cost products? Thanks.
I think when you have a tougher market situation in general, I think then you see more low-cost competition. We see it, I would say, in the entry-level segment. We are premium positioned, and you heard me saying that defending our position on the premium side of things is very important for us. I would say we will see somewhat higher activities from low-cost importers. Maybe there is a stronger focus from the Chinese competitors into Europe because of the tariff situation in the U.S. as well. Somewhat higher competition, I would say yes, in the entry-level segment.
Perfect. Thanks. Just some follow-ups on the cost initiatives. Oh, sorry, did you have?
No, go ahead.
No, yeah. Some follow-ups on the cost initiatives. Just first of all, to clarify the SEK 220 million, you say earnings, would that be EBITA, or would that be earnings, including that you expect some positive cash flows to reduce the debt levels? Also the SEK 120 million in mixed effects, if you could just clarify that a little bit. Are you aiming to increase the exposure to some high-margin brands, or what's that driven by? Thanks.
Yeah. Thank you, Oscar. The SEK 120 million is EBITA improvement to start with, and it is about addressing our cost base, which means that we will reduce the structural cost base, if you like, which will result in an EBITA improvement of SEK 120 million.
All right. Thanks. Just to get the baseline for the SEK 220 million, what would be a good baseline if we should evaluate that afterwards? Is that the H1 EBITA?
Yeah, I would say Q1.
Yeah. A Q1 run rate sort of?
Yeah. If you annualize that.
Perfect. Great, thanks. Just the margin in Professional, I appreciate the comments about Eagle and Arlight explaining those, but can you expand a bit more on what you see in the margin? Would that be cost pressure from production cost, or is it just a pure mix effect, or what do you see in that?
Yeah. In those brands, we have seen a slight decline in business performance, which results in a negative impact on the business mix coming from those two brands into the business area.
All right, great. I think orders in Collection was a bit better, and I suppose that would be a positive driver for the gross margin ahead. Is that correctly interpreted?
That is a good assumption, I would say, yeah.
Okay, thank you. That was all for me.
The next question is from Mats Liss from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead, Mats. Seem to have some problem. I'll try to activate him again. Now, Mats, your line is open.
Okay. Thank you. Just coming back to the cost savings there. You mentioned SEK 220 million in cost savings, but the earnings impact, the EBITA impact, is SEK 120 million . Was that right?
No. Hi, Mats. Yes, that's a good question. The full impact is SEK 220 million on EBITA. You should see an improvement of EBITA of SEK 220 million.
Maybe to add on to that, Mats, good morning, is that what we were saying before is that SEK 100 million is all around the business where we're doing cost savings, and SEK 120 million are targeted to a few of the businesses where we're working on strategic reviews, which have more of a strong structural impact. We can't communicate more around that today, but when we have finalized those, we will come out with more communication around it. It's divided in.
Okay. Sorry. You just mentioned these overall numbers, you don't have any comments on which business area is more affected and so on?
We will do that when we will communicate. We're only saying this is what you will see as a result of it. As soon as we are ready, we will let you know exactly what we're doing. We have a strategic review in a few of our businesses.
The costs to implement these measures could be expected to be taken this year or is it balanced between 2026, 2027?
Say again, please.
No, you mentioned the SEK 350 million or SEK 400 million of restructuring charges to be expected should we expect them to be taken as one of this year or is it more balanced between the two years?
Those are related to transactions, essentially. Their drivers is more than one activity, which means that it depends on when those activities happen in time. I would say it's spread over Q4 and Q1, but we don't know the exact timing of that today. The bulk of it is non-cash flow impacting.
It's more that you reduce, well, the closed down factories and maybe some intangibles and that kind of costs.
That is probably a good conclusion.
Yeah. Good. You also mentioned that you will continue to focus on smart lighting solutions and those kinds of trends, really you don't see any sort of opportunities there to maybe cooperate with other companies and you will continue to focus on your own solutions there?
Yes, we will continue to focus on our own solutions, both on the indoor and outdoor side. Having said that, of course, we see partnership opportunities as well, but we're seeing it's being essential for us to have an offering. If you want to defend the high-end and Premium side of things, we think this is a very important ingredient for the future. If you look into the indoor side, which is the Organic Response, we had a very good first six months in terms of increase of sold Organic Response sensors. We also mentioned in the reporting that we took additional municipalities in Sweden, you saw Halmstad and Eslöv, and we also see ourselves widening our scope with the cities we're working with.
If you want to learn more, there is a new website from Capelon, which is capelon.com, where you can go in and learn and read more about it. It is also showing very clearly what are the advantages. I think when we spoke about before where we're saying that municipalities is important and public spending for the future, I think this is one of the areas which is interesting going forward. Both, they see very clear benefits of maintenance. You have the energy efficiency, but it's also a future-proof solution for the municipalities. You can see, for example, if you're driving around in Stockholm, there we have a partnerships around traffic. When there is a lot of traffic, we have a different lighting in the city compared when there is less traffic.
That's a very concrete example of what you can do for the future thanks to the Capelon platform.
Great. Just, well, maybe the more shorter amount of the orders, what seems stabilizing and what's the info out there? Should we expect a normal seasonality? I'm not sure what that is actually because you have changed structure somewhat, but the third quarter is normally somewhat slower seasonality, even if the Infrastructure projects are running there. Should we expect the orders there to be delivered during the second half and maybe in the third quarter? Could you say something there?
It's depending what you mean by seasonality, Mats, what you refer to. If you refer to how it was way back?
I mean the normal holiday season, but I know you have these Infrastructure projects are maybe running more in the summer months and so on. Could you say something about being more out there? Are these orders expected to be delivered here in the third quarter to a large extent?
As we see, we always have a mix in our order base, I wouldn't say that there is any particularity in there. It's a mix of more longer and shorter-term projects in the order pipeline. There is no, not that we see today, any specific particularity around it. As I said before, you have always a little bit slower in the Nordics in July and a little bit slower in Southern Europe in August. That we have every year.
Yeah. I guess you have seen some extra costs here coming up, and it seems that competition is quite tough. Do you expect to be able to pass on the cost increases, or should we expect the margin squeeze here short term before the cost savings are being implemented?
I think we all learned and trained in terms of passing on cost to customer when it's a question that we're having increases that's coming in. We will do the same that you saw us doing in the past, if it's related to higher cost from if it might be aluminum or whatever it is. That we will do as we've done it in the past.
Okay. Great. Thank you.
Thank you, Mats.
There are no more questions from the telco at this time. I hand the word back to you, Niklas.
Thank you so much, Einar. Thank you for the questions. We have a few questions here. You mentioned and talk a lot about innovation. What actions do you take to boost innovation while simultaneously cutting your costs?
I think that's a question about what you protect. When you cut costs, I think we have a lot of things to do where we can work more together. You can cut costs in things which is not impacting innovation, and that's what we're trying to do. For me, there are two main parts that we need to safeguard. One is product innovation, and the second one is on the sales resource side, so that we have enough people on the ground. I think we have maybe the benefit of having a lot of things in between where we can be much more efficient than we've been in the past.
One example, maybe Oscar, you want to highlight a little bit more if we look into purchasing, for example.
Yeah. Absolutely. I think to start with, it's a little bit about accelerating and braking at the same time here, and be laser focused to Bodil's earlier point to make sure that we're not cutting everywhere, but we cut where we can, but invest where we need. Purchasing is a great opportunity for us where we've been working both on indirect spend, but also as we mentioned before, bringing the IT organizations together has enabled us to renegotiate some of our IT licenses, which of course then gives us a good saving bottom line. We also work in the group as one entity, if you like, where we negotiate prices on electronics. That is also an opportunity for us going forward to expand that activity to more areas outside of electronics.
As Bodil just mentioned, aluminum is a very good example where we, to date, actually have not worked as a group in driving purchasing activities. I think there is a good opportunity to benefit from the scale we actually have as an organization.
Okay. Thank you. Earn-out reevaluation in Trato TLV, how much impact on EBITA in Q2 and half year? How does phasing looking for the timing of payments related to the remaining contingent liability of SEK 123 million?
Yep, that's a very good question. The earn-out program is over three years. We just finalized the first year, we had a positive impact of SEK 19.8 million, as we mentioned, in this quarter. That is also the sum for the first half year. We just do this transaction once a year. Next time will be in Q2 next year. The outcome of that, we can't really tell today because it depends on the performance of Trato TLV.
Okay. Thank you. Also another question here regarding Capelon. Do you have any explanation or more information regarding the expansion outside Sweden? Are there any progress?
Yes. If we look into it, what we've said is we're focusing first on Sweden and then on the Nordics. I think we reported in the last quarter that we've seen first wins both in Finland and in Norway, which is positive. Then also expansion in Sweden. Currently focus on Sweden and the Nordics. Then we will look into Germany as the next focus, but that's not for this year. We will come back to you on that.
Okay, thank you all for joining today's webcast. We truly appreciate your time and active engagement. On behalf of Fagerhult Group, we would like to wish you all a great summer ahead.
Thank you, Niklas.
Thank you, everybody.