Hello, and welcome to Idun Industrier's Conference Call for the Fourth Report of 2025. My name is Carl Korsheden, and I work here as an Equity Research Analyst at DNB Carnegie with a focus on these more acquisition-driven companies. With me here in the studio, I have the CEO and the CFO of Idun, which will talk a little bit about the quarter, and then we will follow up with a Q&A session in during which you are highly encouraged to participate. We have a chat function, so if you type your questions there, I can read them up here in the studio to the management team.
With that, I hand over to you and then the fourth quarter.
Yeah, welcome to the presentation of the fourth quarter. I will start with a brief introduction or repetition, if you will, of Idun Industrier, who we are. We are an industrial group of company with a turnover of some SEK 2.3 billion and an EBITDA slightly above SEK 300 million. Idun is primarily a Swedish or Nordic company. Three quarters of sales is generated in Sweden and more than 90% in the Nordic countries, and we do have subsidiaries in Norway, Finland, Denmark, and all three Baltic countries. We consist of two business areas, manufacturing and service and maintenance, and we have 20 group companies. Our companies, we invest in manufacturing, industrial trading companies, and industrial services companies.
If there is one thing also to remember about Idun, it's that we really use the pilot school. We have in the Board of Directors of Idun, everyone is a owner, shareholder owner of Idun. In the mother company, all of us have the bulk of our private capital invested in Idun shares. If you look at the group companies, all the 20 group companies, we have co-ownership in each respective company, in the management team, in 100% of the companies. In total, we have more than 100 owners, managing directors, and other key employees in the companies. We think that in Idun Industrier, we have a unique link, and in terms of alignment of interest from you as external shareholders and down to the management group in each of the Idun Group companies.
Over to the fourth quarter and some highlights. Net sales increases by 8.4%. EBITDA up 2% to SEK 76 million in the quarter. It's, we have a good high cash conversion. We have earnings per share that increases more than 20%. In this quarter, we made two investments. One is add-on investment in MEAB Stainless, a company based in Malmö, a trading company with mainly stainless steel fasteners, some, well, specialized equipment and components. This was an add-on acquisition to Eugen Wiberger, our group company in Gothenburg. It should be said that there is a really good strategic fit between Wiberger and MEAB.
We invested in, we bought 80% of the shares in Trikåby. It's a new Idun Group company. Trikåby is the leading Swedish manufacturer of knitted fabrics and jersey fabrics. Quite a specialized position where they control the whole value chain. We are well, really proud of welcoming these two companies to the Idun family. If we take a look from the first investment in 2014, we have continuously invested in two to four companies, either new Group companies or add-on acquisitions per year. It has been a rather stable development. If we look back five years, for example, 2020 to 2025, EBITDA has increased 30% per year on average.
Sometimes the pace is faster. Sometimes like this year, it's slightly slower because we are towards the, hopefully towards the end of, well, not a recession, but a weaker market. We, if we take a look at how each quarter and the rolling twelve months and what it looks like for the six years, we again, we see a quite stable growth year on year and quarter by quarter. To the right in this picture, we also break down the sales growth in 2025 compared to 2024, we see that this 8.4% consists of 4.8% is organic growth, and the rest comes from investments in new group companies.
The same picture, but with operating profit. Again, a rather stable development year per year. Here we can see 2025 compared to 2024, that the organic, organically, it was actually a slight decrease compared to last year, but including acquisitions, growth by 2%. Here, this slide, the message here is really stability. We see rolling 12-month figures for five years for sales, gross profit, and operating profit. We see the gross profit is really stable at around 60%. If we look at the EBITDA figures, it's not like it's going up and down, it's really gradually and it's growing in a stable fashion from quarter to quarter. So that is the message in this picture.
With that, we will also now look at the business areas, and over to you, Oskar.
Thanks. Starting with manufacturing. Sales is up 8.11%, or it goes from SEK 337 million to SEK 364 million, driven mainly by acquisitions. A margin that is slightly below last year with 11.1% compared to 11.7%. Wiberger and the add-on acquisitions, MEAB, that Henrik already mentioned, performed well in the quarter and also for the full year 2025. Intermercato, on the other hand, load attachments for forestry, material handling, and so on, experience a weak market and demand. Both the quarter and the full year were a bit disappointing, but we see that the figures will turn in 2026.
Looking at the service and maintenance, here we have a sales growth of 8.8% and mainly organic growth in sales. EBITDA margin somewhat lower with 16.1% compared to 17.4%. Stegaföretagen that deliver car washing services, among other things, have had a strong performance both in the quarter and for the full year of 2025, driven by good car wash volumes. We have previously mentioned Triton, they service and manufacturing rollers for the process industry. They've had a challenging 2025, we have now reduced cost in the quarter and had a better profitability than compared to a weak ending of 2024.
Also mention, we see that the customers within the process industries. Many of our companies within this area, for instance Ståthöga MA Teknik, we have Triton, we have [ILEMA] service this area. We saw that they have reduced maintenance somewhat or slightly compared to previous years. We see that this will increase in 2026 compared to 2025. We had a good cash conversion in the quarter, around 84%, and for the full year, around 59%. Going ahead, we should be able to reach 60% or more in cash conversion.
Looking at the net debt, we increased net debt in the quarter with around SEK 150 million, mainly due to the new acquisitions mentioned by Henrik, Trikåby and MEAB Stainless. Our interest costs continue to decrease and decreased with SEK 4 million in the quarter, and we see that we will lower the interest cost with another SEK 5 million here in Q1. Going ahead here in the second quarter, we will continue to evaluate our bond that is callable from the 30th of June. Looking at our financial targets, we have a financial target of EBITDA growth of 15% over year, over time.
When we can see that we didn't manage to get at this level for 2025. With our current or the acquisitions made, and also Mouldex made here in Q1, and together with organic growth, we see that we will be back on track here in 2026. Net debt to EBITDA should be lower than 3.5x, and reported now at the end of 2024, it's 2.4x, but then not including EBITDA from the acquisitions made.
We have a dividend policy, maximum of 10% of the yearly profit, it has been between 8% and 10%, we will have a dividend of SEK 1.15 here at the annual general meeting in the spring.
Last slide, and let's repeat some key takeaways and say some words about the future. Fourth quarter for Idun, net sales increased by 8.4%, EBITDA increased by 2%, earnings per share more than 20%. In the quarter, we made two investments, MEAB Stainless and Trikåby. Also in January, as Oskar mentioned, we invested in Mouldex Sweden, which is a company that offers services and spare parts to the sawmill industry and particularly to planes. For planes, they have the leading position in Sweden. We're happy, very happy with that investment as well.
If we'll look ahead, we saw that in the end of 2025, it was a continued subdued economic environment, and it looks quite different from company to company. We have 20 group companies. Some of them meet quite strong headwinds, whereas for others it's quite looks quite good. It's different, mixed signals. Overall, we do feel that there are positive indications, and it's becoming gradually more positive over the year. We see specifically that we will be able to increase the operating margin in 2026 compared to 2025. Again, we have a very strong and stable group of companies. They are prepared to take advantage of the year to come.
Idun Industrier here centrally, we have a strong financial position, and we see continued opportunities for more investments. Well, I think that's it.
Yeah. Thank you very much for that. Again, if you have any questions, feel free to type them in the chat and, yeah, we'll try to answer them here in the room. Yeah, if we start off maybe on the service and maintenance division, we saw quite a nice, I guess, recovery here in the quarter after a few quarters where it's been a bit sluggish. Is there anything to highlight there? Is it mostly related to-- I mean, you've talked about some cost savings here taking effect in some companies recently, but maybe also on the demand side, if that has something to do with it. How would you break that up in terms of the improvements?
Well, I guess, it could be mentioned, Triton has performed strongly in the quarter compared to Q4 2024. That is certainly one part of it. Well, to make, to mention one example, also Stega performs very well.
On Triton then maybe, is that primarily a function on the margin side? So from taking these costs et cetera, or are you also seeing any improvements on the demand side for that business?
It's both, but short term, it is certainly we have taken out some, well, quite a lot of costs during the year in Triton. Because we had to. In parallel, the management there has worked on very actively with sales and meeting customers. We have employed new personnel actually there. At the same time, taking out some employees and adding in the sales area. It's both, but the short term effect, of course, is has more to do with cost reduction.
Yeah. Cool. Yeah, maybe if you have any comments on the sort of general market situation overall. You obviously have a lot of different companies with different growth drivers, et cetera, et cetera. If we just try to generalize a little bit, you obviously saw quite a step change here in organic growth coming up to almost 5%. It was, I believe, -2%, 1%, 2% or so in Q3. Would you say that sort of change is reflective of how the underlying market has developed, or are there any extraordinary items or extraordinary circumstances here we should keep in mind?
As Henrik mentioned, we had good volumes within car wash, during the full 2025, both for the full year, but also in the Q4, early Q4. That contributed positive.
I would say that, well, yes, we believe that during 2026, it is hard because, as you mentioned, we have very different companies and by purpose exposed to different market situations. In general, if we are to generalize, it is gradually becoming better. If we will not see, you never know with Iran and other, if there will be a new crisis of some kind. If not, we believe that gradually it will become better during 2026.
That's encouraging. Yeah, I mean, if we look at, I mean, mostly, I guess it's the service and maintenance division, but overall, you have a few companies exposed to the Nordic process industry. Are you seeing any signs of improvement there, or is that still sluggish and hopefully demand will pick up there as well, or?
I guess that is still sluggish.
Yeah.
I mean, these companies, the sawmills, for example, and pulp and paper mills have been reducing personnel in the fall, and it's not like they are en masse starting to employ new ones, yet. I guess, that is still to be seen.
We talk a lot about this both, I mean the defense related exposures, but also energy grids. We have all these AI investments, et cetera. Do we have any angle there in Idun? Do you have any of your companies in anyhow exposed to those, I guess, more fast-growing segments?
To be better business. for instance, have a lot of articles for the power grids and electrification in general.
Actually, we do have some companies with defense-related customers, but it is not the case that we have that is a big, very big sector for us. That's actually not so.
Yeah. I mean, yeah, you obviously mentioned also in the CO letter that you expect margins to gradually expand over time. Is that a function more of, I guess, these cost savings you've been taking recently? Is that more of a near-term statement or is that more long-term? If so, what do you think will be the key levers to over time increase that margin?
I think there are several factors here actually. One is the cost reductions, as you mentioned. The other is that we work and we always do actively, both with pricing towards customers, but also purchasing to work on the gross margin side. The third thing in addition to expenses and gross margin would be that if you look at the three recent most recent acquisitions, MEAB, Trikåby, and now Mouldex Sweden, all these three companies jointly adding some SEK 50 million in additional EBITDA, have actually higher EBITDA margin than the Idun Group before they joined. There are lots of reasons why we feel rather confident that we should be able to increase at least somewhat the EBITDA margin.
Yeah, that's clear. I guess maybe on that, on the topic of M&A, here, just in the last couple of months, we've seen quite a step change in M&A pace. Is that a coincidence that all of a sudden you have a couple of processes happening to get close to and quite a similar window or have you changed anything internally or? Yeah, how?
No, it is actually a coincidence. When you work with the investments in the way we do, and mostly we source most of the opportunities ourselves, it is often the case that, sometimes we make many investments in a short period of time, and then it could go some time in between, and that's okay with us because for us it's more important to make the right investments that are suitable for Idun and not make as many as possible.
Also, I think I made that comment before, we have to have discipline in walking away from the table if we feel during a due diligence process that something is not right. For me, for these reasons, it's actually very difficult to say exactly when there will be the next investment. You know, we are very happy with the three most recent ones.
Yeah. Do you see now, I mean, following this, all this in quite a short window, do you still feel you have the financial capacity and the pipeline to execute any further deals perhaps during H1 or somewhere in the near term or?
Absolutely, and yes to both questions. We both have the financial resources. We think the leverage is fully under control, and we have the pipeline to do that. Whether that will be in the first year or later, I cannot say of course, but that we see opportunities and that we will be making more investments, absolutely.
On this recently acquired companies, is there any seasonality there we should keep in mind, or is it a fairly even split throughout the year?
Fairly stable between the quarters.
Yeah. Thanks. Also, if we look a little bit into the future, maybe Q1, Q2 or so, is there anything to be said in terms of the comparisons from a year-over-year point of view? Anything that's standing out, we should keep in mind or similar, or is it business as usual?
Well, maybe I would say that, and that is linked to what I said in the presentation, that we believe that 2026 will gradually become stronger. In that comment, I guess you say that we. If I would have to bet today, will Q1 be better than Q1 last year or Q2 better than Q2, I would place my bet on Q2. We don't give specific forecasts, but we think it will, should gradually improve.
Got it. Yeah, maybe just, I think a final question from my side. If we look at the manufacturing division, so in this quarter, I think the service and maintenance was probably the clearest step up. Service and manufacturing still developing well, but somewhat lower margins year-over-year. What is the key reason for that? Is it mix or any of the companies coming into the group having dilutive margins ? Yeah, how should we view that when we model ahead?
I would say that, and please compliment Oskar, but if this is as a few, couple of company specific reasons, you had, well, Intermercato had a tough quarter, for example, and so did Sjöbergs. We are not. We are 20 group companies. Fewer per business area. So if you have a couple of them with more headwinds in a quarter, it, you can see it. So to say, I think that that is the reason.
Thank you very much. That was all from my side. I don't think we have any further questions more than the ones I've already asked here. If you have any final remarks or so, please go ahead.
No. Only that we think it was a decent, solid, good quarter, and we feel very confident, when we look into 2026. Thank you for watching.
Thank you.