Welcome to the Indutrade Q2 presentation for 2024. During the questions and answer session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to CEO, Bo Annvik, and CFO, Patrik Johnson. Please go ahead.
Welcome, and good morning on our behalf as well. We, we are quite happy with this, quarter. It's good to be back in terms of organic growth and, having a strong EBITDA margin. Let's start with some highlights. As I said, stable order intake, growth of 6% in total, whereof 1% organically. Continued good demand in medical technology and pharmaceutical, and also the process industry. It's basically the same, segments and sectors, as in quarter one. Net sales increased 5%, organically 1%, despite strong references and supported by some more working days. EBITDA margin of 14.8%, exactly the same as the underlying EBITDA margin last year. Inventory slightly down from quarter one, 2024, and also a good acquisition pace, six acquisitions completed in quarter two, and 12 so far in 2024.
The inflow of interesting companies to acquire remains strong. If we then comment a bit more on the order intake and sales, it's a continued aggregated, stable, high demand in terms of order intake, and an increased invoicing pace versus the first quarter, resulting in record high SEK 8.5 billion. Both order intake and net sales increased +1% organically versus high levels last year, and as I said, somewhat helped by more working days. Total order intake and net sales increased with 6% and 5%, respectively, supported by good acquisition pace this year. On the organic side, we still see some variations between segments and companies, and I will elaborate a bit more on this later.
In terms of segments, the MedTech and pharma sectors were good, and in particular, we can mention that the diabetes area was good, both in terms of insulin production in the Danish sort of market, but also device sales in the Scandinavian Nordic markets. We also saw a good demand in the process industry, more broadly there. As I've said before, we benefit, or our companies benefit from the green transformation quite broadly in the Scandinavian area, particularly, but quite a lot of projects also outside in the Western European sector or geography. The demand from the customers in the engineering sector was stable, more sort of varied picture there.
Also, I would say geographically, a bit stronger in the Nordic area, Scandinavian area, a little bit weaker further south in Europe. The business climate in the infrastructure and construction sector was continued dampened, but they see some lights, at least, more discussions in terms of projects, since the expectation of a better financial climate in the second half of the year is going to have a positive impact, but probably a fairly, fairly slow comeback, more impact in 2025 and onwards, I would guess. If we then comment on the sales in a geographical perspective, as you can see on the slide here, strong development in the Nordics, with a higher sales growth in Denmark.
Finland aggregated slightly lower growth, but underlying all good, dampened by strong references last year from larger deliveries to pulp and paper customers. And, as you also know, there is more of a base industry in Finland, having usually a situation with lower demand early in the cycle, and then they come back more quickly also when the cycle turns. The business climate is slightly weaker in general in central parts of Europe, with a stronger sales development in Germany, among the larger markets, and weakest in the Benelux, Netherlands area. Sales to North America and Asia is slightly volatile for us, and the development can fluctuate with single projects and companies. And this year, so far, more activities and projects noted primarily from the U.S. customers.
If we then look at the EBITDA margins, overall, a recovery, which was obviously very good to see. We weren't really happy with the development in quarter one, and now we've bounced back to a more, more the level where we should be 14.8%, driven by sequentially improved sales. It's also, as I said, exactly the same level as last, as last year, excluding the positive one-offs we had then. Compared to last year's, EBITDA increased within total 3%, where on -2% organically, and +5% from acquisitions. Organically, the gross margin strengthened slightly also this quarter, but the sales growth did not fully compensate for the increase in expenses.
The organic expense growth was, however, below 2%, so we see impact from better cost management in quarter two than in quarter one, and I assume this will continue also in H2. If we look at the different business areas, we can say that half of the company showed a sales growth in the quarter and three out of five business areas. The strongest development was in Life Science and Technology and Systems Solutions. The growth in Life Science was driven by sales of diabetes-related products in the Nordics and production equipment to Novo Nordisk in Denmark. The positive sales development in Technology and Systems Solutions came from several customer segments, and the majority of the company showed growth. Broad and good sales development also in the Business Area Process, Energy & Water, partly offset by strong references, references in valves for power generation.
Then lastly, slightly dampened market climate impacts business area, industrial and engineering and infrastructure and construction. So a little bit more dampened situation in the industrial and engineering area versus what we have seen before, nothing dramatic, and as we have also commented before, it's good to remember that most of our companies are small to medium-sized and can usually find business opportunities by being entrepreneurial and innovative. If we look at the EBITDA margin by business area, I would say it was solid margin performance with improvements in three out of five, and the development and level in industrial engineering and infrastructure and construction was held back by the dampened market and organic sales decline. But acquisitions and investments supported a margin improvement in infrastructure and construction.
The good margin levels and development in Life Science, Process, Energy & Water, and Technology & Systems Solutions was driven by a positive organic gross margin development and solid sales growth. In terms of acquisitions, we have a high pace so far in 2024. 12 well-managed companies acquired with combined annual sales of more than SEK 1.5 billion-SEK 1.1 billion . All business areas have acquired one or more than one company, and we have a number of projects in different phases ongoing, so I would guess that we will have, all in all, a good acquisition year. We have, as we have said before, a capability to acquire around 20 companies per year, and the conditions are continued good, I would say, going forward here. And, we don't sort of measure really acquisitions by, by quarter.
It's better to see that over a longer time period. When you compare 2023 to 2024 so far, it's good to remember that we prolonged deliberately some processes in 2023, but anyway, high pace so far this year. Towards the right there, you see the EBITDA effects from acquisitions, and in quarter one, the effects were not that strong, around SEK 30 million , and now in quarter two, we are coming up to more normal levels, SEK 60 million . The acquisitions we closed now in quarter two had an EBITDA margin of around 16%. I think the effects will continue to be positive in the remainder of the year. By that, I ask you, Patrik, to go through the financials in some more details.
Yes, thank you, Bo. Total growth for orders and sales in the quarter was 6% and 5% respectively. And if you look at the year-to-date, orders, they have grown 3%, and sales is in line with the high levels of last year. Book-to-bill in the quarter, slightly below 1, but looking at the year-to-date accumulated number, it's still above 1. Continued with the good gross margin development in the quarter, and good to see 35.4 versus 34.6 last year. And almost the same in the year-to-date numbers. EBITDA increased with 3% in the quarter, and mainly thanks then to contribution from acquisitions. Year-to-date, we're still below last year.
The EBITDA margin for the quarter was 14.8 compared to 15. But, as mentioned, we had some positive one-offs last year, primarily related to earn-outs. And if you exclude that, the margin was last year also 14.8, so in line with each other. Finance net up 15% in the quarter and 16% year-to-date, and entirely related to the interest rates, the higher interest rates. Tax cost up 1% in the quarter, and down 11% year-to-date, and that's all in line with the result, which means that the underlying tax rate is the same as last year, around 23%.
Earnings per share increased with 1% in the quarter, and we look at the graphical trend in the slides to come. Return on capital employed declined, but is still on a good level of 20%, on 20%, in line with our financial target. Operational cash flow is good in the quarter, around SEK 1 billion, but slightly weaker than last year. Accumulated cash flow is 1.5 versus 1.7 last year. Net debt/EBITDA, end of the quarter is at 1.7 versus 1.9 last year, and we'll come back to the net debt later on as well.
So then cash flow, and as I said, then slightly more than SEK 1 billion in the quarter, and that is slightly lower than last year, but I would say it's a good level. It's the second highest quarter two ever, as you can see from the slide. The decrease versus last year is mainly driven by less favorable working capital movements. However, inventories, as we are focusing on, declined organically slightly since last quarter. Then also, good to highlight is that our companies are relatively capital light, and continuously, we have a strong underlying operational cash flow coming from the companies, and that is reflected in a good cash conversion, which we have added then to this slide. Right now, we are trending then on 140%.
If you measure then cash conversion as net profit or, the operating cash flow compared to net profit less CapEx. That's how we defined it here in the slide. 140%, on a rolling four-quarter basis. And the working capital efficiency, which is a focus area for us, the level, however, is relatively unchanged, at the end of this quarter compared to last year and also compared to year-end. And the lower organic sales, of course, is creating some headwind in the work here, but we continue to push on this area. And if we continue with looking at the earnings per share development, earnings per share for the quarter was SEK 2 , and that is an increase of 1% last year.
The increase, of course, driven by the higher EBITDA, but dampened slightly by the increase in interest costs and amortizations. If you look at the longer perspective, the growth in 3-year and 5-year rolling four-quarter earnings per share were 12% and 14%, respectively. Then finally, coming back to the debt situation. The interest-bearing net debt increased sequentially compared to quarter one and was then 9.5 at the end of quarter two. That increase is entirely driven then by the dividend payout. Because of this, quarter two is seasonally normally the quarter with the highest debt; might be good to remember.
But when it comes down to the debt ratios, net debt/equity was 63% versus 74% last year, and the net debt/EBITDA was 1.7 versus 1.9 last year. And if you exclude earn-outs, which we always include in the net debt, it would have been slightly lower, 1.6 versus 1.7 last year. So to summarize, despite the high acquisition pace, our debt ratios are well balanced and we have a strong financial position. By that, I think I end and leave back over to Bo.
Thanks. We thought we could elaborate a little bit on our sustainability situation, and we have worked diligently and focused on that for some years now. And last year, we introduced something we called the Indutrade Sustainability Awards. Many know that we successfully have used financial benchmarking awards since a very long time in the group, and based on that, we have copied this into the sustainability area. And obviously, we want to acknowledge great work, share knowledge, and inspire each other to improve. And the companies can nominate themselves or nominate other companies, and we have three categories. It's within people, the environment, and products and customers.
And the winners this time was in the people category, a Finnish trading company called YTM, a fairly large company, providing you can say critical components to the Finnish process industry. They have done a fantastic job to basically improve culture, work with diversity, inclusiveness, and also improve KPIs business wise. And in terms of the environmental area, we have a Swedish company called ETP. They manufacture hydraulic hub shaft connections and tool holders and components like that. And they have done a fantastic job, I would say, on the environmental side, to really decarbonize large parts of their value chain. Really impressive. And then we have a Danish company called BPI, which we acquired fairly recently, and they provide customer specific and engineered foam solutions.
They are extremely structured in terms of how they go about the whole sustainability area, and work towards becoming fossil free and offer more and more circular solutions, and, and that is also having good business impact. Good for you to understand a little bit about this. At the end of this quarter, we have also applied to have our updated climate targets validated, validated by Science Based Targets initiative. As soon as we have more to update in terms of this, we will obviously communicate that as well. But all in all, a lot happens, I would say, in terms of sustainability, and we see that as a clear business opportunity within Indutrade. Time to summarize the key takeaways.
So stable demand and increasing net sales, despite challenging references, and a solid EBITDA margin and cash flow, and I think, maybe the highest gross margin, at least since I joined Indutrade. Record high acquisition pace, 12 acquisitions so far in 2024, and with a combined annual sales of SEK 1.1 billion. And the uncertainty around the general business climate remains for the second half of the year, but with a strong acquisition pace and the solid backlog we have and somewhat easier references, we are quite optimistic about H2. And all in all, well-positioned for further growth with a strong portfolio of entrepreneurial companies in a new group structure, which we think will have positive impact in the medium and long term, not least linked to organic, organic sales growth.
By that, we end the formal presentations and leave the word over to the facilitator.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Zino Engdalen Ricciuti from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Hello, Bo and Patrik, and thanks for taking our questions. I would like to start in Life Science and talk a bit about the sequential margin development. You mentioned that you had some deliveries now. Can you talk about how they have impacted the margins?
Yeah, I would say it's, it's a broad-based good situation, and, we, highlighted the, the companies related to production, increases and, and build outs at Novo Nordisk, and, and also device sales in the Nordic markets of, the diabetes equipment. But, there are a lot of other companies also, having a good, market situation. And still, I would say, more potential to come in terms of the single-use area. Their customers have still had quite, quite high inventories of products, and, and we haven't seen, real order intake taking off again there. And hopefully, that happens, towards later this year, early next year. A bit difficult to say exactly when, but, but there is potential to come in that area.
And the Novo Nordisk situation will continue to be strong for several years. They have different phases of their different types of extensions, so it's not, something we only live with, you know, very short term now, and, and then this will disappear, but it's a more, more, several year types of, of engagement, I would say. Was that answering your question, or?
Yes. And then moving on to Process, Energy & Water, you also there had a good margin development, and you mentioned that it's a relatively good environment there. Can you also talk a bit about the drivers there in the margin? And also if you think that those drivers are more sustainable or if there should be a degree of reversal there.
No, I think that's quite sustainable as well. I, it's quite broad-based, as I said, it's not, you know, just a few companies, doing extraordinary, extraordinary well. It's, it's, more a broader good situation, and, to some extent, project-based, but, there are always, new projects. And as I said, not least linked to the green transformation, which is, ongoing, continuing. There are also some, projects linked to the defense area, which, which will also be interesting for several years, going forward. Maybe a little bit lower market for, for, pulp and paper, for example, which is a big flow technology area, and usually, at least in the Nordics now, but, that will, eventually come back, I think so.
So now, fairly broad-based, good situation, and no, it will be hopefully continued at the level where we are.
Okay. And just lastly from me, we talked last quarter a bit about some of the companies not being on their toes as much with cost when they faced headwinds, and it looks better now. Do you think that there's anything there worth mentioning regarding the work that has been done in the quarter with your company's managing costs?
I would say it's in general, Indutrade companies and Indutrade team members are good in terms of cost consciousness. Maybe part of this has been linked to organic growth investments, and now, when the market in some sectors and segments have been a bit subdued, there hasn't been payoff from those initiatives, and then in general, maybe there could have been a little bit more quick response to manage costs, when they have seen that order intake has stabilized or perhaps even been weaker in some specific companies and so on and so forth.
Yeah, just clear dialogue between Business Area management and companies, and boards and companies, to manage this well. And we have seen some effects from this later in quarter two, and I assume this will continue to be sort of well managed in Q3 and Q4, but I don't know, Patrik, if you want to elaborate anything on this.
No, no, I think you expressed it well. I think we have a slightly lower cost level in this quarter compared to the first, and it's the right trend. So I think, and I also think, as you say, that we'll continue improvement during the second half of the year.
Yeah.
Okay, good. That was all for me. Thanks, and hope you have a nice summer.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Carl Ragnerstam, from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Good morning, it's Carl here from Nordea. Just a follow-up on the cost side here, as you mentioned. Just, I mean, if I understood it correctly, you had two percentage points lower increase in SG&A sequentially here. Is it fair to assume a similar sort of deceleration of the acceleration of the costs or sequentially entering Q3 as well?
Oh, Patrik, do you wanna, you wanna make a comment on that?
Well, I think what you will see is it, it's not the sort of a dramatic decrease in cost. It's more of a, if we have them, partly because of inflation and partly because of growth investment in selected companies, we've seen an increase during last year. And step one is to stabilize that, and I don't think it will go down dramatically. I think it will be stabilized, maybe slightly down here and there in certain companies that see a more softer climate. But I think you will see sort of a sideways going cost level. If not, demand will turn into a worse situation, then, of course, companies need to act, but that is not sort of our prediction.
Mm-hmm. And then when you see here and there, it's, I guess you're building costs a little bit then in, I guess, Life Science, parts of the science, and lower in Construction or-
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, and in general, we, and I think you've heard that, Carl, we work with a, you know, a structured portfolio model, where we define the companies, where they are in terms of strategy and, you know, business climate, et cetera. And the companies that are clearly categorized as growth companies, here, we allow or even push for investment and doing more. So that is, we will continue to do, but then companies that are not ready really to grow, they, of course, need to be much more cautious, especially when you have soft business climate then. So you need to push and work with this very selectively and adapt it to the companies.
Oh, that's good. And on Life Science, you touched upon the Novo volumes a bit here, but you said that it's a long-term trend, obviously. Should we expect the continued volatility between the quarters, or should we expect sort of a more stable development in the deliveries over the coming few quarters here, I guess? And the second part is, are you taking new orders from the same customer, or is it that you're actually totally draining the backlog with every delivery?
We are definitely taking new orders, and we'll do so for quite some time. And there could be volatility between quarters, I would say, but maybe not over four quarters or so, more of a stable trend. And the volatility is probably higher order intake-wise than on sales-wise.
Okay. Very clear. And also looked a bit on sort of central costs in the quarter up to SEK 100 million. Is it any revaluation acquisition cost we should consider there?
What we define as group items is much more than...
Yeah, for sure.
We have, of course, sort of the central cost, but then you have also, as you refer to, earn-out releases, potential write-downs, and other things, IFRS adjustments. So it is a bit up and down, I would say. And last Q2, we had some earn-out releases, so that I think that's the major thing pulling down the levels last year, and we did not have that basically this year. So, that's the big deviation, I would say.
Okay. That is, that is also very clear. And now you had the new group structure for half a year or so. Could you update us a bit on what you've seen so far in terms of collaboration between the companies, the deal flow, which we're supposed to, I guess, be better when the same type of company perhaps talk to each other in an easier way, and also on perhaps cost efficiency, the latter is perhaps a bit far-fetched, but anyway.
Yeah. We are in early days, I would say. It's extremely important that the individual company is still the core of Indutrade or the collection of 200+ individual companies, and that we are not pushing for too much coordination or cooperation in some sort of awkward way, if you understand what I mean. So now we have these 30+ segment leaders, and they usually have from 3-4 companies to 10 companies, maybe in their segments. Some of them are maybe still MDs in a specific company, in addition to this role, and some of these people have this as a full-time job, you can say.
And they have started now to visit companies, engage in the boards, and have some initial segment meetings, but this is like a slower, slower race, if you use that word. And I think, and we think the benefits are more medium term than short term. So now we are assessing potential areas of sharing and soft synergies, sort of, and they are also building on this wide spot acquisition agendas. But it's gonna take, you know, probably a year or two before we really see any material effect from it, I would think.
Mm. That's very clear. And the final one from me is a bit on infrastructure and construction. You said the demand is still muted, but we still saw positive organic order growth in the quarter. Is it that you had any big projects in, I guess, infra that drove the organic growth? Or, yeah, how should we look at it?
Yeah, there were some specific companies who had yeah, quite good order intake. So I would still say that it's a bit muted, as you said yourself, as an area. So no quick bounce back in Q3-
Mm
Q4. More of a slow potential progress and more impact in 2025 would be my guess.
Mm.
Then if I add also, I think, the comment on the segment is sort of more of an sort of overall assessment. And if you look at us and our business area structure, the companies, many of the companies are selling to different types or more than one customer segment. And we also have then technology and system solution that is more of a technology and a product-oriented business area, and they sell also broadly to all the customer segments. So and for instance, in that segment, there is more dampened development towards the infrastructure and construction segment. So it is more of an overall assessment rather than the business area development.
Mm-hmm. Okay, fair enough. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from Johan Skoglund from DNB Markets. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Johan from DNB here. Congratulations on the Q2 report. Just a couple of short questions building on the many good ones that were already asked. So continuing in on infrastructure and construction, the margins there are progressing well. Do you see that segment performing in line with the group once demand situation normalizes, or do you see any higher or lower potential there going forward?
No, I would expect them to be at 14% in a normal business climate. And maybe also going beyond that. So it's not a collection of weaker companies, less quality companies. It's also really good companies in that Business Area. So no, they should come back to a more Indutrade standard level.
Okay, that's very good to hear. And the final question is on the gross margins, which were strong in Q2. You mentioned that they're mainly driven by price hikes, but have you also seen purchasing gains from lower input prices or more efficient purchasing here?
I wish I could have said that we have been, that we have become, you know, much more professional in the purchasing area. I think that's a slow process, so maybe more raw material market swings, you know, maybe, like steel prices going down and things like that. But more, it's more on the price side than effective purchasing reductions, I would say.
Oh, okay. So are you able to quantify how much of growth was price and how much was volume?
No, we have very, it's a very difficult analysis for us with this type of structure we have, so we can't do that now.
Okay, got it. Well, thank you for answering my questions, and good luck with Q3.
Thank you so much.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Well, then, we say-
The next question comes from Karl Bokvist from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. My first question is on just if we take Q1 and Q2 together now, as you said, Q1 perhaps a bit below what you had hoped. Q2 seems to be back on track, but are you fully back on track now compared to what we might say, you know, normal levels and the headwinds you described in Q1, and what the units have done to recover that in Q2?
Yeah. I don't know how we should interpret the word fully, but, I would say, we might even have a slightly better cost situation in Q3, expense situation in Q3, Q4, or H2 versus H1, definitely. And, we strive or our company strive to continue to manage gross margins in a good way. And, I think the demand situation will be quite okay in H2. So yeah. Quite positive.
Okay, understood. You already discussed it a bit now during the call here, but for lack of better words, the special deliveries you mentioned in Q1 that were, I believe you said they were partly, like, delayed. Are they kind of back to normal now in Q2?
Special deliveries in Q2?
Yeah. I might have misinterpreted, but I think you partly said, like, single use and stuff, year-over-year was a bit challenging, but also, I think it was some project deliveries that might have not been, you know, delivered at the full extent that you had hoped for in Q1.
Mm-hmm. Single use is still weak, rather weak in Q2, and so hopefully better in Q4, but maybe even Q1 next year. So that area will be a little bit subdued, muted, still for some time, I think, but the inventory situations at those customers are yeah, it's definitely much better, and at some point now, they definitely need to place new orders in to a higher extent. I don't know.
If I comment-
Yeah.
I think the delays we talked about in Q1 was related to Novo Nordisk. We have a good backlog-
Yeah
And we did not deliver that much in Q1 because, yeah, there was delays from the customer side, basically.
Yeah.
But that has been much better in quarter two, and we expect the levels from quarter two to be—we will see those also in the second half of the year. It is slightly volatile between quarters. It's not sort of the same amount every month, but the prediction is that we will see basically what we saw in Q2, also in the second half of the year.
Understood. And now when there's been a bit more time with the new divisions here, can we... I understand, or I heard a comment you said about construction in a normal business climate to be at 14% or so, but when you look at the other divisions, is there anything worth pointing out for these divisions going forward compared to the two years that you have disclosed, for us to consider?
Basically, all of them have growth potential and obviously, construction and infrastructure, since they are at that low EBITDA level right now, they have the expectation level is much higher, that they should perform better, quicker when the market is bouncing back. Life Science is at 18% or even above, it's a good level and obviously, a little bit more demanding for them to go from 18 to 20, 22. But I would say all areas have the potential to increase and improve, and the...
If we then talk about growth and EBITDA margin improvement, we are extremely set on trying to deliver on our target of 10% growth per year, and if we can do that at stable margins where we are now, I think that's quite good. But over time, we have ambitions to also improve the EBITDA margin, but it's as we have said before, it's a bit of a slower race and in a fairly normal market situation, maybe it's 0.5% EBITDA, you know, over two years or something like that, organically, which can be expected, and then it can go quicker if we are successful in terms of acquisition projects. So, yeah.
All right. Understood. Thank you.
Thanks.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Then again, we say thanks for listening in and being engaged at the call here, and we wish you a great summer. Thanks from us.