Welcome to the conference call. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. 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 the speakers. Please go ahead.
Welcome, and good morning on our behalf as well. We are glad to report another strong quarter and full year from Indutrade. As usual, let's start with the overall highlights, this year or this time for, for 2023 overall. It was a great year, obviously, primarily thanks to our entrepreneurial companies, people, and, our balanced diversification. We had stable, high demand, with total order intake growth of 13%, and +18% for net sales. Perhaps more understandable in, in absolute terms, sales increased from, SEK 27 billion to SEK 31.8 billion, almost SEK +5 billion, which is equal to a large business area for Indutrade. So very good, top line development in the year.
We also had a solid EBITDA margin, 15%, and also comforting with record high operational cash flow, driven from the strong, strong result, and also that we have worked with the capital efficiency and inventory reductions during the year. We have added nine well-managed and good profitable companies during the year, with a total annual turnover of SEK 1.2 billion. And towards the end of the year, we decided to change the group structure, and we introduced five international business areas, which I will come back to. And the board proposes a dividend of SEK 2.85, which is an increase of 10% versus last year. If we focus a little bit more on the fourth quarter, again, strong order intake growth, 14% overall, and +4% organically.
The segment which stood out is medical technology and pharmaceuticals. Net sales growth of 8%, organically flat versus last year, and continued high EBITA margin at 14.6%. Underlying, that was exactly the same level as last year. New all-time high operational cash flow, not least linked to the inventory reductions we have worked with. We were able to complete two acquisitions in the quarter and have made three so far at the start of 2024, and I would say that the inflow of interesting companies is on a good level. Then we comment a bit more specifically on order intake. I would say that it continues to be aggregated on a high demand level and improved versus last year.
Organically, it's the best quarter since quarter three 2022, so it's obviously comforting to end the year in that way. There are, however, as usual, variations between companies and segments, and almost half of the companies grew order intake organically in the quarter, and the orders were 3% higher than sales in the quarter. And if we just mention the numbers, so +14% in total, +4% organically, +7% from acquisitions, and +3% from currency. And to try to talk a bit more about segments, as I said before, on an overall basis, I would say that MedTech and Pharma stood out in a positive sense, and the order intake was supported by a large order for Flow Technology equipment for pharmaceutical production in the quarter.
But there were several companies linked to MedTech who did well in the quarter. We have certain companies working with laboratory equipment, for example, selling to large university hospitals or research institutions and things like that. And there is usually a strong ending towards the year where they basically fill up their budgets, also so this year. And then there are several companies working in different applications areas which have good order intake. The cluster of companies linked to single-use was a little bit weaker towards the end of the year, but I think we'll have a better development in 2024. Also, good development in the energy sector. There are activities in all energy areas, I would say.
There are nuclear improvements, maintenance initiatives around in different places in Europe. Also, the wind sector, also solar equipment and LNG terminals being built, and so on and so forth, linked to the types of companies we have. And I think it's relevant to understand that an average Indutrade companies sell for about SEK 125 million per year, about SEK 10 million per month. So there is not a very significant sort of project level needed in order to fill the capabilities and capacities of these types of companies.
So, when a municipality improves on water distribution or water sort of cleaning or linked to municipality heating and things like that, there are activities for the types of companies we have in a good way. I would say the process industry was also quite okay, slightly weaker in the engineering sector in quarter four, but nothing very dramatic. Perhaps a little bit surprising, the infrastructure and construction segment was flat or in line with last year, and there were some companies having a couple of larger orders helping up that segment in a good way.
If we look at business areas, Flow Technology and Fluids & Mechanical Solutions stood out, and this was again linked to orders in the MedTech pharma sector and also in the automotive aftermarket, good, good development. The weakest development was in Measurement & Sensor Technology, but they also had more difficult references from last year in a couple of their larger companies. If we then turn to sales, overall, we are having more of a normalized backlog now and normalized order book. It's approximately 20% of our sales or around 2.5 months of sales. So we have had several quarters where we have had good invoicing from a bigger, larger order book.
It was 1 working day less in quarter four compared to last year, and, as I said, overall, +8%, organically flat, +6% from acquisitions and +2% from currency. Three out of 8 business areas grew in the quarter. It was primarily then the Fluids & Mechanical Solutions, Industrial Components, and Measurement & Sensor Technology. If we look at overall perspective of all companies, there were a majority of the companies actually grew sales in the quarter. We should also say now that supply chains are more normalized and, in a group perspective, we don't see any really major significant issues in terms of that. We have also included a slide presenting our sales towards different customer segments on an overall year basis.
This doesn't change very much year-over-year, but you can see here that the largest customer segment is MedTech and pharmaceuticals now, and there was an increase by approximately 1% in that segment. The second biggest segment is infrastructure and construction, and there we saw a reduction of 1%. Otherwise, it's a stable situation versus a year ago, but it's good to see that our deliberate focus on the MedTech pharma is paying off, and we see good growth, profitable growth in that segment. If we look at sales more in a market perspective, geographic perspective, you can see that Scandinavia stands out positively. There is a plus on Sweden, two pluses on Norway, and a flat in Denmark.
In Sweden, I would say it's a relatively broad segment development in a positive sense, but obviously, MedTech pharma stands out, or also water, the water segment and the infra segment. In Norway, not perhaps very well known of the MedTech area, but we have a few MedTech companies doing well in Norway in the quarter, but also on the energy side in Norway has been positive. In Denmark, a mixed development, and nothing really stood out versus a year ago. Finland is a bit weaker. A lot of base industry in Finland, usually early weakening in a business cycle, and also a bit weak in infrastructure and construction for us.
U.K. and Ireland, strong references from high sales to the pharma segment in Ireland last year didn't really materialize those types of larger projects in this quarter, but still a very positive outlook in terms of activities in Ireland in 2024. Holland, Belgium, also strong references from sales to the pharma customers last year, and that was more these clusters of single-use oriented companies. Germany, weaker demand in engineering, and again, a little bit more challenging references linked to single-use pharma in Germany. Switzerland and Austria, decline driven mainly by infrastructure and construction, and we had some projects to the pulp and paper industry last year, which hasn't materialized this quarter. And we are quite small in Asia and North America, so here, certain specific project businesses can impact the numbers.
Last year, we had some good projects into North America, was a bit less this quarter, and on the other way around, now we had some good engineering-related orders to Asia, which brought sales to Asia up in the quarter. If we look at our organic sales growth over the different quarters here, we have now had 14 consecutive quarters with growing or stable organic sales, which is good. As I said before, a majority of the companies actually grew sales organically in the quarter, and 3 out of 8 business areas. On a rolling five-year average, organic growth is now above 5%, obviously recognizing that inflation has played a certain role in that.
Then we turn focus to our EBITDA performance, and it continues to be a high profitability level. EBITDA was slightly higher than SEK 1.1 billion in the quarter, an increase with 6%. A bit weaker organically, -5%, +8% from acquisitions, and +3% from currency. And the underlying EBITDA, as I said before, was in line with last year's level at 14.6%. And last year, we actually reported 15.0%, but we had some one-off effects from earn-out releases in that quarter. I think, yeah, we can also say, which Patrik, I think, will comment on, that the gross margin was also more or less stable on a good level in the quarter.
If we then turn to the business area perspective and start with the sales, as I said, organic growth in three out of eight business areas and in a majority of the companies. Here will be similar comments to the market perspective I already spoke a bit about, but Benelux, there we had some strong references in the pharma sector and also in the energy sector, so hence, a bit weaker numbers there this quarter, and also a bit weaker in terms of infrastructure and construction in the Benelux region. DACH and Finland, a bit similar, weaker sales in a majority of the companies with the infrastructure and construction segment standing out negatively. Flow, strong sales in a majority of the companies, but also stronger references in certain pharma-related companies offsets.
Fluids and Mechanical Solutions, a majority of the companies grew sales also in this business area, and as I said before, good development in the Automotive aftermarket and also in water and wastewater. Industrial Components, positive sales development in a majority of the companies with MedTech and engineering as the strongest contributors. Measurement and Sensor Technology, mixed sales development between the companies with good development in, for instance, engineering and HVAC. And finally, U.K., slightly less than half of the companies grew sales in the quarter with the marine and infrastructure and construction segment standing out negatively. Then we have the profitability in a business area perspective. Actually, five business areas improved EBITDA margin. DACH really ended the year in a fantastic way. And then Finland, Fluids and Mechanical Solutions, Industrial Components, and the U.K. all improved.
A large EBITDA margin decline in the Benelux area, again, driven by lower performance in the pharma sector and energy-related sector, and a bit also linked to infrastructure and construction. And the large improvement in the DACH area, we had strong contributions from some newly acquired companies, and then we also had a bit of a one-off effect linked to pensions. And in Finland, increased EBITDA margin, even those sales declined organically, but thanks to really good gross margin development and contribution from a newly acquired company. The margin from Flow Technology declined as a result of lower organic sales in combination with some cost inflation. And Fluids and Mechanical Solutions, they actually expanded margin, and mainly from good development in the automotive aftermarket and MedTech and Pharma segments.
MedTech and Pharma was also the factor driving the performance in Industrial Components. In Measurement and Sensor Technology, the decline came primarily from slightly weaker gross margin in a few companies. The EBITDA margin for BA U.K. increased thanks to good gross margin development, among others, connected to a positive development in the defense customer segment. Then if we leave the business areas and turn our focus to acquisitions, as I said before, nine well-managed, really good companies acquired during 2023, combined annual sales of SEK 1.2 billion. We made acquisitions in six out of eight business areas, and five out of nine of the acquisitions was made outside of the Nordics.
Since the business climate, business cycle was a bit unstable in the beginning of last year, and also our cash flows were not really at the level where we wanted them to be, we deliberately prolonged some of our acquisition process during the year, and hence, the result being 9, otherwise, it could have been higher. We did 2 acquisitions in quarter four, and now we have started the year in a really good way and made 3 acquisitions already so far, and we are in a number of projects still, and you should expect a good continuation in terms of acquisitions here in the foreseeable future.
As we have said before, we have strengthened acquisition capabilities, both centrally in our team in, in Stockholm, but also in the business areas, and we have good and high ambitions in this area. We obviously follow our acquisitions over time, as you can see on these charts here, and most of you know that we have an ambition to make two to three acquisitions per business area per year. 2021 and 2022 were strong years, and last year, a little bit weaker, and the three-year average is currently at 14. And if we look at the financial effects, the bridge effects from acquisitions the last 12 months, very strong ending of the year for many companies, positive one-offs in there as well.
By that, I leave the word over to Patrik to comment a bit more specifically on the financials.
Thank you, Bo. Yes, let's dive into the financials a little bit more. Total growth for orders and sales was +14% and +8%, respectively, in the quarter. And if you look at the full year, growth was +13% and +18%. Absolute value, full-year sales amounts to SEK 31.8 billion then. Orders were 3% higher than sales in the quarter, supported by a larger order of flow equipment for pharma production, as Bo mentioned. Continued good price work from our companies resulted in a stable and high gross margin for the quarter, 34.8% versus 34.9%. On a full year basis, 34.7%, in line with last year. EBITDA grew 6% in the quarter and 16% for the full, for the full year.
The EBITDA margin was 14.6, versus the reported margin of 15% last year. But there are some one-offs embedded in the result connected to earn-out revaluations and goodwill write-down. The net effect was not that big this year and did not affect the margin, overall margin. But last year it was slightly more positive and had an effect of 0.4 percentage points on the margin. The gross amounts, they were, however, slightly larger this year, with both revaluations and write-downs of slightly more than SEK 400 million. This relates mainly to two larger acquisitions in 2022, which have had a slightly weaker sales and profit development than the ambitious plans at the acquisition.
The reasons behind this, this slightly weaker development, for one of the companies is much connected to weaker construction, a generally weak construction market, and for the other company, then a slower pickup on the Chinese market. The long-term prospects of both these companies are still assessed as positive and good. To summarize, the underlying margin for the quarter was in line with last year on 14.6%. For the full year, margin was 15% versus 15.2% last year. Further down in the P&L finance net, up 71% versus last year because of the higher interest rates. For the full year, the increase was even higher, but of course, from a very low level.
Tax cost for the quarter are actually lower than last year, mainly related to tax effects on these, the one-off items I mentioned before. Full-year tax costs are up 9%, corresponding to an underlying tax rate of 22%, which is basically in line with last year. Earnings per share increased 5% in the quarter and 7% for the full year, and I'll come back to a slide on that. Return on capital employed continue at the good level, 21% above the target that we have, slightly lower than last year, driven by increased capital tied up. Working capital increased during 2022, and a high acquisition pace that we had in late 2022 and beginning of 2023 impacts the capital tied up.
Cash flow, all-time high, above SEK 1.5 billion, driven mostly by a more favorable working capital development than last year. All this then turning into a good development of our debt ratios. Net debt/EBITDA declined from Q3 to 1.4 versus 1.8 last year. So moving on and looking on the cash flow more in detail. As you can see then, record operational cash in the quarter and slightly above SEK 1.5 billion. Improvement versus last year relates to the favorable working capital development. And if you look at last year, we actually had, we actually had a small increase in working capital in quarter four, but this year or 2023, the capital, the capital declined during the quarter.
This was supported then by continued inventory reductions in the quarter, which is very encouraging to see, of course. The inventory levels are, however, still somewhat high, and we continue with the work to further reduce it looking forward. The working capital efficiency, measured as 12 months rolling working capital in relation to sales, improved versus Q3, which is good then, but remains slightly lower than last year. So still some work to do in that area. Earnings per share increased in the quarter with 5%, as I mentioned before, then from 1.86 to 1.95, and looking at the full year basis, it increased with 7% to 7.86 SEK per share.
The increase, of course, relates very much to the EBITDA increase, then it's somewhat offset then by the increased finance net and also higher amortizations. The longer term perspective, if you look at the last three-year average or the five-year average, we have good growth of 20% and 16% per year, respectively. Then lastly, looking at the debt and the financial position, the interest bearing net debt decreased sequentially from quarter three to SEK 7.7 billion. The decrease is mainly connected to the strong cash flow, but also because of slightly fewer acquisitions the last year and in the last quarter. The earn-out revaluations also, of course, impact this as we normally include earn-outs in the net debt calculation.
All in all, then our net debt ratios declined versus last quarter and are now low from a historical perspective, even. Net debt/equity ratio was 53% and net debt/EBITDA, 1.4. And if you exclude earnouts, they are 1.3. And in conclusion, financial position is very strong, strong cash flow, low debt ratios, and also the maturity profile is well balanced, I would say, over a longer period, and only small part of the debt is short term, and ample amount of guaranteed unused credit facilities as well. So a strong financial position. So by that, I say thank, and leave back to Bo.
Very good. We also announced a new group structure towards the end of last year, introducing five international new business areas, and this is an evolutionary change in our perspective. We have the overall ambition, as you know, to double the size and top line of Indutrade in a five-to-eight-year perspective, depending on business cycles. When we work strategically, we assess what we potentially need to do differently or change, and now we felt that it was time to review our group structure and build a platform for our next growth phase. The new structure is clearly focused on business sectors and business segments.
It's clear outside in market-driven perspective, and the individual company is still very much at the core, so no philosophy, philosophical change in terms of that. Indutrade is all about being entrepreneurial, decentralized, long term as before. But we basically aggregate our companies in new areas, and the benefit is not going to be short term, more medium term, medium term, long term.
And we feel that there is potential for our companies to increase the knowledge-sharing dimension between them, but also strategically, when we work with specific segments, we see that we usually have maybe two or three companies in a certain niche, in two or three markets, but then there are sort of wide spots in five to 10 other markets in Europe, where we potentially could use our capabilities. So I think this will drive both organic growth and also making our acquisition growth a bit more structured. So, I'm extremely sort of enthusiastic about this and look forward to step by step realizing these potentials. I also think it makes it easier to understand Indutrade from an external perspective.
I think these five areas are quite clear what they mean and what they are, and all of them represent underlying growth opportunities based on the technology areas they represent and the need to grow in different types of application areas. So we will comment more on this in our Q1 report, and we will obviously restate the numbers like two years back or so, so you can understand the recent development in this new structure as well. So then if we summarize a very good 2023 for the year for Indutrade and a strong ending of the year in Q4, continued high and stable demand situation.
However, still uncertainty around the general state of the economy for the coming quarters, and we are aware that we face some tough references, but there is also a strong underlying market drivers, not least linked to this green technology transition we have spoken about, and perhaps mostly so in the Scandinavian areas, but also a growing MedTech and pharma sector, where we are extremely well-positioned. And again, bearing in mind that we predominantly have smaller, mid-sized companies with an opportunity-oriented mindset, being agile, finding business in different niches in a good way. Solid EBITDA margin and all-time high operational cash flow, 9 acquisitions in 2023, adding SEK 1.2 billion in sales, and a really good pace and good start in terms of acquisitions also in 2024.
We have introduced a new group structure, which we are eager to work with, going forward here. By that, we end our formal presentation.
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 Carl Ragnerstam from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Good morning. It's Carl from Nordea. A couple of questions. Firstly, looking at the organic order intake growth, that 4% certainly surprised me at least. Could you give some flavor on whether this, to any extent, was driven by, I mean, any type of unusual order pattern from your customers we should be aware of, and or if it's just an underlying sort of better market you see? And also you mentioned a larger order in Flow Technology. Could you perhaps quantify it and also maybe if it's towards Novo Nordisk?
Yeah, we see good demand, I would say, from certain parts of the MedTech and pharma sectors in the quarter. And yes, Novo Nordisk is one of the customers helping us and supporting this positive development, but obviously not the only one. And we don't comment specific individual companies or specific individual orders. But in terms of the pattern you asked for, I would say it's not unusual. I mean, these companies work with these types of customers and receive these types of orders on a regular basis. And sometimes it's a bit more sizable, which it was in one case here.
But, I would also say that we will probably see more of a positive continuation in that area, both 2024 and onwards.
If you exclude the big order, would you say that order intake is still positive, or is it that magnitude change that's sort of the order trend we have seen so far?
Yeah. It's a bit less, but still, accretive and sort of stable on a high level.
Mm. Okay, and you said that the big order is the CapEx for, pharma production, right? Or did I hear you correctly?
Yes.
Okay, very clear. And also, I think another on orders, you at least wrote in the report that even frame construction is showing positive order intake growth. Is it for comparable units as well? And is it that you finally see some better sentiment from that sub-segment after a tough period, or how should we look at it?
Yeah, it's obviously a very relevant question, and it's like usual with Indutrade. There are some companies who have success in the market, and... So I wouldn't say that the sentiment overall is changing. It's more linked to that certain companies in our structure have a successful situation, and that adds to an overall situation which then becomes stable. So no dramatic positive signs overall in the construction area. But we are a bit more linked to the infrastructure situation, and that is actually not really bad. I mean, and as I said before, the size of companies we have, there are infrastructure projects going on.
If you walk in an airport, in a railway station, in a harbor area, there are bridges being either built or maintained, and so on and so forth. So there is a fairly high level of activity still, for our companies.
Mm. Okay, very clear. Also on the new group structure, I mean, it's not been in place for such a long time, right? So, but I'm a bit interested to know a bit more about the synergy potentials you're talking about. Is it primarily cross-selling, or is it also on the purchasing slash cost side, and could they sort of be visible already in 2024? And then the second note on that question is a little bit when I look at the new divisions, it looks like the MedTech Pharma division is clearly showing a quite substantial margin drop of 130 basis points, despite the quite solid top line. If you could give some reasons behind that.
Yeah. As I said, when I spoke about the reorganization or the new structure, I don't, we haven't done this, and we don't expect very short-term, you know, positive contributions from it. It's more, I would say, medium term, longer term, and it's more on a business development growth orientation, where I think the benefits will come, not really from cost synergies. There is no philosophy change in terms of that, that we don't really start cost synergy projects ever in Indutrade. So there needs to be two or more companies who agree by themselves that they want to cooperate and, and do things together, and so that's not the driver. But...
As I said, there are usually a couple of companies in the same segments, areas who could learn from each other and talk about innovation, product development, customer demand, trends, and perhaps share suppliers and things like this to cater towards growth initiatives.
And also on the life science or MedTech part, the margin drop, what's the reason behind it? It's quite substantial in the quarter, in the new segment structure.
Yeah, our intention is actually not to comment that on the pro forma structure at this point. We'll come back in quarter one with more elaborate on the financial development of the one. But in general, life science and the MedTech pharma sector is a good margin business area, even though it sort of may fluctuate between quarters slightly.
Okay, very good. The final one from my side is a little bit on M&A. You said that you postponed quite a few discussions here during 2023. Should we expect a catch-up effect from this during the first half of 2024? Maybe it doesn't work like that, or yeah.
No, but maybe a little bit towards that. We feel much more confident now in terms of our balance sheet, our cash flow, and to some extent, also the market outlook. So, it will be very surprising if 2024 wouldn't be a better acquisition year than 2023.
Mm. Sounds very good. Thank you. All for me.
Thanks.
The next question comes from Zino Engdalen Ricciuti from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Hello, and thanks for taking our questions. Just a short follow-up on the question you just answered on M&A and catch up, where you said that you are maybe a bit more confident or at least comfortable with the market situation. Can you give some color on what you see has changed that makes you feel more comfortable?
I think we are closer now to macroeconomic stabilization. There probably will be interest rate reductions at some point, maybe during the spring, summer time here, which step by step will improve certain business cycle dimensions. If I compare to a year ago, we were much longer away from that point. We have a confident outlook in terms of some of our core segments, being the life science area, the process energy and water, strong perspectives there. Also on the infrastructure side, and certain parts of general engineering as well.
So, it's perhaps not more dramatic than that we are a bit closer in times to maybe turning points.
Okay. And you mentioned that, I think you said that single-use in pharma, for example, ended the quarter on a weaker note. But on an aggregated group level, can you give some indication on how the development was in the quarter?
For single-use, you mean, or, or?
No, no, sorry. On an aggregated level.
Uh.
So did you end on a high or a low, so to say, or was it stable throughout the quarter?
I can't really. I think, not talking specifically about order intake, but the quarter overall was strong October, strong November, and weaker December, I would say. But I shouldn't maybe play too much into that because December also had fewer working days, and December is always slightly volatile. I think no dramatic changes during the quarter, relatively stable, except these sort of more calendar issues.
Okay, understood. And just a small question on the positive one-off impact related to pension. How big was it?
It's slightly. I don't know. I don't think I have that here. It was relatively... On a group level, it was definitely marginal, and it had some maybe 1 percentage point or so on the DACH margin, I think.
Okay. Thank you. Yeah, that was all for me. Thanks.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Robert Redin from Carnegie. Please go ahead.
... Yeah, hi. Can I just ask again on that order intake in the MedTech pharma business? I think the comment also in Q3 was that order intake was good in that area. So that's now a comment that you've had now for two quarters, and maybe there were some specific larger orders, but is this now a trend that demand in this area has picked up, you think? Or is this more of a one-off?
It's a very relevant question, Robert. There are some sub-segments in the life science area which we work with. There were in quarter four now, there are some companies, as I said, during the call, that work with lab-related equipment to university hospitals, research institutions, and they work towards their full year budgets, and they want to don't sort of leave any room for not filling those budgets. So usually Q4 is good for a certain level of companies or category of companies in terms of this. So that was also this year for some of them.
Then, there are a few pharma companies who have extreme success, like Novo Nordisk, but not only Novo Nordisk, and they are extending their capacities, and several of our companies are riding on that positive journey, and that's. That will continue, I think, for quite some time. So it's not Q4, one-off sort of activity. And then we have these clusters of more single-use related companies who have had customers with fairly high inventories, and they have reduced inventories and haven't ordered as much, but I think that will, at some point during 2024, be a better situation.
All right, cool. So that sounds pretty positive. I mean, order intake was good, but how long a lead time is it normally in this segment? Is it shorter or longer than Indutrade average, or when does it convert into sales?
No, I think it's fairly, fairly average, actually, in the segment. I don't know, Patrik, if you have any other?
I think the largest, the larger order we talk about here, and the larger orders in general are slightly higher than the Indutrade average, call it a backlog. If the backlog now is 2.5 months, I mean, these larger projects are slightly longer total lead time, but they are all scheduled to be fully delivered during 2024.
Mm-hmm. Oh, that's correct.
All right, perfect. Another small question was that you wrote in the first section of the report that demand improved in Q4. Is that sort of just a verbal version of the organic order growth at 4%, or was there some kind of pickup that you saw gradually during Q4?
No, it, it's, I would say that these parts of the life science segments we have discussed has strengthened a bit, and there is a positive outlook in terms of that. In other segments, maybe not too much of a sentiment change, but it's still comforting to see that, for example, infrastructure and construction is not, for us, declining. It's rather stable. And then there are certain other sectors like energy, defense, certain parts of the chemical industries and so on, which, yeah, definitely are not less positive now than before Q4. So, yeah, fairly okay outlook in that sense.
All right. Thanks. Those were my questions. Sounds good. Thank you so much.
Thanks.
The next question comes from Johan Dahl from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, everyone. Just a few questions. Starting on the infra and construction business, it's interesting to see the margin levels here. Would you say that the deviation in infra and construction compared to the rest of the group is that a sort of a cyclical issue that you're seeing at the moment? Or should we look on these divisions more from a return on capital perspective, or is the four- you know, above 14% margin target equally relevant for all? And secondly, I was also wondering, in this new structure you said, have you changed in any way incentives or sort of the financial planning for these divisions compared to how you did things previously? Thanks.
... But I would appreciate if we can take a bit more of these strategic perspectives on the new structure and segments at our next call. I think that's gonna be more relevant. We will have more numbers and more insights at that presentation. But very briefly, Johan, the infrastructure and construction business area, it's absolutely relevant with the 14% target level also for that area, and I'm sure we will step by step reach that... So but let me explain a bit more about that in the next call. And what was the other question? It was-
No, we can, we can take those, those bigger sort of division things later. But, but can I just ask you also on these, write-downs that you make?
Yeah.
I mean, it to be isolated to a few larger deals made lately. Have you in any way - what sort of lessons have you learned from this? I appreciate there was very ambitious financial plans for this acquisition, but where I'm guessing at least, that these were slightly larger acquisition, more highly priced. Have you drawn any conclusions from this, and which may impact the way you operate going forward?
No, it's a relevant, good question. One of the situations is linked to a business cycle turn in a negative perspective, which we were aware of and expected, basically at signing of the acquisitions. But we believe in the company, medium, long term, it's a competitive, strategically well-positioned company. So we basically expected and knew that we would see a weaker situation short term for that company. And the other company is more a situation linked to that they have a portion of their sales linked to China, Asia, and that hasn't materialized in accordance with their plan. But otherwise, the company is a fantastic company, performing very well and have really great strategic opportunities.
So, there are, I would say, very clear explanations to this, but wouldn't say that we have changed our mindset about the companies or the acquisitions. But, it was also a time where we did quite a few large transactions, in like a quarter's time or so. So, that is obviously not maybe desirable. It's better to spread them out a bit, but other than that, right now, no other fundamental change in perspective.
If I just add a small comment, I think also a lesson is that having this type of earn-out setups in the contract is good, sharing the risk with the seller, and also here, I mean, you have a net effect, which is very limited of these transactions, and so we are safe, you know, safe, safeguarded with the earn-outs. That's one comment. The other comment is, if you look at the aggregated sort of acquisition performance, it's still good. So, we have even if these companies then are slightly underperforming versus plan, they are on aggregate on good level, and other of the acquisitions, the other acquisitions are performing well. So we are accretive in total when it comes to acquisitions.
All right, thanks.
The next question comes from Karl Bokvist from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. My first one was also a bit on, M&A. Just looking at the initial paid multiples, at least, it looks like the multiples have come up a bit, this year and in 2022 compared to some of the years before that. Do you think that multiples could be a bit higher going forward when you target companies with characteristics that you said you were looking for at the Capital Markets Day?
I would still say that we are more around the seven-ish multiple still, and no dramatic significant change in terms of multiples creeping upwards. And we also have comfort to think that we will be able to continue to acquire at recent historic sort of multiple levels. So, no dramatic change is expected.
Understood. And then just a kind of clarification there, but the ambition to do 2-3 acquisitions per business area, does this also now apply for when you decrease the number of business areas to 5?
No, but then they should probably more make 3-4 per.
Yeah
... per business area.
Understood.
Mm-hmm.
Just a bit on demand, the automotive aftermarket, maybe not the biggest one for you, but are there any kind of particular effects here since we might interpret some other signals that the automotive market in general is not really improving, at least?
No, it might be a cycle effect that certain parts of the car fleets are held a little bit longer in a weaker business cycle. They don't keep the car another year or two years, and that older car needs a little bit more repair than a newer fleet, sort of. So, I think it's more linked to that.
Understood. And then my final one is just on the kind of organic earnings development in some of the existing divisions. They've been a bit organic EBITDA has lagged organic sales in Benelux and measurement, but been very strong in fluids and mechanical. So are there any particular aspects here that we should consider going forward?
I wouldn't say so. I think it's more a situation where maybe some individual companies are underperforming, having some trouble, having some problem, and that links up to that situation rather than anything else.
Okay. Just to follow up there, maybe you said so, but, how do you feel the pricing environment is currently? It's not the same perhaps level of price increases as we had at the start of the year.
No, it's more difficult to increase price than it was during the phase with supply chain constraints and so on. So for sure, but our companies are extremely good at protecting gross margin. If you look at Indutrade's gross margin in a historic time perspective, you see that also over business cycles. So they offer quality products. They know they offer value to the customers, and they have confidence in defending their price and gross margin. So I feel fairly comfortable that we will also continue to be able to do that.
Understood. That's all from me. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Daniel Johansson from Pantechnicon Advisors LLP. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you very much for taking my question. Maybe this has already been discussed, but I was wondering on the very impressive working capital release that you saw, if there was any margin impact from that, either positive or negative?
In general, no, I would say, and as you maybe know, that most of our sales basically is coming from manufacturing companies with manufacturing, but the manufacturing operations we have are more assembly-oriented, and there are seldom sort of big overall or under absorption. So, no, is the short answer.
I was actually thinking about it the other way, maybe the way you keep inventories more as a distributor, kind of, has that been helpful to margins?
In general, I can say that sort of the overstocked situation, if you look more sort of long-term broad, the last year, has been good for many of our companies, and they have been able to safeguard delivery service to customers, maybe take market shares. So I think that has protected and even helped us top line-wise the last year. And of course, that translates also to a better margin.
Okay. Thank you very much.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Yeah, then we thank you for listening in and coming with really insightful and good questions, and we end the call and wish you a great day.