Inission AB (publ) (STO:INISS.B)
Sweden flag Sweden · Delayed Price · Currency is SEK
62.80
-0.20 (-0.32%)
At close: May 4, 2026
← View all transcripts

Earnings Call: Q4 2022

Mar 1, 2023

Henric Hintze
Equity Research Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier

Då sätter vi i gång. Välkomna allihopa till Inission's Q4 presentation. Mitt namn är Henric Hintze och jag jobbar som aktieanalytiker på ABG och jag täcker Inission. Med oss har vi Fredrik Berghel här, VD för Inission, som ska ge oss en sammanfattning av Q4 och sen så följer vi upp det med en frågestund. Under presentationens gång är det bara att skriva frågor i chatten så kommer jag läsa upp dem när Fredrik är klar med sin presentation. Då lämnar jag över ordet till dig.

Fredrik Berghel
CEO, Inission

Thank you, Henric. I'm switching to English here since we are for the first time presenting our year-end report both in Swedish and English. For international listeners, if we have any of those, we will take this in English. My name is Fredrik Berghel. I am, as Henric said, the CEO of Inission. I am also one of two founders. Me and Olof started this company 2007. Now 15 years later, we are still the main owner, and we've actually not sold a single share so far. I'm really proud to present the best year ever and the best quarter ever in many ways.

Our coworkers throughout the organization have done a tremendous job in the quarter and in the year because we have a lot of challenges out there, as you all are aware of, especially the component situation and, but also sales increasing very rapidly. For the first time, we have sold for more than half a billion SEK, and that is a remarkable achievement, I think, really. We have also increased now our stake in Enedo to about 96%, and there will be a squeeze-out process and the delisting, and we're working on that right now. The restructuring of Enedo was completed Q3, and now we are going forward with Enedo actually more on a improvement basis. As explained, we, Inission Group consists of Inission Contract Manufacturer and Enedo Power Supply Supplier.

Inission did also, of course, an extremely good quarter, best ever. Customers is continuing to place order in a high pace. We had a little bit lower order intake, nothing dramatically, but order book was sinking a little bit during the autumn, but end of this quarter, new big orders came in, so we are at almost at record level when it comes to order book at the moment. We are scaling up now. Of course, we have component availability issues, but capacity is our main problem now. That's why we are scaling up our production to meet demands. The same way with Enedo. They have also reached a really good turnover, and operationally, Enedo also did a very good quarter, I would say. Still, though, some skeletons fell out of the wardrobe, cleaning up towards the year end.

The EBITDA and the EBITDA margin was not meeting expectations for Enedo, I could say that. We had an extreme growth for Inission Group this quarter, 51%. We have to remember that we are, due to the situation, selling material. We sold material for SEK 60 million in the quarter. If we adjust back for that, we would be more like 36% growth. Still impressive, I would say. EBITDA, SEK 28 million, that is also an extreme increase compared to last year's quarter since we were actually loss-making. I will revert to that. All in all, EBITDA, 4.7%, which is not good, but decent. Again, of course, we are diluting our margin here now with these extra sales. If we correct for that, we are slightly above 5%, 5.2%.

Regarding the component shortages and the situation in the market, it's dragging extra stock for us. However, Q3 was actually a little bit higher when we ended Q3 compared to Q4. We have come down a little bit in stock, but the rapid sales increase and also material sales resulted in that we moved the stock into receivables. Cash flow-wise, we came out negative. We certainly have an issue here now to stop the increase in stock and starting to convert profit into cash, of course. If we look at the whole year, we are now close to SEK 1 billion. Also for the year, we had a fantastic growth, 50%.

Using the same correction here, we sold material for SEK 128, so that will bring down this impressive SEK 50 to still impressive SEK 38, I would say. Also adjusting back the margin here, the EBITDA margin, we will be a little bit higher. We will be actually 5.0% in EBITDA margin if we take away this extra sales that is diluting the margin. We are also happy for our last acquisition this year, MLB, which has performed extremely well during the year. We are also really glad that with this summer could discuss with the main owner, the other main owner of Enedo so that we during the summer made this share swap when we increased from almost 50% to above 80% actually by combining these businesses.

We're very, very glad for that as well. We have done a tremendous job, not we really, it's more like our CFO, Mikael Fryklund and our Accounting Manager, Annie Axelsson. They have worked many hours with a change project here from K3 to IFRS. Even though we are not a huge company, we are enough complex company and also combining Enedo here to make this, dragging a lot of consultant hours to do this together with our own forces to do this transition. I think, even though all the hours spent, in the long run, it will be really worth it. Not the least vis-a-vis the capital market. It will be easier for all of you to compare more like apples to apples now with our peers.

I think it's worth it. The thing here, there are a lot of details, and if you read the quarterly report here, you can see in the appendix, in the note there, all the details. I will highlight a few ones for you in here. There are some applied relaxations rules that we have used. Business combination carried out before 1st of 1st 2021 are not recalculated. Translation differences are reset per first of first 2021. Lease liabilities is measured at present value of the remaining lease payment. Right-of-use assets recognized amount equal to the lease liability, adjusted for prepaid lease payments. These are the relaxations we have done. Then we have implications from K3 to IFRS. We have reevaluation of business combination. Some notes there.

We also have the valuation of intangible assets. Customer relations have been valued according to the MEEM method , and other useful life has been assessed to 13 years for all acquisitions. Brands have been valued according to Relief from Royalty Method, and their useful life has been assessed to indefinite for all acquisitions. We are now impairment testing of goodwill as per first of first 2021 and forward. An impairment test of goodwill is carried out annually. No impairment has been assessed in any of the already carried out tests. Leasing, for me, being an engineer, leasing is one of the big items what is happening since we are blowing the balance sheet with leased assets. And we are also putting in the right-of-use assets on the asset side and lease debt on the debt side.

That is the big thing here. We have leases now for SEK 220 million in our balance sheets. We have blown up the balance sheet. Financial instruments, here we have a new rule with IFRS, and that is that derivative instruments or contingent consideration are measured at fair value. In the old K3, we only took in the negative values. We never took in positive values. That would be a change. Okay, going to hard numbers then. If we see what's the effect of K3 vis-a-vis IFRS. In net sales Q4 2022, there are almost no differences, as you can see. If we look at EBITDA, our main number that we report, we will with K3 be at 28.45%.

Putting in these now, IFRS considerations, we will be at SEK 27.54. Small differences. Net income, there you see a big difference. The adjustments from IFRS is moving the net income from almost SEK 5 to SEK 15. Big difference there. If we see on the balance sheet side here, on the assets, there are a movement, building up from SEK 1.378 billion, some big pluses and some big minuses and some smaller adjustment ending up at SEK 1.580 billion there. Quite an increase, yes. Also on the debt side, we are increasing, starting with SEK 956 million, going up to SEK 1.155 billion.

There you have the a s a summary of the changes from K3 to IFRS. At Inission, we have an idea of profitable growth, and we see us growing. We see that as an value by itself. We think it's super important, but profitability is even more important. When we have to judge profitability vis-a-vis growth, we always judge profitability. We have all the way back since we started, 2007, 2008 was our first year. We had a turnover at that time of SEK 74 million, and now almost at SEK 2 billion. We have grown 26 times since.

If you have a shorter span here, we still have a high growth rate and combining that with not this high profitability, but with a decent profitability are we very proud of. Of course, last year, 2021 now, when we have recalculated to IFRS measures, you have to know that Enedo is now in 100% Enedo within from 1st of April , 2021. That of course boosts turnover, but it also pulled down the EBITDA to - SEK 80 million last year. That would really be the exemption. Looking at the two divisions now, as explained, we came from 49.6%. We increased to 80% over the summer, 96% during the autumn. Now Inission Group is old Inission contract manufacturing and Enedo power supplies.

The performance of this business area during the quarter was the Inission part performing very good sales and quite decent profit margin here. If we adjust for material sales here, we are on 6.8% EBITDA margin, which we think is, it's okay. We are on a journey upwards, and I will revert to our ambitions there. On the Enedo side, we had a better Q3 than this, but as I said earlier, there were falling out a few skeletons from the wardrobe, so we have to do some cleanup things. Unfortunately, the EBITDA stayed at only SEK 2 million for the quarter.

From operational point of view, Enedo has a really good demand from its customer and things are gradually improving, even though this result was a little bit of a disappointment. Just a few words of what we are doing. Inission, old Inission, the business area contract manufacturing, we are very much a Nordic Estonian company. We have a fantastic set of global customers in our customer portfolio that is, yeah, world-famous brands and very growing and really, really good customer base. Our customer value proximity. That's why we are spread out like this on purpose, I would say. We also see upon ourselves as a total supplier.

We have all the offerings in the life cycle here, all the way from innovation, product development, prototyping, industrialization, volume production of course, and then looking after the products that its life ends. We don't focus on any segment really. Our segment would be then industrial electronics, high-mix, low-volume. That's where we are targeting. Enedo is different to Inission in that sense. It has a more global approach. From customer point of view, they also have a fantastic global customer portfolio. They also have sales representatives all over the world almost. They are more like a global approach. The type of customer, advanced, customized, high-mix, low, there you will find the similarities with Inission.

There will be opportunities here for synergies in the future. So far, we have really operated these apart. Now we will step by step actually looking to see how we can do this better together. To summarize this then, we had a tremendous growth in the quarter. We had a tremendous growth in the year, even though, as I have explained earlier, had doped by this material sales. All of our customer, both on Inission and Enedo side, they have a big demand and when we talk to our customer, we see an increasing demand more or less all over the line.

These mega trends that you could see them long before this tragic COVID and this even more tragic war, but these things, they've actually reinforced these mega trends when it comes to automatization, electrification not the least, and that is energy, clean energy. All of that is driving the need for industrial electronics in a very strong way, I would say. At our Capital Market Day, 19th of January, we communicated for the first time in the history of this company our financial targets, and I would say that our performance, both in the year, but especially perhaps in Q4, are lining up here in a good way when it comes to turnover or revenue and profitability.

When it comes to the capital structure, this transition into to IFRS has blown up our balance sheet. We are a little bit below now. If you use the old K3, we were slightly above 30, now we are slightly below. There we have an issue of course. When it comes to the net debt, we have more EBITDA now, putting the lease debt into the net interest-bearing debt, that is also moving this KPI a little bit. The main thing, and we see, I talked about material complications earlier, but we see step by step it's gradually evening. Our thinking is that during next half year, this will fade away.

Next year at this time, we will not talk too much about material complications. We have also set forth long-term targets, here, of course, the deviation where we are and where we wanna be is bigger, not to growth really because we are growing very much faster. We have an idea of how could this be, how could this be achieved? One important factor here is in our strategy it lies that we will shift over from acquisition growth to organic growth. There is a market situation now. I have only been in this business for 15 years, there is a market situation now with a demand that really makes this possible.

So now our ambition would be to grow a little bit with acquisitions here and there, very selectively, and then grow by organic growth, 10%. By doing that, we think that will help profitability. We also have now larger business unit within Inission, and we think that is also helping out. We have moved from an extreme decentralized sales organization to a little bit more centralized function, within sales and within sourcing. We are shifting. There is no revolution, but we are shifting a little bit the center of gravity there. There are also changes really, and that you have seen for the last few years, I would say.

The big players in the market, our big colleagues, they are not, they are not giving away production at low costs now to fill up factories because factories, as I said, are pretty much filled up all over the line as a general rule, if you speak generally. All in all, that was what I have from me. Now we shift over if there are any questions, Henric.

Henric Hintze
Equity Research Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier

All right. Let's have a look. The first question is you say the order book is going down, although it's high. How high is it?

Fredrik Berghel
CEO, Inission

We don't communicate the order book in millions. We were peaking mid last year, and then it was slowly coming down. Nothing dramatically, but we have a book-to-bill that was below one for a few months during the autumn. Now at, towards the end of this quarter, we are very close to all-time high again. That is what I can say.

Henric Hintze
Equity Research Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier

All right, next question. Do you have any estimates or clues regarding where Enedo's margin will end up in the future?

Fredrik Berghel
CEO, Inission

Enedo is a turnaround project, or the main items are done. We have right-sized Italy, we have made Tunis stand alone. We have taken necessarily price increases. We have changed the organization, we have done the main items are done. Now we are on improvement journey. We are on a integration process. Step by step, we expect them to come towards Inission's profitability 5%-6%, Inission will move on. That is our ambition at least. Seeing it upon it as general product owner should have higher profitability than a contract manufacturer. If we target long term for or mid term for 10%, they should be on 12%.

They should, could be on 15%. That's how it should be really. That is not where we are now at all. Now we still have an improvement work here to do. I try to be clear with that.

Henric Hintze
Equity Research Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier

All right. Also, what kind of products is it possible to cross-sell between Inission and Enedo?

Fredrik Berghel
CEO, Inission

All our, let me put it like this. Enedo's products are, they are a platform, but they are very often customized. What Enedo is doing, they are doing power supply, and they're doing power systems. You could, if you put it really, really simple, call it battery charges. All of our, all of Inission's customer, all contract manufacturer Inission's customer in their hardware application, you have to have a power supply. That would be 100%. At the same way, a lot of Enedo customer is per today purchasing contract manufacturing services. It's not so much about products, it's more like services there.

Then, of course, Enedo themselves, they are all, they are buying EMS services for about EUR 15 million , which could be insourced. We have started that work also. There are, and on the production side, Enedo has a factory in Tunis, and power supply factory looks exactly like an EMS factory. There we see synergies also when it comes to operate the factory, processes, but also sourcing of course.

Henric Hintze
Equity Research Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier

All right. The next question is how much of the growth comes from new customers?

Fredrik Berghel
CEO, Inission

I don't have a figure of that, but that is a significant part because we won contracts in 2021 that was ramped up and is still ramping up in 2022. The increase of... Well, now I'm talking for Inission. The increase would be a fair bit would be a new customer, but I don't have a measure of that. On the Enedo on the other hand, they have. Their customer base is buying all what Enedo can produce. Enedo is getting longer and longer order book. Their customer portfolio is actually asking for more than we are capable of producing at the moment. There it would be close to 0 new customer, and that is also perhaps a result of a restructuring process.

You can't be out there chasing new products. If you're back one or two years in, Enedo was fighting for survival, and now two years later, they are really a coming company.

Henric Hintze
Equity Research Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier

Moving on to the targets, there's a question asking, you say that, you're aiming for an EBITDA margin of 6%. Do you think you'll reach this, for example, in Q1?

Fredrik Berghel
CEO, Inission

We have not guided specifically, so... For the whole year, Inission and Enedo together, our target is 6%. If we judge from Q4 then, the Inission was already on their target level for... Enedo also if we take the skeletons away. We are performing. Not saying anything about Q1 because we have... We can't, and I shouldn't. I think Q4 already are on the performing level, on these levels. Yeah.

Henric Hintze
Equity Research Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier

Could you maybe expand a bit on what happened in Enedo this quarter, and how would you have expected it to perform if these things did not happen?

Fredrik Berghel
CEO, Inission

I can. As I said, performing-wise, Q3 was similar to Q4. You of course have the vacation and part of Enedo is finished, so you have the Christmas and New Year. That will always take down, take away quite a few production days. That would be a difference. Otherwise, performing-wise, Q3 and Q4 were very much alike if we take out those one-offs. Enedo were performing on a 3.6 EBITDA level for Q4, taking out the extraordinary things. We had the debt provision for a Russian company that we took out. We have a customer claim that we have made a provision for. We don't even know if we're gonna use it.

There are some employee restructuring in Tunis, where there is also a claim that we have made a provision for. We also don't know if that is falling out. Tunis has over the late in the year, they simply raised taxes, backdating the start of these tax raises that you could actually see as a, as a one-off. All of that is building up to EUR 315,000, SEK 3.5 million. That would have been the difference. No more drama than that, no.

Henric Hintze
Equity Research Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier

All right. Thank you. I also have a question regarding the material sales. You said that they affected the results in Q4 more than usual. Could you expand a bit on what the effect was?

Fredrik Berghel
CEO, Inission

Yeah. Material sales, as a share of sales was higher compared to the whole year. Material sales in Q4 was SEK 60 million, where of the material sales for the total year was SEK 128 million. Just as a proportion. No, it's more like how it falls out, so, and with nothing. There's nothing new there. It would rather be that these material sales will shrink over time rather than increase. That is how we see it. It was more like a coincidence that we had a lot of those towards. Then also towards the end of the year. Yeah.

Henric Hintze
Equity Research Analyst, ABG Sundal Collier

All right. Thank you. If there are no more questions, from the audience, I think, we've been speaking for half an hour now, and maybe it is time to start wrapping up. Any final comments, Fredrik?

Fredrik Berghel
CEO, Inission

No. Again, we are very proud of this quarter, proud of our coworkers and the whole organization that have done during challenging circumstances, done a really good job. We are happy and say goodbye, and we will revert with this in May when we, when we are publishing our Q1 report. See you in May.

Powered by