Presentation, participants will be in listen-only mode. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. If you are listening to the presentation via webcast, you can ask written questions using the form below. Now, I will hand the conference over to CEO Fredrik Meuller and CFO Peter Welin. Please go ahead.
Good morning to you all. Thank you, and welcome to this webcast and telephone conference covering Inwido's First Quarter of 2025. My name is Fredrik Meuller , President and CEO of Inwido, and I'm joined here in sunny Stockholm today by Peter Welin, our Group CFO and Deputy CEO. We will start off with a run-through of the financial, operational, and strategic highlights from the past three months, followed by an in-depth review of Group and Business Area financials before concluding our key messages, outlook, and opening up for Q&A. As usual, this presentation material is already available on Inwido's website. Many of you are, of course, familiar with Inwido already and our unique features.
One year into this CEO role, I'm still taken aback by, for example, the shareholder value track record since our 2014 IPO, or the fact that our 35 business units collectively form a number one position in the Nordics and a strong number two in the U.K. Our well-known brands are synonymous with genuine craftsmanship and high quality. Our windows and doors improve energy efficiency, safety, and aesthetics of any property. I'm proud to conclude that Inwido is off to a good start to 2025. Performance improved gradually throughout the first three months, and we continued on the growth trajectory from last year. Our net sales grew by 10% organically. Order intake increased as well for the fourth consecutive quarter, now up by 13%. Our order backlog ended up at plus 19%, i.e., offering lots of comfort for the seasonally important months and quarters ahead.
Profitability followed suit with operating EBITDA edging higher in all business areas except e-commerce. Our consolidated figure was a massive 22% higher than in Q1 last year at SEK 111 million, equaling a margin of 5.5%, i.e., 50 basis points above Q1 2024. This improvement should be seen in the light of continued tough market conditions with fierce price pressure and in the seasonally softest part of the year. Manufacturers have added to these figures, from pricing and purchasing to productivity-enhancing investments beginning to kick in. The latter bodes well for the future, as volumes at many entities are currently far from normalized. Let me also stress that in a world where tariffs are the talk of the town, Inwido has no direct exposure to the U.S.A. We can still be affected indirectly, though, through a general deferral of project starts or consumer purchases, or via supply chain disturbances.
In this past quarter, we did see an improvement in market sentiment across a few key geographies, albeit from very low levels. Scandinavia did really well, with several entities reporting higher sales and margins. Renovation is picking up speed, and a higher route incentive in Sweden, of course, makes a positive difference. Denmark is very solid, and Norway seems to be about to bottom out, at least for us. Eastern Europe, in turn, bounced back in a nice way, driven by the consumer market and housing unions in Finland. New build, however, remains quiet. Poland, where our exposure is limited, is rather stable. Business area e-commerce was hampered by a somewhat sudden and surprising general decline in consumer spending online, as evidenced also by fewer Google searches for windows. Geographically, Germany was particularly demanding. Western Europe performed well, given the circumstances where England remains sluggish and fiercely competitive.
Furthermore, budget cuts and severe weather resulted in certain project deliveries being pushed out in time. Green is good. Lots of arrows pointing in the right direction, which in this case is downward. Q1 marked another solid performance across all key sustainability parameters, most notably energy use, waste, as well as health and safety. This doesn't happen just like that. No, sir, I see this hard work myself across all our sites and offices on a daily basis. When I joined Inwido one year ago, I clearly stated transparency as being one cornerstone in my leadership philosophy. Here you see an honest summary of where we are on the so-called vital few priorities, the what and the how that will make a difference on our strategic journey.
With the exception of M&A, which is covered on my next slide, I won't go through these in any detail, but I will say that I'm pleased about our progress made across the line here, and particularly on number four, where I witnessed a bit of a cultural revolution of synergy exploiting collaboration in the horizontal dimension. Okay, let's talk about M&A. This is a key building block on our road towards doubling the size of Inwido by year 2030. No, we did not announce any transaction in Q1, but it was not for lack of trying. We have been and still are active in this field. Rather, we have taken a healthy stance and decided to disembark from a few processes as one or several of our selection criteria have simply not been met.
We will not compromise on asset or transaction quality just for the sake of growing top line, not on my watch. Now, the market is quite healthy. Inwido is perceived as an attractive buyer, and we are involved in several promising discussions, so I definitely remain optimistic. On this slide, we display a snapshot of our Q1 2025 key financials relative to the same quarter last year. I can proudly conclude that it is a strong set of numbers. Order intake grew by 13% in both absolute and organic terms, and our order backlog grew further to almost SEK 2.7 billion, up by 19%. Net sales, in turn, increased organically by 10% quarter on quarter, operating EBITDA gained SEK 20 million from last year, reaching SEK 111 million, which equates to a margin of 5.5%, up from 5.0% in 2024.
The main positive delta came from BAs, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe. Net debt in relation to operating EBITDA decreased from 1.4 times last year to 1.1 times now, or from 1.1 times- 0.8 times, if not applying IFRS 16 accounting. In these turbulent times, it is highly comforting to have such a strong balance sheet that also offers substantial firepower for M&A. For more flavor on Inwido's consolidated Q1 financials, I hand over to you, Peter. Please.
Thank you so much, Fredrik. I will start with this page. This page is showing the income statement for Q1, and to the right, you can see the latest 12 months as well as last year. Starting with the quarter, sales was plus 10% reported, as well as organic sales was plus 10%. The gross margin was improved from 22.5%- 22.9%, mainly due to volume. We have a better capacity utilization this quarter compared to last year. We have improved gross margins in Scandinavia as well as Eastern Europe, whereas e-commerce was slightly down compared to last year, and Western Europe was also down, mainly due to mix. Operating EBITDA was plus 16%, and operating EBITDA was plus 22%, meaning the operating EBITDA margin was improved from 5% last year to 5.5% this year, an improvement by 50 basis points.
We have restructuring costs in the quarter of SEK 7 million, same level as last year. This year is mainly related to e-commerce and close down of showrooms. We have an improvement on EBITDA of 24%, and the EPS is plus 78% compared to last year. Looking at the latest 12 months, we have sales just above SEK 9 billion, SEK 9 billion 26 million, an operating EBITDA of SEK 973 million, equal to 10.8% operating EBITDA margin, same level as full year 2024. We have an EPS of SEK 9.58 today. This page is showing the sales as well as operating EBITDA development in Q1 from last year to this year. You can see the development of sales from SEK 1.8 billion to just below SEK 2 billion. To the right, you can see the operating EBITDA development from SEK 91 million- SEK 111 million.
Starting with Scandinavia, Scandinavia grew by SEK 111 million, and the operating EBITDA was improved by SEK 18 million in the quarter. Eastern Europe had a growth of SEK 58 million, and the operating EBITDA was improved by SEK 8 million. In e-commerce, we had planned and expected higher sales in the beginning of the year compared to the outcome, meaning we had too high capacity and too high costs in the beginning of the year in relation to sales. Thereby, we have also lower sales as well as lower profitability within e-commerce compared to last year. Western Europe, as well as group-wide eliminations and other, were more or less on the same level as last year, looking at operating EBITDA. Thereby, we went from SEK 91 million- SEK 111 million.
Looking more on historic performance of the quarter, this page is showing sales as well as operating EBITDA margin from 2020- 2025 for the Q1. Looking more in historic performance, we can say that pre-pandemic, the operating EBITDA margin of Inwido was between 2% and 4%. During the pandemic, we had higher margins because we had low seasonality. We have a seasonality business, and we are right now in the low season in Q1. During the pandemic, we had higher sales in Q1, especially on the consumer sales in the first quarter, and thereby higher margins. The operating EBITDA margin of 5.5% this year is 50 basis points above last year and also above the level of pre-pandemic. Looking at the cash flows, we also have a seasonality when it comes to the cash flow.
We are always negative cash flow in the first quarter. Our best quarter looking at the cash flow position is always in Q4. This year is less negative compared to last year. We have an improved cash flow this year compared to last year, but still negative cash flow. Looking for cash flow from operating activities, they have an improvement of SEK 78 million compared to last year. We have a higher net result, as well as we have paid lower taxes. We paid lower taxes at the beginning of this year because the result 2024 was less compared to 2023, and thereby the tax payment was lower this year at the beginning of the year compared to the beginning of 2024. We have a change in working capital. There we have an improvement compared to last year of SEK 85 million.
We had less increase in inventory compared to last year. We also had a less increase in accounts receivables compared to last year because they were a little bit higher in December 2024 compared to December 2023. Looking at accounts payable and other short-term liabilities, there we have a less decrease compared to last year. In total, an improvement of SEK 85 million. If you calculate and see the working capital in relation to sales, you take the average working capital in relation to sales, there we see a small improvement in Q1 compared to Q4. We have CapEx. We have lower CapEx this year compared to last year. Last year, we had a CapEx of SEK 84 million in the first quarter. This year is only SEK 42 million, so it is more or less a half compared to last year. This shall be seen as temporary deviations.
It will increase in the coming quarters. The full year of 2025 will more or less be at the same level as last year, looking at % of sales. It is a temporary deviation just looking at Q1 when it comes to CapEx level. With a higher cash flow, less negative working capital cash flow in Q1 compared to last year, the net debt has increased less this year compared to last year. This page is showing net debt as well as net debt as EBITDA, including as well as excluding IFRS 16. As I said before, we always have negative cash flows in Q1. This year is less negative, meaning the net debt always increases in Q1. This year, the increase was lower compared to last year. Looking at Q1 this year, we had an IFRS 16 debt of SEK 492 million.
Our net debt versus EBITDA is 1.1, including IFRS 16, was 1.4 last year. Excluding IFRS 16 is 0.8, and it was 1.1 last year, meaning we have quite a compared to our target of maximum of 2.5, meaning we have headroom for future growth. Another positive development is return on operating capital. This page is showing the return on operating capital. Return on operating capital is defined as EBITA rolling 12 months in relation to average operating capital, where the average calculated the latest four quarters. There we can see an improvement. We have higher results this year in Q1 compared to last year. That is a positive for the KPI. We have also lower operating capital due to less increase in working capital and also due to less CapEx. Thereby, we are on 13.2% compared to our target of 15%.
This page is showing the order intake as well as the backlog. To the left, you can see the graph on the backlog development from Q1 2023 until Q1 2025. To the right, you can see the table, how the order intake has developed. Starting with the backlog, the backlog is plus 19% compared to last year, equal to SEK 424 million. Here, of course, we have a negative impact from stronger SEK, the currency SEK. Adjusted for the SEK, the backlog is plus 24%. Product is plus 31% compared to last year, and consumer is minus 4% compared to last year. However, adjusted for SEK, it is more or less the same backlog on consumer compared to last year. Looking at the order intake, the total order intake as well as the organic order intake is plus 13%. Consumer is plus 3%, and organic is plus 2%.
The product is plus 33% or plus 32% organically. We have growth in Scandinavia of 13%. East is up 18%. West is plus 14%. E-commerce is negative by 4% in the quarter.
Thank you, Peter. Let's now look into our four business areas. Let's start with Scandinavia. Mads and the team did a really good job. We're getting used to being spoiled by the red and white Danish dynamite, but also many of the entities in Sweden and Norway performed well in Q1. Elitfönster is one key example here in Sweden. Stronger market tailwind added to order intake growing by 16%, and almost SEK 1 billion of sales flowed through a well-oiled machinery to raise the VA's operating EBITDA margin from 7.4% last year to 8.5% now.
Moving eastward, activity levels began to bounce back in the quarter, particularly for our large PILA Group and within housing u`nions. Antti and his team generated healthy growth in sales, order intake, and order backlog, which bodes well for what's to come. Albeit still in the red, operating EBITDA and margin improved substantially to SEK -7 million and -1.8%, respectively. Turning our focus to VA e-commerce, we saw a dent in the positive trend curve from last year at the beginning of 2025 as general e-trade demand was suddenly lower. Still, Boo and the team did a good job of recovering lost ground towards the end of Q1. They have also taken additional restructuring measures to improve the VA's future cost efficiency and competitiveness. Somewhat lower sales meant that operating EBITDA decreased to SEK 6 million with a corresponding margin of 2.3%.
We head back to the U.K. and to Ireland, where storm Eowyn, as well as short-term budget cuts for a few municipalities, meant that some project deliveries had to be put on hold for Q2 and beyond. Given that lost top line and fierce price pressure in England in particular, Jonna and her team did a great job more or less maintaining the profit level from last year. Both order intake and backlog grew in a healthy fashion, and our assessment is that we have gained market share. It is time to summarize our key messages of today's Q1 report. In a macroeconomic roller coaster of historical proportions, Inwido stands firm. Organic growth rates in the high teens for organic sales, order intake, and backlog are clear testimony to this. Profitability is up with earnings per share, almost doubling.
Furthermore, a strong cash flow strengthened our solid balance sheet even further. Accordingly, we remain cautiously enthusiastic about the remainder of the year, particularly since we are also making progress on our strategic priorities. I'm content and would like to take this opportunity to thank all of Inwido's fabulous employees that have once again gone above and beyond to produce a strong performance. Really well done, guys. Now, Peter and I would be delighted to answer any of the questions that you may have. Please.
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 Jonny Jin from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Good morning, Peter and Fredrik. Thank you for taking my question. I want to start off a little bit on the cost side of things. I mean, looking at your operating expenses, it seems like they are up some 9% year over year. You already touched upon the e-commerce business a little bit here, but I also assume that you are preparing to meet higher demand going forward as well. How should we think about the cost base on the group going forward here? Would you say that you are ready to meet higher demand the coming quarters with the current personnel and cost base so that the, so to speak, operating cost base in Q1 is that representable for the coming quarters as well? Of course, there's some seasonality here, but any comments here would be helpful. Thank you.
Hi, Peter here. Yes, there is an increase in the quarter this quarter compared to last year. Last year, we had quite a tough situation in the market. We took extra cost cuts in Q1. We also had some temporary layoffs. We had some people working less and were paid less. Some people went in, white collar went down to 80% in some countries and were only paid for 80%, et cetera. Now, this year, we have a little bit more positive view on the future, and thereby we are planning for the future. You can also see that on order intake, the order intake is plus 30%. Looking at our costs, the main cost when we look at overhead costs is sales costs. First, we have to take a cost, and then we get the benefit, meaning higher order intake.
We have improved the order intake more than the sales has been improved in the quarter. This is due to we have taken some extra costs also planning for the future. How to interpret that for the coming quarters? Yes, you should calculate with some higher increase in the overhead costs compared to last year, especially Q2. The Q3, Q4 will look like then we have to always react and adjust ourselves for the market situations.
Just maybe to add to what Peter said, I think we are generally trying to review the cost base and particularly the overhead on a regular basis, particularly when we stand in front of decisions to replace certain vacant positions, et cetera. It always gives an opportunity to rethink the organizational structure and so forth. In the case of e-commerce, I think they've taken a healthy restructuring stance towards making the business even more competitive now. They were taken a little bit by surprise early in the quarter by the soft demand, but really recovered ground towards the end of the quarter.
Okay. Just following up what you said there at the end, Fredrik, on the e-commerce side, I mean, should we interpret that the demand picked up in the e-commerce segment during the end of the quarter? The adjustments that you talk about on capacity and cost in the e-commerce segment, can we expect that showing already in Q2 and onwards?
Yeah, to answer your first question, yes, the situation did improve towards the end of the quarter. We are trying to follow some market statistics here as well. I think we are quite aligned with what we have seen in terms of e-trade KPIs for at least Sweden. It seems we've done an even better job than the market. It is very difficult to tell. Again, overall, it turned for the better towards the end of the quarter. When it comes to the cost, I'm not saying it will kick in from day one, but at least we've taken the measures. There is always a bit of a lag in the system and in the process before we see the full effect.
These measures are and should be seen more as long-term measures to improve our competitiveness in the long run rather than a drastic cut right here, right now to compensate for lower demand in Q1. I think it's more of a healthy strategic decision where we looked at, to be very concrete, we looked at two showrooms in Denmark that were simply not profitable because they were in the wrong location. This is a business, the nature of which forces you to be super efficient, not only in your production day-to-day work, but also on the overhead side. That's exactly what Boo and the team are working on.
Okay. Just shifting focus a bit here to Western Europe segment. It looks like the gross margin there took a little step down here year over year. Could you maybe shed some more elaborating comments there? What's happened here? Also, how should we read this onwards? How is the margin profile in the backlog? Also, did you say that some sales in Western Europe were pushed into Q2? If it's possible to quantify the magnitude of that, it would be helpful. Thank you.
Yeah, we start with the latter part of your question. Yes, we did see a few projects, particularly in Scotland, that were moved out in time because of no access being granted to the sites, primarily because of weather where we and the whole country of Scotland had to shut down for a few days, also in terms of some budget cuts for a few municipalities where they have the year-end being end of March. We always see some volatility towards the end of March or towards the end of Q1 as they prepare for the next budget year, so to speak. I want to underline that these projects have not been, and which is not typically the nature of the business either, they have not been canceled in any way. It is more of a deferral and a delay than anything else.
Some will happen in Q2. Some will come later this year. When it comes to profitability, it was more of a mixed change, I would say. I think comparing to last year, we had, yeah, it varies a bit from project to project. This year, we had somewhat other deliveries than compared to last year.
Okay. If I read you correctly, the pushed orders, we shouldn't read too much into that since it sounds like it's recurring every year, so in some extent due to the budget.
Yeah, again, I think it's more the nature of Q1 to some extent where we are also more dependent on the weather situation. We have no reason to be less secure about this business going forward for the remainder of the year. On the contrary, I would say.
Okay, that's clear. Just one final, I mean, it's following up on your M&A comment. I mean, as you say, you need to increase the M&A pace here. It will be necessary to reach your 2030 targets that you are committed to. You are mentioning that activity is high, but I think that comment, have we seen for soon, one year almost. Maybe could you give some indications of what we can expect when in time this could happen?
I understand you cannot give any guidance, but maybe on how the pipeline is developing is helpful, especially tying that to your comment when you said that you have terminated some discussions. How should we read that with the pipeline? Also, I think the comment there on the building competition on the acquisitions is somewhat new. Who are you meeting and how has that changed? That would be helpful. Thank you.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm fully aware that I've stuck my chin out on this one. It just goes to show that the nature of M&A is binary, to say the least. I would be frustrated if we hadn't had enough activity or a structured approach in the work that we're doing. That is really not the case. I would say I'm more actually proud of us, yeah, leaving one or two discussions because the, I mean, the stores were really not aligned in a good way where we saw too much risk, to be honest. This risk could, for example, be related to environmental matters that if you don't get security or comfort around that, it can be a huge negative surprise blowing up in your face. We don't want that.
We do not want to destroy the rather nice performance track record we have within M&A. I will not really promise or provide any particular timing on M&A in our case. We have also seen the nature of privately held companies where the owners are considering an exit is just very emotional and psychologically tough to push the button right there and then. We have seen some of that going back and forth a little bit.
Of course, the current uncertainty in the market in general from a macroeconomic perspective does not really help where buyers and sellers need to agree on where the business is coming from and where the business is heading from here. I remain overall optimistic. Even though we have jumped out of one or two processes, it does not mean that we have nothing else to work on. On the contrary. The firepower we have on our balance sheet is, of course, very useful in these times as well.
Yeah, I understand that. The comment around the building competition on the acquisitions, to say, for me, that's a little bit new. Who are you meeting? Would you say that the, I mean, activity is still high. I understand that. Would you say that the M&A climate, should I read that as it has become more cautious since the start of the year? How should we read that?
Yeah, yeah, maybe that's a good summary, actually. Of course, it depends on when and where we see structured auction processes. For sure, we will meet some competition depending on the nature of that particular transaction. It could be PE firms, but it could also be larger competitors. There is an abundance of capital still out there. For the more attractive targets, I think it's fair to say that we need to be prepared for a little bit more competition and in some cases, bid levels going up. That's fine. I think we are quite comfortable with the processes as such and with the synergies that we typically can exploit when we do do the transactions.
Okay. That was all for me. Thank you for taking my questions.
Thank you, Jonny. Good questions.
The next question comes from Albin Nordmark from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello, Albin from Nordea. Just some questions. Just to continue here firstly on Western Europe to understand the underlying operations here. The EBITDA margin was down some 30 basis points year over year. Can you put some numbers on the effects from the storm mainly affecting? Would the EBITDA margin still be down without the storm, so to say?
It's very hard to say exactly what it would be, but in general, I would say it will be more or less the same level as last year.
All right. That's clear. If you could comment on the consumer versus project order intake for Scandinavia, Eastern, and Western Europe, that would be helpful.
We don't disclose that information. We're just showing for the entire group. It's more or less the same, less for the group that we have a little bit lower order intake in consumer compared to the project. The project business has been driving Scandinavia, Western, as well as Eastern. We have some growth in the consumer as well.
The consumer order intake is positive for the three of those, or?
Yes. Slightly positive, yes. We have a high growth on project sales on all these threes.
Yeah, exactly. That's clear. Just finally, you mentioned some entities in Eastern lost some 60% of volumes. I think you mentioned that, Fredrik. How much would you say Eastern or, let's say, Finland as a whole in volume upside to, let's say, normal levels? How much upside is there? Yeah.
That's a tricky question. It varies quite a lot from entity to entity. PILA Group that we mentioned is larger and covering a broader base of the market and even geographically, I would say. We have a couple of smaller and more sensitive entities, some of which are exposed more to, for example, a premium premium niche of the whole market. There, of course, the volatility in demand can be higher compared to the mid-size, the medium segment of the market.
All right. Let's say in two or three years, you're back to normal levels. How much volume is there up from here than in Eastern? That's our question, maybe.
The total is, we are lost between 20% and 30% in volume during the last two, three years.
Yeah, right. Thanks for that. That's all for me. Thank you.
Thank you.
There are no more phone questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.
We have received one question from Jonna. The question is, what is the time frame between order intake and sales? It depends between consumer and project. Consumer orders, in some companies, we have speed deliveries. We can deliver in two weeks. In general, the consumer orders have delivery time between six and eight weeks. For consumers, between six and eight between order intake and sales. When it comes to project sales, there is a bit longer. It can be a little bit more than one quarter up to one year. The average is around two quarters plus. A little bit more than two quarters when it comes to project sales. We do not have any further questions. I hand over to Fredrik for some closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you, Peter. Thank you everyone out there for attending. Wish you all a very nice day. Have an Inwido day. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.