Welcome to the Inwido Q4 2022 report presentation. For the first part of the conference, participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions- and- answer session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing star five on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to CEO Henrik Hjalmarsson and CFO Peter Welin. Please go ahead.
Good morning, welcome to this presentation of Inwido's fourth quarter and full- year 2022 results. My name is Henrik Hjalmarsson. I am the President and CEO, and with me, I have Peter Welin, CFO and deputy CEO. We will spend the coming half hour or so where I will start by going through some of the highlights of the quarter, as well as a brief look into the development of the different business areas. Peter will then go through the details of the financials, after which I will wrap up. After this, there will be plenty of time for questions. Just for those of you who are new to us, Inwido is the leading window group in Europe.
We are a clear market leader in the Nordic region with a strong and growing presence in the U.K. and Ireland. In 2022, we had net sales of SEK 9.5 billion with a return on operating capital of 18.3%. At the end of the year, we had roughly 4,600 employees in the countries marked in dark blue on the map on the right-hand side. The white dots that you see there are the production locations we have across Northern Europe, and we market and sell all the fantastic brands that you can see on the bottom part of this slide. We believe that we are uniquely positioned to drive long-term sustainable shareholder value, and we think that we have five key shareholder value propositions to achieve that.
The first one is that we are active in an attractive market that is driven by the green transition. As the European Union strives towards delivering the Paris Agreement targets in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, addressing the emissions from the building sector is absolutely critical. Here, energy- efficient windows and doors will be one very important component in achieving that, which we believe will drive long-term growth in the sector. Secondly, we have strong positions in our core geographies, which will allow us to further drive growth and profitability. Thirdly, we have a strong proven track record through economic cycles, exploiting better markets as well as tackling more challenging environments in a successful way.
Fourthly, we have a scalable and successful e-commerce platform uniquely positioned in the space we're in, with a market- leading position across the Nordic countries and with a clear possibility to roll out successfully into further geographies in Europe. Lastly, and very importantly, we see a clear potential for us to be a driver of the European consolidation in a very fragmented industry, exploiting synergies and driving value out of new acquisitions added to the Inwido family. Looking then very briefly at the highlights of the fourth quarter. It's very pleasing to note that the fourth quarter was the best quarter to date for Inwido. It's the 11th consecutive quarter with organic growth on a high level. We exceeded both our long-term financial targets in terms of growth as well as profitability in the quarter and in the year.
We crossed the SEK 300 million barrier in operating EBITDA for the first time ever. It's also very pleasing to see that after a challenging year, business area e-commerce rebounds in the quarter with stronger sales, stronger order intake, as well as higher profit. In the quarter, we saw a continued healthy demand from the consumer segments, but a successive weaker demand development in the industry side, particularly then in terms of new bids. What's also very pleasing to see as we close the fourth quarter and the full year 2022, is the progress we continue to make on sustainability. We launched a couple of years ago, or a few years ago, the ambition to cut our Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon dioxide emission per unit by 50% by 2030.
Thanks to a consistent and strong work, we have actually achieved this ambition already in 2022, with a 22% decrease achieved now, which means that versus 2019 base, our Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon dioxide emissions per unit have already been more than halved versus that start point. I'll come back a bit to sustainability in a little bit. Looking at the numbers for the fourth quarter. Sales grew 20% to just north of SEK 2.6 billion. That's a 10% organic growth. Operating EBITDA strengthened considerably from SEK 244 million last year to SEK 315 million this year, which meant that the operating EBITDA margin strengthened by 0.9 percentage points to 12.1%.
Order intake grew 2%, whereas order backlog is down 15% versus last year to almost SEK 1.6 billion . We continue with good cash flows and a strong balance sheet with a net debt versus operating EBITDA at 0.6x, same level as last year, or 0.2x, excluding IFRS 16 impact. Looking at the full year, it's really pleasing to see a record year, both in terms of sales, profit, and earnings per share. We closed the full year 2022 with a sales growth of 24% to just north of S EK 9.5 billion . Organically, that's a 14% growth. Operating EBITDA grew considerably from SEK 907 million last year to SEK 1.09 billion this year.
Operating EBITDA margin slightly down by 0.3 percentage points to 11.4%, driven then by the slight lag in price increases, particularly in Q2 and Q3, to meet the considerable input material inflation. However, back to my point before on Q4, we now see that coming into full effect in Q4, strengthening the margins in Q4 again. Earnings per share grew nicely to SEK 13.74 per share, and the board of directors, as a consequence of this, then proposes to the AGM a dividend payout of SEK 6.5 per share, up from SEK 6.15 last year. Looking at the different business areas, starting with Scandinavia, where we saw another good quarter with good growth and improved margins and a growing order intake in the quarter.
We have seen very clearly that the strong and the healthy implementation of price increases to meet the material input inflation has paid off and is really impacting profits positively in the quarter. The Danish business units have continued to drive success in the consumer segment. All in all, it means that the sales grew by 16% to just north of SEK 1.4 billion. Operating EBITDA margin strengthened by one percentage point to 14.8%. The order backlog at the end of the quarter is down 27% year-over-year, as is normal in the winter season coming into what's seasonally a weaker first quarter for Inwido. Looking at Eastern Europe, it posted a fourth quarter with very strong growth and significantly higher margins.
Again, good and solid implementation of price increases throughout the year to meet the input material inflation is now paying off, in combination with good development in the recent acquisition, which is driving margin up. Sales grew a very healthy 29% in the quarter to SEK 724 million. The operating EBITDA margin strengthened considerably from 7.6% last year to 11% this year. Order intake down 15% in the quarter. The order backlog at the end of the quarter, 4% down versus last year. Looking at business area e-commerce, as I mentioned, it's after a challenging year following the implementation of capacity increasing investments in the largest factory, really pleasing to see a quarter with growing sales, growing profit, and order intake.
The capacity investment is now fully implemented and the efficiencies are approaching the target levels. The operating EBITDA for the quarter grew by SEK 1 million versus last year to SEK 21 million, and the order intake grew by 7%. Sales grew 13% in the quarter, up to SEK 246 million. This means that the operating EBITDA margin was slightly down at 8.6%. The order backlog at the end of the quarter is 11% down year-over-year. Lastly then, looking at Western Europe, which was a another quarter of strong growth and improved profits, however, with slightly lower margins, mainly due to business unit and product- segment mix.
Dekko Window Systems, which we acquired earlier in the year, has continued to contribute well as a part of the Inwido family, contributing both in terms of good sales and profit development. That is then a key contributor to sales growing 45% in the quarter to SEK 230 million. Operating EBITDA margin, as I mentioned, slightly down to 7.3%. Order intake grew by 34%. The order backlog at the end of the quarter then 9% up versus last year. As I mentioned previously, one key element of our aspiration in terms of driving long-term shareholder value is value creating M&A, which we see as a key growth driver for the group.
We evaluate, negotiate, and implement M&A based on the eight criteria that you see in the graph on the right-hand side. We've made good progress during this year with the three acquisitions, one in Finland, one in Sweden, and one in the UK. In combination, they've contributed well, both in terms of sales and profit, and are trailing well along the integration plans in terms of delivering both synergies and both potential. Very importantly then, obviously, closing the year with a strong balance sheet, we see a considerable room for continued acquisitions going into 2023. Another key element of the shareholder value creation proposition for Inwido and one key aspect of our strategy is obviously, our ambition to contribute positively to society. Therefore, it's worth mentioning a few updates on our sustainability performance in 2022.
As I mentioned, it's very pleasing to see our considerable reduction of carbon dioxide emission per unit by 22%, which means then, as I mentioned, that the emissions have gone down by more than 50% since 2019. The share of sales that aligns with the EU taxonomy criteria grew by four percentage points to 65% in the year. We've seen a positive trend, which I'm personally very happy about in terms of making Inwido a safer place to work for all my colleagues with fewer accidents, with lost working days during the year. Energy use has continued to go down, both in the production and in the office space.
Unfortunately, however, we've had a slight negative development in terms of sick leave, with increases in both short-term and long-term sick leave, mainly driven by remnant effects from the pandemic. We continue to see positive development, both in terms of the share of wood that's sourced from sustainable sources, as well as the number of suppliers that have committed to abide by our code of conduct. If we look at what this means in terms of numbers, as you can see, on the trend arrows on the right-hand side of the table, we've made good progress on five of the seven key KPIs. Particularly happy about obviously the development in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, but also the energy usage and the positive trend we have there.
What we can also clearly see here, though, is that obviously we have more work to do, both in terms of waste and improving sick leave. Although really nice to see, looking at the bottom ones, that we continue to make progress in terms of not the least, the amount of wood that's sourced from sustainable sources. With that, I'm gonna hand over to Peter, who's gonna take you through some of the details of the numbers.
Thank you so much, Henrik. On this page, you can see the results for Q4 as well, as well as the full year for 2022 and for 2021. If we start with the Q4, the sales were up 20% compared to last year. Organically, that means a growth of 10%. The gross margin was slightly down compared to last year, mainly driven by the inflation. Inwido has increased the sales prices. However, we have not been able to fully compensate the gross margin, but we have compensated the EBITA margin when it comes to the inflation. The gross margin was slightly down to 25.5%, compared to 25.9% last year. Operating EBITDA for the first time ever, we reached more than SEK 300 million.
We went to SEK 350 million, an increase by 29% compared to last year. The EBITDA margin was improved from 11.2% to 12.1%. We have non-recurring items. We have a positive non-recurring items of SEK 4 million this year, thereby EBITDA is higher than operating EBITDA. The positive non-recurring items is one of repayments of surpluses within the AGS Collective Health Insurance plan. Last year, it was a positive SEK 80 million, also mostly related to the AGS Collective Health Insurance plan. Further on income statement, we can see that profit after tax was 13% compared to last year, and that earnings per share was 11% compared to last year, from SEK 3.72 to SEK 4.11. For the full year, sales was 24% higher than last year. Organically, it's 14%.
The growth from SEK 7.7 billion to SEK 9.5 billion. The EBITDA margin was slightly down from 11.2% to 11.4%. The operating EBITDA was up 20% compared to last year, from SEK 907 million to SEK 1.09 billion. For the first time ever, Inwido is above the SEK 1 billion mark in operating EBITDA for a full year. The EBITDA was up by 18% and the EBITDA margin was down from 11.9% to 11.4%. Further on income statement, we see the profits after tax is 30% higher compared to last year, and the earnings per share ended at SEK 13.74 compared to SEK 12.29 last year, an increase by 12% and the highest ever for Inwido.
On this page, we can see the development when it comes to sales, in a quarter, the fourth quarter, and also the order intake in the fourth quarter for 2020, 2021, as well as 2022. That were up 20% compared to last year, an increase by SEK 438 million. The currency impact gave us SEK 75 million in the sales increase because of weaker Swedish crowns when we translate other currencies into Swedish crowns. Acquisitions gave us SEK 125 million in growth in the quarter, and then organic growth was then SEK 237 million equal to 10%. Scandinavia was +8% organic growth, Eastern Europe 21%, e-commerce 11%, and then Western Europe had a decline of 2% organically in the quarter. The order intake was up 2%.
If we take away the acquisitions, the order intake declined 5% compared to last year. The total order intake for Scandinavia was up 5%, Eastern Europe declined 15% in order intake, and Western Europe grew 34%. e-commerce was up 7% in the quarter. Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe, they had impact from acquisitions, whereas the e-commerce doesn't have any impact from acquisitions. the organic growth was 7%. This page is showing the EBITDA margin and then the operating EBITDA and operating EBITDA margin for the quarter as well as for the full year, for 2020, 2021, and 2022.
As I said before, looking at the quarter for the first time ever, the margin, the result was above SEK 300 million, SEK 315 compared to SEK 244 million last year and SEK 231 million in the Q4 of 2020. The margin was improved compared to last year. However, lower margin compared to compared to 2020. Scandinavia and Eastern Europe had a positive margin development in the quarter compared to last year, whereas Western Europe and e-commerce had lower margin compared to last year.
Both Western Europe as well as e-commerce had higher result in SEK compared to last year, but the margin was lower compared to last year. If we look at the full year, for the full year, the EBITA has been improved from SEK 907 million last year to SEK 1,090 million in operating EBITA, and operating EBITA margin declined from 11.7% to 11.4% for the full year. For the full year, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe had a positive margin development as well as result development. e-commerce had a lower margin development as well as lower result development for the full year. In Q4, the e-commerce had a higher result compared to last year. This page is showing the order backlog.
The order backlog since Q4 2018, or every quarter up until Q4, 2022. The order backlog declined by 15% compared to last year. If we adjust it for acquisitions, it is 20% behind last year. The order backlog is still quite much higher compared to the periods before the pandemic. If we compare the backlog of 2022 compared to Q4, 2019, and we take away the acquisitions, the backlog is about 85% higher now this year, or December 2022 compared to December 2019. Inwido has a high seasonality within the business. The seasonality was lower due to winter 2021 and 2022. Now we see that we are going back more to normal seasonality.
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. The average operating capital is based on the past four quarters. The return on operating capital has continuously improved since Q4, 2019, during this year, it has been increased from 17.8% to 18.3%, an improvement by 0.5 percentage points. The EBITA has been improved during this year. At the same time, the working capital in relation to sales has been quite stable. However, operating capital has increased due to acquisitions.
We have higher operating capital due to acquisitions, but the data has been improved even more, so the return operating capital has been improved and is now on 18.3% compared to the target of 15%. This page is showing the net debt in SEK, as well as the net debt in relation to operating EBITDA, including as well as excluding IFRS 16. We have continuously decreased our net debt, and the net debt in relations to EBITDA has decreased. We are today on 0.6x, including IFRS 16, and 0.2x, excluding IFRS 16. Last year, we were on 0.3x, excluding our IFRS 16. The IFRS 16 has increased in the quarter. In Q3, it was SEK 383 million.
The net debt related to IFRS 16 has increased to SEK 474 million, an increase by SEK 91 million. Due to prolonged agreements, we have prolonged some agreements both in Sweden and in Finland and also Norway. We have also updated all the terms due to the inflation, thereby we have a higher debt today. A net debt in relation to operating EBITDA of 0.6x as well as 0.2x excluding IFRS 16, that gives us room for investment for the future. This page is then showing the development since the IPO. Inwido made an IPO in September 2014. Since the IPO in September 2014, sales has been growing by 94%.
Operating EBITA has been is up by 117%, and the earnings per share is now up to SEK 13.7, an increase by 340% since the IPO. I now hand over back to Henrik. He makes some summary, and thereafter we open up for questions.
Thanks, Peter. Q4 was a strong finish to what's a record year for Inwido, with a net sales growth of 24% and an operating EBITA then that exceeds SEK 1 billion for the first time in a full year. We come into 2023 with an order backlog that is a bit more back to a normal level, albeit, as Peter mentioned, considerably above the 2019 level, but a bit lower than compared to what we saw during the peak of the renovation boom during the pandemic. The prices of input materials are falling back, but they are still at high levels and considerably higher than we saw before the pandemic. We see a high inflation and energy costs, as well as rising interest rates, obviously impacting consumers' and households' disposable income.
On the other hand, we see a clear increased interest in windows and doors as ways to save energy in the, in the houses and buildings. All in all, it means that it remains difficult to predict demand in the short and medium term. We monitor the market closely and are fully prepared to adjust both up and down, depending on the development of demand. As usual, long term, we continue to be very optimistic with the increasing need for energy- efficient windows and doors to support the more sustainable and a better life at home and at work. With that, we open up for questions. Operator, please.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Julius Hansen from Nordea. Please go ahead. Julius Hansen, Nordea, your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead. The next question comes from Rasmus Engberg from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Yes. Can you hear me?
Yes, we hear you.
Wonderful. I had one question, which is not mentioned in this report. Your valuation is still quite low. Is it a possible alternative to ask the Board of Directors for a share buyback mandate in the upcoming AGM?
Yeah. Thanks, Rasmus. Relevant question, I guess. I guess the formal answer to that question is that the world is full of possibilities. I think that, this, has not been something we've had a mandate for historically, but, the board continuously evaluates, all strategic options. Let's see what we come back with in time for the, for the AGM.
Okay. Thank you. Also, are there any developments in renovation or similar subsidies that you think might impact your revenue growth or decline in 2023 in any of your core markets?
Yeah, that's another very relevant question. We have not... If you look at the bigger markets, starting with the Nordics, we have not seen any clear developments in that direction during the quarter yet. We still expect that that might be an opportunity going into 2023, depending a bit actually how the general economy develops, to be quite honest. We've seen developments in parts of the U.K., most notably in Scotland, where the focus has increased and also demands more than subsidies have increased, fueling on the energy-efficiency agenda. That's about as far as concrete developments that we've seen over the quarter.
A final question, a little bit on the costs and margins going into this year. Do you still experience gross margin headwind from raw materials or from other sources such as electricity or so?
I would say that in general, we feel that we have caught up to the vast majority of the extent in terms of the input material and cost increases that we have seen. We know that that's one of the key reasons why we also saw strength in the EBITA margins in the quarter. We still think that there could be some further potential to exploit a bit more out on the gross margin line than what we saw in the quarter, coming into the coming few quarters. We have. How should I say? We've recovered fairly much in terms of increasing to meet the headwinds we've seen on material price increases.
If you see sort of OpEx increases that are not related sort of to gross margin, what is your opportunity to compensate for such things such as transportation or whatever is not included in your gross margin?
As a general point of principle, we maintain, I mean, obviously we are a very decentralized and fragmented structure with 32 business units operating independently. As a general point of principle, maintain a fairly intransparent price arrangement towards most of our customers, which means that we are able actually to take price for what we need to take price for as a general point of principle. In general, we've been able to get also energy price and transportation price increases in a decent way out into the market. Again, we saw some of that then trickle through in an improved EBITDA margin, operating EBITDA margin in the fourth quarter, and there could be a little bit more potential on the gross margin line going into next year.
All right. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Sofia Sooliorou from Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you, and thank you for your presentation. I actually only have one question, and it's about the order intake in the Scandinavian business area. It seems like that one has had the most significant drop in order backlog. If you could give us some more details on if it differ between the countries within this business area or if it's similar. Also if you could give us some flavor on if it's the consumer segment or the industry segment. Thank you.
Thanks, Sofia. You know, I think there are a couple of dimensions to that. Order intake in Scandinavia actually grew in the quarter, but you're very right in the sense that the order backlog came down by 27%. I think the two main drivers for that is that Scandinavia is the business area where we have seen the most, how should I say, most anomaly in terms of lacking seasonality pattern in the past couple of years. The order intake in Q4, and hence order backlog going into Q1, has been unnaturally strong versus normal seasonality patterns in Scandinavia, more so than in the other geographies.
Mm.
The second reason is as you also allude to, that we have seen weakening order activity in mainly than in the industry segment that goes beyond that seasonality pattern. As I also mentioned in the call, that's where we have seen a decreasing activity, mainly linked into new build activity.
All right. No difference between the different countries within the business area?
Yeah. In the sense there is a difference because the geography where we have the highest exposure to industry within Scandinavia is in Sweden. That means that industry slowdown impacts Sweden a bit more. On the other hand.
Right
I would say that the anomaly in terms of seasonality pattern in 20 and 2021 has been even bigger in Denmark. Yeah, it's a bit of a mixed bag. If anything, probably Sweden then thanks to that industry activity slowdown.
All right. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Julius Hansen from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you. Hi, Henrik and Peter. It's Julius here. A couple of questions from my side. I Can you flag that I missed a bit in the middle here, so sorry if I repeat any previous questions. First, I'm wondering if you could provide us with the price effect for the organic sales and orders.
Yeah. It's low double digits, so 10% or slightly above 10% is. As you know, given the fragmented structure we have, it's a bit difficult to give an exact number on that, given the considerable mix impact. It's in around the 10% mark or slightly above.
Understood. Perhaps if we could get some flavor on your staffing here, as we enter a weaker macroeconomic outlook. We've seen also that you are reducing personnel. Maybe you could tell us in what regions you're taking the most dramatic measures.
Yeah, I mean, I. There are two answers to that question. First of all, it's back to the point we made before that it's very normal for us to reduce staffing in Q4. 20 and sorry, going into 2021 and 2022 were anomalies in the sense that the seasonality pattern was a lot weaker than we normally see. As we would normally do, we have basically across the board taken out people here during the staff during the fourth quarter to adjust to Q1, which has lower seasonality. And that is actually has happened in all the geographies where we are active, and the biggest impact will be in the geographies where we have the most employees. That will be in Sweden and Finland and Denmark.
Yeah, I think that was the answer to your question.
Yeah. Great. Then, on order intake, I'm wondering if you saw a different pace in the beginning versus the end of Q4?
We saw it was actually a little bit of a mix. What we did see was that coming into the Christmas period was a little bit slower than we had seen earlier in the quarter. On the other hand, if anything, the middle was probably the strongest. It was a bit of a mixed bag, to be quite honest.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There are some seasonalities there as well.
Yeah
... A follow-up here, maybe you already answered it and so sorry. For Scandinavia here, the order backlog was down 27%. If we exclude pricing effects and M&A, maybe this could be down more than 40% for organic volumes then. Is that correct?
That's probably a little bit on the high side. The FX and also the M&A impact, given the size of Scandinavia and the relative size of the acquisition is limited. It is down more than 27%. That's correct. I think, I answered it very briefly before actually. It's a consequence mainly of two things. First of all, Scandinavia is the business area we have seen the most abnormal, biggest anomaly in terms of lacking seasonality in the past couple of years. That also obviously means that, you know, the core order input has been unnaturally high in quarter four in the past couple of years. Secondly, also, as we mentioned in the report, the industry market has, particularly then on a new build site, slowed down.
With a fairly considerable exposure there, particularly in Sweden, that also impacts that number negatively.
Yeah. Okay. Not 40%, but almost for organic volumes. Okay.
Yeah. I would look at it different. I mean, I think the key thing to keep in mind there is because the number to look more at. It's very hard to say that in terms of order backlog, given that order backlog is something that's in nature spread out over time. If you look at order intake for Scandinavia, that grew by 5%. Obviously, if you do a similar type exercise there, excluding pricing and excluding FX and acquisition, that's been slightly negative in the quarter, but maybe around the zero mark, something like that.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Finally here, in e-commerce, you improved sequentially, and you grew your order intake. Should we expect this segment to be more resilient in a downturn, or was the Q4 increase here mainly driven by pent-up demand?
I think in general, we are very careful in terms of short-term outlook, to be honest, not just on a total level, but also on a segment by segment level, because consumer and household activity at the moment is difficult to predict. If anything, given the more of a value proposition that we see in those segments, we would expect that consumer segment to be a little bit more resilient. Particularly also as we see perhaps the, this tactical energy renovation opportunity growing, there ought to be slightly more resilience there, and definitely much more so obviously than the businesses that are exposed to industry and new build, also on a general level. I guess a careful yes to that question.
Okay, great. That's all for me. Thank you.
Thank you. We have re-
There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing remarks.
Okay. We have received some questions online, I'll start to read them. My first one is from Jonas Berg. Can you give an update about the M&A process that you talked about regarding new markets in Europe? We've been clear that in terms of the priorities for M&A, we see some opportunity for continued tactical consolidation of positions in the Nordics, obviously the key drivers are going to be in Europe, most notably in the U.K., continuing to grow the position there, where we took one step now in 2022 with the acquisition of Dekko Window Systems, also breaking in on a larger scale to one of the larger markets, most notably, likely France or Germany. We are in continuous dialogue with several very interesting targets.
As we normally point out, sorry, we do look at privately held and in many cases, family-owned and family-led businesses. Predicting the process is, in detail, is a bit tricky. We have interesting and relevant dialogues ongoing, and we are hopeful that we can make some continued good progress in 2023. We received two questions from Johan Dahl. The first question is related to price increases. The organic orders is down 5%, how much is in volume terms, meaning excluding prices? As we said, looking at that the other way around, we see that price increases is 10% or slightly above. That will answer that question, basically. The second question from Johan Dahl is related to planning.
How do you plan staffing in the manufacturing ahead of seasonality, intense production season, beginning of 2023? If we look at, as I mentioned before, we have taken staff down, and across the board, basically. If we look at factory-related staff, that number is down considerably now as we close the quarter versus where we were in the peak. It comes very naturally in a business like ours then which has a seasonality pattern. It's what we normally do. Then receive a question from Stephen at Goldman Sachs. Hi, Henrik and Peter. Congratulations on the good results. On e-commerce, given the CapEx plan is fully up and running, what has kept the margins below in Q4 2022 compared to Q4 2021?
I think there are two key drivers to that. First of all, as we also mentioned in the report, is that efficiency in the production system has continued to improve and is now approaching the level we wanted it to be, but wasn't fully there all through the quarter. Production efficiency has been one. Secondly, obviously, regaining growth momentum, which we really desired, has meant that we have taken some investments, most notably in marketing, which then also impacted the EBITA margin slightly negatively in the quarter. We have a question from Gustav. How is the flow usually of new orders over time? Given new orders, how long will it take to fulfill your current order agreements?
I mean, if you look, just look at the order backlog, I guess you could do the math and divide the order backlog by normal first quarter monthly sales and see that we have orders to cover us at least through a quarter or so, depending a bit on how you look at or maybe a little bit less, arguably. In reality, the order backlog is typically spread out because you also have industry orders in there that might be for delivery in quarter two or maybe even into quarter three. I would look at it to back to Peter's point from before, that we sit with a healthy order backlog for a Q4 compared to a multi-year comparison.
We do expect a, a seasonality pattern that's at least slightly more normal than we have seen in 2021 and 2022.
Then we received three questions from Peter Ludwig at ODDO BHF. The first question is related to operating capital. So question number one: what has been the key driver for lower operating capital compared to 2018, compared to today? I can start with that answer. That is related to working capital. Inwido has been quite focusing on working capital, and we have reduced the working capital by about roughly about SEK 600 million compared to 2018. Then also related to CapEx. During the last two years, the CapEx level has been lower compared to the normal level of 3%. We have a bit lower CapEx levels during 2020 until 2022.
We have placed orders of machines, but the delivery times have been so long, so it will impact the CapEx in 2023 instead. It's related to operating, it's related to working capital as well as CapEx. Second questions: can you quantify in percentage terms what increase...
Yeah, what increased focus on energy-efficiency translate into organic sales growth? No, it's, unfortunately, I mean, we do believe and are certain that that's an underlying driver of the increased interest and also growth potential. It's very hard to quantify that in any level, though. We don't have any real data points to support a detailed estimate of that.
The last question from Peter is, what countries and type of companies are at the top of your list when it comes to acquisitions?
Yeah, I think I answered that partly before in terms of, you know, tactical opportunities of in the Nordics, continued consolidation in the U.K., and then breaking into one larger geography in Europe, be that France or Germany.
We receive a question from Aksel Engebakken. What are the expectations, for the order take and backlog developments in 2023?
I think I also commented that before. We are very, very careful in terms of doing short to medium term predictions of demand. We remain very flexible and agile and prepared to meet any demand scenario, I would say. There are the industry markets, we are expecting a slowdown. On the consumer market, we see clear both threats, but also clear opportunities. It's very hard to predict.
We have a question from Julius Ståhlberg. How looks the pipelines when it comes to M&A? If the company acquire, and how are discussions with this company compared to one year ago?
The M&A discussions as such are actually quite robust over, you know, over time. I would say that the overall development that we've seen on many capital markets in the past year with quite turbulent development is not that visible in the dialogues we have, and many of the dialogues we have are much longer actually than even over a cycle. In terms of the dialogues, we have a short list at the moment of about 20 businesses that we are in dialogue with at different levels of intensity. As I mentioned before, we have good hope that we will continue to make some progress in, good progress in 2023.
We have 1 question from Johan. Are there any upcoming votes in countries for subsidies, legislation of subsidies for changing to more energy efficient windows that we are aware of?
There are movements going on both in terms of carrots and whips, I would say. I mentioned before what's happened in Scotland as a good example of considerably increasing demand on both public and private housing to allow for subletting this, which is creating some considerable opportunity in terms of energy renovation. We expect more of that to come through in other geographies, but there is nothing concrete at this moment, specifically.
We received, some questions here, two questions from Daniel Wetterberg. The first question is: How is the multiple and private companies? Is it still on decreasing trend for prices for non-public companies?
What we see typically, again, the processes that we run typically span over longer time. We normally say that a typical multiple that we'd pay would be in the range of around 6.5x-7x EBIT. That's typically what we'd be looking at. We haven't seen any massive movements actually in those longer discussions that we have over the past years, up nor down.
A question related to our timber purchase. What is the biggest market where you buy most of your timber? How is the timber prices developed? Are they decreasing a lot during Q1 2023? Or is a lag between the reaches when it reaches your gross margins? Do you buy your timber on the spot markets or do you have agreements with your suppliers such as SCA or Holmen, etc ?
Okay, we have agreements with varying lengths depending on the outlook for the market. Sometimes a little bit shorter, sometimes a little bit longer. The main supply countries for timber for us is out of Finland and out of Sweden, and some also come out of the Baltic countries. We have seen timber prices coming down coming into Q1, and we are clearly below the peak levels that we saw nine months or a year ago or so, but arguably still slightly above the levels before the pandemic.
The last question is from Lars, a private investment investor. How did the quarter end in terms of order intake? Did you have any weaker end of the quarter?
Yeah. As I mentioned before, it was a bit varying both between business units and between periods in the quarter. The strongest part of the quarter was actually in the middle. We saw a bit weaker activity going into the Christmas period, but that is not atypical either, given that general activity slows down and given the typical seasonality pattern. That was the last question. With that, we thank you very much for your attention, and see you all soon. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
The Inwido Q4 2022 report presentation has now ended. Thank you for your participation.