Hello, and welcome to today's presentation with Inwido, where President and CEO Fredrik Meuller and CFO and Deputy CEO Peter Welin will present a report for the first quarter of 2026. After the presentation, there will be a Q&A. So if you're calling in and want to ask a question, please press star nine to raise your hand, and then star six to unmute yourself when handed the word. You can also submit in questions via the form to the right. With that said, I hand over the word to you guys.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's webcast covering Inwido's first quarter performance of 2026. My name is Fredrik Meuller. I'm the president and CEO of Inwido since two years back. Next to me here in sunny Stockholm today is Peter Welin, our group CFO and deputy CEO. Looking at the agenda and the material as such, we have listened to your feedback. We use today a new format, hopefully perceived as being a little bit more to the point at both group and BA levels. We will have a question and answer session towards the end of this call, and as usual, the material is, of course, also available on Inwido's website. A seasonally challenging quarter in a turbulent context. I think the summary of that heading sums it up quite nicely.
Given that, and given the circumstances, I have to say that I think we do it rather well in what has been a challenging quarter. To some extent, we have to start already at the end of the fourth quarter of 2025. We had a record-breaking December following a soft October and November. It was a strong finish to last year, indicating that we would have a solid start to 2026. We, of course, also need to remind ourselves that Q1 is always the quarter with the lowest activity of the year, where we also need to balance our resources for the pickup in demand, the pickup in this industry early Q2. We cannot take out all of the costs that would hamper us in Q2. January, February were really burdened by harsh winter conditions across all of Europe, really, including our markets.
On top of that, we had some turbulence in the Danish market, which is somewhat unusual for us. Lower consumer confidence related to everything from the Greenland debacle to turbulence around the Novo Nordisk share, which is a major factor on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange. On top of that, yeah, harsh winter also in Denmark, and of course, also a new election. It was a bit of a vacuum early in January, February. Momentum, however, I will get back to that. Momentum, however, picked up quite substantially towards the end of the quarter. On top of that came the Middle East conflict, spoiling the party or adding to uncertainty overall, although we haven't seen any major impact of that so far. We'll talk more about it later on as well. For us, it was to some extent back to the drawing board, without panicking.
We continued to align our cost, but that is not something you do overnight. It is of course a bit of a lag before those measures kick in. It means that we've had a start to what is now de facto the fourth year of a historic industry downturn. Again, given the circumstances, I think we do it rather well. I'm quite impressed by the efforts taken, across all of our four business areas. Financially, Peter will cover the details of the financials in a second. Financially, we're back to quote-unquote, "normal pre-pandemic Q1 profitability." And that's also taking into account the fact that we had some negative FX impact in this quarter as well, around SEK 6 million on EBITDA. What is important is that, because there's always a silver lining, this quarter is no exception. March was substantially better than January, February, in fact, almost record-breaking.
I think overall, April looks good. Some positive momentum at that bodes quite well for Q2 and onwards, gives us some cautious optimism. There are lots of positives to celebrate in this quarter as well. I'm very proud of the achievements that we have made, going everything from R&D, where we launched new products, to sustainability, which has been award-winning in many aspects. In fact, last Thursday, our business unit Outline in Denmark was commended as the number one company in Denmark within diversity and number six when it comes to employee engagement. We're number two in employee engagement in Finland. We're number three in employee engagement in Ireland. There's still a lot of positive activity, and I think we handle the downturn in a very, very good way across the group.
Last but not least, before Easter, we concluded our fifth acquisition over the past six months, not bad, through the acquisition of Sovereign in the U.K., a fine traditional Inwido transaction, I would say, really, really strengthening our U.K. platform. It goes to show that the roadmap that we are on towards doubling the size of Inwido by year 2030 is definitely achievable. We do it still in a selective way where profitability is just as important as growth. Now we have one slide per each of the four BAs, and the order is by size. We're starting with BA Scandinavia, where, as I mentioned, Denmark was softer, meaning that that had a negative mixed impact on the overall figures, not only for the BA but for the group as a whole. But I think it, you know, solid performance also here, given the external factors.
It's largely a volume and gross margin matter. Particularly in January, February, Denmark was softer, meaning that there was increased price pressure. March, much better. We came out of the doldrums and as I said, that offered some cautious optimism for Q2 and beyond. Elitfönster, to mention one specific BU, continued to gain share already late last year, and they have also launched a new Precision range. I myself actually attended a two-day training course at our Lenhovda site and walked away with a big smile on my face, feeling that we have a fantastic view with fantastic products and people. That's important for the future. If we move on to what is now a BA called West, previously Western Europe. West was in this quarter one of the stars together with our e-commerce business.
We have concluded three nice acquisitions, one of which after the quarter end, as I just mentioned, and they're all contributing nicely already. Great to see the integration happening and with quite attractive synergy potential upside as well. Sidey Group in Scotland bucked the poor weather and the cycle and in fact had their best Q1 to date, which makes a big difference positively to the whole BA. Worth mentioning more from a structural point of view in the U.K. and West market is that minimum wages have been raised yet again in England by 4.11% from April 1. We've also seen a positive reaction from the cold and wet and windy and snowy winter that end consumers have become much more aware of the fact that their electricity bill has gone up and the fact that they need to renovate their windows.
In addition to that, there is now something called the Warm Homes Act in the U.K., where the government is providing some incentives for renovation. In Ireland, we have seen the equivalent of the ROT subsidy in Sweden now being implemented, which of course provides some tailwind for our consumer business. Moving on to Business Area East. Finland on top of very, very challenging macroeconomic conditions had an unusually prolonged and cold winter. We had temperatures of - 25 to - 30 degrees for several weeks in a row, meaning that it's not easy to run a window business during those conditions. Certain projects were of course deferred, and some projects, you know, pushed to the sideline.
Having said that, we have continued to shave off costs in a creative way, painful as it may be, and I'm genuinely impressed by Antti and his team in how they try to manage the situation. Price pressure is immensely fierce given the fact that the market, the demand is just so low. So given the circumstances, I think we've done a good job. As a sign of the times worth mentioning is that one of our larger competitors, Fenestra, two weeks ago announced their bankruptcy. I mean, it takes out capacity from the market, so hopefully that's in a way something that we can reap the benefits of as well. Poland looks solid, and of course, we've added AJM, the acquisition in Slovenia, making it our fourteenth market in terms of manufacturing and eighteenth market in terms of manufacturing and sales. That's really great to see.
Worth mentioning regarding Finland is also that as late as last week, finally, at last, the government is talking about implementing measures and relatively soon implementing measures, again, similar to the ROT setup that we've seen in Sweden and that has been beneficial in Sweden. They're talking about implementing some of that in Finland to get the renovation and the consumer side going again, which would of course be extremely welcomed by us and everybody else in the industry. Last but not least, our e-commerce business is really going from strength to strength. I'm very pleased about the development here. It's the third consecutive quarter that we raised our profitability in what is de facto still a tough segment.
Also here, of course, we saw some tougher conditions in Denmark at the beginning of the quarter, but quite a nice rebound towards the end of the quarter and a 191% higher profit is not bad. 4.5 percentage points on the margin side, I think says it all. It's very impressive. It's a combo of cost efficiency measures that we started to take already one year ago and that we continue to take throughout 2025, but also very dedicated efforts within the field of value-based pricing. These measures are kicking in quite nicely. In addition to Denmark, Germany is improving, and we have seen that we've gained market share in Q4 last year in Sweden, meaning that we are now number one in Sweden.
Last but not least, we can see judging by Trustpilot scores, which are quite important in this business, that we score far, far higher than our peers. I'm not surprised. I visited our Glodeni factory in Romania recently. Fantastic factory, great people, great products. We have a bit of a lean and mean machine now when it comes to online and our e-commerce business, which is great to see. Onwards and upwards for Bo and his team. Now for more flavor on Inwido's consolidated Q1 financials, I hand over to you, Peter, please.
Thank you so much, Fredrik. I'm starting with this page. This page is showing the income statement for Q1. As Fredrik mentioned before, we had a good momentum end of last year. When this year started, we had a positive order intake in December. The cold and long winter slowing down the market affected the performance in the beginning of the quarter, meaning we had too high capacity in the beginning of the quarter because we had forecasted with a higher activities which didn't occur. Thereby, we had a lower gross margin this year compared to last year, a decline from 22.9% - 22.1%. Because we didn't have the time to adjust that quickly in the beginning of the year. It shall be noted that everything we do is made to order.
If we could be able to produce an inventory, then we could have been running the productions fully, just producing to inventory, but we can't do that. Sales in the quarter was up by 4%. Organically, it's down by 2%. We had a slow start in the quarter, but more positive end of the quarter. The EBITDA was down by 6% compared to last year, and the operating EBITDA was down by 19% compared to last year, from SEK 111 million down to SEK 90 million. Here it's also including a negative FX impact of SEK 6 million. Further down the income statement, we can see that profit after taxes was down by 55%, and the earnings per share was down by 73% because we have a higher minority stake in the quarter this year compared to last year.
This page is showing the sales development as well as the operating EBITDA development in Q1 from Q1 last year to Q1 this year. We can see that we have a lower result in Scandinavia and in East, and we have a positive result improvement in West as well as in e-commerce. In West, we have a positive improvement due to, of course, acquisitions that had a positive contribution to the result in Q1 compared to last year. We have also an organic improvement in West when comparing to last year. E-commerce has continued improvement as Fredrik mentioned before. Looking more on long-term perspective, this page is showing the sales and the gross margin development from 2020 until 2026. This year, we have a higher seasonality impact in this quarter compared to last five, six years. A margin of 4.3% is quite normal if you compare the margins pre-pandemic.
Pre-pandemic, we were running between 4% and 5%. In 2020, we had a margin of 3.3% in Q1. We have a higher seasonality impact in the quarter. It should be mentioned that the seasonality impact doesn't mean that it has an impact on the total year. It's just a shift between Q1 and the remaining quarters. Looking at the cash flows, the cash flows development is always negative in Q1 because our seasonality this year was no exceptions. The cash flows before finance activities, excluding financial assets and acquisitions, was negative by SEK 212 million this year compared to - SEK 187 million last year, a negative delta of SEK 26 million due to the lower operating results. Cash from operating activities was down by SEK 24 million. Looking at the CapEx level, the CapEx level is slightly higher this year compared to last year, but not a large increase.
Then looking at the net debt, the net debt has increased during the last months due to acquisitions. We have made 5 acquisitions, but only 4 has been paid for. The latest acquisition, Sovereign, will be included from April and paid in April. The total net debt end of March is SEK 2.6 billion, including SEK 490 million of IFRS 16 debt and an acquisition debt of SEK 586 million. Net debt versus EBITDA is 2.0 including IFRS 16 and 1.9 excluding IFRS 16. However, if I then calculate with a pro forma basis, meaning I calculate for 12 months running rate for the acquisitions, when I calculate the net debt versus EBITDA, it's at 1.7, meaning we have still a good leverage and a healthy position to make more acquisitions.
Return on operating capital has declined in the quarter, mainly due to the lower operating result, but we also have a higher operating capital due to the acquisitions. We have a decline from 12.4% in Q4 last year down to 11.7% in Q1 this year, rolling 12 months. Looking at the order intake and the order backlog, on this page, you can see to the left, you can see the order backlog, and to the right, you can see the order intake. I will come back more when it comes to the order intake on the two following pages. Starting with the order backlog, the total order backlog is 1% lower compared to last year. Project is -5%, and consumer is +11%. Looking at the order intake, the total order intake is +3% in the quarter. Organically, it's -3%, where consumer is -2% and project is -5%.
If you then dig a little bit deeper into the organic order intake consumer project, starting with consumer, this page is showing the organic development, order intake development of the consumer, from Q1 last year to Q1 this year, meaning the latest five quarters. To the left, you can see the total development of the group. You can see that in Q1 this year, we have -2% in Q1, and in Q4 last year, it was +2%. Starting with Denmark is quite stable. Then you can ask me, have you forgotten Q1 this year? No, I have not. The Q1 is exactly on the same level as last year organically. Thereby, there's no change for Q1 for Denmark. Denmark is quite stable. In Sweden, we had a higher order intake all the quarters in 2025.
We had a really strong end of Q4, and then we had a wee bit weaker Q1 this year. Of course, the winter has an impact, but also the ROT program has some impact for the order intake. The ROT will not have an impact on the total sales or total development on a 12-month basis, but it's a shift between Q4 and Q1. Higher order intake in Q4, and a bit less order intake in Q1. The consumer market in U.K. and Finland are still very challenging. Then the rest, which is only 30% of sales, there we have growth, and we see growth in Poland as well as in Germany. Once again, this is organic, so meaning the latest acquisitions are not included and also adjusted for FX.
In Q3 and Q4 last year, the U.K. and the Finnish market was negative, but that was compensated by the Swedish and by the order intake in Sweden. Then it's Q1 this year, Sweden has not compensated the development of U.K. and Finland, and thereby we have a decline of 2% compared to last year. The project market. This page is showing exactly the same as consumer and organic developments of the order intake of the project market. But I can only say this is so much more volatile. On previous page, we had on a scale from -25% to +20%. Here we are more or less from -100% to +300%. The order intake within the project market is more volatile, and in total, it was -5% in the quarter compared to last year organically.
Thank you very much, Peter. It's time to round things off. I think overall, I mean, Inwido's 20-30 target remains firm. We are delivering on our strategy in a very good way. In anticipation of the organic growth, and the market rebound or recovery, we are in a clever and selective way conducting a lot of acquisitions, attractive acquisitions in both existing and new markets. We've signed and concluded five deals over the last six months. When I look into the pipeline of live and semi-live cases, I think it looks quite good. In fact, we have a few cases in totally new markets in addition to the ones that we've already added. It's a mix still of window and door businesses, but it includes also some targets within solar shading, which, as you know and as mentioned several times, is another area that we want to enter into.
I think we stand tall in the worst storm this industry has ever seen. We're turning challenges into opportunities. To some extent, to use an analogy here, I think we're building and to some extent have built a Ferrari. In Q1, we were unfortunately only able to drive it at 40 km/h, so that's a little bit frustrating. We're picking up speed, and that's important and bodes quite well. I don't need to dwell on the headwind on the left-hand side, but more importantly, perhaps point towards the levers that we are pulling since a long time back. This is of course, something that we can never stop focusing on. This is always relevant for us, given the market context. On the cost side and the personnel side, we are taking out headcount, we are emptying time banks, we are forcing vacation, et cetera. It's painful but necessary.
We are tightening the screening of our portfolio and the BU's performance in a clever and long-term way, meaning that additional restructuring may happen. There's absolutely no panic. On the contrary, I'm quite confident about where we are and where we're heading. I think it feels the same when I listen to the rest of my group management team and the BU management teams. We are performing better than our peers. Overall, I think Q1 is actually a solid quarterly performance given the circumstances. Let's not forget that the fundamentals of this industry remain very, very strong. At the end of the day, people do need new windows and doors. We have lost some 20%-30% volume and sales since the peak a few years ago. A normalization, quote-unquote, of this industry will implicitly mean quite a solid bounce back in demand.
If we look at the outlook, the world is in a crazy place. It's very difficult both for us, our analysts, investors, and everybody else out there to see what's around the corner. The Middle East conflict will most likely have a negative impact on raw materials, both price levels, and availability. It will impact energy and transportation costs, but I'm not necessarily overly concerned about that. We have a governance model, and we have a track record of being able to deal with those kind of circumstances, particularly looking into what we did during the pandemic. The question mark is more hovering around demand and how that will be impacted by this situation. If there is, of course, increasing threats about inflation indicating that interest rates may go up, then of course, that could be another wet blanket on the consumer demand side. Let's see.
Our size and our competence is and our importance, relatively speaking, for our suppliers is something that is certainly helping us in this situation. We're focusing on what's within our control. Pro forma, we've added SEK 1 billion in turnover over the last six months through these mentioned acquisitions. We have a more lean operational setup. It's really all about volume and about going for profitability instead of volume. With that said, I think Peter and I would be delighted now to answer any of the questions that you may have. Please.
Thank you so much for the presentation, Fredrik Meuller. As you mentioned, now we'll carry on with the Q&A. If you're calling in and want to ask a question, please raise your hand by pressing star nine and then star six to unmute yourself when handed the word. The first caller here is Jonny Jin from SEB.
Good morning, Fredrik and Peter. Hope you can hear me. I have a couple of questions. I will start with profitability and operating expense side. Were there any unusually high costs in this quarter that we should not expect going forward? Tying that to your comments around increased market uncertainty and such, are you now actually implementing cost reductions that have been in Denmark or in Finland, for instance? Or is this sort of the fair cost base we should expect in the near term?
Yeah. Hi, good morning, Jonny. This is Fredrik. It's a relevant question, of course. No, I think as we said before, one needs to bear in mind that Q1 is a quarter where we always need to balance the cost. It would be very easy, but very short-sighted to throw out many more resources than what we have and what we can do. But that will bite us in the rear end if we do that already early in Q2 as the seasonal demand starts to pick up. Thankfully, this year we've had, following the harsh winter, quite a nice spring season already in many of our markets. Again, big variations from market to market. In Denmark, of course, we're looking into what we can do to enhance the profitability even further.
There is a lag before we take the measures and before we see the impact on that in the P&L. Overall, it's Denmark did come out of the doldrums towards the end of the quarter, much better compared to the beginning of the quarter. In Denmark, we have some really nice entities that are doing a good job already. It's more a matter of getting that volume back and actually to some extent, walking away from silly price projects. Finland is a totally different story. There, as you know, we have not only. I mean, already before 2025, we started to adjust the cost base, both the fixed and variable cost base to the demand situation. You can only shave off so much. At the end of the day, you come down to the bone. We have at the same time continued to take additional measures.
I'm genuinely impressed, as I said before, by what we have achieved and how we can maintain momentum and this award-winning employee engagement level given the circumstances. Because it is heavy. It is tough. As I mentioned, we have competitors that are now going belly up, which is a sign of the times. Hopefully, the last piece of news in Finland, the introduction of some kind of government incentive scheme comes into play very soon, because that would be, of course, a big positive piece of news. Yeah. I mean, we are adjusting costs everywhere, but we are also confident about our OTIF, on-time in-full delivery precision, because that gives us an edge vis-à-vis competition, and it gives us an opportunity to also work with value-based pricing. It's too easy to say that we should only work with a cost base.
It's a bit more complex than that. Hopefully that answers your question.
Yeah. Understood. There were no extraordinary costs that we should be aware of in this quarter then, of course?
No, there was no extraordinary-
Yeah.
-cost in this quarter. It should be mentioned if you take away acquisitions, because we have quite many acquisitions that impact comparisons, and when you're comparing Q1 this year compared to last year. As we follow up on our cost base, meaning our production cost and our overhead cost, we have a cost savings more than SEK 30 million in the quarter compared to last year, excluding acquisitions.
Understood. Okay, moving to gross margin here, it declined in the quarter year-over-year, and I suppose that is more of a reflection of volume and mix. Is that correct? And then more importantly, how should we think about the increased energy prices and raw materials going forward? What sort of the magnitude we can expect from the upcoming quarters, and are you now implementing price increases to offset that or?
The first question is, yes, it's more volume and mix, more volume than mix, especially because of the lack of activities in January, February, because we had planned with high activities in January, February than what was the outcome. Of course, we have a mix because Denmark was a bit lower in sales compared to last year, and that has a negative impact on the margins. Looking at your second questions, we foresee material price increases, which will then impact in Q2. We will increase our sales prices. It is an ongoing process right now when it comes to our sales price and how much we're going to increase sales price because we don't really know how big the material price increase will be.
That will have an impact from Q3. There will be, all else equal, slightly negative impact in Q2, and then in Q3 we are back on track. It takes a bit more time for us to adjust our pricing. It's a timing issue for us. In the long-term perspective and looking historically, we have never had problems because we are able to adjust and compensate on the sales prices, but it's a time lag.
Understood. Good. I move to sales here a little bit. I think you mentioned some harsh weather conditions in the quarter. Have that affected deliveries in any material way causing delays or similar?
Yes. The short answer is yes. Again, it's really been across all of our markets. In the west, it was more wet and unusually windy. In the east, it was more snowy and cold. All in all, it has had quite a big impact both on demand as such, but primarily on installations and product deliveries and what have you. It's been deferrals, not cancellations in a way, in any way. It doesn't really work like that in our industry. It's more deferrals, delays. Again, that typically happens in Q1 every year, but this year has been exceptional. I think it's been across Europe the coldest winter since 2008 or something like that.
Very wet in the west and a few weeks of a spell of, you know, -25 to -30 degrees in the east. I hate to talk about the weather as one factor explaining the quarterly result, but this year, one really has to. This will not have an impact-
Yeah.
-when it comes to the full year, because that will then be compensated in following quarters. The delays are on the project market. The consumer market has not such a delays. There is more delays the consumers are waiting to place the orders. Instead of placing the orders January, February, March, they're placing the orders in March, April, June instead. It's a-
Understood.
It's a timing issue. It's not an impact for total years. It's more a timing issue with lower Q1, and then that will compensate in the following quarters.
Understood. Is it possible to try to quantify the effect a little bit of that delay?
We are talking about roughly 1% of sales that shall be then moved.
Okay.
-to a Q-
Good.
-Q instead. Roughly SEK 20 million, a little bit more.
Good. That's clear. Just one final from my side. I think this is more of a clarification question, and it's regarding your comment about higher activity levels and order intake in March compared to January and February. Are you talking about year-on-year improvement here? Because I suppose you always have this a little bit seasonality during Q1, where March is usually the strongest. Would anything-
No.
-deviating extra from the usual or?
It's more year-on-year, Jonny. It's a relevant question, of course. As you correctly point out, normally we see a gradual uptick throughout the quarter, but this year, March was relatively speaking better than a quote-unquote "normal March". Of course, it's nice to see our acquisitions adding to that overall somewhat rosier picture as well.
Okay. Can you say something how much higher sales were in March year-over-year? Is that possible?
No, I would not go public with that figure, but I can say that January was the worst January ever, and I've been here for 28 years. February-
Okay. Understood.
Weak and March was an improvement.
Understood.
We have an extremely bumpy pattern, which is not really something we've seen before. If we start with Q4 already, I mean, October was challenging, November was an all-time low, and then December was an all-time high. As Peter said, January was an all-time low again, and then we're gradually getting back on track. It was always going to be a bumpy ride. We talked about for a long time, and it's difficult to predict what's around the corner. I think it's important that we stay focused on the roadmap that we have. We continue to deliver on the strategy in a very good way, given the circumstances, and we have a model where we are prepared and we have the skills, the experience, to deal with whatever comes in our way, both challenges and opportunities.
As Peter said, it may be a lag of a few months every now and then, depending on what happens in the external environment. Overall, I'm quite confident about what we're doing and where we're heading. It was positive organic sales growth in March this year compared to March last year.
Understood. I will just squeeze in for one final. Sorry, a lot of questions here. In Scandinavia, organic growth took a step down here. It's down 3% organic, which is a slowdown compared to Q4 here. I think you mentioned this ROT effect. If we take Q1 and Q4 combined, organic growth is at 2%. Is that a fair reflection of underlying demand sort of now in the medium term, or?
Yeah. If you combine Q4 and Q1, and then you can see the total development. There's a shift-
Understood. Last year.
Yep. Good.
Good. Thank you so much. That was all for me. Have a great day.
Thank you very much, Jonny.
Okay.
Have a great day, you too.
Thank you for the questions there. Then we're going to go to the next caller, and it is cell phone number that ends with 8225. You have the floor.
Can you hear me now?
Yes. Yes.
All right. I think I muted myself and then unmuted again. Albin here. Hi-
Hello, Albin.
- lots of good questions there from Jonny, but I have one more. You mentioned some timeline timing issues as set up. Looking from here, I think Q2 last year, you had margin headwinds due to the significant Q1 to Q2 drop in order intake and demand, especially in Denmark, which I believe impacts the margin in Q2 this. How should we think about Q2 this year? Is it easier now to plan for you? Should we therefore expect that margins are up again in Q2 year-over-year?
I can't say it's easier to plan for because of the volatility as we've seen. As I said before, December, best December ever, January, the worst January ever. It's a very volatile market for us. It's also hard to predict how the Middle East will have an impact on the consumer behavior and the consumer spending in Q2, which is of course a big question mark for us. I can't say it's easier for us to plan for. My comment is more that everything else equal, an increased material price, inflation will have a negative impact in Q2, and we will be able to compensate that from Q3. How big that is also a question mark because it depends on how long this war is going to be and the impact on material prices due to the war. It's very tricky to predict. That's us for certain.
Yeah, maybe just to add to that.
It's both-
Maybe just to add to that, it's all about psychology if you look at the consumer side of things, because as Peter said, all else equal, and let's take Sweden as an example, the macroeconomics are there, right? The households have thicker wallets than in a long time. With the uncertainty going on, it just makes it very difficult for everyone to push the button on a project, like a window and door renovation project, as it goes to show. The fundamentals are there and Sweden as a market otherwise has quite a promising outlook, I would argue. Irrespective of the fact that the ROT level is now at the lower level again, we still have lower interest rates. I mentioned the households' wallets. We still have, you know, easing of amortization on mortgages, et cetera.
The housing market has started to pick up momentum, primarily in the three largest cities, et cetera. I think what Denmark experienced in Q1, which was a relatively new situation for Denmark, is really all about psychology and the sort of geopolitical unrest. Finland, yeah, if you go there, you need to understand that they have a neighbor in the east that they have a history with. It's not necessarily so that people are thinking about renovating their windows when they're not really sure about what will happen next week, so to speak. It's all in the shadow of the Middle East, in the shadow of Ukraine, in the shadow of the Greenland debacle and what have you. We just need. It's frustrating, but we need to pay respect to that, I think.
Okay, thanks. Is it possible to quantify what the impact of the, like, let's say, hard to plan moment last Q1 to Q2 did with the margins in the second quarter? Is it possible to quantify that? Correct me if I'm right, but, or wrong, but, Denmark has the last quarter with tough comps. This quarter was the last quarter with tough comps for Denmark, right? So it should be easier or?
As Denmark, yeah, had a good Q2, a relatively good Q2 last year as well. No, but so sorry, Albin, I can't quantify it. It's too many uncertain parameters right now. Yeah. I think when it comes to-
But, but it-
Last year, it was more a matter of it. I would argue it was more a matter of parts of U.K. and Finland that were on the softer side. Sweden and Denmark were quite solid in Q2 last year. Sweden had a pickup because of the higher ROT level as from May last year. It was more a matter of Finland that towards the end of the Q2, we of course thought that Finland had bottomed out, and then the floor just disappeared already in July. There you go. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it was really a mixed bag already in Q2 last year, and it's continued to be a mixed bag across the markets.
I think the good news is with the broad exposure that we have, that we don't stand or fall with one single market. We have a mitigated risk in that sense with the broad exposure that we have. That keeps increasing, by the way.
Yes. Yeah, for sure. One question on another single market, then. ROT. You mentioned ROT in Sweden and there's some similar stuff in Ireland going on right now. Can you just comment a bit more on the details about that? When did it start? What do you see, et cetera?
Yeah, you're absolutely right. In Ireland, they have actually quite recently introduced this. I can't remember what it's called, but it's related to energy efficiency with the purpose of renovating old windows and doors. The grant levels are actually very similar to what we've seen and are still seeing in Sweden at the higher level. That's of course a boost for the market and for us as such. Again, as late as last week, something similar was mentioned in Finland. Now, the proof is in the pudding that it actually becomes implemented. The news was that they are looking into doing something like that very soon in Finland, and that would of course be welcomed.
Okay. That's a bad timing for the bankers, for me in Finland then. Yeah, speaking of that then, is it any tangibles or intangibles for sale there that you're interested in acquiring?
Sorry, say that again, Albin.
The company in Finland that went into
Yeah.
- bankruptcy restructuring, I think it's Fenestra or, is there any intangibles or tangibles there that are interesting for you?
Most likely not. I mean, it's early days. It just happened less than two weeks ago. At the end of the day, it's capacity out of the market, which is good. Hopefully we can have a stabilization of you know, pricing, price levels, et cetera. Yeah. This was more of a sales company. I don't think it will have any. It's not really of interest for us in that sense. Similar to what we've seen in the U.K. As you know, for the last year, we've had lots of teasers about various companies being up for sale, almost being panic sales, where they are in financial distress. At Inwido, we don't do financial distress acquisitions, so we just leave them, and thankfully, they have been left to their own devices, as well. Nobody else has really picked them up. I think the same will happen in Finland.
All right. Perfect. Yeah, that's clear. That's also all for me. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for your question there. The next caller is Sofia Sörling from Carnegie.
Hi.
Hi, Sofia. How are you?
Hi. Hope you're good. Hi. Thank you. I'm good, thank you. Two questions from my side. First, why would you say the competition is more fierce in Denmark compared to, for example, Norway and Sweden? Do you believe that this competition is isolated to Q1, or have you seen it continue into Q2?
We feel that it was with this magnitude much more linked to actually January, February rather than March. Let's see how this develops. As the market was just much smaller in that sense through lower demand levels in January, February, of course, that quite quickly intensified the competitive nature of the market, meaning more price pressure than before. We remain confident with the entities that we have and the market remains attractive. March looked much better than January, February. We are quite optimistic about the Denmark development going forward. As Peter said, order intake-wise, it's quite stable, actually.
Okay. Just on the question, why the competition was mainly in Denmark and not Norway and Sweden, do you see any specific reason for that?
Well, Norway is, first of all, a smaller market for us, and a smaller market as such. We have one entity up there doing a great job. Norway market-wise, I mean, the country is benefiting from higher oil prices, but the consumer side of things has been at the somewhat subdued lower level. That's where it sort of stayed for the time being. No major differences in context this quarter compared to previous quarters in Norway. Competition remains more or less the same. In Sweden, we have thankfully gained market share. The industry association data, the freshest data is from Q4 last year, so it's a lag here of a quarter, but it indicated that we have gained market share primarily through our lead funds to business, and that's without reducing prices, by the way. It's by retaining a high OTIF level and by launching new products.
Overall, just doing a good job particularly on the consumer side. Yeah, overall, of course, competition is fierce. In Denmark, I think the nuancing for Denmark was more that it was a somewhat new situation for us and for the market in the beginning of Q1, partly weather-related, partly related to, as I said, macroeconomic conditions, Greenland, Novo Nordisk, and the elections.
Okay. Thank you. My last question, would you say that you're satisfied with the margin contribution from the new acquired companies, both in West and East?
Yeah. Very much so. I mean, we've again, out of the five that we've acquired now, the majority of them have, as communicated, a higher profitability level than Inwido in general. That's good. Of course, they are facing some seasonal differences. That varies a bit from one entity to another. The one in Slovenia, we are learning, of course, now as part of their integration into Inwido that in Slovenia, Q1, there is even more seasonality in Q1 compared to what we are typically used to. Having said that, they've had a very good start to this year, relatively speaking. Overall, really nice acquisitions. It looks good also going when I look into the crystal ball, looking ahead.
Of course, we need to continue to be selective, particularly now in the current market context. We can see that a lot of companies actually improved their performance and did better in 2025. Of course, we are not alone with a more challenging Q1 this year. We can see that when we look into some of the other acquisition targets, potential transactions that we're working on, meaning that we need to bridge the valuation gap one way or another, meaning that it may be somewhat more difficult to reach an agreement here and now. Having said that, I think it looks quite good actually with the discussions that we are in. Solar shading is a little bit the odd bird in all of this because the larger incumbents, i.e.
The ones that we are more interested in as an entry ticket into solar shading, in addition to the smallish entity that we have in Finland already, they are performing really well, which is good news. If they don't have to sell and there are really not any structured auction processes in that field at the moment, then of course, the price tag goes up a bit. Meaning implicitly that we need to be dead certain about the savings coming from sales synergies in particular in this case. There will be some cost synergies as well, but particularly sales synergies. Yeah, a difficult market. Again, doing better towards the end of the quarter. Again, April has started in a good way, and M&A activity remains high.
Okay, great. That was all for me. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much, Sofia.
Thank you. Moving on to the last caller here, which is, Linus Alentun from Nordea.
Yes. Hi, and good morning. Just a quick couple of questions here from me. You mentioned walking away from silly price projects in Denmark. I was just wondering if you could give a sense here of how much volume you are deliberately sacrificing here.
Not too much, I would say. I mean, we need to make sure that we all understand that Denmark is not. I don't wanna make it come across as Denmark is sort of on a similar level like Finland or anything like that. It's definitely not. Denmark is very solid. Of course, we have strong positions to defend. We have strong brands to defend in the Danish market. We are really cautious about going into some projects that, you know, for us, don't really make any sense. Let's not forget that we are in the sort of upper medium to premium niches of the market. And it's not in any major volumes that we're talking about, Linus, when it comes to Denmark.
In Finland, it's a totally different story. There, the pond has just become extremely small, meaning that everyone is fighting for volume, us included, meaning that we have lost quite a lot on the gross margin one level. In Denmark, it's a different story. Again, we think that was more of a short-term thing in January, February compared to a long-term thing as we look into what's happened in March and onwards.
Okay. Just there.
Okay.
There in Finland, I mean, that was a pretty weak result, but as I understand it's a lot due to the weather here. Can we expect some sort of pickup here, in Q2, in Finland?
You shouldn't expect a lot. In fact, the really only limelight in what is a rather dark market context is, as I said, last week's announcements by the Finnish government, which are really the first announcements that they are looking into and preparing for some kind of rollout of a ROT, similar ROT program that we've had in Sweden. They have a history of looking into what their neighbor on the west side of the country is doing. I think that they're doing exactly that also for something to happen, hopefully now later in Q2. Other than that, let's not have too high hopes about Finland. We've had that before. I was somewhat optimistic about Finland a year ago, and I was proven very wrong just a few weeks later. Let's hope they can surprise on the positive going forward.
We hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Having said that, I think we are doing really, really well over there, relatively speaking, given the circumstances. Again, we have peers that go belly up, whereas we are still alive and we have entities that, of course, make money, despite the fact that we're taking out a lot of resources, which has been super painful. Again, we are winning awards for the culture that we have, the DNA that we have in the organization, which to me is super impressive.
All right. Understood. Just one last question here. Back to the U.K., you mentioned the minimum wages here up above 4% from April, right? I was just wondering if you could perhaps give some rough quantification of the impact here and or are you able to offset this straight away through pricing or?
Yeah, I don't know the exact impact, but of course, if we take a step back and look at the country as such, it's of course a lever that the labor government is pulling with all good intentions. In a country where productivity has, at least historically, not necessarily followed suit, it becomes a bit of a challenge for at least more labor-intensive industries in that country. We, as you know, have a mix of PVC manufacturers and timber manufacturers and of course, the PVC manufacturing is less labor-intensive. Overall, of course, we are trying to push that cost increase onwards to customers. I think we do a relatively good job with that, given the circumstances. It's trickier to do so in the consumer trade part of the business than in the project business. It sort of reduces or theoretically reduces the competitiveness of England as a country.
For us, as witnessed by the acquisitions that we have made, which are, by the way, contributing very nicely already, it is possible to make money in that market. Let's not forget that it's the de- facto second largest window and door market in Europe. We are number two in that market. For us, we see scale benefits. We have our entities collaborating more and more, much more compared to what they did in the past. That all bodes really well. We have some new people on board and more people coming on board. We are quite forward-leaning when it comes to the U.K. outlook. In the near term, it will be perhaps more within social housing than anything else. It goes to show with, for example, the Victorian Sliders acquisition, you can make some really nice money in that market if you do it well.
A lot of opportunity, I understand. All right. Thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you. Good questions.
Thank you for the questions. That was all the questions we had here. I will now hand over to you, Fredrik, for some concluding remarks.
Thank you very much. Please pencil these dates into your calendar, and don't forget to look at our newly released annual and sustainability report as well, hot off the presses. Thank you, Peter. Thank you everyone out there for attending and listening. Let me also thank all of my Inwido coworkers and our business partners for a job well done throughout Q1 of this year. Thank you very much. Bye for now.