Welcome to Lagercrantz Group Q4 report 2025-2026. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answer session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to President and CEO Jörgen Wigh and CFO Karin Mellegård Djärf. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Lagercrantz year-end report call. We, as you know, have our ending of our financial year end of March every year. We have just concluded our numbers and released them here this morning. Welcome, everyone. Together with me here, I have Karin with us as well, our CFO. We will try to do this together. We usually end up having a 45-minute call or so, and we'll open up for questions at the end if you don't have any along the way. With that, I think we can get started.
Yes, I will start with a short introduction, and then we'll get right into the numbers, and then we'll look a little bit on where we are with the group and how we build the group for the future and some future priorities as we go move forward, and then we'll open up for questions. Let's start with a little bit of an overview. I think this slide and this perspective you've seen many times. It's our an overview of the group where we have our 5 divisions and how we've rephrased ourself. We are a tech group with leading position in expanding niches. We have currently some 85 companies growing with some 10 to 12 new companies every year.
We have, during the fiscal years, surpassed SEK 10 billion in sales. Are now approaching SEK 11 billion here, with SEK 10.6 billion or so, moving 12 months, I think we have. We are currently some 3,600 employees within the group. You can see over to the right where we have our needles, where we're located, a lot in the Nordics and Northern Europe, but we also have footholds in the rest part of the world, as you can see all the way to the right there in North America also in Asia.
We are a Nordic-based group, but moving and expanding in other markets. We have definitely put our feet on the ground in the U.K. in the last few years, but are also now looking more into countries like the Netherlands and Germany and other sort of Mid-Europe markets or, yeah, still Northern, but still, yeah. Acquisitions is a central part of our business model, and as I said, we acquire, closing some eight to 12 deals per year. We have been on Nasdaq Stockholm since 2001, and before that, we were part of the Bergman & Beving Group that was listed already in 1976.
We've been on the stock exchange now for 50 years, as and in our own name in 25 years. That's a bit of an overview. We posted another very strong and solid quarter. We have the next one. Yeah, there we are. With really some good developments in during the quarter, even though we've seen quite a volatile market and a lot of uncertainty going on in the world with geopolitical situations and what is happening in different parts of the world.
That is, of course, in the long run affecting us as well, we have seen very limited effects during this quarter, hopefully we don't see any big things going forward either. We see some volatility in the markets when we talk about raw material prices and things like that. We posted a very solid quarter and continued our trajectory towards SEK 2 billion in terms of profits, as you can see over to the right there. Another strong, solid quarter. We commented in our report on the business conditions, we move to the next one.
We see some volatility and some uncertainty in different markets, but all in all, we still feel that we have a very diversified and strong portfolio of companies with working in our niches. On an overall level, we felt that the market situation was continued to be stable also in the fourth quarter. We see a strong development and strong growth in electrification, infrastructure, security, and defense-related businesses while we see a slower demand still in the construction sector. Everyone has been expecting an uptick on an improvement in that sector, and we've seen a little bit of that, but very, very limited so far. We think that the construction sector remains weak, even though we see some improvements in some areas.
The order intake all in all was then slightly higher than the invoice sales during the quarter and increased organically by some 5%. Adjusted for exchange rate fluctuations which negatively affected the order intake by 3%. You can see down here that we have continued our development over the years. We see that we are becoming in the right one. You see that we are becoming more and more international. The Swedish part is growing, but still as a percentage of the total is going down a little bit. We see that other markets are picking up, especially the U.K.
You can see that is now the third biggest market in within Lagercrantz with 9%, similar to the Norwegian one, which is also 9%. We also saw our key strategic focus has also been that we should increase the proprietary product share of our sales. Now that reached 80%. I'll come back to that strategic aim of ours later on. A stable market and good market conditions along the way, as we've seen. Here, Karin, maybe you can comment on the actual numbers here.
Yes, absolutely. As you already mentioned, Jörgen, we are delivering another very strong quarter. The revenues increased by 13%, and acquisitions was contributing with 12%, while the currency had a negative impact of 4%. On the other hand, our organic growth improved and reached 6% in the quarter. EBITDA increased by 20% and improved steadily over the course of the year quarter by quarter, and the EBITDA margin expanded to 19%, compared with 17.8% last year. Cash flow from operations was 20% higher than last year and ended up at SEK 410 million, compared to SEK 342 million last year. The profits of the financial items and profit of the tax both increased with 19% to SEK 438 million and SEK 368 million.
When we conclude for the full year, we can see that we completed another very successful performance with the net revenue increasing by 13%. We are now ending the full year with SEK 10.6 billion. Acquisitions contributed with 13%. Currency had a negative impact of 3%. The organic growth amounted to 3% for the full year. EBITDA improved with 17%. The EBITDA margin is still on a very high and a good level at 18.1%, compared to 17.5% last year. Cash flow from operations remained strong for the full year, increasing by 14%, compared with the prior year and ending up over SEK 1.5 billion. Profits of the financial items increased with 17% to SEK 1.5 billion. Profits of the tax increased with 18% to SEK 1.2 billion.
Earnings per share increased by 18% and ended up with SEK 5.81 per share, while the return on equity amounted to 29% and equity ratio at 35%. Profit over working capital improved by 2 percentage points and ended up at 81%. For the full financial year, we completed eight acquisitions that corresponds to roughly 11% of the net sales for the group for the previous years. Also during, and we will come back to that one, and during April this year, we completed four more acquisitions with a total approximately revenue of SEK 300 million. Also the board proposes an increase of the dividend with 14% to SEK 2.50 per share compared to SEK 2.20 last year.
On a very, very high level, and we will come back to this one, Jörgen will in short, by division. In the fourth quarter, four out of five divisions reported solid growth, with a particularly strong performance in the International division, both organically and through acquisitions. From an operating profit perspective, three divisions, Electrify, Control, and International, delivered strong EBITDA growth as well as margin improvements. We would also like to highlight Niche Products, that this still remains on a very high level on 22.5%. Before I hand over to you, Jörgen, I think that we should highlight Electrify division that really increased their EBITDA with over, close to 40% in the quarter compared to last year, and has actually, the last three quarters, they have had an EBITDA margin over 21%.
Yes, as you can see here, all in all, we have five very strong divisions with really good margins and good performance over the years. We are very happy with the four divisions. TecSec is lagging behind a little bit, but improving a lot here in the quarter as well. We're very happy with where we are with our five divisions at the moment. Just to have a few comments by division then. I mean Electrify posted some 8% revenue growth, and organically it was 9%. Really strong organic growth in Electrify division, driven by the increased demand that we see within the electrification area, but also within the infrastructure, which is also an important part of the division.
The EBITDA increased by 38%, so really strong, and the EBITDA margin was now at 21.8%. They have established themselves above 20% now for some three consecutive quarters or so within this division. A really strong quarter with good growth and improved margins. We saw that especially within the companies like Elkapsling posted a really good year. Mastsystem, which we acquired a little bit more than a year ago, also posted a really strong quarter, and also Nordic Road Safety or NRS, Elfac, and Elpress. Big, good companies, all of them, and they're performing really well at the moment. That was a couple of comments on the Electrify.
We move on to the Control division, where revenues were up 9%, and of which acquisitions stood for 10%, organically 3%, and then they have some headwinds from the currency developments of -4%. All in all, 9%. EBITDA grew by 15% to SEK 68 million, and the EBITDA margin was at 18.9%, up a percentage point from last year. Here we see some strong developments with the companies that are related to the defense sector, and especially then CP Cases. Leteng in Norway had a really strong performance during the year and also in the quarter. Stegborgs and Radonova also showed good improvements in earnings during the period. A really strong quarter there as well.
We also have some smaller business units in, especially in Norway and Denmark, that are still struggling, which we have commented on earlier, and they're still struggling with the construction sector not really coming back as we had expected. We are taking even more measures in these companies as we move along now. Within the TecSec divisions, revenues were up 21%, and 16% came from acquisitions, and organically up 10%, which is a really good number for TecSec. FX was against a little bit, - 5% from FX. EBITDA amounted to SEK 96 million as opposed to SEK 83 million last year, a good growth there as well. The EBITDA margin was up, was at 14.4%, a little bit down from 15.1% last year.
The division's largest company, PcP, in Denmark and yeah, Northern Europe, and the more construction-related businesses, Laurea, Door & Joinery , Principal Doorsets, and CW Lundberg, continued to be affected by the challenging market that is the construction-related market. the company I Holland that we acquired, that is a new area for us with the MedTech business, that we acquired in November, had a good start in the division. within Niche Products, the revenues grow by 1%, and also 10% actually was positive coming from acquisitions, but organically was down 4%, and FX was - 5%.
The EBITDA was up only 3% to SEK 146 million, and EBITDA margin still at a very good level of 22.5%, so strong EBITDA margin development. Some headwinds when it comes to the market development, and especially that is related to what we have seen within currencies, with raw material prices, and also with the exposure that some of these businesses have toward the U.S., where we've seen the trade tariffs and stuff now coming into play a little bit along the way. Asept, Tormek, and Westmatic had a weak development connected to what's happening in the world and the geopolitical uncertainty going on.
The recently acquired Swedish company, Sit Right and Enskede Hydraul, had a good start in the group or within division as well. Last but not least is the International division then had a good development with revenues growing 31%, where 25% came through acquisitions and 12% organically. FX was -6% within this division. EBITDA was up 45%, really strong development, and EBITDA margin on 19.4%, a really strong development within the International divisions. We felt that the market here was overall on a stable level, despite the negative currency effects. A strong quarter with good growth and improved margins, especially the marine businesses, within Libra in Norway and also DP Seals in the U.K. continue to show strong performance.
Here we also commented on that we felt that the seasonality that we have seen within the acquisitions we made starting from 1st of July last year with the Epoke and Friggeråkers, with the road and winter treatment, yeah, with salt spreaders and things like that. They have a low season here now in the coming quarters. That we didn't have that last year, that will probably affect the numbers going forward a little bit. That is the comment that we have down here below. We have a usually weaker spring and an early summer period that we didn't have an impact of last year that we will have this year.
That will probably affect the quarter going forward here. A bit of a heads up there. With that said, I think we've gone on with most of the numbers. Once a year, we also release the numbers in terms of return on working capital or profit over working capital per division. It's good to see, and we release these numbers not on a quarterly base, but on an annual base, and you can see how that development have been over the years here. Good development in most divisions, and at very good levels. We're having the whole group now at above 80%, which is really good to see. We see also that the divisions are performing very well all in all here.
That is, that is very satisfactory to have it like that. We move on. We also have, once a year we also disclose the net sales per segment. This doesn't make sense to have every quarter, we think, to add all these numbers up, but we do it once a year. Here you can see the developments over the years. Not a huge changes really. We see that we have a very broad portfolio of companies in a wide set of sectors, which then make the whole portfolio very diversified. A couple of the things then is still that we see that the power and electricity distribution and the infrastructure is growing as a percentage due to organic growth, but also some acquisitions there.
The Mastsystem acquisitions came in and also the Tykoflex acquisition came in within infrastructure, and that is adding to that exposure, which we think is very positive for us. You can also see that we are now highlighting the MedTech business. That is currently some 3%. We had some smaller businesses within that sector before, but we now have a bigger one, which is the I Holland we acquired here in November. That has been only part of the last year. The MedTech will probably be bigger as we move forward here, as we are moving into that sector somewhat. Some developments here as well. You can also see all in all the building of construction exposure.
You can see that it's especially the part that is the residential one is still at, is where we see some headwinds in the market. That you can see is very small here all in all for us and it's actually declining as well as part of the group. I think we have a good balance and a very diversified portfolio of companies within the group. Moving forward, I think a couple of highlights here. I think we are building our group with delivering on the 15% target every year over a business cycle, where we feel that 1/3 of that should come organically and 2/3 from M&A. That corresponds currently some to some eight to 12 acquisitions per year.
Since 1st of April last year, we've actually made 12 acquisitions here. We posted eight during the fiscal year, we posted another four here in April. We are at the 12 acquisitions per year, adding some 10%-12% of the group along the way, the rest should come organic. It's very satisfying to see that organic growth has picked up here in the last quarter. We have been struggling with 1, 2, 3 percentage points for a couple of years, that was very satisfying to see the 6% here in the last quarter. The return on equity should be at 25%, we are currently at some 29% or so, as we will see. We should do this in a very profitable way.
We continue with a very established and well-functioning business idea around what we'll be doing. I think we have shown that so many times now that the model is very strong and it works. A couple of other highlights. What we have been occupied in the last couple of years is then the scaling Lagercrantz. I think to be able to deliver the 15% or at least 15% EBT growth annually, and I think it is about building the organization and culture. It's about finding and delivering on the M&A opportunities, and then to have the financing and get the flywheel to working, to get the cash flows out of the business in order to acquire more businesses.
That has been working very well for us. We have been thinking quite a lot about this and how to develop that, therefore we also did the reorganization some five years that I think is now part of why we're doing a payback, because we have now established our five divisions in these sectors. They're up and running now in a very good way, all five of them. That is adding to our growth and profitability over the years. We work in a very decentralized way, so it's good to see that this is functioning now on a divisional and company level. You can see that the divisions are somewhat similar.
Control is a slightly smaller than the others but, picking up along the way as well, growing and having now healthy margins there as well. Building a positions in sustainable segments with underlying structural growth is what we're aiming for, and that we have proven here in the last couple of years that we are able to do as well with some really good M&A, good M&A pace over some time now. That also made us, during the year then, update our financial targets. The 15% we reiterated, and that we should reach the SEK 2 billion within five years, we also reiterated. We then set the EBITDA target of 20% in two to three years.
It's very satisfying to see that we now had it at 19% for a quarter. We will see whether we'll be at that level going forward every quarter, but because we have some seasonalities and stuff in there, but I think we are really pushing to get to the 20% within two to three years. We communicated this during the fiscal year, so that was in, was it November somewhere we did? No, it was the Q3 report we communicated this, so it was in February, right? We also then moved our profit over working capital from previously 45% up to 60%. That is the target for existing and acquired businesses, or when we're acquiring businesses. We reiterated the return on equity target of 25%.
We are sort of stretching ourselves a little bit here by also then adding the buying and building niche businesses as a tagline a little bit on what we are trying to do. We are trying to buy really good companies and making them great, the buying and building is a key thing that we're really working with in our companies at even at a larger extent than before. One strategic aim is then also to have the proprietary products up to 85%, and it's good to see that we communicated that goal when we had surpassed the 75%. You can see that it's been going up since then, a percentage point or two every year, and we are currently then at 80%.
We will hope that we will be at the 85 maybe in two, three years' time or so. It's, We're basic on that trajectory as well. Acquisitions. Let's talk a little bit about the acquisition as we are posting, closing the year. We have now concluded some 12 acquisitions since April, 1st of April 2025, that add SEK 1.4 billion then in sales. You can see that that's well above the 10% that we're aiming for. It's more like 14%, 15% of the group. It's a really good level. We have made some. This is part of our DNA. This is where we would like to be, finding these nice niche-oriented companies and building a group around that.
We can look a little bit about the more recent acquisitions, so we move to the next one, which is I Holland I think was worth highlighting. We have, as when we're looking at different acquisitions, we come across one or two bigger ones along the way, and this was one of them. This is slightly bigger than the average of the group. It's GBP 27 million in sales and an EBITDA of GBP 4 million . An EBITDA level of 14%-15% as you can see down there.
We are aiming then to improve this a little bit by both working on the sort of revenue side, but also then working on the cost and, yeah, making sure that we are, we're charging the right thing for our products. This will be a major and important add-on to the TecSec division. It will also be a good new line of businesses that we will put in there, also from a group perspective with adding the MedTech sort of area into the TecSec. We are. Yeah, that was one.
You can see what During the quarter, we also then acquired Michael Smith Switchgear, which is another U.K. company, and is working, operating in a niche, with around electrification, with different types of sustainable switchgears, low-voltage switchgears, and doing different type of electrical distribution assemblies. Headquartered in Leicester, and we acquired 100% of this in April. You can see down there to the right that it's a very healthy company as well with some good margins there as well. Adding to the Electrify division, it's also the first acquisition the Electrify division is doing in the U.K., it's also a bit of a geographical expansion for that division.
During the quarter or here in April, we also acquired Nivex Topsafe, a company that is similar to the Profsafe that we already have within the group. Really strong market position in Sweden, that's within safe storage with different types of safe storage solutions. Some SEK 100 million in sales Swedish and a 15% EBITDA margin, doing it very well in their niche. We acquired 100% of this in April into the Niche Products division. The Hycon is another one we did here in April, which is then a supplier of high-performance hydraulic tools and power packs for cutting, drilling, and pumping in harsh environments.
These tools are hydraulic, which is important, and niche there where we find some really strong, special applications that need these types of tools. Here you can see a strong development as well. You can see that this is in Danish, so it's around SEK 90 million, and EBITDA of 20% or so. A good acquisition and a good add-on to the Control division, from April. That was the presentation we planned to have here. It is good to close another really strong year.
I think we had a strong performance in basically every aspect with some 6% organic growth with a new all-time high in terms of EBITDA margin and EBITDA of SEK 1.9 billion. You can see how the figures are developing over time here. Then EBT about SEK 1.5 billion and a 17% EBT growth of the year. The return on equity is a very strong 29%. An earnings per share at an all-time high and an earnings per share growth of 18% during the year. You can see how that developed year by year here. Also an increase in the dividend per share from SEK 2.20 to SEK 2.50.
We're also planning for some additional M&A going forward and having a strong growth in dividend, but not exceeding that to an extent. To build a strong balance sheet going forward as well. With that, I think we will round off and open up for questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Max Bacco from SEB. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hello, Jörgen and Karin. Well done here in the quarter. A couple of questions from my side, if I may. Perhaps starting with, not that surprising, but you highlighted here that you saw a particular strength in electrification, infrastructure, security and defense during the quarter. Do you see any variances in terms of sub-segments within respective end market or anything geographically that stands out that's worth highlighting? Or is it broad-based?
It's broad-based. We are always looking into whether we see some really differences in between geographies or so, this time it was very broad and, yeah, a lot of different sectors and geographies as well.
Okay. Understood. On the topic of your defense exposure, I didn't see that specific label in the end market exposure that you included in the presentation this time. Is it still below 5% of the group or has it climbed above? If you have any comments on that?
Right. I think it is around 5% at the moment. We used to say that it's 3%, 4%, I think it's climbed a little bit, not significantly, which is still a fairly small part of what we're doing. It depends on how you.
Okay.
How you define things as well. I think we are not doing very much of active sort of weapons and stuff. That we don't do. We do a lot of supporting materials, supporting equipment around building things around the defense sector. It might be.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, the CP Cases business, for instance. They're making cases for sensitive equipment to be transported.
Understood. Turning to the Electrify segment, as you mentioned yourself, very nice profitability improvement here in the quarter compared to Q4 last year. Fairly in line with what we have seen during the last two quarters, somewhere between 21%-22% margins. Would you say that that is the new normal level for that segment? Of course, given a continued strong market, but if it's fair to assume roughly those levels going ahead as well.
I think we are trying to establish the whole group, but at 20 and above. I think it's good to see that we have seen that about 20% in Niche Products for some time now. I think our next goal is to establish Electrify about 20% sustainably as well. I think we're about to do that now. They have still some more project related businesses like Mastsystem, for instance, that we I think we've discussed a couple of times. They have some project related businesses that might vary over time. All in all, I think we are definitely on the track to establish them permanently at about 20% or sustainably.
Okay. Sounds promising. The final short question. I noticed in the report that you highlighted that two of the more recent acquisitions, Epoke and Friggeråkers, if I understood it correctly, had a nice contribution here in Q4 as well as it was in Q3. You highlighted that it will be a bit softer, most likely here in Q1 due to the seasonality in the business.
Yeah.
Do you expect this to have I mean, on a group level, would this have an impact then, do you think?
Well, it's a bit difficult to say. I mean, they're not huge on a group level, but they might affect the direction and they might affect the margins slightly. I think it's worth highlighting. The seasonality in that business is pretty strong. It's something we need to account for going forward. As suggested.
Yeah.
As you're suggesting, it's mostly in Q1 or maybe a little bit in Q2 as well.
Understood. Very good. That was all from me. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Max.
The next question comes from Gustav Berneblad from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. It's Gustav here from Nordea. I thought maybe just to build on Max's question there on the profitability in Electrify. Is it possible to give any sort of indications of, you know, how much of the 480 basis points year-over-year margin delta here that is driven by Mastsystem? If there are any, you know, extraordinary projects that you are delivering on currently?
Yeah, I don't have that numbers on the top of my head, but it is fairly broad-based. I mean, we are highlighting in our, in our comments here that it's both Elkapsling, Mastsystem, Nordic Road Safety, Elfac and Elpress. Those companies are all big and significant for us. It's, I think most of what we see is improvements in these companies, but then on top of that, we're getting Mastsystem. Yeah, we have not sort of derived sort of what exactly Mastsystem stands for here, that we have not disclosed. It is.
Okay. Yeah.
A good company and it, the business there will be chunky or project related also going forward. They had some deliveries here during the quarter so that, they have elevated the numbers somewhat.
That's very clear. Thank you. Then on Nordic Road Safety, I mean, when you press release that acquisition, I mean, it had a margin of roughly 14%. I mean, is it possible or is it fair to assume, you know, that this contributes actually positively on the year-over-year delta, meaning that it is likely above 17% or something like that now?
Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is. NRS has been a really strong performance since we acquired them, so they have improved their numbers since we acquired them. Definitely, yes.
Perfect. Thank you. Then on TecSec, I mean, growing 10% organically here in a quarter, yet you still comment on sort of a weak construction related end market. Should we assume that it is, you know, however stable on low levels, the construction end market, or, you know, is it still on a year-over-year decline, would you say?
No, it's stable or slightly improving, but not at the pace that we expected earlier on.
Okay. Perfect. That's very clear. Just the last one here for me as well. You know, halfway through sort of Q1, I mean, you highlight sort of the weaker seasonality in International. Is there anything else that you want to highlight or, you know, is it fair to assume, you know, that it's continuing on a stable pace here?
I mean, we are living in an uncertain world, but it looks, as we are saying, we are cautiously optimistic also going forward. We have highlighted the Epoke and Friggeråkers effect, but we have not highlighted anything else. I think the rest you should expect to be as normal. We have been very stable over many years, so to, we hope to stay that way.
Perfect. Thank you very much for taking my questions.
Mm-hmm. Thank you.
The next question comes from Stefan Knutsson from Redeye. Please go ahead.
Morning, Jörgen and Karin, congrats on the strong report.
Thank you.
I have a question regarding the TecSec division and the profitability there. I'm interested to hear how you view it from a strategic point of view. Like, are you happy to wait for a cyclical return in the construction markets, or are you taking any actions to improve the profitability within TecSec?
We are taking quite a lot of actions within the TecSec. I mean, the development has been a bit of a disappointment, and therefore we are increasing pressure on to do more. We had also expected the construction sector to bounce back more than it has. Therefore, I think we also need to adjust for that. We have some of the companies there, the that we have that you see on page 10 in my deck here, with some companies that have a high dependency on the construction sector and when they see some headwinds in the market, it's hard to outperform themselves.
It will improve as the market gets better, but we are all taking serious measures in the meantime.
Okay. Very good. Then another question on the acquisition you did within Electrify in U.K. How are you viewing the possibility to add more acquisitions within Electrify in that particular market?
I think it looks good. I think we are well-positioned. I think people, or, yeah, companies that are within that sector see that we have a cluster of companies addressing that market, and that they could see that we would be a good home when they sort of look to sell their company. They will fit right in with the structure and how we are set up. I think that was the case with Switchgear. They felt that, we have some companies doing really well in that sector, and that we can see also some benefits on being in the same group, and therefore they decided to go with us.
And I think there are more of those in the U.K., but also in other markets. But it's also fair to say that this is a very a market that is developing really well now. There's also some competition when we're looking into acquiring into that space.
Okay. Very good. That sounds promising.
That was all for me. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Zino Engdalen Ricciuti from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Good day. Thanks for taking our questions. Again, in TecSec, with the good organic growth and you comment that construction is relatively stable, no improved margins. Can you give a bit more color on the dynamic in the quarter on the margin side?
I think it varies in between the companies. We also have some seasonality with some of the companies. Some of them are more sort of, some of the installations are doing more in the summer or not in the wintertime. There is also some seasonality to the whole thing, and how that plays out varies between the years. We have some really good performing companies within that division, so we have the Frictape, for instance, in Finland. It's doing really, really well, and we have Idesco in Finland did it also really well, while a couple of the bigger ones that we've highlighted here and the door manufacturing companies have seen some headwinds in the market.
I think what you see in the EBITDA margin development is more of a mix, sort of mix and seasonality effect than anything else.
Understood. Back to the International segment with Epoke and Friggeråkers, I guess you highlight pretty clearly on the seasonality. I am just wondering if you could comment further on how their margins have looked during this period of time before you owned it, during the low season? Do they make a profit during that period, or is it maybe single-digit margins?
I think they have a strong seasonality, so I think the pattern has been more that they're making losses in the weaker part of the year and then they're sort of earning their monies in the fall and in the wintertime. Of course, we are trying to sort of balance that out over time and change a few things in the companies so the seasonality factor won't be as strong. Looking back further back before we owned them, then I think the seasonality meant that they're making losses in some parts of the year, two, three months there.
Very, very clear. Thank you. Lastly from me on Niche Products, which saw of course, a very strong margin, despite some organic headwinds. Could you explain a bit more on the margin strength despite the weaker top line?
Yeah. That's a good question. I think we have some companies that really moved up and performed really well, and I think we've highlighted those in our comments here with the Truxor, Waterproof, and Sajas, especially Sajas in Finland, has really outperformed themselves for a while, and they also have a strong seasonality in this, in this part of the year. That has an effect as well. I think the ones that are struggling is the more U.S. related, with more U.S.-related sales. The Asept, the Tormek, and the Westmatic we have highlighted here, and those companies are struggling, have been struggling a little bit with margins over time here as well.
I think it's a mix effect, for the other companies that is, adding to the improved margin here in the quarter.
Very, very clear. Thank you. Those were my questions.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
The next question comes from Albin Barnevik from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Good morning. This is Albin, standing in for Carl at ABG. I believe you already answered some of our questions, but if I may, another one on Electrify. This segment, of course, posted very strong growth and margins in the quarter. As the electrification and infrastructure projects that you mentioned continue to scale, are you seeing any bottlenecks on the customer side here?
Yeah, I think it's always when you ramp up, you see some type of bottlenecks. I'm not sure they're that strong. I think for a while there, a couple of years, two, three years back, we saw bottlenecks in improvements, approvals of different type of infrastructure projects, to get started. I think some of that we've seen, now we're building more, and I think that the bottleneck now is really installers. They are struggling to find the right people and the right sort of resources to do all the installations that are planned for. That, of course, is hampering a little bit on our growth and our the need for our components that are usually used when they're building these type of infrastructures.
Yeah, I'm very clear the-
I'm not sure the difference, but if there, if there is one there, that is probably the one.
Yeah. Yeah, understood. Thank you. That's all for me.
Mm-hmm. Thank you.
The next question comes from Emil Nystedt from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. It's Emil from Kepler Cheuvreux here. I have a couple of questions. First, I was wondering about the order intake that was organically up 5% here in Q4. Could you please give us any color on where the order intake and book-to-bill is the strongest, and whether there are any divisions where order intake is lagging invoiced sales here?
I think we've all in all have had that level of order intake and book-to-bill ratio for some quarters now. I think we see some growth, and it's coming back, but it's not huge or sort of double-digit or that is not what we're seeing. We see a sort of single-digit but at a good level. That is what we see. We are growing in the pace that we would like to do. I think that we see the trends that we've seen earlier on in the year continue, so we see that it is still the infrastructure, the electrification, the defense, those are the strong ones, and that's where we see the increased order intake and the strong book-to-bill figures as well.
We've seen an improvement in the TecSec division in terms of they have been lagging behind earlier on. They have filled up a little bit more now lately with some projects that is gonna be delivered in the coming one to two years. They have a bit of a long lead time there. I think it corresponds very well to what our comments in general when it comes to where we see the stronger growth versus the weaker growth.
Perfect. That's clear.
On Niche Products, it has had some headwinds here from U.S.-exposed companies over the recent quarters. Could you give us a sense of the U.S. track going forward? Do you see any signs of stabilization here or improvements heading into the new financial year?
I think that we will see a more of a balance, more of a little bit of a calmer sort of. I think since the Liberation Day or when the tariffs and everything was shaken up a bit, I think we will see things sort of, yeah, calm down a little bit and we will adjust to where we are, and therefore we will go back to sort of normal circumstances along the way. I don't think it, the I hope the big drama is over.
Okay.
But, but
Well, thank you.
Who knows, right? It's hard to know what happens, but as it looks right now, it is more, a little bit more stable along the way. That-
Yeah. Okay.
That opens up for adjustments, and then we can continue growing like we normally have done.
No. Perfect. Thank you.
That's all for me.
Okay. Thank you.
There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Yes. Thank you. We have one more question written, which is, "Do you still expect your to meet your margin ambition to be possible in this market environment?" The answer to that is yes. I think we have a broad-based strong portfolio companies. I think looking back, we used to have one or two or three or four or five companies that stood out really strong for us. Over the last few years, we have really built a stronger, a set of companies. Now it's more 20, 25 companies that I consider being the really core part and the really strong parts of what we have within the portfolio.
The quality of the portfolio have increased, and thereby also the opportunities for us to work in different markets and to still drive the margins. We have an ambition to get to 20% within two to three years, and it, of course, the general market will affect how fast that will happen. All in all, I think the two to three years is still very doable. We will aim for that and continue to do that also in this market environment. With that, I think we can conclude. I think we had a really strong set of numbers this time. I think we outpaced our own sort of expectations in basically all aspects.
I think we have a good M&A engine going on, and we also had some organic growth here in the quarter. A strong quarter, and we are looking forward to the future. Thank you everyone for listening in.
Thank you.