And welcome to the presentation of Investment AB Latour's interim report for the second quarter, 2024. The first part of the presentation will be in listen-only mode, and we then open up for questions. To be able to ask a question, dial star five on your telephone keypad or use the chat window. And I will now hand over to our CEO, Johan Hjertonsson, and CFO, Anders Mörck.
Thank you, Katarina. I'm here together with Anders Mörck, as said, our CFO, and welcome to the Q2 quarterly presentation. So we start with the first slide, Katarina, and the overall group structure is unchanged compared to last time we spoke. We had a good second quarter despite the weak business climate. Order intake is growing again organically. We actually had plus 5% organic growth in the quarter, which I think is quite strong given the economic business climate we're in. While net sales were slightly below last year's high volumes, with a slightly lower result as a consequence. The general demand is still quite good in many markets that we operate on, but it varies between regions and industries.
A weaker demand for businesses with exposure to construction and real estate is especially to be underlined, but it's a mixed picture. If we go to the next page, which is about our listed portfolio. Also here, there's no major change within the listed portfolio. We've done some minor changes with increasing our holdings in CTEK from 33%- 33.5% of the capital and votes. We also participated in HMS Networks' new share issue with our pro rata share, which was part of the financing of the acquisition of Red Lion Controls in the U.S. All of our companies have now reported for the Q2, and the picture of a weaker business climate is consistent. But despite this, a number of the companies are actually increasing their results, so really good.
Value development plus 5.7% during the year at the end of the reporting period, where SIX RX was 10.6. Until yesterday, August nineteenth, the portfolio value was SEK 87 billion , and the total return amounts to 11.3% so far this year, where SIX RX comparably is at 11.1. If we go to the next slide to cover the wholly owned industrial operations. As I said, the order intake increased by 5% organically, and actually in absolute, with all included, it was 7% in the quarter. The overall demand is still good on markets we operate on, despite the weak business climate, as I like to underline.
Order intake is a bit volatile in between the months, so development on the short term is a bit hard to estimate, in general. But you can say, in general, that operations with exposure to the construction and real estate markets are so far mostly affected by the slowdown. However, our three largest business areas with exposure show a relatively positive development. Swegon and Bemsiq is growing, and Hultafors Group on the same level as last year. And all of these business areas have a high exposure to the construction and real estate market, so that's really strong. As said, the net sales has decreased, decreased by 1%, or organic minus 4%. But once again, which is the most important forward-looking, is that order intake has increased by 5%.
And we're comparing against a record quarter last year, where net sales was boosted due to the recovery from previous supply chain disruptions. Important to keep in mind. So the quarterly EBIT that was affected by lower volumes amounted to SEK 939 million , compared to a little bit more than 1 billion a year ago. We have good cost control, and the gross margin is strong, and this results at a strong operating margin of 14.4%. So overall, we're satisfied with the outcome in the second quarter.
If I comment a bit on acquisitions, we have a high pace within the M&A area, and those of you that follow us closely, you know that we deliberately last year had a lower pace in M&A because we wanted to consolidate and integrate all of the acquisitions we did in the year before. In 2022 , I think we did more than 20 acquisitions, so. Now we see that that's fully in place, and we are geared up for a higher tempo in the M&A area. We started 2024 this year with three transactions: Beijer Stålteknik into Innovalift, Eleqtron and Ipas to Bemsiq, and PBL and Condor to Nord-Lock Group. During the quarter, through Future Solutions, I've entered into a minority owner position through new share issues in two Swedish companies, Plant and Econans.
Both companies offer different tools and software for climate calculations and impacts of properties. Quite interesting. After the reporting period, we have announced during this summer three more acquisitions within the wholly owned operations. Swegon has signed an agreement to acquire the Dutch company, HC Groep, with expected closing as of this month. HC Groep is a market leader in the area of indoor climate technology, with a strong position on the Dutch market, with high-end product offering of 10 business labels, covering the entire building's indoor climate systems, including building automation. The company has 386 employees, and net sales last year amounted to EUR 106 million. Innovalift, this summer, has signed an agreement to acquire the Turkish company, Arkel.
The acquisition will give Innovalift the leading position and expand its geographic reach, and complement its product portfolio of components for elevators. Arkel is a leading Turkish manufacturer of components for elevators, for both new installations and the growing modernization segment. The company have about 410 employees, and net sales last year amounted to EUR 62 million. Then finally, Bemsiq have acquired the Canadian company, QEL, and this then strengthen its footprint even more in North America. QEL has a full suite of indoor air quality and refrigerant gas detection products, and the company has 15 employees, and net sales last year amounted to CAD 8 million. All these three acquisitions that is done after the reporting period, have a profit level well in line or above Latour's wholly owned operations.
So all in all, the transactions so far this year will add about SEK 2.4 billion in acquired growth, which amounts to a little bit less than 10% of our net sales run rate, you could say. So that's. We're very happy with that, and very happy with these acquisitions that we have in place. So having said that, as an introduction, I hand over with a warm hand to Anders, to comment on our business areas and other things as well. So over to you, Anders.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Johan, and we start with the first business area, which is Bemsiq, and after a somewhat weaker first quarter, order intake grew organically by 10% in the second quarter, and this was, of course, a very positive signal, even though it's too early to draw any long-term conclusions yet, but very positive in the second quarter. The total growth in net sales was 17%, but when it comes to sales, then that means it translated to organic growth. It was a decline of 2% compared to the strong corresponding quarter last year. The operating profit increased to SEK 108 million , with a strong operating margin of 21.8%.
As Johan said before, the acquisition journey continues for Bemsiq, when Canadian company, QEL, was acquired by Bemsiq now in August. Very well done, QEL and your team. We go to the next business area, which is Caljan. For a while now, you all know that customers to Caljan have been, and still are, more conservative when it comes to capital expenditures. Therefore, the order intake continues on a low level for Caljan. Pipeline is slowly increasing, but this has not yet materialized in order intake. Both order intake and net sales is therefore on lower levels than we wish, well below corresponding period last year.
The lower volumes resulted in an operating profit lower than last year, with an operating margin of 12.8%, which is, considering the very tough situation, very well handled in this steep downturn. Caljan has conducted cost saving program to decrease fixed costs, resulting in a 12% lower cost base than last year. So many thanks to Henrik and your team for taking care of this very special situation. We go to the next business area, Hultafors Group. In a tough market, net sales continues to be slightly low, below last year, which is not a surprise, considering the situation. The weakening demand affects the European market somewhat more than the North American market. The hardware divisions, however, are recovering just a little bit then from lower levels during the quarter.
Organic growth was negative with 1%, and thanks to strong growth margin and also to effective cost management, this resulted in a good, very good operating profit of SEK 267 million , with a good operating margin of 15.8%. Martin and your team very well managed to you. Then we go to the new business area, Innovalift. This is the first quarter that we make a separate statement of this newly established business area. We say very much welcome to Andrea Vedi and your team. Order intake was hampered by an overall weaker construction market, low demand than for new installations in China, which has been low for a while now as well. The modernization division is, however, growing.
Net sales grew by 1% in total, but organically, it was at 2% behind last year. Gross profit is still improving, but not enough to compensate for the lower volumes, so we're looking forward to even better gross profit going forward. The quarterly result amounts to SEK 62 million, with a margin of 9.6%. Then, as Johan said before, we have signed an agreement now to acquire Arkel in Turkey. The important thing is. You know that we like companies in leading position, that it will move the position that Innovalift have in the lift and modernization market to a leading position, and it will also double the size of the components and modernization business within the business area. We're really looking forward to that. It's really exciting.
Once again, welcome, and very well done, then, Andrea and your team. We go to the next business area, which is Latour Industries. Latour Industries had an overall positive development of order intake, with an organic growth of 12% during the quarter, and net sales grew 6% in total and 4% organically. Very much driven by REAC, that has a very positive development in the U.S. market at the moment. EBIT is in line with last year, but with somewhat lower margin. After a successful launch of Innovalift as a new business area, focus is now to continue to build and develop the remaining holdings within Latour Industries, and also to find new platform investments for Latour Industries going forward.
Here, we shall also make a very big thank you to Björn Lenander that will leave after ten years and step down as CEO. Try to find a new position for him there. And Tina Hultkvist that was CEO before us, since the beginning of this year, and also part of today's executive management team will take on the role as the new CEO from the 1st of September. So many thanks, Björn, for all your valuable contributions over a very long time, and also thank you to your team for your achievements, and also, then, Tina, good luck to you. We go to the next business area, which is Nord-Lock, and when it comes to order intake, it was very positive and a record high, actually.
It grew by 14%, of which 12% were organic growth. Also quite strong net sales, considering the business climate, with an organic growth of 2%, and we saw especially good growth in Asia Pacific. EBIT was slightly below last year, but still on a high level, with an operating margin of 24%. Then, as we announced last quarter, Daniel Westberg has now been recruited as the new CEO of Nord-Lock Group, and he now started his position in the beginning of August. So good luck to you, Daniel, going forward. However, for the past quarter, we think it's very much worth highlighting that Marcus Lundvall, CFO, and also acting CEO until recently, handled the group for a while now, and also the transition period in an extremely professional manner.
So many thanks to you, Marco- Marcus, and also to the whole Nord-Lock team. And then we come to the last, but not the least, business area, Swegon, where we can see that the majority of the business units are performing very well, especially when we consider how the overall business climate looks like right now. Order intake grew by 12%, of which 11% was organic growth, very much driven by cooling and heating. And this is, of course, explained by the very positive exposure to the commercial heat pumps market, but it was also very good in the North American market. In total, net sales is in line with the corresponding quarter last year, but there is a mixed picture between the segments and geographies.
Thanks to a strong gross margin and effective cost management, EBIT margin comes in at strongly at 12.8%. And as a reminder, once again, then, last, the second quarter, last year was boosted by the chain, supply chain recovery situation that we had at that point. And as Johan said before, Swegon signed the agreement to acquire HC Groep in the Netherlands, and the transaction has been finalized in August. It also brings Sweden, no, Swegon to a leading position in the Netherlands, and to remind everyone, that's what we're looking for in all our niches, leading position. Very much well done, Andreas, and your team. And we have one picture left for me, then I, before I leave back to Johan, and it's about the Net Asset Value.
Our conservative way of valuation, doing the valuation of our wholly owned operation leads to a net asset value of SEK 198 per share at the end of June, which was an increase of 1.8% from the beginning of the year. The share price was 286 at that moment, which means it was a premium to the net asset value of 44%. Yesterday, the net asset value was 204, so an increase by SEK 6, and the share price at the same day closed at 300 SEK, which then gives a premium valuation of 47% when we look at the share price. Our consolidated net debt increased during the quarter from SEK 10.3- SEK 11.6 billion .
This is explained by the paid dividend in the period, and the net debt corresponds to about 8% of the market value of our investments, leaving a nice headroom for further acquisitions. Even after then, we have completed the two of the three acquisitions, but we will, of course, also complete the third one later on this autumn, so we see a good headroom for further acquisitions. Thank you very much, and back to you, Johan.
Thank you very much, Anders. Great presentation. Let's comment on the financial targets. As you know, our financial target is to grow above 10%, operating margin above 15%, and return on operating capital above 15%. You know, as you know, who follows us closely, that we, beginning of last year, put higher targets on operating margin from 10% to 15%, so they're relatively new, these numbers. So during the last twelve months, we had a growth rate of about 1%, EBIT margin of 14.3%, and return on operating capital of 15.3%. And this is actually an outcome that we're pleased with. Growth is lower than before. As I said, you.
But considering the economic climate, it is expected, and also since we had a low M&A activity during 2023 , we haven't added as much acquired growth as before. But as I said earlier, and as Anders also pointed out earlier in this presentation, this will obviously increase quite a lot going forward. Since we have almost 10% acquired growth already, so to speak, signed, so that will come through the numbers going forward. And EBIT margin is still strong, and return on operating capital is satisfying. And if we look at our next page, the international growth potential, Latour is a long-term sustainable investment company and a responsible owner, creating value for our shareholders. We continue to invest forward-looking in both existing and new holdings, regardless of the economic climate, to enable future growth.
We're very long-term, as you all know, and this is core of our long-term perspective and the gain of being financially strong. We have an ambition to grow both organically and through acquisitions, but a large part of potential remains. If you look at the map, we have 81% of our sales in Europe, 14 in Americas, and five in Asia and rest of the world. So there is a lot of potential to grow also outside Europe. I think is the main message of this picture. So thank you, and there we open up for questions, with hopefully some answers to follow as well. Q&A.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from David Johansson from Nordea Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I wanted to start off with a question on Swegon, which to me looks to be very strong here. I think you mentioned the cooling and heating business performing exceptionally well in North America, sort of the main driver. And perhaps if you could expand on the demand and also the margin development in the quarter and sort of I think your expectations now as we look towards H2. Thank you.
Thank you, David. I hand over to Anders.
Thank you, Johan, and I gladly take that question. First of all, it was a misunderstanding that the heat pumps are not growing in the North American market. That's the ventilation business that we have there, which is seeing a positive development from a rather low level, but it's a market with great potential. But when it comes to heat pumps and commercial heat pumps, that's, as you know, that we have in our portfolio, that is growing very much in Europe, in the European market, which is very positive.
And, well, we don't make any forecast, but we think we have a very good position going forward in this market, doing great business. So, and we have had confidence about that for a long time now, and it's good to see that there has been some really great orders coming in.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Anders. And then if I could perhaps follow up with a question on Caljan. Obviously, you're not happy with this performance, but you mentioned now that you think the order intake is starting to bottom out, at least. Is this mainly sort of looking at easy comparables for Q3, or are there some underlying developments in terms of the changing demand as we look towards the second half of the year? I think you also mentioned some light at the end of the tunnel, so perhaps if you could expand on that one. Thank you.
Yeah. I just to backtrack a little bit, David, and thanks for asking a good question, and I think it's important to point out that it's not that we're unhappy with Caljan. We think Caljan is doing a great job in the present market macro environment that they operate in. And if you backtrack a couple of years, you know, during the pandemic, many logistic companies over-invested heavily when e-commerce exploded. So I would say at that time, the market was up almost 100%, and also did Caljan sales increase with over 100% during those pandemic years.
And then the pandemic was over, and I think reality, you know, caught many large logistics companies, and the volumes came down quite a lot in e-commerce, and therefore, they have been over-invested for a while. So this is kind of a big backlog that needs to be worked out of the system. And to your point, David, I think we are starting to see signs, because the long-term trend is there, that e-commerce and logistics will continue to grow. It was just an abnormal and exceptionally high growth rate during the pandemic, and then abnormal, exceptionally low growth rate, the years directly after the pandemic. But we're seeing signs that this will now start to normalize back to kind of normal growth rates for the industry in that sense.
I hope that that sheds some light on your question, David, on Caljan.
Yeah. Thank you. It did, and then if I could end with a question on Innovalift. A bit better margin than expected for me, actually. So, and I think you highlight a bit on the construction exposure and also China, as sort of the main drivers for the decline in the quarter, and I think, you know, since this is a new company for you, I think if you could, you know, talk a little bit more about the end market exposure here and sort of the main trends to look out for, and perhaps also what you expect in terms of growth as we look forward here. Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah, I can start, and Anders, you can fill in. I think it's not a new company for us. We've had Innovalift for a long time, but it's the first time we exposed it publicly, so to speak, and we have it as a business area. So we're very pleased with the first kind of quarter of Innovalift. And I think, you know, Innovalift is mainly two divisions. One is, you know, elevators and so for more from elderly population, so to speak, elevators that you can install at home and so on. And that market we see is down a little bit, and especially the Chinese part of that market. But the long-term growth trend is very strong. We have an aging population globally.
People want to invest to be able to stay at home for longer periods of time, so there's a very strong, you know, long-term growth story in that part of the Innovalift division. And the other division, that's also really where we did this large acquisition that I just mentioned in Turkey, is the whole modernization business of modernizing present elevators, normal elevators that you see everywhere, and there we see very, very high growth going forward. And among other things, this is driven a lot about the environmental concerns to you know, not clean out the complete elevator shaft with new elevators and everything, but rather modernize elevators that you have with new control systems and components, and therefore save on material, for instance.
And when it comes to the margins, so we expect very high growth rates going forward in Innovalift. It will be because of the acquisition now. It's a big growth, as you could say, a flying start to this new business area. I agree with you. The margins, the EBIT margins are developing in a nice way. But remember, our EBIT target is 15%, and we think over time, Innovalift will also make 15% as an EBIT target going forward. With that rather long answer, I don't know if you want to add Anders to that.
No, I think you made it very good, Johan.
Okay. Thank you, thank you very much. Those are my questions.
Thank you, David. I don't see any more questions on the chat. No. We're done then. There's no more questions being asked, basically. But okay, we know there's a lot of people calling in, listening in to this. We highly appreciate that. So, thank you very much listening in to the Q2 report, and I hope to, within brackets, see you all in the Q3 report later this year. So, thanks from Anders and myself, and have a great day, everybody out there. Thank you.