Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Investment AB Latour Interim Report Q3. For the first part of this call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and afterwards there will be a question and answer session. Today, I'm pleased to present Johan Hjertonsson, President and CEO, and Anders Mörck, CFO. Speakers, please begin.
Thank you. Welcome to this conference call presenting the third quarter 2020 for Investment AB Latour. The quarter was, of course, marked by the pandemic. During the summer period, markets started to open up and the demand increased again, which is reflected in our very strong third quarter. Sitting here today, however, we can sadly state that we are now in the second wave of the pandemic, which of course, in some way will affect us during the fourth quarter. We are closely monitoring the development both here in Sweden and internationally. We are prepared to once again take action when needed. Our overall group structure is unchanged from last quarter.
We have two major business lines, a wholly owned industrial operations consisting of five business areas, and a long-term investment portfolio consisting of nine listed holdings where we are the main shareholder, or in some cases the main shareholder together with a partner. We'll go into the next slide. No major changes were done in the listed portfolio during the quarter. We have, however, continued to increase our investment in Fagerhult by acquiring another one million shares, and at the end of the period, our shareholding in Fagerhult was 47.8%. The value development of our investment portfolio reflects the overall stock market, and increased by 9% since the end of December last year compared to the SIXRX, which increased 8.2%. We are still very satisfied with the underlying development in our holdings given the circumstances, and many of them are showing really strong results.
Others have had significant negative organic growth in net sales but have shown a good resistance and protected their profits well. Yesterday, the portfolio value was SEK 66 billion, which means that the total return amounts to 5.5% so far this year compared to SIXRX development of 7.1%. Next slide, please. Coming into the summer period, markets started to open up and demand increased. Like I said in the beginning of this presentation, we are now in the second wave with major risk for new closedowns and limitations. No one can predict the effects that we're facing going forward. This is, of course, a risk, but also a possibility for us. We are prepared to readjust and adapt our businesses to the new conditions to make the most out of it.
During the third quarter, our businesses continued to focus on keeping all employees safe and also gradually began to return to somewhat normal activities. Our business areas have implemented significant measures to mitigate the effects of COVID-19. Just like after the second quarter this year, I can conclude that we've handled the challenges very well so far. Dedicated management teams and committed employees, combined with an overall cost awareness, have protected the net profit. We report a very strong result for the period. Total organic growth in orders was 10% and growth in net sales was 11%. We had a 2% negative organic growth in orders in the quarter and an organic decline of net sales by 1%. The operating profit for the period increased by 29% to SEK 602 million, corresponding to a very strong EBIT margin of 16.6%.
Needless to say, we are very happy and proud of these figures. We continue to invest in our holdings with product development, sales, and marketing in our business areas to drive sustainable growth and further strengthen the positions of our operations. We also currently maintain a high rate of investments in our factories. Sustainability and digitalization are also very important aspects to support further growth. We have launched several initiatives to support our holdings in these areas and also implemented additional sustainability KPIs that apply to all wholly owned operations. Next slide, please. We have increased our acquisition activities during the quarter, and the pipeline of potential acquisitions is strong. No transactions were finalized during the quarter, but on November 2nd, we are going to acquire the German SLT Schanze Lufttechnik.
SLT is a supplier of diffusers in Germany with the engineering capability to provide complex and customized solutions for its customers. The company had a total net sales of EUR 10 million in 2019 with 70 employees. We are looking forward to hopefully be able to report about more interesting transactions finalizing during the fourth quarter. Having said that, I hand over to our esteemed CFO, Anders Mörck.
That's a good presentation, Johan. Thank you so much. We go to the next picture, and we start with the first business area to be commented, that is Caljan. They had a record quarter during the third quarter, and the backlog is still on a good level coming into the fourth quarter. The e-commerce sector is still in a very good momentum, the trend is still positive going forward long term. As for all other businesses, the climate is more uncertain now when we are in the middle of the second wave of the COVID-19. Net sales for Caljan increased by 26%, we are, of course, very pleased with the excellent profit development and the operating margin of 19.2%. We keep on investing in Caljan's expansion with a new factory in Latvia and the establishment of a factory in the U.S. Let's go for Hultafors.
Hultafors had a really excellent development since the weak start that they had in the beginning of the second quarter. Both product areas and all main markets reported growth in the third quarter. CLC in North America won a major contract with the important retailer, Lowe's, that contributes to the strongest sales in North America. In total, for Hultafors, net sales grew by 32% in the quarter, of which 14% is organic. Very impressive. Good cost control combined with a high net sales development contributes to the strong operating results and the operating margin that was 17.1%. As before, Hultafors continues to focus on the development and investing in sales organization and marketing, and also on product development and digitalization. Let's go for last, Latour Industries on the next page.
As you might remember, Latour Industries was the business area that was most hit by the pandemic in the second quarter. Given the circumstances, we are impressed by the quick recovery and the excellent third quarter that we now can show. Net sales declined organically by 9% in the quarter, and the operating profit increased to SEK 87 million, with a strong operating margin of 12%. That proves that the underlying profitability in Latour Industries is there. We go to Nord-Lock. Nord-Lock's overall business is decreasing as a result of the pandemic, but also due to currency effects. Asia Pacific is growing organically, which mitigates the negative effects somewhat, and a slight recovery in the business was also reported and seen at the end of the quarter. Net sales decreased by 12% during the quarter.
The operating profit amounted to a strong SEK 83 million, and that was also affected by SEK 5 million extra costs from relocation of the production facilities in Expander , U.S.A. The operating margin amounted to 27.6%. Very strong. We are also glad to report that we have one on Nord-Lock, one important reference project with a new concept Load-Sensing with smart technology. Good to see that the development is going on though the situation is as it is. Let's go for the last business area, Swegon. Swegon's growth is, of course, affected by the COVID-19, but as for many other holding, it's a mixed picture between different markets. The Nordics and North America have developed well, but the picture varies for other markets to a high degree. Net sales decreased organically by 8% in the quarter.
A number of internal efficiency projects and low general spending contributes to a very strong operating profit for the period, and the operating profit was SEK 270 million, with an operating profit margin of 15.8%. Really strong. As Johan mentioned before, we acquired a German SLT earlier this week, and we are happy to welcome them both to Swegon and to the Latour Group. All in all, we are very happy with the results achieved by Swegon and by all business areas during the third quarter. Let's go to the next picture, which shows the net asset value. The net asset value has increased by 9.8% during the year to SEK 148 per share at the end of September. SIXRX, the comparable index, had increased by 8.2% during the same period.
The general stock market development was very strong during the second and the third quarter with high valuation that to some extent is reflected in our multiples that we use in our own valuation of the net asset value. Please bear in mind that our valuation of unlisted assets is just an indication of a prudent view of the value in a very difficult market where quality companies are rewarded with very high multiples that are not to the same extent are reflected in our indicative valuation. Our share price at the end of September was SEK 211 per share, which corresponds to a premium to our net asset value of 43% at that time.
Yesterday, the net asset value was SEK 143, the share price SEK 224, and the premium 57%. It's quite a figure. Latour's consolidated net debt decreased during the quarter from SEK 6.3 billion to SEK 6 billion because of the cash flow actually in the business, and no acquisitions. The net debt corresponds to about 6% of the total market value. Okay. Now, Johan, I think it's back to the-
Thank you, Anders.
classic CFO. Sorry, CEO.
Thank you, Anders. A great review of our business areas. Financial targets. This picture summarizes our financial targets. During the last 12 months, we have had growth rolling 12 months of 9.5%, EBIT margin rolling 12 months of 13.6%, and return on operating capital of 13.8%. We have met all three criteria during a long string of consecutive quarters, but currently growth just fell under the long-term target of at least 10%, and also the return on operating capital of at least 15% due to the high acquisition activities in 2019 and then in the beginning of this year. Still a very good performance, I think, considering that we have two full quarters with the pandemic in those rolling 12 month numbers. We have the last slide.
Latour is a sustainable investment company and our long-term ambition, which is to grow our operations both organic and through acquisitions, is not changing. Our financial strength enables us to continue investing in our existing holdings, as well as carrying out acquisitions to support further growth. We will continue to do so even during a pandemic, which is affecting the world right now. We believe that we can come out of this crisis even stronger, and to do so, we continue with all long-term initiatives in our companies as before. Having said that, I would like to thank you very much for listening in, and I think we open up for Q&A.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question for the speakers, please press zero, one on your telephone keypad to register. If you would like to withdraw your question, that would be zero, two. Once again, zero, one on your telephone keypad to register for any questions. And our first question comes from the line of Joakim Melingen from DNB Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Thank you for that operator. Good morning, Johan and Anders. I was wondering perhaps if you could provide a bit more color on your thinking here. You've been very swift to take out the costs in the industrial operations in your business areas. How should we think about how these costs will come back as you aim to accelerate growth into 2021? Now with the second wave of the pandemic as well. How are you preparing your subsidiaries for that based on the learnings from Q1 this year?
Maybe I can start, and you can fill in and add, Anders. Yes, it's true. We've adjusted the cost level quite swiftly, and we're actually quite proud that we've managed to do that. However, having said that, the strong result is not only because of lower cost. In the group, for instance, it's also because of very high demand. In Fagerhult, for instance, it's also because of a very nice gross margin development. I would say the result in the quarters is a mix of lower cost that we've done to prepare and adjust for the pandemic, but it's also long-term operational things that play out in a quite good way.
We protected and continued to have cost and investment in long-term areas that we have said, product development and marketing and so on. That's important to not forget. Having said that then, I think going into the next year and hopefully this pandemic will vanish sometime during next year. Some cost levels will come up, of course, to a more normalized level where we think the business starts to normalize in that sense. That goes hand in hand. [inaudible] Something to add there, Anders?
No, I think that's a good summary.
It's not always I get that comment from the CFO.
No, that's clear. Makes sense. It's impressive underlying operational performance, obviously, despite the challenging end market here. Perhaps on business momentum in Caljan, very strong organic growth, 29%. Can you elaborate a bit on how you think about that going into Q4? Have the trends we saw in Q3 continued here into the first month of Q4?
Caljan is soon approaching one year with us in the group. I think we started the consumer of Caljan on 1st of December last year. It's actually pretty close to one year that Caljan has been with us. I would like to underline that Anders and I are very happy about Caljan's performance and how they have come into the group. Of course, I think we touched upon that in the Q2 conference call that Caljan is very nicely positioned in a very strong macro sector, which is e-commerce, and that has of course accelerated during the pandemic. We're quite confident about that and very happy with that. Long term, we are very positive towards Caljan's development.
All right. I know Caljan has only been consolidated into your numbers for just a few quarters here. If I look on their historical numbers, if we take an average growth rate in Caljan, it has been I think 20% almost or even beyond that. Are we seeing here Caljan accelerating organic growth towards, say, those levels on an annual basis? Is that fair to assume, or is this more of a one-time effect accelerated by more e-commerce during the pandemic?
I think it's a long-term, quite strong effect, but it's very hard to answer exactly that question, Joakim, because it depends on how the pandemic plays out and everything. You can actually say the demand for Caljan products has increased and increased quickly due to the pandemic. You need to also manufacture all these products and ship them and all of that. That has not been easier. On the contrary, that has been more difficult during the pandemic.
Roger that. For Anders, just to make sure here with the SEK 6 billion net debt position, where are we here in terms of financial muscle within your MTN program? Is it still somewhere in the range of SEK 3 billion?
Yeah, the MTN program is SEK 3 billion. Of course, we have facilities on the side of MTN program as well. I would not say that financing is an issue if we should come with the investment opportunities. We also always have worked so that we have the muscle that we need. We also have to some extent a limitation. I would say somewhere between SEK 5 billion or SEK 6 billion would be the investment, well, not opportunity, but how much we can take on short term if we follow the limitations that we have from the board about our limitations to the net debt.
All right. Glad to see that you've resumed your M&A agenda here with the recently announced acquisition. Would you say that this is a common thread for all of your subsidiaries or business areas that, okay, visibility is returning somewhat? Is this a signal that your systematic M&A activity should resume in other business areas as well?
Short answer is yes.
Very clear. I think that's all for me. Thank you.
Thank you, Joakim.
Thank you. For any more questions, it is zero, one on your telephone keypad to register. Once again, it is zero, one on your telephone keypad to register for a question. And as there are no more questions registered, I now hand back to our speakers for any closing comments.
I think that's fine. Thanks again, everybody, for listening in, and really looking forward to speak to you again in about three months' time. Thank you.
This now concludes our conference. Thank you all for attending, and you may now disconnect.