Very welcome. Frida, you've gone through the program. I just wanted to speak a couple of minutes as an introduction. You know, in Latour, we are proud to call ourselves a mixed investment company. What do we actually mean with that? You know, most people, they see us as an investment company with our listed portfolio and a wholly owned industrial business. But it's also right to say we are an industrial company with a listed portfolio, with some shares on the stock market. You could say it in that way as well. Saying that today, it's actually the main reason for organizing this event is to showcase our wholly owned business, our industrial operations in Latour.
Of course, our listed companies, they have their own Capital Market Days and their own activities with the capital market. The main reason is to really show our very nice and fantastic wholly owned operations. You will see that throughout the day. We're very glad to have the panel discussion with that. You get the flavor of three of the very interesting listed companies going forward. It's also a great opportunity to meet the Latour team and the Latour companies and to network with many of our companies today. I know we have representatives from more or less all of our businesses here today or during the dinner tonight. Use the event to network and get to know the people that drive our businesses.
I'd like to say a couple of words on things that I'm sure you're aware of, that as you know, this is three years ago since we had the Capital Markets Day. We've gone through a very tough pandemic. We have strongly increasing interest rates and strong inflation coming up now in Europe and the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. Of course, on top of that, we have the very sad and horrific war from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We have the quite severe lockdowns in China, which creates huge bottlenecks when it comes to components and the whole industrial world's logistics system. I would say normally one of those concern would be enough concern to think about the recession and tougher times, right?
Now there are actually three of them at the same time. So we've had a couple of very tough years, and I'm very proud that Latour and our wholly owned operations has actually, during this time, we managed to produce record results, during this time. Also with Latour as a very long-term industrial type owner, we have also managed to keep very high activities within R&D and marketing, which are very long-term type investments. We don't kind of change our attitude because the world is very difficult around us. We've managed that as well, very well during this time. Since we met last time, we've actually made 25 acquisitions through our wholly owned operations. We created two new business areas, which you will know much more about later on today.
It's Bemsiq and Caljan. We have also our 10th listed holding in CTEK, and the CTEK CEO, Jon, is here in the panel discussion later on. We have also launched Latour Future Solutions, which is our strategy and activities to help out in the world when it comes to sustainability. Björn Lenander will talk more about Latour Future Solutions later on. Very interesting. Talking sustainability, I just wanted to spend a minute on what we do within sustainability within Latour. We are very clear as an owner of the six wholly owned companies and our 10 listed companies. We're very clear as owner that we do not long term want to own businesses that do not take sustainability very seriously. That's the kind of starting position.
In our wholly owned industrial operations, we now have sustainability as a mandatory agenda item on all the Board meetings. We have also sent out as owners and communicated very clear minimum requirements of different things that we would like to see happening within sustainability. It could be gender diversity, it can be carbon footprint, and so on. We have also, during the last three years, increased the network activities quite a lot within the Latour Group of companies. With the 10 listed companies and our six wholly owned, it's 16 large businesses in total. We have enlarged and launched our Latour executive program for up and coming and promising executives. The last program we launched earlier this year, and actually there's participation from almost all companies.
We have also launched a CFO network headed up by Anders Mörck where all the CFOs plus a couple of colleagues meet on a regular basis. We have also launched what we call a Sustainability Day because we're all thinking about sustainability and how to attack this issue. We have within them among all our companies we meet and we talk about sustainability and how we can become better within the sustainability area. We don't have to sit and invent the wheel several times right out there. I really urge you listen to the program be active ask questions and it will be a really exciting day. Once again very very welcome. As Frida said I will wrap up later.
Don't forget the dinner. It could be the highlight, you know. Thanks a lot.
My name is Mikael Albrektsson, and I am the CEO of Bemsiq, and has been so since 2018. Very excited to be here today to have the opportunity to tell you a bit more about Bemsiq for the first time as a separate business area. I would like-- Just a question here. Is this one the one that we are moving the slides with? Yes. Excellent. I would just like to start with giving a bit of an overview and introduction to Bemsiq. Bemsiq is a group of innovative and fast-growing companies within the business areas of building automation and metering. When we are referring to building automation, we are referring to the processes of controlling heating, ventilation, and cooling processes within a building.
When we're talking about metering, we are talking about the processes of collecting energy data for billing purposes, analytic or optimization purposes. I will get a bit back to that later in the presentation. Bemsiq was founded in 2016. As Frida mentioned, some of the companies were already in the Latour Industries portfolio at that time, but it was founded in 2016, and has since then grown now to surpass SEK 1 billion in revenue. We are employing roughly 480 people globally, and we have own representation in 16 countries, but we are selling today to most parts of the world. To really understand Bemsiq or what we are working for, you need to understand our why, our reason to exist.
Referring back to Johan's talk earlier about sustainability, buildings are today globally responsible for roughly 40% of energy consumption and CO₂ footprints globally. That needs to change. The realization that that needs to change is increasing fast. Our vision is that during the future, it's gonna be Bemsiq products in all buildings for reduced climate impact and improved wellbeing. Our mission is to accelerate the journey towards smart and green buildings as a leading provider of technology and products for sensing, controlling, and connecting buildings that we offer to system integrators and OEMs globally. To dig a bit deeper into our markets and why we think this is a really interesting place to be in right now, there are currently a number of mega trends that is soaring through our industry. Getting back to the sustainability topic.
As we said, buildings need to take a bigger responsibility in reducing energy consumption and CO₂ footprint. The use of more advanced building controlling and metering products is one key element of doing that. If we look on a global base, most of the buildings still are lacking a proper control system to drive such processes. Also energy, I mean, we can just look around us in the situation that we have in Europe now. Energy is rapidly becoming a scarce resource, and initiatives to reduce energy consumption are being initiated everywhere. Another aspect, I mean, we have just lived through a pandemic that of course has been very tough for many industries and a lot of people. One thing that the pandemic has in some way enabled is to put the monetary value on clean indoor air.
If you look back, you have always assumed that the air is good, but now the realization has become that you can't expect it. Now you want to measure it. You're installing sensors and similar to make sure that the air that you have in the building is good and safe. At the same time, if we look on our products they are continuously becoming more intelligent, more software content in it to be able to do more things, which drives the average value of the products, but also enables a lot of new use cases that our products can be used in different applications. One very good such example is the evolution of various wireless technologies that are currently happening in the market.
For mention one, we have LoRaWAN and Narrowband IoT, which are new wireless communication standards that is being implemented to make various products smart and do more things. At the same time, we also see regulators now putting in place timetables for when these changes needs to happen. For example, we have in Europe, the European Energy Directive, that Germany has adopted that says, "By 2027, all energy meters in Germany needs to be smart," which means that they should have technology enabling continuous and automatic reading of energy values and being communicated for billing purposes or analytical purposes. All of these things is now really driving our market and making it a super interesting place to be in.
Moving a bit forward than what we actually are doing, I would gladly invite you to our stand afterwards where we can also show these products physically. This is an extract of our portfolio. What you see is various types of sensors, room controllers, and connectivity equipment that are used within building automation and metering purposes. For example, if the products are white, they are typically sitting on the wall in a building, collecting temperature data, CO₂ data, humidity data. If you have some kind of control function in it, if you've been in a hotel, wanted to regulate your ventilation or temperature, you most certainly have used one of our products.
If they are gray and look a bit more industrial, they are mounted in a duct channel or similar, somewhere where you can't see it or installed in a machine like Swegon's GOLD aggregator using some of our products in their air handling unit. We are collecting data and sending it to a control system or to a machine. We also have some software and services related to these products. Just to describe a bit how these processes work in a building, typically, the energy and climate processes within a building can be divided into three levels.
At the bottom end, you have what we call the field device level, which constitutes all the nodes that you have in a commercial building like this, for example, either they are connecting products that are doing some type of sensing, collecting data, or other type of some kind of performing action, like a valve or actuators that are closing or opening something. This is where we are focused within the sensing business. Those products are typically sold to system integrators. In the Nordic region, you would have a typical big customer like Caverion or Nordomatic that is doing the project. We are also selling these products to OEMs. We mentioned Swegon, which is a sister company that uses our products in their product. Apart, we also sell this to utility companies and property owners directly.
On the competition side, you would find what we call, first of all, the Big Four. You have Siemens, Schneider, Honeywell, and Johnson Controls, which are the really big global dominance in this field if you look on the whole market. They're equally good customers of ours because they are also doing a lot of projects where they're using our products. We are also competing with smaller, more dedicated sensor manufacturers that are present in various markets. All of these field devices then are communicating with the automation layer, which is the brain of a building, where all the data is aggregated, analyzed, and where the control functions for heating, ventilation, and cooling is executed. This is really where the Big Four are dominating, the playing field globally.
On top, you have the management level, which is more of a software layer that is used for data aggregation and visualization of the various things that is happening within these processes. Drilling a bit further into our business, from a sales perspective, we can bundle our business into two business buckets. As mentioned earlier, we have the building automation business, where we do sensors, room controllers, and for system integrators. This is the biggest business segment that we have and where we have a global footprint today. It constitutes roughly 80% of our revenue today, and where we are in Europe, the clear number one, but also with a global footprint. The other business bucket is the metering bucket, which is roughly 20%, but it is the segment that currently is growing fastest.
In here, we really can see the demand for globally more measuring and collecting of energy data and indoor air quality data. 'Cause this is the difference between these two business buckets is that the metering is not related to any control function. It's a bit of a simpler process collecting the data, gaining insight and visualization of how energy performance and indoor air quality is. My strong belief is that if you take a property owner perspective, that these two business buckets eventually will merge, because if you are a business owner, you don't care where the data is coming from. If you have data in the long term, you want to execute on it. That's why we are exposed to both of these areas. Moving over a bit on how we operate.
'Cause you can segment our business into these two business buckets, that's not how we are organized. Bemsiq is running with a multi-brand strategy, which means that we are entering the market with a number of brands. Today, we have seven brands under the Bemsiq hat, you could say, five under the building automation business and two under the metering business. Some of the brands also have their own sub-brands, but this allows us to tailor our offering for the regions where we are working. 'Cause what we really are selling within Bemsiq, we have a, you could say, low volume, high mix business, so we need to be serving the customer very quickly with a very good application knowledge, and with good quality.
Having multiple brands allows us to tailor our offering to really suit the markets where we are operating. Also the companies, I mean, it creates a strong level of accountability for the P&L and a very fast and agile model. It also allows us to be an attractive acquirer for entrepreneurial businesses that feel strongly about the brand. And I think our operating model, which is, if you look on the Latour portfolio and look under the companies, it's quite well-familiar group. Yeah. Thank you. I think the operating model that we've been running with has been one of the key success factors for why we have been able to grow as fast as we have.
We have strong brands that take a strong level of accountability, serving the customers in an excellent way, but we also have Bemsiq as an M&A acquisition platform and also as a collaboration platform where we try to drive the synergies and benefits of being big, where it's relevant for all. For example, we have just done a global sourcing project where we are now starting to sign our first global sourcing agreements that is benefiting the whole group without disturbing any of our market activities. With that way, we try to capture the best of two models in some way. International growth has always been a key priority for us, and we have been able to establish a global footprint, which is, we are very happy with that, but Europe is still the key market. Here we are the clear number one.
We have been able to establish ourselves in North America and also in representation in selective Asian markets. Still, if you look, there is, we are weaker in these areas, and that is a clear potential going forward. International expansion is gonna be continue to be a priority. We have representation in 16 countries, and we are selling to most places of the world today through our distribution network. In some way, to sum up, 2021 was a eventful year. On the acquisition side, we concluded three acquisitions. One of the most worth mentioning acquisition was the acquisition of Greystone Energy Systems in Canada, which was the first acquisition that we did in the North American space, which was a white spot for us, but that we now have a very strong bridgehead to grow further from.
They also have representation in some of Asian markets, which is interesting. We also continue with the strong organic growth with a net sales growth of 9% during last year, despite challenging times. We also made a small investment into a software-based cloud company called Meliox, which offers us to tap into some of the developments that is happening on the software side, which for sure will. There is a vast development in this area, still quite immature with business cases that haven't found their ways yet. If we would look five, 10 years forward, the software content of our business will have grown.
I guess all of this in some way resulted in that our owner, Investment AB Latour, chose to separate us out into independent business area during Q4 last year, which for us within the Bemsiq Group, of course, is a strong token that we are headed in the right way. Shifting focus forward, what can be expected? Generally, I think we have found a model that works very well for us, so we don't foresee any big changes in that. Acquisition is gonna continue to be one of our growth engines within the business. So far this year, we have done one more acquisition as our German daughter company, S+S, acquired the company Consens. Germany being the biggest market in Europe by far, it's important for us to continue to build our presence there.
We continue to have a very good organic sales development. Q1 report showed a 25% organic order intake growth, which we are super happy with. We are gonna hopefully continue, which is the result in some way by both being able to serve the customers well, but also introducing new and exciting products into the market. New geographies, as I said. Our platform in North America is very exciting for us and a clear bridgehead for doing more in that region. That is high on our agenda. Also, we see ourselves as a technology leader in this market, and with that said, we wanna continue investing in putting new products into the market. By doing so, we hope to be able to continue what so far has been a good and solid profitable growth journey.
It is, as Johan said, a very challenging time for many reasons. But if we look beyond that, we feel that the market that we are operating in is very exciting. The trends that we talked about will be influencing our market positively in decades to come. We think that we have built up a very strong position in this market, so we are confident that we are in a good place. Just to summarize, on the screen here, you see one of our most recent product launches. This is the world's first wireless temperature, humidity, and CO₂ sensor that operates without a battery. It's fully driven by solar panel. We are also gonna manufacture this in an enclosure from a material from the company Gaia BioMaterials, which is where Latour Future Solutions is a part owner, which is a fully biodegradable material.
With this product, we have engineered away the batteries and replaced the plastic with a fully biodegradable material. We haven't done the calculation, but if we would, I'm pretty sure the CO₂ footprint on this product would be dramatically improved. This is one good way to show how we want to accelerate the journey towards smart and green buildings.
Good afternoon.
Thank you.
I do have to show up in this, right? These are part of the products that we produce, and these are actually some of them even not launched yet. It's a sneak preview of what we're going to launch. I'll talk about what we offer and the targets that we're after and the opportunities in this presentation in the next 50 minutes. Again, my name is Martin Knobloch. I've been CEO of Hultafors Group since January of last year and hope to spend interesting 50 minutes with you and then answer any questions that you might have. This slide is a busy slide. I'm aware of that. I'll guide you through it, but it serves to show who we are.
If you go and start with the mission, it states that we will create a better day for professional users so they can excel and thrive. Users like I look today, usually found in the building construction or industry channel or in industry. A plumber, a construction worker, an electrician, for example, and we provide products and services to those target groups to make them excel in what they do. We do that with premium products that stand out in what they deliver in terms of performance. If you go to our vision, we want to be the obvious choice for professional users and the best partner to our customers. This is where we continuously improve our offering, always focusing on the user.
This is where all the development starts with their perspective in mind and their needs in mind, to improve our solutions that we offer, but also the way we interact and cooperate. If you look at both vision and mission, they are clearly user and customer-centric, because we believe that this is where a lot of the value creation actually is happening. If we understand who our users are and our customers are, we can meet and exceed their demands and take out a premium because we want to be a premium player. If you go to the center of the page, you see our group's name, which is Hultafors Group. Hultafors Group really is an umbrella name. That is the company's name. Our go-to-market is always under the brands that you see on top of this name, which is currently 16 brands.
There are three things that all of these brands have in common. One is that they are specialists in what they do. They usually lead the market. They are targeting the premium of the market. The third thing is that we always look for companies that target the same user group and that target the same customer group so we can take out any synergies. I'll talk about the products that are behind these names a little bit later on. If we go to the numbers on this page, we have 1,800 employees around the globe, but mainly in Europe and in North America. We generated SEK 5.5 billion turnover. The rolling twelve turnover Q1 is already above SEK 6.2 billion.
We have own sales operations in 16 markets, and we can be found in more than 70, as you said in the introduction, in more than 50,000 points of sales. If you go up on the page, Strategic Ambition, our ambition is to be the leading premium player in two categories, in personal protective equipment and in hardware. I'll talk about the categories a little later. In two geographies, which is Europe and which is North America. Obviously, that immediately stipulates the question, what about the rest of the world? What about more categories? This is a huge growth potential that we see long-term beyond these focus areas that we wanna focus on in the midterm.
I also would like to talk about sustainability, not only because it's been high up on our agenda and drives how we do things, but also, and that's a very interesting shift now that we start seeing, that sustainability starts to change the way our consumers take decisions. Sustainability, we really believe that is starting to drive demand. That's the first time we see that, and I have two examples with me today, and we believe that this will only accelerate. Strategically, we aim to be at the forefront of our industry. We want to be leading. To understand where we want to go, we need to look back. If we look back eight years, my colleagues have done an amazing job in driving growth in this company and with this company.
Since 2014, we've more than tripled sales from slightly above SEK 1 billion in turnover to SEK 5.5 billion, and we're tracking above SEK 6.2 billion right now. It's an average growth of more than 20% per year, obviously accelerated just recently with major acquisitions. Fristads, market leader in Northern Europe for workwear. Scangrip, a whole new category for us, LED work lights. Also recently, Telesteps, the innovator for telescopic ladders. You see the crooked white line indicating operating margin, which is following along and recently also actually growing a little more. We're taking out inefficiencies, and we're also improving product mix. We can build on this history, and we want to build on this history with the skills and the skill set and the knowledge we've built up to continue on that path.
How do we want to continue on that path? Also here, I would like to first look back. A few examples for how we've driven growth specifically, but that chart also serves to show how we conceptually think about growth going forward. We think in three categories mainly, which is organic growth, which we want to drive as a premium leader. We need to drive innovation, and we want to drive innovation. M&A-driven growth, lots of opportunities. I'll talk about it. Recently, we also see that sustainability is driving demand as especially large industrial groups rank sustainability higher in their decision matrices, sometimes even above price. That has only recently happened. If you go to organic growth, I would like to pick out one product that was launched just this month two years ago, Hellberg Xstream. What's unique about Hellberg Xstream?
It's the first time we entered into active hearing protection devices with Bluetooth. Hellberg Xstream combines unique functions that were seen in different separate products into one product for the first time and was an instant success from the start. Now we're building on that success. We're building that brand with a family of Xstream products. The third in the row is being launched as we speak in May 2022 with very good reception in the market. Organically, we can also use our sales network naturally to expand our presence with new brands that we acquired in new geographies, just like the Solid Gear shoe brand. I have the brand-new shoes on me here.
Solid Gear is the premium leader of safety shoes in Sweden and was then when we acquired it in 2014. Since then, sales have quintupled. They're five times as big as they were 2014. We're now not only the market leader in the premium in Sweden, but also in the rest of Northern Europe and a few countries in Europe, and we see continued strong growth momentum. Entering new regions we can also do with M&A. The most notable ones were done before my time, I think very strategic and successful acquisitions.
Johnson Level which is a measuring and layout tool company in North America, and CLC Work Gear, which is a work gear and tool storage company also in the U.S,, that opened up the important North American market for us and now serves as a fundament, as a basis for us for continued growth on that huge market. I'll talk about the market size a little later. M&A also allows us to enter into new categories if we do not innovate ourselves. There's a lot of fine companies out there in our field that are going after the same user and are sold through the same customers or channels that perfectly complement the product offering, and this is why we brought along a few products outside to show you a certain breadth of our go-to-market strategy.
Scangrip is a Danish manufacturer of LED work lights, is a clear market leader in the work lights market, and is a whole new category for us and complements our portfolio and allows for us to cross-sell and to grow. As a third category, I would like to put it separately also going forward because we've seen it now recently become a demand driver, is sustainability. One clear example is the Fristads Green Collection. Fristads is the leader in workwear in Northern Europe, that launched Green Collection. What is Green Collection? The uniqueness about Green Collection is that it uses EPD, known in many other industries and other product groups, Environmental Product Declaration, according to a relevant ISO standard, to specify and certify the environmental footprint of each single product.
That's unique now for the garment industry, and we've launched a whole collection which has been extremely well-received, not only because of the sustainability topic, but especially also now of the what we call the green calculator, because our customers now can actually calculate their footprint and take it into their Scope 3 calculations if they want to. Very relevant. We want to keep driving sustainability innovations as we go forward. That's the framework of how we think in growth. How do we think about where we want to grow? First, the strategic ambition, as I said, is to be the premium preference in all the categories we play in. Those categories right now are personal protective equipment and hardware. What is personal protective equipment? It's all equipment that protects a professional worker, it's always B2B, against health or safety risks.
Commonly, we talk about eight different categories from tip to toe, starting from the helmet, breathing protection, hearing protection, and so on, fall protection, the workwear itself, to the shoes. It's eight different categories. We're not a full player yet, but we definitely want to be a full player. We look into that by either innovating or by acquiring to complement and become a full player. Hardware is a much broader category, and how we define it is all hard equipment and accessories used by professionals to ensure efficient, ergonomic, and safe work. Currently, we're active in hand tools. Very classic. This is where we come from. Folding ruler, and many more fantastic tools. Leveling and measuring equipment, like from Johnson, work gear, toolboxes, tool storage, also ladders, and now recently work lights.
You can imagine that all the users that use these products, they use other products too. There's a natural pipeline of products and companies that we look at constantly beyond the organic growth agenda that we have. One important aspect that was important for me, coming into the company more than a year ago, was to understand how we could sustain this high-growth momentum that you saw. At some point, there was the risk that we couldn't keep up with that momentum with the structure that we had before.
We believe that this structure will serve as a very good basis to continue on a high growth pace, because it separates our business clearly into separate business entities or divisions, as we call it, which are set up in a regional structure perspective to ensure market proximity and fast decision-making, separates them out and allows them to drive their agenda from strategy to execution, including M&A. We look at them as three independent growth engines. One question might arise already is what about PPE North America? That's naturally something which is the natural next step for us, and we're working on it. But we have now PPE Europe, we have Hardware Europe, and we have Hardware North America. Those three divisions own their agenda, and they're being supported by a very slim group organization.
We believe in accountability, we believe in high delegation, and we believe in entrepreneurship. This is how Latour drives its businesses. This is how we drive our business, and I would like to achieve to become a really big company without losing the speed and decision speed and market proximity that smaller companies have. So we want to foster entrepreneurship, especially also attract smaller companies that we buy so they feel they can drive the agenda, even being part of a bigger group. We need to also look at the market when we look at our ambitions. The next two slides are about market size, market trends, and market structure. First, market size. We're about 1% of that market that we target. $70 billion in market size versus about EUR 600 million in turnover right now.
We're about 1%. That naturally allows, I think, for big growth. PPE much bigger than hardware. Also PPE growing a little stronger, but healthy growth in all of the areas between 2%-6% over the mid to long term, healthy growth for us, and also market trends towards more safety and safety regulations, higher safety standards, but also ergonomics. This is exactly where we come from. If we look at the market landscape, the competitive landscape, you would see that it's a highly fragmented market. This is not a short or long list for us in terms of acquisition agenda. This is indicative for the market players that we meet every day, and you would see big names like 3M, for example, on here, but most of them are very small names.
Often specialists in what they do, often targeted to certain users. We want to take advantage of that high fragmentation and pick out those fantastic market-leading companies that have a healthy business, that have healthy organic growth and are specialists and leading in their market, and those will we target and continue to target in our M&A strategy. Before I conclude, I also want to talk again or conclude with sustainability. It's been on our agenda for quite some time. Interesting thing, as I said in the beginning, is that it's starting to drive demand, and we want to take advantage of that and actually drive it. We're very lucky that we have a very highly committed organization and highly committed associates. I just can pick out one person, Iris van Wanrooij.
She is the CSR manager at EMMA Safety Footwear in Netherlands. Just recently won a very prestigious sustainability award in Netherlands. In terms of green innovations that already drive the business, I've already talked about the Fristads Green collection. I can add also now six weeks, I think, after launch, the new Wibe Ladders. We just moved all of our production, 80% of the total sales volume, to green aluminum, which uses 75% less CO₂ in its production and is really extremely well-received. We see that we don't only benefit from showing the market that we're serious about sustainability, we're actually reaping the benefits of it because customers and users are interested in that. They wanna be part of driving that agenda. To conclude, just an indication of we believe in continued strong growth.
I'm not sure if five years from now if that curve actually looks like that, but I didn't give a date either, you might notice. We believe in a strong growth agenda going forward, coming from very favorable market trends that meet our strategy and our competency, and a market that is very favorable for us in terms of expanding into new categories also, and thus continuing strong growth going forward.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Nice to be here. A few words about myself. I joined Latour in 2010, moved over quickly to Swegon in 2012. I felt this was very exciting. I had a number of different roles in the group management team before becoming CEO last two years ago in 2020. You'll hear me repeat many of the things that Mikael was saying, and also following Martin, you will recognize a couple of the things with multi-brand, sustainability, and so on. We also feel Martin breathing down our necks on the size. That's game on. As Frida said, we talk about feel good inside. We are measuring the indoor climate here today, so you can visit our booth afterwards, and we can tell you what is the temperature, the air quality, the humidity.
You can rest assured it's pretty good. That's all good, and we can get into the agenda. This has a double or even a triple meaning. We want to feel good inside the building, but we also want to feel good inside of ourselves because you can trust Swegon. We have high-quality products, flexible products, and we work on sustainability so that we can serve the market and our world also going forward. I will talk about two topics. Mikael already introduced them.
It's the indoor environment, so that is temperature and humidity, air quality, but also lighting and noise we include in the indoor environment, and it's sustainability, the energy consumption, but these days more and more also the environmental impact of the building materials itself because, I mean, we do products that go into buildings. Everyone can do one or the other of these. The trick is to do both. I mean, if you want to save energy, you can turn off the ventilation, then you will save energy, but you will also have an indoor environment where you hardly can spend time or definitely not be very effective. Our purpose is clearly focused on the indoor environment. We put that first.
We want people to be able to have a good, healthy, comfortable indoor environment where you can be productive, and this should also be sustainable over time. Then it should be done with the lowest possible life cycle cost and energy consumption. Why? Well, because we spend, especially in our part of the world, a large part of the time indoors, and the indoor environment is affecting us more than most people know. Here's an example in the office space or business to business space, you can say, where we know that employees in an office with a good indoor environment are more productive, and they are more likely to stay with their current employer.
If you look on the right-hand side, when the carbon dioxide or CO₂ levels goes up in the space where you are, your cognitive abilities or your abilities for strategic thinking, so to say, goes down. Some of you might recognize having been in a conference room for some creativity, problem-solving, strategic thinking, I don't know, and you feel you're not really at your best. That's what we want to ensure is not happening. My favorite example, schools. We know from plenty of studies that if you have good ventilation rates or airflow rates in line with the Swedish regulatory requirements, and you compare that to something more similar to opening the windows, then you have significantly better school results up to 14% in one of the categories here.
We also know that if the CO₂ levels or VOC levels, which is another measure of the air quality, when that goes up, sick leave in the schools also go up. The indoor environment is really important. Here we need to look at what is the general knowledge about this. It's too low, I would argue. We want to talk more about this, improve the knowledge and the awareness of these topics. We want people to have the information and the ability to control their indoor environment. As Mikael was touching on, we wouldn't drink a glass of dirty water, gray or brownish water, but we don't know what is the quality of the air we breathe.
That's definitely something we would want to put in the hands of the user, and I'll come back to that. On the energy side, as we already said, Mikael mentioned it as well, 40% of the environmental impact in the world is created by buildings. There is a huge potential, and we feel the responsibility to address also the energy, impact on the buildings, and the ventilation, heating, and cooling is a large part of this. The trick is, as I said, to do a good indoor environment or the best even indoor environment with the lowest possible environmental impact. The energy consumption is one thing, but now the industry is more and more, and real estate owners, more and more asking question about the environmental impact of the building material in itself.
There is a lot of regulations around this, certifications raising the bar. There is green bonds affecting the interest rates for the real estate owner. So this is really a hot topic, but it's increasingly not only a must-have based on regulations, it's also something you want to have to give a better product to your customer, the tenant, if you're a real estate owner. We have products in basically all buildings where people spend time. We have products also in some buildings where there is not so many people spending time, like data centers, but our strategic focus is really on the buildings where you are. Hotels, offices, residential, schools, as I mentioned, that's where you'll find our products. What are our products? Well, we have created this little illustration.
To the top right, our biggest product group, the air handling unit. You've probably never seen one because they are either on the roof or in a fan room or something like that, but they are there. They are bringing in outside air, filtering it, so you filter out most of the bad things we don't want to have. You have a heat exchanger giving you the right temperature and then bringing this into the building. Top left there, you'll have the chillers and heat pumps. More and more, especially with the requirement to reduce fossil fuel and so on, we have heat pumps that is coming in also into commercial buildings because our chillers and heat pumps here is mainly for the commercial buildings. The ventilation, we do also residential.
Chillers and heat pumps here are mainly for commercial buildings. Again, big things that you lift on the top of the building with a crane or something like that. Then we have all of the products that goes into the room. Diffusers bringing in air, chill beams, radiant ceilings, giving cooling capacity, and so on. There are even some sensors, some of them from Trolex or Bemsiq, that goes into the building. There's a lot of local differences here. We are really just like Martin is saying, trying to address all the different segments and the different geographies that we have out there, especially when it comes to the products you put into the room.
More and more of our R&D is going into this circle that connects together all of our products. How you take the data of what is happening here in the room. If the room is saying that now the carbon dioxide level is going up or the temperature is going up, I need more fresh air or I need more cooling coming into the room, that information goes back to their handling units or the chiller, and that's always optimized to make sure that we produce what is needed, again, to the lowest possible energy consumption. All of this information is also available in the cloud solution or connected to BMS, and then we're again back to Mikael's area. Sorry.
We want to make sure that this information can be used in the best possible way. Where are we then? We're in all kinds of buildings. Are we everywhere? No. We are mainly in Western Europe, so that's our key focus. About 90% of what we do is Western Europe. We are present in North America as well, and in India. In the dark blue countries here or dark countries, that's where we have our own subsidiaries, 16 countries in total. We have a couple of things to note here. We have the yellow dots, that's where we have some kind of manufacturing or production sites. We have 17 of those. You might think it sounds a bit strange with 17 production sites in 16 countries.
We also have the different brands here down to the right, so it's not all Swegon. Also, we have the multi-brand strategy. All of these are results of a number of acquisitions. Basically every yellow dot on that map on the previous page, that was once its own company, either before we created Swegon, Stifab Farex, and PM-Luft, or acquired in the last 10 years-15 years when we've done roughly 20 acquisitions. As was said, we are an attractive acquirer by having this approach to keeping brands, keeping local operations. More importantly, we want to be very close to our customers and to the local differences that there are in how you build and operate a building.
We have been doing well, so we basically tripled in size between 2010 and 2020 from SEK 2 billion to SEK 6 billion. We want to continue to grow, of course. We have healthy profitability, so in 2021 here, we had just over 12%. We have a good customer recognition in NPS studies and good employee engagement, and we are about 2,700 people today around the world. Looking a bit to then what we do and why we do it, our strategic cornerstones. We put the indoor environment at the top, as I indicated. Everything we do is about providing a good indoor environment for the people that spend time inside. We want to do that by two cornerstones supporting that, so to say. One is the systems approach.
As you saw, we have all kinds of products that are working together to give you the best possible indoor environment, and we want to always think about the end result. Not a product and its product specification to the lowest possible cost, but what is it really that the investor or the real estate owner or the tenant want to get out of a building and make sure that our products or a complete system made up of our products is delivering exactly that. We have the customer focus. We want to, of course, give our customers, which the paying customer is typically an installer, but we also have a deciding customer we can say, which is the specifier or the consultant. Of course, we want to give them a really good customer experience.
We are also increasingly expanding the view of who is the customer, and we're talking about our end customers, which is then the real estate owner and the tenant, so whoever is renting some office space and so on. To be able to have this systems approach, local products, local brands, and so on, be close to our customers in a complex chain of stakeholders with an investor, the consultants, the architect, the installer, and then the end customers, we need to have what we call local strongholds. We want to be one of the leaders in the countries we are, rather than spreading ourselves thinly on the map, just distributing products. That's also part of the acquisitions that you saw and of keeping the local brands and of the many yellow dots on the map.
Sustainability is basically affecting everything we do, as for many companies, and we are seeing this asked more and more from our customers. We are proud to say we are taking the lead on sustainability in our industry. Just like Martin was saying, we have created EPDs, Environmental Product Declarations. We are among the first, or I would even say in many product categories, the first company to do this. This has not been existing for our type of products. We have a Eurovent certified heat pump with propane as a refrigerant for commercial buildings. We were the first ones to have that one. We are giving opportunity to upgrade air handling unit, so you don't need to replace, you can just get new software, new fans, for example.
As I said, we're trying to optimize the whole system. If you connect together our chiller with our air handling unit, you can save 10% on the energy consumption compared to if you take any two random products put together. To summarize, energy efficient products for a good indoor environment. That's what we have been doing since forever, since many decades. We are more and more investing in the circle of connecting together our products to make sure that we have solutions that is making a good indoor environment based on the need or the demand in the building to reduce the energy consumption.
We are increasingly addressing the end customer, putting the information about the indoor environment in the hands of the user, literally speaking, about what is the indoor environment, and what might be an issue. This, I suggest you go out and you talk to me or any of my colleagues out here, and we will show you more about it. Thank you.
Here to let us know a little bit more about Latour Industries is the CEO of Latour Industries, Björn Lenander.
What is Latour Industries? We are
A miniature Latour, I would say. We're an investment company within the investment company when we're acting, as we say, as a greenhouse for small technology companies with growth potential. Let's see. Our mission is to grow our portfolio companies to become new business areas within wholly owned industrial group. That is our reason for being. We are building the basis for new businesses. We had the perfect example here today with Mikael and Bemsiq. As Mikael described, it was founded in 2016, and we had four companies at the time. It was built from being a Swedish group to a Nordic, to European, and now to a global group. Thanks to Mikael's work, it's very successful.
I'm very proud of what we achieved with Bemsiq, and after almost 8 years here in Latour, the day we announced Bemsiq being a new business area, I must say was the proudest moment of my 8 years in Latour. Now, when sort of Bemsiq left us, our group of companies now are we have seven wholly owned groups, each one with a revenue of about, well, between SEK 100 million and SEK 1.5 billion, SEK 100 million to SEK 1.5 billion. We're active in three segments, industrial technologies, accessibility and mobility, and lift modernizations. We have a new area, Latour Future Solutions, and I'm gonna talk about that at the end of the presentation.
We have about 40 legal entities, and we're established in 15 countries, mostly in Europe, but we have establishment operations in Brazil, in North America, and in China. 35% of the sales is made in Nordics, 50% in Europe, and 15% in rest of the world, and the total revenue is about SEK 3 billion. Here is the financial development of Latour Industries. As you see, we grow our revenue, but it's mostly driven by acquisitions. Last year we had, however, an organic growth of 14%, which we think was pretty good. We are not in the level of profitability as the other business area, particularly after the sort of spinning off of Bemsiq that was basically half of our profitability.
We're, I would say, back to square one in that sense, and we definitely have potential for higher profitability in many of our companies. We are now at about 8% profitability. We have a clear governance model within Latour, and it's in line with a Latour governance model, same model. We have a decentralized decision-making structure, and our companies are standalone and independent holdings. Each company is running their business on their own business plan, their own strategy, and there is a full accountability for the management. We are active through a board, and we are in close contact with management continuously throughout the year. We introduce our companies to network within Latour. I would say our daily work in Latour Industries is twofold.
We work with our current portfolio, and we continuously look at new investments. What do we look for when we go into new investments? Well, these are the same criteria as we use in Latour. We're looking for companies with strong own products. We're looking for products that are active in an industry which is supported by global megatrends. We are looking for companies with geographical expansion potential, and we are looking for solid, profitable companies. Basically, it should be meeting Latour's financial targets over time. We are a very acquisition-driven organization. We use the investment professionals within Latour, and we made 17 investments over the last four years. Here I'm including the Bemsiq ones as well. We have become a very much more international organization over the last years. Of these 17 investments, only five are actually Swedish companies.
Our investment philosophy is the same as Latour. We acquire, we develop, and we keep the companies. We have a long-term eternal perspective on all our portfolio companies. Back to our current portfolio. We have these three segments, industrial technologies, about 25% of the revenue, accessibility and mobility, about two-thirds of the revenue, and lift modernization, which is our newest segment. It's about 10% of our revenue. I'm going to go in on each of them. Industrial technologies, it's Densiq and LSAB, two Swedish companies. Densiq is supplying advanced sealing solutions for the Nordic processing industries, typically where the processing industries are working under very high temperatures, very high pressures. LSAB is offering solutions that increases productivity and the material utilization in woodworking and metalworking industries.
The products here often make up a very small percentage of the cost for the customer's total process, but the cost if the products doesn't work is really, really high. We have accessibility and mobility, our biggest area, and here we have three companies, Aritco, Vimec, and MS Group. Aritco and Vimec, Aritco is based here in Stockholm, and Vimec is an Italian company, and they both do platform lifts. If you haven't been here before, you have never heard about the platform lift. A platform lift is an elevator category that is really designed for low-frequency use. It's typically used for improving the accessibility to buildings. You typically find it at the entrance of public buildings.
A fast-growing segment in this area is the home market, villas, where people are actually they are future-proofing their homes in order to keep it, well, make it ready for becoming older and being more, well, limited in your accessibility. These are products that make everyday life better for the people here. We have the MS Group, Swedish company delivering electromechanical products and systems for improving the mobility of people in wheelchairs, both manual wheelchairs and electrical wheelchairs. We are convinced that our companies here are well-positioned to meet the growing demand of improved accessibility and mobility in many parts of the world. Lift modernization is our newest area. We have two companies in this segment, Vega and Esse-ti, both Italian companies. They supply products and systems used in the modernization of conventional elevators, so not in the platform lift market.
It is primarily electrical parts like controls, displays, communication systems, but also push buttons and fixtures. The customers here can be independent, elevator installers, but we also serve the big four elevator companies. Here we believe in a long-term strong demand driven by an old and aging elevator, installed base of elevators, where modernization is a very cost-effective way to prolong the life of installed elevators. That was short on Latour Industries. Let me go into Latour Future Solutions. What is this? I would say it started with a simple question. What can we do as an investment company in terms of contribute to a more sustainable world? Obviously, we can make sure that our portfolio companies are developing plans to become more sustainability, and of course, we do that.
We could contribute and support young companies with great ideas on how to make the world more sustainable. Latour can support these companies by what we have. We have capital, and we have industrial competence. With that as an idea, we started Latour Future Solutions as part of Latour's sustainability agenda, to be an industrial partner in developing sustainable business. The strategic rationale, in short, was to invest in the most important mega trend, the transition to a sustainable industrial future. Additionally, we could learn and gain insight in new technologies and leverage that into our existing portfolio. We believe that this will also help us attracting talent, and we see an opportunity to build network between entrepreneurs and our companies. Sustainability is a very wide field of activities, and Latour Future Solutions is targeting companies building circular industrial solutions.
We're trying to narrow it down to a couple of, say, concepts. We call them make, use, and recycle. That is resource production based on nature's own ecosystem, like bio-based materials and renewable energy systems. We look at industrial solutions that minimize and reduces the climate impact. With that, we mean products and systems, services based on sustainable technology. Third, circular solutions for products and materials. With that, we mean solutions that reuses and share things. We're talking about recycling, waste management, and water treatment. Latour Future Solutions invests in companies in the expansion phase, but much earlier than Latour Industries. Consequently, the investment criterias for Latour Future Solutions is very different from Latour Industries, but we still keep a strong heritage from Latour's investment evaluation process. What do we look for? How do we act in this specific sector?
Well, to start with, we want to see a revenue from real customers, proven, so proven products, proven systems, proven concepts, basically reducing the technology risk. We are focusing on the Nordic region, and we are looking at investments with a ticket size of about SEK 10 million- SEK 50 million , and we want to add new capital to the companies. Here we are seeking minority investments. We want to be active owner on the board, but not necessarily as the biggest owner. We invite the company to take part in various Latour networks. We have, as always, a long horizon on our investments and no defined exit horizon on this. So far, we made three investments, all Swedish companies and well acknowledged for their growth potential. Gaia BioMaterials, manufacturing our biodegradable material from renewable sources that can be used for thermoforming and film blowing in plastic industry.
The vision here is to replace the fossil plastic grade with a compostable grade. This is a company that is up and running, started in 2011, had a revenue of about EUR 6 million in 2020. We have Aqua Robur offering an IoT solution for digitizing of water networks and to detect and reduce waste in large water supply systems. Started in 2015 and with a revenue of about EUR 1 million. We have Swedish Hydro Solutions. They offer sustainable solution for wastewater treatment and efficient purification of large volumes of water, typically at infrastructure projects and large construction sites. They had a revenue of about EUR 2.5 million in 2020. These are our three companies, and our target is to build a portfolio of companies here, 15 companies-20 companies.
We have scanned over the last 18 months about, I would say, 200 companies in this sector. Most of them have been too early to invest in. Some have come a good way on their journey, and they actually been too late to invest in. They would very well fit into Latour Industries portfolio. We maintain several dialogues with potential acquisition candidates that has been sourced from Latour Future Solutions. I hope to be able to talk about those companies hopefully next year. This area is a small area. It's not the biggest area of investment within Latour, definitely not. We gain knowledge, and we attract talent through this area. It is one of the answers to the question, what are you doing to become more sustainable?
Good afternoon, everyone. Yes, this year we are celebrating 40 years as a company. Yes, it was in 1982 that the world's first ever wedge locking washers were made in a red barn in the tiny village of Mattmar in the Republic of Jämtland, northern Sweden. 12 years later, Latour acquired Nord-Lock, and the rest is, as they say, history. Today, we enjoy a SEK 1.5 billion turnover. We employ some 700 people in 25 locations worldwide. I think the value created from the combination of our double-digit annual growth rate, primarily organic, and the close to 30% EBIT margin is really, really unique. The best part, though, is that we have only scratched the surface yet. Our journey has only just begun.
Our Nord-Lock washers still form the vital basis of our business, supplemented though by three other product lines and brands that were acquired over the last decade. The common theme is that they all secure bolted joints in the most critical of environments to save human lives and critical assets. Failure is really not an option here. Furthermore, they're all the original and number one leader in their respective fields. Their track record is really second to none. We really help our customers with productivity. We save them a lot of time and money by minimizing downtime and minimizing maintenance. As a layer across these products, we've added smart sensor technology. It's a clever way of gathering data and monitoring conditions for connections out there. Now, here's a provocative statement.
You all have a screw loose. No, I'm not talking about your intellectual capacity. I'm actually talking about your day-to-day lives at home or at the workplace where things come off. It may be something on your mountain bike, it may be the wheel on your golf cart, et cetera, et cetera. But everywhere, loose screws, nuts, and bolts. The point I want to make is that Nord-Lock's organic growth potential is almost unlimited. For us, raising awareness about what we do and the value that we create through these clever inventions is absolutely key. We're on a mission here. It may not be so dramatic if it happens in your backyard, but what if it's a high-speed train or a ski lift that we're talking about?
People's lives could really be jeopardized. Next time you go onto that carousel at Gröna Lund here in Stockholm, or you cross the Guldbron here at Slussen, please rest assured that they have been secured by Nord-Lock products. Here's a short video illustrating what I'm talking about. Did you know there are actually more than 1 million pairs of Nord-Lock washers holding together that wooden rollercoaster ride at TusenFryd Amusement Park outside of Oslo? It's not bad. We have a very balanced portfolio, both segment-wise and geographically, and that has really helped us in mitigating our risk exposure throughout the pandemic years. Roughly half of our sales are in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, and the rest roughly equally spread between Asia, Pacific, and the Americas. We are truly global, truly global, and combining that with our excellent local presence makes us stand out vis-à-vis competition.
Of course, it offers a great service, better service to our customers. The next offices in line to be opened are Turkey, the UAE, and Canada. Now, it's typically somewhere here in my presentations that I catch people's attention. This graph illustrates our sales and EBIT development since 2009. Again, the combination of sustained annual double-digit growth, primarily organic growth, and very high EBIT margin is of course, unique. Adjusted for some large project deliveries we had in 2019, last year was actually our best year ever. To achieve that in the middle of the pandemic, with three factory expansion projects going on, a lot of new hires, and a lot of supply chain disruptions, is something I'm very, very proud of. Again, we grew top-line in a major way without acquisitions and even without major project deliveries.
On this graph, I put our numbers up against the very challenging public peer group that we benchmark ourselves against. Even in uncertain times, our strategy remains largely the same, and we have executed it well. In fact, I think we are better positioned than ever before. What gets me out of bed on a Monday morning is the fact that our and very well summarized in our vision and mission statements, is that our solutions save human lives. The what dimension of our strategy rests on three pillars, efficiency, growth, and innovation. The how dimension is very well described through our four core values. They capture the unique spirit, the unique DNA of the Nord-Lock Group. Out of the three strategic cornerstones, efficiency is now largely in place through a better structure and a top modern operating platform.
Our focus is therefore totally on growth in all dimensions, primarily, again, organic, as M&A can be both distracting and a bit dilutive for us. We do have a couple of attractive bolt-on targets in the funnel right now, primarily within smart sensor technology. Innovation is long-term, the most important factor to ensure our continued growth, profitability, and market leadership. It was an area that I was perhaps least satisfied with when I joined four years ago, but now we have a really exciting launch funnel, and we have already launched two new products this year. Let's focus a little bit more on efficiency. When COVID-19 hit the world in early 2020, we sat down together with Latour to just assess the situation. When others stepped on the brakes, we decided to go for it.
We have never invested as much into the business as during these last two years, completing not one, not two, but actually three factory expansion projects, including a brand-new state-of-the-art one in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This operating platform is, of course, safe, it's efficient, and it's sustainable, and it enables us to grow profitably for many years to come. These washers may appear very simple. I brought a pair with me. Don't be fooled by their looks. They are, in fact, very, very advanced, and they have to be, given the critical areas where they are applied in. It takes some 50, five, zero, production and testing steps before we are content with one pair of washers. Consider the fact that we make some 5 million pairs per week, and each and every pair needs to be just as good and consistent as the other one.
There you, as you understand, we have a de facto, very, very high entry barrier right there. As I mentioned, our focus is on pillar number two, growth. We are well-positioned to benefit from global mega trends, including, for example, infrastructure investments, where at the moment, the $1 trillion Biden bill in the U.S. is a very exciting one for us to pursue. Most potential is around awareness, though. Again, making people out there aware of the fact that we exist and that we have these fantastic solutions that add a lot of value. There, our in-house award-winning marketing and communications agency really plays a vital role. We're also at the moment running a number of dedicated growth initiatives, for example, selling more washers in the U.S., but also selling more via e-commerce. As the undisputed market leader, we must not get complacent.
On the contrary, we continuously raise the bar vis-à-vis competition through new products and new solutions, but also through more stringent and documented testing procedures. To the left is our Superbolt tool. Award-winning design for tightening a number of bolts at the same time and with the same torque. We have our next generation multi-jack bolt tensioner with excellent corrosion protection and laser marking and what have you. Last but not least is our load-sensing flex nut that uses the latest sensor technology and the cloud to continuously monitor preload. Throughout the pandemic, our white paper webinars have been very appreciated and effective as a means of strengthening our thought leadership. I will leave you with the following key messages. Nord-Lock is indeed a very, very unique company with world-leading solutions applied where safety really, really matters.
We follow our set plan very well and have actually come out stronger post the pandemic. We have lots more profitable growth potential to pursue, and we have created a lot of value over these first 40 years, and yet our journey has only just begun.
I have been a part of Caljan as a CEO for 21 years, so a few years under the belt. Yes, if we go to an overview of Caljan, there is some key highlights on the slide here. As you see, and as told, Caljan is a true global company. If you look at the overview here, we have five production sites. We are in Denmark, we are in Germany, we are in U.S., we are in U.K., and we have the biggest site in Latvia. That is really our core production facility covering the European market. If we look at the global setup, we have sales and service in another five countries, as you see on the map up there. We have our headquarters in Denmark, where we only sell 1% of our annual sales.
Caljan is really an export company, and we try to follow our global strategic accounts around the world. We have an amount of distributors, as you see as well. From many of these countries and many of these areas, we cover more regions and countries as well. We have had a lot of organic growth. All of what you see there is organic growth, done in the five years period, 24.5% in average. We have reached sales of EUR 150 million. Sorry, I can't convert to Swedish. It's moving too much every day.
We are sitting at an EBITDA ratio of 19.5 at the end of 2021 as a total, and we have a total amount of employees of 661, where, as you see below, the majority of these people is sitting out in the production units. If we take the financial performance of Caljan, we have had a good growth, as you see in the top, the yearly average growth rates you see there. We have had a good growth in the EBITDA margins as a total. We have been able to double it from 16% to 21% and really utilizing the all-over growth and being able to minimize our overhead ratio as a total and leading to a good profitable growth.
When we look at our sales, as you see, the revenue has grown with this 24% as service more. Service has a lot of our strategic focus, and we expect to grow that over average in years to come as a total. One of the reasons why we have been able to grow so much organic is really the development within the e-commerce. As you see at this overview here, if you look at the all-over bar, this is the all-over retail sales and the ratio of e-commerce. When you look at the blue graph, you see the development, the ratio of what's sold through e-commerce, starting with 13.8% in 2019 and then developing pretty rapidly the last year.
There's no doubt that the negative of COVID has supported our business because the underlying growth within e-commerce really has got some big push as a total. You see the annual growth rates in 2019, it was 24.5%. In 2020, it was 25.7%, so it's really, really high. It is beginning to come a little bit down, but the key thing is the underlying growth within e-commerce is still continue to expect to increase. As you see on the red line, we are moving with double-digit growth rate expectations in years to come. What is Caljan doing, and where do we operate? As you see in this also a little busy slide here, if you see it from the top, Caljan is really the specialist within loading and unloading of loose loaded goods.
As you see, we do parcels, we do polybags, we do carpets, we do boxes, we do tires, we handle shoes, we handle trunks. Everything that is handled loose loaded into a container or into a truck, that's where we operate. The way we run our business, we have split our business up into four divisions, as you see, loading, unloading, document handling and labeling, automatic solutions and aftermarket. Each of these businesses has its own P&L, its own strategy plans, its own organization structure, really to act like specialists within the markets. If we take the first business unit, the loading and unloading, that's what Caljan is most famous for, our telescopic. It's so popular that people call it a Caljan. They don't know what it is, so when they even call a competitor, they sometimes ask for a Caljan.
If we look at it, what should we say, the telescopic product range, we are seen as the global market leader. We have the widest product range. We can offer the most amount of options. We lead the innovation. We really have a strong brand within that part. The division is called now Loading and Unloading, and it's really because we have began to spend significant more energy on the automation. You can see it on the video now in the left corner, where we try to eliminate people, and we try to improve ergonomics. It's a hassle to get people in this working environment in the hubs, in the depots. Lately we bought a automatic unloading solution company, PHS in Austria.
It was really a technology acquisition, only two people, but it's something we have a distribution that we really can push to market. The all-over loading and unloading, which we say the automatic part, is still a very small ratio today of the total sales, but it's something we expect to increase in years to come. The new technologies are still built on our telescopic because we need to get in and out of the buildings, so there's built telescopes into the new technologies as well. If we move to the labeling and document handling, we are selling and creating solutions, and it's really solutions where we particularly help the big players within the e-commerce to automate the process. As you see on the videos as well, it's labeling in high volumes.
It's handling of the papers that follows the parcels as a total. There we really try to play with the big players and follow them around the globe as well. We have the automated solutions. Where we deliver solutions, and we focus a lot on the depots to the big parcel carriers. In this instance, it's really us following the big players in the bigger regions. The qualifier for that is really our compelling components within loading, unloading, the labeling, but most of our, all our setup within the aftermarket. It is like that on the bigger parcel hubs, it is typically their own service organization. When you go to small depots, they use a third party, and we are there very often.
That setup is driven out of U.K., where we have a very strong service setup. We do service 24/7 with two hours response time. Due to that strength, they really say, "Okay, you deliver components. You deliver service. We also like you to do the setup of the depots there." When we look at where we work, the work areas, it's fulfillment centers. It is all the parcel hubs where we are talking parcel carriers. It's the depots. There is a ratio of roughly 10 depots per hub. It's the distribution center that all the big end users are using. If you look at the bottom at our selected accounts, we deal with all the world's biggest player within e-commerce, within parcel carriers, really the global players, but also the local players.
It could be a PostNord, Parcelforce in U.K., or it could be La Poste in France. We have a good group of blue-chip accounts, as you see all the way through, and where everyone is working with e-commerce and distribution. That's only increasing. All in all, a good amount of blue-chip accounts and accounts that we grow together with. Under normal, we are in a niche industry and a niche player. We do roughly 97% of our sales to the same accounts every year, but we really grow with a big account, and they get bigger and bigger. If we look at our strategic focus area within the four divisions, within the Loading and Unloading, we are really dominant in Europe. We are selling roughly two-thirds of our total sales in Caljan in Europe.
We have grown the remaining part over the last five years, but one of the ways to get even further growth outside Europe and our core is the U.S. We have developed a product range we call the Performer within the Telescopes that really fits the market need in the U.S.. Now with getting established, we have established a factory in Milwaukee with 10,000 square meters, as you saw before in the first slide. We really now have a footprint to get a good expansion and really have documented that the last years. We really can become a market leader in the U.S. As well as we are in Europe. We wanna continue the focus on automation, the loading and unloading. It has just started, and it definitely will continue for many years to come.
It has been a key for us to expand our capacity. All this organic growth has put a pressure on all our production, so we have expanded capacity with a new factory in the U.S. and as well in Latvia where we have our biggest setup. Within the labeling and document handling, we really have moved a very small company, German company. When we started, we were one person speaking English, to be honest, and then building up an international organization with focus on strategic account. It's a journey where we follow these strategic accounts and we try to take the biggest region first, and we are building up a lot of knowledge and know-how in the U.S., in the U.K. We really try to take the biggest market first, there.
We have had so much growth the last years that we couldn't nearly cope with it. We are moving into our newest factory there within the next quarter. We're very pleased with that. Five times the current size we have, so we will get good room for ongoing organic growth there as well. Within the automated solutions, as I said, that has its competence center sitting in U.K. We have moved into Germany and started first deliveries there last year, so really wanna grow that. It's really due to, as I said, the qualifiers, a strong service. We are getting there now, so we really can be ready to service customers in a good way. U.S. will come later because again, we are pushed by our strategic account to do it.
We really wanna become the go-to integrator where we can help them with these automated solutions, but it's focused on selective key accounts where we get a high numbers of replication. We work on and innovate daily on doing more subcomponents ourselves. Within that area, we source ourselves, we use our own components, but it's a little logistics. With a higher ratio of own components, we can also get the margins up, but we can also serve our clients better because we get less interfaces, and the system is looking more combined and connected when it's more of our own components. Within the aftermarket, it's a lot of focus about growing that part. We think there is a lot of growth potential, and really see how to accelerate the organic growth and growth we have seen.
In general, with the underlying strong growth within the product sales, really follow it, harvest it, as a total. To do that, we ongoing continue to strengthen our organization set up as a total. That's the four divisions, and the setup in four divisions with own Vice President and all of that is pretty new for us, so we have worked a lot on building a stronger organization organic to strengthen this setup, structure-wise and have adding a lot of people every month to support the growth journey. As I've mentioned a few times, the innovation is really, really a key for Caljan within all divisions and as a total, and we are really pushing that hard. In the past, it was only in Denmark that was happening.
Now it's happening in all competence centers, and now we have even more engineers and developing in Latvia than we have anywhere else as a total. The last one is really the increased focus on sustainability and digitalization. I will say that it has been a pleasure to be a part of the Latour team. There's been a clear message from Johan, Latour, the whole team, about the focus there, and I would say we have learned a lot in short time, and we have picked up a lot in short time. I would say if we hadn't done it with the speed we have done, we would maybe have had issues because our biggest global strategic account have put a big, big pressure on us to prove a lot of things.
We have had sustainability audit from some of the biggest clients where we should be able to document how we have handled all of these things. Instead of being behind in a niche industry, I think we have moved all the way to come ahead, but there's still far more work to get done. Thanks.
It's now time to talk to the CEOs from three listed companies where Latour is the main owner. Welcome, you guys.
Thank you.
Thank you.
It is deeply rooted in Latour's DNA to strive to have market-leading products and promote investments in research and development. We also see how trends like digitalization and sustainability, two words that you've heard quite a lot of today, keep growing in importance. CTEK, Fagerhult, and TOMRA are three examples of companies that very actively work with new innovations and digital solutions. As you may know, Latour has been an owner in Fagerhult for about 30 years, in TOMRA more than 10 years, and in CTEK since last year when the company was listed. Once again, welcome Jon Lind, CTEK, Bodil Sonesson, Fagerhult, and Tove Andersen from TOMRA. Welcome.
Thanks.
Thank you.
You feel well? Yeah. You excited? Yes.
Of course we are.
Okay. Why don't you take a few minutes to introduce your company? Tove, please start.
Yeah. TOMRA is an enabler of the circular economy and resource optimization by then selling advanced sensor technology to then collect and sort different waste streams to enable then the recycling. We are, as shown on the slide here, 50 years this year celebrating our anniversary. We were started by two brothers in 1972, and we are now a family of 4,600 employees in more than 60 countries. We started with collection business, so inventing then the first reverse vending machine to make it easy for retailers and consumers to be handling beverage container back to the stores. Collection is still half of our business, where we are then selling reverse or leasing out reverse vending machines. We have two other divisions as well.
One is the food division, where we have then sorting solutions for fruit and vegetables. If you go to a takeout fast food restaurant and have French fries, there is a 70% chance that that has been actually through one of our sorting machines to quality assure it. Or if you go to the retail store and buy blueberries, there is a 50% chance that actually that has been sorted by a TOMRA machine before you eat it to make sure that you get good, consistent quality without any contamination. The third business area we have is recycling. That's where we are sorting different material streams, or somebody would call it waste. We believe that nothing is waste. All resources should matter.
In the recycling business, we sort everything from household waste, plastic into different plastic fractions, metal, and so forth, to then go from something that is a mixed material into solutions that can be put into recycling. We have leading position in all the segments that we are in, and there's very good growth prospects in all the segments that we are in linked to really the global trends of climate change, pollution, and food security. Today, of course, we are going to talk about product development, digitalization, and innovation. Innovation has been always at the core of what we do. We started with inventing the first reverse vending machine, and innovation has been a key part of TOMRA ever since. We spend approximately 10% of our turnover on what we call future-oriented activities.
That is everything from research and development, digitalization, but also then positioning ourselves for new segments and markets. We are 50 years old, but we feel very young, full of energy, and we believe that we are more relevant than ever. As shown on the screen here, our ambition is then to lead the resource revolution, so actually drive the changes needed to really get into a circular economy.
Perfect. Thank you very much. I think there might be some in the audience who think that 50 years is just a perfect age, huh? Jon, please go ahead.
Thank you. Jon Lind. I've been the CEO for the battery charging company CTEK now for nine years. The whole story started 25 years ago in Dalarna, where I'm also born. You probably hear that. I live there. What was created there was the first smart battery charger for 12-volt batteries, lead-acid batteries, and it was the smartest, and it was the smallest one in the world. The company started to roll out those products into new segments and into new markets very early there and became the leader in battery charging in the battery charging industry for a premium 12-volt chargers. We continue to develop that leg of the business going forward.
2018, we decided also to create a second leg of the CTEK business, and that is the EVSE, Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment. We did that by we made an acquisition of the Swedish company Chargestorm in Norrköping. We started full integration, so today everything is under CTEK. We have two legs that we are standing on, the low voltage, as we call it, the 12-volt side, and then we have the EVSE side. Could say that our priority is going forward, that is to continue the product development. The whole DNA in the company is based on innovations and product development. If you look at the culture of this company, it's built on three different cornerstones. That is the trust, and passion, and innovation.
Last year we had a turnover of SEK 922 million, and we are selling the low voltage products into about 70 countries. The other priority we have is of course an expansion in the EVSE field and go into new markets and partly also into new segments with new products going forward. That's the short story.
Perfect. Thank you very much, Bodil Fagerhult.
Yes. Fagerhult. Who is Fagerhult? You can see in the picture here, and I could show you many, many beautiful pictures because we have a vision statement, which is a world enhanced by light. I'll come back to that. We are one of Europe's top leading companies in professional lighting solutions, and it all started in 1945, also a long history. It's a bit more than 50 years on that side. I won't say that age is the perfect age then.
It started in Fagerhult at the Lake Vättern, with the brand name Fagerhult, and also a journey of acquisitions that we've heard many of them today. Today we are a group, Fagerhult Group, with 12 lighting brands, and that has taken us to a top player in Europe, but also with a global presence. Today we are around 4,000 people, with a revenue of more than SEK 7 billion. We do professional lighting solutions, which means that we cover basically all professional customer segments, everything you can do in lighting. An enormous knowledge about lighting. I think also we spoke about, we've heard innovation. It's also been for us very much of a guiding star. Those 12 lighting brands, they are very empowered.
They have their own local decision-making, all focused around innovation. We also have a culture of a global group who's very much committed together. If you look upon us from a value standpoint, people is extremely important to us. What we say internally is that we are curious creators that aim higher and are committed together. If you go back to our vision statement, of a world enhanced by light, we do that all over. We do that every day. We do it all around the world. We've heard about the importance today of indoor climate, but I also think we all know the importance of light to us. We know it when we live in Stockholm. We know it in the month of November, then we see it.
I think it's important in our everyday lives as well, and we are very proud of what we're doing and what we see around us. If you think about us when you walk around Stockholm, you can start here. You see it on the picture with the outside of the Stadshuset, of the city hall. You can cross through the Kungsträdgården, where you also see us with a new installed very beautiful lighting. Or you can cross Guldbron, and you will also see lighting from us. That's only in Stockholm. We are actually number one in urban lighting in Europe, so I have a joy when I travel around. My favorite installations for a world enhanced by light is probably the cathedral in Florence and the opera house in Sydney.
All landmarks that we have all around. We are working in four business areas, which are organized two years ago, and they are around which customer segments we work with and which are the stakeholders that are partners of ours in that side. We also have a mission statement which is very focused around sustainability, which I think is very normal when you work in the energy sector, as we do, because we heard the number 40% before. Lighting used to be 20% of that, so 20% out of the 40%, so half. Thanks to LED technology that we at Fagerhult adopted very early, so we've had 100% LED for a long time.
Still in the market, it's only an adoption rate of 30%. When we now add connectivity solutions to that, we can actually take down the energy consumption with 90%. So very high numbers. That is one of our big focuses. I think that when you look into sustainability, we are working right now. We're looking into establishing a baseline on the carbon footprint to be able to put very concrete sustainability goals. One thing I like very much on the sustainability side is that it gives innovation, and looking upon innovation, it's challenging us to do things in a completely new way, which is really nice to see within the organization. I think we'll speak a little bit more about that in your questions maybe.
Also when you look into connectivity, as I said, which helps us, and that's one of our focus areas. There we have two brand names. One is for outdoor lighting and one is for indoor lighting that we're working with, and we will hear more about that, I think, in all your questions.
Perfect.
It's a big focus point as well.
You make us all wanna work with lights, I think. Thank you so much, Bodil. Do feel free to add on to each other's answers. Jon, if we start with you, we talk a lot about digitalization in the crossroads of product development and digitalization. We see more and more software in products these days. We've heard about that in several of the presentations earlier today. What kind of software solutions do you guys offer, and how important do you think that they are for your future success?
Now, first of all, I can say it's very, very important going forward. If you take the product related to the EV side, we have a number of different type of softwares-
Mm-hmm
T o control monitoring and also create the security around charging. That is a big part of the whole thing. Talking about distribution of electricity is an important part, and there we have different type of backend system. We talked about load balancing system that distribute the energy to the right charging point at the right time.
Mm-hmm
A nd set priorities between different systems inside different facilities. The whole software side is a big part of the product and the service we give to the customers. Also on the low voltage side, where we have different type of app solutions and so on, you can control monitoring, schedule your charging there.
Mm-hmm
That is important.
Bodil, more and more products are connected these days. What opportunities do you see with connected products and solutions within your business?
I think we need to go back first. I think the first part is energy saving.
Mm-hmm.
Because if you look upon light, we want light, and it's beautiful with light, but we only want it when we use it.
Yeah.
When we're not there, we should turn it off. If you're using today, we still have, we do it in a manual way, but, I mean, it's getting more and more done in a way that it goes automatic. When you go out, the light is out.
Mm-hmm.
I think that's the first benefit with connected solutions, and that's what I said before is that we can take actually down the energy consumption 90% compared to when you had a traditional solution.
Mm-hmm.
You can also do many new things with technology. I think one of the big benefits of lighting is that we have a very high capillarity. You have lighting everywhere, and that means that you can use the sensors in our products for collecting data for many different things.
Mm-hmm.
That means that you can add additional value to them. We have cooperation. We work with Swegon, for example. We also work with Securitas. We can increase the value to the customer because suddenly they can use the sensors for more than only the lighting. That's the second step of it, but that's in a very, very early stage. The first part is just to make sure that light is out when light should be out.
An important step enough, huh?
Yeah.
Tove, how is digitalization with TOMRA's strategy, and how do you operationalize
Operationalize.
Yes, well, you knew where I was going.
I know where you're going.
This one. What are the biggest challenges do you see?
First, to take a comment on the two other questions because in our equipment, software is a core part of actually what our solutions sell because we have a lot of sensors. Actually the key thing is the algorithms that interpret those sensors and make the decisions on, for example, sorting out an orange or an apple or take away waste. Software is a very integral part of our solutions. We are working now on connectivity.
You know, each time we now install a machine, if it is a reverse vending machine or a sorting machine, we want them to be connected. Why, and what can we get out of that? Many things. First of all, on maintenance, it's actually an important enabler for us to do maintenance more efficient. You can monitor all the equipment. You can look, you know, and do predictive maintenance. You can see when things stop, so it's driving efficiency. It's about optimizing the solution, so we are then putting software on top of it so that those that are operating a pack house or a processing unit can have the readings from our equipment, and by that optimizing it to get more accuracy.
Of course, the interesting thing is a bit what Bodil are talking about, you can use it to so much more. There we are just kind of scratching the surface now. We collect so much data. We have so much information, you know, on all the fruit, vegetable waste that goes through our machines. This data, if you actually use it to connect the value chain, there are many interesting opportunities there where you can reoptimize much more end-to-end value chains.
There are so many follow-up questions on each answer here, so bear with me, you guys, because we have, like, 25 minutes. It's not that I don't wanna hear more, but we're moving on. Jon, the market for electric vehicles is obviously growing. We've heard of it earlier today. It's going very fast, and this also is the case for electric vehicle chargers, of course. What do you think the future chargers will look like if you look into the future?
First of all, we will see a development and an evolution in this field. We have just started this journey. That is clear for all of us. What we see is that the segmentation map will change because we see more and more use of electric vehicles in different fields. Everything from service trucks to the normal cars and other things. All the vehicles goes through this change now and transformation, and that creates also different needs for charging, for different type of use cases, different environments. You have different driving patterns and so on. I don't think anyone can say, "This is the way it will look," but it will look different, and it will be a number of different type of solutions.
Everything from fast charging to what we call more slow charging, the AC that we are focusing on. You will see the whole spectrum of different type of solutions. Like we also see how you generate electricity today. You have water, you have solar, and so on. The same thing will probably happen with charging to have the best fit for the users and the needs there.
Mm-hmm.
That is how we look at it.
Mm-hmm
Right now.
Absolutely.
It happens now.
Bodil, I've seen that you launched the concept Wildlife to reduce light pollution. Could you describe how that works?
I think it's a good illustration of what you can do with new technology because you couldn't do it before. This is one, it's a solution together with one of our outdoor lighting brands and Citygrid, which is a solution for connectivity for outdoor. What it does is that we call it Wildlife because we take care of both the people and the animals. What you need to imagine is a parking space where there's not lights. You don't have to have light all the time because it's in a forest area, we can say. You want to, when you come there, you want to be able to feel safe, and you have the light going on, and that will happen because of the Citygrid. It will go on.
The light will dim up and we will also change the coloring so that there is a different coloring in the lights on that side. Then the person goes into the car, maybe electrical car, so they have a charger as well, and then they drive away. When they drive away, the light will dim down again to a more soft light, and also a different color temperature which will be good for animals, because it's not good for animals with these kind of lighting if they come. It's a very easy illustration of something where you use new modern technology that you couldn't do before.
Perfect.
You'll do the same if you bike home.
Uh-huh.
You will have the light go on when you come as well.
Exactly.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, nice.
Mm.
Once again, we all wanna work with lights. Tove, Today, only 9% of the world's resources are recycled. What needs to be done to increase this ratio? This is of course a major question that anyone interested in sustainability is asking themselves. How important is technology development would you say?
Yeah. I do think it's a staggering figure that now 91% of the resources we use every year either go into landfill or being incinerated. You know, it's.
It's a terrible number.
It is a terrible number. Of course from, for TOMRA it's a great business opportunity. That's of course what we focus on. There is a lot that can be done with existing technology.
Mm-hmm.
We're just rolling out, you know, technologies that we have for waste management, effective collection of bottles, beverage containers, and current recycling technology. There is a lot if you just roll that out, and that would have a significant impact. If you just roll out best practices within this area, on resource management, you would save almost 3 billion tons of CO₂ annually. On technology, what is needed, the gap that we have today regarding the waste or material that is there and the needs of the customers, it is that we need to have higher quality recyclates, as we call it. Which means that you need to work on more accurate sorting solutions so that you can actually then take from mixed waste, take out the plastic, you can take the plastic into really different fractions.
You can take aluminum into different alloys. You can take natural wood from processed wood. You really need more advanced sorting solutions to get these clean fractions. That's what we are working on. We work on existing sensor technology, but also using deep learning algorithms that we add to our solutions to get this more accurate sorting.
Mm-hmm.
Of course we need legislation incentives and so forth as well to support and drive the demand.
Interesting. Jon, Amazon is a giant.
Yes
For a lot of the companies here. It and also an important partner to you when it comes to online sales.
Yep.
How do you work with them? Tell us.
Amazon is a special animal, you could say. It is a big part of our distribution that goes through Amazon. We have a dedicated team just working with Amazon. We have that level of business, so they do the direct import of containers from our factories to their warehouses and so on. That is how we work. But it's a lot of things related to both how you're marketing on the Amazon platform.
Mm-hmm.
Also the operational side when they place orders and so on. They, I mean, ahead of many when it comes to optimization, digitalization, and so on. That is what we are trying also then to tap into and fulfill those needs and so on. Good for us from a developing point of view in that field, but it's hard sometimes to keep up with their momentum in that field.
Mm-hmm.
We have. Yeah. It's a good channel for us in many aspects. It develops us, and it's. They know their customers.
Mm
For sure.
Bodil, I've heard that Fagerhult has launched a new product made out of cardboard. We talk a lot about different materials here. Can you really make lamps and fittings made out of cardboard? Is it robust enough?
You could ask, is it fire safe? I think I read that question because.
Well, that could be a follow-up question, yes.
Will it rain? If it's outdoors.
I think it's what I said before. It's connected as well, so there is a connected solution to it as well. I think it's what I said before, that what I also like with sustainability is it make us look into innovation in a new way and really challenge ourself and say, "Okay, let's turn everything around." The product you are referring to is a product from Fagerhults Belysning, which is called Multilume Re:Think. Actually, what we did was we took a very big product, so which we knew it would have a big impact on the carbon side, which was made of sheet metal.
Mm-hmm.
What we said is, "We want to do something completely different, so let's try a completely different material, but we'll do something which is better than we had before, and we'll put it through all the same tests." What we ended up with was a product which was made of carbon instead. When you put it up in the ceiling, because this is a ceiling-mounted product, you can't see it. You can't see the difference from before. It's all also connected, so that made us make a huge difference because we could get down the carbon footprint with over 80%. I think it's also what's very really nice to see is that we get extremely positive feedback back, and I think that's something.
Many of the former speakers said that they saw that there is a movement in the market. I think from a property owner standpoint, when you give them something that they can see here, they really can make a difference. You get a lot of enthusiasm for it, which I think is nice.
Mm-hmm.
It's a good example how sustainability brings us forward, I think.
Speaking of cooperations in that kind-
Tove, in both product development and digitalization projects, the consumer or the customer perspective is key for success. How do you in TOMRA work with your customers and involve them in development projects?
Yes. I think that's one of the key, kind of, success factor if you're really going to succeed in digitalization, at least on the product development side, is to have that customer voice throughout the development. We have had some good experiences on that, where we really have involved the customers on the road. We try to develop and test solutions as we go along, so that we get that feedback constantly. You need some. We are fortunate in a way that for many of our customers, our sorting solutions is at the heart of their. If you have a pack house, if you are processing waste, this is a very important element for them. They are kind of very interested and keen to be part of these kind of developments.
Mm-hmm.
It's something that you need to take into account when you set it up and then have this rapid iteration. Still, I must say, it is something we still need to be better at. It is a different way of working than what we are used to. We are used to developing kind of machines and having the engineers, you know, doing a lot just in our mechanical workshop and testing, et cetera, themselves. Suddenly, you know, to dare to be out there with the customer early in the pilot phase, testing things before you know it works, it is challenging.
Yeah.
It's something that we still, you know, work on being better at that.
Mm-hmm. Different way, huh?
It's a different way of working.
Okay. Yeah. Jon, in October, you announced a cooperation together with GM. Could you provide us with some more flavor on that cooperation? What kind of product are you supplying GM with?
Yeah. We have been supplying to the OEMs, mainly the vehicle manufacturers for 20 years with the low-voltage side, and we continue to develop products. That's with OEMs, it's tailor-made products on their specifications and with our sort of background technology. That is how we started everything 20 years ago with Ferrari, Mercedes, and others. Now this is the step towards also to go into the EVSE side to supply to the OEMs. We build it on existing relationships. With GM, we have been serving them with low-voltage products to the Corvette and other brands they have for 10 years. Now we got the opportunity a couple of years ago to start the development of new EV.
The new EV chargers then to their platform that they call Ultium, which is their whole sort of ecosystem of batteries, the chargers and so on. It's three different type of products. It's one what we call a base unit, and then it's two premium. Different levels and different sort of use cases for those products.
Mm-hmm.
That is how it looks like. This is a cooperation where, as I said, it is our background technology, but then it's the look and feel and other features that is specified by GM and that we are working together with them to develop.
Mm-hmm. Exciting.
Yes.
Our time is coming to an end pretty soon. Bodil, we've heard about fantastic innovations and your plans for the future, what would you say are the biggest challenges when it comes to launching new technology and products?
I think we heard a little bit about it before today as well. I normally say that the ignorance is our biggest competitor. You could also say it's the lack of knowledge. I think when you are in a market, we know the technology works, we have a lot of installations out there, but there is still a lot of noise in the market for different types of ways of doing it. I think therefore, it will be extremely important with education. You start internally. First, you're making sure that people are comfortable with what they're selling. Then I think there is also a lot of market education to do, because whether we look into smart buildings or when we look into smart cities where we all have examples, we're still in the very beginning of it.
Mm-hmm.
I think it's also been interesting today because I think we hear a lot about the same type of. We have a possibility of being able to working with this educational question, which I think it demands partnerships. You need to be many to work in this in order to really make a change in the market.
Yeah.
That take some time. It is also exciting because it's a lot of opportunities.
Tove, you're nodding your head and being in a market where 91% of your is wasted. Of course, that's you are to include, I assume.
Yeah. That resonates.
Someone wants to get in, huh?
That resonates very much with me, you know, because it is quite frustrating when you feel that you have solutions that you know-
Yeah
It works well, you know it will be good for the environment, you know it will be good for the customers, it could be profitable as well, you know. But it is, you know, to get that message out there, I think to have showcases, customers that can talk your cause, get, you know, some key customers that then implement it, and you can use them in the marketing, is very powerful.
Mm-hmm.
Because they will listen much more, or if they see a competitor investing in this, then they will also be interested. I think having trusted partners, trusting customers that you can use as part of your marketing is a valuable thing.
Jon, you agree, I assume?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. You've got some really good partners to put out there, right?
Yep.
The nodding is just about to tell us that our time is up, I think. Give a warm applause and thank you so much to you guys. It's been a pleasure to have you here on stage. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I basically joined Latour last fall in August, and prior to Latour, I spent almost 20 years with Gränges as a global key account manager, heading Asia for six years and as a CEO for 10 years. During those years, I was also on the board of Nederman, and I was so impressed by what I saw of Nederman, of course, but also how Latour is working with the holdings, the focus on the right thing, focus on the people, and really the clear business vision. When I was asked by Johan the first if I would like to join Latour, it was a very easy decision to take. I will briefly just give you a short introduction to Latour. What do we look for? How do we work? What have we achieved the last year?
What is our plan going forward? Just to start with, I think you are quite familiar to all of this, but Latour was founded in 1985 by the Douglas family or Gustaf Douglas. It has been a fantastic return, more than 1,600% the past 10 years. We have a very efficient and low management. We are basically five investment directors that are really looking for opportunities and supporting the business areas to find growth opportunities. We have also a very clear advantage of being a very long-term and principal owner. I think what is very unique for Latour being an investment or an industrial company is that many people working in Latour has also long background from operational and other positions out in the industries. Myself, Johan Hjertonsson, Björn.
I think that is also something that we can really support our companies with good advice and long-term perspective. This is quite interesting, and we're quite proud of this actually. It's not that like, that we're collecting companies and never sell anything, but it's really a strength of Latour that you can see here, 63% of our holding has been with us more than 20 years. The main reason for this is that as long as we see that we can add value, as the company has the right management, the right conditions, or in the right industry, there's no reason to sell a company. Instead, we want to continue, develop the company, put efforts, invest in R&D, production, and support the company.
Of course, there have been companies that we have exited, but then the reason has been that we cannot really add value. We don't have the industrial competence. We don't have the structure in the company that makes us a principal owner. These are our holdings today. I think today you have heard a lot about wholly owned businesses and a great panel discussion here from three of our listed companies. I just want to say that we have the same approach and are working the same way with both the wholly owned companies and also the listed companies. Focus on the business, focus on sustainability, focus on the people, having the right people, and very much of a decentralized perspective on creating value. What do we then look for?
I think if you have listened carefully during today, I think you have realized what we are looking for. It's very much illustrated in this slide here. We are looking for company that has proprietary products, leading products with a strong innovation height, also product that has a strong brands and the pricing power. We're also looking for companies that are supported by global mega trends. It could be recycling, digitalization, electrification, automation. That's very important because the company needs to be in a healthy environment. We also want to invest in company that has the potential to grow international. Many of our companies have started in Sweden or in the Nordics, but we also saw a great opportunity to take them out in Europe, North America, and else in the world. Also all company needs to fulfill our financial targets.
We only want to invest in healthy companies. I will come back to that. During the years, we have also identified 16 very, well-defined criteria when we do evaluate a new opportunity, but also when we do evaluate our existing companies. These KPIs are basically divided into four main areas. Market and trends. The company we are looking at must be in a market that has a healthy environment. It should be a low cyclicality, et cetera. Then the development potential is very important for Latour. The company that we are looking for should be able to develop. We should be able to add value. But the most important, do the companies has the right management in place? The third area is really the core business of the company.
Has the company some weakness in terms of a too high dependency on a supplier or a customer? What does the product portfolio look like? Is it a very strong product portfolio with a lot of innovation and pricing power and good features? All of these are basically. If one of these criterias are yellow or red, we won't go further, actually. The final, of course, is the financial metrics. It must be a healthy company. It sounds very easy maybe, but we are very, very religious when it comes to these criterias because then we know that we can find really good companies with good management, and then we can be long-term and make this company grow. This is all our companies. This is the listed companies and the wholly owned businesses.
These four areas that I've talked about, you can basically fit all of these companies into all of these areas. First of all, the product side. I mean, if it goes for Nord-Lock, Caljan, Assa Abloy, Bemsiq, Fagerhult, TOMRA, all of these company has a really strong product and a great offering to your customers. The second is the global megatrends. Many of these companies are supporting at least one of the megatrends. Could be recycling, automation, for instance. HMS, which is one of the listed companies, really connecting the industries with data and the machine level is really core in terms of automation. Internationalization. You've seen from the presentation this morning that all our company has a great potential to grow, everyone from Hultafors to Nord-Lock. I think that is also a very important part.
I think Assa Abloy is, of course, historically a fantastic company that has grown very, very fast and successful on a global arena and the financial targets. I think this is something that is very easy to, in hindsight, look at, but this is where we want to fit in all new companies as well. They have to fit into this pattern here. The financial targets, this is very important for Latour. We have an annual growth requirement of at least 10%, and that is both organic and through M&A. We have an operating margin of at least 10%. This is the minimum level requirements for our holdings, and the return on operating capital of 15%-20%. If you look back, we had the 28% growth rolling twelve last quarter.
We had 14.5% EBIT margin, and we had a 16% return on capital. We are also fulfilling our financial targets, which is good. How do we then work with our companies? I think you learned that today, and you saw a very, very capable management team here standing and presenting their companies. We really let the management run the businesses. We want to have the best management in place. We have a very decentralized decision-making. We also want to keep local presence. If we buy a company, we would like to keep and invest in the company. I think you saw example from Fredrik today, where we invest in Mattmar, and we are investing in Kvänum for Swegon. We basically invest in the company we have where they are located.
That is also something that is highly appreciated among entrepreneurs that want to sell their company to Latour. Latour can therefore be very good solution for them. We also want to appoint very business-oriented boards. Basically how we work in Latour, we take the chairman position for all our wholly owned businesses, and we make sure that the company has the best possible Board members that can support their further growth. We do invest. Since we are long-term, we can invest in R&D. We can invest in operation, in manufacturing, in a new site, because we don't have to exit any company. We don't have that requirement on us. We want to keep our company for a long time. I think we want to give the company the best conditions to be successful in their field.
I think that is also how we work. What are we not doing then? We are not intervening on a day-to-day operation. We are not enforcing any strategic initiatives or synergies, because if you do so, then you basically disqualify the management, because then you don't have the best management in place. Why shouldn't they come up with these kind of synergies or plans? I think that's extremely important. We don't use debt to fund. Since we don't have an exit, we don't really have to be short-term in any of our holdings.
Even though we are a decentralized company in that sense, but we strongly believe in the Latour family, and we strongly believe that there's a great value to combine all the industrial knowledge we have within the group, and to do that in different types of networking on a CEO networking, CFO networking. We have a sustainability day. We also have an academy for both people from our listed company and our wholly owned business. I think we also feel that people that are working for Latour are very proud of being part of this family. Today we have not only the wholly owned business here, we have many representatives from our listed companies as well, which I think is very good. People like to join Latour and want to, you know, share best practice.
There are a lot of common things that we are having in mind every day in our businesses. What have we done then the last year? This is just the total M&A or acquisition we have done in 2021 and beginning of this year. We have made 15 acquisitions in the wholly owned business, and most of them here are complementary products to our existing companies. You have, for instance, Fristads, which is a PPE to Kansas and Fristads, which are PPE for Hultafors. We have Motala Hissar, which is an elevation company for Aritco. We also have Telesteps, and Scangrip, and HK Instruments, which was a add-on complementary acquisition to Bemsiq.
We also have here two examples or three examples of how we also think about how can we develop the company and the offering you know, to the next level, coming into software to make the product more intelligent. I think Andreas talked about that, the 720, which is actually a software company that Swegon acquired, basically enables Swegon's product to be better visualized and to do some analysis. We also have the company from Meliox, which actually was the acquisition done by Bemsiq actually, which is also software that can basically visualize and draw conclusions from all the data you get from our sensors at Bemsiq. I think this is just an example of how we also look into you know, software and to add new offerings to our companies.
The third one I want to mention that was very strategic important for Latour and for Bemsiq was the Greystone acquisition, where we saw a need to enter the North America platform, and that was also kind of a platform investment. This was just a snapshot on how we're working with them. Going forward, what are we looking at? We will of course continue with what we are good at to find good add-on acquisitions to our wholly owned businesses. We will find complementary products, offerings within software. I think we have a very proven track record of finding good add-on acquisition, but also to integrate them into our businesses. We are also evaluating new platform. You heard from Johan earlier, we have two new platform in Caljan and in Bemsiq.
We're also looking into mega trends like electrification, digitalization, et cetera. We are also working hard to get a new platform into our portfolio. Right now, this year compared to the last Capital Markets Day in 2019, we have a slightly bigger team with more capabilities. We have also Latour Future Solutions, which enable us to have a little bit more flexibility in our structure and how we look upon acquisitions. We have also a much larger size. We can also do bigger acquisition. With this, I just want to summarize my presentation, and I'm sure that I can be here a few years later and be proud of the development of the value as well. I'm sure we have with all these really strong companies in our portfolio. Thank you.
What a fantastic afternoon.
Thank you.
I have to say it's with warmth, I'm sitting in my chair listening to all our companies. It's, I feel extremely proud and for everything I see. As you can understand, it was not big news for me, but still to see it like that, lined up is almost breathtaking. I hope you've got an even better understanding of Latour and our very nice companies, and how we think about investments and how we do things. I hope you see during these turbulent times with the pandemic and everything going on right now that we are a long-term owner, that we can focus on what's important to build each business, long-term, R&D, for instance.
We do not eat the seed now, we rather plant the seed to harvest in the future. I think that's a really strong, good Latour saying. We don't act with panic. No immediate, you know, cost-cutting overall. Of course, we adapt our cost to the market situation, but we do protect good investments and good costs so to speak going forward. Yes, I would also like to say, as you saw, Andreas here on stage and Johan on stage, the Latour group management team is Johan, myself, and Andreas, probably the smallest management team on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, but very, very nimble and agile in its approach.
I also think that also shows our decentralized approach and that we put the resources where there should really be in our businesses to grow our businesses going forward. Before we conclude, I would also give a special thanks to, of course, to Frida, our excellent moderator here today. I think you did a fantastic performance. That you might not know is that Hedvig Wennerholm, our executive assistant, where are you Hedvig? Over there. Has done a fantastic job in organizing this together with her colleague, Niclas Nylund, right here. Then believe it or not, Johan Menckel was also part of the team that supported that. Thanks a lot, Johan. Great performance, all of you. Now I hand back to you, Frida, right?
Yes.
Thank you all.