Welcome to Lifco Q3 report for 2026. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to CEO Per Waldemarson and CFO Thérese Hoffman. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Lifco Q3 2026 earnings call. As usual, we can go in directly to page number two in our investor presentation, and we will take a look at the overall development of the Lifco Group. If we start then with the third quarter specifically, we presented a sales growth with 8%, of which acquisition contributed with 6%, organic growth was 2%, and we had a slight positive impact from currency of 1% in the quarter. If we go further down to the EBITA, we grew that with 11%. EBITA margin improved to 23.1%, driven by strong margin development in Dental and Systems Solutions. Profit before tax increased with 18% due to the growth we had in operating profit and lower financial costs. If you look at the net profit, it grew with around 10%.
Here, I'd just like to highlight that the comparison number for net profit in the quarter was impacted by a lower than normal effective tax rate in the third quarter last year, where there was a reduction in the corporate tax rate in Germany, which resulted in lower deferred tax liabilities. This revaluation last year then decreased the tax expenses in the third quarter of 2025 with SEK 63 million . If we now look at operating cash flow, we had a growth of 19% in the quarter. Moving on to the nine-month period, we have increased sales with 8%, where 7% of the growth came from acquisition, 3% organic growth, and we had negative 2% impact on currencies for the nine-month period. Further down, going into EBITA, we have grown that year to date with 10%, and profit before tax has increased with 14%.
Operating cash flow has grown with 12%. If we then go into page number three and take a deeper look at our different business areas. Starting by the Dental area, we are experiencing a stable development overall. The sales growth is mainly coming from acquisition, both in the quarter and for the nine-month period. The margin continues to improve due to the positive mix effect we have where higher margin companies with unique proprietary products are developing slightly better than our distribution companies. I'd like to also, once again, remind everyone that during the last decade, we have gradually shifted our exposure into more unique proprietary products, mainly through acquisition and also from organic developments in this area.
If we then go to the Demolition & Tools business area, we have during 2026 had overall a quite stable development, slightly stronger growth in the third quarter in the sales, but margins are negatively impacted by negative mix effects, where the market for our demolition robots are a bit weaker than for the attachment side of the business, and that trend has remained throughout the year. If we go further down to Environmental Technology, we have grown sales and profit and margins for the nine-month period. I would like to highlight that the more stable development in Q3 mainly has to do with a very strong comparison number and very strong quarter in the same period last year. Going further to Transportation Products, we have during the first nine months grown, thanks to acquisition and organic growth.
The development in Q3 was a bit weaker organically, mainly related to weaker market conditions in U.K., which is the largest country within the Transportation Products area. Finally going into Systems Solutions, we have strong development in 2026, supported both by acquisition and organic growth, which has led to improved profits and margins. Here, all subdivisions within the area are developing strongly. I can also highlight, after several years of weaker market conditions in infrastructure products, we are now experiencing better underlying markets in that segment now for the last few quarters. I also like to mention, in the Systems Solutions area, we have in our quarter report mentioned that a large customer within contract manufacturing division, which accounts for approximately 5% of total sales, has reduced forecast going into 2027.
The customer has also announced that they have intentions to, in the future, shift purchases to other suppliers outside Europe. Based on the information we have today, which is not complete, we have to highlight that we expect that this will have a negative impact on our Systems Solutions revenue and earnings in 2027. I also like to highlight and just give a comment that this is an area within contract manufacturing where we saw larger than normal growth during 2024 and 2025. It has been more on a stable high level in 2026. We made strategically the decision quite some time ago not to continue to grow this specific customer further. We will also, going forward, limit so we do not grow too far in specific customer segments. We can then go further on to page number four in our rest of presentation.
On this page, we take a much longer-term perspective on Lifco development, and our most important metric is the free cash flow per share after CapEx and only before dividend and acquisition. This is a measurement that, of course, quarterly can have volatility because cash flow does not always linearly grow every quarter. But over long periods of time, it is a very good indication of how we develop. Since our listing in 2014, Lifco has then grown our cash flow per share with 21%. Also, if you look in a more recent period, the growth since 2019, the compound annual growth rate is 17%. If we then go further into page number 5, we take a quick look at our balance sheet and specifically into our net debt situation.
After closing of Q3 2026, our interest-bearing net debt to EBITA is at one times, which is quite low and means that we have plenty of room for further acquisitions. Speaking of acquisition, we can then go all the way down to the next page, at page 43, where we are basically looking at the acquisitions so far in this year. We have, during 2026, acquired eight companies with a total combined turnover of more than SEK 1 billion . I would like to highlight that we are also, in 2026, expanding our capacity both to identify and take care of new acquisitions. Our internal ambition levels are very high.
I also like to, as always, mention that we are very long-term oriented when it comes to acquisitions, and it is more important that we make the right deals rather than being overly stressed in periods of slightly lower deal volumes that we have experienced so far this year. The activity level is very high, and we have many interesting targets that we are working with, as always, but the exact timing of when acquisition materializes is very difficult to predict. We look for highly differentiated niche companies with a long history of high-margin, sustainable financial development, and we acquire great companies from entrepreneurs and families. Once again, the exact timing on when they are ready to sell to us is difficult to predict. That was all from my side. With that, I would like to open up for any potential questions. Thank you.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Zino Engdalen Ricciuti from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, Per, and thanks for taking my question. Starting off in Systems Solutions with the customer in contract manufacturing that you highlight, could you give some more possible flavor to how much you believe this will impact? Is it half of the sales base, or is it that they are just moving incremental volumes?
Thank you, Zino. We still have uncertainty around that, but we take a very cautious approach, and that is also why we like to mention this in this report, even though we do not have full clarity on how exactly this will develop. We have to come back around that, but it is serious enough to highlight it in this quarterly report. The timing effect of it is very hard to predict today.
Understood. Just follow up, do you believe that this is a result of you strategically limiting the growth that you have been willing to have to this company?
It is very difficult to say, but I think this is a very special situation for Lifco. During the last 25 years, we have not had this type of situation, and we are normally working in very stable situations where we gradually grow step by step with our customers. It is not something that we normally do, and of course, given the growth that has taken place, it could of course have had impact. But we take also here a very long-term look at things. For us, it is important that we have the right type of exposure and right type of segments that we operate in. We are not a company that can go for super high volume type of manufacturing.
Understood. Moving to the comments you made about seeing growth in infrastructure products, do you make any sort of, I would say, read-across when you think about the appetite for demolition robots in the Demolition & Tools segment?
It is quite difficult to understand. We know that we are keeping our market shares and why the market is a bit more depressed. The only explanation I can logically think about is that it has more impact on the geopolitical uncertainty. What happened earlier this year in the Middle East and so forth, has more impacted on the sentiment on the buying of more extensive equipment in that area. That is the explanation that we have been able to identify, but there is no clear. We see also, of course, in that segment that aftermarket is developing well, which is a strong signal. But once again, the exact timing of the CapEx investments for our customers is more difficult to predict.
Understood. Lastly from me on Transportation Products, sorry if I missed your explanation, but could you give some more flavor as to the lower margin despite the higher sales and how we should think about that going forward?
Yeah, there we have a combination of the organic and acquisitions that are blending out. But we saw in this quarter a weaker development organically in our U.K. operations. So that is the main comment for that area.
Yeah. I expect that to be, of course, the U.K. market generally is not doing great. But that is, so to say, sticking.
Sorry, can you repeat that question?
Yeah. As U.K. generally is not performing great, it is fair to assume that it is something we should see, this margin, something we should see ahead as well.
Well, that is difficult for me to predict. I will be serious, we have a little bit different exposures and different type of companies, but we saw in this quarter some more reluctancy of investments in the Transportation Products area in the U.K.
Understood. Thank you, Per, for taking the questions. I will get back in line.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Ope Otaniyi from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hello, Ope.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Johan Lönnqvist Sundén from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Hi, Per, Just a follow-up from me on the contract manufacturing side. Do you see any risk that there could be other clients following the specific client that you are highlighting in your report to terminate the business with you, or is it solely isolated to this specific one?
This is a very special situation. In the other areas in contract manufacturing, we have very different type of customer exposure and segment exposure. This is, I would say it is really one-off in that situation.
The margins on the volumes that is at risk. Ballpark, where would you say those are?
We do not communicate specific margins on specific customer relationships. But in general, I can say that the margins in contract manufacturing is, as you can imagine, slightly lower than the average for the Systems Solutions area.
Above or below 20%?
I am not going to give specific margin. We can also see from when we grew in the area, in the time of growth, that we had negative mix effects from the growth in 2024 and 2025, and this is partly related to what we experience now.
I understand.
That is as much information I feel I can give out.
Yeah. Anything with Demolition & Tools, just highlight the kind of client discussions, sentiment, what you saw after summer?
Sorry, you talked about Demolition & Tools, yes?
Yes.
No, in general, if we take a little bit step back and look at the last four years, we saw the sharp decline following the heydays after COVID. We saw the sharp decline in 2023, 2024, and then 2025, a comeback year. That comeback has gone slowly in the right direction for the majority of the business in Demolition & Tools. With the exception of demolition robots being more CapEx intensive, mainly sold also to smaller contractors. I think that has an impact. But overall, it has been going in the right direction. Not dramatically, but step by step, I would say last 12- 18 months.
Fair enough. Those were my only questions. Thanks a lot. Get back in line.
Thank you.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Yes. We thank everyone for listening in, and wish everyone a good continued day. Thank you.