Welcome to Netel Q4 report for 2025. During the questions and answer 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 and President, Jeanette Reuterskiöld, and CFO, Fredrik Helenius. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome to our presentation of our Q4 results. My name is Jeanette Reuterskiöld, and with me, I have Fredrik Helenius, our CFO. During today's presentation, I will start by running through the key developments in the fourth quarter, as well as a recap of the development for the full year 2025, and our measures to improve our profitability. Fredrik will then go through the financials in more detail before I make a short summary, and we open up for your questions. In the quarter, we have charged the result with additional cost to terminate identified loss-making projects. While net sales were slightly lower than expected, we took robust measures to strengthen our operational base and increase predictability in our operations. We carried out comprehensive efforts to streamline our organization and strengthen the parts of the operations that had negative impact.
2025 was a challenging year, with lower volumes and the large writedowns in products that had a negative impact on our earnings. During the fourth quarter, we continued to win attractive contracts, and we are entering 2026 with a high order backlog, more than SEK 4 billion. Around half of the order backlog is for products that are already underway this year, creating a strong foundation for profitable growth. Agreements were signed at levels that offer good potential for profitability and will help to stabilize the business going forward. The growth in order backlog was primarily driven by power and new framework agreements in telecom.
We have, for example, signed a new big contracts, one in Infraservices for civil engineering works at a new logistics center in Ludvika, worth about SEK 110 million, and an agreement signed with Power Sweden, with Ellevio for the reconstruction and refurbishment of distribution station in Lidingö, worth about SEK 50 million. And we have renewed a two-year framework agreement within Power with Elvia in Norway for emergency services worth NOK 20 million-NOK 30 million per year. Cash flow was strong in the last quarter of the year, as predicted, and once again, we could see clear seasonal patterns as products concluded and final invoicing resulted in increased cash flows during the last months of the year. Cash flow from operating activities amounted to nearly SEK 100 million for continuing operations for the fourth quarter, an excellent performance from our organization.
We remain intensely focused on cash flows. We successfully conducted a round of refinancing during the fourth quarter and secured new financing agreements. The financing runs until the end of June 2027 with a liquidity covenant structure. A liquidity covenant means that the financing for us is linked to the company's actual ability to pay, thus providing greater stability, predictability, and financial flexibility. Overall, this improves conditions to support our operational activities and the implementation of the group's strategic initiatives going forward. We also have successfully made a divestment of our operations in UK in mid-September to December, and earlier, before summer 2025, we made a divestment of our operation in Finland. Both of these operations have negatively affected result and cash flow in recent years and have required intense focus from the organization. We can now focus on our core markets.
As part of the work to boost Netel's scope for action and to improve profitability, we have made changes to the executive team. We removed a management layer within the divisions. The heads of the business areas will now report directly to me. I'm pleased to welcome Aksel as the new head of Telecom Norway, and Robert as the new head of Infraservices Sweden. The strength of their experience with Netel and its markets means that they are taking a key roles with a clear mandate to bring change, enhance operational efficiency, and further develop the group's business. These changes strengthen our position and create a good conditions for improved earnings and sustainable growth further on. We reported a revenue decline of 9% for the full year 2025, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 1%.
The profitability took a hit in the third quarter when we had identified overvalued products by former management ahead of product completion in three of our companies acquired in 2021 and 2022. In addition, we had lower volumes than expected due to our focus on profitability in procurements and the increased market competition in the Infraservices division. We focus on winning the right products with the right margins. Through our cost savings programs and more efficient organization, we have strengthened our competitiveness going forward... Volumes were also negatively impacted by a higher portion of products still in the startup phase than expected, as well as the postponed number of products, especially we see in Telecom. We have been working to improve profitability for a long time, but our activities to increase profitability did not fully succeed in 2025.
One of the main reason for this was that we did not achieve the full potential of our investment in the new business system and the new organization that we set in Norway, and that we had anticipated, for the, during 2025, combined with the lower volumes and the write-downs in products that we reported in quarter three. As a consequence of the developments during the autumn, we have turned over every stone throughout the group and introduced cost-saving measures with clear time-bound targets. In 2025, we took robust measures to strengthen our operational base and increase predictability in our operations. We carried out comprehensive effort to streamline the organization, strengthen the parts of our operations that have had negative impact on earnings. And as I said earlier, we have divested our operations in Finland, and now in December, our operations in the UK.
We have also improved internal processes, and we now follow up products more frequently than before. We have conducted an extensive review of the subsidiaries and have a clear picture of the operations and our projects. We have strengthened their teams and adjusted the organization. As a more general measure, we reduced managerial levels and the use of consultants, in addition to optimizing the use of external resources. In 2026, we also will start consolidating subsidiaries to create economies of scale in administration, resource management, with the aim of freeing up more time for the operations, and capacity for winning, managing, and developing our projects, where we earn our money. We are now executing on the cost-saving programs and needed measures. These measures differ slightly between the divisions, and the programs were introduced internally with time-specific milestones.
Our cost-saving measures are totaling SEK 40-50 million, as we said in quarter three. The first program is totaling SEK 25 million, with full effect this year. Of this amount, SEK 10 million pertains to the identified services and vacancies that have not been filled out during 2025. Forthcoming measures involve the continued restructuring of management functions and cost savings in central function, as well as 10 million NOK in the Norwegian telecom operations. The second program is totaling SEK 15-25 million in savings, with a full effect in 2027. A large part of that savings relates to the consolidation of our subsidiaries in Sweden. Netel's market situation is characterized by continued strong demand, but with clear differences between the divisions.
Infraservices and Telecom are affected by increased competition, delayed product startups, and lower volumes, while Power, especially in Norway, is showing strong growth and good demand. At the same time, the group's position is strengthened through new framework agreements, geographical expansion, and growing order backlog for 2026. The action programs that are ongoing throughout the organization are expected also to improve both efficiency and profitability in the coming years. In Infraservices, we can see an active market, but fierce competition with squeezed margins. Clients provide a number of good opportunities, and we notice several interesting products that we tender for. But the number of contractors remain very high, and the pressure on the margins continues to increase, creating a market in which we have to be very keen on what we go for.
In addition, delayed products and low volumes from framework agreements last year are slowing down development. We focus on risk control, product manager, and a stronger order backlog for 2026. In power, very strong market in Norway with strong growth. Sweden showcased a somewhat lower activity during last year, but during the end of the year and in the beginning of this year, we acknowledged a positive development with additional products being released, highlighting the great demand for our services and the need for investments in the power networks. Our Swedish operations are affected by fewer products in full production, and the focus is on new startups and tenders. New framework agreements that we entered last year with E.ON, Vattenfall, and Elvia in Norway strengthen the outlook for 2026. In telecom, we saw lower volumes than expected and product delays weighing in development.
Germany is showing growth with a strengthened customer portfolio and order backlog. In telecom overall, especially in Norway and Sweden, we see decreased volumes in investment from our customers for the coming years, and we need to adapt and secure the right markets and customers we can develop a sustainable business together with.... Our underlying business remains stable, and what remains after we exclude the effects from the two underperforming subsidiaries and the unusually large volume loss, is highly resilient business with a strong foundation. Even though lower volumes have an impact on earnings for the year, we consider this temporary. Our business model, with a high degree of flexibility and a significant share of subcontracting, means that we can adapt quickly to changing market conditions. At the same time, parts of the operations are performing very well.
It is especially gratifying to note that our power operations in Norway continue to improve and grow over 40% during the year, with an EBITDA margin of over 5%. It confirms that our strategic focus areas are delivering, and that we are well positioned to create profitable growth when volumes normalize, and the measures we took generate their full effect. Finally, to understand our normal business, we present our seasonal pattern. Netel's operations follow clear, recurring seasonal patterns related to product life cycles, customer investment plans, and weather conditions. These patterns impact volumes, margins, and our cash flows. Given how our product mix looks this year, we note slightly lower activity in the beginning of the first quarter than last year.
This is due in part to many products in the startup phase, which includes preparatory work such as design and planning, and in part to the winter weather. That means that we have to wait to start some of our production. We expect larger production volumes, primarily during the second half of the year. Quarter one is our weakest quarter, then growing further into Q2 and Q3, to end up in Q4, which is our strongest quarter, often the quarter that carries the full year's margin, especially for large product deliveries with a strong, also with a strong cash flow. So let's move on to our financial performance in more detail, Fredrik.
Okay. Good morning, and thank you, Jeanette. Q4 indeed did mark the end of a challenging 25, but with a lot of things taken care of. We, as Jeanette mentioned, completed the divestment of our UK operations during mid-December, in addition to the summer exit from the Finnish market, and we have limited the downside from the sub-performing units, and continuously work with our actions focused on our organization, the people in our business, in addition to the obvious areas across cash flows and profitability. Our quarterly sales amounted to SEK 812 million, with a negative growth of 14% in comparison to 24. Last year, we saw and we were running relatively more bigger projects in a true production phase, driving the volume.
During the third quarter, we took a hit with the write-downs in a few specific units once we have limited the downside and adapted our structure, we have accelerated actions, partially impacted the production here in Q4 as well. In this quarter, we also note the impact from the focus on building a healthy order backlog, working intensively with bids and tenders, less activity within the mobile sector in telecom, and an early winter. We are just short of the previous expectation of approximately SEK 3 billion for the full year 2025, and this slight drop in volume temporarily impacts the financial performance and the profits.
Coming from 90% growth last quarter, our power business in Norway, on the other hand, continued its positive development and grew with over 40% the last quarter, closing 2025 with almost SEK 500 million in sales. In total, we noted a negative impact of almost 2% from the FX effects in the quarter and for the full year, and that corresponds to approximately SEK 60 million in sales for 2025 in total. Further, I think that adds then to the understanding of the performance by the Norwegian power business, as the main reason for the FX effects would be the weaker NOK during 2025. Since 2024, we have a hedge in place using parts of our debt, protecting the equity, but a stronger NOK would nevertheless provide additional opportunities in terms of sales and profits.
With continuous additions to the backlog, the power business in Norway, again, benefits from the skills and expertise within the organization, and we do look forward to the full year effect from the strategic expansion to the southern regions. We also closed 2025 with a record order backlog of almost SEK 4.2 billion. Our underlying markets and demand is, in general, positive, with the key driver still being the need to increase the capacity and reach within the electrical grids and networks, great investment needs in civil infrastructure and public sectors, and the digitalization trends that we see. We continue to be very cautious, and thorough with our strategy, being flexible in the market turbulence and competition within the telecom sector and Infraservices business.
Nevertheless, the SEK 2 billion of the backlog, having that referring to 2026 with new additions based on healthy margins in line with our financial target range, we look forward to an improved performance and will continue to focus on adaptation to market conditions in order to close the gap from the SEK 2 billion in the order backlog, referring to 2026, and the envisaged growth for the full year. After the write-down of projects in the third quarter, we recorded small but positive profitability here in Q4. As said, the adjusted EBITDA of SEK 2 million or 0.2% is partially impacted by the relatively lower volume in comparison to previous expectations. And with project delays and project remaining in the early phases, we will improve our position and restoring profitability during the coming year.
With UK closed, we have, as said, limited impact from the sub-performing units. The loss-making power units recorded an EBITDA of SEK -2 million in the quarter, and we expect a stepwise improvement over 2026 as we close and hand over the remaining ongoing projects from the old agreements and focus on ramping up our new agreements with E.ON and Vattenfall. The Infraservices unit included SEK -4 million in EBITDA in the quarter, and we still have a few early-stage discussions ongoing to close remaining projects, but we focus on limiting the downside risk in cash flows, and we do expect to be able to limit cash outflows to zero during 2026 in that unit.
The adjustments of items affecting comparability in the quarter includes approximately SEK 6 million, referring to a contract within that Infraservices unit, and otherwise mainly refer to the costs in relation to the new finance agreements and the reorganization and U.K. divestment. Of course, as with the sales target, we recorded a full year 2025 adjusted EBITDA of approximately 1% short of the expectation of 1.5, as a result of the impact from the slight drop in volume. Turning to the cash flow, I believe we are able to provide some of the most relevant and important answers. Using percentage of completion as the relevant base for our calculations and reporting, our top line and profitability will unavoidably vary with the values accrued over time within projects.
The expected seasonality and strong cash generation in the fourth quarter, on the other hand, provides necessary answers in line with what was previously stated. To partly rephrase what we said in our previous call, the three sub-performing units accounted for approximately -SEK 60 million in negative operating cash flow until end September. But again, we did expect to see limited future effects as most was already considered. With that background, we are very pleased with the performance from our teams working with our invoicing processes and releasing cash as the year and certain projects are coming to an end during November and December. With increased invoicing levels, the operating cash flow amounted to SEK 97 million in the quarter.
Despite the significant losses from the sub-performing units and write-downs, lower volumes in general and processes regarding the Finnish and UK divestments, the SEK 100 million cash release in Q4 eased our working capital need for the full year period, resulting in approximately -SEK 30 million in operating cash flow for the full year. During 2025, we also started several new clients and projects in the regions, and that demanding relatively more capital during the start-up phase. But the strong performance across the organization during the quarter here in Q4 enabled a positive development of our working capital profile. With that said, we will continue to highlight the evident seasonality of our business. We do expect to improve during 2026, but it is likely that Q4 will be the strongest cash-generating quarter in the future as well.
The leverage ratio calculated in line with our financial target is 7.6x. With the LTM EBITDA effect from the last few quarters, we note the increase in leverage, and this was further the underlying reason for the communicated waiver during the fall. Today, however, we are pleased to comment on the achieved new agreements communicated in December with our lenders extending our facilities until end of June 2027, having liquidity as the relevant financial undertaking rather than the net leverage metrics. The obvious effect of this is, of course, secured long-term debt and mitigated risks relating to the financing of for our business. But the important achievement refers to increased availability, enabling us to focus on the operation and organizational development whilst taking control of our capital structure.
With the cash flow in the quarter, we closed 2025 with more than SEK 200 million in cash and above SEK 340 million in available liquidity. Turning to our divisions and Infraservices , we report sales of SEK 170 million in the quarter and SEK 605 million for the full year, down approximately 28% in both periods. As with power, Infraservices includes the effect from the Q3 write-down, but in general, the lower volume for 2025 is an effect from the increased competition. The underlying markets remain healthy, with high activity across public and private sectors, but the competition remains at the higher levels, impacting our possibility to grow as we are focused on adapting the organization and working with bids that would enable profitable projects over time.
In addition, Infraservices saw a few delays from projects previously expected to be able to start during late 2025 and relatively lower volumes from frame agreements, but we continue to work with building a relevant backlog for 2026 and to highlight the important addition of our major contract here recently. Infraservices reported an EBITDA of SEK -3 million or -1.5%, out of which then SEK 4 million refers to the loss-making unit. With new management in place for the division, we continue to work on closely and with risk management, consolidation, and uniform processes for our bids and estimates. Within Power, we reported approximately 14% lower sales, or SEK 272 million in the quarter, and closed 2025, just below both last year and the SEK 1 billion threshold.
The growth in Sweden is impacted by fewer projects running at full production, especially regarding substations. During the start of these projects, we engage in low-volume activities, such as planning and permitting. But once the production kicks off, we generate additional cost items and then obviously accruing income to a greater extent. Power in Norway, as previously said, continued its positive development and grew with over 40% in the last quarter, closing 2025 with almost SEK 500 million in sales, and a total growth for the year above 40% with an EBITDA contribution and margin of over 5%. The team in Norway continued to win interesting contracts, and we have successfully confirmed the expansion to the southern region.
The market activities are good, enabling for future growth and continued focus on our client and sector diversification in the Norwegian market. The EBITDA of SEK 1 million in the quarter is impacted by the lower volumes and the current project mix and phase in Sweden. Previously, we have benefited from additional substation projects in Sweden, improving the project mix. During 2025, we focused additionally on both starting new ones and of course, finding new opportunities for the Swedish Power business. The full-year EBITDA of SEK -4 million includes SEK -32 million from the loss-making unit. But with new management in place, new client agreements in place, we do envisage a stepwise improvement over the year of 2026, lowering the risk and increasing the performance with a better EBITDA contribution.
Telecom generated SEK 369 million in sales in the quarter, down 6.3% from last year. The quarter and the year is impacted by project delays, but especially lower volumes in comparison to expectation regarding the rollouts and mobile networks. Rollout volumes within fixed and mobile networks in Sweden and Norway are now significantly lower, and we are moving fast towards other interesting opportunities within the defense and public sectors, to name a few. Germany, too, were slightly behind last year in the quarter, as the early winter in our regions halted the operations. But year-on-year, we turned back to growth and noted a strong performance from the team, successfully entering into agreements and starting projects with new blue-chip customers, despite uncertainties in the telecom sector and the German economy.
We were a bit too optimistic during H1 of 2025, and hence account for a negative quarter here in the end of 2025, with an EBITDA of SEK -16 million. But full year 2025 remains in line with previous period at a low positive figure. The mere 1% margin for the year is not in line with our expectation for long-term profitability, but based on the current state of the actions, we choose to value the backlog, existing positions that we have, and expect to execute on additional efficiency across the division, especially in Norway, moving on to 2026. As we said, Germany grew year on year and have done so whilst adapting with an improved client portfolio and interesting add-ons to the backlog.
With UK and Finland divested, our management updated, and the continued execution of measures in the Norwegian organization, we expect to release our efficiency also in the improved profitability. I think that sums it up quite well. It is a challenging year and a quarter, but again, with a lot of things taken care of. The positives in the quarter are obviously the very important answers from the cash flow, our growing backlog, and that we now enter 2026 with a better position and being well prepared to continue our process. With that summary, I think we are ready to have a few final comments from you, Jeanette.
Thank you, Fredrik, for this presentation. I will finalize today's presentation with some concluding remarks. Our underlying markets are healthy and driven by the mega trends of electrification, digitalization, and modernization of the critical infrastructure. Our business is characterized by long-term customer relationships, and we have worked for many years with some of Scandinavia's largest telecom operators, such as Tele2 and Telenor, and power companies such as E.ON, Vattenfall, and Elvia. We also have strong offering, which is reflected in our increased and improved order backlog of SEK 4.2 billion. We have done our homework. Difficult but necessary decisions have been made last, and we will undoubtedly have to make more such decisions to adapt to new scenarios in the future... We have a clear plan to improve profitability, and we are completing the measures we have communicated.
We are maintaining a high pace to win new great contracts, implement the saving programs, and complete our assigned contracts, and have entered 26 with better condition. Through a continued focus on consolidation of our operations within the divisions and the group, increased internal efficiency, improved processes, and strengthen financial position, we are preparing ourselves to face the future. Our strategic decision to expand geographically in Sweden, Norway, and Germany, at the same time, we stated that we would seek new customer segments, particularly industrial clients within the power division and public customers within telecom, has led, among other contracts, to our expansion into southern parts of Norway with a new customer, Glitre Nett. And in Sweden, we have won a major framework agreement with the Swedish Defense Materiel Administration a couple of years ago, where we now see increasing volumes further on.
In the autumn, we presented our indication for 2026, which we are sticking to. We expect growth and margin improvement for the full year 2026, given the savings measures in 2025 and 2026, and the market conditions we see today. Thank you all for listening in, and now we are open for questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. We'll have a brief pause while questions are registered. The next question comes from Carl Johan Bonnevier from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, Jeanette and Fredrik. A lot of moving parts here, obviously, and thank you for all the extra color. But maybe you can help me looking at just trying to back out these three problem units. Obviously, you now done the deconsolidation of the UK, so that's the easy one. But just to understand, what was the impact of these three units in the Q4 numbers and in the full year?
Yeah. Morning, Carl Johan, thank you for the question. As you say, UK was one of the three units, and we completed the divestment here in mid-December. Then the full year impact for the other two subperforming units, we then have one in within Power and one within Infraservices. We commented on that briefly now during the presentation. The Power unit impacted the fourth quarter with -SEK 4 million and 32 on the full year, and the Infraservices unit impacted the quarter with SEK 4 million as well, and roughly SEK 30 million for the full year, just as the Power unit.
We have included, again, a certain or specific table in the report at the end, stating the impact from both these units, in detail for both the quarterly period and the full year.
Excellent. And when you look at, you detailed quite nicely the step down that you see in the power unit for this year, and then neutralizing those kind of loss levels. In the infra unit, do you see that you have already been able to neutralize the impact, or is there still a lingering effect into 2026 as well?
Yeah, I had a few words on it as well during the presentation, but what we do see that we have a few discussions ongoing that we need to close to finalize the remaining projects in that unit. But we focus on having a very limited downside risk in terms of cash flow. So our expectation is that we have eliminated the risk for further cash outflows in that unit, and we'll continue to close those discussions during 2026.
Excellent. Just looking at the... Congratulations, fantastic order backlogs. Good to see, and I guess it gives quite a good kind of base load going into this year. Even if I understand it, you say that it's mostly related to the second half. Is that the way to interpret it? It's gonna be the phasing of it, so to say.
Sorry if I misunderstood, but the backlog that we have of SEK 4.2 billion, we say that roughly SEK 2 billion refers to 2026. And then obviously, we have our seasonality, where we expect that H2 will be the stronger parts of the year. That's correct.
Mm. And when you then talk about your final remarks, and talking about growth this year and margin improvement-
Yeah.
How, how do you bridge that, compared to what you now see in the backlog, and you see the phasing during the year?
Yeah, as we said, our backlog is healthy, and we are transparent of the difficulties we have in one of the companies in Infraservices that we are working on. But it is a healthy order backlog and will make us to go to stabilize our margins for this year, definitely. We took a big hit with product write-downs in quarter three last year, and we had turned over every stone during the last quarter as well. So we feel that our organization is on track, but it's gonna take some time, of course, to totally stabilize.
But we see improvement for this year, of course, as we say, the indication due to that, the ordinary business, which is the big part of us, is performing very well. And one of the example, as I said, is the operations, the power operations we have in Norway, for one example, who increased their growth 40% with a margin of over 5%. So, we can focus on the businesses as well, and the order backlog that we are continuing to grow with the good margins as well.
Thank you. But if I look at the indication for 2026, then when you talk about growth, is that only on the EBIT line, or is it on the top line as well? Or so, I understand what you try to say with that indication.
Yeah, we anticipate that we will grow, but it's not our main focus. Our main focus is to have profitable growth. But what we can see right now, we are able to have a profitable growth even for this year. But of course, our main focus is to stabilize our margins for this year. That's the most important. But in that, we are working on a market that makes it possible for us to grow. And of course, with this strong order backlog that we are going into with 2026, there are always ways for us to be able to grow with profitable margins as well.
I'm sorry to dwell on, just so I understand. It's the base for going into 2026 from this kind of statement is the SEK 2.9 billion that you now reported for 2025 on the revenue line.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Correct.
Yeah.
Excellent. Looking at the fantastic development in Norway, I guess you with success in certain niches, you might end up in constraints on people that you can utilize for doing these kind of things. Are you able to take on these kind of huge growth rates with the structure you have at the moment?
Yeah, we do. We have a very good team in place in Norway. We have grown the organization there as well. And the benefit for us, utilizing on the subcontractor-driven model, even though our Norwegian Power business is very much focused on our own key individuals in our organization as well, is that we can take on additional volume without having too much effect on the organization. Then 40% growth year-on-year, of course, have other impacts, and we will continue to develop that organization to benefit from the market conditions and continue that growth strategy.
Excellent. Sounds good. Good to have 2025 behind and all the best in 2026.
Thank you.
Thank you, Karl Johan.
There are no more questions from the telco, so I hand the word back to Jeanette and Fredrik for closing comments.
Thank you all for listening in, and we look forward to see you for our presentation, our quarter Q1 results in April the twenty-fourth. Have a good day, and bye for now.
Thank you, everyone. Bye bye.