Nederman Holding AB (publ) (STO:NMAN)
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Earnings Call: Q3 2022

Oct 24, 2022

Operator

Welcome to Nederman Holding Quarter 3 Report 2022. Throughout the call, all participants will be in listen-only mode, and afterwards there will be a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Today, I'm pleased to present CEO Sven Kristensson and CFO Matthew Cusick. Please begin your meeting.

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this call where we will present our interim report for Q3 2022. Starting off with some summary. It's been another strong quarter. We have had record sales and record profit, and we are very pleased with that. We have also, during the quarter, finalized the acquisition of RoboVent, and that has significantly strengthened our US position, especially made us the number one supplier to welding applications. Again, we have a strong order backlog, and that bodes fairly well for the coming quarter. We had solid profitability, 11.8% EBITA, and a good cash flow development. However, there are continued concerns, uncertainty. We have a war going on in Europe with all that that means, and we have Chinese issues.

It hasn't been shed more light on that during a positive trend after the weekend, but that's where we are. The order intake growth has dampened. We have still supply chain problems, transport, and that has impacted sales negatively, even if we see some easing in some areas, and we have a clear cost inflation. That's the situation. Summarizing the third quarter, we are very pleased with our sales and our ability to deliver profit. A little bit more of the acquisition of RoboVent. It was July 29, we finally had closing of the U.S.-based company, RoboVent. As mentioned, it significantly strengthened our position in Americas, especially then, of course, in U.S. It's mainly weld fume extraction. It's a classic Nederman area, welding fume, historically very strong position there. However, not so strong in America.

With this acquisition, we are now global leader when it comes to welding application, both in America and Europe, and we are very pleased with that. Their expected sales will be between $35 million and $40 million, and they have a headquarters in Sterling Heights, Michigan. That's just outside Detroit area. It's from now on a part of the Nederman's Extraction & Filtration Technology division, which handles these applications.

Matthew Cusick
CFO, Nederman

If I move on to slide five and start going through the key financials, starting with orders and sales. As Sven already mentioned, we had a slight dampening of order intake, but I mean, we still had SEK 1.294 billion in orders, which is a currency neutral increase of 3% versus quarter three of last year. Sales very close to SEK 1.4 billion in the quarter, SEK 1.398 billion. That's a 23% currency neutral increase versus the same quarter last year. January to September for the first nine months, orders up to SEK 4.029 billion, 16% higher currency neutral than the same nine months last year. Sales, SEK 3.664 billion, currency neutral, 18%+.

If you look at the charts on slide five, you can clearly see, if we look at the right-hand one first, how the sales have increased, and this is clearly a record quarter for Nederman. What we see on the left side is, as Sven mentioned, this dampening of the order intake, to some extent, it's still extremely high level for a Nederman historically. We're over SEK 1.25 billion, which means that on a rolling 12-month rate, we're clearly over the SEK 5 billion mark. If I move on to slide six, profitability, which, of course, largely follows on from the very good sales we've had. We're pleased with profitability despite the challenges that we've had with costs, cost inflation, for example.

Adjusted EBITDA was SEK 165 million versus SEK 136 million last year in quarter three. That gave us a margin of 11.8%, which again, we're rather pleased with considering the inflation costs that we've had. We've had a significant change in sales mix versus the quarter three of last year, as those of you who follow us closely will be aware. We have Process Technology as now delivering out a good part of their backlog is at slightly lower margins than Nederman, the main group as a whole, but still rather good for that division. We'll come back to that. Profit after tax for the quarter was SEK 93 million versus SEK 81 million in the quarter last year.

That gives us earnings per share of SEK 2.64 versus SEK 2.31. January to September, we're over SEK 400 million now for the year to date, EBITDA SEK 406 million versus SEK 351 million last year. EBITDA margin 11.1% behind the 12.1% that we had last year. Profit after tax SEK 238 million versus SEK 195 million krona. We ignore this accounting adjustment for the Norwegian pension scheme that was included in last year's result there. Earnings per share clearly up SEK 6.78 for the year to date. On to slide number seven and a little bit on the cash flow and net debt.

It's a solid cash flow development that we had in the quarter again. Slightly higher cash flow from operations than the corresponding quarter in 2021. SEK 118 million was the cash flow from operations this quarter just ended versus SEK 107 million last year. Year- to- date, we're on SEK 258 million, which is good, albeit behind the extremely high cash flow that we had after nine months of last year. You might remember the extremely high order intake from Process Technology division largely with corresponding down payments received in 2021 made very good comparative figures.

Net debt, as you might expect, has, given that we paid approximately $42 million for a company, has increased in the quarter. Despite the good cash flow development, obviously an increase there. We end the quarter at SEK 1.516 billion. If we now move on to the divisions, then you'll give a first order summary for the-

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

Yeah.

Matthew Cusick
CFO, Nederman

Extraction & Filtration Technology division.

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

Yeah. Page nine, Extraction & Filtration Technology highlights during the quarter. As mentioned earlier, the acquisition of RoboVent that gave us a strong position in U.S. We are now number one both in woodworking applications as well as in welding in the U.S. markets. We have orders received remaining on, I would say, a healthy level, although that's a small negative growth. We have a very strong backlog, and what's interesting is our efforts to grow our aftermarket and service is paying off. If we go to the European markets, there has been a good positive trend in northern and western Europe. We've seen a slowdown in southern and eastern Europe. Of course, they are also more affected by the war in Ukraine.

We have two large orders in wood and metal manufacturing, and we have strong sales in most markets. Overall, reasonably good development in EMEA. In Americas, we have had strong sales growth in all markets, including the newly acquired RoboVent. There has been a slight negative organic order intake, and it's due to the comparison, but it's still on a solid good level. We booked two major orders in wood and food industries, another area where we are more active. Again, our service and aftermarket is growing. APAC, growth in Australia, other distributor markets also in Thailand. However, China remains a problem. Their zero-COVID lockdowns make it very difficult to do business. You also see that there is a slowdown in the economy, at least for us, in the Chinese economy.

Key activities, repeating myself, the acquisition of RoboVent, but we also continue to develop our interactive tools. We presented the IWF in Atlanta this summer, a new updated interactive tool for wood applications, which was very well received. Again, we are in the forefront when it comes to using digitalization to make it easy to do business with Nederman. We will continue to do so.

Matthew Cusick
CFO, Nederman

Briefly on the financials for the division, as Sven already mentioned, very slight organic growth decline in order intake, -1%. Given that RoboVent is now part of this division, there's a currency neutral growth, 10.5% there. In sales, growth of 25.4% currency neutral. It was eleven percent organically and adjusted EBITDA in the quarter of SEK 103.4 million krona, which gives us a margin of 17.6%, which is only very slightly behind the 18.5% that we saw in the strong Q3 last year. For the year to date now, the division EBITDA is 17.3% versus 17.7% last year. However, in absolute Swedish krona is significantly higher of course.

Organic growth in orders 10% for the year to date and 8% for the quarter and 8% in sales. Process Technology, Sven.

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

Yes. Slide 10, Process Technology. The development during the quarter, of course, we have had seen a significant increase in sales. The big order backlog is now turned into sales, which we've all been waiting for. There are some dampening in order intake levels. Still a strong order backlog and that bodes well for the coming quarter. Again, interesting to see our efforts in building an aftermarket and service business continues to grow and it's paying off. We have now, by delivering out the backlog, been able to increase profitability. If we go to textile and fiber, we've seen that we've had very strong order intake in all markets except China. Surprise, surprise. You heard me saying that before, but again, we are running extra shifts in India.

We see that we still have a strong position and where we are using our digitalization tools, we see that we are ahead of the offers our competitors are giving. We have, again, a good sales increase. There are some indicators that, for the coming future that might be a slowdown in investments in the textile and fiber industry, but that remains to be seen. If you go to other large portion of our business, it's foundries and smelters. There is a risk that the very high energy prices could have a dampening effect on aluminum producers' willingness to invest. We haven't seen that yet, but again, the energy prices has a significant impact on these smelters. On the other hand, there is a trend on using more and more around the world of recycled material.

Increased defense spending means higher demand from foundries, and we are well-positioned with our future-proof solutions, with our IoT, with our digitalization and new technologies. We see that we can be a part of that growth. We have booked a few major orders, especially one larger in Turkey. Customized solution is a large specialized project, and we've delivered several medium size, but no really large. We are, however, executing on the backlog and that is accelerating that activity. Again, key activities focus on project execution and price adjustment to counter continued cost inflation. It's nice work that we have cost inflation everywhere, energy cost, et cetera, but we are doing our best to counter that with reasonable price increases.

Matthew Cusick
CFO, Nederman

Some financials now for Process Technology division. If I maybe start with the chart on the top right-hand side of slide number 10. We can see that this Q3 for 2022 was the first quarter for which sales has exceeded all the back order intake since Q4 of 2020. As Sven said, we've been building some backlog for quite some time. It must also be pointed out order intake as well is still on a rather healthy level, well over 400 million SEK in the quarter, which was negative organically 11.5% and currency neutral in this division. There's no acquisitions impacting the figures, but it's still on a level we're quite happy with.

Sales increased 22%, currency neutral in the quarter, and the adjusted EBITA now SEK 36.3 million, 7.5% in quarter three. For the year to date, now the division has order intake growth of 16% and sales growth of 25.5%, and this is leading to the clearly increased profitability there, SEK 61.2 million in EBITA and a 5.1% margin there. If I move on to Monitoring & Control Technology, Sven, slide 11.

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

Yes. Special development in the quarter, it continues. This division is the one that has been most hurt by the component shortage, since they have special components and components that cannot easily be changed due to the fact that we then need in many cases to redo testing and the qualification from notified bodies. We see some easing. It's been a very difficult period, but we see some easing, and we hope that during Q4 and at least Q1 and Q2 next year, we should be in a much better position. There has been a reduced order intake in China, and that has a clear impact on the figures for the whole division there. We've had a strong position many years, when it comes to products in high-end measurement technology.

The difficulties in China have had a negative impact. We have had sales growth, but it's a little bit behind expectation. We are building more backlog than we want to. What we have is a very strong backlog for Q4. As again, we would have liked to deliver more, but due to the challenges we've been discussing earlier. If we go to the European markets, order intake grew during the quarter, and especially NEO Monitors had a strong quarter. The sales decline, and it's mainly due to these component issue and some bottlenecks that comes up around that. In Asia, orders and sales declined versus a strong Q3 last year and in China, and low level of activity in China, and that is the big factor.

The Chinese lockdowns, it's also happening, sourcing and business development there. We have for this division our principal office in Hong Kong, and it's been very difficult to visit new customers, prospects, and develop new solutions. We'll see what happens going forward. In Americas, we have had an increase in orders and sales, and one growth factor has been energy production related investments, where they are using especially NEO Monitors technology to measure. The key activities, again, ACHEMA, the large trade fair in Germany, gave us an opportunity to show our new products, and that was positively received.

Matthew Cusick
CFO, Nederman

Financials for Monitoring & Control Technology. Order intake was slightly down 0.8% currency neutral, obviously up in absolute numbers, but very different picture region by region, as you heard from Sven already. Sales increased, currency neutral, by 7.9%. The EBITDA for the quarter, SEK 19.2 million, is below the SEK 26.2 million we had in Q3 last year. The EBITDA margin, 13% for the quarter versus 21.3% for last year. Year to date, currency neutral growth is almost 6% in orders and 3.3% for sales. The EBITDA is SEK 63 million, which is behind the SEK 79.6 million we had for the year to date last year.

Adjusted EBITDA margin, currently 14.7% for the year to date. Last but not least, Duct & Filter Technology.

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

Yeah. Slide 12. Duct & Filter Technology. Development in the quarter, we have had strong growth in orders and sales. Especially the U.S. business has developed very well. We have gross profit margin challenge due to material, energy prices, et cetera. We were at the same time last year in a lucky situation where we had long-term contract on prices, but where the market price for our end products went up. They have a tough challenge in comparison. If we go to Nordfab, where we are doing specialized duct work, we had again, as mentioned, very strong ordering intake. We have had major orders in many fields, but especially we see a lot of new lithium ion battery plants coming up, and we supplied to several of them.

In this quarter, there was another big order. However, for small workshop and mold distributors, there's been a slight decline or hesitancy in this. The European ducting business noted a slowdown with one important exception, U.K., where we continue to develop our presence. We have a warehouse and a small specialist manufacturing there. We are growing our market share in that area. We are intensifying our activities around marketing in new areas and in order to continue develop our business. The new business we acquired, Ezi-Duct in Australia, a small business, but they have now stable growth. The integration has gone very well. We are introducing ERP systems, making them a professional company. We think that bodes well for continue strengthen our position in that area.

In Nederman, we had very healthy but more modest order intake. We have had very strong quarters with large orders coming in, but still on a healthy level. We secured two large orders again, food and steel industry, and we continue to increase our profitability. Key activities, as mentioned before, we have taken decision on right now in the midst of constructing the new U.S. factory and warehouse extension, and during Q1, we will be ready, and that will further strengthen our position on the American market. We will also then develop the new concept on 24-hour delivery, which will be another step in keeping a distance to our competition in that field. The warehouse capacity in U.K. had to be increased to meet higher demand.

It's not that we like a lot of warehouses, but it's actually a definitive need in order to meet the higher demand that we have also in that market. We are also focused on updating critical older equipment to improve the productivity and efficiency and quality further, and we are looking positively for the future here.

Matthew Cusick
CFO, Nederman

If I take the financials briefly for this division. In the quarter, currency neutral growth was over 20% for both orders and sales, 21.5% for orders, and 28% for sales. Year- to- date, orders are 30% up, currency neutral and 27% on sales. Strong increases there. Like Sven mentioned, this division is particularly vulnerable to material and energy prices, largely materials. This gives us the challenge that we constantly manage in terms of gross profit margins. When it comes to profitability, the adjusted EBITDA is up in both the quarter and for the year to date. Whereas you see in percentage terms, there's a clear reduction in the margin, 15.5% versus 20.2% for the quarter.

Like I say, in absolute number in krona on the bottom line, a good development nonetheless. If we move on to the outlook, Sven, slide number 13 now.

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

Yeah. For the outlook, if we look at the short term, demand and orders received during this last quarter was still on a very healthy level. We have a strong order backlog moving into Q4. We have seen, as reported here, some dampening in the demand due to a lot of external factors. There are still challenges in component supply. There are still continued geopolitical uncertainty and rising inflation, and that could definitely have an impact on customers' investment decision. But there are different areas in energy sector, there are still investment. In some areas they are more hesitant due to the energy prices, et cetera. Summarizing short term, we are cautiously optimistic about the coming quarters. We have good products, good systems, and we see that we have a role to play.

If we look long term, there is a good potential, and that continue to strengthen, especially the awareness is growing. WHO report, again, emphasize the importance of these issues. We've seen that the insight of the poor air and what that does to people increase the willingness to invest. Again, we need also, since we are partly regulatory driven, we also need the decisions coming from regulatory areas as well as from political sponsors.

Matthew Cusick
CFO, Nederman

We've now released the financial calendar for next year. The next financial report will be released on February 16, 2023. That will be the year-end report for 2022, of course. With that, I think we can now open up for any questions our listeners may have.

Operator

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing zero two to cancel. Our first question comes from Anna Wikström from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Anna Wikström
SVP, Handelsbanken

Hi, Sven and Matthew. Thank you for taking my question. You did touch a bit on the gross margin development on how, for example, I'm thinking that the Process Technology having grown quite a lot year-over-year, that should have a negative effect on the gross margin. You also talked about issues with the Duct & Filter Technology from a gross margin perspective. Are those two aspects explaining like the whole decrease or are you still suffering, for example, that lack of price increases towards customers?

Matthew Cusick
CFO, Nederman

I would say, I think I could try to answer that division by division and refer to the two that you mentioned first of all, Anna. Process Technology, they actively work with pricing and we do have when it comes to raw material, there's often clauses in the sales contracts that mean that there are price adjustments should the steel prices move significantly. So they have handled this rather well, and that's reflected in the improved EBITDA margin that you see there that comes from the volume. That division nonetheless is always the margin on large projects is always less than that on the other divisions.

Duct & Filter Technology, they have a different challenge in that, particularly on the ducting side, there's a significant exposure to steel prices. Sven hinted at it already. What you saw in quarter three last year was, we had purchased ahead, and we were kind of beating the market. We'd increased our prices, and we were buying ahead of it on steel. This year it's been slightly the opposite as we've seen that prices have reduced. Steel prices have reduced throughout the year. This price management is extremely important to compete with, and we've handled it rather well so far. I don't think that you should expect to see major changes in the gross profit margins due to materials.

I don't dare say what's going to happen on the labor side and the negotiations as we go into 2023.

Anna Wikström
SVP, Handelsbanken

Okay, perfect. That's very clear. Thank you. Also you have, as you mentioned, some of the acquisition of RoboVent. I'm a bit curious on how it's been going so far. I mean, I know it hasn't been that long, but so far meeting your expectations, and what were your expectations?

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

No, but they have come in with slightly lower margins than the rest of that division. It's going very well. We are working in four integration groups, and we see progress there. They have had good order intake. They continue to work well, and we will do the necessary integration measures. A lot of it has already started, and it's ongoing very well. What is most important is that it gives us, again, a position on the U.S. market that we have been trying to get organically for many years. It is very difficult in a very traditional business like this, where distributor sales channels are occupied, and we are not willing to go in and compete with the low prices since we have the best product.

Now we've had the chance, and we are now number one also in this market, and that will lead to further growth. We will introduce to them some of our tools, et cetera. It will take some time, but we see that as a very positive and strategically very important acquisition for our future growth in U.S.

Anna Wikström
SVP, Handelsbanken

That's great. Thank you. You did touch upon, especially for some of the business areas, that the China exposure do have some explanations or are explaining a bit of the order decline. Do you have any sort of idea on a group level how much of a result the Chinese lockdown does have?

Matthew Cusick
CFO, Nederman

That one's very difficult to say. Like we say, it's different division by division. The division that has the biggest exposure proportionally is the Monitoring & Control Technology division. Their order intake is negative, you could say, because of China. Had we had a similar level of order intake to last year, they would still be showing growth of division as a whole. The other divisions, Process Technology is a very project related business, and that is very difficult to then state whether a project has dropped or not into the order intake in a particular quarter because of the lockdowns.

It is a challenging situation for us, and we don't see light at the end of the tunnel. There was some talk of this zero COVID easing. That is not gonna happen now. Sven's shaking his head slightly opposite me on the other side of the table here.

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

China will be a challenge, not only for us. It will be, and with the latest political developments, it will not ease in the way we might have hoped but not planned for. We will have to handle it in the best way. The Process Technology, especially in textile and fiber, we are number two in that market, so we will defend that market position. As you've seen with the self-inflicted wounds in the Chinese economy, we grow significantly in India, as we've mentioned. China is creating a lot of our own problems. We will handle it the best we can and according to the development.

Anna Wikström
SVP, Handelsbanken

That sounds good. Perfect. I mean, I guess that you have as many other days you do have the price effect on the top line as well. Do you have any idea on how the order intake would look if you were to adjust for the price increases that you've done?

Matthew Cusick
CFO, Nederman

I'm afraid that is extremely difficult to answer, Ana. You're correct in your statement. There is some price increases in there as well. It varies very much division by division.

Anna Wikström
SVP, Handelsbanken

No, totally understood. I mean, I noticed that the service aftermarket and solutions bit has grown in relation to the products on a group level. I mean, this. We've talked about this for some time, and it's I mean, in my opinion, that's a positive. Could you maybe talk a bit on, like, your expectations of it going forward and what effect that has on the group level?

Matthew Cusick
CFO, Nederman

Yes. I must correct you on one point straight away there. As a percentage of overall sales, our service and aftermarket has not grown as a percentage this year. However, it has definitely grown in all divisions. Our long term aim is to grow the service and aftermarket business faster than the products and solutions side. Due to the volatility of the solution sales in Process Technology in particular, that is not the case right now. It's not that we're disappointed, and it's definitely growing faster.

What you can say is in Process Technology, this growing service business is contributing to the improved margin that you see there. 7.5% EBITDA in the quarter wouldn't have been possible without, for example, growing service business in Luwa, for example, where it's been relatively historically low. We've managed to get that up. This is absolutely a key part of our strategy in digitalization. It's not necessarily selling digital filters for the sake of selling a digital filter. It is to be able to address the aftermarket in a more efficient way and also gain market share in the aftermarket.

Anna Wikström
SVP, Handelsbanken

Perfect. That's very clear. The last question from my side. If we go into the Process Technology, I mean, you pointed out the increase in the profitability, and I think you were touching a bit on it, that actually the volume increase has been one of the explanations for the increased profitability. Are there any other explanations and how should we think about the orders now decreasing and then estimating your profitability expectations going forward?

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

The order backlog is still extremely high in that division or is very high in that division. For the coming quarters, the expectations should not be significantly lower than where we are now. There are differences project by project on margins of course. In growing the aftermarket business in that division, there's an improvement on the base business that will recur even if order intake does drop. That division is still on a rather healthy overall order intake. The final point on that division is we are very careful for the division as a whole.

We have some of our own sourcing and our own factories, and we've mentioned some challenges in China, and that we've got two shifts on the Luwa business in India. Relative to quite a lot of our competitors from that division, we don't have an awful large percentage of own sourced production and therefore a relatively low percentage fixed cost, which is important when these fluctuations in order intake come. This was one reason why that division was able to stay and to remain profitable throughout the Covid years, if you can call it that. Whereas if we see some of the competitors in that division, they definitely were not profitable in those years, 2020 and 2021.

Anna Wikström
SVP, Handelsbanken

Perfect. Thank you both, Sven and Matthew for taking my questions. That was all for me.

Matthew Cusick
CFO, Nederman

Thank you, Anna.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Gustav Österberg. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Gustav Österberg
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Yeah. Good morning, gentlemen, and congratulations on a beautiful report. Very nice to see that.

Matthew Cusick
CFO, Nederman

Thank you, Gustav.

Gustav Österberg
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

I would like to touch on the RoboVent acquisition. You state when you bought that the EBITDA margin is a bit lower than the average of the Nederman Group. If I put this in then to Nederman Extraction & Filtration Technology, a sales from that RoboVent I guess is around 20% or something, and margins there is now running 12 months 17% a bit. If they're a bit below the group, they're quite far away. You've done some fantastic acquisitions historically. Thank you for that.

Do you apart from winning, like, you know, a footprint or a bridgehead in the American market here, do you see also that you can, you know, increase the margins to where we are today in the Nederman Extraction & Filtration Technology? That's the first question.

Matthew Cusick
CFO, Nederman

Okay, that's a nice answer. I love your

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

It will not happen next quarter, of course.

Gustav Österberg
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Okay.

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

It will definitely, that is in the plan because what it gives us, it gives us also some pricing power. We will be number one in this market as well. It also gives us further capabilities when it comes to rationalizations in the manufacturing and the supply chain. As you all know, it will take at least a few quarters. It will take next year in order to finalize that. We are already now introducing new product, our own, of course, our own ductwork. It won't be seen in this. We will, of course, use our own capturing devices, the Nederman arms, et cetera. There will be already during the coming quarters some increase, and we expect to be able to meet this.

We would be in the same level in the plan 2024.

Gustav Österberg
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, excellent. My next question is about costs and, you know, the output prices you can get. If costs were to stay at the same level today going forward, how long time would it still take to get the prices where you want them to be? Is that like three months, six months, or is it already there maybe?

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

I don't think we will ever be at the price. It's always too cheap when you have excellent products and deliveries from there.

Gustav Österberg
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

I do agree.

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

It differs. It's been very volatile, and it goes from division to division. Last year, as I hinted a little bit, we were in a very good position since we had long-term contracts on raw materials in Duct & Filter, and the end-user prices went up faster than that. Time has caught up with that, and we are still. We are continuously working on this. We are continuously trying to manage. I think that, to a certain extent, the raw material, with the exception of electronic components, where it's been extremely volatile, things that should cost a handful of dollars could cost hundreds of dollars just to get a hold of them. Here we see rather a sobering of the market.

We will, I would guess in first quarter next year, see that it's more balanced demand and output. That's where we see. When it comes to energy as such, difficult to say. In the general inflation, there are very much so that we have been able to compensate for the direct raw material like plastic, like aluminum, et cetera. However, there are no clauses normally when it comes to energy because that hasn't been initial and general inflation, and that means that we will need to continue. We already did significant price increases in August, September that will have an impact this quarter and especially first quarter next year, and where we try to compensate for more general inflation rather than just the raw material.

It's a long answer, not being able to give you a very extremely distinct answer, but it is an enormous amount of parameters, and it differs a little bit from market to market as well. Generally speaking, we have beginning of this quarter or mid this quarter made further price increases and expect that to have an impact, especially during next quarter.

Gustav Österberg
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, thanks. Last question is about you wrote that you sell a bit to battery production. My question is that only in America or is it in other places, Europe as well? Are we talking for battery for electric vehicle or normal batteries? That's, yeah, that's what I wonder. How do you see that?

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

Battery production, battery recycling, and so on, it's an increasing area. It's we are doing project both in Process Technology, but especially it's been in the U.S. market with the ducting, special ducting, for that market. It's very different. Some we have made in Spain, equipment for a large factory in, and that would be finalized next quarter, I think. We have others. We are in discussion with all the players. It differs, and they are also a bit early on knowing what they need, to be honest. Where we have a solid position is in the only truly circular, battery economy is in lead batteries, where we have supplied a lot of equipment for, lead battery recycling, yeah. The lithium ion batteries is still very early on in technology.

We have supplied some Extraction & Filtration Technology also to that. We are on to it and it's one of the areas where we see an increase in demand.

Gustav Österberg
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

All right. Thank you very much.

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

Thank you, Gustav.

Gustav Österberg
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Yeah. Thank you. No further questions at this time. I hand over to you, Sven and Matthew, for any closing remarks.

Sven Kristensson
CEO, Nederman

If there's no other questions, we have to remind you at the same time, February 16 next year, we will release the fourth quarter results. Thank you for taking the time.

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