Hello and welcome to today's webcast with Prevas. With us presenting today, we have the CEO, Magnus Welén, and CFO, Helena Burström. If you're calling in or would like to ask a question, please press star nine to raise your hand and star six to mute yourself when you get the word. You can also type in your questions using the form to the right. With that said, please go ahead with your presentation.
Thank you. My name is Magnus Welén and I'm the CEO of Prevas. Together with me today, we have...
Helena Burström.
The purpose for this meeting is, of course, to review the Q2 results of Prevas. The short agenda for this meeting is that we start with an introduction. We will have a review of our financial performance for the quarter. We will have a market update, and we will finalize with a Q&A session. Looking into Q2 2025 for Prevas, we continue to grow. We grew with 3.3% during the quarters, and that was driven by acquisitions. Looking into profit, the profit for the second quarter was SEK 20.7 million. That was impacted by restructuring costs of SEK 6 million, by a calendar effect of SEK 5 million, and the lower utilization in this challenging market. Looking into the broader picture, we can also see that the margins were improved in Finland for the third consecutive quarter in a row.
Actually, Finland improved the margins during the second quarter of 2025. If we adjust the profitability, the EBITDA for the restructuring costs and the negative calendar effect, the EBITDA was SEK 31.7 million, equal to 7.7%. If you look into the first half year of 2025, the accumulated figures, we had a 4.6% turnover growth and 6.7% of EBITDA. As a summary, to be honest, we are not satisfied with margins like this. We are taking actions in order to improve. I will come back later on in the presentation to be more clear about what we are doing in order to improve the profitability because our aim, our target, and we are devoted to reach our financial targets, and we are below, and we will take actions for that. Before we come into that, I will ask you, Helena, to review the financial position of Prevas.
Thank you, Magnus. Cash flow from operating activities decreased by SEK 30 million, or 0.1%. This is mainly driven by the lower result. Working capital contributed positively and improved by approximately SEK 7 million compared to last year, mainly driven by unearned revenue. Cash flow from financing activities increased by SEK 40 million, affecting cash flow negatively compared to the corresponding period last year. This is driven by the amortization of the loan connected with the acquisition of Prevas, Finland. The overdraft facility of SEK 100 million was unused at quarter end, and cash at quarter end was SEK 17 million. Prevas remains well below the financial target of maximum 2x EBITDA. Net debt in relation to EBITDA is 1.04x . Prevas equity ratio amounted to 48.4% in Q2 2025. In all, Prevas has a strong balance sheet and a solid financial situation.
Thank you, Helena, for reviewing the financial situation for Prevas. What measures are we taking to improve the margins within the company? We've been working with optimization of personnel in areas with low demand. As you are aware, we are in a market that is very diversified, with some regions where we have high demands, some regions with low demands. During this quarter, we have focused on optimization. This means that we reduce personnel in areas where we see low demands. The purpose for this is, of course, to adapt our organization to the present demand we see in the market. The purpose is to increase the utilization and the performance of Prevas in order to reach higher profitability. During the quarter, we have had strong cost focus, continuous cost focus. During the quarter, we have also worked internally inside of Prevas with new leadership and restructuring.
This means that we have a new leadership in our eastern region in Sweden. We have several new business unit managers in place or coming in quite soon. The reason for doing this is, of course, to improve our performance, injecting new leadership and new potential energy into the organization as such. We have also been working with restructuring during this quarter. In the region south, the Malmö region, we have made a restructuring. We made a restructuring in the Stockholm region. We made a restructuring inside the Finnish operation. All of these actions we are taking are, of course, with the purpose to improve performance. We are taking a lot of different actions within the company to improve our performance. That is one thing. Another thing is, of course, to actually focus on sales. We have a very strong sales focus within Prevas.
We continue to grow in the defense area and in the energy sector where we see that the demands are increasing. You might wonder, all of these actions that we talk about, do we see any results? Yes, we do. We see improved utilization towards the end of the quarter as a consequence of the measures and actions that we are taking in order to improve. A short update about the situation in Finland. On the graph, you can see the situation, the trend for the EBITDA in Finland. The third quarter of 2024, we have a negative result. Since then, the last three quarters, we have improved the EBITDA. We have a nice positive EBITDA trend that continued also in the second quarter of 2025. The team in Finland is an excellent team, and they're working very hard in order to improve the profitability in the region.
One example, one thing we did during the second quarter was that we merged two regions into one, one large region. In this large region, we now have two different business units, one business unit focusing on projects, one business unit focusing on services. That makes it more efficient. We increase the efficiency in the operations in Finland thanks to this merge. That is one of many examples of what we do in order to improve in Finland to reach the healthy EBITDA that we are to get. During this quarter, we have continued to have a good order intake. The first quarter was very strong in terms of order intake. Also, the second quarter was strong. This means that we have a healthy order book moving into the second half of the year. This is in a very competitive market, a challenging market in Finland as well.
I would say that the reason that we are able to get these orders is that we have a team that is focusing very hard on sales and on customers. It gives results. Where are we right now? What we see in Finland is that the projects, they are ramping up. We see that the utilization is increasing, and we now are recruiting because we are in a situation in Finland where we now need to recruit in order to be able to deliver the orders that we have for the second half of the year. I am convinced that the Finnish team, the hardworking Finnish team, will reach healthy margins. Q2 was a very good step forward in the right direction. A little bit about the general market. How does it look? What we see is a continuous challenging market.
We have a high uncertainty driven by the global political uncertainty we see right now and also the geopolitical situation in terms of the wars, etc. It is a very challenging market, high uncertainty. We have also a situation with some regions where we have very high demands, of course, related normally to the defense sector, for example. We also have regions where we have low demands. We need to be very agile in how we handle the market as such. What we have seen during this quarter as well is that the customers tend to wait for decisions, not for the small decisions, but for larger decisions, for investments, etc. In that area, we continue to see that the customers are waiting, waiting for the decisions, and that is affecting us, of course. We also still see high competition in different areas in terms of general consulting services.
For example, in general IT and in the software area, we still see very high competition in that area as well. I also would like to emphasize that in Sweden lately, during this quarter, we have seen reductions in the vehicle industry. When I'm talking about the vehicle industry, I'm talking about the car industry. I'm talking about, for example, Volvo in Gothenburg that made quite massive reductions during the second quarter of 2025. That effect was actually 1,000 consultants being reduced in Volvo in the Gothenburg area. It's quite a massive reduction. The direct effect on Prevas is extremely limited because we have a strategy at Prevas not to be strong in the car industry. In the industry breakdown, you can see that we have automotive, 6% automotive and transportation. Our focus in that area is within trucks, companies like Volvo, like Scania.
We are not large in the car industry, which, of course, in a situation like this, makes the effect very, very limited for us when Volvo is doing these reductions. In the green energy sector, we have the very unfortunate bankruptcy of Northvolt. That means that in Västerås, Prevas is very strong in the Västerås area in Sweden. Northvolt is closing down the facility, laying off 800 employees, mainly engineers. Of course, that affects the markets, a regional market in that sense. Once again, the direct effect on Prevas is very limited. What we continue to see is growing demands from the defense sector and from the energy sectors. One example there you can see in the industry breakdown is that the defense portion of Prevas turnover is for the first half of 2025, 15%. Last year, it was 12%. In the energy area, now it's 12%.
Last year, it was 9.5%. We are actually growing in this area where we see the demands. Generally speaking, the demand for complex solutions, I mean, I would say the core of Prevas, that remains strong. I would like to talk a little bit about the Prevas and security defense. We are an established partner to the Nordic security and defense customers. Since 15 or 20 years, we have been working with some of these customers. We have built long relationships. We have excellent references. We have a good position in the market. During the years, you can see in the graph there that from 2020, we have had a nice growth in the security and the defense area. The turnover in defense for this year will be around SEK 250 million, and we continue to see growth. What are we delivering to the security and defense customers?
We are delivering technological expertise. I give you some examples to give you a flavor of what we actually do. We work with the defense customers related to image treatment. We have a team in Kista; they are experts in developing hardware, electronic hardware, and software for image treatment using AI algorithms for processing a lot of data very rapidly. That is one service we make for the security and defense customers. We work with sensor technology. In that case, we work with, one example is IMUs. It's inertial measurement units. It's a sensor that measures and reports a body's specific force, angular rate, and the orientation of the body. We're talking very, very advanced sensor technology, and we have an expert team in [Kaskuga] working with this. Of course, working then with customers within this industry as well as other industries as well in that area.
We're working with simulators. We're developing simulators for these kinds of customers, software-based simulators for different products. We're working with tests. When I'm talking about tests, it can be software tests, it can be hardware tests, but also developing complete test systems for end-of-line test equipment for manufacturing purposes. As you all are aware, these customers are in a position right now when they are booming in terms of the demand. They need to increase the production rapidly, fast, and secure. Prevas is the right partner because we are strong in production development and product development. We are helping these customers right now, as we speak, to grow the production in many, many different places. We're working with automation. We're building production equipment. We're doing a lot of different things in order to increase the production capacity of these customers.
We also work with cybersecurity for the defense customers as well. Are we only working at the customer side? No, we are not. We are working as regular consultants on site, but we are also working with Scope of Works and with projects from our own offices. For example, within the test systems, we have quite large projects, a lot of engineers working from our premises in secure areas for developing these kinds of solutions to the defense customers. During the quarter, we also became a member of SOFF. SOFF is Säkerhets- och försvarsföretagen , an organization for the Swedish security and defense industry. It has 350 members. Prevas, we have decided to take a stronger position in the security and defense area. This was one of the steps in that direction to be a member in this organization.
In this organization, we can see that many of our present customers, potential customers, present partners, and potential partners are parts. This membership will be one step forward to build the positioning of Prevas within the security and defense area. Some highlights during the quarter: Syklo Oy in Finland, in Oulu, chose Prevas for design and automation services to build Finland's largest plastic recycling plant, which is very well aligned with the Prevas mission to do good with advanced technology. During the quarter, we also announced, together with Hexagon, an enhanced strategic partnership to accelerate the digital transformation in asset management for the Nordics. We are working with a part of the Hexagon portfolio. Now we're looking into expanding that into other parts of the Hexagon portfolio and expanding into the Nordic market in the digital transformation area.
Examples within this, for this quarter, we communicated that we got a major order from Green Cargo for implementation of Hexagon EAM, but also from Norway, from nScale . nScale is a data center company that is growing substantially in Norway, and they have chosen Prevas as their implementation partner for Hexagon EAM. These are examples that this strategic partnership with Hexagon is giving effect as well. During the quarter, we also announced we got the approval for the acquisition of OIM Sweden AB because we needed approval from the authorities in order to make the acquisition. That is now done, and the company is welcomed into Prevas from July 1st. It's almost 40 experts in OIM Sweden AB working in advanced product development from industrial design to finalized products within the medtech and the cleantech area.
A warm welcome to OIM into Prevas during this quarter, actually on the 1st of July. As a summary, we are not satisfied with the profitability of Prevas. The profit for this quarter was impacted by the restructuring costs we have had, the calendar effect, and also lower utilization. We have taken several actions, and we will take action to strengthen profitability in order to be improved in the second half of 2025 and for the time moving forward. Prevas is an excellent company with an excellent platform, and we will prevail in that sense. We will grow into the future as well. We continue to focus on defense and energy, and as I showed in the presentation, we see continuous growth in these areas.
We are now focusing a lot on the defense and security area in order to accelerate the growth even further in that growing part of the business. I'm very pleased to see that we have a continued positive EBITDA trend in Finland for the second quarter as well. I'm very glad to see that the acquisition of OIM was approved, that their team is now a part of Prevas, and we have a solid financial position in Prevas. We have a solid balance sheet, and we are ready to act on the possibilities we see in the market, even though it's in a challenging market, but we see opportunities. With this, I would thank you all for listening to this presentation. I also would like to wish you all a fantastic summer.
I'm personally going on vacation tomorrow, although I'm already looking forward to coming back because to explore the opportunities we see in the second half of 2025. With this, I welcome you all to the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Magnus and Helena, for that presentation. Let's dive into the Q&A section here. If you're calling in, like us, a question, please press star nine to raise your hand and star six to mute yourself when you get the word. You can also type in your question using the form located to the right. We'll start with the first one here. Has NMAC received any orders from Valmet related to their large order in Brazil?
Yes, we have received orders from Valmet, not only related to the big order we were talking about previously, but also other orders as well. Yes.
Thank you, Magnus, for that answer. What is the strategic rationale behind the acquisition of OIM Sweden and our additional acquisitions planned in the near future?
The strategic rationale behind the acquisition of OIM is that it's a team that fits very well into the strategy of Prevas. Our strategy is to work within product development, within production development, and this is a team of experts coming into the product development area. It's a team working from industrial design. They work through the whole engineering chain to an industrialized product, working within medtech and cleantech. It's a very good fit in that sense. That is one part of the strategic rationale. The other part is that we together, we combine the strengths of OIM and the team we have in the south, in Malmö, Lund. We shape a very strong development hub in that region. That is the other main part of the rationale.
How do you plan to address the challenges in the software segment and certain regions? Are you reallocating resources or shifting strategic focus?
In that area, as well as other areas, we tend to be extremely agile. Of course, we are moving resources and trying to adapt and find new markets. One market where we actually are using software development as well is within defense. We are reallocating resources in order to adapt to that rather tough market situation in that sector. That is one part. Another part is also that we have taken actions in terms of actually reducing personnel in areas where we have very, very hard in order to see that we are able to find the right assignments in that sense in order to safeguard profitability.
Thank you, Magnus, for clarifying that. What share of revenue currently comes from defense, cybersecurity, and energy? How fast are these segments growing?
Today, for the first two quarters of 2025, we had 15% of the turnover in defense. It's growing. We don't make forecasts for the future. If you look into the history, and I showed the graph in the presentation, we have seen that we have been growing in the defense area. We look forward and are working hard to continue that growth into the future as well. Looking into the energy area, it's about 12% of our total turnover for the first two quarters. Also in that area, we have seen growth, but not at the same pace as we see in the defense area where the demand is booming quite a lot. We don't have a specific figure related to cybersecurity as a portion of the general turnover for Prevas, but we are growing in cybersecurity definitely, yes.
Thank you, Magnus. When do we see a trend break for profitability?
We are taking, as I mentioned in the presentation, several measures and actions in order to be a more efficient company, and that will affect profitability. We have financial targets that we are not meeting, and I'm very convinced that we will meet them over time. We work extremely hard to make these improvements in profitability for Prevas.
Okay, we take one final question here before wrapping up the Q&A section. What do you think about the market in Q3, but also in Q4?
Sorry, I lost you there. Could you repeat the question?
Yes, apologize. We'll take one final question here before wrapping up. What do you think about the market in Q3 and in Q4?
I believe that the market, the challenging market will continue. I don't see a big upturn in Q3 and Q4. More or less, what we see is a flat development moving forward into the second half of 2025. We need to be very agile and work hard in order to find the opportunities in the marketplace, even in the third and the fourth quarter.
Okay, that's a wrap of the Q&A section here. Thank you very much, Magnus and Helena, for presenting today and answering all of our questions. I wish you all a great rest of the summer. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Martin. Thank you all for participating, and have a fantastic summer, all of you. Thank you. Bye-bye.