Good morning, welcome to this presentation covering the first quarter of 2023 in Ratos. Jonas Wiström, our President and CEO, and Jonas Ågrup, our CFO, will join us shortly to guide us through the results. In the end of the presentation, of course, you will be able to raise questions in our Q&A session. This webcast is also recorded, and you will find it at ratos.com afterwards. Well, now we had a good start of the year, so we can't really wait to get started. I'll hand over to our CEO, Jonas Wiström.
Thank you, Josefin. Thank you all for joining this morning. It's gratifying to see that so many are with us in spite of the fact that I think it's 29 large cap companies reporting today. As Josefin said, it was a good start of the year. We had an adjusted EBITDA up 28% to SEK 324 million. The reported EBITDA was the same this year since we had no large restructuring. We just did a smaller one in Speed that was SEK 21 million. That is nothing we adjust for in Ratos. There is a new thing from now on. That is that we will report Plantasjen sales and EBITDA separately. Why are we doing that? Well, Plantasjen is a fairly large company in our group. The seasonal variance between the quarter is also very large.
We believe and hope that this will make the analysis of Ratos easier going forward. We had a strong demand also in this quarter. Our sales was up 26%, and the organic growth was actually 8%. We also had a good order intake also in the construction sector and construction companies, and the order books were record high. As you might remember, I was a little bit disappointed by the cash flow last quarter and last year and we have a program for better cash flow, and it's paying off in Q1 already. Let's take a look into the business areas and starting with construction and services. High net sales growth, 23%, and the organic growth is 19%.
As I mentioned, it was a strong development in the construction companies, also in the other companies. You can see that the profitability or EBITDA margin, as some say, is actually down since last year. That is a result of the fact that the construction companies, who operates with a little lower margin than the other companies, they had really a really good quarter. In construction, we also have Aibel. Aibel, who did a record profit, record sales last year. In this quarter, they have started large new projects, they are always, as you who have followed us for a couple of years, you know that Aibel is very cautious when it comes to bringing in profit in beginning of the projects.
This is just a project-facing thing. I think they have every opportunity to make another record year in 2023. Moving into consumer. A challenging quarter for Plantasjen. You heard the story before, the weather. The weather in March, I know some of you are from Stockholm. You know the weather there. I can assure you it was even worse in many places in both Sweden and Norway. The Plantasjen EBITDA was actually SEK 111 million weaker than last year. Plantasjen is always making a loss in Q1. This year, it was SEK 215 million. We also see a weaker consumer market when it comes to capital goods. I'm not sure about the English, but not plants, but furnitures, barbecue equipment, et cetera, is affecting them to some extent.
Our other two companies in the consumer division are doing better results or much better results than last year. Business area industry, strong EBITDA growth, strong sales growth. Of course, this has to do with the acquisitions of Knightec and Semcon. They have also developed well. It's gratifying that all the companies in the industry business area is doing better results or EBITDA than last year. It's also gratifying to see how both Semcon and Knightec became stronger in the quarter than they were before they were into the Ratos group. There is a good cooperation going on, creating new business together with a stronger and also more complete business proposition for their clients. This has really showed off during the quarter. Great quarter, of course, for industry. Acquisition journey.
Our journey is to make acquisition as that lead us into Ratos focused on infrastructure and technology solutions. We're also doing add-on acquisitions in the companies we are focusing on. In Q1, HL Display actually did three, or they signed, they signed three acquisitions in Q1, and two were closed, and the third one was closed in the beginning of April. I want to mention this company, Oechsle and Werba, or these companies, I should say, in Germany, they have the same main owner. First of all, HL Display is a market leader, not one of the market leaders, but a market leader in Europe. In Germany, we have a very small footprint, and we have looked for this possibility for a couple of years.
Now we have acquired these two companies with a revenue together of 26 million EUR. They have two production units, and they're also outsourcing production in both companies. Here we look forward to large synergies. We can move all the production from Germany and Oechsle and Werba into our Polish, very efficient manufacturing and plant. We can also insource the production that has outsourced. We also have sales synergies. This is the sixth and seventh add-on acquisition that HL Display has done since 2020. They also acquired a company, Akriform, with some 85 million SEK, complementing their offer into package-free solutions.
With that, we come into a bit more detailed financials, and I leave the word to my dear CFO, Jonas Ågrup. Please.
Thank you, Jonas. We move to the next slide. Here you can see trends going back to Q1 2021 for net sales, adjusted EBITDA for operating cash flow. You can see that we have a positive trend for net sales. LTM in Q1, we were at SEK 31.5 billion in sales. If we look at the pattern quarterly, you can also see here quite clearly that Q1 is the weakest quarter for Ratos when it comes to net sales, but also to adjusted EBITDA. If we look at the trend for adjusted EBITDA, we are now at a level just above SEK 2 billion. If we look at the operating cash flow, we had a very strong cash flow in Q1 this year, as you can see.
Previously in the first quarter, as you can see on this slide, we actually had quite large negative operating cash flow. In the quarter, we saw good strong cash flows actually in all the business areas. Going forward, we will continue to focus on improving working capital, and we will also focus on improving cash flow. If we look at the net sales bridge, we were up 26% in the quarter. You can see that in net sales, a lot of the growth was coming from acquired growth. That was 17%. This is related to construction and services, but also industry. It is actually the acquisitions of NVBS and Semcon and Knightec.
We had a good organic growth, 8%. Here we saw good growth in construction and services and industry, but consumer had a negative organic growth. This was due to Plantasjen. We also had some minor FX effects. We also had in this quarter this negative effect of the ceased operations in Russia and Belarus. If you look at the adjusted EBITDA, it was up 28% in the quarter. A lot of this was driven by acquisitions. Again, a lot is coming from industry where we have the newly acquired companies, Semcon and Knightec. If we look at the organic growth, you can see that we have -10 here.
As we said earlier, Plantasjen made a change, a loss of SEK 215 million in the quarter, which was SEK 110 million worse than the first quarter last year. If we adjust for that and look at the underlying organic growth in many of the companies, you can see that we are actually growing quite nicely in many of the companies. We had a negative effect on FX, -SEK 12, and then on other, we had this restructuring program, -SEK 21 million in construction and services, which had a negative effect on the adjusted EBITDA. If we look at earnings per share, these are the LTM numbers. We're up 4%, so SEK 226 per share.
If we look at the earnings per share in the quarter, it was -9 Öre compared to 66 Öre last year in the same quarter. As I said, Q1 is the weakest quarter for Aibel. If we look back, you know, three, four years back, we have made losses when it comes to EPS in all these quarters. Again, it's very much related to Plantasjen, that has a weak quarter in Q1. If we look at leverage, we improved in Q1. We are down at 2.2 x, and this is mainly driven by increased EBITDA, I should say. Net debt was on the same level in the first quarter now as year-end 2022, SEK 4.8 billion.
If we look at return on the capital employed, we were down a little bit in the quarter, and this is very much related to consumer where we had a capital build-up, which is quite normal because we're building up in when we have the season coming in in the second quarter. By that, I leave over to Jonas Wiström.
Thank you, Jonas. Time for me to try to sum this up. You heard the numbers. EBITDA is growing well. Net sales is growing well. Order intake is very good still. We have a record high backlog. The operational cash flow has improved quite a lot. The acquired companies we acquired in 2022 has really had a good start. A challenge is still the wind market. It's, if I should mention something about the hub, I think people are interested in the hub. The hub is making is profitable now after a restructuring program, and wind is a quite small share right now of the hub's operation and the other parties doing extremely good.
I think all in all, our transformation to group focus on infrastructure and technology solution is slower than planned due to the weaker M&A and capital markets. You heard me say and write that we will divest companies and acquire new companies. This market is slow, but it is existing. It hasn't sort of died, but we don't want to destroy too much capital in this transformation. Another thing I would like to say is, we have a very strong governance and steering model in a very decentralized group. I think this model continues to deliver results. A good start of the year. Josefin, should we open up?
Let's do it. It's time to open up for questions. Let's see who we have on-online. Here we go. Okay. Thank you very much, Jonas. Let's jump into the Q&A session. I will start with Henric Hintze from ABG. The line is open.
Thank you, Josefin. Okay. First of all, HL Display has been doing bolt-on acquisitions at quite a good pace recently. I'm just wondering if you could expand a bit on what has enabled them to do this and how the outlook is for other group companies to start doing bolt-on acquisitions.
We have some kind of sound problem here.
Yeah, there's an echo.
Okay. It was an echo. I don't know if you heard it, but we will try to see if it fixes it. Please start to answer the question if you heard it, or was it?
Can you repeat the question? I'm sorry.
Yeah. I can repeat it. HL Display has been making bolt-on acquisitions at quite a good pace recently. I was just wondering if you could expand on what has enabled them to do this and how the outlook is for the other group companies to start doing bolt-on acquisitions at a higher pace?
Thank you. You know, now I heard the question. Yes, you're right. I mean, we should remember, couple of years ago when I joined, HL did 3% profit margin, and now they are in over in two-digit numbers.
Double digits.
Double digits number. You know, my experience is you shouldn't acquire companies until you clean your own house first and get good profitability and cash flow. These, since they are a company with their own factories in Sundsvall, in Poland, in U.K., and in China, they really can make synergies. Actually, I turn to you, Jonas, but some acquisitions has paid off in kind of a year, very, very short time. This is a journey that is very good for our shareholders, and we want to continue that.
When it comes to other add-on acquisitions, we've seen them as well, but HL is the best example, and we love add-on acquisitions in general, and you will see more coming. We did, I can't remember if it was Q1 we did TFS, or if it was in Q4.
Q4.
It was in the Q4. These were actually the only ones we did in this quarter, there is more to come.
Thank you.
HL's organic development in EBITDA was also good in the quarter.
Thank you, Henrik. Do you have any more questions?
All right. Thank you. Yes, I can follow up with one more. Could you just expand a bit on the profitability increase in the industry segment? What drove that? Could you just add some information on that?
It's a good question. Diab is not suffering any longer, but Diab has the potential to do much better results coming forward than they do today. That is, of course, quite a change compared to last year. The deal is a very high margin company, as you might know, and they're doing well, and TFS is doing very well as well. All companies, even the acquired companies, I think I can reveal, did a better result in Q1 2023 than Q1 2022. Also, the companies in industry, well, all companies actually, even if they were not a part of Ratos then. It's a good development there.
Okay. Are you happy with that, Henric?
Yes, I'm happy.
Thank you very much. Let's move on to Victor Hansen from Nordea. The line is open.
Thank you, Josefine. Hi, Jonas and Jonas. It's Victor Hansen, Nordea here. I'm wondering, firstly, a couple of questions. First off, if you could tell us more about the synergies between Knightec and Semcon that you saw in the quarter, perhaps on sales. Then if you could talk some more about generally what we expect ahead here for the two companies, organically, and also when will they shift into M&A mode?
First question. Hi, Victor, by the way. First question was the synergies. Well, we have ensured that these people or these great people learn to know each other. There are quite many employees, but on certain sectors, we have sort of let people know each other, and this. We know sort of what the other company has for competencies, for simulation or strength analysis or cloud solutions. This has resulted in that we have managed to come in to clients with an offer, none, neither Knightec had alone or Semcon had alone, but together they had this. It has created a new sales. We're talking about not cost synergies here, but sales synergies.
This will go on, and we will see more synergies of all kinds, I think, in the future. The second question.
Please repeat. Growth.
Yeah. Yeah, the M&A, when M&A mode.
For the entire group, you mean?
No, for the consultants.
For the consultants. Yes. No, it was a good demand in Q1. Better results, as I said. You know, forecasting, I mean, we saw what happened Yesterday with the increased interest rates, I am sort of cautious. I'm not promising that we will have this strong demand the rest of the year. As we stand here today, we have no such indications. I would be cautious given the times we're living in. I think we have been kind of surprised the last quarters that the demand is so good.
What I like to maybe point out is that the construction companies who makes these large projects for public and commercial buildings and schools, et cetera, I can say they had a stronger quarter this quarter than the last, also in demand. So. The future, no guarantees.
And then the...
Yeah. Okay. Nice.
One application
I'll continue to shoot the questions here. We had a Norwegian strike for a few days here in April.
Yeah.
What was the effect on you from this?
Yeah.
It was a minor effect.
The biggest effect was for Aibel. Since the strike was so short, it was a minor effect. If it would have continued, of course, it would have affected all our three companies in Norway. It may be a double-digit EBIT loss. Do we know for Q2?
No, I don't think it's that big.
It's not?
No.
Okay, it's less than 10?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay. Victor, you also had a question about when Knightec and Semcon will come into M&A mode. What we say?
We're always in an M&A mode. And they are as well, these two companies. When something will happen, I'm not gonna disclose.
Okay. Are you happy with that, Victor? Any more questions from you?
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Maybe one final question here.
Please.
We've had some mixed weather now in parts of April. It was good for a few weeks, then it turned bad. Now looking out the window, it seems good again. What are we seeing thus far for Plantasjen in this quarter?
Can I answer that question?
No.
No? I can't answer that question. You see, but I know there is, was snow in Norway, not so far from Oslo the other day. I have noticed here in Stockholm better weather at least, in April, so.
Let's hope for that.
Yeah. Thank you very much.
Okay, thank you so much, Victor Hansen. I will open the line for Rasmus Engberg, Handelsbanken, please.
Yes, hi. Just wondering, when you say, just to be clear that delayed simplification of your group structure, does that mean that you have a hard time finding a home for Plantasjen? Is that explicitly what you're saying there?
We will, we have stated quite clearly that we are focused on infrastructure and technology solutions. This isn't solved by divesting or put a company on a marketplace with Plantasjen. There are more companies that we sort of need to change. The capital market is bad. The IPO market is bad. The M&A market is bad. It's not that okay, we wait two years with this. It's, I mean, if you asked me one year ago, I had hoped that this was fixed by now, and it's not. It was unfortunate, including SVB in California and the incident there.
Okay. Well.
We will fix this.
The second question relates to Aibel. Given that we on the outside have basically no visibility at all, do you think that Aibel will meet last year's earnings or improve them this year given what you know about their projects?
We don't give forecasts. If I say that. I say they have every chance to do that. They had also a record high order intake in Q1, billions. They're very good shape. They're very good shape. It's a very strong market. They have every possibility to do that. Rasmus, for you, if you look back in this is not a new phenomena, this with the phasing in projects.
If you look at our quarterly reports, three years back, you can see that there is a pattern that when they're growing fast in order intake and sales, EBITA goes down, and when sales goes down, EBITA, not EBITA margin, but yeah, EBITA margin also, but EBITA itself. They are very cautious, and they have so far never given us a negative surprise, but a lot of positive surprises. I don't think at all that there is a difference this year.
They paid a dividend this quarter, did they? Yes, they did.
Yeah.
The first.
Yeah.
First time in ever, I think, actually.
Yeah. They have a very strong balance sheet. It's the first time ever I think they've done that.
Then just a final question. Can you update us on the size of the construction, backlog, if you have that figure roughly?
No, we don't disclose those numbers, Rasmus, but it is on, as Jonas said earlier, it is on a record high level.
It increased further compared to Q4?
Yes, it did.
It did.
It did. Yeah.
It did, and.
Is that excluding Aibel or including Aibel? Or both?
That's excluding Aibel, yes.
Okay. Very good. Thank you.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, Aibel.
Yeah, that was.
Extremely much.
Yeah. Yeah.
Also the construction companies in Sweden had good order intake in Q1.
Yeah. Very good.
Okay. Thank you very much. I think we have reached out to all I can see on the line. Is there anyone else on the line missing wanting to ask a question?
Nope? Okay, I think we are done for today. As I said earlier, this webcast is recorded. You can find it afterwards at ratos.com. Thank you, Jonas. Thank you, Jonas.
Thank you.
Thank you for being with us this morning, and see you soon.