Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Q4 Report 2018. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation, followed by a question-and-answer session. At which time, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star and one in your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, Tuesday the 29th of January 2019. I would now like to hand the conference over to the speaker today, Mr. Patrik Stenberg. Thank you, sir. Please go ahead.
Thank you so much. Good afternoon to you all, and welcome to the Q4 conference call for SKF. As usual, we have our CEO, Mr. Alrik Danielson, as the main speaker. Present in the room is also our CFO, Christian Johansson, and Mr. Theo, Head of Media Relations, and myself, Patrik. We'll spend about 20, 30 minutes on the presentation. After that, we'll be more than happy to answer your questions. With that brief introduction, I will leave the word to Alrik.
Thank you very much, Patrik, Welcome to this Q4 conference call. Well, the fourth quarter was a strong quarter with good sales growth, solid margin, and a strong cash flow. We saw continued growth in industrial operations while automotive sales were slightly lower. In total, sales grew organically by 5%, and our operating profit was SEK 2.9 billion, with a margin of 13.7%. We have reduced our inventories during the quarter. Cash flow was strong at SEK 4.3 billion, and our net debt ratio is now below 50%. In light of our strong performance, the board has decided to propose to raise the dividend to six Swedish kronor . If you turn to the next slide, talking about the industrial business, it continues its strong performance. In Q4, we saw increased sales volumes in our three largest regions, Europe, North America, and Asia.
Organic sales growth was 8.8%. Operating margin reached 18.3% in the quarter. For the full year, organic growth was 9.4%. Operating margin was 15.6%. If we turn to the next page, talk about the automotive business. It remained resilient. In Q4, organic sales declined by 3.7% due to the drop in European car sales, resulting from the implementation of new test cycles and a slowdown in Asia. For the full year, organic growth was 2.1%. Operating margin was 6.4%. If we turn to the next slide, talk about our targets, you can see 2018 has been a very strong year for SKF. We've had record sales, record operating profit, and record cash flow. Each of the four quarters has also individually been the best so far for SKF.
If we look at the full-year numbers, we are performing on four out of our five financial targets. Organic growth was 7.1%, clearly above the target of 5%. Operating margin was 12.9% compared to the target of 12%. The net debt ratio was 49% compared to the target of below 80%. The return on capital employed was 17.6% compared to the target of 16%. Throughout the year, we have been working to reduce our inventories, and we're making progress towards the target of net working capital. We are now at 27.8%, so there's still some work left before we can reach the 25% target. If we go to the next page and talk a little bit about the regions, we saw Europe with a strong industrial demand, with significantly higher volumes in most industries and a growth of 1.5%.
Our automotive volumes in Europe were slightly lower in Q4, but there continued to be large differences. We saw higher volumes for trucks and lower for cars due to the implementation of the WLTP test cycles. The Vehicle Service Market was relatively unchanged. Asia, we saw a growth of 8% with the industrial business, significantly higher demand in most of our customer industries, such as energy, railway, agriculture, energy, food and beverage, marine, to name a few. Automotive volumes were lower than last year, with lower volumes for cars, significantly lower volumes for trucks, and slightly lower volumes for our vehicle aftermarket. Organic sales grew strongly in North America with 11%. We saw significantly higher industrial demand, and some of the segments were industrial drives, aerospace, energy, agriculture, food and beverage, railway, industrial distributions, to name a few.
Automotive volumes were relatively unchanged, with significantly higher volumes to trucks and higher to car segments. Sales in the vehicle market were significantly lower, though. In Latin America, volumes were relatively unchanged compared to last year. However, we saw significantly higher volumes to the industrial and significantly lower volumes to the automotive. We then turn to the next slide and talk a little bit about some highlights. We inaugurated just a week ago, our new production line in Valenciennes, in France, where we make bearings for the aero-engine side of the business. We have now a fully automated production line with an autonomy of 35 hours. You can call it a ghost channel, if you will.
We had a big event there with customers like Safran, and celebrating now the ramp-up of the new LEAP engine, that you know is going to account for solid growth for SKF during next coming years. It was interesting to see, coming back and looking at what SKF is doing. We're also, in Valenciennes, refurbishing bearings for the aerospace and the aerospace engines. There was bearings coming back from a German airline of significant size after 65,000 hours. SKF is now going to refurbish these bearings, and in about a month or so, they will be back in action. So really good stuff coming out of the aerospace factory in Valenciennes. I wanted to share that with you. It was one of those moments of saying, the investments we're doing, they're bearing fruit, and we are now very strong in this segment.
With those words, I want to hand over to Christian. Christian?
Thank you, Alrik. Good afternoon to all of you. As usual, I will take you through the details of our financials in the quarter. If we turn to next page, I will start with sales development. Net sales increased by 8.8% in the fourth quarter. We recorded organic sales growth for the ninth quarter in a row, with strong growth in our industrial business. Growth in all, when it comes to industrial, all three main regions, and in most customer industries. Automotive sales were lower in the quarter due to lower volumes in Asia and in Europe. As a total, organic sales increased by 5%. Currency effect on sales was positive in the quarter by 4.8%, with the largest effects, as usual, coming from the dollar, followed by euro and Chinese renminbi, but also from Argentinian peso.
Structure component was - 1% related to the divestment of L&AT that we closed by end of November. We have one month there. If you turn to the next page, operating profit by quarter have shown a strong positive trend during the year, also in quarter four. As you've heard, the operating profit was SEK 2.9 billion in the quarter, some SEK 885 million higher than in the fourth quarter last year. For the full year 2018, we are at about SEK 11 billion operating income, which is the highest operating income in a single year in history for SKF. Each of the four quarters, as also Alrik expressed, has also individually been the best quarter so far in SKF history.
When it comes to the fourth quarter, it is a record quarter also if we adjust for the net positive effect from divestment, and impairment, and restructuring costs. If we move to the next page, I'll take you through the operating profit page for the quarter from left to right. Firstly then, the green bar, we have a positive effect from divested companies of SEK 1.261 billion, mainly related to the capital gain from the L&AT divestment. We have a currency impact positive of SEK 26 million compared to last year. If we move to the operating performance, it decreased by SEK 402 million year-over-year. But if we adjust for the year-over-year effect from impairments, customer settlements, and restructuring, which I come back to, the operating performance increased by SEK 74 million.
Within operating performance, organic sales, manufacturing volumes, contributions from there increased by SEK 639 million, including positive effects from sales volume, from price mix, from fixed cost contribution, from higher production volumes, and also a negative effect year-over-year of some SEK 110 million from reduced finished goods inventories in the quarter. When it comes to price mix, we continue to see a clearly positive effect from pricing. Mix was positive in the quarter with Industrial business growing stronger than Automotive. The cost performance, this quarter, you have the cost bar split in two on the slide. Firstly, we have costs in the quarter for impairments of assets and customer settlements and restructuring, which were SEK 476 million higher than last year. Impairments and customer settlements were SEK 282, well in line with our guidance that we issued to you earlier in December.
Restructuring costs in the quarter were SEK 194 million, higher than last year, which is more than what we guided for in the third quarter conference call. The lower box in the cost bar, the orange one, the cost development of our operating costs, they were SEK 565 million higher than last year, which is clearly better cost performance than what we discussed in the conf call. If I give some comments to the bridge when it comes to expectations or guidance for quarter one, again, same order. M&A, lost results from divested companies, about SEK 50 million in the quarter. Price mix, continue to see clearly positive effects from price mix in the first quarter. Inventories, we expect to see unchanged finished goods inventories versus quarter four.
Considering that we built inventories in the first quarter 2018, we will see a year-over-year effect in the bridge of about SEK 80 million negative. Cost development for first quarter, same bridge effect as in quarter four, the SEK 565. The lower box there. SEK 565 is the guidance for quarter one. When it comes to restructuring, we have a neutral year-over-year effect. If we turn page, performance by customer group. Industrial, organic net sale increased by 9.2%, increased in all three regions. Strongest growth in Asia and North America. Reported operating margin 18.3% compared to 12.8% last year. Contributions from increased sales and manufacturing volumes was positive, together with a clearly positive effect from price mix. If you take the underlying performance adjusted for the L&AT divestment and the cost for impairments and restructuring and currency, we had a positive operating leverage in the quarter.
Moving to Automotive, organic sales declined by 3.7%. Car sales in Europe continue to be impacted by the new test cycles. In Asia, we saw lower truck and car sales, especially in China. Operating margin was 2.1% compared to 5% last year, obviously was impacted by negative year-over-year effects from customer settlements and restructuring. If you take the underlying performance, it was resilient. Negative effects from lower volume and increased material costs partially offset by pricing. Turn page. Some highlights to the lower parts of the income statement. The financial net in the fourth quarter was -SEK 266 million, somewhat higher than we guided for, the main reason for that is that we have in the quarter adjusted the reporting of our Argentinian business to hyperinflation accounting, which gave a negative effect of SEK 58 million in the quarter.
For the full year, we came in at SEK 861 million, which is an improvement compared to last year, both coming then from lower interest expenses and a better interest income net. Taxes in the quarter, -SEK 453 million, giving an effective tax rate of 17%, and this was positively affected by the divestment in the quarter. If we adjust for that, the tax rate was 25%. Last year, fourth quarter, as you remember, we had impacts of the changes of the U.S. tax rates, which were positive in the quarter. If you take the taxes for the full year of 2018, SEK 2.6 billion, the effective tax rate was 26%. Adjusted for the divestment, the full-year tax rate was 28%, and that should be compared then to the full-year adjusted tax rate last year of 31%. Clearly, tax rates have come down.
Earnings per share was SEK 4.63 compared to SEK 4.12 last year, and full year SEK 16 compared to SEK 12 full year 2017. Cash flow, strong in the quarter. Cash flow excluding M&A activities was SEK 1.937 billion compared to SEK 1.8 billion previous year. Positive impact from higher operating profit and reduced working capital. I would also like to add that, as we have talked about, the cash flow is improved, although we have higher investment in property, plant, and equipment. Cash flow for the full year, same definition, was SEK 6 billion compared to SEK 4.2 billion last year. Here we have for the full year increased the CapEx by about SEK 400 million versus 2017. Next page. Net working capital, as you've heard, 27.8% of sales at the end of the fourth quarter, reduced from 29% the fourth quarter last year.
Positively impacted by currency and by the divestment of Linear Actuation. We clearly see good progress when it comes to inventories, trade receivables with sequential improvements over the last quarters. As we have communicated to you previously, we are reducing finished goods inventory, still with good availability to meet our customers' demand. We move to next page. Net debt equity ratio continued to improve in the quarter, was 49% by year-end. Net debt equity, excluding pensions, we reduced further to 13%, and the net debt in absolute value was about SEK 17 billion by end of the year. We have taken that down by more than SEK 14 billion since the first quarter 2015. Sale of business contributed to the reduction in this quarter by about SEK 2.4 billion. Turn to next page. Finally, then, some additional guidance. Financial net expected to be around SEK 200 million negative.
When it comes to currency impact, based on the exchange rates by end of the year, we foresee operating profit to be positively impacted by about SEK 140 million compared to the fourth quarter last year. If we take more recent exchange rates from the 24th of January, the positive effect would be around SEK 200 million. Tax rate, we guide for the same level as 2018, so 28%. When it comes to addition to plant and property, the guidance for 2019 full year is SEK 2.8 billion. With that, I give the word back to you, Alrik.
Thank you, Christian. Well, to summarize the quarter, you can see that we have a very strong finish to record year for SKF. We had a good sales growth, excellent profits, and a strong cash flow. In 2018, we saw good growth in both our industrial and automotive businesses. Sales grew organically by 7%, and our operating profit was more than SEK 11 billion, giving an operating margin of 12.9%. Cash flow was SEK 8.3 billion. We have worked hard to strengthen our balance sheet, and we have brought our net debt ratio down to 49%, well below our target of 80%. In light of our strong performance, the board has decided to propose to raise the dividend to six Swedish kronor. Entering the first quarter, we expect to see relatively unchanged volumes for SKF.
If we take and move to the next page, and I'll tell you, and just read to you the demand outlook. Since the beginning of last year, we have seen a broad-based recovery in most markets, and this has continued into 2018. We expect to see relatively unchanged volume in the first quarter, as I said. Demand for SKF products and services is expected to be relatively unchanged for the group, including slightly higher demand for industrial and lower demand for automotive. Demand is expected to be higher in North America, slightly higher in Asia, relatively unchanged in Latin America, and slightly lower in Europe. With those words, I leave it to you, Patrick.
Thank you, Alrik. Now, I think we will be more than happy to go over to Q&A. Operator, please.
Surely, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel a request, please press the hash key. Again, it's star and one if you wish to ask a question. Your first question comes from the line of Andre Kukhnin. Thank you. Your line is open.
Yes. Good afternoon. Thanks very much for taking my questions. I'll go one at a time. Just firstly, Christian, on that other line, I'm sorry to start with the most obscure part of the bridge, could you give us a bit of color on what turned out better there versus the discussion three months ago? I think from memory, there was raw materials at SEK 160 that we discussed, I think normal inflation was kind of just under SEK 300, and then the other items. Just keen to learn what worked out better and how we should think about it for 2019, please.
No, I'm happy to do that. As you say, we have done clearly better when it comes to cost management in the quarter than what we foresaw at that time. A few comments to that. Costs have started to go out. I can just mention that we have, excluding, if you take the divestment, we have reduced headcount in the quarter by around 800. Better cost management than what I expected. We also talked about that we had high activity levels, we have a high activity levels when it comes to R&D, different IT implementations, and also when it comes to implementing our footprint activities. We have executed on that in a better way than what we foresaw. We came out better than expected there as well.
When it comes to tariffs, we discussed that as well, that we have a part in the bridge now. Since we have the gross reporting, we have pricing effects from tariffs, we have cost effects. We came out lower also on tariffs in the quarter, the main reason for that is that there has been a U.S. government decision taken to exempt some bearing categories. That obviously means we have less costs. Just to emphasize there, as you know, we have reported also that we have been working on mitigations and compensated this. We don't have profit effects from that, but we have lower costs. I would say overall, we have done.
Right
We have done better than what we foresaw when it comes to cost.
In the mix of that, when you say about the same effect for Q1 2019, is that pretty similar? Because technically, you may have a one more month of tariffs already in that Q1 if nothing changes on list three.
I don't know what you mean by one more month of tariffs. We still have three months.
Sorry. Yeah, what I meant was when you say it's the same impact.
Yeah
In Q1 2019 at 565 negative, do you expect a similar mix of the items in there?
If you take that inflation, as far as we can read out, is as we guided. We have a bit higher inflation on energy, as you know, energy prices and so on. We came out even slightly worse than what we discussed for the quarter, so 180. I don't see any changes for the first quarter when it comes to material costs. That will remain also in the bridge. The other items, the remaining parts will also be there in roughly the same mix when it comes to tariffs and our activities to implement footprint and different investments in world-class and so on.
Great. Thank you. My other question was on pricing. In terms of Q4, can you confirm that price effect was more positive than it was in Q3, or was it broadly similar? Thinking about 2019, we've heard about your peers looking to raise prices from the start of the year, and frankly, heard about you thinking of doing that later on in H1. Could you maybe comment on what your pricing intentions are broadly?
Well, this is Alrik. Yes, we are, of course, continuing to leverage on the pricing power there is in the market, and of course, we will follow and lead. I argue that in many cases we are the leading one, but this is absolutely clear. There will be some carryover also from 2018 into the automotive space, for instance.
Got it. On Q4 versus Q3, can you comment?
Q4 versus Q3 is relatively unchanged, I would say. It is clearly strongly positive in the quarter. Moving into quarter one, you know that we raised prices in 2018 Q1, we are still seeing the quarter as fairly positive, it will be a clear positive price mix effect also in quarter one.
Got it. Thanks so much for your time.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Klas Bergelind. Thank you. Your line is open.
Thanks very much. Hi, Alrik. Question, I had two, if I could. Firstly, on the one-offs, maybe more of a bookkeeping question, I was keen, Christian, just to get a little bit of color around the divisional split. Am I right to understand that all the SEK 1.2 billion of gains coming from the Linear Actuation sale is all coming in industrial? Secondly, can you help me understand the SEK 274 and SEK 288, what comes in industrial and what comes in auto, please? Thanks.
Yes, Linear Actuation is an industrial business. For the remaining part, I would advise you to use the proportions of the business as the split.
Okay. For me, that means a greater part of the SEK 282, sorry, because I thought all the customer settlements really were in Auto, which would imply most or all of the impairments therefore are coming in industrial. Is that fair?
Yeah. If you want to go down to those decimals, yes.
Well, it matters because the division margin trends are difficult to track this quarter. That's helpful. Secondly, if we could talk a little bit, Alrik, about the industrial distribution segment. It's slowing down somewhat in Europe and Asia. You're still seeing a very strong U.S. business. I think it's been clear this earning season, we've seen U.S. distributors quite busy restocking ahead of tariffs. Could you help us understand a little bit what you see on the ground there, and whether you see that supporting your business in Q4 and potentially again in Q1, and how we should think about your broad industrial distribution business through 2019?
Well, from our point of view, we guide. As you know, we guide for one quarter. What we see is one of the things that we've been working on very hard during the last years is to get away from this year-end buying that we used to have, and a more even demand pattern. The main thing is what I think we see is in the U.S. that there is a good underlying business, and that there's actually less of this volatility in the stocking than what we used to have. All in all.
As we guide, it's positive.
Any, sorry, just finally, any regional color on the automotive demand outlook into Q1? I was keen to understand what you see in Europe and China respectively, as we get into 2019.
Yeah. What we see is basically the same. The big question, of course, is when in Europe, what's going to happen now when more and more companies actually get their cars homologated, and if we will see some better numbers going forward in Europe. Otherwise, the weakness is as we see it, also in Q4 continuing.
Thanks.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Gael de-Bray. Thank you. Your line is open.
Well, thanks very much. I got a question about the North American performance, which is obviously pretty strong. It seems there was some kind of acceleration in demand, in the course of 2018, in particular in heavy industries as well as, in the energy segment. Could you perhaps comment a little bit about that, in light of the recent volatility in oil and gas prices and, I mean, also, what's your exposure to the U.S. wind business, specifically? That's, well, question number one and two, I guess. Then, question number three is about the FX impact that we got this quarter, which was actually, I think, smaller than expected and relatively negligible this quarter. You expect, of course, a much bigger positive impact in Q1. I'm just trying to understand what are the moving parts here in terms of currencies really.
Well, if you take the energy, I mean, we've been doing well in the industry, in wind during the end of last year. As you remember, this is a little bit like it is. You have wind parks being deployed and the business growing, and we've seen that grow. Relatively, the energy sector has, of course, been expanded in North America for us. It's not the biggest part of our business by far. It's a relatively modest part of our business. As you know, the industrial distribution is actually the most important segment we have in the U.S. We expect still to continue with a good momentum in the heavy industry and in the wind, going into the next quarter. When it comes to the currency question, I mean, if you take the Q4, I would say, you're right, we guided for somewhat higher.
I would say one clear negative in that is in Argentina, with the Argentinian peso there, which has impacted negatively. If you take Q1, I would say it's the mainly USD issue, more positive effect from the dollar. I also would like to add on currency for those. If you take the currency effects in the fourth quarter, if you take the 4.8% in the sales impact on currency, then you take the SEK 25 million on profit, you clearly see that we have a weak leverage on the currency. As you know, with our currency exposure, that mainly comes from that we have a negative effect from the strong EUR. If you imply that, then when you look at margins, obviously, you will get negative effects margin-wise from the currency as such.
Yes.
But that's how our currency footprint look like. Of course, this is something we are working on.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Max Almerud. Thank you. Your line is open.
Yes. Good afternoon. Just if I can ask about the daily sales rates that you have seen in different regions, especially in the industrial segments, given what's going on on the macro front. What did you see throughout the quarter in Europe and also North America and then China? What growth did you see in China, and what is the mood there on the ground? That's my first question.
Yeah. You are talking about the differences in days between the quarters and so on, and I don't have that in top of my head. Do you know, Patrik, in the quarter if you have number of-
No. Sorry if I can just jump in.
I mean.
Not the number of days, but more.
That's not any significant impact. When you talk about daily sales rates, that's too narrow. I don't have that clear for me to share with you. Your question was also on China.
Yeah.
In general, we do still see very strong industrial numbers coming in in China in the quarter, in fourth quarter. As you heard on automotive side, car side especially, trucks have been weak, I would say, all through the year. Related to that you had good sales growth in 2017 related to legislation change. Trucks have been weak in China full year, but cars weak and
Significantly towards the end of the year. That's what you see there in the automotive numbers coming through.
Okay. Just going back to the first question, what I was after was obviously, if you saw demand weaken throughout the quarter, it was fairly stable in Europe in particular. That was basically my question.
We don't see any trends during the quarter.
There's always a little bit, especially in Europe and the U.S., just before Christmas and New Year's, there's always a little bit of a delay. It's completely normal, so to speak, this kind of behavior. There's no conclusions to draw from the fact that just before Christmas in Europe and the U.S., it usually declines a little bit, but that happens every year.
Okay. If I can ask on automotive. We discussed at the Capital Markets Day with the automotive management about the WLTP impacts on automotive volumes, and they were expecting them to bounce back. Are you seeing that, and what are your customers telling you right now as we go into the new year?
Well, the effects right now that we saw in Q4 from the different car manufacturers. There was a complete in line sort of with the kind of development that we have seen without any major differences. It's still to be seen. As we have guided, we think this is relatively correct, what we see going forward, exactly as we have guided.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of James Moore. Thank you. Your line is open.
Good afternoon, everyone. Christian, thanks for taking my questions. I have three, if I can, I'm happy to go one at a time if you like. My first is on pure price. Thank you very much for the helpful bridge commentary, Christian. Without hard numbers, I know you prefer not to. I listened to your comment about similar in the fourth quarter to the third, but can you say in this particular pricing cycle, which quarter you see the peak as being? Is it that we've already had it, or you still think that the year-on-year number could go up slightly into the first quarter, or have we already had it in the third quarter? If you could help with that would be great.
That's a hard one to give you a response to. Sorry, James. You know also that the references are coming up also. No, I will not comment on that. We see still clearly positive effects from pricing. I cannot give you more.
We will, of course, continue, as we have said before, James, through all these years. I think we have shown that we have differentiated value propositions and that there are good possibilities for us to capture value. What we have seen now in Europe, where our competitors are also moving, it is also something positive. There is still a momentum going forward, and I think you will see that coming. The carryover from last year as far as automotive is also positive. However, of course, depending on what happens with steel prices going forward during next quarters will of course influence the whole dynamics, but it will be on both sides, if you understand.
I do. Thank you. In terms of your world-class plant-by-plant automation efforts, you always said it would take some time before the savings kick in, and you have done a number of actions in the last few years. I get the sense that 2019 could be a more meaningful savings year from that than, say, 2018 was versus 2017. Is that fair?
Yeah. There are two things happening. When you have a stable demand, we've been struggling, as you know, during 2018 to catch up with demand. During those times when you're struggling to catch up, it's more difficult to implement the changes in the factories. Now, when the demand is more stable, our ability to sort of speed on with our investments and reap the benefits are, of course, increasing.
I see. Thank you.
We're getting better at it, James. We're getting better at it.
Okay. Thanks. Lastly, currency, just to your point about the margin in the quarter and the negative impact, is that particularly skewed to one of the two divisions?
The currency impact on the 25. Generally, you can say that we have a more balanced currency footprint in automotive.
Thank you.
Yeah. You have more, I would say, generally more of the currency effects coming in industrial. Yes.
Thanks, guys. Bye.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Andreas Koski. Thank you. Your line is open.
Thank you very much. Most of my questions have already been answered. Maybe I can ask about your reporting structure. This quarter, you started to mention the restructuring costs again, but you don't want to split it up on the different divisions. Is this how we should expect you to report going forward?
I mean.
That you will mention the restructuring number, but that you will not.
Split it into the different divisions.
You know we have taken away the items affecting comparability since a while in our reporting, and that will remain like that. Since we had significant things here in the fourth quarter, that's why we also released the press release in early December to help you, to guide you in that. I hope you appreciate that. No change in our reporting structure, huh?
Of course,
As we make investments in factories and so forth, we will try to be as transparent as we've always been.
Okay. Why do you not want to give us a split between the divisions more than just the proportion of sales, or if it is the proportion of EBIT?
Let's not bring up that. By the fact that we don't have items affecting comparability as an official reporting line, we don't have any official definitions that we can release in a report like that. We try to guide you with our comments, and I hope you appreciate that.
I do.
Yeah. When it's meaningful like in this quarter, we will help you with that, and when we do the bigger footprint events and so on, you'll get these numbers too. We will not change any reporting related to that. I understand why you ask.
Okay. Secondly, can I just add so I understand you correctly. You do not expect the price mix component to accelerate in the first quarter, is that?
We haven't comment on that. We said that we will have a clear positive price mix component in the bridge in quarter one.
Okay. That's what you had in Q4 as well, I guess.
Yes, it was a clear positive in Q4 as well.
Yes. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Johan Sjöberg. Thank you. Your line is open.
Thank you. I had a question on China and also the impact from slowing auto in China. Has that been impacting your customers more into the general economy, would you say? Have you seen any impact so far from that?
Automotive is, of course, a very important part of the Chinese economy. When we listen carefully, we look at how the government is now looking at how to try to stimulate the automotive going forward. We hope that they will be successful. It's part of the general economy, of course it is.
Can I ask you, Christian, also a little bit about the cost for Q1 when you guided for SEK 565? Would you care to split that into raw material and also what is fixed cost roughly?
Yeah, I can share that with you. Raw mats, we talk material.
Yep.
Net effects on all raw material and price negotiations and what have you. We expect that also bridge-wise to be unchanged versus fourth quarter, we are at SEK 180 negative.
SEK 180 in Q1 and was roughly SEK 180 Q4 as well.
Yes.
Yeah, great. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Andre Kukhnin. Thank you. Your line is open.
Thanks very much for taking my follow-ups. I just wanted to double check on pricing. Given everything you said, and the intention to raise, could you give us some color on why you're not going as early as January with this?
We cannot comment on.
SKF, I think we've proven during the last years that we are good at this, and this is how you calibrate the different markets and how we've been increasing. It's not only the list increase, as you understand, that's part of the pricing. It's a much, much more complicated, but also with many more possibilities to work with price. I think what you will see is that SKF is diligently recovering the costs inflation in the marketplace and more than that, and that we have a clear intention to continue with the same policy going forward.
Okay. It's kind of tactical rather than anything structural.
Come and meet me one day, I'll explain to you in detail how pricing in the different market segments and things like that are actually conducted.
I definitely will. While we still have maybe time, can I just check on a couple other things? On VSM, you said that that was down significantly in North America, also down in Asia. Could you give us some color on what's going on there?
I think it's definitely so that there is industrial dynamics clearly in this, we believe in the end of the year, more than that, I cannot say.
U.S. is a blip in Q4 or-
No, I mean-
it's got a change in dynamic
There's clearly a sort of de-stocking in the end of the year-
Right
Given the better availability that we see in the marketplace. I can't say more than that.
Got it. Very final one. On your kind of plan for inventory and cash flow management for 2019, the guidance for Q1 is clear. I presume with that you'll be taking out at the usual sort of ratio if you're taking SEK 80 million P&L hit, that'll be somewhere just over SEK 300 million of inventory turned into cash. How should we think about the rest of the year if we carry on in this, say, stable-ish volume environment? Would you intend to take inventory down further? Then maybe more for Christian, how would that work on the bridge? Do you expect to work on the bridge given that you already started in Q2 2018? Should that turn sort of to neutral if you're taking out inventory at the same pace as you did in the last nine months of 2018?
I pass the bridge discussion. I think you heard, we were reasonably explicit on our ambitions when it comes to working capital to sales ratio going forward at the Capital Markets Day. You also got some flavor on the activities we are working on with integrated planning systems and other activities that. Also, of course, all with to-do with world-class investments, improved flexibility and so on. That should give results. I expect that to gradually give results independently or if you have this or the other cycle, because that's we are improving our way of working on that. I cannot give you a number on that. Of course, if volumes would drop, inventories would drop more also. That's just speculation. We are working on performance improvements and that we should see effects.
Okay. Sorry, in Q4, the move on the inventory sequentially on the balance sheet was SEK 160 million. That, I guess, was lifted by FX and then taken down by disposal. What was the underlying move in Q4?
In the Q4 in the absolute terms or in the Q4 year-over-year effect because you had also last year's effect there?
Yeah. I was thinking sequentially. Yeah.
In the level of in fixed currency and so on, somewhere SEK 550. I don't remember exactly if it was SEK 250 this year and SEK 300 last year or vice versa. That's where we are. It was a good improvement.
SEK 550 is the full year inventory reduction, basically, like for like.
Full year, it's the Q4 year-over-year that gave the SEK 110 that we mentioned.
Right. That is SEK 550.
Yeah.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
My pleasure.
We thank you very much for listening to this Q4 conference call for SKF. We do look forward to meeting with you within the next couple of days. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.
Thank you. This concludes our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.