Welcome to Systemair Q3 2024-2025 report presentation. For the first part of the presentation, participants will be in listen-only mode. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to the President and CEO, Roland Kasper, and CFO Anders Ulff. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and a very welcome to our presentation of our third-quarter report for 2024-2025. We intend to start off with a rather short summary of the third quarter in our 50th business year, and then we will open up for questions at the end. The presentation you will find, as usual, on our start page of our Investor Relations website, and by that, I hand over to Roland to start off with the presentation.
Thank you very much, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Roland Kasper, and I'm the CEO of Systemair. Let's directly go into slide number two, which is then the agenda. I'll start with a short, brief summary of Systemair. Then we'll look, as Anders said, in the third-quarter summary. We dive into some of the Q3 financials, and I'll conclude that with some sustainability highlights and some project highlights, followed by the Q&A. Let's go directly into Systemair in brief. As you know, ladies and gentlemen, we are operating based on our core values of simplicity and reliability. We manufacture and market energy-efficient, high-quality ventilation products. With our customers in focus, our emphasis is always on delivery reliability, availability, sustainability, and quality. As you know, the company was established in Skinnskatteberg in 1974 by our chairman and founder, Mr. Jäger-Lengström.
In our last fiscal year, we achieved a total turnover of around EUR 1.1 billion, and Systemair was listed on the Nasdaq Nordic Stock Exchange market in October 2007. Today, we proudly operate our own sales companies in 51 countries, together with 26 factories in 18 countries, with more than 350,000 square meters of production area and a total book value of more than EUR 1.3 billion. With our about 6,600 employees in Systemair, we are present and sell to more than 135 countries around the world. Switching to the next slide, slide number four. Let's look at some recent highlights in the quarter, and starting with a strategic update for the third quarter. In the quarter, we had organic growth in all reported regions except Eastern Europe.
In India, we have finalized the preparations in our new facilities in Hyderabad, a total of 19,000 square meters, where we will start production actually next week. In the quarter, we also finalized our machinery capacity investments in Canada and Italy, as well as some building projects in Norway and Germany. And we see ourselves now being really well prepared for further strengthened M&A activities. On the public affairs side, in March this year, we have prepared for the last six months, but now in March, we're participating in the ISH Fair in Frankfurt in Germany. ISH is the leading international fair in the HVAC industry, with more than 150,000 visitors coming. So we're looking forward to interacting with our customers and partners here in two weeks.
In December, we also concluded in Systemair North America the full conversion to the new low-GWP refrigerants in our production, which is a little bit ahead of the local market, but according to our sustainability standards, and we're also participating in all the Eurovent Association meetings on the ISH, where Systemair is taking a leading part in trainings and educational parts on, for example, EDP, the European Declaration of the Product, and also in the quarter, we were awarded several strategic orders: Retrofits in the U.K., for example. That was a press release, infrastructure projects in Saudi, and package ventilation systems in Italy. I'll come back to that later on in the presentation. Next slide, slide number five. Let's have a look at our markets in the quarter. As you know, we have a global and diversified customer base, which provides us with a solid foundation for profitable growth.
Looking at the different regions, starting with the Nordic region, which represents 17% of our total turnover in the quarter, same share as last year, same quarter. Western Europe has a 43% share and is thereby compared to the same quarter last year in a slight decrease from 45% to 43%. Eastern Europe is stable, 12% share, and North America has the same 12% share in the current quarter. Other markets, which, as you know, incorporate North Africa, Turkey, the Middle East, and Asia, are continuing their growth paths and increasing from 14% to 16% of our total sales in the quarter. By that, we continue with a closer look at the financial outcome in the third quarter, and I hand over to Anders. Shifting to slide number five.
Thank you very much, Roland.
To start off with net sales, that amounted to EUR 3.042 billion compared to EUR 2.827 billion last year, an increase of 7.6%. Organic growth was also positive with 5.4%. We conclude that we, for the second quarter in a row, are reporting organic growth with a positive ongoing trend in several of our markets. Slide number seven. To give a bit more details behind the net sales development, we saw organic growth in all regions except for Eastern Europe. We will provide more details about the regions on the next slide, but the growth was especially good in our faraway markets as North America, Middle East, Asia, Australia, and Africa. The acquisition of PHEM in Malaysia had a minor effect and contributed to sales by 0.6%. And then finally, currency effects, smaller positive effect by 1.6% coming from several of our main currencies. Slide number eight.
Then we come into the geographic breakdown, and I will focus on the organic growth rates for each region. Starting off with the Nordics, then where we saw a decline on the Norwegian market, but on the Danish, Finnish, and also to some extent the Swedish market increased during the quarter. All in all, positive organic growth in this region, also in the current quarter, of 7.1%. In Western Europe, we saw smaller growth in the quarter of 3.4%. Within the region, we experienced positive development in Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. Unfortunately, the German market is still struggling, and the sales decreased in the quarter along with countries as France and Spain. We are although happy to yet again see a positive organic growth in the region after four quarters with a negative outcome. In Eastern Europe, the organic sales decline was -9.8%.
Sales declined in Poland, Slovenia, and Estonia, while growing in Czech, Slovakia, and Lithuania. Some of you might recall that we had an organic growth of 8.2% in our Q2 report, but that nice growth then was mainly due to some larger project deliveries in the region. In North America, the organic growth rate was 12.8%, which was related to a considerable growth in Canada. U.S. sales contracted slightly in the period. The Canadian growth relates mainly to our residential products. Certainly, the implementation of tariffs is creating a volatile market situation in this region. In the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and Africa, we had a good growth of 15.2% organically. This growth was mainly driven by markets as India, Morocco, and Australia. All in all, then organic growth then was totaled to 5.4%. Slide number nine.
Our gross margin in the quarter was again strong and amounted to 35.3% compared to 33.9% in the previous year. We're happy to see this development, especially when we noted that December 2024 was a month with fewer working days than the previous year. Overall, we can conclude that the positive trend in our gross margin continues. The positive effect is due to high utilization in several of our factories, but also the contribution from implemented cost reductions and efficiency measures in general. Our adjusted operating profit amounted to EUR 213 million, or an operating profit margin of 7.0%, which is exactly in line with the previous year.
Adjustments relate to the impairment of goodwill in our operations in South Africa of EUR 11.8 million. In the previous year, you might recall that we had an adjustment of EUR 125 million coming from the relocation of the Menerga production to Slovenia.
Selling and admin expenses in comparable units increased by EUR 58.9 million, including a loss from bad debts of EUR 4.8 million. Then we go to slide number ten. Profit after tax amounted to EUR 135 million compared to minus EUR 24 million last year. The big difference is mainly related to the adjustment just described. We had negative effects from net financials of minus EUR 17.3 million compared to minus EUR 62.3 last year, where currency effects on loans and bank balances amounted to minus EUR 3.2 million, and interest expenses amounted to minus EUR 15.8 million. Interest expenses for the previous year amounted to minus EUR 20.8 million. Tax rate for the period amounted to 26.8%, corresponding to SEK 49.4 million . And then we head into slide number 11. Cash flow for the quarter.
Our working capital increased, leading to a decrease in the cash flow by EUR 34.2 million, mainly due to decreased trade payables and increased inventory. Investments in the quarter were rather high at EUR 151.7 million due to finalizing the machinery investments that have been ongoing in Canada, Italy, and Spain. This leads to a free cash flow of EUR 54.6 million compared to EUR 381.2 million last year. The net debts are lower than last year and amount to EUR 981 million compared to EUR 1.79 million one year ago. And the net debt to EBITDA amounts to very low, 0.62, and we have plenty of headroom for strategic M&A and continued investments. And I hand over to you, Roland, again.
Thank you very much, Anders. And shifting to slide number 12, sustainability. Some sustainability highlights.
On the sustainability side, we are extra proud to see that our emissions in Scope 1 and 2, as you see on the right side of the slide, are continuing to decrease. We have, over the past years, continuously invested in energy efficiency measures, such as, for example, solar panels and more efficient HVAC systems of our own product. This has led to absolute emissions reductions of 10% compared to the last quarter last year, and all in all, -37% for the emission intensity compared to the base year of 2019-2020. Also proud here to see that continuously the work-related injuries with sickness absence are continuing to decrease, now with 12.9%, and that we are closer into our target on the amount of female leaders and now amounting to 24.3% in the system. Switching over to slide number 13. Sustainability.
We are constantly working towards reducing the emissions through efficient measures, and, for example, as just reported, investing in solar panels where it makes sense. To show you some examples of how we continuously develop our efforts, I'm showing you an investment in our manufacturing facilities that actually have led to lower energy use and more renewable energy compared to last quarter three. Our absolute emissions in Scope 1 and Scope 2, as just shown on the slide before, have reduced with 10%. What you can see here on the right side are installations of solar panels, latest now in Ukmergė on the new build, and also on the roof of our recently upgraded factory in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, resulting in lower total energy consumption and reduced emissions. Next slide. Slide number 14.
Let me finally also show you some very nice projects that we have been awarded in the quarter. This is to one of the largest multi-purpose arenas in Italy, the Arena Santa Giulia. This most modern sports and life entertainment arena in Italy will also play host to the city's 2026 Winter Olympics and will afterwards then be used for large concerts and festivals. The ultimate part is that the arena was built following a plan to minimize carbon emissions and resource consumption for a climate-resilient development. Systemair will here gladly supply different products such as fans, air distribution products, fire safety products, and smoke evacuation dampers. Delivery for this arena will be completed in June 2025, and the value for our package is about EUR 800,000. Switching to the next slide. Here, Systemair's commitment to eco-friendly innovation transition.
Systemair has earlier already integrated HVL refrigerants in Europe into our Geniox line to align with evolving environmental standards. In our third quarter, we also finalized this transition in North America. The HVL refrigerants are a class of mildly flammable refrigerants developed as part of the HVAC industry's transition to more environmentally friendly alternatives. These refrigerants, if I may just explain, are all under the HVL classification according to ASHRAE standards, where A indicates low toxicity and 2L signifies low flammability with limited flame propagation. The adoption of these HVL refrigerants is driven by the significant lower global warming potential, GWP. For us, this initiative is, of course, a part of the broader commitment to sustainability. On the right side, I also want to give you some highlights of, of course, we continuously develop new products.
In the quarter, we launched our new Topvex FR in an updated version for high energy efficiency solutions. The Topvex FR is a compact and versatile unit with double dual rotary heat exchangers. It makes it ideal for offices, schools, shops, and small commercial buildings. With its double heat exchangers, the Topvex delivers high energy efficiency, resulting in low operating costs. The compact design, of course, solves space problems, and the insulated casing with magnesium zinc coating provides heavy protection against corrosion in very harsh environments if needed. As ladies and gentlemen, I'll switch to slide 16, open up for questions and answers, and I'd say thank you for that.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Adela Daschian from Jefferies. Please go ahead. The next question comes from Adela Daschian from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gentlemen. A few questions from me. If we start off with the sales development in Western Europe and maybe specifically the German market, you mentioned here that it's still struggling. Can you remind us of what your sales exposure to that country is today? And then also this week earlier, there was a big infrastructure fund announced. I'm sure you've seen that with the particular focus on projects such as hospitals, transportation, and so on. Could that be something that will fuel demand for your products in the coming quarters or maybe midterm?
Good morning, Adela. Thank you for the question. Germany, to us, is, of course, a quite important market. It's today our second or third biggest. The development on the German market per se is, as said also in the report, a little bit soft. And we are glad that out of our facility in Windischgut, we don't have a quite nice developing export market, but the German market for us is soft. And it's especially to the comfort ventilation part that is not that lively as we would like it to have. But the infrastructure part is going good. And that's to your second question. Yes, these kinds of initiatives in infrastructural projects are something that is beneficial for us, but also keep on reminding that infrastructural projects have a tendency to be long pre-work. We'll say that it's a long consultancy phase, and the pre-work is also pretty long.
Infrastructure projects have a tendency from order to delivery being somewhere between six to 12 months. So it's not the quick fix. Germany is about 11% of the total sales that we have.
Okay. Makes sense. And then if we switch to the U.S., you mentioned here the transition to the energy-efficient refrigerants. Could you see any type of price increases that could come as a result of this in the more short term?
Actually, what we have seen is that we had a good business development in North America in December because they tried to finalize a lot of projects where we still could use the old style of the switch runs. But the outlook in the backlog is good for the new refrigerants that we're using. Overall, I would say that the Canadian market is, for us, strong developing just now, as also mentioned in the report. U.S. is a little bit soft. I will not touch on the political climate, but it's a little bit insecure on the market in terms of short-term investments in buildings. So it's a little bit soft, and we need to wait a little bit how this will continue.
And then you also mentioned here that you are somewhat reliant on Canada for the U.S. market. Can you be more specific in what types of measures you've already initiated on to offset maybe some of the tariff implications?
Yeah. We don't have that much interdependable business between U.S. and Canada. We have two factories in Canada and one in U.S. The biggest part for us would today be classroom units going from Canada to U.S. But those projects that we have in the pipeline, as you know, they are quite cyclical. So they are installing these classroom units when the schools are closed. So the projects that we have in the backlog, they are coming to summer. So we have patience and we can react. If we see that our products and our services will really be part of these tariffs, which is not clear today because it's not outspoken what is actually in it, then we have a reaction time of three months to start a production of similar products in U.S. So we can offset by that.
Those products within fans of minor volumes that are going to Canada, we have already pre-stocked in our Canadian warehouses so that we can offload that also for some months. We are pretty safe on that side from our view.
You have enough capacity in your U.S. factory to produce?
Yes, we have today.
Okay. Then just lastly, and I'm sorry if you maybe went into more depth about this in the presentation, but selling and administrative expenses was quite elevated in the quarter. What drove that?
I would say it's on the same level as previous year if you put it in percentage to total net sales. I think we're on 27.8% both years. And it could be a little bit up and down here on the selling between quarters, but there's nothing in particular except, I mean, I stated also here we had a bad debt of close to EUR 5 million in the quarter. That's one thing then. But other than that, there's nothing in particular that points out here.
You feel comfortable with this level even if organic growth accelerates further?
Of course, we always try to look after our selling and admin expenses and try to be even more effective in our operations every day. So, of course, we're a little bit afraid also about the inflation side and the salaries and so on, but we are working quite focused on seeing how we can make our operations more efficient. So I'm quite confident that we will manage that.
That is the continuous work that we're doing. I mean, we want to be optimized, but at the same time, we also want to be prepared for future growth. So we try to balance that all the time.
Okay. Perfect. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Thank you, Adela.
The next question comes from Anna Widström from Carnegie. Please go ahead.
The next question comes from Anna Widström from Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my questions as well, so maybe if you can talk a bit about the Menerga situation, so both on how the ordering and delivery situation is from the new site today, and maybe some updates on your expectations on cost savings ahead.
Yes. Thank you, Anna, for the question. Yes. On the Menerga side, we are quite happy that the ramp-up in Slovenia has progressed a little bit better than planned. We are today able to produce more than we had planned for January and February, which is a really nice result of the efforts done locally in Maribor. What we see on the order intake, it's more or less stable given the circumstances. We would, of course, now intensify now that we have stabilized the organization and built up the infrastructure in Slovenia. Now we're focusing and switching over to have more focus on the sales side. In terms of the savings that we were given when we made this move, we said that we will, on an annual basis, have savings representing SEK 70 million on annual basis.
That is still the target, and we see that we can fulfill that.
Yeah, and also, we are doing several cost-saving projects on the products itself as well.
Okay. Great. And just on these annual savings, should we expect it to be sort of a ramp-up during the year, or should we see the similar effect in Q1 as in Q4?
I think you will see it a little bit distributed over the year. You call it a ramp-up, but the total savings over the year would be representing the 70. It's a little bit, of course, as Anders is indicating, the cost savings that we do is that we did not only move the factory, we also moved the whole Menerga range on a new technical platform. So that's why we are launching, as I said, now we're switching over focus on the sales side. We are relaunching the models on new platforms constantly. For those of you that have the opportunity to visit us on the ISH, for example, in Frankfurt, we'll see some new units with outstanding new technology features based on the new platforms.
So now we're switching over to the sales side to bring that up so that it can be even more attractive for us on the bottom line, of course.
Okay. And my last question is on the demand situation in the Nordics because it's now two quarters in a row that you've reported solid organic growth. Is there any specific sectors that have showed relative strength or weakness, and what sort of positive signs have you seen for the market going forward?
In particular, I would say that if you look a little bit market by market, Denmark is going strong. Finland is going as expected, which is good. Sweden, we have, I would say, both in December and January, we see more activities coming back on the residential side. This is maybe not what you can read in newspapers, but we see more activity again, which is very nice to see. In Norway, the residential side is still a little bit low versus where it should be. But on the comfort ventilation and industrial side, we have a high level of activity. So it is all in all, the markets in Nordics are quite okay.
Okay. Great. That's all the questions for me. Thank you.
Thank you, Anna.
The next question comes from Lina Blume from Handelsbanken.
The next question comes from Lina Blume from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions as well. Maybe a bit of a follow-up on the last question. Maybe you confirmed it a bit there, but would you say that you are now generally more positive regarding outlook for in order than you have been in the previous quarters?
Yeah, that is, of course, a very good question, Lina. In the Nordics overall, if we would only focus on one of the different applications that we serve, we might have a more crisp answer to that. But overall, we think that the activities are on a healthy level. Of course, they are lower than they were two years ago, but we see some, how to say, restarted interest. We see a lot more interactions with customers. We see the renovation market taking a little bit more pace. In Norway, as I also mentioned here, we see more on the comfort ventilation side, a lot of huge projects. Overall, we're quite happy with the situation given the circumstances around and also given the inflation and where we're coming from with the interest rates.
So it's more positive today, but it's not a full ramp-up with a direct direction just straight up. It's slow.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you for that. And then just one other question for me. You mentioned expectations of higher M&A activity. What should we expect when it comes to M&A, let's say, in the coming year?
That is, of course, a little bit given the discussions and different meetings that are being held. It's very, very hard to, how to say, guesstimate the outcome. We are in several projects. We are very active. We have a very high load on that. If everything falls on the right side, then we will see certainly several projects materializing this year. But it also depends, of course, on expectations from the seller side and so on. So I will just say that we're very active, and it's a more interesting market today than it was 12 months ago.
Perfect. Sounds good. That's what's all for me. Thank you.
Thank you, Lina.
There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.
We have some written questions, starting with Anders Knudsen from SEB. How much impact is Christmas closure have on your cost in the quarter, and can you talk about the demand, how it has trended in January?
I mean, a little bit without giving clear figures, but I think we answered partly on that before, but we saw a lot of Mid-European and North-European markets. More or less, December was only 50%. There were two of the four weeks most people were in vacation. And also, we saw similar activities in January where at least one and a half weeks were taking vacation, as we also in the Nordics, we had the 6th of January in week two, which is a bank holiday. So it was slower than normal, both in December and January for us. The trend in January overall, but part also in December, as Oliver described earlier, we saw an increase of activity with both consultants and installers. Not saying that it's a huge increase in orders, but the activities have absolutely increased, which is very happy for and very good for us.
I would say that at least it's a first sign of more activities, which is very nice to see.
Okay. And one more question from Anders Knudsen from SEB. If, when we get peace in Ukraine, would you expect to see orders on the needed rebuilding?
So we are taking part in some of these local meetings and exhibitions for this rebuild Ukraine, mainly from our Polish entity. So we are quite well situated there already. We also have still our sales office in Ukraine is active. We think we are in a good position to at least at the start, what we have been focusing on is a little bit on infrastructure, but mostly on hospitals. That there would be a demand and that we could serve that, absolutely. When and what volumes, as you understand, I cannot predict, but absolutely interesting, and we already are in contact and we're delivering to those projects that are live today.
Okay. Moving on with a question from Henrik from Rede ye. Do you think the mild winter in Europe has had a negative impact on Frico?
The clear answer, so far, not. We see rather normal activity on the Frico, on the airborne heating side. So not yet. Not at all.
And the last one then from Henrik. Do you think the threat of tariffs may have boosted sales in North America ahead of potential tariffs?
We do not see anything like that. The only thing that we saw that they were, how to say, taking in some business ahead was due to this change of refrigerants, the A2L change, and that was something that we saw a little bit of in the U.S. in December. The tariff side, as also mentioned shortly in the call here, I think the main thing is that there is a kind of volatility in terms of knowledge what is in these tariffs and what is not in the scope. Is everything or is parts exempted? No one knows, and even if you look on the tax home pages, both in the U.S. and Canada by yesterday, there were no clear descriptions of what is covered, actually, so people are sitting and waiting to have clarity, and that's what the customers, of course, are doing.
Okay. That was the last question from the chat. Over to you to close.
All right. Thanks a lot for calling in. And you're, of course, very welcome to contact us if you have any further questions or need any clarifications. And by that, I think we can close this, and I hope to see you again then in the beginning of June for our Q4 annual report.
Yes. Also from my side, thank you very much for listening in. I hope we could clarify those questions you had, and if not, we're happy to answer if you reach out to us. Thanks a lot and hope to listen in and have contact with you in June. Take care and goodbye.