Hello, welcome to the Systemair Interim Report Q4 2023 call. My name is Lauren, and I will be coordinating your call today. There'll be opportunity for questions at the end of the presentation. If you would like to ask a question and you have joined on the telephone line, then please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you have joined on the webcast, then please submit a written question in the Q&A tab. I will now hand you over to your host, Anders Ulff, CFO, to begin. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for calling in this morning. You will find, a link to the presentation we have started now with the webcast as well. You will find it on our new, brand new investor relation homepage, also, linked to investis-live.com. By that, I hand over to Roland to start a presentation of our Q4 report.
Thank you, Anders, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As said, thank you for joining us for this call. I'll start right away with the presentation that you also can find on the homepage, it's our Q4 report for 2022/ 2023, and directly switching to what we call our page two. Just a background for Systemair. As you all know, I hope, established in Skara, Sweden in 1974. Our last year, we made a turnover of total in excess of EUR 1 billion, we're listed on the Nasdaq or the Nordic Stock Exchange market since October 2007. Today, we now operate our own sales companies in 51 countries, we have 26 factories in 18 countries.
We have round about 6,600 employees, and by that, we are selling and exporting to 135 countries all over the world. By that, switching to Slide three and jumping into the report for our Q4. Starting with the net sales in our Q4, which amounted to SEK 3.129 billion in the Q4, compared to SEK 2.6 billion in the Q4 the year 2021-2022. This represents a growth of 17.6%, or where of organic, 13.0%. Those of you following on the slides, on the right side, you see the diagram of the development, and I'll switch over to the page four to just break down this growth a little bit and analyze.
Starting on the organic side with 13%, where all our regions showed good organic growth. You have a contribution to acquisitions and divestments, which is the main end effect here is from the acquisition of SagiCofim in Italy and Group SCS in U.K., and of course, also the divestment of the AC business, and that contributes to 1.9%. We have an impact from the weaker Swedish krona towards both the euro, the U.S. dollar, and the Canadian dollar, which is 2.7%, which all in all, amounts to 17.6% of growth. Switching to Slide number five. Here, we're looking a little more into the operating profit, and this, for this quarter, is, of course, some special items to explain. The gross margin is stable at 34.2%, where of last year, 34.1%.
The adjusted operating profit, though, amounted to SEK 281.7 million, compared to SEK 230 million the year before, and the adjusted operating margin in percent is 8.9%, compared to 8.6%. Let me explain a little bit to the adjustments. The operating result has been affected by, of course, the capital gain on our sales of the air conditioning business, which amounts to SEK 445.5 million. We have an impact by the hyperinflation calculation that we need to do for the Turkish situation, which is an impact of totally SEK 18.5 million negatively. We also, in this quarter, have an income from a change in pension accounting in Norway, which contributes of SEK 25.8 million positive.
It's a lot of adjustments in the quarter, and, but that's to explain the difference. The operating profit then in total, without the adjustment, is then totally SEK 734.5 million compared to SEK 191.4 million the quarter before, and the operating margin in percent amounts to 23.5% compared to 7.2%. The sales and admin expenses for the quarter have increased to 9.8% for comparable units. Moving to slide 6, profit after tax. The net financial items for the fourth quarter amounted to negatively SEK 32.7 million, compared to positively SEK 5.4 million, and this is mainly due to increased interest expenses.
The currency effects on long-term receivables, loans, and bank balances amounted to negatively SEK 8.7 million, compared to positive SEK 13.5 million. The interest expenses for the quarter amounted to negatively SEK 24.4 million. All in all, the profit after tax on the adjusted volume here is SEK 164 million for the fourth quarter, compared to adjusted profit after tax the quarter the year before, SEK 178 million. Let's move to slide number seven, which is our cash flow analysis for the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter, 2022, 2023, the cash flow from the operating activities amounted to SEK 363.9 million, compared to SEK 247.9 million the year before.
The change in the working capital in the quarter was SEK 193.3 million, compared to SEK 279 million, which is mainly due to the increased trade receivables in the quarter. The net investment, excluding the acquisitions, is SEK -19.5 million, compared to SEK 84 million last year, and here is primarily smaller additional investment in machine and capacities in Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Spain. Thereby the amount in free cash flow is SEK 150 million, compared to SEK -115 million in the same quarter the year before. Also here to mention our net debt, that in the quarter amounts to SEK 1.5 billion, compared to SEK 2.1 billion in net debt the quarter year before.
Let me move over to slide number eight. Here we're just having an overview of our markets, just a breakdown where you find the volumes in the quarter. Eastern Europe and the CIS is now 12%. The biggest impact or the biggest difference versus last year, where it was 3.7% more, is of course, the Russian. North America, 11%, Western Europe, 46%, Nordic region, 18%, and other markets here, as we call them, which is partly Africa, Turkey, Middle East, and Asia, 13% in the quarter. Let me just briefly touch on the different regions by switching to Slide number nine. Starting in the Nordics, the sales in the Nordic region increased during the fourth quarter by 5.1%.
Adjust for the foreign exchange effect and acquisitions, sales increased by 5.3%. Here we see that the Swedish and Danish market showed growth, mainly in the commercial sector during the quarter. The turnover in the Finnish and Norwegian markets slightly decreased. Again, growth 5.1%, organic 5.3%. Switching to slide number 10, Western Europe. Sales in this region, in Western European market remained strong during the quarter, with an increase of 27.6% compared to corresponding period last year. Adjusted here for foreign exchange effects and acquisitions, sales increased by 15.4% in Western Europe. Here is Germany, France, mainly, that showed good growth in the quarter, while U.K. turnover decreased slightly compared to last year's same period. Switching to slide 11 and Eastern Europe and CIS.
Sales in this region, Eastern Europe and CIS, decreased in the quarter by 3.3%. Adjusted for foreign exchange effects and acquisitions, sales decreased 0.2%. The main reason to the decrease is stop deliveries to Russia in the comparables. The growth in the region, excluding Russia, amounted to 23.3%. Other major markets within the region that showed good growth, just to mention here, especially the Czech Republic, but also Poland and Slovenia. Slide number 12, North America. Sales here in North America increased by 33.3% in the quarter. Adjusted for foreign exchange effects, the increase is 24.4% organic. Here is both the American and Canadian markets showing good growth during the quarter, and here, especially and strongly within residential and light commercial units. Switching to slide number 13, Middle East, Asia, Australia, and Africa.
Sales in this region increased by 9.5% compared to the same period last year, and here, adjusted for foreign exchange effect and acquisitions, sales increased by 27.5% organic. Here, the growth is especially positive in both Turkey and India during the period. Here it's the high-end applications, pharma, and special hospital projects that developed really well. Just to mention some of the highlights in the quarter, I switch to slide number 14, and one of those would be our acquisition of the Group SCS in U.K. On the 15th of March in 2023, Systemair acquired the U.K. company, SCS Engineering Ltd, and a subsidiary, Smoke Control Services, together, the Group SCS.
They are a leader in smoke control solutions for residential and commercial buildings, and we see a great addition to our fire safety and also here to our capabilities within smoke control system for residential multifamily houses. Not only for U.K., but also for our European operations, where we now have a dedicated competence group for developing that application, which is very favored just now. The company's revenues amounted to GBP 12 million in 2022, and it has its head office in Cardiff and an assembly plant in Dorset, and offices in London and Portsmouth, combining a total of 57 employees. Also in the quarter, we're very happy to, switching to Slide number 15, to give you here the notice of our newly opened factory in India.
This is what we call our entity two in Greater Noida in India, which now amounts to three factories in totally. This new is in a total area of 10,000 square meters, where 6,300 square meters is production, and it's dedicated to production of air distribution products and fans. In our two other factories in India, we manufacture units and fire safety products. This is a very nice achievement, and it's really good for our further development in a very positive Indian market. Switching to next Slide number 16. As we are reporting our fourth quarter, I also want to mention just shortly then, of course, the sales for the full year.
The sales for the full year 2022/ 2023, totally amounted to SEK 12.058 billion, compared to SEK 9.6 billion the year before, 2021/ 2022. This means that we have a growth of 25.2%, whereof organic, 15.9%. Let me here again, just go down a little bit to an analysis of the growth on the next slide, on Slide number 17. Growth for the full year and analysis of that. All the regions actually showed a good organic growth for us, except Eastern Europe, and you know the reason. You have acquisitions and divestments, and here, a main impact from acquisition of SagiCofim in Italy, Group SCS, and the divestment of the AC business, a total impact of 4.1% and add on.
We have a overall weakened Swedish krona towards, again, Euro, the U.S. dollar, and Canadian dollar, which here amounts to 5.2%, which brings us to a total of 25.2% of growth for the total year. Switching to the next Slide number 18, operating profit then for the full year, a breakdown. The operating profit for the total year amounts to SEK 1.4 billion, compared to SEK 769.8 billion million the year before. The operating margin amounts to 11.6% in the year, compared to 8%.
The adjusted operating profit here, for the already explained different adjustments that we had in the fourth quarter, is then SEK 1.1 billion, compared to SEK 821 the year before, and the adjusted operating margin amounts to 9.2%. The sales and admin expenses for the quarter increased by 15.2% for comparable units. By then switching to Slide number 19, I say thank you for listening in to this call, and now I will be very eager to open up the line for Q&As.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question and you have joined via the telephone line, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star two. If you have joined on the webcast, please submit a written question in the Q&A tab. As a reminder for those of you on the telephone, please press star one. For those on the webcast, please use the Q&A tab. Our first question comes from Carl Ragnerstam from Nordea. Carl, please go ahead.
Good morning, it's Carl here from Nordea. Couple of questions for me. Firstly, on order intake and order backlog development during the quarter. You gave some flavor on it, but is it possible to give us any numbers on organic order intake during the quarter, and also what portion of that number that is related to pricing, so we get a sense of the volume development in orders? Also, could you give some flavor on the order development divided by the dynamic by property type, perhaps, or also by region? Thank you.
Good morning, Carl. First, looking at the organic order intake, if you want to call it like that, we here in the quarter, we report an organic growth of 13%. In our breakdowns, we see that around about 5% would be through organic growth, and the rest would be the impact of the remaining part of price increases. That is how we see the area just now.
When it comes to order intake and looking a little bit in, I would say, in the glass bowl, how it is developing, but also having some facts, of course, we see that in some regions, if we start in Europe, in the Nordics, we see, as you all can read in the new construction part of multifamily houses, we see, of course, a slowdown. At the same time, we see a switchover to renovation and upgrades. That is, though, a little bit impacted about a lot of thoughts on a private level of investors about inflation and also, of course, the interest rates going up. It would be very good to have a stabilization there.
When it comes to the overall picture, though, I have to say that on the industrial, but also on the commercial side, there are still a lot of projects ongoing and new projects being started. It's a good mix. I think from our side, as we have a very wide range of products to offer, what we're doing just now is, of course, to try to optimize the product mix. That's why I would also see comments that we of course, understand, and we see that the markets are in some areas, more soft in the outlook, but we still see opportunities to grasp the market where it is and where we can apply other product groups in our offering.
That is, of course, a little bit of switchover and campaigns on ongoing and running, but we are looking into that. Of course, looking, for example, at North America, as you wanted to have some of the regions, we still see a positive development as there is a lot of investment ongoing to us favorable areas, especially on residential, but also in the light commercial and the school markets. In Asia, we are still comparably, we are a little bit smaller maybe than the market development as such, which is very positive. For example, it's also mentioned in the quarter report here, looking at the regions, for example, like India, where we are looking at hospitals and high-end pharmaceuticals, development is still very positive.
Okay, very clear. Also, given that component shortage eased during the quarter, I guess you saw sort of a catch-up effect in some regions, I guess, especially in North America during the quarter. Is it possible to sort of quantify the catch-up effect on the organic growth in the quarter to know what the sort of underlying organic growth is, and also whether you had a tailwind on group margins from a higher than usual utilization rates?
Very hard to answer, Carl. If you talk first about the catch-up effect on the motor supply situation, especially in North America, it's getting better, but it's still not stable, and it's not where it should be. I need to be very clear on that. Even though those that were most impacted on our supplier side, they are starting now with new productions, they are starting new models. They will catch up. They are much better than they have been, but they are not there where they should be. Still there is the multiple sourcing from different suppliers, which of course, is not 100% right from the way we want to do it when it comes to the most efficient models and for our sourcing side, but it is better.
Though in North America, still we see that I would not say the biggest, but quite a large backlog still to work on. As mentioned earlier, sometimes I do not always like to have really huge backlogs because it does hinder us sometimes to be able to be competitive on existing and new products that are coming up with shorter lead times. We are working on those to be more competitive and actually to get capacity. That's what it's all about.
Okay. Are you considering insourcing a couple of the components, or are you still sort of too small to insource, some critical components? Or how do you view the component situation? I mean, post, now that the big-
You're touching a very interesting point here, Carl, but we have taken a strategic discussion about that, of course. The part that would be strategic enough to look at, and which we have done, would be the motor. The consensus is quite straight here that the motor development and the technology development, especially on the electronics part of the motor, is such high running pace, and it's influenced by so many different players and technical development parts, that it's for us, better to stay as it is, that we have strong suppliers. The question, though, that we need to raise is, do we stick to the suppliers that we have?
Do we need to review what we're doing, in terms of the sourcing on the motor side? That is something that, of course, dynamically ongoing, to be really open.
Okay, that was clear. The final one from my side is a bit on the operating leverage. It looks a bit a tad light in the quarter, given the, I mean, still pretty good, or organic volume growth. I mean, what is holding back sort of the drop through in the quarter?
Yeah. I mean, there are various factors, but of course, what we see is the gross margin improving then. You have also there an effect from the inflation accounting in Turkey, and I believe the improvement is 0.5 percentage unit on the gross margin. Of course, also, what could have been better, of course, if you compare us with last year, is the effect from the non-existing Russian sales this year compared to last year. For us, that was a really profitable market, and that, of course, also affects our operating results, which have probably, I mean, a difference around SEK 20 million quarter-to-quarter then.
Okay, that's all for me. Thank you.
Thank you, Carl.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Hjalmar Jernström, from Danske Bank. Hjalmar, please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. First one is on the price hikes. Could you elaborate a bit on the price increases in different regions, and maybe if there were some particular markets where the price hikes were more sort of emphasized, please?
Good morning, Hjalmar. Yes, it's a really good question, of course. I think it's we cannot break it down per region. For us, it's more about product groups. Just as a background, as you know, I mean, with our wide product portfolio, we do not go into all markets with all products. It's really about what application and what product are we talking about per country or per region. Just to say that if you take North America, where we are really strong in residential and then like commercial parts, there has been all in all, price adjustments of up to 16%-18%, depending on groups and sizes and applications.
In Europe, you can see everything depending on the different applications and the product categories between 10% up to actually 28%. The 28%, just to be very clear, would more be on very, electronics or motor-heavy products in the mix of the products. In Asia, it has been a little bit lower, where we see somewhere between 10% and 15%. This is when we look back some, 12, 18 months. That is what we have behind us.
Perfect. That's very useful. Then a second question, if you look at the organic growth then in the Nordic market, did you see any trends leaving the quarter, for example, in markets such as Norway, or what was the organic growth on an even level throughout the quarter?
We see a little bit softening trend, I would say, at the end of the quarter, but still quite good in Norway, and also in Sweden, but less favorable than in other countries, like Denmark and Finland. In Norway, for example, half of our sales is related to the residential sector. Of course, that's starting to be impacted also, where the commercial sector is doing very well.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ulrik Haugstveit from Redeye. Ulrik, please go ahead.
Okay. Hello, gentlemen.
Good morning.
Hi, good morning. Yes, well, just a couple of questions from my side, but, just following up on the price increases that you discussed, the most recent one that you implemented in January, has that been accepted and well received, would you say, or, I mean, just in the face of the market being a little bit slower now?
In January, yes, the price increases were still done, yes. They were accepted. It is, I would say if you look into to the discussions these days after May, I would say it's more a discussion about the different cost impact that you see from different raw materials. In January, it was still quite okay to do so. Yes, absolutely. Because the market was still rather dynamic.
Right. Okay. Totally different issue, but I thought the sales expense, selling expenses were quite low here in the quarter, and well, compared to what I expected, at least. Is this slightly just temporary, or are you holding back on these costs now?
We are always scrutinizing, selling and ad expenses every day, I would say. It's quite normal for us to do that, but I guess in some cases, the increase on the expense side has not been as high as the impact we have seen on the sales really.
Mm-hmm.
It's a bit lagging behind, but we, of course, believe also that we will see some increases coming also in, for example, salaries and so on.
Mm-hmm.
When it comes to selling expenses, especially if it's a little bit more uncertain outlook, we will try to question a lot, a lot there, really.
then just finally, I noticed in your report on page 18, note three, regarding acquired companies, you're saying at the very bottom that net sales for this period, just looking at the numbers, the sales and the EBIT operating profit numbers that you're giving here suggest that margins, that EBIT margin was around 5%. And then when I read the press release, when you acquired SagiCofim, the numbers for 2021 suggested at least an EBITDA margin just over 10%. I'm just wondering here if you could comment on the most recent numbers
The SagiCofim profit margin is as expected, really, so it's in line with what we communicated earlier. I guess when you read that, you need to consider it's multiple things there. It's the acquisitions, but it's also the divestments that is adjusting these figures there.
Okay. Well, that's fair enough. Thanks.
Okay. Yeah.
Thanks. I had no further questions now.
Thank you, Henrik.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question on the telephone, please press star followed by one. For those of you on the webcast, please use the Q&A tab. Our next question comes from Adela Dashian from Jefferies. Adela, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. Most of my questions have already been answered, but if you just were to summarize, the areas within the industry that you're exposed to, where you are seeing those pockets for growth, it sounds like it mostly comes from North America, and that being driven by the investments that are still ongoing. Is there other areas in Europe, for example, where you're seeing the same type of growth trajectory, or is North America going to be the driving market in the next coming quarters?
Good morning, and thank you for a really good question. Yes, of course, North America is still a driving part for us, because of the investments that are, of course, coming also supported by government. At the same time, you also have in several pockets of applications, for example, in Europe, we still see a strong growth, and here, especially when it comes to infrastructural investments, but also on from our capital markets day, where we also highlighted five areas that we see that things are really moving in the right direction, also giving the actual circumstances, which is overall and residential ventilation that is just now impacted by the new build, but not on the renovation side.
We have the data center business, we have service as a business. We also have healthcare hospitals. There are certain areas where we see a lot of things ongoing, and these pockets we also have in Europe, of course. We have certain markets like Germany, that still are really strong all over. In Asia, you need to consider that we have our factories in India. We are very well-established in Malaysia and meanwhile, also in Australia and New Zealand. There are, of course, a lot of countries around where we still are very small, and there's a lot of growth potential for us. We still see a lot of growth possibilities all over.
It's, it's about where to focus and of course, also to looking at our biggest area, which is Europe, to look in those markets where the development for the time being is more soft and to do campaigns and of course, to react to those in the same time.
... Would you say that all those growth areas, those 5 that you mentioned during the capital markets day, those are still performing as expected, despite the slowdown in other areas of the industry?
Yes, I would say so. The only one that might be a little bit softer because there is a shift over for the time being, as mentioned, is the residential part. Because the slowdown in some countries is rather harsh, I would say. The shift over, driven by inflation and by the interest rates from business to private persons, private investors, is a little bit slower as the people are, of course, concerned about inflation interest rates. We, as also mentioned before, it would be good to see a kind of stabilization or an outlook from the banks that would give people more comfort to do the renovation products.
The shift is a little bit slower than what we're used to, from new to renovation, especially on the residential side. On the other areas, also outlined in the capital markets day, we see that development is according to our expectations.
None of those areas in the industry where you don't have, let's say, as strong as of a geographic presence as in the Nordic regions, for example, do you feel like your current platform is good enough to capture that upside? Or will you need to expand further in order to do so?
That's a good question. Of course, yeah, we of course, a company that, we're seeing a lot of possibilities. I would say that we are in certain areas of the world, and here I would say, Europe, we feel ourself[ves] that we are in a good position. We don't need to expand when it comes to more products or more manufacturing entities. I would rather look for expansion and growth, pockets of growth, to really new establishments or acquisitions. For the time being, I would rather look maybe for Asia or North America.
Okay. Interesting. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have no further questions, so I'll now hand back over to the management team for closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, all of you, for calling in this morning, and hope to see you back here. We present our Q1 report, 31 August, where we also hold our AGM in Skinnskatteberg, so you're very welcome to join us there and hopefully see a little bit of what we do over there. We wish you all a nice summer.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, enjoy, and thank you for listening in, and we would be really pleased to be able to say hello to you in person in Skinnskatteberg for the AGM, as Anders mentioned. Thank you very much, and hope to see and hear you soon again.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your line.