Troax Group AB (publ) (STO:TROAX)
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May 6, 2026, 5:29 PM CET
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Earnings Call: Q1 2026

Apr 21, 2026

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Troax Group's interim report for the first quarter 2026. My name is Martin Nyström, and I'm the President and CEO of the Group since close to two years. Without further ado, we will dive into the report, and after my presentation, we will follow up with a Q&A session, which we will moderate. If we start with the first quarter highlights, I'm very happy and very pleased that we had a record order intake in the Group's history. This growth is driven mainly by our acquisitions. In total, we had an order intake growth of 18% in the quarter. Also, our net sales increased, but not as much. also the net sales was driven by our recent acquisitions. Our order intake decreased year-over-year. However, it improved versus the fourth quarter.

Sequentially, we saw a slight uptick also in our organic order intake. During the quarter, we had declining organic invoicing, mainly due to our project to close down our Chicago facility and ramp up our new facility in Nashville. This meant that we, during the quarter, were making the move and also ramping up and down. During the quarter, we have not reached the full pace at the beginning of the quarter. For the full quarter, we were not invoicing as much as a normal quarter, so to speak. We also saw our price increases that we put through in the fourth quarter due to raw material and energy and transportation. They have also started to come in positively, both to the sales number as well as to the margin in the quarter. I will get back to that through the presentation.

On the market side, I would say the markets overall remain soft, and the demand remained weak. I would also say that due to the macroeconomics and geopolitics, it's very difficult to assess. This is largely as we saw with the previous quarterly report. On the positive note, I would say that we saw the demand improving through the quarter. The year started relatively slow, but month by month, the demand improved through the quarter. March was better than January. I would say very positive after a few bleak years on the warehousing side that we now start to see activity that we had in the second half of last year, turning into orders, particularly in Europe and North America.

We're now seeing the automotive challenges that we have mainly in Europe and Asia, and this now impacted Troax Group in the first quarter of this year as well. All in all, our order intake grew by 18% and our total sales grew by 6%. If I move over to the EBITDA and our profitability, our profitability came in at 10.1% Adjusted EBITDA margin. Here the main drivers for this is our low organic volume, but also the ramp-up challenges that we've had both in North America as well as in Sweden after the move of our shelving facility from Poland to Sweden. I'm very happy to see that our gross margin came back and was in line with last year, and it's also a sequential improvement versus the fourth quarter.

We did have increased sales and marketing costs, but on this side, I would say all of that stems from our added businesses on acquisitions. We have now started to identify additional cost synergies as we now move through and into the acquisition integration processes along the year. On the operational side, there are many moving parts in the group. The North American factory transfer is in its most intense phase, with the move, commissioning new equipment, training teams, et cetera. We're very busy with this move for the time being, both in the first quarter and going into the second quarter.

We also, as part of this process of ramping up the new facility, we started the year relatively slow with a variety or a set of issues, but we gradually, through the quarter, improved our ability to deliver to our customers, which means that we left the first quarter with a good run rate of our deliveries. During the quarter, we've also ramped up our production in Sweden, so the first mesh is off the line, so to speak, after the transition from Poland. Here we've done a lot of good work, and we reinaugurated our factory during the first quarter. Here I'd say there is still a bit more on the efficiency side, as well as adding volume to this until we're fully up and running and fully where we need and want to be longer term.

We have also done a strategic review of our Commercial Partitioning business with the manufacturing in the U.K. After this strategic review, we concluded that we are not a good owner and this does not fit the Group portfolio, which means that we have closed down this product line and this assortment, and we've also closed the manufacturing of this product line during the quarter. The cost for this were taken during 2025. If I move a little bit more into then the Group, I would say it's very clear that the three recent acquisitions that we made during the fourth quarter have strengthened both the portfolio as well as the growth potential.

We concluded and closed the Vichnet acquisition in January 2026 as planned, and we do see strong solid demand, both for the flexible barrier side as well as for the data center safety solutions which these three acquisitions contribute well with. It's also clear that there are opportunities not only on the sales synergy side and sales side, there are also opportunities to work with cost as well as capital synergies as we move through the integration process. The contribution of the acquisitions in the fourth quarter were 21% of the Group total. Significant contribution, both strategic as well as financially to the Group. If I then move a bit more into the transformation activities that we have, as I said, we have ramped up the production unit in Värnamo after the transfer from Poland with a promising start.

There is more to do on bringing more volume into this business, as well as bringing even more efficiency into this. This is a work that has been going on through Q1 but will continue into Q3 and Q4. The Commercial Partitioning business, as said, it is continued during the first quarter. The production transfer from Chicago to Portland is progressing at high intensity. In relation to the results and the performance of our North American operations, we've also during the quarter decided to make a leadership change in Americas to secure that we have focus on sales and operational execution and performance. If we then go more into the North American side, in the picture here, you'd see our new North American facility. It's located close to Nashville in Tennessee. It will start operating and produce the first products planned in May.

We've now, during the first quarter, made sure that our delivery operations, our picking and packing operations to support our customers, has been ramped up. It's been a bit more problematic than we first foresaw. We made good progress during the first quarter, which means that we move into the second quarter at pretty much full pace and where it should be. At the same time, it means that we have not invoiced as much as we should have in the first quarter, and this will then come in the following quarter. The longer-term aim with this is, of course, that we improve our competitiveness.

North America is currently the only place where we're not running fully automatic, and fully automatic in our business means more automation, less manual touchpoints, and for sure, a lot more cost efficiency into the manufacturing of our products or mesh products, I should say. The other reason why this is a very important strategic initiative for us is that we also need to bring higher capacity to our North American operations since we've outgrown our facility in Chicago. Moving over to shelving or racking the footprint optimization. We're completed with moving our machines and operations from Poland to Sweden. We've done that to improve the efficiency as well as simplify the offering and make it easier for the customers to pick and choose us.

We are ramping this up and the communicated annual savings of EUR 5 million expected after ramp-up are still valid, and we're on a good way to make that come to fruition. On the picture here, you see a picture from the inauguration that we held in the first quarter where the governor of this region was cutting the ribbon. I thought that was a nice way to depict a project that we're very close or even have managed to finalize. If I then move over to the market side of this, and on the picture, you'd see the market development, and here we have depicted the organic order intakes, so the year-on-year comparison, and we have excluded FX. In total, we had -5% on the organic side, 18% in total, as I said before.

If I start from a geographical point of view, Europe, 67% of our geographical exposure. We have a mixed picture between Northern Europe, which was down significantly, driven by the automotive sector directly and indirectly. Very positive to see in Northern Europe also that we have our warehousing segment growing for the first time in a quite long while. If we flip to Southern Europe, which was up 10% during the quarter, automotive was also challenged in southern part, but also here, warehousing construction was up. In total, we were up in southern part of Europe. If we move to what I think is the exclamation point of the quarter is the Americas, which is by now the smallest geographical region we have, but very strong order intake, 36% up, driven by both warehousing as well as construction, and I'd say also general industry.

I would say it's a solid start of the year in Americas. Also in Americas, I would say that automotive, which is a challenge for us in Europe as well as in APAC, in Americas, automotive is flattish and not really down. Last but not least, in APAC, which is now 21% of our sales, we were down 31% in the quarter. Here, I would like you to note that we had a strong comparable quarter in the first quarter last year. Also here, the decline is driven mainly by China automotive, which after a very busy year last year, is having a slower development. If I then move into the different elements. If we look at the order intake, it grew from EUR 69.5 million to EUR 82 million in the quarter.

If we look at the bridge, we had -5% of that coming from organic price volume, 25% structure. We had a negative FX effect of -2, taking us to 18% in total on order intake growth in the quarter. If I move over to sales, which had a slower development on the organic side, we moved from EUR 68.3 million to EUR 71.8 million, so an uptick of 5%. Here, the organic portion of this is -14%, mainly driven by our North American shortfall on the invoicing side, but also the fact that we, throughout last year, saw lower order and slower market in Europe. A combination of lower volumes in Europe as well as ramp-up issues in North America are the key drivers for the -14%. Here we have the structural component from our three acquisitions of 20% on the net sales side.

We also here had an exchange rate effect of -2% in the quarter. If I flip over to the EBITA development, we came in at 10.1%. Here I would say that if we start with the gross margin, I think the gross margin in the quarter was fairly strong given the organic volumes. I think we're in striking distance with our informal target, despite the low volumes. I'd also say that our acquisitions contribute well to the overall group gross margin. If we then look to this from a profitability point of view, the lower volumes and the ramp-up issues also put pressure on the EBITA margin. Definitely the Americas transition add a decline to the performance.

If I look specifically to Americas, we had several issues in the fourth quarter, and we reported some 300 basis points in the fourth quarter due to operational issues, transfer pricing. This gap has now shrunk to roughly 150 basis points instead of the 300. We're trending in the right direction in the first quarter. Given the low organic sales volumes, the sales and admin costs are relatively high in relation to net sales. It's pleasing to see that the underlying organic SG&A as part of this is now coming down and declining as per the savings projects that we initiated as well as concluded during the last year. If I move to operating cash flow, we had an operating free cash flow of EUR 4.5 million in the quarter. First quarter for us is usually a seasonally weak quarter for different reasons.

Driving this downwards is the U.S. situation where we add some more working capital in terms of inventory to be able to complete the move. I would also say that the structural component also runs at a relatively higher working capital. This is something that we are planning and working on to getting more in line with where the Group has been historically on the structural side of this. EUR 4.5 million of free operating cash flow in the quarter. Moving over to the net debt development, here we came in at 2.7x for the quarter. The net debt increased as a consequence of the three acquisitions we made during the fourth quarter. At the same time as we have our rolling EBITDA measure coming down as the business shrunk last year.

Both these two things contribute to the 2.7x performance in the first quarter. Our target remained to be below 2.5x over time on this one. If I then try to conclude the financials for the first quarter, order intake, sales, Adjusted EBITA, and net debt to EBITDA, I've already gone through. On the EPS side we came in at EUR 0.07 versus EUR 0.10 in the comparable quarter. If I then end with looking ahead, I think I'd like to reiterate that the market conditions remain uncertain. I do think we have saw some green shoots during the first quarter, and we are actively working with preparing to adapt whether this will now take off or whether we continue to be in a more challenging situation. We're actively working to prepare and adapt for either scenario. I think our strategy for profitable growth is unchanged.

We are keeping the course, and I think it's a good proof point to look at the order intake in the quarter, looking at it from a total point of view. I also think it's good to see our broader portfolio focused on safety. I think that through the acquisitions, it's good to see strong demand, both on the flexible barrier side as well as the data center safety solutions that we got included from the acquisition of Vichnet. Very good start and strong solid demand on those. We are seeing the optimized factory structure starting to come through. We are seeing this in Europe, and we will, in the not-too-distant future, also see the benefits of the factory move in North America coming through as well during the second half of the year.

We are continuing with our decentralized operation and continue to work on our processes and our tools to make sure that we are well-positioned now, and we're also well-positioned to grow when the market turns. With that, I would like to conclude the presentation part of this call, and we will now move into Q&A. As usual, raise your hand and we will make sure to unmute and un-mic you, and let you in. I see the first hand from Jonny Jin at SEB.

Jonny Jin
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

Hi. Good afternoon, Martin. Hope you can hear me.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Hi, Jonny.

Jonny Jin
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

I have a couple of questions. Hi. Starting with the invoicing. We touched upon this, but the organic conversion seems to be on the low side here in the quarter. I know you mentioned—

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Mm-hmm

Jonny Jin
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

—the ramp-up effect in the U.S. and the closure of business in the U.K. and such, but could you maybe elaborate the effect of these respectively, please? What was the effect of the delays in delivery in the U.S., for instance, in the quarter?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Yeah. In the U.S., we moved our inventory from Chicago to Nashville. We moved that over the Christmas season. When we were planning to start ramping up, it takes some time to ramp up. The original plan was to take the backlog that we built up during the first half of the quarter and gain that back already in the quarter. Now we realized that we had some more ramp-up challenges than what we first anticipated. The impact on the sales side is somewhere between EUR 1.5 million-EUR 2 million in the quarter. Just to be clear on that, I think this is not lost sales in that sense. It's a timing and sequencing effect. As we've now ramped up our delivery capabilities, we will step by step eat that excess backlog back.

Jonny Jin
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

Okay. EUR 1 million-EUR 2 million, that's from the U.S. What was the effect—

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Yes.

Jonny Jin
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

—from the closure of U.K.?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

It's roughly EUR 1 million too, in the quarter.

Jonny Jin
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

Okay. Yeah, that's clear. What was the annualized sales of the U.K. business here, which you now closed down?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

It's roughly EUR 10 million.

Jonny Jin
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

Okay. Yeah, that's clear. Perfect. I want to move to the contribution from M&A. You mentioned it already, but it seems stronger than expected in the quarter. Maybe—

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Mm-hmm.

Jonny Jin
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

—could you elaborate what is driving this strength from M&A? Are there any timing or such from the acquisitions you made, or is this a fair picture of the underlying performance of those acquisitions?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

No, I think it's fair to say that the demand for both wire trays data centers and barriers is robust. I don't think there is anything in the quarter here that stands out in a very positive way or in a very negative way. I think it's a fair reflection of a Q1 outcome, you could say. Yeah, well, I would probably take this to the bank and not put sugar or salt to it, so to speak.

Jonny Jin
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Just one on the OpEx cost side. I know we touched upon this also, but it seems to be on the higher side, even if we adjust for the one-offs.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Mm-hmm.

Jonny Jin
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

Is there something special that happened on the operating expense side in this quarter, or would you say that this is sort of the expected fair run rate we could expect for the coming quarter as well on the operating expense side?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Yeah, I do think we are still on the high side. We plan to conclude one phase of our digitalization project by late 2025. This has proven to be more complicated than what we thought, which means that we're also carrying costs for this project in the first quarter here as well, and we will continue to carry some of these costs also into the second quarter, and aim for finalization on this. I would say the work to put some key digital tools here are also key to be able to make more cost savings on the SG&A side going forward and as a next step. We're still carrying a bit of extra weight compared to the original plan here in the first quarter.

Jonny Jin
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

Could you try to quantify the extra weight a little bit closer?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

We're talking a few hundred thousand euros.

Jonny Jin
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

Okay, that's fair. Just one final on outlook and demand. I know you mentioned reports some signs of improvement at the end of the quarter, and you talked about they picked up momentum throughout the quarter, I think as well. How should we interpret this? Are you seeing better orders already now at the start of Q2? Or is this—what are you basing those comments on?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Yeah, I think we saw a gradual improvement throughout quarter one, and we haven't seen anything beginning of April that's different to the end of quarter one. That would be one reflection from my end. The second reflection, I think, is also if we look at the composition of that order intake. We've had a couple of really tough years on the warehousing side 2022, 2023, sorry—2023, 2024, and 2025. We do see some things starting to move here. We had more activity in the second half of last year. We think we see—we have more of order intake in that segment now in the first quarter. That's good news, of course, for us since this is the largest segment for us.

Jonny Jin
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

Yeah, I understand. Just one final question, sorry to squeeze in. I saw a lot of questions, but just in North America, you mentioned strong order momentum there, and I think you said also it's driven by warehouse, but also general industry. There have been some other companies here reporting, stating that industrial CapEx is a little bit worse here, sentiment after the Middle East crisis and such.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Mm-hmm.

Jonny Jin
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

Is this something you also mention overseeing or is there a few customers that drive this momentum or what is driving that, would you say?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Yeah, I would say, I think on the warehousing side, Q1 was more robust in a sense that we had a more broad-based, you could say, activity as well as orders. On the general side, I think it's likely more our customer mix than something that is broad-based in describing the market.

Jonny Jin
Equity Research Analyst, SEB

Okay. Yeah, that's fair. We'll see. Thank you. That was all from me.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Thanks, Jonny. Anna Widström is next.

Anna Widström
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Yes. Hi, Martin. I hope you can hear me as well.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Hi, Anna. Loud and clear.

Anna Widström
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Perfect. My first question is just if you could give us some details on the price component in the order intake, if you have that for the whole Group or if you could give us some details per region.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Yeah. Overall, you could look at it as Europe and Asia fairly stable as price component in the order intake. In the U.S., we're looking at the double-digit number to compensate for material transportation, et cetera. If you weigh that together, you'll get a few percentage point on the order intake.

Anna Widström
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, perfect. Just going back to the M&A contribution, as stated previously, it's very solid. Could we get some assessment of how much of the invoicing or orders that are specifically from Vichnet?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Yeah. Vichnet would be a little bit north of between 50% and 60%.

Anna Widström
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, perfect. Thank you. Just going into, because as it has a Chinese exposure, it's rather fair to maybe assume that it has a different kind of seasonality than—

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Mm-hmm.

Anna Widström
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

—the remaining parts of Troax.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Mm-hmm.

Anna Widström
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

So just how should we think about Vichnet's activity going into second quarter and the remaining parts? Maybe also, if we can go into the details on how the acquisitions affected the operating margin. You said that they had a positive contribution on the gross margin.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Mm-hmm.

Anna Widström
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

How does it look on the operating margin as well?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Yeah. If we start with the seasonality question, and I would think, obviously with Vichnet, a lot more of that business is an APAC business. That follows more the Chinese annual cycle, if you will. That, at least from how we used to know it, as Q1 is usually a little weaker than the other quarters. If we look at Europe as at the other end of the scale, the pattern is slightly different. Usually the first quarter in APAC is the weakest one from a volume and profitability point of view. I think we probably need a few more quarters under the belt with Vichnet to see whether the business is performing or behaving just like that.

Anna Widström
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Mm-hmm.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

I think it's probably a fair assumption to say that it will behave like we know other APAC businesses or Chinese businesses. On the operating margin side, it's true that our acquisitions are stronger in relative terms on the gross margin side. At the same time, all these three are growth cases, which means that the proportional SG&A might still be on the high side. In the specific quarter, the structural component was over average compared to the Group. It's been—

Anna Widström
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Mm-hmm.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

—accretive, if you will.

Anna Widström
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, perfect. Maybe you could give us some details on how the growth momentum, both for Vichnet but also your own data center exposure?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Yeah, no, I'm happy to do that. I think we've had some good progress the last couple of years. We are relatively new into this. I think the data center business, both on racks as well as on wire trays, is one of the growth drivers for Vichnet. I think the development, the momentum in this business is good, and it's good in our structural part, and it's also quite good on the organic side. From that point of view, it's a good growth potential and also a growth driver, even though it's from a low base still.

Anna Widström
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, perfect. Just thinking about the backlog then that you have in the U.S. As you seem to be quite confident that the delivery issues are fixed into Q2, should we be able to see full delivery on the backlog, or should this maybe be viewed as gradually throughout the second and the third quarter?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Yeah, I think we should be delivering what the customers have ordered from us. We will eat that backlog mainly in Q2. Perhaps something will then be squeezed and move into Q3. We should be able to see that invoicing coming through during the course of the year.

Anna Widström
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, perfect. Just the final one from my side on the warehousing exposure.

The increased activity that you're seeing, is this relating to sort of base business within small and mid-sized orders, or has activity on larger orders increased as well?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

It's a bit of both, I would say. The pipeline on warehousing is a mix of, I think what we haven't seen in the past couple of years has been the large projects. We now see them come back, but I would also say that small, medium, as well as mid-sized, is also more active. I'd say it's in all three categories, if you will.

Anna Widström
Equity Research Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, perfect. That's all my questions. Thank you.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Thanks, Anna. We go with Gustav Berneblad.

Gustav Berneblad
Equity Research Analyst, Nordea

Yes, good afternoon. It's Gustav here from Nordea.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Good afternoon, Gustav.

Gustav Berneblad
Equity Research Analyst, Nordea

Good afternoon. I thought maybe just to start off on the backlog story just for Northern Europe in conjunction with the facility consolidation. Are there any backlogs to talk about there, given that you say that hopefully you are out to direct the facility towards more volumes, et cetera?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

There was a bit of backlog that we decided not to produce in Poland and start ramping up in Sweden. There is a bit of backlog from that. I wouldn't say we carry a big backlog in this. This is win the orders and produce it, and I'd say this, hence we have a lower invoicing than what you could say is normalized in this business. This impacted Q1 slightly as well.

Gustav Berneblad
Equity Research Analyst, Nordea

That's perfect. Just thinking about if you could reason a bit on the margin and the cost. How should we think sequentially from Q1 into Q2, in terms of what type of costs will ease? You will close down, if you just take North America, you'll likely close down and you have less personnel there. You will have eventually dual rents, et cetera. Are there anything to do in other areas that are worth highlighting?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

I think you nailed the two big ones. For sure, we are having our most intense months here now, so we've had a very intense quarter one. We'll continue to drive a very intense work to get not only the logistics in North America, but also the machinery and the equipment. At one point, we can move from running a dual operation, which we have currently in the U.S., into one more optimal, and that will happen during the second half of the second quarter. Of course, with that, some of the double costs will naturally decrease as our employees in Chicago will not have a factory to come to in that sense. That will be, I would say, the main difference here in the second quarter.

Gustav Berneblad
Equity Research Analyst, Nordea

Yeah. Okay, perfect. That's great. Just on your comments in the report regarding cost synergies in terms of the acquisitions, are these material and how should we think about the timing? Best guess, I guess.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

I think I'll probably have to get back on this topic with the second quarter report. We're one quarter into the integration work, but I think at first glance, there are a few areas of overlap. Obviously, we can look at the company structure, we can look at admin structures, we can look at how we treat, for example, inventories on the capital side. I wouldn't dare to quantify how much this is today. I'll promise you to get back on this when we have a bit more firm view and data on this, Gustav.

Gustav Berneblad
Equity Research Analyst, Nordea

Oh, that's fair. Thank you. Just one last clarifying question, just on the Commercial Partitioning here. Did it have any negative impact in the quarter at all?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

It has negative impact in, you could say, in two ways. The first one is that we obviously stopped taking orders. So which means that when you compare organic order intake, you will have an artificial effect of that the order intake is not really measuring this apples to apples. You can use the annual figure and divide by four. You get a rough idea what that order intake impact is. The second one is on the results and sales. Since we stopped taking orders somewhere late last year, it also means that we have less volume to invoice during the first quarter here. As we move into the second quarter when we've discontinued the operation, obviously, you will have that effect as lower order intake and lower sales organically.

However, this business was diluted to the Group average, which means that it should also be seen as a positive thing to the Group result, i f you look at the margin.

Gustav Berneblad
Equity Research Analyst, Nordea

Yeah, yeah, perfect. We saw that positive impact from 1st of January, basically.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

No, you will see that impact from the second quarter.

Gustav Berneblad
Equity Research Analyst, Nordea

Okay. That's very clear. Thank you very much.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Thank you. Daniel Lindkvist, please go ahead.

Daniel Lindkvist
Small-Cap Equity Research Analyst, Danske Bank

Thank you, Martin. I've had most of my questions answered by this point, but just a few ones from my side. If we look at the timeframe in your order book, we've gotten used now to conversion in the upcoming quarter, more or less, for quite some time. I'm in particular interested in the U.S. order intake and delivery structure for that one, and also on the acquired units in particular.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Yeah. If we look at the U.S., in the first quarter, we had a few larger projects. If you look at usually you convert with a quarter's delay or something, it means that the order intake in the first quarter will have a somewhat longer conversion rate, which then impacts second, third quarter. If we look at the structural part, the business that relates to the data center business also runs at a slightly longer conversion cycle than the, you could say, the bread-and-butter business that you're used to.

Daniel Lindkvist
Small-Cap Equity Research Analyst, Danske Bank

Okay, cool. If we just then add how much is left roughly of the backlog from the U.S. now?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Stemming from the move quarter four, quarter one, it's roughly EUR 2 million.

Daniel Lindkvist
Small-Cap Equity Research Analyst, Danske Bank

Roughly EUR 2 million. Perfect. If we just look at them, the acquisitions really surprised me in Q1, and it seems like these are bigger operations than we in the market perceived. At the same time, in Q1 we had the Chinese New Year. One would guess that the flexible barrier side would have been the stronger part in Q1 and maybe then in the opposite situation in Q2. Is that a fair assumption? Is there any difference between the gross margins in the plastic barriers and in Vichnet just to bring with us going forward?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

I think conceptually you are right with the quarterly sequencing on barriers and on the Vichnet acquisition. In theory, you're right. I think we're only one quarter into this acquisition, so I'd like to be a little careful on that. Conceptually, I'd agree with you, Daniel, on that. On the gross margin side, all three acquisitions are delivering what I consider to be healthy gross margins and healthy gross profit. I think it's also an outcome of the fact that we're delivering solid value to our customers. They're all bringing value products to the customer. They are all accretive to, you could say, Group average on the gross margin from a gross margin point of view.

Daniel Lindkvist
Small-Cap Equity Research Analyst, Danske Bank

Okay, Vichnet is also a higher gross margin business than the average?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Yeah.

Daniel Lindkvist
Small-Cap Equity Research Analyst, Danske Bank

Okay.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Yes.

Daniel Lindkvist
Small-Cap Equity Research Analyst, Danske Bank

Cool. Just on the automotive side, I mean, you've delivered on old projects for some time, but the market has in general been weak. Or should we read it as the market has become weaker now? What's the split between the projects you've had and delivered on and the market becoming weaker or the opposite?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Yeah. I think what we are now experiencing at our end is we are pretty late into the cycle. Obviously, a lot of the car makers and other suppliers to the car industry might have suffered a bit earlier than we have. I think on the order intake side, we're now seeing kind of the reality of where automotive is. From that point of view, this is one of the first quarters where we're not filling the pipeline with larger new projects. I wouldn't say necessarily that the market might have gone a lot worse in Q1 versus Q4, but I think now it appears at our end, what that looks like in terms of investment into our product niches.

Daniel Lindkvist
Small-Cap Equity Research Analyst, Danske Bank

Okay, cool. On the gross margin side, are there any effects from the cost savings from Natom that are visible in Q1, or should we expect those going forward in conjunction with higher volumes?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

If we look at the fixed costs that we have taken out of Poland, they are part of this, and they are also visible in the result. However, it's not to the full swing yet, since the volumes are not completely ramped up. Obviously this is also a volume game, so some of those run rate savings will also come with more volume. That impact is not seen yet in the first quarter. That's still to come, but we're on a good way to get there.

Daniel Lindkvist
Small-Cap Equity Research Analyst, Danske Bank

Perfect. Just finally, there are many out there that discuss this in terms of a company that should have a normalization or getting closer to it by 2027. Just from your side, is there anything that contradicts this report or from what you see now with things going on?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

It's very difficult to predict the future, I've learned. I think the big defining parameter here will be what happens in the Middle East if this gets prolonged and whether the world economy gets dragged into something that is slower for longer. I guess my crystal ball on this is just as clear or as cloudy as yours. I'm not sure I'd like to make any statements on this one, but nothing I would say from the first quarter specifically contradicts, you could say, your narrative.

Daniel Lindkvist
Small-Cap Equity Research Analyst, Danske Bank

Yeah. I guess from my side, it's you have an insight in the projects and the projects that are postponed and so on, and the project sizes that we're discussing. In that sense, has there been many postponements?

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

To date, we've seen very little of any change in that comparing to how we've been trending the last, well, three to six months, depending on segment.

Daniel Lindkvist
Small-Cap Equity Research Analyst, Danske Bank

Perfect. Thank you so much, Martin. That's all from my side.

Martin Nyström
President and CEO, Troax Group

Thanks, Daniel. Okay. I don't see any more hands in the air, which means that we will bring this interim presentation and earnings call to an end. Thanks a lot everyone for listening in, and if I don't see you before, I'll see you in a quarter's time. Thank you and bye-bye.

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