Welcome to the Vestum Q1 2026 report presentation. During the questions- and- answer session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing star five on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to the speakers. CEO Simon Göthberg, CFO Olof Andersson, please go ahead.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to our presentation of Vestum's Q1 report for 2026. My name is Simon Göthberg, CEO of Vestum, and together with me also our CFO, Olof Andersson. Let's start with some highlights from the quarter. It's great to see that we continue to deliver growth in adjusted EBITDA cash flows and again with an increase in adjusted EBITDA margin, this time up from 8.7% to 11.7%. Cash flow was as expected, solid with cash flow from operating activities of SEK 79 million in comparison to SEK 20 million last year. Two acquisitions were completed in the quarter, but since cash flows were strong, we still managed to reduce leverage as measured by financial net debt in relation to reported EBITDA to 3.2x .
Now let's have a look at the segments, starting with the Flow Tech segment. We're seeing great development with high profit growth and increased margins. EBITDA grew by 59% while the EBITDA margin increased from 18.1% to 23.9%, driven by both organic development and acquisitions. We generated double-digit organic profit growth in both the U.K. and Nordics in the quarter. We implemented several organic growth initiatives by end of last year that have emerged through increased collaboration between the companies, mainly in the U.K. We're now seeing the results of this, not least in our pump hire business, where we achieved all-time high hire sales in both February and March. We are beginning to see some positive impact from the new U.K. investment plan, AMP8.
As for M&A, we completed two add-on acquisitions in the U.K. during the quarter, and the M&A pipeline remains strong. As with previous quarters, the market outlook for the segment remains very favorable, and we expect solid development going forward. Moving on to the Niche Products segment. As announced in the year-end report for 2025, we have divested a low-margin business in this segment, meaning lower sales for Q1 compared to last year. This has had a positive impact, however, on profitability, leading to an increased EBITDA margin from 10.0% to 13.3%. Our focus continues to be on strengthening profitability and growing volumes in the segment. Lastly, let's have a look at the Solutions segment.
As announced in the year-end report for 2025, we have carried out several divestments in Q4 2025 and Q1 2026. This has led to significantly lower volumes in the segment, and the decrease in profitability is driven by divestitures, the winter weather in Sweden in January and February, along with completion of low-margin projects won in 2025. We have made several moves to improve profitability in the segment going forward, not least the divestitures and ongoing operational activities to organically improve margins. We expect to see the positive effects of these activities gradually throughout 2026. Now over to Olof.
Thank you, Simon. Let's continue to have a look at the net sales and EBITDA development over the past couple of quarters. We'll begin with the chart on the left showing net sales, where we saw a decrease compared to the same period last year, driven by divestments in the Solutions segment. However, this decrease was to some extent offset by the acquisitions of Nortech and DFS. Moving on to the chart in the middle showing adjusted EBITDA development, we see an increase driven by the Flow Technology and Niche Products segment as Simon commented on previously. Finally, in the chart to the right, the EBITDA margin also decreased compared to the same period last year, again driven by the Flow Technology and Niche Products segments. We move on to the net sales development.
In total, net sales in the first quarter decreased by 8% compared to last year. If we break down that decrease, the divestments in the Solutions segment put pressure on net sales in the quarter. As mentioned previously, this was to some extent offset by the acquisitions of Nortech and DFS. We had a slight negative effect from FX. Finally, we saw a slight negative organic growth of 2% in the quarter. Let's look at free cash flow, and we define free cash flow as cash flow from operating activities, so that is including interest and taxes paid, and change in net working capital, and then we subtract CapEx spending, i.e. investments in fixed assets. We also subtract leasing amortization. Free cash flow is basically cash that can be used for dividends, acquisitions, and/or repayment of debt.
The LTM free cash flow was SEK 170 million, an increase from SEK 111 million in the previous quarter, and this was mostly due to stronger cash flow from operating activities. This increase was to some extent offset by higher CapEx spending as we continue to do some important investments in our growing businesses. If we move on then to net debt and leverage, the net debt is represented by the pink bars in this chart and amounted to SEK 1.9 billion. The leverage decreased, as Simon mentioned, in the first quarter from 3.4x in Q4 to 3.2x due to our cash generation and expanding EBITDA. It is worth highlighting that this is reported leverage, i.e.
We don't include any pro forma figures from the acquisitions that were completed in March, so they are expected to contribute to lowering leverage going forward. Finally, investments own debt was SEK 30 million at period end. By that, I hand it back to you, Simon.
All right. Thank you. Okay. In summary, we deliver a strong quarter and again growth in adjusted EBITDA and cash flows and significantly higher margin. The Flow Tech segment continues to do very well. We're expecting this to continue as the market outlook looks very promising. We saw mixed performance in the Niche Products and Solutions segment with organic growth and margin improvement in Niche Products and the opposite in Solutions. That said, we expect both to gradually improve throughout 2026. The structural change announced last quarter is progressing well and developing according to plan. With that, we open up for any potential questions.
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. There are no phone questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.
Okay. No written questions. Everything crystal clear. Good to know. Perfect. We thank everyone for listening in. Have a great day. Bye-bye.