Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's presentation with Volati. With us presenting today, we have the CEO of Volati, Andreas Stenbäck, and CEO of Salix Group, Martin Hansson. We'll open up for a Q&A after the presentation, and you can either type in your questions using the form to the right, or if you're calling in and would like to ask a question, please press star nine to raise your hand and star six on mute when you get the word. With that said, please go ahead with your presentation.
Thank you, and thank you everyone for listening in to our quarterly presentation. Let's dig into it. So, Volati, we're an acquisitive, growing group of well-managed companies with strong earnings and cash flows. And today, we consist of three business areas, but I rather talk about our six platforms. And our business model is to develop these platforms and build them independent and strong. Currently, we are evaluating a separate listing of the platform Salix, which is also our largest business area, and very happy to have the CEO of Salix Group, Martin Hansson, with me here today to tell you a bit more about Salix Group later on during the presentation. So, let's get into the numbers.
Our Q4, the sales came in in line with last year, and EBITDA increased to some 3% in the quarter. Salix developed very strong, showing a growth in EBITDA of 74%, and I would say that Ettiketto had a stable development. In Industry, I'll get into that a bit later on, we see a mixed development. Very strong operating cash flow, up 8%, compared to last year, and then net debt-to-EBITDA ratio is now down at 2.5. So, just concluding, the full year then, we have seen a sales increase of 7%, and that's supported by Ettiketto. That grew close to 30%. Salix also had a strong growth of roughly 15% compared to last year.
The growth we've seen is acquisition-driven, as the organic sales growth were flat over the year. However, that is quite a shift compared to the year before, where we had a -7% organic sales growth. EBITDA growth came in 10%, of which 2% organically, much driven by Salix, that grew almost 50%, of which half of that was organic. Earnings per share, positive trend in that as well, up 14%. The overall market condition have stabilized since the bottom in 2024. I think that's very obvious when you look at the graph to the right of this slide. We do see signs of improvement. However, that differs between the platform, but Salix currently being the front runner and the end markets in which we operate there.
We expect that trend to continue, or I expect that trend to continue. However, it's very hard to predict the pace of the recovery. On next slide, yes, as I said, so we came out at SEK 8.4 billion in sales and SEK 726 million in EBITDA. So that's where we are right now. I always say that Volati should be evaluated over time, and if we do that, we can see that we have managed to grow at an annual average yearly pace of 15% per year in EBITDA. However, since 2021, the growth, the yearly growth rate has been lower. What does that mean? That means that we have created a growth gap.
That growth gap is, the reason behind that is that the markets that we're operating in has had challenging conditions. But we need to close that growth gap. If I look into 2027 and where we have to be in order to achieve that, that should put us in a position where we have to show an EBITDA of between SEK 1.1 billion-SEK 1.5 billion of EBITDA that year. So that is, the challenge that we have ahead of us. Looking at the financial targets, EBITDA growth, 10%, 10%. So it's a positive trend compared to last year, but it's still under our financial goal of 15%.
As we have operated under that goal for a year, a couple of years now, that means that we need to surpass that and exceed that goal for a couple of years in the coming period. ROE, the return on equity, is almost there already now. I expect us to reach and exceed that goal shortly. Net debt-to-EBITDA is where I expect it to be. So with that, I thought we would go into describing the three business areas in a bit more detail, and we start by handing over the word to Martin, who will tell you a bit more about Salix Group.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Andreas. I will say a few words about Salix. We had a growth in the quarter of 7%. Underlying organic growth was flat in the quarter. Market conditions are improving. We have, 2025, seen an uplift in organic growth. I will be back to that. Even though we didn't see it in the quarter, we have seen an underlying growth overall. DIY is the sector where we see some uplift during 2025.
And DIY represents some 20% of our business. We also see an uplift in the professional segment. If we add the two together, we have some 50/50% of our business where we see some sort of uplift. Quarter four is less DIY heavy for us. It's not the home improvement, home renovation period, where our products are, so to say, we're not selling so much for the home renovation area in quarter four. If we take the EBITDA, we grew by 74% compared to last year. That is an organic growth of 45%. So 45% EBITDA growth, despite the flat organic sales growth, as previously mentioned.
The EBITDA margin reaches some 9% in the quarter, which is an improvement over last year of 3.5 percentage points, so from 5.6% compared to last year. So, 2024, as we see it, was a little bit of a challenging year. So the climate, we believe where the market bottomed out. So just to remind ourselves that comparable numbers were a bit low, 2024, when we compare this year's numbers with last year's number. So margin expansion, we continue to improve our operational performance in the quarter. Normalization of exchange rates and freight costs supports margin, but also structural measures and improved value chain activities in the operation.
That's been on the agenda over the past years, and we see the benefits of it in improvement, both in cost percentage, but also in margin improvement, both in the quarter but also on the total year. So if I summarize, 2025, we pass SEK 4 billion in sales, we pass SEK 400 million in EBITDA. The SEK 4 billion in sales, we see around 15% in growth, sales, and 4% comparable growth during the year. Out of the SEK 400 million, it's, as Andreas said, 50% in total EBITDA growth and 25% in organic EBITDA growth last year. That makes us land on a 10% EBITDA level that should be compared with 7.6%, 2024.
I'm also happy to see that our working capital is moving in the right direction, and that our growth came out of the comparable business, of course, is something that we are very happy about. I'm proud and happy for what the team has achieved and hard work during the full year. So thank you for all the hard work to my dear colleagues listening into the call. So if we move to the next slide, I will say a few words. As Andreas said, Salix is preparing for a potential listing, and here a few headings about the cornerstones of how we would like to present our business. I've selected a few comments from this slide, and I would like to bring your attention to the right-hand side of the slide, where you see the financial targets.
So these four financial targets of net revenue growth of more than 15%, I will come back to the EBITDA margin. EBITDA net working capital of more than 40% and the net debt 2-3 times the earnings. The EBITDA margin, we did have an increase during spring, together with the board of Salix and Volati, to increase that from 10%-12%. And keeping in mind that we landed 2025 on a 10% EBITDA margin, we see further potential to improve margin, hence the new targets of 12%. Moving our attention to the left-hand side of the presentation, a few selected comments here. We have delivered stable growth and performance in a period of challenging market conditions since 2022. We have acquired eight companies since 2022, sustained a healthy EBITDA margin, combined with controlled net debt ratio.
We have improved productivity and performance through yearly structural measures, as I said. This is an ongoing way of working for us to go through yearly structural measures to improve productivity. That then delivers good cost control, improved margin, and in the end, over 80% cash conversion. This combined helps us to invest in next upcoming business. Logistics, sourcing, and common transport contracts are areas where we benefit from our common scale and cooperation. And with this said, we are ready for volume growth, as we have experienced an overall loss since 2022 of some 25%-30% in the period of volume. It's not sales value, but volume loss since 2022 of some 25%-30%, because of the market conditions. Next thing I wanted to say a few words about is the M&A, which is part of our DNA.
We lead and develop our main business in such a way that we can acquire next business. Our way of realizing synergies adds to the Salix overall performance. If you see in the bottom of the slide, it talks about a standalone entity, and I would like to bring your attention to that. The Volati system has developed us as an organization, as a team, with training and education, in such a way that we work independently with M&A today. We've been trained, I believe, from some of the best, Andreas standing next to me and the colleagues of Volati. So thank you very much for all the support throughout this development. So we went through some 150 potential targets, 25.
We're selective about what companies that we would like, that could suit us the best and where we can add value and be stronger, together. We see right now more activity in the market, and we are hopeful that we can step up the game a bit from the past average, around two acquisitions per year since 2022. We have a strong presence in the Nordics to further build and expand our M&A agenda, but we are also curious to broaden this horizon outside the Nordics in the period to come.
So all in all, with improving underlying market conditions, 4% organic growth last year, from our perspective, a strong team throughout the Salix businesses, we look forward to an exciting future, and first and foremost, we look forward to an exciting 2026.
Thank you.
Okay, so with that, we'll leave Salix Group for a while and go into Ettiketto Group, which then is our second business area and second-largest platform. So when it comes to Ettiketto, we showed a strong sales growth in the quarter. It was attributable to the acquisition of Klebe-Technik in Germany earlier in 2025. As expected, we have seen a decline in margin as Klever are operating under the overall group margins of Ettiketto. We, however, already now see positive effects from our value-creating efforts and expect to continue increasing the margins in Klever. Early 2026, we completed the acquisition of Interket Group, which I will tell you a bit more about later on. But what that will support is the continued high growth, and it also brings us another value creation opportunity through expanding the margins also in that company. Looking into industry then, industry consisting of four platforms.
And if I summarize the year for this business area, it's been quite an extraordinary year in terms of that many of the platforms operating under challenging market circumstances. Also meaning that they have delivered below historical profit levels. We also saw that in Q4. If we start with Communication, however, there we see a stabilized market or stabilizing market conditions, and we delivered an EBITDA in line with last year. Tornum also delivered an EBITDA in line with last year. Very well done, given that the market is still somewhat challenging. Corroventa, they did a very good job in the absence of system floods. So, in terms of sales and profit, they achieved very much what's expected under these circumstances.
However, last year, we had quite some floodings, and it was a very strong year for Corroventa, meaning that they came in quite far behind during Q4 this year. S:t Eriks , which has delivered a resilience performance during the first three quarters of this year and have defended the EBITDA through better margins, despite having operating under a challenging construction market. They, however, also saw... They saw a decline in Q4. That was mainly impacted by postponed infrastructure deliveries, which, by all means, then, will come back in 2026. So that was the main reason for that deviation. So 2025 has been a challenging year for industry. We have, or my colleagues in those platforms have been handling it very well.
We were early on taking measures. We have been focusing on the long-term value creation rather than the short-term gains. But still, it has been a challenging year. I am, however, comfortable with that. We are very well positioned in all four platforms and really very much looking forward to when the markets that operate in starting to normalize. Acquisitions then. This slide shows that we've basically been maintaining an acquisition pace of roughly SEK 750-800 million of annual sales. That we've been achieving that pace throughout the last couple of years. This is a consequence of having a very continuous and active work within our platforms to find, identify, and complete add-on acquisitions to our existing platforms. Right now, the outlook is positive.
I think we have several qualified leads that we're working with. But M&A takes time, and a deal is not done until it's closed. I said that we had a good pipeline already during our last quarterly call. Since then, we have finalized Interket, which I will tell you a bit more about just soon. However, I still expect that we have more to come. And then spending a few words on Interket then. So in early 2026, we completed Interket, which was an add-on acquisitions to Ettiketto. It's somewhat of a perfect match. It's strengthening our position in two of our existing markets.
That is Sweden, which is our home market, where we've been active in for a very, very long time, but also strengthening our current activities in Germany, which we entered last year, 2025, through the acquisition of Klever. It also adds two new markets, and that is U.K. and the Netherlands, which will enable us to continue growing also on these two new markets. It's a very well-managed and well-invested company. However, there are only a few companies out there on the European market which operate under Ettiketto's industry-leading margins. However, that also enables us to add value as a buyer. It's, that's the way that we create long-term value for Ettiketto Volati, by increasing their profitability in the companies that we acquire.
When it comes to Ettiketto, now we've added almost SEK 750 million of annual turnover in a year's time. And that's. Given the proven model of how to integrate and realize synergies, that means that we have a lot of valuation also to come. Before summarizing the cash flow, as I said in the beginning of the presentation, we're very happy about the operational cash flow. And the cash conversion is at good levels. We've had two years behind us, 2023 and 2024, when we had cash conversion in excess of 100%. 2025 ended with a cash conversion 88%. The companies that we own and that we operate are showing good earnings and good cash flows.
Also what I want to say on this slide is that we are comfortable to temporarily stay with a higher net debt to EBITDA ratio in order to enable acquisitions. We did that in 2025. We ended Q2 2025 at 3.0, and we are comfortable doing that again if we have acquisitions opportunities that we that are value-creating and that we want to act upon. As market normalize, the organic profit growth will accelerate, and that will have a positive effect, positive effect on net debt to EBITDA. So a few summarizing words. An overall stable development in the quarter, and the big highlight is the strong contribution from Salix Group, with a 74% EBITDA growth.
Looking at the full year, 10% EBITDA growth, it's supported by a trend shift in organic development, where we have come from negative organic development in 2024 to a positive organic development in 2025, and also that we've been able to maintain the acquisition pace. We've already done the first acquisition in 2026, but we also have a strong foundation for continuing doing acquisitions, and we have a strong pipeline in place. We're also well-positioned for accelerated organic growth, and we've seen some effects in Salix Group of what happens when the market starts coming our way. But we are still waiting for that effect in some of the other platforms. But we're very well-positioned to take the opportunity of it once the market starts normalizing.
Then, we're continuing the evaluation of a possible separate listing of the Salix Group. Still no decisions taken, but the preparations are developing according to plan. So with that, Martin and myself open up for any potential questions.
Thank you very much for that presentation, Andreas and Martin. Yes, let's open up the Q&A. If you're calling in, please press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute when you get the word. You can also type in your questions using the form to the right. We've got the first person calling in. We have Carl from Carnegie . Please go ahead. You have the word.
Hi, Carl.
Yeah, yeah. Hi there, Andreas and Martin. It's Carl here from Carnegie. Just a couple of questions from my side, if I may. I'm starting off with Salix. Could you perhaps talk a little bit more about the current development there and the market dynamics overall? I guess organic sales growth is flat here and thus coming down a bit year-over-year, versus what we saw in Q3. But on the other hand, margins are strengthening quite substantially. What would you say are the sort of key reasons for that clear margin uplift? Is it just the cost savings, or is it more of a product mix, or any impact from recent acquisitions? Or maybe if you could just try to break that down into the different buckets.
Thank you. You helped me, helped me with the answer there a bit, so that's good. I think if I start with the market, the underlying market, as I said, we see an uplift. We have organic growth. We also, I believe, in a few areas, take market shares. We have new, new businesses that are coming our way. But we have seen in the DIY sector, mainly during last year, also a little bit in the agriculture sector, we have seen an uplift in sales. So we see it in our numbers, and we also read it in the macro data that something is happening out there. So 2024 was maybe the year where we flattened out, and 2025, a little bit more of a transition year, but we see some signs of recovery.
So this helps us, of course, after a couple of years, nurturing margins and cost. When we have some volume and turnover coming on top, we see a very quick uplift. Quarter four is not so much of a home renovation quarter for us.
So the sales were flat, but we had a 7% uplift in sales helped by the acquisition. Then on the margin side, I said that a few things here helps us. We have a more normalized exchange rate. We buy in euro and dollar and so on, and they are more of a normalized level compared to a year ago and two years ago, and so on. So this, combined with the freight cost, is also more of a normalized level. We ship things overseas, so these are also back to normalized levels. If you remember in the past, we have seen some hiccups in the Suez and so on. Various things that has pushed the prices up from a container perspective. Then on the other side, what we do to impact is, of course, product mix, as you mentioned.
We do this cost out. We work systematically with value chain activities, purchasing, sourcing, to lead our business in a way to create more space and margin development. So these things combined, what we do, good cost control, overall tendering processes for freight, land transport, and such things that we can do as a group. Economy of scale helps us operationally. So all these combined helps us to have a better margin development then. And not to forget, what I also said, that 2024 was maybe a year that was on the lower side. So compared to 2024 and all the activities that we are doing, you see this uplift from an index perspective.
Yeah, thanks. That's, that's very clear. So it seems to be more, more structural, I guess. It's nothing in the quarter specifically, but more a one-off character that, that boosts the margin then.
No, no. I shouldn't say. No, it's not. It's, and we have had good margin development with us the whole year. And actually, if you look back to the last couple of years, we have managed to have quite a stable margin, despite all of this turmoil that we have seen in the market. This is the activities that we are taking, the operational activities that we have done, implemented, that has helped us sustain a quite healthy EBITDA margin and gross margin throughout this period. And that's both margin and cost control, as the volume in the market has declined, as I said, 25%-30%.
Yeah, perfect. Thanks. And is it possible to specify here how much M&A is contributing to Salix's growth here in the quarter, year-over-year? And is Timberman performing according to your plan?
Timberman, yes, great to have Timberman on board, and according to plan. I think that, as I said, year-on-year, sales-wise, 15% up, comparable 4%, right? So, so, 2025 compared to 2024, 15%, it was 14.something, but almost 15% on the sales numbers, and 4%, a little bit more than 4% comparable growth. EBITDA, 50%, 50 total growth, and roughly 25% organic growth.
Yeah, I see. Thanks. And you don't possibly have the same figure for Q4?
We don't give that detail. Sorry, Carl.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks. And yeah, you touched a little bit about this earlier, Martin, but are there any particular product categories or subsegments here you think are standing out on the positive versus negative side? Perhaps any comments on the DIY versus professional side in Q4, and maybe starting out in Q1, as well as maybe any comments there on agriculture and forestry versus the construction part of it?
This is tricky because it's not an exact science in the way we measure. I mean, we have many segments, many products, and a few countries that we operate in. But if I try to say something, what we see in the market data is that it's a little bit of an uplift if you take DIY and professional 2025. It's not substantial, but it's a few percentage points up in terms of growth, what we see in the market data, and this can be confirmed with our own data. And of course, our hope is that this will continue with us in the into next year, that we have flattened out 2025, a little bit of an uplift, and this will continue.
We have a, you can say, underlying need for rebuilds and renovations back since 2022. With this volume drop of 25%-30%, there is an underlying need in the market. What we also see is that on these bigger projects are still to be seen. So it's mainly smaller renovation, home improvements, and so on. Roughly half of the sales that represent our, our business that is starting to move. And we, we, we have seen a movement during 2025, and we don't see any reasons for why that should, should change. Rather the opposite, that we're hopeful about, that this will continue to develop during 2025 in the... Sorry, 2026 in the, in the Nordics. The agriculture segment, the same here.
We have seen in certain segments, more, you can say, the smaller business, maybe the farmers buying a product from us, independent farmers buying product from us during the period. So this is a smaller segment for us in the total perspective, but we also have seen an uplift in sales during 2025 here, and don't see any reasons why that should change in the coming period.
Yeah, that's clear. Thanks. And are you worried for the organic growth prospects now going into Q1, given that, I mean, the increased road subsidies are now gone as of January first?
I've not had such much training as Andreas have had in this course, but we are more safe to comment about the past. If you look back the last couple of quarters, we see an uplift in certain segments. It's because it's first of January, we don't see any reason why things should change. We are of course, as you are following this closely, and we are hopeful about also 2026, as I said.
Yeah. Thanks. That's very clear. And then leaving Salix and moving on to Ettiketto. So is it possible to specify what is the real issue here in Sweden? And also if there are any customers in particular or any product verticals that is driving, I guess, the slower development there, or is it more broad-based, would you say?
I wouldn't put it that way, that we have a real issue in Sweden. Sweden is actually developing fairly well. I did comment on Q3 that we were a bit disappointed in the beginning of Q3 when it comes to the development in Sweden, and then it started to pick up during that quarter, and it has continued to pick up also during Q4. So it's nothing that I can see that is structurally happening or any specific customers that are changing their behaviors or anything like that. I think one thing to keep in mind also when it comes to Ettiketto is that Q4 last year was extraordinarily strong. It was very, very strong.
And meeting that is quite okay. We're also showing organic growth in Ettiketto. Looking at this year, we're showing organic growth both in terms of sales and EBITDA.
Yeah. All right. That's clear. And if we move on to industry, starting with Corroventa maybe, and can you describe just how you see the comparison here going into Q1 and Q2? And also if you have observed any signs of increased activity, I guess, on the flooding side so far in Q1.
No signs of floodings this far, as far as I know. I think those kind of news reaches us all when we can read about in the newspapers. But just to elaborate a bit about how that affects. Those effects work. So basically, in Q4 2024, we had quite some floodings. And that was, if I remember it correctly, I think it was mainly in the UK. I might be wrong there, but it was rest of floodings in the end of Q4 2024, and that continued a bit into Q1 2025, a bit into Q1 2025. What that means is that with no floodings in Q4 2025, we're meeting tough comparables.
I would say in the very beginning of Q1 2026, we're also meeting some floodings. But then I've also said that 2025 as a whole has been an extraordinary dry year. So we will continuously meet a lot easier comparables in Corroventa throughout the, you know, path of this years. I would say already starting from mid-Q1 or something like that. And it's very rarely, very rare that we see two such dry years in a row. But this is, you know, this is definitely something that is outside of our control. And, you know, I think you'll all read it in the newspapers as, you know, at the same time as we will.
Because it usually ends up there once those things hits Europe.
Yeah, that, that's fair. And, on S:t Eriks, is it possible to quantify, I guess, the magnitude of this postponement you are talking about? And also if you're expecting, I mean, to see all of this hitting the PNL in full now already in Q1.
Yeah. I think, I think, the way we, we, the way, we look at S:t Eriks right now is it's very, it's very similar to where, Salix was, maybe a year ago or so. So, and for them, Salix, it was still very much about defending the margins, keeping profitability, because we had a slightly declining market or a market that started to stabilize. But then, through taking operational mea- measures, you can defend, the EBITDA. And that's what we've done very successfully in Q1 to Q3 in S:t Eriks this year. Which also means that, we have an underlying better margins today compared to what we've had, what we had in the past, which we will take the benefits of once the market return.
And then we will most likely to see the same kind of effects that we've seen now in Salix, when the market has returned somewhat there. In terms of kind of the timing in Q4 and Q1, it's true that, so we came in short in Q4. To be very open about it, it was a disappointment. It was mainly because of delays in a couple of infrastructure projects. We hope to see those develop delivered in Q1. Keep in mind, however, that S:t Eriks, it's a Swedish company operating in Sweden, and if you are to put pipes into the ground, you also need to have the weather with you. So, we haven't had that in January.
However, it's way too early to say, you know, whether that will have any effect on Q1. If it won't have any effect on Q1, the weather, then hopefully we'll get some of those volumes back.
Yeah, understood. That's clear. And just lastly from my side on the topic of M&A, you described activity there as stronger than usual in the report. Is it possible to elaborate a little bit more on that? And also if there are any particular, I guess, segments or platforms or geographies you believe are standing out on the positive side.
Oh, so we have a very active pipeline work in all our platforms. We're also following that from a Volati perspective. And so we're following that across all platforms. And what we can see right now is that we have more qualified leads than we usually have, meaning that we have more opportunities to complete acquisitions than we usually have, taking into account, you know, the return requirements that we have and so forth. We have activity across all platforms. We have it in the Nordics, we have it outside the Nordics, so I would say that it's fairly broad. So, I think that's what I can tell you right now, Carl.
Yeah, that's fair. And, thank you very much for answering all my questions. I will get back in line.
We'll move on with some written questions that we have received, and we'll start with the first one. You reported -5% organic growth. Can you break down the organic performance by platform and explain what specifically changed in Q4 versus Q3 to drive this negative turn?
I can give it a try. So, basically, we saw a flat organic development in Salix. We saw a slight negative development in Ettiketto, but that was slight. I would break that down into that we had a very strong last year in terms of organic development in Ettiketto, so we're meeting tough comparables. Then in industry, there is a mix. But if you look at industry as a whole, we've had a negative development. One main reason behind that is Corroventa that we don't have any floodings. We also had the timing effects, for example, in S:t Eriks. I think we already elaborated on the reason behind that.
I wouldn't say that we've seen any major shifts in the market space, compared to Q3. Actually, if we look back at 2025, the organic development has, we've had variances between the quarters, but if you look at the longer trend, it has been positive. So again, looking at the full year, 2025, we had a flat, 0, organic sales development compared to -7 the year before. We also have had a positive EBITDA development compared to a fairly, you know, big negative number the... So the overall trend, I would say, is still positive.
Thank you for that. And we'll take one final question here. Given the negative 5% organic decline in Q4, what's your expectation for organic growth trajectory through 2026? And when do you expect to return to positive organic growth?
Yeah, I answered that question, basically by, by answering the previous question, is that we see an overall positive trend. The pace of that positive trend is really hard for us to judge, but we see it. If you look at 2024, 2025 compared to 2024, we have clearly had a positive trend, and I, I expect that trend to, to, to continue into 2026. However, the pace, you know, the one I could tell, please give me a call.
Okay, and that concludes the Q&A section, and I'll hand over the word back to you, Andreas, for some concluding remarks.
Yes. Firstly, thank you all the colleagues of Volati for 2025. I think we've done a very good job. We have to take one step back and remind ourselves that basically, it's going in the right directions. We have turned the trend. We are showing growth. And we've seen through the example of Salix, what is happening once we see that market starting to normalize, then we really see an organic EBITDA growth, which I am really looking forward to seeing also in some of the other platforms, once we get there. So thank you.