Indutrade Q1 2025, Summary

Order intake growth of 5% organically, increase of 1% despite uncertain market situation. Net sales increased 4% in total, organically unchanged. EBITA margin at 13.6%, or 13.3% excluding one-offs, with continued improvement in working capital efficiency. Operational cash flow of 644 million SEK and 3 acquisitions completed in 2025 so far.

Good demand from pharmaceutical production, process industry, energy sector, and majority of companies had organic order intake growth. Infrastructure and construction demand was stable, while general engineering segment remained weaker. Organic sales were flat due to lower order backlog.

EBITDA increased 6% to 1.1 billion SEK, with record high gross margin. Business areas Infrastructure & Construction and Life Science improved EBITDA margins, while other areas declined due to organic sales decline and higher expense levels.

Three acquisitions completed with annual turnover of 390 million SEK: Ecorol in Germany, IPP in Ireland, and Edius in Sweden. Acquisition climate remains positive with a strong financial position and pipeline.

Stable profit levels, really good operational cash flow, and strong financial position with low debt ratios. Many companies aligning costs to market situation after increased volatility post April 2nd. Overall, a strong platform for long-term sustainable profitable growth.


This summary was written by our AI Analyst Tim! If you find something that does not seem right let us know and we will correct him

Welcome and good morning on our behalf as well as usual. Let's start with the overall highlights. In terms of order intake we had a total growth of 5% organically, an increase of 1% despite the uncertain market situation. Good demand from customers within pharmaceutical production, the process industry more broadly and also the energy sector and the majority of companies had organic order intake growth. Net sales increased 4% in total. Organically it was unchanged. The EBITDA margin came in at 13.6% excluding some 1 offs 13.3% and continued improvement in working capital, efficiency and rec. 1 operational cash flow of 644 million sec and 3 acquisitions completed so far in 2025 and the pipeline remains good if we then turn to order intake and sales. As mentioned on the previous slide, demand was good with organic order intake growth despite the increased market uncertainty we had a positive book to bill with orders being 5% higher than sales and there was continued variation between companies, segments and countries with the strongest growth in medtech and pharmaceuticals, the process industry and the energy sector. Demand within infrastructure and construction was stable while the general engineering customer segment continue in general to be somewhat weaker. In terms of sales we grew 4% during the quarter, all related to acquisitions. Organically it was flat on the back of the lower order backlog coming into the quarter. During Q1 last year we were negatively affected by the Easter holiday and also this year we had no help in terms of number of working days. If we then look at sales in a geographic perspective, the development within the Nordics was on an aggregated level flat from last year. Finland continued to be a bit weaker while sales to Norway was strong and in Norway we had good development within valves and other flow related components as well as filters to mention some product areas. Benelux and UK Ireland were stable and Germany was a bit weaker. For Switzerland and Austria the sales growth was high driven by good development within the process industry and the pharma related single use area. In North America sales was down. A difficult reference linked to last year with some larger projects during that time period was the sort of key reason and sales in Asia was higher than last year, driven for instance by good development for products within the marine segment. I also want to briefly address the tariff situation which so far have only had a marginal impact on demand. Our direct exposure to the US is limited with total sales to North America in 2024 corresponding to less than 6% of the group net sales. As most of you know, we are mostly a Western European business group with many companies being strong local players. However, this situation is creating increased uncertainty and the effect on the global economy and thus the indirect effect is hard to predict. Our companies are proactively implementing appropriate measures for e.g. review on trade flows, supply chains and commercial agreements. If we then turn to our profits our EBITDA increased 6% in total to 1.1 billion sec and the EBITDA margin came in at 13.6%. However, supported by some one off items, the underlying EBITDA margin was 13.3% same level as last year. Our ambition on objective is to be at a higher margin level, but this was not a complete surprise or unexpected. At the end of last year and also the first part of Q1 we expected a gradually better demand situation during the year and a large part of our companies were therefore geared up in terms of initiatives for organic growth to increase this somewhat higher expense level and a flat top line explains the EBITDA margin. The market risk and volatility have now obviously increased and many companies are now actively working to align costs to the situation prevailing in their respective markets. On a positive note, our gross margin was record high for Q1 and acquisitions divestment margin accretive Then we turn to the business areas and start with sales. As mentioned, we had no help from more working days during the quarter despite Easter taking place in April instead of March. On an aggregated level, half of the company's organic sales growth in the quarter business area, Life Science was the only BA with organic sales growth mainly driven by sales of equipment for pharmaceutical production including single use equipment, infrastructure and construction was flat from last year While the other three BAs showed declining organic sales mainly due to the generally weaker business climate and the lower order book Coming into the quarter business area, technology and System Solutions is standing out negatively. They are the most global business area and are slightly more dependent on investments and capex decisions on the customer side which is making their current demand situation more challenging than the other business areas and then EBITDA profit. In terms of business areas, the EBITDA margin improved in business areas infrastructure and construction and also Life science. Infrastructure and construction is on a positive EBITDA margin trend mainly due to effects from acquisitions and divestments. However, many company specific initiatives and other organic BA actions during last year also contributes. The main driver for the margin increase in Life Science was a strong organic sales growth and the other three BAs had a lower EBITA margin than last year with the largest decline in process, energy and water due to the organic sales decline and higher expense levels mainly linked to a higher activity level and inflation. Regarding Acquisitions we have made three acquisitions so far this year with an annual turnover of 390 million sec. The first company is Ecorol in Germany, which is a manufacturing company offering highly technical tools for mechanical surface treatment to a wide range of industrial segments and geographies globally. We also signed an agreement to acquire IPP on Ireland which has an extensive machine product offering targeting the electronics and life science sectors. And finally, we also welcomed the Swedish technical trading company Edius who is specialized in customer specific metal components. Following the high acquisition pace in 2024, the pace has now been slightly slower, however nothing dramatic this can fluctuate over quarters. Despite ongoing market uncertainty, we feel that the acquisition climate in 2025 remains positive. We have a good activity in our acquisition processes and a strong financial position, so we are looking forward to welcoming more companies during the year. It's always relevant to repeat that the number of acquisitions should be followed over a longer period of time. As mentioned, high pace in 2024 and good contributions in Q1. Looking at the bridge effects from acquisitions over the last 12 months, we have added 55 million sec to the group's EBITA in the quarter. Furthermore, we can also see that the acquisitions are margin accretive with an accumulated ebitda margin of 15.9% for the quarter and over 17% rolling 12 months now. I leave the word over to Patrick to comment more on the financials. Yes, thank you. Boo yes then total growth for orders and sales was 5% and 4% respectively in the quarter book to bill most positive orders 5% higher than sales and above 1 in 4 out of 5 business areas. And as Bo previously mentioned our gross margin was strong record high actually for Q1 35.4%. EBITDA increased with 6% in the quarter driven by effects from acquisitions and currency but negatively affected by the dampened organic sales, development and slightly higher expenses. The beta margin improved to 13.6 in the quarter, but again then as Bo mentioned we had some one offs during the quarter primarily connected to on outrevelations which had the Net positive effect of 27 million. So if you exclude these, the margin was 13.3 in line with last year. We of course then aim to be on a higher margin than this, but the important Note is that Q1 is historically seasonally low margin quarter for us and additionally the backlog coming into the year was slightly lower than last year. Moving further down in the P and L the finance net increased with 3% and if you look at the interest net included in the finance net it was Lower than last year, but this was offset by other financial items, primarily financial currency effects. Tax cost increased by 5% for the quarter corresponding to a tax rate of 23, which is 23% which is in line with last year. Earnings per share increased with 6% in the quarter and we will look at a separate slide on that later. Return on capital employed amounted to 19%. That's slightly lower than our target. And in terms of cash flow, Q1 is seasonally the weakest quarter but we had a good development during the quarter up as much as 32%. Lastly, the net debt to EBITDA ratio was at historically low level of 1.3 by the end of Q1. So move on and look to look on the cash flow more in detail. It is as I said then record high for the Q1amounting to 644 million in the quarter and the improvement versus last year relates to both the slightly higher result and in combination with more favorable working capital movements during the quarter, diving into the capital size slightly more. The organic inventory levels are basically unchanged since year end, but we've had then an underlying decreasing trend on the inventory side since beginning or mid 23. So the level at end of Q1 this year is around 5% lower than the same period last year. As we mentioned before, our companies are relatively capital light and there is a continuously strong underlying operational cash flow coming into the group and that's reflected in a good cash conversion. As you can see from the slide right now, trending on a rolling four quarter basis at 137% compared to net profit less capex and in terms of working capital efficiency that also improved compared to the same period last year. So earnings per share, the EPS development has as you can see from the slide, flattened out the last two years due to the weaker organic development but also then increased interest costs. But this quarter we managed to increase earnings per share in line with EBITDA improvement and that's an increase of 6% from 1.3.61 to 1.71 CEC per share. And looking at the zooming out and looking at the long term perspective, the growth in the 3 and 5 year rolling 4 quarter EPS we were 7% up on the 3 year trend and 13% on the 5 year trend. Then lastly looking at the financial position, the debt development, the interest bearing net debt decreased since same period last year but also sequentially despite Q1 being a seasonally low cash flow quarter. The improvement in cash flow is of course the main driver for this reduction, but also then a slightly lower acquisition pace in the beginning of the year. So looking at debt ratios historically low, I would say net debt equity ratio at 47% compared to 55 last year and net debt EBITDA 1.3 versus 1.5 last year. And if you exclude earnout liabilities which we of course include in the measurement, then it would have been 1.2 versus 1.4 last year. To summarize, debt ratios are low, debt maturity profile is well balanced and we have a strong financial position going forward. So by that I move we move over to boo again. Thank you. Then time to conclude in terms of the takeaway message here. Organic order intake growth despite increased market uncertainty with positivity in several large customer segments, we had stable sales and stable profit levels, really good operational cash flow and a strong financial position. Slightly lower order backlog in combination with higher market volatility post April 2nd leads now to that many companies are actively working to align cost to the situation prevailing in their respective markets. Three acquisitions completed this year and a good pipeline, positive outlook. All in all a strong platform for long term sustainable, profitable growth going forward. And by that we end the formal presentation and open up for questions. To ask a question, please dial on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. Question comes from Carl Ragner Stam from Nordia. Please go ahead. Good morning, it's Karl from Nordia. A couple of questions. Firstly, I think we could jump into the gross margin and cost side again. You gave some comments on it of course, but the gross margin again looks quite healthy I think up a bit year over year. I guess you're pretty satisfied that side. However, I still struggle a bit on the cost side, which is still an issue as I look upon it. And if we take a step back, looking into Q1 last year, right then we said that you had a cost overrun, right then it started to come down during the year and now we seem to be back at it again. Historically, given Inditrade's high decentralization, you managed so well with the sort of balance between growth and sort of taking out costs quite quickly. So what is the difference this time around? Is it a more difficult market environment, which I of course acknowledge, or. Yeah, how would you explain it? And also finally on that side, I know it's a long question, but how do you look at the sort of cost growth balance for the rest of the year and when you think that you are sort of on par again? Yeah, obviously very relevant Comments Questions Agree that we are happy with the gross margin. As we said it was record high for a quarter one and I think maybe the best ever or the best, second best ever for Indotrade. So the companies are doing a really good job in terms of managing direct material direct labor pricing. So that's good which is very comforting in a situation like this. It would be worse if it was the other way around with low costs and or a low gross margin I would say. And then commenting on the cost situation this time around we as you said last year we were not at all satisfied with our overhead cost expense levels in Q1 and then the companies worked on that in Q2, Q3 sequentially and at that time in Q1 we had a very recessionary outlook in terms of the market demand right now or I would say towards the end of last year and also in the beginning of this year we had a more positive outlook in terms of the market demand we expected and the companies expected more sequential growth during the year and I think felt that they could take some activity costs and potentially refrain from downsizing effort because there was sort of light at the end of the tunnel. So that's one aspect. The other aspect as you bring up in a more historical perspective I think can be commented with that we have actually worked more with organic growth as a key strategic initiative the last couple of years within Indo trade and it's, it's usually so in general that that you need to invest before you harvest. So, so there has been some, I would say organic growth initiatives in product innovation in product range extensions, in different types of business development initiatives in, in some companies where there have been good reasons for that and strategically good plans linked to this. So that's probably also to some extent an explanation that we have the situation, we have support of this is deliberate and and but I would also say that there is a bucket of bunnies where perhaps they, they should have been a bit more cost conscious also Q4, Q1 here now and maybe been a little bit too interested in organic growth versus you know, managing their cost situation. Long answer here now but all in all I would say that the culture, the value system is extremely cost conscious in the group. So we talk about expense, overhead cost now the direct labor is under control and in our companies and especially the trading companies it's basically office people if I express myself that way and they are not very headcount heavy as you know. So to reduce with one or two headcounts for a smaller company is a quite big decision so if they then see light at the end of the tunnel, as I said, they might refrain from that if that's soon to happen. Yeah, so. No, I totally agree with you. I clearly see your point there. But when I look at line items, obviously they're not always correct. I can see that it's admin costs increasing, which is I guess one way to I guess grow organically. But maybe you're of course better than me in it, but I'm not sure if that is. It would be probably selling expenses that should grow more. Right. And we have seen admin cost in industry come up from 5 to now 7.2%. Is it the right line item that is actually growing right now, you think? Or how should we see that? I don't know. Patrick, if you want to. Yeah, on sort of from the, from the accounting side, I. It's difficult sort of to judge from a sort of group P L on that sort of high level impacting not only organic things, but it's, it's a lot of other things, acquisitions as well. And, and so the concrete initiatives that we talk about and the additions that we have done, they have for sure mostly been on the call it the business side, sales people, marketing activities, products. So for sure it is. Even though there are of course other increases as well. But the majority is for sure on the business side. And that's where the companies are adding. If they are adding, I would say they are accounted under admin cost. Then again, it's difficult sort of to judge from the group P L. So I don't sort of have that bridge for you exactly what sort of that increase rate. So it's, I mean you have other things as, as well, not only organic things, of course. It's. You have, you know, effects of, you know, acquisitions over time, depending on their categorization of cost, etc. So it's really difficult sort of to look at the group P and L and draw those type of conclusions. I don't have a better answer now, unfortunately. Okay, perfect. Just to, just to clarify, you wrote that you had negative impact from divestments of 33 million. Is it the write down or is the transaction costs included? What is this 33 million? It is related to. I mean we did a divestment in the beginning of the year which I think we already mentioned in the Q4 report, but it's in the infrastructure construction business area and we have sort of book loss on that. On that divestment. Okay. Okay. Yes. Okay, very good. And finally, I mean we've Seen a few divestitures in construction in infra. How many more? I mean I just looked at the one you wrote about this time. It's been loss making since at least 2019 when I look at it. How many more companies do you think that you have up for potential divestitures still in the segment? Very few. One would say it's not zero, but, but it's not 10, it's not five even so, so it's, it's, it's, it's very few. So I think we have made. And are they loss making as well? We have still some loss making companies in that segment, unfortunately. Okay, perfect. Okay, thank you so much. Question comes from Zeno Engdalen, Ricciudi from Handelspanken. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. Just a bit of a follow up to the outcomes on the margin and that you were in kind of a similar position in Q1 last year where you managed to improve quite quickly. Do you think that the cost measures your companies are taking will have a similar speed in terms of margin recovery as we saw last year? Yeah, definitely Q2 will be better than Q1 and, but this time, as I said, it's a little bit different from market situation perspective. Last year we felt was a little bit more clearly a recessionary market situation or at least sort of a very flattish outlook. And now this, if we exclude the tariffs, which we can't do in a sense but, but if we still do that we, we were on a trajectory to, to actually improve in, in several segments and sectors and geographies. Now some of that I think will, will continue. So hopefully top line will, will be okay. The reference sales wise in Q2 is, is going to be more difficult than what we had in Q1. But all in all we expect a step change between Q1 and Q2 in terms of profit margin. And then it's difficult to predict things now with the volatility from, from the tariffs and maybe not so much the direct situation but the indirect situation and perhaps mostly in our segment or a business area technology and system solutions, which is more global and they have situations potentially with a Swedish company selling to a UK company selling to an American company and the American company being afraid of tariffs, avoiding importing from Europe and potentially buying from a US source instead and so on. But it's predominantly in that business area, less so in the others, but not completely, you know, free from that sort of second type of impact. Yeah, that's very clear. And when you're speaking on the tough References in the next quarter are you mainly referring to or is it both sales and margin or either or. I think we had 14.8% EBITDA margin last year which is high level for us. So that's obviously a difficult reference in a sense. But also sales wise we had rather good sales as I remember in quarter two last year. Yeah, and then it's from your comment is it sounds or is it fair to interpret that the quarters started out quite well and finished in so say worse from a relative perspective? No, actually in a clear majority of the business areas it was the other way around that January February was weak and March improved. Was in one business area it was the other way around that actually March became even weaker but 80% of sort of in the trade or so had the other trajectory that January February weaker and a pretty good March. Okay, interesting. And my last questions on life science, I think you mentioned that single use saw a bit better say demand was the correct. Can you elaborate on the single use? Yeah, but that's. There was huge pre buys linked to Covid and as we have discussed several quarters that stock is now normalized and we also still see an underlying demand for single use production equipment. Not obviously only linked to Covid but a lot of other can be cancer treatment areas or more sort of smaller if I say so in size pharma related areas and also more biopharma related treatment areas where the batches are produced in these more silicon based production systems rather than the big stainless steel systems. So I would say the industry is predicting underlying growth and we also see step by step signs of this now. Okay, thank you. Those were my questions. I'll get back in. Thank you. Question comes from Matt's list from Kepler Shuvreu. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi, thank you. A couple of questions. I mean orders looks pretty good from my point of view anyway. But do you see any sort of our customers being sort of a bit concerned about the potential tariff impact and so on? I mean do you see pre buys on components and so on to stock up ahead of potential supply chain issues going forward? We have seen extremely little of that in our companies. We have more read about for example a lot of export from Irish pharmaceutical companies to the US in March and so on. But we haven't really seen it too much. Maybe it's also a lot semiconductors, electronic components from China, Asia being shipped to the US again February, March. But sort of in a normal in the trade company it's been not very significant at all. Great. And then I mean we have seen quite good performance by the Swedish currency. And just if you can update me on the sort of operational impact there maybe something on procurement and also on the gearing side. Yeah, if I take that question then in general I think a stronger, I mean if you look at the margin impact, EBITDA margin impact of a stronger ca, it's not, it's not, it's not big. I would say in general, I would say that top line moves as much as bottom line for us. So it's, we don't move margin that much when currency changes. So that's the first statement. The other one that we have a lot of trading companies as you know and, and, and a strong krona in general means, means better purchasing power for, for these, for these trading companies and there are some buying in, buying in dollars but definitely even more so in euro. So, so they have, they have a bit of a sort of good momentum now. I would say part of that needs to be transferred to the customers but the part of that will also help us. So there's a, you know, slight positive effects in, embedded in that. That's, that's my hope and belief. And on the gearing side I would say we, we, we aim to have a sort of a, an even. We have of course then an exposure on, on, on other currencies on the debt side which means that the debt is actually going down slightly now but we try to, to match it with the EBITDA exposure. So it shouldn't have an impact on the net EBITDA measure. But looking at the absolute debt value it is going down thanks to the Swedish krona being stronger. Okay, great. Thanks a lot. Question comes from Carl Bokevist from Abg Sundal Collier. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning. I apologize I was a bit late on the call, but could you clarify the comments you made in the start regarding larger orders in the U.S. i believe. Oh, it's not super significant for Indotide. We, we have, we have one company in the U.S. and, and we have I think eight, nine companies having sales companies in the U.S. and then we have some companies obviously exporting to the US and some of them have, you know, it can be capex driven projects where someone in the US is building a large energy facility or something like that and some of our companies receive a big, big order to that. So we have some of those situations a year ago and less so this year. I think we had a couple of princess projects in the energy sector and also I think in the engineering sector last year which was delivered Q1 last year. So a bit of tough reference. I think it was mainly technology and system solutions and also in process, energy and water. I think they had a strong references in the US last year. All right, understood. And then most questions have been asked here earlier, but, and I understand the comment you made earlier regarding how this year is a bit of a different situation to last year, but nevertheless, just when looking at it, is there any kind of calendar effect involved here that is that some of your businesses are perhaps ramping up cost at the start of a new year and then the volumes might not have improved as they had hoped. I'm just thinking about this comment here in for example TEW and TSS or low organic volumes overall. And you say higher expense levels which led to margin pressure. Yeah. I'm not sure if I fully understand what you're after here, but we don't. I think more generally it is so that companies expected a, a better market demand situation and you know, they refrained from, from pure cost reductions which would have meant, I think laying off people because this is overhead expenses as the problem relates to to some extent. And, and, and they were in some aspects having product development. Obviously that didn't start this quarter, but maybe in quarter four they geared up in terms of product development, business development initiatives and things like that to be ready for a better 2025. I think that's the simpler, more general explanation. But costs is obviously something we control and we can decide to do something about it. So I feel that we are in a much better situation now with really good gross margins. And then some of the companies will align costs now and some will probably continue to see a better organic growth situation based on their investments and also based on a somewhat better segment than there are different niches which definitely will continue to grow. Understood. And then I apologize if this has been asked, but now you did say a bit of. For many companies, March was better than the earlier start of Q1. But is there anything you can say on how April has. Yeah, not surprisingly bad if I say so all right, now we. Okay, yeah, sorry. So no, nothing which is significantly negative. More. More an okay start, I would say. All right, good. Thank you. That was all from my side. Thanks. Finder. If you wish to ask a question, please dial Pound key five on your telephone keypad. More questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments. Yeah, then we say thank you for listening in and for good engaged questions. And we took. We talk to you going forward. So thank you for us.

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