Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Solar second quarter report conference call. At this time, all participants are in the listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please use the Q&A box available on the webcast link anytime during the conference. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, CEO Jens Andersen. Please go ahead. Thank you. A very warm welcome to this second quarter webcast for Solar. Together with, with me here in our headquarters in Vejle, I have my colleague, CFO, Michael Jeppesen. The agenda for today is a general business update and some highlights for Q2, presented by me. Then I will give you a short introduction to how we work in our Solar Industrial Solutions team. That is, within, industrial heat pumps, and it's a cornerstone in our new three-year strategy called Solve. Michael will then present our second Q results, including a high, level cash flow status, and finally, of course, a Q&A session. As expected, all segments showed negative growth in Q2, 2024. Revenue declined to DKK 3.1 billion compared to DKK 3.3 billion last year. Adjusted organic growth amounted to -7.8, up from -15% in Q1 2024. Revenue from climate energy as strategic focus area remained at a low level in Q2, amounting to DKK 234 million. But compared to Q1 2024, this is an improvement of almost 18%. Heat pump sales remain at a low level, however, as order pipeline is still increasing and now exceeds DKK 300 million. That's also why we remain confident of the potential for high-capacity ThermoNova heat pumps despite the current low sales level. Looking at the segments, our industry segment delivered adjusted organic growth of approximately -2%, with MAG45 delivering positive adjusted organic growth of more than 8%. On the other hand, the installation and trade segments delivered adjusted organic growth of approximately -11% and 14%, respectively. Half of that decrease in installation can be accounted for the reduction in heat pump sales. Our assessment remains that in all respect of the market share, we believe that we have maintained our share, both within installation and industry. Looking at the results, EBITDA of DKK 137 million, compared to DKK 240 million last year, that was totally on par with our own expectation, and that's also why we reconfirm our guidance of an EBITDA of DKK 600 million. When adjusted for one-off price effects in Q2 2023, the underlying EBITDA margin amounted to 4.4, compared to 6.3 last year at the same period. If you want, there is an individual market update per country on page 24 in our quarterly accounts. It must be noticed that the recovery is taking root in Denmark with an adjusted organic growth of -1.9% in Q2, against -10.5% in Q1, 2024. On top of that, our project pipeline in Denmark is positively piling up with an increase above 30% compared to last year's project pipeline. So the uncertainty that remains for year 2024 is not when we will start to deliver the projects. It is when, when we should deliver and not if we should deliver the project. Sorry. Another positive case in Q2 is the winning of a DKK 200 million PV project to a big Danish industry customer in our subsidiary, Solar Polaris, a project that now will start. Next slide, please. Solar Industrial Solutions. There is a growing focus on CO2 emissions reduction by our customers, resulting in an increased interest in our customized high-capacity heat pumps and reflected in our order pipeline, exceeding DKK 300 million. To meet the increasing interest, we have set up a new team called Solar Industrial Solutions, a dedicated sales unit that works with design and sale of energy-efficient solutions. Solar Industrial Solutions support our customers by providing expert knowledge within areas such as project management, sales, planning, engineering, implementation, technical support, subsidy application, and also, authorization within municipalities, et cetera. To summarize, Solar Industrial Solutions help our customers throughout this process, including technical support. While retaining our focus on ventilation, batteries, EV chargers, solar panels, and heat pumps for the residential market, Solar Industrial Solutions extend our services to also include industry customers. The high-capacity heat pumps are developed and manufactured by our latest acquisition, ThermoNova. They deliver a new and different type of modular heat, and that supports the EU Green Deal as one of the main drivers of the transition towards climate neutrality. A transition that is supported by Solar Industrial Solutions. Big heat pumps, enabling large and energy-efficient heating solutions, especially for the industry, but also warehouses, production facilities, and larger office building, and even also smaller utility companies. Solar Industrial Solutions is a central element of our Solar strategy, where we aim to maximize the growth potential in climate and energy in the years to come. I will now give the word to Michael for some more insights to the financials. Please, Michael. Thank you, Jens. Please turn to page 6. Revenue in terms of DKK decreased with almost 5%, 5%. Despite this, we came out with DKK 3.1 billion compared to the DKK 3.25 billion last year. This is equal to an adjusted organic growth of -7.8%, meaning, well, just for the record, adjusted organic growth means we adjust for the number of working days. This means that we now see the sequential improvement, compared to previous quarters, as we anticipated. If we take a closer look at the three main segments, we, similar to what we saw in previous quarters, have a negative growth in all three: installation, industry, and trade. This is as expected. However, it's notable that where we, in last quarter, also in all sub-segments, saw negative growth, we now see the first green dots, meaning we see that the recovery starts to take root. If we look into industry, we of course have MAG45, who continues to deliver strong growth, but also Marine Offshore actually delivered strong growth rates, and utility almost edged into positive territory as well, whereas OEM and MRO remained below last year. Regardless, it's a clear improvement compared to last quarter. As mentioned, also by Jens, our strategic focus area, Climate and Energy, delivered sequential improvement, where we're up from DKK 200 million to DKK 234 million in Q2 versus Q1. Still below last year, but it should be noticed here that a part of this is due to the fact that PV panels reduced to approximately 50% of the price we saw one year ago. In March, we did see the first sign of a beginning recovery in Denmark. This has continued throughout Q2 with Solar Denmark almost edging into positive territory. And as also mentioned by Jens, July, we actually delivered the first positive growth rates for more than a year, albeit it's a very small growth. We continue to win projects, as also mentioned by Jens, and this is why we are convinced that we now have seen a shift in the trend that started late last year, and we are convinced that this will continue throughout the year. In that respect, it should be noticed that approximately 50% of the group's earnings originates from Solar Denmark, meaning this is really a notable event. So overall, the development in Q2 was as we expected. Please turn to page seven. With an EBITDA of DKK 137 million, Q2 was on par with our expectations, of course, below last year. If you look at cost of goods sold, we saw an underlying decrease of 2% in the underlying margin when adjusted for the one-off price effects we had last year, which basically means that the margin is more or less in line with what we started, with what we saw in Q1. A substantial part of the drop compared to last year is a less favorable mix, but of course, also continued suppressed gross margins, among all our relating to our climate energy products, and also increased cost to improve our delivery services. As expected, our initiatives regarding cost containment, process optimization, and staff reduction has paid off successfully, meaning that despite the headwind, the cost doesn't really dilute the margin. Regardless of this, we'll continue to have a strong focus in order to secure that the cost development remains on a downward trend and well under control. Same can be said about losses and trade receivables, where we have not seen any pickup, meaning our capabilities in managing credit risk is still performing very satisfactory. Please turn to page eight, and let's have a short look at H1. With an EBITDA of DKK 225 million, H1 came out as expected. Again, if you look at cost of goods sold, the underlying development is down with 1.9%, which was exactly as expected. The explanation is the same as given in Q2. It's a less favorable mix, but also suppressed gross margins, particularly within climate and energy, but also cost for the improved services. As expected, we've seen some headwind from costs, which, of course, if you look at H1, as a total, we have a negative organic growth minus 11%, and this has had a negative impact on the underlying margin, diluting it, of course. To conclude, H1, in line with our initial expectations, with Q2 clearly being stronger than Q1. Please turn to page nine. Operating activities came out with a plus of DKK 202 million, and if we take a closer look at it, we can see that there is a flat development in the inventory, which is slightly less than we anticipated. However, the main reason is we did some tactical purchases in late Q2. Consequently, you should also see this, together with the liabilities, which increased with DKK 191 million. So they are kind of linked because we stepped up on purchases, which has been subdued due to the fact that we, during the preceding quarters, has been reducing inventory quite substantially. Receivable is slightly up. It is the normal seasonality that got spread out over two quarters, because normally we would see the full impact of seasonality in March, but since March was impacted very much by Easter, we've not seen the full impact, and this is what materializes here. So it has nothing to do with that our debtors' ability to pay has worsened. Definitely not. I would now almost say on the contrary. Please turn to page number 10. This, of course, also reflects in the net working capital. If we see it as an average over the last four quarters, we now see a clear reduction from 16.7- 15.8. But what probably is more, which is probably even better, is if you look at, at the end of the quarter, we are now down to 14% compared to the 15.4 we had last quarter, and this is despite the headwind we still see in the market from, from revenue, which basically means that currently net working capital is reducing, more than the headwind we have faced. We're very happy with this. We are, regardless, still slightly above our long-term target, and we, of course, expect further improvements, going forward. Taking a look at the gain, it's slightly up. We see a minor increase from 2.1- 2.2, but still well within our range. Please turn to page 11. Guidance 2024. We reconfirm our guidance with a revenue of DKK 12.5 billion and an EBITDA of DKK 600 million. We still expect the market to be unpredictable due to macroeconomic uncertainties. However, we are still convinced that there will be a gradually recovery, and we are, as stated both also by Jens, we think this has already taken root in Denmark, and we expect this gradually to gain traction also in other markets. Regardless, we are convinced that 2024, as a whole, will be negative, still, but on a much better trend than what we have seen. During the latter part of 2023, we did see a set back in gross margin within several categories, and this is the development we expect to continue throughout 2024. So we can say the margin we've seen so far very much reflect the expectations, and we expect that this will remains a challenge throughout the year. Cost and wage inflation increased substantially in 2023. We expect this trend to persist throughout H1, meaning the remaining part, we expect this to wear off. So in particular, we have... I said this before, I'm gonna repeat myself now. We are very, very pleased with the development we've seen in Denmark, and we are convinced that we have seen a trend shift. Of course, you can say the, in particular, the Swedish and the Dutch market are probably not out of the wood yet, but it was also in Denmark, we saw the headwind first- Mm. and the others came in typically two quarters later, and we expect something similar to happen with the recovery. So to summarize, so far, in all material aspects, development has been as expected. We're pleased to see that we are gradually moving towards better market conditions, so we reconfirm our guidance. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Now it's time for Q&A. So please. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type it into the box and click Submit. We will now take our first question. Please stand by. The first question comes from the line of Christian Tornow from SEB. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Yes, thank you. I have a couple of questions. First of all, this outperformance of Denmark compared to your other markets, why do you think that is? I mean, is there any fundamental drivers in Denmark which deviate from what you see in the other markets? ... I would say, they came into a negative or even a recession two quarters earlier than the other countries. So I think it's a matter of timing more than it's a matter of that we still see that the market is doing particularly well. I would say what really makes me positive is that we are gaining projects like we have never seen in our history. So the market is starting to recover, but of course, there is still a way to go. But you could add to that, Christian, that the Danish operation has also proved to be more resilient, and simply because it's much more diversified than what we have in the other countries. And if you look at our strategy, and we will not be able to get the other to the same level as the Danish within this strategy period, but this is exactly why we have solution selling and concepts as one of our key strategic enablers. And this is mainly in the other countries, simply to get them to look more like Denmark. One of the things which seems to drive, I mean, activity in Denmark is the pharmaceutical sector, and not least- Yeah, that's right. Their projects. Do you have any numbers to how much of the sales in Solar Denmark relates to the pharmaceutical sector? No, we cannot. It's simply not possible for us. We can see, of course, in our projects that one of the names that often comes up is Novo Nordisk, but that's not accounting for all. But of course, that's also an important part for Solar, that they are extending their facilities as much as they're doing. So yes, it's a part of it, but it's not all. Ah, sure, sure. Okay. And then just to follow up, I think, Michael, you mentioned that you've done some tactical purchasing at the end of Q2. Can you just elaborate a bit? I mean, what is it that you have purchased and why? It's simply to counter expected price increases. And it was mainly within cable and supporting systems to cables was the main part of it. So it's business as usual, you can say. Yeah. We always do that, but this time, the timing was just that it hit June, and therefore you saw the full impact, both on accounts payable, but also on the inventory value. We did not see the downward trend that we expected due to these purchases. And as fast runners, we always buy. So it's not that we have increased the risk, but it's simply it's in our DNA to do- Yeah, it's a tactical move. That is, it's a purely tactical move. Mm. Okay, that's quite clear. And then just a couple of questions to climate and energy. So as you mentioned, your climate energy sales growth from DKK 199 to DKK 234 in Q2. What has driven this sequential increase? I mean, what products is behind this? Yeah, it's mainly, of course, the PV panels. It really starts to materialize, and then air-to-air heat pumps. Air-to-water is still on the water, I would say. And then, of course, we also see that the interest and also the order conversion on ThermoNova is starting to increase, even though that the level is still below what we expected. But we really see a huge interest for ThermoNova, and it's ongoing every day. And we are now starting also to introduce ThermoNova in the other markets. So the DKK 300 million we have in our order portfolio, that is for Denmark, more or less for Denmark only. So we're quite confident, even though we may have lost a year and a half, but due to the market conditions, but we have the right product, which can support a lot of industry companies, to reduce their CO2 emission. And we look forward to the new regulations that will hit many of those customers already this year. So it's moving in the right direction, still from a low level. And then you actually almost touched upon my last question here, 'cause the DKK 300 million, or more than DKK 300 million in order pipeline, which is up from DKK 250 in Q1, how do you define that? Is that firm and unconditional orders? Is it a lead of potential orders, or exactly what's the definition there? It is potential offers, Christian. This is where we do not have any signatures. This is where we have been requested to come up with an offer for our customer. So this is how we define it. So it's, as Jens said, the problem is still the conversion rate. Yeah. It's increasing, but it's still too low. But I can give an example, because there's apparently quite a lot of time lag, in here. Customer that we gave an offer 1.5 years ago, contacted us last week just to check if the, how the price was, because now they wanted to sign a contract. And here we're talking someone who will buy 16 of these heat pumps, which is, I don't know, DKK 12-14 million or something like that. So the lead time here has been 18 months, where they did nothing, and now suddenly, they are interested. And it's actually one of the small... We have in Denmark, some small district heating, companies. It was one of them, a, a customer segment that we actually didn't expect this was relevant to, but apparently it might be. Let's see. They haven't signed yet, but suddenly, out of the blue, they came back. ... Yeah. Just now we need to sign. The lead time is long at the moment. Yeah. There's a lot of resistance in decision-making, when we talk, I would say larger or mid to large capital investments. I think that is the situation at the moment. Their interest is huge, the conversion rate is too low. We work with the conversion rate, and we are sure that it will come up, but at the moment it's still too low. So if we look at the first half of the year, how much revenue related to the terminal products have you actually had? Honestly speaking, I can't remember. It's too low, that much I do know. But it's picking up. But what we also can see now, Christian, is that some of the orders we actually managed to close, that's for 2025 now. That, that people want, that, that our customers first want them delivered in 2025. So, in all fairness, I simply can't remember the figure, but, but it's too low, that much I do know. But picking up. Sure. Perfect. That was all I had. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Christian. Thank you. As there are no further questions on the phone lines, I would now like to hand back to the room for any questions on the webcast. We currently have 10 questions online. First one is: Are you experiencing any positive effect or customer feedback from your increased delivery, delivery level? I'll take that. Mid-June, our implementation were finished, and we now, I would say, have more or less stabilized our night distribution service. So... And of course, we expect that to continue. So yes, it has been a huge investment, but we are sure it will pay off in the coming quarters and years to go. So definitely, we are sure it is the right choice we did. Second question: Can you put some words to the fact that gross profit margin declined in Q2 compared to Q1, while EBITDA margin increased? What makes the difference? Yes, it's correct that the gross margin decreased slightly, but the real explanation to the increased margin is simply lower cost. Mm. Of course, supported by the fact that we, in Q1, had DKK 25 million restructuring costs, whereas we were down to DKK 2 million in Q2, but also on the underlying costs are simply, simply lower. So that, that's the explanation. Third question: Do you think gross profit margin around the current level will be the future level the next few years, or do you expect to go further down or increase again in 2025? It's very difficult to predict how 2025 will look, but if we look at the current run rate on the margin, there is a negative impact from mix, which of course is quite important. Also, we know that there has been some sale off- Mm ... not just from us, but also from our competitors, which has forced us also to follow, which has a negative, but we expect these things to gradually wear off. And I would say we still have a strong focus on increasing our core concepts share, and also, of course, our solution selling. It's a part of our strategy, and these things will all other things equal, increase the margin going forward. In the last few years, revenue has been lower in Q2 compared to Q1. This year, Q2 is better. Is that because Q1 this year was worse than usual, or is it Q2 seeing improvement, improved market conditions that surprise you? First of all, I would say the market conditions were worse in Q1. I would say that- Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. It was not a surprise to us, because the guidance where they gave is built up on that things will gradually start to improve- Mm ... over the years. I would say things are trending as we expected. What is important to notice is that this is a day-to-day business, and Easter was in Q1. The full impact of Easter was in Q1 this year, and you need to go back, I think, to 2018. Don't kill me- Yeah ... on the details here. Very. You need to go quite- Way back ... years back before you have a similar where we have a comparable situation. So what is important is that when you look at the organic growth, you should look at the one Adjusted organic growth, where we adjust for number of working days. That gives much better and much more transparent picture of what is going on. And there, we can see that we moved from the minus 15 to slightly better than minus eight. So it is improving, clearly. But these days is- Yeah ... is something we should take- Yeah ... into consideration here. Would you say that focus on web sales serves Solar Denmark well? Wouldn't it make sense to have more physical stores, like many of your smaller competitors have? Solar also have more physical stores in other countries than Denmark. Why does Solar Denmark differ? Yeah, it's the typical move, you can say, over the years. Back in the old days, we had a lot of branches. Now, our competitors have taken over that part of the business, or at least... On the other hand, we are above 80% on web services with our customers. So either you can choose to have all kind of cost, or you need to have a strategy where you focus in on being the best within, in our case, digital services, and that's what we believe in. Some competitors are doing it differently, which I fully respect, but our strategy, at least for Denmark, because it's a small country, is that we want to be the best on digital services, and we want to increase productivity with night distribution, but also Fastbox, as one of our cornerstones in increasing the productivity among our customers. ... Now that more and more installers belong to groups with both electricity and plumbing, wouldn't it be wise to expand your plumbing segment to have both, like many of your Danish wholesale competitors and so on, Netherlands? I would say, our assortment within HWS in Denmark, if we look at Denmark, is of course not as broad as some of our competitors. But you also need to know if you want an assortment, you have to take the market share from others, and you really need the right people. So it's a move we are always considering, and if there's an M&A possibility shows up, we will of course be interested in increasing our assortment within HWS. But honestly speaking, we believe that climate energy is our way into HWS. We want to be the best with ThermoNova. We want to be the best within PV panels and EV chargers. Then others can serve, I would say, another part of the market. We don't believe in gas boilers, et cetera. So we have chosen really to lean forward within climate energy. At the moment, it's difficult, but we are strong believers that it is only a matter of time, then we'll see the market regain into a really positive territory. And now with ThermoNova, we can also services big industry customers to be green. Can you please elaborate more on why you believe there'll be a recovery towards year-end? I would say it's based on what we see. So I would say that's the main driver. We can see it now. Of course, Denmark is the only place where we really see it. But I think also the figures so far has proven us right. So it's not like we, like we have a special crystal ball that we can look into, definitely not. But the- Yeah ... The trend we see is going in the right direction. I know I've said it before, but the mega trend that everything will be electrified, that will maybe for a while, be postponed. But look at the EV chargers or the installed base of EV chargers. That's not only EV chargers, it's cables, it's binders, it's everything. Which is- So the mega trend will definitely help our customers, and of course, both Solar and our competitors within that area. Can you comment on M&A and broader capital allocation? We're not. If we start with M&A, it's, you know, it's a bit opportunistic. Yeah. It's not like we're knocking on doors. If we should do M&A, it should be some bolt-on acquisitions that could fit into an existing. I don't expect us to start up in a new market, that would be highly unlikely. So it would be bolt-on acquisitions that we immediately can click on to the existing, where we already have a customer base and where we have a distribution set up. And I think that's... But nothing is in the pipeline there. On the other hand, we are investing in making sure that we have low cost to serve, which means we need to automate. We've done it in Norway, in the Netherlands, and Denmark, and we've started in Sweden. So that is the main, the main focus, I would say, automate state what we have so far to get that into a very high degree of actually high-tech central warehouses. Next one we already touched a bit upon. Okay. Can you comment on the percent of sales related to solar panels and the price deflation in the space? No, I would say that the problem with PV panels is not the number of orders. It's more that the prices have decreased to 50% compared to last year. So looking at the figures, you have to remind yourself that we are doubling the volume only to have the same top line. Of course, that is, that's hard, but it's a fact of life. I'm very happy that we won this DKK 200 million case in Jutland by a big industrial customer. And we are looking even more into those big PV solutions. So we're definitely there, and we have a certain setup in Solar Polaris who can make a turnkey solution. We are very interested in following the industry customers that not only want to have a high-capacity heat pumps, but also want to support that with PV panels. When do you expect the Novo contracts to go down again? Mm. When could this turn into headwind? Honestly speaking, as far as I know, they will start up in Odense soon. That is, they are in the northern part of Jutland. Kalundborg is the biggest project place, except from Femern in Denmark by now. I see, I would say, I think it would go years before we see a decline in there, but maybe I'm wrong. I don't know, honestly speaking, but I know Odense will start up here in August. Yeah. Last question: Can you comment on operating cash flow generation for the full year? Normally, we don't give guidance on cash flow, but if you look, but if you look into this industry, it is a cash-generating business, and we expect this year to be no different. So, we also expect a strong cash flow. Of course, we have some CapEx coming up, amongst other things, the Swedish investment. On the other hand, we have entered into a sales agreement on our central warehouse in Deventer, which also late this year will kick in. But overall, this is a cash-generating industry, and so this year will also be. No further questions. Okay. Thank you. I don't know if there are more who wants to raise a question on the line. Hello, there are no further questions on the phone line. I would now like to hand back to Jens Andersen for any closing remarks. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for listening in, and have a very nice day. Bye-bye. Bye. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.